Join Fox News for access to this content You have reached your maximum number of articles. Log in or create an account FREE of charge to continue reading. By entering your email and pushing continue, you are agreeing to Fox News' Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, which includes our Notice of Financial Incentive. Please enter a valid email address. Hackers are pretty scary. Amoral, hooded figures with magical computer skills that can break into anything within minutes. At least that is what most of us think of when we hear the term "hacker." It is not exactly a realistic or particularly representative image, but, at the same time, it is not too far off the mark either. What many people do not realize is just how much hackers can learn about you from a data broker file, detailed profiles compiled from your personal information collected and sold by data brokers. This hidden industry fuels much of what hackers use to target individuals today. Illustration of a person’s personal data. (Kurt "CyberGuy" Knutsson)What is a data broker, and why should you care?When most people hear the term "data broker," on the other hand, they draw a blank. Is it a person or company that buys and sells data? Basically, yes. Data brokers collect, sort, analyze, package and sell access to personal information. Whose personal information? Anyone's and everyone's, including yours.THINK YOU CAN DELETE YOUR DATA YOURSELF? HERE’S WHY YOU’RE PROBABLY WRONG Illustration of a person’s personal data. (Kurt "CyberGuy" Knutsson)What kinds of personal information do they deal in?Here is a list of possible data points you, random companies, your worst enemy, your neighbors and, yes, hackers can find in a data broker file:Full namePast legal namesKnown aliasesSocial media handlesGenderSexual preferencesDate of birth or ageSocial Security number (SSN)Current and past home addressesCurrent and past phone numbersCurrent, past and secret email addressesPolitical preferences and affiliationsOccupationCurrent employerEmployment historyBusiness associatesEducationMarital statusMarriage and divorce recordsFamily status (number and ages of children)RelativesProperty informationVehicle registrationAssetsFinancial informationBankruptcies, judgments and liensLicenses (drivers license, firearms permits, etc.)Court recordsCriminal recordsMugshotsSex-offender statusHealth historyLocation dataIP informationDevice information (phone, tablet and computer models)Web browser informationShopping habitsInterests and hobbies.Quite the list, is it not? It is not exhaustive; there is more that data brokers collect and more yet that they and their customers can infer from data points like these. What exactly a given data broker has will depend on which category it falls into.HACKERS CLAIM MASSIVE BREACH OF COMPANY THAT TRACKS AND SELLS AMERICANS' LOCATION DATA Illustration of a person’s personal data. (Kurt "CyberGuy" Knutsson)Types of data brokers: Who's collecting and selling your information?The most visible data brokers are commonly known as people search sites or people finder sites. These are the sites that show up when you Google yourself, or a hacker Googles you. They are just the tip of the iceberg, though. There are other data brokers that do not bother indexing individual profiles with search engines, preferring instead to deal with other companies and even governments directly. These are the other major types of data brokers, in addition to people search sites:Marketing data brokers focus more on your browsing habits, past purchases and interests. They are responsible for "personalized marketing" as well as helping other companies target you with those surprisingly relevant ads you see online.Recruitment data brokers collect and process personal information to offer background screening services to organizations evaluating job candidates or performing background checks before making an offer. Unfortunately, although illegal, there is nothing actually stopping unscrupulous employers from using the much less regulated and reliable people search sites for the same purposes.Risk mitigation brokers aggregate a variety of background, criminal, property and other information to provide assessment reports to various investment and business companies. The information they collect is aimed at helping such companies manage risk in taking on new business.Financial information brokers collect various personal finance and background information for credit companies and banks to calculate your credit score and may influence your eligibility to get loans and lines of credit.Health information data brokers collect information about your general health and sell it to companies in healthcare and related fields. This information can be used to target you with health product ads and even set your insurance premiums.Hackers are most likely to use people search sites, though; they are easily accessible, eminently searchable, relatively cheap (with trial offers for as little as a dollar) and do not ask any questions. Other data brokers may also sell personal information to hackers, but they tend to sell profiles in bulk.Want your data taken off this market?It is perfectly normal to want no part in any of this. Unfortunately, there is no federal law on the books in the U.S. that would either prevent this kind of data trade or give you an easy, legally enforced way to opt out.The good news is that, thanks to an incomplete patchwork of state laws, personal information removal services can approach hundreds of individual data brokers on your behalf with legally binding data-removal requests.While no service can guarantee the complete removal of your data from the internet, a data removal service is really a smart choice. They aren’t cheap — and neither is your privacy. These services do all the work for you by actively monitoring and systematically erasing your personal information from hundreds of websites. It’s what gives me peace of mind and has proven to be the most effective way to erase your personal data from the internet. By limiting the information available, you reduce the risk of scammers cross-referencing data from breaches with information they might find on the dark web, making it harder for them to target you. Check out my top picks for data removal services here. Kurt's key takeawaysIt is easy to feel overwhelmed when you realize just how much of your personal information is out there, and how many different players are collecting, selling and using it. But knowing how data brokers operate is the first step to taking back control. Whether it is people search sites or the less visible brokers working behind the scenes, your data is valuable, and you deserve to know who has it and what they are doing with it. The good news is, there are tools and services out there that can help you clean up your digital footprint and protect your privacy. So, do not just sit back and hope for the best — take action and make your data work for you, not against you.CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPIn your opinion, what should be done to give people more control over their data? Let us know by writing us at Cyberguy.com/ContactFor more of my tech tips and security alerts, subscribe to my free CyberGuy Report Newsletter by heading to Cyberguy.com/NewsletterAsk Kurt a question or let us know what stories you'd like us to cover.Follow Kurt on his social channels:Answers to the most-asked CyberGuy questions:New from Kurt:Copyright 2025 CyberGuy.com. All rights reserved.  

