“Nobody uses water,” one man in a Dodgers cap said in Spanish when Maria Cabrera approached, holding flyers about silicosis, an incurable and suffocating disease that has devastated dozens of workers across the state and killed men who have barely reached middle age.

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The disease dates back centuries, but researchers say the booming popularity of countertops made of engineered stone, which has much higher concentrations of silica than many kinds of natural stone, has driven a new epidemic of an accelerated form of the suffocating illness. As the dangerous dust builds up and scars the lungs, the disease can leave workers short of breath, weakened and ultimately suffering from lung failure.

“You can get a transplant,” Cabrera told the man in Spanish, “but it won’t last.”

In California, it has begun to debilitate young workers, largely Latino immigrants who cut and polish slabs of engineered stone. Instead of cropping up in people in their 60s or 70s after decades of exposure, it is now afflicting men in their 20s, 30s or 40s, said Dr. Jane Fazio, a pulmonary critical care physician who became alarmed by cases she saw at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center. Some California patients have died in their 30s.

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According to the voice of Astarion himself, there's a whole two hour section of Baldur's Gate 3 no one has played yet.

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"There's even something I know about that you can't get to unless you do something that I don't think anyone's going to work out," Newborn said in the livestream, which you can see him talk about in a clip above. "I was told this in confidence and I think I'm one of the few people who knows about it as well." In the stream Newborn was even asked if he could tell the person he was talking to what it is, but noted "it's one of those few things I cannot friend-DA." Just to clarify, Newborn will have signed an NDA to work on this project, unsurprisingly, but people are people and they do tell their friends things, but this seems like something so secretive he can't even do that.

Update: See below, it has been found.

Majority of offset projects that have sold the most carbon credits are ‘likely junk’, according to analysis by Corporate Accountability and the Guardian

The vast majority of the environmental projects most frequently used to offset greenhouse gas emissions appear to have fundamental failings suggesting they cannot be relied upon to cut planet-heating emissions, according to a new analysis.

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In a new investigation, the Guardian and researchers from Corporate Accountability, a non-profit, transnational corporate watchdog, analysed the top 50 emission offset projects, those that have sold the most carbon credits in the global market.

According to our criteria and classification system:

• A total of 39 of the top 50 emission offset projects, or 78% of them, were categorised as likely junk or worthless due to one or more fundamental failing that undermines its promised emission cuts.

• Eight others (16%) look problematic, with evidence suggesting they may have at least one fundamental failing and are potentially junk, according to the classification system applied.

• The efficacy of the remaining three projects (6%) could not be determined definitively as there was insufficient public, independent information to adequately assess the quality of the credits and/or accuracy of their claimed climate benefits.

• Overall, $1.16bn (£937m) of carbon credits have been traded so far from the projects classified by the investigation as likely junk or worthless; a further $400m of credits bought and sold were potentially junk.

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Federal officials promised the new covid shot would be free and covered by insurance, but some Americans have encountered a different reality this week as they tried to get vaccinated, only to be denied coverage or charged up to $200.

They have faced myriad complications, from pharmacies being out of network, to the vaccine not showing up on lists of approved medical expenses, to needing prior authorization. Some Americans paid out of pocket to avoid waiting. Others say they weren’t even given that option.

The hiccups reflect a new reality for covid vaccines as they go from being treated as a public good to a commercial product. Now that the federal government is no longer buying and distributing all the shots, Americans must endure the usual headaches of dealing with insurance companies and a for-profit health care system.

“Last year there was one player — the federal government,” Mandy Cohen, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in an interview. “And now there’s a lot more players and … they’re not accountable to us.”

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In a July letter, Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, told public and private insurers to make sure their systems are prepared to immediately cover the costs of covid vaccines in the fall.

After hearing reports of unexpected insurance denials, CMS has been working with plans to ensure their systems are up to date and is reminding them they must immediately cover authorized covid vaccines without cost sharing, according to a statement provided by Health and Human Services spokeswoman Ilse Zuniga.

“The Biden Administration will continue working to ensure COVID-19 vaccines are widely available to the American public at no-cost to them from their local provider, community health center or pharmacy,” the statement said.

Federal officials and health experts say some of these insurance problems appear to be a result of insurance systems that have yet to be updated and billing code errors should be resolved in the coming weeks.

“We are working closely with the federal government, pharmacies, and other partners to quickly ensure patient access to COVID-19 vaccines with $0 cost sharing and address any issues relating to newly added billing codes quickly,” James Swann, a spokesman for the industry group America’s Health Insurance Plans, wrote in an email.
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EVE Online has featured several of the biggest PvP battles in gaming history, but it only lets you fly one ship at a time. Set in the same universe but from a very different perspective, EVE Galaxy Conquest is a multiplayer 4X strategy game that puts you in command of your own outpost and an entire fleet.

The factions and warships should be familiar to EVE fans, but you'll be able to command large numbers of them without having to yell at a bunch of mercenaries over discord to stick to the freaking plan.

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EVE Galaxy Conquest will be soft launching on Android and iOS later this year. CCP Shanghai has not announced any plans for a PC version so far, but they didn't rule it out as a possibility. Likewise, we didn't learn anything for sure about the monetization other than it will be similar to other free-to-play mobile strategy games.

