“Bill Gates is scheduled to appear before the House Oversight Committee in the coming weeks, as the committee continues its investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Gates will sit for a transcribed interview June 10, according to a person familiar with the matter granted anonymity to discuss the committee’s deliberations. His interview comes after the committee issued a March 3 letter requesting his testimony. A spokesperson for Gates said the Microsoft founder ‘welcomes’ the chance to appear before the committee.” (04/08/26)
“If you own an older Kindle e-reader, including models with physical keyboards or physical page-turn buttons that you’ve been reluctant to give up, Amazon has bad news for you. The company sent a message to owners of those devices today, informing them that starting on May 20 they would no longer be able to buy or download books from the Kindle Store. The change (as reported by Good E-Reader and elsewhere) affects all Kindles introduced and sold in 2012 or earlier, going all the way back to the original Kindle from 2007. Users will still be able to read books that have already been downloaded to those devices, but they won’t be able to download more, and if they reset those Kindles to their factory defaults, the devices won’t be able to sign back in to an Amazon account.” (04/08/26)
“A federal judge in Vermont ruled that Harvard scientist Kseniia Petrova’s visa was unlawfully canceled after she was detained at an airport over biological samples she was carrying, handing her a key legal victory in a case that has raised questions about the limits of government power at the border. … Petrova, a Russian-born researcher at Harvard University’s Kirschner Lab, has argued for more than a year that the cancellation was unlawful. She was stopped at Boston Logan International Airport last February after returning from Paris. Her visa was canceled; she was later placed into immigration proceedings and detention. This disrupted her groundbreaking work on advanced imaging technology that has the potential to transform cancer diagnostics, according to fellow researchers.” (04/08/26)
“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers shot and injured a man during an attempted stop in California on Tuesday, according to federal authorities. The officers fired shots at Carlos Ivan Mendoza Hernandez during a targeted traffic stop on Interstate 5 in the city of Patterson. His attorney said he is now hospitalized and ‘fighting for his life.’ Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons alleged the driver ‘weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run an officer over’ — an accusation disputed by Mendoza Hernandez’s attorney, Patrick Kolasinski.” (04/08/26)
“The Rolling Stones are reportedly set to release their final album this month. According to The Sun, the legendary rockers — comprised of Mick Jagger (82), Keith Richards (82) and Ronnie Wood (78)— are on the cusp of making their return with their 25th and final record and their first new music since 2023’s Hackney Diamonds. On April Fools Day, the band shared posters under their name The Cockroaches, which invited fans to scan a QR code. … It has since been reported that the band will release a new single entitled Mr Charm this Saturday (11th April), with some reports suggesting an album called Foreign Tongues would follow.” (04/08/26)
“Rex Heuermann pleaded guilty Wednesday to killing seven women between 1993 and 2011 and admitted he killed an eighth, in a series of murders that came to be known as the Gilgo Beach serial killings. … The ultimate break in the case when a car registered to Heuermann matched the description a witness gave of the one that picked up victim Amber Costello before she disappeared. Once police made that connection, they started checking cell phone records. Cell phone tower pings connected Heuermann to the victims, prosecutors said. … investigators collected pizza crust Heuermann allegedly tossed in a Manhattan trash can, resulting in what they said was a DNA match.” (04/08/26)
“North Korea fired short-range ballistic missiles on two separate occasions Wednesday, Seoul’s military said, marking three launches over two days after South Korean President Lee Jae Myung expressed regret over a drone incursion. At 8:50 a.m. Wednesday, the North launched several short-range ballistic missiles from its coastal Wonsan area toward the East Sea, Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a text message to reporters. The missiles flew approximately 150 miles, the JCS said …. North Korea later fired a single short-range ballistic missile from Wonsan toward the East Sea at 2:20 p.m. Wednesday, the JCS said in a separate message. The missile flew approximately 435 miles.” (04/08/26)
“Unionized staff at ProPublica, one of the country’s leading nonprofit newsrooms, are walking off the job for 24 hours beginning Wednesday and asking the public to honor a digital picket line. The roughly 150 members of the ProPublica Guild are in the midst of negotiating a collective bargaining agreement after unionizing in 2023. The union says key issues are still in contention, including protections around the use of AI, ‘just cause’ provisions around disciplining or firing an employee, layoff protections, and wages. … The unit voted in March to authorize a strike if a deal was not reached with ProPublica management.” (04/08/26)
“A group of new accounts on the prediction market Polymarket made highly specific, well-timed bets on whether the U.S. and Iran would reach a ceasefire on April 7, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits for these new customers. These bets were made even though, in the hours before a two-week ceasefire was announced on Tuesday, President Donald Trump’s rhetoric had escalated sharply and there were few signals that a ceasefire deal was imminent. … An analysis of publicly available blockchain data from Polymarket, using the crypto analytics platform Dune, shows that at least 50 accounts, or wallets, placed substantial ‘Yes’ bets Tuesday before Trump announced the ceasefire in a Truth Social post at around 6:30 pm ET. These were the first bets made by these particular wallets.” (04/08/26)
“Turkish authorities have detained nine people as part of an investigation into an attack on police outside a building housing the Israeli Consulate in Istanbul that left one assailant dead, Turkey’s state-run news agency reported Wednesday. Two other assailants were wounded and captured during Tuesday’s shootout in the city’s financial and business district, while two police officers sustained slight injuries, officials said. Israel had withdrawn its diplomats from Turkey over security concerns and deteriorating relations with Ankara shortly after the start of the war in Gaza, and officials said the consulate was closed at the time of the attack.” (04/08/26)
