News Reel

Maria Medetis Long, who was overseeing a criminal investigation into whether former CIA Director John Brennan lied to Congress is no longer assigned to the case.

President Trump has welcomed Iran's announcement that, at least while the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire holds, the Strait of Hormuz is "completely open" to all ships.

BrianFagioli writes: Mozilla's email subsidiary MZLA Technologies just introduced Thunderbolt, an open-source AI client aimed at organizations that want to run AI on their own infrastructure instead of relying entirely on cloud services. The idea is to give companies full control over their data, models, and workflows while still offering things like chat, research tools, automation, and integration with enterprise systems through the Haystack AI framework. Native apps are planned for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android. Thunderbolt allows organizations to do the following: - Run AI with their choice of models, from leading commercial providers to open-source and local models - Connect to systems and data: Integrate with pipelines and open protocols, including: deepset's Haystack platform, Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, and agents with the Agent Client Protocol (ACP) - Automate workflows and recurring tasks: Generate daily briefings, monitor topics, compile reports, or trigger actions based on events and schedules - Work seamlessly across devices with native applications for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android - Maintain security with self-hosted deployment, optional end-to-end encryption, and device-level access controls

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

At HPCwire, we have covered how AI is reshaping scientific discovery in more ways than we could have ever thought. AI is acting as a catalyst for breakthroughs in everything from drug discovery and climate modeling to materials science and advanced manufacturing. While we often get to read and analyze the breakthroughs, beneath the focus on models and compute is a structural shift taking place. Scientific workflows themselves are being rebuilt around a new kind of data foundation, one that looks increasingly like an “experimental data lake.”

These data lakes are built specifically for science making them unlike the typical enterprise versions. These are built to capture raw output directly from day-to-day research workflows. Instead of disappearing after a single use, that same data now sticks around. It builds over time, stays accessible, and can be used again in new experiments or analyses.

What Makes an Experimental Data Lake Different

The difference starts with the data itself. Enterprise systems often deal with clean and structured inputs. Scientific data maybe not so much. That often comes out as messy, high-volume, and tightly tied to experimental conditions. If you lose that context, and the data loses most of its meaning.

Experimental data lakes are built for that environment. They capture data directly from instruments, sensors, and simulations as it is created–and they keep the context with it. Parameters, conditions, timing, all of it. That is what makes the data reusable instead of one-and-done.

The ATLAS detector (Image: CERN)

You can already see this in platforms like Terra in genomics, where researchers store sequencing data along with the workflows and analysis pipelines used to process it, so teams can rerun, share, and build on the same datasets. In physics, CERN handles massive volumes of experimental data from particle collisions and makes it accessible across a global network for analysis.

On the commercial side, Benchling is helping biotech teams manage experimental data, lab work, and collaboration in one place, while Dotmatics focuses on organizing and structuring research data across chemistry and pharma workflows so it can actually be reused.

Another key shift is persistence. Raw and processed data stay connected, so researchers can revisit and reanalyze without starting over. And instead of digging through files, they can actually query across experiments. That is where things start to change.

Why Experimental Data Lakes Are Emerging Now

You might be wondering, why are these experimental data lakes emerging now? What changed? The rise of experimental data lakes is being driven by several converging factors. The first is scale. Modern scientific instruments generate enormous volumes of data, often at rates that traditional storage and processing workflows cannot handle. In fields such as genomics, imaging, and climate science, data volumes are growing faster than the systems designed to manage them.

The second factor is the increasing distribution of research. Scientific collaboration now spans institutions, geographies, and disciplines. Data needs to be accessible across these boundaries, which is difficult to achieve when it is stored in isolated systems. Centralized and structured data environments provide a way to support this level of collaboration.

The third and most important driver is the rise of AI itself Scientific AI depends on high-quality, well-structured datasets that include both data and context. Many existing datasets fall short of these requirements because they are incomplete, poorly labeled, or difficult to access. Experimental data lakes address this gap by standardizing how data is captured and stored, making it more suitable for machine learning applications.

Benchling develops a platform that’s designed to bring together scientific data, automation and AI

Companies such as DNAnexus and Schrödinger are building platforms that integrate data management with computational modeling and AI workflows. These systems are designed to ensure that data is not only stored but also immediately usable for analysis and model development. They also help address the long-standing issue of reproducibility in science by preserving the full context of each experiment.

From Data Lakes to Autonomous Science

With experimental data lakes it’s not just about better storage. It starts to change how science actually gets done. When data is captured and processed in real time, researchers do not have to wait until the end of an experiment to see what happened. They can adjust as they go. Try something, refine it, and run it again. The loop gets tighter – possibly more autonomous.

Once that data is structured and consistent, AI can step in more meaningfully. It can suggest next steps, flag issues, even help shape experiments. Over time, you move toward a cycle where data feeds models, models guide experiments, and experiments generate new data.

That is what people mean by autonomous science. Yes, it is still early, but none of it works without a solid experimental data layer underneath.

There is a bigger shift happening here. Data is becoming part of the foundation. In the past, data was often scattered, hard to access, and rarely reused. Now it is being captured, organized, and kept in a way that actually makes it useful over time. That changes how fast teams can move and how much they can build on previous work.

The labs that get this right will have an edge. Not just in AI, but in how they run experiments, collaborate, and generate new ideas. Experimental data lakes are not just another tool. They are starting to look like core infrastructure for modern science.

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in BigDATAwire.

The post The Rise of Experimental Data Lakes appeared first on HPCwire.

Ruling in favor of Justin Heap could have implications in one of country’s most prominent battleground states

The top election official in Arizona’s most populous county will be given more authority in running elections after a judge sided with his office in a prolonged legal fight with the local board that shares responsibility for overseeing the vote.

The decision could have broad implications in one of the nation’s most prominent battleground states, which will have several high-profile races this fall. Maricopa county, which includes Phoenix, has been roiled by election conspiracy theorists ever since Donald Trump lost the state to Joe Biden in 2020.

Rümeysa Öztürk, who faced deportation over pro-Palestinian op-ed, travels back to Turkey to begin career

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Rümeysa Öztürk, the Tufts University student who was targeted by the Trump administration last year in response to co-writing a pro-Palestinian op-ed, completed her doctorate in the US and traveled back to her native Turkey this week.

Öztürk was detained last year by immigration agents in Massachusetts, with video of the Tufts University student’s arrest going viral. She was one of many international students targeted by the Trump administration for pro-Palestinian speech and activism during widespread protests, which were especially active on US college campuses, against Israel’s war in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led 7 October 2023 deadly attack on southern Israel.

Iran reopens the strait of Hormuz during ceasefire negotiations, a move the US president praised on social media

• Oil and gas prices fall sharply after Iran says strait of Hormuz is open

In case you’re just joining us, here are the latest developments in the Middle East to bring you up to speed. It’s 9am in Beirut and Jerusalem, 9.30am in Tehran and 2am in Washington DC.

A 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon has come into effect, pausing fighting between Israel and Hezbollah that has killed more than 2,100 Lebanese people and displaced more than 2.1 million. The agreement was announced earlier by Donald Trump, who said he had spoken with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanese president Joseph Aoun, and invited both leaders “for meaningful talks” at the White House. Both leaders welcomed the agreement.

Israel and Hezbollah both maintained their right to defend themselves if the truce is broken – here’s our full report.

Netanyahu called the ceasefire a “historic” opportunity for peace but refused to withdraw his troops from southern Lebanon during the pause in fighting. “We are remaining in Lebanon in an expanded security zone,” he said, due to the “danger of an invasion” and to prevent fire into Israel. “That is where we are, and we are not leaving.”

UN chief António Guterres welcomed the ceasefire, which took effect at midnight on Thursday (2100 GMT) in Lebanon, and urged “all actors” to fully respect it. He hoped the halt in fighting would “pave the way for negotiations”.

The Lebanese army warned people displaced from southern Lebanon about returning home because of intermittent shelling that was reported after the ceasefire came into effect.

The Israeli military warned residents of southern Lebanon not to return south of the Litani River despite the truce.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson welcomed the ceasefire and stressed it was already part of the original Iran-US agreement brokered by Pakistan.

Israel and Hezbollah continued to exchange fire in the hours before the truce took effect.

The cases everyone's talking about, explained as they happen. A weekly update on the biggest criminal stories unfolding now.

Senators pass 10-day extension by voice vote after House defeated attempts for five-year and 18-month extensions on Thursday night

• US Congress passes 10-day extension of surveillance law amid Republican infighting

• What is Fisa, and why does it allow no-warrant survellance?

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In more CDC news, Donald Trump has selected Erica Schwartz to lead the troubled health agency, bringing to an end a months-long search for a permanent director.

Schwartz served as the deputy surgeon general during Trump’s first term. But before she can officially take over, the president’s pick will require confirmation by the Senate.

IRAN HAS JUST ANNOUNCED THAT THE STRAIT OF IRAN IS FULLY OPEN AND READY FOR FULL PASSAGE. THANK YOU!

The decision from U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy marks the Justice Department's fifth loss in its attempts to access states' voter registration lists.

Amazon's newest Fire TV Sticks are dropping support for normal sideloading, blocking apps from outside the Amazon Appstore unless the device is registered with developers. Cord Cutters News reports: This week, Amazon announced the upcoming launch of a new Fire TV Stick HD. The new model will run on Amazon's Vega OS, rather than Android, so most streaming apps will be supported, but users won't be add third party apps. Now, on the product page to preorder the new Fire Stick, some Amazon customers are getting a message warning them that the new model won't allow sideloading. Interestingly, not all customers are getting the message, whether signed in to an Amazon account or not. The message, shown in a screenshot below, says: "For enhanced security, this device prevents sideloading or installing apps from unknown sources. Only apps from the Amazon Appstore are available for download." [...] The Fire TV Stick Select, announced in September 2025, also runs on Vega and some customers will see the same message about sideloading on that product page. [...] While Amazon continues to be a "multi-OS company," we should expect that future Fire TV models will also be built with Vega OS, limiting the apps users can access with their streaming devices to those from the Amazon Appstore.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Commentary: Foldable phones are no longer niche designs as the technology has finally advanced to workable mainstream models.

President Trump spoke with CBS News Friday in a new telephone interview.

Crisis in the Middle East, Russian strikes in Kyiv, Orthodox Easter and Karol G at Coachella – the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

The Trump administration is considering a renewed diplomatic push that could send officials back to Pakistan within days, sources said.

Prices dropped after Iran's foreign minister said the Strait of Hormuz is "completely open" for the remainder of the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire.

Plus, nine other surprising wellness devices that your HSA or FSA might cover.

• Price hikes for MetLife Stadium travel prompted outcry

• Plans confirmed at Friday briefing include $80 bus option

• NJ governor Sherrill sparred with Fifa over cost burden

New Jersey’s transit agency has confirmed it will charge $150 for a return ticket to World Cup matches at MetLife Stadium this summer.

The price for a round-trip ticket from New York’s Penn Station to MetLife Stadium is typically $12.90. Reports this week of the elevenfold increase were met with outcry from fans and sparked a back-and-forth between New Jersey’s governor, Mikie Sherrill, and world football’s governing body, with costs mounting across the board, including parking priced as high as $225 at the mall adjacent to the stadium.

White House officials are leaning on Utah Republicans to further examine ethics concerns regarding a relationship between two key players in a key gerrymandering case, sources told CBS News.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Thursday, OpenAI announced it had developed a large language model specifically trained on common biology workflows. Called GPT-Rosalind after Rosalind Franklin, the model appears to differ from most science-focused models from major tech companies, which have generally taken a more generic approach that works for various fields. In a press briefing, Yunyun Wang, OpenAI's Life Sciences Product Lead, said the system was designed to tackle two major roadblocks faced by current biology researchers. One is the massive datasets created by decades of genome sequencing and protein biochemistry, which can be too much for any one researcher to take in. The second is that biology has many highly specialized subfields, each with its own techniques and jargon. So, for example, a geneticist who finds themselves working on a gene that's active in brain cells might struggle to understand the immense neurobiological literature. Wang said the company had taken an LLM and trained it on 50 of the most common biological workflows, as well as on how to access the major public databases of biological information. Further training has resulted in a system that can suggest likely biological pathways and prioritize potential drug targets. "We're connecting genotype to phenotype through known pathways and regulatory mechanisms, infer likely structural or functional properties of proteins, and really leveraging this mechanistic understanding," Wang said. To address LLMs' tendencies toward sycophancy and overenthusiasm, OpenAI says it has tuned the model to be more skeptical, so it's more likely to tell you when something is a bad drug target. There was a lot of talk about GPT-Rosalind's "reasoning" and "expert-level" abilities. We were told that the former was defined as being able to work through complex, multi-step processes, while the latter was derived from the model's performance on a handful of benchmarks. Access to GPT-Rosalind is currently limited "due to concerns about the model's potential for harmful outputs if asked to do something like optimize a virus's infectivity," notes Ars. Only U.S.-based organizations can request access at the moment.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Trump claims Tehran will also suspend nuclear programme as Lebanon truce enters first full day

Iran’s foreign minister has said that the strait of Hormuz is now fully open to commercial vessels, reinforcing hopes for an eventual end to the war in the Middle East and sending oil prices tumbling despite analysts’ warnings that there will be no immediate widespread resumption of passage through the vital waterway.

In a barrage of social media posts, Donald Trump claimed on Friday that Iran had agreed never to close the strategic waterway again, hailing “A GREAT AND BRILLIANT DAY FOR THE WORLD!”

Reports of alleged crime led to protests in the Surrey town this week, after claims woman in her 20s attacked

Police investigating a rape incident in Epsom have said they have “not found any evidence” of the offence as reported. The reports prompted protests in the Surrey town this week.

Sarah Grahame, assistant chief constable at Surrey police, said the force was continuing to investigate a report that a woman in her 20s had been raped by a group of men on 11 April in Epsom after she left the Labyrinth Epsom nightclub. The alleged attack is said to have happened between 2am and 4am outside a Methodist church.

Chancellor aims to curb rising household bills as she consults on reforms to weaken link between gas and electricity prices

Rachel Reeves is poised to raise the government’s windfall tax on low-carbon electricity generators to help limit UK household energy bills, the Guardian understands.

The chancellor is ready to hike the levy introduced in 2022 to target the excess profits made by the owners of older renewable energy and nuclear plants as electricity market prices soared after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Exclusive: Officials have spent weeks debating whether or not to release highly sensitive information about the affair

Keir Starmer was left in the dark about sensitive information relating to Peter Mandelson’s security vetting by two other top civil servants, including the head of the civil service, the Guardian can reveal.

The prime minister said on Friday that it was “unforgivable” and “staggering” that senior officials did not tell him that Mandelson failed a security vetting process weeks before he took up his role as ambassador to Washington.

Keir Starmer says it is ‘staggering’ and ‘unforgivable’ that he was not told Peter Mandelson had failed security vetting before taking up the role of US ambassador. The comments follow a Guardian investigation that exclusively revealed Mandelson had initially been denied clearance after a background check by security officials, but that the decision was overruled by the Foreign Office. Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian’s head of investigations, Paul Lewis – watch on YouTube

The Angels will wear a memorial patch this season bearing Garret Anderson's initials, the team announced.

Opposition accuses Narendra Modi government of using quotas as cover for redrawing electoral map

The Indian government has failed to pass a bill to increase female representation in parliament after being accused of using the plan as a guise to redraw the country’s electoral map.

It was the first time in 12 years in power that a constitutional amendment proposed by Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) government was not passed by parliament.

Gas price also falls and markets rise amid hopes Donald Trump will succeed in reaching deal with Tehran

Oil and gas prices fell sharply on Friday after Iran said the strait of Hormuz was open to commercial shipping, potentially clearing the way for tankers holding millions of barrels of oil and gas to reach the global market.

Iran’s foreign minister said vessels would be free to transit the strait of Hormuz for the duration of the 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, which was struck on Thursday.

The interest earnings a CD of this size offered one year ago were significant. But what do they look like this April?

At the intersection of biology, medicine, and computational science, researchers across Massachusetts and beyond are harnessing the power of the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC) to unlock new insights into human health. From decoding the gut microbiome to modeling cancer metastasis and tracking viral evolution, MGHPCC’s shared computing infrastructure is enabling data-intensive research that is reshaping how scientists understand and address complex medical challenges.

Decoding the Gut Microbiome

The human gut is home to trillions of microorganisms that play a vital role in digestion, immunity, and overall health. At Harvard University, the Huttenhower Group is using MGHPCC’s high-performance computing resources to analyze massive datasets of microbial DNA. Their research focuses on identifying patterns in microbial communities that correlate with health outcomes, dietary habits, and disease susceptibility.

This work involves processing terabytes of sequencing data to classify microbial species and understand their functional roles. By comparing microbiome profiles across individuals and populations, researchers are uncovering clues that could lead to personalized treatments and nutrition plans tailored to an individual’s unique microbial makeup. The research has implications for a wide range of health conditions, including inflammatory bowel disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes, colorectal cancer, and even neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and autism spectrum disorders. The ability to analyze such large and complex datasets is made possible by MGHPCC’s scalable computing infrastructure, which supports rapid data processing and advanced bioinformatics workflows.

Modeling the Spread of Breast Cancer

Understanding how cancer spreads is essential to improving treatment strategies. The O’Hern Group at Yale University is developing computational models to simulate how breast cancer cells migrate through tissue and metastasize. Their work combines biological data with mathematical modeling to explore the physical and mechanical factors that influence cancer cell movement.

These simulations help predict how cancer cells respond to different environments and therapies, offering valuable insights for developing treatments that target metastasis more effectively. The research contributes to a growing body of knowledge aimed at improving patient outcomes through data-driven approaches to cancer care.

Studying Viral Infectious Disease Dynamics

At UMass Boston, the VirusPlus Lab is investigating the host-pathogen dynamics of viral infectious diseases, including SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19, and Influenza A virus. Using the UMass Unity Cluster, researchers are analyzing how viruses evolve and spread across human and animal populations.

Understanding transmission dynamics that link humans and animals is key to pandemic preparedness. By modeling viral behavior and genetic mutations, the VirusPlus Lab aims to identify factors that influence transmissibility, severity, and resistance to treatment. These insights are essential for guiding vaccine development and informing public health strategies. MGHPCC’s collaborative ecosystem supports this work by enabling large-scale data analysis and simulation, helping researchers respond more effectively to emerging infectious threats.

A Shared Resource for Scientific Discovery

These projects are just a few examples of how MGHPCC is supporting cutting-edge biomedical research across its partner institutions. By providing access to high-performance computing, MGHPCC enables scientists to tackle questions that require massive data analysis, complex simulations, and interdisciplinary collaboration.

As biological and medical research becomes increasingly data-driven, MGHPCC’s role as a shared resource is more vital than ever. Its infrastructure supports not only individual projects but also a broader ecosystem of scientific inquiry, helping researchers turn data into discoveries that improve human health.

Further Information:

• Harvard University: Analyzing the Gut Microbiome  https://www.mghpcc.org/project/analyzing-the-gut-microbiome
• Yale University: Modeling Breast Cancer Spread https://www.mghpcc.org/project/modeling-breast-cancer-spread
• UMass Boston: Evolution of Viral Infectious Diseases https://www.mghpcc.org/project/evolution-of-viral-infectious-disease

About the author: Helen Hill, PhD., is a science writer and communications specialist who translates complex, data‑driven research for broad audiences. With a background in computational physical oceanography and numerical ocean modeling, she writes about research and infrastructure at the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC), highlighting the center’s role in enabling collaboration and discovery.

The post MGHPCC Powers Breakthroughs in Biomedical Research with High-Performance Computing appeared first on HPCwire.

Reporters from CBS News carefully arranged a risky trip into the Strait of Hormuz. Here's what they saw.

Exclusive: The club, owned by Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac, received the grant without a contract or final state aid assessment in place

Wrexham AFC, the football club part-owned by Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac, was given a £3.8m government grant without a contract or a finished state aid assessment in place, raising questions over whether the award was lawful.

The club has received £18m in taxpayer-funded grants – far more than any other in the UK – to help to redevelop its stadium, the Racecourse Ground (Y Cae Ras in Welsh).

JENI NANCE
Co-Managing Mosaic Editor

Despite being an English major, when it comes to classical literature, I’m not very knowledgeable. I have a few favorites like “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott and “Anne of Green Gables” by Lucy Maud Montgomery, but beyond that, I don’t have very many classics in my repertoire. 

“Wuthering Heights” by Emily Brontë is one of those books that I expected to read in high school as a part of our curriculum, especially since I took honors and IB literature. However, that was not the case. Since coming to college, I’ve found very little time to read on my own, considering almost every class I’ve had assigns readings. The books I sought out to read recreationally were easy, light reads — nothing like Brontë’s novel. 

When the cast for the new “Wuthering Heights” interpretation was released, it caused a major uproar on social media. It was then that I decided to do a deep dive into the world of “Wuthering Heights.” I knew I couldn’t commit myself to reading the novel, so I scoured the internet for sources to further my sparse knowledge of it. 

“Wuthering Heights” is a tale told from the perspective of one of the Earnshaws’ housemaids, Nelly. It centers around Catherine Earnshaw and the ward her father takes in, who they named Heathcliff. While brought into this family as an additional child, Heathcliff is treated no better than the servants employed on the property — Wuthering Heights.

In short, Catherine and Heathcliff fall in love and go back and forth in a toxic and abusive relationship. The first part of the book is merely a setup for the second half, where Catherine dies and haunts Heathcliff until his own death. 

I went to see the film directed by Emerald Fennell, which was released on Feb. 13, starring Margot Robbie as Catherine and Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff. From the jump, we have our first problem — Heathcliff is canonically not white. Brontë wrote Heathcliff’s character as a person of color, which is pertinent to his life at Wuthering Heights. 

There is also the fact that Hindley Earnshaw, Catherine’s brother, was completely omitted from the film’s interpretation. Hindley is especially important to the story because he was the one who mistreated Heathcliff the most and targeted him for his skin color.

As I said before, there’s a major turning point in the novel that breaks it into two parts — before and after Catherine’s death. The newest film ends right when Catherine dies. A major focal point in the novel is how Heathcliff conducts himself after death. Not only does he mourn her, but he is haunted by her spirit. 

This is not simply a tragic love story — it is also a haunting ghost story. 

Heathcliff sees her and speaks to her, basically driving himself mad. In the novel, he digs up her grave, removing part of her coffin so that when he ultimately dies and is buried next to her, there is nothing between them.

The significance of the braids, showcased at the beginning of the movie and in Catherine’s intricate hairstyles throughout, was also removed. After her death, Catherine’s husband places a lock of hair in her locket, which Heathcliff replaces with his own. Nelly braids the two locks together as a symbol of her love for the both of them. 

I think my biggest issue with this film is how Catherine and Heathcliff’s relationship is so heavily romanticized and sexualized. This relationship is not one people should be yearning for — in fact, they should be scared by it. 

Just watching the film, I could see Brontë’s message bleed through despite getting mostly butchered, which is that these characters are toxic and severely mentally ill. 

A difference I didn’t mind was the change in perspective. The book is entirely about how Nelly perceives Catherine and Heathcliff’s relationship, while gossiping to another servant. In the film, we see everything unfold from Catherine’s perspective, which is ultimately why the movie ends with her death. While I do think the story was cut too short, seeing it from Catherine’s eyes offers a different understanding of her experiences.

Now, this film was never supposed to be a remake or a direct adaptation of the novel, and the film’s director made that clear in interviews while explaining that is why the title remains in quotes. She has stated that it is how she remembers the book from the first time she read it as a teenager. While I can appreciate that this is how her teenage self read the book, even calling this an interpretation is a disservice to the original story. Emily Brontë is rolling in her grave. 

Despite my qualms with the film from a literary standpoint, I actually enjoyed it. Cinematically, it is a beautifully produced film. It is visually pleasing to watch, with intricate set designs such as the walls in Catherine’s room — which were modeled after Margot Robbie’s skin and included moles, veins and even hair. The costumes and hair for this piece, while albeit not the most historically accurate, are stunning and the overall attention to detail is impressive. 

While the casting choices were poor on Fennell’s part, the acting pulled through. One of the aspects that kept me invested was the chemistry between Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi. Their performance made up for where the movie fell short. 

Even though I don’t agree with Fennell’s creative choices, I was still able to enjoy the film. It is an amazing film, but it wasn’t “Wuthering Heights,” and it shouldn’t be titled as such — quotations or not.

Longtime Slashdot reader AmiMoJo writes: Windows has limited FAT32 partitions to a maximum of 32GB for decades now. When memory cards and USB drives exceeded 32GB in size, the only options were exFAT or NTFS. Neither option was well supported on other platforms at first, although exFAT support is fairly widespread now. In their latest blog post, Microsoft announced that the limit for FAT32 partitions is being increased to 2TB. Of course, that doesn't mean that every device that supports FAT32 will work flawlessly with a 2TB partition size, but at least there is a decent chance that older devices with don't support exFAT will now be usable with memory cards over 32GB.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Meta paused work with Sama last month after allegations about staff viewing private scenes filmed by smart glasses

More than 1,000 low-paid workers in Kenya have been abruptly sacked by an outsourcing company contracted by Meta, in what activists said was a shocking move exposing the precariousness of tech jobs in the global south.

Sama, a company based in Nairobi to which Meta outsourced content moderation and AI training work, announced on Thursday that the workers were being laid off after Meta terminated a contract.

An ad airing nationwide encourages people to call their senators and tell them to pass the SAVE America Act, a bill that would require photo ID to vote. The ad says the majority of people support that requirement.

"As Americans we are fair and logical. 83% of us favor requiring a photo ID to vote. In fact, most of the civilized world requires it but not us," says the ad by Restoration of America, the umbrella name of several conservative advocacy organizations. "We need to be able to trust that only eligible Americans are casting ballots. Democrats oppose voter ID for no coherent reason. Republicans favor it but haven't acted." 

The 83% statistic comes from a well-respected pollster. It asked Americans about voter ID, but not about the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act. The poll was conducted in 2025, before the bill was introduced. More recent polling specific to the SAVE America Act shows Americans are more torn about its provisions.

Most states already require some form of ID to vote

States set their own voter ID laws. President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers are seeking a nationwide rule.

Thirty-six states request or require voters to show ID at the polls — 10 of them require photo ID, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. In many states, at least some voters without a photo ID have options to cast a ballot, although it may include extra steps.

Fourteen states and Washington, D.C., don’t require identification, but they use other methods to verify voters' identities, such as matching signatures. Federal law requires first-time voters to show ID when requesting mail ballots, and some states have additional ID rules for voters mailing in ballots.

The SAVE America Act would require Americans to provide government-issued photo IDs to vote and documentary proof of citizenship, such as a passport or birth certificate, to register. Under the bill, election officials could accept a REAL ID driver's license that includes citizenship, though most states don't offer such a license. It also requires voters to submit a copy of their photo IDs when using mail ballots, or use workarounds that are cumbersome.

The House approved the legislation in February, but it stalled in the Senate, lacking the 60 votes needed to pass under the chamber’s rules.

The legislation follows Trump and his allies’ repeated falsehoods that noncitizen voting is widespread. It rarely happens. Federal law prohibits noncitizens from voting in congressional and presidential elections.

Limited polling on the SAVE America Act 

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., speaks to reporters on the SAVE America Act alongside Republican leadership and supporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., Feb. 11, 2026. (AP)

Restoration of America did not answer our questions about the ad. But articles on its website also cited the 83% figure and linked to news about the nonpartisan Pew Research Center’s August 2025 survey. That poll found that 83% of responding adults supported requiring voters to show government-issued photo ID to vote, including 71% of Democrats and 95% of Republicans. That survey was conducted months before Republicans proposed the SAVE America Act in January.

Surveys have consistently shown majority support for photo voter ID. But the polls typically present voter ID as a yes or no question, feeding the perception that views align with two distinct camps: those who support voter ID laws and those who oppose them. Supporters of stricter voter ID laws say they want to thwart fraud. Critics say tighter rules could disenfranchise eligible voters, including those who are less likely to have current government issued photo IDs, such as Black or young voters.

Voting law experts say polls oversimplify the debate, leaving out nuances about the varying voter ID requirements, existing verification processes and the low risk of voter fraud. 

For example, in Texas, handgun permits are considered valid voter IDs, but student IDs are not. Critics say this makes it easy for gun owners, a heavily Republican group, to vote but harder for students, a predominantly Democratic group. 

There has been limited polling specifically about the SAVE America Act.

CBS News found in March that 31% opposed the legislation, 28% supported it and the largest group — 41% — was unsure. 

A February Harvard CAPS/Harris poll found that 58% supported Trump asking Congress "to pass the SAVE America Act, mandating photo ID and proof of citizenship for all voters, sharply limiting mail-in ballots, and ending sanctuary protections for criminal illegal immigrants." Another question about the legislation found 71% of respondents supported photo ID when including other elements such as asking about removing noncitizens from voter rolls.

Those questions pack a lot of issues into one sentence without noting that the majority of states already require ID and noncitizens are banned from voting in federal elections.

Many countries provide national IDs that can be presented to vote

An electoral official checks a voter's ID during the country's first judicial elections in Mexico City, June 1, 2025. (AP)

The Restoration of America ad says "most of the civilized world" requires photo ID to vote, "but not us. 

Many countries issue national ID cards and make it mandatory for everyone above a certain age to have one. They can present those photo IDs to vote.

Therese Pearce Laanela, an expert on electoral processes at International IDEA, a Sweden-based pro-democracy organization, said having a photo ID is common in most countries conducting democratic elections, and "requiring ID for voting is neither controversial nor exclusionary."  

Democracies requiring photo ID apply that rule strictly, said Vincent Pons, a Harvard business professor who has studied voter participation in France, Italy and Africa. "However, in most of these countries, all citizens have a national ID, unlike in the U.S."

Some countries use biometric markers such as fingerprints and retina scans to identify voters. 

Our ruling

An ad promoting the SAVE America Act said, "83% of us favor requiring a photo ID to vote. In fact, most of the civilized world requires it but not us."

A Pew survey found 83% support for photo voter ID. The survey was conducted months before lawmakers proposed the SAVE America Act legislation. More recent polling specific to the SAVE Act shows Americans are more torn over their support of its provisions.

Many countries require photo ID to vote, but in those countries, all citizens have a national ID. The U.S. doesn’t have a national ID. The ad omits that 10 U.S. states require photo ID to vote.

The statement is partially true but leaves out important details. We rate it Half True.

PolitiFact researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this fact-check.

RELATED: You can shovel snow without an ID in NYC, but to get paid for it, you’ll need ID

RELATED: Does the US have stricter ID rules for buying beer than voting?

• Clearlake’s José E Feliciano, wife Kwanza Jones win bid

• Previous record for club was Cohen’s $2.42bn for Mets

• Everton owner Dan Friedkin said to be among finalists

The San Diego Padres are nearing a sale to a group led by José E Feliciano, co-founder of private equity firm Clearlake Capital and co-owner of Chelsea FC, and his wife, Kwanza Jones, for a Major League Baseball-record $3.9bn, according to multiple reports.

The Wall Street Journal and the Athletic reported on Friday that the group was closing in on a deal. The sale requires approval by 75% of MLB’s 30 owners. The reported price would surpass the $2.42bn Steve Cohen paid for the New York Mets in 2020.

8-0 ruling gives companies new day in federal court after firms including Chevron ordered to pay millions for cleanup

The supreme court handed a win on Friday to oil and gas companies fighting lawsuits over coastal land loss and environmental degradation in Louisiana.

The 8-0 procedural decision gives the companies a new day in federal court after a state jury ordered Chevron to pay upward of $740m to clean up damage to the state’s coastline, one of multiple similar lawsuits.

A price tracker would make it easy to tell if you're getting a good deal on a game or not.

Trump repeatedly demanded that Republicans unify to pass a longer extension of the Fisa warrantless spying law

Both chambers of Congress voted in quick succession on Friday to pass a brief 10-day extension of a controversial warrantless surveillance law after Republican infighting tanked plans for a much longer renewal of the law with no changes.

Donald Trump had repeatedly demanded that Republican holdouts “UNIFY” behind Mike Johnson, the US House speaker, in favor of an extension of section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa) without changes. But chaos ensued on Thursday evening and into the early hours of Friday as Republican leadership tried and failed twice in votes attempting to reauthorize the surveillance program, before resorting to a stopgap measure.

The Consumer Product Safety Board warns that lithium-ion batteries in the recalled power banks can overheat, posing fire and burn hazards.

Gucci next on deck? It's all starting to feel like smartwatches circa 2017.

The House and Senate have now passed a 10-day extension for the controversial warrantless surveillance law.

The incident occurred around 12:10 a.m. local time on Tuesday, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

Newly unsealed records in California's antitrust case against Amazon allegedly show the company pressured third-party sellers to raise prices on rival sites like Walmart, Target, and Wayfair so Amazon could maintain the appearance of offering the lowest price. California says Amazon used tools like Buy Box suppression to punish cheaper listings elsewhere. The Guardian reports: [...] In one previously redacted deposition, marked "highly confidential," Mayer Handler, owner of a clothing company called Leveret, testified that he received an email in October 2022 from Amazon notifying him that one of his products was "no longer eligible to be a featured offer" through Amazon's Buy Box. The tech giant, he testified, had suppressed the item, a tiger-themed, toddler's pajama set, because his company was selling it for $19.99 on Amazon, a single cent higher than what his company was offering it for on Walmart. Afterwards, Handler testified, his company "changed pricing on Walmart to match or exceed Amazon's price" or changed the item's product code to try to throw off Amazon's price tracking system. In response to a question from the Guardian, Handler criticized Amazon for tracking prices across the internet and "shadow" blocking his company's products -- tactics which he said were depriving consumers of "lower prices." "Maybe that's capitalism," he wrote. "Or that's a monopoly causing price hikes on the consumer." In another unsealed deposition, Terry Esbenshade, a Pennsylvania garden store supplier, testified in October 2024 that whenever his products lost Amazon's Buy Box because of lower prices elsewhere on the internet, his sales on Amazon would plummet by about 80%. This financial reality forced him to try to raise his products' prices with other retailers elsewhere, he said. In one instance, Esbenshade testified, he discovered that one of his company's better-selling patio tables had "become suppressed" on Amazon. Esbenshade wasn't sure why, he recalled, until someone at Amazon suggested he look at Wayfair, another online retailer that happened to be selling his patio table below Amazon's price. The businessman went online and set up a new minimum advertised price for the table on Wayfair to ensure it was higher than Amazon's. "So that raised the price up, and, voila, my product came back" on Amazon, he said, thanks to the reinstatement of the Buy Box.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news, as Brent crude tumbles below $90 a barrel

• Cuts to overseas aid will worsen shocks to global economy, David Miliband says

The conflict in Iran is already taking a toll on businesses and balance sheets across the UK, warns Matthew Richards, joint head of restructuring & insolvency at accountancy and business advisory group Azets:

Richards says an increasing number of directors are seeking advice about their finances as they fear they will not be able to survive the economic aftershocks of the war in Iran, adding:

Directors who were previously surviving have been concerned about the impact the war will have on their finances, and the increase in costs it caused has been the tipping point for many firms. The longer this carries on, the bigger impact it will have on margins, access to finance and affordability of funding, as well as consumer spending as households attempt to manage their own costs and cut back on anything that isn’t essential.

“With the war likely to continue, cost pressures continuing to be a problem and additional expenses like the new business rates and the changes to national minimum wage taking effect this month, it’s very likely demand for insolvency support will increase in the coming months.

The increase in March 2026 was mostly driven by more than 100 connected companies in the Real Estate sector entering administration.

“Ongoing tensions in the Middle East are driving up energy and fuel costs, disrupting supply chains, and keeping inflation stubbornly above the Bank of England’s 2% target. The UK economy is expected to be among the most exposed in the developed world - yet much of this impact has not yet filtered through to company balance sheets or the latest insolvency data.

“Compounding this, the new tax year has brought a fresh wave of cost pressures. While there have been no headline rate rises, frozen thresholds, reduced reliefs and tighter allowances are quietly intensifying ‘fiscal drag’ - steadily increasing the tax burden on both businesses and consumers. Together, these twin pressures are squeezing margins and suppressing demand which risks driving more businesses into the red.

Paul Quinn convicted in light of DNA evidence from 2003 attack that led to notorious miscarriage of justice

• The rape case that became one of Britain’s greatest miscarriages of justice

A man who evaded justice for more than two decades has been found guilty of the “horrific” 2003 rape for which Andrew Malkinson was wrongfully jailed for 17 years.

Paul Quinn, 52, was convicted by a jury on Friday after a fresh forensic analysis found traces of his DNA on the victim.

An environmentalist who survived an assassination attempt spoke during the presentation of a report that documented the killing of 10 activists in Mexico in 2025.

Lasting peace depends on resolving a border dispute dating back to 2000 and dealing with Hezbollah’s weapons

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Israel’s security cabinet first heard about the ceasefire with Lebanon from a social media post by Donald Trump. Hezbollah first heard about the ceasefire from the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon. Each side shot off as many bombs, drones and rockets as they could before the ceasefire – imposed from above – came into effect.

Despite the US president claiming it is the 10th war he has ended, the situation on the ground in Lebanon looks anything but stable.

The grocery store aisle holds more promise than most coffee snobs will admit. Armed with curiosity and a trained palate, I tracked down five bags of beans that are worth brewing.

DJ spent almost three decades working for corporation and was best known for Radio 1 show from 1985 to 2000

• Andy Kershaw – obituary

The broadcaster Andy Kershaw, best known for the BBC Radio 1 show he hosted for 15 years, has died aged 66, his family told the corporation.

His long career working for the BBC began in 1984 as host of the rock music show The Old Grey Whistle Test. He co-presented the corporation’s television coverage of Live Aid.

You can set a timer for bedtime or breaks, or just get rid of Shorts once and for all.

Australian guard has endured a mixed campaign but will be one of the Hawks’ main protagonists in a marquee match-up against the New York Knicks

The so-called “Great Barrier Thief” will be unleashed on to one of basketball’s most storied stages this weekend, as Australian Dyson Daniels storms into an NBA playoff battle against Jalen Brunson and the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden.

The Atlanta guard has, like his team, endured a mixed season. But both have finished strongly to make the Hawks a dark horse as the sixth-seed in an Eastern Conference bracket considered wide open.

It's not an image generation tool, which makes sense if you've used Claude.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Wall Street Journal: An agreement with the Philippines to establish a high-tech industrial hub is the Trump administration's latest effort to lessen China's dominance over global supply chains. The deal to build up American manufacturing across a stretch of the island of Luzon, signed Thursday, will offer U.S. companies access to essential inputs such as critical minerals that bypass Beijing's control. The artificial-intelligence-powered manufacturing hub is planned for a 4,000-acre site given to the U.S. by Manila, said undersecretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg. The U.S. will occupy the site rent-free and administer it as a special economic zone. The hub will have diplomatic immunity, such as the protections afforded to an American embassy, and operate under U.S. common law -- the first arrangement of its kind anywhere in the world. The two-year lease is renewable for 99 years. [...] "You can't build anything in Ohio if the minerals and the process materials are controlled by an adversary who can cut you off tomorrow," Helberg said in an interview. [...] The planned manufacturing hub is largely conceptual at this stage, and details, including which American companies will participate and just what they will build in the Philippines, are yet to be determined. [...] The administration will ask companies to put forward proposals to compete for a spot in building out the hub, giving priority to bids that will help move critical minerals processing and manufacturing off Chinese suppliers. Investment will have to come from private-sector companies -- not the U.S. government. Factories approved for operation in the hub will be highly automated, Helberg said, using autonomous systems to operate around the clock. The Philippines has a history of robust manufacturing, particularly in semiconductors, but that has stagnated in recent decades because of high energy and logistics costs. Companies will have to address in their proposals how they will contend with energy costs and workforce needs; they can send American workers overseas or hire locally, Helberg said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Israel’s accelerating de facto annexation of the West Bank has dangerous implications Expert comment thilton.drupal 17 April 2026

The expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank undermines prospects for long-term regional peace. The US, Europe and Arab states should act before it’s too late.

While the world has been distracted by the US-Israeli war on Iran and its fallout, the Israeli government has accelerated the de facto annexation of the occupied West Bank.

If this unilateral imposition of facts on the ground is not immediately addressed, it will become even more difficult to tackle the underlying causes of the Arab-Israeli conflict and could lead to dangerous scenarios for Israel, the Palestinians and the region.

Accelerating annexation measures

Accelerated annexation efforts have been spearheaded by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. These two far-right cabinet ministers have been open about their determination to exercise Israeli sovereignty over the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and to ‘continue to kill the idea of a Palestinian state’. 

Israel has not formally annexed the West Bank. But since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition government took office in December 2022, there has been a surge in settlement expansion policies and settler violence in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. As part of the coalition agreement, Netanyahu pledged to legalize illegally built outposts and increase settlement funding. He also promised to advance policies that would apply Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank ‘while choosing the timing and considering the national and international interests of the state of Israel’.  

In July 2025, the Knesset approved in a symbolic vote a non-binding motion to ‘apply Israeli sovereignty to Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley,’ in a reference to the West Bank. 

And while US President Donald Trump has voiced his opposition to annexation of the West Bank, the number of settlements approved by the Israeli government increased dramatically after he was elected for a second term in November 2024, with an annual record of 54 new settlements officially approved in 2025. 

That year, Israel gave final approval to the controversial settlement project close to East Jerusalem known as E1, a long-proposed settlement scheme that covers around three per cent of the occupied West Bank. The project creates a ring of control around historic Jerusalem and the holy sites, breaks territorial continuity of the West Bank and critically undermines the viability of a future peace process. Smotrich said the project would ‘bury the idea of a Palestinian state.’ 

This February, Israel’s security cabinet approved a series of measures that expand Israeli rule and governance over the occupied West Bank, a move widely condemned as in breach of international law. These measures explicitly extend the authority of Israeli ministries and government institutions into the West Bank, marking a shift away from military administration and effectively integrating parts of the occupied territory into the administrative framework of Israel.  

Within these measures, the government established a process to register West Bank land as ‘state property’. The process builds on a cabinet decision in May last year, which Defence Minister Israel Katz said ‘does justice for Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria, and will strengthen, consolidate and broaden it.’

This process will require Palestinians living in ‘Area C’, which comprises about 60 per cent of the West Bank, to prove ownership of their lands under conditions that critics say are ‘nearly impossible for them to meet.’ In case ownership cannot be proven, the default is that land will be registered as state owned.  

The rest of the West Bank, comprised of ‘Area A’ and ‘Area B’, could also face a similar fate. February’s measures already expand Israeli oversight and enforcement in parts of these areas with regard to water issues, heritage and archaeological sites. A controversial bill that would establish an Israeli civilian body with broad powers to manage archaeology in the West Bank is already under review for Knesset legislation.   

Implications

Annexation is a short-sighted plan with dangerous long-term implications. 

UN resolutions and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) recognize that the OPT constitutes a single territorial unit, reinforcing the legal coherence of Palestinian statehood.

Israeli land seizure measures are already establishing unilateral facts on the ground that would make the prospect of Palestinian statehood very difficult to achieve. Blurring governance lines between settlements and the Israeli state while denying Palestinians their basic rights will only increase their displacement and dispossession.

This is in line with Smotrich’s 2017 ‘decisive plan’,  in which he envisioned Palestinians giving up their aspirations for an independent state and then either emigrating or remaining in the West Bank ‘as individuals in the Jewish State.’

Annexation measures continue to shrink the space for Palestinian independence, undermine Palestinian agency and push the Palestinian Authority (PA) to political and financial collapse. 

This undermines the feasibility of a viable independent Palestinian state alongside Israel and plays into the hands of extremists who have long opposed Arab-Israeli peace.   

What can be done?

These measures also hinder any progress of President Trump’s 20-point plan and undermine the prospect of Israel’s regional integration.

Annexation impedes the implementation of UNSC Resolution 2803 and directly conflicts with the White House’s stated support for a ‘stable West Bank.’ If the US wants long-term stability in the Middle East, pressuring Israel through conditioning political and military support to reverse annexation measures should be a priority. 

Annexation also risks the further deterioration of Israel’s already-strained relations with its immediate neighbours, especially Jordan. Amman has long considered the displacement of Palestinians and any schemes to relocate them to Jordan as red lines. Many Jordanians now fear that the recent measures in the West Bank will lead to a potential influx of refugees across the border. 

Egypt, a key party to the implementation of the Trump 20-point plan, has also condemned annexation. Both countries should leverage their peace treaties with Israel to obtain guarantees from the US to stop settlement expansion. 

Related work

Lebanon–Israel talks must be given a chance

As for the wider region, while the Iran war and its fallout have shifted political and financial priorities, the urgent need for regional stability has only increased. The wave of regional conflict that followed Hamas’s October 7 attack has shown that, regardless of how many defence and commercial ties Arab countries forge with Israel or the US, stability in the region will not be achieved without resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a just and sustainable manner. 

Countries like the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey should coordinate to push against annexation. As key political and financial members of Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’, they can make reversing Israel’s annexation measures a condition of their membership of the board and leverage their bilateral economic relations with the US. 

Home equity levels are up and interest rates are down. Here's how much a $100,000 home equity loan costs monthly now.

Measure passes 50-49 to overturn a 20-year ban on mining near renowned Boundary Waters canoe area wilderness

The US Senate narrowly voted on Thursday to overturn a ban on mining near Minnesota’s Boundary Waters canoe area wilderness, an enormous complex of interconnected lakes, rivers and forests that is among the most visited wild areas in the US.

