The president enthused on social media that chip maker Nvidia would build “A.I. SUPERCOMPUTERS” in the U.S. Here’s a guide to the technology and why it matters.

I want you to succeed, Formula E What happened when Formula E visited an American oval track? Miami, Long Beach, Brooklyn, Portland, and now Miami again. Well, sort of. Jonathan M. Gitlin – Apr 16, 2025 1:33 pm | 2 This chicane was to have profound consequences on the race result. Credit: Andrew Ferraro/LAT Images This chicane was to have profound consequences on the race result. Credit: Andrew Ferraro/LAT Images Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more Cupra provided flights from Washington DC to Miami and accommodation so Ars could attend the Formula E race. Ars does not accept paid editorial content. MIAMI—A decade after its first visit to the state, Formula E returned to Florida this past weekend. The even has come a long way since that first chaotic Miami ePrix: The cars are properly fast now, the racing is both entertaining and quite technical, and at least the trackside advertising banners were in place before the start of the event this time. It's not the same track, of course. Nor is it anywhere near the Hard Rock Stadium that Formula 1 now fills with ersatz marinas and high-priced hospitality packages during its visit to the area. Despite what the b-roll helicopter shots might have led viewers to believe, we were actually an hour south of the city at a mid-sized oval track next to a landfill in Homestead. Usually, a place that hosts NASCAR races, for Formula E, there was a 2.2-mile (3.5 km) layout that used the straights and infield but not the banked corners. Formula E has begun to branch out from its original diet of racing exclusively on temporary city center street tracks, having visited Portland International Raceway in Oregon in 2023 and 2024. Despite the bucolic charm of PIR, with its easy bicycle and light rail access, enthusiastic crowd of attendees, and exciting racing, it was only a temporary patch for Formula E. The vast majority of Formula E's fans live outside the US, and Portland means nothing to them, but they've heard of Miami, I was told last year. Formula E goes roval racing. Will it be back? I doubt it. Credit: Simon Galloway/LAT Images for Formula E Made for TV While the few thousand that attended Saturday's race would have known they weren't actually in the pastel-hued metropolis, regular fans attending in person have always felt like an afterthought. At the track, the focus is on VIPs with lanyards and wristbands, sipping bubbly in the Emotion Club, Formula E's version of F1's pricey Paddock Club. Even this was sparsely attended compared to my visits to Portland in recent years or to the mosquito-infested canal by Brooklyn that was meant to be the sport's long-term American home. I'm told that Formula E wants to race in actual Miami, using some or all of F1's temporary playground. It's also talking to Phoenix, but we won't know about either of those until the sport's 2026 calendar is published next month. It would be easy to criticize Formula E for failing to return to the same place at roughly the same time each year. But it did that for several years running with the NYC ePrix, and I almost never met anyone who paid for a ticket who was there for their second time. The shame is that the Gen3 Evo cars put on an excellent show. After a couple of years of tires that were far too durable, Hankook has delivered rubber that drivers can really race with. Not that there was a massive amount of grip from the track surface at Homestead. This is the fifth US venue for Formula E in 10 years. Credit: Andrew Ferraro/LAT Images "When we go to the street tracks, it's quite slippy to begin with, because there's no rubber down and there's a lot of dust. But once we've cleaned up the racing line on those tracks, then it's quite good grip," Maserati driver Jake Hughes told Ars. "The biggest, most extreme street track probably goes to either London or Tokyo. And I would say the grip in those places feels a little bit higher than here." It’s very competitive Margins in qualifying were down to hundredths of a second, and eight different teams filled the first eight places on the grid, led by Norman Nato, now at Nissan. In the race, though, Porsche looked dominant in the way Jaguar did on so many occasions last year. António Félix Da Costa and Pascal Wehrlein controlled the race from the front, their purple and black Porsche 99x Electrics circulating a few seconds a lap slower than the absolute pace. Other drivers were content to follow in the peloton. "You can spend energy to be at the front, but then at some point you need to get that energy back," Hughes said. A Formula E car battery is 56 kWh, which is only enough energy for about 60 percent of the race distance, so slipstreaming and energy management are critically important, as is regen braking. It's a job made harder by the fact that there's virtually no live telemetry available to the engineers in the garages; instead, each lap, drivers have to update them on how much energy they have remaining. The mid-race "pit boost" charging stops were not a feature as the sport had left the 600 kW chargers in their boxes for the Miami ePrix. But Attack Mode definitely affected the outcome. Essentially an in-race power boost, every driver has to use Attack Mode for eight minutes during the race, usually split into either two four-minute deployments or two- and six-minute deployments. It's activated by driving over a pair of timing loops set away from the racing line, and bumps power from 300 kW to 350 kW. The Jaguar and McLaren to the right of the photo pass through the Attack Mode activation zone, which you can see is far off the racing line. Credit: Alastair Staley/LAT Images Gen3 Formula E cars have always been able to regenerate energy from the front axle, but this season is the first time the cars can actually send power to the front wheels while in attack mode. "So until last year, attack mode was kind of a penalty, because you couldn't use it to attack," explained Xavi Serra, head of global racing for Cupra. "You had extra power, and you were spending more energy and very