Germany’s national climate computing center modernizes critical HPC user environments to support faster development, simpler operations and more resilient scientific workflows.
June 26, 2026 — VAST Data has announced that the German Climate Computing Center, Deutsches Klimarechenzentrum (DKRZ), has deployed the VAST AI Operating System to modernize a critical part of its high-performance computing environment for climate research.
DKRZ has deployed the VAST AI Operating System to modernize a critical part of its HPC environment for climate research.
DKRZ is Germany’s domain-specific HPC center for climate science, providing computing and data services to researchers across Germany and international climate research projects. The center manages over 250 petabytes of climate data, operates the World Data Center for Climate, and plays an important role in the global climate research ecosystem through initiatives such as the Earth System Grid Federation.
As climate models become more complex and AI begins to reshape scientific workflows, research computing centers are under pressure to support more users, more data and more demanding development environments. For DKRZ, that challenge extended beyond the largest simulation outputs. Researchers also needed reliable access to the everyday workspace where science takes shape: home directories, software stacks, Python environments, shared project spaces, code repositories and visualization scripts.
DKRZ selected VAST to replace and modernize its HPC home and software environment, giving researchers a more reliable foundation for daily work while providing infrastructure teams a simpler and more efficient platform to manage.
“Climate science depends on more than raw compute power. Researchers need reliable access to the environments where they develop models, build software, prepare workflows and analyze results,” said Michael Boettinger, Head Visualization and Outreach at DKRZ. “With VAST, we can provide a modern home and software environment that gives users more capacity, better reliability and fewer technical constraints in their daily work. The home system is central to researchers’ daily work. If it is unavailable, people may still have compute resources, but they cannot easily use the tools, scripts and environments they rely on. Keeping that environment available is a major improvement.”
For DKRZ, the decision to deploy VAST was driven by the complete platform package: snapshots, data reduction, monitoring, ease of administration, non-disruptive upgrades and efficient support for small-file-heavy workflows. These capabilities are especially important in research environments where users often create many similar but not identical software and Python environments, generating large numbers of small files that can become inefficient to manage on traditional systems.
“We were not looking for performance alone. We needed a system fit for the future too, with the right combination of features, reliability and administrative simplicity,” said Anna Fuchs, HPC I/O and Storage Engineer at DKRZ. “Snapshots, monitoring, compression and data reduction were all important, but the real value is that VAST brings these capabilities together in one platform. It allows our users to focus on their work instead of thinking about technical limitations and potential downtime.”
DKRZ has already seen strong results from VAST’s data reduction capabilities. Across production user environments, the center has observed a general reduction factor of approximately 5.5x, with specific software development and build environments achieving reduction factors of approximately 20x or more. This allows DKRZ to provide more usable capacity for researcher workflows without simply adding more hardware.
The platform has also enabled DKRZ to introduce shared environments between individual home directories and global software stacks, allowing project teams to maintain common software and Python environments without duplicating similar files across users.
VAST AI OS enables DKRZ to provide researchers with:
DKRZ is also exploring additional use cases for VAST, including internal services and code-related workflows that require reliable access from researchers and collaborators. The center is evaluating further platform capabilities as it considers how VAST can support future research infrastructure needs.
“Research computing centers are being asked to support more users, more data, more complex software environments and increasingly AI-driven workflows, often with lean teams and finite budgets,” said Christopher Huggins, Managing Director of AI & HPC, EMEA, VAST Data. “DKRZ understands that modern research infrastructure depends on more than just compute, and the data layer is not just a back-end storage concern. It is the foundation that allows researchers to develop, collaborate and turn computation into scientific insight.”
As climate science enters a new era of higher-resolution modelling, larger datasets and AI-assisted research workflows, DKRZ is building a more reliable, efficient and flexible foundation for scientific computing with VAST, and plans to expand the footprint are underway.
About VAST Data
VAST Data is the AI Operating System company – powering the next generation of intelligent systems with a unified software infrastructure stack that was purpose-built to unlock the full potential of AI. The VAST AI OS consolidates foundational data and compute services and agentic execution into one scalable platform, enabling organizations to deploy and facilitate communication between AI agents, reason over real-time data, and automate complex workflows at global scale. Built on VAST’s breakthrough DASE architecture – the world’s first true parallel distributed system architecture that eliminates tradeoffs between performance, scale, simplicity, and resilience – VAST has transformed its modern infrastructure into a global fabric for reasoning AI.
Source: VAST Data
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Led by Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, a group of Senate Democrats suggested the Justice Department violated its internal policies with the creation of the "anti-weaponization" fund.
Bolton agreed to pay a $2.25 million fine, pleading guilty to one count of retaining classified national security information.
The Second Round Foundation, founded by Sandra and Jalen Brunson, aims to help provide young people with what they need to thrive in the future.
Delcy Rodríguez says foreign rescue teams are arriving but people are angry at official response and limited resources
Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, has vowed to fight to save “as many people as possible” as the official death toll from the country’s worst earthquake in more than a century almost doubled, but frustration was growing at the perceived sluggishness of the government’s response.
Rodríguez said on Friday that the official death toll had risen to 589, with nearly 3,000 people injured. Speaking during a tour of La Guaira, the most devastated region, Rodríguez said foreign search and rescue groups were starting to arrive.
Continue reading...⚽ Latest news from day 15 | Haaland v Mbappé in data
⚽ Third-place table | Player guide | Bracketology | Mail John
Kylian Mbappé and Erling Haaland will go head-to-head later on as France take on Norway and they have both scored the same amount of goals so far this tournament with four. They could go top of the Golden Boot standings this evening but who is currently there? Have a look:
Ecuador fans’ nerves will be eased for now but that is not the case for all the nations yet as all of the knockout spots have not been allocated. Here is how the third-place spots are shaking out:
Continue reading...As California Gov. Gavin Newsom eyes a 2028 presidential bid, he's calling for a national tax on billionaires and a public stake in AI, though he opposes a state ballot measure to tax billionaires.
Bolton pleads guilty to charges that he unlawfully retained sensitive national security information in agreement that includes $2.25m fine
Hayes went on:
As national security adviser to the president of the United States, Mr Bolton had access to and was responsible for safeguarding the most sensitive national defense information, including classified material.
Mr Bolton knew how to handle classified information, where it should be stored, how it should be stored, and with whom he could share that information.
Continue reading...Investigators initially suspected food poisoning, but that was quickly dismissed after Turkish media reported that their hotel was dealing with a bedbug infestation.
Stuck with tens of thousands in credit card debt? The right strategy could dramatically reduce your balance.
German firm reportedly considering doubling previously announced staff reductions amid Chinese competition
Germany’s Volkswagen is to cut up to 100,000 jobs and reduce and eventually stop production at some plants, according to reports.
The company has refused to comment on reports of a management presentation at a board meeting outlining dramatic cost cutting, but if it goes ahead it would mean Volkswagen doubling previously announced staff reductions.
Continue reading...Long-term CD accounts offer extended financial protection and big returns for those looking to deposit $40,000 now.
An investor who employed and was close to Jeffrey Epstein is appearing before members of Congress investigating the deceased sexual abuser.
Ex-national security adviser turned Trump critic could face prison for sharing classified information with relatives
John Bolton, the former US national security adviser who became an arch-enemy of Donald Trump after serving under him and then being fired, pleaded guilty on Friday to a charge of mishandling classified information that could result in him going to prison.
Bolton admitted the charge, as widely anticipated, in an appearance at a federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland, in a plea deal designed to produce a lesser sentence by reducing the seriousness of the accusations against him.
Continue reading...Efforts of campaign groups, supporters and party figures coalesced after May elections as MPs’ views began to change
The third coming of Andy Burnham began in earnest on the dancefloor of the Ministry of Sound. It was the annual conference of the centre-left pressure group Compass on an unusually hot spring weekend in May 2025. Keir Starmer, a year into his premiership, was deep in the trenches of the welfare battle, and the event’s keynote speakers were Burnham and Louise Haigh.
Under the hot pink lights, the mayor of Greater Manchester joked that he was doing the “rally the troops” slot, inappropriate for a pessimistic Evertonian. But he said there was one reason to still be cheerful.
Continue reading...Estimated 150 million people in Europe could experience temperatures above 35C today
Over in the UK, firefighters are still trying to bring a large wildfire in Derbyshire under control.
The blaze, which has burned over 500 square metres of moorland and woodland on Tintwistle Moor, near Glossop, broke out on Wednesday evening, with fire crews from Manchester and Derbyshire deploying a water-dropping helicopter and six fire engines on Thursday.
Continue reading...Scrutiny of Black’s association with Epstein has intensified after DoJ released millions of files last year and this year
The billionaire financier Leon Black is scheduled to appear before the House committee on oversight and reform on Friday morning as part of its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.
The interview will be conducted behind closed doors, though the committee is expected to release a transcript at a later date, as it has done with previous interviews.
Continue reading...It's Day 4 of Prime Day and we're still here and hunting down the very best deals to shop.
Jane Pauley hosts a special program celebrating our nation's semiquincentennial, "These United States - America at 250."
As temperatures soar across Europe, cities are struggling to adapt, further exacerbating socioeconomic divisions
The heatwave afflicting western Europe is the worst ever, with the combination of heat and humidity fuelled by the climate crisis making scores of cities feel unliveable. While for some the adverse impacts amount to disturbed sleep and sticky days in the home office, low-income families are often worse affected by cities’ lack of adequate adaptation measures, with women at the sharp end.
“[It] throws a grenade into every vulnerability you already have,” says Asad Rehman, chief executive of Friends of the Earth, pointing out that vulnerable or marginalised groups often bear the brunt of climate crisis-based hardship globally.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed, you can read more on this story here
China’s president Xi Jinping said Beijing was ready to provide Venezuela with “disaster relief and reconstruction” assistance.
Xi sent a message of condolence to Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodríguez today, according to Chinese state news agency Xinhua.
Continue reading...schwit1 shares a report from The Wall Street Journal: The European Union Aviation Safety Agency has ordered (PDF) urgent inspections of 16 Airbus A380 planes operated by Emirates and Qantas, after cracks were found in a wing component on some aircraft (source paywalled; alternative source).. Cracks were found during earlier inspections of the wing spars structure, a key component of the wing, EASA said in a directive effective Wednesday. EASA determined that they "could reduce the structural integrity of the wing." "To address this potential unsafe condition, Airbus determined that an additional special detailed inspection has to be accomplished," EASA said. The first group of five aircraft, operated by Emirates, need to be inspected immediately, while the second group of 11 aircraft can be inspected later but within 25 flight cycles, EASA said in a separate statement. From the second group, 10 are operated by Emirates and one by Qantas, the aviation safety agency said.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Ukraine will ramp up attacks on Russia in an operation "aimed at compelling it to end the war."
June 26, 2026 — To address the rapidly growing computational demands driven by generative artificial intelligence (AI), Taiwan’s National Center for High-performance Computing (NCHC) under the National Institutes of Applied Research (NIAR) officially launched its newest AI supercomputing system, “Nano4” (Chip Innovation 26), on June 1, 2026. The new system provides enhanced AI computing resources for academia, government agencies, and industry users.
NCHC’s Nano4
Nano4 is a key outcome of the “Chip-Driven Industrial Innovation Upgrade: Next-Generation High-Performance Computing and AI Evaluation Environment Project” (Chip Innovation Program). Designed specifically for large-scale generative AI model training, inference, and high-performance computing applications, the system is equipped with the latest NVIDIA H200 GPUs, featuring eight GPUs per server, a 400 Gb/s high-speed network, and 2 TB of memory per node. This advanced architecture significantly improves performance for AI development, scientific simulations, data analytics, and other compute-intensive workloads.
The deployment of Nano4 further strengthens Taiwan’s sovereign computing infrastructure and supports research and innovation in key fields such as AI, semiconductors, biomedical sciences, climate modeling, digital twins, and smart manufacturing. It will help accelerate technology development and real-world applications across academia, government, and industry.
To encourage users to explore the new AI computing platform, NCHC will offer a free trial period throughout June, followed by the start of full commercial operations in July. This phased rollout will allow users to familiarize themselves with the system and optimize their workflows.
Looking ahead, NCHC will continue expanding Taiwan’s national computing capabilities by integrating AI, high-performance computing (HPC), and cloud technologies, providing a robust computing foundation for scientific innovation and industrial transformation.
NCHC welcomes research institutions, government organizations, and enterprises with needs in AI, HPC, and large-scale data analytics to leverage these national computing resources and help drive Taiwan into the next era of intelligent technology.
More from HPCwire: LineShine Debuts at No. 1 as the TOP500 Enters a New Global Exascale Era
Source: NCHC
The post Taiwan’s NCHC Launches Nano4 AI Supercomputer to Power Next-Gen AI Innovation appeared first on HPCwire.
NEW YORK, June 26, 2026 — Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and Meta have announced a strategic multi-generation collaboration for Qualcomm Technologies to be a supplier for data center CPUs for Meta. Qualcomm Technologies’ data center CPU, the Qualcomm Dragonfly C1000, is planned to power Meta’s next-generation server fleet, underscoring the growing importance of high-performance, power-efficient compute in large-scale scale-out environments.
Qualcomm Technologies’ solutions will be in production starting in the second half of 2028 and future data center capacity expansions. Qualcomm Technologies’ platform approach, spanning advanced compute, high-performance connectivity, and system-level optimization, is designed to deliver substantial performance per watt and help reduce total cost of ownership at scale.
“We designed our data center CPU to deliver leading performance per core and a breakthrough in power efficiency for large scale data center deployments, and this multi-generation agreement with Meta is a significant validation of that approach,” said Cristiano Amon, President and CEO, Qualcomm Incorporated. “We’re thrilled to build on our partnership with Meta, expanding from devices to data center. And this is just the beginning.”
“We’re excited to continue partnering with Qualcomm Technologies as they design the next generation of CPUs for Meta,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO, Meta. “Along with our other compute investments, we’re quickly building the infrastructure we need to deliver personal superintelligence to everyone in the world.”
More from HPCwire
About Qualcomm
Qualcomm is a global computing leader at the center of the AI era, enabling intelligence to scale from the most personal devices to large scale infrastructure. Building on more than four decades of innovation, we develop platforms and solutions that bring together advanced AI, high performance, low power computing and industry leading connectivity—powering products and services used around the world. At Qualcomm, we are engineering human progress.
Qualcomm Incorporated includes our licensing business, QTL, and the vast majority of our patent portfolio. Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, operates, along with its subsidiaries, substantially all of our engineering and research and development functions and substantially all of our products and services businesses, including our QCT semiconductor business. Snapdragon and Qualcomm branded products are products of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries. Qualcomm patents are licensed by Qualcomm Incorporated.
Source: Qualcomm
The post Qualcomm and Meta Announce Strategic Multi-Generation Agreement on Data Center CPUs appeared first on HPCwire.
CPS says decision to withhold names is due to fears Tate and his brother could identify alleged victims online
Andrew and Tristan Tate’s legal claim to be told the names of their female accusers has been thrown out by a high court judge who ruled that prosecutors had acted reasonably in treating the brothers as “notorious”.
Mr Justice Chamberlain on Friday rejected an attempt to compel the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to inform the Tates of the identities of the women whose allegations have formed the basis for charges against the men of rape, actual bodily harm and human trafficking.
Continue reading...New York are 34-47 and have lost six straight
Owner Cohen calls season a disappointment
Team have MLB’s second-highest payroll at $377m
Carlos Mendoza was fired as manager of the underperforming New York Mets on Friday and replaced by Andy Green.
New York are 34-47 following a six-game losing streak, 15 games behind National League East-leading Atlanta and 9.5 games back of the NL’s last wild-card berth.
Continue reading...Technology companies are betting trillions of dollars that consumers will open their wallets for AI services. But what if Big Tech is wrong?
Sam Altman announces limited preview of GPT 5.6 in move that echoes launch of Anthropic’s Mythos
OpenAI is staggering the release of its latest AI model after a request from the US government, in a move echoing the launch of Anthropic’s Mythos product.
Sam Altman, the chief executive of the company behind ChatGPT, told staff this week that GPT 5.6 would be released in a limited preview to a small group of partners, according to the tech publication The Information.
Continue reading...RJ Scaringe says firms focused on selling fossil fuel engines risk being ‘woefully behind’ on technology by end of decade
Carmakers that focus on selling fossil fuel engines are at risk of being “woefully behind” on technology by the end of the decade, according to the boss of Rivian, an Amazon-backed US electric carmaker.
RJ Scaringe, Rivian’s founder and chief executive, said the car industry has reached a “fork in the road” in the choice between short-term profits and the heavy investments, particularly in software, that will be required to survive.
Continue reading...Two of boxing’s ascendant stars have been tabbed for greatness since they were teenagers. On Saturday night at Barclays Center, one will claim the signature win both have been chasing
It is the type of fight boxing routinely claims to want and too rarely delivers. When Jaron “Boots” Ennis and Xander Zayas step into the ring at the Barclays Center on Saturday night, they will be putting more on the line than their undefeated records. They will be risking the carefully cultivated aura of inevitability that has surrounded both men since they were teenagers.
In an era when promising fighters are routinely steered around danger rather than toward it, Ennis and Zayas have chosen a different road. The result is one of the year’s most compelling fights: a showdown between two undefeated champions tabbed for stardom since adolescence whose reputations still outpace their résumés.
Continue reading...Those partial to a pint may be relieved to know a modest of amount of weak beer may actually be beneficial
As Europe endures a record-breaking heatwave, countries are taking steps to keep people safe and prevent health services from becoming overstretched. Parisians face a temporary ban on drinking alcohol in public to reduce the pressure on the hospitals after a four-fold rise in cardiac arrests in a 24-hour period.
We look at why drinking alcohol can be dangerous in a heatwave.
Continue reading...An 18th-century archaeological dig uncovered a library of intact but charred scrolls. Their contents have been unreadable until recently.
The story behind MacPaw's proactive Mac assistant that can solve hundreds of tasks and adapts to how you think and work.
New platform delivers direct-to-chip liquid cooling with end-to-end infrastructure and services, simplifying enterprise deployment of high-density AI compute
AUSTIN, Texas, June 26, 2026 — JetCool, a Flex company and leading provider of advanced cooling for AI and high-density computing, has announced the launch of a liquid-cooled version of the Dell PowerEdge XE7745 server. The solution combines a fully integrated, liquid-cooled system with commissioning, deployment, and ongoing maintenance services, along with unified warranty coverage across the server and cooling environment. Delivered tested and ready to deploy, it reduces risk, variability, and complexity for enterprise customers.
By bringing together server, cooling, and lifecycle services in a single offering, JetCool provides a streamlined path to adopt cost-effective, high-density AI infrastructure through a single, accountable partner.
Liquid-Cooled XE7745 Servers: Performance Without Compromise
The liquid-cooled Dell PowerEdge XE7745 is based on a proven platform recognized for high performance, density, and cost efficiency. Purpose-built for demanding AI, HPC, and GPU-accelerated workloads, it supports dual 5th Gen AMD EPYC processors and up to eight high-density NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell GPUs.
To manage these intensive computing demands, JetCool’s SmartPlate direct-to-chip liquid cooling removes heat directly from the silicon, effectively managing sustained loads of up to 8 kW per server. This precision-engineered thermal solution delivers substantial efficiency and performance gains over the air-cooled configuration:
By optimizing heat transfer at the chip level, the liquid cooling frees up valuable power and cooling capacity at the rack level, allowing enterprises to deploy more compute density into their existing data center footprints.
Designed for rapid, efficient deployment, the system utilizes low-flow operation, allowing enterprises to replace older, less-dense servers without disrupting their existing facility water loops. To simplify the upgrade process, JetCool provides the entire rack-level infrastructure, including the physical racks, mounting hardware, CDUs, manifolds, and fluid distribution equipment, delivering a complete, factory-tested assembly that is ready to install.
Value of an End-to-End Approach
By bringing together the server, cooling, infrastructure, lifecycle services, and warranty into a single, coordinated offering, JetCool simplifies how liquid-cooled systems are procured, deployed, and operated. A single point of support and accountability spans system configuration, delivery, and support, reducing vendor complexity and eliminating gaps in ownership.
Powered by Flex’s global manufacturing footprint, supply chain depth, and service capabilities, the JetCool solution delivers the consistency and execution that enterprises need to deploy and scale confidently across data centers and regions.
“Scaling next-generation AI demands a leap forward in compute density, but the real key to success is bringing that power online quickly, safely, and efficiently,” said Bernie Malouin, Founder of JetCool and Vice President at Flex. “By delivering the Dell PowerEdge XE7745 as a fully integrated, liquid-cooled system backed by end-to-end services, we’re taking the risk out of high-density deployments. We’re giving operators a reliable path to get peak performance out of their hardware while keeping their existing facility running predictably.”
The liquid-cooled Dell PowerEdge XE7745 platform is available directly from JetCool. To learn more, visit https://jetcool.com/Dell.
About Flex
Flex (Reg. No. 199002645H) is the manufacturing partner of choice that helps leading brands design, build, and manage products that improve the world. With a global footprint spanning 30 countries, Flex delivers advanced manufacturing and supply chain solutions, innovative products and technology, and lifecycle services that support customers from concept to scale. In the AI era, Flex is helping customers accelerate data center deployment by solving power, heat, and scale challenges through cutting-edge power and cooling technology and scalable IT infrastructure solutions.
About JetCool
JetCool, a Flex company, is a global leader in advanced thermal management for compute-intensive applications. Trusted by top chipmakers, OEMs, and data centers, JetCool delivers a portfolio of liquid cooling solutions that enhance performance, increase energy efficiency, and support sustainability goals. Engineered for the demands of artificial intelligence (AI) and next-generation computing, JetCool technologies deliver reliable, scalable performance for data centers around the world.
Source: JetCool
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Prime Day is officially here, and the savings are even better than we hoped for.
Amazon’s annual shopping event ends today. We vetted sales on Our Place’s bestselling pan, Hatch’s sunrise alarm clock, a Ninja Creami ice cream maker and more – our no-junk picks
Prime Day is the wild west of online shopping. For every genuinely great deal, there are about seven duds dressed up in “best of” graphics. To prevent you from wasting your money (or time), our editors have cut through the chaos to find Prime Day 2026’s good stuff.
Every item in this roundup has been personally tested, vetted and loved by the Filter team. We’ve also factchecked the price history on each pick to spot “list prices” that never existed and fake markdowns. It may be overkill for a list of deals, but we take your wallet seriously.
Best kitchen deal:
Our Place Titanium Always Pan Pro
Best home deal:
Levoit Tower Fan
Plans to protect people fall ‘far short of what is needed’, government told, as MP warns of heatwave deaths
The UK government is facing increasingly urgent calls for action to protect people against the intensifying effects of the climate crisis, as the highest maximum temperature record for June was broken for the third day in a row.
With the country in the grip of the worst heatwave ever recorded in western Europe – a direct result of global heating – the chair of parliament’s environmental audit committee warned ministers of the urgent threat and said the UK was falling “far short of what is needed”.
Continue reading...Her motivations for returning may be hard to gauge but there is no doubt the returning former champion will steal the early spotlight at SW19
At the southernmost point of the All England Lawn Tennis Club’s vast grounds, Serena Williams was starting another day of training as the clock ticked down to her first singles match after four years of retirement. Her training partner for the morning, Marta Kostyuk, soon joined her on court 10 in Aorangi Park, the quaint practice area reserved only for players.
Kostyuk is one of the more extroverted players on the tour and she is widely known for speaking her mind under all circumstances, but when Williams greeted Kostyuk and thanked her for the training session, for once the Ukrainian looked at a loss for words: “No, thank you for playing with me,” she responded.
Continue reading...The Trevor Project non-profit that helped pioneer LGBTQ+ ‘press 3’ option for 988 hotline is being shut out as it restarts
The Trump administration is moving to restart the specialized LGBTQ+ option for youth who contact the 988 crisis intervention hotline – but the group that helped pioneer the idea is being shut out.
The Trevor Project, the New York-based leading non-profit for suicide prevention in LGBTQ+ young people in the US, may not be allowed to offer the service it had helped develop for the 988 Lifeline just a few years ago.
Continue reading...A proposed tax on billionaire's has divided the Democratic Party in California, with most of the state's prominent liberals opposing the measure.
Experts say decision presents problem for business owners – and indicates direction court’s conservatives are heading
Experts say a supreme court ruling that struck down a Hawaii law banning people from carrying guns on private property without permission could present problems for business owners – and is a bellwether of what steps the majority-conservative court may take toward undoing policies they see as placing an undue burden on legal gun owners.
The US supreme court handed down the ruling in Wolford v Lopez on Thursday in a 6-3 decision. Second-amendment law centers and advocates praised the ruling as another win and important step toward challenging other restrictions that are out of line with gun laws that existed at the nation’s founding. Gun control and gun violence groups, meanwhile, lambasted the decision as a dangerous one that prioritizes the rights of gun owners over public safety.
Continue reading...The twin earthquakes that hit Venezuela killed almost 600 people, and that toll is likely to keep rising as frantic rescue and recovery operations ramp up.
The U.S. men's team had already clinched its spot in the Round of 32, the knockout round, with its 2-0 win over Australia on Friday.
Hezbollah says Israel must withdraw forces from Lebanon and Iran strikes a ship in the Strait of Hormuz as negotiations toward a peace deal grind on.
Cape Verdeans in Britain feeling ‘incredibly proud’ after team’s hard-fought draws against Spain and Uruguay
For as long as she can remember, 13-year-old Lauryn struggled to find a map that included Cape Verde. Now, to her great delight, the tiny African island nation is finally centre stage.
“Seeing our country shown across the world at the World Cup makes me feel incredibly proud,” Lauryn says. “After the first match, everyone was talking about Cape Verde. People saw the talent and the skill of our players.”
Continue reading...Apple spent plenty of time talking about Siri AI at WWDC, but some of iOS 27's most useful changes are much smaller.
Spanning a six-lane highway and located in a public park, this crossing is part of a larger restoration of endangered Texas prairie land
The Guardian receives support for visual climate coverage from the Outrider Foundation. The Guardian’s coverage is editorially independent
Stores over-stock their shelves, then toss out what they don’t sell. Meanwhile, workers struggle to make ends meet
To most grocery shoppers, rotisserie chickens look like a mouth-watering and easy option for dinner. But whenever I pass by the rotisserie case in a supermarket, I see chicken carcasses piled up in the trash, their once glistening juices congealing into a slimy jelly.
It all started when I was working as a cashier in a chain supermarket. One day, I was chatting with a colleague about the behind-the-scenes secrets that shoppers didn’t see. The deli employee said, “Last night we tossed out about sixteen birds.” He explained that managers wanted the rotisserie chicken case to be full at all times because a full case looked appetizing, while a half empty one looked sad. Keeping the case full was an all-day affair. Workers arrived before dawn to season and roast dozens of birds. (One employee burned his arm while maneuvering chickens into the oven. He quit soon after.)
The seasoning and roasting continued throughout the day. As birds disappeared from the display case, workers replaced them. Finally, the store closed, and the leftover chickens were thrown out.
Ann Larson is the author of Cleanup on Aisle Five: Essential Work, Poverty Wages, and the View from Behind the Supermarket Register. She is a fellow with the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.
Critics say the government is ‘creating a boogeyman’ in its drive to use the ‘antifa’ label to frame protesters as terrorists
The US federal government is sweeping up protesters against Cop City, a police training center outside Atlanta, in its push to prosecute what it calls “antifa” – even as state attempts to prosecute activists over the same incident failed for the second time this week.
The case offers insight into the Trump administration’s drive to link the idea of anti-fascism to terrorism, drawn into focus by the decades-long sentences given to protesters against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the Prairieland trial in Texas, also this week.
Continue reading...Research finds immune systems still ‘responding to toxic chemical exposures’ related to East Palestine derailment
In the weeks after the East Palestine train wreck culminated in a towering fireball and chemical release in the small Ohio town, Jessica Boersma was seriously exposed to the stew of compounds emitted from the derailment site.
Boersma lives less than a quarter mile away, and, as a city council member, she had to spend significant time at the site coordinating with first responders.
Continue reading...We've reviewed the whole lineup of Google phones, from the Pixel 10A to the Pixel 10 Pro to the foldable Pixel 10 Pro Fold. Here are the best ones.
Kremlin may attempt to test Nato cohesion as Russia comes under growing pressure from Ukraine, according to sources from two countries
Two countries on Nato’s eastern flank have warned that Russia is preparing a possible “provocation” in the Baltic states or Poland in an effort to test the cohesion of the western military alliance.
Western sources also fear there could be danger on the horizon because the Kremlin is coming under pressure from Ukraine’s campaign of long-range attacks on targets near Moscow and St Petersburg.
Continue reading...Hundreds of graduates and interns at finance firm will now have to work in office at least three days a week
Revolut will haul hundreds of graduates and interns into the office next year, as the digital bank moves away from its “remote-first” policy that has long been used to lure new recruits.
The London-headquartered fintech company had previously allowed its young trainees to choose whether to work from home or Revolut’s offices, reflecting flexible working arrangements offered to all other staff. That included the option of working abroad for 120 days of the year, with the company saying it trusts employees to “explore new cultures while staying productive and connected”.
Continue reading...Sarah Steele spoke of ‘degrading’ experience under US military justice after assault in England. Plus, why Toy Story 5 is the ultimate millennial girl movie
Good morning.
A UK justice minister has described the case of a British woman strangled by a US fighter pilot on UK soil as “really serious” and said the Ministry of Justice would examine it.
Why did a US fighter pilot avoid British trial after strangling a woman in England? Technically, the UK authorities should have primary jurisdiction to prosecute crimes allegedly perpetrated by US service members off duty and off base. But the Wulfson case is one of several uncovered by the Guardian in which UK police and prosecutors appear to be ceding responsibility to their US military counterparts.
What is temporary protected status (TPS), and why is it under threat? People with TPS have permission to live and work in the US because the Department of Homeland Security deemed their home countries to be unsafe. The Trump administration has attempted to slash the program for various countries in its anti-immigrant crusade.
Continue reading...As temperatures soar across the UK, chill your space – and avoid energy-guzzling aircon – with our pick of the best fans, from tower to desk to bladeless
• The best portable neck and handheld fans
• Dyson HushJet Mini Cool fan review
Our world is getting hotter. Summer heatwaves are so frequent, they’re stretching the bounds of what we think of as summer. Hot-and-bothered home working and sweaty, sleepless nights are now alarmingly common.
Get a good fan and you can dodge the temptation of air conditioning. Aircon is incredibly effective, but it uses a lot of electricity … and burning fossil fuels is how we got into this mess in the first place. Save money and carbon by opting for a great fan instead.
Best quiet fan for the bedroom and best overall:
AirCraft Lume – preorder now for delivery early July, or consider the cordless version (£179) or table fan (£129) for faster delivery
Best budget fan and best desk fan:
Devola desk fan – currently out of stock
The Modigliani painting "Nu assis au collier" (Seated Nude Wearing a Necklace) sold for $63.9 million, the highest price achieved for a work by the artist sold at auction in Europe, Sotheby's said.
Ministers accused of being more hesitant to respond as Reform has risen in polls, due to fear of ‘saying wrong thing’
During the May local elections in England, a canvasser was out in the London borough of Barking and Dagenham campaigning for her party. At one doorstep, the occupant asked if she was Muslim. When she said yes, he told her she should be hanged.
It is one of dozens of stories that Akeela Ahmed, the head of the British Muslim Trust (BMT), the government’s official partner for monitoring anti-Muslim hatred, has heard in recent weeks.
Continue reading...Co-defendants in case against Stockport man include a paramedic, a football coach and a taxi driver
The identities of 13 men charged alongside a man accused of drugging and raping his wife can be revealed after reporting restrictions were lifted.
The main defendant in the case is due to go on trial in September. He stands accused of drugging and sexually assaulting his wife over a period of 20 years and conspiring with other men to engage in abuse.
Continue reading...Experts worked in ocean midwater off Brazil at near-record speeds thanks to cutting-edge tech
A marine biology expedition in international waters off the coast of Brazil has discovered 31 new species in just two weeks.
The researchers believe the speed at which the species were found and identified may be a record, in part because of the cutting-edge technology designed and built by the science and engineering team. For the first time on board a ship, the researchers were able to observe the living 3D cellular structure of microbial life thanks to a technological breakthrough nicknamed the Squid.
Continue reading...Normal Golf Game takes a tiresomely easy genre and makes it infernally difficult. Which deserves a round of applause
I have always struggled playing golf. I wish I didn’t. It’s a beautiful game in concept. A leisurely walk in the sunshine, slapping a ball around, sandwiches and beer consumed during and after play. Sure, you have to dress like Huggy Bear from Starsky and Hutch, and getting membership of an actual club is more complex than joining the Freemasons (although many offer a two for one deal with this), but you don’t have to be fit, you don’t have to even run. It is the only outdoor sport where a fat dad can be the best in the world.
The premise couldn’t be simpler: get the ball in the hole. But there is nothing worse in sport than knowing what you have to do and not being able to do it. Just ask amateur parachutists.
Continue reading...Jennifer Garner leads an all-star cast in Peacock's newest original series.
Ambitious plan to phase out single-use plastic opposed by chemicals industry – while green groups say law too timid
A groundbreaking California law that compels packaging producers to phase out single-use plastics is already sparking anger from the chemicals industry and environmental groups just weeks after going into effect.
The law, which was signed by Governor Gavin Newsom in 2022 but only took hold in May, requires plastic and packaging companies to use less single-use plastic, and ensure by 2032 that all packaging is either recyclable or compostable. The big idea is to incentivize producers of plastics to consider the end of their products’ life in order to create better, more sustainable bottles, containers and wrappings.
Continue reading...The Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool in Washington DC will have to be drained again. Donald Trump has blamed vandalism for the failure to keep the water 'American flag blue'. But what if this small body of water is proof that the president can’t outrun the truth?
Jonathan Freedland speaks to Arwa Mahdawi about why this project, which has cost the taxpayer millions of dollars, is proving to be such an embarrassing failure for a man obsessed with image
Continue reading...First amendment groups call 50-to-100-year prison terms chilling as legal experts say sentences unusually long
The decades-long prison sentences for a group of Texas activists convicted of terrorism and other charges in connection to a Fourth of July protest last year has caused widespread alarm, given their unusually punitive length and for the apparent harsh criminalization of protest activity under Donald Trump’s justice department.
Eight people who participated in a protest at the Prairieland ICE detention facility in Alvarado, Texas, were sentenced on Tuesday to between 50 and 100 years in prison. A ninth person, Daniel Sanchez-Estrada, the husband of one of the demonstrators, did not participate in the protest, but was sentenced to 30 years in prison after he was convicted of moving boxes containing leftwing zines and other materials after a prison phone call from his wife.
Continue reading...House committee seeks records after two agency scientists were charged over undeclared samples
The US House committee on energy and commerce is “examining concerns” about the National Institutes of Health after two NIH scientists were charged with allegedly smuggling mpox into the United States and misleading investigators.
Federal law enforcement alleges that Dr Vincent Munster, 53, a Dutch national and chief of the virus ecology section at the NIH’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML) in Montana, and Claude Kwe, 38, a research fellow from Cameroon, transported vials containing monkeypox, now known as mpox, into the country without declaring them to customs and then “lying about it”.
Continue reading...Committee will meet in July to discuss peptides now sold in gray market despite limited evidence of safety and efficacy
Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will soon hold a meeting about whether to ease restrictions on access to some research peptides, a group of drugs with a zealous following and thin evidence to support them.
If restrictions are eased, US compounding pharmacies would be able to produce and fill prescriptions for Americans – a change that would effectively legalize a thriving gray market.
Continue reading...The city of Austin agreed to a multimillion-dollar settlement to be split among four men — including to the widow and daughter of Maurice Pierce — who were wrongfully accused of murdering four teenage girls in a Texas yogurt shop.
Notion announced that it will shut down its email client on September 22. The company says more than half of users already manage email through Notion's AI agents without opening their inbox, so it is shifting its focus from a traditional email client to agent-run workflows. Engadget reports: It has published an FAQ for users to make sure that they don't lose any messages or data in the transition. Most emails will still exist in a Gmail inbox, but customers will need to manually export their drafts, scheduled emails, snippets and auto label instructions. Notion first began offering Notion Mail after acquiring startup Skiff in 2024.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Recent rulings have bolstered president’s pitiless campaign against people of colour fleeing violence and disaster
In the US supreme court, it seems Donald Trump has found loyalists in his crusade against immigration and immigrants.
In a pair of rulings on Thursday, the court allowed the Trump administration to end humanitarian protections that have granted people from Haiti and Syria the right to live and work legally in the US for more than a decade, and cleared way for the government to turn away asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border by physically blocking them from setting foot on US soil. And on Tuesday, the court granted border officials broad discretion to deport lawful permanent residents or green card holders.
Continue reading...Fears over ‘huge community transmission’ as modelling predicts thousands of deaths in DRC by September
The whereabouts of almost 300 people who have tested positive for Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is unknown, according to Africa’s top public health official.
The humanitarian crisis amid the conflict in the affected areas means more than 1 million people are living in camps to which health workers have no access, Dr Jean Kaseya, director general of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said on Thursday.
Continue reading...A family mobile phone plan needs to work for every member. We look at plans from AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile.
An Iranian national who is wanted by the U.S. for mass hacking attacks that caused $3.4 billion in damage was arrested in Montenegro, police there say.
BBC presenter, 62, ‘concentrating on getting better, being back to 100% me and getting back behind the mic’
Trevor Nelson has announced he is taking a break from broadcasting because of health issues.
The BBC Radio 2 presenter and DJ, who has not been on air all week, said he was taking time out after being advised to go for medical tests following a routine check-up.
Continue reading...If you've decided to make the switch to T-Mobile, but aren't sure which plan to go for, these are the ones we recommend.
Kareem’s Quote of the Day: What happens to a democracy when its leader mistakes his reflection for reality?
Tulsi Gabbard, her guru, and the mysterious messages that helped shape her political career: If those memos are what they appear to be, the public wasn’t represented by an independent official so much as managed by an unseen hand.
In a profanity-filled tirade, Trump threatens to ‘take over’ Iran if Tehran closes the Strait of Hormuz: A ceasefire that collapses into chest-thumping in a matter of days is not peace but instability with better branding.
Markéta Vondroušová suspended for 4 years after refusing doping test: When a clean athlete in documented distress is punished as though context were irrelevant, the system is protecting procedure more than sport.
Clive Davis: The Soundtrack Of Our Lives: This documentary is a rich tour through American music history, even if its subject never quite lets anyone else hold the microphone.
Kareem’s Jukebox: Sly and the Family Stone’s “Dance to the Music” is a reminder that joy can still sound revolutionary when the world feels like it’s coming apart.
“Narcissistic personality disorder is named for Narcissus, from Greek mythology, who fell in love with his own reflection. Freud used the term to describe persons who were self-absorbed, and psychoanalysts have focused on the narcissist’s need to bolster his or her self-esteem through grandiose fantasy, exaggerated ambition, exhibitionism, and feelings of entitlement.”
Dr. Donald W. Black, DSM-5 Guidebook: The Essential Companion to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the whole problem fits into one neat fable: a beautiful young man kneeling at a pool, unable to look away from his own reflection, while the woman who loves him fades into nothing but an echo. (Her name, Echo, is the source of the word.) The myth does something the clinical definition cannot quite manage: it shows us the narcissist and, in the same frame, the cost to everyone standing nearby.
Today we have our own Narcissus: a President staring down at a reflecting pool in the nation’s capital and seeing only his own image, not the world around him. There are wars going on in the Middle East and Ukraine, sky-high prices in grocery stores, at gas stations, and in the housing market, a stagnant Congress that can’t get anything done because he insists it do only his bidding, a national intelligence community being led by a series of unqualified bureaucrats, a tech industry falling behind China—and those are just today’s headlines. But the problem Trump is fixated on is algae in the reflecting pool that stretches between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. He claims it was caused by vandals and has pledged to lock them up, presumably alongside all his other enemies.
It’s useful to go back to the DSM and see what it has to say about the narcissist. He is in love with a projection, a controlled image with no room for the messy complications of an actual self. A reflection. And that gap between the image and the actual person is where all the damage lives. Grandiose fantasy, exaggerated ambition, exhibitionism, entitlement: those four tools are deployed to keep the reflection intact, to keep the pool still, to prevent the surface from rippling in any way that might distort the picture. Unfortunately for Trump, he can’t control nature the way he can Congress: those pesky algae pop up wherever they will, Trump’s narcissistic needs be damned.
As someone who spent decades in arenas full of celebrated, accomplished people, I can tell you that genuine confidence gets quieter as the stakes get bigger. Performed confidence works differently, demanding more noise, more confirmation, more audience the higher the pressure climbs. Clinical psychologists have long understood that what demands to be seen as supreme self-assurance most often functions as compensation for a fragile interior. The grandiosity, seen up close, is a frame holding up a building that has no foundation.
Our present culture didn’t invent this, but we have spent considerable resources rewarding it. Reality television has for decades showered the loudest, most outrageous self-promoters with fame and money. Social media functions as a megaphone calibrated for the narcissists already among us. Political life, particularly in recent years, has operated as a selection system that treats grandiosity as strength while systematically penalizing quiet competence. When ambition shifts from what we want to achieve to what we need others to believe we have achieved, we end up building our reward structures around performance rather than production.
Echo, the woman who loves Narcissus, doesn’t get discussed enough in all of this. In his Metamorphoses, Ovid gives her a devastating arc: she tries to reach Narcissus, tries to connect, and winds up capable of nothing but repeating his words back to him, hollowed out, her own voice gone. She becomes the emblem of everyone who gets destroyed by the narcissist’s self-love: they lose their substance along with their voice. In contemporary life, that might apply to a Vice President, a presidential cabinet, Congress, a media ecosystem, or the entire electorate. But how long will we stand by while our Narcissist-in-Chief’s enablers slave away to maintain his illusion of personal glory? In the end, he’s just another politician who came to Washington saying he’d drain the swamp, but he can’t even keep the pool clean.
Sentencing of 27-year-old Sadia Moalim Ali condemned by former president and prime ministers as well as rights groups
A rickshaw driver in Somalia has been sentenced to three years in prison for comments she made on social media, in a case that has caught the public’s attention and provoked outrage in the country.
Sadia Moalim Ali, a 27-year-old nursing graduate, was originally charged with insulting government institutions and incitement to commit a crime, but convicted only of the former. Her sentence, immediately condemned as “fundamentally unjust”, was handed down on 25 June.
Continue reading...Disillusioned America firsters, like Carson and Greene, are angry at Trump’s foreign interventions, may sit out the midterm elections
Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and former Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene – once among Donald Trump’s most prominent champions – announced recently that they have left the Republican party.
Both rightwing superstars had feuded with the president throughout his second term, but their split was provoked by Trump’s war with Iran and what they viewed as his elevation of foreign affairs over domestic concerns like inflation and high gas prices. Although both have said that they will not support Democrats, their defection points to serious divisions within the Republican party that could weaken its prospects in the midterm elections and beyond.
Geoffrey Kabaservice is the director of political studies at the Niskanen Center in Washington, as well as the author of Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party
Continue reading...
Why Should Delaware Care?
Thousands of Delawareans rely on SEPTA’s Wilmington/Newark train line to get to Philadelphia. The additional train service will allow riders to stay in Philadelphia later than they would have on both weekdays and weekends.
Late-night train service from Philadelphia to Wilmington is back — for now.
SEPTA’s newest schedule, published Monday, extends service on its latest weekday and weekend Wilmington/Newark Line trains to Wilmington, rather than ending at Marcus Hook, Pa.
The new schedule will go into effect on Sunday, July 5. It is separate from SEPTA’s temporary increase of regional rail frequency for the World Cup and the Fourth of July.
SEPTA riders at the Wilmington station on Thursday said they were surprised and happy that the service will improve.
“That’s what should’ve been done in the first place,” Chester, Pa., resident Elizabeth Richardson said.
She uses the Wilmington/Newark Line to visit family, she said, and the limited night service was difficult to work around.
Wilmington resident Jasmine Geiger said she sometimes has to take an Uber home from Philadelphia after the trains stop running at night.
“People need it to be able to get home,” she said.
While riders said the late-night train service is a welcome change, it might not be here to stay. Catherine Smith, a spokesperson for Delaware’s transit agency, DART, said the agency cut late night train service last fall because of low ridership.
Often only one or two people would take the late night train from Philadelphia, she said. And DART has to pay the full cost of the train service in Delaware, which has amounted to $10 million annually in recent years.
Smith said DART has heard from riders that there is a demand for late-night service, especially in the summer, but noted the agency will monitor ridership closely over the next few months.
If ridership stays low, DART may cut the service again, she said.
The increased service comes after SEPTA threatened to cut the Wilmington/Newark Line entirely due to a major budget shortfall.
Last year, SEPTA proposed cutting nearly half of its service because of a $213 million budget deficit that, it said, emerged as inflation increased and COVID-era dollars dried up.
Then, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration reversed the service cuts by authorizing SEPTA to dip into its capital dollars — which it uses for new vehicles and infrastructure — to pay for its daily operations. The agency also instated a 21.5% fare increase.
SEPTA General Manager Scott Sauer said at the time the agency can avoid service cuts until 2027, but that the solution “exacerbated the future need.”
With the new schedule, Wilmington-bound riders will be able to leave Philadelphia later.
The latest SEPTA weekday train to Wilmington will leave Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station at 10:40 p.m. — about three hours later than the current latest weekday train.
Wilmington riders will also be able to leave from 30th Street Station at 11:14 p.m. on weekdays. The current latest weekend train to Wilmington leaves two hours earlier.
The latest trains to Philadelphia from Wilmington will not change. On weekdays, the latest train leaves Wilmington just after 8 p.m., and on weekends, it leaves at 10:30 p.m.
The service change did not increase train frequency, which remains below pre-pandemic levels. Trains depart from Philadelphia every two hours on weekends and at various frequencies on weekdays.
It also did not extend the late night service to Newark or Churchman’s Crossing, but the trains to Wilmington will stop at the Claymont Transit Station.
The train ride to Wilmington from Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station takes about 45 minutes. The one-way fare is $8.75 on weekdays and $8 on weekends. The fare increases to $11 if riders pay onboard the train.
The post SEPTA to restore Wilmington late-night train service from Philadelphia appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.
Why Should Delaware Care?
As lawmakers face their final working day of the year, a slew of significant bills have yet to be considered. Any bill that is not approved by both chambers as of midnight June 30 is officially marked dead, and must be reintroduced in the next General Assembly that begins in January.
As the final day of the 2026 legislative session approaches on Tuesday, several bills face uncertain futures, including a slate of property tax reforms and legislation that seeks to rein in healthcare costs.
Also pending is the state’s often-contentious capital budget that would distribute nearly $1.26 billion dollars to state building projects.
The list of pending legislation remains despite a lively penultimate week in Dover during which lawmakers passed immigration enforcement reform, gun control legislation, and affordable housing requirements for municipalities.
Lawmakers also shockingly failed to advance a proposed amendment to the Delaware Constitution that would enshrine the rights to gay and interracial marriage in the state. Both are currently legal in Delaware, but an amendment would make it considerably harder for lawmakers to remove those protections.
In all, the final days of the 2026 legislative session cap off a generally subdued year of lawmaking – particularly when compared to last year’s fights over the state’s corporate franchise, the Port of Wilmington and control of zoning rules for marijuana shops and a wind-farm substation.
The session also heads toward a close as several lawmakers prepare for what is expected to be hard-fought campaigns for reelection.
Lawmakers passed a slew of significant bills this past week relating to land use, immigration, education funding and part of the state’s 2027 fiscal year budget.
Those bills now will all advance to Gov. Matt Meyer’s desk to be considered for signatures or vetoes.
Senate Bill 23, which generated substantial pushback from local governments across the state, passed the House on Tuesday with an unusual mix of bipartisan support. If signed into law, the bill would require municipalities to increase housing density and incorporate additional affordable housing reforms in their comprehensive plans.
Lawmakers also passed Senate Bill 13, which would greatly increase the number of patients eligible to receive free or reduced-price treatment – often called charity care – from the state’s nonprofit hospitals.
That bill was introduced months after a Spotlight Delaware investigation called into question the charity care practices at the state’s largest healthcare system, ChristianaCare.
A pair of immigration reform bills passed the Senate on Thursday, following a lengthy debate about the role of local law enforcement in federal immigration policy.
House Bill 368 would prohibit local and state law enforcement officials from detaining individuals simply because of their immigration status. People accused of serious crimes could still be held for prosecution. House Bill 94 would ban law enforcement from cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in specific spaces — schools, churches and healthcare facilities.
Two bills focused on the funding structure for public schools unanimously passed the House on Wednesday, following up on long-debated changes to how education is funded in Delaware.
Senate Bill 302 allows the state to begin implementing the new hybrid school funding formula, which allocates more money for schools with more low-income or English-language learning students. Senate Bill 303 charges the Public Education Funding Commission to continue studying education funding in future years.
Both chambers also passed the fiscal year 2027 operating budget with relatively little fanfare. The budget includes a 6.3% spending increase from last year, above the 5% growth that Gov. Meyer called for in his original budget proposal in January.
Several bills are left to be considered during the General Assembly’s final working day on Tuesday, including the state’s billion-dollar capital budget.
That bill, which requires a three-fourths majority vote in order to pass, presents a rare opportunity for Republicans to exert power over the negotiations. Democrats are currently one seat short of a three-fourths majority in the Senate and four seats short in the House, requiring them to receive at least some Republican buy-in on the final proposal.
There could be a few sticking points in bond bill negotiations, including $35 million earmarked for the expansion of Legislative Hall. It would be the third largest appropriation anywhere in the bond bill.
John Flaherty, a director of the Delaware Coalition for Open Government, decried the lack of public notice or input for such a massive project in the waning days of the legislature.
“The Delaware General Assembly is in full session for just 43 days out of the entire year. Spending $35 million to expand a complex that sits largely empty or underutilized for more than 300 days a year is an indefensible use of state revenues, especially when community-facing infrastructure projects face strict funding limits,” he said in a statement.
Other bills left to be considered include a slate of property tax reforms that were introduced earlier this month in response to the fallout from last year’s first-in-a-generation property reassessments.
Those bills, which were filed following months of committee hearings to investigate what exactly went wrong in the aftermath of reassessment, include a proposal to indefinitely extend New Castle County school districts’ controversial ability to tax commercial and residential properties at different rates.
Another healthcare-focused bill, Senate Bill 1, also remains up for consideration in the House.
A primary care reform bill that also includes price caps for government-regulated insurance plans, SB 1 was scaled back from its original form through months of negotiations with the state’s healthcare lobby.
Those changes would delay the implementation of price caps on hospital procedures, limit some state oversight in setting those caps, and completely exempt some hospitals from the law altogether.
The bill unanimously passed in the Senate last month, but it has not yet been considered in the House.
Lawmakers in both the House and Senate are set to reconvene for the final time this year at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, June 30. Those hearings could extend long into the night depending on how readily legislators can strike deals, reach consensus or find compromise on any number of the proposals remaining before them.
The post Major bills loom as Delaware lawmakers face final day of session appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.
Why Should Delaware Care?
The WuXi STA Pharma campus in Middletown has been hailed as a major economic development win for Delaware and it was backed by the largest taxpayer-backed grant of the Carney administration. Now concerns from the Pentagon over its alleged ties to the Chinese government could essentially prevent it from doing business with American companies.
One of Delaware’s largest economic development projects could be in jeopardy after the Pentagon blacklisted the developer over alleged ties to the Chinese military.
On the southern edge of Middletown, Shanghai-based WuXi STA Pharmaceuticals is nearing completion on a massive, $500 million pharmaceutical manufacturing campus. The company – one of the largest global contract pharmaceutical manufacturers – has eyed the facility as part of its major expansion into the United States. It plans to open it later this year.
But for the plant to survive long-term, it may need to find a way off of the so-called 1260H list, or a list of companies that the U.S. Department of Defense designates as “Chinese military companies.”
Earlier this month, the company sued the Pentagon in federal court to overturn the designation.
The decision came as a bit of a shock, considering WuXi’s parent company, WuXi AppTec, avoided being included in a 2025 federal bill known as the BIOSECURE Act that would have placed the limitations on its clients last year. The bill extends the same prohibitions to any company that the Pentagon places on its 1260H list.
“We are confident this designation is wrong and not supported by the facts or legal criteria and a full and fair review of the facts will vindicate our position. WuXi AppTec is not a ‘Chinese military company,’ and we are working with our advisors to pursue every available remedy,” a company spokesperson told Spotlight Delaware this week.
In 2023, the U.S. House of Representatives established a specially organized bipartisan committee, known as the House Select Committee on the CCP, to examine the economic and national security threats imposed by the Chinese government.
Through its first year, it helped to push a ban or sale of the social media platform TikTok, expose the forced labor concerns in low-cost, e-commerce companies Shein and Temu, and argued for the revoking of tariff breaks on a variety of Chinese products.
In early 2024, the committee’s leaders introduced the BIOSECURE Act, which aimed to prohibit federal contracting with certain biotechnology providers connected to foreign adversaries. The bill expressly named five companies, including WuXi AppTec.
The bill claimed that WuXi AppTec “presents a national security threat to the United States” because it has sponsored events featuring military and civil leaders, received investments from a military-linked fund, and granted awards to military researchers.
U.S. intelligence officials later informed senators that they believed WuXi AppTec had also transferred intellectual property to the Chinese government, according to a Reuters report.
The company has adamantly denied all claims that it compromised technology or data, or has any relationship with the Chinese military.
Through negotiations of much of 2024, WuXi AppTec was eventually removed from the BIOSECURE Act that was approved with the annual National Defense Authorization Act and the company’s future looked bright.
But about a year later, it was back in the Pentagon’s crosshairs.
According to WuXi’s lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court of D.C., the company met with Biden administration officials at the Pentagon in August 2024 and reportedly presented evidence that it is not connected to the Chinese government, military or academia.
When the 1260H list was published in January 2025 at the tail-end of the Biden era, WuXi was no longer targeted.
Following the inauguration of President Donald Trump, the company once again sought an audience with the new Pentagon leaders. That meeting was delayed to November 2025 due to the government shutdown, but weeks before that meeting Deputy Secretary of War Steve Feinberg had reportedly already argued to Congressional leaders that WuXi should be added to the 1260H list.
When company leaders read that Bloomberg story, they asked the Pentagon for an explanation and offered to answer any additional questions. The Pentagon told WuXi that it had no comment on the story and never reached out again.
Three months later, WuXi officials were shocked to see the company named on an updated 1260H posted on the Federal Register that was taken down after less than an hour. Nonetheless, the list was spotted and became an international story – one that WuXi argues served an ulterior motive.
The list was posted while Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping had been negotiating a trade deal and a first state visit of Trump’s second term.
“The lack of justification and the haphazard posting of the 1260H List illustrate the arbitrary and capricious manner in which the [Department of War] is managing [Chinese military companies] designations amidst political pressure,” the company wrote in its lawsuit. “The slapdash posting demonstrates that the 1260H List is being used as a political pawn during negotiations with China, rather than a legitimate, evidence-based national security determination.”
On June 8, WuXi once again wrote to Feinberg to deny allegations of its ties to the Chinese government and offered to meet. Instead, within hours of that email, the Pentagon posted its final 1260H list naming WuXi among the problematic companies.
U.S. Sen. Chris Coons (D-Delaware) told Spotlight Delaware last week that he has not been briefed on what evidence the Pentagon may have to defend the designation, but has asked for a classified update.
“If there is concrete evidence that WuXi is utilizing biological or other sensitive or private data of Americans in the United States, then I will voice my support for this designation. But at the same time, I welcome investment in manufacturing in Delaware so I think we have to be cautious,” he said.
If WuXi cannot convince a judge to reverse course on the designation, it could be significantly damaging to the company’s operations.
As a named 1260H company, WuXi now faces Pentagon contracting restrictions, but its bigger issues lie with parallel clauses in the BIOSECURE Act.
Under the BIOSECURE Act, WuXi would be prohibited from receiving government contracts, grants or loans – and critically extends those prohibitions to clients of WuXi. That means pharmaceutical companies that receive federal dollars for research, development or manufacturing of a drug could not work with WuXi on it.
But, WuXi also received some relief when legislators exempted Medicare and Medicaid agreements from the prohibitions.
The company will also have time to launch a legal defense, because the BIOSECURE Act has not been put into force yet. It could be up to three years before it clears the necessary federal compliance regulations, depending on how quickly the Trump administration wants to advance it.
And even at that point, WuXi would be allowed to work with existing clients for up to five years as part of a grandfathering period.
But the reality is switching contractors to work on manufacturing and testing new drugs is a lengthy and expensive process. That’s why the mere threat of future prohibitions has convinced many clients of Chinese-based biotech companies to begin exploring alternatives – a 2024 survey of the industry, taken at the height of BIOSECURE Act concern, found that more than two-thirds of companies were looking.
“This updated list of Chinese military companies is a warning to American businesses, all levels of government, and the American people. These Chinese companies are working with the Chinese military against our national interests,” Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Michigan), the chair of China Select Committee, said in a statement after WuXi was added to the 1260H list.
Prohibition, or even diminished market share in the U.S. could be particularly damaging for WuXi, which saw two-thirds of global revenue come from America last year.
Indeed, WuXi says as much in its lawsuit, writing, “The limitations of the BIOSECURE Act will likely cause many of [WuXi’s] customers to consider taking their business to companies without the limitations, which would be detrimental for the company.”
Over the last four years, WuXi has been building a 1.74 million-square-foot campus in Middletown where it plans to employ nearly 500 people.
The state’s economic development team worked for years to land the project at a 190-acre parcel in the fast-growing town. After all, the company is a heavyweight in its field, working on blockbuster drugs like AstraZeneca’s diabetes drug Farxiga or Pfizer’s COVID drug Paxlovid.
To lure WuXi to the First State, officials approved $19 million in taxpayer-backed grants for the project. It was the largest grant approval made during former Gov. John Carney’s term, totaling nearly four times that given to Amazon for its massive Boxwood Road fulfillment center.
Earlier this month, WuXi hosted an open house at the Middletown facility for industry executives, according to a social media post. The company has been hiring for months to launch its drug research facility this winter for clinical and commercial drugs.
Following the initial building, the Middletown site is expected to continue growing next year, adding sterile manufacturing space for vials, cartridges and pre-filled syringes.
A WuXi spokesperson dismissed concerns that a BIOSECURE Act-spurred financial hit could impact the Middletown project, saying, “Our U.S. presence …reflects a long-term strategic commitment to U.S. patients, U.S. jobs, and U.S. innovation. This commitment does not rest on the outcome of this legal proceeding.”
The post Pentagon blacklists WuXi, putting major Middletown project at risk appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.
In this year's World Cup, Scotland’s second favorite team is anyone playing England.
The Trump administration attacking the right to publish or report information is a given at this point. The president has threatened journalists for everything from questioning the wisdom of his failed war with Iran to touching the peeled lining of his renovated reflecting pool.
Tantrums like those may now feel routine, but this week marked a new front in Trump’s war on information: Daniel “Des” Sanchez Estrada was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for transporting a box of zines he didn’t even write. He’s one of eight defendants sentenced on Tuesday to a combined 450 years — the first prison sentences against so-called “antifa” handed down under the framework of NSPM-7, President Donald Trump’s sweeping “counterterrorism” memorandum to clamp down on dissent from the left.
The prosecution’s theory was that Sanchez moved the zines, which discussed anarchism and other anti-government ideas, to conceal evidence in the case against his wife, Maricela Rueda. Rueda attended a July 4, 2025, protest at the Prairieland immigration jail in Texas where a police officer was shot. (She was not accused of shooting him or having anything to do with the shooting but was herself sentenced to 70 years.)
But that nuance is cold comfort: It assumes that simply possessing years-old political pamphlets that said nothing about the protest or shooting could somehow constitute evidence of a crime. Sharing the political ideology of the shooter, the government contended, meant Rueda and her co-defendants were culpable for the shooter’s actions — and by allegedly attempting to prevent officers from finding out about Rueda’s ideology, Sanchez shared in the blame as well.
We’ve reached the point in the erosion of the First Amendment where the government considers possession of anarchist zines and membership in a terrorist cell to be more or less the same thing. Once the box of zines was discovered, there was no need to prove Rueda planned or had any idea that anyone would be shot at the protest.
What’s worse is that this will likely only ramp up the administration’s efforts to criminalize being in possession of information. Whatever you may think of former CNN host Don Lemon, he’s no anarchist or extremist, and the content of his broadcasts bears little resemblance to the zines Sanchez was convicted of transporting. And yet, after indicting him and independent journalist Georgia Fort on frivolous charges relating to their livestreaming of a protest at a Minnesota church, the government sought a warrant to obtain the identities of subscribers to their YouTube channels.
This will likely only ramp up the administration’s efforts to criminalize being in possession of information.
Fortunately, a judge rejected that warrant. But it’s a chilling revelation of the administration’s modus operandi. Lemon and Fort’s YouTube subscribers would, of course, have no knowledge of what happened at the church protest beyond what was publicly broadcast. Their identities are as irrelevant to whether Lemon and Fort committed a crime as the box of zines was to Rueda’s case. The only conceivable reason the government might want a list of YouTube subscribers is to keep an eye on people who watch disfavored shows.
And let’s say someone who’d watched Lemon and Fort’s livestreams and then heard about their arrests had cleared their browser history because they (rightly) feared the administration might target them. Could they then be prosecuted for concealing evidence under the same logic applied to Sanchez? If they’d downloaded the video, could they be accused of possessing contraband? Would forwarding a link equate to trafficking?
It all sounds preposterous, but virtually nothing is too absurd for this Department of Justice. In fact, it’s already argued that documents investigative reporters receive from whistleblower sources can constitute contraband. (It’s worth pointing out that Joe Biden’s DOJ used this same logic when it pursued its own ridiculous “transporting” of information case against Project Veritas for moving Ashley Biden’s diary across state lines).
These frivolous actions create a catch-22 for all Americans. The more people are investigated for engaging with ideas the administration deems dangerously anti-government, the more likely others are to conceal evidence of their own controversial beliefs — not because they are evidence of any real crime but because prosecutors are out of control. But if they do so, they risk incriminating themselves.
NSPM-7, which was issued last September, tasks federal agencies with dismantling networks of “anti-fascist” actors, a purposely overly broad term since expanded to include those with “extreme viewpoints on immigration, radical gender ideology, and anti-American sentiment.”
Given that antifa, as a singular, cohesive organization, is a figment of the right’s imagination, agents cannot accomplish that task by uncovering a membership registry. They can only do so by identifying people with viewpoints they consider “extreme,” like anti-ICE protesters officers have told they’re being added to watchlists, or pro-Palestine opinion writers they’ve sought to deport.
In Chicago and other cities ICE invaded, activists and organizers packaged whistles and zines to distribute to residents. Under the logic of NSPM-7 and Sanchez Estrada’s conviction, that is a network of actors engaged in organized political violence. If you read one of their zines, you could be deemed a member of an illicit enterprise, and if you hide one, you’re covering for criminals.
The government argued that the Prairieland defendants are different. One prosecutor said: “People with that kind of extremist beliefs need extra time in prison. They believe violence is justified.” U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, in handing down the sentences, reportedly said he wanted to “send a message to anyone who shares a similar ideology.” But lots of people believe political violence is sometimes justified. If someone who believes punching Nazis is justified attends an anti-Nazi protest where someone else punches a Nazi, are they at risk of being convicted of assault alongside the actual assailant, particularly if they have some anti-Nazi literature on their bookshelf? The answer is far less obvious than it used to be.
The administration has vowed the Prairieland case “will not be the last” of its kind. We must take it at its word. The next one might also involve protesters from the political fringes rather than ordinary Americans reading, say, The Intercept, or watching Don Lemon on YouTube. But what about the one after that? We’re not as far away as you might think. Stephen Miller has called the whole Democratic Party a “domestic extremist organization” — clearly invoking the language of NSPM-7. Trump has labeled his political opponents “the enemy within” and the press “the enemy of the people.”
Whoever said slippery slopes are a fallacy never met Donald Trump. If Sanchez Estrada indeed moved the zines because he foresaw their being used to tie his wife to a nonexistent terrorist network and a shooting, he should be commended for his prescience. Maybe more of us should think like Sanchez Estrada.
Or would that be a crime?
The post 30-Year Sentence for Transporting Zines Is a Five-Alarm Fire for Free Speech appeared first on The Intercept.
Can Andy Burnham save Labour? Audio sseth.drupal@c…
In this week’s episode of Independent Thinking, our experts discuss Sir Keir Starmer’s resignation and the challenges awaiting the Labour Party’s next leader.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer leaves No.10 a decade since the Brexit referendum that began the UK’s cycle of chaos, and Andy Burnham seems set to take over unopposed. Our experts discuss what the new regime will mean for Britain’s future and its role in the world.
Will attempts to bring the UK closer to Europe without actually rejoining the EU continue? Will Burnham want to increase Britain’s defence budget, or will his priorities lie elsewhere? And why can’t Britain hold on to its prime ministers?
Bronwen Maddox reflects on a historic week with Ben Judah, former adviser to David Lammy and visiting fellow at Chatham House, and Olivia O’Sullivan, director of our UK in the World Programme.
Independent Thinking is a weekly international affairs podcast hosted by our director Bronwen Maddox, in conversation with leading policymakers, journalists and Chatham House experts providing insight on the latest international issues.
More ways to listen: Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Explore our other Chatham House podcasts.
Spotlight Delaware typically doesn’t cover a lot of breaking news. But on June 16th, our team jumped into action when a shooting occurred at ChristianaCare’s Wilmington Hospital around 3:30 in the afternoon.
Editor-in-Chief Jacob Owens joins the “Beyond the Headlines” podcast to discuss how the team covered this major event in Delaware’s biggest city and the unique considerations around reporting on breaking news. Jake also shares why Spotlight hasn’t done as much breaking news coverage as other media outlets – and whether that might be changing.
The podcast was hosted by Director of Community Engagement David Stradley.
This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
We’re going to be talking in terms of news reporting theory during the episode. It might strike some listeners as being a step removed from the heartbreaking reality of this shooting.
One person did lose their life, another is in critical condition. At the time of this recording, the names of the shooting victims have not been released. We want to start out by sending our care and condolences to the families and the loved ones of those involved.
Absolutely.
In the first two-plus years of Spotlight’s operations, readers haven’t seen a lot of breaking news in our coverage. Before we get into the details of this news, can you talk about the philosophy of what Spotlight Delaware has typically covered and why breaking news hasn’t been a major part of that mix?
When we were launched, we really focused on what the industry might call a day two story. This is not necessarily breaking news, not necessarily daily news coverage, but more really trying to dig in and give more in-depth nuanced coverage to some of the debates being had around the state. So we hadn’t necessarily done a lot of breaking news reporting by virtue of that.
At the same time, we have a number of news outlets still, whether they’re print or digital or radio or TV, that do a pretty good job of getting readers, viewers and listeners to the scene of issues. So we hadn’t really put a lot of time and effort into breaking news.
But I think there are just some of those stories out there that if we don’t cover them, the public might have more questions as to why we’re not covering them. While we internally might have this ethos, I think many of our readers and listeners out there really just see us as an additional news outlet and maybe don’t see that nuance all the time, and might question, “Why didn’t you cover one of the big tragedies in our state in recent years?”
You’re a news outlet. This is big news.
Basically, yeah. Why didn’t you cover it? And it’s kind of hard to defend at that point, so I think we have to make some qualifications sometimes to that model.
So specific to this shooting at ChristianaCare’s Wilmington Hospital: Why did Spotlight decide to cover this?
When it happened, we weren’t quite sure what it was. We were getting alerts that something was going on. There were gunshots reported. We weren’t quite sure if it was on the street outside of the hospital or in the hospital.
Thankfully, Delaware has never really had to deal with kind of a traditional mass shooting, I guess, in the American sense of the word. We’ve been able to escape some of that violence and bloodshed. So a mass shooting incident within a workplace would be particularly concerning.
At that time, we weren’t really sure how many people may have been injured or killed. And so it definitely rose to the newsworthiness level of what we need to be taking a look at. And frankly, in these scenarios, the more good, accurate information that’s getting out to the public, the better.
So we felt it was the right time to get over there. We’re already in the city, so it’s happening less than a couple miles from where we sit every day. It would seem almost kind of journalistically irresponsible to not go to the scene.
This may be a somewhat obvious question, but what are the biggest differences when you’re covering breaking news versus other kinds of reporting?
First and foremost is speed.
When we’re working on a typical story, we don’t really stress too hard about going to a hearing and getting it out a couple hours later so that people can read about it. Our role is to really kind of absorb, question, dig in further, talk to more sources, compare it to primary sources and see if the arguments that are being had hold their weight.
You don’t really have that luxury in breaking news, obviously. You need to be there.
What I tell young reporters is, “Really use your five senses.” That’s our role there. We need to be able to convey what does it feel like, what does it look like. How can we provide some level of clarity in a really chaotic, uncertain time to the wider public so that they have some degree of certainty of what’s going on.
Let’s talk through the process of covering this event. June 16th was a Tuesday afternoon. It happened to be a day that several of us were in the Spotlight office, which is at CSC Station, right next to the train station in downtown Wilmington. Late that afternoon, several people in the office started getting push alerts from social media or texts directly from contacts about this shooting.
You and deputy editor Karl Baker stopped what you were doing and just started reporting on this story. Why the two of you? There were other people in the office.
There were a couple more. We were a bit short-staffed from the start of summer vacation season and it was the end of a long workday in which we had reporters all over the state working on things. Karl and I and maybe one other reporter were still here.
I think initially it was, “Well, we don’t really know what this is.” And, Karl lives just north of the city, so he’s like, “Well, I’ll stop by on my way home and see if it’s turning out to be something.” And so Karl did go first and maybe ten minutes later he texted me, called me, and he said, “Yeah, this is something serious. There’s a lot of police here.”
So I said, “Okay, I’ll come up.”
There’s a little bit of muscle memory that kicks in. I’ve been working in journalism for almost 20 years and covered a lot of shootings and crashes and fires, and there’s kind of a checklist in your mind that you go through when you’re like: Okay, we need laptops, we need cameras, we need the things to be able to report from a scene to be able to really tell the public what’s going on.
We have a young staff, and so I think there was probably a quick mental math of – this might be easier or faster for me to just run up and do. There just is also a comfort level of being in that chaos, of being able to walk up to people that may have just come out of something, being able to talk to police officers who probably really don’t want to have to talk to members of the press in that moment.
So when Karl gets there first, what’s he doing?
Karl is on scene. Like I say, breaking news is kind of a five senses kind of reporting. He’s taking notes on what he sees, what he doesn’t see. He’s talking to anybody that’s come out of the building about what it is they were told, what they heard, what they saw.
We’re talking to police officers about who’s responded, who hasn’t responded. Do we think the shooter’s still in the building? What’s going on? We’re talking to other journalists about what they’ve heard on the ground.
Can I pause you there? One of the things I’ve learned working in news for two or three years is that journalists are notoriously like, “I want to get this. I don’t want the other journalists to get it.”
But in breaking news, you purposely are talking to other journalists?
Journalism is a club in many ways. There’s not that many of us doing it. We’ve all kind of been through similar scenarios. We’ve oftentimes had the same bosses through the years.
We all enjoy being first on a really great story. I don’t think there are too many of us that wouldn’t ask a colleague for their thoughts, their impression, their help on something – especially when it comes to breaking news. We really want to be accurate, and we don’t want inaccurate or misleading information being filtered out to the public.
So often if we think we’ve heard something, we’ll ask around to other reporters, “Have you guys heard this?” And if nobody else has heard it, it might give you pause about reporting something like that versus, “I’ve kinda heard something like that, too.” Now it gives you a little bit more faith that the, you know, spider network of who’s hearing what is starting to grow a little bit.
So when Karl shows up, he’s just trying to discern what literally happened. He then calls you and says, “All right, this is something. Get up here.” When you show up, what are you adding to the mix?
At that point I knew Karl kind of had the text reporting under some wraps. I knew that I could really help provide some of that visual representation. So I really came really focused on taking photos and video, that I knew would help to convey what the scene was like.
I spent the better part of two hours or so kind of roaming in and around the grounds – in the streets around the hospital, climbed up on top of a parking garage at one point (not the ChristianaCare one, but an adjoining one).
When I got back to the office I had about 525 photos, something like that. So just really trying to convey a sense of chaos, the size of scale of how many police officers were there, the mix of patients and doctors and nurses and SWAT team members, and everybody coming in and out of one of the more well-known public facilities in Wilmington.
This was not a typical Tuesday, for sure.
There was a press conference later in the evening. Are both you and Karl still there for that press conference?
It was at that point that Karl looked at me. He said, “I need to go pick up my child from daycare.”
And I said, “Karl, please go take care of the family.” I was somewhat lucky that summer break had already started, and so my kids were away for the week. I didn’t have to worry about going to get mine. So I said, “I will cover the press conference. You take the night, Karl.”
And so I wandered over to WPD.
As you are covering a press conference at a tragic event like this, are there any ethical considerations on your mind as you’re in that sort of atmosphere?
It’s an emotionally charged atmosphere. We got the sense that someone may have died. Typically, when you’re immediately calling a press conference after something like this, it’s not good news that they’re sharing.
You want to be respectful of what these people are going through. The mayor and governor were there. The chief of police was there, and the incoming CEO of ChristianaCare was there. From what we believed at that point, one of her employees had been murdered.
So, you want to be respectful. You don’t want to kind of pry and push, but at the same time we are there to really represent the public’s interest. And there were many questions about, you know, did they have the shooter? Did they not have the shooter? Should the public be worried? Should they not be worried? That really hadn’t been answered until that 7:30 p.m. press conference, and we really needed to push those who knew the answers to some of those questions on what they knew.
You had a line in the article that mentioned a “visibly shaken Mayor John Carney” at this press conference. What is the balance between reporting on the emotions and just, “Here are the facts”?
I’m a firm believer that your own eyeballs tend to not betray you. Even in our normal reporting, how somebody says something can be newsworthy, and how someone appears can be newsworthy.
I think in this case, you know, I’ve known John Carney for quite some time now, as both governor and mayor. I knew him all through COVID. I’m not sure that I really recall him being this visibly shaken. He really looked distraught, having to talk about this episode in a city that is his hometown city and he clearly loves.
I think putting the reader in the room and really connecting that I think he felt the way that many people in the city felt, was an appropriate thing to do.
You and Karl published one article early in the evening that basically covered what you all knew. From a literal basis, where did you write that?
We are always not the most well-prepared group. In this case, I will call it coincidence or kismet or whatever you want to call it, but Karl had his laptop with him and he had a hotspot with him. So he was able to literally sit in the grass outside of ChristianaCare and write the first draft of the story and upload it to the website from there.
Similarly, I don’t normally have my USB adapter to my camera with me, but that day it was in my bag. And so I was able to shoot a couple hundred photos, give some to Karl to add to the story, and then go back to shooting. And, we did those early drafts all from the scene.
You updated the article later in the night. How do you decide what to include in an update like that and what you’re going to collect for future reporting?
I think it’s really important in these breaking news situations to really say what you’re confident in and what you feel is factually based and properly cited. If we had official information from the police department or the mayor’s office or ChristianaCare about who the shooter was or how they got in the building or what their motivations might’ve been, those are things that we want to report out.
There were lots of other conjecture, rumors going around that we didn’t really get a straight answer to. I don’t think it’s appropriate to continue pushing the things that we’re not confident in. That I think is something that sometimes we file that away and we say, you know, maybe it’s something I heard at the scene, but nobody else is saying it, so we have to follow up and see if other people would confirm that.
In the early goings, your story is likely to be shared on Facebook or texted to employees, like I know in my own family it was. So you don’t want to have “according to rumors” in your reporting.
One of the key things you added in that update was, “Suspect has been apprehended” – which is probably the big thing on everybody’s mind. Is this person still out here, and do I need to be worried about this?
Those are the major concerns. Is this person in custody, and if they’re not, should I be concerned? So, we tried to provide as much information that we could to that fact.
Once you left Wilmington Hospital, made the update to the initial article, is your night done, or are you continuing the process?
I think I got home around 9:00, 9:30 or so that night and I was probably getting ready for bed and laying in bed about 10:30 or so when somebody texted me or I got an email that the shooter had been apprehended in Philadelphia. At that point, I tapped some other team members who I know to be night owls to please jump in and update the coverage so that whoever woke up the next morning or might be reading overnight as well would have the most up-to-date, accurate information available that the public should not be concerned at this point because the alleged shooter had been apprehended.
But I imagine you’re still trying to stay updated as you’re falling asleep.
I mean, look, you get into that doom scroll mode, and like everybody else, I’m on Facebook and Twitter, and as you’re going along, other people are talking about it and retweeting other news stories about it. So I’m reading everything and it’s like, yeah, I think we all kind of were on the same page. We didn’t miss anything obvious, and we had complete reporting live from the scene, that is free and accessible to everybody.
So I think we accomplished what we set out to do.
That doom scrolling did show up in the editorial meeting the next day. You come into that editorial meeting and you’re like, “Hey, guys, there are some additional threads that we need to look into here.” And you spouted off some things that you had heard, weren’t sure if they were true or not.
Those things actually haven’t turned into other reporting yet for Spotlight Delaware. Is that standard fare with breaking news, that there will be all these other threads that you’re trying to track down but they may not actually play out?
Absolutely. There’s stories, anecdotes, people saying things, people taking credit for things. There wasn’t a lot of evidence to back some of this chatter up. And so, you know, we verify before we publish, and we haven’t been able to verify some of those things, so they’ve been kind of sitting and dwelling. Maybe one day they will be verified. To date, they haven’t been.
That’s where I hope we make a difference. There are probably other journalists out there that might tweet something like that and would say, “Unverified,” and, “But this is what’s being said.” I just don’t think it’s right to amplify things that you really have not been able to verify. So that’s why we haven’t done those things.
Last question: Should Spotlight Delaware readers expect to see more breaking news coverage in the future?
I think so. We’ve done some of it over the first two years. We did cover the shooting of Ty Snook, the Delaware State Police trooper, at the DMV. We have live blogged our end of legislative session. We’re actually going to be starting that here this week as well. And some of the major kind of political policy moments, we will do more updated breaking information.
But I think, unfortunately, we’re always going to have a need for good accurate reporting in times of great uncertainty. And so I don’t suspect that this will be the last time we ever head to the scene of something going on.
Thank you and the whole team for doing all you can to get accurate information in times like these.
Appreciate it. Thanks for having me.
The post ‘Beyond the Headlines’ podcast: Covering breaking news appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.
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Chris Casad awakens each day before dawn on the Central Oregon property he bought nine years ago, the farm where he once grew tons of potatoes before water shortages forced him to fallow fields and take a job feeding someone else’s cattle on someone else’s land.
At 38, he’s got tractors older than he is. His two kids are under 5. His wife, Cate, has two jobs. They’re staring down a pile of debt from their 85 acres and its unending supply of things in the process of breaking.
The crisis for their farm started in drought — three summers during which starving grasshoppers descended on the area’s remaining crops, tepid reservoirs bloomed with toxic algae, nearly 1,000 Oregon wells went dry and the springs feeding the Deschutes River shriveled to their lowest recorded flow.
But the death knell for Casad’s crops was Oregon’s century-old law, which protects some water users at the expense of others.
The couple saw the state cut their community’s share of irrigation water from the Deschutes in the name of that law. Farmers in Jefferson County, where they live, stopped cultivating a third of the county’s irrigated land. “There were a number of suicides, let alone people who closed up shop, older farmers just not wanting to waste their life’s worth of work and their savings on just trying to keep it going,” Casad said.
At the same time, a few miles upstream, state law encouraged landowners to soak some of Oregon’s most expensive real estate and least productive farmland, a ProPublica and Oregon Public Broadcasting analysis of water use has found. These water-rich Oregonians live in the Central Oregon Irrigation District, a quasi-municipal corporation — part public utility, part homeowners association — that manages and distributes the lion’s share of the Deschutes’ water.
Six irrigation districts together take more than 90% of the river in Bend from May to September. COID is, by far, the most powerful. It has rights to more than half of the volume of the river because when the state was carving up the Deschutes, back in the early 1900s, COID was near the front of the line with a plan to use the water. And in Western water law, that place in line — senior rights — guarantees that when drought hits, your share is protected.
That same law also says COID can keep taking all that water as long as it can prove that landowners in the district are putting it to “beneficial use.” Waste is forbidden.
But Oregon policymakers have such loose definitions of what’s beneficial and what’s waste that, during the drought, our reporting found, only 1 of every 4 gallons COID took from the river was absorbed by crops.
The news organizations shared our analysis of state-commissioned satellite data with both officials who manage water for Oregon and with COID. While the state did not dispute the numbers, irrigation district leaders said they didn’t trust the state data, which Oregon lawmakers created to study water availability. COID also said that the drought years were anomalous; however, our analysis across wet and dry years showed crops drank a similar share of the diverted water each year.
Other records from the district and the state describe how most of the water percolated into the ground, evaporated into hot, dry air, or drained off fields into scrubland and desert. Some fed the aquifer. Some went back into the river downstream, where environmental regulators have found waterways warmed and polluted.
And that one gallon that quenched crops? Almost all of it went to grass and pasture.
Casad grew up in Bend, the region’s biggest city, where he watched developers slice farmland into subdivisions. The lumber mill became a shopping mall anchored by an REI. An economy once dependent on timber and agriculture turned instead toward tourism and recreation.
Canals from the Deschutes still wind through Bend’s neighborhoods of single-family homes, and then to the estates, farms, ranches and destination resorts on the city’s outskirts. Among those sits a horse ranch owned by Phil and Penelope Knight of Nike fame, one of the wealthiest families in the world and, our analysis found, one of the largest consumers of COID water. The ranch raises “high-end” horses and sells hay, its website shows. A manager declined to comment on how it manages water.
Another long, gated driveway leads to an 80-acre property that was once dry scrubland. Cinematographer Byron Garth bought water rights from another landowner through COID a decade ago to irrigate part of the property.
The water helped him transform a rocky hillside into an “exclusive compound paradise,” as an auction listing last year put it, with a 6,300-square-foot mansion with radiant heated floors, three guest houses, a 10,000-square-foot garage and a swimming pool — all surrounded by a carpet of soft green grass.
For a few years, Garth used his water rights to grow hay for about 15 alpacas and goats, but in the end, he said, “it was cheaper to just mow it.” Garth said he did have reservations about using so much water during the drought, but he reasoned that somebody had to use it.
“For the aesthetic value,” realtor Jen Bowen said about the grass last year, as she gave OPB a tour of the estate shortly before Garth sold it for $4.8 million.
“I think most of us would agree — it’s nicer to look out over a lush pasture than it is the high desertscape,” Bowen said.
One of the district’s thirstiest developments is Ranch at the Canyons, a gated subdivision of dozens of multimillion-dollar Tuscan-style mansions whose residents mutually own an equestrian center, a luxury wedding venue, a winery and a nonprofit farm run by “dedicated ranch management and local farmers.” A development manager did not respond to a request for comment. Its website promises homeowners “the peaceful rhythm of agricultural life — without the work.”
A similar property listed for $15 million invites its future owners to imagine more than a residence or a cattle ranch, but “a Playground for Ambitions, for Imagination, for Dreamers, and for Doers.”
Our analysis of the most recently available state data, covering 2015 to 2022, found that more than 9 out of every 10 acres in the district were growing grass — pasture and hay fields for livestock as well as landscaping.
Casad started his life as a farmer in the district, but he was not one of those grass growers. He began leasing land near his hometown in 2010, and within a matter of years was turning a profit, annually growing thousands of tons of organic potatoes, pulling them from the earth with a gargantuan harvester he called “the white whale.” He liked the idea of farming in a region that once sold 1 of every 4 bags of potatoes in the state. He leased more land, sold out at farmers’ markets, supplied a local brewery with spuds for its fries, and welcomed school field trips, “just to show kids what a working farm is, where their food comes from.”
COID’s water was a boon.
“It was just always on,” Casad said.
But the glut of water became a problem. He couldn’t just cut off the flow without risking his landlord’s water rights. So he did what others in the district do: figure out a way to use the “overabundance” or capture it in ponds. When one pond was full, Casad started digging a second one so the excess water wouldn’t inundate his neighbor’s property.
On more than a third of COID’s acreage, landowners irrigate their crops by intentionally flooding the fields. Water flows directly from ditches across the land — saturating plants, pooling and running off as it evaporates or seeps into the ground.
Water experts are quick to point out that water running off fields or leaking out of canals filters into aquifers or drains back to the river. That is not waste, they say, because it recirculates in the river basin.
This recycling takes time, while the consequences on the Deschutes are immediate. Farmers are drying up acreage and, for about 40 miles downstream of Bend, fish habitats suffer, state scientists told us. Once irrigation districts take their 90% of the river during the growing season, average remaining flows over the last decade have been about half what the ecosystem needs, according to stream gauges and state conservation targets. “The river always loses,” former state biologist Brett Hodgson said.
The fact that much of the irrigation water is, in some form or fashion, recycled elsewhere doesn’t put COID landowners like David Fisher at ease either. Fisher said he flood irrigates about 60 acres of his property to grow hay and pasture for cattle.
“We’re just wasting water. Really. We are,” remarked the 72-year-old butcher shop owner. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a tree hugger or one of those people that think that we should stop this for the frogs or the fish. But there’s got to be a middle of the road.”
Most of it leaked from open canals, percolated into the ground or ran off fields before returning to aquifers or to the river downstream.
Both how much water the district uses and what its landowners are growing have the state’s blessing. Oregon, like other Western states, says that as long as irrigation is put to “beneficial use without waste,” no one can take your water rights.
But growing anything is considered a beneficial use as long as it’s planted, irrigated and not a native species or noxious weed. Policymakers and courts have labeled so few uses as waste that one of the most well-known legal precedents was set 90 years ago by a California court, said Colorado-based water law attorney Sarah Klahn. The case forbade the use of irrigation water to drown gophers.
Water rights are a form of property rights, Oregon-based water law attorney Karen Russell said, and although the law is designed to adapt to changing times, the courts have typically allowed past practices to dictate how much water landowners can use.
In the eyes of Oregon courts, “waste is like pornography,” she said: “You know it when you see it.”
So it doesn’t matter if landowners are watering the prized crops that decades ago were celebrated by the Deschutes Basin’s annual potato festival, when local women vied to be crowned “Miss Spud,” or the grass and hay for today’s “Playground for Ambitions.”
This is the point COID’s Managing Director Craig Horrell, who is in charge of the district’s day-to-day operations, tried to drive home at a town hall meeting in Redmond last March. The moderator read a question asking about incentives that might make “hobby farms” more efficient. Horrell bristled at the term, calling it a label intended to “shame and coerce us into change.”
“We as district managers don’t get to decide whether we like somebody growing carrot seed or somebody having two llamas and a Prius in the driveway,” he shot back. “If you’re using your water beneficially and growing a beneficial crop, that is what we manage. We don’t have the right to say whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing.”
The district is vigilant about ensuring one thing — that landowners are growing a non-native crop, which the district checks through field visits and by aerial reviews, COID’s Deputy Director of Water Rights Jessi Talbott said in a recent interview.
Every summer, a COID-hired plane flies over the district’s more than 70 square miles of fields, an area larger than Salem, Oregon’s capital city, looking for brown patches. If landowners aren’t using the water exactly where they are supposed to at least once every five years, the state can cancel unused water rights. Oregon regulators have canceled irrigation water rights just four times since 2020, and none of those were in the COID.
“Nobody else in the state does what we do to try and encourage use,” Talbott said.
Since 2021, the district has sent more than 1,000 letters to landowners warning them they were in danger of losing water rights. The intent of the letters isn’t to scare people, but to educate them about water stewardship, Talbott said. If landowners suspected of not using water don’t take action, COID can and will confiscate rights itself, she added, but this rarely happens.
Casad’s landlord got a letter from COID in 2016, after aerial surveillance spotted “specific dry areas” on the property, district records show. Casad and his wife, Cate Havstad-Casad, had turned one rocky corner into a compost pile and parking area for their equipment.
“In order to satisfy the powers that be seeing that we’re using the water, there was an entire season where we had to water that compost pile and equipment yard,” Havstad-Casad said.
By the next year, a COID inspector’s report noted “enough growth to avoid confiscation.” In 2023, on another property, Andria Truax and her husband Dan Baumann got a COID warning letter that sent them into “panic mode,” they said. The couple owns a nursery raising drought-tolerant landscaping plants on a 10-acre property near Bend.
“We’re supposed to keep some of these areas green that are next to impossible to grow anything on,” Truax said.
They didn’t want to douse rocky soil and fight back the weeds that immediately sprang up. The irony struck her because “farmers are getting cut off from water downstream and meanwhile we’re being told to water more.”
Still, to protect their water rights and property values, they turned on the sprinklers.
COID doesn’t tell people to water rocks or compost piles, Talbott said in an interview last year. In a more recent interview, she said OPB and ProPublica’s finding that only about 25% of the district’s diversion was consumed by crops was “infuriating.”
“We do so much to educate our patrons and for them to use the water right and make products out of it, feed the community, feed cows, whatever is in alignment with water law,” Talbott said.
In the same meeting, Horrell said the district not only doesn’t overdeliver water, but some properties don’t get enough. COID doesn’t directly measure how much water landowners use, only how much land they’re irrigating.
In its water management conservation plan, which covers 2015 to 2020, COID approximated how much water crops required, based on surveys of its landowners about what they were growing — largely pastures — and federal weather data. Those averaged estimates showed crops required about 27% of what the district took out of the river annually. That roughly mirrors our own finding of what crops actually drank, based on the state’s study of satellite data.
Horrell and other district officials did not respond to multiple questions about the numbers in COID’s own conservation plan.
State leaders have long wrestled with how to divvy up the Deschutes Basin in the face of increasing drought, booming population and growing demand. Bend and Redmond, the basin’s two largest cities, are facing uncertain future supplies; during the drought of 2022, COID diverted over 12 times more water than both cities combined, with their then roughly 132,000 total residents. While farms are, by far, the biggest water users in the nation, the COID’s contribution to the state’s agricultural economy is among the lowest in Oregon. The region leads other Oregon counties only in horse sales.
Republican state Rep. Mark Owens, a hay farmer from Eastern Oregon and one of the state’s leading voices on water management, said the district’s hobby farmers are getting excess water “which they do not need, should not have to utilize and should not be delivered to them.” Oregon, he said, is long overdue to look again at how it manages water.
The beneficial use rule was designed, he said, to build up rural economies, and “it’s what allowed some of our communities to prosper.” But now, “you have a group of folks that employ nobody, harvest nothing, so how are you actually providing a public benefit for that water?” he said. “So is there something broken? Yeah, there is.”
How, he asked, “do you get the most crop per drop?”
Rather than mandates, the Legislature has turned to incentives, like authorizing programs that pay people to leave water in the river without losing the right to it. Baumann and Truax eventually did just that with a sliver of their water rights. But the state doesn’t dictate how irrigation districts use those incentives. COID’s board of directors has capped participation so that very few properties are eligible.
Horrell said the district has to limit enrollment in water-sharing programs because its 120-year-old delivery system will fail if the canals aren’t brimming full.
The district’s hundreds of miles of open, unlined waterways rely on gravity to push huge volumes out of the river and propel the water that ends up on fields more than 30 miles away. When COID has reduced the volume of this “carry water” too much in the past, Horrell said, farms at the ends of the system suffered.
But the district acknowledged in public meetings and in our interviews that all the water leaking and evaporating along the way is wasteful. To change that, it’s seeking more than $700 million in public funding to replace the canals with new, pressurized pipes. It’s already gotten more than $65 million for piping since 2015.
“There is no dispute that we all want a better, more equal, more balanced water delivery system that benefits our river, our partners, districts, cities. That’s a given,” Horrell said, “How we get there is what we argue about.”
COID is a business, he emphasized, one that he said does need to become more sustainable as the climate changes.
COID’s rights allow it to take even more water from the Deschutes than it does. Even so, Horrell pointed out, it has voluntarily scaled back over the last decade of droughts. Thanks to piping, he said, it sends some water to downstream farmers when it doesn’t have to.
But, he said, that “doesn’t mean that it is not ours.”
The Deschutes, like rivers across the country, is owned by the public, and taxpayers are spending big to conserve it. But irrigation districts still have all the power, said environmental advocate Yancy Lind, who contributes to a state-supported water planning group with districts, cities and state managers.
“We live in the West and in the West, water is power and the irrigators have the water. It’s that simple,” he said. “They have all the cards. We’re just trying to pull little crumbs out from them.”
After seven years of leasing land in the COID, Casad headed north to nearby Jefferson County and the North Unit Irrigation District, where he now lives. He moved because he could afford to buy there and the land was more fertile — it produces more than half the world’s supply of carrot seed. Plus he wanted to live among people like him, dedicated farmers, someone like Jos Poland, “a tough dude” and the lifelong dairy farmer who became his new neighbor.
The move came with one big tradeoff. Casad went from a district with plentiful water to one that has long had to make do with less. North Unit is the first to be cut off during a drought. Compared to the COID, even in a wet year, North Unit promises half as much water per acre, and it loses an even higher percentage in leaky delivery canals, but its crops still consume a much higher percentage of what the district takes out of the river, our analysis found.
North Unit’s farmers pride themselves on that efficiency. Drive through Casad’s neighborhood and you’ll see rows of water-saving sprinklers, and pumps churning to recycle and reapply the runoff captured by specialized ponds. “It’s the only way we’ve been able to survive,” said one of the district’s longtime farmers, 80-year-old Gary Harris.
Casad knew this, so he calculated that half as much water on fertile land would be enough.
