U.S. consumers "rank problems with public electric vehicle charging and the time it takes to recharge as their top two reasons for rejecting electric vehicles," writes the New York Times, citing figures from data analytics firm J.D. Power.

But are things getting better? Automakers and charging companies are building new stations and updating their cars to allow drivers to more easily and quickly recharge their vehicles. They're also outfitting charging stations with items such as food and bathrooms, and making the devices more reliable. Because chargers are only as fast as the cars they connect with, automakers are designing new cars to absorb electricity at higher speeds. In addition, many automakers have cut deals with Tesla to allow owners of other cars to use the company's fast-charging network, the largest in the country and widely considered the most reliable.

Early evidence suggests efforts to improve electric vehicle charging are paying off. In recent years, J.D. Power surveys showed about 20% of attempts to charge electric vehicles at all public stations ended in failure because of faulty chargers, long lines or payment glitches. But in the first three months of 2025, overall failure rates fell to 16%, the biggest improvement since the surveys began in 2021. "The industry is finally elevating as a whole," said Brent Gruber, an executive director at J.D. Power.

The number of chargers has also increased. There were about 55,200 fast chargers in the United States in May, up from 42,200 a year earlier, according to federal data.

In February, a former Phillips 66 gas station in Apex, N.C., near Raleigh, became the first "Rechargery" from Ionna, a company created by eight automakers, including General Motors, Hyundai Motors, BMW and Mercedes-Benz. Their chargers can deliver up to 400 kilowatts of juice, much more than Tesla's 250-kilowatt Superchargers. Some cars can replenish a battery in 30 minutes or less at the higher charging speeds. When connected to chargers of 350 kilowatts or more, including those at Ionna and Electrify America, another fast-charging network, a Hyundai Ioniq 5 can fill its electric "tank" from 10% to 80% in 18 minutes...

Some models from BMW, Hyundai and Kia have also enabled a national "Plug and Charge" standard that lets car owners begin charging their vehicles at Ionna stalls without first having to use a smartphone app or swipe a credit card, eliminating a step that sometimes results in errors. Tesla's chargers have long worked this way for Tesla cars and now work with some other vehicles, including Rivian's SUVs and pickups. More cars and charging stations are expected to have plug-and-charge capability in the coming months... Nearly every major automaker is redesigning their cars with plug outlets and software that are compatible with Tesla chargers.
Infrastructure upgrades are happening elsewhere too, according to the article.Texas-based gas chain Buc-ee's is offering "premium" charging using renewable power (working with Mercedes), while Waffle House plans to install BP Pulse fast chargers next year.

J.D. Power's Gruber says that while America's federal charger program only helped construct a tiny fraction of new chargers, it did also published guidelines which helped automakers and charging companies work together and address technical problems.

With no one behind the steering wheel, a Tesla robotaxi passes Guero's Taco Bar in Austin Texas, making a right turn onto Congress Avenue.

Today is the day Austin became the first city in the world to see Tesla's self-driving robotaxi service, reports The Guardian: Some analysts believe that the robotaxis will only be available to employees and invitees initially. For the CEO, Tesla's rollout is slow. "We could start with 1,000 or 10,000 [robotaxis] on day one, but I don't think that would be prudent," he told CNBC in May. "So, we will start with probably 10 for a week, then increase it to 20, 30, 40."

The billionaire has said the driverless cars will be monitored remotely... [Posting on X.com] Musk said the date was "tentatively" 22 June but that this launch date would be "not real self-driving", which would have to wait nearly another week... Musk said he planned to have one thousand Tesla robotaxis on Austin roads "within a few months" and then he would expand to other cities in Texas and California.
Musk posted on X that riders on launch day would be charged a flat fee of $4.20, according to Reuters. And "In recent days, Tesla has sent invites to a select group of Tesla online influencers for a small and carefully monitored robotaxi trial..." As the date of the planned robotaxi launch approached, Texas lawmakers moved to enact rules on autonomous vehicles in the state. Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, on Friday signed legislation requiring a state permit to operate self-driving vehicles. The law does not take effect until September 1, but the governor's approval of it on Friday signals state officials from both parties want the driverless-vehicle industry to proceed cautiously... The law softens the state's previous anti-regulation stance on autonomous vehicles. A 2017 Texas law specifically prohibited cities from regulating self-driving cars...

