After starting as a radio desk assistant in 1966, Linda Mason went on to become the first female producer of the "CBS Evening News" and held several other high-profile positions at CBS News.

I think it’s safe to say that Windows’ Modern Standby feature isn’t exactly free from issues. The biggest problem seems to be that it’s not very good at actually determining when to transition between regular sleep and hibernation, often leaving users with an empty battery as they open their laptop’s lid. Microsoft has now released an update to hopefully address this long-standing problem.

This update improves the adaptive hibernate policy to provide more instant-on resumes from Modern Standby while helping preserve battery life when the charge is low. Noticeable changes include less hibernation while the battery is above 80% and hibernating sooner when the battery is below 10%.

↫ KB5127936

Among other new features and changes this update brings are Cloud Rebuild, a way for devices to install Windows without needing a local image. Cloud Rebuild can be started form within an existing installation, remotely by administrators, or through the Windows Recovery Environment. Obviously, a working internet connection, wired or wireless, is required for this feature to work.

This is the same update that introduces CLAT, which we talked about yesterday, to smooth the transition from IPv4 to IPv6.

The Justice Department has begun issuing a new wave of subpoenas stemming from an ongoing criminal investigation into Alaska's U.S. Senate race, multiple sources confirmed to CBS News.

The personal information of more than 41,000 Department of Homeland Security employees was exposed by a hacker group.

Rising fertilizer and fuel costs, drought and low crop prices have pushed Kansas farms to the edge — scrambling farmers' loyalties in the Senate race between GOP Sen. Roger Marshall and Democrat Adam Hamilton.

Patrick Stewart starred on stage and screen across his decadeslong acting career. He died at his home on Wednesday.

Report calls for an effort to tackle harms in similar way to obesity and smoking, and stresses need to ‘offer boys something better’

The manosphere and online misogyny should be treated by the government as a public health issue, in the same way as obesity or smoking, experts have said.

Writing in the Lancet, the authors of a new report argue that a coordinated response is needed, involving governments, schools, health services and community organisations, similar to the public-health response to tobacco use and ultra-processed food.

(The Center Square) - The canal system that provides 36% of all water in Arizona is officially joining the state’s litigation against the Trump administration over Colorado River water cuts.

Security incident linked to performance-monitoring tool spurred platform to halt trading for about an hour

Polymarket temporarily halted trading on its international platform on Thursday because of a security incident that compromised a third-party provider, the company said.

Trading was paused for about an hour and resumed on Thursday afternoon. The company has promised to fully reimburse any affected traders.

Prime minister claims Arab Israeli parties used foreign backing to steal elections, in which his coalition lost its majority

Benjamin Netanyahu has been accused of using smear tactics to cling to power, after he claimed that Arab Israeli parties had used foreign backing to “steal” Tuesday’s election, in which the prime minister’s coalition lost its parliamentary majority.

Netanyahu and his allies called on the internal security service, Shin Bet, to investigate alleged vote buying and other irregularities in Palestinian communities in Israel, supposedly funded by foreign money.

The Delaware Opioid Settlement Commission, led by Brad Owens (pictured), approved $12.75 million in grants to more than 40 anti-addiction organizations last week. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY JEA STREET JR.

Research finds 55% of lawyers are using AI in legal practices, up from 37% last year, though efficiency gains aren’t as high as expected

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More than half of Victoria’s lawyers have reported using AI in their work, according to a new study, but just over a quarter say they’ve reduced fees as a result of efficiency gains.

They also say clients seeking advice from chatbots has added to their workload, forcing them to correct errors made by AI.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has sued Utah to defend its claimed exclusive authority over federally registered prediction markets, as the state files (PDF) 14 criminal charges against Kalshi and its co-founders for allegedly violating anti-gambling laws. The Verge reports: On Wednesday, Utah's Attorney General Derek Brown filed charges against Kalshi co-founders Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara, including 12 counts of online gambling promotion, a third-degree felony, one count of a pattern of unlawful activity, a second-degree felony, and general gambling promotion, a Class A misdemeanor. The civil lawsuit calls Kalshi a "back-alley gambling den," and Attorney General Brown didn't mince words in a statement to Gizmodo. "Gambling is illegal in Utah, whether you place the bet, run the game, or promote it. Calling it a 'prediction market' doesn't change what it is, and being federally registered doesn't put a company above the law," said Brown. "A federal court has already ruled that Utah's gambling laws apply to Kalshi," continued Brown. "Kalshi kept taking bets from Utahns anyway. That is illegal, and we're putting a stop to it." [...] The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has been jumping into action to protect Kalshi and Polymarket by filing lawsuits against any state that brings charges against the betting sites. President Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., is a paid advisor to both companies. The CFTC announced Wednesday that it was suing the state of Utah as part of its "commitment to maintaining its exclusive jurisdiction over CFTC-registered prediction markets." The argument is that the feds alone should be regulating these sites. "Utah seeks to shut down prediction markets across a wide variety of markets," CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig said in a statement. "Event contracts do not just serve hedging and investment purposes -- they also provide the public with information about the outcome of future events. Congress entrusted the CFTC to be the federal regulator with sole responsibility to oversee these markets," continued Selig. "As I've said before, the CFTC has the expertise and responsibility to defend its exclusive jurisdiction over commodity derivatives, and that's exactly what we'll do."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Researchers and students from over 30 universities and other organizations gathered at the ninth annual TACCSTER to share science, learn new tools, and connect

Oct. 29, 2026 — More than 200 scientists, researchers, and students from 30 universities, high schools, and industry around the state gathered at the Texas Advanced Computing Center for the ninth annual TACC Symposium for Texas Researchers (TACCSTER) in September, a record turnout.

Pictured is Zahra Seyedsharifi, a Ph.D. candidate in Ocean Engineering at UT Austin, presenting her poster on simulating rotating hydrofoil and propeller flows.

Attendees shared their latest research findings through keynotes, tutorials, lightning talks, and poster presentations, learned about new opportunities and updates at the center, and gave input to TACC leaders during a town hall meeting.

“TACC turned 25 in June of this year,” said TACC Executive Director Dan Stanzione in his state-of-the-center address. “The world has changed several times in the way that we do computing, which continues to evolve.”

The nationwide-picture of TACC shows that since 2001, more than 130,000 U.S. researchers have used the center’s systems, where allocations are awarded across the nation through internal review and through the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded ACCESS program.

Five scientists have won Nobel Prizes for work that drew on TACC systems. The most recent, Francis Halzen, received the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole, where TACC supercomputers helped researchers sharpen the instrument’s accuracy and detect “ghostly” neutrinos that rarely interact with matter.

What’s more, in FY 2025-2026 TACC users accounted for 55 percent of all NSF funding awarded to the UT System.

Frontera Sunsets, Horizon Dawns

For most of its service life, TACC’s Frontera supercomputer was the fastest academic supercomputer in the United States, powering the largest computational simulations for researchers across the country. Frontera was retired in October 2026, having surpassed eight million jobs.

“It’s hard to say goodbye to our venerable machine, Frontera. Frontera had over seven years of production life, which is the longest run on any TACC system,” Stanzione said.

Frontera was the first step in TACC’s winning proposal for the U.S. NSF Leadership-Class Computing Facility (NSF LCCF), the nation’s premiere supercomputing resources for scientists not only in Texas but across our nation.

As TACC retires Frontera, its successor, Horizon, the centerpiece system of NSF LCCF has entered its first phase of early operations. Stanzione announced that the power infrastructure is complete, an exabyte-capacity storage system is in place, and the initial deployment of Horizon’s AI-focused hardware is underway.

Tsunami Storm Warnings

Invited speaker Stefan Henneking of the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences outlined intriguing tsunami research with a scalable framework for linear time-invariant systems that was applied to a physics-based, data-driven digital twin for tsunami early warning in the Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ). Henneking’s team won the Gordon Bell Prize for their tsunami twin work in November 2025, awarded by the Association for Computing Machinery.

“Thanks to TACC, we got early access to Horizon, where both our MFEM-based wave propagation solver and our FFTMatvec-based Bayesian inference code showed great full-system-scale performance,” Henneking said. “With Horizon entering full production soon, it’s going to be an exciting time for academic research in high performance computing in Texas.”

Top left: TACC Executive Director Dan Stanzione gives the State of the Center address; Top right: Lars Koesterke of TACC gave a tutorial on getting started with the U.S. NSF LCCF Horizon supercomputer and its CPU-GPU architecture; Bottom left: Sneha Bhamidipaty of UT Austin presented a lightning talk on using TACC’s Tapis framework for predicting tumor growth and treatment response. Bhamidipaty is also one of the poster winners for TACCSTER26; Bottom right: Erik Ferlanti of TACC (left) assisted participants and co-presented a tutorial on building scientific dashboards.

Digital Oncology Twins

Digital twins—virtual representations of physical systems—merge with cancer tumor treatment response and TACC’s high performance computing resources in the research of Thomas Yankeelov, also of the Oden Institute.

“People have written equations for how tumors grow and respond to treatment for well over a century, but it’s really only been in the last couple of decades that we can marry it with data that can be measured in a clinical situation on a patient,” Yankeelov said.

His lab takes data from MRI scans to track tumor size, blood flow, and cell behavior prior to therapy. “Then very early in the course of therapy, we try to use those data sets to calibrate the model and then run the model forward in time to forecast or make a prediction of how the tumor is predicted to grow.”

“For example, calibrating the model for one patient takes 10 to 40 days per patient based on the size of the breast cancer tumor. We did this on TACC’s Lonestar6 system, and we got a 40x speedup. The key thing here is that we take the mathematical model and we can extend it very easily to account for radiation therapy.”

Clinical AI in Oncology

Jeanne Kowalski-Muegge of the Dell Medical School presented at TACCSTER on her lab’s efforts to build a new search strategy for potential cancer drugs using digital twins in precision medicine, tailored to a unique patient—with the goal of building expanded treatment options. Unfortunately, many cancer patients do not have an actionable, targeted, or clear path to therapy.

“The take home message is that precision medicine does not end when a genomic match is missing. Instead, we can search,” Kowalski-Muegge said.

Her team uses ASK-PACK (evidence layer integration) and Match Me Where (digital twinning) to define a search space. The Protein AI Companion Knowledge (PACK) and PACK Computational Retrieval Analytics (CRA) will ground the search to proteins because that’s the focus of the expanded search.

“We can then execute and scale this with our GENELINK and TACC and make the workflows secure, governed, and executable. So far, we’ve used approximately 15,000 node hours on Vista and Lonestar6, and we’re starting to benchmark with Horizon.”

Maya Ylagan, a data analyst with the Kowalski Lab, presented the poster and lightning talk “ourGeneLink: A Provider-Facing Data Fabric Intervention for Precision Oncology.” James Labyer of TACC’s Life Sciences Computing group, and a close collaborator of the Kowalski lab, presented the poster “Computational Agent for Clinical-Genomic Digital Twin Navigation.”

Quick Thinking

Chess fascinates Jose Rizo-Rey of UT Southwestern Medical Center, especially the furiously quick thinking of blitz chess. “I’ve played many chess games, and I always wonder how the brain works. How can you not only think a lot, but also think so quickly?”

His research focuses on understanding synaptic transmission, which is regulated by neurons that form compartments along their membranes through fusion. Rizo-Rey solves three dimensional structures at atomic resolution, using data from NMR spectroscopy, electron microscopy, and X-ray crystallography.

He has been running simulations with a vesicle, flat bilayer, and four SNARE protein complexes, which allow vesicles to fuse with their target membranes.

“Typically, we’d run a simulation of a 5.3 million-atom system on 64 CPU nodes of Frontera for 43 nanoseconds per day,” Rizo-Rey said. “But now with TACC’s Vista system, using just eight GPU nodes, I got almost the same speed. That required a lot of optimizations with GROMACS, with the help of people here at TACC.”

The key concept uncovered by simulation and analysis is the SNAREs act as a local detergent that catalyzes the mixing of hydrophobic interiors of the two membranes.

“This is what we call the local detergent model of membrane fusion,” Rizo-Rey said.

Poster Winners

David Katz
Toward Automated X-Ray Experiments: An Inspectable Language-Model Sub-Agent for Bragg Peak Centering
Department of Computer Science, School of Computing, The University of Texas at Austin

Sneha Bhamidipaty
A Web-based API for Predicting Tumor Growth and Treatment Response Using the TACC Tapis Framework
Department of Computer Science, Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences, UT Austin

Hyunje Yang
Multi-GPU Training of Geometry-Aware Neural Operators for Cross-Regional Storm Surge Prediction
Fariborz Maseeh Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering (UT CAEE), UT Austin

Paul A. Navrátil Young Researcher Award Winners

Excellence in Presentation: Çınar Turhan
Deep Learning Artifact Correction in X-ray CT Images of Porous Rocks
Ph.D. student, Hildebrand Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering Hildebrand Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering under the direction of Dr. Maša Prodanović, UT Austin

Excellence in Publication: Sreeram Venkat
Sensor Placement for Tsunami Early Warning via Large-Scale Bayesian Optimal Experimental Design
Ph.D. candidate, Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences under the direction of Dr. Omar Ghattas, UT Austin

Source: Jorge Salazar, TACC

The post Texas Researchers Converge at TACC for Record-Setting Symposium appeared first on HPCwire.

The Justice Department has issued grand jury subpoenas to California officials, escalating a dispute over allegations by the federal government that the state may have as many as 20,000 non-citizens registered to vote.

(The Center Square) – The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs plans to hire an additional 2,000 employees in fiscal year 2027 to help process an expected surge in benefits claims during the next several years.

(The Center Square) – Federal lawmakers are touting a 30-year prison sentence for Minnesota fraudster Salim Said as accountability for stealing $44 million from taxpayers.

One signed file installs and upgrades the cluster, and AI agents work with it within limits the operator sets

RENO, Nev., Oct. 29, 2026 — CIQ, the enterprise software company behind Rocky Linux, today introduced CIQ Stratum Kubernetes Engine (SKE), open source Kubernetes for the AI era. Kubernetes runs in production at 82% of organizations that use containers, and the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) calls it the de facto operating system for AI. Running it still means assembling about ten upstream projects that each release on their own schedule. SKE ships them as one signed file that installs, joins, and upgrades the cluster.

Built from an unmodified upstream source by the team behind Rocky Linux, Fuzzball, Warewulf, and Apptainer, CIQ Stratum Kubernetes Engine (SKE) lets system administrators, developers, and platform engineers run Kubernetes next to their existing Linux, HPC, and GPU infrastructure.

AI raises the cost of that upkeep. Training and inference spread across many systems, and capacity grows and shrinks with demand. Two thirds of organizations that host generative AI models run some or all inference on Kubernetes, according to the CNCF January 2026 survey. Those clusters sit beside air-gapped sites, compliance rules, and general-purpose nodes, often across several Linux distributions. In a 2026 industry survey of 785 Kubernetes decision makers, 62% said complexity was slowing business initiatives, and 65% ran air-gapped clusters. Teams want speed without vendor lock-in or the cost of integrating every piece themselves.

A built-in MCP server lets AI agents work with the cluster under rules the operator sets. Its 37 tools come in read, write, and destructive tiers, and tools above the enabled tier are never registered. Kubernetes access controls still bound every call, and secrets stay off limits. An AGENTS.md file guides agent-driven installs, and the documentation is published in llms.txt format. Operators get a built-in web dashboard with pods, logs, and shell access.

The hard part of Kubernetes starts after the first install, when those projects drift apart. CIQ Stratum Kubernetes Engine (SKE) pins and tests every component as a set. Rolling upgrades check node health at each step and roll back a node that fails. etcd snapshots run every 12 hours by default, and certificates renew before they expire. Every release is signed and ships a software bill of materials. What a team learns on its first SKE cluster carries to the tenth.

CIQ Stratum Kubernetes Engine (SKE) is free and open source and runs a single cluster with an included web UI. CIQ Stratum Pro, the commercial version, manages every SKE cluster, from GPU clusters to the general fleet, through the same web interface under one sign-on. Stratum Pro adds an app catalog, an optional CIS hardening profile with a per-control check, and support from CIQ. Its fleet agent connects outbound only, so clusters need no inbound ports. Cluster API provisioning follows in a later release.

“Kubernetes has become the place AI runs, and the people running it still spend their weeks on upgrades and integration work. We built CIQ Stratum Kubernetes Engine (SKE) so every cluster installs and upgrades the same way, and so the agents those teams put to work can only do what the operator allows,” said Gregory Kurtzer, CEO of CIQ and founder of Rocky Linux, Apptainer, and Warewulf.

“Anyone who has stood up a cluster by hand knows the install sets the tone for everything after it, so we built CIQ Stratum Kubernetes Engine (SKE) around getting that step right. Build something on your laptop that works, and the same binary runs it on a cloud VM. What is easy for you to set up is just as easy for your agents to deploy, prototype, and test with,” said Peter Nelson, Chief Technology Officer, CIQ.

CIQ Stratum Kubernetes Engine (SKE) runs on any Enterprise Linux 9 or later distribution, so teams keep the operating system they already trust and avoid a vendor’s own node OS. That includes Rocky Linux, RLC Pro AI, and RLC Pro Hardened, on amd64 and arm64. It works alongside Warewulf Pro for node provisioning, Fuzzball for HPC and AI workflows, and Ascender Pro for automation, and each product also runs on its own.

Availability
CIQ Stratum Kubernetes Engine (SKE) is available now in technical preview, with general availability expected November 5. SKE is free and open source under the Apache 2.0 license. CIQ Stratum Pro is a commercial subscription, with pricing announced at general availability. Both versions download from CIQ Depot and the CIQ Portal, one binary per architecture, and documentation is public at docs.ciq.com. Visit CIQ at booth #326 at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America, November 9 to 12 in Salt Lake City.

Webinar

CIQ will host a live webinar, A new way to run Kubernetes: Meet CIQ Stratum Kubernetes Engine (SKE), on Thursday, November 5 at 11 a.m. PT / 2 p.m. ET. Chris Wolford, Director of Engineering at CIQ, and Brian Rieb, Senior Technical Product Marketing Manager at CIQ, will take one SKE cluster from a single download to a high availability install, join it to the CIQ Stratum Pro fleet manager, connect an AI agent through the built-in MCP server, and upgrade it to the next Kubernetes version. Register for the CIQ Stratum webinar here.

About CIQ

CIQ is the founding support and services partner for Rocky Linux and a leading provider of Enterprise Linux infrastructure. CIQ delivers secure, performant software infrastructure for the full range of modern workloads. Global enterprises, government agencies, research institutions and supercomputing centers trust CIQ to run their most advanced workloads in production, from mission-critical environments to the systems behind major scientific and AI breakthroughs. CIQ’s products include the Rocky Linux from CIQ (RLC Pro) family of operating systems, the open source CIQ Stratum Kubernetes Engine, Ascender Pro for IT automation, Fuzzball job-based container orchestration, Warewulf Pro cluster provisioning, and Apptainer, the container system built for high-performance computing, with Apptainer Pro coming soon. Learn more at ciq.com.

Source: CIQ

The post CIQ Introduces CIQ Stratum Kubernetes Engine appeared first on HPCwire.

‘Spectral fingerprints’ of anyons point to path for quantum computing

Oct. 29, 2026 — Physicists have discovered a way to use light to detect the “spectral fingerprints” of anyons — exotic quasiparticles that emerge from the collective behavior of many electrons.

Physical Review Letters published the finding by theoretical physicists at Emory University. Their work offers a new tool for the study of anyons, which hold potential as fundamental building blocks for quantum computing.

Luiz Santos (left) and Tianhong Lu. Credit: Carol Clark.

“Using a particular frequency of light, we’ve developed a sensor that can pinpoint the location of an anyon in a material,” says Luiz Santos, professor of physics at Emory University and senior author of the study.

“The dream goal is the ability to manipulate anyons to achieve topological quantum computation,” says Tianhong Lu, first author of the paper and an Emory PhD candidate in physics. “Our theoretical work takes another step in that direction.”

‘Anything Goes’ Behavior

For nearly 100 years, it was believed that every electrical charge in the universe, whether on Earth or in the next galaxy, has the same magnitude of charge: protons have a full-positive electrical charge, for example, while electrons have a full-negative electrical charge.

“People thought that all charge excitations had to carry multiples of magnitude — in other words, the charges could not be split into fractional charges,” Santos explains.

During the 1980s, however, scientists discovered that — in two-dimensional systems — electron charges can fractionalize into quasiparticles that defy the standard rules of particles. These newly discovered phenomena were dubbed “anyons,” for their “anything goes” behavior.

One of the more interesting potential applications for anyons is to create qubits, or the bits of information needed for quantum computing.

A major challenge in developing quantum computing is that even the slightest disturbances — from the movement of air molecules or radiation from the sun — create disturbances that cause havoc at such a tiny scale.

“Anyons can hide themselves and avoid being perturbed by many environmental disturbances,” Santos says. “That makes them more stable than typical quantum materials.”

However, topological quantum computation —a system that relies on a particular class of anyons — remains in the theoretical realm.

Studying anyons to find ways to harness their power is incredibly challenging because they don’t exist as fundamental, isolated particles. Instead, they emerge as collective excitations of electrons.

A Quantum Dance

“It’s quantum choreography,” Santos says. “The electrons are dancing around, which creates ripples that carry anyons, or a fraction of the charges. You can think of the ripples like waves on the surface of water. Instead of water molecules moving around, billions of electrons are moving together.”

Physicists have observed this quantum dance under laboratory conditions. A strong magnetic field is applied to a two-dimensional electron gas which is cooled to an ultra-low temperature. That produces what is called the fractional quantum Hall effect — a quantum fluid with fractionally charged excitations, or anyons.

Around three years ago, researchers discovered they could produce the effect without a strong magnetic field and under less extreme conditions. The challenge of pinpointing the location of the anyons, however, remained.

The Emory physicists showed how light can help.

Imagining a Model

In certain atomically thin semiconductor materials, electrons can pair with holes, or imperfections, to form excitons — neutral quasiparticles that interact strongly with light. The researchers predicted that when an exciton gets close enough to an anyon, it will bind to it to form a new composite object: an exciton-anyon state. This process, in turn, should emit a detectable shift in energy.

The challenge began on the blackboard as the physicists worked out potential ways to model their proposed system on a computer.

Many early physics breakthroughs relied on direct observation, giving rise to the apocryphal story of an apple falling onto Isaac Newton’s head, inspiring him to come up with gravitational theory.

In contrast, much of modern-day physics involves processes occurring in invisible, untouchable realms.

“You can feel an apple hitting your head but not an anyon,” Lu says.

Abstract thinking about physics, he adds, was the hardest, and most rewarding, part of the current paper.

“We had to do qualitative analyses to come up with trends for the binding energy and quantum entanglements involved,” Lu says.

After they came up with a model, they developed a simulation for it and, finally, analyzed the results.

“It’s interesting to enter your ideas into a computer and see that the results fit your prediction,” Lu says.

The researchers hope that experimentalists will now build on their work, providing real-world confirmation of their theory, to help move topological quantum computing yet another step closer to reality.

The work was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences (Grant No: DE-SC0023327).

Source: Carol Clark, Emory

The post Emory Physicists Propose Optical Probe for Studying Potential Topological Qubits appeared first on HPCwire.

Pentagon says it has referred leak case to justice department for criminal investigation

The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has reportedly dismissed Lt Gen Brett Sylvia, a high-ranking army strategist serving on the Pentagon’s joint staff, following allegations that he disclosed classified information to the public.

The Pentagon announced on Thursday that it had referred an alleged information leak case for criminal investigation, maintaining that the removal of the senior general was essential “to protect sensitive information”, the Washington Post reported.

Binance is investigating a potential hack after more than $2 billion in crypto was drained from one of its wallets into a new external account, with Blockaid estimating nearly $3.3 billion was moved. "Our teams are aware of reports of a potential security issue and are actively investigating," said Binance on X. "User funds are safe," said Binance founder CZ. "It does look like a hack on Binance. Appreciate the quick freeze from Tether (~$971m) and Circle (~$823m). I don't manage Binance anymore, but as a shareholder, I expect all user funds will be fully covered."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

BSC has developed an application that provides data on wind and solar energy, as well as heating and cooling needs. It is now available through the Destination Earth portal

Oct. 29, 2026 — The Barcelona Supercomputing Center – Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS) has developed an application that turns climate simulations into information the energy sector can use to plan ahead and make strategic decisions. The resulting energy indicators are now publicly available through the European Commission’s Destination Earth (DestinE) platform, helping users explore renewable energy resources and prepare for a changing climate.

Energy professionals, researchers, and decision-makers can explore how much wind and solar energy could be generated, when wind conditions could disrupt generation, and how temperatures affect heating and cooling needs.

Developed by BSC’s Earth Sciences Department, the Energy Indicators application addresses questions relevant to renewable energy producers, wind farm and electricity grid operators, and researchers: how much energy could be generated from wind and solar resources, when wind conditions could disrupt generation, and how changing temperatures could affect heating and cooling needs.

The application forms part of DestinE’s Climate Change Adaptation Digital Twin (Climate DT), a system that uses computer simulations to recreate the Earth’s climate and explore how it could change over the coming decades. Developed by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) through a European consortium led by CSC – IT Center for Science, with BSC as one of the project partners, the Climate DT connects these simulations with practical tools that help different sectors assess climate impacts and plan adaptation measures.

“Our role is to turn climate simulations into information that energy stakeholders can use. With these indicators now available, users can explore what changing climate conditions could mean for renewable energy production and demand, and incorporate that information into their decision-making,” explains Francesc Roura-Adserias, a researcher at BSC’s Earth Sciences Department.

BSC’s application, the so-called Energy Indicators, uses the MareNostrum 5 supercomputer to calculate the energy data in real time, as the climate simulations are running. The published data cover the globe in 5 km squares, providing much higher resolution and, therefore, better geographical detail than many existing climate and energy datasets, which have resolutions of around 25 to 100 km.

The indicators cover the 1990-2049 period, spanning both recent decades and future climate under a scenario in which greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise without strong mitigation. Future releases will include scenarios with lower and higher emissions.

For wind energy, the application provides information on wind speed variability, including how often winds are too weak to generate electricity or so high that turbines need to shut down for safety. It also estimates how much electricity could be produced by four distinct turbine classes. For solar energy, the tool estimates how much electricity solar panels could generate, while additional indicators describe how changing temperatures could influence heating and cooling needs.

The wind-energy indicators build on BSC-led research assessing how more detailed global climate simulations can help the energy sector understand future wind conditions. Published in Energy and Climate Change, the study compares these high-resolution simulations with a lower-resolution version of the same climate model. The researchers found that the more detailed simulations better represented average local wind conditions and extremes, particularly in coastal areas and regions with complex terrain, highlighting how these simulations can provide additional information to complement the climate data currently used in the energy sector.

“Wind energy assessments have traditionally relied heavily on historical climate data, often assuming that past conditions will remain the same in the future. Our study shows how global climate projections with resolutions of 5 to 10 km can complement these existing datasets, providing a more detailed picture of how wind resources could evolve over the coming decades,” says Aleksander Lacima-Nadolnik, BSC researcher and first author of the study.

Together, this information can help users compare renewable energy resources across locations, assess conditions that could affect generation, and explore changes in heating and cooling needs. The public release lets users incorporate the indicators into their own work, helping inform strategic decisions on energy infrastructure and climate adaptation.

Professionals and researchers working on climate and energy can access the data through the DestinE Platform and consult the Energy Indicators user guide to understand what each indicator measures and how to use it. For those working directly with the data, an example Jupyter notebook provides step-by-step code to download the indicators and create visualisations, offering a practical starting point for their own analyses.

Source: BSC-CNS

The post BSC Turns Detailed Climate Simulations into Practical Tools for the Energy Sector appeared first on HPCwire.

Oct. 29, 2026 — QuantrolOx, University of Oxford spinout headquartered in Finland with offices in the UK, Netherlands, US and India, has raised €12 million in a Series A2 funding round led by IW Capital, with co-investment from the European Innovation Council (EIC) Fund. The round also includes participation from Voima Ventures, Serendipity Capital, Hoxton Ventures, and Transpose Capital.

The investment will accelerate QuantrolOx’s commercial growth and international expansion, including its growing presence in North America following the opening of its first US office in Berkeley, California. The round brings QuantrolOx’s total funding to ~$31million or ~€28million.

As quantum computing moves towards industrial-scale development, two major challenges remain: automating increasingly complex quantum hardware and training the workforce needed to build and operate it.

QuantrolOx addresses both through three complementary products:

• Quantum EDGE: A hardware-agnostic measurement and automation platform that accelerates QPU development, characterization, calibration, and tuning.
• Quantum EDGE Academy: A practical quantum hardware training platform combining expert-developed courses with realistic simulated hardware.
• VIDYAQAR: An integrated, open-architecture superconducting quantum system for education, research, testing, and benchmarking.

Together, these products help research institutions and quantum hardware companies move from manual workflows towards scalable, automated quantum R&D while developing the engineering skills needed across the industry.

“Every industry is built on its tools and its people. QuantrolOx is building the foundations of the quantum industry: our tools industrialize quantum hardware and train the people to run it. With IW Capital and the EIC Fund behind us, we are setting the standards and accelerating the path to practical quantum computing,” said Vishal Chatrath, Co-founder and CEO, QuantrolOx

“Oxford physics, Finnish engineering and a CEO with a great commercialization track record is a rare combination,” said Charlie Lyon Carroll, Investment Director at IW Capital. “QuantrolOx has automated the slowest, most expert-dependent part of running a quantum computer, on any hardware. With research accelerating and governments investing massive amounts of capital to support it, that software only gets more valuable. We’re proud to be backing the team and look forward to helping them scale QuantrolOx into the control layer every quantum computer runs on.”

Expanding Across Europe, North America and Asia

Recent milestones include a five-year collaboration agreement with UC Berkeley to advance the industrialization of superconducting quantum computing, the opening of its Berkeley office, and the launch of Q-HUB@MAHE, at Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), India, where VIDYAQAR supports open-architecture quantum hardware development and hands on workforce training.

QuantrolOx also works with international research institutions and technology partners, including Rigetti, Bluefors,QuantWare, NQCC (UK), Qblox, AQSolotl and UC Berkeley.

The funding will scale Quantum EDGE deployments, expand Quantum EDGE Academy and grow the US team as the industry moves towards larger, more complex quantum systems requiring greater automation, interoperability, and skilled engineering talent.

About QuantrolOx

QuantrolOx is a University of Oxford spinout founded in 2021 and headquartered in Finland, with offices in the UK, Netherlands, US and India, developing software, systems, and training solutions for the quantum computing industry. Its products – Quantum EDGE, Quantum EDGE Academy, and VIDYAQAR – support quantum hardware automation, research, testing, and workforce development.

Through its hardware-agnostic approach and international partnerships, QuantrolOx helps universities, research institutions, and industry teams develop and operate scalable quantum systems. Learn more at www.quantrolox.com.

Source: QuantrolOx

The post QuantrolOx Raises €12M to Industrialize Quantum Hardware and Expand Globally appeared first on HPCwire.

(The Center Square) - The U.S. Department of Justice amended its lawsuit on Thursday over spoiler candidates in Alaska’s U.S. Senate race following public reports.

“Captain Picard stood for the best of us,” wrote William Shatner, who played Captain James T. Kirk.

It’s now taken for granted that data centers across the U.S. are driving up electricity prices. As many Americans have soured on the energy-consuming facilities powering digital life and the AI boom, the issue has become central to the midterm elections.

Ad after political ad targets data centers, with many stating as fact that electricity prices have gone up as a result.

“No one asked for that data center to be built here, and no one here is getting a damn thing from it except higher electric bills,” one ad in Ohio, paid for by Democratic Senate candidate Sherrod Brown, says. 

Another ad in Texas, from Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico, alleges that his Republican opponent’s support for data centers led to “skyrocketing utility bills.” 

Tens of millions of dollars have been spent airing ads that make claims about data centers and electricity prices this cycle, with heavy spending on races in states such as Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania and Michigan, according to the ad-tracking service AdImpact.

Recent surveys have found that a majority of Americans would not support a nearby data center, making opposition to the facilities a rare area of bipartisan agreement. The top reason to oppose data centers, according to one poll, is rising electricity prices.

At the same time, Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright has repeatedly claimed that data centers have beneficial effects on electricity prices.

“The actual record of data centers coming on is they almost always are accompanied by a multiyear freeze in electricity prices. So, in real terms, a gradual decline in the cost of electricity,” he said on Sept. 17 at an event hosted by the conservative news outlet the Daily Caller. “These are a massive force to reduce the price of electricity and stop the price rises.”

Wright is correct that in principle, data centers could bring down prices. According to some analyses, that’s even happened in some places. But he fails to mention data, including from his own agency, that show that the opposite is also happening for many Americans.

At least for the PJM Interconnection, the nation’s largest grid operator serving more than 65 million people in the Midwest and mid-Atlantic, prices have likely gone up as a result of data centers.

A July report from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, one of the DOE’s federal labs, and the economic consulting firm the Brattle Group, found that increased demand, or load growth, including from large data centers, contributed to “significant” price increases in the PJM region in 2025.

Still, the report makes the point that most of the observed price increases in the past few years are not due to data centers — and that overall, at least until 2025, increased load growth was associated with lower retail electricity prices.

Data centers have contributed to, but aren’t the only reason for, price increases in Ohio and other states in the Midwest. In Texas, where prices have risen only modestly, it is not entirely clear, experts told us, but large price increases would not be expected to occur in the same way in part because the state is rapidly deploying new low-cost wind and solar power.

As we’ll explain, whether data centers raise prices depends on multiple factors. It’s not a given that prices will rise if a data center moves in, but the risk is real — and price increases have already occurred in some places.

“Data centers can put either upward or downward pressure on electricity prices,” Jacquelyn Pless, an energy economist at the University of Toronto, told us. “It depends on how much it costs to serve the new demand, whether utilities can use existing infrastructure more efficiently, and who ultimately pays for any required investments.”

“Secretary Wright has been clear that energy subtraction policies, not data centers, have been responsible for rising electricity prices and that when states encourage energy addition policies, growing electricity demand (including with data centers) drives down electricity costs for American families,” DOE spokesperson Ben Dietderich told us, placing blame on closures of coal and natural gas plants and renewable portfolio standards, policies that require a minimum amount of clean energy.

DOE also cited examples of data center agreements that have led to rate freezes, which appear on a White House webpage from July touting President Donald Trump’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge. We’ll share what experts think of the pledge.

What the Data Show

If many Americans think that all of or even the bulk of their recent electricity price increases are due to data centers, that is a misconception.

“To date, except for in the PJM market, load growth and data centers in particular as a sub-sector of load growth, have not been a principal driver of price increases in electric markets around the country,” Douglas J. Arent, a global fellow at the Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy, told us.

According to the July LBNL report, national average retail electricity prices have risen 29% between 2019 and 2025, but that figure falls to just 3% when adjusted for inflation.

The reason for price increases varies, but Arent said the main drivers are fuel price increases, especially for natural gas, and the cost of replacing and updating grid infrastructure. Much of the U.S. grid is old and due for improvement, just as equipment and labor costs have soared with inflation, supply chain constraints and Trump’s tariffs.

“The politics has certainly grown much larger than the data and the facts on this one,” Arent said.

The LBNL report notes that at the state level, increased demand, in part from data centers, is associated with a decline in electricity prices in recent years, and that residential customers “may have benefited from load growth from 2019 to 2025 in some states.” At least through 2024, North Dakota, New Mexico and Nebraska each significantly grew their load while reducing inflation-adjusted prices.

Multiple other reports, many funded by industry groups, have similarly concluded that there isn’t evidence that data centers have pushed up average electricity prices, or that the price increase is negligible, although some note that data centers are helping to increase prices in the PJM market.

Researchers with the Electric Power Research Institute, a nonprofit largely funded by electric utilities, posted an unpublished study in June that estimated that data centers “caused average retail electricity rates to fall modestly in the United States from 2015 to 2024,” or by 6% for a customer living in an area with average data center growth.

Several other analyses, however, have found that data centers have already raised average costs to a small degree.

Looking at the level of individual utilities rather than at state averages, a working paper from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, which Pless co-authored, found that between 2010 and 2024, data center entry increased retail electricity rates by 2.7%, with a higher average increase of 5.6% for customers of investor-owned utilities.

Pless said her findings “challenge blanket claims that data centers have not raised electricity prices, but they also don’t suggest that data centers are responsible for all recent increases in electricity bills.”

As we said, even some of the analyses that have not found data centers to have generally raised prices thus far have acknowledged that that could change or that there are important exceptions to the overall pattern.

The LBNL report, for example, cautions that for residential customers, it is less clear that high load growth is associated with lower prices, and that the apparent relationship may not hold into the future. The report also highlights the counterexample of PJM, in which data centers appear to have contributed to rising costs through the grid operator’s capacity market, which pays suppliers for the promise of electricity in the future.

Two separate economic consulting firms also listed PJM as an exception in which data centers did raise prices.

Sanya Carley, a faculty director at the University of Pennsylvania’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy and an electricity market researcher, told us that data centers “have significantly increased bills already” in the PJM region, adding, for example, at least $10 per month to bills in western Maryland and Ohio starting in mid-2025.

Some experts are also concerned that the existing data on prices is already a bit out of date.

“Studies that examine effects of data centers on prices in the past are largely irrelevant,” Ari Peskoe, director of Harvard’s Electricity Law Initiative, told us in an email. “Today’s data centers use 10 to 100x more electricity than the previous generation of facilities. Some are even larger.”

“Everything’s moving so fast and the data actually just can’t keep up,” Carley said. “So I anticipate going forward that we will see much bigger impacts on electricity markets. It’s just that we don’t have the data at the present to fully track it.”

What Determines Whether Prices Rise or Fall

Multiple experts told us that there is no single answer about whether data centers raise prices.

Carley said a critical factor is whether a grid has extra electricity being produced. “If you’re in a grid that is heavily constrained and there isn’t much wiggle room and demand is growing really quickly, we will see data centers push up the price of electricity,” she explained. If, on the other hand, a grid already has extra capacity, data centers “can pay a greater share of the fixed cost of the grid, and thereby they can actually bring the price of electricity down.”

“Arguments that demand growth could increase or reduce system costs could both turn out to be correct,” authors with LBNL and the Brattle Group similarly wrote in commentary in the energy research journal Joule in June.

Paul Donohoo-Vallett, an independent energy consultant who previously worked at DOE, said that in certain places in the Great Plains in the recent past, data center growth “used up existing capacity that was being underutilitized,” driving down costs. 

“What this is not showing is what happens when you don’t have spare capacity,” he said, which is expected to increasingly occur in the future. “If you have to build a bunch of more stuff because you’re already at capacity — in that case, it really depends how the utilities and policymakers divvy up the cost for that.”

Arent noted that what’s happening in PJM now is unique and is being driven by “anticipated data center load, not real data center load.” Prices have shot up in the last year in part because of the operator’s forward-looking capacity market, which saw prices rise nearly 10-fold between mid-2024 and mid-2025.

The capacity market pays suppliers for their commitment to provide future electricity as a way to ensure the grid will have enough power generation in the coming years. High prices signal to industry that demand will be high and more power plants should be built. Once a year, PJM runs an auction to set this price after estimating how much demand will exist.

One problem is that the way PJM estimates future demand is flawed, John Quigley, a senior fellow at Penn’s Kleinman Center who has been following the PJM market, told us. “These capacity auctions are being driven by estimates of future demand, and it’s been proven that these estimates can be wildly overstated,” he said.

Monitoring Analytics, PJM’s independent market monitor, concluded in a June 2025 report that data centers are “the primary reason” for high capacity market prices. Even with a cap now on the market’s price, ratepayers are set to spend an extra $7.3 billion in capacity market charges due to data centers this delivery year and $6.5 billion next year, according to Monitoring Analytics’ January report.

“It is really just a windfall to existing generators who aren’t doing anything different, and it’s just a tax paid by existing customers,” Donohoo-Vallett said, “who need to pay for generation that hasn’t been built yet and to meet demand that hasn’t shown up yet.”

Although capacity prices are many times higher than several years ago, it’s worth noting that household electricity bills have not increased by that same amount, since capacity prices in PJM account for only about 10% to 20% of a person’s electricity bill. The increase, however, can still be substantial, especially for lower-income households.

Carley said that capacity market increases between mid-2025 and mid-2026 added around $18 per month to the average home electricity bill in western Maryland and $16 per month in Ohio, with 63% of those increases estimated to be specifically due to data centers.

A Path Forward

The push now, from both political parties, is to find a way to ensure that data center companies pay for the extra infrastructure their facilities require so that everyday Americans don’t effectively subsidize the projects for big tech. Democrats, and to a lesser extent Republicans, increasingly support pauses or moratoriums on new data centers until rules can be hashed out.

Trump has been a staunch ally of data centers, but in March he issued his Ratepayer Protection Pledge, which called for companies to “agree to protect American consumers from price hikes” by building, bringing or buying their own power supplies and footing the bill for upgrades, among other promises.

In an Oct. 21 Truth Social post, Trump incorrectly said that data centers “are mandated by me to make their own electricity, and give or sell any excess back to the local community, or grid.”

They aren’t. The pledge is just that — voluntary. Some experts told us that the pledge was useful symbolically, but others saw little to no value to it.

“It’s nothing,” Donohoo-Vallett said. “It’s just a messaging document.”

“It was a PR stunt,” Quigley said.

“Compliance is not being monitored or enforced by anyone,” Harvard’s Peskoe said. “It’s a nice sentiment, but what matters are utility contracts and tariffs.” 

Tariffs in this context refer to the specialized rules and pricing structures that data centers would have to agree to before being connected to a grid. Some proposed ideas include having data centers pay upfront for infrastructure costs, requiring long-term minimum payments, exit fees if a developer pulls out, as well as the ability to reduce or cut power to a center when a grid is experiencing peak use.

Robin Millican, also with Columbia’s Center on Global Energy Policy, said on X in March that the pledge was “a useful signal,” but that it was “not a new idea” and that “some of the companies have already been doing what it calls for.”

“The real decisions will happen state by state, where regulators will determine how new infrastructure costs are allocated across customer classes. Tariffs for large loads, transmission upgrades, and cost recovery rules will ultimately be resolved PUC by PUC, not through voluntary commitments,” she wrote, referring to public utility commissions.

There is also the Ratepayer Protection Act, which passed the House with broad bipartisan support but has stalled in the Senate, where it was introduced by Republican Sen. Jon Husted of Ohio. 

As with the pledge, the legislation aims to make sure ratepayers are not left on the hook for any costs associated with data centers, but as written, it cannot require that. Rather, the bill requires state regulatory authorities to “consider” instituting such controls for facilities that demand 100 megawatts or more of power.

Kenneth Gillingham, a professor of environmental and energy economics at Yale University, told us in an email that “the basic ideas are very reasonable as ways to reduce the likelihood that data centers will raise electric rates,” but he added that “implementation will really determine how much and/or if it will help.”

A more aggressive bill, known as the GRID Act, was introduced by Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley and co-sponsored by Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut in February, but it has not made it out of committee. A variety of other bills have also been introduced in Congress.

“Ultimately, the key question isn’t simply whether a data center promises to pay its own way,” Pless said, “but whether new rates and contracts actually ensure that existing customers aren’t left covering the costs.”

Kate Yandell contributed to this story.

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 Data Centers and Electricity Prices: It’s Not as Simple as Voters May Think appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Archive of Our Own, one of the world’s biggest fanfiction sites, went down hard.

