Not The Onion

> At one point in the wide-ranging, nearly two-hour conversation, Lutnick also said that if Social Security “didn’t send out their checks this month,” his “mother-in-law, who’s 94, she wouldn’t call and complain.” > > “She’d think something got messed up, and she’ll get it next month. A fraudster always makes the loudest noise, screaming, yelling and complaining,” the billionaire businessman said. > > “Anybody who’s been in the payment system and the processes, who knows the easiest way to find the fraudster is to stop payments and listen, because whoever screams is the one stealing,” he said. “Because my mother-in-law’s not calling, come on, your mother, 80-year-olds, 90-year-olds, they trust the government.”

> > > The accusation comes out of an investigation into the Presidential Security Services prevented prosecutors from arresting the President of South Korea. > >

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/34840943

> The FBI’s New York field office normally handles counterintelligence, counterterrorism, public corruption, international drug trafficking, and financial crime investigations. Right now, though, it has been ordered to prioritize redacting sensitive information in the Jeffrey Epstein files. > > Vanity Fair reports, citing multiple sources, that nearly a thousand agents, who normally work on national security issues in the bureau’s largest field office, are working night and day combing the documents instead of on their regular jobs. > > “It’s literally all hands on deck,” one unnamed source told the magazine. “I even saw an agent walking in with a pillow.” One former agent called the situation “ludicrous.”

> In the piece — titled "Can You Fool a Self Driving Car?" — Rober found that a Tesla car on Autopilot was fooled by a Wile E. Coyote-style wall painted to look like the road ahead of it, with the electric vehicle plowing right through it instead of stopping.

> The footage was damning enough, with slow-motion clips showing the car not only crashing through the styrofoam wall but also a mannequin of a child. The Tesla was also fooled by simulated rain and fog.

A controversial proposal from U.S Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to let bird flu naturally spread through poultry farms is raising alarms among scientists -- who say the move could be inhumane and dangerous.

Egg interceptions up 116% so far this year, while seizures of fentanyl down 32%

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27111902

> Robert Ehrlich was “falsely asserting his authority as mayor, demanding access to office space, and declaring that the entire Village staff was fired," said officials in Sea Cliff, New York. > > The founder of Pirate’s Booty Snacks lost his chaotic bid for mayor of a tiny New York community after he claimed he was the village leader and had the authority to replace the entire local government, officials said Thursday. > > Elena Villafane, the incumbent mayor of Sea Cliff, defeated Pirate’s Booty Snacks founder Robert Ehrlich, 1,064-62, on Tuesday in the village, which is about 26 miles northwest of midtown Manhattan. > > Villafane had been running unopposed for her third two-year term when Ehrlich jumped into the fray a week ago Monday. > > That's when Ehrlich went to Village Hall and "presented a statement falsely asserting his authority as mayor, demanding access to office space, and declaring that the entire Village staff was fired effective immediately but could reapply for their jobs," the village said in a statement. > > "While Village staff remained calm and professional throughout the incident, Ehrlich and his associates raised their voices, used profane language, made outlandish claims, and engaged in direct harassment of Village personnel," the statement said. "Despite multiple requests to leave, they refused, creating a hostile and disruptive environment that required police intervention." > > The brazen assertions stunned village officials who said they'd never seen or heard from Ehrlich before in any civic context.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27020868

> Summary > > Minnesota Republican state Sen. Justin Eichorn, who introduced a bill classifying "Trump Derangement Syndrome" as a mental illness, was arrested for allegedly soliciting sex from a minor. > > Police say Eichorn believed he was meeting a 16-year-old girl but was actually texting undercover officers. His arrest came just a day after he and four other Republican senators introduced the controversial bill. > > Eichorn, who is married with four children, was booked into jail and will be transferred to the Hennepin County Adult Detention Center.

Link to the proposed bill: https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bills/text.php?number=SF2589&version=0&session=ls94&session_year=2025&session_number=0

Mark Rober just set up one of the most interesting self-driving tests of 2025, and he did it by imitating Looney Tunes. The former NASA engineer and current YouTube mad scientist recreated the classic gag where Wile E. Coyote paints a tunnel onto a wall to fool the Road Runner.

Only this time, the test subject wasn’t a cartoon bird… it was a self-driving Tesla Model Y.

The result? A full-speed, 40 MPH impact straight into the wall. Watch the video and tell us what you think!

> Xun started vaping last year, she said, as a way to begin the process of quitting cigarettes. She also has a "bunch of friends who vape," many of whom "are very attached to their vapes." But she's not naive about vaping's well-documented risks, and began to wonder if "gamifying" her nicotine use might help her disincentivize it. In the first iteration of the project, hitting the vape would actually murder the digital pet, and thus would ideally work to guilt-trip the user into not inhaling.

> "There's a big trend of parental locking yourself," Camacho added. "I'm locked out of certain apps behind a password that Rebecca knows, so I don't scroll Instagram too much. It would be cool if you could have that for nicotine."

> But then, explained Xun, Camacho "found this Stupid Hackathon. And we were like, it'd be kind of funnier to be evil."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/26858906

> Summary > > A leaked TSA email suggests funding for bomb-sniffing dogs has been halted under Elon Musk. > > The email states that vet visits, kenneling, and food are "put on hold" until further guidance. > > TSA deploys over 1,000 canine teams, with training costing $33,000 per dog. > > The funding freeze contradicts Trump’s "tough on crime" stance and coincided with the White House celebrating "K9 Veterans Day."

• A former animal shelter worker in the state of Victoria has confessed to trying to sell human toes recovered from dog vomit.

lol. > How does a robot perform as a boss at work? The results of research by Polish scientists published in Cognition, Technology & Work suggest that while robots can command obedience, it is not as strong as in the case of humans. The level of obedience towards them is generally lower than towards human authority figures, and work efficiency under the supervision of a robot is lower. For employers and HR departments, this means the need to take the psychological aspects of implementing robots in the work environment into account - their perception as an authority figure, trust in them, and potential resistance to following orders, says Konrad Maj, PhD, from SWPS University, a psychologist and head of the HumanTech Center for Social and Technological Innovation.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/19534351

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/26858904

> cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/39969354 > > > The Forbidding Unlawful Representation of Roleplaying in Education, or FURRIES, Act, filed by Austin-area Republican State Rep. Stan Gerdes, would "prohibit any non-human behavior by a student, including presenting himself or herself, on days other than exempt days, as anything other than a human being." > > > > The law would allow for exempt days, such as Halloween and other school dress-up days. > > > > The law defines "non-human" behavior as "any type of behavior or accessory displayed by a student in a school district other than behaviors or accessories typically displayed by a member of the homo sapiens species," with provided examples being: > > > > Using a litter box for the passing of stool, urine or other human byproducts > > > > A personal or outward display, except during a school play or by a school mascot, through surgical or superficial means of features that are non-human such as using tails, leashes, collars or other accessories designed for pets > > > > Using fur, other than naturally occurring human hair or a wig made to look like human hair > > > > Artificial, animal-like ears > > > > Other physiological features that have not historically been assigned to the human race through a means of natural biological development > > > > Students who bark, meow, hiss or make other animal noises that are not human speech > > > > Licking oneself or others for the purpose of grooming or maintenance.