A new book recounts one of the most rambunctious moments on the floor of the House in modern history.

Burnham earlier hailed a ‘turning point’ for the country after a resounding victory over Reform UK and Restore

• Full report: Andy Burnham wins huge majority in Makerfield byelection, paving way for Starmer leadership challenge

• Burnham brings in top economists before possible leadership run

David Blunkett, the former Labour cabinet minister, has suggested that Keir Starmer should stand down after the Makerfield byelection.

In an interview on the BBC’s Newsnight, Blunkett suggested that Starmer standing aside would be the best option for the party regardless of whether Andy Burnham wins tonight or loses.

️ Updates from the second round at Shinnecock Hills
️ Day one report | Follow us on Instagram | Mail David

What about the weather today? I’ll give you how it’s described in USA Today. Kind of cutesy.

Friday, June 19: Stiff winds with clouds giving way to sun; gusty winds will continue to pose problems for golfers.

More than half of France’s population under severe weather warning with temperatures expected to exceed 40C

More than half of France’s population is under a severe weather warning as large swathes of western Europe endure the second extreme heat event of the year with temperatures expected to exceed 40C (104F).

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, called for “extreme vigilance from everyone”, asking citizens to “take care of our oldest and most vulnerable people” and follow government advice. “We are going through difficult days,” he said.

Simone Venturini says proposal aimed at discouraging arrivals in ‘periods of heightened tourist pressure’

Venice’s new mayor has said he hopes to raise a controversial entrance fee for day-trippers to the lagoon city to as much as €50 (£43).

Simone Venturini, the rightwing former tourism councillor who was elected mayor in late May, said the proposal was aimed at further discouraging arrivals “during periods of heightened tourist pressure”.

Italy’s foreign minister Antonio Tajani canceled his planned trip to the US in response to the ‘made up’ remarks

Italy’s defence minister Guido Crosetto reacted to the amusing crisis in relations with the US.

“I can’t imagine @GiorgiaMeloni asking anyone for a photo, not even under threat,” he said on X.

The Justice Department says it's released "every document required by the Epstein Files Transparency Act," but CBS News has identified numerous gaps.

Fifa has defended its Aramco sponsorship, saying revenues are reinvested back into football at all levels

As scorching temperatures beat down on World Cup soccer games across North America, climate activists – including former and current professional athletes – are calling for Fifa and other professional sporting organizations to cut ties with the oil and gas industry.

“Sport, especially football, has the power to influence and inspire billions of people,” said David Wheeler, an English former professional footballer, who supports the campaign. “Fifa should be harnessing that power to do good.”

Tories’ Douglas Lumsden says city has spoken ‘loud and clear’ in support of the North Sea oil and gas industry

• UK politics – live updates

The Scottish National party has lost the formerly safe seat of Aberdeen South in a shock loss to the Scottish Conservatives.

Douglas Lumsden beat the SNP’s Richard Thomson by 6,050 votes, with a 14.69% swing away towards the Scottish Tories, whose vote share was 49.51%. Lumsden’s vote tally was 14,308, with Thomson on 8,258. Jo Hart for Reform came a distant third with 2,478 votes. The turnout was just 38%.

IDF claims continuing strikes come after Iran-backed group repeatedly violated ceasefire; JD Vance cancels trip as US-Iran talks set for Friday cancelled

• US-Iran talks in Switzerland abruptly called off

• JD Vance tells Iran deal critics in Israel: Trump is your only ally left in the world

Inside the city of grief hit hardest by Israel strikes on southern Lebanon

As the procession wound its way through mounds of rubble, the crowd chanted and beat their chests, their lamentations echoed by the dull thud of shelling in the foothills just beyond the city.

The U.S.-Iran deal faces an early test as fighting in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah reignites and next-phase talks are postponed.

Nancy Napoles denied the accusation and said she was willing to cooperate with authorities to clarify what happened.

Scams are more advanced than ever, in large part thanks to AI. But there are still ways to identify them.

At every stage of childhood, the Trump administration is withdrawing a protection. It is also dismantling the tools that would measure the harm

A newborn’s first hours in a US hospital used to carry a quiet set of guarantees. A vitamin K injection against catastrophic bleeding. A hepatitis B vaccination. The assumption that whatever a family could afford, the country had already decided this child was worth protecting. I have spent more than 40 years in pulmonary and critical care medicine. I have seen children harmed by disease, poverty, by bad luck. I had not, until now, seen them harmed so methodically by their own government.

Read the headlines one at a time and the pattern disappears. A vaccine rule one week, a food program the next, the reorganization of an agency most people could not name. Each change arrives wrapped in a reasonable rationale: fiscal discipline, local control, parental choice. But arrange them in the order a child actually grows, and the rationales stop mattering. What you see instead is a sequence.

As datacenters’ connections to electric grids are held up, big tech is forced to throw money at producing its own power

Datacenters are driving unprecedented growth in the US clean energy industry, paradoxically boosting a sector that was sputtering before the artificial intelligence boom even as AI’s rollout creates immense environmental challenges.

However, observers caution that while the centers are propelling wind, solar, and other clean energy companies, datacenters remain a climate nightmare.

Depending on AI can also potentially decrease the ability to discern misinformation, research says

A new study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is the latest research to find that relying too much on chatbots can diminish critical-thinking skills, and potentially decrease our ability to discern misinformation for ourselves.

As AI tools are becoming more sophisticated and accessible, manipulated images and misleading headlines are becoming more common. AI can be part of the solution, and has proved useful in helping users identify fake content – but there’s a cost to using it this way, the new research suggests. An over-dependence on AI to help figure out what’s real on the internet can lead to trouble making those judgments.

From premium steaks to budget-friendly bundles, these are the meat delivery services worth ordering from this summer.

If you're looking to escape ChatGPT or welcome it with open arms, here's how to export and import your data.

NASA has selected Relativity Space to build and launch Aeolus, a 2028 Mars orbiter that would provide daily global measurements of dust, winds, and atmospheric temperatures to support future robotic and human missions. TechCrunch reports: The structure of the contract is akin to the deals that NASA made with SpaceX to fly cargo to the International Space Station, or Firefly Aerospace to put a lander on the Moon. The government agency handles the science, while the private company provides low-cost infrastructure. Aeolus, as the mission is dubbed, will contain four instruments to measure and image Mars from orbit, providing what NASA expects to be the first daily, global view of dust, winds, and temperature in its atmosphere. The agency said that data will make it safer for landers and, someday, astronauts, to visit the surface of the Red Planet. By pairing NASA's world-class instruments with commercial innovation and investment, we can deliver more science, more often, and reduce the time it takes to get essential data into the hands of researchers preparing for future human missions to Mars," NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said in statement. The mission is set to launch in 2028 -- a rapid pace that will require Relativity to design and build the spacecraft to carry the Aeolus instruments, and finish building the rocket that will carry it to space, all on a tight timeline. NASA did not disclose how much it is paying Relativity for the mission, and Relativity did not respond to questions from TechCrunch. Relativity was founded in 2015 by two former SpaceX and Blue Origin engineers, with the idea of using 3D printing to its maximum potential as a path to building a cheaper rocket. The company's first design, Terran-1, launched in March 2023 and failed mid-flight. Relativity doubled down by moving on to a larger design, dubbed the Terran R. Before Relativity could get it to the launch pad, the company ran into fundraising challenges, and Schmidt took a majority stake in the company in it last year, installing himself as CEO. He's been tight-lipped about the investment but has expressed interest in orbital data centers, and is thought to be using Relativity to launch a space telescope, Lazuili, financed by his family philanthropy, Schmidt Sciences.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

U.S. and Iranian officials postponed negotiations planned in Switzerland on Friday about the details of their peace agreement as it faced a major test.

McKenna Wendel was last seen alive on March 14 and her body was found outside Brookings, an hour's drive north of Sioux Falls, on March 19.

This popular CGM can now be marketed for children 2 years of age and older who do not use insulin.

Why Should Delaware Care?
Construction trades are one of the last well-paying, blue-collar jobs in Delaware, regardless of whether working for a union or not. But a new legislative proposal could prioritize some of the most lucrative, taxpayer-funded projects in the state to a smaller number of unionized workers, which has drawn criticism from competitors.

A bill that would require school districts to use unionized laborers on major construction projects has split Delaware’s construction industry as lawmakers near the finish line in the debate.

While leaders of the competing factions have framed the issue in dramatic terms, interviews with 18 construction workers at various sites in Delaware this month showed that rank-and-file workers largely were not as ideological. Many workers said they are indifferent to being in a union, saying instead that they support whatever arrangement would bring them the biggest paychecks.

Senate Bill 272 would mandate that a school district sign an agreement with the Delaware Building and Construction Trades Council – the umbrella organization for the state’s various unionized trades – to use union labor for construction projects that cost at least $5 million and have at least two bidders. Those deals are known as project labor agreements, or PLAs.

If merit shops – or non-unionized construction companies – win a project bid covered by the bill, they would be required to hire a percentage of unionized workers. That percentage would be negotiated with the Delaware Building and Construction Trades Council, whose president, Jim Maravelias, told Spotlight Delaware that they would seek half of the available jobs.

An analysis using data from the monthly household Current Population Survey estimated that Delaware’s private construction industry was roughly 15% unionized, totaling about 4,000 members.

Multiple major industry groups, including the Associated Builders and Contractors of Delaware and organizations representing minority-owned businesses, are starkly opposed to the bill, and have been holding protests over it for months.

An evolving proposal

The prioritization of unionized labor on publicly funded projects has become a growing trend in the legislature in recent years. 

Lawmakers piloted a version of SB 272 in 2023, when they required project labor agreements be used in the construction of three major state construction projects.

Since then, Sen. Jack Walsh (D-Stanton), a leader in the Delaware Building and Construction Trades Council, has continued to push for more requirements to support union labor.

Over the past year, he has filed and amended several versions of the current bill, settling on a proposed minimum of $5 million in aggregate project cost, limiting the requirement to school construction, and finally limiting PLAs to projects that have at least two bids.

Rep. Edward Osienski, the lead House cosponsor and a retired union tradesman, testified at a June 10 committee hearing that the bill aimed to resolve frequent claims of unpaid claims to construction workers.

According to data from the Department of Labor’s Construction Enforcement Office, 66% of sites it inspected led to investigations. The department has $385,000 in outstanding wages owed to workers – a big reason why he helped propose the legislation.

“The Department of Labor has been very active, but they can’t go to them all – that’s one of the issues,” Osienski said. “We can’t just depend on the Department of Labor to police what’s going on out there.”

Construction workers express concerns

On the grounds of construction projects, many workers said they are indifferent to being in a union.

About five non-unionized workers told Spotlight Delaware they don’t think much about the union versus non-union issue. A couple unionized workers said they benefit from protections like the ability to walk off a job out of safety concerns without being fired. 

A few workers had strong opinions.

A group of commercial plumbers expressed disapproval of unions. One plumber who used to be in a union remembered when he was sent two hours away to do work for $7.50 an hour, which he felt he could not do comfortably.

Brian Valdelamar, another one of the plumbers, argued unionized workers are less efficient – and may even “milk jobs out.” 

“They might take three years to build this, we did it in roughly three or four months,” Valdelamar said.

Asked about the implications of the bill on his work, Valdelamar said he does not think the requirement of a project labor agreement would be fair.

James Mitchell, a non-unionized electrician, said he had heard about the bill and believes it is unfair because it could cut small companies, like his, out from bids.

“I guess they would get dibs on all of it then,” Mitchell said. “It cuts the other guys out.” 

In particular, Mitchell said the cost of living was so high right now that it was financially “hard to live.”

“Paying [union] dues for somebody else to retire sounds crazy to me right now. I need that money for myself,” he said.

Local non-unionized general contractor Tommy Ogden said he’s conflicted on whether he’d support the measure, believing the state’s prevailing wage – an average of all wages paid in an industry in each county –  is a “happy compromise.” Delaware law requires workers on state-funded projects that meet certain cost thresholds to be paid fairly.

For example, carpenters would earn about $62 an hour and electricians nearly $87 an hour for prevailing wage work in New Castle County or $52 and $87 in Sussex County, respectively.

However, unions have helped raise wages and standards for union and non-unionized workers alike, Ogden noted. He believes that if it had been solely left up to “the businesspeople,” tradespeople may be working 80 to 100 hours per week to support their families.

“Now, they can work 40 hours and be home for dinner,” Ogden said.

Leaders debate inclusiveness of PLAs

During public comment in the June labor committee hearing, a couple union workers voiced support for the bill citing fair wages and worker protections, but most speakers were opposed to the measure.

State Budget Director Brian Maxwell warned legislators that the cost of school construction projects with PLAs would be higher than without the agreements. A fiscal note on the impact of the bill likewise suggested more costs in negotiating the PLAs but couldn’t estimate an impact.

Mary DuPont, the executive director of La Plaza, a nonprofit advocacy organization for Delaware’s Latino community, opposed the bill, citing Delaware’s 2022 Disparity Report which found that less than 3% of state construction contracts went to minority-owned businesses. 

She told Spotlight Delaware that in Sussex County, a large proportion of construction projects are done by small Latino-owned businesses that are not likely to be unionized. DuPont added that some minority-owned businesses have told her of unpleasant experiences in unions.

“They’re not exactly waiting with welcome signs for minorities to join the union,” she said.

Ayanna Khan, founder and CEO of the Black Chamber of Commerce, told Spotlight Delaware that because minority-owned businesses are more likely to operate in a deficit, they wouldn’t want to pay the additional expense of union dues, especially when the cost of living has significantly increased due to gas and utility prices.

She also said unions are historically composed of “middle-aged white men,” as unions discriminated against Black workers in the early 20th century. 

However, according to an analysis, Black males were more likely to be in a union than White males in 2025. Nationwide, 10.3% of white men were union members compared to 12.3% of Black men  and 8.6% of Hispanic men.

Maravelias, the leader of the trade union organization, denied the assertion of minority groups and associations that because most Black and Latino workers are not part of unions, the bill would harm them.

“We don’t need a minority contractor to hire minority workers,” Maravelias told the committee. “Let’s not bring race into this.” 

Maravelias told Spotlight Delaware he believes that the business owners’ race or ethnicity does not have as much of an influence on who they hire,

“That little riff they want to put in there about Black, white, Latino, brown, whatever, they can take that and throw it in the garbage, because it doesn’t exist,” he added.

The bill includes a provision where PLAs could include protections for minority-owned businesses, which Maravelias hopes contractors see through. But one of his biggest problems with non-unionized labor is the proliferance of out-of-state workers who would contribute less to the state’s economy.

“Unlike the out-of-state worker, the Delaware worker will pay taxes and spend his money in Delaware, where the other guy stays here for the week in a motor lodge and then takes off,” he said.

The post Lawmakers debate whether to prioritize union labor on major projects appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

What I’m Discussing Today:

• Kareem’s Daily Quote: Are we building museums that let people truly inhabit the past, or just warehouses for history’s leftovers?

• Back where we started: Instead of unconditional surrender from Iran, we’ve settled for reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

• Newsom says DOJ is investigating him and his wife: When investigations start to look like presidential score-settling.

• When sports integrity becomes negotiable: College football’s gambling fiasco lands on the NFL’s doorstep.

• The Manchurian Candidate (2004): Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep are worth watching, but the remake can’t match the original’s menace.

• “I Can’t Get Started With You” (1938): Billie Holiday and Lester Young turn a song that began as a joke into a gentle exploration of heartbreak.

  ---

Kareem’s Daily Quote

“Real museums are places where Time is transformed into Space.” Orhan Pamuk

There’s a museum in Istanbul where a single glass case holds 4,213 cigarette butts, each one catalogued, each one pinned. Orhan Pamuk created The Museum of Innocence as a physical companion-piece to his 2008 novel of the same name, winning the European Museum of the Year Award for 2014 to go with his 2006 Nobel Prize in literature. He was proving a principle through accumulation and intention: the most throwaway object imaginable can become something you have to stand in front of and reckon with, resurrecting vanished worlds through the emotional resonance of artifacts that have survived the elements and time.

But what does Pamuk mean when he makes a distinction between “real” and unreal museums? What is the difference between a building that merely stores the past and one that allows you to inhabit it? Most of what we call museums are, if we’re being honest, impressive warehouses with good lighting. A real museum, in the sense that Pamuk is getting at, invites you into the world where the objects it holds were once alive. The air in the room changes. The weight of the room changes. What you’re experiencing is a kind of resurrection rather than mere storage, and those are fundamentally different interactions with the past.

Which leads to a harder question: whose time gets transformed into permanent, walkable space, and whose time gets left on the cutting room floor of history? Every museum is an argument for this and against that, whether its curators acknowledge it or not. The choice about what deserves its own display case and what gets a footnote in the catalogue represents a distinct worldview. When I was deep in the weeds of my book On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance, I realized that I needed to render the full texture of the period—the music pulsing out of this legendary nightclub doorway, the argument enlivening that specific corner barbershop. Strip out those real world elements and you’re left with formal commemoration: accurate perhaps, but airless. Without that texture, a book or a museum can only honor a period at a respectful distance; it can’t break down that distance between the past and the present.

The National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington gets this right in a way that stops you cold. They have a restored railroad car from the Jim Crow period in there, full scale. Walk up to it, and the meaning lands without explanation: who built the railway line, who carried the luggage and stoked the engine, who drank cocktails in the club car and dozed in a sleeper? The thing itself does something that mere language or pictures can’t ever approach.

The Obama Presidential Center, which opens this Juneteenth on Chicago’s South Side, will test this principle of “real” museums. Outside, it’s as real as can be, a fortress-like edifice that has divided public opinion. But inside, it’s the first truly digital presidential museum, with no official papers on display. Can digital simulations perform the same alchemy as actual artifacts? The objects around us are witnesses. A cigarette butt, a rail car, a worn book with someone else’s handwriting in the margins: each holds the minutes of a life that actual people lived. Carefully curated in what Pamuk calls a “real museum,” they can transform present space into the closest replica we can achieve of the past.

Read more

Do we really want to play dice with our planet?

A series in the Guardian recently declared “it’s time to talk about geoengineering.” So let’s talk about it. And let us start with some simple truths about this cluster of techno-optimistic “quick fixes” which purport to somehow offset our slow progress towards zeroing out planet-warming carbon emissions.

Solar geoengineering proposals – reducing sunlight – have received the most attention, but a host of desperate schemes have been proposed in an effort to “fix” the disruption of climate caused by the growing burden of carbon dioxide human activities add to the atmosphere.

South Siders voice concerns about gentrification, housing and affordability as they celebrate opening of the Obama Presidential Center

Pastor Jeffery Campbell has deep ties to Chicago’s Woodlawn neighborhood. He was raised in the South Side neighborhood, and has served as pastor at Woodlawn Baptist Church for 22 years.

And for the past decade, he’s attempted to protect its residents from displacement and gentrification. He’s seen rising rents, residents squeezed by university development and life becoming more unaffordable. Now, there’s a new challenge: the opening of the Barack Obama Presidential Center – part of a 19-acre, $850m campus – that has transformed life in the neighborhood, as well as the adjacent South Shore and Hyde Park, long before this Friday’s opening to the public.

Marine veteran James Brown rescued a driver with a piece of metal lodged in his leg

A US military veteran and trucker recently used his battlefield medical training to save the life of a fellow truck driver whose leg was impaled by a piece of metal after a crash, earning him official recognition as an “angel” of the nation’s highways.

As the organization honoring him tells it, James Brown was driving for Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Melton Truck Lines through torrential rain – as well as low visibility – on 22 May when he saw another trucker lose control, leave the roadway and overturn about 40 miles east of Little Rock, Arkansas.

The US–Iran memorandum of understanding nods to international law. Can that be taken seriously? Expert comment jon.wallace 19 June 2026

The memorandum restores the prohibition on the use of force, seeks a binding resolution at the UN to endorse a ‘final deal,’ and relies on multilateral institutions to implement it. But are the US and Iran really returning to compliance with international law?

Making peace is more difficult than starting wars. President Donald Trump has found this to be painfully true over the past months.

Now that a ceasefire arrangement, or memorandum of understanding (MoU), has been made public, it is possible to measure what has been agreed against the standards of international law and practice. 

The 14-point document accommodates virtually the full catalogue of Iranian demands, which would have seemed entirely unrealistic when made during the active conflict. The US is losing its key pressure points, whether economic or military. And Iran’s nuclear obligations are yet to be determined. Other war aims, like stopping Iranian support for proxy forces, do not feature in the instrument.

But is this a legally binding agreement at all? An MoU can be a political or a legal undertaking. But a formal treaty would require advice and consent from the US Senate. In its opening sentence, the MoU confirms that the US and Iran ‘have jointly agreed,’ which might suggest an informal legal agreement – one which rests on ‘good faith’. This is probably as far as the sides could go to avoid giving the impression of a formal treaty, while indicating their intention to comply.

The sides commit to negotiating a ‘final deal’ – not exactly a technical legal term for a comprehensive peace settlement – within a maximum of 60 days.  The ‘final deal’ is to be endorsed by a ‘binding’ resolution of the UN Security Council. This would compensate for the ambiguous legal nature of any final settlement by confirming that its legally binding character will ultimately emanate from the UN Charter.

But the Trump administration and Iran have shown contempt for the UN Charter: The US attacked Iran without permissible cause and assassinated much of its leadership; Iran attacked its neighbours – non belligerents – and closed the Strait of Hormuz. It has also massacred thousands of its own citizens. How seriously can an agreement between such parties be taken? And what does the MoU tell us about the state of international law?

How will peace be maintained?

Parts of the memorandum cover the initial period of 60 days until the final deal is reached. However, many of its provisions are permanent.

This includes the declaration of a ‘permanent’ termination of military operations on all fronts, which is not contingent on achieving the final deal. There is also a pledge by the parties not to initiate any war or military operation against each other in the future. 

By doing so, the sides are restoring the obligation under the UN Charter that prohibits the threat or use of force among states other than in self-defence. This undertaking is to be ‘confirmed’ in the final deal – though Iran will have little faith in US commitments, having been attacked twice over the past year.

The MoU promises that the US will not deploy additional forces to the region, thus renouncing further threats of force to enforce the final deal. Indeed, it will remove ‘its forces from the proximity’ of Iran within 30 days after the final deal. How does this relate to US deployments in the region? Presumably it includes naval assets, but how about its Gulf military bases, and what precisely lies within the ‘proximity’ of Iran? But, by accepting that its deployments of whichever kind will be limited in deference to Iranian security concerns, the US has made a major concession.

The MoU also extends beyond the US and Iran, as it references their ‘allies in the current war.’ This would exclude further Israeli strikes against Iran. Israel, not a party to the deal, must also refrain from the use of force against Lebanon and respect its territorial integrity. Such restraint by Israel looks unlikely, rendering this provision a permanent, destabilizing element in the deal.

The US also expressly undertakes to refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of Iran as required by international law – another rather extraordinary turn of events, given President Trump’s encouragement of a popular revolt in February. 

Can Iran charge fees for passage of the Strait of Hormuz?

In the memorandum the US pledges to remove its naval blockade of Iranian harbours within 30 days. During that period, Iran will restore traffic through the Strait of Hormuz to pre-war levels. The troublesome element arises afterwards: the MoU obliges Iran to use ‘its best efforts’ to allow the safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge for 60 days only. 

The World Today

Related work

The maritime chokepoints that could be worse than Hormuz

Beyond that, the instrument could entitle Iran to define the ‘future administration of maritime services’ in the Strait of Hormuz in dialogue with Oman. This can be seen as an implied licence for Iran and Oman to impose a fee for the administration of passage. 

It is accepted in international law that countries bordering straits that require complex navigation or are subject to a special treaty regime can charge modest fees to cover pilotage charges or the cost of maintaining navigations aids.

However, there were no fees charged for maritime services relating to the Strait of Hormuz before the war. And no needs for additional services have arisen since. 

Yet the MoU implies that Iran may begin collecting a disguised toll after all. This would further dilute the firm obligation in international law that coastal states must not interfere with maritime traffic through straits used for international navigation. 

Does the memorandum oblige Iran to abandon nuclear weapons?

The US will now immediately lift restrictions on Iranian oil exports and associated services, allowing vast income to flow into the Islamic Republic. The US also pledges to lift all sanctions according to a schedule to be agreed in the final deal. There is also provision for early work on releasing Iranian frozen assets. 

Short of the option of threatening or using force again, or re-instituting a blockade, which the US has now disowned, this prospect alone seems to be the incentive for Iran to abandon plans for a nuclear weapon – supposedly the principal war aim of the US. 

Iran pledges in the memorandum that it will not acquire nuclear weapons. But this is no achievement – that has been its formal position for many years.

The US opened the negotiations demanding that Iran must surrender all highly enriched nuclear material for treatment abroad. But according to the MoU, the material may now be down-blended in Iran under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The US had also wanted Iran to renounce future nuclear enrichment for several decades. This is now to be discussed in view of ‘Iran’s nuclear needs’ – hardly a pointer towards total abandonment of enrichment.  

Is this a real agreement then?

Has the Trump administration really embraced the UN principle that the use of force must not be used to settle international differences? It seems unlikely: the president threatened to attack Iran again on signing the agreement.

It is possible to conclude that the MoU is more of a face-saving device, with the purpose of allowing the Iranian military to accept a deal. Many US commitments to restoring compliance with key obligations under international in relation to Iran are words only. If so, there is in fact little agreement and  there seems little prospect the gaps in the MoU can be filled over the next 60 days. 

Much is left impossibly vague. This lack of detail is already creating political problems in Washington and among US allies, particularly the $300 billion the MoU allocates ‘for the reconstruction and economic development of Iran’. Where will this money be collected, and from whom? 

Moreover, the MoU relies on the agreement of others not involved in it. Sanctions relief beyond the US requires agreement from the UN Security Council and from the European Union. Frozen Iranian assets are held in many jurisdictions beyond the US. Peace in Lebanon relies on compliance from Israel, when ties appear strained. 

Perhaps most importantly, the MoU requires the IAEA to arrange for the supervision of Iran’s nuclear programme. This is an independent agency loosely within the ambit of the UN – precisely the kind of multilateral institution the Trump administration distrusts. 

Ironically, to extricate itself from its war, the US has been forced back into reliance on international cooperation and the institutions of the international system. And it is being forced to accept, at least nominally, the  principles of the international order it had cast aside. 

After January’s forcible extrication of President Maduro from Venezuela, it may have seemed to the president that force was once again a useful tool. But this memorandum suggests war is every bit as undesirable as the founders of the UN system believed.

Juneteenth will affect banking, mail service and financial markets, although retailers and restaurants are largely staying open.

Over the last few years, the world has seen unspeakable violence, death, and devastation from Israel’s war on Gaza. During that time, global perception has shifted as the scale of Israel’s destruction grew, with the death toll climbing to more than 73,000 people. Since the October 2025 “ceasefire,” Israeli military attacks have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians in Gaza.

“Spending years building a movement for an end to this genocide around the slogan ‘Ceasefire now’ alone, it was successful in building quite a substantial following,” Tariq Kenney-Shawa, an associate fellow at Palestinian think tank Al-Shabaka, tells The Intercept Briefing. “It was vague enough to bring a lot of people into the movement against genocide — because who’s going to disagree with calling for an end to war?”

“But at the end of the day, what it really laid the groundwork for was … the potential of signing this empty ceasefire agreement, in which there is an agreement on paper, there is a framework, and a phased approach to this.”

Since the U.S.-brokered ceasefire last year between Israel and Hamas, Gaza has largely fallen out of the news, as Israel, along with the U.S., launched attacks on Iran and Lebanon. But Israel’s genocidal assault on Palestinians never really stopped. “Palestinians continue to be killed every single day, albeit at a more piecemeal slower pace that is more difficult for the international community to oppose,” says Kenney-Shawa.

This week on the podcast, Intercept reporter Jonah Valdez speaks to Kenney-Shawa about how the fight for Palestinian rights and sovereignty can’t end at demands for ceasefires and conditioning aid — and should shift to sanctions and arms embargoes — and about how Gaza fits into Israel’s ambitions for the region and efforts to more deeply enmesh the U.S. and Israeli military.

Related

Congress Is Trying to Permanently Integrate U.S. and Israeli Defense Tech

“This is the most important thing to look at in the course of the next few months and few years,” says Kenney-Shawa, warning of new Israel-led initiatives like Section 224, an unprecedented integration of the U.S. military–industrial complex and Israeli defense and technology sectors. Israel and American leaders “recognize the fact that criticism of Israel in the U.S. is skyrocketing. … In many ways, they’ve recognized the need to shift this U.S.–Israel relationship from one of dependency, both militarily and financially, to one of further entrenchment.”

“Obviously, it’s a very strategic move by the Israelis to take advantage of this period in time where there is this huge chasm between public opinion and actual policy,” says Kenney-Shawa. “They’re essentially recognizing that, ‘Hey, we might not have total impunity in the United States forever, but we do for now while establishment Democrats and Republicans are running the ship. We have a Trump administration that’s essentially willing to do whatever we want.’ So what they’re trying to do now is essentially push this process through while Trump is in power, while Republicans have a majority in the Senate and the House.”

For more, listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.

Transcript

Jessica Washington: Welcome to The Intercept Briefing, I’m Jessica Washington, politics reporter at The Intercept. 

Jonah Valdez: I’m Jonah Valdez, also a reporter at The Intercept, and I cover politics and Israel and Palestine.

JW: Glad to have you here, Jonah. 

So on Wednesday, President Donald Trump signed an interim ceasefire to end military operations in both Iran and Lebanon for 60 days. The agreement would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and bars Iran from having a nuclear weapon. The White House agreed to end their blockade and waive economic sanctions against Iran. 

The deal also requires the U.S. and regional partners to develop a “mutually” agreed upon reconstruction and economic development fund worth at least $300 billion. However, the U.S. is not required to contribute.

Jonah, earlier this week on a special live Intercept Briefing, you spoke to Al-Shabaka U.S. Policy Fellow Tariq Kenney-Shawa about the particulars of ceasefires especially when it comes to Iran, Lebanon, and most notably Gaza.

In your conversation, you talk about the role the term “ceasefire” plays in our political imagination. Jonah, should a “ceasefire” be the end goal, or is there something more we need to push for here if what we’re really looking for is an end to the suffering? 

JV: I think anyone should see even the recent deal between the U.S. and Iran with some skepticism as far as whether it will hold, given previous ceasefires it’s been a part of.

Something that Tariq Kenney-Shawa and I talk at length about during our conversation is how this term “ceasefire” has been — in many ways, in an Orwellian way — weaponized against those that it’s supposed to bring peace to. That’s exactly what we saw in Gaza.

The term “ceasefire” was this massive slogan — a very effective slogan — throughout the 2024 presidential campaign cycle, as well as congressional races that year. Pro-Palestinian protesters, the movement at large, was really pushing and using a ceasefire as a rallying cry to get people to care about Palestinian rights.

What conversely happened is you get this Trump-concocted ceasefire with a lot of hands from the Israeli government, which is essentially a fake ceasefire. They’ve continued the bombing campaign in Gaza. Since the ceasefire that was signed in October of last year, more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes. So I think the term “ceasefire” just completely doesn’t apply in Gaza.

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As a part of the Iran war, they have also invaded and are occupying southern Lebanon, and of course, Israel and the U.S. and their joint strikes in Iran. I think it’s important to see Gaza in this context of a broader conflict that Israel is trying to push on the region.

JW: On a related note, I know that you’ve consistently covered a lot of the momentum around calls for an arms embargo to Israel. I know this came up in your conversation with Tariq as well.

Are we giving an arms embargo too much weight, or to put another way, are we giving politicians who say they agree with an arms embargo the ability to skirt the actual issue here, which is our decades of perpetuating and being complicit in violence in the Middle East? What’s your take on that?

JV: This is a difficult one that Tariq and I had a really good back and forth about. An arms embargo, similar to a ceasefire, has been a huge rallying cry for the movement for Palestinian rights, for Palestinian sovereignty, really for decades now. Past U.S. governments have used an arms embargo [at] varying degrees of effectiveness of leverage against the Israeli government when the U.S. government wants Israel to do certain things.

It is still worth mentioning that Israel is still very reliant on the U.S. government for its military capabilities. Just the very fact of defending against Iranian attacks, that’s made possible because of U.S. weapons. Its ability to have a chokehold on Gaza and the West Bank, also due to U.S. weapons. Its ability to even strike in Iran and Lebanon, a lot of that is U.S. weapons capabilities. A lot of the aggression we’re seeing is because of its partnership with the U.S. 

Again, there’s this danger, though, similar with the ceasefire, where an arms embargo might not be enough, and that’s what Tariq gets at as well, which is something he’s been saying since even before October 7, which is, the movement might have to go further than an arms embargo. 

The reason is what we’re already seeing with certain conversations in Congress is there’s real efforts by Israel supporters and the Israeli government to further enmesh the U.S. and Israeli militaries in a way where even if we were to have a halt to weapon sales to Israel, even if we were to stop the flow of taxpayer dollars to Israel, they can still acquire weapons through a new kind of partnership they’re trying to form through the Pentagon directly.

This is something where, it could also be the case, where the movement gets what it wants. Again, this is a very effective rallying cry. We’re having an arms embargo, at least calls for stopping offensive weapons to Israel as a huge litmus test in the midterm elections. And it’s I think affecting the outcome of a lot of elections as we’ve seen in Pennsylvania and New Jersey and beyond.

It is having a lot of ripple effects in U.S. politics right now, and halting it would be a big deal. But, further down the line, Israel is already anticipating the halt of the flow of weapons or at least the flow of taxpayer dollars to Israel and is looking to create an even deeper relationship with the U.S. that could last indefinitely, really.

JW: This does really seem to be a cyclical issue in U.S. politics and in organizing. You pick an endpoint and of course, your enemies, they move around that endpoint. So, you may reach the goal, but what you actually wanted to achieve still feels elusive. 

Jonah, thanks for giving us that preview. We’re going to hear your conversation with Tariq Kenney-Shawa, an Al-Shabaka U.S. policy fellow and co-host of Al-Shabaka’s Policy Lab series. Let’s listen to that now.

JV: Tariq, to start, I just want to give a little background on when you and I first connected. It was last summer, so July 2025, thereabouts, and it was the height of Israel’s manufactured famine in Gaza that, at the time, there seemed to be a huge shift toward how people in the U.S. were viewing Gaza.

You had mainstream media airing images of starving Palestinians. You had even more moderate Democratic leaders criticizing Israel. More lawmakers were referring to the conflict as a genocide for the first time. In the Senate, a historic vote, a majority of Democrats for the first time voted to block some weapon transfers to Israel.

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But amid all that, you told me even then you were worried about a scenario where Israel would enact what you called a “performative ceasefire,” where Israel would continue the bombing and the blockades on humanitarian aid, the ethnic cleansing, but in your words, “a bit more piecemeal and gradual.” 

So sure enough, several months later, last October, we got this iteration of a ceasefire, and here we are. The scenario you worried about is unfolding. So question to you, I’m wondering: In the last seven months, what’s been affirmed for you, and what has been more surprising?

Tariq Kenney-Shawa: It’s pretty clear that, yeah, everything that we were as a movement warned about — that these meaningless, toothless ceasefires can be agreed to and then not actually implemented — that has actually, as we’ve seen over the last couple months since October ’25, that’s played out exactly as expected.

What it’s really showed me was that, or what it’s really confirmed, was that spending years building a movement for an end to this genocide around the slogan “Ceasefire now” alone, it was successful in building quite a substantial following. It was vague enough to bring a lot of people into the movement against genocide because who’s going to disagree with calling for an end to war, calling for a ceasefire, right?

But at the end of the day, what it really laid the groundwork for was — again, like you just mentioned, and like I said last year — the potential of signing this empty ceasefire agreement, in which there is an agreement on paper, there is a framework, and a phased approach to this.

However, Israel has refused to implement any steps of the ceasefire agreement, and that includes continued carrying out daily airstrikes across the Gaza Strip. They’ve continued expanding the land they control. At the beginning Israel controlled about 53 percent of the Gaza Strip, delineated with that yellow line that people keep talking about that chopped Gaza in half. And now they’ve been, bit by bit, inching that line further and further westward and forcing 2 million Palestinians into an ever-shrinking strip of land that is now about 40, 30 percent of what the Gaza Strip was prior to the genocide.

Israel has also refused to let in the full agreed amount of humanitarian aid. They flood the Strip with commercial aid that people can’t really afford, but they refuse to let in sustainable products and things that people need to survive. Tents, building material, equipment to dig people’s bodies out of the rubble. What that has done is put those 2 million Palestinians who are caged in on that other side of the yellow line into a state of deliberate purgatory.

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Since October 2025, that’s what we’ve seen. Palestinians continue to be killed every single day — albeit at, again, a more piecemeal slower pace that is more difficult for the international community to oppose. A lot of people within the now quite large movement in support of Palestinian rights and an end to a genocide, they look at the situation now and they say, “Well, they agreed to a ceasefire. What else can we do? What’s the next step for us?” At the end of the day, this is exactly what we were worried about last year. 

We know Israel’s history of how Israel engages with ceasefires. The fact that Israel doesn’t abide by ceasefires historically and often uses it as a period to expand the facts on the ground that fundamentally change the equation of the conflict.

Now we’re in this really difficult position in which other regional issues have come to the fore in terms of attention and media coverage, and Gaza has really slipped away from the public’s attention. Not that at the end of the day that really stopped a genocide, but there was a lot of movement in terms of this gradual push to hold Israel accountable.

The fact that we really predicated our entire movement around nothing really more than achieving a ceasefire has really come at the detriment of the Palestinians who are now living under this pseudo-ceasefire, while the movement in support of them abroad is a little bit in limbo, immobilized, and unsure of how to move forward.

JV: It’s this Orwellian situation of language being weaponized in a way.

TKS: Absolutely. 

JV: Out of that came the “Board of Peace” set up by the Trump administration that is supposed to govern this so-called ceasefire. Speaking of deals, this week we’re seeing a deal between the U.S. and Iran in, supposedly, ending the war there.

That war itself dominated the headlines and drew a lot of the attention away from Gaza. But now that the U.S. and Iran seem very close on this deal to end the war, Netanyahu, for his part, he said that he won’t withdraw Israeli troops from Lebanon despite this deal. And of course, the Israeli military continues to occupy more than half of Gaza.

How should we be viewing Gaza in the context of the Iran war or vice versa? 

TKS: It’s important to see Gaza as the elephant in the room and just really part of this cycle of war. The fact that Israel was able to agree to this pseudo-ceasefire in Gaza allowed it to direct and move a lot of its attention, a lot of its resources, a lot of its military manpower to these other fronts that opened up. It was able to dedicate more time and energy to fighting this war in Iran, to going on this offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon. And also, can’t ignore the fact that Israel is also holding occupied territory in Syria. So it’s really important to view this as a cycle.

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It’s obviously very early, we don’t quite know what’s going to happen with the MOU [memorandum of understanding] between the U.S. and Iran. But if it does move forward, and if that front does shut down and quiet down — unfortunately, what that likely means is that Israel is going to have a lot more resources, a lot more manpower to turn its attention back to Gaza.

That shift in the regional wars that are ongoing is also coinciding with the fact that we’re basically in the run-up to Israeli election season. The opposition is really in a dead heat against the current far-right Israeli government. But the opposition in Israel isn’t criticizing Netanyahu because they’re against these forever wars that Israel is fighting. They’re criticizing Netanyahu because they just don’t like the way he’s conducting them. Just the other day, one of the main opposition candidates posted about how basically the war against Iran is going to basically reignite when there’s a new government in power in Israel. 

That just goes to show that Israelis by and large are supportive of these war processes. They are supportive of this concept of total victory that is quite elusive. Netanyahu in particular, and the far-right coalition that he leads, is going to be particularly thirsty to, again, prove themselves in the face of these narratives that are coming out in light of the potential Iran deal that this was a strategic loss for Israel.

What Netanyahu and his coalition are thinking is, “OK, if we have to wind down our offensive activities in Iran and potentially even Lebanon, how else are we going to prove that we are the right party and the right people to defend Israel from our perceived threats?” They’re going to do that by reigniting their assault and genocide in the Gaza Strip. How they’re going to justify that is where we are at right now in terms of the ceasefire process itself. Despite the fact that Israel has not implemented any of the phase one parts of the agreement, they’re now demanding that Hamas agree to a component of phase two, which was disarmament.

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But Hamas is basically putting its foot down and saying, “Listen if you guys aren’t going to adhere to stopping the bombing campaigns, if you guys aren’t going to let in humanitarian aid like you allowed to, if you guys are still eating up land every single day and not even adhering to phase one of the agreement, then basically why should we agree to phase two if there’s no mutual engagement on that side?”

Unfortunately, it does not bode well for Palestinians in Gaza because they’re the punching bag that Israel will turn its attention to undoubtedly.

JV: Thanks for walking us through the political landscape in Israel. Sometimes we in the U.S. run the risk of overstating the influence of U.S. politics on Israel, specifically when it comes to Netanyahu’s decision-making and how he’s coming to those decisions. And we don’t talk enough about Israeli politics.

But I wanted to zoom in on something that you mentioned just a second ago about Hamas and their position right now and why ongoing negotiations with the “Board of Peace” continue to fall apart. For those who don’t know: The “Board of Peace” was set up as a part of the ceasefire and is supposed to, on paper, move the ceasefire process and rebuilding process of Gaza forward. It has a footnote essentially of like toward some further-off notion of Palestinian statehood.

I don’t think we talk enough about Hamas as a political entity and what its position is right now. What leverage does it have right now? What are they actually trying to argue for? Also, with other Palestinian factions, as trying to be a voice of what they see as this is the last remaining resistance of Palestinian freedom, in this context here, what does that look like? And, how is that stalling within this “Board of Peace,” very flawed structure? 

TKS: It’s pretty obvious that Hamas itself doesn’t really have much leverage at all. They never had many offensive weapons to begin with. If you could consider the homemade makeshift rockets that they fire at Israel to be offensive; many of them have been depleted. I think it’s also important to be clear that Hamas is open, has explicitly stated that they are open to handing over their offensive weapons.

But they have clearly tied this to the process that was agreed upon. They very much see that as the only tidbit of leverage that they have left in this process. Basically, their argument is saying, “Listen, we’re open to handing over our weapons, but Israel has to withdraw as agreed upon in the ceasefire agreement, or there have to be steps that make it clear that Israel will be held accountable to the standards that was agreed upon.”

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It’s really important to bring in the role of the “Board of Peace” here. It’s a misconception that the “Board of Peace” has been designed and will operate with the objective of building a new Gaza for Palestinians. What the “Board of Peace” exists to achieve is to create, effectively, this wonderland that Trump and Israel have agreed to.

What that looks like if you look at the presentations that, for example Jared Kushner has pushed out and the Trump administration has presented on how they view the Gaza Strip in 10, 20 years down the line — very little of it is actually for the Palestinians who live there, who will be basically concentrated into these disparate camps that are spread out throughout the Gaza Strip, put under intense surveillance, and basically serve as cheap labor for these luxury resorts and hotels and apartment complexes and data centers that Israel and the U.S. envision building in the Gaza Strip.

When we think about the “Board of Peace” is, that shrinking territory that Hamas does still control of is basically the only thing that is stopping the Trump administration and Israel from embarking further on that dystopian future of, again, herding Palestinians into these effectively concentration camps distributed throughout the Gaza Strip and having them just serve as cheap labor for this personal enrichment opportunity for the Trump administration and his Israeli partners.

JV: You’ve written about your own experiences growing up a Palestinian American. Your grandfather, I believe, was the former mayor of Gaza City, Rashad Shawa. Your father is from Gaza. Your aunt, Laila Shawa, is a renowned Palestinian visual artist, also from Gaza. You have another aunt, Rawya Shawa, a Palestinian journalist and legislator.

There’s a lineage to the work you do. Could you talk a bit about your family, your father, how you came to start doing this work advocating for Palestine? 

