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”.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.”
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.
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.”
The UK recorded its hottest ever June temperature on Thursday,as 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, beating the previous peak of 35.6C set in Southampton in 1976.
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 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.
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.
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 who 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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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 the Anglican archbishop of Jerusalem, Hosam Naoum, 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”.
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.
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 supreme court has given the Trump administration a green light to turn back asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border, in a decision that fundamentally reshapes the US asylum system.
The Trump administration has sought for years to block migrants from setting foot on US soil, where federal law guarantees them the right to claim asylum and protection from persecution. The ruling will allow that practice to resume, concluding a battle that has spanned three administrations.
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.
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.
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
Schedule a private briefing. A limited number of confidential sessions with QuEra leadership are available at www.quera.com/ftqc-briefing.
Meet the QuEra team at Quantum.Tech World in Boston, June 25 to 26, Booth F12.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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:
Native RISC-V Hardware Enablement: Enterprise-grade support and certification for Openchip’s RISC-V high-performance compute and accelerator devices across the SUSE software stack, including SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES), SUSE Rancher Prime, and community-supported openSUSE Tumbleweed.
Enterprise RVA23 Profile Integration: Support for the RVA23 profile, including RVV vector instructions for high-performance computing (HPC) and AI workloads, alongside hypervisor support for cloud environments.
SUSE Kubernetes Engine Extensions: Kubernetes plugins and operators for SUSE Rancher Prime to support fleet management, observability, and scaled container deployments on Openchip hardware.
Sovereign AI Infrastructure: A secure machine learning and inference platform pairing the SUSE AI Factory stack with Openchip’s RISC-V accelerators and inference software — built for data and model residency, strict application safety, and fully sovereign deployment.
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.
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:
GAAP revenue of $193.4 million, up 13% sequentially and up 94% year-over-year
Hardware revenue of $110.6 million, up 59% year-over-year
Cloud and other services revenue of $82.8 million, up 178% year-over-year
GAAP gross margin of 45%
GAAP hardware gross margins of 41%
GAAP cloud and other services gross margins of 49%
GAAP loss from operations of $15.0 million
GAAP net loss of $14.0 million
Cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash, and short-term investments of $3.3 billion
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):
Core total revenue of $191.3 million, up 12% sequentially and up 92% year-over-year
Core hardware revenue of $111.6 million, up 60% year-over-year
Core cloud and other services revenue of $79.8 million, up 167% year-over-year
Core gross margin of 47%
Core hardware gross margins of 42%
Core cloud and other services gross margins of 53%
Core operating loss of $3.5 million
Core net loss of $2.5 million
Q2 2026 Financial Outlook
Core Non-GAAP Financial Outlook:
Core revenue of approximately $194.0 million, up 88% year-over-year
Core gross margin in the range of 36 – 38%
Core operating margins in the range of (30) to (32)%
Full Year Fiscal 2026 Financial Outlook
Core Non-GAAP Financial Outlook:
Core revenue of $855.0 to 865.0 million, up 69% year-over-year at the midpoint
Core gross margin in the range of 38 – 41%
Core operating margins in the range of (28) to (32)%
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.
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
Purpose-built data center CPU designed for leadership performance and utilization for agentic, general-purpose, and AI head node workloads at best-in-class power efficiency and TCO
Custom-designed Qualcomm Oryon CPU cores optimized for core performance and frequencies > 5 GHz to deliver superior performance for agentic workload deployed at scale
250+ core count chiplet design for exceptional throughput and scale while delivering exceptional per-core performance
> 2x better performance per watt estimate compared to existing product benchmarks for server CPU competitive offerings based on specs
Architected and designed for best throughput, responsiveness, and infrastructure utilization for critical data center usages and lowering CapEx and OpEx to deliver best-in-class performance per TCO leadership at scale
Multi-chiplet architecture enabling modular integration with advanced packaging technologies for performance and IO scaling addressing general-purpose to AI CPUs in the data center domain
> 2 TB/s leading-edge PCIe Gen 7 connectivity, plus CXL connectivity, to support next-generation accelerators, high-speed networking & storage and memory disaggregation
Memory sub-system built to deliver superior bandwidth, capacity, latency and power efficiency using leading-edge low-power memory technology
CPU-based inference with optional HBC attach
Built with advanced reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS) features, including ECC, fault isolation, and error recovery to enable resilient operation at scale
Support for both air and liquid cooling, enabling deployment across diverse data center environments with OCP ORv3 compliant racks and servers
CPU portfolio includes: agentic CPU designed for high-throughput agentic orchestration and low latency interactive AI use cases; general-purpose CPU designed for optimal performance-per-TCO for first-party workload and performance-per-vCPU for third-party usage elasticity; AI head node CPU designed to maximize XPU utilization of XPU for generative AI compute through low overhead host processing through high-speed CPU
Commercial availability is expected in 2028
Qualcomm High Bandwidth Compute (HBC)
