Cancer Repeller, Smoke Alerts, & Pink Raindrops.

News without the noise

Adam Rogers
June 02, 2025

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Eight months after Hurricane Helene devastated western North Carolina, thousands remain displaced as recovery efforts struggle.

The storm killed 249 people in total and destroyed over 100,000 homes in North Carolina alone after hitting the mountain region 500 miles inland from its Florida landfall. Recovery efforts have been overwhelmed by the scale of displacement. Many residents are still living in RVs, tents, and small sheds while facing a skyrocketing unemployment rate and nearly 500 eviction filings since the storm.
Stuart and Jackie Pacheo lost their home of 30 years when floodwaters from a nearby creek swept it away, and are now torn between rebuilding and leaving permanently. The River Arts District in Asheville, which generated $1 billion annually in sales, has only restored 350 of its original 750 artists to working status after extensive flooding destroyed studios and entire lifetimes’ work.
Hurricanes are now wetter and slower-moving, allowing them to cause catastrophic flooding hundreds of miles inland in areas unprepared for hurricane risk. Freshwater flooding has become the leading cause of hurricane deaths as storms now carry more moisture and strike regions like western North Carolina that historically felt safe from hurricane threats.

The first randomized controlled trial proves that exercise extends survival for colon cancer patients.

Researchers followed 889 colon cancer survivors across five countries for eight years after randomly assigning half to work with exercise coaches for three years and half to receive educational materials. The study is the first controlled experiment showing that exercise directly prevents cancer recurrence, rather than previous studies that only compared naturally active people with sedentary people.
Patients in the coached exercise program had 28% fewer cancer recurrences and 37% fewer deaths from any cause. The results, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, provide definitive proof that exercise causes better survival because participants were randomly assigned rather than self-selected based on their existing activity levels.
Cancer experts are calling for exercise coaching to become standard care, noting the benefits rival pharmaceutical treatments while costing only several thousand dollars per patient. "Now we can say definitively exercise causes improvements in survival," said study co-author Kerry Courneya from the University of Alberta.

iPhone designer Jony Ive is creating a new AI device to solve the screen addiction his own products helped create.

Ive recently admitted that smartphones have had "unintended consequences that were far from pleasant" and that this responsibility "weighs on me heavily." He has now partnered with OpenAI's Sam Altman to design a screenless device that lets users interact with AI through voice commands rather than constantly checking phone displays.
The device will be "as compact and elegant as an iPod Shuffle" and sit on desks or in pockets while being "fully aware of a user's surroundings" through microphones and cameras. It will connect to existing phones and computers to serve as a persistent AI assistant that can see and hear what users experience, then answer questions without requiring them to look at screens.
The project comes after Altman's investment in Humane's AI Pin failed, with the company folding in February due to its product overheating and poor performance. Altman now aims to ship 100 million devices "faster than any company has ever shipped 100 million of something new," joining a race that includes Meta's Ray-Ban glasses and AI gadgets from Apple, Google, and Amazon.
Altman and Ive haven’t announced a timeline for the device’s release.

A suspect was arrested after setting multiple people on fire at a Boulder Israeli hostage-release rally, with FBI Director Patel calling it a 'targeted terror attack' and officials citing hate crime motives.. (More)

A CNN poll found 85% of Americans believe democracy is under attack or being tested, while neither party is seen as effective despite record-high desire for government action. (More)

Canadian wildfire smoke has blanketed the US Midwest to the Georgia-Florida border, triggering air quality alerts. Over 90 fires burn uncontrolled. (More)

British businessman John Miller was arrested in Serbia on US charges for trafficking military technology to China and silencing a critic of the Chinese president. (More)

Poland's overnight presidential run-off projections show right-wing Karol Nawrocki narrowly leading 51-49%, potentially blocking Donald Tusk's government reforms through presidential veto power if he wins. (More)

Explosions caused two bridges to collapse in western Russia near the Ukraine border, killing seven and derailing trains. Officials later removed 'explosions' from statements without explanation. (More)

US stock markets closed mixed on Friday (S&P -0.01%, Nasdaq -0.32%, Dow +0.13%). The S&P and Nasdaq both finished higher for the month, their best since November 2023. (More)

CVS will close 271 retail locations by year-end as part of restructuring to generate $500 million in cost savings, but hasn't revealed which stores will close. (More)

Major US egg producer Hickman's Family Farms lost 95% of its six million Arizona chickens to bird flu despite isolation efforts, forcing its first customer shortfall in 81 years. (More)

Indiana Pacers advanced to their first NBA Finals since 2000, completing an underdog rise by defeating New York 4-2 to face Oklahoma City on Thursday. (More) Wright State ousted No. 1 Vanderbilt from the NCAA Baseball Tournament. (More)

Netflix announced 'Stranger Things' fifth and final season debuts in three parts: November 26, December 25, and December 31 series finale. (More) Opal Suchata Chuangsri of Thailand was crowned Miss World on Saturday in India, beating 108 contestants (More)

Tommy Paul became the first American man in French Open quarterfinals since Andre Agassi in 2003 after beating Alexei Popyrin 6-3, 6-3, 6-3. (More) Scottie Scheffler went back-to-back at the Memorial Tournament. (More) Sweden’s Maja Stark won the US Women’s Open for her first major. (More)

Night owls face faster cognitive decline than early risers. Unhealthy evening behaviors like poor sleep, working late, smoking, and drinking may explain 25% of the increased risk. (More)

Astronomers discovered a never-before-seen object 15,000 light-years away in the Milky Way, emitting clockwork radio and X-ray pulses every 44 minutes. It is the first long-period transient detected in X-rays. (More)

NIH researchers analyzing 12,000+ children found that autism and ADHD show opposite brain connectivity patterns despite co-occurring. These distinct signatures could improve diagnosis and treatment. (More)

What $85 M buys in one of the most exclusive areas of Florida.

Why does Costco open so late?

Pictures capture pink “raindrops” on the sun.

Mapping every understaffed flight control tower in the US.

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