And it was, until the drought hit in 2020. To keep his farm going, he started drying up two acres of land for every acre of potatoes he planted. Down the road, Poland’s organic cow pastures died. He had to sell half his herd.
“I was losing money so fast that I couldn’t afford to feed my animals,” Poland recalled. “That threw me in a big depression.” He struggled to get out of bed. Casad started helping him with the dairy, working through the night on his own farm.
“I remember watching the lights of the tractor out the window,” Cate Havstad-Casad said. She was pregnant with their first child, sitting in the bathtub having contractions, she said, but she waited hours to call her husband inside “because I understood the pressure on his shoulders.”
Casad wept as he dredged up memories of the drought. “Some of this stuff you just bury,” he said. “You bury it down deep.”
During those years, which overlapped with the pandemic, Jefferson County Commissioner Kelly Simmelink said he heard from farmers dealing with falling commodity prices, rising operational costs, “and then the real fact of water availability — I don’t know how you continue.”
As the drought wore on, the suicide rate in Jefferson County nearly doubled. “Our farmers and ranchers face immense pressure,” he told the Legislature in early 2023, successfully urging it to launch a state-funded suicide prevention hotline for agricultural producers.
Two years into the drought, Casad learned at North Unit’s spring meeting that he would have to cut back his water use even more. For every acre of vegetables he could plant, four would have to go fallow. He called his wife to break the news when she was out of town.
After she hung up, she sat alone in her hotel room and broke down.
“It doesn’t have to be this way” she said through tears in a video diary she recorded at the time. “It is Oregon water law which will give a very wealthy person with a hayfield that they literally mow and leave in the field and do nothing with because their life has nothing to do with the land, … that person will get twice as much water as any professional farmer will get in North Unit.”
Casad no longer grows potatoes. The bins where he once stored them sit empty in the barn. Now he grows mostly hay and grass for cattle — crops that he said need less water.
But rough years are coming for farmers in the Deschutes Basin. This year Oregon’s snowpack is one of the lowest it’s been in recorded history. That snow takes years to percolate and it’s what feeds the mountain springs powering the river. More than half of Oregon counties have already declared droughts.
The Casad farm is still paying down the debts from the last drought. Chris Casad worked part-time at a feedlot this winter. Now he’s a school bus driver.
To his two young children, his “whale” of a potato harvester has never been anything other than a slide, their playground for make-believe.
The post An Oregon Law Lets One Wealthy Region Turn the Desert Green. When Drought Hits, Farmers Pay the Price. appeared first on ProPublica.
Aida Kelly jumped out of bed and realized her home was in flames.
Every year, about 90% of Central Oregon’s Deschutes River disappears into networks of canals and pipes traversing high desert. Between April and October, what’s left in this major river — one of the largest spring-fed waterways in the U.S. — looks more like a creek trickling out of Bend, Oregon.
Six irrigation districts — quasi-public corporations — divert the water to green up the properties of about 7,500 landowners in one of the state’s driest regions. Of the six, none is as powerful as the Central Oregon Irrigation District. It has rights to use more than half of the Deschutes’ volume — more than all the other districts combined. And under state law, in times of scarcity, most of the others must cut back to protect COID’s share of the river.
During the last drought, state water law forced commercial farmers downstream to fallow their land while COID diverted four times what its landowners’ crops consumed, an Oregon Public Broadcasting and ProPublica analysis of state data found.
Our analysis showed similar ratios across both wet and dry years, roughly aligning with estimates of what COID told the state its crops required. While state water managers did not dispute our analysis, the irrigation district said it didn’t trust the satellite-based data we used, which Oregon lawmakers backed to study water availability.
COID landowners are doing exactly what the law encourages them to do, state legislators said. To keep rights to the water, districts have to prove to the state that their customers are consistently using it “beneficially.” In the district, our reporting found, more than 9 out of 10 acres were pasture — grass for grazing or landscaping, or hay for livestock — considered beneficial under the law.
Oregon and other Western states have so far rejected any legislation that restricts what people can grow or how efficient they must be: Opposition to change is strong because water rights are a form of property rights. Water rights also raise property values and can bring agricultural tax breaks.
If lawmakers took on bedrock water law, “we’d get crushed by the powers that be and we might even not be reelected,” said state Rep. Ken Helm, the Democratic co-chair of the House Committee on Agriculture, Land Use, Natural Resources and Water.
“What should we do? I think we should leave more water in the river. Legally speaking, that doesn’t have to happen,” he said. Helm, a land-use lawyer, grew up in Bend and has watched the region transform. “Affluent people are moving into Central Oregon for reasons that have nothing to do with growing a crop,” he said.
As things stand now, COID’s Managing Director Craig Horrell said he “can’t tell people what they can and can’t farm, if it’s allowed.” The district’s job is to distribute water to its customers and to “deliver it much more efficiently and sustainably in the future,” he said.
The question is how.
Oregon has pushed three main solutions:
COID delivers most of its water through open canals built 120 years ago. Blasted from porous lava rock, the canals have to be completely full for gravity to push water across the district’s more than 42,000 acres. Nearly half the water evaporates or seeps into the ground under the canals before reaching its destination. COID’s state water rights factor this in.
Replacing the canals with pressurized pipes could save a lot of water. It could also take 50 years and cost more than $700 million. The district is in the final planning stages of what could be a $360 million project to pipe a main artery leading to more than a thousand landowners between Bend and Redmond, Oregon. Few make their living as farmers, our reporting found. In exchange for federal and state funding for piping, COID has pledged to send water downstream to farmers outside the district.
The plan has gotten broad support, especially from Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley: “Repeated severe droughts make every drop of irrigation water highly valuable, and the best way to preserve irrigation water is to pipe it,” he told OPB and ProPublica.
The catalyst for focusing on COID, he said, was a threatened species of frog, which lives exactly where irrigation districts have long siphoned water, destroying its habitat. To stave off lawsuits under the Endangered Species Act, the districts agreed to leave more water in the river over time.
As it switches from canals to pipes, COID is supposed to send the water it saves to a neighboring district that will have to take less from the river as part of the plan to restore the frog’s home. That district, North Unit, serves a valley famous for commercial farms, but it’s already water-poor. It has rights to far less water from the Deschutes than COID does. Evan Thomas, a fifth-generation farmer and leader of North Unit, put the stakes plainly at a March public meeting in Redmond: “This pipe has to go in the ground by 2028 or North Unit, all of Jefferson County, basically quits farming.”
But even those who acknowledge that piping is a critical solution note that it won’t stop COID from diverting more water than its customers need — or from sending that water to a lot of residential properties growing grass and pasture. Last year, the nonprofit Central Oregon LandWatch pushed for a bill to put limits on overwatering. Helm and Republican state Rep. Mark Owens started drafting legislation, but they never introduced it. Owens, a hay farmer in Eastern Oregon, said irrigation districts weren’t happy with the proposal. “I weakened,” he said. “We weren’t going to get it through the building. We lived to fight another day.”
The Deschutes has never had enough water for all the landowners who laid claim to it more than a century ago, said Deschutes River Conservancy Executive Director Kate Fitzpatrick. Leaving water in the river for fish and wildlife wasn’t even considered a legal, beneficial use of the resource until the 1980s.
“So that’s what we’re working with,” Fitzpatrick said. “We’re not going to win the game by pointing fingers at who’s doing what with the water.”
With more demand than supply, her nonprofit works with irrigation districts to roll out incentives for landowners to be more efficient or share voluntarily. One program pays landowners to dry up land so COID will leave more water in the river. But the district limits participation, and the program’s efficacy has plateaued for decades, state data shows.
State lawmakers last year also created a pilot “water bank” program. The concept marks a big change in the law and could allow COID landowners to keep what water they need and rent out the excess to farmers downstream without losing rights to it.
But since Oregon’s governor signed the bill into law nearly a year ago, COID and other key players haven’t signed anyone up. That’s because the canal system fails if it doesn’t have enough water in it, Horrell, the district’s manager, said. Piping could allow the district to scale up these other solutions in the future, he said.
There’s another problem, too: To rent out part of a water right without completely drying up their property, landowners would need to measure their use precisely — something many don’t want to do.
COID said it doesn’t measure or report the volume of water it delivers. This is typical across Oregon, where the vast majority of water goes to agricultural lands. But policymakers and experts have long said the state can’t tackle water shortages unless it knows how much the people with irrigation water rights use on their properties.
The Legislature’s attempts to require meters on all individual farms and wells have faced fierce public backlash. “At one point my office was getting a call a minute,” Owens, the state representative, recalled of an effort last year. The fear, he said, is that the state will use data to take away water rights or to try to charge by the gallon.
Owens has given up on trying to force statewide metering for now, he said.
On his own Eastern Oregon hay farm, he started a pilot project that uses a weather station and satellite data to track how much his fields drink. He can look on his phone and see how many days he should irrigate the following week, he said. He also led the charge for Oregon to invest in a cutting-edge study to apply this technology to statewide water planning. Scientists with the Oregon Water Resources Department co-authored a report with researchers from the Nevada-based Desert Research Institute. It provides estimates over nearly 40 years of how much water crops consumed on every irrigated field in Oregon. The data, which OPB and ProPublica used in our reporting, was published last year. Horrell said such data has too many variables and is not ready to guide how the district monitors water use.
State managers are not currently using that data to regulate how water is used, but instead to account for where it goes, Oregon Water Resources Department Director Ivan Gall said in a recent interview. He said tight state budgets have so far kept his agency from sharing it “with the public and decision makers in a way that is understandable and meaningful.”
Owens and Helm said they tried and failed to make it easier to learn from critical data about Oregon’s water — how much there is, how clean it is, where it’s coming from and where it’s going — but a pilot project ground to a halt after state funding dried up last year.
The post Oregon Leaders Are Trying to Save the Deschutes River. Here’s Why That’s So Hard. appeared first on ProPublica.
Airport has also been ‘engaging closely’ with regulator to discuss cost of plan to build third runway
Heathrow has said that passenger numbers and profits will fall this year because of the war in the Middle East.
Europe’s busiest airport said it expected a 1.1% decline in the total number of passengers to 83.6 million as the Iran war affects air travel.
Continue reading...Austrian Grand Prix declares heat hazard as dramatic rise in temperatures forecast in central and northern Europe
Temperatures are forecast to rise dramatically in parts of central and northern Europe this weekend as the intense heatwave continues. In Germany and Poland, highs up to or exceeding 40C (104F) are expected on both Saturday and Sunday, days after swathes of France experienced similar extreme temperatures. The Austrian Grand Prix, taking place this weekend in Spielberg, has declared a heat hazard, the first race to do so this season. Temperatures are expected to rise into the low 30s celsius during the race, almost 10C warmer than usual for the venue.
Across Europe, the intense heat has led to severe thunderstorms. In the Sverdlovsk region of central Russia, a strong tornado was reported on the evening of 22 June. Rated a 3 out of 5 on the international Fujita scale, the twister injured 16 people and destroyed or damaged about 100 homes and businesses in the town of Kushva. Emergency services have been working on restoring power to the town. Tornadoes are not unheard of in Russia but are rare. Forecasters say they may become more common in future as the climate breaks down. Storm warnings remained in effect in the southern part of the country on Friday.
Continue reading...The king and Queen Camilla have decided instead to continue living at nearby Clarence House, a smaller, stately home.
Alejandro Gertz Manero’s cars and properties contrast starkly with Morena party’s long association with austerity
With his million-dollar jewellery collection and his two Rolls-Royces, Mexico’s new ambassador to the UK will fit right in with the Mayfair crowd.
Former attorney general Alejandro Gertz Manero was appointed to the post by President Claudia Sheinbaum last year, but only recently disclosed his financial assets.
Continue reading...The right’s verdict is in: white, heterosexual, Christian men face the most discrimination in the US. The Giants don’t want to push back
On 19 June, the New York Times published an article on the hostility toward minority members of the military at the Department of Defense and the blocking of several promotions of minority, non-male officers despite their decorations and accomplishments. The Times attributed the ideological climate to defense secretary Pete Hegseth, who, according to the newspaper, is waging a “war on diversity”. Four days earlier, California governor Gavin Newsom said that the Department of Justice was investigating him and his wife for alleged financial irregularities, adding to the speculation long held that Donald Trump’s administration would spend its second term weaponizing the government to settle scores.
As Hegseth attacks race, gender and “diversity” through the military with the aim of restoring an unchallenged and unquestioned white, Christian leadership, and the justice department harasses Trump’s political opponents, the DoJ used the San Francisco Giants’ honoring of pride month to open yet another front in what the president sees as a culture war against white men. The Giants incurred additional damage, all of it embarrassingly self-inflicted. Their milky, cowardly response betrayed their own city, a large part of their fanbase and the organization’s history.
Howard Bryant is the author of 11 books, including The Heritage: Black Athletes, A Divided America, and the Politics of Patriotism and Kings and Pawns: Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson in America.
Continue reading...Fears hard-won gains in reducing child mortality over 20 years are at risk after end of USAID funding for nutrition programmes
Child malnutrition in Nepal has reached “alarming” levels, according to the largest ever survey of under-fives in the country.
The new figures came just over a year after USAID, the former US flagship agency closed by the Trump administration in 2025, stopped funding work on child nutrition in Nepal.
Continue reading...Researchers say they detected the first gravitational-wave "fingerprints" of a black hole's event horizon by analyzing the final moments of the powerful GW250114 merger. The findings support Einstein's general relativity and may eventually help probe frame dragging and quantum fluctuations near black holes. Phys.org reports: For the new research published in Nature, an international team of researchers analyzed data from the strongest gravitational wave ever recorded, known as GW250114, detected by the LIGO observatory in January 2025. By isolating the last burst of waves -- known as "direct waves" -- from this black hole merger, the scientists said they were able to extract information from closer to an event horizon than ever before. "This black hole horizon concept normally appears in science fiction," lead study author Sizheng Ma of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Canada told AFP. "But now we are really able to touch the region around the horizon with gravitational data," he added. "Sometimes I cannot believe this is really happening." The last stage of two black holes merging is like a spoon stirring a glass of water, Ma explained. The resulting swirl in space creates the ripple of gravitational waves that travel at the speed of light in all directions. If the metaphorical spoon is stirring close enough to the black hole's event horizon, "this offers us a chance to decode the physics around that region," Ma said. By supporting the theory of general relativity, the results "proved that Einstein was correct again," he added. The scientists emphasized that more research was needed to decipher what can be gleaned about event horizons using this method. But they did detect information about how black holes twist space around themselves as they rotate -- a phenomenon known as "frame dragging." "This is similar to pushing a glass into a table and twisting it, so that the tablecloth winds up around it," Maximiliano Isi, a gravitational wave astrophysicist at Columbia University, told AFP. In the future, the scientists hope to find signs of tiny changes known as quantum fluctuations. "In this way, we can really probe this near-horizon region to look for new physics," including searching for a deviation from general relativity, Ma said.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Julie Elie worked out how zebra finches announce who they are, what they are doing and use individual signatures
A scientist who decoded the vocalisations that a bird uses to communicate has won a $100,000 prize for making progress towards a world in which humans can talk to the animals – without being met with a blank response.
Dr Julie Elie at the University of California, Berkeley, was awarded the 2026 Coller-Dolittle prize for two-way interspecies communication after working out the 11 core calls in the zebra finch vocabulary and their meanings.
Continue reading...US manager says his team deserve congratulations
Plays down talk of momentum and focuses on positives
Mauricio Pochettino criticized questions over his team’s performance in a 3-2 loss to Turkey on Thursday, telling journalists he expected to be congratulated for leading the US to a first-place finish in the group and found their questions about the dead-rubber loss “weird”.
The US had secured top spot in Group D on the back of two historic performances – a 4-1 opening win against Paraguay in which the team scored more goals in a World Cup match than ever before, and a 2-0 victory over Australia that secured a first six-point opening to a World Cup.
Continue reading...All branches of the military will be taught how to use technology that has become a ‘game changer on the battlefield’, says defence minister
All of South Korea’s military forces will be trained as drone operators in a sweeping overhaul of its warfare strategy, the defence minister has said.
“All soldiers should be able to use drones like a second personal firearm,” Ahn Gyu-back, who heads the defence ministry in Seoul, said on Friday.
Continue reading...Plans by Wolfgang Porsche to bore private 500-metre road link through Austrian hill caused anger among locals
Wolfgang Porsche, the Austrian-German automotive magnate, appears to have abandoned plans to build a private 500-metre tunnel for his cars through the Salzburg hills after a public uproar over the “tunnel for one”.
In 2020, Porsche bought a storied 17th-century villa on the outskirts of Salzburg for €8.4m (£7.2m), and last autumn he secured permission from the city authorities for an estimated €10m private access road through the rugged limestone hill.
Continue reading...Apple Macbook 13-inch prices jumps from $1,799 to $2,099 while the cost of iPads surges by 25%
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Australians woke up on Friday to more expensive Macbooks and iPads after Apple hiked prices worldwide, blaming an AI-driven cost-crunch for computer parts.
The iPhone range was unaffected but experts predict Apple will raise prices for its flagship product later this year. Microsoft also lifted its Xbox prices overnight amid a wave of increases for phones and devices.
Continue reading...High temperatures make some workplaces dangerous, with economists warning disruption will dent growth
Monique Mosley is used to sweltering conditions at the food factory in Yorkshire where she works, but June’s record-breaking heatwave has made conditions unbearable. “We make hot filled food products and it’s common that we see temperatures in the high 30s,” she said. “Thanks to our union, our employer is offering extra breaks, but not every workplace is the same.”
The latest heatwave to grip the UK and much of western Europe has presented significant challenges to employers and their employees, from sweltering offices, disrupted commutes and school closures to dangerous construction sites where workers are at risk of dehydration, heatstroke and other injury.
Continue reading...The Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool in Washington DC will have to be drained again. Donald Trump has blamed vandalism for the failure to keep the water “American flag blue”. But what if this small body of water is proof that the president can’t outrun the truth?
Jonathan Freedland speaks to Arwa Mahdawi about why this project, which has cost the taxpayer millions, is proving to be such an embarrassing failure for a man obsessed with image
Archive: AP, Reuters
Continue reading...Ukraine isn’t the only battlefield shaping autonomous warfare.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Spain will require mobile networks to have backup systems that maintain connectivity when power outages occur. Per a royal decree that will be approved by the end of 2026, mobile network operators (MNOs) and infrastructure companies will need to install batteries or other backups to keep service active for at least four hours during a blackout. The mobile network rules will apply to businesses that serve at least 500,000 users or generate upwards of 50 million euros ($56.9 million) in annual revenue. The decree will stipulate that half of the population will need to be covered by this failsafe within the first year, then 65 percent in the second year and three quarters in the third. [...] The decree will require other key infrastructure elements to remain up and running for a certain period after a power outage. For instance, control centers that could impact all of Spain if they were to go offline will need to remain in service for at least 24 hours. Emergency call centers will also need to have plans in place to maintain operations, as Reuters notes. The move is in response to the widespread blackout across the Iberian peninsula in 2025, which left more than 50 million people without power. Experts called it "the most severe and unprecedented blackout that had occurred in Europe in the past 20 years."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
A trove of emails offers a new look at how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention navigated some of the most controversial decisions of President Trump's second term.
Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for June 26.
Mangione is facing both state and federal charges for UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson's murder in December 2024. He has pleaded not guilty in both cases.
This live blog is now closed.
Supreme court lets Trump administration end TPS for Haitians and Syrians
Trump officials can turn back asylum seekers at US-Mexico border
Here’s my colleague Maanvi Singh’s report on the supreme court’s decision to give the Trump administration a green light to turn back asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border, in a ruling that fundamentally reshapes the US asylum system and concludes a battle that has spanned three administrations.
In a major ruling, the supreme court has allowed the Trump administration to end legal protections for migrants fleeing violence and natural disaster in Haiti and Syria, exposing hundreds of thousands more people to potential deportation.
Continue reading...David Vander Meer was recently arrested for the death of his wife in national park 20 years ago after new information revealed
A Las Vegas man and former youth pastor died days after he was arrested and charged with murdering his wife, who plummeted thousands of feet to her death while hiking in Utah’s Zion national park in 2006.
At a scheduled extradition hearing on Thursday, a Las Vegas judge announced that David Vander Meer was deceased, according to KSNV.
Continue reading...US among countries sending help to search for survivors on north coast, where dozens of buildings flattened, as official death toll reaches 235
Rescue teams are racing to Venezuela’s shattered northern coast after almost simultaneous earthquakes reduced dozens of buildings to rubble, killing at least 235 people but with thousands more fatalities feared. Officials said at least 4,300 people were injured as rescue missions continue.
The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said the defence department would help search and rescue teams deploy to the affected region after Venezuela’s main gateway, the Simón Bolívar international airport, near the capital, Caracas, was badly damaged by 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude quakes less than 40 seconds apart, late on Wednesday afternoon.
Continue reading...China’s leader wants to promote his alternative to the current world order, and his efforts are being assisted by a capricious US
Xi Jinping meets Bangladesh’s new prime minister on Friday, the latest in a wave of world leaders to visit Beijing this year as the Chinese leader builds his influence and economic ties, and seeks to “shift the balance of power” away from the west.
Xi’s meeting with Tarique Rahman comes less than two weeks after the Chinese leader welcomed Myanmar’s military chief-turned-president, Min Aung Hlaing, in Beijing.
Continue reading...‘It’s all just rendered useless’, Something For Kate’s Paul Dempsey says as AI scrapes millions of songs to learn how to make music
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Paul Dempsey and Bernard Fanning are among big-name Australian musicians upset that their original songs have been found in datasets used to train artificial intelligence.
A dataset search tool recently created by US publication The Atlantic reveals millions of creative works have been scraped from the internet to train the disruptive technology.
Continue reading...Supreme court ruling will allow Trump administration to block asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border – key US politics stories from Thursday 25 June
The US supreme court has given the Trump administration a green light to block asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border, in a decision that fundamentally reshapes the US asylum system.
The decision allows the Trump administration to revive its so-called turn-back or “metering” policy, allowing federal agents at the US border to stop migrants from physically setting foot on US soil, where federal law guarantees them the right to claim asylum and protection from persecution.
Continue reading...Iran attacked a commercial vessel in the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, a U.S. official confirmed, leading a United Nations agency to pause an evacuation effort.
Los Angeles building inspectors have launched an investigation into alleged unpermitted construction at a warehouse that erupted in flames last week — its second fire in two years.
The decision caps rent on about 40 percent of the New York’s housing stock for up to two years.
Vice-president declares admiration for 37th president and claims Nixon and Trump are targeted by ‘deep state’ forces
JD Vance does not think the era-defining Watergate scandal would have lasted more than a single news cycle in today’s fragmented, hyper-partisan political environment – and certainly would not have led to a president’s downfall.
Speaking at the Richard Nixon presidential library in Yorba Linda, California, on Thursday to promote his new book, Communion, Vance discussed his spiritual journey from atheist to Catholic convert before declaring his admiration for the 37th president.
Continue reading...International Maritime Organization says safety guarantees must be confirmed before ships can move again
A United Nations agency has paused the evacuation of ships through the strait of Hormuz after the British military said a vessel was hit by a projectile off the coast of Oman following the passage of several tankers that used a route backed by the UN.
The head of the UN’s International Maritime Organization said on Thursday that the plan to move stranded ships out of the Persian Gulf through the strait would be on hold until the agency could confirm safety guarantees for the ships on the evacuation list and in the region.
Continue reading...Here are hints and the answer for today's Wordle for June 26, No. 1,833.
Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for June 26 No. 1,111.
⚽️ Kick-off time: 7pm local/12pm AEST/3am BST/10pm EDT
⚽️ Third-place table, who has qualified and who needs what?
⚽️ Player guide | Bracketology | Golden Boot | Mail Jonathan
Let’s start the roundup with the Pod Squad dealing with a bumper six-game matchday, one dominated by Scotland’s hammering by Brazil.
Feel free to keep me company by emailing your thoughts about today’s match, and anything related to the World Cup to jonathan.howcroft.freelance@theguardian.com.
Continue reading...Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, is an anti-Islamic, far-right political activist well known in the UK and Europe
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The man who calls himself Tommy Robinson has roared into prominence in Australia after the morning TV mainstay Karl Stefanovic posted an interview with Robinson for his podcast.
The fallout was swift. Nine Entertainment, Australia’s largest locally owned media empire, has severed ties with Stefanovic, and he will not appear on a radio show with Eddie McGuire on Friday.
Continue reading...Company says it cannot shield customers from memory and storage chip costs – and iPhone hikes could be next
Apple raised iPad and MacBook prices on Thursday, saying it could no longer shield customers from soaring memory and storage chip costs driven by the AI industry’s data center buildout.
The move does not affect Apple’s cash cow, the iPhone. But it would take the starting price of the Neo, its lowest-priced laptop, from $599 to $699 mere months after launch.
Continue reading...Only 20% European homes have AC, compared to 90% in the U.S., but as the climate changes, that vast gulf may be set to shrink.
Mangione is facing both state and federal charges for UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson's murder in December 2024. He has pleaded not guilty in both cases.
HAMBURG, Germany, June 25, 2026 — As the main conference program concludes this afternoon, ISC is pleased to announce that Professor Rio Yokota, a prominent researcher working at the intersection of high performance computing, artificial intelligence, and linear algebra, will take the helm as the program chair for ISC 2027.
Rio Yokota
During today’s closing ceremony, Professor Rosa M. Badia, this year’s program chair, will officially introduce Yokota and hand the stage to him for his address to the ISC HPC community. ISC 2026, held in Hamburg from June 22 to 26, brought together over 4,000 attendees and 188 exhibitors, fostering collaboration among the international communities of HPC, AI and quantum computing as they explored the developments and trends shaping supercomputing.
ISC 2027 is set to return to Hamburg from June 7 to 11, 2027. Under Yokota’s leadership, the program will continue to emphasize the convergence of HPC, AI, data-intensive science, and emerging computing technologies. His appointment also brings a strong perspective from Japan’s supercomputing and AI research communities, where he has played an active role in advancing large-scale computing and distributed AI training.
Professor Yokota currently works at the Supercomputing Research Center, Institute of Integrated Research, Institute of Science Tokyo. He also leads the AI for Science Foundation Model Research Team at the RIKEN Center for Computational Science, where his research focuses on algorithm development, GPU optimization, and distributed machine learning.
When asked about his vision and goals for ISC 2027, Yokota stated:
“I am honored to serve as Program Chair for ISC 2027 and to help shape a program that reflects how rapidly our field is evolving. HPC has always been driven by ambitious scientific challenges, and those challenges now increasingly connect simulation, data analytics, AI, and emerging computing technologies. For ISC 2027, I would like to focus on how this convergence is reshaping scientific discovery, and on the systems, algorithms, software, and communities needed to support it at scale.
“My goal is to bring these communities closer together, highlight work that is both technically rigorous and scientifically impactful, while creating opportunities for researchers, practitioners, and students from around the world to exchange ideas. I look forward to working with the ISC community to build a program that is inclusive, forward-looking, and responsive to the challenges facing science, industry, and society.”
Rio Yokota has optimized algorithms on GPUs since 2007 and was part of the team that won the Gordon Bell Prize in 2009 for their pioneering work on GPU supercomputers. More recently, he has led distributed training efforts on prominent Japanese supercomputers, including ABCI, TSUBAME, and Fugaku. As a co-developer of the large language models Swallow and LLM-jp, he is also involved in organizing international consortia such as the Accelerated Data Analytics and Computing Institute (ADAC) and the Trillion Parameter Consortium (TPC).
At the RIKEN Center, Yokota’s research team is dedicated to efficiently training and deploying foundation models for scientific applications, thereby enabling scientists to enhance their research. His diverse experience positions him well to guide ISC 2027, ensuring it addresses the evolving landscape of HPC and its impact on science and innovation.
Stay tuned for a preview of the ISC 2027 program topics later this year, and visit the ISC website for more information.
About ISC 2027
ISC High Performance 2027 will take place from June 7 to 11, 2027, in Hamburg, Germany. Established in 1986, ISC, in its 42nd edition, is renowned as the world’s oldest and Europe’s leading event dedicated to HPC, AI, and quantum computing. The event brings together a wide range of professionals – including researchers, engineers, technology providers, system operators, policymakers, and students – to exchange knowledge, showcase new technologies, and discuss the future of supercomputing. Join us for ISC High Performance 2027 in Hamburg!
Source: ISC
The post ISC Introduces Rio Yokota as ISC 2027 Program Chair appeared first on HPCwire.
VISION debuts on the prestigious Top500 list at No. 66, the nation’s highest ranked academic supercomputer, positioning A&M as a global leader in AI research, advanced computing, national security innovation and more.
BRYAN-COLLEGE STATION, Texas, June 25, 2026 — VISION, the Texas A&M University supercomputer, is ranked as America’s most powerful academic supercomputer in the latest TOP500 list, revealed June 23 at the ISC 2026 conference in Hamburg, Germany. VISION is ranked the 66th most powerful in the world based on the High Performance Linpack (HPL) benchmark, ahead of supercomputers owned and used by corporate giants like Samsung, Dell, Microsoft, Saudi Aramco and numerous national and international agencies and laboratories.
Credit: Texas A&M
VISION triples Texas A&M’s previous supercomputer capacity and positions it as an epicenter of impactful AI education and research benefitting the state and nation. VISION empowers student and faculty researchers to develop forward-thinking solutions to pressing, complex issues with global impact.
“We did not fund VISION for bragging rights. We funded it because Texas needs answers faster,” said Robert L. Albritton, chairman of the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents. “This supercomputer gives researchers across the A&M System the power to speed up drug discovery, strengthen disaster response, improve agriculture, advance energy research, support national security and prepare students for an economy being reshaped by artificial intelligence.”
Early work already shows the system’s potential. In one drug-discovery project, researchers screened more than 10 million compounds in about a week, using computing power that would have taken years in a previous environment.
That kind of speed can change the way researchers work. VISION can help teams test more ideas, train larger models, process more data and move from question to result faster than before.
Texas A&M is the only academic representative in the top 15% of the rankings, and VISION sits above supercomputers at the University of Cambridge, Harvard University, Purdue University, the University of Florida and the University of Tokyo. At a time when the artificial intelligence boom is in full swing, advanced computer infrastructure is essential for future successes and is proving to be a strategic asset for not only universities but also industries and states. If Texas is to cement itself as an AI leader, VISION and Texas A&M will play an essential role.
VISION represents a monumental leap forward in AI processing power. It will empower researchers to train next-generation AI models and solve complex national defense challenges in mere hours instead of what previously took months or years. By compressing timelines for critical breakthroughs — like training rovers and mobile robots for complex unpredictable terrain, advancing developments towards quantum computing, predicting global cybersecurity threats and accelerating early Alzheimer’s detection — this marvel will fundamentally strengthen national security, elevate human health and deliver practical benefits like protecting the power grids and food supplies that support communities worldwide.
Texas A&M University President Susan Ballabina said VISION will help faculty and students turn ambitious research questions into results faster.
“VISION gives our faculty and students access to the kind of computing power that changes what is possible,” Ballabina said. “It will help researchers train larger models, process more data, test more ideas and move faster on work that can improve lives. Just as important, it gives students hands-on experience with the advanced tools shaping the future of science, industry and public service.”
VISION, a NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD, provides high-performance supercomputing designed for state-of-the-art infrastructure for GPU-based workloads. It will support A&M research initiatives in key areas, including:
“The VISION team’s mission is to democratize access to high-performance computing resources for every member of the Texas A&M University System by building a system around key principles, including maximum flexibility, familiar and innovative features, security that enables and protects, low barriers to entry and continuous improvement,” said Brendan Roark, associate vice president of research. “Texas A&M IT Services and the Division of Research work to ensure VISION accelerates the time to impact in delivering innovative and entrepreneurial solutions that benefit Texas A&M, the state and the nation.”
Thanks to the power of the Texas A&M University System, VISION touches most corners of the state. From West Texas A&M in the Panhandle to Texarkana, Galveston, McAllen and Kingsville and beyond, Texas A&M University System members and their communities benefit from VISION. The supercomputer also strengthens the Texas A&M University System’s ability to recruit top faculty, attract research partnerships and prepare students for fields increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence and advanced computing.
The TOP500 list, according to its website, was created “to assemble and maintain a list of the 500 most powerful computer systems. Our list has been compiled twice a year since June 1993 with the help of high-performance computer experts, computational scientists, manufacturers, and the Internet community in general.”
Source: Texas A&M University
The post Texas A&M Supercomputer Named Most Powerful Among US Universities appeared first on HPCwire.
SINGAPORE, June 2026 — On June 8, Singapore launched ASPIRE 2B, its next-generation national research supercomputer, significantly advancing the country’s high performance computing (HPC) capabilities for AI, scientific computing and emerging hybrid computing approaches.
ASPIRE 2B launch on June 8, 2026.
Launched by Mrs Josephine Teo, Minister for Digital Development and Information and Ministerin-Charge of Cybersecurity and Smart Nation Group, ASPIRE 2B marks a major expansion of Singapore’s national compute infrastructure to support increasingly AI and data-intensive workloads. Introduced in NSCC’s 10th anniversary year, ASPIRE 2B reflects a decade of national investment in advanced computing infrastructure and Singapore’s growing ambitions in AI and scientific innovation.
Delivering up to 115 petaFLOPS (PF) of compute power, capable of more than 100 quadrillion calculations per second, ASPIRE 2B offers close to four times the combined capacity of current national research systems, ASPIRE 2A and ASPIRE 2A+.
Scaling National Compute Capabilities to Meet Growing Research Demands ASPIRE 2B is equipped with more than 1,500 NVIDIA H200 GPUs, making it the country’s largest NVIDIA GPU cluster dedicated to research and public sector use. It will serve as a key testbed for emerging AI-driven research approaches such as agentic AI, where AI systems help automate and orchestrate end-to-end research workflows, from ideation to generative design to lab-based experimental validation. These workloads require AI training, as well as inference — where trained AI models are used to generate predictions and responses from new data — alongside large-scale data analytics and scientific simulations to be performed within a unified compute environment.
ASPIRE 2B is designed to support the new hybrid quantum-classical computing paradigm. It is expected to be linked with Quantinuum’s Helios quantum computer, with a targeted installation in Singapore near the end of this year, enabling researchers to experiment with hybrid computing algorithms that could help solve complex problems that are difficult for both systems to handle alone.
Enabling Nationally Significant Research and Applications
NSCC’s supercomputers have supported national programs such as the National Environment Agency’s Third National Climate Change Study (V3), led by the Centre for Climate Research Singapore (CCRS), where some of the world’s highest-resolution climate projections were developed to support coastal adaptation planning, climate resilience and regional food security. With ASPIRE 2B’s enhanced CPU and GPU capabilities, CCRS will be able to support a new generation of AI-powered, higher-resolution climate modeling and weather prediction to strengthen Singapore’s resilience against increasingly complex climate risks.
NSCC systems have also powered national AI initiatives such as the Multimodal Empathetic Reasoning and Learning in One Network (MERaLiON) project by A*STAR Institute for Infocomm Research (A*STAR I²R), including Southeast Asia-focused AI models capable of understanding regional accents, dialects, code-switching and emotions for applications across healthcare, finance and digital services. With ASPIRE 2B’s expanded AI compute capabilities, researchers will be able to train larger and more advanced multimodal models while accelerating the development of next-generation sovereign AI systems tailored for Singapore and Southeast Asia.
These developments also support Singapore’s broader push towards AI for Science, where AI and advanced computing increasingly accelerate scientific discovery. Building on ASPIRE 2A and ASPIRE 2A+, ASPIRE 2B will further enhance the quality and capability of national AI and scientific research, while supporting new initiatives such as Singapore Medical Foundation AI Model (SIMFONI), advanced robotics research and other large-scale AI workloads requiring sustained GPU access.
Prof Robert Morris, Executive Director, Singapore Medical Foundation AI Model (SIMFONI) said: “Advancing healthcare AI requires the ability to work with large and complex clinical datasets at scale. ASPIRE 2B provides the compute foundation needed to support more advanced AI models for applications such as clinical decision support and patient record analysis, contributing to more data-driven and preventive healthcare.”
Supporting Future-Ready Research
Beyond infrastructure, NSCC is evolving its operating model to better support Singapore’s long term research and innovation needs. This includes enhancements to its resource provisioning framework to prioritize national Research, Innovation and Enterprise (RIE) programs while providing greater flexibility for institutional and emerging research demands.
NSCC will also deepen engagement with the research community through enhanced user enablement services, such as application and workflow optimization, closer technical partnerships, and consultations on algorithm–hardware co-design. Alongside this, NSCC will strengthen its focus on training and talent development through structured onboarding and curriculum co-development with universities and industry partners.
Dr Terence Hung, Chief Executive, National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) Singapore, said: “ASPIRE 2B reflects Singapore’s ambition to strengthen its position in trusted AI and advanced computing. It provides researchers with the compute capabilities needed to tackle larger and more complex challenges in areas critical to Singapore’s future, including healthcare, sustainability and urban resilience. As NSCC marks its 10th anniversary, ASPIRE 2B also strengthens NSCC’s role as a strategic national HPC partner. It will support research innovation, strengthen talent and capability development, and enable the next phase of Singapore’s AI and compute-driven research ambitions.”
ASPIRE 2B forms part of the $270 million national investment announced by the National Research Foundation (NRF) in 2024 to strengthen Singapore’s supercomputing infrastructure and capabilities.
About the National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) Singapore
The National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) Singapore was established in 2015 to manage Singapore’s national petascale facilities and high performance computing (HPC) resources. A National Research Infrastructure funded by the National Research Foundation (NRF), and hosted by A*STAR, the HPC resources that we provide help support the research needs of the public and private sectors, including research institutes, institutes of higher learning, government agencies and companies.
As a national strategic technological platform, NSCC has the mission to enhance competence, capacity and competitive advantage in the use of HPC in all relevant fields such as computational science, analytics, engineering, advanced manufacturing, genomics, biomedicine, healthcare, AI and quantum computing, among many others. With the support of our research partners, NSCC catalyses national research and development initiatives, develops HPC skillsets and applications, and enhances Singapore’s research capabilities. For more information, please visit: https://www.nscc.sg.
About the National Research Foundation (NRF)
The National Research Foundation, Singapore (NRF), set up on 1 January 2006, is a department within the Prime Minister’s Office. The NRF sets the national direction for research and development (R&D) by developing policies, plans and strategies for research, innovation and enterprise. It also funds strategic initiatives and builds up R&D capabilities by nurturing research talent. For more information, please visit: https://www.nrf.gov.sg.
Source: NSCC
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Blaze on Tintwistle Moor, Glossop, has burned more than 500 square metres, forcing road closures and smoke warning
A major wildfire close to Greater Manchester has torn through large areas of moorland for more than 24 hours, forcing road closures and smoke warnings as fire crews battle to bring it under control.
The blaze, on Tintwistle Moor, near Glossop, has burned an area of more than 500 square metres of moorland and woodland, with thick plumes of smoke directly affecting the villages of Tintwistle, Hollingworth and Woolley Bridge.
Continue reading...A judge on Thursday ordered the Justice Department to either release unredacted versions of several files on the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein or explain why it can't do so.
A jury remains deadlocked in the trial of Jonathan Rinderknecht, the man accused of starting the blaze that turned into the deadly and destructive Palisades Fire in 2025.
Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from autoevolution: The U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security denied Polestar an authorization under the Connected Vehicle Rule. Polestar will continue to sell its existing inventory of Polestar 3 and 4 crossovers in the United States and will continue to offer support to customers and access to its service network. But no new 2027 models will set wheels on American soil. The Connected Vehicle Rule is a regulation that restricts the import and sale of vehicles equipped with Vehicle Connectivity Systems (VCS) and Automated Driving Systems (ADS) tied to foreign adversaries, primarily from China and Russia. Polestar is owned by Chinese auto giant Geely, which has also been the parent company of Swedish brand Volvo since 2010. However, Volvo has recently been granted authorization to sell connected vehicles in the United States. The rule, set out by the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), classifies modern vehicles as mobile data centers and is designed to protect national security by keeping sensitive driver data and vehicle control systems out of the hands of foreign governments. Michael Lohscheller, Polestar CEO, confirms that the company is well aware that the automotive industry is entering a new phase, based on regional dynamics. So, Polestar will shift its strategy to its biggest market as it is preparing its exit from the U.S. market. The report notes that Polestar sold 5,384 cars in the U.S. in 2025, with 60,119 units sold globally.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
This is the third price hike for Xbox consoles since May of last year.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly blamed vandals for damaging the new blue lining of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which is now peeling, as well as for algae in the water. But the administration has not provided evidence to back up the president’s claims. Experts say the pool’s ills have a variety of plausible explanations that do not involve intentional harm.
Installing linings on pools and making sure they properly adhere is challenging, experts in pools and waterproof coatings have told news outlets, and improper surface prep or water intrusion can cause peeling, they said. Meanwhile, algae would be expected in a shallow, still, unshaded pool fed by nutrient-rich water that had been painted dark blue, Steven Chapra, a water quality modeler and professor emeritus at Tufts University, told us.
Despite these competing explanations, Trump has repeatedly asserted that vandals are to blame. “You know, we have 100- … I think 290-, 300-foot slit right through it,” Trump said at a June 22 press event, after news reports surfaced of blue pieces of the pool’s lining separating from the bottom. “Probably a box cutter or a knife of some kind.”
He claimed at the same event that someone may have put fertilizer in the pool, part of a series of claims that someone had poured in some substance or chemicals. “They did something to create the algae,” he said.
Trump’s comments on vandals cutting the pool’s coating with a knife echoed theoretical statements he had made on May 4, before reports of damage to the pool. “It’s very strong. You couldn’t — if you had a knife — I don’t want to give anybody ideas,” he said, referring to the pool’s new coating. “If you had a knife, you can’t even cut it, so strong, so powerful.”
The president has since spoken or posted about alleged cuts in the pool at least daily, with the “gash” — or “numerous slashes” — growing to cover a length of 350 feet and the possible implements used including “a very sharp knife or razors.”
On June 24, Trump posted a photo of the dark blue bottom of the empty pool, stating, “This is the hard rubber surface — No Paint — Before the Vandals cut and pulled it apart!” On June 25, he specified that the vandals had gone to the “bottom” and “started ripping it up,” as well as cut “this very expensive stuff” at the “side of the pool right at water level.”
The White House replied to our request for more information on the vandalism with a June 25 press release claiming to have surveillance video, previously shared by the Department of the Interior with Fox News, of someone vandalizing the pool. The June 19 video, taken in the middle of the afternoon after news had broken of the damage to the pool, appears to show a person reaching into the water and pulling something out. However, it is unclear whether this individual was engaged in vandalism. The White House has not provided evidence of people causing long gashes or a series of gashes. The press release also included links to images of damage to the pool, including a jagged line on the bottom of the pool posted by a TMZ DC reporter on X, but it was unclear what had caused it. Nor has the administration provided evidence someone illicitly dumped something in the pool to cause algae growth.
The White House press release linked to a court filing from Frank Lands, Deputy Director of Operations for the National Park Service, stating that police on June 9 responded to an “NPS report of damage to the reflecting pool, including a caulk over the foam sealant that was cut with a sharp knife or razor and destruction of delaminating surface material.” Lands also said that “approximately 70 fence post tops were thrown into the pool.” It is unclear who is alleged to have made these cuts or thrown the fence post tops.
The Department of the Interior sent us a link to one of its X posts, which said, “Six individuals have been arrested for vandalism at the Reflecting Pool.” The post added that seven others were given federal citations and that 17 police reports for vandalism had been filed. The department would not give us further information about these arrests and citations, including any details of the individuals’ alleged infractions. Not did they provide the names of the alleged vandals. The White House press release said that there had been at least seven arrests, seven federal citations and 18 police reports filed but again did not provide more details, other than to link to multiple news stories mentioning an Olympic canoeist who has disputed that he vandalized the pool. Washington, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department referred us to the NPS.
Brady McCarron, a spokesperson for the United States Marshals Service, told us that as of the morning of June 24, “we are showing 5 arrests” listed as being by the DC Safe Task Force, including one on June 19 for “vandalism (attempted destruction of property/defacing public property)” and four on June 20 for “Destruction of government property.” He did not provide further details on these arrests. The DC Safe Task Force is a multi-agency federal body created by Trump “to surge law enforcement presence in public spaces, strictly enforce ‘quality-of-life’ laws, and maximize federal immigration enforcement within the District.”
Meanwhile, experts in pools, waterproof coatings and algae have said that there are many possible causes for the reflecting pool’s issues that have nothing to do with vandalism. Below, we will discuss competing explanations.
Despite Trump’s claims of vandalism to the more than 100-year-old reflecting pool, it’s not clear what caused damage to its new lining. When pressed on June 22 on whether he had proof that vandals had made cuts in the pool, the president seemed to suggest the cuts themselves were the proof.
“Well, let’s put it this way. When you have a 350 — I think it’s 350, not 250 — a 350-foot slit from one end to the other, you think that’s proof? You think that’s proof?” Trump said to a reporter. He later suggested that there was photographic evidence, but when a reporter asked the president to release those photos Trump said, “You’ll see it in court.” He also suggested contacting the Interior and Parks departments.
What is known is that the Department of the Interior awarded a no-bid contract on April 3 to Atlantic Industrial Coatings to paint the reflecting pool, with supplemental agreements issued through June 15 to total $14.7 million. The agency justified not getting bids from various contractors by saying the project was urgent and needed to be completed by July 4.
The plan was to install an epoxy primer on top of the pool’s concrete slabs, followed by a polyurea lining tinted “American flag blue,” Superintendent of National Mall and Memorial Parks Kevin Griess explained in May 18 court filings.
“The rehabilitation incorporated a combination of repair materials, epoxy priming technology, elastomeric waterproofing systems, and protective finish coatings,” a June 18 press release from Rhino Linings, the company whose products were used for the new liner, said.
The idea of installing the lining over the full bottom of the pool was first suggested by the Trump administration, Griess said, and not initially by his staff. The original focus was on replacing the failed expansion joints, a major source of leakage. The project did not address the pool’s leaking pipes.
On June 18, around two weeks after the pool was refilled following the renovation, news outlets began reporting that blue material was peeling off the pool’s bottom. The New York Times later reported on June 23 that workers had identified the peeling at least two days earlier, while also noting separate damage to foam in the pool’s expansion joints as of June 9. These joints — which go around the perimeter of the pool and horizontally across it in several places — allow the pool’s concrete slabs to expand and contract as the weather changes.
However, experts in pools and waterproof coatings have said that there are many possible reasons that a coating can improperly adhere.
“You have to account for ambient conditions like rain, sun, humidity, moisture control in your substrate, thickness, evenness, and chemical compatibility,” Steve Goodale, a swimming pool consultant, told Wired, speaking about the difficulty of applying a waterproof pool lining. “There are so many things that can go wrong with that process. If the material hasn’t bonded to the substrate for any number of reasons, then ultimately, the entire system will fail.”
Goodale told the Washington Post that improper surface preparation or water seeping into the lining from the pool or from under it could also contribute to the peeling. He also said that the hydrogen peroxide that the Interior Department had used to try to treat the algae in the pool could have had an impact on the coating, although he said that this would be more likely to lead to “fading, hazing or breakdown of the material” than peeling. News outlets reported that the department had said it was using hydrogen peroxide to treat the algae starting as early as June 16.
David McFayden, CEO of the paint and inspections services company KTA-Tator, told Scientific American that the available information was too limited to blame any one factor for the peeling, but he said issues worth investigating include how the surface was prepared before applying the coating and the water chemistry.
Atlantic Industrial Coatings, the contractor for the project, said in a June 21 statement that it and the NPS had “identified some areas in the Reflecting Pool that require repairs,” which will be done under warranty, and that these “do not indicate a failure of the liner.” The following day, Rhino Linings, the company that made the pool’s liner, said in a statement that the issues constituted “localized areas of finish coat separation,” and not an issue with the “underlying waterproofing membrane.”
“Was it manual intervention that made those few places peel, or was that the chemical composition of what was in the water?” Rhino vice president Francois Rivard told Politico. “We don’t know until we have further results at this point, but it is not problematic,” he said, explaining that the peeling only appears to affect the outer blue layer that is for aesthetic purposes.
Concerns about the pool’s new coating predate the most recently identified peeling issues.
Tim Auerhahn, chairman of the pool training and consulting company the Aquatic Council, told the New York Times for a May 8 story that he would want to look closely at the impact of Trump. driving his motorcade over the newly coated surface of the pool the day before. The Times reported May 12 that Department of Interior staff had expressed concerns about bubbling and small holes in a layer of the waterproofing material. And the Times report from June 23 and court document linked to in the White House press release indicated that Park Police were aware of damage to or near the pool’s foam expansion joints by June 9.
This timeline indicates the new material in the pool had problems before the June 19 and 20 arrests the U.S. Marshals spokesperson mentioned, and before the June 19 surveillance video of someone removing something from the pool the White House press release linked to.
Few details are available about the arrests. An Olympic canoeist, David Carter Hearn, told news outlets that he was arrested on June 19 for alleged destruction of government property. He said a piece of the blue lining had already partly peeled off and he touched it out of curiosity. He said he did not destroy anything.
There are some images and videos from reporters that indicate people on June 19 — once the peeling pool was already a major news event — broke off already-peeling coating or held pieces in their hands. However, there isn’t evidence of people making gashes with a knife.
The Washington Post also reported on June 20 seeing a U.S. Marshal detain someone for allegedly taking paint out of the pool and on June 21 seeing a Park Police officer issue someone a citation for allegedly removing something from the water.
Beyond stopping leaking, Trump’s reflecting pool project aimed to reduce algae, which has been a recurring issue for the reflecting pool.
The project included $1.7 million in funding to Greenwater Services to install a new system for algae control. Nanobubble systems for algae control, such as the one installed by Greenwater Services, work by introducing tiny ozone bubbles to a body of water, which can kill algae.
But despite efforts to mitigate the algae, an analysis done for the Washington Post indicated that the level of algae on June 13 — the week after the pool was refilled — was higher than in other June images going back to 2021.
Trump claimed that someone may have added fertilizer to the water to cause the algal growth, but he didn’t provide any evidence for this claim.
Chapra, the water quality modeler from Tufts, told us that the reflecting pool represents “the recipe for growing algae,” without needing to invoke vandalism.
The pool is “shallow, there’s no flushing, they don’t run water through it on a permanent basis,” he said. “There’s no mixing, because they want to keep it nice and flat, so you get a reflection.” Furthermore, he said, “there’s no shading anywhere to keep solar radiation out, and somebody decided to paint the bottom dark blue,” even though this makes the pool retain more heat. The pool probably also uses high-nutrient water, he added.
The president has blamed the pool’s past algae problems on a change to the pool’s water source made under former President Barack Obama. In 2012, the government switched from filling the pool with municipal DC water to ozone-treated water from the Tidal Basin, which is fed by the Potomac River.
“He took the water from the river,” Trump said of Obama on June 22. “It turned out to be putrid and it destroyed the whole thing. Spent over $100 million.”
That total is incorrect. As we previously wrote, the Obama-era restoration, which also reinforced the pool’s sinking foundation and replaced its concrete bottom, cost around $35 million.
When the reflecting pool was refilled in early June, a spokesperson for the Department of the Interior told us, it had been filled with “DC Water,” or municipal water. Even after the Obama-era renovations, the pool had periodically been filled with city drinking water when there was substantial algae in the Tidal Basin.
Chapra said that feeding the pool from the Tidal Basin would be the “worst” in terms of algae, given that the Potomac River has “plenty of nutrients” and algae.
However, using DC Water does not eliminate the potential for algae. Ashley Bair, a researcher at the water treatment company Usalco, told Vox that a type of phosphorus added to municipal water to form a coating on the inside of lead pipes could feed algae if the water were not treated properly. DC Water has added orthophosphate since 2004, according to its website, after a switch in disinfectant and a change in water chemistry caused lead to be released into the water from pipes.
Chapra also said that regardless of water source, feces from animals and fine particulates with phosphorus in the air can add to the nutrients in an open pool. He added that he was skeptical of the ozone nanobubble technology for the project. “High enough concentrations of ozone will break the cell walls of the algae, but that releases the nutrients back into the water, and it’s not going to kill all of them,” he said. Ozone also breaks down in sunlight, he added.
Given all these factors, he said, vandalism simply “wasn’t the first thing that popped into my mind” upon seeing the algal growth in the pool.
“Like I said at the beginning, shallow, no flushing, no mixing, high-nutrient water, no shading, dark blue bottom, go figure,” he said.
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The post Trump’s Unsupported Claims About Reflection Pool Vandalism appeared first on FactCheck.org.
The Trump administration has reportedly asked OpenAI to stagger the release of GPT-5.6 over security concerns. The model will initially be offered to a small group of partners, with the government "approving access customer by customer during this preview period," reports The Information. The request came from conversations with the Office of the National Cyber Director and the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the report said.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The heaviest demand on America's water supply isn't data centers or AI. It's from everyday uses such as growing food, watering lawns and flushing toilets.
Planning permission has been sought for three additional military sites
Home Office plans to use three more former military sites to house thousands of asylum seekers have been condemned as “arrogant”, “costly” and “a political fix” by refugee charities and local stakeholders.
Planning permission is being sought to build “basic” accommodation at MOD Bicester in Oxfordshire, RAF Barnham in Suffolk and RAF Linton-on-Ouse in North Yorkshire, a statement said. These new sites could house 3,750 claimants, the government has claimed.
Continue reading...Charles and Camilla to remain at Clarence House and are said to want the public to have more access to ‘monarchy HQ’
King Charles’s tax bill: what did we learn and what is still in the dark?
Crown estate makes more than £1bn profit for third year running
King Charles and Queen Camilla will not move into Buckingham Palace when £369m of buildings works to update it finish next year, preferring to remain at Clarence House, their London home nearby.
The announcement came as it was revealed the king paid £12.9m in income and capital gains tax in 2024-25 on his personal income, known as the privy purse, making him among the country’s top 100 taxpayers. Prince William paid £7.76m for the same period.
Continue reading...We know the monarch paid £24.6m in tax over the last two years, but we still don’t know how wealthy he actually is
Crown estate makes more than £1bn profit for third year running
King and Queen will not live at Buckingham Palace after £369m refit
King Charles has become Britain’s first monarch in modern times to reveal how much tax he pays on his private income: £24.6m over the last two years.
It’s a move celebrated by some as heralding an era of greater transparency from the monarchy. But just how open has it been?
Continue reading...King Charles’s property management firm rakes in £1.2bn as it continues to benefit from offshore windfarm boom
King Charles’s tax bill: what did we learn and what is still in the dark?
King and Queen will not live at Buckingham Palace after £369m refit
King Charles’s property management company has made more than £1bn for the third consecutive year thanks to the boom in offshore windfarms paid for through energy bills.
The crown estate, the royals’ portfolio of land and property, reported £1.2bn in profit for the last financial year, almost three times the amount it made three years ago. Two-thirds came from the offshore wind industry.
Continue reading...The first-ever tax disclosure by a British monarch was partly intended to contain the damage from revelations about the finances of the king’s disgraced brother, Andrew.
BrianFagioli writes: The Linux Foundation has announced Akrites, a new initiative to coordinate vulnerability disclosure and remediation for critical open source software as AI dramatically speeds up vulnerability discovery. Founding members include AWS, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, Red Hat, NVIDIA, IBM, Cisco, JPMorganChase, and others. Akrites will provide a shared Security Incident Response Team (SIRT), a standardized coordinated vulnerability disclosure process, and act as a "maintainer of last resort" for abandoned but widely used packages. The goal is to reduce duplicate reports, avoid conflicting patches, and help upstream maintainers address vulnerabilities before they can be exploited. As AI makes it easier to find security flaws, can a coordinated industry effort help protect open source, or does it risk giving large corporations too much influence over the ecosystem? "Akrites is the largest coordinated effort in history to create systems and deploy tooling that leverages the collective power of the community to make everyone safer," the Linux Foundation said in an open letter. "Akrites participants will contribute engineering resources; work to build and ship fixes; or fund the engineers who do. Some companies have contributed mightily already. The reality is, collectively, we need to contribute more."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
From Windows models with Qualcomm Snapdragon X and Intel Panther Lake processors to MacBooks running on Apple's latest M5 chip, these are the longest-lasting laptops we've tested.
A program for veterans, current military and first responders secured almost 5,000 free tickets for World Cup matches.
Christine Erickson is two votes ahead of Jamie Smith, the Minnehaha County Auditors and Elections Office said.
Maine Democrat Graham Platner said U.S. Sen. Susan Collins has aligned herself with President Donald Trump and the interests of wealthy people.
Collins, a Republican, "says she is bipartisan but she’s only bipartisan when it doesn't matter," a June 17 Platner ad said.
The ad cited several examples of what it said were Collins’ policy positions. For this fact-check, we’re focusing on the ad’s statement that Collins "even sided with Trump, giving billionaires and corporations a handout, paid for by cuts to Medicaid and SNAP."
The ad refers to Trump’s signature tax and spending legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill, but it misrepresents Collins’ vote. Collins voted against it, in part because of Medicaid cuts.
Platner’s campaign pointed us to Collins’ June 28, 2025, vote on a motion to advance the One Big Beautiful Bill and included articles that showed she rejected the legislation on final passage.
The ad doesn’t mention the bill by name but cites an article with a headline that says Collins and Sen. Josh Hawley, two key holdouts, "will support advancing GOP megabill."
The article said that Collins planned to vote in favor of a procedural motion but wouldn’t necessarily vote for the bill.
"I am planning to vote for the motion to proceed," Collins said at the time. "Generally, I give deference to the majority leader’s power to bring bills to the Senate floor. Does not in any way predict how I’m going to vote on final passage. That’s going to depend on whether the bill is substantially changed. There are some very good changes that have been made in the latest version but I want to see further changes and I will be filing a number of amendments."
Collins voted in support of several amendments, including Democratic ones, to protect Medicaid. When those efforts failed, she voted against the bill’s passage.
Collins said she supported tax relief but primarily voted against the bill because of "the harmful impact it will have on Medicaid, affecting low-income families and rural health care providers like our hospitals and nursing homes."
Ancor, a network of providers for people with disabilities, gave Collins an award for protecting Medicaid, citing her vote against the legislation.
Republican Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Rand Paul of Kentucky also voted with Democrats against the bill. Vice President JD Vance broke the tie vote in the Senate, and Trump signed it into law July 4.
The legislation provided tax benefits for people of varying incomes, but wealthier taxpayers came out ahead compared with lower- and middle-income taxpayers.
The Tax Foundation found the law’s tax changes would increase after-tax incomes across the spectrum in 2025 and 2026, ranging from a 0.8% increase for the bottom 20% of taxpayers to 1.8% for the top 20%. That finding includes the new tax cuts and extending the cuts from Trump’s 2017 tax law.
By 2034, the bottom 20% of earners will see a net reduction in post-tax income after accounting for the 2029 expiration of new tax deductions and the law's tighter rules for tax credits, said Garrett Watson, the Tax Foundation’s policy analysis director.
Some provisions temporarily help people earning low to moderate incomes, such as the tax exclusion on some tipped income.
The One Big Beautiful Bill made historic cuts to safety net programs including Medicaid, the state-federal health care program for low-income people, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as food stamps. It also tightened work requirements for both programs.
Ian Yaffe, director of the Maine Office for Family Independence that operates the state’s SNAP program, told the Portland Press Herald that Maine has seen a sustained decrease in SNAP enrollment since August 2025. As of April, the number of Mainers receiving SNAP benefits had dropped by about 13,000.
KFF projected that about 28,000 Mainers will become uninsured because of Medicaid changes. So far, enrollment in Medicaid in Maine dipped slightly. However, the largest changes to the program take effect in 2027 so drops are likely to accelerate next year.
Collins has offered some praise for the bill she voted against, including legislation that authorized the Rural Health Transformation Program.
Platner said Collins "sided with Trump, giving billionaires and corporations a hand-out, paid for by cuts to Medicaid and SNAP."
Collins voted on a motion to proceed on the One Big Beautiful Bill but warned that without substantial changes she would reject the legislation. When those changes didn’t occur, she voted against its passage.
The ad tells voters that Collins took action to harm Medicaid. But when Collins voted against the bill, she cited Medicaid cuts as a reason. A group cited her vote when it gave her an award for leadership on Medicaid.
We rate this statement False.
RELATED: Yes, Collins usually votes with Trump, as Platner said. But she broke with him at key moments.
RELATED: MAGA-Meter: Tracking Trump’s second term promises including about taxes
A group representing child actors is criticizing contracts that would allow AI to reuse a child's voice.
 | just wondering if anyone knows if i can use my original bms on my onewheel gt with the Fungineers “Thor301 for GT to VESC conversion” the reason I’m asking is that Fungineers are sold out of the “GTFO Drop-in BMS“ on there website so if there’s any other options there I would be open to them I looked it up on google but the onl thing i can find is gemini saying i can if i use a 60a fuse but I don’t think i can trust an ai with this kinda stuff after reading some of the comments, this is what I’ve come up with does everything look right? [link] [comments] |
It's only a matter of time before iPhone and Apple Watch prices go even higher.
Your next iPhone could cost more than you think.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps struck a cargo ship near Oman on Thursday, further complicating the Iran-U.S. negotiations.
There appear to be new clues about the location of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's wedding.
The president and his conservative allies have stymied other legislation as they unsuccessfully try to pass a voting regulations bill that lacks even simple majority support in the Senate.
No foul was initially called after Alyssa Thomas' fist made contact with Caitlin Clark's throat during a game between the Phoenix Mercury and Indiana Fever on Wednesday.
Venezuela's acting president said the death toll from powerful twin earthquakes was likely to rise, as USGS modeling suggested thousands may have been killed.
Decision allows Trump administration to block migrants from entering US soil and the right to claim asylum
The supreme court has given the Trump administration a green light to block asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border, in a decision that fundamentally reshapes the US asylum system.
The decision allows the Trump administration to revive its so-called turn-back or “metering” policy, allowing federal agents at the US border to stop migrants from physically setting foot on US soil, where federal law guarantees them the right to claim asylum and protection from persecution.
Continue reading...Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for June 26 No. 845.
If you're F1-curious, this is a great chance to start your engines.
Apple has sharply raised prices across its Mac, iPad, HomePod, and Apple TV lineups as surging AI-driven demand creates a global memory and storage shortage. Increases range from $30 for the HomePod mini to $1,300 for the M3 Ultra Mac Studio, with Apple CEO Tim Cook saying efforts to shield customers from higher costs had become "unsustainable." The Verge reports: On Thursday, the company adjusted the price of its new MacBook Neo, which will now start at $699 instead of $599, while the base MacBook Air will jump to $1,299 from $1,099, as reported earlier by Bloomberg. The 14-inch MacBook Pro is getting an increase as well, going from $1,699 to $1,999. Meanwhile, the iPad Air will now start at $749 instead of $599, while the iPad Pro is increasing to $1,199 from $999. As spotted by MacRumors, the M4 Max Mac Studio will now cost $2,499, a big jump from $1,999. The M3 Ultra Mac Studio is now priced at $5,299, up from $3,999. Apple is even raising the prices of its HomePod, which now costs $349 instead of $299, as well as bumping the price of the HomePod mini to $129 instead of $99. The Apple TV also now costs $199 instead of $129.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Apple is raising the prices of some MacBooks and iPads, while Microsoft is raising Xbox prices as semiconductor costs surge.
Delcy Rodríguez said authorities were shifting rescue teams from other parts of the country to the hardest-hit La Guaira area
Volunteers, medics and relatives of victims have raced to the Altamira area in Caracas hoping to help save survivors from the rubble of collapsed buildings there.
“I live far away [but] ... I came here riding my motorbike as fast as I could,” said José Morillo, as he arrived outside a block of flats called Residencias Obelisco.
Continue reading...Mercury star made contact with closed fist during jostle
Fever coach slammed refs for ‘disrespectful’ no-calls
The WNBA has suspended Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas after she hit Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark in the throat with her fist during a game.
The play occurred in the second quarter of Wednesday night’s 111-109 road win by Phoenix. Clark was driving into the lane and fell on her side after contact. Thomas and Mercury forwards DeWanna Bonner dove for the ball, and in the jostle Thomas appeared to knee Clark in the groin. Her closed fist made contact with Clark’s throat as she fell. Clark managed to complete a pass to teammate Aliyah Boston as Thomas got up and stepped over her.
Continue reading...June 25, 2026 — With the GENE code, researchers can simulate physics in various fusion devices on supercomputers. To enable larger and more realistic simulations through computing power, the code family gets a new sprout: GENE-X is currently being prepared for systems accelerated by graphics processing units.
Credit: Shutterstock
Expectations for nuclear fusion are high. Although scientists know that this energy source will not be as cheap to build as solar or wind energy, the energy generated from the controlled fusion of hydrogen isotopes into helium could, in the future, help close gaps in the supply of electricity from renewable sources—likely without the long-term risks associated with nuclear power, such as highly radioactive waste that is difficult to manage and assess.
Researchers and startups worldwide are working on concepts for fusion power plants. They model plasma dynamics under the influence of strong magnetic fields which are used to stabilize particle mixtures under extreme conditions. At the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Garching near Munich, such simulations are an everyday activity. “With GENE-X, we want to simulate plasma turbulence to study the causes of heat and particle losses which help us understand the performance of a fusion device,” said Dr. Philipp Ulbl, a computational physicist working at IPP. “We also want to target modeling designs of future fusion reactors so that we can predict, among other things, the temperature and density of plasma in steady state reactor operation.”
GENE-X for Accelerated HPC
The GENE code family and especially its latest offspring, GENE-X, has helped with simulations of fusion physics. While many plasma physics codes model particle mixtures found in space, the sun, or stars, GENE was developed specifically for simulating conductive plasmas in facilities, which are based on magnetic confinement. The first GENE code was developed in 1999 at IPP as an open-source application and was gradually optimized for more detailed, three-dimensional simulations as computing power increased. By now, researchers use the code also to simulate the two most common magnetic confinement reactor concepts, the tokamak and the stellarator.
This figure shows the plasma density in a two dimensional cross section of the Joint European Torus (JET) and takes into account tritium, a heavy isotope of hydrogen. The blue line marks the wall, and the grey regions represent the divertor plates used in the experiment for heat removal. Image credit: Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics.
The newest version, GENE‑X, is now being prepared for deployment on supercomputers accelerated by graphics processing units (GPUs). The team is currently working on implementing GENE‑X on the SuperMUC-NG Phase 2 (SNG‑2) at Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (LRZ), which uses Intel chips. “Intel is a comparatively new player in the GPU market, where manufacturers such as NVIDIA and AMD have been dominating the market a while”, says Jordy Trilaksono from IPP, who is responsible for adapting the code. “If we want to make our application widely available, GENE‑X should run as many of the major processor types as possible. We also want to become independent of specific vendors.”
Thanks in part to the GENE codes, computer-supported fusion simulations have become increasingly precise over recent decades, and their results can now be compared with observations from experimental fusion facilities. This iteration helps reduce costs for expensive reactors and experiments. For the modeling activities planned, the IPP team aims to process measurement data from the Joint European Torus (JET), a tokamak. This experimental fusion facility was the largest in Europe to date. It operated until 2023 in Culham, UK, and at the end of its operational life managed to generate 69 megajoules of energy from just 0.2 milligrams of plasma or fuel – enough to power a TV, a stove, and a kettle for several hours. Beyond this record, JET delivered massive amounts of data, most of which remains unanalyzed. “JET contains unique data on hydrogen isotope mixtures, which is particularly valuable for studying plasma turbulence”, says Dr. Baptiste Frei, a researcher at IPP, who’s conducting simulations for the project.
Of the more than 100,000 discharges of JET, the IPP team plans to analyze only three, from which GENE-X generates approximately 50 terabytes of data. “If the GENE‑X code runs faster, you can integrate more parameters into the model and process the resulting larger volumes of data much more quickly,” explained Dr. Sajjad Azizi. The astrophysicist is part of the Computational X Support Team at LRZ and advises the IPP group in the transformation and implementation of GENE‑X. “By adapting the code to GPUs, researchers can leverage the full computing power of HPC systems like SNG‑2. Scientific simulations are computationally demanding because they must account for many parameters and complex interactions between computing components. Pure CPU execution can easily become a bottleneck.” The researchers have big plans: With GENE-X, they aim to model not just parts of the fusion facility, as they have done so far, but the entire plant—from the walls to the core.
Combining Classical Modeling and Simulation with AI Tools
Given the growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) methods in plasma physics as well, the IPP team is taking a more fundamental approach to reworking GENE‑X. The code, originally written in Fortran, is first being expanded with an auxiliary C++ layer. This not only increases the range of programming models and tools with which the code can be adapted for future simulation tasks, but also makes it easier to accelerate simulations with GPUs and to combine with AI models or AI‑supported tools built in C++ languages. These could complement high-performance computing (HPC) methods. This porting work brings computational research another step closer to creating digital twins of fusion plasma and technologies. “The Fortran/C++ hybrid mode of GENE‑X can run on CPUs using OpenMP or on GPUs using OpenACC or OpenMP offload,” Trilaksono added, highlighting further advantages of the code transformation. As a result, GENE‑X gains flexibility, making it easier to adapt to different hardware and operating systems.
Occasionally AI also helps with modifying the code. “It still makes mistakes, of course, but it is often faster at finding errors,” said LRZ specialist Azizi. He recounted a build issue where code lines were repeatedly rewritten with debugging messages and tested on the SNG‑2 to narrow down the cause step by step. The team worked on this for some time, but AI found the simple solution very quickly — an outdated programming tool the specialists had started out with.
Supporting Commercial Concepts
All researchers involved agree that the computational paradigm shifts make this porting work more complicated. “Previously, the transition to a new computing generation took days or weeks. The switch to GPUs is much more demanding,” Ulbl said. “We already have a CUDA version of GENE‑X that we can certainly rewrite into SYCL, but that will take time.” The first version of GENE‑X was adapted on supercomputers at the Max Planck Institute as well as on the Spanish supercomputer Mare Nostrum 5 in Barcelona. Early versions confirm researchers’ expectations that GENE‑X would show substantial performance gains. The researchers saw an increase of up to a factor of 10, meaning it runs ten to thirteen times faster than its predecessor on only CPU systems.
The new code is currently being adapted to Intel GPUs. For this purpose, the LRZ support team regularly implements and tests parts of the program on SuperMUC-NG and its companion system SNG‑2. Operating metrics from these test runs, along with comparison figures from similar applications, provide clues about where algorithms can be modified and functions optimized. By autumn this year, the team hopes to run the first GENE-X-simulations on Intel GPUs. The resulting data is intended to help train AI models in the medium term and accelerate the optimization of fusion concepts.
“With GENE‑X, we want to enable the simulation of power plants and reactors that achieve at least a performance factor of 10 times larger than JET,” said Ulbl. He noted growing interest in the fusion code. In many countries, politics are promoting fusion research and the development of new technologies, and the first startups and companies are entering the field. “This is another reason why we want to adapt and improve GENE‑X,” Ulbl explained, “to support people and companies working on nuclear fusion and building the first commercial reactors.”
Funding for SuperMUC-NG was provided by the Bavarian State Ministry of Science and the Arts and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research through the Gauss Centre for Supercomputing (GCS).
This article originally appeared in the Spring, 2026 issue of InSiDE magazine.
Source: Susanne Vieser, GCS
The post GCS: Modeling Fusion Physics and Technology with HPC appeared first on HPCwire.
No 10 refused demand to immediately remove immigration minister over breach of ministerial code
Shabana Mahmood is locked in an extraordinary standoff with Keir Starmer after Downing Street refused to immediately sack her junior minister for breaching the ministerial code.
The home secretary has demanded that Mike Tapp, the immigration minister, should be sacked for writing an unauthorised article calling for overseas care workers to be exempt from hardline immigration reforms.
Continue reading...Kennedy repeatedly said 2019 Samoa trip had ‘nothing to do with vaccines’. An email from his then colleague says they were on a vaccine-related ‘mission’
New evidence has emerged that Robert F Kennedy Jr was on a vaccine-related “mission” when he visited Samoa ahead of a deadly measles outbreak in 2019, raising further questions about whether the US health secretary lied to the US Senate when he said the trip had “nothing to do with vaccines”.
Records obtained by the Guardian show Kennedy’s colleague told Samoan officials in an email that he and Kennedy were coming as part of a mission to study the island nation’s medical records in the aftermath of a “discontinuity in vaccinations”.
Continue reading...Are Apple's price hikes making you consider a refurb? Expect to pay more for those, too.
Disney-owned ABC launched awareness campaign about two FCC investigations it faces, urging viewers to write in
Brendan Carr, the Trump-aligned chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), has accused Disney of running a “campaign of misinformation” as the media group defends itself against investigations the regulator has initiated.
Disney-owned ABC launched a public awareness campaign earlier this week to encourage viewers to back the network as it faces two separate investigations before the US media regulator.
Continue reading...Lawmakers and advocates condemn ‘disastrous’ decisions that allow Trump officials to strip away migrant protections
Lawmakers and immigration advocacy groups on Thursday sharply denounced two US supreme court rulings that allowed the Trump administration to strip certain immigration protections and fundamentally reshape the asylum system.
Dozens of groups, advocates and members of Congress called the court’s decisions “disastrous” and “cruel”, while the Trump administration, Republican lawmakers and anti-immigrant groups celebrated the rulings.
Continue reading...LastPass says hackers stole customers' personal information, support case records, and sales data by breaching market research partner Klue. The password manager told TechCrunch that its own systems and password vaults were unaffected. However, the hackers used their access to obtain "reams of data about LastPass customers," the report says. From the report: In a blog post that shared information about the incident, LastPass said the hackers took customers' names, phone numbers, email addresses, and physical addresses, as well as customer support case data and sales-related data. It's not yet known what was in the contents of customer support tickets, although they likely contain fragments of potentially private or sensitive information. Customers typically contact customer service when they are having a billing issue or need assistance in gaining access to their accounts. Past incidents involving customer support tickets have included credentials and government-issued identity documents. The last data breach LastPass reported was in 2022, when hackers stole the company's entire store of customer password vaults.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
President Donald Trump has often talked up the stock market’s rise during his second term, saying increases in 401(k) retirement plan balances have made Americans wealthier.
During a June 23 speech at a Mack truck plant in Macungie, Pennsylvania, Trump said, "The typical 401(k), as you know, is up almost $30,000 in … 13 months."
He’s made similar points going back to his Feb. 24 State of the Union address.
The stock market has risen during Trump’s second term. But the average $30,000 gain he cited is not supported by data; that’s about triple the increase found in a large analysis of 401(k) balances. And a growing share of Americans are withdrawing 401(k) dollars before retirement to cope with unexpected hardships.
The White House offered no supporting evidence for Trump’s statement. White House spokesperson Kush Desai said "equity markets have hit multiple all-time highs" during Trump’s second presidency.
The Standard & Poor’s 500, a metric that charts a broad selection of publicly traded stocks, shows notable gains since Trump took office on Jan. 20, 2025.
Between his second inauguration and the day of his February 2026 State of the Union address — the first time he mentioned the $30,000 figure — the S&P rose by about 13%. From his second inauguration to June 23, the day of his Pennsylvania speech, the S&P rose by about 24%.
What about the gains for typical 401(k) holders?
First, narrowing down a "typical" 401(k) account is challenging. People of different incomes, ages and company 401(k) policies can see their balances vary widely — and that’s before factoring in the mix of assets that make up their accounts.
"The (higher account balance) you have, the more gains you will have achieved," said Joe Fitter, a senior lecturer in finance at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business.
Fidelity Investments, a financial institution that operates many 401(k) plans, provides the best available data.
Every quarter, Fidelity examines balances within more than 26,000 corporate 401(k) plans serving roughly 25 million participants. It also breaks down the average balance by the account holder’s age.
We looked at Fidelity’s data for the quarterly period ending Dec. 31, 2024, and for the period ending March 31, 2026. Comparing these two figures offers a measure of the growth in 401(k) balances during the first 15 months of Trump’s second term — a good approximation of how much growth occurred during the period he’s been making this claim.
Fidelity offered breakdowns for 11 age ranges, starting at age 20 and ending at 70 and older. Averaging the gains for these 11 ranges produced an increase of $9,454 — about one-third of the $30,000 figure Trump cited.
The single biggest average increase for any particular age range was 55 to 59, which saw a rise of about $16,000.
Experts said the average gains might be lower than $9,454.
"Averages in data like this tend to get pulled up by high-balance accounts, so the median would likely be lower than the $9,000 figure," said Mark A. Johnson, an investments and portfolio management fellow at Wake Forest University’s business school.
A $30,000 gain during this period would likely have required a balance of at least $200,000 in a 401(k), said Mark Williams, a lecturer in finance at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business. But that’s not a typical amount; about 10% to 20% of U.S. adults have an account that big.
In addition, the balance increase doesn’t stem only from stock market gains. Some of the increase comes from the account holder’s own contributions and potentially those of their employer.
The percentage increases by age in Fidelity’s 401(k) data do not necessarily match the overall growth rate of the stock market. From December 31, 2024, through March 31, 2026, the S&P 500 rose by about 11%, but the average 401(k) Fidelity measured rose by about 6.5%, and several age ranges, especially among the youngest and oldest groups, saw smaller increases.
One reason for the lag is that 401(k) accounts typically contain a mix of investment categories. Williams said the typical 401(k) mix is 60% to 65% stocks, with the remainder in other assets, such as bonds, that are less volatile. During the time period in question, bond returns were flat, he said, and that would hold down overall 401(k) returns.
Another important reason is that 401(k) accounts are a two-way street: Account owners can take out money, though they may have to pay a penalty to do so.
In general, 401(k) accounts are designed to provide retirement income, so early withdrawals — money taken out before age 59 1/2 — may incur a 10% early withdrawal penalty, plus income taxes.
However, certain circumstances may allow an early withdrawal without incurring a penalty, including birth or adoption costs, a new disability, disaster recovery, medical or other emergencies, funeral expenses and payments to avoid an eviction or foreclosure.
Exercising this option has become increasingly common, the investment firm Vanguard reported in March. The Vanguard data showed that about 6% of the participants in its 401(k) plans took a hardship withdrawal in 2025, up from about 4.8% in 2024 and higher than the level prior to the coronavirus pandemic.
Dorothy C. Kelly, a personal finance lecturer at University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce, said that 401(k) gains have limited immediate use to Americans younger than 59 1/2 who are facing a cash crunch or higher monthly bills.
"The net worth of ordinary Americans with retirement accounts may be benefiting from current high stock prices, but a growing illiquid asset such as a retirement account does not help with working Americans’ monthly bills," she said.
Trump said that in the past 13 months, "The typical 401(k) … is up almost $30,000."
The stock market has notched notable increases during Trump’s second term, but a $30,000 rise is not supported.
Fidelity Investments data shows that between Dec. 31, 2024, and March 31, 2026, the average increase in 401(k) balances was $9,454. No age group Fidelity studied saw an increase beyond about half of Trump’s $30,000 figure.
The statement contains an element of truth but ignores other information that would give a different impression, so we rate the statement Mostly False.
Florida immigration jail that became byword for cruelty and cost state taxpayers $1.2m a day shuts down after a year
Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, boasted on Thursday of deporting 21,000 people from Alligator Alcatraz, as he confirmed the closure of the notorious immigration jail hastily erected in the Everglades that became a byword for cruelty, human rights abuses and environmental damage.
Standing beside Tom Homan, Donald Trump’s so-called border czar, at a press conference at the now dismantled site in Ochopee, in the environmentally sensitive region in south Florida, DeSantis presented its year-long operation as a victory for the president’s aggressive immigration enforcement agenda.
Continue reading...Many of your Prime Day orders are being handled by Roomba-esque bots as part of Amazon's quest to deliver packages faster.
Gun control advocates decry ruling striking ban on carrying guns in most public spaces as ‘deeply dangerous’
The US supreme court struck down a restrictive gun law in the state of Hawaii that bans people from carrying guns in certain public spaces and on private property without the permission of the property’s owner.
The decision was made in a 6-3 vote, with Justice Samuel Alito offering the majority opinion – backed by the other members of the court’s rightwing supermajority – and Ketanji Brown Jackson writing the dissent.
Continue reading...After abducting Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro, U.S. President Donald Trump declared that America would “run” Venezuela. When asked in January who was leading Venezuela, Trump said, “We’re in charge.”
Yet after back-to-back earthquakes rocked multiple Venezuelan cities on Wednesday, toppling scores of buildings and killing at least 188 people and injuring at least 1,520, Trump merely offered assistance.
“The U.S.A. stands ready, willing, and able to help! I have instructed all agencies of our government to get ready to move quickly,” he wrote in a Truth Social post. “We will be there for our new and great friends.”
One U.S. government official told The Intercept that Trump’s offer doesn’t go far enough since Venezuela is now a U.S. “vassal state.” “Don’t we run that country?” the official asked, speaking on background and referencing Trump’s comments. “That’s an obligation that exceeds friendship.”
At the same time, Venezuelan American organizations and progressive foreign policy groups are about to circulate a letter calling on the Trump administration to provide massive, unconditional humanitarian aid to Venezuela in the wake of the 7.2 foreshock and 7.5-magnitude quake, as well as long-term economic damage from U.S. sanctions, according to details of the letter shared exclusively with The Intercept by Just Foreign Policy, one of the groups that drafted the letter. The organizations argue that the United States bears a unique obligation to Venezuela and that U.S. aid “must match the scale of the harm the United States has played a role in creating.”
This all comes after Trump seemed to suggest earlier this week that the U.S. has reaped billions of dollars of Venezuelan oil wealth in the last six months.
After ousting Maduro, Trump’s installed a puppet government run by former Maduro ally Delcy Rodriguez. She has carried out day-to-day governance under the threat of a looming U.S. criminal indictment alleging corruption and money laundering charges. Trump also warned that the U.S. might attack again if Rodriguez did not comply with his demands.
“Should the U.S. be responsible for rebuilding? Any word from Trump on that?”
The costs of Absolute Resolve — the military operation and abduction of Maduro — topped $206 million, according to an analysis by Brown University’s Costs of War Project. Since then, the Trump administration has seized control of Venezuela’s oil industry and claims to be exploiting it for massive returns. This week, Trump said that the U.S. has recovered its war costs 28 times over through oil extraction; this equates to roughly $5.7 billion.
“The people are happy in the country. They have smiles,” Trump said of Venezuelans on Tuesday, prior to the earthquakes. He claimed Venezuela has shared in the economic rewards.
But the letter being drafted by the Venezuelan American and progressive groups cites a recent economic analysis by Venezuelan economist Francisco Rodríguez showing that U.S. policy has failed to produce the economic recovery Trump has claimed. The letter notes that sanctions have left Venezuela operating at a “diminished capacity,” that “the buildings that collapsed were not maintained,” and “the hospitals that must now treat nearly a thousand injured were not adequately supplied” as a direct result.
In the port city of La Guaira, for example, more than 100 buildings were destroyed in the twin earthquakes. “Should the U.S. be responsible for rebuilding?” the U.S. government official mused. “Any word from Trump on that?”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on whether the U.S. would ease sanctions or help to rebuild Venezuela.
U.S. Southern Command, which spearheaded the war on Venezuela earlier this year said on Thursday that it was “working with the Department of State to support U.S. government relief operations in Venezuela.” The command added that it “has established an operational planning team that includes experienced subject matter experts from the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, who are advising staff and leadership responsible for disaster relief planning and mission-related decisions.”
But disaster aid is inadequate, according to Just Foreign Policy and the other groups. “Emergency relief alone will not be enough. Venezuela’s recovery will require access to its own financial resources and the ability to import the equipment, construction materials, medicine, fuel, spare parts and other goods needed to rebuild homes, hospitals, schools, roads, ports and critical infrastructure,” they wrote.
Even before the earthquakes, almost 8 million people in Venezuela were in need of humanitarian aid, according to the United Nations. The letter from Just Foreign Policy and others calls on the Trump administration to “provide immediate, massive humanitarian assistance with no political conditions attached,” to release Venezuelan oil revenues currently held in U.S.-controlled accounts, and to suspend remaining sanctions impeding disaster response and reconstruction.
The post Trump Claimed to Run Venezuela. After Earthquakes, He’s Walking That Back. appeared first on The Intercept.
‘Ambitious and welcoming’ venue that opened in 2020 praised for ‘reimagining what being a museum can mean’
The Box in Plymouth has won the prestigious Art Fund museum of the year award, the largest such prize in the world, for its “ambitious and welcoming approach”.
Awarding it the £120,000 prize, judges called the Box “a revelation in so many ways” and “a true jewel in the crown of the south-west”.
Continue reading...All three congressional candidates that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamadani endorsed won their primaries on Tuesday. The races were widely viewed as a test of just how much influence the left would have in charting the next chapter for the Democratic Party — and a referendum on Mamdani’s power.
“Mamdani is the one variable that truly matters,” Michael Lange, political writer and elections analyst of The Narrative Wars Substack, tells The Intercept Briefing as he breaks down the wins of Claire Valdez, Brad Lander, and Darializa Avila Chevalier by district. “You pair that type of broad cultural political figure with the block-by-block organizing of New York City DSA — it’s a very powerful thing.”
“You had a candidate who said ‘Fuck Kamala Harris’ win the historic capital of Black America,” says Lange, of Avila Chevalier’s win over five-term incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat. “If that is not a distillation of the ‘Democratic tea party,’ I don’t quite know what is.”
This week on the podcast, host Akela Lacy speaks to Lange and Intercept managing editor Maia Hibbett about the strategic mistakes of the traditionally progressive Working Families Party, the growing influence of the Democratic Socialists of America on the Democratic Party, and how the DSA is upending electoral politics from the left.
“Here in New York, a lot of the momentum is being driven by the DSA, of course, but there are these progressive and insurgent candidates across the country who are trying to change the course of the Democratic Party,” says Hibbett, “and excite voters who might not have been into the Democratic establishment in past cycles.”
Lange notes how demographic changes and pressures on the Democratic Party base are impacting voters’ priorities. “The party’s becoming younger, more educated, and increasingly squeezed financially,” says Lange. “There’s just this broad alienation of people who have not really been able to get ahead, not for their own fault, and I think it’s like downstream of our economy, and that’s why the affordability zeitgeist is so potent.” He adds, “You spin the wheels up in two years, what could this look like in a Democratic presidential primary?”
For more, listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.
Akela Lacy: Welcome to the Intercept Briefing. I’m Akela Lacy, senior politics reporter at The Intercept.
Maia Hibbett: And I’m Maia Hibbett, managing editor of The Intercept.
AL: Maia, did you see what House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries had delivered to his House office on Wednesday morning?
MH: Yes, they were beautiful.
AL: The Republicans’ House campaign arm delivered flowers and a card offering their condolences to Jeffries after candidates that he endorsed lost to socialists on Tuesday night in primaries in New York.
This is what the card said. “Three losses in one night is tough. We wanted so-called ‘Leader,’” — in quotes — “Jeffries to know our thoughts are with him, his candidates, and whatever remains of his influence in the Democratic Party.” Maia, let’s get your thoughts on this.
MH: On one hand, Jeffries probably felt a little bit of relief that no one did end up challenging him, so he wasn’t one of the people facing that challenge. But it was a really bad night for establishment Democrats. Ally of Jeffries and lots of other Democratic old guard, Rep. Greg Meeks in Queens, was also mad, and he was giving comments on Wednesday morning implying that New York City was going to suffer, it wasn’t going to get as much resources from the federal government because it was losing one of its really powerful incumbents.
You’ve covered the race that toppled Espaillat pretty closely. It represents a different kind of power coming into play in New York and in Democratic politics.
AL: One of the candidates most considered a long shot prior to Tuesday is Darializa Avila Chevalier, who ousted the powerful chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Rep. Adriano Espaillat. Avila Chevalier was notably an organizer of the Columbia pro-Palestine protest alongside Mahmoud Khalil. She cited Espaillat’s refusal to help Khalil in the aftermath of his arrest as one of the main reasons that she even decided to challenge him in the first place. And she came on the national stage after writing an op-ed in support of [Khalil] and being recruited by Justice Democrats.
MH: That result was really striking, especially because if you think back to a little over a year ago, before Zohran Mamdani won the primary for New York City mayor, you were covering the arrests of these student protesters in solidarity with Palestine, and that storyline has changed so dramatically.
It seemed at the time like their power was going to fade, or that these protests were getting crushed — and now one of them is going to become a member of Congress.
AL: This was definitely not on Democrats’ bingo card, particularly Espaillat, who was a large recipient of money from the pro-Israel lobby and faced a lot of criticism for how little he did to support those students at the time.
While Avila Chevalier’s win on Tuesday was one of the biggest surprises, both liberal and conservative critics of the Democratic Socialists of America, of which she is a member, framed her success as part of this narrative that we’re seeing come out from some reactions — that Ivy League transplants are taking over the Democratic Party and don’t actually reflect the working-class interests they’re claiming to represent.
MH: That was a huge criticism in another race on Tuesday night in New York, which was the competition between Claire Valdez and Antonio Reynoso for Nydia Velázquez’s seat. Velázquez was retiring, and she had chosen Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso as her successor. Velázquez was considered a progressive.
She was early to support Zohran Mamdani’s campaign. And in some ways, the DSA’s choice to run someone against her chosen successor was being presented as this betrayal and this attempt to usurp the progressive power base that had begun to grow in New York City.
AL: And then, of course, in the middle of all this, there’s Brad Lander, who many of our listeners may recall ran against Mamdani for mayor and then formed a coalition with him.
He ousted incumbent Rep. Dan Goldman in lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn less than 10 minutes after the polls closed. That was less of a shock, as Goldman had lagged behind in the polls for some months, but I think with the quickness that they called the results was another twist of the knife for Democrats in the establishment who had stood by Goldman.
MH: Yeah, and it’s funny because not that long ago, I think Goldman was considered a pretty powerful and a pretty popular politician. People talked before the 2025 mayoral race about the possibility that he could run for mayor of New York City. Maybe now he will because he’s free to do stuff.
Here in New York, a lot of the momentum is being driven by the DSA, of course, but there are these progressive and insurgent candidates across the country who are trying to change the course of the Democratic Party and excite voters who might not have been into the Democratic establishment in past cycles.
Next week in Colorado, there’s a race that you’ve been covering really since it started, which is an insurgent candidate named Melat Kiros, who is endorsed by Justice Democrats and is also a DSA member backed by the national DSA. She’s running to take out longtime incumbent Rep. Diana DeGette in Denver.
There’s also Graham Platner in Maine. There’s Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, both candidates we’ve covered a lot, running for Senate. Another DSA candidate is Francesca Hong, who’s running for governor of Wisconsin. In some of these races, the DSA is a huge driving force behind these insurgent candidates, and in other cases, they’re not actually DSA candidates, but they’re adopting this similar populist working-class-focused politics that has been elevating politicians in these races across the country.
It does seem like the story of the Trump era is that people want change. There’s the pearl-clutching version of this that’s, “Oh, God, there’s populism. There will be a Trump of the left.” But perhaps there needs to be, and populism is just governance by the people.
AL: Next, we’re going to go deeper on all of this and more with political writer and analyst Michael Lange. He writes about politics in New York City on his Substack “The Narrative Wars” and is the author of a recent piece called “The (Not So) Civil War for the Commie Corridor.” We’ll discuss the growing influence of DSA and how the group is upending electoral politics from the left.
Michael, welcome to The Intercept Briefing.
Michael Lange: Oh, it’s so great to be here. Thank you for having me.
AL: Michael, we are speaking on Wednesday afternoon. I know you’ve had a busy day talking about the results from Tuesday night’s primaries in New York. Leftists are ecstatic right now. The primaries on Tuesday night were widely viewed as a test of just how much influence the left would have on charting the next chapter of the Democratic Party and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s abilities as kingmaker.
I want to go through some of these results with you, some of which were absolutely stunning. We have former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who beat Rep. Dan Goldman, which was somewhat expected. But two socialists came out on top in congressional races that were far less predictable.
You called, ahead of Tuesday, a closer race for Claire Valdez. Were you surprised by the results?
ML: Certainly the scale of it, yes. There was always a world in which — let’s start with New York 7 — where Antonio Reynoso, the candidate that Claire Valdez was facing, he’s more of an institutional progressive supported by the Working Families Party, Brooklyn borough president, was in the City Council.
There was a scenario in which his support fell off to a certain degree with younger voters, and younger voters, Claire Valdez-friendly, came to the polls en masse and broke the outcome for that way. But I was still surprised because there is a part of this district, in addition to a lot of the institutional and labor support that someone like Antonio Reynoso has, and he does also have a genuinely progressive record, and he was running on a very left-wing policy plank.
AL: Virtually indistinguishable from Valdez’s.
ML: 100 percent right. The contrast between the candidates was very coalitional and institutional and also cultural, to a certain degree. So he kinda had these bona fides, and I thought that in some places, he can at least dent her margins.
And then the big kind of wild card is that this district is also home to a very large Orthodox Jewish community, the Satmar of South Williamsburg. Interestingly, even though they’re Orthodox Jews, they’re religious anti-Zionists. But they’ve known Reynoso for a very long time, and those folks were turning out in quite large numbers. They block vote in accordance with the whims of the rabbinical leaders there.
So Reynoso had 10 percent of the electorate that was basically giving him close to 100 percent of the vote. So he started off with 10, and she started off with zero. And I was like, well, to claw back from that, it won’t be entirely easy. And there were public and private polls that showed this race within 2 or 3 points. So maybe I paid a little bit too much attention to that.
But Claire Valdez had a very strong close and was able to engineer a lot of young voter turnout, especially proportionally to the amount of people turning out in this lower turnout congressional primary.
