Mike M. – Page 8

After key Russian launch site is damaged, NASA accelerates Dragon supply missions

dragon, russia, site 31, Space, spacex / Mike M. / December 10, 2025

With a key Russian launch pad out of service, NASA is accelerating the launch of two Cargo Dragon spaceships in order to ensure that astronauts on board the International Space Station have all the supplies they need next year.

According to the space agency’s internal schedule, the next Dragon supply mission, CRS-34, is moving forward one month from June 2026 to May. And the next Dragon supply mission after this, CRS-35, has been advanced three months from November to August.

A source indicated that the changing schedules are a “direct result” of a launch pad incident on Thanksgiving Day at the Russian spaceport in Baikonur, Kazakhstan.

The issue occurred when a Soyuz rocket launched Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergei Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikayev, as well as NASA astronaut Christopher Williams, on an eight-month mission to the International Space Station. The rocket had no difficulties, but a large mobile platform below the rocket was not properly secured prior to the launch and crashed into the flame trench below, taking the pad offline.

Repairs require at least four months

Russia has other launch pads, both within its borders and neighboring countries, including Kazakhstan, that were formerly part of the Soviet Union. However, Site 31 at Baikonur is the country’s only pad presently configured to handle launches of the Soyuz rocket and two spacecraft critical to the space station, the cargo-only Progress vehicle and the Soyuz crew capsule.

Since the accident Russia’s main space corporation, Roscosmos, has been assessing plans to repair the Site 31 launch site and begun to schedule the delivery of spare parts. Roscosmos officials have told NASA it will take at least four months to repair the site and recover the capability to launch from there.

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Asked why we need Golden Dome, the man in charge points to a Hollywood film

golden dome, military space, missile defense, Space, US Space Force / Mike M. / December 9, 2025

“If they see how prepared we are, no one starts a nuclear war.”

A test of the nation’s Ground-based Midcourse Defense system at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, in 2019. Credit: US Air Force/Senior Airman Clayton Wear

Near the end of the film A House of Dynamite, a fictional American president portrayed by Idris Elba sums up the theory of nuclear deterrence.

“Just being ready is the point, right?” Elba says. “It keeps people in check. Keeps the world straight. If they see how prepared we are, no one starts a nuclear war.”

There’s a lot that goes wrong in the film, namely the collapse of deterrence itself. For more than 60 years, the US military has used its vast arsenal of nuclear weapons, constantly deployed on Navy submarines, at Air Force bomber bases, and in Minuteman missile fields, as a way of saying, “Don’t mess with us.” In the event of a first strike against the United States, an adversary would be assured of an overwhelming nuclear response, giving rise to the concept of mutual assured destruction.

The Pentagon’s Golden Dome missile defense shield, still in its nascent phase, could fundamentally transform nuclear strategy. One might argue that Golden Dome, if demonstrated as successful, could reshape deterrence in ways not seen since the United States and the Soviet Union first escalated their nuclear arms race in the 1950s.

Theory of deterrence

Production of A House of Dynamite, released in October, began well before President Donald Trump retook the White House and started issuing a bevy of executive orders, one of which directed the Pentagon to start work on a defense shield to protect the US homeland from missile and drone attacks. This initiative was later named Golden Dome, a twist on Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.

Proponents of the Golden Dome program say it’s necessary to defend the United States against evolving threats, especially in a time of “great power competition” with nuclear-armed China. Golden Dome is supposed to defend against traditional ballistic missiles, maneuverable hypersonic missiles, cruise missiles, and slower-moving drones. All of these types of weapons have seen use on battlefields in the Middle East, Ukraine, and Russia in the last several years.

Opponents argue that Golden Dome will cost untold hundreds of billions of dollars, destabilize the global order, and increase the risk of a nuclear attack. Their thinking goes that if an adversary’s leaders believe the United States can protect itself from widespread destruction—and therefore remove the motivation for a massive US response—that might be enough for an adversary to pull the trigger on a nuclear attack.

Inevitably, at least a handful of nuclear-tipped missiles would make it through the Golden Dome shield in such a scenario, and countless Americans would die, critics say. People made similar arguments against former President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, commonly known as Star Wars, before its cancellation. Ars interviewed Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) earlier this year about why he’s against Golden Dome.

Getting boxed in

Following orders from the Trump administration, military officials have said little about Golden Dome after a flurry of White House announcements and Oval Office photo ops earlier this year. The shield will consist of hundreds or thousands of Space-Based Interceptors on satellites prepositioned in low-Earth orbit, ready to fire small rockets to strike any ballistic missile that threatens the United States. No one is prepared to say how many interceptors or how long it will take to deploy a comprehensive space-based defense system.

In order to work, Golden Dome also needs ground-based interceptors, radar arrays, missile tracking and data relay satellites, and a sophisticated computer network to tie it all together. Some of these capabilities exist today, but space-based interceptors (SBIs) do not. The Trump administration claims an initial homeland defense system could be ready by mid-2028 at a cost of $175 billion. But that won’t be the final product, and Pentagon officials haven’t said how long or how much it will cost to build out the entire network.

The four-star general in charge of developing Golden Dome, Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein, defended the military’s reluctance to release more information to taxpayers. He said the military is sharing more about the Golden Dome architecture in “one-on-one” meetings with 200 to 300 companies vying for a lucrative slice of the program.

Gen. Michael Guetlein testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee about joint force readiness in Washington, DC, on March 12, 2025. Credit: Eric Dietrich/US Air Force

“That transparency may not come in an industry symposium, but it is coming in one-on-ones,” Guetlein said in a discussion Saturday at the Reagan National Defense Forum. “It’s not coming in an industry symposium because you guys are not the only ones in the audience, and there are people in that audience that I don’t want to know what we’re doing.

“But I do know that… our industrial partners are all in on it and are supported, so they are pretty well-informed to the max amount I can inform them today,” Guetlein said. “We’ll continue to do more.”

Some public discourse is necessary to establish deterrence. Guetlein said he “hopes” to release more information to the public next year. For now, nearly 11 months after Trump’s order kick-started Golden Dome, nearly all of it remains under a veil of secrecy.