TKS: I’m Palestinian American. I was born in New York. Something that I’ve asked my parents about — they never wanted to make me feel like I had to advocate for Palestinian rights. They were always hoping that I wouldn’t have to do any of this and that eventually it would be figured out someday, and that we wouldn’t have to make this our lives or our careers. But I first started becoming aware of the politics of my heritage when I was very young. 

I was in middle school. I remember this one time I went to a friend’s place. He introduced me to his parents, and his dad asked where I was from, and I said, “Palestine.” He said, “What is that? It doesn’t exist.” I was a middle schooler, so at the time it was shocking, and I didn’t really understand it. Only later in life did I realize that that was pointed and had a lot of history behind it.

As you mentioned, my father grew up in Gaza until he was about college age and came to the U.S. Just hearing about the stories about growing up in Gaza and then seeing his reaction to later events, for example, the 2008 Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip — really, that kind of ended up awakening me to the real weight behind being Palestinian and pushed me to obviously get involved.

The past two years have been extremely difficult just because there’s always been that hope of being able to return to Gaza and see the land that my father grew up in, my grandfather grew up in, my great-grandfather grew up in and played these really central roles in governance.

But it’s now — Gaza effectively doesn’t exist in the way it once did. So part of that process is just wrapping your mind around that as well. That’s been one of the most difficult parts of, in addition to obviously just all the loss, is just knowing that we might never, never go back. And if we do, it won’t be the Gaza that my father left and my grandfather led and all that. 

JV: Your Aunt Rawya, she lost her home in that 2008 offensive from an Israeli strike? 

TKS: Yep. And it wasn’t the first time. Israeli tanks had shelled her home before. That was the culmination of that whole process.

So it was very visceral for me at a very young age. But also, the fact that I was witnessing it all from a distance also played another role too. Because as a Palestinian American growing up in New York City, again, it very quickly became about defending myself. I very quickly had to become an expert in Palestinian history in order to defend myself from the people like my friend’s father who claimed I didn’t exist and my people didn’t exist.

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So it’s also interesting to just look back at how much has changed in the discourse around Israel and Palestine, in New York City, in the United States, since I became politically aware and started getting involved in these debates in middle school, early high school.

Something that gives me hope in terms of the direction things are headed is that back in 2011, 2012, when I was a high schooler, the parameters for discussion around the Palestinian right to resist occupation, around some of the myths of Israel’s existence — for example, the myth that they made the desert bloom, or that it was a land without a people for a people without a land — so much of those have been eroded.

So much of American public opinion has, over the course of obviously two and a half years of genocide, shifted. There is much more space for having real conversations about this. More importantly, sharing the Palestinian perspective, which is very fundamentally different than it was even five, 10 years ago.

JV: Those shifts are incredible. Recent polling has shown time and time again that the vast majority of Democratic voters, somewhere north of 70 — more than 70 percent — in the U.S. see Israel unfavorably. 

It’s playing a big role in U.S. electoral politics, whether or not a candidate supports blocking military aid to Israel has really become a litmus test in many of these races.

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Some Democrats have found success in their primary elections running on that as a part of their platform and winning. You have Adam Hamawy in New Jersey, former Army surgeon who volunteered in Gaza; he won his primary against a moderate Democrat a couple weeks ago. Last month in Pennsylvania, you have Chris Rabb, whose campaign not only called for an arms embargo on Israel, but also — controversially for a lot of people — the right of return for Palestinians under international law.

I’m wondering, how would you diagnose this moment the Democratic Party is in with its attitude toward Israel–Palestine? Or do you see this as more than a moment? I’m curious how lasting you think these shifts will be. 

TKS: I definitely see this as more than just a moment. It’s not just Democrats and people on the left who are feeling more pro-Palestinian than ever before. It’s across the political spectrum. It was Pew or Gallup, I forget which one, their most recent poll on where American sympathies lie between Israelis and Palestinians. For the first time ever, more Americans sympathize with Palestinians than with Israelis, and that’s across the political spectrum. Obviously that’s a lot more skewed when it comes to Democratic voters or progressives and people on the left. But it very much is across the political spectrum.

It’s more useful to look at the polling that we’re seeing around actual policy measures. For example, arms embargo or “block the bombs” and calls to actually either at the very least condition U.S. military aid to Israel, but, even better, cut it entirely. We’re seeing upwards of 60, 65 percent of Americans, again, across the political spectrum, who support these types of actual, solid policies.

That’s the difference right now between when you’re looking at just sympathy and people who are actually willing to potentially even make voting decisions out of what they’re seeing right now and out of the outrage that they’ve been witnessing when it comes to two and a half years of genocide. They also are now more cognizant of the fact that we send Israel billions of dollars to do that genocide and to engage in forever wars across the region that many Americans see or believe Israel is dragging the U.S. into. That is the bigger change that we’re seeing, and that arguably might be a little bit more lasting, is that more and more Americans today are critical of Israel and critical of that “special U.S.–Israel relationship.”

What concerns me sometimes is that a lot of the shift in public opinion isn’t necessarily tied to support for Palestinians, and we’re obviously seeing that on the right. On the far right, where we’re seeing a rise in actual antisemitism. Across the right, we’re seeing just a general rise in the “America-first — MAGA — we don’t want to be sending anyone our tax dollars,” and they’re now starting to include Israel in that.

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But the other thing I will mention is, what we’re seeing right now in the Democratic Party is really a widening chasm between the Democratic establishment and the voting base. The Democratic establishment, some of the older representatives that we have in Congress — Chuck Schumer is a great example of some of these more old-school politicians who are resistant to recognizing this new reality. What I’m trying to say is that, there is this very, very big generational gap that is emerging. So despite the fact that we are seeing such a substantial shift in U.S. public opinion, we’re not seeing it in policy. That’s largely because these establishment Democrats remain in power.

But what I hope to see over the next five, 10 years is that that starts to fundamentally change when the younger generation emerges as the bigger voting bloc. Unfortunately, these policy changes are glacial. It’s too late to end the genocide.

The one thing I am hopeful for in that long-term process, is that long-term movement that we have built and are continuing to build that will be borne out by these younger generations as they rise into political power. 

JV: All this discussion around blocking military aid to Israel is as old as the state of Israel itself. You had President Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 1950s threatening an arms embargo as leverage against Israel and other presidents after that. 

We’ve been mostly talking about a post-October 7 world where it’s been this rallying cry for anti-genocide protesters, progressive lawmakers in the U.S., and, as I’ve mentioned, we saw Democrats win primary elections running on this. The message is pretty clear: Our taxpayer dollars are being used to help Israel acquire weapons from American companies to commit a genocide. All the while, there’s this economic side of it — all the while our economy suffers, people are struggling to afford rent, just daily life, healthcare. So let’s use the leverage we have as Americans and stop the flow of weapons. 

To your point, a lot of it is leaning toward anti-Israel, not so much for the Palestinian people. And yet there is this huge shift. But now we’re increasingly hearing Netanyahu and the Israeli government, and supporters of the Israeli government signal that they are getting ready and almost championing a world without the same funding from the U.S., and basically a post-State Department funding mechanism where the same amount of taxpayer dollars isn’t flowing into Israel as much so that they could buy these weapons.

And in Congress you’re seeing a lot of pro-Israel lobbying happening around a new bill, and it would essentially intertwine the U.S. and Israeli militaries and weapons industries in a new way — we don’t do this with any other ally, it’s worth mentioning — in a new way that will reshape how Israel gets weapons. Could you talk about the dangers of that and where things are headed? 

TKS: To be completely honest with you, and we’ve talked about this before, this is the most important thing to look at in the course of the next few months and few years. That’s the difference between conditioning U.S. military funding and aid to Israel, and completely cutting U.S. military weapons to Israel through an arms embargo.

I argued as early as summer 2023 — and this was before the genocide — that even conditioning U.S. military aid to Israel would not go far enough if the objective is for Israel to end the occupation. And that was prior to the genocide. It’s also important to recognize that the Israeli military is deeply dependent on U.S. weapons, U.S. military cooperation, intel sharing.

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If the U.S. withdrew that relationship or fundamentally changed it or stopped providing Israel with the weapons — whether through conditioning that aid or cutting it entirely — that would fundamentally alter Israel’s ability to get away with whether it’s genocide in Gaza or regional wars.

However, conditioning doesn’t go far enough because if Israel’s committing a genocide, and if we recognize that, then selling Israel the weapons on the open market is arguably just as bad as giving those weapons to Israel for free with U.S. tax dollars.

It’s avoiding another movement trap that is reminiscent of the “Ceasefire now” trap. Because if we get stuck in limiting ourselves — our movement — to simply calling for conditioning U.S. military aid to Israel on Israel adhering to international law, or U.S. law even, then there are so many ways for Israel to wriggle around that. 

More importantly, at the end of the day, Israel can continue to buy the weapons it needs to get away with genocide on the open market, and that’s the problem.

Right now, there are a couple Israel-led initiatives that actually recognize this moment we’re in. So Israel’s leaders Benjamin Netanyahu, and a lot of American — some of the most stalwart pro-Israel figures in the U.S., Lindsey Graham comes to mind — recognize the fact that criticism of Israel in the U.S. is skyrocketing; and potentially the future of this formerly special “U.S.–Israel relationship” is not sustainable in the long run, especially as more Republicans turn against this status quo. In many ways, they’ve recognized the need to shift this U.S.-Israel relationship from one of dependency, both militarily and financially, to one of further entrenchment.

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How they’re going to do that, there’s basically two concurrent initiatives that are ongoing right now. The first and the most important one probably, is the fiscal year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA. In specific, Section 224, which is proposing basically an unprecedented integration of the U.S. military–industrial complex and Israeli defense and technology sectors. That’s dangerous because what that does is that entrenches the U.S. military within the United States military–industrial complex, and gives it access that no country has, not even the U.K., not even France, not even these core allies that the U.S. has built their relationships with over decades. 

Apart from that, why that is dangerous is that it becomes much harder for the pro-Palestine movement, or the movement in support of Palestinian rights and an end to genocide, to decouple that new much more entrenched relationship. That would mean that we would have to then go up against the U.S. military as well as the Israeli military and make that case to Americans.

Obviously, it’s a very strategic move by the Israelis to take advantage of this period in time where there is this huge chasm between public opinion and actual policy. Because they’re essentially recognizing that, “Hey, we might not have total impunity in the United States forever, but we do for now while establishment Democrats and Republicans are running the ship. We have a Trump administration that’s essentially willing to do whatever we want.” So what they’re trying to do now is essentially push this process through while Trump is in power, while Republicans have a majority in the Senate and the House.

Another example is the negotiations that are ongoing around the memorandum of understanding, the MOU, between Israel and the US. The last one being signed under the Obama administration, which was a 10-year MOU that agreed to basically be giving Israel $3.8 billion every year of U.S. tax dollars. What the new MOU that they’re thinking about is a 20-year MOU in which a couple years of increase in U.S. military aid before it eventually decreases. They also pursue this entrenchment approach, making the two militaries more dependent on each other rather than this Israel dependency relationship.

JV: There’s this really fantastic archival footage you shared on Twitter sometime last year showing your grandfather, former mayor of Gaza City — again, Rashad Shawa — talking about the annexation of Gaza. This was in the 1980s, more than 40 years ago. Here we are having similar discussions, if not in a more dire place.

I’m wondering where you think the movement goes from here. And, with thinking about BDS — Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions — if Israel doesn’t care about its place on the international stage as much as it used to, as that increasingly isn’t playing a factor, as the U.S. is more officializing its entrenchment with the Israeli military, where do you see the movement going from here?

TKS: Israel remains very much dependent on the United States and its relationship with the West, and I’m talking about mainly Western Europe. Yes, they are recognizing that their relationships based on impunity are not a given forever, which very much explains why they are effectively going so hard across the region right now. They very much see this as a moment of opportunity for them that they might not have forever. They might not have a Trump administration in the White House forever that is effectively willing to allow them to get away with whatever they want. That’s why they are taking these unprecedented steps ranging from the genocide in Gaza to the war in Iran that no other U.S. president agreed to, except for Trump.

That is why it’s all the more important that we recognize that the movement itself — the movement in support of Palestinian rights — has made huge strides over the last couple of years. And now, however, it’s increasingly important to shift our efforts to punitive measures — sanctions — everything in our power to hold Israel accountable through actual punitive measures like economic sanctions, arms embargoes that make it more difficult for Israel to get away with the war crimes and atrocities and genocides it’s committing.

That’s why I spend so much time advocating for arms embargoes, for economic sanctions, anything that goes past these previous demands that we’ve had — the “Ceasefire now” demands, the conditioning aid demands.

It’s increasingly important now that we take these steps and hold Israel accountable through arms embargoes and sanctions so that we don’t get to the point in the future where Israel can live its “super Sparta” strategy that it is really investing in. Basically creating a world in which Israel can carry out these forever wars and these genocides without the U.S.’s and the West’s permission. It’s really imperative that we see these changes sooner than later because time is not on our side in terms of that process.

JV: I hate to be the pessimist in the room here, but aren’t we there already where Israel can just — maybe it’s not its fullest iteration, not fully evolved Sparta form, as you mentioned — but aren’t we there already where they’re acting outside of the U.S. interest? 

TKS: Yeah. Everything we’re doing, it’s too late to stop the genocide in Palestine. An inconceivable number of Palestinians have been killed, and they’re not coming back. Gaza is — we’ve lost so much of it. A lot of this accountability is already too little too late.

But it’s also very important to recognize that, again, Israel remains very much dependent on the United States in particular, not even to mention just Europe and Western Europe, for its military activity and military prowess and being shielded on the international stage.

Just look at the Iran war, for example. There’s no way that Israel would have been able to sustain this type of regional conflagration without the U.S. This ranges from the offensive strikes that the U.S. was partnering directly with Israel on, the intelligence sharing, and the defensive capabilities that the U.S., its vassal states in the region, like Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and then even other European countries that ended up sending missile defense systems and naval ships to defend Israel from the rockets that were coming from Iran.

So it’s very much like, we’re in this moment right now — and we will be for many years to come — in which Israel is still extremely dependent on U.S. on the U.S. military umbrella. Israel is very much still basically like a U.S. military outpost. So these types of actions — arms embargo and sanctions — can have an effect on Israel.

The timeline for Israel to be fully self-sufficient in its military procurement system and its own economy — that’s a far way off. Israel is a very integrated economy, and economic sanctions would have a very substantial effect on Israel’s ability to wage war and genocide. However, it is imperative that the sooner we can do this, the better. 

JW: That was Intercept reporter Jonah Valdez and Al-Shabaka U.S. Policy Fellow Tariq Kenney-Shawa speaking at a special live Intercept Briefing earlier this week. If you don’t want to miss the next Intercept Briefing live, sign up for our newsletter at theintercept.com.

Also we want to know what issues you’re following in the midterms. Send us an email or leave us a voicemail at 530-POD-CAST, that’s 530-763-2278.

That does it for this episode. 

This episode was produced by Laura Flynn. Ben Muessig is our editor-in-chief. Maia Hibbett is our managing editor. Fei Liu is our product and design manager. Nara Shin is our copy editor. William Stanton mixed our show. Legal review by David Bralow.

Slip Stream provided our theme music.

This show and our reporting at The Intercept doesn’t exist without you. Your donation, no matter the amount, makes a real difference. Keep our investigations free and fearless at theintercept.com/join. 

And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to The Intercept Briefing wherever you listen to podcasts. Do leave us a rating or a review, it helps other listeners to find us.

Let us know what you think of this episode, or If you want to send us a general message, email us at podcasts@theintercept.com.

Until next time, I’m Jessica Washington.

The post The Performative Ceasefire in Gaza appeared first on The Intercept.

Why Should Delaware Care?
Overharvesting once threatened the horseshoe crab population, which is a staple to the Delaware Bay’s ecosystem. But state protections put in place over 20 years ago appear to be helping Delaware’s “living fossil” rebound.

On a windy night in mid-May, about a dozen volunteers gathered at the James Farm Ecological Preserve near Ocean View, wielding charts, thermometers and a white square made of PVC pipe. 

The volunteers placed the plastic square on sections of the beach, then counted the number of male and female horseshoe crabs inside of it.

“I like seeing the surprise on everyone’s faces when they see how many there are,” said Lorie Whitehaus, a team lead on the survey.

The scene was part of a statewide effort to monitor the horseshoe crab population in Delaware, run jointly by the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, and by the Center for the Inland Bays.

And these counts recently have sparked optimism among marine biologists about the 450 million-year-old species, often referred to as “living fossils” because they are one of the oldest living species on the planet, dating back to about 100 million years before dinosaurs appeared.

The Delaware Bay’s horseshoe crab population is close to reaching its historic population, said Jordan Zimmerman, a horseshoe crab biologist for the state of Delaware.  

The bay hosts the world’s highest concentration of the species. They also remain a key part of the local estuary ecosystem. But the number of horseshoe crabs in the Delaware bay dipped drastically in the 1990s due to overharvesting.  

In response, Delaware and neighboring states imposed restrictions about 30 years ago on harvesting the arthropods. The population has now almost reached its 1990 levels, Zimmerman said.  

The rebound marks a rare success story in environmental management. 

“We don’t get too many of those,” Zimmerman said. “It’s very difficult to manage natural resources.”

DNREC monitors commercial horseshoe crab fishing through a mandatory reporting system and check stations. There is a cap on the number of male horseshoe crabs that can be harvested. It is illegal to catch and keep females. 

Blue box: The best places to view horseshoe crabs are during high tide at the DuPont Nature Center (from the observation deck or the live cam), Slaughter Beach, Kitts Hummock or Pickering Beach, near the Town of Little Creek, according to DNREC. 

Harvesting unique blood affected population

The drop in the horseshoe crab population happened for two main reasons: fishermen harvested them to be used as bait, and biomedical companies harvested them for their blood. 

In the 1960s, scientists discovered horseshoe crab blood contains an extract called limulus amebocyte lysate, or LAL, which clots in the presence of pathogens. 

This substance helps scientists detect bacteria and toxins in virtually every drug, making horseshoe crab blood one of the most valuable liquids in the world. LAL can sell for up to $60,000 a gallon. 

Scientists collect the blood without killing the animal and return them to the ocean, although studies suggest about 15% of crabs die during the process.

Still, Zimmerman said it is hard to know if that number is accurate because the horseshoe crabs are treated differently in the studies than in the actual blood collection process. 

“If we want to get an idea of the industry impacts on them, then we need to use crabs that are handled the exact same way,” he said. 

Scientists have also developed a synthetic alternative to the LAL in horseshoe crab blood, which may decrease the need to harvest them. 

Last year, the U.S. Pharmacopeia, which helps to ensure drug quality, determined the synthetic alternative is just as effective at detecting pathogens as the extracted material from horseshoe crab blood.  

A volunteer effort

Every full or new moon in the horseshoe crabs’ peak mating season of May and June, volunteers go out whenever the tide peaks at night — whether that be 7 p.m. or midnight. 

The volunteers often find the beaches covered in dozens or even hundreds of horseshoe crabs. 

“There’s nothing that can replace the experience of seeing them in the wild,” said Nivette Pérez-Pérez, manager of community science at the Center for Inland Bays.  

People come from all over the country to volunteer, Zimmerman said, hoping to experience the unique phenomenon for themselves. 

Center for the Inland Bays volunteer Cathy Hutchins said some people don’t like having horseshoe crabs on their beaches, especially during the surge of mating season.

“But I know if you don’t have them, you’re not going to have the birds,” Hutchins said. 

Female horseshoe crabs lay about 80,000 eggs per year, Pérez-Pérez said, providing an important food source for migratory shore birds like red knots or sanderlings. 

While the horseshoe crab population is increasing, other factors like climate change, pollution and coastal development could threaten their numbers in the future, Pérez-Pérez said. 

The nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity recently filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for failing to classify horseshoe crabs as a threatened or endangered species.  

Pérez-Pérez said the main way people can help horseshoe crabs is by flipping them over if they are on their backs. Many die when they are unable to flip themselves over and become stranded on the beach at low tide.  

The best way to flip them over is by grabbing the edge of their shells, not by their tails, she said. 

The post Delaware Bay horseshoe crab population nears recovery, surveys find appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

Defendants in the Minneapolis case say the Trump administration labeled them “antifa” to criminalize dissent.

Prime minister suggests he will not ‘walk away’ despite Burnham’s comfortable victory in Makerfield byelection

• UK politics – live updates

• How quickly could Burnham become PM?

Keir Starmer has said he will stand in a Labour leadership contest should one be triggered after Andy Burnham’s decisive victory in the Makerfield byelection, adding he will not “walk away”.

He also warned that such a contest would “plunge us into chaos” and that Labour needed to “pull together” to contest the byelection to replace Burnham as the mayor of Greater Manchester.

From public ownership to devolution and the cost of living, the policies of the potential Labour leadership challenger will face intense scrutiny

• UK politics live – latest updates

Andy Burnham’s victory in Makerfield sets up a battle for Downing Street. Allies of the outgoing Greater Manchester mayor want him to be installed as prime minister as quickly and painlessly as possible, while those close to Keir Starmer want the Labour leader to fight on.

If he does become prime minister, Burnham will be expected to deliver on the “change” he promised after his win on Thursday night. But what would that look like, and what policies would his government be likely to pursue?

Thangam Debbonaire and Sarah Pochin argue in Sky News interview at Makerfield byelection count

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The Labour peer Thangam Debbonaire has clashed with Reform UK’s Sarah Pochin at the Makerfield byelection count, asking the MP: “You don’t like being on television with brown people, do you Sarah?”

The row erupted during a testy interview on Sky News that included an exchange about the £5m personal gift that Nigel Farage accepted from Thailand-based crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne in the months before he stood as an MP in the 2024 general election. The gift, first revealed by the Guardian, is now under investigation by the parliamentary standards commissioner, which will examine whether or not it ought to have been declared.

JD Vance’s staff were at an airbase ready to fly to summit in Obbürgen before trip was suddenly cancelled

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Talks due to take place on Friday between the US ⁠and ​Iran in Switzerland to implement a peace deal were cancelled as Hezbollah killed four Israeli soldiers and Israel carried out a wave of retaliatory airstrikes in south Lebanon and the Bekaa valley that killed at least 18 people.

The talks had been due to begin in the Swiss village of Obbürgen two days after the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) that opened a 60-day window to negotiate a permanent understanding over Iran’s nuclear programme, while getting oil traffic moving through the strait of Hormuz.

A crypto super PAC that has praised President Donald Trump and previously endorsed an all-Republican slate of candidates has finally found a Democrat it can get behind: New York Rep. Ritchie Torres.

The Fellowship PAC dropped $300,000 on Monday to boost Torres in the final days of his reelection primary campaign, funneling its ad spend through a firm co-founded by Trump’s former top crypto adviser.

The super PAC’s largest funder is Cantor Fitzgerald, the investment bank helmed by the sons of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

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Torres is not expected to face serious opposition in the June 23 primary in New York. The sole public poll of the race put him far ahead of his leading opponent, former Democratic National Committee vice chair Michael Blake.

Torres, the Fellowship PAC, and Blake did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The spending is another sign of bond between crypto firms and Torres, a member of the key House Committee on Financial Services who has been one of the industry’s most vocal Democratic supporters. Torres was a co-founder of the Congressional Crypto Caucus.

Still, the primary intervention still comes as something of a surprise given that, in the past, the Fellowship PAC only doled out campaign funds on behalf of Republicans. Reporting on its creation, the New York Times described the PAC as “more aligned with the Republican Party and President Trump than Fairshake, which is the dominant, pro-crypto super PAC.”

The PAC signaled support for Trump in a press release announcing its creation in September, praising him for putting “America on the path to become the global crypto capital.” In the months since then, however, the odds that Republicans will control the House after the midterm elections have dimmed.

The Fellowship PAC, which spends on ads rather than giving directly to campaigns, put Torres’s picture on its endorsement page in recent weeks, according to an archive of its website. Other candidates the group has endorsed include Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, R-Texas, in their Senate races.

Big Crypto Bucks for Shoo-in

The Fellowship PAC is not the only crypto campaign organization spending on behalf of Torres. Protect Progress, which is affiliated with the juggernaut crypto super PAC Fairshake, buoyed the Bronx Democrat with nearly $1.4 million in advertising.

The two super PACs are aligned with different factions of the crypto industry. The Fellowship PAC’s chair is the vice president of regulatory affairs for Tether, a massive stablecoin company that is trying to break into the U.S. market after years of scrutiny over its use by money launderers, including terror groups.

Although Tether has not donated directly to the Fellowship PAC, the PAC received $10 million from the financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald, which is the custodian of billions of dollars of U.S. Treasury bills on behalf of Tether. Lutnick, Trump’s commerce secretary, stepped down as the head of the banking firm and divested his assets to join the Cabinet.

Related

This Commission That Regulates Crypto Could Be Just One Guy: An Industry Lawyer

The media buy on behalf of Torres was made through Nxum Group, which was co-founded by Bo Hines, a former Republican congressional candidate who served as the executive director of Trump’s Council of Advisers on Digital Assets last year. Hines is the CEO of Tether U.S., the American division of the El Salvador-based firm.

Protect Progress and Fairshake, meanwhile, have been funded by the crypto exchange Coinbase and the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Fairshake and its affiliates have spent money on both sides of the aisle, although it was criticized in 2024 for helping tip the Senate in favor of Republicans.

The post Trump-Loving Crypto Super PAC Finally Backs a Democrat: Ritchie Torres appeared first on The Intercept.

When a company decided to shut down an online game’s servers, there wasn’t much the players who had bought that title could do – until a group called Stop Killing Games began lobbying for new consumer protection laws

You can never be sure how long an online video game will last. Developer BioWare shut off sci-fi shooter Anthem’s servers in January, after seven years. Electronic Arts discontinued access to The Sims Mobile the same month. Wildlight Entertainment shuttered its Highguard servers in March, mere months after the game’s release. Activision Blizzard took Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile offline in April. Dozens more games have had their servers shut down in the first six months of 2026, adding to an already long list of video games that are no longer playable.

There is little that players can do when a company decides to stop supporting online play. Communities work hard to keep their favourite games online, sometimes keeping dead games running on private servers, though that may not necessarily be entirely legal. Generally, though, when a game goes offline it is dead and it’s not coming back.

The Braves pitcher has always been different from the average baseball player. He talks to Joseph Palmer about his motivations on and off the field

Spencer Strider made an impression in 2022, his first full season in Major League Baseball: he was runner-up for National League Rookie of the Year. In 2023 he was ever better, leading the majors in wins and strikeouts and earning a spot on the All-MLB first-team.

But what set him apart from many of his peers wasn’t his athletic ability but his life away from baseball. In a sport that is often socially conservative, the Atlanta Braves pitcher was a vegan Bernie Sanders supporter who was just as likely to discuss indie music as his fastball.

Few grill brands command more respect from seasoned pitmasters and backyard cooks alike. Here's what sets Weber apart, and why it keeps earning our recommendation year after year.

Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, is now positioned to challenge Prime Minister Keir Starmer for leadership of the governing Labour Party and to seize the top job.

The remnants of Tropical Storm Arthur were battering parts of the southeastern U.S. with heavy rain, sparking flash flooding.

Strong winds and heavy rain batter Slovenia, while France experiences atypical heatwave

Severe thunderstorms swept across the Balkans last week, bringing widespread destruction to parts of the region. The storms developed as unstable hot air lingered over the Adriatic Sea while a cold front plunged south-eastward.

The front began its journey on 10 June in Slovenia, where the Slovenian Environment Agency recorded 65mph gusts at Ljubljana airport. Heavy rain also fell widely across the region with 23mm reported in Kranj.

People in Nabatieh mourn the recent dead in religious ceremony held amid empty streets and shattered buildings

As the procession wound its way through mounds of rubble, the crowd chanted and beat their chests, their lamentations echoed by the dull thud of shelling in the foothills just beyond the city.

“This is the tragedy of Karbala, O Imam Hussein, look. This is the tragedy of Karbala,” the crowd cried in the opening procession of Ashura, in the city of Nabatieh, southern Lebanon.

He lambasted Jimmy Carter during the 1980 hostage crisis; now Trump’s presidency could be similarly blemished

It began with the fate of hostages.

Donald Trump’s first recorded foray into politics was sparked by the 1979 takeover of the US embassy in Tehran, which saw 52 American diplomats held incommunicado for 444 days.

The negotiations were expected to start as soon as this weekend, but Vice President Vance's trip there was put off and Switzerland said the negotiations have been postponed.

It’s an excellent time to stock up on your essential beauty products and support Black businesses with these brands.

I’ve found farther beyond just jumping off. I don’t know what I’ve done, but now I get this shudder whenever I don’t have both sensors engaged. Even far beyond 10mph, even with Posi enabled.

Screen recording of bug

Investigation: The entrepreneur was once the toast of London’s tech scene, a ‘global leader of tomorrow’ who starred on Dragons’ Den and promised untold riches for the startups she championed. But people she worked with in the last decade, from Malta to Switzerland, describe a very different reality

Julie Meyer is sitting in a starkly lit attic, surrounded by piles of £50 notes. A California blond in a crisp, white shirt, her long, stockinged legs crossed at the knee, she listens intently to the young man standing before her. As he talks, she sizes him up. Eventually, she tells him: “I’m going to make you an offer.” It could be a scene from a heist movie, but Meyer is in a BBC studio, shooting a 2009 episode of the TV show Dragons’ Den. A celebrated entrepreneur with a venture capital fund, she is ready to invest in whichever contestants catch her eye. For the viewers, she has some advice: “What is success? A lot of it is self-belief. Continuing on when most rational people would stop.”

This is an online spin-off from the original Dragons’ Den series, so the stakes are a little lower. But for Lex Deak, a 23-year-old with a big idea for a social media website, what happens in this room today could be make or break. He desperately wants to work with Meyer.

Rolls-Royce SMR has secured a multibillion-pound agreement to build three small modular reactors on Sweden's west coast, "marking a major step in the British engineering group's ambition to become a leading supplier of the technology in Europe," reports Euronews. From the report: Following a rigorous selection process that started in 2022, UK engineering giant Rolls-Royce's nuclear division, Rolls-Royce SMR, won the contract to build nuclear reactors for Sweden. As part of the deal, the group, selected by Videberg Kraft as its partner, will deliver three Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) to Sweden's west coast, at the Varo Peninsula. "The Videberg Project will build Sweden's first new nuclear power plant in more than forty years, supporting industries and households in southern Sweden," a press statement from Rolls-Royce said. The partnership with utility Vattenfall and developer Karnfull Next is seen as one of the most advanced opportunities for deployment outside of the UK. [...] The European Commission considers small modular reactors (SMRs) to be a promising low-carbon technology that could help support the bloc's clean energy and energy security goals. In order to remove regulatory barriers, the EU's SMR strategy was adopted in March 2026 to accelerate the development and deployment of the technology across Europe. SMRs are smaller than conventional nuclear power plants, typically generating between 20 and 300 megawatts of electricity. At the upper end of that range, a reactor could produce around 7.2 million kilowatt-hours of electricity per day -- enough to power hundreds of thousands of homes. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that more than 1,000 small modular reactors could be deployed worldwide by 2050 under a supportive policy scenario, requiring cumulative investment of around $670 billion.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tanker owner trade body says centre of strait will remain closed for ‘some time’, with vessels risking running aground by taking Omani route

The centre of the strait of Hormuz is blocked with about 80 mines that will need clearing for normal shipping to resume, the independent tanker owner trade body has said.

Several vessels began to exit the Gulf through the key maritime chokepoint on Thursday, after the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran.

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Exclusive: Telegram urged to clarify how it detects illegal incitement after attacks were coordinated using app

Telegram is facing questions from Ofcom over how it detects and prevents illegal incitement after a Ukrainian man was found guilty of carrying out arson attacks on a car and property associated with Keir Starmer.

A spokesperson for the regulator said it had contacted the messaging app “to seek further clarification” because the arsonist had been directed on Telegram by a handler linked to Russia.

Soccer – football to many – may be the most played youth sport in the US but it still sits behind the NFL, basketball and baseball in the battle for mainstream attention. Longtime sports writer John Shea of the San Francisco Standard says the current World Cup buzz resembles the fleeting interest generated by the Olympics before Americans return to their sporting staples. That imbalance shapes the experience of players and fans alike. Bernardo Ramallo, who works with non-profit Soccer Without Borders says young soccer players have long endured jibes that the sport is ‘weak’ compared with American football.

Forget the confected World Cup hostility, the US and Australia mirror each other

Progressive Jewish group calls for more focus on the threat from the far right and the recognition of a diversity of views within the community

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Far-right extremism and the conflation of Jewish identity with Israel are the main drivers of antisemitism in Australia, the Jewish Council of Australia (JCA) says.

In its submission to the royal commission on antisemitism and social cohesion, the liberal Jewish group calls for more focus on the “often overlooked” threat from the far right, and recognition of the diversity of views within the Jewish community instead of the “tendency to treat Jews collectively as representatives of Israel”.

Equilibrium with Iran is the best America can do.

How to counter an insidious global threat.

The right time to refinance depends on a few factors, experts say, including your current mortgage loan rate.

HELOC and home equity rates have been on the move lately. Here's where those rates could head next.

Cuban lawmakers Thursday adopted nearly 200 historic free-market reforms aimed at rescuing the communist island from a severe crisis aggravated by a U.S. oil blockade.

At Summer Game Fest, the mechanics of the cozy horror game become more clear -- both in murder and in love.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: In May, the federal government announced without warning that it would take apart a network of ocean monitoring systems that it had spent over $350 million to build. No reason was given for the decision to shut down the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), but suspicion immediately focused on the network's role in tracking climate change. But the OOI also provides data that's useful for weather forecasting and fisheries management, leading to widespread opposition. Today, it appears that the opposition has won, as the government will announce that it's reversing the decision. The big remaining question is how much damage the OOI took during the intervening month. [...] The OOI is a federally supported resource that provides ocean data for use by academic researchers, government planners, and private companies. It consists of arrays of monitoring systems in several locations in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans that can track things like currents, salinity, chemical levels, temperatures, and tectonic activity. (There are over 100 individual entries on the page that display the data gathered by the system.) Obviously, there are many potential uses of that data. The fact that it has been gathered continuously for a decade means it can help track changes in how carbon dioxide and heat enter the oceans. This is probably what made it a target for the climate change denialists who helped set the Trump administration's policy. Those policymakers are perfectly happy to annoy people with environmental concerns, but they apparently neglected to consider how upset everyone else would be about losing access to the other data. The ensuing public backlash led the Senate on Wednesday to unanimously agree with a measure that would block the government from taking down the OOI. Today's decision may indicate that the administration recognized it had gotten itself into a fight it knew it was losing. The National Science Foundation formally announced the decision, stating: "effective immediately, [it] will not proceed with further removal or descoping of equipment from the remaining arrays and will continue operations including planned maintenance." The agency added that it "appreciates the concerns raised by the range of stakeholders that have informed us they rely on data" from the OOI. The NSF also said it would "issue a Dear Colleague Letter to collect input from stakeholders and convene an expert panel to assess observational needs, evaluate available data sources, consider responses ... and help the agency identify a sustainable path for NSF's ocean observing systems."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Why Should Delaware Care?
Delaware is finalizing its Fiscal Year 2027 budget, which hovers right around $7 billion. It’s an increase compared to the previous year as two of the state’s largest departments continue to grow. 

The Delaware Senate approved on Thursday a $6.99 billion operating budget for Fiscal Year 2027, which starts July 1 – exceeding a spending goal set by Gov. Matt Meyer earlier this year. 

The final budget proposal written by the General Assembly would increase spending by 6.32% over the current fiscal year. The governor had sought to keep spending growth below 5%, while the state’s independent financial analysts recommended growth of no more than 3.9%.

The ballooning amount of spending has become a major point of contention for some legislators, particularly

Lawmakers also approved $146.2 million for the annual supplemental budget, which is how the state funds one-time expenditures like equipment and technology purchases, pilot programs, and short-term projects.

The final operating budget adds $58.4 million to a previous version of the budget presented earlier this year by Gov. Matt Meyer. Both the supplemental and operating budgets require approval in the House of Representatives, and will likely be heard early next week, as lawmakers look to tie up the legislative year that ends June 30.

Delaware’s operational increases were relatively modest compared to previous years, but increases in education and health spending contributed to some of the largest spikes in this year’s budget. 

Delaware will spend $2.51 billion on public education, a 5.38% increase compared to FY 2026’s operating budget, with $100 million going to increase teachers’ salaries and $26 million allocation toward district operations.

The budget for Delaware’s Department of Health and Social Services, the state’s second largest department, will grow by 11.2% in 2027 following a $128 million increase in Medicaid spending. Spikes in Medicaid represent the first year Delaware has to reconcile with federal cuts to the program, as well as rising healthcare costs. 

What’s in the budget?

For Fiscal Year 2027, like other years, health and education spending are the largest budget items for the state. Both of the departments will consume more than 63% of the total operating budget in the coming year. 

Still, the state invested in multiple programs within its other agencies. One of the largest allocations includes pay raises for state employees and teachers, totalling more than $146 million.

Outside of the operating budget, Delaware spent an additional $100 million in its one-time supplemental bill to fund adjustments to its state education funding formula as it tries to reconcile an allocation method that has historically left smaller, poorer districts with inadequate funding.

The supplemental budget would allocate millions of dollars to multiple education initiatives across the state including SAT reform, operational support for Delaware State University, as well as funding for teacher projects. 

This year’s budget also marks a first for a new state agency, which was signed into law last summer. The Office of Inspector General, which is meant to be a government watchdog independent from other agencies, received its first budget appropriation of $1.4 million this year. 

The budget vote

During the Senate hearing, Sen. Trey Paradee (D-Dover), the top Senate lawmaker on the budget-writing Joint Finance Committee, said this year’s budget bill represents “thousands” of hours of work and said both healthcare and education were some of the key cost drivers.

He also expressed appreciation for the governor’s office and for delivering lawmakers a “really excellent” budget earlier this year. 

During his presentation, Paradee pointed to efforts by the state to save taxpayers money and bring down its overhead as spending continues to outpace revenues. He said the state eliminated 37 different positions that had sat vacant for multiple years and found $5 million in contractual savings.

Still, Senate Republicans pointed to the gap between spending and revenues, saying the state needs to work to lower recurring expenses. 

Sen. Eric Buckson (R-South Dover) pointed to progress made in this year’s budget to close the spending gap, and said lawmakers should continue to reconcile the difference so they don’t have to ask taxpayers for more money every year. 

Paradee agreed, adding that legislators passed “very few bills” with recurring expenses, and that dozens of bills may not pass this year because of their fiscal impacts. 

A spokesperson for Meyer’s office said they want to see the final budget passed in the House of Representatives before commenting on the governor’s position on whether he’d sign it.

In an interview after the hearing, Paradee said of all the budgets he’s worked on in eight years on the powerful Joint Finance Committee he’s “most proud” of this one.

He was optimistic about Delaware’s finances, pointing to its revered corporate franchise, as well as its low tax burden to constituents. But he also said that lawmakers have to continue making “smart investments” to keep the state stable. 

“It’s all very fragile, and, and we need to make sure that good decisions are made in this building,” he said.

The post Education, healthcare costs drive 2027 Delaware budget increases appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for June 19.

Vice-president says Israeli cabinet members shouldn’t attack the country’s ‘only powerful ally’ left; Iran says it will impose fees on strait of Hormuz – key US politics stories from Thursday 18 June

JD Vance has sharply rebuked Israeli government critics of the US deal with Iran, saying the cabinet members should remember that two-thirds of the defensive weapons that have protected Israel “have been built by American hands and paid for by American tax dollars”.

The US vice-president, asked about a report that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was fuming over the agreement, told reporters at the White House: “If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left ‌in the entire world.”

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He calls the situation a “win-win” for the US.

Vance is here, and he starts by claiming that Trump’s peace deal with Iran “is already bearing real fruits for the American people”, with 12.5m barrels going through the strait of Hormuz last night and gas prices dropping below $4 today for the first time since the conflict began.

The "Pink Planet," formally known as GJ504b, was discovered in 2013 and is technically not a planet but rather a "planetary-mass companion."

Attack brings to at least 211 number of people killed as Trump administration targets alleged ‘narcoterrorists’

The US military attacked a boat accused of smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Thursday, killing three people, as the Trump administration wages a months-long campaign against alleged traffickers in Latin America.

The latest attack brings the number of people the US military has killed in boat strikes to at least 211 since the Trump administration began targeting people it calls “narcoterrorists” in early September.

Carlos Mencia is accused of failing to report $8.7 million in income over a six-year period.

Still using Microsoft Office 2019 for MacOS and iOS? Your files may soon become read-only.

This meal kit service turned me into a confident cook.

Wealth tax criticized by billionaires and Gavin Newsom would levy a one-time 5% tax on residents worth over $1bn

A popular proposal in California to impose a wealth tax on billionaires has gained enough signatures to qualify for the ballot in November, state officials announced on Wednesday.

The news is set to intensify an already heated debate around the tax, which has pitted tech moguls and the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, against the labor union backing the measure.

Here are hints and the answer for today's Wordle for June 19, No. 1,826.

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for June 19, No. 1,104.

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for June 19, No. 634.

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for June 19, No. 838.

When the U.S.-Iran conflict began, President Trump laid out a litany of aggressive war aims. Here's what the president and his top aides said then — and how their views have changed.

If you're searching for an espresso machine for your dad this Father's Day, here are the best options, tested and reviewed by CNET editors.

Republican Senators Bill Cassidy, Thom Tillis, Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton have been critical of the 14-point memorandum of understanding signed on Wednesday.

In a sharp rebuke to critics of Trump’s deal with Iran, the vice-president referenced the billions in defence aid Israel recieves from the US

• News: Iran announces plans to bring in maritime fees for strait of Hormuz

• Analysis: Iran peace deal makes clear how far US has been forced to retreat since 2025

US vice-president JD Vance has lashed out at Israeli critics of the Iran deal, saying Donald Trump is Israel’s only ally left in the world, in a sharp rebuke that referenced the billions in defence aid ⁠the country receives from America.

Vance was defending the deal ⁠reached this week to end the war ​with Iran that critics in the US and Israel have slammed for failing to curb Iran’s missile program and providing no clear path to dismantling its nuclear facilities, while constraining Israel in its war with Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.

️ Updates from the opening round at Shinnecock Hills
️ Preview | Follow us on Instagram | Mail Matt

Good news! “Round 1 of the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills will resume at 9:05 a.m. ET.” So says the official tweet. That’s just over 15 minutes away.

Weather delay in the golf but they’re playing at the Oval. Should be the other way round surely?

⚽️ Kick-off time: 7pm local/9pm EDT/2am BST/11am AEST
⚽️ Player guide | Bracketology | Golden Boot | Mail Jonathan
⚽️ Jonathan Wilson: From frustration to party time: Mexico ready for lift-off

Lionel Messi began the World Cup with a brilliant hat-trick but concerns over his father’s health threaten to overshadow his participation.

Lionel Messi’s father is undergoing medical treatment for an undisclosed illness and his family asked the media for “humanity” on Thursday amid rumours about Jorge Messi’s health while his son competes at the World Cup. “Jorge is going through a health situation,” the Messi family said in a statement.

The family did not specify the illness that the 68-year-old Jorge Messi is suffering from. “He is currently under medical observation, recovering and progressing favourably within his current condition,” the statement said.

Mexico moved the ball upfield slower than any other team. They could afford to take their time as South Africa offered next to no threat.

South Korea were worthy winners, with the 25-pass buildup to Hwang In-beom’s equaliser the joint-fifth longest passing sequence leading to a goal in the World Cup since records begin in 1966.

Musical stars and retired politicians from less polarised era seeming antidote to cage fights on White House lawn

The Barack Obama presidential center opened in Chicago on Thursday after more than a decade in the making amid a musical fanfare and paeans to democratic principles that evoked a previous age, all while delivering an implied rebuke to Donald Trump.