And she really ran away with it. Voters under 50 of all races, I think, supported her pretty substantially. There were some neighborhoods in this district where she was getting the same margins that Zohran Mamdani was getting versus Andrew Cuomo. Although instead of Cuomo being this fossil of the Democratic establishment, she was getting them against someone who’s lived his entire life in the district and does have other progressive and institutional validators.
I’m a little less surprised, actually, by Darializa’s win because I’ve been covering that race pretty closely and I had talked at length about how this was a prime opportunity district. Adriano Espaillat was, to some degree, in my estimation, a paper tiger and also that he was someone who was operating with a pretty hard ceiling. However they seemed to — and by they, I mean the political establishment, Hakeem Jeffries, a lot of labor unions, a lot of outside spending — seemed to really realize that there was quite a lot of vulnerability to him with one month left. Then of course, Mayor Mamdani endorsed Darializa, and that really raised the salience of the race, and then all of a sudden she’s getting attacked a lot.
There was a deleted Twitter account where they found her tweets. She said a bunch of different things, ranging from like, F Kamala Harris, to she attended an October 8 rally in New York. I thought to a certain extent that might hurt her with older voters who, again, white and Black who may not have much love for Adriano Espaillat, but I thought when you project that amount of money and negative spending onto a relatively unknown candidate, it can, in certain instances, have very drastic implications.
But she was able to really weather that, and also he was someone who had spent much of his career appealing to building Dominican American political power in Upper Manhattan. That was a stronger strategy 10 years ago when the Dominican electorate was half or even a little more than half of what this district is.
“He was very focused on a third of the electorate, and it left him very vulnerable.”
But it has been redrawn. It has experienced demographic change to a certain extent, and now it’s basically one-third Hispanic, one-third white, one-third Black. And so he was very focused on a third of the electorate, and it left him very, very vulnerable. Darializa was able to — again, for someone who had not held office before — against a 10-year Democratic incumbent, she did quite well with Black voters, and she did very well with white voters as well, of all ages and also religions.
This district has a lot of, I would say, progressive, older Jewish voters. A lot of this spending was geared at getting them to flip toward Adriano Espaillat or at least sit the race out. But they didn’t, and they backed her by considerable margins, and she paired that with real inroads with the white, Black, and Hispanic renter class, and that was enough for her to win by 3 points.
So it’s an incredible accomplishment.
AL: Yeah, I’m really glad you brought up the money piece because this was one of the most expensive congressional cycles in the history of New York, with more than $50 million spent. And obviously, not every seat, every congressional seat in New York was up for election. We’re talking about the handful that were up.
Also down the ballot, super PACs spent almost five times what they spent on state legislative races in 2024, according to a report on Wednesday from New York Focus. A total of $9.6 million — including more than $2.5 million spent against DSA candidates alone, almost every single one of whom won their races.
What is the upshot here? We also saw some of the biggest national investments ever from pro-Palestine groups spending to support progressives in these races. How has all of that money changed how elections work in New York, both for the establishment and for this insurgent class?
ML: The value that this spending has is clearly diminishing. But I also think it’s worth highlighting American Priorities and Justice Democrats and some of the money that they used to support Darializa. Darializa was spent, I think, 3 or 4 to 1. Which is not great, but it’s not a margin that I guess can truly make or break a campaign.
She was not getting out-spent 10 to 1, 20 to 1, things like that. So I think, again, stabilized some of the potential bleeding that could have come with a really hefty independent expenditure advantage one way or the other. There was, as you mentioned, tremendous super PAC spending in these downballot races. But those largely flopped.
One of the things that New York City DSA and also Mayor Mamdani did quite well this cycle is there was a lot of emphasis — and, some of this was happenstance in the way that incumbents retired and things like that, and what came available. But for Claire Valdez running in the 7th Congressional District, there was one DSA-endorsed state Senate candidate farther down the ballot, and then there were, I believe, three competitive or open incumbent challenges, Assembly races that overlapped with the 7th District.
Basically, Claire’s race really helped raise spend, engagement, turnout in a lot of these crucial districts down the ballot. And then Claire, of course, blows it out of the water. I don’t want to say that she carried all these other folks to victory, but the dynamics of her race, campaign, and blowout certainly helped folks at the bottom of the ballot get turnout.
AL: I find it interesting that the national discourse around getting out of money in politics, which is still very strong and a big part of these candidates’ campaigns, but they’re also recognizing and being very candid about the fact that they do need money to combat some of the spending.
And obviously it’s not going to be equivalent, but you had Valdez and Reynoso trading barbs about dark money or super PAC money in the race. And she said something to the effect of, and you hear this argument all the time, “We’re not going to fight this fight with one hand tied behind our back.” I think that’s an interesting tension that’s come out in the aftermath of this.
[Break]
AL: Another big discourse talking point, if you will, is about whether this marks the end of the relevance of traditional progressives, many of whom voters see as beholden to the Democratic establishment.
We see this nationally with the declining relevance of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, despite the election of more and more progressives to Congress. Most people might think of the left flank of the national Democratic Party as strictly progressive. Think Kamala Harris versus Bernie Sanders. But it’s a little bit more nuanced than that, especially in New York.
You wrote recently, “It is The Socialists vs. The Progressives: NYC-DSA, the volunteer army that went from study hall to City Hall in a decade; versus the Working Families Party [WFP], the progressive third party that dominated the anti-establishment lane of New York politics for twenty years before the socialists arrived on the scene.”
For our listeners who might not be as familiar with the nuances of how this works in New York, can you break down those lanes on the left? Who is in each camp, where do they diverge, and how are they pushing Democrats to the left?
ML: I think some of the biggest differences between DSA and WFP is ideological. It is an outgrowth of that Sanders versus Warren 2020 presidential primary, but I think it’s also in structure of the organization.
I don’t think it’s unfair to say that DSA is just a more democratic, member-driven organization. The way the Working Families Party does their endorsements and things like that, it is a little more top-down. As a rank-and-file member of DSA, you have a lot more input on the direction of the organization. Some of that manifests in terms of the number of people who actively participate, the number of people who are dues-paying members, who volunteer, things like that.
DSA — they push a very class-focused politics. Not that the Working Families Party does not. Also DSA’s led quite significantly on Palestine and those issues, especially after October 7.
Not to say that the Working Families Party doesn’t talk about class. I mean, it’s literally in their name, but there is a bit more of an identitarian bent to that. Even today, the leader of the Working Families Party, Jasmine Gripper, was talking about, well, Antonio built a multiracial coalition. She was saying things like that — whereas if DSA just lost a race of that magnitude, they wouldn’t say, well, we built a multiracial coalition. That type of thing. Never mind that Claire Valdez won Hispanic voters by a very large amount.
“Especially in this Trump 2.0 world, people are hungry for a different type of politics.”
Anyhoo, I do think that it was a very difficult evening for the more traditional progressive wing of the party. And again, we saw this in the mayoral race last year with the rise of Zohran Mamdani and the stagnation of Brad Lander — who, of course, was just elected to Congress. And then especially in this Trump 2.0 world, people are hungry for a different type of politics. I foregrounded this race, the 7th District, as a battle to see who leads to left in New York. It’s very clear that after last night, DSA is the one leading the left. And I think that will have wider repercussions as well.
AL: This is a great segue because I do want to ask you about this piece that you wrote on the 7th District, where I am a resident.
ML: Oh, there you go.
AL: And in talking about that, talk a little bit about how progressives whose candidates lost last night are reacting to the results. You already mentioned Jasmine Gripper, state director for the New York Working Families Party. But you dubbed this race a “civil war in the commie corridor.”
The “commie corridor” branding has really taken off in the past couple of months. I just wanted to tip my hat to you.
ML: It has, for sure. Thank you.
AL: But what’s going on here, and how did this race in particular become such a referendum on Mamdani’s power?
ML: Very early on, Mamdani and a lot of New York City DSA leadership and rank and file wanted to support Claire Valdez.
I’m a DSA member. I’ve known Claire Valdez for years before anyone cared that I said the “commie corridor” or I wrote books or anything like that. She has a lot of goodwill in the organization with just normal members. She’s a union organizer. People really just like her.
So when Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez — who, I should also say I used to work for her when I first graduated college — when she retired, there were a lot of people who went to Claire, a reluctant candidate, and said, “Oh, I think you would be really great.” And clearly the mayor shared that sentiment. A lot of people close to the mayor did as well.
But of course, Congresswoman Velázquez, I think there was some appetite on her part to support another DSA candidate, one that she was more familiar with. But then she did not want to support Claire, so then she really went all-in on Antonio Reynoso. Those two are very close. Antonio was born and raised in the South Side of Williamsburg, which is a historically Puerto Rican area. And credit to Nydia and Antonio: They were waging fights against the machines of old in that part of town prior to 2016, prior to 2018, before DSA really asserted themselves politically.
But then, I think, she was upset that the mayor wanted to go a different route than her. She made some comments to The New York Times. It got bitter. It felt like both sides were waging a lot of capital on this outcome. There was a lot of media sparring and things like that. Obviously with hindsight, potentially the Working Families Party and the Reynoso camp, they might have raised the stakes of this race too much. Now, they probably didn’t know what was going to happen but I think probably they’re sitting here on Wednesday regretting it.
“Obviously — with hindsight — potentially the Working Families Party and the Reynoso camp, they might have raised the stakes of this race too much.”
But I think that the most important thing is that Mamdani is the one variable that truly matters. And New York City DSA, for all of the local nonprofits and relationships that Antonio Reynoso had, New York City DSA out organized them.
They knocked over 300,000 doors. They knocked the entire district, and you really felt those results on Tuesday night. To pick that district to have a very high-stakes proxy war was a strategic mistake on the part of the Reynoso–Working Families Party world, because this was not like a fight in Park Slope or Carroll Gardens.
Not that it would’ve gone differently, but those are a little more progressive, granola, Brad Lander-coded areas. They were really having this fight on some of these blocks where 93 percent of voters are under the age of 50, and where Mamdani is not just a political giant, but a cultural figure.
You walk around Greenpoint or Bushwick with him, and there are women just tumbling over themselves, running out of the bar to get a picture with him. He did a selfie line at McCarren Park. And ironically, someone I went to college with who also reports on this stuff, he was saying that everyone he spoke to who said they were voting for Clara Valdez was like, “I’m doing it because of Mamdani.”
And you pair that type of broad cultural political figure with the block-by-block organizing of New York City DSA — it’s a very powerful thing. It’s how they were able to basically create a very favorable electorate even without the big highly salient mayoral race, the wall-to-wall media coverage, things like that.
I won’t get the voting data for probably a couple days or a week or so, but I have a hunch that the voting base this year in the 7th District was even younger than it was last year. Were the same amount of young voters, like raw, going to turn out? Not necessarily, but proportion-wise, it was pretty robust and it really cascaded on election day.
AL: You mentioned DSA sort of outorganizing the Working Families. I also want to mention that New York DSA co-chair Gustavo Gordillo told Hasan Piker at a watch party last night that his phone bank for Darializa Avila Chevalier could have identified 2,000 voters, which was the margin by which she won. A pretty spectacular effect.
ML: Yeah, it’s funny, I thought they were going to make fun of me because I was like, “Oh, I think Adriano might eke it out.” But they were like, “Actually, we saw that you said that and we were like, all right, we gotta go into overdrive.”
AL: There you go, data-driven.
ML: I obviously wanted Darializa to win. I quite literally voted for her. I owe it to the people who read and trust what I say to share that.
And I do think that there was a broad sentiment, like, “Oh, she’s probably like pretty close, but will she get across the finish line?” That type of push that they were able to engineer, it’s just no other mass-member organization that I can really think of could do that. They called through every Democrat who had voted in Upper Manhattan in the last six years. I think the first list they did, they burned through it in 12 minutes. Really remarkable organizing that is exactly the type of thing that decides a race at the margins like this.
“They called through every Democrat who had voted in Upper Manhattan in the last six years.”
AL: The other big question coming out of last night is and really, this is in response to the way that both Democratic Party leaders and Republicans are spinning this, which is that Hakeem Jeffries has lost control of the party and that there’s a communist takeover of the Democratic Party that is out of step with the vast majority of voters outside of the coasts.
But is this something that can work outside of New York City? There are several races with progressives and socialists on the ballot coming up. Midterms are not over, I’m sorry to our listeners. Next week in Denver, Melat Kiros is challenging Rep. Diana DeGette. Kiros is a DSA member endorsed by the Denver DSA chapter and the national DSA.
Later this summer, Assembly Member Francesca Hong is running for Wisconsin governor. She’s a member of the Assembly Socialist Caucus and a DSA member. On the nonsocialist but progressive populist side, there’s also Graham Platner’s Senate race against Republican Susan Collins in Maine.
Is this a coastal formula? Why or why not?
ML: It’s funny. This is the question that’s at the heart of my forthcoming Mamdani book.
AL: Oh, wonderful.
ML: But it won’t be out for a bit because we’re living through his effect on the Democratic Party. I do think the party’s becoming younger, more educated, and increasingly squeezed financially.
There’s this growing precarious middle class that’s really not getting ahead, really disillusioned with — it’s funny talking about this, it’s like I sound like Morris Katz because he says similar stuff.
AL: Morris Katz is a Mamdani adviser who’s also working with other progressive candidates, including Graham Platner. But Michael, continue.
ML: But yeah, you have this youngerish, but also middle-aged, we’ve even seen races where progressives and leftists have won Gen X suburbanites because even these mortgaged homeowners are really feeling squeezed by affordability. But it’s also a broader cultural alienation. It’s downstream from the loss of community, the rise of oligarchy. I think technology as well, like the tech oligarchs, it’s all intertwined. Two years from now, artificial intelligence and that type of stuff could be the number one, the number two, or the number three issue.
But I think there’s just this broad alienation of people who have not really been able to get ahead, not for their own fault, and I think it’s like downstream of our economy, and that’s why the affordability zeitgeist is so potent. And so yes, does the “commie corridor” like literally travel to Michigan? Not exactly. But also the Democratic Party is pretty urbanized. It’s getting even more urbanized, especially in a primary setting.
What you’re asking is what a lot of us are asking right now? Is like, OK, you spin the wheels up in two years, what could this look like in a Democratic presidential primary?
“ Ironically, the rest of the Democratic Party is copying Mamdani’s message with respect to affordability, almost verbatim.”
What was very interesting about New York 7 and New York 13 is that ironically, the rest of the Democratic Party is copying Mamdani’s message with respect to affordability, almost verbatim. But in 7 and 13, Claire Valdez and Darializa, and I was thinking like, oh, if maybe they underperform or maybe one of them doesn’t win, this is a tweak to make in the future cycles. They weren’t going super hard on affordability. There was a lot of talk about Palestine and AIPAC, things of that sort. Darializa also leaned into Adriano’s voting for omnibus bills that increase ICE funding, things like that.
So my thesis was like undoubtedly those were motivating issues to Mamdani doing so well in those areas, but particularly in Upper Manhattan, that’s the heart of the multiracial working class. And I was like, a huge part of it was affordability. But what was really fascinating is that, it’s one thing to win in Ridgewood with that, but in Upper Manhattan — more tenants than any other district in the country. And Darializa won by talking a lot about Palestine and a lot about ICE. If she didn’t win, it would’ve been maybe we should’ve talked more about affordability. But she did win — in spite of all the spending. That’s like quite a, I don’t want to say a narrative buster, but it’s a very interesting, data point.
AL: It flies in the face of the claims by centrist strategists that those things are not popular with the base that they need, particularly that working-class base where they’re saying that those issues are not the bread-and-butter issues that working people come home and think about at night.
But I do think you’re touching on a key point here, which is that those issues tie into the broader frustration with not even just the positions that they’re taking, but the shutting down of discourse or the lack of teeth, particularly on the ICE thing, the lack of a response to really differentiate themselves from Republicans in the longer term.
You did mention a socialist presidential candidate.
ML: Oh, boy.
AL: That is the perfect segue to my final question for you which is, again, echoing a big question that came out of last night, which was where was Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez?
ML: To her credit, she did support four state—
AL: Assembly members, yes.
ML: Who were all challenging incumbents, and they all did win.
AL: Yes. And so this is the strategy. So the criticism here, for our listeners, was that Mamdani did the work in the congressional races, and AOC did the work in the state legislature races. Both of them supported all DSA candidates in the respective races that they did endorse in.
But many people were taking shots at AOC saying that she should regret that she didn’t endorse Valdez or Avila Chevalier.
I find the argument that they were splitting their clout in a race where the left had limited resources to be a compelling one. I also find the argument that AOC is looking at building bridges with the people who will help her potentially run either for the Senate or for the presidency one day, and that it wasn’t worth her while to step into these races where Mamdani was already clearly carrying a lot of the weight.
What did you make of that strategy?
ML: Yeah. I think it’s just downstream of the nature of the relationships and the institutions that both of them have. Mayor Mamdani not endorsing any insurgent challengers in the state legislature in an effort to, not piss off, for lack of a better word, Carl Heastie, who’s the Assembly speaker.
“Darializa’s thing — that was big to take on the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.”
The inverse, though, pushing a lot of chips in with respect to Congress. I mean, Claire — it’s an open seat. Everyone needs to be adults about it. But the Darializa’s thing — that was big to take on the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
With the congresswoman, it’s probably just the inverse of that. There’s also a special Nydia Velázquez connection there.
But plenty of people running had either the mayor or they had AOC. And then I think a lot of them also had Bernie Sanders as well, and New York City DSA. So it was like, you had almost everybody with one or two or three really famous folks on their lit, and the institutional heft.
Regrettably, Conrad Blackburn was running for an Assembly seat in Harlem. He was the only candidate to lose last night.
AL: The only DSA candidate to lose.
ML: It was partially because he was the only one who did not have a Mamdani or an AOC endorsement.
It was a tricky race. I think just to zoom in and out, there was a lot of money spent against him at the beginning. When he was in Florida and a law student, he had that two-month internship in the Florida attorney general’s office, but the Florida attorney general was Pam Bondi. That, I think, hurt him considerably. But after months, I think he was able to claw back.
I think also Darializa being on the top of the ballot was able to help him. But the Darializa versus Conrad thing is a very interesting dynamic in how their spending was treated. Whereas with Darializa, they opened the floodgates late with all these attacks, and with Conrad, they started earlier. I’m sure if they could do it over again with Darializa, they would’ve taken her much more seriously, because now, of course, Adriano Espaillat, someone who is, I don’t want to contribute to a myth here, but he is someone who built a Dominican political machine, while I don’t really agree with the politics of it, over the course of 30 years. It was a 30-year-old machine being defeated by a 32-year-old Columbia graduate student who had never run for office before.
“It was a 30-year-old machine being defeated by a 32-year-old Columbia graduate student who had never run for office before.”
AL: Who said, “Fuck Kamala Harris.”
ML: Well, yeah, if I can curse. You had a candidate who said “Fuck Kamala Harris” win the historic capital of Black America. If that is not a distillation of the “Democratic tea party,” I don’t quite know what is. For as much anti-incumbent sentiment as there just is broadly now, there has been that with Adriano Espaillat, particularly in the southern parts of his district for a while, which was another reason that he was vulnerable and he played it poorly, and I think she ran a gutsy race.
AL: Michael, we’re going to leave it there. Thank you so much for helping us make sense of the wild ride that was Tuesday night. I look forward to reading your book when it comes out and looking forward to more of your — I don’t know if you’ll beat “commie corridor,” but we’re excited for whatever comes next.
ML: I appreciate that a lot. It was great to be here. Thanks for having me.
AL: We want to know what issues you are following in this exciting midterm cycle, send us an email at podcasts@theintercept.com or leave us a voice mail at 530-POD-CAST that’s 530-763-2278
That does it for this episode of The Intercept Briefing.
This episode was produced by Laura Flynn. Ben Muessig is our editor-in-chief. Maia Hibbett is our managing editor. Fei Liu is our product and design manager. Nara Shin is our copy editor. Will Stanton mixed our show. Legal review by David Bralow.
Slip Stream provided our theme music.
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Until next time, I’m Akela Lacy.
The post The Democratic Party Gets Its Populist Takeover appeared first on The Intercept.
Senior official alleges in court filing that damage included about ‘70 fence post tops thrown’ into the pool
A senior National Park Service (NPS) official has said a liner along the bottom of the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool was “cut with a sharp knife or razor” earlier this month, repeating Donald Trump’s claims of vandalism.
Frank Lands, the deputy director for operations for NPS, made the allegation in a court filing on Wednesday, as part of a lawsuit brought by a non-profit group seeking to stop the US president’s renovation of the site.
Continue reading...Your next iPad, Mac, HomePod, Vision Pro or Apple TV purchase is going to cost more.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Arab Gulf leaders to reassure them that U.S. isn’t cutting them out of negotiations with Tehran.
U.K. influencer Brooke George says a man she met online repeatedly assaulted her in the UAE, according to an advocacy group. Now she's facing possible execution for allegedly stabbing him to death.
A divided Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a law in Hawaii that prohibited a person with a concealed carry permit from bringing a handgun onto private property open to the public without the property owner’s consent.
In Wolford v. Lopez, Justice Samuel Alito in a 6-3 decision held that the law violated the Second and 14th Amendments. Alito said the current state law, adopted after the Court decided New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen in 2022, posed several problems.
In Bruen, a divided 6-3 Court struck down a New York state law that required a person to prove a special self-protection need to carry a licensed concealed firearm outside their residence or business. Hawaii then passed a new state law in 2023, Act 52, with the property owner consent provision. Examples of such locations included bars, restaurants serving alcohol, parks, and banks, in addition to the sensitive areas defined in Bruen.
“The restrictions imposed by Hawaii’s challenged law fall within the plain text of the Second Amendment, so the law is presumptively unconstitutional,” Alito said. “To be sure, owners of establishments that are open to the public can admit or exclude persons who are carrying guns for self-defense under either the common-law rule or Hawaii’s law. But Hawaii’s shift from the common-law rule unquestionably imposes a new and significant burden on the exercise of the right recognized in Bruen.”
Under that common-law rule, Alito said, “everyone, including those lawfully carrying firearms, may enter unless expressly prohibited from doing so. By contrast, under the new Hawaii law, no one carrying a firearm may enter without the property owner’s express authorization.”
“When these permit holders leave home in the morning, not only must they take care to avoid all the territory where the possession of a gun is prohibited outright, but they may also be barred from entering many places that people routinely visit in the course of their daily routines,” he concluded. “This regime hobbles what the Second Amendment protects: the right of Americans to carry arms for self-defense as they go about their daily lives.”
Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett joined the majority opinion.
In her concurrence, Barrett said Hawaii’s law failed the second part of a test posed by Bruen. The first part of the Bruen test determines if the plain text of the Second Amendment applies to an individual’s conduct. The second part requires the government to justify a firearms regulation by showing that it is consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of similar regulations.
“To satisfy Bruen, Hawaii must identify historical laws that pursued an analogous goal in an analogous way. Hawaii draws two analogies: one to 18th-century antipoaching laws and the other to 19th-century laws that were mostly designed to suppress newly freed blacks. Unsurprisingly, the analogies fail,” Barrett concluded. Justices Thomas and Gorsuch joined part of her concurrence.
Justice Elena Kagan in her dissent said she believed the colonial and founding era laws cited by the state in its arguments “similarly prohibited carrying firearms onto private property without the owner’s affirmative consent.”
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in her dissent, argued that Hawaii’s law fell under property law. “Hawaii’s law does not implicate the Second Amendment because there is no right to carry a gun onto private property without consent (as all agree), and the Constitution does not dictate the form of that required consent.” She also agreed with Kagan’s conclusion that enough precedent existed to meet the Bruen test. Justice Sotomayor joined Jackson’s dissent.
And for good measure, Jackson added she felt Bruen was wrongly decided but the Court misapplied the required test under Bruen. “The Court’s objective is protecting guns, not consistently preserving any principle of law,” she concluded.
Three individuals and the Hawaii Firearms Coalition had sued the state of Hawaii. The group alleged that Hawaii’s law conflicted with a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruling in Antonyuk v. James (2024), a decision that struck down a state law like the Hawaii ban. The Ninth Circuit upheld most of the Hawaii law. The Supreme Court then accepted the case on Oct. 3, 2025, and heard arguments on Jan. 20, 2026
Scott Bomboy is the editor in chief of the National Constitution Center.
Jury clears 16-year-old of murder and manslaughter over the death of Aria, who died from a single stab wound
A 16-year-old boy has been found not guilty of the murder of nine-year-old Aria Thorpe, who died after being stabbed with a kitchen knife.
Aria sustained a deep wound to her chest at her home in Weston-super-Mare, North Somerset, on 15 December last year.
Continue reading...An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Anthropic has accused the Chinese firm Alibaba of launching the largest attack yet attempting to clone Claude, as China races to match the capabilities of Anthropic's leading model following Mythos' release and subsequent restriction from foreign markets. Ars obtained a June 10 letter sent to Senators Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) one day ahead of a Senate committee hearing on "AI and the American Dream." In the letter, Anthropic shared "new, confidential evidence of the largest campaign to illicitly extract Claude's capabilities we have ever measured." The attacks occurred between April 22 and June 5, when "operators afliated with Alibaba and Alibaba Qwen, Alibaba's AI lab" allegedly generated "more than 28.8 million exchanges with Claude through almost 25,000 fraudulent accounts," Anthropic said. Violating Claude's terms of service and access restrictions, this campaign "targeted some of Claude's most valuable capabilities, such as agentic reasoning, software engineering, and long-horizon tasks." According to Anthropic, Alibaba evaded detection by "using obfuscation techniques and proxy networks." As Chinese demand for reliable obfuscation techniques increases, Anthropic warned there's already "a growing circumvention economy" to fuel an ever-expanding web of future distillation attacks. [...] "Alibaba is governed by an independent board, none of whom has any military affiliation," Alibaba said. "Its products and services are built for retail, logistics, and enterprise information technology -- not weapons, defense, or intelligence." Anthropic appears unconvinced, however, that Alibaba isn't working with the Chinese government. In the letter, Anthropic warned that without stronger interventions, these distillation attacks will "help China reach Mythos Preview-level capabilities sooner." To keep the US ahead of China, Anthropic recommended that Congress pass legislation with three objectives. First, antitrust laws must be updated to allow AI firms to share information about evolving Chinese tactics to deter more threats. Second, the US needs more export controls on chips to hamstring Chinese access to advanced compute so that they simply can't train on US model outputs. That could make conducting distillation attacks pointless, Anthropic suggested. Finally, Congress should pass laws penalizing Chinese labs' "bad behavior" so that it's "more difficult and costly" to rely on distillation attacks to advance Chinese models. Penalties could include limiting Chinese firms from accessing US models or advanced US chips or from relying on data centers outside of China, Anthropic suggested.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
After rattling some observers by staying out of a slew of competitive congressional primaries in her home state this week, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., endorsed a candidate in Tennessee on Thursday.
Ocasio-Cortez is backing Tennessee state Rep. Justin J. Pearson in the 9th Congressional District, which will be a tough win for Democrats after Republicans scrambled to gerrymander it earlier this year thanks to the Supreme Court’s gutting of a key portion of the Voting Rights Act. The district covering parts of Memphis and its suburbs is one of more than a dozen that Republicans have redrawn at President Donald Trump’s demand to ward off what many in the GOP see as the increasingly likely prospect that they lose both congressional chambers to Democrats in November.
An endorsement from democratic socialist Ocasio-Cortez is a coveted stamp of approval for progressive insurgents looking to challenge incumbents or capture open congressional seats. She has endorsed several Democratic primary candidates running for open seats in other states this cycle including Chris Rabb, who won his primary in Pennsylvania; Analilia Mejia, who won in New Jersey; and Junaid Ahmed, who lost his primary in Illinois. But critics raised eyebrows at her decision to stay out of key congressional primaries in New York; she opted instead to endorse a slate of democratic socialist candidates in the state Assembly.
The endorsement is a major boost to Pearson, who is also backed by Justice Democrats, the progressive group that first backed Ocasio-Cortez in 2018 against longtime incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. Pearson originally launched his campaign with the intention of ousting two-decade incumbent Rep. Steve Cohen, the last remaining Democrat in Tennessee’s congressional delegation. Cohen dropped out of the race in May after state lawmakers split up his district into three neighboring districts, saying it was “drawn to beat” him.
Observers theorized that Ocasio-Cortez’s absence from New York’s congressional primaries reflected a desire not to butt heads with Democratic Party leaders who endorsed against leftist challengers, potentially signaling her plans to run for higher office in a future cycle. Others argued that she stayed out to split her efforts with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to maximize the left’s political currency in a cycle with historic outside spending against their candidates. Mamdani emerged as a kingmaker in Tuesday’s elections, backing three congressional candidates who won their primaries on Tuesday: socialists Clare Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier, and progressive Brad Lander, and several — but not all — of the New York City DSA’s endorsed candidates.
On Wednesday, Ocasio-Cortez said the left’s wins in New York’s House primaries were part of both “a moment” and “a movement” of voters demanding more from the Democratic Party after major losses in 2024.
Endorsing in the races would have pitted Ocasio-Cortez against her congressional colleagues whose support she might need in a run for higher office, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, poised to become House speaker if the Democrats retake the chamber in November. She’s made most of her other endorsements this cycle in open seats with no incumbent, including Rabb, Mejia, Ahmed, Adelita Grijalva in Arizona, Adam Hamawy in New Jersey, and Sam Forstag in Montana. She endorsed Democratic candidate Randy Villegas against the incumbent Republican, Rep. David Valadao, in California. Her former chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, said her decision not to endorse him likely contributed to his loss in an open California primary to replace retiring Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., by fueling attacks from his opponents.
In New York City, Avila Chevalier and Lander ousted incumbents backed by Jeffries and Democratic leaders: Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Adriano Espaillat and Rep. Dan Goldman. Valdez won her primary in an open seat where retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez had endorsed her preferred successor, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso. Velázquez bemoaned Mamdani’s endorsement of Valdez against her pick in the months leading up to the race. And even after their candidates lost on Tuesday, Jeffries and other party leaders aired their disappointment in Mamdani’s decision to go against them.
But in Tennessee, Pearson emerged as the frontrunner when the incumbent dropped out. He’s hoping to tap into voters’ frustrations with both parties by campaigning on economic change for the working class — a message that boosted both Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders.
The post Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Wades Into Tennessee Primary, Endorsing Justin J. Pearson appeared first on The Intercept.
Civil service high-flyer caught up in Mandelson vetting row thought to be discussing comeback with Burnham’s team
The Foreign Office chief who lost his job over the Peter Mandelson vetting scandal is in discussions with Andy Burnham’s team about taking on a security-related role under the likely new prime minister, the Guardian understands.
Olly Robbins has had “early exploratory talks” with senior advisers to the newly elected Makerfield MP over a post in his putative Downing Street operation, and insiders suggested he could be appointed national security adviser.
Continue reading...Reform MP appears to contradict party leader’s claim money from crypto billionaire is ‘none of your business’
Robert Jenrick has said it is “legitimate” for the media to ask questions about Nigel Farage’s £5m personal donation from a cryptocurrency billionaire, just days after the Reform UK leader told an interviewer it was “none of your business”.
Jenrick, who is Reform’s shadow chancellor, said voters on the doorstep were not asking about the money given to Farage by the Thailand-based British crypto investor Christopher Harborne.
Continue reading...Seattle’s World Cup committee is pushing forward with “Pride Match” celebrations this week despite backlash from Egypt and Iran, who have called for the cancellation of LGBTQ+ rights festivities around the game.
Last year, Seattle’s local organising committee, which is separate from Fifa, made plans for 26 June to be a Pride-themed match coinciding with the city’s annual Pride weekend.
In December, Egypt and Iran were drawn to play each other on that date in Seattle, causing a swift firestorm and condemnation from the two countries, as Sam Levin explains
Continue reading...Decision affects hundreds of thousands with permission to live and work in US because their home countries are unsafe
The US supreme court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Trump administration’s bid to strip temporary protected status (TPS) from hundreds of thousands of Haitians and Syrians, who were legally in the US and protected from deportation.
In another boost to Donald Trump’s unprecedented hardline crackdown on immigrants, including many of whom have lived legally in the US for years, the court issued a 6-3 ruling. That was powered by its conservative-leaning majority, overturning decisions by federal judges in New York and Washington DC that had halted the administration’s actions terminating TPS for more than 350,000 people from Haiti and 6,100 from Syria.
Continue reading...National Park Service official Frank Lands also said at least 70 fence post tops were thrown in to the Reflecting Pool.
The Neo now costs $100 more, but the MacBook Air and Pro lines saw even larger price increases.
If you want to protect and grow your $20,000 for an extended period, a long-term CD account is worth consideration.
A law enforcement intelligence hub in New Jersey fretted that the growing class divide in the U.S. could drive a wave of lone-wolf attacks on high-flying corporate executives, according to a report obtained by The Intercept.
The New Jersey Regional Operations and Intelligence Center, one of the so-called fusion centers that serve as intelligence clearinghouses for cops, warned in a bulletin earlier this year that disaffected Americans were increasingly blaming society’s ills on rich people and corporate bigwigs.
The report specifically cited the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December 2024 — allegedly by Luigi Mangione — as an expression of anti-fat-cat rhetoric. To the analysts at the New Jersey fusion center, Thompson’s killing hinted at a larger trend.
“Public discourse increasingly attributes the challenges faced by the middle and lower classes to the actions and influence of wealthy corporate executives,” the fusion center memo says.
By warning corporate security outfits of the danger posed by average Americans who blame their problems on the actions of corporate executives, the report effectively dedicates public resources to securing a private system that has made the few extremely wealthy at the expense of the many.
“The report seems to be putting forth the view that that is an extremist viewpoint, rather than something that the state has some responsibility in correcting.”
Michael German, a former FBI agent specializing in domestic terrorism and longtime critic of fusion centers, said that by warning CEOs of threats, the bulletin was effectively taking the side of the rich and powerful over ordinary people who are critical of inequality — a typical dynamic at fusion centers.
“The way it’s written, the report seems to be putting forth the view that that is an extremist viewpoint, rather than something that the state has some responsibility in correcting,” German said. “All the resources of the national network of fusion centers, which includes federal resources along with state and local resources, are devoted toward providing security information to private entities.”
The “Quarterly Executive Threat Watch” bulletin warned corporate bodyguards to switch up the daily routines of execs, limit information on public engagements, and remove bosses’ personal information from the web. The report says bosses should “remain vigilant of lone offenders with personal grievances.”
“Following the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the current political climate, there is a heightened threat environment surrounding corporate executives,” the report says. “Online glorification of the murder of Brian Thompson and calls for violence are still apparent and further create a risk for a lone offender attack.”
A spokesperson for New Jersey’s Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness, the agency that oversees the fusion center, did not respond to a request for comment.
Days after Thompson’s killing in late 2024, Mangione was arrested and charged with the murder, allegedly motivated by injustices in the healthcare system. The then-26-year-old quickly became a cause célèbre for a wide array of supporters and a bête noire of right-wing figures, including those at the Trump administration, who branded him as a violent extremist.
Mangione’s legal team declined to comment on the fusion center report, but has in the past decried attempts to tie him to unrelated acts of violence.
The report went on to cite a list of seemingly disparate incidents to highlight a possible surge in threats to the wealthy, including a satirical Christmas wishlist that called for sabotaging CEOs; a handful of 4chan posts calling for violence against executives at Netflix and elsewhere; a “far-left forum” calling for a campaign against people tied to a mining project in Michigan; and an act of vandalism by pro-Palestine activists at the home of a New York Times executive.
Another incident that made the list was the federal case against the so-called Turtle Island Liberation Front, a group of left-wing activists arrested last year whose alleged bomb plot appears to have been largely driven by a member of their group who was a longtime paid FBI informant.
“The problem with a lot of these fusion center reports is that they take a handful of incidents, not necessarily related to one another, and use them to justify and amplify these threats without any kind of analysis,” said German. “Rather than actually looking at data, their performance is measured by the number of reports they produce.”
Fusion centers, which bring together state and federal law enforcement agencies to share intelligence on potential terror threats, rose to prominence in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The centers operate under state authority, often with grants from federal agencies like the Department of Homeland Security.
While data on any terror plots actually foiled by fusion center operations is scant, they have been roundly criticized for compiling surveillance and data on protest movements, communities of color, student organizers, and, recently, critics of AI data centers.
New Jersey’s only fusion center, officially known as the New Jersey Regional Operations and Intelligence Center, has been criticized for operating outside the typical oversight to which most state agencies are subject.
A 2023 report by Rutgers Law School’s Center for Security, Race, and Rights warns of the potential for abuse in the New Jersey fusion center. The report cited the fusion center’s practice of drafting dossiers on “known troublemakers” and its reliance on so-called “intelligence-led policing,” a practice of surveilling and data collection that the American Civil Liberties Union has cited as a potential violation of the right to due process.
The Quarterly Executive Threat Watch, the bulletin that included the warning for CEOs, appears to be internally categorized as terrorism-related intelligence and was later disseminated by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer to recipients across the country. (CBP did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)
Then there is the issue of the center’s shadowy public-private partnership. The New Jersey fusion center does not make public which private agencies or organizations it partners with, or to whom it disseminates reports.
“It’s very ambiguous who is actually in charge and who is responsible.”
The January report drew heavily on the work of SITE Intelligence, a for-profit firm that has come in for criticism because of its labeling Islamic charities as terror fronts and mistakenly identifying video game footage as terror propaganda.
Like its counterparts across the country, the New Jersey fusion center feeds its reports into a national network of public and private agencies dedicated to the gathering and dissemination of information about potential threats — a practice that frequently crosses the line into surveillance of political speech, according to German and other critics of fusion centers.
“There is a lack of public accountability here,” German said. “Because they’re joint enterprises, it’s very ambiguous who is actually in charge and who is responsible for ensuring that the participants within these centers are acting in accordance with the law.”
The post Cops Warn CEO Bodyguards That Luigi Mangione Fever Could Spark Class War appeared first on The Intercept.
Wyden says in letter addressed to Robert F Kennedy Jr that HHS is preparing an ‘unprecedented legal framework’
The US senator Ron Wyden has accused the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) of preparing to use what he describes as an “unprecedented legal framework” to deport more than 500 unaccompanied migrant children currently in the custody of the agency’s Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).
In a letter addressed to the HHS secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, said he had obtained “credible information” that the department was using a list of more than 500 children as targets for expedited removal under a new administrative process that he says lacks statutory authority. He called the reported initiative “deeply alarming” and urged HHS to immediately suspend any related screening or removal efforts.
Continue reading...Former employee files complaint accusing company of ‘coercive surveillance’ and first amendment violation
The Meta whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams is suing the tech company over its efforts to “silence” her.
A 57-page complaint filed to a US district court in California on Thursday argues that an interim arbitration ruling sought by Meta preventing Wynn-Williams from publicising her memoir, Careless People, was “improper and unlawful” and a “blatant violation of the first amendment”. It also accuses the company of “coercive surveillance”.
Continue reading...Tim Cook said that RAMageddon would make price increases "unavoidable." And now they're happening.
The Windmill window air conditioner was the quickest to cool down rooms in our lab testing, and there's a great deal on it right now.
Heatwave-related deaths climb in Spain, Italy and France as continent battles another day of extreme temperatures
Farryn Stock
Over in the UK, South East Water has announced a temporary hosepipe ban in Kent amid growing strain from the ongoing heatwave (31C today, 33C tomorrow).
“To safeguard that shared supply and prevent any homes from facing a sudden loss of water, we sadly need to ask our communities to not use their hosepipes immediately. We are deeply sorry for the disruption this causes, and we are incredibly grateful to everyone helping us protect Kent’s water.”
Continue reading...After Ford's automated quality-control systems and AI tools fell short, the automaker hired 350 veteran engineers over the past three years to mentor younger staff and reprogram the underperforming technology. "Artificial intelligence is a fantastic tool, but it's only as good as the information you use to train it," Charles Poon, Ford's vice president of vehicle hardware engineering, told reporters on a call Wednesday. "Over prior years, we didn't pay as much attention as we should have to the experience of our most knowledgeable engineers that have been with us through many product cycles." Bloomberg reports: Those engineers were "at the heart" of Ford's efforts to turn around quality problems, said Kumar Galhotra, chief operating officer. They now run mandatory meetings that rigorously troubleshoot quality problems and they have reprogrammed AI tools to head off glitches before they happen. "We had been relying more and more on automated quality systems" and not getting the desired results, Galhotra said. "We brought back technical specialists" and "they hunt for failure points before a part ever reaches the plant floor." The return of the veteran engineers at Ford cuts against the prevailing wisdom -- and fear -- that AI will replace all kinds of knowledge workers. But Ford found the machines couldn't replace experience. "Mistakenly we thought that by just introducing artificial intelligence and ingesting the design requirements that we had, that that would produce a high-quality product," Poon said. But "we recognized that for us to enhance some of our automation and machine learning and artificial intelligence tools we needed to ensure that they were trained by the most experienced individuals." As a result of the efforts of the old hands, Ford vaulted above quality stalwarts such as Toyota and Honda on JD Power's bellwether survey that measures the quality of a car during the first three months of ownership. Only luxury brands Porsche and Genesis topped Ford this year.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Temperatures linked to third child’s death in France, where three-quarters of country is under extreme heat alert
The UK and Switzerland both recorded the hottest-ever June temperatures on Thursday, while brutally hot conditions supercharged by the climate crisis were linked to the death of a third toddler in France and a sharp rise in medical emergencies across Europe.
The UK’s new provisional high of 36.4C (97.5F), recorded in Yeovilton, Somerset, surpassed Wednesday’s June record of 36.1C in Gosport, Hampshire, which had beaten the previous peak of 35.6C set in Southampton in 1976.
Continue reading...June 25, 2026 — A major milestone for European science and innovation is reached today, as European users can now request free access to the EuroHPC quantum computers through the newly launched EuroHPC quantum access pilot call.
Researchers, public institutions, and industry across Europe can now access Europe’s growing quantum computing infrastructure in the same way they already access EuroHPC supercomputers. This unprecedented step enables users to experiment with different quantum technologies to advance scientific discovery and drive innovation.
Users can now access Europe’s growing quantum computing infrastructure in the same way they already access EuroHPC supercomputers.
As part of its hybrid strategy to integrate quantum computers with Europe’s world-class supercomputing infrastructure, enabling quantum-accelerated HPC, the EuroHPC JU has invested in a diverse set of complementary quantum technologies. This strategy will allow European users to experiment, test, and scale their applications on a broad range of quantum technologies, including trapped ions, superconducting circuits, photonics, neutral atoms, and adiabatic (annealing) systems, while also leveraging the power of classical HPC.
The first systems accessible through the call, with a first cut-off as of August 1, 2026, are:
Additional EuroHPC quantum computers will become available for future cut-off deadlines.
More Details
The quantum pilot access mode aims to provide quick access to EuroHPC JU quantum infrastructure for testing and development purposes.
This access mode is meant for all categories of users who want to collect performance data or test a method on a target system in order to document the technical feasibility of their applications. The access mode is meant also for projects focusing on code and algorithm development, development of workflows and quantum computing trainings.
The call will be continuously open, with pre-defined cut-off dates fixed every month that will trigger the evaluation of the proposals submitted up to this date.
Apply now on the EuroHPC access platform.
Source: EuroHPC JU
The post EuroHPC Opens Access to Its Quantum Computers appeared first on HPCwire.
Blocking of proposal backed by Oman signals new threat to free passage through strait vital to world economy
Iran has rejected UN-backed plans for the mass evacuation of ships through the strait of Hormuz, creating a new threat to the free passage of commercial ships through the strait.
The proposal, backed by Oman, was potentially the first phase of a broader Omani proposal to consult on setting up a new management of the strait based on voluntary fees and modelled on the Malacca and Singapore strait mechanism.
Continue reading...A guide to the steep Prime Day deals on Apple’s top-rated smartwatch and how to choose the right model for you
The 40+ best Prime Day deals – and 20+ best deals from Amazon competitors
Sign up for the Filter US newsletter, your weekly guide to buying fewer, better things
The Apple Watch has been around for a decade, so it’s safe to say you’ve already heard the evangelism from fawning owners: fitness tracking for everything from running to rowing, phone alerts on your wrist, a limitless variety of watch faces for every occasion. The latest versions have even added the ability to take an electrocardiogram, 5G connectivity and off-grid satellite messaging.
It’s no wonder the Apple Watch Series 11 earned a five-star review from our consumer tech editor and regularly pops up in our gift guides for pretty much everyone. The Apple Watch is beloved by moms, customized by dads and requested by tweens.
This clever router fixed my spotty home wifi – and it’s currently on sale for a third off
Continue reading...American tennis legend Chris Evert announced that her ovarian cancer had returned in a social media post Thursday.
Dr Mazen Al-Rantisi, a 71-year-old physician well known for providing care to low-income Palestinians, was arrested in the occupied West Bank
Israeli forces on Sunday arrested a prominent 71-year-old Palestinian physician known as the “doctor of the poor” in a pre-dawn raid on his home in the occupied West Bank, prompting widespread condemnation.
Dr Mazen Al-Rantisi, a physician widely known for providing care to low-income Palestinians, was arrested in the al-Tira neighbourhood of Ramallah.
Continue reading...French capital hails ‘landmark decision’ against oil firm relating to disclosure of emissions from oil and gas products
A Paris court has ruled that the French oil company TotalEnergies must disclose the climate risks linked to emissions from its oil and gas products and set out plans to address them in a high-stakes case brought by NGOs and the city of Paris.
The ruling on Thursday is a partial victory for climate change NGOs seeking to apply France’s 2017 corporate duty of vigilance law to the climate crisis. However, the court stopped short of ordering specific measures such as limiting overseas exploration and production or setting binding emissions reduction targets.
Continue reading...People in Caracas and coastal towns describe powerful quakes that collapsed buildings and killed at least 164
As a double whammy of powerful earthquakes rattled Venezuela’s northern coast on Wednesday, residents of the capital, Caracas, scrambled out on to the streets from shuddering, fractured buildings.
“It was horrible. I felt like the house was moving to a different rhythm to the earth. I had to carry my mum out. She was paralysed by fear,” said 18-year-old Sebastian Rodríguez, whose family runs a shop in Centro Plaza, a brutalist commercial centre in the affluent neighbourhood of Los Palos Grandes.
Continue reading...Charlotte get Naz Reid, seven draft picks
Minnesota also add guard Josh Green in swap
Ball to pair with fellow 2020 draftee Anthony Edwards
The Charlotte Hornets have agreed to trade LaMelo Ball, their starting point guard, and Josh Green to the Minnesota Timberwolves for power forward Naz Reid, a 2033 unprotected first-round draft pick, three first-round pick swaps and three future second-round picks, a person familiar with the situation told the Associated Press on Thursday.
The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the deal, first reported by ESPN, has yet to be approved by the league.
Continue reading...Consumer prices rose 4.1% in May from a year earlier – a sign rising costs could pose problem for Trump in midterms
The Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge rose to a new three-year high in May as gas prices peaked, a sign rising costs could pose political problems for Donald Trump and his political party as midterm elections near.
Consumer prices rose 4.1% in May from a year earlier, the US commerce department said Thursday, the largest annual increase since April 2023. On a monthly basis, inflation was 0.4% last month, matching April’s increase and down from 0.7% in March.
Continue reading...Conditions at "Alligator Alcatraz" were criticized by lawyers, families and human rights groups who claimed detainees were mistreated.
A Caracas resident told CBS News that he "started to pray" when he felt the first earthquake hit Venezuela.
Poland's deputy prime minister tells CBS News he "wouldn't exclude the Russians doing some kind of false flag operation" to justify an attack on NATO.
The Supreme Court on Thursday said the Trump administration can move forward with its efforts to strip more than 356,000 Syrian and Haitian immigrants of temporary protections.
The Supreme Court ruled that Monsanto cannot be held liable under state laws for failing to warn consumers about the alleged cancer risks of its weedkiller Roundup on its label.
The 6-3 decision clears the way for the Trump administration to resume allowing federal agents at the border to turn back asylum seekers before they enter.
Opposition figures fear changes will further tighten 83-year-old president Emmerson Mnangagwa’s hold on power
Zimbabwe is on the brink of amending its constitution to give the president more time in office, a change that the government says will bring stability but that opponents have labelled a “constitutional coup”.
The upper house of Zimbabwe’s parliament voted on Wednesday 75-4 in favour of the constitutional amendments, which will allow President Emmerson Mnangagwa to stay in office until 2030 by extending presidential terms from five to seven years.
Continue reading...Claims health of staff and children at risk as France struggles to adapt heat-trap school buildings
Teachers in France are risking their own and students’ health in overheated schools as a severe heatwave sets new record temperatures, education unions said, urging staff to strike over “unacceptable working conditions”.
Several teaching unions on Thursday issued a joint statement denouncing a “blatant lack of preparation” by the government, after teachers have had to work in classrooms where temperatures reached up to 40C.
Continue reading...IBM's newest chip has transistors smaller than one nanometer. But it could pack a powerful punch in future data centers.
Micron has signed 16 "strategic customer agreements" (SCAs) that include a floor price the company says comes with "a very robust gross margin for Micron, well above our peak quarterly margins in any past cycle." Most of the deals run through 2030 and cover about 40% of Micron's revenue. The Register reports: Micron CEO, president and chairman Sanjay Mehrotra explained the SCAs in prepared remarks delivered during the company's Q3 earnings call. He explained that Micron has signed 16 SCAs, most of them covering 2026 to 2030, and that they involve a commitment to buy a certain quantity of product and pay for it in a pricing band that has a floor and a ceiling price. The floor price covers the historically high gross margins mentioned above, and the ceiling price means those who commit to an SCA are insulated if memory prices go even higher. The CEO said 16 customers have signed SCAs and then explained why it's worth locking into the deals even though they bake in such high margins. "Our customers are recognizing that supply shortages in memory and storage will take considerable time to improve," he said. "Even as we expect industry supply to improve gradually in 2028, we currently do not have line of sight as to when memory supply will be able to catch up with increasing demand." Even massive efforts to build new chip fabs aren't much help, he said, because the increasing complexity of new memory types means it takes longer to build factories -- and when they come online there still won't be enough capacity to build both the high-bandwidth memory needed for AI and other types of NAND and DRAM. "Supply is structurally constrained in its growth and ability to meet industry demand, despite our comprehensive efforts to increase supply," he said. Don't assume that SCAs mean your suppliers get price certainty, because Mehrotra said the deals will account for 40 percent of Micron revenue -- meaning the company is reserving most of its inventory to sell at prices it can negotiate. The CEO did have a little good news in the form of predictions that Micron's DRAM output in 2026 will "grow in the low- to mid-20s percentage range, slightly above our prior outlook." He also revealed that the SCAs see customers pay up front, which helps Micron to fund its fab expansions.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
President Trump signed an executive order in March requiring the creation of a list of U.S. citizens eligible to vote in each state and imposing stricter mail-in ballot rules.
Latin American and European countries also offer solidarity and help to nation already enduring a humanitarian crisis
Countries around the world, including Iran, the US and Cuba, have committed to help with rescue efforts in Venezuela after deadly twin earthquakes hit the country.
On the evening of 24 June, Venezuela was rocked by two back-to-back earthquakes with a magnitude of 7.2 and 7.5, which killed at least 164 people, injured close to 1,000 more, and caused significant damage to the capital, Caracas, as well as areas across the north of the country.
Continue reading...Rescue efforts under way after buildings reduced to rubble in capital and along northern coast
Hundreds of people are feared to have died and thousands have been injured in Venezuela’s largest earthquake in more than a century.
Two earthquakes of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 hit 39 seconds apart near the town of Morón.
Continue reading...The case, Monsanto v Durnell, specifically dealt with claims that the company failed to warn users of product risks
The US supreme court has found in favor of the former Monsanto company in a ruling that is expected to block thousands of lawsuits filed by people alleging the key ingredient in the weed killer Roundup causes cancer.
The decision was made in a 7-2 vote, with Justice Brett Kavanaugh offering the majority opinion and justice Ketanji Brown Jackson writing the dissenting opinion, joined by justice Neil Gorsuch.
Continue reading...The former Manchester mayor could be installed as prime minister in weeks if no other MP puts themselves forward
In her Q&A this morning Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, confirmed that she wants the government to approve the licences for the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields in the North Sea.
She said:
I’ve been very clear that I think that the North Sea is a crucial asset for the UK, and that oil and gas will be an important part of our energy mix for years to come. And I’m very keen to make sure that we use that resource, to ensure our energy security.
There are decisions to be made shortly on both Rosebank and Jackdaw. Those are quasi-judicial decisions. But in our manifesto two years ago, we committed to honour existing licences, and I hope that we do.
Continue reading...Dell's thinnest and lightest XPS yet is a smart choice that exemplifies how good design gets out of your way.
Stock markets on both sides of Atlantic up as concerns ease over prospect of another inflationary shock
Oil prices have fallen to pre-Iran war levels as more oil tankers exited the strait of Hormuz.
Brent crude, the global benchmark, fell to a low of $72.24 a barrel on Thursday, slightly lower than the day before the US and Israel launched missile attacks on Tehran on 28 February. Prices have fallen more than 20% this month.
Continue reading...June 25, 2026 — The UK’s next National Supercomputer – owned by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and hosted at the University of Edinburgh – is set to empower world-changing discoveries in globally significant fields such as aircraft engineering, extreme weather events and drug discovery for cancer.
The machine – made possible by an investment of up to £750 million from the UK Government – marks a step-change in the country’s compute power and will cement the UK’s status as a leader in supercomputing, which experts agree is critical to driving economic growth.
Construction on the site of the UK’s most powerful computer has begun, which experts are hailing as a milestone moment as the country moves a step closer to turbo-charging its capacity for research and innovation.
Immense power
The new machine is expected to have thousands of the latest processers, allowing it to deliver at least a billion – billion calculations per second, up from the 20 million – billion calculations per second currently delivered by the current national supercomputer.
At around fifty times more powerful than the UK’s current national supercomputer, ARCHER2, the new system will be able to carry out incredibly complex calculations in hours rather than days, and solve much larger problems than ever before. This will help make today’s impossible calculations possible.
“You would never guess from this ordinary-looking building site just how vitally important it will be for the UK and how its contents could impact on all of our lives positively,” said Professor Mark Parsons, Director of the EPCC and Dean of Research Computing. “This marks a profound leap in compute power for the UK. The value of this supercomputer across our society is vast, and will aid strong industry, a healthier economy and a happier population.”
Societal Benefits
ARCHER2 – also housed at the University – aided Covid-19 drug-discovery, empowered firms like Rolls Royce to improve aircraft engine efficiency and sustainability, and has enabled engineers to make wind farms more efficient.
Supercomputing also allows researchers to model flood risks for communities, understand changes in our ocean temperatures, and simulate earthquakes – challenges that are simply unfeasible or prohibitively costly to do in the real-world.
A recent independent report showed that ARCHER2 generated £8 per £1 invested, enabling more than £4.2bn in benefits for the UK economy.
“The best research advances can happen when skills and talent are enabled by exceptional tools,” said Professor Liz Baggs, Vice-Principal for Research and Innovation and Chair of Food and Environmental Security. “This supercomputer has the potential to help UK researchers accelerate frontiers, unlock new paradigms, and develop solutions to challenges that were previously impossible. This includes creating the next generation of medicines, revealing untold stories about our planet, and, most excitingly, leading to discoveries that we can’t even imagine yet.”
Computing Expertise
The University was chosen as the new supercomputer’s home in recognition of EPCC’s leadership in high performance computing for more than 30 years.
The University has been the home of AI research in Europe for six decades, with EPCC recently formally designated the first UK National Supercomputing Centre.
“It is an honor for the University to be trusted to host this essential piece of UK infrastructure, and a testament to the hard work of everyone involved to help make this happen,” said Professor Peter Mathieson, Principal and Vice-Chancellor. “It is clear that this investment will strengthen UK science and with our track record in supercomputing, Edinburgh is perfectly placed to host this.”
Sustainability Measures
Having the supercomputer sited in Scotland has been a benefit to sustainability concerns thanks to its cooler air, with nature offering a simple solution to cool the system, combined with leading-edge cooling technology reducing the energy required.
Environmental considerations are at the forefront of the new supercomputer’s design, which will be more efficient than existing models, with surplus heat generated being used to warm University buildings and research planned to assess if it could also be used to warm local homes, by warming mine-water in disused mines.
ARCHER2 is already designated as net zero in operation, thanks to its use of 100% green certified electricity. The current supercomputing facility estimates that it runs with the same water usage as three typical bungalows.
Site demolition has been kept to a minimum to reduce environmental impacts and a number of sustainability projects are planned with the construction team, including tree planting, protecting ancient trees, and conservation projects for local wildlife.
“Today’s milestone in Edinburgh marks a decisive step in delivering our Compute Roadmap – building the sovereign computing power Britain needs to stay in control of its future in AI and science,” said Kanishka Narayan, UK Minister for AI and Online Safety. “For decades, Edinburgh has been at the heart of world-leading supercomputing. This new machine takes that further – making sure UK researchers, businesses and innovators have the cutting-edge power they need here in the UK, rather than relying on others. This is what will unlock the next generation of breakthroughs – from training more powerful AI systems to accelerating scientific discovery and creating new products and high-growth businesses. It is our Industrial Strategy in action, turning British ideas into the jobs and industries of the future.”
“The commencement of construction in Edinburgh marks a pivotal moment for the UK’s scientific infrastructure,” said Garth Wells, Deputy Executive Chair, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council at UKRI. “We are providing the UK’s brightest minds with the ‘industrial-scale’ tools required to solve society’s most complex challenges, from decoding the next generation of life-saving medicines to engineering a net-zero future. This £750m investment isn’t just about speed; it’s about economic growth, and ensuring the UK remains the premier destination for global innovation.”
Source: University of Edinburgh
The post UK Breaks Ground on £750M National Supercomputer in Edinburgh appeared first on HPCwire.
NEW YORK, June 25, 2026 — Qualcomm Incorporated has announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire Modular Inc, strengthening Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.’s software foundation for generative and agentic AI across data center and edge environments.
As AI scales, efficiency, not capability, becomes a constraint. Performance-per-watt drives the cost of inference, and cost determines what scales. Meeting this demand requires more than hardware. Developers need software that connects system-level optimization with heterogeneous, disaggregated compute, turning silicon performance into reliable and efficient AI services across accelerators, environments, and use cases.
Modular provides an open, AI-native software stack that enables AI to run efficiently across hardware architectures. Built by engineers who helped create much of today’s AI infrastructure, Modular’s unified platform runs models with industry-leading performance across CPU, GPU, NPU, and custom ASIC architectures without re-writes for each accelerator. For developers and enterprises, that means building once, deploying across any environment with lower total cost of ownership. Modular is supported by an open, industry-friendly, vendor-neutral developer community committed to improving the portability and efficiency of AI infrastructure.
The acquisition is expected to strengthen Qualcomm Technologies’ ability to deliver a more optimized AI compute layer across a broad range of platforms and use cases. It deepens the software foundation for Qualcomm Technologies’ data center strategy, supporting more efficient inference, orchestration, and deployment in distributed AI systems, while strengthening relationships with model creators, developers, hyperscalers, and enterprises.
By combining Qualcomm Technologies silicon leadership with Modular’s software expertise, Qualcomm Technologies will be well positioned to help customers move AI into production from device to cloud, with systems that are faster, more efficient, and easier to scale.
“This acquisition marks a pivotal moment not just for Qualcomm, but for the AI industry,” said Cristiano Amon, President and CEO, Qualcomm Incorporated. “As agentic AI scales across data centers and edge environments, the industry is moving toward disaggregated, multi-vendor architectures that demand a more open and modern software foundation. We believe the future belongs to developer-friendly, horizontal platforms that can run across diverse compute environments and give customers real choice in how and where they deploy AI. With Modular, we’re accelerating that shift, combining our scale and energy-efficient data center technologies with an open ecosystem approach to help drive the next chapter of AI.”
“Modular was founded on the belief that AI needs a more open and efficient software foundation that can span diverse hardware and deployment environments,” said Chris Lattner, Co-founder and CEO, Modular. “Joining Qualcomm gives us the scale and platform reach to accelerate that mission. Together, we can make AI development more accessible and performant for developers, strengthen portability across hardware, and help grow an open ecosystem that broadens participation and speeds innovation. We are excited to continue advancing our software platform as part of Qualcomm’s broader strategy from edge to cloud.”
The transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2026, subject to customary closing conditions and applicable regulatory approvals.
About Qualcomm
Qualcomm is a global computing leader at the center of the AI era, enabling intelligence to scale from the most personal devices to large‑scale infrastructure. Building on more than four decades of innovation, we develop platforms and solutions that bring together advanced AI, high‑performance, low power computing and industry‑leading connectivity—powering products and services used around the world. At Qualcomm, we are engineering human progress.
Qualcomm Incorporated includes our licensing business, QTL, and the vast majority of our patent portfolio. Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, operates, along with its subsidiaries, substantially all of our engineering and research and development functions and substantially all of our products and services businesses, including our QCT semiconductor business. Snapdragon and Qualcomm branded products are products of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries. Qualcomm patents are licensed by Qualcomm Incorporated. Qualcomm, Snapdragon, Qualcomm Dragonwing and Qualcomm Dragonfly are trademarks or registered trademarks of Qualcomm Incorporated.
About Modular
Modular is an AI software infrastructure company building a unified compute platform that makes AI development and deployment more open, efficient, and accessible. Its software tools and modular technologies let developers write once and run anywhere, simplifying how they build, optimize, and run AI across diverse hardware and environments, from data center to edge. That same modularity gives customers independence from any single hardware vendor, helping them adopt AI faster, reduce integration overhead, and scale as their needs evolve, making the platform increasingly relevant in a fast-growing market.
Source: Qualcomm
The post Qualcomm Strengthens Data Center AI Push with Modular Acquisition appeared first on HPCwire.
Ruling comes amid drive by Republican administration to reshape rules around voting ahead of midterms
The Trump administration’s plan to deny mail-in ballots to states that would not give their voter rolls to federal officials was blocked on Thursday morning by a federal judge in Boston.
US district judge Indira Talwani ruled that the provisions of an executive order issued by Donald Trump on 31 March requiring the postal service to require the use of a barcode tracking system for ballot envelopes tied to US Citizenship and Immigration Services data was unconstitutional.
Continue reading...United Youth, a white nationalist organization that oversees groups for young men across the country, now has the first known women's group, Young Columbia.
Population across the region grew across all age groups between 2020 and 2025. But it was the only region with growing numbers of people under 18.
Extreme weather breaks MRI scanners and cooling units, as workload rises for sleep-deprived staff on sweltering wards
Doctors have set out the disastrous impact extreme heat is having on the NHS in England, with radiotherapy machines and MRI scanners failing, critical IT systems stalling and cooling units that serve entire hospitals breaking down.
The hot weather has also prompted a surge in admissions and people arriving at A&E, causing severe overcrowding in some places and exacerbating heat-related pressures on infrastructure.
Continue reading...New York prosecutors said they are dropping a rape charge against Harvey Weinstein instead of trying him for a fourth time.
 | Hey. Just got my Pint Performance tire. It's very firm and also, very... Round. I lowered the pressure to 15psi and it's still a bit unstable on quick turns. Enduro from TFL was much more stable at this pressure. What pressures are you running with this specific tire? [link] [comments] |
Officers looking into reports Callum Kerr was ‘behaving aggressively’ and that passengers restrained him
Two investigations have been launched after a man died following an incident in which he was restrained by passengers and crew on a Jet2 flight.
Callum Kerrallegedly began “behaving aggressively” during a flight from Larnaca, Cyprus, to Manchester, UK, on Sunday. The aircraft landed in the early hours of Monday.
Continue reading...From Cameron’s Brexit exit to Starmer’s Burnham bow-out, half a dozen PMs have gone. So who’s the best of the bunch?
The UK has had six prime ministers in the last 10 years – with a seventh likely to be in place by as early as mid-July.
John Crace ranks those who have been booted out of Downing Street between 2016 and 2026.
Continue reading...An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Google spent the last few years locked in a legal grudge match with Epic Games, which claimed that Google's stewardship of the Play Store was anticompetitive. Now, the companies are thick as thieves, and Google is beginning to implement app store changes as agreed in its settlement with Epic. The lower developer fees and new payment options that Google promised are rolling out in select markets this month before expanding. [...] Starting on June 30, developers in Europe, the UK, and the US will have access to the new fee structure. This system will split the commission into two components: billing and service fees. The biggest win for small developers is the new flat 10 percent service fee for the first $1 million in earnings every year. Above that, the rate for various transaction types may reach 25 percent on existing installs. Apps installed after June 30 will top out at 20 percent. Developers will finally be allowed to send users outside the Play Store to complete a transaction, too. Google says they can design a choice screen "in accordance with our UX guidelines" to direct users to these external options. Devs pay the standard service fee on these purchases, but they'll avoid the billing fee. All transactions that run through Google's Play Store platform add a 5 percent billing fee -- even the base rate for publishers earning less than $1 million. Google notes that the billing fee is set at 5 percent in the initial markets, but it could be different in other regions. Google will expand the new fee structure globally through September 2027, while also offering reduced fees through updated developer programs. Although the changes may let developers retain more revenue, Google will continue controlling Android distribution and collecting a share of sales as it works toward allowing certified third-party app stores to operate more like the Play Store.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Australia is drawing record levels of international screen production – and Western Australia is betting millions that Perth Film Studios can bring some of it west
Tom Avison is just back from Los Angeles when I meet him at Perth Film Studios on a warm May morning. The studio’s inaugural chief executive was on a whirlwind sales trip, squeezing “about 16 or 17 meetings” into four days with the likes of Netflix, Universal, Warner Bros and Disney. “Basically any production company that you can think of,” he says. “They want to know what’s going on.”
Back at the major new facility in Whiteman, on Perth’s semi-rural north-eastern fringe, the British screen executive is in tour guide mode: affable, brisk, fluent in the strange mix of logistics and optimism required to launch a studio from scratch. Before Perth, Avison helped open Sky Studios Elstree outside London, a major production base that launched with Wicked and later hosted Jurassic World and Bridget Jones. But the Perth role – which he discovered, almost improbably, via LinkedIn – “hooked” him because it offered the chance to shape not just a facility, but an industry still defining itself.
Continue reading...Anker 511 Nano 3 is the kind of charger you’ll want a few of, and for $12.34, you can afford to stock up during Prime Day
The 40+ best Prime Day deals – and 20+ best deals from Amazon competitors
This clever router fixed my spotty home wifi – and it’s currently on sale
A beefy USB charger with half a dozen ports can be great for charging your laptop, phone and even USB bike light all at once, but the real heroes are the pocketable chargers small enough to always be around when you need them. That’s where the Anker 511 Nano 3 fits in.
When I tested 22 different USB chargers to find the best, this little charger easily took the crown for best budget charger thanks to its strong power delivery, compact size and a very hard-to-beat everyday price. That price just got better, though, with an Amazon Prime Day deal bringing it down from its usual $19.99 to just $12.34.
I tested the three best air purifiers to detox the air in your home - all on sale for Prime Day
Continue reading...June 25, 2026 — Building AI systems at scale is demanding, requiring low-latency inference, fast vector search, strong GPU price-performance and infrastructure that can grow without multiplying operational complexity.
NVIDIA’s latest work with Amazon Web Services (AWS) addresses each of those constraints. Across Amazon OpenSearch and Amazon EC2, NVIDIA AI infrastructure is giving enterprises more practical paths to deploy AI at production scale.
EC2 G7 instances powered by NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell Server Edition GPUs expand the compute layer for AI, graphics, video and data analytics workloads, while the NVIDIA cuVS library accelerates the retrieval layer by making GPU-powered vector indexing the default in OpenSearch Serverless. And with AWS achieving NVIDIA Exemplar Cloud status for NVIDIA GB300, customers can trust they’re receiving peak optimized performance for their training workloads.
NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell Server Edition Multi-Workload GPUs Power New Amazon EC2 G7 Instances
Amazon EC2 G7 instances bring NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell Server Edition GPUs to AWS for AI inference, graphics, spatial computing and GPU-accelerated data analytics — delivering a new instance type engineered for production workloads that need performance without the operational overhead of a customer-managed GPU platform.
Compared with G6 instances, G7 delivers up to 4.6x AI inference performance, up to 2.1x graphics performance and significantly faster GPU-accelerated data analytics on Amazon EMR using the NVIDIA cuDF library for Apache Spark workloads.
With support for up to eight GPUs, 256GB of total GPU memory, 700 Gbps of EFA-enabled networking and up to 7.6TB of local NVMe SSD storage — across one-, two-, four- and eight- GPU configurations plus bare metal, coming soon — G7 instances let customers right-size infrastructure for their workloads instead of over-provisioning for them.
The platform’s versatility means AI teams get lower-latency inference. Media and entertainment teams get high-resolution video workflows and rendering. Simulation, computer-aided design, virtual desktop infrastructure, gaming and spatial computing teams get the same instance type for graphics-intensive applications. And data teams can apply the GPU memory, local storage and networking improvements to analytics pipelines and vector database workloads.
G7 instances are accessible through AWS Deep Learning Amazon Machine Images (AMIs), Amazon Deep Learning Containers, Amazon EMR, Amazon EKS, Amazon ECS and graphics AMIs — and coming soon to Amazon SageMaker AI.
NVIDIA cuVS Makes GPU-Accelerated Vector Search the Default in Amazon OpenSearch
The next generation of Amazon OpenSearch Serverless powers agentic AI and dynamic workloads with no infrastructure management required. It uses GPU-accelerated vector indexing, powered by NVIDIA cuVS, as the default compute choice for all vector collections.
For teams building retrieval-augmented generation, semantic search, recommendation systems and agentic AI applications, that shift matters. It turns GPU-powered vector search from a specialized optimization project into a standard AWS capability.
The customer impact is direct: vector indexing up to 10x faster at a quarter of the cost, compared with CPU-only builds — making billion-scale vector databases practical to build in under an hour.
By making NVIDIA cuVS the default in OpenSearch Serverless, AWS customers get a much faster path from raw data to production-ready AI retrieval infrastructure — with serverless scaling that reduces operational overhead when workloads are idle.
AWS Achieves NVIDIA Exemplar Cloud Status for GB300 Training Performance
AWS has achieved NVIDIA Exemplar Cloud status on NVIDIA GB300 for training workloads. This means AWS meets the rigorous performance thresholds that NVIDIA uses to benchmark AI workloads against its reference architecture.
This achievement is the result of deep co-engineering efforts between AWS and NVIDIA teams. Through the NVIDIA Exemplar Clouds initiative, developers and AI leaders can be confident they’re using consistent, high-performance cloud infrastructure for large-scale training, helping teams evaluate cloud providers with greater confidence, improve total cost of ownership and move AI projects from planning to production more efficiently.
Together, these advancements reinforce every layer of the AI infrastructure stack on AWS. The throughline is the same: production-grade AI infrastructure that performs at scale, without adding operational burden to the teams running it.
More from HPCwire: AWS Announces Amazon EC2 G7 Instances Accelerated by NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell Server Edition GPUs
Source: Josiah Byers, NVIDIA
The post NVIDIA and AWS Collaborate to Bring AI to Production at Scale appeared first on HPCwire.
Sarah Mullally ends visit to region with call for two-state solution that allows Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace
The archbishop of Canterbury has called for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine after a pilgrimage in which she met Palestinians attacked by settlers and others detained without trial.
Sarah Mullally, the head of the Church of England, and Hosam Naoum, the Anglican archbishop of Jerusalem, issued a joint letter on Thursday urging Anglicans around the world to press politicians “to take all necessary measures to establish a credible path towards ending the occupation”.
Continue reading...@franko Defo go next time! I'd love for something more frequent at a smaller scale.
Most quantum computing announcements revolve around hardware: more qubits, new processors, and better error correction. DOE’s Quantum Genesis initiative points in a different direction. Rather than focusing on how a quantum computer should be built, it focuses on what scientists should be able to do with it.
The announcement comes just days after the White House issued its Executive Order, Ushering in the Next Frontier of Quantum Innovation. The order lays out the administration’s priorities for quantum computing and establishes the Quantum Computer for Application Development and Discovery Science (QC-ADDS) effort to accelerate scientifically relevant, fault-tolerant quantum computing for research and discovery.
The initiative outlines how DOE plans to get there—with a national competition, a dedicated quantum user facility, and research focused on scientific applications.
(Credit: DOE)
Quantum Genesis is also one of the first major programs under DOE’s broader Genesis Mission, which seeks to bring AI, high-performance computing, and quantum computing together to accelerate scientific discovery.
“The Quantum Genesis initiative is the first step in delivering on President Trump’s charge for a national effort in developing a quantum computer powerful enough for scientific research,” said Michael Kratsios, Assistant to the President and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
The initiative has three main components. The first is the DOE Q Competition, which challenges participants to demonstrate fault-tolerant quantum systems for applications in chemistry, materials science, plasma physics, and high-energy physics. DOE aims to achieve that milestone by 2028. The priority with this component is to go beyond hardware advances alone and actually demonstrate how these systems can tackle real scientific workloads.
A second piece is the National Quantum Supercomputing User Facility. DOE wants researchers to have shared access to advanced quantum systems, much as they do today with leadership-class supercomputers. The facility would also connect quantum computing with existing HPC and AI resources to help create a broader scientific computing environment.
Bright server room data center storage interior 3D rendering
The proposed user facility could prove just as important as the hardware itself. Instead of limiting advanced quantum systems to a handful of organizations, DOE wants researchers from across the country to be able to use them through a shared national resource. It’s the same model the department has long used for leadership-class supercomputers, where scientists apply for computing time rather than building their own systems.
The third effort centers on applications. DOE plans to work with national laboratories, universities, and industry to identify the scientific problems best suited for quantum computing, helping software and algorithms evolve alongside the hardware.
The three efforts suggest Quantum Genesis is an attempt to build the broader ecosystem needed to make fault-tolerant quantum computing a practical resource for scientific discovery.
“Just as telescopes allowed us to explore the cosmos, advanced quantum computers will enable us to peer into the fundamental laws of nature with unparalleled precision,” said DOE Under Secretary for Science Darío Gil. “This transformative opportunity for scientific discovery, deeply intertwined with advancements in AI enabled by the Genesis Mission, will be powered by DOE’s unique system of User Facilities, research centers, and partnerships that have laid the foundation for this next era of discovery.”
The initiative repeatedly returns to research problems in chemistry, materials science, plasma physics, and high-energy physics, suggesting that scientific capability and not commercial adoption, is the benchmark against which these systems will ultimately be judged.
(Jurik Peter/Shutterstock)
For the HPC community, Quantum Genesis reflects the idea that quantum computing is unlikely to replace classical supercomputers. Instead, DOE envisions quantum systems working alongside leadership-class HPC, AI infrastructure, ESnet, and national user facilities. That integrated approach reflects the department’s view of future scientific computing, where multiple architectures contribute to solving problems that no single system can address alone.
Whether DOE achieves its 2028 target remains to be seen. More significant is the direction it has set. It’s a direction that measures quantum computing not simply by hardware advances, but by its ability to become a practical platform for scientific discovery.
The post From Executive Order to Execution: Inside DOE’s Quantum Genesis Initiative appeared first on HPCwire.
Wondering if installing central air is worth the cost? Here's how to determine if it's the best move for your home.
Inflation continued to rise in May, with the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index rising at an annual rate of 4.1%.
Interest earnings with each account type will be similar, but they won't be identical. Here's what to know now.
The Supreme Court struck down a Hawaii restriction that prohibits concealed-carry permit holders from bringing their firearms onto private property that is open to the public, like gas stations, restaurants or shops.
The blockbuster launch is expected to dwarf the box office takings of the year’s biggest movies with one industry analyst predicting it could make $1bn within an hour
It is, quite simply, the most anticipated piece of entertainment since the Star Wars prequels and now, at last, you can reserve a copy. At midnight last night, Rockstar opened preorders on Grand Theft Auto VI, the latest title in the epic open-world gangster adventure series, five months before its 19 November release date on PS5 and Xbox Series S/X.
Prices have also been confirmed, with the standard edition costing $80 in the US, £70 in the UK, and €80 in Europe. An Ultimate Edition (£90/€100/$100) will include exclusive in-game cars, clothes and weapons – the developer has confirmed that there will also be in-game stores that are only open to Ultimate owners. Anyone who pre-orders the game will get a Vintage Vice City pack filled with 80s apparel and other nostalgic items, which look to be straight out of Don Johnson’s Miami Vice wardrobe.
Continue reading...BOSTON, June 25, 2026 — Qblox, a leading provider of scalable quantum control electronics, today announced a collaboration with HPE to advance hybrid classical-quantum computing. Through this collaboration, Qblox control systems are a core enabler of HPE’s effort to integrate quantum technologies with high-performance computing (HPC) and AI infrastructure at scale.
Quantum systems require scalable, deterministic control electronics to operate reliably in hybrid, classical-quantum computing environments. As these architectures move from isolated laboratory systems to integration with HPC and AI infrastructure, the quantum control layer becomes a critical interface connecting quantum processors to classical HPC systems. Qblox modular control hardware is designed to meet these demands across multiple qubit modalities, supporting the development of hybrid classical-quantum environments built for the next generation of scientific and industrial workloads.
“HPE brings unparalleled AI-native and high-performance computing infrastructure and a determined vision of the industry’s future to our partnership,” said Niels Bultink, CEO of Qblox. “Our commitment to building control layers that can connect quantum processors to supercomputing environments leads us to collaborations that help push the boundaries of what the industry can achieve.”
Through the collaboration, Qblox will work with HPE to support the development of integrated testbeds for hybrid algorithm co-design, software interoperability, and system-level performance benchmarking. The work is designed to advance computational workflows that run across HPC systems and AI factory environments, paving the way for scalable quantum technologies for scientific and industrial applications.
“HPE is committed to advancing the convergence of supercomputing, AI, and quantum computing technologies to unlock new scientific discoveries and industrial innovation,” said Masoud Mohseni, Director of HPE Quantum and Senior Distinguished Technologist at HPE Labs. “The collaboration with Qblox aims to merge classical HPC that provides a critical layer of scalable, high-precision control to quantum computing bridging processors. Hybrid classical-quantum architectures support interoperability and performance at scale, accelerating the path toward practical, real-world quantum applications.”
As quantum computing moves from isolated lab setups to integration with HPC and AI systems, scalable quantum control is becoming essential to architecture. In collaboration with HPE, Qblox is enabling the development of hybrid classical-quantum computing environments tailored for future large-scale scientific and industrial applications.
About Qblox
Qblox is accelerating the quantum revolution as the global leader in scalable quantum control. The company provides the essential control engine that empowers researchers and engineers to build high-performance, robust, and scalable systems. Trusted by industrial and academic leaders worldwide, Qblox sets the standard for quantum control and delivers the backbone for a new era of computing.
Source: Qblox
The post Qblox Collaborates with HPE to Advance Hybrid Classical-Quantum Computing appeared first on HPCwire.
It's been a 13-year wait for Grand Theft Auto 6, but preorders for the blockbuster are live now. Here's what you should know.
Assuming you all have similar experiences to me, people sometimes are really interested in my board and want to talk about it. The conversations normally all go in a similar way. How fast does it go? How much does it cost? Have you ever wiped out? Is it electric? Despite the conversations all kind of going the same I always try to stick around if I have time and chat enthusiastically with them because they are filled with the same childlike wonder over seeing it as I am over riding it and I never want to leave them with an impression that I'm a jerk. I don't want any sort of backlash or complaint to be raised because of me that would lead to riding being restricted or become more dangerous than it already is. I've never been threatened or had people try to jokingly imply they would mug me. The encounters are always joyful unless it's a person blaming me for them trying to run a stop sign into me.
That being said, one of my most unusual conversations started very normally outside a coffee shop, but after the first question the guy suddenly broke out into a nose bleed and had to go inside to try and deal with it. First time that's ever happened.
Following its roadmap webinar, QuEra detailed a next-generation system designed for more than one billion reliable logical operations and is inviting organizations to co-design fault-tolerant applications through the FTQC Founders Circle.
BOSTON, June 25, 2026 — QuEra Computing today detailed the next phase of its fault-tolerant roadmap, including plans for a next-generation gigaquop-class quantum computer coming in 2028 to 2029, and launched a call for solutions inviting enterprises, HPC centers, and government programs to co-design applications for fault-tolerant quantum hardware before it comes online.
The announcement follows the June 15th unveiling of Libra, QuEra’s first fault-tolerant quantum computer, which is expected to arrive on Amazon Braket in 2028 as part of the company’s expanded strategic collaboration with AWS. Libra is a megaquop-class system, designed to perform on the order of one million reliable logical operations. QuEra’s multi-year strategic partnership with AWS is structured to span multiple system generations.
A Gigaquop-Class System
QuEra’s next-generation system is designed to perform on the order of one billion reliable logical operations, a level commonly referred to as gigaquop-class, and roughly a thousandfold increase over Libra. With projected specifications of more than 1,000 logical qubits, a 10⁻⁹ logical error rate, and over 20,000 physical qubits in a single processing core, the system is targeted for initial use at QuEra in the 2028 to 2029 timeframe. At this scale, gigaquop performance is expected to make substantially larger fault-tolerant workloads possible, including candidate applications in simulation, material and chemical design, machine learning, and optimization that are beyond practical classical computation.
The system extends a roadmap that spans Aquila, QuEra’s 256-qubit analog quantum computer available on Amazon Braket since 2022, and Gemini, a neutral-atom system with logical-qubit capabilities co-located with the ABCI-Q supercomputer in Japan.
“Libra brings fault tolerance to the cloud in 2028, and the next generation is about scaling it by orders of magnitude to unlock new breakthrough solutions to pressing industry problems. We have shown in published research that the building blocks for this scaling exist. This is how QuEra extends its leadership in quantum computing into the fault-tolerant era,” said Andy Ory, CEO of QuEra Computing.
Scaling Beyond Libra
Reaching gigaquop performance while keeping the architecture efficient and compatible with useful applications depends on progress in three areas: reducing space overhead, reducing time overhead, and accelerating quantum error-correction decoding. Together, these advances determine how many physical qubits are needed per logical qubit, how quickly useful logical operations can be executed, and whether the required classical processing can keep pace with the quantum processor.
QuEra’s neutral-atom platform is designed to move beyond a one-code-fits-all model. Flexible long-range connectivity, parallel atom control, and heterogeneous operating zones make it possible to explore and combine multiple QEC code families for different architectural roles, including memory, operations, and magic-state generation.
On space overhead, recent work from QuEra and collaborators points to ultra-high-rate qLDPC code families with an encoding rate close to 50% — effectively two physical qubits per logical qubit — with memory error rates projected in the 10⁻¹³ regime. Such codes could dramatically reduce the physical-qubit requirements for gigaquop-class machines and help open a path toward the teraquop regime.
On time overhead, QuEra is designing QEC architectures that are not only compact but also fast to run — pairing high-throughput syndrome extraction, low-depth logical operations, and efficient magic-state generation, all co-designed around neutral-atom hardware. This already pays off at the megaquop scale in BB-STAR, a megaquop architecture from QuEra and collaborators that co-designs quantum simulation on a lattice, QEC codes, and neutral-atom hardware together. For prototypical simulations such as transverse-field Ising and Fermi-Hubbard dynamics, BB-STAR cuts space-time costs by orders of magnitude — a concrete, Libra-scale case study where co-design makes useful computations far more practical.
For gigaquop-scale systems, QuEra is extending the co-design principle to the dominant operations in fault-tolerant computation. Syndrome extraction, the most frequent error-correction operation, must be high-throughput and low-depth. In QuEra’s recent work on ultra-high-rate qLDPC codes, this means searching not only for high encoding-rate codes, but also for efficient syndrome measurements with parallel hardware controls. The same principle applies to magic-state generation, often the most expensive fault-tolerant operation. A recent example of tricycle codes developed by Harvard researchers shows that high-rate magic can be generated by low-depth, efficient circuits. These examples show why flexibility is central to QuEra’s approach: flexible connectivity, parallelism, and distinct operating zones allow us to combine the codes, and reconfigure around better ones as they are discovered, all within a single device.
Finally, scaling beyond Libra also requires accelerated QEC decoding. As systems grow, error correction must process a rising stream of syndrome data and produce corrections without allowing classical latency to bottleneck the quantum computation. QuEra is collaborating with NVIDIA to pair QuEra’s quantum processors with the NVIDIA platform for quantum-GPU supercomputing, including for real-time error correction at scale. Recent work from Harvard collaborators on neural-network decoders also points to a path in which fast inference can support real-time quantum execution for advanced codes.
“Building logical qubits at scale requires supercomputers integrating high-performance quantum processors with state-of-the-art accelerated computing for tasks such as quantum error correction and qubit calibration,” said Timothy Costa, Vice President and General Manager for Quantum at NVIDIA. “QuEra’s roadmap and the QuEra and NVIDIA collaboration demonstrate how leadership in fault-tolerant quantum systems, AI, and accelerated computing can come together to enable useful hybrid quantum-classical applications at scale.”
QuEra’s accelerated roadmap is built on major scientific advances made possible by support from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), through its ONISQ, MeasQuIT, and Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) programs; the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), through its ELQ program; the Department of Energy’s Quantum Systems Accelerator, part of the National Quantum Initiative; and the National Science Foundation. QuEra and its partners gratefully acknowledge this essential support and look forward to continued collaboration as we enter the era of practical, fault-tolerant quantum computing.
A Call for Solutions
Alongside the roadmap, QuEra opened a call for solutions through its FTQC Founders Circle, a program for organizations serious about a multi-year fault-tolerant collaboration. The company is inviting enterprises, HPC centers, and government programs to bring their highest-value problems as candidate applications. Selected participants will work with QuEra’s scientific and applications teams to evaluate candidate use cases, co-design fault-tolerant algorithms, and establish a path toward priority system access where technical and business fit are clear.
The rationale is timing. With early co-design across applications, algorithms, QEC codes, compilation, and hardware implementation, the number of physical qubits, runtime, and decoding overhead required for fault-tolerant algorithms can be reduced significantly. Mapping a hard problem onto fault-tolerant hardware is therefore a multi-year optimization process that should begin before gigaquop-class systems come online.
“A roadmap is only useful when customers can act on it,” said Yuval Boger, Chief Commercial Officer at QuEra. “With this call for solutions, we are inviting organizations to bring their highest-value problems into a co-design process for fault-tolerant systems. The organizations that begin now will define the first wave of useful quantum applications, rather than waiting to see what others build.”
Learn More
About QuEra Computing
QuEra is putting quantum to work. As the scientific and commercial leader in neutral-atom quantum computing, we help enterprise innovators leverage quantum to gain competitive advantage, support HPC centers as their users tackle classically intractable problems, and enable government programs to build national and sovereign capabilities. We do this by combining our quantum systems, available on-premises and via the cloud, with application co-design and collaborative research. Born at Harvard and MIT and still advancing together, QuEra builds neutral-atom systems on a public, peer-reviewed path to fault tolerance, and operates globally from Boston, New Mexico, Tokyo, Zurich, and the United Kingdom. As quantum computing moves from “one day” to “Day One,” QuEra delivers practical impact today while leading the path toward large-scale, fault-tolerant systems. See what’s possible at www.quera.com.
Source: QuEra
The post QuEra Unveils Gigaquop Quantum Roadmap, Launches FTQC Founders Circle appeared first on HPCwire.
A woman was rescued by a Coast Guard aircrew on Saturday, after falling 120 feet down a mountain in Washington state.
As the country reaches this historic milestone, we would like to hear from people in the US on how they are feeling about the country’s future
The United States will mark 250 years since declaring independence from the British on 4 July, with commemorations in Washington DC overseen by Donald Trump and a series of events planned across the National Mall.
The milestone also comes at a turbulent moment for the country. Internationally, the Trump administration has moved away from some longstanding European allies while navigating ongoing tensions in the Middle East.
Continue reading...We are looking to hear from people born on 4 July about what it means to share a birthday with the US when it turns 250 years old
The United States will celebrate its 250th anniversary of its independence on 4 July, marking a milestone in the nation’s history with events and commemorations across the country.
For some Americans, however, the date carries a more personal significance: it’s also their birthday.
Continue reading...Move comes after Hegseth made shot optional for military in April and Texas outbreak has sickened nearly 300 people
The Pentagon has said that boot camps for all the military services are once again requiring the flu vaccination for all recruits after the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, made the shot optional for the military at the end of April.
The development on Wednesday was confirmed by a Pentagon official to the Associated Press and came amid a growing, weeks-long, flu outbreak at the US air force’s boot camp at Lackland air force base in San Antonio, Texas.
Continue reading...Late-night vote came hours after US president berated GOP senators over opposition to the conflict
Senate Republicans rejected a war powers resolution in a late-night vote, hours after they were berated by Donald Trump over opposition to his controversial war on Iran.
The US president was said to have harangued GOP senators during a lunch on Capitol Hill earlier on Wednesday. The previous day, they had angered the White House by allowing a vote to block Trump’s war in Iran.
Continue reading...Case of Andrei Pivovarov raises questions about how much control Cellebrite has over its own software
Russian authorities used tools from the Israeli company Cellebrite to break into the phone of a political prisoner, months after the company said it cancelled its contracts with Russia, an investigation by the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab research unit has found.
The case raises questions about how much control Cellebrite has over its own software, which allows users to easily break into phones and examine their contents. The tools are sold worldwide and widely used by police forces in the UK and the US.
Continue reading...Not every Prime Day deal is worth your money. We vetted sales from Samsung, Our Place, Stasher, Cozy Earth, Levoit and more – here are our best picks
Prime Day is the wild west of online shopping. For every genuinely great deal, there are about seven duds dressed up in “best of” graphics. To prevent you from wasting your money (or time), our editors have cut through the chaos to find Prime Day 2026’s good stuff.
Every item in this roundup has been personally tested, vetted and loved by the Filter team. We’ve also factchecked the price history on each pick to spot “list prices” that never existed and fake markdowns. It may be overkill for a list of deals, but we take your wallet seriously.
Best kitchen deal:
Our Place Titanium Always Pan Pro
Best home deal:
Levoit Tower Fan
LUXEMBOURG and BARCELONA, Spain, June 25, 2026 — SUSE, a global leader of enterprise open source software, and Openchip & Software Technologies S.L., a developer of high-performance RISC-V compute accelerators, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to collaborate on Europe’s first enterprise-grade sovereign technology stack spanning from RISC-V-based hardware architectures to open source software. The partnership aims to ensure SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, SUSE Kubernetes Engine (RKE2), SUSE Rancher Prime, and SUSE AI Factory enable the high performance of Openchip’s upcoming hardware and software.
The companies signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to optimize enterprise Linux and Kubernetes software for European-designed RISC-V processors.
“Our enterprise customers require predictable infrastructure that complies with evolving European data regulations,” said Andreas Prins, Global Head Sovereign Solutions at SUSE. “By collaborating early with Openchip, we ensure that when their RISC-V hardware hits the market, the software stack – from the Linux operating system to Kubernetes container management – will be fully optimized, secure, and ready for deployment.”
“Building advanced RISC-V compute accelerators is only half the equation; those chips need a reliable, enterprise-grade software ecosystem to fully realise deployment goals for data center, supercompute, public and critical sector organizations,” said Robin Giller, Chief Product Officer at Openchip. “Partnering with SUSE allows us to provide a complete, regionally sourced and competitive hardware and software solution that fits seamlessly into existing data center workflows.”
While many European organizations use software layers that are built using open source, their underlying infrastructure frequently relies on proprietary silicon architectures developed outside of Europe.
This can expose critical environments to geopolitical friction, trade constraints, and international semiconductor supply chain disruptions. By pairing SUSE’s open source software and experience with European-designed open hardware architectures and products, SUSE and Openchip aim to deliver a true EU sovereign full stack hardware and software alternative. Designed in Europe, built in Europe but available to all that seek a truly sovereign choice.
Collaboration Spanning Hardware and Application Layers
Under the terms of the MoU, the parties intend to focus on several goals:
Compliance for Critical Sectors
The joint integration is designed to help organizations satisfy the data auditing, data locality, and operational resilience mandates of European regulations, including NIS2, DORA, and the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA).
The platform is designed to serve as infrastructure for data center modernization, localized AI and supercompute rollouts, and compliance overhauls for European public sector organizations, healthcare networks, defense agencies, and critical infrastructure operators.
Openchip was selected by the European Commission as an Important Project of Common European Interest (IPCEI ME/CT) to support European industrial deployment across the microelectronics value chain, backed by €111M in EU NextGen Funds and the €240M DARE project. SUSE reinforces this foundation with its existing portfolio of enterprise Linux deployment.
About Openchip
Openchip is a European systems company developing a unique portfolio of RISC-V–based compute accelerators, infrastructure hardware and full-stack software for next-generation AI and HPC applications. Headquartered in Barcelona, with a growing presence across Europe, Openchip unites top silicon and software engineering talent with a strong focus on AI. Its end-to-end optimized products advance digital sovereignty and deliver top-tier performance for Europe’s most critical computing needs. For more information, visit https://openchip.com.
About SUSE
SUSE is a global leader of enterprise open source software. By transforming community innovations into secure, sovereign and AI-ready solutions, SUSE empowers customers to escape vendor lock-in and regain control of their IT destiny. Through industry-leading Linux, Kubernetes, Edge and AI infrastructure solutions, SUSE delivers the flexibility to innovate everywhere – from the data center to multi-cloud and out to the edge. Only SUSE also manages many Linux and Kubernetes distributions. At SUSE, Choice Happens because we prioritize community, interoperability and relentless innovation. Discover how we power mission-critical resilience at www.suse.com.
Source: SUSE
The post SUSE and Openchip Partner to Develop Sovereign European RISC-V Hardware and Open Source Software Stack appeared first on HPCwire.