The resolution passed 50-49 to repeal a 20-year moratorium imposed by Joe Biden’s administration in 2023 on mining across the 225,000 acres (91,000 hectares) in the Superior national forest.

Marie-Thérèse Ross-Mahé, who moved to the US to marry a GI she met in the 1950s, was arrested in her nightgown at their home

An 86-year-old French widow arrested and detained by US immigration agents has been released and allowed to return to her home country.

Marie-Thérèse Ross-Mahé was arrested in her nightgown at the home she shared with her late husband, a retired US army captain, in Anniston, Alabama, more than two weeks ago. She had overstayed her 90-day visa, according to the US Department of Homeland Security.

Households are starting to make room in their budgets for spending on generative AI subscriptions, new data shows.

Paul Quinn’s conviction, 23 years after the attack, exposes how a victim was repeatedly failed and an innocent man wrongly jailed

• Paul Quinn found guilty of rape

One of Britain’s most shocking miscarriages of justice began before dawn on a summer day in Salford more than 20 years ago.

A young woman had walked the darkened streets alone for about five miles when she was honked at, wolf-whistled and was so frightened she hid for a while in undergrowth.

The arrest comes months after police in Los Angeles said a body was found in the trunk of the musician’s car. Lawyers for David Burke, who performs as D4vd, said they will defend his innocence.

A look at the features for this week's broadcast of the Emmy-winning program, hosted by Jane Pauley.

Some fear a fragmented field of hopefuls from Labour, the Conservatives, Greens, Reform and independents could leave city ungovernable

Paul Tilsley was 23 when he was first elected for the Liberal party in Birmingham’s council elections in 1968. At that time, the UK had an unpopular Labour government facing an economic crisis, tensions around immigration and US pressure to back military action abroad.

Such a backdrop may seem familiar, but this May the local elections in Birmingham could not be more different. Tilsley, now a Liberal Democrat, faces a fragmented field with candidates from Labour, the Conservatives, the Greens, Reform UK and independents all competing for his seat and no party expected to win an overall majority on the council.

These days, I’m feeling more aligned with Catholicism than I have since my first communion. I’m not alone in that

I’ve had my ups and downs with the church of my childhood.

On the one hand, as a “cradle Catholic”, I’ve received the sacraments, often get to Sunday mass, and am the product of a Catholic education, right through Georgetown University, with its Jesuit history. My father was a “daily communicant” – he received the Eucharist every morning before heading to his law office; his sister, my aunt, was a nun, a Sister of Charity with a PhD in classic languages.

BETH WOJCIECHOWSKI
Managing Arts & Culture Editor and Development Officer

One thing about me is that I love crappy horror movies. Give me unrealistic characters, practically immortal villains and over-the-top gore, and I will be fully satisfied. So, when I saw that the “Scream” franchise was coming out with yet another movie, I knew it would be a must-watch.

I have seen almost all of the past “Scream” movies (besides “Scream 4”) and have been pleasantly surprised by the latest two installments in the franchise. Due to that, I walked into this movie with high expectations. Unfortunately, I was let down.

This movie followed a plotline similar to most of the “Scream” movies: A small town is terrorized by the notorious “Ghostface” killer. However, while the last few movies offered up some amazing new characters to shake up the familiar story, I found myself let down by this installment’s main cast. 

I truly believe that Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega, who played sisters Sam and Tara in the past two “Scream” movies, carried the new era of the franchise, so I was disappointed to see that they were not in “Scream 7.” I found most of the new characters in this movie to be quite cliché and boring, the only new character I truly found myself rooting for was Tatum, played by Isabel May.

Another aspect that made this particular entry into the “Scream” franchise stick out to me was its reliance on cameos from actors who were in earlier installments.

Matthew Lillard, who played Stu Macher in the original “Scream,” Laurie Metcalfe, who played a Ghostface in “Scream 2,” and David Arquette, who played Dewey Riley in five of the previous “Scream” movies, all made appearances in this movie. 

While it was cool to see some of the franchise’s most iconic actors return, I almost felt like the number of cameos were overkill, and just a way of relying on nostalgia to get people to see the movie. 

In addition to the large number of cameos, “Scream 7” also featured two actors from the original movie as main characters — Neve Campbell as Sidney Prescott and Courtney Cox as Gale Weathers. While I was not necessarily in love with the amount of cameos, I did enjoy that two such well-known characters were featured heavily in this movie, without feeling over-the-top or forced the way that the other cameos did.

Another aspect of “Scream 7” I did not enjoy was the Ghostface reveal. In previous films, Ghostface was always a central character that you’d never expect to be the main villain, in this movie, Ghostface was revealed to be two characters who had maybe ten minutes of screentime combined before the big reveal.

To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. In past movies, I think that the unexpectedness of who is revealed to be Ghostface is what makes the movie so good — because it typically is such a plot twist that you don’t see it coming. 

In this movie, however, I honestly think Ghostface could’ve been any other character and it would’ve made more sense than the two characters it actually was.

While there were aspects of this movie that I enjoyed, I definitely felt that the bad outweighed the good and wouldn’t rank this among the best “Scream” movies. Here’s to hoping that the (inevitable) next entry in the franchise is much better.

Navigating a changing global order: Ghana’s strategic priorities 1 June 2026 — 17:00 TO 18:00 BST Anonymous (not verified) 17 April 2026 Chatham House and Online

Join us as HE John Dramani Mahama, President of the Republic of Ghana, reflects on how Ghana is navigating an increasingly multipolar world while promoting African agency and regional stability.

As great-power rivalries intensify and middle powers across the Global South assert greater influence, Ghana is positioning itself as an important strategic actor in a fragmenting international order. Building on its tradition of positive non-alignment, the country is pursuing a deliberate strategy of multi-alignment to advance its national and continental interests. It remains a key regional actor, deepening West African security cooperation, while promoting continental integration as host of the AfCFTA Secretariat.

Globally, Ghana is shaping more inclusive multilateralism, including by championing health sovereignty through the Accra Reset Initiative and leading the 2026 UN resolution recognizing the transatlantic slave trade as the gravest crime against humanity, affirming its commitment to justice and equity in global governance.

At this event, HE John Dramani Mahama, President of the Republic of Ghana, will reflect on how Ghana is navigating an increasingly multipolar world and leveraging diversified partnerships to promote African agency, strengthen regional stability and contribute to a more balanced international system.

Jaafar Annan has been posted up on the sidewalk outside the emergency room of Rafik Hariri University Hospital, on the southern edge of Beirut, for so long that he’s become a permanent fixture.

“The hospital has become my home,” Annan said, exhausted.

Last week, an Israeli strike leveled the building where Annan’s family lived in Kayfoun, a town in the Mount Lebanon governorate, west of the Lebanese capital.

“I buried my father,” he said, “but my mother is still missing.”

Since then, his days have become a single-minded search for any sign of his mother, Fatima, who is 56. Like several others searching for missing family members, Annan gave a sample of his blood to the hospital, hoping he can get some closure with a DNA match to unidentified remains.

“I walk through hospitals in the Mount Lebanon region. I stare at injured faces. I go to the morgues. I look for a mole, a mark,” Annan said. “Then I come back here. Waiting for the sample results.”

The cold-storage units at the Hariri hospital have been fashioned into ad hoc laboratories to identify a relentless influx of dead bodies.

The unprecedented scales of DNA identification of corpses is born of a macabre need. Last week, after Iran and the U.S. agreed to a ceasefire, Israel pressed on in its Lebanese front with a ferocious blitz of airstrikes. The toll was staggering, leaving demolished buildings and infrastructure, along with the attendant skyrocketing casualties — the violence rending people into unrecognizable forms.

“The bodies arrive completely disfigured,” said Hisham Fawwaz, director of the hospitals and dispensaries department at the Lebanese Ministry of Health, which operates the hospital. “The remains are scattered and the features obliterated. We are often not dealing with whole bodies. We are dealing with human fragments that the force of the explosions has turned into medical puzzles.”

After the Iran–U.S. truce, Israel launched more than 100 strikes on Lebanon in just 10 minutes, with the Israeli government taking to social media to brag about its assault. The latest round of hostilities between with Israel had already brought weeks of ravages to Lebanon, but last week’s onslaught, dubbed “Black Wednesday” by the Lebanese, razed densely populated neighborhoods in the capital. At least 357 were killed and more than 1,000 were injured, according to the health ministry.

A week later, dozens of people are still missing. The ceasefire in Lebanon announced by President Donald Trump on Thursday will hopefully lead to fewer bombings, but it won’t slow families’ attempts to find their loved ones and, if worse comes to worst, identify their remains.

The families remain on a desperate quest to track them down, whether they’re pinned under the wreckage or hidden among the dismembered bodies at the morgues like the one at Hariri Hospital.

Related

Israel Will Keep Occupying Lebanon Despite Ceasefire

At one point, more than 90 unidentified bodies were held there, some stretching back to the initial days of Israeli bombardment. Each body has been assigned a temporary number, waiting for someone to claim it.

The Health Ministry established a central triage center to absorb the uninterrupted flow of bodies, along with a protocol: document tattoos, distinguishing marks, and remnants of burned clothing that a family member might remember. Hospital workers also cross-reference physical descriptions from families with what is recorded of unidentified remains.

If that proves too difficult, doctors draw blood from living relatives to match the DNA against the unclaimed fragments of victims.

“Suspended Loss”

Zahraa Aboud had just recently fled her hometown of Anqoun in southern Lebanon. Israeli ground troops had invaded the town in March, razing entire villages and displacing hundreds of thousands as they set up a buffer zone intended to stop Hezbollah from lobbing rockets into northern Israel.

When the Israeli airstrikes grew relentless, Aboud, 29, and her sister traveled to Beirut, to their aunts’ apartment in the Ain Al-Mrayseh neighborhood. In the capital, she thought, they would be out of reach of the violence.

Israel’s missiles would soon come down on her.

According to Aboud’s father, Qassem, when an airstrike hit the upper floors of the aunts’ building, everyone in the apartment upstairs — including six children — was instantly killed. A floor below, Aboud’s aunts were killed in the same strike, and her sister was taken to Clemenceau Medical Center with serious wounds.

Zahraa Aboud, though, hasn’t been seen since.

“We are not looking for rubble,” said Qassem, 56. “We are looking for life. Or at least for the certainty that will put out the fire in our hearts.”

Related

Gaza’s Civil Defense Forces Keep Digging for 10,000 Missing Bodies

Rescue teams gave up after a few days of searching, but families of those missing in the rubble refused to leave the scene and pressured them to keep going.

Qassem Aboud, meanwhile, hasn’t stopped circling Beirut for traces of his daughter. Back and forth, he checks private hospitals, government hospitals, and lists of unidentified patients. In ICU wards across the city, he peers at any face behind an oxygen mask that might be hers.

The Aboud family calls the tragic situation “suspended loss”: They can’t find a sign of life to suggest they may get Zahraa back, but they’ve also been denied a final farewell and the chance to see their daughter off.

Like the others, Qassem submitted a blood sample to the hospital in hopes of later finding a DNA match — and closure.

After days of searching, Qassem came to suspect that the force of the explosion may have thrown his daughter’s body into a neighboring building. When he checked, he found the apartments were either locked or abandoned by departed residents. So far, he can’t find anyone to let him in.

“I feel very helpless every day, but will keep searching until I bury her,” he said.

The rubble itself has become a legal obstacle.

Buildings destroyed by Israeli strikes are classified, under Lebanese law, as private property. Civil defense teams and relief organizations cannot fully clear or demolish them without prior judicial authorization. The red tape is meant to protect property rights, to preserve the legal record, and to avoid tampering with what the law considers a crime scene, according to a source at the public prosecutor’s office who asked to stay anonymous as he’s not authorized to talk to the media.

Some of the legal restrictions have slowed rescues. Families that want to utilize specialized search dogs, which can move through the wreckage faster than people, must file formal requests at the public prosecutor’s office.

“We submitted the requests. We begged the relevant authorities to expedite the judicial procedures,” said a relative of a missing woman who asked not to be identified. “But the Lebanese judiciary has not moved. Every minute that passes is a nail in the coffin of our loved ones, while the judiciary is still reviewing paperwork.”

When families sought exceptional permissions to allow rescue teams to remove the rubble, judicial authorities did not respond to their requests, families of missing people said. (Judicial authorities did not respond to a request for comment.)

Back at Hariri Hospital, families continued filing into a makeshift office opened by the Health Ministry designed to help families identify their lost loved ones. Inside, they recalled the tiniest details of their missing relative, from birthmarks to unique articles of clothing — anything that may lead to closing a case. Then they give their blood. And they wait.

“The goal is not accounting,” said Fawwaz, the Lebanese Ministry of Health official. “It is to return to each victim their name, and to give their families the right to a farewell that ends the spiral of doubt.”

This article is published in collaboration with Egab.

The post Israel’s “Black Wednesday” Massacre Leaves Lebanese Families Giving DNA to ID Loved Ones’ Remains appeared first on The Intercept.

Patchy employment records, bankruptcies and allegations of wrongdoing blemish the records of several new recruits

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Rapid recruitment and expansion by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has led to an influx of employees with questionable qualifications, an investigation has found.

The track records of some of the new recruits amid the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda stand out – and not in a good way.

These baby monitors can provide safety alerts, track your child's sleep habits, allow for multiple users and more.

Cameron Hamilton was acting leader of FEMA last year and was ousted after telling Congress that the agency should not be eliminated.

President Trump welcomed the announcement, but U.S. officials said the naval blockade on vessels leaving from and going to Iranian ports remains in effect.

Experts say Labour’s ‘halfway house’ approach risks losing support from progressives and ‘red wall’ voters

Support for rejoining the EU rather than simply rejoining the single market is growing among British voters, with more than 80% of Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green party supporters favouring this option, according to research mapping voter attitudes 10 years after the Brexit referendum.

Labour’s “muted” approach to the issue means it risks losing support among progressive voters and in “red wall” constituencies, experts have said as part of research by Best for Britain.

The recall affects F-150 vehicles quipped with a six-speed automatic transmission produced between March 12, 2014, and Aug. 18, 2017, according to NHTSA.

The Super Quantum Dots of TCL's 2026 TV range promise more colors and brightness than ever.

More than 51 million people are under the threat of severe weather Friday evening from Texas to Wisconsin, as some are still cleaning up from tornadoes earlier in the week.

When it comes to theology, Donald Trump’s vice-president clearly knows best. Are we about to see an American break with Rome?

The battle to be the absolute worst Trump henchman can feel so closely fought. But in the end, it’s always JD Vance, isn’t it? You would say Stephen Miller, but Miller’s too hidden to qualify as a front-of-house henchman among the US president’s court of grotesques. Stephen’s clearly been judged so wantonly horrifying that the administration must keep him out of public view. If you enter the store, Miller is the only-for-the-initiated entity alluded to in a whisper by the oleaginous sales assistant. “We do have something in the back – off-the-books, as it were – if sir is after something a little more … specialist.”

But Vance? Vance besets us like the 11th plague – the plague of media appearances. For the next South Park season, I hope the creators give their brilliantly ghastly little vice-president avatar a papal mitre to wear. After all, here we have a man whose pick-me book on his journey to Catholicism has yet to even be published. That tome currently lies in the rectum of HarperCollins, ready to be excreted in June – yet inevitably, Vance is already giving menacing doctrinal advice to the pope as part of the multi-theatre fallout of Operation Epic Facepalm.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

Why Should Delaware Care?
In 2025, Wilmington saw the lowest number of shooting incidents and victims in 20 years. The decrease in crime has pushed city officials to continue the effort and push for public safety initiatives in the city, including the creation of the Office of Community Safety.

One month after Mayor John Carney signed an executive order to establish the Office of Community Safety, the Wilmington City Council passed a measure to make the violence-prevention office permanent in its city code.

The office, which Carney created in early March, aims to coordinate violence prevention efforts between city departments and establish partnerships with community organizations.

The mayor’s office is supportive of the city council measure to codify the office, according to officials. Asked whether Carney planned to sign it into law, Caroline Klinger, Carney’s spokesperson, did not provide an answer, noting that it will be reviewed first. 

Councilwoman Shané Darby, the ordinance’s sponsor, previously noted that council had pushed in prior years to create a similar violence-prevention office and that she supports the one established by Carney. She said the goal of her measure is to ensure it cannot be dismembered by future administrations.

“We know an executive order is temporary,” Darby said during a Wednesday press conference. “But codification is a commitment. It is permanent.” 

Darby’s measure to codify the office passed unanimously during Thursday’s council meeting, with all 12 members present voting in favor. Councilman Nathan Field was absent. 

The newly created Office of Community Safety was made as an effort to sustain the city’s progress in crime reduction, as Wilmington experienced the lowest number of shooting incidents and shooting victims in over two decades, according to the 2025 annual year-end crime report released in January by the Wilmington Police Department. 

The new statistics also showed an overall 8% drop in murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, felony theft, and auto theft in 2025, over the previous year.

It was an encouraging development across Delaware, particularly after its largest city had suffered for years from high numbers of shootings. In 2017, the News Journal reported that kids in Wilmington were more likely to be shot than those in any other U.S. city during the previous years. A 2014 Newsweek story that examined that ranking, headlined “Murdertown, USA,” left a bruising impact on the city’s image for years.

So far this year, shootings have increased, but it is difficult to draw broad conclusions from such a short period. As of April 12, there have been 17 shootings and 25 shooting victims this year, according to the city’s CompStat statistics, which are updated every week. During the same period last year, there were 12 and 15, respectively. 

Juvenile shooting incidents and victims also doubled. There have been six shootings and six victims compared to three incidents and three victims this time last year.

Earlier in Thursday’s meeting, a few residents shared their grievances about living in the city, calling for increased police presence and raising concerns about loitering, drug use, and speeding. One resident described her short time living in the city as “frightening.”

“We’ve all been talking about the violence in the community, as y’all heard tonight. It’s nonstop in certain neighborhoods and across the city of Wilmington. So this is needed.” Councilwoman Zanthia Oliver said before voting in favor of the measure. 

Office will expand upon pilot program work

The city’s Office of Community Safety will consist of one director who will lead the office. The director will be appointed by the mayor and will report to him directly. 

The new director position requires about $45,000, which City Council already approved through a budget amendment for the city’s operating budget last month. The office will also have a consultant, and additional staff may possibly be added in the future, according to Walker. 

It will cost the city $183,720 to run the office annually, according to the ordinance.

The office will be in charge of supporting community-based groups, creating policy around public safety, facilitating coordination among different city departments, including WPD and the city’s fire department, and helping manage partnerships and grant funding related to public safety programs, according to the executive order, which was signed on March 2. 

When Darby first proposed her ordinance days after Carney’s executive order, her original measure would have given the council some authority over how the office was governed, changing the setup from what Carney created.   

Her original measure contained stipulations that would have required the director of the office to be confirmed by City Council, created a nine-member advisory board to oversee the office, and required the office to create an annual report to the mayor and council. 

Carney’s executive order did not require such conditions. 

Darby and officials from the mayor’s office then collaborated on the legislation after it was introduced, according to Carney’s deputy chief of staff, Daniel Walker, and after those discussions, the advisory board and requirement for the council to confirm the office’s director were removed from her updated legislation. 

Walker said there was initial confusion over whether the council approves any positions in the mayor’s office. He clarified that approval is only required for the city solicitor and city auditor, who have charter-mandated duties to both council and the mayor’s office.

Both Walker and Darby also said the proposed advisory board would have been redundant, as community-based organizations will already be providing input on what’s happening in the city.

“I think in future conversations, we can talk about what that may look like to have the community more involved, and also to make sure our city council is a part of this conversation, because we have been talking about establishing an office since I’ve been on council, and prior to me,” Darby told Spotlight Delaware. 

Darby, Walker and Councilwoman Yolanda McCoy said that the office will further the work of previous violence-prevention efforts like the city’s Community Public Safety Initiative, which was created by city council in 2022 as a pilot program after the council sought to examine different approaches to community‑centered public safety. 

Darby said the initiative funded local organizations already doing violence-prevention work and created the Wilmington Street Team, a group composed of non-profits to decrease violence, gather statistics, and identify trends within the city. 

CPSI was funded through the American Rescue Plan Act, but Darby asserted that those funds are running out.

Walker said the original pilot focused primarily on Wilmington’s East Side, while the new office will shift the CPSI strategy to a citywide approach, targeting high-crime “hotspots” with city resources.

The Mayor’s office is currently reviewing applications for the director role, and after one has been selected, the office will officially begin its work, according to Walker. 

The post New Wilmington community safety office to be made permanent appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

Even amid uncertainty over whether Hezbollah would uphold the truce, Lebanese residents expressed relief at the prospect of quiet, and aid groups were mobilizing help.

The Texas Medical Board has disciplined three doctors ProPublica previously investigated whose patients died after receiving delayed or inappropriate pregnancy care under the state’s strict abortion ban.

Two of the doctors failed to properly intervene as a pregnant teenager repeatedly sought care for life-threatening complications, the board found. The third did not provide a dilation and curettage procedure to empty a miscarrying patient’s uterus, and she ultimately bled to death.

As ProPublica investigated those preventable deaths and five others across three states in the past few years, reporters found that abortion bans have influenced how doctors and hospitals respond to pregnancy complications. Facing risks of prison time and professional ruin, doctors have delayed key interventions until they can document that a fetus’ heart is no longer beating or that a case meets a narrow legal exception. Some physicians say their colleagues are discharging or transferring pregnant patients instead of taking responsibility for their care.

Doctors and lawyers have questioned why medical boards, which oversee physician licensing and investigate substandard care, have not played a more active role in guiding doctors on how to uphold medical standards within the constraints of the law. When asked by ProPublica in 2024 what recourse miscarrying patients had when a doctor denied them necessary treatment, the president of the Texas Medical Board said it had no say over criminal law but that patients could file a complaint and “vote with their feet” to seek care from another doctor.

Since then, the Texas board has taken more steps than those in other states, publishing guidance this year that provides case studies on how doctors can legally provide abortions to patients with certain medical complications. The state Legislature ordered the board to create the training materials as part of the Life of the Mother Act, which was passed after ProPublica’s reporting and made modest adjustments to the state’s abortion restrictions in an attempt to prevent additional maternal deaths.

Georgia, where Amber Thurman died after doctors did not try to empty her septic uterus for 20 hours, has not revisited its ban or disciplined key doctors involved.

Maternal care experts say health care providers will continue to hesitate to offer standard care as long as bans carry serious criminal consequences — Texas’ law can put a physician behind bars for 99 years. But those who spoke to ProPublica say that medical board sanctions are one of the few levers that can provide a counterweight, pushing hospitals and doctors to provide standard care despite uncertainty over vaguely written laws.

Michelle Maloney, who is representing the families of both Texas patients in malpractice lawsuits, said she was pleasantly surprised by the board’s recent actions. “Over the course of my career, I’ve had many horrific, horrific death cases. For someone to get disciplined by the medical board, especially while there’s ongoing litigation, is just extraordinarily rare,” she said.

In 2024, ProPublica reported on the case of 18-year-old Nevaeh Crain, who began experiencing severe pregnancy complications when she was six months pregnant in 2023. Although she exhibited clear signs of an infection, doctors at two hospitals sent her home. On her third visit, as Crain’s condition deteriorated, a doctor did not send Crain to the intensive care unit until he could confirm fetal demise with two ultrasounds. Texas law requires doctors to create extra documentation before performing procedures that could end a pregnancy. By the time the doctor had logged there was no fetal heartbeat, the medical record shows, Crain was too unstable for surgery. She died with her fetus still in her womb.

Dr. Ali Mohamed Osman, an emergency medicine doctor who saw Crain at Baptist Hospitals of Southeast Texas during her first emergency room visit, sent her home with a prescription for antibiotics for strep throat without investigating her stomach cramps, ProPublica reported. The medical board cited him for failing to appropriately treat her infection or check the health of the fetus.

Dr. William Noel Hawkins, an OB-GYN who saw Crain at Christus Southeast Texas St. Elizabeth hospital during her second ER visit hours later, was cited for discharging Crain even though she had a 103-degree fever, screened positive for sepsis and had a fetus with an abnormally high heart rate.

For both Osman and Hawkins, the board wrote, “this delay in care ultimately resulted in the death of both the patient and her unborn child due to complications of pregnancy.”

A board spokesperson would not say whether it investigated Dr. Marcelo Totorica, who saw Crain at her third visit to an ER, at Christus, and required two fetal ultrasounds, 90 minutes apart, before wheeling Crain into the ICU for an operation. The board does not disclose open investigations or cases when a doctor has been cleared of wrongdoing. Totorica did not respond to a request for comment.

ProPublica also investigated the case of Porsha Ngumezi, who died at Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital in 2023 after bleeding heavily during a miscarriage at 11 weeks. An OB-GYN overseeing her care, Dr. Andrew Ryan Davis, gave her misoprostol, a medication that can be used to complete low-risk miscarriages. More than a dozen experts who reviewed the case for ProPublica, however, said that this was a high-risk case and she should have immediately been given a D&C — a procedure that has become fraught in states with abortion bans. Clearing the uterus is standard care to stop hemorrhaging; misoprostol would only make the bleeding worse, they said.

The board investigation confirmed those findings, citing Davis for failing to quantify the volume of blood loss and choosing to monitor Ngumezi’s condition instead of immediately taking her for a D&C procedure. The board wrote, “This delay in care led to the patient’s death.” It added that it could not determine if Ngumezi would have survived if she received an emergency D&C.

The board has the power to levy fines up to $5,000 and, in the most extreme cases, suspend or revoke doctors’ licenses. In these cases, however, each doctor was ordered to take eight hours of continuing education courses within a year. While under the terms of the order, all must notify any employers of the board’s findings against them. Davis and Hawkins were disciplined in October, and Osman was disciplined in March. None of the doctors or hospitals responded to requests for comment. In the medical board orders, the doctors neither admit nor deny the board’s findings and agree to comply with the discipline.

Hope Ngumezi, Porsha Ngumezi’s husband, said the board’s order felt like “a slap in the face.”

“What kind of justice is this for Porsha?” he said. “I feel like the doctor shouldn’t be practicing anymore.”

Hawkins, who failed to meet the standard of care in Crain’s case, according to the board, had previously been disciplined by the board for improper care in several other cases, including failing to provide a tubal ligation and failing to diagnose a syphilis infection. The board issued an order to have Hawkins’ medical practice monitored in 2015; it was lifted two years later.

Reproductive rights advocates welcomed the Texas board’s recent actions but said that it and medical boards in other states should do more. None of the Texas discipline orders, for example, directly sanction a doctor for failing to offer or provide an abortion for a high-risk medical condition.

The board has disciplined some doctors in recent years for failing to provide D&Cs to patients after a confirmed miscarriage or for substandard care of pregnant patients experiencing emergencies, and the orders are typically released quietly. The board could be making public statements and sharing more robust guidance to remind doctors of the consequences, said Molly Duane, the litigation director of Amplify Legal, which is part of the reproductive rights advocacy group Abortion in America.

“They should be saying loudly: This is what can happen if you don’t provide care in these circumstances,” Duane said. At the Center for Reproductive Rights, Duane represented 20 Texas women in a case against the state who alleged doctors inappropriately denied them abortions during medical emergencies. The Texas Supreme Court sided with the state and blamed doctors for misinterpreting the law. Duane is not aware of any doctors in those cases who received discipline from the board.

ProPublica reported on the deaths of other Texas women, including Josseli Barnica and Tierra Walker, which experts said could have been prevented had the women been offered abortions for their high-risk medical conditions. And data analyses by ProPublica showed that sepsis rates and blood transfusions spiked among miscarrying women after the ban went into effect — an indicator of dangerous delays in care across the state.

The board would not say whether it has opened investigations into doctors involved in those cases or any others in which pregnant patients may have received substandard care due to abortion restrictions.

The post Texas Medical Board Sanctions Three Doctors for Delayed Care That Led to the Deaths of Two Pregnant Women appeared first on ProPublica.

PM responds to Guardian revelations that Foreign Office overrode failed security vetting for former minister

• Olly Robbins forced out in Mandelson vetting row

Jones repeatedly denied that the prime minister had given a misleading impression about what has happened and had “lost grip” of the situation. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:

I completely refute the suggestion the PM misled the public or the House of Commons. It’s very clear from his words he was reporting what he had been told and what had been followed.

I don’t think this is a question about the prime minister’s leadership.

The Foreign Office did not tell the prime minister that they granted developed vetting status to Peter Mandelson against the advice of the security and vetting process. The prime minister was only made aware of that on Tuesday evening this week when the documents became available to the Cabinet Office as part of the humble address process (a binding motion to request government papers – JG).

No minister is allowed to see these vetting documents as a matter of principle because we employ security professionals to conduct deeply invasive personal investigations into people’s backgrounds and for those officials to make a recommendation to civil servants on the appointment and employment of individuals.

The House OK'd a short-term renewal of a controversial surveillance program used by U.S. spy agencies, after Republicans revolted and refused President Trump's push for a longer extension.

The technology would enhance Iran's ability to detect and track incoming threats, like low-flying drones and cruise missiles.

Commentary: Tech prices won't come down in the near future, but you can still come out ahead when shopping for a new phone.

The Philadelphia 76ers guard plays his home games in the Xfinity Mobile Arena and is helping spread the word about Xfinity's one-stop destination for NBA fans watching at home.

A cheaper MacBook has trade-offs for my too-many-tabs lifestyle.

At 1.5C of global warming, up to 90% of coral reefs could be lost. The next few months could be a defining moment

Where I come from – Hawai’i – the reef isn’t just something you look at. It’s part of us. It feeds our families, protects our shores, and lives at the center of our culture. In our stories, coral is one of our oldest ancestors. It’s a reminder that everything in the ocean, and all of us, are connected.

Right now, that integral connection is under threat.

Jason Momoa is an actor, film-maker, and UNEP Advocate for Life Below Water, dedicated to protecting our oceans and advancing global awareness around coral reef conservation

Critics warn smaller and immigrant-run restaurants risk being overlooked as city-funded deal shapes dining map

When Michelin announced that it was expanding its world-renowned restaurant guide into the Great Lakes region of the United States, including Minneapolis, one prominent city was left off the map – Saint Paul, the state capital.

Despite being just 11 miles apart, the second half of Minnesota’s “Twin Cities” was absent from the highly anticipated announcement. The omission has raised concerns among food critics and locals that Saint Paul – and, more widely, smaller local restaurants in Minneapolis and elsewhere – could be left behind.

The Whoop band won't tell you the time, but it might change the way you work out. Here's who should wear which.

Nine-day search for two-year-old Neukgu gripped nation and sparked safety concerns for animal and public

The internet in South Korea erupted in celebration as a two-year-old wolf that escaped from a zoo was captured safely after a nine-day search that had gripped the nation and made the animal a national celebrity.

The male wolf, named Neukgu, burrowed out of his enclosure at the O-World zoo in Daejeon on 8 April. Animal rights activists questioned whether the wolf could survive outside the zoo and also worried he might be killed during capture, something that happened to a puma that escaped from the same zoo in 2018.

A prehistoric hidden cave and hippo bones found beneath Pembroke Castle could transform understanding of ancient life in Britain, researchers said

Targeting medics on the battlefield: addressing the crisis through law and practice 11 June 2026 — 17:00 TO 18:15 BST Anonymous (not verified) 17 April 2026 Chatham House and Online

Experts clarify international humanitarian law and promote compliance by identifying practical measures for its effective implementation.

At a time when international humanitarian law is under strain in so many armed conflicts around the world, the wounded and sick, and medical personnel and facilities often bear the brunt of hostilities.

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the adoption of Security Council resolution 2286 (2016) on the protection of medical care in armed conflict. But in the decade since its adoption, hospitals have been targeted, damaged and misused. The wounded and sick have been unable to access medical care, and healthcare providers have been punished for providing assistance.

This event, which coincides with the publication of the ‘Medical care in armed conflict: addressing the crisis’ research paper by the International Law Programme at Chatham House, will explore:

• What challenges have arisen in recent conflicts relating to the provision of medical care in armed conflict?
• What measures can be adopted to ensure respect for the law, and mitigate adverse impact of military operations on medical care?
• What measures can states, organised armed groups, and other actors take to promote compliance with the rules of international humanitarian law?

Departing PM Viktor Orbán admits ‘political era has ended’ as EU says ‘clock is ticking’ to resolve important issues

EU officials have arrived in Budapest for high-stakes talks aimed at reshaping the bloc’s strained relationship with Hungary, weeks before the new government takes office, as the country’s departing prime minister, Viktor Orbán, admitted a “political era has ended” and suggested he would stay on as leader of his party in his first interview since the election.

Speaking to the pro-government outlet Patrióta, Orbán described Sunday’s election as an “emotional rollercoaster” after the opposition Tisza party won a landslide victory, bringing an end to his 16 years in power.

Why Should Delaware Care?
With credit cards now the dominant form of payment in the U.S., the fees that banks and payment networks charge for their usage is coming under greater scrutiny. A new debate on applying those fees on gratuities pits banks against their small business customers.

One of the most-heated battles at the statehouse this year has been waged by some of the nation’s largest banks and credit card networks against a bill that seeks to ban the application of service fees on tips.

It was a proposal that garnered little fanfare in the run up to the 2026 General Assembly, but a recent federal court win in Illinois on a similar measure convinced advocates to push forward in potentially making Delaware only the second state to enact such a law.

House Bill 315, sponsored by Rep. Kim Williams (D-Stanton), would prohibit the charging of those payment fees, known as “interchange fees” that range from 1% to more than 3% of a transaction total, on gratuities. Violations would result in a penalty of $1,000 per transaction and the refunding of wrongful fees.

In an unusual show of bipartisanship, more than half of the entire General Assembly has already co-signed on the bill, including all four Democratic and Republican leaders. That has clearly rattled the banking and credit industry that is a staple of Delaware’s economy.

In response, the powerful Electronic Payments Coalition – which represents banking giants, payment networks, credit unions and community banks – has spent more than six figures on a lobbying, advertising and marketing blitz to try to head off the issue before it could make it to Gov. Matt Meyer’s desk.

It already cleared its first hurdle in being released by the House Economic Development, Banking, Insurance and Commerce Committee last month, but it is still awaiting a vote on the House floor.

Should HB 315 be signed into law, the industry would almost assuredly sue to prevent it from being enforced, as it did in Illinois.

What’s a ‘swipe fee’?

In today’s increasingly cashless society, a constant hum of electronic transactions ping from merchants’ cash registers to processing software to payment networks to banks and back.

The four major payment networks – Visa, Mastercard, Discover and American Express – take a cut of every transaction, which is borne by the merchant, in order to process the payment. Depending on the credit card and purchase, those fees range from 1% to upward of 4%.

A card-issuing bank, such as Capital One or JPMorganChase, ultimately receives those funds to cover the cost of reward programs, fraud losses and risky lending, while the networks keep pennies on the dollar for facilitating the transaction. With several trillion credit card charges a year though, that has amounted to billions in revenue for the networks.

Meanwhile, in a climate of rising costs and increasing reliance on credit cards for everyday purchases, many small business owners are frustrated with paying that fee.

And they are especially frustrated that the fees are applied to the entirety of a bill, including tips, essentially cutting into their profits.

For example, a diner leaving a $20 tip on top of a $100 dinner bill and paying with credit card would result in a restaurant paying the bank $2.40 to process the bill. A server will receive that $20 from the bill, but the restaurant owner is paying the additional 40 cents to cover it in the transaction.

In 2024, Illinois became the first state in the nation to pass a swipe fee ban on taxes and tips. It promptly faced a legal challenge from the American Bankers Association, but in February a federal judge allowed the law to go into effect on July 1.

The bankers have appealed the case to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, but in the meantime they have not reportedly moved to implement the technological improvements needed to make the law possible. The case is likely to end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

For now, two dozen other states are acting on Illinois’ lead to consider similar legislation, including Pennsylvania, Colorado and Oklahoma, among others.

Proponents argue for ‘fairness’

Backing the introduction of the bill was the Delaware Restaurant Association, whose more than 2,000 members and their 50,000 employees bear the largest brunt of fees on tips.

Each year, Delaware restaurants pay banks and payment networks roughly $6 million combined in fees on tips, according to estimates compiled by National Restaurant Association economists. By prohibiting those fees, the average full-service restaurant in Delaware would save roughly $6,700 per year.

Many restaurateurs report the credit card fees are their third or fourth largest expenses on their balance sheets – larger than even health insurance in some cases, said Carrie Leishman, the president of the DRA.

Katie Kutler, owner of kaffé KARMA in Greenville, told the House committee that 92% of her $1.5 million in sales last year were by credit card, which resulted in more than $14,000 in fees to the industry. Patrons also left more than $135,000 in tips for her employees, which were likewise charged into those interchange fees, costing her small business thousands of dollars.

“Refusing credit cards is not an option, it’s how our guests pay,” she said.

Craig Wensell, owner of Wilmington Brew Works, likewise said that the fees on tips to his bartenders amounted to about $10,000 at his two locations last year.

“This is $10,000 penalty on money that we never kept. These are funds that we do not benefit from. … Having to absorb these ever increasing processing tolls directly diminishes our ability to pay our staff and manage our bottom line,” he said.

Joining the restaurant industry in supporting the bill is the Delaware Hotel & Lodging Association and the Delaware Brewers Guild, but so far the proponents of the measure have largely stuck to managing relationships within Legislative Hall.

Leishman, of the DRA, said the bill essentially forces legislators into a David versus Goliath fight of “Main Street versus Wall Street.”

“A tip is not a transaction. It’s a thank you, and no part of that tip should go to a bank,” she said.

Opponents spend big

Over the past month, virtually all Delawareans have seen some version of an anti-HB 315 ad, which have depicted waitresses, baristas and Uber drivers with ominous messaging asking to help “save tipped workers.”

According to a Spotlight Delaware analysis of Facebook data, the Electronic Payments Coalition has spent upward of $100,000 on ads on the platform since early March. It has also spent an undetermined amount to launch a website, run video ads on streaming services in the state and hire a popular Delaware social media influencer to film an anti-HB 315 ad for The Points Guy social media channel.

In Dover, the coalition and many of its members have hired some of the state’s top lobbying firms to work on the bill, according to the state database. It has also placed op-ed columns in The News Journal and the Philadelphia Inquirer to warn of the bill’s impact.

Nick Simpson, a spokesperson for the EPC, told Spotlight Delaware that the coalition would continue the messaging as long as HB 315 remained under consideration this year. He argued that the bill’s proponents were over-simplifying the fix, which would require a wholesale change to how transactions are currently processed.

“This is not like your iPhone needs an update. The current system doesn’t transmit data the way that the Delaware bill would have it transmitted. It would require reworking, reconfiguring and rebuilding the system,” he said.

The decades-old payment networks have only ever asked for the total to be transmitted to issuing banks, and haven’t itemized them to allow for applying the fee to only part of a bill, he explained.

Should the payment networks simply refuse to process tips on credit cards due to the potential penalties of the Delaware bill, the EPC estimated that tipped workers could see a 10% reduction in overall pay because patrons typically carry less cash these days, Simpson said. Businesses could also bear higher operating costs in dealing with more cash, such as security, depositing and accounting for it. In some situations, they may also be forced to directly compensate their staff if their tips don’t exceed roughly $12.50 an hour, which bridges the gap between Delaware base tipped wage and its $15 minimum wage.

Some of the EPC’s messaging has also claimed that credit card reward programs could be threatened by HB 315, and Simpson said that’s because of the revenue decline that banks would see. When deciding where to invest their resources, banks have to prioritize fraud protection and technical maintenance before they can consider rewards to customers, he said.

Dan McCarthy, the president and CEO of Del-One Federal Credit Union, the largest credit union in Delaware, also told the House committee that interchange fees were an important part of protecting against fraud. His organization has seen $2.4 million in fraudulent charges in the last two years, for which they have fully reimbursed customers.

In many cases, the credit union is able to charge those losses back to a merchant, but not in every case, McCarthy said. Sometimes, they just have to take the loss.

“If this bill becomes law, credit unions would have to increase other sources of income, such as raising interest rates, or reducing expenses. That could mean limiting access to credit cards to the riskiest members, and that could negatively impact our financial inclusion efforts,” he said.

The post Credit, banking industry spends $100K+ fighting swipe fee ban appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

Police say officers found discarded items in area after group claimed to have targeted embassy with drones

Police have said they are investigating a security incident near the Israeli embassy in London after officers found a number of discarded items in the area.

A statement said Counter Terrorism Policing London was aware of a video shared online overnight in which a group claimed to have targeted the embassy with drones carrying dangerous substances.

Adult video platform to sell minority stake to increase stability after death of its owner Leonid Radvinsky

• Business live – latest updates

OnlyFans, the UK adult video platform, is in talks to sell a minority stake to a US investor that will value the business at more than $3bn (£2.2bn).

The London-based company is in advanced talks to sell a stake of less than 20% to the San Francisco-based investment firm Architect Capital, according to the Financial Times. Sources familiar with the process confirmed the talks to the Guardian.

A courier can now pick up items you want to send back.

America First Policy Institute, which boasts close ties to president, discussed transgender policy ‘reform’ at DC event

Children are the “low-hanging fruit” in a longer effort to end gender-affirming care for all Americans, an official at a Trump administration-aligned thinktank recently said.

Bans on medical transition comprise just one part of the larger, unprecedented assault on transgender rights mounted by a coordinated campaign of mostly conservative activists and policymakers in the US in recent years. So far, these restrictions have primarily affected minors. But leaders in the emboldened movement have begun to more openly admit their desire to attempt to end gender-affirming care for adults, too.

This article was produced in partnership with Documented, an investigative watchdog and journalism project. Phoebe Petrovic is a senior democracy researcher with Documented

Bipartisan backing for special relationship is fraying as Middle East conflicts turn public opinion

Israel’s conflicts in the Middle East have driven a sea change in US public opinion, threatening a bipartisan consensus of support for military aid for Israel that has been the status quo for decades.

In public opinion polling of Americans, among likely candidates for president, and even in pro-Israel lobbying circles, the special relationship enjoyed by Israel with the US is now under fire as human rights concerns from the left and a new “America First” foreign policy groundswell on the right could impact coming elections – including the 2028 presidential elections.

Store opened in 1971 in Seattle’s Pike Place Market joins growing unionization campaign across the coffee chain

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Reed Hastings is stepping down from Netflix's board in June, ending a 29-year run at the company he co-founded and helped transform from a DVD-by-mail business into a global streaming giant. Hastings said in a shareholder (PDF) letter that he's stepping down to focus on "his philanthropy and other pursuits." Engadget reports: Hastings has served as chairman of Netflix's board since 2023, a role he assumed after stepping down as co-CEO and promoting Greg Peters in his place. "Netflix changed my life in so many ways, and my all-time favorite memory was January 2016, when we enabled nearly the entire planet to enjoy our service," Hastings said in a statement. "My real contribution at Netflix wasn't a single decision; it was a focus on member joy, building a culture that others could inherit and improve, and building a company that could be both beloved by members and wildly successful for generations to come. A special thanks to Greg and Ted, whose commitment to Netflix's greatness is so strong that I can now focus on new things."

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Halt to fighting will be followed by first Israeli-Lebanese summit in decades. Plus, why are there so many false claims that famous lines in cinema were improvised?

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Donald Trump has announced a 10-day ceasefire in Lebanon, to be followed by a meeting between Israeli and Lebanese leaders next week, a deal it is hoped will bring progress toward a parallel peace agreement between the US and Iran.

What has Lebanon said? The Lebanese army warned people displaced from southern Lebanon about returning home because of intermittent shelling that was reported after the ceasefire came into effect.

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What has Amazon said? It has called the claims in the lawsuit “entirely false and misguided”. The company said in a statement: “Amazon is consistently identified as America’s lowest-priced online retailer, and it is ironic that the attorney general seeks to have us feature higher prices in ways that would harm consumers and competition.”

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Wemby will no doubt be the answer to this question at some point in the (perhaps not-too-distant) future. But for now, I defer to those with at least some playoff experience. For my money, Jokić still reigns supreme as the best player alive, and for that reason, he’s my pick. CDL

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A Trace analysis found that revenue from fining white-collar criminals is drying up – due to presidential pardons

This story was originally published by the Trace, a non-profit newsroom covering gun violence in America. Sign up for its newsletters here.

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Sen. Bernie Sanders forced a vote on Wednesday to block the sales of bombs and bulldozers to Israel. The resolutions failed mostly along party lines with a handful of defections to the Republican side, but a record number of Democrats voted against sending weapons to Israel.  

“A supermajority of Democrats oppose this war, are generally against America’s global military interventions,” former Sanders foreign policy adviser Matt Duss tells The Intercept Briefing. Yet Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., joined 11 Democrats in voting against the measure to block the sale of 1,000-pound bombs to Israel, and seven Democrats against the sale of bulldozers used in Israel’s military occupations.

“We do have a Democratic Party leadership that still is part of this very small — and thankfully dwindling, though not fast enough — hawkish faction that is wedded to this idea of American global military domination,” says Duss.

This week on the podcast, Duss speaks to host Akela Lacy about how Democrats should use the overwhelming unpopularity of the war to push an anti-war agenda that brings about real change. 

“There’s a real constituency here for this message,” says Duss, “We need a foreign policy for this era that is based around building peace rather than making war, that is focused on foreign policy that benefits American communities and American workers, but also does not export insecurity and poverty onto others in the world. And I think this is a really opportune moment for it.”

