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An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: The Belarusian government is threatening three HAM radio operators with the death penalty, detained at least seven people, and has accused them of "intercepting state secrets," according to Belarusian state media, independent media outside of Belarus, and the Belarusian human rights organization Viasna. The arrests are an extreme attack on what is most often a wholesome hobby that has a history of being vilified by authoritarian governments in part because the technology is quite censorship resistant. The detentions were announced last week on Belarusian state TV, which claimed the men were part of a network of more than 50 people participating in the amateur radio hobby and have been accused of both "espionage" and "treason." Authorities there said they seized more than 500 pieces of radio equipment. The men were accused on state TV of using radio to spy on the movement of government planes, though no actual evidence of this has been produced. State TV claimed they were associated with the Belarusian Federation of Radioamateurs and Radiosportsmen (BFRR), a long-running amateur radio club and nonprofit that holds amateur radio competitions, meetups, trainings, and forums. Siarhei Besarab, a Belarusian HAM radio operator, posted a plea for support from others in the r/amateurradio subreddit. "I am writing this because my local community is being systematically liquidated in what I can only describe as a targeted intellectual genocide," Besarab wrote. "I beg you to amplify this signal and help us spread this information. Please show this to any journalist you know, send it to human rights organizations, and share it with your local radio associations."

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NexPhone is a phone you can use as a desktop PC with Android, Linux, and Windows 11 support  Liliputing

New research from Cornell University has tracked how households change their spending after someone starts taking GLP-1 medications like Ozempic and Wegovy, and the numbers are material enough to explain why food industry earnings calls keep blaming everything except the obvious culprit. The study analyzed transaction data from 150,000 households linked to survey responses on medication adoption. Households cut grocery spending by 5.3% within six months of a member starting GLP-1s; high-income households cut by 8.2%. Fast food spending fell 8.0%. Savory snacks took the biggest hit at 10.1%, followed by sweets and baked goods. Yogurt was the only category to see a statistically significant increase. As of July 2024, 16.3% of U.S. households had at least one GLP-1 user. Nearly half of adopters reported taking the medication specifically for weight loss rather than diabetes management. About 34% of users discontinue within the sample period, and when they stop, candy and chocolate purchases rise 11.4% above pre-adoption levels. Further reading: Weighing the Cost of Smaller Appetites.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Checked and updated for 2026. Since these are available every 12 months, it is a good idea to check these near or around the same time each year. A lot of companies make their money by collecting and selling data – your personal data. It can be critical to know what they are telling prospective lenders, landlords, even employers about you. Under the FCRA and/or FACT Act, many consumer reporting agencies (CRAs) are now legally required to send you a free copy of your report every 12 months, as well as provide a way to dispute incorrect information.

Some have an online request form, but some are purposefully making it harder to check your reports by removing the online option. Don’t be afraid to call them if needed. You probably won’t want to bother checking all of them anyhow, but if you’ve experienced any sort of rejection or adverse action in these areas the cause might be found inside one of these databases. Keep in mind that you may not have a file with all of these places. Requesting a copy of your own consumer reports does not hurt your credit score.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been doing a better job maintaining their own comprehensive list of CRAs (PDF version) recently, so I am editing down this list to include direct links to the overall categories along with the larger and more widely-used consumer reporting agencies.

Credit-Related

Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. The three major credit bureaus track your credit accounts, payment history, and other related information like bankrupts and liens. Free online credit reports now available weekly (the frequency was increased from annual to weekly during the COVID pandemic, but that change has been made permanent).

• AnnualCreditReport.com
• 877-322-8228

(Note: As part of a class action settlement, you may also request up to six additional free copies of your Equifax credit report directly from myEquifax during any 12-month period through December 2026.)

You can also now freeze your credit reports for free, but you must contact each bureau separately. For the contact info, please see Big List of Ways To Protect Your Identity: Free Credit Monitoring, Free Credit Locks, and Free Credit Freezes

LexisNexis. One of the largest personal information databases that includes public records, real estate transaction and ownership data, lien, judgment, and bankruptcy records, professional license information, and historical addresses on file. Free copy, must mail in form.

