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Authorities in Nepal warned of possible fresh flooding on Sunday and urged residents in flood-affected districts to remain on high alert after water levels rose in the Bhotekoshi River.

(Image credit: Rajesh Kumar Singh)

Well, that was quick.

On Thursday evening, federal district Judge Indira Talwani issued a new order that temporarily blocks an effort by the Trump administration that appears designed to sabotage voting by mail in the upcoming midterm election. Talwani previously blocked an executive order that President Donald Trump issued in March, which ordered the US Postal Service (USPS) to impose a byzantine array of new regulations on voting by mail, but the Supreme Court reinstated the order on Monday.

Talwani’s new order sets up a new legal fight that is almost certain to return to the justices, and it is unclear whether this Court, with its 6-3 Republican majority, will allow Trump to make sweeping and unilateral changes to how the United States conducts its elections so close to an actual Election Day.

That said, while Talwani’s new order in League of Women Voters v. Trump is brief, it is well-crafted to persuade at least some members of the Court’s Republican majority to break with the leader of their political party. 

Talwani relies on a fairly new legal concept known as the “major questions doctrine,” that the Court’s Republican majority invented in the later part of the Obama administration, and that the Court has only actually used against one president: Joe Biden. Briefly, the doctrine claims that the executive branch may not make policy changes that are too sweeping or too aggressive, often even if a federal statute appears to give it the power to do so. 

As the Court summarized this idea in Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA (2014), the first Supreme Court decision to articulate the major questions doctrine, “we expect Congress to speak clearly if it wishes to assign to an agency decisions of vast ‘economic and political significance.’”

This doctrine, as Talwani indicated in her recent order, cuts sharply against Trump’s rules governing voting by mail. The Trump administration’s new rules impose so many layers of bureaucracy on mail ballots that it likely would be impossible for many states to comply with these regulations. Trump’s new rules, in other words, would effectively shut down voting by mail in much of the United States. And there are several states who conduct their elections almost entirely by mail, which means that Trump’s rules could effectively cancel the 2026 midterms in those states. 

If that’s not a decision of “vast economic and political significance,” nothing is.

The uncertain question, however, is whether the Court will actually apply its major questions doctrine to Trump — something that several justices have thus far been reluctant to do. In Learning Resources v. Trump (2026), the tariffs case, three Republican members of the Court (Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett) did say that this doctrine prohibits many of Trump’s tariffs. But the other three Republican justices (Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh) refused to apply this doctrine to a member of their own party. 

If Roberts, Gorsuch, and Barrett hold to the view they expressed in Learning Resources — the view that the major questions doctrine applies to both Trump and Biden — then it is likely that these three justices plus the Court’s three Democrats will form a majority that will strike down Trump’s latest attempt to sabotage voting by mail.

A brief history of the major questions doctrine

Many federal laws lay out a broad policy goal, and then empower a federal agency to write rules that will achieve that goal. Federal law, for example, requires the EPA to determine when power plants must install cutting-edge technology to reduce their emissions. It tasks a body within the Department of Health and Human Services with determining which vaccines must be covered by health insurers. And it gives the Federal Communications Commission some control over the cost of cable television.

Often, the federal statutes granting these powers are written quite broadly. During the later part of the Obama administration, however, many voices within the conservative legal movement grew concerned that Democratic presidents could use these broadly worded statutes to make major policy changes. Indeed, in the late Obama administration, the Federalist Society’s annual lawyers’ convention, probably the most important annual gathering of influential Republican attorneys, became a showcase of proposals to restrict federal agencies and prevent them from using their congressionally granted authority too aggressively.

Ultimately, the Supreme Court’s Republican majority settled on the major questions doctrine as their solution to this clamor within the Federalist Society and other conservative legal groups. The doctrine effectively gives the justices a veto power over any policy proposal advanced by the executive branch if the justices deem that policy to be too ambitious.

One common critique of this doctrine is that it appears nowhere in the Constitution or in any federal law. The Court first announced the doctrine in its 2014 opinion in Utility Air, which merely invoked it to criticize a hypothetical EPA regulation that never actually existed. The Court has also never handed down a majority opinion explaining where the justices’ new power to veto federal regulations comes from. Moreover, while some individual justices have attempted to do so, their explanations conflict with each other, and are often ridiculous. Barrett has argued, for example, that the major questions doctrine derives from a parable about a babysitter.

