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A new spatial "Reframe" feature will let users use AI to adjust perspectives.

Siri is finally getting its own app.

Republican Sen. Roger Marshall isn’t only adept at avoiding reckless driving charges. He also believes he’s identified the culprits behind the recent outbreak of screwworm in American cattle: President Joe Biden and immigrants’ pets. “We eradicated the screwworm in 1966, and we’ll talk about this, but this is another thing we can thank Joe Biden for,” Marshall told Newsmax.

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"If you're grabbing a bite with friends and point your iPhone at the bill, then [you can] select what you ordered to split the tab with Apple Cash," said Apple VP of Software Sebastien Marineau-Mes.

At Lookout Santa Cruz, we’ve always believed that local journalism belongs in the classroom.

Now, that belief is helping shape conversations about the future of local news across the country.

The American Press Institute recently invited me to present at its Local News Summit on Youth Trust and Civic Resilience and asked me to write an article for journalism leaders nationwide about the lessons we’ve learned through Lookout in the Classroom.

Together, those opportunities gave me the chance to share something we’ve seen firsthand in Santa Cruz County: Local journalism can help young people become informed, engaged members of their communities.

The article, “Share local news coverage with classrooms to spark civic engagement and boost fundraising efforts,” tells the story of how Lookout in the Classroom has grown from a single-school pilot into a program serving students and educators throughout Santa Cruz County.

API also included Lookout in the Classroom in a national collection of case studies spotlighting how local news organizations are building trust with young people while creating sustainable funding models.

You can read the full article here.

Critical to the ongoing success – and growth – of our student and school programs is your support. All Lookout memberships help, but our new One-for-One Membership supports them best. Sign up for one today, or upgrade to it, and you’ll be supporting this great work in the high schools and middle schools across Santa Cruz County.

Support free teacher access with your Lookout membership

You can help Lookout expand local news access for educators by joining or upgrading your membership. For every member who joins at the One-for-One level, Lookout is able to offer free access to an additional local teacher — including when members upgrade their existing membership!

Give a teacher free local news access

The article grew out of the API’s Local News Summit on Youth Trust and Civic Resilience in West Palm Beach, Florida, where about 60 local news leaders, educators, researchers and community engagement experts gathered to explore a pressing question: How can local news organizations build trust with young people and help prepare the next generation of engaged community members?

There, I talked about Lookout’s effort to connect Santa Cruz County students and teachers with trusted local journalism, media literacy resources and opportunities to tell stories of their own.

One lesson resonated throughout the conversation: Students came to trust Lookout because their teachers did first.

When we launched our pilot several years ago, we started with one school, one community sponsor and one willing teacher. We discovered that educators were eager for reliable local news they could bring into their classrooms. As teachers began using Lookout’s reporting, students engaged with stories about housing, education, local government, the environment and other issues shaping their community.

That effort has grown into Lookout in the Classroom, which now includes free educator access, classroom resources, school visits, an educator newsletter and the Student Journalism Scholarship. This year, the scholarship received more than 130 student submissions, the most in the program’s history.

Sharing this story with media leaders was a reminder that communities everywhere are grappling with the same challenges: declining trust in institutions, growing misinformation and the need to help young people feel connected to civic life.

What makes me proud is knowing that the work of local teachers, students, donors and readers is contributing to a national conversation about youth engagement and local journalism.

Many attendees were interested not only in the program itself, but also in how it has been built through partnerships with educators, community organizations, local donors and readers who believe that supporting journalism and supporting education can go hand in hand.

The summit was deeply solutions-oriented. Rather than focusing on what local news has lost, participants explored what can be built next. I left inspired by the creativity and commitment of news organizations across the country – and even more convinced that the work we’re doing together matters.

Lookout in the Classroom has always been a team effort. Correspondents, editors and staff across our newsroom have visited classrooms, mentored students, participated in workshops and helped bring local journalism directly to young people.

The program’s impact is also extending beyond Santa Cruz County. In Eugene-Springfield, hundreds of teachers have already signed up to participate in Lookout for Teachers.

Thank you to the teachers, students, donors, sponsors and readers who have helped make Lookout in the Classroom possible. The story I shared at the summit – and in the article – is ultimately your story. This recognition belongs to all of you.

Diamond Tech Lookout awards

The post Lookout in the Classroom earns national spotlight appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

Apple is putting control back into the hands of parents with more granular screen time features.

