Tag: united-states

Drug Firms Shipped 20.8 Million Pain Pills To West Virginia Town of 2,900

A congressional committee investigating the opioid crisis has discovered out-of-state drug companies shipped 20.8 million prescription painkillers over a decade to two pharmacies in a Southern West Virginia town with 2, 900 people. From a report: Between 2006 and 2016, two drug wholesalers shipped 10.2 million hydrocodone pills and 10.6 million oxycodone pills to Tug Valley Pharmacy and Hurley Drug in the town of Williamson, in Mingo County, the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported. “These numbers are outrageous, and we will get to the bottom of how this destruction was able to be unleashed across West Virginia, ” the House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore. and ranking member Frank Pallone Jr., D-N.J. said in a joint statement. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Drug Firms Shipped 20.8 Million Pain Pills To West Virginia Town of 2,900

Elon Musk’s Boring Company Delivers $600 Flamethrower

Last December, Boring Company CEO Elon Musk promised to sell a Boring Company-branded flamethrower after selling 50, 000 Boring Company hats. Well, sure enough, 50, 000 hats were sold and Musk is delivering on his promise. The Verge reports: Mark this down as one of the promises Elon delivers on, apparently, because it looks like the Boring Company flamethrower is here. Redditors in a few SpaceX, Boring Company, and Musk-related subreddits noticed earlier this week that the URL “boringcompany.com/flamethrower” started redirecting to a page with a password box. And at least one user was able to guess the original password, too: “flame.” (It’s since been changed.) Behind that password was a shop page that looks just like the one for The Boring Company’s hat. But instead of a $20 cap, they found a preorder prompt for a $600 flamethrower. “Prototype pictured above, ” the listing reads. “Final production flamethrower will be better.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Elon Musk’s Boring Company Delivers $600 Flamethrower

Washington Bill Makes It Illegal To Sell Gadgets Without Replaceable Batteries

Jason Koebler writes: A bill that would make it easier to fix your electronics is rapidly hurtling through the Washington state legislature. The bill’s ascent is fueled by Apple’s iPhone-throttling controversy, which has placed a renewed focus on the fact that our electronics have become increasingly difficult to repair. Starting in 2019, the bill would ban the sale of electronics that are designed “in such a way as to prevent reasonable diagnostic or repair functions by an independent repair provider. Preventing reasonable diagnostic or repair functions includes permanently affixing a battery in a manner that makes it difficult or impossible to remove.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Washington Bill Makes It Illegal To Sell Gadgets Without Replaceable Batteries

65% of Washington DC’s Outdoor Surveillance Cameras Infiltrated by Romanian Hackers

An anonymous reader quotes The Hill: Two Romanian hackers stand accused of hacking more than 100 outdoor police security cameras in the D.C. area during the days leading up to President Trump’s inauguration, according to a court document obtained by CNN. According to an affidavit from Secret Service agent James Graham, Mihai Alexandru Isvanca and Eveline Cismaru are accused of hacking and disabling 123 out of 187 of the city’s cameras between Jan. 12 and Jan. 15… Isvanca and Cismaru are also accused in the affidavit of spreading ransomware. In a possibly-related story, the Washington Post reports: Five Romanian hackers were arrested over the past week as part of an international investigation into computer ransomware, officials in the United States and Europe said Wednesday. In six houses across Romania, law enforcement operatives from Romania, Britain, the United States and the Netherlands seized hard drives, laptops, external storage devices and documents related to malicious software called CTB-Locker or Critroini. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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65% of Washington DC’s Outdoor Surveillance Cameras Infiltrated by Romanian Hackers

Number of Births in Japan To Hit Record Low in 2017

An anonymous reader shares a report: The number of births in Japan this year has fallen to is lowest since records began more than a century ago with about 941, 000 new babies, the health ministry said on Friday, proof if any were needed that it faces an ageing and shrinking population. The number of births will be about 4 percent lower than last year and the lowest since the government started compiling data in 1899, the ministry said. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Number of Births in Japan To Hit Record Low in 2017

Voyager 1 Fires Up Thrusters After 37 Years

If you tried to start a car that’s been sitting in a garage for decades, you might not expect the engine to respond. But a set of thrusters aboard the Voyager 1 spacecraft successfully fired up Wednesday after 37 years without use. NASA announces: Voyager 1, NASA’s farthest and fastest spacecraft, is the only human-made object in interstellar space, the environment between the stars. The spacecraft, which has been flying for 40 years, relies on small devices called thrusters to orient itself so it can communicate with Earth. These thrusters fire in tiny pulses, or “puffs, ” lasting mere milliseconds, to subtly rotate the spacecraft so that its antenna points at our planet. Now, the Voyager team is able to use a set of four backup thrusters, dormant since 1980. “With these thrusters that are still functional after 37 years without use, we will be able to extend the life of the Voyager 1 spacecraft by two to three years, ” said Suzanne Dodd, project manager for Voyager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Voyager 1 Fires Up Thrusters After 37 Years