The law requires autonomous-vehicle operators to get approval from the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles before operating on public streets without a human driver. It also gives state authorities the power to revoke permits if they deem a driverless vehicle "endangers the public," and requires firms to provide information on how police and first responders can deal with their driverless vehicles in emergency situations. The law's requirements for getting a state permit to operate an "automated motor vehicle" are not particularly onerous but require a firm to attest it can safely operate within the law... Compliance remains far easier than in some states, most notably California, which requires extensive submission of vehicle-testing data under state oversight.
Tesla "planned to operate only in areas it considered the safest," according to the article, and "plans to avoid bad weather, difficult intersections, and will not carry anyone below the age of 18."

More details from UPI: To get started using the robotaxis, users must download the Robotaxi app and use their Tesla account to log in, where it then functions like most ridesharing apps...

"Riders may not always be delivered to their intended destinations or may experience inconveniences, interruptions, or discomfort related to the Robotaxi," the company wrote in a disclaimer in its terms of service. "Tesla may modify or cancel rides in its discretion, including for example due to weather conditions." The terms of service include a clause that Tesla will not be liable for "any indirect, consequential, incidental, special, exemplary, or punitive damages, including lost profits or revenues, lost data, lost time, the costs of procuring substitute transportation services, or other intangible losses" from the use of the robotaxis.
Their article includes a link to the robotaxi's complete Terms of Service: To the fullest extent permitted by law, the Robotaxi, Robotaxi app, and any ride are provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, either express or implied... The Robotaxi is not intended to provide transportation services in connection with emergencies, for example emergency transportation to a hospital... Tesla's total liability for any claim arising from or relating to Robotaxi or the Robotaxi app is limited to the greater of the amount paid by you to Tesla for the Robotaxi ride giving rise to the claim, and $100... Tesla may modify these Terms in our discretion, effective upon posting an updated version on Tesla's website. By using a Robotaxi or the Robotaxi app after Tesla posts such modifications, you agree to be bound by the revised Terms.

As recently as 2021, GM "all but eliminated" hybrids from its future product plans, reports the New York Times. "But then a funny thing happened." Car shoppers balked at the high prices of fully electric models and the challenges of charging them. In the last few years, sales of electric vehicles have grown at a much slower rate than automakers once expected. And hybrids have stepped in to fill the gap, accounting for a large and growing share of new car sales... In the first three months of this year, hybrids — including cars that can and cannot be plugged in — made up about 14 percent of all light vehicles sold in the United States, according to the Department of Energy. That was around twice the market share of fully electric vehicles in that period...

Several automakers are slowing the introduction of new electric vehicles, and have accelerated development of new hybrids.
Robb Report looks at the current status of hybrids — and a possible future: "The charging infrastructure in most countries is not yet mature enough to support convenient mass adoption of battery-electric vehicles, and in some territories never will be," says Jonathan Hall, head of research and advanced engineering at U.K.-based consulting group Mahle Powertrain....

Porsche, active in this space since 2010, just hybridized its iconic 911 for this model year. Lamborghini also joined the trend with the debut of its 1,000 hp Revuelto hybrid in 2023. "The company doesn't plan to give up the internal-combustion engine anytime soon," says CTO Rouven Mohr. "We are also considering synthetic fuels to keep ICE vehicles running after 2030."

Hall concurs: "With the emergence of bio-based and even fully synthetic fuels, the link between the ICE and climate change can be broken." Combined with the development of better batteries, this progressive hybrid model could offer the best of both worlds for years to come.

The education-news site EdSurge published "sponsored content" from Minecraft Education this month. "Students light up when they create something meaningful," the article begins. "Self-expression fuels learning, and creativity lies at the heart of the human experience."