Innovative purpose-built near-memory computing architecture that bonds compute with highly-accelerated memory bandwidth in a 3D-stacked silicon solution to address AI’s fundamental data movement bottleneck
HBC has a multi-generation roadmap to deliver faster, more efficient, and more scalable processing at lower total cost of ownership and higher energy efficiency compared to high bandwidth memory (HBM)
With HBC Gen 1, AI250 is designed to enable an industry-leading 133 TB/s per card, an 18x increase in effective memory bandwidth compared to AI200 with LPDDR5X; AI300 with HBC Gen 2 is designed to enable another stepwise improvement with a 54x increase over AI200
HBC is designed to enable a 6x increase in bandwidth per watt versus HBM compared to competing published product specifications normalized at card-level
HBC is designed to enable a 200x increase in capacity per watt versus SRAM compared to competing published product specifications normalized at rack-level
HBC is designed to enable efficient scaling of AI agents to meet the demands of continuous reasoning, memory bandwidth, and real-time responsiveness
Our strategic relationships with the supply chain and unique implementation addresses near-memory computing complexity due to 3D integration leadership, system-level design, LPDDR leadership, and power efficiency expertise
Commercial sampling of HBC Gen 1 with AI250 is expected in mid-2027
Qualcomm Dragonfly AI300 (Card and Rack)
Third-generation, air- and direct-liquid-cooled rack-level AI inference platform – following the introduction of the AI200 and AI250 solutions last October
AI300 integrates breakthrough Qualcomm HBC Gen 2 technology for compute acceleration with integrated memory and increased effective memory bandwidth, designed for disaggregated inference deployments (AI250 uses HBC Gen 1)
Enables industry-leading memory capacity and effective bandwidth enabling high-throughput, low-latency performance for large language & multimodal model (LLM, LMM) inference and agentic AI workloads
Expecting 4x-8x better performance-per-watt compared to existing GPU-based architectures on memory bandwidth per watt per card
Scale up with UALink (Ultra Accelerator Link) and ESUN (Ethernet for Scale-Up Networking); scale out with copper and optical
Commercial sampling is expected in 2028
Custom Silicon
Performance-optimized silicon at scale for next-generation AI and cloud data center infrastructure
Bespoke custom silicon for agentic AI and other specialized workloads
End-to-end co-design capabilities across silicon, system, and software to address customer-specific performance, power, and integration requirements
Advanced packaging and modular architectures designed to improve performance, power efficiency, and scalability
Proven IP and streamlined design execution to support faster time-to-market and reduced execution risk
Execution from design through high-volume manufacturing, supported by ecosystem and supply chain relationships
Connectivity
Broad connectivity portfolio spanning die-to-die, copper, optical, and campus-reach interconnects for next-generation AI data centers
Supports high-bandwidth 800G and 1.6T connectivity across optical, AOC, and AEC applications, from intra-data-center links to campus-reach deployments up to 20 km
Combines Qualcomm Technologies’ SerDes, PAM4, coherent-lite DSP, signal integrity, and telemetry capabilities to support scalable, high-performance AI infrastructure
Addresses data movement bottlenecks that are central to AI data center performance in increasingly distributed, disaggregated, and bandwidth-intensive infrastructure
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.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries joins Speaker Mike Johnson and colleagues to unveil the Semiquincentennial Congressional Time Capsule at the U.S. Capitol on June 24, 2026, the day after democratic socialists swept elections in New York. Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
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’vecovered, 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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
A projected loss for the state
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.”
Small businesses weigh-in
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.
A compromise?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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 litigationby 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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
To make CCS work, we would need to capture CO2 pollution in four ways:
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.
Getting 6 billion tons of CO2 a year out of the atmosphere, though, is a daunting task.
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.
If all of this works, and the CO2 is successfully captured, it must then be moved to a place where it can be buried.
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.
Then, there is the challenge of finding a place to put 6 billion tons of CO2 a year.
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.
Even if this could be done, it would cost tens of trillions of dollars.
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.
The few test sites that exist suggest that keeping carbon underground may not work at scale.
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.
Climate experts know about the costs, technical troubles and failures of CCS test projects.
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.
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.
Pushback and delays
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.
Caroline Belmont is manager of business development at TurningPoint Energy, a solar developer that is increasingly working in Delaware. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY OLIVIA MARBLE
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.
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.
Power bill discounts for solar
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.
Solar panels installed in 2021 using state and federal grant funding help power a New Castle County poultry farm. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY OLIVIA MARBLE
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.
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 everwork 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
A Place of Influence
“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.
John Browne, the chief executive of BP, in 1998James Leynse/Corbis/Getty Images
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.”
Robert Socolow, left, and Stephen Pacala, right, of Princeton University, pictured in Time magazine in 2007Jonathan Saunders
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.”