• LexisNexis.com request page
• 866-897-8126

Innovis. Innovis is a lesser-known but still large nationwide CRA, providing credit reports to places including payday lenders, utilities, landlords, employment screening, and insurance companies.

• Innovis request page
• 866-712-0021

Banking-Related

Chexsystems. A consumer information database used by an estimated 80-90% of all banks to help determine the risk of opening new accounts. Think of it as the banks’ version of a credit bureau. If a person commits check fraud or overdraws their account, it will be listed here. In addition, the simple act of opening or closing a bank account may be recorded in their database. Having a negative ChexSystems record can leave you blacklisted from opening bank accounts at most major banks. Free copy once every 12 months. You can now request your report online.

• ChexSystems request page
• 800-428-9623

Early Warning Services (EWS). Provides deposit account data to lenders. Early Warning is co-owned by seven of the largest banks in the US (Bank of America, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, PNC Bank, Truist, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo.)

• ChexSystems request page
• 800-745-1560

Subprime-Related (Payday Lending)

Microbilt and subsidiary Payment Reporting Builds Credit (PRBC). Microbilt is a provider of credit data for the “approximately 110 million underserved and underbanked consumers in the United States.” Free copy once every 12 months.

• Microbilt.com request form
• 888-222-7621

Rental History

Realpage (LeasingDesk) Consumer Report. Provides tenant screening through their LeasingDesk product, including “the industry’s largest rental payment history database.”

• RealPage.com report request page
• 866-934-1124

CoreLogic SafeRent. SafeRent provides both tenant and employment screening data, including information regarding landlord tenant and criminal public court records. One free report every 12 months.

• CoreLogic.com report request form
• 888-333-2413

Experian RentBureau Rental History Report. “Every 24 hours, Experian RentBureau receives updated rental payment history data from property owners/managers, electronic rent payment services and collection companies and makes that information available immediately to the multifamily industry through our resident screening partners.”

• Experian.com/RentBureau report request page (scroll down a bit; PDF form)
• 877-704-4519

TransUnion Rental Screening Solutions. SmartMove provides tenant credit, eviction, and background checks.

• MySmartMove.com FAQ page
• SmartMove will disclose the contents of a criminal and/or credit report retained by SmartMove to an individual who requests a copy of their report. To verify your identity and obtain a copy of your report(s) or dispute any information within that report, please contact customer service at 866-775-0961.

Auto and Property Insurance

C.L.U.E. Personal Property Report. A division of LexisNexis, CLUE stands for Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange, which collects information that is used to calculate your insurance premiums. This report provides a seven year history of losses associated with an individual and his/her personal property. Includes date of loss, loss type, and amount paid along with general information such as policy number, claim number and insurance company name. This also means you can find out about previous claims on the house you are currently renting or recently bought, even if they weren’t made by you.

• LexisNexis.com CLUE report request page
• 866-312-8076

C.L.U.E. Auto Report. This report provides a seven year history of automobile insurance losses associated with an individual. Includes date of loss, loss type, and amount paid along with general information such as policy number, claim number and insurance company name.

• LexisNexis.com CLUE report request page
• 866-312-8076

A-PLUS Loss History Reports, subsidiary of Verisk. ISO stands for Insurance Services Office, A-PLUS stands for Automated Property Loss Underwriting System. Auto and property loss claim history.

• Verisk.com report request page
• 800-627-3487

Utilities

National Consumer Telecom and Utilities Exchange. NCTUE tracks when people don’t pay their phone, cable, or utility bills. One free report every 12 months.

• NCTUE.com report request page
• 866-349-5185

Retail

The Retail Equation. Tracks product return and exchange abuse at retail merchants.