“We will have some things in place that allow us to start having those kind of conversations,” Guetlein said. “I think A House of Dynamite was a good place to start the dialogue. It opens up the dialogue to the American public that we have to change the defense equation. We have to provide decision space to the United States president so that we don’t get ourselves boxed in.”

Spoiler alert

The military’s Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, which would be used to destroy an incoming missile before it ever reaches US airspace, has a success rate of less than 60 percent in testing. There are just 44 ground-based midcourse interceptors in the Pentagon’s inventory, enough to mount a defense against one or several missiles from a rogue state like North Korea, but not enough to put a dent in any large-scale nuclear attack.

The next part of this story contains spoilers.

In A House of Dynamite, the military launches two GBIs to destroy a single ballistic missile of unknown origin heading for the United States. Both interceptors fail. What’s more, for a nuclear-armed missile to actually reach a target in the United States, one assumes defense and deterrence have also failed. The president must decide what to do next. Respond with an attack? If so, attack where?

Idris Elba portrays an unnamed president of the United States in *A House of Dynamite*. Credit: Netflix

The film succeeds in creating suspense. It also gets a lot of technical details right, even if the ending left many viewers disappointed. According to at least two senior Pentagon leaders, the film helps illustrate why it’s time for Golden Dome. It is worth noting that the filmmakers behind A House of Dynamite—director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Noah Oppenheim—said one of their goals with the movie was to show that missile defense systems are not infallible.

But Troy Meink, the secretary of the Air Force, said no president should ever wrestle with the decisions facing Elba’s character in the final minutes of the film.

“One of the things that A House of Dynamite really highlighted is the fact that you can’t let yourself be in a situation where you either have a very low chance of stopping it, or you go full nuke in return,” Meink said. “You just can’t let yourself get in that situation, and that’s why we need this [Golden Dome].”

Non-disclosure

There was a bit of news that Guetlein briefly mentioned in Saturday’s discussion at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Guetlein confirmed the Pentagon recently awarded 18 contracts to develop technology for SBIs capable of targeting enemy missiles during their boost phase, before they reach their top speeds and have an opportunity to deploy countermeasures.

The Space Force awarded the prototype development deals in November, but officials didn’t say how many or which companies received the contracts. Guetlein said the number was 18. The value of each contract falls below the $9 million public disclosure threshold for Pentagon programs.

At the same time, Guetlein said the military is working with companies on command-and-control and fire-control software.

“We are in discussions with the department on the need to acquire more transport capability, which is the ability to move data through space, more sensing capability, more missile warning, missile track capability,” he said. “We are waiting on those contracts to come in and to move forward on those, but we have given our needs to the department.”

This illustration released by Apex depicts a Space-Based Interceptor fired from a satellite in low-Earth orbit. Credit: Apex

Next, the Space Force plans to award prototype contracts for midcourse SBIs, perhaps as soon as February, according to a procurement document released by Space Systems Command’s program executive office for space combat power. Like their ground-based counterparts already on alert, these kinds of interceptors would be used to take out ballistic missiles as they coast through space.

Several death knells doomed the Reagan-era Star Wars plan. One was political: the fall of the Soviet Union. The others were economic and technical. It was not possible to affordably build and launch numerous SBIs, but the cost of space access is coming down, largely thanks to reusable rockets. Many of the technologies that will underpin Golden Dome, like automation and AI, sensor sensitivity, and laser communications in space, were simply not available 40 years ago.

It also helps that the Pentagon has a head-start on Golden Dome with GMD and an inventory of smaller interceptors for shorter-range missiles. Key elements of a space-based sensor network required for detecting, tracking, and targeting ballistic and hypersonic missiles started launching in 2024.

But SBIs don’t yet exist. They are among the most challenging, and most controversial, parts of Golden Dome. That’s why the Space Force is focusing on awarding the first batches of SBI contracts.

“We are meeting all of our… objectives to date,” said Guetlein, who previously compared Golden Dome to the Manhattan Project. “I think we’re on a good trajectory. But I will tell you, it is not a gimme putt. It is an extremely complex thing that we’re getting ready to do.”

Stephen Clark is a space reporter at Ars Technica, covering private space companies and the world’s space agencies. Stephen writes about the nexus of technology, science, policy, and business on and off the planet.

Asked why we need Golden Dome, the man in charge points to a Hollywood film Read More »

ICEBlock lawsuit: Trump admin bragged about demanding App Store removal

App Store, Apple, First Amendment, free speech, ice, iceblock, immigration and customs enforcement, Policy / Mike M. / December 8, 2025

ICEBlock creator sues to protect apps that are crowd-sourcing ICE sightings.

In a lawsuit filed against top Trump administration officials on Monday, Apple was accused of caving to unconstitutional government demands by removing an Immigration and Customs Enforcement-spotting app from the App Store with more than a million users.

In his complaint, Joshua Aaron, creator of ICEBlock, cited a Fox News interview in which Attorney General Pam Bondi “made plain that the United States government used its regulatory power to coerce a private platform to suppress First Amendment-protected expression.”

Suing Bondi—along with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Acting Director of ICE Todd Lyons, White House “Border Czar” Thomas D. Homan, and unnamed others—Aaron further alleged that US officials made false statements and “unlawful threats” to criminally investigate and prosecute him for developing ICEBlock.

Currently, ICEBlock is still available to anyone who downloaded the app prior to the October removal from the App Store, but updates have been disrupted, and Aaron wants the app restored. Seeking an injunction to block any attempted criminal investigations from chilling his free speech, as well as ICEBlock users’ speech, Aaron vowed in a statement provided to Ars to fight to get ICEBlock restored.

“I created ICEBlock to keep communities safe,” Aaron said. “Growing up in a Jewish household, I learned from history about the consequences of staying silent in the face of tyranny. I will never back down from resisting the Trump Administration’s targeting of immigrants and conscripting corporations into its unconstitutional agenda.”

Expert calls out Apple for “capitulation”

Apple is not a defendant in the lawsuit and did not respond to Ars’ request to comment.

Aaron’s complaint called out Apple, though, for alleged capitulation to the Trump administration that appeared to be “the first time in Apple’s nearly fifty-year history” that “Apple removed a US-based app in response to the US government’s demands.” One of his lawyers, Deirdre von Dornum, told Ars that the lawsuit is about more than just one app being targeted by the government.