But they also argue that "As AI rapidly reshapes software development, computer science education must move beyond syntax drills and algorithmic repetition." Students "must also learn to think systemically..." As AI automates many of the mechanical aspects of programming, the value of CS education is shifting, from writing perfect code to shaping systems, telling stories through logic and designing ethical, human-centered solutions... [I]t's critical to offer computer science experiences that foster invention, expression and design. This isn't just an education issue — it's a workforce one. Creativity now ranks among the top skills employers seek, alongside analytical thinking and AI literacy. As automation reshapes the job market, McKinsey estimates up to 375 million workers may need to change occupations by 2030. The takeaway? We need more adaptable, creative thinkers.

Creative coding, where programming becomes a medium for self-expression and innovation, offers a promising solution to this disconnect. By positioning code as a creative tool, educators can tap into students' intrinsic motivation while simultaneously building computational thinking skills. This approach helps students see themselves as creators, not just consumers, of technology. It aligns with digital literacy frameworks that emphasize critical evaluation, meaningful contribution and not just technical skills.

One example of creative coding comes from a curriculum that introduces computer science through game design and storytelling in Minecraft... Developed by Urban Arts in collaboration with Minecraft Education, the program offers middle school teachers professional development, ongoing coaching and a 72-session curriculum built around game-based instruction. Designed for grades 6-8, the project-based program is beginner-friendly; no prior programming experience is required for teachers or students. It blends storytelling, collaborative design and foundational programming skills with a focus on creativity and equity.... Students use Minecraft to build interactive narratives and simulations, developing computational thinking and creative design... Early results are promising: 93 percent of surveyed teachers found the Creative Coders program engaging and effective, noting gains in problem-solving, storytelling and coding, as well as growth in critical thinking, creativity and resilience.

As AI tools like GitHub Copilot become standard in development workflows, the definition of programming proficiency is evolving. Skills like prompt engineering, systems thinking and ethical oversight are rising in importance, precisely what creative coding develops... As AI continues to automate routine tasks, students must be able to guide systems, understand logic and collaborate with intelligent tools. Creative coding introduces these capabilities in ways that are accessible, culturally relevant and engaging for today's learners.
Some background from long-time Slashdot reader theodp: The Urban Arts and Microsoft Creative Coders program touted by EdSurge in its advertorial was funded by a $4 million Education Innovation and Research grant that was awarded to Urban Arts in 2023 by the U.S. Education Department "to create an engaging, game-based, middle school CS course using Minecraft tools" for 3,450 middle schoolers (6th-8th grades)" in New York and California (Urban Arts credited Minecraft for helping craft the winning proposal)... New York City is a Minecraft Education believer — the Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment recently kicked off summer with the inaugural NYC Video Game Festival, which included the annual citywide Minecraft Education Battle of the Boroughs Esports Competition in partnership with NYC Public Schools.

BlueSky has grown from roughly 10 million users in early November to 36.79 million today — and its last 30 days of traffic looks very level.

But instead of calling BlueSky's traffic "level", right-leaning libertarian Megan McArdle argues instead that BlueSky's "decline shows no sign of leveling out" (comparing the stable figures from the last month to a one-time spike seven months ago so they can write "It's now down about 50 percent"). And Wednesday the conservative UK magazine Spectator also ignored the 30-day-leveling to write instead that BlueSky is somehow "sliding down a slope".

But TechCrunch thinks the "up or down" conversation is entirely missing the point of "the wider network of apps built on the open protocol that Bluesky's team spearheaded" — and how BlueSky "is only meant to be one example of what's possible within the wider AT Proto ecosystem." If you don't like the tone of the topics trending on Bluesky, you can switch to other apps, change your default feeds, or even build your own social platform using the technology. Already, people are using the protocol that powers Bluesky to build social experiences for specific groups — like Blacksky is doing for the Black online community or like Gander Social is doing for social media users in Canada. There are also feed builders like Graze and those in Surf that let you create custom feeds where you can focus on specific content you care about — like video games or baseball — and exclude others, like politics. Built into Bluesky (and other third-party clients) are tools that let you pick your default feed and add others that interest you from a range of topics. If you want to follow a feed devoted to your favorite TV show or animal, for instance, you can. In other words, Bluesky is meant to be what you make it, and its content can be consumed in whatever format you prefer best.