(The Center Square) – The Texas Attorney General's office has sued Harris County officials alleging they are using taxpayer money to run racially discriminatory “get out the vote” ads.

E-commerce company posts high cloud computing sales but gives a cautious sales forecast for the fourth quarter

Amazon offered a mixed picture of its financial health on Thursday in its quarterly earnings report.

The e-commerce company gave a cautious sales forecast for the current fourth quarter, which encompasses the critical holiday shopping period, after delivering fiscal third-quarter results that came in below Wall Street analysts’ expectations.

(The Center Square) – California High-Speed Rail Authority CEO Ian Choudri has resigned, citing personal and family reasons.

Product safety regulators said the glass carafes can unexpectedly break if they are damaged or cracked, leading to burn injuries.

An automated state-preparation routine and enhanced calibration protocol keep fidelity above the entanglement threshold at full scale, and cloud users now have access to the same system performance.

ESPOO, Finland, Oct. 29, 2026 — IQM Quantum Computers today announced that its cloud-accessible IQM Emerald system has fully entangled all 54 qubits on the chip simultaneously, a result that shows the system’s computational quality holds up when every qubit is put to work at once. IQM’s cloud customers now have access to that same full-chip performance, so their computations can draw on the entire processor rather than a fraction of it.

IQM measured a fidelity of 0.515 at 40 qubits without readout error mitigation (REM) and 0.516 at the full 54 qubits with REM applied, both above the classical threshold of 0.500 that separates genuine entanglement from noise.

These results rank among the strongest reported for any commercially available quantum computer, giving customers access to state-of-the-art, high-quality processors. Until now, a user running a comparable demonstration on IQM Emerald could reliably use on the order of 30 qubits within a single algorithm. Studies on large quantum chips often use only a fraction of the available qubits, commonly 10 to 20, even when the hardware has many more. Emerald’s result shows the alternative: an entire processor working together on one computation.

“Entangling the entire chip means every qubit and every connection between them has to work correctly in the same circuit. Getting there came down to being smarter about how we prepare the state itself, choosing the gate order to keep idle time to a minimum,” said Craig Ciesla, CTO, IQM Quantum Computers. “Our current and prospective cloud customers now have the chance to benefit from the same tools and system performance that made this achievement possible.”

The demonstration used a Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger (GHZ) state, a standard benchmark for large-scale entanglement, prepared across the entire IQM Emerald processor. The result was enabled by a smarter, automated routine for state preparation that selects the best two-qubit gates while weighing gate fidelity against qubit idle time, choosing both the qubits and the gate order to minimize idle time as the state is built. IQM measured a fidelity of 0.515 at 40 qubits without readout error mitigation (REM) and 0.516 at the full 54 qubits with REM applied, both above the classical threshold of 0.500 that separates genuine entanglement from noise.

The result builds on roughly a year of hardware and calibration work across IQM’s technical teams, including an updated calibration methodology, an improved gate set and continued deployment of error-reduction tools such as dynamical decoupling and qubit selection. These improvements led to an error rate reduction of up to 50% for quantum operations in the processor.

The automated state-preparation routine is part of IQM’s broader effort to automate the operation of quantum computers. This development, along with IQM’s AI-driven agentic calibration work, is part of a broader effort to automate the tuning of quantum systems.

About IQM Quantum Computers

IQM Quantum Computers (Nasdaq: IQMX) is a global leader in superconducting quantum computers, delivering full-stack quantum computers and cloud platform access to enterprises, research institutions, universities, high-performance computing centers and national laboratories worldwide. IQM’s on-premises deployment model gives customers direct ownership and control of their quantum infrastructure. Founded in 2018 and headquartered in Finland, with major operations in Munich, IQM employs over 450 people and operates across Europe, Asia and North America. IQM is the first publicly listed European quantum company on Nasdaq Stock Market.

Source: IQM Quantum Computers

The post IQM Reports Full-Chip Entanglement on 54-Qubit Quantum Processor appeared first on HPCwire.

Global investors, including Infinitum, Jericho Capital, QUDA Capital, Cisco Investments, and Worldline Capital, join the round alongside the National Growth Fund of Korea and Korean institutions.

SEOUL, South Korea, Oct. 29, 2026 — FuriosaAI, an AI semiconductor company building sustainable, high-performance inference compute for data centers, today announced the completion of its $620 million (KRW 820 billion) Series D round, bringing its post-money valuation to approximately $2.9 billion.

The financing marks a major milestone as FuriosaAI scales global commercial deployments of its RNGD AI inference accelerator. FuriosaAI will use the new capital to expand RNGD production, strengthen its software ecosystem, and accelerate development of its third-generation AI accelerator.

International investors contributed a total of $110 million to the round, bringing deep expertise across AI semiconductors and computing infrastructure. U.S.-based Infinitum, an investment firm with extensive experience in the AI semiconductor sector, was the largest international investor in the round.

Singapore-based QUDA Capital Partners also joined the round. Its Founder and Managing Partner, Charlie Foo, previously held senior leadership roles at NVIDIA and Mellanox Technologies, including as Vice President and General Manager for Asia Pacific Enterprise Business. He currently serves as Principal Advisor to FuriosaAI.

Other international investors include Cisco Investments, Abu Dhabi-based NeoFort Holding, and U.S.-based technology investment firms Jericho Capital and Worldline Capital.

South Korea’s National Growth Fund invested $280 million as the largest investor in the round, supporting the country’s initiatives to expand AI computing infrastructure and strengthen the Korean AI semiconductor ecosystem, while helping accelerate the round’s momentum.

Existing shareholders contributed $125 million in follow-on investments, reflecting continued confidence in FuriosaAI’s long-term growth prospects. Notably, the Korea Development Bank (KDB), one of FuriosaAI’s major existing shareholders, invested an additional $22 million in the round.

All three of FuriosaAI’s original seed investors, NAVER, DSC Investment, and KDB Capital, participated. DSC Investment, which first backed FuriosaAI in 2017, has participated in every financing round since the company’s seed stage. NAVER’s seed investment was made by NAVER D2SF, its early-stage investment arm, while this round’s investment was made by NAVER Ventures, NAVER’s Silicon Valley-based investment platform.

“We look for the moment a technology company moves from proving its technology to proving its business. FuriosaAI is at that point now, with its chip in volume production and in deployment with customers,” said Yong Jung Park, General Partner of NAVER Ventures. “As a Silicon Valley-based investor, helping the company grow in North America is where we can add the most value. We’re proud to back June and the team as they take Furiosa to the global stage.”

Nextrans and Kakao Investment also participated. Both firms became FuriosaAI shareholders in its Series C bridge round last year and increased their commitments as the company advanced mass production and global commercialization. The round also attracted new Korean institutional investors. The Export-Import Bank of Korea selected FuriosaAI for its first direct investment in a startup. Korea’s United Asset Management Company (UAMCO) committed $30 million, becoming the largest new domestic investor after the National Growth Fund, while Hanwha Asset Management also joined the round.

“This Series D financing marks an important milestone for FuriosaAI and reflects the confidence of investors around the world in our technology and ability to execute,” said June Paik, Co-Founder and CEO of FuriosaAI. “We are particularly encouraged by the participation of investors with deep expertise and experience in the global AI semiconductor and infrastructure industries.”

“We are entering a new phase of bringing our technology to the global AI infrastructure market at scale,” Paik added. “By accelerating the commercialization of RNGD and advancing the development of Gen 3, we aim to help shape the next generation of AI infrastructure.”

“Taking an advanced AI chip from design to volume production is an exceptionally difficult undertaking, and few companies have demonstrated the ability to do so successfully,” said John Yetimoglu, Chief Investment Officer with Infinitum. “FuriosaAI has gone further, securing production deployments with leading enterprises such as Samsung SDS and LG Group. This combination of technological innovation and commercial execution gives us strong conviction in FuriosaAI’s ability to scale RNGD globally and deliver on its ambitious Gen3 roadmap.”

FuriosaAI expects to produce 20,000 RNGD accelerators in 2026, with plans to more than double production to over 40,000 units in 2027, supporting our growing customer demand. LG Group is running its EXAONE deployments on RNGD, Upstage now uses RNGD to serve live search summarization for millions of users, and Samsung SDS launched its commercial NPU-as-a-service on RNGD in July.

About FuriosaAI

Founded in 2017, FuriosaAI is a South Korea–based semiconductor company developing high-performance, energy-efficient AI accelerators for data center inference. Leveraging its proprietary Tensor Contraction Processor (TCP) architecture, FuriosaAI designs and develops an integrated AI computing stack spanning silicon, compilers, software, and server systems, with a mission to make AI computing more sustainable and accessible.

FuriosaAI’s second-generation accelerator, RNGD, entered mass production in January 2026. Featuring high-bandwidth memory and a power-efficient architecture, RNGD delivers scalable AI inference within existing data center power and cooling constraints. The company is expanding commercial deployments with enterprise and cloud customers globally, while collaborating with Broadcom on its third-generation AI accelerator for hyperscale infrastructure.

Headquartered in Seoul, FuriosaAI has offices in the United States, Portugal, and Singapore.

Source: FuriosaAI

The post FuriosaAI Secures $620M Series D to Meet AI Inference Demand and Accelerate Next-Gen Silicon appeared first on HPCwire.

Star Trek: the Next Generation and X-Men actor died at his home after ‘a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia’

• Patrick Stewart – a life in pictures

• Patrick Stewart dies aged 86 – latest updates

Patrick Stewart, the acclaimed British stage and screen actor renowned for both Shakespeare and sci-fi, has died. He was 86.

The Star Trek: the Next Generation and X-Men star died on Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles after “a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia”, said Kelly Bush Novak, his longtime spokesperson, to the Hollywood Reporter.

(The Center Square) – Arizona GM owners may soon reap the benefits of a $220 million settlement over the illegal sale of their private driving behavior data.

ALEC ADER
Staff Reporter

UDance Dance Marathon is a Registered Student Organization (RSO) on campus that raises money for The Andrew McDonough B+ Foundation. Founded in Wilmington, Delaware by Joe and Chris McDonough, whose son passed away from leukemia, the foundation raises awareness and funds for childhood cancer. 

The RSO’s main event is a 12-hour dance marathon that happens in the spring. While it is just one day, it takes months of preparation to make the event happen. 

FTKraft Night, a Trabant Now event where students help make crafts that will decorate the Bob Carpenter Center for the UDance Dance Marathon, is part of that preparation.

The Event Operations committee works under the executive board to schedule UDance events. Like many other events, the committee helped execute the annual craft night.

Every year, Trabant University Center is filled with tables of students doing crafts on a Saturday night. Students usually make banners, color in decorations and cut out drawings. This year was no different. 

The return of FTKraft Night, held on Sept. 19, had a high turnout. Bianca LaFazia, a senior chemical engineering major, talked about the night as she decorated a banner. 

“It’s a lot of fun,” LaFazia said. “We were just talking about how the music and the vibe is really great right now.” 

Heillie Santana, a sophomore biology major, also shares this sentiment. 

“We’re out tonight because it’s a great opportunity to be part of UDance,” Santana said. “It’s nice to sit back, talk to some nice people and just color.” 

The event was mainly organized by Event Operations Director Jessica Shisko, a senior kinesiology major. Shisko leads a committee that deals with the logistical side of budgeting and planning UDance events. 

“It can be overwhelming at times, but I have a great support system within the board,” Shisko said. “My team is very supportive.” 

Shisko enjoys being a part of UDance’s executive board and finds pride in the work she does.

“The best part is the feeling of executing events that I could tell people are having fun at, especially the heroes, and seeing how they don’t want to leave,” Shisko said. “Just knowing all that, and we have a part in helping these families in such a hard time is also just so rewarding.” 

The B+ Foundation believes “that every child who has battled cancer, or is still in the fight, is a Hero — a B+ Hero.” The foundation and UDance strive to celebrate these children.

In addition to Shisko, many of the other members of the UDance executive board showed up to the event.

LaFazia serves as UDance’s campaign communication liaison and was previously on Event Operations with her friend, Katrina Levitz, a senior chemical engineering major. 

“Yeah, we’ve been in the industry a bit, so we know crafting very well,” LaFazia said. “I love doing the crafts for the events and day of. It feels like we’re closer to them the day of.” 

Most of the students on the executive board started in other committees. Digital Communications Director Emily Brown, a senior media communication major, was previously part of Freshman For The Kids (FFTK), and now works with social media chairs and graphic design chairs for graphics for its events, website and merch. 

“I think it’s just a great and super fun way to spend your Saturday night,” Brown said.

UDance’s executive board is led by Co-Executive Directors, Giana Ingrati, a senior English education major, and Anna Shovlin, a senior kinesiology major. 

Ingrati believes UDance is special due to having such a large community of the university’s athletics, RSOs and Greek life participate in the fundraising.

“Approximately, every $1,000 is a check that’s written to a family,” Ingrati said. “Parents have to stop working, obviously hospital bills are very, very high, so this money will help them pay any bills they have to pay, any hospital bills.”

Shovlin talked about how easy it was to get involved in UDance. Students can join organizations such as Dedicated Volunteers, which helps make crafts. Students can also get involved in media outreach, development or hospitality committees.

“My favorite is probably the Rave Run, but I love this event because it makes crafts for all of the fall events and some of the spring ones,” Levitz said. 

Rave Run was held on Oct. 13. The 5K on South Campus partners with Races2Run, giving participants official times. Ingrati and Shovlin also plugged the other fall events coming up: a Be Positive Halloween Party and a Be Positive Holiday Party.

Throughout the year, there are many other UDance events besides the main marathon. Many different committees contribute to them.

“We spend so much time talking about raising money and raising awareness,” Brown said. “But it also really does make a great community of people.” 

Slashdot readers Cpt_Kirks, eklektic, sconeu, and Vrallis share the unfortunate news of Patrick Stewart's passing. Longtime spokesperson Kelly Bush Novak said Stewart died Wednesday at the age of 86 at his home in Los Angeles following "a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer's disease and Lewy body dementia." "He has been held in the warm embrace of family and friends, surrounded by live music, prayer, tears, laughter and the kind of profound emotion that only he could inspire after a lifetime of devotion to us all," Bush Novak wrote. "We will forever cherish the peaceful ease and reflection on his face, an enduring reminder of his invincible grace." The acclaimed British actor became a science-fiction icon as Capt. Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Professor Charles Xavier in the X-Men films. Beyond those iconic roles, Stewart earned multiple Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for performances in Moby Dick, The Lion in Winter, Extras, Hamlet, and Blunt Talk. He later returned to his most famous role in Star Trek: Picard.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

CEO Jensen Huang may have been the target of Chinese espionage activity, The New York Times reports.

In Alaska's Senate race, voters will choose between four candidates, including GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan and a man with the same first and last name — a situation that has frustrated Republicans and drawn scrutiny for Democrat Mary Peltola.

The Department of Homeland Security asked an Icelandic hosting company to take down data obtained through hack

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) asked ⁠an Icelandic hosting company on Thursday to take down or limit access to data related to thousands ⁠of agency personnel, saying ⁠the content ​put them at risk, according to the request posted online by hosting company FlokiNET.

The database “places more than ⁠40,000 identifiable individuals at risk of harassment, stalking and physical harm”, the request said.

Democrat Mary Peltola’s campaign allegedly collaborated with party operatives to confuse voters in midterms

The US justice department on Thursday is reported to have issued subpoenas in response to a report that the Alaska Democrat Mary Peltola’s campaign collaborated with party operatives to get a challenger with the same name as the Republican senator Dan Sullivan on the midterm ballot.

ABC News reported the subpoenas, citing sources familiar with the matter. The federal investigation comes a day after the New York Times found that the effort to recruit a second candidate named Dan Sullivan in the Senate race set to be decided on Tuesday was led by Peltola’s campaign, which had for months denied involvement.

Lehm

Join LLNL at the premier HPC conference on November 15–20

Oct. 29, 2026 — Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is heading to the 38th annual International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis (SC26), Nov. 15–20, in Chicago.

Follow Computing at LLNL on LinkedIn and @Livermore_Comp on X with the hashtags #LLNLatSC and #SC26.

All times are listed in Central Standard Time.

Please see the Digital Experience page for information about which sessions will be available virtually. (BoF indicates Birds of a Feather.)

Sunday, Nov. 15

Monday, Nov. 16

Tuesday, Nov. 17

Wednesday, Nov. 18

Thursday, Nov. 19

Friday, Nov. 20

LLNL SC Committee Members

• Adam Bertsch – SCinet architecture
• Aniruddha Marathe – System software and cloud computing
• Barry Rountree – Performance measurement, modeling, & tools
• Brian Van Essen – HPC for machine learning
• Bronis de Supinski – ACM SRC posters; System software and cloud computing
• Chunhua Liao – Performance measurement, modeling, & tools
• Clea Marples – Community engagement chair; Digital experience
• Cody Balos – Applications
• Daniel Nichols – Tutorials
• David Boehme – Doctoral showcase; Performance measurement, modeling, & tools
• David Richards – SCinet fiber; Applications
• Edgar León – New volunteers chair
• Erik Draeger – Applications
• Hariharan Devarajan – Performance measurement, modeling, & tools
• Harshitha Menon – Early career program; Performance measurement, modeling, & tools
• Holly Auten – Communications deputy chair
• Jamie Lewis – Students@SC; SIGHPC immersion chair
• Jamie Van Randwyk – Steering committee; Special advisor on contractor performance; Families@SC chair
• Jeffrey Hittinger – Test of Time Award
• Kathryn Mohror – Conference deputy chair; Steering committee; Research posters
• Katrina Trujillo – SCinet contributor relations
• Kevin Sala Penades – BOFs
• Kristi Belcher – Early career program
• Loïc Pottier – Research posters
• Lori Diachin – Steering committee chair; Test of Time Award chair
• Michele Bianchini-Gunn – Local arrangements
• Nicole Marsaglia – Doctoral showcase
• Nikoli Dryden – HPC for machine learning vice chair
• Olga Pearce – System software and cloud computing
• Rigoberto Moreno – SCinet cluster
• Stephanie Brink – Doctoral showcase; Performance measurement, modeling, & tools; Workshops and symposiums
• Sunshine Balingit – SCinet network security
• Tal Ben-Nun – BOFs

Source: LLNL

The post LLNL Outlines SC26 Program Spanning Exascale Computing, AI and Scientific Software appeared first on HPCwire.

‘This is voter fraud at the highest level,’ president tells rally crowd in South Carolina; Alaska governor orders inquiry into Peltola campaign amid Republican outcry

• Alaska governor orders investigation into Peltola’s Senate campaign

• Sign up for the Breaking News US email

With days until the midterm elections, a new poll from CNN places Democrats well in the lead in key Senate races in Texas and Michigan, while projecting tighter contests in Kansas and Maine.

In Texas, the poll found 49% of likely voters would back James Talarico, the Democratic nominee, over Republican Ken Paxton, who netted just 43%.

With Social Security's main trust fund on course to be depleted in 2032, Congress will face mounting pressure to find remedies and avert benefit cuts.

The man who already pleaded guilty to more than 100 state criminal charges, including first-degree murder, for an attack on the Pearl Street Mall in June 2025, appeared in federal court on Thursday where he changed his plea to guilty on a dozen charges.

More than 42 million Americans had voted early as of Thursday afternoon, according to the University of Florida Election Lab.

Experts round on chancellor over ‘scattergun’ budget, saying he ducked big tax and spending decisions

John Healey has backed away from cutting the cost of welfare this parliament, amid dire warnings his first budget could lead to brutal spending cuts because of a £28bn shortfall in public finances.

Experts rounded on Healey’s steady-as-she-goes budget on Thursday, with the Institute for Fiscal Studies saying he had left himself a mountain to climb by ducking big tax and spending decisions.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: American spy agencies had gathered striking intelligence. A top executive at a Singapore-based data center company was under scrutiny for possibly steering advanced Nvidia A.I. chips to China. And now American officials had concluded that she was a Chinese intelligence asset (source paywalled; alternative source), funneling information to Beijing. But what came next was even more alarming. Surveillance of the executive, Alice Huang or Huang Le, a Chinese citizen, revealed that she had developed a close relationship with Jensen Huang, Nvidia's chief executive. For years, Washington has worked to deny China the technology needed to match or surpass the United States in the intense global competition for superiority in artificial intelligence. The discovery that Beijing was getting reports from someone with direct access to Mr. Huang, one of the most powerful figures in the A.I. revolution as well as an influential ally of President Trump's, set off alarms at the White House. Roughly a year ago, Mr. Trump was briefed about the intelligence findings, which have not been previously reported, and chose not to do anything with the information. Mr. Trump has been wary of disrupting Nvidia's chip sales, which are helping to drive the economy and the stock market, and of further complicating the trading relationship with China. This account is based on interviews with people briefed on the surveillance, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the findings are drawn from classified intelligence, as well as other officials and industry executives and analysts. American officials already suspected that Ms. Huang was helping China evade constraints on its ability to gain access to advanced A.I. chips. But the revelation that she was feeding information directly to Beijing raised more troubling possibilities, including that Mr. Huang had insights into Mr. Trump's thinking on an issue of vital importance to both nations, one likely to come up when the president visits China next month. And it left questions about whether she could be gleaning information about Nvidia, which as much as any company accounts for the lead the United States has maintained in developing cutting-edge A.I. models. The surveillance of Ms. Huang continues, they said, and companies that have been affiliated with her continued this year to purchase Nvidia chips. Nvidia said in a statement: "Jensen's interactions with Ms. Huang are not unusual or unexpected. Meetings with customers are part of a CEO's job; Jensen talks with thousands of customer executives every year." Nvidia is "confident that if the U.S. government believes that any person is a threat to American industry, it would let us know." Customers like Megaspeed, the company that employed Ms. Huang, "receive ordinary business information -- not sensitive Nvidia trade secrets -- and zero information relevant to national security," the company added. In a statement to The New York Times, Megaspeed said that its "current leadership" takes the matter "extremely seriously and is committed to getting to the facts behind these allegations." It added that "outside counsel has been retained to conduct a thorough internal investigation and has notified the U.S. government that we are fully committed to cooperating."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Move comes as Philippines police investigate alleged child sexual abuse images reportedly found at Thomas Markle Sr’s former home

The Metropolitan police has referred itself to the police watchdog over potential errors in its handling of a 2019 letter warning of dangers to the security of the Duchess of Sussex posed by her father.

The letter made allegations about Thomas Markle, the father of Meghan, who is facing claims of child sexual abuse images offending linked to the Philippines, which he denies.

A 31-year-old Seattle woman turned to ChatGPT-4o when she became concerned about side effects from her medication.

"When you can't tell what's legitimate, you question everything," said one cybersecurity expert focused on political campaigns.

Former DOJ officials say Attorney General Todd Blanche's Justice Department has entered uncharted waters in ways that could influence politics.

US vice-president writes to top Iranian security official in sign Washington has not abandoned diplomacy

Hopes of averting a major new conflagration between Iran and the US soon after Tuesday’s midterm elections could rest on Iran’s response to a personal letter from the US vice-president, JD Vance, offering to restart diplomacy.

The letter, written after predominantly Qatari mediation, was sent to the secretary of Iran’s supreme national security council, Mohsen Rezaei on Sunday. It requires Tehran to agree to make commitments on its nuclear programme at the start of a process that would lead to the opening of the strait of Hormuz within seven days in return for US sanctions relief.

Alta uses compressed pods with no plastic or aluminum. Here’s how the groundbreaking coffee system fared in testing.

(The Center Square) - A Colorado Supreme Court justice and another state appellate judge, both appearing on the Nov. 3 ballot, are facing criticism over a former official’s allegations of their failure to report a so-called "hush money" contract.

Tankers, tracked by Greenpeace, are first phase of Trump-Putin deal – but there is uncertainty over whether they will unload

Seven oil tankers carrying an estimated 288,000 tonnes of Russian diesel are now sailing towards the US, though it is uncertain if the vessels will be able to unload amid a political row about the legality of the shipments.

The transport, tracked by the pressure group Greenpeace, is the first phase of a contentious supply deal negotiated between presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin earlier this month, reversing years of sanctions on Russia oil.

Yesterday, Google reported its Q3 results that showed searches made through its AI Mode generate less revenue than traditional search, even as overall search revenue grew 12% year over year to $63.25 billion. The news sent Alphabet shares plunging, with Bespoke Investment Group reporting that the stock is on track for its steepest post-earnings decline since the company went public in 2004. Yahoo Finance reports: At its low, Alphabet had lost $524 billion in stock market value, the second-biggest one-day loss ever for a US-listed company. Only Nvidia has lost more, about $593 billion on Jan. 27, 2025, the day China's DeepSeek rattled AI investors. Alphabet would need to close at about $274.75, down roughly 15%, to take Nvidia's record, by Yahoo Finance calculations. It has already blown past the $400 billion SpaceX lost on June 22, the previous No. 2. In dollars, it's Alphabet's worst day by far. Its previous worst was about $275 billion on July 23. It's also on track for the stock's steepest drop after an earnings report since the company went public, according to Bespoke Investment Group. The previous low was a slide of nearly 10% in July 2008. [...] US-listed stocks have shed $200 billion or more in a single session 18 times this year through Wednesday. That's up from 13 in all of 2025 and none before 2022, according to Yahoo Finance calculations from Bloomberg data. Alphabet alone has lost about $1.4 trillion since its record in May.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

• Dream win 80-69 to level best-of-seven series at 3-3

• First Game 7 in WNBA history set for Saturday night

• Ella Brockway’s minute-by-minute report of Game 6

The Atlanta Dream had no intention of letting a matinee become their curtain call.

Facing elimination at a lunchtime tipoff, the Dream overwhelmed the Golden State Valkyries 80-69 on Thursday afternoon to force a decisive seventh game in the WNBA finals, rediscovering their offensive touch just as their title hopes were threatening to slip away.

Several creative apps are already optimized to take advantage of the iPhone Duo’s many display configurations, with more to come.

Ministry of Justice figures show recalls rose 27% in year to June despite emergency measures to ease overcrowding

More people were recalled to jails in England and Wales in the first half of this year than were released, despite government efforts to reduce the prison population, according to figures released on Thursday.

Ministry of Justice (MoJ) data shows that 12,338 people were recalled to custody between the beginning of April and the end of June, while 12,278 people were released. It continues a trend set between January and March, when 13,193 people were returned to prison and 12,977 released.

Collaboration will combine engineering simulation, AI-assisted design, reduced-order modeling and physical testbed validation for advanced data center cooling and digital twins

SINGAPORE, Oct. 29, 2026 — Synopsys, Inc., the leader in engineering solutions from silicon to systems, today announced that it has joined the Sustainable Tropical Data Center Testbed Phase 2.0 (STDCT 2.0) Consortium, led by the National University of Singapore (NUS) and hosted by its College of Design and Engineering (CDE). The collaboration will bring together Synopsys engineering simulation and digital modeling capabilities, NUS CDE research expertise and STDCT 2.0’s physical testbed to support sustainable, AI-ready data center innovation in tropical environments.

Data centers in tropical climates face significant operational challenges due to high ambient temperatures and relative humidity levels, which can often exceed 24-32°C and 70-80% humidity. These conditions reduce the efficiency of conventional cooling systems and increase their energy requirements. As a result, cooling can account for up to 40% of a tropical data center’s total energy consumption, representing a substantially larger share of energy use than is typically required in cooler climates.

The growth of artificial intelligence and high-performance computing is increasing rack density, power demand and thermal loads across data center infrastructure. STDCT 2.0 provides a co-innovation environment where academia and industry can develop, test and demonstrate sustainable data center technologies under tropical operating conditions. Through this collaboration, Synopsys and NUS CDE plan to connect physics-based simulation, AI-assisted engineering and reduced-order modeling with experimental measurements from the testbed.

Brandon Wang, Strategic Management, Vice President, Technology Strategy & New Horizons, Synopsys, said, “At Synopsys, we look beyond today’s opportunities to the new horizons that can strengthen our technology long term. Through our Technology Intelligence Center, our team connects emerging technology shifts with Synopsys capabilities and leading research ecosystems to turn promising ideas into strategic opportunities. Our collaboration with STDCT 2.0 reflects that commitment by bringing our silicon-to-systems engineering capabilities into a real-world environment for sustainable AI infrastructure.”

Connecting Simulation, Reduced-Order Models and Testbed Validation

Synopsys and NUS CDE plan to collaborate across advanced liquid cooling, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), multiphysics simulation, AI-assisted thermofluid design, reduced-order modeling (ROM) and digital twins. Initial research concepts include physics-based and AI-assisted design methods for two-phase direct-to-chip cooling of high-heat-flux AI accelerators, along with uncertainty-aware reduced-order digital twins for predictive thermal management of liquid-cooled AI systems.

The planned workflow will use high-fidelity simulation to explore thermal-fluid behavior and design options, followed by experimental validation within the STDCT 2.0 environment. Validated simulation results can then support the development of computationally efficient ROMs for digital twin integration, optimization and operational decision support. The collaboration also plans to create reusable workflows, case studies, validation methods and a flagship demonstration connecting design, simulation, ROM generation, digital twin integration and physical testing.

Padmesh Mandloi, Applications Engineering, Vice President Synopsys Simulation and Analysis APAC, Synopsys said, “Efficient AI infrastructure requires a clear understanding of interconnected multiscale and multiphysics behavior, from chips to data centers. By combining Ansys multiscale and multiphysics simulation, AI-assisted engineering and surrogate modeling with STDCT 2.0 test data, we can help researchers connect and exchange data across scales, validate designs, and develop scalable cooling and digital twin solutions.”

Building Industry Capability for Sustainable Tropical Data Centers

STDCT 2.0 brings together research institutions, data center operators and technology providers to advance energy efficiency, water efficiency, green energy, AI and future data centers, and green computing. Synopsys will contribute software access, technical expertise, training, project mentoring and learning resources within the agreed collaboration scope. The planned work will support research, technology validation, knowledge exchange and practitioner capability building.

Professor Lee Poh Seng, Programme Director, Sustainable Tropical Data Center Testbed, and Head, Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Design and Engineering at NUS, said, “STDCT 2.0 provides a co-innovation platform to move promising technologies from simulation to validation and towards real-world deployment in tropical data centers. By combining Synopsys’ multiphysics simulation, AI-assisted engineering and digital modelling capabilities with our physical testbed, we aim to develop validated, scalable cooling and digital twin solutions for increasingly dense, AI-ready infrastructure in Singapore and across the region.”

About the Sustainable Tropical Data Center Testbed

The Sustainable Tropical Data Center Testbed (STDCT) is a joint research initiative led by the National University of Singapore (NUS) and hosted by its College of Design and Engineering, in collaboration with leading industry partners.

STDCT focuses on developing energy-efficient data center designs that can operate reliably in tropical climates. The programme serves as a live testbed to evaluate, validate, and deploy sustainable innovations that reduce energy and water consumption while supporting dense, AI-driven operations.

For more information, visit https://cde.nus.edu.sg/stdct/

About Synopsys

Synopsys, Inc. (Nasdaq: SNPS) is the leader in engineering solutions from silicon to systems, enabling customers to rapidly innovate AI-powered products. We deliver industry-leading silicon design, IP, simulation and analysis solutions, and design services. We partner closely with our customers across a wide range of industries to maximize their R&D capability and productivity, powering innovation today that ignites the ingenuity of tomorrow. Learn more at www.synopsys.com.

The post Synopsys Joins Singapore Consortium to Improve Tropical Data Center Cooling appeared first on HPCwire.

Tech policy has become a big part of many midterm races.

A tanker was also struck by a projectile in the strait on Thursday night.

What makes the 9Barista espresso machine stand out, and is it worth $740?

When the deal is complete, both companies are expected to continue operating separately.

DeepSeek V4 Flash deployment demonstrates the power of GraphX to push hardware further and bring down the cost of private AI

Oct. 29, 2026 — Rival.io today launched GraphX, its proprietary kernel-optimization and silicon-placement technology, and announced the deployment of DeepSeek V4 Flash on just eight NVIDIA L4 GPUs. The achievement demonstrates GraphX’s ability to run a massive open-weight model on hardware considered incapable of supporting it, challenging assumptions about the infrastructure and cost required for private AI.

“We took hardware most organizations would dismiss for a model of this scale and made it run DeepSeek V4 Flash,” said Craig Kronenberger, CEO and co-founder of Rival.io. “That should change the conversation about AI infrastructure and the cost of private AI. Before businesses commit to more expensive hardware, they should ask how much more the hardware they have could deliver.”

GraphX optimizes how models are placed across GPUs and how they use memory and computing power. This enables enterprises to meet workload requirements with fewer or less expensive GPUs and get more capacity from hardware they already own or can readily access. Depending on the model and workload, GraphX can reduce open-weight model hosting costs by up to 95% compared with equivalent deployments managed internally or hosted by hyperscale cloud providers.

The eight L4 configuration combined 192 GB of GPU memory and supported the model’s context window and associated KV cache, a capability that previously required specialized, expensive hardware setups.

Rival.io has also deployed DeepSeek V4 Flash on eight NVIDIA RTX 6000 GPUs with full enterprise grade performance, demonstrating GraphX’s ability to support enterprise workloads with high concurrency.

“Hardware specifications alone don’t tell you what a system can deliver. How you place the model, manage memory, and execute its computations can fundamentally change what’s possible on that hardware,” said Charlie Wardell, CTO and co-founder of Rival.io. “The implications go well beyond L4s. We’re expanding the hardware capable of running large open-weight models and showing that private AI doesn’t have to depend on a narrow set of premium GPUs.”

GraphX optimizes workloads across compatible AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA hardware and supports DeepSeek, GLM, and Kimi models, giving enterprises flexibility to choose models and infrastructure based on their performance requirements, budgets, and available capacity.

Supported models can be deployed in an enterprise’s own cloud or data center, or on dedicated Rival.io infrastructure. Each deployment operates in a dedicated, isolated environment with its own secure endpoint and access credentials, providing control over where AI runs and restricting connections to authorized users and applications. Models can power workflows, agents, and applications within Rival.io or connect to third-party tools, extending private AI across the systems businesses already use.

GraphX is available on-demand at Rival.io/graph-x.

About Rival.io

Rival.io is an enterprise AI operating system that brings together everything businesses need to build, deploy, govern, and scale AI in one integrated, model-agnostic platform. Powered by CortexOne, Rival.io enables organizations to orchestrate AI workflows without managing complex infrastructure, while giving developers and domain experts a way to publish, protect, and monetize reusable tools, functions, agents, and systems. Learn more at rival.io.

Source: Rival.io

The post Rival.io Launches GraphX, Running DeepSeek V4 Flash on Just 8 NVIDIA L4 GPUs appeared first on HPCwire.

The pricey Alexa Photo Frame drops just in time for holiday gifting.

We’re using our custom-made robot to open and close the iPhone Duo hundreds of thousands of times. Watch along and get your questions answered by CNET editors live.

Blaze was world’s deadliest residential fire since 1980, but some survivors and bereaved families say justice has yet to be served

Hong Kong’s leader has apologised for government shortcomings that contributed to a fire that killed 168 people in the city last year, a rare sign of public contrition that nevertheless failed to impress some victims’ families.

The chief executive, John Lee, and seven other officials bowed in apology at the release of a report that pointed to “decades of failure” by government bodies.

Oxford University scientists found that gulls flying hundreds of miles across the Atlantic may experience a “mismatch”.

A Manx shearwater flying around Skomer Island, Pembrokeshire, Wales. (Dr. Joe Wynn via SWNS)

It was among 400 lots offered in Propstore’s Bond memorabilia online auction, which ended on Tuesday (Oct. 27).

• Season will begin on 19 February in Miami

• MLS Cup due to be played on Memorial Day weekend

• Decision Day lands on 8 May

Major League Soccer’s 2027 “sprint season” will begin on 19 February, with MLS Cup taking place during Memorial Day weekend at the end of May.

The stopgap half-season is a one-off, as the North American league inverts its calendar to align with most top leagues around the world beginning with the 2027-28 season. The nuts and bolts of the change were initially announced in March.

A complete set of 14 re-bound Jonathan Cape first edition Ian Fleming Bond books achieved £25,200. // A suit worn by Daniel Craig in Skyfall has sold for £25,200 in a major James Bond auction. The grey Tom Ford suit,…

A female patient in a dental clinic being assisted by a dental staff in checking or choosing denture plans.

(The Center Square) – Minnesota lawmakers are raising bipartisan concerns as the Walz administration begins hiring staff for the Office of Inspector General before selecting an inspector general.

Canada is joining the European Union's supercomputing network to give Canadian companies, startups, and researchers access to European computing resources for AI development. The partnership aims to strengthen AI cooperation and reduce dependence on US technology. Politico reports: The EU's supercomputing network is run by the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, an EU public-private vehicle with an 8.2 billion-euro budget. The network consists of 14 supercomputers (some ranked in the global top 10), 19 AI-focused AI factories and 10 quantum computers. The vehicle will also run seven massive AI data center hubs, known as AI gigafactories, set to be built next year with a total investment cost of 30 billion euros. Experts praised a possible EU-Canadian compute power team-up, but warned it's only the start. "Compute cooperation is one of the most obvious short-term 'middle power' cooperation plays in AI," said Anton Leicht, technology and international affairs fellow at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. But he added that for now "it doesn't put a dent into the actual dependence" on the U.S. "As long as the U.S. builds gigawatt-scale clusters, no amount of cooperation that doesn't result in massive buildouts will help," he said. Canada's engagement in the EU's supercomputer network builds further on Canada's previous partial involvement in the EU's flagship research and development program, Horizon Europe. Horizon Europe partially funds EuroHPC. To date, 38 countries have participated in the EU's supercomputing network: 27 EU member countries plus non-EU countries including Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Israel and Turkey.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Emergency services, drones and dog unit continue to comb carriages as Civil Guard sets up clinics for relatives to provide DNA samples

• How did the Spain train crash happen and what will investigators be asking?

Spain began three days of mourning on Thursday for at least 69 people who died in a high-speed rail collision, as hospitals continued to treat dozens of injured passengers and train drivers went on strike to urge more investment in railway safety.

The trains – one from Spain’s state-owned Renfe and the other from the private rail company Iryo – were travelling from Madrid towards the southern region of Andalucía on Wednesday when they collided just before 9am. After the Iryo train came to a halt, the other slammed into its rear, knocking several carriages off the track near Urda in the central region of Castilla-La Mancha.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's party won more votes than his main challenger, but both sides will likely struggle to cobble together a coalition.

Caroline Voaden says Reform UK leader grabbed her by the arm and tried to push past her in incident in May

A female Liberal Democrat MP has accused Nigel Farage of shoving her aside at the state opening of parliament after which one of her male colleagues intervened.

Caroline Voaden gave her account of the incident in May this year after Farage revealed on Wednesday that there had been a “physical altercation” in parliament which meant he had decided to avoid the budget.

Editor’s note: AI’s growing role in medicine raises a question that goes beyond whether computers can answer medical questions: how can these technologies improve clinical decisions while preserving patient safety, scientific rigor, and professional accountability? High-performance computing has supported medical research for decades. Today’s AI creates additional opportunities to integrate information, accelerate investigation, and support physicians—but its contribution must be demonstrated in the setting where it will be used.

For a physician-scientist’s research and development perspective, HPCwire contributor Steve Conway conducted a three-part interview with Frederick H. Hausheer, MD and Fellow of the American College of Physicians (FACP), a medical oncologist and clinical pharmacologist who heads Hausheer BioMed, an oncology and pharmaceutical-industry research and development consulting firm. His career includes computational drug-discovery work at the National Cancer Institute and Johns Hopkins, faculty appointments at the Johns Hopkins Oncology Center and the University of Missouri–Columbia Department of Medicine, and leadership of BioNumerik Pharmaceuticals as founder and CEO.

His biography includes more than 200 scientific and medical publications, inventor or co-inventor status on more than 400 issued patents, and membership on the Americas committee of the HPC-AI Leadership Organization. In 1997, he received the Silicon Graphics/Cray Research Information Technology Leadership Award for Breakthrough Science for mechanism-based drug discovery, part of the Computerworld Smithsonian Awards program.

PART 1 OF 3: AI POTENTIAL BENEFITS; ADAPTING SAFETY AND QUALITY CONTROLS FOR AI USE

Fredrick Hausheer, M.D.

HPCwire: Fred, can you talk about some of the beneficial and potentially beneficial uses for AI in medicine, including your field of oncology medicine and drug discovery and development?

Dr. Hausheer: There are substantial opportunities, but it is important to distinguish an impressive computational result from a tangible improvement in medical outcomes. In my opinion, the most important domains for evaluating medical AI—not limited to oncology—include earlier and more accurate diagnosis, better selection of diagnostic tests and treatments, improved patient outcomes, fewer avoidable adverse effects and drug interactions, and more effective use of physicians’ and patients’ time. Producing an answer quickly is useful only to the extent that the answer is sufficiently accurate, relevant, and actionable for the decision being made.

One should distinguish three levels of evidence: a model performs well on a defined task; clinicians using it make better diagnostic and therapeutic decisions; and its use results in improved outcomes for patients. Evidence supporting one proposition does not automatically establish the next.

HPCwire: AI, broadly defined, isn’t new to medicine. In the early 1990s—more than 30 years ago—George Mason University Hospital (Washington, DC) began regularly using a supercomputer to detect early signs of breast cancer, microcalcifications, with better-than-human accuracy. Recently, we’ve seen reports not only about AI outperforming human radiologists, but there are also reports about AI diagnosing illnesses better than human doctors. How significant is this?

Dr. Hausheer: AI and high-performance computing are not new to medical research. At the National Cancer Institute in 1986, we considered possible AI applications in high-performance computing, and I recall these possibilities were being considered by senior pharmaceutical executives and NCI researchers. Of course, AI was in its infancy at that point for actual application. What matters today is that claims about medical AI are evaluated objectively and reported in relation to the specific task studied. AI model performance, decision improvement, and patient benefit are different evidentiary claims for evaluation.  The September 30, 2026 joint physician-organizations statement, subsequently reported by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) AI in Oncology section, raises a concern about broad claims of AI superiority over physicians. In my opinion, a properly demonstrated advantage on a particular task should be acknowledged without turning it into an unsupported conclusion about the whole practice of medicine.

HPCwire: In medicine, how much can AI systems eventually be entrusted to do?

Dr. Hausheer: The authority entrusted to an AI system should depend on specific prior performance, quality and safety evidence for its specific function, likelihood and clinical consequences of error or deviation, and the controls governing its use—not on computational capability alone. In oncology, one can envision systems that integrate the heterogeneous information distributed across a patient’s history, physical examination, pathology, imaging, laboratory and molecular testing, and previous treatments, together with the current standards of care. But the problem-solving task is not simply retrieving and organizing these records. It is identifying, collating, matching and fitting, and interpreting the information in relation to the patient’s disease and the available therapeutic evidence.

HPCwire: Can you give some examples or scenarios to illustrate these domains?

Dr. Hausheer: Sure, one can consider a hypothetical patient whose cancer has progressed after several treatments. A useful AI system would reconstruct the sequence of therapies; distinguish progression from treatment delays, interruptions, or discontinuation because of toxicity; and identify the tumor’s documented molecular findings and documented or suspected resistance mechanisms. It could then organize potential treatment options according to the supporting evidence, explaining the potential risks, benefits, and limitations of each. Similarity to a previously treated patient population can inform a treatment hypothesis, but this information by itself does not establish the expected benefit for a particular patient.