“If we allow community sharing of information to be silenced, our democracy will fail,” von Dornum said. “The United States will be no different than China or Russia. We cannot stand by and allow that to happen. Every person has a right to share information under the First Amendment.”

Mario Trujillo, a staff attorney from a nonprofit digital rights group called the Electronic Frontier Foundation that’s not involved in the litigation, agreed that Apple’s ban appeared to be prompted by an unlawful government demand.

He told Ars that “there is a long history that shows documenting law enforcement performing their duties in public is protected First Amendment activity.” Aaron’s complaint pointed to a feature on one of Apple’s own products—Apple Maps—that lets users crowd-source sightings of police speed traps as one notable example. Other similar apps that Apple hosts in its App Store include other Big Tech offerings, like Google Maps and Waze, as well as apps with explicit names like Police Scanner.

Additionally, Trujillo noted that Aaron’s arguments are “backed by recent Supreme Court precedent.”

“The government acted unlawfully when it demanded Apple remove ICEBlock, while threatening others with prosecution,” Trujillo said. “While this case is rightfully only against the government, Apple should also take a hard look at its own capitulation.”

ICEBlock maker sues to stop app crackdown

ICEBlock is not the only app crowd-sourcing information on public ICE sightings to face an app store ban. Others, including an app simply collecting footage of ICE activities, have been removed by Apple and Google, 404 Media reported, as part of a broader crackdown.

Aaron’s suit is intended to end that crackdown by seeking a declaration that government demands to remove ICE-spotting apps violate the First Amendment.

“A lawsuit is the only mechanism that can bring transparency, accountability, and a binding judicial remedy when government officials cross constitutional lines,” Aaron told 404 Media. “If we don’t challenge this conduct in court, it will become a playbook for future censorship.”

In his complaint, Aaron explained that he created ICE in January to help communities hold the Trump administration accountable after Trump campaigned on a mass deportation scheme that boasted numbers far beyond the number of undocumented immigrants in the country.

“His campaign team often referenced plans to deport ’15 to 20 million’ undocumented immigrants, when in fact the number of undocumented persons in the United States is far lower,” his complaint said.

The app was not immediately approved by Apple, Aaron said. But after a thorough vetting process, Apple approved the app in April.

ICEBlock wasn’t an overnight hit but suddenly garnered hundreds of thousands of users after CNN profiled the app in June.

Trump officials attack ICEBlock with false claims

Within hours of that report, US officials began blasting the app, claiming that it was used to incite violence against ICE officers and amplifying pressure to get the app yanked from the App Store.

But Bondi may have slipped up by making comments that seemed to make it clear her intentions were to restrict disfavored speech. On Fox, Bondi claimed that CNN’s report supposedly promoting the app was dangerous, whereas the Fox News report was warning people not to use the app and was perfectly OK.

“Bondi’s statements make clear that her threats of adverse action constitute viewpoint discrimination, where speech ‘promoting’ the app is unlawful but speech ‘warning’ about the app is lawful,” the lawsuit said.

Other Trump officials were accused of making false statements and using unlawful threats to silence Aaron and ICEBlock users.

“What they’re doing is actively encouraging people to avoid law enforcement activities, operations, and we’re going to actually go after them,” Noem told reporters in July. In a statement, Lyons claimed that ICEBlock “basically paints a target on federal law enforcement officers’ backs” and that “officers and agents are already facing a 500 percent increase in assaults.” Echoing Lyons and Noem, Homan called for an investigation into CNN for reporting on the app, which “falsely implied that Plaintiffs’ protected speech was illegally endangering law enforcement officers,” Aaron alleged.

Not named in the lawsuit, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt also allegedly made misleading statements. That included falsely claiming “that ICEBlock and similar apps are responsible for violent attacks on law enforcement officers, such as the tragic shooting of immigrants at an ICE detention facility in Dallas, Texas, on September 24, 2025,” where “no actual evidence has ever been cited to support these claims,” the lawsuit said.

Despite an apparent lack of evidence, Apple confirmed that ICEBlock was removed in October, “based on information we’ve received from law enforcement about the safety risks associated with ICEBlock,” a public statement said. In a notice to Aaron, Apple further explained that the app was banned “because its purpose is to provide location information about law enforcement officers that can be used to harm such officers individually or as a group.”

Apple never shared any more information with Aaron to distinguish his app from other apps allowed in the App Store that help people detect and avoid nearby law enforcement activities. The iPhone maker also didn’t confirm the source of its information, Aaron said.

However, on Fox, Bondi boasted about reaching “out to Apple today demanding they remove the ICEBlock app from their App Store—and Apple did so.”

Then, later during sworn testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, she reiterated those comments, while also oddly commenting that Google received the same demand, despite ICEBlock intentionally being designed for iPhone only.

She also falsely claimed that ICEBlock “was reckless and criminal in that people were posting where ICE officers lived” but “subsequently walked back that statement,” Aaron’s complaint said.

Aaron is hoping the US District Court in the District of Columbia will agree that “Bondi’s demand to Apple to remove ICEBlock from the App store, as well as her viewpoint-based criticism of CNN for publicizing the app, constitute a ‘scheme of state censorship’ designed to ‘suppress’” Aaron’s “publication and distribution of the App.”

His lawyer, Noam Biale, told Ars that “Attorney General Bondi’s self-congratulatory claim that she succeeded in pushing Apple to remove ICEBlock is an admission that she violated our client’s constitutional rights. In America, government officials cannot suppress free speech by pressuring private companies to do it for them.”

Similarly, statements from Noem, Lyons, and Homan constituted “excessive pressure on Apple to remove the App and others like it from the App Store,” Aaron’s complaint alleged, as well as unconstitutional suppression of Aaron’s and ICEBlock users’ speech.

ICEBlock creator was one of the first Mac Geniuses

Aaron maintains that ICEBlock prominently features a disclaimer asking all users to “please note that the use of this app is for information and notification purposes only. It is not to be used for the purposes of inciting violence or interfering with law enforcement.”

In his complaint, he explained how the app worked to automatically delete ICE sightings after four hours—information that he said could not be recovered. That functionality ensures that “ICEBlock cannot be used to track ICE agents’ historical presence or movements,” Aaron’s lawsuit noted.