BP Promotes New Princeton Carbon Mitigation Initiative
Courtesy of Science History Institute
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
Evolution of “Wedges”
“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.
Two Charts in Pacala and Socolow’s Original Paper Introduced the Concept of “Wedges”
The first chart shows how emissions would rise under a business as usual (BAU) scenario versus one where emissions were stabilized (WRE500).
The second chart shows a “stabilization triangle” made of slices or wedges representing possible methods for reducing emissions.
Source: The journal Science. Annotated by ProPublica.
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.
A November 2003 email from BP climate adviser Chris Mottershead to Pacala and Socolow proposes that BP and Princeton co-brand the research BP sponsored.Courtesy of Science History Institute. Redacted by ProPublica.A March 2004 email from Mottershead to Pacala and Socolow says he has rewritten a draft of their paper.Courtesy of Science History Institute. Redacted by ProPublica.
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.
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
A Credible Success
“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.’”
The findings of the “Wedges” paper were referenced in the conclusion of former Vice President Al Gore’s movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” when Gore says, “We already know everything we need to know to effectively address this problem.”“An Inconvenient Truth.” Screenshot by ProPublica.
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.”
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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.
A court-appointed monitor has determined that the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office has regressed in its compliance with the reforms mandated in a racial profiling class-action lawsuit and settlement. Jesse Rieser for ProPublica
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.
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’
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.
I’m inclined to say it’s “normal” behavior in the sense we get this from time to time and you’re now a bit more sensitive to it after the upgrade (my recent changes don’t fix all the nose hunting, just some particular cases). But if the weird behavior continues please let me know.
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.
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
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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”.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
Got a trail pro II from TFL Cannot get bead to set no matter what I do. Straps. Sleeve bucket Soapy water. Got it to finally take on air one time and had it all the way at 80psi and an overzealous amount of soapy water and still wouldn’t set. I just don’t know what to do at this point.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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).
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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”.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
How did the study measure avoidable hospital use and cost?
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."
Our ruling
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."
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.
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
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.
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.
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."
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”.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
Accelerating Fault-Tolerant Quantum Logic: The team will build fault-tolerant quantum computing logic by unifying the design of error-correcting code, hardware and algorithms into a single, cohesive development process.
Attosecond Synchronized Photonic Entanglement Network: The team will design a high-fidelity quantum networking system approximately 100,000 times faster than current quantum networks and able to carry information over distances of about 60 miles.
Distributed-Entanglement Quantum Sensing of Chemical Properties:The team will design new types of sensors, including sensors made of protein-based qubits, that use the quantum properties of entanglement and coherence and can be used inside solid materials or cells.
Quantum Photonic Integration and Deployment: The team will design chip-based quantum sensor technology that is portable and robust enough to be used in the field, outside the highly controlled laser laboratory environments typically required for such sensors.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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”.
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!”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
The morning of24 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.
The AppleWatch 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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”.
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.
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.
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Each 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:
Dramatically Faster Incremental Backups: Native file system tools rapidly identify changed files without requiring full scans of entire file systems.
Reduced Impact on Primary Storage: Eliminating large-scale tree scans significantly lowers backup-related overhead on production environments.
Improved Metadata Efficiency: Reduced directory reads and file status operations help minimize metadata cache pollution and unnecessary file system activity.
Shorter Backup Windows: Faster change detection enables more backup jobs to run concurrently, helping organizations keep pace with rapidly growing datasets.
Improved User and Application Performance: Reduced backup overhead helps maintain responsiveness for users, applications, AI workloads, and research environments.
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.
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:
Research & development: Advancing quantum applications, particularly in material physics, and strengthening the integration of large-scale quantum (LSQ) systems within high-performance computing environments
Product innovation: Exploring new offerings, including the containerisation and the assembly of quantum systems.
Software development: Extending the capability of Bull’s software tools, including Qaptiva HPC and Qaptiva Access, to better support emulation of cat qubits as well as enable execution on Alice & Bob’s cat qubit chips in a HPC environment
Commercial development: Jointly addressing new business opportunities worldwide, with a focus on sovereignty-driven projects.
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.
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”.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
Senior midwife Donna Ockenden investigated stillbirths, neonatal and maternal deaths, and babies or mothers who suffered brain damage and other injuries
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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”.
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.
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”.
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.
Wilmington City Councilwoman Shanè Darby | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY BRIANNA HILL
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.”
Competing proposals
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.
An artist rendering shows a Wilmington affordable housing project from 2019. | PHOTO COURTESY OF CITY OF WILMINGTON
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.
More money from developers?
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 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.
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.”
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.
Warner Elementary is one of the Red Clay Consolidated School District’s facilities. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY JULIA MEROLA
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.
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.
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.
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 commentLToremark
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.
