Catalin Cimpanu, reporting for Record: Ireland's national health service, the Health Service Executive (HSE), temporarily shut down its IT systems today after suffering a ransomware attack overnight. The organization, which is in the mid of its COVID-19 vaccination program, said the attack did not impact its ability to provide urgent medical care but that some routine checks and services might be delayed or canceled. The HSE described the ransomware incident as "significant" and "human-operated," a term used to describe high-end sophisticated ransomware groups which orchestrate targeted attacks against carefully big organizations. In a morning radio show with public broadcaster RTE, HSE Chief Executive Paul Reid said the agency's IT teams are currently investigating the incident to find out its breadth. In a different radio show, Reid identified the ransomware gang behind the attack as Conti, a ransomware gang that started operating in the summer of 2020.

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Big Tech is wading into a legal fight over visas in an attempt to preserve jobs of spouses of its foreign employees who are working in the U.S. From a report: Amazon.com, Apple, Google, Microsoft and more than 20 other companies and organizations, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, on Friday urged a federal court in Washington to reject a lawsuit seeking to eliminate work authorization for more than 90,000 H-4 visa holders. Eliminating H-4 visas "would not only siphon off U.S. gross domestic product, but gift that productivity -- and the innovation that comes with it -- to other nations, harming America's global economic competitiveness into the future," the companies and organizations said in a so-called friend-of-court brief. Under the Obama-era "H-4 Rule," the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in 2015 issued visas to spouses, more than 90% of whom are women, of more than 580,000 highly skilled workers who live in the U.S. on H-1B visas, according to the companies' filing. H-4 visas are critical to couples' decisions to come to the U.S., buy homes and raise children, they argue. The Trump administration attempted to dismantle the rule, but never introduced regulation to do so.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN Business: For decades, ExxonMobil has deployed Big Tobacco-like propaganda to downplay the gravity of the climate crisis, shift blame onto consumers and protect its own interests, according to a Harvard University study published Thursday. The peer-reviewed study found that Exxon (XOM) publicly equates demand for energy to an indefinite need for fossil fuels, casting the company as merely a passive supplier working to meet that demand. The study used machine learning and algorithms to uncover trends in more than 200 public and internal Exxon documents between 1972 and 2019. "These patterns mimic the tobacco industry's documented strategy of shifting responsibility away from corporations -- which knowingly sold a deadly product while denying its harms -- and onto consumers," the study concludes. "ExxonMobil has used language to subtly yet systematically frame public discourse." The Harvard study described "propaganda tactics of the fossil fuels industry" aimed at downplaying the climate crisis. For example, the authors said that after the 1999 merger of Exxon and Mobil, the companies began saying in public documents such as paid "advertorials" that "climate change was a 'risk,' rather than a reality." Prior to the merger, "risk" of climate change was only mentioned once in Exxon's public communications, the study said. From 2000 and beyond, it appeared 46 times, the study found, adding that no other term was more associated with climate change in the company's public statements. The study notes that "this scientific hedging strategy" was repeatedly used by the tobacco industry in the 1990s. Moreover, the study found that Exxon has framed the debate around consumer energy "demand" to build a "fossil fuel savior" framework that "downplays the reality and seriousness of climate change, normalizes fossil fuel lock-in and individualizes responsibility." [Geoffrey Supran, a Harvard research associate and one of the study's authors] told CNN Business this strategy is "effectively gaslighting the public into thinking there is no alternative, making the blame pill that Exxon is feeding the public easier to swallow." Supran said it's "certainly true" that modern society continues to rely mostly on fossil fuels, but added that Exxon's decades-long "disinformation" campaign is a central reason why it still does. "We are passively guilty, born into a fossil fuel society," he said. "But companies like Exxon are actively guilty for working to keep society the way it is."