Christine Farro has cut back on the presents she sends her grandchildren on their birthdays, and she’s put off taking two cats and a dog for their shots. All her clothes come from thrift stores and most of her vegetables come from her garden. At 73, she has cut her costs as much as she can to live on a tight budget.But it’s about to get far tighter.As the Trump administration resumes collections on defaulted student loans, a surprising population has been caught in the crosshairs: Hundreds of thousands of older Americans whose decades-old debts now put them at risk of having their Social Security checks garnished.“I worked ridiculous hours. I worked weekends and nights. But I could never pay it off,” says Farro, a retired child welfare worker in Santa Ynez, California.Like millions of debtors with federal student loans, Farro had her payments and interest paused by the government five years ago when the pandemic thrust many into financial hardship. That grace period ended in 2023 and, earlier this month, the Department of Education said it would restart “involuntary collections” by garnishing paychecks, tax refunds and Social Security retirement and disability benefits. Farro previously had her Social Security garnished and expects it to restart.Farro’s loans date back 40 years. She was a single mother when she got a bachelor’s degree in developmental psychology and when she discovered she couldn’t earn enough to pay off her loans, she went back to school and got a master’s degree. Her salary never caught up. Things only got worse.Around 2008, when she consolidated her loans, she was paying $1,000 a month, but years of missed payments and piled-on interest meant she was barely putting a dent in a bill that had ballooned to $250,000. When she sought help to resolve her debt, she says the loan company had just one suggestion.“They said, ‘Move to a cheaper state,'” says Farro, who rents a 400-square-foot casita from a friend. “I realized I was living in a different reality than they were.”Student loan debt among older people has grown at a staggering rate, in part due to rising tuitions that have forced more people to borrow greater sums. People 60 and older hold an estimated $125 billion in student loans, according to the National Consumer Law Center, a six-fold increase from 20 years ago. That has led Social Security beneficiaries who have had their payments garnished to balloon by 3,000% over the same period, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.An estimated 452,000 people aged 62 and older had student loans in default, according to a January report from CFPB.Debbie McIntyre, a 62-year-old adult education teacher in Georgetown, Kentucky, is among them. She dreams of retiring and writing more historical fiction, and of boarding a plane for the first time since high school. But her husband has been out of work on disability for two decades and they’ve used credit cards to get by on his meager benefits and her paycheck. Their rent will be hiked $300 when their lease renews. McIntyre doesn’t know what to do if her paycheck is garnished.She floats the idea of bankruptcy, but that won’t automatically clear her loans, which are held to a different standard than other debt. She figures if she picks up extra jobs babysitting or tutoring, she could put $50 toward her loans here and there. But she sees no real solution.“I don’t know what more I can do,” says McIntyre, who is too afraid to check what her loan balance is. “I’ll never get out of this hole.”Braxton Brewington of the Debt Collective debtors union says it’s striking how many older people dial into the organization’s calls and attend its protests. Many of them, he says, should have had their debts cancelled but fell victim to a system “riddled with flaws and illegalities and flukes.” Many whose educations have left them in late-life debt have, in fact, paid back the principal on their loans, sometimes several times over, but still owe more due to interest and fees.For those who are subject to garnishment, Brewington says, the results can be devastating.“We hear from people who skip meals. We know people who dilute their medication or cut their pills in half. People take drastic measures like pulling all their savings out or dissolving their 401ks,” he says. “We know folks that have been driven into homelessness.”Collections on defaulted loans may have restarted no matter who was president, though the Biden administration had sought to limit the amount of income that could be garnished. Federal law protects just $750 of Social Security benefits from garnishment, an amount that would put a debtor far below the poverty line.“We’re basically providing people with federal benefits with one hand and taking them away with another,” says Sarah Sattelmeyer of the New America think tank.Linda Hilton, a 76-year-old retired office worker from Apache Junction, Arizona, went through garnishment before COVID and says she will survive it again. But flights to see her children, occasional meals at a restaurant and other pleasures of retired life may disappear.“It’s going to mean restrictions,” says Hilton. “There won’t be any travel. There won’t be any frills.”Some debtors have already received notice about collections. Many more are living in fear. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order calling for the Department of Education’s dismantling and, for those seeking answers about their loans, mass layoffs have complicated getting calls answered.While Education Secretary Linda McMahon says restarting collections is a necessary step for debtors “both for the sake of their own financial health and our nation’s economic outlook,” even some of Trump’s most fervent supporters are questioning a move that will make their lives harder.Randall Countryman, 55, of Bonita, California, says a Biden administration proposal to forgive some student debt didn’t strike him as fair, but he’s not sure Trump’s approach is either. He supported Trump but wishes the government made case-by-case decisions on debtors. Countryman thinks Americans don’t realize how many older people are affected by policies on student loans, often thought to be the turf of the young, and how difficult it can be for them to repay.“What’s a young person’s problem today,” he says, “is an old person’s problem tomorrow.”Countryman started working on a degree while in prison, then continued it at the University of Phoenix when he was released. He started growing nervous as he racked up loan debt and never finished his degree. He’s worked a host of different jobs, but finding work has often been complicated by his criminal record.He lives off his wife’s Social Security check and the kindness of his mother-in-law. He doesn’t know how they’d get by if the government demands repayment.“I kind of wish I never went to school in the first place,” he says. Matt Sedensky can be reached at msedensky@ap.org and https://x.com/sedensky —Matt Sedensky, AP National Writer