Featuring appearances by a cast of musical stars and retired politicians from a less polarised era, it was a seemingly perfect antidote to the crass spectacle of cage fights on the White House lawn.

Shark's three-in-one ChillPill personal fan shines because of its three cooling attachments.

• Pulisic has been training individually all week

• US face Australia at 3pm ET in Seattle on Friday

• World Cup newsletter | Daily podcast | Download the app

US men’s national team head coach Mauricio Pochettino offered very little clarity on the injury status of playmaker Christian Pulisic on Thursday, casting further doubt on his availability before the Americans’ second World Cup group-stage match against Australia on Friday.

“I think as you know he was training individually all week,” Pochettino told reporters at his pre-match press conference. “Like always, I think tonight or the day before the game we have a meeting with our medical area, we will assess the whole group, and tomorrow we will communicate if we agree on something tonight. He is evolving, he is much better from Friday, we’ll see.”

Adobe is expanding its Firefly AI assistant into Premiere, Illustrator, InDesign, and Frame.io, where it can automate all sorts of tasks such as organizing clips, renaming assets, adding interview markers, rearranging layers, and finding missing fonts. It's available starting today as part of a public beta. TechCrunch reports: Adobe is slowly transforming Firefly to increasingly resemble Canva, at least when it comes to AI features, loading up the app with AI tools that can generate images, videos and storyboards. The company is now adding a new feature called Elements that can save AI-generated characters, objects and locations for later use. Firefly is also getting a Projects feature that can store existing assets in one place, and share context. This could be useful for teams creating a video series or brand campaigns. Both of these features are currently available in a private beta. The company said users can now describe a brand and its style, or upload existing collateral, in Firefly to have it generate a brand kit, complete with logos, brand identity and color palettes, or even generate product videos from photos. Users can also create storyboards to create videos.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Score one for effective e-waste recycling.

Officers arrest man on suspicion of attempted murder as child is treated in hospital for serious injuries

A man has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after a three-year-old boy ended up in a crocodile enclosure, Cambridgeshire police said.

The force said officers were called to Johnsons of Old Hurst zoo in Huntingdonshire at 1.24pm on Thursday over “reports of an incident involving a three-year-old boy, during which he ended up in the crocodile enclosure”.

In a ceremony at the White House, the president paid tribute to retired Marine Corps Maj. James Capers Jr., retired Army Maj. Nicholas Dockery and Marine Col. John W. Ripley, who died in 2008.

Legal team of alleged gunman, 28, reverses position on ‘extreme emotional disturbance’ defense after one day

In a stunning reversal, Luigi Mangione’s legal team said on Thursday they would no longer pursue a psychiatric defense in his upcoming state trial over the killing of the UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

Just one day earlier, Mangione’s lawyers told Judge Gregory Carro they would pursue a defense claiming the 28-year-old was suffering an “extreme emotional disturbance” at the time of Thompson’s killing on 4 December 2024.

Luigi Mangione's legal team says they withdrew a psychiatric defense​​ in his New York state murder trial one day after telling the court they would use it.

Several inches of rain expected in south-eastern US as forecasters expect storm to cause life-threatening flooding

Tropical Storm Arthur was downgraded from a cyclone to a low pressure area along the upper Texas coast as it made landfall and lost wind intensity on Thursday.

Forecasters still expect the storm to cause life-threatening flooding, property damage and disruptions to commerce and travel.

The Office of Legal Counsel opinion released Thursday said states aren't required by law to integrate mentally disabled patients with their peers by providing community or home-based care.

Judge’s order finds officials probably retaliated for Salah Sarsour’s advocacy for Palestinian rights

A federal judge has ordered the release of the president of Wisconsin’s largest mosque, after finding that immigration officials probably detained him in retaliation against his public advocacy for Palestinian rights, suppressing his first amendment rights in the process.

The US district judge James Patrick Hanlon’s order on Thursday marked a sharp rebuke against Trump officials, including the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who had tried to paint Salah Sarsour as a national security threat.

An ad by Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff says his Republican opponent, U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, revealed information about President Donald Trump and the Epstein files.

The ad said Collins covered for Trump and other powerful men when he voted against releasing the Epstein files, a cache of documents and recordings released by the federal government beginning in December 2025 from investigations of financier and deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Collins "even admitted Trump was in the files," the June 17 ad said.

Ossoff’s ad includes a clip of Collins saying: "Yeah, I’m sure he’s in there." 

The Collins audio was leaked in August 2025, when little was known about the files’ contents and speculation was rampant. Collins’ comments were recorded at an Aug. 13, 2025, campaign stop at a Muscogee County GOP meeting on the Tennessee border, and the media outlet Heartland Signal released the full exchange.

The ad gives the impression that Collins is saying Trump is in the files for nefarious reasons. Many powerful political and business people have been linked to files and stepped down or were fired from their jobs.  But the ad omits what Collins said next. Here are his comments in full:

Unidentified speaker: "…the Epstein files, do you think Trump’s in there?" 

Collins: "Yeah, I’m sure he’s in there. Because he was the one telling the FBI about it. He’s the one that kicked the guy out of Mar-a-Lago and then called the FBI. Yeah, yeah, he’s in there." 

As Epstein's crimes became public in 2006, Trump told a South Florida police chief that he was glad Epstein was being investigated and that "everyone" knew of his crimes, the Miami Herald reported that the chief said.

Collins later said in the conversation with at least one other person that he wanted the Epstein files to be made public: "Oh, we need to release them."

Ossoff’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Our ruling

An Ossoff ad says Collins "admitted" Trump was in the Epstein files.

Collins did speculate that Trump was in the files. But the ad omits that Collins said it’s logical Trump would be in there because he had flagged Epstein’s criminal behavior. Without this information, the ad gives the impression that Collins thinks Trump is in the files because of criminal behavior.  

The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. We rate it Mostly False.

The robotaxi company issues a recall on 3,871 vehicles that could make incorrect decisions while driving in highway construction zones.

California's proposed "billionaire tax" has gathered enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot, setting up a major fight between labor unions and some of Silicon Valley's richest figures. From the report: The California Billionaire Tax Act, colloquially known as the billionaire tax, would levy a one-time 5% tax on any California resident worth more than $1bn. The proposal is backed by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West as a means of funding California's strained healthcare and education programs. The proposal has become one of the state's biggest political flashpoints as it gained momentum throughout the year, with prominent billionaires, such as the Google co-founder Larry Page, making moves to cut ties with the state and Newsom vowing to block it from going to a vote. Although it has gained enough signatures for the ballot, the groups backing the measure have until June 25 to decide whether to move forward or potentially strike a deal with the state. While unions backing the group have framed the proposal as a way of getting the ultra-rich to pay their fair share, many of the state's tech elites have condemned the tax and spent millions attempting to crush it. The Google co-founder Sergey Brin has spent $82m alone on efforts to fight the tax, while joining other Silicon Valley billionaires in declaring he will leave California if it goes through. The Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel, crypto billionaire Chris Larsen and Ring founder James Siminoff are among the other tech moguls who have made huge political donations to groups opposing the tax. California has the most billionaires out of any state, many of whom have increased their wealth in recent years amid the AI boom.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Reports say Texas recruits ill from outbreak, which comes weeks after defense secretary made flu vaccine optional

An influenza outbreak has reportedly sickened more than 150 recruits in training at Lackland air force base in San Antonio, Texas.

The outbreak comes just weeks after the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, ended mandatory flu vaccination for the military, citing the need for bodily autonomy for servicemembers.

Dozens of service members at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas have fallen ill with the flu in the weeks since Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth rescinded the vaccine mandate, sources familiar confirmed to CBS News.

As US lifts its blockade, Tehran says fees to cover cost of managing waterway will come into effect at end of 60-day negotiation period

Iran has announced plans to introduce a system of maritime fees in the strait of Hormuz in two months, after the 60-day period of negotiation that has been triggered by the signing of the memorandum of understanding.

Tehran, claiming a historic victory over the US, said the strait was under its control and a European plan for a naval mission to escort ships though the strait would not be welcome. The US on Thursday lifted its blockade of Iran, and oil tankers began freely moving through the critical channel.

Five years after releasing the Amiga 1000, Commodore was about to launch the Amiga 3000, their first real high-end Amiga. With a 68030 processor, on-board SCSI and a slightly updated graphics chipset, all in a sleek desktop case, the Amiga was truly ready for the era of professional 32-bit computing. But Moore’s law wasn’t the only thing thad had been pressuring Commodore since the release of the Amiga 1000: The desktop metaphor had matured even further, and the competition had been hard at work. IBM had launched OS/2, Windows 3.0 had turned Microsoft’s offering from a proof of concept into something actually usable, and new players had entered the scene – among them NeXTStep, with its polished 3D look.

It was time to bring AmigaOS, too, into the 1990s.

↫ Carl Svensson

It’s interesting – there’s a lot of focus on the first version of the Amiga operating system and the third one, but you don’t hear a lot about AmigaOS 2.x. It turns out this is rather odd, because as Svensson details, this version came with an absolute ton of changes and improvements, from an entirely new widget toolkit to a brand new file system, and so much more. The new widget toolkit and accompanying style guide also ensured that the operating system looked, felt, and behaved consistently.

Remember when we cared about that?

There’s so much more cool features, though, like command history, line editing, universal clipboard support and more just for the CLI, as well as something called Commodities. These were tiny little programs managed from a central location, which didn’t even need a GUI to work. Commodities included by default were things like ClickToFront, a focus-follows-mouse option, and more. Oh and of course, BASIC was replaced by ARexx.

The list just keeps going, and you should really read Svensson’s article.

Even with an open-ended viral prompt, the chatbot "immediately went to the darkest pits of humanity."

Building on the Pilot edition of the BSC AI Factory Acceleration Programme, this initiative now expands to give BSC AI Factory startups direct access to the NVIDIA ecosystem, with Pier07 in Barcelona as the physical hub where these teams and startups will collaborate

June 18, 2026 — The BSC AI Factory, the European high-performance AI infrastructure powered by the Barcelona Supercomputing Center – Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS), today announces a broader initiative with NVIDIA aimed at maximizing the impact of its services for startups, SMEs, and public sector organizations, following the BSC AI Factory’s mission to democratize access to AI tools and HPC across Spain and Europe.

The initiative spans multiple areas of activity and is designed to deliver a more comprehensive, higher-value experience for all the customers of the BSC AI Factory, from advanced technical training to business mentoring and startup acceleration.

A Multi-Dimensional Cooperation Effort in Service of the AI Ecosystem

These are the key areas where this joint activity will start to take shape:

• Bi-directional Startup Referral Channel: An active referral channel from the BSC AI Factory to the NVIDIA Inception program, that supports early-stage AI startups with technological resources, expert access and global visibility. On the other way around, NVIDIA’s extensive network of startups, SMEs, and ISVs will gain access to BSC AI Factory services, including high-performance computing (HPC) infrastructure, AI development tools, training and expert support, upon eligibility and compliance with the general terms and conditions of the BSC AI Factory, accelerating BSC AIF adoption by the startup community.
• Access to Frontier AI Models: The BSC AI Factory will make high-performance AI models available to startups, SMEs and public sector entities that require them, facilitating the development and deployment of AI-powered solutions across their processes and products.
• Mentoring: BSC AI Factory startups will have the opportunity to work side-by-side with NVIDIA mentors, provided through the Open Hackathon program to accelerate and optimize their AI and HPC workloads, and advance their development roadmap closer to production
• AI Engineering: Direct channel to NVAITC, NVIDIA’s applied research arm, enabling collaborative technical engagement with NVIDIA and BSC AI engineers and scientists on advanced AI projects developed within the BSC AI Factory ecosystem.

As the BSC AI Factory and NVIDIA initiative deepens, so will the value delivered to BSC AI Factory customers.

The BSC AI Factory Acceleration Programme Pilot Initiative: 15 Startups, Two Months of Transformation

The Pilot edition of the BSC AI Factory Acceleration Programme is the foundation on which this broader initiative with NVIDIA has been built. Organized by the Barcelona Supercomputing Center with the cooperation of NVIDIA, AWS and SeedRocket, and the support of ACCIÓ, Cuatrecasas and Tech Barcelona, this first edition has shaped the joint working model the two organizations are now scaling across the BSC AI Factory Services.

This Programme is supporting 15 startups over more than two months through an intensive, multidisciplinary programme. As a key partner, NVIDIA will provide Business and Technical Excellence by leveraging expertise from NVIDIA Inception, NVIDIA Technology Center (NVAITC), NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute and the Open Hackathon program.

Selected startups will receive after eligibility and compliance with the general terms and conditions of the BSC AI Factory:

• High-level technical training, including access to NVIDIA and BSC AI Factory training resources and certifications.
• Specialized technical support for the development and optimisation of their AI solutions on supercomputing infrastructure plus continuous technical mentorship alongside the 2 months program.
• Business and strategy mentoring, with the support of experts in entrepreneurship, startup scaling and internationalization.

The program will conclude with a DemoDay on July 23 at Pier07, Tech Barcelona, where participating startups will showcase their progress and projects to investors, corporations, media and key actors from the Catalan, Spanish and European tech ecosystem.

Cristian Canton, BSC Associate Director, commented: “Europe’s AI future depends on equipping startups, SMEs and public bodies with the infrastructure, talent, and support networks they need to compete at a global level. This initiative with NVIDIA, AWS and SeedRocket means combining world-class supercomputing capabilities with one of the most powerful ecosystems in the industry and placing that combination at the service of the innovators building the next generation of AI solutions in Europe. ”

Howard Wright, NVIDIA Senior Startups VP, said: “Startups are critical to turning AI breakthroughs into real-world impact,” said Howard Wright, vice president of Startup Ecosystem at NVIDIA. “Through our collaboration with the Barcelona Supercomputing Center and the BSC AI Factory, we’re helping give Europe’s startups access to the AI expertise, technical resources and high-performance computing infrastructure they need to accelerate innovation, scale their solutions and strengthen the region’s AI ecosystem.”

About BSC AI Factory

The BSC AI Factory is Spain’s high-performance artificial intelligence platform, selected and co-funded by the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, and powered by the Barcelona Supercomputing Center – National Supercomputing Centre (BSC-CNS). Conceived as a one-stop-shop for access to AI in Spain and Europe, the BSC AI Factory provides startups, SMEs, researchers and public sector organisations with the supercomputing infrastructure, AI models, training services and expert support needed to develop, scale and deploy artificial intelligence solutions in a sovereign, ethical and competitive way.

The BSC AI Factory is headquartered at Pier07, Tech Barcelona, the epicenter of Barcelona’s technology and innovation ecosystem, and operates in close collaboration with the Catalan, Spanish and European academic, institutional and business communities.

Source: BSC-CNS

The post BSC AI Factory and NVIDIA Collaborate to Accelerate AI Adoption for Startups appeared first on HPCwire.

Labour’s Greater Manchester mayor predicted to beat Reform but Keir Starmer is unlikely to easily step aside

• Makerfield byelection – latest updates

Polls have closed in Makerfield, Aberdeen South, and Arbroath and Broughty Ferry, with the result in the north-west of England constituency byelection poised to decide the future of UK politics.

The population of Makerfield, a constituency sitting just outside Wigan, has found itself at the centre of the British political world in recent weeks after Andy Burnham quit as mayor of Greater Manchester to contest the seat that he hoped would lead him not only to Westminster, but to the front door of 10 Downing Street.

Midjourney is expanding beyond AI image generation with plans for a medical-imaging business built around a water-based, full-body ultrasound scanner that uses hundreds of thousands of sensors and AI to reconstruct MRI-like images. "As you descend into the water, hundreds of thousands of tiny elements take turns, sending out waves, listening together, compressing and then streaming data to a massive cluster where thousands of computers split the task," Midjourney explained in the announcement. "By looking at how the shapes of all the waves change, we reconstruct a detailed map or 'image' which basically lets us figure out what's in there." The company hopes to open a San Francisco scanning "spa" in late 2027, with 50,000 or more deployed around the world by 2031. The Register reports: It's not clear how fast the process is with the prototype unit, but Midjourney said its goal is for the whole thing to take around a minute. "We think it's completely possible that with enough early imaging in the future, the world could avoid 30% of all deaths and 50% of all healthcare costs," the company added. According to a "technical" video included in the announcement, there's a ring of 40 scanners included in the prototype unit the company has built. That ring of 40 elements contains 358,000 ultrasonic elements made up of tiny transducers that create ultrasound waves in water while listening for how they change when they slap the body of whoever is in Midjourney's dunk tank up to a thousand times a second. [...] Midjourney said that it's planning to open its first ultrasound scanner spa at the end of 2027, but it has another hurdle to jump: FDA approval. Beyond improving its tech so that the second-generation scanner is ready for its 2027 spa date, "regulation is the next limit," the company said. "Normally, for every diagnostic medical capability you need FDA approval," Midjourney explained. "We're starting by just giving you detailed body composition maps -- and we'll be submitting regular test results to the FDA for increased capabilities." Midjourney also fails to mention how it will store and secure those scans, whether it will use said scans to train its body composition-detection algorithms, and how it's ensuring those algorithms get things right that it usually take a human a few years of education and training to learn.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Labour mayor giving advisory roles to ex-Bank of England economist and others seen as attempt to reassure markets

• Makerfield byelection – latest updates

Three economic heavyweights have been brought in to advise Andy Burnham as he attempts to reassure the markets before his possible return to parliament on Friday and challenge to Keir Starmer.

Burnham is understood to be getting advice from Andy Haldane, a former Bank of England chief economist, as well as Richard Hughes, a former chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility and Jim O’Neill, a crossbench peer and former Treasury minister who worked on George Osborne’s “Northern Powerhouse”.

Interior department insists water at Washington landmark is ‘crystal clear’ as witnesses report murky green pool

US federal government workers continue to take on the green hue that has swept across Washington’s reflecting pool, an increasingly fiendish battle the Trump administration compared to its war with Iran.

After Donald Trump ordered a $14.2m refurbishment to turn the monument “American Flag blue” in time for the country’s 250th birthday celebrations, the administration encountered a formidable foe: algae.

Discovery isn’t slated to go online until 2028. But the Department of Energy is already lining up applications to run on the exascale machine, which will be the successor to Frontier at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and a key asset of the Genesis Mission and its goal to accelerate science and engineering through AI.

The DOE announced Discovery and another supercomputer called Lux last October, just before the Genesis Mission was unveiled by the White House. Discovery will be based on HPE Cray’s new GX5000 platform and will be powered by AMD’s new “Venice” EPYC CPUs and upcoming AMD Instinct MI430X GPUs. The water-cooled system will utilize the HPE Slingshot interconnect, the Cray K3000 storage system, and utilize the new Distributed Asynchronous Object Storage (DAOS) parallel file system as well as Lustre.

Development of the system is ongoing, but scientists are already champing at the bit to get access to the new super. Today, the DOE announced the first nine projects that will be developed through the Discovery Center for Accelerated Application Readiness (CAAR), a program at ORNL’s Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF).

“Our goal is to develop a suite of leadership-class computing applications that are ready to run science campaigns on day one,” Reuben Budiardja, CAAR programming lead and group leader for ORNL’s Advanced Computing for Nuclear, Particle, and Astrophysics Group, said in a press release. “We want to demonstrate Discovery’s full potential from the very moment it becomes available to users.”

Here are the first nine applications that will be running on Discovery as part of the CAAR project, as described by ORNL and the Discovery CARR team:

GlennHT

Large eddy simulations (LES) are being used to evaluate flows in gas turbine engines and to capture the effects of turbulence, secondary flows, and film cooling flows on performance and component temperatures. They offer better accuracy than standard Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes simulation, but it’s still rather computationally expensive.

This program, which is being led by Kenji Miki of NASA, is targeted at enabling NASA’s GlennHT solver to run on Discovery and take advantage of its AMD GPUs, thereby enabling NASA to “perform routine LES for turbomachinery at unprecedented scale and complexity.”

GIZMO

We know some things about dark matter, but many aspects of dark matter remain a mystery. The purpose of GIZMO, which is being led by Philip Hopkins of the California Institute of Technology, is to model cosmological physics across the full range of elements, from the cosmic web down to supermassive black holes.

Specifically, the project will utilize the massive computational power of Discovery to build a larger, more detailed simulations with richer physics, as well as testing GIZMO’s ability to link small, fast effects, like jets and accretion flows, to large cosmic structures.

QMCPACK

Gaining better understanding of how quantum materials behave, including magnetism and conductivity, could enable the creation of new technologies, such as new materials and quantum computing. However, current modeling and simulation is limited by the amount of computational power available to it.

The goal with QMCPACK, with is being led by principal investigator Paul Kent of ORNL, is to unleash the power of Discovery to run more accurate, larger, and faster simulations. The hope is that Discovery will also allow QMCPACK to test new ideas, benchmark other methods, and deliver results that can accelerate the development of new technologies such as quantum computing and new materials formulations with fewer critical elements.

QUDA_LAPH

Quantum chromodynamics (QCD) is the fundamental theory of the strong force that binds quarks to form subatomic particles. The theory is needed to explain phenomena, including how protons and neutrons interact.

Scientists attempting to model QCD interactions have been limited in part because of the huge computing power required to calculate quantum masses with any degree of accuracy. However, with QUDA_LAPH, which is headed by Principal Investigator Andre Walker-Loud of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the hope is that Discover will enable scientist to run larger simulations with far fewer approximations.

ALF

Discover will also assist with the Active Learning Framework (ALF), a project that helps scientists run atomistic simulations, which is useful in a variety of fields. Getting accurate simulations requires precise calculation of total energy and atomic forces. One useful technique for atomistic simulations is called machine learning interatomic potentials (MLIPs), which bridges classical force fields and quantum mechanical (QM) methods. However MLIPs requires large, high-quality QM training datasets.

The hope with this project, which is overseen by Richard Messerly of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is that Discover will speed up ALF’s entire workflow, including selecting data, running QM calculations, and training models, enabling scientists to build MLIPs faster using smaller, more manageable datasets.

S3D-Regent

Next-generation flex-fuel gas turbines could help with the energy crunch, but the amount of nitrogen oxides pollutants they generate is not well understood. The goal with S3D-Regent is to build a better model to simulate the turbulent flame mixing and complex chemistry that takes place inside the turbine.

Specifically, this project, which is being led by Jacqueline Chen of Sandia National Laboratories, will utilize the massive computational power of Discovery to run direct numerical simulations at both the large-scale turbulence and small-scale instabilities, thereby capturing extreme turbulence and detailed chemistry, leading to cleaner, safer, and more efficient turbines.

GENESIS

The advent of open-fan engines holds the possibility of reducing fuel consumption for planes by 20%. However, detailed simulations that examine airflow around the engine and the entire aircraft are so demanding that no current supercomputers can run them.

General Electric is seeking to run such a simulation on Discovery. The project, which is led by Principal Investigator Eduardo Jourdan de Araujo Jorge Filho of GE Aerospace Research, will integrate machine learning and AI models with a state-of-the-art LES solver. The goal is to track trillions of variables over billions of time steps to capture the full complexity of turbulence, potentially paving the way for new planes based on open-fan engines.

PIConGPU

Fusion energy holds the potential to provide nearly unlimited amounts of clean energy, but there remain major technical obstacles along the way. One of those obstacles is figuring out what is the optimal design for fusion reactors, including materials and geometries for advanced nanostructured targets, one promising technique for laser-driven fusion reactors.

The goal with PIConGPU project–which is headed up by Principal Investigator Sunita Chandrasekaran of the University of Delaware and also includes Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf research laboratory in Dresden, Germany–is to use the unprecedented horsepower of Discovery, along with AI optimizations, to perform high-fidelity simulations to identify the most effective target designs faster and with fewer simulations.

SPARC

Converting methane into methanol is a longstanding goal in the energy industry, but serious chemical engineering barriers exist that have thus far prevented a path from being discovered. The challenge is that scientist don’t fully understand the exact copper-oxygen structure inside the copper-zeolite catalysts that facilitate the carbon-hydrogen bond activation. Experimental results don’t aling with density functional theory (DFT) calculations.

The goal with SPARC, which is headed by Principal Investigator Phanish Suryanarayana of the Georgia Institute of Technology, is to run many-body random phase approximation calculations, which are more accurate than typical DFT approaches, thereby delivering more reliable benchmark reaction energies and activation barriers and pointing the way to truly stable and catalytically active sites.

The post Genesis Application: Here Are the First Nine Programs Slated for ORNL’s New Discovery Supercomputer appeared first on HPCwire.

More than 500 guests gathered at the Obama Presidential Center along the Lake Michigan shoreline in the city that launched Barack Obama’s trajectory to the White House as the country’s first Black president.

Pennrose and JPMorganChase help neighborhoods – and residents – thrive.

Finding an affordable place to live continues to be a challenge for many as widespread housing shortages persist across the U.S. Rising home prices and high interest rates have made homeownership inaccessible for a large portion of the population. Meanwhile, as rental demand increases, the number of renters facing affordability challenges is also on the rise.

The State of the Nation’s Housing 2025 by Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies reveals that cost burdens for renters reached another record high in 2023. Similarly, the JPMorganChase Institute reports that renter affordability is declining and forcing people to devote more of their take-home pay to housing costs. There is a growing need for affordable housing across the U.S., and that rings true here in Wilmington.

To close that gap, it’s essential that all Wilmington residents share in its growth with housing options that accommodate a range of needs and budgets. For the Pennrose real estate firm, this meant delivering a concrete solution to the local community, resulting in housing for individuals and families who otherwise might not have been able to live in the area. 

Reinvesting in Wilmington’s Riverside 

In Wilmington, the Riverside redevelopment initiative is focused on neighborhood stability at a scale that can be felt across generations – bringing housing, education and community resources together so families can remain rooted and move forward. Imani Village, developed by Pennrose in partnership with the Wilmington Housing Authority and nonprofit community organization REACH Riverside and constructed with support from JPMorganChase, is part of this broader effort, which is expected to create more than 600 high-quality, mixed-income homes while also enhancing and expanding EastSide Charter School and Kingswood Community Center to help establish a “cradle to college/career readiness education pipeline.” 

By tying new housing to strengthened local institutions, the redevelopment aims to reduce the pressure that forces families to relocate and instead keep children closer to school, neighbors closer to one another and residents connected to the services that help them thrive. In practical terms, Imani Village represents not just additional homes, but a commitment to building a neighborhood where opportunity is easier to access and easier to keep. 

“We’re proud of the far-reaching impact this project will have. It reflects Pennrose’s mission to uplift our communities and expand the supply of high-quality, affordable homes,” said Brett Macleod, Community Development Banking, J.P. Morgan. “Every additional housing unit matters – and increasing the number that are affordable is critical.”

A broader commitment to Wilmington’s future

While Imani Village is foundational, the vibrancy of a community depends on much more. In Delaware, the firm provides banking services to 215,000 customers and works across sectors to expand economic opportunity. Over the last five years, JPMorganChase has invested more than $25 million in local nonprofit organizations, supported 25,000 small business clients and delivered financial health education to thousands of residents to broaden access to banking, financial health resources, homeownership and other wealth-building tools.

“As we work with local stakeholders to expand housing options, JPMorganChase’s goal is to create inclusive economic opportunity for all,” said Don Mell, Location Management, Americas East Region Lead and member of the Delaware & Philadelphia Market Leadership Team at JPMorganChase. “When our communities thrive, we all thrive.”

Learn more about affordable housing and community development at jpmorgan.com/commercial-real-estate.

The post From blueprint to breakthrough: Tackling affordable housing in Wilmington  appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

Musicians and production team understood to be facing same punishment after livestream of patriotic song

The Iranian singer Parastoo Ahmadi and eight members of a production team, including musicians, have been reportedly sentenced to 74 lashes for performing in a concert livestreamed on Ahmadi’s YouTube channel in 2024.

According to court documents, the criminal court of Qom province sentenced the artists to flogging, a two-year ban on leaving the country and a two-year ban on engaging in artistic activities on charges that include offending public decency through the production and publication of “vulgar and immoral content” online.

June 18, 2026 — At VivaTech, AI Factory France (AI2F), led by GENCI, announced the launch of a program—unprecedented in Europe—to accelerate AI innovation in France in partnership with NVIDIA. This initiative, initially announced during the Adopt AI Summit in Paris in November 2025, is now entering an operational phase by providing startups and small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) with streamlined access to cutting-edge computing infrastructure and specialized AI services to accelerate their development and readiness for market entry.

The program bridges NVIDIA’s global innovation ecosystem with France’s national and European AI resources. NVIDIA Inception members conducting open research with R&D based in Europe can now freely leverage French and European NVIDIA AI supercomputers alongside a comprehensive suite of services including data and software services, training programs, expert support and co-development opportunities to accelerate the development, deployment, and adoption of artificial intelligence across a diversity of sectors.

Early access to this program has already benefited several startups including Pleias, Nebula and Ryax Technologies to accelerate their roadmap. “What makes this program meaningful for a startup like Pleias is that it goes well beyond compute. The combination of infrastructure, tools, engineering environments, and the direct support of NVIDIA’s solution architects is what created the foundation for transforming a compute grant on Jean Zay into Nemotron-Personas-France and Nemotron-Personas-Belgium. For European startups building open AI Software infrastructure, that kind of end- to-end support is the difference between access and acceleration, ” said Anastasia Stasenko, Pleias CEO.

This pioneering collaboration underscores France’s leadership and driving role in shaping the European AI Continent. This announcement will be followed swiftly by another European AI Factory’s enrollment in the program under the same model, marking its first European-scale expansion. “Building on our long-standing partnership with NVIDIA and the many successes we have supported across our startup and SME community, this joint program will nurture our ecosystem and accelerate the momentum towards broader AI-driven innovation and transformation.” Cédric Auliac, AI Program Manager at GENCI and Coordinator of AI Factory France.

“France has a strong foundation for the next wave of AI innovation — world-class research, ambitious startups and SMEs, and a growing open ecosystem,” said Howard Wright, vice president of Startup Ecosystem at NVIDIA. “Through this collaboration with GENCI and AI Factory France, NVIDIA Inception is helping connect entrepreneurs with the accelerated computing infrastructure, technical expertise and startup support they need to move faster from experimentation to deployment and bring real-world AI innovation to market across France and Europe.”

About AI Factory France (AI2F)

AI Factory France is a European-scale platform co-funded by the French government and the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking. It sets a one stop shop providing public and private actors with the computing resources and related services (training, mentoring, technical support) they need to accelerate their research on AI development and deployment. Led by GENCI, it brings together a consortium of 16 prestigious partners including large research organizations (Inria, CNRS, CEA, AMIAD), French Universities and innovation partners, fostering AI adoption among 12 verticals including Health, Materials Science, Robotics, Defense & Cybersecurity, Finance, Earth Science or Aerospace.

Source: GENCI

The post NVIDIA and GENCI Expand Access to AI Compute Through AI Factory France appeared first on HPCwire.

The dating app company Match Group asked 1,000 singles about AI and dating. Some things are fine. Some are deal-breakers.

The New York Knicks went up New York City's famous Canyon of Heroes for a massive ticker-tape parade celebrating the 2026 NBA champions.

The Obama Presidential Center's grand opening ceremony featured a lineup of tributes from his family and closest colleagues, and musical performances by Bruce Springsteen, The Roots and more.

US president says he encourages Middle East countries to ‘maintain commitment to allowing our negotiations to beautifully unfold’

• Reaction: Donald Trump’s Iran deal met with anger, relief and incredulity

• Analysis: Trump’s Iran deal is result of unrealistic ambitions for an untenable war

Donald Trump had urged Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “stop blowing up buildings” during a phone call about Israel’s military campaign in Lebanon, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

The newspaper cited sources who overheard the phone conversation between the two leaders, whose relationship has grown increasingly hostile as the war raged on.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: As artificial intelligence companies reshape the economy and race toward trillion-dollar valuations, Sen. Bernie Sanders is proposing a sweeping transfer of wealth and power from the industry to the American public. The legislation, shown first to The Associated Press, would create a sovereign wealth fund overseen by an independent commission and financed through a one-time 50% tax on the stock of the largest AI companies. Sanders estimates that the tax would create a nearly $7 trillion fund that would generate hundreds of billions of dollars annually in direct payments to Americans and programs such as health care, education and housing. [...] The 50% tax would apply to AI companies that reach $200 million in annual AI sales. Any new AI company that reaches that benchmark would also be subject to the tax. It would create a sovereign wealth fund -- similar to those used by countries around the world and some U.S. states -- that Sanders estimates would be worth around $7 trillion. Unlike a traditional tax, the proposal would require companies to transfer stock rather than cash, effectively making the American public a major shareholder in the country's largest AI firms. A seven-person independent commission -- nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate -- would manage the fund and use its voting shares "to block decisions that hurt the American people and to push for policies that help them," the bill summary says. Sanders proposes that a 5% annual dividend from the fund would provide direct payments of more than $1,000 to every American. If companies grow, the gains would be used for public goods such as education, housing and health care. Sanders argues taxpayers would not bear the losses if AI company valuations decline. "We're not going to lose any money, even if there is a bust in the bubble," Sanders said. The commission would be directed to "to block decisions that hurt the American people and to push for policies that help them," according to the summary. "The benefits cannot simply go to the handful of wealthy corporations. They will be shared by the American people," the independent Vermont senator said in an interview Wednesday. "The public has got to have a significant seat at the table to make sure that terrible things do not happen to ordinary people, and that in fact, AI benefits ordinary people, not hurts them," Sanders said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

After Mauricio Pochettino’s passionate half-time speech last October, the USA shaped up and started on the path to a rematch against the Australians in Seattle

Haji Wright’s finish was cool, but Mauricio Pochettino’s reaction was cooler. It was the 35th minute of the US men’s national team’s friendly against Australia last October, and the Coventry City striker had just equalized after Jordan Bos put the Socceroos up earlier in the half. Wright celebrated by walking calmly away, while his coach had a blank expression on the sideline.

Pochettino’s mind may have been on Australia’s aggressive approach, including one challenge that forced Christian Pulisic out of the match midway through the first half. Or he may have been focused on his team’s reaction.

Drivers feel some relief but prices still a dollar more per gallon overall since before US-Israel attack on Iran

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The average price of US gasoline fell to just under $4 a gallon on Thursday for the first time since March, following the announcement of a preliminary agreement between the US and Iran to end the war and reopen the strait of Hormuz.

The development has provided some relief to drivers who have seen soaring costs amid Washington’s war with Iran. But filling up still remains more expensive than it was before the conflict began.

MP for Tewkesbury understood to have been arrested by Gloucestershire police on Wednesday night

A Liberal Democrat MP has had the whip and membership of the party suspended after he became the subject of a police investigation.

Cameron Thomas, the MP for Tewkesbury, was arrested by Gloucestershire police on Wednesday night, it is understood.

If you're F1-curious, this is a great chance to start your engines.

Not every savings account is favorable in today's high-rate climate. Here's one you should specifically avoid now.

Kenyan McDuffie said he called Janeese Lewis George "to congratulate her on her victory and wish her success as she prepares for the general election."

Move to dismantle $368m sea observatory initiative faced opposition from experts and lawmakers

The Donald Trump administration has reversed its decision to dismantle a $368m deep-sea observation system following an outcry from lawmakers and ocean experts.

On Thursday, the National Science Foundation announced that it would halt plans to dismantle the Ocean Observatories Initiative, stating: “effective immediately, [it] will not proceed with further removal or descoping of equipment from the remaining arrays and will continue operations including planned maintenance”.

Hundreds of thousands of fans packed lower Manhattan after team’s historic NBA championship win

Former first lady Michelle Obama delivered a loving and heartfelt tribute to her husband at the Obama Presidential Center's grand opening ceremony in Chicago Thursday.

City councillor who ran on expanding childcare, education and housing slated for office after opponent concedes

Democratic socialist Janeese Lewis George is slated to be the next mayor of Washington DC after her opponent conceded on Thursday.

Lewis George, a city council member, ran on a platform of expanding childcare, education and housing, and revoking the district’s cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.

Apple is allowing iPhone developers in Brazil to distribute apps through authorized alternative marketplaces and use third-party payment systems following action by the country's competition regulator. "In other words, developers in Brazil will be able to circumvent the App Store and Apple's in-app purchase system, but there are still fees," reports MacRumors. Apple will collect commissions ranging from 5% on externally distributed apps to as much as 26% for some App Store transactions using its payment system. From the report: Alternative app marketplaces will have to be authorized by Apple and will need to meet ongoing requirements. For apps that are still distributed through the App Store, developers will be able to include an alternative payment processing method in their app and/or link users to a website to complete a transaction. These changes are available on iOS 26.5 and later, and they are the result of regulatory action from Brazil's competition regulator. Apple has added a new page on its website with additional details for developers in Brazil. Apple said these changes introduce privacy and security risks for users, including children. The company has introduced safeguards to mitigate these risks, including a notarization process for iOS apps, an authorization process for app marketplaces, and limitations on external links and alternative payments for users under the age of 18. Apple has already allowed alternative app stores and/or third-party payment systems on iOS in the EU, Japan, and South Korea, and it will likely be forced to do so in the UK and Australia too, due to similar regulations in those countries.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr. of New Jersey will return to Congress on June 30, his spokesperson said, after being away since March in an unexplained absence that has confounded Capitol Hill.

Number of people infected now tops 1,000 though health officials say the global risk remains low

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will tap $107m in emergency funding for Ebola outbreak response in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda, officials said on Thursday.

The continued Ebola outbreak in the DRC comes as Canada, Mexico and the US jointly host the Fifa World Cup, attracting visitors from around the world. The officials said the outbreak, now the third largest on record, required “strong immediate support”, but that the global risk remained low.

The Fed held rates steady again this week, but a few borrowing options are still cheaper than you may expect.

Supermodel ‘completely abdicated’ her trustee responsibilities at Fashion for Relief, Charity Commission tells hearing

Naomi Campbell showed herself to be unfit to run a charity after the supermodel “completely abdicated” her responsibilities as a trustee of her now defunct Fashion for Relief project, according to the charity watchdog.

The Charity Commission told a tribunal that Campbell, who is trying to overturn a five-year ban on running a charity, was “highly culpable” for mismanagement and misuse of funds at Fashion for Relief, the former charity she founded in 2015.

The tech was developed at University of California, Berkeley, and it's currently still in the testing phase.

The memorandum of understanding requires numerous steps by Washington including lifting sanctions and freeing billions in frozen assets, while Iran was required only to open the Strait of Hormuz.

BBC says vetting process ‘clearly failed’ after Guardian reveals presenter’s past comments about women

Warning: this article contains sexually explicit, offensive language

The BBC has pulled a documentary series with its controversial presenter Ashley Cain after revelations over his history of abusive and misogynistic comments about women.

In a statement late on Thursday, the BBC said its vetting requirements had “clearly failed” in the case of Cain, who was lauded by executives at the corporation for his ability to connect with young men. It added the BBC had “no plans” to broadcast a new series of Ashley Cain: Into the Danger Zone, a BBC programme that was filmed earlier this year at various locations across the world.

• York Revolution were celebrating Pride Night

• MLB players have also pushed back on Pride

A professional baseball team has chosen to forfeit a game after some of its players refused to participate in the club’s Pride Night.

York Revolution had arranged for players to wear uniforms with rainbow sleeves during their game against the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs on Thursday as part of the team’s 11th annual Pride Night. However, the Revolution said several players had refused to wear the jerseys and the club cancelled the game. The team instead made the night “a free and fun celebration of recognition and inclusion”.

Daryl McLune was 16 when he was held for 23 hours on suspicion of attempting to murder his mother after she tried to take her own life

A teenager who was wrongly arrested for the attempted murder of his mother minutes after she had tried to kill herself has won a race discrimination claim against the Metropolitan police.

A jury found that the Met discriminated against Daryl McLune, who was 16 at the time, because he was black.

US defence secretary addresses allies in latest attempt to get Europe to raise military budgets

Pete Hegseth has announced a review of the US military presence across Europe, in a combative address to Nato allies where he threatened to cut force numbers in countries spending the least on defence.

The US defence secretary, speaking at a meeting of Nato defence ministers in Brussels, accused some countries of “free riding” and others of being shameful for not allowing their airbases to be used by US jets bombing Iran in the spring.

PALO ALTO, Calif., June 18, 2026 — Architect Labs, a foundational lab to accelerate custom silicon development, emerged from stealth today with $24 million in seed funding. The round was led by Kindred Ventures, with participation from TQ Ventures, Race Capital, Together Fund, and key figures in modern computing and AI, including Srinivas Narayanan, Lukasz Kaiser, Aravind Srinivas, Kunle Olukotun, Trevor Blackwell, Dr. Alex Wissner-Gross, Shaad Khan and other executives from NVIDIA, Google, OpenAI, and more. Kindred founder and managing partner Steve Jang joined Architect Labs’ board.

Architect Labs was founded by Ebrahim Hussain and Aaditya Subedi (pictured left to right).

The World Needs More Chip Designs Than Can Be Produced Today

The rapid growth of AI has fundamentally changed the economics of hardware infrastructure. Computing has shifted from a basic GPU-CPU-memory configuration into massive, scalable, integrated environments built around custom silicon. General-purpose hardware can no longer keep up with AI’s complex demands for specialized compute, advanced networking, and high-speed connections. This trend isn’t just limited to datacenters; it’s expanding into robotics, autonomous systems, spatial computing, defense, personal devices, and wearables.

Yet designing a chip remains one of the most gated efforts in technology: years of development, hundreds of millions in investment, and a shrinking pool of experts concentrated in a few companies.

Architect Labs is building the AI system to design custom chips and full-stack silicon solutions for organizations pushing beyond the limits of off-the-shelf hardware. Architect Labs partners with companies, AI labs, and nations to turn demanding workloads into purpose-built chips, dramatically accelerating the chip development timelines.

Two decades ago, the fabless model let companies design chips without owning a fab. TSMC made world-class manufacturing available to anyone with a chip design. Architect Labs will do the same for design itself: make world-class chip design available to anyone with a workload. The company calls this the designless semiconductor industry, a world where organizations no longer have to become chip companies, make decade-long bets on an architecture, or carry the risk of a failed tape-out just to get the silicon their workload demands.

“AI models have advanced dramatically across nearly every field, yet chip development cycles remain equally slow and painful,” said Ebrahim Hussain, co-founder of Architect Labs. “Unlocking AI-first semiconductor design requires a first-principles rethink of the entire design process, not forcing AI agents into workflows that were never built for them.”

Closing the Loop Between Hardware and AI

Over time, the company plans to extend its partnership and the capabilities of its AI system across the full computing stack, from silicon to co-designing compilers, runtimes, system software, and eventually co-optimizing the AI models themselves. When chip design moves closer to the pace of software, models, architectures, and silicon can be truly co-optimized together. Hardware stops being a constraint that AI must work around and becomes part of the iteration loop itself: a tightening flywheel that accelerates the industry’s path to superintelligence.

“We are just now entering into an era of custom chips for various systems and workload types. To achieve this ideal diversity of AI infrastructure, research labs, software platforms, robotics makers, and cloud operators all need to be able to iterate on novel chip hardware at the same pace and creativity as model development,” said Steve Jang, founder of Kindred Ventures. “Using AI for chip co-design, Architect Labs proposes to deliver on this vision of ultra-low latency, energy-efficient, and affordable intelligence at scale.”

This shift expands access to custom silicon far beyond a small set of companies, enabling more organizations to build specialized hardware infrastructure superior in economics, performance, and power efficiency.

The Team

Architect Labs was founded by Ebrahim Hussain and Aaditya Subedi. Hussain skipped high school to enroll in college at 15 and went to work on custom chips at Apple and Tesla. Subedi was an AI researcher at Harvard, working on code verification using AI. The two met at Stanford, where their research focused on building AI systems for chip design and verification. Noticing the gap between the rate of AI progress and underlying hardware, they dropped out of school to start Architect Labs.

