2025-11-15 18:00:00
schwit1 shares a report from the Business Times: General Motors (GM) has directed several thousand of its suppliers to scrub their supply chains of parts from China, four people familiar with the matter said, reflecting automakers' growing frustration over geopolitical disruptions to their operations. GM executives have been telling suppliers they should find alternatives to China for their raw materials and parts, with the goal of eventually moving their supply chains out of the country entirely, the people said. The automaker has set a 2027 deadline for some suppliers to dissolve their China sourcing ties, some of the sources said. GM approached some suppliers with the directive in late 2024, but the effort took on fresh urgency this past spring, during the early days of an escalating US-China trade battle, the sources said.
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2025-11-15 15:00:00
alternative_right shares a report from ScienceAlert: A thorough investigation published in May 2023 found that the inner core of the Moon is, in fact, a solid ball with a density similar to that of iron. To figure it out once and for all, [astronomer Arthur Briaud of the French National Centre for Scientific Research in France] and his colleagues collected data from space missions and lunar laser-ranging experiments to compile a profile of various lunar characteristics. These include the degree of its deformation by its gravitational interaction with Earth, the variation in its distance from Earth, and its density. ... they found that the lunar core is very similar to that of Earth â" with an outer fluid layer and a solid inner core. According to their modeling, the outer core has a radius of about 362 kilometers (225 miles), and the inner core has a radius of about 258 kilometers (160 miles). That's about 15 percent of the entire radius of the Moon. The inner core, the team found, also has a density of about 7,822 kilograms per cubic meter. That's very close to the density of iron. [...] The research has been published in Nature.
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2025-11-15 11:30:00
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Washington Post: Winning the lottery isn't what brought Carrie Edwards her 15 minutes of fame. It was giving it all away. Standing alone in her kitchen one day in September, the Virginia woman was thunderstruck to discover she had won $150,000 in a Powerball drawing. As she was absorbing her windfall, she said, "I just heard as loud as you can hear God or whoever you believe in the universe just say, this is -- it's not your money." Then came a decision: She would donate it all to her three most cherished charities (source paywalled; alternative source). [...] Her journey to the lucky prize started when she walked into a 7-Eleven with a friend who wanted to buy two Powerball tickets. The jackpot for the Sept. 6 drawing was topping $1.7 billion, the second-largest amount ever. Edwards, 68, hardly ever played the lottery, but her friend was an active player who gave her two pieces of advice: Always buy a paper ticket, rather than getting them online. And the Powerball multiplier is a scam, don't do it. She ignored him on both accounts. She created a Virginia Lottery account on her phone. Then, instead of the typical strategies of using family birthdays and lucky numbers, she went to ChatGPT -- which she had only recently started using for research -- and asked, "Do you have any winning numbers for me?" "Luck is luck," replied the chatbot. Then it gave numbers that she plugged in -- paying the extra dollar for the Power Play to multiply anything she might win. She initially thought luck wasn't on her side when she didn't win the massive jackpot. But what she didn't realize is that she'd picked the "draw two" option, meaning her numbers were reentered for the next drawing. When she got a notification on her phone that she had won, she said, she thought it was a scam, or maybe she'd won something small, like $10. Just to satisfy her curiosity, she logged into her account and saw that she had matched four of the five numbers plus the Powerball in that second drawing. It would have been a $50,000 payout, but the multiplier tripled her winnings.
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2025-11-15 09:30:00
YouTube TV and Disney have ended their two-week carriage standoff, restoring ESPN, ABC, and other Disney networks under a new multiyear deal. Variety reports: Under the new agreement, ESPN's full lineup of sports -- including content from ESPN Unlimited -- will be made available on YouTube TV to base-plan subscribers at no additional cost by the end of 2026. In addition, access to a selection of live and on-demand programming from ESPN Unlimited will be available inside YouTube TV. The deal also lets YouTube include the Disney+ and Hulu bundle as part of "select YouTube offerings." According to Disney, "select networks" will be included in various genre-specific packages that YouTube TV expects to launch in the future. [...] The deal supersedes their prior distribution agreement, inked in December 2021 after a two-day blackout.
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2025-11-15 08:50:00
Apple's limited-edition "iPhone Pocket" sold out almost instantly worldwide despite its $150-$230 price tag. Appleinsider reports: Longtime Apple users immediately saw the resemblance with the old iPod socks, and everyone saw the price. Apple and Japan's Issey Miyake fashion house partnered to create a limited edition iPhone Pocket, a stretched sock-like bag or shoulder strap. There was no denying that an iPhone in this Pocket looked snuggly. There was definitely no denying that the accessory was well designed. There's also no question that it was about as goofy as the iPod Sock from back the in the day. But there was every denying of the price. The iPhone Pocket came in a short version for $150, and a longer one for $230. For comparison, the Apple Watch SE starts at $250. As ever, though, if you liked it, if you had a use for it, and if you had the budget, there was no reason left not to buy. But if you have hesitated because of the cost, you are now out of luck. There are none left in the US.
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2025-11-15 08:10:00
"Within the past year, stories have been posted on Slashdot about people helping North Koreans get remote IT jobs at U.S. corporations, companies knowingly assisting them, how not to hire a North Korean for a remote IT job, and how a simple question tripped up a North Korean applying for a remote IT job," writes longtime Slashdot reader smooth wombat. "The FBI is even warning companies that North Koreans working remotely can steal source code and extort money from the company -- money that goes to fund the North Korean government. Now, five more people have plead guilty to knowingly helping North Koreans infiltrate U.S. companies as remote IT workers." TechCrunch reports: The five people are accused of working as "facilitators" who helped North Koreans get jobs by providing their own real identities, or false and stolen identities of more than a dozen U.S. nationals. The facilitators also hosted company-provided laptops in their homes across the U.S. to make it look like the North Korean workers lived locally, according to the DOJ press release. These actions affected 136 U.S. companies and netted Kim Jong Un's regime $2.2 million in revenue, said the DOJ. Three of the people -- U.S. nationals Audricus Phagnasay, Jason Salazar, and Alexander Paul Travis -- each pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud conspiracy. Prosecutors accused the three of helping North Koreans posing as legitimate IT workers, whom they knew worked outside of the United States, to use their own identities to obtain employment, helped them remotely access their company-issued laptops set up in their homes, and also helped the North Koreans pass vetting procedures, such as drug tests. The fourth U.S. national who pleaded guilty is Erick Ntekereze Prince, who ran a company called Taggcar, which supplied to U.S. companies allegedly "certified" IT workers but whom he knew worked outside of the country and were using stolen or fake identities. Prince also hosted laptops with remote access software at several residences in Florida, and earned more than $89,000 for his work, the DOJ said. Another participant in the scheme who pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud conspiracy and another count of aggravated identity theft is Ukrainian national Oleksandr Didenko, who prosecutors accuse of stealing U.S. citizens' identities and selling them to North Koreans so they could get jobs at more than 40 U.S. companies. According to the press release, Didenko earned hundreds of thousands of dollars for this service. Didenko agreed to forfeit $1.4 million as part of his guilty plea. The DOJ also announced that it had frozen and seized more than $15 million in cryptocurrency stolen in 2023 by North Korean hackers from several crypto platforms.
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