The Federal Trade Commission has postponed enforcement of its consumer-friendly "click to cancel" rule from May 14 to July 14, giving businesses two additional months to comply. The regulation requires companies to make subscription cancellations as straightforward as the sign-up process, prohibiting practices like forcing customers who subscribed online to navigate through chatbots or call centers to cancel. The rule, established under former Democratic Chair Lina Khan, unsurprisingly has garnered support from consumer advocates while facing legal opposition from industry groups. A coalition including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and organizations representing major telecom and media companies -- Charter Communications, Comcast, Disney Entertainment, and Warner Bros. Discovery -- has sued to block implementation, claiming the agency exceeded its authority. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The bird above is not your typical charismatic species. It’s no bald eagle, no peregrine falcon. It’s a groundbird known as the lesser prairie-chicken that lives in the southern Great Plains. It’s not even the greater prairie-chicken, another, related avian species, that’s a bit larger. Today, however, this bird is very much worth paying attention to. In 2023, lesser prairie-chickens — which are actually fascinating birds, not least for their ridiculous mating rituals — were granted protection under the Endangered Species Act, the country’s strongest wildlife law. Scientists say this protection is justified: The population of lesser prairie-chickens has crashed since the last century from hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of birds to roughly 30,000 today. Now the Trump administration is trying to axe those extinction-thwarting protections. In a motion filed earlier this month in a Texas court, the administration argued that federal officials made an error when listing prairie-chickens under the Endangered Species Act. The listing — which makes it illegal to kill or harm the birds, with a number of exceptions — should be tossed out, the administration said. The move isn’t totally unexpected. Prairie-chickens overlap in some areas with oil and gas drilling. And President Donald Trump has signaled that he will prioritize drilling over environmental safeguards. Yet it reveals that his administration will take extreme steps to undo wildlife protections if they stand in the way of his agenda. If his administration is successful in delisting the bird, it will signal that no endangered species is safe — especially those, like these chickens, that happen to live where fossil fuels are buried.Send us a tipDo you have a story idea or a tip to share? Reach Benji Jones at benji.jones@vox.com or at the secure encrypted address benjijones@protonmail.com. You can also find him on Signal at @benji.90.The dance of the prairie-chickenMale lesser prairie-chickens are extremely extra.Each spring, they come together in breeding grounds called leks to dance for females, hoping to attract them as mates. They inflate large sacs on their neck, flare yellow combs above their eyes, and raise wing-like feathers behind their heads. Then they stomp their feet and start booming, producing a noise that sounds like sped-up yodeling. (These are not to be confused with the greater sage-grouse, a bird in the same family that has a similarly spectacular display.)The Great Plains were once filled with these unusual dancing birds, which play important roles in grassland ecosystems: They provide food for raptors, spread seeds, and control insects. But in the last few centuries, prairie-chickens lost most of their habitat — largely to the expansion of oil and gas, commercial farming, housing developments, and, more recently, wind energy. Scientists estimate that the range of lesser prairie-chickens has shrunk by 83 percent to 90 percent since European settlement.“Grasslands are the most threatened ecosystem on the continent and in the world, and nowhere more so than in the southwestern Great Plains,” said Ted Koch, executive director of the North American Grouse Partnership, a bird conservation group. Facing extinction as a result of powerful industries, the prairie-chicken has been caught up in a game of political ping pong. The government first granted them federal protection in 2014. Then, in response to a lawsuit filed by an oil-industry trade group and several counties in New Mexico, the Texas court tossed out the listing in 2015. They were officially delisted in 2016. The suit argued that in granting federal protections the government didn’t adequately consider existing voluntary efforts, such as habitat conservation, to conserve the birds.Shortly after, the Interior Department — the government agency that oversees endangered species listings — reevaluated the bird and once again determined, under the Biden administration, that it is at risk of extinction, even with those voluntary efforts in place. In 2023, Interior added the chickens back on the endangered species list. That brings us to the present day, when these forsaken birds could once again lose protection. Trump moves to strip endangered species protections on a technicalityThe Trump administration is arguing that the Interior Department made a mistake when it recently listed the birds again. It comes down to a somewhat wonky technicality. Briefly, the Endangered Species Act allows the government to grant formal protection to a species or to a population of a species — if those populations are important on their own, and at risk. That’s what the Biden administration did: It determined that there were two distinct populations of lesser-prairie chickens and it granted each of them slightly different protections. One of the populations is in the northern end of the birds’ range, including Oklahoma and Kansas, and the other is in the southern reaches of its range, in Texas and New Mexico. Under the Trump administration, Interior claims that it didn’t provide enough information to show that the two bird populations are distinct. That’s reason enough to delist the birds, the administration argues, while it reviews their status over the next year. If the species is delisted — even temporarily — the government would be able to permit activities, such as energy projects, even if they might harm the bird and the endangered grasslands it’s found in. Male lesser prairie-chickens fight for territory at a lek in Edwards County, Kansas. Michael Pearce/Wichita Eagle/Tribune News Service via Getty ImagesAvian experts, meanwhile, say the reasoning behind the original listing — which was the result of months of work and more than 30,000 public comments — is sound, and these birds are very clearly in trouble. “The North American Grouse Partnership agrees completely that listing of chickens is warranted,” said Koch, a former biologist with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the division within Interior that implements the Endangered Species Act.The move to delist prairie-chickens appears to be an effort by the Trump administration to skirt wildlife regulations that some perceive to stand in the way of the oil industry, said Jonathan Hayes, executive director of Audubon Southwest, a regional office of the National Audubon Society, a large environmental nonprofit. “Whether it’s true or not, this chicken symbolizes a challenge, or an impediment, to oil and gas development for industry,” Hayes told Vox. “We would expect this administration to push back on regulations that may or may not impact oil and gas. That’s what it feels like is happening here.” In a statement to Vox, the Interior Department said it has an “unwavering commitment to conserving and managing the nation’s natural and cultural resources…and overseeing public lands and waters for the benefit of all Americans, while prioritizing fiscal responsibility for the American people.”The new administration can quibble with the technical points of the listing, Koch said, but that will do nothing to change the reality: The bird is at risk of extinction and needs to be protected. “Whether somebody wants to engage in debate on technicalities is up to them, but simply and fundamentally lesser prairie-chickens are threatened with extinction,” Koch said. “Delisting lesser prairie chickens on a technicality is going to do nothing to address the underlying threat to these ecosystems.”The future for threatened species in the US There’s no guarantee that prairie-chickens will lose protection. The Trump administration’s motion to delist the birds came in response to a pair of