The watershed moment in the Senate came against the backdrop of President Donald Trump’s hyper-aggressive military adventurism.

“My concern about blaming this all on Israel is that it lets Washington off the hook,” says Duss. “We have a foreign policy establishment that is addicted to militarism, that is addicted to war, who often work at think tanks that are largely funded by the military–industrial complex. They are funded by weapons manufacturers. We have a political class that is really deeply committed to an almost religious degree to American primacy in the world, to American global hegemony. Which means that we are up in everyone’s business all over the place all the time.”

“This Iran war is the most egregious and horrible expression of trends in our foreign policy that have been building for a long time, so are these boat strikes,” he says, referring to the Trump administration’s ongoing assassinations of alleged drug traffickers. “We’ve been killing people with flying robots in the Middle East and Africa and elsewhere for decades now.”

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

Transcript 

Akela Lacy: Welcome to The Intercept Briefing. I’m Akela Lacy, senior politics reporter for The Intercept.

Ali Gharib: And I’m Ali Gharib, a senior editor at The Intercept.

AL: We are well over a month into the U.S.-Israel war on Iran and about a week into a ceasefire that, depending on which side you’re listening to, has either held or not held. Ali, walk us through the latest developments. What’s the status of this war?

AG: When the talks broke down over the weekend, a lot of bluster started to be exchanged between Iran and the U.S. The U.S. imposed its own blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, which is almost, like, comically perfect if it wasn’t so tragic — that the U.S. started this war for unclear reasons, and then Iran punished the U.S. and the world by closing the Strait of Hormuz. Then the U.S. made the war about opening the Strait of Hormuz. Iran agreed to do that under certain conditions, and the U.S. has rejected Iran’s terms, though, as the U.S. tells it, Iran rejected their terms.

But either way, we came to an impasse. And now it is the U.S. that is blocking the Strait of Hormuz. So that’s the Kafkaesque state of affairs in the straits these days.

But for the moment, the ceasefire is holding. The U.S. and its allies — Israel — are not, so far, attacking Iran, and Iran has not been launching weapons at Israel and the U.S.’s Gulf allies and U.S. military assets. 

One of the most interesting things about the state of the ceasefire right now is that even though the U.S. imposed this “blockade” — I’m doing air quotes now — on Iranian ports, the Iranians have not forced the issue when the U.S. has ordered ships coming from Iranian ports to turn around. They have complied, and Iran has not been firing on U.S. naval assets in the strait. So far, everybody is complying. There was word from thinly sourced reporting that our colleague at CNN, Leila Gharagozlou — who, full disclosure, also happens to be my cousin — had mentioned that there had been a U.S. request to Iran, according to the Iranians, for another round of talks coming up.

So diplomacy may indeed be proceeding. We don’t really know, but that’s the state of things right now is that — and I think we can all be thankful for it — is that there’s a lot of bluster, there’s a lot of talk about “They won’t accept our terms, and it’s gonna be bad for them,” on both sides. But so far, there’s been no major escalations in the fighting.

AL: Our listeners know that Israel’s bombing campaign in Lebanon and Gaza is powered by U.S. money and weapons. And there was a historic vote in the Senate on Wednesday when Sen. Bernie Sanders forced a vote to block more than $450 million in sales of weapons and bombs to Israel.

This is the latest in a series of votes that Sanders has introduced to block these kinds of weapon sales to Israel. The latest vote failed, as did the previous two in April and July of last year. But just as the last vote, a historic number of senators voted for this measure. The last vote to block these weapon sales to Israel in July had a record number of senators vote for it, 27.

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But the vote on Wednesday saw an even greater number of senators move to support this bill, bringing the total to 36. That includes Sanders and another independent senator, Angus King. Zero Republicans voted for this measure. But what’s notable here is that several people who voted either against the last iteration of this resolution, the joint resolution of disapproval, or the previous one, either voted against it or voted present.

Several of the senators who voted against it or voted present have voted for this bill now. This is part of what Sen. Sanders said after the vote is a major shift among Democrats on the topic of Israel and U.S. military support for Israel, particularly during the genocide in Gaza, but also as the war on Iran continues to escalate, and both Republicans and Democrats face increasing criticism over the U.S. entanglement in this war side by side with Israel.

I also want to note several notable Democrats who did sign on to this bill: Cory Booker, who has been a longtime ally of AIPAC, who’s recently sworn off AIPAC money in his upcoming Senate race as part of a broader pledge to reject corporate PAC money. John Hickenlooper, who is facing a progressive challenger who said that she won’t send money to Israel while it’s committing genocide in Gaza. Adam Schiff, who previously voted no on this. Elissa Slotkin, who also previously voted no on this.

Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly were some of the names who stood out to me here. With the exception of Gallego, who started out as a progressive and tacked pretty moderate during his Senate race, these are the bread and butter of the centrists of the Democratic Party. We’re talking about Adam Schiff, Elissa Slotkin, Michael Bennet of Colorado.

AG: Mark Kelly, I think, was a really telling one because he has been such a staunch supporter of Israel and, I think, has the ambitions and maybe also the profile that makes him more viable — and just on a personal judgment level is less silly than the Cory Bookers of the world.

AL: Less silly. He’s an astronaut, he can’t be silly. [Laughs.]

AG: [Laughs.] Well, Kelly is a guy who has voted no on these resolutions again and again and again. Here’s a guy — staunch supporter of Israel — he hasn’t previously voted for any of these resolutions before, and now he is. His logic was interesting because he came out and said that, I am a supporter of Israel, and this is our ally, and we need to be helping them. But we also have to recognize that what’s going on right now in the Middle East is not normal. His phrase was, “Not business as usual.” And he said, “It’s not making us safer,” and the U.S. and Israel are in this war, and there’s no end in sight. That’s what seemed to have turned him against the [bombs and bulldozers].

And I think that coming from maybe one of the more legit presidential contenders in Capitol Hill is pretty significant, Akela.

AL: Yes, I agree. So this vote was broken up into two measures: one which was to block the sale of bombs, the other which was to block the sale of bulldozers, which garnered more support. Ali, tell us about that.

AG: This one, to me, was really interesting. Forty Democrats voted for this. I mean, that is about 80 percent of the Democrats in the Senate. That’s a remarkable number. Maybe not as remarkable as the shift to 36 senators on the bombs. It’s significant nonetheless. What was really interesting here, and our colleague Matt Sledge had reported about this in his article, was that it seemed like these Democrats had an easier time voting against bulldozers than voting against bombs, which doesn’t make sense at first blush.

But how we see the bulldozers actually work in practical application — in southern Lebanon today, in the occupation in general, in the efforts to annex the West Bank — has been to use it to destroy villages and homes and change the realities on the ground to create Israel hegemony over what’s left of the rubble of Palestinian and, more recently, Lebanese villages.

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So that, to me, was an interesting development, because having so many of the Democrats overwhelmingly oppose these things that I think that there is for, maybe not by the twisted logic of an AIPAC-infused Capitol Hill, but to the wider world, you’re like, “Wait a second. Bulldozers?” And actually, these are weapons of occupation and annexation and the apartheid system in Israel.

AL: It speaks to the thinking or the process by which senators are able to talk themselves out of the line that they previously walked on what is considered self-defense for Israel. It’s easier to say, “Yeah, we support an Iron Dome” than “We support bulldozers that we’re seeing used to raze people’s homes and buildings.”

AG: In some ways, it is a much more clear war crime to be razing entire villages than dropping bombs. The Israelis, the Americans, everybody always comes up with these bullshit excuses that are like, “Oh, they were targeting military assets,” and this whole cockamamie collateral damage argument and stuff.

There’s no dispute that when Israel razes an entire village on the Lebanese border — and they said they were going to do this — that is a prima facie war crime. That’s what it is. 

So even though that’s not what Capitol Hill is saying, what Democrats on Capitol Hill are saying, when they voted for this resolution; it’s just interesting to me that that’s the avenue that we’re starting to go down now, even on Capitol Hill.

AL: We talk about all of this and more in today’s episode with Matt Duss, the executive vice president at the Center for International Policy and former foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders, who introduced the measures to block the bombs and bulldozers that we’ve been discussing. Duss was also the former president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace and a national security and international policy analyst at the Center for American Progress.

AG: I, for one, am really eager to hear this conversation. Thanks, Akela.

AL: Thank you, Ali. 

Matt, welcome to “The Intercept Briefing.”

Matt Duss: Thank you. Great to be with you.

AL: Over the weekend, Vice President JD Vance left negotiations he was leading to end the war in Iran and open the Strait of Hormuz without a deal. Talks fell apart over U.S. demands that Iran suspend uranium enrichment for 20 years; Iran agreed to five. For context, former President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran — that Trump proudly shredded in his first term — took nearly two years to negotiate.

To start, Matt, can you bring us up to speed? What is the latest on this war that the U.S. provoked and is now trying to find a way out of?

MD: We’re about a month and a half into this war that began at the very end of February, launched by the United States and Israel together. I think that is notable, as opposed to last June’s so-called 12-Day War, which was begun by Israel bombing Iran. Then days later, the U.S. joined in, dropping its biggest bombs on Iranian nuclear facilities.

This is very much the United States and Israel acting together from the beginning, and they’ve done enormous damage. They bombed a lot of buildings, destroyed a lot of nuclear and military infrastructure, destroyed much if not most of Iran’s navy, killed a lot of Iranian leaders, including notably the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in the first day of the war.

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But it has not achieved anything like a victory because no one had any doubt that the United States and Israel could do a lot of damage militarily to Iran, but Iran’s security and defense doctrine has always been based on that understanding and has been built around creating the ability to inflict pain in other ways, economic and otherwise. That is what we are seeing with Iran shutting down shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a very narrow waterway in the Persian Gulf through which a large amount of global oil shipping flows. 

This pain is being felt in the United States with gas prices going up, but, more importantly, by the rest of the world. Even though the U.S.  population is feeling the pain, the worst consequences of this war are already being felt and will continue to be felt by some of the world’s most vulnerable populations. Which is to say the worst consequences of this war will fall upon those who didn’t start it.

AL: On Wednesday morning, Trump told Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo that the U.S.–Iran war is “very close to being over.” We’ve heard that before, several times in the last few weeks. Do you think that Trump will use the ceasefire period to end U.S. involvement at this point?

MD: I would hope so. The best way for this war to end would be for the people who started it to stop, and that is the United States and Israel. They launched an unprovoked and illegal — and in my view, a strategically counterproductive — war of aggression. But I think the question here is, at what point does Trump either get bored of this war or decide he needs really to get out of it? We’ve seen some reporting indicating that Trump is starting to realize, if not already, that he really miscalculated here, that he was led to believe that this war would be much quicker and easier than it actually was. 

I think he was looking at Venezuela as a model. He came to believe in the magical powers of the American military and special forces to do things and achieve goals. And certainly he had people around him, like Lindsey Graham, like Tom Cotton, and obviously Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who were feeding him this information to say, it’s going to be amazing and quick. It’s going to be glorious, and you’ll demonstrate once again the greatness of Donald Trump. He’s clearly frustrated that it has not gone that way. 

The United States has the ability to inflict enormous damage on Iran or any country, but Iran has also shown that it has ways to respond. And it has not relented, it has not agreed to Trump’s demands, particularly on its nuclear program.

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These are the demands that were presented by Vice President JD Vance in Islamabad last weekend, which Iran did not accept because those demands have not changed. You referenced the Obama administration’s nuclear agreement with Iran, and I think what led to the breakthrough there that led to that agreement being signed in 2015 was the United States’ acknowledgment that Iran has a right to enrich uranium. That is a right that Iran had long claimed. It does have a valid argument under the non-proliferation treaty — of which it is a member — which guarantees signers of that treaty the right to peaceful nuclear energy. Iran interprets that to mean they have a right to enrich on their soil. There may be some dispute on that. But Iran, for its own nationalist and political reasons, has always asserted that right. And the Obama administration acknowledging that is what led to what was, I think, a very good nuclear agreement.

As you noted, Trump withdrew from that, that led to this moment. I think until the United States is willing to accept some formula that doesn’t require Iran to give up that right. Iran could agree to not enrich for the time being, while still retaining the right to enrich. It’s possible to see some language that they could come up with that both sides could be satisfied with. But as long as the U.S. continues to press these same demands, we are not going to resolve this issue.

AL: One follow-up here. Iran has characterized the falling apart of these latest round of talks led by JD Vance as a result of the U.S. moving the goalposts and insisting on Iran suspending uranium enrichment after that not having led the strikes under that demand. What’s happening here? Obviously, the nuclear question is always in the background when we’re talking about Iran. But is it fair to say that the U.S. moved the goalpost here?

Matt Duss: I think it’s fair to say that the U.S. moved the goalpost once Trump was convinced to make zero enrichment a condition of talks; this was ongoing last year. I think you saw conflicting information from Steve Witkoff, who’s the real estate dealer, who Trump has decided for some reason to make his lead negotiator everywhere. Witkoff at one point was saying, no, we’re not going to require them to give up all their enrichment.

Some of us heard that and we’re like, OK. That means there’s a possibility of a deal if they want other guarantees — inspections. It’s possible. But once Trump made zero enrichment a demand — and again, you had Netanyahu pressing him on this, you had people like Lindsey Graham, you had a bunch of hawkish think tankers in Washington pressing this on him — we should understand, this was designed to prevent an agreement because these people understand that Iran will not agree to that. That is why they press Trump to make this demand because they understood it would lead to no agreement, and they would get the war they’ve always wanted, which is of course what has happened.

AL: You recently wrote a piece for Foreign Policy about why blaming Israel for the war on Iran lets Washington off the hook. Part of your argument is that war-hungry members of both parties have been pushing for this war just as hard as Israel has, including Democrats. I want to talk about those Democrats. Who are they, and what responsibility do they have for this war?

MD: The point I made in the piece, I acknowledge, it’s very clear that this war would not be happening without pressure from Israel. It would not be happening without pressure from Prime Minister Netanyahu in particular, and without pressure from the Israel lobby in Washington. 

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But also, as you noted, I think my concern about blaming this all on Israel is that, yeah, it lets Washington off the hook. We have a foreign policy establishment that is addicted to militarism, that is addicted to war, who often work at think tanks that are largely funded by the military–industrial complex. They are funded by weapons manufacturers. We have a political class that is really deeply committed to an almost religious degree to American primacy in the world, to American global hegemony. Which means that we are up in everyone’s business all over the place all the time. This war that we are witnessing right now is an expression of that — it is one of the most horrible possible expressions of it. 

But my concern about blaming it all on Israel, it distracts us from the problem being here in the United States. It is here in Washington. This is what we need to reform about our own foreign policy rather than locating blame in other places.

AL: Are there Democrats who you think hold particular responsibility, particularly for this iteration of the Iran war? We had reporting about Democratic leadership trying to slow walk this war powers resolution and all this sort of stuff. And our listeners are very interested in knowing actually who bears responsibility for this.

MD: You mentioned, we have the Democratic leadership — Chuck Schumer in the Senate and Hakeem Jeffries in the House — even though they eventually came out in support of the war powers resolution that Senator Kaine and Senator Paul offered a few weeks ago. Actually, they announced their support just days before the war began.

That’s good. I’m glad they came around to the right place. But in my view, it just took way too long. It took too much work to support something that a supermajority of Democratic voters support. A supermajority of Democrats oppose this war, are generally against America’s global military interventions in general.

Yet we do have a Democratic Party leadership that still is part of this very small — and thankfully dwindling, though not fast enough — hawkish faction that is wedded to this idea of American global military domination.

I’d also note here too, we need to hold the Biden administration responsible for some of this too. Joe Biden campaigned in 2020 on a commitment to rejoin the Iran nuclear agreement that Trump withdrew from in 2018. It was pretty unequivocal. He wrote a piece, or a piece was written under his name, that was published in October of 2020 that laid out, here’s what I’m going to do, I’m going to rejoin this deal, and here’s why.

A lot of us were very encouraged by that. Yet, once taking office his administration hit the brakes, decided we’re going to take our time to rejoin this agreement in the hopes of using the sanctions that Trump had imposed as leverage and get a longer and stronger deal.

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They didn’t do what they promised. Now, in my view, and many of us were advocating this at the time, the thing to do would’ve been just rejoin the deal, remove the sanctions. The U.S. committed to this along with its allies — and then we withdrew from it. So first, rejoin the deal, and that creates an environment where the Iranians are like, “OK, Biden is doing what he said he’d do. Maybe we can talk about a longer deal. Maybe we can keep engaging to address a broader range of issues between the United States and Iran.”

Instead, Joe Biden showed the Iranians that you cannot trust Joe Biden. And we lost, I think, a really important opportunity. After a few months, Iran had its own presidential elections coming up. That current administration that had signed the nuclear agreement under President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif were replaced by a much more hawkish, hard-line president and foreign minister that drove a much, much harder bargain. That made it much more difficult to come to any kind of agreement to getting back into the JCPOA. And of course that failed. We have to acknowledge it was basically the Biden administration that lost the JCPOA and put us on the path to where we are now.

AL: I also just have to mention John Fetterman because we just have to. 

MD: Do we? OK.

AL: [Laughs] I’m curious while I have you, because you were in the Senate at a point in time, and he has been, pretty openly calling for blood thirsty retaliation against Iran.

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Now, the latest is that he’s backing Trump’s peace talks. But what do you make of his, I don’t know if you can really call it an evolution, because he seems to have been this way for quite some time. But yeah, what is your analysis of his position?

MD: Yeah, I don’t really have a great read on it. He basically seems to have been handed a set of talking points about Israel as the good guys and Iran as the bad guys and the Palestinians as the bad guys. And that’s good enough for him. He just has shown no real understanding of these issues. No understanding of the history here or of the policy.

From what I understand, he really resents a lot of the pressure, but that’s tough luck, man. You’re a U.S. senator. That’s part of how this works. If you support bad inhumane policies, get ready to be protested. 

As far as I can see, he has just decided he’s just doubling down. And he doesn’t want to talk about it. I know people who have tried to talk to him about this issue. I’m not one of them. But they have reported he just won’t even consider his position, regardless of the evidence. He’s just made this part of his identity, and I think that I think is very weird and regrettable.

AL: I love that description, “weird and regrettable.” 

[Break]

AL: You worked in Congress at a time when there was a major shift on norms in foreign policy and an increasing willingness by some members, including your former boss, to oppose foreign wars. I want you to tell us about that time and what you saw as prompting that shift.

MD: I think we have seen a really important movement over the past few years. But let’s also remember that Barack Obama was elected in 2008 because of his opposition to the Iraq War. That is really what distinguished Obama in that field. There were some other things, but even he himself and the people around him understood that, one of the strongest arguments, if not the strongest arguments for his presidency, was the fact that he opposed the Iraq War when everyone else in Washington was supporting it, falling in line, either because of their ideology or because they were just political cowards.

He showed that when it mattered, he was able to stand up against the tide. Now, Obama’s project of changing foreign policy obviously ran into some strong headwinds. People can argue that he didn’t try as hard as he should have. I think that’s probably true in some cases, but I think there were some important achievements. The Iran nuclear agreement was one. I think changing Cuba policy was another; withdrawing from Iraq. We can run down the list of mistakes he made as well.

I think the lesson from those two terms was, there is a deeply entrenched, foreign policy establishment in both parties and in Washington broadly — a bipartisan establishment that is, as I described earlier, just committed to this idea of American global military hegemony. Changing that is very difficult. But yet American voters continue to show that they’re supportive of a change.

I wrote a piece in The Guardian last year in the wake of Kamala Harris’s election loss that argued that Trump had won in part because he presented himself as an anti-war president. He and Vance really in the last few weeks before the election made a pro-peace argument. 

Now, of course, they were lying. We should have known they were lying at the time. We, of course, know for a fact they were lying now. But my point is not that we should have believed them. My point is that Trump and Vance were at least smart enough to acknowledge that there is a real anti-war constituency in this country.

If you go back every election since the end of the Cold War, every election since 1992 — with the one exception of 2004 — the more anti-war candidate has won. Now I think that’s just an interesting data point. I’m not going to say that’s why they won, but I’m also saying that what it does show is that there’s a real constituency here for this message. 

I want Democrats to realize this is an opportunity to really lean into this argument. We saw Bernie, when he ran in 2016 against Hillary Clinton, again, as with Obama in 2008, a big part of his argument was that he had also opposed the Iraq War. He had the courage to stand up against the tide, and because he rightly predicted it would be a disaster. Even Biden. Going back to 2020, Biden promised to end the forever wars.

In the wake of these different things that I mentioned, I do think you’ve got a more energetic, a better organized set of organizations, journalists, analysts — let’s just say that there’s a larger anti-war policy community that’s been built over the past 25 years, especially since the Iraq War. We have more champions in Congress who are saying this message, who believe that American foreign policy needs to change.

But obviously, as we see, this war is an expression, as I said earlier, of how deeply entrenched this pro-war establishment remains. So there’s so much work left to be done.

AL: The point that no matter what their policy ends up being, that anti-war candidates have been largely popular, is a really crucial one. I wonder how can we account for any effect that this shift has had on foreign policy, if anti-war candidates are doing different policy once they actually take office?

MD: I think the key is to have first a candidate who is generally committed to an anti-war position. And then staffing that administration with anti-war officials and making clear that this is the policy we’re going to execute as president. We’ve not really had that.

Like I said, Obama did some really important things, but for various reasons, including the fact that he made Joe Biden his vice president, and he made Hillary Clinton his secretary of state, his foreign policy apparatus in his administration was largely populated by Clinton and Biden folks — let’s just say many of whom did not share Barack Obama’s views about shifting American foreign policy.

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I don’t want to impute that they were going against him. I’m just saying, you’ve got a whole cohort of people who have been raised in their whole professional career with these assumptions about American power and how American power should work and the importance of America being everywhere all the time.

And I think the way you really change that is to have a president who understands we’re not going back. We need a foreign policy for this era that is based around building peace rather than making war, that is focused on foreign policy that benefits American communities and American workers, but also does not export insecurity and poverty onto others in the world. And I think this is a really opportune moment for it.

AL: One of the latest developments here was that J Street came out in support of phasing out U.S. military funding for defensive weapons for Israel. While I think there is a fair criticism to be made here that the distinction between offensive and defensive weapons is really one without a difference, the broader point is that this is something that J Street has never done before. This comes on the heels of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez making the same policy commitment earlier this month. I know you’ve been vocal about this, so please, what are your thoughts?

Matt Duss: I think ending military aid not just for offensive weapons, but for all weapons — taxpayer aid — is absolutely right. Now there’s a debate about will we still sell them weapons to commit these atrocities that we’re all witnessing every day, all the time? Some people are calling for a weapons embargo — a full embargo. I think that makes total sense. 

But I’ve also made the point, and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made this statement that, when it comes to sales, we need to enforce our own laws, which prohibit these sales as well. So that’s important to note too because I think it’s a very fair argument. If we’re not going to give them these weapons at taxpayer expense, why do we sell them to continue carrying out these same atrocities?

But I would also note that J Street’s shift is a reflection of a lot of really important work that’s been done by the progressive movement, by the Palestinian rights’ movement, by activists and advocates for a long time. 

Some people have pointed to the announcement or the reports that Benjamin Netanyahu also supports phasing out taxpayer aid to Israel. I think that’s right. The way I read that is that Netanyahu understands that we are in a moment right now. Netanyahu, for all his faults and he has many, does have a pretty savvy read on American politics. And he understands that negotiating a new [Memorandum of Understanding], which provides billions of dollars every year in U.S. taxpayer support for weapons for Israel, is going to be extremely politically contentious. 

This is not 2015 anymore. It’s even a real question whether this could pass. I think it really couldn’t, but at the very least he understands that a contentious process around aid to Israel would be bad in his view for Israel. He’s right. Zeroing out the aid makes some political sense from his point of view.

But I also think it’s worth noting, and this is a point I made as well, is that no country is going to turn down free money. What I’ve seen some indications of is that they’re going to try and reprogram and rebrand this taxpayer aid into “joint research projects,” which is a way of tucking this money away. It’s still going to support and subsidize the Israeli weapons industry and tech industry. It’s still going to be a way to funnel money to U.S. defense contractors for Israel’s benefit. But it’s going to be rebranded in this different way.

But ultimately the goal is the same to get taxpayer aid to Israel and keep it away from the political process. So I think that’s a really important thing to watch for right now.

AL: Going back to the world stage. I was struck by the fact that in the midst of this war in Iran, where JD Vance has been leading key negotiations, he also took a quick trip to Hungary last week to try to help save Viktor Orbán from losing his elections over the weekend. 

MD: Huge success. 

AL: [laughs] It did not work.

MD: Yeah. Oh, wait. No?

AL: No, it did not work.

MS: Oh, yeah. No, it did not.

AL: [laughs] For our listeners, Orbán lost after 16 years in power, leaving behind him a legacy of eroding democratic institutions and undermining press freedom in his country, a model championed by right-wing movements in Europe and the U.S.

The libertarian think tank Cato Institute said, “Orbán’s Hungary is a cautionary tale of what results from an unrestrained executive with strongly centralized power, crony capitalism, and the systematic dismantling of the rule of law.”

What is your understanding of what, if any, implications this loss has for not only the rise of right-wing authoritarianism around the world, but also for Trump, and the fact that his No. 2 was out there trying to push him over the finish line and it did not work?

Matt Duss: Yeah, no, I think it’s great news. We don’t get a lot of that these days, but it’s really great news that Orbán lost — not that he lost, but that he lost resoundingly. That his opponent, Péter Magyar won, didn’t just win, but has a strong enough presence in the legislature now that they’ll actually be able to make real change. So this is really important. 

So Orbán had been serving for his many terms, as a model of an illiberal democrat — as people have various terms — but someone who had been slowly and steadily and quite aggressively refashioning the institutions of government in Hungary to ensure as much as possible a permanent ruling majority by himself and his party and his interests and his populist right-wing authoritarian allies. Of course many around Trump see this as a very attractive model. Steve Bannon is someone who has been working on these issues for many years and promoting this is the way we do it. 

We see parties in other countries. We see, for example, the AFD in Germany, which is a very right-wing party — fortunately, does not have a majority or anything close to it — but they have been steadily increasing their support in the country. 

I think the fact that Orbán finally failed because of his corruption and his failure to deliver basic democratic things. But Hungarian voters just decided, OK, this guy really is too corrupt. Whether their concerns were about basic economic issues, jobs, corruption or ideology, protection of democracy, at the end of the day, they decided to give a strong majority to Orbán’s opponent.

Now, we shouldn’t imagine that Péter Magyar is some huge progressive. He is not. He was someone who was part of Orbán’s party until relatively recently. He’s just less conservative than Orbán. It does seem that he is more committed to real democracy.

AL: In waging this war on Iran, the U.S. has pit itself even more aggressively against a range of global actors, including Russia, China, and India. In the backdrop, Trump has used his second term to increasingly isolate the U.S., alienating even our allies by imposing tariffs and threatening to leave NATO, the trans-Atlantic military alliance between the U.S. and Europe. Where does all of that leave the U.S. and other major world powers geopolitically right now?

MD: What we’ve seen since Trump took office this time, we saw this a little bit in the first term, but in his second term, we’ve really seen an aggressiveness and a sharpening of the way that the United States is using its power. It’s using the dependence of allies and the rest of the world on the United States as a weapon to pressure them, to get them to do things we want.

I forget where this is from, I should probably know this. The idea of diplomacy is getting other countries to see your interests as their interests. Trump dispensed with that. He’s basically like, if you don’t do what I want, I’m going to tariff you. If you don’t do what I want, I’m going to, I don’t know, maybe I’ll invade you. You just have to wait to find out.

The United States has so many tools by virtue of our multiple partnerships, by virtue of the fact that we play such a major role in the global economic and financial plumbing, so to speak. We can use so many levers and tools to create economic pain for other countries to coerce them.

Now, it shouldn’t be surprising that countries don’t like that. Listen, it’s fine for the United States to state its interest to say, listen, we want to do this, and if other countries want to do a different thing, OK, let’s talk about it and see what we can work out. But Trump has simply decided that the United States is powerful, and as a powerful country, we get to do what we want and force others to do what we want as well.

That’s just how he understands foreign policy and global politics. We see this reflected a bit in his approach to Russia, to China and also to Israel. I don’t think he sees the world as divided up amongst great powers, per se. I think Trump really does have a belief in American dominance.

It is a different form of American dominance that was shared by previous administrations — America as the unipolar power, upholding the rules-based order by virtue of its great might and strength. Donald Trump doesn’t believe in a rules-based order. He doesn’t really believe in rules. He believes that the United States is strong and it gets to do what it wants. And other countries that are strong get to do what they want.

He sees the world in terms of a mafia arrangement, in which the United States is the most powerful mob family, and gets to determine the order of how people behave.

But other powerful mafia families get to do what they want too, whether it’s Putin in Russia, whether it’s China, or in the Middle East. Still the United States remains dominant. But Israel is treated as the U.S. enforcer in the Middle East by virtue of Israel’s military and economic power.

AL: Do you think that Trump’s approach to foreign policy has opened the door for another country to step in as a more reliable partner in some of these relationships, like maybe a China or Russia?

MD: I don’t think any country is able or interested in stepping in to take over. This is one of the concerns I had with some of the Biden administration’s approach. Their approach to the Middle East in many ways seemed like it was designed to box out China from coming in and establishing any kind of influence in the region. My response to that was like, why would China, watching the United States for two and a half decades constantly tripping over itself and bleeding resources and attention and wasting all this energy, why would China want a piece of that? It never made sense to me. I think that’s still true.

China clearly wants influence. It expects to play, and I think it has a right to play a major role in shaping global affairs. There are people who disagree with this. Their view is ultimately, China does want to replace the United States as the global hegemon, but at least in the short term, I don’t see anyone doing that.

But what we do already see is other countries, including longtime allies of the United States, as hedging against the United States. They now see the United States as a predator. They are building and strengthening relationships with as many other countries, including China, as they can because they understand, listen, we need options. We have invested and believed for so long that, whatever disagreements we might have with the United States, ultimately we share some basic principles about how the world should be ordered.

But now it’s clear, and frankly, I think it took them way too long to realize this. But now it’s clear that that’s all wrong. So we need to find ways to protect ourselves. We need to create options for ourselves, alternatives to the United States.

AL: I think this is a really interesting distinction because it puts the previous order where there’s a hegemon at the top and everyone else falls into line on its head and raises the question of — I don’t think it’s a new critique to say, why do we keep asking like whether China or Russia’s going to step into this whatever, to this role that the U.S.  played? And that the global stage and the relationships in foreign policy are just changing as the world advances and as society changes. I think that’s interesting. I will say that Trump is currently scheduled to visit Beijing in May to meet with President Xi Jinping.

MD: This summit has already been delayed once. It may very well be delayed again because of this war. The Chinese government has just recently issued some of its strongest statements yet about this war in response to Trump’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Trump responded to Iran’s blocking the strait by blocking the strait, I don’t know what that’s all about.

It’s interesting because China is the more reasonable actor here. China right now is the government that is standing up for the rules-based order, standing up for international law. When you look at what Israel and the United States are doing here, they have an argument. And that argument has a lot of appeal to countries around the world. So we’ll see. 

I think many have been surprised, especially, looking at the first Trump administration, which really focused Washington’s attention on China as the competitor for the United States. Some have been surprised, including me at how relatively little he’s focused on China in this second term. But clearly they have been building to this, but the fact that they’ve had to delay this summit once already goes back to the point that Trump just miscalculated with this war.

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I’m sure he imagined he would’ve wrapped this up already and forced Iran to put up a new government that loved the United States and loved Donald Trump, and he could just move on to dealing with China. But now he’s bogged down in precisely the sort of war that he promised he would never get into.

AL: And because you mentioned it. China’s President Xi Jinping on Tuesday made the first public statement about this war. As you said, Matt, China is the rational actor or the more reasonable actor in this, demonstrated by this quote, “Maintaining the authority of international rule of law means not using it when it suits us and abandoning it when it doesn’t.” That was Xi Jinping. 

Before we go, I also just want to add that because of the war and the significant ripple effects it’s having, not just here in the U.S.  but around the world, other issues that are just as important have received less attention in this current news cycle. Like the fact that the Trump administration is continuing to kill civilians in the Pacific and the Caribbean striking what he claims are alleged drug smugglers. These extrajudicial killings now exceed 170. And on Monday Trump threatened to use the “same system of kill that we use against the drug dealers on boats at sea” against ships that approached its blockade in the Strait of Hormuz.” 

MD: It’s just staggering. It’s just straight murder. That is what we’re doing. 

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They have never provided any evidence — either in a public or a classified setting — that these people were even carrying drugs, let alone that they posed a clear and present danger to the security of the United States. They have not bothered with any of these steps. Anytime they have tried, they have met in a classified setting with members of Congress, those members have almost always come out and said, they didn’t give us anything. 

In the same way that this Iran war is the most egregious and horrible expression of trends in our foreign policy that have been building for a long time, so are these boat strikes. We’ve been killing people with flying robots in the Middle East and Africa and elsewhere for decades now. Now one can argue, OK, those assassinations were done with more of a legal process. I’m not convinced or comforted by that at all. I’m sorry. 

So really what this goes to in my mind is that we still need a very serious reckoning with the global war on terror. We need to bring it to an end. We need to dismantle our security state. 

This is a huge political project. And going back to what I said about this being a moment for a real anti-war movement and anti-war president, I want a president who’s going to commit to doing that. It’s not just because it would be nice to have. This is a core thing for our security and our prosperity and for global security. We need to pull ourselves back from this. 

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We need to hold American officials accountable. Not just for the Trump administration, but for multiple administrations who had a hand in these kinds of policies. If we really want to prepare a U.S. foreign policy that’s fit for this new era.

AL: That’s a good place to leave it. Matt, thank you so much for joining me on the Intercept Briefing.

MD: Glad to do it. Thank you for everything you do at The Intercept. I love it.

AL: And 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. Chelsey B. Coombs is our social and video producer. Fei Liu is our product and design manager. Nara Shin is our copy editor. Will 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. 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 Akela Lacy.

The post When Anti-War Candidates Become War-Monger Presidents appeared first on The Intercept.

Release of new Claude model, so far limited to US firms, will expand to British institutions in coming days

British banks will be given access in the next week to a powerful AI tool that was deemed too dangerous to be released to the public, as a series of senior finance figures warned over its impact.

Anthropic, which has so far limited the release of the new model to a small clutch of primarily US businesses, including Amazon, Apple and Microsoft, said it would expand that to UK financial institutions.

Five days after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fatally shot activist Renee Good, tensions were running high in the Minneapolis neighborhood where she was killed. 

As federal immigration agents surrounded and questioned a man whose car they had stopped, people emerged from their homes onto the snow-lined sidewalks and street. They shouted obscenities, told the agents to leave and filmed what was happening on their phones.

A crew from FRONTLINE and ProPublica was filming, too.

The man being questioned, a U.S. citizen named Christian Molina, told ProPublica reporter A.C. Thompson that federal agents had followed him and rammed his car: “They looked at me and they decided to pull me over for no reason,” Molina said.

What happened next can be seen in footage from FRONTLINE and ProPublica’s new documentary “Caught in the Crackdown.” 

Someone threw a snowball in the direction of the agents — and one of them responded by tossing a tear gas canister into the crowd. 

“You’re tear-gassing a fucking neighborhood,” a protester yelled. “People live here.”

As the toxic haze rose, an agent pepper-sprayed protesters and a news photographer at close range. Another agent fired pepper balls into the crowd, hitting Thompson three times. One shot struck him above the right eye. Federal use of force guidelines generally instruct agents not to target people’s heads and faces with these weapons.

Then, as the agents drove away, one of them shot pepper spray from a car window, hitting others on the film team, including FRONTLINE’s director Gabrielle Schonder and director of photography Tim Grucza, who was sprayed in the face. 

The Jan. 12 confrontation is one of many chaotic clashes documented in “Caught in the Crackdown.” Premiering April 14, the joint investigation examines how federal agents handled protesters and bystanders during the Trump administration’s immigration sweeps in major cities across the U.S., from Los Angeles to Chicago to Minneapolis — including by using tactics that experts say violated officers’ own rules. 

As the documentary explores, President Donald Trump’s administration said its immigration crackdown was protecting U.S. citizens by targeting criminals and people who had entered the country illegally. Through on-the-ground reporting and interviews with officials, experts, insiders and eyewitnesses, “Caught in the Crackdown” traces how federal forces arrested hundreds of U.S. citizens who were protesting or observing the raids, routinely portrayed those citizens as domestic terrorists or extremists, and repeatedly deployed weaponry like tear gas and pepper balls.

The man heading the enforcement operations was unapologetic about his agents’ approach.

“We’re here to conduct that Title 8 mission,” Greg Bovino, then-commander-at-large for Border Patrol, told a local TV station, referring to immigration enforcement. “It won’t stop despite rioters, agitators, and vast amounts of violence against federal officers. We’re not going to stop.”  

But when Thompson shared the footage from Jan. 12 with former law enforcement officials, they expressed concern. 

“We see, just, use of excessive force after use of excess force,” said Christy Lopez, who spent years investigating law enforcement misconduct for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “In no scenario is it OK to be pepper-spraying people as you’re leaving the scene.”

“It’s pretty awful,” said Chris Magnus, a former head of Customs and Border Protection who once oversaw Bovino. Magnus, who served as a police chief in multiple cities, pointed to the principle of proportionality when using force in law enforcement: “People may well get under your skin under a lot of circumstances,” he said. “You don’t like it, but professionals don’t react to it.”

As the documentary reports, ProPublica and FRONTLINE found that legal cases against many protesters have been falling apart, as the accusations against them have been contradicted by video evidence and witness testimony. 

Bovino was ultimately moved out of his role after federal agents shot and killed a second protester in Minneapolis — Alex Pretti. The Trump administration said it “recognized that certain improvements could and should be made” to its immigration enforcement operations. Bovino has since retired, but many of the questions raised on the streets of Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis under his watch remain unresolved. 

“Even if Gregory Bovino is gone, I wonder if his imprint will last through all the federal agencies that are continuing to go out on the street,” journalist Sergio Olmos, who reported on Bovino for the nonprofit news outlets CalMatters and Evident Media, says in the documentary. “I wonder if anything will change, really. He was the one who was the tip of the spear for this new type of immigration enforcement across the country.”

The post A Protester Threw a Snowball. Federal Agents Responded With Tear Gas and Pepper Balls. appeared first on ProPublica.

Big retailers are embracing agentic commerce as a new way to shop. But you should think twice before handing over your credit card, tech experts say.

Art lover Ari Hodara bought two raffle tickets on a whim for about $118 each. The raffle raised money for Alzheimer’s research.

The symbiosis between the president and European nationalists has reached a potential breaking point as he issues genocidal rhetoric and criticizes the pope.

Chair’s decision to not seek re-election ‘not as a result of any disagreement’, company says in filing

Reed Hastings, the Netflix chair, is leaving the streaming service he co-founded almost 30 years ago as the company regains its footing after losing out on a $72bn (£53bn) deal for Warner Bros Discovery.

In a 14-page letter to investors released on Thursday, Netflix said Hastings would not stand for re-election at its annual meeting in June and planned to focus on philanthropy and other pursuits.

In the first ever Q4Bio Challenge, research teams sought to demonstrate scalable quantum algorithms for healthcare, with Algorithmiq’s work alongside Cleveland Clinic and IBM earning $2 million Q4Bio prize.

YORKTOWN HEIGHTS, N.Y., April 17, 2026 — Quantum computing is at an inflection point. In recent years, quantum computers have shown the ability to run quantum programs at a scale beyond exact classical simulation. They’re becoming useful tools for solving real-world problems, with provable quantum advantage close on the horizon. Community-led initiatives that provide funding and prizes for high-quality research can offer an early look at how quantum computing will impact fields like healthcare and the life sciences.

Credit: majestic b/Shutterstock

That’s one reason the non-profit Wellcome Leap established the Quantum for Bio (Q4Bio) Supported Challenge Program. Q4Bio aims to identify, develop, and demonstrate quantum algorithms for human health applications that have the potential to run on near-term quantum computers expected to arrive in the next three to five years. The program launched in 2023 with twelve research teams from around the world receiving access to a combined $40 million in funding. By March 2026, that group had narrowed to six Phase III finalists. Now, the winners have been announced.

Wellcome Leap funds high-risk, high-reward global health research, with the aim of facilitating medical breakthroughs on time scales of 5-10 years rather than over the course of decades. That ambition is evident in the Q4Bio challenge requirements: To be eligible for a $2 million Phase III award, participating teams needed to demonstrate algorithms using more than 50 qubits and circuit depths on the order 1,000 to 10,000 gates—while also showing a clear path to scaling. More details here.

In practice, meeting those requirements meant working directly with today’s most capable quantum hardware. That’s why five of the six Phase III finalist teams used IBM quantum computers to generate their results, underscoring the role of “utility-scale” quantum computers with 100+ qubits in tackling demanding problems at the intersection of quantum information science and real-world use cases.

Below, IBM highlights the work carried out by Q4Bio’s Phase III finalists on IBM quantum hardware. Their projects offer an exciting glimpse at how quantum computing is beginning to support meaningful research in healthcare and the life sciences.

Biology at Scale on IBM Quantum Computers

The results from these multidisciplinary, multi‑organizational teams span drug discovery, genomics, biomarkers, and fundamental biochemistry. In each area, researchers found a healthcare problem they could execute at significant scale on quantum computers today, with real potential to scale even further in the future.

Agorithmiq, Cleveland Clinic, and IBM

The winning project—led by quantum startup Algorithmiq in collaboration with Cleveland Clinic and IBM—used quantum computing to simulate key processes in photodynamic therapy (PDT), a cancer treatment based on light-activated drugs.

Algorithmiq developed an end-to-end hybrid quantum–classical framework in which novel methods for active space selection, state preparation, measurement, and post-processing enabled large-scale molecular electronic structure simulations on IBM’s quantum hardware. By executing circuits for ground- and excited-state experiments on up to 100 qubits, the teams demonstrated a scalable path toward quantum advantage in drug discovery and development.

Sabrina Maniscalco, CEO and co-founder of Algorithmiq, said the results highlight how Algorithmiq’s approach to tightly integrated quantum-classical algorithms could play a key role in unlocking real-world quantum advantage.

“This work provides one of the clearest indications to date that quantum computing can begin to impact real, chemically relevant problems, rather than simplified benchmarks,” she said. “IBM’s quantum systems enabled execution of circuits at scales approaching 100 qubits and supported the continuous, end-to-end validation loop required to identify real bottlenecks and ensure robustness of the approach.”

Dr. Vijay Krishna, associate staff in biomedical engineering at Cleveland Clinic, added that “Q4Bio showed that when teams with complementary expertise work toward a common goal, they can make meaningful progress on problems that no single discipline can solve alone.”

The Quantum Pangenomics Project

Meanwhile, the University of Oxford and Sanger Institute’s Quantum Pangenomics project focused on converting genome problems to quadratic unconstrained binary optimization (QUBO) formulations. Recent research has highlighted the potential of quantum optimization methods based on QUBO to help solve challenging real-world problems and deliver near-term quantum advantage.

As part of their efforts, the team used an IBM Quantum Heron r2 to encode the Hepatitis-D genome. In their workflow, classical systems handle problem formulation, iteration, and analysis, and quantum hardware is invoked for the most computationally challenging subproblems.

“Encoding a whole genome onto a quantum computer is a world first and represents at least one order of magnitude improvement over any other efforts to represent DNA on quantum machines,” said James McCafferty, Chief Information Officer at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. “And full credit goes to IBM in helping us achieve this.”

“This is not a toy demonstration, it involves biologically significant sequences, represented on quantum hardware using data partitioning techniques and tailored depth-reduction we developed specifically for genomic data,” said Sergii Strelchuk, associate professor of Computer Science at Oxford University. “The fact that the encoded information can be retrieved through our index-reported verification method sends a clear signal: quantum data encoding for genomics is no longer aspirational, it is ready to scale.”

Infleqtion

Infleqtion, a Chicago-based quantum startup, used an IBM Quantum Heron r2 as part of the project they led with the University of Chicago and MIT on quantum-enhanced biomarker discovery from multimodal cancer data, using hybrid quantum-classical optimization algorithms. Their work involved GPUs and QPUs working together, an exciting emerging avenue for hybrid workflows.

Fred Chong, Professor at University of Chicago and Chief Scientist for Quantum Software at Infleqtion, says Heron QPUs were the only available hardware that could meet the Wellcome Leap criteria of demonstrating quantum algorithms with greater than 50 quantum bits and a program length of greater than 1,000 quantum gates. Access to that hardware allowed his team to demonstrate a convincing proof-of-concept that a hybrid quantum-classical approach could improve a purely classical approach to identifying biomarkers.

“Our work has already identified novel cancer biomarkers for clinical evaluation, and future quantum machines will allow us to discover even more promising biomarkers that we hope will improve treatment outcomes,” Chong said.

Stanford, Michigan State University, and Other Collaborators

A team comprising researchers from many scientific institutions used VQE and an IBM Quantum Heron r2 processor to study ATP and GTP hydrolysis in proteins. These are fundamental biochemical reactions that power most cellular processes.

By demonstrating quantum algorithms for modeling metaphosphate hydrolysis and rigorously analyzing their resource costs, the team showed how near‑term quantum computers could act as accelerators in computational workflows for biology. They also explored potential workflows for fault-tolerant quantum computers.