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Framework is one of an increasing number of companies working to address planned obsolescence by creating products that are incredibly customizable and easy to repair. Today, the company's Framework Laptop is up for preorder, starting at $999 and shipping at the end of July. TechCrunch reports: There are three basic configurations -- Base, Performance and Professional, ranging from $999 to $1,999, upgrading from an Intel Core i5, 8GB of Ram and 256GB of storage to a Core i7 and 32GB/1TB. Windows also gets upgraded from Home to Pro at the top level. At $749, the company offers a barebones shell, where users can plug in their own internals. Other upgrades include: "On top of that, the Framework Laptop is deeply customizable in unique ways. Our Expansion Card system lets you choose the ports you want and which side you want them on, selecting from four at a time of USB-C, USB-A, HDMI, DisplayPort, MicroSD, ultra-fast 250GB and 1TB storage, and more. Magnetic-attach bezels are color-customizable to match your style, and the keyboard language can be swapped too."

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schwit1 shares a report from New Atlas: UCF researchers say they've trapped a sustained explosive detonation, fixed in place, for the first time, channeling its enormous power into thrust in a new oblique wave detonation engine that could propel an aircraft up to 17 times the speed of sound, potentially beating the scramjet as a hypersonic propulsion method. [...] Rotating detonation engines, in which the shockwaves from one detonation are tuned to trigger further detonations within a ring-shaped channel, were thought of as impossible to build right up until researchers at the University of Central Florida (UCF) went ahead and demonstrated a prototype last year in sustained operation. Due for testing in a rocket launch by around 2025, rotating detonation engines should be more efficient than pulse detonation engines simply because the combustion chamber doesn't need to be cleared out between detonations. Now, another team from UCF, including some of the same researchers that built the rotating detonation engine last year, says it's managed a world-first demonstration of an elusive third type of detonation engine that could out-punch them all, theoretically opening up a pathway to aircraft flying at speeds up to 13,000 mph (21,000 km/h), or 17 times the speedThe UCF team claims it has successfully stabilized a detonation wave under hypersonic flow conditions, keeping it in place rather than having it move upstream (where it could cause the fuel source to explode) or downstream (where it would lose its explosive advantage and fizzle out into a deflagration). [...] Where a detonation typically lasts only a matter of micro- or milliseconds, the UCF team managed to sustain this one experimentally until the fuel was turned off after around three seconds. That's long enough to prove the device works [...]. The paper is open-access at PNAS.

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The 1949 letter by the physicist and Nobel laureate discusses bees, birds and whether new physics principles could come from studying animal senses. Phys.Org reports: The previously unpublished letter was shared with researchers by Judith Davys -- Einstein had addressed it to her late husband, radar researcher Glyn Davys. RMIT's Associate Professor Adrian Dyer has published significant studies into bees and is the lead author of the new paper on Einstein's letter, published in the Journal of Comparative Physiology A. Dyer said the letter shows how Einstein envisaged new discoveries could come from studying animals. "Seven decades after Einstein proposed new physics might come from animal sensory perception, we're seeing discoveries that push our understanding about navigation and the fundamental principles of physics," he said. The letter also proves Einstein met with Nobel laurate Karl von Frisch, who was a leading bee and animal sensory researcher. In April 1949, von Frisch presented his research on how honeybees navigate more effectively using the polarization patterns of light scattered from the sky. The day after Einstein attended von Frisch's lecture, the two researchers shared a private meeting. Although this meeting wasn't formally documented, the recently discovered letter from Einstein provides insight into what they might have talked about. "It is thinkable that the investigation of the behavior of migratory birds and carrier pigeons may someday lead to the understanding of some physical process which is not yet known," Einstein wrote. Professor Andrew Greentree, a theoretical physicist at RMIT, said Einstein also suggested that for bees to extend our knowledge of physics, new types of behavior would need to be observed. "Remarkably, it is clear through his writing that Einstein envisaged new discoveries could come from studying animals' behaviors," Greentree said.

