More than five years ago, writer, director, and star David Sandberg assembled a crew to film a full-length sequel to 2015’s Kung Fury, his deliriously fun crowdfunded action-comedy short. The film would be bigger than the original half-hour version in every way, expanding out Sandberg’s vision of a slapstick 1980s Miami where superhero-esque “Thunder Cops” battled “Kung Führer” Adolf Hitler and his Nazi army for control of all of time and space. Among other things, Kung Fury: The Movie employed some actual name Hollywood actors (including Michael Fassbender and Arnold Schwarzenegger), and wasn’t shot entirely in Sandberg’s office—although it did still make pretty liberal use of Sandberg’s beloved green-screen. Filming on the movie wrapped in 2019, and the movie entered extensive post-production. But then, in September of 2020, reports broke that a lawsuit had been filed by the movie’s producers against some of its financiers, alleging failure to pony up, and that all work on the movie was being suspended. Five years later, Kung Fury 2 has never seen the light of day in any form.

Until this weekend, when a leaked 10-minute sizzle reel of the movie began circulating online. (We’re not going to bother posting a link, because takedown notices are moving fast this morning, but dedicated Google work will likely unearth it.) We’ll caution that the leaked reel—confirmed as being legitimate by Sandberg, who told Variety it was an internal promo video never intended to be seen by the public—spoils a lot of the story of the movie, and, more importantly, a huge number of its extremely silly, extremely funny gags, so if you’re holding out hope for a full release, you might want to hold off watching to preserve some of the surprise.

That being said, it’s hard to imagine a better advertisement for that full release, because the sizzle reel is one of the most euphorically fun and goofy things we’ve seen in a minute. Fassbender, especially, is an absolute delight, having clearly understood the assignment of playing “no-bullshit renegade FBI agent” Colt Magnum, fitting in perfectly with Sandberg’s deadpan action hero tone. And while Sandberg cautioned that the reel contains “temp VFX,” it nevertheless also looks sick as hell, full of sight gags and insane imagery. In his statement, Sandberg didn’t sound entirely happy about the leak—timed, coincidentally or not, to be just two weeks off from the 10-year anniversary of the original film’s debut at Cannes—but did say “I hope at least people can see the passion that we poured into the movie, the world deserves to see it as it was meant to be seen. This movie has been held hostage for the past 5 years but I promise to keep fighting for it and make sure this film gets the chance it truly deserves.”

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday its well-known "billion-dollar weather and climate disasters" database "will be retired," a move that will make it next to impossible for the public to track the cost of extreme weather and climate events. The weather, climate and oceans agency is also ending other products, it has recently announced, due in large part to staffing reductions. NOAA is narrowing the array of services it provides, with climate-related programs scrutinized especially closely. The disasters database, which will be archived but no longer updated beyond 2024, has allowed taxpayers, media and researchers to track the cost of natural disasters -- spanning extreme events from hurricanes to hailstorms -- since 1980. Its discontinuation is another Trump-administration blow to the public's view into how fossil fuel pollution is changing the world around them and making extreme weather more costly. [...] The database vacuums loss information from throughout the insurance industry, among other public and private sources. According to the database, there were 403 weather and climate disasters totally at least $1 billion in the United States since 1980, totaling more than $2.945 trillion. As of April 8, there had not been any confirmed billion-dollar disasters so far in 2025, but it lists four events as having the potential to make the tally, including the Los Angeles-area wildfires in January. Between 1980 and 2024, there were nine such disasters on average each year, though in the past five years, that annual average has jumped to 24. The record for one year was 28 events in 2023. "What makes this resource uniquely valuable is not just its standardized methodology across decades, but the fact that it draws from proprietary and non-public data sources (such as reinsurance loss estimates, localized government reports, and private claims databases) that are otherwise inaccessible to most researchers," Jeremy Porter, head of climate implications for and co-founder of First Street, a climate risk financial modeling firm, told CNN via email. "Without it, replicating or extending damage trend analyses, especially at regional scales or across hazard types, is nearly impossible without significant funding or institutional access to commercial catastrophe models."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The US government is bringing up Starlink adoption in the midst of tariff trade talks with other countries, according to a report from The Washington Post. In recent weeks, several countries have moved forward with licensing the Elon Musk-owned satellite internet company, including India, Somalia, Lesotho, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Vietnam.

Internal messages seen by The Post suggest that US embassies and the State Department are encouraging countries to make way for US satellite internet services like Starlink. The messages don’t promise lower tariffs in exchange for adopting Starlink, but “they do indicate that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has increasingly instructed officials to push for regulatory approvals for Musk’s satellite firm,” The Post reports.

Sources tell The Post that government officials in India rushed to secure regulatory approval for Starlink “with the understanding that doing so could help them cement trade deals with the administration.” This week, India cleared Starlink’s proposal, bringing it another step closer to establishing its service in the country.

In a statement to The Post, White House spokesperson Kush Desai said “the only consideration in the Trump administration’s trade negotiations with other countries is what’s best for the American people — which includes American companies succeeding at home and abroad” and that President Donald Trump “will not tolerate any conflicts of interest.” The State Department told the outlet that “any patriotic American should want to see an American company’s success on the global stage, especially over compromised Chinese competitors.” SpaceX didn’t immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment. 

In response to an earlier Washington Post article on the rapid global expansion of Starlink, several Senate Democrats called on President Donald Trump to investigate reports that Musk “used his government role to improperly advance his personal businesses abroad.”