I took Leica's latest mirrorless camera for some photography around Scotland. Here's what I got.
A legal battle over a data center's environmental impact opens a window into the US military's rapid adoption of AI for warfighting.
SUNNYVALE, Calif., June 25, 2026 — Cerebras Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CBRS) has announced financial results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2026, ended March 31, 2026.
“This was an outstanding start to 2026 for Cerebras. And we are proud of our achievements,” said Andrew Feldman, Cerebras co-founder and CEO. “AI has moved from being a novelty to being useful and productive. Cerebras’ wafer-scale technology delivers the fastest AI in the world. And fast AI is more valuable than slow AI because it is more productive. It provides answers in less time. It delivers solutions in less time. This in turn has created significant momentum with pioneering customers like OpenAI and AWS and emerging customers as well. The growing importance of AI in our economy requires AI infrastructure that can power the most advanced applications at unprecedented speed. This is the Cerebras mission.”
“Our strong financial performance in Q1 highlights the large and rapidly growing opportunity in front of us,” said Bob Komin, Cerebras CFO. “We are focused on innovating at the pace of demand, supporting accelerating investments in growth and capitalization on strategic opportunities while effectively managing our capital structure.”
1Q 2026 Financial Highlights
GAAP Financial Results:
Core Financial Results are all non-GAAP metrics (and exclude the impact of amortization of customer warrants, data center pass-through revenues and costs, stock-based compensation, and certain other items):
Q2 2026 Financial Outlook
Full Year Fiscal 2026 Financial Outlook
Core Non-GAAP Financial Outlook:
About Cerebras Systems
Cerebras Systems (NASDAQ: CBRS) is building the world’s fastest AI infrastructure. The Cerebras team of pioneering computer architects, computer scientists, AI researchers, and engineers of all types came together to make AI blisteringly fast through innovation and invention. They believe that when AI is fast, it will change the world. Leading global corporations, research institutes, and governments choose Cerebras to run their AI workloads. Cerebras solutions are available on premises and in the cloud.
Source: Cerebras
The post Cerebras Systems Announces Strong 1st Quarter 2026 Results appeared first on HPCwire.
NEW YORK, June 25, 2026 — Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. has announced at its Investor Day, new data center solutions, including the Qualcomm Dragonfly C1000 CPU, Qualcomm High Bandwidth Compute (HBC), Qualcomm Dragonfly AI300 inference accelerator, and connectivity products, together with custom silicon solutions, all engineered to maximize performance per watt and token throughput at lower total cost of ownership.
Credit: Qualcomm
The new platforms highlight Qualcomm Technologies’ growing role in building full‑stack data center infrastructure optimized for AI, spanning agentic and data‑center‑class CPUs, AI inference accelerators, high‑performance connectivity, and at scale custom silicon solutions. The Qualcomm Dragonfly AI300 joins the previously announced Qualcomm Dragonfly AI200 and AI250 in its data center solutions portfolio with an annual cadence AI accelerator roadmap.
“Agentic AI is driving a significant increase in demand for AI inference in the data center. As these become the dominant workloads, infrastructure has to deliver much higher performance at lower power and cost,” said Cristiano Amon, President and CEO of Qualcomm Incorporated. “That plays directly to Qualcomm’s strengths, and we’re well positioned for this shift. With Qualcomm Dragonfly, we’re bringing our high-performance, low-power computing into the data center, with multi-year, multi-generation agreements with leading customers.”
Inference-First Platforms Built for Hyperscalers
Qualcomm Technologies draws on decades of expertise in systems-on-chips (SoCs), low-power design, high-performance processing, and leading IP, combined with experience engineering over 40 billion components, to deliver disaggregated, rack-scale AI infrastructure designed for data-center-grade, agent-intensive AI inference workloads at hyper scale. These innovations enable improved token economics, low latency, simplified integration, scalable deployment, and lower total cost of ownership. As agentic AI dramatically increases token demand, Qualcomm Technologies’ solutions are optimized for tokens-per-watt as the key lever to reduce total cost of ownership (TCO).
“What enterprises need now goes far beyond individual components. Orchestrating multiple types of compute across distributed, always-on infrastructure is critical,” said Tony Pialis, EVP and GM of Data Center, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “With Qualcomm Dragonfly, we’re bringing together compute, AI, memory, and connectivity into a unified, rack-scale platform designed for increasingly complex, agent-driven workloads while addressing key bottlenecks in memory bandwidth and power consumption. This builds on what Qualcomm Technologies has been delivering for decades: high-performance, low-power compute at scale, now applied to the data center in a way that very few companies can match.”
From Silicon to Rack: A Disaggregated, Rack-Scale AI Inference Platform
Qualcomm Dragonfly C1000 CPU
Qualcomm High Bandwidth Compute (HBC)
Qualcomm Dragonfly AI300 (Card and Rack)
Custom Silicon
Connectivity
About Qualcomm
Qualcomm is a global computing leader at the center of the AI era, enabling intelligence to scale from the most personal devices to large‑scale infrastructure. Building on more than four decades of innovation, we develop platforms and solutions that bring together advanced AI, high‑performance low-power computing, and industry‑leading connectivity—powering products and services used around the world. At Qualcomm, we are engineering human progress.
Qualcomm Incorporated includes our licensing business, QTL, and the vast majority of our patent portfolio. Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, operates, along with its subsidiaries, substantially all of our engineering and research and development functions and substantially all of our products and services businesses, including our QCT semiconductor business. Snapdragon and Qualcomm branded products are products of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries. Qualcomm patents are licensed by Qualcomm Incorporated. Qualcomm, Snapdragon, Qualcomm Dragonwing and Qualcomm Dragonfly are trademarks or registered trademarks of Qualcomm Incorporated.
Source: Qualcomm
The post Qualcomm Unveils Data Center Roadmap for the Agentic AI Era with New Dragonfly Portfolio appeared first on HPCwire.
Check out some old classics and great new releases on Netflix now.
When Hakeem Jeffries, who’s positioning himself to be House speaker if the Democrats retake the chamber come November, was shown on the screen at an election party full of socialists in Brooklyn Tuesday night, the crowd chanted, “You’re next! You’re next!” Before polls closed on the night that would see the Jeffries-endorsed candidates fall and Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s candidates win, the New York congressman told reporters that he and the mayor have “agreed to strongly disagree” and that “a handful of primaries that go in one direction or the other in a given state or two aren’t going to reshape who we are as House Democrats.”
He may be right in the short term; it will take many nights like Tuesday to remake the face of the party. But what’s underway is nothing less than an existential threat to the version of the party that has made Jeffries its standard-bearer. If middle-of-the-road Democrats fail to reckon with this escalating reality and shift to the left, they risk making themselves irrelevant forever — and ceding even more ground to the Republicans as they cut off their nose to spite their face.
After all three congressional candidates that earned Mamdani’s endorsement — Darializa Avila Chevalier, Brad Lander, and Claire Valdez — won handily, as did nearly all of the Democratic Socialists of America’s down-ballot slate in New York, Jeffries and his ilk were quick to discount Mamdani’s political project as one that could never take root beyond the New York City meeting halls of Williamsburg and Bushwick. But as other primary races this cycle have shown us, that’s simply not true.
In Maine, Graham Platner delivered a crushing defeat in the Democratic Senate primary to Gov. Janet Mills, whom Chuck Schumer reportedly “aggressively recruited” to enter the race at all (and as we’ve covered, her campaign never really got off the ground or found anything approximating grassroots support). Platner’s victory — amid a spate of scandals over his online posts and alleged mistreatment of women — is now exposing the lie of one of his party’s favorite refrains for disciplining the left: that for all our differences, we must “vote blue no matter who.”
These candidates stand for actual policy, not just mealy-mouthed “messaging.”
In the Senate race in Michigan, polling is strong for Abdul El-Sayed, a former public health official pushing Medicare for All and centering Israel’s genocide of Palestinians while competing with a both-sides-ing progressive and an outright AIPAC Democrat. Philadelphia nominated Chris Rabb, an outspoken anti-genocide democratic socialist, over the party’s political machine-mined candidate in Philadelphia, and Dr. Adam Hamawy, a 9/11 first responder who saved Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s life as an Army medic but was also tarred with Islamophobic attacks that tried to frame him as a supporter of terrorism, won a crowded 12-way primary in New Jersey earlier this month. (The latter three have all appeared on the trail with Hasan Piker, the popular streamer who’s become a potent political force for left-wing Democrats, much to the dismay of centrists who condemn him as “controversial” and worse.)
If you care to pay attention, there’s an obvious through line with all these candidates: They all stand for actual policy, not just mealy-mouthed “messaging,” and they have been unequivocal in their criticism of Israel. Mainstream Democrats have long lacked that moral clarity as America’s ally in the Middle East committed a genocide in Gaza and dragged the U.S. into an instantly unpopular war with Iran, and they’re being handed the losses they so richly deserve by candidates running to the left. For now, they’ve responded by making overtures of progressive change without meaningful or widespread policy shifts.
The idea that the party should respond to the will of its voters has become so foreign to the Democrats that Jeffries’s political operation has sneeringly referred to even the notion of a party challenge from the left as coming from “Team Gentrification.” On no issue is the division between voters and the national party as stark as it is when it comes to Israel.
A party that wants to defeat the rise of the far right in this country should look to bring the left in, especially as it continues to win at the ballot box. But instead, establishment Democrats have continued to bash and attempt to marginalize the growing left consensus. “If you hate the Democratic Party, then please don’t run for our nomination,” former Democratic National Committee chair Jaime Harrison wrote on social media on Tuesday.
But you can only condescend and disregard your party’s supporters for so long until they look for another vision of the future — one that doesn’t include you.
The post The Left Just Keeps Winning. It’s Time for Democrats to Bend the Knee. appeared first on The Intercept.
Seventeen people hurt after car drives through crowd
Driver arrested following incident at tourist resort
More than a dozen people were injured on Wednesday night when a vehicle drove through a crowd in the popular tourist resort of Cabo San Lucas during a celebration of Mexico’s World Cup match victory, Los Cabos’s local authorities said in a statement.
“According to preliminary information, the vehicle was surrounded by a group of people and, for reasons to be determined by the competent authority, drove through the crowd, injuring several people,” the local authorities added.
Continue reading...The featherweight pair — orbiting a star 1,110 light-years away — are the biggest exoplanets found to have less density than cotton candy.
IBM today announced the world’s first sub-1 nanometer (nm) chip technology, which it developed using a novel “nanostack” technique that packs 100 billion transistors into a space the size of a fingernail. The company also said that it has found a way to boost SRAM density of its nanostacks by 40% which could lead to powerful new chips that accelerate AI workflows.
IBM’s shows sub-1nm node with Nanostack technology (Image from “NanoStack Transistor Architecture for CMOS 7A Node and Beyond” paper)
IBM said its nanostack design uses vertically stacked and staggered transistors developed on a 0.7 nm, or 7 angstrom node. This is what allows it to take advantage of 3D sequential integration to pack more transistors onto a chip, IBM said. The resulting density gives you either 50% more performance compared to IBM’s previous nanosheet technology, or a 70% gain in energy efficiency.
The new technology is an extension of existing IBM chip design techniques, including its Fin Field-Effect Transistor (FinFET) 3D transistor technology, which opened the door to chips with gates smaller than 7nm, and its Nanosheet technology, which got IBM down to 2nm when IBM announced it back in 2021.
“NanoStack is a sequential stacking CMOS transistor architecture featuring flexible placement of top and bottom nanosheet channels, thermally stable bottom FET gate stack, thin dielectric bonding and more,” IBM researchers say in a new paper, titled “NanoStack Transistor Architecture for CMOS 7A Node and Beyond.
IBM’s innovation with Nanostacking was figuring out how to combine and compress the nanosheets into a smaller area.
“So here you see a picture of the nanostack,” Jay Gambetta said in a press briefing. “It comprises of two transistors, two nanosheets built on top of each other. Each one of these…[is about] 5 nanometers, which is about 15 silicon atoms. There’s three of them. That forms the NFET transistor on the bottom. And then our innovation is bonding this material to the second transistor, which is above, [which] allows us to compress this density and achieve the [sub-1nm density].”
IBM is implementing the Nanostack technology on a traditional 300 mm CMOS wafer
IBM says that, by using staggered channels in the nanostacked chips, it can boost SRAM density by 40% compared to non-stacked or staggered chips. Combined, these two innovations could lead to smaller, more powerful chips that to power AI workloads in the future.
“This is a step change the industry hasn’t seen in…decades,” Gambetta said. “For example, the step from 3 nanometers to 2 nanometers, we saw only a few percent [increase in SRAM density]…This achievement of 40% will eventually industrialize itself in AI workflows, which require higher bandwidth and high efficiency.”
IBM said its new nanostack technology could lead to chips based on a sub-1nm node in about five years. IBM said it’s installing a High NA EUV lithography tool from ASML in its Albany, New York lab to create the smaller, more powerful chips.
The post IBM Touts Sub-1nm Nanostack Chip Technology appeared first on HPCwire.
Accused of being ‘primary conspirator’ in targeted plot
Florida attorney: Potential sentence is up to life in prison
Team decline to comment on cornerback’s situation
Detroit Lions starting cornerback Terrion Arnold has been arrested and is accused of being the ringleader in an armed robbery and kidnapping in Florida, and state prosecutors plan to charge him with multiple felonies.
Three men in their late teens were held at gunpoint, battered, pistol-whipped and robbed in Tampa on 4 February, and the 23-year-old Arnold was the “primary conspirator”, the Tampa police department said in a statement Wednesday.
Continue reading...Second quake, at magnitude 7.5, was most powerful to strike the country since 1900, collapsing buildings in capital
Venezuela’s interim leader, Delcy Rodríguez, has declared a state of emergency after the country was struck by two powerful earthquakes that collapsed dozens of buildings and killed at least 164 people, a toll that it is feared could rise significantly.
Rodríguez said 971 people were injured and more casualties were expected. The two strong earthquakes hit within a minute of each other shortly after 6pm local time on Wednesday. The first had a magnitude of 7.2 and the second 7.5, the most powerful to strike the country since 1900, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).
Continue reading...Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for June 25, No. 640.
A massive fire in Allentown, Pennsylvania, forced nearby residents to evacuate their homes Wednesday night.
As long as Israel continues its attacks on Lebanon, any deal between the US and Iran will be at risk
On 18 June, JD Vance stood in the White House press briefing room and tore into Israeli critics of the Iran deal that his boss, Donald Trump, had signed the previous day. The vice-president argued that Trump was the only world leader who was still sympathetic to Israel after nearly three years of wars and destruction across the Middle East. “If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government,” Vance said, “I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world.”
Vance also pointed out that, during the recent US-Israeli war on Iran, two-thirds of the defensive weapons used to protect Israel from Iranian retaliation “have been built by American hands and paid for by American tax dollars”. Vance publicly scolded Israel’s leaders in a way they have rarely been criticized by a high-level US politician. And while Vance did not directly target his criticism at the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, the subtext was clear: the Trump administration is willing to call out the Israeli leader for sabotaging ceasefire agreements so that he could prolong regional wars and maintain power.
Mohamad Bazzi is a Guardian US columnist. He is also director of the Center for Near Eastern Studies and a journalism professor at New York University
Continue reading...Exclusive: Rights group says Nigel Farage’s party is reneging on promises made during the Brexit referendum campaign
EU nationals based permanently in the UK have expressed alarm over a Reform UK plan to target their rights to accommodation and employment, saying the policy is a betrayal of promises made in the Brexit referendum 10 years ago.
Under updated migration policies, Nigel Farage’s party would evict all overseas nationals from social housing and make it notably more expensive for companies to employ them, with both policies also affecting EU nationals who have settled status.
Continue reading...Your teeth have the potential to be whiter, but not if you keep making these mistakes.
Duty on imports outside new quota will double in move echoing similar changes in EU limits
The UK government will halve the amount of tariff-free steel imports allowed in an attempt to counter a global oversupply of cheap Chinese metal and bolster its beleaguered local industry.
New “safeguards” will be introduced on 1 July and will coincide with similar new limits being introduced by the EU for the same purposes. The UK said it and the EU had agreed an approach that reflected each other’s “highly interconnected supply chains” after months of negotiations over retaining tariff-free access between the markets.
Continue reading...Buildings collapse after twin 7.2- and 7.5-magnitude quakes. Plus, why apartment renters are facing a rising tide of fees
Good morning.
Venezuela’s interim leader, Delcy Rodríguez, has declared a state of emergency after the country was struck by two powerful earthquakes, causing dozens of buildings to collapse. At least 164 people were killed and a further 971 injured. Experts warned the death toll was likely to rise.
What do we know? The US Geological Survey said Venezuela had been hit by a magnitude 7.5 “mainshock” and a 7.2 “foreshock” 39 seconds earlier. “High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” it.
How does the damage look on the ground? Rodríguez, who confirmed the death toll, said the airport had been closed after sustaining “severe damage” and that metro and rail services had been suspended. A Guardian reporter saw at least three buildings that had collapsed in Altamira, an affluent district in Caracas that is home to many foreign embassies, after the quakes struck shortly after 6pm on Wednesday.
This is what the company said: Greystar told the Guardian it disagreed with the allegations in the court actions and was “actively defending” the cases. In various court filings, the company has called tenants’ legal complaints factually deficient, implausible and “futile”.
In other housing news: On Wednesday, Donald Trump abruptly cancelled his plan to sign a bipartisan bill aimed at lowering the cost of housing, holding the bill – which passed the House and Senate – hostage until Congress passes the Save America Act, which would impose new identification requirements on voters and curtail mail-in voting.
Continue reading...Our experts found and vetted the best Prime Day deals and sales. Here are our picks for nontoxic cookware, bedding, tower fans and more
Prime Day is the wild west of online shopping. For every genuinely great deal, there are about seven duds dressed up in “best of” graphics. To prevent you from wasting your money (or time), our editors have cut through the chaos to find Prime Day 2026’s good stuff.
Every item in this roundup has been personally tested, vetted and loved by the Filter team. We’ve also factchecked the price history on each pick to spot “list prices” that never existed and fake markdowns. It may be overkill for a list of deals, but we take your wallet seriously.
Best kitchen deal:
Our Place Titanium Always Pan Pro
Best home deal:
Levoit Tower Fan
IBM has raised the curtain on semiconductor technology it says could deliver computer chips with 50 percent better performance while dramatically lowering power consumption.
Why Should Delaware Care?
Gambling and lottery games are increasingly moving online, and regulators are following them there to keep pace. But that movement has begun to cut out one of the stakeholders in Delaware’s gambling economy: the retailers that sell the scratch-offs and lottery tickets. A new bill looks to bring them back into the equation.
A new bill could require online lottery players to first buy a prepaid card in a physical store.
Introduced by Rep. Bill Bush (D-Dover), House Bill 335 intends to protect small businesses’ sales role as the Delaware Lottery moves increasingly online.
If approved, Delaware would be the only state with such a prepaid card requirement, state Lottery Director Helene Keeley said.
Earlier this year, Delaware launched digital scratch-off games through iLottery, which allowed players to directly transfer funds from their bank accounts. The lottery plans to expand the online service later this year to offer multi-state lottery drawings, like Powerball and Mega Millions, through Scientific Games, the state’s longtime contract partner.
Bush argues House Bill 335 aims to uphold Delaware’s 2012 law that first authorized internet gambling and required prepaid cards to play internet games. Under iLottery’s current system, however, those prepaid cards are no longer required.
So-called “igaming services,” like sports betting and online casino games, would not be impacted by the new bill, Bush added.
He called out the lottery for not upholding the protective provision in the bill passed over a decade ago.
But Keeley said the original text did not mandate prepaid cards, but rather considered multiple funding options. House Bill 335 removes the option of an “other mechanism” through which players can fund online play.
Bush said the iLottery launch arguably shouldn’t have happened in the first place.
“The burden created by this requirement could be so substantial that it would ultimately threaten the viability of the online lottery program itself,” Keeley said in a statement to Spotlight Delaware.
Bush said he doesn’t know whether iLottery sales impact small stores, but the bill provides protection regardless.
During a June 6 House Appropriations Committee hearing, Keeley presented letters from the Virginia and Pennsylvania lotteries stating that iLottery games there had not harmed local retailers in their states. Pennsylvania launched its iLottery program in 2018 while Virginia launched in 2020.
Currently, the Delaware Lottery offers an affiliate program for retailers to make commissions from linked iLottery players. Along with Pennsylvania and Virginia, it is one of the three states that does so, Keeley said.
According to data shared by the Delaware Lottery, cumulative retail sales since iLottery’s launch have increased from $151 million in 2025 to $158 million in the last eight months.
A Scientific Games company spokesperson said that since iLottery launched in 2025, retailer sales of all lottery products have increased “approximately 5% year-over-year.”
James Leonard, senior director at Scientific Games who helped launch Delaware’s iLottery, said at House Appropriations that the program launched with the expectation that it would generate “more than $4 million annually in additional lottery revenues for the state.”
If HB 335 were to be implemented, annual iLottery revenue could lose of up to $4 million by the third year, according to a fiscal analysis of the bill.
Up to 30% of total revenue from lottery ticket sales go to Delaware’s General Fund, which finances the state’s day-to-day operations. The lottery’s contribution only accounts for roughly about 3-4% of the fund’s total revenue.
Bush recognized this loss, but said the need to protect small businesses is foremost.
Keeley said the Lottery has “engaged extensively” with retailers, implementing “what is widely regarded as one of the most generous retailer incentive programs in the nation.”
After talking with retailers, she said the lottery ultimately decided to release e-Instant games first before online draw.
Meanwhile, Mike O’Halloran, executive director of the Mid-Atlantic Petroleum Distributors’ Association, said the iLottery launch took a lot of stores by surprise.
The association has been partners with the lottery for over 50 years, and collected over $1 billion in revenue in the last five years, according to O’Halloran.
“For whatever reason, the lottery department never promulgated any regulations to create the program,” he said, “And certainly didn’t promulgate the regulations with regards to critical retail protection that was in that 2012 law.”
Bush is mainly concerned for the small stores in rural areas, “places that don’t get your everyday traffic,” he said. Out of the Lottery’s 610 retail partners in the state, 407 are small businesses, according to Keeley.
Some aren’t worried about losing sales to iLottery.
Mark Wortman manages The General Store, a deli and convenience store in Lewes. Wortman said when he told his customers about the new iLottery system, they weren’t interested.
Most of his clientele who buy lottery tickets are older and don’t bother with the online offerings.
“A lot of the older folks love the one-on-one transactions,” Wortman added.
In downtown Rehoboth, a couple blocks from the boardwalk, RB Convenience owner Shane Mellin said that when iLottery launched its digital platform it was “a little unsettling.” But he’s since discovered that the majority of his customers just aren’t interested in the digital options.
Like Wortman, Mellin also said that most of his lottery customers are older and enjoy the trip to the store.
“They like the ritual of coming in, getting a paper ticket, checking in,” he said.
Out in western Kent County in the unincorporated community of Sandtown, Anne Bischoff, the manager of the Country Cupboard, a convenience store and gas station, said that they don’t get a lot of lottery ticket sales.
The store is one of about six lottery retailers in Kent County west of Route 15.
Both Wortman, Mellin, and Bischoff said that they have not seen a decrease in scratch-off sales since iLottery released their digital version this year.
While the Lottery and Scientific Games argue that iLottery will help attract new players and subsequently generate more state revenue, supporters of the bill worry about the future of retail sales.
“iLottery was not designed to replace retail lottery sales, it was designed to reach new players and engage consumers who increasingly expect digital options,” Leonard said in the committee hearing.
While some retailers said that the majority of their lottery customers are older, O’Halloran is worried about iLottery moving the next generation of players online.
“Once those newer players are introduced to iLottery and start online, they’re going to stay online, which means that every successive generation of players are just going to grow up playing iLottery,” he said.
If this happens, he predicts iLottery will eventually succeed in-store sales.
Bush felt that if the Lottery was going to move forward with its online expansion, it should’ve come to the legislature first.
He said that there will be talks with the Lottery and retailers this week to “see if there is a solution somewhere in the middle.”
Three distribution association groups, including MAPDA, sent a letter to Gov. Matt Meyer last September, asking to halt the program and to discuss other options. O’Halloran said they’ve received no response.
The post New bill would force online lottery players to buy retail cards appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.
joshuark shares a report from Car and Driver: A new study conducted by the New York Times shows that the increase in vehicle hood height seen over the last two and a half decades, mainly due to the rise in popularity of large SUVs and trucks, has resulted in several thousand deaths that otherwise may not have happened. The study shows that while automakers and regulators have focused on occupant safety, they have turned a blind eye to pedestrian safety, which has fallen since around 2009. Researchers looked at four main datasets in their investigation: crash test data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) Crash Report Sampling System (CRSS) from 2016 to 2024; NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS); vehicle measurement data from Expert AutoStats; and vehicle registration data from S&P Global from 2002 to 2024. The researchers concluded that the increased danger to pedestrians is caused by two main culprits. First, large SUVs and trucks have taller hoods, raising the point of impact above most people's center of gravity and pushing them to the ground, typically hard asphalt, rather than up and onto the hood, which is designed to absorb impacts. Second, with larger A-pillars designed to protect occupants in rollover crashes, modern cars tend to have larger blind spots than cars sold at the turn of the century (presuming the 21st century). The shift toward vehicles with taller hoods led to roughly 3000 deaths between 2016 and 2024. This number is conservative because it does not include crashes that take place in parking lots, driveways, or private roads, which aren't part of the federal database. The data also showed an estimated 2.8 percent increase in the odds of a pedestrian fatality for every one-inch increase in vehicle hood height. Between two different scenarios, one decreasing the hood height of every vehicle in the dataset by 3 inches, and the second using a random sampling of hood heights from 2002 across 10,000 simulated crashes, between 2624 (for scenario two) and 3077 (for scenario one) lives could have been saved from 2016 to 2024.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Advocates condemn change that caps loans at $20,500 per year – less than half median annual cost of PA program
The threat of strict new caps on federal student loans are causing would-be physician assistants to reconsider training, groups representing physician assistants said.
An overhaul of the federal student loan system scheduled to go into effect 1 July strictly would cap the annual amount of federal loans physician assistants can borrow to $20,500 per year – less than half the median annual cost of a PA program.
Continue reading...What are the essential American songs? Ahead of the nation's 250th birthday, we asked that question to Sunday Morning's familiar faces, from performers to artists and writers to community leaders.
Airports CEO says letting non-EU passengers skip entry-exit system would be only way to avoid peak season travel chaos
Rome’s airports will have to suspend the EU’s new digital border system for non-EU citizens to avoid a “disaster” during the peak tourism summer months, according to the head of the airports company.
Marco Troncone said that allowing passengers to skip the biometric entry-exit system (EES) was the only way of avoiding travel chaos over the summer amid warnings from other European airport officials.
Continue reading...The parents of a girl who was raped when she was 12 years old by an adult stranger she connected to via Snapchat have sued its parent company, Snap, and the attacker, in Missouri state court.
From Samsung's Galaxy S26 Ultra to Google's Pixel 10 Pro Fold, these award-winning phones are the best you can buy in 2026.
Venezuela's acting president said the death toll from powerful twin earthquakes was likely to rise, as USGS modeling suggested thousands may have been killed.
Allies lobby to keep chancellor as ‘stable’ choice while Wes Streeting and Ed Miliband also in picture
Rachel Reeves has given her support to Andy Burnham to be the next prime minister, despite reports she is likely to be moved out of the role of chancellor if he becomes Labour leader.
The chancellor told the BBC she and Burnham were friends and did not appear to rule out accepting a more junior cabinet position. “I’m supporting Andy to be prime minister,” she said.
Continue reading...
An investigation by ProPublica and Drilled has found that fossil fuel companies have been funding climate research at prestigious U.S. universities for more than 30 years. Their support has helped amplify the work of scientists who promote the idea that we can stop the climate crisis without breaking our dependence on oil, gas and coal.
The research produced by those schools in turn shaped global climate models, as well as the policy and technology solutions adopted by governments around the world.
Ultimately, it fostered a misperception that climate change could be solved without dramatically curtailing fossil fuels — a notion that has delayed emissions cuts by decades.
Corporate funders sponsored entire centers, paid the salaries of researchers, kept offices on campus and in some cases had veto power over projects.
Companies maintain they are supporting innovation and needed science. Universities say that with safeguards, sponsorship enhances research programs while preserving academic independence.
Still, the impact of funding constitutes a pattern that Benjamin Franta, an associate professor of climate litigation at University of Oxford, called the “colonization of academia.”
The post Carbon Captured appeared first on ProPublica.
LSE analysis highlights litigation linked to energy sources, water consumption and air pollution
The proliferation of datacentres and AI is increasingly at the forefront of environmental litigation around the world, from the US and UK to Chile to Ireland, a report has found.
In an analysis of about 3,600 climate-related lawsuits filed since 2015, the latest annual review of climate litigation by the London School of Economics (LSE) found a growing number of cases challenging the energy sources, water consumption and air pollution of datacentres, all of which have related climate implications.
Continue reading...I put more than 15 sweet, spicy and smoky BBQ sauces to the test. Here are seven I'll be eating all summer.
Although fleeting, sporting events have the enduring power to crumble divisions and highlight the beauty of kinship
“The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat,” went the tagline for the long-running TV show The Wide World of Sports.
We’re all familiar with those rollercoaster emotions whether we follow professional football or dabble in sandlot softball.
Continue reading...A document on an embryo adoption program may be marginal – but it marks an escalation in the pursuit of fetal personhood
The Trump administration quietly declared frozen embryos to be children last week. In a call for grant applications related to a nearly 20-year-old program meant to raise awareness about frozen embryo adoption, the Department of Health and Human Services referred to frozen embryos using the terms “child” and “children”, calling for screening standards for frozen embryo purchasers to be raised to those applied to parents seeking to adopt actual children. The document refers to frozen embryos as “children who already exist and are in need of a family”.
The language is strange and conspicuous in context, even if that context itself may seem marginal: what the Trump administration has done here is change its phrasing in the guidelines for a longstanding and somewhat obscure grant program.
Continue reading...Tenants push for tougher rules against unfair add-on charges. Industry players argue against policies that they say could limit the ‘effective use of fees’
Across the US, many renters are calling for national action to stem add-on charges that spike their housing costs and increase their risk of eviction.
“The rental housing market is one where consumers have little power,” Farah Momin, a renter in Seattle, told the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in April. “Landlords can impose fees through take-it-or-leave-it lease terms, and the cost/disruption of moving means that tenants may absorb unfair charges rather than leave. Federal baseline protections are needed to level this playing field.”
Continue reading...Randy Smith’s resignation was part of plea deal after attack on podcaster Bobby Couvillion at a Madisonville restaurant
A suburban New Orleans sheriff who had held one of his community’s most prominent political offices for a decade has retired shortly after pleading guilty to battering a podcaster who often criticized him.
Randy Smith, 61, also agreed to serve more than a year of probation after admitting to a late May beating at a steakhouse where he had bought 18 alcoholic beverages on his tab on a Friday afternoon – which all but halted his four-decade policing career.
Continue reading...In TV interviews, Gabbard repeatedly used words and phrases recommended in memos that do not identify who was providing the advice.
This story works better on ProPublica’s website.
Global leaders are banking on tech advances to solve climate change.
One leading idea is to capture carbon pollution from the air and then bury it underground forever.
It may sound practical.
There is no conceivable way it can work.
For more than 40 years, oil companies have been funding research at prestigious universities into climate change “solutions” that would not require the public to stop using oil and gas. Among their favored fixes is carbon capture and storage.
An investigation by ProPublica and Drilled has found that boosters of CCS have ignored evidence of the technology’s limitations, or overstated its potential, and convinced the world it could be effective.
They’ve promoted this idea despite the fact that for CCS to work at the scale now envisioned, the world would need to devote almost unimaginable resources. Even if that were done, it might still prove impossible to trap so much carbon dioxide inside the earth.
Optimism has reigned, however, because small tests have worked and because slow global response to climate change has left few other options.
In 2008, the International Energy Agency projected that to stave off dangerous levels of warming, we would have to be burying around 1.6 billion tons, or 1,600 megatons, of CO2 per year by 2025.
Since then, its optimistic projections have continued. But deployment of the technology has never come close to those ambitions.
Right now, globally, we’re permanently burying less CO2 than a single large power plant can emit in a year.
Some experts point to the CO2 that gets pumped into the ground to help extract oil as proof CCS works. But that process, called enhanced oil recovery, isn’t designed to function the same way and isn’t monitored as stringently.
Global leaders are betting on carbon capture working now more than ever.
The models used in the latest United Nations assessment presume the technology succeeds.
IEA representatives and U.N. modelers say their projections reflect what the world has to do to achieve its goals of averting extreme warming.
Trap it from smoke stacks.
Absorb it from the air with fast-growing grasses or trees, then capture it from those plants when they are burned for fuel.
Scrub it from the air, often using giant fans.
Then we would pump all of it into porous rock deep beneath the earth’s surface.
The U.N. analysis now suggests that countries must inject 6 billion tons of CO2 underground each year by the middle of the century.
Imagine the neighborhoods and parks near oil, gas or coal-fired industrial plants. We would need to add equipment to capture the CO2 from each facility, in some cases doubling its land footprint.
And we would need to devote about 768,000 square miles of land worldwide to growing those carbon-absorbing plants. That would cover an area roughly the size of Mexico — and compete for valuable land used to grow food or sustain forests.
In the U.S. alone, this could require building more than 68,000 miles of new pipelines in a little more than two decades.
That’s more than double the distance to fly around the earth.
And longer than the country’s entire interstate highway system.
Globally, pipelines could tally in the hundreds of thousands of miles.
To cross the oceans, we would need at least 85 specially built tankers to move the high-pressured gas. As of April, there were only three ships in the world equipped to do that.
Today, just 12 large-scale geologic reservoirs have attempted to permanently store CO2 pollution — but we would need more than 2,000 reservoirs of that size for CCS to work, each requiring years of study and engineering before it could be used.
That means we would need to open a brand new geological waste site somewhere on the planet every four days for the next 25 years.
Every site would need constant monitoring for decades to ensure the CO2 doesn’t leak.
Right now, U.S. taxpayers are paying oil and gas companies $85 for every metric ton they put underground.
At that rate, by 2050, the world could be spending half a trillion dollars — more than China’s military budget, and 10 times more than the U.N.’s humanitarian and development aid budget — each year.
Since 1996, while the 12 large-scale geological storage projects have opened, plans for another 12 have been scrapped. Many CCS sites in operation — in Norway, Algeria, Australia and the U.S. — have been mired in problems, pointing to enormous challenges ahead.
Some rock layers can hold far less CO2 than experts have estimated.
Finicky pipes and injection systems can get clogged or break down.
The rock that seals CO2 in place can crack, risking a leak. In one instance, injected CO2 caused the ground above it to bulge.
In another instance, CO2 escaped from an old oil industry well nearby.
Thorough, long-term monitoring can be expensive, but without it, such leaks could be missed.
Yet many of them have continued to boost the technology even as they have downplayed solutions showing greater progress.
For example, the same modelers who overestimated the potential of geological carbon storage repeatedly underestimated solar power — one of the energy technologies that would allow more oil to remain in the ground.
Over the last several decades, solar power is the technology that has thrived.
Carbon capture and storage remains elusive.
The post Why Carbon Capture Can’t Conceivably Solve Climate Change appeared first on ProPublica.
Why Should Delaware Care?
Delaware currently imports 80% of the power it uses, and officials have repeatedly emphasized the need to generate more power to help lower skyrocketing energy bills. With the delays to offshore wind, solar remains one of Delaware’s few options to generate renewable energy.
The solar energy industry in Delaware secured major wins this week, despite recent struggles with delays, federal funding cuts and community opposition.
On Tuesday, Gov. Matt Meyer announced at a press conference that he would fast-track permits for four solar projects across the state.
Hours later, the Sussex County Council approved three additional solar projects during a public meeting that notably included little overt opposition.
And on Wednesday lawmakers unanimously approved power bill discounts for households participating in community solar projects.
In all, the three events highlighted a growing momentum to develop more solar power in energy-hungry Delaware, despite a removal of federal incentives for the industry under the Trump administration.
During his press conference, Meyer gestured to hundreds of solar panels that covered what once was cropland near Dover, calling the developments “kind of crazy.”
“It’s science fiction to think that the sun could come down and literally turn into power for hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of Delaware families,” he said.
Nationally, utility-scale solar power is the fastest-growing source of electricity, according to federal data.
Despite the governor’s enthusiasm, some residents of communities where the state’s solar boom is happening say the momentum is unwelcome.
On Tuesday afternoon, about 50 people sat in a banquet hall of the Seaford Volunteer Fire Company to hear about one project that was part of the governor’s fast-tracked permit initiative – called the Jobs First permit accelerator.
There, they grilled the developers of the Meyer-endorsed energy project, while lamenting how solar arrays are taking over their rural landscapes.
“This farmland will be gone forever,” Seaford resident Brian Howard said at the event. “It will change the character of the landscape and neighborhood forever.”
Such resident backlash has slowed solar’s growth in Delaware at times in the past, causing counties to balk at approving projects. In 2023, Kent County even approved new restrictions that banned massive solar projects on farmland.
“I’m not opposed to solar, but I’m opposed to solar taking up valuable farmland,” Tricia Nash, a Kent County farmer who advocated for the solar limits, told Spotlight Delaware previously.
One solar developer said her company’s projects have also confronted delays in Sussex County, “for months, and in some cases years.”
Caroline Belmont of TurningPoint Energy said the delay is linked to rapid growth in new housing projects that have created a long line of developers seeking permit approvals.
Sussex County Planning & Zoning Director Jamie Whitehouse said 38 solar projects have been approved in the last decade.
The Sussex County Council held a hearing last month for eight of TurningPoint Energy’s solar projects, Belmont said, but has not yet decided on approvals.
The local obstacles to solar have added to delays companies have faced when trying to connect to Delmarva Power’s electricity grid – a phenomenon that some energy experts have said contributed to a recent power crunch in the state.
Last year, one industry magazine even called Delaware’s interconnection standards “among the worst in the country.”
Despite the challenges, the approval processes for solar may be speeding up.
Earlier this year, Sen. Stephanie Hansen (D-Middletown) authored two bills to expedite companies’ attempts to connect to the power grid. Meyer signed both into law.
The Sussex County Council’s approvals of three solar projects on Tuesday also may cause optimism within the industry.
Two of those fields will be located near Millsboro and one near Milford.
On Wednesday, the State Senate passed Senate Bill 321 — legislation that solar energy developers hope will build on the momentum in the community solar industry.
Community solar projects are large solar arrays whose electricity is shared by a group of people. They allow people who don’t have the space or funds for rooftop solar to use the resource.
Senate Bill 321 guarantees that any Delmarva Power customer who signs up to be part of a community solar project will get a 10% discount on their energy bill from what the utility would have charged — even after participation fees. Low- and moderate-income residents would get a 20% discount.
Vincent Moschella with ECA Power said he hopes the bill will build trust within the community for the solar industry.
Some Delaware residents signed up for community solar projects when the program was first expanded in 2021, but because of permitting delays, the first project only came online last year, he said.
“Our customers are rightfully upset about it,” Moschella said.
Senate Bill 321 now needs Meyer’s signature to become law.
The post Solar energy gains momentum in Delaware with a push from Gov. Meyer appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.
Photo illustration by Tonje Thilesen for ProPublica
It is rare that a single scientific paper shapes how people think about a challenge as daunting as climate change. But one, known as “Wedges,” published 22 years ago by researchers at Princeton University, told an irresistible story.
It made solving climate change seem possible, even simple. It claimed that the world didn’t have to wait for innovation because it had the tools to start work immediately.
The trick was to do a little of everything and let the effects add up. Renewable energy, nuclear power and conservation were certainly pieces of the solution puzzle. But so were a slew of steps that involved using oil, gas and coal despite the carbon dioxide emissions they would continue to produce.
One fix that “Wedges” leaned especially hard on was carbon capture and storage, a technology that promised to grab carbon pollution from smokestacks and other sources and trap it forever underground. Do that enough, and climate change could be curtailed without upending the world as we know it.
The paper, written by scientists Robert Socolow and Stephen Pacala, became a phenomenon. Former Vice President Al Gore highlighted it in his Oscar-winning climate change documentary. U.S. presidents from George W. Bush to Joe Biden incorporated ideas from it into policy. The United Nations’ panel on climate change worked it into at least three major reports over more than a decade. It was presented in classrooms at Harvard and MIT and cited more than 3,000 times in scientific papers. It was even turned into a board game.
For a generation, people learning how to address global warming were taught the ideas in the “Wedges” paper.
What they didn’t learn was this: “Wedges” was significantly shaped by the British oil giant BP — one of the single global entities most responsible for causing climate change.
In 1997, BP abandoned climate change denial. Instead, the company quietly launched a far-reaching effort to intertwine oil company interests and climate science, in part by using its vast resources to shape the research that major universities undertook.
While its chief executive, John Browne, was rebranding his company as Beyond Petroleum, BP sought out researchers who were already thinking about how to address climate change without replacing fossil fuels. The company found them at Princeton University, where it set about amplifying their work by donating $15 million to start the Carbon Mitigation Initiative. The research program was framed around finding solutions to climate change while keeping fossil fuels in play, focusing heavily on carbon capture.
The “Wedges” paper was the initiative’s first big swing. And it succeeded beyond anything its authors could have imagined.
BP executives were deeply involved throughout the paper’s creation, according to an investigation by ProPublica and Drilled. Socolow and Pacala, the authors of “Wedges” and the new center’s co-directors, not only discussed ideas with the company but, in a departure from academic norms, passed drafts back and forth and welcomed extensive feedback.
Like a book publisher shaping a clunky early draft into a bestseller, an executive at the company suggested the scientists punch up the language, which they did. Browne himself suggested wording that became a part of the title. Together they helped make wonky scientific ideas more digestible for popular consumption. BP even tried — unsuccessfully — to revise a version of it.
“Chaps, I have had a go at rewriting the paper,” Browne’s climate adviser wrote the researchers at one point.
Then, while the paper was being prepped for publication, BP began aggressively promoting the ideas it contained. Browne touted the framework in a speech as evidence that oil and gas had “sustainable futures” and published an endorsement of “Wedges” in an essay in Foreign Affairs magazine. BP inserted the paper’s ideas into its sustainability reports promoting greater efficiency and natural gas — which it argued offered a low-carbon alternative to coal.
“Wedges,” whose ideas were turbocharged by the sort of high-level marketing scientific papers rarely get, became a regular part of thinking about climate change in classrooms and boardrooms alike. And as that happened, BP kept pouring millions more dollars into Princeton each year, in part to explicitly advance carbon capture and storage technology and, as internal documents make clear, to get the university’s help in turning the idea into a bona fide government-backed solution.
“Chaps, I have had a go at rewriting the paper.”
Chris Mottershead, BP climate adviser
Gardiner Hill, a former vice president and climate executive at BP who worked with the Princeton program, told ProPublica and Drilled that BP took academic freedom seriously. It “did not oversee any of the publications” that Princeton put out under its sponsorship, he said. A spokesperson for BP declined to respond to two lists of questions sent by ProPublica and Drilled.
Socolow and Pacala say they were sincere in their intent to solve climate change in the best way they believed possible, at a time when it was not obvious that wind and solar would succeed the way they have today. The researchers say BP had no control over the scientific content of the paper. They rejected the view that technologies didn’t exist to start solving climate change immediately and hoped carbon capture offered, as Pacala said, a way to make fossil fuels “climate safe.”
But “Wedges” oversold the readiness of carbon capture and storage, describing it as “already deployed” industrially. Reporting by ProPublica and Drilled has found that even today, the technology faces financial and technical hurdles and is unlikely to ever work at the scale needed to avert extreme warming.
And the broader solution set that “Wedges” promoted, including expanding the use of natural gas, has meanwhile helped perpetuate a system in which fossil fuels remain the predominant source of energy and the emissions they cause have continued.
“An unfortunate consequence” of the “Wedges” paper, wrote climate scientist Ken Caldeira, New York University physics professor Marty Hoffert and others in a 2013 critique, “was to make the solution seem easy.”
Moreover, for the past quarter century, as research into carbon capture and storage and other industry-friendly solutions have enjoyed robust funding and attention, other ideas that might have replaced carbon-heavy energy entirely — reducing warming and potentially saving lives — were drowned out, several researchers told ProPublica and Drilled.
“Wedges” would likely never have been written without BP’s funding, Socolow said. Scientists and ethicists say the paper may not have been seen as credible or earned its acclaim had the extent of BP’s involvement been fully disclosed.
Neither BP nor Princeton responded to specific questions about our findings.
This is the story of how one of the most influential climate papers in history came to exist thanks to the support of one of the companies most responsible for causing the climate crisis — and one with a deep financial stake in how the technologies described in the paper would play out. It is part of a broader investigation by ProPublica and Drilled into how the fossil fuel industry has helped steer the global response to climate change by pouring billions of dollars into research at elite universities. Since the 1990s, oil companies have sponsored research centers, kept offices on campuses, paid the salaries of scientists and, in at least one case, held veto power over what professors and scientists could study with their money.
Today, the impacts of those efforts are everywhere, so ingrained in our understanding of what it means to solve climate change that it can be hard to conceive of another way forward. Even the U.N.’s assessment of how to deal with the threat of climate change continues to pin hope on capturing tremendous amounts of carbon pollution and burying it in the Earth.
So little has been done to avert fossil fuel emissions for so long, said Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist with the research nonprofit Berkeley Earth, that there is little remaining choice.
“We’ve just wasted so much time,” he said, that meeting goals to limit global warming has become “functionally impossible.”
2
“Establishing cooperative relationships”
Photo illustration by Tonje Thilesen for ProPublica
On a sunny morning in the spring of 1997, Browne took to the podium at Stanford University’s open-air Frost Amphitheater to deliver a speech unlike anything ever heard from an oil executive.
“There is now an effective consensus … that there is a discernible human influence on the climate,” Browne, a small, professorly man with an air of British formality, told the audience. For years, BP and the other big oil companies had been part of an industry group called the Global Climate Coalition, working to sow doubt about global warming and avert agreements that would force cuts in heat-trapping pollution. Now Browne, having pulled BP out of the group, was suddenly pledging his company would be taking “substantial, real and measurable” action to fix the crisis.
Still, Browne cautioned against haste even as he urged action. If governments were too aggressive in cutting fossil fuel use, he warned, their actions would “crash into the realities of economic growth.” Instead, BP would seek to be more efficient — seizing “low-hanging fruit.” And it would experiment with capturing carbon to stop fossil fuel emissions from entering the atmosphere.
This was the start of a long transition in BP’s branding and in the way it worked with thought leaders to shape the company’s future.
By then, oil companies had already begun investing in universities’ climate work. Exxon started giving money for climate research to Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in the late 1970s. Then in 1991, the company funded the launch of the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, according to the program’s former co-director, Henry Jacoby. Chevron, Shell and BP also later supported the program, which developed influential climate-related models.
Fossil fuel companies recognized that they could benefit from spotlighting the research of prominent scientists whose ideas were aligned with their interests. And they strategized to boost the influence of those ideas in the global policy response to climate change.
In 1998, the American Petroleum Institute, the largest and most powerful oil industry lobbying group in the U.S., established what it called its Global Climate Science Communications Plan. An internal document described the importance of outreach aimed at “establishing cooperative relationships” with “scientists whose research in this field supports our position” and developing “opportunities to maximize the impact of scientific views consistent with ours.”
In 1999, Browne asked his chief scientist, Bernie Bulkin, to find research programs the company could support in the U.S. Bulkin — who told ProPublica and Drilled that he had never heard of the API initiative to engage with scientists — decided to set up a climate-focused program that could test the viability of carbon capture and storage, a budding technology.
For decades, oil companies had extracted carbon dioxide from the Earth and pumped it back underground to force more oil out under pressure, a process called enhanced oil recovery. If that process were adapted to store CO2 in the earth forever, then billions of tons of carbon emissions could, in theory, be captured from smokestacks and buried. Global emissions could be reduced without cutting fossil fuel use at all.
A handful of scientists had been making the case that this might be doable. One of them was Socolow, a theoretical physicist who had been leading an interdisciplinary environmental program at Princeton since 1971.
In 1997, Socolow ran a summer workshop for the U.S. Department of Energy in which he and other experts suggested that natural gas, coal and other fuels could be used to make clean-burning hydrogen. If the emissions from the process could be captured and stored away forever, it might be possible to use fossil fuels without contributing much to global warming.
Socolow wanted to address climate change. But he was also predisposed to remedies that would not require what he described as “a priori, the sacrifice of the energy value of oil, gas, and coal.” In graduate school he studied with scientists who had worked on the Manhattan Project, and he worried that supporting nuclear energy could lead to the proliferation of weapons. He thought solar, wind and hydro power would each present their own environmental problems.
Carbon capture and storage, though, could make switching away from fossil fuels less urgent and was something that “brings the oil industry to the table.”
The oil companies had doubts that carbon capture and storage technology would work. “Nobody had any idea what it would cost and whether there was anything practical at scale,” Bulkin recalled in an interview. Still, Bulkin thought there would be little downside for BP in trying. If it didn’t work for the climate, it might help the company produce more fossil fuels.
Bulkin began evaluating America’s top universities. It was, he wrote in his 2019 memoir, a “determinedly elitist” selection process aimed at getting “the greatest benefit to the company.” Researchers at MIT and Stanford had pioneered work on carbon capture and enhanced oil recovery. But a colleague had heard Socolow give a presentation on carbon capture and was impressed. So Bulkin added Princeton into the mix, and in early 2000, Bulkin said, each of the universities submitted proposals to BP for funding of a program to expand carbon capture research.
Stanford saw carbon capture and storage as a geological problem, MIT more of an engineering challenge, Bulkin said. Princeton’s labs didn’t have the technical expertise in carbon capture that the other two schools had. But Socolow came off as masterful at synthesizing energy challenges and environmental concerns, and Pacala brought deep knowledge of how carbon moves between Earth’s atmosphere, land and oceans. Together, they offered a more systemic way of thinking about carbon capture.
That June, weeks before BP announced it was rebranding as Beyond Petroleum, Bulkin told Pacala and Socolow they had won. BP would commit roughly $15 million over 10 years to form the university’s Carbon Mitigation Initiative. The program would focus roughly one third on earth sciences research, one third on carbon capture and one third on policy efforts. Pacala got Ford Motor Co. to contribute $5 million more.
When it was announced that October, the $20 million gift amounted to the largest corporate grant in Princeton’s history.
A spokesperson for Princeton told ProPublica and Drilled that partnerships with corporations make up just over 3% of the university’s research funding but help it “address real-world problems.” Princeton, the spokesperson added, maintains policies that “prevent outside funders from exercising undue influence over research,” including not permitting sponsors to have veto power over publications.
Representatives from Columbia University and Ford did not respond to requests for comment. A representative from MIT wrote that Exxon “did not direct the Joint Program’s research agenda.”
From the start, Princeton’s contract with BP was supposed to protect its academic independence, Pacala told ProPublica and Drilled. The company wasn’t supposed to direct what its money was going to be spent on, he said. “BP can’t tell us what to do.”
But BP and the Princeton researchers were eager to collaborate, and both Socolow and Pacala said they sought ideas no matter where they came from. “The university has an obligation to welcome all points of view, while fiercely protecting its own independence and the independence of its investigators,” Socolow said in an email.
In late 2000, Princeton researchers, BP officials and representatives from Ford gathered at the enormous Italianate mansion of Princeton’s president.
“We spent about two days just talking about what would be useful to us,” Bulkin recalled in an interview. Princeton scientists “threw out ideas, and we said, ‘Well, we could help on this’ or ‘That’s maybe interesting, maybe not,” he said. “Tell us more.’”
Together, the scientists and their funders hammered out an ambitious vision: According to a memo summarizing the meeting, the Carbon Mitigation Initiative would become a “world-class” program focused on basic earth science and carbon capture through “a new kind of engagement.”
It would become “a place of influence” that would, ultimately, “help shape government research priorities.”
3
“A complete blank-sheet-of-paper rewrite”
Photo illustration by Tonje Thilesen for ProPublica
In January 2003, BP executives traveled to Princeton for the Carbon Mitigation Initiative’s second annual meeting. The center had much to show for its work on earth systems modeling and had made technical progress on carbon capture and storage. But Pacala and Socolow quickly turned to their newest work: a simple framework they were developing to bring CO2 emissions under control immediately using methods that already existed.
Climate progress was in a state of paralysis. Groups denying the evidence of climate science were eroding political support for policy action. At the same time, climate modelers were suggesting it might be too expensive to fix climate change until the end of the century. President George W. Bush, in tacit agreement, pulled the United States out of the Kyoto treaty, the 1997 legally binding agreement that 192 countries signed to reduce emissions. Instead, Bush’s administration focused on expanding basic research into low-carbon energy technologies, which suggested to Pacala and Socolow that leaders didn’t think they had tools to address the crisis.
The Princeton researchers believed they did have tools and that failing to deploy them soon could spell disaster for the climate. They’d listed the fuels, technologies and conservation approaches that would lead to lower emissions, including manufacturing cars that get 60 mpg, expanding wind and solar power, regrowing forests and developing hydrogen-based fuels. The idea was to stack them up, allowing each to account for a portion of the reductions needed to flatten the surging rate of global emissions. They diagrammed it for their BP sponsors as a big triangle beneath the rising line of future carbon emissions, what Socolow recalls describing as a “wedge,” cut up into equal-sized slices. Each one represented a strategy that could offset a billion tons of CO2 each year by the middle of the century.
Many of the approaches remained dependent on using fossil fuels and could result in still more emissions, not less. So the plan also leaned heavily on carbon capture to remove pollution and make those approaches work. “We were CCS enthusiasts,” Socolow said in an interview.
But the researchers appeared to be stretching their own parameters to make carbon capture and storage fit. The “Wedges” framework was supposed to be made up of “ready to deploy” technologies. Yet carbon capture and storage had barely been tested, and no experts interviewed could recall a commercial power plant using it.
Still, the Princeton group kept it at the center of the mix.
That fall, Pacala traveled to London to present the work directly to BP CEO Browne. In the city’s Westminster district, Pacala traversed the leafy St. James’s Square and entered BP’s brick office building, where he was shown past a pair of security guards and seated across from Browne in a busy room.
Pacala, whom a colleague described as an expert “pitchman,” presented his chart of ideas: Use oil and gas more efficiently. Replace coal-fired power plants. Reduce emissions, ultimately, by capturing them and burying them underground. Each action, he said, would take “slices” out of the total amount of future carbon pollution.
Browne listened attentively. The straightforward framework made a complex problem seem manageable. But the “slices” terminology confused him. “They’re kind of wedges, aren’t they?” Pacala recalls him saying.
“We’re like, ‘Yeah, whatever you want,’” Pacala remembers thinking. “‘You’re paying the bills, buddy.’”
From that point forward, Socolow and Pacala were thoroughly committed to “Wedges.” Days after the London meeting, they wrote the material up into a white paper for BP titled “The Stabilization Wedge: Consolidation of BP’s Environmental Leadership.” In an email to ProPublica and Drilled, Socolow wrote that the document was not a first draft of “Wedges,” but, he added, it was the first substantial write-up of his ideas.
In the months following, Pacala and Socolow refined that work, and BP remained closely involved.
At one point the researchers sent an early paper draft for review, and Chris Mottershead, Browne’s climate adviser, offered “scathing criticism,” Pacala recalls. Mottershead asked for a “punchy” and “non-academic” tone that might have more popular appeal.
In response Pacala says he did “a complete blank-sheet-of-paper rewrite” and sent the revised draft back to Mottershead and Socolow four hours later. Mottershead loved it. He later replied with a question: “What is the potential for co-branding the ‘wedges paper … ?’” Socolow and Pacala declined. Mottershead wanted to change certain terms and asked for a more open-ended timeframe to reduce emissions. He was denied. Another time, he checked the researchers’ calculations, finding a single error.
In late 2003, Browne himself borrowed from the “Wedges” thinking in a speech. A few months later, records show, Socolow solicited feedback from another member of BP’s management. The researchers also contributed ideas from their work for BP’s internal training and corporate communications.
Then in March, Mottershead wrote his own version of the two scientists’ near final draft, stating in an email that he was attempting to “make the word ‘wedge’ the brand for the work.”
To Mottershead, Princeton’s draft was too dense to break through into popular discourse. He pushed for language that would make the “wedges” concepts more digestible.
“We’re like, ‘Yeah, whatever you want. You’re paying the bills, buddy.’”
Stephen Pacala, “Wedges” co-author and co-director of Princeton’s Carbon Mitigation Initiative
Most significantly, the draft shows, Mottershead tried to inject language that raised doubt about the legitimacy of basic climate science, describing that science as “provisional” and adding that “great uncertainties remain.”
Ultimately, Mottershead did not convince the authors to adopt that specific text. “BP tried to cross the line repeatedly,” Pacala said in an interview. “They were constantly trying to push their agenda. We just didn’t do any of it.”
But several edits would survive, including one that couched emissions in the context of economic growth and another in which Mottershead suggested moving a punchy line from lower in the article up to the very top. All, Pacala says, were changes the researchers would have made anyway.
Still, the situation amounted to what several academic researchers describe as a highly unusual level of coordination on a major scientific work on climate change. Pacala went so far as to offer Mottershead co-authorship, at one point placing his name at the top of the paper. Yet Mottershead declined. In retrospect, Pacala told ProPublica and Drilled, Mottershead contributed to the paper’s style and presentation but not to its original scientific ideas. Mottershead did not respond to several messages, including a list of questions, over several months.
The relationship “flies in the face of the idea of academic independence,” said Benjamin Franta, an associate professor of climate litigation at University of Oxford who studies fossil fuel influence in academia.
Pacala and Socolow each defended their independence in several interviews with ProPublica and Drilled, saying that it is common for sponsors to be involved in sharing preliminary ideas. Socolow wrote that he was buoyed by BP’s interest and thought it offered “a way of amplifying Steve’s and my impact.”
Pacala acknowledged that there are “inevitable dangers of proximity” to industry but said that BP’s staff had “no control over the findings.” Instead, the researchers believed they were influencing BP by encouraging it to plan for climate change, which, Pacala said, “was a win.”
Pacala rejected the concern that BP’s influence on their thinking might be subtle, stating that people who are subconsciously influenced in this way have “weak character.”
In fact, decades of peer-reviewed research has found that, across fields of study, industry funding tends to bias researchers whether they are aware of it or not, affecting what people choose to study and what they find. Industry-funded studies of food or drugs are more likely to conclude they are safe. In medical settings even a small gift from a drug company — like a box of doughnuts — can lead doctors to prescribe its brands more often. One of the few studies to look at the impact of oil and gas funding in academia found that reports out of fossil-fuel-funded research centers describe natural gas more favorably than renewables, whereas reports from centers less reliant on that funding do not. The influence of this funding, according to a working paper from Harvard researchers, is not always visible to those swayed by it.
“It’s the whole subconscious bias problem,” said Harvard historian of science and corporate influence expert Naomi Oreskes. If “continued funding relies on having this good relationship and having this alignment, you are going to be influenced by it.”
At Princeton, Michael Oppenheimer, the director of Princeton’s Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment, said that he does not believe Socolow or Pacala would have been swayed by feedback they disagreed with. But Oppenheimer, a close colleague of the two, added that Princeton doesn’t train researchers on how to navigate the influence that might come from close interactions with sponsors.
And whether the researchers were affected by that proximity or not, Mottershead’s persistent feedback about the article’s scientific ideas “goes over the line,” Oppenheimer said. “That’s bad, that’s unacceptable.”
A spokesperson for Princeton told ProPublica and Drilled that the university provides “extensive guidance and information” to faculty and researchers about working with industry. Sponsors review drafts only to guard confidential material, the university added, or in cases where a sponsor is a co-author of a work. The university did not respond to a question about whether the extent of BP’s involvement in “Wedges” violated its policy and did not say whether it trains its staff on how to protect against more subtle influence.
Other colleagues at Princeton encouraged Socolow and Pacala to challenge BP more. In written feedback on the original draft for BP, visiting scientist Stefano Consonni said that the researchers needed to be more blunt with BP about the difficulty of and need to move away from fossil fuels in order to truly reduce carbon emissions. Bob Williams, a senior research scientist at Princeton whose detailed work on carbon capture inspired Socolow’s, warned the researchers that the draft made solving climate change “sound easier than it actually is.”
In early May 2004, Socolow and Pacala submitted their paper to the journal Science. By then, “slices” had indeed become “wedges,” a decision Socolow says they made to “harmonize” their vocabulary with Browne’s. The paper included 15 wedges, three of which involved some form of carbon capture and eight of which involved using traditional fossil fuels, though in more efficient, or less polluting, ways.
It described all of those wedges as “already deployed at an industrial scale,” a characterization that some experts said stretched the facts in the case of carbon capture and storage. Pacala told ProPublica and Drilled that each of the components required for carbon capture and storage were in use and just needed to be combined in a new way. He conceded the paper’s description was a “communications compromise.”
And the researchers made a key assumption — one that left room for the continued use of oil and gas — about how much carbon pollution the atmosphere could absorb while still avoiding disastrous warming. The number was in the mainstream at the time, but BP officials made it clear to the researchers that they supported it.
In an email to Socolow after the paper’s submission, Mottershead celebrated, writing that the target meant that “around 50% of primary energy could still come from fossil fuels.”
This, Mottershead wrote, was “THE key piece of the framework for politicians and business, in my view.” Socolow acknowledged, in another subsequent email, that the figure would keep the fossil fuel industry a “part of things for at least another 50 years.”
In the July/August 2004 edition of Foreign Affairs, Browne published his own lengthy essay, titled “Beyond Kyoto,” in which he introduced key elements of the “Wedges” framework.
Then, in mid-August, Science published the “Wedges” paper.
In a small-type footnote that comprises “References and Notes,” Socolow and Pacala list BP and Ford as sponsors of the Carbon Mitigation Initiative and thank Mottershead as a BP employee, along with several other scientists.
But it is not clear that anyone understood the depth of their collaboration. In response to emailed questions, Science pointed to its policy stating that anyone contributing substantially to an article must be listed as an author. The journal does not have a policy about sponsors providing editorial feedback on drafts. And in a statement, a spokesperson wrote, “Science cannot assess authorship questions based on third-party descriptions of contributions.”
Science also pointed to a conflict disclosure essay from 2004, which describes a “check off form” the journal supplied researchers to gauge potential conflicts. The journal said it did not keep copies of forms from that time.
“Obviously there’s a conflict of interest here,” said Oxford’s Franta, pointing to BP’s financial interest in climate policy that might arise from the paper’s conclusions.
“The issue is how well it is managed,” Pacala said, noting that “almost every researcher” with outside funding grapples with such issues. “Of course there is conflict of interest.”
Regardless of whether explicit conflict disclosures were in place or were met, said Dana Fisher, a sociologist at American University who studies climate policy and activism, there were norms and expectations around interactions with sponsors. BP’s repeated input on the “Wedges” paper throughout its development, she said, was simply “wrong.”
“That is not how science is supposed to happen.”
4
“How to save the world in fifteen easy steps”
Photo illustration by Tonje Thilesen for ProPublica
In 2006, former Vice President Al Gore’s movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” exposed millions of viewers to the fact that fossil fuel use was pushing the planet toward disaster. Gore soberly presented the earth’s dwindling ice, rising seas and increasingly violent weather. And then, toward the end, he shifted to optimism. Americans need not despair, he said, because “we already know everything we need to know to effectively address this problem.” Behind him as he spoke, the opening words of Socolow and Pacala’s paper — the same ones Mottershead had suggested moving to the top — appeared on a screen.
Papers published in Science often enjoy a media moment before fading into obscurity. “Wedges” was different. Its simple, optimistic message — polished with the help of BP’s sophisticated public relations expertise — had an irresistible allure. And the media loved it. “How to save the world in fifteen easy steps,” read one headline the day it was published. “The 15 ways to stop global warming revealed!” read another.
Socolow gave dozens of interviews and spoke at institutions including the American Petroleum Institute, Lehman Brothers and the United Nations Conference of the Parties, where representatives from more than 190 countries coordinate international climate action. When the Bush administration released a major climate change technology strategy document in 2006, it highlighted the “Wedges” framework. “‘I get it, we don’t need pie in the sky,” Socolow recalled an administration official telling him.
“Wedges” fast became part of the zeitgeist. In 2006, Pacala and Socolow wrote a popular article about it for Scientific American. BP, in lockstep, took out a full-page ad. In 2007, Princeton released a “Wedges” game online, which Pacala built a prototype for from planks of wood in his garage. High school students, business leaders and policymakers played it. University professors folded Princeton’s climate plan into their lessons across the country. Geoffrey Supran, a climate disinformation expert at the University of Miami, says that the paper was “mandatory reading” when he was a grad student at MIT.
“This was a paradigm paper for a whole generation of university students and grad students,” said Franta, who was also taught the “Wedges” paper as a graduate student at Harvard. “It was like, ‘This is how you solve climate change.’”
Had a BP executive’s name been on the top of “Wedges,” the paper’s message would likely have been less credible and its release met with more skepticism as a product of oil industry interests, several academics told ProPublica and Drilled.
“Would Gore have used it if he knew?” asked Craig Callender, a philosophy professor at the University of California San Diego, referring to the details of BP’s involvement. “Many were already skeptical of the wedge paper’s reliance on CCS,” he said. “If they saw the hand of BP behind it, that skepticism would have grown.”
A spokesperson for Gore distanced him from Socolow and Pacala’s work but did not directly address the question of whether knowledge of BP’s role in the paper would have changed his opinion of their findings. Pacala said in an interview that he thought broader disclosure of BP’s partnership would have made the paper more credible, not less.
Branded as Princeton research, the paper’s influence continued to expand, boosting the university program’s renown and Pacala and Socolow’s stature.
In 2007, Time magazine touted the scientists as “innovators” in its “Global Warming Survival Guide.” Socolow was offered a seat on a National Research Council committee on climate policy. He testified before the Senate Finance Committee, where, in a 2007 hearing, he touted a BP carbon capture and storage pilot project as evidence that the technology was “commercially mature.” He argued that the U.S. should offer tax credits for coal power only if those plants used carbon capture technology. A year later, Congress inserted a significant carbon capture subsidy into the tax code — though it didn’t require coal plants to adopt it.
Pacala, meanwhile, was selected as chair of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine committees focusing on emissions monitoring and on carbon dioxide removal. In 2021, when President Joe Biden appointed him to serve on his Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, a White House press release cited the “Wedges” paper as Pacala’s standout accomplishment.
The paper would go on to see an explosive degree of exposure. According to Supran’s lab at the University of Miami, the roughly 3,000 peer reviewed papers that cite “Wedges” have themselves now been cited over 210,000 times, demonstrating a ripple effect rare in the universe of published science.
“That is not how science is supposed to happen.”
Dana Fisher, sociologist at American University
“Wedges” “certainly did help them a lot,” Bulkin said of the two scientists’ swift rise. “And of course, it increased the reputation of CMI and of Princeton as leading thinkers about climate change.”
This was exactly what was intended. And the benefits cut both ways.
BP’s investment in Princeton had proven an enormous success. “Wedges” “drove strategy” within the company, according to a 2014 internal memo. After the paper was published, BP announced it would double down on carbon capture and storage demonstration projects. It also said it would spend $8 billion over 10 years on four other wedge strategies: solar, wind, hydrogen and natural gas. (The company had nearly $240 billion in oil-and-gas-related revenues in 2005 alone.)
As BP’s initial commitment came to a close, Princeton and the company worked out a deal to keep it going. Princeton’s proposition was that it would continue to do work that would grow political and regulatory support for carbon capture, effectively using the university’s reputation to advance BP’s policy interests. “The few research groups perceived by the public as relatively unbiased will have a major role to play,” Pacala and Socolow wrote to BP in a 2007 funding document.
In response, Pacala says that Princeton was “advancing its own interest to provide to the public unbiased information.” Any “partial alignment” with BP was coincidental.
Another funding document stated that with BP’s support, Princeton sought to become “the world’s premier institution in climate and energy” and suggested its graduates could one day work for the company. In addition to carbon capture, the documents showed the initiative’s work had expanded in earth sciences, climate modeling and policy.
Jeff Greenblatt, a former researcher for Socolow who contributed to the “Wedges” paper, said the researchers had engaged in “a delicate dance” between maintaining their intellectual integrity and pleasing BP. “I’m sure that if they included that fossil fuels were not part of the solution to a significant extent, they probably would have seen their last year of funding,” he said. “That’s just the reality of these kinds of things.”
Socolow, in an interview, agreed that BP’s funding was likely conditioned on his support for maintaining fossil fuels. “There was a synergy,” he told ProPublica and Drilled in January. When the university and BP revisited their relationship for a 2016-2020 funding renewal, the parties made it explicit: “A premise from the outset was that CMI’s job was to invent a future where the fossil fuel industries have not disappeared,” the renewal document said. “This is still our job.”
BP extended its funding for Princeton’s Carbon Mitigation Initiative three times. It was originally slated to sunset in 2010 but was renewed through 2015, then 2020 and finally until 2025. All told, the company gave Princeton’s program more than $56 million.
Meanwhile, for all of the paper’s popular acclaim, many fellow scientists say “Wedges” missed its target.
“We thought it was wrong,” Caldeira, the climate scientist and former researcher at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, told ProPublica and Drilled. His research showed that far more carbon needed to be dealt with than “Wedges” acknowledged and that effective solutions would require much more research.
Two years before “Wedges” was published, Caldeira and Hoffert, the NYU professor, published their own research in Science concluding that a “radical restructuring of the global energy system,” was needed. They thought that few of the technologies “Wedges” focused on were mature and described “severe deficiencies.” In 2013, they explicitly criticized Pacala and Socolow’s analysis in a rejoinder article titled “Rethinking Wedges,” in which they wrote that “Pacala and Socolow gave us a way to believe that the energy-carbon-climate problem was manageable.”
To a lot of people, Hoffert said, “Wedges” served a purpose. “You have to give people hope” that climate change could be solved without radically disrupting society, he said in a recent interview. “Yet in the end,” he added, if that hope is gained by convincing people they can continue without getting rid of fossil fuels, “you’re gonna be driving the car over a cliff.”
The fact is, he added, BP “got their money’s worth.”
The post Beyond Denial: How Oil Execs Shaped a Landmark Climate Study appeared first on ProPublica.
Vice-president, leading a foundering peace deal to end the kind of war he’s opposed in the past, is left holding the bag
JD Vance has taken the greatest gamble of his vice-presidency by making himself the face of the Iran ceasefire deal – a shaky agreement that already seems to be unraveling at the seams.
But after months spent in limbo due to the war, it may be the best chance for him to find his feet again.
Continue reading...Meal kit customers are looking for faster recipes in 2026. This service does speedy food better than any we've tested.
Ahead of Saturday’s title unification fight in Brooklyn, the unbeaten American talks about family legacy, putting on for North Philly and life as one of boxing’s most feared fighters
For years, boxing’s chattering class has treated Jaron “Boots” Ennis less like a champion than a prophecy. The next great one. The future pound-for-pound king. The fighter who one day would justify the steady hype that has followed him since he emerged as a teenager from Bozy’s Dungeon in North Philadelphia as one of the country’s top amateurs.
Even now, undefeated in 36 professional fights with 31 knockouts and world championships at two different weights, Ennis approaches Saturday night’s title unification bout with Xander Zayas at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center in an unusual position: celebrated as one of the world’s most gifted fighters while still being discussed as though his breakthrough lies ahead.
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Arizona’s largest sheriff’s department is losing ground in its effort to comply with court-mandated reforms tied to a long-running racial profiling lawsuit and settlement, a monitor has found.
An investigation launched last year by the monitor’s team and published this month alleges a “disturbing pattern” of violations of department policy and court orders that undermined efforts to investigate misconduct and root out racial profiling in the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. The findings echo allegations from a decade ago that led to contempt charges against sheriff’s office leaders.
The monitor’s investigation follows an analysis by Arizona Luminaria and ProPublica that found ongoing racial disparities in traffic stops by the sheriff’s office, which continue to hold back its compliance with court orders. The accusations this time center on the department’s Professional Standards Bureau, which investigates reports of misconduct.
U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow, who is overseeing the settlement, appointed Robert Warshaw as the monitor in 2014 to track compliance with mandated reforms. Among other things, Warshaw said the sheriff’s office leadership tried to pressure the bureau’s commander to reopen closed investigations into two deputies who had been disciplined and placed on the Brady list, a public database of officer misconduct. The monitor also claimed that top leadership attempted to interfere in the disciplinary process to protect employees accused of wrongdoing. When the commander resisted, he was placed on leave, investigated by an outside agency and temporarily transferred out of the bureau, the report alleges.
“What the Monitoring Team has found here is an attempt to create an internal culture where favor and reprisal are tools of control: to impact outcomes; to instill fear in changemakers; and to grant favors and position to those who bend to misguided directions,” the report stated.
As a result, the monitor determined that the sheriff’s office has regressed in its compliance with the reforms mandated in a settlement of the Melendres v. Arpaio class-action lawsuit. The suit accused the law enforcement agency of using traffic stops to arrest people on immigration charges, racially profiling Latinos in the process. At the time, the court found that when the public did report misconduct, then-Sheriff Joe Arpaio and others interfered with investigations. The court held Arpaio in criminal contempt in 2016 for continuing to make immigration arrests in violation of court orders, though he was eventually pardoned by President Donald Trump.
The constitutional violations began in 2007 under Arpaio. The current sheriff, Jerry Sheridan, inherited the settlement when he took office in January 2025. Sheridan climbed the ranks of the department to become Arpaio’s second-in-command in 2010. He was found in civil contempt in 2016 for denying knowledge of a court order to stop making immigration arrests, despite evidence to the contrary presented in court. Sheridan contends he was always truthful. He distanced himself from his former boss during his campaign and after taking office, stating that he was committed to seeing through the reforms.
The sheriff’s office filed a 78-page response to the inquiry with the court, denying any violations of court orders or department policy and labeling the investigation as “speculative” and “improper.” The sheriff’s office said the incidents in question proved that internal checks strengthened by court orders were working properly, and that the monitor was penalizing the department for following those orders and policies. The department also asserted that the sheriff’s decision to place the commander on administrative leave and refer him for investigation by an outside agency was justified and also required by court orders.
Upon taking office, Sheridan’s newly appointed staff asked the bureau commander’s advice about reviewing investigations that had been completed or were under appeal to understand if they could potentially change the outcome, but ultimately chose not to take further action, the office said.
“Because the complaint alleged criminal-nature misconduct (evidence tampering) against the current PSB Commander, referring the matter to an outside agency was the only way to avoid a conflict of interest,” the sheriff’s office said in the court filing.
In a separate statement to reporters, Sheridan questioned whether the monitor’s investigation had strayed into “areas involving management discretion, personnel administration, and internal policy disagreements that are more appropriately addressed by agency leadership.”
The sheriff’s office also questioned the timing of the inquiry’s release, two weeks before oral arguments over whether to end court oversight. Lawyers for the sheriff’s office are preparing to argue that the law enforcement agency has fulfilled all of the settlement’s requirements on racial profiling and should be released from the settlement. The monitor “discussing these issues has everything to do with providing inflammatory soundbites” to aid the plaintiff’s opposition to Maricopa County’s motion to end oversight, the sheriff’s office stated in its response filed in court.
Snow has issued four court orders since 2013 with 368 requirements for the department. Warshaw, the monitor, tracks compliance with Snow’s orders and reports the department’s progress quarterly.
The Professional Standards Bureau remains a focal point of court oversight, largely over a backlog in misconduct investigations. Its failure to eliminate the backlog is one of the main reasons the sheriff’s office has not fully complied with orders to prove it can police itself.
Capt. Gregory Lugo has led the bureau since February 2021. He helped reduce the backlog from over 2,100 misconduct investigations in November 2022 to 371 as of May. But in April 2025, Sheridan placed Lugo on leave, sparking the monitor’s inquiry.
At the same time, the sheriff’s office referred a criminal complaint against Lugo to the Arizona Department of Public Safety. The state agency closed the investigation without finding evidence of wrongdoing, according to the monitor’s report. A separate investigator hired by the court to review the Department of Public Safety’s investigation found the allegations against Lugo were unfounded and also cleared him of any wrongdoing.
The criminal complaint was filed by a sergeant whom Lugo demoted in 2020. Lugo also had filed insubordination charges against him. The sergeant appealed the charges, which were initially sustained but overturned after Sheridan took office.
“The Monitoring Team concluded that the stated reason for Captain Lugo’s transfer was a pretext,” and that instead it was taken in retaliation for not going along with the meddling in investigations, in violation of court orders, the report said.
The monitor team also highlighted the case against a deputy who was dismissed for clocking into a sheriff’s office station when he was instead working an off-duty job. The deputy appealed. Sheridan’s second-in-command questioned the deputy’s dismissal and asked Lugo about reviewing that decision, but Lugo said the deputy was fired for timesheet violations totaling “thousands of dollars.”
The monitor said Sheridan and another member of the command staff also inquired about potentially weakening disciplinary policy to avoid firing a sergeant who was arrested for DUI. Command staff argued the sergeant should not have been fired because he self-reported the arrest. Lugo warned that change was not likely to be approved by the monitor or the attorneys involved in the settlement.
The monitor’s inquiry into the Professional Standards Bureau has resulted in a decline in the sheriff’s office compliance with the settlement. Compliance rates, which measure the department’s progress, decreased in three of the four court orders. The biggest drops were for an order focused mainly on internal oversight and discipline, where implementation rates dropped from 95% to 70%. Compliance rates for an order directed at ending the backlog in pending investigations dropped from 88% to 68%.
Because the sheriff’s office disputes the accusations, it contends that it remains in full compliance with requirements related to the monitor’s inquiry and called the change in its compliance rates “punitive, draconian oversight.”
The costs to taxpayers of implementing the reforms has reached $350 million, according to the county. On June 22, the county’s Board of Supervisors approved an additional $36 million for compliance expenses in the upcoming fiscal year. But the court has questioned these costs. The monitor published an audit last October that determined the sheriff’s office misattributed or inflated about 72% of its settlement-related expenses.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents all Latino drivers in Maricopa County as part of the settlement, said the monitor’s latest inquiry proves that the department cannot be trusted to police itself without court oversight and called for the sheriff’s office leadership to be held accountable for the alleged violations of court orders.
“A public law enforcement agency like the MCSO cannot be allowed to operate with impunity if it is to have any legitimacy with the communities it serves,” the ACLU said in its response to the monitor’s inquiry.
Snow will hear oral arguments on Friday over the motion filed by Maricopa County attorneys. They argue court oversight of the sheriff’s office should end completely and immediately, asserting that court reforms have now gone beyond the original scope of the lawsuit and that the sheriff’s office does not racially profile any longer.
The post Court Inquiry Denounces “Disturbing Pattern” of Violations at Arizona’s Largest Sheriff’s Office appeared first on ProPublica.
Some Senate Democrats want to cap the amount beneficiaries in traditional Medicare have to pay toward care, but the move is expected to draw GOP opposition for potentially adding billions to Medicare costs.
Exclusive: US senator suggests architects behind ‘frenzy’ of blockbuster corporate deals have ‘badly miscalculated’
The Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren has warned that corporate mergers approved by the Trump administration – including a pending deal that would put two of America’s largest news outlets under the control of a family sympathetic to the president – could be undone by a future administration.
“After 2028, we’ll have new players in Washington, and everyone who’s engaged in this merger frenzy right now is aware of that,” Warren said in an interview.
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The former Tottenham coach experienced three body blows early in his tenure with the US, each contributing to the solid World Cup to come
Tears welled in Mauricio Pochettino’s eyes. His US team had just lost the 2025 Gold Cup final in a hard-fought match to determine the regional crown. To make matters worse they had been beaten by Mexico, their arch-rivals.
Were they tears of sadness, of frustration at the result? Perhaps in part. But as Pochettino explained this week, these were also tears of empathy for his players. They had just played a tournament final. In Houston, one of the largest metro areas in the United States.
Continue reading...  | Joined the club today. Had so much fun day one learning to ride on grass. Spent dusk ripping around bike paths in my city, got to the point where my muscle stabilizers were so tired I was getting speed wobbles not even going fast. This thing is so much damn fun [link] [comments] |
Content creation and online safety among new topics for 14- to 18-year-olds – but tweaks may be needed when social media ban comes in
Scouts are introducing badges in content creation, digital communication and online safety after consulting nearly 3,000 teenagers who said they wanted skills to help them navigate a world increasingly shaped by AI, social media and digital technology.
The new Explorer Scout badges, part of the Scout movement’s first major overhaul in almost 25 years, will require 14- to 18-year olds to explore how digital communities shape opinion, create online campaigns, investigate digital footprints and design toolkits to help others stay safe online.
Continue reading...The buzz of Hamburg, Germany over the past two days has been LineShine, the Chinese supercomputer that came out of nowhere to nab the number one spot on the coveted TOP500 list at the ISC 2026 conference. We don’t know everything about the massive new cluster, but we know more than we did in April, when LineShine first surfaced.
LineShine is built on the LX2 ARM processor. No GPUs or other accelerators.
Thanks to a June 22 presentation during the TOP500 session at Congress Center Hamburg (CCH) by Lu Yutong, the director of the National Supercomputing Center in Shenzhen (NSCC-SZ) and the chief designer of LineShine, we have some more details about the new cluster sitting atop the TOP500.
LineShine is based on the LX2, an ARM processor running at 1.55 GHz that features 304 cores per die. The cluster features 20,480 computing nodes, providing nearly 14 million ARM9 cores. LineShine is built uses a chiplet architecture that splits each die into four NUMA domain, each with 38 ARMv9 cores and 4 GB of high-bandwidth memory (HBM). Meanwhile, a dedicated Smart Direct Memory Access (SDMA) engine moves data between the HBM and 128 GB of off-package DDR memory per die. The
Each LX2, which China claims is “the world’s highest performance CPU,” delivers 60.3 teraflops of FP64 compute, which is what the cluster was designed to accel at. The LX2 chips feature Scalable Vector Extension (SVE) and Scalable Matrix Extension (SME) cores, giving it multi-precision capabilities for both traditional HPC workloads (modeling and simulation) as well as newer AI workloads that don’t require FP64.
LineShine is composed of 90 cabinets
The entire cluster is installed in 90 racks. It features 512 CPUs per rack, delivering 30 petaflops of FP64 compute per rack. Each rack is powered with 380V DC lines, providing 580 kilowatts of compute per rack. All told, the entire cluster consumes 42.2 megawatts of power. It’s cooled with 100% liquid cooling, utilizing dual-sided cold plates.
The interconnect is a Chinese-built LingQi network featuring a dual-plane, multi-rail fat-tree topology. The Chinese claim LingQi connects the LineShine nodes with 1.6 Tb/s of bandwidth per node. The Chinese say the LingQi interconnect supports 2 million ports and can scale to more than 100,000 nodes. It features InfiniBand-like features, such as credit-based flow control to optimize data flow. It’s connected to 200PB of direct storage.
Yutong, who is also the director of the National Supercomputer Center at Guangzhou and a former chair of ISC, said LineShine was developed using the ABC design principles: “Application driven. Balanced architecture. And Co-design on full stack,” she said on the stage during her TOP500 presentation.
LineShine’s interconnect delivers about 1 microsecond of latency
“We pursue high-performance, high power-efficiency, and high programmability,” she said. “We propose a new online acceleration, CPU-only architecture that inherits the HPC tradition, embraces the AI-driven future, and returns to the essence of the computational acceleration. LX2 CPU design matrix acceleration units are integrated on chip, actually on core, greatly reducing data movement overhead and improving programmability.”
On the software front, the LineShine system uses the Kylin operating system. Lutong said LineShine’s features “a unified software on environment for HPC and AI,” as well as “a matrix acceleration suite to leverage SME and SBE, HBM, and DDR memory management, and optimized computational kernels to translate hardware capabilities into real application performance.”
Yutong said the benchmark results reflect the design principles of LineShine. “This design improves integration, reduces the power, and lowers the footprint for diverse HPC and AI workloads,” she said. “All of them achieved strong performance, demonstrating the balanced design and high efficiency of our hardware and software architecture.”
LineShine recorded 2.198 exaflops on the Linpack test, exceeding the 1.809 exaflop score of El Capitan, the previous number one TOP500 system. LineShine also set a new record with a score of 22.00 Petaflops on the High Performance Conjugate Gradients Benchmark (HPCG) benchmark, which was created to reflect more real-world supercomputer usage. On the HPL-MxP mixed-precision benchmark, LineShine reached 7.92 exaflops, giving it f
LineShine uses liquid cooling
ourth place. The TOP500 group said that the “comparatively modest 3.6x speedup over its HPL score…. points to a CPU-only design without dedicated low-precision accelerators.”
At 42.2 megawatts of power (compared to 29.7 megawatts for El Capitan), LineShine has an overall efficiency of 52.07 Gigaflops/Watt, compared to 60.95 Gigaflops/Watt for El Cap.
Since LineShine went online in late 2025, it’s started doing useful work for Chinese researchers. “Applications from multiple domains have been steadily coded, developed and executed on the platform, including climate, CFD, earthquake simulation, materials, energy, drug design, neuroscience and scientific AI, and more,” Yutong said.
“We believe the global HPC community will be pleased to see an expanding portfolio of the diverse, large scale HPC and AI converged applications running on the supercomputers,” she continued. “We are committed to building an ecosystem for various scientific and engineering application workloads, enabling pervasive computing with HPC and AI, and translating nominal compute power into tangible productivity. We welcome all forms of international collaboration.”
The post Inside LineShine, the New Chinese Supercomputer Sitting Atop the TOP500 appeared first on HPCwire.
NASA's Perseverance rover has detected complex organic carbon in ancient Martian mudstones. The measurements were taken by the rover's Sherloc instrument and the organic carbon that was identified was from the Bright Angel outcrop, "a dried-up river that carried water into the planet's Jezero crater billions of years ago," notes The Guardian. From the report: The form of carbon detected, known as macromolecular carbon or MMC, can originate from living organisms. Geological processes can also produce the material, meaning its detection does not amount to proof of past Martian life. Dr Ashley Murphy at the Planetary Science Institute in Arizona said MMC can be found in different settings and types of rocks. "It may originate from biological sources such as fossilized organic matter found in microbial mats and coal," she said, but could also form in reactions between rocks and water or arrive on impacting meteorites. The mudstone rocks from the Bright Angel outcrop caused a stir in 2024 when the Perseverance rover discovered intriguing surface spots and nodules that resemble features produced by fossilized microbes on Earth. When the scientific details were published last year, Sean Duffy, the former acting head of Nasa, said: "This very well could be the clearest sign of life that we've ever found on Mars." [...] The discovery means Nasa rovers have now found organic-bearing mudstones more than 2,000 miles apart on Mars. The others were reported by the Curiosity rover which is exploring the planet's Gale crater. It "indicates that the habitability of Mars, and the availability of organics, may have been widespread across the planet billions of years ago," the authors write in Science Advances.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
To address the AI-fueled demands on storage that are anticipated to occur with the availability of Nvidia’s Vera Rubin platform, DDN this week unveiled the AI400X3M, a new storage appliance that features significantly faster throughput. The company also launched a new KV cache solution that supports Nvidia middleware to serve AI inference workloads, as well as new security and observability capabilities for multi-tenant AI and HPC environments.
The throughput improvements on the AI400X3M, the latest release of its EXAscaler platform are pretty substantial. Write throughput has increased by 35%, from around 140 Gbps max to about 190 Gbps. But the random read throughput has gone up by 4x to 8 million IOPS per second, says DDN Senior Vice President for Products James Coomer.
The new DDN AI400X3 appliance
“We increased the throughput by optimizing the data path,” Coomer told HPCwire in an interview at ISC 2026. “We reduced the amount of unnecessary data copies.”
In addition to optimizing the data path through software changes, the company increased storage density to the point where it can support 30PB of data in a single rack. It’s also supporting hybrid arrays that mix NVMe and traditional spinning disk to account for the supply chain issue with NAND. All these changes were made in anticipation of the AI wave crashing across customers, Coomer said.
“It’s a big jump, and it’s really to tackle these new challenges that are happening right now,” Coomer said. “Because we get to see a little bit further into the future through the relationship we have with some of our customers and partners. We can see this stuff’s getting really tough.”
One of the big current pain points is the KV cache that customers use for AI inference. The KV cache–initially stored in HBM and DDR memory close to the processor but inevitably spilling over to disk when local and off-die memory fills up–is necessary to store the AI artifacts that are generated in the initial prefill stage of AI inference. During the critical decode phase, the AI model relies on the KV store to quickly fetch previously computed values, thereby eliminating the need to compute them from scratch and speeding responses to the user or the AI agent making the request. The problem is that memory fills up quickly with the KV cache, necessitating spillover to disk.
DDN is delivering support in both EXAScaler and Infinia products for Nvidia’s KV cache software, including Dynamo and Nixl. The company says that its shared, distributed KV cache fabric is optimized for large-scale inference environments, and delivers “ultra-low latency data access for large-context inference and faster token gener
Bluefield-4-DPU is expected to ship in 2H 2026
ation.” By integrating with Dynamo, vLLM, and other frameworks, DDN says it can deliver up to 55x faster KV cache loading, minimizing idle GPUs and driving down token costs.
The company is working on another KV cache solution that’s based on Nvidia’s new DMX reference architecture, which leverages BlueField-4 DPUs and SpectrumX SuperNICs. That offering is slated to be delivered later this year, when Nvidia begins shipping the new gear.
Applying enough context to AI requests is the big challenge at the moment. That is what’s driving the industry to rethink how it handles these distributed KV caches. But technologists are working constantly on all sorts of other clever ways to deliver more context, which is keeping Coomer and the folks at DDN on their toes.
“The context around it is always changing,” Coomer said. “The best way to put it is, the memory of the models is going to expand, in one way or another, to be huge. That doesn’t go away. It just changes.”
For instance, Anthropic has introduced another way to minimize the context through a concept dubbed dreams. Just as humans dream to order and contextualize inputs through the day, Anthropic’s dreams concepts helps to condense and crystalize the most important information when the AI model is not in use. It introduced the Claude Dreams API in May. There is also a new DeepSeek compression mechanism that can shrink the size of the KV cache by 10x to 100x. The Chinese company launched that offering in April.
It all helps, Coomer said. “But of course, what happens is the demand outstrips the optimizations, which always happens,” he said. “It’s pretty good, but it doesn’t matter. It still expands. It just fills the room…. I don’t know if there’s a consensus, but I think maybe there’s close to a consensus: the biggest limiting factor is attention, as in the volume of context, which a model can pay attention to.”
DDN also used ISC 2026 to unveil new multi-tenancy capabilities across its EXAScaler and Infinia storage solutions, which are chiefly aimed at HPC Lustre and AI object storage customers, respectively (with plenty of overlap and crossover among the customers and their particular storage needs).
To that end, DDN has enhanced its offerings with support for bare-metal multi-tenancy, KMIP-based encryption and key management, VictoriaLogs integration for operational visibility, new multi-tenant APIs, intelligent file pinning capabilities, and support for NAND-accelerated “hot pools” to tier data from flash drives to lower-cost HDDs.
“Over time, all of our customers are going through the same gradual tightening of security screens, and the introduction of this new tier of neo clouds is leapfrogging in terms of the demands for security and isolation of these multiple tenants,” Coomer said.
The post DDN Preps for AI Wave with Speedy New Appliance, KV Cache Solution appeared first on HPCwire.
A 5.6 magnitude earthquake struck Mendocino County on Wednesday morning, triggering ShakeAlert notifications across Northern California.
In today’s newsletter: Amid rising anti‑immigration rhetoric across Europe, the decision to engage with the Taliban signals a profound shift in how the EU balances security and human rights
Good morning. It’s a slap in the face. That’s the phrase I kept hearing – in furious overnight messages, in blazing opinion columns – as Afghan women responded to the meeting between EU officials and the Taliban that took place in Brussels on Tuesday.
The talks, to discuss how to scale up the deportation of Afghan migrants, were met with widespread outrage, and disbelief that Europe would countenance offering legitimacy to a regime that affords a bird better protections than a woman.
World news | Venezuela’s interim leader has declared a state of emergency after the country was struck by two powerful earthquakes that collapsed dozens of buildings and killed at least 32 people, with experts warning the death toll could rise significantly.
Heatwave | The UK has broken its all-time temperature record for June and France has recorded its hottest day ever for the second day running, as a heatwave affecting more than 90 million people sweeps across swathes of Europe.
UK politics | Donald Trump has labelled Andy Burnham “extremely liberal”, in his first public comments about the former Greater Manchester mayor since he emerged as the frontrunner to replace Keir Starmer.
Europe news | The first case of Ebola has been confirmed in France, the country’s health ministry has said, in a doctor who had returned from a humanitarian mission to an area affected by the outbreak in the DRC.
UK news | A little-known system in which US military personnel are tried through a court martial for alleged crimes committed in the UK is under growing scrutiny.
Continue reading...The US president told reporters the former Manchester mayor ‘probably won’t open up the North Sea’ for oil exploration
Donald Trump has labelled Andy Burnham “extremely liberal”, in his first public comments about the former Greater Manchester mayor since he emerged as the frontrunner to replace Keir Starmer.
The US president told reporters Burnham “probably won’t open up the North Sea” for oil exploration, and that “the UK is dying”, signalling that the newly elected Labour MP could face a rocky relationship with Trump.
Continue reading...Full production of the customizable truck isn't expected to ramp up until 2027.
One woman says she found man in her room at WA fly-in, fly-out accommodation while another states she was ‘howled’ at, federal court told
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Andrew Forrest’s Fortescue is facing a class action lawsuit from female workers over allegations of systemic sexual harassment, violence and retaliation at the iron ore miner’s remote work sites.