lawsuits filed by both the state of Texas and groups representing the oil and livestock industries. The suits allege that the Interior Department made a mistake in splitting the birds into two distinct populations and failed to follow the best available information. (Interior’s spokesperson told Vox they will not comment on ongoing litigation.)Before Trump took office, the government was planning to defend its decision to protect the birds — and to split them up — in court, in response to those lawsuits. Now it’s reversing course and agreeing with Texas and the oil industry to toss out the listing.It’s possible that the judge overseeing this case could agree to remove protections, said Jason Rylander, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. In that case, groups like his would try to appeal to block the delisting. The court could also tell the government to review the bird’s status while keeping existing protections in place, Rylander says. What’s key here is that the decision to list lesser prairie-chickens involved a formal rulemaking process with public input. It’s not clear that the government can simply reverse its decision and yank federal protections without going through that process again.“The government can’t act in a capricious way,” Hayes of Audubon said. “It can’t just blow with the wind, and that’s exactly what it did here. They just changed their minds when the administration changed. I’m not sure how they will legally defend their complete 180.”But no matter how this plays out, this effort to delist lesser prairie-chickens puts other threatened species in an even more precarious spot, especially those that live in regions with oil and gas.One example is the endangered dunes sagebrush lizard. It’s a small, scaly reptile that lives in the Permian Basin of Texas, the largest oil-producing region in the country, and nowhere else on Earth.The state of Texas similarly sued the government after it listed the dunes sagebrush lizard as endangered last year. The suit — which asks the court to vacate the endangered listing — alleges, among other things, that the government didn’t rely on the best available data to evaluate the lizard’s extinction risk. That case is still pending, though environmental advocates fear that the Trump administration could side with Texas and claim it made a mistake when listing the lizard. Then there’s the beloved monarch butterfly. Following decades of population decline, the government proposed federal protections for the iconic insect late last year. Monarch habitat similarly overlaps with the oil and gas industry, as well as commercial farmland. Fossil-fuel groups have already asked the Trump administration to reconsider the listing. “As the Trump administration is in power, we can expect that endangered species protections are going to be under attack,” Rylander said. “I think there’s a chance we can stop this in court,” he said of efforts to delist the prairie-chicken, “but I think if we don’t, we will see more efforts to remand and vacate listings that they [the Trump administration] don’t want to have in place anymore.” It’s important to remember that wildlife protections benefit people, Koch said. And prairie-chickens are a good example. Most of the remaining birds live on sustainably managed, private ranchlands in the Great Plains, he said. Those lands — those working grassland ecosystems — are under threat from energy development and other industries that are more profitable. Saving prairie chickens means saving those lands. And saving those lands benefits the ranchers that live on them, he said.“The purpose of the Endangered Species Act is to conserve the ecosystems upon which we and all other species depend,” Koch said. “People depend on grassland ecosystems, and so do lesser prairie-chickens. We need to save grasslands for both of us.”See More:

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. The first US hub for experimental medical treatments is coming The news: A bill that allows clinics to sell unproven treatments has been passed in Montana. Under the legislation, doctors can apply for a license to open an experimental treatment clinic and recommend and sell therapies not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to their patients. Why it matters: Once it’s signed by the governor, the law will be the most expansive in the country in allowing access to drugs that have not been fully tested. The bill allows for any drug produced in the state to be sold in it, providing it has been through phase I clinical trials—but these trials do not determine if the drug is effective.The big picture: The bill was drafted and lobbied for by people interested in extending human lifespans. And these longevity enthusiasts are hoping Montana will serve as a test bed for opening up access to experimental drugs. Read the full story. —Jessica Hamzelou Google DeepMind’s new AI agent cracks real-world problems better than humans can Google DeepMind has once again used large language models to discover new solutions to long-standing problems in math and computer science. This time the firm has shown that its approach can not only tackle unsolved theoretical puzzles, but improve a range of important real-world processes as well. The new tool, called AlphaEvolve, uses large language models (LLMs) to produce code for a wide range of different tasks. LLMs are known to be hit and miss at coding. The twist here is that AlphaEvolve scores each of Gemini’s suggestions, throwing out the bad and tweaking the good, in an iterative process, until it has produced the best algorithm it can. In many cases, the results are more efficient or more accurate than the best existing (human-written) solutions.Read the full story. —Will Douglas Heaven Research cuts are threatening crucial climate data —Casey Crownhart Over the last few weeks, there’s been an explosion of news about proposed budget cuts to science in the US. Researchers and civil servants are sounding the alarm that those cuts mean we might lose key data that helps us understand our world and how climate change is affecting it. Long-running US government programs that monitor the snowpack across the West are among those being threatened by cuts across the US federal government, as my colleague James Temple’s new story explores. Also potentially in trouble: carbon dioxide measurements in Hawaii, hurricane forecasting tools, and a database that tracks the economic impact of natural disasters.  It’s all got me thinking: What do we lose when data is in danger? Read the full story. This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 Donald Trump doesn’t want Apple building iPhones in India The US President claims Apple will be upping their US production as a result. (Bloomberg $)+ He also said that India was willing to “literally charge us no tariffs.” (WSJ $)2 Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot ranted about white genocide  In response to completely unrelated queries. (FT $)+ It’s not the first time Grok has shared questionable responses. (Bloomberg $)+ Grok told users it was instructed to accept white genocide as real. (The Guardian) 3 RFK Jr doesn’t think we should take his medical advice Which begs the question: why is he US Health and Human Services secretary? (NY Mag $)+ Kennedy said his opinions on vaccines are irrelevant. (NYT $)+ He defended his decision to downsize the health department amid protests. (The Guardian)4 GM’s new EV battery can power a truck for more than 400 miles  Its lithium manganese-rich cells use cheaper minerals than lithium-ion ones. (Fast Company $)+ Tariffs are bad news for batteries. (MIT Technology Review) 5 Anthropic has been accused of using AI-generated evidence in a legal case A lawyer for Universal Music Group claimed