https://apnews.com/article/mortgages-crypto-fannie-mae-freddie-mac-housing-285fad5490a59c3476f7908f444e9fe9

U.S. Sen. John Fetterman is more popular among Pennsylvania Republicans than fellow Democrats, according to a new poll of state voters.

Susquehanna Polling and Research president James Lee told PennLive Tuesday that Fetterman’s overall approval rating among state voters is a “mediocre” 41%, compared to 37% who disapprove of him.

However, the eyebrow-raising result that 45% of Republicans approve of Fetterman while just 40% of Democrats do will surely get political tongues wagging from Pennsylvania to Washington, D.C.

A player of the popular online military simulator War Thunder has been banned from the game’s official forums after sharing a page from a restricted AV-8B Harrier flight manual. The incident marks at least the ninth known case in which classified or export-controlled material has been posted by users attempting to influence in-game accuracy.

In this latest case, a user uploaded a section from a NATOPS manual for the AV-8B and TAV-8B Harrier, used by the United States Navy and Marine Corps. The manual is marked “Distribution Statement C,” which means it is not approved for public release and is restricted to authorised U.S. government personnel and contractors. War Thunder’s community manager confirmed the document breached the forum’s rules and was removed immediately. The user received a temporary ban.

This is the latest in a growing list of similar incidents. Previous leaks involved documentation for the UK’s Challenger 2 main battle tank, France’s Leclerc, China’s ZTZ-99, the Eurocopter Tiger, and several U.S. aircraft including the F-16, F-15E, F-117, and most recently, the Eurofighter Typhoon. Each case followed a similar pattern: a user attempted to support a technical argument by uploading documents that were either classified or export restricted. Each time, moderators deleted the posts and sanctioned the accounts involved.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has won the backing of a judge in a copyright lawsuit brought by a group of authors, in the second legal victory for the US artificial intelligence industry this week.

The writers, who included Sarah Silverman and Ta-Nehisi Coates, had argued that the Facebook owner had breached copyright law by using their books without permission to train its AI system.

The ruling follows a decision on Monday that Anthropic, another major player in the AI field, had not infringed authors’ copyright.

The US district judge Vince Chhabria, in San Francisco, said in his decision on the Meta case that the authors had not presented enough evidence that the technology company’s AI would dilute the market for their work to show that its conduct was illegal under US copyright law.

Meta wins AI copyright lawsuit as US judge rules against authors

Writers accused Facebook owner of breach over using books without permission to train its AI system

^{Dan Milmo (The Guardian)}

cross-posted from: programming.dev/post/32848147

Pro

2025-06-25 10:37:55

Fairphone announces the €599 Fairphone 6, with a 6.31" 120Hz LTPO OLED display, a Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chip, and enhanced modularity with 12 swappable parts

Switch to fair. Switch to The Fairphone (Gen. 6).

Future-proof. Long-lasting. Modular design inside and out. Switch to The Fairphone (Gen. 6). It's two phones in one. For a more mindful you.

^Fairphone

This is a short analysis of the official Fairphone 2024 impact report.

Fairphone is kinda cagey about how much money they exactly spend on fair/eco initiatives, giving only very little information on what exactly it spends in these departments.

For a good reason, it is not a lot.

Specifically, these numbers are given in the report for 2024:

• The workers assembling the phones get $1.20 of "living wage bonus" for each phone assembled. This bonus is spread over all workers in the factory, no matter if they worked on fairphones or not, coming out to a yearly bonus of $60.67 per worker.
• $3000 was spent on gold fairwashing credits for some artisanal gold mine in Tanzania
• $13000 was spent on fairwashing credits for 2.5 tonnes of cobalt (that's 20% of the raw world market price of cobalt).

That's everything. They do talk about a few other fair/eco initiatives in there, but if you read about what they are doing there, it's usually very little and mostly marketing speech. We can safely assume that if any other initiatives would cost more than the ones mentioned above, they would have put these values into the impact report.

They sold 103 053 phones in 2024, so the credits mentioned above come out to just $0.155 per phone.

So to account for the rest of their initiatives and credits, let's be ultra generous and assume they paid 10x of that for all of these initiatives and credits, bringing this value up to $1.55 per phone plus $1.20 in living wage bonus, which gives us a total of $2.75 per phone.

To double check how realistic these numbers are, lets look at their use of fair materials using the Fairphone 5 as our example.

On page 42 they claim "Fair materials: 76%", but with the disclaimer "Average across 14 focus materials" next to it.

These 76% do not consider materials that are not "focus materials" (and aren't acquired fairly at all) and it also doesn't take into consideration the different distributions of the materials in the phone. Some materials (e.g. iridium) are only found in trace amounts in the phone, while other materials (e.g. aluminium or plastics) make up a large part of the weight of the phone.