difficult to overtake. Now you spend your energy, but as you said, four wheel drive, [better] tires and extra power, you use it, and then it's now a strategy tool to advance positions, whereas in the past it was not," Serra told Ars. Time to go for it On lap 14, the actual race broke out as everyone started to push at their actual pace. From single-file slipstreaming to running three-wide in a pack, it still looked like Porsche's day, until a three-car collision at the turn 11 chicane blocked the track, resulting in a red flag. When the cars returned from the pits for the final five laps, some of them had a big problem: they hadn't yet used all of their attack mode time, and there wasn't enough time left in the race to do so. Da Costa had already used all of his allocation and had been building a commanding lead when the red flag came out. Now 50 kW down on most of the cars around him, he slipped back to seventh on track. His teammate Wehrlein had to use just four minutes, and did so to good effect, keeping his car in the lead until the checkered flag. Next on track was Nato, but without time to use all of his Attack Mode, he received an automatic 10-second penalty that dropped him to sixth place. There were also 10-second penalties for Robert Frijns, Oliver Rowland, Sam Bird, and Taylor Barnard, meaning that second place actually went to Lola-Yamaha's Lucas Di Grassi. A star of Formula E's early seasons, in Miami, it looked like the younger version was back in the car as he delivered his best result in several years. The multitude of penalties also promoted Da Costa back into third place. Antonio Felix Da Costa (l), Lucas di Grassi (m), and Pascal Wehrlein (r) celebrate on the podium. Credit: Simon Galloway/LAT Images for Formula E It's easy to be cynical about Formula E, and based on the complaints I heard from other journalists in attendance, some people can't get over a lack of sound in this motorsport. But most of the sport's problems are a thing of the past, and the racing usually delivers, even somewhere like the tight and twisty confines of Monaco, where it goes next for a double-header on May 3–4. Jonathan M. Gitlin Automotive Editor Jonathan M. Gitlin Automotive Editor Jonathan is the Automotive Editor at Ars Technica. He has a BSc and PhD in Pharmacology. In 2014 he decided to indulge his lifelong passion for the car by leaving the National Human Genome Research Institute and launching Ars Technica's automotive coverage. He lives in Washington, DC. 2 Comments

IT and OT systems can seem worlds apart, and historically, they have been treated that way. Different teams and departments managed their operations, often with little or no communication. But over time OT systems have become increasingly networked, and those two worlds are bleeding into one another. And threat actors are taking advantage.  Organizations that have IT and OT systems -- oftentimes critical infrastructure organizations -- the risk to both of these environments is present and pressing. CISOs and other security leaders are tasked with the challenge of breaking down the barriers between the two to create a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy.  The Gulf Between IT and OT  Why are IT and OT treated as such separate spheres when both face cybersecurity threats? “Even though there's cyber on both sides, they are fundamentally different in concept,” Ian Bramson, vice president of global industrial cybersecurity at Black & Veatch, an engineering, procurement, consulting, and construction company, tells InformationWeek. “It's one of the things that have kept them more apart traditionally.” Age is one of the most prominent differences. In a Fortinet survey of OT organizations, 74% of respondents shared that the average age of their industrial control systems is between six and 10 years old.  Related:OT technology is built to last for years, if not decades, and it is deeply embedded in an organization’s operations. The lifespan of IT, on the other hand, looks quite different. “OT is looked at as having a much longer lifespan, 30 to 50 years in some cases. An IT asset, the typical laptop these days that's issued to an individual in a company, three years is about when most organization start to think about issuing a replacement,” says Chris Hallenbeck, CISO for the Americas at endpoint management company Tanium.  Maintaining IT and OT systems looks very different, too. IT teams can have regular patching schedules. OT teams have to plan far in advance for maintenance windows, if the equipment can even be updated. Downtime in OT environments is complicated and costly.  The skillsets required of the teams to operate IT and OT systems are also quite different. On one side, you likely have people skilled in traditional systems engineering. They may have no idea how to manage the programmable logic controllers (PLC) commonly used in OT systems.  The divide between IT and OT has been, in some ways, purposeful. The Purdue model, for example, provides a framework for segmenting ICS networks, keeping them separate from corporate networks and the internet.  Related:But over time, more and more occasions to cross the gulf between IT and OT systems -- intentionally and unintentionally -- have arisen.  People working on the OT side want the ability to monitor and control industrial processes remotely. “If I want to do that remotely, I need to facilitate that connectivity. I need to get data out of these systems to review it and analyze it in a remote location. And then send commands back down to that system,” Sonu Shankar, CPO at Phosphorus, an enterprise xIoT cybersecurity company, explains.  The very real possibility that OT and IT systems intersect accidentally is another consideration for CISOs. Hallenbeck has seen an industrial arc welder plugged into the IT side of an environment, unbeknownst to the people working at the company.  “Somehow that system was even added to the IT active directory, and they just were operating it as if it was a regular Windows server, which in every way it was, except for the part where it was directly attached to an industrial system,” he shares. “It happens far too often.” Cyberattack vectors on IT and OT environments look different and result in different consequences.  “On the IT side, the impact is primarily data loss and all of the second order effects of your data getting stolen or your data getting held for ransom,” says Shankar. “Disrupt the manufacturing process, disrupt food production, disrupt oil and gas production, disrupt power distribution … the effects are more obvious to us in the physical world.” Related:While the differences between IT and OT are apparent, enterprises ignore the reality of the two worlds’ convergence at their peril. As the connectivity between these systems grows, so do their dependencies and the potential consequences of an attack.  Ultimately, a business does not care if a threat actor compromised an IT system or an OT system. They care about the impact. Has the attack resulted in data theft? Has it impacted physical safety? Can the business operate and generate revenue?  “You have to start thinking of that holistically as one system against those consequences,” urges Bramson.  Integrating IT and OT Cybersecurity How can CISOs create a cybersecurity strategy that effectively manages IT and OT? The first step is gaining a comprehensive understanding of what devices and systems are a part of both the IT and OT spheres of a business. Without that information, CISOs cannot quantify and mitigate risk. “You need to know that the systems exist. There’s this tendency to just put them on the other side of a wall, physical or virtual, and no one knows what number of them exist, what state they're in, what versions they're in,” says Hallenbeck.  In one of his CISO roles, Christos Tulumba, CISO at data security and management company Cohesity, worked with a company that had multiple manufacturing plants and distribution centers. The IT and OT sides of the house operated quite separately.  “I walked in there … I did my first network map, and I saw all this exposure all over,” he tells InformationWeek. “It raised a lot of alarms.” Once CISOs have that network map on the IT and OT side, they can begin to assess risk and build a strategy for mitigation. Are there devices running on default passwords? Are there devices running suboptimal configurations or vulnerable firmware? Are there unnecessary IT and OT connections?  “You start prioritizing and scheduling remediation actions. You may not be able to patch every device at the same time. You may have to schedule it, and there needs to be a strategy for that,” Shankar points out.  The cybersecurity world is filled with noise. The latest threats. The latest tools to thwart those threats. It can be easy to get swept up and confused. But Shankar recommends taking a step back.  “The basic security hygiene is what I would start with before exploring anything more complex or advanced,” he says. “Most CISOs, most operators continue to ignore the basic security hygiene best practices and instead get distracted by all the noise out there.” And as all cybersecurity leaders know, their work is ongoing. Environments and threats are not static. CISOs need to continuously monitor IT and OT systems in the context of risk and the business’ objectives. That requires consistent engagement with IT and OT teams.  “There needs to be an ongoing dialogue and ongoing reminder prompting them and challenging them to be creative on achieving those same security objectives but doing it in context of their … world,” says Hallenbeck.  CISOs are going to need resources to achieve those goals. And that means communicating with other executive leaders and their boards. To be effective, those ongoing conversations are not going to be deep, technical dives into the worlds of IT and OT. They are going to be driven by business objectives and risks: dollars and cents.  “Once you have your plan, be able to put it in that context that your executives will understand so that you can get the resources [and] authorities to take action,” says Bramson. “At the end of the day, [this] is a business problem and when you touch OT, you're touching the lifeline, the life’s breath of how that business operates, how it generates revenue.” Building an IT/OT Skillset IT and OT security require different skillsets in many ways, and CISOs may not have all of those skills readily at their fingertips. The digital realm is a far cry from that of industrial technology. It is important to recognize the knowledge gaps and find ways to fill them.  “That can be from hiring, that can be from outside consultants’ expertise, key partnerships,” says Bramson.  An outside partner with expertise in the OT space can be an asset when CISOs visit OT sites -- and they should make that in-person trip. But if someone without site-specific knowledge shows up and starts rattling off instructions, conflict with the site manager is more likely than improved cybersecurity. “I would offer that they go with a partner or with someone who's done it before; people who have the creditability, people who have been practitioners in this area, who have walked sites,” says Bramson. That can help facilitate better communication. Security leaders and OT leaders can share their perspectives and priorities to establish a shared plan that fits into the flow of business.  CISOs also need internal talent on the IT and OT sides to maintain and strengthen cybersecurity. Hiring is a possibility, but the well-known talent constraints in the wider cybersecurity pool become even more pronounced when you set out to find OT security talent.  “There aren't a lot of OT-specific security practitioners in general and having people within these businesses that are in the OT side that have security specific training, that's vanishingly rare,” says Hallenbeck.  But CISOs needn’t despair. That talent can be developed internally through upskilling. Tulumba actually advocates for upskilling over hiring from the outside. “I've been like that my entire career. I think the best performing teams by and large are the ones that get promoted from within,” he shares. As IT and OT systems inevitability interact with one another, upskilling is important on both sides. “Ultimately cross-train your folks … to understand the IT side and the OT side,” says Tulumba.  

