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www.theguardian.com Two dead and three injured, including state trooper, in Kentucky shootings

Unidentified shooter wounded trooper near airport in Lexington, then fled to a nearby church and opened fire

Two dead and three injured, including state trooper, in Kentucky shootings
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www.theguardian.com Chelsea stun PSG to win Club World Cup after Cole Palmer’s cool double

Cole Palmer’s first-half double and João Pedro stunned Paris Saint-Germain as Chelsea won 3-0 to become Club World Cup champions

Chelsea stun PSG to win Club World Cup after Cole Palmer’s cool double
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hackaday.com 2025 One Hertz Challenge: Ham Radio Foxhunt Transmitter

[Jim Matthews] submitted their Ham Radio foxhunt transmitter project for the 2025 One Hertz Challenge. This is a clever Spartan build. In order to create a radio beacon for use in a “fox hunt…

2025 One Hertz Challenge: Ham Radio Foxhunt Transmitter

!A hand holding the foxhunt transmitter

[Jim Matthews] submitted their Ham Radio foxhunt transmitter project for the 2025 One Hertz Challenge.

This is a clever Spartan build. In order to create a radio beacon for use in a “fox hunt” [Jim] combined a SR-T300 walkie talkie module with a phototransistor and oscillating LED circuit. The phototransistor and oscillating LED are secured face-to-face inside heat shrink tubing which isolates them from ambient light. When the LED flashes on the phototransistor powers the radio which transmits a tone in the UHF band.

A fox hunt is a game played by radio enthusiasts in which players use radio signals to triangulate and find a hidden beacon. [Jim]’s circuit is the beacon, and when it’s powered by a three volt CR2032 battery, it transmits a strong signal over several hundred yards at 433.5 MHz, within the amateur radio UHF band.

If you’re interested in radio beacons you might like to read about the WSPR beacon.

[!2025 Hackaday One Hertz Challenge](https://hackaday.io/contest/203248-one-hertz-challenge)

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www.theguardian.com Heavy rain in Texas halts rescue efforts as officials warn of further flooding

State authorities believe more than 160 people could still be missing as flash flood warnings remain in Kerr county

Heavy rain in Texas halts rescue efforts as officials warn of further flooding
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www.theguardian.com Wildfires destroy historic lodge on Grand Canyon’s North Rim, park says

Grand Canyon Lodge consumed by White Sage and Bravo Dragon fires, that have collectively burned more than 45,000 acres

Wildfires destroy historic lodge on Grand Canyon’s North Rim, park says
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Hurdy-posting Continues with the Balfolk Boombox, a Synth Gurdy
hackaday.com Hurdy-posting Continues With The Balfolk Boombox, A Synth Gurdy

The Hurdy-Gurdy continues to worm its way into pole position as the hacker’s instrument. How else could you explain a medieval wheel fiddle being turned into a synthesizer? Move over, keytar …

Hurdy-posting Continues With The Balfolk Boombox, A Synth Gurdy

!

The Hurdy-Gurdy continues to worm its way into pole position as the hacker’s instrument. How else could you explain a medieval wheel fiddle being turned into a synthesizer? Move over, keytar — [Rory Scammell]’s Balfolk Boombox is the real deal.

It began life as MIDI-outputting SAMgurdy by [Sam Palmer], which we sadly missed covering (though we did feature a MIDI-gurdy a few years back) but this boombox does far more than just MIDI samples. In a sentence no one ever thought would be penned, this instrument puts a Eurorack on a Hurdy-Gurdy for the ultimate synthwave bardcore mashup. There’s an analog synth, there’s a drum machine, there’s modularity to do whatever [Rory] should desire. There are also sixteen sampled instruments available at the push of a button, including multiple analog Hurdy-Gurdies.

It is, as [Rory] says, “a gig in a box”. There’s no point trying to describe it all in words: it really must be heard to be believed, so check out the demo video embedded below, and if you’re hankering for more info, he produced a fifteen minute in-depth video and if you can’t get enough of the sound, here’s a demo with all 16 sampled instruments. We’re pretty sure one of them is the Sega soundfont, and the 8-bit samples are absolutely GameBoy.

How, exactly, we fell in love with the hurdy-gurdy has fallen into mystery, but we’ve been filling up the hurdy-gurdy tag lately, on your suggestions. This one is thanks to a tip from [Physics Dude] in a comment– thanks for that, by the way– and the tips line remains open if the internet has not finally been scoured of all content both hurdy and gurdy.

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www.theguardian.com Trump wants to ‘remake’ Fema, not eliminate it, Kristi Noem says

Noem says president’s response to Texas floods shows how he wants to change US disaster relief agency to help states

Trump wants to ‘remake’ Fema, not eliminate it, Kristi Noem says
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From Leash to Locomotion: CARA the Robotic Dog
hackaday.com From Leash To Locomotion: CARA The Robotic Dog

Normally when you hear the words “rope” and “dog” in the same sentence, you think about a dog on a leash, but in this robot dog, the rope is what makes it move, not what sto…

From Leash To Locomotion: CARA The Robotic Dog

!Cara robot dog

Normally when you hear the words “rope” and “dog” in the same sentence, you think about a dog on a leash, but in this robot dog, the rope is what makes it move, not what stops it from going too far. [Aaed Musa]’s latest project is CARA, a robotic dog made mostly of 3D printed parts, with brushless motors and ropes used to tie the motors and legs together.

