The US Environmental Protection Agency is throwing out fuel economy regulations that were planned to go into effect from 2026 through 2032. The new regulations would have required automakers to sell many more electric vehicles than they currently do, although due to lobbying, the previous administration softened the rules to allow for more plug-in hybrid EVs alongside battery EVs.

This was widely expected to happen; the first Trump administration was tireless in its attempts to roll back vehicle pollution controls. Then, its argument in favor of more pollution was that fuel economy standards would kill people . Now, things are less strident: We will suffer more smog and climate change in the name of consumer freedom.

"The American auto industry has been hamstrung by the crushing regulatory regime of the last administration. As we reconsider nearly one trillion dollars of regulatory costs, we will abide by the rule of law to protect consumer choice and the environment," said EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin.

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A month ago, Civilization VII launched to generally positive critical reviews, but user reviews on Steam and Metacritic weren’t nearly so positive, at least at first.

Take a look at the Civilization subreddit, and you’ll see a general consensus: The bones of this game are great, and even most of the radical changes to the classic formula (like breaking the game into much more distinct ages) are a welcome refresh.

On the other hand, there’s also a sentiment that players are disappointed that some expected features are missing, some gameplay elements need additional polish, and most of all, the user interface was a bit of a mess at launch.

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Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei raised a few eyebrows on Monday after suggesting that advanced AI models might someday be provided with the ability to push a "button" to quit tasks they might find unpleasant. Amodei made the provocative remarks during an interview at the Council on Foreign Relations, acknowledging that the idea "sounds crazy."

"So this is—this is another one of those topics that’s going to make me sound completely insane," Amodei said during the interview. "I think we should at least consider the question of, if we are building these systems and they do all kinds of things like humans as well as humans, and seem to have a lot of the same cognitive capacities, if it quacks like a duck and it walks like a duck, maybe it’s a duck."

Amodei's comments came in response to an audience question from data scientist Carmem Domingues about Anthropic's late-2024 hiring of AI welfare researcher Kyle Fish "to look at, you know, sentience or lack of thereof of future AI models, and whether they might deserve moral consideration and protections in the future." Fish currently investigates the highly contentious topic of whether AI models could possess sentience or otherwise merit moral consideration.

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DENVER—The US Space Force lacks the full range of space weapons China and Russia are adding to their arsenals, and military leaders say it's time to close the gap.

Gen. Chance Saltzman, the Space Force's chief of space operations, told reporters at the Air & Space Forces Association Warfare Symposium last week that he wants to have more options to present to national leaders if an adversary threatens the US fleet of national security satellites used for surveillance, communication, navigation, missile warning, and perhaps soon, missile defense.

In prepared remarks, Saltzman outlined in new detail why the Space Force should be able to go on the offense in an era of orbital warfare. Later, in a roundtable meeting with reporters, he briefly touched on the how.

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Satellites come in all shapes and sizes, but there aren't any that look quite like SPHEREx, an infrared observatory NASA launched Tuesday night in search of answers to simmering questions about how the Universe, and ultimately life, came to be.

The mission launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 8:10 pm local time (11:10 pm EDT) Tuesday. Less than 45 minutes later, the Falcon 9's upper stage released SPHEREx into a polar orbit at an altitude of roughly 420 miles (675 kilometers). Ground controllers received the first signals from the spacecraft, confirming its health after reaching space.

As soon as next month, once engineers verify the observatory is ready, SPHEREx will begin a two-year science mission surveying the sky in 102 colors invisible to the human eye. The observatory's infrared detectors will collect data on the chemical composition of asteroids, hazy star-forming clouds, and faraway galaxies.

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Drinking alcohol is bad in many ways; raising a glass can raise your risks of various health problems , such as accidental injuries, liver diseases, high blood pressure, and several types of cancers. But, it's not all bad—in fact, it's surprisingly good for your cholesterol levels, according to a study published today in JAMA Network Open .

Researchers at Harvard University led the study, and it included nearly 58,000 adults in Japan who were followed for up to a year using a database of medical records from routine checkups. Researchers found that when people switched from being nondrinkers to drinkers during the study, they saw a drop in their "bad" cholesterol—aka low-density lipoprotein cholesterol or LDL.  Meanwhile, their "good" cholesterol—aka high-density lipoprotein cholesterol or HDL—went up when they began imbibing. HDL levels went up so much, that it actually beat out improvements typically seen with medications, the researchers noted.

On the other hand, drinkers who stopped drinking during the study saw the opposite effect: Upon giving up booze, their bad cholesterol went up and their good cholesterol went down.

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Sonos has canceled plans to release a streaming box, The Verge reported today. The audio company never publicly confirmed that it was making a streaming set-top box, but rumors of its impending release have been floating around since November 2023 . With everything that both Sonos and streaming users have going on right now, though, a Sonos-branded rival to the Apple TV 4K wasn’t a good idea anyway.

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman was the first to report on Sonos’ purported streaming ambitions. He reported that Sonos’ device would be a black box that cost $150 to $200 .

At first glance, it seemed like a reasonable idea. Sonos was facing increased competition for wireless speakers from big names like Apple and Bose. Meanwhile, Sonos speaker sales growth had slowed down, making portfolio diversification seem like a prudent way to protect business.

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After a little over three months, Intel has a new CEO to replace ousted former CEO Pat Gelsinger . Intel's board announced that Lip-Bu Tan will begin as Intel CEO on March 18th, taking over from interim co-CEOs David Zisner and Michelle Johnston Holthaus.

Gelsinger was booted from the CEO position by Intel's board on December 2 after several quarters of losses, rounds of layoffs, and canceled or spun-off side projects. Gelsinger sought to turn Intel into a foundry company that also manufactured chips for fabless third-party chip design companies, putting it into competition with Taiwan Semiconductor (TSMC), Samsung, and others, a plan that Intel said it was still committed to when it let Gelsinger go.

Intel said that Zisner would stay on as executive vice president and CFO, and Johnston Holthaus would remain CEO of the Intel Products Group, which is mainly responsible for Intel's consumer products. These were the positions both executives held before serving as interim co-CEOs.

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Researchers have discovered multiple Android apps, some that were available in Google Play after passing the company’s security vetting, that surreptitiously uploaded sensitive user information to spies working for the North Korean government.

Samples of the malware—named KoSpy by Lookout, the security firm that discovered it—masquerade as utility apps for managing files, app or OS updates, and device security. Behind the interfaces, the apps can collect a variety of information including SMS messages, call logs, location, files, nearby audio, and screenshots and send them to servers controlled by North Korean intelligence personnel. The apps target English language and Korean language speakers and have been available in at least two Android app marketplaces, including Google Play.

Think twice before installing

The surveillanceware masquerades as the following five different apps:

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