The US’s explosive diarrhea problem is worse than you think—and it’s about to get even messier.

The country is grappling with a large and fast-spreading outbreak of cyclosporiasis, a parasitic infection that causes extreme gastrointestinal distress. There are nearly 7,000 potential cases, more than 3,300 of which are in Michigan alone as of Tuesday, and state officials have identified tainted lettuce as the likely culprit.

The actual case count is almost certainly higher, though, because most people don’t seek medical care when they get diarrhea. And even when they do, labs don’t routinely test for cyclosporiasis, says Jeanne Marrazzo, CEO of Infectious Diseases Society of America. She estimates cases are at least double the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s numbers.

“That’s because of underdiagnosis and also because there are cases that are likely to be mild. Many people aren’t going to declare themselves and get counted,” she says. Cyclosporiasis isn’t as common as other foodborne illnesses, meaning it’s not included in standard panels that test for several types of gastrointestinal disease.

But for many folks who get sick, the effects are, let’s just say, not pleasant. “A lot of times with diarrhea, you have an episode and you feel better,” says Marrazzo. “With this, it just can kind of go on and on, and it really takes people out.”

Bad enough, yes. But about that whole getting worse thing.

Public health officials have urged people to thoroughly clean produce, and some restaurants have taken precautions. Notably, Taco Bell has said it had “voluntarily and temporarily removed limited ingredients at select restaurants as a precautionary measure.” While that might help those trying to live mas avoid getting cyclosporiasis, it’s not the only part of the produce supply chain that can be affected.

Norman Beatty, associate professor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases and global medicine at the University of Florida, says the cyclospora parasite has unique mechanisms that allow it to lodge into the crevices of other fruits and vegetables. It’s most commonly found in fresh, raw produce, particularly herbs, lettuce, and berries.

Unlike some of the more common foodborne pathogens, cyclospora is resistant to bleach and common sanitizers used by food manufacturers. “Despite the commercial approaches to washing the produce that ends up in our grocery stores, the oocysts can continue to stick,” says Beatty. (Oocysts are the infectious stage of the parasite.)

Cooking destroys the parasite, but because lettuce and berries are usually eaten raw, there’s no easy way to eliminate it before consumption.

Bill Marler, a lawyer who specializes in food poisoning cases, says that, historically, most cyclosporiasis cases have been linked to imported produce. But the last decade has seen the US’s first All-American cyclospora outbreaks, such as when bagged lettuce from a plant in Illinois sickened more than 700 people.

Marler described cyclospora as becoming “like pythons in the Everglades.” The invasive snakes have infamously taken over the wetlands of South Florida, outcompeting native fauna and inspiring a year-round python hunting season. Cyclospora threatens to do the same, using our guts as the host environment. As more people get cyclospora and poop it out, it becomes more likely that water gets infected. That in turn increases the risk of outbreaks.

“Likely what happens is, it gets into the water supply that’s utilized to irrigate crops,” Marler says. He adds that agricultural workers typically get blamed for outbreaks, but “this is unlikely to be one lone worker not washing his or her hands, or someone pooping in the field. Something has gotten a water supply contaminated, spreading over a larger amount of produce.”

The parasite is also resistant to chlorine, the primary disinfectant used in most municipal water and wastewater treatment systems.

Beatty says it’s likely that thousands more people around the country have been infected.

“This shows us how easily an organism can be distributed to one location within the United States to multiple locations pretty quickly through the networks that we have set up for food distribution,” he says. “This could end up being reported in all 50 states.”

Miles Wang, an OpenAI researcher whose work includes using AI to accelerate scientific and biological discovery, is leaving the ChatGPT maker to launch a new startup focused on developing AI models for drug discovery, according to four people with knowledge of his plans. Several other OpenAI researchers are expected to join the new company.  

Wang is in talks to raise about $200 million at a $2 billion valuation, two of the people said. Lightspeed is in discussions to lead the funding round, according to sources. Talks are ongoing, the deal may not be final and details could change.

Wang disputed the story’s funding figures and description of the company but did not specify the correct numbers or details. Lightspeed didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The funding discussions point to investor interest in applying AI to make breakthroughs in life sciences. Chai Discovery, a two-year-old startup developing AI models that can predict molecular interactions to identify new drugs, announced on Tuesday that it raised $400 million at a $3.8 billion valuation. (Co-founder Josh Meier also passed through OpenAI as a researcher.) Meanwhile, Google DeepMind spinout Isomorphic Labs, which also develops AI models for drug discovery, raised a $2.1 billion Series B in May.

Wang’s new startup may be working on AI models that will help find new uses for existing drugs and possibly those that previously failed in trials, a couple of sources told TechCrunch. Finding new uses for FDA-approved drugs can result in significantly faster time to revenue than developing new drugs from scratch, as these medicines have already been tested for safety.