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"An EV motor has been developed that uses no magnets, thus lessening the United States' reliance on Chinese magnets (which make up 97% of the world's supply)," writes Slashdot reader nickwinlund77, adding: "I wonder what the motor's performance is like on high grade roads?" New Atlas reports: German company Mahle has just announced a new electric motor that sounds like it solves a lot of problems in a very tidy manner. The new Mahle design uses no magnets, instead using powered coils in its rotor. Unlike previous efforts, it transfers power to the spinning rotor using contactless induction -- so there are basically no wear surfaces. This should make it extremely durable -- not that electric motors have a reputation for needing much maintenance. The lack of expensive metals should make it cheaper to manufacture than typical permanent-magnet motors. Mahle says the ability to tune and change the parameters of the rotor's magnetism instead of being stuck with what a permanent magnet offers has allowed its engineers to achieve efficiencies above 95 percent right through the range of operating speeds -- "a level that has only been achieved by Formula E racing cars." It's also particularly efficient at high speeds, so it could help squeeze a few extra miles out of a battery in normal use. The company says it'll scale nicely from sizes relevant to compact cars up to commercial vehicles. "Our magnet-free motor can certainly be described as a breakthrough, because it provides several advantages that have not yet been combined in a product of this type," says Dr. Martin Berger, Mahle's VP of Corporate Research and Advanced Engineering. "As a result, we can offer our customers a product with outstanding efficiency at a comparatively low cost." Mass production is about two and a half years away, according to IEEE Spectrum, and Mahle has not yet nominated which auto manufacturers it's dealing with, but test samples are already starting to circulate.

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Microsoft is shutting down its Azure Blockchain Service on September 10, 2021. Existing deployments will be supported until that date, but as of May 10 this year, no new deployments or member creation is being supported. ZDNet reports: Microsoft's initial foray into Azure Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) began in 2015 with an offering on the Etherum Platform with ConsenSys. In late January 2016, Microsoft made available a preview of a lab environment in Azure's DevTest Labs so that Blockchain-related services and partners can decouple the Blockchain technology from virtual machines. Microsoft's short-term goal for the Azure BaaS was to make available a certified blockchain marketplace. In the interim, the focus was to add blockchain partners of all kinds, rather than trying to pick a limited number of potential winners, officials said. Microsoft ended up fielding a preview of Azure BaaS, but lately had not done much to update the service. However, Microsoft's product page for Azure BaaS lists GE, J.P. Morgan, Singapore Airlines, Starbucks and Xbox as customers. Microsoft's documentation suggests users start migrating to an alternative now. The recommended migration destination is ConsenSys Quorum Blockchain Service. Users also could opt to self-manage their blockhains using VMs.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: The Pentagon is carrying out warrantless surveillance of Americans, according to a new letter written by Senator Ron Wyden and obtained by Motherboard. Senator Wyden's office asked the Department of Defense (DoD), which includes various military and intelligence agencies such as the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), for detailed information about its data purchasing practices after Motherboard revealed special forces were buying location data. The responses also touched on military or intelligence use of internet browsing and other types of data, and prompted Wyden to demand more answers specifically about warrantless spying on American citizens. Some of the answers the DoD provided were given in a form that means Wyden's office cannot legally publish specifics on the surveillance; one answer in particular was classified. In the letter Wyden is pushing the DoD to release the information to the public. A Wyden aide told Motherboard that the Senator is unable to make the information public at this time, but believes it would meaningfully inform the debate around how the DoD is interpreting the law and its purchases of data. "I write to urge you to release to the public information about the Department of Defense's (DoD) warrantless surveillance of Americans," the letter, addressed to Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, reads. Wyden and his staff with appropriate security clearances are able to review classified responses, a Wyden aide told Motherboard. Wyden's office declined to provide Motherboard with specifics about the classified answer. But a Wyden aide said that the question related to the DoD buying internet metadata. "Are any DoD components buying and using without a court order internet metadata, including 'netflow' and Domain Name System (DNS) records," the question read, and asked whether those records were about "domestic internet communications (where the sender and recipient are both U.S. IP addresses)" and "internet communications where one side of the communication is a U.S. IP address and the other side is located abroad." Netflow data creates a picture of traffic flow and volume across a network. DNS records relate to when a user looks up a particular domain, and a system then converts that text into the specific IP address for a computer to understand; essentially a form of internet browsing history. Wyden's new letter to Austin urging the DoD to release that answer and others says "Information should only be classified if its unauthorized disclosure would cause damage to national security. The information provided by DoD in response to my questions does not meet that bar."

