If you're looking to try out a Linux distro that is not based on Ubuntu, Mageia 7 might be worth your consideration. It arrives two years after the release of Mageia 6 -- so unsurprisingly, the changelog is fairly long. The Mageia developers share the significant packages that have been updated below. Significant package updates include: kernel 5.1.14, rpm 4.14.2, dnf 4.2.6, Mesa 19.1, Plasma 5.15.4, GNOME 3.32, Xfce 4.14pre, Firefox 67, Chromium 73, and LibreOffice 6.2.3. Donald Stewart, Mageia developer, adds: There are lots of new features, exciting updates, and new versions of your favorite programs, as well as support for very recent hardware. There are classical installer images for both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures, as well as live DVDs for 64-bit Plasma, GNOME, Xfce, and 32-bit Xfce.

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Abu Dhabi rebuffs reports linking it to US-made missiles in Libya battle, saying it's committed to UN arms embargo.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Ahead of its first day in a U.S. federal claims court in Washington DC, Oracle has outlined its position against the Pentagon's award of the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud contract to Amazon Web Services. Big Red's lengthy filing questions the basis of Uncle Sam's procurement procedure as well as Amazon's hiring of senior Department of Defense staff involved in that procurement process. Oracle's first day in court is set for 10 July. The JEDI deal could be worth up to $10 billion over 10 years. The Department of Defense handed the contract to AWS after deciding that only Amazon and Microsoft could meet the minimum security standards required in time. Oracle's filing said that U.S. "warfighters and taxpayers have a vested interest in obtaining the best services through lawful, competitive means... Instead, DoD (with AWS's help) has delivered a conflict-ridden mess in which hundreds of contractors expressed an interest in JEDI, over 60 responded to requests for information, yet only the two largest global cloud providers can clear the qualification gates." The company said giving JEDI, with its "near constant technology refresh requirements", to just one company was in breach of procurement rules. It accused the DoD of gaming the metrics used in the process to restrict competition for the contract. Oracle also accused Amazon of breaking the rules by hiring two senior DoD staff, Deap Ubhi and Anthony DeMartino, who were involved in the JEDI procurement process. Ubhi is described as "lead PM." A third name is redacted in the publicly released filing. The DoD, which is expected to make an offer to settle the case in late August, said in a statement: "We anticipate a court decision prior to that time. The DoD will comply with the court's decision. While the acquisition and litigation processes are proceeding independently the JEDI implementation will be subject to the determination of the court." The 50-page filing can be found here (PDF).

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Bill passed by right-wing Orban government enables takeover of research bodies run by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

For ordinary Iranians, it's the US' economic threat that is most burdensome despite fears of a military confrontation.

Trump administration's refusal to comply with congressional inquiries sets up lengthy court battle with Democrats.

Japan has resumed commercial whaling in its waters despite global outrage.

Facebook said on Tuesday that it's downgrading content that makes dubious health claims, including posts that try to sell or promote "miracle cures." From a report: Big technology platforms have faced growing criticism over the spread of fake or misleading content. Reports emerged last year that Facebook had been featuring homemade cancer "cures" more prominently than genuine information from renowned organizations, such as cancer research charities. And a few months back, a separate report found that YouTube videos were promoting bleach as a cure for autism. Facebook also recently said it would crack down on anti-vaccine content. The fight against digital misinformation is ongoing, and it isn't limited to spurious health cures. "In order to help people get accurate health information and the support they need, it's imperative that we minimize health content that is sensational or misleading," Facebook product manager Travis Yeh wrote in a blog post.

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The Knicks must stop playing tricks, no more flailing, or developing only young talent, just play the game to win. Try to get better. The league has been set up now so that tanking doesn't work. The odds on getting a #1 pick are not good and the free agents don't want to play for a team that tanked. Furthermore, the Knicks should stop doing what other teams did to get rebooted (Philadelphia and Boston are two examples, now the Nets are another). Just play and deal, and (try to) win.

Despite nominations, picks will still need to be debated and ratified by the European Parliament.

Prosecutors drop conspiracy charge, but plan to retry the No More Deaths activist on two counts of harbouring migrants.

Case of deadly virus confirmed by South Sudan health ministry in a report seen by The Associated Press.

The Google Earth team recently released a beta preview of a WebAssembly port of Google Earth. The new port runs in Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers, including Edge (Canary version) and Opera, as well as Firefox. From a report: The port thus brings cross-browser support to the existing Earth For Web version, which uses the native C++ codebase and Chrome's Native Client (NaCl) technology. Difference in multi-threading support between browsers leads to varying performance. Google Earth was released 14 years ago and allowed users to explore the earth through the comfort of their home. This original version of Google Earth was released as a native C++ based application intended for desktop install because rendering the whole world in real time required advanced technologies that weren't available in the browser. Google Earth was subsequently introduced for Android and iOS smartphones, leveraging the existing C++ codebase through technologies such as NDK and Objective-C++. In 2017, Google Earth was released for the Chrome browser, using Google's Native Client (NaCl) to compile the C++ code and run it in the browser.

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Deal between Asmara and Addis Ababa has failed to 'pay dividends' for ordinary Eritreans, UN envoy says.

Brazil need the title to calm waters for Tite until 2022 World Cup, while Messi's team seeks first trophy in 26 years.