an expert cited a source that didn’t exist. (Reuters)+ A judge in another case reportedly caught fake AI citations, too. (Ars Technica)+ AI companies are finally being forced to cough up for training data. (MIT Technology Review)6 AI won’t put human radiologists out of a job any time soonThe technology is helpful, but is unable to do everything trained human experts can. (NYT $) + Why it’s so hard to use AI to diagnose cancer. (MIT Technology Review) 7 The US Defense Department wants faster aircraft and missiles And startups are more than willing to answer the call. (WP $)+ Phase two of military AI has arrived. (MIT Technology Review)8 SpaceX has successfully tested its Starship rocket 🚀Clearing a major hurdle ahead of its planned launch later this month. (Wired $)9 YouTube will start inserting ads into videos’ crucial moments Wow, that doesn’t sound annoying at all. (TechCrunch)10 Apple’s Vision Pro headset is a pain in the neckAnd early adopters are regretting shelling out $3,500 apiece. (WSJ $) + Maybe the ability to scroll using their eyes will change their minds. (Bloomberg $) Quote of the day “To say a professor is ‘some kind of monster’ for using AI to generate slides “is, to me, ridiculous.” —Paul Shovlin, a professor at Ohio University, reacts to student backlash against professors using AI to create teaching materials, the New York Times reports. One more thing Who gets to decide who receives experimental medical treatments?There has been a trend toward lowering the bar for new medicines, and it is becoming easier for people to access treatments that might not help them—and could even harm them. Anecdotes appear to be overpowering evidence in decisions on drug approval. As a result, we’re ending up with some drugs that don’t work. We urgently need to question how these decisions are made. Who should have access to experimental therapies? And who should get to decide? Such questions are especially pressing considering how quickly biotechnology is advancing. We’re not just improving on existing classes of treatments—we’re creating entirely new ones. Read the full story.—Jessica Hamzelou 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.) + Food nostalgia is the best nostalgia, and this Bluesky account of discontinued foods doesn't disappoint.+ Don’t even think of calling your newborn baby King if you live in New Zealand.+ Actor Jeremy Strong just loves a bucket hat.+ Watch out Swiss drivers—a duck has been caught speeding 🦆

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. The first US hub for experimental medical treatments is coming The news: A bill that allows clinics to sell unproven treatments has been passed in Montana. Under the legislation, doctors can apply for a license to open an experimental treatment clinic and recommend and sell therapies not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to their patients. Why it matters: Once it’s signed by the governor, the law will be the most expansive in the country in allowing access to drugs that have not been fully tested. The bill allows for any drug produced in the state to be sold in it, providing it has been through phase I clinical trials—but these trials do not determine if the drug is effective.The big picture: The bill was drafted and lobbied for by people interested in extending human lifespans. And these longevity enthusiasts are hoping Montana will serve as a test bed for opening up access to experimental drugs. Read the full story. —Jessica Hamzelou Google DeepMind’s new AI agent cracks real-world problems better than humans can Google DeepMind has once again used large language models to discover new solutions to long-standing problems in math and computer science. This time the firm has shown that its approach can not only tackle unsolved theoretical puzzles, but improve a range of important real-world processes as well. The new tool, called AlphaEvolve, uses large language models (LLMs) to produce code for a wide range of different tasks. LLMs are known to be hit and miss at coding. The twist here is that AlphaEvolve scores each of Gemini’s suggestions, throwing out the bad and tweaking the good, in an iterative process, until it has produced the best algorithm it can. In many cases, the results are more efficient or more accurate than the best existing (human-written) solutions.Read the full story. —Will Douglas Heaven Research cuts are threatening crucial climate data —Casey Crownhart Over the last few weeks, there’s been an explosion of news about proposed budget cuts to science in the US. Researchers and civil servants are sounding the alarm that those cuts mean we might lose key data that helps us understand our world and how climate change is affecting it. Long-running US government programs that monitor the snowpack across the West are among those being threatened by cuts across the US federal government, as my colleague James Temple’s new story explores. Also potentially in trouble: carbon dioxide measurements in Hawaii, hurricane forecasting tools, and a database that tracks the economic impact of natural disasters.  It’s all got me thinking: What do we lose when data is in danger? Read the full story. This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 Donald Trump doesn’t want Apple building iPhones in India The US President claims Apple will be upping their US production as a result. (Bloomberg $)+ He also said that India was willing to “literally charge us no tariffs.” (WSJ $)2 Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot ranted about white genocide  In response to completely unrelated queries. (FT $)+ It’s not the first time Grok has shared questionable responses. (Bloomberg $)+ Grok told users it was instructed to accept white genocide as real. (The Guardian) 3 RFK Jr doesn’t think we should take his medical advice Which begs the question: why is he US Health and Human Services secretary? (NY Mag $)+ Kennedy said his opinions on vaccines are irrelevant. (NYT $)+ He defended his decision to downsize the health department amid protests. (The Guardian)4 GM’s new EV battery can power a truck for more than 400 miles  Its lithium manganese-rich cells use cheaper minerals than lithium-ion ones. (Fast Company $)+ Tariffs are bad news for batteries. (MIT Technology Review) 5 Anthropic has been accused of using AI-generated evidence in a legal case A lawyer for Universal Music Group claimed an expert cited a source that didn’t exist. (Reuters)+ A judge in another case reportedly caught fake AI citations, too. (Ars Technica)+ AI companies are finally being forced to cough up for training data. (MIT Technology Review)6 AI won’t put human radiologists out of a job any time soonThe technology is helpful, but is unable to do everything trained human experts can. (NYT $) + Why it’s so hard to use AI to diagnose cancer. (MIT Technology Review) 7 The US Defense Department wants faster aircraft and missiles And startups are more than willing to answer the call. (WP $)+ Phase two of military AI has arrived. (MIT Technology Review)8 SpaceX has successfully tested its Starship rocket 🚀Clearing a major hurdle ahead of its planned launch later this month. (Wired $)9 YouTube will start inserting ads into videos’ crucial moments Wow, that doesn’t sound annoying at all. (TechCrunch)10 Apple’s Vision Pro headset is a pain in the neckAnd early adopters are regretting shelling out $3,500 apiece. (WSJ $) + Maybe the ability to scroll using their eyes will change their minds. (Bloomberg $) Quote of the day “To say a professor is ‘some kind of monster’ for using AI to generate slides “is, to me, ridiculous.” —Paul Shovlin, a professor at Ohio University, reacts to student backlash against professors using AI to create teaching materials, the New York Times reports. One more thing Who gets to decide who receives experimental medical treatments?There has been a trend toward lowering the bar for new medicines, and it is becoming easier for people to access treatments that might not help them—and could even harm them. Anecdotes appear to be overpowering evidence in decisions on drug approval. As a result, we’re ending up with some drugs that don’t work. We urgently need to question how these decisions are made. Who should have access to experimental therapies? And who should get to decide? Such questions are especially pressing considering how quickly biotechnology is advancing. We’re not just improving on existing classes of treatments—we’re creating entirely new ones. Read the full story.—Jessica Hamzelou 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.) + Food nostalgia is the best nostalgia, and this Bluesky account of discontinued foods doesn't disappoint.+ Don’t even think of calling your newborn baby King if you live in New Zealand.+ Actor Jeremy Strong just loves a bucket hat.+ Watch out Swiss drivers—a duck has been caught speeding 🦆