“Although classical methods for biochemistry have a decades long headstart, quantum methods are really starting to become competitive,” said Ryan LaRose, a researcher on the team and professor at Michigan State University. “For our project, IBM hardware provided the number of qubits, gate fidelity, and sampling rate needed to make our experiments viable.”

University of Nottingham, Phasecraft, and QuEra

Another finalist team, led by Jonathan D. Hirst at the University of Nottingham, explored quantum-enhanced strategies for covalent inhibitor design in collaboration with Phasecraft and QuEra. Covalent inhibitors are a cornerstone of modern therapeutics—particularly in oncology and antiviral treatments—owing to their ability to form strong, durable bonds with target proteins.

The team applied quantum algorithms to generate high-fidelity molecular data, which they then used to augment classical Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations—computer simulations estimating molecular behavior by modeling electron density. This enabled more accurate simulations of covalent binding processes.

The researchers deployed this hybrid quantum–classical workflow within a drug discovery program focused on the disorder Myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1), highlighting the potential of quantum-enhanced methods to tackle complex, currently untreatable diseases.

As part of their study, the team utilized IBM Quantum hardware, including an IBM Quantum Nighthawk processor with 120 qubits—part of a broader effort to evaluate the capabilities of near-term quantum systems for chemically relevant modeling.

Quantum-Centric Supercomputing for Biology and Human Health

Viewed as a whole, these results underscore just how quickly quantum computing is maturing as a tool for biological research. According to Ashley Montanaro, Co-founder of Phasecraft and Professor of Quantum Computation at University of Bristol, the rapid advancement of IBM quantum hardware and software played a crucial role in enabling the rapid experimental cycles required for their work.

“When the Wellcome Leap Q4Bio challenge began three years ago, it was far from obvious that any of this would work. The fact that we now have encouraging results on a real drug discovery target is a significant milestone,” he said. “The pace of progress in quantum hardware and software throughout this project has been notable as we continuously incorporated new capabilities and explored cutting-edge advancements month by month.”

The impressive results from Q4Bio’s Phase III finalists reflect progress toward IBM’s vision of quantum‑centric supercomputing (QCSC). Hybrid quantum–classical workflows integrate HPC, GPUs, and QPUs. Access to utility‑scale quantum processors and cloud‑based platforms enable global teams to collaborate, iterate quickly, and move toward scalable, end‑to‑end biological workflows.

Together, these results point to a broader transition: quantum computing in biology as elsewhere is shifting from a speculative experiment to a phase of measurable, application‑driven progress, with growing potential to become part of the life‑sciences computational stack.

“It’s encouraging to see so many research teams implementing QCSC workflows, where classical and quantum resources work together to achieve what neither can alone,” said Jay Gambetta, director of IBM Research.

More from HPCwire: Wellcome Leap Announces $2M Prize in $50M Quantum for Bio Challenge Program

About IBM

IBM is a leading provider of global hybrid cloud and AI, and consulting expertise. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Thousands of governments and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to effect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and consulting deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s long-standing commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service.

Source: IBM

The post IBM Details Q4Bio Outcomes as Teams Demonstrate 50+ Qubit Algorithms for Life Sciences appeared first on HPCwire.

Iran, Pope, Economy: How many battles can Trump fight at once? Independent Thinking podcast Audio sseth.drupal@c… 17 April 2026

From Hormuz to Hungary and the Vatican to the Federal Reserve, it has been an unusually contentious week for the White House, even by the standards of President Trump’s second administration.

This week’s podcast comes from the US, where our analysts assess the political and economic state of the US as it begins gearing up for the midterm elections.

From New York, Chatham House Director Bronwen Maddox and Director of the US and North America Programme, Laurel Rapp, are joined by David Lubin, Senior Research Fellow in the Global Economy and Finance Programme, who is in Washington for the International Monetary Fund and World Bank’s annual Spring Meetings to discuss the global economy and financial markets.

The panel discuss the Iran ceasefire, nuclear negotiations, the Strait of Hormuz blockade, the health of the global economy, a setback for one Trump ally in Budapest and domestic criticism for President Trump over tensions between the White House and Pope Leo.

For further reading, see David Lubin’s commentary ‘Dollar dominance is surviving the Iran war - just about’.  
 

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.

Accumulations of up to 3cm deep reported as severe thunderstorms also bring heavy downpours to central Italy

Severe thunderstorms have affected the Mediterranean this week. On Monday, a surface low-pressure system in the Mediterranean in conjunction with an upper air cut-off low, led to thunderstorms over north Africa. Their intensity was aided by the hot precursor conditions.

Algeria and Tunisia were notably affected by the thunderstorms, with some hail accumulation layers as a result. When so much hail forms, it starts to lay down sheets of hail, covering the ground like snow. Hail accumulations of up to 3cm were reported in Oum Ladjoul and Hammam Sokhna in Algeria, and there were hailstones of up to 3cm in diameter in Makthar, Tunisia. Thunderstorms continued in the region through the following day, with further hail accumulations, notably in Ouled Bousmir, Tunisia, where there was a layer about 2cm deep.

The prime minister has weathered the crises – for now – and there is a growing recognition that Australia is too vulnerable to world events

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Anthony Albanese’s fuel diplomacy tour of Asia has already started paying dividends, but the real test could still be to come.

After last week’s rush to Singapore and pulling forward a planned visit, the prime minister dashed back to Australia from Malaysia on Thursday, to survey the damage at one of the nation’s only remaining fuel refineries. The hastily arranged trips, were to show a leader on the job; to demonstrate Albanese’s attention to the fuel crisis.

The leaders of Lebanon and Israel agreed to start a 10-day truce at 5 p.m. Eastern Time Thursday.

PC, Xbox; Sad Cat Studios
This pulpy sci-fi thriller is a beautiful, if deferential, homage to the genre greats, with a poignant real-world echo

For all of cyberpunk’s cautionary tales of shady corporations and transhumanist folly, it is the genre’s arresting imagery that looms largest in the pop culture imagination. Petroleum flares light up the perpetually rainy Los Angeles of Blade Runner; in the novel Neuromancer, the sky is the “colour of television, tuned to a dead channel”.

Replaced, a new 2D action-platformer from Belarus-based outfit Sad Cat Studios, leans into the steel and sprawl that the genre is famed for. The game also offers a wrinkle to cyberpunk’s longstanding, somewhat overfamiliar visual palette: it floods the screen with softly diffusing sepia and warm primary colours, particularly in the densely populated residential areas you’re able to explore. The mood is comforting rather than ominous, cosy rather than clinical, as if this dystopian sci-fi has been touched by an unlikely hand – that of cottagecore godfather Thomas Kinkade.

Replaced is out now; £16.99/$19.99

PARIS, April 17, 2026 — Alice & Bob, a leader in fault-tolerant quantum computing, has hired more than 100 employees in seven months – taking its headcount to 251 and completing its hiring plan 30% faster than scheduled. Announced in September 2025 with a June 2026 target, the hiring plan was completed ahead of schedule. The recruitment drive supports R&D and commercial growth reflecting the company’s next phase of scaling.

The milestone comes as France’s broader labour market slows, with hiring levels 30% below pre-pandemic benchmarks (LinkedIn Labour Market Report, January 2026), and amid continued layoffs across the global tech sector, highlighting the quantum sector as a rare source of new job creation.

New Roles Emerging in Quantum

While global hiring remains subdued in advanced economies (down 20%-35% pre-pandemic levels (LinkedIn Labour Market Report, January 2026)), the quantum sector is creating new roles.

At Alice & Bob, the majority of new hires are in highly specialized technical roles that have only recently emerged spanning both physics and engineering. These include quantum algorithm researchers, quantum software engineers, quantum compilation scientists, quantum machine learning specialists, quantum error correction specialists, quantum experimentalists, firmware engineers, cryo-hardware engineers, superconducting material engineers, quantum nanofabrication engineers, parametric amplification experts and quantum application experimentalists.

Many of these hires come from academia or adjacent industries such as semiconductors and advanced electronics, reflecting how quantum is reshaping career pathways for scientific and engineering talent, including technicians.

Approximately one-third of Alice & Bob employees hold a PhD (79) and combine expertise from leading academic institutions and industry including quantum physics, semiconductors, cryogenics and high-performance computing. More information about Engineering roles at Alice & Bob can be found here.

Competing Globally for Talent

Alice & Bob recruits globally, bringing together a team representing 31 nationalities, with particularly strong representation from France, Italy, and Germany. The company draws talent from leading institutions including École Normale Supérieure, École Polytechnique, ETH Zurich, Swiss Federal Technology Institute of Lausanne, University of Oxford, Yale University, and Politecnico di Milano.

English is the company’s working language, reducing friction for international hires and supporting global recruitment. Paris is increasingly seen as an attractive alternative to the US, particularly as uncertainty grows around research funding and tech hiring.

Beyond location, candidates are drawn by the opportunity to work on a distinctive approach to fault-tolerant quantum computing and to contribute to one of the most ambitious challenges in modern science.

“While much of the tech sector is slowing, we’re hiring for roles that didn’t exist a few years ago. That’s changing where we find talent and how people move into quantum from adjacent industries.” said Valentine Zatti, VP People and Culture at Alice & Bob.

Looking Ahead

Alice & Bob expects hiring to continue at pace as it executes against its roadmap to create the first universal, fault-tolerant quantum computer, Graphene. Graphene will feature 100 high-fidelity logical qubits, capable of demonstrating quantum advantage in early industrial use cases.

About Alice & Bob

Alice & Bob is a quantum computing company based in Paris and Boston whose goal is to create the first universal, fault-tolerant quantum computer. Founded in 2020, Alice & Bob has raised €130 million in funding and employs more than 200 people. Advised by Nobel Prize winning researchers, Alice & Bob specializes in cat qubits, a technology developed by the company’s founders. Demonstrating the power of its cat architecture, Alice & Bob recently showed that it could reduce the hardware requirements for building a useful large-scale quantum computer up to 200 times compared with competing approaches.

Source: Alice & Bob

The post Alice & Bob Surpasses Hiring Targets Ahead of Schedule as Quantum Workforce Grows appeared first on HPCwire.

Intel has launched a new budget-focused Core Series 3 processor line for lower-cost laptops -- "Intel's response to budget CPUs that are appearing in laptops like the Apple MacBook Neo," writes PCWorld's Mark Hachman. From the report: Intel unexpectedly launched the Core Series 3, based on its excellent "Panther Lake" (Core Ultra Series 3) architecture and 18A manufacturing, for devices for home consumers and small business on Thursday. Intel announced that a number of partners will launch laptops based upon the chip, including Acer, Asus, HP, Lenovo, and others. Although those laptops will be available beginning today, a number of them will begin shipping later this year, the partners said. All of it -- from the specifications down to the messaging -- feels extremely aimed at trimming the fat and delivering to users just what they'll want. Intel's new Core Series 3 family just includes two "Cougar Cove" performance cores and four low-power efficiency "Darkmont" cores, with two Xe graphics cores on top of it. Intel isn't really worrying about AI, with an NPU capable of just 17 TOPS, though the company claims the CPU, NPU, and GPU combined reach 40 TOPS of performance. Yes, laptops will use pricey DDR5 memory, but at the lower end: just DDR5-6400 speeds. Support for three external displays will be included, though, maximizing multiple screens for maximum productivity. Intel used the term "all day battery life" without elaboration. [...] Intel Core Series 3 delivers up to 47 percent better single-thread performance, up to 41 percent better multi thread performance, and up to 2.8x better GPU AI performance, Intel said. Compared against Intel's older Core 7 150U, Intel is saying that the new chip will outperform it by 2.1 times in content-creation and 2.7 times the AI performance. [...] We still don't know what Intel will charge for the chip, nor do we know what you'll be able to buy a Core Series 3 laptop for.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A sea lion turned heads in San Francisco's Outer Sunset after wandering out of the ocean and onto a neighborhood street.

Legally questionable confidentiality clause adopted almost word for word from demands of Microsoft and trade groups

Microsoft and other US tech companies successfully lobbied the EU to hide the environmental toll of their datacentres, an investigation has found, with demands to block a database of green metrics from public view written almost word for word into EU rules.

The secrecy provision, which the European Commission added to its proposal almost verbatim after industry lobbying in 2024, hinders scrutiny of the pollution that individual datacentres emit. It leaves researchers with just national-level summaries of their energy footprints.

Liza Tobay was told settled status had been ‘red flagged’ when she tried to fly home from Germany to Scotland

A German woman has been separated from her two-year-old daughter in Edinburgh after a Home Office mistake left her stranded in Dusseldorf earlier this week.

Liza Tobay, who has lived in the UK for 15 years, had taken her oldest child, a six-year-old boy, to visit his grandfather and some other relatives over Easter when confronted with what she said appeared to be “a serious administrative error”.

Singer and songwriter d4vd has been arrested on suspicion of murder for the death of a 14-year-old whose dismembered body was found last year in a Tesla belonging to the singer.

Technology secretary plays down fears over jobs and cyber security as stake taken in British startup

The UK technology secretary has urged the country to “make AI work for Britain”, brushing off fears about its impact on jobs and cybersecurity as the government announced its first investment under a £500m sovereign AI fund.

Liz Kendall said the UK had to “seize” the opportunity offered by AI despite concerns underlined this month when US startup Anthropic revealed it had developed an AI model that posed a potentially significant cyber threat.

Asked how the government makes the case for embracing a technology that could disrupt jobs and now cybersecurity, Kendall said: “We have to seize this to make it work, for Britain, for our jobs, for solving the biggest challenges we face as a world.”

Speaking on Thursday as the government unveiled its first investment in a UK company as part of a £500m sovereign AI fund, Kendall acknowledged “people are worried about the risks and what it means for their jobs”, but AI entrepreneurs also believed they can “make it work … they can create jobs”.

A proposed law would give City of Newark officials the ability to more strictly regulate the opening of new tobacco/vape shops in the city.

Two seven-story apartment buildings are rising on the University of Delaware’s STAR Campus.

Musician, born David Anthony Burke, arrested in Los Angeles over the death of Celeste Rivas Hernandez, who went missing in 2024

R&B singer D4vd has been arrested in connection with the killing of a teenage girl whose severely decomposed body was found in his Tesla, Los Angeles police said on Thursday.

The 21-year-old musician, who was born David Anthony Burke, is being held without bail, according to city authorities.

Elderly people take advantage of courses on how to navigate mobile devices and avoid ‘analogue isolation’

It’s not only young people whose gaze is fixed on tiny screens. But for these users in Tokyo, clicking and scrolling is anything but second nature.

“I can’t deal with all of the apps that jump out at me,” says one. “How do I know if I’ve definitely ended a call?” asks another.

A grand bargain is out of reach, but a comprehensive deal is possible.

Washington, not Beijing, is the bigger threat.

At a meeting with Xi next month, Trump will be on the back foot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: We may appear to have little in common with sperm whales – enormous, ocean-dwelling animals that last shared a common ancestor with humans more than 90 million years ago. But the whales' vocalized communications are remarkably similar to our own, researchers have discovered. Not only do sperm whale have a form of "alphabet" and form vowels within their vocalizations but the structure of these vowels behaves in the same way as human speech, the new study has found. Sperm whales communicate in a series of short clicks called codas. Analysis of these clicks shows that the whales can differentiate vowels through the short or elongated clicks or through rising or falling tones, using patterns similar to languages such as Mandarin, Latin and Slovenian. The structure of the whales' communication has "close parallels in the phonetics and phonology of human languages, suggesting independent evolution," the paper, published in the Proceedings B journal, states. Sperm whale coda vocalizations are "highly complex and represent one of the closest parallels to human phonology of any analyzed animal communication system," it added. [...] The new study shows that "sperm whale communication isn't just about patterns of clicks -- it involves multiple interacting layers of structure," said Mauricio Cantor, a behavioral ecologist at the Marine Mammal Institute who was not involved in the research. "With this study, we're starting to see that these signals are organized in ways we didn't fully appreciate before." The latest discovery around sperm whale speech has inched forward the possibility of someday fully understanding the creatures and even communicating with them. Project CETI has set a goal of being able to comprehend 20 different vocalized expressions, relating to actions such as diving and sleeping, within the next five years. A future where we're able to fully understand what the whales are saying and be able to have a conversation with them is "totally within our grasp," said David Gruber, founder and president of Project CETI. "We've already got a lot further than I thought we could. But it will take time, and funding. At the moment we are like a two-year-old, just saying a few words. In a few years' time, maybe we will be more like a five-year-old."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

CBS News projects that Democrat Analilia Mejia will win the special election in New Jersey's 11th Congressional District, a seat formerly held by Gov. Mikie Sherrill.

This blog is now closed. Our live coverage continues here

Iran has stopped all petrochemical exports to prioritise domestic supply and prevent shortages of raw materials, Reuters reported.

The state-owned National Petrochemical Company ordered firms to suspend exports until further notice.

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for April 17

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for April 17 No. 571.

The new feature allows you to include the AI tools of your choice.

Lyons, who led agency since March 2025, to resign after turbulent year carrying out Trump’s immigration agenda

Todd Lyons, the acting director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), is stepping down after a turbulent year carrying out Donald Trump’s immigration agenda.

Lyons, who has been leading the agency since March 2025, will resign at the end of May and move to the private sector, Markwayne ​Mullin, the Department of Homeland Security secretary, said in a statement on Thursday.

Victory means Democrats hold on to the 11th district seat in the House, where Republicans hold a thin majority

Democrat Analilia Mejia won a New Jersey special election for the US House on Thursday, defeating Republican Joe Hathaway on a message of standing up to Donald Trump.

Mejia, a former head of the Working Families Alliance who had support from Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator, will fill the seat previously held by Mikie Sherrill, the state’s Democratic governor, and serve until January.

April 16, 2026 — The launch of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in 2021 pushed the horizon of seeing the early universe, unveiling cosmic events just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. Among the most striking discoveries are supermassive black holes—some reaching 100 million times the mass of our Sun.

Little Red Dots are extremely compact objects recently observed by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Using supercomputers and LRD data from JWST, a team of astronomers compared and found good agreement with observed data to models that employed a ‘heavy seed’ vs. a ‘light seed’ hypothesis of black hole formation in the early universe. Credit: NASA.

“Finding black holes in the early universe is such a surprise because it goes against the standard model of how the universe is building structure from small pieces, or ‘light seeds,’ to big pieces or ‘heavy seed’,” said Volker Bromm, a professor of astronomy in the College of Natural Sciences and co-director of the Cosmic Frontier Center at The University of Texas at Austin.

Bromm co-authored a study on curious astronomical objects discovered by the JWST called Little Red Dots (LRD), published in the Astrophysical Journal in February 2026.

LRD are extremely compact, emitting highly-redshifted light with unusual spectral characteristics that defy easy explanation. Bromm and colleagues compared and found good agreement with JWST LRD data to models that employed a ‘heavy seed’ hypothesis of black hole formation.

Black Hole ‘Heavy Seeds’

Astronomers call the heavy seeds Direct Collapse Black Holes (DCBH), hypothesized to form from the speedy collapse of huge primordial clouds of hydrogen and helium gas. This line of thought contrasts the ‘light seed’ hypothesis of black hole formation, a slower process where a massive star burns out all its nuclear fuel and collapses into a remnant black hole, with a mass a few 10s to 100 times that of the Sun.

Where the Little Red Dots come in is on the tail end of DCBH formation. “Little Red Dots are now thought to be powered by supermassive black holes surrounded by a massive cocoon, a gas cloud of high-density material,” Bromm said.

Supercomputing Behind the Breakthrough

Bromm secured allocations on the Lonestar6 and Stampede3 supercomputers at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) through the University of Texas Research Cyberinfrastructure program, opening the door for researchers across UT System to harness world-class advanced computing power.

Little Red Dot population demographics: mass function at z = 4–5.5 (top) and (massive) black bole number density (bottom). The heavy-seed models largely agree with the Little Red Dot observations, but the (super-)Eddington light-seed model overproduces the observed black hole mass function. Credit: DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ae3725

Volker used the supercomputers to develop the models that started with initial conditions of what the universe was like about half a million years after the Big Bang, gleaned from prior data on the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation.

“Lonestar6 and Stampede3 were absolutely key to this modeling and achieving this level of realism,” Bromm said. “The moment you couple dark matter with baryons (luminous materials) you get into a realm that is completely nonlinear. These facilities support the only way to solve this super complex problem.”

Bromm and colleagues used the galaxy formation code Ancient Stars and Local Observables by Tracing Halos (A-SLOTH) to populate the early universe with DCBHs and compare that to standard stellar remnant star seed models. They found better agreement with DCBH models vs. stellar remnant seeds in matching observed LRD population statistics and host dark matter halo properties.

Little Red Dot Genetics

The researchers deconstructed the observational data from JWST on LRD using what he called a “genetic technique,” where the data is broken up into its progenitors.

“We do a merger tree of the LRD history from the very beginning. It’s like constructing the history of one person, going back millions of years and tracking all descendants.”

Building on this, Bromm and colleagues incorporated key astrophysical objects and processes, such as dark matter halos, adding primordial gas to elucidate questions on how the gas forms stars, their life cycle and energy output, supernova feedback, and the resulting enrichment with heavy chemical elements.

It’s like the analogy of modeling the deep history of a person living today, tracing every ancestor and the defining moments that shaped their lives to understand who that person is today.

While not directly used in the simulations, Bromm acknowledged that artificial intelligence played a supporting role in the larger effort to extract the key properties of the Little Red Dot population from JWST imaging data.

Cosmic Challenge

“The big challenge now is intricately a supercomputing problem — to understand the data coming from the JWST on the first galaxies, starting with the primordial universe, and moving time forward to solve this coupled set of differential equations,” Bromm said.

He added that another great challenge for theoretical astronomers is connecting data from JWST on the “luminous universe,” matter we can see, with the properties of dark matter. “To make this connection between the visible to the underlying dark matter universe, supercomputing is key.”

“Philosophically, it’s fantastic that now humans are in a position to understand the entirety of nearly 14 billion years of cosmic history,” Bromm concluded. “This is a breathtaking extrapolation of our own lifetimes, and ultimately a gift from supercomputing to put this all together.”

The study, “Little Red Dots and Their Progenitors from Direct Collapse Black Holes,” was published February 2026 in the Astrophysical Journal. The study authors are Junehyoung Jeon, Volker Bromm, Anthony J. Taylor, Vasily Kokorev John Chisholm, Steven L. Finkelstein of UT Austin; Boyuan Liu of the Universität Heidelberg; Seiji Fujimoto of the University of Toronto; Rebecca L. Larson of the Space Telescope Science Institute, and Dale D. Kocevski of Colby College. Study funding came from the Royal Society University Research Fellowship and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy EXC 2181/1—390900948 (the Heidelberg STRUCTURES Excellence Cluster).

Source: Jorge Salazar, TACC

The post TACC Modeling Points to ‘Heavy Seed’ Origins for JWST’s Little Red Dots appeared first on HPCwire.

The deal with the Nevada attorney general will require Roblox to have stricter safeguards to protect children online.

EU economy commissioner says Iran war is feeding Russia’s war machine; Trump condemns massive strikes on Ukraine. What we know on day 1,513

The EU expects to start releasing a new €90bn loan to Ukraine in the second quarter, the bloc’s economy chief told AFP on Thursday. The EU’s economy commissioner, Valdis Dombrovskis, was speaking on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank’s spring meetings, which brought finance ministers, central bankers and other leaders to Washington. “Our support for Ukraine, also continued pressure and sanctions against aggressor Russia was very much part of the agenda,” Dombrovskis said. He warned that Moscow was “emerging as a winner from this war in Iran, because it provides windfall profits to feed Russia’s war machine”.

Russia hammered civilian areas across Ukraine with drones and missiles on Thursday, killing at least 17 people and wounding more than 100 others in the worst aerial attack in weeks, Ukrainian authorities said. Nearly 700 drones and dozens of ballistic and cruise missiles were used, as Ukrainian officials said vital stocks of advanced interceptors were running low.

Donald Trump on Thursday condemned a massive Russian drone and missile attack across Ukraine that ripped through apartment buildings in the capital, Kyiv. Asked by reporters at the White House for his reaction to the barrage, Trump said: “I think it’s terrible.”

It is not in the interest of the US that Russia is the winner of the Iran war, the German vice chancellor, Lars Klingbeil, said on Thursday in Washington. “It’s not in our interest and it cannot be in the interest of the United States,” he said in a joint statement with the finance ministers of Ukraine and Norway on the sidelines of the IMF spring meetings. Klingbeil said the Russian economy was growing thanks to the Middle East conflict and the country was profitting from the energy situation. As the conflict in the Middle East dominated the gathering of finance officials at the IMF in Washington, the ministers of Norway, Germany and Ukraine spoke about not forgetting to support Ukraine in its defence against Russia. “All the meetings here are about the question of what’s happening with the war in Iran, and I think it’s really important we show solidarity with our friends in Ukraine,” Klingbeil said.

The heads of the EU and Nato on Thursday discussed efforts to bolster Europe’s arms production, as Donald Trump threw doubt on Washington’s commitment to the transatlantic alliance. “We need to invest more, to produce more and to do both faster,” the European Commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, posted online after meeting Nato’s chief, Mark Rutte. European nations are scrambling to bolster their militaries in the face of Russia’s war on Ukraine and pressure from Trump.

"We are carrying back everything we learned, not only about where we went but ourselves," mission specialist Christina Koch told "CBS Evening News" anchor Tony Dokoupil.

First-ever demonstration of an end-to-end quantum-classical workflow for simulating complex therapeutics, unlocking a credible path to near-term quantum advantage in health.

SAN DIEGO, April 16, 2026 — Wellcome Leap (Leap), a U.S. nonprofit founded by the Wellcome Trust to accelerate breakthroughs in human health, today announced the outcome of its Quantum for Bio (Q4Bio) Supported Challenge Program. The $50 million initiative was designed to support the development of new algorithms (with $40 million in research funding) and test them through a rigorous, competitive challenge to determine whether quantum computing could deliver provable advantage for critical, classically intractable challenges in biology and healthcare. Up to $10 million in potential prizes was available.

Launched in 2023, Q4Bio set out to answer a fundamental question: What if we could develop new algorithms that deliver quantum advantage for health? At the time, the field was marked by significant promise, but limited evidence of practical application. Over the course of 30 months, the program brought together experts across quantum software, hardware, and biology as collaborative teams to identify high-impact biological use cases and co-develop the quantum solutions required to solve them. Finalist teams were led by Infleqtion, University of Nottingham, Harvard University, Stanford University, Algorithmiq, and the University of Oxford.

Two prize categories were defined: A $5 million grand prize for demonstrating quantum advantage over best-in-class classical baselines and a $2 million prize for each team that successfully demonstrated an experimental realization of their application on a quantum computer with more than 50 qubits, a program depth of O(10³–10⁴), and a clear trajectory to scale toward quantum advantage.

Today, Wellcome Leap has announced that Algorithmiq has successfully met the criteria for the $2 million prize.

The multidisciplinary team led by quantum software company Algorithmiq, with quantum computing support from IBM, and biological expertise from Cleveland Clinic, successfully demonstrated an experimental realization of their solution – identifying a scalable path to future quantum advantage. The team developed an end-to-end quantum-classical workflow to calculate excited-state properties of a photosensitizer drug relevant for photodynamic cancer therapy.

Importantly, the true impact of Q4Bio extends beyond the prize itself. Through rigorous testing of current capabilities, teams across the program delivered critical scientific contributions that establish a clear, evidence-based understanding of how quantum computing can be applied in human health.

“When we started the Wellcome Leap program, it wasn’t clear exactly how or where quantum computing could meaningfully impact biology,” said Shihan Sajeed, Program Director for Q4Bio. “Q4Bio was designed to create new solutions that would answer that question within real biological and hardware constraints. What we now have is a much clearer understanding of where quantum can create value, where it cannot, and what needs to happen next.”

What Q4Bio Established

Rather than focusing on theoretical exploration, Q4Bio tested quantum approaches against real-world biological problems within the physical limits of current hardware.

Across the program, teams validated biological use cases where quantum hardware may offer advantage, advanced the performance of classical approaches, and developed end-to-end hybrid quantum–classical pipelines connecting biological questions to computational solutions.

Together, this work provides a rigorous assessment of what is computationally feasible today – and what depends on future hardware advances. It represents one of the most coordinated efforts to date to apply quantum computing to address critical health challenges.

Looking Ahead

While today’s quantum systems remain limited for most applications, Q4Bio provides a roadmap for how quantum capabilities can evolve alongside hardware improvements. The pipelines and workflows developed through the program are expected to adapt as more advanced, fault-tolerant quantum systems emerge, enabling increasingly complex biological applications over time.

Building on the progress of Q4Bio, Wellcome Leap expects to launch a follow-on initiative to further advance quantum-enabled approaches to biology and health applications. The team is currently evaluating next steps and welcomes discussions with partners interested in supporting future programs.

About Wellcome Leap

Wellcome Leap is a billion-dollar breakthrough engine for human health – at global scale. Founded by the Wellcome Trust in 2020 as a U.S. nonprofit, Wellcome Leap builds and executes bold, unconventional programs with the urgency required to deliver breakthroughs in years, not decades. Operating at the intersection of life sciences and engineering, Leap programs require best-in-class, multi-disciplinary, global teams assembled from universities, companies, and nonprofits working together to solve problems that they cannot solve alone. For more information, read how Wellcome Leap is Changing the Business of Breakthroughs and visit www.wellcomeleap.org. To learn more about the Q4Bio program, visit www.wellcomeleap.org/q4bio.

Source: Wellcome Leap

The post Wellcome Leap Announces $2M Prize in $50M Quantum for Bio Challenge Program appeared first on HPCwire.

GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna told CBS News that Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego was the previously unnamed senator whom she accused of "very disturbing" conduct. Gallego has denied all wrongdoing.

Here are hints and the answer for today's Wordle for April 17, No. 1,763.

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for April 17, No. 1,041.

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for April 17, No. 775.

Todd Lyons, the acting head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is planning to leave the federal government later this spring.

The occupants of the other vehicle assumed the agent was just a “crazy person driving down the road aiming guns at people,” they told investigators.

It is now the top provider on our best VPN list for worldwide coverage.

I've tested dozens of iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone Air cases. Here are my current top picks, complete with mini reviews of each case.

Police say couple were living together amid divorce and that teenage children called 911 from Annandale home

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Justin Fairfax, a former lieutenant governor of Virginia whose tenure was upended by allegations of sexual assault, shot and killed his wife Cerina Fairfax on Thursday before killing himself, police said.

Kevin Davis, the chief of the Fairfax county police department in Virginia, said at a press conference that the killings took place in the context of “an ongoing domestic dispute surrounding what seems to be a complicated or messy divorce”.

In the US, the suicide prevention lifeline is 988 and the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123 and the domestic abuse helpline is 0808 2000 247. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org

The VPN software giant expands to 211 locations, with better speeds than ever.

Democratic representative from California has suspended gubernatorial campaign and resigned from Congress

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has opened an investigation into Eric Swalwell following his resignation from Congress, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The news of a federal investigation comes days after the Democratic representative from California stepped down due to multiple allegations of sexual misconduct.

Campaigners organise open letter to director demanding ‘fair day’s wage’ for all workers at V&A museums

A row over pay has broken out at the V&A before the opening of its newest site , with thousands of people calling for it to become a living wage employer.

On Saturday, V&A East will open its doors in Stratford, east London, showcasing stunning fabrics, photos and black British music. It joins a wider group of V&A museums including its original site in South Kensington, Young V&A in Bethnal Green and V&A Dundee. The V&A describes its latest opening as one of the most significant new museum projects in the UK.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Two years ago, Microsoft launched its first wave of "Copilot+" Windows PCs with a handful of exclusive features that could take advantage of the neural processing unit (NPU) hardware being built into newer laptop processors. These NPUs could enable AI and machine learning features that could run locally rather than in someone's cloud, theoretically enhancing security and privacy. One of the first Copilot+ features was Recall, a feature that promised to track all your PC usage via screenshot to help you remember your past activity. But as originally implemented, Recall was neither private nor secure; the feature stored its screenshots plus a giant database of all user activity in totally unencrypted files on the user's disk, making it trivial for anyone with remote or local access to grab days, weeks, or even months of sensitive data, depending on the age of the user's Recall database. After journalists and security researchers discovered and detailed these flaws, Microsoft delayed the Recall rollout by almost a year and substantially overhauled its security. All locally stored data would now be encrypted and viewable only with Windows Hello authentication; the feature now did a better job detecting and excluding sensitive information, including financial information, from its database; and Recall would be turned off by default, rather than enabled on every PC that supported it. The reconstituted Recall was a big improvement, but having a feature that records the vast majority of your PC usage is still a security and privacy risk. Security researcher Alexander Hagenah was the author of the original "TotalRecall" tool that made it trivially simple to grab the Recall information on any Windows PC, and an updated "TotalRecall Reloaded" version exposes what Hagenah believes are additional vulnerabilities. The problem, as detailed by Hagenah on the TotalRecall GitHub page, isn't with the security around the Recall database, which he calls "rock solid." The problem is that, once the user has authenticated, the system passes Recall data to another system process called AIXHost.exe, and that process doesn't benefit from the same security protections as the rest of Recall. "The vault is solid," Hagenah writes. "The delivery truck is not." The TotalRecall Reloaded tool uses an executable file to inject a DLL file into AIXHost.exe, something that can be done without administrator privileges. It then waits in the background for the user to open Recall and authenticate using Windows Hello. Once this is done, the tool can intercept screenshots, OCR'd text, and other metadata that Recall sends to the AIXHost.exe process, which can continue even after the user closes their Recall session. "The VBS enclave won't decrypt anything without Windows Hello," Hagenah writes. "The tool doesn't bypass that. It makes the user do it, silently rides along when the user does it, or waits for the user to do it." A handful of tasks, including grabbing the most recent Recall screenshot, capturing select metadata about the Recall database, and deleting the user's entire Recall database, can be done with no Windows Hello authentication. Once authenticated, Hagenah says the TotalRecall Reloaded tool can access both new information recorded to the Recall database as well as data Recall has previously recorded. "We appreciate Alexander Hagenah for identifying and responsibly reporting this issue. After careful investigation, we determined that the access patterns demonstrated are consistent with intended protections and existing controls, and do not represent a bypass of a security boundary or unauthorized access to data," a Microsoft spokesperson told Ars. "The authorization period has a timeout and anti-hammering protection that limit the impact of malicious queries."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.​ testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on Thursday, kicking off an expected sprint of seven budget hearings he'll attend over the next week.

The Tapo C675D kit is the largest Tapo security camera I've seen, complete with tracking and a solar panel for battery charging.

April 16, 2026 — Picture two materials sandwiched together. The boundary between them may appear flat, but, in reality, it is full of tiny bumps and dents.

Suddenly, the materials are hit with a shockwave. If that wave hits a bump in the material interface, it slows down. If it hits a dent, it accelerates forward. This imbalance creates fast, narrow jets of material — called the Richtmyer-Meshkov (RM) instability.

Adding an optimized void structure (top right) counteracts a shockwave-induced instability, reducing jetting (bottom right) that can interfere with inertial confinement fusion. Without this void, significant jetting occurs (bottom left). Image credit: Strucka et al.

In a recent paper, published in Physical Review Letters, researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Imperial College London and their collaborators used AI to optimize and 3D printing to create a target that effectively negates the RM instability.

“Our target reshapes the shockwave, in both space and time, as it travels through the material,” said first author Jergus Strucka, now at the European XFEL. “Instead of a single shock hitting the surface, we introduce voids to break it up into a sequence of smaller pressure pulses that arrive at slightly different times.”

The team used a machine-learning design optimization algorithm to search through many possible target structures. The process suggested that a void — a specifically shaped cavity in the material — could reshape the shock as it passes through, effectively weakening and redistributing the wave.

“The challenge is that while these designs look promising in simulations, they are often extremely difficult to manufacture and experimentally test,” said Strucka. “Our work is one of the first demonstrations that such AI-optimized structures can actually be built and studied in real experiments.”

To assemble such a target, the scientists used a polymer 3D printer to make an inverted version of their target structure. Much like making Jell-O in a mold, they fill the printed structure with gelatin, let it set, then remove it. As a result, one side of the gelatin target has a wavy surface, while the other side contains the voids.

The gelatin structure is deposited onto a thin copper strip. They send a large electrical pulse — equivalent to several lightning strikes — through the copper, which heats, explodes and launches a shockwave into the gelatin.

First, the wave encounters the voids. Then it moves toward the wavy end of the gelatin, where the RM instability would normally grow. But by the time it gets there, the wave has been redistributed.

“To some degree, we are creating another instability using the designed voids that acts against the RM instability and reduces jetting,” said study author and LLNL scientist Dane Sterbentz. “By modifying the original pressure pulse as it passes through these voids, we are also creating a sort of secondary pressure wave that can actually act against the unstable jetting.”

The same physics of voids should apply in a sphere, making these results potentially useful for improving fill tubes or material interfaces in inertial confinement fusion (ICF) targets. During a fusion ignition experiment, unstable jetting can reduce the symmetry of the imploding capsule and therefore the amount of energy produced.

“For ICF experiments at the National Ignition Facility (NIF), it can be difficult and costly to probe isolated effects like the RM instability,” said Sterbentz. “That’s where our experimental setup is useful — it allows us to probe the instability in a much simpler system. However, experiments more directly relevant to ICF will have to be further pursued at facilities such as the Omega Laser Facility or NIF.”

These findings also extend beyond ICF to a broad swathe of materials research where shockwaves are relevant, including oil and gas extraction and defense applications.

Source: LLNL

The post LLNL Combines Machine Learning and 3D Printing for Shockwave Control Experiments appeared first on HPCwire.

Q: How real is birth tourism?

A: The government doesn’t provide estimates of the extent of so-called birth tourism — pregnant women coming to the U.S. on tourism visas in order to obtain birthright U.S. citizenship for their newborn child. One outside group has estimated it may be more than 20,000 births per year. Some argue it’s not common enough to justify upending longstanding birthright citizenship policies.

FULL ANSWER

As the reader who asked us about this noted, birth tourism was cited by the solicitor general in Supreme Court arguments on April 1 as a reason why birthright citizenship ought to be ended. According to longstanding interpretation, the U.S. Constitution grants citizenship to children born in the U.S. even if their parents are in the country illegally. The Trump administration is challenging that.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued before the Supreme Court that birthright citizenship “has spawned a sprawling industry of birth tourism as uncounted thousands of foreigners from potentially hostile nations have flocked to give birth in the United States in recent decades, creating a whole generation of American citizens abroad with no meaningful ties to the United States.”

When asked by Chief Justice John Roberts if he had any information about how common or significant a problem birth tourism is, Sauer responded, “No one knows for sure.”

The high court is expected to rule this summer on the case challenging President Donald Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship, which he issued on the first day of his second term.

The State Department does not keep data on birth tourism. But that hasn’t stopped the Trump administration from sharing high-end estimates.

Trump has long criticized birth tourism, saying it is a magnet for illegal immigration. In 2023, he proposed an executive order that he said would “end their unfair practice known as birth tourism where hundreds of thousands of people from all over the planet squat in hotels for their last few weeks of pregnancy to illegitimately and illegally obtain U.S. citizenship for the child, often to later exploit chain migration to jump the line and get green cards for themselves and their family members.” (What he signed in 2025, however, went beyond targeting birth tourism and called for an end to birthright citizenship for any child born in the U.S. to parents who aren’t citizens or legal permanent residents.)  

On Fox News on April 4, Border Czar Tom Homan said, “Birth tourism has been a problem for the three decades that I’ve been enforcing immigration law, especially from Russia and China, where hundreds of thousands of their nationals come to this country just to give birth. So we’ve got hundreds of thousands of Chinese nationals and Russian nationals who have U.S. citizen children. And if that continues, that is a significant national security threat.”

In 2020, the Center for Immigration Studies, an organization that advocates low immigration, estimated the possible number of birth tourism cases at 20,000 to 26,000 per year. For context, there were 3.61 million births in the U.S. that year.

Steven Camarota, director of research for CIS, said he arrived at the estimate by comparing census data with birth records. Due to some changes in the census data, he said, the 2020 estimate is the most recent he can provide. But over a decade, he said, that would be an estimate of more than 200,000 birth tourism cases.

Birth Tourism Operations

In his Supreme Court arguments, Sauer cited a 2022 congressional report from Republicans on the Senate’s Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs that detailed two birth tourism operations: one that solicited clients in China and operated out of California and another that catered to “Russian elites coming to Miami through these birth tourism companies.”

Sauer also noted that in 2015, a Chinese newspaper reported that at least 500 companies offered “birth tourism” services in China at that time.

In 2019, federal authorities announced the first federal case involving birth tourism, with the arrest of three people for running an operation in Southern California catering to Chinese clients. The indictments, which came following an undercover operation in 2015, also included an additional 16 fugitive defendants.

“The indictments describe birth tourism schemes in which foreign nationals, mostly from China, applied for visitor visas to come to the United States and lied about the length of their trips, where they would stay, and the purposes of their trips – which were to come to the U.S. for three months to give birth so their children would receive U.S. birthright citizenship,” according to a U.S. Attorney’s Office press release at the time.

The press release said the operators coached pregnant Chinese customers about “how to pass the U.S. Consulate interview in China by falsely stating that they were going to stay in the U.S. for only two weeks. Their clients were also coached to trick U.S. Customs at ports of entry by wearing loose clothing that would conceal their pregnancies. … The indictments allege that many of the Chinese birth tourism customers failed to pay all of the medical costs associated with their hospital births, and the debts were referred to collection.”

“Receiving a tourist visa from the United States Government is a privilege, not a right,” IRS Criminal Investigation Acting Special Agent in Charge Bryant Jackson stated at the time.

One of the operations in the indictment purported to have a “100-person team” in China and to have served more than 500 Chinese birth tourism customers. The operation used an array of apartments in California and charged customers between $40,000 to $80,000. Another, which was believed to be the largest birth tourism operation, claimed it “provided services to 8,000 pregnant women (4,000 from China) since we established.”

In an interview on Fox News in January, Peter Schweizer, author of the book “The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon,” said China had “created an industrial model to exploit birthright citizenship.”

“Our federal government has no idea how many Chinese nationals have done this,” Schweizer said, because the U.S. does not compile birth certificate data on the nationality of parents. “So our federal government has no clue.”

Schweizer claimed Chinese officials estimated as many as 100,000 Chinese babies have been born each year in the U.S. over the last 13 years.

Republican legislators have also raised concerns about the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, a 14-island U.S. territory in the Western Pacific, being used as a birth tourism hub. Since it’s a U.S. territory, those born in the Northern Mariana Islands are granted citizenship.

In a Jan. 15 letter to the departments of Homeland Security and the Interior, Sens. Rick Scott, Jim Banks and Markwayne Mullin argued that President Barack Obama had paved the way for birth tourism with a parole program in 2009 that enabled Chinese nationals to visit the Northern Mariana Islands without a tourist visa.

“Birth tourism has long been an underground industry in the CNMI, with pregnant Chinese women flocking to Saipan to give birth that automatically provides U.S. citizenship to their new-born child,” the Pacific Island Times reported on Dec. 5, 2017. “Most of these women leave the CNMI after childbirth and receipt of their baby’s U.S. passport.”

Births registered to foreign tourists in the Northern Mariana Islands reached a peak of 581 in 2018, the New York Times reported.

That year, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands reported the conviction of a man for operating an illegal birth tourism business on Saipan, the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands. A press release said the man — who was sentenced to a year in jail — said he had employed “dozens of caretakers, or ‘nannies’, all Chinese nationals who were in the CNMI without work authorization.”

Kimberlyn King-Hinds, a Republican who serves as a non-voting delegate for CNMI in the U.S. House of Representatives, told NPR that local and federal officials have since cracked down on the practice and tightened border security. By 2025, she said, births to foreign tourists had dropped to 47. (That figure was also confirmed by the New York Times.)

Federal Policies

In 2020, the Trump administration issued a new rule giving the State Department discretion to deny tourism visas to an applicant it has “reason to believe intends to travel for this primary purpose [birth tourism].”

According to the 2022 minority report from the Senate’s Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, the “rule change made it more difficult for birth tourism companies to continue operations.”

Camarota said the rule change may have encouraged federal authorities to be more diligent in scrutinizing people seeking tourism visas. But he believes there is more the government could do — such as barring travel visas to people who appear to be obviously pregnant.

“Birth tourism is an issue, there is no doubt,” Michelle Mittelstadt, director of communications and public affairs at the Migration Policy Institute, told us via email. “It is visa fraud and a misuse of the U.S. immigration system.”

According to U.S. law, when people come to the U.S. on tourism visas for pleasure, that “does not include obtaining a visa for the primary purpose of obtaining U.S. citizenship for a child by giving birth in the United States.”

“That said, birth tourism is a very small occurrence – of the 3.6 million U.S. births annually, a tiny fraction is due to foreign women who are not regularly domiciled in the U.S. coming here for the purpose of giving birth to secure U.S. citizenship for their child,” Mittelstadt said.

In 2024, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 9,576 births in the U.S. to foreign residents. Mittelstadt acknowledges that the CDC figures may be an undercount of birth tourism, and that many women may list a U.S. address even if they are not intending to live in the U.S. after giving birth.

