gedaliyah

Scalpers amassed appointments using bots and fake accounts to exploit an online system. The Tax Collector's Office spotted 200 suspicious appointments in the first three weeks after opening a new downtown Miami location for driver's license services, the Miami Herald reports. The agency has its sights set on individuals who are part of local driving schools as suspects in strangling the DMV's system. Miami-Dade County Tax Collector Dariel Fernandez said in a release:

In a recent interview with local dailies, the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) Julius Malema vehemently denied claims of widespread violence towards the white farmers who are majorly the Afrikaners.

Malema termed the reports as "fiction" and "drama" as he also took a direct jab at the recent move by the United States to resettle 49 Afrikaners, refuting the stories as fake, calling them part of a larger media fabrication.

South Africa's government says the U.S. allegations that the white minority Afrikaners are being persecuted are “completely false,” the result of misinformation and an inaccurate view of the country. It cited the fact that Afrikaners are among the richest and most successful people in the country.

At least 20,000 people have fled the town of Marte in northeastern Nigeria following a surge in attacks by Islamist militants, according to Borno State Governor Babagana Zulum.

Marte, near the border with Cameroon, had been resettled four years ago after years under insurgent control, but was recently overrun again by suspected Boko Haram and ISWAP fighters.

The region has seen a rise in militant activity in 2025, raising fears that extremist groups are regaining ground. Over the past 16 years, the insurgency has displaced more than two million people and killed thousands.

Congress overwhelmingly approved bipartisan legislation to enact stricter penalties for the distribution of non-consensual intimate imagery, sometimes called “revenge porn.” Known as the Take It Down Act, the bill is now headed to President Donald Trump for his signature Monday.

The Take It Down Act has garnered strong bipartisan support and has been championed by Melania Trump, who lobbied on Capitol Hill in March saying it was “heartbreaking” to see what teenagers, especially girls, go through after they are victimized by people who spread such content. President Trump is expected to sign it into law.

The agreement includes a new defense partnership and reduced checks on food and drink, removing some trade barriers after months of negotiations.

The order, titled “Unleashing America’s Offshore Critical Minerals and Resources,” charges NOAA and the Secretary of Commerce with expediting the process for reviewing and issuing licenses to explore and permits to mine seabed minerals in areas beyond national jurisdiction.

Prior to the president’s order, more than 900 leading scientists and marine policy experts from over 70 countries, including Amon from Trinidad and Tobago, had signed a statement calling for a precautionary pause on deep-sea mining until more scientific data was obtained to prove related activity would not harm the marine environment.

Thirty-three countries, including Canada, France, the United Kingdom, and a number of Pacific Island Countries like Fiji and Vanuatu, are also calling for a moratorium or outright ban on deep-sea mining, according to the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, an alliance of more than 100 organizations dedicated to protecting the ocean’s depths.

ROME (AP) — U.S. Vice President JD Vance extended an invitation to Pope Leo XIV to visit the United States during a meeting at the Vatican on Monday ahead of a flurry of U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to make progress on a ceasefire in Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Vance gave the first American pope a letter from U.S. President Donald Trump and the first lady inviting him. The Chicago-born pope took the letter and put it on his desk and was heard saying “at some point,” in the video footage of the meeting provided by Vatican Media.

In the days since his May 8 election, Leo has vowed “every effort” to help bring peace to Ukraine. He also has emphasized his continuity with Pope Francis, who made caring for migrants and the poor a priority of his pontificate.

The Trump administration has instituted all sorts of requirements in its first months to monitor Americans, particularly immigrants.

The big picture: From an undocumented immigrant registry to proof-of-citizenship for voting, President Trump has attempted to create a landscape in which the government can demand to know — and force people to prove — their identity in radical new ways.

Between the lines: The data the administration is pushing for can be weaponized against people.

As part of the Trump administration's playbook to influence and reorient the priorities of universities, school protest leaders have been targets.

Meanwhile, as the government probes schools over alleged antisemitism, employees at Barnard College received a survey from a federal regulator asking if they were Jewish and whether they practiced Judaism.

"That the government is putting together lists of Jews, ostensibly as part of a campaign to fight antisemitism, is really chilling," Nara Milanich, a Barnard history professor who is Jewish, told AP. "As a historian, I have to say it feels a little uncomfortable."

Three months ago, 30-year-old Adriana Smith was declared brain-dead. But a hospital in Georgia is keeping her “alive” on life support, against her family’s wishes, because of the state’s strict abortion ban.

Smith, a registered nurse in metro Atlanta, was nine weeks pregnant in early February when she started suffering from intense headaches. Smith initially sought treatment at Northside Hospital but was released that same day after being given medication. According to Adriana Smith’s mother April Newkirk, “They didn’t do any tests. No CT scan. If they had done that or kept her overnight, they would have caught it. It could have been prevented.”

Abortion is currently illegal in Georgia after six weeks. And even though ending Smith’s life support would not be an abortion, hospital staff say they plan to keep Smith’s dead body on life-support machines until the fetus reaches a gestational age when it can survive outside the womb.

When she died, Adriana Smith was already a mother to one young son. Doctors told Newkirk and her boyfriend that, legally, they aren’t allowed to consider other options while Smith is technically pregnant, even though her family wishes she could be allowed to die in peace.

“She’s been breathing through machines for more than 90 days,” Smith’s mother Newkirk said. “It’s torture for me. I see my daughter breathing, but she’s not there. And her son—I bring him to see her.”

It seems like thre are really only a couple of options, and I haven't found many review or examples that show enough detail to compare them.

Jellyfin has a bookshelf plugin that seems to be able to handle it. Audiobooks look to be accessed through the main client app, and ebooks through a companion app like JellyBook, which also claims to handle audiobooks.

On the other hand, there is Audiobookshelf, which specializes in audiobooks, but also claims to host ebooks. It has a number of client apps, but none that I found mention eBook reading.

I've found a couple of other solutions that seem more specialized. Maybe one of those?

I want to be able to read and listen on an Android device, preferably with a native app. I have a few comics, but mostly interested in books and audiobooks. I already have a Jellyfin server setup.

The paper said that after an AI tool was implemented at a large materials-science lab, researchers discovered significantly more materials—a result that suggested that, in certain settings, AI could substantially improve worker productivity. That paper, by Aidan Toner-Rodgers, was covered by The Wall Street Journal and other media outlets.

The paper was championed by MIT economists Daron Acemoglu, who won the 2024 economics Nobel, and David Autor.

In a press release, MIT said it “has no confidence in the provenance, reliability or validity of the data and has no confidence in the veracity of the research contained in the paper.”

The university said the author of the paper is no longer at MIT.