# Morning Briefing

Sunday, May 11, 2026
📰 Top Stories

## Trump Rejects Iran's Ceasefire Proposal Response as "Totally Unacceptable"

Covered by 282 sources — AP, Reuters, NPR, Ground News
Trump rejected Iran's counter-proposal to end the war, calling it "totally unacceptable." Oil prices rose and global markets dipped on the impasse. Trump heads to China as the situation remains volatile.
iran geopolitics markets

## Hantavirus Cases Detected Among Evacuated Cruise Passengers

NPR · AP · Reuters
Multiple passengers evacuated from a cruise ship have tested positive for hantavirus, including one during the US return flight. A French passenger also tested positive among repatriated travelers in Paris.
health outbreak

## Congress Returns to Tackle ICE Funding After Week-Long Break

NPR · AP
Congressional Republicans are pushing for three years of dedicated immigration enforcement funding. Meanwhile, a US citizen and combat veteran was tear-gassed, jailed, and falsely accused during an ICE raid, according to Reason.
immigration congress

## Iran Delivers War-End Response to US Via Pakistan

Ground News — 163 sources
Iran formally delivered its response to the US proposal to end the war through Pakistan as an intermediary. The response addressed both ceasefire terms and shipping security in the Strait of Hormuz.
iran diplomacy
💻 Tech

## Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler

Hacker News · 1842 points · 608 comments
GrapheneOS outlines how hardware attestation mechanisms are being weaponized by vendors to lock out alternative OS installations and third-party app stores, effectively enabling platform monopolies under the guise of security.
security open-source right-to-repair

## Mythos Finds a Curl Vulnerability

Hacker News · 367 points · 156 comments · daniel.haxx.se
Daniel Stenberg reports that a Mythos AI system discovered a vulnerability in curl. A concrete example of AI-assisted security research landing in a major open-source project.
security ai open-source

## Sony's Failed War Against Internet Piracy May Doom Other Copyright Lawsuits

Ars Technica
Cable firm Cox's Supreme Court win could help all tech providers, not just ISPs. The ruling significantly raises the bar for secondary liability claims in copyright cases.
copyright legal piracy

## Gmail Registration Now Requires Scanning a QR Code and Sending a Text Message

Hacker News · 122 points · 61 comments
Google now requires new Gmail account registrants to send an SMS via their phone (not just receive one), effectively making a phone number mandatory and raising the barrier for privacy-conscious users.
privacy google

## The Chinese Whiz Kids of Silicon Valley

Rest of World
Chinese-born tech workers have fueled Silicon Valley for decades. In the AI era, they've become superstars — but rising US-China tensions and visa crackdowns threaten the talent pipeline that built the industry.
ai immigration international
🌍 Wider Lens

## Oregon's Most Unexpected Gubernatorial Candidate? A Pencil With a Point

NPR
Oregon's public schools rank last in fourth-grade reading nationally. As a wake-up call, "Pencil" is running for governor as a write-in candidate focused on literacy education reform.
oregon education

## China's Marriages Drop to Decade Low, Deepening Demographic Concerns

Reuters
China's marriage registrations have fallen to their lowest level in a decade, intensifying worries about the country's shrinking workforce and aging population crisis.
china demographics

## Huge Landslide Created a 500-Meter-High Tsunami in a Major Tourist Area

Ars Technica
A melting glacier triggered a massive landslide that generated a 500-meter tsunami. Fortunately, it happened early morning when nobody was in the impact zone — a stark climate change warning.
climate science
🔥 HN Deep Reads

## Local AI Needs to Be the Norm

Hacker News · 1465 points · 571 comments · unix.foo
An argument that local AI processing should be the default, not the exception — for privacy, latency, and resilience. The 571-comment discussion dives into hardware constraints, on-device vs cloud tradeoffs, and whether the industry will ever prioritize it.
ai privacy self-hosting

## I'm Going Back to Writing Code by Hand

Hacker News · 629 points · 342 comments · blog.k10s.dev
A developer argues for returning to manual coding over AI-assisted workflows. The 342-comment thread is a genuine debate: some agree AI produces unmaintainable slop, others argue the tooling just needs better guardrails.
ai craft dev-tools

## Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (May 2026)

Hacker News · 214 points · 790 comments
The monthly "What are you working on?" thread — always worth a skim. 790 comments of side projects, startups, and experiments from the HN community.
community projects
🎮 Gaming

## Former Epic Tech Director Announces The Immense Engine, a "European Alternative" to Unreal

Rock Paper Shotgun
Guerrilla Games co-founder and former Epic technical director Arjan Brussee is building an AI-heavy game engine positioned as a European counterweight to Unreal and Unity.
game-engines ai industry

## New Steam Update Hints at Four Separate Steam Machine Models

PC Gamer · Also: Kotaku
SteamDB findings suggest Valve is preparing four different Steam Machine SKUs with a reservation system, presumably at different price points. A full return to living room hardware.
valve steam-deck hardware

## California Bill to Keep Games Playable After Server Shutdowns — ESA Pushes Back

Rock Paper Shotgun
The Stop Killing Games campaign backs a California bill requiring games to remain playable after official server shutdowns. The ESA claims it "doesn't reflect how games actually work." The right-to-repair debate hits gaming.
right-to-repair preservation legal
⚖️ Bias Check

## Trump Calls Iran's Response "Totally Unacceptable"

Ground News · 282 sources · Left: 29% · Center: 39% · Right: 30%
Coverage is remarkably balanced across the spectrum. Left outlets emphasize diplomatic failure and risk of escalation; Right outlets frame Iran's response as proof of bad-faith negotiating; Center coverage focuses on the procedural breakdown and market impact.
iran bias-check

## 8 Children Killed in Louisiana Mass Shooting Remembered at Funeral

Ground News · 62 sources · Left: 17% · Center: 67% · Right: 14%
Heavily center-weighted coverage. Left outlets connect it to gun policy; Right coverage is minimal, mostly focusing on community grief without policy framing. The 14% right representation vs 67% center shows a significant coverage gap.
gun-violence bias-check