Cycle tracker will now notify women when their cycle patterns are suggestive of perimenopause.

Corralitos Cultural Center’s Raise the Roof! benefit brings live music, a silent auction, sausage barbecue and community spirit to The Backyard on June 6.

Apple's new dictation system could compete with Wispr Flow and others.

The idea behind the new "Siri AI" is to turn the assistant from a voice controlled assistant into an AI companion that can do a lot more.

Apple says a completely rebuilt Search function will competently find the emails, photos and other content you are searching for.

Some Trumpian construction projects go smoothy. In Vietnam, for example, the government has relocated hundreds residents to make room for a $1.5 billion-dollar Trump-branded mega-resort, and that project is well underway. But elsewhere in the world, the first family’s real estate deals don’t always go according to plan.

In recent days, Albania has been rocked by widespread protests that have shaken the foundation of the ruling prime minister’s 13-year tenure. The trigger for the unrest: A luxury resort that Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kusher are developing in the Balkan nation—and allegations that the Albanian government may have improperly ignored migratory bird routes when approving the 10,000-room project.

What accounts for the disparate fates of the Trump family’s various international ventures? There are likely many factors, but one is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore: democracy.

In the last couple years, the president’s Trump Organization has announced a flood of overseas projects—in Georgia, Saudi Arabia, Maldives, Romania, Australia, Vietnam, Qatar, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, and India. At the same time, Ivanka and Jared have announced their own plans for a Trump-branded development in Serbia and the non-Trump-branded resort in Albania.

“What do I need power for if I have to abandon the vision I have shared with you all these years?”

The backlash to those latter two projects—the Kushner deals in Serbia and Albania—has been particularly volatile; news of Trump family involvement and possible government intervention to move those deals along has sparked massive demonstrations. And a separate proposal to build a Trump tower that would have become the “tallest building in Australia” quickly fell apart amid a feeding frenzy by Australia’s boisterous free press.

By contrast, in countries like Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Qatar, Oman, and the UAE, Trump World projects seem to have coasted along breezily, without much pushback from pesky protesters. This probably shouldn’t be surprising. Saudi Arabia is, in the words of the watchdog organization Freedom House, an absolute monarchy that “restricts almost all political rights and civil liberties” and “relies on pervasive surveillance [and] the criminalization of dissent.” The Kingdom has recently executed people for “offenses related to their participation in protests and demonstrations when they were still minors.” Freedom House gives Saudi Arabia a freedom score of 9 out of 100, among the lowest in the world.

In Oman—another absolute monarchy, with a Freedom House score of 24—the Trump Organization has partnered with a Saudi developer and the Omani government to secure land in a prime location overlooking the Persian Gulf (not far from the war-ravaged Strait of Hormuz). Several of the other countries with new Trump-related real estate projects have similarly abysmal human rights records. Out of the possible 100 points, Freedom House gives the UAE, Qatar, and Vietnam scores of 18, 25, and 20, respectively.

The current situation in Albania—Freedom House score of 69—is very different from its autocratic counterparts. Jared and Ivanka’s project there was announced as a double resort, one on the mainland coast and the other on a remote island in the Adriatic. The two properties are ostensibly in private hands, but both seem to require significant government assent—environmentalists say both sites are ecologically sensitive, and the island is a former Albanian military base, covered with concrete blockhouses and landmines.

The Balkan nation’s elected prime minister, Edi Rama, has been full-throated in his support for the project. But Albania “has a record of competitive elections” and freedom of assembly is “generally respected,” according to Freedom House. And indeed, public opposition is spiraling. The growing protest movement has been dubbed “the Flamingo Revolution,” in reference to the bird protesters say could be harmed if redevelopment goes forward. Albania’s official anti-corruption agency has announced that it is probing whether changes to the resort area’s environmental and zoning regulations in 2024 were suspicious. And there has been outrage over videos of security guards allegedly assaulting protesters.

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Rama, who has faced calls for his resignation, says he won’t back down from supporting Kushner. “There is no chance for this investment to stop as long as I am here,” Rama said recently, accusing protesters of antisemitism and disinformation.

He also seemed to align the rationale for his 13-year rule with the success of the project.

“What do I need power for if I have to abandon the vision I have shared with you all these years?” Rama declared in a public speech on Wednesday. “We must enter the Champions League of global tourism.”