Rather than endangering ICE officers, Aaron argued that ICEBlock helps protect communities from dangerous ICE activity, like tear gassing and pepper spraying, or alleged racial profiling triggering arrests of US citizens and immigrants. Kids have been harmed, his complaint noted, with ICE agents documented “arresting parents and leaving young children unaccompanied” and even once “driving an arrestee’s car away from the scene of arrest with the arrestee’s young toddler still strapped into a car seat.”

Aaron’s top fear driving his development of the app was his concern that escalations in ICE enforcement—including arbitrary orders to hit 75 arrests a day—exposed “immigrants and citizens alike to violence and rampant violations of their civil liberties” that ICEBlock could shield them from.

“These operations have led to widespread and well-documented civil rights violations against citizens, lawful residents, and undocumented immigrants alike, causing serious concern among members of the public, elected officials, and federal courts,” Aaron’s complaint said.

They also “have led some people—regardless of immigration or citizenship status—to want to avoid areas of federal immigration enforcement activities altogether” and “resulted in situations where members of the public may wish, when enforcement activity becomes visible in public spaces, to observe, record, or lawfully protest against such activity.”

In 2001, Aaron worked for Apple as one of the first Mac Geniuses in its Apple Stores. These days, he flexes his self-taught developer skills by creating apps intended to do social good and help communities.

Emphasizing that he was raised in a Jewish household where he heard stories from Holocaust survivors that left a lasting mark, Aaron said that the ICEBlock app represented his “commitment to use his abilities to advocate for the protection of civil liberties.” Without an injunction, he’s concerned that he and other like-minded app makers will remain in the Trump administration’s crosshairs, as the mass deportation scheme rages on through ongoing ICE raids across the US, Aaron told 404 Media.

“More broadly, the purpose [of the lawsuit] is to hold government officials accountable for using their authority to silence lawful expression and intimidate creators of technology they disfavor,” Aaron said. “This case is about ensuring that public officials cannot circumvent the Constitution by coercing private companies or threatening individuals simply because they disagree with the message or the tool being created.”

Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience.

ICEBlock lawsuit: Trump admin bragged about demanding App Store removal Read More »

A big bike on a budget: Lectric’s XPress 750

Cars, cycling, e-bike, Lectric / Mike M. / December 8, 2025

A budget e-bike that offers more than you might expect.

Almost every bit of bike testing I’ve done starts out the same way. After assembling the bike, I set the seatpost to its maximum recommended height, take it on a short test ride, and try to figure out new and creative phrasing to describe the same old problem: The frame isn’t quite big enough to accommodate my legs. While I’m on the tall side at a bit over 6 feet (~190 cm), I’m definitely not abnormally large. Yet very few e-bike manufacturers seem to be interested in giving people my height a comfortable ride.

So imagine my surprise when, within two blocks of my first ride on the XPress 750, I had to pull off to the side of the street and lower the seat. This was especially notable given that the XPress is a budget bike (currently on sale for just under $1,000.00) that is only offered in a single frame size. So kudos to Lectric for giving me a comfortable and enjoyable ride, and doing so with a lot of features I wouldn’t expect at this price point.

That said, hitting that price necessitated some significant compromises. We’ll discuss those in detail so you can get a sense of whether any of them will get in the way of your riding enjoyment.

A bit more than you paid for

Lectric is not a household name, but the company says its XP foldable bike is the bestselling model in the US, making it a major vendor in that market. It’s gotten there largely through affordability, with none of its models costing over $2,000.00. Within that limit, however, the company tries to remain responsive to its users’ needs, as its intro video for the latest version of the XPress makes clear.

The XPress model isn’t foldable, and it comes in both step-through and step-over frames; we tested the latter. It’s a pretty standard hybrid-style bike, not quite built for everything you’d use a hard-tail mountain bike for but more than robust enough for commuting or errand-running and a bit sportier than a dedicated commuter bike. It comes with a suspension fork for cushioning the ride a bit; this also includes a setting that locks it in place, which is nice for riders who spend their time on smooth pavement and find that the fork sags when they stand up on the pedals.

Image of the cranks and rear wheel of a black metal bicycle. — The gearing on the XPress wasn’t a great match for its motor. Credit: John TImmer

The pedals are actually one of the bike’s most unusual features. Rather than screwing into the cranks, the pedals click into an insert when a sleeve is pulled out. The result is indistinguishable when you’re turning the cranks, but it avoids the complexity of remembering that the left and right pedals thread into the cranks in opposite directions. That makes a lot of sense for a company that ships at volume to people who may have limited experience in assembling or maintaining bikes. The pedals themselves are covered in metal pins that suggest they’re meant to be used for mountain biking, which is somewhat odd, given that the rest of the bike really isn’t.

The electric portion of the bike is fairly standard, with a battery in the downtube and a rear hub motor. It’s driven by a torque sensor, which registers the force you’re applying to the cranks and is relatively rare on cheaper bikes. A simple three-button controller (power and up/down) handles navigation, and the stat-tracking screen is bright and colorful and lays out all the information you’re likely to want. There’s also a very bright front light and rear brake/tail light linked into the electrical system. The controller lets you choose between five levels of assist, and there’s a throttle that can get the bike moving even without any pedaling.

Despite the simplicity of the three-button control system, Lectric lets you use it to exercise pretty fine-grained control over the behavior of its assist. By tweaking three different control settings, it’s possible to switch the bike between Class 1 (20 mph/32 kmph) and Class 3 (28 mph/45 kmph) modes or even set the assist to cut out at lower speeds (nine and 15 mph/15 and 24 kmph). You can also fine-tune the amount of assist each of the five settings provides.

Compromises

At the moment, Lectric is offering a lower-end version of the XPress for just under $1,000. It’s informative to compare it to a $1,000 e-bike from just four years ago, the SWFT. Just about every aspect of the XPress is better. It has multiple gears, a suspension fork, much better control over the electronics, a bigger, removable battery, a better screen, disc brakes, the tail light, and probably more that I’m not noticing. The value proposition of low-priced e-bikes has changed dramatically for the better over just a few years.