• TheRetailEquation.com request page
• 800-652-2331 or returnactivityreport@theretailequation.com

Medical History

MIB (previously known as Medical Information Bureau). Run by 470 insurance companies with a “primary mission of detecting and deterring fraud that may occur in the course of obtaining life, health, disability income, critical illness, and long-term care insurance.” They record information of “underwriting significance” like medical conditions or hazardous activities. If you have not applied for individually underwritten life, health, or disability income insurance during the preceding seven year period, then you probably don’t have a record.

• MIB.com report request page
• 866-692-6901

Milliman IntelliScript. Tracks your prescription drug purchase history. “Milliman IntelliScript will have prescription information about you only if you authorized the release of your medical records to an insurance company and that company requested that we gather a report on you.”

• RXHistories.com report request page (see bottom)
• 877-211-4816

Employment History / Background Checks

The following companies all offer background screening services for employers. Most will not have any information about you unless you authorized a potential employer to run a background check on you (probably during the application process). Some will not provide you information unless there was adverse action. Otherwise, you can get one free copy every 12 months. There are a LOT more of these companies in the full list linked above.

The main point here is that if you do apply for a job and someone runs a background check on you, you can get a free copy for yourself if you formally request it. This is important to be able to quickly dispute any incorrect or negative information on those reports.

The Work Number (division of Equifax). They also keep historical income records.

• TheWorkNumber.com report request page
• 866-604-6570

Backgroundchecks.com

• Backgroundchecks.com report request page
• 866-265-6602

Checkr

• Checkr candidate portal (access report here).
• 844-824-3257

Accurate

• Accurate.com report request info
• 800-216-8024

ADP Screening and Selection Services

• ADPselect.com (click on Applicant Resources)
• 888-606-7868 (Option 2)

Just 32 fossil fuel companies were responsible for half the global carbon dioxide emissions driving the climate crisis in 2024, down from 36 a year earlier, a report has revealed. The Guardian: Saudi Aramco was the biggest state-controlled polluter and ExxonMobil was the largest investor-owned polluter. Critics accused the leading fossil fuel companies of "sabotaging climate action" and "being on the wrong side of history" but said the emissions data was increasingly being used to hold the companies accountable. State-owned fossil fuel producers made up 17 of the top 20 emitters in the Carbon Majors report, which the authors said underscored the political barriers to tackling global heating. All 17 are controlled by countries that opposed a proposed fossil fuel phaseout at the Cop30 UN climate summit in December, including Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and India. More than 80 other nations had backed the phaseout plan.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Adobe has added a suite of AI-powered features to Acrobat that enable users to edit documents through natural language prompts, generate podcast-style audio summaries of their files, and create presentations by pulling content from multiple documents stored in a single workspace. The prompt-based editing supports 12 distinct actions: removing pages, text, comments, and images; finding and replacing words and phrases; and adding e-signatures and passwords. The presentation feature builds on Adobe Spaces, a collaborative file and notes collection the company launched last year. Users can point Acrobat's AI assistant at files in a Space and have it generate an editable pitch deck, then style it using Adobe Express themes and stock imagery. Shared files in Spaces now include AI-generated summaries that cite specific locations in the source document. Users can also choose from preset AI assistant personas -- "analyst," "entertainer," or "instructor" -- or create custom assistants using their own prompts.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Linux desktop environment LXQt achieves first release  BetaNews