The lawsuit, filed in the federal court in Victoria on Thursday, includes an allegation that a woman was pulled into a dark alley where a man “tried to stick his tongue down my throat”.
Continue reading...The launch marks the company's first foray into hardware, with an accessible flip phone and smartphone with large, easy-to-use controls.
Many of France’s buildings are not designed for hot weather – and low-income housing estates are suffering the worst
Living in a sweltering, seventh-floor flat on a concrete housing estate south of Paris, Samira said she was feeling desperate as France experienced its highest temperatures on record this week. “Yesterday I sat down and cried, I thought I’m going to die,” said the 35-year-old single parent and former building caretaker.
Her flat in Ris-Orangis in Essonne is, like millions of apartments in France, poorly insulated and lacking in outside window shutters. “Blazing sun hits my windows all day – I can’t breathe, I feel dizzy, there is no air,” she said.
Continue reading...VolcanoTech’s sulphur dioxide detecting sensors are in already in use in a number of countries
Weather forecasts now include air quality warnings and cities have networks of air quality sensors driving real-time maps online.
Similar air quality sensors can warn of an imminent volcanic eruption. Just as a fizzy drink releases carbon dioxide when the pressure is released, rising magma emits dissolved sulphur dioxide as it rises. So a big increase in this gas warns that a volcanic eruption may be imminent.
Continue reading...The milestone called for the epic vision of a JFK or the soaring oratory of a Barack Obama. Instead it got a Trump rally
If that’s the way America celebrates its birthday, you would not want to be present at its funeral. The shining city on a hill is losing some of its lustre these days. The land that promised life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is struggling to deliver.
A milestone anniversary like 250 years of independence calls for the epic vision of a John F Kennedy, the immaculate timing of a Ronald Reagan or the soaring oratory of a Barack Obama. What it got instead on Wednesday was an 80-year-old convicted criminal who appeared in Home Alone 2 and seems hellbent on dividing the nation.
Continue reading...After a couple years of pushing feedback on a pintX, I got an XRC and trusted that torque headroom gauge a little too much.
I was going down a steep hill, keeping on eye in that green circle, when I hit a nose dive at 46.5km/h - I managed to keep balance and pop it back up…. But I was so shocked I braked to hard and dragged the tail until I wobbled out and went flying off the board sliding down the hill 😬
Board is great though! Not its fault that I’m stupid and pushed close to the freewheel speed.
My only real gripe is that it keeps cutting out at like 15% and I have to call for a ride home. Has anyone else had this issue? I have it set to only charge to 90% and I think I’m going to turn that setting off if this keeps up. (Last pics are from my most recent ride that it died on)
Nine Entertainment is expected to sever ties with the Today show host but is yet to make details of the separation public
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Karl Stefanovic will not appear on his scheduled Friday afternoon radio show with Eddie McGuire after widespread criticism of his podcast interview with UK far-right activist Tommy Robinson.
Stefanovic only recently signed the deal with ARN Media to co-host The Long Weekend nationally on Gold FM, but the threat of an advertising boycott has led to the contract being reviewed, Guardian Australia understands.
Continue reading...  | Got a trail pro II from TFL [link] [comments] |
Tehran is still losing the long game.
Oxfam predicts PNG will be worst-hit country in Pacific from the weather pattern, with up to 3 million people affected nationwide
Families across Papua New Guinea’s Highlands are facing depleted harvests and the threat of hunger after the El Niño weather pattern brought frost and prolonged dry conditions that have destroyed food gardens providing sustenance and income for thousands of households.
The effects of El Niño emerged in recent weeks, bringing drought conditions, falling water levels and frost that are threatening food security in some of the country’s most agriculturally productive regions.
Continue reading...Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for June 25.
The Senate late Wednesday rejected a measure aimed at restricting President Trump's power to wage war against Iran, a victory for Senate GOP leadership — and a shift from one day earlier.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: [T]he payment company Stripe, founded by brothers Patrick and John Collison, says it will fund a new $500 million nonprofit whose goal is preventing both the common cold and the flu. Its eventual aim is to get rid of respiratory viruses altogether. The new organization, called Intercept, will use grants and investments to back prevention approaches, including vaccines, as well as large-scale air-cleaning systems for schools, offices, and other public spaces. In addition to Stripe, other funders include Anthropic, Flu Lab, and the OpenAI Foundation, as well as Bill Gates and several traders at the quantitative investing fund Jane Street Capital, according to an Intercept spokesperson. "I think we treat respiratory infections as a minor nuisance, but have really underweighted the burden that they impose on society," says Nan Ransohoff, the Stripe executive leading the initiative along with Charlie Petty, a venture capitalist who joined Stripe this year. On average, people spend 5% of their lifetime fighting a cold or the flu, according to Ransohoff. Despite that, drug companies put relatively little effort into preventing colds. Part of the problem is that the sniffles are caused by more than 200 different viruses, according to the American Lung Association, with rhinoviruses being the most common culprits. There are so many that it typically doesn't pay to try to stop any one of them with a vaccine. "When pharma companies look at it, it's not as attractive as other things they could work on," says Ransohoff. "So it hasn't attracted the resources." [...] The project takes inspiration from efforts to fight the covid-19 virus, where Veesler's group was among those involved in the speedy development of vaccines, antiviral drugs, and antibodies. According to Ransohoff, Intercept's advisors will include Peter Marks, a former top FDA official, as well as Moncef Slaoui, the pharmaceutical executive who led the US coronavirus vaccine effort, Operation Warp Speed. A key challenge for Intercept will be coming up with ways to counter many viruses at one time. That accounts for the interest in air-cleaning technology, such as using strong ultraviolet light to inactivate viruses. The idea, the group says, is to remove them from the air in the same way municipalities remove impurities from the water supply before it's piped to people's homes.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The Trump administration on Wednesday sent Congress a long-awaited supplemental funding package to help cover the cost of the Iran war.
Gov. Newsom's proposed funding for teacher pregnancy leave currently includes paid leave for abortion procedures.
This probably gets asked all the time and if there is a thread about this feel free to put it below. Anyways I currently have a pint and have had it for about 2 years, its been great over those 2 year but im looking to upgrade to something more comfortable/ has a longer range.I ride on pavement with the occasional grass detour. Im thinking about the pint x or s due to budget reasons. I did a little reading and ot seems like the pint s is the more comfortable board but it costs more. I plan to get the upgraded board from Facebook marketplace. what would yall reccomend? also im 5'7 and 150 incase that matters.
Well it finally happened to me. Tried to disengage after a ride today by lifting my heel and it wouldn’t disengaged, so I jumped off and it launched into the rail of my garage. Bent the crap out of it…
I’ve owned this GT since launch, so it’s out of warranty. Should I just buy a new footpad or do you think I need to send it in?
 | Pulled the trigger on an XRC Recurve. Sold my original XR years ago after 1000 very fun miles. Picked up the GT when it launched. Been thinking about it for a while, as the GT felt off to me. I wasn’t riding as much. Just got back from XRC initial ride. The difference between the XRC and GT is night and day. Finally feel like I’m back riding a board, instead of going for a ride on one. (Hopefully that makes sense). Should have done it sooner! The stoke is back. Happy to answer any questions between the GT and XRC. The weight difference alone is insane in the feel. And yeah yeah I know all about VESC options. No doubt they’re likely superior. I’m a very busy and beat up 41 year old, just want to turn it on and ride. [link] [comments] |
All military branches began requiring recruits to get flu vaccines earlier this month, an exception to Pete Hegseth's decision to lift the military's vaccine mandate, a Pentagon official said.
World’s sixth-most famous duck falls short of dream
Two-year-old must watch Czechia game from distance
Merlín the duck’s bid to see his beloved Mexico live has hit a snag after he was barred from El Tri’s match with Czechia on Wednesday.
Merlín has become a folk hero in Mexico after becoming a symbol of El Tri’s World Cup campaign on home soil. His fans had launched a campaign for Merlín to attend Wednesday’s match alongside his human family. But his journey was cut short by Fifa regulations.
Continue reading...The company has just a few hundred satellites in low Earth orbit but has state backing and is already reportedly negotiating with dozens of countries
Elon Musk’s Starlink has long dominated the satellite internet industry, but a Chinese government-backed project is aiming to challenge its position.
SpaceSail has just a few hundred satellites in low Earth orbit compared with Starlink’s 10,000-plus. But the company says it now has enough satellites to begin its first commercial application, is scaling up at speed, and is reportedly negotiating with dozens of countries to provide satellite internet coverage.
Continue reading...Just got a Onewheel + from a friend. It’s old, but looks almost brand new. Anything I need to worry about?
Hey All! I have been recently working on a active cooling system for Vesc builds. Its going to work off a dual fan set up. I am making this post to ask if there would any interest in buying something like this? I wanted to gauge the market before putting all the time into making ready to sell.
Let me know your thoughts, Thanks!
Haiti reveled in their historic World Cup goals, but Morocco staged an impressive comeback to secure their second-place finish in Group C
No region benefited as much from the expansion of the World Cup as Africa. Earlier this week, Jonathan Wilson took a look at how the continent’s 10 teams – including Morocco – are doing:
Thiago Alcântara, in an appearance on Fox’s US prematch show, highlights how Morocco will be looking to remedy some of their recent scoring concerns in this matchup. Across the two games, the Atlas Lions have 26 shots, but just five on target and two goals to show.
Continue reading...The company wanted to use the controversial program to help train its AI.
 | TLDR: I like it. More than my GTS, and it gets at least the same range if not more with more power. So I ordered my Fungineers Supercharged X7 on 6/15. It arrived today 6/24. I did the quick setup as they said and jumped on it for a quick 5 mile ride to make sure it worked. Then after dinner I jumped on it and rode my usual 12 mile loop around the neighborhood. For background I have a GTS with over 1400 miles on it with one oopsie around 600 miles that requires a quick ER visit and a new helmet (User error of course). I like to just carve around the streets and have nice relaxing rides, though I generally average about 20mph. I’m 48 and used to be an extreme sports guy, but generally don’t push as hard now-a-days since healing sucks. Jumping on the board immediately comparing it to my GTS I found it more nimble. It flew up and down the hills and had every bit of power I wanted and then some. It’s amazing. It gave me confidence when I had to jump on the couple “busier roads” and push the board speed to get away from traffic where my GTS gave me more concern because I was always worried about a nosedive at higher speeds. The best thing is it (this board) has more speed (torque) then I need. I pushed it harder then my GTS in a couple sections just to see the duty cycle and such as was pleasantly surprised. Oh I also realized how terrible the Onewheel app is. Having Duty Cycle, speed, audio alerts is amazing. I tried Floaty for the first 5 miles and settled on Float Control for my longer ride. I love the Audio alerts; the watch having duty cycle and speed, and actually getting more feedback about the board. How can I go back to the Onewheel after this? Don’t get me wrong, tools and tech are great and sometimes a distraction, but it’s nice to have numbers as well to back up and validate “feelings” I’m going to attach a couple screen shots, same ride earlier this week in the GTS and tonight’s ride on the X7SC. The battery life is definitely better than the GTS since I rode a bit faster and messed around accelerating and decelerating more trying to get a feel for the board. I weigh 174 pounds for the record. The extra weight I don’t notice at all, however, I definitely missed the mag handle carrying it up stairs from my basement: I’m super happy I got this board. I look forward to putting a few hundred miles on it this summer. I’ll probably sell my GTS. Maybe if I decide I like longer rides I will consider replacing the GTS with an X7 long range. For now, it’s everything I wanted. [link] [comments] |
Sheriff in rural Texas says ‘it’s still at large’ after claim Gracie had been located after wandering off private ranch
For almost two weeks, residents of a rural Texas county have been looking, mostly up, for a missing giraffe called Gracie that wandered off from a private game ranch.
On Wednesday, the mystery of the free-roaming mammal’s odyssey deepened further, when a local sheriff disputed an account that it was reportedly found safe a “little farther out than expected” from its hill country home, and said the search was most definitely still on.
Continue reading...The next installment of the Grand Theft Auto series is poised to dominate 2026. Here's what we know so far.
Here are hints and the answer for today's Wordle for June 25, No. 1,832.
Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for June 25 No. 1,110.
Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for June 25, No. 844.
An Air Canada flight out of Newark, New Jersey, was forced to divert and land at Boston after the captain became "incapacitated" and a co-pilot had to take over.
Temporary Protected Status (TPS) grants short-term legal status to eligible people from countries facing unsafe conditions that prevent a safe return home.
America's founders were data nerds.
 | Hello everyone, i am new to Onewheel. I have a Pint X got it brand new and i love it. I commute to work with it everyday and back, around 8km one way. It currently has 180km on the odometer. Now i recently heard a sound (starting from 16 seconds in the video)coming from the motor i believe, that i haven’t heard before. It sounds like a creaking sound. I hear this mostly going slow (obviously). But of all the stuff I owned i am paranoid and notice the tiniest things. Hopefully someone can explain, and help me identify the source of this noise. Thank you! [link] [comments] |
Senator Bill Cassidy said he confronted president over Iran war and Trump ‘did not particularly care for my comments’
A man or a movement? That was the question being asked when Zohran Mamdani gambled his political capital on Tuesday’s elections in New York.
The answer from voters was emphatic: they prefer Mamdani and his brand of democratic socialism to the Democratic party establishment and its lukewarm version of capitalism. America’s biggest city has swung even further to the left.
This is a battle between the establishment and this insurgency. And the roof is collapsing on the Democratic party establishment tonight … This is no longer a movement; this is a movement and a machine at the same time.
Continue reading...The Bootids defy prediction, with yearly meteor activity that even science can't accurately estimate.
Abelardo de la Espriella, a millionaire political newcomer, has been declared Colombia's next president.
Hi ! I would need some help. I didn't pay attention to the polarity of the bms connector and plugged a battery backwards, basically. I fried something in my Pint, that's for sure, but I can't tell if it's the BMS or the controller.
I have an OWIE chip installed and right now, while the board won't turn on anymore, anytime I press the power button, the chip lights up for a few seconds and then shuts down again. That tells me that some power is passing through but the chip has nothing to communicate with I guess.
Would anyone here know what got fried in there ? Or a method for me to figure out what's dead.
Thanks in advance !
Slate Auto says its stripped-down electric pickup will start at $24,950 before fees, with the base model's estimated range increased from 150 to about 205 miles. The company has started taking preorders on Wednesday. "The aggressive pricing -- half the average cost of a new car in the United States -- puts Slate in position to capture a share of the lowest end of the new car market, which has few gas and fewer electric options these days," reports TechCrunch. From the report: The price reveal comes more than a year after Slate Auto emerged from stealth. Since then, the company has been steadily detailing the extremely basic, transforming EV, which starts as a two-seater pickup truck, but can be modified into a five-seater SUV. The SUV version will start at $29,950, Slate said Wednesday. Slate has said the conversion can be done by professionals or by owners themselves. On Wednesday, it finally showed off some of the first of its "Slate University" how-to videos, which guide people through the steps for doing everything from the SUV conversion to adding headlight covers. Everything else about the truck is bare, though it's customizable. It has hand-crank windows, lacks an infotainment system, and all orders start with the same gray composite material, with no paint options, as Slate plans to let buyers order customizable wraps for the vehicle. That likely helps cut out a major cost center, as factory paint shops can run in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The company did not offer more details about the buying process. Slate has said it "won't have traditional dealerships," and plans to sell directly to customers, similar to other EV companies like Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid Motors.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Socialists and Republicans agree on one thing: The insurgent left flank of the Democratic Party is ascendant.
After primary election night in New York marked a high-water point for the left, a GOP prankster left a bouquet of flowers at the door of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who was widely seen as one of the night’s biggest losers.
“Three losses in one night is tough,” said Mike Marinella, the spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee, in a statement. “We wanted so-called ‘Leader’ Jeffries to know our thoughts are with him, his candidates, and whatever remains of his influence in the Democrat Party.”
He was referring to three House candidates with the backing of Mayor Zohran Mamdani — two of them card-carrying members of the Democratic Socialists of America — who notched victories against more established opponents.
In New York’s 7th Congressional District, state Assembly Member Claire Valdez handily beat Antonio Reynoso, a progressive backed by outgoing Rep. Nydia Velázquez; in NY-10, former City Comptroller Brad Lander swept away Rep. Dan Goldman; and in the closest and perhaps most surprising result of the night, former Columbia University pro-Palestine student organizer Darializa Avila Chevalier narrowly edged out Rep. Adriano Espaillat, a powerful figure in Manhattan Democratic circles and chair of the Democratic Party’s Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
In the wake of the stunning sweep, Republicans spent Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning gloating at the electoral headache they foresee the insurgent strain of left-wing populism causing for the Democratic Party. Or rubbing salt in the wounds of their enemies: President Donald Trump seemed giddy on Wednesday over the loss by Goldman, a centrist pro-Israel Democrat and an old foe from Trump’s first term who worked as lead counsel in his first impeachment inquiry.
“Weak and pathetic Congressman Dan Goldman just lost, BIG!” Trump wrote on social media. “I guess people didn’t like him illegally targeting President TRUMP. In any event, this jerk is finally GONE!”
Not everyone on the right was laughing, however. Christopher Rufo, the messaging wiz who helped build a comprehensive conservative rebuttal to 2020-era “wokeness,” took to X to mutter darkly about therising threat of socialism, a phenomenon he described as the left moving “from ‘woke’ to Third-Worldism.”
“Third-Worldism is a more serious threat to life, liberty, and property,” Rufo wrote.
Trump, too, took a moment to be serious and call the candidates “communists,” making an impassioned pledge: “America the Beautiful will NEVER be a Communist Country!!!” he wrote Wednesday.
The victories of all three left-wing congressional candidates appeared to confirm a staying power for Mamdani’s popularity and power six months into his term in office, with numerous commentators declaring him a kingmaker. But Republicans predicted his profile is just as high at a national level — and not in a way that some Democrats would like.
“Republicans need a national boogeyman,” said one GOP operative in the House. “I think it’s going to be very difficult for your mainstream Democrat in a toss-up district to separate themselves from Mamdani and those kinds of socialist insurgents who are running in these primaries. And our view is that they are just unelectable in a swing district where you’re trying to win voters in the middle.”
Corbin Trent, a former aide to Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, said he thought that GOP strategy was destined to backfire.
“These ideas that [democratic socialists are] lifting up again are very divisive, but I think we’re misinterpreting who they’re divisive with,” Trent told The Intercept Wednesday. “They’re divisive with people that are going to D.C. dinners, they’re divisive to people at fundraisers, they’re divisive to people in Beltway, and they’re certainly divisive among the big donor class. But I think what [Republicans are] going to be surprised by is how they’re not divisive among the electorate, among the 80 percent of Americans that have been struggling to understand how it is they live in the richest nation in history — and yet they can barely scrape by.”
In the attacks, Trent saw a potential for the class-based politics of affordability championed by the Democratic Socialists of America slate in New York, along with other insurgent primary winners like Maine Senate nominee Graham Platner, who was so successful in winning over supporters that his establishment-backed opponent stopped campaigning weeks before the primary.
That sense of hope did not appear to be shared by centrist Democrats, who in the wake of the political upset in New York appeared every bit as gloomy as the GOP was gloating. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., took to Fox News Tuesday night to denounce the pro-Palestine bent of the DSA winners in New York, while Jeffries told Spectrum News NY1 that he was more focused on swing states than on his own backyard.
“We’re not in the business of winning Democratic primaries and state seats that are going to be blue regardless of who wins a primary,” he said. “In order for us to be able to take back control of the House of Representatives, we got to flip seats in tough areas.”
On Wednesday, when The Intercept sought comment from Jeffries, a reporter found him busy, standing shoulder to shoulder in the U.S. Capitol with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., unveiling a giant congressional time capsule for the country’s 250th birthday.
The post The Left Is Unstoppable, According to Republicans appeared first on The Intercept.
Courts are increasingly signaling that conversations with AI tools could constitute evidence in criminal cases.
Mayor’s office grants extra 12 months to run pilot while London force procures long-term supplier
The Metropolitan police have been granted a 12-month extension to a pilot project with the spy-tech firm Palantir while the force carries out a procurement process.
The development comes weeks after the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, blocked a £50m deal between the Met and the US company to automate intelligence analysis in criminal investigations.
Continue reading...Home affairs minister Tony Burke says return permit ‘has to be issued’ following advice from agencies and lawyers
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An Australian woman linked to the Islamic State group has been given authorisation to return to Australia, after the government was advised it could no longer enforce a criminal exclusion order.
The home affairs minister, Tony Burke, said the woman would face an unprecedented level of security monitoring once she arrives in the country, including constant monitoring and requirements to report to authorities regularly.
Continue reading...From Ryzen X3D gaming platforms to Intel productivity powerhouses, these GIGABYTE motherboard bundles pair premium processors, modern chipsets and fast DDR5 memory at great prices.
Experts say law not enough to stop children accessing harmful content online and more ‘convincing strategy is required’
More than 80% of under-16s in Australia said they were still using social media three months after legislation banning them from it came into force, research shows.
Australia is the first country to ban social media for children. Since December 2025, under-16s have been prohibited from having accounts with many social media platforms including TikTok, X, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat.
Continue reading...Meta has paused its Model Compatibility Initiative that tracked employee mouse movements, clicks, keystrokes, and screen content to train AI agents, after some of its collected data became accessible to more employees than intended. Meta says it has no evidence the information was improperly accessed and will not restart the program until it is confident in its safeguards. Wired reports: Meta rolled out the Model Compatibility Initiative (MCI) tool in April to US employees. The tool "collects computer inputs such as mouse movements, click locations and keystrokes, as well as screen content," according to workers who have been petitioning against it over privacy, security, and personal liberty concerns. When MCI launched, employees couldn't opt out, but that changed to a limited degree after workers protested. Meta executives have repeatedly defended the data-gathering project, saying it was necessary to train AI systems to operate computer software the way humans do and that employees were the best examples for the artificial intelligence to learn from. On Monday, a Meta engineer issued an internal security notice stating that databases filled with information gathered by MCI had been exposed to anyone inside the company. A former employee actively involved in pushing back against MCI describes the lapse as "a mess" -- and one that employees had expected would occur. "When workers raised concerns, leadership doubled down and failed to acknowledge the risks workers raised about the safety and privacy of worker and customer data," the person says. "Leadership has clearly created an authoritarian environment where workers are no longer respected or heard." But after critical comments poured into internal forums on Monday expressing frustration about the security issue, Meta shocked some of its staff by pausing MCI altogether, telling WIRED about the development several hours before announcing it to employees. A few workers told WIRED they were confused in the meantime because the tool was continuing to run on their laptops. Late on Monday, Stephane Kasriel, a Meta vice president overseeing AI research, announced the pause and told staff that the security issue had been discovered on June 18 and addressed within four hours. But the initial fix didn't stick and access to the data had to be further locked down. The issue made "some MCI-derived data" accessible to more people than intended, he wrote, without elaborating.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Most Americans expect data centers to negatively impact the environment, local resources, although some see economic benefits
Teen fatally shot two people on Monday at library in Chico, which has seen deadly wildfires and nearby shootings
Even before a teenager strolled into the public library in Chico where police say he fatally shot two people on Monday afternoon, this building stood apart in the northern California community.
It is the only public library that serves the city of about 107,000 people, and most residents have some connection to it.
Continue reading...Transcript of congressional testimony shows Microsoft founder spoke of ‘veiled’ threats made by late sex offender
The Microsoft founder Bill Gates told US members of Congress that the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein had sought to “blackmail” him over his extramarital affairs, according to a transcript of the testimony.
The tech pioneer testified behind closed doors before the House oversight committee on 10 June regarding his friendship with Epstein, who died in prison in 2019 as he awaited trial for sex crimes.
Continue reading...Josue Baires Alfaro, 22, identified as victim in Nevada Fall incident that nearly claimed life of woman who tried to help
A 22-year-old visitor to Yosemite national park in California died after he was swept over a 594ft-high waterfall on Saturday, officials confirmed this week.
A fellow parkgoer, Freesia Gaul, was capturing a photo when she noticed the man, reportedly identified by local authorities as Josue Baires Alfaro, in the Merced River.
Continue reading...Driver told authorities he had driver-assistance technology engaged before crash that killed 76-year-old Martha Avila
The US government has opened a second federal investigation into a recent crash of a Tesla that reportedly had driver-assistance technology engaged, struck a Texas home and killed a resident.
Meanwhile, the family of Martha Avila, the 76-year-old resident who was killed, has sued over the wreck.
Continue reading...Reginald Reed Sr. said he was playing video games with his son, Reginald "Reggie" Reed Jr., when his wife, Selonia Reed, was killed. But detectives doubt his story.
Rockstar Games has revealed the price of Grand Theft Auto VI to be $79.99, and confirmed that the physical versions of the game won't include a disc. Instead, they'll contain a one-time download code when it launches November 19. "Not only is that a disappointing decision for people who like to own physical games, but given the scale of the next GTA, it also sets a bad precedent for the rest of the industry," reports The Verge. From the report: There are a lot of advantages to buying digital. You can start a download from your couch. You can store multiple games on one hard drive so you don't have to get up to play something else. Storefronts like Steam or the PlayStation Store don't run out of inventory of the newest game you're interested in, and you can often get games at a cheaper price thanks to frequent sales. But it's becoming increasingly clear that digital ownership has significant disadvantages, too. If a game you don't own digitally is removed from a storefront, whether that's for things like licensing, artificially limited availability, or even the store eventually closing down, your only option is to hope you can find a physical version. If your account on a platform is banned, even if that ban isn't warranted, you might be locked out of your digital library with no way to play those games unless you buy them again or hope your account gets restored. You can't sell or trade digital games you've purchased, and while there are ways to share digital games, they require some work and are usually intended just for families. It's also much harder to preserve digital games because they only "exist" on the hard drive of a console, PC, or device they were downloaded to. This is an issue across many industries, not just console games; there are multiple examples of things like mobile games and streaming shows becoming lost for good when they don't have a physical version. Without physical versions, you also can't find a used version of a game at a garage sale or a local game shop. It's unclear whether Rockstar will ever release a physical version of the game. As for why, The Verge suspects the decision was made in part to prevent leaks; "by only being available digitally, Rockstar can ensure that GTA VI unlocks at the same exact time for everyone." "The digital-only choice might also indicate that the game has a massive file size that's too big for PlayStation and Xbox game discs."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
I just installed the Street Pro 2 tire on my Onewheel XR. Pretty simple. With that said, I bought a tire changing kit, and it did not include the Stay A Float slime and I didn’t know I would need it. I’ve gone ahead and ordered it now.
With that said, other than potentially running over something and getting a flat where I would need to walk or uber, is there any reason I can’t ride my Onewheel until it arrives?
Thanks
As the US prepares to celebrate 250 years since its founding, Kai Wright sits down with Eddie Glaude Jr, a Princeton University professor, to talk about the conflicts at the heart of the American project. Glaude argues that Black Americans have played a vital role in establishing the country, but their presence is a constant reminder that the American fantasy – the story of a white republic – doesn’t exist. He and Kai discuss how the Trump administration has normalized white supremacist rhetoric and the myriad ways the president is trying to whitewash history. Glaude’s book America, USA: How Race Shadows the Nation's Anniversaries, is out now.
Continue reading...White House must report by 31 July on purpose of tarp installed while Trump’s name was stripped from building
A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the Trump administration to explain why it placed a tarp over the Kennedy Center’s facade after the Republican leader’s name was removed from the building under a court order.
The US district judge Christopher Cooper said the administration must report by 31 July “the purpose and status of the tarp and scaffolding” now in place at the building. The tarp was installed as workers stripped Donald Trump’s name in a predawn operation this month following an order from Cooper that the Trump administration unlawfully added his name to the facade in December.
Continue reading...Spending on government contracts with tech firms that use AI-powered tools to track immigrants has soared to record levels under Trump 2.0, report says
A new report sheds light on the unprecedented growth of the US government’s immigration surveillance arsenal, revealing fresh details about how spending on technology and AI tools to find and track migrants has soared to record levels during Donald Trump’s second term.
The report, released this week, analyzed US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) contracts with 11 companies the authors said provide surveillance tech. They found the money awarded to these firms doubled from 2024 to 2025, to just over $310m – and in 2026, that number soared to a record $513m.
Continue reading...Defence minister says troops not withdrawing though Tehran sees end to war in Lebanon as part of deal with US
The Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, has said that Israeli troops would not withdraw from southern Lebanon, further complicating Iran peace talks as fighting in Lebanon continues to be an obstacle to permanent peace.
Speaking on stage in an interview in Tel Aviv, Katz said Israeli troops would remain in south Lebanon – echoing sentiments from the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Continue reading...Bill Gates testified June 10 for nearly six hours before the House Oversight Committee, which is examining the government's handling of the Epstein case and those with ties to him.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has sued nine states to block them from regulating prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket.
President Trump met with Republican senators soon after canceling plans to sign bipartisan housing affordability legislation at the Capitol.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit is the first appeals court to weigh in on the Trump administration's attempts to obtain sensitive voter information from 30 states and D.C.
President Trump's decision to abruptly cancel the signing of a landmark bipartisan housing bill marked the latest misalignment between him and GOP lawmakers.
Falling shares push tech mogul back down to billionaire ranks after SpaceX IPO made him world’s first trillionaire
Elon Musk was no longer a trillionaire by the time markets closed on Wednesday. Plunging shares in Tesla and SpaceX dragged the tech magnate down to billionaire status. As of 4pm ET, Forbes listed Musk’s net worth as $970.2bn.
Musk reached trillionaire status on 12 June after SpaceX’s historic initial public offering. The rocket, satellite and AI company’s debut on the stock market made Musk the first person with a net worth of more than $1tn. His fortune continued to hover around that gigantic figure in the weeks following the initial public offering (IPO).
Continue reading...OpenAI and Broadcom have unveiled Jalapeno, OpenAI's first custom AI chip, designed primarily to handle inference for ChatGPT and other services. It's a major step in OpenAI's plan to "build the full stack behind its models and products," says OpenAI. "By designing more of the stack ourselves, we can serve more intelligence with greater efficiency and keep pushing advanced AI toward broader access." CNBC reports: The chip with Broadcom is an ASIC, which industry experts say is less flexible than Nvidia's GPU, but is also less expensive and can be designed for specific AI tasks. OpenAI said that it designed the chip in nine months, and that it also crafted large parts of the computer system where it will be used. The companies are calling the chip an "Intelligence Processor" and describe it as the first "AI accelerator" in a platform they're building "to make advanced AI faster, more reliable, and more accessible to more people." [...] A physical sample of the new chip will be delivered to OpenAI on Wednesday. The companies said they're aiming for initial deployment of the Jalapeno chips by the end of 2026, "expanding in the years ahead."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
A 41-year-old man has been arrested after Isaac Clare-Watts, 26, found at Nine Ladies monument on Monday
A 26-year-old man who died in a suspected murder during a summer solstice event at a Bronze Age stone circle has been named by police.
Isaac Clare-Watts, from Nottingham, was found at the Nine Ladies stone circle in Stanton Lees in the Peak District in Derbyshire at about 1.38pm on Monday.
Continue reading...Hi All,
Working with an X7 Supercharged, purchased in April this year, 2026. I've been putting decent milage on the board and I'm loving it;
Major issue I've been running into...Working with the out-of-the-box default setting via Float Control VESC tool.
When I dismount by bailing (box-jump off), the board staggers for a second, but ultimately rolls backward at full velocity,
unless I grab the board and tilt it vertically. A few times, the board has rolled a few meters away and rammed into a wall, which ends the rotation. I've been trying to troubleshoot using different shaping tools (less aggression, less tilt) and cleaning the foot pad and foot sensor, but it's still happening occasionally.
Seems dangerous to me, but hopefully someone has dealt with this issue and it's software over hardware? I'll reach out to Funengineer tech support if there's no direction after this post.
Will also post in their discord server!
Thanks, appreciate the help :)
June 24, 2026 — JUPITER at Forschungszentrum Jülich remains one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers. In the latest TOP500 list of the fastest computers JUPITER ranks fifth worldwide. It is also the most energy-efficient computer in the exascale class.
According to the latest TOP500 list, which was published ISC High Performance 2026 in Hamburg, JUPITER requires less energy per computational operation than the new number one on the list, the Chinese supercomputer LineShine.
A look between the racks of JUPITER Credit: Forschungszentrum Jülich / Sascha Kreklau
JUPITER was developed by the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC) together with the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) and procured by EuroHPC. It enables scientific simulations and AI applications on a scale that has not previously been available in Europe, thereby strengthening Europe’s digital and scientific sovereignty.
Operated by the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC), the supercomputer reached a historic milestone in November last year when it became the first European supercomputer to officially surpass the exascale threshold. With a computing performance of 1 ExaFLOP/s at 64-bit precision, JUPITER can perform one quintillion – a “1” followed by 18 zeros – computing operations per second. For 8-bit calculations with lower precision, such as those used in training large AI models, its theoretical performance even exceeds 40 ExaFLOP/s.
With JUPITER, Europe can for the first time train the largest AI models and carry out scientific simulations in climate, energy, medical, and materials research with unprecedented complexity and level of detail. Thanks to the enormous computing power of the exascale system, it is possible to forecast extreme weather events such as heavy rainfall or heatwaves at significantly higher spatial resolution, advance the development of sustainable energy systems, and better understand complex biological processes – for example in proteins, cells, or the brain – as a basis for new therapies.
More than 120 national and international projects have already applied for computing time for applications on JUPITER. Notable examples include the new record for the simulation of a 50-qubit quantum computer set by researchers at Jülich, climate simulations of the entire Earth system with a resolution of approximately 1 kilometer and the new Jülich foundation model CytoNet for analyzing the microarchitecture of the brain.
More from HPCwire
Source: Forschungszentrum Jülich
The post JUPITER Ranked 5th on TOP500, Powers More Than 120 Research Projects appeared first on HPCwire.
WASHINGTON, June 24, 2026 — The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA) has announced Aires Tide, an NNSA-led proof-of-concept flight test vehicle developed using artificial intelligence, high-performance computing, and additive manufacturing to move from system design to flight testing on a sharply compressed timeline and at lower cost.
DOE/NNSA leveraged the Genesis Mission to develop, design, and demonstrate Aires Tide, marking the first tangible demonstration of the platform
On November 24, 2025, President Trump issued an Executive Order launching the Genesis Mission, a historic effort led by the Department of Energy to establish an interconnected web of national laboratory supercomputers empowered by AI. NNSA leveraged Genesis to develop, design, and demonstrate Aires Tide, marking the first tangible demonstration of the platform.
Aires Tide illustrates NNSA’s ability to apply advanced tools to rapidly design and deliver national security solutions, leading to a product developed 15 times cheaper and seven times faster than traditional manufacturing. NNSA’s National Laboratories – Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, and Sandia – worked in close collaboration with NNSA’s Kansas City National Security Campus, to showcase the Nuclear Security Enterprise’s ability to move faster to meet urgent mission needs.
“Aires Tide is a remarkable early demonstration of how NNSA is putting the Genesis Mission into action,” said NNSA Administrator Brandon Williams. “President Trump has made it clear that America must lead the world in artificial intelligence and use emerging technologies to strengthen our national security. By combining AI, high-performance computing, and additive manufacturing, we are pioneering a faster, more efficient model to design and produce capabilities for national security while keeping human judgment firmly at the center.”
In May, Nuclear Security Enterprise scientists conducted two successful flight tests of Aires Tide, dropping the vehicle from 32,000 feet at the U.S. Army’s Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. Data from the flight tests will be used to optimize future systems developed using the same design and manufacturing model.
Two of NNSA’s flagship supercomputers – Venado and El Capitan – were used to enable the design of Aires Tide. The project reflects a broader NNSA effort to use supercomputing platforms and cutting-edge additive manufacturing technologies to shorten development cycles and improve efficiency, strengthening the enterprise’s ability to respond to emerging national security challenges and keeping America safe.
More from HPCwire: Inside the DOE’s Genesis Mission: Core Components
Source: U.S. Dept. of Energy
The post DOE Unveils AI-Designed Aires Tide Flight Vehicle Built Under Genesis Mission appeared first on HPCwire.
The Intercept is challenging the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s refusal to release public documents relating to an unlawful database intended to stifle protest and punish people who exercise their First Amendment rights. In a complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York today, The Intercept is asking the court to compel the government to release documents requested through the Freedom of Information Act regarding increased surveillance and travel restrictions for protesters. The Intercept is represented by Democracy Forward in the case.
“It’s not illegal to monitor the activity of immigration agents inside your community,” said Ben Muessig, editor-in-chief of The Intercept. “What is illegal is the U.S. government’s secret list of activists — and its refusal to turn over information about that database to the American public.”
Sweeping immigration enforcement actions performed by DHS and its component agencies — including Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection — in recent months have led to a countermovement of civilians protesting and recording immigration enforcement actions in cities and towns across the United States. In response to the swell of public support for democracy, news reports and social media posts about encounters with ICE and CBP agents have suggested that by using photos, video, license plates, hotel check-in information, and more to create a database of lawful protesters, the government may be taking concerning action affecting the rights of those exercising their First Amendment rights. There are other indications that DHS may have used its authority over traveler programs to retaliate against protesters.
In one example, a video posted to social media on January 23, 2026, depicts federal agents recording a protester, saying that they were recording her “because we have a nice little database, and now you’re considered a domestic terrorist.” In another example, a court hearing regarding immigration enforcement actions in Minnesota reportedly included an exhibit of a recording of a federal agent saying, “Well, this person is gonna have a hard time traveling from now on” after taking a photo of an ICE observer’s license plate. In a separate court case, a civilian observing ICE submitted a declaration stating that her TSA PreCheck and Global Entry statuses were revoked three days after an encounter with immigration enforcement officials. Additionally, at least one prominent supporter of transgender rights has reportedly had her Global Entry access and U.S. passport canceled in the past few months.
In order to shed light on these reported abuses of power, earlier this year, The Intercept filed FOIA requests to help uncover important information about DHS’s efforts to increase surveillance of protesters and unlawful retaliation against people exercising their rights. Despite acknowledging the receipt of the requests, DHS has not produced the requested public documents, as required by law.
“The government is not allowed to selectively hide information about its actions that impact protected First Amendment activity,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward. “The surveillance and retaliation being reported would be egregious violations of core constitutional principles, and we are honored to represent a storied news organization as it fights to demand the public have access to the information we need to protect our democracy.”
The case is The Intercept v. DHS et al., and the legal team at Democracy Forward working on the case includes Amy Vickery, Daniel McGrath, Ron Fein, and Robin Thurston.
Read today’s filing here.
The post The Intercept Sues to Uncover Secretive Government Anti-Protester Database appeared first on The Intercept.
Want to protect your portfolio from rising inflation? These top gold IRA companies can help you invest smarter now.
Interest earnings on a CD account will be significant and accessible in just a few months. Here's what to know now.
Report uncovers biggest childbirth scandal in NHS history in which 520 mothers and babies suffered ‘potentially avoidable’ harm or died
Horrific failings led to 520 mothers and babies in Nottingham suffering harm or dying, sparking calls for a public inquiry into maternity care across England.
In all, 444 women and 76 newborn babies suffered “potentially avoidable” outcomes, a damning three-year long review of the biggest childbirth scandal in NHS history concluded.
A “bullying and toxic culture” persisted at NUH over many years and impeded moves to improve care.
Maternity service managers and the trust’s senior leaders were repeatedly warned about a host of serious problems in the maternity units at both hospitals but did not take effective action.
Maternity staff displayed “a culture of not admitting women who were seeking admission in labour”, despite the risks this posed to them and their babies.
Both maternity units were consistently seriously short-staffed and could not cope with the number of births and complexity of cases they had to handle.
One baby girl who died early in gestation was “inadvertently disposed of as clinical waste by laboratory staff after her postmortem examination”, compounding her parents’ distress.
Continue reading...E15 is usually only available part of the year to help ease high gas prices under a waiver from the EPA.
These debt relief companies could help you slash your debt, but there are some things to know before signing up.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Barron's: Walmart is signing a long-term contract to buy nuclear power for the first time ever, a promising sign that the industry's future is supported by more than just the AI data center boom. The retail giant agreed on Tuesday to buy power from a nuclear plant in Illinois owned by Constellation Energy for its operations in the area, including its stores and a high-tech warehouse in Illinois that stores and sorts perishable food. Walmart will buy 176 megawatts of power from the plant over a 15-year period, or enough power to serve around 150,000 homes. The Walmart deal will allow Constellation to expand the capacity of the Illinois plant by 30 megawatts, a process known as an uprate, which can involve replacing older equipment and improving efficiency. Walmart, which has pledged to eliminate net carbon emissions from its U.S. operations by 2040, will also receive the environmental attributes associated with the nuclear energy, which generates electricity without carbon emissions. Further reading: Trump Admin Announces $17.5 Billion In Loans For 10 New Large Nuclear Reactors
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Today's mortgage interest rates don't necessarily have to remain high this July. Here's what to consider right now.
Refugee charities fear controversial changes, including on forced removals and age checks, are being rushed through
Shabana Mahmood’s controversial plans to increase the forced removal of people refused asylum, introduce stringent age checks for people claiming to be children and limit applications under human rights laws are scheduled to be placed before MPs within days.
The immigration and asylum bill is expected to be put before parliament next Tuesday and will face opposition from some Labour, Lib Dem and independent MPs. Andy Burnham’s team, widely expected to be in No 10 within weeks, is understood to be aware of the bill and its contents.
Continue reading...France Pierron described childbirth as "a disgusting moment, excuse me, where the dad is useless" during a TV appearance.
Senior figures, including some in No 10, want the Treasury to be allowed to borrow more for military spending
Senior government officials are planning to lobby Andy Burnham during access talks to revive the idea of “war bonds” to pay for higher defence spending when he becomes prime minister, the Guardian understands.
Senior figures, including some in No 10, want the Treasury to be allowed to borrow more for military spending and will try to convince Burnham to invest beyond the £13.5bn earmarked for the long-awaited Defence Investment Plan (Dip).
Continue reading...According to the suit, gas stations across the state used AI-enabled software that inflated the price of fuel.
Ruling is win for democracy advocates who have fought back against Trump’s push to take power over voting
A US federal court blocked Donald Trump’s attempt to regulate elections via executive order, a win for democracy advocates who have fought back against the US president’s push to take power over voting.
Trump issued an executive order on elections, including a documentary proof of citizenship requirement that would have necessitated that people show passports, birth certificates or other documentation when they registered to vote, or changed their registration.
Continue reading...President’s promise of photo and video evidence of vandalism at Washington landmark yet to be fulfilled
Donald Trump and the Department of the Interior are facing growing pressure to release photo and video evidence substantiating their claims of sabotage at the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool in Washington.
The $14.7m renovation of the landmark has descended into a farce of algae blooms, peeling paint and dead ducks just days before the US’s 250th anniversary celebrations. Crews have been seen erecting fencing near the area.
Continue reading...Some worry choosing James Purnell, former Demon Eyes teammate, would show Labour struggling for new talent
The most powerful football team in the country is getting back together.
Andy Burnham’s decision to appoint James Purnell as his chief of staff should he become prime minister will reunite not only two old friends and former Labour ministers but two of the linchpins of the famous Demon Eyes team set up in the late 1990s.
Continue reading...Husband arrested after Sylvie Yasmina, 54, and five children found at home in north-western province
Pakistan police say they have rescued a French woman and her five children after she told authorities she had been held captive by her husband for more than a decade and subjected to years of domestic abuse in the country’s north-west.
The woman, identified as 54-year-old Sylvie Yasmina, was rescued earlier this week from a mud-brick home in Bara, a town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province near the Afghan border, the district police chief, Waqar Ahmad, said.
Continue reading...The Israeli Foreign Ministry called the findings a “libelous sham.”
First time riding. Ngl, it took a while to set up. I was having problems with the app and Bluetooth connection, etc... Anyway, I figured since I've skated for 30yrs I could just jump on and go... nope 🤦♂️ I ate it as soon as I saw a dump truck came right my way. I can tell this thing eats up a lot of calf muscles so far and still got some learning to do. I'll probably try again tonight when everyone is asleep 😅 I'll wear 'pants' this time.
Gen. Christopher Donahue, seen as a top warfighter, is the latest apparent casualty in a purge of senior military leaders by the Trump administration.
Temperature of 36.1C (97F) recorded in Hampshire, while two-thirds of Europe’s population experience temperatures above 30C
The UK has broken its all-time temperature record for June and France has recorded its hottest day ever for the second day running, as a heatwave affecting more than 90 million people sweeps across swathes of Europe.
As the UK and France registered record-breaking temperatures, the World Health Organization warned that the extreme temperatures are “putting lives at risk”.
Continue reading...There are several connection types, including 5G, cable, satellite and fiber. Which one is really the golden standard? CNET readers have a say.
In an exit interview with The Financial Times (paywalled), former Disney CEO Bob Iger says the company seriously considered buying Twitter, explored a potential merger with Apple, and pursued the James Bond franchise during his tenure. The Verge reports: According to Iger, Disney came close to buying Twitter from co-founder Jack Dorsey "at a very attractive price," sometime prior to Elon Musk buying the social media platform in 2022 and changing its name to X. Iger had plans to turn Twitter into a global distribution platform for Disney, but walked away on the morning of the deal over concerns that it would be "a horrible distraction." Disney was also at one point involved in early conversations regarding a potential merger with Apple, something Iger thinks would have been "truly transformational." In the end, Iger says these conversations "never went anywhere," and that "Apple didn't show that much interest." The two companies have a mixed history -- Iger was an Apple board member from 2011 to 2019, and notably a driving force behind Disney acquiring Pixar in 2006, which was led by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs at the time. According to Iger, his first call with Jobs resulted in an almost immediate deal to put Disney content on the first video iPod. "All of a sudden, I'm now someone Steve likes and respects," Iger told The Financial Times. "The old Disney that he knew was lumbering in terms of bureaucracy. And so he thought, this is a new day." The Pixar acquisition spurred Iger to find more companies to bring under Disney's wing, though not every attempt was successful. "We felt unstoppable. We put together a list of acquisition targets," said Iger. "Marvel was one, Star Wars was another, James Bond was one. We had a list and I figured let's just tick them off and buy them all." Iger provides no details about Disney's attempt to buy the James Bond franchise, but we know it obviously failed -- Amazon bought the 007 distribution rights when it acquired MGM in 2022, and later paid more than $1 billion to take full creative control of the franchise in February 2025.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Michelle Zajko, in jail since February 2025 on other charges, has been charged in 2022 Pennsylvania killings of parents
A member of the cultlike group known as Zizians, who has denied killing her parents in Pennsylvania in 2022, has been charged with murder, a prosecutor said on Wednesday.
Michelle Zajko, who has been jailed in Maryland on other charges since February 2025, has been charged with murder, burglary and conspiracy charges in the deaths of Rita and Richard Zajko, the Delaware county district attorney, Tanner Rouse, said at a news conference. The prosecutor said she did not act alone.
Continue reading...June 24, 2026 — A $10-million grant from the National Science Foundation will allow the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC) to build Bridges-3, the center’s next flagship supercomputer.
Expanding on the capabilities of its predecessor, Bridges-2, Bridges-3 will offer an array of different types of computational nodes that allow users to leverage cutting-edge technologies in complex projects that require seamless integration of different types of computation. Graphics processing units (GPUs), needed for demanding AI training jobs and accelerated simulation, and computation-intensive central processing units (CPUs) will be paired with large memory via an InfiniBand network to ensure computational tasks can move efficiently between the nodes best suited to each step of calculation.
“The system design reflects the practices successfully established through the Bridges family: selecting technologies that support a wide range of scientific disciplines, enabling flexible workflows, and ensuring that users at varying levels of experience can make productive use of the system,” said Bruno Abreu, PSC’s Deputy Scientific Director and Principal Investigator for Bridges-3. “It maintains all the capabilities of its predecessor while offering state-of-the-art GPUs and CPUs that deliver substantial performance improvements for modeling, simulation, data analytics, and artificial intelligence.”
Consistent with the NSF FY2026–2030 Strategic Plan, Bridges-3 will sustain national research excellence by supplying production cyberinfrastructure essential to scientific advancement; support STEM workforce development through comprehensive training, internships, and classroom integration; and advance modernized CI operations through the deployment of state-of-the art computing technologies, expanded user‑support practices, and reliable integration with ecosystem resources.
The system will combine NVIDIA B200 GPU servers, high‑core‑count AMD CPU nodes, an all‑flash Lustre file system, and an XDR/NDR InfiniBand network. The software environment will retain the familiar interfaces, tools, and frameworks used on Bridges‑2, easing the transition for thousands of current users. Integration of selected Bridges‑2 nodes and connectivity to the Leadership‑Class Computing Facility (LCCF) data system further extends the value and continuity of existing community workflows.
Bridges-3 will continue PSC’s 40-year history of supporting broad segments of the U.S. research and education community, including institutions without local HPC resources, emerging research programs, classroom use cases, and users new to advanced cyberinfrastructure. The system will be allocated primarily through ACCESS and the NAIRR Pilot, ensuring open availability and broad access. PSC will expand its workforce development activities, building on the training, workshops, internships, and Learning Lab modules that have been refined through Bridges‑2. These programs support learners at multiple levels, from undergraduates to experienced researchers, and help broaden participation in computational and data‑intensive fields.
“Our continued support of the national research community is at the heart of everything we do at PSC,” said Barr von Oehsen, PSC’s Executive Director. “With Bridges-3, we’re not just upgrading hardware, we’re renewing our promise to serve the researchers, educators, and students across the country who depend on open, accessible, high-performance computing to advance their work.”
Construction of Bridges-3 by Hewlett Packard Enterprise is expected to begin at PSC’s new data center in early 2027, with full operations expected in the summer.
Source: Ken Chiacchia, PSC
The post PSC Secures $10M NSF Grant to Build Bridges-3 Supercomputer appeared first on HPCwire.
Pro- and anti-AI groups spent $24m on a congressional contest in New York, but it’s unclear to what end
When the Democratic primary for New York’s 12th congressional district was called on Tuesday night, the result capped off one of the most expensive races of its kind in the state’s history. More than $24m poured into the Manhattan contest from tech-backed financial groups as the campaign turned into a battleground for pro- and anti-AI groups to test their influence.
Much of the spending targeted candidate Alex Bores, a member of the state assembly who sponsored an AI safety bill and subsequently became a lightning rod for the tech industry. Pro-AI political action committees (Pacs) put more than $8m into the race to oppose Bores, according to Tech Influence Watch, while industry groups supporting regulation spent more than $16m to counter the attacks.
Continue reading...Returns on a $10,000 3-year CD account may be substantial, but that's not the only benefit for savers who act now.
Deutsche Bahn widely criticised after hundreds of thousands of passengers stranded in operator’s latest setback
Germany’s rail network ground to a halt late on Tuesday as a result of maintenance work that went wrong, leaving hundreds of thousands of passengers unable to get home as the national operator faced widespread criticism over the chaos.
The Deutsche Bahn (DB) meltdown was initially thought to have been caused by a cyber-attack, but it later emerged that it was likely to have been triggered by a scheduled attempt to replace an ageing component in the railway’s internal communication network, without which the trains are unable to run.
Continue reading...Woman detained at airport after allegedly making racist remarks directed at workers unloading baggage, police say
Brazil’s federal police have detained a Spanish citizen in São Paulo’s international Guarulhos airport for racism, in the latest of a series of high-profile arrests of foreign tourists on similar grounds.
Brazil has some of the strictest anti-racism laws in Latin America. Insulting a person on the basis of race carries a penalty of imprisonment from two to five years and a fine.
Continue reading...Muslims in the UK, Europe and the US are increasingly fearful and frustrated as targeted attacks rise. Others must speak out
The chilling attacks that injured five men in Edinburgh at the weekend, including two who were struck as they left a mosque, have deepened the fear that many Muslims in Britain feel today. The case received remarkably little attention south of the border. A man has now been charged with five counts of attempted murder, allegedly “aggravated by reason of having a terrorist connection”. The facts of these attacks must now be examined in court in due course.
What is beyond doubt is the real and growing fear experienced by Muslim communities in the UK, Europe and elsewhere. The US president has said that “I think Islam hates us”. Increasingly open Islamophobic rhetoric from political figures, and a muted response from others, as well as violence towards Muslims, have left many feeling vulnerable and frustrated.
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
Continue reading...Agreement is first by federal government to resolve enforcement claims against a major Pfas manufacturer
The Trump administration on Wednesday reached a multi-state settlement with the chemical giant Chemours Co over years-long, illegal discharges of synthetic “forever chemicals” used to make products resistant to water, grease and stains. The settlement is the first by the federal government to resolve enforcement claims against a manufacturer of harmful chemicals known as Pfas.
Under the agreement, filed in federal court in West Virginia, Chemours will pay a civil penalty of $22.5m for alleged violations and spend $90m over 15 years to mitigate Pfas discharges in three states: West Virginia, North Carolina and New Jersey.
Continue reading...The latest news from the tournament before Scotland’s final group stage match against Brazil in Group C
How do we feel about the penalty that wasn’t?
I don’t really see how you can’t give it. Fatawu was in and Konsa launches into him, getting nowhere near the ball with no chance of getting at the ball – which makes it a red card too.
Continue reading...
In his bid to be Florida’s next governor, Democrat David Jolly is singling out the state’s healthcare system as leading most of the country in unnecessary and expensive hospital costs.
"More people are going without healthcare than ever before and as a result Florida is 49th in avoidable hospital costs — 49th," Jolly, a former Republican, said June 11 at Florida International University’s Graham Center in Miami.
That raised our curiosity. Is Florida really a standout on this measure? And what is considered "avoidable"?
Jolly’s campaign pointed us to a September 2025 Florida Policy Institute article that referenced the statistic. "Florida ranks 49th in potentially avoidable hospital use and cost, meaning that the state pays more than others due to a lack of timely and effective care, preventive care, and health insurance," the article said, citing a June 2025 analysis by the Commonwealth Fund, a nonpartisan healthcare research organization.
The Commonwealth Fund evaluated state health systems across the U.S., including healthcare access and affordability, prevention and treatment and "avoidable hospital use and cost."
The study accounted for the states and the District of Columbia, ranking Florida’s health system 39th overall and 49th in the avoidable hospital use and cost category, meaning its inefficiencies are among the nation’s most significant.
Jolly’s campaign said he was arguing for opening up more Federally Qualified Health Centers, nonprofit and county health clinics across the state to increase patient access to primary care and bring down healthcare costs.
David Radley, a Commonwealth Fund senior scientist and the report’s lead author, said the "avoidable hospital use and cost" category represents state health system efficiency, and includes some costs outside of hospital settings, such as for costly imaging that patients may not need and state Medicare spending.
The Commonwealth Fund’s state healthcare system scorecard is part of a series of reports tracking how well health care systems are working for people in every state. Its 2025 report used 2023 data, the most recent available at the time.
The scorecard, which has been produced intermittently for more than a decade, includes over 50 measures broken down into various categories. Its avoidable hospital use and cost category examines potentially avoidable emergency department visits, outpatient care admissions for certain conditions, 30-day hospital readmissions, costly medical imaging and more.
"That rank of 49 is basically the combined aggregate score where Florida ranks based on its performance on these components, which were chosen because they reflect, in some way, inefficient use of finite healthcare resources," Radley said.
For example, for the "potentially avoidable emergency room visits" metric, researchers incorporated a widely used tool from New York University that categorizes ER visits based on the medical urgency of patients’ diagnoses and treatments.
This breaks down the different things people may show up to the ER for, Radley said, ranging from emergent conditions such as trauma, heart attack and stroke to health issues that could have been treated by a primary care or specialty physician.
Another metric in the category, "admissions for ambulatory sensitive conditions," involves a list of certain disease complications, as designated by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, that typically don’t require hospital admission if the underlying condition is being well managed. These include hospitalizations for certain complications of diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma and hypertension.
"If you're diabetic and you need your leg amputated, of course the hospital is the right place to be," Radley said, "but if that person has their disease being managed, and they are engaged with their doctors, they typically shouldn't get to the point where they need their leg amputated."
The "hospital readmissions within 30 days" measure includes situations in which people got discharged too early or didn’t receive appropriate follow-up care, resulting in their unnecessary readmission.
Hospital admissions are among the most expensive costs associated with healthcare. The average cost for a one-night hospital stay in Florida is around $3,060, according to KFF, close to the U.S. average of $3,297 per night.
Researchers also evaluated how often patients receive costly, but unnecessary medical imaging. In many instances, less expensive X-rays or CT scans may show what a doctor needs to know without an MRI. An MRI can cost $500 to $1,000 and often get prescribed the first time someone shows up at the doctors, Radley said.
"A lot of times, these MRIs are happening for these conditions where there is really no real indication that an MRI is needed," Radley said. "At least not right away."
Jolly said Florida is "49th in avoidable hospital costs."
This matches a 2025 Commonwealth Fund analysis that placed Florida 49th out of 51, accounting for the states and the District of Columbia, in its "avoidable hospital use and cost" category.
Researchers arrived at that ranking by studying the frequency of potential avoidable emergency department visits, ambulatory admissions for certain conditions, 30-day hospital readmissions and more.
The category also included data that wasn’t exclusive to hospitals, such as Medicare spending.
Jolly’s claim is accurate but needs some additional information. We rate it Mostly True.
A peer-reviewed Nature critique argues that Microsoft's 2025 Majorana quantum-computing breakthrough -- and its claim that it could enable "a truly meaningful quantum computer not in decades, as some have predicted, but in years" -- is fundamentally flawed. According to Dr Henry Legg, a lecturer at the University of St Andrews, the claims were undermined by omitted data, selective plotting, and basic Python errors that concealed alternative results. Microsoft, for its part, says the bugs were minor and stands by its findings and roadmap. The Register reports: "Last year they claimed to be years, not decades from a 'topological quantum supercomputer,'" Legg told The Register in an email. "My feeling is that they are centuries, not decades away. If it works at all -- and, based on what I have seen, the most likely scenario is that it doesn't work." Based on his analysis of the research Microsoft published in 2025, Legg argues that the company's claims about finding and being able to control the elusive Majorana particle to build a topological superconductor do not withstand scrutiny. "I demonstrate that Microsoft's tune-up software is flawed and that coding errors resulted in incorrect statements to peer reviewers," said Legg. "Raw data, which was omitted from the original paper, also appears to indicate Microsoft's devices contain considerable disorder and are not compatible with the existence of a topological gap. In other words, the prerequisites for Microsoft's claims do not appear to be met, but this was obscured because this data did not appear in the original publication." Essentially, Microsoft has proposed a Topological Gap Protocol (TGP) that can be used to detect the phase transition deemed to be a prerequisite for conducting quantum calculations using Majorana particles. Legg argues that based on his analysis of underlying transport data (measurements of particle change) -- omitted from the original publication -- Microsoft chose to focus on results that supported its thesis and ignored data that could be interpreted as a negative result. As he notes in his critique: "The TGP plotting code was set to highlight only the largest purportedly topological region." "The primary consequence was the omission of other regions that passed their tune-up protocol (the TGP)," said Legg. "When peer reviewers asked if other regions existed, Microsoft inaccurately stated that they had investigated the only region passing the protocol within the explored range. This was not correct." Legg also argues that Microsoft mishandled its code. "The code antisymmetrized bias voltage based on array index rather than physical value," his analysis says. In other words, Microsoft's researchers made a basic programming mistake by evaluating the array index -- the number identifying a value's position in an array -- instead of the value to which the index refers. "There were two pretty basic Python programming errors that hid these alternative regions," Legg explained. "Their plotting software was hardcoded with a filter (zbp_cluster_numbers=[1]) that forced it to display only the single largest region, concealing other successful results from their phase maps. Changing this to zbp_cluster_numbers=[1,2] shows already a second region." Legg added: "The TGP software transformed the data by simply reversing a Python array (x[::-1]) based on its index position, ignoring the actual physical bias voltages."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Human and animal remains unearthed in Egypt's Nile Delta reveal changing funerary practices over some 600 years, and the evolution of a key site itself.
West Sussex reports temperature of 35.8C, beating previous record from 1976; red weather alert extended to 72 of France’s 96 mainland departments
Grahame Madge, a Met Office spokesperson, said the agency is forecasting 39C as a headline maximum temperature on Thursday in the UK, most likely for somewhere in London or the south-east.
“It is possible we could see temperatures higher than the 39C if the final values are at the upper end of our narrow range,” he said, according to the Press Association.
Continue reading...Some types of debt may be wiped out, but a few obligations can still follow your surviving family members.
A leaked dossier exposes the private data of prominent digital rights activists who publicly criticized the company's facial recognition technology.
Bonne St.Jean Quebec City!!! (Onewheel Traveling Seeking a GT Chager)
I am traveling in Quebec City for the first time and forgot my GT charger. I was in Montreal yesterday and went to Le Taz and they let me charge. now I’m in Quebec looking for another charge today
In Quebec for the day then Montreal tonight and tomorrow
Thanks for reading
Anyone wanna show me around Quebec City?
Former Georgia congresswoman on social media says she’s ‘fed up’ and done backing a party ‘that betrays its voters’
Former US congresswoman and Trump loyalist Marjorie Taylor Greene has announced that she is finished backing the Republican party, aligning herself with TV rightwinger Tucker Carlson after his own high-profile rejection of the GOP just months ahead of the midterm elections.
During a recent episode of the Can’t Be Censored podcast, Carlson said when he appeared as a guest there was “no chance” he would support the Republican party any more, after years of being a prominent booster for Donald Trump.
Continue reading...Neso expected to pay millions to secure enough electricity to meet demand as households turn on fans and air conditioning
Great Britain’s grid operator is expected to pay millions to fire up gas power plants to avoid a rare summer power supply crunch on Wednesday evening as extreme heat puts pressure on the energy system.
The National Energy System Operator (Neso) is expected to pay about £10m on Wednesday to secure enough electricity to meet demand as households turn on air conditioners and electric fans, according to industry data.
Continue reading...The searches stemmed from an ongoing probe into the conduct of former NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey, a source told CBS News.
President Trump canceled a planned signing ceremony on Wednesday for a housing affordability bill that passed Congress by wide bipartisan margins.
Chemical maker Chemours allegedly discharged chemicals linked to cancer and other health conditions in three states.
Supergirl is a good, but not great, comic book adaptation, with fun action and standout performances from Milly Alcock and Jason Momoa.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: The Trump administration is providing $17.5 billion to speed the development of 10 new large nuclear reactors to meet the skyrocketing power demand from massive data centers. Energy Secretary Chris Wright cited "tremendous interest" among developers of data centers that would buy the power, as well as utilities and energy companies. The nuclear plants could begin construction by 2030 and become operational in the mid-2030s, Wright and other officials said Tuesday. "This is the start," Wright said on a call with reporters. "We're going to move with the players that are ready to stand up and move quickly. Once that supply chain is up and running, do we think there will be dozens of these built going forward? I'd be very surprised if there were not." Most U.S. nuclear power plants were built between 1970 and 1990. Only two new large reactors have been built from scratch in the United States in recent decades. Those two reactors, at Georgia Power Co.'s Plant Vogtle, were completed years late and billions of dollars over budget. The 10 new reactors will use the same design, Westinghouse's AP1000. Wright said the Plant Vogtle project struggled because of bad planning, supply chain problems and the COVID-19 pandemic. But, he said, the reactor design is "robust and sound."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
In the age of Blackboard and Canvas, every student needs a good computer and the right accessories to succeed. Here's what to get before the next school year.
Backed by Jeff Bezos, Slate's EV pickup sells for about half the cost of a typical new vehicle. But car experts say its unconventional design may be a hurdle.
Administration claims website is resource for ‘new and expecting mothers’ but group of senators says it raises ‘profound’ health and safety concerns
A group of 11 senators have sent a letter to Donald Trump and Robert F Kennedy urging them to remove a federal website and “cease using federal resources to direct people to anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers”.
On Mother’s Day this year, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) launched Moms.gov, a resource they claim is for “new and expecting mothers” and “offers guidance and information to support the health and wellbeing of mothers and their families”.
Continue reading...President is demanding Senate approve Save America Act, which would dramatically change voting regulations
Donald Trump abruptly shelved plans to sign a broad bipartisan bill aimed at lowering the cost of housing on Wednesday, demanding Congress first approve his controversial legislation to overhaul US election rules and regulations.
The president is pushing the Senate to approve the Save America Act, which would dramatically change voting regulations by requiring proof of citizenship at voter registration and significantly curtail mail-in voting.
Continue reading...DNA testing has identified a suspect in the 2005 murder of Daniel Zeisler in Las Vegas, according to a forensic lab.
Leftist Iván Cepeda conceded to far-right lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella who won by razor-thin margin
The defeated leftwing candidate in Colombia’s presidential runoff has conceded to the far-right, Trump-admiring millionaire lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella.
Since Sunday night, the preliminary count had already pointed to a De la Espriella victory by a razor-thin margin of less than 1% of the vote.
Continue reading...Previously hidden text revealed without unrolling scroll discusses stoic philosophy on ethics, art and human behaviour
The surviving part of an ancient scroll that was burnt to a crisp when Mount Vesuvius erupted nearly 2,000 years ago has been virtually unwrapped and read with help from artificial intelligence.
Researchers uncovered 20 columns of previously hidden text covering more than a metre of charred papyrus without physically unrolling the scroll. The work discusses stoic philosophy on ethics, art and human behaviour and dates to the second or late-third century BC.
Continue reading...Tory leader said Labour MPs were cheering, even though there are ‘400 knives’ in Starmer’s back
Ben Quinn is a Guardian political correspondent.
Nigel Farage has made an explicit pitch for support from an international gathering of thousands of social conservatives and hard-right activists, likening “family breakdown” to “community breakdown” as populations grew more diverse.
The Reform UK leader was speaking a day after the Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference, which is backed by influential right-wing funders including including donors to Donald Trump.
“I think family breakdown is pretty much the same as community breakdown,” Farage said in an interview on the event’s main stage with Philippa Stroud, the Tory peer who set up ARC with others including the controversial Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson and Paul Marshall, one of the backers of GB News.
When people live together in the same communities and they all speak the same language and they all have something in common and they all know their neighbours’ christian names and they all take part in community events ... And when that starts to break down what happens? People become more individualised, more selfish.
They don’t know the names of their next door neighbours and I think downstream of that a similar thing has happened in families and I am not pretending that government can on its own wave a magic hand. But we can at least start to make the argument that living in a family, living in a genuine sense of community, is a better way of life and start unashamedly champion that.
Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news, as drops in SpaceX and Tesla’s shares eat into Musk’s wealth
Segro have confirmed they have “unequivocally” rejected a takeover proposal from US rival Prologis, saying the £12.6bn bid falls “a long way short” of its true value.
In a statement to the City, Segro say:
The Board of SEGRO considered the Proposal together with its advisers and believed that the Proposal was opportunistically timed and sought to take advantage of the clear dislocation between SEGRO’s current share price and its highly attractive underlying business and strong prospects. This has been accentuated by major geopolitical issues which have adversely impacted trading valuations across the UK and European real estate sectors relative to the US REIT sector.
SEGRO has a clear strategy, supported by a strong balance sheet and a proven operating platform. Momentum is building in SEGRO’s occupational markets and the Company has a large and attractive development pipeline, including an exceptional data centre platform, as well as a long track record of delivery.
Continue reading...The teams join four others selected in 2025 for a total of nine projects focused on designing a unified national resource for quantum science and technology development
June 24, 2026 — The U.S. National Science Foundation has selected five new teams to design experimental quantum technologies, from networks that can ferry fragile quantum information across long distances to sensors that can measure faint properties inside a single cell. The teams will collectively receive $20 million from NSF and join four others that NSF selected in 2025. This effort is part of the agency’s broader support for the Administration’s vision of strengthening U.S. leadership in quantum, as called for in the recent Executive Order on Ushering in the Next Frontier of Quantum Innovation.
Credit: Shutterstock
NSF is investing in the five teams through its National Quantum Virtual Laboratory program. Now in the design stage, the laboratory aims to provide researchers anywhere in the U.S. with access to specialized resources for developing useful quantum technologies. Each of the five teams will receive $4 million over two years to refine their development plans and prepare for the implementation phase.
Their projects will help build scientific testing and evaluation capabilities to integrate three broad areas of quantum science and technology — sensors, networks and computers — in a unified system that demonstrates functional quantum technologies for real-world applications.
“Across academia, government and industry, America has an unmatched array of brilliant people working on quantum science and tech with incredible potential to improve our quality of life,” said Brian Stone, performing the duties of the NSF director. “But too often they are working independently in silos. We need to bring their talent and ideas together, and NSF is uniquely positioned to make that happen.”
The five newly selected teams embody this collaborative philosophy and include researchers and other personnel spanning institutions of higher education in 20 states. The teams’ federal partners include the U.S. Department of War’s Air Force Research Laboratory, multiple U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories, NASA and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. More than two dozen U.S. companies are partnering with the projects to help develop and scale up quantum technologies that emerge from the research. The participating companies include Boeing, Honeywell, IonQ, NVIDIA, Quantinuum and others.
NSF is also supporting the teams’ education and training activities to help grow and expand the science, technology, engineering and mathematics workforce in the U.S. Those activities include co-creating evidence-based quantum science educational curriculum with K-12 teachers to use in classrooms. Some researchers will also participate directly in classrooms and other school activities to serve as role models and encourage young people to pursue a career in STEM.
The NSF National Quantum Virtual Laboratory is also part of NSF’s strategy to fulfill the vision of the “National Quantum Initiative Act” passed by Congress in 2018. NSF expects to select the first teams to transition from the design to the implementation phase later in 2026, subject to appropriations from Congress.
The five design projects and teams are:
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About the National Science Foundation
The U.S. National Science Foundation propels the nation forward by advancing fundamental research in all fields of science and engineering. NSF supports research and people by providing facilities, instruments and funding to support their ingenuity and sustain the U.S. as a global leader in research and innovation. With a fiscal year 2026 budget of $8.75 billion, NSF funds reach all 50 states through grants to nearly 2,000 colleges, universities and institutions. Each year, NSF receives more than 40,000 competitive proposals and makes about 11,000 new awards. Those awards include support for cooperative research with industry, Arctic and Antarctic research and operations, and U.S. participation in international scientific efforts.
Source: NSF
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The investigators tested the suitability of the Cerebras Wafer-Scale Engine for accelerating traditional simulation workflows.
June 24, 2026 — Daniel Renschler and Jonathan Schäfer, two student researchers at the High-Performance Computing Center Stuttgart (HLRS), accepted the third prize in the Best Poster Award competition at the ISC High Performance Conference in Hamburg, Germany.
As part of the Best Poster Competition at ISC26, Jonathan Schäfer presented research conducted by the HLRS Future Computing Group.
Their poster, titled SpMV for the Cerebras Wafer-Scale Engine reports on the successful implementation of a sparse matrix-vector product (SpMV) method on an experimental, massively parallel computing accelerator. The Wafer-Scale Engine (WSE), manufactured by California-based startup Cerebras, holds up to 900,000 compute cores on a single, large-scale chip. Developed for artificial intelligence training and inference applications, the WSE’s unique architecture offers dramatically faster speeds in comparison to conventional AI processors.
In today’s current generation of high-performance computing systems, processors that were originally used for artificial intelligence applications have increasingly been repurposed to accelerate traditional simulation workloads, enable hybrid workflows that combine simulation and data-driven methods, and run data-intensive tasks that can be managed faster on AI-optimized processors. Renschler, Schäfer and his colleagues wanted to understand whether the WSE could also be used in this way.
In their tests they focused on SpMV, a computational method that is commonly used in classical applications for simulation such as finite element analysis and computational fluid dynamics. Renschler and Schäfer used the Wafer-Scale Engine to accelerate a highly parallelized component of a typical simulation workflow that includes this method. They also performed weak- and strong-scaling experiments, revealing bottlenecks that affected application performance. This enabled the investigators to suggest optimization strategies that could improve performance of SpMV methods on the WSE in the future.
The research was conducted within the context of the HLRS Future Computing Group, led by Dr. Johannes Gebert, a multidisciplinary research team within HLRS that tests and evaluates emerging hardware concepts and their suitability for typical high-performance computing applications.
Renschler, Schäfer and Gebert conducted this experiment together with Mark Parsons, director of EPCC in Edinburgh.
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Source: Christopher Williams, HLRS
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June 24, 2026 — The DAEDALUS supercomputer, implemented by Greece’s National Infrastructures for Research and Technology (GRNET S.A.) and supervised by the Hellenic Ministry of Digital Governance and Artificial Intelligence, has been ranked significantly high in the internationally renowned TOP500 and Green500 lists, the two most recognized global rankings of supercomputing systems.
The latest editions of the TOP500 and Green500 rankings were published on Tuesday, June 23, 2026, during ISC 2026 in Hamburg, Germany, according to the relevant announcement of the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU). DAEDALUS is ranked 31st in the TOP500 list and 23rd in the Green500 list, further strengthening Greece’s position on the global map of High-Performance Computing (HPC) and energy-efficient supercomputing.
DAEDALUS joins the strong presence of EuroHPC systems featured in the latest TOP500 and Green500 rankings, alongside European supercomputers such as JUPITER, LUMI, Leonardo, MareNostrum and Arrhenius, highlighting Europe’s contribution to both High-Performance Computing and sustainable, energy-efficient supercomputing.
With a measured performance of 85.69 petaflops in the TOP500 ranking, DAEDALUS becomes the most powerful computing system ever ranked in Greece to date. The system is based on Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) architecture, featuring NVIDIA GH200 accelerators and direct liquid cooling technology, combining high computational performance with a strong focus on sustainability and operational efficiency.
DAEDALUS and its new Data Center is situated at the Lavrion Technological and Cultural Park of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), within the historic former Power Station building, a recognized monument of modern industrial heritage. The infrastructure has been designed with sustainability at its core, utilizing renewable energy sources and advanced cooling technologies aimed at reducing overall energy consumption.
About the TOP500 and Green500 Lists
The TOP500 list ranks the 500 most powerful supercomputers in the world based on their measured computational performance using the internationally recognized LINPACK Benchmark. The ranking reflects the maximum processing speed at which these systems are capable of executing complex mathematical calculations.
The Green500 list ranks TOP500 systems according to their energy efficiency, measuring the computational performance delivered relative to the energy consumed. DAEDALUS’ presence in both rankings demonstrates its successful combination of high computational power and sustainable operation.
DAEDALUS represents a critical national infrastructure for supporting advanced applications in Artificial Intelligence, scientific research, big data analytics and innovation. Its computational capabilities will be leveraged across a wide range of domains, including personalized healthcare, climate research, public administration, cybersecurity, the Greek language and culture, amongst others.
At the same time, DAEDALUS will serve as the computational backbone of the Greek AI Factory, PHAROS, coordinated by GRNET within the framework of the European AI Factories network. PHAROS aims to foster a trustworthy and sustainable Artificial Intelligence ecosystem serving the public sector, the research community, startups and SMEs, with a particular focus on Language and Culture, Health and Sustainability.
The inclusion of DAEDALUS in both the TOP500 and Green500 lists marks a significant milestone for Greece, strengthening the country’s participation in the European and international ecosystems of High-Performance Computing, Artificial Intelligence and sustainable digital innovation.
The project is being implemented by GRNET S.A. within the framework of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan “Greece 2.0”, with funding from the European Union – NextGenerationEU and the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU). DAEDALUS is expected to become operational during 2026 and will be made available to the Greek and European research, academic and scientific communities, as well as industry and the public sector.
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Source: GRNET
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MILAN and NAPLES, Italy, June 24, 2026 — Classiq, a leading quantum computing software company, and TEA TEK Group, an emerging force in Italy’s and Europe’s quantum landscape, today announced a multi-million-euro strategic partnership to establish one of Europe’s most significant quantum computing hubs. Located in Naples, the hub is set to become a center of excellence for quantum computing research, development and services across Italy and the European Union.
The announcement marks a pivotal moment for Naples and for Southern Italy, placing the city at the heart of Europe’s quantum industrial map. TEA TEK Group’s investment in the ex-Whirlpool area and the strategic vision in building this hub signals a long-term commitment to developing quantum capabilities where they can generate the greatest regional and national impact.
The hub will integrate quantum hardware with the Classiq software platform, creating a seamless, end-to-end quantum computing environment. The solution will be the same technical solution as that adopted by the Quantum Computing Napoli (QCN) Lab at the University of Naples Federico II (UNINA), led by Professor Tafuri but now with a capacity of 128 qubits. The connection between academia and the commercial sector targets creating the conditions to build a dynamic ecosystem. Researchers, enterprises, public institutions and developers will be able to design, analyze and execute quantum programs through a single unified workflow — all delivered in Naples.
A Partnership Built for Europe’s Quantum Ambitions
Services are expected to launch by the end of 2026, as the partners finalize the integration of the quantum computer into the Classiq platform. TEA TEK Group will operate the AI-enhanced Classiq platform, equipped with modules for user management and resource allocation, enabling it to function as a full-spectrum Quantum as a Service (QaaS) provider.
TEA TEK Group’s Naples hub is designed not merely as a local asset, but as European-scale infrastructure — a candidate to be among the most strategically important quantum centers on the continent, combining hardware, software, applied research, talent development and commercial services in a way that few facilities in Europe currently offer.
The partnership is a direct expression of Europe’s drive to build sovereign quantum technology stacks and reflects the growing momentum of public and private investment in the region’s quantum future.
“This partnership is truly an important milestone. It is significant not only for Classiq and TEA TEK Group, but for the broader effort to turn quantum computing into usable, accessible national and regional capability,” said Nir Minerbi, co-founder and CEO of Classiq. “TEA TEK Group is building a strategic quantum hub for Italy and Europe in Naples, and Classiq is proud to provide the software platform, the training programs, the automation and the technical foundation needed to make that vision practical at scale.”
“This collaboration represents a transformational step for TEA TEK Group, for Naples, and for Italy’s entire quantum ecosystem,” said Felice Granisso, CEO of TEA TEK Group. “Naples has the talent, the infrastructure and the ambition to stand at the heart of Europe’s quantum future. The QaaS model we are building here enables companies, financial institutions, pharmaceutical organizations and research centers to access quantum capabilities seamlessly without the substantial investment required to build their own infrastructure. A validation of this model is the fact that Classiq will redistribute compute hours to industrial operators, demonstrating that a scalable quantum value chain is already taking shape. Q-Day should not be viewed solely as a cybersecurity challenge: it marks the beginning of a new era of technological and industrial advancement, and this hub in Naples is our contribution to ensuring Italy and Europe are ready to seize that opportunity.”
About the Partnership
By combining quantum software, hardware integration, application development and service management, the Classiq–TEA TEK partnership creates a holistic quantum computing environment capable of serving both research and commercial users at scale. The agreement further deepens Classiq’s commitment to Italy and Europe, where the company has attracted investment from CDP (Venture Capital) and the European Innovation Council, and continues to expand its role in the region’s quantum infrastructure. The Naples hub stands as concrete evidence that Europe’s quantum ecosystem is maturing — moving from strategy and research into operational, investable and commercially viable infrastructure.
About Classiq
Classiq is the leading quantum computing software company, providing the technology that makes it practical for enterprises and researchers to access and harness the power of quantum computing. Classiq’s agentic quantum software engineering platform enables an enterprise-grade workflow that transforms high-level functional models into optimized, hardware-ready quantum circuits automatically. This enables teams to develop algorithms faster, optimize them for cost and performance, and make quantum applications usable sooner on any quantum computer, all without requiring deep hardware expertise.
Through partnerships with global leaders in quantum cloud computing, including hyperscalers and hardware providers, Classiq ensures that customers including Rolls Royce, Comcast, The BMW Group, Intesa Sanpaolo and many others, can design once and deploy anywhere.
About TEA TEK Group
TEA TEK Group is an Italian technology company operating across the fields of renewable energy, advanced energy storage systems, digital infrastructure and technological innovation. As part of its long-term industrial strategy, the Group is building an integrated ecosystem that spans from renewable energy generation and battery technologies to next-generation data centres. Within this vision, quantum computing and artificial intelligence applied to quantum technologies represent a natural evolution of the digital infrastructure of the future. To support this ambition, TEA TEK Group has launched a significant investment program in quantum computing, with the goal of contributing to the growth of the Italian and European quantum ecosystem.
Through the Quantum Hub in Naples, TEA TEK Group is developing one of the most advanced quantum computing infrastructures in Southern Europe. The hub integrates quantum hardware, state-of-the-art software, applied research activities, training programs and Quantum as a Service (QaaS) solutions, making quantum technologies accessible to enterprises, universities, research centers and public institutions.
Through strategic partnerships with some of the leading international players in the quantum industry, the Naples Quantum Hub is positioned to become a reference point for innovation, technology transfer and the development of the skills needed to support the next era of quantum computing.
Source: Classiq
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The first portable fan from Dyson is stylish, easy to use and powerful. Did someone mention a 55mph top speed? Perhaps, but it’s so noisy you may not have heard them
Two things will strike you when you pick up the Dyson HushJet Mini Cool fan for the first time. The first is that flesh-pink (stone/blush) is a bold colour choice for a product that already looks like it’s escaped from a certain NSFW section of the Filter.
However, once you’ve retrieved your mind from the gutter, you’ll notice that the different form of pleasure the HushJet Mini offers – impressively powerful wind speeds to keep you cool in heatwaves – comes at a price. This thing is loud with a capital L, and becomes even more so as you progress through its five settings. More “jet” than “hush”.
Continue reading...Trump says he instructed justice department to investigate oil firms over high gas prices amid Middle East conflict
Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he had instructed the US Department of Justice to investigate oil companies for alleged price gouging, accusing them of not lowering gas prices enough amid conflict in the Middle East.
“The big oil companies are not dropping their price at the pump commensurate with the sharply lower prices they are paying for oil. Those prices are dropping like a rock! In other words, customers are being ‘gouged.’ I have instructed the DOJ to immediately start looking into this,” Trump wrote in a social media post late on Tuesday night. “Gasoline prices better start going down a lot faster than what I’m seeing!”
Continue reading...Appointment of James Purnell, former chief executive of Flint Global, described by one Labour MP as ‘very bad sign’
The advisory firm led by Andy Burnham’s incoming chief of staff counted BP, Amazon, Jaguar Land Rover and Uber among its clients, transparency records reveal.
Burnham is facing unease within Labour over the lobbying links of James Purnell, a longstanding friend and former cabinet minister who was most recently chief executive of Flint Global.
Continue reading...Donna Ockenden inquiry finds ‘bullying’ culture and ‘cruel’, dismissive attitude to women contributed to avoidable deaths
More than 500 mothers and babies came to harm or died as a result of inadequate care in Nottingham, an inquiry into the NHS’s biggest ever maternity scandal has revealed.
A total of 444 women and 76 newborn babies suffered “potentially avoidable” outcomes because they received substandard treatment over 13 years from Nottingham University hospitals NHS trust (NUH), a damning report led by the childbirth expert Donna Ockenden has found.
Continue reading...This simple formula can help you decide whether it's smarter to repair or replace your HVAC system.
Interim report says other train it hit had halted on line because warning system wrongly caused it to brake
The train whose driver died in the Bedford rail crash passed a danger signal without stopping – while the train it hit had halted on the line because its warning system had wrongly caused it to brake, investigators believe.
An initial report by the Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) into the crash, which also injured more than 100 people, said it was not yet clear whether the train’s automatic warning system (AWS) had alerted the driver of the southbound Luton airport express from Corby that he had passed a red signal.
Continue reading...Ancient Slashdot reader Mark Round writes: Longtime reader here (since mid-1999 -- Hot Grits! Oog the Caveman! Beowulf clusters!), and I can still remember posting back on Slashdot's own 5th anniversary. Time's rolled on: my own blog just turned 25, and it's now roughly 40 years since I first sat down at a computer. So I went digging through archive.org, old backups, and a box of ZIP disks, and wrote up a long look back at four decades of computing through the one website that's been my online home along the way. It runs from my first 8-bit micro and a 1,200-baud modem through discovering the actual Internet at university (and burning far too many hours on Slashdot and sister sites like freshmeat.net), past gloriously pimped-out Enlightenment Linux desktops, all the way to the modern cloud-native world. Plenty of dodgy screenshots, terrible code, and fond memories of long-gone haunts like kuro5hin.org and Linux Coffee Talk along the way.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Besides Amazon, plenty of other retailers are also lowering prices on great products our shopping experts can vouch for
The best Prime Day deals on things our editors actually tested and love
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Every summer, Amazon entices sweaty consumers with steep discounts on everything from slushie machines to tower fans in a tradition appropriately known as Prime Day. But you don’t need to sit out the savings if you don’t have a Prime membership (or just prefer not to shop at Amazon).
To compete with Prime Day, many of Amazon’s biggest competitors now dial their own prices to the lowest of the year during the same week. From Walmart to boutique brands including Cozy Earth and Caraway, everyone wants to lure you away from the Jeff Bezos-founded mega-retailer. And they’re willing to offer impressive discounts to do it.
Best kitchen deal:
Anyday Glass Round Dish Set and Cookbook Bundle
Best home deal:
Cozy Earth Waffle Bath Towels
The party’s leadership is deeply out of touch with its base. A leftist politics of collective struggle is cresting across the US
A tectonic shift has occurred in American politics over the last month, beginning with Chris Rabb’s victory in Pennsylvania and now culminating in New York. The Democratic party has been hit by a leftward tidal wave.
Rabb’s win was a warning shot – a socialist winning in a seat that had been an establishment stronghold. Two weeks later, the left won across Los Angeles. Two weeks after that, the left swept the elections in the District of Columbia. And on Tuesday night, the left dominated New York City in an overwhelming display of force: progressive Brad Lander took out incumbent centrist Dan Goldman, socialist Darializa Avila Chevalier shocked incumbent Adriano Espaillat, and socialist Claire Valdez easily dispatched Brooklyn borough president Antonio Reynoso.
Ben Davis works in political data in Washington DC. He worked on the data team for the Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign and is an active member of the Democratic Socialists of America
Continue reading...Policy at Heidesee lake in Halle introduced after cases in which visitors ignored rules and lifeguards’ instructions
An open air swimming lake in the eastern German city of Halle which has refused entry to bathers who don’t speak German has been told it must lift the ban or face possible legal action.
The Heidesee lake, a lake in a flooded former open-cast mine, recently introduced a check at the entrance to filter out visitors whose German was deemed not good enough to follow safety instructions.
Continue reading...In this week’s newsletter: As the EU consolidates, the UK faces renewed debate over the long‑term shape of its relationship with the continent
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The morning of 24 June 2016, the day after Britain voted to leave the EU, dawned grey and overcast in Brussels, after a stormy night. As the Guardian’s correspondent in the city, after a few hours’ sleep, I hurried to a breakfast briefing with Conservative MEPs at a smart hotel in the EU quarter. Large trays of eggs, sausages and beans were barely touched, as MEPs fielded questions they couldn’t answer: What happens now? When would the UK leave? Would David Cameron resign? A few hours later he did.
In the EU institutions officials broke down in tears. A few top British EU civil servants prepared to resign. Anti-EU populists were jubilant. European leaders feared a domino effect of withdrawals. Sadness, shock and anger swirled on that humid day. The then-president of the European parliament, Martin Schulz, told me that EU lawyers were studying whether it was possible to speed up the triggering of article 50, the then-obscure and untested EU exit clause. Then European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker declared he would like to get Brexit negotiations started “immediately”. The idea of hurrying Britain out the door was soon dropped, but those statements reflected the febrile mood.
Continue reading...Get clear, actionable financial advice starting June 30 wherever you get your podcasts.
Leading Latino political strategists are examining the races where Latinos could play an outsize role in the midterm elections, and believe their votes will be critical in a number of House races.
HPE rolled out several new products at ISC 2026 this week, including support for multi-tenancy across its network and storage resources, and a new unified programming framework. The announcements share a common theme: Supercomputing customers are struggling to deal with mounting complexity in their HPC environments, and HPE wants to help.
Developing applications to run on HPC systems, such as HPE’s new Cray GX5000 clusters, which it launched last fall, typically requires developers to use programming languages and frameworks that are specific to a given processor architecture. Customers use the packages offered by AMD, Intel, or Nvidia (among others), and it’s up to the customer to make sure it works with their Cray plaform.
HPE Slingshot 400 switches support multi-tenance (Image courtesty HPE)
As part of its new HPE Supercomputing Programming Software, HPE is going to work with those processor vendors to bundle their developer tools, says Jim Lujan, vice president of leadership systems engineering at HPE.
“On the past, if our customers wanted the Nvidia environment, they acquired it from Nvidia. If they wanted the AMD environment, they acquired it from AMD,” Lujan said. “We’ll be able to provide [with HPE Supercomputing Programming Software] essentially a containerized version that will be able to support their ecosystems. And then we’ll provide that support as well.”
The next-gen Supercomputing Programming Software offering is part of an effort by HPE to offer more of a curated stack of software to its HPC customers. HPE is stepping up to provide the first line of support when customers have issues, as opposed to just passing it through, Lujan said.
“The programming environment, we’re starting to transition more to open source,” Lujan said. The company is not moving away from proprietary software, Lujan said, but instead is looking to augment the proprietary components with software from the open ecosystem that gives customers more capabilities. This update supports Kubernetes containerization software, as well as open source development tools from tools from AMD and Nvidia.
HPE’s Cray E2000 storage arrays now support multi-tenancy (Image courtesy HPE)
The new programming stack also gives customers more capability to develop HPC and AI applications that are multi-tenant. Multi-tenancy is a big deal for HPE at the moment, largely as a result of the sovereignty requirements it’s getting from companies, organizations, and governmental entities residing outside of the United States.
HPE is also adding multi-tenancy to its Smart Update Manager (SUM) product, with the goal of enabling its HPC customers to isolate their data. It’s also adding multi-tenant support to with a new release of its Slingshot 400 interconnect as well as its E2000 Cray storage offering.
“There’s been a big drive for multi-tenancy and to support multi-tenancy,” Lujan told HPCwire at ISC 2026. “We’ve always supported multiple users, but now there’s the desire to push for further isolation of data and segregation for some of our customers.”
For example, one of HPE Cray’s longtime customers, the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS), has a need for keep data and workloads isolated from its users. “They support a breadth of users, and so being able to support multi-tenancy for them is critical,” Lujan said.
HPE also expanded its system retirement program to air-cooled AI and HPC servers. Offered through its financial services arm, the new service gives customers the confidence that their air-cooled HPC and AI systems will be retired in a trustworthy manner, with all hardware returned back to factory settings to safeguard data and ensure regulatory compliance. HPE says that in 2025, 85% of servers that went through the renewal centers were upcycled and returned to active use, and 1.7 exabyte of data was securely sanitized.
The post HPE Gives Cray Customers New Development, Multi-Tenancy Options appeared first on HPCwire.
In peer-reviewed paper, researchers describe how Quantum Monte Carlo algorithm supports hardware-calibrated digital twins for quantum error correction and fault-tolerant system design
LOS ANGELES, June 24, 2026 — Quantum Elements and the University of Southern California (USC) today announced the publication of a new Quantum Monte Carlo algorithm in Physical Review Letters, providing a more efficient way to simulate noisy quantum circuits on classical computers and supporting the company’s development of digital twins for quantum error correction.
Credit: Quantum Elements
The peer-reviewed paper, Real-Time Sign-Problem-Suppressed Quantum Monte Carlo Algorithm for Noisy Quantum Circuit Simulations, was co-authored by Dr. Tong Shen, quantum research scientist at Quantum Elements and a postdoctoral researcher at USC, and USC Professor Daniel A. Lidar, co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Quantum Elements.
While quantum processors are becoming increasingly sophisticated, they are still affected by environmental noise, crosstalk between qubits, and control imperfections. These effects are obstacles to developing fault-tolerant quantum computers. To study this behavior, researchers often simulate quantum systems on classical computers. One way to do this is direct density-matrix simulation, which tracks a noisy quantum system, including both its quantum state and its interaction with the environment. However, the amount of information required to represent the system becomes prohibitive as qubit counts grow.
The Quantum Monte Carlo algorithm presented by Quantum Elements in PRL compresses the simulation, which allows researchers to model noisy quantum-circuit behavior with lower computational resources while preserving the dynamics needed to study quantum error correction, correlated noise, and decoder performance.
“Fault tolerance will require a much tighter feedback loop between hardware, control, simulation and decoding,” said Izhar Medalsy, co-founder and CEO of Quantum Elements. “This gives us a rigorous algorithmic foundation for building digital twins that capture the noise behavior hardware teams need.”
The practical application of this method was demonstrated in an AWS collaboration with Quantum Elements, USC, and Harvard, where researchers used a Quantum Monte Carlo-accelerated digital twin to simulate a 97-physical-qubit, distance-7 surface-code syndrome-extraction round on classical high-performance computing infrastructure. AWS reported that a brute force, full open-system simulation of the same system would require tracking 497 density-matrix entries, while the QMC-based method ran in about an hour on a single compute node.” AWS helped translate the peer-reviewed methodology into an AWS architecture, leveraging AWS ParallelCluster to deploy the Quantum Elements digital twin as a containerized workload. The solution scales horizontally across multiple instances, making it well suited for a large number of qubits.
“This is peer-reviewed evidence of what we demonstrated earlier this year in collaboration with Quantum Elements, and we look forward to leveraging AWS’ classical and quantum compute resources in conjunction with their digital twin technology to accelerate the path towards fault tolerance via quantum error correction,” said Michael Brett, Worldwide Go-To-Market Strategy Lead for Quantum Technologies at AWS.
The result comes as quantum hardware teams increasingly focus on quantum error correction as the route to useful, fault-tolerant systems. As devices scale, the engineering challenge lies in understanding how real noise affects logical performance and how software, controls, and decoding can compensate for it.