Shimano says 760,000 11-speed Hollowtech road cranksets will need to be inspected for signs of delamination. The affected cranks — Dura-Ace and Ultegra models manufactured prior to July 2019 — can separate and break; the company has received reports of 4,519 incidents of cranksets separating, and six reported injuries, including bone fractures, joint displacement and lacerations.The cranks were sold by dealers as aftermarket and OE components from January 2012 through August 2023 for between $270 and $1,500.

At 22.5 x 9 x 3 cm, the Ayaneo Air 1S is more like a Nintendo Switch than a Steam Deck. In fact, it's a touch smaller than the Switch. Or slightly bigger than a medium-large banana. The retro model I've got in for review weighs only ~405g on my scales, which is a little heavier than my Switch at around ~400g but far lighter than my Steam Deck at ~650g. There's even a thinner and lighter model, the Air 1S Thin, though that's a limited edition.

Point is, it's a handheld gaming PC that feels more like a handheld gaming device of old than any other I've used. It's a powerful GameBoy Advance, and boy, is it powerful.

The Ayaneo Air 1S may look like it needs a downgrade to stuff all its parts into that tiny shell. But, no. It comes with the same AMD Ryzen 7 7840U chip found within the AOKZOE A1 Pro or the OneXPlayer OneXFly. That's a full eight-core, 16-thread Zen 4 processor. I still can't really believe that sort of spec comes in a compact PC at all. It's paired up with a Radeon 780M integrated graphics, powered by 12 RDNA 3 CUs—four more CUs than the Steam Deck's RDNA 2 chip.

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Sea of Thieves is set to add one of its most significant updates yet: solo play.

Ever since Rare’s multiplayer-focused pirate adventure game launched in 2018, the developers have faced questions about the addition of solo play. Now, it’s finally coming as part of Season 10 in December. Finally, you won’t have to worry about rival pirates stealing your hard-earned treasure!

In a post on Xbox Wire, creative director Mike Chapman explained the decision. “Just as we hope that the Skull of Siren Song will encourage competitive play, we recognize that for some players, a quieter, more independent experience can be preferable,” Chapman said.

“That’s why, in December, Season 10’s third major feature will introduce an entirely new game mode that grants players the ability to sail the Sea of Thieves alone or with a crew of friends, within their own private game session.”

Solo play comes as part of the Safer Seas feature. It’s intended to offer a “gentler” introduction to Sea of Thieves for new players, as well as a quieter map for existing players who want to play their own solo adventures.

Baldur's Gate 3's Patch 3, which was so massive Larian held it back a day to test it properly, will release today, and it'll add an RPG feature many of us have been requesting since we stepped clear of the Nautiloid - the ability to change a character's appearance. Alas, it comes too late for the Wood Elf Druid I rolled during my first try at the 1.0 version. I wanted her to look like a sort of Kung Fu Galadriel, with cool tattoos and aerodynamic scars, but she emerged from the character creator looking like she'd been mugged by a packet of demon crayons. I've left my active character, a High Elf Sorceress, safely tattoo-less.

Just around 24 hours after Musk made his comments, more than 42,000 new users joined Bluesky, making it the biggest signup day yet for the currently invite-only platform that launched earlier this year.

Bluesky saw a total of 53,585 new signups by the end of Tuesday, September 19. The new users gained in that single day make up 5 percent of the platform's entire user base of 1,125,499 total accounts.

The new user signups are tracked via the third-party website "Bluesky Stats." Looking over Bluesky signup numbers on the tracker for the past month, it appears that the platform usually sees from 10,000 to 20,000 new signups per day. Bluesky has doubled its usual daily new user numbers already, with many more hours left in the day still to go.

It's impossible to know whether Musk's comments about charging users to post on X really played a role in this, but it almost certainly had some effect.

Owners of the FreeStyle Libre 3, one of Abbott Laboratories’ flagship glucose monitors, received an email this week warning them to “disable automatic system updates on your iPhone” because the new operating system’s StandBy Mode and Assistive Access Mode “may impact your ability to receive time-sensitive notifications including glucose alarms and notifications indicating that alarms are unavailable.”

“Key Steps to Optimize your FreeStyle Libre System on iOS 17,” the email reads. “While our teams are working quickly to verify and confirm compatibility, we recommend that you disable automatic operating system updates on the smartphone using the mentioned apps. Please check the compatibility guide on myfreestyle.com before the new operating system is installed.”

Abbott is telling customers who have already upgraded to disable StandBy Mode, which activates the iPhone’s Lock Screen while it’s charging and placed on its side. They are also being advised to turn off “Assistive Access” mode, an accessibility mode for people with disabilities. Abbott says that this mode “will impact your ability to activate a sensor, modify your alarm settings, or receive glucose alarm notifications from our apps.”

Abbott writes on its website that failure to take action when users get an alarm, or failure to use the device “as instructed in labeling may result in missing a severe low or high glucose event and/or making a treatment decision, resulting in injury.”

Amazon has created a new rule limiting the number of books that authors can self-publish on its site to three a day, after an influx of suspected AI-generated material was listed for sale in recent months.

The company announced the new limitations in a post on its Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) forum on Monday. “While we have not seen a spike in our publishing numbers, in order to help protect against abuse, we are lowering the volume limits we have in place on new title creations,” read the statement. KDP allows authors to self-publish their books and list them for sale on Amazon’s site.

Amazon told the Guardian that the limit is set at three titles, though this number may be adjusted “if needed”. The company confirmed that there was previously no limit to the number of books authors could list a day.