The founders have assembled a team of frontier AI researchers, former professors, chip designers, and systems engineers. The team has collectively taped out 80+ production chips, ran $10B+ product lines at Intel’s Data Center Division, taped out one of the first neuromorphic chips at Intel’s AI lab, been core contributors to Meta’s custom silicon, led ML research teams at Anthropic, DeepMind, and xAI, and contributed to core AI research at nearly every frontier lab.

Architect Labs will use the funding to scale its compute infrastructure, deepen its AI research, and co-design production silicon with early industry partners.

About Architect Labs

Architect Labs is building an AI system that designs and verifies chips end-to-end, enabling partners to transform demanding workloads into production-ready silicon while dramatically accelerating development timelines. By making custom silicon more accessible, Architect Labs aims to enable a future where every important workload can run and co-evolve alongside the hardware purpose-built for it. Beginning with chip design and expanding across the broader compute stack, the company is reimagining how computing systems are built for the age of superintelligence. Architect Labs was founded by Ebrahim Hussain and Aaditya Subedi and is based in Palo Alto, California.

Source: Architect Labs

The post Architect Labs Raises $24M Seed to Democratize Custom Chip Design appeared first on HPCwire.

The memorandum of understanding signed in Versailles lays bare US failure and the pointlessness of this illegal war

Donald Trump’s wishful thinking, as much as Benjamin Netanyahu’s persuasion, was responsible for their illegal war on Iran. The US president wanted regime change, the eradication of Tehran’s ballistic missiles programme, to prevent it from ever building a nuclear bomb, and demilitarisation of its proxies. He announced that he would accept nothing less than unconditional surrender.

The memorandum of understanding with Iran which Mr Trump signed on Wednesday – in Versailles; perhaps not the best augury of lasting diplomatic achievement – was evidence that even he can only deny reality for so long. Given the human and broader costs of the war, a deal to end it has been long overdue. But the text exposes the sheer pointlessness of this conflict. Continuing the war might have led to “worldwide depression”, the US president said, though his concern is for the impact on the pockets of his voters rather than the poorest and hungriest globally. A disgruntled base and the looming midterms have forced him into compromises loathed by Republican hawks. Mike Pence, his former vice‑president, said that it “smacks of appeasement”.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Interest rates on CDs will stay high after this week's Fed meeting. Here's how to find the highest ones right now.

Media-shy financier Stephen Feinberg has quietly amassed extraordinary influence over US military spending

The only available video over the last 15 months of the official who really wields power in Donald Trump’s Pentagon is a cartoon animation. Released in May on X by the US government, it shows a silver haired figure in a grey suit lighting up a cigar and sitting at a massive wooden desk with a nameplate: DEPSECWAR FEINBERG.

Stephen Feinberg, the 66-year-old billionaire founder of the private equity giant Cerberus Capital Management, has served as the deputy secretary of defense since March 2025. His boss, the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, makes frequent appearances working out with troops or insulting reporters at press conferences, and posts often on social media. But Feinberg does not show his face. He has been obsessively media shy for decades, and is so reclusive that since his confirmation hearing he has not testified to a single committee on Capitol Hill, has held no press conferences and given no interviews. His press spokesperson left the government months into his tenure and has not been replaced.

Former negotiator believes in an unstable world, it is ‘perfectly possible’ the UK can rejoin the EU with old opt-outs

• UK could keep special pre-Brexit terms if it rejoined EU, Michel Barnier says

A couple of years ago, Michel Barnier spent a weekend with Boris Johnson’s father, Stanley. It was not some ghoulish Brexit spin-off of The Traitors, but the result of the former EU negotiator’s wife, Isabelle, being a close friend of Johnson’s French cousin, Anne du Boucheron, the owner of Château de la Baronnière, a 19th-century estate in Mauges-sur-Loire, in western France.

“We spent a weekend together in a French castle. Very friendly. Long promenades in the forest,” Barnier recalls of Johnson senior, with whom he discussed the former prime minister’s motivation to back Brexit. “It was interesting. Boris was much more European at the beginning. Even if he was critical. I don’t see it as a motivation but it is, perhaps, a method or attitude: to be pragmatic in some way. Cynical. Cynical to get power.”

Exclusive: Former chief Brexit negotiator says staying out of euro and Schengen area would be ‘perfectly possible’

• ‘Cynical to get power’: Michel Barnier on Boris Johnson, Brexit and the EU’s future

Michel Barnier has said Britain could regain its special terms if it rejoined the EU and claimed it was becoming clearer every day to the British people that they would be stronger in Europe.

In an interview before the 10th anniversary of the Brexit referendum next week, the EU’s former chief Brexit negotiator said he could not see any obstacle to the UK keeping the pound and remaining outside the passport-free Schengen travel area should the country rejoin.

Sunscreen protects you from UV rays, but the message is getting lost in translation on social media.

Google has begun rolling out Android 17, the June Pixel Feature Drop, and Wear OS 7 simultaneously across supported Pixel phones and watches. Highlights include floating app bubbles, improved foldable multitasking and gaming, tighter location and contact permissions, stronger lost-device protections, new Pixel AI tools, and up to 10% better Pixel Watch battery life. PhoneArena reports: Pixel owners are the clear winners, since everything here reaches Pixel first and a lot of it goes back to the Pixel 6. Fold owners get the most toys, with the Bubble Bar and foldable gaming mode built for the big screen. Watch wearers get the quietly important upgrade. Better battery and Live Updates make an everyday wearable easier to rely on, especially if you keep it on overnight. Google's latest Pixel Drop combines several AI-powered tools with a broader slate of Android 17 upgrades. Pixel owners gain Lyria 3 for generating music from text or images, Gemini Omni for creating custom video clips, enhanced call translation and screening, AirDrop-compatible Quick Share, expanded Magic Cue support, and conversational photo editing. Android 17 builds on those additions with floating app Bubbles, selfie-camera Screen Reactions, and a split-screen gaming mode for foldables, while also strengthening privacy and security with more granular location and contact permissions, improved lost-device protection, tighter PIN-guessing limits, and enhanced threat detection. Other additions include expanded parental controls, separate assistant volume and app memory settings, and an option to hide app names for greater privacy. You can read more about everything new in Android 17 in Google's blog post.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Exclusive: Richard Hermer’s office understood to be first in government to restrict use after recent riots

The attorney general for England and Wales has told his office to no longer post on X, making it the first UK government department to stop using the Elon Musk-owned platform amid increasing worries about its use to incite violence and racism.

Richard Hermer’s office last posted on X on Friday, and it is understood that officials have been told to no longer use the site, unless for the specific purpose of combatting disinformation there.

Updated document, which emphasises harm done to African women, is being considered by other Caribbean countries

Barbados’s prime minister, Mia Mottley, has announced a new manifesto from Caribbean leaders asserting the “moral, ethical and legal case” for reparations over damage caused by hundreds of years of enslavement.

Mottley was speaking at a “historic” conference in Ghana to advance the push for reparatory justice after the United Nations adopted a landmark resolution declaring the trafficking of enslaved Africans as the gravest crime against humanity.

The Pentagon is launching a six-month review of U.S. forces and bases in Europe, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday at a meeting of NATO defense ministers.

Gallup found that only 49% of Americans were "cost-secure" last year, with concerns about medical bills and prescription costs rising across income groups.

Many people are spending more time on screens, but also doing more physical activities, a new CBS News poll finds.

Sennheiser's Accentum Clip open-ear true wireless earbuds are set to ship on July 23, but not to the US.

On Thursday, a unanimous Supreme Court said that part of a federal law could not be used to prosecute a man solely for possessing a gun and a controlled substance at the same time.

In United States v. Hemani, the Court upheld a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit bench opinion that struck down part of a federal law, U.S.C. 922(g)(3), known as the “unlawful user” provision.” It banned anyone who is an “unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance” from possessing firearms or ammunition.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Ali Danial Hemani after it obtained a warrant to search his home. Agents found a 9mm pistol, 60 grams of marijuana, and 4.7 grams of cocaine in Hemani’s possession, according to court documents. The government believed that Hemani was a habitual marijuana user.

A grand jury found that Hemani had violated the unlawful user provision by possessing a handgun while in possession of marijuana. Hemani said that U.S.C. 922(g)(3) didn’t apply to his case and that the arrest violated his rights under the Second Amendment, which protects an individual’s right to keep and bear arms. The Fifth Circuit court agreed with Hemani.

In his opinion for the Supreme Court, Justice Neil Gorsuch held that “the government’s prosecution of Mr. Hemani under §922(g)(3)’s unlawful user provision is inconsistent with the Second Amendment.”

“The Second Amendment protects the right of ‘all Americans’ to keep and bear firearms for self-defense, though like most individual rights it has its limits,” Gorsuch said. “The government bears the burden of showing its regulatory efforts are ‘consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation,’” he added, quoting the Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen.

“The government construes §922(g)(3) to automatically ban an individual from possessing a gun from the moment he becomes an unlawful user of any controlled substance and remains in effect until he ceases being one, regardless of what controlled substance an individual uses, in what amounts, whether his drug use has ever made him a danger to himself or others, why he keeps a gun, or how safely he does so,” Gorsuch stated.

Rejecting the government’s use of “habitual drunkard” laws to make its case, Gorsuch concluded that “the government’s analogy fails on every metric it invites the Court to consider. Taken cumulatively, these problems prove fatal to the government’s prosecution of Mr. Hemani.”

Gorsuch also added that the decision was narrow and did not apply to laws that ban addicts or those intoxicated from possessing a firearm, or other laws “Congress might adopt after determining that users of a particular drug pose a special risk of misusing firearms.”

In his concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas agreed with the Court’s opinion, and he also thought the law violated the Constitution’s Commerce Clause. “Congress lacks the power to regulate the possession of firearms solely on the ground that they crossed state lines at some point in the past,” he stated.

In another concurring opinion, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, wrote to confirm that the appeals court properly applied the Bruen precedent and United States v. Rahimi (2024), another ruling that an individual found to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another person may be temporarily disarmed. However, Jackson still argued that the Bruen ruling was flawed, and its “history and tradition” requirement was problematic.

And Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justice Elena Kagan, said he would have rejected the appeal because the government’s reliance on the habitual drunkard laws ignored substance use in a current context. “Marijuana use today is like alcohol use at the founding. It is widespread and increasingly considered socially acceptable in many quarters. And from a practical standpoint, law enforcement widely tolerates the use of marijuana,” he concluded.

The case had attracted a considerable amount of attention, with groups like the National Rifle Association (NRA), the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, and the Cato Institute filing briefs supporting Hemani. In addition to United States Solicitor General John Sauer, a group of 19 states, Everytown for Gun Safety, and the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence support the federal government’s position.

Scott Bomboy is the editor in chief of the National Constitution Center.

June 18, 2026 — Women in High Performance Computing (WHPC) is excited to announce a packed program of events for ISC High Performance 2026, June 22-26 in Hamburg, Germany. WHPC is looking forward to connecting with colleagues, collaborators, and community members from around the world next week.

June 22-26, Hamburg, Germany

Where to Find WHPC at ISC 2026

Tuesday (June 23, 2026) is all about community – reconnecting with familiar faces, welcoming new members, and creating spaces where people can learn from and support one another.

• Finding Your People in HPC: A WHPC Community Meet-Up – A relaxed and inclusive space to meet people, share experiences, and discover support networks that extend far beyond the conference itself.
• Tech Talks by Women in HPC – Taking over the Exhibition Opening Reception, WHPC presents a dynamic mix of invited and lightning talks, showcasing the many ways the community collaborates, innovates and grows together.

On Wednesday (June 24, 2026), WHPC celebrates its mission and the people who are shaping the future of the community.

• Celebrating Diversity Day – The WHPC community comes together to celebrate the strength of diversity in HPC, increase the visibility of women and other underrepresented groups, and demonstrate its shared commitment to a more inclusive future.
• Women in HPC Poster Pitch and Networking Reception – Meet the WHPC Rising Stars through a poster series dedicated to women and individuals from underrepresented groups who are students or in the early stages of their HPC careers.
• Super(computing)heroes Birds of a Feather (BoF) – Hear from influential and well-recognized female HPC “superheroes” from academia, research labs, HPC centers, and industry. Join to be inspired, discover relatable role models, and help build a more inclusive and connected HPC community.

WHPC Moderators

This year, the WHPC x ISC partnership is taking an exciting step forward. WHPC is delighted to announce that select volunteers from the community have been working with ISC to help shape some of this year’s most popular sessions, stepping into roles in panel moderation and audience facilitation.

Across the Vendor Showdown, Vendor Roadmaps, Midweek Keynote, Technical Papers and Fishbowl Panel, WHPC volunteers will be part of the sessions that bring energy, challenge ideas, and connect communities. All of this is made possible not only by those stepping into visible roles but also by ISC leadership and the support network that enables it.

Learn more about each event through the ISC 2026 webpages: https://womeninhpc.org/events/isc-2026

Thank You to ISC 2026 Sponsors and Supporters

Sponsors and Supporters power everything WHPC does, helping to connect, support, and elevate people across the global HPC community. WHPC’s work is all about opening doors, building networks, and supporting career growth at every stage.

• WHPC Champion – AWS and AMD
• Community Leaders – DAWN at the University of Cambridge Research Services and Google
• Rising Star – HPE
• Advocate – Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre

Learn more about WHPC sponsorship levels and how to get involved in future events through the 2026 Prospectus.

Thank You to the Volunteer Committee

Last but not certainly not least, thank you to WHPC’s amazing volunteer committee.

It truly takes a village to bring the WHPC program of events to life. Behind every session, meet-up, and initiative is a dedicated group of volunteers working tirelessly to support the community.

Thank you to each and every one of you for your dedication, friendship, and continued support: Ayesha Afzal, Buket Benek Gursoy, Cristin Merritt, Eleanor Broadway, Elsa Gonsiorowski, Sarah Johnston, Karina Pesatova, Valerie Rossi, Vijeta Sharma, Katya Zossimova

Explore the WHPC ISC 2026 Committee here.

About WHPC

Women in High Performance Computing (WHPC) was created with the vision of encouraging women to participate in the HPC community by providing fellowships, education, and support to women and the organizations that employ them. Through collaboration and networking, WHPC strives to bring together women in HPC and technical computing while encouraging women to engage in outreach activities and improve the visibility of inspirational role models.

About ISC 2026

ISC 2026 returns to the Congress Center Hamburg from June 22 – 26 for its 41st edition. Since its inception in 1986, it has been recognized as the world’s oldest and Europe’s most attended event for the HPC community, and increasingly for AI and quantum professionals interested in performance, energy efficiency, and cost-effectiveness.

Source: WHPC

The post WHPC Announces Event Program for ISC 2026 appeared first on HPCwire.

Security researcher Justin O'Leary says Google initially accepted his Config Connector privilege-escalation report as a high-priority, high-severity bug, then denied a bounty by declaring the behavior "working as intended." According to The Register, a Google rep initially praised O'Leary's report with a "Nice catch!" before the cloud giant reversed course, declaring that no vulnerability existed and therefore no fix or reward was warranted. "The bug report, however, is still marked high-priority and accepted," the publication notes. The alleged flaw, dubbed ConfigConfusion, could let a Kubernetes namespace user exploit an overprivileged service account to become a GCP organization owner with only a few lines of YAML and little apparent audit visibility. O'Leary details the incident in a blog post. The Register reports: According to O'Leary, Config Connector doesn't perform an authorization check, and this allows any Config Connector service account with org-level permissions to bypass Identity and Access Management (IAM) authorization and gain the highest level of control (roles/owner) to an entire GCP Organization -- the root node of all of a company's resources within Google Cloud. On March 27, a Google security engineer accepted O'Leary's report and told him: "Nice catch!" The employee said that they filed a bug based on O'Leary's report with the relevant product team and assured him the Chocolate Factory's security squad would work with relevant Google Cloud people to fix the flaw. "We'll work with the product team to ensure this issue is address. We'll let you know when the issue was fixed," the engineer said. "In the meantime, review the payment option selected in your bughunters.google.com profile." Google assigned the bug P1 priority and S1 severity, signifying a flaw worthy of urgent repair because it affects a large percentage of users and can disrupt core organizational functions. "I figured that was the end of that," O'Leary said in a phone interview with The Register. Eleven days later, on April 7, he received a new message from a Google Security Bot reversing the earlier decision. The Reg viewed the email, and O'Leary included a screenshot in his Thursday writeup. The message said that the Cloud Vulnerability Reward Program panel decided that the "security impact of this issue does not meet the criteria to qualify for a reward." After reviewing the bug report, Google determined the software "is working as intended," the message continued. It also noted that the program's decision not to pay a bounty "does not mean that the product team won't fix the issue." Nearly three months later, the case remains P1/S1 with the status "in progress (accepted)." Google hasn't assigned a CVE or issued a fix. O'Leary didn't receive any reward for his research. [...] "This is a pattern," O'Leary told [The Register]. "This is just how these trillion-dollar companies deal with people like me. In my day job, we use GKE, and it's incredibly frustrating on my end, when I find a critical vulnerability in the system that's being widely used, and I can't even get the vendor to patch their own stuff." A Google spokesperson told The Register: "The issue reported does not qualify for a reward because the GCP IAM authorization bypass is only exploitable if an attacker has access to a Config Connector Service Account that's been granted the Organization Admin role by the organization (i.e., it is privileged). Additionally, an attacker would first need to gain entry to an organization's environment (e.g., an exposed container) in order to leverage the privileged Config Connector instance and execute commands with administrative authority, such as the IAM bypass. Granting this level of access to the Config Connector Service Account goes against Google Cloud's publicly shared best practices and the principle of least privilege."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Achieves a maximum speed of 16Gbps per pin with improvements in both performance and efficiency

SEOUL, South Korea, June 18, 2026 — SK hynix Inc. has announced that it has shipped samples of HBM4E, a next-generation DRAM for AI, to major customers.

“The company was able to deliver samples of the 12-stack HBM4E on schedule thanks to its advanced HBM development and production expertise for HBM,” said SK hynix, adding that “We will work closely with partners for mass production in a timely manner.”

The 12-layer HBM4E shows improvements in both performance and power efficiency. The product features a maximum data processing speed of 16Gbps per pin and power efficiency that is up more than 20 percent from previous models. These enhancements improve data processing capabilities for AI training and inference.

The HBM4E reduces data transfer latency through its latest interface and design optimization while maintaining stable operation in high-bandwidth environments. This enables customers to increase efficiency in processing data for AI data centers and large-scale computing systems.

SK hynix utilizes Advanced MR-MUF technology for HBM4E products to achieve a 48GB capacity in a 12-layer stack while ensuring structural stability. In particular, the company has also improved heat resistance by 17 percent, compared to the preceding HBM4, enabling stable operation of memory chips in high-performance computing environments.

SK hynix has successfully supplied optimized memory solutions to customers based on its expertise in the mass production and supply of HBM3, HBM3E, and HBM4. Leveraging its market-proven product reliability and supply capabilities, the company will support the development of next-generation infrastructure while helping address AI system bottlenecks.

“SK hynix has laid the foundation to strengthen its AI leadership with HBM4E based on its market-leading technological capabilities and manufacturing expertise,” said Ahn Hyun, President and Chief Development Officer, adding, “Through close collaboration with our partners, we will deliver the value needed in the market while reinforcing our technology leadership as a full-stack AI memory creator.”

About SK hynix Inc.

SK hynix Inc., headquartered in Korea, is the world’s top-tier semiconductor supplier offering Dynamic Random Access Memory chips (“DRAM”) and flash memory chips (“NAND flash”) for a wide range of distinguished customers globally. The Company’s shares are traded on the Korea Exchange, and the Global Depository shares are listed on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange.

Source: SK hynix

The post SK hynix Ships 12-Stack HBM4E Samples to Major AI Customers appeared first on HPCwire.

Award-winning research unveiled at ICDE 2026 could help scientists, businesses and AI systems analyze complex data faster and more efficiently across multiple database platforms.

June 18, 2026 — Researchers at the University of California San Diego have developed a new system designed to solve one of modern computing’s growing challenges: how to efficiently analyze data spread across multiple types of databases.

Xiuwen Zheng started her research at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) as a CSE M.S. student and then continued into the Ph.D. program at CSE. She was co-advised by Amarnath Gupta of SDSC and Arun Kumar of CSE and Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute (HDSI), which is part of the Halıcıoğlu School of Data Science and Computing.

The team’s paper, MICRO: A Lightweight Middleware for Optimizing Cross-Store Cross-Model Graph-Relation Joins, won the Best Paper Award at the 2026 IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE), one of the field’s leading conferences.

Today, organizations rarely store all of their data in a single system. Traditional relational databases manage structured information such as financial transactions and medical records, while graph databases specialize in mapping relationships between entities — an increasingly important capability for applications such as fraud detection, cybersecurity, recommendation engines and scientific knowledge graphs.

But querying data across both platforms is often slow, expensive and technically difficult, especially when a query requires data movement across platforms.

“Our work addresses a problem affecting industries ranging from healthcare and finance to scientific computing and artificial intelligence,” said lead author Xiuwen Zheng, a doctoral graduate from the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE).

To address that challenge, Zheng and her collaborators developed MICRO, a lightweight middleware platform that enables relational and graph databases to work together more efficiently without requiring organizations to rebuild existing infrastructure.

“Instead of forcing all data into a single platform, MICRO intelligently coordinates how queries run across multiple systems,” Zheng said. “The middleware analyzes workloads, determines where operations should execute and optimizes how data moves between graph and relational stores.”

The result is faster, more efficient analytics across increasingly complex data environments — an advance with significant implications for high performance computing, AI and data-intensive scientific research.

Modern scientific workflows routinely combine diverse forms of information, including simulation outputs, sensor streams, metadata catalogs and relationship-based knowledge graphs. Fields such as fusion energy research and drug discovery all depend on connecting structured datasets with complex networks of relationships.

AI systems face similar challenges. Large language models, recommendation engines and autonomous agents increasingly rely on interconnected data ecosystems rather than isolated databases. As data volumes continue to grow, efficiently linking these specialized systems has become a major bottleneck.

Rather than replacing existing databases, MICRO is designed to improve interoperability across heterogeneous and distributed data systems. The approach reflects a broader shift in modern computing, where organizations increasingly rely on specialized tools working together instead of one-size-fits-all platforms.

“By reducing the complexity of cross-system analytics, our goal is for systems like MICRO to help scientists and organizations spend less time managing infrastructure and more time extracting insights from data,” Zheng said.

MICRO is part of a longer research arc at UC San Diego known as Project AWESOME to help domain scientists analyze large multi-model social media datasets and later extended to applications in cybersecurity and beyond. The path to ICDE 2026 was not a straight line: the broader line of work faced multiple close rejections at major database venues before this paper was recognized.

“Xiuwen soldiered on, resolutely believing in the project vision, demonstrating technical creativity, and delivering on its potential,” said CSE and HDSI Associate Professor Arun Kumar about the work’s trajectory. “Her tale of perseverance is one I hope is helpful to students and researchers everywhere. This work also exemplifies the interdisciplinary research ethos across SDSC, HDSI and CSE. I am excited to see more such fruitful interdisciplinary collaborations across campus spanning engineering, the sciences, and the new Halıcıoğlu School of Data Science and Computing.”

SDSC Research Scientist Amarnath Gupta, who leads Project AWESOME, added that collaborations with domain scientists — including Professor Molly Roberts in Political Science and HDSI, whose group works with large-scale social media data — were instrumental in surfacing the cross-store, cross-model challenges that MICRO ultimately addresses. The project is supported by the National Science Foundation.

Xiuwen Zheng received her Ph.D. and M.S. from UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering CSE Department in 2025 and 2019, respectively. Her Ph.D. work was co-advised by her publication co-authors Amarnath Gupta of SDSC and Arun Kumar of CSE and HDSI.

Source: Kimberly Mann Bruch, UCSD

The post UC San Diego Researchers Win Best Paper Award for New Approach to Connecting Complex Data Systems appeared first on HPCwire.

Donald Trump is claiming his Iran peace plan is a victory for Washington, despite the 14-point agreement revealing significant concessions to Tehran. Under the deal, Iran will reopen the strait of Hormuz in exchange for sanctions relief and the release of frozen assets, while talks will continue over the fate of Iran’s nuclear programme. Nosheen Iqbal speaks to the Guardian diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour

Detectives with the Newark Police Division of the city’s Department of Public Safety went undercover to infiltrate protests outside U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Delaney Hall detention facility earlier this month, according to court records obtained by The Intercept.

At the June 3 protests outside the detention center sparked by a hunger strike inside, detectives in plainclothes worked alongside uniformed officers to arrest Samuel Becker, a protester alleged to have thrown items into a fire days earlier, according to a criminal complaint. 

The protests had taken place for nearly a month outside Delaney Hall, a privately run ICE facility located on an industrial corridor in Newark, New Jersey, where detainees and their families have complained of poor conditions and retaliation by staff.

The operation was strictly aimed at arresting Becker, 30, who is accused of dragging a tarp into a fire during a raucous protest several days earlier, according to the complaint filed in Newark Municipal Court by police officer Elddy Torres.

“A PLAN WAS DEVISED TO DEPLOY TWO UNDERCOVER NEWARK POLICE DETECTIVES TO MONITOR AND REPORT REAL TIME INFORMATION TO SURVEILLANCE UNITS,” Torres wrote, describing what happened after Becker was identified. “AS THE UNDERCOVER DETECTIVES REMAINED WITHIN THE CROWD, BECKER WAS OBSERVED COORDINATING PROTESTERS PAST THE BARRICADED PROTEST ZONE.”

Law enforcement presence at protests can have a chilling effect, said Amol Sinha, the executive director of the New Jersey chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, who declined to discuss the specifics of the arrest, with which he was not familiar. The psychological effect of undercover officers — and the fear of undercovers — stands out as especially problematic.

“The use of plainclothes officers presents the concern of people constantly being surveilled when they are engaging in First Amendment-protected activity,” Sinha told The Intercept. “These are moments that should be celebrated as part of democracy and not viewed through the lens of suspicion.”

While the use of undercover officers at protests is not unusual, advocates said the tactic could raise questions about suppression of speech if the aim goes beyond keeping the peace, according to Aedan Neary, a defense attorney in Kearny, who is not involved in the case.

“The concern arises out of the question of, at what point do the actions of these undercover agents become a pressure tactic as opposed to a law enforcement tactic?” Neary told The Intercept. “Is this being used to ensure that things remain peaceful? Or is this more about gathering intelligence?”

ICE Role Unmentioned

The arrest and police report also raise thorny questions about cooperation between ICE and local authorities, which is prohibited for immigration matters by a New Jersey state law passed in March.

According to Becker and two eyewitnesses to the arrest, ICE agents led the ambush that led to Becker’s detention and initially took him into custody.

“An ICE agent chased and grabbed me and quickly handed me over to an NPD officer,” Becker told The Intercept in a written statement. “The NPD officer brought me back over to the other side of the street and sat me down on the side of the ICE minivan that led the ambush.”

While Newark police and Becker’s accounts align on basic details — such as the time and location of the arrest behind Delaney Hall, where protesters had gone to monitor vehicle traffic in and out of the facility — the complaint by Torres, the officer, says the arrest was the work of Newark police with the support of Essex County Police, omitting ICE’s role.

“ONE OF THE NPD UNDERCOVER DETECTIVES ADVISED US THAT THE GROUP WAS PLANNING TO LIGHT THE DUMPSTER ON FIRE AND PUSH IT IN THE REAR FENCE EXIT. A PLAN WAS DEVISED TO INTERRUPT THE GROUPS CONDUCT AND DISPERSE THEM BEFORE THEY COULD HURT ANYONE OR CAUSE ANY DAMAGE,” said Torres’s complaint. “NUMEROUS NPD DETECTIVES AND ESSEX COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE SWAT PERSONNEL RESPONDED TO THE AREA TO MOVE THE GROUP ALONG.”

At least one of the vehicles that arrived in the convoy to make the arrest, Becker told The Intercept, was driven by ICE agents, converging on the group at the rear of Delaney Hall.

According to Becker, his interaction with that initial ICE agent making the arrest indicated some degree of intelligence sharing between federal authorities and local police.

Related

The FBI Used an Undercover Cop With Pink Hair to Spy on Activists and Manufacture Crimes

“As I was surrounded by ICE agents and the arresting officer, one of the ICE agents accused me of [setting a] fire a different night,” Becker told The Intercept in a statement. “The ICE agent’s words matched the language NPD used when it put out a statement about my arrest the next day.”

In a statement made in a Facebook post announcing Becker’s arrest, Newark Public Safety Director Emanuel Miranda said, “He was identified by Newark Police as the individual responsible for setting a dumpster fire during the weekend protest at Delaney Hall and also attempting to start a second fire there on Wednesday night.”

The two eyewitnesses, who asked for anonymity for fear of retribution, confirmed Becker’s account of the arrest in interviews with The Intercept.

No Sanctuary

While no law in New Jersey prohibits local police from cooperating with ICE on non-immigration matters, such collaboration has become a hot button for Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, who oversaw a zealous crackdown on protests outside the facility despite publicly opposing President Donald Trump’s deportation blitz.

The recent sanctuary law prohibits New Jersey police from assisting immigration agents in enforcement of federal immigration law, but leaves room for exceptions, including the enforcement of state criminal law.

Related

How Did the Feds Get Into Anti-ICE Activists’ Signal Messages?

The ACLU’s Sinha said that his organization had pushed for a broader version of the law that would have prohibited any collaboration between police and ICE.

“This is why we were advocating for an end to collaboration, period,” said Sinha. “We wanted to make sure that there was no instance of collaboration between immigration enforcement and law enforcement, and the fuller version of the law that did not ultimately make its way through the legislature would have prevented that sort of collaboration.”

Catherine Adams, a spokesperson for Miranda, the public safety director, told The Intercept, “To ensure that public safety is provided to peaceful protesters in accordance with their First Amendment rights, and for the safety of other members of the public, as well as the Officers at Delaney Hall, we deploy plainclothes officers, cameras, drones, etc., to identify those at the protest site who unlawfully damage property, start fires, or commit other crimes.”

Lifeline for ICE Operations

Demonstrations outside Delaney Hall were relatively small but attracted attention due to the ferocious responses from ICE agents and employees of GEO Group, the private prison firm that operates the jail.

Over the course of several weeks, ICE agents repeatedly charged protesters in an effort to clear them from the entrance to allow vehicles to move in and out of the facility, often deploying batons, pepper spray, and pepper balls against demonstrators, as well as taking some into custody.

Becker suffered an injury during a charge by ICE agents, when one agent swung a baton so hard that it fractured Becker’s shoulder, according to his account. On the night of his arrest, Becker’s arm was in a sling.

Related

“Warehousing Human Beings”

After initially keeping a wide berth from the clashes, state and local police operating under orders from Baraka and New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill — both of whom are Democrats who have spoken out against ICE crackdowns — involved themselves in policing the protesters in late May. The scene immediately became even more volatile, with police firing tear-gas canisters, charging protesters on horseback, and kettling dozens of protesters for mass arrest. 

On May 31, Baraka instituted a curfew in the vicinity of Delaney Hall, and Newark police set up barricades to keep protesters more than half a mile away from the facility for several days. In the weeks since the curfew ended, protests have continued sporadically, but with less intensity or energy as in the initial weeks.

Baraka has repeatedly sought to minimize the city’s role in policing the protests, claiming he was trying to “bring down the temperature,” not bring an end to protests. That posture eventually shifted.

“It is not the responsibility of the Newark Police Division to secure a private facility,” Baraka said in a June 4 statement. “Our intention was never to protect Delaney Hall or HSI” — ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations division — “but to bring calm. It is a clear contradiction to the city’s position with GEO group to remain there.” 

For Becker and many other protesters, the presence of police from various agencies in New Jersey were a godsend to ICE and GEO Group — not to public safety.

“State and local police ramped up their repression of the protestors because ICE agents were having an increasingly difficult time carrying out their daily operations at Delaney Hall by themselves,” Becker said. “Without the ramped-up support of the state and local police, ICE and GEO would have continued to encounter growing difficulty suppressing the strike and operating the concentration camp.”

The post Undercover Cops Infiltrated Delaney Hall ICE Protest to Spy and Make Arrest appeared first on The Intercept.

When a spouse dies with debt, creditors could still come calling. Here's what surviving spouses should know.

Parents and their kids, new and old fans and a few celebrities gathered to honor the team’s NBA Championship

Thousands of Knicks fans – decked out in blue and orange jerseys, shorts, hats, necklaces and more – gathered in downtown New York City on Thursday to celebrate the team’s NBA championship in a lively ticker-tape parade.

All along Church Street, the street running parallel to the parade route, fans lit joints, threw back shots of Fireball whiskey and drank Coronas, within view of bemused and outnumbered New York City police officers. Some fans climbed atop police cruisers and posed for photos.

It isn't easy being green: The UK's net zero trilemma Audio sseth.drupal@c… 18 June 2026

In this episode of Independent Thinking, our experts discuss the decline of the cross-party consensus on net zero.

Can Labour’s prized plans to decarbonize power generation by 2050 withstand growing demands for extra defence spending – an acrimonious argument that has already claimed two senior defence ministers? Or pressure to preserve and extend welfare benefits from the party’s left and the unions, many of whom see net zero as a job killer? Plus: China’s colossal subsidization of green technology has created a surplus of cheap equipment for clean power. Would Britain be wise to take advantage?  

Bronwen Maddox is joined by Pelin Zorlu and Chris Aylett of Chatham House’s Climate and Energy team, plus special guest Archie Hall, acting economics editor of The Economist.

Produced by Podmasters for Chatham House, with thanks to Stephen Farrell and Sara Seth.

About Independent Thinking

Independent Thinking is a weekly international affairs podcast hosted by our director Bronwen Maddox, in conversation with leading policymakers, journalists and Chatham House experts providing insight on the latest international issues.

More ways to listen: Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Explore our other Chatham House podcasts.

President Donald Trump has touted more than $500 billion in prescription drug savings over 10 years from his policies. But the savings are largely aspirational, and not based on the more limited actions the administration has taken so far.

The administration’s most favored nation policy seeks to bring down drug prices to levels paid in other countries. The bulk of the savings, estimated in a May 5 report by the White House Council of Economic Advisers, comes from assuming that all new drugs will be sold in the U.S. at MFN prices going forward, saving $529 billion. A smaller amount of savings, $64.3 billion, comes from applying MFN pricing to Medicaid.

“People are saving a lot of money,” Trump said at a May 18 event announcing the addition of more drugs to TrumpRx, the administration’s website directing people to cash prices for prescription drugs. “Over the next 10 years, the Council of Economic Advisers estimates that our most favored nation drug policies will save Americans over $500 billion. And this has been the greatest breakthrough in lowering healthcare costs in modern history.”

“Think about the $600 billion of savings to the average American over the next 10 years,” Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said on June 2 at an event announcing further additions to the TrumpRx website, while calling on Congress to codify MFN pricing.

“It’s just a massive number that they voluntarily, sort of, gave back because the president went after them and said: ‘You got to deal with this problem,’” Oz continued, referring to the president’s negotiations with drug companies. 

There isn’t evidence that drug companies have agreed to give back $600 billion in savings to Americans, much less savings that will go to “average” Americans. So far, the administration has made voluntary deals with 17 drug companies to lower drug prices. The White House and the companies have reported commitments to launch new drugs at MFN prices, as well as to offer MFN prices to states for Medicaid. However, the details of the deals have not been disclosed, and some companies have reported that they end after three years.

“Right now we just have a lot more questions than we have answers, and that makes it really difficult to assess the validity or accuracy or even ballpark-ness of this very large estimate of savings in the White House report,” Juliette Cubanski, vice president and director of the Program on Medicare Policy at the health policy organization KFF, told us. She added that it’s difficult even to evaluate the impact of the current voluntary deals given a lack of answers to key questions, such as “how many of these manufacturers’ drugs are subject to MFN pricing.”

When asked for more details on what has been done so far to achieve the savings in the report, White House spokesperson Kush Desai told us that “the research report lays out all of the assumptions underlying this analysis.” CMS did not respond to our request for comment.

The hundreds of billions in savings calculated in the CEA report do not come from offering people discounts on TrumpRx. As we’ve written previously, the prices on the site for brand-name drugs negotiated under the administration’s voluntary deals only represent savings for individuals in a few specific situations, such as when paying for fertility or weight loss drugs not covered by insurance, since many people will get better prices by using insurance rather than paying in cash. The CEA analysis only attempted to calculate 10-year savings from TrumpRx for Americans paying for fertility treatments, estimating these savings at $4.6 billion.

TrumpRx also recently started pointing people toward existing websites to access discounts on generic drugs. But as the CEA analysis itself acknowledged, generics are already cheaper in the U.S. than in other high-income countries, and they are not a target of MFN policies.

The U.S. does generally pay more for brand-name drugs than other nations. Prices in 2022 for these drugs were more than three times higher in the U.S. than in other high-income nations after adjusting for rebates, according to an analysis from the research organization RAND. But it is not clear how policies aiming to equalize drug prices will play out. As we have written previously, the president has repeatedly claimed broad victories over drug prices, even though they are hardly a done deal. There are significant uncertainties with his MFN approach, which still requires legislative action to further implement.

“We’ve seen no indication from pharma, from other key stakeholders, that this $600 billion number is real,” Jeromie Ballreich, an associate professor in the department of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told us, saying that one would expect companies to disclose to shareholders such an impact, which would be about 10% of U.S. pharmaceutical company revenue. “You would hear it outside of the White House, because $600 billion is, as Trump would say, huge.”

Missing Details From Trump’s Deals

Experts told us that it is difficult to evaluate the estimated nearly $600 billion in savings without more information on the president’s current or future MFN policies.

“This report is partly a report and mostly a press release,” Joseph Antos, a senior fellow emeritus at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, told us, adding that it is not possible to do an independent analysis based on the information provided.

Andrew Mulcahy, a senior health economist at RAND, told us that the hundreds of billions in savings are theoretically possible with a broad MFN policy but he said the administration’s actions so far only have “semblances” of accomplishing such a policy.

“Other countries’ prices are much lower than ours, and if policies are designed to piggyback on those prices, you can get savings in this order of magnitude,” he said. “That said, I don’t think that what’s happened so far — or plans for what will happen in the future — will align with that estimate in the CEA report for a variety of reasons.” 

One key question is the length of the voluntary deals the administration has made with drug companies.

To get to nearly $600 billion in savings, the “key assumption” is that MFN pricing “will be implemented through legislation and affect all new product launches going forward,” Jens Grueger, a partner at Boston Consulting Group and affiliate professor at the University of Washington, told us in an email. The deals, however, appear to be limited to Trump’s time in office, he said. 

Filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission from some of the companies have indicated the deals are limited overall, with two companies specifying they only last three years, STAT reported.

“It’s very unclear how you can estimate savings over a 10-year period based on deals that we understand to be lasting only for three years, unless you assume that Congress will actually codify MFN pricing,” Cubanski said. Meanwhile, she added, many Republicans in Congress even oppose legislation that allows the government to negotiate drug prices, much less price-setting.

Rena Conti, a health economist at Boston University Questrom School of Business, told us that the assumption of MFN legislation was “hypothetical at best, as there is no movement in Congress to pass legislation.”

A second question is what exactly the companies agreed to in their commitments to price newly launched drugs at MFN prices. As we’ve said, the bulk of the savings — $529 billion — estimated in the report come from assuming new drugs will be broadly offered at MFN prices over 10 years.

While Trump has claimed his administration has achieved the lowest drug prices in the world, the CEA report explained that his administration’s MFN pricing policies ask that companies offer U.S. payers the second-lowest drug prices among those paid in a small collection of countries: the G-7 nations, plus Switzerland and Denmark. The approach uses net prices after adjusting for gross domestic product per capita in comparison to the U.S., the report said.

The CEA report estimated the 10-year savings from new drug launches at MFN prices by comparing historical prices in these countries between 2021 and 2025 and imagining that this MFN policy had been applied, the report explained. (The analysis omitted Denmark due to a lack of data.) The White House economists then extended their estimate to 10 years, assuming a 3% growth rate.

In coming up with the hundreds of billions of dollars in savings, the CEA report “essentially said it’s going to be the second-lowest price out of the reference basket,” said Ballreich, the pharmaceutical policy researcher from Johns Hopkins. “There’s a number of question marks about whether or not these drug companies that came and met with the White House and did this agreement actually agreed to this.” 

Some of the White House announcements of the deals specify commitments companies have made to provide MFN prices on “all new innovative” or “all new” medicines. However, SEC filings have sometimes indicated limitations, saying that companies agreed to “price certain future medicines” at or below MFN levels or mentioning “certain exceptions” to promises to price new products at these levels.

Three companies recently declined to tell STAT whether three new drugs would be launched at MFN prices.

Questions About Medicaid Savings

There are similar questions about the $64.3 billion in estimated savings for Medicaid.

Press releases on the voluntary deals with drug companies indicate that the companies will provide MFN prices to state Medicaid programs for at least some drugs. CMS is launching GENEROUS, a voluntary Medicaid initiative running five years, and the companies that have signed deals are expected to participate for at least some of this time, according to a May 8 analysis from KFF. However, the KFF analysis said that it is unclear how many drugmakers and states will ultimately participate in GENEROUS and for how long, as well as which drugs will be included.

The prices states pay for Medicaid drugs are not publicly disclosed, but they are generally already the lowest in the U.S., researchers have previously told us, making it difficult to assess whether the MFN deals will be better than existing Medicaid prices.

“It feels very difficult to believe that companies are actually giving up a good chunk of revenue with these deals,” Mulcahy said. “What seems far more likely is that they are finding a way to formalize the discounts they are already offering” to Medicaid. 

Ballreich said that in a study that has not yet been published, he and his colleagues had estimated savings in the first year of the GENEROUS program at “just about a third” of what the CEA report projected for that timeframe. His group’s estimate assumed complete participation in GENEROUS by drug companies and states but also attempted to take into account some mechanisms Medicaid already has to reduce drug prices.

Roadblocks to Achieving MFN Savings

Even assuming the Trump administration enacted policies to require all drug companies to offer MFN prices to all payers, it’s not clear how much money the U.S. would save. MFN policies could affect global drug prices in ways the report did not take into account.

Trump has suggested that companies would make up for losses in revenue in the U.S. by increasing prices in other countries. However, researchers expressed skepticism that other high-income countries would agree to significantly higher prices.

In addition, Antos of AEI pointed out that MFN policies could lead some drugs to never make it to market. “I don’t believe they try to take into account the effects of this process on future innovation,” he said, referring to the CEA estimate.

A June 10 release from the White House listing Trump’s “recent wins” said his MFN initiative was “projected to save Americans $500 billion over the next decade while protecting innovation and expanding access.”

Cubanski, however, said that if the report is correct, and prices fall some 30%, “we’d be looking at a pretty significant hit to revenues for pharmaceutical companies, and that could translate to somewhat less innovation, or maybe significantly less innovation.”

The estimate also doesn’t take into account how drugmakers and other countries might push back against the policies.

The CEA report “assumes that companies continue launching products in reference countries and that prices in these countries would converge towards US prices,” Grueger said. He suggested that this could happen for some products “that address a high unmet medical need and provide transformative benefits for patients.” Other countries consider benefits to patients relative to costs in determining what they will pay for drugs.

“However, for the majority of products this will be difficult to achieve, and companies might consider not launching these products outside the US to protect US prices,” Grueger said, citing recent statements from pharmaceutical executives suggesting such delays. “As a consequence, lower prices in reference countries would not be available and prices in the US would not drop as much as projected in the CEA report.”

“Not only would you potentially impede access to new medications in other countries, but we wouldn’t end up with lower prices here in the US either,” Cubanski said. She added that it is already typical for drugs to launch in the U.S. before they are in other countries, making it difficult to figure out how to set an MFN price for new drugs in the first place.