So, in this example the system should identify missing information and explain which additional tests could change the treatment decision. Rather than generating an indiscriminate testing panel, it could prioritize a laboratory and molecular-testing strategy according to the question each test addresses, its expected clinical contribution, and the consequences of delaying treatment.

HPCwire: Anything else?

(Bishop Iuliia/Shutterstock)

Dr. Hausheer: The options should distinguish among FDA-approved uses, evidence-supported off-label uses of approved drugs, and investigational treatments. Off-label use of treatment is not automatically investigational, and neither an off-label nor an investigational use should be presented as FDA-approved for that setting. Eligibility, access, evidence, and uncertainty should be described for each option. This is a more demanding task than answering a medical examination question. It is closer to the problem clinicians and patients face in practice. In my opinion, a more comprehensive AI approach could be implemented with appropriate safeguards and quality management in place.

HPCwire: What if anything does the American Society of Clinical Oncology say about this?

Dr. Hausheer: ASCO describes the function of its Guidelines Assistant as helping clinicians discover and navigate relevant guidelines and their sources, not as an autonomous treatment selector. That distinction determines what one should validate: retrieval of the appropriate source, accurate representation of its qualifications, and clear identification of its scope and limitations. An AI system proposing patient-specific treatment would require validation of that additional function. Performance should be tracked by task and system version. A favorable cumulative average should not obscure recent deterioration or a serious recurring error. Evidence supporting a treatment recommendation in a guideline is distinct from evidence that using the AI tool improves clinical decisions or patient outcomes. The latter requires evaluation of the tool and quality of outcomes and impact in its intended workflow.

HPCwire: Those sounds like guardrails that would also make sense in AI use. How did your perspective on this come about?

Dr. Hausheer: The emphasis on scientifically sound validation and quality controls reflects my experience with high-performance computing beginning in 1986 at the National Cancer Institute’s Advanced Scientific Computing Laboratory. That work integrated quantum chemistry, statistical mechanics, molecular dynamics, free-energy perturbation calculations, experimental and clinical pharmacology, pharmaceutical chemistry, and tumor biology. It continued in my role as CEO of BioNumerik Pharmaceuticals, using Cray and Silicon Graphics systems. HPCwire reported our 1997 Smithsonian-Computerworld award and in 2001 described BioNumerik’s use of computational predictions followed by laboratory testing. We engaged robust scientific methodology, including multiple levels of validation testing for the physics-based computational models and experimental testing.

HPCwire: This predated generative AI.

Dr. Hausheer: These methods were not today’s generative AI. Nevertheless, the general scientific approach remains relevant to AI: formulate a mechanistically informed hypothesis, make a prediction using a physics-based model, test it experimentally, and allow the result to guide the next step. Differences between predictions and observations should be quantified using pre-specified measures, with uncertainty in both the simulation and the experiment taken into account.

HPCwire: You’ve stood out for using HPC in a first-principles approach to anti-cancer drug discovery and development. Is AI compatible with this approach?

Dr. Hausheer: In my opinion, integrating first-principles physics-based simulation with modern AI and experimental science offers an important opportunity for drug research and development. The objective is better medicines and better patient outcomes—not substituting computational confidence for evidence.

Safety, FDA guidance, and pharmaceutical quality systems

Steve Conway is an HPCwire contributor

HPCwire: Medicine and clinical research are highly regulated, highly personal fields. What are your thoughts on AI safety in medicine?

Dr. Hausheer: The familiar medical principle, primum non nocere—first, do no harm—provides an appropriate starting point. Treatment need not be risk-free for its expected benefits to justify its risks. For an AI application, foreseeable hazards should be identified before deployment, preventable harm should be reduced through effective controls, and remaining risks should be assessed and monitored. Safety must be defined in relation to the particular medical application, the decision it influences, and the consequences of error. Established scientific and medical principles used in pharmaceutical development can be adapted to strengthen the safety and quality of AI operation and use.

HPCwire: Can you give a concrete example of what humans, or humans and their AI helpers, can do in practice to help ensure safe, effective medical treatment?

Dr. Hausheer: These practices exist in medicine today and need to remain in the AI-assisted era. Here’s one example. A scheduling assistant and a system influencing cancer-treatment selection or dosing require controls proportionate to their particular risks. Before deployment, one should pre-specify the intended users, patient population, permitted functions, material risks, and circumstances requiring clinical escalation. Safety monitoring and risk controls should be embedded in the deployed system and its workflow. They should address harmful omissions, such as delaying effective treatment, as well as inappropriate actions.

HPCwire: So, what is the physician’s unique role in an era of AI-assisted medicine?

Dr. Hausheer: A practical approach is to keep the treating physician’s clinical expertise and accountable oversight at the center of a patient-facing decision-support application. Human clinicians, clinical pharmacologists, pharmacists, statisticians, laboratory and diagnostic specialists, quality specialists, patients, and engineers should contribute to defining the intended decision, material risks, and acceptance criteria before testing begins. Their respective responsibilities should be documented, including authority to engage the AI system, restrict its use, investigate a safety signal, and require corrective action.

These are proposed operational safeguards, not additional requirements specified in the joint statement. The FDA/EMA principles for drug development already address multidisciplinary expertise, human–AI interaction, and lifecycle quality management. In my opinion, AI developers would benefit from adapting these established approaches.

From Regulatory Framework to Operational Safeguards

HPCwire: In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has primary responsibility for overseeing the efficacy and safety of drugs. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is the nearest equivalent in the EU, and there are similar agencies elsewhere in the world. What does the FDA have to say about AI safety and drugs?

Dr. Hausheer: The FDA’s January 2025 draft AI guidance proposes seven steps: define the question; specify the context of use; assess model risk; prepare a credibility-assessment plan; execute it; document results and deviations; and determine whether the model is adequate for that use. Model risk combines the output’s influence on the decision with the consequences of a wrong decision. The guidance addresses AI-generated information or data intended to support regulatory decisions about drug and biologic safety, effectiveness, or quality. As of this review, the FDA continues to identify it as draft guidance, not for implementation. No assumption should be made about whether or when it will be finalized.

HPCwire: Can you give an example of how this draft guidance might work in practice?

(gguy/Shutterstock)

Dr. Hausheer: Sure. One of FDA’s hypothetical examples considers an AI model that would be the sole determinant of whether a participant receives outpatient rather than 24-hour inpatient monitoring after a drug associated with a potentially life-threatening reaction. The critical error would be classifying a participant as low risk when inpatient observation is needed. In this example, both model influence and the consequences of an incorrect decision are high risk. Overall accuracy alone would therefore be inadequate to characterize the risk. This is a hypothetical clinical and regulatory illustration, not an endorsed deployment.

HPCwire: Are there established standards in use today?

Dr. Hausheer: Yes. The pharmaceutical industry already has a scientifically grounded operational foundation for this approach. The International Council for Harmonisation (ICH) E6 Good Clinical Practice (GCP) guideline provides the framework for human clinical trials; E6(R2) formalized its structured approach to risk-based quality management. The FDA’s related September 2025 E6(R3) guidance addresses quality management in section 3.10; risk identification, evaluation, control, communication, review, and reporting in sections 3.10.1.1–3.10.1.6; quality assurance, quality control, and monitoring in section 3.11; and computerized systems in section 4.3.

These provisions connect risks to responsibilities, processes, procedures, and evidence that controls remain effective. The focus is on factors critical to participant protection and the reliability of trial results, rather than every process carrying equal risk. FDA lists its earlier E6(R2) guidance, issued in March 2018, as withdrawn in April 2026. Its September 2025 E6(R3) guidance remains final guidance; the withdrawal did not concern E6(R3) or abandon GCP.

HPCwire: How might a company using AI in the healthcare industry implement safety standards?

Dr. Hausheer: In a company like this, a quality management system, or QMS, would provide the overall structure for accountable leadership, qualified personnel, development and release procedures, supplier oversight, controlled documentation, training, and independent quality assurance throughout development, deployment, and continuing use.

Risk management would operate within that QMS. An application-specific quality management plan would define what must work reliably and the relevant acceptance criteria. A risk management plan would identify how those functions could fail and how failures would be prevented, detected, and mitigated. Responsibility for accepting and reviewing residual risk should also be assigned to qualified personnel.

HPCwire: That sounds like applying existing clinical medicine standards in a new AI context.

Dr. Hausheer: Yes. We do not take a drug into the clinic without prior formal testing for safety and other qualities it has for intended use. The same paradigm should be applied to AI systems—they should be tested for safety, errors and intended use quality prior to release and public use.

For each important risk, one could document the initiating condition, potential error, possible patient consequence and its severity, likelihood of occurrence, detectability, existing safeguards, additional controls, responsible owner, and residual risk after control implementation. Uncertainty in those assessments should be recorded rather than concealed by an apparently precise score.

The same process should consider whether a safeguard introduces a different hazard. For example, a poorly designed blocking rule could prevent an unsafe recommendation but also delay urgently needed care. In addition to ICH E6 (R2) and (R3) quality risk management and controls,  the ICH Q9(R1), Quality Risk Management standard recognizes that controls may introduce new risks and that uncertainty and subjectivity must be addressed in risk assessment.

HPCwire: Are these practices formally described anywhere?

Dr. Hausheer: Yes. In January 2026 FDA and EMA (European Medicines Agency) jointly published  Guiding Principles of Good AI Practice in Drug Development.

In paraphrase, its ten principles cover:

(TippaPatt/Shutterstock)

• Human-centered values: align development and use with ethical and patient-centered purposes.
• Proportionate oversight: match validation, risk mitigation, and oversight to the context of use and identified risk.
• Relevant standards: apply appropriate scientific, technical, cybersecurity, and regulatory standards.
• A defined role: specify the system’s purpose, scope, and context.
• Multidisciplinary input: integrate clinical and technical expertise throughout development and use.
• Documented data stewardship: preserve provenance, traceability, privacy, and appropriate governance.
• Sound development methods: use suitable data and defensible model and software engineering.
• Whole-system evaluation: assess the complete system, including human–AI interactions, with fit-for-use data and measures appropriate to its context of use.
• Continuing lifecycle oversight: monitor, reassess, and address problems after deployment.
• Understandable information: explain intended use, performance, limitations, and changes to users.

In my opinion, these principles provide a strong basis for adapting and applying pharmaceutical quality management and control disciplines to AI systems for medical use. The practical question is how an AI company translates them into a functioning control system for a particular application.

HPCwire: What does control mean in this context?

Dr. Hausheer: A “control” in a quality risk management system is a specific measure intended to reduce the likelihood of an error, improve its detection, and/or reduce its adverse consequences. Controls may be comprised of several elements, including instructions, warnings, procedures, technical restrictions, and monitoring. An instruction tells someone what to do. A warning draws attention to a condition. A procedure specifies steps, responsibilities, and escalation. A technical restriction prevents a defined action unless specified conditions are met. These are possible elements of what comprises a control in a system to monitor, mitigate or prevent certain risks, not mandatory components of every individual control. Their effectiveness in monitoring, detecting, mitigating and/or preventing risks as a part of defined control system must be demonstrated in the intended workflow.

HPCwire: Can you give an example?

Dr. Hausheer: One example would be an instruction, such as “check the following laboratory results before recommending a dose.” A message that a required result is missing is a warning. A procedure requiring verification by an authorized clinician or pharmacist defines a human process. A software gate that prevents finalization of the AI-generated recommendation until the decision-critical information is verified is a technical control. A coordinated risk-control system records whether these measures operate as intended and provides a clinically appropriate fallback when the AI function should not or cannot be used.

HPCwire: Would a prompt that a single one of these risks exists force a shutdown of the whole process?

Dr. Hausheer: Great question. I think the general answer for most situations is not necessarily. A minor issue may warrant issuing a warning; an unresolved decision-critical risk may require blocking the affected recommendation or function from proceeding until its resolution, while a systemic failure would likely justify broader suspension. These responses should be predefined and proportionate to risk. A prompt alone should not be treated as equivalent to an enforced software restriction. One could place deterministic identity, unit, permission, and calculation checks outside the generative model, while using the model to organize and interpret the clinical information. Those components would still require validation. The point is not to assume that one technology is infallible, but one should aim to avoid making every safety measure depend on the same potentially erroneous output, including incomplete or erroneous inputs.

What happens when the doctor disagrees with AI? 

HPCwire: With the physician and AI both making recommendations, they may disagree. How should this be handled?

Dr. Hausheer: One should validate how the AI system handles disagreement. Suppose the AI model recommends a treatment while the physician identifies a possible contraindication or a missing clinical fact. The appropriate response is not automatic acceptance of the model, nor automatic rejection of its contribution. A defined adjudication process could verify the underlying information, retrieve the applicable evidence, establish whether the disagreement changes the benefit–risk assessment, and obtain specialist review when the consequences warrant it. The clinically responsible team should retain authority to act through a documented safe pathway.

For a decision-support application, one could test scenarios in which both assessments are appropriate, or where the physician is correct and the model is incorrect, the reverse is true, or both are incorrect. Shared-input failures deserve a separate challenge: the physician and model may agree because both rely on the same erroneous information. The objective is to determine whether the combined process detects an error, avoids introducing a new error, and reaches a medically justified decision.

Agreement, acceptance, and user confidence are not substitutes for independent objective evidence of correctness. A high override rate could indicate defective AI functioning, inadequate training, poor integration, or a mismatch with intended use. A low rate could reflect reliable assistance or uncritical acceptance. Investigation should determine which explanation applies and guide corrective and preventive action.

HPCwire: How could we deal with bad input in drug dosing?

Dr. Hausheer: Suppose a hypothetical AI system proposes a drug dose using an erroneous or outdated renal-function result. To deal with this, one could require verification of patient identity, specimen and result-availability times, measurement units, provenance, and the drug-specific method used to interpret organ function. The system could compare serial results, flag abrupt unexplained changes, identify incompatible units, and distinguish a laboratory reference interval from a clinical threshold for treatment selection or dosing. “Within the laboratory’s normal range” should not automatically be translated into “safe for this drug and dose.”

HPCwire: If an AI system spots a problem, how do you prevent the AI from trying to fix the problem on its own?

Dr. Hausheer: One could enforce permissions that prevent the AI from altering source records or executing treatment changes without authorized review.  The AI system should also flag missing information, detectable errors, or internal inconsistencies within its validated capabilities. However, an apparently plausible but incorrect result may not be distinguishable from a correct one without independent evidence. An AI system cannot be assumed to detect every mislabeled specimen, analytic error, or falsely reassuring result. Its appropriate response to a discrepancy should be to flag uncertainty and request source data verification or repeat testing—not silently replace the reported value with one the AI model considers more plausible.

For a high-risk recommendation, an unresolved discrepancy could prevent release of the AI-generated dosing advice and trigger timely clinical review proportionate to the risk. That should not automatically stop all care: an authorized clinician should retain a defined pathway to assess the patient using verified information and conventional methods. Validation should deliberately challenge the workflow with predefined test cases containing  stale data, wrong-patient records, unit conversions, conflicting results, and/or missing inputs. The evidence should show both that unsafe outputs are detected and intercepted and that necessary care is not unreasonably hindered.

Stay tuned for part 2, coming soon.

The post AI and Medicine: Who’s the Doctor? appeared first on HPCwire.

Experts have long warned that immigration dragnets will inevitably result not only in the erosion of rights for immigrants but also for citizens. Since the start of this Trump administration, we’ve watched those warnings come true. 

So we have once again done what the government won’t: We have tallied and cataloged every case we can find of an immigration agent reportedly detaining a citizen during the current administration — more than 500 cases from Inauguration Day through Oct. 21, 2026. 

Read our earlier reporting on U.S. citizens being detained.

We compiled our list by scouring social media, court records and local media, and we included an incident only if we could find at least two sources for it. We asked the Department of Homeland Security about each incident, and we searched for any federal criminal charges that were brought in relation to each incident. (DHS has repeatedly said it is not arresting U.S. citizens.)

Since the government itself does not track these cases, our list is almost certainly an undercount. Below, we’re showing you every case we found — the reality that the administration denies — along with the receipts. Read more about how we reported this project.

The post Search More Than 500 Cases of U.S. Citizens Detained by Immigration Agents appeared first on ProPublica.

Netanyahu’s claim of interference in election also dismissed by Israeli police and opposition parties

• Israel’s choice: Netanyahu remaining in power or a Palestinian-backed coalition

Gadi Eisenkot, leader of the Yashar party and Benjamin Netanyahu’s main rival, has warned political opponents against exploiting allegations of foreign interference in Israel’s election to delay the swearing-in of the next Knesset.

In remarks posted on X, Eisenkot said:

Israel must safeguard the integrity of the elections against any attempt at interference, spin and manipulation, and examine every complaint thoroughly. On the other hand, political actors must not be allowed to exploit the situation and affect the swearing-in date of the 26th Knesset.”

Musician wrote a ‘love letter’ to Canada with a new album – and some pointed commentary about the US president

Lake Ontario, the vast body of water that straddles the US-Canada border, has gone by many names over the centuries: Lac Saint-Louis, Lacus Ontarius, Skaniadorio, Cataraqui Lake. But one thing it will never be called, says the Canadian rock star Bryan Adams, is Lake America.

In his new song Lake Ontario, Adams takes aim at the US president, Donald Trump, accusing him of “breaking the peace” between the people who live on the lake’s shores.

The ‘lake of shining waters’ is what the Iroquois called her

It’s a First Nations name – not an executive order.

But things weren’t going his way in Iran

So like a baby tossing the toys from the pram

You can push us to the brink

But where the open road divides

The trouncing of the far right provides a playbook for social and environmental movements in other countries facing elections, including the US, Spain and France

Thank you, Brazil, for demonstrating how the far right can be trounced while protection for the Amazon is strengthened. In a world where nature and democracy appeared to be bleeding out in tandem, voters and forest defenders in this global south powerhouse have shown it is possible to staunch the flow. This should provide much needed inspiration and, more practically, a playbook for social and environmental movements in other countries facing elections, including the US, Spain and France.

The astonishing comeback victory of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Sunday’s presidential runoff against his extreme right challenger Flavío Bolsonaro has brought oceans of rapturous supporters on to the streets, while also thrilling conservationists, climate activists and social justice campaigners across the world.

The Delaware Blue Coats home stadium, the Chase Fieldhouse. Photo Courtesy of the Greater Wilmington Convention & Visitors Bureau and Moonloop Photography

The Delaware Blue Coats will start their 2026-2027 season with two home games on November 6 and 7, during the NBA G League Tip-Off Tournament.

WILMINGTON, Del — The NBA season has just begun and, for many fans in Delaware who support the Philadelphia 76ers, it’s shaping up as an exciting year. Lebron James and Jaylen Brown joined the team in the offseason creating an incredible starting five alongside former NBA MVP Joel Embiid, two-time All-Star Tyrese Maxey and All-Rookie first teamer VJ Edgecombe. 

As much as that core will carry the lionshare of production, the team’s depth will be critical to supporting the teams’ superstars. That’s where the Delaware Blue Coats play their role. 

Last season, five players that appeared in a game for the Blue Coats also appeared in a game with the 76ers. Players like Justin Edwards and Marjon Beauchamp even started for the 76ers and made significant contributions helping the team reach the playoffs and defeat the Boston Celtics in the first round. 

This year the Blue Coats roster features three two-way players — two-way players are players signed to two-way contracts meaning they can spend a certain amount of time with the NBA affiliate before having to return to the G League team — Caleb Love, Rayan Rupert and Tacko Fall in addition to a couple returners from last season, forwards Saint Thomas and Marcus Bagley. Former University of Delaware standout Jameer Nelson Jr. is also on the Blue Coats roster after spending time with the G Leagues’ Stockton Kings and Austin Spurs in recent seasons.

The Blue Coats season opener is also their home opener, welcoming the Capital City Go-Go (Washington Wizards affiliate) into Wilmington for a two-game, weekend homestand on November 6 and 7. The Blue Coats stay at home to host the Maine Celtics (Boston Celtics affiliate) the next weekend, before beginning their first road trip to play two games against the Long Island Nets (Brooklyn Nets affiliate) on November 16. 

All of these games are a part of the league’s G League Tip-Off Tournament which lasts from November 6 until December 18. The tournament acts as an introduction to a new season of G League basketball and breaks the teams into four different regions. The teams within the regions play each other and the team with the best winning percentage in the region advances. The other four teams that make up the eight team field will be the four teams with the highest winning percentage regardless of region, according to the NBA G League website. The teams that advance will play at-least two games at the 2026 NBA G League Winter Showcase before a champion is decided.

The Blue Coats will play in the East region and host seven G League Tip-Off Tournament games. The 2026 NBA G League Winter Showcase will take place in Orlando. The Salt Lake City Stars (Utah Jazz affiliate) were the champions last season.

Following the showcase, the Blue Coats will begin their 36-game regular season slate with a two-game homestand against the Wisconsin Herd (Milwaukee Bucks affiliate) December 27 and 29. Their regular season concludes on March 26, at home against the Long Island Nets. The Blue Coats finished the 2025-2026 season with an 18-18 record in the regular season.

The Blue Coats will host multiple promotional nights throughout the season, including two Education Day games on February 17 and 25. These nights welcome students from local elementary schools to experience a Blue Coats gameday. Last season, the Blue Coats set an attendance record during an Education Day event, according to a Blue Coats press release. The team will also host a Trading Card Night during their February 27 game against Cleveland Charge (Cleveland Cavaliers affiliate). 

The full promotional schedule for the 2026-2027 season can be found on the team’s Facebook account.

To learn more about the team or how to purchase tickets to a game click here to check out the team’s official website.

BOSTON, Oct. 29, 2026 — Alice & Bob has announced that it has set a record low for the total quantum resources (qubits multiplied by runtime) required to run Shor’s algorithm on today’s encryption. Its cat-qubit architecture needs 40 times fewer physical qubits than Google Quantum AI’s Craig Gidney 2025 estimate to break RSA-2048 (arxiv).

Credit: Alice & Bob

In the paper “Shor’s algorithm compiled on cat qubits: 22 593 qubits for RSA-2048 in 3.14 days” (IACR ePrint) researchers estimate the resources to break the following systems on fault-tolerant superconducting cat-qubit hardware:

• RSA-2048: 22,593 physical qubits, 3.14 days. RSA relies on the difficulty of factoring large integers. It is one of the world’s most widely used public-key systems, securing much of the internet, from online banking to email and digital signatures.
• ECDLP-256: 29,588 physical qubits, 61.8 minutes. The elliptic-curve discrete logarithm problem underpins elliptic-curve cryptography, including ECDSA, which secures blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, and ECDH, which is used to set up encrypted connections across the web. For Bitcoin, about an hour is longer than the network’s 10-minute block time, so transactions in progress remain out of reach.

“Shor’s algorithm is the iconic benchmark for quantum computing, with a well-defined mathematical problem and a clear quantum advantage. Estimates of the resources needed to run the algorithm have been steadily falling as the field has developed better approaches to error correction and algorithm design. This latest estimate doesn’t just push that frontier, it changes the paradigm altogether: fewer than 23,000 physical cat qubits could be enough to factor RSA-2048 in just three days,” said Théau Peronnin, CEO, Alice & Bob.

How It Was Done

Most resource estimates count the logical qubits an algorithm needs, then multiply by an average number of physical qubits per logical qubit. This work goes further: for the parts of the algorithm that use the most resources, it works out exactly what each physical qubit does and when, producing complete chip layouts and schedules.

The results rest on three advances:

• Cat qubits: Alice & Bob’s cat qubits suppress bit-flip errors at the hardware level, so error correction only needs to handle phase-flips. This sharply cuts the number of physical qubits per logical qubit.
• LDPC-cat codes: LDPC-cat codes (2024) are more efficient than the repetition code used in its earlier cat-qubit estimates (2023), and more than halve the qubit count, from 49,649 to 22,593 for RSA-2048.
• A redesigned adder: Addition is one of the operations Shor’s algorithm runs most often. The team rebuilt it from the ground up for cat qubits, so it runs at a steady speed without stopping to wait for error correction.

On the algorithm side, the team drew on recent breakthroughs from Inria (IACR ePrint) and Google (arXiv) to make the algorithms more efficient.

Why It Matters

Although substantial engineering challenges remain, Alice & Bob expect hardware improvements and falling resource requirements to converge in the early 2030s.

The cryptography results are just one example of how the unique properties of quantum mechanics can be harnessed to tackle problems that remain out of reach of today’s classical computers, with the potential to drive breakthroughs across entire fields ranging from materials science and chemistry to physics.

Preparing for the Post-Quantum Era

Replacing cryptographic infrastructure across large organizations can take years. US and UK guidance calls for organizations to complete the transition to post-quantum cryptography by 2035. As advances in quantum computing keep reducing the hardware needed, Alice & Bob recommends that organizations begin that transition now.

At the same time, post-quantum schemes need to build confidence through continued testing and scrutiny. They earn trust by surviving attempts to break them, so quantum cryptanalysis of these new schemes deserves the same effort as that of RSA and elliptic curves.

Alice & Bob is engaging with government and industry stakeholders to support their understanding of this work and its implications for the urgent transition to post-quantum cryptography.

“For the cryptographic community, figuring out how soon Shor’s algorithm, run on a quantum computer, poses a concrete threat to classical public key cryptography is of paramount importance. This paper details how you implement these algorithms on Alice & Bob’s physical architecture and once again reduces the resources required to do so. For anyone keeping track of how soon the threat from quantum computers becomes real – this is an important paper,” said Professor Antoine Joux, specialist in cryptanalysis and Gödel Prize laureate.

“This very valuable research proves that the risk security leaders have been preparing for is real and approaching fast. The post-quantum standards to replace vulnerable cryptography already exist. Businesses and governments need to work together to deploy PQC in the most mission-critical places straight away, bake crypto-agility into their systems, and plan to complete their transition well ahead of the impending deadlines,” said Dr Ali El Kaafarani, Founder & CEO, PQShield.

To read the paper and for more information, please visit: https://alice-bob.com/blog/our-estimate-for-factoring-rsa-2048-with-cat-qubits-pushing-the-frontier-between-size-and-speed

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 €180 million in funding and employs more than 250 people.

Advised by Nobel Prize winning researchers, Alice & Bob specializes in cat qubits, a technology developed by the company’s founders.

Source: Alice & Bob

The post Alice & Bob Reports Lower Quantum Resource Estimates for Breaking RSA-2048 appeared first on HPCwire.

Mistral Large 4 is a state-of-the-art model for cyberdefense, manufacturing, finance-related tasks and multimodal use.

Prime minister wrote to ministers saying he did not want them to ‘advocate for specific options or opine on the likely outcome of the process’

Selling nicotine-free vapes to children under the age of 18 has become illegal from today, the government has said.

Children were already banned from buying vapes containing nicotine. But, under the Tobacco and Vapes Act, shops across the UK will now be banned from selling nicotine-free vapes, and nicotine pouches, to children.

Vaping can be a way to help established adult smokers who are already addicted to nicotine from tobacco to swap to a less dangerous product. Vaping is considered safer than smoking, but that is a low bar. Vapes should therefore never be used by children or non-smokers.

Some children have already come to harm from bad reactions to vapes. The long-term health harms of vaping in today’s children will only become clear over time. They are however unlikely to be good; inhaling multiple, often heated, chemicals into the lungs may well do irreversible harm.

Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs told two federal prosecutors that "many" U.S. citizens were included on a Justice Department list of suspected noncitizens.

Net profit slid 25% from a year earlier to $26.2bn, well short of expectations, though revenue rose to $127.6bn

Shares in the Google parent Alphabet fell double digits Wednesday evening into Thursday trading, erasing hundreds of billions of dollars in stock market value from the $4tn tech giant.

The company had reported lower-than-expected profit and a slowdown in its advertising business while it maintained big spending on AI.

A Russian drone hit two trains at a station in central Ukraine, killing at least 14 people, but a local truce credited to Melania Trump is bringing some hope elsewhere.

Court documents reveal staff considered ways to ‘get academic community to disavow’ influential US author

Meta staff discussed deploying a “whisper strategy” to undermine the influential US academic whose work has inspired a global social media crackdown, according to court documents.

Employees at the parent group of Facebook and Instagram sought to discredit Jonathan Haidt, the social psychologist and author of The Anxious Generation, a book that helped tip the debate about online safety towards more stringent measures such as the under-16 ban in Australia.

It makes sense that sports teams want to keep influencers out of their games. The battle some clubs are waging with their fans, however, is a different dilemma

By all appearances, things on the Yellow Wall seemed as they always had been. The stadium announcer hollered out the first names of Borussia Dortmund’s starting lineup and the supporters responded with their last names, tens of thousands of voices bellowing as one. Dozens of black and yellow flags waved over Europe’s largest standing terrace, a mass of faces fixed on the field beneath them.

And then Signal Iduna Park, sold out with 81,365 fans, roared when Max Beier’s lone goal led Dortmund to victory over Eintracht Frankfurt last Saturday, putting the home side even on points with Bayern Munich atop the Bundesliga standings.

DoorDash has agreed to acquire Instacart for about $17 billion as it expands beyond restaurant delivery and deeper into the U.S. grocery market. The deal, expected to close in late 2027 or the first half of 2028, could face regulatory scrutiny over further consolidation in the delivery industry. Reuters reports: DoorDash has offered Instacart shareholders $65 per share held, representing a premium of about 26% to the stock's closing price on October 22 before reports of deal talks first emerged. The consideration will be at least 75% cash, with Instacart shareholders able to elect cash, DoorDash stock or a combination of the two, the companies said. [...] The transaction is expected to close at the end of 2027 or the first half of 2028. The deal could face scrutiny over its impact on competition, with New York City's Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) saying on Wednesday that a potential merger continued a "troubling trend" of corporate consolidation. DoorDash, however, pledged on Thursday that local grocers could continue to work with any delivery platform they choose.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The team have gone from MLS’s flagship franchise to its most depressing – even among 2026’s other stragglers

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For years, the crisp air and changing colors of October brought forth a host of wonderful memories for DC United fans – visions of Eddie Pope heading home the winner in Major League Soccer’s first-ever championship game, or Marco Etcheverry, Jaime Moreno and others tearing through defenders, helping establish MLS’s first true dynasty.

Nowadays, United fans have a different tradition: hearing the team’s ownership apologize for yet another depressing season and offer promises of a brighter future. With Wednesday night’s 2-1 loss to Toronto, United will now miss out on the playoffs for the seventh consecutive season – in a league that lets at least 50% of teams into the playoffs each year, with 60% of teams or more making it in five of those seven years. If United fail to make it again next year, they’ll tie an all-time MLS record.

Coins, jewelry and other artifacts were found in a sealed closet in Pompeii, giving new insight into life in the historic Roman city before it was destroyed in A.D. 79.

Democrat Mary Peltola’s campaign reportedly recruited a second Dan Sullivan in the race in what Republicans call a ploy to split votes

• US politics live – latest updates

Republican officials have called for an investigation into an alleged ballot-stacking scheme in Alaska’s competitive Senate race by Democrat Mary Peltola’s campaign.

For months, Donald Trump and others accused Peltola and Democrats of recruiting candidates with the same name as her Republican opponent, Dan Sullivan, to purposefully confuse voters when they cast their ballots in November’s midterms.

Angela Eagle tells industry ‘people are sick of excuses’ as pollution levels remain high despite billions in investment

Angela Eagle, the environment secretary, has summoned water industry bosses to Whitehall after a report found that the environmental performance of the big companies has worsened despite investment.

“People are sick of excuses,” Dame Angela said, after the Environment Agency joined the Drinking Water Inspectorate, Natural Resources Wales and Ofwat for a joint report that rated eight of the nine water companies in England as “poor” or “requiring improvement”.

The Berlin-born performer had a gift for languages that took her to Hollywood, landing roles alongside Peter Sellers, Dick Van Dyke and Paul Newman

Elke Sommer, the prolific German star of the Pink Panther film A Shot in the Dark, early 70s Agatha Christie adaptation And Then there Were None, and British sex comedy Carry on Behind, has died aged 85. Bild magazine reported that Sommer died in Los Angeles of heart failure.

German-born Sommer, whose best-known film roles were in the 1960s and 70s, was one of the wave of European performers who crossed over to Hollywood and English-language cinema with considerable success, following the postwar emergence of European new wave cinema. Sommer was one of the few German actors to make waves at the time, as Hollywood made much of her bombshell image.

King Charles III faces renewed calls for a slavery apology and reparations on a visit to the Caribbean, as protesters demand: "Pay us what you owe us."

• Struggling Tennessee get haul of picks for tackle

• Chicago are chasing first Super Bowl title since 1985

The Chicago Bears have acquired All-Pro defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons in a blockbuster trade with the Tennessee Titans, a person familiar with the deal told the Associated Press on Thursday.

The Bears sent their first-round picks in 2027 and 2028, along with a fourth-rounder in next year’s draft, to the Titans for Simmons and a fifth-round selection in 2028.

Here's what we know about some of the Americans still held in Russian prisons and labor colonies.

Possible candidate to run World Economic Forum departs ECB nine months early, saying she wants to speak her mind about world affairs

Christine Lagarde, the eurozone’s top central banker, has said she is stepping down nine months early to speak her mind about world affairs and confront the “misrepresentation of the truth”.

Ending months of speculation about her future at the European Central Bank, Lagarde said she would quit her role as president in March rather than October next year because the rules of neutrality that governed her job prevented her from influencing debate about financial and economics affairs.

Two astronauts stepped outside the International Space Station for the first of two spacewalks, one week apart, to complete a complex upgrade to the aging power system.

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA — Federal investigators examined Rep. Ilhan Omar’s 2009 marriage during the Obama administration and reportedly found evidence suggesting the marriage may have been fraudulent, according to current and former officials cited by The New York Times.

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security opened the inquiry in 2016 while Omar was running for the Minnesota Legislature. Investigators reportedly examined whether her marriage to British citizen Ahmed Nur Said Elmi was arranged to obtain immigration benefits. Prosecutors ultimately did not bring charges, reportedly concluding that a potential marriage-fraud offense had exceeded its five-year statute of limitations.

Importantly, the report does not establish that Elmi was Omar’s brother, despite some right-wing outlets presenting that allegation as confirmed. Officials cited by the Times reportedly said investigators found information suggesting a possible sibling relationship, but no court, government agency or publicly available documentation has established that Elmi was Omar’s brother.

Omar has consistently denied both marriage fraud and the sibling allegation and has never been charged over the marriage.

Independent fact-checkers have also been unable to substantiate the brother claim. Snopes reiterated this week that the allegation remains unsupported by conclusive evidence, while PolitiFact’s previous examination found circumstantial questions surrounding the marriage but “no smoking gun” demonstrating that Omar married her brother.

The renewed attention comes as the Trump administration conducts a separate investigation into Omar’s immigration history.

Sources:

• Mediaite – MBFC Rating
• Snopes – MBFC Rating
• PolitiFact – MBFC Rating

The post Right-Wing Outlets Revive Omar Brother Claim Despite Lack of Conclusive Evidence appeared first on News Facts Network.

Reddit is overhauling its homepage with separate "For You" and "Following" feeds, with the former combining posts from subscribed communities and algorithmic recommendations based on users' interests and activity. The Verge reports: It's a big shift for the platform, but not an entirely surprising one, as Reddit hasn't been shy about wanting to switch up the homepage. Earlier this year, the company announced it would be deprecating r/all, which surfaced posts that were popular across the platform, as part of its "ongoing efforts to simplify Reddit and improve Home feed personalization." "This new feed experience is a first step in helping drive discovery that leads to something novel and relevant -- an idea, a connection, a unique perspective, or even a new interest," Reddit says. "A more human internet is not just something you sit back and watch, it is something you find value in and want to participate in."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The 2026 budget has been revealed; how will it affect you personally, will it change the country and has chancellor John Healey done enough to prepare for the challenges ahead? Our money and economics editors Hilary Osborne and Heather Stewart are on line now answering your questions

• Sign up or sign in to join the discussion. Post your questions in the comments below.

manicmid asks: This budget was always going to consist of multiple instances of tinkering around the edges and deferring big unpopular choices.

Labour sealed that position by sticking to their previous manifesto that removed rises on the biggest revenue raisers such as income tax.

Heather says: That’s a really good question: Labour strategists are adamant that they wouldn’t. I can’t help thinking that voters were so convinced the public services were in a dire state, they could have accepted the argument that taxes needed to rise. Certainly, the Tories didn’t seem to get much electoral credit for Jeremy Hunt’s desperate cuts to national insurance contributions in his last couple of Budgets. But we’ll never know.

Another question is whether Labour should have bust the manifesto promises - either when they first got in, on the basis the public finances were worse than they thought; or at some point in the last year, given the impact of the Iran war (which has added £14bn to the government’s interest costs this year alone).

Heather says: Well John Healey’s not going to tell you how to spend your £100, so I suppose you could blow it on the horses instead - but yes, we can’t really get away from the fact that higher energy prices make the UK, an energy importer, poorer – hence the government’s rhetoric of, we can’t offset this completely but we’ll try and help you out a bit.

He could of course have decided to go a little, or a lot, further: taxing banks more heavily for example to fund a more generous package. He has also announced some longer-term changes aimed at bringing down energy costs to insulate us better from future shocks; but these look unlikely to bear fruit for a long time.

Guardian columnist, senior economics commentator and host of the new Radical Thinking podcast Aditya Chakrabortty will be online at 2pm GMT (9am EDT) on Friday to answer your questions on the big ideas around economics, society and democracy

Send your questions to conversations@theguardian.com or join the discussion on Friday from 8am

Aditya Chakrabortty is the Guardian’s award-winning senior economics correspondent. Through his regular opinion column, he shares his thoughts on the economy and its impact on society and earlier this year he was awarded an MBE for services to public understanding of the economy and wider social issues.

Last month he launched his new Saturday podcast Radical Thinking, where he interviews major thinkers about the ideas that have shaped our times. He has conducted conversations with Yanis Varoufakis on democracy and the Eurozone crisis and Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor on Gaza, fascism and climate chaos.

The snake-inspired robotic enteroscope has been developed by engineers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Jensen Huang reported to have had close relationship with tech company executive suspected of passing intel to China

US intelligence agencies believe the Nvidia chief executive, Jensen Huang, has been targeted by an alleged Chinese spy who had done business with him, according to a new report by the New York Times.

Alice Huang or Huang Le, of no relation to the Nvidia CEO, is an executive at a Singapore-based datacenter company called Megaspeed. She had previously been suspected of smuggling Nvidia chips to China, prompting American officials to surveil and monitor her. Those officials have determined that she was acting as a Chinese intelligence asset, passing commercial information to Beijing, the New York Times reported, citing unnamed sources.

Close up of the bioinspired soft enteroscopic robot. (MIT via SWNS)

Kaden Matsuda and Jackson Donlon were on a trip in Rocky Mountains last weekend when heavy snowstorm hit

Two Colorado college students have been found dead after going missing during a hiking trip in the Rocky Mountains last weekend when a heavy snowstorm hit, authorities said.

The bodies of Kaden Matsuda, 19, of Ridgway, Colorado, and Jackson Donlon, 20, of New York, were found on Wednesday afternoon in a basin of West Apostle Mountain, about 100 miles (160km) south-east of Aspen, the Chaffee county sheriff’s office said in a statement posted on social media.

• Murphy offers critique of 2023 edition of Yankees

• Howard Bryant: Brewers expose baseball’s biggest lie

Milwaukee Brewers manager Pat Murphy was captured taking a shot at a “horseshit Yankees team” after he celebrated his team clinching the World Series on Wednesday night.

A video of Murphy talking to Jake Bauers emerged in which the manager tells the Brewers’ soon to be a free agent: “You’re going to be a rich fucker. Just remember when you were on that horseshit Yankees team and you guys were all playing for yourself? Just remember, say, ‘This is the way we used to do it.’”

The preeminent smart speaker just got a little smarter – and more expensive.

Wet weather dampening your plans? From screen-free stories and craft kits to waterproof gear, here’s how to keep little ones – and grownups – entertained

• The best gifts for kids by age

Before becoming a mum, I never appreciated quite how complicated getting out the front door would be with kids in tow. But in my four and a half years of parenting two small people, I can confidently say it’s nothing compared with the challenge of a day spent inside when outside is off-limits. Whether because of endless rain or illnesses you don’t want to pass on, I panic at the thought of filling the hours spent indoors.

Being outside is profoundly helpful for my mental health, and it comes with its own built-in entertainment for small children: a bus ride becomes a sensory experience, a trip to the doctor’s an opportunity to pick up role-play ideas.

Using AI for roles from executive assistants to chiefs of staff, companies are boasting about doing more with less, creating tension with their human workers

On an average workday, Dhruv Amin chats with dozens of colleagues to get things done at his AI startup Anything. He might ask Gwen, his executive assistant, to schedule a meeting, then troubleshoot a technical problem with Cody, his coding partner. Then he might check in with Betsy for search engine optimization, or Juno for onboarding customers. If the office runs out of snacks, he sends a Slack message to Justin, the office manager charged with stocking the kitchen.

But none of these co-workers are people. They’re artificial intelligence agents, software that handles tasks without human intervention. Anything is one of several startups building them, and betting on a future where workplaces will increasingly turn over their sales, marketing, coding and other tasks to semi-autonomous AI. At Anything, there are 15 human employees and roughly 150 agents – a ratio that Amin believes will soon be the norm.

Ex-congresswoman is connecting with young people and Native voters with promise to expand the social safety net

The road to Isleta Pueblo, a Native American tribal community just 20 minutes south of downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico, is peppered with campaign signs. Among the many names of candidates running in next week’s midterm elections and tribal elections later in November, there’s one that is poised to make history.

Deb Haaland is set to become the first Native American female governor in the US when voters cast their ballots on 3 November. Recent polling shows her with a comfortable lead over her opponent, Republican Gregg Hull, a businessman and the longtime mayor of the city of Rio Rancho. Her bid for office also signals the growing power of the Democratic party in the state, where Democrats control the legislature, hold all top offices and have enacted progressive policies, such as universal childcare, that have been heralded across the country.

Slashdot reader fjo3 shares an article from Wired: The internet must be put out of its misery. Any rational observer can admit that the current iteration of the web -- and the social fabric woven there -- is not what they signed up for. Symptoms of advanced cultural decay can no longer be ignored. This thing is eating itself. Giants including Meta and Google have been forced to settle massive consumer lawsuits brought over privacy violations and mental health harms allegedly caused by the addictive mechanisms of their platforms. Schools are banning smartphones as multiple countries institute social media restrictions for under-16s. Parents are in a panic about their kids aspiring to careers as social media celebrities, losing themselves in a vast ecosystem of online casinos, or joining extremist movements. Generative AI, briefly considered an amusing novelty, is now a turbocharged slop engine for the web, filling feeds and comment sections with useless, grotesque content. As humans scroll past headlines about AI taking their jobs, confusing fantasy for reality, and contributing to cognitive decline, any consumer appeal the technology might have is turning to anguish. The data centers that power it have become increasingly unpopular, and politically radioactive. To be online, many now admit, is to be endlessly manipulated and exploited. In December, Oxford University Press declared rage bait to be the word of the year, noting that use of the term had tripled over the previous 12 months. The lexical spike represented a heightened awareness that monetized social accounts churn out bad-faith takes and extremist content, automating this abusive behavior with generative AI, simply to profit off hostile engagement. Billionaire oligarchs have opened the floodgates to such inauthentic activity, conspiracy-mongering, and hate speech by rolling back moderation. In short, when you hang around online in 2026, you see little worth saving. Perhaps a decade ago, you felt that the glimmers of community and joy, of artistic and intellectual exchange, were enough to balance out the toxic junk. No longer.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Party aims to build a ‘significant national publishing operation’ as first edition of the Reformer is distributed

• UK politics live – latest updates

Reform UK has launched what it is calling a newspaper, featuring large pictures of Nigel Farage, which the party hopes will replace mainstream media for its supporters.