Another criticism of the doctrine is that the Court has never applied it to a Republican administration — indeed, the Court has thus far only applied it to Biden. The doctrine, after its first appearance in 2014, laid dormant for the entire first Trump administration — only to spring back to life in order to block several of Biden’s attempts to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Yet, while the major questions doctrine is hard to defend as a good faith effort to interpret the Constitution or any statute, the pragmatic case for allowing someone to rein in a too aggressive president has undoubtedly gotten stronger in the last two years. Trump is a walking advertisement for the idea that there should be limits on executive power. If the Court decided to apply its major questions doctrine to Trump, it’s unlikely that many Democrats would object to such a decision.

Thus far, however, the Court’s three Democrats have kept this recently fabricated doctrine at arms length — in Learning Resources v. Trump (2026), for example, they concluded that it was unnecessary to invoke the major questions doctrine to strike down Trump’s tariffs that were at issue in that case because federal law was clear that those tariffs could not exist.

The Court’s Republicans, meanwhile, have split on whether the doctrine should be applied to Trump. While Roberts, Gorsuch, and Barrett all concluded that Trump’s attempt to impose trillions of dollars worth of new taxes on imports was a decision of “vast ‘economic and political significance,’” the other three Republicans joined an opinion by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, which said that the doctrine does not apply “in the foreign affairs context, including foreign trade.”

Kavanaugh, in other words, would have invented a new exception to a brand new legal doctrine, which just happened to be perfectly tailored to exempt a Republican president’s signature economic policy.

Still, there are three Republican justices who have previously concluded that the major questions doctrine may be used against a Republican president. If these justices hold to that view in League of Women Voters, that’s enough to form a majority against Trump’s restrictions on voting by mail because the Court’s three Democrats have already signaled that they oppose those restrictions.

League of Women Voters gives the Roberts Court a second chance to legitimize one of its most consequential changes to US law

Because the Court has neither offered a plausible explanation of where the major questions doctrine comes from, nor applied this doctrine in a nonpartisan way, both the Democratic justices and a wide array of legal scholars have treated the doctrine as illegitimate. So have I. Kavanaugh’s dissenting opinion calling for a Trump-sized exemption to the major questions doctrine certainly didn’t help the case for it.

But if any case justifies a court decision that overrides a presidential power grab, League of Women Voters is that case.

Trump has carried out a vendetta against voting by mail since the 2020 election. During the Covid pandemic, disease-shy Democrats were much more likely to vote-by-mail than Republicans, because voting by mail allowed Democrats to avoid a trip to the polls where they might catch Covid. And these voting patterns continued even after the pandemic receded. According to the Pew Research Center, 44 percent of Democrats, and only 26 percent of Republicans, voted by mail in the 2024 election.

The new restrictions on voting by mail, in other words, are almost certainly motivated by Trump’s desire to shut down a method of voting that is preferred by Democrats, and thus skew the 2026 election towards Republicans.

Among other things, the new rules require states to mail ballots in a special envelope which must include certain design elements mandated by the federal government. These envelopes must be preapproved by the Postal Service, and individually scanned in a process that the Trump administration claims will take “less than a minute per mailpiece.”

But, as several states point out in a legal filing challenging Trump’s rules, California alone needs to mail 23 million ballots to individual voters. So that potentially adds up to “23 million minutes … or more than 43 years” that state officials would need to spend just to comply with one small part of the new regulations.

Trump’s lawyers point to two vaguely worded statutes to justify the new restrictions. One permits USPS to adopt rules “as may be necessary in the execution of its functions.” The other permits it to “provide for the collection, handling, transportation, delivery, forwarding, returning, and holding of mail.”

If the major questions doctrine applies to Republican administrations, however, there is no need to parse whether these two laws should be read to allow the Trump administration to effectively shut down voting by mail. The question of whether to quash a method of voting that tens of millions of US voters have used in the past is undoubtedly a question of “vast … political significance.” And thus, under Utility Air’s holding that Congress must “speak clearly” before it can give a federal agency the power to resolve this question, the two vague statutes that Trump’s lawyers cite to justify the new rules are not enough.