On page 67 they go into more detail. Here they claim that only 44% of the materials by weight are "fair". To make this even worse, 37% of these 44% are recycled. Specifically, the materials they use in recycled form are metals, plastics and rare earth elements. These are materials that are cheaper to recycle than to mine, which means these 37% of "fair" materials cost nothing to Fairphone and might even save them money. You will likely find similar shares of recycled materials in any other phone too.

Of the 7% "fair" materials that are left, only 1% is actually mined fairly, the remaining 6% are fairwashed using credits. As we have seen above, these credits are really cheap (adding maybe 20% to the price of the material).

On top of that comes the fact that the raw materials make up only a tiny fraction of the manufacturing cost of a smartphone. The expensive part is turning a pile of minerals, metals and plastic into chips, PCBs, screens, batteries and assembling all of that. So even if they paid fairwashing credits for all materials in the phone it would likely not cost more than a few dollars.

TLDR: Less than $5 per phone are spent on fair/eco.

So where does the money go? In 2024 they had an EBITDA of just €1 745 840, or €16.94 per phone. That's not a lot at all, so it's not like they are pocketing huge sums of money.

Their main problem is that they are a tiny company with low sales figures that has to outsource almost everything they do. On their website they claim to have "70+ employees". That's barely enough for supply chain management, sales and marketing. They don't have an in-house production and likely not even in-house development. They don't have any economies of scale on their side and they certainly don't produce screens, batteries, chips or PCBs in house, like other major manufacturers like e.g. Samsung can do. Their development cost is spread over far fewer sold units.

All of this costs a lot of money.

So when you pay an extra €200-300 to buy a Fairphone instead of a comparable mainstream phone, you are mostly paying for a boutique manufacturing process that can't benefit from economies of scale.

Which is ok, that's nothing bad to do. Just be aware where that extra money is going.

Buying a Fairphone is hardly fairer than buying a regular phone and it is certainly not more eco friendly than buying an used phone.

"The reconciliation bill that Republicans are attempting to ram through the Senate this week would be a death sentence for working-class and low-income Americans," said Sen. Bernie Sanders.

GOP Bill Would Strip Healthcare From 19 People for Every Millionaire Getting a Tax Cut: Sanders Report

^{jake-johnson (Common Dreams)}

Zohran Mamdani's victory over Cuomo in NYC's mayoral primary has sparked a progressive movement demanding change in the Democratic Party. Will this seismic shift lead to more insurgent candidates challenging establishment lawmakers? The time for change is now. #ProgressiveRevolt #Mamdani

After Mamdani Victory, Progressives Call for Primary Challenges to Democratic Establishment

"The establishment has never been more weak than they are now," one advocate told potential progressive candidates. "You need to run."

^{julia-conley (Common Dreams)}

Gaza City’s main high street has been destroyed but Palestinian memories of life before the ongoing Israeli assault survive. As those in Gaza face bombing, starvation and miserable living conditions, here’s how they try to hold both the past and the present in their minds

Archived version: archive.is/20250626125624/theg…

Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.

A street in Gaza, a map of dreams, and the people desperate to live

^{Ana Lucía González Paz (The Guardian)}

The European Union’s top official, Ursula von der Leyen, has declared rearmament the bloc’s emergency priority. While military spending soars to new heights, working people face a fresh era of austerity.

Ursula von der Leyen Is Waging War on Workers

^jacobin.com

"Governments should heed widespread demands to tax the rich—and match it with a vision to build public goods from healthcare to energy," said the executive director of Oxfam International.

Archived version: archive.is/newest/commondreams…

Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.

Wealth of Global 1% Has Skyrocketed by Over $33 Trillion Since 2015: Report

^{jake-johnson (Common Dreams)}

A Trump appointee suggests NASA may not have a new administrator until next year.

During a town hall Wednesday, NASA officials on stage looked like hostages

^{Stephen Clark (Ars Technica)}

Billionaire Bill Ackman and his rich friends want someone, anyone, to bring down Zohran Mamdani. Their pitch: take our money, it won’t be much time and energy, and maybe you’ll get famous enough to use the campaign as a stepping stone to higher office.

A Billionaire Trump Backer Is Desperate to Stop Zohran Mamdani

Billionaire Bill Ackman and his rich friends want someone, anyone, to bring down Zohran Mamdani. Their pitch: take our money, it won’t be much time and energy, and maybe you’ll get famous enough to use the campaign as a stepping stone to higher offic…

^jacobin.com

A mix of iron, chlorine, and lithium is conductive, stores lithium, and self-heals.

Researchers develop a battery cathode material that does it all

^{John Timmer (Ars Technica)}

"This is a systematic decimation of access to reproductive healthcare and a signifier of what else is likely to come," warned one critic.

Case file: supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pd…

'People Will Die,' Warn Progressives as Supreme Court Lets States Defund Planned Parenthood

^{brett-wilkins (Common Dreams)}

Federal judge blocks Trump admin from ending wide swatch of federal workers' collective bargaining rights.

Case file: storage.courtlistener.com/reca…

'Victory for Working People': Judge Blocks Trump Attack on Public Employee Unions

"We applaud this ruling as a critical defense of our communities and our rights at work," said the head of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees.