That said, it’s impossible to hit this price range without making some compromises. If this is the price you’re targeting, you’ll want to do your best to minimize the compromises while making sure the ones you make won’t bother you in the long term.

The biggest compromise to me is in the drive train. It’s using a Shimano Tourney, which is controlled by a cheap-feeling plastic dial with awkwardly placed buttons (I can’t find it on Shimano’s site, but here’s an eBay listing). That’s hooked up to seven gears in the rear, but almost all of them are only needed for going uphill or pedaling with the assist off. I spent almost all my time in the top two gears and almost never touched the lower end of the range.

Image of the right handlebar of a bike, showing a shifter and a brake lever. — My least favorite feature is the bike’s shifter. Credit: John TImmer

Another big problem is with the system that tracks battery use. As we saw in another affordability-focused bike, the battery display was prone to exaggerating the speed at which the actual battery was being drained. Shutting the bike off and letting it sit for 10 minutes was often enough to seemingly restore over a quarter of the battery’s capacity (again, it was there all the time, but the battery management software somehow failed to see it). This made judging how well the bike met Lectric’s range claims impossible and frequently left me wondering whether I could complete errands under power if I started them without a full charge.

The final thing was the noise. The XPress had the misfortune of being tested between two other bikes with motors that were nearly silent. The XPress, by contrast, emitted a very audible whine that cut into part of what makes biking special to me: silently gliding through quiet neighborhoods. I eventually settled on making the assist cut out at 20 mph (the lower of its two primary settings), where, on flat ground, my legs could easily minimize the need for the motor. But I wouldn’t want to be putting in that much physical effort if I were just running errands in typical summertime temperatures.

If any of those issues are dealbreakers for you, you’ll likely want to pay more for your bike or do an exhaustive search for something with a different combination of compromises. But in this price range, you’ll never avoid facing compromises.

That’s an indirect way of saying that this is a very good bike for its price range, and if its limitations are ones you can adjust to, it would be a great option for errand running, commuting, or light trail riding. It can be set to Class 3 to help it fit in with typical suburban traffic, it provides a throttle to help you avoid over-exertion in hot weather, and you can put a rack on back if you need to add cargo capacity. If you don’t try to treat it as something it’s not, it should perform quite well.

That said, riding it has me interested to see how many of these compromises might disappear from low-end models over the next four years.

John is Ars Technica’s science editor. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Biochemistry from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley. When physically separated from his keyboard, he tends to seek out a bicycle, or a scenic location for communing with his hiking boots.

A big bike on a budget: Lectric’s XPress 750 Read More »

In comedy of errors, men accused of wiping gov databases turned to an AI tool

AI, Biz & IT, contractors, courts, data theft / Mike M. / December 4, 2025

Two sibling contractors convicted a decade ago for hacking into US State Department systems have once again been charged, this time for a comically hamfisted attempt to steal and destroy government records just minutes after being fired from their contractor jobs.

The Department of Justice on Thursday said that Muneeb Akhter and Sohaib Akhter, both 34, of Alexandria, Virginia, deleted databases and documents maintained and belonging to three government agencies. The brothers were federal contractors working for an undisclosed company in Washington, DC, that provides software and services to 45 US agencies. Prosecutors said the men coordinated the crimes and began carrying them out just minutes after being fired.

Using AI to cover up an alleged crime—what could go wrong?

On February 18 at roughly 4: 55 pm, the men were fired from the company, according to an indictment unsealed on Thursday. Five minutes later, they allegedly began trying to access their employer’s system and access federal government databases. By then, access to one of the brothers’ accounts had already been terminated. The other brother, however, allegedly accessed a government agency’s database stored on the employer’s server and issued commands to prevent other users from connecting or making changes to the database. Then, prosecutors said, he issued a command to delete 96 databases, many of which contained sensitive investigative files and records related to Freedom of Information Act matters.

Despite their brazen attempt to steal and destroy information from multiple government agencies, the men lacked knowledge of the database commands needed to cover up their alleged crimes. So they allegedly did what many amateurs do: turned to an AI chat tool.

One minute after deleting Department of Homeland Security information, Muneep Akhter allegedly asked an AI tool “how do i clear system logs from SQL servers after deleting databases.” Shortly afterward, he queried the tool “how do you clear all event and application logs from Microsoft windows server 2012,” prosecutors said.

The indictment provides enough details of the databases wiped and information stolen to indicate that the brothers’ attempts to cover their tracks failed. It’s unclear whether the apparent failure was due to the AI tool providing inadequate instructions or the men failing to follow them correctly. Prosecutors say they also obtained records of discussions between the men in the hours or days following, in which they discussed removing incriminating evidence from their homes. Three days later, the men allegedly wiped their employer-issued laptops by reinstalling the operating system.

In comedy of errors, men accused of wiping gov databases turned to an AI tool Read More »

Welcome to “necroprinting”—3D printer nozzle made from mosquito’s proboscis

3D printing, Biology, Biomechanics, materials science, mosquitos, printing, Science / Mike M. / December 4, 2025

“To integrate the proboscis, we first removed it from an already euthanized mosquito under a microscope,” Cao explains. Then the proboscis/nozzle was aligned with the outlet of the plastic tip. Finally, the proboscis and the tip were bonded with UV-curable resin.

The necroprinter achieved a resolution ranging from 18 to 22 microns, which was two times smaller than the printers using the smallest commercially available metal dispensing tips. The first print tests included honeycomb structures measuring 600 microns, a microscale maple leaf, and scaffolds for cells.

But there were still areas in which human-made technology managed to beat Mother Nature.

Glass and pressure

The first issue with mosquito nozzles was their relatively low resistance to internal pressure. “It was impressive but still too low to accommodate some high viscosity inks,” Cao said.

These inks, which look more like a paste than a typical fluid, hold shape better, which translates into more geometrically accurate models that do not slump or spread under their own weight. This was a problem that Cao’s test prints experienced to an extent.

But this wasn’t the only area where human-made technology managed to beat nature. While mosquito nozzles could outperform plastic or metal alternatives in precision, they could not outperform glass dispensing tips, which can print lines below one micron across and withstand significantly higher pressures.

The researchers already have some ideas about how to bridge at least a part of this gap, though. “One possible solution is to use mosquito proboscis as the core and coat it with ceramic layers to provide much higher strength,” Cao said. And if the pressure problem is solved, the 18–22 microns resolution should be good enough for plenty of things.