The paper is available in Physical Review Letters here.
About Quantum Elements
Founded in 2023 in Los Angeles, Quantum Elements develops software for modeling, simulating, and optimizing quantum computing systems. The company is building hardware-calibrated quantum digital twins designed to help quantum hardware teams understand noise, test error-correction strategies, evaluate decoder performance, and shorten the path from experimental hardware to fault-tolerant system design.
Source: Quantum Elements
The post Quantum Elements and USC Advance Noisy Quantum Circuit Simulation with New Quantum Monte Carlo Algorithm appeared first on HPCwire.
As football fans revel in the real world tournament, its digital counterparts continue to stumble in capturing the hyped up atmosphere
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I come with a warning to all football fans: if you’ve been enjoying the World Cup enough to think, “I’d like to re-enact this on a football video game”, do not go to Netflix and play Fifa World Cup: Launch Edition, the officially licensed game of the tournament, which streams via your smart TV or computer. Developed by the virtually unknown Delphi Interactive, it’s a juddering, dated calamity, with sluggish controls (via your phone, once you’ve downloaded the app) and commentary courtesy of Clive Tyldesley that delivers all the excitement of a robotic train station announcement.
Until this, it was largely agreed that the worst World Cup football game in history was World Cup Carnival, the first official Fifa tie-in, which was released on various home computers in 1986. Publisher US Gold thought it had a deal with the Manchester studio Ocean Software to repurpose its acclaimed title Match Day, but the agreement fell through. With three months to go before Mexico 86, US Gold was forced to effectively rebadge a dire 1984 sim, World Cup Football, by the fading developer Artic. To add some value to the package, the game was released in a fancy big box complete with a fixtures chart, a World Cup facts poster and some flag stickers. Nobody was fooled – the World Cup Carnival was a critical and commercial disaster.
Continue reading...Leaks point to a September 2026 launch, alongside the iPhone 18 Pro lineup. We're expecting a book-style design, a starting price north of $2,000 and a number of possible names, including the iPhone Fold and the iPhone Ultra.
Thanks to the combination of HPC6 and HPC7, Eni’s computational capacity exceeds the Exaflop threshold
MILAN, June 24, 2026 — Eni has announced the launch of its new supercomputing system, HPC7 (High Performance Computing – HPC), which, with a capacity of over 861 PFlops/s, ranks 6th overall in the new TOP500 global ranking, second supercomputer in Europe and confirming its position as the world’s most powerful High-Performance Computer for industrial use. HPC7 thus surpasses HPC6, launched in November 2024, which has in turn confirmed its position within the TOP10, ranking 8th in the TOP500 list.
HPC7
The combination of the HPC6 and HPC7 computing systems exceeds the Exascale threshold. Together, HPC6 and HPC7 can deliver over 1 Exaflop/s (1 Exaflop/s = 1000 PFlops/s), equivalent to more than 1 billion billion complex mathematical operations per second. The achievement of Exascale-class performance by Eni’s supercomputing system represents the attainment of the most advanced and extraordinary technological frontier in the world of supercomputing and confirms the company’s leadership in the sector.
The launch of HPC7 marks a key milestone in Eni’s strategy to enhance energy resources and decarbonization, within a model where technology is a central element of innovation, capable of supporting growth, efficiency and competitiveness in both traditional and transition businesses.
In this context, advanced computing and HPC systems are confirmed as central to Eni, enabling the integration and enhancement of expertise and applications across the entire value chain: from subsurface understanding to the optimization of industrial plant operations, as well as improving the accuracy of geological and fluid dynamics studies for CO₂ storage and the development of advanced energy technologies.
Supercomputing also contributes to accelerating the evolution of key innovation drivers, supporting the efficiency of emerging value chains – such as biofuels – and the simulation of complex phenomena, including plasma behavior in magnetic confinement fusion.
In this framework, HPC also establishes itself as a crucial enabler for the internal development of artificial intelligence use cases in support of Eni’s businesses.
This technological ecosystem also represents a distinctive value for Eni, as it can attract new initiatives and talents from outside the company, as already demonstrated with HPC6 through the Call4Innovators.
In detail, Eni’s new HPC system allows to add HPC6’s 477 PFlops/s sustained to HPC7’s 571 PFlops/s, corresponding to peak performance values of 606 PFlops/s for the former and 861 PFlops/s for the latter.
HPC7 is based on an architecture leveraging the same technology that underpins the most powerful systems currently available in Europe and worldwide, combining CPUs and GPUs in a hybrid configuration, with over 3,400 computing nodes and nearly 14,000 GPUs, to maximize computational performance and energy efficiency.
The combined computing power of HPC6 and HPC7 reaches 1048 PFlop/s sustained and 1467 PFlop/ peak.
With a value of 65.426 GFlops/W, HPC7 also achieved an excellent position in the dedicated Green500 ranking—which measures system efficiency—placing 11th worldwide and ranking first among peer systems in its category.
Claudio Descalzi, Eni’s CEO, stated: “The transition toward energy from both traditional and renewable sources that is increasingly secure, accessible, and clean cannot take place without a profound technological evolution. The adoption of supercomputing and predictive technologies across all activities is essential for developing new energy solutions, reducing emissions, maximizing efficiency in exploration and production, and generating value. In this context, the rapid development and commissioning of HPC7—completed in an even shorter timeframe than HPC6, which was already a benchmark—represents a concrete example of our execution capabilities: the result of the expertise, commitment, and quality of our operational teams. This robust digital ecosystem, developed through talent, collaboration, and internal research, not only accelerates our path toward Net Zero, but also strengthens our strategic positioning and competitive advantage in the market.”
Both supercomputers are in a dedicated area of Eni’s Green Data Center, benefiting from an infrastructure designed to combine operational efficiency with environmental sustainability. The Green Data Center, already among the European leaders in energy efficiency and emissions reduction, confirms its strengths thanks to an innovative liquid cooling system.
More from HPCwire
About Eni
Eni is an integrated energy company, founded in 1953, with 31.376 employees in 69 countries around the world, including Algeria, Angola, Mozambique, Mexico, Indonesia and Italy. In 2021, the company launched a new strategy that will enable it to provide a variety of fully decarbonized products, combining environmental and financial sustainability. The recent merger of the renewable and retail businesses in Plenitude (formerly Eni gas e luce), the development of bio-refineries and biomethane production, and the sale of low-carbon energy carriers and mobility services at service stations are among the main levers for taking the path towards decarbonization.
Eni aspires to contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations 2030 Agenda, supporting a just energy transition that meets the challenge of climate change with concrete and economically sustainable solutions by promoting efficient and sustainable access to energy resources, for all.
Source: Eni
The post Eni’s HPC7 Debuts at No. 6 on TOP500 as HPC6 and HPC7 Combined Surpass Exascale appeared first on HPCwire.
 | Saw that fenders are about $70. Figured I would try my luck with $2 worth of plastic instead. Going to apply some more epoxy to the seams to make sure it holds together, sand and paint, and I should be good. If it doesn’t work or last, at least it didn’t cost me very much. Has anyone had luck with 3d printed parts or am I being overly optimistic about what this plastic can do? I really don’t want to drop so much money on something that really should be included with every board. (It arrives this Friday I can’t wait! I got the pint x. My first board) [link] [comments] |
Gen Christopher Donahue, commander of forces in Europe and Africa, is leaving after just 18 months in the job
The army’s commander of its forces in Europe and Africa – who was memorably the last American soldier to leave Afghanistan in 2021 – is unexpectedly stepping down from his post after just 18 months in the job, the Army confirmed late Tuesday.
Gen Christopher Donahue, commanding general of US Army Europe and Africa and commander of Nato’s Allied Land Command, will relinquish his command on 2 July, according to an army statement provided to the Associated Press. He is the latest in a line of nearly two dozen top military leaders to either retire or depart their jobs early under the leadership of the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, who has undertaken an effort to thin the ranks of the military’s top brass with the mantra “less generals, more GIs”.
Continue reading...Las Vegas Aces coach had said guard was not a ‘1A dude’
Hammon says Brunson ‘proved history wrong’
Las Vegas Aces coach Becky Hammon twice on Tuesday acknowledged what Jalen Brunson accomplished in leading the New York Knicks to the NBA championship was historic and her “opinion was wrong,” but she offered no apology for her previous comments.
Hammon spoke to reporters at the Aces shootaround earlier in the day and then before Las Vegas’ home game against the New York Liberty. In the pregame news conference, Hammon opened by making a point to say she was wrong that the 6ft 2in point guard was too small to lead the Knicks to the title.
Continue reading...Blue Whale Growth Fund Leadership Masterclass Programme
The Leadership Masterclass Programme is supported by the Blue Whale Growth Fund, which supports participants working for UK-registered charities with minimum annual expenditures of £5 million over the past three years.
tharrisson.drupalEach year, the Blue Whale Growth Fund supports two early- to mid-career professionals in undertaking the Leadership Masterclass Programme at Chatham House.
This application stream is open to individuals working for UK-registered charities with minimum annual expenditures of £5 million over each of the past three years. This opportunity supports professionals working in the charity sector to undertake training that will enable them to develop as better and more effective leaders.
Applications are open until 10 July. Click here to apply.
To read more about the Leadership Masterclass Programme and the different application streams, please click here.
A new murder trial is scheduled for Richard Glossip, a former Oklahoma death row inmate who was released on bond last month after being on the brink of execution three times.
New file system-aware backup technologies help eliminate large-scale file system scans, dramatically accelerate incremental backups, and support next-generation HPC and archival architectures.
HAMBURG, Germany, June 24, 2026 — Bacula Systems today announced the expansion of its High Performance Computing (HPC) data protection portfolio with the introduction of its new BsnapDiff technology for ZFS and GPFS environments, alongside its Lustre Changelog integration technology.
The new capabilities build upon Bacula’s recent investments in HPC-focused technologies, including its HPCAccelerator feature and native integrations with leading high-performance file systems. Together, these technologies are designed to help HPC architects, research institutions, large-scale enterprises, AI environments, and supercomputing facilities overcome one of the most persistent challenges in data protection: efficiently backing up environments containing hundreds of millions or even billions of files.
Traditional backup applications typically perform a complete scan of the file system during incremental backups to identify changed files. As data volumes and file counts continue to grow, this approach can create significant performance bottlenecks, increased metadata activity, extended backup windows, and unnecessary workload on production storage systems.
Bacula’s new BsnapDiff technologies take a different approach. By leveraging native file system capabilities, Bacula can identify changed files directly from file system metadata, snapshots, APIs, or changelogs, dramatically reducing or eliminating the need for full directory tree scans.
“Large-scale infrastructures require data protection technologies that work with the file system rather than against it,” said Jorge Gea, CTO of Bacula Systems. “Our new BsnapDiff capabilities represent another significant step in Bacula’s ongoing strategy of delivering deep integration with the world’s leading high-performance file systems. By eliminating many of the inefficiencies associated with traditional incremental backup methods, organizations can improve backup performance, reduce infrastructure load, and better align data protection with modern HPC and large-scale storage architectures.”
Key Benefits of Bacula’s BsnapDiff Technologies:
The benefits become increasingly significant as file counts grow. In large-scale environments where only a small percentage of data changes between backup cycles, file system-aware change detection can reduce incremental backup processing times from many hours to minutes.
For example, Bacula’s BsnapDiff for ZFS utilizes zfs diff to identify file system changes between snapshots. In environments containing hundreds of millions of files, generating a list of changed files can take less than a minute compared with many hours required for a conventional full-tree scan.
Similarly, Bacula’s BsnapDiff for GPFS leverages IBM Storage Scale (GPFS) snapshot and backup APIs to efficiently identify changed inodes without requiring directory traversal operations.
For Lustre environments, where snapshots are often impractical at extreme scale, Bacula’s Lustre Changelog Plugin consumes and tracks Lustre changelog events, maintaining an optimized record of file system changes for highly efficient incremental backups.
Part of a Broader HPC Strategy
The introduction of BsnapDiff technologies forms part of Bacula’s broader strategy of providing deep interoperability with the storage technologies most commonly deployed in HPC, AI, research, and large-scale enterprise environments.
Beyond ZFS, GPFS, and Lustre, Bacula continues to expand its native integrations with leading storage platforms, enabling organizations to leverage file system-specific capabilities wherever possible to improve backup efficiency and reduce operational complexity.
Combined with Bacula’s HPCAccelerator technology, advanced parallel processing capabilities, broad storage interoperability, and scalable archival integration, these latest enhancements provide architects with additional tools for designing next-generation backup and archival infrastructures capable of supporting rapidly expanding data volumes.
As organizations continue to build larger AI environments, scientific research platforms, and exascale computing infrastructures, Bacula’s file system-aware data protection technologies help ensure that backup and recovery performance can scale alongside the environments they protect.
About Bacula Systems
Bacula Systems provides enterprise backup, recovery, and data protection solutions for organizations requiring exceptionally high levels of security, scalability, flexibility, and operational control. Bacula Enterprise is trusted by government agencies, defense organizations, research institutions, high-performance computing environments, and enterprises worldwide to protect mission-critical data across complex IT infrastructures.
Source: Bacula Systems
The post Bacula Introduces BsnapDiff to Accelerate Backups Across HPC and AI Environments appeared first on HPCwire.
PARIS, June 24, 2026 — Bull, a leader in advanced computing and AI, and Alice & Bob, a leader in fault-tolerant quantum computing specializing in cat qubits, today announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding to extend their joint collaboration across research, product innovation and commercialization. Together, Bull and Alice & Bob now aim to deepen their collaboration to accelerate the development and adoption of quantum technologies in Europe and beyond.
From Experimentation to Broader Industrial Collaboration
Under this agreement, the two companies will expand their cooperation in four key areas:
Combining Complementary Strengths
These efforts reflect a shared ambition to move beyond early-stage experimentation, bridging the gap between quantum hardware innovation and its practical, scalable use in real-world environments as the industry enters its next phase.
Alice & Bob and Bull bring highly complementary strengths to this ambition. Alice & Bob is focused on building a universal, fault-tolerant quantum computer, with its cat qubit technology designed to significantly reduce the hardware requirements for large-scale systems.
This approach is combined with Bull’s long-standing expertise in high-performance computing, system integration and global support, as well as its industrial capabilities, including its manufacturing site in Angers and strong international footprint. Together, they are well positioned to enable the deployment and operation of hybrid HPC and quantum infrastructures at scale.
Strengthening a Sovereign European Quantum Ecosystem
This collaboration is fully aligned with Bull’s ambition to act as a federator of the European quantum ecosystem and to contribute to the emergence of a sovereign quantum sector.
By working with a leading European QPU developer and leveraging its hardware agnostic platform Qaptiva – designed to work across multiple quantum technologies – Bull reinforces its positioning in both quantum emulation and large-scale HPC–quantum hybridization.
The partnership will initially focus on Europe, including France, the UK and Germany, where strong national and regional quantum initiatives are already underway.
“This next phase perfectly aligns with Bull’s quantum strategy, building on our quantum application development and emulation platform, enabling hybrid HPC and quantum experimentation. By expanding our collaboration with Alice & Bob, we aim to accelerate progress towards fault-tolerant quantum computing and ensure that future quantum capabilities can be integrated seamlessly into existing HPC infrastructures. It reflects a clear objective: to turn emerging quantum technologies into practical tools for industry, research and public-sector applications—while strengthening Europe’s technological autonomy.” said Bruno Lecointe, head of HPC, AI and Quantum Computing at Bull
“By partnering with Bull’s quantum application development and emulation platform, we’ll accelerate the development and adoption of quantum technologies in Europe and beyond. Together, we will strengthen the integration of error-corrected quantum computing within high-performance computing environments and help drive broader QPU adoption.” said Chloé Poisbeau, COO at Alice & Bob
About Bull
Leveraging nearly a century of innovations, Bull is a global leader for High-Performance Computing, Artificial Intelligence and Quantum technologies with c.720m€ in revenue and 3,000 professionals operating in 32 countries. Built on an open, end-to-end and trusted approach, Bull designs, deploys and operates hardware, software and strategic services that unlock enterprise value, accelerate scientific research and advance society. Driven by world-class R&D, backed by 1,600 patents, manufacturing excellence and data sciences expertise, Bull enables nations and industries to fully control their AI and data and to drive progress for the benefit of the planet.
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. Demonstrating the power of its cat architecture, Alice & Bob recently showed that it could reduce the hardware requirements for building a useful large-scale quantum computer up to 200 times compared with competing approaches.
Source: Bull
The post Bull and Alice & Bob Sign New Agreement to Accelerate Europe’s Quantum Ecosystem appeared first on HPCwire.
Camp owners said total debt exceeds $10m in chapter 11 filing after catastrophic flood last July
Camp Mystic, the Christian summer camp in Texas where 28 people died in a catastrophic flood last July, has filed for bankruptcy, according to court records.
In a Chapter 11 filing, submitted on Wednesday in the southern district of Texas, the camp’s owners said that the camp’s total debt “exceeds $10m”.
Continue reading...The boy was on a tour of the Bahamas' Exuma Cays with his family when the attack occurred, the Royal Bahamas Police Force said.
By teaming up with ride-hailing service CaoCao, May Mobility plans to bring its self-driving tech to more locations, starting in Europe.
JBL's Tour Pro 3 earbuds initially seemed overpriced. But now that they're being discounted and have earned a CNET Labs award for most accurate frequency response, they're easier to recommend.
Here's everything to know about choosing the right toaster oven.
There's no question that this is one of the best camera phones money can buy. But I know of one that beats it.
For years the United States sought a single soccer identity. Instead, its best team emerged from a patchwork of backgrounds, cultures and development paths
In 1993, the United States Soccer Federation handed a contract to Rinus Michels. But the Dutch godfather of Total Football, operationalized through his on-field avatar Johan Cruyff, was not hired to coach the national team, or to coach anybody, really.
By this time, Michels, who managed the Los Angeles Aztecs of the North American Soccer League in 1979 and 1980, had already turned down the chance to manage the US men’s national team twice. Once, in 1983, when it would be entered, disastrously, into the NASL as Team America. And once more in 1991, when Bora Milutinović was appointed instead.
Continue reading...How should Ukraine prepare for peace while fighting the war? 14 July 2026 — 15:00 TO 16:00 BST Anonymous (not verified) Online
Discover how Ukraine plans to deliver elections and ensure an inclusive, democratic transition after the war with Russia.
Discover how Ukraine plans to deliver elections and ensure an inclusive, democratic transition after the war with Russia.Ukraine is sustaining democratic institutions during its war with Russia while preparing for a post-conflict transition. But it faces challenges: martial law and the internal and external displacement of people affects the country’s political participation and institutional capacity. These conditions raise questions about Ukraine’s electoral readiness and social cohesion as Kyiv plans to return to competitive politics.
• How can Ukraine prepare for free and fair elections after the conflict ends?
• How can Ukraine preserve pluralism and institutional checks during war?
• How might Russia interfere in this process and how should Ukraine prepare?
• What systems can ensure voting access for displaced citizens and military personnel?
• What risks to social cohesion could shape the transition to peace?
France said a doctor back from a humanitarian mission was infected and in stable condition, while experts said the outbreak in Africa could be the worst ever recorded.
Nvidia this week highlighted an early deployment of its Vera CPU at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The processor is being used to support URSA, the laboratory’s Universal Research and Scientific Agent platform. URSA is built to help researchers write code, run simulations, use scientific tools, and analyze results.
For the past few years, every AI infrastructure conversation has seemed to start and end with GPUs. This latest announcement is a reminder that CPUs still have a role to play.
According to Nvidia, Vera delivered up to seven times the performance of the CPUs in LANL’s Crossroads supercomputer on key URSA workloads.
The results also highlight the greater influence of AI workloads on next-gen supercomputer designs. As researchers experiment with increasingly autonomous AI systems, the role of the CPU is evolving alongside the GPU. More orchestration, more data movement, and more coordination between data and AI models.
The Vera deployment is also tied to a broader modernization effort underway at Los Alamos. Earlier this year, the laboratory announced plans for three next-generation systems: Mission, Vision, and Veritas – being developed in partnership with HPE and Nvidia.
Mission is expected to support classified workloads, while Vision is designed for unclassified workloads. Veritas is set to be a testbed for advanced AI and scientific computing research. The systems will together form an integral part of LANL’s strategy to blend traditional HPC with emerging AI capabilities.
The emphasis on platforms such as URSA offers a glimpse into a future where supercomputers are increasingly designed to support autonomous AI-driven scientific workflows.
The Vera CPU is expected to be paired with Rubin GPUs in the company’s upcoming Vera Rubin architecture.
Nvidia says a fully configured Vera Rubin system can deliver more than 7 exaflops of AI performance and 5 petaflops of native FP64 performance – with support for up to 144 GPUs. The company is targeting environments that increasingly need to support both large-scale AI workloads and traditional scientific computing applications.
The emphasis on FP64 performance is notable because scientific computing has different requirements than AI. While AI models can often use lower-precision calculations, many traditional HPC applications still depend on double-precision computing for accuracy. For example, weather forecasting, physics simulations, materials science, and nuclear research often require the numerical accuracy provided by FP64 computing.
Nvidia also reported early results from Branson, an open-source Monte Carlo heat-transfer simulation code used at Los Alamos. According to the company, Vera delivered more than 3x the performance of the CPUs used in Crossroads.
Unlike URSA, which represents an emerging agentic AI workload, Branson is a traditional HPC application. This shows that the benefits of the architecture extend beyond AI-focused research.
With 7 Exaflops of AI for Science and 5 Petaflops of Native FP64 Performance, Vera Rubin Packs TOP500 Supercomputing in a Single Rack
In a blog post, Nvidia attributed the gains to several features of the Vera architecture, including its custom Olympus core, LPDDR5 memory subsystem, and high-speed on-chip fabric.
The company wrote: “A single Vera CPU outperforms a single socket x86-based CPU by more than 3x while providing more than 4x the memory per core and 6x the memory per node. Ultimately, this means faster scientific results for LANL.”
“All of the lab’s supercomputers were codesigned by hardware architects, system software developers, domain scientists, computer scientists and applied mathematicians — helping ensure systems are shaped by real scientific workloads, not abstract benchmarks alone. ”
The new systems will be built on HPE’s Cray Supercomputing GX5000 architecture, incorporating NVIDIA Quantum-X800 InfiniBand networking. Based on the planned configuration, Mission will combine Vera Rubin GPU nodes with approximately 2,300 standalone Vera CPUs, while Veritas will feature roughly 1,150 standalone Vera CPUs with Vera Rubin nodes.
Each of these systems is expected to play a different role. Veritas is expected to serve as a proving ground for agentic AI technologies before they are deployed on larger production systems.
Mission is expected to become operational in 2027 and will replace Crossroads as Los Alamos’ primary system for classified national security workloads. Vision is also scheduled for 2027 and is expected to support a wider range of scientific research, such as energy modeling and biomedical research.
Los Alamos National Laboratory (Credits: U.S. Department of Energy)
The systems also build on LANL’s existing relationship with Nvidia. They follow the deployment of Venado, the HPE Cray EX supercomputer installed at Los Alamos in 2024 featuring NVIDIA Grace Hopper Superchips and Grace CPU Superchips.
According to the chip manufacturer, the transition from Grace to Vera reflects a continuing codesign effort involving hardware architects, software developers, domain scientists, computer scientists, and applied mathematicians working to optimize systems around real-world scientific applications.
The real test will come when Mission, Vision, and Veritas enter service. By then, Los Alamos should have a much clearer picture of how agentic AI fits alongside traditional scientific computing workloads.
The post Beyond GPUs: Nvidia Showcases Vera CPU for Scientific AI at Los Alamos appeared first on HPCwire.
The New York Knicks might have won in five, but the city’s mayor did it in three: a trio of candidates backed by Mamdani appear set to land seats in US Congress
A man or a movement? That was the question being asked when Zohran Mamdani gambled his political capital on Tuesday’s elections in New York.
The answer from voters was emphatic: they prefer Mamdani and his brand of democratic socialism to the Democratic party establishment and its lukewarm version of capitalism. America’s biggest city has swung even further to the left.
Continue reading...Rights activists call UK ambassador ‘morally compromised’ for accepting honour from Bahraini king in apparent breach of Foreign Office rules
The British ambassador to Bahrain has been accused of breaching government rules over accepting an award by the Gulf state’s king, a move critics suggest signals diplomats and civil servants are “up for grabs”.
This week, the ambassador, Alastair Long, received the Order of Bahrain from King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, in recognition of his diplomatic tenure, which human rights activists and politicians say is in “direct breach” of the Foreign Office’s rules on accepting foreign awards.
Continue reading...AJ Dybantsa went No 1 in a draft that proved to be low on drama, but loaded with generational talent
The tanking teams
Continue reading...French health ministry says patient’s contacts are being traced and that risk to European public is very low
The first case of Ebola has been confirmed in France, the country’s health ministry has said, in a doctor who had returned from a humanitarian mission to an area affected by the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The patient was transferred to a specialist facility and was in a stable condition, the ministry said in a statement. “All precautionary measures, including the patient’s isolation, were taken upon his arrival in the country, with transfer to the hospital under secure conditions to prevent any risk of contamination.”
Continue reading...Mamdani-backed candidate won New York’s 13th congressional district with no experience in office but ideas for how politics can ‘actually invest in life’
In the months leading up to New York’s primary election, the 32-year-old political newcomer Darializa Avila Chevalier faced a barrage of negative ads. Super Pacs supporting her opponent – the veteran incumbent Adriano Espaillat – spent millions trying to stop her. And as an endorsement from Avila Chevalier’s fellow Democratic socialist, Zohran Mamdani, boosted her odds, the attacks turned racist, with false accusations suggesting she was lying about her Dominican ethnicity.
But on Tuesday, Avila Chevalier defied predictions and seized a stunning win in New York’s 13th congressional district, which spans upper Manhattan, including Harlem, and parts of The Bronx – with more than 49% of the vote. If she wins the general election in November, she will be the first Dominican woman elected to Congress.
Continue reading...Soldiers say the Army disregarded warnings about thin defenses and ignored requests for medical supplies. Now they question whether the Army is being transparent about their injuries.
Mo Strategies, started by former Trump campaign and administration officials, recently expanded its practice into the lucrative world of pardon lobbying.
Gen. Chris Donahue had earned the ire of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, multiple sources told CBS News.
After conflicting remarks from Iran and the U.S., the U.N. nuclear agency chief says Iranian sites will be inspected, but the timing is "not essential."
Democrat Cait Conley will challenge Republican Rep. Mike Lawler in the battle for New York's 17th Congressional District, which encompasses many of New York City's northern suburbs.
Seattle is flying a first-of-its-kind drone performance showing the scores of World Cup matches played in the city.
Nintendo's remake also raises the question, with Ocarina of Time next on deck: Is this the future of how we'll endlessly revisit all our games?
The Dialog society grades its attendees on a hidden scale, tackles issues from sex to world wars, and offers matchmaking
What would happen if roughly 200 members of the global elite gathered every year for a top secret retreat? What would they do? What would they talk about? Who would be on the guest list?
Well, data leaked by the Swiss hacktivist maia arson crimew (who also brought us the justice department’s no-fly list back in 2023) is shedding new light on Dialog, the private social club co-created by the former PayPal boss Peter Thiel and the angel investor Auren Hoffman.
Tayo Bero is a Guardian US columnist
Continue reading...NotebookLM can transform information in surprising ways, and that's why we love it.
Senior midwife Donna Ockenden investigated stillbirths, neonatal and maternal deaths, and babies or mothers who suffered brain damage and other injuries
Full story: hundreds died or were harmed due to ‘toxic’ maternity care
‘Truly horrific’: five stories from the NHS maternity scandal
Nottingham maternity care scandal: what are the key findings?
Presenting some of her findings, Ockenden said her team found “significant or major concerns in care where different or better care may have made a difference to the outcome” in the following cases:
21% of cases where mothers died,
26% of cases where mothers experienced a major obstetric haemorrhage,
36% of cases where a mother had an unplanned admission to intensive care,
20% of cases involving a mother’s care when a baby was stillborn,
50% of a mother’s care when a baby suffered hypoxic brain injury.
Continue reading...Palestinian children ‘deliberately targeted and killed’, report’s chair says. Plus, Mamdani-backed candidates sweep NYC Democratic primaries
Good morning.
Israel continues to commit genocide by deliberately targeting Palestinian children in Gaza, an independent UN inquiry has found.
What does the report say? That Palestinian children were deliberately targeted and killed during the war, including after a ceasefire came into effect in October 2025. “The evidence shows that Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted and killed by the Israeli security forces,” Srinivasan Muralidhar, the commission’s chair, said in a statement accompanying the report.
How has Israel’s government reacted? The Israeli mission in Geneva said Israel rejected the commission’s “libellous sham”. The country has fought hard against allegations of genocide, while receiving critical diplomatic support from its allies including the US and the UK.
What about legal and rights experts? A significant body of research has concluded that Israel is intent on destroying Palestinians, including analyses by UN investigators, rights bodies such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and genocide scholars worldwide.
Which Mamdani allies won their primaries? Brad Lander, a former New York City comptroller, defeated the Democratic representative Dan Goldman; Claire Valdez, a state lawmaker and former union organizer, defeated Antonio Reynoso, the preferred successor of Nydia Velázquez, who is retiring; and Darializa Avila Chevalier, a public defense investigator, toppled Adriano Espaillat, the powerful five-term incumbent who chairs the congressional Hispanic caucus.
Continue reading...About 1,600 workers signed petition against tool that tracked staff keystrokes, mouse clicks and computer screen content
Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has paused a program that tracked employees’ computer activity amid data privacy concerns and a staff backlash.
The owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp had introduced a tool that tracked staff keystrokes, mouse clicks and content displayed on computer screens in order to collect data for training its AI models.
Continue reading...Prime Day rolls into day two, and we're continuing to bring you the very best deals as we discover them.
Inquiry will compel individuals and institutions to explain what they did or did not do to protect children from sexual abuse
London, Oldham, Bradford and Keighley will be the first towns and cities investigated by an independent grooming gangs inquiry, it was announced on Wednesday.
The independent inquiry into grooming gangs has confirmed that its three-part hearings will investigate Whitehall departments and politicians alongside local councils, the NHS and national police institutions.
Continue reading...Analysis by more than 150 political scientists finds proportion who back such parties has increased nearly fivefold since 1995
Almost one in four voters in Europe now cast their ballot for far-right parties, research shows, a proportion that has grown nearly fivefold since the mid-1990s and climbed particularly steeply over the past three years.
Analysis by more than 150 political scientists in 31 countries found the proportion of Europeans voting for a far-right party in their country’s most recent national elections had risen to more than 23%, from about 10% a decade ago and roughly 5% in 1995.
Continue reading...The public defence investigator Darializa Avila Chevalier toppled Adriano Espaillat, the powerful five-term incumbent who chairs the Hispanic caucus in Congress, in the diverse 13th congressional district, which covers Upper Manhattan and parts of the Bronx. Chevalier was backed by the New York mayor, Zohran Mamdani, who had a clean sweep with wins from Brad Lander and Claire Valdez meaning all three congressional candidates endorsed by New York’s democratic socialist mayor won closely watched primaries
Continue reading...Proposals including use of force on minors will cause ‘significant harm’, says England Children’s Commissioner
Shabana Mahmood has been told that her crackdown on refused asylum seekers, including the forcible removal of children from the UK, will cause “significant harm”, in an intervention by an independent watchdog.
Rachel de Souza, the children’s commissioner for England, said the home secretary’s plan under consultation to push families – including those with children receiving ongoing medical treatment – to leave the UK should not be implemented as proposed.
Continue reading...Controversial agreement under which UK can return people who arrive by small boat will reportedly not be extended
The “one in, one out” agreement on cross-Channel migration between the UK and France is due to end in October, according to French media reports.
Under the terms of the deal, asylum seekers who arrive in the UK in a small boat can be forcibly returned to France, in exchange for others in France who have not tried to cross the Channel being brought to the UK legally.
Continue reading...Euclid is on a mission to chart one-third of the sky in the hopes of shedding light on the enduring mysteries of dark matter and dark energy.
Growing number of cases involve police working as rideshare drivers while carrying government-issued guns
When the gap between his salary and his family’s basic expenses began widening dramatically, Diego – like many other Argentinians – started working as a rideshare driver on top of his day job. He usually does a few hours at the end of his 12-hour shift; and more on his days off.
It would be just another story from recession-ridden Argentina, but for the fact that Diego is a federal police officer.
Continue reading...Glaude’s new book shows political turmoil historically reaching its boiling point around Fourth of July celebrations
“The mere presence of Black people at the Fourth of July celebrations, acting as if freedom belonged to them, exposed the lie at the heart of this ritual of remembrance by the nation: ours was not a nation committed to liberty and equality.” So goes the second chapter of the author Eddie S Glaude Jr’s latest book America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation’s Anniversaries.
The Princeton University professor’s new text illustrates how political turmoil has historically reached a boiling point around celebrations of the nation’s founding on the Fourth of July. The text is especially relevant now as the United States approaches its 250th birthday. Throughout the book, Glaude argues that since the very beginning, Black Americans have played a vital role in establishing this country. Their presence is a constant reminder that the mythological America – one of a white republic – does not exist. Celebrations of the nation’s founding, he says, reinforce myth-making at the expense of the truth. They’re treated as sacrosanct events, thus justifying the sanitization of the nation’s brutal history.
Continue reading...alternative_right shares a report from ScienceAlert: If you consumed a wild mushroom and suddenly started seeing tiny people around you, you might reasonably assume it contained a familiar psychedelic. But that does not appear to be the case with Lanmaoa asiatica, known locally as jian shou qing, a mushroom species sold in markets in Yunnan, southwestern China. When eaten undercooked, the mushroom can produce vivid visions of miniature people -- not unlike Gulliver on his travels to Lilliput. To try and find out the root cause, University of Utah mycologists Colin Domnauer and Bryn Dentinger sequenced the genomes of 53 mushroom samples from across the wider Lanmaoa genus. And despite the reported hallucinations, they found no close matches to genes associated with psilocybin or ibotenic acid, two well-known mushroom hallucinogens whose biosynthetic pathways were specifically examined in the study. "Biosynthetic gene mining of the L. asiatica genome found no close hits with any genes known in the production of mushroom psychoactive compounds," write the researchers in their published paper. "This supports our hypothesis of the presence of a novel unidentified metabolite responsible for the unique hallucinogenic properties of L. asiatica." [...] Whatever chemical pathways are causing these effects in the brain, the responsible compound appears to be something scientists have not yet identified. [...] By identifying 1,515 corresponding genes across the selected specimens, the researchers obtained a clearer answer to the question of what defines a mushroom species as part of the genus Lanmaoa. There are now 17 recognized species in the genus, including four that haven't been identified before, two of which the researchers specifically named here: Lanmaoa fallax and Lanmaoa carbonilivor. The researchers say the Lanmaoa family and evolutionary tree can now be more fully mapped out, and some existing specimens may need to be reclassified.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Experts say consolidation and market power have left consumers paying more for less
When Delta Airlines charged Marie Duggan, an economic historian visiting Oaxaca, Mexico, $1,200 to change a scheduled flight to the United States, she was so angry she cancelled and booked a cross-border night-time bus ride instead.
Duggan thought Delta’s price increase to fly to Phoenix instead of San Francisco, at twice the price of a one-way flight to Phoenix, was an insult and a rip-off. So she took a $250 flight on Aeromexico to Hermosillo, in the north-western state of Sonora, and then a $59 bus across the Mexico border.
Continue reading...Country is ‘militarily the strongest in Europe’, says Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who wants coalition ready in case US pulls troops
The US’s attitude to the defence of Europe has changed permanently and a European coalition of the willing, including Ukraine, should be established to defend the continent, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a former Nato secretary general, has said.
A coalition of the willing compromising 45 states is already in theory poised to act as a reassurance and training force inside Ukraine in the event of a peace settlement with Russia.
Continue reading...Leaked letter to PM and military demands action to stop violence against Palestinians in occupied West Bank
Dozens of Israelis from the country’s security, political and cultural elite have threatened legal action against their government over support for Jewish terrorism and an “ideology of ethnic cleansing” in the occupied West Bank, according to a leaked letter.
Two former prime ministers, former heads of all the Israeli security services, former judges, a Nobel laureate and the country’s most revered living novelist were among the signatories to a “final warning” over violence against Palestinians.
Continue reading...Chinese tech giant Alibaba has filed a federal lawsuit against the Defense Department for designating it a military-linked firm.
Review of 2,500 cases between 2012 and 2015 finds ‘systemic’ and ‘deep-rooted’ failures, a bullying culture and racism
A review into the NHS’s biggest ever maternity care scandal has been published. Led by Donna Ockenden, an independent senior midwife, the review examined 2,500 cases involving mothers and babies dying or being seriously injured, or babies being stillborn, while under the care of Nottingham university hospitals NHS trust between 2012 and 2015. Below is a summary of the findings from the report.
Continue reading...A prepaid phone plan can give you just the features you use for less cost than from a bigger carrier.
Investigators says one of two teenagers who allegedly opened fire on students at high school was regular player
Philippine authorities have temporarily blocked the online gaming app GoreBox days after a rare school shooting in the south-east Asian country killed three students and injured 20 others.
Investigators said that one of the two teenagers accused of opening fire on students at San Jose National high school in Tacloban city had regularly played the game, which allows players to use various weapons and depicts graphic violence.
Continue reading...Talk to enough serious grillers and one name keeps coming up: Weber. Here's why it's held our top recommendation for years running.
If you have presbyopia or difficulty seeing nearby objects, it may be time to invest in a pair of reading glasses.
Mace’s TRANS MICE Act is designed to end ‘radical transgender-related experiments on animals’. But is this all a stupid misunderstanding?
First they came for your children. As Donald Trump has claimed without evidence (because facts are woke), US schoolkids have been getting gender-reassignment surgery in between classes. “Can you imagine you’re a parent and … you say, ‘Jimmy, I love you so much. Go have a good day in school,’ and your son comes back with a brutal operation,” Trump said during a rally in 2024. “What the hell is wrong with our country?”
Now it seems the woke brigade has come for poor little mice. According to Republican congresswoman Nancy Mace, who once called herself “Trump in high heels”, American taxpayers are funding transgender rodents. Last week Mace, who is leaving politics next year after coming last in her state’s Republican primary for governor, promoted a new bill called the TRANS MICE Act, designed to “put an end to the use of taxpayer dollars for radical transgender-related experiments on animals”.
Continue reading...A court in Germany found that Google was responsible for what its chatbots say in search summaries. This is the accountability we need
Earlier this month, a German court ruled that Google is liable for its AI search summaries. Rejecting defenses like “users can check for themselves”, and that they generally know “that information generated with AI should not be blindly trusted”, the court held that the AI’s summaries are reflections of the company and “above all an expression of Google’s business activities”.
This is the latest skirmish in a decades-old battle over internet publishing. Historically, there were two different types of information distributors: carriers and publishers. A phone company is a carrier. It’ll transmit whatever you say, even discussions about committing a crime. Words are words, and the phone company does not know – nor is it liable for – the words you choose to speak. A newspaper, on the other hand, is a publisher. It decides the words it publishes, and what quotes to include in its articles. If those words or quotes are defamatory or otherwise illegal, it’s liable.
Continue reading...According to Heidi Blake in the New Yorker, the Tate and Trump circles have overlapped at Mar-a-Lago. What does that mean?
Donald Trump has told many stories and denied many others about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. But those questions center on Epstein’s actions and crimes, which Trump says he denounces and wasn’t a part of. The White House has moved heaven, earth, the truth and much else to protect Trump from what the Epstein files might tell us about him. But there is a larger question about what Trump makes of Epstein’s values. Does he reject them, or does he endorse and embrace them? Looking to his administration’s ties to Andrew Tate may be instructive.
According to Heidi Blake’s thorough investigation of Tate in the New Yorker earlier this month, the Trump administration intervened last year to buffer Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan from the consequences of their criminal charges in Romania. The Tate and Trump circles, she also reports, have overlapped at Mar-a-Lago.
Continue reading...Daniel Cressy, 23, says path leading to completion of curative gene therapy is his ‘greatest blessing’
A young south-eastern Louisiana man recently became the first person in his region to be functionally cured of sickle cell disease, clearing the way for him to continue pursuing his dream of a career as a commercial pilot, according to his medical team.
Daniel Cressy’s successful completion of curative gene therapy at Manning Family Children’s hospital in New Orleans on Monday generated a measure of optimism within his state, which produces more cases of sickle cell disease per capita than any other in the US, according to the medical center.
Continue reading...Guardian investigation: Renters at apartment buildings operated by industry giant Greystar complain they’re deluged by ‘unfair’ and ‘inflated’ fees. The company denies these claims
Tenants at apartment complexes operated by Greystar, the largest owner and manager of apartments in the US, don’t just pay rent. They pay a mass of fees that many renters have never heard of before.
These add-ons include “boiler management fees”, “variable refrigerant flow fees”, “solar rebill” fees, even “lifestyle fees”.
Continue reading...
Why Should Delaware Care?
In his second year in office, Wilmington Mayor John Carney made housing a focus in Delaware’s largest city. But debate with city council over how to spend city dollars exposed a divide over whether Wilmington should prioritize dollars for affordable housing developers or for immediate help to people in need.
A month after Wilmington officials debated how best to invest in affordable housing, Mayor John Carney vetoed a City Council-backed proposal to create a trust fund to pay for housing construction, homeless services, and first-time homebuyer assistance.
Carney vetoed the ordinance on Thursday, stating in a letter sent to the City Council that it “lacks a funding mechanism, and does not advance Wilmington’s strategy to create more affordable housing in a meaningful way.”
He also said the measure would create “a structurally weak advisory committee that duplicates existing bodies.”
In response, the sponsor of the ordinance, Councilwoman Shanè Darby, called on her colleagues to override the mayor’s veto during their next meeting, scheduled for July 2. An override would require nine votes from her colleagues.
In a prepared statement, Darby also sought to refute Carney’s arguments directly, stating that an advisory committee created by her ordinance would not duplicate existing city committees because hers would be permanent and would determine who gets dollars from her proposed housing trust fund.
She also said the City Council can “choose to fund it at any time.”
“We need a fund that creates long-term affordable units and that directly addresses homelessness,” she said in the statement.
The veto comes about a month after the Carney administration and City Council argued over how the city should invest in affordable housing as part of its next year’s budget.
Ultimately, the Council passed Darby’s trust fund, as well as Carney’s plan, included within the city budget, to deliver subsidies to developers of affordable housing projects.
The debate unfolded just as the city was facing ongoing criticisms over its response to homelessness, particularly at a city-sanctioned encampment at Christina Park.
The votes also followed a tense debate that occurred last year over a separate proposal from Darby that would have restricted rent increases in the city.
In an interview with Spotlight Delaware, Darby said she believes Carney vetoed her most recent ordinance because he’s “not a fan of me.”
Darby first introduced her housing trust proposal in February.
A month later, Carney released his proposed city budget, and included within it was a $20 million housing proposal. Of that, nearly $17 million would fund a program to deliver subsidies to developers who build affordable housing.
But many members on the city council pushed back against Carney’s proposal, arguing the developer subsidies were too costly and wouldn’t address near-term housing needs of residents.
By May, City Council members embraced Darby’s housing trust proposal, making it the centerpiece of their competing housing plan. The biggest proponents were the City Council’s progressive bloc, which includes Darby, Christian Willauer and Coby Owens.
During a subsequent City Council meeting, several housing advocates also expressed support for Darby’s initiative, arguing it was urgently needed amid Carney’s decision to close the Christina Park encampment.
“Don’t fumble this opportunity. Pass the affordable housing trust,” Adam Whitley, a city resident, said during a May city council meeting.
In response, Carney reshaped his parallel housing plan within his proposed budget, paring it down to an $11.8 million housing package.
Ultimately, the City Council passed the city budget, preserving much of Carney’s proposal to use incentives to spur housing development.
Two weeks later, they also passed Darby’s separate housing trust ordinance.
Council members also continue to consider several other housing initiatives, including funds for eviction assistance and emergency rental assistance.
If the City Council overrides Carney’s veto, Darby and Willauer have suggested that the city could pay for the trust fund by pulling dollars from its tax stabilization reserve, the general budget, the state bond bill, or developer fees.
To boost those developer fees paid to the city, Darby said that she is currently working on a measure that would require builders to pay the city when they build housing units that are not affordable.
Her measure would also require developers who use public funds for housing projects to designate a percentage of their units as affordable. She argued that measure is only possible if the housing trust fund is in existence.
“And then next year, for budget talks, we would infuse it with money from the budget,” Darby said.
The post Carney vetoes City Council housing trust proposal; Darby calls for an override appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.
FTSE 100 firm says Prologis all-share proposal turned down as it falls long way short of its own views on value
The UK warehouse landlord Segro is at the centre of the latest transatlantic takeover battle after rejecting a £12.6bn takeover approach from the US rival Prologis.
Prologis has gone public with its offer for the FTSE 100 company after it was “unequivocally rejected” by Segro’s board on Tuesday despite valuing the company at almost 25% more than its market value at that day’s close.
Continue reading...
Why Should Delaware Care?
Since 2019, Dorrell Green has served as the superintendent of one of Delaware’s largest school districts. He has also served in multiple state task forces with the goal of improving Delaware education. On Monday, it was announced he will be leaving his school district for one in Pennsylvania, marking a leadership gap for the Red Clay Consolidated School District.
One of Delaware’s most prominent education leaders is leaving the state.
On Monday, Dorrell Green, superintendent of the Red Clay Consolidated School District and the reigning Delaware Superintendent of the Year, announced that he accepted a parallel position in Norristown, Pa.
“They say sometimes when content, you should be content with what you have, but when complacency sets in, you need to change,” Green said during his announcement Monday at a Norristown Area School District board meeting.
Green’s five-year contract with the Norristown Area School District will take effect on July 20, with an initial annual salary of $270,000.
His imminent departure from Red Clay is likely to create a leadership void in Delaware’s largest school district, which hosted more than 14,000 students last year in the greater Wilmington area, just as state leaders consider how to reform district boundaries in the county.
In a statement to Spotlight Delaware, Red Clay school board president Victor Leonard said board members have “a huge task in the next few weeks in finding a leader that will guide our district through some troubling times.”
He said the most pressing issues include declining enrollment, low student proficiency rates, and a “looming” school district consolidation plan.
Proposed last year by the state’s Reading Consortium – on which Green served as a member – the consolidation plan calls for Delaware’s four northernmost school districts to combine into one.
The districts include Brandywine, Christina, Colonial, and Red Clay Consolidated.
The plan also would presumably eliminate three of the districts’ four superintendent positions.
Beyond his work as superintendent, Green has also served on multiple Delaware education committees.
In December, he was part of a presentation to lawmakers by school district leaders across the state that argued that a recent property reassessment, which was spurred by inequities in public education funding, ultimately left poorer districts in the lurch.
He also currently serves as the president of the Delaware Chief School Officers Association, according to the Delaware Association of School Administrators website.
There was no mention of Green’s resignation during a Red Clay school board meeting last week, even as it occurred just four days before Norristown Area School District officials announced him as their next superintendent.
The announcement quickly went viral on social media. Multiple Red Clay employees wrote that they had not received any notification that Green would be leaving the district.
Among those was Leonard, who indicated that he felt blindsided by the decision. In his statement, he called the announcement of Green’s new job “a leaked social media posting from the Norristown School District.”
Green also noted the virality of the announcement of his new position, stating it had been “a rough 24 hours.”
“I’ve been bombarded, didn’t realize that it was going to go as viral as quickly as it did,” Green said.
He also noted that he had received multiple messages from former students who he said were “reassuring me that I’m living out my purpose.”
“My character is the only thing that I can stand on, and I’m bringing that here,” Green told families during the Norristown Area School District Board of Education meeting.
The post Red Clay Superintendent Dorrell Green to leave for Pennsylvania role appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.
Police will investigate how they interacted with Giuffre, one of Jeffrey Epstein’s most prominent victims, after her family requested the review
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Police in Western Australia have agreed to review how they interacted with Virginia Giuffre, one of the most prominent victims of the disgraced US financier Jeffrey Epstein, in the lead-up to her death a year ago by suicide.
Giuffre’s brother and sister-in-law, Sky and Amanda Roberts, told ABC radio on Wednesday morning that they had written to both the state coroner and the police requesting an investigation into how police handled a domestic violence dispute she was involved in before she took her life on her WA farm last April at age 41.
Continue reading...A North Korean soldier has been taken into custody after crossing the Demilitarized Zone into South Korea in a suspected defection, the Yonhap news agency says.
China sets out its vision for a new global order – but will it commit the resources to match its ambition? Expert comment LToremark
China’s new white paper on global governance highlights its balancing act between global ambitions and financial restraint.
With the world’s attention fixed on wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, Beijing last week published a sweeping statement on the future of international order. The 45-page white paper, ‘More Just and Equitable Global Governance: China’s Principles, Proposals and Actions’, appeared just as the G7 published its own prescriptions for global affairs. It signals China’s evolution from a mere participant of the existing international system to the architect of a new global order.
It would be easy to dismiss yet another long policy document from Beijing. However, the white paper is significant not because it contains revolutionary new ideas, but because it consolidates Beijing’s long-standing diplomatic themes into a coherent vision for reshaping global governance. It integrates development, security, culture, technology and institutional reform under a single conceptual framework.
Watch the event ‘What is China’s vision for a new world order?’
At its core, the white paper advances three connected propositions. First, the world should move toward a more genuinely multipolar order. Second, the United Nations should remain the central institution of international governance. Third, the Global South should have greater influence in setting global rules and priorities.
These ideas are a clear call for a redistribution of power within the current international system. Yet the document also reveals a striking contradiction. While China increasingly presents itself as a champion of global governance reform and a defender of multilateralism, it remains reticent to commit the scale of financial resources historically associated with global leadership.
The timing of the white paper is no coincidence. It arrives at a moment when Washington appears increasingly less willing to shoulder the burdens of international leadership. The US remains the world’s most powerful country, but domestic political divisions, the Trump administration’s apparent disregard for international law, and its erratic approach to foreign policy have raised questions about the future of American stewardship of the international system.
China clearly sees an opportunity here. The white paper repeatedly positions Beijing as a defender of the UN-centred order against unilateralism and power politics. Unlike rising powers of the past that sought to overturn existing institutions, China insists that the UN remains indispensable. The message is that global governance should not be dismantled but rebalanced.
This distinction matters. Beijing is not proposing an alternative to the UN. Rather, it seeks to reshape the existing system in ways that better reflect contemporary power realities. In Beijing’s mind, the post-1945 order does not reflect today’s world in which developing countries account for the majority of the global population and an increasing share of economic output.
The beneficiaries of this rebalancing would be the countries of the Global South. Throughout the document, China portrays itself as both a member and representative of this broad constituency. Calls for greater representation of developing countries in international institutions and enhanced participation in global decision-making, feature prominently. While Global South cooperation has traditionally focused on economic development, the white paper seeks to extend it to other areas of global affairs, including security and technology.
There is considerable appeal in this message. Many developing countries have long argued that global financial institutions and rule-making processes remain disproportionately influenced by advanced economies. China’s emphasis on inclusiveness and representation therefore resonates with genuine grievances that extend well beyond China’s closest circle of partners.
Yet leadership in international affairs requires more than ideas and rhetoric. It also requires resources.
Historically, every major architect of international order has paid a substantial price for that role. After the Second World War, the US financed European reconstruction through the Marshall Plan, underwrote international institutions, guaranteed security arrangements, and supplied global public goods. Whether one views American leadership positively or negatively, it was backed by enormous financial commitments.
China’s white paper is noticeably less specific on this front. It speaks extensively about principles, cooperation and institutional reform. But there are no major new financial commitments to help realize these ambitions.
This omission is particularly striking given China’s own economic circumstances. Slower growth and the domestic pursuit of technological prowess have constrained Beijing’s willingness to undertake expensive overseas commitments. The era of government-led spending on its Belt and Road Initiative has ended and been replaced by a more cautious approach focused on smaller, more targeted projects.
As a result, China appears caught between ambition and restraint. It increasingly fills the diplomatic space created by American retrenchment – whether by choice or by default – but it does not yet appear willing to bear the costs traditionally associated with hegemonic leadership.
However, this may be how China wants it. Chinese policymakers have long insisted that China does not seek hegemony and should not be expected to assume the responsibilities once carried by the US.
This means the white paper should perhaps not be judged against the American leadership of the past. Beijing is not proposing a Marshall Plan 2.0, nor is it offering to underwrite a global order through vast financial transfers or open-ended security guarantees. Instead, China appears to be pursuing a different form of influence: one rooted in its past development experience and existing institutional legitimacy.
Viewed through this lens, the white paper is less about financial hegemony and more about projecting normative power. China is seeking to shape how others think about sovereignty, development, security and the distribution of authority in international affairs. Its ambition is not necessarily to replace the US as the world’s chief provider of public goods, but to redefine the principles by which those goods are governed and allocated.
The writer who coined the word ‘enshittification’ tells us why AI will never deliver what it promises – and why it still appeals so much to those in power
A “centaur”, in automation theory, is a person assisted by a machine, and a “reverse centaur”, hero of Cory Doctorow’s new book, The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI, is a “human who is conscripted into acting as an assistant to a machine”. Every warehouse worker who ever had to urinate in a water bottle because they couldn’t otherwise meet the fulfilment targets set by an algorithm is a reverse centaur. Reaching into the future, everyone who has to sit in a self-driving truck to make sure it doesn’t crash, presumably on minimum rather than truck-driver wages, is a reverse centaur; as is every lawyer no longer on lawyer’s money checking Gemini’s command of precedent, every indie band scraping a living doing covers of AI-generated hits, and so on. That, anyway, is the promise: AI is coming for your job, and it is coming for your kids’ jobs, and there is no point fighting it because the future’s already here.
Wiping out the world of work, and with it our ability to sustain ourselves and live autonomous lives, is only the beginning, if you listen to AI’s architects. Elon Musk has called it the single greatest threat to human civilisation, Sam Altman has said it will “most likely lead to the end of the world” and Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, memorably forecast that AI would come to see us the way we see animals: cute to have around but ultimately a resource to be exploited. “AI people claim they’re about to create God, by teaching words to a word-guessing programme,” Doctorow says. “It’s grandiose.”
Continue reading...Your grill can do more than you think. Here's a handful of unexpected and chef-approved foods to flame-kiss this summer.
fjo3 shares a report from the AFP: The latest heatwave sweeping across Europe is a stark reminder that it is the world's fastest-warming continent, stretching into an Arctic that is heating at an even greater pace. Britain, France, Italy and Spain have issued red alerts and health warnings for much of their territory this week as the region endures its second heat episode since May. Here is a look at why Europe is warming faster than elsewhere: The planet as a whole is around 1.4C warmer than in preindustrial times, defined as 1850-1900. By comparison, Europe is around 2.4C hotter than the preindustrial era, according to the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service. The long-term rise in global average temperatures is mainly due to greenhouse gas emissions from burning oil, gas and coal, but it varies by regions due to a combination of factors. Land warms faster than the ocean as water can absorb more heat and cool through evaporation. Shifts in atmospheric circulation have driven more frequent and more intense heatwaves in the European summer, according to Copernicus. High-pressure systems, which bring settled weather and higher temperatures, have become more common in Europe, Copernicus director Carlo Buontempo said. [...] Another major reason is geography as Europe is connected to the Arctic, which is 3.2C warmer than in preindustrial times. The region's rising temperatures are partly due to a process known as the albedo feedback. Bright snow and ice reflect much of the sun's heat back into space, but as they melt they reveal darker, heat-absorbing surfaces such as land and the ocean. In other parts of Europe, areas where snow was very frequent in winter have seen this coverage shrink, exposing dark land. Stricter air quality regulations have reduced aerosol emissions since the 1980s. But tackling the pollutant had the side effect of contributing to global warming, as these tiny airborne particles have a cooling effect by reflecting sunlight and making clouds more reflective.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe has spent months telling voters that the state constitution is under threat from “out-of-state special interests” using ballot initiatives to bypass the Republican-controlled legislature and enact major policy changes. The measures have included legalizing recreational marijuana, expanding Medicaid and restoring abortion rights.
That argument is at the center of Kehoe’s support for Amendment 4, a measure in the Aug. 4 primary that would make it harder for Missourians to amend their constitution through citizen-led ballot initiatives.
“Our constitution shouldn’t be the victim of out-of-state special interests who spend millions to deceive voters and pass out-of-touch policies,” Kehoe said in a video posted to the social media site X.
But when it comes to a different constitutional amendment central to his own agenda, Kehoe is benefiting from financial support provided by a Delaware nonprofit that does not disclose the identities of its donors.
Kehoe has slated Amendment 5, which would put Missouri on a path toward eliminating the state income tax, on the ballot for the August election, along with Amendment 4.
While the governor and other proponents argue that phasing out the income tax would make Missouri more economically competitive and lower the overall cost of living, opponents say it would shift the tax burden onto working-class families by imposing new sales, use taxes on products and services not currently taxed, and increase Missouri’s existing sales tax rate.
Critics also warn that the higher taxes could put Missouri retailers at a disadvantage, particularly in the Kansas City and St. Louis areas, where consumers can easily cross state lines to make major purchases. The cities are within a few miles of Kansas and Illinois, respectively.
A political action committee supporting Amendment 5, Missouri Promise PAC, has received $1.9 million from a nonprofit with almost the same name — Missouri Promise Inc. — that was incorporated late last year in Delaware. Neither the nonprofit nor the PAC discloses the identities or locations of the donors financing the campaign.
Missouri Promise PAC has placed ads online and on TV. A 30-second ad follows the governor through a city neighborhood and a manufacturing plant before ending with him on horseback in cowboy attire.
“He made a promise,” the narrator says. “Now he’s going to deliver.”
Kehoe’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
We’re still reporting. If you know more about this topic, please contact our reporting team.
Jeremy Kohler
I’m interested in tips about abuses of power, political influence, harmful policing and court practices, reproductive rights, public spending, and illegal or unethical business practices in Missouri and the Midwest.
Missouri Promise Inc. is led by Garrett Lott, a longtime Missouri Republican operative and political fundraiser, and Alex Melendez, a political consultant affiliated with Ohio-based Clark Fork Group, a firm that has provided consulting for conservative campaigns.
Neither Lott nor Melendez responded to requests for interviews or to questions about the group’s operations.
Marc Ellinger, a lawyer who serves as the treasurer of Missouri Promise PAC, said that the campaign had publicly disclosed all information required under Missouri law. Ellinger’s law office is also listed as the address for Secure Missouri, a Missouri nonprofit formed last year that recently contributed $1.5 million to the PAC.
Asked about the identities of donors to Missouri Promise Inc. and Secure Missouri, Ellinger said he could not address what disclosures the nonprofits themselves may eventually make about donors in their tax filings to the Internal Revenue Service. And he questioned whether any story would also examine financing behind opponents of Amendment 5. One campaign opposing Amendment 5 has been almost entirely funded by a $1,900,001 contribution from the Missouri Realtors PAC — a dollar more than Missouri Promise Inc.’s donation to the pro-Amendment 5 campaign.
Ellinger suggested that the contribution was not necessarily more transparent than the funding behind Amendment 5, questioning whether the public knew the ultimate source of the Realtors’ money. But unlike Missouri Promise Inc. and Secure Missouri, which do not disclose their contributors, the Realtors’ political committee reports its donors in public filings with the Missouri Ethics Commission. Those filings allow the public to see who gave money to the committee and in what amounts.
Ellinger has been involved in Missouri tax-policy campaigns for years. In 2010, he served as spokesperson for a ballot initiative backed by St. Louis financier Rex Sinquefield that sought to require periodic votes on the 1% tax on wages paid by residents and workers in St. Louis and Kansas City. Missouri voters approved the measure, forcing both cities to submit the tax to voters every five years.
Sinquefield has spent millions of dollars over the past two decades supporting efforts to reshape Missouri’s tax system, including campaigns to eliminate the state income tax and curb local earnings taxes. Sinquefield did not respond to a request for comment.
Critics of both amendments said that Kehoe’s position is difficult to reconcile.
“The fact that the governor is benefiting directly from his face and image being plastered across Missouri TV screens by a dark money group from Delaware — or somewhere, not here — shouldn’t be lost on anyone,” said Mark Jones, a political strategist and spokesperson for the Missouri National Education Association, which opposes both amendments.
Ken Warren, a professor emeritus of political science at Saint Louis University and co-director for the SLU/YouGov Poll, said Kehoe’s complaints about out-of-state money shaping Missouri politics were somewhat surprising. Money from outside a state’s borders routinely flows into ballot measure campaigns and other political fights across the country.
“It’s not good for democracy for dark money to be used,” Warren said. “Voters should be privy to where the money is coming from, whether it’s in state or out of state, because voters, when they make a choice, should know. So I agree in principle but note that he’s being hypocritical. Many Republican measures have been funded by out-of-state money and candidates. I don’t hold it against them because that’s the way campaigns are run.”
Taken together, the two amendments raise the stakes of what is typically a low-turnout August election.
By placing them on the primary ballot rather than the November general election ballot, Kehoe ensured they would be decided by an electorate likely to be smaller and more Republican-leaning. The decision also separates the measures from a November ballot that will feature a high-profile fight over abortion rights, an issue that has proved capable of mobilizing large numbers of Missouri voters.
The claim that outside interests have been driving constitutional change has become a familiar refrain among conservatives in Missouri and other Republican-led states, where voters have used ballot initiatives to enact policies that diverge from the priorities of GOP lawmakers.
Republican lawmakers in Missouri and in other Republican-led states have responded by reversing voter-passed measures and making it more difficult for voters to amend state constitutions.
Under Missouri’s current system, supporters of a citizen-initiated constitutional amendment must first collect signatures from voters across the state to qualify for the ballot. Once there, the proposal passes if it wins a simple majority of votes statewide. Under Amendment 4, citizen-led constitutional amendments would have to carry each of Missouri’s eight congressional districts in addition to winning statewide. As a result, a proposal that won statewide but fell short in a single district would fail, no matter how big the statewide margin.
Critics say that requiring a measure to win in every district would require a level of political consensus that is increasingly rare in a state marked by sharp geographic and ideological divides.
Supporters counter that such a requirement would ensure constitutional amendments reflect broad statewide agreement rather than support concentrated in a handful of population centers.
“There would have to be an even greater consensus to change the state’s primary document,” said state Rep. Brian Seitz, a Republican from Branson who supports Amendment 4. “It would give a consensus.”
The new requirement would apply only to constitutional amendments proposed by citizens through the initiative process. Amendments placed on the ballot by the Missouri General Assembly — like Amendments 4 and 5 — would still pass with a simple statewide majority.
That distinction lies at the center of the debate over Amendment 4. Critics argue the proposal would create two different sets of rules for amending the same constitution. If a statewide majority is no longer sufficient for citizens to amend the constitution, they ask, why should it remain sufficient when lawmakers propose an amendment?
Supporters argue that citizen-led initiatives are especially susceptible to influence from wealthy donors and national interest groups, and therefore should be required to demonstrate support across Missouri’s diverse regions. Seitz said he is comfortable with the possibility that the higher standard could someday make it harder for Republicans to pass constitutional amendments if Democrats gain control of state government because, in his view, the goal is to make constitutional changes more difficult regardless of which party is in power.
Seitz said the legislature itself serves as a safeguard against one region of the state dominating another. Because lawmakers are elected from districts across Missouri, he argues that any proposal referred to voters has already been vetted by representatives from urban and rural areas alike.
“We’re not a democracy,” he said. “We are a representative republic.”
The post Missouri’s Governor Is Opposed to Out-Of-State Funding, but Not for His Own Ballot Measure appeared first on ProPublica.
An additional case is suspected in Western Australia, which would bring the total number of bird flu infections to four
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Deadly H5 bird flu has been confirmed in two Australian states after a migratory seabird tested positive for the disease in South Australia.
Western Australia also has another suspected positive case, in a southern giant petrel, found dead in the Quindalup region in the state’s south west.
Continue reading...  | To hear at full resolution you may want to use earbuds or headset rather than loudspeaker. When I first set it up with the Thunder tire it came with, I could not believe how dead quiet it was on standstill like on bicycle. After I swapped the tire to Enduro with Life Savers, it’s still quiet but I can notice some wind-like whir or hiss. I have ridden on it around 280 miles. [link] [comments] |
Progressive supporters of mayor celebrate as former city comptroller’s critical approach to Israel helps defeat incumbent congressman Dan Goldman in primary
The polls closed at 9pm in New York on Tuesday. It took less than five minutes for Brad Lander, the Zohran Mamdani-endorsed candidate, to be announced the winner in the Democratic primary in the 12th district: a dominant victory that reinforced the power of New York City’s mayor and the durability of the progressive movement.
Cheers rang out at 9.04pm at the bar where Lander held his victory party, as the former city comptroller and former mayoral candidate was declared to have easily defeated Dan Goldman, the district’s two-term incumbent, in the Democratic primary.
Continue reading...British disinfectant brand withdraws advert about a man’s efforts to find a ‘clean and untouched’ woman
The British hygiene brand Dettol has apologised after an advertisement released in China, which it said was intended to criticise “toxic men”, was widely condemned on social media as offensive to women.
The five-minute advert for a multipurpose disinfectant, released across many online platforms at the end of May, features a man comparing his girlfriend with his former partner. Learning that his former girlfriend previously lived with someone else, the man likens their relationship to a “secondhand service”. He then tells his friends that he intends to find a “clean and untouched” woman for whom he can be the first sexual partner.
Continue reading...Peru's right-wing presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori built what may be an unassailable lead as vote counting for the runoff election entered its final stages, official figures showed.
There were two surprises during the TOP500 session at ISC 2026 on June 22. First, the Chinese supercomputer LineShine took over the number one spot on the list. Secondly, the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) announced it was taking ownership of the TOP500 list.
The ownership transition of TOP500 was announced following the presentation of the top five systems on the June 2026 list by Horst Simon, the deputy director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and one of three caretakers of TOP500, along with Oak Ridge National Lab’s Jack Dongarra and LBNL’s Erich Strohmaier, who created the first TOP500 list in June 1993 with Hans Meuer, who passed in 2014.
Simon introduced Christine Harvey, who is the chair of the ACM Special Interest Group on High Performance Computing (SIGHPC) and an HPC expert at Nvidia.
“For those of you unfamiliar with the organization but you might be wondering, what is this about? Who are you? You’re not Jack Dongarra,” Harvey said. “The ISC group is transitioning ownership of the publication of the TOP500 list to ACM SIGHPC.”
ACM SIGHPC Chair Christine Harvey explained the transition of the TOP500 list to ACM at ISC 2026 on June 23, 2026
Harvey explained that discussions of the transition have been taking place for two years. The goal of SIGHPC is to preserve the list, while figuring out how to transition it into the future.
“What we really want to do is preserve the legacy of the TOP500 effort, make sure that this list is something that stays with us and more importantly, continues to evolve,” Harvey said. “So we want to really open up opportunities for fresh ideas. The group that’s been working on this list has been the same really tight knit group for a long time. We want to evolve that and see kind of what comes next. And we also want to enable a little bit more community-driven strategic direction.”
Some things will change and some things will stay the same, Harvey said.
“What’s staying the same: TOP500 is going to be free and publicly accessible for forever. That will never change,” she said. “It will be announced always at ISC and SC. The founding authors will be permanently acknowledged. And the active members of Horst, Jack, and Eric will be on the steering committee for as long as they wish to remain involved, possibly past Horst’s upcoming birthday….. And it will always stay an impartial ranking of supercomputers, so it will not be affiliated with or sponsored by any vendors.”
Simon may not have an active role with TOP500 much longer. “I want to get [of being the face] of the TOP500 by the time my age and the number of list is the same,” Simon quipped. “And so you can figure that out. This is the 67th list.”
What’s going to change?
“So ownership will transition from ISC group to ACM,” Harvey said. “I think the ink has dried on the papers for this. We just need to do a couple final steps that we’re going to start publishing the list in ACM Digital Library.” The ACM plans to assign a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) number to TOP500 lists.
There will also be two committees at ACM: a steering committee and a technical committee. The steering committee will be composed of Dongarra, Strohmaier, and Simon, along with the SIGHPC chair (currently Harvey), along with Satoshi Matsuoka, Wu Feng, and Anders Jensen. The technical committee will be composed of Dongarra, Strohmaier, Piotr Luszczek, Greg Veldman, Wu Feng, and a SIGHPC representative for communications.
“That group will actually do the technical work of pulling the list together,” Harvey said. “The next list will actually be produced by SIGHPC, ACM volunteers, and shadowed by the ISC group to make sure we’re doing everything right. And this will be published in the ACM Digital Library, and we’ll continue to evolve the list and work on how we serve the broader HPC community.”
The post ACM to Take Over TOP500 appeared first on HPCwire.
Get ready for a diversity of architectures in HPC spanning CPUs, AI accelerators, and quantum, as the AI boom has triggered an insatiable demand for computing, Technical University of Munich Professor Martin Schulz said during his opening keynote at the 2026 International Supercomputing Conference here in Hamburg, Germany.
“We have demand that’s growing faster and faster than we can keep up with our traditional scaling mechanisms,” Schulz said during his keynote session following a short introduction by 2026 ISC chair Program Chair Rosa Badia. “AI has really shifted the center of gravity.”
Traditional modeling and simulation–the bread and butter of what runs on HPC systems–occupies a big chunk of the workload running on supercomputers, and there’s also high-performance data analytics (HPDA), Schulz said. But it’s really AI and agentic workloads that are driving this need to develop converged computing architectures that can handle this new demand.
“They’re really coming together as one, sometimes forced, sometimes not forced, but nevertheless coming together and working together,” he said.
Professor Schulz delivered the introductory keynote at ISC 2026
Heterogeneity is nothing new in today’s HPC data centers. It already exists in most of the systems, thanks in large part to the GPUs that accelerate traditional mod/sim and emerging AI workloads, Schulz said. But the level of diversity is just going to increase going forward, he said.
“There is not a fundamental change in paradigm. There are still von Neumann-based sequential execution streams,” the professor said. “We have still these limits that we’re hitting in HPC. ..It’s kind of amazing where we are right now, considering what we said five, 10 years ago where we could never go exascale. And now we are here, and far beyond that, and it still works. So we know how to push things to the limits, but at some point, they will also get slower and slower, perhaps even stop.”
That slowing in scaling will drive architects to experiment with new systems and new processors. While we will still rely on general-purpose computing as well as GPU-accelerated systems, we need will to find something else to keep driving the scale, as workloads demand.
“Is the GPU the savior for everything? Or do we need something else?” Schulz asked. “I think we’re going to see more and more alternatives–not replacing GPUs, but augmenting the environment there as well. So we are going to see more and more technologies come up that augment our portfolio. We’re going from one single accelerator to a portfolio of accelerators, a portfolio of compute.”
We’ll have a plethora of accelerators, Schulz said. Some companies will rely on ASICs, while others look to FPGAs. Some will depend on GPUs. “In any case, massive parallel compute close to that, to actually work with the data coming out of the CPUs,” will be needed, he said.
GPUs, such as this MI350 from AMD, are just one type of accelerator
The challenge will be making this portfolio of accelerators work harmoniously, both at a hardware and at a software level. There will be a need to mask this complexity to the end user, as exposing them to the full brunt of technological diversity “would be too painful,” Schulz said.
“If you have a large compute, you need to identify the right kernel for the right compute, for the right place, for the right workflow. And this is a huge optimization problem by itself,” Shulz said. “And that’s why we need the right software for to make this work in this heterogeneous environment.”
Another accelerator for HPC is quantum. Schulz described some of the work he’s doing with Munich Quantum Valley, a consortium of universities, research institutions, and quantum startups in the area to develop quantum systems. The goal of Munich Quantum Valley is to develop different quantum modalities and bridge it with existing HPC systems, Shulz said.
“We really believe in that quantum computers will not replace HPC, because there’s so much else to do,” he said. “But they really are accelerators. And as part of the accelerator, they are HPC already. They’re part of our high performance computing portfolio.”
Another way to accelerate workloads on HPC systems is neuromorphic computing. Shulz mentioned the work that’s being done by the Advanced Processor Technologies (APT) group at the University of Manchester dubbed the Spiking Neural Network Architecture, or SpiNNaker, as well as the SpiNNaker2 project at the University of Dresden.
“Here the idea is to kind of take inspiration from how the brain works and put this into a compute element, and work in a similar way to how neurons work in the brain,” Schulz said. “It’s specialized to certain problems, but [has the potential] to be very, very effective.”
Prepare for a diversity of accelerator types, Professor Schulz said
Another fairly exotic technology that could become an HPC accelerator are photonic systems, Shulz said. “We know photonics already from optical interconnects,” Schulz said. “But also it can be used for certain linear algebra optimizations and acceleration paths.” DNA storage and DNA computing also holds promise.
DNR, DNA storage, DNA computing comes out. Again, very particular problems, but again, potentially massive parallelism on, on the, on the DNA side that we can potentially then couple again and bring into the fold.
None of these technologies by themselves will solve the scaling problems that we face, vsaid. But hopefully when we combine them, we can develop systems that meet our needs.
“So we have this really heterogeneous world. No single architecture wins, but we have a large a large different set of architectures to play with,” he said. “Each of these systems comes with their own programming models, with their own programming philosophy and kind of design points. That is not trivial…So we need to work on how can we bridge some technologies? How can we abstract some technologies and how we can really make this whole gel together? This is one of the biggest problems still.”
Providing an abstraction and a common interface that allows all of these various accelerators to work together, without burdening the user with stifling complexity, is a problem that Shulz is working on. There are various aspects to this problem that need to be worked out, from the access mechanism itself, how to allocate jobs, and how to allocate resources so that these various systems work cohesively in a real-time manner (because batch scheduling will not work) will require a lot more work by the HPC community, he said.
“There’s different ways to spin these stacks. But again, you have these layers, that we know also from classic HPC stacks, and we need to map them together,” vsaid. “We end up basically with this final challenge that we really have to do. We have all these stacks for the different places that kind of look the same, but not quite. We have to line them up in the proper way, but we have to support diversity in technologies. We have to support diversity in software stacks, environments, and how can we really run them together now and really make this work as one system?”
Integration standards will be important to ensure that everything fits together. Ditto for resource discovery. Workflows will need to be documented to ensure the right provenance, and locality must be respected once data start moving around. Long-term maintainability cannot be ignored; otherwise the whole thing collapses.
“Heterogeneity is inevitable,” vconcluded. “We have it already now and we’ll get more, and it will be the essential mechanism to drive more performance.”
The post Heterogeneous Compute Is Here to Stay, Prof. Schulz Says in 2026 ISC Keynote appeared first on HPCwire.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A tech sell-off shook global markets on Tuesday as attention turned away from developments in the US war with Iran and toward the future of AI companies and chipmakers that have driven stock markets to record highs. The tech-heavy Nasdaq index closed 2.2% lower on Tuesday. The S&P 500 was also down by Tuesday afternoon, dropping 1.43% while the Dow remained steady. All three major US indices have hit record highs this year, riding off a rush of funding to support AI technology and infrastructure. Nasdaq is up 10% for the year, while the Dow jumped 6% so far this year, breaching past 51,000 points, and the S&P 500 is up 7.3%. But some economists have warned that the influx of AI spending is a bubble reminiscent of the dot-com bubble that burst in the early 2000s. Seven tech companies make up 30% of the S&P 500's value. The heavy reliance on a single industry and a few key companies has some investors wondering if it's a matter of when, not if, there will be a burst. Those concerns have been heightened by signals from the Federal Reserve last week that it may increase interest rates, and therefore the cost of borrowing, in order to tackle rising inflation. Alphabet fell 5% on Monday. SpaceX plunged 16%. The selloff also spread to Asia, with South Korea's benchmark dropping 10% as SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics each lost more than 12%, while Japan's Nikkei 225 declined 3.5%.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
WASHINGTON, June 23, 2026 — The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced the establishment of the ambitious new Quantum Genesis initiative to develop and deploy the world’s first fault-tolerant, scientifically relevant quantum computing capability for research and development by 2028. The Quantum Genesis effort will serve as a foundational element of the broader Genesis Mission, designed to usher in a new era of computational power for the nation to accelerate scientific discovery and innovation.
The announcement of the Quantum Genesis initiative marks a significant step toward the Department’s goals outlined in Executive Order (EO) ‘Ushering the Next Frontier of Quantum Innovation.’ The EO reaffirms continued U.S. leadership in quantum information science, including the establishment of the Quantum Computer for Application Development and Discovery Science (QC-ADDS) Effort.
To help shape this strategic effort, DOE recently sought community input through a Request for Information (RFI) on Scientifically Relevant Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computing Systems, underscoring the United States’ commitment to leadership in quantum information science.
“The Quantum Genesis initiative is the first step in delivering on President Trump’s charge for a national effort in developing a quantum computer powerful enough for scientific research,” said Michael Kratsios, Assistant to the President and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “This effort will strengthen U.S. competitiveness, drive breakthroughs that classical systems cannot achieve, and ensure America remains at the forefront of one of the most consequential technologies of our time.”
“Scientific discovery is one of the most powerful drivers of human flourishing, and quantum computing has the potential to dramatically accelerate that discovery,” said Secretary of Energy Chris Wright. “Through Quantum Genesis, we are bringing together America’s National Laboratories, universities, and private sector innovators to develop and deploy the world’s first scientifically relevant fault-tolerant quantum computing capability. America led the last computing revolution, and we intend to lead the quantum age as well.”
“Just as telescopes allowed us to explore the cosmos, advanced quantum computers will enable us to peer into the fundamental laws of nature with unparalleled precision,” said DOE Under Secretary for Science Darío Gil. “This transformative opportunity for scientific discovery, deeply intertwined with advancements in AI enabled by the Genesis Mission, will be powered by DOE’s unique system of User Facilities, research centers, and partnerships that have laid the foundation for this next era of discovery.”
The Quantum Genesis, a core component of the Genesis Mission, will have three major priorities:
The Quantum Genesis builds on longstanding DOE investments in quantum information science, including a strong foundational research program that crosses all science disciplines and the National Quantum Information Science Research Centers established under the National Quantum Initiative Act in 2018. It represents the latest expansion of the Genesis Mission to accelerate U.S. research and development in scientific discovery.
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Source: U.S. Dept. of Energy
The post DOE Announces Initiative to Create and Deploy Scientifically Relevant, Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computers appeared first on HPCwire.
A new version of the Python framework will make it easier for software developers and HPC teams to emulate the performance of quantum hardware
BARCELONA, Spain, June 23, 2026 — Qilimanjaro Quantum Tech’s software development toolbox QiliSDK is now integrated with NVIDIA CUDA-Q – the platform for quantum-classical computing. This upgrade provides researchers with GPU acceleration for production-scale emulation of quantum workflows on classical hardware. Qilimanjaro’s unique multimodal approach now extends across classical and quantum backends, from CPUs and GPUs to analog and digital QPUs.
Upgrade Brings GPU Power to Qilimanjaro’s Multimodal Quantum Stack
This upgrade to QiliSDK is especially relevant for HPC centers. Those users—including the team at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center where Qilimanjaro has installed three quantum computers—regularly work with NVIDIA GPUs and now can use this hardware to execute large CUDA-Q simulations directly from QiliSDK. QiliSDK allows researchers to use the same library to run algorithms on real quantum hardware (digital and analog) and execute quantum emulation on classical resources.
“The future of computing will be multimodal, combining supercomputers with quantum acceleration, both digital and analog,” said Marta P. Estarellas, CEO of Qilimanjaro Quantum Tech. “This upgrade to QiliSDK helps users to integrate all these classical and quantum modalities under a single entry point, bringing this multimodal vision closer to reality.”
Most quantum software runs on a single kind of quantum hardware, either digital or analog, or on classical emulators. QiliSDK runs across multiple backends: CPU, GPU, digital QPUs (dQPU) and Qilimanjaro’s analog QPUs (aQPU). This drives Qilimanjaro’s vision of the next phase of compute: the future of supercomputing will be multimodal.
QiliSDK is Qilimanjaro’s Python framework for developing, running and emulating both digital and analog quantum algorithms. Its modular design makes it easy to prototype circuits, build Hamiltonians, design variational workflows and quantum-reservoir models, then deploy them on local or remote backends, classical or quantum.
QiliSDK now includes a complete list of CUDA-Q backends and noise models, as well as QIR and OpenQASM3 connectors. This allows users from other software libraries to port their code and benefit from the integration.
Classical emulation is a vital part of how quantum teams work. Before running anything on real hardware, teams use emulation to prototype circuits, study system behavior, characterize noise, and establish the benchmarks that quantum results are measured against. It also handles the classical side of hybrid workflows, the pre- and post-processing that wraps every quantum call. Adding the computational power of NVIDIA accelerated computing to this workflow adds more powerful tools to the process.
“Every future supercomputer will draw on quantum processors to expand what’s possible with computing,” said Sam Stanwyck, Director of Quantum Product at NVIDIA. “To start building for tomorrow’s quantum-GPU supercomputers today, researchers need tools like QiliSDK, which taps CUDA-Q for the GPU-accelerated performance required to understand truly hybrid quantum-classical systems.
Emulating a quantum state on a classical computer takes exponentially large resources as the qubit count increases. On a CPU, this can be easily achieved up to about 25 qubits before hitting the limits of memory and bandwidth. At that point, run times go from seconds to hours. GPUs are built for this kind of workload with wide memory buses, massive parallel arithmetic and multi-GPU NVLink topologies. Beyond the strength of the individual GPU, adding tensor-network or distributed-memory methods add even more capacity. NVIDIA CUDA-Q provides a platform for developing hybrid quantum-classical workflows, including the most performant way to draw upon GPU-acceleration to support quantum computing workloads.
Read the technical blogpost here.
About Qilimanjaro Quantum Tech
Based in Barcelona, Qilimanjaro is a quantum computing company, fast-tracking useful quantum computers via the development of the company’s signature analog quantum chips. Founded in 2019, Qilimanjaro builds full-stack quantum computers based on fluxonium analog qubits. This novel architecture bypasses the need for error correction and unlocks faster, more scalable solutions. Analog quantum systems provide near-term advantages in simulation, optimization, and AI, where digital QPUs either fall short or require massive overhead. The company follows this dual technology strategy to expand access to quantum computing resources now. First, the SpeQtrum QaaS platform provides remote access to hybrid quantum data centers combining analog, digital, and classical compute. Second, the company’s SpeQtrum on-premise systems offer full-stack and modular quantum integration both for analog and digital QPUs for HPC centers and research institutions.
Source: Qilimanjaro
The post Qilimanjaro Integrates QiliSDK with NVIDIA CUDA-Q for GPU-Accelerated Quantum Emulation appeared first on HPCwire.
 | Quick stop madness [link] [comments] |
All three candidates backed by NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani were projected to win their Democratic primaries Tuesday night.
Brad Lander has defeated two-term incumbent Congressman Dan Goldman for the Democratic nomination in New York's 10th Congressional District.
New framework expands access to advanced computing by reducing software barriers
June 23, 2026 — Researchers from the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have developed a new open-source software framework that significantly advances performance portability for the Julia programming language across heterogeneous high-performance computing (HPC) architectures. The framework, known as Julia for ACCelerators (JACC) enables a single Julia codebase to execute efficiently on CPUs and GPUs from multiple hardware vendors, such as NVIDIA, AMD, Intel and Apple, addressing a long-standing challenge in the Julia HPC ecosystem.
Image of BLAST code CFD simulation using JACC.jl – Credit CERFACS Credit: ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy
Julia has seen growing adoption in scientific computing due to its expressive syntax, high-level productivity, and strong performance characteristics. However, its use at scale on leadership-class HPC systems has been constrained by limited support for performance portability, or the ability of a software application to run efficiently using a single source code across diverse accelerator architectures. In practice, Julia developers seeking GPU performance have often been forced to rely on vendor-specific programming models, undocumented workflows, or duplicated code paths. This creates barriers to productivity, sustainability and broader adoption in DOE computing environments. JACC was designed to remove those barriers.
“Our team is exploring how to write production Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) codes for tomorrow’s architectures, with four key requirements: performance, portability, ease of use, and a low barrier to entry,” said Jean-François Boussuge, Advanced Aerodynamics and Multiphysics Team, European Center for Research and Advanced Training in Scientific Computing (CERFACS). “Julia is a promising path and JACC is a key enabler. Our flagship Lattice Boltzmann code BLAST was quickly running on NVIDIA, AMD, Intel and Apple GPUs and multi-threaded CPUs, with competitive performance and without maintaining separate backend-specific kernels. The write-once, run-anywhere approach of JACC fits perfectly with our vision: HPC portable code that remains accessible to domain scientists.”
A Unified Programming Model for Julia HPC
JACC introduces a unified programming model for Julia that is conceptually aligned with established performance-portable approaches used in other languages, such as Kokkos, RAJA and SYCL in C++ and OpenMP and OpenACC in C/C++ and Fortran. With JACC, developers can write a single Julia application that targets heterogeneous architectures, including CPUs from Intel, AMD and Arm, as well as GPUs from NVIDIA, AMD, Intel and Apple.
JACC keeps up with hardware evolution, advancing the programmability of multi-GPU nodes, shared memory to exploit fast-memory caches, and asynchronous kernel execution. This allows scientists to run complex code faster and more efficiently across different types of hardware without rewriting it. These features are not necessarily available in the listed portable programming models in C++ or Fortran, but available through Julia’s just-in-time and rich metaprogramming compilation model on top of the widely adopted a low-level virtual machine, or LLVM, compiler framework.
“DOE has a long track-record of contributions to vendor-neutral computing,” said Patrick Diehl, research scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. “JACC continues this tradition as Julia becomes adopted for new science cases in AI and quantum computing”
This capability directly addresses a central challenge in DOE’s HPC environments, where scientific applications must be prepared to run on rapidly evolving, vendor-diverse systems. By eliminating the need for architecture-specific code paths, JACC reduces software complexity, improves maintainability and lowers the cost of adapting applications to current and future leadership-class platforms.
Balancing Productivity and Performance
At the core of JACC is a simple but powerful application programming interface built around three abstractions: array, parallel_for and parallel_reduce. These abstractions allow developers to express parallelism, which is the execution of multiple tasks simultaneously in order to speed up processing, and data movement in a way that is portable across architectures while remaining natural for Julia users.
For non-expert users, JACC automatically selects reasonable execution strategies and data layouts, enabling CPU and GPU execution with minimal configuration and no accelerator-specific programming. For performance specialists, the framework exposes optional low-level controls that allow fine-grained tuning to extract maximum performance on specific architectures.
This layered design reflects ORNL’s long-standing emphasis on balancing usability and performance in scientific software. By shifting the complexity of performance portability into the library itself, JACC allows domain scientists to focus on scientific discovery rather than hardware-specific optimization.
Leveraging the Broader Julia Ecosystem
JACC builds on significant investments from industry and academia in the Julia language and its ecosystem, including JuliaGPU backends and the LLVM compiler infrastructure. By aligning with these community-driven efforts, JACC benefits from vendor-supported compiler technology and ongoing ecosystem improvements, funded outside DOE, while contributing HPC-focused capabilities back to the open-source community.
The open nature of Julia also enables rapid feedback and collaboration, helping ensure that JACC remains sustainable and responsive to user needs. This community engagement is critical as DOE systems continue to evolve toward increasingly heterogeneous architectures.
“Rather than reinventing the wheel, JACC contributes and reuses existing vendor-specific GPU capabilities in Julia following a unified backend-first development model. Hence, JACC is possible thanks to the JuliaGPU community efforts,” said Julian Samaroo, a research software engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an original JuliaGPU AMDGPU.jl developer.
Enabling Future Scientific Impact
By providing a practical, well-documented and systematically evaluated path to performance portability, JACC fills a critical gap in Julia’s HPC ecosystem. The framework is expected to accelerate adoption of Julia for DOE science applications, support long-term software sustainability, and enable researchers to more rapidly deploy applications on leadership-class computing systems.
JACC capabilities were presented at the SC’24 XLOOP workshop paper, “Integrating ORNL’s HPC and Neutron Facilities with a Performance-Portable CPU/GPU Ecosystem,” which led to a best paper recognition.
Early adopters outside ORNL include CERFACS, the University of Tokyo, New Jersey Institute of Technology, and Riken researchers exploring programming systems for their FugakuNEXT upcoming system which is consistent with the spirit of the long-standing U.S. DOE- Japan MEXT collaboration.
“As Riken transitions to the next generation FugakuNEXT supercomputer, we are exploring JACC for portable CPU/GPU programming as part of Julia’s rich and user-friendly scientific computing and machine learning ecosystem,” said Hitoshi Murai, Software Development Technology Unit Leader for Riken Center for Computational Science.
JACC reflects ORNL’s broader mission to advance computing technologies that enhance scientific productivity, energy innovation and national competitiveness. As heterogeneous architectures become the norm in the Top500 supercomputers, tools such as JACC will play a vital role in ensuring that scientific software can keep pace with hardware innovation.
JACC is hosted as part of the JuliaGPU organization. Funding for this project is through DOE’s Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program.
UT-Battelle manages ORNL for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. The Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.
Source: Mark Alewine, ORNL
The post ORNL Debuts JACC for Performance-Portable Julia for HPC Systems appeared first on HPCwire.
Trio of progressives endorsed by New York mayor win closely watched races, highlighting his growing influence
Zohran Mamdani’s growing influence over the Democratic party was on show in New York City on Tuesday as three congressional candidates endorsed by the city’s Democratic socialist mayor won closely watched primaries, while voters in Maryland, Utah and South Carolina cast ballots in primaries and runoffs.
Brad Lander, the former New York City comptroller who also ran for mayor last year before endorsing Mamdani, won his race comfortably, defeating the Democratic representative Dan Goldman.
Continue reading...Colombia book their last-32 spot after edging out DR Congo with a goal to Daniel Muñoz in Guadalajara
Today’s other game was the Group I clash between England and Ghana. Thomas Tuchel’s team got a stern reality check from a dogged Ghanaian side who were happy to sit back and defend.
David Hytner was at Boston Stadium:
England’s idea was to maintain the momentum they had generated in the 4-2 win over Croatia in their opening Group L tie but there was no surge here. Only stodge. England laboured to create against an ultra-defensive Ghana team, their only pulse-quickening moments coming towards the very end.
Continue reading...State Assemblyman Micah Lasher won the crowded primary race for New York's 12th Congressional District, CBS News projects.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani endorsed three left-of-center candidates in the congressional Democratic primaries, and all three are set to win, CBS News projects.
Autobiographical work Free Me aims to encourage victims to speak out in country where violence against women is rising
There are audible gasps in the auditorium in Nairobi as a husband launches a volley of blows and slaps on his wife and pushes her to the floor. “I wish I could spare you this,” the wife tells the audience. “My husband beat me up as if we were in a bar fight. Except, in a bar someone fights back.”
The scene comes from Free Me, an autobiographical play by Gathoni Kimuyu, a Kenyan theatre and TV producer who lived through an abusive marriage.
Continue reading...The man tipped for No 10 could also come under immediate pressure if his chancellor is deemed by bond markets to be too left-wing
Andy Burnham would enter Downing Street already “boxed in” by financial markets if he signals a rise in borrowing to pay for a more expansive policy agenda, bond investors have warned.
The newly elected MP for Makerfield, who is widely expected to be the next prime minister, could also quickly come under pressure if he chooses a chancellor who is seen to be too leftwing by bond markets.
Continue reading...Why the consequences of Brexit can no longer be avoided.
Nancy Lacore will spearhead effort to flip Republican House seat in November’s midterm elections
A three-star navy rear-admiral fired by Pete Hegseth last year in the defense secretary’s purge of senior US military officials has won the Democratic primary in a closely watched congressional race.
Nancy Lacore secured the party’s nomination for the US House of Representatives in South Carolina’s first congressional district on Tuesday after defeating Mac Deford, a US Coast Guard veteran, in a runoff.
Continue reading...  | Well, I pulled the trigger on a Rally XL today and took it to my favorite nearby trail. It’s ~750ft elevation gain over 2.5 miles. I am coming from a stock GT and heavily considered GTV+5” or X7 but ultimately decided that as a busy dad, I didn’t need another project and just wanted an easy upgrade. I also actually liked the GT platform feel, call me crazy. I’m 5’10” 200lbs for context. My GT did conquer this trail which surprised me the first time I rode it, especially after dialing in gradient tracking. But.. it was more of a ‘finesse it up’ the switchbacks and a calculated line selection avoiding rocks and bumps that would cause a nosedive. Several times I just dumped the front end from picking the wrong line and had to walk up to a flatter segment to get going again. The XL in comparison just carries speed so much easier even going uphill. I rode right up little areas I usually walk. The bigger tire smoothed out a lot of the trail which helped with foot fatigue. I was kind of amazed that I could actually accelerate going uphill.. the slightly wider stance also felt like I had a little more control of the board overall. I was also just able to start from anywhere, the torque from 0 is really impressive. I took a nice nosedive on my GT at ~21mph and have been really cautious about headroom near top speed since. After that, 18-19 was where I felt like I had really run out of room to accelerate and would back off. I rode 21 on the XL without feeling like I was even close to the 18-19 feel on the GT. I don’t think I’ll be riding faster than 23-24 ever so it’s a really nice feeling to have the extra torque just for peace of mind. IMO, If you weigh ~160 or less, you will probably be just fine with a GT or XRC for 99% of riding. But if you are a heavier rider, the extra money for a GTS, XL, or vesc option is worth it for safety alone. Also, just the feeling that the board is a little more in tune with the rider if that makes sense. [link] [comments] |
Voters headed to the polls Tuesday for contests in New York, South Carolina, Maryland and Utah.
Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for June 24.
While there's no official fix from Microsoft, there is a workaround.
Former Rep. Ben McAdams faced three progressive challengers in the Democratic primary in Utah's 1st Congressional District.
Anthony Constantino beat Robert Smullen in New York's 21st Congressional District.
In what is considered one of the most talented classes in recent memory, the Washington Wizards selected BYU small forward AJ Dybantsa with the No. 1 overall pick of the NBA Draft.
 | I'm asking because I had to replace my tire valvestem in the smallest size I had still seems to rub on the wire as it rotates around the rim [link] [comments] |
THree key primaries in New York City delivered whopping victories for an emboldened left led by Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday, as democratic socialists sought to define the future of the Democratic Party.
All three candidates Mamdani backed — democratic socialists Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier, and his onetime mayoral competitor Brad Lander — won their races in the heat of a midterm cycle that could see Democrats take back the House of Representatives. One message from the results was clear: The left isn’t just having a moment — it’s dictating how Democrats play the game of electoral politics.
“A year ago, it was not the end of a political movement. It was the beginning,” Mamdani said at a victory party for Valdez and several down-ballot socialists who also won Tuesday. “Let’s hear it for a politics that will never forget working people. For a politics that is ready to write a new chapter in our party’s history. And for a politics that realizes the old politics that got us into this crisis is not gonna get out of this crisis.”
Several races played out as proxy wars between the Democratic Party establishment and progressive insurgents, or even between progressives and socialists, to prove who would do more to disrupt the status quo. In hotly contested primaries spanning four out of five NYC boroughs, candidates touted endorsements from Mamdani and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., as well as their proximity to the most unconventional wings of the Democratic Party.
“Even when we are outspent, our agenda and operation bring out voters in a way the Democratic Party establishment no longer aspires to,” Gustavo Gordillo, co-chair of the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, told The Intercept. “It is democratic socialists who are defining much of the political terrain in New York.”
“If you’re an establishment Democrat, that’s spent,” streamer Hasan Piker told local outlet Hell Gate. “We’re not giving another dime to Israel, hopefully an arms embargo, or at least pushing for one. We’re gonna make sure that we change the American trajectory.”
Avila Chevalier, a former organizer in the Columbia University encampments for Palestine, was considered a long-shot candidate when she launched her campaign against the powerful incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat in the 13th Congressional District. She won the tightest race of the three Tuesday night, saying in a statement: “We deserve leadership in Washington that will fight tooth and nail for every single one of us, and I can’t wait to get to work with our community to deliver on that promise.”
Lander, who is not a DSA member but represents the clearest bridge between socialists and progressives out of the three Mamdani-endorsed congressional candidates, was the first to sail to victory, defeating Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., less than 10 minutes after polls closed with roughly a third of votes counted in the 10th Congressional District. Goldman, an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune and a staunch supporter of Israel, had lagged in public polling for months, suggesting the energy on the ground was firmly against the incumbent.
“This campaign was born out of solidarity. Solidarity is not the same as unity. Unity means we already agree. Solidarity is a practice of building bridges, even when we don’t,” Lander said Tuesday. “When I launched this race, I said it wasn’t progressives versus moderates. It’s fighters versus folders.”
The momentum among progressives and the left in New York forced Democrats close to the party’s establishment to change the way they campaign. And the rise of the DSA chapter in New York following Mamdani’s upset win last year has also raised questions about how the progressive and socialist wings of the party will share power as they seek to expand their coalition beyond New York and across the country. Some critics condemned socialist darling Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who rose to fame eight years ago with her own insurgent campaign against an influential incumbent, for staying out of New York’s congressional primaries — while others theorized that the congresswoman and the mayor were dividing their political clout across competitive federal and state-level races.
The primaries also created an unusual lane for the progressive New York Working Families Party, which found itself siding with the establishment it has long fought by backing Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, outgoing Rep. Nydia Velázquez’s handpicked successor, against DSA candidate Valdez.
Jasmine Gripper, co-state director for the New York Working Families Party, said the efforts to sow division with DSA or to separate WFP from the left’s rise erased its legacy — helping to defeat efforts to gut the party and fight conservative Democrats like former Gov. Andrew Cuomo; winning a $15 minimum wage; and expanding investments in pre-K and paid sick and family leave — and ignored that WFP was part of a much broader coalition that helped Mamdani beat Cuomo last year.
“The Working Families Party has been at the forefront of literally every major victory that has actually tangibly helped working families, and so to call us establishment is to not know our history and to not know the history of New York,” Gripper said.
She said WFP’s role moving forward was to work in tandem with DSA, not to compete with it.
“There was a point where there was no one to the left of the [Working Families] party, and if you were to the left of the party, you were crazy,” she said. “Now we’re in a moment where there’s a whole entity that’s to the left of the WFP, and that is OK.”
The democratic socialists’ growing power seems to have inspired fear among liberals and conservatives alike. Outside groups spent heavily ahead of Tuesday’s primary, widely seen as a test of where the Democratic Party stands after its 2024 failures and ahead of the November midterms, to ward off the possibility that democratic socialists would chart the party’s next chapter.
Special interests including the pro-Israel lobby and dark-money groups spent a collective $8.4 million in the three races against Mamdani’s endorsed candidates. In response, progressive groups made their biggest investments in recent history, with American Priorities, a new pro-Palestine super PAC, investing $2 million to back Mamdani’s picks and the progressive outfit Justice Democrats spending a combined $1.8 million backing Valdez and Chevalier. In total, progressive groups spent $1.3 million backing Valdez and $2.9 million backing Chevalier.
“This year we’ve continued to show that in New York, it is the democratic socialist movement that is leading a transformative agenda with popular support,” said Gordillo, the NYC DSA co-chair.
“Even when we are outspent, our agenda and operation bring out voters in a way the Democratic Party establishment no longer aspires to.”
Having more groups organized, resourced, and willing to fight the establishment makes the left stronger, WFP’s Gripper said.
“Not only are the establishment Dems looking over their back for one of us, they’re now looking over their back for two of us,” she said. “At the end of the day, we build more power in our unity than we do being divided.”
As she spoke to The Intercept, Gripper was on her way to meet two democratic socialists who won elections at the state level Tuesday night. State Sen. Jabari Brisport comfortably held onto his seat, while challenger Eon Huntley toppled an incumbent in the state Assembly. Both were endorsed by WFP and DSA.
“I think it’s naive for anyone to expect that 100 percent of the time we’ll all be on the same page,” Gripper said. “But that doesn’t mean we’re each other’s enemy either.”
Or, as Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman put it to CNN on Tuesday, “The dirtbag left is surging.”
This developing story has been updated.
The post Socialists Are Setting the Agenda in New York City appeared first on The Intercept.
China’s LineShine debuts at number one in Top500 – a list sometimes viewed as a national measure of global tech prowess
A supercomputer in China now outranks its US counterparts as the world’s most powerful. It is the first time since 2017 that a Chinese computer has topped a list sometimes viewed as a measure of a nation’s technological prowess.
The LineShine computer in Shenzhen displaced top-ranked US computer El Capitan in the Top500 rankings released on Tuesday. It was LineShine’s debut on the list.
Continue reading...  | I purchased a used and working pint x with 100 miles on it, now it has 325 miles (and still works great) I wanted to make sure the known early model pint x battery flaw wouldn't be an issue. (And I wanted to clean, inspect, and get a feel for how it all goes together) Anyone have any strong opinions about that solder joint, zoomed in on the second picture? The board works great, and I didn't see anything terrible that would have me questioning its safety... At least not immediately. I don't know much about soldering, but I know enough to know it looks less than perfect. Should I be planning on fully removing that board (bms?) and cleaning it in the (not too distant) future? I feel comfortable soldering LED lights, but this one would be well beyond me if it needs reworked. Thanks all! [link] [comments] |
Claude Tag can be added to a Slack workspace as a user with access to channels and data.
BYU freshman tops draft after scoring spree
Wizards land first No 1 pick since Wall
Dybantsa joins rebuilding Washington
AJ Dybantsa is on his way to Washington and ready to start working as soon as he gets there.
That’s not until Wednesday. Tuesday was a night for the NBA‘s No 1 draft pick to party.
Continue reading...HAMBURG, Germany, June 23, 2026 — Quandela today announced that it has experimentally validated a low-latency integration path between photonic quantum processors and NVIDIA AI infrastructure, marking an important milestone toward bringing quantum processing units directly into high-performance computing environments. Results presented at ISC 2026 demonstrate a path toward accelerator-style integration of photonic quantum processors in GPU-driven HPC environments.
The results show how a Quandela photonic QPU can be integrated with an NVIDIA GPU host and an FPGA-based Quantum System Controller through NVIDIA NVQLink. More than a simple interconnect, NVQLink provides a hardware-and-software architecture for low-latency, real-time communication between GPU supercomputing infrastructure and quantum system controllers. The validation supports a new execution model for hybrid quantum-classical computing: moving beyond remote quantum access toward collocated quantum acceleration inside HPC infrastructure.
Today, most quantum processors are accessed through cloud APIs, job queues and orchestration layers. This approach remains valuable for experimentation and batch execution, but its asynchronous nature introduces latency that limits workflows requiring real-time responses inside AI or HPC pipelines.
Quandela’s results address this bottleneck. By measuring low-latency communication between GPU infrastructure and the FPGA-based Quantum System Controller, the company has validated a practical route for photonic QPUs to participate more directly in GPU-driven workloads.
“This is not just a demonstration of connectivity,” said Jean Senellart, Chief Technology & Product Officer at Quandela. “This validation confirms a technical path toward integrating photonic QPUs into the HPC accelerator stack. For the HPC community, the important shift is that quantum processors can start to be treated less like remote experimental instruments and more like accelerators deployed alongside GPUs.”
The validation is based on a collocated architecture combining NVIDIA accelerated computing and networking with an FPGA-based Quantum System Controller connected to a Quandela photonic QPU. In this model, existing HPC schedulers remain responsible for reservation, allocation and accounting, while the active GPU–QPU session is designed to avoid repeated traversal of the full cloud-style orchestration path.
The first target workloads are in photonic Quantum Machine Learning, including quantum reservoir computing, quantum feature maps and hybrid neural-network architectures. These workloads are particularly well suited to the architecture because many photonic circuits can remain configured during inference, while new data points require only lightweight updates before measurement.
This is where photonics offers a distinctive advantage. For selected QML workloads, the same optical configuration can be reused across many inference calls, while new data points require only lightweight updates before measurement. Combined with fast photonic sampling, this makes system-level latency – not only quantum execution time – a decisive factor in performance, which is why the low-latency interaction model enabled by NVQLink is crucial for successful operation.
Quandela’s MerLin framework provides the software environment used to design, simulate, benchmark and validate these hybrid photonic QML workflows. The work also builds on Quandela’s MosaiQ photonic quantum computing platform, whose current systems are designed with FPGA-based control capabilities aligned with the Quantum System Controller model defined by NVIDIA NVQLink.
For HPC centers, sovereign AI and quantum programs, advanced research organizations and industrial users, the validation points toward a future deployment model in which a customer-owned photonic QPU could be installed on-premise or in a dedicated data center environment and connected to NVIDIA accelerated computing infrastructure.
“Tightly integrating quantum systems with accelerated computing is proving hugely impactful for quantum research,” said Sam Stanwyck, Director of Quantum Product at NVIDIA. “Quandela’s work with NVQLink shows how quantum-GPU supercomputing systems will fundamentally transform how we are able to think about computing applications when information can be passed seamlessly between different processors.”
This announcement marks a technical validation milestone toward low-latency GPU–QPU integration, paving the way for future NVQLink-enabled MosaiQ deployments.
Beyond near-term hybrid AI and QML workloads, the same integration principles are relevant to future quantum computing architectures, where QPUs, FPGA-based control systems and GPU-accelerated infrastructure will need to operate in tightly coordinated environments. Low-latency GPU–QPU integration is therefore both a near-term enabler and a foundation for future hybrid quantum-classical computing systems.
Quandela will present these results at ISC High Performance 2026 in Hamburg on June 23, 2026.
About Quandela
Quandela is a global leader in quantum computing, designing, building, and delivering cutting-edge quantum solutions for research and industry. Its offerings include the most energy-efficient quantum computers for data centers, full-stack quantum computing solutions accessible via the cloud, and algorithm access services for academic and industrial customers. Following a pragmatic, step-by-step roadmap, Quandela has been deploying industrial-grade systems since 2023 while developing future generations of fault-tolerant quantum computers capable of scaling through the integration of thousands of photonic components. Quandela is committed to making quantum computing accessible to all in order to address the most complex industrial and societal challenges.
Source: Quandela
The post Quandela Validates Low-Latency Photonic QPU Integration with NVIDIA Accelerated Computing appeared first on HPCwire.
Here are hints and the answer for today's Wordle for June 24, No. 1,831.
Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for June 24 No. 843.
Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for June 24, No. 1,109.
President Trump had endorsed both candidates in the runoff.
The Senate approved a House-passed resolution aimed at reining in President Trump on Iran, marking the first time such a measure has made it through both chambers.
U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts in the Northern District of California ruled in a 71-page opinion Tuesday that multiple Trump administration policies were arbitrary and violated the Administrative Procedure Act.
Donald Trump has indicated he will sign rare bipartisan initiative to tackle affordability after 358-32 vote in House
The House gave final approval on Tuesday to a broad bipartisan bill aimed at lowering the cost of housing, with lawmakers in both parties eager to show progress on affordability issues ahead of this year’s midterm elections.
The 358-32 vote sends the bill to Donald Trump, who is expected to sign it into law on Wednesday at the Capitol. The Senate passed the legislation 85-5 on Monday.
Continue reading...Firings come less than a week after US president appointed Bill Pulte as acting director after Tulsi Gabbard left the post
Several staff members have reportedly been fired from the US office of the director of national intelligence (DNI), multiple outlets have reported. These firings come less than a week after Donald Trump appointed Bill Pulte as the acting director after former director Tulsi Gabbard announced she was leaving the post in late May.
According to CNN, which was first to report the firings on Monday, political appointees with ties to Gabbard were among those purged. ABC News reported that cuts to the National Terrorism Center were expected to be particularly large.
Continue reading...The legislation aims to increase housing supply and lower costs. It marks a rare bipartisan legislative accomplishment for lawmakers.
Christian Miles berated Oklahoma state troopers near Washington DC landmark subject to botched renovation
A Washington DC resident arrested this week near the National Mall’s reflecting pool told the Guardian he planned to fight the charges, as Donald Trump continues to blame vandals for the botched renovation of the pool.
After the Trump administration spent $14.2m renovating thebody of water in front of the Lincoln Memorial to turn it “American flag” blue in time for the US’s 250th birthday next month, the pool has been beset with algae blooms and peeling paint. Trump has claimed, without evidence, that the pool had been slashed with a knife.
Continue reading...A federal appeals court has allowed the Trump administration to move forward with an effort to expand fast-track deportations throughout the U.S.
Gunman, 18, faces first-degree murder charges after killing two people and injuring a child at library in Butte county
An 18-year-old gunman, who police said wanted to carry out a Columbine high school massacre-type shooting, was expected to face first-degree murder charges after killing two people and injuring a child at a northern California library Monday evening.
Chico police dispatchers received multiple 911 calls around 5.12pm on Monday where they could hear what sounded like screaming and gunshots, Billy Aldridge, the city police chief, said during a press conference on Tuesday. Aldridge said police were on the scene and had the suspect in custody within four minutes, crediting the rapid response time for preventing more deaths.
Continue reading...  | state park mb trails [link] [comments] |
UK regulator has increased its scrutiny of fashion retailers over potentially misleading environmental statements
Ads for Calvin Klein, Adidas and Uniqlo promoting “recycled” clothing and shoes have been banned by the UK watchdog after the advertisers were unable to prove their green claims.
Each of the fashion companies ran paid-for Google ads, with Adidas promoting “recycled running shoes”, Calvin Klein “recycled” tops for women, and Uniqlo advertised fleece coats and jackets made from “recycled materials”.
Continue reading...However, Imperial College team also find that pollution has worse health impact than previously understood
Deaths linked to air pollution fell by an estimated 40% in London over the five years from 2019, according to new analysis.
The city’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, welcomed what he called “overwhelming evidence” that his ultra-low emission zone was saving lives.
Continue reading...Climate Change Committee chair Nigel Topping says U-turns damage investor confidence and disrupt businesses
Weakening the UK’s net zero policy would disrupt business and damage the economy, the UK’s chief climate adviser has warned.
Nigel Topping, chair of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), said: “The U-turns are really damaging to inward investor confidence. If we really want to grow the economy, then investing and getting good at building stuff is essential.”
Continue reading...A 29-year-old bug in the Squid web proxy, dubbed Squidbleed and tracked as CVE-2026-47729, can let an authorized proxy user retrieve fragments of another user's cleartext HTTP requests, including credentials and session tokens. The security researcher who reported the flaw credited Anthropic's Claude Mythos Preview for the discovery. The Hacker News reports: Squid describes this as an attack by a trusted client: someone already permitted to use the proxy, not any random host on the internet. That matches Squid's usual home, shared networks like schools, offices, and public Wi-Fi. In those setups, the attacker is just another user of the same proxy. The leak also only reaches traffic that Squid can read. Normal HTTPS rides an opaque CONNECT tunnel, so Squid never sees inside it; the exposed traffic is cleartext HTTP, plus TLS-terminating setups where Squid decrypts and inspects. The attacker also needs the proxy to reach an FTP server they control on port 21. Both FTP and that port are on by default. [...] If you patch, verify the fix, not just the version. Confirm the guard is in FtpGateway.cc, or check your distribution's backport, since distros ship their own builds (Debian packages Squid 5.7). The public thread is still inconsistent: maintainer Amos Jeffries first said Squid 7.6 carried the fix, then corrected that to 7.7, and on June 22 Debian's Salvatore Bonaccorso noted the referenced commit looks like it is already in 7.6. The fix is small, a null-terminator check before the vulnerable strchr calls, merged to the development branch in April and v7 in May. Squid 7.6 does separately patch CVE-2026-50012, an unrelated cache_digest heap overflow. The cleaner move is the one the researchers recommend anyway: turn FTP off. Chromium dropped FTP years ago, and most networks carry almost none of it, so disabling it removes this attack surface for free, whatever build you run. The risk is real but bounded. SUSE rates it moderate, CVSS 6.5, and the vector explains the score: the attacker needs proxy access (low privileges), and the only impact is confidentiality, nothing on integrity or availability.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Those who were fired and sent to their home agencies didn't have tasks, or their assigned tasks were outdated, a source said.
Decision is one of Makerfield MP’s most significant since his Westminster return as he builds his team for government
Andy Burnham has chosen his Blairite former colleague James Purnell as his chief of staff, the Guardian understands, as he begins to finalise his team for government.
The Makerfield MP has picked his former cabinet colleague to be his right-hand man in Downing Street, in one of the most significant decisions he has made since returning to Westminster.
Continue reading...Eight people got prison terms ranging from 30 to 100 years for their roles in a protest that turned violent outside an immigration detention center last summer.
Customers report having to use cash at stores such as Tesco and to buy drinks due to outage at payments processor WorldPay
Shoppers reported problems with making card payments at British pubs and supermarkets on Tuesday after a power outage affected one of the world’s largest payment processing platforms.
Customers said contactless payments were not working at a number of stores including Tesco branches at a time when football fans were watching the World Cup group game between England and Ghana at pubs, screenings and restaurants.
Continue reading...The most advanced artificial intelligence models are improving quickly enough to outsmart prevailing cybersecurity know-how within months, the Five Eyes spy agency alliance is warning.
PALO ALTO, Calif., June 23, 2026 — The White House this week issued Executive Order 14409 on post-quantum cryptography (PQC), elevating PQC as a critical security priority as we enter the quantum era.
“This Executive Order marks a new era in America’s cyber defense posture,” said Jack Hidary, CEO of SandboxAQ. “The United States government is drawing a clear line in the sand: We must harden our defenses against quantum threats now. SandboxAQ is committed to partnering with federal agencies, including the Department of War and NIST in the Department of Commerce, to modernize our nation’s cryptography at speed and scale, and ensure that adversaries never hold the keys to our critical infrastructure or national defense as Q-Day approaches.”
The Executive Order sets binding milestones for the federal government’s transition to NIST-standardized post-quantum cryptography (PQC). Agencies must designate a PQC migration lead within 30 days, inventory their high-value assets and high-impact systems, and move those systems to post-quantum on specific timelines starting now. The order also directs CISA and NIST to define a cryptographic bill of materials that enables automated assessment of an agency’s cryptographic assets, and calls for new federal acquisition rules requiring covered contractors to meet NIST’s post-quantum standards by the end of 2030. This mandate also covers all private-sector government contractors, who must now adhere to the same PQC transition deadlines as federal agencies.
“This Executive Order is a decisive signal that cybersecurity must advance with AI and quantum capabilities,” said Ron Ash, CEO of Accenture Federal Services. “The emergence of highly capable, cyber-focused AI models demands that we bridge the gap between commercial innovation and federal mission needs, evaluating these technologies before deployment to protect our nation’s most sensitive environments. We are committed to evolving both our AI safeguards and cryptographic systems to maintain a strategic advantage, and our work with SandboxAQ ensures America’s critical infrastructure will outpace future technological threats.”
The Executive Order responds to a threat that is already in motion as Q-Day approaches. Q-Day refers to the moment when large-scale quantum computers are expected to break public-key cryptography, which protects the vast majority of the nation’s sensitive data, critical infrastructure, and digital economy. Given the years required to inventory, modernize, and replace cryptographic systems, the transition must begin now. The danger is not purely future-facing: even today, foreign adversaries can intercept and store encrypted U.S. data in order to decrypt it later, once a cryptographically relevant quantum computer (CRQC) comes online. This “harvest now, decrypt later” attack means that information being exfiltrated at this moment, including defense communications, financial records, intelligence, and personal data, remains at risk, regardless of how strong today’s encryption appears.
SandboxAQ raised this alarm early, publishing a paper in Nature on what PQC means for organizations, and working with federal agencies and companies to implement what the Executive Order now requires.
This Executive Order reflects a broader industry shift already underway. Through its work with providers like Crowdstrike and Palo Alto Networks, SandboxAQ can help organizations identify cryptographic risk and accelerate migration to quantum-safe security. At the same time, technology leaders such as Google and Cloudflare are accelerating the deployment of quantum-safe capabilities across internet infrastructure. Together, these developments signal a growing consensus that post-quantum cryptography has moved from planning to implementation.
To learn more about what the PQC Executive Order means for your organization, visit https://www.aqtiveguard.com.
More from HPCwire: Executive Order Establishes National Effort to Advance Quantum Capabilities
About SandboxAQ
SandboxAQ is a B2B company delivering solutions at the intersection of AI and quantum techniques. The company’s Large Quantitative Models (LQMs) deliver critical advances in life sciences, financial services, navigation, and other sectors. SandboxAQ is an independent, growth-backed company funded by leading investors and strategic partners, including funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., Google, Alger, IQT, US Innovative Technology Fund, S32, Paladin Capital, Eric Schmidt, Breyer Capital, Ray Dalio, Marc Benioff, Thomas Tull, and others. For more information, visit www.sandboxaq.com.
Source: SandboxAQ
The post SandboxAQ Supports Executive Order as Post-Quantum Cryptography Moves to Implementation for US National Security appeared first on HPCwire.
hello, I’m 13. I’ve never rode skateboard anything like that and I was wondering the best board for me I’m probably just gonna be riding around my neighborhood and around town.
Curtin University researchers use innovative techniques to date three-billion-year-old impact crater in Pilbara region
A meteorite that struck Earth three billion years ago left behind a “smoking gun” – evidence of the world’s oldest impact crater in a remote part of Australia.
Ancient rocks in Western Australia’s Pilbara region record the event, which occurred during the Archean eon, a period 4 to 2.5 billion years ago, when tectonic plates were beginning to form and early life emerging.
Continue reading...Longtime Slashdot reader hackingbear shares a report from TOP500: The 67th edition of the TOP500 list of the world's most powerful supercomputers was announced today at the ISC 2026 conference in Hamburg, Germany. LineShine, a previously unlisted system installed in China, debuts at No. 1, displacing El Capitan as the world's most powerful supercomputer as measured by the High Performance Linpack (HPL) benchmark. LineShine achieved 2.198 Exaflop/s on HPL -- about 80 percent of its 2.736 Exaflop/s theoretical peak -- making it the first system on the TOP500 to exceed two exaflops of sustained double-precision performance using CPUs only. Installed at the National Supercomputing Centre in Shenzhen (NSCS) and built by the Shenzhen Cloud Computing Center, the system is based on a custom Chinese processor and the "LingKun" platform: 13.79 million cores across 304-core LX2 processors running at 1.55 GHz, linked by the proprietary LingQi interconnect and running Kylin OS. LineShine draws approximately 42.2 megawatts of power, for an efficiency of 52.07 Gigaflops/Watt. Its debut marks the first time since 2017 that a Chinese system has led the TOP500, and it also takes over the No. 1 position on the HPCG ranking with 22.00 HPCG-Petaflop/s. On the HPL-MxP mixed-precision benchmark, LineShine reached 7.92 Exaflop/s for fourth place, a comparatively modest 3.6x speedup over its HPL score that points to a CPU-only design without dedicated low-precision accelerators. While impressive, "the results may say more about Beijing's desire to show self-sufficiency in computing systems than its standing in the global AI race," reports Reuters. Reuters interviewed tech and policy experts who said that the results "do not mean that China has the world's fastest computer for AI work because of changes in the computing industry in recent years and the methods used to compile the list." The reports notes that LineShine "ranked fourth on a benchmark test designed to simulate computing work that is more similar to AI." Jimmy Goodrich, a senior fellow at the University of California's Institute for Global Conflict and Cooperation, said: "If the hyperscalers submitted their systems, this 'world's fastest' would not crack the top five." Addison Snell, CEO of Intersect360 Research, a firm that focuses on supercomputers, added: "I'm not surprised it's the number one system. What I'm surprised by is that they submitted it and want recognition for it."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
 | Little hot here in texas today, but this trail is too tempting not to hit! Here's your reminder to get out just in case you haven't ridden in a bit. :) [link] [comments] |
The new display technology might offer the best balance between all the recent advances in color, sharpness and brightness.
STAMFORD, Conn., June 23, 2026 — By 2030, neocloud providers will capture 20% of the $267 billion AI cloud market, according to Gartner, Inc., a business and technology insights company. “Neocloud” refers to cloud providers built specifically for AI and high-performance workloads.
The rapid growth of GenAI is creating unprecedented demand for GPU-intensive computing, accelerating investment in localized, high-performance infrastructure and exposing the limitations in traditional cloud models. Neoclouds are challenging the dominance of hyperscalers by focusing on AI-optimized infrastructure.
“While U.S. hyperscalers are launching their own sovereign offerings, a new wave of specialized neocloud providers is gaining significant traction,” said Enrique Castera, Sr Director Analyst at Gartner. “These neoclouds are differentiated by their focus on AI-optimized infrastructure and high-performance workloads. Some also focus on sovereign cloud capabilities, ensuring data and operations remain within specific jurisdictions. Sovereign neoclouds provide contractual guarantees that some or all aspects of the cloud environment, such as data, operations, and governance, remain confined to national boundaries, protecting them from foreign legal claims and extraterritorial access.”
Increasingly stringent data sovereignty requirements are compelling organizations to seek greater control over where AI data is stored, processed, and governed. These requirements are anchored in established GDPR mandates and the impending August 2026 enforcement of the EU AI Act’s core transparency obligations. Coupled with rising geopolitical concerns, this regulatory pressure is driving enterprises to systematically evaluate their architectures to guarantee localized digital resilience.
Neocloud Providers Gain Traction with AI-Optimized Infrastructure
“Neoclouds are offering differentiation via superior performance on AI workloads, flexible deployment models and a strong commitment to data sovereignty, often at a more competitive price point,” said Castera. “The AI cloud market is entering a new phase where sovereignty, performance, and infrastructure specialization are becoming primary decision factors for enterprises. As demand for GPU-intensive workloads accelerates and traditional cloud models struggle to keep pace, it is creating the conditions for a new class of providers purpose-built to deliver AI infrastructure at scale.”
The rise of neocloud providers and sovereign AI infrastructure is reshaping enterprise cloud strategies, requiring organizations to move beyond centralized, global models toward more localized and hybrid architectures.
To capitalize on this shift, I&O and other IT leaders should diversify beyond traditional hyperscalers by evaluating specialized neocloud providers to access high-performance AI infrastructure and limited GPU capacity. At the same time, organizations must adapt their financial and risk management strategies while implementing stronger technical controls to ensure data sovereignty, compliance, and operational resilience.
“Organizations can leverage neocloud providers to enhance their AI capabilities while maintaining greater control over data sovereignty and regulatory compliance,” said Castera. “These providers also enable enterprises to innovate faster by providing more flexible access to high-performance infrastructure tailored to AI workloads.”
Additional Insights Available
Gartner clients can read more in Sovereign AI: Infrastructure Strategies for a Multipolar World.
About Gartner
Gartner (NYSE: IT) delivers actionable, objective business and technology insights that drive smarter decisions and stronger performance on an organization’s mission-critical priorities. To learn more, visit gartner.com.
Source: Gartner
The post Gartner Predicts Neocloud Providers Will Capture 20% of the $267B AI Cloud Market by 2030 appeared first on HPCwire.
 | Their prices are very, fair they will remove old tire install your new tire and will fill with your tire sealant and set the beads and fill them to what ever psi you request no brainer fm charges 100$ plus shipping float life charges 50$ plus shipping this shop will change the tire itself without having to leave or mail your property I paid them 30$ and they were happy I woulda paid up to 50$ no problem the way I was having a hard time with it the stock Vega tires the stiffest tire to get on a onewheel rim I'm sure if it's anything but the Vega tires they can do even faster and cheaper they'll even negotiate when future motion or float life won't [link] [comments] |
Nvidia, Alphabet and other technology stocks fell as Wall Street shifted from rewarding AI spending to demanding evidence that it will produce outsized returns.
Robinson says Pauline Hanson has ‘carried on fighting’ despite backlash in since-deleted episode of the Karl Stefanovic Show
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The Channel Nine TV presenter Karl Stefanovic has praised UK far-right activist Tommy Robinson’s “tenacity” and “courage” in his latest eponymous podcast episode, in which Robinson rails against “the media and the establishment”, Islam, multiculturalism and hate speech laws.
Stefanovic posted a clip on social media on Tuesday morning Australian time in which he is walking down a London street with his arm slung around Robinson, who has spearheaded recent nationalist demonstrations in the UK.
Continue reading...Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for June 24, No. 639.
Wikipedia cofounder Larry Sanger has been indefinitely banned from editing the site after editors concluded that he violated its canvassing rules, "or in other words, calling on his followers off platform in order to influence Wikipedia's content," reports 404 Media. Sanger says the ban proves Wikipedia suppresses ideological diversity, while editors argue he was trying to mobilize an outside audience to influence internal decisions and had ignored an earlier warning. From the report: The discussion that led to the decision to ban Sanger concluded with what an editor called a "clear consensus" to ban Sanger. "There is general agreement among participants that he has engaged in off-wiki canvassing and is not here to constructively build the encyclopedia," the editor said in a note closing the discussion. "There is also a significant concern shared by many editors that his actions constitute calls for outing." While Sanger has been railing about bias on Wikipedia for years, the specific issue here is around his WikiProject Intellectual Diversity. WikiProjects are group efforts among Wikipedia volunteers to deal with certain issues on the site. [...] Sanger's WikiProject Intellectual Diversity, as its name implies, aims to bring more intellectual diversity to the site, mostly meaning more right-leaning perspectives. Sanger's WikiProject Intellectual Diversity and its goals alone do not merit a ban according to Wikipedia's policies. The problem, according to Wikipedia editors, is that during the discussion about whether to allow WikiProject Intellectual Diversity to become an official WikiProject, Sanger invited his 91,000 followers on X to influence that discussion. Discussions about potential bans are supposed to remain open for at least 72 hours. While consensus that Sanger had violated Wikipedia policies was clear, Sanger was banned at some point before that deadline. He was then briefly unbanned, and then again indefinitely banned once 72 hours had elapsed and the discussion about the ban closed. "Wikipedia has become more of a mob-rule anarchy than ever," Sanger said in a statement sent to me by a spokesperson. "In the kangaroo court in which a mob ousted me, Wikipedia's administrators showed that they don't appear to value details like formal charges, a designated prosecutor, basic decorum, distinction between prosecution and judge, dispassionate adjudication, and so forth. They have no proper system other than triggering a mob to selectively enforce their hodgepodge of vague rules." "Now that same mob has blocked me for trying to bring an intellectually diverse group of thinkers and editors to the site," Sanger continued. "Subscribing to their groupthink is now an official requirement of being a member in good standing. Something must change, and now. I only wonder if the system as it currently stands can even allow the discourse necessary to fix the system."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Activists accused of being part of antifa get long prison terms in case seen as test of Trump’s crackdown on dissent
A group of Texas protesters convicted of terrorism charges received unusually harsh sentences of at least 50 years in prison on Tuesday in a closely watched case that was widely seen as a test case of the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on dissent.
After a three-week jury trial, the nine activists were all found guilty of a slew of criminal charges in March, stemming from a Fourth of July protest at an immigrant detention facility in Alvarado, Texas, south of Fort Worth. The demonstrators arrived late at night with a plan to set off fireworks as part of a noise demonstration to show solidarity with those detained inside. A few of the protesters spontaneously broke off from the main group and vandalized cars in the parking lot, a guard shack, slashed the tires on a government van and broke a security camera. When a police officer arrived on the scene and drew his weapon, one of the activists fired an AR-15 from the woods, hitting the officer in the shoulder. The officer survived.
Continue reading...Russian-installed authorities in Crimea have halted fuel distribution in vacation season as Ukraine isolates the peninsula.
Every little thing in a graphical user interface that we take for granted today, no matter how small, was thought up by someone, at some point. Case in point: the little red squiggly lines underneath misspelled words. In one form or another, these are everywhere now, and have just become a regular staple of every single text editing field we encounter every single day and don’t stop to think about. Still, they were invented by someone, and we happen to know exactly who that was: Tony Krueger.
In early versions of Word, the Spell Check feature was something that you explicitly invoked, and then you had to sit and wait while the program looked for all your potentially-misspelled words, and then showed them to you one at a time for a decision on what to do for each one. Word did introduce an Auto Spell Check feature to run spell check when the user was idle, so that when you hit the Spell Check button, the results were ready to go. However, the Auto Spell Check was still a blocking operation. As a result, a lot of users turned it off because it always seemed to decide “Now would be a good time to spell-check the document” just as you wanted to do something, forcing you to wait for the spell check pass to complete before you could, say, save and exit.
Tony made the spell checker much more unobtrusive so that it didn’t interfere with your foreground work. And when it found a problem, instead of waiting for you to trigger a spell check, it immediately drew red squiggles under potentially-misspelled words (and later green squiggles under potential grammatical errors).
↫ Raymond Chen at The Old New Thing
Tony Krueger passed away recently, after, among other things, having worked on an dizzying number of Microsoft Word releases. Imagine coming up with something that seems to basic and elementary to us now, and seeing it spread pretty much everywhere. I wonder what it must feel like to have invented something that seems so simple, most people don’t even realise they use it every single day.
A Minnesota home seller and financier has been found liable for violating state laws in a scheme that targeted East African Muslims with deceptive real estate deals marketed as “sharia compliant.”
After a two-week trial in downtown Minneapolis, a jury sided with Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office Monday afternoon in a civil case alleging that Chadwick Banken knowingly deceived home buyers through a complicated process known as “contract for deed.” The unusual real estate contracts, according to Ellison’s office, reaped massive sums of money for Banken and his companies while leaving his customers financially ruined.
Through those predatory deals, Banken sold homes to Muslim buyers at high markups and on worse terms than offered on traditional home sales, the state’s lawyers argued, luring customers into risky transactions through the promise of the American dream of owning a home.
“Chad Banken exploited people’s willingness to sacrifice for this dream,” Assistant Attorney General Karthik Raman said during his opening argument.
The seven-person jury deliberated for about eight hours over two days before finding Banken and several of his companies civilly liable for violating the Minnesota Human Rights Act. The jury also determined that Banken violated the state Consumer Financial Protection Act on two counts, along with the Prevention of Consumer Fraud Act and the Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act. The latter four verdicts are considered advisory, meaning a judge will make the final determination on those counts.
The court will also determine whether to order restitution be paid to victims or assess other penalties, which could include up to $25,000 in fines per violation, along with surrendering profits.
The lawsuit, filed in Hennepin County District Court, followed a 2022 investigation by ProPublica and the Sahan Journal that found a rising market in Minnesota for contract-for-deed home sales, in which homebuyers pay the sellers directly in installments. Many buyers in Minnesota’s expansive Somali community say that paying interest violates their Islamic religious beliefs. They often turned to investors like Banken, who buy the houses and then resell them to people purchasing through a contract-for-deed program, as a way to purchase “interest-free” homes.
In some cases, however, Banken hid the amount of interest, or he front-loaded it into abnormally high down payments, according to lawyers in Ellison’s office. Banken used inflated home prices, confusing paperwork and six-figure balloon payments due at the end of short contracts to push buyers into default and to ultimately retain ownership of the property, the attorney general’s lawsuit said.
Some customers sacrificed far more than they understood when they signed the paperwork. They lost their life’s savings and their homes, unknowingly violating their religious principles in the process. One testified that he ended up homeless and living in his truck.
“I’m not saying Mr. Banken wanted these transactions to fail — I’m not saying that — but he sure was indifferent,” Assistant Attorney General Mark Iris told jurors during closing arguments last Thursday.
Banken sold 160 homes using contracts for deed, targeting Muslims and buyers with poor credit with an offer of “creative financing.” Ellison called Banken’s contract-for-deed scheme “one of the worst that I’ve seen.”
Throughout the trial, Banken’s lawyer, Jack Pierce, described Banken as an honest businessman who only offered alternative financing to those who couldn’t qualify for or objected to traditional avenues. He said Banken purchased the houses his customers picked out, flipped them the same day and charged a markup for profit.
“For some people it didn’t work out,” Pierce told jurors. “And that’s too bad. It’s unfortunate. That’s life. Sometimes things don’t work out.”
Pierce said Banken was not to blame for the failures. He said his customers’ realtors were responsible for referring clients to his program, drawing up the paperwork and explaining the terms, and he only came in at the end of the process. Pierce said the prospective buyers approached Banken — not the other way around — and Banken only offered a menu of options. It was up to the customers to decide which they wanted, Pierce said.
“Is that wrong?” Pierce asked the jury. “Are we going to punish somebody for providing the opportunity for someone else to buy a house in the option they wanted?”
Lawyers for the state countered that Banken did not give buyers an informed choice, and the customers, some of whom were not native English speakers, didn’t understand what they were agreeing to when they signed the contracts. In some cases the clients were quoted a price and then were surprised at the end of the process with much higher costs.
Abdinoor Igal, 40, was among the customers who lost money through Banken’s program. A long-haul trucker who operated his own small business, Igal testified through a translator that a real estate agent told him he could purchase a no-interest home through Banken’s sharia-compliant program.
Igal, whose story was featured in the ProPublica-Sahan Journal reporting, said he put down $20,000 in 2022 to secure a house in suburban Lakeville, which he was originally told would cost about $638,000. When he began to see documents showing a cost of $727,000, he said he had second thoughts, but he was told he would lose his down payment if he backed out.
Later, he found out a large portion of his monthly payments was going toward interest. When he realized the deal he’d entered into was different from what he’d thought it was, Igal asked for an emergency meeting with Banken, saying he needed to sell the house immediately and back out.
”Put on the market as for sell,” Igal wrote in an email provided to the jury. “I don’t wanna be your slave.”
Unable to get out of the deal, Igal eventually walked away from the house after making $170,000 in payments, according to the lawsuit. The financial toll was so devastating, he said, that he had to send his kids back to live in Africa while he rebuilt his savings.
“I lived in my truck for one year as a homeless person,” Igal told jurors.
Igal said after the verdict that he was “very happy” with the outcome.
“Me and my kids — we got justice at least,” he said.
The post Jury Finds Home Financing Scheme That Targeted Muslims in Minnesota Violated State Law appeared first on ProPublica.
When the Obama Presidential Center opened its doors to visitors June 19, a longstanding voter ID debate snuck in as well.
Five years after breaking ground on Chicago’s South Side, the center celebrated its grand opening with celebrities, international dignitaries, former presidents and speeches by Barack and Michelle Obama that generated standing ovations.
But Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., was paying attention to something else.
"Democrats are fine with requiring photo ID to enter the Obama Presidential Center, but not to vote in U.S. elections," Blackburn said on X, sharing a screenshot of the center’s website.
"*Must be able to provide proof of residency," the screenshot read. "Be prepared to show proof of residency at the Museum with a valid photo ID, Illinois driver's license, state ID, or city-issued ID. Guardians must be able to provide proof of residency for accompanying children."
Blackburn has staunchly supported the SAVE America Act, a bill that would require photo ID to vote. But the policy she shared online applies only to the Obama Center’s discounted museum tickets for Illinois residents. Blackburn and her office did not respond to PolitiFact’s questions.
"No ID required to get into the museum, unless you want the discounted rate for Illinois residents or the Illinois free day," a statement from the Obama Center press team said.
The center’s museum offers Illinois residents free admission every Tuesday. As of June 23, reservations for those tickets were fully booked through November, the website said. On other days, Illinois residents get $4 off adult admission and $8 off child admission.
In addition to the museum, the center’s campus includes a basketball court, public library, playground, vegetable garden and plaza, all of which are "free and accessible to all without a photo ID," the center’s statement said.
Discounts for residents are fairly common at museums and other cultural institutions, in Illinois and elsewhere in the country. The Field Museum, a private-public natural history museum in Chicago, offers deals for Illinois residents, such as free-entry Wednesdays. Residents must show ID when buying tickets and when entering the museum.
With the 2026 midterm elections looming, Senate Republicans continue to back the SAVE America Act, one of President Donald Trump’s legislative priorities.
The act has yet to pass the Senate. At Trump’s request, Republicans added the SAVE America Act to their immigration enforcement bill, but the amendment most recently failed 48-50, with Democrats opposing the measure.
Voter ID is already required in most states, and some require a form of photo ID.
Blackburn said the Obama Presidential Center is "requiring photo ID to enter."
ID is not needed to buy a general ticket for the center’s museum, and the rest of the center’s campus is free and accessible to all without any identification requirement. Illinois residents seeking free or discounted admission to the museum must provide photo ID to confirm their place of residence.
We rate Blackburn’s statement False.
I’ve had my share of issues with network shares on any operating system, but since I mostly use KDE these days I found this deep dive into how, exactly, network shares work in KDE quite interesting. It turns out that while network shares in KDE’s Dolphin mostly work, it does involves a few layers that sometimes don’t interact well with each other, leading to really curious and annoying problems with mounted shares not appearing, permission issues, and so on.
The biggest cause of problems is when using a non-KDE application in KDE that also happens to use a non-KDE save/open dialog. Such a non-KDE save/open dialog won’t be able to see any network shared mounted by KDE, and sadly, quite a few applications you’re likely to use on a KDE installation use non-KDE open/save dialogs, like Blender, GIMP, LibreOffice, OnlyOffice, Inkscape, Audacity, DaVinci Resolve, and more. That’s one hell of a list of applications to offer inconsistent or outright broken access to network shares you’ve set up and mounted in KDE.
Luckily, this issue seems to be getting a ton of attention soon.
All is not lost. Happily, KDE just received an investment of over €1.2 million from the Sovereign Tech Fund, and it includes funding for improvements to KDE’s network share handling!
↫ Nate Graham
The project is in the planning phases at the moment, but they’re considering a whole slew of possible changes, fixes, and workarounds to make this stupid and annoying problem just go away. In 2026, nobody should be dealing with manually editing /etc/fstab or getting frustrated over supposedly disappearing network shares.
Four Republicans joined Democrats to back a measure seeking to limit the US president’s military authority
The US Senate approved a war powers resolution preventing Donald Trump from continuing hostilities against Iran, delivering the president a significant but symbolic rebuke over a conflict that has proven unpopular with the American public.
The resolution passed by a 50-48 vote, with four Republicans – Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Rand Paul of Kentucky – breaking with their party to support its adoption. John Fetterman, of Pennsylvania, was the sole Democrat to vote against the resolution.
Continue reading...Walmart is acquiring self-serve connected-TV ad platform Vibe.co for a reported $1.4 billion, adding it to an advertising ecosystem that already includes smart-TV maker Vizio. AdExchanger reports: On Tuesday, Walmart announced that it is buying Vibe.co, the French self-serve ad platform that specializes in helping small brands buy streaming commercials with similar ease and precision as they get from search and social. Vibe has been vying for a bigger share of the ad dollars moving to connected TV, especially in the US, as evidenced by the company's ubiquitous billboards in major cities including New York and San Francisco. Now, Vibe joins Walmart Connect's commerce ecosystem alongside the smart TV maker Vizio. And Vibe's tech is poised to help unify Walmart's growing CTV footprint with the closed-loop attribution provided by its retail sales data. [...] Together, Walmart and Vibe.co strive to "build the best ecosystem for the performance TV market," Vibe CEO and Co-Founder Arthur Querou told AdExchanger. Performance CTV has a high ceiling for growth. The performance budgets dedicated for streaming platforms are still small potatoes compared to search and social, Querou said. Only one-quarter of CTV ad campaigns have lower-funnel objectives, and that number has been static for years, according to data from Advertiser Perceptions. Now that Walmart owns both Vibe and Vizio, advertisers should have an easier time tying streaming campaigns to shopper data. That promise stands to win Walmart more marketing dollars earmarked for retail media and streaming behemoths -- including Amazon. Walmart is especially interested in attracting more small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) who lack the tools, budgets or teams to invest in streaming TV, a Walmart spokesperson told AdExchanger. Other ad platforms, including MNTN and Magnite, have likewise targeted SMB advertisers as a source for continued growth in the CTV market. By adding Vibe.co, Walmart can court SMBs with the pitch that its new self-serve tools will make it easier for them to execute CTV campaigns. Plus, SMBs tend to prioritize performance campaigns, since they are under more pressure to justify tighter ad budgets and thus have to be more selective about which platforms they advertise on. And Walmart is better positioned than most platforms to prove its ads drove performance thanks to its retail data foundation.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
FORT WORTH, TEXAS — Daniel Sanchez Estrada wasn’t accused of attempted murder or material support of terrorism after a protest turned catastrophically wrong outside an ICE detention center in Alvarado, Texas. He was merely convicted of obstructing the investigation by moving a box full of antifascist zines after the protest. Giving him a long prison term would make a mockery of justice, his defense attorney, Christopher Weinbel, told U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor on Tuesday.
“The punishment must fit the crimes — not the headlines, not the politics, not the fears that have been mongered about the case,” he said.
Instead, O’Connor gave Sanchez Estrada a 30-year term.
The lengthy sentence was among the eight harsh terms handed down by judges in two courtrooms in Fort Worth on Tuesday to activists who played roles at or after the July 4, 2025, protest at Prairieland Detention Center. Their sentences — longer than any of those received by members of the January 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol — capped a case that is widely regarded as the Trump administration’s first major victory in its crackdown on left-wing activism.
The defendants were convicted at trial in March. Prosecutors convinced a jury that the fact that the eight defendants present at the protest wore all black and used the Signal encrypted messaging app supported their material support of terrorism charges. Sanchez Estrada, who was not at the protest, was convicted of corruptly concealing a document or record and conspiracy to conceal documents.
Only one of the defendants, Benjamin Hanil Song, was accused of firing a gun at a police officer, who left the scene with an injury to his neck; Song was convicted of attempted murder. Still, federal guidelines calling for harsher sentences for all because of links to terrorism — which were applied by O’Connor, a George W. Bush appointee, and U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, a Donald Trump appointee — meant that all the defendants faced long prison terms.
Their only hope ahead of the simultaneous twin hearings was that the two judges might break sharply with federal guidelines. Instead, O’Connor and Pittman chose to make an example of the defendants.
Several defendants said Tuesday that they never intended to hurt anyone. Their only hope was to show solidarity with the detainees by staging a noise demonstration with fireworks, they said.
“When I went to protest on the night of July 4, it seemed more like a party to me than anything else,” Autumn Hill told the court Tuesday. “We didn’t expect or want any violence or destruction of property to occur.”
Prosecutors, however, seized on the fact that the protesters arrived at the scene with guns and fireworks. O’Connor, the judge, said several times that the defendants had committed an “assault on democracy.”
“What happened here was not by any stretch of the imagination a protest,” he said during the sentencing of one defendant.
So it went repeatedly in the two courtrooms as the judges brushed aside the defendants’ assertions that they were attempting simply to show solidarity with the detainees inside the ICE facility. Song, the sole defendant convicted of attempted murder, received a 100-year prison sentence.
The other defendants’ arguments that they should be distinguished from Song because they never fired a gun won them little relief.
Sanchez Estrada’s wife, Maricela Rueda, received a 70-year sentence, longer than most of the other defendants because of her alleged role in a conspiracy to commit obstruction by asking Sanchez Estrada to move the zines after her arrest.
Hill, Savanna Batten, Zachary Evetts, Meagan Morris, and Elizabeth Soto all received 50-year sentences for their roles in protest at the Prairieland detention facility. A ninth defendant, Ines Soto, awaits a July sentencing.
The defendants’ relatives and supporters said at a press conference after the sentencing that they had harbored few illusions about their likely sentences. They have now placed their hopes on appeals.
The Prairieland case should be placed in the context of a larger crackdown on anti-government protesters, supporters said.
The protest that triggered the case came months before the September killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, which prompted President Donald Trump to issue an executive order purporting to designate antifa as a domestic terrorism group and a presidential memo dubbed NSPM-7 calling for a broader crackdown on the left. Following those directives, federal prosecutors upped the charges facing the Prairieland defendants. FBI Director Kash Patel also made clear the importance of the case to the Trump administration by posting about it on social media in October.
In a press release Tuesday, the Justice Department hailed the case as “the first sentencing of defendants affiliated with Antifa following President Donald J. Trump’s executive order designating the group as a Domestic Terrorist Organization in September 2025.”
“Today’s sentencings show the FBI remains committed to identifying, locating, and dismantling Antifa and its funding networks across the country,” Patel said in a statement.
More indictments against activists have followed since the issuing of NSPM-7, most recently the charges in Minnesota earlier this month against 15 people accused of trying to impede federal agents during the immigration crackdown there.
“It’s not just here in the north Texas area,” said Tamera Hutcherson, a local activist who served as a member of Batten’s defense team. “This is also now in other parts of our country, and it concerns me what this means for our free speech, as well as our right to protest. If we are to bring a medical kit to a protest, does that mean we are a criminal now? If we are to even just attend a noise demonstration, does that mean we are a criminal now, and we may not return home to our loved ones?”
“ If we are to bring a medical kit to a protest, does that mean we are a criminal now? ”
Justice Department prosecutors pushed back against the idea that the defendants had been convicted merely for expressing their First Amendment rights. What distinguished them from other protesters was their belief that they were justified in using violence to accomplish their goals, said Frank Gatto, an assistant U.S. attorney for the northern district of Texas.
“The very crux here is their firm belief that the use of violence is justified,” Gatto said during the sentencing of Evetts.
Although the case centered on the government’s claim that the defendants were affiliated with antifa, prosecutors offered little evidence of that at trial. Even Pittman, the judge who oversaw the trial, questioned whether he needed to mention antifa in his jury instructions.
Still, the movement of various anti-government and antifascist zines led directly to the conviction of Sanchez Estrada, whose case stood out from the others because he was not accused of attending the July 4 protest at the ICE detention center.
Weinbel, the public defender, said the zines that Sanchez Estrada moved were his own and protected by the First Amendment. None of it helped convict the other defendants at trial, Weinbel said.
“At the heart of this case is a simple truth: Mr. Sanchez moved a box,” Weinbel said. “He is not a murderer, he is not ISIS, he is not a foreign terrorist.”
“He is not a murderer, he is not ISIS, he is not a foreign terrorist.”
Sanchez Estrada said he still could not understand why he was convicted.
“I am a father, I am a husband, I am a teacher, a poet — I am many things, Your Honor, but I am not a terrorist,” he told the court.
O’Connor said he disagreed with the idea that moving the box of the zines was harmless. At the time of Sanchez Estrada’s actions, Song was still on the run from police.
“What was at stake at that time was a known terrorist was on the run for shooting a police officer during a terrorist attack,” he said.
The post Prairieland Defendant Sentenced to 30 Years in Prison for Moving a Box of Antifascist Zines appeared first on The Intercept.
It's one of my favorite outdoor security cameras, and you can snag a pair for less than $25 apiece with this bundle offer.
June 23, 2026 — The High Performance Software Foundation (HPSF) is excited to welcome Wi4MPI to the Foundation. Wi4MPI is an open source tool designed to improve portability and interoperability across different MPI implementations. It enables applications built on one MPI library to run with another, without requiring recompilation. This gives developers and researchers more flexibility when working across diverse HPC environments, from local clusters to large scale supercomputers.
By abstracting differences between MPI implementations, Wi4MPI helps reduce vendor lock-in and simplifies software distribution. This is especially valuable in high performance computing, where portability challenges can slow down development, testing, and deployment across systems.
“Portability and interoperability are critical challenges in HPC,” said Marc Joos, Senior Solutions Architect at NVIDIA. “Wi4MPI was created to give users more flexibility and control over their software environments, while reducing the friction that comes with switching between MPI implementations. Joining the High Performance Software Foundation allows us to collaborate more openly with the community and continue improving the project for a broader set of users.”
What’s New in Wi4MPI
Wi4MPI continues to evolve with improvements focused on compatibility, performance, and ease of use. Recent work has focused on containerized workloads now critical in HPC, expanded support across multiple MPI implementations and versions, strengthened runtime flexibility, and improved documentation to make adoption easier for new users.
The project has also been refining its tooling to better support real world HPC workflows, ensuring that developers can seamlessly transition applications between environments without introducing performance penalties.
What’s Next
Wi4MPI is just getting started at HPSF. As part of the foundation, the project will focus on growing its contributor base, improving interoperability coverage, and strengthening integrations with other tools in the HPC ecosystem.
Expect continued work on performance optimization, broader platform support, and deeper collaboration with the community to address evolving needs in HPC and AI workloads.
To Learn More
To learn more about Wi4MPI, explore its documentation and project resources to understand how it enables MPI interoperability and simplifies cross environment deployment. You can also follow project updates and community discussions to stay informed on the latest developments.
Get Involved
HPSF needs your help to make Wi4MPI thrive. Whether you’re running MPI based workloads, developing HPC applications, or contributing to open source infrastructure, there’s a place for you in the Wi4MPI community. Join the effort and help shape the future of portable high performance computing.
Source: HPSF
The post High Performance Software Foundation Welcomes Wi4MPI as a New Project appeared first on HPCwire.
Seedance 2.5 allows you to attach up to 50 references to your request, giving you more control over the video it creates.
Excerpts of footage of response to incident earlier described as ‘shocking’ but review finds use of force justified
A review of video footage that appeared to show South Yorkshire police officers shoving and drawing batons and stun guns on teenage girls has found the “the use of force was proportionate, necessary, and justified to keep all involved safe”.
South Yorkshire police initially described the footage as appearing “nothing short of shocking” but a review by its professional standards department found that while there “is an opportunity for learning around de-escalation” the actions were appropriate.
Continue reading...The vehicle was using an automated driving feature at high speed and killed a 76-year-old woman standing in the home
The top US auto regulator opened an investigation on Monday after a Tesla using an automated driving feature slammed into a Texas home at high speed and killed a 76-year-old woman standing inside.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said it was opening a special investigation into the Tesla Model 3 crash on Friday near Houston, a significant investigation because the car was using technology that Elon Musk considers key to his company’s future.
Continue reading...
President Donald Trump signed a preliminary agreement to end the war with Iran on June 17. The 14-point memorandum of understanding outlines the conditions under which the U.S. and Iran have initially agreed, and gives them 60 days to negotiate additional terms.
But some of what is included in the framework — or not — is at odds with what Trump said about a potential deal prior to approving the memorandum of understanding last week.
For example, in an NBC News interview earlier in June, Trump said that he would not “unfreeze any Iranian assets” or “lift any sanctions” against Iran “upfront” as part of a deal to end the conflict. But the agreement says that the U.S. Treasury Department will “immediately” grant waivers permitting Iran to resume exports of crude oil and other petroleum products, allowing Iran to make billions of dollars in revenue. A schedule for potentially billions of dollars in additional sanctions relief is to be worked out over the next two months.
Also, Trump initially called news reports that the agreement included a $300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran “false.” However, the fund is mentioned in the memorandum of understanding, and Reuters, citing an unnamed source, has reported that “more than half” of that money “has already been committed” by private-sector investors around the world, including in the U.S.
Furthermore, the agreement says little about the future of Iran’s nuclear program — a key source of contention between the two countries, and part of Trump’s justification for launching airstrikes on Iran in February. During his first term as president, Trump withdrew the U.S. from a nuclear deal with Iran, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, that was negotiated and implemented during the Obama administration.
For years, Trump has lambasted the Obama-era pact as “horrible,” “defective” and one of the “dumbest” ever. But Trump’s current agreement says Iran “reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons” just as former President Barack Obama’s deal said Iran “under no circumstances” would “ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons.”
In a June 5 interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Trump said “no” when asked if he would “unfreeze any Iranian assets or lift any sanctions upfront as a part of any deal” with Iran.
“If they behave, if they do a good job, we start talking,” Trump said about future negotiations.
But Trump didn’t completely stick to that promise.
The memorandum of understanding that he signed has lifted U.S. sanctions that were limiting how much crude oil and other petroleum products Iran could sell on the global market. The agreement says the U.S. “undertakes that immediately upon the signing of this MoU, and until the termination of sanctions, the U.S. Department of Treasury will issue waivers for the export of Iranian crude oil, petroleum products, and derivatives, and all associated services including banking transactions, insurances, transportation, etc.”
The Wall Street Journal reported that Iran could now make $60 billion per year from oil and fuel sales at current prices, assuming that it returns to pre-war production levels. Iran could earn $8 billion in just the first two months under the deal, the Journal said, according to estimates from Richard Nephew, a senior research scholar with Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy and a former U.S. deputy special envoy for Iran in the Biden administration.
In addition, the agreement says, “The United States of America undertakes to make fully available for use, the frozen or restricted funds and assets of the Islamic Republic of Iran upon the implementation of this MoU.” Iran has tens of billions of dollars in frozen assets around the world, including an estimated $20 billion to $50 billion in China, according to the Wall Street Journal, which said Iran’s “priority is to unblock an initial $24 billion in phases.”
As for the timing of the release of those assets – which a senior administration official reportedly said was contingent on “good behavior” from Iran – the agreement says, “The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran will mutually agree on the procedures related to the release of these funds during the negotiations.”
“We have taken their money, it’s not our money, it’s their money, and we froze it,” Trump told reporters at a June 17 press conference during the summit of G-7 nations in France. “At a certain point in time, I guess we’re going to have to give it back.”
But in November 2015, while campaigning in Iowa, Trump criticized billions of dollars of Iranian assets that were unfrozen as part of the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran.
“I would have never given them back the money,” Trump said. “I would have said, “The money is off the table. Let’s start negotiating.’”
Also, the agreement that Trump signed says that the U.S. “undertakes to terminate all types of sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” including “all unilateral U.S. sanctions … in an agreed upon schedule as part of the final deal.”
It remains to be seen which sanctions will be removed and when.
The agreement further says, “The United States of America undertakes, with regional partners, to develop a definitive mutually agreed plan with at least USD 300 Billion, for the reconstruction and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The mechanism for the implementation of this plan will be finalized as part of final Deal within 60 days.”
But Trump initially denied that the fund was part of the deal during a June 17 press conference with the Egyptian president in France.
“Well, it’s false,” Trump said in response to a reporter who asked about the $300 billion fund, which was mentioned in a draft of the memorandum of understanding that had been leaked to members of the press.
“It’s false. People, you can invest if you want. What am I going to do, say nobody’s ever allowed to invest? We’re not invest[ing]. We’re not putting up 10 cents. People can decide to do that, but that’s up to them,” Trump said. “We are not investing in it, and we do not have a fund.”
While the memorandum of understanding says that the U.S. will help develop the plan for the $300 billion, and grant all “required licenses, waivers and permissions needed for the relevant financial transactions,” Trump and Vice President JD Vance have insisted that none of the money intended for Iran’s reconstruction and economic development will come from U.S. taxpayers.
“We’re not investing any money,” Trump said in a June 16 meeting with the emir of Qatar. “We didn’t pay for it like Obama did. He paid billions of dollars. He paid 1.7 billion from an airplane, all green cash. It was crazy.”
In an exclusive on June 16, Reuters – citing an anonymous source familiar with the negotiations – reported that “more than half” of the $300 billion “has already been committed and that it will be comprised entirely of private-sector funds.” Private companies in the U.S., the Gulf Arab states, Asia, South America and Africa have already agreed to commit financing, a source told Reuters, adding that no government money or grants would be included.
As for the $1.7 billion that Trump has repeatedly said Obama “paid” to Iran in 2016, we’ve written that that was to formally settle a decades-old dispute over Iran paying the U.S. $400 million for military equipment that was never delivered. The U.S. refused to provide the equipment after the Shah of Iran was overthrown during the Iranian Revolution in 1979.
The $1.7 billion that Iran received, all in cash, but not in U.S. currency, included the original $400 million and an additional $1.3 billion for interest.
The $1.7 billion is sometimes conflated with the sanctions relief that Iran received for complying with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action negotiated under Obama.
As we’ve written, as part of that deal, the U.S., China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and the European Union agreed to lift sanctions on Iranian assets that were frozen and being held mostly in foreign banks. In a September 2015 op-ed about Obama’s deal, Trump claimed that the U.S. had given Iran “a windfall of $150 billion, which will no doubt fund terrorism around the world.”
But the U.S. Treasury Department estimated that Iran would end up with a lot less – about $50 billion in “usable liquid assets,” according to 2015 testimony from Adam Szubin, who was then the acting under secretary of treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence.
Trump has repeatedly derided the JCPOA, claiming that it would have put Iran on “a path to a nuclear weapon.” (We have written about that before.) By comparison, Trump said his deal would be “a wall to a nuclear weapon.”
“The Obama deal was one of the dumbest deals I’ve ever seen; it was a road to a nuclear weapon,” Trump said on June 17, referring to the JCPOA, which he pulled out of in 2018. “My deal is a wall to a nuclear — you’re not going to have it, it’s a wall to a nuclear weapon.”
But that remains to be seen. The memorandum of understanding says only: “The Islamic Republic of Iran reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons.”
That closely mirrors the language in the JCPOA, which stated, “Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons.”
The current agreement goes on to say, “The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America have agreed to resolve the disposition of stockpiled, enriched material pursuant to a mechanism that will be mutually agreed upon … with the minimum methodology to be down-blending on site under the supervision of the [International Atomic Energy Agency],” which is a reference to Iran’s enriched uranium, up to 60%, according to the IAEA just before the bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites last year. Uranium enriched to 60% is just short of weapons grade material.
“The two parties also agreed to discuss the issue of enrichment and other mutually agreed matters related to the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear needs, based on the statutory framework being agreed upon in the final deal,” the memorandum of understanding states. “The final deal will confirm the provisions of this paragraph. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America acknowledge the critical importance of the nuclear issues above mentioned, and express their intention to immediately address these issues in the negotiation in order to achieve mutual agreement on them.”
While Trump stated on June 15 that “the main thing is that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon,” and that Iran “fully agreed to that, with strong policing powers,” there are no details at all in the agreement about Iran agreeing to “strong policing” of their nuclear program, or what that might entail.
The details of what the two countries will agree to regarding Iran’s nuclear program are to be determined over the course of the 60-day negotiation period, Kelsey Davenport and Daryl G. Kimball, of the Arms Control Association, explained in June 22 brief. “The MOU is, fundamentally, a non-nuclear deal that leaves key nuclear issues unresolved,” they wrote.
Similarly, Nephew, the international and public affairs scholar at Columbia University, told us in an email, “The JCPOA had detailed, specific requirements for verification and what Iran would do. The closest this has is that Iran agrees to keep its nuclear program static, in exchange for static sanctions, but there is no verification and there is no specificity.”
“Everything else is to happen in the future as part of a longer term deal,” he said. “I suppose you could say that this longer term deal already has a forward looking commitment on managing Iran’s enriched uranium stocks, but everything else is ‘for discussion.’”
So, until firmer details are negotiated with Iran regarding its nuclear program, it’s premature for Trump to claim his deal is “a wall to a nuclear weapon,” particularly when it lacks verification requirements that were in already place with JCPOA, prior to any new conflict with Iran.
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The post How Trump’s Preliminary Deal with Iran Compares with His Rhetoric appeared first on FactCheck.org.
With Prime Day here, now is a good time to think about your summer reading list for savings.
Think twice before you sign up for that free trial. US adults waste an average of $252 a year on unused subscriptions.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Mr. Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta, recently dispatched a small team at his company to create a smartphone app similar to Polymarket and Kalshi, two employees with knowledge of the matter said. Users would not wager money, and the app would probably rely on a video game-like points system instead, one person said, though the company had not ruled out the eventual use of real money betting. The app is internally referred to as "Arena" and would function independently from Meta's social networking apps, which include Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, said the employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential plans. Meta aims to grow the app by leveraging its large social networking audiences and directing them toward using it, they said. The effort, which insiders characterized as experimental but a top priority, is part of a broader push by Mr. Zuckerberg to create new types of apps based on emerging social behavior online. More than 3.56 billion people visit one or more of Meta's apps every day, an amount that has raised questions about whether those platforms have reached a saturation point. Arena is one of a handful of apps that Meta is trying out. Others include one called Meta Photos, another stand-alone app which would create new types of media using artificial intelligence, the employees said. [...] Meta insiders have cautioned that Arena remains in development and may not be released. But as executives search for ways to keep the world's largest social media sites thriving, Mr. Zuckerberg appears to be relying on his well-worn product development strategy: Follow the users.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Independent report says by aiming at children Israel is undermining capacity of Palestinian people to exist
Israel continues to commit genocide by deliberately targeting Palestinian children in Gaza, an independent UN inquiry has found.
The report by the UN independent international commission of inquiry examined violations against Palestinian children since the start of the war in Gaza, and said about 30% of the people killed by Israeli forces have been children.
Continue reading...Dan Jarvis, who took the role earlier this month, is said to have secured around one billion pounds more for the plan than his predecessor
Dan Jarvis, the new defence secretary, promised to publish the delayed defence investment plan (Dip) before the Nato summit in a fortnight amid indications he has already secured around a billion pounds more than his predecessor, John Healey.
Haggling between the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the Treasury is continuing – while a source in Andy Burnham’s team said he was happy for a final deal to be concluded while Keir Starmer serves out his last days as prime minister.
Continue reading...Kemi Badenoch, who joined US anti-abortion activists and European far-right parties at ARC, described energy secretary as a ‘villain’
Britain’s net zero policies and the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, have come under fire at a conference of conservatives, rightwing populists and wealthy US backers linked to Donald Trump.
The energy policies pursued by the British government were described as a “tragic mistake” by Trump’s energy secretary, one of a number of officials from the US administration attending the event.
Continue reading...Interest earnings on a CD account of this size can be substantial. Here's what savers need to know right now.
Great Britain has paid at least six times the normal price for imported power as millions turn on air conditioning and windfarm output sags
The heatwave has prompted a sharp rise in electricity prices across European markets as millions turn to air conditioners and electric fans to battle record high temperatures, which have also caused a string of power plant outages across the continent.
Great Britain imported electricity from Europe at more than six times the normal price on Tuesday as the high-pressure heat dome has slowed wind speeds, hitting renewable energy generation, and led to outages at multiple gas plants across the country.
Continue reading...US secretary of state seeks to reassure UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain over security and US-Iran ceasefire deal
The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has said no country, including Iran, would be allowed to charge tolls for shipping in the strait of Hormuz as he sought to reassure US allies in the Gulf that Washington would take a firm line in peace negotiations with Tehran.
Rubio is to meet Gulf allies on Tuesday and Wednesday in an attempt to reassure them that the US remains committed to their security and the 60-day ceasefire deal struck with Iran last week will not embolden Tehran.
Continue reading...
U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she doesn’t regret voting to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, even though he became essential to the court’s majority ruling that overturned the federal right to abortion.
"Obviously, I'm disappointed in that decision, which turned abortion issues back to the states," Collins said June 12. "It has not had an impact on the state of Maine in that Maine actually expanded its law."
Seeking to tie Collins to President Donald Trump, Senate race challenger Democrat Graham Platner has criticized Collins’ 2018 pro-Kavanaugh vote as evidence she’s not bipartisan. Trump nominated Kavanaugh during his first term. Planned Parenthood Action Fund also cited Collins’ support of Kavanaugh in its June 22 endorsement of Platner.
Collins, who supported Roe v. Wade, usually votes in support of Trump but has taken some high-profile positions against the president.
Collins is correct that Maine expanded its laws in support of abortion, but critics say that took work. In response to the ruling, Maine’s state lawmakers and Democratic Gov. Janet Mills scrambled to protect abortion access and spent years strengthening its laws. The Trump administration and Maine are at odds over abortion care.
In 2022’s Dobbs v. Jackson ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Mississippi law that banned abortion after 15 weeks, with the majority opinion saying, "the Constitution makes no express reference to a right to obtain an abortion." The decision reversed Roe v. Wade, ending nearly 50 years of federally protected access to abortion and returned power to states to set their own laws.
Mills and Maine lawmakers responded by enacting laws from 2023 to 2025 to protect and expand abortion access.
State law previously said that abortion was legal up to the point of viability, when a fetus can typically survive outside a uterus. In 2023, Maine updated its law to say that abortion could occur after viability if it was deemed necessary by a physician.
"We are affirming that Maine people, guided by their medical professionals, their families, their personal and spiritual beliefs, that they will make decisions about their reproductive health care," Mills said when she signed the bill. "They will do so and not politicians."
Lawmakers passed several other bills that shielded abortion providers from prosecution or discipline, including if they attended patients from other states; prohibited private insurers from imposing certain costs for abortion; let providers not have their names appear on abortion pill bottles; and prevented cities from passing abortion restrictions.
The Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights, considers Maine as "very protective" of abortion rights, one notch below "most protective."
The number of abortions in Maine has remained relatively consistent in recent years before and after the Supreme Court ruling, Guttmacher Institute’s data shows. Clinicians provided 2,370 abortions in Maine in 2020 and 2,390 in 2023, the first full year after the ruling. There were 2,750 abortions in 2025. (Guttmacher said it did not have 2021-22 data.)
Although state lawmakers protected abortion access after the Dobbs ruling, abortion providers said there were still some effects.
"Mainers have worked tirelessly to mitigate the harm caused by Susan Collins’s vote for Justice Kavanaugh," Planned Parenthood Votes said in a statement to PolitiFact.
In 2024, the state house building was evacuated due to a bomb threat as a bill to protect providers and gender-affirming care was moving through the legislature. The threat claimed bombs were placed in some lawmakers’ homes and the Maine Democratic Party. No explosives were found.
There was confusion and fear about the legality of abortion care in Maine right after the Dobbs ruling, said Aspen Ruhlin, community engagement manager at Mabel Wadsworth Center, a reproductive health care provider in Bangor. "We received many panicked calls and emails from people thinking that the SCOTUS ruling that struck down Roe made abortion illegal in all states."
Collins' remarks were specifically about Maine, but the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade had broad effects: By late 2025, 23 states enacted near-total bans or strict limits at 22 weeks gestation or less.
Collins said that the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling on abortion "has not had an impact on the state of Maine in that Maine actually expanded its law."
If we interpret Collins’ statement as referring to abortion care access, she is correct. Following the ruling, state lawmakers passed several laws to protect patients and providers and said abortion could occur after viability if deemed necessary by a physician.
Abortion providers pointed to other effects, such as a bomb threat at the capitol while lawmakers were considering an abortion-related bill, and fear and confusion among the public immediately after the ruling.
We rate this statement Mostly True.
RELATED: All of our fact-checks in the 2026 Midterms including Maine
Iran’s Foreign Ministry said there was no plan for the IAEA to inspect its damaged nuclear facilities, a day after Vice President JD Vance said conversations with inspectors could happen imminently.
Temperature on Tuesday hits high of 34.6C in Surrey, England, with heatwave forecast to get more intense on Wednesday and Thursday
Searing heat has swept the UK with schools, hospitals, transport networks and water companies struggling to cope with the extreme temperatures caused by climate breakdown.
Temperatures hit highs of 34.6C in Wisley in Surrey, the Met Office said, with the UN chief warning that London was “cooking”.
Reduced rail speeds and services.
Hospital patient appointments cancelled.
School closures across southern England and Wales.
Hosepipe bans in south-east England.
Continue reading...With Burnham and his team potentially having only weeks before he becomes PM, Starmer has agreed to give him access to civil service
Keir Starmer has met Andy Burnham for the first time since the Makerfield byelection in what sources said was a “frosty” meeting to thrash out a transition of power.
The prime minister has agreed for his likely successor to have talks with the civil service to smooth his path, but there is deep resentment within his inner circle towards Burnham for ousting Starmer.
Continue reading...Penn State researchers are using ALCF’s exascale supercomputer to explore how magnetic fields evolve during neutron star mergers.
June 23, 2026 — When the largest stars in the universe—massive supergiant stars—explode in supernovae, they leave behind gravitationally collapsed cores called neutron stars. Aside from black holes, neutron stars are the densest stellar objects known to exist.
This image shows the electric current density in the orbital plane of a binary neutron star merger about 2 milliseconds after the stars have come into contact. During this phase of the evolution, matter in the neutron stars is violently stirred by the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability generating ultra-strong magnetic fields of up to 10^17 Gauss (roughly 100 quadrillion times the Earth’s magnetic field). This simulation was run on Aurora using the team’s INCITE allocation. Image credit: Eduardo Mario Gutiérrez, Penn State University.
Gravitational waves can cause a pair of neutron stars to become locked in a binary system of mutual orbit. In such situations, the neutron stars eventually collide in a catastrophic merger.
“The process of a neutron star merger takes hundreds of millions of years for the orbit to shrink to the point of collision,” said David Radice, a physicist at the Pennsylvania State University leading a research campaign probing the dynamics of plasma in neutron star mergers. While the collisions take place on enormous timescales, the research homes in on tiny intervals in the process.
Radice is carrying out the research by leveraging the exascale Aurora supercomputer housed at Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF), a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science user facility, to generate ultradetailed simulations of the collisions. These simulations have revealed new details about how magnetic fields evolve during neutron star mergers, providing new insights into these mysterious events.
“At the time that the neutron stars collide, the orbital period is on the order of milliseconds,” Radice explained. “So at this point, when they come into contact with each other, the stars are going extremely fast. This yields a phase in which the matter of the two stars begins to mix, and during this mixing we expect the magnetic fields inside the stars to amplify significantly.”
The research campaign, which contains several subprojects, has two primary goals.
“First, we wanted to understand how large the magnetic fields can get,” Radice said. “Second, we wanted to determine if the process of mixing and turbulence occurring within these stars operates like the flow of liquid rock and molten metal in the core of the Earth, which itself generates a large-scale magnetic field per the dynamo theory.”
Exploring New Physics with Exascale
Limited by computing power, previous simulations of neutron star mergers have been incapable of resolving the length scales of the stellar turbulence.
“This is why using Aurora was necessary,” Radice said.
“By running extremely high-resolution simulations, we were able to see for the first time the amplification of the magnetic fields, as well as evidence in the fields of a phenomenon called an inverse cascade. What this means is that, within the plasma of the neutron stars, there emerges a process of self-reorganization whereby a large-scale coherent magnetic field starts to develop from small-scale chaotic motion,” he explained.
The inverse cascade phenomenon would provide an explanation for several mysteries related to neutron star mergers, including how magnetic fields are amplified during the collision process and how such systems generate gamma-ray bursts, relativistic explosions observed throughout the universe.
Such high-resolution magnetohydrodynamic simulations required the researchers to write completely new code capable of utilizing exascale computing architecture.
“We invested several years of work, including multiple PhD theses,” Radice said. “But that work is paying off—a study at this level of detail was unthinkable a decade ago. These simulations are hundreds of times more expensive than what we were previously able to run.”
The computational demands arise from the nature of turbulence.
“To study turbulence, one must capture dynamics on a very small scale, which are coupled with dynamics on a very large scale,” Radice said. “This means that the dynamic range of the simulation—that is, the ratio between the smallest lengths to resolve and the size of the system being studied—must be very large. With previous generations of supercomputers, it was impossible to achieve convergence: as researchers increased resolution, they found the strength of the magnetic field produced in the collision increased, but it was unclear whether there would be any bound.
“It turns out that with sufficiently high resolution, the result converges to a finite value, providing the amplification factor, but this was impossible to determine without a system as powerful as Aurora.
Laying the Groundwork for Future Research
As the simulations have so successfully resolved questions of plasma physics, the next step is for Radice’s team to use their results to build an effective model.
“An effective model will incorporate these new physics in simulations that span longer time spans and involve different progenitor parameters and masses for the stars’ equations of state,” Radice explained. “This will enable us to perform more systematic studies.”
These future studies will probe the turbulence that occurs in the milliseconds following the merger, as well as the excitation of oscillation modes in the stars prior to their coming into contact with each other. Both post-collision and oscillation mode investigations are expected to be enhanced by next-generation experimental data measuring gravitational waves at high frequencies—and higher-resolution studies driven by tremendous computing power.
Radice explained, “In short, we need non-linear hydrodynamics coupled with relativity.”
Ultimately, the team’s work will enable more accurate models of neutron star mergers, helping scientists to interpret future observations and better understand how these extreme events shape the universe.
Access to ALCF computing resources was awarded through DOE’s INCITE program.
Source: Nils Heinonen, Argonne
The post Argonne: Aurora Simulations Shed New Light on Extreme Cosmic Collisions appeared first on HPCwire.
France records hottest ever day as much of Europe endures extreme heat; ‘London is cooking,’ says UN secretary general
Tell us: how is the heatwave in the UK and across Europe affecting you?
Forty drown across France in heatwave and parts of Spain above 30C at night
Italy’s health ministry has declared a red heatwave alert in 15 cities including Milan and Rome on Tuesday and said the number would go up to 16 on Wednesday.
During a red alert – the highest level – the ministry advises people to eat light, stay indoors in the hottest parts of the day and sprinkle themselves with cool water.
Continue reading...A money market account has multiple advantages for savers in today's unique economic climate.
Leader of city council braces for bitter fight with Reform UK in byelection for Andy Burnham’s replacement
Labour’s candidate to replace Andy Burnham as Greater Manchester mayor has been named as Bev Craig, the leader of the city council.
Burnham, who could be prime minister in under four weeks, is expected to campaign heavily for Labour in a tight contest with Reform UK on 30 July.
Continue reading...Andy Burnham, Britain's likely next leader, hasn't said a lot about President Trump, but his few statements have been critical.
Have you ever tried to use your electronic benefit transfer card to pay for groceries only to find that your SNAP benefits were gone? You may have been the victim of EBT theft.
EBT theft happens when someone is able to get information off your EBT card in order to steal your Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits. You may not have immediately realized you were stolen from, only that there were less funds in your account than there should’ve been. If so, you’re not alone — it’s a widespread issue that affects hundreds of thousands of SNAP recipients each year.
If you think your benefits may have been stolen, we would like to hear from you. We need your help to understand the impact that EBT theft has on communities.
To share your experience, fill out the survey below. Our reporters read every response and may follow up with you.
Don’t have SNAP benefits but know someone who does? You can also help by sending this form to them. If you have anything else you would like to share about SNAP or Medicaid generally, you can email us at safetynet@propublica.org.
The post Have Your SNAP Benefits Ever Been Stolen? Help ProPublica Investigate. appeared first on ProPublica.
ProPublica is digging into pressing issues affecting millions who rely on America’s safety net programs — from longstanding concerns like electronic benefit transfer theft to changes in federal SNAP and Medicaid policies. We want to hear from officials and workers on the ground who help people navigate these programs, because no one knows the ins and outs of the safety net better.
If you are a current or former state or local eligibility worker, intake specialist, or human services or social services administrator, or if you’re a current or former federal worker who has supported states in administering the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or Medicaid, we want to hear your thoughts about new work requirements, shifts in cost-sharing between the federal government and states, efforts to combat fraud, and what other priorities may have been pushed to the wayside.
ProPublica’s reporting goes beyond big-picture policy coverage and dives into the ways those federal policies shape everyday life throughout the country. We know each community operates differently, and we can’t be everywhere at once. That’s why we need your help.
We want to know: How is your agency, county or state preparing for the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act? Have shifting federal priorities changed the way you do your work? What do you feel people should know?
Please fill out the brief form below to tell us what we should be reporting on or to stay in touch as all of these changes unfold. Our reporters read every response and may follow up with you. Your insight is what drives our reporting.
If you have questions or if your SNAP or Medicaid benefits have recently changed, we want to hear from you too. Email us at safetynet@propublica.org. If you prefer to reach us via Signal, you can contact reporter Eli Hager at 301-758-2768 or Cassandra Garibay at 707-234-5175.
The post Do You Administer SNAP or Medicaid Benefits? Help ProPublica Report on America’s Safety Net. appeared first on ProPublica.
President Trump's construction projects include restoring the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, building a 90,000-square-foot White House ballroom and a 250-foot triumphal arch.
The European Parliament's economic committee has backed a digital euro designed to reduce Europe's dependence on US-controlled payment networks such as Visa and Mastercard. The ECB-backed currency is targeted for launch by 2029 after a full parliamentary vote and negotiations with EU member states. Euronews reports: Under the proposal, consumers would be able to hold digital euros in a dedicated wallet, subject to a holding limit that has yet to be determined. The system would support both online and offline payments and is intended to offer a high degree of privacy, with the ECB unable to directly identify users from their payment data. The ECB would provide the underlying infrastructure, while commercial banks and payment service providers would offer digital euro services to customers. Financial institutions are expected to be compensated for their participation in the scheme, while merchants will pay fees that are expected to be lower than those associated with current card transactions. How that compensation should be structured remains one of the most contentious issues ahead of negotiations with EU member states, according to three sources familiar with the discussions. [...] The European Parliament is expected to formalise the committee's position during a plenary vote in Strasbourg in early July. Negotiations with the EU's 27 member states would then begin, with lawmakers aiming to reach a final agreement before the end of the year.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Army Secretary Dan Driscoll said Tuesday the Army will look into introducing electronic jamming to ranges so industry and Army soldiers can train in areas that simulate battlefield conditions.
The rugged Boom 3I looks and sounds great, and you can snag it for $35 off right now at Amazon.
Hiring your first employees doesn't have to take long. Here's how to move quickly without making costly mistakes.
Getting the cold shoulder from candidates? The problem might not be the market. It could be the job post itself.
At this week's VidCon, which starts Thursday, creators and their fans will come together to celebrate and grow the art form.
On November 2, 1920, Convict No. 9653 received nearly one million votes from the American electorate for that year’s presidential election. The candidate was then in the midst of serving a ten-year sentence for violating the Espionage Act of 1917, having been convicted two years earlier for criticisms of America’s involvement in World War I. While he would not defeat Republican candidate Warren Harding, Convict No. 9653—or, as he is more commonly known, Eugene V. Debs—made an indelible mark on American politics and the country’s burgeoning labor movement during his decades of work as a politician and activist.
Eugene Victor Debs was born to Alsatian immigrants Marguerite and Jean Daniel Debs on November 5, 1855, in Terre Haute, Indiana. As a teenager, Debs dropped out of school to take up work for the Vandalia Railroad, earning just 50 cents a day for grueling labor. Beginning as a paint scraper, Debs was promoted to locomotive fireman just two years later. In this role, the young Debs took on the dangerous and demanding work of feeding coal into a train’s firebox to power the steam engine.
This experience at a young age exposed Debs to the precarious position of the American worker during the Gilded Age—a time of extreme wealth for some, while few protections were afforded to the working class. Debs would later recall that from this experience he was “made to feel the wrongs of labor, and from the consciousness of these there also sprang the conviction that one day they would all be righted.”
Debs quit the railroad at his mother’s insistence and took a job at a local wholesale grocer in Terre Haute. But even while working at the store, Debs remained involved in the railroad community. He joined Terre Haute’s branch of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, a trade union founded in 1873. He rose to grand secretary in 1880, and in that role, he threw himself into the unglamorous work of organizing: traveling, writing, and agitating on behalf of workers who had no other voice.
Debs first entered politics in 1879, when he served as Terre Haute’s City Clerk. Several years later, voters sent him to the Indiana General Assembly—an experience he found largely disillusioning, as the machinery of electoral politics seemed poorly suited to the sweeping changes he believed working Americans deserved. The experience was not all negative, however. During his term in the statehouse, he met and married Katherine Metzel, to whom he would remain married for the rest of his life.
In 1893, Debs retired from the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen to form his own, more inclusive union: the American Railway Union (ARU). The ARU was open to all white railroad workers regardless of craft or specialty. Debs pushed hard for the inclusion of African Americans in the union’s ranks; however, his motion for integration was overruled by just two votes by the membership. The ARU grew rapidly and within a year had attracted tens of thousands of members across the country.
The ARU and Debs’ position as a national leader would be tested shortly thereafter. In 1894, workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company, located in a suburb of Chicago, walked off the job to protest a series of wage cuts. When the CEO, George Pullman, refused to negotiate, the ARU voted to support the strike by refusing to handle any trains carrying Pullman cars. The boycott spread across 27 states and effectively paralyzed the entire railroad system of the western United States. The federal government, at the behest of the railroad owners and Attorney General Richard Olney—himself a former railroad attorney—obtained a sweeping injunction ordering the strike to end. President Grover Cleveland sent in federal troops and the strike was crushed.
For his leadership of the ARU, Debs was convicted of conspiracy and sentenced to six months at the Woodstock jail in Illinois. He emerged from Woodstock convinced that the working class was not being served by the current political apparatus, and that a third party dedicated to working people was necessary. Debs officially became a socialist in 1897, declaring: “I am for socialism, because I am for humanity.”
Debs first ran for president in 1900, launching a political career that would see him become the Socialist Party’s presidential nominee four more times over the next two decades. Each campaign was less a bid for office than a rolling act of public education; Debs sought to make the language of class, exploitation, and worker solidarity part of mainstream American political conversation. Between campaigns, Debs also edited The Appeal to Reason, the nation ’s largest socialist newspaper.
When the United States entered World War I in 1917, the Socialist Party took a formal stand against the conflict and the draft. The federal government responded aggressively. Under the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918, hundreds of antiwar protesters were arrested.
On June 16, 1918, Debs traveled to Canton, Ohio, to speak at a socialist rally where he delivered a blistering critique of the war and its costs to working people. Within a week, he had been charged with violating the Espionage Act.
At his trial, Debs declined to mount a traditional legal defense. Instead, he spoke directly to the American people—laying out a sharp indictment of the American government. He argued that the Espionage Act was “a despotic enactment in flagrant conflict with democratic principles and with the spirit of free institutions.” Debs also used the moment to denounce broader socioeconomic inequalities within the country: “I am opposing a social order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence.”
Debs was convicted on three counts and sentenced to 10 years in the Atlanta federal penitentiary. When the case was appealed to the Supreme Court, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes affirmed the lower court, holding that any attempts “to obstruct the recruiting service” to the war effort were unlawful.
It was from that Atlanta prison cell that Debs ran his fifth and final presidential campaign in 1920. Following the election, President Warren Harding commuted Debs’s sentence in 1921, and he returned to Terre Haute for the remainder of his life.
In his five presidential runs, Debs never received more than six percent of the vote. Yet, his influence on American politics goes well beyond the vote totals. His unrelenting message of workers’ rights forced leaders in both major parties to adapt their policies. Throughout the Progressive and New Deal eras, Debs’ once-fringe ideas, such as an eight-hour workday and the abolition of child labor, were enshrined into law. Many of the worker protections that we now take for granted were first advocated for by Debs.
Eugene V. Debs died on October 20, 1926. Following his death, roughly 8,000 people made a pilgrimage to his home in Terre Haute to pay their respects. He was in death, as in life, a man of the people.
Trey Sullivan is a Content Fellow at the National Constitution Center and a PhD candidate in History at the University of Cambridge, where he is a Marshall Scholar.
Ruling lets DHS apply expedited removal to non-citizens who are living far from border
A federal appeals court cleared the way on Tuesday for the Trump administration to expand a fast-track deportation process that would allow for the expedited removal of immigrants who are living far from the border.
A panel of the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit ruled 2-1 to overturn a decision by a judge who in August 2025 blocked the US Department of Homeland Security’s move to expand who qualifies for expedited removal. That expedited removal process has for nearly three decades been used to quickly return migrants apprehended at the border.
Continue reading...Assailant behind shooting that left three people dead wrote ‘incel’-like manifesto that was posted by a far-right outlet
Police in Canada are warning of possible copycat attacks after three people died in a shootout in Montreal and the assailant’s lengthy manifesto, which called for “a new bloodletting”, was posted online by a far-right outlet.
The document contains many of the hallmark grievances of the “involuntary celibacy” – or “incel” – movement in addition racist and misogynistic conspiracy theories.
Continue reading...Credit card debt relief may be worth serious consideration this July. Here's what borrowers should know right now.
NVIDIA technology runs 81% of the TOP500 and 90% of the systems new to the list.
June 23, 2026 — NVIDIA technologies power more than 400 of the world’s 500 fastest supercomputers — 81% of the TOP500 — according to the latest rankings released this week at the ISC High Performance conference in Hamburg, Germany.
That’s a gain of 17 systems from the previous list, with the momentum in new deployments: nearly nine of every 10 systems new to the ranking are built on NVIDIA technologies.
Credit: NVIDIA
That percentage reflects a deliberate preference for machines built for AI, simulation and science together. And it’s compounding: NVIDIA systems across the TOP500 now deliver more than 2x the AI training and nearly 3x the AI inference throughput of every other platform combined.
GPU and networking adoption each hit new highs, with NVIDIA GPUs accelerating a record 238 systems and NVIDIA networking connecting a record 376 — the vast majority on NVIDIA Quantum InfiniBand, the backbone of large-scale AI and high-performance computing, and the rest on Ethernet.
The trend behind the numbers is bigger than any one list: Accelerated computing is becoming the foundation for the systems taking on the world’s most demanding work, across AI and science.
Updated twice a year, the TOP500 ranks the world’s fastest supercomputers, while the Green500 list measures how much computing each delivers per watt.
A Full-Stack Footprint
NVIDIA’s reach now spans the full system — GPU, networking and, increasingly, the CPU — with NVIDIA Grace CPU adoption reaching 26 systems, up eight from the previous list, with nearly 2.5 million Grace CPUs shipped.
NVIDIA Grace-based machines sit atop both rankings: JUPITER at No. 5 and Alps at No. 10 on the TOP500, and KAIROS at No. 1 on the Green500.
Each pairs an NVIDIA GPU with the Grace CPU in a single NVIDIA Grace Hopper Superchip, letting the two share memory with minimal overhead — a design built for the memory-intensive demands of modern AI.
The NVIDIA Vera CPU, announced earlier this year, builds on the success of Grace, taking CPU performance and energy efficiency to new levels for the most demanding AI workloads in modern data centers — where agents move from answering basic questions to taking actions, running code, using tools and evaluating results.
Topping the Efficiency List
NVIDIA swept the Green500 ranking of the most energy-efficient supercomputers: The top eight all run on NVIDIA GPUs and nine of the top 10 use NVIDIA technologies.
Leading the list is KAIROS, an NVIDIA Grace Hopper system at France’s University of Toulouse, at 73.3 gigaflops per watt — with Grace Hopper systems taking the top four spots, across France, Germany and the U.K.
From Exascale Science to the Next Wave
A record 35 NVIDIA AI HPC supercomputers are in development across Europe — equipping more than 3 million researchers with next-generation infrastructure for continental AI, accelerated science and industrial innovation.
Among these systems is JUPITER, Europe’s fastest supercomputer and its first to reach exascale, at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre in Germany.
JUPITER is mapping the human brain at cellular scale, simulating Earth’s climate and advancing the AI behind next-generation 6G networks.
The newest arrivals to the list run on the NVIDIA Blackwell architecture, with B200 and GB200 systems entering the rankings across Asia, Europe and the U.S. — and the first GB200 systems debuting in Japan.
The buildout is global, from a new AI factory in South Africa to national AI systems in Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Vietnam.
It’s the same story up and down the list: the world’s AI buildout is running on NVIDIA.
More from HPCwire
Source: Chris Porter, NVIDIA
The post NVIDIA Powers Over 400 of the World’s 500 Fastest Supercomputers appeared first on HPCwire.
June 23, 2026 — Today, the latest TOP500 and Green500 rankings once again featured all operational EuroHPC supercomputers, including two new systems, DAEDALUS and Arrhenius, while JUPITER remains among the world’s top five with its exascale capabilities.
The latest editions of the TOP500 and Green500 lists were released today, on Tuesday 23rd June 2026, at the ISC 2026 event being held this week in Hamburg, Germany.
JUPITER remains among the world’s five most powerful supercomputers, while DAEDALUS and Arrhenius, two new mid-range systems located in Greece and Sweden made their first appearance in the TOP500, entering the Top 50 at 31st and 42nd place, respectively.
All other operational EuroHPC supercomputers are featured on the TOP500 list of the world’s most powerful systems, enabling breakthrough research and innovation every day.