“If it was not Jared, they would not give a shit about what is happening in Albania,” Rama told Politico on Friday.

But critics of the plan point to what happened to a similar project proposed by Kushner, meant for an abandoned military site in nearby Serbia (Freedom House score 53). That deal, which would have created a Trump-branded hotel tower, eventually collapsed after protests and an investigation by Serbia’s anti-corruption agency. Four individuals have been criminally charged in the ensuing scandal—including the country’s culture minister, who is currently on trial.

Neither Serbia nor Albania get particularly high marks from democracy advocates. Both countries are categorized as “partly free” by Freedom House and as “flawed democracies” by the Economist Intelligence Unit. But this type of open, and potentially consequential, public protest movement is virtually impossible in other, far more authoritarian countries where the Trumps are building.

Notably, the United States’ own Freedom House score ticked down from 84 to 81 during the first year of Trump’s second term. But the US remains “free,” and anti-Trump protests here show no signs of stopping.

It’s not unusual for a protest movement to involve absurd-looking symbols. Unions deploy giant rat inflatables to picket companies using non-union labor, people at “No Kings” protests don puffy frog or dinosaur costumes, and Gen Z protesters worldwide can be seen waving a cartoon pirate flag from the show One Piece to symbolize anti-authoritarianism.

In Albania, the latest image of popular revolt against billionaire excess is the flamingo. For the past week, Albanians have protested Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner’s plan to pave a protected nature reserve and turn it into a luxury resort—a plan which, protesters say, could put the pink birds in jeopardy. Albania’s prime minister, Edi Rama, told Reuters Monday that he plans to continue backing the project.

The Kushners first encountered the island of Sazan, a former military base off Albania’s coast, back in 2021. While on a yacht trip, Ivanka Trump saw Sazan, and reportedly became convinced she would be able to “help realize its potential.” Now, Jared Kushner’s investment firm, Affinity Partners, is spending $1.6 billion to construct an “eco-resort” on Sazan and the nearby Vjosa-Narta lagoon. Environmentalists, however, aren’t sure how eco-friendly the resort will be. Thousands of protesters across Albania have rallied for days, waving cardboard and inflatable flamingos while clashing with police.

Ornithologist Ledi Selgjekaj told Reuters that more than 1 percent of the ​global population of flamingos is in Albania.

“Of course, it’s very important to have investments in the country. It’s very important ​for the economy, but you have to choose very wisely where to build it. There is a reason why this area is called a protected area,” she told Reuters.

BirdLife International, a global bird conservation NGO, has come out against the project.

“A protected landscape of global importance is under attack, and people are demanding an end to the devastation,” said Anouk Puymartin of BirdLife International in a statement. “Nature belongs to everyone, not a handful of investors.”

It’s getting kind of difficult to keep track of all the lawsuits against all of President Donald Trump’s efforts to turn Washington, D.C., into one of his resorts. This weekend brought us a brand-new one, with two plaintiffs suing to stop the Ultimate Fighting Championship fight scheduled for Trump’s birthday on June 14. It might seem like this lawsuit is a day late and a dollar short…

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Apple’s WWDC 2026 event kicked off this morning at 10 a.m. PT at Apple Park, starting a week full of expected announcements around Siri, iOS 27, Apple Intelligence and more, along with developer events and demos. This year’s event is particularly notable for a couple things. It marks CEO Tim Cook’s last with the company, […]

While some users liked the sleek, transparent designs that look "glassy," others found Apple's design overhaul from last year to be hard to read.