Cao thinks that in the future, printers like this could be used to print scaffolds for living cells or microscopic electronic components. The idea is to replace expensive, traditional 3D printing nozzles with more affordable organic counterparts. The key advantages of mosquito nozzles, he says, are low cost and ubiquity.

Mosquitoes live almost everywhere on Earth and are easy to rear. The team estimates that organic 3D printing nozzles made from mosquito proboscises should cost around 80 cents; the glass and metal alternatives, the researchers state in the paper, cost between 32 and 100 times more.

“We already started doing more research on mosquitoes themselves and hope to develop more engineering solutions, not only to leverage their deceased bodies but also to solve practical problems they cause,” Cao said.

Science Advances, 2025. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adw9953

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Rare win for renewable energy: Trump admin funds geothermal network expansion

geothermal, geothermal energy, geothermal power, Science, syndication / Mike M. / December 3, 2025

Progress on the project is a further indicator that, despite opposition to wind and solar, the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress appear to back geothermal energy.

President Donald Trump issued an executive order on his first day in office declaring an energy emergency that expressed support for a limited mix of energy resources, including fossil fuels, nuclear power, biofuels, hydropower, and geothermal energy.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed by Republicans and signed by Trump in July, quickly phases out tax credits for wind, solar, and electric vehicles. However, the bill left geothermal heating and cooling tax credits approved under the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 largely intact.

A reorganization of the US Department of Energy announced last month eliminated the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy but kept the office for geothermal energy as part of the newly created Hydrocarbons and Geothermal Energy Office.

“The fact that geothermal is on this administration’s agenda is pretty impactful,” said Nikki Bruno, vice president for thermal solutions and operational services at Eversource Energy. “It means they believe in it. It’s a bipartisan technology.”

Plans for the expansion project call for roughly doubling Framingham’s geothermal network capacity at approximately half the cost of the initial buildout. Part of the estimated cost savings will come from using existing equipment rather than duplicating it.

“You’ve already got all the pumping and control infrastructure installed, so you don’t need to build a new pump house,” said Eric Bosworth, a geothermal expert who runs the consultancy Thermal Energy Insights. Bosworth oversaw the construction of the initial geothermal network in Framingham while working for Eversource.

The network’s efficiency is anticipated to increase as it grows, requiring fewer boreholes to expand. That improvement is due to the different heating and cooling needs of individual buildings, which increasingly balance each other out as the network grows, Magavi said.

The project still awaits approval from state regulators, with Eversource aiming to start construction by the end of 2026, Bruno said.

“What we’re witnessing is the birth of a new utility,” Magavi said. Geothermal networks “can help us address energy security, affordability, and so many other challenges.”

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy, and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.

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Prime Video pulls eerily emotionless AI-generated anime dubs after complaints

AI, Amazon, amazon prime video, anime, culture, generative ai, streaming, Tech / Mike M. / December 3, 2025

[S]o many talented voice actors, and you can’t even bother to hire a couple to dub a season of a show??????????? absolutely disrespectful.

Naturally, anime voice actors took offense, too. Damian Mills, for instance, said via X that voicing a “notable queer-coded character like Kaworu” in three Evangelion movie dubs for Prime Video (in 2007, 2009, and 2012) “meant a lot, especially being queer myself.”

Mills, who also does voice acting for other anime, including One Piece (Tanaka) and Dragon Ball Super (Frieza) added, “… using AI to replace dub actors on #BananaFish? It’s insulting and I can’t support this. It’s insane to me. What’s worse is Banana Fish is an older property, so there was no urgency to get a dub created.”

Amazon also seems to have rethought its March statement announcing that it would use AI to dub content “that would not have been dubbed otherwise.” For example, in 2017, Sentai Filmworks released an English dub of No Game, No Life: Zero with human voice actors.

Some dubs pulled

On Tuesday, Gizmodo reported that “several of the English language AI dubs for anime such as Banana Fish, No Game No Life: Zero, and more have now been removed.” However, some AI-generated dubs remain as of this writing, including an English dub for the anime series Pet and a Spanish one for Banana Fish, Ars Technica has confirmed.

Amazon hasn’t commented on the AI-generated dubs or why it took some of them down.

All of this comes despite Amazon’s March announcement that the AI-generated dubs would use “human expertise” for “quality control.”

The sloppy dubbing of cherished anime titles reflects a lack of precision in the broader industry as companies seek to leverage generative AI to save time and money. Prime Video has already been criticized for using AI-generated movie summaries and posters this year. And this summer, anime streaming service Crunchyroll blamed bad AI-generated subtitles on an agreement “violation” by a “third-party vendor.”

Prime Video pulls eerily emotionless AI-generated anime dubs after complaints Read More »

More FDA drama: Top drug regulator calls it quits after 3 weeks

fda, health / Mike M. / December 2, 2025

The top drug regulator at the Food and Drug Administration, Richard Pazdur, has decided to retire from the agency just three weeks after taking the leading position, according to multiple media outlets.

Pazdur, an oncologist who has worked at the FDA since 1999, was seen as a stabilizing force for an agency that has been mired in turmoil during the second Trump administration. He took over the role of leading the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research on November 11, after the previous leader, George Tidmarsh, left the agency amid an investigation and a lawsuit regarding allegations that he used his position to exact petty revenge on a former business partner. In light of the scandal, one venture capital investor called the agency a “clown show.” Drug industry groups, meanwhile, called the FDA erratic and unpredictable.

Pazdur’s selection was seen as a positive sign by agency insiders, drug industry representatives, and patient advocacy groups, according to reporting by The Washington Post.

But things quickly soured. Just days on the job, Pazdur expressed deep concerns about the legality and public health risks of FDA Commissioner Marty Makary’s plans to overhaul and expedite agency operations. On November 21, the Post reported that Pazdur disagreed with Makary’s plans to reduce the number of studies needed to make drug-related decisions, such as label changes. Pazdur was further concerned that Makary’s plan to shorten drug review times was not sufficiently transparent and could be illegal. Pazdur also pushed back on Makary’s plan to exclude agency career scientists from some drug review processes deemed political priorities.

