Today is Friday, May 16, 2025.
It is the 136th day of the year.
229 days remain.
WHAT’S ON TAP
NOTABLE & NOTEWORTHY: The nation’s biggest crypto exchange deals with a major security breach.
CHRIS BROWN is arrested for alleged assault and DONATELLA VERSACE speaks out on a new hotel-restaurant using her namesake. More in SHOWBIZ.
TRAVIS KELCE and TAYLOR SWIFT both land Kids’ Choice Awards nominations and GUY FIERI gets a new “Flavortown” competition series. Details in CASTING CALL.
The odds and ends KING CHARLES has banned from his residences in ROYALS.
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Cryptocurrency exchange COINBASE says crooks were able to hack some customers’ user data, including names, addresses, social security numbers, and transaction history – and demanded $20 MILLION not to publish the information.
Reps for the company say the thieves contacted them on Sunday night. Instead of capitulating, Coinbase is offering a $20 MILLION reward to track down and arrest the thieves.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong says less than 1% of monthly active users were affected, and that passwords, private keys, and crypto funds were not affected – though some customers were duped out of their crypto assets by the thieves, posing as customer support reps to get their personal information. In an SEC filing, Coinbase says customers were duped out of between $180 MILLION and $400 MILLION. [via NBC News]
WORTH REMEMBERING: As author Michael Lewis documents in “Going Infinite,” his book on SAM BANKMAN-FRIED, defunct crypto exchange FTX lost untold hundreds of millions to hackers.
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A small startup will begin shipping modified lumber this summer that they say is stronger than steel.
The process strengthens the cellulose within the timber, then compresses it to strengthen the molecular connections, making the final product about ten times stronger than before the treatment.
The company, InventWood, licensed the process from a university professor who developed the technology in 2018. The product, Superwood, is 50% stronger than steel and flame resistant. Its first applications will be for exterior facades – for now – with an eye toward marketing structural Superwood to replace metal I-beams and similar. [via TechCrunch]
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In 1946, the Harvard Law School library purchased a very old, but what was thought to be not particularly unique, copy of the Magna Carta, dated all the way back to 1327, for $27.50 (around $450 today).
A new analysis suggests the document is actually one of only six copies made in 1300, just 85 years after the original document was published in 1215.
A medieval history professor at King’s College London first spotted a digitized version of Harvard’s document online while doing research in December 2023, and realized there was much more to the document than Harvard’s site indicated. Since then, a careful analysis has proven the document’s authenticity, making it worth more than $20 MILLION. [via CBS News]
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Spain has become a hotspot for expats fleeing the tyranny of PRESIDENT TRUMP’s Golden Age.
The European country’s government says year-over-year home purchases by Americans rose 57% in the first quarter.
The boom also coincides with Spain’s own “golden visa” program, which was discontinued on April 3. In that scheme, foreigners who buy homes for at least 500,000 Euro (about $560k) immediately received a one-year visa. The government discontinued the program after it led to soaring home prices. [via The Daily Beast]
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Despite shuttering its doors in January, Marineland Antibes in France is still home to mother-son orca pair Wikie and Keijo, and 12 dolphins.
Newly released footage from TideBreakers, an activist group against the captivity of ocean life, shows the absolute despair the marine life has been left in, including “algae-infested, deteriorating tanks.”
Noting the emergency of the situation, Tidebreakers is asking for global outrage on the issue, and calling for the creation of sanctuaries for orcas born in captivity, which do not currently exist.
POTENTIAL SOLUTION: The Whale Sanctuary Project is currently working on a sanctuary off the coast of Nova Scotia, which would allow whales to live in about 100 acres of ocean that would be netted off. The French government has repeatedly turned down the offer saying the trip would be “too strenuous” for the orcas. But what’s the alternative?
No word on any sort of rescue plan for the dozen dolphins. [via BBC]
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