Though the party is hiring qualified journalists to write its newspapers, the only “reporter” credited with writing articles is Farage, the party leader.

Authorities allege company may have breached Finnish environmental laws by forgoing required impact assessment

• ‘Pure arrogance’: anger in Finland as Google illegally fells 250,000 trees for datacentre

Finnish ⁠police have launched a criminal investigation into possible breaches ⁠of the country’s environmental ⁠laws ​at the site of a planned Google datacentre in rural northern Finland.

Authorities allege that Tuike Finland, a Google subsidiary, cleared and drained 330 hectares (815 acres) of forest at the planned site in Muhos before environmental impact assessments required by Finnish law had been completed.

Democrat Annie Andrews neck-and-neck with Republican incumbent, Darline Graham, sister to Lindsey Graham

• US politics live – latest updates

A US Senate race in one of the most Republican states in the country is now a dead heat, according to a new poll showing Annie Andrews, a Democrat, tied with Darline Graham, the Republican incumbent senator.

South Carolina has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1998, and Donald Trump won it by nearly 18 points in 2024, but a New York Times/Siena poll this week has the two candidates neck and neck, at 48% each.

If elected, Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed would become the first Muslim U.S. senator in American history.

Audio file appears to point finger at control centre, but there are questions around signalling and technical issues

At least 69 people died when a high-speed train from Madrid to Seville hit another train on the same track from behind near Toledo on Wednesday morning.

Both trains had been brought to a halt earlier when the signalling system failed. The driver of the state-owned Spanish train, a Renfe AVE service, was told by controllers to restart the journey, but crashed into the train in front, run by the private operator Iryo. The front carriages of the AVE train and rear of the Iryo train were destroyed and others derailed.

Gone are the eight criteria to be a High Impact Player so clubs can spend their money on whomever they want – and the solution makes sense

When Washington plays Chicago this Sunday in DC, “Rowdy Audi” will probably be full. It will also be full when the post-season starts, should they lock up their top-four position with a positive result on Decision Day. Equipped with an accessible stadium in a big city, a proud fanbase and a formidable roster rife with players qualifying for the High Impact Player (HIP) rule’s initial criteria (including Trinity Rodman, who gave the rule its moniker), the Spirit hold sway in the attendance charts.

But starting next season, everyone on the Spirit will qualify for the “Rodman Rule”. So will every player in NWSL. Announced Friday, NWSL settled a grievance with the league’s Players Association, who argued that the initial criteria violated federal labor law.

A high-speed shot of cars on the road at night.

Cadence will bring AI-enabled electronic design automation, system design and analysis, and digital twin expertise to the DOE’s AI-driven science initiative

SAN JOSE, Calif., Oct. 29, 2026 — Cadence today announced it has joined the Genesis Mission Consortium, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) public-private partnership using artificial intelligence (AI) to accelerate scientific discovery, strengthen national security and advance energy innovation. Cadence will contribute AI-enabled design and simulation technology and technical expertise to collaborate with DOE National Laboratories to support Genesis Mission priorities in advanced microelectronics, quantum and superconducting systems, data center energy efficiency and AI-driven scientific workflows.

The Genesis Mission Consortium, launched by Executive Order in November 2025 and led by DOE Under Secretary for Science Dr. Darío Gil, aims to double the productivity and impact of American science and engineering within a decade by connecting the nation’s leading supercomputers, AI systems, experimental facilities and unique datasets across the 17 DOE National Laboratories.

“Cadence has long believed that AI-driven design and physics-based simulation will reshape how critical systems are built—from advanced semiconductors to AI factories and next-generation physical AI and scientific applications,” said Tom Beckley, senior vice president, Strategic Technology Programs, Cadence. “Joining the Genesis Mission Consortium reflects our commitment to put Cadence’s AI-enabled EDA and SDA technologies and our engineering expertise in the service of America’s scientific leadership. We are honored to work with DOE National Laboratories, consortium partners and the research community to help accelerate discoveries that strengthen U.S. competitiveness, energy security and innovation.”

Building on Existing Cadence–National Laboratory Collaborations

Cadence’s Genesis Mission engagement builds on longstanding collaborations with DOE and DOE/NNSA National Laboratories, including Sandia National Laboratories, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, NASA Ames Research Center, Argonne National Laboratory and Brookhaven National Laboratory. Cadence AI-enabled technologies support modeling, simulation, verification and large-scale engineering analysis aligned with DOE science, energy and national security priorities.

“The Genesis Mission represents an extraordinary opportunity to accelerate scientific discovery through [SI], high-performance computing and advanced design tools,” said Dr. Jeffrey S. Vetter, corporate fellow and section head, Advanced Computing Systems Research, Oak Ridge National Laboratory. “Our collaboration with Cadence will help to deliver advanced engineering capabilities into research workflows, supporting the national laboratories’ mission to deliver breakthroughs that matter for the nation.”

The Genesis Mission Consortium brings together DOE, National Laboratories, other federal agencies, industry and academia to address national science and technology challenges in advanced manufacturing, biotechnology, materials science, nuclear energy, quantum information science and semiconductors.

Cadence’s participation advances its strategy of combining agentic AI, physics-based simulation, digital twin technology and high-performance computing (HPC) to accelerate innovation across semiconductor design, physical AI systems and AI factories. Cadence aims to extend these capabilities to the DOE research community and plans to support Genesis Mission priorities through:

• Subject-matter expertise: Participation in scoping and piloting AI model development and validation, data standards and HPC
• Targeted access to Cadence capabilities: Providing AI-enabled electronic design automation (EDA), system design and analysis (SDA), multiphysics simulation, digital twin, advanced packaging and 3D-IC workflows for pilots and demonstrations
• Workflow integration: Supporting the integration of Cadence workflows with DOE laboratory HPC environments, including reproducible packaging and “AI performance” benchmarking
• Workforce development: Collaborating with National Laboratories and academic partners on training and curriculum for AI-enabled engineering

About Cadence

Cadence (Nasdaq: CDNS) 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 2025, Cadence was recognized by Fortune as one of the world’s top 100 best companies to work for. Cadence solutions offer limitless opportunities.

Source: Cadence

The post Cadence Brings AI Design and HPC Expertise to DOE Genesis Mission appeared first on HPCwire.

“I never ever thought in my wildest dreams that I would ever have another partner."

Barbara Thompson and Fred Jenkins found love after meeting in the gym at their retirement village (ExtraCare Charitable Trust via SWNS)

Halloween still belongs to the trick-or-treaters, but a grown-up version now runs right beside it. It fills bar crawls that last for hours, street festivals ... Read moreThe post Halloween now comes in 2 versions, and the adult one has…

Quantum computers aren’t powerful enough yet to break the encryption we use today. But researchers expect that to change at some point. And when it does, some of the encryption used by banks, governments, businesses, and pretty much every other organization could be at risk. The problem is that replacing encryption across thousands of systems takes time. In some cases, years.

That’s what the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is trying to help with. On October 27, the agency released a new report, Transition to Post-Quantum Cryptography Standards (NIST IR 8547). It identifies which cryptographic algorithms are vulnerable to quantum attacks and provides guidance on how and when organizations should replace them. NIST has already developed new standards designed to withstand these attacks. Getting organizations to actually use them is the next challenge.

Back in August 2024, NIST released its first three post-quantum cryptography standards. As HPCwire reported at the time, these included FIPS 203 (ML-KEM) for key establishment and two digital signature standards, FIPS 204 (ML-DSA) and FIPS 205 (SLH-DSA).

Even then, NIST’s Dustin Moody warned HPCwire that the transition wouldn’t be easy. Organizations would need to figure out where their existing cryptography was being used, work with technology vendors, and plan for a lengthy process. NIST followed up with draft guidance in November 2024. The latest report builds on that work, with more specific direction on what needs to be replaced and when.

(Shutterstock/Jack_the_sparow)

The new report doesn’t treat every cryptographic algorithm the same way. Some will eventually have to be phased out, while others may still be used, but at the organization’s own risk. NIST’s Dustin Moody explained that it depends on where and how these algorithms are being used. Replacing encryption in one system might be fairly straightforward. In another, it could be a much bigger job.

The federal government had already set 2035 as a target for moving to post-quantum cryptography. But some systems now have less time. Under Executive Order 14412, federal high-value assets and high-impact systems have until 2030 to transition their key-establishment mechanisms, and until 2031 for digital signatures. These deadlines don’t apply to every business, although companies supplying technology and services to federal agencies could find themselves having to make changes too.

What’s interesting is that nobody knows exactly when quantum computers will become powerful enough to break today’s widely used encryption. It could still be years away. But there’s another problem. Attackers could be collecting encrypted data right now, even if they can’t read it yet. The idea is to hold onto that information until quantum computers become capable of decrypting it. It’s a threat known as “harvest now, decrypt later.”

For some information, that might not matter much. But think about government secrets, medical records, or sensitive business data that needs to stay private for decades. Even if it’s encrypted today, that protection might not hold up forever.

Also, it’s not as though organizations can just install an update and be done with it. Encryption is used in all sorts of places, from everyday applications to older equipment that may have been running for years. 

Some systems will be easier to update than others. There are vendors to work with, compatibility issues to sort out, and testing to be done. That’s a lot of work, especially for large organizations that may not even have a complete picture of where their existing cryptography is being used.

(Shutterstock/Corona-Borealis-Studio)

Organizations don’t have to replace everything at once. Moody suggests starting with the most sensitive information, especially data that needs to stay protected for many years. Moving to FIPS 203 for key establishment could be a good place to start. But there’s only so much an organization can do on its own. It also depends on the software and hardware it uses, and whether the companies providing them are ready. NIST says the entire cryptographic supply chain needs to be considered.

The report also discusses something called hybrid cryptography. Basically, it means using conventional cryptographic methods alongside the newer post-quantum ones. That way, organizations aren’t relying entirely on one method. There is a downside, though. Using both can require more computing resources and make things more complicated.

NIST is also working on the practical side through its National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE). The center has a project to help organizations figure out where they’re using vulnerable cryptography, what needs attention first, and how to make it easier to change algorithms in the future. This last part is known as crypto-agility.

NIST released the standards two years ago. It now has a roadmap for moving to them. Whether organizations can make those changes in time is still an open question.

The post NIST Details How to Prepare for Post-Quantum Cryptography appeared first on HPCwire.

A recording of a closed-door meeting revealed some faculty sought to delay the vote, but others urged immediate action

Faculty members at Cornell University are pressing ahead with a no-confidence vote in campus leadership over its handling of a gang-rape scandal involving students at a fraternity at the Ivy League institution.

Cornell professors on Wednesday discussed, at an emotional faculty meeting, how the school’s leadership tackled a woman’s report that she was raped by at least seven male students at a fraternity house in 2024.

Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organizations. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html

A report alleged that people aligned with Democrat Mary Peltola's campaign helped recruit a candidate with the same first and last name as Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan. Peltola denied the allegations.

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

Milwaukee’s first World Series championship is a rebuke to baseball’s oligarch class, whose insistence that small-market teams cannot compete has been laid bare as fiction

For the entirety of the 2026 baseball season, the overlords of the game have stood on the single position that what has now happened could not happen, and the result was a year that has been treated like an appetizer for the main course of the offseason: the shutting down of the game until the players, after 40 years of resistance, finally agree to a salary cap. The insistence that the game had been predetermined undermined the Milwaukee Brewers, who spent 149 days this season atop the standings.

Baseball dismissed Milwaukee’s 22-0 demolition of Seattle on 18 August, the 20-0 waxing of Cincinnati a month later, and the comprehensive dusting of their division – their fourth consecutive National League Central title and fifth in six years – by 14 games. Baseball’s owners, at their persuasive best, would have their paying customers believe that the Brewers’ franchise-record 103 regular-season wins also were an illusion, or worse, the dreaded outlier, even though Milwaukee have won 770 games since 2018, the fourth-most in all of baseball. Even when Milwaukee exhaled and made the Dodgers look old in a stirring four-game sweep, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported the owners’ position remained unchanged.

A once-confidential letter says child sexual abuser might implicate senior church officials if allowed near ‘the legal arena’ upon his release from jail

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

Lawyers from a leading law firm for the Marist Brothers have been subpoenaed to explain a once-confidential document showing they advised the Catholic order to keep a serial offender out of “the legal arena”, suggesting he was too honest and might implicate senior church officials.

The offender was “regrettably up front” about his interactions with senior leadership, and could not be trusted to heed “suggestions” about “not dumping on others excessively”, the document says.

A challenge to a formula used by a county outside of Washington, D.C., to determine who can attend public magnet schools could have wider implications after the Supreme Court agreed to hear the dispute earlier this month.

In Association for Education Fairness v. Montgomery County Board of Education, the Court will evaluate a lottery admissions program developed by the Montgomery County Public Schools system during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Association for Education Fairness (AFEF) is an organization of Montgomery County parents formed to advocate for merit-based admissions to advanced academic programs. Its members have children who intend to apply to such programs. The AFEF alleged that the lottery program discriminated against Asian American students by limiting the group’s overall share of admissions to the magnet middle school programs compared with years prior to the new system.

Montgomery County insisted that the lottery system was race-neutral and race-blind and that it did not violate the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a district court decision in favor of Montgomery County. The appeals court ruled that the AFEF failed to prove that the lottery had sufficient disparate impact on Asian American students as a group.

Courts find evidence of disparate impact when a seemingly neutral government policy or action causes disproportionate, unjustified negative harm to a group, regardless of intent.

The Supreme Court accepted the case on October 19, 2026, to settle the following question: “Whether a plaintiff challenging a facially neutral admissions policy as racially discriminatory must establish that the targeted racial group suffered an aggregate disparate impact relative to its share of the applicant pool.”

The path to the Supreme Court

In its petition to the justices, the AFEF wanted the justices to reconsider a benchmark twice rejected by the Supreme Court for arguments. The “aggregate disparate-impact benchmark” is a statistical measure used to determine discrimination as a policy outcome. In the case of school systems, the benchmark is used to establish that a policy designed to be neutral actually results in discrimination against a protected class. In this case, the protected class is Asian American students.

“Parent groups have twice before asked this Court to decide whether those challenging admissions criteria for competitive public schools must satisfy an aggregate disparate-impact benchmark before courts may consider evidence of discriminatory intent,” argued AFEF in its petition to the Supreme Court. The appeals in those two cases, Coalition for TJ v. Fairfax County School Board (2023) from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and Boston Parent Coalition for Academic Excellence Corp. v. School Committee for the City of Boston (2023) from the First Circuit Court of Appeals, were not accepted by the Supreme Court, with dissents from Justice Samuel Alito with Justice Clarence Thomas joining.

Since then, the Second Circuit and Third Circuit have ruled that the aggregate benchmark test wasn’t needed to prove an intentional discrimination claim, and challengers could move forward making Equal Protection Clause claims alleging intentional discrimination.

In this case, the AFEF argued that the Montgomery County Public Schools system became concerned about a substantial increase in Asian American students’ enrollment in its magnet programs based on a merit-based admissions system centered on grades, testing, and teacher reviews. The school system, it claims, started implementing changes to achieve racial balancing in the admission process.

For the lottery program developed during COVID-19, AFEF cited that students who attended higher-poverty schools had their testing scores adjusted, or normed, based on income percentiles to become eligible for the lottery. The district court, however, determined that the AFEF failed to prove the share of Asian American students admitted under the lottery was lower than the Asian American total share of the applicant pool eligible for the magnet programs.

In a response brief, the Montgomery County Public Schools system stated that several factors led to the lottery admissions system now in place, instead of an in-person exam that was an important part of the process.

“In prior years, the admissions process had relied on an in-person aptitude exam. But the challenges of the pandemic, and the school district’s attendant shift away from in-person instruction, made it impossible for the district to use the exam,” the county claimed. “Instead, the school district decided to rely on a race-neutral, race-blind lottery to select students for admission.”

The school system stated it started to expand the pool of eligible students in 2017 by seeking out students to take the aptitude exam, which resulted in more admissions to the magnet schools from high-poverty schools. It also began a “local norming” program to “to select students for magnet programs by comparing their academic performance to the performance of other students in school communities with similar economic circumstances.”

The lottery system went into effect when the pandemic made it difficult to conduct in-person exams. The school system considered grades and comparing “performance to other students from elementary schools of a similar poverty level” As qualifying factors. Once students were entered into the lottery, their assignment to a magnet school or local school was random.

The larger questions at the Court

One basic question that will be considered as more briefs are submitted to the Court is its precedent in Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp. (1977). In a case involving racial discrimination in zoning, a divided Court held in Arlington Heights that a finding of disparate impact by itself was not enough to prove unconstitutional intentional discrimination under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. "Disproportionate impact is not irrelevant, but it is not the sole touchstone of an invidious racial discrimination,” wrote Justice Lewis Powell in his majority decision.

The AFEF believes the Fourth Circuit decision undermines the Arlington Heights standard. “The result is a rule that marginalizes the Arlington Heights inquiry, permits racial balancing by proxy, treats equal protection as a group right rather than an individual one, and insulates some forms of intentional discrimination from judicial review,” it concluded.

Montgomery County presents the opposite view. “The District Court held that AFEF did not plausibly allege discriminatory intent, a necessary element of its claim under Arlington Heights,” it noted in its reply brief. “Under Arlington Heights, ‘[p]roof of racially discriminatory intent or purpose is required to show a violation of the Equal Protection Clause.’ Disparate impact alone is not enough.”

Another issue of note is the potential national impact of the Court’s decision. As noted in the AFEF’s petition, “the criteria used to admit students to competitive public schools are of substantial importance to many families, particularly in the Nation’s largest school districts. These schools provide exceptional educational opportunities to students who might otherwise lack access to comparable academic programs.”

If the Court does resolve the dispute in favor of the AFEF, the case could head back to the district court to consider the Equal Protection Clause claim. For now, arguments are expected to be held next year with a decision by late June 2027.

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

Acquisition will supercharge DoorDash’s grocery delivery, ‘one of the hardest things to get right online’, CEO says

DoorDash is gobbling up Instacart in a $17bn acquisition that will supercharge its grocery delivery business.

DoorDash said the Instacart brand name and app will remain, and Instacart shoppers can continue fulfilling orders for Instacart. Grocers can also choose to work with Instacart or DoorDash. Instacart customers will now have access to 50,000 additional stores covered by DoorDash, the company said.

We’re folding Apple’s iPhone Duo over and over — 900 times an hour — to test the durability of its hinge.

Republican Mike Dunleavy plans search after Peltola accused of recruiting Dan Sullivan to confuse voters

• Explainer: what to know about Democrats’ alleged ballot-stacking effort

The Republican governor of Alaska announced plans to launch a criminal investigation after a report accused the campaign of the Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola of trying to confuse voters by recruiting a candidate with the same name as her opponent.

Governor Mike Dunleavy wrote on social media that he was “directing the department of public safety to investigate whether this scheme violated Alaska’s laws and whether criminal charges or civil action are warranted”.

Commerce department data contrasts with sharp deterioration in consumer sentiment as midterms loom

The US economy grew faster than expected in the third quarter while inflation accelerated in September, according to new commerce department data released on Thursday, less than a week before the midterm elections that will determine control of Congress.

Gross domestic product (GDP) increased at a 3.4% annualized rate last quarter, the commerce department’s ⁠bureau of economic analysis said in its advance estimate of the third-quarter GDP on Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast GDP advancing at a 3.2% pace.

PALO ALTO, Calif., Oct. 29, 2026 — PsiQuantum has unveiled its Optical Circuit Switching (OCS) technology, demonstrating how the company’s advanced, low-loss silicon photonics platform can be applied to some of the most significant scaling challenges facing AI infrastructure.

An 8×8-radix demonstration vehicle built on PsiQuantum’s low-loss, silicon photonics platform. Credit: PsiQuantum.

AI systems are scaling faster than computing infrastructure, with increasingly large pools of compute placing enormous demands on the networks connecting them. As moving data efficiently between these systems becomes a fundamental constraint for continued AI scaling, the computing industry is increasingly turning to optics to provide faster, more efficient, and scalable connectivity.

PsiQuantum’s first publicly disclosed OCS is an 8×8-radix demonstration vehicle built on the low-loss, silicon photonics platform that the company has spent nearly a decade developing for utility-scale quantum computing. Testing conducted in PsiQuantum’s labs has shown typical results of 1.2 dB of insertion loss, 40 dB cross talk, and less than 3 ms of reconfiguration time, all exceeding initial targets set for these devices and without amplification.

PsiQuantum is now sharing samples of its demonstration vehicle with select prospective customers and advancing the platform toward commercial products that will be announced in the coming months.

PsiQuantum has pursued performance requirements for fault-tolerant quantum computing that exceed many of those required for optical switching in AI data centers. AI and quantum computing are complementary technologies: more efficient AI infrastructure can accelerate the development and operation of quantum systems, while some advances made for quantum computing can help remove bottlenecks in AI infrastructure. As optics make AI infrastructure more efficient, stronger AI infrastructure can in turn support the design, control, and operation of increasingly capable quantum systems.

“This opportunity exists because we chose to solve the hardest scaling problems at the beginning of our roadmap to utility-scale quantum computing,” said Victor Peng, Chief Executive Officer of PsiQuantum. “As AI computing pushes infrastructure to its limits, we now have an opportunity to put our state-of-the-art technology to work today while continuing toward our ultimate goal: building and deploying the world’s first useful, fault-tolerant quantum computers.”

“AI is driving extraordinary growth in the scale and complexity of computing infrastructure, and optics will play an increasingly important role in enabling that growth,” said Rob Soderbery, Executive Vice President at PsiQuantum. “PsiQuantum has spent nearly a decade developing silicon photonics against some of the most demanding requirements imaginable. What we are demonstrating today is that this platform can deliver exceptional performance for optical circuit switching for AI computing.”

PsiQuantum has also developed barium titanate (BTO) integration at the 300mm wafer scale and uses a 64×64 BTO switch in its quantum systems. BTO is not required for the demonstration vehicle or initial products announced today, highlighting the performance of the underlying silicon photonics platform while preserving an additional path to faster, more advanced future products.

Today’s announcement comes amid growing recognition of the transformative potential of PsiQuantum’s breakthroughs in high-performance optical switching. In September 2026, PsiQuantum announced that the company had signed definitive documentation with the U.S. Department of Commerce to accelerate the research and development, domestic manufacturability, and performance of its state-of-the-art critical components, including high-performance optical switches.

About PsiQuantum

PsiQuantum was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in Palo Alto, California. The company’s mission is to build and deploy the world’s first useful quantum computers. PsiQuantum’s photonic approach enables it to leverage high-volume semiconductor manufacturing, existing cryogenic infrastructure, and architectural flexibility to rapidly scale its systems. Learn more at www.psiquantum.com.

Source: PsiQuantum

The post PsiQuantum Unveils Optical Circuit Switch Tech Built on Advanced, Low-Loss Silicon Photonics Platform appeared first on HPCwire.

The Michigan Senate candidate is calling for public ownership and other reforms, offering a potential antidote to ideological gridlock

The Michigan senatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed, a Democrat, occupies a strange but increasingly common place in modern American politics. He’s praised by progressives, begrudgingly tolerated by moderate Democrats and largely demonized by Republicans.

He’s also uniquely positioned to forge an all-too-elusive thread of political kinship between these perpetually-at-odds groups with his bold but contentious plan for reining in AI, called AI Under Democracy.

As Scott Colom challenges incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith for Senate, one of the country’s most reliably Republican states may be in play in the midterms

On Tuesday, with just one week until the election, Scott Colom’s headquarters was buzzing. Volunteers arrived for phone-banking, while staffers prepared for another day of campaigning. Colom, a Democrat who is challenging incumbent Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith for US Senate, had just held a press conference in Corinth, Mississippi.

Donald Trump campaigned for Hyde-Smith in Corinth, a small city near the Tennessee border that typically leans Republican on Tuesday, too. He told attenders that he was there “because Cindy’s doing great, but I just got to make sure. I can’t take a chance.”

With no single European representative negotiating directly with Moscow, some leaders are establishing their own channels – with messy results

The Nordic countries rarely fall out in public over foreign policy, least of all over Russia.

But a 90-minute phone call this week to Vladimir Putin by the leaders of Finland and Norway drew an unusual rebuke from their Danish and Swedish neighbours.

Oct. 29, 2026 — When a powerful offshore earthquake strikes, coastal communities may have mere minutes to prepare for the impacts of a devastating tsunami. Providing an accurate warning in that narrow window presents an enormous scientific challenge: sophisticated physics-based simulations can take too long, while faster forecasting methods often sacrifice accuracy.

The latest episode of the Big Ideas Lab podcast takes a dive into tsunami forecasting.

In the latest episode of the Big Ideas Lab podcast, researchers explain how they used Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL’s) exascale El Capitan supercomputer, advanced algorithms and digital twin technology to overcome that tradeoff, demonstrating an approach that could someday deliver highly accurate tsunami forecasts in less than a minute. Listen on Apple or Spotify.

The episode features LLNL computational mathematician Tzanio Kolev and Livermore Computing Chief Technology Officer Bronis R. de Supinski, who discuss the work and its implications for scientific computing and tsunami early-warning systems.

The research focuses on the Cascadia Subduction Zone, a 700-mile-long fault extending from Northern California to British Columbia, Canada. A major earthquake could generate a tsunami reaching parts of the Pacific Northwest coastline in less than 10 minutes, leaving little time to assess the threat and issue warnings.

Traditionally, scientists have relied on simplified models that produce rapid but less accurate predictions or high-fidelity simulations that capture complex earthquake and tsunami physics but require enormous computational resources. LLNL researchers, collaborating with scientists at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of California, San Diego, developed a different approach. Using El Capitan’s exascale capabilities (about 1.8 quintillion calculations per second in real-world runs), the team performed the most computationally demanding calculations in advance, enabling much faster predictions when new sensor data becomes available.

Using LLNL’s open-source MFEM finite-element library, the researchers developed detailed simulations of the seafloor and ocean. On El Capitan, they solved a problem involving more than 55 trillion degrees of freedom across more than 43,000 graphics processing units, achieving unprecedented resolution. The achievement earned the team the 2025 Association for Computing Machinery Gordon Bell Prize, the most prestigious honor in high-performance computing.

The researchers combined the simulations with a digital twin, a computational representation of a physical system. In the proposed forecasting system, hundreds of seafloor sensors would detect pressure changes during an earthquake. Mathematical techniques called inverse methods would use those measurements and precomputed simulations to reconstruct seafloor movement and predict tsunami arrival times and wave heights.

In simulated earthquake scenarios, the team demonstrated forecasts in seconds with accuracy comparable to computationally intensive physics-based simulations. Although the proposed sensor network does not yet exist, the results point toward faster, more reliable tsunami warnings.

The project also illustrates El Capitan’s broader impact on scientific computing. Calculations that once required large portions of supercomputers to work for weeks or months on a single problem are becoming more routine, enabling researchers to tackle increasingly complex problems. As de Supinski explains, combining physics simulations, large datasets and computational models is transforming research across LLNL’s scientific and national security missions, from stockpile modernization to materials science.

Listen to the latest episode of Big Ideas Lab to learn how LLNL researchers are advancing tsunami forecasting and pushing the boundaries of supercomputing — on Apple or Spotify.

Source: LLNL

The post LLNL’s Big Ideas Lab Explores How Supercomputing Could Transform Tsunami Forecasting appeared first on HPCwire.

OCI will be the first hyperscaler outside Google to offer Google TPUs

Oct. 29, 2026 — Oracle and Google Cloud have announced that Google’s Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) will be available through Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), marking the first time Google TPUs will be offered on a hyperscale cloud platform outside Google. By bringing Google’s purpose-built TPUs to OCI’s AI compute portfolio, customers gain the flexibility to match their most demanding workloads with infrastructure designed for near-linear scalability and highly optimized economics.

“Different AI workloads have different compute needs,” said Mahesh Thiagarajan, president, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Oracle. “Bringing Google TPUs to OCI gives customers access to multiple leading AI compute architectures in one cloud. That choice gives them the flexibility to choose the right infrastructure for the performance, throughput, and economics of each AI workload.”

Google TPUs are custom accelerators co-designed with open software to power the entire AI lifecycle—from frontier training and large-scale inference to the multi-step reasoning data demands of agentic AI. OCI will provide the power, cooling, and datacenter networking to deploy Google TPUs at scale within its infrastructure.

“The next generation of AI will require a diverse range of compute,” said Amin Vahdat, senior vice president and chief technologist, AI & Infrastructure, Google. “TPUs give customers a powerful, purpose-built option for demanding training and inference workloads. Bringing Google TPUs to OCI will give more organizations access to this technology and greater flexibility in how they build and run their most complex AI applications.”

More AI Compute Options for Every Workload

As models grow and production inference demands increase, the performance and economics of every training run and inference request become increasingly important. Google’s TPU architecture is designed to maximize AI processing from each watt of electricity, with fast access to model data and rapid communication between chips.

Google TPUs can support large-model training and post-training, including dense and mixture-of-experts models (MoE), as well as production inference for reasoning, agentic, and long-context applications. Customers will be able to choose Google TPUs within OCI, optimized for their workloads, performance requirements, and cost objectives.

Drawing on more than a decade of custom AI silicon development, Google’s TPU portfolio delivers purpose-built compute optimized for massive machine learning workloads. Google’s eighth-generation TPU introduces two purpose-built architectures: TPU 8t for training and TPU 8i for inference. TPU 8t cuts frontier model development cycles from months to weeks, delivering nearly 3x the compute performance per pod over the previous generation, while TPU 8i is designed to handle the iterative work of many specialized agents.

Google TPUs on OCI will be available in calendar year 2027, ramping over a multi-year period to meet customer needs.

About Google Cloud

Google Cloud offers a powerful, optimized AI stack—including AI infrastructure, leading models like Gemini, data management capabilities, multicloud security solutions, developer tools and platform, as well as agents and applications—that enables organizations to transform their business for the Agentic Era. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted technology partner.

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 Brings Google TPUs to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure appeared first on HPCwire.

A luxury cruise ship on a years-long voyage around the world was forced to suspend its operations because of high fuel prices, stranding passengers in Cambodia. The ship, which began its journey in 2024, had been carrying 203 passengers, mostly Americans, and 156 crew. It is one of only a handful of ships that rent or sell long-term, or even permanent, accommodation onboard.

• Passengers stranded in Cambodia after cruise halted

President’s son-in-law denies ‘completely insane’ claims he profited from unofficial position. Plus, the battle between psychics and AI

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Good morning. A book that contains incendiary claims about Jared Kushner’s financial dealings during Donald Trump’s first term has ignited a political and media storm. The book, by the author Matthew Cole, drew a furious response from Kushner, who called its claims “completely insane”.

It contains numerous allegations about Kushner, who has served as one of Donald Trump’s top diplomatic envoys in the Middle East. The most explosive are claims linking him to huge bank accounts allegedly funded by Gulf states. Kushner continues to steer US foreign policy despite having no official role. The Guardian contacted Kushner’s legal counsel and received no response.

Barack Obama offered a closing argument for Democrats in the final week of the campaign. “These are not serious people,” he said of Trump and the Republican party. “And we’re all paying the price for their lack of seriousness.”

The campaign of the Alaska Democrat Mary Peltola was behind an effort to recruit a challenger with almost the same name as the Republican US senator Dan Sullivan. Both men will appear on the ballot in next week’s midterm elections, the New York Times reported on Wednesday. Peltola’s campaign has denied involvement with the other Dan Sullivan, who will be listed on the ballot as “Sullivan, Daniel J Jr”.

Two rightwing influencers have been charged with felonies in Minneapolis over attempts in the state’s election primary to disguise themselves in what they called “Muslim garb” and claim they were local voters.

If you are having trouble keeping track of all the ways Trump and his administration have been attempting to disrupt the midterms, this four-minute video explainer has you covered. And the Guardian’s Washington bureau chief, David Smith, has this analysis piece looking at Trump’s midterm rally bigotry, with the president’s repeated attacks on Muslims and his strange obsession with people’s bodies.

Why Should Delaware Care?
Delaware has seen rapid growth of outside campaign advertising, which can hide who is sharing a message and for what reason. The money is also complicating campaigns as even down-ballot races are reaching costs never seen before.

This summer’s primary election season in Delaware was marked by millions of dollars in advertising campaigns, relitigated political fights over the state’s corporate franchise, and piles upon piles of advertising mailers. 

But it also raised questions about the sheer volume of money flowing into Delaware’s political ecosystem through candidates’ own campaigns, political action committees (PACs) and so-called third-party advertisers, which have become the predominant vehicle for the spending. 

And while Election Day quickly approaches next week, some of the most consequential statehouse and statewide elections were essentially already decided during September’s high-spend, at times heated, primary races.

Well-known incumbents easily prevailed in Democratic races at the top of last month’s primary ticket, but progressive statehouse candidates backed by the Working Families Party also knocked out five incumbents and captured an open seat.

Spotlight Delaware spoke to candidates, political consultants and representatives from PACs to better understand the aftermath of Delaware’s primary elections. 

What emerged from those conversations was a more nuanced picture of what exactly goes into winning an election in the First State in 2026.

The cost of doing business?

The sheer amount of money in this year’s primary elections — at times reaching well past $100,000 between candidate committees and outside advertisers —  represented a significant jump from spending levels in previous Delaware election cycles. 

The rise in outside election spending was first seen on a statewide scale during Delaware’s 2024 gubernatorial race, when outside political groups raised millions of dollars from developers, unions and a single New York company with a longtime grudge against Delaware. 

But that expensive gubernatorial race — at least by Delaware standards — also took place during a presidential election cycle, which typically means more attention for races up and down the ballot.

A Spotlight Delaware analysis of the last midterm election in 2022 found that roughly $1 million was spent by outside groups seeking to influence voters. This year, spending between the primary and general elections has already surpassed $3 million in support of candidates.

Some experts told Spotlight Delaware, however, increasing spending by PACs and other third-party advertisers is a trend that is not going away. 

“It’s here to stay everywhere because attention is so expensive today,” said Matt Krayton, a political consultant who has worked with both Delaware candidates and PACs.

That price of attention can also help to explain the piles of political mailers that residents in competitive districts received, sometimes totaling more than a dozen pieces of mail per candidate.

In terms of direct candidate spending, Delaware Senate Majority Caucus Communications Director Sarah Fulton said she attributes the rise to inflation. The cost of running an effective campaign — from hiring a team, to printing signs and other materials, to buying ads — has gone up, she said. 

During this year’s primary election cycle, candidates who raised more money than their opponents, both in direct campaign donations and through spending by outside PACs, oftentimes won their race — with a few key exceptions.

In what became arguably the three most-watched statehouse races, incumbent Sen. Dan Cruce (D-Wilmington) and Reps. Krista Griffith (D-Fairfax) and Nnamdi Chukwuocha (D-Wilmington) each won out over their challengers. 

But those wins came with total spend price tags of $332,000; $322,000; and $192,000, respectively.

Outsized spending did not always equal electoral wins in this year’s primaries though.

In the uniquely competitive Democratic primary race for state treasurer, outside advertisers poured nearly $1 million dollars into Michael A. Smith’s campaign, only for the economist to come in a distant third place of a three-way race.

And in one of the more surprising upsets of this year’s primary season, longtime incumbent state Rep. Bill “Lumpy” Carson lost his reelection bid against a Working Families Party-backed political newcomer, Tyeisha “Tye” Grier. 

Carson had raked in more than $100,000 between direct campaign contributions and support from outside advertisers, while Grier only saw about one tenth of that financial support.

Grier told Spotlight Delaware that because she was outmatched in campaign funding, she leaned on volunteers and her personal network to knock on thousands of doors in the Smyrna-area district.

“We measured our success in all kinds of unorthodox ways,” she said, noting that the presence of video doorbells means residents are less likely to converse with candidates on the doorstep. “When we would go back to the neighborhoods and we weren’t finding our pamphlets still sitting outside, we considered that a win. Then when we came back weeks later, we saw some people had taped the materials up in their windows.” 

While experts agreed that increased political spending is likely here to stay, the underlying source of that spending may ebb and flow, Senate Majority Caucus Chief of Staff Jesse Chadderdon said. 

If certain industries or professions are feeling embattled, he said, their interest groups may engage politically in unique ways that do not necessarily mean that spending will remain a fixture election after election.

This year, Delaware’s corporate franchise was seemingly that embattled industry.

SB 21’s lingering impacts, or lack thereof

The 2025 restructuring of Delaware’s corporate franchise, known as Senate Bill 21 or simply SB 21, was a talking point that challengers attempted to leverage in some of this year’s most closely-watched primaries.

The bill was drafted after reports that several companies, including DropBox and Meta, were considering moving their incorporation out of Delaware. It also followed a yearlong assault on the state’s corporate franchise by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk.

The legislation included several significant changes, but in effect, SB 21 made the process of suing a corporation by its minority shareholders more difficult.

Both challengers themselves and third-party advertisers, including the Working Families Party, used SB 21 as a litmus test for the strength of a candidate’s progressive bonafides, saying incumbents had failed to stand up to billionaires by enacting corporate franchise reform.

In many cases, however, leveraging SB 21 turned out to be a losing strategy. 

Dr. Rob Bahnsen’s campaign to unseat Rep. Griffith in Delaware’s 12 House District is a prime example.

Bahnsen himself was never formally endorsed by the Working Families Party, but he embraced progressive causes and spent a large portion of his campaign criticizing Griffith, who led the bill’s rushed passage through the House of Representatives, for what he said was a failure to compromise on such a consequential piece of legislation. He even filmed a six-part interview series on the topic with one of the bill’s most-prominent local critics.

But Bahnsen’s strategy of leaning into what he considered to be the failings of SB 21 was unsuccessful. Griffith easily won the primary, advancing to next month’s general election with nearly 70% of the vote.

And while SB 21 was a particularly visible part of Bahnsen’s campaign, it also played a pivotal — though maybe less prominent — role across other competitive primary races, including Sen. Cruce’s race against professor and advocate Adriana Bohm, and Rep. Chukwuocha’s against Wilmington City Councilwoman Shané Darby.

In these races, and others, PACs backed by corporate law firms that supported SB 21 spent nearly $1 million to keep incumbents who voted for the corporate franchise changes in office. 

And while the funding for these PACs came from supporters of SB 21’s changes to the state’s corporate franchise, the messaging itself was often far more vague. 

For at least one PAC that operated as a third-party advertiser in many of this year’s most competitive primary races, choosing to avoid messaging directly about the corporate franchise was a choice backed by data.

Good Growth Dems, described by co-founder Ty Strong as a pro-capitalism, center-left organization, began operating in Delaware about seven months ago. The PAC has worked to elect candidates in Pennsylvania, New York, North Carolina and Maine, and Strong said he was drawn to Delaware to take part in what he called a center-left versus far-left policy debate over the future of the state’s corporate franchise.

Good Growth partnered with Krayton, the political consultant, to better understand what was driving Delaware’s primary electorate. And despite some messaging, Krayton found that voters were largely not motivated by the typical establishment-versus-progressive framing that underpins primary elections more broadly.

According to Krayton’s polling, Democratic voters in Delaware were unwilling to give up the economic benefits of the corporate franchise for the sake of “taking on billionaires and big corporations.”

Even residents who said they planned to vote for a challenger over an incumbent favored ensuring the corporate franchise’s stability over taking on billionaires by a margin of 58% to 42%, according to Krayton’s polling.

The polling seemingly calls into question the strategy of some candidates, as well as outside advertising from the Working Families Party, that leaned into the narrative that incumbents had capitulated to billionaire’s demands when enacting SB 21. 

But Karl Stomberg, chair of the Delaware Working Families Party, disputed that as too broad a takeaway, and said certain strategies landed differently depending on an audience’s demographic. Messaging about corporate influence resonated more in multiracial, working-class communities, but it did not land as well in wealthy, predominantly white areas, he said.

The polling helps provide insight into the way this year’s primary races ultimately shook out. 

While the Working Families Party picked up five statehouse seats, unseating two incumbents, corporate franchise-minded PACs were able to stave off challengers to keep Sen. Cruce, and Reps. Chukwuocha and Griffith — incumbents in three of the most closely watched races — in office.

But in Stomberg’s view, his organization’s wins are no less valuable because they took place outside the wealthiest parts of Wilmington. He also said those places where Working Families Party candidates lost are where Delaware’s wealthy corporate lawyers tend to live.

So, what does it all mean?

Karl Stomberg, chair of the Delaware Working Families Party, has claimed this year’s primary campaign season to be an all-out success. But Strong, from Good Growth Dems, has not conceded Delaware’s future, and said his more centrist flank only plans to increase its operations in the state. 

An influx of five new Woking Families Party-aligned lawmakers is likely to change the dynamics inside Legislative Hall during the upcoming General Assembly, though the specifics of exactly how remain to be seen. 

The task of legislating has historically put campaign promises to the test, and some candidates who have been supported by the Working Families Party have moved more to the center after joining the legislature.

The first likely example of the looming intra-party struggle could be the decision inside the House to choose its next Speaker, which will take place shortly after the general election. Madinah Wilson-Anton, perhaps the most vocal progressive in the House, has already announced plans to challenge incumbent House Speaker Melissa Minor-Brown.

But regardless of how these new political dynamics take shape, Chadderdon, the Senate Majority Caucus chief of staff, said finding a way to effectively govern is paramount.

“The same people that were demonizing SB 21 and suggesting it was bad for our state and the same people that were defending it to the hilt now have to figure out how to pay for our schools, and pay for feeding our families and figure out how to make Delaware more livable,” he said.

Editor-In-Chief Jacob Owens contributed to this story.

The post Analysis: Delaware faces a future of outsized campaign spending appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

Michigan US Senate candidate signaled support for Egypt’s pro-democracy movement in 2012, not Islamist group

The Republican campaign to defeat Democrat Abdul El-Sayed in the Michigan Senate race by casting him as an Islamic extremist is based on a false claim first made by the conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer eight years ago, a Guardian review of the evidence reveals.

Loomer, an influential outside adviser to Donald Trump who calls herself “a proud Islamophobe”, has claimed since El-Sayed entered politics in 2018 that an open letter he signed in support of democracy in Egypt in 2012 was a public endorsement of the Muslim Brotherhood. The text of the letter, however, does not even mention the Muslim Brotherhood, and is not, as Loomer maintains, “a pledge” of support for the Egyptian Islamist group.

The win at Tropicana Field in Tampa gave the Brewers their first World Series title since their founding as an expansion franchise 57 years ago.

DoorDash's purchase of Instacart for $65 per share will unite two of the country's largest grocery and food-delivery companies.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired the Pentagon's top military planner, Army Lt. Gen. Brett Sylvia, a Pentagon official told CBS News.

DEA Special Agent David Howell tells CBS News the agency tasked with enforcing federal drug laws has allowed millions of fentanyl pills to hit the streets.

In advance of the midterms, Trump is blaming Kyiv for high gas prices while making clear moves to support Russia

As the US midterms approach, Donald Trump is abandoning Ukraine’s democracy in a desperate effort to deny responsibility for worsening inflation. Yet this past weekend’s dramatic elections in Brazil and Serbia show that voters can see through such subterfuge.

