I’m not shy about my affection for minivans. And so, despite having no kids and still being in the middle of a pandemic that makes it dangerous to spend time with other people in small enclosed spaces, when Kia asked if I wanted to spend some time with its new $32,100 Carnival minivan I said yes. Because, as already noted, minivans are wonderful.

They’re handsome, too, at least when we’re talking about the Carnival. Kia’s designers went with a two-box shape and embraced the boxiness. To my eye the proportions are spot-on, particularly in profile where its shape falls midway between hatchback and station wagon, but scaled up by 20 percent.

Distinguishing features include the brand’s big “tiger nose” grille up front and, since our text car was the Carnival SX (MSRP: $41,100), a textured chrome panel on the C pillar that gives you something interesting to look at up close. My photos fail to do justice to the optional ($495) ceramic silver paint, which sparkled with pink and gold flecks in the sunlight. Together with the SX’s black alloy wheels and the silver accents, it all works rather well.

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For decades, doctors and hospitals saw kidney patients differently based on their race. A standard equation for estimating kidney function applied a correction for Black patients that made their health appear rosier, inhibiting access to transplants and other treatments.

On Thursday, a task force assembled by two leading kidney care societies said the practice is unfair and should end.

The group, a collaboration between the National Kidney Foundation and the American Society of Nephrology, recommended use of a new formula that does not factor in a patient’s race. In a statement, Paul Palevsky, the foundation’s president, urged “all laboratories and health care systems nationwide to adopt this new approach as rapidly as possible.” That call is significant because recommendations and guidelines from professional medical societies play a powerful role in shaping how specialists care for patients.

Enlarge / DeSnake is back, with big promises about keeping AlphaBay up and running this time. (credit: Illustration: Elena Lacey | Getty Images)

Just over four years ago, the US Department of Justice announced the takedown of AlphaBay, the biggest dark web market bust in history. Thai police arrested the site’s 26-year-old administrator, Alexandre Cazes, in Bangkok, and the FBI seized AlphaBay’s central server in Lithuania, wiping out a marketplace that was selling hundreds of millions of dollars a year worth of hard drugs, hacked data, and other contraband to its 400,000-plus registered users. The FBI called the disruption of the site a “landmark operation.”

But the fate of one key player in that massive black market scheme was never explained: AlphaBay’s former number-two administrator, security specialist, and self-described cofounder, who went by the name DeSnake. Now, four years after his market’s demise, DeSnake appears to be back online and has relaunched AlphaBay under his own singular leadership. After four years off the radar, he’s not keeping quiet about his return.

Enlarge / A second-grade teacher talks to her class during the first day of school at Tustin Ranch Elementary School in Tustin, CA on Wednesday, August 11, 2021. (credit: Getty | Paul Bersebach)

In one of the newly published studies, health researchers in Arizona looked at schools with and without mask policies in Maricopa and Pima Counties. Together, the counties account for more than 75 percent of the state’s population. The researchers identified 210 schools that had universal masking requirements from the start of their school years. They compared those to 480 schools that had no mask requirements throughout the study period, which ran from July 15 to August 30.

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Bitcoin’s massive power consumption is the cryptocurrency’s dirty secret. To mine bitcoin, computers across the globe chew through enough electricity to power a medium size country, somewhere on the order of the Netherlands or Poland depending on the estimate.

In fact, electricity has become such a significant factor that one private equity firm bought an entire power plant to mine bitcoin. The company, Greenidge Generation, said at one point that they could mine one bitcoin for less than $3,000. Even today—at $40,000 per bitcoin, some 30 percent off its peak—the potential for profit is real.

Which is why an investor-owned utility has dropped a containerized data center outside a coal-fired power plant 10 miles north of St. Louis. Ameren, the utility, was struggling to keep the 1,099 MW power plant running profitably when wholesale electricity prices dropped. But it wasn’t well suited to running only when demand was high, so-called peaker duty. Instead, they’re experimenting with running it full-time and using the excess electricity to mine bitcoin.