from the pew-pew dept

I assume at one point America was a serious big boy country, but we are certainly not that any longer. You can get examples of the unserious nature of our government in spades, of course, but I’m just going to keep hammering on what is going on at HHS and its child agencies as the prime example. With the recent resignation of Marty Makary as FDA Commissioner, the country is left without Senate confirmed commissioners for the FDA, CDC, as well as Surgeon General. This is because of a combination of RFK Jr. being incapable of hiring any normies for those roles combined with the Trump administration’s general apathy towards doing the business of government. It’s a clown show, currently resting on the shoulders of acting commissioners in these roles.

Which isn’t to say that the clownery hasn’t infected those acting commissioner appointments as well. It absolutely has. And you need look no further than the new acting FDA Commissioner to see that.

Soon after Trump posted Makary’s resignation text to Truth Social, Kyle Diamantas, 38, an obscure Florida lawyer who first landed at the FDA in 2025 as director of the human foods program, following his previous role as Don Jr.’s hunting buddy, was named acting FDA commissioner.

In March 2021, Don Jr. and Diamantas posed holding dead Osceola wild turkeys, as I had first reported. Mike Tussey, the founder of the hunting outfit Osceola Outdoors, described the scene on X as: “Don Jr. With his good friend Kyle Diamantas! Kyle’s first Osceola!” A picture of Trump Jr., Diamantas, and Tussey, with a single turkey, is featured on Osceola Outdoors’s website.

While a great deal of attention has been paid to Diamantas’ brief role defending Planned Parenthood in one legal case, which he claims he eventually got out of over his moral objections to the organization, his more salient work history was his legal defense of Abbott Laboratories for selling harmful baby formula and the tobacco industry. He spent a decade doing his lawyerly work before being appointed acting deputy commissioner of human food at the FDA last year. There he dabbled in a little conflict of interest by being in charge of reviewing infant formula safety, given his past legal work defending the industry, and embraced the whole MAHA movement.

So what else qualifies Diamantas for that role, or his new role running the larger FDA? Nothing, that’s what. Nothing at all, other than being Don Jr.’s pal. The real government, it seems, was the friends we made along the way.

And so we have another nepo-appointment in the Trump administration, but this one is responsible for food and drug safety across the entire country. I’m sure there’s nothing that will go wrong as a result.

Filed Under: donald trump jr., fda, health & human services, kyle diamanatas, mark makary, rfk jr.

Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software is no longer a single-country experiment in Europe. Lithuania became the second EU member state to approve FSD (Supervised) on Tuesday, just weeks after the Netherlands became the first. Greece and Belgium are expected to follow shortly.

The Lithuanian transport safety administration adopted the Dutch RDW’s prior certification rather than running its own testing programme. Under EU rules, member states can recognise another country’s type approval and allow the certified system onto their roads. It is a shortcut, but a legally valid one.

Tesla Europe confirmed the rollout on X, posting that FSD Supervised was now live for Lithuanian owners. The Greek transport ministry said an upcoming bill would grant approval, according to Reuters. Belgium is expected to follow the same RDW recognition route.

The 💜 of EU tech

The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol’ founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It’s free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!

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The expansion matters for Tesla’s broader strategy. CEO Elon Musk’s $1 trillion compensation package is tied to hitting a series of product milestones, including 10 million active FSD subscriptions by 2035. The company currently has roughly 1.3 million FSD users globally, comprising 824,000 who purchased the software outright and 476,000 active monthly subscribers.

That subscriber count is growing fast. Tesla added 180,000 new FSD subscribers in Q1 2026, a 51 per cent jump from the previous quarter. In February, the company dropped the one-time purchase option entirely, making FSD available only through a $99 monthly subscription. The move removed the $15,000 upfront barrier and is generating roughly $546 million in annualised recurring revenue.

But the European rollout faces headwinds. The RDW is pushing for formal EU-wide recognition through the European Commission’s Technical Committee on Motor Vehicles. That requires a qualified majority: 55 per cent of member states representing 65 per cent of the bloc’s population. No vote has been scheduled yet, with the next committee meetings expected in July and October.

Emails obtained by Reuters revealed significant scepticism from Scandinavian regulators. Officials in Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Norway raised concerns about FSD’s tendency to exceed speed limits and its performance on icy roads. Tesla’s stated goal of EU-wide availability by summer 2026 looks increasingly ambitious.

