Trump's DOE restarts energy rebate program with dumb conditions

Trump's DOE restarts energy rebate program with dumb conditions

fivenewscrypto    juin 03, 2026   

Federal energy efficiency rebate programs will no longer cover a switch from fossil fuels to electricity for heating, according to long-awaited guidance from the Department of Energy.

The department published an update on how it will implement consumer programs with $8.8 billion in funding. The new provisions include eliminating use of diversity, equity and inclusion considerations, among other changes.

This follows legal challenges after President Donald Trump issued an executive order last year, upon returning to office, canceling the release of funds from Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, including rebates for home energy efficiency. A coalition of states successfully sued to restore the funding, obtaining an injunction in March 2025.

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Impulse Space raises $500 million as orbital maneuvering race heats up

Impulse Space raises $500 million as orbital maneuvering race heats up

fivenewscrypto    juin 03, 2026   

Getting around space, as it turns out, is kind of a big deal.

On Tuesday, Impulse Space, a company dedicated to improving space mobility, announced it has raised $500 million in Series D funding. Since it was founded five years ago by SpaceX veteran Tom Mueller, the company has now raised more than $1 billion.

"Timing is everything," Mueller said in an interview about the new round of funding. By this, he means the company has found its way into a lot of markets.

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AI costs how much? GitHub Copilot users react to new usage-based pricing system.

AI costs how much? GitHub Copilot users react to new usage-based pricing system.

fivenewscrypto    juin 03, 2026   

In April, GitHub announced that it was moving subscribers from request-based billing to a usage-based model for its AI-powered Copilot service. As that new pricing model goes into effect today, many GitHub Copilot users are reporting some extreme sticker shock as they realize just how quickly their previous "normal" usage is burning through their newly limited monthly allotment of AI credits.

Across social media and forums, many Copilot users are sharing personal statistics showing how just a few hours of AI usage can now account for a large chunk of their new monthly subscription caps. For some users, it reportedly took less than a day to use up a month's usage quota.

That's a big change from previous months, when GitHub Copilot subscribers were allocated a certain number of "requests" and "premium requests" based on their payment tier. GitHub said that the old system meant that "a quick chat question and a multi-hour autonomous coding session [could] cost the user the same amount," forcing Copilot itself to "absorb much of the escalating inference cost behind that usage." Indeed, some Copilot users have been sharing estimates from GitHub's own tool showing that their previous monthly usage would rack up bills in the thousands of dollars under the new pricing plan.

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Why cats prefer silver vine to catnip and other May highlights

Why cats prefer silver vine to catnip and other May highlights

fivenewscrypto    juin 03, 2026   

It’s a regrettable reality that there is never enough time to cover all the interesting scientific stories we come across. So every month, we highlight a handful of the best stories that nearly slipped through the cracks. May's list includes the discovery of a possible prehistoric mining site in the Pyrenees; a new species of tiny blue octopus; why cats seem to prefer silver vine to catnip; and why political polarization might behave like a phase transition, among other noteworthy stories.

Prehistoric mining in the Pyrenees

Credit: IPHES-CERCA

High in the eastern Pyrenees is a prehistoric cave, excavated between 2021 and 2023. Based on analysis of artifacts uncovered at the site, a team of Spanish archaeologists believes this may have served as an ancient copper smelting spot, with far more frequent occupation by humans than previously thought. The researchers described these preliminary findings in a paper published in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology.

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Moderna gets $50 million to develop mRNA Ebola vaccine against Bundibugyo

Moderna gets $50 million to develop mRNA Ebola vaccine against Bundibugyo

fivenewscrypto    juin 02, 2026   

The global health organization Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) announced Monday that it will "urgently accelerate development" of three vaccine candidates against Bundibugyo ebolavirus (BDBV), pledging a little over $60 million in the effort to extinguish an outbreak currently raging out of control in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Under the plans, CEPI has committed up to $50 million to US-based Moderna for preclinical development and Phase 1 clinical testing of its mRNA-based BDBV vaccine candidate. The funding will simultaneously allow the company to ramp up manufacturing capabilities and ready large-scale Phase 2/3 trials in the event the vaccine makes it through early testing. The vaccine will use Moderna's mRNA vaccine platform that allowed for rapid development of a COVID-19 vaccine during the pandemic.

"[W]e believe our mRNA platform can play an important role in responding rapidly to emerging infectious disease threats," Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said in a statement Monday. " We will move with urgency and scientific rigor to support the response and help bring a potential vaccine closer to the communities that need it most."

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Hackers duped Meta AI support chatbot to steal celebrity Instagram accounts

Hackers duped Meta AI support chatbot to steal celebrity Instagram accounts

fivenewscrypto    juin 02, 2026   

Meta’s AI support chatbot proved unusually helpful to hackers looking to steal and resell notable Instagram accounts—the hackers simply asking the bot to change the accounts’ associated email addresses while using VPN to mask their true locations.

Videos featuring the “shockingly easy” exploit have been circulating among Telegram groups for hackers and security researchers, according to 404 Media. The exploit allowed hackers to take over and flip valuable Instagram accounts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars on the gray market before Meta implemented an emergency patch on May 29. The Barack Obama White House account and the Chief Master Sergeant of Space Force’s account also posted pro-Iranian images and messages while they were temporarily compromised.

Attackers simply had to use a VPN to approximately match their location to the target Instagram account’s region, begin a password reset process, and then ask Meta’s AI support chatbot to change the email address associated with the account, according to 404 Media. It’s a very straightforward prompt injection attack.

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New Trump vaccine order based on "no credible scientific evidence," doctors say

New Trump vaccine order based on "no credible scientific evidence," doctors say

fivenewscrypto    juin 02, 2026   

The American Medical Association came out swinging this weekend at an executive order President Trump signed Friday that reaffirms intentions to model US childhood vaccine recommendations after those of Denmark—a country with universal healthcare, less diversity, and a population about the size of Maryland's.

“There is no credible scientific evidence to support," such a change, AMA President Bobby Mukkamala said in a statement. The current vaccine schedule "is built on decades of rigorous research and real-world data, and it is designed to protect children in the US when they are most vulnerable based on our nation’s disease burden," he said.

The plan to align federal childhood vaccine recommendations with Denmark's was first revealed by anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in January. The overhaul would see the total number of recommended immunizations drop from 17 to 11, walking back recommendations for shots against rotavirus, COVID-19, influenza, meningococcal disease, hepatitis A, and hepatitis B. It stemmed from a December executive order by Trump to align US vaccine recommendations with the "best practices from peer, developed countries."

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