There is nothing like a political party’s corrupt indifference to the plight of ordinary people to galvanize voter turnout. If US voters follow in the footsteps of their Brazilian and Serbian counterparts, a Democratic landslide is likely.

Local officials tried to grow close to activist groups and collected information that was then shared with industry

Newly released emails show local government officials in Minneapolis have quietly surveilled environmental justice activists who are working to close a controversial waste incinerator that is emitting pollution into low-income neighborhoods around it, activist groups allege.

County officials sent an employee who is also an environmental justice activist to collect intelligence, among other tactics, emails show. The information was then used to help successfully kill state-level environmental legislation opposed by the incinerator’s leadership, and try to stay one step ahead of activist campaigns and protests. In another instance, a county employee presenting himself as an ally allegedly tried to obtain the identity of a whistleblower, a recording shows.

For diehard fans and newcomers like me, tech offers deeper insights into the race while helping broadcasters tell a richer story. I went behind the scenes to see how it all comes together.

The U-boat that landed two Nazi spies on the Maine coast sank the 400-foot steamship SS Cornwallis four days later.

The first map of the Mason-Dixon Line dividing U.S. Northern free states from Southern states that had slavery decades before the Civil War is going up for auction.

Brussels or Beijing? The EU’s ‘Made in Europe’ plans will force the UK to choose  Expert comment jon.wallace 29 October 2026

Either way, the UK will be forced to pay a price.

The EU’s Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA) is pushing the UK toward an economic confrontation with China it would rather avoid. The IAA plans to introduce new ‘Made in Europe’ obligations, conditioning access to certain public subsidy and procurement schemes on the use of sufficient local, European, content. This is intended, in part, to protect European industry from cheap, high-quality, Chinese goods such as hybrid and electric vehicles (EVs). 

The UK government, seeking closer economic integration with the EU, wants ‘Made in Europe’ provisions extended to include its firms. But key EU member states are conditioning any extension on the UK aligning with EU economic security measures. 

A 15 October Franco-German paper said that ‘Made in Europe’ treatment for the automotive sector should only be extended to the UK and a small group of other partners on the condition of both reciprocity and ‘dynamic alignment with EU conditions related to third countries’ investments and on relevant EU trade defense measures’. 

In practical terms, France and Germany want the UK to impose tariffs on Chinese EVs to prevent the further erosion of their manufacturers’ UK market share. They also want the UK to impose stricter conditions on foreign direct investment into key manufacturing sectors to prevent Chinese firms from qualifying for future EU subsidies or procurement schemes via their UK-located operations. 

With the next EU–UK summit scheduled for 20 November, this creates a problem for Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s new government. Much of the media reporting has focused on the question of whether the UK will agree to impose tariffs on Chinese vehicles. But the focus on investment is arguably more consequential, given the UK’s desire to attract Chinese automotive manufacturing facilities to Britain. 

The UK’s China problem

Until now, the UK’s preferred approach to China has been one of cautious pragmatism. It has demonstrated a willingness to intervene with tariffs or other restrictions in the event of acute economic or national security concerns. See, for example, the decision to impose permanently high tariffs on certain steel products or the blocking of a proposed £1.5 billion investment in offshore wind by the Chinese firm Ming Yang. 

Want to hear more on the future of global trade?

Join us at our Global Trade Conference for expert analysis on the shifting rules of the global economy.

However, the UK has continued to court Chinese investment in the automotive sector and deepen trade ties in what it considers non-sensitive areas. And, though it has made a commitment to the US to strengthen supply chain security in respect of steel and pharmaceuticals as part of the 2025 Economic Prosperity Deal, there has so far been limited evidence of substantive implementation. 

The UK’s reluctance to fully align with either the EU or US approach to China is understandable, given its relative size and economic weight. It wants increased trade and investment and relies on Chinese renewables for its decarbonization objectives. 

But the UK can certainly not afford to be shut out of EU procurement and public subsidy schemes. The EU’s proposed safeguard on hybrid vehicle imports – which would restrict imports above specified quota levels – will also create its own pressures, as Chinese vehicles risk being diverted onto the UK market. 

It is therefore less of a question of whether the UK will align itself with EU economic security measures than how.

The price to pay

One route would be for the UK to replicate EU measures wholesale. This would see the UK replicate EU tariffs on EVs and the new hybrid safeguard. And it could potentially include future interventions targeting chemicals, plastics, batteries and wind turbines. 

The UK would also need to consider equivalent restrictions on foreign investment, reflecting proposed IAA conditions relating to ownership limits, joint ventures, workforce localization and local content in key manufacturing sectors. 

Yet this approach is not straightforward. The UK does not necessarily have the legal tools available to replicate EU measures and has historically been cautious about breaching its international obligations. 

China would also be incentivized to retaliate. That could mean anything from initiating its own tariff measures against UK exports to imposing restrictions on rare earths or battery inputs.

The UK is not the only country in the region facing pressure from the EU to impose more stringent controls on Chinese trade and investment as a condition for access to the EU market. Turkey, Morocco and Switzerland are in a similar position. China will be wary of a negative precedent being established and keen to demonstrate that aligning with EU restrictions comes at a price. Indeed, Beijing may have a greater incentive to make an example of the UK than escalate its confrontation with the EU.

An alternative would be for the UK to pursue similar outcomes more slowly, using traditional trade defence tools. An anti-subsidy investigation into Chinese electric vehicles, for example, would take around a year to conclude but could provide the government with some breathing space. A safeguard investigation, potentially justified by rising Chinese imports and the risk of trade diversion from the EU, could offer a quicker route. 

Neither would guarantee the outcome the EU wants. And both would need to satisfy the relevant legal requirements. But they would at least allow the UK to argue that it was responding to evidence of harm to its own industry, rather than simply implementing EU demands. 

A safeguard also has the benefit, or not, of generally applying to imports regardless of origin, allowing the UK to argue it is not singling out China. It also remains possible that Brussels will attach more importance to the political signal of alignment than to the precise form of the measures adopted.

Yet this still leaves open the question of Chinese investment into UK manufacturing. This is of particular importance in the automotive sector. And it will prove more difficult to address without compromising the government’s wider economic objectives.

The government could also seek to demonstrate progress by announcing new economic security tools, such as a proposed anti-coercion instrument. It could also introduce specific restrictions on foreign investment, or repackage existing initiatives, such as new cybersecurity-related restrictions. Such announcements might demonstrate goodwill towards Brussels but they would not automatically satisfy EU demands for alignment on specific measures. 

The most likely outcome is that the UK seeks to navigate a course through these competing demands, giving the EU just enough of what it wants, while delaying implementation, hoping to avoid the worst response from Beijing. Delay may buy time with Brussels. But Beijing will likely view any such commitment as setting a precedent and retaliate against the UK accordingly. 

There will be a price for the UK to pay either way. The only question is how successfully the government can minimize it.

‘Miracle’ cache of letters written by French scientist who died in ill-fated La Pérouse mission give personal account of 1785 voyage

As he prepared to climb the scaffolding to be publicly executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793, Louis XVI is reported to have asked: “Is there news of Monsieur de la Pérouse?”

He was referring to Jean-François de Galaup, the count of Pérouse, a naval officer and navigator whom the French king had dispatched in 1785 on a round-the-world scientific mission to rival discoveries made by the English explorer Captain James Cook.

Liquid Static Studio; PC
You take on the role of flight attendant in this clever and absorbing retro-style game that veers from daft horror spoof to genuinely disturbing

There was always something creepy about the job-simulator genre. All those mindless automatons queueing up to use your bus, bar or bed store, or whatever workplace you are trapped in for the duration of the game. The endless repetitive tasks. The emptiness of the world beyond your corporate existence. Together, these elements scream existential terror … which is perhaps why we are now seeing a new indie sub-genre of job sim horror games, including Home Safety Hotline, Dredge and more recently, Grease Trap ’99, a Lovecraftian mystery set in a Scottish chip shop.

Now, we have Night Plane, in which you take on the role of a flight attendant on a jumbo jet to hell. It all starts kind of normally. You turn up for the first day of your new job, meet your colleagues, then take your spot at the departure gate, checking in customers and being careful to root out anyone with invalid tickets. Once on the plane, you roll your trolley down the aisle, serving booze and inedible meals, and occasionally dealing with passenger complaints. Then the plane crashes and, frankly, it all goes downhill from there.

Human practitioners warn computer-generated offerings lack the empathy and connection central to divination

“This journey isn’t just about algorithms or data,” an AI psychic named Urban Mystic recently told me. The chatbot, featuring an AI-generated profile photo of a smiling woman surrounded by palm trees, also said I will get married soon, that I have a pink aura and that I may have been an herbalist in a past life.

“It’s about connecting on a soulful level,” the chatbot said.

Despite structural differences between countries, protests are a reminder of what makes demonstrations so powerful

Since mid-September, students in metropolitan France have been mobilizing against poor conditions in public high schools. The mouvement lycéen has spread from a single campus in a Parisian suburb to include high schoolers and university students nationwide, with public sector workers, climate activists, labor unions and everyday people joining in solidarity. The unifying concerns have largely centered on the climbing costs of daily life, shrinking funds for social services and general anxiety about the future.

For two weekends running, France has seen hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets: first on 17 October, when a day of largely peaceful gatherings ended in looting and vandalism; then on 24 October, as the state met the movement with aggressive policing and protest bans intended to keep people at home.

Alphabet shares fell nearly 10% after Google disclosed that searches through its AI Mode generate less revenue than traditional search, even as overall search revenue grew 12% year over year to $63.25 billion. The Register reports: Alphabet on Wednesday reported its Q3 results, which included news that its year-over-year search query growth rate is the highest it's been in the last five years. Some of that growth comes from users adopting "AI Mode" -- Google's latest LLM-powered search system. Google's revenue from search rose 12 percent year-over-year to $63.25 billion, a little lower than the 14.5 percent growth the company reported in last year's Q3. During Alphabet's earnings call, chief business officer Philipp Schindler said the slowdown was caused by "lower monetization we were seeing in AI Mode." That's a worry given that Google is spending enormous sums on infrastructure. $51.4 billion went out the door in Q3, around two thirds of it going towards servers and networking equipment. The rest funded datacenter builds. That spending appears to have impacted profitability, as Alphabet reported $26.17 billion net income for the quarter. Last year's Q3, during which Google revenue was $102.35 billion, produced $35 billion net income. Schindler argued that AI search will pay off. "On AI Mode, many of these queries are upper funnel queries, allowing us to capture new, high-value commercial intent," he told investors. "In addition, the majority of AI Mode queries are incremental, creating more monetization opportunities over time." Google tried to seize one of those opportunities today, by turning on ads alongside AI Mode searches around the world, after first testing them in the US only. But for now, AI Mode searches aren't as lucrative as Google's existing search business, which brought in just under half of Alphabet's $125.8 billion quarterly revenue.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

With control of Congress on the line in House and Senate races around the country, here's how to watch the 2026 midterm election results on Tuesday, Nov. 3.

Owner Gordon Brothers is filing notice of intent to begin process after rejecting management-backed rescue bid

• Business live – latest updates

The owner of Poundland has said it is preparing to appoint administrators, putting up to 12,000 jobs at risk at the retail chain across the UK and Ireland.

Gordon Brothers is filing a notice of intention to appoint administrators at the high court, with the advisory firm AlixPartners lined up to run the process.

Chief financial officer says he hopes budget measure is temporary as sector provides loans that fuel growth

• Business live – latest updates

A senior Lloyds Banking Group executive has criticised the chancellor for linking bank tax increases to energy bill support for UK households, as he warned the government against extending the higher levy beyond March 2028.

Lloyds’s chief financial officer, William Chalmers, acknowledged that the economic environment was “challenging” but said the government should not seek to ease pressure on households at the expense of the banking sector as it provides loans that could fuel UK growth.

(The Center Square) – A top lieutenant general in a strategic planning position within the Joint Chiefs of Staff has been fired by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, a Pentagon official tells The Center Square.

Dyson’s first electric toothbrush watches you brush and flosses for you, but there are far cheaper ways to get an effective clean

• The best electric toothbrushes for every budget

When Dyson announced it was entering the toothbrush market, the world responded almost as one: “Four hundred and twenty pounds? For a toothbrush!?”

No, it wasn’t a stray decimal point – or if it was, Dyson is doubling down and leaning into the mistake. Unlike high-end brushes from Oral-B or Philips Sonicare, where the “recommended” in “recommended retail price” is doing a heroic amount of heavy lifting given the frequent discounts, the Dyson CameraJet will actually set you back £419.99.

With his poll numbers tanking and his behavior getting odder, the remark seems more appealing to himself than to voters

As he criss-crosses the nation, stumping for Republican candidates, Donald Trump keeps asking voters to use their imaginations.

“In this election, I’m asking you to pretend, please, that I’m on the ballot. Just pretend,” he urged at a Kansas rally as he campaigned for the incumbent senator Roger Marshall and gubernatorial challenger Ty Masterson last month.

Regulator demands companies explain how and why they charge different prices for the same product or service

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is demanding some of the US’s biggest airlines, ride-share companies and retailers divulge how they are using algorithms and loyalty programs to target customers and drivers with different prices and wages.

Nine companies – Delta, United, JetBlue, Lyft, Uber, DoorDash, Instacart, Target and Walmart – were named in the inquiry, which comes after investigations and lawsuits alleging consumers are charged different prices based on their buying histories and drivers paid different fares based on their personal histories.

Legacy Church’s endorsements violate law banning tax-exempt nonprofits from endorsing political candidates

A megachurch in New Mexico has endorsed two Republican candidates running in this year’s midterms, including a Donald Trump-backed candidate running in one of the blue state’s few competitive races. The church’s endorsements, which violate federal law banning tax-exempt nonprofits from endorsing political candidates, come as the Trump administration is challenging that ban in federal court.

In mid-August, pastor Steve Smothermon of Legacy Church, a nondenominational church with nine locations across the state, told his congregation about one of the candidates: “Greg Cunningham has faithfully served our church for 14 years and shares our biblical values. Let’s pray for him, support his campaign, get registered, and vote to flip this seat for someone who will stand for God, our Constitution, and a better New Mexico!”

Marilyn Hampton, who regularly bought supplies for and gave rides to children, was honored at public meeting

US schools are often named after presidents, historical figures and civil rights leaders. And soon joining those ranks is a retired longtime Texas school custodian known for going above and beyond her duties by buying classroom supplies for children in need and helping students with their assignments.

That heartwarming story centers on Marilyn Hampton, whose former employer of 39 years – the Aubrey independent school district (AISD) – recently moved to rename its new elementary school No 5 in her honor.

After years of community opposition, Detroit city officials have taken steps to stop a concrete mixing facility from further expanding into a residential neighborhood.

City Council members, acting on a recommendation last week from planning officials, will soon consider a rezoning measure that would restrict industrial activity at the site of the Kronos concrete plant and surrounding area. The concrete facility at its current size could stay and continue to operate as normal.

The planning recommendation comes after a BridgeDetroit and ProPublica investigation this year revealed how city officials helped Crown Enterprises, a real estate company owned by Detroit’s wealthy Moroun family, obtain property in Cadillac Heights and then provided latitude when its Kronos facility violated environmental laws. Residents have been filing complaints and protesting Kronos for years, frustrated by the dust, noise and other issues created by the concrete operation.

Read More

Left in the Dust: How a Billionaire-Owned Concrete Plant Took Over a Detroit Community

The City Planning Commission voted Oct. 22 to recommend a change to some of the zoning in the neighborhood from heavy to light industrial, which allows buildings such as warehouses but excludes facilities like concrete plants. The commission also recommended that other lots be zoned for residential and commercial purposes. Earlier this month, the commissioners unanimously voted to exclude industrial zoning in the area adjacent to Kronos, but they stepped back from that last week.

Crown has objected to any zoning change.

Sharon Buttry, who helped organize residents to protest against the Kronos plant, said she is  glad the lots would be rezoned but was disappointed that the earlier recommendation, which was more pedestrian- and transit-friendly, didn’t stand.

Buttry said she fears that the latest zoning recommendation would make it easier for Crown to expand eventually. “We still want them to shut down or move,” she said.

The zoning plan was revisited at the request of City Planning Commissioner Fred Russell Jr., who said the adjustment would create a buffer between residents and the existing concrete plant.

The City Council, which will ultimately decide on the rezoning, has scheduled a public hearing for Nov. 19.

Over the last seven years, Crown has obtained dozens of parcels in Cadillac Heights — some through a land deal with the city in 2019 and others after residents sold their parcels and left. In all, the company now owns more than 160 lots in the neighborhood, most of which are barren.

In a letter to Detroit officials in mid-September and Oct. 22, a law firm representing Crown threatened legal action if city officials change the zoning, arguing that doing so would devalue the property and create uncertainty about future development.

Attorney Melvin Butch Hollowell also said if the rezoning goes through, the city would be backtracking on its commitment to support Crown’s development in Cadillac Heights. Crown obtained the land there in exchange for the company swapping property in another part of the city, which allowed automaker Stellantis to open the first new car plant in Detroit in three decades.

City officials have said they didn’t know Crown’s plans included a concrete facility. Crown did not present a specific plan at the time of the land transfer. But after the concrete plant opened, the city in 2022 signed a first-of-its-kind agreement with Crown that gave the company time to fix issues before being penalized. The agreement has allowed the company to avoid fines on several occasions, the news organizations have documented.

In response to questions from BridgeDetroit and ProPublica, a Crown spokesperson said the company has invested more than $10 million to develop the concrete operation based “on the City’s promises and actions of approving our plans for this facility.”

“The property was traded to us for the express purpose of redevelopment,” the spokesperson, Kenneth Dobson, wrote.

Dobson said that if the zoning changes, the company will not make the improvements it has promised, including new landscaping and sidewalks. He claimed the improvements would not be allowed under the new zoning and that they also wouldn’t be a sound business decision. City planning staff, however, said the company can still make the improvements.

The neighborhood surrounding Kronos has been zoned to allow heavy industry since the 1940s, when a rail line operated there. Before the concrete operation, the land was occupied by a trucking depot for decades.

Despite the zoning designation, the neighborhood attracted working-class families who lived in modest single-family houses. Buddy’s Pizza, famous as the birthplace of Detroit-style pizza, was founded there and drew crowds from across the city.

The City Planning Commission’s votes this month were four years in the making and part of a broader evaluation of land near the proposed Joe Louis Greenway, a walking and biking trail that will traverse the city and is already under construction.

Scott Benson, the council member who represents Cadillac Heights, asked the planning commission in 2023 to consider whether the industrial zoned areas along the greenway should be rezoned to a use that better supports safety and public health. He said the request at first was unrelated to Kronos, but then community input further influenced the desire for change.

“That did play a role here,” he said in an interview. “The community came out and said, ‘Yes, we especially want this part done and it abuts the Joe Louis Greenway.’”

More than 30 people — some in favor of a zoning change and some against — spoke out at recent commission meetings. Kronos employees and others told the commission that the company has created jobs for Detroit residents and said Crown has invested in the neighborhood with new paving.

Terrell Daniel, whom the city identified in meeting minutes as a Kronos employee, urged the commission at its Oct. 1 meeting to continue to allow industry in the neighborhood.

“It’s bringing back the backbone of Detroit,” he said. He said the concrete plant has provided an opportunity “for guys who never had a chance to work in the city.”

Those in support of rezoning expressed concerns about the dust, air quality and Crown’s track record of not taking care of the neighborhood, which has included leaving vacant homes unsecured and messy.

Residents have filed about 80 complaints to both city and state environmental offices, according to records obtained by BridgeDetroit and ProPublica. They have described “literal whiteout conditions” and “dust clouds” that blanket their neighborhood and irritate their eyes.

The city has issued several tickets to Kronos for violating Detroit’s fugitive dust ordinance, passed in 2024 to limit pollution. The law requires businesses such as concrete plants and scrapyards to submit plans to limit dust and prevent it from spreading into neighborhoods.

On Oct. 7, the city received a complaint about Kronos and an inspector found the company had spread dust in the neighborhood and had piles of materials that should have been blocked from view, according to city spokesperson Georgette Johnson.

Kronos wrote in a letter to the city that it swept and watered the streets and reduced the height of the piles. Johnson said Crown corrected the problems.

Dobson said readings from its air monitors have never exceeded the city’s pollution limits and that a small number of people regularly complain. He previously said that the company planned to demolish a vacant home littered with trash but was waiting on utilities to be disconnected.

The post Detroit Could Block Billionaire-Owned Concrete Plant From Further Neighborhood Expansion appeared first on ProPublica.

Weekend Spotlight is a round-up of the five best events to check out in Delaware over the coming weekend, curated by Arts + Culture Editor Cannon Taylor. This edition covers Oct. 30-Nov. 1, 2026. What should be on our radar for future editions? Let us know!

Macabre Middletown

Learn the lore of Frightland

Through Saturday, Nov. 7. 309 Port Penn Road, Middletown. 6-8:30 p.m. Thurs., Fri., Sun., 6-9:30 p.m. Sat. Tickets: $45 Thurs., Fri., Sun,, $55 Sat.

There’s still time to scare your pants off at Frightland, Middletown’s most iconic haunted attraction, and one with a surprising amount of lore. Learn the story of Dr. Thaddeus Idalia, a local doctor driven insane by his daughter’s suicide in the family barn. 

There are many spooky locations to explore. Some are tropey, like a dilapidated manor. Others are surprisingly unique, like “Zombie Town” — a mining town of undead cowboys who were slowly killed off when Idalia’s father poisoned their well water. 

It may be a little packed on Halloween night, but if you don’t mind visiting after the spooky season, Frightland will be open until Nov. 7.

Dark Bloom

Ladybug founders launch new Halloween music festival

Saturday, Oct. 31. Trolley Square, Wilmington. Noon-6 p.m. Free.

In 2012, couple Dr. Dan Young and Jill Slader-Young launched the Ladybug Music Festival with the mission of celebrating women in music. Fourteen years later, they’re launching a new Halloween music festival, Dark Bloom.

The festival brings 21 musicians performing on five stages in Trolley Square in Wilmington. Keeping with the spirit of Ladybug, each act features women musicians. There will also be “art battles” (contestants duking it out with their paintbrushes, not their fists) and Halloween activities throughout the day.

The best part? Dark Bloom is completely free. 

Coastal Cinema

Film festival returns to Rehoboth Beach, Lewes 

Sunday, Nov. 1 through Sunday, Nov. 8. Various locations in Rehoboth Beach and Lewes. All day. Tickets: $18 per screening block.

A group of Deaf friends gather in Maryland for a crab feast gone wrong (“Crab Theory”). A stop-motion mouse plays board games with the wind (“A Game of Chance”). A woman’s relationship with her partner is upturned after he brings home a pet penguin from Antarctica (“Penguin”). 

That’s just scratching the surface of the more than 100 films being shown at the Rehoboth Beach International Film Festival. 

Taking place at various venues in Rehoboth and Lewes, the 28-year tradition draws in more than 5,000 attendees yearly over its seven-day run.

For the locals, this year will feature two Delaware documentaries: “Citizen Photographer,” filmed by André Wright Jr. and commissioned by the Delaware Art Museum, and “Lewes, DE: Drawn by the Sea.” There are also plenty of international offerings to enjoy. 

Monster Mash

Dover Art League benefit show features CRT art, local bands

Saturday, Oct. 31. 21 W. Loockerman St., Dover. 8 p.m. Tickets: $5-25. 18+.

The wails of phantoms will sound through Dover Art League on Halloween during its “Phantasm” benefit show. Well, “wails” and “phantoms” might be false advertising — in fact, five bands will be performing in the space.

There will also be a costume party and live “video art.” For the uninitiated, projectors and CRT TVs will create visual art so entrancing you’ll want to climb inside the screen like the girl from “The Ring.”

The show is sliding scale, $5-25, and all proceeds benefit the Dover Art League. 

Do the Time Warp Again

Celebrate ‘Rocky Horror’ in historic theater

Saturday, Oct. 31. The Everett Theatre. 47 W. Main St., Middletown. 11:30 p.m. Tickets: $22. 

While I’d usually get angry if someone started singing along in a movie theater, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” is an exception. There has never been a normal screening of this bizarre film. Fans dress as Meat Loaf or Tim Curry’s iconic Frank-N-Furter and walk up to the screen, acting along with the cast of the 1975 film like they have top billing. 

There’s no better place to do the time warp again, 51 years after the original film was released, than the historic Everett Theatre in Middletown. And, given Tim Curry’s death a couple months ago, this screening will be a particularly heartfelt tribute.

The post Weekend Spotlight: Halloween concerts, CRT art, haunted manors and more appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

Why Should Delaware Care?
Delaware has made sports tourism a pillar of its economic development strategy, granting millions of dollars in recent years to various companies promising new athletic facilities. But a proposed expansion of a state-funded pickleball and tennis complex has also sparked tension in Sussex County where concerns about whether the area has infrastructure to handle its rapid growth are ever present.

A state-funded plan to expand a pickleball and tennis complex within The Plantations community near Lewes sparked a backlash from some neighbors this summer, followed by lengthy negotiations and finally a public relations cleanup. 

The plan will likely be up for a final vote on Nov. 17, following a Sussex County Council hearing Tuesday. 

The hearing featured little opposition from neighbors, marking a contrast from a public meeting in July when some argued the facility would bring traffic and trash to the gated community, according to a report from the Cape Gazette. 

Several opponents also expressed opposition to the pickle ball plan in written comments on the county’s website, including one who pleaded for local officials to “not allow this in our peaceful community.” 

The owner of the Dave Marshall Tennis & Pickleball complex has said the facility would feature five indoor pickleball courts, adding to the six tennis and pickleball courts at an adjacent existing building. Other outdoor courts also exist around the facility. It would replace a building destroyed in a fire in 2024. 

The plan received a $1 million grant from the state’s Sports Tourism Capital Investment Fund earlier this year. 

The application for that state grant described the new facility as one that would “host regional tournaments, driving tourism, hotel stays, and local spending while positioning Delaware as a premier sports destination.” 

Nearly all of the comments made at Tuesday’s hearing were in support of plan. They cited Grand Slam and World Champion tennis coach Dave Marshall’s commitment to the community, as well as the benefits of pickleball to the county’s aging population.

“There are very few indoor courts of this type,” Millsboro resident Paul Bach said. “It would be a great asset to our portion of the county.”

Furthermore, representatives from the sports complex said during the hearing that they have hosted tournaments at The Plantations already and have not seen major traffic issues. 

A path to compromise?

To ease concerns in recent months, backers of the pickleball complex and neighbors have been negotiating a set of conditions for the project with an attorney representing two of the local homeowners’ associations 

Those conditions have not yet been finalized, and there have been several suggested edits passed between the two camps. But the current proposal limits the hours of operation for the facility, and caps the number of tournaments annually at 15. It also bans outdoor pickleball games, as they can be noisy. 

The facility’s owners also hired Kimberly Hoey Stevenson to handle the public relations for their project. During Tuesday’s county hearing, she said that negative feelings about the project were  “a case of miscommunication,” and that she has hosted open houses to answer neighbors’ questions.

“There’s been a lot of misinformation that has been spread. And truthfully, there’s been some outright lies,” she said.

Despite the ongoing negotiations, some nearby residents are still opposed to the plan. 

“I just think it’s too much. It’s too big of a plan for where this development is,” Plantations resident Susan Towers said.  

The Sussex County Council will soon vote whether to rezone the area to allow the project to move forward, and which of the conditions to write into law. 

County council members on Tuesday deferred their decision on the plan to allow negotiations to continue. They will continue to accept public comments online for the plan and its conditions until Nov. 13. 

What would the expansion look like?

Dave Marshall Tennis & Pickleball’s new building would replace one destroyed in a 2024 fire at the Plantations clubhouse. 

Attorney Mackenzie Sindelar, representing the company, noted the proposed building would be about 4,000 square feet smaller than the one it would replace.

Marshall would also build a pool to replace the one lost to the fire, Sindelar said, although it will not be financially feasible by itself and will have to come with the new pickleball building. The pool will be open to the public for a fee. 

The sports complex’s grant application argued that it should receive state funding for the project because it will host tournaments of up to 500 people, who will bring business to local hotels and restaurants. But those numbers also sparked traffic concerns. 

Traffic engineer for the applicant Dennis Hughes told the county council that the roads can handle the tournaments because only about 40 to 50 people would be on site at a time. People would play during their time slot then leave, and there would not be many spectators, he said. 

“There’s no time where you’re going to have 500 players on the site at one time,” Hughes said. 

The area is part of the Henlopen Transportation Improvement District, which outlines road improvements to be made with developer funds by 2045. 

In it are plans to widen Plantations Road, as well as expanding Mulberry Knoll Road to connect with Route 9, which could bring traffic away from Plantations Road. 

The post Neighbor opposition to Lewes pickleball complex softens following negotiations appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

Replacing diesel-powered ferries with electric vessels could reduce emissions and improve air quality

Cutting through New York Harbor in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, the small white boat we were riding on caught the attention of passengers aboard a nearby sightseeing ferry.

“It’s quite a curiosity at the moment,” Eric Laakmann, the chief executive and co-founder of Vessev, said.

Climate Central is an independent group of scientists and communicators who research and report the facts about our changing climate and how it affects people’s lives.

The artificial intelligence industry was poised to act as a kingmaker in the midterm elections.

Super PAC networks bankrolled with millions of dollars from Anthropic and OpenAI executives spent heavily in competitive primaries earlier this year, including a high-profile race in New York City. They were touted as the looming successor to another single-issue group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, as AIPAC moved its spending underground.

Yet as public outrage over data centers and AI’s threat to jobs soared, artificial intelligence super PACs dramatically throttled back spending on congressional races compared to the primaries. The biggest AI super PAC network has spent only modestly ahead of next week’s general election — and mostly in safe seats.

An Intercept analysis of AI spending in the 2026 midterms, based on Federal Election Commission records and independent race ratings, shows that only 5 percent of their direct expenditures have gone to contested general election races. The industry’s avoidance of the contested races that could determine control of the next Congress suggest that the PACs have realized how the public has soured on the tech, campaign finance and industry observers told The Intercept.

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“Essentially these companies underestimated how much the public despises the data center buildout, and the inescapability of AI systems that no one asked for that say they will automate jobs and maybe kill us all,” said Rick Claypool, a research director for the president’s office at Public Citizen, a nonprofit campaign finance watchdog.

Although there is still time for a last-minute flurry of spending, the story of AI’s role in the 2026 midterm elections may turn out to be the story of a single race — a primary in New York — that forced the industry to step away from the limelight.

Claypool’s group released an analysis earlier this year of “corporate supremacist” super PACs, a new breed of campaign committees modeled on a crypto super PAC called Fairshake that spent tens of millions on the 2024 elections.

The model was to amass a massive war chest and use it to punish candidates who opposed the company’s preferred government regulations, while throwing cash at allies or potential allies from both parties.

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Who’s Spending in Your Congressional Election? We Tracked the Front Groups Fueling the 2026 Midterms.

The first big AI super PAC to launch in August 2025 was Leading the Future, which was bankrolled by the president of OpenAI and its investors. A rival super PAC network, Public First, launched months later with the goal of countering Leading the Future’s influence. Its donors include Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who gave $1 million. Anthropic has also given a nonprofit associated with Public First millions of dollars, while stipulating that the money cannot be used on elections. Public First says that it supports tighter regulations than its rival.

The two networks plowed $50.7 million into the primaries, campaign finance records show. Most of that money was spent on primary races where the outcome was in doubt, driven by an eye-popping $21.3 million the networks spent on supporting or opposing a single congressional candidate, Alex Bores, in the Democratic primary for New York’s 12th Congressional District.

Bores, a New York State Assembly member, attracted the ire of those in the industry who favor a laissez-faire approach by authoring an AI regulation bill in the state legislature.

Leading the Future succeeded in defeating Bores, who lost to his State Assembly colleague Micah Lasher in June. But the group drew intense blowback in the process. Many observers suggested Leading the Future’s spending had boosted Bores rather than hurt him, because it gave him a chance to position himself as a foe of the AI industry — while also benefiting from a PAC aligned with the Public First network.

“Down to the wire, they were sweating,” Bores told The Intercept, referring to Leading the Future. “I think people who have been in politics for a while will realize that their spending really served to elevate the issue of AI.”

Leading the Future did not respond to a request for comment.

After wading into contested primary elections, the two leading AI super PAC networks have held back from spending on competitive general elections — even though they have plenty of money in the bank.

Until a few days ago, Public First had spent nothing on general election races. Leading the Future has spent only $7.4 million on general election races as of October 26, according to the FEC data, despite having $34 million in cash on hand across its network as of its most recent report.

Only 31 percent of that total has gone toward competitive races, as measured by the independent analytics website FiftyPlusOne. The only reason Leading the Future has spent money on competitive general election races at all is because it’s backing U.S. Sen. Darline Graham, R-S.C., who filled the seat of her late brother Lindsey Graham and is now facing an unexpectedly fierce challenge from a Democrat to win a full term in ruby-red South Carolina.

“They are not going to have an impact on the balance of power in Congress,” said Shaunna Thomas, one of the founders of Guardrails Alliance, another new super PAC set up to counter Leading the Future’s influence. “They are spending money on candidates who they think will protect their ability to control if and how they are regulated.”

Public First has only recently started spending a relatively small sum on a handful of general election races. The spending had amounted to $1.1 million as of the morning of October 26, according to processed FEC data.

Asked for comment on how its strategy has changed since the primaries, a Public First spokesperson said that it was still trying to support “strong advocates for AI regulation.”

“Public First was founded as a counterweight to Leading the Future, and that fight looks very different today. Leading the Future is going dark. Its biggest backers are walking away,” said Anthony Rivera-Rodriguez, the spokesperson.

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Into that gap have stepped new groups pushing for tougher AI regulation such as the Guardrails Alliance, which bills itself as a grassroots alternative to corporate-backed super PACs. It is funded in large part by Silicon Valley tech workers but has taken a more aggressive stance against “tech oligarchs.” Guardrails has spent about $2 million thus far and reported having $1.2 million on hand as of October 14.

About three-quarters of voters are less likely to support a candidate they know has received support from an AI super PAC, according to a Data for Progress poll of more than 3,000 likely voters in Iowa, Michigan, and Ohio commissioned by Guardrails. Voters were more concerned about spending from AI companies than from crypto companies or AIPAC.

The dislike for data centers and AI cuts across party lines. In Michigan’s purple 7th Congressional District, Democratic candidate Will Lawrence has seized on data centers as one of his leading issues.

“The politics of this are terrible. Eighty percent of everybody is against it, whether you’re a Democrat, independent, or Republican,” he told supporters at a recent town hall.

Notably, neither of the super PAC networks has intervened in Lawrence’s race, despite it being one of the closest in the nation. (Lawrence’s campaign has pointed out that Elon Musk, who leads AI company xAI, has spent against Lawrence via his America PAC.)

There are emerging signs that the big AI super PAC networks are changing tactics in response to that public distaste. Public First’s dark-money affiliate donated $3 million since August to a preexisting super PAC supporting California state Sen. Scott Wiener, one of two Democrats vying to replace retiring Rep. Nancy Pelosi in California.

Leading the Future, meanwhile, gave a $500,000 donation on October 9 to a pro-data center nonprofit called Build American AI.

AI super PAC critics are also watching to see what Leading the Future will do, given its large war chest.

“I think they are going to continue to spend. I think they are going to try to do more and more spending that isn’t as easily tracked, because they are such political dead weight,” said Bores.

Delaware Corporations

When single-issue super PACs know their issue is unpopular, they use vague names, “pop-up” affiliates, and other dubious tactics to hide their activities from voters.

Add another one to the list: Leading the Future has routed more than $30 million of spending through newly minted Delaware corporations, blocking transparency during an election that has been defined by voter backlash against the industry.

Those apparent shell corporations have accounted for the lion’s share of the largest artificial intelligence super PAC network’s expenses during this year’s election.

The practice is a flagrant violation of Federal Election Commission guidelines that require campaign organizations to disclose which consultants, pollsters, and advertisers they are paying, a campaign watchdog alleged in a complaint filed in May.

There may be little recourse for observers worried about the lack of transparency for now, however. The FEC is short of the quorum that would allow it to take action on complaints such as the one filed by the Campaign Legal Center. (Leading the Future, which did not respond to a request for comment, has previously defended its tactics as legal in a statement to Wired.)

The Leading the Future network was funded in large part by an executive at or investors in OpenAI, one of the world’s largest AI companies. (In 2024, The Intercept sued OpenAI in federal court over the company’s use of copyrighted articles to train its chatbot ChatGPT. The case is ongoing.)

Company president Greg Brockman and his wife, Anna Brockman, donated $25 million to the network last year. When it came time to spend that money, the Leading the Future network leaned on two affiliate super PACs, one for Democratic candidates called Think Big and the other for Republican candidates called American Mission.

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That is a typical tactic of the new breed of single-issue super PACs popularized by the crypto industry. Campaign finance reform advocates say it may help obscure the origin of campaign ads from voters but does not run afoul of any laws itself.

What those super PACs did next raised red flags for watchdogs, however. Since December, American Mission has reported spending $17.4 million through a Delaware-incorporated limited liability corporation called Summit Ridge Media Group, on services ranging from media placement to ad production to consulting.

Think Big has spent $21.3 million through a different Delaware corporation, Lantern Production Consultants, on a similarly wide range of expenses.

The grab bag of expenses is a giveaway that the super PACs are likely using the newly created corporations to hide their true vendors, according to Shanna Ports, a senior legal counsel at the Campaign Legal Center.

“There’s no way of knowing what is motivating this arrangement — but I know there is backlash to AI. It is possible that the vendors who are working with American Mission and Think Big don’t want to be identified in FEC reports,” Ports said.

Thomas, of the rival super PAC Guardrails Alliance, told The Intercept she thinks the network is obscuring its spending because a lax regulatory approach has become “politically toxic.”

“Their donors don’t want to be associated, their candidates don’t want their support, and their vendors don’t want to be associated,” Thomas said. “If you were public, you are running away. If you are not, you are interested in not being exposed.”

This story was supported by a grant from the Tarbell Center for AI Journalism.

The post AI Tried to Buy the Midterms — Then the Lobby Learned Everyone Hates AI appeared first on The Intercept.

In the words of the biggest name in the outside elections-spending game, “Being pro-Israel is good policy and good politics.” 

This midterms cycle, however, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s strategy seems to suggest the opposite. Contrary to its signature slogan, AIPAC’s name has become anathema to voters across the political spectrum repulsed by Israel’s genocide in Gaza and frustrated by Washington’s outpouring of military aid for a foreign government while domestic costs soar.

So it’s going underground. As The Intercept reported in December, AIPAC entered the 2026 midterms by returning to its strategic roots — funding other groups and uniting donors, rather than focusing on direct-to-candidate spending. Now, AIPAC has announced that it will no longer officially endorse or contribute directly to candidates. 

Though progressives welcomed the announcement as evidence of AIPAC’s retreat, it’s far from a sign that AIPAC is backing down. The group is expected to continue spending heavily on elections through its super PAC, which took advantage of campaign finance loopholes to conceal its involvement in several races this cycle until after elections had already passed. To Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, AIPAC’s opting for obscurity shows that “its brand has become politically radioactive.”

But how much has really changed? As AIPAC shifts strategy, a new project by The Intercept reveals the hundreds of candidates still taking its cash, plus how the money paid off for them. The data suggests that though the pro-Israel lobbying giant may be weakened, it’s still dominant.

The Intercept tracked how much the group and its super PAC spent on elections to put pro-Israel candidates on the ballot in this year’s midterms — including the money it tried to keep out of the public eye. While AIPAC makes use of a series of new pop-ups and pass-throughs, it still poured millions directly into 2026 midterm races. Its candidates usually still win.

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The new data builds on a 2024 project in which The Intercept documented just how AIPAC shaped the last congressional class. At the time, Donald Trump was preparing for his return to the presidency as Kamala Harris ran a campaign hamstrung by public disillusionment over the Biden administration’s unflinching support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. To critics of Israel desperate to stop the violence, the two parties looked equally bleak, and the pro-Israel lobby’s grip on Congress appeared unshakeable. 

It’s been different this cycle. Primaries across the country saw candidates win after vowing to cut off or restrict military aid to Israel, and incumbents signed on to legislation blocking weapons transfers in an attempt to keep their seats. But the shift should not be overstated: AIPAC still waded into nearly three-quarters of races, and its candidates still won far more often than they lost.

In total, AIPAC or its super PAC, United Democracy Project, spent on 333 of the 473 seats up for election this year.

These are the dollars AIPAC and UDP spent directly in races. The former makes contributions to candidates, while the latter, as AIPAC’s leading super PAC, makes independent expenditures, like buying ads. They made up the bulk of the pro-Israel lobby’s known elections spending — $53.3 million from AIPAC and $66.7 million from UDP, compared to $53.7 million and $41.4 million last cycle. Simultaneously, the groups took up another tack: making it harder to tell which races they were actually involved in. The group’s donors poured money into races where AIPAC didn’t officially endorse a candidate. AIPAC’s board president hosted a fundraiser for a candidate who swore the group wasn’t backing her. And in a series of races, no one knew for certain that AIPAC had spent on the election until after it was over.

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The group tested different strategies in different states, spending directly in the Michigan Senate race, for example, while concealing its spending in several other primaries. In those races, UDP gave money to other committees, including a series of “pop-up PACs,” groups that registered just before primaries, allowing them to delay disclosing their donors until after the election passed. Several of those groups took money from AIPAC’s super PAC, spent on ads against candidates critical of Israel, and then disappeared. 

The pop-ups and pass-throughs represent AIPAC’s most talked-about new tactic, but the lobbying group and its flagship super PAC still sunk the bulk of their spending into key races and high-priority states. The Intercept analyzed where AIPAC employed which strategy, how UDP dollars flowed through pop-up PACs, and which candidates received the most AIPAC and UDP cash in their primaries. 

The Direct Spending

The pro-Israel lobby’s biggest investment in the primaries turned out to be a disappointment. UDP spent more than $30 million on ads attacking Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed in the Michigan Senate race or backing his opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens. Now that El-Sayed is the Democratic nominee, UDP is also battling El-Sayed in his general election contest with Republican Mike Rogers, spending just over $500,000 so far. 

Thanks in part to the deluge of spending, the El-Sayed–Stevens contest was one of the marquee primaries of 2026, pitting a vocal critic of the pro-Israel lobby who could become the first Muslim U.S. senator against an enthusiastic AIPAC cash recipient who famously said: “Israel comes to me in my dreams.” It’s one of the key races where we’re breaking down the money AIPAC and UDP spent in favor of one candidate and against a clear opponent. We’re skipping Democratic House candidate Adrian Boafo, who benefited from $5.7 million in UDP spending, because his Maryland primary included 23 other candidates.

After Stevens and Boafo, the top AIPAC and UDP recipient from this year’s primaries was Rep. Wesley Bell, a moderate Democrat from Missouri who fended off a challenge from former Rep. Cori Bush to return to the House (AIPAC spent millions to oust her last cycle). When UDP spending is excluded, Bell received more AIPAC funding in the primaries than any other Democrat.

On the Republican side, the top beneficiary was Ed Gallrein, the Trump-backed challenger who unseated Rep. Thomas Massie in Kentucky. Massie, a libertarian critic of all foreign aid — including to Israel — was the relatively rare Republican incumbent AIPAC and UDP opposed.

Often, the pro-Israel groups backed Republican incumbents. Two more top recipients were Sen. Tom Cotton, who easily won his primary in Arkansas, and John Cornyn, who lost to state attorney general Ken Paxton in Texas.