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A few days ago, Disney added a new anti-piracy patent to its arsenal: a blockchain-based distribution system that aims to make it harder for pirates to intercept films being distributed to movie theaters. TorrentFreak reports: The patent in question, titled "Blockchain configuration for secure content delivery," focuses on the distribution of content to movie theaters. This is a vulnerable process where pirates with the right connections can make copies during or after delivery. There are already several security mechanisms in place to prevent leaks from happening. Theaters have to adhere to strict rules, for example, and movies are all watermarked. Nevertheless, Disney believes that this isn't sufficient to stop pirates. "[S]uch security mechanisms are often reactive rather than preventative. For example, watermarking configurations insert a watermark into content to track piracy after the piracy has already occurred. As a result, current configurations do not adequately prevent piracy," the company explains. Disney argues that by implementing a secure blockchain-based system, the distribution process can be more tightly controlled. Among other things, it will make it impossible for a movie to be played before it arrives at the intended location. "In contrast with previous configurations, the blockchain configuration verifies that the content is received at the intended destination prior to allowing playback of the content at that destination," the patent reads. The system can also be configured with other anti-piracy features. For example, it can track the number of times a movie is played to prevent bad actors from showing it more often than they should. "Further, the blockchain configuration has an automated auditing mechanism that tracks playback of the content at the destination to ensure that the quantity of playbacks is accurately recorded. Therefore, piracy by the intended recipient, in the form of a greater quantity of actual playbacks than reported playbacks, is prevented.' While Disney regularly refers to movie theaters and projectors, it specifically states that the patent also applies to other 'playback environments.' For example, when Disney content is sent to other streaming providers, which will need the proper credentials to play the content. There are several possible practical implementations but whether Disney has concrete plans to use these in the real world is unknown.

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Elon Musk-founded SpaceX is in the process of rolling out Starlink as a satellite internet provider around the world. As part of a new partnership, Google Cloud data centers will be home to key Starlink infrastructure in order to let enterprise users better access key services. 9to5Google reports: This partnership starts with SpaceX building Starlink ground stations inside Google data centers for "secure, low-latency, and reliable delivery of data" from existing fiber networks to space and back to end users. There are currently over 1,500 Starlink satellites in orbit, with more launching on a regular basis aboard Falcon 9 rockets. The end goal is to make cloud services, data, and applications available to businesses in rural or remote areas: "Connectivity from Starlink's constellation of low-Earth-orbit satellites provides a path for these organizations to deliver data and applications to teams distributed across countries and continents, quickly and securely." The first Google Cloud and Starlink customers will be able to benefit from this partnership in the second half of 2021.

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Computer hardware maker MSI is warning gamers not to visit a website that's impersonating the brand and its graphics card overclocking software, Afterburner, to push malware. From a report: On Thursday, MSI published a press release warning of "a malicious software being disguised as the official MSI Afterburner." "The malicious software is being unlawfully hosted on a suspicious website impersonating as MSI's official website with the domain name https:// afterburner - msi [ . ] space," the company wrote. "MSI has no relation with this website or the aforementioned domain. [...] This webpage is hosting software which may contain virus, trojan, keylogger, or other type of malicious program that have been disguised to look like MSI Afterburner," the company added. "DO NOT DOWNLOAD ANY SOFTWARE FROM THIS WEBSITE."

