US vaccination rates fall again as exemptions continue to rise, CDC data shows

US vaccination rates fall again as exemptions continue to rise, CDC data shows

fivenewscrypto    août 18, 2026   

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday released data on the vaccination rates of US kindergarteners in the 2025–2026 school year, revealing that rates have once again decreased from the previous school year.

Vaccination rates have been slipping since the 2019–2020 school year, when the US had obtained rates of around 95 percent, the threshold needed to keep outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases from spreading in communities. The latest data shows the US is moving further away from that target.

Nationally, only 92.4 percent of kindergartners were vaccinated with the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine in the 2025–2026 school year, down from 92.5 percent last year. Coverage with the DTaP vaccine, which covers diphtheria, tetanus, and acellular pertussis (whooping cough), similarly fell from 92.1 percent to 92.0 percent.

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Former SpaceX engineers are building a robotic factory for making steel parts

Former SpaceX engineers are building a robotic factory for making steel parts

fivenewscrypto    août 18, 2026   

Three former SpaceX engineers have switched their attention from making rocket engines to manufacturing steel parts by using AI-driven software and robots. Their immediate goal involves establishing a prototype factory that can automate most of the steel fabrication process for crucial infrastructure components by 2027.

The startup, called 1872, officially launched on July 22 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at its Factory One facility in Cincinnati, Ohio. The company is initially focused on automating the manufacturing of steel skids—rectangular steel frames that can provide a moveable foundation for modular buildings—with the goal of supplying customers who are developing AI data centers or small modular nuclear reactors.

“We're building towards autonomy, but we're not necessarily building in a dogmatic fashion towards full autonomy,” Dan Summers, CEO of 1872, told Ars. “We may achieve 80 percent autonomous operations, and we may decide that it makes sense to stop there because there's just diminishing returns to go to full 100 percent.”

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The Moon's shadow raced across the heart of Spain, and I was there to see it

The Moon's shadow raced across the heart of Spain, and I was there to see it

fivenewscrypto    août 18, 2026   

DURATÓN, Spain—I'll say it: I'm hooked. Standing in the shadow of the Moon is one of the rarest opportunities to directly sense the mechanics of our Solar System, when the dance between three celestial bodies slides into perfect alignment. It's a mathematical miracle whose rarity and grandeur are made possible by the relative sizes and distances of the Moon and the Sun from Earth. Not every planet is so lucky.

The Moon's shadow crisscrossed the American heartland twice in less than seven years, first in 2017 and again in 2024. I was fortunate to witness both. The experiences left me too impatient to wait for the next total solar eclipse in the continental United States in far-off 2044.

That's what pulled me to the plains of north-central Spain last week. This land of wide open spaces, ancient churches and castles, and vast sunflower fields, all baking under the blinding August Sun, seemed like the perfect location to enter the path of totality. The ongoing drought in Spain has turned the country's fields and forests into a tinderbox, but those conditions made for ideal eclipse viewing.

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As Wisconsin cities flee Flock, its shared camera network loses value

As Wisconsin cities flee Flock, its shared camera network loses value

fivenewscrypto    août 18, 2026   

Perhaps it's the local summer diet of deep-fried cheese curds, corn on the cob, and Spotted Cow, but Wisconsin residents have been feeling pretty dyspeptic about Flock's automated license plate cameras.

Over the past few months, a spate of Wisconsin towns and cities have withdrawn from Flock deals over privacy and trust concerns. As they did so, another issue revealed itself: With each city that leaves, the Flock network becomes less useful to the cities that remain. And cities are starting to notice.

Consider Dane County, which includes the city of Madison. It's one of the most populous counties in Wisconsin. It was also a significant Flock user, with a contract for 24 license plate cameras. But after complaints from citizens and privacy experts, the Dane County Board of Supervisors on April 16 voted to cut the $80,000 in county funding for Flock cameras and banned "further expenditures on the system."

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Supreme Court rejects Verizon bid for $47 million refund of FCC fine

Supreme Court rejects Verizon bid for $47 million refund of FCC fine

fivenewscrypto    août 18, 2026   

The Supreme Court today rejected Verizon's attempt to get a $47 million refund from the Federal Communications Commission. In a list of orders issued by the court, Verizon's petition was denied without explanation.

The denial apparently ends any possibility of Verizon asking a lower court to review the fine and order the FCC to issue a refund. However, AT&T and T-Mobile are continuing to challenge similar fines on grounds that selling device-location data did not violate US telecom law.

AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon were fined a total of $196 million in 2024 for selling mobile users’ real-time location data without their customers' consent. The carriers sold device-location information to data aggregators, who resold it to other firms.

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Petlibro accused of “gaslighting” users over smart pet feeder outage

Petlibro accused of “gaslighting” users over smart pet feeder outage

fivenewscrypto    août 18, 2026   

Petlibro founder and CEO York Wu provided more information about an outage that left users unable to control their smart pet feeders through the companion app and, in some reported cases, left them with hungry pets.

Petlibro, a company owned by Shenzhen, China-headquartered firm Shenzhen Libro Technology Co., first acknowledged the outage on Tuesday at 5 am PT. At 7 pm PT on Wednesday, Petlibro said the outage was resolved. Notably, some people online reported different information at the time, and some claimed to still have problems as of August 13.

In a blog post on Saturday that included an apology and acknowledgement of the “frustration and concern” the outage caused, Wu confirmed that problems with Petlibro’s cloud server caused the outage:

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Hidden Airtag reveals Amazon is trashing rare books to train AI

Hidden Airtag reveals Amazon is trashing rare books to train AI

fivenewscrypto    août 18, 2026   

For the past year or so, booksellers have suspected that AI firms are buying up huge lots of rare books, then destroying them after scanning them to train AI. But this was hard to prove until now, as 404 Media reports that an Airtag hidden in a rare book shows that at least one tech giant, in the race to advance its frontier models, is behind some of the bulk orders: Amazon.

On Monday, 404 Media revealed that it had connected with a bookseller who agreed to plant an Airtag in a rare book that was part of a bulk order. That Airtag was then tracked to an Amazon AI training facility in Las Vegas that housed a team focused on tearing books from their spines and scanning pages, 404 Media reported. Apparently tone-deaf to the escalating backlash over destructive book scanning, a logo on the door of that team’s warehouse, VGT3, showed a Tyrannosaurus rex preparing to devour a book, 404 Media documented.

Amazon deflects

Amazon declined to comment on 404 Media’s findings, only providing Ars with the same statement it gave to 404 Media, which does not mention AI training specifically.

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