For now, the country-by-country approach continues. Outside Europe, FSD (Supervised) is available in Australia, Canada, China, Mexico, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, South Korea, and the United States. The system still requires active driver supervision at all times, handling steering, lane changes, and parking but expecting the human behind the wheel to take over when needed.

FSD Unsupervised, the version that handles all driving without human intervention, remains limited to Tesla’s own robotaxi fleet operating in Austin, Dallas, and Houston. Musk has suggested that unsupervised capability could begin rolling out to eligible customers by the fourth quarter of 2026, though he has made and missed similar promises repeatedly over the past six years.

The gap between FSD’s European ambitions and Europe’s regulatory reality remains wide. Two countries down, 25 to go, and the ones raising objections are among the continent’s most influential on road safety policy. Tesla may be creeping into Europe, but the pace is set by Brussels, not by Musk’s timeline.

The Apple AirPods Max 2 arrive in a wireless headphone category that has become far more competitive since the original model launched. Sony, Bose, and Beats have all continued to refine ANC, comfort, battery life, app control, and sound quality, which makes small updates harder to justify at premium pricing.

For existing Apple users, the improvements may be enough: better noise cancelling, tighter ecosystem integration, and slightly improved sound quality. But for anyone still using an older pair of wireless headphones, or considering a move from Sony, Bose, or Beats, the AirPods Max 2 need to offer a clearer reason to switch. Marginally better is still better, but in 2026, it may not be enough. How do they compare to the model they replace?

Physically, these are almost identical headphones: same industrial design, same aluminum construction, same weight, same controls, and the same overall sound signature. Even the improvements, including better ANC, USB-C wired audio, and a slightly firmer low end, feel deliberately restrained rather than transformative.

Compared directly against the original AirPods Max, the overall experience remains remarkably similar. Apple clearly viewed this update as a refinement rather than a reinvention.

Design & Features 

The AirPods Max 2, like the original, still feel like one of the most premium wireless headphones Apple has ever made. The aluminum ear cups feel excellent, the suspension headband helps spread the weight better than expected, and Apple’s Transparency, Noise Cancelling, and Adaptive modes remain among the best implementations in the category.

That weight still matters. At 382.2 grams, the AirPods Max 2 never disappear on your head. The balance is good, but after a full record, taking them off feels less like a break and more like your neck filing a polite complaint.

The listening modes are very well executed. Noise Cancelling is excellent with steady background noise and also reduces intermittent sounds effectively. Transparency mode keeps outside sound natural and useful, while Adaptive mode works as a smart middle ground, adjusting continuously based on the listening environment.

Sound

The AirPods Max 2 retain almost all of the strengths (and occasional weaknesses) of the original model. The stereo image still sounds expansive, the low end still has satisfying weight and impact, and the headphone’s detail retrieval remains impressive for a wireless headphone.

The general tuning philosophy seems unchanged as well: a mostly inoffensive sound with mild elevation in the upper treble and bass, nicely filled-in lower mids that give vocals a nice weight and intimacy, and a laid-back lower treble that remains forgiving across a wide range of music and other content.

Reference Tracks

Bass

The low end comes across as classic Apple. There is a typical elevation to the bass and sub-bass that gives kick drums and bass guitars an enhanced sense of impact and authority.

Listening to “Only When I” by Alice Phoebe Lou, despite the relatively emphasized low end, the separation between kick drum and bass guitar remains nice and distinct, letting each support the arrangement within its own range of low-end frequencies.

Listening to “Escalator” by Ritt Romney, the AirPods Max 2 do a pretty great job reproducing both the sustained sub-bass and pulsating mid-bass rhythm without the two becoming overly blurred together.

While the low end is not as punchy or authoritative as it is on something like a planar magnetic open-back driver Audeze LCD-X or a dynamic open-back like a Focal Clear, it sounds just as good or better than any other closed-back wireless headphone I’ve heard without sacrificing midrange intelligibility. 

Midrange

While the low end on the AirPods Max 2 lands decidedly north of neutral, the midrange plays it very safe.

The lower midrange where the fundamental frequencies of melodic elements like vocals, guitars, and pianos sit, is more forward and filled out. Moving into the upper midrange from roughly 1 kHz to 5 kHz, Apple has done the typical Apple thing and kept the amplitude nice and relaxed.

This is where overemphasis becomes most irritating because human hearing is especially sensitive in this range. It is where many urgent sounds live, including babies crying, people screaming, and alarms.