In addition to Bluesky itself, the wider network of apps built on the AT Protocol includes photo- and video-sharing apps, livestreaming tools, communication apps, blogging apps, music apps, movie and TV recommendation apps, and more. Other tools also let you combine feeds from Bluesky with other social networks. Openvibe, for instance, can mix together feeds from social networks like Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, and Nostr. Apps like Surf and Tapestry offer ways to track posts on open social platforms as well as those published with other open protocols like RSS. This lets the apps pull in content from blogs, news sites, YouTube, and podcasts.
Even just considering BlueSky itself, three weeks ago Fast Company pointed out that BlueSky "grew from 11 million users to 25 million between late October and mid-December, but has added only about 10 million more since then." So how is a 10-million user increase "dying"? For a social network, being prematurely written off is a rite of passage. It's even a compliment of sorts — a sign that people are paying attention and care... When I chatted with Bluesky CEO Jay Graber this week, I wasn't surprised that she didn't seem fazed by the debate on her platform and saw the parallels with early-days Twitter. "Reports of our death are greatly exaggerated," she told me. "It's a similar thing, because with social sites, it's not straight up all the time. [Growth] comes in waves, and at each stage, there's a new era of communities being established and formed. We're still seeing a lot of community formation, and one of the most exciting things is how structurally different this is. It's not just another social site that has to be a singular winner-take-all in an ecosystem with existing incumbents...."

One other challenge that Bluesky has not yet fully confronted is monetizing itself. Onstage at Web Summit, Graber emphasized that it's working on subscription services, a healthier revenue source than stuffing feeds with ads, though potentially a tougher one to scale up to sustainability. The company announced a $15 million Series A funding round last October.
But again, the point isn't BlueSky's increasing user count or its stablizing levels of Daily Unique "Likers" — but its underlying open source protocol: [S]he was at her most passionate when discussing the company's aspiration to decentralize social networking via its open AT Protocol. It powers Bluesky — and variants such as the Pinksky photo-sharing app, which she praised onstage — but could also provide the infrastructure for further-flung social experiences. Maybe even ones catering to folks who have zero interest in participating in the Bluesky community. "The goal is to really get through that this is a Choose Your Own Adventure and Bluesky's just the beginning," she says. "The sky's the limit." Whether she'll fulfill her grandest ambitions, I'm not sure. But I already like this era of social networking better than the one when a handful of winners really did take all.

"The carbon cost of asking an artificial intelligence model a single text question can be measured in grams of CO2..." writes the Washington Post. And while an individual's impact may be low, what about the collective impact of all users?

"A Google search takes about 10 times less energy than a ChatGPT query, according to a 2024 analysis from Goldman Sachs — although that may change as Google makes AI responses a bigger part of search." For now, a determined user can avoid prompting Google's default AI-generated summaries by switching over to the "web" search tab, which is one of the options alongside images and news. Adding "-ai" to the end of a search query also seems to work. Other search engines, including DuckDuckGo, give you the option to turn off AI summaries....

Using AI doesn't just mean going to a chatbot and typing in a question. You're also using AI every time an algorithm organizes your social media feed, recommends a song or filters your spam email... [T]here's not much you can do about it other than using the internet less. It's up to the companies that are integrating AI into every aspect of our digital lives to find ways to do it with less energy and damage to the planet.
More points from the article:

• Two researchers tested the performance of 14 AI language models, and found larger models gave more accurate answers, "but used several times more energy than smaller models."

• The data centers hosting AI models "can devour more electricity than entire cities."

• "Keeping those computers cool uses freshwater — about one bottle's worth for every 100 words of text ChatGPT generates."