JUPITER also remains the world’s most energy-efficient exascale supercomputer, while the two new systems, DAEDALUS and Arrhenius, along with several other EuroHPC systems, rank highly in the Green500 list, underlining the EuroHPC JU’s commitment to sustainable high-performance computing.
Two New Entries
DAEDALUS, located in Attica Greece, at the Lavrion Technological and Cultural Park, is based on HPE’s NVIDIA GH200 direct liquid cooled architecture and operated by the National Infrastructures for Research and Technology (GRNET) under the auspices of the Hellenic Ministry of Digital Governance and Artificial Intelligence. With a performance of 85,69 petaflops, DAEDALUS enters the TOP500 at 31st position and is expected to become fully available to European users shortly.
Arrhenius is an HPE Cray EX-based system, hosted by Linköping University and operated by the National Academic Infrastructure for Supercomputing in Sweden (NAISS). For its first appearance on the TOP500 list, it holds 42nd place globally with 66,82 petaflops. European users can already access Arrhenius through the EuroHPC AI for science access call.
EuroHPC Supercomputers: Leading in Performance and Sustainability
JUPITER, hosted by the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC) in Germany, is Europe’s first exascale supercomputer, able to perform more than 1 trillion (1,000,000,000,000,000,000) operations per second. JUPITER is built on BullSequana XH3000 architecture and equipped with approximately 24,000 NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper Superchips. Its architecture delivers unprecedented capability for both large-scale simulations and advanced AI workloads.
LUMI, operated by CSC in Finland with the LUMI consortium, ranks 11th. Built on HPE Cray EX architecture, LUMI delivers 379.7 petaflops of computing power, continuing to accelerate European research and innovation.
Leonardo, operated by CINECA in Italy and based on BullSequana XH2000 technology, holds 12th place globally with 241,2 petaflops.
MareNostrum 5, operated by the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre (BSC) in Spain, is ranked 16th with a performance of 175.3 petaflops in its accelerated partition, based on Eviden’s BullSequana XH3000 hybrid architecture. Its general-purpose partition, based on Lenovo’s ThinkSystem SD650 V3 technology and powered entirely by Intel Sapphire Rapids processors, is ranked 61st with a performance of 40.1 petaflops.
EuroHPC’s other operational mid-range systems, Meluxina, Karolina, Discoverer, Deucalion, and Vega, all feature among the world’s most powerful supercomputers.
Another highlight of today’s publication is EuroHPC JU’s ongoing effort to procure green supercomputers, with several of its systems ranking highly on the Green500 list, a clear reflection of its strong focus on sustainable computing practices.
JUPITER is setting new standards in sustainability and stands out as the most energy-efficient exascale system worldwide, with its highly energy-efficient BOOSTER partition, capable of more than 63 thousand millions operations per watt. With its highly efficient warm water-cooling system, JUPITER is also designed to use the waste heat generated in operation to heat buildings and be integrated into the Jülich campus heating network.
DAEDALUS and Arrhenius ranked 23rd and 24th in the Green500 list, both with more than more than 61 thousand millions operations per watt.
LUMI placed 45th with over 53 billion operations per watt. Powered entirely by carbon-free hydroelectric energy, LUMI employs liquid cooling technology and channels waste heat into the local district heating network. Its data centre leverages northern Finland’s naturally cool climate for free cooling, maximizing energy efficiency.
MareNostrum 5, secured 58th place with over 48 billion operations per watt. Its advanced direct liquid cooling and energy-efficient design, combined with 100% green energy, demonstrate that sustainability and peak performance go hand in hand.
More from HPCwire: LineShine Debuts at No. 1 as the TOP500 Enters a New Global Exascale Era
Source: EuroHPC
The post EuroHPC Adds DAEDALUS and Arrhenius as JUPITER Holds Top-Five TOP500 Spot appeared first on HPCwire.
HAMBURG, Germany, June 23, 2026 — ISC 2026 – MiTAC Computing Technology Corp., a global leader in high-performance, energy-efficient server solutions and a subsidiary of MiTAC Holdings Corporation, is highlighting its latest Agentic AI-ready infrastructure, and liquid cooling innovations at ISC 2026 (Booth X05).
The company is collaborating with industry leaders AMD and Intel to demonstrate scalable solutions at both server and rack scale designed to support the growing demand for sustainable data centers.
Advanced Liquid Cooling Architecture for Sustainable HPC
As modern data centers face stringent energy constraints, liquid cooling has transitioned from an option to a necessity for next-generation HPC and large-scale AI clusters. To address this demand, MiTAC is showcasing its advanced green computing solutions designed to significantly optimize PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness).
Next-Generation Infrastructure Built for Agentic AI Workloads
To satisfy the requirements of modern research institutes and enterprise workloads that demand sophisticated autonomous decision-making capabilities, MiTAC introduces hybrid architecture platforms tailored for the Agentic AI era.
High-Density Optimized Storage Platforms for Cloud Applications
The explosive growth of AI training datasets and real-time cloud services demands unparalleled data throughput. MiTAC’s latest enterprise platforms leverage the latest form factors to eliminate I/O bottlenecks and maximize resource efficiency.
About MiTAC Computing Technology Corporation
MiTAC Computing Technology Corp., a subsidiary of MiTAC Holdings, delivers comprehensive, energy-efficient server solutions backed by industry expertise dating back to the 1990s. Specializing in AI, HPC, cloud, and edge computing, MiTAC Computing employs rigorous methodologies to ensure uncompromising quality—across barebones, systems, racks, and cluster levels—fully achieving performance and integration. This commitment to quality at every level set MiTAC Computing apart in the industry. With a worldwide presence and end-to-end capabilities—from R&D and manufacturing to global support—MiTAC Computing provides agile, customized platforms for hyperscale data centers, HPC, and AI applications, ensuring optimal performance and scalability to meet unique business needs. By leveraging the latest advancements in AI and liquid cooling and unifying the MiTAC brand with Intel DSG and TYAN server products, MiTAC Computing stands out for its innovative, efficient, and reliable server technology as well as its hardware and software integrated solutions—empowering businesses to meet future challenges.
Source: MiTAC
The post MiTAC Computing Showcases Agentic AI Infrastructure at ISC 2026 appeared first on HPCwire.
June 23, 2026 – HPE builds supercomputers that empower its customers to push the limits of what’s possible in high performance computing (HPC). On the June 2026 TOP500, HPE-built systems have claimed 6 spots out of the top 10 list of the world’s fastest supercomputers and three of those are among the only five that are verified exascale supercomputers, and those are El Capitan at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Frontier at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Aurora at Argonne National Laboratory. Having the greatest performance share on the TOP500, HPE designed and built systems that deliver more than 11.4 exaflops collectively. Additionally, HPE continues to excel on energy efficiency with 4 of the top 10 most energy-efficient supercomputers on the June 2026 Green500 list, showcasing HPE’s innovative direct liquid-cooling technology.
LLNL’s El Capitan
To enable such significant performance, HPE continuously develops advanced computing solutions, tailored for the era of converged artificial intelligence (AI), HPC and quantum computing. In support of this convergence, HPE introduced new supercomputing programming software to simplify customers’ experiences, and for the first time, the software is available to HPE ProLiant Compute servers, offering consistency across HPE systems. HPE also introduced multi-tenant capabilities within networking and storage for high-performance computing, creating one of the industry’s broadest portfolios of end-to-end supercomputing solutions for national labs’ sovereign AI research. Lastly, new financial services improve customers’ control, security and oversight in retiring their advanced, air-cooled computing infrastructure.
Demonstrated Supercomputing Performance Empowers Research and Industrial Applications
HPE designs, constructs and maintains large-scale infrastructure solutions that drive scientific breakthroughs, foster innovation, and enable enterprise transformation.
The TOP500 list names 6 HPE-built systems among the 10 most powerful supercomputers in the world, including:
No. 2 – El Capitan
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL) El Capitan at 1.809 exaflops is the world’s second fastest supercomputer. El Capitan also ranks No. 1 on the HPL-MxP benchmark that measures mixed-precision calculations typical in systems that run both traditional HPC and AI workloads. Funded by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and dedicated to NNSA mission applications, El Capitan is built on the HPE Cray Supercomputing EX system, powered by AMD. The system enables new milestones in extreme-scale modeling and simulation, AI and emerging hybrid workflows. Recent work includes AI-enabled fusion target design studies using AI agents, the largest fluid dynamics simulation ever performed, and a 2025 ACM Gordon Bell Prize-winning real-time tsunami early-warning framework developed by LLNL, the University of Texas at Austin and UC San Diego. El Capitan is also supporting exploratory hybrid classical-quantum algorithm development for next-generation magnets. For all its might, El Capitan is also energy-efficient, ranking No. 28 on the Green500 list.
No. 3 – Frontier
Built for Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in collaboration with AMD, Frontier takes the No. 3 rank on the latest TOP500 list with a performance of 1.353 exaflops. Frontier also ranks No. 2 on the HPL-MxP benchmark. As the first verified exascale system in 2022, Frontier continues to utilize its year-over-year performance to drive advancements in nuclear-specific AI models, jet engine performance and turbulent fluctuations, and does so while maintaining energy-efficiency, which has earned it the No. 20 spot on the Green500 list.
No. 4 – Aurora
Delivering 1.012 exaflops, the HPE-built and Intel-powered Aurora supercomputer at Argonne National Laboratory has proven performance with the No. 4 ranking. Aurora also ranks No. 3 on the HPL-MxP benchmark. The supercomputer empowers scientists with the ability of exascale speed to execute further scientific discovery, including greater understanding the plasma conditions to make fusion a practical energy source and testing whether dark energy may change over time, a possibility that could reshape the standard model of cosmology.
No. 6 – HPC7
Premiering on the TOP500 list and boasting a processing capacity of 571.5 petaflops to take the No. 6 spot, HPC7 supercomputer is a highly advanced system developed specifically for industrial applications for major energy tech company, Eni. Ranking as the highest performing enterprise system on this year’s list, HPC7 is used, among other things, to optimize the operations of industrial facilities, improve the accuracy of geological and fluid dynamic studies for CO2 storage, and to develop higher-performance batteries. Eni’s HPC7 will also enable AI implementation and the development of domain-specific models for the energy sector.
No. 8 – HPC6
Exhibiting 477.9 petaflops to take the No. 8 spot, HPC6 supercomputer is a highly advanced system for industrial applications used by Eni to improve the company’s operations.
No. 10 – Alps
Built for the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre, Alps utilizes 434.9 petaflops to support large-scale high-performance computing and simulation workloads in fields such as health research, climate science, materials science and engineering. Alps also serves as the computational backbone of the Swiss AI Initiative, involving more than 1,200 researchers from institutions across Switzerland.
Making Supercomputing More Sustainable
With more than 50 years of leadership in advancing energy efficiency, HPE offers supercomputing customers 100% fanless, direct liquid-cooling systems architecture to help establish new energy efficiency benchmarks in the industry. The HPE-built systems among the top 10 of the Green500 list are:
No. 4 – Isambard-AI
Built and managed by Bristol Centre for Supercomputing, a part of University of Bristol, Isambard-AI is the flagship compute for the UK Government’s AI Research Resource (AIRR), created to power the country’s cutting-edge AI development. The supercomputer utilizes HPE’s 100% fanless, direct liquid-cooling technology to deliver up to 90% reduction in cooling power consumption, contributing to a No. 2 ranking on the Green500 at its launch.
No. 7 – SSC-24 Energy Module
Built for Samsung Electronics, this supercomputer is the most energy-efficient enterprise-owned system.
No. 8 – Helios GPU
Created for the Academic Computer Centre Cyfronet AGH, Helios GPU remains Poland’s fastest supercomputer, ranked at No. 116 on the TOP500.
No. 10 – Portage
A benchmarking system designed by HPE to evaluate real-world HPC and AI workloads for HPE and its clients, Portage is ranked No. 85 on the TOP500 list.
HPE-built DAEDALUS Debuts as Greece’s Fastest System
Built for the National Infrastructures for Research and Technology (GRNET S.A.), and in collaboration with the Ministry of Digital Governance and EuroHPC JU, the new supercomputer DAEDALUS entered the TOP500 list at No. 31 with 85.69 petaflops of performance, marking a historic milestone as the first Greek system of this magnitude included in the ranking and the fastest supercomputer in the country up to this day. The advanced system is the computing core of the AI Factory Pharos. It aims to boost research and innovation in the fields of AI, medicine, meteorology, big data analysis and the development of smart transport systems and more. The infrastructure focuses on sustainability by using renewable energy sources and advanced cooling systems that significantly reduce energy consumption, and as a result, is also featured in this year’s Green500 list, ranking No. 23.
Learn more here about HPE’s leadership-class supercomputing solutions and how the company delivers powerful and efficient architecture to accelerate discovery and drive innovation.
About HPE
HPE (NYSE: HPE) is a leader in essential enterprise technology, bringing together the power of AI, cloud, and networking to help organizations achieve more. As pioneers of possibility, our innovation and expertise advance the way people live and work. We empower our customers across industries to optimize operational performance, transform data into foresight, and maximize their impact. Unlock your boldest ambitions with HPE. Discover more at www.hpe.com.
Source: HPE
The post HPE Delivers Six Out of Ten of World’s Most Powerful Supercomputers appeared first on HPCwire.
New elite series to include promotion and relegation
23-24 events spread across February to August
The PGA Tour has announced sweeping changes to its competitive structure, approving a two-tier system with promotion and relegation to take effect in 2028.
The elite-tier PGA Tour Championship Series will run from February to August and feature 23-24 events with $20m (£15m) purses, while the $4m (£3m) events on the Challenger Series will provide a path for players to earn their way to the top level.
Continue reading...GPU-free solution emulates real-world AI workload traffic at scale for faster, more cost-efficient network validation
CHANDLER, Ariz., June 23, 2026 — VIAVI Solutions Inc. today announced the launch of the industry’s first Ultra Ethernet Transport (UET) validation solution for AI fabrics, bringing powerful traffic generation and analysis capabilities to hyperscalers, cloud and neocloud providers, as well as network equipment manufacturers across the broader Ultra Ethernet ecosystem.
VIAVI Ultra-Ethernet-Transport-Validation
The new GPU-free, full-fidelity offering for VIAVI TestCenter is designed to accelerate the rollout of next-generation high-speed AI networks through the validation of scale-out and scale-up AI back-end networks using the Ultra Ethernet Consortium’s (UEC) Ultra Ethernet Stack.
The Ultra Ethernet Stack is purpose-built for large-scale AI and High-Performance Computing (HPC) workloads, with UEC 1.0 introducing a new UET protocol that delivers advanced congestion control and massive scalability to accelerate multi-vendor adoption of Ethernet as a primary transport for AI fabrics.
VIAVI’s UET validation solution enables customers to ensure that their AI fabrics deliver the required performance and resiliency without the cost and complexity of deploying dedicated GPU infrastructure. The solution emulates the transport layer of UET, replicating realistic, stateful AI traffic patterns at scale, including reliable ordered and unordered delivery (ROD/RUD), packet trimming, congestion control and dynamic multipathing. It also supports full-fidelity emulation of AI workloads, such as collective communications (CCL) and large language model (LLM) flows. In addition, the platform enables comprehensive validation of load-balancing mechanisms across the AI fabric, including ECMP, packet spraying and flowlet switching.
“AI clusters will soon scale to millions of endpoints, which means relying on physical GPUs alone to validate network behavior is no longer practical,” said Aniket Khosla, Vice President of Product Management, Optical Transport and High-Speed Ethernet, VIAVI. “While Ultra Ethernet delivers high throughput for AI and HPC along with the benefits of standardization, its success depends on rigorous, realistic testing. The launch of this GPU-free, full-fidelity UET validation solution gives customers the confidence to deploy scalable, high-performance AI fabrics faster and more cost-effectively.”
“As AI data center fabrics grow in size and complexity, traditional validation approaches struggle to keep pace,” said Mahesh Subramaniam, Senior Director of Product Management, AI Data Centers, HPE. “The VIAVI TestCenter platform provides realistic traffic emulation and the granular visibility needed to validate congestion control and transport performance at scale. Through our collaboration, including UET transport validation using the Juniper QFX5240 platform and Junos Evolved with advanced software features such as packet trimming, we are demonstrating how advanced switching and realistic traffic testing enable faster deployment and reliable scaling of Ultra Ethernet in next-generation AI networks.”
About VIAVI
VIAVI (NASDAQ: VIAV) is a global leader in test and measurement and optical technologies. Our test, monitoring, assurance, and resilient position, navigation and timing solutions enable and secure critical infrastructure ranging from data center ecosystems and communication networks to military, aerospace, railway and first responder communications. In addition, we develop and advance technologies used in high-volume optical applications across anti-counterfeiting, consumer electronics, aerospace, industrial and automotive end markets.
Source: VIAVI
The post VIAVI Launches Validation Solution for Ultra Ethernet Transport, Accelerating AI Data Center Deployments appeared first on HPCwire.
Wyndham Clark endured booing all weekend at Shinnecock Hills for his actions at last year's U.S. Open. After clinching the win on Sunday, Clark said he's ready for his redemption tour.
Two men due to share trophy-presenting on 19 July
‘We are together all the time’, says Fifa president
Donald Trump will hand over the World Cup trophy to the winners at the final on 19 July, Gianni Infantino has said.
Infantino and Trump have forged a close relationship in the buildup to these finals, but the US president has made very few public pronouncements concerning the tournament since it began on 11 June.
Continue reading...Ukraine’s president will not attend after sparking Polish ‘outrage’ over naming of military unit
Volodymyr Zelenskyy will skip a high-level conference on the postwar reconstruction of Ukraine amid a deepening rift with Poland over his naming of a military unit after one that killed tens of thousands of Poles during the second world war.
Ukraine’s president had been expected to co-host the Ukraine Recovery Conference, which begins in the Polish coastal city of Gdańsk on Thursday, but the Ukrainian delegation will instead be led by the prime minister, Yulia Svyrydenko.
Continue reading...US president planned to revamp the now algae-stricken pool ahead of the holiday and America’s 250th birthday
Donald Trump has acknowledged that repairs to the algae-stricken reflecting pool in Washington DC may not be completed in time for the Fourth of July, when the president plans to convene a big celebration on the National Mall to ring in the country’s 250th birthday.
The body of water began filling with algae blooms and peeling paint after the Trump administration ordered a $14.2m renovation to turn it “American flag” blue, prompting the president to claim – without providing evidence – that vandals armed with a knife had damaged it.
Continue reading...Meta has launched its first smart glasses without Ray-Ban branding. Starting at $299, they're cheaper than the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 while retaining EssilorLuxottica as a design and manufacturing partner. The Verge reports: As far as style and specs, the Meta Glasses aren't that different from Ray-Bans. The internal specs are the same as the recently released Ray-Ban Meta Optics Styles, with slightly longer battery life. The Adventurer models have thinner rims, while the Fury models hew a bit closer to the Meta Ray-Ban Display with a bolder, chunkier frame. You could describe the Adventurer as square, and the Fury as even more square. The Kylie glasses sport a more unique design with a distinct Y2K flavor that I'm told is meant to be worn lower on your nose. [...] While playing around with the Meta Glasses, it was hard not to notice that the camera appears smaller than in previous Ray-Ban glasses. Technically, Himel tells me, that's not new to these Meta Glasses. It was actually introduced back in March with the prescription-optimized Optics Styles. [...] Meta is quadrupling down on AI. The new Meta Glasses will all launch with Muse Spark, the first model out of Meta's Superintelligence Labs. (It'll also be arriving on older Ray-Ban and Oakley glasses in the US and Canada via a software update.) Supposedly, that means more helpful glasses. At my hands-on, I was told that Meta AI would now be less stiff. I'd be able to talk to it more naturally and get smarter responses. The AI now supports 14 more languages, including Arabic, Japanese, Mandarin, Hindi, and Korean. Pedestrian turn-by-turn navigation is also coming to Meta's displayless glasses. Later this month, there'll be a new "dynamic photo" feature that automatically takes multiple frames and then recommends the best one.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Iran will be allowed into US 48 hours before crucial game
Team Melli have complained about travel conditions
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) says it will grant Iran extra time to prepare for their World Cup match against Egypt on Friday.
The team had planned to lodge an official complaint with Fifa about the “restrictions imposed by the organisers” at the World Cup. Iran have been training in Mexico and were only allowed to enter the United States 24 hours before their first two matches.
Continue reading...Prominent Florida real estate broker found not guilty by Miami jury of manslaughter and felony vessel homicide
The family of a teenager left with a permanent disability from a birthday party boat crash that killed another girl has reacted with dismay at the acquittal of the prominent Florida real estate broker helming the vessel.
George Pino was found not guilty by a Miami jury on Monday evening of manslaughter and felony vessel homicide after the 4 September 2022 boat wreck during a celebration that he and his wife, Cecilia, were hosting for their daughter’s 18th birthday, with 11 of her friends as guests.
Continue reading...I tested the best budget Samsung, Roku, Amazon, and Hisense TVs and found one clear winner.
Poetica Coffee in Brooklyn now faces DoJ investigation after sharing post criticizing Democrat Dan Goldman
Dan Goldman, a Democratic congressman from New York, has said it is “sad” that a Brooklyn coffee shop banned him over his views on Israel – a move that has put the cafe under investigation by the Trump administration’s justice department.
Goldman represents New York’s 10th congressional district and holds pro-Israel views. He made the “sad” remark to CNN after Brooklyn’s Poetica Coffee banned him in a viral, since-deleted social media post after a visit from him on Sunday.
Continue reading...National weather service, Météo-France, says Tuesday was the hottest day since measurements began in 1947
France has registered its hottest day on record as 40 people across the country were confirmed to have drowned while swimming in unsupervised areas over the last few days.
“There is a tragic scourge of drownings,” prime minister Sébastien Lecornu said on Tuesday. “The latest figures we’ve received are 40 deaths since 18 June. Most of the victims are young people.”
Continue reading...The ruling deals a setback to the "Make America Healthy Again" campaign, which seeks to curb purchases of foods officials say are unhealthy.
The market for HPC and AI for science solutions grew a healthy 17% in 2025, Hyperion Research said during a briefing at 2026 ISC today in Hamburg, Germany. While the growth figures don’t match the scorching 23.4% growth figure recorded in 2024, they still are respectable from a historical perspective.
“Prior to the AI boom, the market was growing around 7%, 8%, 9%,” said Hyperion Research CEO Earl Joseph. “So it’s basically growing at twice the rate that it used to grow at.”
Hyperion recorded 15% growth in sales of on-prem HPC and AI for science gear (including servers, storage, software, middleware, applications, and services), accounting for $58.2 billion in sales. The cloud grew substantially faster, at 29.7%, but it’s significantly smaller, accounting for just $12.4 billion in sales in 2025.
(Graph courtesy Hyperion Research)
Hewlett-Packard Enterprises is still the number one vendor for on-prem HPC systems, with $6.5 billion in sales, accounting for 22.1% of the market, according to Hyperion’s tally. But Dell Technologies is coming on strong, racking up $5.4 billion in sales last year for an 18.2% share. Lenovo is a distant third with $1.7 billion in sales, followed by Inspur and Sugon with $1.2 billion and $693 million, respectively.
Hyperion saw broad growth across different verticals, with HPC and AI for science spending by government labs dominating the field with $7.1 billion in spending, followed by university and academic institutions at $4.5 billion. Defense accounted for $3.2 billion in spending, while CAE (computer aided design) drove $3.1 billion in spending and bio-science drove $2.6 billion.
The growth caught Joseph’s eye. “Just a few years ago, I was commenting how we had two or three segments that were $1 billion in size,” he said during the breakfast briefing, which Hyperion traditionally holds on the first full day of the SC and ISC events. “Right now, most of the segments are greater than $1 billion.”
In terms of system size, larger supercomputers ($10 million and up) are growing quickly, representing 32% of overall HPC and AI for science spending, while the entry-level portion of the market (machines $250,000 or less) is shrinking. Joseph attributes this to the price of hardware, the growth in the size of each node, and the power consumption curve.
The share of traditional HPC servers is shrinking while AI-for-science servers is growing (Image courtesy Hyperion)
“Systems for less than $250,000 is shrinking quite a bit just because you can’t get that much equipment nowadays for that price tag,” Joseph said. “This is just showing the split out of the market. It’s amazing to me because 10 years ago, we were concerned that the supercomputing segment was getting too small, and now that’s starting to inch into me almost a third of the market.”
From Hyperion’s point of view, the lines between HPC and AI are getting blurry. Hyperion’s figures show the amount of money spent on traditional HPC and AI for science servers as being roughly equal, around $16 billion today, with traditional HPC systems having a slight lead. In the future, the growth curves for the two system types diverge, with AI for science servers growing faster and reaching $30 billion by 2030, while traditional HPC systems grow to about $23 billion by then.
“This is really getting hard [to] separate what kind of systems are doing traditional HPC workloads and what kind of systems are being purchased to do AI workloads,” Joseph said. “The AI for science workload…is growing much faster than the rest of the market. But the two of them combined are what’s causing the market to go into such an accelerated growth mode.”
Hyperion predicts the overall HPC and AI for science market (which includes servers, storage, services, software and cloud, etc.) to approach $140 billion in spending by 2030, up from about $70 billion in 2025. On-prem HPC and AI servers are projected to hit $54 billion in sales by 2030, while the broader on–prem HPC and AI market (including storage, services, software) is projected to pass $100 billion by then.
As the cost-per-node increases (left), the volume decreases (Images courtesy Hyperion Research)
In terms of cloud, AWS owns the biggest share of the market for cloud-based HPC and AI for science at 44.8%, according to Hyperion’s figures, followed by Google Cloud at 19.7% and Microsoft Azure at 18.7%. The cloud portion of the HPC and AI for science market is projected to grow from the $12.4 billion in 2025 to more than $30 billion by 2030, representing a compound annual growth rate of nearly 20%, according to Hyperion Analyst Mark Nossokoff.
“We’re seeing the increased overall spending in the cloud as a percentage of total spending,” Nossokoff said. “Some of that growth in the cloud may be somewhat muted…as some of the supply chain challenges for getting access to resources on-prem are driving more and more people into the cloud.”
The post Slicing and Dicing the HPC-AI Market with Hyperion Research appeared first on HPCwire.
"48 Hours" goes inside the painstaking investigation through the eyes of those who have spent more than three decades trying to find the 6-year-old boy and to bring closure to his heartbroken parents
There's a chance the Click-to-Cancel rule could come back, but that's not stopping the FTC in the meantime.
⚽ Look back at all the news from day 13 of the tournament
⚽ Player guide | Bracketology | Golden Boot | Mail Will
Our man in the camp David Hytner goes under the hood (nailed it) of England’s preparations for the Black Stars.
Thomas Tuchel shares his view on what Ghana will bring in Foxborough: “I expect more ball possession. I expect Ghana to rely on counterattacks because they are very physical, very fast and dangerous.”
Continue reading...That's one way to combat rising costs associated with RAMageddon.
US secretary of state and vice-president said to have discussed ceasefire monitoring body; Trump says Tehran has committed to ‘nuclear honesty’
Oman and Iran said in a statement that the two countries will form a team to reach an agreement on “administration of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz” and associated costs and services, Reuters reports.
The two states will hold talks with coastal countries and other concerned parties, the statement said.
Continue reading...Attack targeted former Chile ambassador Orlando Letelier and his US colleague Ronni Karpen Moffitt
Fifty years after Gen Augusto Pinochet’s secret police detonated a car bomb in the heart of Washington DC, killing Orlando Letelier, a former Chilean minister and ambassador to the US, and his American colleague Ronni Karpen Moffitt, a Santiago court has convicted three former agents of Moffitt’s murder.
Judge Paola Plaza, a special minister for human rights in Chile, sentenced Pedro Espinoza, José Zara, and Raúl Iturriaga to 15 years in prison for their roles in the killing of Moffitt, 25.
Continue reading...At ISC High Performance 2026: Generative AI and Recurrent Networks run on Q.ANT’s Second-Generation Photonic Processor
STUTTGART, Germany, June 23, 2026 — Q.ANT today demonstrated the first complex, production-relevant AI workloads on its photonic hardware. Q.ANT successfully demonstrated a diffusion model and a recurrent neural network on its second-generation Native Processing Unit (NPU) at ISC High Performance 2026 in Hamburg. This proves that Q.ANT’s photonic architecture supports the full breadth of modern AI capabilities in generative image synthesis and sequential time series prediction.
The ISC demonstrations build on ecosystem progress already underway. Earlier this year, independent developers at Daisytuner compiled and deployed an object detection model directly from PyTorch onto Q.ANT’s photonic processor. This marked the first time an AI model from a standard ML framework has been successfully compiled for photonic hardware.
These developments reveal that Q.ANT’s NPS has advanced beyond foundational algorithms to genuine commercial applications. Using Q.ANT hardware, these high-performance computing tasks target to operate with 30x the energy efficiency of classical processors in equivalent matrix operations at the photonic circuit level.
“Q.ANT’s photonic architecture changes the energy calculus for AI infrastructure.” says Q.ANT founder and CEO, Dr. Michael Förtsch. “When you perform computation with light instead of transistors, you reduce energy consumption at the source. And every serious conversation about the future of AI acknowledges that energy is the bottleneck the industry must break through. Our recent demonstrations of generative AI show that photonic hardware can carry the mathematical load of the most demanding modern AI workloads.”
Generative AI on Photonic Hardware
To illustrate its capabilities for generative AI, Q.ANT hardware ran a diffusion model to perform image-to-image synthesis – a class of generative AI workloads defined by iterative, parallelized matrix operations. This image-to-image application highlights the viability of photonics in one of the most computationally intensive neural network architectures in modern AI and marks the first time a diffusion model of this complexity has run on photonic hardware.
Diffusion models generate images through repeated forward passes of a deep neural network in dense matrix operations. By executing the primary computational layer using light instead of transistors, Q.ANT’s photonic processor moves beyond foundational algorithms into processing the linear arithmetic at the core of modern AI applications.
“Diffusion models are widely used and computationally demanding approaches in modern generative AI. They rely on repeated, large-scale operations to gradually produce a coherent output,” says Professor Dr. Björn Ommer, head of the Computer Vision & Learning Group at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) and the leading researcher behind the development of the stable diffusion model. “If photonic hardware could execute such workloads efficiently and reliably, it would be an exciting indication that alternative computing substrates may play an important role in the future of generative AI.”
Time Series Prediction with xLSTM
Proving the extensibility of its hardware in structurally distinct architectures, Q.ANT also executed the TiRex time series prediction model developed by NXAI, the Austrian frontier AI lab commercializing the Extended Long Short-Term Memory (xLSTM) architecture for enterprise applications.
“We’ve been pushing the balance of performance and power consumption with TiRex from the beginning. Seeing it run on Q.ANT’s photonic hardware is amazing and opens a new chapter,” says Lukas Fischer, Head of Applied Research at NXAI. “xLSTM architecture on photonic systems could redefine what energy-efficient AI even means.”
Unlike transformer-based models, xLSTM is a recurrent neural network designed to identify patterns across sequential data and predict future values over long-time horizons. NXAI’s commercial TiRex model, with production-tuned weights, targets financial market analysis, supply chain optimization, weather forecasting and traffic flow simulation.
Through the xLSTM and diffusion model demonstrations, Q.ANT now shows that its hardware can operate on the most demanding classes of modern AI. Running both shows that Q.ANT hardware is built for the breadth of AI use cases.
Building a Photonic Computing Ecosystem
The ISC demonstrations are the latest in a series of third-party integrations, commercial partnerships and institutional deployments for Q.ANT.
In May, Q.ANT announced the first commercial orders for its hardware through a partnership with the German cloud services provider, IONOS. And in April, Q.ANT partner Daisytuner, revealed the development of a compiler using standard AI toolchains for a live object detection application. Leading institutions like the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre Munich and Jülich Supercomputing Centre, two of Europe’s breakthrough HPC facilities, are running Q.ANT hardware in live production.
This ecosystem forming around Q.ANT’s platform reflects the institutional confidence in photonic computing as the infrastructure for next generation compute.
About Q.ANT
Q.ANT is commercializing photonic accelerators for AI and high-performance computing, offering a scalable alternative to transistor-based systems. Its Native Processing Units (NPUs) use photonic integrated circuits based on a lithium niobate material platform to perform mathematical operations directly on the chip using optical signals, enabling energy-efficient co-processing for complex computational tasks. Q.ANT operates its own TFLN chip pilot line in collaboration with IMS CHIPS. Q.ANT was founded in 2018, and is headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany.
Source: Q.ANT
The post Q.ANT Runs Generative AI on Photonic Hardware appeared first on HPCwire.
ESPOO, Finland and MUNICH, June 23, 2026 — IQM Quantum Computers today announced a significant achievement in quantum error correction, using directional tile codes, marking a major step toward practical, large-scale fault-tolerant quantum computing.
Credit: IQM
The research, available on arXiv, and co-authored by IQM researchers and collaborators at Freie Universität Berlin, the University of Edinburgh, and Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, introduces ‘directional tile codes’, a new family of quantum error-correcting codes that resolves one of the central tensions in quantum computing.
As IQM prepares for its planned Nasdaq listing through a merger with Real Asset Acquisition Corp. (Nasdaq: RAAQ), this research advances a core pillar of its technology roadmap targeting, fault-tolerant quantum computing by 2030 and a path to scaling up to one million qubits.
The results show that, using only the nearest-neighbour iSWAP gates already native to IQM’s Crystal processors, directional tile codes can reduce the per-logical per-round error rate by up to 1,000 times compared to the widely used surface code at a comparable hardware footprint of around 30 physical qubits per logical qubit.
“Quantum error-correction codes should not only be highly efficient; they should also be implementable on scalable and manufacturable hardware architectures. A close co-design of quantum error correction and hardware is a central element of IQM’s strategy. Directional tile codes represent a breakthrough in this direction, delivering up to a 1,000-fold reduction in logical error rates on near-term-sized IQM Crystal hardware while relying only on practical nearest-neighbour connectivity. This is a significant step toward scalable fault-tolerant quantum computing,” said Dr. Inés de Vega, Chief Scientist of IQM Quantum Computers.
“At IQM, we have always believed that building production-grade quantum systems and advancing the underlying science are two sides of the same mission. Close collaboration with leading academic groups is central to that approach, and this result demonstrates what such partnerships can achieve.”
Directional tile codes represent a concrete and measurable step along the path to fault tolerance, demonstrating that the efficiency advantages of Quantum Low-Density Parity Check (QLDPC) codes can be achieved on the planar hardware architecture IQM builds today.
“We have been working on tile codes since 2025, as they are promising candidates due to their local checks, great parameters, and the many ways that exist to perform logical computation with them without adding connectivity requirements. The key innovation of directional tile codes is that we are using dynamic syndrome extraction circuits to implement them on a square grid,” said Dr. Vincent Steffan, Senior Quantum Error-Correction Engineer at IQM Quantum Computers.
The ability to achieve these improvements on square qubit grid makes directional tile codes directly relevant to IQM’s near-term QEC capabilities, while also creating a baseline for further improvements through the continued co-design of error-correcting codes and hardware architectures.
Quantum error correction is widely regarded as a key requirement for achieving quantum advantage on large-scale, practically relevant problems, and it sits at the core of IQM’s technology roadmap. Quantum systems are inherently sensitive to noise and errors, which must be detected and corrected repeatedly throughout a computation to enable reliable and increasingly complex quantum workloads.
To date, IQM has sold 23 quantum systems globally, more than any other quantum manufacturer to customers spanning research institutions, high-performance computing centres, and enterprises.
About IQM Quantum Computers
IQM Quantum Computers is a global leader in superconducting quantum computers, delivering full-stack quantum computers and cloud platform access to research institutions, universities, high-performance computing centers, national laboratories and enterprises worldwide. IQM’s on-premises deployment model gives customers direct ownership and control of their quantum infrastructure. Founded in 2018, headquartered in Finland with major operations in Munich, it has over 400 employees. IQM operates across Europe, Asia, and North America. IQM filed an F-4 registration statement with the SEC, which has since been declared effective, with the intention to become the first publicly listed European quantum company on Nasdaq Global Exchange in the U.S by merging with Real Asset Acquisition Corp. (Nasdaq: RAAQ).
Source: IQM
The post IQM Says New Error-Correction Codes Outperform Surface Code by 1,000x appeared first on HPCwire.
Losses spread globally as investors questioned soaring valuations and spending on AI infrastructure
A tech sell-off shook global markets on Tuesday as attention turned away from developments in the US war with Iran and toward the future of AI companies and chipmakers that have driven stock markets to record highs.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq index closed 2.2% lower on Tuesday. The S&P 500 was also down by Tuesday afternoon, dropping 1.43% while the Dow remained steady.
Continue reading...AI company ElevenLabs unveils its officially licensed replica of the iconic actor’s voice in a retelling of Homer’s epic poem, while director who previously recorded the star recalls real-life experience
Next month, Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster version of The Odyssey is set to storm cinemas around the globe. Auguries suggest the almost three-hour drama will repeat the success of Nolan’s previous film both at the box office (Oppenheimer took nearly a billion dollars) and the Academy Awards (it won seven Oscars).
But before that, a new audiobook version of Homer’s tale has been released starring one of Nolan’s most frequent collaborators: Michael Caine, with whom he has worked on eight films, including the Dark Knight trilogy.
Continue reading...Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, the reporters behind Regime Change, were up against an administration that is ‘very good at keeping secrets’
They cracked the White House Situation Room, unearthing secrets from the heart of a secretive administration. But the reporters behind Regime Change, a blockbuster new book on Donald Trump’s second term, ran up against a wall when reporting on one issue surrounding the 80-year-old US president: his fitness for office.
“His health has always been a very specific lockbox for him, going back decades,” Maggie Haberman, co-author with Jonathan Swan, said in an interview. “Illness freaks him out; he perceives illness as weakness, usually, and he certainly perceives any sense that he is having an issue as a projection of weakness, and his advisers are very, very attuned to that.
Continue reading...Across the West’s advanced democracies, conventional political parties are being gutted by stagnant wages and fraying social contracts that have left voters fed up with the status quo.
I installed the XRV a while back and have been loving it. Have the stock XR battery from when I bought my XR like 6 years ago…using the FM stock charger. It gets SUPER hot while charging. Anyone else have this issue? Should I look into alternative chargers? Thanks!
Putin’s Asia diplomacy may help Russia avoid isolation. But it won’t deliver his goals in Ukraine Expert comment thilton.drupal
Moscow’s recent engagement with ASEAN and Beijing shows it is not as isolated as Western countries had hoped. But it will not end the war in Ukraine in Russia’s favour.
As G7 leaders restated their united support for Ukraine and vowed to increase economic pressure on Russia, President Vladimir Putin was hosting leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) at the ASEAN-Russia Commemorative Summit in Kazan. There, Putin could point to a very different diplomatic reality: none of the leaders present had severed ties with Russia or joined the West in treating it as an international pariah.
This symbolic contrast is important. More than four years after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has not been isolated in the way many Western governments expected or hoped. Large parts of Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America have continued to engage with Moscow.
This is often out of strategic interest rather than sympathy: Russia remains a nuclear power, a permanent member of the United Nations (UN) Security Council, a major energy exporter and a useful partner for states that do not want the West to define their strategic choices.
But the more important issue is whether Putin’s renewed diplomatic visibility represents a real comeback – or rather an attempt to compensate for Russia’s lack of progress in gaining international support for its position on Ukraine.
The Kremlin’s challenge is not that Russia has no partners. Putin’s visit to Beijing last month and the Kazan summit, which concluded on a commitment to deepen ASEAN-Russia cooperation, gave Putin political platforms and opportunities to bolster his status. But these partnerships cannot deliver Putin’s priority goal: a political settlement on Ukraine on Russia’s terms.
Putin’s failure to respond meaningfully to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s open letter and invitation to meet is revealing. The Kremlin still appears to believe its ‘strategy’ of endurance will deliver its war aims: hold the line, grind forward where possible, wait out political cycles in the West, and reserve the option of diplomacy for only once the terms have shifted decisively in Russia’s favour.
There is a brutal logic to this. Russia has shown that it can sustain a long war. Western support for Ukraine remains politically fragile and the US is increasingly unpredictable. European military production is improving, but not yet at the scale required to transform the war quickly.
However, Russia’s endurance has not produced a diplomatic breakthrough. It has so far failed at forcing Ukraine to accept its territorial claims. It has not split the G7 either. And it has not persuaded China, India or ASEAN states to endorse its preferred endgame. The result is that while Russia looks less isolated globally, it has not been able to persuade others to support its position on Ukraine, its most important – if not existential – issue.
This is why the recent European debate over opening communication channels with the Kremlin matters. These discussions do not amount to reconciliation. Instead, they show that Europeans are preparing for the diplomatic phase of a long war – even if they disagree between themselves over who should conduct this diplomacy and on what basis.
For Moscow, such debate can usefully be presented domestically and internationally as evidence that Europe is slowly realizing it can’t isolate Russia forever. But, in reality, Europe is not preparing to go back to business as usual. It is trying to avoid being excluded from any eventual negotiation while simultaneously rearming, hardening its eastern flank and reducing long-term dependence on Russia.
Putin’s visit to Beijing in May confirmed China’s central importance to Russia’s wartime resilience. China has become Russia’s indispensable economic partner: a buyer of Russian oil and gas, a supplier of industrial goods and a channel through which Moscow can blunt the impact of Western sanctions.
But the Russia–China relationship is not a coalition for victory in Ukraine. Beijing has every interest in Russia distracting the US, weakening Western unity and accelerating the transition towards a more fragmented international order. It has far less interest in being dragged into Russia’s war or absorbing the costs of a direct confrontation with the West over Ukraine.
This distinction is crucial. China helps Russia to endure. But it does not help Russia win diplomatically.
In fact, the war has made Russia more dependent on China at precisely the moment when Moscow wants to present itself as an independent pole in a multipolar world. The Kremlin can speak of strategic partnership, but the asymmetry is obvious. Russia needs China economically. China values Russia as a useful partner, but not as an equal strategic centre.
This limits what Putin’s Beijing diplomacy can achieve. It demonstrates that Russia cannot be excluded from Eurasian politics. It does not demonstrate that Moscow can shape the terms of peace in Europe.
The ASEAN summit offered a broader test of Russia’s influence in Asia. It shows neither a Russian collapse nor a comeback.
For countries seeking to avoid binary choices between Washington and Beijing, maintaining relations with Russia still has value. Russia has long-standing defence ties with several Asian states, important energy roles, and diplomatic weight at the UN. Some governments may also value Moscow as a partner that does not attach liberal political conditions to cooperation.
But the quality of Russia’s influence has changed. Before 2022, Moscow could claim to be an autonomous great power in Asia: a third pole alternative to the US and China with military, diplomatic, cultural, political and technological influence.
The war has weakened that claim. Russia’s defence industry is consumed by Ukraine. Sanctions complicate payments, logistics and technology transfers. Its diplomatic bandwidth is heavily absorbed by the war.
Most importantly, its growing dependence on China makes it harder for Asian states to see Moscow as a true counterweight to Beijing. This is especially important in Southeast Asia. ASEAN states do not want to choose between the US and China.
But nor are they looking to join a Russian camp. They will trade with Moscow, buy from Moscow where useful, and engage Moscow when it serves their interests. This engagement shows Russia is not isolated, but it does not reflect Russian leadership.
Putin’s Asian diplomacy should be taken seriously, but it has its limits.
The West’s failure to isolate Russia globally is a real achievement for Moscow. But while Russia’s partners may reject the Western pressure to isolate Moscow, most of them have not endorsed Russia’s war aims. They are preserving options, not joining a project. They are engaging Russia because it is useful, not because they want Russia to define the future of European security.
U.S. lobbyists and pundits with President Donald Trump’s ear are aiding Latin America’s swing to the right.
While tech companies and Trump have been pushing teachers to use AI in the classroom, many argue that there is little evidence that it would actually help children
In October, Kelly Clancy’s son received an assignment in sixth grade at a middle school in Brooklyn, New York, to create a science experiment and then ask Google Gemini, an artificial intelligence chatbot, for feedback, she said.
Clancy, who has three children in New York City public schools, told the teacher that the bot “is something that just teaches kids that they can have machines do the thinking for them”, instead of suggesting: “Let’s talk to your partners. What about the science experiment could you improve?”
Continue reading...  | Looking for some info on this 3 pin coming out the top of the bms. The datasheet really does not outline it. I see some photos with or without it, its a v2. I was thinking it was a rear light power port, but its a semi smart bms and has no way of communicating with the controller (could need the data pin from the controller patched in, but that seems goofy). From what i understand there is no can since its a ssbms and the reason stocked bms's are priced the way they are is due too it being removed to make them bare basic. Works fine without it connected to anything. Thanks for the help. [link] [comments] |
Study warns AI datacenters are vulnerable to the climate hazards that their global greenhouse gas emissions bolster
Amid rising concern that the artificial intelligence boom is fueling the climate crisis, a new report has found that nearly 80% of datacenters are also exposed to extreme climate hazards, including flooding, extreme winds and wildfires.
Those impacts are leaving the infrastructure vulnerable to disrupted operations, increased time offline, and inflated insurance and repair costs, the research from climate risk analytics firm First Street shows.
Continue reading...
Why Should Delaware Care?
Following a shooting at Wilmington Hospital that left one man dead and another injured last week, state prosecutors have charged a suspect with multiple felony crimes. As investigators put together the pieces of the incident, and the Wilmington community reels, questions remain surrounding the nature of the shooting and ChristianaCare’s protocols to respond to it.
State prosecutors indicted John Wallace-Bey on multiple felony charges Monday, following the shooting last week that killed one of his fellow ChristianaCare Wilmington Hospital interns and injured another.
Wallace-Bey, 23, was charged with the murder of 19-year-old Ethan Hillman and the attempted murder of 19-year-old Jayden Ellis, Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings announced at a Monday press conference.
Ellis was in the hospital in critical condition after the incident, but he is now “doing better,” Jennings said.
The shooting is still believed to have been a targeted, isolated incident, she added. Wallace-Bey is believed to have acted “entirely alone.”
Along with the first-degree murder and attempted murder charges, Walace-Bey also was charged with one count of carrying a concealed deadly weapon and three counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, Jennings said.
As Delaware’s largest city and its largest healthcare system grapple with last week’s tragedy, the investigation into exactly how and why Wallace-Bey allegedly carried out the shooting remains ongoing.
Incoming ChristianaCare CEO Jenn Schwartz also spoke at Monday’s press conference, expressing gratitude to the hospital’s medical staff who helped Ellis, the caregivers who sheltered in place with patients during the lockdown and the employees who have continued to show up to work since the shooting.
“I know many of us, including myself, are still trying to get a sense of how such an unthinkable act of violence could happen in a place where people come to heal and to be taken care of,” Schwartz said.
Wallace-Bey, Ellis and Hillman worked together at ChristianaCare through an information technology (IT) internship program, Schwartz said.
The three men had been working on a project together inside an administrative office at ChristianaCare’s Wilmington campus, located alongside the city’s Washington Street Bridge, on the morning of Tuesday, June 16, Schwartz said at Monday’s press conference.
A ChristianaCare internal investigation revealed that Wallace-Bey had a “verbal disagreement” with Ellis and Hillman that morning, Schwartz said. Following the disagreement, Wallace-Bey told a more senior IT employee that he wanted to go home, and he was given permission to leave work.
Schwartz stressed that Walace-Bey’s decision to leave work was not a form of disciplinary action.
“He was not sent home, not fired, or disciplined in any way,” she said. “Mr. Wallace-Bey was expected to return the next day for work.”
Instead, Wallace-Bey reportedly returned to Wilmington Hospital around 3 p.m., entering the building through an employee entrance using his access badge. From there, Jennings said, he confronted Ellis and Hillman in the basement of the hospital, shooting each of them once.
It is not known how Wallace-Bey acquired the .38-caliber handgun, Jennings said. But the prosecutors’ investigation has not found any criminal record or status that would have prohibited him from owning the gun.
The gun has still not been located, she added.
Schwartz, the incoming ChristianaCare CEO, said Wilmington Hospital did not have any metal detector or weapon screening protocol at the employee entrances to the campus. There are metal detectors at all visitor entrances, however.
Hospital leaders have implemented a weapon screening procedure for employees at Wilmington Hospital since the shooting, and are “closely and quickly reviewing” the security protocols at all ChristianaCare facilities, she said.
Schwartz added that no ChristianaCare employee had expressed concerns that Wallace-Bey posed a “safety threat” to himself or others. He had undergone the pre-employment screenings required of all ChristianaCare employees.
Wallace-Bey, Ellis and Hillman had all worked at ChristianaCare since February as part of a six-month, non-clinical IT internship.
The program, a partnership with the Delaware-based code training program Code Differently, primarily housed the interns at ChristianaCare’s Newark campus, but the three men all happened to be working in Wilmington on the day of the shooting, Schwartz said.
Wilmington Hospital is a more than 600,000-square-foot facility with 321 beds. ChristianaCare’s Newark campus, also referred to as Christiana Hospital, is substantially larger with more than 1,200 beds.
Following a dramatic, multi-hour lockdown of Wilmington Hospital on the afternoon of the shooting, during which local, state and federal law enforcement agencies descended upon the campus, the Wilmington Police Department reported that Wallace-Bey had been arrested in Philadelphia.
Jennings said on Monday that Wallace-Bey was apprehended while “trying to catch an Uber” in North Philadelphia.
Immediately after the shooting, she said, he fled through the hospital’s main entrance and traveled to the Wilmington Amtrak station, where he got on a SEPTA train to Philadelphia.
It is a roughly 1.3-mile trek through downtown Wilmington from the hospital to the train station.
Jennings declined to say how Wallace-Bey was identified while on the train, but credited both federal law enforcement and the Philadelphia Police Department for helping to locate him after the shooting.
She did not address rumors that Wallace-Bey was identified through a car license plate scanner in Philadelphia, instead saying prosecutors inside the Wilmington Police Station used “various methods” to track him down.
Wallace-Bey currently remains in a Philadelphia jail. He was denied bail by the Municipal Court of Philadelphia County on June 17, and he will have an extradition hearing to be brought back to Delaware on June 29.
ChristianaCare has faced criticism in the days since the shooting for its lack of employee entrance metal detectors and its system for notifying hospital employees of the emergency.
While Schwartz said the hospital system has since implemented weapons screening measures for employees at Wilmington Hospital, she did not say specifically what security updates the healthcare giant is considering implementing in the long-term.
“We are closely and quickly reviewing what we need to do at other locations,” she said.
Some employees and community members have questioned the notification systems that ChristianaCare employed to alert Wilmington Hospital staff of the active shooter on June 16.
Schwartz said the hospital has “a number of ways” to notify employees in a situation like this, including an overhead announcement, an emergency notification system through their internal internet servers as well as emails and text messages.
She did not specify how the hospital alerted employees of the shooter last week.
“As things unfolded, people became aware of the situation,” she said.
Schwartz said ChristianaCare has some ideas about “opportunities for improvement” for its emergency notification system, but she declined to say what they are.
Schwartz and Jennings both highlighted the bravery of ChristianaCare staff and the law enforcement officers who responded to the scene.
They said they are working to provide support services to Ellis, the surviving victim, his family, and witnesses at the hospital.
“Everyone in that hospital who was traumatized by this event is in our eyes a victim of gun violence,” Jennings said.
Maggie Reynolds is a Report for America corps member and Spotlight Delaware reporter who covers rural communities in Delaware. Your donation to match our Report for America grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://spotlightdelaware.org/support/.
The post Officials detail how Wilmington hospital shooting occurred as suspect indicted appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.
Why Should Delaware Care?
In recent years, Delawareans have questioned whether some schools with declining enrollments should close. Earlier this month, Delaware House Speaker Melissa Minor-Brown introduced a proposal that would help define what an under-enrolled school looks like, and how the space could be repurposed.
More than a dozen Delaware public schools, mostly in New Castle County, are operating at less than 60% capacity, according to data from the Delaware Department of Education.
Five of those are more than half empty.
The phenomenon of half-empty school buildings has prompted Delaware’s House Speaker Mimi Minor Brown (D-New Castle) to question whether they — or other underutilized government facilities — could be repurposed into different types of community facilities.
Last week, Minor-Brown introduced a resolution that asks budget officials to develop a framework, along with school districts, that would define an “underutilized” property. They would then outline a process for repurposing it for other community services, such as child care or senior housing.
In a social media post earlier this month, Minor-Brown said her resolution would not close any school or take power from local school board members. Instead, she said it starts a “coordinated planning conversation.”
The resolution, which awaits consideration in the Senate after passing the House, comes as enrollment in several schools in New Castle County has dwindled even it has surged in some southern Delaware districts.
The phenomenon has been fueled by several factors, including an expansion of charter schools in New Castle County and changes to bus patterns that allow students to attend schools outside of their community.
Among the hardest hit schools are Alexis I. duPont High School in the Red Clay Consolidated School District, which is 53% occupied, and the Colonial School District’s Castle Hills Elementary School, which is 48% occupied.
Minor-Brown’s resolution also comes as Delaware officials work to reform how the state funds individual schools — moving its funding formula away from one primarily reflects enrollment sizes.
While Minor-Brown calls on officials to use enrollment data as a factor in determining underused properties, some school officials say occupancy rates may not actually reflect how much a school is actually being used.
Colonial School District Superintendent Jeff Menzer said capacity numbers are not “cut and dry,” because some students need more space than others depending on their individual needs.
One classroom could be designed for 25 students, with one teacher and one paraprofessional. But if five students within the class are struggling with reading, there may be a need for more space to provide tutoring, Menzer said.
As a result, Menzer said some schools that have lower recorded enrollments than others are still overcrowded because of some students’ needs for more inclusive settings.
“You can’t necessarily trust that [capacity] number 100%,” he said.
While Minor-Brown’s proposal also does not define what would qualify as underutilized, one school administrator said officials should take note when certain high schools enroll less than 800 students.
In an email, Red Clay Director of Secondary Education Mark Pruitt said officials should hold early conversations when a high school that offers academic and career technical programs has an enrollment below 800 students.
Those early conversations should involve what Pruitt called “sustainable programming,” and the staffing needed to support that programming.
Minor-Brown’s resolution follows years of questions surrounding what could happen to schools with lower capacities. It also follows a multi-year study into the best way to oversee schools in Wilmington, Delaware’s largest city.
Last year, a state committee tasked with reworking school district boundaries recommended consolidating the four school districts serving Wilmington. That recommendation left some questioning whether it would result in the closure of high schools in the Wilmington area.
Redding Consortium co-chair State Sen. Elizabeth “Tizzy” Lockman (D-Wilmington) previously told Spotlight Delaware that low school enrollment is something that “can and will be taken in consideration as part of the planning.”
Questions about how to use school buildings have also surfaced in the Red Clay Consolidated School District, where Alexis I. duPont High School has experienced a steep enrollment decline over the past 14 years and is now the state’s smallest traditional high school by enrollment.
Community members have pointed to several possible reasons for the decline, including changes to school-choice transportation, limits on choice admissions and growing competition from charter and private schools.
In response, district leaders have explored ways to increase enrollment at the school.
Earlier this spring, the district’s school board attempted to transform McKean High School into an “innovation campus.”
If passed, the measure to create McKean innovation center would have opened in August 2027, reducing the number of traditional high schools in the district from three to two, and increasing enrollment numbers at A.I. duPont High School and at The John Dickinson School.
The plan would also have moved the district’s Meadowood program for students with intellectual or developmental disabilities from McKean to A.I. duPont.
But the plan drew months of opposition from parents who said the Meadowood program had become overlooked in discussions about enrollment and school planning.
Parents with students in the program said Meadowood helps their children work on social skills, such as conversation starters, and learn how to do tasks like washing dishes.
Following the public backlash, the Red Clay school board voted in April to postpone the proposal.
The post What should Delaware do with half-empty schools? appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.
Besides Amazon, plenty of other retailers are also lowering prices on great products our shopping experts can vouch for
The best Prime Day deals on things our editors actually tested and love
Sign up for the Filter US newsletter, your weekly guide to buying fewer, better things
Every summer, Amazon entices sweaty consumers with steep discounts on everything from slushie machines to tower fans in a tradition appropriately known as Prime Day. But you don’t need to sit out the savings if you don’t have a Prime membership (or just prefer not to shop at Amazon).
To compete with Prime Day, many of Amazon’s biggest competitors now dial their own prices to the lowest of the year during the same week. From Walmart to boutique brands including Cozy Earth and Caraway, everyone wants to lure you away from the Jeff Bezos-founded mega-retailer. And they’re willing to offer impressive discounts to do it.
Best kitchen deal:
Anyday Glass Round Dish Set and Cookbook Bundle
Best home deal:
Cozy Earth Waffle Bath Towels
Panic is misguided—and counterproductive.
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As he has done for years, President Donald Trump claims – without evidence – that the federal Right to Try law he signed in 2018 has “saved thousands of lives.” But the White House provided no support for Trump’s claim about the law, which provides an alternative route for seriously ill patients to access unapproved drugs outside of clinical trials.
Researchers who have long studied access to investigational drugs say the president is greatly exaggerating.
“It’s not that nobody is using Right to Try. There have been a handful of reported cases,” Holly Fernandez Lynch, associate professor of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, told us in an interview. “But certainly it has not been thousands of patients … who’ve received drug therapy, let alone had their lives saved by these products.”
Alison Bateman-House, co-chair of NYU Grossman School of Medicine’s Working Group on Compassionate Use & Preapproval Access, said in an interview that Trump’s claim about the law saving thousands of lives is a “gross misestimate.”
Dr. Jeffrey A. Singer, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute who said he supported passage of the 2018 federal law, now says that it “fail[ed].” In a May opinion piece for Reason magazine, Singer argues for changes to the Right to Try law, writing that the promise of a right to try potential life-saving drugs “often exists more on paper than in practice.”
Reason, May 12: The sales pitch was sweeping. When President Donald Trump signed Right to Try in 2018, surrounded by patients, he promised a “fundamental freedom” that would give dying patients hope.
Eight years later, the record is far thinner than the rhetoric. The [Food and Drug Administration] reports only a handful of uses each year—12 drugs from 2018 to 2022, and just a few more annually since. It wasn’t a new pathway so much as a permission slip that rarely translates into access.
The FDA is required to publicly report the number of investigational drugs used under the Right to Try law – but not how many patients have been treated. FDA annual summaries show that 21 investigational drugs have been used from May 30, 2018, through Dec. 31, 2024.
The FDA did not respond to our request for the number of patients treated under the federal law.
We asked the White House for the number of patients treated under the Right to Try law and evidence that thousands of lives were saved. But it provided no support for Trump’s claim — which he repeated throughout the 2024 presidential campaign, including in his acceptance speech at the 2024 Republican convention. Most recently, the president said in April that Right to Try has “saved thousands and thousands of lives,” and he said it again in May, when he claimed the law has “saved thousands of lives,” but “nobody talks about it.”
“President Trump is right: Right to Try was a historic victory from his first term, which has allowed many Americans to access treatments that would have otherwise been blocked by the regulatory approval process,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in an email.
The Goldwater Institute, which takes credit for helping to enact 41 state Right to Try laws prior to passage of the federal law, provides some examples on its website of patients using Right to Try laws on the state and federal level. But the institute – which claims the “Right to Try law has a proven track record” – doesn’t know how many patients have received investigational drugs through the federal law.
“[U]nfortunately the Goldwater Institute is not able to track utilization of Right to Try given patient privacy laws,” Goldwater Institute spokesperson Ryan Mills told us in an email.
The federal Right to Try law was controversial from inception because it removes the FDA from the oversight and approval process for the use of unapproved drugs outside of clinical trials. Under Right to Try, unapproved drugs can be used without FDA approval to treat patients diagnosed with a “terminal illness,” which is defined as a “life-threatening disease or condition,” who have exhausted approved options and are unable to participate in a clinical trial.
Critics say Right to Try is unnecessary – and potentially dangerous – because the FDA has long had an expanded access program that allows patients to use unapproved drugs outside of clinical trials.
In 2016, when a Senate committee was considering Right to Try legislation, then-FDA official Peter Lurie credited the expanded access program for making unapproved drugs available quickly to thousands of seriously ill patients, while protecting “desperate patients” from “unnecessary risks” and exploitation by “unscrupulous individuals.”
“FDA has authorized more than 99 percent (7110/7176) of single patient expanded access Investigational New Drug (IND) requests received in Fiscal Years 2010-2015. Emergency requests are usually granted immediately over the phone and non-emergencies are processed in a median of four days,” Lurie, who was associate FDA commissioner for Public Health Strategy and Analysis, said in written testimony.
Since then, the number of requests has increased and approval rates have remained largely unchanged.
For fiscal years 2019 through 2023, the FDA approved 99% (17,806/17,964) of single-patient expanded access IND requests, the most recent FDA data show. Several experts on FDA law and policy told us that these figures suggest that Right to Try hasn’t had much of an impact.
“If you look at the information FDA publishes about expanded access requests, you see that FDA authorizes the overwhelming majority of them. You know, many years, 99%,” Patricia Zettler, a law professor at Ohio State University who teaches public health and FDA law courses, told us in an interview. “Given that, there’s … no logical reason to think Right to Try would change the landscape dramatically.” (Zettler served as deputy general counsel at the Department of Health and Human Services, covering the FDA, during the Biden administration.)
Under both pathways – Right to Try and the expanded access program – companies developing new drugs are not required to make them available to patients. As a result, pharmaceutical companies — not the FDA — remain “the larger obstacle” to giving patients access to unapproved drugs, Lurie told us in an interview.
“Companies are more likely to say no than the FDA, by far,” Lurie said. “The claim that FDA is the obstacle is not true.”
Bateman-House told us that “large biopharmaceutical companies are not using Right to Try … because if you’re trying to bring a product to market through the FDA, you don’t really have any incentive to avoid the FDA when you’re handing out your unapproved product.”
One incentive for biopharmaceutical companies to seek FDA oversight, she said, is that the agency can draw upon confidential proprietary information it has from clinical trials and other expanded access treatments to require companies to change proposed treatment plans prior to approving expanded access requests. That protects patient safety and benefits the development of the investigational drug, Bateman-House said.
Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, for example, have said that they support FDA oversight when providing investigational drugs outside of clinical trials.
In 2015, Johnson & Johnson created a bioethics panel headed by Arthur Caplan, co-chair of NYU Grossman School of Medicine’s Working Group on Compassionate Use & Preapproval Access, to develop a policy on the use of investigational drugs. In its policy statement, Johnson & Johnson said FDA oversight is required “to assure full consideration of available safety data of which the FDA may be uniquely aware.”
In an article last year for the American Health Law Association, Barbara Bierer, a professor at Harvard Medical School, and her co-authors wrote that physicians are also reluctant to use Right to Try, in part because of “the abrogation of regulatory and ethical oversight.”
The article, which said “data on the prevalence of RTT are scant,” cited a survey of community oncologists that found 46% of 238 respondents attempted to use the expanded access program, while only 14% of the respondents attempted to use Right to Try. The paper also cited the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s opposition to Right to Try.
American Health Law Association, Jan. 24, 2025: Current data on the prevalence of RTT are scant, but the data that are available suggest that oncologists are considerably more likely to request access to an unapproved drug via EAP than they are via RTT. Given that the major difference between EAP and RTT is FDA oversight, a threshold question is whether FDA acts to deter or delay the approval of EAP requests. Evidence suggests that as many as 99% of all EAP requests are approved by FDA often within the first few days.
Despite its social media presence and visibility, demand for access via RTT has yet to materialize. Some experts have explicitly advised physicians to “steer patients away from RTT and toward [EAP]” while others claim they would never encourage a patient to avail themselves of RTT. The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) released a public statement condemning RTT, stating “ASCO supports access to investigational drugs outside of clinical trials when adequate patient protections are in place . . . We don’t support right to try legislation, however, because these laws ignore key patient protections without actually improving patient access to investigational drugs outside of clinical trials.”
One thing that critics and supporters of the Right to Try can agree on is that the push for such laws on the state and federal level has raised awareness of the FDA’s expanded access program.
“The most charitable thing I can say is, I think the Right to Try law probably increased awareness of the idea that it is possible to use unapproved drugs outside of clinical trials,” Bateman-House told us. “Maybe some number of people were able to experience a positive health benefit via that. But it wasn’t because of Right to Try. It was because they were asking for something that they had had access to all along. They just didn’t realize they had access.”
Singer, the Cato senior fellow, independently raised the same point in a separate interview with us.
Singer — who was a visiting fellow at the Goldwater Institute from 2017 to 2026 — told us that he still supports the “concept” of Right to Try, even though he believes “there haven’t been many instances of Right to Try” being used to make unapproved drugs available to seriously ill patients.
He added that he did not want to minimize the indirect benefits of the law. Singer said Right to Try had “an impact on the FDA” by raising public awareness of the expanded access program and forcing the agency to simplify its expanded access application process.
Singer sent us a link to the same survey of oncologists cited by the American Health Law Association. That paper said “awareness of the EA program was high among the community oncologists we surveyed.” It also said the “revised, simplified” expanded access application now takes only 45 minutes to fill out.
As we mentioned, there has been an increase in expanded access requests and approvals, so there is data to support the theory that the Right to Try law has had an indirect benefit. But there is no evidence to support the president’s claim that the law has “saved thousands of lives.”
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The post No Evidence for Trump’s Right to Try Claim appeared first on FactCheck.org.
After the Trump administration upended the world’s largest foreign aid provider last year, terminating thousands of programs and firing nearly all of its staff, its plan for the agency was clear: Eliminate it entirely.
But because it is a congressionally created agency, President Donald Trump needed lawmakers’ permission to do so. So this year, Trump officials asked Congress for permission to shutter the U.S. Agency for International Development and dramatically reduce federal spending on food, medicine and lifesaving work around the world.
Congress said no. Lawmakers, who hold the government’s purse strings and have oversight of federal agencies, wanted USAID to remain, even in its diminished form. They detailed precisely how much the State Department should spend on foreign aid and for what, including $9.4 billion on global health to treat and prevent maladies like HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, and more than $5 billion on emergency humanitarian aid. They also insisted on regular, detailed reports about how the administration was spending the money.
Trump signed the bill, enshrining their orders into law.
Now, eight months into the fiscal year, Trump officials are failing to follow many of those orders, ProPublica has found. Officials have delayed spending on global health, have not issued funds for some projects and have labeled money destined for humanitarian aid as “unallocated” to control how it can be spent, according to a ProPublica review of government records and interviews with legal experts, current and former government employees, and members of Congress. And when lawmakers have asked about their actions, officials often have not responded.
We’re still reporting. If you know more about the Trump administration and foreign aid spending, please contact our reporting team.
Anna Maria Barry-Jester
I welcome tips from people with knowledge of public health at the local, state, federal and international level, including scientists, government officials and advocates, and anyone who knows about issues that affect the public’s health.
The White House and Congress have been battling over federal spending since Day 1 of the Trump administration, setting up a constitutional crisis — a breakdown of the division of power among the three branches of the federal government, according to several legal scholars.
Nowhere has that crisis been more visible than with foreign aid. Last year, the administration took the unprecedented step of gutting USAID, terminating thousands of aid programs and letting funding expire, all without permission from Congress. Lawmakers did little to stop it.
Now, in defying Congress on foreign aid that Trump himself agreed to spend, the administration is quietly escalating the battle.
“It is a huge grab of power from the president, taking powers away from Congress,” said David Super, a professor of law and economics at Georgetown University and a leading scholar on administrative and constitutional law.
USAID was created by Congress decades ago as a means of promoting American diplomacy and soft power around the world. As ProPublica previously reported, when Trump officials dismantled the agency last year, stopping payments on thousands of lifesaving programs that provided food, medicine and other supplies to impoverished nations, many people died, including children.
Even with USAID in shambles, Congress has made clear that it expects the administration to continue providing foreign aid — in some cases, at nearly the level it did in previous years.
“It’s proof that there is still broad, bipartisan support for America showing up in the world, helping people and working with our allies and partners on shared challenges, not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because it directly benefits us,” said Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, the ranking member of the Senate committee with oversight of foreign aid funds. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the committee’s chair, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
But the administration has taken a variety of steps to thwart Congress’ directives. The Office of Management and Budget, run by Russell Vought, was instrumental in blocking the spending of aid money last year. This year, it has labeled both humanitarian aid and global health money as “unallocated,” meaning the OMB must approve how it is spent.
Legal scholars say such moves, and the delayed spending by the State Department, likely violate the law. Foreign aid is a prime example of why Congress made it illegal for administrations and agencies to slow-walk such funds, said Bobby Kogan, an OMB adviser under former President Joe Biden currently with the Center for American Progress. “If you spend no money for a year and all the clinics close, then those people die,” he said.
The State Department has made little effort to spend some foreign aid money that Congress earmarked for specific purposes, including family planning, neglected diseases and nutrition, according to government staff and budget documents.
And programs have been given fewer dollars, even when Congress has kept funding steady. That includes the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the hallmark HIV program credited with saving 26 million lives around the world.
Administration officials are also spending on foreign aid at a much slower rate than they had in recent years, according to an analysis of federal funding data shared with ProPublica by Aid on the Hill, an advocacy group created by former USAID employees, although the State Department disputes its conclusions. Another group published a similar analysis last week.
Where Trump officials have made plans to spend funds, it’s often spurred outrage. Under the new America First Global Health Strategy, Trump officials are signing bilateral deals with poor countries, asking for access to health data as a condition for receiving lifesaving medications the U.S. once donated.
Jeremy Lewin, a 29-year-old lawyer who came into government via Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency with no prior humanitarian experience, is in charge of foreign aid. He has said that this new strategy will not only save countless lives, but also reform the aid sector and reduce dependence on U.S. funding.
Since last July, Lewin has been “performing the duties” of undersecretary for foreign assistance and humanitarian affairs, a position that must be approved by Congress, though the administration has yet to nominate him or anyone else to the job.
But he rarely, if ever, meets with career staff and doesn’t share information about his plans, even with the people who are expected to carry them out, according to six current and former career officials. Lewin insists that he approve even routine payments, creating a stranglehold on funding and information.
And all the while, Trump appointees have failed to answer basic questions from Congress about what they are doing. Letters from lawmakers have gone unanswered and required reports unfiled.
To understand the administration’s compliance with congressional mandates and federal law, ProPublica reviewed administration documents, including agreements, memos, and internal communications, and spoke with dozens of current and former government officials, congressional staff, and international experts in global health and humanitarian aid. Many people spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal from the administration.
In response to a list of detailed questions about the concerns, a State Department spokesperson who declined to be named said they would continue to follow the president’s direction on foreign aid spending. “We are not withholding any funds appropriated to, or available to, State,” they said. “If additional funds are made available to State, we will work to obligate them consistent with legal requirements and Administration priorities.”
They said officials have regularly briefed Congress and that Lewin had recently spent four hours discussing foreign assistance. They also said they have “reduced by 80% the number of outstanding reports and letters” since Trump retook office.
“We are working with Congress to spend appropriated balances and find the right future-appropriated level for global health,” the spokesperson said.
In response to a series of detailed questions about this story, OMB spokesperson Rachel Cauley said, “This is patently false,” adding that “USAID was a weaponized government agency.” She did not respond to a follow-up question asking what was false.
After nearly all of USAID’s employees were fired and the majority of its programs closed down last summer, the agency’s remnants were transferred to the State Department. Despite repeated promises from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that lifesaving aid would continue, the State Department began winding down many of the remaining programs earlier this year.
And staff have been working with a severely constricted budget; officials gave them just half of the available money for PEPFAR, said Dr. Mike Reid, who was the program’s chief scientific officer until he left earlier this year over concerns about how the program is being run. Of the $9.4 billion for global health spending for the State Department that Trump signed into law earlier this year, Congress earmarked about $4.6 billion for PEPFAR. But staff say it’s unclear how much of that they will be allowed to spend.
Congress also explicitly directed the State Department to spend pots of money on family planning ($524 million), nutrition ($165 million) and neglected tropical diseases ($109 million), according to the bill. According to a review of government records and two people with knowledge of the department’s activities, State Department officials have made little or no effort to spend from those pots.
In response, a State Department spokesperson said it has “continued to obligate and spend every dollar appropriated for global HIV/AIDS programs” and “we continue to implement life-saving care in global health priority areas, including HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and maternal and child health.”
They added: “The State Department has been in the process of slowly replacing old carry-over USAID grants with new State Department grants and contracts which have fresh funds, new terms and conditions, and better align with the new America First foreign assistance strategy.”
Global health programming in general is moving at a much slower rate than it did previously, according to the Aid on the Hill analysis of federal funding data. Of the more than $9 billion that Congress told the Trump administration to spend on global health last year, the administration had by the end of this March obligated just $190 million, 5% of what was spent on average in that period in the five years before Trump returned to office. Typically, officials would have obligated about half of the money by then. Another advocacy organization, Health Security Policy Academy, published an analysis last week that drew a similar conclusion.
The State Department said it “cannot and will not” verify any independent analysis, but disagreed with the figures, saying that it has “approved and implemented spending” for more than $7.5 billion to align with the bilateral agreements and disaster response. “You either have vastly outdated numbers or are simply mistaken,” it said, but would not elaborate.
The agreements signed with nations around the world, a centerpiece of the State Department’s foreign aid policy, will in many cases involve sending funds directly to those governments, some of which have been mired in corruption scandals. But the specifics of the programs are still being determined, and the funding has yet to flow.
Meanwhile, Lewin has been increasingly leaning on large international organizations to deliver aid once managed by USAID employees.
Earlier this year, Lewin funneled $3.8 billion to a small arm of the United Nations, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, quadrupling the budget of the agency.
Trump has frequently criticized the U.N. as ineffective. But after nearly all of USAID’s staff was fired, the skeleton crew at the State Department doesn’t have the capacity or expertise to manage so much humanitarian aid themselves, according to a dozen people familiar with the new system.
The agreement with OCHA, a copy of which was reviewed by ProPublica, also does not allow the U.S. to independently audit the funds, though the U.N. agreed to run a pilot project for greater internal oversight.
Eri Kaneko, OCHA’s spokesperson, said the agency has worked quickly since December to disburse funds for “the most urgent and life-threatening needs” and that U.N. entities are “fully committed to the highest standards of accountability and oversight.”
The U.S. has been the largest donor to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a multilateral organization that provides medicines and prevention measures to millions of people around the world, since its inception. Lewin recently announced an expanded partnership with the fund to provide HIV prevention across Africa. But the Trump administration last year withheld payments pledged under the Biden administration, forcing the fund to reduce the amounts it gave to nations.
So in this year’s spending bill, Congress directed the State Department to make good on its pledges, issuing specific instructions to Rubio on what to pay and when, and telling him to make those contributions “in a timely manner.”
That hasn’t happened.
A State Department spokesperson told ProPublica that “all current funding obligations have been met.” But according to a board member for the Global Fund, congressional staff and Friends of the Global Fight, an organization that advocates for the fund in the U.S., the administration should contribute another $661 million.
“The State Department is underfunding the Global Fund,” Schatz said. “It’s out of compliance with congressional appropriations.”
When the senator asked about the funding during Rubio’s recent testimony to Congress, Rubio said, “I think that will move shortly, very quickly.”
During previous administrations, once Congress passed laws to approve federal spending, the money flowed through the OMB, which in turn parceled out the funds to designated agencies, making sure they didn’t spend the funds too quickly or too slowly.
Under Trump, the OMB, led by Vought, has repeatedly blocked funds approved by Congress from going to agencies using legally dubious maneuvers, experts in federal spending and constitutional law told ProPublica.
As ProPublica has chronicled, Vought takes an expansive view of presidential power and has moved to give the executive branch dramatically greater authority to not spend legally appropriated money. Foreign aid has been a clear focus; after USAID was razed last year, Vought was made acting administrator and tasked with overseeing the closeout of the agency. Eric Ueland, a Vought deputy at the OMB, is currently performing those duties.
The OMB currently has labeled more than $500 million in global health money as “unallocated,” according to its own data, which makes it impossible for the State Department to spend without first going through the OMB. It had also labeled most of the humanitarian aid money this way, but began releasing some of those funds in May. By June 11, the OMB had released all of that money to the State Department.
Several people inside and outside the government told ProPublica they fear that the administration is withholding the funds because it is planning not to spend them at all. They have good reason to be concerned: That’s exactly what Trump did last year.
In 2025, the administration clawed back some $13 billion in foreign aid that Congress had passed into law, some of it by using a maneuver widely understood by legal experts to be illegal.
That maneuver, which Vought calls a “pocket rescission,” essentially asks Congress to cancel funds so late in the fiscal year that there isn’t enough time for them to be spent if Congress says no. The Government Accountability Office, Congress’ watchdog, has said pocket rescissions are illegal, and several constitutional scholars told ProPublica the move violates the Impoundment Control Act. That law, passed in 1974 in the wake of disputes with President Richard Nixon, restricts the president’s authority to withhold, or impound, funds approved by Congress.
A federal court initially blocked the maneuver as part of ongoing lawsuits related to the dismantling of USAID. But the administration appealed to the Supreme Court, which issued an emergency ruling split along ideological lines that allowed the clawback to continue, though it did not rule on the merits.
The GAO has standing to take legal action on a pocket rescission. Edda Emmanuelli Perez, GAO’s general counsel, told ProPublica that her office was continuing to review potential impoundments and monitoring ongoing litigation, and that it has not made a decision to file any lawsuits at this time.
While there are still nearly four months left in this fiscal year, career officials and legal experts say another rescission — legal or not — would further erode Congress’ power of the purse, threatening the U.S. democracy.
“If that’s going to be a regular occurrence, then we have a real fundamental threat to the rule of law,” said Cerin Lindgrensavage, a former Justice Department lawyer who works for Protect Democracy, a nonprofit that fights against authoritarianism. “Congress has said spend the money, and the president doesn’t want to. The question is, who wins? Under the law, Congress is supposed to win. Right now, the president is.”
Budget watchers say there are concerning signs that the administration plans to withhold more funds.
In April, the OMB announced to Congress that it was withholding funds earmarked for global health to pay the hefty bills for severance fees and other costs for the thousands of USAID programs Trump officials terminated last year.
OMB officials told lawmakers they were setting aside $19 billion to cover those costs, though they anticipated the total would be “substantially” less. (Internal documents reviewed by ProPublica say the figure doesn’t include the cost of the litany of lawsuits associated with the closures — or the dozens of new hires and other agency operations needed to process them.)
The bulk of that money came from unspent funds for the canceled programs and other unobligated dollars from previous years. But $3.2 billion came from funds earmarked by Congress for global health and development programs that Trump signed into law in 2025. If it’s not obligated by the end of September, that money will expire and can no longer be spent.
Democratic lawmakers were incensed by the OMB’s decision. In a letter to Trump officials, senators called it an “appalling admission of waste of U.S. taxpayer dollars” and demanded that the administration use the $3.2 billion as directed, “consistent with the law.” They asked for a response by May 8. As of June 16, lawmakers had not received one.
Asked about the funds during the recent Senate hearing, Rubio claimed they were under the purview of the OMB. Schatz pointed out that Rubio had moved all foreign aid under the State Department and had just wrestled some of that money away from the OMB to respond to an Ebola outbreak. “It also demonstrates you are perfectly capable of getting money released from those closeout funds if you wish,” he told the secretary. “Ebola is an urgent priority, but so is malaria, so is TB and so is HIV/AIDS.”
“Proposing a rescission is a Presidential authority, and we will follow President Trump’s direction as to any future rescissions,” the State Department spokesperson told ProPublica. “We are currently planning to obligate all appropriated balances, consistent with law.”
The post “A Huge Grab of Power”: Trump Is Defying Congress on Foreign Aid appeared first on ProPublica.
President Donald Trump has touted more than $500 billion in prescription drug savings over 10 years from his policies. But the savings are largely aspirational, and not based on the more limited actions the administration has taken so far.
The administration’s most favored nation policy seeks to bring down drug prices to levels paid in other countries. The bulk of the savings, estimated in a May 5 report by the White House Council of Economic Advisers, comes from assuming that all new drugs will be sold in the U.S. at MFN prices going forward, saving $529 billion. A smaller amount of savings, $64.3 billion, comes from applying MFN pricing to Medicaid.
“People are saving a lot of money,” Trump said at a May 18 event announcing the addition of more drugs to TrumpRx, the administration’s website directing people to cash prices for prescription drugs. “Over the next 10 years, the Council of Economic Advisers estimates that our most favored nation drug policies will save Americans over $500 billion. And this has been the greatest breakthrough in lowering healthcare costs in modern history.”
“Think about the $600 billion of savings to the average American over the next 10 years,” Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said on June 2 at an event announcing further additions to the TrumpRx website, while calling on Congress to codify MFN pricing.
“It’s just a massive number that they voluntarily, sort of, gave back because the president went after them and said: ‘You got to deal with this problem,’” Oz continued, referring to the president’s negotiations with drug companies.
There isn’t evidence that drug companies have agreed to give back $600 billion in savings to Americans, much less savings that will go to “average” Americans. So far, the administration has made voluntary deals with 17 drug companies to lower drug prices. The White House and the companies have reported commitments to launch new drugs at MFN prices, as well as to offer MFN prices to states for Medicaid. However, the details of the deals have not been disclosed, and some companies have reported that they end after three years.
“Right now we just have a lot more questions than we have answers, and that makes it really difficult to assess the validity or accuracy or even ballpark-ness of this very large estimate of savings in the White House report,” Juliette Cubanski, vice president and director of the Program on Medicare Policy at the health policy organization KFF, told us. She added that it’s difficult even to evaluate the impact of the current voluntary deals given a lack of answers to key questions, such as “how many of these manufacturers’ drugs are subject to MFN pricing.”
When asked for more details on what has been done so far to achieve the savings in the report, White House spokesperson Kush Desai told us that “the research report lays out all of the assumptions underlying this analysis.” CMS did not respond to our request for comment.
The hundreds of billions in savings calculated in the CEA report do not come from offering people discounts on TrumpRx. As we’ve written previously, the prices on the site for brand-name drugs negotiated under the administration’s voluntary deals only represent savings for individuals in a few specific situations, such as when paying for fertility or weight loss drugs not covered by insurance, since many people will get better prices by using insurance rather than paying in cash. The CEA analysis only attempted to calculate 10-year savings from TrumpRx for Americans paying for fertility treatments, estimating these savings at $4.6 billion.
TrumpRx also recently started pointing people toward existing websites to access discounts on generic drugs. But as the CEA analysis itself acknowledged, generics are already cheaper in the U.S. than in other high-income countries, and they are not a target of MFN policies.
The U.S. does generally pay more for brand-name drugs than other nations. Prices in 2022 for these drugs were more than three times higher in the U.S. than in other high-income nations after adjusting for rebates, according to an analysis from the research organization RAND. But it is not clear how policies aiming to equalize drug prices will play out. As we have written previously, the president has repeatedly claimed broad victories over drug prices, even though they are hardly a done deal. There are significant uncertainties with his MFN approach, which still requires legislative action to further implement.
“We’ve seen no indication from pharma, from other key stakeholders, that this $600 billion number is real,” Jeromie Ballreich, an associate professor in the department of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told us, saying that one would expect companies to disclose to shareholders such an impact, which would be about 10% of U.S. pharmaceutical company revenue. “You would hear it outside of the White House, because $600 billion is, as Trump would say, huge.”
Experts told us that it is difficult to evaluate the estimated nearly $600 billion in savings without more information on the president’s current or future MFN policies.
“This report is partly a report and mostly a press release,” Joseph Antos, a senior fellow emeritus at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, told us, adding that it is not possible to do an independent analysis based on the information provided.
Andrew Mulcahy, a senior health economist at RAND, told us that the hundreds of billions in savings are theoretically possible with a broad MFN policy but he said the administration’s actions so far only have “semblances” of accomplishing such a policy.
“Other countries’ prices are much lower than ours, and if policies are designed to piggyback on those prices, you can get savings in this order of magnitude,” he said. “That said, I don’t think that what’s happened so far — or plans for what will happen in the future — will align with that estimate in the CEA report for a variety of reasons.”
One key question is the length of the voluntary deals the administration has made with drug companies.
To get to nearly $600 billion in savings, the “key assumption” is that MFN pricing “will be implemented through legislation and affect all new product launches going forward,” Jens Grueger, a partner at Boston Consulting Group and affiliate professor at the University of Washington, told us in an email. The deals, however, appear to be limited to Trump’s time in office, he said.
Filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission from some of the companies have indicated the deals are limited overall, with two companies specifying they only last three years, STAT reported.
“It’s very unclear how you can estimate savings over a 10-year period based on deals that we understand to be lasting only for three years, unless you assume that Congress will actually codify MFN pricing,” Cubanski said. Meanwhile, she added, many Republicans in Congress even oppose legislation that allows the government to negotiate drug prices, much less price-setting.
Rena Conti, a health economist at Boston University Questrom School of Business, told us that the assumption of MFN legislation was “hypothetical at best, as there is no movement in Congress to pass legislation.”
A second question is what exactly the companies agreed to in their commitments to price newly launched drugs at MFN prices. As we’ve said, the bulk of the savings — $529 billion — estimated in the report come from assuming new drugs will be broadly offered at MFN prices over 10 years.
While Trump has claimed his administration has achieved the lowest drug prices in the world, the CEA report explained that his administration’s MFN pricing policies ask that companies offer U.S. payers the second-lowest drug prices among those paid in a small collection of countries: the G-7 nations, plus Switzerland and Denmark. The approach uses net prices after adjusting for gross domestic product per capita in comparison to the U.S., the report said.
The CEA report estimated the 10-year savings from new drug launches at MFN prices by comparing historical prices in these countries between 2021 and 2025 and imagining that this MFN policy had been applied, the report explained. (The analysis omitted Denmark due to a lack of data.) The White House economists then extended their estimate to 10 years, assuming a 3% growth rate.
In coming up with the hundreds of billions of dollars in savings, the CEA report “essentially said it’s going to be the second-lowest price out of the reference basket,” said Ballreich, the pharmaceutical policy researcher from Johns Hopkins. “There’s a number of question marks about whether or not these drug companies that came and met with the White House and did this agreement actually agreed to this.”
Some of the White House announcements of the deals specify commitments companies have made to provide MFN prices on “all new innovative” or “all new” medicines. However, SEC filings have sometimes indicated limitations, saying that companies agreed to “price certain future medicines” at or below MFN levels or mentioning “certain exceptions” to promises to price new products at these levels.
Three companies recently declined to tell STAT whether three new drugs would be launched at MFN prices.
There are similar questions about the $64.3 billion in estimated savings for Medicaid.
Press releases on the voluntary deals with drug companies indicate that the companies will provide MFN prices to state Medicaid programs for at least some drugs. CMS is launching GENEROUS, a voluntary Medicaid initiative running five years, and the companies that have signed deals are expected to participate for at least some of this time, according to a May 8 analysis from KFF. However, the KFF analysis said that it is unclear how many drugmakers and states will ultimately participate in GENEROUS and for how long, as well as which drugs will be included.
The prices states pay for Medicaid drugs are not publicly disclosed, but they are generally already the lowest in the U.S., researchers have previously told us, making it difficult to assess whether the MFN deals will be better than existing Medicaid prices.
“It feels very difficult to believe that companies are actually giving up a good chunk of revenue with these deals,” Mulcahy said. “What seems far more likely is that they are finding a way to formalize the discounts they are already offering” to Medicaid.
Ballreich said that in a study that has not yet been published, he and his colleagues had estimated savings in the first year of the GENEROUS program at “just about a third” of what the CEA report projected for that timeframe. His group’s estimate assumed complete participation in GENEROUS by drug companies and states but also attempted to take into account some mechanisms Medicaid already has to reduce drug prices.
Even assuming the Trump administration enacted policies to require all drug companies to offer MFN prices to all payers, it’s not clear how much money the U.S. would save. MFN policies could affect global drug prices in ways the report did not take into account.
Trump has suggested that companies would make up for losses in revenue in the U.S. by increasing prices in other countries. However, researchers expressed skepticism that other high-income countries would agree to significantly higher prices.
In addition, Antos of AEI pointed out that MFN policies could lead some drugs to never make it to market. “I don’t believe they try to take into account the effects of this process on future innovation,” he said, referring to the CEA estimate.
A June 10 release from the White House listing Trump’s “recent wins” said his MFN initiative was “projected to save Americans $500 billion over the next decade while protecting innovation and expanding access.”
Cubanski, however, said that if the report is correct, and prices fall some 30%, “we’d be looking at a pretty significant hit to revenues for pharmaceutical companies, and that could translate to somewhat less innovation, or maybe significantly less innovation.”
The estimate also doesn’t take into account how drugmakers and other countries might push back against the policies.
The CEA report “assumes that companies continue launching products in reference countries and that prices in these countries would converge towards US prices,” Grueger said. He suggested that this could happen for some products “that address a high unmet medical need and provide transformative benefits for patients.” Other countries consider benefits to patients relative to costs in determining what they will pay for drugs.
“However, for the majority of products this will be difficult to achieve, and companies might consider not launching these products outside the US to protect US prices,” Grueger said, citing recent statements from pharmaceutical executives suggesting such delays. “As a consequence, lower prices in reference countries would not be available and prices in the US would not drop as much as projected in the CEA report.”
“Not only would you potentially impede access to new medications in other countries, but we wouldn’t end up with lower prices here in the US either,” Cubanski said. She added that it is already typical for drugs to launch in the U.S. before they are in other countries, making it difficult to figure out how to set an MFN price for new drugs in the first place.
The researchers also questioned the administration’s ability to assess whether companies had fulfilled promises to offer drugs at MFN prices.
Companies provide list prices for drugs, but these are rarely paid. The CEA analysis said that drugmakers will report net prices, taking into account various forms of discounts. But experts said it was unclear how the government will independently evaluate these prices.
“The government obviously can try to compel [drug companies] to report this information, and there is some wording in there about auditing, but I don’t know how you audit something when you don’t have full disclosure or any basis for really determining in a systematic way whether numbers are correct or not,” Antos said.
Antos called it “telling” that the CEA analysis itself does not rely on net prices for its analysis. Rather, the report says, because of “the confidential nature of rebates, there are no existing data sets with net pricing information.”
Mulcahy explained that instead, the data the CEA used has gross prices a healthcare data company derives using complicated and varying methodologies in different countries. In general, he said, the numbers are based on invoices at various stages of the drug supply. He said that this dataset is the “best we’ve got” and is what he and his colleagues at RAND have used for international comparisons of drug prices, but it has limitations.
“If you can put whatever number down you want on an invoice and then negotiate something secret later, you can make it look like you’re saving a ton of money,” Mulcahy said, expressing concern that the MFN pricing deals would incentivize even more secrecy about international drug prices.
“I think there will be ways to hide discounts and backchannel funds for this,” Ballreich said, suggesting various ways drugmakers could give money back to payers outside the U.S. For example, they could institute rebates or taxes that are not drug-specific. He also said that drugmakers will be restricted from disclosing the true price of their drugs in other countries due to confidentiality agreements and laws in those countries.
“If you want to make a claim about how launch prices are going to change or if a company wants to promise to change launch prices … that’s easy to fudge,” Mulcahy said. “And then you find creative ways on the back end to make yourself whole again.”
“It’s kind of like everyone wins except for consumers,” he added.
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The post The Shaky Assumptions Behind Trump’s Over $500 Billion in Projected Drug Savings appeared first on FactCheck.org.
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| Feed | RSS | Last fetched | Next fetched after |
|---|---|---|---|
| 302 Onewheel on Facebook | XML | 2026-06-26 08:04 | 2026-06-26 20:04 |
| @econliberties on Twitter | XML | 2026-06-26 08:04 | 2026-06-26 20:04 |
| @rideonewheel on Twitter | XML | 2026-06-26 08:04 | 2026-06-26 20:04 |
| Arch Linux: Recent news updates | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| Articles | smithsonianmag.com | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-27 12:04 |
| Business | The Guardian | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| Chatham House: What's New | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| CNET | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| Constitution Daily | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| Custom RSS Feed for The Latest | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| FA RSS | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| FactCheck.org | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| Home - CBSNews.com | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| HPCwire | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| https://www.mlb.com/mets/feeds/news/rss.xml | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| Kareem Takes on the News | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| Lima Charlie World | XML | 2026-06-25 16:04 | 2026-06-27 16:04 |
| Linux.com | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| National | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| News Facts Network | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| Onewheel -●- The Self-Balancing Electric Skateboard | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| Onewheel Instagram | XML | 2026-06-26 08:04 | 2026-06-26 20:04 |
| OSnews | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| pev.dev - Latest posts | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| PolitiFact - Rulings | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| ProPublica | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| RAND: News Releases for 2023 | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-27 12:04 |
| Recently Active Topics | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| Slashdot | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| Smart News | smithsonianmag.com | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-27 12:04 |
| Spotlight Delaware | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| surfdado | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-27 12:04 |
| Technology - CBSNews.com | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| Technology | The Guardian | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| The Bridge | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| The Intercept | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| The RAND Blog | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-27 12:04 |
| The Review | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| The Sideways Movement | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| TomDispatch - Blog | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| Truth or Fiction? | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| Udaily Newsletter Feed | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| Us - CBSNews.com | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| US news | The Guardian | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| USAFacts | Nonpartisan Government Data | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| VESCmann | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-27 12:04 |
| wheel -●- Self-Balancing Electric Skateboards | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| World | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| World news | The Guardian | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-26 14:04 |
| www.newarkpostonline.com - RSS Results in news,news/* | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-27 12:04 |
| www.newarkpostonline.com - RSS Results in regional,regional/* | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-27 12:04 |
| www.newarkpostonline.com - RSS Results in sports/college,sports/college/* | XML | 2026-06-26 12:04 | 2026-06-27 12:04 |
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