The researchers also questioned the administration’s ability to assess whether companies had fulfilled promises to offer drugs at MFN prices. 

Companies provide list prices for drugs, but these are rarely paid. The CEA analysis said that drugmakers will report net prices, taking into account various forms of discounts. But experts said it was unclear how the government will independently evaluate these prices.

“The government obviously can try to compel [drug companies] to report this information, and there is some wording in there about auditing, but I don’t know how you audit something when you don’t have full disclosure or any basis for really determining in a systematic way whether numbers are correct or not,” Antos said.

Antos called it “telling” that the CEA analysis itself does not rely on net prices for its analysis. Rather, the report says, because of “the confidential nature of rebates, there are no existing data sets with net pricing information.”

Mulcahy explained that instead, the data the CEA used has gross prices a healthcare data company derives using complicated and varying methodologies in different countries. In general, he said, the numbers are based on invoices at various stages of the drug supply. He said that this dataset is the “best we’ve got” and is what he and his colleagues at RAND have used for international comparisons of drug prices, but it has limitations. 

“If you can put whatever number down you want on an invoice and then negotiate something secret later, you can make it look like you’re saving a ton of money,” Mulcahy said, expressing concern that the MFN pricing deals would incentivize even more secrecy about international drug prices.

“I think there will be ways to hide discounts and backchannel funds for this,” Ballreich said, suggesting various ways drugmakers could give money back to payers outside the U.S. For example, they could institute rebates or taxes that are not drug-specific. He also said that drugmakers will be restricted from disclosing the true price of their drugs in other countries due to confidentiality agreements and laws in those countries.

“If you want to make a claim about how launch prices are going to change or if a company wants to promise to change launch prices … that’s easy to fudge,” Mulcahy said. “And then you find creative ways on the back end to make yourself whole again.”

“It’s kind of like everyone wins except for consumers,” he added.

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, P.O. Box 58100, Philadelphia, PA 19102. 

The post The Shaky Assumptions Behind Trump’s Over $500 Billion in Projected Drug Savings appeared first on FactCheck.org.

The Obama Presidential Center, museum and library opens in Chicago with a star-studded grand opening ceremony and public watch party on Midway Plaisance.

‘Mastermind’ Dawie Groenewald given fine of 2m rand or four-year jail term almost 16 years after arrest

Two traffickers of rhino horns have been sentenced by a South African court in what police said was the world’s largest such case, partly bringing to an end an almost two-decade legal saga.

Dawie Groenewald and Tielman Erasmus had faced more than 1,700 charges ranging from illegally hunting and dehorning rhinos to racketeering and money laundering.

With sanctions-relief and a US promise to avoid further meddling, the conflict has been settled on Tehran’s terms

Donald Trump is running fast to escape the catastrophic war on Iran that he and Benjamin Netanyahu started four months ago. He is saying anything that appears to suit the moment. In fact, he clearly feels he can now ditch his friend, the Israeli prime minister. He is offering Tehran’s military regime a $300bn rebuilding fund, an end to economic sanctions and a promise not to interfere in its internal affairs. All this is declared a “major win”. If so, fine. The next 60 days of negotiations will be tortuous and unpredictable. But at least they are pointing in a plausible – and hopefully irreversible – direction.

For once, a US president seems ready to accept defeat in a potentially forever war before it gets out of hand. Iran is not to be another Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq. More than that, in the course of the past week, Trump seems to have soured on America’s closest ally. Furious at Netanyahu’s ceaseless bombing of Lebanon, he remarked: “You don’t have to knock down an apartment house every time you’re looking for somebody” – somebody to kill, that is – because “there are a lot of people in those apartment houses and they’re not all Hezbollah”. For all this moral grandstanding, Trump’s military forces, along with Israel, have killed more than 3,300 Iranians, according to the country’s authorities – among them more than 100 children in a girls’ school – and injured many more.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

All you need to take to the virtual skies now is a browser.

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled in favor of a Texas man who challenged a federal law that bars certain drug users from having firearms.

The recall follows multiple incidents in which Waymo robotaxis drove past ramp-closure signs and into freeway construction zones.

Tornadoes were reported in Illinois, Iowa and several other states Wednesday as severe weather slammed a large swath of the Midwest​ and Southeast.

The national average for a gallon of regular gas in the U.S. drops to $3.99, the lowest since March 30.

After weeks of intensifying bombing of Kyiv, Ukraine hit back with a swarm of drones, damaging buildings and igniting an oil refinery.

The United States will review force levels and is immediately cutting the number of assets it would activate for the continent in a crisis.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MacRumors: Apple is raising its prices to offset the high cost of memory and storage, CEO Tim Cook told The Wall Street Journal. Apple is no longer able to absorb the increased prices and will need to pass some of the cost on to consumers. "Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable," said Cook. "We're doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us, and we've been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable." Growing demand for memory and storage chips from AI companies has led to chip shortages and higher costs. The Wall Street Journal suggests Apple will need to increase device costs "substantially" to maintain its current profit margins given the cost of memory chips and SSDs. Research firm TechInsights claims Apple will need to make the iPhone 18 Pro around $270 more expensive to keep its existing profit margin. Apple is struggling more with memory chips, but storage chips are also an issue. "There's less supply at a time when consumers want devices and the memory guys are passing along huge price increases," Cook told The Wall Street Journal. Cook said Apple will use its cash to increase memory supply, but he did not give details on what that means. Apple does not plan to create its own memory and storage factories. "We can't do everything," Cook said. "We know what we're good at." Cook likened the memory shortages to a hundred-year flood. "I've never seen anything like it in any area in over 40 years," he said. Further reading: Smartphone Market To Shrink 15% This Year Due To Memory Crisis

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A prospecting company’s search for gold has the town of Lone Pine and Indigenous leaders on edge, as the Trump administration greenlights new projects across the American west

Lone Pine, population 1,882, lies along a stretch of California highway framed by the vast Inyo mountains and a sweeping desert landscape of sagebrush and dunes.

It’s the type of small town tourists drive through en route to Death Valley; where hikers get a motel room between Pacific Crest Trail treks. But amid the quiet downtown strip of bars and shops, there are signs of a battle brewing under the town’s sleepy surface.

Bubbles is a smoother, more intuitive way to multitask on Pixel phones, and I'm loving it already.

Cook is at the center of a supreme court case focused on whether Trump’s firing of her from the Fed board was legal

The Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook faced more than $1.3m in legal and security fees after coming under attack from the Trump administration, according to ethics disclosures that were filed on Wednesday.

The White House targeted Cook last summer as Donald Trump ramped up his unprecedented campaign to push the Fed to cut interest rates.

Plan is admission US could not achieve what it sought through war as red line after red line has been erased

Only a man with an unparalleled ignorance of history such as Donald Trump would have signed America’s peace treaty with Iran at Versailles, the byword for national humiliation. And only a man with an impish sense of humour such as Emmanuel Macron would have suggested it.

It is easy to cast Trump in the role of the humiliated and hurt German count Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau. The treaty of Versailles, after all, was based on 14 points, just as the memorandum of understanding has 14 clauses.

Funds meant for Secret Service were transferred to project president promised would be financed by private donations

• US politics live – latest updates

Donald Trump’s administration has quietly redirected $352m in federal funds designated for the Secret Service toward the president’s controversial White House ballroom project, despite repeated promises by Trump that the construction would be financed by private donations

The funds were drawn from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Trump’s signature tax legislation passed last summer on Republican-only votes. The law stipulates the money may only be spent on Secret Service personnel, training facilities, technology and related costs, not construction.

Data shows that the increase in at-home living stems from high housing costs rather than labor market conditions

A record number of the US’s young adults were living with their parents last year, according to new data from Realtor.com, as high housing costs pushed the milestone of independent living out of reach.

A third of young adults between the ages of 25 and 35 – 25.2 million people – were living with their parents in 2025. Of those, 70% had jobs, and many held college degrees, highlighting that the increase in at-home living stems from high housing costs rather than labor market conditions.

Education secretary cites admissions data for England since tax imposed showing falling applications to state sector

Adding VAT to private school fees has failed to trigger an exodus of pupils into the state sector despite widespread speculation that it would, the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, has said.

The Labour government applied 20% VAT to private school fees from the start of 2025. They had previously been exempt from the tax. Newly published admissions data for England showed there had been no influx towards state schools since then.

The Trump administration expects to try to revoke the U.S. citizenship of more than 250 foreign-born citizens by October, a Justice Department official said.

Labour and Tories claimed Green party leader breached London assembly ethics code over non-payment of tax

Zack Polanski has been cleared by an ethics inquiry looking into complaints that he did not pay council tax while living on a houseboat.

A report by the Greater London authority’s monitoring officer found that the circumstances of the Green party leader’s living arrangements were beyond its scope and he had therefore not breached the code of conduct for London assembly members.

Bankruptcy could shield many retirement assets, but the level of protection it offers depends on the account.

Andy Burnham hopes a successful byelection will mean he can encourage Keir Starmer to step aside as prime minister

The trial of two Russian-linked arsonists who targeted property connected to Keir Starmer shows that the UK is under attack from bad actors who want to “exploit division” and “destabilise our democracy”, the prime minister has said.

Roman Lavrynovych, 22, from Ukraine, and Stanislav Carpiuc, 27, from Romania, were found guilty on Monday of conspiring to carry out arson attacks on property linked to the prime minister, and appear to have operated under the instruction of an online handler with links to Russia.

Ukraine’s president ramps up rhetoric after overnight drone strikes on Russian capital

Hegseth makes it clear that the review will not be just a box-ticking exercise.

“It’s a review that some countries will fail and others will pass with flying colours. In the end, the review is intended to both improve US force posture and basing and strengthen Nato 3.0.”

“It will be designed to ensure that Nato is moving fast and irreversibly toward Europe leading, stepping up to take primary responsibility for the defence of Europe.”

“Where other allies do not spend with urgency, our dues, contributions will go down. Nato will be a two-way street.”

Peter Wai and Bill Yuen sentenced to 10 and eight years at Old Bailey in first convictions under National Security Act

A UK Border Force officer and a Hong Kong trade official based in London have been jailed for spying for China in the first such conviction in British criminal history.

Peter Wai, who conducted “shadow policing” operations on Chinese dissidents in the UK, was sentenced to 10 years, while his handler, Bill Yuen, received an eight-year term.

Have $50,000 that you're looking to grow further? Here's how much interest you can earn with four different accounts.

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news, including the latest UK jobs report and the Bank of England’s interest rate decision

Tesco’s UK sales growth has more than halved as it said the conflict in the Middle East had created “ongoing uncertainty for many households”, knocking its shares in early trading.

The UK’s biggest retailer said comparable sales rose 1.8% to £13.4bn in the three months to the end of May, below both the 4.2% reported in the previous quarter and the 2.3% growth City analysts had expected.

Andrew Bailey says ‘still inflationary pressure in pipeline’ despite US and Iran nearing peace deal as interest rates kept on hold

• Business live – latest updates

The governor of the Bank of England has warned consumers to expect higher costs this year as a result of the conflict in the Middle East, despite falling oil prices as the US and Iran near a peace deal.

Speaking after the Bank kept interest rates on hold at 3.75%, Andrew Bailey said there was “still some inflationary pressure in the pipeline” after the conflict pushed up energy prices.

Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from PetaPixel: China dominates the consumer drone market, so it is perhaps surprising that it is no longer possible to fly or even purchase a drone in Beijing. The new law that passed last month makes it illegal to buy, rent, or fly a drone without prior approval from the authorities. Users must also complete an online training session and pass a test on drone regulations. Under the new rules, drone users are also not allowed to repair or replace their drones in Beijing. Not only that, but a drone in a repair shop must be picked up in-person, rather than sent back by delivery. The BBC reports that drones must now be registered before being brought into and out of the Chinese capital. "I have to apply for permission for each flight, which is very inconvenient," drone enthusiast Steven Wang tells CNN. "And starting this year, the wait time is getting longer, and the reasons for rejection are becoming more vague." Despite China being the birthplace of the consumer drone industry, it is increasingly difficult for hobbyists to fly there. Beijing authorities say that the rules are made to "strengthen the management of unmanned aerial vehicles" and "safeguard the security of the capital."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

RAMageddon strikes again: Cook told The Wall Street Journal that rising memory prices have made current prices "unsustainable."

Miguel Díaz-Canel cites China and Vietnam as possible models for opening up the country’s economy

Cuba’s economy needs urgent changes to overcome a crisis intensified by a US oil blockade, the president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, has said in a speech to Communist party leaders.

“The situation calls for urgent and necessary changes,” Díaz-Canel told the party’s politburo in his frankest admission yet of the need to overhaul the country’s communist model.

Other lawmakers respond with ‘shame on you’ in heated confrontation over passing of plan to increase deportations

Rightwing MEPs have come under fire after they celebrated a vote aimed at increasing deportations across the EU with chants of “send them back”, leading other lawmakers to respond with cries of “shame on you”.

The heated confrontation in the European parliament came on Wednesday after lawmakers voted 418 to 218 to approve controversial measures aimed at increasing deportations of undocumented people.

You don't need a physical scanner to quickly sign, scan and send official documents -- just use the iPhone in your pocket.

In a social media post, President Trump touted the U.S. government's 10% stake in Intel, noting that it is now worth $60 billion.

PALO ALTO, Calif., June 18, 2026 — D-Wave Quantum Inc. today announced its forthcoming gate-model quantum computing simulator, which is expected to be the first of its kind designed for error-aware programming. The announcement marks the next step in D-Wave’s gate-model roadmap and comes just weeks after the Company outlined its differentiated approach to fault-tolerant quantum computing.

Built around D-Wave’s dual-rail technology, the simulator is expected to enable error-aware programming, giving developers visibility into errors so they can design applications and workflows that respond to real processor behavior. By combining error detection and real-time control, the simulator will give developers new tools and data to better understand quantum behavior, prototype quantum applications and error-correction routines and explore advanced workflows.

D-Wave will offer new quantum development bundles that provide access to its forthcoming gate-model quantum simulator and systems. Designed to support customer success, the bundles will include Starter and Premium packages, with monthly access allocations and guidance from D-Wave’s team of experts to streamline onboarding, perform flexible R&D and maximize customer value. Pricing is available upon request.

“D-Wave’s gate-model quantum simulator is an important step in bringing our gate-model roadmap to customers,” said Dr. Trevor Lanting, chief development officer at D-Wave. “What makes our approach different is that error awareness is built into the architecture through dual-rail technology, giving developers access to error-detection data and real-time control capabilities that can help them design more resilient quantum applications. This simulator is intended to help customers start building that expertise now, in advance of our forthcoming gate-model quantum systems.”

Once available in D-Wave’s Leap cloud platform, the simulator will provide a rich quantum programming toolkit with error-aware capabilities, including tools for modeling quantum processor behavior, error detection and real-time control. This includes support for up to 21 qubits, ideal and hardware emulation modes, Monte Carlo simulation of real-time quantum system dynamics and integration with familiar development tools, including D-Wave’s Ocean SDK. Access to the simulator is scheduled to begin in September 2026.

The quantum development bundles are designed to support a range of customer needs, from initial exploration to more advanced research and development. D-Wave’s simulator and systems bundles are expected to give customers the budget predictability and dedicated access needed to run more workloads, iterate more freely and accelerate quantum application progress, while helping them spend less time managing usage and more time advancing algorithm and application development.

Customers can sign up here to request future access to D-Wave’s forthcoming gate-model quantum simulator and systems.

About D-Wave Quantum Inc.

D-Wave is a leader in the development and delivery of quantum computing systems, software and services. It is the world’s first commercial supplier of quantum computers and the first and only to offer dual-platform quantum computing products and services, spanning both annealing and gate-model quantum computing technologies. D-Wave’s mission is to help customers realize the value of quantum today through enterprise-grade systems available on-premises and via its Leap quantum cloud service, which offers 99.9% availability and uptime. More than 100 organizations across commercial, government and research sectors trust D-Wave to address complex computational challenges using quantum computing. Learn more about realizing the value of quantum computing today and how D-Wave is shaping the quantum-driven industrial and societal advancements of tomorrow: www.dwavequantum.com.

Source: D-Wave

The post D-Wave to Launch Gate-Model Quantum Simulator with Dual-Rail Error Detection appeared first on HPCwire.

Love or hate Amazon, its 23-26 June Prime Day event is a good time to snag discounts on tech, fashion and more, including much-loved brands such as Anyday and Caraway

• Sign up for the Filter US newsletter, your weekly guide to buying fewer, better things

You don’t have the wait until after Turkey Day: early summer is actually one of the best times of the year to snag a deal. Amazon is kicking off its annual summer sale on 23 June, and just as Christmas songs start playing in stores two months early, the company and many other retailers are slashing prices in advance.

We’ve handpicked 31 of the best deals based on products the Filter has tested and loved in the past, including discounts on some of our favorite brands such as Field Company, Anyday and Caraway. If you want to shop at Amazon, we’ve handpicked products that are actually worth your money, and very few require a Prime subscription. If you prefer other retailers, we have oodles of those too.

Best tech deal:
AirPods Pro 3

Best home deal:
Levoit Tower Fan

The next installment of the Grand Theft Auto series is poised to dominate 2026. Here's what we know so far.

The FTC is leveraging another act to stop costly cancellation confusion, but that's not all.

A number of poorly timed announcements have forced Senate Republicans to squander carefully laid plans, exposing a widening rift within the party.

Exclusive: Event co-founded by Jordan Peterson will bring together rightwing figures, US state officials and anti-abortionists in London

Nigel Farage and fellow Reform UK MPs Sarah Pochin and Andrew Rosindell will be there. As will a plethora of Reform advisers, backroom staff and figures, such as Ben Delo, a British crypto billionaire who has given £4m to Nigel Farage’s party.

Yet as populist-right politicians from across the globe and their multimillionaire backers prepare for this year’s Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (Arc) – a rightwing London summit labelled an “anti-woke Davos” – others whose expected attendance has not been publicised potentially raises more questions.

Kyiv says attack, which also forced evacuation at Russia’s biggest airport, was in response to strike on historic monastery

• Explainer: how significant was attack on Moscow?

Ukrainian drones have hit several locations across Moscow in Kyiv’s biggest air raid on the city since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, setting a major ⁠oil refinery on fire and forcing evacuations at the country’s largest airport.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the attack as a response to Russia’s strike on a historic Kyiv monastery complex earlier this week. “We do not want this war and never did,” the Ukrainian president said in a voice message to journalists. “But if Ukraine is going to burn, your Moscow will burn too … It is time to end the aggression, time to end this war.”

In the early hours of January 6, 2026, two 911 callers near Ypsilanti, Michigan, reported a white van driving erratically. 

Within an hour, police had found a white van, crashed into it twice on purpose, and fired 27 shots at the driver while the vehicle lay on its side, burning. At least eight cops watched as 34-year old Navy veteran John Andrew Jenuwine bled out and died inside.

Of several inconsistencies in the police response, one stood out: The only physical description provided to the dispatcher was that “two Black guys” were driving the van, and a caller said they’d brandished a handgun at his wife. Jenuwine was white, driving alone, and unarmed.

That’s not what police told Jenuwine’s parents when they contacted them the following evening, 17 hours after killing their son.

“We were told that there was an exchange of gunfire, and that John was killed,” John’s father, Larry Jenuwine, told The Intercept. “Call it naïveté or whatever you want to call it, but our first thoughts were, ‘Oh my God, what did he do, why did he cause this?’” 

On the phone with Larry and Kelly, John’s mother, a deputy with the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office claimed their recently deceased son had a gun. But Jenuwine, an industrial field engineer traveling to repair million-dollar lasers, just had his work equipment; no gun was ever found in his van. And the officers who caused two intentional collisions appear to have violated their own policies, which the department updated after the police killing of George Floyd — testing the limits of post-2020 police reforms.

The Jenuwine family is now suing Washtenaw County and eight sheriff’s deputies who responded to the case for wrongful death; for violating John’s constitutional rights to protection under the law, and against unreasonable searches and seizures; and for gross negligence and willful misconduct, including improper use of deadly force. The suit seeks to hold the county responsible for what it calls the sheriff’s failures to train officers and enforce its policies.

“Come to find out, he didn’t do anything to cause any of this,” Larry said. “He was not the guy that they were supposed to be chasing.”

Less than 15 minutes elapsed between the time Washtenaw County Sheriff’s deputies incorrectly identified Jenuwine’s van and when they started shooting. Officers fired their first shots seconds after causing Jenuwine’s vehicle to flip on its side and catch fire. 

Only seven out of the 27 shots fired hit Jenuwine. None of them alone was responsible for killing him, according to an independent autopsy obtained by Jenuwine’s family and described by their attorneys in a press conference last week, which found he bled out and died over time. While Jenuwine struggled and died, dashcam footage shared with The Intercept recorded officers outside discussing whether any of the shots had hit him. 

After several minutes had passed, one officer said over the radio, “He’s kicking around inside the vehicle right now.” None of them called for emergency services.

According to the footage, an edited version of which was viewed by The Intercept, Jenuwine lay dying in the van for at least five minutes. 

“The cruelty of it, I suppose, is what strikes me the most,” said Maura Battersby, one of the attorneys representing the family. “If aid had been rendered, he may have survived this.” 

Of the four deputies attorneys said fired shots, two names have been publicly released: Jacob Gombos and Jonathan Early. Both received awards in 2024 for distinguished service; Gombos got the department’s Life Saving Award. 

The sheriff’s office placed Gombos, Earley, and the other deputies involved on paid administrative leave pending an investigation by Michigan State Police, which was completed last month and is now pending review by the Michigan attorney general. The state AG will decide whether to bring criminal charges against any of the officers in the case. 

A spokesperson for the Michigan State Police confirmed that their investigation is closed and referred questions to the attorney general’s office, which did not respond to a request for comment. Spokespeople for the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office and the Ypsilanti Police Department did not respond to requests for comment. 

The case has brought renewed scrutiny to the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office, which is currently facing dual lawsuits from whistleblowers who claimed the department hired unqualified officers and fired them in retaliation for reporting it. Both plaintiffs are former office staff who said they were fired after raising concerns that Sheriff Alyshia Dyer and other staff pushed them to hire candidates who had lied about their qualifications and in one case had an “extensive” criminal history. Another sheriff’s deputy resigned in March while under investigation for allegedly having a sexual relationship with a subordinate officer. Dyer herself was also independently investigated last year after a partially burned cannabis cigarette was found in her county-issued vehicle. (She denied it was hers, and an independent report could not determine whether the joint belonged to Dyer.)

“It seems like every day we hear something about the Washtenaw Sheriff’s department,” Kelly Jenuwine told The Intercept. “They are in the news constantly, and it’s not for a good reason.”

Jenuwine’s killing raises a new round of questions about the efficacy of police reform. In 2024, Michigan implemented new statewide guidelines restricting vehicle pursuits to “protect the lives of innocent bystanders.” Following the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s office released a memo outlining how its policies aligned with a series of proposed reforms pushed by activists against police violence that grew out of 2014 protests in Ferguson, Missouri. And the sheriff’s office adopted a new use of force policy in 2022, which classifies intentional vehicle collisions — known as a “PIT” maneuver, a precision immobilization technique — as deadly force. 

“That’s something you’re trained not to do,” said Todd Flood, the lead attorney on the Jenuwines’ case.

Related

Most Cops Involved in High-Profile Killings Since 2014 Kept Their Police Licenses

The new policy also guides officers to “seek voluntary compliance and operate with minimal reliance on the use of force,” using techniques in crisis intervention and “rapport-building communication,” and try to de-escalate, even after using force. It requires a mandatory medical evaluation when deadly force is applied, if an officer observes an injury, or if they believe one has occurred; and it ties the degree of appropriate force to how certain they are that the subject committed a crime. The policy states: “Sheriff’s Office employees shall never employ excessive force.”  

Officers did not verbally engage with Jenuwine a single time, Battersby told The Intercept.

“I would have expected them to be calling out over the loudspeaker,” Battersby said. “There were many instances in which they were in close proximity to him, and it doesn’t appear that they did that.” 

At a press conference after the shooting, the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office played a dashcam video that showed Jenuwine reversing his van and driving on the wrong side of the road. Before the sheriffs hit Jenuwine’s van in the first PIT maneuver, the dashcam video cuts ahead, with the video timestamp jumping forward 30 seconds.

The Jenuwines said what they describe as John’s “execution” changed the way they look at law enforcement after having considered themselves generally supportive of police. “I want the people that executed my son to never have the opportunity to work in law enforcement again,” said Kelly. 

“They ran around with those guns like they were playing video games, guns held sideways,” Larry said, referring to the dashcam footage. “I’m still struggling with this and I anticipate that’s going to be a continuing struggle.”

Despite believing the vast majority of police were “good, honest, hard-working people,” he said, “I don’t believe these guys that were involved in this shooting were. And that’s the kind of people we need to get out of that system.”

“We want to make sure that the people involved in this, in John’s death, are held accountable,” Larry said. “We’re hoping that there will be criminal charges as well, but we can’t count on that.”

Jenuwine liked to spend his time outdoors fishing and hunting with his family, his parents told The Intercept. He was on his high school football team, spent six years in the Navy, and was a member of a Detroit motorcycle club. When he was growing up, he and Larry worked on cars and tractors together.

On what would have been Jenuwine’s 35th birthday last month, his parents said they spent the evening crying over a birthday cake. 

“Those officers get to go home to their families every night,” Kelly said. “What Larry and I get, we get a box of ashes and a lock of my son’s hair.”

The post Police Chased the Wrong Man, Then Shot Him and Watched as He Bled Out appeared first on The Intercept.

New capabilities include a next-generation control plane, S3 performance improvements, and native S3 object tagging planned for general availability in H2 2026

PITTSBURGH, June 18, 2026 — VDURA today announced three major advances for ISC High-Performance 2026: a next-generation multi-tenant control plane, significant S3 performance improvements and native S3 object tagging. Together, these capabilities are designed to simplify operations and accelerate data-intensive workloads at scale for AI and HPC organizations worldwide.

VDURA is exhibiting at ISC High Performance 2026 in Hamburg, Germany. Visit VDURA at booth G21.

Planned for general availability in the second half of 2026, these advances continue VDURA’s mission to deliver the world’s most powerful data infrastructure platform for AI and HPC.

Next-Generation Control Plane: Simplified, Multi-Tenant Management for AI and HPC Environments

VDURA’s next-generation control plane, planned for general availability later this year, is purpose-built for the operational demands of modern AI and HPC environments. It introduces a modern management interface that delivers a streamlined tenant administration model, enabling platform and tenant operators to manage complex multi-tenant storage environments from an intuitive dashboard. Alongside the new UI, a REST API for key platform operations gives operators and integrators a foundation for automation and tooling workflows. Together, they significantly reduce operational overhead while preserving the depth of control that enterprise and research organizations require.

S3 Performance Improvements: Sustained Throughput for Cloud-Native AI Pipelines

VDURA is delivering targeted S3 performance improvements designed to sustain high throughput across cloud-native AI pipelines, including AI model checkpointing, inference serving, and large-scale dataset ingestion. These improvements reduce latency for S3-native operations and increase aggregate throughput for concurrent read and write workloads, ensuring the VDURA Data Platform continues to deliver the performance AI operators demand as workloads scale.

S3 Tags: Metadata-Driven Control Across the Data Lifecycle

Building on enhanced S3 performance, VDURA is also introducing native S3 object tagging support, enabling organizations to attach rich metadata to objects stored on the VDURA platform. S3 Tags unlock policy-based data lifecycle management, automated tiering workflows, and fine-grained access controls across AI training datasets, model artifacts, and scientific data collections. For HPC and AI operators managing petabyte-scale object stores, S3 Tags provide the metadata infrastructure required to enforce governance policies and manage data across its full lifecycle.

“With these new capabilities, we’re focused on making VDURA more powerful and easier to operate at every level of the organization,” said Chris Girard, Vice President of Product Management at VDURA. “The new management interface brings clarity and control to the people running VDURA day-to-day, while our expanded S3 capabilities give data engineers and AI practitioners the tools to build more sophisticated, automated data pipelines. These are the operational and integration capabilities our customers have been asking for.”

Availability

The Next-Generation Control Plane, S3 Performance Improvements, and S3 Tags are planned for general availability in the second half of 2026 for all V5000 class systems. Existing customers can upgrade in place via an online software update. Customers interested in early access are encouraged to visit VDURA at ISC 2026 or contact the VDURA sales team at vdura.com.

VDURA at ISC High Performance 2026

VDURA is exhibiting at ISC High Performance 2026 in Hamburg, Germany. Visit the VDURA booth G21 to experience these new capabilities firsthand and learn more about VDURA’s full portfolio of AI and HPC storage solutions.

About VDURA

VDURA builds the world’s most powerful data platform for AI and high-performance computing, bringing hyperscale-class storage to the rest of the world, powered by HYDRA, the only high-performance distributed architecture purpose-built to unify memory, flash and disk in a single software-defined platform that keeps GPU clusters saturated while delivering hyperscale-class durability and economics. Visit vdura.com for more information.

Source: VDURA

The post VDURA Unveils Next-Gen Control Plane and Advanced S3 Capabilities for AI and HPC at ISC 2026 appeared first on HPCwire.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, June 18, 2026 — HIVE Digital Technologies Ltd., through its wholly owned subsidiary BUZZ High Performance Computing Inc. (BUZZ HPC), today announced a landmark sovereign AI infrastructure deal involving Bell Canada and Cohere Inc., marking a significant milestone in Canada’s AI infrastructure ecosystem.

The collaboration brings together Bell AI Fabric’s national data center and connectivity platform, Cohere’s security-first enterprise-grade AI solutions and large language model capabilities, and BUZZ HPC’s NVIDIA-accelerated GPU cloud and AI factory expertise into a single, integrated Canadian AI stack. Together, the companies are delivering full-stack, production-grade sovereign AI infrastructure built in Canada, for Canadian enterprise and government customers.

BUZZ HPC has executed a three-year GPU cloud contract with a total contract value of approximately USD $220 million. Through BUZZ HPC, HIVE has procured NVIDIA AI infrastructure powered by 2,304 NVIDIA Grace Blackwell GPUs as a part of NVIDIA GB200 NVL72 rack-scale systems interconnected with NVIDIA Quantum InfiniBand scale-out networking, built to NVIDIA reference architecture standards and utilizing advanced liquid cooling.

BUZZ HPC will deploy its sovereign AI cloud and GPU cluster infrastructure at Bell’s purpose-built facility in Merritt, British Columbia. The deployment will provide the high-performance compute layer on which Cohere will operate its foundation models and enterprise AI solutions for government and corporate customers across Canada. BUZZ HPC’s AI factories are powered by renewable energy and designed for ultra-low power usage effectiveness (PUE), bringing industrial-scale GPU capacity to one of Canada’s most strategically important AI deployments.

Canada’s federal AI strategy has a clear mandate: invest in Canadian technology sovereignty and keep Canadian data secure under Canadian control. This partnership directly supports that mandate by combining Canadian connectivity, Canadian compute infrastructure, and Canadian AI models into a secure national platform.

HIVE is funding the purchase of the NVIDIA Grace Blackwell rack-scale systems using a portion of the proceeds from its recent USD $115 million convertible note financing completed in April 2026. Hypertec, a Canadian 42-year OEM veteran in high-performance computing is delivering a bespoke GPU server solution, from hardware procurement and system integration through to installation, commissioning, and OEM support.

The partnership further strengthens BUZZ’s position as a leading sovereign AI cloud provider in the Canadian market, alongside Bell AI Fabric’s role as the connective tissue of Canada’s sovereign AI ecosystem. Together, the platform integrates connectivity, data centres, compute, professional services, and cybersecurity into a unified national AI infrastructure platform. For enterprise and government customers, the combined stack provides enhanced control over compute sovereignty, model security, performance, and operational governance. The compute infrastructure will remain entirely within Canadian borders and operate under Canadian standards.

“Canada helped pioneer modern artificial intelligence. What we have lacked is not talent, it is industrial infrastructure to commercialize that talent at scale before others do it for us,” said Frank Holmes, Executive Chairman, HIVE Digital Technologies. “This partnership with Bell and Cohere is a defining moment. BUZZ HPC is the GPU factory layer that transforms Canada’s AI ambitions from political promises into productive national assets. Sophisticated investors understand that the companies building sovereign AI infrastructure today are positioning for a decade of asymmetric returns. HIVE is one of the very few companies in the world operating at the intersection of Tier-I data centers, AI compute, and sovereign infrastructure and this deal validates that thesis at the highest level of Canadian enterprise.”

About HIVE

Founded in 2017, HIVE Digital Technologies Ltd. was among the first publicly listed companies to prioritize mining digital assets powered by green energy. Today, HIVE builds and operates next-generation Tier-I and Tier-III data centers across Canada, Sweden, and Paraguay, serving both Bitcoin and high-performance computing clients. HIVE’s dual engine infrastructure-driven by hashrate services and GPU-accelerated AI computing-delivers scalable, environmentally responsible solutions for the digital economy. For more information, visit hivedigitaltech.com.

Source: HIVE Digital Technologies Ltd

The post BUZZ HPC Announces Sovereign AI Infrastructure Deal with Bell Canada and Cohere appeared first on HPCwire.

Merlin Lu faces felony and misdemeanor charges after police released images of a suspect fleeing the scene

A 21- year old man who admitted to setting fire to a cross in Chicago’s Grant Park last week is now in police custody on hate crime charges, per Chicago police.

Merlin Lu was arrested and charged with four felony and four misdemeanor counts related to the incident on 9 June.

You are the creative orchestrator with the new AI assistants coming to Photoshop, Premiere Pro and Illustrator.

Federal agency to use herbicide to clear lands for replanting after 2021 Caldor fire – but public reaction to plan is fierce

Katherine Levy remembers a childhood deeply rooted in the natural offerings of Lake Tahoe – water-skiing in the summer and working as ski instructor on the surrounding snow-covered mountains during winter months.

She recently moved back to live out her retirement along the lake’s north shore. But she doesn’t like what she has found upon her return: a US government plan to spray multiple types of herbicides, including the cancer-linked glyphosate weed killer – within national forest property that abuts the community’s cherished lake.

Check out some old classics and great new releases on Netflix now.

Arthur, the first named tropical storm of the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season, weakened to a post-tropical cyclone after making landfall.

Moderna seeks FDA approval of its new shot, mFlusvia, as option for 50 and older

US health advisers are debating a new kind of flu vaccine on Thursday, the first made with the same mRNA technology that was key to ending the Covid-19 pandemic.

Moderna is seeking Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of its new shot, dubbed mFlusiva, as an option for people 50 and older. The FDA advisory committee meeting is a step toward a final decision ahead of the winter flu season.

Windows users get a true MacBook Pro alternative with HP's top-end consumer laptop.

A proposed $8bn renovation of the hub has critics wondering if it’s another example of the US president bolstering his legacy at taxpayers’ expense

A proposed $8bn renovation of Penn Station in New York City has sparked questions from local leaders who want improvements to the western hemisphere’s busiest transit hub but wonder what it will look like, who will pay for it and what role Donald Trump will play.

The station, which was once considered one of New York City’s most beautiful landmarks, is now seen by many as an ugly infrastructure that is hard to navigate, dark and claustrophobic.

If you're gifting your dad a snazzy new grill this Father's Day, don't forget the meat thermometer, too.

Commentary: My camera roll was filling up with random photos from every time I bumped my camera control button. I hated it until I found this trick.

In US statecraft and warcraft, the president and Pete Hegseth are now saying previously quiet parts out loud

The Department of Defense will soon officially become the Department of War, if Republicans get their way. Key committees in the House and Senate have approved the name change, and Donald Trump is eager to sign it into law. The rebranding is candid and ominous, offering a future of heightened zeal for killing, maiming and destroying.

Christened in 1949, the Department of Defense unified the military branches with the Pentagon as their headquarters. Since then, presidents have routinely promoted each new war as vital for the defense of the United States and its values, a pretense that has pervaded mainstream media and political discourse.

In this week’s newsletter: After Trump’s interventions over Greenland, there are many in Iceland who believe they would be stronger in the EU. But will its recent history of independence win out?

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As the UK marks the tenth anniversary of its fateful Brexit referendum next Tuesday, Iceland is fast approaching its moment of truth about the EU – albeit from the opposite direction.

On 29 August, Icelanders will be asked whether or not to they want to come back to the table with Brussels for negotiations about joining the EU. Iceland originally applied in 2009 after the financial crash, but pulled out of talks in 2013 saying it couldn’t go any further without a referendum.

A massive ancient oak tree linked to the legend of Robin Hood may have been loved to death.

New York police department say teenager thrown to the ground when horse bolted away from its driver

A teenager thrown to the ground on Wednesday when a Central Park carriage horse bolted away from its driver has died, according to police.

The 18-year-old was riding in the horse-drawn carriage with three other passengers when the accident happened just before 3pm, according to the New York police department. At least two passengers were sent flying out of the careening cab.

PlayStation 5, Xbox, Nintendo Switch 2, PC; Team Asano/Square Enix
Upbeat, charmingly retro RPG full of treasure-hunting, temple-roaming, monster-slaying and princess-saving is an absolute blast to play

You can’t help but wonder if developer Team Asano is in a private competition with itself to come up with the most ridiculous name for a video game. Following Project Triangle Strategy and Bravely Default: Flying Fairy we have this mouthful: The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales. It’s a playable love letter to the Zelda adventures of yesteryear rendered in the studio’s trademark glorious 2D-HD art style, melding evocative pixel sprites with modern visual effects.

From west Philabieldia, born and raised, our hero is adventurer Elliot. The antagonist making trouble in the neighbourhood is a king’s dastardly aide intent on summoning an ancient evil. The story is pure after-school-TV schlock, fully voice-acted but still unafraid to make you sit through reams and reams of text, and the action comprises treasure-hunting, temple-roaming and dispatching monsters. It’s part Chrono Trigger, part Oracle of Seasons as our almost obnoxiously upbeat hero journeys through the ages in order to solve puzzles, tip his fedora and of course, save a princess.

The Minnesota Lynx point guard’s creativity has made an impact in her first pro season and has fans racing to watch her highlight reels

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For dedicated WNBA fans, every morning begins with the same question: what did Olivia Miles do this time? A no-look pass through three defenders? A crossover that sends another grown woman staggering out of frame? Statue of Liberty layups launched from angles that flout Euclidean geometry? You just never know with this wonder woman. The rush she gives fans makes a double espresso feel like a nightcap.

No player in the WNBA has brought more joy to the season’s opening month than Miles, who has quickly emerged as one of the league’s most compelling talents. Fifteen games into her professional career, the 23-year-old North Jersey native has already established herself as the engine of the Minnesota Lynx offense, pacing the team in average scoring (19.0) and assists (5.7) while sinking more than half her shot attempts. In a 99-83 road win against a short-handed Los Angeles Sparks team on Wednesday night, Miles poured in a season-best 31 points on a blistering 80% percent shooting in just 26 minutes.

While they have a few downsides, if you're a competitive gamer (or hope to be), HE and TMR magnetic switches can make a huge performance difference.

While the stock market booms for the rich, cost of living is soaring for everyone else

Since 2020, the stock market has more than doubled. Americans who own substantial financial assets are reveling in economic success. For everyone else, the economy feels very different. This summer, the average family will spend nearly $800 just to keep their home cool, almost 40% more than in 2020 and up 10.5% since last summer.

Americans now carry more than $1.2tn in credit card debt. Nearly 60% say they are living paycheck to paycheck. One in six households is behind on its utility bills. Every year, utilities disconnect electric service more than 13m times. Nearly 40% of lower-income households struggle to pay their energy bills.

Mark Wolfe is an energy economist and serves as the executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association representing the state directors of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program and the co-director of the Center on Energy Poverty and Climate. He also serves as an adjunct professor at the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy at George Washington University

Your antivirus software does a lot more than sit in your system tray looking busy.

Bundling may be a money-saver as subscription prices skyrocket. Our expert chimes in on whether they're worth it.

Last year, US adults spent an average of $204 on unused subscriptions. Now, we're wasting even more money.

Special-effects designer Brian Johnson, known for his groundbreaking work on Space: 1999, The Empire Strikes Back, Alien, and Aliens, has died at the age of 86. Johnson began his career creating models and explosions for Gerry and Sylvia Anderson productions, later designed the iconic Eagle Transporter, and became one of science fiction cinema's most influential behind-the-scenes artists. Longtime Slashdot reader sandbagger remembers the SFX legend, writing: "The Space: 1999 Eagle is one of the great space ships of science fiction."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Boseley won for her high-profile, multiplatform political explainer series, Parliamen-Tea: explaining the chaos of Australian politics

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Guardian Australia’s Matilda Boseley’s political explainer series Parliament-Tea was recognised at the 2026 Walkley mid-year media prizes, winning the young journalist award for innovative storytelling.

The high-profile, multiplatform political explainer series, in which Boseley explained machinations in Australian parliament over a cup of tea, engaged a younger generation in national policy debate. The category recognises journalism that breaks standard structural moulds to reach and inform audiences through dynamic digital platforms and creative production formats.

President hails ‘major win’ for US as he attempts to exit war having failed to achieve regime change in Tehran. Plus: an investigation into the murky world of OnlyFans ‘managers’

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Good morning.

Donald Trump has signed a 14-point agreement with Iran, claiming it delivered a “major win” for the US – even as it made significant political and financial concessions to Iran to reopen the strait of Hormuz and prevent a “worldwide depression”.

How have US Republicans reacted to the deal? Senator Lindsey Graham, a key Trump ally, appeared to soften his view of the deal after a “very lengthy and productive” conversation with the US special envoy Steve Witkoff. But his fellow senator Ted Cruz, who has backed the war, said: “History teaches that giving billions of dollars to theocratic lunatics who want to murder us is not a good idea. I think the president is receiving some very poor advice on this deal.” And Senator Bill Cassidy declared: “Reagan is rolling over in his grave.”

Why is Ukraine newly concerned about Belarus? Russian spy drones flying into Ukraine from Belarusian airspace have sharply increased since the beginning of the year, leading to Kyiv reinforcing fortifications on its northern border. What concerns Ukrainian and European officials is that Moscow appears to be attempting to integrate Minsk ever more closely into its war efforts, including through joint nuclear exercises earlier this year.

Reform UK leader used private meeting at Bank of England to urge governor to drop plans for state-run cryptocurrency

Nigel Farage has been trying to block a Bank of England cryptocurrency plan that could be costly for the billionaire bankrolling his party.

The Reform UK leader has said Christopher Harborne wants nothing in exchange for the millions he has donated to the party and the undeclared £5m personal gift to Farage that the Guardian revealed in April.

Israel’s government asked Meta to censor social media content about its ongoing war against Iran, according to internal documents viewed by The Intercept.

Company records show that Israel petitioned Meta to take down Facebook and Instagram posts expressing support for Iran, opposition to Israel, and even depictions of Iranian missile impacts.

The government flagged a variety of materials related to the war, including posts mourning the death of Ayatollah Khamenei following his assassination by the U.S. and Israel on the opening day of the conflict, content supportive of Iran’s retaliatory attacks, and Iranian accounts that shared military analysis and propaganda sympathetic to the Iranian regime’s perspective.

In some cases, Meta complied with the censorship requests, the records show, though it is unclear on what grounds. Meta maintains that it only removes content as required by law or materials that violate its speech policies.

When asked how many Iran-related takedown requests had been granted to date since the war began, the company did not answer. The Israeli Ministry of Justice, which submits takedown requests to social media platforms, did not respond to a request for comment.

Israel’s social media lobbying is not new; for years the nation has leaned on its close relationship with Meta to push for targeted enforcement of the company’s content moderation rulebook.

Israel’s Office of the State Attorney routinely lodges complaints to social media platforms on behalf of state security agencies about content deemed illegal or said to promote “terrorism,” according to its website. In the documents reviewed by The Intercept, the office in some cases made no claim that the social media content violated Israeli law. Instead, the office asked that posts or accounts should be removed because they were in violation of Meta’s content moderation rulebook.