The downside of playing it safe is that some songs and content come across as overly dull or relaxed. One example is “Halloween” by Phoebe Bridgers. The inherently forward lower midrange combined with the relaxed upper midrange of the track makes for an especially wonky rendition of a mix that is usually one of my favorites. The buildup in the upper bass and lower midrange creates a sense of pressure and fullness that needs more upper midrange clarity to keep things balanced.

Generally, Apple did a good job sculpting the midrange to be widely palatable across most music and audio content.

Treble

The treble, like the low end, is somewhat emphasized. Fortunately, Apple mostly avoids the kind of sharp lower-treble peaks that can make headphones sound brittle or fatiguing over longer listening sessions.

Instead, most of the added energy seems concentrated higher up in the spectrum, lending cymbals, acoustic textures, reverbs, and ambient details a pleasant sense of air and openness without constantly shoving them into the foreground.

The treble emphasis does occasionally land unpleasantly with sibilance and percussion, depending on how a song is mixed.

Listening to “Fruity” by Rubblebucket, the vocal sibilance rides dangerously close to the edge of unpleasantness without ever fully crossing over. Songs with more aggressive mixes like “Life or Just Living” by Caveman, fall squarely on the side of unpleasant every time the vocalist sings anything sibilant or consonant. 

Overall, Apple did a decent job making the AirPods Max 2 sound exciting without becoming overly fatiguing. Some customization would go a long way, but as usual, Apple provides no native EQ control.

Comparison to AirPods Max 1

While the tuning feels more similar than different compared to the original AirPods Max, the upper and lower extremities of the frequency range come across as subtly firmer and more defined. Bass sustain feels more convincing, and upper-treble information like percussion and cymbals sounds smoother and slightly less digital.

Plugging the AirPods Max 2 in via USB-C for wired listening also improves the sound modestly, further refining many of the qualities above. The difference is not night and day, but for someone seeking the most natural sound possible from the AirPods Max 2, listening via USB-C is the best way to get there.

The improvements to noise canceling and transparency functions are similarly incremental. If you compare the two models side by side, the newer model is clearly superior in overall attenuation of environmental noise. The AirPods Max 2 do a more even job across the frequency spectrum, whereas the original model lets slightly more lower-treble information through to the listener.

However, the difference is not night and day. The original already did a fantastic job and the new version only slightly improves on the former.

For anyone deciding between the old version and the new version, I would suggest the AirPods Max 2 as the superior product. But is the upgrade from the original worth the money? I don’t think so. The two products are more similar than different so I would wait for the next iteration.

Comparison to Bose QuietComfort Ultra 2

The Bose QuietComfort Ultra (2nd Gen) feels like the more rational product. It is lighter, more comfortable, has notably better battery life, folds up more easily and compactly, and includes native EQ sound and noise cancelling level customization. Ultimately, the Bose is a more practical design for listening on the go.

Next to the Bose, the AirPods Max 2 feels more like an Apple luxury fashion accessory. The materials are nicer, the integration is more seamless with my iPhone, and all three listening modes (Transparency, Noise Cancelling, Adaptive) sound more natural despite the lack of customization. 

In terms of sound, the Bose QuietComfort Ultra 2 sounds surprisingly different compared to the AirPods Max 2 for two headphones competing in the same space. The Bose takes Apple’s V-shaped frequency response and puts it into warp drive – both the low bass and the upper trouble are more emphasized on the Bose. Ultimately, I find the QC Ultra 2 less detailed and more fatiguing than the AirPods Max 2 with a generally more artificial sound.

However, between the QC Ultra II’s significantly lower price, lighter weight, and inclusion of EQ customization, I would sooner recommend the Bose to someone looking for a solid sounding over-ear noise canceling headphone.

The Bottom Line

The AirPods Max 2 are, ultimately, a product for people who already know they want an AirPods Max.

If you’re deeply invested in Apple’s ecosystem, value best-in-class transparency mode and noise cancellation, care about industrial design, and want a wireless headphone that sounds genuinely good without requiring much thought or tweaking, the AirPods Max 2 stands out as one of the most compelling options on the market.

They still feel uniquely Apple in both the best and worst ways: beautifully built, thoughtfully integrated, and exceedingly expensive.