“Still, even the most expansive estimates of birth tourism … [from CIS] puts the total at a max 26,000 births a year,” Mittelstadt said.

“There are effective ways to address birth tourism without watering down constitutional protections and both expanding the size of the unauthorized population and creating a category of second-class individuals as would occur if birthright citizenship is ended,” Mittelstadt said.

For example, Mittelstadt said, the government could tighten consular and border screenings, including “rigorous questioning about purpose of travel and financial arrangements for medical care. And making travel primarily for giving birth in the U.S. an explicit ground for inadmissibility or visitor visa denial.” In addition, she said, questions could be added to visa application forms “about pregnancy and intent to deliver in the U.S., with long-term or lifetime visa bans for those who engage in misrepresentations.” Regulations could also be put in place stipulating how late in pregnancy women can travel from international destinations to the U.S. And law enforcement could also prosecute birth tourism operators more vigorously.

Camarota agreed there are ways the U.S. could reduce birth tourism short of banning birthright citizenship.

“You probably can address a lot of it just by taking a forceful position,” Camarota said. “You couldn’t eliminate it, but … you probably could greatly curtail it with different State Department rules and different border controls.”

Camarota said he also wishes the administration had started with an executive order more narrowly targeting birth tourism, which he thinks might be more winnable at the Supreme Court.

“Birth tourism probably is the best case against automatic birthright citizenship,” Camarota said. “Most Americans, say, ‘Yeah, that doesn’t seem right at all.’ And I think that that’s probably where they should start.”

At the Supreme Court hearing on April 1 to consider abolishing birthright citizenship altogether, Chief Justice Roberts asked Sauer, the solicitor general, if he agreed that birth tourism “has no impact on the legal analysis before us.”

Sauer responded that birth tourism is an example that the 14th Amendment’s “interpretation has these implications that could not possibly have been approved by the 19th century framers of this amendment.”

Sauer noted that we now live in a world “where 8 billion people are one plane ride away from having a child who’s a U.S. citizen.”

“Well, it’s a new world,” Roberts said. “It’s the same Constitution.”

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 What Do We Know About ‘Birth Tourism’? appeared first on FactCheck.org.

A munitions company that handles explosives for the U.S. military is facing a fine of over $3 million after an explosion killed 16 people last year.

PARIS, April 16, 2026 — Atos, a global leader of AI-powered digital transformation, today announced it has been entrusted by the European Space Agency (ESA) to launch an Open Competition to expand DestinE ecosystem. DestinE is a flagship initiative led by the European Commission and implemented by the ESA, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) to create a highly accurate digital twin of the Earth.

Credit: Shutterstock

DestinE’s ecosystem is designed to assist policymakers, researchers or innovators simulate, monitor and better understand natural phenomena and human activity, offering new ways to engage with and understand our world better to shape a sustainable future.

As a result of this first Open Competition, 12 innovative Service Providers have been selected to deliver Advanced Applications & Services (AAS) on DestinE Platform.

Some of these services are now fully operational, offering unprecedented opportunities for exploration and understanding.

Assessing Quality of Life with CALIFE

CALIFE (“Quality of Life”), developed by Murmuration, is designed to make satellite Earth Observation insights accessible to everyone, from the general public to local authorities. It provides personalized, easy-to-understand reports on environmental and health conditions at a hyper-local scale.

CALIFE offers:

• Free service for municipalities,
• Premium quality-of-life reports for citizens,
• Custom projections for decision-makers.

By raising awareness, supporting local policies, and fostering resilience to climate change, CALIFE creates a virtuous cycle toward healthier, more sustainable communities.

Monitoring Potato Fields with Harvic (Harvest in Control)

Harvic, developed by GeoVille, is designed to provide stakeholders in the potato industry with a clear and reliable view of crop development throughout the season, as well as accurate predictions for harvest time in terms of quantity and quality. By combining satellite information, weather data, and field observations, HARVIC transforms complex datasets into simple, actionable insights.

This innovative service helps users to:

• Understand crop conditions and monitor their evolution,
• Anticipate yield and quality, reducing uncertainty,
• Identify potential risks early, enabling proactive measures.

HARVIC supports better planning for harvest and logistics, complementing traditional field checks and expertise. Built around real operational needs, it integrates seamlessly into existing workflows, enhancing foresight and decision-making confidence.

By saving time, optimizing resources, and promoting more sustainable farming practices, HARVIC not only empowers the potato industry to thrive in a rapidly changing agricultural landscape but also contributes to a deeper, data-driven understanding of agricultural dynamics in a rapidly changing environment.

Exploring Land Temperatures in High-Resolution with Hi-Rest LST

Developed by OHB Digital Services, Hi-Rest LST is designed to deliver precise thermal insights at a resolution of 30 meters. By leveraging advanced machine learning and data fusion techniques, the service combines the coarser Sentinel-3 data (1km spatial resolution) with the high-resolution land surface temperature product from Landsat-8.

Hi-Rest LST offers:

• Detailed visualization of land surface temperature layers and time series for user-defined locations,
• Customizable areas of interest and datasets tailored to specific needs,
• Monitoring tools for user-triggered pipeline runs, ensuring seamless access to service results.

By providing enhanced land surface temperature estimations, Hi-Rest LST supports applications where precision is critical, such as urban resilience planning and infrastructure monitoring.

This service empowers end-users to make informed decisions and drive sustainable solutions for a changing world.

Compressing Earth Observation Data with COMEO

COMEO (“Compression Of Models & Earth Observations”), developed by VisioTerra, is designed to optimize the use of Earth observation and modeling data through lossy compression algorithms. Targeting data from Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 satellites as well as Earth modeling data like C3S ERA5, COMEO offers an innovative solution for efficiently managing data volumes.

COMEO offers:

• Advanced compression algorithms allowing size reduction ranging from ×10 to ×250,
• Demonstration tool: Illustrating the impact of lossy compression on data quality for better understanding of trade-offs,
• Mapping tool: Presenting a synthesis of Sentinel-1 IW data over the Mediterranean Sea, covering the entire Sentinel-1 mission time range.

By providing effective compression solutions, COMEO enables users to maximize data usage while preserving relevance for critical applications such as environmental monitoring and climate model analysis. This service is essential for those looking to leverage Earth data while optimizing available resources.

Studying Desert Locust Impacts with DLMS

The Desert Locust Monitoring Service (DLMS), developed by Sistema, is at the forefront of efforts to mitigate the devastating impacts of desert locusts, which are recognized as the world’s most destructive migratory pests. These pests pose significant threats to the economy, quality of life, and the environment, with their impacts exacerbated by climate change.

Key Features of the Desert Locust Monitoring Service:

• AI-driven detection: utilizes cutting-edge AI algorithms to analyze diverse climate data sources, including satellite imagery, model data, and in situ observations, to identify breeding conditions conducive to locust proliferation,
• Predictive modeling: offers robust predictions of locust swarm movements, enabling proactive measures to prevent upsurges and mitigate potential damage,
• Geographical scope: focuses on a vast region extending from Africa to Asia, where locust activity is most prevalent.

By leveraging these innovative technologies, the Desert Locust Monitoring Service plays a crucial role in safeguarding agricultural resources and ecosystems, ensuring that stakeholders can respond swiftly and effectively to locust threats. This service is indispensable for those aiming to protect their livelihoods and the environment from the adverse effects of these formidable pests.

New Wave of Services

A new wave of innovative services will become operational, each designed to address critical challenges across diverse sectors. These will include:

• CityNexus Pro by Solenix: a pro version of the CityNexus service already operational in the DestinE Platform with an advanced urban digital twin application assessing the impacts of climate changes in road networks and urban design;
• CONOPS by EDGE in Earth Observation Sciences: a predictive model using satellite and census data to simulate mosquito populations and estimate disease risks;
• CC-PLAN by CGI Italia: a service providing localized data on Urban Heat Islands and Flight Climatic Analysis dynamics using DestinE datasets and providing mitigation strategy modeling, and dynamic visualizations;
• AQWALYTICS by Magellium: a scalable solution monitoring the quality of European water bodies by combining satellite data with real-time data from in-situ stations;
• Eki’Learning by Ekitia: an ethical data service for the DestinE Platform that includes easy-to-follow e-learning modules on data use and AI, plus a self-assessment tool to help users check the ethical maturity of their services;
• MoMo by Detektia: a service detecting and analyzing deformation patterns in infrastructures influenced by external factors, aiding in the identification of anomalies;
• InSAR Deformation Monitoring by GeoKinesia: three services, based on Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR): InSAR Service, Active Deformation Areas Map and Differential Deformation Map Service.

Valérie Dehlinger, director of Aerospace, Automotive, Chemicals, Discrete Manufacturing, Energy & Utilities, Retail, Telecoms, Media & Technology and Transport & Travel Markets in France, Atos, stated: “We are pleased to support ESA’s work in advancing the DestinE ecosystem and digital innovation in Earth observation and to play a crucial role in shaping the future of DestinE, ensuring its attractivity for diverse stakeholders across Europe.”

As part of this visionary project, the Atos consortium, including Atos, Mews Partners and ACRI-ST, was entrusted in 2024 with the execution of four key activities that are pivotal to the success of DestinE:

• Portfolio management: driving engagement and expanding the ecosystem’s reach to maximize its impact and usability,
• Demonstrators: delivering inspiring use cases and foundational services to empower ecosystem providers and showcase the platform’s potential,
• Lifecycle support: accelerating the growth of the ecosystem by streamlining service onboarding and ensuring seamless integration,
• Collaborative services & forum: cultivating a dynamic and collaborative environment to foster creativity, knowledge exchange and innovation.

The DestinE platform is co-funded by the European Union. The perspectives and opinions expressed in this press release are those of the contributing authors only and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the European Commission can be held responsible for them.

More from HPCwire

• Atos Selected by ESA to Lead DestinE Platform Expansion for Climate Adaptation
• DestinE’s Climate Change Adaptation Digital Twin Shortlisted for the ACM Gordon Bell Prize for Climate Modelling

About Atos Group

Atos Group is a global leader in digital transformation with c. 61,000 employees and annual revenue of c. €7.2 billion (pro forma for the disposal of Advanced Computing activities), operating in 61 countries under two brands – Atos for services and Eviden for products and systems. European number one in cybersecurity and cloud, Atos Group is committed to a secure and decarbonized future and provides tailored AI-powered, end-to-end solutions for all industries. Atos Group is the brand under which Atos SE (Societas Europaea) operates. Atos SE listed on Euronext Paris.

Source: Atos

The post Atos Drives DestinE Ecosystem Growth with ESA-Led Service Deployment and Call appeared first on HPCwire.

Julius Malema, whose incendiary rhetoric about Afrikaners drew notice on the U.S. right, was handed a five-year prison term for firing a gun at a 2018 rally.

ST. LOUIS, April 16, 2026 — DataCool, a division of JohnsonMarCraft HVAC Products, today announced the launch of its new Alpine, Glacier, and Kodiak product lines, a next generation cooling platform engineered to meet the rapidly increasing thermal demands of AI, cloud, and high-density data center environments.

As global data infrastructure expands at an unprecedented pace, operators are facing growing pressure to deploy cooling systems that are not only powerful, but also flexible, efficient, and quick to implement. DataCool’s latest product launch addresses these challenges with a highly configurable suite of solutions designed to scale across a wide range of applications, from edge deployments to hyperscale facilities.

“The rise of AI and high-performance computing is fundamentally changing the way data centers are designed and operated,” said Matt Polizzi, Vice President at DataCool. “With Alpine, Glacier, and Kodiak, we’ve developed a platform that gives our customers the flexibility and performance they need to stay ahead of those demands without adding unnecessary complexity.”

Built for Scale, Performance, and Flexibility

The newly launched systems support a broad operating range from 2,000 to 100,000 CFM and up to 300 tons of cooling capacity enabling customers to standardize on a single platform across multiple facility types and sizes.

Designed for both indoor and outdoor applications, the systems provide engineers and operators with the flexibility to meet site specific requirements while reducing design and deployment timelines.

Key Features of the New Platform

• Modular, Scalable Architecture: Supports a wide range of deployments, from localized edge environments to large-scale data centers.
• High-Efficiency Cooling Performance: Standard ECM fans combined with configurable chilled water (CW) or direct expansion (DX) coils optimize energy efficiency and thermal control.
• Advanced Filtration Options: Single- or dual-stage MERV 8–16 filtration helps protect critical IT infrastructure.
• Customizable Controls Integration: Factory-installed options include standalone DDC systems or pre-integrated third-party controls for seamless building management system (BMS) compatibility.
• Simplified Installation and Commissioning: Integral piping and configurable hydronic designs reduce installation complexity and accelerate project timelines.
• Durable, High-Quality Construction: Units are built with robust materials and a reinforced base structure to ensure long-term reliability in demanding environments.

Each system is engineered with a single-point 460/3 electrical connection, streamlining integration and supporting faster deployment.

Addressing the Future of Data Center Cooling

With increasing rack densities and the continued growth of AI workloads, thermal management is becoming one of the most critical factors in data center performance and uptime. DataCool’s new platform is designed to help operators meet these evolving challenges with adaptable, future-ready solutions that prioritize both efficiency and reliability.

The Alpine, Glacier, and Kodiak systems are now available for specification and shipment.

About DataCool

DataCool is a division of Arizon Companies, a leader in HVAC manufacturing with roots dating back to 1921 through JohnsonMarCraft HVAC Products. DataCool specializes in advanced cooling solutions for data centers and mission-critical environments, combining proven engineering expertise with innovative, high-performance system design.

Source: DataCool

The post DataCool Launches Next-Generation Data Center Cooling Platform Amid Surging AI-Driven Demand appeared first on HPCwire.

OpenAI is updating Codex with more agent-like capabilities, positioning it as a more direct rival to Anthropic's Claude Code. Some of the new features include the ability to operate macOS desktop apps, browse the web inside the app, generate images, use new workplace plug-ins, and remember useful context from past tasks. The Verge reports: Codex will now be able to operate desktop apps on your computer, OpenAI says in a blog post announcing the update. It can work in the background, meaning it won't interfere with your own work in other apps, and multiple agents can work in parallel. For developers, OpenAI says "this is helpful for testing and iterating on frontend changes, testing apps, or working in apps that don't expose an API." The feature will start rolling out to Codex desktop app users signed in with ChatGPT today and will initially be limited to macOS. OpenAI did not indicate a timeline for when use will expand to other operating systems. EU users will also have to wait, it said, adding that the update will roll out to users there "soon." Codex is also getting the ability to generate and iterate on images with gpt-image-1.5, new plug-ins for tools like GitLab, Atlassian Rovo, and Microsoft Suite, and native web browsing through an in-app browser, "where you can comment directly on pages to provide precise instructions to the agent." OpenAI also said it will also be easier to automate tasks, with users able to re-use existing conversation threads and Codex now able to schedule future work for itself and wake up automatically to continue on a long-term task. Codex will also be getting a memory feature allowing it to remember useful context from past experience, such as personal preferences, corrections, and information that took time to gather. OpenAI said it hopes the opt-in feature, which will be released as a preview, will help future tasks complete faster and to a quality that previously required detailed custom instructions. The personalization features will roll out to Enterprise, Edu, and EU users "soon."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Keir Starmer understood to have lost confidence in official over decision to override security vetting failure

• Mandelson failed vetting but Foreign Office overruled decision

Sir Olly Robbins, the UK Foreign Office’s top civil servant, has been forced out of his post after the decision to fail Peter Mandelson during his security vetting was overruled by his department.

Robbins was the Foreign Office’s most senior official in late January 2025 when the decision was made, paving the way for Mandelson to become the US ambassador.

Exclusive: A trove of previously redacted documents was filed as part of the tech giant’s anti-trust battle with the state of California. Amazon denies it engages in price-fixing

Hundreds of previously redacted records reveal how Amazon has put pressure on independent sellers using its platform into raising their prices on the sites of competitors such as Walmart and Target, so that Amazon can appear to have lower prices, California authorities allege.

The global conglomerate became concerned even if a competitor was selling an item for as little as a penny less, according to one segment of the newly unredacted evidence.

President Donald Trump announced the agreement, which went into force Thursday evening, as Pakistani mediators worked to extend a U.S.-Iran ceasefire and arrange new talks.

Hint: It involves AI, and a LinkedIn economist says employers are clamoring for people to fill these roles.

The four Artemis II astronauts struggled to describe the view and overall experience of flying around the moon's far side and witnessing a solar eclipse in deep space.

Elon Musk this week amplified an unfounded claim, based on a distortion of vaccine safety monitoring data, that COVID-19 vaccines killed tens of thousands of people in Germany. The vaccines saved millions of lives worldwide during a deadly pandemic, and serious side effects or deaths from vaccination are rare.

Despite this well-established safety record, Musk questioned COVID-19 vaccine safety on X on April 12 while sharing a post from far-right Swedish influencer Peter Imanuelsen, who also goes by PeterSweden. Musk, a former Trump adviser who is CEO of SpaceX and Tesla and owns X, has previously amplified and interacted with Imanuelsen’s posts on multiple occasions. Musk’s post had nearly 60 million views as of this story’s publication, and Imanuelsen’s had 64 million.

“A Pfizer insider who was former head of toxicology in Europe has just come out and said something that many ‘conspiracy theorists’ suspected,” Imanuelsen wrote in his April 12 post. “He estimates that 20 000 to 60 000 people in Germany have died from the c*vid vaccine,” he continued, adding that it “should be headline news EVERYWHERE.”

There is no evidence this large number of deaths occurred. Nor did COVID-19 vaccines cause mass deaths in general, as we have written multiple times.

Imanuelsen’s post was based on March 19 testimony at a German parliamentary hearing from Dr. Helmut Sterz, a toxicologist and veterinarian who reported formerly working for Pfizer. Sterz, who appeared at the invitation of a far-right party, baselessly claimed that the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine killed 60,000 people in Germany. But Sterz arrived at this number by distorting German vaccine safety monitoring data, following logic also common to anti-vaccine activists in the U.S. who have misused similar passive surveillance data. (Imanuelsen explained on X that Sterz had also given the 20,000 figure after the hearing, but we were unable to locate these further comments.)

Dr. Mahmoud Zureik, a professor of epidemiology and public health at University of Paris-Saclay in France, told us via email that Sterz’s claim “confuses coincidence with causation, misuses passive surveillance data, and is not supported by the best available scientific evidence.” Sterz counted deaths reported after vaccination that were not necessarily related to the vaccines and then multiplied them by 30 to purportedly account for underreporting. Zureik called the use of this factor of 30 “arbitrary.” Zureik is director of EPI-PHARE, a scientific organization created by French health authorities to independently advise on health product safety.

Zureik added that the idea that COVID-19 vaccines have caused large numbers of deaths is inconsistent with the scientific literature. “More broadly, large epidemiologic studies have not shown an excess risk of overall mortality after COVID-19 mRNA vaccination,” he said. 

Pfizer spokesperson Andrew Widger told us via email that the company’s COVID-19 vaccine “continues to demonstrate a favourable safety and efficacy profile supported by extensive real-world evidence as well as by clinical, non-clinical, pharmacovigilance, and manufacturing data.“

A LinkedIn profile lists Sterz as having held a leadership role at a Pfizer research center in France from 2001 to 2009. He is author of a 2025 book about COVID-19 whose title translates to “The Vaccination Mafia,” and whose subheading describes him as Pfizer’s former chief toxicologist. He does not appear to have any recent scientific publications.

Pfizer as a policy doesn’t “provide details regarding individuals,” the company’s spokesperson said, “but I can confirm the individual you mention was not working at Pfizer during the pandemic or during the decade preceding it, and consequently had no involvement in the development of the COVID-19 vaccine. I would question therefore whether he could be described as an ‘insider.’” 

Misuse of German Vaccine Safety Surveillance Data

In the U.S., anti-vaccine activists often distort data from the ​​government-run Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS, which collects unverified reports of health problems following vaccination in order to identify possible safety signals. Sterz’s unfounded claim about vaccine deaths in Germany relies on misuse of a similar government system in Germany, run by the Paul Ehrlich Institute, which we have also written about before.

During his testimony, Sterz said that PEI had gotten 2,133 reports of death after vaccination with Pfizer/BioNTech’s vaccine. There were indeed 2,133 reports of deaths following vaccination with the original Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine through the end of 2024, according to a 2024 PEI report.

However, Zureik said that a death or other problem happening after vaccination “is not, by itself, evidence that the vaccine caused the event,” explaining that systems such as the PEI one “are designed to detect signals that then necessarily require clinical and epidemiological assessment.”

“It is not valid to presume the 2000 reported deaths were caused by vaccines, much less to presume that there were 30x this number to arrive at the 60k number the person claims,” Jeffrey S. Morris, director of the division of biostatistics at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, told us via email. Morris wrote a December 2025 Annenberg Public Policy Center white paper on vaccine safety monitoring, including a section explaining how VAERS functions and is distorted. (FactCheck.org is a project of APPC.)

People die on a regular basis, including 1 million per year in Germany, Morris and Zureik both noted. “Therefore, when tens of millions of people are vaccinated, some deaths will inevitably occur in the days, weeks or months following vaccination purely by coincidence, including deaths that would also have occurred in the absence of vaccination,” Zureik said.

The PEI report also said that the occurrence of deaths or other events near the time of vaccination “does not automatically indicate that there is a causal relationship” between the two, explaining that in many cases, “the event can be explained by other factors, such as pre-existing conditions, comorbidities, or concomitant medications.” In other cases, there is limited information available. Of the 2,133 reports of deaths after receiving the original Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, PEI assessed 28 as having a “possible or probable” causal relationship with vaccination. The report said more than 138 million doses of the vaccine had been given.

Unsupported Use of ‘Underreporting Factor‘

Sterz again followed a familiar pattern in multiplying an already-inflated number of deaths alleged to have been caused by COVID-19 vaccination by an “underreporting factor” of 30, which he said was used in the U.S.

American anti-vaccine advocates indeed multiply purported vaccine deaths or vaccine side effects by various factors, with Dr. Peter McCullough, for instance, often mentioning an underreporting factor of 30. McCullough is a cardiologist with a long history of spreading incorrect information about vaccines.

But as we have written before, the approach of applying an underreporting factor to reports from VAERS to identify the “true” rate of a problem is flawed. There is both underreporting and overreporting of events, and it’s not straightforward to identify a specific underreporting rate, which will vary depending on what events someone is looking at and the context in which a vaccine was given.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Zureik explained, it’s possible that there was in fact “overreporting driven by what is known as notoriety bias (or stimulated reporting).” In other words, the widespread attention to COVID-19 vaccination and possible side effects may have led people to be more likely to report deaths that happened near the time of vaccination, regardless of any causal relationship. 

“Therefore, applying a fixed ‘underreporting factor’ is not only unsupported but also ignores the possibility of reporting inflation in this context,” Zureik said.

Reassuring Data on COVID-19 Vaccine Safety

Regardless, there are other types of studies used to further investigate any safety signals found by surveillance systems like VAERS or the PEI system, Morris said. These sorts of studies looked at deaths after COVID-19 vaccination and have shown “no evidence of increased risk of death,” he said.

In the U.S., a 2022 study of nearly 7 million people from the Vaccine Safety Datalink monitoring system found that people who received COVID-19 vaccines were less likely to die than those who did not get the vaccines, after matching people by various characteristics and following them over at least two months. VSD is a U.S. health care record-based system that can be used to follow up on safety signals identified in VAERS. “This is far stronger evidence than any VAERs analysis,” Morris said.

Zureik and his colleagues in France, meanwhile, looked at French health records from 28 million adults age 59 and under to investigate whether COVID-19 vaccination had any association with death from all causes over a four-year period. Their study, published in December 2025, again found that vaccinated people were less likely to die than those who were unvaccinated.

Morris explained that these studies and others from around the world don’t necessarily mean that vaccination decreases risk of death from causes other than COVID-19, since people who get vaccinated may have other characteristics that make them healthier. However, the research indicates that COVID-19 vaccines are not associated with any increased risk of dying, contrary to claims about large-scale lethality.

People have expressed particular concern about spikes in sudden deaths caused by vaccination, despite a lack of evidence for such a phenomenon. This is partly based on the real but rare side effect of myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart. Some COVID-19 vaccines, including the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, caused this condition, which most often affected adolescent or young adult males after the second dose of the original series. Myocarditis after COVID-19 vaccination is generally less severe than after infection and resolves relatively quickly, although it is possible that it has caused deaths in some very small number of cases, as we’ve written previously.

But again, studies do not show a pattern of increased deaths in adolescents and young adults after vaccination, either from heart-related or other causes. Most recently, a March 19 Canadian study investigated whether COVID-19 vaccination in adolescents and young adults without documented heart disease was associated with sudden cardiac death, which can be caused by various conditions, including myocarditis.

The researchers found that vaccinated people were less likely to have sudden cardiac deaths than unvaccinated people. “These findings do not support the hypothesis that COVID-19 vaccines increase the risk of sudden cardiac death in young healthy adults,” the authors concluded.

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 Elon Musk Amplifies Baseless Claim About COVID-19 Vaccine appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Schwartz was deputy surgeon general under Trump’s first administration and is a rear admiral in the US Coast Guard

Donald Trump has selected Erica Schwartz to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), bringing to an end a months-long search for a permanent head of the troubled public health agency.

Trump revealed his choice on Truth Social, saying: “I am pleased to announce the new leadership of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It is my Honor to nominate the incredibly talented Dr Erica Schwartz, MD, JD, MPH, as my Director of the CDC,” he wrote. “She is a STAR!”

Democratic lawmakers urged Republican leaders to postpone the confirmation hearing of Kevin Warsh

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Democrats have moved to stall Donald Trump’s effort to exert greater control over the US Federal Reserve, condemning the president’s “absurd” bid to install a new leader of the central bank while it is targeted with criminal investigations.

Democratic lawmakers on the Senate banking committee urged its Republican leadership on Thursday to postpone the planned confirmation hearing for Kevin Warsh, the financial executive and former Fed governor Trump has nominated to replace Jerome Powell as Fed chair.

BrianFagioli writes: The developers behind Linux Mint say the project is rethinking its release strategy and moving toward a longer development cycle, with the next version now expected around Christmas 2026. In a monthly update, project lead Clement Lefebvre said the team reached a "crossroads" and needs more flexibility to fix bugs, improve the desktop, and adapt to rapid changes across the Linux ecosystem. The upcoming development build, temporarily called Mint 23 "Alfa," is currently based on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS and includes Linux kernel 7.0, an unstable build of Cinnamon 6.7, and early Wayland related work. Mint is also replacing the long used Ubiquity installer with "live-installer," the same tool used by Linux Mint Debian Edition, allowing the project to unify installation infrastructure across its Ubuntu based and Debian based variants. While the team frames the changes as an opportunity to improve quality and reduce maintenance overhead, the shift has raised questions about the project's long term direction and whether Linux Mint may eventually lean more heavily on its Debian roots rather than its traditional Ubuntu base.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Look out for TikTok-style vibes on your phone.

DuckDuckGo has always promised complete privacy with its VPN, and an independent cybersecurity company agrees.

Devices that were part of the first generations of Amazon's TV dongles are at the center of the California lawsuit.

• Filing details remarks about drones over home

• Woods said he spoke to ‘the president’ after crash

• Prosecutors seek access to prescription records

Tiger Woods told police he had taken multiple prescription medications, including Vicodin, on the day of a crash that led to his arrest on suspicion of driving under the influence, according to court filings released on Wednesday.

The filing, submitted by prosecutors in Florida as part of routine pretrial discovery and obtained by the Guardian, also details a series of unusual remarks Woods made to officers at the scene of the 27 March crash in Hobe Sound, including references to drones flying over his home and a claim that he had spoken to “the president”.

Although the bill has been passed by lawmakers, it still needs final approval from Maine Governor Janet Mills.

The title of my article on age verification in Linux and other operating systems had a “for now” added for a reason, and here we are, with two members of the US Congress introducing a bill to add age verification to operating systems. The text of the proposed bill was only published today, and it’s incredibly vague and wishy-washy, without any clear definitions and ton of open-ended questions.

Still, if passed, the bill would require actual age verification, instead of mere voluntary age reporting that current state-level bills cover. It also seems to eschew the concept of age brackets, giving application developers access to specific ages of users instead. It’s a vague mess of a bill that no sane person would ever want passed, but alas, sanity is a rare commodity these days, especially in US Congress.

It’s introduced by Democrat Josh Gottheimer and Republican Elise M. Stefanik, so it has that bipartisan sheen to it, which could increase its odds of going anywhere. At the same time, though, US Congress is about as useful as a box of matches during a house fire, so for all we know, this will end up going nowhere as its members focus on doing absolutely nothing to reign in the flock of coked-up headless chickens passing for an executive branch over there.

If something like this gets passed, every US-based operating system – which includes most open source operating systems and Linux distributions – will probably fall in line when faced with massive fines and legal pressure. This isn’t going to be pretty.

President taps Erica Schwartz to lead agency; its last director was fired less than a month into tenure after clashing with health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr over his vaccine agenda

• RFK Jr accused of ‘dangerous conspiracy theories’ at heated budget hearing

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Chairman of the joint chiefs of staff Dan Caine says the US military remains ready to re-engage in combat “at literally a moment’s notice”.

He says the blockade covers Iran’s ports and coastlines and applies to all ships, regardless of which flag they are sailing under.

Gregory Morgan Jr. of Temple Hills, Maryland, was charged Thursday morning with two counts of second-degree assault in the Feb. 5 incident.

Iran has not confirmed Trump’s claim. Giving up its highly enriched uranium would be a major step toward an agreement.

CBS News reported​ Wednesday that Dr. Erica Schwartz was emerging as the president's top pick for the role.

The head of the International Energy Agency warned that Europe may have only "six weeks or so" of jet fuel left if oil supplies remain blocked by the Iran war and the Strait of Hormuz stays disrupted. The Associated Press reports: IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol painted a sobering picture of the global repercussions of what he called "the largest energy crisis we have ever faced," stemming from the pinch-off of oil, gas and other vital supplies through the Strait of Hormuz. "In the past there was a group called 'Dire Straits.' It's a dire strait now, and it is going to have major implications for the global economy. And the longer it goes, the worse it will be for the economic growth and inflation around the world," he told The Associated Press. The impact will be "higher petrol (gasoline) prices, higher gas prices, high electricity prices," said Birol, speaking in his Paris office looking out over the Eiffel Tower. Economic pain will be felt unevenly and "the countries who will suffer the most will not be those whose voice are heard a lot. It will be mainly the developing countries. Poorer countries in Asia, in Africa and in Latin America," said the Turkish economist and energy expert who has led the IEA since 2015. But without a settlement of the Iran war that permanently reopens the Strait of Hormuz, "Everybody is going to suffer," he added. "Some countries may be richer than the others. Some countries may have more energy than the others, but no country, no country is immune to this crisis," he said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

OTTAWA, Ontario, April 16, 2026 — Canada is launching a national effort to build one of the most advanced artificial Intelligence (AI) supercomputing systems, ensuring Canadian researchers, innovators and institutions have the computing power they need to innovate, compete and lead.

Credit: Shuhan/Shutterstock

The Government of Canada is launching the call for applications for the AI Sovereign Compute Infrastructure Program, supported by historic investments announced in Budget 2024 and Budget 2025. This program, part of the Canadian Sovereign AI Compute Strategy, will enable the development of large-scale, Canadian-based compute infrastructure to advance AI research and innovation, while safeguarding Canada’s national interests.

These systems will form a core part of Canada’s digital backbone, enabling breakthroughs in areas like health care, energy, advanced manufacturing and scientific discovery. This will strengthen Canada’s global competitiveness, support world-leading research and ensure secure, reliable access to critical digital infrastructure for Canadian innovators.

This transformational investment, via a competitive call for applications, invites eligible proponents to submit applications to rapidly design, build, operate and maintain a large-scale, ‑AI optimized high-performance computing system. This Canadian-owned infrastructure will serve as a cornerstone of the country’s digital ecosystem, enabling researchers and industry to advance ‑leading-edge research and develop next-generation AI solutions.

“Canada is already at the forefront of artificial intelligence. What we need now is access to large-scale computing power” said Evan Solomon, Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario. “This initiative is about building that capacity here in Canada so our researchers, institutions and innovators can move faster, go further and turn leading ideas into real-world impact.”

Applications are now open to eligible organizations ready to help strengthen Canada’s technological sovereignty. To learn more and apply, visit the AI Sovereign Compute Infrastructure Program web page.

Quick Facts

• Interested proponents can access the program guide, review eligibility criteria and learn about how to submit an application by visiting the AI Sovereign Compute Infrastructure Program page.
• The Canadian Sovereign AI Compute Strategy has made targeted investments across three complementary pillars—mobilizing private sector investment, building public supercomputing infrastructure, and establishing the AI Compute Access Fund—to expand domestic compute capacity, support Canada’s AI ecosystem, drive economic growth and safeguard Canadian data and intellectual property.
• The launch of the call for applications follows the call for statements of interest for the AI Sovereign Compute Infrastructure Program, which closed in 2025.

Source: Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada

The post Canada Opens Applications for AI Supercomputing Infrastructure Program appeared first on HPCwire.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel says that while Cuba does not want military aggression from the United States, his country is prepared to fight back.

The cosmic lineup of Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Neptune is here.

But underground construction work on a presidential bunker underneath the ballroom can continue, the judge said.

The VR headsets are RAMageddon's latest victims.

The Bay of Bengal’s low-lying coastal area and dense population make the region in Southeast Asia highly vulnerable to flooding.

April 16, 2026 — Powerful cyclones can push seawater miles inland, threatening densely populated communities and critical infrastructure built along coastal areas. A combination of exposure and complexity makes the Bay of Bengal in Southeast Asia a powerful test case for scientists seeking to better understand how tides, storm surge, river flows and sea level rise interact to drive extreme coastal flooding.

Satellite imagery of Cyclone Sidr over the Bay of Bengal on November 14, 2007. Sidr caused storm surges up to 9.8 feet high and caused between 3,000 and 10,000 deaths, with an estimated $2.3 billion of damage. Image credit: NASA Worldview Snapshots.

To better anticipate the region’s rare but potentially devastating floods, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory are using advanced computer simulations to create thousands of tropical cyclone scenarios.

The research helps reveal how extreme storm tides could affect key coastal sites, including nuclear power plants, providing information that could guide safer infrastructure planning in one of the world’s most vulnerable coastal regions. Their findings, published in npj Natural Hazards, could inform operations and guide future plant siting.

Simulating Cyclones to Predict Flood Risks

The research team used Argonne’s Laboratory Computing Resource Center to simulate thousands of years of tropical cyclones under a range of atmospheric conditions. The researchers focused on storm-tide risks, which they define as the highest simulated water levels during a storm.

Assessing risks to nuclear infrastructure requires estimating low frequency events (extreme storm tides), which occur less often but pose significant threats. Natural hazard risks are often expressed in terms of event frequency. For example, a 50-year flood — one that is estimated to occur only once in a 50-year period — may be an acceptable risk for thermal power plants, but nuclear facilities require estimates for rarer events, such as 1,000-year floods. This makes it challenging to estimate risks from natural hazards since worldwide records of storm paths and intensity extending beyond 50 to 100 years aren’t available.

Nuclear infrastructure safety depends on using rebuilt data from related datasets or creating realistic predictions of storm events. The researchers used the second approach to generate a long historical record of storm surges along the coast of the Bay of Bengal.

Their simulations showed how changes in cyclone paths and strength could reshape flood risks. Historical cyclones, such as Cyclone Sidr (2007) and Cyclone Hudhud (2014), were used to test the accuracy of the models. The models used physics-based methods that do not rely on the small number of recorded tropical cyclones that have made landfall. Depending solely on historical records can either underestimate or overestimate flood risks.

“We wanted to understand how to evaluate the risk of building critical infrastructure in a hydrologically complex coastal area,” said Rao Kotamarthi, an Argonne senior scientist and one of the study’s authors. ​“We wanted to estimate the changes in low frequency events as would be necessary for siting nuclear reactors.”

Risk Changes Across the Region

The researchers analyzed how different factors interact to influence the risk of flooding at sites of critical infrastructure. Their study found that adding up the effects of individual factors, such as tides and storm surges, can lead to inaccurate water level estimates. These estimates can be off by as much as 25 to 30 percent compared to estimates that account for how these factors interact with each other over long periods.

Simulations revealed that flood risks varied significantly across the Bay of Bengal’s coastline, with notable differences even within the same region.

• Decreased risk in Bangladesh: The Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna delta shows a lower risk from low frequency events as compared to some other locations along the coast. However, extreme flooding events are still possible, with water levels reaching several meters.
• Increased risk in India: India’s eastern coast, including areas near the Kovvada Atomic Power Project, show elevated risk from low frequency events. The study predicts up to a 78% increase in low frequency event risks compared to higher frequency events.

Additionally, complex factors, such as storm surges, tides, river discharge and sea-level rise, amplify flood risks. Wave setup (water accumulation caused by wave action) and tide-surge interactions are especially significant along India’s eastern coast.

Implications for Infrastructure

As populations grow and more infrastructure is built in coastal areas, understanding these risks is essential. Policymakers and engineers are responsible for designing resilient systems to withstand extreme weather events. Critical facilities, such as nuclear power plants and hospitals, can incorporate these projections to prevent catastrophic damage.

Kotamarthi has been working with the International Atomic Energy Agency on hydrological and meteorological hazard impacts to nuclear sites.

“Since we are building more power plants in different locations, we need to do a more thorough analysis,” Kotamarthi said. ​“There’s more to consider than just elevation. Even existing plants likely will need to update safety rules to account for the estimated risks from these types of hazards.”

The researchers recommend proactive measures to reduce flood risks. These include improving safety protocols for existing infrastructure and conducting detailed flood risk assessments for new facilities.

Expanding the Research

While Argonne’s method was applied specifically to sites of existing or proposed nuclear power plants in the Bay of Bengal, it can be used for any coastal region where storm-tide risk assessments are needed. The study highlights opportunities to expand this research to other vulnerable coastal regions worldwide.

Future research will expand storm datasets, refine projections for land sinking and river discharge, and leverage machine learning to enhance model efficiency and accuracy. These improvements will make predictions more reliable.

This research emphasizes the importance of localized flood risk assessments to protect infrastructure. It provides valuable insights for policymakers, engineers and disaster preparedness teams. Investing in high-resolution modeling and localized studies equips communities to mitigate the growing risks of extreme weather events.

Source: Marguerite Huber, Argonne National Laboratory

The post Argonne Models Thousands of Cyclone Scenarios to Evaluate Coastal Infrastructure Risk appeared first on HPCwire.

Rare rebuke of Trump’s mass deportation agenda, enabled by small group of Republican defectors, to last three years

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The US House of Representatives on Thursday approved legislation to shield 350,000 Haitians from deportations for three years, a rare bipartisan rebuke of Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda enabled by a small group of Republican defectors.

The 224-204 vote saw 11 members of the House Republican conference join with all Democrats to pass the New York Democrat Lauren Gillen’s bill to continue temporary protected status (TPS) for Haitians, a designation that allows them to live and work in the United States without fear of deportation.

Trump ally grilled by lawmakers over ‘terrible decisions’ on vaccines, public health and funding cuts to key programs

• US politics – latest updates

Vaccines and public health dominated a frequently contentious hearing with Robert F Kennedy Jr on Thursday before the US House ways and means committee.

Kennedy, the health secretary and a longtime vaccine opponent, has overseen sweeping changes to routine vaccination recommendations and has promoted misinformation even amid the biggest measles outbreak in decades.

Health secretary and chef Robert Irvine claim Americans could eat healthier and more cheaply if they shopped better

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The first episode of the new Secretary Kennedy Podcast, produced by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), opens with this quote from guest Robert Irvine, who creates meal plans for the US military: “We talk about food being expensive. If you’re buying expensive food, it’s expensive. But if you’re buying food and you know what to do with it, it’s not expensive.”

The episode is titled Fixing America’s Food System – Robert Irvine, and features a 45-minute conversation with the HHS secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, the host of the show, and guest Irvine. Best known as a celebrity chef, Irvine has collaborated with the US military to launch Victory Fresh, a program that offers healthy grab-and-go meals on military bases, during the Biden administration. The program’s Biden-era origins are never acknowledged during the show.

Ten House Republicans joined Democrats to oppose President Donald Trump on his immigration policy Thursday, voting to restore temporary protections for Haitians living in the United States.

NPR said the donation from Ballmer, the largest to the public radio network by a living donor, will help offset the loss of federal funding in 2025.

AUSTIN, Texas, April 16, 2026 — Oracle plans to expand its multicloud networking capabilities to provide customers with enterprise-grade, high-performance connectivity between Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and AWS. By establishing connectivity between Oracle Interconnect and AWS Interconnect–multicloud customers will have access to a fast, private, managed connection to run applications and move data seamlessly between OCI and AWS.

Credit: Jonathan Weiss/Shutterstock

“Oracle continues to advance multicloud connectivity as part of its commitment to helping customers unlock flexibility, agility, and performance across clouds,” said Nathan Thomas, senior vice president, product management, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. “With Oracle AI Database@AWS, we pioneered a simpler way for customers to run Oracle AI Database workloads in AWS with the same features, architecture, and performance as they expect on-premises. We’re now building on that by establishing connectivity between our popular cross-cloud interconnect and AWS Interconnect–multicloud. This will help our mutual customers modernize their applications, unify their data, and unlock new generative AI opportunities.”

Supporting both full and split-stack multicloud deployments, the collaboration between OCI and AWS will also enable organizations to leverage the strengths of multiple cloud providers without the complexities of managing multiple network providers and installing physical network infrastructure. With unified connectivity between OCI and AWS, customers can accelerate AI modernization while meeting operational flexibility without managing complex data replication.

OCI has built native, high-performance interconnect capabilities designed for enterprise-scale workloads, enabling seamless multicloud connectivity across 26 interconnected partner cloud regions. Through its multicloud networking solutions, OCI enables customers to establish secure, private, and highly available cloud-to-cloud connectivity without the operational complexity of traditional, manually configured networking approaches. The AWS Interconnect–multicloud open specification has enabled a new generation of enterprise multicloud connectivity. The collaboration between OCI and AWS Interconnect–multicloud will be the latest addition to Oracle’s comprehensive multicloud capabilities and is planned to be available later this year in the AWS US East (N. Virginia) us-east-1 region.

About Oracle Distributed Cloud

Oracle’s distributed cloud delivers the benefits of cloud with greater control and flexibility. Oracle’s distributed cloud lineup includes:

• Public cloud: Hyperscale public cloud regions serve any size of organization, including those requiring strict EU sovereignty controls. See the full list of regions here.
• Dedicated cloud: Customers can run all OCI cloud services in their own data centers with OCI Dedicated Region, while partners can resell OCI cloud services and customize the experience using Oracle Alloy. Oracle also operates separate U.S., UK, and Australian Government Clouds, and Isolated Cloud Regions for national security purposes. Each of these products provides a full cloud and AI stack that customers can deploy as a Sovereign Cloud.
• Hybrid cloud: OCI delivers key cloud services on-premises via Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer and is already managing deployments in over 60 countries.
• Multicloud: OCI is physically deployed within all the cloud providers, including AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure, providing low latency, natively integrated Oracle AI Database services, including Oracle AI Database@AWS, Oracle AI Database@Azure, Oracle AI Database@Google Cloud; and Oracle HeatWave on AWS and Microsoft Azure. In addition, Oracle Interconnect for Microsoft Azure, Oracle Interconnect for Google Cloud, and the upcoming connection between OCI and AWS Interconnect–multicloud allow customers to seamlessly combine key capabilities from across clouds.

About Oracle

Oracle offers integrated suites of applications plus secure, autonomous infrastructure in the Oracle Cloud. For more information about Oracle (NYSE: ORCL), please visit us at www.oracle.com.

Source: Oracle

The post Oracle and AWS Collaborate to Expand Multicloud Networking appeared first on HPCwire.

Anthropic says this new model is supposed to be more "tasteful and creative." And you can actually use it.

President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that a temporary ceasefire agreement had been reached between Israel and Lebanon. The 10-day ceasefire, set to begin at 5 p.m. ET, will reportedly see a pause to Israel’s relentless assault on southern Lebanon, which has displaced over 1.2 million people and killed at least 2,000 since early March.

Any news of reduced annihilation by Israeli and U.S. forces in the region is, of course, to be welcomed. Just a week ago, Trump was threatening to wipe out the whole civilization of Iran. In Lebanon, Israel has targeted civilian infrastructure like hospitals and demolished villages and homes with ferocity.

In the Israeli context, however, the very meaning of “ceasefire” has been irreparably degraded. This is the lesson of Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. Under the conditions of an alleged ceasefire in Gaza since October, Israel has killed over 765 Palestinians in the Strip and injured over 2,000 — while maintaining a ground occupation of at least half the territory.

Related

Israel Agrees to Stop Bombing Lebanon — So It Can Keep Bombing Gaza

Those concerned about Israeli occupation and ethnic cleansing in Lebanon, too, have little reason to believe a ceasefire will see an end to Israel’s expansionist violence.

None of this is a secret. “Israel has no plans to withdraw its military from southern Lebanon during the announced 10 day ceasefire,” an Israeli security official confirmed to Reuters.

Israeli officials frame unambiguous expansion into Lebanon’s territory as the creation of a security “buffer zone.” The plan to maintain control of southern Lebanon is an open one, with a long history, imbued with renewed fervor by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s extremist government.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has said that, even after the current war ends, Israel intends to maintain control over the territory up to the Litani River in southern Lebanon, and that all villages near Israel’s ever-moving border would be destroyed.