An anonymous reader shared this report from the Washington Post: Over the past three years, companies have invested tens of billions of dollars toward making electric vehicles in the United States, buoyed by tax incentives aimed at helping American businesses compete with China. Now, those companies are facing a strange problem: too much manufacturing capacity, not enough demand.

As sales of electric vehicles slow and congressional Republicans take aim at EV tax credits and incentives, the United States is slated to have more battery and EV manufacturing than it needs, according to a report released Wednesday by the Rhodium Group, a research firm. That could leave factories — many of which are already operating or under construction — stranded if car sales continue to slump. "The rug is being pulled out from under these manufacturers," said Hannah Pitt, a director in Rhodium's energy and climate practice...

After [America's 2022 climate bill], battery investment in the U.S. skyrocketed. Companies went from investing about $1 billion per quarter in 2022 to $11 billion per quarter in 2024. Most of that battery investment went to red states, including in the South's "Battery Belt," where manufacturers were drawn to inexpensive land and a nonunionized workforce. Now, however, that battery boom is teetering. In the first three months of 2025, companies canceled $6 billion in battery manufacturing — a record. EV sales have slowed...

According to the new report, the United States has almost enough battery capacity announced or under development to meet demand all the way to 2030 if EV sales continue to slump. That might sound like a good thing — but if EV sales drop further, it means companies will be left with factories they won't be able to use. At the same time, China has excess battery capacity. The country has enough manufacturing to meet the entire world's demand for batteries — and may be looking to off-load them onto other markets... And if the incentives for using U.S.-made batteries disappear, the nation's manufacturers would be left high and dry.

YouTube is quietly hosting Pac-Man Superfast within its "Playables" section. "You'd be forgiven for not knowing about YouTube Playables," writes Ars Technica's Kyle Orland. "Few seemed to note its official announcement last year as a collection of free-to-play web games built for the web using standard rendering APIs."

"The seeming competitor to Netflix's mobile gaming offerings is still described in an official FAQ as 'an experimental feature rolled out to select users in eligible countries/regions,' which doesn't make this post-Stadia gaming effort seem like a huge priority for Google." From the report: Weird origins aside, Pac-Man Superfast pretty much delivers what its name promises. While gameplay starts at an "Easy" speed that roughly matches the arcade original, the speed of both Pac-Man and the ghosts is slightly increased every few seconds (dying temporarily reduces the speed to a lower level). After a few minutes, you're advancing past the titular "Super Fast" speed to extreme reflex-testing speeds like Crazy, Insane, Maniac, and a final test that's ominously named "Doom."

Those who've played the excellent Pac-Man Championship Edition series will be familiar with the high-speed vibe here, but Pac-Man Superfast remains focused on the game's original maze and selection of just four ghosts. That means old-school strategies for grouping ghosts together and running successful patterns through the narrow corridors work in similar ways here. Successfully executing those patterns becomes a tense battle of nerves here, though, requiring multiple direction changes every second at the highest speeds. While the game will technically work with swipe controls on a smartphone or tablet, high-level play really requires the precision of a keyboard via a desktop/laptop web browser (we couldn't get the game to recognize a USB controller, unfortunately).

As exciting as the high-speed maze gameplay gets, though, Pac-Man Superfast is hampered by a few odd design decisions. The game ends abruptly after just 13 levels, for instance, making it impossible to even attempt the high-endurance 256-level runs that Pac-Man is known for. The game also throws an extra life at you every 5,000 points, making it relatively easy to brute force your way to the end as long as you focus on the three increasingly high-point-value items that appear periodically on each stage. Despite this, the game doesn't give any point reward for unused extra lives or long-term survival at high speeds, limiting the rewards for high-level play. And the lack of a built-in leaderboard makes it hard to directly compare your performance to friends and/or strangers anyway.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: SoftBank Group founder Masayoshi Son is envisaging setting up a $1 trillion industrial complex in Arizona that will build robots and artificial intelligence, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. Son is seeking to team up with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co for the project, which is aimed at bringing back high-end tech manufacturing to the U.S. and to create a version of China's vast manufacturing hub of Shenzhen, the report said.