Meta, for instance, designates Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a “Dangerous Organization,” and prohibits users from engaging in many forms of positive speech about its actions. This means posts supportive of retaliatory missile launches by the IRGC, for instance, could run afoul of the company’s rules. No such prohibition exists for users who post favorably about the U.S. or Israeli militaries.

Meta did not respond to questions about the Iran war requests, but spokesperson Daniel Roberts provided a statement to The Intercept. “Anyone is able to report content they think violates our rules. Regardless of who or how a piece of content is flagged, we assess it based on our policies, which govern what is and isn’t allowed on our platform. It is wrong and irresponsible to imply that these requests are in any way unusual or improper.”

Meta has faced scrutiny, specifically in the Middle East, for removing content that doesn’t violate the company’s rules. A 2022 audit commissioned by the company itself found discrepancies in its content moderation practices between Arabic and Hebrew content. “Arabic content had greater over-enforcement (e.g., erroneously removing Palestinian voice) on a per user basis.” the company found. A 2023 report by the company’s inhouse Oversight Board described the “over-enforcement” of the company’s Dangerous Organizations and Individuals blacklist, disproportionately composed of Muslim and Middle Eastern entities.

Meta has long claimed that as an American company, it is legally required to sometimes remove content pertaining to certain entities sanctioned by the U.S., such as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. But legal scholars say that has little to no precedent or basis in existing sanctions law, which focus on matters of material support rather than political speech. It’s a policy that has created an immense ideological slant: A company headquartered in California can determine what is or is not permissible speech for billions of users across the world, only a fraction of whom are American.

Related

Meta’s Israel Policy Chief Tried to Suppress Pro-Palestinian Instagram Posts

Further adding to the imbalance when it comes to Middle East crises is the fact that Meta has granted Israel privileged access to its content moderation policy teams. In 2024, The Intercept reported how Meta employee Jordana Cutler, a former aide to Benjamin Netanyahu, served as a dedicated liaison to the Israeli government, advocating for the country’s interests and helping facilitate the removal of unwanted speech. Few other countries in the world have a dedicated representative within Meta — in 2020, a similar policy head for India market resigned after revelations she had lobbied for rule enforcement that favored India’s ruling Hindu nationalist party. Asked if Cutler has had a role in facilitating Israeli takedown requests of content relating to the war, Meta did not respond.

“Meta’s close relationship with the Israeli government for takedown requests has been a long-standing issue,” Evelyn Douek, a Stanford Law School professor and scholar of digital speech policies, told The Intercept. “Meta’s acquiescence in lots of takedown requests has been a long-standing practice.”

These asymmetries of censorship power are particularly sensitive during times of war, said Douek.

“Governments wanting to suppress speech that is critical of their war efforts is as old as time,” she said. “Allowing governments to claim national security reasons to suppress speech willy-nilly would obliterate the value of speech protections.”

Related

Facebook Tells Moderators to Allow Graphic Images of Russian Airstrikes but Censors Israeli Attacks

According to a source familiar with the matter, Israel lobbied Meta to implement a blanket rule restricting imagery of war damage within its territory, mirroring an Israeli news media censorship policy that bars journalists from documenting weapon impacts without military approval. Meta has so far declined to implement such a policy for its billions of global users, the source said. Meta did not respond to questions about the status of this request.

The U.S. and Iran signed on Friday a ceasefire agreement, though Israel has suggested it would not abide by the terms of a deal. While many of the censorship requests directly addressed the war, others were tangential to the conflict itself. The records show Israel has pushed to remove content expressing outrage over last month’s storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque by far-right government minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. It also sought to stifle posts critical of rhetoric by Israel that linked Israel’s recent closure of Al-Aqsa with the ongoing war.

In general, Meta grants the vast majority of Israeli governmental takedown requests. The State Attorney’s Office boasted a 92 percent compliance rate in 2023, and a 2025 report by Drop Site News said the overall rate has climbed to 94 percent since the October 7 attack by Hamas.

Records reviewed by The Intercept show Israel asked for Iran war takedowns using the exact same language evoking Hamas’s October 7 attack that it submitted when requesting the censorship of pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli speech across the globe during Israel’s war on Gaza.

“It suggests that they don’t expect their requests are being reviewed very carefully,” Douek said.

Douek argued that the wartime censorship requests underscore the danger of policing speech entirely out of public view through “opaque processes” like governmental backchannels.

“These platforms have always maintained that they are neutral, or that they are just a platform for people to express their views, but it has long been true that these companies have always presented a particular view of the world and have been responsive to their own geopolitical and commercial interests, and have always been more responsive to powerful governments,” Douek said.

This creates a deeply lopsided dynamic when it comes to the Iran war: The two arguably best-represented governments in the world within Meta — the U.S. and Israel — are allied belligerents in a conflict against a state deeply sanctioned by the company’s speech rules. “You’re going to end up with a skewed debate,” Douek said.

The post Israel Asked Facebook to Censor Iran War Content, Internal Documents Show appeared first on The Intercept.

Did you miss a day in the popular language app? You can restore your 30-day-plus streak, but only for the month of June.

The three-martini lunch allowed us to mix business and pleasure, a phenomenon that is missing during the AI boom

As a 46-year-old executive who now has both people and AI agents reporting to me on the org chart, I think corporate America needs to revive a much-mocked relic of mid-century American business life: the three-martini lunch.

In 1978, Gerald Ford called the ritual “the epitome of American efficiency”, asking: “Where else can you get an earful, a bellyful and a snootful at the same time?” He meant it as a joke, but in 2026, I think it should be our strategic plan.

The unusually large shift comes amid revelations that the president’s ballroom project will rely more on taxpayer money than the administration acknowledged.

Why Should Delaware Care?
Earlier this month, multiple families and educators spoke during a town hall meeting about their concerns with the state of Delaware’s public education for students with disabilities. The meeting showed a clear divide between what parents and school districts view as adequate resources and goals for students with disabilities.

Roughly 50 parents gathered at a Middletown firehouse earlier this month to express their concerns about the goals and resources devoted to their kids’ special education programs within local school districts.  

Many of the parents shared a frustration about what they described as a disconnect between their children’s academic progress and the individualized education plans designed to support them. Others raised concerns about access to services and communication with school officials.

The town hall, which drew families from multiple Delaware school districts, was initially prompted by concerns that the Appoquinimink School District would reduce hours for its summer school and extended school year program – both of which help eligible students with disabilities to retain knowledge during the summer break. 

The discussion also followed a year of national conversations regarding education access and quality for students with disabilities. Fueling that conversation was a Trump administration decision Tuesday to move federal special education policy away from the U.S. Department of Education and into the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 

‘The school system has become a game’

Melissa DeFlaviis’s daughter will be starting the fourth grade at the Red Clay Consolidated School District next school year and has a “working memory issue,” which DeFlaviis says predisposes her to having a learning disability. 

While her 9-year-old daughter is in third grade, DeFlaviis said she only reads at a first-grade level. She said her daughter’s individualized education plan (IEP) goal is to be able to write two sentences. 

DeFlaviis said she believes the goal is “well below” the standard goal for a third grader. 

Red Clay Consolidated School District spokesperson Alva Mobley said in a statement to Spotlight Delaware the district cannot comment on matters involving individual students. 

Mobley did note that IEP teams “work collaboratively” with families to develop individualized goals based on each student’s present levels of performance, among other areas. 

“Because IEP goals are individualized, there is no single IEP goal that is considered standard for a particular grade level,” Mobley said. 

DeFlaviis said she is told her daughter is making adequate progress with her IEP goals. But she disagrees because of her daughter’s report card results, and has hired a tutor to help her daughter improve. 

Because of DeFlaviis’s pushback over the district’s goals for her daughter, she said it feels like the “school system has become a game, and I am teaching myself how to play.” 

Mobley also said IEP progress reports reflect growth toward individualized goals, while report cards generally reflect performance relating to grade-level standards. Progress in one area may not always directly correspond to changes in the other, she said.

Despite resources, parents struggle

Federal law requires school districts to reimburse families for private services like tutoring from a certified educator when the district cannot provide an appropriate education that aligns with the student’s IEP needs.

Still, some parents of children receiving district-paid services claim there are difficulties ensuring their children are not marked absent for receiving those services. 

Joe Ventura, an Appoquinimink School District parent, has two autistic children who were both diagnosed before reaching 3 years old. 

Ventura said his son requires private tutoring during school hours, often missing in-school learning as a result, at a location across the street from his school. 

Although these services are paid for by the Appoquinimink School District, Ventura said he has had to “fight” with the school’s administration because his son is often marked absent from or late to school. 

“They mark him absent or late, because, ‘Oh, it’s not an official document coming from the tutor,’” Ventura said, “But you’re the district paying for the tutor.” 

When asked about Ventura’s experience, Appoquinimink Executive Director of Student Services and Special Education Edmond Gurdo said absences such as these are approved and are noted as approved in the student information system. 

Families like Ventura’s would need to follow the district’s absence approval process, which includes submitting an absence request form. The school office then has its own process to properly document the submission. 

Gurdo noted the process “can take time depending on when documents are submitted and the updates are made within the student information system.”

Trying to meet students’ needs

States must verify that all special educators are fully certified or enrolled in alternative certification programs when they apply for the federal funds that help school districts provide special education, as reported by K-12 Dive. 

Delaware also requires specialized certification for teachers who work with a certain percentage of students with autism in the classroom. 

These standards have left districts like Appoquinimink “significantly constrained” in their ability to recruit amid the ongoing, nationwide teacher shortage, said Kristi Peters, the Appoquinimink director of special education. 

Separate district constraints around transportation and meal service were behind Appoquinimink’s decision to cut back on its summer programs – the change that had initially sparked outrage from parents of students with disabilities – from four to three days per week, Peters said.  

Still, she said the program will maintain “students’ access to their specially designed instruction and required services.”

Peters also noted that discussions about those summer changes began during the Appoquinimink Board of Education’s January meeting and continued “through subsequent conversations with stakeholders.” 

The feeling of being constrained by state laws and certification requirements was also discussed during the Middletown firehouse meeting by Sharon Livingstone, a paraprofessional in the Appoquinimink district. 

Livingstone said there are not enough educators in the state who are certified to work with students with autism, and the district must rely on paraprofessionals or long-term substitute teachers.

Peters told Spotlight Delaware that if vacancies persist, the district uses trained and supervised paraprofessionals to “assist in the delivery of services.” She also said those staff members receive coaching and participate in professional learning through a collaborative model with certified teachers. 

The Appoquinimink School District has reported “systemic staffing challenges” to the Delaware Department of Education’s Exceptional Children Resources workgroup, Peters said. 

Next school year, the district will start partnering with outside agencies to help teachers earn autism certification and support paraprofessionals currently filling teaching roles, beginning with a small pilot program before expanding. 

In the meantime, educators like Livingstone have taken it upon themselves to push for access to more resources at the state level. 

Livingstone said the state’s certification is through five classes at Wilmington University, and she has spoken to legislators about the state providing financial assistance to those who want to take the courses.

The post Delaware parents, educators, advocates voice concern about special education appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

They claim to fix fine lines, blemishes and redness – but which stand up to scrutiny? We asked dermatologists and put them to the test to find out

• The best anti-ageing creams, serums and treatments

LED face masks are booming in popularity – despite being one of the most expensive at-home beauty products to hit the market. They claim to either reduce the appearance of fine lines, stop spots or calm redness, with some even combining different types of light to enhance the benefits.

However, it’s wise to be sceptical about new treatments that are costly and non-invasive, and to do your research before you buy. With this in mind, I interviewed doctors and dermatologists to find out whether these light therapy devices work.

Best LED face mask overall:
CurrentBody Series 2

Best budget LED face mask:
Silk’n LED face mask 100

When parents and educators in Greystones, Ireland saw children dealing with increasing anxiety, they acted – and took phones out of the equation.

Why Should Delaware Care?
Delaware has a long history of LGBTQ+ advocacy and community-building, but dedicated physical spaces for queer residents are limited. As concerns grow over policies from the Trump administration and their impact on LGBTQ+ people, a new community space opening in Delaware’s largest city aims to provide a place for connection, support, and belonging.

For years, Delaware’s LGBTQ+ history has lived in fragments, scattered throughout the state.

Stories from the community have been found in shared memories, archives, temporary exhibits, small businesses, annual Pride events and community spaces. 

Now, the Delaware Sexuality and Gender Collective is trying to give that history a permanent home in the state’s largest city. 

By the end of this year, the organization plans to open The Collective, a 3,200-square-foot facility on Market Street in downtown Wilmington. It would serve as an LGBTQ+ visitor center, museum, co-working space, and community hub. 

Organizers say the project would create Delaware’s first queer history museum. It would also create the first brick-and-mortar LGBTQ+ community space in northern Delaware in over 35 years — following the closure of the Griffin Community Center in Wilmington.

Similar centers exist in Sussex County and Philadelphia.

For Noah Duckett, co-founder of the Delaware Sexuality and Gender Collective, the space’s purpose feels vital. He emphasized that while there have been “incredible events” in Wilmington, there is not a single space “to showcase all of that in a permanent way.”

Duckett’s plans come after LGBTQ+ rights were thrust into the center of national political debates amid President Donald Trump’s second term. 

Since taking office, Trump issued an executive order to recognize two sexes — male and female. His administration also issued a string of directives and orders aiming to alter health care for transgender individuals by pulling federal dollars from hospitals nationally and in Delaware that provide gender-affirming care. 

Meanwhile, some states and conservative groups have called for the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn its decade-old ruling, legalizing same-sex marriage. 

Duckett said those government actions only increase the need to build a community center.

“We have sponsors that are pulling away, we have hospitals and agencies and government practices that are really just trying to minimize their support as much as possible,” Duckett said. 

Inspired by the Griffin 

Duckett and his mother, Julissa Coriano, founded the Delaware Sexuality and Gender Collective in 2018. Both are clinical social workers, sexuality therapists, and advocates in the queer community. 

Duckett said their organization began as a provider of family therapy, and clinical education and training, among other things. It then expanded into social programming and direct support services. Those included hosting the Pride Closet clothing drive, and offering recovery support for people healing from gender-affirming surgery.

A brick-and-mortar space had long been part of the conversation, Duckett said.

The Collective is expected to include a visitor center highlighting LGBTQ+ businesses, organizations, and events across Delaware; a gift shop featuring local queer artists and makers; a co-working space with offices and day-pass work areas; and a community room available for meetings, events, and programming.

It will be located on Market Street in Wilmington, but Duckett said the exact address will not be announced until the lease is finalized. It will be near the historical location of Wilmington’s previous LGBTQ+ community center, the Griffin, Duckett said.

Duckett’s organization is raising $500,000 to help cover upfront rent, construction, buildout and long-term sustainability. He said the goal is to make sure the space can last.

“We don’t want to have a really great idea and then it burns out in two years because we run out of funding,” he said.

‘Not just a temporary exhibition’

At the center of the project will be a permanent museum curated by Carolanne Deal, a longtime historian focused on Delaware’s LGBTQ+ history. Deal previously led research for the state’s first digital exhibit on LGBTQ+ history. 

Deal noted that queer history is rarely represented in a permanent way in Delaware museums or archives.

“It’s so incredibly important for us to have a permanent space that’s not just a temporary exhibition that comes out once a year for Pride month,” Deal said.

According to officials at the Delaware History Museum, the only active physical exhibit in their space is a certificate for the first gay marriage signed in Delaware. 

The LGBTQ+ museum will feature graphics, visuals, text, as well as reproductions of newsletters and panels discussing various historical events, such as the founding of one of the first queer student union groups in the country at the University of Delaware, Deal said. 

Deal plans to bring a wide scope of historical events and information about important figureheads in Delaware’s LGBTQ+ community, including Ivo Dominguez Jr. and James Welch,  the pioneers who founded “The Griffin,” the state’s first queer community center, in 1986.  

Building on a legacy

During the height of the AIDS epidemic, the Griffin Community Center served as a meeting place for organizations, such as the Gay and Lesbian Alliance of Delaware, or GLAD, and the state’s first HIV/AIDS service agency, now known as AIDS Delaware.

The center also hosted meetings for various other community organizations. 

Dominguez and Welch, who are longtime partners, began their activism in the late 1970s, a time when the community’s advocates across the country were gaining visibility, but also facing a conservative backlash.

Over the years, they organized HIV/AIDS education and fundraising events, founded GLAD, Delaware’s first statewide gay rights organization, and opened Hen’s Teeth, the state’s first queer bookstore, in Wilmington.

The Griffin closed just four years after it opened. Dominguez said burnout contributed to its closure.

Today, apartments stand where the small row building once existed. But Dominguez and Welch said the need for a physical gathering space for Delaware’s queer community never disappeared.

Dominguez and Welch have been assisting with the creation of The Collective by attending planning meetings and doing outreach. As activists who have done the work before, Dominguez says his biggest advice to Duckett and Coriano in establishing the space is to “live as if you are free.”

“We have the benefit and the privilege right now of living in a state that is relatively kind and good to our people; we’ve got to keep it that way,” Dominguez said. 

The post LGBTQ+ advocates look to open museum, visitor center on Market Street in Wilmington appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

The agreement shows the US is in a weaker position than before the war

No one gets a Nobel peace prize for ending a war he started, let alone for a pointless war of aggression that set back the causes that supposedly prompted the conflict. No amount of Donald Trump’s spin can obscure the fact that his newly announced deal with Iran is one big lesson in why this war should never have been launched.

The text of the deal, a 14-point memorandum of understanding, underscores its emptiness. The tyrants of Tehran are undoubtedly celebrating.

A businessman with ties to Chinese military contractors was among the overseas investors who acquired stakes in SpaceX while it was still a private company. An entity linked to the Qatari royal family also took a stake.

The new details come from a private investor list obtained by ProPublica that sheds light on a particularly delicate issue for Elon Musk’s rocket company: which people in countries like China bought into the company, and how. SpaceX built its business off sensitive U.S. government work like making spy satellites for the Pentagon. While there is no ban on Chinese investment in U.S. military contractors, such investment is heavily regulated.

In a sign of its sensitivity to the concerns, SpaceX barred investors from China and Hong Kong from buying shares in its initial public offering last week due to “regulatory and compliance risks,” Bloomberg reported. The U.S. government alleges that China has a strategy of using investments in sensitive industries for espionage and to get access to cutting-edge technology. 

The company’s IPO last week was the largest ever, making Musk the world’s first trillionaire. Musk has extensive business interests in China, where Tesla builds many of its cars.

The new records detail at least a dozen investors with addresses in mainland China, Hong Kong or Russia who acquired stakes in SpaceX years ago through a middleman firm in the U.S. called Tomales Bay Capital. The investments are relatively small, ranging from $800,000 to $40 million, and were made between 2018 and 2021.

One investment came from an entity owned by David Su, the co-founder of the prominent Beijing venture capital firm MPCi. The Su entity invested $15 million in a SpaceX fund in 2020, according to the investor list. It was not Su’s only foray into the space industry; his company has been a high-profile backer of some of SpaceX’s Chinese competitors. Two satellite companies that Su’s firm invested in were sanctioned by the U.S. government for allegedly assisting the notorious Russian mercenary organization the Wagner Group. One of the companies was sanctioned again last month for allegedly helping Iran attack U.S. military forces during the war. 

MPCi has also worked with Chinese government investment funds. Last year, the website for China’s Ministry of Science and Technology named Su’s firm as a partner in a state-backed effort to develop the country’s aerospace industry. 

There is no evidence that Su did anything improper. But the key question from the U.S. government’s perspective would be whether China-based investors got access to nonpublic information about SpaceX’s technology or strategies, said Sarah Bauerle Danzman, an Indiana University professor who has worked for the State Department scrutinizing foreign investments. “If an investor has conflicts of interests with other companies in China — if they could feed that information to competitors — it could be a national security concern,” she said. 

In a statement, MPCi said that Su “has not received any nonpublic information of SpaceX.” The statement described Su as “a Singapore citizen who resides in Singapore,” adding: “MPCi is a brand name with different teams and funds. Mr. Su is responsible for the US dollar funds.” According to a 2024 profile of him, Su “spent almost 100 per cent of his time in China over the last 20 years.”

A lawyer for Tomales Bay Capital said in a statement that the firm “has not provided any non-public, sensitive information regarding SpaceX to investors.” He said the investors are passive limited partners: “Aside from fund financials that include quarterly valuations, Tomales Bay’s investors have not received any further information regarding SpaceX.”

“The vast majority, if not all, of the investors included on the unsealed Tomales Bay investor list are not citizens of any foreign adversary, including Russia or China,” said the lawyer, Ryan Stonerock, “and certainly none of them are agents of Russia or China, or any other foreign adversary.” He added that some of the investors “may have mailing addresses listed” in Russia or China but do not actually live there “and are in fact citizens and residents of the United States or other countries that are not foreign adversaries.” 

SpaceX did not respond to questions. One of the Chinese space companies sanctioned by the U.S. government, Spacety, previously denied providing support to the Wagner Group. 

All the investors located in China or Russia that ProPublica identified appeared to be either wealthy businesspeople or their children. 

The new documents come from a corporate dispute in Delaware involving Tomales Bay Capital. The court records were unsealed this month after ProPublica moved to make them public, with the help of attorneys from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the law firm Shaw Keller. Tomales Bay Capital appealed to the Delaware Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of ProPublica.

Tomales Bay Capital is run by an investor named Iqbaljit Kahlon, who has long been close to SpaceX’s leadership and even involved in the company’s operations. SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen, who’s worked there for 15 years, testified that Kahlon “has been with the company in one form or fashion longer than I have.”

Before SpaceX went public, Kahlon made a fortune by acting as a middleman for investors hoping to add the rocket company to their portfolio. His firm regularly bought SpaceX stock, packaged it into investment funds and then charged fees to investors who bought pieces of those funds. 

In a 2021 pitch to one potential investor in China, Kahlon promised special access to SpaceX, including quarterly updates on the company’s business development, “visits to SpaceX, and the opportunities to interview with Space X’s CFO,” according to the meeting minutes, which later appeared in court records.

While ProPublica and other outlets have previously reported on the existence of Chinese investors in SpaceX, the identities of most of the rocket company’s investors have been closely guarded. The Kahlon investor list adds hundreds of names to the public picture of who owns SpaceX. The list details investments in several Tomales Bay Capital funds that have acquired SpaceX stock; it is possible that some of the funds own stakes in other companies too.  

Some of the SpaceX investors on Kahlon’s ledger are easy to identify: the Indian politician Abhishek Singhvi; Betsy DeVos, the former U.S. secretary of education; a British Virgin Islands company owned by Indonesian billionaires. But others on the list are shell companies whose ultimate owners remain hidden.

One such company is a Delaware LLC called HAL9001 Partners Fund I, which invested roughly $10 million in a SpaceX fund in 2020. The incorporation documents for HAL9001 were signed by the venture capitalist Roman Sobachevskiy. The Treasury Department recently fined a company that was co-owned by Sobachevskiy hundreds of millions of dollars for managing a different investment on behalf of a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Sobachevskiy has not been personally accused of wrongdoing. 

A Tomales Bay Capital spokesperson said that the oligarch “had no involvement with the investment.” Sobachevskiy did not respond to questions, including who put up the money for the SpaceX investment.

The records also shed some light on the connections between SpaceX and Qatar. Funds affiliated with Bracket Capital — an investment firm with offices in Los Angeles, London and Qatar — invested about $48 million through a series of deals from 2017 through 2020, the documents show. Bracket has money from the Qatari royal family, according to an email that Kahlon sent to SpaceX’s CFO. The ledger also lists Doha, Qatar, as the address for a mysterious entity called AM FIG Cayman Limited, which invested around $10 million in 2020.  

The documents do not specify whether the Bracket investments were made on behalf of the royal family or some other client. In 2021, as Kahlon was soliciting backers for yet another SpaceX deal, he texted a Bracket employee: “At the end we can just send Yalda to talk to big guy. We need a bail out lol.” (Yalda Aoukar is Bracket’s co-founder. It’s unclear whether the “big guy” refers to a member of the royal family and what Kahlon meant by “a bail out.”) 

Bracket did not respond to requests for comment.

The investments covered in the ledger were tiny percentages of SpaceX but would have generated windfalls. The company’s valuation has exploded in recent years, from $33.3 billion in 2019 to $2.7 trillion as of Wednesday morning.

Last year, ProPublica reported on SpaceX’s unusual approach to accepting money from Chinese investors. According to testimony from the Delaware case, the company allowed Chinese investors to buy stakes in SpaceX so long as the money was routed through the Cayman Islands or other offshore secrecy hubs.

The post Before SpaceX IPO, Investors in China Secretly Acquired Stakes appeared first on ProPublica.

An estimated hundreds of thousands of children, many of them U.S. citizens, have been separated from a parent in the Trump administration's immigration crackdown.

Most people are still confident they have upward mobility, but fewer than half say everyone in the country can reach their ideal.

Even Hormuz reopening will not resolve Europe’s key energy vulnerability Expert comment thilton.drupal 18 June 2026

Europe remains over reliant on insecure and persistently expensive natural gas. It should focus efforts on reducing demand.

European governments, most of which rely on oil and gas imports to fuel their economies, have been nervously watching prices climb and storage levels fall in the weeks since the US-Israeli attack on Iran triggered the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

They could be forgiven for being relieved by this week’s news of a US-Iran framework agreement that promises to enable ships to transit the Strait, through which approximately one-fifth of oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) flowed before the war.

This would be premature, however. Even in the event of a lasting deal, it will take months for shipping flows to fully resume. Logistically, it will take time to reschedule routes efficiently as ships struggle to transit the strait and supply chains are disrupted. Crucially, insurance and shipping firms must be convinced of safe passage in the long term, which remains uncertain. 

More importantly, the war has reconfigured the global LNG market, on which Europe increasingly depends, in ways that are unfavourable to its energy security. This reconfiguration will continue to weigh on Europe, irrespective of any deal.  

Supply

Since the dramatic reduction in pipeline flows to Europe from Russia in 2022 after its invasion of Ukraine, Europe has imported growing quantities of LNG from the US. In 2021, 28 per cent of Europe’s LNG was sourced from the US; by 2025, this had grown to 58 per cent. Data from the first quarter of 2026 indicates it had reached 63 per cent. 

Europe was expected to increasingly turn to Qatar as a major provider of its LNG. Before the war, the Gulf nation was aiming to double its LNG export capacity by 2030 (based on its 2025 levels); this would have cemented Qatar as the second largest exporter of LNG globally, behind only the US. 

For Europe, this would have provided much-needed diversity of supply in its highly concentrated gas supply mix. But severe damage inflicted by Iranian missiles during the war has taken out roughly a sixth of Qatar’s export capacity.

Related work

The next Strait of Hormuz crisis could be even worse

Although a concrete deal would allow Qatar to restart exports in the coming months, the damaged capacity may take several years to come back online, while export capacity expansion is set to be delayed. Some planned projects may not materialize at all: LNG from the Gulf will henceforth likely carry a geopolitical risk premium that takes into account any potential closures or conflict in the Strait.

Europe’s reliance on US LNG may therefore be expected to increase and extend further into the future, especially considering the decision of the EU27 to ban all Russian gas imports before the end of 2027. Accounting for both pipeline and LNG flows, it is possible that in 2026 the US will overtake Norway to become Europe’s largest overall supplier of gas, just as Russia was before 2022.

This dependency exposes Europe to potential coercion by the US, which has made clear its intention to use energy exports for geopolitical leverage. It also diminishes the continent’s ability to set terms. This can be seen in the anticipated watering down of EU rules, under US pressure, aiming to reduce methane emissions associated with LNG production.

Price

While market optimism around the provisional US-Iran agreement has caused headline oil and gas prices to fall, the European gas price is unlikely to return to pre-war levels, compounding the stubbornly higher prices that have plagued the continent since the 2022 gas crisis linked to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

Gas storage across Europe remains low at 45 per cent, compared to a seasonal average of 55 per cent. The need to refill storage before the cold winter months will drive demand up through the summer and autumn. 

LNG relies on specialized infrastructure which restricts its supply to a greater extent than with oil. Pre-war, most Qatari LNG went to Asia. With Qatari supply curtailed, Asian and European buyers have been competing more fiercely for the same limited supply, and this bidding war is pushing up prices. Looking ahead, Asian demand is likely to be even higher than usual due to El Niño weather patterns, increasing demand for air-conditioning.

So far, US natural gas prices have remained low as export infrastructure capacity has limited exports, while production has increased as a by-product of increased oil drilling. 

But the US plans to boost LNG exports by nearly 30 per cent next year, and more than double them by 2029, with a massive buildout of new LNG export infrastructure. This will likely place upwards pressure on US prices and deepen the link between US prices and higher European and Asian prices.

Oracle is sticking to its promise of more regular Solaris updates with the release of Oracle Solaris 11.4 SRU93. This release, like other SRU releases, is for paying Solaris customers, as the CBE releases for enthusiasts are on a different cadence. With Solaris’ focus being on enterprise server environments, it should come as no surprise that most of the changes and improvements are focused on things like enterprise networking and security, such as changes to how policy settings for the Kernel Crypto Framework (KCF) are stored, moving from using RPC over sockets instead of STREAMS, and more. 

Of course, there’s also the long list of updated open source packages.

SRU 93.221.2 updates a broad set of platform, runtime, developer, networking, desktop, and open source components. Notable updates include Apache Tomcat to 9.0.116, bash to 5.3 patch 9, BIND to 9.20.18 and 9.20.21, Django 4.2 to 4.2.30, Django 5.2 to 5.2.13, Firefox to 140.8.0esr, Golang to 1.25.8, Node.js 20 to 20.20.2, Node.js 22 to 22.22.2, Node.js 24 to 24.14.1, NSS to 3.119.1, Perl to 5.42, Python 3.11 to 3.11.15, Python 3.13 to 3.13.12, RabbitMQ to 4.2.4, Thunderbird to 140.8.0esr, vim to 9.2.0340, and zlib to 1.3.2. Additional updates include development tools, Python modules, X11 utilities, printing components, libraries, cryptographic packages, networking tools, and desktop-related packages.

↫ Colin Kavanagh at the Oracle Solaris Blog

Existing Oracle Solaris customers can update to the new release through pkg update.

Who is winning the battle to be top scorer at the World Cup? Live and updated throughout the tournament

All-time World Cup goalscorers

The Golden Boot is awarded to the World Cup’s top goalscorer, with assists used as a tie-breaker if two or more players finish level. The 2026 tournament has three former Golden Boot winners taking part: Kylian Mbappé of France (eight goals in 2022), England’s Harry Kane (six goals in 2018) and James Rodríguez of Colombia (six goals in 2014).

Mbappé and Kane are among the pre-tournament favourites to finish top scorer in North America, alongside Norway’s Erling Haaland – making his World Cup debut – and Argentina’s Lionel Messi.

As companies integrate AI and hire fewer employees, a shift toward a ‘gig economy’ will commence

In 2024, the buy-now-pay-later company Klarna announced that it would cut hundreds of customer service roles and begin using an artificial intelligence chatbot instead. The move was expected to save the company millions. But a year later, after customers complained about the degraded quality of customer service, Klarna began to quietly recruit human customer service agents back.

At first glance, the reversal appeared to be a victory for human workers in the age of AI. The reality was more complex. Instead of bringing on full-time customer service agents, who Klarna contracts through an outside agency, it instead brought on workers in what Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski has described as “an Uber type of set-up”. Now, an AI chatbot continues to handle most of customers’ basic queries, while a growing number of gig workers handle the more advanced ones. “Just like somebody can go and drive an Uber for a while, they can actually jump on and work for Klarna’s customer service,” Siemiatkowski said on a podcast in February.

The outcome of a special election in the small working-class district of Makerfield could upend Labour Party leadership and U.K. politics.

Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from Autoblog: For years, the Chinese auto industry has employed a hostile price war to kneecap global competitors. Armed with massive state subsidies, cheap raw materials, and an aggressive "scale-first" business model, Chinese automakers flooded the market with electric vehicles priced so low that legacy manufacturers stood no chance to compete. How did they do it? Simple, they couldn't. They did it anyway. Reports from CarNewsChina show that Chinese automakers have been selling vehicles at a loss until a recent law passed by the Chinese government banned below-cost sales of new vehicles. During the ongoing sales slump in China caused by rolled-back subsidies and direct government intervention banning below-cost sales, the truth behind the rapid expansion of the Chinese auto industry has been exposed. "By the first quarter of 2026, China captured 32 percent of the global auto market, with its New Energy Vehicles (NEVs) controlling an incredible 61 percent of global share," the report notes. Yet that dominance has come at a steep cost: throughout 2025, "the profit margin for China's auto industry plunged to 4.4 percent and dropped further to a historic low of 3.2 percent in early 2026." "Gross profit, not net profit, per vehicle, plummeted to a mere $2,000. We can expect the net figure to be loss-making." Autoblog adds: "Data shows over 70 percent of Chinese car sales were loss-making. This left more than half of the country's auto industry in the red. Great Wall Motor (GWM) even saw net profits drop 17 percent despite steady revenue growth." China's EV price war has now hit a wall. New regulations are discouraging below-cost sales, rising material costs are forcing automakers to cut discounts and raise prices, and reduced tax incentives are weakening domestic demand. To sustain growth, manufacturers are increasingly turning to exports.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Socceroos and United States both made a fast start to their campaign – here is what the Group D rivals must do to maintain momentum in Seattle

Back Nestory Irankunda: the 20-year-old was expected to be an impact player at this World Cup, coming on as a substitute to affect matches against tiring opposition. A player of the match performance when starting against Turkey showed how Irankunda has become one of the Socceroos’ most important players. While still learning his wing-craft, his speed and determination without the ball are vital in a Socceroos outfit seemingly happy to give their opponents’ possession, and his ability to make the most of transition and direct opportunities – as seen for his opening goal against Turkey – can be a superpower.

Sellers of luxury villas have wiped tens of millions of pounds off asking prices, with sales down 19% in May from the previous month

Property sales in Dubai have fallen “off a cliff”, a leading market watcher has said, after war in the Middle East forced a dramatic slowdown in one of the world’s most expensive real estate markets.

Sales in the city dropped 19% in May compared with the previous month, accelerating from a 4% drop in April, the researcher ValuStrat found.

Directive aimed at government workers, but reports of wider implementation spark warnings of future Afghanistan-wide prohibition

The Taliban have ordered a sweeping ban on the use of smartphones by government officials – in what some analysts say could foreshadow broader, population-level restrictions.

In a directive issued by the Taliban’s military courts and reviewed by the Guardian, the ban was to take effect this week and prohibits “high rank, low rank, general mujahideen, or service staff” from using mobile phones.

More than six months after federal agents descended on Minnesota, the toll of the immigration crackdown on the Twin Cities continues to mount.

The latest revelations about the far-reaching and deeply felt impacts of the campaign known as Operation Metro Surge come in a Human Rights Watch report published Thursday.

Based on more than 130 interviews, video analysis, and government arrest data, the report documents a dizzying array of abuses over the multi-month siege of Minneapolis and St. Paul — from lethal violence to free speech violations, unlawful detentions, and more.

Related

Trump’s Spaghetti-Against-the-Wall Indictment Against ICE Protesters — and How to Fight It

While many of the abuses are well-known — including the killings of Minnesota residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents — others occurred in the shadows of the infamous campaign.

Among the most troubling accounts are those provided by healthcare and mental health professionals.

According to the report, the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Minnesota saw a 120 percent increase in calls and a “significant increase” in the number of people struggling with suicidal thoughts or actions during Metro Surge. One medical provider knew of at least three teenagers who attempted to take their own life after their parents were detained in the crackdown, with one of the adolescents doing so on a “frequent” basis.

“One goal of the report is to bring light back to the full scope of the harm, and not only the harm that we saw in terms of violence in the streets, in terms of abusive detentions,” Reagan Williams, the author of the new report, told The Intercept, “but also the effects that that had for aspects of daily life for everybody here — the impact it had on people’s ability to leave their homes, to go to doctor, to go to school, to go to work.”

Human Rights Watch found the combination of violence and racial profiling that defined the crackdown caused many Minnesotans to forgo medical care.

The day after Good was killed, nearly a third of one healthcare provider’s patients — mostly Somali or Spanish-speaking immigrants — did not show up for pre-scheduled appointments. Another provider said the number of in-person visits at their office dropped by as much as 50 percent.

When Williams arrived in the Twin Cities, her focus was the kind of violent interactions documented in viral videos proliferating from Minnesota. She soon learned those weren’t the only issues community members were desperate to discuss.

“People that we talked with expressed emotions of exhaustion, fear, frustration, immense stress,” she said. “They expressed particular concerns for children, medical providers in particular, the impact of missing school, of knowing violence is happening in their communities — for immigrant children and children of color, the fear of having a parent taken, of themselves being taken.”

“Children are particularly vulnerable to long-term impacts of this kind of acute violence and stress,” Williams added. “Those are impacts that will continue on.”

“Near-Total Impunity”

Described by Trump administration officials as the largest immigration enforcement operation in history, the crackdown in the Twin Cities began in December and stretched into February. Thousands of officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Border Patrol conducted roving arrest operations throughout the area.

More than 4,000 immigrants were arrested during Metro Surge. At roughly 100 arrests per day, it was the highest per capita arrest rate in the country; 64 percent of immigrants arrested in the campaign had no criminal record.

Related

Trump Attacked Immigrant Food Aid in Minnesota. Locals Fought Back.

“In Minnesota, US citizens and immigrants alike were racially profiled in the ordinary course of their day — approached by federal agents while driving, while at work, or while shoveling snow,” the report said. “Minnesota residents of Somali and Latin American descent were notably targeted, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of these communities are US citizens or have green cards.”

A hotline run by the National Lawyers Guild recorded 524 cases of the U.S. citizens detained during the surge, though the figure is believed to be a significant undercount. A survey by the U.S. Immigration Policy Center at the University of California, San Diego earlier this year found that nearly a third of Minneapolis residents experienced an interaction with federal agents; of those interactions, nearly half occurred “at or near a school, healthcare facility, childcare facility, courthouse, or place of worship.”

The new report follows a fresh tally from Minneapolis officials, announced last week, estimating that Metro Surge cost the city nearly $700 million. A nonprofit serving tenants in Minnesota described the economic fallout as a “crisis,” the Human Rights Watch report said, with an 85 percent increase in people seeking rent payment assistance.

In one Minnesota school district, attendance dropped by nearly a third during the government operation. At least 14 incidents of immigration enforcement reported at or near campuses, including the arrest of a preschool teacher, a special education staff member, and a parent at a school bus stop.

“If I told you every time ICE was near a school,” the district’s superintendent told Human Rights Watch, “you’d stop reading my messages.”

Related

Federal Agents Are Intimidating Legal Observers at Their Homes: “They Know Where You Live”

Considering the sweeping impacts of the crackdown, Human Rights Watch is calling for an overhaul of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE and Border Patrol; congressional investigations into the actions of officials involved in the operation; legislation to prohibit immigration arrests at sensitive locations such as schools and hospitals; and a host of other reforms.

To date, the report said, “The many abuses committed by federal agencies during Operation Metro Surge have so far been met with near-total impunity.”

The post ICE’s Unseen Toll in Minneapolis: Suicide Helpline Calls More Than Doubled During Surge appeared first on The Intercept.

The growing odds and seismic consequences of a Le Pen-Bardella victory.

How Beijing’s export strategy will keep poor countries poor.

Tehran is poised to overplay its hand.

As the pornography platform has exploded in popularity, a side industry has emerged: middlemen who encourage young women into the industry, then take a large cut of their earnings

Markuss Hussle wants his online students to understand one thing: he knows how to make money. There is no subtlety involved. He gives an hour-long presentation in one video, sitting next to his silver Lamborghini. In another, he splices his money-making tips with footage of a ski weekend with his friends in Courchevel, in the French Alps, including shots of private jets, helicopters and a girlfriend in a fur coat. He claims the trip cost $100,000 (£75,000). He shows off his watches and his swimming pool and talks about how his mother worked three jobs as a cleaner until he “retired her” and bought her a home by the sea.

If you were not paying close attention to the spreadsheets and presentations interspersed with the motivational lifestyle content, you might guess he was offering guidance on how to trade shares or invest in cryptocurrency. There are a lot of performance graphs and much discussion of account management, optimisation, scaling, working smart and tripling profits.

This blog is now closed – see our full report on the latest in the Middle East crisis

Trump also addressed media reports of a leaked US-Iran deal (see post at 11:57), denying claims it includes a $300bn reconstruction fund for Tehran.

“We’re not putting up 10 cents,” he said. “We are not investing and we do not have a fund.”

It’s not final. It’s a memorandum of understanding, and if I don’t like it, we’ll go back to shooting at them, dropping bombs on their head.

If I don’t like it, if they don’t behave, we’ll go right back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their head, okay, because they’ve misbehaved for 47 years.”

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Tesco, a retail conglomerate headquartered in the United Kingdom, is moving 40,000 server workloads off of VMware amid "abusive conduct" from Broadcom, recent legal filings claim. Tesco filed a lawsuit in the UK's High Court against Broadcom alleging breach of contract last year. According to a September report from The Register, the lawsuit claimed that in January 2021, Tesco bought perpetual licenses for VMware's vSphere Foundation and Cloud Foundation, a subscription to VMware Tanzu, plus support services until 2026, with the option to extend support for four additional years. But when Broadcom took over VMware in November 2023, it would not honor the deal and instead tried to get Tesco to pay "excessive and inflated prices for virtualization software for which Tesco has already paid" and would not allow it to buy support services for its perpetually licensed software without buying "duplicative subscription-based licenses for those same Software products," the initial complaint read, The Register reported at the time. Tesco, which reported 73.7 billion pounds (about $98.7 billion) in revenue in its fiscal year 2026, has since started migrating away from VMware and Broadcom's mainframe products, according to late-May court filings reported on by The Register today. In January, Broadcom stopped supporting Tesco's VMware products, Tesco said, and Tesco has been paying for third-party support since. In its initial filing, Tesco also said that Broadcom refused to upgrade software or provide all security updates to customers without subscriptions. One of Tesco's recent filings, per The Register, reads: "Faced with Broadcom's abusive conduct, and given the criticality of virtualization and mainframe software and services to its business, Tesco has been forced to incur material costs to procure alternative solutions with reduced functionality, and to migrate to that software in a manner, and on a timeframe, that creates very significant risks to its business." If it works "at exceptional pace," Tesco will be completely off VMware by the end of 2027 at the earliest. However, "the timeframe in which that migration must be undertaken has created and continues to create operational and commercial risk, and at material ongoing cost and disruption to the business," Tesco reportedly noted. Tesco is also dealing with migration challenges related to data security because its new, unnamed virtualization software is incompatible with the Veeam and Zerto products it uses. Tesco initially requested at least 100 million pounds (about $133.6 million) in damages each from Broadcom, VMware, and reseller Computacenter, plus interest. In its recent filings, Tesco said it turned down at least four offers from Broadcom to continue using VMware and Broadcom's mainframe tech. [...] The case is expected to go to court between November 1, 2027, and February 25, 2028, The Register reported. Afterward, it could go to trial. Further reading: HPE Tempts VMware Users, Partners With Year of Free Virtualization Software

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for June 18.

Before President Donald Trump threw his latest hand grenade into congressional negotiations over a key domestic spying law, two factions of Senate Democrats seemed to believe they were on the verge of a breakthrough.

Privacy advocates thought they had their best chance in years of passing reforms, including a warrant requirement for searching American communications collected abroad.

Related

Are Jeffries and Schumer Getting Ready to Greenlight Domestic Spy Power for Trump?

Centrists allied with U.S. intelligence agencies, meanwhile, thought they were close to renewing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act with only minor tweaks.

Then Trump, who had once already thrown the renewal process into chaos, announced on Wednesday that he wouldn’t sign it unless Congress passed an unrelated voter suppression bill.