A piece of the Antikythera mechanismLOUISA GOULIAMAKI/AFP/Getty Images The Antikythera mechanism, a mysterious ancient Greek device that is often called the world’s first computer, may not have functioned at all, according to a simulation of its workings. But researchers say we can’t be sure of this since the machine is so badly damaged. Since the mechanism was discovered in 1901, in a shipwreck thought to date to around 60 BC, researchers have struggled to work out exactly why it was built. X-ray scans and digital reconstructions show that it was originally a 30-centimetre box containing interlinked systems…

This is today's edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. US office that counters foreign disinformation is being eliminated The only office within the US State Department that monitors foreign disinformation is to be eliminated, according to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, confirming reporting by MIT Technology Review. The Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R/FIMI) Hub is a small office in the State Department’s Office of Public Diplomacy that tracks and counters foreign disinformation campaigns. The culling of the office leaves the State Department without a way to actively counter the increasingly sophisticated disinformation campaigns from foreign governments like those of Russia, Iran, and China. Read the full story. —Eileen Guo What is vibe coding, exactly? When OpenAI cofounder Andrej Karpathy excitedly took to X back in February to post about his new hobby, he probably had no idea he was about to coin a phrase that encapsulated an entire movement steadily gaining momentum across the world. “There’s a new kind of coding I call ‘vibe coding’, where you fully give in to the vibes, embrace exponentials, and forget that the code even exists," he said. “I’m building a project or webapp, but it’s not really coding—I just see stuff, say stuff, run stuff, and copy paste stuff, and it mostly works.”  If this all sounds very different from poring over lines of code, that’s because Karpathy was talking about a particular style of coding with AI assistance. His words struck a chord among software developers and enthusiastic amateurs alike.  In the months since, his post has sparked think pieces and impassioned debates across the internet. But what exactly is vibe coding? Who does it benefit, and what’s its likely future? Read the full story. —Rhiannon Williams This story is the latest for MIT Technology Review Explains, our series untangling the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand what’s coming next. You can read more from the series here. These four charts sum up the state of AI and energy You’ve probably read that AI will drive an increase in electricity demand. But how that fits into the context of the current and future grid can feel less clear from the headlines. A new report from the International Energy Agency digs into the details of energy and AI, and I think it’s worth looking at some of the data to help clear things up. Here are four charts from the report that sum up the crucial points about AI and energy demand.  —Casey Crownhart This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. We need targeted policies, not blunt tariffs, to drive “American energy dominance” —Addison Killean Stark President Trump and his appointees have repeatedly stressed the need to establish “American energy dominance.”  But the White House’s profusion of executive orders and aggressive tariffs, along with its determined effort to roll back clean-energy policies, are moving the industry in the wrong direction, creating market chaos and economic uncertainty that are making it harder for both legacy players and emerging companies to invest, grow, and compete. Read the full story. This story is part of Heat Exchange, MIT Technology Review’s guest opinion series, offering expert commentary on legal, political and regulatory issues related to climate change and clean energy. You can read the rest of the pieces here. MIT Technology Review Narrated: Will we ever trust robots? If most robots still need remote human operators to be safe and effective, why should we welcome them into our homes? This is our latest story to be turned into a MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast, which  we’re publishing each week on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Just navigate to MIT Technology Review Narrated on either platform, and follow us to get all our new content as it’s released. The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 The Trump administration has cancelled lifesaving aid to foreign children After Elon Musk previously promised to preserve it. (The Atlantic $)+ DOGE worker Jeremy Lewin, who dismantled USAID, has a new role. (Fortune $)+ The department attempted to embed its staff in an independent non-profit. (The Guardian)+ Elon Musk, DOGE, and the Evil Housekeeper Problem. (MIT Technology Review)2 Astronomers have detected a possible signature of life on a distant planet It’s the first time the potential for life has been spotted on a habitable planet. (NYT $)+ Maybe we should be building observatories on the moon. (Ars Technica) 3 OpenAI’s new AI models can reason with images They’re capable of integrating images directly into their reasoning process. (VentureBeat)+ But they’re still vulnerable to making mistakes. (Ars Technica)+ AI reasoning models can cheat to win chess games. (MIT Technology Review) 4 Trump’s new chip crackdown will cost US firms billionsIt’s not just Nvidia that’s set to suffer. (WP $) + But Jensen Huang isn’t giving up on China altogether. (WSJ $)+ He’s said the company follows export laws ‘to the letter.’ (CNBC)5 Elon Musk reportedly used X to search for potential mothers of his children Sources suggest he has many more children than is publicly known. (WSJ $)6 Local US cops are being trained as immigration enforcers Critics say the rollout is ripe for civil rights abuses. (The Markup)+ ICE is still bound by constitutional limits—for now. (The Conversation)7 This electronic weapon can fry drone swarms from a distanceThe RapidDestroyer uses a high-power radio frequency to take down multiple drones. (FT $) + Meet the radio-obsessed civilian shaping Ukraine’s drone defense. (MIT Technology Review)8 TikTok is attempting to fight back against misinformationIt’s rolling out an X-style community notes feature. (Bloomberg $) 9 A deceased composer’s brain is still making music Three years after Alvin Lucier’s death, cerebral organoids made from his white blood cells are making sounds. (Popular Mechanics)+ AI is coming for music, too. (MIT Technology Review)10 This AI agent can switch personalities Depending what you need it to do. (Wired $) Quote of the day “Yayy, we get one last meal before getting on the electric chair.” —Jing Levine, who runs a party goods business with her husband that’s heavily reliant on suppliers in China, reacts to Donald Trump’s plans to pause tariffs except for China, the New York Times reports. The big story AI means the end of internet search as we’ve known it We all know what it means, colloquially, to google something. You pop a few words in a search box and in return get a list of blue links to the most relevant results. Fundamentally, it’s just fetching information that’s already out there on the internet and showing it to you, in a structured way. But all that is up for grabs. We are at a new inflection point. The biggest change to the way search engines deliver information to us since the 1990s is happening right now. No more keyword searching. Instead, you can ask questions in natural language. And instead of links, you’ll increasingly be met with answers written by generative AI and based on live information from across the internet, delivered the same way.  Not everyone is excited for the change. Publishers are completely freaked out. And people are also worried about what these new LLM-powered results will mean for our fundamental shared reality. Read the full story. —Mat Honan We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet 'em at me.) + Essential viewing: Sweden is broadcasting its beloved moose spring migration for 20 days straight.+ Fearsome warlord Babur was obsessed with melons, and frankly, I don’t blame him.+ Great news for squid fans: a colossal squid has been captured on film for the first time! 🦑+ Who stole my cheese?