SoftBank officials have spoken with U.S. federal and state government officials to discuss possible tax breaks for companies building factories or otherwise investing in the industrial park, including talks with U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, the report said. SoftBank is keen to have TSMC involved in the project, codenamed Project Crystal Land, but it is not clear in what capacity, the report said. It is also not clear the Taiwanese company would be interested, it said. TSMC is already building chipmaking factories in the U.S. with a planned investment of $165 billion. Son is also sounding out interest among tech companies including Samsung Electronics, the report said.

The plans are preliminary and feasibility depends on support from the Trump administration and state officials, it said. A commitment of $1 trillion would be double that of the $500 billion "Stargate" project which seeks to build out data centre capacity across the U.S., with funding from SoftBank, OpenAI and Oracle.

The superyacht Bayesian, owned by UK tech tycoon Mike Lynch, has been recovered off the coast of Sicily nearly a year after it sank during a storm, killing Lynch, his daughter, and five others. Italian authorities hope the $30 million salvage will uncover the cause of the sinking, which is under investigation for suspected manslaughter amid concerns about design flaws and storm vulnerability. The Guardian reports: The white top and blue hull of the 56-meter (184ft) vessel emerged from the depths of the sea in a holding area of a yellow floating crane barge, as salvage crews readied it to be hauled ashore for further investigation. The Italian coastguard said the recovery was scheduled to begin on Saturday morning. A spokesperson for TMC Maritime, which is conducting the recovery operation, said the vessel had been slowly raised from the seabed, 50 meters (165ft) down, over the past three days to allow the steel lifting straps, slings and harnesses to be secured under the keel.

The operation -- which has cost approximately $30 million -- was made easier after the vessel's 72-meter mast was detached using a remote-controlled cutting tool and placed on the seabed on Tuesday. The vessel will be transported to the port of Termini Imerese, where investigators are expected to examine it as part of an inquiry into the cause of the sinking. [...] The salvage operation was very complex, and was temporarily suspended in mid-May after Rob Cornelis Maria Huijben, a 39-year-old Dutch diver, died during underwater work. The British-based consultancy TMC Marine, which oversaw a consortium of salvage specialists undertaking the project, said the hull would be lifted on to a specially manufactured steel cradle on the quayside once it had been transported to Termini Imerese. Investigators hope the yacht will yield vital clues to the causes of the sinking. A forensic examination of the hull will seek to determine whether one of the hatches remained open and whether the keel was improperly raised.

Ancient Slashdot reader Alain Williams shares a report from The Guardian: The BBC is threatening legal action against Perplexity AI, in the corporation's first move to protect its content from being scraped without permission to build artificial intelligence technology. The corporation has sent a letter to Aravind Srinivas, the chief executive of the San Francisco-based startup, saying it has gathered evidence that Perplexity's model was "trained using BBC content." The letter, first reported by the Financial Times, threatens an injunction against Perplexity unless it stops scraping all BBC content to train its AI models, and deletes any copies of the broadcaster's material it holds unless it provides "a proposal for financial compensation."

The legal threat comes weeks after Tim Davie, the director general of the BBC, and the boss of Sky both criticised proposals being considered by the government that could let tech companies use copyright-protected work without permission. "If we currently drift in the way we are doing now we will be in crisis," Davie said, speaking at the Enders conference. "We need to make quick decisions now around areas like ... protection of IP. We need to protect our national intellectual property, that is where the value is. What do I need? IP protection; come on, let's get on with it." "Perplexity's tool [which allows users to choose between different AI models] directly competes with the BBC's own services, circumventing the need for users to access those services," the corporation said.

Perplexity told the FT that the BBC's claims were "manipulative and opportunistic" and that it had a "fundamental misunderstanding of technology, the internet and intellectual property law."