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. The first US hub for experimental medical treatments is coming The news: A bill that allows clinics to sell unproven treatments has been passed in Montana. Under the legislation, doctors can apply for a license to open an experimental treatment clinic and recommend and sell therapies not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to their patients. Why it matters: Once it’s signed by the governor, the law will be the most expansive in the country in allowing access to drugs that have not been fully tested. The bill allows for any drug produced in the state to be sold in it, providing it has been through phase I clinical trials—but these trials do not determine if the drug is effective.The big picture: The bill was drafted and lobbied for by people interested in extending human lifespans. And these longevity enthusiasts are hoping Montana will serve as a test bed for opening up access to experimental drugs. Read the full story. —Jessica Hamzelou Google DeepMind’s new AI agent cracks real-world problems better than humans can Google DeepMind has once again used large language models to discover new solutions to long-standing problems in math and computer science. This time the firm has shown that its approach can not only tackle unsolved theoretical puzzles, but improve a range of important real-world processes as well. The new tool, called AlphaEvolve, uses large language models (LLMs) to produce code for a wide range of different tasks. LLMs are known to be hit and miss at coding. The twist here is that AlphaEvolve scores each of Gemini’s suggestions, throwing out the bad and tweaking the good, in an iterative process, until it has produced the best algorithm it can. In many cases, the results are more efficient or more accurate than the best existing (human-written) solutions.Read the full story. —Will Douglas Heaven Research cuts are threatening crucial climate data —Casey Crownhart Over the last few weeks, there’s been an explosion of news about proposed budget cuts to science in the US. Researchers and civil servants are sounding the alarm that those cuts mean we might lose key data that helps us understand our world and how climate change is affecting it. Long-running US government programs that monitor the snowpack across the West are among those being threatened by cuts across the US federal government, as my colleague James Temple’s new story explores. Also potentially in trouble: carbon dioxide measurements in Hawaii, hurricane forecasting tools, and a database that tracks the economic impact of natural disasters.  It’s all got me thinking: What do we lose when data is in danger? Read the full story. This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 Donald Trump doesn’t want Apple building iPhones in IndiaThe US President claims Apple will be upping their US production as a result. (Bloomberg $)+ He also said that India was willing to “literally charge us no tariffs.” (WSJ $) 2 Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot ranted about white genocide In response to completely unrelated queries. (FT $)+ It’s not the first time Grok has shared questionable responses. (Bloomberg $)+ Grok told users it was instructed to accept white genocide as real. (The Guardian) 3 RFK Jr doesn’t think we should take his medical adviceWhich begs the question: why is he US Health and Human Services secretary? (NY Mag $)+ Kennedy said his opinions on vaccines are irrelevant. (NYT $)+ He defended his decision to downsize the health department amid protests. (The Guardian) 4 GM’s new EV battery can power a truck for more than 400 miles Its lithium manganese-rich cells use cheaper minerals than lithium-ion ones. (Fast Company $)+ Tariffs are bad news for batteries. (MIT Technology Review) 5 Anthropic has been accused of using AI-generated evidence in a legal caseA lawyer for Universal Music Group claimed an expert cited a source that didn’t exist. (Reuters)+ A judge in another case reportedly caught fake AI citations, too. (Ars Technica)+ AI companies are finally being forced to cough up for training data. (MIT Technology Review) 6 AI won’t put human radiologists out of a job any time soonThe technology is helpful, but is unable to do everything trained human experts can. (NYT $)+ Why it’s so hard to use AI to diagnose cancer. (MIT Technology Review) 7 The US Defense Department wants faster aircraft and missilesAnd startups are more than willing to answer the call. (WP $)+ Phase two of military AI has arrived. (MIT Technology Review)8 SpaceX has successfully tested its Starship rocket Clearing a major hurdle ahead of its planned launch later this month. (Wired $) 9 YouTube will start inserting ads into videos’ crucial momentsWow, that doesn’t sound annoying at all. (TechCrunch) 10 Apple’s Vision Pro headset is a pain in the neckAnd early adopters are regretting shelling out $3,500 apiece. (WSJ $)+ Maybe the ability to scroll using their eyes will change their minds. (Bloomberg $) Quote of the day “To say a professor is ‘some kind of monster’ for using AI to generate slides “is, to me, ridiculous.” —Paul Shovlin, a professor at Ohio University, reacts to student backlash against professors using AI to create teaching materials, the New York Times reports. One more thing Who gets to decide who receives experimental medical treatments?There has been a trend toward lowering the bar for new medicines, and it is becoming easier for people to access treatments that might not help them—and could even harm them. Anecdotes appear to be overpowering evidence in decisions on drug approval. As a result, we’re ending up with some drugs that don’t work.We urgently need to question how these decisions are made. Who should have access to experimental therapies? And who should get to decide? Such questions are especially pressing considering how quickly biotechnology is advancing. We’re not just improving on existing classes of treatments—we’re creating entirely new ones. Read the full story. —Jessica Hamzelou 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.) + Food nostalgia is the best nostalgia, and this Bluesky account of discontinued foods doesn’t disappoint.+ Don’t even think of calling your newborn baby King if you live in New Zealand.+ Actor Jeremy Strong just loves a bucket hat.+ Watch out Swiss drivers—a duck has been caught speeding