Claiming that Democrats were poised to walk away from a spy law compromise, Trump said that “to add a slight bit of intrigue but, for the Good of the Nation, and the People of our Country, I will not approve FISA without THE SAVE AMERICA ACT going along with it.”

Trump’s surprise outburst on Truth Social on Wednesday scrapped the confirmation hearing set later in the day for Jay Clayton, a federal prosecutor in New York, to serve as the permanent director of national intelligence. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., had said that he hoped to quickly confirm Clayton.

Clayton’s impending confirmation had appeared to solve a problem — at least for some Democrats — that Trump created by tapping lapdog housing chief, Bill Pulte, as the Cabinet-level intelligence chief. It might also have opened a route for Congress to renew Section 702, the surveillance law that allows federal agents to conduct “backdoor,” warrantless searches of Americans’ communications collected abroad.

In a joint press conference on Wednesday, top Senate Democrats revealed the cracks in their coalition over next steps on FISA.

A key reformer, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said he still hopes to pursue adding a warrant requirement to Section 702, while a centrist aligned with the intelligence agencies, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., expressed disappointment that the easiest route to renewal without major changes had been foreclosed.

“This has become a complete debacle, and now it’s up to the White House to figure out a path forward here,” said Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., a member of the intelligence committee. “We had a path forward, as of yesterday, and today we don’t, and that’s because of this president and his advisers.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., remained cagey about what version of the law he would like to see ultimately passed. But in comments at the joint press conference, he sought to portray Democrats as the more responsible party when it came to Section 702.

“It’s on our Republican colleagues to work with us to find A) a capable director, not someone who is a menace, and second, then to work with us on renewing FISA. It is up to them,” Schumer said at the press conference. He said he was deeply concerned about Trump’s appointment of Pulte, who appears likely to step into the office on Friday.

Republicans “have got to have the courage to buck the president, who clearly doesn’t want a DNI director and doesn’t want FISA renewed,” Schumer said. “All he wants is Pulte.”

Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, claimed Sunday that Section 702 renewal was on a “glide path” before Pulte’s nomination. He also praised Clayton’s selection, while reserving the right to ask about Clayton’s views on election integrity.

Reformers said Thursday, however, that Section 702’s renewal was never as assured as Warner and Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Tom Cotton, R-Ark., have suggested in public comments.

Majorities of both Republicans and Democrats voted in recent weeks against advancing the law’s renewal in versions of the bill that do not include a warrant requirement.

“They want that to be the narrative, because they don’t want to have to deal with people who want things like warrants,” said Kia Hamadanchy, a senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union. “At no point have they actually demonstrated that they have a deal that one, has 60 votes in the Senate, and two, has any chance of going anywhere in the House.”

Wyden expressed alarm about Trump’s actions at the joint Senate Democrat press conference. Wyden said that he always wanted to reform the law — not allow it to expire.

Related

Top Senator Warns Sweeping New Surveillance Powers Will “Inevitably Be Misused” by Trump

“It is now even clearer than before that the only path to 60 votes in the United States Senate on intelligence is real reform, actual black-letter law, that addresses these issues,” Wyden said.

Privacy advocates argue that the way out of the congressional logjam is to allow members of Congress to vote on whether to add a warrant requirement, something that Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson have not been willing to allow so far. Even then, however, Trump could veto whatever version of the law emerges from that process.

The post Senate Democrats Aren’t Happy About Trump’s Spy Law Ultimatum appeared first on The Intercept.

Ordinary Taiwanese, young and old, are joining courses to learn how to fly drones amid looming China military threat

In a small, crowded room in Taipei, Pan Chien-chin is trying to keep a drone hovering steadily. Imagining himself flying a plane, he gently nudges controller joysticks to guide the insect-like device as it hums through the air.

Cheers break out as Pan, who has never flown a drone before, steers it around a rectangular course marked by traffic cones without crashing. Around him are about two dozen fellow trainees, all signed up for the same course: Taiwan’s first civil defence drone training programme.

The new update lets players decide how much censorship they want, depending on their region.

Details of the 14-point agreement revealed as senior US officials claim ‘major win’ despite significant concessions to Tehran

• Reaction: Donald Trump’s Iran deal met with anger, relief and incredulity

• Analysis: Trump’s Iran deal is result of unrealistic ambitions for an untenable war

Donald Trump has signed a 14-point agreement with Iran, claiming it delivered a “major win” for the United States – even as it made significant political and financial concessions to Iran to reopen the strait of Hormuz and prevent a “worldwide depression”.

In extraordinary remarks on Wednesday, Donald Trump went from threatening Iran with a new wave of attacks to suggesting the country had basic rights to enrich uranium for civilian use, that he would not pressure Tehran to abandon its ballistic missiles programme and the US was “going to have to give back” billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets.

Matter 1.6 introduces updates to device setup, smart thermostats, and connected-home technologies. Here's what you need to know.

Jamie McDonald, a partner at the firm Sullivan & Cromwell, is President Trump's choice to helm one of the nation's most prestigious federal prosecutors' offices.

Go behind the scenes with our team as we find and make sense of the numbers.

President Trump warned he could order new strikes if Iran's leaders "don't behave." The U.S. and Iran signed the memo of understanding remotely, a White House official said.

The New York Knicks are planning to visit the White House, owner James Dolan said Wednesday, marking a first for an NBA Finals winner during President Trump's time in office.

• Knicks owner Dolan is a longtime ally of US president

• No NBA team has visited White House under Trump

New York Knicks owner James Dolan says his team will become the first NBA champions to visit Donald Trump at the White House.

“We just did receive an invitation from the White House, which we accepted,” Dolan said during an appearance on WFAN New York on Wednesday. “We still have to figure out the details … but yes, of course. Look, I invited the president to come down for [last week’s Game 3 of the NBA finals]. He is a friend. I’ve known him for 30 years and I’m very proud to bring the team to the White House.”

Democrat Jamie Raskin seeks ‘comprehensive accounting’ and requests interview with outgoing Bard president

Harvard University and Bard College are facing new questions about the institutions’ relationship with Jeffrey Epstein amid allegations that the convicted child sex trafficker leveraged his ties to the universities and their faculty to traffick women, while also burnishing his reputation to avoid detection.

Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House judiciary committee, said in a statement that Harvard and Bard had both previously attempted to investigate the role their universities and leadership played in facilitating Epstein’s abuse, but that those attempts either failed or fell short of a full accounting of what occurred.

The US star was on a ‘modified’ training schedule for the third day in a row after coming out at half-time in the opener. Other options must be considered

Mauricio Pochettino now has the privilege of giving the new World Cup format a practical test.

The Argentinian wisely played it safe at half-time of the United States’ 4-1 thrashing of Paraguay, pulling Christian Pulisic before his calf could be kicked any more. The attacking midfielder said after the match that he had taken similar punishment before, and he was optimistic he would be fit for the next match. As of Wednesday, he was still training away from his teammates and wearing a sleeve on his left calf.

Senator Bill Cassidy attacks ‘worst foreign policy blunder in decades’ while others in his party skeptical over peace deal

A handful of Senate Republicans have sharply criticized the agreement Donald Trump reached with Iran, accusing the administration of committing “the worst foreign policy blunder in decades”.

On Wednesday, the Trump administration released the text of an interim deal between Washington and Tehran to end the 110-day conflict, framing it as a “major win” for the US – even as the 14-point accord made significant political and financial concessions to Iran to reopen the strait of Hormuz and prevent a “worldwide depression”.

The US has to approve a renewal of the existing agreement by 1 July, or announce its intention to exit the pact, a process that would take 10 years

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Donald Trump also denied (again) that the memorandum of understanding includes a $300bn fund for Iran, and denied that he had asked the Gulf states to commit funding.

“It’s false,” Trump told reporters as he sat alongside Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. “You can invest if you want. What am I going to do, say no one is ever allowed to invest? We’re not investing, we’re not putting up 10 cents and people can decide to do it. That’s up to them.”

In short, what it does is it opens the strait of Hormuz immediately … It also provides a framework whereby if the Iranians give us what we need – on stopping the funding of terrorism, on no longer pursuing a nuclear weapon – then they can get some benefits, be re-invited into the world economy.

Nottinghamshire tree, one of Europe’s oldest and largest, fails to produce leaves after being stressed by series of hot, dry summers

The Major oak, one of Europe’s oldest, largest and most celebrated ancient trees, has died.

The huge tree, which has grown in Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire, England, for at least 1,000 years, failed to produce any leaves this year, after becoming stressed by a series of hot, dry summers.

Wessex Archaeology suspect they have uncovered a prototype for world-famous Stonehenge site in Wiltshire

A 5,000-year-old monument that was aligned with the summer and winter solstices and may have served as a prototype for the later solar alignment at Stonehenge has been discovered close to the famous neolithic site, in what archaeologists have described as a “once in a lifetime” find.

The structure at Bulford, 5km (3 miles) from the world heritage site in Wiltshire, has been carbon dated to around 3000BC, the same time as the earliest phase of construction at Stonehenge and 500 years before its huge trilithon stones were carefully placed to line up with the midsummer and midwinter sun.

wiredmikey shares a report from SecurityWeek: Microsoft on Wednesday published an advisory acknowledging the public disclosure of a vulnerability in Defender that could lead to privilege escalation. The security defect, tracked as CVE-2026-50656 (CVSS score of 7.8), was dropped last week by security researcher Nightmare Eclipse (also known as Chaotic Eclipse). "We are working to provide a high-quality security update that addresses this vulnerability. We will provide information in this CVE when the update is available," Microsoft adds. RoguePlanet, Nightmare Eclipse explained last week, targets a race condition in Microsoft Defender and allows attackers to gain System privileges. The researcher released a proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit that demonstrates local privilege escalation (LPE) on Windows 11 and Windows 10 systems with the June 2026 patches installed. [...] On Wednesday, Nightmare Eclipse pointed out that the PoC works regardless of whether Defender's real-time protection is enabled or disabled. It may even work in passive mode, the researcher said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Frustrated lawmakers are increasing pressure on the defense secretary to get answers they’ve sought for months.

Efforts to stop Central Africa's deadly Ebola outbreak face widespread mistrust and porous borders in a war zone.

The Obama-era Iran deal was packed with technical details and specific requirements limiting, but not shutting down, Iran's nuclear program. President Trump's new agreement is more of a framework, and it's not final yet.

Yesterday, Google released Android 17 to Pixel devices, so late last night I updated my Pixel 10 Pro with the intent to write a news item about the release today. The reality is that that I totally forgot I even upgraded last night, because Android 17 is about the biggest nothingburger I’ve ever seen. Virtually all of the new features listed in the upgrade blurb on my phone were “AI” nonsense I don’t encounter, so over the course of the day, I didn’t really notice anything new about my phone’s operating system.

The only interesting feature that I think will be particularly useful on tablets and perhaps foldable devices is something called “App Bubbles”. Basically, you can turn any application into an overlay that can be minimised into a bubble, which then lives anywhere on your screen. Tap it, and you can maximise the overlay again. This little multitasking bubble can contain multiple applications, effectively making it a dock or taskbar. Neat, but I didn’t see much use for it on my phone.

The remainder of the new non-“AI” features are hard to spot, at best. I guess the ability to turn one half of a foldable display into a gamepad is neat if you can deal with gaming on glass buttons (I cannot), and the changes to location access (you can now grant it for just one time) and contacts access (it’s more fine-grained and temporary now instead of granting access to everything forever) are welcome, but that’s about it for user-facing features.

Under the hood, the one thing that stands out is that Google is enforcing stricter memory limits for applications, based on how much RAM a device has. The idea is that this should prevent memory leaks from getting out of control and leading to crashes, which is nice, especially for devices with less RAM.

Android 17 is available for Pixel devices now, and will probably find its way to non-Pixel devices over the coming months or years. With how little meat there is on Android 17’s bones, this might be the first release where Android’s update woes don’t really matter.

In a sprawling news conference at the G-7 summit in France, the president touted the economic benefits of the ceasefire and threatened force if it fails.

Epstein associate’s lawyer rejected preferential treatment claims in January, saying ‘humane treatment isn’t special’

Staff from the House oversight and judiciary committees visited the Texas prison where Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime associate of Jeffrey Epstein, is serving her sentence, according to Democratic lawmakers.

In a statement, the Democratic representatives Robert Garcia and Jamie Raskin said staff from the committees traveled to the minimum-security federal prison camp in Bryan, Texas, on Tuesday to seek answers about Maxwell’s transfer there, and about allegations that she has received preferential treatment at the prison camp.

Review reveals rise in users and rates of psychosis in countries where cannabis is sold commercially

Decriminalising the possession of cannabis or strictly regulating access to the drug do not appear to drive up usage, but when the drug is sold commercially the number of users increases and more mental health problems are seen, a review has found.

An international team analysed the dramatic shift in policies on cannabis between 2000 and 2025, including how the numbers of people taking the drug, its potency, and rates of psychosis changed after new rules came in.

White House joined suit to stop city of Evanston, Illinois, from compensating victims of housing discrimination

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The Trump administration has joined a lawsuit attempting to stop a first-of-its-kind reparations plan that would compensate Black residents of a Chicago suburb, arguing that its race-based criteria are unconstitutional.

The program, in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, offers Black residents and their descendants up to $25,000 for past raced-based housing discrimination. When the city’s program was approved in 2021, it was hailed as a model for reparations movements across the US.

US entered war with maximalist goals and exits it with pragmatic decision to end conflict despite political cost

• Middle East crisis – live updates

As the adage goes: no plan of battle survives first contact with the enemy.

Donald Trump entered the war with Iran with maximalist goals: eliminating the country’s nuclear programme, destroying its ballistic missile programme and ending its support for regional military groups including Hezbollah and Hamas.

The latest Nintendo console benefits from an incredible library of games carried over from the original Switch, but it has fantastic exclusives as well.

CCS Insight expects global smartphone shipments to fall 15% this year as AI-driven demand pushes memory manufacturers toward higher-margin server chips. "[S]ome entry-level devices have already seen their sticker prices go up by more than 50 percent since last year," reports The Register. From the report: The firm found that the primary smartphone market (meaning new devices) contracted 4.4 percent in the first quarter of this year, despite sales channels front-loading (meaning stockpiling) product inventory, as device prices begin to rise sharply. As CCS notes, this casts an ominous shadow on the outlook for the rest of the year, and it seems things have worsened since The Register first started reporting on the smartphone memory woes. Back in January, the forecast was for handset price rises of 6-8 percent, while the most pessimistic outlook was that the global market might contract as much as 5.2 percent. By February, analysts were expecting to see a decline in shipments of around 8 percent across the global market, and for prices to increase by about 14 percent. The root cause of all this is the AI craze, which has seen huge demand for high-performance GPU-filled servers to process it all. Chipmakers have moved to capitalize on this by prioritizing production of high-margin memory components for those servers, rather than making the plain old DRAM and NAND needed for PCs and phones. "The memory chip crisis shows no sign of slowing down in the near future, ramping up the pressure on manufacturers and consumers. Memory components now account for more than 30 percent of a manufacturer's bill of materials in some smartphones." said CCS research analyst Ben Hatton. "The full impact has yet to be felt in many regions, but it's clear that device prices will accelerate over the rest of the year."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Luigi Mangione's lawyers will argue that he was suffering from an extreme emotional disturbance when he allegedly killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

Those who held off on upgrading can now get the PS5 and Xbox Series versions at no extra cost.

Nine scientific computing projects have been selected for early access development for the next-gen AI-enhanced Discovery supercomputer

June 17, 2026 — Scientific computing experts at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have selected the first nine research projects that will run on Discovery, the nation’s next flagship supercomputer, slated for deployment in 2028.

Nine scientific computing projects have been selected for early access development for the next-gen AI-enhanced Discovery supercomputer

The projects will be developed through the Discovery Center for Accelerated Application Readiness (CAAR) program at ORNL’s Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF). The program is designed to ensure that leading-edge scientific applications are optimized and ready to deliver results as soon as Discovery becomes operational.

“Our goal is to develop a suite of leadership-class computing applications that are ready to run science campaigns on day one,” said Reuben Budiardja, CAAR programming lead and group leader for ORNL’s Advanced Computing for Nuclear, Particle, and Astrophysics Group. “We want to demonstrate Discovery’s full potential from the very moment it becomes available to users.”

The Discovery supercomputer will be a key contributor to the Genesis Mission — DOE’s ambitious initiative to create the world’s most powerful scientific platform that will accelerate research breakthroughs, enhance national security, and advance energy innovation across the country. As part of the Genesis platform, Discovery’s world-class artificial intelligence and high-performance computing (HPC) capabilities will be connected with emerging quantum computing technologies to help solve some of the world’s hardest problems faster than ever before.

Technical support for CAAR is provided in part by the ORNL HPE/AMD Center of Excellence, a collaborative team of computer scientists, application developers and staff from the OLCF, AMD and HPE, working to optimize the applications to fully leverage Discovery’s advanced architecture.

In addition to preparing applications, the CAAR program will help strengthen key systems such as the user and programming environments, while also developing documentation and training resources for Discovery’s broader user community.

The selection process for the CAAR applications is highly competitive. The projects were evaluated based on their potential for scientific advancements and the ability to solve grand challenge problems designed to push the limits of Discovery’s computational capabilities. A key requirement is that each application demonstrate the potential to run three to five times faster than on Frontier, OLCF’s current exascale supercomputer.

The selected applications span a diverse set of scientific domains, including astrophysics, molecular biology, quantum chemistry and aerospace engineering. Likewise, the teams behind them reflect a broad cross-section of the research community, with participants from industry — such as General Electric — alongside universities, national laboratories and federal agencies including NASA.

“We’re always seeking opportunities to collaborate with industry and agency partners. Organizations like NASA and GE operate at the leading edge of science and technology, driving innovation across critical fields,” said Tom Beck, section head of Science Engagement at ORNL’s National Center for Computational Sciences. “By pairing ORNL’s computing expertise with the cutting-edge research represented by these CAAR teams, we’re creating a powerful combination that will unlock new insights and accelerate the pace of scientific and technological advancement.”

To achieve optimal performance on Discovery, teams will go beyond traditional code optimization. Many projects are expected to incorporate new methodologies, advanced algorithms and novel AI programming techniques. These include the use of surrogate models to accelerate simulations, mixed-precision computing to improve efficiency and emerging approaches such as agentic AI — or autonomous AI — to explore complex parameter spaces.

“This is a really special time for computing. We’re laying the groundwork for the next generation of supercomputers that will feature a convergence of AI, HPC and quantum computing. And, getting to see how all of this comes together when Discovery is deployed and ready to run early science and deliver results is something we’re very excited about,” said Matt Sieger, project director for the Discovery supercomputer. “We’re looking forward to showing the world what Discovery can do.”

Learn more about the selected CAAR applications here.

The OLCF is a DOE Office of Science user facility at ORNL.

UT-Battelle manages ORNL for DOE’s Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. DOE’s Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://energy.gov/science.

Source: Jeremy Rumsey, ORNL

The post ORNL: Discovery Supercomputer’s 1st Applications Selected for Day-One Science appeared first on HPCwire.

PALO ALTO, Calif., June 17, 2026 — Odyssey, an AI lab pioneering world models founded by self-driving car veterans, today announced a $310 million Series B at a $1.45 billion valuation. Natural Capital led the round, with participation from Amazon, AMD Ventures, GV, EQT, IQT and others. They join existing investors including Jeff Dean, Google’s chief scientist; Elad Gil; Qasar Younis, co-founder and CEO of Applied Intuition; Garry Tan, president and CEO of Y Combinator; Guillermo Rauch, founder and CEO of Vercel; and Kyle Vogt, founder of Cruise.

Odyssey has announced a new deal with Amazon Web Services (AWS), which will become the company’s preferred cloud provider. As a leading world model provider, Odyssey requires compute designed for speed and quality. In addition to other chips, Odyssey will also use AWS Trainium chips, which are purpose-built to deliver these performance advantages. Both Odyssey and AWS share a conviction that Trainium will enable industry-leading price performance, and the companies will collaborate on future research and go-to-market efforts to make these use cases more accessible to customers.

“We believe world models represent a new class of foundation model—AI that can understand and simulate the world itself,” said Oliver Cameron, Co-Founder and CEO of Odyssey. “The last few years have seen major breakthroughs in scaling, interactivity, multimodality, and physics accuracy, and the field is now advancing extremely quickly. This round provides the compute, infrastructure, and partners to push the frontier of general world models, and to achieve a GPT-3 moment for the field.”

“World models represent one of the most demanding workloads in AI—they require massive compute throughput with tight latency constraints,” said Ron Diamant, Vice President and Distinguished Engineer at Amazon. “Odyssey’s team has been pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in this space, and Trainium is purpose-built for exactly this kind of scale. We’re excited to support this next phase of growth with AWS as Odyssey’s preferred cloud provider, collaborate on optimizing their models on our silicon, and work together to help accelerate applications in robotics, gaming, science, and beyond.”

Over the last three years, Odyssey has pushed the limits of research in this nascent, growing area. Odyssey-2 Max materially advanced the state-of-the-art in physics-accuracy for general world simulation. Starchild-1 introduced the first real-time multimodal world model. Agora-1 launched multi-agent interaction within a shared world simulation. With PROWL, Odyssey demonstrated how world models can improve through active exploration. Together, this research represents significant progress toward capable, general world models.

“At Natural Capital, we invest behind ambitious technical teams building what comes next,” said Jay Zaveri, General Partner at Natural Capital. “We developed deep conviction in Odyssey’s research direction, technical leadership, and execution, which made this our largest investment to date. We believe they have the potential to help define AI beyond language models.”

The funding will accelerate Odyssey’s research and broader deployment of its world model technology.

About Odyssey

Odyssey is an AI lab pioneering general world models: causal, multimodal systems that learn to predict and interact with the world over long horizons. This foundational technology promises to revolutionize robotics, science, healthcare, education, gaming, defense, and beyond.

Odyssey’s founders previously pioneered the most complex application of physical AI: self-driving cars. They’ve now brought together a world-class research team from DeepMind, Tesla, Waymo, Meta, Apple, and Wayve, who have made significant contributions to language models (DeepMind Gemini), video models (DeepMind Veo), world models (Wayve GAIA), and autonomous systems (Tesla FSD).

Source: Odyssey

The post Odyssey Raises $310M Series B to Advance AI World Models appeared first on HPCwire.

The exoplanet HD 80606 b has a weird, elliptical orbit that brings it perilously close to its home star, causing massive temperature fluctuations.

Parents of children with autism are turning to a controversial stem cell treatment backed by the US Health Secretary. A growing number of clinics in the US are charging parents tens of thousands of dollars for stem cell therapy, which is being given to children as young as 18 months old. The Guardian’s chief reporter Ed Pilkington tells Kai Wright about his months-long investigation into the providers of these treatments, and their connections to the health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr. He also spoke with figures in the science community who fear the FDA may be loosening its rigorous restrictions on stem cell treatment for autism

• ‘Autistic kids are being experimented on’: inside America’s booming market for unproven stem cell infusions

• Watch on YouTube

Carvana is testing a radically different new-car dealership model in Dallas, turning the location into a test-drive center and themed "playground" while requiring every purchase to be completed through its online platform. "Every single car that we sell, whether it's used or new, is online," said Tom Taira, Carvana president of special projects who's leading the new vehicle operations. "That's a very inherent difference. Even coming into the store, you're buying it online, and that's a big difference in how people think about it." The company hopes its no-haggle pricing, hourly employees, service operations, and national logistics network can reshape franchised auto retail. CNBC reports: Through its used vehicles sales, Carvana has become the most valuable auto retailer in the U.S. with a more than $70 billion market cap. Carvana's target with the new vehicle business is to grow its market share and customer base as well as assist used vehicle sales through trade-ins and other means, according to Taira. If the company is successful, the strategy could cause a ripple effect across the U.S. franchised dealership model, which the National Automobile Dealers Association reports includes 16,990 retailers that topped $1.3 trillion in sales last year. [...] Carvana is using a location in Dallas as a test center for its foray into new vehicle sales. The facility looks like a traditional Stellantis dealership from the outside, but the consumer process for purchasing a vehicle and the responsibilities of its employees are unprecedented. Couches and chairs replace cubicles and sales offices. There are no finance and insurance departments, and instead of an army of commission-based employees, the facility has associates that are paid hourly to assist customers -- if they want the help. The experience is meant to be as self-guided as a customer wants. By scanning QR codes located on 10-foot-by-10-foot screens inside the building or on vehicles and displays outside, shoppers can customize a vehicle, learn about a product's features and conduct test drives before deciding whether to purchase anything. If they do decide to buy something, it's online and not originated from a sales person, the company said. The "playground" has roughly 50 vehicles divided by brand, with each having a theme. Jeep has an off-road display. Dodge has race tracks, including a Carvana-themed Charger pace car and part of a traditional track fence barrier. Chrysler minivans, meanwhile, have a soccer net and Ram's area is truck-centric. Carvana is not committing to expanding the exact experience to its other franchised dealer locations, but Taira told CNBC that the overall process of online sales, vehicle testing and service are expected to be consistent throughout the locations. Further reading:: Online Car Retailer Launching Nation's First Car "Vending Machine

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Spotlight Delaware is pleased to share, in podcast form, all of the panel discussions that took place at its Health Care Summit on University of Delaware’s STAR Campus on April 29, 2026.

ACCESS TO SPECIALTY CARE
With Delaware’s rapidly growing population, there is a rapidly growing demand for specialty medical care. What is the current status for accessing care like OB/GYN, neurology, and pediatrics – and what potential solutions are there to alleviate the shortages? 

DOWNSTATE DEMAND
The health care challenges facing the state are multiplied in rural areas, due to geographically remote populations and fewer care facilities. What are providers and advocates doing to navigate the difficulties confronting downstate communities? 

UPDATE ON THE OPIOID COMMISSION
In 2025, Delaware’s Prescription Opioid Settlement Distribution Commission revised its funding procedures. Commission Executive Director Brad Owens shares how the changes have impacted current grant applications and how funds have been assisting substance abuse victims.

HOSPITAL LEADERSHIP
C-Suite representatives from Delaware’s three largest health care systems – Bayhealth, Beebe Healthcare and ChristianaCare – discuss how their institutions are working to address the largest health challenges in the state. 

DELAWARE’S MEDICAL SCHOOL: THE PATH FORWARD
Delaware’s success obtaining funds from the federal Rural Health Transformation Fund has opened the door to creating the state’s first medical school. How would a medical school improve health care in Delaware, and what are the obstacles to getting a school off the ground?

The post Health Care Summit Podcasts appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

Workers with Titan Plumbing in Howell, Michigan, were on an emergency call when they noticed what appeared to be an engagement ring. It turns out that the ring had been lost for more than a decade.

New York judge imposes life without parole after emotional statements at Rex Heuermann’s sentencing

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The families of eight women killed by Rex Heuermann spoke at the Gilgo Beach killer’s sentencing in Riverhead, New York, on Wednesday, more than three decades after the 62-year-old Manhattan architect began his killing spree.

Heuermann pleaded guilty to murdering seven women and admitted to the killing of an eighth victim in April. Just before being sentenced to life in prison without parole on Wednesday for his admitted crimes, Heuermann offered a weak, generalized apology for his actions.

Officers responding to call about ‘screaming woman’, who was celebrating Knicks win, shot dog named Jameson

As the Los Angeles police department faces mounting scrutiny after officers shot and killed a two-year-old golden Saint Bernard doodle, the city’s political leaders have backed calls for an investigation into the incident.

On Saturday, LA police officers responded to a radio call about a “screaming woman” in the Canoga Park neighborhood, about 30 miles (48km) from downtown, which turned out to be celebratory noise in reaction to the New York Knicks’s long-awaited championship win.

Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire June 12, his net worth rocketing to $1.2 trillion when his space exploration firm SpaceX became publicly traded, valued at more than $2 trillion.

The historic wealth milestone renewed calls from some politicians to address wealth inequality and raise taxes on the richest Americans. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said Social Security taxes are capped for ultra-high earners like Musk.

"Today, Elon Musk, a trillionaire, pays the same amount into Social Security as someone making $184,500," Sanders said in a June 12 X post, calling the situation absurd and in need of reform. 

Sanders’ statement accurately reflects a real feature of Social Security taxes. The federal government stops collecting the tax after a person’s wages reach a certain amount. In 2026, that cap is $184,500. 

Musk couldn’t pay more than the maximum, but his income structure is unique and heavily weighted toward stocks. It’s unclear what his liability for Social Security taxes is each year. 

For most wage earners, Social Security taxes, along with Medicare taxes, are paid through payroll deductions. Workers and employers each pay 6.2% of the worker’s income into Social Security, up to the cap. 

That means the maximum Social Security tax liability in 2026 for someone earning $184,500 or more is $11,439. Self-employed people must pay the full 12.4% rate on their income, so their Social Security taxes would max out at $22,878.

Whether someone earns $200,000 or $2 million, they don’t pay taxes over the income cap. Benefits are also capped, so earnings above the maximum don’t increase a person’s future benefits.

"That maximum is identical for a worker earning $184,500 and for the richest person in the country," said Teresa Ghilarducci, a labor economist and professor at the New School for Social Research, in an email to PolitiFact.

Medicare taxes, the other portion of payroll taxes, have no income cap. Employees and employers each pay 1.45%, and an additional 0.9% surcharge is imposed on wages over $200,000 a year. 

Sanders’ spokesperson Jeremy Slevin said Sanders’ post was promoting the changes proposed in his Social Security Expansion Act. The bill would eliminate the cap on Social Security taxes over $250,000 and apply the full Social Security payroll tax to more forms of income, including capital gains.

What income counts for Social Security taxes?

Social Security taxes are imposed only on income classified as wages, which is a regular paycheck for most workers. Bonuses and stock-based compensation like stock options or restricted stock units — if classified as wages — are subject to the tax once they’re exercised (bought or sold) or vested. 

But the tax doesn’t apply to non wage-related income such as capital gains from investments, said Jessica Riedl, a Brookings Institution budget and tax fellow.

Musk’s wealth is tied up almost entirely in stock in Tesla, his electric car company; and SpaceX, the spaceflight company that also houses satellite telecommunications company Starlink and xAI, the social media and AI company behind X and Grok.

When Musk sells that stock or takes out a loan against it, that’s not counted as wages, so it isn’t subject to payroll tax. 

Increases in stock value also don’t trigger Social Security taxes. The recent jump in Musk’s net worth from around $800 billion to over $1 trillion was not because he was paid billions of dollars, but because SpaceX increased in value once it went public.

When does Musk pay Social Security taxes? 

It’s impossible for us to determine Musk’s total liability for federal payroll taxes, but public disclosures give a window into some of his income. 

Musk does not take a salary from Tesla, so he owes no taxes there. A Securities and Exchange Commission filing from SpaceX ahead of its initial public offering shows that he received a salary of $54,080, which was tied to California’s minimum wage for exempt employees. His other companies, The Boring Company and Neuralink, are private, so they do not disclose his compensation. 

Musk’s major payroll tax liability in recent years has come from exercising stock options that were paid as compensation. In 2021, he exercised an option to buy Tesla stock at a major discount based on a 2012 compensation package, which resulted in more than $20 billion in taxable income. 

Although his income tax bill was likely over $11 billion that year, his Social Security tax burden would have been far less because of the cap. He would have been on the hook for about $8,853, the same as someone who earned that year’s taxable maximum of $142,800.

There’s one caveat to Sanders’ statement: It’s possible that in some years Musk could pay even less than someone earning the maximum, Ghilarducci said. 

In years when his stock-based compensation doesn't incur payroll taxes, "his wage income can be near zero," she said. "In such a year he pays less into Social Security than a salaried worker earning $184,500, possibly far less." 

Our ruling

Sanders said Musk "pays the same amount into Social Security as someone making $184,500." 

Social Security taxes are imposed only on income up to a set maximum, which is $184,500 in 2026, so Sanders is right that any wages over that limit aren’t taxed. But since we can’t know how much wage-based income Musk will receive this year, it’s not clear that he’ll hit that maximum. He could pay even less.

Increases in Musk’s net worth are often caused by increasing stock value, rather than compensation. Such unrealized gains aren’t subject to Social Security taxes. 

Sanders’ statement is accurate but could use a little more information. We rate it Mostly True.

June 17, 2026 — Every breakthrough AI model starts the same way: with a training run. The infrastructure running those training jobs shapes everything: how fast teams can iterate, what scale of model they can build and whether those jobs complete reliably.

NVIDIA delivers the performance, scale and reliability that frontier training requires — in benchmarks and beyond. Credit: NVIDIA.

As models grow in size, complexity and intelligence, the demands on training infrastructure are also rising.

In MLPerf Training 6.0 — the latest of a series of rigorous, peer-reviewed industry benchmarks for evaluating AI training performance — the NVIDIA Blackwell platform led across every category, demonstrating:

• Fastest time to train on every benchmark
• Largest-scale training across 8,192 GPUs using NVIDIA Blackwell NVL72 systems
• The only platform with submissions across all seven benchmarks in the suite

NVIDIA brings together performance, scale and reliability in a single platform engineered through extreme codesign to enable AI model builders to launch frontier models faster, minimize training costs and start generating revenue early.

Performance: Fastest Time to Train on Every Benchmark

MLPerf Training 6.0 added two new mixture-of-experts (MoE) pretraining workloads to the suite: DeepSeek-V3 671B and GPT-OSS-20B, reflecting the growing centrality of MoE architectures. The NVIDIA platform was the only one to be submitted across every benchmark, and delivered the fastest time to train on all seven.

This round, NVIDIA submitted results on both NVIDIA GB200 NVL72 and GB300 NVL72 rack-scale systems. Within each rack-scale system, fifth-generation NVIDIA NVLink Switches connect all 72 GPUs with high bandwidth, into a unified pool of compute and memory, enabling them to act as one giant GPU.

Large-scale MoE training faces the same all-to-all communication challenge as MoE inference — tokens must be routed across GPUs to reach the right expert subnetwork — and NVLink’s bandwidth advantage is what makes that fast and efficient at scale.

NVIDIA also showcased NVFP4 training methods that increase performance while meeting strict accuracy requirements across large- and small-scale pretraining as well as fine-tuning workloads. NVIDIA continues to push low-precision training innovation across different model architectures, most recently using NVFP4 to pretrain the massive 550-billion-parameter NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra model.

NVIDIA GB300 NVL72 Delivered up to 1.6x Performance Over GB200 NVL72: In this round, GB300 NVL72 delivered up to 1.6x faster training than GB200 NVL72 at the same scale. Key Blackwell Ultra capabilities such as higher compute density with NVFP4, expanded memory capacity and a higher power ceiling that lets the GPU sustain peak performance drive this improvement.

Scale: Largest Blackwell Cluster in MLPerf Training

To support distributed training at scale, NVIDIA offers two complementary scale-out networking platforms — NVIDIA Quantum InfiniBand and NVIDIA Spectrum-X Ethernet — giving data centers the flexibility to build large-scale clusters optimized for their infrastructure.

On DeepSeek-V3 671B, the largest MoE model in the suite, NVIDIA scaled its submission to 8,192 GPUs using GB200 NVL72 systems, the largest-scale Blackwell-based submission in MLPerf Training to date.

NVIDIA also submitted results at 5,120 GPUs with NVIDIA GB200 NVL72 systems on Llama 3.1 405B, one of the largest dense LLMs in the suite.

This round’s results also reflect the deep co-engineering between NVIDIA and its partners on system architecture, networking and software:

• Microsoft Azure scaled Llama 3.1 405B training to 8,192 GPUs using GB200 NVL72 systems, and reached the reference quality target in 7.07 minutes, the fastest time to train for this benchmark.
• CoreWeave delivered the fastest time to train for DeepSeek-V3 671B, reaching the quality target in 2.02 minutes at 8,192-GPU scale using GB300 NVL72 systems connected with Spectrum-X Ethernet networking.

At-Scale Reliability: Built for Production

In production training environments, runs can span weeks or months across hundreds of thousands of GPUs. At that scale, effective training throughput depends on both the performance of the system and the resiliency that makes it reproducible over time.

The MLPerf Training v6.0 results above speak to the performance of NVIDIA’s platform. For resiliency, NVIDIA’s platform is engineered across two dimensions:

• Fewer interruptions: NVIDIA GPUs are built to avoid failures before they occur. Before a GPU reaches a data center, NVIDIA screens it across 30+ manufacturing test stages to catch potential faults early. Once deployed, the Reliability, Availability and Serviceability Engine monitors nearly the entire chip, and self-healing capabilities automatically route around detected faults without interrupting the workload. At the network level, Spectrum-X Ethernet reroutes around failed links in milliseconds, keeping the fabric healthy without disrupting the job.
• Faster recovery when interruptions happen: NVIDIA Resiliency Extension, or NVRx, minimizes the time lost when faults do occur, with capabilities spanning fault detection, recovery and health monitoring across the cluster. It automatically detects and manages underperforming nodes before they slow the rest of the cluster down. When a node experiences an interruption, rather than restarting the entire job, the system resumes from a recent checkpoint, aka a saved snapshot of the training state.

Frontier AI Built on NVIDIA

NVIDIA ecosystem partners also participated extensively this round, with compelling submissions from 19 organizations, including ASUSTeK, Microsoft Azure, Cisco, CoreWeave, Dell Technologies, Fujitsu, Giga Computing, Google Cloud, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Inventec, Krai, Lambda, Nebius, Netweb Technologies India Ltd., Quanta Cloud Computing (QCT), ScitiX, Supermicro and TTA. Many of these partners are running some of the most demanding AI training workloads on NVIDIA infrastructure.

CoreWeave, which houses its NVIDIA infrastructure within Dell PowerRack systems with Dell PowerEdge servers, is home to several of these workloads. Cohere achieved 3x faster training on GB200 NVL72 for its North agentic AI platform. Midjourney, which trained its v8 image generation model on a Blackwell cluster, is now scaling a large fleet of Blackwell Ultra GPUs on CoreWeave to train upcoming image and video models.

On Google Cloud, Thinking Machines Lab saw 2x faster training and serving speeds on GB300 NVL72 compared with prior-generation GPUs, accelerating frontier model research and reinforcement learning workflows.

Nebius, running NVIDIA Blackwell and Blackwell Ultra infrastructure on its AI cloud, enabled Higgsfield to reduce model training time by 30%, supporting a platform that now serves 22 million users and generates over 6 million pieces of AI content per day.

For a deeper technical look at the MLPerf Training 6.0 results and the optimizations behind them, read this technical blog.

More from HPCwire: MLCommons Releases MLPerf Training v6.0 Results

Source: Shruti Koparkar, NVIDIA

The post NVIDIA Blackwell Delivers Fastest Results Across All MLPerf Training 6.0 Tests appeared first on HPCwire.

SUNNYVALE, Calif., June 17, 2026 — Synopsys, Inc. today announced availability of its first Multiphysics Fusion solutions for customer deployment. As chip complexity increases, physics-related challenges including signal integrity, power integrity, thermal integrity, electromagnetic effects, and co-packaged optics are becoming critical constraints at advanced nodes and in multi-die architectures, requiring a unified EDA and multiphysics approach.

The Multiphysics Fusion portfolio combines Synopsys’ AI-powered EDA solutions with Ansys golden signoff analysis across timing signoff, design closure, multi-die design, and analog workflows. Validated by market leaders, these solutions improve predictability and accelerate convergence for AI and high performance computing systems.

“Multiphysics is fundamentally reshaping how advanced semiconductor designs are engineered, driving a shift from costly overdesign to integrated, system-aware co-design,” said Sanjay Bali, Senior Vice President of EDA Product Management and Strategy at Synopsys. “Our Multiphysics Fusion portfolio unifies Synopsys and Ansys technologies to embed physics directly into digital and analog workflows, enabling engineering teams to design across domains with fewer iterations, improved productivity and more optimized silicon for next-generation systems.”

Enabling Multiphysics‑Aware Co-Design Across the Chip Design Flow

Building on the vision introduced at Synopsys Converge 2026, the first Multiphysics Fusion solutions include targeted GPU-accelerated flows powered by NVIDIA CUDA-X libraries such as cuDSS:

• Multiphysics Fusion for Timing Signoff: Enables up to 3x faster runtimes, SPICE-accurate multiphysics timing analysis. Integrates Synopsys PrimeTime with RedHawk-SC and RedHawk-SC Electrothermal, along with unified full-spectrum RC extraction using Synopsys StarRC and multiphysics HFSS-IC, to incorporate IR, thermal, and stress effects, improving margins and reducing IR-induced timing escapes.
• Multiphysics Fusion for Design Closure: Delivers up to 10x faster design closure with higher engineering change order (ECO) success rates and improved power, performance and area (PPA). Combines Synopsys PrimeClosure with RedHawk-SC to embed power integrity into golden signoff optimization, accelerating convergence with fewer iterations.
• Multiphysics Fusion for Multi-die Designs: Unified Synopsys 3DIC Compiler platform with RedHawk-SC, RedHawk-SC Electrothermal and multiphysics HFSS-IC for concurrent power integrity, thermal, and electromagnetic analysis, providing early system insights from exploration to golden signoff with correct-by-construction design.
• Multiphysics Fusion for Analog & Photonic Design: Integrates Synopsys Custom Compiler with multiphysics HFSS-IC for on-chip, high accuracy electromagnetic analysis into the analog design flow, and Synopsys OptoCompiler with Lumerical enabling end-to-end photonic IC and co-packaged optics systems.

Demonstrating Real-World Impact with Market Leaders

Early engagements with leading semiconductor and systems companies validate the value of Multiphysics Fusion solutions:

“As multi-die integration becomes increasingly important for high performance compute platforms, it’s critical we make the right system-level design decisions early in the development process,” said Harrison Hsieh, vice president at MediaTek. “By unifying multiphysics analysis and timing signoff across digital, analog, photonic and multi-die designs, Synopsys Multiphysics Fusion technology gives us earlier insight into cross-domain interactions across silicon, advanced packaging and optical domains, which makes it possible for us to improve predictability, reduce late-stage rework, and achieve a runtime that’s 10 times faster than before.”

“Advanced AI and high-performance computing platforms are pushing chip design beyond traditional workflows, and to deliver greater performance, efficiency and reliability at scale, multiphysics-aware co-design is essential,” said Tim Costa, vice president and general manager of computational engineering at NVIDIA. “Synopsys is using NVIDIA accelerated computing and CUDA-X libraries, including cuDSS, which delivers up to 13x GPU acceleration, to scale increasingly complex SPICE simulations, electromagnetics, and power-integrity workloads. In addition, Synopsys Multiphysics Fusion solutions enable up to 5x faster design closure and up to 86% IR fix rates in selected pilot designs.”

“Accurate timing signoff at advanced nodes requires a unified approach that accounts for IR drop, thermal, and stress effects directly within timing analysis,” said Hyung-Ock Kim, vice president and head of the Foundry Design Technology Team at Samsung Electronics. “Synopsys’ Multiphysics Fusion technology provides a unified, all‑aware timing signoff platform by integrating PrimeTime with multiphysics insight, delivering SPICE-accurate correlation and enabling margin recovery. This is increasingly important as we pursue higher levels of integration, performance, and reliability across advanced process and multi‑die technologies.”

In addition, the Cisco Silicon One group is leveraging Synopsys Multiphysics Fusion technology to unify IR drop effects within signoff design closure to gain earlier, more accurate visibility into real-world conditions. Combined with signoff-accurate, timing-aware IR fixing, this enables predictive optimization—helping Cisco Silicon One converge on power integrity issues faster, deliver better PPA, and achieve significantly faster runtime.

Availability

Multiphysics Fusion solutions for timing signoff, design closure, multi-die design, and analog and photonic design are available today. For more information, visit, https://www.synopsys.com/solutions/multiphysics-fusion.html.