League of Women Voters, in other words, should be a very easy case — even for the Court’s Republicans. All they need to do to strike down Trump’s attack on voting by mail is apply the same rules to Trump that they previously applied to Biden.

Разработчик выложил видео геймплея своей игры в сеть.

Задача — искать иголку среди 5 млн травинок, название — Needle In A Haystack Simulator.

Абсурдный геймплей быстро привлек внимание пользователей: видео набрали миллионы просмотров. Тут автор вспомнил, что надо завести страницу в Steam и собрать вишлисты.

Assembly George Square studios, Edinburgh
Writer and actor Alaa Shehada turns a simple bus trip from the West Bank into a vivid tale of bureaucracy, humiliation and resistance

It is the simplicity of the task that gives this story heft. Recalling his formative years in the West Bank, actor and writer Alaa Shehada is asked by his mother to go on a bus journey that would take a couple of hours in any other part of the world.

His mission is to deliver a plastic jerry can filled with the family’s home-pressed olive oil to his aunt in Jordan. His obstacle is the 180m crossing point known variously as the Dignity Bridge, the Allenby Bridge and the King Hussein Bridge, depending on your political standpoint.

The no campaign was well-funded and accused of scaremongering, but the wording of the question may also have made a difference

It was always going to be a close contest. But on the night, the figures showed just how divided Iceland was on the issue of whether or not to restart negotiations with the European Union.

After a nail-biting overnight count, the well-funded no campaign rejoiced on Sunday morning as the broadcaster RUV declared it the winner with about 52.8% of the vote. Given the size of Iceland’s population – barely 400,000 – the margins were tiny.

A masterclass led by the actor helped set Raymond on a new path. Now the head of a theatre company, he has coaxed his friend back to the stage for a show to encourage young people to fall in love with performing

Darren Raymond doesn’t remember having any significant interest in acting when he was growing up. And when he met Mark Rylance for the first time, on Christmas Eve 2004, he had never heard of the multi-award winning actor. These days, things are very different: Raymond is the artistic director of Intermission Youth, the London-based arts charity and theatre, and is directing his friend Rylance in the lead role of Tartuffe (Remixed), Raymond’s adaptation of the Molière play, which opens at London’s Marylebone theatre this week.

It’s fair to say neither could have anticipated they’d still be in touch this long after their initial meeting. “Unlikely companions” is a tired cliche by this point, but that doesn’t make it any less true to say that on the surface, the two had very little in common. Raymond was a young twentysomething raised on an inner-city housing estate and serving a prison sentence at HMP Brixton. Meanwhile Rylance was twice his age, a successful professional actor, and artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe. Nevertheless that meeting, at a Shakespeare workshop in the prison, turned into a professional connection, which soon evolved into a solid friendship.

Пригодится дизайнерам, блогерам, предпринимателям, маркетологам. Более тысячи промтов для генератора картинок. 

Просто копируете, вставляете в нейросеть, если надо правите промт по-своему, и генерируете изображение. В таблице есть пример-картинка для каждого промта.

Breakdown recovery group’s private equity owners reportedly in talks with various suitors to sell company

The German-based financial services company ⁠Allianz is considering a £5bn takeover swoop for AA, ⁠the breakdown ⁠recovery ​group, Sky News has reported.

Allianz was ‌one of a small number of parties holding talks with advisers to AA about a deal, Sky News said, adding that ‌the private equity outfit EQT was another bidder.

Полгода на Arch, одно обновление ядра и AmneziaWG выходит из строя. Snapper молчит, бэкап сломан. Решил попробовать NixOS…

Почему ИИ убирает неверно показывает результат действий кота и удаляет одну подушку? Причины кроются в обучении и интерпретации нашей реальности. Подробнее про причинно‑следственную связь в нашем мире и о том, как ее «переносят» в ИИ рассказал профессор колумбийского университета и директор лаборатории CausalAI Elias Bareinboim в своем докладе на ICML 2026.

Пересказываю главное из его доклада.