More FDA drama: Top drug regulator calls it quits after 3 weeks Read More »

Mad Men’s 4K debut botched by HBO Max streaming episode with visible crewmembers

HBO Max, streaming, Tech, warner bros. discovery / Mike M. / December 2, 2025

Streaming services have a way of reviving love for old shows, and HBO Max is looking to entice old and new fans with this month’s addition of Mad Men. Instead, viewers have been laughing at the problems with the show’s 4K premiere.

Mad Men ran on the AMC channel for seven seasons from 2007 to 2015. The show had a vintage aesthetic, depicting the 1960s advertising industry in New York City.

Last month, HBO Max announced it would modernize the show by debuting a 4K version. The show originally aired in SD and HD resolutions and had not been previously made available in 4K through other means, such as Blu-ray.

However, viewers were quick to spot problems with HBO Max’s 4K Mad Men stream, the most egregious being visible crew members in the background of a scene.

The episode was “Red in the Face” (Season 1, Episode 7), which was reportedly mislabeled. In it, Roger Sterling (John Slattery) throws up oysters. In the 4K version that was streaming on HBO Max, viewers could see someone pumping a vomit hose to make the fake puke flow.

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Google announces second Android 16 release of 2025 is heading to Pixels

AI, android, android 16, Google, Google Pixel, smartphones, Tech / Mike M. / December 2, 2025

Material 3 Expressive came to Pixels earlier this year but not as part of the first Android 16 upgrade—Google’s relationship with Android versions is complicated these days. Regardless, Material 3 will get a bit more cohesive on Pixels following this update. Google will now apply Material theming to all icons on your device automatically, replacing legacy colored icons with theme-friendly versions. Similarly, dark mode will be supported across more apps, even if the devs haven’t added support. Google is also adding a few more icon shape options if you want to jazz up your home screen.

By way of functional changes, Google has added a more intuitive way of managing parental controls—you can just use the managed device directly. Parents will be able to set a PIN code for accessing features like screen time, app usage, and so on without grabbing a different device. If you want more options or control, the new on-device settings will also help you configure Google Family Link.

Android for all

No Pixel? No problem. Google has also bundled up a collection of app and system updates that will begin rolling out today for all supported Android devices.

Chrome for Android is getting an update with tab pinning, mirroring a feature that has been in the desktop version since time immemorial. The Google Messages app is also taking care of some low-hanging fruit. When you’re invited to a group chat by a new number, the app will display group information and a one-tap option to leave and report the chat as spam.

Google’s official dialer app comes on Pixels, but it’s also in the Play Store for anyone to download. If you and your contacts use Google Dialer, you’ll soon be able to place calls with a “reason.” You can flag a call as “Urgent” to indicate to the recipient that they shouldn’t send you to voicemail. The urgent label will also remain in the call history if they miss the call.

Google announces second Android 16 release of 2025 is heading to Pixels Read More »

In Myanmar, illicit rare-earth mining is taking a heavy toll

Myanmar, rare earth elements, rare earth metals, Science, syndication / Mike M. / December 1, 2025

Uncontrolled mining in areas of Myanmar ruled by powerful ethnic armies has boomed.

This photo taken on May 2, 2025 shows a general view of a China-backed battery metal mine in Pekon township in Myanmar’s eastern Shan State. Credit: STR/AFP via Getty Images

In early 2025, Sian traveled deep into the mountains of Shan State, on Myanmar’s eastern border with China, in search of work. He had heard from a friend that Chinese companies were recruiting at new rare-earth mining sites in territory administered by the United Wa State Army, Myanmar’s most powerful ethnic armed group, and that workers could earn upwards of $1,400 a month.

It was an opportunity too good to pass up in a country where the formal economy has collapsed since the 2021 military coup, and nearly half of the population lives on less than $2 a day. So Sian set off by car for the town of Mong Pawk, then rode a motorbike for hours through the thick forest.

Hired for daily wages of approximately $21, he now digs boreholes and installs pipes. It is the first step in a process called in situ leaching, which involves injecting acidic solutions into mountainsides, then collecting the drained solution in plastic-lined pools where solids, like dysprosium and terbium, two of the world’s most sought-after heavy rare-earth metals, settle out. The resulting sediment sludge is then transported to furnaces and burned, producing dry rare earth oxides.

As geopolitics scrambles supply chains and global demand for rare earths has mushroomed, mining for these materials is on the rise in Myanmar, where thousands of laborers like Sian are flocking to mine sites on the country’s eastern border with China. But the extraction and processing of rare earths is taking an increasing toll on the mine workers, nearby communities, and the environment. “The toxic effects of rare-earth mining are devastating, with poisoned rivers, contaminated soil, sickness, and displacement,” said Jasnea Sarma, an ethnographer and political geographer at the University of Zurich.

China holds most of the world’s rare-earth processing facilities, but since the early 2010s it has tightened restrictions on domestic extraction as its impacts have become apparent. Rare-earth mining has since expanded just over China’s southwestern border in Myanmar, where labor is cheap and environmental regulations are weak.

The industry is highly secretive. But this September, a journalist from Myanmar, who prefers not to be named for security reasons, visited rare-earth mining sites in Wa territory near Mong Pawk for this article. This reporting confirmed that rare-earth mining overseen by Chinese companies is rapidly expanding in Wa territory, and it provides firsthand details of the many ways this activity contaminates water sources and contributes to deforestation, damage to human health, and loss of livelihoods.

The 17 elements known as rare earths are distributed widely across the Earth’s crust, but they are extracted in relatively few places due to ecological, geopolitical, and economic constraints. Used in electric vehicles and wind turbines, rare earths are also needed for the production of military hardware and other advanced technologies.

Rare earths are designated as “critical minerals” by many of the world’s superpowers — vital to economies and national security but vulnerable to supply chain disruption. They are also a key commodity in the trade war between the United States and China, which has tightened rare-earth export restrictions over the past year in response to escalating tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump.

China still processes most of the world’s rare earths, but its import data shows that a significant portion of the raw material is mined in Myanmar. This makes Myanmar one of the global rare-earth mining boom’s largest sacrifice zones—defined by researchers and environmental justice advocates as places that disproportionately endure the harmful effects of extraction so that others may benefit.