The price of water and sewer services for American households has more than doubled since the early 1980s after adjusting for inflation, even though per-capita water use has actually decreased over that period. Households in large cities now spend about $1,300 a year on water and sewer charges, approaching the roughly $1,600 they spend on electricity. The main driver is federal regulation. Since the Clean Water Act of 1972 and the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974, the U.S. has spent approximately $5 trillion in contemporary dollars fighting water pollution -- about 0.8% of annual GDP across that period. The EPA itself admits that surface water regulations are the one category of environmental rules where estimated costs exceed estimated benefits. New York City was required to build a filtration plant to address two minor parasites in water from its Croton aqueduct. The project took a decade longer than expected and cost $3.2 billion, more than double the original estimate. After the plant opened in 2015, the city's Commissioner of Environmental Protection noted that the water would basically be "the same" to the public. Jefferson County, Alabama, meanwhile, descended into what was then the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history in 2011 after EPA-mandated sewer upgrades pushed its debt from $300 million to over $3 billion.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Eightfold AI, a venture capital-backed AI hiring platform used by Microsoft, PayPal and many other Fortune 500 companies, is being sued in California for allegedly compiling reports used to screen job applicants without their knowledge. From a report: The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday accusing Eightfold of violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act shows how consumer advocates are seeking to apply existing law to AI systems capable of drawing inferences about individuals based on vast amounts of data. Santa Clara, California-based Eightfold provides tools that promise to speed up the hiring process by assessing job applicants and predicting whether they would be a good fit for a job using massive amounts of data from online resumes and job listings. But candidates who apply for jobs at companies that use those tools are not given notice and a chance to dispute errors, job applicants Erin Kistler and Sruti Bhaumik allege in their proposed class action. Because of that, they claim Eightfold violated the FCRA and a California law that gives consumers the right to view and challenge credit reports used in lending and hiring.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Debian vs. Arch vs. Fedora: Which Linux distro base is right for you  ZDNET

Ubisoft is canceling game projects, shutting down studios and cutting its guidance as the Assassin's Creed maker restructures its business into five units. From a report: The French gaming firm expects earnings before interest and tax to be a loss of $1.2 billion the fiscal year 2025-2026 as a result of the restructuring, driven by a one-off writedown of about $761 million, the company said in a statement on Wednesday. Ubisoft also expects net bookings of around $1.76 billion for the year, with a $386 million gross margin reduction compared to previous guidance, it said. Six games, including a remake of Prince of Persia The Sands of Time, have been discontinued and seven other unidentified games are delayed, the company said. The measures are part of a broader plan to streamline operations, including closing studios in Stockholm and Halifax, Canada. Ubisoft said it will have cut at least $117 million in fixed costs compared to the latest financial year by March, a year ahead of target, and has set a goal to slash an additional $234 million over the next two years.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

[Last chance for Free] Kali Linux Cookbook: Third Edition (worth $35.99)  Neowin

This Linux project proves you can bring back Windows 8 - but not why you should  ZDNET

The Return of Windows Phone? This New Device Runs Android, Linux, Windows 11  PCMag

I Ran the Famed Affinity Designer on Linux. Here's How It Went  It's FOSS

The Irish government is planning to bolster its police's ability to intercept communications, including encrypted messages, and provide a legal basis for spyware use. From a report: The Communications (Interception and Lawful Access) Bill is being framed as a replacement for the current legislation that governs digital communication interception. The Department of Justice, Home Affairs, and Migration said in an announcement this week the existing Postal Packets and Telecommunications Messages (Regulation) Act 1993 "predates the telecoms revolution of the last 20 years." As well as updating laws passed more than two decades ago, the government was keen to emphasize that a key ambition for the bill is to empower law enforcement to intercept of all forms of communications. The Bill will bring communications from IoT devices, email services, and electronic messaging platforms into scope, "whether encrypted or not." In a similar way to how certain other governments want to compel encrypted messaging services to unscramble packets of interest, Ireland's announcement also failed to explain exactly how it plans to do this. However, it promised to implement a robust legal framework, alongside all necessary privacy and security safeguards, if these proposals do ultimately become law. It also vowed to establish structures to ensure "the maximum possible degree of technical cooperation between state agencies and communication service providers."/i

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Midrange Android Phone Also Supports Windows and Linux  filmogaz.com

Here’s how the recent festive season affected health stats, revealed by Fitbit and Pixel Watch wearable data.Here’s how the recent festive season affected health stats, revealed by Fitbit and Pixel Watch wearable data.

Slimbook Launches New Slimbook ONE Mini Linux PC, Slimbook Executive Laptop  9to5Linux

Linux Distros I Recommend for Those Switching from Windows  Linuxiac