С приходом нейросетей теперь можно решать задачи гораздо проще, правда и задачи бы такой не стояло не будь нейросетей и llama.cpp, и huggingface. В общем смысл статьи в том чтобы попытаться математически вычислить теоретическую скорость генерации токенов в программе llama.cpp для моделей на hugginface, просто открыв карточку модели и нажав на закладку (букмарклет).

В интеренете таких калькуляторв довольно много, и в этом калькуляторе нет никаких новых идей, он работает как и все остальные - вычисляет скорость исходя из пропускной способности видеопамяти пользователя. Но как выяснилось просто поделить одно число на другое (вес модели на пропускную способность видеокарты) не совсем правильно, когда я сказал что в реале у меня другая скорость, нейронки стали вводить поправочные коэффициент в виде эффективности видеокарты (60-80%).

Exclusive: Research says sector is fixated with young talent, with most women experiencing unconscious bias or sexism

Women working in the arts believe they do not have equal opportunities for roles, especially as they get older, according to a report saying that the industry is fixated with “young and emerging” talent.

Nearly all (95%) women working in the arts thought gender inequality persisted, while three-quarters (75%) reported experiencing unconscious bias or sexism, according to a survey of 76 arts professionals. More than two-thirds (69%) felt that age negatively affected their career success – a figure that rose to 100% among those working in artistic rather than managerial roles.

Прошел уже год, как начали действовать новые штрафы в области защиты персональных данных. Однако до сих пор я встречаю в своей практике нарушения у предпринимателей, которые могут повлечь за собой миллионные штрафы, если эти нарушения первым обнаружит Роскомнадзор. Поэтому в этой статье расскажу о часто встречаемых мной нарушениях и дам рекомендации, как их устранить и сохранить свою прибыль в 2026 г.

Exclusive: Research says sector is fixated with young talent, with most women experiencing unconscious bias or sexism

Women working in the arts believe they do not have equal opportunities for roles, especially as they get older, according to a report saying that the industry is fixated with “young and emerging” talent.

Nearly all (95%) women working in the arts thought gender inequality persisted, while three-quarters (75%) reported experiencing unconscious bias or sexism, according to a survey of 76 arts professionals. More than two-thirds (69%) felt that age negatively affected their career success – a figure that rose to 100% among those working in artistic rather than managerial roles.

Updates from day four at Lord’s; play starts 11am BST
County cricket – live | Sign up for The Spin | Mail James

48th over: England 182-7 (Lawrence 54, Robinson 3) Mohammad Abbas, who has performed well here and remains a fine bowler to watch, starts us off at the Pavilion End. After four dots, Robinson nudges one off his hips for the day’s first single. It brings Lawrence to the strike and he promptly crunches a square cut to the ropes at the Grandstand for four.

47th over: England 177-7 (Lawrence 50, Robinson 2) Mohammad Ali bowls the remaining ball of his over to Lawrence, who plays an orthodox forward defensive. No run.

Medicare launched a pilot program that could streamline the process to get GLP-1s, with some seniors paying just $50 a month. But many people with the most serious illnesses won't get that discount.

(Image credit: Erica S. Lee)

Кто не знает, Lectronz — это маркетплейс товаров от создателей опенсорсного ПО и самодельной электроники. Большинство наших селлеров — это не заводы и не стартапы с крупным финансированием, а обычные инженеры, независимые дизайнеры и электронщики-любители, которые работают у себя дома, в гаражах или крохотных мастерских.

Некоторые зарабатывают этим на жизнь. Другие продают лишь по несколько плат в год. Третьи собирают с десяток экземпляров просто потому, что создали нечто полезное и хотят поделиться с другими. Иногда такие эксперименты перерастают в реальный бизнес. Как никак, каждый Arduino должен с чего-то начинаться.

Но Европейский Союз пошёл наперекор этим людям, введя новые правила упаковки, которые грозят разрушить устоявшуюся экосистему инноваций, лишив мастеров и микро-предпринимателей их работы и средств к существованию.

Но фактически эта угроза даже ещё шире. Под удар попадают художники, ремесленники и другие мелкие бизнесы, продающие плоды своего труда.

Apple меняет домен новых Private Relay адресов для Sign in with Apple. Внешне это похоже на небольшую правку allowlist, но на практике быстро выявляет хрупкую архитектуру, где email участвует в поиске аккаунта.