Manhattan's congestion pricing program has reduced traffic by 10% and cut car-noise complaints by 70% in its first six months of operation, according to city data. The $9 daily toll for vehicles entering Manhattan below 60th Street began January 5, generating approximately $50 million monthly for subway and public transit improvements.

Buses now travel fast enough that drivers must stop and wait to maintain schedules, while subway ridership has increased sharply since the program launched. Broadway theater attendance has risen rather than declined as some critics predicted. Polling shows more New Yorkers now support the toll than oppose it, a reversal from widespread opposition before implementation.

The policy took nearly 50 years to enact despite originating from Columbia University economist William Vickrey's work in the 1960s. Congress blocked a similar proposal in the 1970s, and the current program faced a six-year implementation delay after Governor Andrew Cuomo signed it into law in 2019. Governor Kathy Hochul postponed the launch in 2024 before allowing it to proceed after Donald Trump's presidential election victory.

An anonymous reader shares a report: At tens of thousands of shoreline cleanups across the United States in recent years, volunteers logged each piece of litter they pulled from the edges of lakes, rivers and beaches into a global database. One of the most common entries? Plastic bags. But in places throughout the United States where plastic bags require a fee or have been banned, fewer bags end up at the water's edge, according to research published this week in Science.

Lightweight and abundant, thin plastic bags often slip out of trash cans and recycling bins, travel in the wind and end up in bodies of water, where they pose serious risks to wildlife, which can become entangled or ingest them. They also break down into harmful microplastics, which have been found nearly everywhere on Earth. Using data complied by the nonprofit Ocean Conservancy, researchers analyzed results from 45,067 shoreline cleanups between 2016 to 2023, along with a sample of 182 local and state policies enacted to regulate plastic shopping bags between 2017 and 2023. They found areas that adopted plastic bag policies saw a 25 to 47 percent reduction in the share of plastic bag litter on shorelines, when compared with areas without policies. The longer a policy was in place, the greater the reduction.

The Department of Homeland Security is concerned about the rate at which outlawed signal-jamming devices are being found across the US. From a report: In a warning issued on Wednesday, it said it has seen an 830 percent increase in seizures of these signal jammers since 2021, specifically those made in China. Signal-jamming devices are outlawed in the US, mainly because they can interfere with communications between emergency services and law enforcement.

While the Communications Act of 1934 effectively prohibits such devices, signal jammers of the type DHS is concerned about have only circulated in the last 20 to 30 years. Authorities have paid special attention to relay attack devices in recent years -- the types of hardware that can be used to clone signals used by systems such as remote car keys, although the first examples of these devices date back to the 1980s.

New York City on Friday announced new minimum-pay rules for rideshare drivers, settling on a smaller-than-proposed 5% increase following pushback from Uber Technologies and Lyft. From a report: An earlier proposal called for a 6.1% pay boost. The finalized regulations from the city's Taxi and Limousine Commission, or TLC, are also designed to deter Uber and Lyft from locking gig workers out of their apps in an attempt to keep costs down. The board of commissioners will vote on the rules on June 25, according to the agency's website.

Uber and Lyft had strongly opposed the original rate, warning customers that it would force them to increase prices. Lyft's shares extended declines after Bloomberg reported on the rules, falling as much as 3.3% to hit session lows. Uber's stock, which had been up as much as 2.3% earlier Friday, pared most of its gains on the news.

Semicolon usage in British literature has declined from once every 205 words in 2000 to once every 390 words today, representing a nearly 50% drop, according to analysis commissioned by language learning company Babbel. The punctuation mark appeared once every 90 words in British literature from 1781, making the current frequency the lowest on record.

A survey of young learners in the London Student Network found that more than half of respondents could not correctly use semicolons, with only 11% describing themselves as frequent users. The average score on a semicolon knowledge quiz was 49%.

Lawmakers in Britain have narrowly approved a bill to legalize assisted dying for terminally ill people, capping a fraught debate in Parliament and across the country that cut across political, religious and legal divides. From a report: MPs passed the bill by 314 votes to 291, in their final say on the question. The bill -- which has split lawmakers and sparked impassioned conversations with their constituents the breadth of Britain -- will now move to the House of Lords for its final rounds of scrutiny.