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. Chip Somodevilla/ Getty images 2025-04-17T12:25:15Z Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? President Donald Trump said Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's "termination cannot come fast enough." Trump called on the Fed to follow the European Central Bank and cut interest rates. Powell had said Wednesday that tariffs could usher in weaker economic growth and higher inflation. President Donald Trump escalated his feud with Jerome Powell on Thursday, saying the Federal Reserve Chair's "termination cannot come fast enough" in a Truth Social post.Trump's comments come a day after Powell said the president's tariffs had been "significantly larger" than expected and could lead to weaker economic growth and higher inflation.Trump wrote that the European Central Bank was expected to cut interest rates for the seventh time on Thursday, which it later did, and that the Fed should have done so "long ago" and "should certainly lower them now."The President described Powell as "TOO LATE AND WRONG," adding: "Oil prices are down, groceries (even eggs!) are down."In his speech on Wednesday, Powell cautioned that renewed tariffs under the Trump administration could create a "challenging scenario" for the economy.He warned that the Fed's dual mandate — low unemployment and price stability— could be tested if tariffs drive up consumer prices while slowing growth. His words contributed to a deepening sell-off on the markets.Trump's post didn't say whether he thought Powell should be dismissed immediately or at the end of his term in 2026.Powell has previously said the president cannot fire him. Shortly after Trump's election in November, Powell said he wouldn't resign if asked and that firing him was "not permitted under law."The European Central Bank made another cut to interest rates on Thursday in response to Trump's tariffs. The 0.25 percentage point reduction to 2.25% is the seventh cut in eight meetings and brings the rate to its lowest level in more than two years. Recommended video

In late 2021, I stood in a forest about two hours from Mexico City and watched as a river of butterflies passed overhead. They were monarchs — the iconic, Halloween-colored butterflies — and they were coming here from the US to rest for the cold winter months. Nearly all of the monarchs east of the Rocky Mountains spend winter in this one forest in Mexico. They often fly more than 2,000 miles to get here, pollinating plants as they go. And by December, there are tens of millions of them in the branches of native fir trees, which droop under their weight. Scientists believe the trees provide just the right temperature and humidity for the butterflies to survive winter before they return north.While monarchs here seem hyper-abundant — I remember having to watch my step around puddles to avoid crushing them — their species is in decline. Scientists assess US monarch populations each winter by measuring the area they occupy in this fur grove in Mexico, and by counting butterflies in coastal California, where monarchs west of the Rockies spend winter.The results from these assessments, shown in the graphs below, speak for themselves.In Mexico, for example, the number of acres occupied by monarchs has fallen from an average of about 21 for the first 10 years of monitoring (1993 to 2002) to about 4.4 this past winter. Scientists have linked these staggering losses — part of a broader collapse of butterfly populations across the US — to the destruction of grasslands, insecticides, and drought caused in part by climate change. “There’s a very clear decline in Mexico, which is where most of our monarchs go,” said Karen Oberhauser, one of the nation’s leading monarch experts and professor emeritus at University of Wisconsin Madison.That decline underpins a proposal by the Biden administration announced late last year to grant monarch butterflies protection under the Endangered Species Act. The ESA is the strongest wildlife law in the country and one of the strongest in the world.The US Fish and Wildlife Service, a government agency that oversees the ESA, proposed to list monarchs as threatened, a formal designation meaning they’re likely to soon become at risk of extinction. If finalized, that proposal would make it a federal crime to kill or harm monarchs, with many important exceptions. It would also require that federal agencies make sure their actions, such as permitting a gas pipeline or wind farm, don’t endanger the insects.This proposal is a big deal — monarchs are among the most recognizable and beloved animals in the US — and a long time coming. Environmental advocates have been urging the government to list them for more than a decade. With the Trump administration in power, however, the fate of those protections now hangs in the balance. Send us a tipAre you a current or former federal employee with knowledge about the Trump administration’s attacks on wildlife protections? Reach out to Vox environmental correspondent Benji Jones on Signal at benji.90 or at benji.jones@vox.com.Unlike most threatened species, which occupy only a portion of the country, monarchs are found everywhere: forests, cities, suburbs, backyards, farmland, abandoned lots, the side of highways, not to mention classrooms, wedding ceremonies, and home terrariums. They also migrate between three countries, some fluttering all the way to Canada in the late spring. That makes granting these butterflies federal protection incredibly complicated, said Kristen Voorhies, a former wildlife biologist with the Fish and Wildlife Service who worked on monarch conservation. Any regulation to protect them could affect a lot of people — and a lot of powerful industries, including farming and oil and gas. In the years leading up to the proposal, some people inside the Service were worried that listing the monarch “was going to break the Endangered Species Act,” a current employee with the Fish and Wildlife Service who’s familiar with monarch conservation told me. The employee spoke with Vox on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.And that was before President Donald Trump stepped back into office.Fir trees in Mexico where monarch butterflies cluster together in the millions over winter. Marica van der Meer/Arterra/Universal Images Group via Getty ImagesMonarchs overwintering in Santa Cruz, California. Liu Guguan/China News Service/VCG via Getty ImagesThe prospect of conserving wildlife has dramatically narrowed. Trump and Republicans in Congress are already moving to weaken the Endangered Species Act and remove protections for some listed species, such as gray wolves, grizzlies, and lizards. Among other actions that worry environmentalists, Trump revived a panel of top government officials