But the greatest Republican recipient of AIPAC largesse — ahead of Gallrein, when UDP is excluded — did not face a primary opponent.

Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, now facing a tight general election contest against Democratic candidate Troy Jackson, has been a longtime beneficiary of campaign cash aligned with the pro-Israel lobby. Asked by Zeteo last year for her comment on Americans killed by the Israeli military, Collins shook her head and said only: “I am pro-Israel.” 

The Pop-Ups

On top of the $53.6 million it spent directly on races this cycle, United Democracy Project poured another $13.1 million into Democratic primaries by giving money to other committees whose names or stated agendas indicated no connection to Israel policy. That $13.1 million, more than triple the $3.5 million United Democracy gave through other groups last cycle, helped fund at least three pop-up PACs that formed this year. 

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The groups’ names offered little insight into their political agendas, as The Lever recently highlighted. UDP spent the most on popup PACs in a series of Democratic primaries around Chicago, where groups with names like Elect Chicago Women, Chicago Progressive Partnership, and Affordable Chicago Now! used their funds to attack candidates running on rejecting AIPAC money or ending U.S. military support for Israel. Several of the groups also received funding from major United Democracy Project donors, and three of them shut down after the primaries and gave their money back to United Democracy Project. 

In other cases, United Democracy Project funded long-established political action committees with ties to current or former House Democratic leaders, like Bold America, which was formed by former members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. That group got almost a quarter of the $12.2 million it reported raising this year from UDP. The UDP share, $2.8 million, was nearly equivalent to the $2.9 million Bold America spent against Darializa Avila Chevalier, a democratic socialist and pro-Palestine activist who defeated incumbent and Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Adriano Espaillat in New York.

The super PAC EDW Action Fund was similar. Former Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Cheri Bustos and former Rep. Annie Kuster formed that group in late 2023 as an offshoot of the political action committee Elect Democratic Women. Like Bold America, EDW Action got about a quarter of its funding from UDP. It also provided more than 80 percent of the funding for Pro-Choice Majority Action, a new PAC that formed in May and spent in 12 primaries. The group presents itself as supporting Democratic women, but Pro-Choice Majority Action notably spent against pro-Palestine candidates like Melat Kiros, who ran a primary challenge against Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., and won. 

In a statement to The Intercept, Pro-Choice Majority Action spokesperson Lenny Young dismissed reporting characterizing the group as a pop-up PAC and said it had backed 23 candidates with a range of views on Israel across the primaries and general election.

“To suggest that we would deny a Democratic woman from being elected to Congress because of her position on Israel, on either side, misses the whole point,” Young said. “We want more Democratic women in Congress because we believe it would improve the lives of women and families. Period.”

Bold America did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment. Emails to Elect Chicago Women, Chicago Progressive Partnership, and Affordable Chicago Now! bounced back because the groups have shut down.

UDP gave another $2.65 million to groups that did not spend directly on ads in Democratic primaries this cycle. 

In August, United Democracy Project gave $1.65 million to a group called SD PAC, also known as Save Democracy PAC, which registered in 2020 and has supported Democratic candidates in past general elections. The group did not directly conduct any outside spending in Democratic primaries this year, but it funneled money to affiliate groups that did — some of which funded attacks against progressives.

The other recipient of money from UDP, Palmetto Action, formed in May and only spent in South Carolina’s Republican Senate primary. The group backed Sen. Lindsey Graham before his death in July, then received a cash infusion from UDP and started supporting Graham’s sister, Darline, ahead of a special Senate primary. The group did not report any additional spending in its last filing due before the general election.

Palmetto Action, Save Democracy PAC, and EDW Action Fund did not respond to The Intercept’s requests for comment.

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If last cycle AIPAC proved that it could leverage its financial advantage to target critics of Israel, its performance this cycle suggests that its money has become a faltering superpower. 

New pro-Palestine groups have sprung up to spend against AIPAC — though their pockets aren’t nearly as deep. When candidates went head-to-head this cycle in primaries defined by U.S. military support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza, pro-Palestine candidates often came out on top. 

For decades before it started spending directly on elections, “AIPAC operated in the shadows,” Friedman, of Foundation for Middle East Peace, said. Its endorsements were once “clear but unofficial,” she added, and its funding operated through “informal understandings with big donors and allied but ostensibly independent PACs.” 

Today, “AIPAC is trying out a sort of middle road,” Friedman said. “It will return in part to the shadows — no direct endorsements, no direct donations — but it will also continue to flex its power directly in elections, via tactics it has been testing and honing these past four years.”

If anything, next cycle could see an expansion of the recent pop-up PAC strategy, making it harder to tell when AIPAC is involved — until it’s too late. 

The post AIPAC Isn’t Retreating. Here’s How It’s Already Shaping the Next Congress. appeared first on The Intercept.

Why Should Delaware Care?
The Mother African Union Church is one of the oldest Black-founded congregations in the United States and has served as a refuge for generations of people. More than five months after a fire destroyed its building, investigators say they cannot pinpoint what caused it, though the case remains open.

More than five months after a fire destroyed the historic Mother African Union Church in Wilmington, investigators have officially classified the cause of the blaze as “undetermined.”

The Wilmington Fire Department announced the finding Tuesday in a statement posted to Facebook. 

Officials said that during their investigation they looked at all leads and searched areas of the charred structure deemed safe to enter. They said that a structural engineer determined that a large portion of the fire-damaged building was too unstable for investigators to go inside. 

While the cause is undetermined, fire officials said the investigation will remain open, and “further investigative steps will be taken as warranted based on any additional information that may arise.”

The statement comes after many in Wilmington waited anxiously to learn the cause of the May 17 fire that sent flames towering above the historic Black church. It had served as the physical home of the 200-year-old Mother African Union congregation since the 1960s.

Immediately following the blaze, Wilmington Fire Chief John Looney told the public that fire investigations of this significance “could take a couple weeks.” At the time, he noted that the engineer’s structural assessment had not been completed. 

In August, Elliot Larkin, Wilmington’s land use director, told Spotlight Delaware that fire officials had not been able to enter the site physically to conduct their investigation. 

“Due to the assessed instability and the water level within the basement, firefighters/officials would not enter the site physically, and an unmanned assessment, if possible, would be used instead,” Larkin told Spotlight Delaware in August. 

Larkin also told Spotlight Delaware that the severity of the damage caused by the fire meant the remains of the building had to be demolished. 

Officials from Wilmington’s Fire Marshal Office did not respond to the question of whether an “unmanned investigation” was actually conducted. 

Wilmington Fire Marshal Deputy Chief Andre Cooper also declined to answer questions about the evidence that was gathered during the investigation and the methods used. He also declined to provide the engineer’s structural analysis report that was completed after the fire. 

A Spotlight Delaware open records request for those documents is pending. 

According to the Tuesday statement, the Wilmington Fire Marshal’s Office, the Delaware State Fire Marshal’s Office, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the church’s insurance company all took part in the investigation. 

Four months before city officials classified the cause of the fire as “undetermined,” the fire department also took to Facebook in June to refute rumors that had been circulating, noting that “any information being disseminated on social media is false.”

Will the church be rebuilt?  

The Rev. Ronald Whitaker, senior pastor at the historic church, told Spotlight Delaware in August that he understands the cause may not be found because of the magnitude of the fire.

He also told Spotlight Delaware that he and his team plan to rebuild the church in the same location. 

“As far as I’m concerned, 812 North Franklin Street is still the Mother African Union Church home,” he said. 

Earlier this month, the Wilmington City Council passed a resolution to contribute $10,650 to the church’s rebuilding. A GoFundMe set up for the church’s restoration has also raised more than $24,000.  

During a press conference held next to the church one day after the fire, New Castle County Executive Marcus Henry said he would provide public dollars for the rebuilding effort. Since then, officials from Henry’s office said conversations with the church have taken place, but nothing has yet been finalized.

The post Cause of fire at historic Black church in Wilmington ruled ‘undetermined’ appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

The ex-presidential candidate tells Democrats to prosecute corruption and bring real change for the working class

A corporate plutocracy. A broken healthcare system. Massive and widening inequality. Cash-soaked elections. Angry people struggling to pay their bills and disgusted with lawmakers in Washington DC.

Nearly everything that pushed famed consumer-rights advocate Ralph Nader to launch the 2000 presidential run that made him a political pariah in Washington is front and center as the US gears up for the 2026 midterm elections. But this time, things are much, much worse.

Elizabeth Warren and others joined by unions and industry experts in warning against the weakening of regulations

Ssenator Elizabeth Warren, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and several other Democratic lawmakers are calling on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha) to abandon a rollback of respirator mask regulations, a change the lawmakers say would weaken worker protections against hazardous substances.

Under the proposed rules, employers would face fewer requirements to provide workers with respirators masks when working with substances including “lead, asbestos, formaldehyde and inorganic arsenic, among other chemicals”, the lawmakers wrote in a letter to the Osha assistant secretary, David Keeling, a former UPS and Amazon executive.

Last November, the Department of Health and Human Services announced the elimination of “black box” warnings on hormone replacement therapies, aiming to reverse nearly two decades of stigma surrounding a key treatment for menopause symptoms.  

Among the officials at a press conference about the decision was Alicia Jackson, director of a federal health agency that invests taxpayer money in medical technology and research. As Jackson stood behind a lectern adorned with the HHS logo, she praised the new policy, calling it a victory for women and science.

“Today we have the opportunity to add up to a decade of healthy years to the life of every woman that you love,” Jackson said. “The science is clear: Hormone therapy is safe and effective. And it is hugely beneficial to the vast majority of women.”

Less clear that day were the financial benefits the new policy could bring Jackson, according to disclosure records obtained by ProPublica.  

Jackson is the founder and former chief executive of Evernow, an online platform that connects women with medical experts who treat the symptoms of menopause. Although she left for federal service last year, she kept at least $115,000 in Evernow stock and an unknown amount of stock options, records show. 

Those are just part of a multimillion-dollar portfolio Jackson holds with her husband, a venture capitalist, that poses potential conflicts of interest with her work overseeing the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, known as ARPA-H.

It’s unclear what role, if any, Jackson played in dropping the black box warning, the most serious type of federal safety warning that is reserved for drugs with severe side effects or life-threatening risks. A different agency, the Food and Drug Administration, regulates drugs, and its panel of experts had recommended an end to the warning requirement months before Jackson arrived in government.

But ethics experts called Jackson’s official endorsement of the warning removal “alarming” and an “obvious conflict of interest,” noting federal law prohibits government employees from participating “personally and substantially” in matters that could influence their personal finances — even making statements at a press conference or in a news release, as she also did.

“We should care because her company is apparently intending to profit off this change in policy that she endorsed as a government official while still retaining a financial interest in the company,” said Virginia Canter, who served as an ethics lawyer at the White House, Treasury Department and Securities and Exchange Commission during the presidencies of George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

“I say it puts her within the zone of a potential violation,” she said.   

Months after the announced end to the warning notices, Evernow launched a nationwide expansion. 

Under federal law, agency officials like Jackson are required to submit financial disclosure forms, which must then be certified as complying with ethics laws. But Jackson’s two financial disclosures — filed last October and two months ago — remain uncertified. Canter said it is not unusual for an agency’s ethics office to ask the inspector general to investigate if staff cannot certify that an individual’s disclosure forms meet ethics standards.     

Over two months, ProPublica sought comment from Jackson and submitted questions about her work, investments and ethics records. Jackson did not respond, and HHS never addressed our detailed questions. 

But in a statement to ProPublica last week, an agency spokesperson said Jackson has been placed on administrative leave and HHS would “assess the facts before determining any change in her status. HHS requires all officials to comply with federal ethics laws, regulations, and policies.” 

HHS declined to answer additional questions about the reasons for Jackson’s leave, the decision’s timing or whether the inspector general was investigating. 

Earlier this week, Bloomberg Law reported on the HHS statement that Jackson was on leave and made public a draft memo by one of the agency’s senior officials that would have granted Jackson a conflict waiver involving many of her and her husband’s extensive investments. Since she joined ARPA-H, the memo said, Jackson and her husband’s financial ties required her to recuse herself from “a significant portion” of her duties, including discussions about funding awarded by her agency. The waiver named 30 investments and would have allowed Jackson to take part in decisions that could affect those interests. Evernow is not listed. 

Bloomberg reported that two firms with ties to Jackson sought ARPA-H funding, but it was unclear if either received any. HHS did not respond to ProPublica’s questions asking whether the waiver was ever granted or if the firms had received money from ARPA-H. The Office of Government Ethics does not list Jackson among federal officials who have received waivers.

Jackson’s disclosures are among 2,400 added Thursday to ProPublica’s Trump Team Financials database, a searchable tool launched in March. The records detail the finances of more than 2,300 officials appointed by President Donald Trump. Since last year, we’ve requested disclosure records from 127 federal agencies and the White House. Disclosures from roughly 1,500 appointees remain unreleased. 

The Trump administration’s massive cuts to the federal bureaucracy have taken a toll on the ranks of ethics staff. By the end of 2025, there were 274 fewer full-time ethics officials, according to a recent analysis of federal survey records by the government watchdog group Campaign Legal Center. Some agencies said the losses hampered ethics officers’ ability to conduct training and monitor employee compliance. 

Trump appointees failed to file nearly 420 legally mandated public financial disclosure reports last year, almost a fourfold spike compared with the Biden administration’s last full year, the center found. Nevertheless, our database provides the most complete source yet for this administration’s ethics documents. 

Potential Serious Conflicts

Jackson spent years navigating the worlds of technological research, government and entrepreneurship, according to her government bio and LinkedIn profile. 

After earning a doctorate in materials science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2007, she worked briefly as a U.S. Senate policy staffer. She subsequently joined the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency as a program manager, later becoming deputy director of its first biotechnology office.

Jackson left the Defense Department in mid-2015, going on to lead several biotech businesses before starting Evernow in 2019. The San Francisco-based company connects women experiencing sometimes debilitating menopause symptoms with medical providers who prescribe treatments. 

Evernow offers patients one-time treatments or memberships for frequent care. Its website lists celebrity angel investors, including Gwyneth Paltrow, Cameron Diaz, Demi Moore and Drew Barrymore.

Jackson was appointed by Trump as ARPA-H’s second director and was sworn in on Oct. 20, 2025. The agency, created three years earlier to spur revolutionary biomedical research and technologies, has a $1.5 billion budget. It has issued numerous contracts and grants, including $160 million for genetic medicines combating rare diseases and $144 million to study existing treatments for age-related illnesses.

In both of her financial statements, Jackson said she owned Evernow stock worth between $115,002 and $300,000. (Federal disclosures include value ranges, not specific figures.) She also listed company stock options whose value, she said in her most recent financial report, were “not readily ascertainable.” (In a statement late Wednesday, Evernow said Jackson does not currently hold a financial interest in the company. The firm did not immediately respond to follow-up questions.)

Jackson’s disclosures also show investments in Gameto Inc., a Texas-based biotechnology company working through a two-year, $10 million award from ARPA-H to create ovarian treatments preventing menopause-related diseases. The award predated Jackson joining ARPA-H. But as her office oversaw Gameto’s project, her stock’s value increased, documents show. 

Jackson’s Gameto investment was worth between $15,001 and $50,000 in her October 2025 disclosure. Her Aug. 13 filing shows it grew to between $50,001 and $100,000. It’s unclear what drove the increase in value.

In addition, Jackson owns more than 60 venture capital and private equity funds that she says do not disclose their holdings to investors. 

These include at least 13 funds managed by 137 Ventures, a venture capital firm co-founded by Jackson’s husband, Alex Jacobson. The company invests in a wide range of industries, including healthcare, digital health and medical device companies, according to its website. 

Federal appointees must list their spouses’ employment, but Jackson never included her husband’s role at 137 Ventures on her public disclosures. Jacobson did not respond to requests for comment.

Ethics experts said Jackson’s funds could pose a serious conflict of interest if the underlying businesses they invested in received grants or contracts from her agency. To resolve such risks, federal agencies typically require employees to work with the investment vehicles to identify the contents of such funds. If the investment firms insisted on anonymity, employees could be required to sell the funds or recuse themselves from actions potentially affecting the assets, the experts said. 

However, 10 months after starting work at HHS, Jackson retained the funds and their underlying investments remained undisclosed, according to her August financial statement. 

Kedric Payne, Campaign Legal Center’s vice president, general counsel and senior director for ethics, said Jackson’s lack of disclosure about her husband and the funds she owns “suggests that agency leaders may be hiding their conflicts of interest from the public, and there is no ethics enforcement to stop it.”

The disclosures also show her husband owns between $5 million and $25 million worth of stock in Palantir Technologies, which had a $19 million contract from Jackson’s agency when she became ARPA-H director. Palantir, which has similar contracts with other federal agencies, is using its software and AI technology to build and improve ARPA-H’s data infrastructure and operational systems. In June, ARPA-H extended the company’s contract by a year, records show. The renewal is worth up to $13.7 million for Palantir.

The draft waiver obtained by Bloomberg would have allowed Jackson to take part in decisions that could affect Palantir, Gameto and more than two dozen other investments but says she must still comply with the terms of an ethics agreement. The draft waiver includes a note dated April 30 — six months after Jackson started the job — that says discussions about the ethics agreement were ongoing. In addition to Evernow, the waiver does not specifically mention the funds managed by 137 Ventures. 

HHS officials would not answer repeated questions about whether Jackson recused herself from Palantir’s contract, has an ethics agreement or has divested any assets. The agency has not produced an ethics agreement in response to a July Freedom of Information Act request. 

Public Good or Personal Gain?

Since January 2025, ProPublica has continually obtained disclosure records to investigate how personal financial interests have intersected with government decision-making inside the Trump administration. The new disclosures added to our searchable tool Thursday include many that have raised concerns about additional conflicts of interest, including at HHS. 

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Jackson’s ultimate boss, has drawn questions about whether he used his office to help his wife, actress Cheryl Hines.

According to his latest financial disclosure, Hines’ media company, Youngster Productions Inc., received $210,000 in consulting fees from MAHA Action, a nonprofit promoting Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again agenda. Under the contract, Hines has vigorously advocated for MAHA Action, appearing in several videos and press releases. The group has also claimed credit for policy actions launched by Kennedy’s HHS.

News of the contract, first reported by The New York Times, prompted the Campaign Legal Center to ask the HHS inspector general to examine whether Kennedy made or influenced policies that benefited his wife. Kennedy also received more than $270,000 in gifts from allies working to bolster MAHA, his disclosure showed.

“Americans deserve to know whether their leaders are prioritizing the public good or focusing more on their personal financial gain,” said Payne of Campaign Legal Center. 

HHS denied any wrongdoing by Kennedy, telling the Times the secretary “complies with all applicable federal ethics laws, regulations and financial disclosure requirements.”

Campaign Legal Center’s analysis of federal ethics staff this year found Kennedy’s cuts to the agency eliminated nearly 30% of HHS’ full-time ethics workers. 

Another HHS official whose disclosures raised ethical alarms was the agency’s top attorney, Mike Stuart. Stuart was reassigned after a Washington Sun investigation found he invested in a company doing business with the department and repurchased stock in other businesses that ethics officials had required him to sell. 

The Office of Government Ethics refused to certify Stuart’s annual disclosure report “due to continued non-compliance” with his ethics agreement, the Sun revealed.

Stuart said he didn’t know of the company’s involvement with the department and immediately sold his stock when ethics officials raised questions. “My whole career, I’ve never had even a whiff of an ethical issue. I’m extra careful that I am completely in compliance,” Stuart told the Sun. 

The disclosures obtained by ProPublica since early last year have revealed potential conflicts across the federal government, including at the highest levels.

In December, ProPublica reported that Trump had appointed more than 200 people who collectively owned — personally or with their spouses — between $175 million and $340 million in cryptocurrency investments at the time they filed their disclosures. Some hold positions overseeing or influencing crypto industry regulation. 

Among them is Todd Blanche, Trump’s former criminal defense attorney and now the nation’s attorney general. Blanche’s disclosures show that he owned at least $159,000 in crypto-related assets last year when, as the Justice Department’s second-highest official, he shut down investigations into crypto companies, dealers and exchanges. 

Democrats in Congress accused Blanche of a “glaring conflict of interest”; a Justice Department spokesperson said Blanche’s action was “appropriately flagged, addressed and cleared in advance.” An Office of Government Ethics official noted on Blanche’s latest disclosure that the inspector general “declined further action” related to the crypto holdings.

Other disclosures helped show that senior executive branch officials, including Pam Bondi when she was attorney general, made well-timed securities trades, selling stocks just before markets plunged because Trump announced new tariffs. (The officials either did not respond to requests for comment or denied having insider information before trading.)

Disclosure forms also revealed in July that Federal Communications Commission officials took pricey gifts from Paramount, including tickets worth $12,000 and skybox seats worth $125,000 each for the annual honors gala at the Kennedy Center. The media giant provided the perks while seeking FCC approval for its mergers with Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery. (The FCC said agency ethics officers approved the commissioners’ attendance as consistent with ethics law.)

Our database has helped other news organizations uncover potential conflicts of interest. The Lever, for instance, found that the Pentagon’s chief technology officer was “a central figure in the decision to blacklist the AI company Anthropic” while owning a stake in a competitive AI developer. A Defense Department spokesperson said the official, Emil Michael, fully complied with ethics requirements.

The post Top U.S. Health Official Backed a Medication Policy Shift That Benefited a Company She Has Stock In appeared first on ProPublica.

Russia-Ukraine war: Who will break first? 3 November 2026 — 12:00 TO 13:00 GMT Anonymous (not verified) 29 October 2026 Chatham House and Online

Hear from Arseniy Yatsenyuk, former Prime Minister of Ukraine, as he discusses mounting military and economic pressures on both sides, and how Kyiv can sustain the defence of its sovereignty.

Hear from Arsenyi Yatsenyuk, former Prime Minister of Ukraine as he discusses mounting military and economic pressures on both sides, and how can Kyiv sustain defence of its sovereignty.

The Russia–Ukraine war is placing mounting pressure on both countries as battlefield attrition combines with growing economic strain. Russian aerial attacks continue to test Ukraine’s infrastructure and economy, while Moscow faces its own financial pressures and Ukrainian attacks on oil refineries and military industry. The question is whether either side can sustain the fight or whether these pressures could change the war’s trajectory.

This event discusses

• How is the character of the Russia–Ukraine war changing?
• How are Russian aerial attacks affecting Ukraine’s economy and population?
• How could changes to US sanctions affect Russia’s calculations?
• What resources does Russia have to continue the war, and who is enabling it externally?
• How can Ukraine meet its growing funding requirements?
• What pressures on the Kremlin could shift the course of the war?

Healey’s attempt to provide ‘breathing space’ gives rich almost as much as poor, says Resolution Foundation

• Business live – latest updates

• Budget 2026: what it means for your wallet, your mortgage and your pay

John Healey delivered a “scattergun” budget that did little to boost living standards and left Britain facing “a painful second half” of the parliament, a leading economic thinktank has warned.

The Resolution Foundation said on Thursday that measures to ease household gas and electricity costs would still leave energy bills higher this year than during the last energy shock.

Quarterbacks in 2026 have a series of dazzling weapons at their disposal. We rank the best of the receivers in the NFL at the moment

NB: We have restricted the list below to players in their prime years, so excellent, older receivers such as Mike Evans and Davante Adams have been left out.

Pat McAfee’s reaction to a few mild jokes shows how the ubiquitous ESPN personality is happy to whip up a crowd into a hostile frenzy but is terrified of any criticism

It was all shaping up to be a golden year for Pat McAfee. The man who landed a five-year, $85m deal in 2023 to take The Pat McAfee Show to ESPN had cemented himself as the star attraction of the sports broadcaster’s bold new era of stunts, stupidity and memebrain swill. His persistently honking presence on the set of ESPN’s College GameDay had helped push ratings to new heights. ESPN executives were so impressed with McAfee they were reportedly in negotiations to award him a new contract worth between $60m and $65m a year; one even went so far as to describe him as a “generational” media talent.

Then, over the weekend, disaster struck. A handful of college kids attacked him online ahead of his appearance with College GameDay at the University of Utah. Well, “attacked” is maybe overstating things: they made a few mild jokes at his expense. But it was all too much for ESPN’s brightest blimp. Suddenly, McAfee’s world came crashing down. His initial reaction, to be fair, was mild: “The university’s Instagram account posted something talking a little trash about me last night, which I certainly love,” he said ahead of the Utes’ clash with the Houston Cougars last week.

The plastics industry spent decades convincing consumers that throwing used products stamped with the “chasing arrows” symbol into a curbside bin meant they would be recycled.

Now, amid growing awareness that many of those items never get reprocessed, the industry is championing a pair of proposals in Congress that would give misleading recycling claims the support of federal law.

On the surface, the two bipartisan House bills promise transparency for consumers by establishing national standards for recycling and recycled content labels. 

But the legislation — promoted by oil, chemical and packaging companies that spend millions of dollars lobbying Congress each year — would forbid states from setting stricter requirements. That would neutralize efforts like California’s “truth in labeling” law, which bans the chasing arrow symbol on plastic products that contain toxic chemicals or that can’t realistically be recycled.

One of the measures would endorse a controversial form of “mass balance” accounting that allows companies to claim a product contains recycled content when virtually none of it came from reprocessed plastic. Two years ago, a ProPublica investigation exposed the misleading, mathematical sleight of hand used in that type of mass balance, which the Biden administration subsequently prohibited for specific products.

Both bills, which have gained momentum and could face a full House vote after the midterm elections, “are peak greenwashing,” Rachel Fullmer, a staff attorney on toxics and environmental health at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in an email. They “champion deceptive, anti-consumer policies which would result in an increase in plastic production and plastic waste incineration, all while hiding behind the false brand of ‘recycling.’”

Experts say the best solution to the plastics crisis wreaking havoc on human health and the environment is to make and use less of the material; recycling remains a marginal solution at best.

The bills tackle a growing threat to the industry, as several states have proposed or passed laws that require manufacturers to more honestly acknowledge the challenges of recycling plastic. Those measures could force companies to spend money changing their packaging or labels.

The Consumer Brands Association, which represents the packaged goods industry including Amazon, PepsiCo and Land O’Lakes, praised the House bills. 

These proposals “work in tandem to reduce consumer confusion and plastic waste while providing much-needed clarity to support new domestic innovations and investments,” the organization wrote to the leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in July. They “demonstrate that consumer protection and recycling-focused efforts go hand-in-hand with promoting affordability and manufacturing investments, and we strongly encourage your support for both bills.”  

The association spent $2.4 million in the first half of 2026 lobbying on these bills and other issues, according to data from OpenSecrets. In September, the two recycling bills cleared the House committee.

Five Democratic House members, including three from Texas, are among the 13 co-sponsors of the bill that endorses mass balance accounting. The other has 19 co-sponsors, including one Democrat. 

A few weeks ago, Sen. John Curtis, a Utah Republican, introduced the mass balance bill in the Senate; it currently has no other co-sponsors. 

Sheen of Recyclability

Consumers have long been confused by the chasing arrows symbol on many plastic containers. The label was created in 1970 to encourage paper recycling. The plastics industry began placing it on its products in the 1980s to quell public outrage over plastic pollution. 

The symbol gave plastic the sheen of recyclability, even though most items cannot be reprocessed due to economic or technical barriers. The Environmental Protection Agency estimated that 8.7% of U.S. plastic waste was recycled in 2018; the rest ended up in landfills or was incinerated. In 2019, the Department of Energy estimated the national plastic recycling rate at 5%. 

In recent years, the plastics industry has touted the promise of chemical recycling, a set of costly, often polluting technologies that break plastic into its molecular building blocks. Theoretically, these processes could take the most stubborn, unrecyclable plastics, like grocery store bags or string cheese wrappers, and rebuild them into new products.

That rarely happens. 

Take ExxonMobil’s chemical recycling plant in Baytown, Texas. It uses oil refinery equipment to heat up the plastic and transform it into different chemical compounds. 

Lee Zeldin, the EPA administrator, visited the Baytown plant last year. He later appeared in a promotional video, calling the facility a “proof of concept” for chemical recycling that could inspire “this entire country.”

But only 8% of the plastic waste processed by ExxonMobil gets transformed into new plastic, according to the California attorney general’s office, which sued the company in 2024 over “deceptively” promoting chemical recycling as an environmental solution. The other 92% mostly becomes fuel, which is burned rather than made into plastic products. 

Citing internal company records, the lawsuit states that the recycled plastic is so heavily diluted with new plastic, the resulting products contain less than 0.1% recycled content. 

In response, the company said in a court filing that while the state of California may not believe ExxonMobil’s recycling technologies are sufficient to solve the plastic waste crisis, “ExxonMobil did not assume liability for global pollution by innovating solutions to the problem.”

The company has marketed its chemically recycled products as containing “30% ISCC PLUS certified-circular” content, a technical term that could easily be misinterpreted as meaning 30% recycled material. That label is possible through a specific type of mass balance, which allows companies to claim credit in a new plastic product for the recycled molecules going into other things made in the chemical recycling process. Manufacturers can inflate the reported recycledness, or “circularity,” of the more lucrative products like plastic, while reducing the advertised recycled content of less valuable products. 

The Recycled Materials Attribution Act, introduced by Rep. Nick Langworthy, a New York Republican, would require the Federal Trade Commission to edit the Green Guides — advertising guidelines designed to prevent greenwashing — so mass balance is recognized as “an acceptable method for substantiating recycled content claims.” 

It would bypass the FTC’s own process for revising the Green Guides, which began several years ago. The agency had collected more than 1,000 public comments, including ones on whether limits should be placed on mass balance. 

The bill also prevents states from adopting stricter laws on mass balance. 

The Recycling Leadership Council is an industry consortium supporting Langworthy’s bill. The consortium quoted Langworthy in its February press release, touting the legislation as modernizing recycling guidelines “with a uniform national standard that protects consumers from misleading claims while giving American manufacturers the certainty they need to invest, innovate, and compete.”

In the first half of this year, the council spent $120,000 lobbying for Langworthy’s bill and related issues, including “advanced recycling” — the industry’s preferred term for chemical recycling.

“Advanced recycling technologies offer an important opportunity to keep more plastic waste out of landfills,” John Hewitt, spokesperson for the Recycling Leadership Council, said in an email. 

Hewitt, who also represents the Consumer Brands Association, cited a report from a center-left think tank, which concluded that investing in chemical recycling could more than double the U.S. plastic recycling rate.

Hewitt also defended the bill’s endorsement of mass balance, which “is an established method for tracking recycled materials through complex manufacturing processes, allowing companies to incorporate more recycled content into products.”

Chemical recycling has struggled to operate at scale. If the mass balance bill passes, it could help ExxonMobil and other companies grow their business, as consumers are willing to pay a premium for sustainable products.

ExxonMobil spent more than $5 million in the first half of 2026 lobbying on the mass balance bill and many other energy or environmental issues. The company didn’t return requests for comment.

Langworthy’s campaign committee received $157,000 from the energy sector in the 2026 election cycle, including oil and gas producers and chemical companies. He did not respond to requests for comment.

Bound for a Landfill

The other bill, the Packaging and Claims Knowledge (PACK) Act, would regulate which items can be marketed as recyclable, compostable or reusable. Consumer product packaging could only be stamped with the chasing arrows recycling symbol if at least 60% of consumers have access to recycling programs that accept the product. The item must also be technically recyclable, meaning it “can be” reprocessed into a new product — but there’s no requirement to show it’s economically feasible to do so. 

Recycling programs sometimes accept plastic products even when there’s no affordable way to ship them to a factory that will make them into something new; as a result, plastic that’s been collected for recycling ends up in a landfill or incinerator.

Products not meeting the 60% criteria must include qualifying language, such as “check locally” to see if it’s accepted for recycling.

The bill, introduced by Rep. Randy Weber, a Texas Republican, targets states like California that have stronger requirements for the chasing arrows symbol. A recent California law requires 60% of Californians to have access to facilities that routinely collect, sort and sell the products for reprocessing. In addition, products will be disqualified if they have inks or labels that prevent recycling, or if they contain certain levels of heavy metals and the “forever chemicals” known as PFAS, some of which are carcinogenic. 

When Weber introduced the bill last December, his press release called out California’s law: “Packaging and labeling standards in the United States are increasingly influenced by state-level regulations, particularly those adopted in California.” 

“The PACK Act cuts through that confusion,” he said in the press release. “It’s pro-environment, pro-business, and rooted in common sense.”

Weber did not return calls for comment. His campaign committee has received $206,000 from the energy sector and chemical companies during the 2026 election cycle. 

The bill provides little detail about who will make the crucial decisions on which products qualify or what data will be used. 

But at least some power will be given to unspecified “accredited third-party certification” groups, which will certify every product’s recyclability claim. These nominally independent organizations provide sustainability labels for various companies. 

One example of such a group is How2Recycle, which provides recycling labels — for a fee — to companies. The labels are meant to erase consumer confusion, by instructing them to “empty and replace cap” before recycling a particular kind of bottle, for instance. 

These third-party groups are supposed to be independent, but they’re easily captured by industry interests, said Kate O’Neill, an environmental science professor at the University of California-Berkeley who specializes in the politics of recycling.

How2Recycle’s parent organization, the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, has a membership dominated by retailers, brands and packaging companies. Members include Google, Chobani, 3M, Clorox and Lego. (The EPA and United States Postal Service are also members.) Several years ago, How2Recycle made the questionable claim that No. 5 plastics, used in yogurt tubs, were widely accepted for recycling. 

How2Recycle and the Sustainable Packaging Coalition didn’t return requests for comment before publication.

California’s law is under a preliminary injunction due to a lawsuit from food producers and packaging companies. However, consumers can still bring private lawsuits if they suspect companies of falsely using the recycling symbol on their products, Lynn Dyer, president of the packaging trade group Ameripen, said in an email.

“AMERIPEN recognized early that differing state rules could make it harder for businesses to explain how consumers should handle packaging after use,” Dyer said. So Ameripen brought together a coalition and “helped make the case to Congress,” resulting in Weber’s bill. The group has “been engaged in discussions with congressional staff from the outset, have closely followed the bill’s development, and draw on the experience of organizations across the packaging value chain.”

In July, Ameripen urged manufacturers, retailers and brands to tell their members of Congress to back the bill. Ameripen spent $160,000 lobbying for the legislation and other environmental issues from January to June 2026. 

ProPublica reached out to every co-sponsor of the House bills. Rep. Earl L. “Buddy” Carter, a Republican from Georgia who supports the PACK Act, was the only lawmaker who responded. 

“American consumers deserve clear, consistent, and reliable information about the products they purchase, and our manufacturers deserve a predictable set of rules to follow,” Carter said in a statement. “The PACK Act is about establishing a uniform national standard that eliminates confusion, supports American manufacturing, and provides greater certainty for businesses and consumers alike. We can promote responsible recycling practices without forcing American businesses to navigate a patchwork of conflicting state regulations.”

The co-sponsors of the Packaging and Claims Knowledge (PACK) Act are:

Rep. Troy Balderson, Republican of Ohio
Rep. Earl L. “Buddy” Carter, Republican of Georgia
Rep. Dan Crenshaw, Republican of Texas
Rep. Neal Dunn, Republican of Florida
Rep. Randy Feenstra, Republican of Iowa
Rep. Russ Fulcher, Republican of Idaho
Rep. Adam Gray, Democrat of California
Rep. Glenn Grothman, Republican of Wisconsin
Rep. David Joyce, Republican of Ohio
Rep. John Joyce, Republican of Pennsylvania
Rep. Nick Langworthy, Republican of New York
Rep. Laurel M. Lee, Republican of Florida
Rep. Addison McDowell, Republican of North Carolina
Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Republican of Iowa
Rep. Barry Moore, Republican of Alabama
Rep. Michael Rulli, Republican of Ohio
Rep. Bryan Steil, Republican of Wisconsin
Rep. Glenn Thompson, Republican of Pennsylvania
Rep. Tony Wied, Republican of Wisconsin

The co-sponsors of the Recycled Materials Attribution Act are:

Rep. Troy Balderson, Republican of Ohio
Rep. Dan Crenshaw, Republican of Texas
Rep. Henry Cuellar, Democrat of Texas
Rep. Donald Davis, Democrat of North Carolina
Rep. Gabe Evans, Republican of Colorado
Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, Democrat of Texas
Rep. Jeff Hurd, Republican of Colorado
Rep. Jonathan Jackson, Democrat of Illinois
Rep. Michael Lawler, Republican of New York
Rep. Addison McDowell, Republican of North Carolina
Rep. August Pfluger, Republican of Texas
Rep. Marc Veasey, Democrat of Texas
Rep. Randy Weber, Republican of Texas

Read More

The Delusion of “Advanced” Plastic Recycling

The post “Peak Greenwashing”: Two Bills in Congress Endorse Misleading Recycling Claims appeared first on ProPublica.

Most of the US gains an hour of sleep this weekend, but Hawaii and most of Arizona won’t change their clocks.

Opposition to the rapid emergence of data centers in states such as Ohio and Arizona has ginned up activism and unified voters. A range of public health issues have played into the resistance.

From a young chef and a single father to business owners and a pensioner, Guardian readers reveal how John Healey’s measures will affect them

• What the budget means for you

Louie, 24, a chef living in London, says a lot of people have “written off the idea of even considering getting a property” in their 20s.

Sanrio ends association with TV drama Vivant after China says portrayal of ruthless Chinese agents is ‘deliberate smear’

The company behind the successful Hello Kitty franchise has apologised and ended its commercial tie-up with a Japanese TV drama after Chinese state media and netizens condemned the show’s “deliberate smears” against China.

Sanrio, a Japanese firm whose characters are popular around the world, said in a post on the Chinese social media site Weibo that it had decided to end its association with the TV drama Vivant after concluding that it “contained elements inconsistent with Sanrio’s core values”.

Energy firm to return $5bn to shareholders as climate campaigners criticise high profits

• Business live – latest updates

Shell has doubled its profits in the last quarter after the Middle East conflict drove up the price of oil and gas and created shortages in the global market.

Shell reported on Thursday morning that it made an adjusted profit of $10.8bn (£8.1bn) in the July-September quarter, up from $5.432bn in the third quarter of 2025. The results beat analyst expectations for a rise to $10.33bn.

From Ms Rachel to Roc Nation, the internet embraced a Florida toddler. Police records reviewed by the Guardian complicate the story – and raise troubling questions

There is real tragedy in this week’s story of the three-year-old Florida boy whose parents claimed he was so good at soccer that police were called to do what opposing defenders couldn’t. But it doesn’t lie where the outrage cycle wants you to think. It’s broader, implicates more people, and to me, is far more depressing.

You may have seen the video by now. Here was a toddler with fabulous soccer talent, running end-to-end and scoring goal after goal against opponents who have seemingly just found their feet. The cameraman, later identified as the child’s father, loudly and proudly cheers his son on. Way to go, kid.

The Arab monarchies must help Washington and Tehran save face.

The folly of a hawkish restoration.

A 25-year-old German photographer won the 2026 Nikon Small World competition with a microscopic image freezing ink droplets in midair as an inkjet printer deposits them onto paper. Ars Technica reports that Ole Bielfeldt "beat out 1,802 other entries hailing from 69 different countries." From the report: Bielfeldt became interested in photomicrography during the COVID-19 lockdown after discovering an old microscope in his parents' attic. He figured out how to build an adaptor out of a tube and some wood to connect the microscope to his father's camera and taught himself the art through trial and error, building custom tools as needed. He documents how he captures transformative images of everyday objects with behind-the-scenes videos posted to macrofying, his photography and videography brand. It was Bielfeldt's curiosity about the inner workings of inkjet printers that inspired his winning entry, but capturing the action of ink drops being deposited on paper was a challenge, given that the process happens so quickly. The droplets, for instance, moved faster than the camera's shutter speed. Bielfeldt's solution was to deconstruct the printer so that the paper moved under a stationary (rather than moving) printhead, and then take the image in a dark room, using a flash to serve as the shutter, thereby freezing the ink drops mid-air. There was no need for pricey equipment. Bielfeldt does not use AI in his images, preferring to rely on traditional techniques. "Ole Bielfeldt's winning image embodies what makes Nikon Small World so powerful: the intersection of microscope imaging, ingenuity, and artistry," said Eric Flem, a spokesperson for Nikon Instruments. "By using a microscope objective in a different way, he transformed a familiar object into something altogether new and previously unseen. It is a reminder that the microscope is not only a scientific tool but also a creative one, capable of expanding how we see and imagine the world around us." The full list of winners can be found here.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Survivors tell rights group that serving officers who worked as guards administered electric shocks and beatings

Cambodian police and military officers worked as private security guards in scam compounds where thousands were forced to work in the online fraud industry, according to a report by Amnesty International.

The global rights group alleged they worked for security companies as part of a system that enabled slavery and rape in the compounds, with some guards using electric batons to keep people trapped.

CBS California Investigates took a closer look at how rates compare to other utilities in the region, and at the high salaries of dozens of executives.

XYTE Technologies Inc logo

Bereaved families have urged the publisher of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 to remove a clip from the game that shows a figure performing CPR and bodies lying in the street

Bereaved families in South Korea have demanded that the makers of Call of Duty remove harrowing footage of the deadly 2022 Seoul crowd crush from the latest instalment of the video game.

The clips, which are seconds-long, appear in the opening moments of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, and are used to represent a scenario of civilian casualties during a fictional North Korean invasion.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has removed Army Gen. Brett Sylvia, the Pentagon’s top military strategist, from his position on the Joint Staff, according to officials familiar with the decision.

Sylvia served as director for strategy, plans and policy, known as the J5, a powerful position responsible for advising the Joint Chiefs of Staff on military strategy and coordinating planning with allies. The Pentagon has not publicly explained why Sylvia was removed or announced his replacement. ABC News reported that he was pushed out earlier this week.

Sylvia previously commanded the Army’s 101st Airborne Division and became the second officer removed from the J5 position this year. His departure comes amid a broad reshaping of senior military leadership under Hegseth.

At least 26 generals and admirals have reportedly been removed or pushed into retirement during Hegseth’s tenure. Hegseth has also directed the Pentagon to reduce the roughly 800 general and flag officer positions across the military by 20% by Jan. 1, 2027.

Some administration officials have argued the military became too focused on diversity initiatives and other policies they characterize as “woke.” Critics, including Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, have described the repeated removals as a “purge” that could weaken institutional experience within the armed forces.

The leadership change comes as the Pentagon continues managing major overseas commitments, including heightened military operations and planning involving Iran and the Indo-Pacific.

Sources:

• ABC News – MBFC Rating

The post Hegseth Removes Pentagon’s Top Military Strategist in Latest Senior Leadership Shakeup appeared first on News Facts Network.

First Look YouTube Video and Nikon NIKKOR Z 120-300mm F2.8 TC VR S Lens

(The Center Square) - The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on Wednesday evening denied the Trump administration's request for a temporary restraining order to force the state to segregate mail-in ballots that the federal government thinks…

Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from TechCrunch: In an email blast to customers titled "Protecting your finances in the Al World," Bank of America urged customers to never share their username and password with another person or an outside service, "including an Al-enabled tool or agent that offers to act on your behalf." [...] A spokesperson for Bank of America confirmed the authenticity of the bank's email that was posted to social media. But heed the bank's warning, for if things go wrong, it's on you. Account agreements at most banks hold customers responsible for anyone they give their log-in to. "If you do share your credentials," its email reads, "keep in mind that you're responsible for activity resulting from that access."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

• Brewers win first championship with 4-1 win in Game 5

• Misiorowski hurls five and two-thirds scoreless innings

• Contreras named World Series MVP after batting .381

The Milwaukee Brewers captured their first World Series crown on Wednesday night, defeating the Tampa Bay Rays 4-1 to complete a four-games-to-one victory and end more than half a century of waiting for baseball’s biggest prize.