Friday's vote puts Britain firmly on track to join a small club of nations that have legalized the process, and one of the largest by population to allow it. It allows people with a terminal condition and less than six months to live to take a substance to end their lives, as long as they are capable of making the decision themselves. Two doctors and a panel would need to sign off on the choice. Canada, New Zealand, Spain and most of Australia allow assisted dying in some form, as do several US states, including Oregon, Washington and California.

Turning recently closed coalmines into solar energy plants could add almost 300GW of renewable energy by 2030, converting derelict wastelands to productive use, according to a new report. From a report: In a first of its kind analysis, researchers from Global Energy Monitor (GEM) identified 312 surface coalmines closed since 2020 around the world, and 134 likely to close by the end of the decade, together covering 5,820 sq km (2,250 sq miles) -- a land area nearly the size of Palestine.

Strip mining turns terrains into wastelands, polluted and denuded of topsoil. But if they were filled with solar panels and developed into energy plants, the report claims, they could generate enough energy to power as big and power hungry a nation as Germany.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: The Earth could be doomed to breach the symbolic 1.5C warming limit in as little as three years at current levels of carbon dioxide emissions. That's the stark warning from more than 60 of the world's leading climate scientists in the most up-to-date assessment of the state of global warming. [...] At the beginning of 2020, scientists estimated that humanity could only emit 500 billion more tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) -- the most important planet-warming gas -- for a 50% chance of keeping warming to 1.5C. But by the start of 2025 this so-called "carbon budget" had shrunk to 130 billion tonnes, according to the new study.

That reduction is largely due to continued record emissions of CO2 and other planet-warming greenhouse gases like methane, but also improvements in the scientific estimates. If global CO2 emissions stay at their current highs of about 40 billion tonnes a year, 130 billion tonnes gives the world roughly three years until that carbon budget is exhausted. This could commit the world to breaching the target set by the Paris agreement, the researchers say, though the planet would probably not pass 1.5C of human-caused warming until a few years later.

Last year was the first on record when global average air temperatures were more than 1.5C above those of the late 1800s. A single 12-month period isn't considered a breach of the Paris agreement, however, with the record heat of 2024 given an extra boost by natural weather patterns. But human-caused warming was by far the main reason for last year's high temperatures, reaching 1.36C above pre-industrial levels, the researchers estimate. This current rate of warming is about 0.27C per decade -- much faster than anything in the geological record. And if emissions stay high, the planet is on track to reach 1.5C of warming on that metric around the year 2030. After this point, long-term warming could, in theory, be brought back down by sucking large quantities of CO2 back out of the atmosphere. But the authors urge caution on relying on these ambitious technologies serving as a get-out-of-jail card. "For larger exceedance [of 1.5C], it becomes less likely that removals [of CO2] will perfectly reverse the warming caused by today's emissions," warned Joeri Rogelj, professor of climate science and policy at Imperial College London.

"Reductions in emissions over the next decade can critically change the rate of warming," he added. "Every fraction of warming that we can avoid will result in less harm and less suffering of particularly poor and vulnerable populations and less challenges for our societies to live the lives that we desire."

Google is using its expansive library of YouTube videos to train its AI models, including Gemini and the Veo 3 video and audio generator, CNBC reported Thursday. From the report: The tech company is turning to its catalog of 20 billion YouTube videos to train these new-age AI tools, according to a person who was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter. Google confirmed to CNBC that it relies on its vault of YouTube videos to train its AI models, but the company said it only uses a subset of its videos for the training and that it honors specific agreements with creators and media companies.

[...] YouTube didn't say how many of the 20 billion videos on its platform or which ones are used for AI training. But given the platform's scale, training on just 1% of the catalog would amount to 2.3 billion minutes of content, which experts say is more than 40 times the training data used by competing AI models.