“[T]he policy of occupying and annexing south Lebanon up to the Litani River has long held influence among parts of the Israeli government,” wrote Mireille Rebeiz, chair of Middle East Studies at Dickinson College.  She noted that it “dates back to influential Zionist leaders — secular and religious alike — before Israeli independence in 1948.”

Related

“I Want to Occupy”: Inside the Israeli Movement Pushing to Raze and Settle Southern Lebanon

Israel has invaded Lebanon seven times in the last half century. Between 1978 and 2000, Israel maintained an 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon — the occupation Hezbollah was formed to fight.

It’s worth stressing, too, that while Israel and the U.S. describe the war as one against Hezbollah, it is being waged against the Lebanese people. Much like it is an unacceptable euphemism to describe Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians as a war with Hamas.

Lebanese journalist Lylla Younes told “Democracy Now!” that in southern Lebanon, as in Gaza, Israel is carrying out a “scorched-earth campaign,” destroying whole villages, mosques, and cultural sites. Her family’s village in the southern border region was bombed earlier this week.

“What the world should know is that we will return to these villages, and when we do, we’ll return to rubble, and it will be an immense process of rebuilding,” she said. That is, if return is possible at all.

Hezbollah, for its part, will not be fighting through the ceasefire, the group’s representatives had said.

“We will be respecting the ceasefire and we will deal with it cautiously,” said Ibrahim Moussawi, a member of the Lebanese Parliament and a Hezbollah spokesperson. He added that “it should hopefully be a beginning of a course of the Israeli withdrawal from our occupied territories.”

Related

The Forever Spoiler: Netanyahu Has Been Blowing Up Diplomacy With Iran for Decades

Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam wrote on X on Thursday that he has “full hope” that the Lebanese civilians displaced from the south will be able to return to their homes.

It is an optimism at direct odds with Israel’s open commitment to annexation — and it is a hollow hope in the face of what we’re seeing in Gaza.

“Israeli forces continue their violent attacks and expand their military control of the Strip,” noted Médecins Sans Frontières in a report last week. “Living conditions of Palestinians remain dire, while Israel continues to deliberately obstruct aid, which is translating into entirely preventable deaths.” The humanitarian medical aid group put it plainly: “This is not a ceasefire.”

This cannot be what “ceasefire” gets to mean.

The post Israel Will Keep Occupying Lebanon Despite Ceasefire appeared first on The Intercept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Alphabet's Google is negotiating an agreement with the Department of Defense that would allow the Pentagon to deploy its Gemini AI models in classified settings, the Information reported on Thursday, citing two people with direct knowledge of the discussions. The two parties are discussing an agreement that would allow the Pentagon to use Google's AI for all lawful uses, according to the report. During the negotiations, Google has proposed additional language in its contract with the department to prevent its AI from being used for domestic mass surveillance or autonomous weapons without appropriate human control, the Information reported. The Pentagon will continue to deploy frontier AI capabilities through strong industry partnerships across all classification levels, a Pentagon official said, without confirming any talks with Google.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Some membership prices will rise in July.

AI has arrived in supercomputing centers, and it’s bringing with it a lot of new software, new architectures, and new workloads. Users who traditionally used a narrow set of HPC tools are now exploring a wide new world of possibilities with AI. The burden of supporting the new software and systems falls to administrators, who sometimes are struggling to adapt.

Before 2022, supporting HPC workloads at CINECA was fairly straightforward, according to Daniele Cesarini, the head of AI-HPC architecture for the non-profit consortium of 69 Italian universities and national research centers.

CINECA has a much bigger software stack to support in the age of AI (Image courtesy Daniele Cesarini/CINECA)

“Before 2022, we just have our classical HPC application that use numerical libraries, usually written in C, C++ and Fortran. There was just one workload manager, Slurm, or PBS really,”  Cesarini said at the recent VAST Data conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. “There was just one workload manager, Slurm, or PBS really… The storage was a parallel file system. Everything was a file in a folder on Lustre.”

When the AI boom arrived in 2023, things began to change. Instead of running a relatively homogenous group of codes on a relatively static HPC stack, CINECA users suddenly had greater demands.

According to Cesarini, CINECA users were developing AI software in PyTorch and Tensorflow, and needed access to specific Pandas, NumPy, and Scikit-Learn libraries. They used new compute engines, like Apache Spark, vector databases like Milvus and Qdrant, and streaming data platforms like Apache Kafka and Apache Flink.

Instead of just Slurm/PBS, there is now Slurm/PBS as well as Kubernetes and OpenStack. Instead of just Lustre, users needed access to file, block, and S3 object storage. More elaborate data ingestion frameworks, API management, machine learning pipelines, and retrieval augmented generation (RAG) flows demand more monitoring, observability, and security.

At the same time that CINECA has embraced AI and data science, it has dramatically scaled up the number and size of HPC systems that it operates. As we reported last month, the Bologna-based organization had one data center drawing 4 megawatts powering three supercomputers back in 2022, when it had about 70 employees.

Since the start of 2023, CINECA has announced that it’s opening two additional data centers that will draw 30 megawatts of power. It has already installed Leonardo, which currently sits at number 10 on the TOP500 list, and has plans to add three more AI systems, two additional HPC systems, and one cloud environment that will serve northern and southern Italy. Now CINECA employs about 200.

Managing this growth in systems, users, and complexity has been a struggle, Cesarini said. “It is a completely different paradigm,” he said. “Everything is much, much more complex.”

Moving to VAST’s data platform has helped CINECA deal with the increase in types of storage that users demand. Users no longer want access to just a file, Cesarini said. Instead, they want a streaming data pipeline. That helps to eliminate bottlenecks in data management and data processing.

Daniele Cesarini is head of HPC-AI architecture at CINECA

CINECA found it needs new personnel with different skillsets to manage all these systems, software, and users. Previously, all that was needed were system administrators, helpdesk and user support, and architecture people, Cesarini said. “Now we have a system administrators that are specialized in HPC storage, AI storage, PC networking, HPC networking, Ethernet, InfiniBand, GPUs, CPUs, virtual machine, orchestrator like Kubernetes, OpenStack.”

Maintaining the large number of different libraries that users want is another challenge for CINECA. “We need to provide thousands of different libraries,” he said. “Our users use tens of different AI frameworks. They want multiple platforms: Azure, Kubernetes, OpenStack.”

When users come to CINECA, they usually have a good idea what their stack should be, and they often already have its containerized, Cesarini said. The challenge for CINECA then is to deploy and scale the container as needed, with OpenStack being the preferred on-prem environment, and Azure for cloud. The HPC organization currently is focused predominantly on AI training, and it has not had a significant demand for running AI inference workloads yet.

Sometimes, CINECA will offer suggestions on what library or large language model (LLM) the users should use, and it will try to guide them to a specific combination of libraries and tools to deploy on the HPC and AI systems for training workloads. But with so many different combinations of tools, it can be difficult to accommodate specific library requests, Cesarini said.

“It often happens that they come with this container and they say ‘No, we won’t use it. Our workflow only works with PyTorch 3.3.4. And this is not possible to change because otherwise the workflow exploded during the workflow and stops,’” he said. “So it depends.”

At the end of the day, there is no way to solve the complexity problem. The days of having a simple HPC stack are over for sites like CINECA’s and the hundreds of other HPC organizations that are embracing AI. As the AI boom makes its way around the world, the need to deal with increased technical complexity will only increase.

The post AI Is Bringing Added Complexity for HPC Sites. How Are They Handling It? appeared first on HPCwire.

Credit card debt forgiveness can resolve your debt issues, but can you qualify if your wages have been garnished?

An online ad attacks Rep. Seth Moulton, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts, for not being sufficiently progressive because of past policy positions. But it also misleadingly claims that Moulton, a critic of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, “thanked ICE as they were terrorizing our communities and then killed citizens.”

The claim about ICE is based on Moulton’s vote for a June 2025 House resolution condemning a terrorist attack at a pro-Israel demonstration in Boulder, Colorado, that month. The last sentence of the resolution acknowledged law enforcement, including ICE officers, “for protecting the homeland.” 

However, at the time of his vote, Moulton said in a statement that he supported the measure because its “overarching purpose” was to “condemn antisemitic terror.”

The ad also criticizes Moulton, who was first elected to the House in 2015, for finding fault with the Green New Deal, an environmental policy agenda that he has supported; for previously opposing a wealth tax on billionaires that he now supports; and for not completely embracing proposals for a Medicare-for-all health care system for the U.S., which Moulton has said should be optional for Americans rather than mandatory.

Commonwealth Together PAC released the 30-second ad, titled “Run,” on April 8. The super PAC is pushing for the reelection of Sen. Ed Markey, the longtime incumbent whom Moulton is challenging in the Democratic primary. The election is Sept. 1.

A spokesman for the super PAC told the Boston Globe that the ad cost “six figures” and will run on social media and streaming platforms for “several weeks.”

“Sorry, Seth. You can run for Senate, but you can’t run from your record,” the narrator says at the end of the ad. A reader asked us if the ad’s claims about Moulton are accurate.

Thanking ICE?

The ad starts with the narrator saying: “Now that Seth Moulton is running for Senate, he claims he’s a progressive. But Moulton voted with Republicans to thank ICE for protecting our homeland. He thanked ICE as they were terrorizing our communities and then killed citizens in broad daylight.”

The ad cites Moulton’s vote in June 2025 for a House resolution — introduced by Republican Rep. Gabe Evans of Colorado — that denounced Mohammed Sabry Soliman, an Egyptian national, “and his antisemitic terrorist attack on peaceful demonstrators supporting the release of the hostages held by Hamas.” Federal prosecutors have charged Soliman, who is in the country on an expired tourist visa, with using Molotov cocktails and a homemade flamethrower to assault multiple demonstrators at that pro-Israel rally on June 1.

The last line of the roughly two-page resolution, which passed 280 to 113, with 75 Democrats joining 205 Republicans, said the House “expresses gratitude to law enforcement officers, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel, for protecting the homeland.”

But that acknowledgement of ICE is not why Moulton said he voted for the resolution, as the ad may lead viewers to believe.

In a June 11 statement responding to Democrats angered by his vote, Moulton said: “It is important to recognize that there rarely exists a bill or resolution that I vote for because I agree with every single word in it. At the end of the day, I cast my vote for H. Res 488 because I believe that it is critical to loudly condemn antisemitic terror, which was the overarching purpose of this resolution.” 

Moulton noted that he also voted for a second resolution condemning the attack in Boulder that did not mention ICE. He went on to say in his statement that he would oppose President Donald Trump’s “desires to weaponize ICE and create a culture of fear in immigrant communities across the country” while also “loudly condemning antisemitism.” Democrats should do both, Moulton said. 

And the congressman has criticized ICE several times since his vote last spring.

After Renee Good, a U.S. citizen, was shot and killed during a dispute with ICE agents in Minneapolis on Jan. 7, Moulton called for the Department of Homeland Security and then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to be held accountable “for aggressive and illicit tactics by ICE and other law enforcement agencies” that contributed to Good’s death. He said the killing of Good was an example of why he had introduced legislation in December “to make sure ICE officers can be prosecuted when they break the law.” That bill, the National Oversight and Enforcement of Misconduct Act, or NOEM Act, has not advanced.

In addition, after federal immigration officers in Minneapolis fatally shot Alex Pretti, another U.S. citizen, on Jan. 24, Moulton posted a social media video in which he called for ICE to be abolished. (A clip of the scuffle between Pretti and the officers is shown in the ad.)

“ICE is beyond repair,” Moulton said in his video post. “It obviously needs to be abolished, but even more urgently, its gang of criminal enforcers needs to be prosecuted. And then we can build a more comprehensive and humane immigration system that, No. 1, incentivizes people to come here legally, not illegally; two, provides a very clear pathway to citizenship; and three, is guarded by an enforcement system that, from judges to officers on the streets, reflects American values in every action and policy.” 

That same month, Moulton co-authored a letter to the leaders of a congressional subcommittee on homeland security that said he would oppose any DHS appropriations bill “without firm statutory guardrails and meaningful reforms” for ICE.

“To suggest that a vote to condemn a horrific terrorist attack against Holocaust survivors was somehow an endorsement of ICE is the kind of intellectual dishonesty that makes people lose faith in politics,” Moulton’s campaign said in an April 8 statement responding to the ad attacking him.

Other Ad Claims

Immediately following the ICE claims, the ad’s narrator says, “Moulton opposes Medicare-for-all too.” A graphic on screen in the ad cites a May 8, 2019, article on boston.com that carried the headline “Here’s why Seth Moulton opposes Medicare-for-All.”

The article went on to say that Moulton, a former Marine with health coverage through the Veterans Administration, had reservations about “forcing everyone onto a government one-size-fits-all program” like the VA system because of his own health care experiences.

“I can tell you plenty of stories about how my health care at the VA, with this socialized government system, is not great,” the article quoted him as telling CNN.

But the boston.com article also said that Moulton was fine with giving people the option to choose Medicare-style health insurance. Medicare “should be an option that Americans have. But it shouldn’t be the only way to go,” the article quoted him as saying on the “Pod Save America” podcast in April 2019, during his brief run for president. 

As he suggested during that podcast interview, Moulton’s current health care platform on his campaign website calls for creating a “National Public Option health care plan that competes directly with private insurers and lowers premiums for everyone.”

The ad attacking Moulton also says, “He criticized the Green New Deal, and he said Sen. Warren’s tax on billionaires punished the rich.”

The 2019 Los Angeles Times article cited in the ad quoted Moulton talking about being one of the earliest supporters of the Green New Deal – a nonbinding resolution outlining ways to address climate change – when it was in its early stages in 2018. What he later criticized were additions to that environmental policy agenda that he did not believe were about climate change. He said those add-ons could cause the proposal to lose support.

“I was one of the first people to sign onto the Green New Deal, and I signed on so early that it was just an open framework,” Moulton said, according to the L.A. Times article. “But then when some of the proponents of the deal or some of the sponsors of it started adding things like a jobs guarantee, a bunch of socialist programs, I think that’s a huge mistake because I think it’s gonna result in the baby being thrown out with the bathwater because it’s not addressing climate change specifically.” 

However, in a statement sent to us, Taylor Hebble, communications director for the Moulton campaign, noted that the congressman “has been a cosponsor of every Green New Deal Resolution introduced in the House.” But none has passed. (Markey has sponsored Senate versions of the Green New Deal that also have not passed.)

As for the tax on billionaires that Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent, proposed in 2019, Moulton did tell Reuters in an April interview that year that he thought their tax plans were a form of economic punishment.

“While he agreed the wealthy ought to pay their share of taxes, Sanders and Warren wanted to ‘punish the rich,’ Moulton said, which he called un-American,” Reuters reported. 

But Hebble raised the fact that Moulton went on to co-sponsor the Billionaire Minimum Income Tax Act in 2022, supported the 2022 state Massachusetts Fair Share Amendment that levied an extra 4% tax on taxable income exceeding $1,000,000, and backed the Social Security 2100 Act introduced in 2023 to apply Social Security payroll taxes to earnings above $400,000.

Fast forward to 2026, and Moulton has proposed his own wealth tax as part of his “affordability agenda” for housing, health care and education. “The plan is fully paid for through a national wealth tax on mega-millionaires and by closing tax loopholes exploited by corporations and the ultra-wealthy,” Moulton’s campaign said in a December press release about his proposal.

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 An Attack Over ICE in the Massachusetts Democratic Senate Race appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Apple's 2025 Environmental Report shows the company has made significant progress toward its 2030 climate goals.

Jay Bryant negotiating plea deal in New York death of Run-DMC star, over which one conviction has been overturned

One of the three men charged in the killing of Jam Master Jay plans to plead guilty, court records show, in what would be the first admission anyone has made in court to any role in the Run-DMC star’s death in 2002.

Jay Bryant pleaded not guilty to murder after his 2023 indictment, but his lawyer and federal prosecutors told the court in recent letters that they were negotiating a plea agreement.

The defense secretary said his prayer drew on Ezekiel, but wording closely matches Quentin Tarantino dialogue

It was perhaps inevitable that a braggadocious Christian nationalist defense secretary elevated from his role as a weekend Fox News television host would pluck a fake Bible verse from a violent Hollywood blockbuster and present it at a Pentagon prayer session to rally the troops for the “holy war” in Iran.

Certainly among a glut of stories swirling around Pete Hegseth this week, including articles of impeachment brought against him by a group of ambitious Democratic lawmakers, the bizarre allegation that the Bible-thumping Hegseth was passing off a fire-and-brimstone script by Quentin Tarantino, an Oscar-winning director, as the word of the Lord was far too compelling to ignore.

All House Democrats and four Republicans forced a vote on a measure to stop the Trump administration from ending temporary deportation protections for more than 300,000 people from Haiti.

Press play, then pay it forward. The music streaming app is launching a new feature with Bookshop.org to support independent booksellers.

Officers looking into attacks on Iran International media offices, synagogue and Jewish charity ambulances

Counter-terrorism investigators are examining three separate arson attacks in London against an Iranian dissident and Jewish targets amid fears the Iranian state may be behind them.

The latest attack happened at about 8.30pm on Wednesday, outside the offices of Iran International, a Persian-language news channel that opposes the regime in Tehran.

The plans call for the arch to be built on Columbia Island, a man-made strip of land in the Potomac River that is part of Washington, D.C.

Tory leader criticises Farage for saying that holding another independence vote ‘probably quite reasonable’

Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the Conservative party, has accused Nigel Farage of being an opportunist who does not believe in unionism after he urged Scottish nationalists to back Reform.

Farage said earlier this week he believed “genuine nationalists” would not support the Scottish National party’s bid to rejoin the EU, and urged them to vote Reform in the Holyrood election on 7 May.

Damon Jones was among dozens of people, including alleged mafia figures and athletes, charged last year in connection with a pair of gambling schemes.

Innovative experiments demonstrate valuable capabilities for quantum annealing machines

April 16, 2026 — In a series of recent publications, Los Alamos scientists have explored new ways to use quantum computers as dynamical, highly controllable experimental platforms to accelerate scientific discovery. Through a Laboratory Directed Research and Development program, an interdisciplinary team of theoretical physicists, experimental physicists, computer scientists, mathematicians and others focused on using quantum annealing platforms for practical, impactful scientific applications.

Los Alamos scientists are exploring how to use quantum computers to accelerate scientific discovery. Credit: LANL

“Rather than pursuing universal quantum computing, we have shown that we can already use existing analog quantum computers and their coupled qubits to get science results today,” said Los Alamos scientist Cristiano Nisoli, who led the project. “We employed analog quantum computers as building blocks to realize quantum systems analogous to physical materials, and then perform incredibly controlled experiments on them, demonstrating significant capabilities that go beyond computation.”

Mimicking Lab Experiments: Hysteresis

The team has worked to perform, for the first time, hysteresis experiments on quantum computers. Hysteresis is a characteristic of magnetic systems where the magnetization response of the system to an applied field depends on the history of previously applied fields; that is, hysteresis is a memory effect, where a current state is influenced by a prior state. Especially in frustrated magnetic systems, where interactions among magnetic moments cannot be all satisfied at the same time, changing a few experimental parameters reveals complex behaviors.

Hysteresis proves difficult to simulate with standard computers, where it requires many ad-hoc choices about the kinetics involved with shifting data and variables. Importantly, in quantum platforms, coupled qubits naturally evolve under quantum fluctuations with no a-priori assumptions.

Los Alamos scientist Elijah Pelofske proposed employing a hardware control parameter in D-Wave machines to apply a time-varying field while the system is exposed to quantum fluctuations. Though analog quantum computers like the D-Wave machines were initially developed as combinatorial optimization tools, the team’s approach found them suited to memory-related problems such as hysteresis. As described in Science Advances, the team’s work opens up a line of research that sees analog quantum computer platforms used for probing magnetic phenomena, bringing analog quantum computers into fundamental questions in condensed matter physics.

Magnetic Memory and Hysteresis from Quantum Transitions

Los Alamos scientists have looked into theoretical explanations for the underlying physics in how analog quantum computers handle memory in relationship to quantum physics problems. While quantum annealing memory effects are reduced by quantum tunneling, hysteresis can still occur. Los Alamos scientist Frank Barrows led the building of a conceptual framework to understand the behavior of qubits in these scenarios at a deeper level in ways that might be applicable to quantum molecules.

These results establish programmable analog quantum computers as powerful testbeds for exploring memory-endowed non-equilibrium dynamics in quantum many-body systems.

“By reproducing and dissecting complex hysteresis phenomena observed in specific compounds under high-magnetic fields, the quantum platform becomes a powerful interpretive tool,” Nisoli said. “It’s like having a companion experiment where you can turn every knob independently and see what matters. That’s not as easily accessible in standard experiments.”

Shannon Information Entropy Investigations

Further research at the Laboratory led by Pelofske has employed Shannon information entropy to quantify classical configuration memory retention under quantum fluctuations. Shannon information entropy quantifies the randomness of the outcome of a variable. The new method has been applied to shed light on memory retention or loss in a quantum system when subjected to quantum fluctuations.

The team couples the study of alternative classical approaches with an exploration of the classical spin noise of the problems. The combination of approaches seeks to illuminate the nature of the experiments and differentiate between their quantum or classical nature. The team’s approach helps establish a general probe of the interplay between quantum fluctuations and memory.

Zooming in on Criticality and Temperature

In another first, the Los Alamos team pushed a D-Wave quantum annealing machine to the limits of Boltzmann sampling, demonstrating for the first time that the analog quantum computer can be faithful enough to implement fine methods from statistical mechanics, such as the renormalization group, to study a system at criticality — at the points in which the system transforms from one phase to another and maintains itself in scale-free and essentially fractal state.

As described in Nature Communications, the team found that their quantum annealing approach can be used to study criticality in classical statistical physics models.

“These results establish analog quantum computers as robust simulators for statistical physics, offering a new pathway to study phase transitions and critical behavior,” said Pratik Sathe, former Lab postdoctoral researcher and current staff member at D-Wave Quantum, who led the work. “Remarkably, we find that annealing-based sampling does not suffer from critical slowing down and, therefore, avoids the ad-hoc techniques typically required to study criticality in frustrated systems using classical computational methods.”

This use of analog quantum computers as simulators of thermodynamics has also spurred the investigation of thermometry of these machines. The Los Alamos scientists sought to check how faithfully systems embedded in an analog quantum computer can reproduce the statistics of a thermal one.

“We asked ourselves, can the temperature of a system embedded in an analog quantum computer be controlled, and how?” said Los Alamos scientist George Grattan, first author of a work that, for the first time, seeks to check how faithfully these systems can reproduce the statistics of a thermal ensemble.

Driving Useful Experiments with Quantum Annealing

The Los Alamos team’s approach reflects a commitment to using today’s analog quantum computers as experimental platforms for physics, not just as computational devices. The team’s results sharply contrast with the idea that near-term noisy quantum hardware can only deliver narrow or artificial demonstrations on small or uninteresting systems.

With meaningful impact across multiple, independent topic areas — non-equilibrium dynamics, hysteresis and memory, critical phenomena, Boltzmann sampling, and now materials-relevant behavior — the team is able to move their approaches beyond abstract models, including working with experimentalists at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory’s Pulsed Field Facility (MagLab) at the Laboratory.

“This work opens the door to a new research and development workflow bringing together quantum theory, computation and experiment,” said Carleton Coffrin, principal investigator of the quantum annealing project and the Laboratory’s Quantum Science Coordinator. “The broad perception in the quantum computing research community is that this technology is immensely promising but not useful today, and that we need much larger, fault-tolerant machines before quantum computing can have real scientific impact. However, this team is demonstrating that for some carefully selected applications, analog quantum hardware is immediately useful for scientific discovery, and a novel tool for theoretical and experimental research.”

Source: LANL

The post Los Alamos Leads Research in Versatile Quantum Computing appeared first on HPCwire.

Thieves believed to have escaped into sewers after holding staff and customers in Crédit Agricole branch for two hours

Armed robbers held 25 people hostage at a bank in Naples for two hours on Thursday, before fleeing through a tunnel.

The three thieves entered a branch of Crédit Agricole in the southern Italian city at about 11.30am, taking hostage staff and customers, who were freed by police a couple of hours later.

Prosecutors say this is first criminal case against a federal agent involved in Trump’s immigration crackdown

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An ICE agent has been charged with assault for allegedly pointing his gun at people in a car while driving on a Minneapolis highway, prosecutors in Minnesota said on Thursday.

Hennepin county attorney Mary Moriarty said she believed it was the first criminal case brought against a federal immigration officer involved in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown that surged federal authorities into cities including Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland and New Orleans.

A CBS News California investigation into unclaimed property is drawing bipartisan attention as federal lawmakers move to stop states from quietly profiting off people's investments.

‘Sustained outperformance’ merits pay rise, says company after it ups profit guidance to £1.2bn for year to January 2027

The Next chief executive, Simon Wolfson, took home more than £7m last year, his highest ever pay package, and could be handed up to £9.27m this year after the retailer announced plans to increase his basic salary and bonuses.

The listed company said it was increasing its pay deal for the long-term leader of the fashion and homewares retailer, which now controls a string of brands in the UK including Gap, Victoria’s Secret, Cath Kidston, Reiss and FatFace, as his remuneration was 30% below the average for FTSE 100 bosses.

IPv6 usage briefly reached 50% across Google services for the first time, marking a major milestone for a protocol created in 1998 to solve IPv4's address shortage. Tom's Hardware reports: [...] IPv6 was dismissed early on as a headache-inducing, hard-to-implement complication that would hardly ever gain any traction -- despite offering 2^128 possible numbers, solving all network number assignments in one fell swoop. That changed over time by force of necessity, and Google's tracking graph shows that for a brief moment in time on March 28, 50% of worldwide users accessed the service over an IPv6 connection, marking a historic first. APNIC's stats show that the protocol is in use by 43% of the world, with Asia and the Americas inching ever close to those 50%. Cloudflare, meanwhile, shows that 40% of traffic is done in IPv6, an actually impressive figure if you consider it's measuring actual transferred packets rather than just counting addresses. The tried-and-true IPv4 and its well-known 123.456.789.123 format from 1980 offers ~4.3 billion addresses in theory, and around 3.7 billion in practice. That always sounded like a lot, but nobody could have predicted just how rapid the explosion of the Internet would be. IANA, the entity controlling the North-American IPv4 space, ran out of IPv4 addresses around 2011, while its European equivalent RIPE NCC could spare no more four-octet addresses nearly seven years ago in 2019. Asian, African, and Latin-American IP registries equally ran out during that timeframe.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Few Republicans have been willing to distance themselves from the president as the war's end remains uncertain.

Spy-tech company and founder Peter Thiel should ‘have their hands ripped off our NHS’, say MPs

MPs have queued up to demand the government scraps its £330m NHS contract with the spy-tech company Palantir, calling it “dreadful” and “shameful” in a debate on Thursday, after which the government said it was “no fan” of the US company’s politics.

Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs led the calls for Palantir, which also works for Donald Trump’s ICE immigration crackdown and the Israeli military, to be removed as a supplier to the NHS federated data platform (FDP), with one Labour backbencher, Samantha Niblett, questioning whether it could be “trusted as a custodian of the intimate health records of tens of millions of British citizens”.

The prime minister was not aware that the former US ambassador had failed the vetting process, according to Downing Street

Swinney says this is a manifesto for the whole of Scotland.

He confirms that the SNP would argue for the Scottish power to have more control over energy policy (still largely reserved to Westminter). He says:

The problem is not that we do not have the energy. The problem is that Westminster has the power. This election is our opportunity to take those powers and put them into Scotland’s hands.

Individuals such as Matt Goodwin and Lord Frost benefited from largesse of self-styled ‘illiberal democracy’

• UK politics live – latest updates

The last 16 years of Viktor Orbán’s rule have been kind to a number of British political figures – from the Tory peer David Frost to Reform UK’s Matt Goodwin and James Orr.

All benefited from largesse extended by the self-styled “illiberal democracy” established by the Hungarian leader’s ruling Fidesz party, which took a particular liking for those on the harder right of British conservatism.

PARIS, April 16, 2026 – Today, AMD and representatives of the French government announced plans to deepen collaboration in support of France’s National Strategy for AI, aimed at accelerating local AI innovation, expanding access to open and advanced compute resources for the local AI ecosystem and strengthening France’s position in the global AI landscape.

Credit: Shutterstock

The Letter of Intent (LOI) was signed in Paris at the French Ministry of the Economy, Finance and Industrial, Energy and Digital Sovereignty. AMD senior vice president, Global AI Markets, Keith Strier, joined Philippe Baptiste, Minister of Higher Education, Research and Space, Sébastien Martin, Minister Delegate in charge of Industry, and Anne Le Hénanff, Minister Delegate in charge of Artificial Intelligence and Digital, for the formal signing.

The multi-year collaboration aims to strengthen France’s AI ecosystem through infrastructure, research and education. To help expand AI expertise and enable diversity and resilience across the French AI ecosystem, AMD plans to provide researchers, developers and startups with hardware, software and training through its AMD University Program, AMD AI Developer Program, and AMD AI Academy.

In addition, AMD will continue to deepen its collaboration with GENCI, the Jules Verne Consortium and CEA in connection with Alice Recoque, expected to be France’s first exascale supercomputer powered by AMD technology, through a planned Center of Excellence designed to provide expertise, training and ecosystem support to help fully harness the power of the Alice Recoque AI supercomputer and advance the broader AI Factory France ecosystem.

Philippe Baptiste, Minister of Higher Education, Research and Space, stated: “France has all the assets needed to assert its central role in the development of artificial intelligence: world-class fundamental and applied research, globally renowned engineers, and unique infrastructures in Europe. Through this partnership with AMD, we are strengthening our scientific and academic ecosystem by providing high-quality support to our researchers, teachers, and students, granting them unprecedented access to cutting-edge infrastructures. The Alice Recoque supercomputer, operated by GENCI and the CEA, marks a decisive step in enhancing our research and innovation capabilities, both in the public and private sectors. I am convinced that this will enable us to better meet the scientific challenges of our time.”

Sébastien Martin, Minister Delegate for Industry, stated: “AMD not only brings the technology and expertise to power Alice Recoque but also commits to working with the French Government on the local economic and social benefits of the research undertaken. This letter of intent paves the way for a fruitful public-private collaboration. It will contribute to France’s ambitious strategy for technological sovereignty. France must become a global leader in AI, not only in research, but also in the AI value chain, from electronics to software, focusing on value creation.”

Anne Le Hénanff, Minister Delegate for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Affairs, stated: “There is no AI without infrastructure. Building a strong and sustainable digital future requires working across the entire value chain and diversifying our partnerships. I welcome AMD’s strong commitment to engaging with our startup ecosystem and contributing to a more resilient and innovative landscape”

Keith Strier, senior vice president, Global AI Markets, AMD, said: “France has implemented one of the most ambitious national AI programs in Europe, capitalizing on its robust AI ecosystem, world-class academic programs and an advanced energy and data infrastructure. AMD looks forward to providing the workbench to expand the frontiers of industrial and scientific innovation in France, and maximize the upside of sovereign AI investments, by enabling France’s AI community to harness AMD’s broad portfolio of high-performance computing platforms and open software ecosystem.”

About AMD

AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) drives innovation in high-performance and AI computing to solve the world’s most important challenges. Today, AMD technology powers billions of experiences across cloud and AI infrastructure, embedded systems, AI PCs and gaming. With a broad portfolio of AI-optimized CPUs, GPUs, networking and software, AMD delivers full-stack AI solutions that provide the performance and scalability needed for a new era of intelligent computing. Learn more at www.amd.com.

Source: AMD

The post AMD and French Government Announce Plans to Advance AI Innovation, Research and Open Ecosystem Development appeared first on HPCwire.

US calls free-market capitalism ‘surest path to prosperity’ and seeks to forgo direct aid to developing countries

• Middle East crisis – live updates

The Trump administration has moved to formally enlist foreign governments in a sweeping reorientation of global development policy, directing American diplomats worldwide to seek official support for a “trade over aid” declaration before its introduction at the United Nations later this month. This would mean a move away from direct aid to poor nations in favor of increased trade, led by private companies.

Principal deputy spokesperson at the state department Tommy Pigott confirmed the initiative on Wednesday, framing it as a rejection of what he called a failed aid model. “The idea that trade and free market capitalism is the surest path to prosperity has been proven by the facts and by history,” Pigott said, adding that those calling for “aid not trade” were “really arguing for lining the pockets of a corrupt NGO industrial complex”.

SAN JOSE, Calif., April 16, 2026 — Cadence has announced a strategic collaboration with Google to optimize the Cadence ChipStack AI Super Agent with Gemini on Google Cloud. This collaboration positions Cadence at the forefront of the shift toward agentic design automation, creating an agent-driven, scalable, cloud-native platform for next-generation chip design and verification.

The Cadence ChipStack AI Super Agent integrates advanced agentic reasoning with Cadence’s EDA solutions, delivering up to 10X productivity improvements across digital design and testbench development, verification planning, regression management and automated debug. By combining AI agents with native EDA execution, the platform enables design teams to compress development cycles, improve efficiency and accelerate time to tapeout.

“Our collaboration with Google Cloud represents a major step forward in scaling AI-driven design automation,” said Paul Cunningham, senior vice president and general manager at Cadence. “By integrating the Cadence ChipStack AI Super Agent with Gemini, we’re advancing the next generation of agentic design—combining the reasoning power of large language models with Cadence’s world-class EDA engines to deliver breakthrough productivity and quality of results for our customers.”

At the core of the ChipStack AI Super Agent is its innovative Mental Model technology, which enables sophisticated agentic reasoning through Cadence native skills, driving Cadence EDA tools to improve the quality and correctness of large language model (LLM)-generated content. Through its collaboration with Google Cloud, Cadence is tightening the integration between the Gemini-enabled ChipStack AI Super Agent and Cadence EDA engines, driving significant improvements in both productivity and quality of results.

This collaboration also leverages Google Cloud’s secure, elastic compute infrastructure to deliver the compute needed for Gemini’s LLM reasoning, Cadence EDA tools and the ChipStack AI Super Agent. This enables a “click-to-deploy” end-to-end solution for agent-powered chip design and verification.

The ChipStack AI Super Agent is available now on the Google Cloud Marketplace.

About Cadence

Cadence is a market leader in AI and digital twins, pioneering the application of computational software to accelerate innovation in the engineering design of silicon to systems. Our design solutions, based on Cadence’s Intelligent System Design strategy, are essential for the world’s leading semiconductor and systems companies to build their next-generation products from chips to full electromechanical systems that serve a wide range of markets, including hyperscale computing, mobile communications, automotive, aerospace, industrial, life sciences and robotics. In 2024, Cadence was recognized by the Wall Street Journal as one of the world’s top 100 best-managed companies.

Source: Cadence

The post Cadence and Google Collaborate to Scale AI-Driven Chip Design with ChipStack AI Super Agent appeared first on HPCwire.

Data shows 85% of those infected in the state have been not vaccinated against measles as dozens are hospitalized

• Measles: how does it spread and how can I protect my child?

Utah has emerged as a major center of measles infections in the US, as an outbreak that has been building for some time continues to expand.

State officials reported a total of 602 measles cases on Wednesday tied to an outbreak that started last year and is still ongoing, including 19 newly identified infections, according to the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (Cidrap). Recent exposures have been reported at several preschools and elementary schools.

Resolution needed two more votes to pass, but Democrats now appear solidified in opposition

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The US House of Representatives on Thursday narrowly rejected a war powers resolution that would have prevented further military action against Iran, as Democrats united against continued US involvement in the conflict amid peace talks that have yet to make a breakthrough.

The resolution introduced by Greg Meeks, the top Democrat on the House foreign affairs committee, failed by a vote of 213-214, with one Republican member voting present. It required at least two more votes to pass, as tied votes fail in the House.

We got our hands on the sleek new rice cooker ahead of launch.

Lebanese health ministry says killing of 91 healthcare workers shows ‘total disregard’ for international law

• Middle East crisis – live updates

When they received the call to respond to an Israeli airstrike in the city of Mayfadoun, in southern Lebanon, most of the paramedics held back, having previously seen colleagues killed by double-tap attacks targeting rescuers. But the medics from the Islamic Health Association (IHA) rushed to the scene.

By the time the other emergency workers arrived at the site, they found the IHA medics had indeed been caught in a second strike. They started evacuating their wounded colleagues, only for their ambulances to be hit in two further attacks.

There will be flight cancellations ‘soon’ if oil supplies are not restored in coming weeks, says head of IEA

• Europe has only six weeks’ supply of jet fuel left owing to Iran war, says energy chief

The UK’s growth acceleration in February is likely to be “short-lived”, due to the Iran war, warns Andrew Hunter, associate director and senior economist at Moody’s Analytics:

“The 0.5% month-over-month jump in U.K. GDP in February, and slight upward revision to January’s data, echoes the earlier improvement in the surveys and suggests the economy had more momentum at the start of this year than previously thought.

However, with those surveys weakening quite sharply in March as the Middle East conflict sent energy prices soaring, this upturn is likely to prove short lived.

The Explorian E310 had a good run, but after more than 10 years, Vitamix is retiring its cheapest model. Meet the entry-level replacement.

Google says it's trying out a better way to explore the web.

The coding tool can now run multiple agents across applications on your computer.

Anthropic released Claude Opus 4.7, calling it its strongest generally available model and an improvement over Opus 4.6 in areas like software engineering, instruction-following, tool use, and agentic coding. But the company says it is "less broadly capable" than the restricted Claude Mythos Preview, "which Anthropic rolled out to a select group of companies as part of a new cybersecurity initiative called Project Glasswing earlier this month," reports CNBC. From the report: The launch of Claude Opus 4.7 on Thursday comes after Anthropic launched Claude Opus 4.6 in February. Anthropic said the new model outperforms Claude Opus 4.6 across many use cases, including industry benchmarks for agentic coding, multidisciplinary reasoning, scaled tool use and agentic computer use, according to a release. Anthropic said it experimented with efforts to "differentially reduce" Claude Opus 4.7's cyber capabilities during training. The company encouraged security professionals who are interested in using the model for "legitimate cybersecurity purposes" to apply through a formal verification program. Claude Opus 4.7 is available across all of Anthropic's Claude products, its application programming interface and through cloud providers Microsoft, Google and Amazon. The new model is the same price as Claude Opus 4.6, Anthropic said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

There will be flight cancellations ‘soon’ if oil supplies are not restored in coming weeks, says head of IEA

• Business live – latest updates

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Europe has only six weeks of jet fuel left before shortages will hit because of the Iran war, according to the head of a global energy watchdog.

Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency, said there would be flight cancellations “soon” if oil supplies from the Middle East were not restored within the coming weeks.

• LIV chief’s rallying email to staff did not refer to 2027

• Without alternative funding future is bleak for rebel tour

Several of golf’s leading names are facing career limbo at the end of 2026 amid expectation Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund will withdraw backing for the LIV Tour.

While the likelihood is Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm will be afforded a pathway back to the PGA Tour, the future for others who made lucrative switches to LIV is far more uncertain.

The pontiff did not name the president during a speech in Cameroon. He criticized those who manipulate religion “for their own military, economic or political gain.”

The sneaker maker is selling its footwear assets and rebranding as "NewBird AI," betting on booming demand for AI computing power.

India and Pakistan still cannot agree to restore the Indus Waters Treaty – but re-engagement could help bring lasting peace Expert comment LToremark 16 April 2026

Water cooperation is not only mutually beneficial for India and Pakistan, but essential. Restoring the Indus Waters Treaty could be a powerful foundation for rebuilding trust.

Water has long been entangled with the political and security dynamics between India and Pakistan. The Indus River Basin is a lifeline for more than 300 million people across both countries, supporting agriculture, energy production and livelihoods. Signed in 1960, the Indus Waters Treaty divided the basin’s rivers between India and Pakistan while establishing detailed rules for cooperation, data sharing and dispute resolution. For more than six decades, it proved remarkably durable and acted as a stabilizing force for broader India-Pakistan relations. It has survived three wars and prolonged periods of diplomatic freeze, offering a rare pathway for cooperation. 

But in recent years, the treaty had come under increasing strain. Following a militant attack in Pahalgam, Kashmir, in April 2025 – for which India blamed Pakistan but Islamabad denied involvement – India chose to temporarily suspend its participation in the treaty and subsequently restricted the flow of water for short periods through the Baglihar and Kishanganga dams. Water scarcity during summer could increase the likelihood of India reducing downstream river flows into Pakistan, critical for irrigation, drinking supplies and hydropower generation. Should India’s reservoir storage capacities improve amid surging water scarcity, there are risks of an escalating crisis.

India’s decision to suspend the treaty not only significantly erodes the predictability and stability it had provided but also underscores how water can exacerbate tensions and even be instrumentalized as a tool of conflict – especially in the context of geopolitical rivalry. 

An enduring treaty under pressure

Related work

Urgent mediation to save the Indus Waters Treaty could be a route to de-escalation between India and Pakistan

The long-standing resilience of the Indus Waters Treaty rested on a shared understanding: that water cooperation could be at least partially insulated from broader geopolitical rivalry. However, this equilibrium has come under increasing strain in recent years. 

The hydrological conditions of the Indus Basin are shifting rapidly. The area has some of the highest rates of glacial retreat globally – perennial snow and ice cover in the Indus declined by up to 24.8 per cent between 2001 and 2021 – while shifts in the timing and intensity of the Asian Summer Monsoon are reshaping shared water availability in the region. But the treaty itself predates modern climate science and rests on outdated hydrological assumptions, lacking mechanisms to factor for glacial retreat and largely ignoring groundwater depletion, now a critical stress point. Addressing these gaps is in the shared interest of both India and Pakistan.

Both countries also have growing populations and water demand, meaning pressures on water resources are mounting. In this context, a growing number of run-of-the-river hydropower projects on the western rivers allocated to Pakistan – combined with concerns over cumulative impacts, design specifications and flow timing – have made technical disputes more frequent and increasingly politicized. 

Meanwhile, India’s suspension of the treaty in response to security concerns signals a broader shift in bilateral relations, with water emerging as a geopolitical lever. As trust declines and treaty interpretations diverge, dispute resolution has become more difficult. Historically, the Indus Waters Treaty’s institutional framework – through the Permanent Indus Commission and third-party processes – has enabled data sharing and helped manage disputes, such as over the Baglihar dam.

Global lessons in transboundary water cooperation

Lessons from beyond South Asia underscore the importance of cooperation and show how some of these pressures can be alleviated. 

The experience of the Aral Sea basin, often cited as one of the world’s most severe environmental disasters, demonstrates both the consequences of poor water governance and the potential for partial recovery through cooperation. Decades of unsustainable water diversion devastated ecosystems, economies, and public health across Central Asia. However, recent efforts – particularly in the North Aral Sea – have shown that coordinated action and international support can restore water levels, revive fisheries and improve local livelihoods.

In the Mekong Delta, the Mekong River Commission brings together Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam in a shared governance framework that facilitates dialogue, joint flood and drought monitoring, and advance notification of major upstream projects. After facing similar pressures and distrust as the Indus treaty, cooperation on ecosystem restoration to help protect water resources has helped rebuild trust among the commission’s stakeholders. 

Similarly, in the Senegal River Basin, the Organisation pour la mise en valeur du fleuve Sénégal (OMVS) enables Mali, Mauritania and Senegal to jointly manage infrastructure and share benefits, helping reduce conflict while supporting more coordinated water management. 

While the Indus context is very different, the underlying lesson is relevant: even deeply entrenched water challenges can be addressed when governance structures are strengthened, information is shared, and stakeholders recognize their interdependence. 

Harnessing water for peace and stability

As demonstrated by the situation in the Indus Basin, water governance tends to remain siloed from broader stabilization and peacebuilding efforts. Too often treated as a technical domain for engineers and specialists, water is excluded from political negotiation and conflict resolution. But this limits the potential of water diplomacy to contribute to stability.

Integrating water governance into mediation, stabilization and reconstruction efforts can help bridge this gap. In practice, this means involving water experts in negotiations to address resource-sharing in peace agreements and align infrastructure investment with confidence-building measures. A useful example is the Jordan–Israel Peace Treaty, which includes detailed provisions on water allocation and cooperation in the Jordan River basin. Despite broader political tensions and a fragile relationship between Jordan and Israel, these arrangements have largely endured, supporting Jordan’s water security and sustaining coordination.

In the case of India and Pakistan, the situation highlights the need for international actors to support water diplomacy as part of their engagement in fragile and conflict-affected regions. This includes providing technical assistance, facilitating dialogue and helping to finance projects that deliver shared benefits. It also requires patience: rebuilding trust around shared resources is a gradual process, particularly where political tensions run deep.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday thatthe U.S. military can "make the transition" from the blockade to "major combat operations."

Former Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax shot and killed his wife and then turned the gun on himself what police described as a murder-suicide in their home in Annandale, Virginia, police said Thursday.

A U.S. Navy reservist accused of murder has been arrested overseas after a monthslong international manhunt, authorities said. He faces charges for allegedly killing his wife at their Virginia home.

The foldable phone paused its sales in March after selling through its inventory, but Samsung is bringing it back.

The company behind Dungeons & Dragons has its official answer to Critical Role in its new show Dungeon Masters, which airs weekly on YouTube.

Commentary: Will Brock Lesnar versus Oba Femi deliver on all this hype?