Rookie shortstop Cooper Pratt drove in two runs and Jacob Misiorowski pitched five and two-thirds scoreless innings as Milwaukee put the finishing touches on a charmed season that began in spring training with championship ambitions and ended with the first title in the franchise’s 58th year.

After two years of protests, a student-led movement has defeated Serbia’s authoritarian leader, Aleksander Vučić, at the ballot box. But can a leaderless movement govern a country? Send your comments and questions to tif.questions@theguardian.com

Serbia’s political landscape has been upended. On Sunday, record numbers of people went to the polls and voted to end the 12-year rule of Aleksandar Vučić. And who did they back instead? A list of candidates, half of whom have PhDs, put forward by student activists whose protests have rocked the Balkan country for the past two years.

Helen Pidd speaks to the Serbian-American journalist Ana Milosavljevic, the student activist Tara Blagojević and the MP-to-be Milica Jovanović about how the Student List managed to defeat Vučić’s increasingly authoritarian regime.

The machine-learning program SPINE has become a backbone of neutrino experiments worldwide, decoding complex detector images to help scientists unlock the secrets of these elusive particles.

Oct. 28, 2026 — Neutrinos are among the most abundant particles in the universe, but they are also among the most elusive. Nearly massless, they are produced by nuclear reactions in the sun, exploding stars, particle accelerators, and even the decay of radioactive elements on Earth. They interact so weakly with ordinary matter that trillions pass through each person every second without leaving a trace. Studying these ghostly particles could help answer some of the biggest questions in physics, from the nature of dark matter to why matter exists at all.

Inside the ICARUS detector. The detector uses liquid argon technology to detect charged particles created when a neutrino interacts inside it. Credit: CERN.

Because neutrinos are so elusive, scientists build enormous detectors and intense particle beams to catch even a small number of them in action. But capturing a neutrino interaction is only the beginning. Scientists must then reconstruct what happened from an extraordinarily complicated picture of particle tracks, overlapping signals and background activity. Researchers at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have developed a machine-learning program called SPINE to tackle this challenge.

SPINE, which stands for Scalable Particle Imaging with Neural Embeddings, analyzes data from liquid argon time-projection chambers, the detector technology used by experiments including the Short-Baseline Neutrino program at the DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois and the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), currently under construction in Illinois and South Dakota and expected to start taking data in 2030. SPINE learns from simulated detector images to identify particles, trace their paths, and piece together the interactions that produced them.

“Many of the effects that we’re looking for in neutrino physics now are kind of smallish effects,” said SLAC physicist Mark Convery. “They may have big physics impacts, but they’re subtle. You need a really intense beam, a really capable detector and a really efficient and precise reconstruction technique. SPINE is that third leg of the stool.”

From Pixels to Particles

Liquid argon detectors hold hundreds to thousands of tons of ultra-pure liquid argon kept at around -300 F. When a neutrino strikes an argon atom, the collision can send several particles traveling through the detector. As these particles move through the liquid, they leave trails of electrons that drift toward collection wires, building up a three-dimensional picture of what happened.

The result is incredibly detailed, but also incredibly complex. A single detector image can contain many overlapping neutrino interactions, each producing multiple particle tracks and electromagnetic showers, all mixed together with cosmic rays and other background activity.

For years, researchers tackled this complexity by chaining together specialized algorithms, each performing one narrow task before passing results to the next. But errors at any step could ripple through the entire reconstruction.

ICARUS, the largest detector in Fermilab’s Short-Baseline Neutrino Program, holds 760 tons of liquid argon. SLAC’s SPINE software helped produce ICARUS’s first neutrino physics result in its search for sterile neutrinos. Credit: Al Johnson/Fermilab.

SPINE takes a different approach. Instead of a rigid chain, it uses multiple machine-learning models that work together – first spotting basic features in the image, then identifying individual particles, and finally piecing together the complete interaction.

“We didn’t try to go, in one step, from the raw detector data all the way to these high-level physics observables,” said SLAC scientist François Drielsma, SPINE lead developer. “We built the reconstruction hierarchically, extracting progressively higher-level information from the detector data.”

That step-by-step approach also makes SPINE more transparent than a black-box AI model. It doesn’t just deliver an answer – it shows its work by reconstructing the individual particles that created the signal.

The project grew out of work by SLAC scientist Kazuhiro Terao, who began applying emerging computer-vision techniques to neutrino detector images in 2015 and 2016 as a postdoctoral researcher and recipient of a DOE Early Career Award.

“The goal was to record the evidence and then use that evidence to make the final conclusion,” Terao said. “That makes it interpretable, and it makes the whole system optimizable end to end.”

Drielsma, then a postdoctoral researcher on the project, helped turn it into SPINE and expand it into a program now deployed on eight different detectors across approximately 25 institutions worldwide.

A First Test with Real Data

SPINE recently passed an important milestone through the first neutrino physics result from ICARUS, the largest detector in the Short-Baseline Neutrino program. The program is searching for sterile neutrinos – a hypothetical fourth type of neutrino that would be even more elusive than the three known flavors (electron, muon and tau).

Neutrinos oscillate between one another as they travel. These oscillations follow predictable patterns based on the three known flavors. Sterile neutrinos would produce additional oscillation patterns at short distances that cannot be explained by these three known neutrino flavors alone.

To search for these patterns, the analysis looked for signs that muon neutrinos were disappearing at an unexpected rate. Although researchers found no evidence for such a signal, the study demonstrated that SPINE could successfully move beyond simulations and produce trusted results using real experimental data.

“This is the first neutrino physics analysis coming out using SPINE,” Drielsma said. “There is a big difference between making things work in simulation and making things work in data to the degree that we trust the results.”

In the analysis, SPINE recovered roughly 60% more usable neutrino interactions than the conventional reconstruction while also delivering a cleaner sample, improved energy resolution and reduced systematic uncertainties. That added efficiency could become especially important as scientists search for increasingly rare signals.

“SPINE is a very rare beast,” Terao said. “It can do many tasks altogether. It is the benchmark we have to use today to measure the success of what comes next.”

The next major milestone will combine measurements from ICARUS and the nearby Short-Baseline Near Detector (SBND), allowing researchers to make more sensitive searches for signs of sterile neutrinos by comparing observations at two different distances from the particle beam.

Preparing for DUNE

SPINE will play an even larger role in DUNE, which will send a neutrino beam from Fermilab in Illinois to detectors buried deep underground in South Dakota. DUNE will measure how neutrinos change flavors over their 800-mile journey, determine the ordering of neutrino masses and search for subtle differences between how neutrinos and antineutrinos behave.

Neutrino-antineutrino differences could help explain why the universe contains more matter than antimatter – the fundamental imbalance that prevented them from annihilating each other in the early universe, allowing stars, galaxies and life to form. The mass ordering is crucial for understanding the role of neutrinos in the evolution of the early universe and the formation of cosmic structure.

While DUNE’s far detector will record relatively few neutrino interactions, its near detector will observe hundreds of overlapping interactions at once, creating an enormous reconstruction challenge.

“The near detector sees 1,000 interactions piling up every 10 seconds,” Drielsma said. “Without a way to disentangle them, we’d be stuck.”

The SLAC team has already trained SPINE models for both the DUNE near and far detectors. For the near detector especially, SPINE is currently the only reconstruction approach capable of handling the extreme complexity of hundreds of overlapping neutrino interactions.

“Having a working reconstruction separates a failing experiment from one that is actually able to make measurements,” Drielsma said. “It could be the difference between seeing something and not seeing anything.”

What’s Next

Before DUNE begins operations, SPINE faces another test. The Short-Baseline program’s two-detector analysis is underway, with results expected in 2026 and 2027. Those measurements will push SPINE to a new level of precision as researchers search for the subtle oscillation patterns that could reveal or rule out sterile neutrinos.

Then comes DUNE, where SPINE will tackle reconstruction challenges more complex than any neutrino experiment has faced before. The questions DUNE aims to answer about matter-antimatter asymmetry depend on decoding those complex images. After years of development and testing, the SLAC team is confident SPINE is ready.

“Until a year ago, we hoped this approach would work,” Drielsma said. “Today, we believe it will. We’ve built the tool. Now we get to see what it discovers.”

Source: Ali Sundermier, SLAC

The post SLAC’s SPINE: An AI Tool on the Trail of Ghost Particles appeared first on HPCwire.

A federal judge on Wednesday rejected the Trump administration's bid to require California election officials to separate out mail ballots received from roughly 20,000 people it claims are not U.S. citizens.

Former US president comes to Georgia to support Jon Ossoff for US Senate and Keisha Lance Bottoms for governor

Former US president Barack Obama mocked Donald Trump’s “whole of government” response to his critique of his successor’s gilded White House renovations as he rallied Democrats in the final week of the US midterm election campaign.

“These are not serious people,” Obama said of Trump and the Republican party at a campaign rally in suburban Atlanta on Wednesday evening. “And we’re all paying the price for their lack of seriousness.”

The post Trump Demands Peltola Be Prosecuted and Removed Despite Experts Saying Tactic Was Legal appeared first on News Facts Network.

Firm calls charges, which include violating state gambling ban and profiting from illegal activity, ‘crazy overreach’

Utah on Wednesday filed criminal charges against prediction market operator Kalshi and two of its executives, months after a federal judge rejected Kalshi’s effort to prevent Utah from enforcing its strict anti-gambling laws against the activity.

The felony charges could represent a new tactic in how states try to assert regulatory authority over the fast-expanding activity, a clash that appears headed to a showdown at the US supreme court.

Justice department had demanded state segregate and not count ballots from people it claimed were non-citizens

A federal judge declined to order California election officials to segregate and not count ballots from people the Trump administration claimed were non-citizens, rebuffing a legally thin request from the justice department that appeared designed to cast doubt over the results of the midterms.

The ruling from US district judge David Carter, nominated to the federal bench by Bill Clinton, comes about two weeks after the justice department delivered a USB drive to election officials in Los Angeles and Sacramento that it said contained the names of 20,000 non-citizens on the state’s voter rolls. There are more than 23 million registered voters in California and non-citizen voting is extremely rare.

Information released by Distributed Denial of Secrets is the third such government data disclosure in the last month

Data identifying more than 41,000 employees and contractors for the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was released on Wednesday in an unprecedented leak that reveals how the agency is organized. The records, which were made public by the transparency nonprofit Distributed Denial of Secrets, reference operation names, surveillance programs and information on undercover initiatives.

DHS did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

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Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took steps Wednesday that could open up access to certain unapproved peptide drugs that are being promoted for wellness.

The post Bernie Moreno Says Non-Christians Should Be ‘Nowhere Near Washington’ at Ohio Rally appeared first on News Facts Network.

The fine – six times the average monthly salary – will apply to people present at violent protests, even if they don’t personally commit violent acts

Albania has introduced fines of more than $6,000 for demonstrators who participate in a protest that turns violent, even if they don’t personally commit violent acts, as the government tries to clamp down on the gatherings calling for the prime minister’s resignation.

The capital, Tirana, has been racked by months of anti-government protests that in recent days have deteriorated into pitched battles between the security forces and protesters.

Flag LinuxNetBSD made a seemingly small, but very welcome announcement today: they’re adding a more user-friendly, easier to use command-line text editor to the base install.

To ease the transition for new users, NetBSD -current now includes an alternative editor to vi(1) and xedit(1) in its base system, atto(1).

It is a modeless screen-based editor similar to nano, pico, xedit, or emacs. It is only 48 kilobytes, making it suitable for inclusion in the rescue system.

↫ NetBSD Foundation on Fedi

Most guides and how-to article for operating systems like NetBSD assume the use of vi, and while I don’t want to ignite a flamewar, vi isn’t exactly the most approachable or friendly piece of software out there. My occassional text editing in the command line is all done through nano, but now I’m definitely curious to give atto a go.

While other tech news websites are plastered with articles about a PC maker adding a touch screen to one of their laptops, we’re talking about a new CLI text editor in NetBSD’s base system. Priorities, folks.

More than 200 passengers, mostly Americans, are stranded in Cambodia after the operator of a luxury U.S. cruise ship ran out of money due to skyrocketing fuel costs.

Windows 11 25H2, starting with build 26200.9550, now comes with something called CLAT.

As organizations move toward IPv6-only and IPv6-mostly networks, some applications still depend on IPv4-only applications or services. Windows CLAT helps those applications continue to work when a network does not provide native IPv4 connectivity.

CLAT is the client-side component of 464XLAT. It statelessly translates IPv4 traffic from the Windows client into IPv6 for transport across the network to a provider-side translator (PLAT), which provides stateful NAT64 translation to IPv4.

↫ Jim Alumbaugh at Microsoft’s Networking Blog

Yet another important component of the long, neverending transition to IPv6. Like endlessly cutting a cucumber in half, you’ll never quite run out of cucumber to cut.

Dozens of people were killed or injured when a high-speed train crashed into another train in central Spain, officials said.

This live blog is now closed – you can read the latest elections news here

One apparent loser from Tuesday’s election was far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who was expected to better his party’s result of six seats from the 2022 elections.

But instead there was stunned silence at the watch party for Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) in central Israel as results from the exit polls flashed across the screen, with most channels suggesting the party would remain on just six seats.

Do you want a hobby operating system with a desktop for a microcontroller-based computer? Sylphide OS is a new project aiming to build just that.

For the last few weeks, I’ve worked on a new pet project: an operating system for computers based on microcontrollers. There aren’t many yet, but I expect them to be more and more common.

Why MCU computers ? You get a relatively very simple platform, booting straight to your code (or almost), and you can understand the whole architecture. Exactly as it was with home computers long ago. And not at all what you get with modern computers. Even booting involves lot of very different systems, black magic, and even blog/proprietary software.

↫ Thomas Capricelli

It’s very early in development, but by building it atop FreeRTOS, Capricelli had a head-start. It’s got a basic desktop, one that might need some changes to avoid the lawyers. The code’s open source, of course.

A great-sounding display, but Apple seems out of touch for the touchscreen.

A new study from Boston University looks at the rate of the brain disease CTE in former NFL players who died between 2008 and 2023.

MADISON, WISCONSIN — Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany declined to sign an election-integrity pledge circulated by Wisconsin Business Leaders for Democracy, while Democratic opponent David Crowley signed it and later received the group’s endorsement.

The pledge asked candidates to commit to accepting certified election results, cooperating with election officials, discouraging intimidation and violence, and refraining from knowingly spreading false claims about elections. Wisconsin Business Leaders for Democracy describes itself as a bipartisan organization supporting free and fair elections.

Tiffany’s decision drew renewed attention to his actions after the 2020 presidential election. During an Oct. 21 debate, Tiffany defended his objections to the results by citing privately funded election grants sometimes called “Zuckerbucks.” More than 200 Wisconsin municipalities received roughly $10 million from the Zuckerberg-funded Center for Tech and Civic Life to help administer voting during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tiffany also supported efforts to challenge absentee ballots and voted against counting electoral votes from Pennsylvania and Arizona. However, during the 2026 debate he explicitly said he would certify the 2028 presidential election “regardless of who the winner is.”

Crowley has made Tiffany’s 2020 actions an issue in the governor’s race, arguing that Wisconsin’s next governor must be willing to certify election results regardless of party. Tiffany, meanwhile, maintains that his objections concerned election procedures rather than an attempt to disregard legitimate votes.

Sources:

• Truthout – MBFC Rating
• CBS News – MBFC Rating
• Wisconsin Public Radio – MBFC Rating

The post Tom Tiffany Refuses Democracy Pledge After Defending 2020 Election Objections appeared first on News Facts Network.

Maxing out the new touchscreen MacBook Pro with a M5 Max chip and 16TB of storage will cost more than buying 10 basic MacBook Air laptops.

USAFacts reviewed more than 30 years of House roll call votes to measure how often members cross party lines.

Apologies for reviving an old thread. I’m looking in to doing the same thing as you and have a couple questions since I’m fairly new to OneWheel / VESC.

I have a Pint that I plan to install the Pint V drop-in kit into. Eventually, I want to upgrade the battery to the PintX battery. I’m reading in other forums that the PintX battery doesn’t fit into the Pint’s battery housing(?).

From what you’ve said, it sounds like you didn’t have any issues with the PintX battery fitting by just upgrading to pint x bumpers? I would love to avoid the hassle of looking for a pintX battery box since a quick look around me has not been successful.

(The Center Square) – Families in 16 states could face state taxes and penalties for using what's called a "529 education savings plan" to pay for expenses approved under federal law, according to a report from the American Legislative Exchange…

The new feeds, similar to those used on TikTok, are rolling out worldwide.

Trump and Obama campaign in key states in the final days before US midterm elections as both parties aim to control Congress

• Sign up for the Breaking News US email

For months, Mary Peltola’s campaign for Alaska’s Senate seat has denied any connection to a separate campaign launched by a man who, coincidentally, shares the exact same name as Peltola’s Republican opponent, Dan Sullivan.

New reporting from the New York Times undercuts that claim. The outlet reported, based on interviews, obtained text messages and legal filings, that the Peltola campaign had not only recruited Mr Sullivan (not the Republican), but had sought out a number of Dan Sullivans across the state for potential candidacy, as well as others who could peel votes away from Peltola’s main opponent.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Immigration and Customs Enforcement is now the least favorably viewed federal agency measured by Pew Research Center, with public opinion of ICE deteriorating over the past year.

A Pew survey conducted Sept. 28 through Oct. 4 found that 56% of U.S. adults have an unfavorable opinion of ICE, while 35% view the agency favorably. That gives ICE a net favorability rating of negative 21 points — considerably worse than the Internal Revenue Service, which stands at 37% favorable and 46% unfavorable.

Views remain sharply divided by party. Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, 67% view ICE favorably and 23% unfavorably. Among Democrats and Democratic leaners, just 9% have a favorable opinion while 84% view the agency unfavorably. Even so, ICE’s standing declined within both groups compared with 2025.

Separate polling suggests that support for abolishing ICE has also increased. A July Economist/YouGov survey found 48% of Americans supported eliminating the agency while 40% opposed the idea. An earlier YouGov survey reported by Axios in March found 50% supported abolition and 39% opposed it.

Reason columnist Ilya Somin argued that ICE’s declining popularity could strengthen efforts to abolish the agency, while acknowledging that public opinion alone does not determine whether an agency or policy is effective.

The latest numbers come amid continued controversy over the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement and deportation policies.

Sources:

• Reason – MBFC Rating
• Pew Research Center – MBFC Rating

The post Pew Poll Finds ICE Is America’s Least Popular Federal Agency appeared first on News Facts Network.

Commentary: Yes, I’m judgy about how smudgy Apple’s new laptop screen is going to be.

Leaders from the national laboratories, academia, and industry gathered in Monterey, California August 24–27 for the 2026 Monterey Data Conference, sharing expertise on HPC, quantum, AI, and the future of computing for science.

Oct. 28, 2026 — Initiated in 2019 and now in its sixth year, the Monterey Data Conference brings together researchers from U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratories, facilities, universities, and industry to showcase and discuss the latest advances and open challenges in scientific data analysis and computing. The 2026 conference focused on the theme of Acceleration, particularly in the context of leveraging an integrated scientific computing platform for data, AI, and advanced computing, a key suite of tools for MDC’s growing audience.

“MDC has grown in size and impact every year,” said NERSC Director Sudip Dosanjh, a co-founder of the conference. “This year there were over 200 participants from universities, laboratories and industry—scientists, computer scientists and computer architects discussing advances in data analysis and machine learning, as well as disruptive technologies like quantum computing. These topics are closely aligned with DOE’s Genesis Mission, and the conference featured an amazing set of speakers and the meeting is structured to encourage collaboration and discussion.”

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) director Kathy Yelick set the tone for the week with a presentation titled “Science in the Age of AI,” while further sessions covered topics like building and exploiting integrated computing platforms, agentic AI and reasoning-based scientific discovery, scientific AI foundation models, classical-quantum and quantum-AI applications, and quantum supercomputing. Much of the conference focused on the Genesis Mission, the DOE’s initiative in AI for science, and the American Science Cloud, the integrated research infrastructure that will underpin it—all tools that will make data more accessible and usable for researchers.

“Acceleration is not only about faster hardware or larger models,” said Ana Kupresanin, Division Director of the Scientific Data Division in Berkeley Lab’s Computing Sciences Area. “It also comes from reducing the friction around data, making it easier for scientists and AI systems to find, understand, prepare, move, and reuse data across facilities and computing environments. That is an important part of what Genesis has to enable for an integrated scientific computing platform to support science in practice and at scale.”

About Computing Sciences at Berkeley Lab

High performance computing plays a critical role in scientific discovery. Researchers increasingly rely on advances in computer science, mathematics, computational science, data science, and large-scale computing and networking to increase our understanding of ourselves, our planet, and our universe. Berkeley Lab’s Computing Sciences Area researches, develops, and deploys new foundations, tools, and technologies to meet these needs and to advance research across a broad range of scientific disciplines.

Source: Berkeley Lab

The post Monterey Data Conference Looks to Future of Computing in Science appeared first on HPCwire.

An Anthropic engineering manager says he has stopped using traditional coding interviews because AI can now outperform candidates on the kinds of programming challenges they typically contain. "There's no more point in giving you a little React challenge than there is in quizzing people about assembly; Claude is now better at both," said Felix Rieseberg in a blog post. "Our most impactful builders are successful regardless of how good they are at these tests." The Register reports: "I don't think the coding interview is going to come back," said Rieseberg. "It's easy to get sentimental given how many copies of 'Algorithms and Data Structures' were bought in hopes of unlocking good jobs and a better future -- or how the death of the coding interview is another milestone in software engineering reaching a new level of abstraction." At the same time, he's not certain what will replace it. "I'm probably not the only manager trying to figure out how to interview for people who build well with AI," Rieseberg wrote. "I haven't quite gotten there yet -- but I'm scanning resumes and portfolios for little prototypes that exhibit taste, empathy, and principled thinking. If you have figured out something better, I'd love to hear how." In a response posted to social media, Jaana Dogan, principal engineer at Google, said: "I'm not doing a ton of coding interviews nowadays but I'd be interested to interview how people use coding agents," she wrote. "That itself gives me more signals about candidates' coding skills." "We are not seeing tech companies abandon skills assessments widely across the industry -- at least not yet," added Nicole Bachaud, labor economist at ZipRecruiter. "In fact, based on our October 2026 Employer Survey of 1,500 employers, we see the tech industry (Information sector specifically) is actually the most likely to test for skills, with 62.5 percent of employers requiring formal skill tests on initial applications." "The change at Anthropic might be reflecting a shift away from technical skills towards more human, soft skills," said Bachaud. "As AI becomes fully capable of writing code, tech employers may be pivoting away from rote technical testing and heavily toward human-centric soft skills." She argues that while AI may be able to code well, it can't replace critical thinking. "A staggering 61.5 percent of Information employers now report that 'critical thinking' is a primary skill lacking in today's candidate pool," she said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Los Alamos-based quantum dot manufacturer pairs $200,000 grant with a growing patent portfolio for next-generation quantum information technology

LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Oct. 28, 2026 — UbiQD, Inc., a global leader in quantum dot technology and manufacturing, has received a $200,000 grant through New Mexico’s Quantum Technologies Award from the Economic Development New Mexico (EDNM) Department through its Technology and Innovation Office (TIO). The grant funds development of a key component for quantum computers and ultra-secure quantum communication networks: a specialized light source, connected directly to a fiber optic cable, that emits single particles of light, one at a time, on demand.

Photo of UbiQD researchers working on a single photon emitting quantum dot device supported by the EDNM grant. Courtesy of UbiQD, Inc.

Most of today’s quantum computers store information in superconducting circuits that must be chilled to a fraction of a degree above absolute zero inside large, expensive refrigerators. Another approach uses individual particles of light, called photons, to carry information. Photons can travel efficiently over long distances, which also makes them the natural choice for secure quantum communication networks, and light-based systems need far less extreme cooling. However, they do depend on a special light source that produces exactly one photon at a time, on demand. Typical light sources either emit a plurality photons at random, wasting most of their output, or must themselves be cooled to near absolute zero.

Nothing available today addresses all the needs: safe materials, room temperature operation (not inside expensive refrigeration systems), tunable emission, fiber optic cable-coupled, and reliability at scale. UbiQD has spent a decade developing quantum dot technology, and researchers have shown in published studies that this class of materials can do exactly what quantum hardware companies need.

“Quantum computing is what originally drew me into this field, and this project is an exciting opportunity to bring our technology full circle,” said Hunter McDaniel, PhD, Founder and CEO of UbiQD. “New Mexico has the foundational science, and we have the infrastructure and team to turn decades of quantum dot materials development into products that accelerate the quantum computing industry. We’re grateful to the state’s Technology & Innovation Office for their support.”

McDaniel first worked in quantum computing as an undergraduate researcher in Nobel laureate John Martinis’ research group at UC Santa Barbara. His TEDx talk on quantum technology is available here.

The grant will fund optical equipment and device prototyping at UbiQD’s Los Alamos headquarters. The team will first measure how reliably its quantum dots are at producing single photons, then refine the materials until they meet industry performance targets. The work builds on a 2024-2025 partnership with Los Alamos National Laboratory under the Technology Readiness Gross Receipts (TRGR) Initiative, which produced some of the first detailed measurements of this kind for UbiQD’s safer proprietary I-III-VI semiconductor quantum dots (free of cadmium, lead, and mercury).

“We’re not just manufacturing materials, we’re building an optical product and an IP position in the quantum industry,” added Nikolay Makarov, Senior VP of R&D at UbiQD and principal investigator on the grant. “Now we’re using what we learned to build a light source that delivers one photon at a time, reliably, at room temperature.”

Before joining UbiQD, Makarov co-authored a Los Alamos study published in 2017 showing that copper indium disulfide quantum dots can emit single photons at room temperature.

That journey from lab research to a patentable product is also why UbiQD has spent several years building its patent portfolio. UbiQD owns or exclusively licenses 17 granted U.S. patents and 23 granted international patents, plus 27 applications pending. The portfolio is built in three layers: foundational patents on the quantum dot material itself, turning that material into usable forms such as films and concentrates, to specific end uses, including security inks, agriculture, and solar. Some of the foundational patents trace back to Dr. McDaniel’s original research at Los Alamos National Laboratory and licensed technology from M.I.T. and the University of Washington.

This includes US patent #12,085,443, “Fiber-coupled Broadband Light Source,” also granted in Korea, Canada, Netherlands, Germany and France. It applies to two fast-growing areas: faster connections between computer servers inside AI data centers, where conventional electrical wiring is becoming a bottleneck, and quantum hardware.

The project expands UbiQD’s efforts to commercialize quantum dot technology across a range of emerging industrial markets. In addition to developing applications and manufacturing quantum dot materials, the company is pursuing strategic partnerships, product integration, and technology licensing across agriculture, energy, security, photonics, and other sectors. UbiQD’s expanding intellectual property portfolio provides a foundation for these activities and enables new business models.

About UbiQD, Inc.

UbiQD (pronounced “ubiquity“) is a global leader in quantum dot manufacturing and technology. Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Los Alamos, New Mexico, the company is powering product innovation in a range of different industries. The Company’s quantum dots enable products that harness the power of color and light. UbiQD licenses technology developed at leading research institutions, including Los Alamos National Laboratory and M.I.T. To learn more, please visit UbiQD.com and UbiGro.com.

Source: UbiQD

The post UbiQD Receives New Mexico Grant to Develop Quantum Dot Single-Photon Source appeared first on HPCwire.

Lawmakers, activists and union leaders across the US remember the co-founder of United Farm Workers union

Following the news that Dolores Huerta – the civil rights icon who popularized the rallying cry “Sí, se puede! – had died at the age of 96 on Wednesday, activists, lawmakers and civil rights leaders paid tribute to Hureta’s long and lasting legacy.

In California – where Huerta helped found the United Farm Workers (UFW) union – her death was deeply felt. It was in California’s central valley that she laid the foundations for the United Farm Workers, and helped organize the 1965 Delano grape strike – a national boycott of table grapes that resulted in better wages and working conditions for grape pickers. Several schools in California bear her name, and murals across the state depict her likeness. And in 2018, California declared 10 April – her birthday – Dolores Huerta Day.

Software giant reports $36.6bn in profit, beating Wall Street expectations, as Azure cloud computing division grows 48%

Microsoft gained billions of dollars in stock market value on Wednesday afternoon after it reported better than expected revenue and profit, just days after it offered voluntary buyouts to about 60,000 employees.

The office software giant’s growth was fueled by its Azure cloud computing division, which grew by 48% in the September quarter.

SAN ANTONIO, Texas, Oct. 28, 2026 — HIVE Digital Technologies Ltd., through its wholly owned subsidiary BUZZ High Performance Computing Inc. (BUZZ HPC), has announced that BUZZ Alpha Cloud Inc., an indirect subsidiary of the Company, has entered into a Loan and Security Agreement with an institutional lender for a single-digit, fixed-rate credit facility of approximately $129 million USD.

Proceeds from the Facility will be used to buy an advanced sovereign AI GPU cluster and related infrastructure, including NVIDIA GB200 NVL72 systems, to be deployed for the Cohere 3-year fixed-term sovereign AI customer contract announced on June 18, 2026.

Fixed-Rate Capital Anchored to Contracted Demand

The Facility bears a fixed interest rate of 9.0% per annum over a three-year term, with principal and interest amortizing over the life of the loan. It is secured by the GPUs and related assets of BUZZ Alpha Cloud and supported by a limited recourse guarantee from BUZZ HPC and a pledge of BUZZ HPC’s equity in BUZZ Alpha Cloud. At the end of the term, HIVE will own the GPUs outright with no residual payment.

BUZZ HPC is not otherwise liable under the Facility, which includes customary terms, conditions and covenants, including required debt-service coverage ratios.

Growth Funded by the Infrastructure It Builds

Held at the project level and secured by the infrastructure it funds, the Facility aligns the obligation with the assets and contracted revenue of the deployment it supports. BUZZ Alpha Cloud intends to repay the Facility from contract revenue over a fixed amortization schedule.

Because the Facility is structured as debt, no common shares of the Company are issued in connection with it.

Sovereign Compute for Canada’s AI Future

Canada has a long record of world-changing breakthroughs, and its researchers helped pioneer the science behind modern artificial intelligence. Historically, much of the industrial infrastructure needed to turn that research into products and services at scale has been built outside the country. Canada’s federal AI strategy sets a clear direction: invest in Canadian technology sovereignty and keep Canadian data secure under Canadian control. As AI moves from the research lab into everyday use across government, healthcare, finance and industry, organizations increasingly want to know where their data lives, where their models run and where their compute comes from.

The infrastructure funded by the Facility will keep compute within Canadian borders. BUZZ HPC believes capacity like this can help Canadian enterprises, researchers and public institutions build and run advanced AI at home, on terms they control.

A Foundation Nine Years in the Making

Since 2017, HIVE has been building a foundation of renewable power and digital infrastructure that now spans three continents, five languages and nine time zones, with data centres in Canada, Sweden and Paraguay. BUZZ HPC builds on that experience, designing and operating sovereign AI infrastructure from power through cloud so customers can run their own models and applications with their data and compute kept in the jurisdiction they choose.

HIVE and BUZZ HPC believe infrastructure should strengthen the communities around it. That has meant supporting local hockey in Boden, Sweden, and upgrading schools and lighting city streets near HIVE’s operations in Paraguay. As an original signatory of Canada’s Responsible Data Centre Development Principles, BUZZ HPC puts community-first design at the centre of how it develops infrastructure, guided by one purpose: transforming clean energy into compute to accelerate discovery.

Executive Commentary

Frank Holmes, Executive Chairman, HIVE Digital Technologies, said: “We believe sovereignty in the AI era will depend on where compute lives and who controls it. Canada has the research talent, the clean energy and the institutions to help lead that future, and our vision is to build AI infrastructure that will serve humanity. This financing allows BUZZ HPC to put more of that infrastructure to work in Canada while keeping our capital structure disciplined, which we believe is how lasting value is built.”

Aydin Kilic, President & CEO, HIVE Digital Technologies, commented: “We have signed $600 million of TCV for GPU cloud deals this year, across three GPU off-take contracts. Notably, the $129 million financing is applied towards the purchase of a $165 million cluster of NVIDIA GB200 GPUs, which the Company announced are being contracted on a 3-year fixed $225 million TCV with Cohere, which includes GPU compute and additional revenue attributed to connectivity and storage¹. This represents an approximate 80% loan-to-cost, at a fixed interest rate of 9.0%. The equity contribution from the Company towards the balance of the GPU cluster and associated hardware and software cost is being funded from the proceeds of the 0% interest convertible bonds issued earlier this year.”

The Company notes it has issued 0% interest convertible bonds for total gross proceeds of $245 million, with net proceeds of approximately $200 million after capped calls.

The Company notes that it believes the $165 million price for 2,303 NVIDIA GB200 GPUs reflects a very attractive price for NVIDIA GPUs in today’s market, as NVIDIA hardware has risen in price substantially over the last 6 months. Securing fixed-interest debt, in a market where many peers have borrowed on variable rates, puts HIVE in a strong position to have predictable contracted cash flow in the three years following the deployment of these GPUs.

Currently, delivery of these GB200 GPUs is expected to occur towards the end of Q4 2026.

About HIVE Digital Technologies Ltd.

HIVE Digital Technologies Ltd. (TSX: HIVE) (Nasdaq: HIVE) (BVC: HIVECO) is a global leader in sustainable digital infrastructure, building and operating renewable energy-powered data centres. Through its wholly owned subsidiary, BUZZ High Performance Computing Inc., HIVE delivers sovereign AI cloud infrastructure and enterprise GPU computing services powered by next-generation accelerated computing. HIVE’s dual-engine strategy combines long-life digital infrastructure assets with renewable energy to generate diversified, long-term cash flows across AI infrastructure and digital asset mining.

Source: HIVE Digital Technologies Ltd. 

The post HIVE’s BUZZ HPC Secures $129M for Canadian AI Infrastructure appeared first on HPCwire.

Seawater surges into low-lying communities from San Diego to San Francisco Bay Area, submerging streets, homes and businesses

Historic high tides have caused chaos up and down the California coast this week, as parts of the state were inundated by record-breaking water levels. Seawater surged into low-lying communities from San Diego to the San Francisco Bay Area, submerging streets, flooding homes and businesses, and jamming important transportation corridors and train routes.

Kayakers and paddle boarders could be seen gliding through typically busy thoroughfares in Marin county, north of San Francisco, on Monday and Tuesday. Several drivers had to be rescued from floating cars in the area, while cyclists who had attempted to cross the temporary lagoon that had formed quickly found themselves waist-deep. Further south, in cities such as Newport Beach, water pounded the emergency infrastructure set up to keep out the swelling sea, which seeped through berms, seawalls and sandbag blockades along the shoreline.

CBS News editor-in-chief sidesteps viewership concerns and says flagship show doing ‘tremendously well’

CBS News’ editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, has spoken publicly for the first time about the ratings challenges the network has experienced under her year-long tenure, sidestepping concerns about diminished viewership at the Sunday show 60 Minutes by saying it was not her top priority.

“I could never build anything if I were focused on the precise number of people that happen to tune in to the second feature on 60 Minutes on a given Sunday,” she said at an industry conference on Wednesday organized by the tech publication the Information. The news organization did not offer press credentials.

Dolores Huerta, the celebrated 1960s labor union leader and civil rights activist, died on Wednesday in California at the age of 96, her family said in a statement.

Huerta was a co-founder with Cesar Chavez, another veteran unionist and political activist, of the United Farm Workers union (UFW), which was credited with improving pay and conditions for agricultural workers through a series of strikes, boycotts and protests in the 1960s and 1970s.

• Dolores Huerta, California labor leader and civil rights champion, dies aged 96

• Tributes pour in for labor leader Dolores Huerta: ‘Fought for farm workers to the very end’

Oct. 28, 2026 — The Protein Data Bank (PDB) was established by the scientific community in 1971 as the first open-access digital data resource in biology, with just seven X-ray crystal structures of proteins at its start.

This month — its 55th anniversary — the PDB has accumulated more than 260,000 atomic-level, three-dimensional digital models of the building blocks of life.

RCSB PDB’s Molecule of the Month series highlights important structural stories. The October column, Celebrating 55 Years of the PDB, describes how PDB data are enabling the rapid evolution of protein structure prediction and design. Shown is the synthetic bacteriophage Evo-Φ36 (pdb_000036cr). Credit: Janet Iwasa and RCSB PDB.

The PDB is hosted within the Halıcıoğlu School of Data Science and Computing San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at the University of California San Diego. Its vast collection of proteins, viruses and macromolecular machines — protein or nucleic acid complexes that act as tiny engines inside cells — are fundamental for education and scientific research in biology, energy sciences, medicine and biotechnology.

“The information archived in the PDB is distributed around the world at no cost to the user and with no limitations on data usage,” said Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics PDB Director Stephen K. Burley. “This wouldn’t be possible without our partnership with SDSC and our Worldwide PDB Partners. We see downloads of structures happening at a scale of around 10 million data files each day, with more than a terabyte of biological information for users to search through.”

Initially, the archive was hosted at Brookhaven National Laboratory, where structure information was collected and distributed by physical mail, through either punched cards or magnetic tape.

Today, PDB data are contributed online by research labs located on every inhabited continent, and carefully curated and distributed by a global partnership called the Worldwide Protein Data Bank (wwPDB). The wwPDB consists of data centers in the US, Europe and Asia. RCSB PDB, the wwPDB U.S. data center, is a collaboration between SDSC/UC San Diego, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey and the University of California San Francisco.

The PDB archive is growing in size by about 10 percent each year. Every one of these data submissions is rigorously validated and expertly curated by the wwPDB before release. Once publicly available, PDB data can be accessed, visualized and analyzed using specialized RCSB PDB tools and resources. RCSB.org helps users understand how the structure of a biological macromolecule is essential for understanding its role in human and animal health and disease, its function in plants and food and energy production as well as its importance to other topics related to global prosperity and sustainability.

The structures contained in the archive have been cited in more than a million published research papers, and the cost to replicate the entire corpus of data has been estimated to be at least $27 billion. Open access to PDB structure information facilitates discovery and development of life-changing drugs. The impact ranges from understanding target biology by identifying a given target as likely druggable to structure-guided optimizing of drug potency and selectivity.

Between 2010 and 2023, the U.S. FDA approved 88 new small-molecule anti-cancer drugs. PDB data informed the sponsor company’s understanding of target biology and target druggability for every single one of these drugs, and in many cases provided no-cost starting points for structure-guided drug discovery.

The enormous wealth of 3D structure data stored in the PDB has underpinned significant advances in our understanding of protein architecture, culminating in recent breakthroughs in computational protein structure prediction – accelerated by artificial intelligence approaches and deep or machine learning methods. Nobel Prize-recognized applications of PDB such as AlphaFold and RoseTTAfold, which predict protein structures based on amino acid sequences, are changing the ways researchers are studying structural biology and molecular machines. RCSB.org offers access to more than one million of these predicted computer structure models using the same tools available to explore the PDB archive.

RCSB PDB Core Operations are funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (grant no. DBI-2321666), the U.S. Department of Energy (grant no. DE-SC0019749), the National Cancer Institute, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health (grant no. R01GM157729).

Source: Remy Licari, UCSD

The post San Diego Supercomputer Center Celebrates Protein Data Bank’s 55th Anniversary appeared first on HPCwire.

ULM, Germany, Oct. 28, 2026 — NVision today announced the publication of landmark peer-reviewed research in Nature and a strategic partnership with HyperLight Corporation, an industry leader in thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) photonics. The companies will integrate NVision’s thin-film molecular qubits directly onto advanced photonic integrated circuits (PICs). Together, these milestones establish a practical path to quantum computing at scale, using photonic connectivity to link quantum resources within and across processors. This opens a path toward millions of qubits on chips compatible with standard foundry manufacturing.

The Nature publication, A Single-Molecule Spin-Photon Interface, confirms the first ever individually addressable organic molecular spin-photon interface, which is the key ingredient for connecting stationary qubits with photons. Until now, molecular spins could not be individually and coherently controlled, preventing them from serving as true qubits. That barrier has now been broken: the core building block can be controlled at the single-molecule level. This opens a new path to scale, where molecular qubits can be deposited as thin films, much like OLED materials, directly on top of PICs, turning established photonic chip technology into a platform for scaling quantum computers.

“This proves what we’ve long believed: that organic chemistry offers a fundamentally better building block for quantum,” said Dr. Sella Brosh, CEO of NVision. “For years, the industry has been locked in a hardware race using modalities that would require decades and multi-billion-dollar proprietary fabrication facilities to achieve scale. With the creation of the world’s first manufacturable organic qubit, we now enter quantum’s molecular era, establishing a new architecture based on photonic connectivity from the get-go, with a clear path to scale through existing foundry infrastructure.”

Alongside the Nature publication, NVision announced a strategic partnership with HyperLight, a global leader in TFLN electro-optic PICs for high-bandwidth environments such as AI data centers, telecom and metro networks. The collaboration will integrate NVision’s molecular qubits as a thin film that can be deposited directly onto photonic chips, extending HyperLight’s TFLN Chiplet technology further into quantum applications.

“Integrating NVision’s breakthrough molecular qubits onto our PICs unlocks a compelling path for scalable quantum hardware while showcasing the capabilities and versatility of HyperLight’s TFLN technology,” said Kevin Luke, co-founder and Head of Custom Development at HyperLight. “Photonic interconnectivity is essential for scaling quantum processors, and combining our optical chip infrastructure with manufacturable molecular thin films allows us to deliver high-density, chip-scale quantum connectivity that leverages decades of investment in semiconductor fabrication.”

The milestone directly advances NVision’s Photonic Integrated Quantum Circuits (PIQC) platform from foundational physics into commercial hardware development. Following initial chip deliveries from foundry partners, NVision is targeting a live demonstration of on-chip performance on PICs by the end of 2026. The company’s long-term commercial roadmap targets scaling to 1,000 physical qubits, progressing toward 1,000 logical, fault-tolerant qubits on chip by 2030 housed within a deployable data-center form factor.
Unlike monolithic quantum architectures that force qubits into tight physical proximity, which creates severe crosstalk, control complexity and thermal bottlenecks, NVision’s Photonic Integrated Quantum Circuit (PIQC) architecture uses optical links to decouple qubits from local spatial constraints. The engineered carbene molecules function at accessible cryogenic temperatures (2K – 4K) and emit photons natively at precise optical frequencies, enabling direct intra-chip and inter-chip quantum entanglement.

“Chemistry gives us a design freedom that semiconductor-based qubits, such as in silicon, simply do not have. By addressing quantum design at the molecular level, we can tune the performance that matters most, including quantum memory, gate speed and photon emission, within a single molecule,” said Dr. Ilai Schwartz, CTO of NVision. “Because our qubits interact directly with light from the start, we achieve connectivity without proximity, making photonic networking a foundational capability of our platform rather than something we have to add later.”

To achieve this milestone, NVision combined large-scale computational screening with targeted synthesis, evaluating more than 150 candidate molecules, out of which 40 were synthesized in the laboratory. The resulting carbene system is engineered to interface directly with photons, making photonic connectivity a practical building block for scalable architectures. Crucially, the platform tolerates up to 70% photon loss, enabling reliable operation with standard silicon photonics rather than requiring ultra-low-loss, specialized optical infrastructure.