called the Endangered Species Committee — sometimes called the “God Squad” — which has special authority to essentially veto wildlife protection to approve federal projects. His administration is also trying to limit the scope of what it means to harm an endangered species.The monarch butterfly’s status, meanwhile, is in limbo. The government is still accepting comments from the public on the proposed listing, and it has until late next year to finalize the rule — i.e., to determine whether the species will officially be protected. Under Trump, the Fish and Wildlife Service could ultimately decide not to list the monarch — something representatives of the oil and gas industry have already asked the Service to consider — though they’d likely have to provide a reason that could stand up in court. This is certainly possible, according to Voorhies and Martha Williams, who led the Service under former President Joe Biden. Doug Burgum, Trump’s secretary of the Interior, the umbrella agency under which the Fish and Wildlife Service sits, has described federal rules to protect wildlife as a “legal weapon” used to “block our nation’s progress.”“All bets are off with this administration,” Williams told me.If the Trump administration does decide to protect monarchs there will be other concerns. A big one pertains to the workforce: Will the government have enough employees to actually carry out a conservation plan for monarchs? A number of senior employees within the Fish and Wildlife Service are accepting the Trump administration’s buyout offer. And there’s a general fear within the agency that layoffs are coming, even though many indiscriminately fired probationary workers have been reinstated. RelatedThe enduring mystery of monarch butterfliesAnother, deeper concern is that federal protections for the monarch could fuel a narrative that something as dainty as a butterfly is standing in the way of economic development and industries all around the country. Environmentalists worry that conservatives in Congress who want to weaken the Endangered Species Act will use that argument to try and strip down the law. Some of the groundwork has already been laid. Republican Reps. Dan Newhouse and Bruce Westerman, for example, have introduced legislation to alter the Endangered Species Act, which environmental advocates say would gut the wildlife protections it affords.In drafting the proposal, the Fish and Wildlife Service worked hard to get ahead of this concern, according to the current employee. The aim, they said, was to create protections that minimize the burden on people and companies, especially if they’re doing something to conserve monarch habitat. The proposal allows for a large number of activities that could harm the insects, including things like livestock grazing, farming on land that’s already farmland, and doing managed burns. None of these actions would be forbidden. People would also still be able to sell and collect a limited number of monarchs. Accidentally killing them with cars would be fine, too. Plus, dozens of energy companies and other organizations that already voluntarily conserve monarchs would be exempt from needing to take additional actions. A monarch caterpillar. Creative Touch Imaging Ltd./NurPhoto via Getty Images“The exemptions are really, really, really broad,” said Emma Pelton, senior endangered species conservation biologist at Xerces Society, a nonprofit group dedicated to protecting insects. “Hopefully that eliminates some of the general public pushback.” How to help monarchs, in 3 levels of difficultyLevel 1Plant milkweed seedlings. Use any space you have, including a garden or a pot on your porch. Here’s a map of places that sell milkweed. Just make sure the milkweed is native to your region — this resource helps.Level 2Plant native milkweed seedlings or seeds — seeding is slightly more involved, but see here for guidance. And then also plant wildflowers that are native to your area, which provide nectar for monarchs. Xerces Society has a list of flowers specific to different regions. Ideally, you’ll want to choose a variety of plants so that some flower in spring, others flower in summer, and yet more flower in fall, when butterflies are migrating. Level 3Plant native milkweed and wildflowers, ideally ripping up (part of) your yard and turning it into a small prairie. Conventional lawns really suck — I’m sorry! Prairies, meanwhile, are hot spots of biodiversity, and you can bring them to your home. The Nature Conservancy has a good guide to get started. Limit herbicides and pesticides, and especially a group of insecticides called neonicotinoids (or “neonics”) that are especially to monarchs and bees. Look on the back of products for chemicals including imidacloprid, thiamethoxam, clothianidin, acetamiprid, and dinotefuran, all of which are neonics. (The proposal doesn’t specify if or how the government will aim to restrict pesticides that harm monarchs — what Pelton describes as the “elephant in the room.” The Service, instead, requested input from the public. It’s worth noting, however, that pesticides aren’t regulated by the Service but by the Environmental Protection Agency, another agency that could see steep cuts.)The Fish and Wildlife Service declined to comment.Ultimately, Williams says, the Fish and Wildlife Service is trying to strike a very difficult balance: Do enough to stop the decline of species without doing too much that it fuels anti-ESA sentiment at a time when wildlife protections are incredibly vulnerable. “Maybe — and maybe I’m completely naive — we could actually land a final listing, and without breaking the Endangered Species Act,” the current employee said.Whether or not monarchs are formally protected, these animals are lucky compared to the thousands of other threatened species in the US. Everyone loves them. They’re beautiful butterflies! And so monarchs have countless advocates outside the walls of the White House and Congress, including state wildlife agencies, nonprofits, and private citizens, who have been working for years to restore monarch habitat, such as by doing something as simple as planting milkweed. “The American public values monarchs to the tune of billions of dollars,” said Wayne Thogmartin, a scientist and monarch expert at the US Geological Survey. Thogmartin led a study, published in 2013, that found that US households would be willing to spend as much as $6.6 billion of their own money to conserve monarchs. “The majority of U.S. households believe monarchs and their conservation are important,” the paper concludes.The other bit of good news for monarchs is that pretty much everyone can help. Including you. All you need is a bit of outdoor space, like a stoop, balcony, or yard, or access to a nearby garden or public green space. Then just plant some native milkweed, even in a pot, which monarch caterpillars need to survive. “If we don’t have milkweed, we won’t have monarchs,” Wendy Caldwell, who leads the Monarch Joint Venture, a coalition of organizations working on monarch conservation, told me. Better yet, plant milkweed and other native flowers. Adult butterflies use nectar in wildflowers to refuel on their way to Mexico and California and back. “The beauty of monarchs is that everybody has a role to play,” Williams said.See More:

Daily Star caught up with Overwatch 2 Game Director Aaron Keller to discuss the new Stadium mode's influences, and you might be surprised to hear how much Hearthstone had a sayTech13:01, 17 Apr 2025Stadium mode's third-person views mean you can see more of your character's skins(Image: Blizzard)Is this the year Overwatch 2 starts to come into its own? Between a new in-game perks system, fresh new characters, and the huge Stadium mode coming next week with the new season, it might just be enough to bring many players flocking back.We caught up with Aaron Keller, Overwatch 2's Game Director, earlier this week, and he revealed that while Stadium takes influences from just about anywhere, it owes more than you might think to another Blizzard title.‌Here's all we learned, and don't forget to check out yesterday's chat with Keller about the huge undertaking moving Overwatch 2 to a third-person perspective for Stadium.Stadium mode is inspired by Hearthstone's Battlegrounds(Image: Blizzard)As part of a roundtable interview, Keller was asked about Stadium's unique pace and structure among Overwatch 2's modes, and admitted, "Stadium takes influences from all over the place".Article continues belowHe said: "There's a lot of things that we looked at in MOBAs, especially some of our currency system that we have in there. We do reward players and teams for their performance in a Stadium match, while also having a lot of tuning to prevent snowballing as much as we can."We want players to feel like they have the ability, if they perform well and build their character correctly, to really carry their team, and when you're doing that in a match, it feels pretty amazing.""One of the biggest inspirations for Stadium was Hearthstone Battlegrounds. It was an inspiration in multiple ways," Keller revealed.‌"[Battlegrounds] kind of exists as its own game or its own main game mode inside of Hearthstone and we were looking for something like that inside of Overwatch as well, but also just the round-based structure of the matches that they have there."Third-person perspective is new for Overwatch(Image: Blizzard)‌"The way that you can grow in power if you build correctly in a game like that was something that we really looked at as we designed Stadium.""And the nice thing is that the Hearthstone team is a Blizzard team! So we had quite a few meetings with that group of people and were able to leverage some of their incredible experience in building their game as we developed ours."For more on Blizzard, be sure to check out reports that the company is working with Netflix on something new – could it be Overwatch related?Article continues belowFor the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletters.‌‌‌

Xbox Game Pass downgraded from killer app to ‘just another option’ by Phil Spencer Michael Beckwith Published April 17, 2025 12:41pm Updated April 17, 2025 12:41pm Something tells us Microsoft isn’t as confident about reaching 110 million subscribers by 2030 anymore (Microsoft) Comments from Xbox boss Phil Spencer suggest Xbox Game Pass is no longer as important to the business as it once was. There was a time when Xbox Game Pass was seen as the killer app for Microsoft’s consoles. As one of the earliest examples of a subscription service for video games, many thought that it would go on to define the future of gaming. It’s certainly influenced other companies, with Sony updating its PlayStation Plus service in 2022 to operate more similarly to Game Pass. However, as the years have gone on, it’s been clear that Game Pass, and subscription services in general, have not had the impact that was expected. The launch of Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 on Game Pass did little to boost its subscriber numbers over Christmas and now, after years of pushing it front and centre, Xbox boss Phil Spencer has downplayed the service’s significance, describing it as ‘not for everybody.’ This comes from a recent interview with Variety, the same one where Spencer spoke of the importance of supporting Nintendo Switch 2 even though no Microsoft published games have been officially announced for the console. When asked about how he viewed Game Pass’ role in the larger Xbox business, Spencer touted how Microsoft has ‘many business models for people playing,’ with Game Pass itself ‘just another option.’ ‘I look at Game Pass as a healthy option for certain people,’ explained Spencer, ‘It’s not for everybody. If you play one or two games a year, Game Pass probably isn’t the right business model for you, you should just buy those two games, and that would make total sense. But I want you to have the choice.’ This cuts to the heart of the problem, since it’s become clear that many casual gamers have neither the time nor the desire to play more games than they already do. This was not obvious before Game Pass existed but has gradually become clear over the years, with the huge number of high quality games available on the service essentially being wasted on many people. Spencer still speaks positively about the service, adding: ‘I look at the overall hours of people who are playing on Xbox, playing our games, and that’s a number that continues to grow fairly substantially, and that’s really the metric I think about for success. And Game Pass has been an important part of that… It’s kind of part of the equation for Xbox finding new players.’ Microsoft’s big strategy at the moment is to get its games into more peoples’ hands and not to rely on Xbox consoles to do so. It’s why it’s been doubling down on cloud streaming (to the point where you can now access Game Pass without the need for an Xbox console) and multiplatform releases, with more and more Xbox published games coming to PlayStation and (in theory) Nintendo consoles. More Trending Nevertheless, with console sales in sharp decline and Game Pass not proving to be the game-changer that was originally expected it does put Xbox in a tricky position. For years, Game Pass has been missing growth targets and Microsoft’s reticence to share exact subscriber numbers tells its own story. It did confirm in early 2024 that it had 34 million Game Pass subscribers, which sounds relatively impressive until you realise that that’s only nine million more than two years prior. Spencer once said that Microsoft would quit the gaming business if Game Pass subscriber numbers didn’t reach 110 million by 2030. That is now looking all but impossible but Spencer’s prediction is unlikely to come true now that Microsoft is, as a consequence of buying Activision Blizzard, the biggest games publisher in the West. However, the comment does highlight how pivotal Game Pass once was to the Xbox business – with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella once having subscriber numbers tied to his personal bonus – and yet now is being treated as no more important than multiplatform releases or cloud gaming. Are you still subscribed to Game Pass? (Microsoft) Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