Wang joined OpenAI in 2024 after dropping out from Harvard, where he was working on a bachelor’s degree in computer science. (In recent years, investors are once again comfortable betting on young founders who haven’t completed college.)

At OpenAI, he co-authored research papers, including evaluating how AI models can automate and accelerate scientific discovery.

Samsung has released the fourth One UI 9 beta for the Galaxy S26 series, bringing another round of bug fixes and refinements ahead of the software’s official debut later this month.

The update has started rolling out in India first, carrying firmware that ends in ZZG4, and is available to users already enrolled in Samsung’s One UI 9 beta programme. At around 1.25GB, it’s a sizeable download.

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Further complicating the process, even the expiration of the Microsoft certificate that signed the shims, which took place late last month, isn’t enough to revoke the ones ESET identified.

A rogue’s gallery of defective shims

The shims identified by ESET authorize secondary components that are known to be vulnerable to various exploits. The Oracle shim, for instance, signs a binary vulnerable to CVE-2015-5381. Smolár said the skill required to exploit the vulnerability is low. Other vulnerable shims fail to support protections, such as MOK deny-list enforcement and SBAT enforcement, both of which came into effect after the affected shim was released. Still other identified shims contain vulnerabilities in their own code.

In the interest of brevity, many additional details included in Tuesday’s report are omitted from this article.

An unsettling prospect

As noted, these vulnerable shims can be used against Windows and Linux machines alike, although likely not Windows 11 Secured-core PCs in their default state. Any Windows user who has installed Microsoft’s June update batch is no longer vulnerable. Linux users should check the Linux Vendor Firmware Service or consult their distributor. Revocation statuses are available using the uefi-dbx-audit script.

The prospect that attackers have had the means to bypass Secure Boot for more than a decade through what amounts to hack-by-numbers scripts isn’t much of an endorsement of the mechanism proposed by Microsoft in partnership with hardware makers. As mentioned earlier, a key contributor to this debacle is its complexity.

“This is a solid rebuke of the entire secure boot model,” HD Moore, a firmware security expert, CEO and founder of runZero, and a long-time critic of Secure Boot, said in an interview. His complaints include Microsoft being the de facto root of trust for the entire UEFI platform, the inability of the protection to scale sufficiently, and the ability for components to boot even after top-level certificates expire.

“The end result is a huge number of unknown (to everyone but Microsoft) signed things that bypass Secure Boot—some of which can then be used to boot other things—and both have normal security bugs and other mistakes that mean they can be used to boot nearly anything,” Moore added. “The whole ecosystem is somewhat broken and needs a reboot.”

Wishful thinking: Microsoft is finally stripping the Windows search box down to what many users wanted from it all along: a simple way to quickly find apps, files, and settings without being distracted by additional content. In test builds now rolling out to Windows Insiders in the Experimental channel, the experience looks and behaves very differently from recent versions of Windows.

The change appears first on the search home screen. Instead of the old layout – with recently used apps on the left and tiles on the right asking “What day is it today?” or offering features such as “Daily quiz,” “Word of the day,” “Search trends,” and “Recommended games” – the new view is much cleaner.

The home screen now focuses on recent searches and local content rather than making the search box feel like a news or entertainment hub. For people who use search as a starting point, this shift is likely the first thing they will notice.

Beneath the simpler UI, Microsoft is putting more emphasis on helping users understand what they are about to click on. Search results now more clearly identify whether an item is an app, a setting, a file, a web result, or a Microsoft Store suggestion.

That sounds basic, but the search box has become a primary launch point for opening apps, finding files, changing settings, and getting quick answers from the web. Making the source and type of each result clearer is intended to help users choose the right option more easily.

The company is also removing promotional content from web results. In earlier versions of Windows 11, web results displayed in the search box could begin with product-related suggestions and other promotional material.

In the new experience, the focus is squarely on the answer itself. Web results are presented more directly, without layers of promotional content appearing above them. For users who rely on the search box to quickly find information, the change makes it feel less like an advertising space and more like a straightforward tool.

Another notable change is the level of control users have over how much online content appears in search results. A new setting under Settings > Privacy & Security > Search allows users to choose whether web and Microsoft Store suggestions appear alongside local results.

If that option is turned off, the search box behaves more like a local launcher and file finder rather than mixing in web and Store suggestions. The option is simple, but it acknowledges that not everyone wants online suggestions in a workflow focused primarily on opening content that is already stored on the machine.

Behind the scenes, Microsoft has adjusted how it ranks results to better support this local-first approach. Apps, settings, and files are now more likely to appear ahead of web and Store items when they are a strong match for a query.

Core system objects, such as This PC and Recycle Bin, now appear more reliably instead of getting lost among tiles and other content. The search engine is also more forgiving of app names, handling typos, extra letters, and partial queries – so something like “utlook” can still find Outlook.