First prototype integrated chips resulting from the collaboration are expected in Q4 2026. For detailed technical specifications, architectural white papers, and access to the peer-reviewed Nature study (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-11147-6), read Designed, not Discovered: A Molecule Built to Be a Qubit.

“At DCVC, we’re excited to back NVision because we believe its molecular qubit platform has the potential to accelerate the roadmap for quantum computing as a whole,” said Prineha Narang, Partner, DCVC. “Using molecules as the building blocks of quantum hardware is a visionary approach, one that could make qubits easier to manufacture, scale, and industrialize. This is the kind of innovation that could bring us closer to realizing quantum computing’s promise, including the discovery of new materials and molecules.”

“NVision’s achievement introduces an exciting new building block for quantum computing, bringing together molecular qubits and photonic connectivity with a vision for scale,” said said Quantum Machines Co-Founder and CEO Itamar Sivan. “Quantum Machines’ control platform brings these elements together, helping turn pioneering science into working quantum systems. We’re delighted to contribute to this milestone and to work alongside NVision as they build toward scalable quantum computers.”

About NVision Quantum Technologies

NVision is a full stack quantum technology company focused on healthcare, with deep expertise in engineering and controlling the quantum properties of organic molecules. This approach underpins both its POLARIS platform, which enables real-time measurement of metabolism on standard MRI systems, and its quantum computing platform, Photonic Integrated Quantum Circuits (PIQC, pronounced “Pixie”). Together, these capabilities are helping bridge the gap between understanding disease and delivering effective therapies. Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Ulm, Germany, NVision is backed by Playground Global, DCVC, Entrée Capital, Matterwave/b2venture, Lauder Partners, Pathena Investments, The European Investment Bank and others. Learn more at nvision-quantum.com.

About HyperLight

HyperLight delivers high-performance integrated photonics solutions based on thin-film lithium niobate technology. The company combines the electro-optic advantages of TFLN with scalable manufacturing, test, and integration to enable next-generation optical engines for AI data centers, telecom and metro networks, and emerging photonics markets.

Source: NVision

The post NVision Reports Molecular Qubit Advance, Partners with HyperLight on Photonic Chips appeared first on HPCwire.

Far-right senator and family land in US after crossing from Brazil into Argentina and then flying via Ecuador

Flávio Bolsonaro declared himself the “true president” of Brazil after losing last Sunday’s presidential election and fleeing to the United States.

After landing on a private jet with his family in Miami, Florida, on Wednesday morning, the far-right senator published the claim in a letter – even though his own party has recognised the legitimate victory of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, as have all of Brazil’s institutions, and international observers who monitored and endorsed the vote.

New multimodal decision model combines domain specialization, calibrated decisions and adaptive verification to bring greater precision to enterprise AI agents

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Oct. 28, 2026 — Articul8, a provider of domain-specific generative AI solutions for enterprises, today introduced Bivia, a multi-modal decision model that decides, locates, and proves what it sees and can be tailored to an organization’s industry knowledge, policies, and operating procedures. Built on billions of decisions made within Articul8’s enterprise AI platform, Bivia is now being offered through an API, allowing developers to build AI agents that make decisions across text, images, videos, tables and charts without having to call a generative model for every step.

As enterprises put AI agents to work, they face a growing challenge: the cost of using powerful generative models to make thousands of relatively simple decisions. According to McKinsey’s State of AI in 2026 report, 40% of respondents from large enterprises said their organizations were scaling AI agents, up from 27% the previous year. The same research found that approximately one in five respondents reported that AI-related operating costs, including token costs, were constraining their organizations use of AI.

Unlike generic decision models, Bivia can be tuned to an organization’s industry, policies, procedures, and historical decisions, allowing it to make judgments that reflect how the business operates. It can also evaluate text alongside engineering drawings, equipment images and charts.

“We’ve been using decision models within Articul8 for more than three years because we saw how much unnecessary work enterprises were asking generative models to do,” said Dr. Arun Subramaniyan, Founder and CEO of Articul8. “When an AI agent is working through a complex task, it doesn’t need a powerful generative model to answer every question along the way. And businesses need those decisions to reflect their own knowledge and operating requirements. That’s why we’re making this technology available to everyone.”

From Hours of Content to Precise, Evidence-Backed Decisions

Point Bivia at an image, document, audio clip or feature-length video and ask a question in any language. It responds immediately, grounds its answer in the exact pixels, words or timestamps supporting it, and provides a confidence score. When the evidence is insufficient, it can abstain rather than produce an unsupported answer.

In a live demonstration, Bivia processed every frame of a 52-minute, 4K documentary filmed from the International Space Station (ISS) in a single request. It transformed the footage into a searchable index, providing an at-a-glance map of what appeared on screen throughout the film and allowing users to ask questions and jump directly to the relevant moment. Among the footage were fleeting events lasting just seconds, including a pass over city lights on Earth’s night side and a glimpse of the aurora. Bivia identified these moments because it analyzed every frame rather than sampling selected images, which could have missed them.

“Everyone’s models can caption a thumbnail. Bivia watches the entire thing and tells you the three seconds that matter, with the receipts,” said Dr. Subramaniyan. “It’s the difference between a model that talks about your data and one that actually reads all of it.”

Bivia’s capabilities include:

• One model across multiple modalities. Text, documents, images, video, audio and raw sensor signals are processed through a shared model architecture rather than a pipeline of separate models.
• Structured decisions instead of generated text. Eight native decision primitives, decide, yes/no, choose, score, select all, quote the source, find the region and extract the field, return structured, machine-readable answers in a single pass.
• Evidence-backed answers. Responses can identify supporting regions within images, exact text passages and character offsets in documents, and timestamps in video, allowing users to trace decisions to their sources.
• Calibrated confidence. Each answer includes a confidence score, and the model can abstain when the available evidence is insufficient.
• Comprehensive content analysis. Bivia can process entire videos, documents and audio recordings in parallel, turning lengthy content into searchable indexes rather than relying on selected samples.

In industrial environments, Bivia can assess technical requirements against supporting documents and images, including identifying discrepancies between maintenance records and equipment photographs. In Articul8’s internal testing, Bivia achieved 100% accuracy on selected energy and hardware design (Verilog) tasks after being trained on domain-specific data. These in-distribution results demonstrate its ability to be specialized for specific industrial tasks, rather than its performance on previously unseen data.

Designed for Decisions at Scale

Bivia supports many types of decisions including Choice, Boolean, Score, Set and Span. Developers can use these to build applications for evidence verification, tool routing, document processing and task-completion checks. Three operating modes allow applications to make immediate decisions or apply additional computation and verification when required. The model can also abstain when evidence is insufficient, allowing the application to request more information or escalate the decision.

In Articul8’s internal workflow completion tests involving tool routing, Bivia scored 0.91 against Jev’s 0.84. Bivia is designed to deliver consistent decisions regardless of how answer options are presented, making it extremely robust to changes and inputs. While Jev and other leading decision models changed their answers in approximately one in eight cases, Bivia returned the same answer every time.

Because Bivia makes decisions without generating output tokens, developers can avoid using more expensive generative models for routine tasks, helping to reduce the cost of running AI agents at scale. The model is available through an API, either as a standalone offering or as part of Articul8’s broader enterprise AI platform.

Bivia is already producing substantial savings to Articul8’s customers such as Hitachi Energy, CTC, AZing, Megazone and others.

Built on Deep Research and Industrial AI Expertise

Founded in January 2024 as an Intel spinout, Articul8 is led by Dr. Arun Subramaniyan, an aerospace engineer with a PhD from Purdue University and previous leadership experience at Intel, AWS and GE. The company brings together a global team of AI specialists from industry and academia and reports having filed 68 patent applications.

Articul8 completed its Series B financing in June 2026 at a $500 million pre-money valuation, alongside a strategic partnership with a global industrial software company. At the time, Articul8 reported more than $100 million in cumulative contract value, with a platform comprising more than two dozen domain-specific AI models and connections to over 25 enterprise and operational systems.

About Articul8

Articul8 AI provides domain-specific generative AI for mission-critical and regulated industries, including energy, manufacturing, aerospace and defense, financial services, and semiconductors. Founded in January 2024, the company helps enterprises turn complex operational and engineering data into reliable, actionable intelligence. Its platform combines multimodal data understanding, domain-specific AI models, and intelligent agent orchestration to deliver accurate, explainable AI applications that work with existing enterprise systems. Articul8 supports deployments across public, private, and sovereign clouds, as well as air-gapped environments. The company is SOC 2 Type II certified, with solutions available through the AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and Databricks marketplaces. For more information, visit articul8.ai.

Source: Articul8

The post Articul8 Launches Bivia to Bring Domain-Specific Decision Intelligence to Enterprise AI Agents appeared first on HPCwire.

(The Center Square) - At a campaign event in Corpus Christi, Texas, President Donald Trump again touted Venezuelan oil over U.S. oil.

A massive leak has exposed records tied to more than 41,000 DHS employees and contractors, including roughly 10,000 ICE personnel. The data, reportedly taken from DHS's Okta login system, reveals phone numbers, email and office addresses, reporting relationships, and permission groups associated with undercover operations, wiretapping and surveillance tools. Wired reports: In all, the leak provides a map of how DHS is organized and how it operates. The records, which span DHS itself as well as seven component agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement and US Customs and Border Protection, were last updated on August 19, 2026. The transparency nonprofit Distributed Denial of Secrets and cybersecurity researcher and journalist maia arson crimew previewed the data to WIRED, which they say they obtained from a group calling itself the Department of Peace. DDoSecrets published the archive, which it calls "Icepick," on Wednesday. In a press release, DDoSecrets says the data is from DHS's Okta login system. In a note with the files, the hackers wrote, "They have our information, so it's only fair that we have theirs." An Okta spokesperson tells WIRED that it is unaware of any breach of its systems. "We are aware of this report. Okta is secure, and we have no evidence our data or systems were compromised," the spokesperson says.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Kushner threatens to sue, denying allegations that two slush funds were set up to influence his Middle East role

A new book containing incendiary claims about Jared Kushner’s financial dealings during Donald Trump’s first term has ignited a political and media firestorm.

The book by author Matthew Cole is called Princes and Thieves: Jared Kushner and Mohamed bin Zayed’s Secret Plot to Remake the Middle East and was released in the US this week. An excerpt was published by Vanity Fair last Thursday, and immediately drew a furious response from Kushner, who called its claims “completely insane”. The book contains numerous allegations about Kushner, whose father-in-law is Trump and who has served as one of his top diplomatic envoys in the Middle East – the most explosive of which are claims linking him to huge bank accounts allegedly funded by Gulf states.

Purpose built to put compute in orbit, the vehicle will carry more than 15,000 kg per launch and fly third-party payloads to help ease a national shortage of launch capacity

SAN CARLOS, Calif., Oct. 28, 2026 — Cowboy Space Corporation, the orbital infrastructure company founded by Robinhood co-founder Baiju Bhatt, has unveiled the architecture of its launch vehicle, “Big Iron,” whose upper stage is designed to stay in orbit as a megawatt-class data center. The company also introduced “Big Iron Express,” a commercial launch program for outside customers who need megawatt-class power in orbit, whether for compute or other uses.

“We set out to build data centers in space and found there weren’t enough rockets to get them there, so we’re building our own,” said Baiju Bhatt, founder and CEO of Cowboy Space Corporation. “Our design puts us on a path to cost parity with terrestrial data centers, so that orbital compute costs less than AI compute on the ground. Opening it to the rest of the industry makes every flight safer and more efficient, and gives the country another path to orbit.”

Cowboy designed Big Iron around the single purpose of putting data centers in space, which makes it simpler and more efficient to build and fly than a general-purpose vehicle. To further optimize the cost and production speed, many of the rocket’s features serve dual-purposes depending on whether it is on ascent or in orbit. For example, Big Iron’s skin becomes the data center’s radiator; the ammonia propellant becomes the coolant; and the nitrogen pressurizing the rocket’s second stage deploys the satellite’s solar wings.

The key to Cowboy’s design is that rather than deploying a small satellite and being discarded, the upper stage joins Cowboy’s constellation, so every launch grows its compute capacity at a cost competitive price. Once deployed at dawn-dusk orbit, the satellite is 132 meters by 73 meters and can carry five compute racks of NVIDIA Vera Rubin GPUs. The same upper stage will be designed to carry other companies’ payloads, configured to suit each mission.

The stainless steel vehicle with a reusable booster stands 86 meters tall and is designed to carry more than 15,000 kg to sun-synchronous orbit. It is sized to the limit of road transport, which speeds production and keeps capital costs down. The first stage is powered by nine liquid oxygen and methane “Clydesdale” engines, each of which provides 300,000 lbs of thrust. Cowboy selected methane to support reuse, and chose a gas generator engine cycle, a proven architecture, to shorten the path to first flight.

Cowboy has filed an application with the FCC for a 20,000-satellite constellation called Stampede. The company launched its first satellite, Reason-1, on October 1 to demonstrate laser power beaming from orbit to Earth. Reason-2, slated for 2027, will operate GPUs in orbit for commercial and government workloads, processing data where it’s collected and sending results to Earth. Cowboy is targeting its first flight of Big Iron in 2028 and intends to scale its Stampede constellation rapidly thereafter.

Companies interested in “Big Iron Express” launch services can learn more at www.cowboyspace.com.

About Cowboy Space Corporation

Cowboy Space Corporation (formerly Aetherflux) is building vertically integrated orbital infrastructure for the AI era, spanning launch vehicles, space-based power, and in-orbit compute. The company is headquartered in San Carlos, California, with operations in Seattle, Washington, and backed by Index Ventures, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Construct Capital, Interlagos, and IVP, among others.

Source: Cowboy Space

The post Cowboy Space Unveils Big Iron Rocket Designed to Become an Orbital Data Center appeared first on HPCwire.

Why is it important to vote even if the president isn't on the ballot? House and Senate control, governor's mansions, ballot questions and more that will be determined by the 2026 midterm elections.

(The Center Square) — Election officials will comply with the federal government’s efforts to deploy observers across the country in the 2026 midterm elections.

The group's lawyers are asking a judge to let them subpoena a former SPLC informant who has been voluntarily providing material to the government.

Former comedian, in court on rape and sexual assault charges, says he misused position but ‘consent is more important than sex itself’

Russell Brand has told a court that he was wrong to have used his fame and success to “facilitate” sexual activity with women.

The 51-year-old comedian said he had “misused” his position “very selfishly” and dedicated his life to “reckless philandering and idiocy”.

Watered-down version of statement to be issued at end of Montreal summit instead offers ‘ever closer association’

The EU has backed away from its offer to Canada to start talks on becoming an “associate member” after disagreements between member states just as an EU-Canada summit was set to begin in Montreal.

A draft of a joint statement to be issued after the end of the summit, which runs Thursday and Friday, showed a watered-down version offering “an ever closer association of Canada to the EU, short of full membership itself”.

(The Center Square) - President Donald Trump campaigned in Texas on Tuesday as part of his last push for Republicans running for office in the Lone Star State.

Caregivers spend an average of $11,500 per year looking after an aging parent, relative or friend, up roughly 60% since 2021, according to AARP.

Commentary: Apple finally put touch on a MacBook Pro, but at a price and form that confuses me.

(The Center Square) – More than 700 fraudsters allegedly stole a total of $4.84 million from older Americans over the span of 12 months, according to a new U.S. Department of Justice report.

On Wednesday, Oct. 28, the Federal Reserve announced that central bankers would leave the federal funds rate unchanged. Since this was in line with market expectations, mortgage rates shouldn’t have much of a reaction — yet.The average rate on a…

Keaton Denlay says agents handed him ‘poorly formatted Excel spreadsheet’ and threatened to criminally prosecute him

A California county elections official is speaking out about the Department of Justice’s campaign against purported “voter fraud”, saying federal officials provided him a disorganized list of names filled with inaccuracies – and threatened to criminally prosecute him if he didn’t take action.

Keaton Denlay, the county clerk-recorder for Butte county, a region north of Sacramento, said a federal agent on Friday hand-delivered what appeared to be a printout of a “poorly formatted Excel spreadsheet with missing and jumbled information”. The DoJ claimed the list was of 47 “likely” noncitizens who were unlawfully registered to vote and demanded the county set aside their ballots. But Denlay said the document was riddled with errors and lacking crucial details, and he declined to act on it.

(Image via ChatGPT. Anthropic’s Claude doesn’t directly generate images)

Rep. Clint Owlett will host a human trafficking awareness event on recognizing signs of trafficking and online grooming Thursday, Oct. 29, in Canton.

Amazon has added a camera to its Echo Studio speaker, allowing Alexa to visually identify objects, help with tasks and remotely monitor a room. For those concerned about privacy, Amazon is keeping a camera-free version available. The Next Web reports: The camera speaker ships today for $249.99. Hold up a board game box and Alexa can explain the rules, or show it a box of cereal and it can help you reorder it, according to Amazon. Owners can also check in on the room from the Alexa app while they are away. The Echo Studio without a camera stays on sale at $219.99. A dedicated button turns off the microphones and any camera, and a visual indicator shows when a camera streams images or video to the cloud, Amazon said. Certain features require Alexa+, which is included with a Prime membership. Other devices Amazon unveiled today include an Echo Time alarm clock, an Alexa Photo Frame and the Echo Show 16.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Pedro Sánchez says the government will act with urgency to ‘clarify what has happened, why this tragedy occurred’

• Full report from Spain

At least 30 people are believed to have died after two high-speed trains collided in the province of Toledo in Spain, with concerns the death toll could be much higher.

The number of people affected is expected to rise (10:46), local authorities said, with growing concerns about a “major tragedy” (11:03).

The affected trains are understood to be Iryo 7076 with 146 passengers plus one baby on board, and AVE 2080 with 397 passengers on board, making it 544 people in total on board of both train (11:00).

The incident comes less than a year after a similar crash in Adamuz, the province of Córdoba, which killed 46 and injured 152 in January this year (11:00).

Spain’s high-speed railway network ranks as the largest in Europe and the second biggest in the world after China, carrying 25 million passengers in 2024.

Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez said he was “shocked” by the accident (11:05), with transport minister Óscar Puente working at the emergency control centre to “obtain all possible information about what happened” (11:16).

Updated at 10:50am UK to reflect the new death toll

“In the [emergency] control center since 9:40 trying to obtain all possible information about what happened.”

Keep spooky season going a little longer with these PlayStation Plus games in November.

The world model has a waitlist and the newest frontier Gemini model is restricted to select cybersecurity experts.

While GPUs have powered the AI boom and are widely used to accelerate HPC workloads, they’re not the best fit for every computing challenge. Sparse workloads, in particular, represent a big mismatch with GPU capabilities. That’s one reason why the Jülich Supercomputing Center (JSC) today announced that it has tapped Sparxity (formerly SpiNNcloud) to provide neuromorphic systems to accelerate sparse machine learning workloads.

Sparxity is a spinoff from a neuromorphic computing research project that spanned the University of Dresden and University of Manchester. The company, which was founded as SpiNNcloud in 2021, originally sought to build a neuromorphic chip for accelerating spiking neural network (SNNs).

JUBIS installed at JSC (Image courtesy Sparxity)

Over time, the company focused its efforts on accelerating a broader range of sparse computing workloads. According to Sparxity CEO and Founder Hector Gonzalez, that encompasses two main areas, including sparse machine learning workloads that are common in the traditional HPC community as well as accelerating the AI inference involving mixture of experts (MoE) models.

The company has developed a neuromorphic chip, dubbed the SpiNNaker2, which includes 152 processing cores. Each computing board contains 48 chips, or 7,296 cores per board. The JUBIS system being deployed at JSC contains 90 boards across several racks, representing 656,640 SpiNNaker2 cores in the multi-million-dollar deployment.

The JUBIS system will be installed in proximity to the Jupiter Booster, Europe’s first exascale supercomputer, and it’s designed to take over and run sparse machine learning workloads, such as sparse solvers and sparse optimizers, that won’t be good match to the Jupiter Booster or other JSC systems.

“Sparse machine learning represents one of the biggest opportunities to fundamentally improve the efficiency of AI,” said Dr. Guido Trensch of the Simulation and Data Lab Neuroscience at JSC. “By adopting Sparxity, we’re able to complement our globally unique HPC infrastructure with a fundamentally new approach, opening up new research opportunities so that we can further develop advancements in neuroscience.”

Sparxity developed its chip and its systems specifically to maximize computing efficiency for sparse workloads, Gonzalaz said.

Spinnaker2 boards (Image courtesy Sparxity)

“Essentially we have our systems architecture to enable event-based communication and computation,” he told HPCwire in an interview this week. “You have many, many low power cores that are highly interconnected inside every chip that we have. You have like a network on chip that basically allows you to connect chips to chips, and it allows you to scale like a very large-scale toroidal network, where you have many low power cores that talk to each other in real time and also exchange information in a very event-based or energy proportional approach.”

GPUs were designed to excel at dense workloads, where the matrices or tensors have relatively few elements with a value of zero. This is comparable to an image where most of the pixels contain some color, as opposed to being blank or dark. When the data is sparse–that is, when the image has a lot of blank or dark pixels–the GPU does not process the data faster. Instead of chugging through dense matrix-matrix multiplication, which the GPU is good at, the processor is asked to essentially process much skinnier scalars.

HPC experts Jack Dongarra, Satoshi Matsuoaka, and Torsten Hoefler touched on this earlier this year in their paper “Do We Still Need GPUs? Rethinking AI and Scientific Computing on Matrix-Enhanced CPUs.”

“Scientific computing is broader than dense matrix multiplication,” Dongarra, Matsuoka, and Hoefler wrote. “Many important applications involve sparse matrices, graph-like data structures, adaptive meshes, particles, multiscale coupling, irregular memory access, global reductions, and communication across distributed systems.”

This is the same challenge that Gonzales and Sparxity are tackling with its Spinnaker2 chip and systems. In addition to providing a much more efficient way to process sparse machine learning workloads, such as finite element analysis, the chips also excel at running some of the newer AI models.

MOE models are increasingly sparse (Image courtesy Sparxity)

When the AI boom first took off, the LLMs were designed to take advantage of GPU’s sweet spot, which was dense matrix-matrix multiplication. AI models with hundreds of billions and then trillions of activated parameters represented a dense workload that was a good match to GPUs.

But as the AI boom wore on, the community introduced mixture of experts (MOE) models. Instead of one humongous LLM with all of its parameters activated, MOEs have a combination of smaller LLMs, and only the parameters that are needed to answer a given problem are activated. So instead of dense workloads, the workload became much sparser, which is one of the reasons why GPUs are in less demand for AI  inference and why CPUs  are in demand (although there are other reasons, such as CPUs being better at the general compute needed for inference, KV cache calculations, tool calling, etc.)

The MOE trend has continued, and today many of the top foundation models from the US and China are becoming sparser. However, that’s creating a mismatch with the largely GPU-based systems that AI has so far relied on, Gonzalez says.

“There are a bunch of scaling laws that actually dictate the desire of going to this extreme level of sparsity,” Gonzalez said. “The more you increase the number of experts that are very small, the more you jump into these different performance curves, which are very attractive at larger parameter counts, because essentially you are getting into very intelligent models that have strong expressivity characteristics.

In addition to sparsity, another factor is granularity, which refers to how small the expert is. With a larger number of experts, the size of each expert gets smaller (assuming the same size LLM). The next generation of Sparxity’s hardware will focus more on optimizing computing for granularity, Gonzalez said.

“We basically are positioning ourselves in a very complementary angle, basically designing systems that are good at dealing with the sparse workloads,” he said. “We have already this strong traction into HPC workloads, and we are actually leaning a bit more into the mainstream space.”

Sparxity today has dozens of deployed systems at 30 customers around the world, Gonzalez said. Sandia National Laboratories is one of its HPC customers in the U.S.

The CEO also commented on the new name for the company. “Behind the new name is first showing the commitment around sparse workloads,” he said. “It’s also tying our roots on the neuromorphic side of things without actually bringing alongside the association with neuromorphic computing things, but rather more positioning into the strategic commitment that the company is doing. As I mentioned, like the our commitment is around sparse workloads.

The post Jülich Gets Sparse Computing Boost from Sparxity Accelerators appeared first on HPCwire.

Tech workers have become increasingly vocal when their employers’ business deals clash with their values.

In the latest wave of Jeffrey Epstein-related midterm attacks, a new ad targets Florida Republican Sen. Ashley Moody and accuses her of casting a pivotal vote to keep the deceased sex offender’s government files secret.

An Oct. 23 ad that aired during World Series games features an Epstein survivor identified as Marina. In the ad, she said she was 13 and vulnerable when she met Epstein, who “used me in every way.”

“Senator Ashley Moody cast the deciding vote to protect the man who abused me,” she said just as text appeared on screen: “Ashley Moody cast the deciding vote to block the release of the Epstein files.”

The ad cites Moody’s September 2025 vote to block an amendment that could have made the Epstein files publicly available. 

The ad was paid for by New Deal for All, a political action committee launched by Steve Pajcic, a Florida lawyer and former Democratic state legislator.

The group pointed PolitiFact to news stories that described the September vote as Republicans narrowly thwarting Democrats’ efforts to force the files’ release. A statement from New Deal for All also said that if Moody had voted against tabling the amendment, it wouldn’t have reached the majority needed to pass.

But the ad leaves out some important context, and it ignores Moody’s role in the Senate’s unanimous consent two months later to pass the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which spurred the files release.

RELATED: The Epstein midterms: Why the deceased felon appears in Texas, Ohio, Georgia, MA Senate attacks

The ad singles Moody out, cherry-picks her voting record

Screenshot of Oct. 23, 2026, ad, “Protect,” sponsored by New Deal for All PAC.

The ad cites Moody’s Sept. 10, 2025, vote on a Democratic amendment, attached to an annual defense authorization bill. It directed the attorney general to release Epstein investigative files.

At the time, President DonaldTrump’s administration was actively fighting efforts to force the release of the files, warning Republicans that supporting bills or motions that would do so was a hostile act. In the House, GOP leadership blocked Democratic-led amendments and committee motions to keep the issue off the floor, and members routinely voted with party leadership. 

Moody joined nearly all of her Republican colleagues in voting to table the amendment, essentially blocking it, which passed 51-49. Any one of those Republicans, including Moody, could be considered to have cast the “deciding” vote. 

The New Deal for All PAC was correct in saying that if Moody or another Republican senator had flipped their vote, the motion to table would have failed in a 50–50 tie, keeping the amendment alive. 

But even if Moody changed her vote, Vice President JD Vance was poised to cast the tie-breaking vote to continue blocking the amendment. Under the U.S. Constitution, the vice president is considered president of the Senate and acts as the “decider” in the chamber, holding the power to break any 50-50 deadlock on bills, amendments, nominations or procedural motions. 

In the months after the vote, political pressure to release the files grew and more conservative lawmakers started signing a petition led by U.S. Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., that would force a floor vote on their bill, the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The bill required the Justice Department to publish all its Epstein files online. 

Trump reversed his stance and called on Republicans to support the files’ release. On Nov. 18, 2025, the bill passed the House 427-1. 

Moody joined her Senate colleagues to pass the measure by “unanimous consent,” which means there was no recorded vote but no senator objected.

Moody did not say at the time why she voted to block the defense bill amendment and later agreed to pass the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and her campaign did not respond to PolitiFact seeking comment. Other Republican senators who voted against the earlier amendment said it didn’t belong in the defense bill.

Our ruling

An ad from the New Deal for All PAC says Moody “cast the deciding vote to block the release of the Epstein files.”

In September 2025, Moody joined nearly all of her Republican colleagues in a procedural vote in the Senate to table an amendment that could have released the Epstein files, essentially blocking it. 

If Moody (or another Republican) flipped her vote, the motion to table would have failed in a 50–50 tie, keeping the amendment alive. But it likely wouldn’t have gone further as Vance would have been poised to cast the tie-breaking vote to keep the amendment blocked.

Moody joined the rest of the Senate in November 2025, to pass the Epstein Files Transparency Act by unanimous consent, which led to the release of the files.

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

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RELATED: All of our fact-checks related to Jeffrey Epstein

Pete Hoekstra, controversial US ambassador to Canada, has also accused Canadian officials of interfering in US elections

The US ambassador has suggested Canada could be blamed if Republicans perform poorly in next week’s midterm elections, the latest intervention from a controversial figure who has been accused of inflaming a bitter dispute that has angered and baffled residents of both countries.

On Wednesday, CTV news reported that Pete Hoekstra told business leaders at a closed door meeting that if a number of swing races – including Maine and Michigan – go to the Democrats, it could make things harder for Canada because Donald Trump might try to blame the loss on it.

Trump ally, who is seeking to shutter the department, had said office relocation would save taxpayers $4.8m annually

The Trump administration has insisted its controversial education cuts are saving “millions of dollars” after it was reported that Linda McMahon, secretary of education, is planning to spend roughly $43,000 on new furniture for her office.

McMahon’s office told Congress that the secretary’s current furniture was worn out and “cannot be configurationally or aesthetically integrated into the agency’s new office space”, according to non-public records seen by the New York Times.

Few surprises as chancellor uses low-key speech blaming ‘global economic storms’ for stoking energy prices and cost of living crisis

• Budget 2026: key points at a glance

• Briefing: key questions answered by Heather Stewart and Pippa Crerar

• Editorial: Budget’s bold ambitions and welcome first steps

John Healey raised taxes on banks and landlords to fund a £100 winter handout for 20 million families as official forecasts made clear there is no end in sight for the cost of living crisis.

In his first budget, the chancellor blamed “global economic storms” for the grim outlook, as the war in Iran drives up oil and gas prices.

The U.S. central bank left borrowing costs unchanged this month after hiking rates in September for the first time in three years.

Activists who call themselves the Citizen Justice League said they were testing Minnesota's 53-year-old voter voucher law. Videos from the August primary showed them claiming to be registered voters.

Dolores Huerta was a labor activist and civil rights leader who co-founded the group that later became the United Farm Workers.

Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward said the Interior Department is working on a plan to close East Potomac Golf Links by Nov. 15.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Former Yahoo CEO and early Google engineer Marissa Mayer is catching a lot of flak for how she uses AI. In an interview about her new app Dazzle, an AI assistant that learns from your camera roll, Mayer poses what she believes is an impressive flex for the product: It helped her come up with three bullet points about her 10-year-old daughter for a birthday presentation at school, describing her as "empathetic, creative, and an animal lover." It's a vague description, like a generic horoscope -- it could probably describe a lot of 10-year-olds. Some onlookers, like progressive activist Leah Greenberg, marveled that "the fact that Marissa Mayer would voluntarily disclose this to a reporter is a pretty good demonstration of how deeply the culture of Silicon Valley has diverged from the rest of humanity." [...] After publication, Mayer defended herself in a long X post. She claims she was not relying on Dazzle to explain her child to her, but rather, she was testing what her prototype could do -- it resurfaced photos of "forgotten kindergarten projects," like a "snake devenomer" or "sandcat playground," illustrating her daughter's creativity and care for animals. Fair enough. But Mayer remarks in the same interview that people could also use her AI to outsource the mental load of "figuring out the theme for your child's birthday party." She says she's used her app to plan a playdate for her daughter, book family activities on vacation, and decide what to be for Halloween. She even proposes that her AI assistant could coordinate plans with her husband's AI assistant. When the reporter asks her if it's depressing to imagine this "frictionless future planned by AI," Mayer replies, "I haven't really thought that through." The bigger question is: What should we outsource to AI? "What feels like grunt work to someone might be a meaningful part of parenthood for someone else," says Fortune's Emma Hinchliffe. Michael Tasner, Founder and CEO of No Joke Marketing, adds: "Customers are drowning in AI slop, and they can spot it. Use AI for the low-stakes work behind the scenes. Keep the moments that matter to your customers human. Human connection is becoming the new premium."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

• Tucker was banned under NFL’s conduct policy

• Butker has missed five of 16 FG attempts this season

The Kansas City Chiefs have signed the former Baltimore Ravens kicker Justin Tucker to their practice squad after Harrison Butker’s poor start to the season.

Tucker was widely considered one of the best kickers in NFL history until the Ravens released him in May 2025. The Ravens said his departure was a “football decision” after a slump in form, but the move came months after he was accused of inappropriate sexual behavior by massage therapists. Tucker denied the allegations and never faced criminal charges but he served a 10-game NFL ban for violating the league’s personal conduct policy.

Projections show votes for Palestinian parties surged in a tight contest that drew highest turnout in decades

• Israel election results – live updates

• Analysis: Rise of Palestinian parties in Knesset will redraw Israel’s political landscape

Israel’s future hung in the balance on Wednesday as it became clear that Benjamin Netanyahu had lost his governing majority. His political fate now depends on whether opposition Jewish parties are prepared to forge a common front with Palestinian parties, whose support surged in Tuesday’s elections.

The leader of the Jewish opposition bloc, the retired general Gadi Eisenkot, appeared to rule out such a broad coalition in a premature declaration of victory overnight for what he called a “Zionist majority”.

Anthony Williams is accused of attempting to murder passengers and staff on board a London-bound train last November

A knifeman “caused terror and fear on an unimaginable scale” to passengers when he stabbed 10 people on a London-bound train, a court has heard.

Anthony Williams, 33, is accused of attempting to murder 10 passengers and staff on an LNER train on 1 November last year and stabbing four people in the 24 hours before.

A jet carrying the Brazilian far-right senator Flávio Bolsonaro has landed in Miami, Florida, where the losing candidate in Sunday’s presidential election runoff left the airport under police escort without speaking to the press. The Gulfstream IV, registered as LV-JQW, left Guayaquil in Ecuador earlier in the day. After losing Sunday’s election to the incumbent president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Bolsonaro disappeared for more than 24 hours, until Argentina’s migration authorities said he had entered the country by land on Tuesday night

• Flávio Bolsonaro lands in Miami after Brazil election loss

• Flávio Bolsonaro flees Brazil after presidential election loss, reports say

Republicans have condemned the presence of two Dan Sullivans on the ballot, calling it a ploy to split votes

Alaska Democrat Mary Peltola’s campaign was behind an effort to recruit a challenger with almost the same name as the Republican US senator Dan Sullivan, both of whom will appear on the ballot in next week’s midterm elections, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.

Republicans have condemned the presence in the race of two candidates named Dan Sullivan – one the two-term US senator, the second a retiree living in south-eastern Alaska with scant political experience – calling the newcomer a ploy by Democrats to cost the incumbent re-election by splitting his supporters.

It’s available online and in select stores, so you can check out the smart ring in person.

A South Carolina coroner previously confirmed Panettiere died from an accidental drug overdose that included fentanyl.

Reform UK leader ‘shocked’ by £10bn pledged to Ukraine and doubles down on cutting tax for crypto investors

• Budget 2026: key points at a glance

Nigel Farage skipped the chancellor’s first budget because he was worried he would get in a “physical altercation” with another MP in a row over seating arrangements.

The Reform UK leader was not present in the House of Commons but gave a press conference afterwards in which he said he was “shocked” by the £10bn going to support Ukraine and doubled down on his party’s policies on cutting tax for crypto investors.

Circumstances are ripe for change in this onetime Republican stronghold given the current dissatisfaction with Trump agenda, experts say

Donald Trump has repeatedly asked voters to pretend that he is on the ballot in November’s crucial midterm elections. And in the comfortable confines of Arizona’s most affluent and fiercely contested congressional district, Trump is definitely on voters’ minds.

But whether that helps or hurts the warring congressional candidates in this sun-drenched swath of suburbia, where Teslas and walled-in luxury homes dominate, depends on who you ask.

"I didn't even make it through setup," one consumer said after his new iPhone Duo cracked shortly after he bought it.

Fed chair Kevin Warsh said politics played no role in pause of interest rate hikes, despite inflation remaining above 3%

The US Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged on Wednesday during its last board meeting before the midterm elections, keeping rates at one of the highest pre-election levels seen in over 20 years.

Two out of 12 board members voted against the pause, preferring to raise rates by a quarter point this meeting, the Fed board said in a statement.

• 70-year-old wants to spend more time with family

• Johnson leaving after 37 years in role

Ernie Johnson, the widely loved host of Inside the NBA, has announced he will step away at the end of the current season after 37 years in the role.

Johnson made the announcement on social media on Wednesday.

Alvin Hellerstein, a federal judge who for decades oversaw some of the country's most high-profile cases, has died.

Photo – Researchers at UD, including Willett Kempton and Rodney McGee, helped make this technology more affordable and practical.

University of Delaware professor Willett Kempton helped pioneer vehicle-to-grid technology nearly 30 years ago. Now Ford says a UD-developed communications standard is part of its new affordable electric truck platform.

NEWARK, Del. — Technology developed at the University of Delaware is playing a role in Ford Motor Co.’s effort to bring bidirectional power — the ability for an electric vehicle to send electricity back to a home or the electric grid — to a new generation of lower-cost electric trucks.

Ford said Tuesday, Oct. 27, that its 2027 Fathom electric truck will use SAE J3068 with LIN-CP, a communications technology standard developed at the University of Delaware, as part of an electrical architecture intended to make bidirectional charging less expensive.

The connection puts decades of Delaware research led in part by University of Delaware professor Willett Kempton into a vehicle Ford expects to sell for a starting manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $28,350.

Ford says the truck will be capable of supplying a projected 10 kilowatts or more of alternating-current power to a home without requiring the separate wall-mounted inverter used by some earlier systems.

Delaware professor helped pioneer the technology

Kempton and University of Delaware colleagues pioneered vehicle-to-grid, or V2G, technology nearly three decades ago. The idea is relatively simple: Instead of an electric vehicle battery only drawing power from the grid, a properly equipped vehicle can also return power when electricity is needed.

The technology could turn millions of parked vehicles into distributed energy-storage resources.

“Whether it could scale cost-effectively was an open question, and we’ve proven that it can — with the right combination of policies, standards and technology,” Kempton said earlier this year after completion of a Delaware V2G pilot project.

Kempton is a professor of marine science and policy and electrical and computer engineering at UD and is nationally recognized for his work on electric vehicles and vehicle-to-grid systems.

Ford’s announcement provides one of the clearest indications yet that some of the technology developed in Delaware could move beyond research projects and limited demonstrations toward mass-market vehicles.

Ford develops lower-cost system

Ford said cost has been one of the primary barriers preventing bidirectional power from becoming widely available.

Electric vehicle batteries store electricity as direct current, while homes typically use alternating current. Earlier systems often depended on additional external equipment to convert and manage that electricity.

Ford says the Fathom will instead incorporate its inverter into the vehicle’s electrical system, allowing the truck to produce AC power without a separate wall-mounted inverter.

The company said the approach uses fewer multifunctional components and is designed to lower the cost of the vehicle and supporting home equipment.

The truck’s communications architecture is where Delaware enters the picture directly.

Ford said Fathom uses SAE J3068 with LIN-CP, describing it as an existing communications technology developed at the University of Delaware that also helps reduce the cost of the vehicle’s charger.

That distinction is important: UD did not design Ford’s new truck or its entire bidirectional electrical system. Ford says it developed the Fathom hardware and software architecture after acquiring startup Auto Motive Power in 2023.

But the automaker is incorporating a communications approach developed through UD’s work into a production vehicle designed specifically around lower cost.

Delaware research moves from laboratory to electric grid

The Ford announcement follows years of cooperation involving UD, Ford, Delmarva Power and PJM Interconnection.

In 2024, the partners demonstrated vehicle-to-grid technology in Newark using Ford Mustang Mach-E vehicles from Delmarva Power’s fleet.

The vehicles could continue performing their normal utility work while also providing grid services when they were parked and plugged in. Multiple vehicle batteries could be connected electronically and managed as a single resource known as a virtual power plant.

UD researchers also helped develop standards needed for vehicles, chargers and utilities to communicate safely and inexpensively.

Rodney McGee, director of UD’s Center for Transportation Electrification, previously led an SAE committee working on standards that incorporate LIN-CP signaling for low-cost AC charging, V2G operation and vehicle backup power.

Research suggests financial benefits for vehicle owners

The research reached another milestone this year.

A University of Delaware and Exelon/Delmarva Power report released in April found that the V2G-equipped vehicles used in the pilot successfully provided services in actual electricity markets.

Researchers calculated that, based on electricity-market prices from 2021 through 2025, a V2G-enabled passenger electric vehicle could potentially earn as much as $3,359 annually by providing grid services.

Heavier vehicles such as delivery trucks, fleet vehicles and school buses could potentially earn more than $9,000 per year because of their larger batteries.

Those figures are research estimates based on historical market conditions, not guaranteed payments for consumers.

The pilot also found no measured reduction in battery health after a year of market operation, according to UD.

The potential financial benefits are particularly significant for commercial fleet operators, school districts and utilities that could eventually use parked electric trucks and buses to generate revenue while helping stabilize the electrical grid.

A truck becomes more than transportation

For consumers, Ford is initially emphasizing two applications.

Its Home Power Management system is intended to allow customers to charge a truck when electricity is less expensive and then use some of the battery’s energy to power their homes when rates are higher.

The truck can also provide backup electricity during an outage.

Both applications require additional Ford home equipment, although Ford says its new Home Power Station is expected to cost roughly half as much as the company’s first-generation bidirectional charger. Backup operation will require an additional Home Backup Power Panel.

For Delaware homeowners concerned about rising electricity costs and reliability, the technology could eventually offer another way to manage household energy expenses.

However, actual savings will depend on electricity rates, equipment costs, vehicle usage and the availability of utility programs.

Delaware could play a role in national expansion

The larger opportunity — sending power into the electric grid and being compensated for grid services — remains more complicated.

Utilities and regulators must establish interconnection rules governing how vehicles operating as power resources connect safely to the grid.

Ford formed a working group in July with five major utilities, including Exelon, the parent company of Delmarva Power, to develop more standardized interconnection procedures before Fathom reaches customers in 2027.

That puts Delaware in an unusual position.

UD researchers helped pioneer V2G technology. Delaware was the first state to change its laws to permit electric vehicles to provide services to the electric grid. Ford vehicles have already been used in a Delmarva Power V2G demonstration, and Exelon is now participating in Ford’s effort to prepare utilities for broader deployment.

The next question: When will Delaware drivers benefit?

What remains uncertain is how soon ordinary Delaware customers will be able to use a vehicle such as the Fathom not only to power their homes but also to sell services into the electric grid.

Although Delaware has helped lead the research, broader consumer participation will depend on utility interconnection requirements, regulatory approvals, available compensation programs and the cost of compatible equipment.

Ford says Fathom arrives in 2027.

For Kempton and the University of Delaware, the launch could mark an important transition for an idea that began as university research decades ago: from proving that electric vehicles could support the electric grid to helping make the technology affordable enough to reach everyday drivers

TO GO BOX

• What: Ford Fathom electric truck with bidirectional power capability.
• When: Expected to launch in 2027.
• Starting price: $28,350 MSRP, according to Ford.
• Delaware connection: Ford says the truck uses SAE J3068 with LIN-CP, a communications technology developed at the University of Delaware.
• What it can do: Supply electricity to a home, provide backup power during outages and potentially support electric grid services where utility programs allow.
• Why it matters: UD researchers, Delmarva Power, Ford and PJM have demonstrated V2G technology in Delaware. Ford’s new truck could help bring some of that technology into broader consumer use.

Learn more: University of Delaware and Ford Motor Co..