By Matt Novak Published April 17, 2025 | Comments (0) | Alex Jones during his Infowars web show on April 14, 2025. Screenshot: InfoWars / X After several false alarms over the past two decades, it looks like Americans will soon need a Real ID-compliant form of identification to board a plane. President Donald Trump’s administration has made it clear there won’t be another extension of the deadline, and that’s creating some real tension with some of Trump’s most ardent supporters: batshit crazy conspiracy theorists. Alex Jones, a conspiracy theorist and Trump supporter for years, took to his Infowars show Monday to try and explain how Real ID was dangerous and insisted Trump must not understand how it actually works. “So Trump is being told this,” Jones said, suggesting Trump was being manipulated to support Real ID. “We have to explain that you’re against the central bank digital currency. You’re against this world ID.” Jones insisted that Real ID must be like Operation Warp Speed, the program for developing the covid-19 vaccine during Trump’s first term, which conspiracy theorists believe is dangerous and filled with things like tracking chips that communicate with 5G cell towers. People like Jones insist that Trump was manipulated into believing the vaccine was good. And now they’re saying the same thing must be happening with Real ID. On Monday, Jones went on to tie in some of his favorite villains who are supposedly behind Real ID, including China, the United Nations, and Bill Gates. “This Mr. President was developed in the U.S., given to the UN, Bill Gates has been heavily involved for 20 years. When you read the documents, he’s on the board of it,” Jones rambles on. “Communist China is involved in this standardization. It is this international system taking over America, which is what the globalists did.” Jones actually has a surprisingly long history with Trump. The president appeared on his show in 2015 before he was successfully elected to the White House in 2016 and Jones was at the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. capitol as Trump supporters tried to keep the fascist president in office. But Trump’s ascent to the highest office in the country made things a bit uncomfortable for Jones, given the fact that he’s been warning about the dangers of the U.S. government since the 1990s. Jones has tried to thread that needle, and he appears to have landed on the idea that anything the conspiracy theorist doesn’t like is simply a product of Trump not understanding what his own administration is doing. Officials from the Trump regime are trying to sell the idea of Real ID to supporters by saying it’s all about fighting illegal immigration, something that Jones also opposes from a bizarre angle that wouldn’t normally fit into a more libertarian worldview. A memo from the Department of Homeland Security was pushed to Fox News with the idea that undocumented people will eventually be rounded up thanks to these new ID requirements. “Under Biden, illegal aliens used non-compliant IDs from sanctuary cities to board flights, but REAL ID’s higher security standards make it nearly impossible to forge legitimate documents, ensuring only verified travelers can fly,” the memo reportedly reads. And DHS clearly sees it within the context of fighting terrorism as well, invoking the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in the same memo. “This closes the gaping vulnerabilities Biden’s policies created, preventing criminals and potential terrorists from exploiting our aviation system, as seen during 9/11 when fraudulent IDs enabled attacks,” the memo reads. Some folks on social media have tried to claim Real ID will help not just with fighting terrorism and illegal immigration, but also will stop non-citizens from voting. But permanent residents to the U.S., people who are not citizens, are able to get a Real ID. Conspiracy theorists on the right, including billionaire oligarch Elon Musk, are convinced that large numbers of non-citizens vote in U.S. elections, something that’s simply not true. Jones tried to rationalize on his show Monday why previous Democratic presidents may not have fully instituted the Real ID Act, which passed in 2005, and he literally didn’t make any sense. “The left didn’t want, completely want to implement it because that would have stopped their invasion,” Jones said, without explaining what he meant in any way. Jones went on to say that Real ID would be used as a way to form a social credit score system in the U.S., another claim for which he provided no evidence. Real ID is simply a more secure form of ID with extra tech that’s harder to forge and one that requires more identity documents, such as a birth certificate and passport. And while you can critique the hurdles for that on their own merits, there’s no evidence Real ID is going to be used in the ways Jones claims. Jones has a long history of spreading lies and sensationalist accounts of popular news stories, finally getting hit with the defamation lawsuit that would bankrupt him after he called victims of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school in 2012 a “hoax” with “actors.” But Jones appears to have nine lives, at least where his media empire is concerned. After being forced into bankruptcy, Jones was initially supposed to sell the company’s assets and The Onion even successfully bid on the Infowars website last year. However, that sale was reversed by a court. If you don’t already have a Real ID-compliant identity card, you may want to make an appointment at the DMV to make that happen. Now that the deadline appears to be real, there are reports of very long lines and widespread inability to get an appointment. Starting May 7, anyone 18 years of age or older who tries to get on a flight may be denied if they don’t have a Real ID. Daily Newsletter You May Also Like By AJ Dellinger Published April 16, 2025 By Matt Novak Published April 16, 2025 By Matt Novak Published April 16, 2025 By Lucas Ropek Published April 16, 2025 By Matt Novak Published April 15, 2025 By Kyle Barr Published April 15, 2025