These are the best stand mixers to buy, including the best budget stand mixer and a premium model with serious smarts, from KitchenAid and other brands.

The EU says a new age-verification app is technically ready and could let users prove they are old enough to access restricted online content without revealing their identity or personal data. Deutsche Welle reports: Once released, users will be able to download the app from an app store and set it up using proof of identity, such as a passport or national ID card. They can then use it to confirm they are above a certain age when accessing restricted content, without revealing their identity. According to the Commission, the system is similar to the digital certificates used during the COVID-19 pandemic, which allowed people to prove their vaccination status. The app is expected to support enforcement of the bloc's Digital Services Act, which aims to better regulate online platforms. This includes restricting access to content such as pornography, gambling and alcohol-related services. Officials say the app will be "completely anonymous" and built on open-source technology, meaning it could also be adopted outside the EU. [...] While there is no binding EU-wide law yet, the European Parliament has called for a minimum age of 16 for social media access. For now, enforcement would largely fall to individual member states, but the new app is intended to help platforms comply with future national and EU rules.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Health secretary in a diary entry said his kids were in the car as he cut off animal’s genitals in 2001 to ‘study them later’

Robert F Kennedy Jr once cut the penis off a road-killed raccoon in an incident that is just one of several involving dead animals that the controversial US health secretary has been involved in.

A new book called RFK Jr: The Fall and Rise was published this week and reveals a diary entry for Kennedy that describes the prominent vaccine critic and leader of the “Make America healthy again” (Maha) movement stopping his car on a New York highway on 11 November 2001.

Ibogaine is used in Mexico and the Caribbean to treat depression, anxiety, addiction and brain trauma.

As the president’s men rave about paranormal events and Diet Coke, it seems the US’s only hope is extraterrestrial intervention

People often criticise the Democrats for being overly cautious and never getting anything done. But this week they’ve surprised us all by unveiling concepts of a plan for getting Donald Trump out of the White House.

On Tuesday House Democrats introduced legislation that would create a commission to assess whether Trump is unfit to serve and should be removed under the 25th amendment. I don’t need to tell you what precipitated this: Trump is growingly increasingly erratic, threatening genocide one minute and posting pictures of himself as Jesus Christ the next.

Critics say efforts to rescue the animal, nicknamed Timmy, unlikely to succeed and could lead to further harm

A last-ditch effort to rescue a wayward whale that has transfixed Germans for weeks has begun in the Baltic Sea despite criticism it has little chance of success and could further harm the 12-tonne creature.

The male humpback whale was first spotted last month near Timmendorfer Strand on the northern coast of Germany, giving rise to its nickname Timmy. It has repeatedly become stranded and then freed itself after human assistance but it is now stranded again, with rescuers saying it is fighting a losing battle for its life.

California supreme court upholds lower court decision as Eastman says he will appeal to US supreme court

John Eastman, a lawyer who played a key role in Donald Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election, officially lost his law license in California on Wednesday.

The California supreme court upheld a 2024 ruling from a state judge, who recommended Eastman be disbarred. Eastman “exhibited gross negligence by making false statements about the 2020 election without conducting any meaningful investigation or verification of the information he was relying upon”, Judge Yvette Roland wrote in 2024.

ARMONK, N.Y. and URBANA-‑CHAMPAIGN, Ill., April 16, 2026 — IBM and the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U. of I.) today announced an expansion of the IBM-Illinois Discovery Accelerator Institute. This includes deploying quantum-centric supercomputing to Illinois innovators through the integration of U. of I.’s National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) Delta and DeltaAI supercomputers with IBM quantum computers.

L-R: Rashid Bashir, Vice Chancellor for Chicago Strategic Partnerships, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Dean, The Grainger College of Engineering; Illinois Governor JB Pritzker; Jay Gambetta, Director of IBM Research and IBM Fellow. Credit: The Grainger College of Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Launched in 2021, the Discovery Accelerator Institute has 20 current, ongoing projects across hybrid cloud, AI, quantum computing, materials discovery, and sustainability, and its members have published more than 230 research papers.

Moving into this new phase, the Institute will build on its first five years of technological progress in AI systems and computational science to shape how quantum computing and AI will drive the next generation of supercomputing. These new initiatives will include the development of new algorithms that enable classical and quantum systems to work together on problems neither can solve alone; as well as the creation of novel AI systems designed for emerging AI workloads and the use of AI to accelerate the design of specialized computing systems.

“I’m pleased to see the IBM-Illinois Discovery Accelerator Institute building on years of progress and partnership with U. of I. as Illinois innovators pursue critical discoveries in quantum computing and AI,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “Illinois’ world-class research institutions, unique industry collaborations, and unmatched research talent position our state at the forefront of global progress, and I look forward to seeing the countless advancements that this expansion will bring.”

Advancing the Next Era of Computing with Systems, Software, and Algorithms

Quantum-centric supercomputing represents IBM’s vision for the future of computation, where quantum processors (QPUs) work alongside high-performance classical systems powered by CPUs and GPUs to solve complex problems in science and industry. As part of the Institute’s expansion, IBM and U. of I. researchers will collaborate on the development of quantum-centric workflow management tools to seamlessly integrate the most powerful IBM quantum computers on the cloud with NCSA Delta and DeltaAI supercomputers, creating an environment for ongoing quantum-centric supercomputing-powered research across academia, industry, and government in Illinois.

Institute members will explore how quantum-centric supercomputing architectures and novel algorithms can integrate the power of IBM quantum computers and NCSA HPC to solve classically hard problems and pursue near-term quantum advantage, as well as solutions for fundamental problems in chemistry, condensed-matter physics, and materials science.

In addition, over the next five years, the IBM-Illinois Discovery Accelerator Institute will push the frontiers in AI systems research by tackling challenges in the efficient, scalable, and adaptable distributed inference of next-generation AI workloads across diverse computing infrastructures. The Institute will also launch Algorithms-to-Silicon-to-Systems (AS2), a new research area to accelerate the integration and implementation of algorithms into silicon for specialized systems. AS2 will represent a shift toward a unified, AI-native design paradigm, where algorithms, silicon, and systems software are co-evolved, rather than developed in isolation. The results will be a step change in productivity, accessibility, and scalability to enable the rapid creation of complex, high-performance systems with strong guarantees of correctness, robustness, and real-world usability.

“IBM is thrilled to help provide quantum-centric supercomputing to Illinois researchers, alongside an expansion of the IBM-Illinois Discovery Accelerator Institute’s efforts in AI for systems design. As the brilliant minds within the Institute discover and test new algorithms, they will drive groundbreaking research to power the applications made possible by AI and quantum computing,” said Jay Gambetta, Director of IBM Research and IBM Fellow.

In addition to research, the expanded collaboration emphasizes education and workforce development. IBM, U. of I. will lead education initiatives aimed at building expertise across quantum computing, AI systems, and HPC. Through curriculum development, hands-on training, and collaborative research, IBM and U. of I. seek to develop the next generation of scientists and engineers equipped to advance heterogeneous computing architectures.

Together, these updated research priorities will keep U. of I. and the State of Illinois at the forefront of progress as a global hub for AI- and quantum computing-enabled scientific discovery, bridging theory and practice through tightly coupled hardware, software, and algorithm innovation.

IBM has a long-standing relationship with the State of Illinois’ quantum ecosystem, including with the University of Chicago, members of the Chicago Quantum Exchange and the U.S. Economic Development Administration-designated Bloch Quantum Technology Hub. The company is also committed to leading the National Quantum Algorithm Center in the Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park (IQMP) in Chicago, which will be anchored by an IBM Quantum System Two, to be online later this year.

Deming Chen, IIDAI co-director and Abel Bliss Professor of Engineering at The Grainger College of Engineering, said: “Our goal with the expansion is to build on past successes and continue advancing the institute’s impact. We aim to reach new heights in the next five years. Our students have expressed appreciation to both Illinois and IBM for involvement in a truly unique program. They benefit from working on-site at IBM — gaining access to advanced computing resources and mentorship by IBM colleagues — while continuing to make progress on their thesis.”

Rashid Bashir, dean of The Grainger College of Engineering and vice chancellor of Chicago strategic partnerships with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, said: “The Grainger College of Engineering is thrilled to host this flagship partnership with IBM to define the future of how AI, quantum and supercomputing will come together for the greatest impact. Additionally, the Institute’s presence in Chicago at the Discovery Partners Institute (DPI) will allow for greater integration with IBM and the Chicago quantum ecosystem.”

Susan Martinis, senior vice chancellor for research and innovation at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, said: “Collaborative efforts like the IBM-Illinois Discovery Accelerator Institute foster strong connections and advance discovery in areas such as AI, quantum and supercomputing. The Institute is a wonderful example of how Illinois research partners with industry to create momentum and drive innovations that will change the world.”

About The Grainger College of Engineering

The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is one of the world’s top-ranked institutions and a globally recognized leader in engineering and computing education, research and public engagement. With a diverse, tight-knit community of faculty, students and alumni, Grainger Engineering sets the standard for excellence in engineering and computing, driving innovation in the economy and bringing revolutionary ideas to the world. Through robust research and discovery, our faculty, staff, students and alumni are changing our world and making advances once only dreamed about, including the MRI, LED, ILIAC, Mosaic, YouTube, PayPal, flexible electronics, electric machinery, miniature batteries, imaging the black hole and flight on Mars. The world’s brightest minds from The Grainger College of Engineering tackle today’s toughest challenges. And they are building a better, cooler, safer tomorrow. Visit the Grainger Engineering website for more information.

About IBM

IBM is a leading global hybrid cloud and AI, and business services provider, helping clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Thousands of governments and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to effect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and business services deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s legendary commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service. For more information, visit https://research.ibm.com.

Source: IBM

The post IBM and University of Illinois Extend Discovery Accelerator Institute to Link Quantum and HPC Systems appeared first on HPCwire.

Sarah Mullally urges Anglicans to join Leo’s ‘courageous’ call and says human cost of war is incalculable

The archbishop of Canterbury has said she is standing in solidarity with Pope Leo XIV’s calls for peace amid his public feud with Donald Trump.

Days after the US president objected to comments from the head of the Catholic church suggesting a “delusion of omnipotence” was fuelling the US-Israeli war in Iran, Sarah Mullally urged Anglicans to join Leo’s “courageous” call.

Pillars at Cold Ashby, Northamptonshire, and Thorny Gale, Cumbria, bookended the project that modernised mapping

Heritage campaigners are bidding for listing status for two concrete pillars hailed as “modest obelisks of modernity in the countryside”.

These functional 120cm (4ft) stone or concrete “trig points” formed part of a 6,500-strong network of surveying posts that were vital for the development of modern mapping.

Meenu Batra, the state’s only licensed Punjabi, Hindi and Urdu interpreter, says she was treated ‘like a criminal’

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A Texas court interpreter who was arrested by ICE after living in the US for more than 35 years is speaking out from detention, saying she has been “treated like a criminal” and fears being deported to a country where she has never been.

Meenu Batra is the only licensed Punjabi, Hindi and Urdu court interpreter in the state, and has served as an interpreter for hundreds of people in immigration court.

INNSBRUCK, Austria, and NEW YORK, April 16, 2026 — ParityQC today announced a new record benchmark implementation of the largest Quantum Fourier Transform (QFT), a cornerstone algorithm with applications in cryptography, financial modeling, and materials science. The achievement was realized using an IBM Quantum Heron processor. This latest showcasing of the ParityQC Architecture processed 52 superconducting qubits, nearly doubling the previous benchmark of 27 trapped-ion qubits, set just 24 months earlier.

“This milestone was only possible through the synergy of IBM’s latest quantum hardware and the ParityQC Architecture, which unlocked an exponential improvement in efficiency,” said Wolfgang Lechner and Magdalena Hauser, Co-CEOs of ParityQC. “What we are witnessing is European quantum innovation taking a global lead in translating theoretical potential into real-world performance.”

Industrialization of a Pioneering Academic Field

Until recently, advances in quantum computing were driven by pioneering academic groups. Today’s announcement proves that quantum computing capabilities continue increasing exponentially. The near doubling of the QFT benchmark indicates that quantum computing progress could be following similar early dynamics of Moore’s Law in classical computing, a development that transformed a research discipline into a global industry. Quantum computing is undergoing the same transition, becoming a standardized and scalable industrial sector.

“Just as the doubling of transistor density once brought the era of the integrated circuit, the doubling of quantum computing capacity marks quantum computing’s entry into its own era of exponential scaling,” said Hermann Hauser, ParityQC investor and co-founder of Acorn and ARM.

“ParityQC’s demonstration of their Parity Twine application achieving this QFT benchmark — using IBM quantum hardware — is a promising example of how the application could also extend to enabling hardware-aware implementations of algorithms solving complex, industry-useful optimization problems as our hardware improves along our roadmap,” said Scott Crowder, Vice President, IBM Quantum Adoption.

“We’re incredibly proud of this achievement due to the excellent work of hardware and architecture team on both sides. Advancements like these show that progress in quantum technologies begins to follow a predictable path,” said Wolfgang Lechner and Magdalena Hauser, Co-CEOs of ParityQC.

What This Means in Practice

ParityQC’s Parity Twine architecture can be used for a wide range of quantum applications. It could help accelerate the simulation of molecular interactions critical to drug discovery, and support highly complex portfolio optimization and risk modeling in finance. In materials science, this opens new possibilities for understanding and simulating highly complex physical systems.

As quantum technologies transition into real-world deployment, these capabilities could translate into solving problems that would take today’s most powerful supercomputers years – if they could be solved at all.

ParityQC takes a unique approach to quantum computing. The company develops blueprints and the enabling software environment based on the ParityQC Architecture for scalable quantum computers. The recent record underpins their goal to build highly performant quantum devices with hardware developers worldwide in a co-design approach. The ParityQC Architecture reduces the complexity of the hardware design, includes error correction, and simplifies the connectivity. By leveraging the benefits of the architecture in combination with different hardware platforms, ParityQC is working actively together with the quantum ecosystem to continue the path of exponential growth.

Key innovations:

• Record implementation of QFT on IBM Heron processor: When applied to the QFT on an IBM Heron r3 processor, the teams achieved the highest process fidelity ever reported for the unitary QFT reaching 52 qubits. Crucially, the team also showed that the performance advantage of Parity Twine scales exponentially (exp(N²)) over the best previously known alternatives, where N is the number of qubits.
• Substantially reduced gate count and circuit depth: Parity Twine is a circuit compilation approach that substantially reduces both gate count and circuit depth when implementing quantum algorithms – critically, without requiring SWAP gates, which are a major source of overhead and error on many hardware platforms. By eliminating this overhead, Parity Twine allows algorithms to run in fewer steps, with less accumulated noise, and at significantly higher fidelity.
• Impact of QFT as cornerstone subroutine on quantum computing applications: The end-to-end tested algorithm shows significant improvement towards process fidelity compared to previous implementations. The team selected the Quantum Fourier Transform as their benchmark as it is a cornerstone subroutine that underpins a broad range of quantum computing applications, making it a measure of real-world quantum performance.

The results are published here: arXiv:2604.12465.

About ParityQC

As quantum architecture company, ParityQC’s focus is on developing blueprints and operating systems for quantum computers. ParityQC solves the challenges in the scalability of quantum devices by a fundamentally new paradigm which allows for fully programmable quantum chips with simplified design and control, as well as integrated error correction. ParityQC collaborates with hardware partners all over the world to jointly build highly scalable quantum computers for applications ranging from solving optimization problems on NISQ devices to general-purpose, error-corrected quantum computing.

Source: ParityQC

The post ParityQC Demonstrates 52-Qubit QFT on IBM Heron Processor appeared first on HPCwire.

Emilia Clarke and Haley Lu Richardson star in the spy thriller series Ponies.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from UploadVR: A group of independent researchers built a device that can artificially induce smell using ultrasound, with no consumable cartridges required. [...] The team of four are Lev Chizhov, Albert Yan-Huang, Thomas Ribeiro, Aayush Gupta. Chizhov is a neurotech entrepreneur with a background in math and physics, Yan-Huang is a researcher at Caltech with a background in computation and neural systems, and Ribeiro and Gupta are co-researchers on the project with software engineering and AI expertise. Instead of targeting your nose at all, the device directly targets the olfactory bulb in your brain with "focused ultrasound through the skull." The researchers say that as far as they're aware, no one has ever done this before, even in animals. A challenge in targeting the olfactory bulb is that it's buried behind the top of your nose, and your nose doesn't provide a flat surface for an emitter. Ultrasound also doesn't travel well through air. The solution the researchers came up with was to place the emitter on your forehead instead, with a "solid, jello-like pad for stability and general comfort," and the ultrasound directed downward towards the olfactory bulb. To determine the best placement, they say they used an MRI of one of their skulls to "roughly determine where the transducer would point and how the focal region (where ultrasound waves actually concentrate) aligned with the olfactory bulb (the target for stimulation)". [...] According to the researchers, they were able to induce the sensation of fresh air "with a lot of oxygen", the smell of garbage "like few-day-old fruit peels," an ozone-like sensation "like you're next to an air ionizer," and a campfire smell of burning wood. While technically head-mounted, the current device does require being held up with two hands. But as with all such prototypes, it likely could be significantly miniaturized.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Experts say US market ‘may have run ahead of itself’ while ASX 200’s more modest recovery is due in part to Australia’s reliance on fuel imports

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One day the IMF warns of a global recession, the next day stocks on Wall Street hit a record high.

From looking at the complete U-turn in fortunes in America, you wouldn’t know the world was in the grips of an unprecedented energy shock.

It’s a relief to see the pontiff decrying brutality, because it seems most current world leaders lack the necessary spine

I have never been a religious or spiritual person, even though I grew up in a religious area and had friends (and strangers) throughout school and university trying to lure me into whatever prayer disguised as organised fun they were up to. I did try it out shortly for a desperate period when I was young, attempting to pray to a God I didn’t really believe in to make me not gay, but blessedly he never answered.

Despite my resistance to organised religion, I have always had a soft spot for nuns and their counterparts. The girlies.

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New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he and President Trump are "honest, direct about the fact that we have many disagreements," but they agree on their love for New York City.

New York mayor Mamdani calls footage of arrest of wrongly identified suspect ‘extremely disturbing and unacceptable’

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The New York police department has launched an internal investigation after videos posted online showed two police officers repeatedly punching and kicking a man they were attempting to arrest on Tuesday.

In a statement on Wednesday, the New York City police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, said that “there are a number of videos circulating online of an incident that occurred yesterday inside a store in Brooklyn involving two members of the NYPD.

Ukrainian president says nearly 700 Russian drones and 19 ballistic missiles mostly targeted Kyiv, Odesa and Dnipro

German chancellor Friedrich Merz and Irish prime minister Micheál Martin are now speaking at a press conference after their meeting in Berlin.

Let’s listen in.

A student who was 14 and armed with five guns opened fire in a Turkish school a day after another shooter injured 16 people and killed himself in another school, officials said.

• Mikie Sherrill says taxpayers should not carry burden

• Costs at World Cup have come under increased scrutiny

New Jersey’s governor, Mikie Sherrill, has hit out at Fifa after reports her state’s transport system will charge $100 for a return ticket to World Cup matches this summer.

New Jersey Transit lists the price for a round-trip ticket from New York’s Penn Station to MetLife Stadium, which will host eight World Cup matches this summer, including the final, as $12.90. The new pricing, reported by The Athletic earlier this week, puts the return ticket at more than $100 with no reductions for children, seniors or people with disabilities. NJ Transit told Fox 5 New York that the price has not been finalized. A decision is expected in the coming days.

The price of gold is increasing yet again. Here's where the price of the precious metal stands as of April 16, 2026.

More than 100 injured across country after Russia launches nearly 700 drones and dozens of ballistic and cruise missiles

Russia has carried out its deadliest attack against Ukraine this year, killing at least 17 people and injuring more than 100 in a wave of drone and missile strikes across the country.

Nine people died in the southern port city of Odesa and four were killed in Kyiv, including a 12-year-old boy. There were three fatalities in the Dnipropetrovsk region. Another person died in Zaporizhzhia oblast.

US defense secretary says Iran’s energy infrastructure is ‘not destroyed yet’ while also lambasting the media

Iran’s energy infrastructure is “not destroyed yet” and the US is “locked and loaded” to finish the job, Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, said on Thursday as he called many of the press corps gathered the moral equivalent of the Pharisees who conspired to destroy Jesus Christ.

Hegseth’s comments from the Pentagon podium came as a naval blockade of Iranian ports began this week and he called on Tehran to accept a nuclear deal or face consequences for its remaining infrastructure, power generation and energy industry.

No injuries and no damage reported in Wembley incident and Met says it is not being treated as terrorism

A teenager and two men have been arrested after an attempted arson attack at the offices of a Persian media organisation in north-west London, the Metropolitan police said.

Officers on patrol were told at about 8.30pm on Wednesday that an “ignited container” had been thrown towards the site in Wembley, landing in a car park where the fire immediately died out. There were no injuries and no damage was reported.

Exclusive: Opinions split on ‘unprecedented’ release of files, despite demand for ‘all papers’ related to ex-US ambassador’s appointment

• Revealed: Mandelson failed vetting but Foreign Office overruled decision

• Five key questions: who overruled decision to deny Mandelson security clearance?

Senior government officials have been considering whether to withhold from parliament sensitive documents that show Peter Mandelson failed security vetting before he assumed the role of US ambassador, the Guardian can reveal.

Any such decision could amount to an extraordinary breach of a parliamentary vote that ordered the release of “all papers” relevant to Mandelson’s appointment.

They promise weeks of hands-free cleaning, but auto-empty robot vacuums defer maintenance rather than eliminating it. Here's what you need to know about the hidden costs and upkeep before you buy one.

This new AI feature is taking fanfiction to another level.

OLIVIA CAVANNA
Staff Reporter

In a society dominated by social media, streaming platforms and technology, it is fair to ask: Are books dead?  

When people have free time, they will instinctively reach for their phones and remotes instead of a novel. Somewhere along the line, reading stopped being a main source of entertainment.

Today, entertainment is at our fingertips, and people crave instant gratification. Platforms like Netflix and TikTok offer endless amounts of content. There is no imagining what characters and settings look like and no waiting to see if you enjoy the story you are consuming. On these platforms, everything is curated to your liking.

Books are different. Books require time, patience, effort, imagination, creativity and trust in the author. When reading a book, you have to wait to find out what happens and how the story unfolds. With TV shows, you can binge the entire series in a day.

Ironically, many famous movies and shows that people obsess over were books first. Movies like “The Godfather,” “Schindler’s List,” “The Silence of the Lambs,” “The Notebook” and “Wicked” and shows such as “Heated Rivalry,” “Bridgerton,” “Sex and the City,” “You” and “Tell Me Lies” are all adaptations of physical novels. Most of the time, people do not realize they are watching a story that once lived inside a book.

I have heard countless people my age say that they hate reading. Growing up in an era where technology was always present, members of Generation Z have never known a world where boredom was cured by a good book. 

For many, reading is associated with school and work. It is not something we do for fun.

However, I have found that individuals in older generations still regularly turn to books for entertainment. Since they grew up in a time where digital technology was less present, reading is a solution for their boredom.

I personally love reading physical books, but most people my age do not share this sentiment. To me, the sensory experience of a book is everything: The smell of the paper, the sound of a page turning, the feeling of the cover in my hands, the font choice, the way the spine weakens over time.  

I particularly like to read used novels, and enjoy finding old bookmarked pages or little notes from the previous owner. It makes the story feel alive. Reading is all about connection, and these nuances make it even more special. I like thinking that many years ago, someone was in the same position as me, indulging in the same story, reading the same words and feeling the same emotions.

I see the value that a book holds, but for others, phones seem to hold all the value now. They house our entertainment, conversations, thoughts, feelings and identities. In the current world, physical books do not even compare to the convenience of digital technology.  

However, I have noticed something interesting happening. Online communities are breathing new life into books. Suddenly, reading is trendy, books sell out and people are lining up at bookstores again — all because of BookTok.  

On TikTok, a community called BookTok has become extremely popular. In BookTok, readers and authors are able to come together to talk about their love of literature. They create videos reviewing, recommending and talking about books — almost like an online book club.

Shockingly, BookTok has become very favored among Gen Z individuals. Maybe they are reading just because it is now trendy, but hey, at least they are reading.

Many people are also shifting away from reading books in print and towards e-books and audiobooks. Specific platforms have been created that allow people to listen to a book while going about their everyday lives. This digitalized version of reading makes stories more accessible than ever.  

It is incredible that people have rediscovered the beauty of reading in every evolving form. I still, however, have a soft spot for physical books. They carry history in their pages. 

While reading habits have drastically changed, it can be concluded that no, books are not dead —  they are just different.

These digital security organizers bring the fight for online privacy to dance parties, wine meetups and reading groups

Imani Thompson shows up at Wonderville Bar in Brooklyn looking ready for a DJ set, or to drink, or to dance the night away with friends. While she’ll probably do the latter, she’s also a cybersecurity organizer leading the evening’s event.

Thompson is the host, along with the New York City-based tech organizing coalition Cypurr Collective, of Break Up With Google. Its purpose isn’t a mystery; the main goal is to help attenders understand how to mitigate their vulnerability to surveillance through major tech services. But it’s also important for people to have fun while they do it, Thompson said – hence the DJs playing until the wee hours of the morning.

ANNAPOLIS, Md., April 16, 2026 — Maryland Governor Wes Moore celebrated World Quantum Day at the groundbreaking ceremony for the new 110,000-square-foot headquarters for the Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security (ARLIS) at the University of Maryland Discovery District. The $65 million capital project will advance national defense technology and solidify the state’s status as a global leader in quantum. The event also highlighted quantum investments in the State’s Fiscal Year 2027 budget, which directs tens of millions of dollars to bolster Maryland’s Capital of Quantum Initiative, hire specialist faculty members at the University of Maryland, and support ongoing quantum capital projects.

Groundbreaking ceremony for the Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security (ARLIS) at the University of Maryland Discovery District. Credit: Office of ​Governor Wes Moore.

“Quantum is changing the world, and Maryland is the best place in the world to change the world,” said Gov. Moore. “By investing in quantum and partnering with ARLIS, the State of Maryland is creating new opportunities for the student with the skills to succeed in this field, uplifting the family that now has access to good-paying work, and supporting the entrepreneurs who will solve some of the world’s most pressing challenges.”

The new four-story, Class A office development is a partnership with COPT Defense Properties and is scheduled for shell completion in the second quarter of 2027. ARLIS, based in the University of Maryland Discovery District, is one of only 15 U.S. Department of War-designated University Affiliated Research Centers nationwide, and the only one exclusively focused on intelligence and security missions. The lab, which currently employs more than 260 personnel, conducts research in artificial intelligence, information engineering, human systems and quantum applications.

“Emerging technologies like quantum computing are key to the future of our economy and our national security,” said Senator Chris Van Hollen, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. “That’s why I’ve worked alongside Team Maryland to deliver $48 million in federal investments to support the U​niversity of Maryland’s ARLIS. The opening of this new ARLIS facility will build on the University of Maryland’s great national leadership in the field of quantum computing and advance new solutions to the ever-evolving security challenges our nation faces.”

“It was an honor to attend the groundbreaking for the new ARLIS facility at the University of Maryland, a world class institution that continues to lead the way in quantum computing. I was glad to work with the Maryland Congressional Delegation to secure federal funding for advanced research infrastructure at UMD and am thrilled to see the expansion of these initiatives in quantum computing at my alma mater,” said Congressman Steny Hoyer. “The continued collaboration among the private sector, government, and our academic institutions is vital to strengthening our national security. I applaud the leadership of the Moore-Miller Administration to ensure Maryland remains at the forefront of innovation in science and technology. We will continue working together to provide investments in Maryland research to shape the future and meet the challenges of our increasingly complex world.”

“On World Quantum Day, it is fitting to talk about the strategic imperative of leading in quantum research for both economic growth and national security,” said Congressman Glenn Ivey. “At the University of Maryland, College Park, University Affiliated Research Centers like the Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security (ARLIS) are advancing real-world applications that strengthen our defense and intelligence capabilities. I thank Governor Wes Moore and University President Darryll J. Pines for helping make College Park the epicenter of Maryland’s capital of quantum innovation right here in the 4th Congressional District. I am proud to be a part of this groundbreaking.”

ARLIS has recently forged new partnerships with leading quantum companies that will contribute to its rapidly growing presence as a leader of applied intelligence analysis and quantum science in the defense sector. Last month, IonQ and Canadian-based photonic quantum computer developer Xanadu both announced collaborations with the Maryland Institute for Quantum Applications (MIQA) at ARLIS through the Secretary of the Air Force’s Securing Experimental Quantum Computing Usage in Research Environments (SEQCURE) program, a research sprint to align emerging quantum technologies with National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) cybersecurity parameters.

“This new facility reflects ARLIS’s ongoing commitment to its mission,” said ARLIS Executive Director John Beieler. “It strengthens our ability to bring together researchers, students, and mission partners in a secure, collaborative environment, while reinforcing the work already contributing to the Department of War and Intelligence Community.”

The groundbreaking coincided with IQM, a global leader in superconducting quantum computers, announcing that they plan to launch their first U.S. Quantum Technology Center in the Discovery District—marking a new milestone in Maryland’s push to lead the world in quantum.

Since launching the Capital of Quantum Initiative in January 2025—a strategic partnership to unlock over $1 billion in state, federal, and private quantum investments—the state has secured over $500 million in funding to advance quantum innovation. Additional deals reached within the past year include an agreement between the State of Maryland and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) providing up to $100 million in matching grants for state and private quantum investments and the launch of Microsoft’s Partner Integration Center in the heart of the University of Maryland’s Discovery District.

“Today’s groundbreaking for ARLIS’ new facility represents an important milestone for the University of Maryland and our state,” said University of Maryland President Darryll J. Pines. “As we grow our footprint and expand our impact as the Capital of Quantum, we are incredibly grateful to Governor Wes Moore for his leadership and investment, which further strengthen Maryland’s position as a global leader in quantum technologies.”

More from HPCwire

• IQM Announces 1st US Quantum Technology Center in the University of Maryland’s Discovery District
• Microsoft to Open Quantum Research Center at the University of Maryland Discovery District
• UMD ARLIS Launches Maryland Institute for Quantum Applications
• Xanadu Joins University of Maryland’s ARLIS to Advance the Security of Quantum Computing
• IonQ and University of Maryland Expand QLab Collaboration to Advance Quantum Networking and Research
• IonQ and ARLIS Partner to Establish Zero Trust Security Framework for Mission-Critical Quantum Architectures

Source: Office of ​Governor Wes Moore

The post UMD ARLIS Breaks Ground on $65M Facility to Support Applied Quantum and Intelligence Missions appeared first on HPCwire.

The semi-finals are set after a dazzling meeting between Real Madrid and Bayern Munich. But there was plenty more to talk about in the last eight

Bayern Munich’s thrilling 4-3 win over Real Madrid on Wednesday, which gave them a 6-4 victory on aggregate and set up a semi-final meeting with PSG, was a stone-cold classic. If either of the semis is as good as Real and Bayern’s quarter-final, this season will have been blessed. Arda Güler showed off his brilliance on Wednesday, first with his presence of mind after Manuel Neuer’s mistake led to the opening goal and again from a free-kick in the 29th minute. Güler’s goals gave Madrid hope, but Harry Kane made another difficult finish look routine before Luis Díaz and Michael Olise’s late goals settled the tie. Bayern’s wing wizards were crucial in defeating the 15-time champions. This game had it all. That includes controversy, with a post-match scuffle set off by Madrid players enraged by Eduardo Camavinga’s dismissal for two quickfire yellow cards. Neuer, the hero of the first leg, had his blushes saved by his Bayern teammates, though one save from Kylian Mbappé was him at his best, combining reflexes with brute strength. Fine margins decided a battle of the giants.

Quantinuum’s H2 quantum computer to expand the scope and accuracy of pharmaceutical and materials science research using the Reimei-Fugaku hybrid compute platform

TOKYO, April 16, 2026 — Quantinuum, a leading quantum computing company, has announced that RIKEN, Japan’s premier national research institute, has procured its System Model H2 quantum computer to scale the capability of “Reimei-Fugaku,” a hybrid quantum-supercomputer platform in Japan.

The Reimei-Fugaku platform represents the frontier of computing technology. Launched in the spring of 2025, it combines Quantinuum’s “Reimei” quantum system with RIKEN’s “Fugaku,” one of the world’s fastest supercomputers—more formally known as a high-performance computing (HPC) system.

Now, the hybrid compute platform is getting a substantial upgrade. Earlier this month, Quantinuum delivered its H2 system to RIKEN’s research facility near Tokyo, where assembly is already underway to replace its predecessor, System Model H1, which Reimei has been based on to date. The newer-generation, 56-qubit system is engineered for high-fidelity operations that can reduce time-to-solution, enable larger workloads, and support higher-value applications.

Technology leaders see hybrid compute systems as a practical way to overcome the limits of classical HPC. By combining the significant data-processing power of HPC with a quantum computer’s ability to model complex molecules and materials, researchers could be enabled to solve specialized mathematical problems that are impractical for classical systems to handle alone.

Researchers have already demonstrated this potential using the current Reimei-Fugaku platform. In a workflow with relevance potentially extending to future pharmaceutical applications, they successfully simulated biomolecular reactions at an accuracy that would be infeasible for HPC to achieve in isolation.

With multiple studies in chemistry and materials science already underway on the platform, this H2 upgrade is expected to accelerate research and unlock even more complex scientific discoveries across disciplines.

Dr. Mitsuhisa Sato, Division Director of the Quantum-HPC Hybrid Platform Division, RIKEN Center for Computational Science, said: “Since its installation in February 2025, Reimei H1 has been widely used by JHPC-quantum users and has delivered significant results, thanks to its high fidelity and flexible qubit connectivity. The upgrade to H2 is exactly what we have been eagerly anticipating, and with its 56 qubits, we expect it to play a key role in demonstrating quantum advantage through quantum–HPC hybrid computing.”

Dr. Rajeeb Hazra, President and CEO of Quantinuum, said: “We believe RIKEN’s decision to continue adopting Quantinuum systems to meet its ambitious objectives is a validation of our technology roadmap and a reflection of the success of our valued partnership. With Quantinuum and RIKEN’s combined leadership in quantum and HPC, respectively, we expect to continue pushing the boundaries of computing to address some of the most critical and complex challenges facing science and industry today.”

This development reflects the continued progress of Quantinuum and RIKEN’s collaboration to advance quantum-HPC hybrid infrastructure in Japan. Quantinuum intends to continue working with the country’s research community to accelerate real-world use cases and contribute to the growth of its quantum ecosystem.

More from HPCwire

• RIKEN Leads Hybrid Computing Effort Connecting Quantum Computers and Supercomputers
• SoftBank and RIKEN Move Japan’s Quantum-Supercomputer Project into Test-User Phase
• Projecting RIKEN CCS’s Future State Across HPC, AI, and Quantum
• NVIDIA and RIKEN Advance Science in Japan with New Supercomputers for AI and Quantum Computing

About RIKEN

RIKEN, a National Research and Development Agency, is Japan’s leading national comprehensive research institution renowned for high-quality research in a diverse range of scientific disciplines. Founded in 1917, initially as a private research foundation, RIKEN has grown rapidly in size and scope, today encompassing a network of world-class research centers and institutes across Japan.

About Quantinuum

Quantinuum is a leading quantum computing company offering a full-stack platform designed to make quantum computing deployable in real-world environments. The company has commercially deployed multiple generations of quantum systems built on the well-established QCCD architecture, which it has implemented with novel designs and capabilities to achieve the industry’s highest accuracy levels based on average two-qubit gate fidelity.[i] Quantinuum has active engagements with market leaders across pharmaceuticals, material science, financial services, and government and industrial markets.

The company has a global workforce of approximately 700 employees, including top scientists and researchers. Over 70% of its technology team hold PhDs. Quantinuum’s headquarters is in Broomfield, Colorado, with additional facilities across the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, and Singapore.

Source: Quantinuum

The post RIKEN Scales Quantum-Supercomputing in Japan with Quantinuum System Upgrade appeared first on HPCwire.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani spoke with "CBS Mornings" on Thursday and reflected on his first 100 days in office.

PM demands real world changes in Downing Street meeting with senior figures from Meta, TikTok, Google and X

Keir Starmer has told social media bosses “things can’t go on like this” in a meeting about internet safety at Downing Street.

The prime minister summoned senior figures from Meta, TikTok, Google, Snapchat’s owner and X to No 10 on Thursday morning as the government considers imposing new restrictions on platforms, including an Australia-style ban for under-16s. Meta owns Facebook and Instagram, and Google owns YouTube.

Review: The 2026 Moto G Stylus has a mix of modern and classic features, giving it a unique appeal.

A new study published by the American Psychological Association found a negative correlation between AI use and confidence in our abilities.

The new Canva feels AI-first, design second.

After two devastating hurricanes, El Yunque national forest has built a new visitors center that hosts a vibrant arts festival

Washington and Tehran will have to make compromises and the current deadline must be extended. But with the will there’s clearly a way

The failure of the Islamabad talks to end the US-Israel war on Iran was hardly surprising, given the stark differences between Washington’s 15-point proposal and Tehran’s 10-point equivalent. The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which capped Iran’s uranium enrichment, took more than two years to negotiate, and its roots actually reach back to 2003. The US vice-president, JD Vance, spent less than a full day in Islamabad for negotiations that included the nuclear question and several others.

The surprise was Vance’s explanation for the failure – that Iran rejected the terms presented by the US. The American side was not in a position to dictate terms because Iran stood firm when the 8 April ceasefire took effect. But Vance seemed to believe, as does his boss Donald Trump, that the Iranians had been defeated and the US didn’t have to budge.

Rajan Menon is professor emeritus of international relations at Powell School, City University of New York, and senior research fellow at Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies

In prison, I witnessed the gap in accountability between the poor and the elite. A banker’s message to Epstein is racist and reductive

Here is an email that should bring shame to Jes Staley:

you want to know why we are not São Paolo, watch the TV adds on the Superbowl. Its all about hip blacks in hip cars with white women.

The group that should be in the streets, has been bought off. By Jay Z

Catch up on this year's Oscar winners and some great titles that are leaving soon.

Leader of leftwing Economic Freedom Fighters was convicted last year for firing rifle in the air at 2018 rally

The South African leftwing politician Julius Malema has been sentenced to five years in prison for firing a rifle in the air at a political rally in 2018.

Lawyers for the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters, South Africa’s fourth largest political party, immediately appealed, and Malema will remain free while the appeal proceedings are under way.

An American Airlines pilot told Air Traffic Control at Charlotte International Airport that his plane "nearly hit" a truck speeding past on the concourse Wednesday, forcing him to slam the brakes.

Hampshire is latest school to fall to declining enrollment amid a decades-long crisis affecting liberal arts colleges

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When Hampshire College enrolled its first class of students in 1970, it offered a new breed of liberal arts education, one meeting each student’s interests and motivations, emphasizing learning across disciplines and close relationships with teachers.

For the next 56 years, Hampshire provided just that, becoming a beloved alma mater to scores of unconventional learners who sought, and found, a college experience “unlike anywhere else – and unlike anyone else’s”, as the school’s site still promises to deliver.

Nearly 700 drones and 19 missiles struck cities across the country overnight, killing 16 people, officials said. Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, was among the hardest hit.

A federal agency will open a portal on April 20 that lets businesses apply for a refund for Trump tariffs struck down by the Supreme Court.

James Otis Jr. was not among the men who signed the Declaration of Independence, and he had largely vanished from public life by the time the Revolution arrived. But for more than a decade before the first shots were fired at Lexington and Concord, he was perhaps the most prominent voice for colonial rights in British North America.

Otis spent the decade before the war making the case in courtrooms and newspapers that Parliament had no right to tax the colonies, since colonists could not elect their own representatives to it.

The Otis family had lived in the Province of Massachusetts Bay for five generations when James Otis Jr. was born in West Barnstable on Feb. 5, 1725. He was the second of 13 children born to his father, James Otis, and his mother, Mary Allyne, and the first to survive infancy. His sister Mercy, the poet and playwright, and his brothers Joseph and Samuel would play an important part in the coming revolution.

The Otis family regarded itself as quiet but important characters in the great drama of early American history. According to an 1848 family history, they may have lacked “a line of illustrious names,” but they “partook in the perils of founding and defending this country, in times when courage, constancy, and patience were indeed common virtues.” By the time his namesake was born, James Otis Sr. was serving in the Massachusetts House of Representatives for Barnstable and managing a successful law practice. He took care that Otis Jr. met the Latin, Greek and mathematics requirements for admission to Harvard College, though a 19th-century historian, Alice Brown, later described the boy as “brilliant, erratic, no less a genius in capacity than in temperament. A creature of mental impulse, he nevertheless carried the ballast of reverence for exact study.”

Otis Jr. graduated from Harvard in 1743 and studied law in Boston under fellow Harvard alumnus Jeremiah Gridley. A local lawyer remarked that he “had never known a student in law so punctual, so steady, so constant and persevering” as Otis Jr., praise which John Adams, another of Gridley’s students, would later echo. He was admitted to the bar in 1748 and moved his law practice from Plymouth to Boston in 1750.

Otis Jr. established his reputation in the wider community when, in February 1761, he delivered a four-hour speech at Boston’s Old State House condemning British trade policy. The scene was exceptionally dramatic: his rivalry with the presiding judge Thomas Hutchinson was well known, and he was pitted against his mentor, Gridley, who defended Britain’s arbitrary use of general search warrants (known as “writs of assistance”) against the colonists.

Otis Jr. was still a young man at the time; a witness described him as a “plump, round-faced, smooth-skinned, short-necked, eagle-eyed politician” when he rose to the lectern that day. But his arguments against arbitrary power would reverberate through the colonies, showing that Americans might protest not only higher taxes but also the entire structure of British imperial power. He declared that writs of assistance arising from “the privilege of the House” were null and void even if Parliament had authorized them because they violated the natural right that all citizens possess. “It appears to me the worst instrument of arbitrary power, the most destructive of English liberty and the fundamental principles of law, that ever was found in an English law-book,” he told the crowd.

According to Adams, Otis was “a flame of fire” that day. “American Independence was then and there born,” he wrote. “Every man of an immense crowded audience appeared to me to go away, as I did, ready to take up arms against Writs of Assistance.”

Otis Jr. was elected to the provincial legislature of Massachusetts in May 1761. The following spring, he published "A Vindication of the Conduct of the House of Representatives of the Province of Massachusetts Bay," a pamphlet that defended legislators against the governor’s accusations that they had improperly refused to fund a British military expedition. Echoing his speech in Boston, Otis Jr. argued that the power to tax belonged exclusively to the elected representatives of the people, a right that was no less available to colonists than to Englishmen born in Britain. “It would be of little consequence to the people whether they were subject to George or Louis, the king of Great Britain or the French king,” Otis Jr. wrote, “if both were as arbitrary as both would be if both could levy taxes without parliament.”

Once a “brilliant, erratic” boy seeking admission to Harvard, Otis Jr. was by this time one of the most prominent voices for colonial rights in North America. When the Stamp Act Congress convened in New York City in October 1765, uniting delegates from nine colonies to respond to newly imposed taxes by Parliament, Adams described Otis Jr. as the “soul” of the body. In its crowning document, the Declaration of Rights and Grievances, the Congress proclaimed that colonists possessed all the rights of Englishmen and that “no taxes ever have been, or can be constitutionally imposed on them, but by their respective legislatures.” Though the phrase “no taxation without representation” had been circulating in the colonies for some time, Otis had done as much as any single figure to bolster its intellectual and legal foundations.

“His influence at home in controlling and directing the movement of events which led to the War of Independence was universally felt and acknowledged,” according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, “and abroad no American was so frequently quoted, denounced, or applauded in parliament and the English press before 1769 as the recognized head and chief of the rebellious spirit of the New England colonists.”

The year 1769 marked the end of Otis Jr.’s celebrated presence in public life. After a violent altercation with a tax collector left a gash on his head, peers observed that Otis Jr., who had perhaps already been suffering from mental illness, now “ramble[d] and wander[ed] like a ship without a helm.” His decline left him largely unfit to continue his law practice.

In 1771, he left Boston to live in the Massachusetts countryside with friends and family. He had already burned most of his private papers when he died on May 23, 1783, struck by lightning while he watched a thunderstorm from a friend’s doorway in Andover. His body lies today near Paul Revere, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock in the Granary Burying Ground in Boston.

Anna Salvatore is a Content Fellow at the National Constitution Center and a graduate of Princeton University.

Resources

John Adams to Hezekiah Niles, 14 January 1818, in Niles’ Weekly Register, vol. 13, H. Niles, ed. (Baltimore: Franklin Press, 1817), 361-363.

"John Adams’s Reconstruction of Otis’s Speech in the Writs of Assistance Case," in The Collected Political Writings of James Otis, ed. Richard A. Samuelson (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2015), 11–4. http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/2703

Alice Brown, Mercy Otis Warren (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1896), 25.

Horatio N. Otis, “Genealogical and Historical Memoir of the Otis Family,” New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. 2 (1848), 281.

Clifford K. Shipton, “James Otis,” in Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, vol. XI, 1741-1745 (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1960), 247-48

Tycoon’s media empire accused of pushing far-right ideas, as writers say: ‘We refuse to be hostages in ideological war’

• Europe live – latest updates

More than 100 writers have quit the historic French publishing house Grasset in protest at its conservative billionaire owner, Vincent Bolloré, whose media empire has been accused of promoting reactionary and far-right ideas.