Check Point released an emergency fix on Monday for a critical authentication bypass vulnerability affecting its Remote Access VPN and Mobile Access deployments - but attackers, including ransomware criminals, got a month-long head start. Attacks against the bug, tracked as CVE-2026-50751, began on May 7, according to Check Point VP of research Lotem Finkelstein, and picked up in early June. The security software vendor spotted suspicious activity and began investigating the zero-day on June 4, Finkelstein said in a Monday blog. “We have observed indications that exploitation has been limited to a relatively small number of targeted organizations (several dozen globally), primarily over the past few days,” Finkelstein wrote, adding that, in at least one case, investigators observed post-compromise activity associated with a Qilin ransomware affiliate. This same ransomware scum is also likely exploiting other VPN-related vulnerabilities in Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, and F5 products, Finkelstein said. CVE-2026-50751 is due to a logic-flow weakness in the Remote Access and Mobile Access certificate validation process, and it allows remote attackers to bypass authentication and establish a remote access VPN connection without a user password. It affects Mobile Access/SSL VPNs, Remote Access VPNs, and Spark Firewalls configured to use the deprecated IKEv1 key exchange protocol. While investigating CVE-2026-50751 and affected VPN components, Check Point found another vulnerability, CVE-2026-50752, in its Security Gateways and Spark Firewall products. It’s due to a bug in the certificate validation logic of the deprecated IKEv1 key exchange method, and can lead to man-in-the-middle attacks on the VPN site-to-site configuration. Check Point says that it hasn’t received any reports of in-the-wild exploitation of CVE-2026-50752. Check Point urges customers running vulnerable gateways and firewalls to apply the hotfixes, and the vendor also provided alternative mitigation options with instructions in the security advisories. The software provider also published a list of indicators of compromise, including attacker IPs, and recommends customers search Check Point SmartConsole logs for possible VPN certificate authentication attempts associated with observed attacker infrastructure and certificate subject names for at least May 7 through June 5. ®

⚡ Quick Take

• Netflix announced Dan Aykroyd has joined the streamer’s upcoming 3D-animated Ghostbusters series, debuting in 2027, as an executive producer.

In the summer of 2024, Netflix announced it was officially developing a new 3D-animated Ghostbusters series. Since then we haven’t learned much more about the show, including when we would see it. But now we at least know what year it will debut. More importantly, we know the most important member of pop culture’s most famous specter hunters will be prominently involved. Netflix has revealed that Ghostbusters creator, Ray Stantz himself, Dan Aykroyd has joined the show, titled Ghostbusters: Night Shift, as an executive producer.

Netflix provided a rundown of what fans can expect from the streaming site at this summer’s Annecy International Animation Film Festival. That’s where Netflix will debut new looks for its upcoming animated projects. That will include sneak peeks at notable projects like Ricky Gervais’ Alley Cats, Charlie vs. the Chocolate Factory, its anime slate, and Brad Bird’s Ray Gunn. It will also be where we finally get to see literally anything from its long-awaited Ghostbusters cartoon.

Sony Pictures

The streamer will debut footage from the show at the Thétre Bonlieu on Wednesday, June 24. Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan, who have led the two recent sequels, will be in attendance. They are both executive producers on the series, which also comes from Sony Pictures Animation.

Columbia Pictures Television

Now Netflix has shared that Aykroyd is also taking on an official positions. He will also fill an EP role on the show. Ben Hibon, Elliott Kalan, and Amie Karp also serve as executive producers. And that’s as much as we know beyond the small description Ntflix provided. It says the show is a “high end animated series based on the beloved Ghostbusters IP” that will arrive in 2027.

That’s still a long time to wait for a show that’s been in development for years. But maybe that’s a good thing. It gives Ghostbusters‘ creator more time to work on it.

Originally published on May 7, 2026.

The post Netflix’s GHOSTBUSTERS Animated Series Reveals Title and Logo appeared first on Nerdist.

⚡ Quick Take

• The Scooby gang is getting a new look in the live-action Scooby-Doo: Origins series, which will make its way to Netflix soon.

Jinkies! The Mystery Gang is back together and ready to solve more mysteries. Netflix announced the four faces set to play those meddling kids. Grab the Scooby Snacks and get your investigating caps on, ’cause we got some work to do now. Mckenna Grace, Tanner Hagen, Abby Ryder Fortson, and Maxwell Jenkins join the cast for Netflix’s live-action Scooby-Doo series. Cue the intro music. And now, we know that there will be an actual puppy playing Scooby-Doo, thanks to this teaser:

First look at Scooby in the upcoming series #ScoobyDoo: Origin.

Premiering on Netflix in 2027. pic.twitter.com/QlX0LePAQG

— Rotten Tomatoes 🍅 (@RottenTomatoes) June 8, 2026

Variety also reports that Paul Walter Hauser will star in this series as well in an undisclosed role. He is a series regular, so don’t expect him to just be the villain of the episode. Scooby-Doo: Origins and began production in Atlanta in April 2026 and will premiere sometime in 2027.