About Synopsys

Synopsys, Inc. (Nasdaq: SNPS) is the leader in engineering solutions from silicon to systems, enabling customers to rapidly innovate AI-powered products. We deliver industry-leading silicon design, IP, simulation and analysis solutions, and design services. We partner closely with our customers across a wide range of industries to maximize their R&D capability and productivity, powering innovation today that ignites the ingenuity of tomorrow. Learn more at www.synopsys.com.

Source: Synopsys

The post Synopsys Launches Multiphysics Fusion Portfolio for AI and HPC Chip Design appeared first on HPCwire.

If reports online are true, the Chinese tech giant is keeping quiet about an innovation it beat Tesla to create.

The bill passed the Illinois legislature and is awaiting the governor's signature.

Four states file alongside FTC, claiming WPath made deceptive claims about gender-affirming care for minors

The Federal Trade Commission and four states sued the World Professional Association for Transgender Health on Wednesday, in the latest push by Donald Trump’s administration and others to limit gender-affirming care for transgender minors.

The suit alleges the group, known widely as WPath, made deceptive claims about gender-affirming care for minors and that its members profited off the claims. Alaska, Iowa, Nebraska and Texas filed along with the FTC.

Lawmakers cite rushed timeline and public input despite pressure to redraw districts after supreme court opinion

Georgia Republicans declined to redraw the state’s congressional map during a special session, defying calls from Donald Trump for widespread redistricting in the wake of a recent US supreme court decision that effectively gutted a major section of the Voting Rights Act.

“We believe that it’s important to do things the Georgia way, responsibly, transparently, and with ample opportunity for public input,” said Jon Burns, the Georgia house speaker.

Open markets committee says ‘economic activity is expanding at a solid pace’ in first meeting under new chair Kevin Warsh

US stock markets dropped on Wednesday afternoon after the Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged and signaled a possible rate hike before the end of the year.

The Fed was widely expected to keep rates at a range of 3.5% to 3.75%, where they have remained since December. The decision was unanimously supported by the Fed’s voting committee.

A new bombshell has entered the villa: fact-checkers. 

On June 16 in Episode 13 of "Love Island USA," Mackenzie "Kenzie" Annis told her then-partner, Caleb McDaniel, that 20/30 vision "means that what (other) people have to be at 20 feet to see, I can see at 30 feet." 

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Snuggled up in "Soul Ties," a secluded section of the villa where intimate conversations often occur, Caleb shared that he had "fighter pilot vision" because of his 20/13 vision score. With no way to verify the information through external sources, Caleb dropped the topic after Kenzie asserted that a higher second number in a vision score means better vision. 

But the rest of us don’t have to take Kenzie at her word. 

According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, 20/20 vision is normal, or what the average person can see on an eye chart from 20 feet away. The first number represents a person’s distance from the chart while reading it, and the second number is the distance someone with average vision would have to stand from the lettering to clearly see the same line. 

Kenzie said, "I was in nursing school, bro," to explain why she thinks her 20/30 score is superior, but her score indicates slightly below-average vision. It means she must be 20 feet away to clearly see objects that the average person can see clearly at 30 feet. Caleb’s 20/13 vision is 30% better than the average person. (The average visual acuity for a professional baseball player is also 20/13.) 

Kenzie, who is a recent graduate of the Wellstar School of Nursing at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, was unavailable for comment because she remains digitally disconnected as part of the show’s real-time format. 

Our ruling

Kenzie said a 20/30 vision score "means that what (other) people have to be at 20 feet to see, I can see at 30 feet." 

We don’t want to step on any toes in the villa, but she swapped the meaning of the two numbers in the vision score. Her 20/30 vision means that she must be 20 feet away from an object to clearly see what the average viewer needs 30 feet of distance to see. With that kind of vision, you may miss an islander’s head turning at the new bombshell. 

We rate the statement False. 

Groups cite detainee maltreatment and degradation of surrounding land as reasons to close facility permanently

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An alliance of environmental groups has welcomed reports that detainees have been moved from Florida’s notorious “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration jail, but have promised to press ahead with legal action to ensure its permanent closure and the restoration of the fragile Everglades wetlands where it is located.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement late on Tuesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and authorities in Florida “have moved illegal aliens from the soft sided facility [and] transferred them to other facilities” for their safety, citing this month’s beginning of the Atlantic hurricane season.

Jackson Lahmeyer had been backed by President Trump, although the president dropped his endorsement shortly before Lahmeyer dropped out.

We're looking at the start of a turbulent summer in the US, so stay ahead of the storms with these apps.

Augmented World Expo this week is giving us a fresh look at the state of the art in high-tech eyewear.

U.S. inflation is expected to remain elevated through the end of the year, Fed officials say in their latest forecast.

Rex Heuermann was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the series of murders known as the Gilgo Beach serial killings.

The agreement, as read by senior U.S. officials, allows Iran to immediately begin exporting oil and petroleum products.

BrianFagioli writes: Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, Arm, Mastercard, Siemens, and other companies have joined the newly launched Appia Foundation under the Linux Foundation. The project aims to create common specifications and assessment frameworks that organizations can use to demonstrate AI systems meet emerging safety, trust, and compliance requirements. According to the Linux Foundation, the framework is designed to allow conformity evidence to be reused across the AI supply chain, potentially reducing duplicate assessments and compliance costs. The announcement comes as governments around the world move toward enforcing AI regulations and organizations face increasing pressure to prove AI systems are trustworthy. "As international standards and legal frameworks become more established, global organizations need a consistent, practical way to verify that AI systems conform to new expectations," said Jim Zemlin, CEO of the Linux Foundation. "The Appia Foundation establishes a neutrally governed environment where the entire industry can collaborate on a common assessment framework. By building this infrastructure in the open, we are helping organizations reduce complexity, lower operational costs and build trust." Craig Shank, Executive Director of the Appia Foundation, added: "AI systems now make decisions about people's loans, their children's schools and their jobs. People on the receiving end deserve to know those systems were built and assessed against criteria that hold up to scrutiny. The Appia Foundation was formed to do that work: creating publicly available specifications that organizations across the AI value chain use to demonstrate their systems meet those criteria. By establishing this open framework, we are building the accountability layer required to scale safe and trusted AI across major industries."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Senate canceled Jay Clayton's confirmation hearing on Wednesday after President Trump's move to delay the installation of the new intelligence chief.

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for June 18, No. 837.

Here are hints and the answer for today's Wordle for June 18, No. 1,825.

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for June 18, No. 1,103.

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for June 18, No. 633.

A $35,000 money market account can result in a big return on your money, but it's not the only advantage to know now.

Exclusive: Allies of Labour’s Makerfield candidate concerned rapid collapse of Starmer government would increase instability

• How quickly could Andy Burnham become the UK’s prime minister?

Andy Burnham’s campaign has been forced to talk ministers out of resigning as early as this weekend to avoid Keir Starmer’s government descending into chaos amid fallout from the Makerfield byelection, the Guardian can reveal.

As they prepare for a potential change of leader in the event he beats Reform on Thursday, Burnham’s team is increasingly concerned a rapid collapse of Starmer’s administration would mean further instability for the country.

CNET's review of the Trump phone found much the same thing as iFixit: It's likely a reskinned HTC phone from two years ago.

CBS will host a primetime special celebrating America's 250th birthday on Saturday, July 4, with exclusive performances and the largest fireworks show in history.

Don Berthiaume, the Trump nominee for inspector general at the Department of Justice, refused to outright say that the January 6 insurrection was an 'attack'. Berthiaume was testifying before the Senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee on Wednesday as part of his confirmation process

The southern US is seeing intense rain that is expected to cause dangerous flash flooding

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The first tropical storm of the Atlantic hurricane season formed on Wednesday near the Gulf coast, bringing intense rain and the threat of dangerous flash floods to states including Texas and Louisiana, meteorologists said.

Tropical Storm Arthur was a disorganized cluster of storms that brought rain for days over parts of eastern Mexico and the Gulf. The National Hurricane Center in Miami said conditions were conducive for a short-lived tropical storm to form.

Jane and Alan Kelvey’s holiday yacht met a warship in the Channel – at a tense time for Anglo-Russian relations

“We actually had right of way,” said Jane Kelvey, a little crossly, though keeping it civil. “But we weren’t going to argue with a warship.”

The dramatic standoff in the Channel on Tuesday morning between Admiral Grigorovich, a 125-metre (409ft) battle-hardened Russian frigate, and Bright Future, a 12-metre (40ft) pleasure yacht owned and helmed by Jane, 69, and her husband, Alan, 71, has rather caught the nation’s imagination.

Don Berthiaume, Trump nominee for inspector general at justice department, pressed by senators amid confirmation

Donald Trump’s nominee to serve as a top independent watchdog at the Department of Justice has refused to call the January 6 insurrection an “attack” during questioning by US senators.

Don Berthiaume, a career justice department employee who has been serving as inspector general at the agency, faced senators as part of his confirmation process to take up the role permanently on Wednesday.

Everpure (formerly Pure Storage) may have changed its name a few months back, but the real change appears to be in the future, as the company embarks upon an aggressive pivot with its business plan. Instead of just building storage arrays (which it will continue to do), the company is moving up the stack and attempting to tackle a much more daunting and challenge problem: Developing a unified platform for centralized management of decentralized data.

Traditionally, applications had primacy over data. ERP systems and other on-prem enterprise apps determined how data was stored, often within a centralized relational database. This straightforward approach worked for many years, but the emergence of SaaS applications running in the cloud, among other changes, has upset the storage apple cart. With a complex mix of decentralized apps, all of which demanded control over storage, customers have suffered.

This application-centric approach causes all sorts of problems. Having multiple copies of data floating around not only drives up storage costs, but leads to inaccurate data and wrong answers, said Everpure CEO and Chairman Charlie Giancarlo.

The current application-centric model has created a data integration mess (Image courtesy Everpure)

“The definition of customer in ERP is different from the definition of customer in your CRM, or in your ServiceNow environment,” Giancarlo said during his keynote address this morning at Accelerate 2026. “So it’s fragmented the data and furthermore, it’s fragmented the context.”

Data analytics teams spend enormous sums of money and time trying to rationalize and normalize their data to make it usable for the business. Centralized data warehouses and data lakes addressed the problem by mandating centralized storage of data, but the approach has only been marginally successful, in part because it still relies on maintaining data pipelines.

This data integration problem has existed for many years, and it’s only gotten worse since the big data boom began 15 years ago. Now, as we enter the AI era, the idea of having AI agents accessing and making decisions based on this mess of data is emerging as a serious problem.

This is essentially what spurred Everpure, the 17-year-old storage array vendor that recorded $3.7 billion in revenues in fiscal 2026, to throw its hat into the ring. The company has correctly identified some of the real pain points of the application-centric approach to data management, and today at Accelerate 2026 in Las Vegas, it began the rollout of its solution to the problem.

Today the company unveiled Everpure Data Intelligence. The offering which is based on data discovery and classification technology it obtained with its 1touch.io acquisition earlier this year, is the key element in Everpure’s ambitious new “data-primacy” architecture. Everpure Data Intelligence is critical to ingesting and rationalizing metadata about user’s data environments. The software creates a semantic knowledge graph of user’s entire data storage map, whether the data physically resides on Everpure arrays, sits in the cloud, or is stored on competitor’s storage systems.

Everpure has postulated a data-primacy model that centralizes metadata and utilizes a semantic knowledge graph to manage access to raw data (Image courtesy Everpure)

“We think that the answer to this is that, instead of the apps themselves connecting to all of your data, we need to construct a context map,” Giancarlo said. “We need to understand the data itself. We need to understand the context of each of the data systems, each of the data environments. And then what we need to do is we need to create shared context of how these different data sets, how they cooperate with one another, what the connections are between the same definitions in the different data sets.”

The company’s goal is to give customers better control over their data, and easier ways to access it, whether it’s from the wide array of users and applications, or whether it’s from AI agents. It’s doing this through centralization of data management via the creation of a metadata-powered semantic layer, not centralization of physical storage of data. This will break the old paradigm of application-centric storage, and give customers control and power over their data.

“The way we’re going now is just not sustainable,” Giancarlo said. “We cannot continue to have continued data fragmentation because data fragmentation confuses AI agents. Instead, what you want is a coherent view, a coherent repository of the sources of truth inside your organization.”

Everpure refers this data-first approach, rather than application-first, as data primacy. The company has been implementing a version of this data primacy vision onto its own operations through a project called Mercury. The company, which has nearly 15,000 customers and revenues approaching $4 billion, relies on 750 different applications, which creates all sorts of challenges even for relatively simple business processes, like generating an invoice. The goal of Everpure Data Intelligence is to bring some simple truths to this chaotic reality.

Everpure also announced an update to its Unified Data Plane. Just as previous tools gave Everpure customers control over individual arrays as well as their entire storage fleet, the Unified Data Plane gives customers the capability to manage and govern their data, no matter where it sits.

The company also announced the availability of Everpure Data Stream. The previously announced product is based on Nvidia’s AI Data Platform, and essentially sits between a customer’s far-flung data repositories and the AI inference system that wants to access that data. Instead of using brille ETL pipelines to pull data into a centralized lake or database, the Data Stream access raw data from its source and uses the power of a GPU and the semantic knowledge of Everpure Data Intelligence systems to expose the information to the AI system.

“The first 10 years of our life, we focus on simplifying your array,” Giancarlo said. “Over the last five years, we brought in Fusion to simplify your fleet overall. Now we unified the management of this environment. And what our next challenge is, I think not just as Everpure but as an industry, is to help you to be able to unlock the power of your data.”

The post Everpure Outlines Ambitious Pivot to Data-Centric Storage at Accelerate 2026 appeared first on HPCwire.

President Trump defended the agreement reached by the U.S. and Iran​ at a press conference to close out the G7 summit in France.

New updates mean you should be able to go back and forth between coding and designing without interruptions.

Anthropic employees say they remain confused and increasingly convinced that the Trump administration is singling out the company after officials gave it less than 90 minutes to disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 over alleged national security concerns. Cybersecurity experts, however, argue that the cited behavior of helping to identify vulnerabilities in software is also available in rival models and is more valuable to defenders than attackers. The New York Times reports: Inside the company, employees' private group chats immediately lit up. Managers were instructed to prepare customers for a potential service disruption to the models, called Fable 5 and Mythos 5. But the messaging kept changing, with workers initially being told that the security problem was the ability of foreign companies to gain access to the systems, and later that a major vulnerability had been discovered in the models. In employee chats, Anthropic engineers asked one another if the company's plan to go public this year would be harmed by the White House directive. Many shared news reports that offered conflicting information about why the White House had ordered Anthropic to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all foreign nationals. "What are you telling your clients?" one employee asked in a chat viewed by The New York Times. Another said, "Does anyone know what to believe?" In another message, a worker said, "I don't understand what the issue is." Six days later, Anthropic's roughly 3,000 employees still have few answers. The San Francisco company is continuing to grapple with internal confusion as Dario Amodei, the chief executive, and some of his lieutenants meet with the Trump administration to try and resolve the situation. But after discussions on Monday and Tuesday, there was no breakthrough over ending the U.S. order to limit access to the company's new A.I. models. In a statement on Monday, Anthropic said it would continue meeting with government officials and pledged its "ongoing commitment to working alongside the administration." The dispute highlights how singular Anthropic has become in Washington. It was the second time in six months that the fast-growing A.I. start-up has become embroiled in a fight with the Trump administration over its powerful technologies, even as other A.I. companies offer similar models that have not received the same attention. And it has left Anthropic's employees in what they described as a holding pattern, with some wondering if they were being picked on by President Trump. "Are we being bullied based on bad vibes?" one employee asked in a chat viewed by The Times. Yesterday, TechCrunch's Zack Whittaker argued that the move sets a troubling precedent: the government can unilaterally disrupt American software products without court approval, potentially undermining trust in U.S. AI providers.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It comes with advanced, wire-free navigation and a promised future AI-powered mapping update.

No formal warning issued to captains or ship owners, but industry body says they are exercising greater vigilance

British officials believe Russia will try to retaliate for the Royal Marines’ seizure of the oil tanker Smyrtos, prompting UK ship owners to exercise greater vigilance until tensions with Moscow ease.

Military sources said the UK had considered possible responses to the seizure of the vessel carrying Russian crude worth $40m (£30m) to India, and anticipate that the Kremlin will want to hit back.

Refugee charity says decision to let riot police use water cannon, which are banned in Great Britain, is ‘sickening’

French riot police deployed in northern France under a £660m deal with the UK are authorised to use water cannon against asylum seekers, the Guardian has been told.

Two specialist policing units, including a 50-officer riot squad, have begun working to prevent asylum seekers and people smugglers from launching small boats under the UK-France deal in time for the summer months.

The benefits of a gold investment this June are multiple. Here's why it's especially worth investing in right now.

Canadian officials find structural defects in material used for hull and say firm failed to fully test ‘novel’ design

Canadian safety officials have issued a damning report on the catastrophic final voyage of the Titan submersible, finding that the US company behind the expedition was overcome by “groupthink” and “confirmation bias” and failed to understand the profound risks confronting their largely untested craft.

The 6.7-metre (22ft) carbon fibre submersible dipped below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean in June 2023 en route to the wreckage of the Titanic ocean liner. But nearly two hours after it departed with five passengers, communications went dark. The disappearance prompted a frantic international search, with Canada and the US marshalling all available resources.

A suspect was taken into custody in Philadelphia in connection with the shooting at Wilmington Hospital that left a 19-year-old dead and another injured.

If Samsung Messages is still your default texting app, you'll need to take action in July.

The Fed held rates steady again on Wednesday. Here's what that continued pause could mean for mortgage borrowers.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Artificial Intelligence will lead to labour shortages, not the replacement of humans, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos predicted in a highly optimistic appearance at the VivaTech technology conference in Paris on Wednesday. Bezos put forward a rosy vision of how technology will help humanity, speaking about projects including his space venture Blue Origin and his new AI startup Prometheus, which is aimed at speeding up physical manufacturing. "I know there's a lot of concern that many people have, including many smart people, that AI is going to make humans redundant and so on," Bezos said. "I totally disagree with this point of view. And I think, in fact, AI is going to create a labor shortage." Half of Americans fear the rise of AI could put them or someone in their household out of work, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found this month. Bezos, the world's fourth-richest person with a net worth around $250 billion, argued that people have "endless" things to do, and are currently limited by barriers that he said AI would lower. One goal of space exploration is to move polluting industries off Earth, said Bezos, whose Blue Origin aims to compete with trillionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX in rockets. "If space travel gets reliable enough and inexpensive enough, and we can get materials from asteroids and near-Earth objects and the moon, then this garden planet can be returned to its pre-Industrial Revolution state," Bezos said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Musician says on Instagram he is ‘doing much better’ and receiving treatment and therapy after 2025 arrest

The musician Lil Nas X posted a moving video update to his Instagram on Wednesday morning. In the nearly three-minute clip, the artist – born Montero Lamar Hill – shared that he “has been in rehab for a few months” and since then, has returned home to Atlanta, where he is from and his family lives, and Los Angeles, where he resides.

The update comes in response to an event last summer in which the musician was charged with attacking Los Angeles police officers.

After more than a decade since it was announced, the Obama Presidential Center and Library officially opens to the public in Chicago's Jackson Park on June 19, 2026.

The US president’s opulent tastes will be well served in a palace that has hosted Putin, King Charles and JFK

For a US president who has likened himself to a king and redecorated the Oval Office with golden paint and gold ornaments, it feels like the perfect dinner venue.

Donald Trump said one of the deciding factors in accepting an invitation to dine with Emmanuel Macron at the spectacular, 2,300-room Palace of Versailles was that it was “not gold leaf” but the “real deal”.

Twenty-nine new Ph.D. students will apply high-performance computing to accelerate discoveries in AI, quantum science and engineering, physics and advanced materials.

June 17, 2026 — Twenty-nine students working toward achieving doctorates in fields that emphasize the use of computing and mathematics have been selected for the Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship (DOE CSGF) program.

The 2026-2027 incoming fellows will attend 18 U.S. universities as they learn to apply high-performance computing (HPC) to research in disciplines including applied mathematics, machine learning, computer science, quantum science and engineering, electrical and mechanical engineering, physics, chemistry and materials science.

The program, established in 1991 and funded by the DOE’s Office of Science and the National Nuclear Security Administration, trains top leaders in computational science. As of Sept. 1, the DOE CSGF community will include more than 725 fellows and alumni who have trained at 87 Ph.D. institutions. More than 500 alumni work in fields that enlist HPC to maintain the nation’s advantage in energy science and other urgent scientific and technological challenges.

“Over the last 35 years, the Computational Sciences Graduate Fellowship has played an outsized role in ensuring American leadership in supercomputing and in science more broadly. CSGF alumni contribute to the three fastest scientific supercomputers in the world, all run by the U.S. Department of Energy, and to the science and engineering applications that run on them,” said Hal Finkel, the Associate Director of DOE’s Advanced Scientific Computing Research program. “Alumni also play key roles in the department’s Genesis Mission in artificial intelligence and in research that will lead to a revolution in practical quantum computing. The DOE Office of Science is proud to help support this fantastically successful program.”

“Computational tools and capabilities are critical for our nation, and the Computational Science Graduate Fellowship has a long history of developing leaders in computing for academia, industry, and government,” said Stephen Rinehart, Assistant Deputy Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration. “Within the NNSA, CSGF alumni play critical roles in developing leading-edge computing and in using supercomputers to help assure the safety and security of America’s nuclear stockpile. NNSA is proud to continue supporting the CSGF program and looks forward to the contributions these students will make in the years and decades to come.”

Most DOE CSGF recipients work in traditional scientific disciplines that rely on HPC to address research problems. A second track supports those studying applied mathematics, statistics, computer science or computer engineering, with research interests that advance HPC’s use in science. This includes students focused on HPC as a broad enabling technology rather than a particular science or engineering application. Regardless of track affiliation, fellows’ research includes elements of artificial intelligence, machine learning and quantum computing, positioning them to contribute to U.S. investments in emerging computing architectures, including the DOE’s Genesis Mission.

Fellows receive support that includes a stipend, tuition and fees, and an annual academic allowance. Renewable for up to four years, the fellowship is guided by a comprehensive program of study that requires focused coursework in science and engineering, computer science, applied mathematics and HPC. It also includes a three-month practicum at one of 22 DOE-approved sites across the country, and an annual meeting where fellows present their research in poster and talk formats.

The DOE CSGF has been managed by the Iowa-based nonprofit Krell Institute since 1997. Details for each incoming fellow will be available in September via the program’s online fellow directory. Meanwhile, please contact the Krell Institute for further information.

Source: U.S. Dept. of Energy

The post DOE Selects 36th Class of Computational Science Graduate Fellows appeared first on HPCwire.

Public-private partnership leads to benchmark-setting system

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., June 17, 2026 — A public-private partnership in the Mountain West announced today new results that mark steady progress toward the Department of Energy’s goal of fault-tolerant quantum computing, systems large and reliable enough to solve complex problems.

Sandia National Laboratories photonics researcher Forrest Hubert aligns an experimental chip with an optical waveguide carrying laser light. Sandia collaborates with quantum computing company Quantinuum to develop and test similar technologies. Photo credit: Craig Fritz.

Sandia National Laboratories, home to the DOE’s longest running quantum computing program, and tech company Quantinuum published a paper today in the scientific journal Nature that reports the performance of the company’s 98-qubit commercial system, Helios, which debuted last year.

In operations that involved only one or two qubits, or quantum bits, the system demonstrated very high fidelity — 99.9975% and 99.921%, respectively. The results establish Helios as the company’s largest and most reliable quantum computer to date.

Sandia senior manager Mike Descour lauded the findings as a success for the laboratory’s collaboration efforts within the quantum computing sector.

“As a national resource, we are committed to accelerating quantum computing technology in support of economic and national security,” he said.

Sandia, the nation’s premier engineering laboratory, assesses emerging opportunities and threats stemming from quantum information science for the U.S. government. These areas include cryptography, pharmaceutical research, energy science, advanced sensing and communications, all of which are key to national security.

The paper was previously posted to the pre-print website arXiv. The new version in Nature has been peer reviewed, meaning the findings now have been scrutinized by third-party experts.

Ongoing Partnership Advancing Scalable Hardware

For more than 20 years, Sandia’s quantum computing research and development program has combined the labs’ engineering forte with expertise in computer modeling and world-class microelectronics and nanotechnology facilities to build, characterize and share working quantum devices on a variety of technology platforms.

Throughout this time, Sandia has grown its portfolio of industry partnerships. The labs and Quantinuum have been working together for four years under a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement, which was renewed in May. Similar agreements are in place with several other quantum computing companies.

“We welcome collaboration with any interested partner including universities, industry and other national laboratories,” said Sandia photonics manager Chris DeRose.

The partnership initially formed a few years after Sandia researchers had started developing foundational technologies in integrated photonics for trapped ion quantum computers, the same style as Helios, at Sandia’s Microsystems Engineering, Science and Applications complex.

Integrated photonics are energy-efficient chips that carry information at the speed of light through microscopic optical channels. They promise to reduce the risks of quantum technology by lowering energy costs and improving scalability, which is key to building large, useful computers.

Now, Sandia helps Quantinuum design and test these kinds of components for possible inclusion in future platforms.

Quantinuum, which has its corporate headquarters located in Colorado, operates a research and development site in New Mexico, close to Sandia’s main campus.

Sandia Conducted Helios Assessment

In the Nature paper, Sandia evaluated and certified the performance of the Helios system.

The national laboratory has pioneered ways to debug quantum computers and used a variety of tests, including some of its own inventions, to assess Helios. Its researchers supplied a new benchmarking methodology to measure the performance of non-destructive readout operations, called mid-circuit measurements, that are essential for correcting quantum computing errors.

“The most important aspect of today’s quantum computers is not speed, but reliability,” said Sandia’s Robin Blume-Kohout, a co-author on the paper. Quantum computers use complex, experimental technologies that can fail in dozens of subtle ways, he explained, from an out-of-tune laser giving bad instructions to a single atom jiggling out of place. These problems degrade fidelity and limit performance.

In the long term, Blume-Kohout said, helping companies solve these issues will help bring about quantum computers that can tackle unsolved scientific problems.

“We evaluate every aspect of quantum computer performance with our commercial partners to accelerate the advent of quantum supercomputing,” he said.

In the near term, the new research results show the nation is reaching significant milestones along that path.

“Helios operates beyond the capabilities of classical simulation alone and established a new benchmark of fidelity and complexity for quantum computers,” said Quantinuum’s Tony Ransford, Helios lead architect.

More from HPCwire: Quantinuum Introduces Helios Quantum System as Roadmap Advances Toward Apollo

About Sandia Labs

Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory operated by National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration. Sandia Labs has major research and development responsibilities in nuclear deterrence, global security, defense, energy technologies and economic competitiveness, with main facilities in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Livermore, California.

Source: Sandia National Laboratories

The post Sandia and Quantinuum Report High-Fidelity Results from 98-Qubit Helios Quantum System appeared first on HPCwire.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche appointed Alessandra Serano to serve as the Justice Department's national coordinator on human trafficking and child exploitation cases.

MORETON BAY, Australia, June 17, 2026 — PsiQuantum today broke ground and started construction on its facility at Moreton Bay Central, where the company will build and deploy the world’s first utility-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer. Minister for Industry and Innovation and Minister for Science Senator the Hon Tim Ayres, Queensland Minister for Science and Innovation the Hon Andrew Powell and City of Moreton Bay Mayor Peter Flannery joined PsiQuantum Chief Executive Officer Victor Peng and PsiQuantum Co-Founder and Executive Chair Prof. Jeremy O’Brien to mark the milestone.

At its facility at Moreton Bay Central, PsiQuantum will build and deploy the world’s first utility-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer. Credit: PsiQuantum.

Fault-tolerant quantum computers are expected to unlock transformative new capabilities across medicine, materials science, energy, manufacturing, logistics, finance, and agriculture. As demand for advanced computing continues to grow alongside technologies such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing will provide a powerful new way to solve some of the world’s most complex scientific and industrial challenges by generating high-quality data directly from first principles. Together, quantum computing and AI will help form a complete industrial computing stack capable of accelerating discovery and unlocking breakthrough technologies across critical industries.

“Building a quantum computer that solves real world problems is one of the great engineering challenges of our time. For decades, quantum computing has held the promise of transforming what humanity can achieve through computation, and today in Australia we are beginning to turn that promise into reality,” said Victor Peng, Chief Executive Officer of PsiQuantum. “We are grateful for the partnership and support of the Australian Government, the Queensland Government and City of Moreton Bay as we take this step forward.

“Australia has been part of this journey from the very beginning,” said Prof. Jeremy O’Brien, Co-Founder and Executive Chair of PsiQuantum. “Returning to break ground on a utility-scale quantum computer, so close to where much of the foundational work was done, is a powerful reminder of how far the field has come. This facility will be critical infrastructure, strengthening Australia’s sovereign capability while helping build the workforce that will power the next era of computing, and I’m thrilled to see PsiQuantum leading this revolution here in Australia.”

PsiQuantum’s site will be developed in several phases, with the possibility of future expansion. During the initial construction phase, PsiQuantum will prepare for the arrival of a large cryoplant, a critical piece of infrastructure for cooling the quantum computer currently under construction and manufactured by Linde Engineering. Ordered by PsiQuantum in late 2024, the cryoplant will be one of the largest ever built for quantum computing and is set to be delivered in the second half of 2027. PsiQuantum will then proceed with commissioning the cryoplant and site before then beginning to accept cryogenic cabinets, which will be filled with photonic quantum chips and networked together with standard optical fiber.

The company’s operations are expected to create highly skilled jobs across engineering, technical operations, advanced manufacturing, research, and professional services, all supporting economic growth in the City of Moreton Bay and contributing to the continued development of Queensland’s innovation economy.

Located in one of Australia’s fastest growing regions, the site is located within the Moreton Bay Central Innovation Precinct alongside a TAFE Centre of Excellence and the University of Sunshine Coast Moreton Bay campus, which will help create direct pathways for students, apprentices, technicians and engineers into careers in quantum technologies and advanced manufacturing. Moreton Bay’s role as a host city for the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games reflects the scale of growth and investment taking place across the city.

“This is exactly the type of investment we have been working to attract to Moreton Bay,” said City of Moreton Bay Mayor Peter Flannery. “PsiQuantum’s building technology that will have an impact globally, and they’re doing it right here in our city. The economic benefits will be felt for years through new jobs, new skills, and new opportunities for local businesses. Combined with the education and training facilities being developed within the precinct, this project helps create a pathway from classroom to career in one of the world’s most advanced industries.”

“We opened this campus in 2020 in one of Queensland’s fastest-growing areas. We worked with City of Moreton Bay to create a site that would enable businesses to co-locate with industry experts and research facilities, to promote knowledge sharing, opportunities for collaboration and access to skilled local graduates,” said University of the Sunshine Coast Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Helen Bartlett. “It’s wonderful to see this very purposeful industry ecosystem coming to life in Moreton Bay with PsiQuantum breaking ground today.”

Today’s announcement follows the May 2026 opening of PsiQuantum’s Test and Validation Lab located at Griffith University in Brisbane. The lab includes a high-powered cryogenic system used to test photonic quantum chips and other sub-systems, all components that will be developed and refined in support of building and deploying PsiQuantum’s first utility-scale system at Moreton Bay Central.

More from HPCwire

• PsiQuantum Opens Test & Validation Lab at Griffith University
• PsiQuantum Unveils New Australian Site at Moreton Bay Central

About PsiQuantum

PsiQuantum was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in Palo Alto, California. The company’s mission is to build and deploy the world’s first useful quantum computers. PsiQuantum’s photonic approach enables it to leverage high-volume semiconductor manufacturing, existing cryogenic infrastructure, and architectural flexibility to rapidly scale its systems. Learn more at www.psiquantum.com.

Source: PsiQuantum

The post PsiQuantum Breaks Ground on Australian Site for Utility-Scale Quantum Computer appeared first on HPCwire.

As standard practice, the military makes public identifications 24 hours after next of kin have been notified.

French president welcomes group’s unity after ‘very deep change’ in Washington’s approach

Emmanuel Macron has said the whole of the G7, including the US, recognises “the territorial integrity of Ukraine” as he hailed a “re-synchronisation” of positions on the issue.

The French president welcomed a “very deep change in the US approach”, saying Donald Trump and all the leaders present at the G7 summit at Évian-les-Bains understood that Vladimir Putin was not interested in peace.

Move will allow Trump’s controversial pick, Bill Pulte, to assume role and remain in place for at least several weeks

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Donald Trump abruptly diverted the confirmation process for Jay Clayton as the US’s top intelligence chief early Wednesday, in a move that will allow the US president’s controversial selection for acting director of national security, Bill Pulte, to assume the role and remain in place for at least several weeks until Clayton is confirmed.

Trump pushed the Senate to confirm Clayton after his appointment of Pulte as acting director sparked bipartisan pushback and stalled his administration’s push for renewal of the controversial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa).

Give your mind and body a standing break without interrupting your work.

This blog has now closed – see all our coverage of the G7 summit here

Rutte says the adjustment in the US pledge to the Nato Force Model is “not primarily about where forces and assets are currently, but about who would do what if our defence plans were activated.”

He says historically the model was “overly reliant” on the US.

“You will likely have seen news adjusting its contributions to the Nato force model. In some cases, this has been cast as a problem, as the US pulling away from its allies, but that is not the reality. The US has made clear that it is committed to Nato.

That commitment comes with an expectation that allies will more fairly share the responsibility for our security here in Europe.”

• US runner reportedly lost pulse in medical incident

• Organizer thanks EMS and safety professionals

• Simpson won bronze in 1500m at 2016 Olympics

Jenny Simpson, a three-time Olympian and one of the most accomplished American female runners in history, was taken to hospital and is receiving treatment after collapsing at a track event on Tuesday in North Carolina.

The organizer of the event, Sir Walter Running, said there had been a “medical incident” involving Simpson while she paced a mile group at an event in Raleigh. Runner’s World and LetsRun reported that Simpson did not have a pulse for a period of time but said it was restored with CPR and an AED.

Get one of the best desks for your office in 2026 with the help of our CNET experts.

A small plane crashed on a highway and caught fire in Laredo, Texas, on Tuesday night. Police and bystanders frantically tried to smash the cockpit window to free people inside. Police say six people were onboard. Five were injured and one was killed. The plane had left San José del Cabo in Mexico and was bound for Austin, Texas, according to the Federal Aviation Administration

• NetJets aircraft crashes on Texas highway, killing one and injuring five

You know Home Chef, HelloFresh and Blue Apron, but the best meal kit service is one you've probably never tried.

This blog has now closed. See all our UK politics coverage here

Andy Burnham may have trouble getting through to Keir Starmer if he tries ringing him after the Makerfield byelection to urge him to set a timetable for his departure. Burnham reportedly wants to call Starmer this weekend. (See 9.47am.) But, in his interview with Sky News, Starmer said: “I’m sure I’ll talk to Andy after the weekend.”

If Starmer declines to take Burnham’s call, he may be following Ed Miliband’s example. In a Times story today, Patrick Maguire and Steven Swinford report:

Sir Keir Starmer’s relationship with Ed Miliband has broken down to such an extent that the energy secretary has been accused of “ghosting” the prime minister in recent weeks.

Senior government sources claimed that Miliband declined to take calls from the prime minister during a tense stand-off over defence spending.

Epic Games has released Lore, an MIT-licensed version control system written in Rust and designed specifically for "games and entertainment purposes with large file sizes," reports Phoronix. From the report: While there is Git LFS for large file storage with Git, Epic Games has crated Lore as a version control system designed entirely around the large file needs of modern game development as well as multimedia/entertainment purposes. Lore is designed to be fast and efficient for large files including binary files, and be easy-to-use including for 3D artists and more. The Lore documentation elaborates more on its differences and motivation for development compared to Git: "No existing system was designed for the combination of constraints that large game and entertainment projects require: arbitrary content types, multi-axis scale, multi-tenant safety, and a fully open specification and license. [...] Lore is designed to combine what works in each (Git's content-addressed revision graph and centralized systems): a centralized server-of-record for durability, access control, and conflict resolution; content-addressed storage with fragment-level deduplication that is as effective on a multi-gigabyte binary as on a kilobyte of text; sparse, lazy working copies that materialize only what you need; free branching; and a fully open, publicly versioned specification and MIT license. Normal editing operations -- staging, committing, branching, diffing -- never require a network round trip." You can learn more at Lore.org. All the code is available on GitHub.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Victims’ families spoke in court as Heuermann was imprisoned for killing spree that spanned decades

Rex Heuermann, the Manhattan architect who methodically planned and carried out the murders of eight women over at least 17 years on Long Island, was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison without parole.

The sentence, the maximum the New York law allows, was handed down by Judge Timothy Mazzei after a morning of grueling victim’s family impact statements on the effect Heuermann’s murder spree had on the children and relatives of his victims.

In an exclusive interview with CBS News, retired Justice Arthur Engoron reflected on the highs and lows of the 2023 Trump civil fraud trial.

You cannot take a rules-based order seriously when only some of the participants are playing by the rules

When 200,000 protesters gathered to meet the G8 summit in Genoa, 25 years ago, their point (our point, in fact; I went on a coach, it took two and a half days) was that eight rich nations shouldn’t dictate the rules to the rest of the world. If you accept that power concedes nothing without a demand, this demand probably sounds a bit broad, boiling down to “abnegate your power”. But it was part of a wider anti-globalisation movement, in which many of the precise mechanisms by which the developed world exploited the developing had been nailed down.

Many of the protest tactics and networks had been honed at the battle for Seattle in 1999, outside the World Trade Organization summit, along with an agenda that was capacious and versatile. Unfortunately, the authorities had also learned a thing or two, and both the elaborate security of the G8’s red zone and the police brutality outside it were met with some astonishment from the world’s (liberal) media, but not from anyone with a memory exceeding two years.

SUNNYVALE, Calif., June 17, 2026 — The worldwide market for accelerated, high‑performance data center infrastructure serving artificial intelligence (AI) workloads grew 60.1 percent year‑over‑year in 2025, reaching more than $300 billion in spending, according to new market data from industry analyst firm Intersect360 Research. The AI market continues to be fueled predominantly by hyperscale companies, with hyperscale AI infrastructure remaining the largest and fastest‑growing segment in absolute dollars. At the same time, the non-hyperscale enterprise AI market, including AI segments for high-performance computing (HPC), reached $71.6 billion in 2025 and is projected to grow to more than $130 billion by 2030.

The new forecast, informed by broad-based Intersect360 Research budget surveys and technology trend reports from the HPC‑AI Leadership Organization (HALO), shows that accelerated infrastructure is steadily taking share from traditional, non‑accelerated data center spending. Over the 2025–2030 period, the combined AI infrastructure market will grow at a double‑digit compound annual rate, with total annual AI infrastructure spending projected to comfortably exceed $500 billion by the end of the decade.

“We’ve seen AI infrastructure take over the data center agenda,” said Intersect360 Research CEO Addison Snell. “Our forecast maps where the money is really going, from hyperscalers and neoclouds to sovereign and enterprise AI.”

The highest growth in the forecast shifts away from hyperscale alone toward newer segments, including AI‑focused cloud providers and national sovereign AI data centers. National sovereign AI data centers begin as a small share of accelerated infrastructure but post the fastest growth rate over the forecast period, as more nations fund dedicated, nationally controlled AI facilities.

“Our surveys and HALO budget mapping show where new money is going: hyperscaler AI infrastructure is growing fastest, while enterprise and sovereign AI become a visible, steadily expanding share of total spend,” said Intersect360 analyst Antonia Maar. “Sovereign AI starts as a small slice of the market, but it grows several‑fold as governments prioritize nationally controlled AI capacity.”

“Accelerated infrastructure is steadily taking share from traditional, non‑accelerated data center spending,” added Intersect360 analyst Kevin Jackson. “Over the forecast period, GPUs, high‑end servers, and AI‑optimized cloud services capture most of the incremental budget growth, while legacy enterprise infrastructure remains flat or declines in real terms.”

The full series of market forecast reports from Intersect360 Research defines four accelerated, high‑performance segments of the worldwide data center infrastructure market: hyperscale AI, AI‑focused clouds (“neoclouds”), national sovereign AI data centers, and enterprise AI (including HPC-AI). Two additional non‑accelerated segments—hyperscale and enterprise—complete the forecast and provide context for the long‑term shift toward accelerated AI infrastructure.

Intersect360 Research will present highlights of the new forecast, along with results from recent HALO surveys, in a free webinar on June 18, 8:00 a.m. PT – 9:30 a.m. PT, including a long‑term outlook for AI, HPC, quantum, hyperscale, and the future of enterprise computing. A 60-minute presentation will be followed by 30-minutes of live Q&A with Intersect360 analysts. All registrants will get access to presentation materials and recordings. For registration information, visit https://www.intersect360.com/webinar-registration.

About Intersect360 Research

Intersect360 Research is a market intelligence, research, and consulting advisory practice focused on high-performance data center trends, including High Performance Computing (HPC), artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, cloud computing, big data, and hyperscale. Intersect360 Research utilizes both user-based and supplier-based research to form a complete perspective of market dynamics, trends, and usage models, including both technical and business applications. The company’s research agenda and studies are informed by the HPC-AI Leadership Organization (HALO), a global end user group organized by Intersect360 Research to help guide the future of the HPC-AI industry. More information on HALO is available at www.hpcaileadership.org.

In addition to its market advisory subscription services, Intersect360 Research offers customers an array of client-specific services, including custom surveys, white papers and custom analysis. More information about Intersect360 Research as well as the full slate of Intersect360 Research reports available for purchase and download can be found at www.intersect360.com.

Source: Intersect360 Research

The post Intersect360 Research: AI Infrastructure Market Grew 60% in 2025, Forecast to Exceed $520B by 2030 appeared first on HPCwire.

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn., June 17, 2026 — On October 1, 2026, EPB Quantum will host the inaugural Quantum in Business (QiB) conference, exclusively in Chattanooga, Tennessee. QiB will highlight how companies can benefit from a projected $2.7 trillion in economic value by utilizing quantum computing in the near-term, especially in financial, healthcare, insurance, chemicals, logistics and automotive industries.

What to know about QiB:

• When: October 1, 2026
• Where: The Westin Chattanooga
• Who: Leaders in finance, healthcare, insurance, chemicals, logistics and automotive industries.
• How: Register at quantum.epb.com/qib26. Limited spots are available.

“First movers who understand quantum computing’s business impact will shape tomorrow’s competitive landscape,” said EPB President and CEO-elect Janet Rehberg. “We designed QiB to connect business and technology leaders with next steps to benefit their companies today and lead their industries tomorrow.”

Sessions will focus on how business innovation and technology chiefs can connect with the resources to begin developing quantum solutions that can benefit their companies today:

• Making Quantum Computing Real for Business, featuring IonQ Chairman and CEO Niccolo de Masi
• What Leaders Actually Need to Know, with Oak Ridge National Laboratory Director of Partnership Dr. Shaun Gleason
• The Three Decisions Leaders Should Make in the Next 12–24 Months to prepare their organizations for a quantum-enabled future, from EPB President and CEO-Elect Janet Rehberg
• And more

View the full agenda at quantum.epb.com/qib26/agenda.

The conference will feature information from quantum researchers who are ready to work with business leaders to develop practical applications to benefit their companies in the near term. Attendees will also learn about potential sources of grant funding for companies as well as perspectives from industry, state and federal leaders who are supporting Tennessee’s push to play a leading role in commercializing quantum technology to support job creation in Chattanooga and across the state.

Although still early, quantum computing technology is delivering innovation for practical applications.

• Finance: Portfolio optimization, fraud detection
• Logistics & Transportation: Route optimization, supply chain management
• Manufacturing and Automotive: Process optimization, predictive maintenance
• Healthcare & Pharmaceuticals: Drug discovery, protein folding
• Chemicals and New Materials Research: Modeling, simulation
• Insurance: Data optimization, modeling