File search has been improved as well. The updated search box can handle very short queries, including two-character strings, which is useful for users working with short codes or brief file names.

Microsoft has also improved how cloud and connected files are surfaced, bringing them into view when they appear to be a better match than local content. The goal is to help users move more quickly from entering a search term to opening the document, download, or folder they intended to find, whether it is stored on the device or in online storage.

Settings search is getting attention as well. The company has made an initial round of changes to how settings results are ranked, aiming to surface more relevant controls higher in the list.

More tuning is planned as Microsoft collects data and feedback from the Experimental channel, meaning this part of the experience is likely to evolve over time. The company is also working on improving reliability by reducing crashes and search-related loading issues, with additional work still underway.

As with many recent Windows changes, the rollout will be gradual. The new search box is being distributed through Microsoft’s Controlled Feature Rollout system, so even users in the Experimental channel may not see it immediately.

Some users may receive the update after a reboot, while others may need to enable it through feature flags. Broader availability will follow as Microsoft refines the feature based on performance data and user feedback. For users who have been asking for a faster, cleaner, and more predictable search experience, this redesign arriving in 2026 represents a significant shift in how Microsoft approaches one of Windows’ most visible features.

from the shitshow dept

Are you currently pooping yourself uncontrollably and want to know why? Well, the CDC made that slightly more difficult last year, but you might just have cyclosporiasis, the unintentional weight loss craze that is gripping parts of the country.

The disease — cyclosporiasis — is a foodborne illness caused by a microscopic parasite called cyclospora. Fresh produce is almost always the source. Previous outbreaks have involved raspberries, bagged lettuce or salads, cilantro and basil. Rarely, it can also be waterborne.

However it enters the human body, people usually start feeling sick about a week later. The illness can begin with flu-like symptoms, such as severe fatigue and body aches. What really sets cyclosporiasis symptoms apart is explosive, watery diarrhea that’s sometimes uncontrollable. People may also have unusually bad gas, stomach cramps and nausea. Consequently, most people lose their appetite. Low-grade fevers are rare.

It is, by all accounts, an absolutely awful experience. 10% of cases will result in hospitalization and it is particularly dangerous for the very young and elderly populations. Cyclosporiasis, while not traditionally in the popular lexicon, is also not new. It’s generally seasonal with case counts in the 10s in many states. What’s making this at all newsworthy is just how far in front of that pace the current outbreaks in Michigan, Ohio, New York, and Illinois are.

The outbreak has been particularly intense in Michigan, which had 1,562 cases as of Friday. Illnesses, caused by the cyclospora parasite, have also been reported in neighboring Ohio, as well as in Colorado, Illinois, New York, North Carolina, Texas, Wisconsin and other states.

Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, chief medical executive of Michigan, said the rapid rise is “highly unusual.” The state usually sees 40 to 50 cases of cyclosporiasis a year. She said laboratories in the state are scrambling to sequence the genome of the bug to track where it came from.

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Now, we had a program for surveilling and tracking this sort of thing. Unfortunately, that program was severely scaled back in 2025 by the Trump administration and RFK Jr. The CDC’s FoodNet program is a federal-state partnership for tracking foodborne illness. 10 states participate in the program. To be clear, New York and Colorado are the only states currently dealing with serious concerns for cyclosporiasis that also participate in the program… but that’s largely besides the point. Looking at which states participate, it’s obvious that they were chosen because they are spread out throughout the states to give you a decent national sampling for an outbreak.

And the government scaled FoodNet back in 2025 in a way that now looks rather stupid.

As of July 1, the Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet) program has reduced surveillance to just two pathogens: salmonella and Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC), a spokesperson for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told NBC News.

Before July, the program had been tracking infections caused by six additional pathogens: campylobacter, cyclospora, listeria, shigella, vibrio and Yersinia. Some of them can lead to severe or life-threatening illnesses, particularly for newborns and people who are pregnant or have weakened immune systems. Monitoring for the six pathogens is no longer required for the 10 states that participate in the program, though those states aren’t precluded from conducting surveillance on their own.

Now that this current outbreak appears to be spreading across state lines, that kind of surveillance infrastructure sure would be a nice to have, especially as individual state health departments are “scrambling” to sequence the genomes of the illness and do that work as best they can.

In lieu of that, all we have instead is a hope and a prayer that RFK Jr. is paying as much attention as his spokespeople claim he is.

In a statement to USA TODAY, the Food and Drug Administration said, “Under the leadership of Secretary [Robert Kennedy Jr.], FDA is currently investigating cyclospora outbreaks using established epidemiologic, laboratory and traceback tools in close coordination with CDC and state and local partners.”

Somehow, I have my doubts. Unless there are vaccines or autism involved, Kennedy rarely shows much interest in doing HHS’ work at all.

Filed Under: cdc, cycloporiasis, foodnet, health & human services, rfk jr.