By Vanessa Taylor Published May 14, 2025 | Comments (6) | Elon Musk wearing a leather jacket and sunglasses with Trump in the background © (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images) Ahead of President Donald Trump’s second inauguration, the House and Senate established caucuses to ostensibly work with the newly created Department of Government Efficiency. But since its creation, DOGE has regularly shirked safeguards and oversight. Now, one House member says that the DOGE Caucus is dead. But even if that’s the case, DOGE itself sure as hell isn’t. In a recent interview with Politico, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.), the House DOGE caucus’s first Democratic member, said, “The DOGE caucus is dead. It’s defunct. We haven’t met in months. We only had two total meetings in five months.” According to Moskowitz, the caucus’s three Republican chairs, Reps. Aaron Bean (Fla.), Pete Sessions (Texas), and Blake Moore (Utah) told lawmakers that they would have a hand in DOGE’s decisions. He told Politico, “They told us that they were going to work with us. They told us these things would come through Congress. None of it happened.” Instead, Moskowitz said that the caucus “[wasn’t] involved at all in anything [happening at DOGE]” and “Musk did it all on his own.” These statements come only months after Moskowitz similarly said in a CNN interview that “we were told this is where the discussion is going to happen…There’s been no discussion. Elon’s been doing it all himself.” Shortly before, Democratic Rep. Val Hoyle (Ore.) left the caucus over Musk’s tactics. Although Moskowitz added that “DOGE was a complete failure,” his sentiments aren’t shared by everyone. Per Politico, caucus co-chair Bean said that their work is “just getting started”. He added, “Congress can enact long-term change, and our 100 committed members and eight specialized working groups are working to codify critical reforms and preparing legislation that will unlock savings for the American people.” But to be so real, Moskowitz’s statements aren’t illuminating. It’s more like…Yeah. No shit? Misdirection aside, it still should’ve been clear that the caucus wasn’t going to have real power. It exists to be a yes man and enforce DOGE’s whims. Per its own description, the DOGE caucus “lead[s] government efficiency initiatives” in the House, and, on the same page, Bean’s introductory statement says “taking on Crazy Town will be no easy task – they will need partners.” In a short time span, DOGE has spread into federal agencies like the plague. Thus far, it has fired over 216,000 people, attempted to dismantle numerous agencies, amassed data from various agencies to build a master database to surveil immigrants, and more. But recently, DOGE has struggled to justify its existence. Musk’s original promise of cutting $2 trillion from the federal budget has steadily reduced to $150 billion. On its website, DOGE claims that it has saved $170 billion through workforce reductions, contract and grant cancellations, and more. However, NPR reported that doesn’t add up. Plus, the Partnership for Public Service’s analysis found that DOGE likely cost taxpayers $135 billion. Keep in mind this analysis doesn’t include the additional costs of DOGE’s lawsuits, like the dozens from former federal employees and multiple watchdog groups who sued over the agency’s lack of transparency. When it comes to verifiable claims for cuts, the DOGE trackers at Musk Watch have put the number at just $16 billion. Recently, DOGE has appeared to be losing steam after Musk announced his plans to step back. But Musk’s potential word games about his future level of involvement aside, DOGE has done plenty of damage in just months. Even if people will be hearing less from Musk himself, the agency isn’t being disbanded. DOGE’s largely under-qualified and unvetted teams will remain. And even if the agency magically disappeared tomorrow, it will take time to repair DOGE’s handiwork. Daily Newsletter You May Also Like By Matt Novak Published May 14, 2025 By Matt Novak Published May 14, 2025 By Lucas Ropek Published May 13, 2025 By AJ Dellinger Published May 13, 2025 By Matt Novak Published May 13, 2025 By Ed Cara Published May 13, 2025

Over the last few months, and especially the last few weeks, there’s been an explosion of news about proposed budget cuts to science in the US. One trend I’ve noticed: Researchers and civil servants are sounding the alarm that those cuts mean we might lose key data that helps us understand our world and how climate change is affecting it. My colleague James Temple has a new story out today about researchers who are attempting to measure the temperature of mountain snowpack across the western US. Snow that melts in the spring is a major water source across the region, and monitoring the temperature far below the top layer of snow could help scientists more accurately predict how fast water will flow down the mountains, allowing farmers, businesses, and residents to plan accordingly. But long-running government programs that monitor the snowpack across the West are among those being threatened by cuts across the US federal government. Also potentially in trouble: carbon dioxide measurements in Hawaii, hurricane forecasting tools, and a database that tracks the economic impact of natural disasters. It’s all got me thinking: What do we lose when data is in danger? Take for example the work at Mauna Loa Observatory, which sits on the northern side of the world’s largest active volcano. In this Hawaii facility, researchers have been measuring the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere since 1958. The resulting graph, called the Keeling Curve (after Charles David Keeling, the scientist who kicked off the effort) is a pillar of climate research. It shows that carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas warming the planet, has increased in the atmosphere from around 313 parts per million in 1958 to over 420 parts per million today. Proposed cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) jeopardize the Keeling Curve’s future. As Ralph Keeling (current steward of the curve and Keeling’s son) put it in a new piece for Wired, “If successful, this loss will be a nightmare scenario for climate science, not just in the United States, but the world.” This story has echoes across the climate world right now. A lab at Princeton that produces what some consider the top-of-the-line climate models used to make hurricane forecasts could be in trouble because of NOAA budget cuts. And last week, NOAA announced it would no longer track the economic impact of the biggest natural disasters in the US. Some of the largest-scale climate efforts will feel the effects of these cuts, and as James’s new story shows, they could also seep into all sorts of specialized fields. Even seemingly niche work can have a huge impact not just on research, but on people. The frozen reservoir of the Sierra snowpack provides about a third of California’s groundwater, as well as the majority used by towns and cities in northwest Nevada. Researchers there are hoping to help officials better forecast the timing of potential water supplies across the region. This story brought to mind my visit to El Paso, Texas, a few years ago. I spoke with farmers there who rely on water coming down the Rio Grande, alongside dwindling groundwater, to support their crops. There, water comes down from the mountains in Colorado and New Mexico in the spring and is held in the Elephant Butte Reservoir. One farmer I met showed me pages and pages of notes of reservoir records, which he had meticulously copied by hand. Those crinkled pages were a clear sign: Publicly available data was crucial to his work. The endeavor of scientific research, particularly when it involves patiently gathering data, isn’t always exciting. Its importance is often overlooked. But as cuts continue, we’re keeping a lookout, because losing data could harm our ability to track, address, and adapt to our changing climate.  This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.