In a previous post, we covered [Aaed Musa]’s use of rope as a mechanism to make capstan drives, enabling high torque and little to no backlash. Taking that gearbox design, tweaking it a bit, and using three motors, he was able to make a leg capable of moving in all three axes. He had to do a good deal of inverse kinematics math to get the leg moving around as desired; once he had the motion of a step defined, it was time to build the rest of the dog.

CARA is made primarily of 3D printed parts, with several carbon fiber tubes running its length for rigidity. The legs are all free to move not only forward and back but side to side some, as in a real dog. He uses 12 large brushless motors, as they provide the torque needed, and ODrive S1 motor controllers to control each one, controlled over CAN by a Teensy 4.1 microcontroller. There is also a small BNO086 IMU to sense CARA’s position relative to gravity, and a 24V cordless tool battery powers everything.

Once assembled, there was some more tuning of what type of motion CARA’s legs take while walking. There were a few tweaks to the printed parts to address some structural issues, and then a good deal more inverse kinematics math to make full use of the IMU, allowing CARA to handle inclines and make a much more natural movement style. [Aaed Musa] does a great job explaining his approach on his site as well as in the video below; we’re looking forward to seeing his future projects!

CARA isn’t alone on this site—be sure to check out the other robot dogs we’ve featured here.

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www.theguardian.com Fifa agrees to mandatory rest periods to help protect players from burnout

The players’ union Fifpro demands a 72-hour rest period between matches but Fifa refuses to back down on creating more global events

Fifa agrees to mandatory rest periods to help protect players from burnout
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www.theguardian.com DoJ drops charges against Utah doctor accused of destroying Covid vaccines

Michael Kirk Moore accused of distributing at least 1,937 false vaccination cards and administering saline to children

DoJ drops charges against Utah doctor accused of destroying Covid vaccines
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www.theguardian.com How the rightwing sports bro conquered America

By extension of the Trump-aligned ‘manosphere’, figures such as ESPN’s Pat McAfee have upended US culture with their brash, hypermasculine punditry

How the rightwing sports bro conquered America
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www.theguardian.com Funeral held for two men, including American-Palestinian, killed by Israeli settlers – video

Relatives of Sayfollah Musallet, 20, say Israeli settlers beat him up on his family's farm near Ramallah and then prevented ambulances from reaching him for three hours

Funeral held for two men, including American-Palestinian, killed by Israeli settlers – video
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Jcorp Nomad: ESP32-S3 Offline Media Server in a Thumbdrive
hackaday.com Jcorp Nomad: ESP32-S3 Offline Media Server In A Thumbdrive

[Jackson Studner] wrote in to let us know about his ESP32-based media server: Jcorp Nomad. This project uses a ESP32-S3 to create a WiFi hotspot you can connect to from your devices. The hotspot is…

Jcorp Nomad: ESP32-S3 Offline Media Server In A Thumbdrive

!Picture of front and back of thumb drive enclosure

[Jackson Studner] wrote in to let us know about his ESP32-based media server: Jcorp Nomad.

This project uses a ESP32-S3 to create a WiFi hotspot you can connect to from your devices. The hotspot is a captive portal which directs the user to a web-interface comprised of static HTML assets which are in situ with the various media on an attached SD card formatted with a FAT32 file system. The static HTML assets are generated by the media.py Python 3 script when the ESP32 boots.

This project exists because the typical Raspberry Pi media server costs more than an ESP32 does. The ESP32 is smaller too, and demands less power.

According to [Jackson] this ESP32-based solution can support at least four concurrent viewers. The captive portal is implemented with DNS and HTTP services from the ESP32. The firmware is an Arduino project that integrates a bunch of libraries to provide the necessary services. The Jcorp Nomad media template supports Books (in pdf files), Music (in mp3 files), and Movies and Shows (in mp4 files). Also there is a convention for including JPEG files which can represent media in the user-interface.

And the icing on the cake? The project files include STL files so you can 3D print an enclosure. All in all, a very nice hack.

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www.theguardian.com Macron calls on EU to ‘defend European interests resolutely’ from Trump tariffs

French president says bloc should be ready for trade war after 30% tariff threat but other EU leaders call for calm

Macron calls on EU to ‘defend European interests resolutely’ from Trump tariffs
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www.theguardian.com There was a deal to fix this Alabama community’s raw sewage crisis. Trump tore it up over DEI

Residents of Alabama’s Lowndes county are still fighting for basic sanitation after Trump’s DoJ canceled a landmark Biden-era agreement

There was a deal to fix this Alabama community’s raw sewage crisis. Trump tore it up over DEI
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www.theguardian.com Troops, terror and tears in Los Angeles as Ice raids show no sign of slowing

Raids have left residents of LA’s MacArthur Park scared to go to trusted local businesses – and outside in general

Troops, terror and tears in Los Angeles as Ice raids show no sign of slowing
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www.theguardian.com The Texas way: why the most disaster-prone US state is so allergic to preparing for disasters

It faces hurricanes, heat, drought, rising seas and – as last week showed – deadly floods. But despite the clear need for preventive action, that is not the political mood

The Texas way: why the most disaster-prone US state is so allergic to preparing for disasters
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