At the same time, this update feels particularly conservative. The AirPods Max 2 improves on the original model in nearly every category – but only slightly. The sound is more refined, the ANC is more effective, and USB-C wired audio is a genuinely welcome addition. But none of it fundamentally changes the experience. Existing AirPods Max owners are not missing much.

Personally, there are very few situations where I would prefer listening to the AirPods Max 2 over my much-loved AirPods Pro 2 earbuds. Between the AirPods Max 2’s less-neutral sound signature and dramatically heavier weight, I simply get along better with the sound and form factor of the AirPods Pro 2.

If my goal is to listen to headphones with the best possible sound quality, I prefer wired open-back headphones. If convenience is the mission, I’m always going to choose the pocketable AirPods Pro 2. Maybe if Apple were to add some EQ customization to the AirPods Max 2, this conclusion may have looked very different but based on Apple’s track-record, I won’t hold my breath.

Pros

• Best-in-class Transparency, Noise Canceling, and Adaptive modes
• Spacious and detailed sound
• USB-C audio support
• Apple ecosystem integration

Cons:

• Below average battery life
• Heavy
• No built-in EQ customization
• Expensive!

Ratings Compared

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Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? The clue that threw me off was 7-Across, but I eventually figured it out. Read on for all the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Not such a wild place to see an elephant
Answer: ZOO

4A clue: Mark who wrote “Man was made at the end of the week’s work, when God was tired”
Answer: TWAIN

6A clue: Symbol on the U.S. quarter
Answer: EAGLE

7A clue: Parts of a dental exam
Answer: XRAYS

8A clue: What Wile E. Coyote is always exploding himself with
Answer: TNT

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Big name in restaurant ratings
Answer: ZAGAT

2D clue: Like your hands after eating potato chips, perhaps
Answer: OILY

3D clue: Lowest numbers in sudoku
Answer: ONES

4D clue: Reach out with your fingers?
Answer: TEXT

5D clue: Give an alert
Answer: WARN

At Google I/O, the company unveiled Managed Agents in its Gemini API — a service that promises to collapse weeks of agent deployment work into a single API call. It’s also a sign that Google believes its ecosystem, including the newly launched Antigravity CLI, is ready to own the execution layer end-to-end.

Before a single agent is written, teams are already spending days on the unglamorous work: standing up execution environments, managing sandboxes, wiring tool call infrastructure. Model providers like Anthropic have launched platforms to handle much of that work — but Google’s approach is different.

Google said in a blog post that Managed Agents in the Gemini API abstracts “away the complexity so that you can focus on your product experience and agent behavior.” The service is available in preview via new custom templates in Google AI Studio.

The growth has introduced a real architectural question: should agent management live at the execution layer — embedded in the model or its harness — or at the infrastructure layer, as a separate runtime?

Comparing Google’s approach

Until recently, agent orchestration relied on frameworks that sat above the model, directing agents and letting teams control routing and execution separately. That layer is now being absorbed by the platforms themselves.

Recent platforms like Claude Managed Agents embed orchestration at the model layer rather than on a separate runtime platform. The idea is that the model owns the reasoning and orchestration layers, and enterprises have control over execution. 

AWS, through new capabilities on Bedrock AgentCore, adds managed harnesses that stitch together the upfront tasks for deploying agents. Google’s approach goes further, optimizing the model, harness, and sandbox together and running everything in secure Google-managed environments.

René Sultan of Ramp, cited in Google’s announcement, said the shift is concrete: “The real shift with Gemini Managed Agents is that the agent runtime moves into the platform. With the sandbox, infrastructure and execution loop managed for you, developers can focus on productizing the agent’s domain-specific behavior and iterating at a completely different pace.”

The new orchestration reality 

Enterprises starting fresh with agents could find the platform offerings from Anthropic and Google strong, especially since they remove much of the difficulty of deploying agents while still maintaining some control. Google, however, is pushing for a more vertically integrated system, while Anthropic is betting on the model layer as an orchestration plane, and AWS focuses on authorization. 

But this also brings some risks, according to XYO founder and chief executive Arie Trouw.

“An additional risk is that developers will switch out what previously were deterministic services for what will now be probabilistic services, which can introduce unpredictable outcomes for the users at best, or data corruption at worst,” Trouw told VentureBeat in an email. “This is the classic example of having an amazing hammer and everything starting to look like nails. I’ve seen this pattern repeatedly as a developer and business founder myself in the past few decades.”