No publicly accessible corporate databases show the licensing of active rare-earth mining operations in Myanmar. But Chinese customs data indicates that approximately two-thirds of its rare-earth imports came from Myanmar between 2017 and 2024, according to research conducted by the Institute for Strategy and Policy-Myanmar, a think tank based in Thailand.

Satellite image analysis conducted by the nonprofit Myanmar Witness, in partnership with the Myanmar media outlet Mizzima, also reveals hundreds of rare-earth mining sites on the country’s eastern border. The area is home to Indigenous communities who have been at odds with central military authorities since the country’s independence from Britain in 1948. For decades, the military has negotiated ceasefires with ethnic armies while allowing them to engage in a range of cross-border enterprises, sometimes while taking a cut of the profits.

“This borderland has seen one extractive wave after another: teak, opium, jade, amber, bananas, and now these so-called green minerals,” said Sarma. “Ethnic armies have to do business with China to survive. China needs the resources, and local communities, after decades of conflict, depend on this to live.”

As the rule of law deteriorated following Myanmar’s 2021 coup, the pillaging of its natural resources accelerated. In October 2024, an ethnic army fighting the military seized the rare-earth mining hub of Pangwa, in Kachin State, from a military-aligned warlord, and China, which arms and supports the Myanmar military, closed its gate into the town. More than a year later, rare-earth mining in Kachin has yet to fully resume, while areas of Shan State—controlled by the United Wa State Army and another ethnic army with close ties to China—appear poised to emerge as new rare-earth mining frontiers.

“What began as discovery has moved into full extraction […] pulled by proximity to China,” said Xu Peng, a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for the Study of Illicit Economies, Violence, and Development at SOAS University of London.

Earlier this year, the Shan Human Rights Foundation, a local civil society organization, used satellite images to expose rare-earth mining in Shan State for the first time. This research, alongside further satellite analysis conducted by the Stimson Center, a Washington, DC-based think tank, revealed 63 rare-earth mining sites near the Chinese border and two sites bordering Thailand. Some of these sites were established as early as 2015 and may no longer be operational, but most emerged after the coup.

The news of these Shan State mines sparked public outcry in Thailand, where chemicals associated with rare-earth mining have heavily contaminated rivers relied upon for drinking water, agriculture, and fishing. But no such response has emerged in Shan State, where mining companies and armed authorities keep a tight lid on information, including the names of the Chinese companies operating there.

Businesses involved in Myanmar’s rare-earth mining industry have reason to be secretive: Their operations put people and the environment at risk. “This year, there was an accident during excavation and a worker was buried,” said Sian. “Only later, after the soil was washed away by heavy rain and landslides, was his body recovered.” In 2023 and 2024, local media outlets documented the death or disappearance of dozens of workers in three landslides in Kachin State.

Research published in March by scholars at the University of Warwick and the Kachinland Research Center, based in Kachin State, attributed these landslides to “large-scale deforestation,” undertaken to both clear land for mines and supply firewood for the furnaces used to convert sediment sludge to dry rare-earth oxides—a process that can take 48 to 72 hours. Another factor contributing to landslides, the researchers found, was the injection of water and leaching agents into the hillsides.

Workers in Shan State described fragile landscapes. “The environment near the site faces constant problems like landslides, mountain collapses, and stream flooding, especially during the rainy season,” said an on-site cook, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “Large trucks often fall into sinkholes. The ground is soft, which sometimes leads to fatal accidents.”

Chemical exposure and the inhalation of toxic particles are also major concerns. “Many workers suffer from lung issues,” said Sian. “Because of contact with acid, some workers also develop rashes, redness, itching, or chemical burns on their skin and eyes.”

Nearby communities also feel the impacts. “Many households reported more frequent respiratory illnesses, skin conditions, and headaches, which they believe are linked to pollution from nearby mining activities and dust from deforestation,” said the journalist who visited Wa for this article. “In some villages, families said children and elderly people are especially affected. They worry that contaminated water sources from mining operations are harming both their health and their livelihoods.”

Research conducted by Myanmar Resource Watch, a civil society organization, found that companies mining rare earths in Myanmar rely on a wide range of chemicals classified as hazardous—including sulfuric, nitric, and hydrochloric acids—and that these companies routinely violate regulations on the chemicals’ import, transport, storage, use, and disposal. Not only can hydrochloric acid kill aquatic life, it also dissolves heavy metals, like cadmium, lead, arsenic, and mercury, and radioactive materials, like thorium and uranium, from soil and rocks.

While no quantitative studies have been published on the environmental impacts of rare-earth mining in Shan State, research from Kachin State offers some indication of the potential risks. In April, Tanapon Phenrat of Thailand’s Naresuan University published a study based on analysis of surface water and topsoil samples taken at or downstream from rare-earth mining sites in Kachin. He identified “severe contamination” of the water, “extremely acidic pH levels,” and “alarmingly high concentrations” of ammonia, chloride, radioactive elements, and toxic heavy metals.

He also found that metals and metalloids present in water samples posed “substantial risk” to aquatic ecosystems and that the water at some of the testing sites was “entirely unsuitable for human consumption, irrigation, or fish culture without extensive treatment.”

Rare-earth elements themselves can also adversely impact human health, according to secondary research published in 2024 in the journal Toxics. This review found that exposure to rare-earth elements through inhalation, ingestion, or skin contact can destroy organ structure and function, affecting the respiratory, nervous, cardiovascular, reproductive, and immune systems.

“Right now, the way these minerals are governed often overlooks a major problem,” said Thaw Htoo, a PhD candidate of geography and sustainability at the University of Lausanne who conducts her research using a pseudonym due to safety concerns. “They are essential for the global green transition, yet their extraction is happening with almost no rules. The case of Myanmar shows why we need to rethink what ‘critical minerals’ means and make sure we consider not only supply security, but also the safety and well-being of communities and the environment.”

Emily Fishbein is a freelance journalist currently serving as a Pulitzer Center Rainforest Investigations Network fellow. Jauman Naw is a freelance investigative journalist from Kachin State, Myanmar, who focuses on environmental issues. He writes under a pseudonym for his safety. This article was originally published on Undark. Read the original article.

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Author name: Mike M.