^{eloise-goldsmith (Common Dreams)}

Senate Finance Committee Republicans propose a measly $15 billion "stabilization fund" for rural hospitals to cover up $800 billion in Medicaid cuts. Democrats call it a "slush fund" and warn of devastating consequences. #SaveMedicaid

Dems Decry GOP's $15 Billion Rural Hospital Fund as Sick Joke Compared to $800 Billion in Medicaid Cuts

Instead of offering a "disaster fund" for rural hospitals that would lose crucial funding due to Medicaid cuts, one Democratic senator said Republicans should not "create the problem in the first place."

^{julia-conley (Common Dreams)}

Malaysia emerged as a major destination for U.S. waste after China banned U.S. waste imports in 2018.

Archived version: archive.is/20250626132109/lati…

Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.

Malaysia will stop taking U.S. plastic waste. What will California do?

^{Susanne Rust (Los Angeles Times)}

"Senate Republicans apparently saw the House Republican tax plan as a challenge, because their version of this bill is an even bigger rip-off," said Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden.

'Unprecedented Handout': Senate GOP Tax Bill Even More Regressive Than House Version

^{jake-johnson (Common Dreams)}

PlayStation will continue withholding its first-party games from PlayStation Plus on launch day, despite Xbox offering day-one releases through Game Pass. Nick Maguire, PlayStation's vice president of global services, told Game File the company remains committed to its current approach of adding first-party titles to the subscription service 12 to 18 months after release. "We've sort of stayed true to our strategy across the board, where we're not looking to put games in day and date," Maguire said.

Sony Won't Budge on PlayStation Plus Day-One Releases For First-Party Games - Slashdot

^{games.slashdot.org}

iPhone giant will make it easier for developers to promote their offerings

Archived version: archive.is/20250626190617/ft.c…

Apple to open App Store to competitors in EU as it seeks to avoid fines

^{Barbara Moens (Financial Times)}

As the deadline approaches for Tuvaluans to apply for visas to escape their climate-vulnerable home, hope and desperation collide. Will these 280 lucky individuals find safety in Australia, or will rising sea levels swallow their homeland whole? Join the fight for climate justice and human dignity. #SaveTuvalu #ClimateMigration.

Archived version: archive.is/newest/commondreams…

Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.

Nearly a Third of Tuvalu Residents Seek Climate Visas to Australia as Sea Engulfs Their Home

Scientists say the Pacific island nation will likely be uninhabitable by 2100.

^{julia-conley (Common Dreams)}

Zohran Mamdani's opponents "made it a referendum on anti-Zionism being antisemitism," said journalist Spencer Ackerman. "They lost."

Mamdani Shows Pro-Palestine Politics Can Win, Activists and Writers Say

Zohran Mamdani's opponents "made it a referendum on anti-Zionism being antisemitism," said journalist Spencer Ackerman. "They lost."

^{stephen-prager (Common Dreams)}

Democratic lawmakers are demanding an end to the Trump administration's use of "secret police" tactics, with legislation requiring law enforcement officers to clearly display identification. How can we ensure the safety of the public and officers if they continue to operate in secrecy?

'No Secret Police Act': Democratic Bill Would Ban Trump's Masked Federal Agents

"If you uphold the peace of a democratic society, you should not be anonymous," said Rep. Adriano Espaillat.

^{julia-conley (Common Dreams)}

In December 2023, the dating platform Bumble introduced so-called AI Icebreakers to the “Bumble for Friends” section of the app. Powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the feature is designed to help you start a conversation by providing an AI-generated message. In order to do this, your personal profile information is fed into the AI system without Bumble ever obtaining your consent. Although the company repeatedly shows you a banner designed to nudge you into clicking “Okay”, which suggests that it relies on user consent, it actually claims to have a so-called “legitimate interest” to use data. noyb has therefore filed a complaint with the Austrian data protection authority.

Bumble's AI icebreakers are mainly breaking EU law

Bumble sends people's personal profile information to OpenAI to create AI generated messages - without ever asking for consent

^noyb.eu

In December 2023, the dating platform Bumble introduced so-called AI Icebreakers to the “Bumble for Friends” section of the app. Powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the feature is designed to help you start a conversation by providing an AI-generated message. In order to do this, your personal profile information is fed into the AI system without Bumble ever obtaining your consent. Although the company repeatedly shows you a banner designed to nudge you into clicking “Okay”, which suggests that it relies on user consent, it actually claims to have a so-called “legitimate interest” to use data. noyb has therefore filed a complaint with the Austrian data protection authority.

Bumble's AI icebreakers are mainly breaking EU law

Bumble sends people's personal profile information to OpenAI to create AI generated messages - without ever asking for consent

^noyb.eu

Sorella di Perfezione - Giuseppe Iannozzi - LFA Publisher. INFORMAZIONI UTILI PER L'ACQUISTO ON LINE.

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