Simply put, Fight Club proves that burning it all down is easy. The hard part is figuring out what comes next. Few filmmakers have attacked a story with the same precision, venom, and barely supervised mayhem that David Fincher and his cast and crew brought to Chuck Palahniuk’s novel. There’s a lot going on and I don’t want to spoil any of it, so let’s just say that the movie explores the ways that modern consumerism has fractured traditional masculinity, and what starts as a personal rebellion leads to something much bigger.

At the center of the mayhem is a repressed corporate stooge (Edward Norton) whose life takes a sharp turn when he meets charismatic stranger Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) who’s everything he’s not: cool as hell and free in every way a person can be. Tyler wastes no time sharing his subversive worldview, which soon leads to a strangely irresistible underground fighting league where men can feel like men again. And with a guru like that, who knows how far this army will go?

In one of the standout bonus features in this set, we witness Fight Club being inducted into the Guy Movie Hall of Fame, and rightly so, but props must be given to Helena Bonham Carter as well, who gives perhaps a career-best performance as the complex and captivating Marla Singer. The movie is also famous for one of the biggest, cleverest twists in cinema history, and once you know it the movie becomes eminently rewatchable to pick up the breadcrumbs dropped along the way. The clues are plentiful, and I take no end of pleasure spotting more with each viewing. Just another reason this title belongs in your library.

Noted perfectionist Fincher reportedly spent two years on the restoration of Fight Club for 4K, which is wonderful news but not without some controversy. He enjoys tweaking his films even after their theatrical release, and the image here has been altered in some subtle but significant ways. Facial textures have been smoothed in some scenes, specific new details have been added, others removed, and many shots have also been reframed. These are all very purposeful visual changes implemented by the director, I’m not sure if these qualify as an alternate version–we’re not talking about George Lucas-level fuckery–but it’s beyond a basic remaster.

Grain has been managed, but is still evident, it just feels a bit slicker and less gritty now. Fans will notice some shifts in color timing, less of the blue we’re used to on the 2009 Blu-ray, and the 2.39:1 image is brighter overall, which serves up lots of detail in the shadows of the many dark scenes. Marla’s billowy coat is a real challenge but it reproduced beautifully on my OLED.

A manly movie deserves appropriately stylized sound design, and the results here are nothing short of macho. The 5.1 mix (no Atmos upgrade) employs more discrete cues than I’ve heard in a while, with quite deliberate integration of the rears for voices, echoes and plenty of sirens. Even The Dust Brothers’ score gets room to misbehave, with individual sounds breaking loose across the soundstage. Panning is handled brilliantly, and bass shows up in unexpected places, including Meat Loaf’s wonderfully meaty footsteps. The fights are intense and enveloping, capturing the violent energy of men mistaking brutality for therapy.

The 4K disc carries four separate audio commentaries, the first with Fincher solo, then joined by his three stars; the next with the rare but welcome duo of novelist Palahniuk and screenwriter Jim Uhls; and lastly an eclectic gang of underappreciated creative artisans. Too much? No worries: When we switch to the bundled 1080p Blu-ray, an interactive guide helps us navigate the tracks, referencing specific topics across all that interesting chatter. Among the other highlights are an elaborate user-controlled sound mixing demo and a vast archive of behind-the-scenes vignettes with extensive creator insights.

No extras from the 2009 disc have been left behind, in fact, it appears to be the exact same disc but with new artwork that coordinates nicely with the 4K platter. Some new content, even a simple featurette about the restoration, would have been welcome, but here we are.

A unique printed code for a Movies Anywhere digital copy is provided, arriving in a very pink SteelBook case that leans into the longstanding soap motif used to market the movie. Up close, the layered paint job catches the light with an almost hypnotic splendor. How ironic that this pitch-black social satire that denounces the pursuit of consumer goods has yielded one of the most covetable pieces of physical media of the year.

Movie Details

• STUDIO: Fox/Disney
• FORMAT: Ultra HD 4K Blu-ray (May 12, 2026)
• THEATRICAL RELEASE YEAR: 1999
• ASPECT RATIO: 2.39:1
• HDR FORMAT: HDR10
• AUDIO FORMAT: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
• LENGTH: 139 mins.
• MPAA RATING: R
• DIRECTOR: David Fincher
• STARRING: Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter, Meat Loaf, Zach Grenier

Our Ratings

★★★★★★★★★★ Movie

★★★★★★★★★★ Picture

★★★★★★★★★★ Sound

★★★★★★★★★★ Extras

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