Hole In The Ozone Layer Smallest In 29 Years

An anonymous reader quotes the Weather Channel: The hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica is the smallest it’s been since 1988, NASA said. According to a press release, the hole in the Earth’s ozone layer is 1.3 million square miles smaller than last year and 3.3 million square miles smaller than 2015… This year, the hole grew to 7.6 million square miles. NASA and NOAA scientists said warmer temperatures and a stormier upper atmosphere helped keep damaging chemicals chlorine and bromine from eating ozone from the layer that protects the Earth’s surface from harmful ultraviolet rays… The hole that hovers over Antarctica has been slowly recovering, scientists say, due to an international ban on harmful chemicals that were previously used in refrigerants and aerosols. The hole was its largest in 2000 and measured 11.5 million square miles. Although recovery is underway, the size of the hole remains large compared to the 1980s, when the hole was first detected, NASA noted. And while there has been significant healing of the ozone layer in recent years, some scientists say full healing is a slow process and will not occur until sometime in the 22nd century, Yale Environment 360 reports. Others expect the Antarctic ozone hole to recover back to 1980 levels around 2070, NASA said. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Hole In The Ozone Layer Smallest In 29 Years

China Shuts Down Tens Of Thousands Of Factories In Widespread Pollution Crackdown

Buildings in China are shrouded in smog. From a report: China has implemented an unprecedented pollution crackdown in recent months as the country shuts down tens of thousands of factories. The effort is part of a national effort to address China’s infamous pollution and has affected wide swaths of China’s manufacturing sector. In total, it is estimated that 40 percent of all China’s factories have been shut down at some point in order to be inspected by environmental bureau officials. As a result of these inspections over 80, 000 factories have been hit with fines and criminal offenses as a result of their emissions. Safety officials have been moving from province to province (30 in total so far) shutting down factories as well as electricity and gas as they inspect the factories for meeting emissions requirements. This has resulted in late and missed orders, increased costs, and could ultimately result in higher prices on US shelves. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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China Shuts Down Tens Of Thousands Of Factories In Widespread Pollution Crackdown

According To Star Trek: Discovery, Starfleet Still Runs Microsoft Windows

AmiMoJo shares a report from The Verge: The third episode of Star Trek: Discovery aired this week, and at one point in the episode, Sonequa Martin-Green’s Michael Burnham is tasked with reconciling two suites of code. In the show, Burnham claims the code is confusing because it deals with quantum astrophysics, biochemistry, and gene expression. And while the episode later reveals that it’s related to the USS Discovery’s experimental new mycelial network transportation system, Twitter user Rob Graham noted the code itself is a little more pedestrian in nature. More specifically, it seems to be decompiled code for the infamous Stuxnet virus, developed by the United States to attack Iranian computers running Windows. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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According To Star Trek: Discovery, Starfleet Still Runs Microsoft Windows

The Oldest Known Human Remains In the Americas Have Been Found In a Mexican Cave

schwit1 shares a report from Seeker: An ice-free corridor between the Americas and Asia opened up about 12, 500 years ago, allowing humans to cross over the Bering land bridge to settle what is now the United States and places beyond to the south. History books have conveyed that information for years to explain how the Americas were supposedly first settled by people, such as those from the Clovis culture. At least one part of the Americas was already occupied by humans before that time, however, says new research on the skeleton of a male youth found in Chan Hol cave near Tulum, Mexico. Dubbed the Young Man of Chan Hol, the remains date to 13, 000 years ago, according to a paper published in the journal PLOS ONE. How he arrived at the location remains a great mystery given the timing and the fact that Mexico is well over 4, 000 miles away from the Bering land crossing. For the new study, Gonzalez, Stinnesbeck, and their colleagues dated the Young Man of Chan Hol’s remains by analyzing the bones’ uranium, carbon, and oxygen isotopes, which were also found in stalagmite that had grown through the pelvic bone. The scientists believe that the resulting age of 13, 000 years could apply to at least two other skeletons found in caves around Tulum: a teenage female named Naia and a 25-30-year-old female named Eve of Naharon. Gonzalez said that the shape of the skulls suggests that Eve and the others “have more of an affinity with people from Southeast Asia.” He and his team further speculated that the individuals could have originated in Indonesia. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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The Oldest Known Human Remains In the Americas Have Been Found In a Mexican Cave