Warner Bros. Animation

RELATED ARTICLE

New SCOOBY-DOO Anime Series Coming in 2027

Scooby-Doo is as beloved as they come. What started as a cartoon about four mystery-solving teenagers and their lovable dog grew into an empire Toys, snacks, crossovers, a string of live-action movies, and several more cartoons followed. The first movie came in 2002, casting Sarah Michelle Gellar as Daphne, Linda Cardellini as Velma, Matthew Lillard as Shaggy, and Freddie Prinze Jr. as Fred. The four remain inseparable from those roles even today. That leaves some pretty big shoes to fill for the four newcomers.

Netflix

Netflix announced the cast for the new series on March 18. Mckenna Grace is Daphne Blake, Tanner Hagen is Shaggy Rogers, Abby Ryder Fortson is Velma Dinkley, and Maxwell Jenkins is Fred Jones. Here is Netflix’s official synopsis for the upcoming series:

“A modern reimagining of the iconic mystery-solving group of teens and their very special dog. During their final summer at camp, old friends Shaggy and Daphne get embroiled in a haunting mystery surrounding a lonely lost Great Dane puppy that may have been a witness to a supernatural murder. Together with the pragmatic and scientific townie, Velma, and the strange, but ever so handsome new kid, Freddy, they set out to solve the case that is pulling each of them into a creepy nightmare that threatens to expose all of their secrets.”

Where Do I Know Netflix’s Live-Action Scooby-Doo: Origins Cast From? Prime Video/Paramount Pictures/Netflix/Blink&Miss Productions

RELATED ARTICLE

Netflix’s Live-Action SCOOBY DOO Series Casts Mckenna Grace

The newest names attached to the pop culture powerhouse are all young actors, but you may recognize them from this or that. Maxwell Jenkins played Will Robinson in Netflix’s Lost in Space and more recently starred alongside Kevin Bacon in The Bondsman. Tanner Hagen appeared in an episode of The Pitt. Abby Ryder Fortson (also in an episode of The Pitt) is most famous for her leading role in Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.

Finally, Mckenna Grace is in… well, honestly everything. She’s probably one of the most famous child actors of our (my) generation. Most recently, she was in Scream 7, Regretting You, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, and will play a role in The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping.

Warner Bros. Animation

Netflix’s live-action Scooby Doo series is in collaboration with Warner Bros. Television. Josh Appelbaum and Scott Rosenber will be its showrunners and executive producers. While we may never be able to separate the original cast from their iconic roles, it’ll be exciting to see a new take on the classic. All we need now is a Scooby-Doo reveal. Filming is slated to begin soon.

Originally published on March 19, 2026.

The post SCOOBY-DOO: ORIGINS Series Drops First Teaser Featuring Scooby-Doo appeared first on Nerdist.

⚡ Quick Take

• Marlon Wayans revealed that the role of Cindy in Scary Movie was supposed to go to Melissa Joan Hart, but his brother Keenan wanted Anna Faris to play the character.

Scary Movie is stirring up laughs (and maybe some groans) in theaters. Fans of the franchise have waited a long time to see some of their favorite characters return, like Anna Faris’ Cindy. She’s been a staple in the films as a main character since the beginning, but Faris almost didn’t get the role. Marlon Wayans revealed that Melissa Joan Hart was supposed to be Cindy in the Scary Movie franchise, but his brother Keenan advocated for Anna Faris to get the role instead. 

ABC/Dimension Films

It’s pretty hard to imagine anyone else besides Faris’ as the well-meaning yet rather dimwitted Cindy in the Scary Movie franchise. Her comedic timing and facial expressions are impeccable and a huge reason why the films became so popular. But it would have made a lot of sense to have Melissa Joan Hart in the role as well.

She can be quite funny when given the chance and, more importantly, her name would have been a huge draw for audiences. Hart was well known for her starring role in Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, so playing Cindy would have been a huge departure from her family friendly sitcom roots. And it would have been incredibly funny to see her fight a black cat in Scary Movie 2 considering she had a black cat in the series.

RELATED ARTICLE

SCARY MOVIE ‘Subservient Ghostface’ Website Mocks SCREAM and AI

Marlon Wayans’ admission of this was a surprise to both Faris and his brother Shawn Wayans. And, in classic Marlon fashion, he joked that Faris did a good job of taking a job from another white lady. Now, it would be interesting to see what Melissa Joan Hart’s thoughts are about all of this. Scary Movie is pulling in box office numbers so we are sure that Anna Faris will be able to keep playing Cindy in the coming years.

The post Melissa Joan Hart Was Supposed to Play Cindy in SCARY MOVIE appeared first on Nerdist.