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New submitter imcdona writes: VideoLan has released VLC Media Player 3.0.14 to fix an issue affecting Window users and causing the widely-used software's auto-updater not to launch the new version's installer automatically. "VLC users on Windows might encounter issues when trying to auto update VLC from version 3.0.12 and 3.0.13," VideoLan explained."We are publishing version 3.0.14 to address this problem for future updates." This issue is caused by a bug introduced in the automatic updater code of VLC 3.0.12 and fixed with the release of VLC 3.0.14. Because of this bug, VLC updates are downloaded to the users' computers, verified for integrity, but will not be installed as the auto-updater fails to launch the VLC 3.0.14 installer.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Binance Holdings Ltd. is under investigation by the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service, ensnaring the world's biggest cryptocurrency exchange in U.S. efforts to root out illicit activity that's thrived in the red-hot but mostly unregulated market. As part of the inquiry, officials who probe money laundering and tax offenses have sought information from individuals with insight into Binance's business, according to people with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be named because the probe is confidential. Led by Changpeng Zhao, a charismatic tech executive who relishes promoting tokens on Twitter and in media interviews, Binance has leap-frogged rivals since he co-founded it in 2017. The firm, like the industry it operates in, has succeeded largely outside the scope of government oversight. Binance is incorporated in the Cayman Islands and has an office in Singapore but says it lacks a single corporate headquarters. Chainalysis Inc., a blockchain forensics firm whose clients include U.S. federal agencies, concluded last year that among transactions that it examined, more funds tied to criminal activity flowed through Binance than any other crypto exchange. [...] While the Justice Department and IRS probe potential criminal violations, the specifics of what the agencies are examining couldn't be determined, and not all inquiries lead to allegations of wrongdoing. The officials involved include prosecutors within the Justice Department's bank integrity unit, which probes complex cases targeting financial firms, and investigators from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle. The scrutiny by IRS agents goes back months, with their questions signaling that they're reviewing both the conduct of Binance's customers and its employees, another person said. The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has also been investigating Binance over whether it permitted Americans to make illegal trades, Bloomberg reported in March. In that case, authorities have been examining whether Binance let investors buy derivatives that are linked to digital tokens. U.S. residents are barred from purchasing such products unless the firms offering them are registered with the CFTC. [...] Along with the CFTC, the Justice Department is likely to examine steps that Binance has taken to keep U.S. residents off its exchange. One person familiar with Binance's operations said that prior to the establishment of Binance.US, Americans were advised to use a virtual proxy network, or VPN, to disguise their locations when seeking to access the exchange. "We take our legal obligations very seriously and engage with regulators and law enforcement in a collaborative fashion," Binance spokeswoman Jessica Jung said in an emailed statement. "We have worked hard to build a robust compliance program that incorporates anti-money laundering principles and tools used by financial institutions to detect and address suspicious activity."

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Scientists studying a sample of oceanic crust retrieved from the Pacific seabed nearly a mile down have discovered traces of a rare isotope of plutonium, the deadly element that has been central to the atomic age. From a report: They say it was made in colliding stars and later rained down through Earth's atmosphere as cosmic dust millions of years ago. Their analysis opens a new window on the cosmos. "It's amazing that a few atoms on Earth can help us learn about where half of all the heavier elements in our universe are synthesized," said Anton Wallner, the paper's first author and a nuclear physicist. Dr. Wallner works at the Australian National University as well as the Helmholtz Center in Dresden, Germany. Dr. Wallner and his colleagues reported their findings in Science on Thursday. Plutonium has a bad reputation, one that is well-deserved. The radioactive element fueled the world's first nuclear test explosion as well as the bomb that leveled the Japanese city of Nagasaki during World War II. After the war, scientists found the health repercussions of plutonium to be particularly deadly. If inhaled or ingested in minute quantities, it could result in fatal cancers. Small amounts also pack a bigger punch than other nuclear fuels, a quality that aided the making of compact city busters that nuclear powers put atop their intercontinental missiles. The element is often considered artificial because it is so seldom found outside of human creations. In the periodic table, it is the last of 94 atoms characterized as naturally occurring. Traces of it can be found in uranium ores. Astrophysicists have long known that it's also spontaneously created in the universe. But they've had a hard time pinpointing any exact sites of its origin.

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Spencer Silver, a research chemist at 3M who inadvertently created the not-too-sticky adhesive that allows Post-it Notes to be removed from surfaces as easily as they adhere to them, died on Saturday at his home in St. Paul, Minn. He was 80. From a report: His wife, Linda, said that he died after an episode of ventricular tachycardia, in which the heart beats faster than normal. Mr. Silver had a heart transplant 27 years ago. Since their introduction in 1980, Post-it Notes have become a ubiquitous office product, first in the form of little canary-yellow pads -- billions of which are sold annually -- and later also in different hues and sizes, some with much stickier adhesives. There are currently more than 3,000 Post-it Brand products globally. Dr. Silver worked in 3M's central research laboratory developing adhesives. In 1968, he was trying to create one that was so strong it could be used in aircraft construction. He failed in that goal. But during his experimentation, he invented something entirely different: an adhesive that stuck to surfaces, but that could be easily peeled off and was reusable. It was a solution to a problem that did not appear to exist, but Dr. Silver was certain it was a breakthrough. "I felt my adhesive was so obviously unique that I began to give seminars throughout 3M in the hope I would spark an idea among its product developers," he told Financial Times in 2010. Dr. Silver promoted his adhesive for several years within 3M, a company known for its innovative workplace, so assiduously that he became known as "Mr. Persistent."