In an unprecedented walkout, dozens of writers including the acclaimed punk feminist novelist Virginie Despentes and the philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, signed an open letter against Bolloré, 74, who is close to far-right figures.

From its new sensor, film profiles and built-in storage, the Osmo Pocket 4 has a lot to offer. Shame it won't be on sale in the US at launch.

Samsung is deactivating its long-standing Messages app in July. Here's what to do next.

Risks from cancer and other diseases could be hidden with little accountability if justices favor big firms, critics warn

The US could face foreign attacks, food shortages and agricultural “devastation” if the supreme court rules against Monsanto in a closely watched case over pesticide regulation that is set for arguments later this month, according to a series of legal briefs supporting the company.

In contrast, opposing legal briefs warn that if the court sides with Monsanto, consumers will be stripped of their rights to sue when they develop cancer or other serious diseases they attribute to exposure to dangerous chemicals. Companies will be able to hide product risks with little accountability, they warn.

You can personalize your pie and place your order without leaving the chatbot.

• Curry scores 35 points in dazzling display of shooting

• Golden State face Phoenix for place in playoffs

• 76ers progress after win over Orlando Magic

Stephen Curry hit seven three-pointers while scoring 35 points with a dazzling display of his unmatched shooting skill as the Golden State Warriors won Wednesday’s play-in game against the Los Angeles Clippers to keep their season alive.

Curry wasn’t the only Warriors player rolling back the years. In the fourth quarter, Draymond Green bodied up to Kawhi Leonard and utterly shut down one of the greatest scorers of their generation.

Pedro Piscal pisco is latest Chilean brand to resemble a Hollywood name – and others have fought off the lawsuits

The actor Pedro Pascal is waging a legal battle against a Chilean pisco merchant who has chosen a cheeky name for his brand of the country’s national spirit: Pedro Piscal.

David Herrera registered the brand name with a Chilean commercial regulator in 2023 and began selling his pisco in off-licences and restaurants.

Heather Hallett hails vaccine scheme but criticises rule that only those meeting 60% disabled threshold can get payouts

The Covid-19 vaccine programme in the UK was an “extraordinary feat” but the payment scheme for people injured by the jabs must be urgently reformed, the public inquiry on the pandemic has found.

In her report, the inquiry chair, Heather Hallett, praised the fact the UK was a world leader in biomedical sciences, which set it in good stead for developing and rolling out vaccines at scale. But she said the government must act urgently to reform the scheme for payments to the “small minority” of people seriously injured by the vaccines, and almost double maximum payouts to at least £200,000 from an upper limit of £120,000 at present.

Why Should Delaware Care? 
Work-release programs are widely seen as effective tools for helping people transition back into society after incarceration and reducing recidivism. After Delaware officials consolidated these programs, citing rising maintenance costs at an aging facility in Wilmington and a declining population, the move has drawn criticism from advocates and some lawmakers, who say the transition to the Smyrna facility has created new barriers to employment and reentry.

A month after state officials shut down Wilmington’s only prison work release program, the transition to a Smyrna substance abuse treatment center has garnered mixed reactions from lawmakers and inmates.

On Tuesday, the Senate Corrections & Public Safety Committee held a hearing to understand the current state of the program. During the meeting, officials from the Department of Corrections gave updates, calling the transition from the former Plummer Center to the Community Corrections Treatment Center in Smyrna “successful.” 

The DOC’s New Castle Work Release Program now utilizes extra space at the Smyrna center located adjacent to the Vaughn prison, where low-risk offenders are housed and offered programming when they are not working, DOC spokesperson Jason Miller said. 

Still, the Tuesday meeting presented more questions and confusion, as some residents and advocates say individuals are being treated improperly at the Smyrna center, where harsh restrictions and inadequate resources limit them from finding work and being with their families.

State Sen. Ray Seigfried (D-Claymont), who chairs the Senate committee, told Spotlight Delaware he wants to make reforms to the program to ensure it’s “working the way it should.” 

Seigfried said the Smyrna facility is not equipped to handle a work release program and also noted concerns around individuals being treated unfairly at the facility.  

“I think [the Department of Corrections] testimony just simply was not correct,” Seigfried said. “You heard the mother, I’ve heard from residents of the prison, and it’s like I’m hearing two different stories.”

Seigfried said it is too early to point to specific changes he wants to make, but he will be discussing the matter with other committee members. 

But another lawmaker on the committee, State Sen. Marie Pinkney (D-Bear), did not share Seigfried’s concerns.

Pinkney said she was not worried about the Smyrna center’s ability to manage the work release program after Plummer’s closure. 

“​​It didn’t sound like there was actually too much of a significant difference in how the [Plummer and Smyrna] programs were run,” she said. 

DOC officials maintain that Smyrna’s new work release program is being run as it should. Individuals in the program receive counseling and assistance with resumé preparation, job applications and interview preparation, Miller said. 

“This decision [to close the Plummer Center] was ultimately about strengthening services, not reducing them,” DOC Commissioner Terra Taylor said during Tuesday’s hearing. “We did not eliminate or reduce the work release program.”

DOC highlights improvements, some remain unsure

During Tuesday’s Senate hearing, Taylor highlighted improvements that have been made to the program under the Smyrna facility, like new transportation services that help individuals get to their jobs across New Castle County and in some parts of Kent County. 

Miller noted that, depending on how many individuals require transportation per shift, drop-offs are either door-to-door or to public transportation hubs.

Taylor also said the department has expanded its behavioral cognitive therapy program at the Smyrna center, allowing people in the work release program to use it in addition to individuals who are there for treatment.

Rachelle Wilson’s son has been incarcerated for 17 years and is currently residing at the Community Corrections Treatment Center in Smyrna. 

Wilson said she prepared her statements three days before testifying at Tuesday’s hearing. She had not heard of many DOC initiatives prior to attending the hearing, and she questioned when those programs were put in place. 

Instead, Wilson said she has spoken with other residents and parents at the Smyrna facility, and has heard of people who have lost job opportunities because of the center’s regulations and strict policies. 

Residents are doing what is required of them, but they are unable to rebuild their lives because of “internal programming conflicts, a lack of transportation, understaffed and inflexible policies,” she said.

Ultimately, Wilson said the facility is a treatment center and is not equipped to function like the former Plummer Center.

But after Wilson’s testimony, Taylor, the DOC commissioner, said “there’s really no difference” between treatment centers and work release. 

Taylor said programs and supports are still in place, and the work referral practices that were used in Plummer are also being used inside the Smyrna center. 

At the end of the tense, two-hour meeting, Taylor acknowledged the department is not perfect, but she said it has “evolved.” 

“We’re not here to sound defensive,” she said. “We’re here to continue to work together with our partners and keep moving forward.”

Future of Plummer building remains unclear

During the public comment section of the meeting, Bradley Owens, the director of the Prescription Opioid Settlement Distribution Commission, questioned what would happen to the Plummer Center building now that it is closed. 

Owens, who has more than a decade of experience working inside prisons, said the building has the potential to become housing for those experiencing homelessness or with mental and substance abuse issues in Wilmington. 

In recent months, Spotlight Delaware has spoken with people living in Christina Park, the city’s only sanctioned homeless encampment, and other housing advocates have expressed concern over the lack of housing options in the unhoused in Delaware’s largest city. 

“It is a facility that has adequate housing, it has medical capacity, it has a cafeteria, and it has potential use for people coming out of prison, people with mental health, substance use disorder, homelessness issues,” Owens said.

Asked if the city would have an appetite to repurpose the center for such uses, officials in Mayor John Carney’s office noted that the building is state-owned, would require substantial investment to rehabilitate, and that such uses “fall outside of the city’s purview.”

What led to this hearing? 

For decades, the location of the Plummer center kept individuals close to family as they neared their release from prison, especially those who were transitioning out of the Howard R. Young Correctional Institute in Wilmington.

But last September, the Department of Correction announced the Plummer Center would shut down in March.  

The announcement was met with pushback from local politicians and residents who argued that work release inmates will lose a vital community space that helps them become part of society again by keeping them close to family, jobs, and support systems.

“They need the Plummer Community Center, not displacement,” Wilmington City Councilwoman Shané Darby said in November. “Funding concerns should never supersede rehabilitation, dignity, and public safety.”

A month after Darby’s statement, eight New Castle County lawmakers sent a letter to Gov. Matt Meyer urging him not to allow “budgetary considerations to morph into final decisions in a vacuum.”

“We need to know the true cost to the impacted communities and the true prospects for alternative or complementary paths,” the letter stated.

In their announcement, corrections officials cited a drop in the number of people at Plummer, along with high maintenance costs at the century-old facility. They estimated that the state would have to spend about $4 million over the next two years to maintain the Plummer Center. 

On Tuesday, Taylor noted an additional $8 million would have also been needed in capital improvements for the building. 

In the wake of the hearing, it remains unclear what actions, if any, Siegfried will take to address his concerns about the fallout from Plummer’s closing. For now, at least, the program will continue operating from Smyrna.

The post After Plummer closure, questions grow over transition to Smyrna appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

An Australian judge turned away an appeal by former U.S. Marine pilot Daniel Duggan to avoid extradition to the U.S. over allegations that he illegally trained Chinese military aviators more than a decade ago.

Dollar dominance is surviving the Iran war – just about Expert comment sfarrell.drupa… 16 April 2026

The war doesn’t seem to have damaged the dollar’s global status. But that may reflect the US’s emergence as the top producer of oil, gas and weapons, which insulates its economy from the crisis.

A central characteristic of the dollar’s role as the world’s pivotal currency is that the US bond market, and the greenback itself, act as safe havens in times of stress.

As anxiety levels rise during a crisis, institutional investors and governments flock to dollar-denominated assets because US capital markets are easier to trade in and out of than any others; and because the ability of the Federal Reserve to act as lender and liquidity-provider of last resort is second to none. 

In the end, it is US trustworthiness that underpins all this. But since global trust in the US seems to be eroding, both before and during this year’s war on Iran, it is worth asking whether the dollar’s safe-haven status is showing any signs of ill-health.

The quick answer is no, but it would be wrong to conclude that all is well, for two reasons. In the first place, the performance of US asset prices may say less about the dollar’s status than it does about the relative insulation of the US economy from the crisis.

And second, China’s capital markets are emerging really very well from the current crisis, which might give Washington some pause for thought.

Effect of the war

First, it is worth considering what actually happened between the start of the war and the 7 April ceasefire, to the dollar, to US bond yields, and to the US stock market.

In principle, a true safe haven will see the currency strengthen, bond yields fall and stock markets perform relatively well when things go wrong globally.

By those standards, US asset prices haven’t done at all badly. The dollar strengthened by around 2 percent against a basket of other currencies; and the S&P stock index fell by less than its peers. And while the yield on a US government 10-year bond rose around 35 basis points to 4.3 percent, that increase was also smaller than many US peers: 10-year German yields, for example, rose by 45 basis points.

Compare this to dramatic episodes in the past – the 2008 Lehman Crisis, the start of the 2003 Iraq war, or the attacks on the US in September 2001 – and what we’ve seen in recent weeks still shows US markets in a respectable light.

The move in the dollar’s exchange rate, for example, is comparable to what happened in the weeks after the 1991 Gulf War, and has been much stronger than the greenback’s response to the 2003 war, when it weakened sharply.

The outperformance of the US stock market is also consistent with earlier episodes, with the exception of the 2003 war, when US markets fell very sharply by comparison with others.

The rise in US bond yields is also comparable with the past. Although US yields fell after 9/11 and after the start of the 2003 war, they rose in the weeks after the Lehman crisis.

Moreover, at least some of the increase in US bond yields – and corresponding fall in bond prices – must result from the selling of US government bonds by foreign central banks seeking to address domestic concerns.

The Turkish central bank, for example, has relied heavily on selling US bonds to raise dollars that it can use to defend the lira, fearing that a sharp depreciation of the local currency would boost inflation and encourage a mass flight to the dollar by Turkish residents.  Other central banks are very likely to have done the same, albeit that the data are scanty.

While this decent performance of US asset markets in recent weeks suggests, on the face of it, that the war hasn’t done any damage to the dollar’s global status, these positive results may simply reflect the US’s emergence in recent years as the world’s top producer of oil, gas and weapons, which all help insulate the economy from the crisis.

So, the market might simply be reacting to a conjunctural fact about the US economy, rather than a structural fact about the role of the dollar in the international financial system.

China

Meanwhile, Chinese financial markets have exhibited extraordinary calm, with the government’s 10-year bond yield unchanged at 1.8 percent, quite unlike increases in bond yields seen almost everywhere else. The Chinese equity market has weakened a bit, but the renminbi has strengthened.

Indeed, the strengthening of the Chinese currency in recent weeks is especially notable, since it makes China the only energy importer in the world whose exchange rate has appreciated since the war began.

The appearance of calm in Chinese financial markets may also reflect some conjunctural facts about China’s economy which help protect it from the worst consequences of the war. Although China is a large energy importer, for example, its electricity generation depends hardly at all on oil and gas: coal is the dominant energy source, along with solar, wind, nuclear and hydro power.

Meanwhile, the war barely affected Iranian crude shipments to China, an economy which in any case has some 1.4 billion barrels of oil in reserve, around three months’ worth of consumption.

Apple's iPhone 17 has a lot in common with last year's model, but there are notable improvements to the camera, display and battery.

The longtime USMNT standout is following in the footsteps of his father, coaching with a deep appreciation of what makes American soccer special

The timing was ideal. The day after Red Bull New York won their 2026 MLS home opener 1-0, with three academy products becoming the youngest trio to combine for a goal in the history of the league, the club hosted their annual youth summit. Coaches and administrators convened in the Audi Club Lounge of Sports Illustrated Stadium where they were fed, presented to, encouraged to learn, network and, of course, stick around until head coach Michael Bradley arrived for a panel to wrap up the event.

Most of them did. A long line quickly formed between Bradley and his exit, and he obliged all of the people waiting for a photo. It’s the same patience he still affords the media, whose numbers noticeably increased at RBNY games when the New Jersey native took the reins, following in the footsteps of his father, Bob, under whom Michael learned as a son, a player, and an assistant before striking out on his own.

The case of two fired judges – and one who kept his job – offers a lesson in the administration’s view of free speech

The Trump administration believes some noncitizens may not even have first amendment rights. And it’s turning that legal fantasy into a reality by making immigration judges choose between the constitution and their jobs.

Last week, the judge who rejected the deportation of Rümeysa Öztürk, the Tufts doctoral student whose only offense was co-writing an op-ed critical of Israel, was fired after upholding the law. Judge Roopal Patel rejected the administration’s argument that expressing views shared by millions of Americans disturbed by the carnage in Gaza – sometimes including Donald Trump himself – equates to supporting terrorism and antisemitism.

Investigation of Family Dollar and Dollar General prompts lawmakers to double penalties for retailers that repeatedly charge more at checkout than prices listed on shelves

Utah lawmakers have voted to stiffen penalties on retailers who chronically overcharge customers.

The new state law, which takes effect on 6 May, was introduced in direct response to a Guardian investigation of pricing practices at two national chains, Dollar General and Family Dollar, according to an official who oversees the state’s price-accuracy inspections.

Some Japanese bullet trains will soon support premium private suites this October, featuring windows with embedded 5G antennas for steadier onboard Wi-Fi and NTT noise-cancelling cabin tech to reduce train noise. The 5G window antennas are designed to maintain line-of-sight connections as trains race past base stations at up to 285 km/h. The Register reports: Rail operator JR Central announced the new tech late last month and will initially deploy a couple of the suites on six trains. The carrier explained that the antennas come from a Japanese company called AGC that weaves microscopic wires through glass to form an antenna. JR Central will connect the windows to an on-train Wi-Fi router. AGC says rival tech relies on 5G signals reaching a train and then bouncing around inside before reaching the Wi-Fi unit. The company says antennas woven into train windows maintain line of sight to nearby 5G base stations. That matters because JR Central's Shinkansen can achieve speeds of up to 285 km/h, which means they speed past cellular network base stations so quickly that it's frequently necessary to reconnect to another radio. AGC says keeping a line of sight connection means its antennas allow increased 5G signal strength, so Wi-Fi service on board trains should be more stable and speedy. The sound-deadening kit JR Central will deploy is called Personalized Sound Zone (PSZ) and comes from Japan's tech giant NTT. The tech uses the same principles applied to noise-cancelling headphones -- determine the waveform of sound and project an inversion of that waveform that cancels out ambient noise.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Guardian readers describe how their lives have been upended by cost hikes stemming from Trump’s Iran war

With the US and Israel’s war on Iran now in its seventh week, with a fragile ceasefire in place since earlier this month, Americans are continuing to feel the effects at the pump as global fuel prices rise.

For several readers who spoke to the Guardian, the impact has forced difficult trade-offs – from accessing essential medicines and groceries to facing the brink of homelessness amid an already rising cost of living.

Retrial ordered in case of Benjamin Field, found guilty in 2019 of murdering Peter Farquhar, 69, in Buckinghamshire

A former church warden who was jailed for life for the murder of a university lecturer has had his conviction quashed at the court of appeal.

Benjamin Field was jailed for at least 36 years in 2019 after being found guilty of murdering 69-year-old Peter Farquhar in Maids Moreton, Buckinghamshire.

Joseph McCann was questioned by police after his partner, Ashly Robinson, better known online as Ashlee Jenae, was found dead in her room.

Exclusive: Letter urges ministers to consult on Charity Commission measures meant to tackle extremism

Several leading civil society organisations have urged the government to consult the sector before introducing new powers for the Charity Commission, which they caution risks “suppressing legitimate advocacy” at a time when civic space is under increased pressure.

Signatories, including leaders from some of the UK’s largest civil society bodies, alongside faith-based and community organisations, wrote to the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, saying the proposed social cohesion measures could lead to the “suppression of lawful advocacy, campaigning and community engagement”.

The truth is, we were all just jealous

To Lena Dunham, I need to say that I’m sorry. I’m sure she’ll never read this, since she doesn’t seem like the kind of person who Googles herself. If I was Lena, I certainly wouldn’t. The internet is full of mockery, sarcasm and outright cruelty. I’ve been part of the problem, too. Lena and I were starting off our careers at the same time, those halcyon days of the 2010s, when people still subscribed to cable TV and social media was just a fun new tool to post random thoughts and photos of your brunch. Now, if you post a photo of a meal, people will scream at you for bragging that you can afford food.

Fourteen years since HBO’s Girls turned Dunham from an indie film darling into a mainstream superstar, the writer/director is now releasing a memoir that reflects on her time in the cultural crosshairs. The headline of a New York Times interview reads: “Lena Dunham Is Still Trying to Figure Out Why People Hated Her So Much.”

Apple introduced this feature in 2024 alongside iOS 18.

As the conflict in the Middle East drives up prices at the pump, experts say suspending gas and diesel taxes isn't the easy fix it may appear to be.

Why Should Delaware Care?
Spotlight Delaware’s Breaking Bread Tour, launched this year, gives residents a chance to speak directly about issues affecting their communities. By bringing neighbors together around the same table, the discussion is meant to allow residents to highlight concerns that might not always appear in local government meetings or policy debates.

As nearly 20 residents dined on spaghetti and meatballs inside a Georgetown community center Monday night, a variety of topics fueled conversations across three tables of attendees. 

Some of those topics included affordable housing, how independent libraries are funded, and improving literacy in western Sussex County. Residents also discussed the town’s growing homeless population. 

Spotlight Delaware held its second “Breaking Bread” event at the First State Community Action Agency in Georgetown, tucked in the northwest corner of town, about half a mile from a burgeoning homeless encampment. 

At Monday night’s dinner, some residents discussed both reading and financial literacy in western Sussex County. One resident said she believes many children in the county leave school without proper life skills like knowing how to budget or write a check. 

Separately, that conversation also covered reading literacy and how some children leaving high school cannot read beyond a middle school level. This, one resident said, can lead them to trouble financially when it comes to signing contracts or taking out loans that begin to compound. 

At another table, residents discussed the county’s libraries, and how their funding structure can often leave them cash-strapped. In Sussex County, many of the libraries are independent and receive far less funding than their government-run counterparts. This means every year is a struggle to fundraise and keep the doors open. 

Additionally, those residents discussed making Georgetown a destination and building a strong community feel within the Sussex County seat. 

But right now, they said, opportunities are limited and beyond massive government structures, there is not much to do around Georgetown’s small downtown core. One resident said they were not sure how to address these concerns with the town government, or if elected officials would even have the appetite to take on large-scale enterprise projects. 

Lastly, one table discussed affordable housing in the county, and how Georgetown could protect its immigrant community in the wake of a federal crackdown. 

One attendee — political candidate for Sussex County Council, Jill Hicks — pointed to affordable housing as one of her table’s main discussion points. She said she believes the county should do more to incentivize builders to build affordable units. 

County Council is touting affordable housing as an issue but not doing enough to make changes, she said. 

“Step up and treat it like a crisis,” Hicks said.

The Breaking Bread series will next move to Dover, where residents of Kent County will be invited to share a meal and discuss local issues – stay tuned for date and location information.

The post Sussex residents meet in Georgetown to talk affordable housing, literacy appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

The defence minister insists that increases in spending did not happen because of thinktanks, retired generals ‘or washed-up bureaucrats’

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If there’s anyone who knows just how much pressure Donald Trump is heaping on allies to lift defence spending, it’s Richard Marles.

The message was received loud and clear when he met his US counterpart, Pete Hegseth, in Singapore nearly a year ago.

Villagers, health workers and human rights monitors see a pattern of reckless attacks in the U.S.-backed fight against Boko Haram and its Islamic State-affiliated offshoot.

Outside a repair shop in rural southeastern Illinois, the parts of a massive 3D construction printer sat disassembled on a flatbed trailer, weeds climbing the wheels.

The $1.1 million investment wasn’t meant to end up there, abandoned.

Two local men had taken out a loan from a tiny bank to buy the printer, promising it would spark an affordable-housing revival across hard-pressed southern Illinois. Their first stop was Cairo, at the state’s southern tip — a historic river town beset by the loss of jobs and safe housing, now home to fewer than 2,000 mostly Black residents.

In August 2024, after months of negotiations, the city finalized a deal with their company, Prestige Project Management Inc., to build 30 duplexes. Days later, the printer arrived and crews assembled it on a vacant corner lot at 17th Street and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue. 

More than 100 people showed up for the groundbreaking. Children clutched cotton candy and popcorn. Pallets of Amazon giveaways spilled from a truck. Behind a chain-link fence, the towering printer hummed to life, two American flags clipped to its steel legs, laying down the base of what was billed as the first new home built in Cairo in at least 30 years. The crowd cheered.

Kaneesha Mallory pressed against the fence. She had grown up in Cairo, moved away, then returned after her daughter was born. Living in a cramped one-bedroom public housing unit across town, she imagined a bedroom her 6-year-old could finally call her own.

Mayor Thomas Simpson called the project “just the beginning.” State Sen. Dale Fowler, whose district incorporates some of Illinois’ most destitute counties, described it as an “extraordinary project” — the start of more development to come. His nonprofit organization, which serves low-income children and families, had secured a $40,000 donation to help pay for the event.

Mallory couldn’t bring herself to leave while her future seemed to be taking shape. She stayed in the August heat so long that she fainted and was taken to the emergency room by ambulance.

Crews worked overnight to avoid the heat. Within about a month, the walls went up. Interior work followed.

But then the work stopped before the duplex was finished. The owners would later say cracks — dozens of them — had begun running through the walls and that they needed to make sure the structure was sound. The printer disappeared.

A year later, no one had moved into the duplex. It stood alone in a wide lot along a sun-bleached road.

As I began to examine what happened, the story grew complicated.

I learned that before the 3D printer arrived in Cairo, the Prestige owners had forfeited about $590,000 as a deposit for a different printer when they ended up canceling the order, a fact that would quickly turn the atmosphere tense as I pressed the company’s owners, the bank, Fowler and others for answers. 

I also learned that not long after the groundbreaking, several employees left Prestige around the same time a spray of anonymous emails hit inboxes across the region. The emails called the Cairo duplex project little more than a publicity stunt and alleged fraud tied to Prestige’s other construction projects.

I also wasn’t the only one asking questions. I discovered that the FBI has launched an investigation into Prestige led by an agent in southern Illinois who specializes in white-collar and public corruption investigations. To date, there have been no charges filed or arrests made, and Prestige’s owners deny any wrongdoing. 

Over the past eight months, the more questions I asked, the more public officials distanced themselves from the project and the company. The broader housing plan — the one that had fueled speeches and celebration — started to look increasingly uncertain.

I was determined to know: Was this simply another failed pitch to this dirt-poor delta town — or something more?

“God Sent Us”

Jamie Hayes, who inherited a Ford dealership from his father, and Erik Burtis, who had long supplied labor to coal mines, founded Prestige in 2021 in Harrisburg, Illinois, a town of fewer than 8,000 people about 80 miles northeast of Cairo. 

It is one of seven companies Hayes has started since 2020, three of them co-owned with Burtis, according to Illinois business records. The two, business partners since 2012, have taken on an eclectic mix of projects: school construction management, solar farm fencing and the 3D printing venture. Hayes provides the capital; Burtis runs the day-to-day operations. 

Burtis said he landed on 3D printing in early 2023 after asking his son Josh, who works for the company, to find out what was hot in construction. He reported back that it was 3D construction — based on trends in Europe. “Usually we’re five, maybe six, seven years behind what happens there,” Burtis said. 

Burtis said God then laid it on his heart to start building in Cairo by donating the first home his company would print. Fowler, the state senator whose district office is in the same building as Prestige, said he listened to Burtis’ plan as they drove to Cairo to meet with town officials a few years ago. Fowler said he suggested building a duplex instead of a single home so two families could benefit. Burtis was moved by that idea.

“He literally started tearing up,” Fowler said. He told me the story in August as we talked in the back booth of a local barbecue restaurant. 

“Did you cry, too?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Fowler said. “I’m about to right now just thinking about it.”

Cairo’s housing crisis is rooted in a long and complicated history. In 1972, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights visited the town and documented how racism had harmed Black families, including through neglect of their segregated public housing. Those problems only worsened over time.

I grew up nearby and have reported on Cairo’s housing problems for more than a decade. In 2015, I documented how conditions in those once-segregated developments had withered into mice-infested slums, overrun with mold and contaminated with lead, while federal overseers looked the other way.

In 2016, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development took over the local housing authority and then demolished those apartment homes, displacing nearly 400 residents. In 2022, HUD evacuated another high-rise for seniors, then home to about 60 people. In less than five years, more than 300 apartment units were razed, accelerating the county’s decline into one of the fastest-shrinking places in America. 

Cairo had seen ambitious promises before the 3D printer arrived. At the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, it draws entrepreneurs who see unrealized potential in its vacant storefronts and magnolia-lined streets of dilapidated mansions built by river barons in another era. Some come to help, others to take advantage — it can be hard to tell. Residents have grown wary of outsiders with big ideas.

City Council member Connie Williams, a retired school principal, said city leaders had warned the Prestige owners not to make promises they couldn’t keep.

“We kept saying to them, ‘Look, we’ve had enough people come through Cairo talking all this crazy stuff and then back out,’” she said. “And they were just like, ‘No, no, oh no, that’s not us. We are here. God sent us.’”

The project attracted attention from Illinois’ top powerbrokers: Gov. JB Pritzker met privately with Burtis and Fowler in Harrisburg. Fowler also invited staff from U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s office to learn about the project. Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza toured the unfinished duplex and praised the effort on social media. 

To help manage the project in Cairo, the company hired Bucky Miller, a broad-shouldered lineman with a baritone voice. He said part of his job was to craft development plans and an agreement with city officials. Miller regularly drove 300 miles round trip from his home near St. Louis to meet with city officials. He told residents at a housing task force meeting that he took the job after reading about the decades of failed promises made to Cairo, and “because of what I’m good at: keeping my word.” 

But he had no experience developing affordable housing, and neither did anyone else at Prestige. Burtis acknowledged the inexperience but said he planned to partner with developers who would secure financing and hire his company to handle construction.

Before the Party, an Unraveling 

The block party in August 2024 — kids clutching cotton candy, everyone in a jubilant mood — made it look like everything was on track. But I have now learned that significant parts of the project already were shaky even before the printer squeezed out the first cement.

One big problem was acquiring the printer to begin with. In October 2023, Grand Rivers Community Bank approved the $1.1 million loan to purchase the printer — a big bet for the rural lender in Karnak, Illinois, population 450, about 25 miles north of Cairo. The loan was nearly double the bank’s single-customer limit, requiring another regional bank to join in.

That month, Grand Rivers sent half the cost of the printer, about $590,000, to Peri 3D Construction, which operated out of Texas, to purchase one of its most expensive models. Their agreement stated that delivery of the printer would occur six months “at the earliest” from receipt of the deposit. The exchange of funds triggered Peri 3D to commission a large-scale commercial printer from COBOD International, a Danish company that bills itself as the world’s leader in 3D construction printing technology. 

By January 2024, Hayes and Burtis said, they had become impatient. It had been only three months, but they said they’d given Cairo their word they’d start building that spring and felt the printer wasn’t progressing fast enough. Hayes said, “‘Here we go again’ is what Cairo is thinking.”

Fowler emailed the governor’s office a few days ahead of a visit Pritzker had scheduled that month in southern Illinois, calling the new 3D printer business “a major humanitarian mission” and asking for an opportunity to introduce the governor to Burtis, records show. Fowler and Burtis met with Pritzker at Harrisburg City Hall and discussed with Pritzker whether he had contacts in Germany, where Peri is headquartered, who could help speed production, according to Burtis. A Pritzker spokesperson said the governor’s office took no action after the meeting.

Days later, a Peri 3D sales rep emailed Burtis’ son that the printer was on track for delivery that April. 

Then, shortly after, Burtis and other Prestige employees traveled to Las Vegas to a concrete industry expo. Fowler said that Prestige paid for him to come along and that he agreed because he wanted to see demonstrations of the 3D printer technology. He did not report the trip on his annual economic disclosure form; he amended the form after I asked him about it last year. 

Burtis said a COBOD engineer at the expo told them that their printer was only 10% complete, though a COBOD executive said it did not have any engineers present at the expo that year. While there, Burtis also met with one of the few other potential printer suppliers, Black Buffalo 3D. That New Jersey-based company said it had printers available that it could deliver right away, according to Burtis. 

Shortly after the conference, Prestige tried to cancel the order for the original printer. Peri 3D did not appear to respond to Prestige’s requests, according to an email exchange that Hayes shared with me. 

Two months later, Prestige’s lawyer sent a letter to Peri 3D saying the company’s request had been “blown off” and proposed Peri 3D keep about $60,000 — 10% — and return the rest. When Peri 3D responded in April, just as the printer was due, it said none of the $590,000 deposit would be returned. Prestige did not write back, according to email records the company provided.

Burtis and Hayes hadn’t yet spent about $500,000 of their loan. Hayes told me they were ultimately “no worse for the wear” since Black Buffalo 3D agreed to sell a printer for what they had left. 

“If I get 10 grand for a car,” Hayes said. “Say I pay 5 grand for a car and I don’t get my money back, but I can buy another car that does the same exact thing, and I only pay another 5 thousand. What do I give a shit if I can get back and forth to work?”

He called the bank. 

“We don’t need any more money,” Hayes said he told them. “Can we get this taken care of?”

The bank agreed and wired the remaining funds to Black Buffalo 3D in April 2024.

A Flimsy Plan

Getting the printer to Cairo was one problem — it wouldn’t arrive until August 2024. Getting it to make sense financially was another entirely. 

For months before the printer arrived, Miller, the Prestige employee managing the project in Cairo, had been telling city leaders that Prestige would secure financing to build the remaining 29 homes after donating the first duplex.

But city attorney Rick Abell said he couldn’t get straight answers about how the development would be paid for or what it might look like.

Typically, housing tax credits are used to build affordable housing in the U.S. But acquiring those is a highly competitive process that can take years to complete, a process that would be made even more challenging using an unproven construction technology and in a rural community. There’s no record that Prestige applied for any housing program funding. 

Phillip Matthews, who chaired the town’s housing task force, said he repeatedly asked for a project rendering but “never got it.” That was strange, Matthews said, “because normally, when a company determines they’re going to develop a piece of property, they have designs.”

Abell and city officials grew frustrated with the lack of clarity around the deal. 

Weeks before the kickoff party, city officials visited Prestige’s office in Harrisburg. According to Abell and Matthews, Burtis told them Cairo would need to come up with the financing to build the other homes.  

The city did not have that kind of money.  

Simpson, the mayor, was perplexed. He said Burtis offered to help the city apply for grants for a fee but offered no specifics. “I’ve been getting grants for all kinds of stuff, but there’s nothing for building housing,” Simpson said. 

Burtis would later say that Miller had made unauthorized promises that Prestige would secure financing for the project; Miller disputes this. 

Despite the uncertain financing, the city wrote up a contract: Cairo would sell a vacant lot to Prestige for $1. Prestige would build one duplex, manage it for 18 months and then transfer ownership back to the city. The contract called for 29 more over the next three years, with no details on how they would be funded. 

The mayor signed the contract, hopeful the project would build momentum in a place that hadn’t experienced much. 

Cairo’s Last Hope: Not “Some Big Serious Whatever”

I first met Hayes, the Harrisburg car dealer who co-founded Prestige, in early September 2025, more than a year after Cairo’s 3D printer party. At the time, I didn’t know about the abandoned $590,000 deposit or that there had never been a real plan for additional housing. I didn’t know Prestige and its suite of sister companies had drawn the attention of the FBI.  

But I had already visited the defunct printer in the middle of nowhere late last summer. A former Prestige employee had sent me a Google pin to show me where it had been parked for nearly a year.

So I was taken aback when Hayes told me the printer, the size of a small garage when assembled, was stored on his lot.  

I asked if he’d show it to me, a request that seemed to take him by surprise. Outside, we walked past rows of vehicles to the back lot. There was no printer — just heat shimmering off blacktop and a long chain-link fence.

He squinted into the sun, looked at me and shrugged. “I don’t see it, do you?” 

He’d later tell me it had been there at one point, and he didn’t realize it was gone. That strange episode would set the stage for the interviews that followed. 

Over many weeks, we’d spend hours talking in the corner office of his car dealership in Muddy, Illinois — population 40, a fading patch of coal country just outside Harrisburg near the Indiana border.

With an easy, elastic charm, Hayes slid between humor and confession, candor and confusion. He told me Prestige was named after the fictional do-nothing company in the Will Ferrell comedy “Step Brothers.” “It’s just stupid,” he said. “I’m not like some big serious whatever.”

Eventually, he’d blame everyone else — including both printer suppliers — for what happened: the stalled project, the cracks and the fact that Cairo still has no new housing.

Hayes told me Prestige had sued Peri 3D to recover its printer deposit. But for weeks he was vague about it. He said he hadn’t seen the lawsuit and didn’t know where it was filed — “nowhere around here,” he told me. 

He flew into a rage when I told him the Peri 3D salesperson they’d worked closely with had called his company “shady.” At that point, he promised to find out where it was filed, but over multiple visits, he’d tell me he still hadn’t located it. 

I found the lawsuit during a records search at the Saline County Courthouse, steps from Prestige’s office. It turned out that Prestige had filed the suit in early 2025, just as Peri 3D was laying off its U.S. staff. Prestige claimed in the lawsuit that it signed a “mock document,” not a real contract, and that it never received the language Peri 3D later claimed made clear the deposit was nonrefundable. 

Five months later, in August, a judge ruled in Prestige’s favor after Peri 3D failed to respond to the lawsuit. In Saline County, where the poverty rate hovers around 20%, nearly double the statewide rate, the lost money stood out. “That’s a lot of money,” the judge remarked, according to a court transcript. 

“It’s a bad situation,” Prestige’s lawyer said. The judge replied, “I guess good luck trying to collect it.” 

Before I could tell Hayes that I had located the lawsuit, he texted me that afternoon: “Looks like we did sue and won!!!” he wrote. “Who’s the shady one now?” (He later said he couldn’t tell me where the lawsuit had been filed because he’d largely left the business to Burtis to manage.)

Still, he said he was resigned to the fact that they’d likely never collect their money — and to date they haven’t. 

Burtis said they can’t locate anyone from Peri 3D. When I followed up with Hayes this month, he acknowledged that the contract made the deposit nonrefundable and said he regrets not reading the fine print. “Every time I’ve done that, I’m like, you know what, gahhh, why do I get screwed? Next time I’m going to read through everything,” he said.

Burtis said Prestige owes the bank roughly $13,000 a month under the terms of its 10-year lending agreement to pay for the original $1.1 million printer; over the full term, the company would pay more than $400,000 in interest. Prestige can’t afford the note; Hayes said he’s paying it out of one of his other business accounts. 

In an emailed statement from its German headquarters, Peri 3D said in October that it had conducted business “in accordance with the terms and conditions” of its contract with Prestige but would “investigate the matter diligently in the coming weeks.” When I followed up recently, the company declined to comment further. COBOD said it had not been delayed in constructing the printer and that it had no knowledge of a lawsuit since its contractual obligation was to Peri 3D and not Prestige.  

As I continued to ask Hayes questions, he told me the state senator could vouch for the deal. 

“Ask Dale Fowler if there’s any-fucking-thing going wrong,” he said. 

A Modern-Day Daniel

When I reached out to Fowler in October, he wasn’t vouching for much. He described Burtis and Hayes as acquaintances and himself as “just a guy that wants to help people.” He scoffed at Hayes’ claim that he could speak to any of their business dealings. And he said his role with the Cairo duplex project was minimal, limited to that of a cheerleader. 

His attempts to distance himself from the housing plan and company struck me as odd.

The month after Prestige secured a loan for the printer, Fowler’s office emailed promotional materials for Prestige’s 3D printing business to the Illinois Housing Development Agency and touted the project before the state poverty commission he sat on, public records show. 

He brought other top state officials into the orbit as well. Three months after Cairo’s duplex block party, Fowler led Mendoza, the comptroller, on a tour of the property with Burtis and his son. In since-deleted social media posts, she called them “visionaries.” A Mendoza spokesperson said Fowler asked if she wanted to tour the duplex, but she was not otherwise involved with the company or its owners, and they’ve received no state funding. The posts were removed after I asked the spokesperson if Mendoza had been aware that FBI agents had delivered a subpoena to Prestige’s office just days before her tour.

Fowler didn’t tell me, but I’d later also find out he’d convened Duckworth’s staff to a meeting with Prestige’s owners and the president of Grand Rivers Community Bank in early 2023 — 18 months before the 3D groundbreaking party in Cairo. A Duckworth spokesperson said the senator’s office had just revived discussions about how to address Cairo’s housing crisis when Fowler reached out and that the office did not have additional involvement with the company. 

People in Cairo also saw Fowler as key to the deal and reached out to him after it became clear the duplex had been left unfinished. 

“When it fell through, we were all calling Sen. Fowler personally, because he brought them here,” said Williams, the council member. According to Williams, Fowler told Cairo officials he was oblivious to Prestige’s business dealings. 

Since its founding in September 2021, Prestige has been Fowler’s largest source of campaign donations, not including those from political action and other committees. The company, and others owned by Burtis and Hayes, gave him $22,000 between May 2022 and August 2024. Its final donation of $6,500 was made to Fowler five days after the groundbreaking party for the 3D-printed duplex. Fowler said he doesn’t track who donates to his campaign; he and Burtis said the donation was for Prestige co-sponsoring a golf fundraiser two months earlier. 

Fowler, a decadelong state senator who plays a key role shaping his caucus’ legislative priorities as a Republican assistant leader, announced last summer that he wouldn’t seek reelection, citing a 10-year term limit pledge; his term expires in January. 

Fowler also told me in October that he had no knowledge of the federal probe of Prestige and had never been approached by investigators. “Are they grabbing for straws?” he said of the FBI. 

Fowler said he’d known Hayes and Burtis for decades and doesn’t believe they’ve done anything wrong. 

Still, he said he’d taken some unfair heat over the ordeal — “guilty by affiliation, I guess.” 

But Fowler told me it wasn’t the first time he’d been criticized as an elected official, leading him to believe in his “spiritual soul” that he is the modern-day Daniel. In the Old Testament, Daniel was a virtuous believer thrown into the lion’s den by his enemies. But angels closed the lion’s mouth, saving Daniel, while his enemies ended up being “chomped, mutilated, by the lions.” Fowler said the story put him “at peace.” 

“I’ve never told this to anyone,” he added. “I’ve never told this to my wife.”

The FBI Comes Knocking 

Not long after I began digging into what happened to the duplex in Cairo, I learned the FBI was also looking into Prestige’s broader business dealings. 

Within weeks of the block party, six employees — more than half Prestige’s staff — quit. Then Prestige received a federal grand jury subpoena asking for its financial records, Hayes and Burtis said.

The FBI has also subpoenaed two school districts and the city of Harrisburg for their contracts with and payments to Prestige for work unrelated to the duplex project, according to records obtained under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act. The FBI declined to comment on the status of its investigation. 

Harrisburg Mayor John McPeek said the city did two projects with Prestige, though he said Fowler had encouraged the city to use the company more. A school district in Eldorado, one of those subpoenaed, ousted the former superintendent in September, in part for failing to get school board approval for about $2 million in payments to Prestige and related companies, public records show. The district declined to comment, and the former superintendent did not respond to requests for comment. 

Miller, the Prestige employee who hyped the 3D printing project to Cairo residents, was one of the employees who quit. When we first met up late last summer, he told me he had become an FBI whistleblower. 

Miller told me he’d been taken advantage of, sent to Cairo to sell a false promise the company had no intentions of standing behind. He also told me about a flurry of anonymous emails sent via Proton, an encrypted email service, that accused Prestige of fraud not long after Cairo’s block party. The emails went out to various businesses and schools that had contracted with Prestige.

I, too, had received a Proton email about Prestige. It wasn’t anonymous like the others, but was instead from someone claiming to be a COBOD executive. It directed me to open a DropBox file, but the link didn’t work. That executive told me she’d been impersonated; the company said it takes the matter “very seriously.”

At one point, Miller claimed to me that he was the one who sent the Proton emails — under instructions from the FBI, in an attempt to drum up investigatory leads. The FBI declined to comment, though three law enforcement experts told me this would be highly unlikely. Miller later changed his story, saying he hadn’t sent the emails. 

Burtis initially refused to answer my calls, texts and knocks on his door, but he called me back in October and said he wanted to talk. 

“For some reason, I woke up today, and after praying, it was like, ‘You need to go ahead and talk to her,’” he said. Tears streaked his face. His aunt sat beside him, taking notes on a legal pad. He blamed Miller for trying to ruin his company and for spreading unfounded rumors about him and Hayes. Miller did not respond when I asked him about Burtis’ claims.

Burtis also said he and Hayes have fully cooperated with the FBI, handing over all the financial records requested in the subpoena, though he said they’d never been interviewed by agents. “If I was really in trouble, don’t you think I’d have been handed an indictment by now?” Burtis said. 

His son Josh, who had been put in charge of the 3D printing venture, said the construction issues had been disappointing but they had been keeping the city updated. Hayes said he’d been fully transparent with me and investigators. 

As I asked questions last fall, the printer sat outside on the flatbed, though some parts of it recently moved to Hayes’ car lot.

The cracked house remained abandoned. 

Hayes said the concrete “ink” that came with the Black Buffalo 3D printer was faulty and that’s why the printer has been idle since. Black Buffalo 3D said it has offered Prestige a new concrete solution and to find a buyer for the printer if Prestige no longer wants it. 

Prestige and Black Buffalo told me in a joint email in September that they would return to Cairo by the end of October to fix the cracks, which they said were nonstructural. But Black Buffalo never showed up, saying its engineer couldn’t sign off on a repair plan without city permits, which don’t exist because they aren’t required. The company, which has sold only two printers in the U.S. since its founding in 2020, filed for bankruptcy in December. 

Burtis later said he engaged his own engineering firm to sign off on a remediation plan to fill the cracks with a hydraulic cement, though he declined to share that plan or the company name. Crews were recently working on the duplex; Burtis said the cabinets they ordered did not fit. 

Once the duplex is finished, Burtis said, he plans to turn the keys over to the city. Simpson said he will be ready. Still optimistic, the mayor said he hopes someone else will eventually follow through and build homes in Cairo.

Abell, Cairo’s city attorney, said the failed venture has never sat right with him. “I’ve seen a lot of deals fall through,” Abell said. “But we always knew why. Here, we got nothing.”

“Even today,” he added, “I probably have a lot more questions than I’ve got answers.”

While some questions remain unanswered, one set of facts is undisputed: When HUD began dismantling housing here a decade ago, officials promised there would be an effort to build back. Today, the only thing that has been built is one duplex, still unfinished.

Mallory, the mother who’d hoped to have a two-bedroom home one day, said she is tired of waiting, as much as Cairo has always felt like home. In mid-March, she applied for a housing assistance program in Chicago. She worries Cairo can’t give her daughter all she needs to thrive. “I want more for her,” she said. “I thought I was going to be able to get a two-bedroom apartment.”

But in the end, she sighed, with the kind of resignation that comes from being disappointed too many times, it was just “a bunch of broken promises.”

The post 3D-Printed Homes, an Abandoned $590,000 Deposit, the FBI: What Really Happened in This Small Town? appeared first on ProPublica.

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