На примере собственного аудита разбираю, чем sub из проверенного токена отличается от email, как пережить смену домена без дублей и какие проверки нужны на сервере.

Разбор, на который меня зовут регулярно, и заканчивается он почти всегда одинаково. База клиентов всплывает в продаже. Выгрузку за последний год получали десятки контрагентов — интеграторы, колл-центр, маркетинговое агентство, аудиторы. У всех был законный доступ. Файл у всех был один и тот же.

Дальше начинается разговор в жанре «это не мы», и закончить его нечем: копии побайтово одинаковые, доказать причастность нельзя ни к кому.

Чинится это не после инцидента, а до него — и стоит недорого. Каждый получатель должен получать копию, отличающуюся от остальных так, чтобы отличие не мешало работе и переживало пересохранение файла.

В фэнтези-стратегиях экономику обычно задвигают на второй план и даже не пытаются ее совместить с магией. А вот создателям мода (точнее, даже мод-мода) Orbis для Civilization IV это удалось. По первому образованию я экономист, поэтому в играх мне всегда доставляет удовольствие сложная экономическая изнанка. И Orbis для меня до сих пор остается эталоном: здесь сложные процессы, завязанные на экономику, в итоге создают атмосферу мрачного, сурового дарк-фэнтези.

Один раз мне удалось создать паладинов-вампиров. Перед походами эти святые рыцари поедали своих же жителей, а потом шли воевать во имя бога правосудия. В игре огромный простор для того, чтобы рождались такие неожиданные, удивительные, но рабочие стратегии.

Автор мода, поляк Ahwaric, изменил движок Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword до неузнаваемости. Он встроил в общую экономическую стратегию магию, расовые фишки, особенности ландшафта, флоры и фауны. Все они работают на мощь ВПК твоей фэнтезийной цивилизации, чье существование все время под вопросом, в условиях жесткой и непредсказуемой магической конкурентной борьбы. Так любительский проект сумел перерасти оригинал.

Под катом — разбор этой уникальной экономической модели, история ее лора из настолок D&D и причины, почему проект так и не смог перешагнуть барьер Civilization V.

Нейронке сказали — «разберись как оно работает». Пошевелив гигабайтами матриц, она полезла ковырять список классов в AppleNeuralEngine.framework— и нашла там то, что искала — «40+ private classes, including _ANEInMemoryModel». Код работал. Делал то что от него требовалось — запускал математику на ANE. Но было в этом что‑то… не то.

His family in Afghanistan had received threats from the Taliban because of the work performed by his brothers in support of the U.S. military.

(Image credit: Sam Mednick)

Critics say changes by CMA will allow multinationals to obscure their ownership of vet practices

Pet owners have been warned that they could be unknowingly ripped off by private equity firms who have bought local vet clinics, after the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) removed requirements for multinational companies to disclose which practices they own.

The CMA recently ran an investigation into the monopolisation of vet practices, and found that the lack of competition and transparency of ownership had led to high prices and a lack of information for customers. Pet owners were often unaware their local vet practice could be owned by an international private equity company.

The Black Bananas singer knows all the words to Rapper’s Delight and relates to AC/DC, but which song reminds her of a heartbreaking theft?

The first song I fell in love with
Van Halen’s Runnin’ With the Devil. I was five or six and I went to visit my cousin Tommy who was much older. He was on a hockey team and we went to see them practise before the game and they had Runnin’ With the Devil on really loud. I was like: “Wait, what’s this?!”

The song I do at karaoke
You Shook Me All Night Long by AC/DC. Me and Brian Johnson – my voice has that thing, you know?

Well-funded no camp prevails, winning 52.8% of votes and gaining plaudits from Eurosceptic figures across Europe

• Analysis: Definitely no or maybe yes – what tipped the Icelandic referendum

Voters in Iceland have ⁠rejected ⁠a government proposal ​to reopen ⁠accession talks with ⁠the ​EU after a closely fought referendum campaign that divided the country against a backdrop of global volatility.

After a long and anxious night for those on both sides of the debate, the no camp ended up with 52.8% of votes on Sunday morning and the yes camp with 47.2%. Voter turnout was high at 82.5%.