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Fully vaccinated people no longer need to wear a face mask or stay 6 feet away from others in most settings, whether outdoors or indoors, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in updated public health guidance released Thursday. From a report: There are a handful of instances where people will still need to wear masks -- in a health-care setting, at a business that requires them -- even if they've had their final vaccine dose two or more weeks ago, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told reporters at a press briefing. Fully vaccinated people will still need to wear masks on airplanes, buses, trains and other public transportation, she said. "Anyone who is fully vaccinated can participate in indoor and outdoor activities, large or small, without wearing a mask or physical distancing," Walensky said. "If you are fully vaccinated, you can start doing the things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic. We have all longed for this moment, when we can get back to some sense of normalcy." Walensky said unvaccinated people should still continue to wear masks, adding they remain at risk of mild or severe illness, death and risk spreading the disease to others. People with compromised immune systems should speak with their doctor before giving up their masks, she said. She added there is always a chance the CDC could change its guidance again if the pandemic worsens or additional variants emerge.

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The beauty and misery of private RSS feeds. An anonymous reader shares a report: There's only supposed to be one way to hear exclusive podcast content from sports host Scott Wetzel: by paying $5 a month to subscribe to his Patreon. But the show's also been available on a smaller podcasting app for free. In fact, leaked podcast feeds from dozens of subscription-only shows, including Wetzel's and The Last Podcast On The Left, are available to stream through Castbox, a smaller app for both iOS and Android, just by searching for them. Two people in the podcast space tell me they've reached out to Castbox multiple times, only for the company to remove a show and then have it pop up again, an infuriating cycle for someone trying to charge for their content. "It's a little bit like playing whack-a-mole with them," says one source, who asked to remain anonymous because of their ongoing work in the space. Podcast subscriptions have existed for years, but they've gained wider attention this past month. Apple, which makes the dominant podcasting app, introduced in-app subscriptions with a button that lets people directly subscribe to a show from the app. Spotify announced its own subscription product, too, but with caveats -- the main one being there's no actual in-app button.

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System76 today unveiled its newest product -- the "Launch Configurable Keyboard." It is a mechanical keyboard made in the USA with a focus on open source. The Launch has both open source firmware and hardware. Even the configuration software -- which runs on Linux, Windows, and macOS -- is open source. From a report: "With a wide swath of customization options, the Launch is flexible to a variety of needs and use cases. The keyboard's thoughtful design keeps everything within reach, vastly reducing awkward hand contortions. Launch comes with additional keycaps and a convenient keycap puller, meaning one can swap keys based on personal workflow preferences to maximize efficiency. Launch also features a novel split Space Bar, which allows the user to swap out one Space Bar keycap for Shift, Backspace, or Function to reduce hand fatigue while typing. Launch uses only three keycap sizes to vastly expand configuration options," says System76. The keyboard, which has a removable USB-C cable for connectivity, is priced at $285.

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New data compiled by the E.P.A. shows how global warming is making life harder for Americans in myriad ways that threaten their health, safety and homes. From a report: Wildfires are bigger, and starting earlier in the year. Heat waves are more frequent. Seas are warmer, and flooding is more common. The air is getting hotter. Even ragweed pollen season is beginning sooner. Climate change is already happening around the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency said on Wednesday. And in many cases, that change is speeding up. The freshly compiled data, the federal government's most comprehensive and up-to-date information yet, shows that a warming world is making life harder for Americans, in ways that threaten their health and safety, homes and communities. And it comes as the Biden administration is trying to propel aggressive action at home and abroad to cut the pollution that is raising global temperatures. "There is no small town, big city or rural community that is unaffected by the climate crisis," Michael S. Regan, the E.P.A. administrator, said on Wednesday. "Americans are seeing and feeling the impacts up close, with increasing regularity." The data released Wednesday came after a four-year gap. Until 2016, the E.P.A. regularly updated its climate indicators. But under President Donald J. Trump, who repeatedly questioned whether the planet was warming, the data was frozen in time. It was available on the agency's website but was not kept current. The Biden administration revived the effort this year and added some new measures, pulling information from government agencies, universities and other sources. The E.P.A. used 54 separate indicators which, taken together, paint a grim picture.

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