Tech Jeff Bezos backs radical $20,000 small electric pickup truck Newly announced Slate Truck could revolutionize the EV industry by making it more affordable Published May 15, 2025 6:00am EDT close Jeff Bezos backs radical $20,000 small electric pickup truck The Slate Truck is priced at $20,000 after federal EV incentives. Jeff Bezos is backing a bold new venture that's positioning itself to disrupt the electric vehicle space: Slate Auto. It's a startup that has unveiled a simple, modular electric pickup truck called the Slate Truck. It's priced at $20,000 after federal EV incentives, a concept some would consider radical and even inconceivable.The Slate Truck's base model defies industry norms by stripping down to essentials, with no power windows, no touchscreen and a minimalist dashboard. However, at the same time, it offers a range of customization options, allowing buyers to transform it into a five-seat SUV. Image of the exterior of the Slate Truck. (Slate Auto)Slate Truck by the numbersThe Slate Truck is a compact electric pickup, measuring 174.6 inches in length, 70.6 inches wide excluding mirrors and 69.3 inches tall, making it more than 20 inches shorter than a Ford Maverick and reminiscent of classic pickups like the 1985 Toyota truck. It rides on a 108.9-inch wheelbase and features a five-foot bed that is slightly longer and wider than the Maverick's, offering 37 cubic feet of cargo space. The truck is powered by a single rear-mounted electric motor producing 201 horsepower and 195 lb-ft of torque, delivering rear-wheel drive only and accelerating from 0 to 60 mph in about 8 seconds, with a top speed near 90 mph.AMERICA'S SMALLEST EV TRUCK PROTOTYPE HAS ARRIVEDBuyers can choose between a standard 52.7 kWh battery with an estimated 150-mile range or an optional 84.3 kWh pack for up to 240 miles of range. Charging is flexible, with an 11 kW onboard AC charger and DC fast charging up to 120 kW through a NACS connector, allowing a 20% to 80% charge in about half an hour. The Slate Truck has a maximum payload capacity of 1,433 pounds and can tow up to 1,000 pounds, making it practical for everyday hauling needs.Safety features include traction control, electronic stability control, automated emergency braking, forward collision warning with pedestrian detection and up to eight airbags, with the company targeting a five-star NCAP safety rating. The curb weight is about 3,600 pounds. Specific details of the Slate Truck. (Slate Auto)Funding and missionSlate Auto, founded in 2022, secured $111 million in funding from Bezos and other investors, including Mark Walter, the controlling owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers. The company aims to disrupt the EV market by making electric trucks accessible to budget-conscious consumers. This is a stark contrast to an industry dominated by high-priced models. The exterior of the Slate Truck. (Slate Auto)Slate Truck manufacturing strategySlate Auto's production is set to begin in Warsaw, Indiana, at a repurposed paper facility, an unconventional approach to manufacturing. The company is betting on affordability and modularity to carve out a niche in the EV market and is looking to challenge industry giants like Tesla and Ford. Maybe with Bezos' backing, Slate Auto can redefine what an affordable EV looks like. An illustration of the Slate Truck’s customization options. (Slate Auto)Customization optionsOne of Slate’s standout features is its extensive customization. Starting as a minimalist two-seater, the Slate Truck can be transformed into a five-seat SUV with an add-on kit that includes rear seats, a roll cage and airbags. Buyers can choose from over 100 accessories, including roof racks, cargo storage, all-terrain tires and lift kits. The vehicle’s exterior can be wrapped in different colors and designs instead of painted, allowing owners to easily change its look or even do it themselves with a DIY kit. This modular, build-it-your-way philosophy makes the Slate Truck feel like a rolling Lego set, appealing to both everyday drivers and enthusiasts who want a personalized EV experience.TESLA LAUNCHES LOW-PRICED MODEL Y MUSK CALLED UNACCEPTABLE AS FORD, VW ENTER SEGMENT The Slate Truck. (Slate Auto)When will the Slate Truck be available?Reservations for the Slate Truck are open for a refundable $50 deposit. Customers should expect deliveries to start in late 2026. You can go to the Slate Auto website to reserve yours by clicking on this link. The exterior of the Slate Truck. (Slate Auto)Kurt's key takeawaysSlate Auto’s approach to building a simple, modular electric pickup truck at an affordable price could shake up the EV market. Its focus on practicality and customization, backed by Jeff Bezos, offers a fresh alternative to pricey, tech-heavy trucks. With production starting in Indiana and deliveries expected in late 2026, the Slate Truck may well redefine what an affordable EV looks like.CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPWould you consider buying a Slate Truck, with its minimalist design and customizable features? Why or why not? Let us know by writing us at Cyberguy.com/ContactFor more of my tech tips and security alerts, subscribe to my free CyberGuy Report Newsletter by heading to Cyberguy.com/NewsletterAsk Kurt a question or let us know what stories you'd like us to cover.Follow Kurt on his social channels:Answers to the most-asked CyberGuy questions:New from Kurt:Copyright 2025 CyberGuy.com. All rights reserved.   Kurt "CyberGuy" Knutsson is an award-winning tech journalist who has a deep love of technology, gear and gadgets that make life better with his contributions for Fox News & FOX Business beginning mornings on "FOX & Friends." Got a tech question? Get Kurt’s free CyberGuy Newsletter, share your voice, a story idea or comment at CyberGuy.com.