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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.”
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.
Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe has argued that out-of-state special interests are influencing constitutional amendments, while doing just that with his own push to eliminate the state income tax. Kansas City Star/Getty Images
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.
Ads like these on Facebook in support of Amendment 5 were paid for by Missouri Promise PAC.Facebook
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.
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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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.”
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%.
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 DOE Q Competition This bold competition aims to demonstrate fault-tolerant quantum systems in 2028 with logical qubits numbering in the low hundreds. These systems will target critical scientific applications relevant to DOE, including chemistry, materials science, plasma physics, and high-energy physics. Informed by the recent RFI, the competition is designed to accelerate development of fault-tolerant quantum systems, enabling their application for today’s most challenging problems in science, energy innovation, and national security. Participants will collaborate closely with experts from DOE’s National Laboratories, National Quantum Information Science Research Centers (NQISRCs), and Office of Science User Facilities.
The National Quantum Supercomputing User Facility This first-of-its-kind facility will provide U.S. scientists and engineers access to advanced quantum computing systems of multiple modalities capable of tackling previously intractable problems and opening new frontiers of discovery. It will complement DOE’s existing exascale and future post-exascale high-performance computing (HPC) systems and integrate with artificial intelligence, the high-performance Energy Sciences Network (a DOE Office of Science User Facility), and the Genesis Mission’s American Science and Security Platform. Together, these capabilities will form a unified HPC-AI-quantum computing ecosystem, providing the United States with one of the most powerful discovery platforms ever conceived.
Focused R&D for Quantum Computing Applications Alongside the Q Competition, DOE will conduct targeted research and development to identify and implement breakthrough quantum scientific applications. These efforts will bring together universities, National Laboratories, and industry partners with deep domain expertise to define and advance high-impact use cases for quantum computers. DOE will identify keystone scientific applications to guide system development and evaluation of quantum computers, mirroring the role of the Genesis Mission’s National Science and Technology Challenges in shaping AI-driven innovation.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 groupsspent a collective $8.4 millionin 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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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”.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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. :)
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.”
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.
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
Nvidia, Alphabet and other technology stocks fell as Wall Street shifted from rewarding AI spending to demanding evidence that it will produce outsized returns.
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.
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."
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.
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).
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.
Chadwick Banken was found liable for targeting Muslims in a home financing scheme in Minnesota. Aaron Nesheim/Sahan Journal
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.
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.
Our ruling
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.
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.
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 tosupport its adoption. John Fetterman, of Pennsylvania, was the sole Democrat to vote against the resolution.
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.
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 Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, seen on March 16, 2026. Photo: Tony Gutierrez/AP
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.
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.
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.
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.”
Sanctions Relief, Unfreezing Assets
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.
Trump signs the memorandum of understanding between Iran and the U.S. in France on June 17. Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok.
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.
$300 Billion Fund
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.
Iran’s Nuclear Program
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
Maine passed several laws to protect abortion access
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."
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.)
Did abortion providers in Maine notice any effects?
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.
Our ruling
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A SNAP outreach manager in Takoma Park, Maryland Amanda Voisard/The Washington Post/Getty Images
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
MiTAC G4826Z5: A 4U dual-socket liquid-cooled server purpose-built for massive AI infrastructure. Housing 8 AMD Instinct MI355X GPUs and powered by the latest AMD EPYC 9755 and 9575F processors, it delivers extreme compute density while managing thermal challenges efficiently. The platform supports up to 6TB DDR5-6400 memory, 12 PCIe Gen5 slots, and 8 NVMe U.2 drives, making it an ideal building block for next-generation scientific computing.
MiTAC C2811Z5: An OCP-aligned, multi-node server designed specifically for high-density compute environments. Powered by AMD EPYC 9555 processors, it supports 12 DDR5-6400 memory slots (up to 3TB per node) and NVMe E1.S storage, delivering stable, energy-efficient performance for demanding HPC workloads such as scientific simulations and weather modeling.
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.
MiTAC G4520G6: A highly flexible, 4U dual-socket server platform engineered specifically to power Agentic AI frameworks alongside traditional HPC workloads. Powered by the latest Intel Xeon 6 processors, it delivers a massive leap in performance-per-watt for high-density environments. Built for extreme acceleration, the G4520G6 can be equipped with NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell or NVIDIA H200 GPUs, offering powerful, customizable acceleration for advanced AI training, multi-agent inference, and complex data modeling.
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.
MiTAC M2810Z5: Optimized for cloud computing and high-performance I/O intensive workloads, this enterprise server enables high bandwidth and ultra-fast data access for large databases and transactional applications. Incorporating OCP NIC 3.0 and E1.S NVMe storage into a multi-node hyperscale design, it yields outstanding compute density and flexible networking upgrades.
MiTAC GS73-B8056: Optimized for mainstream cloud applications, this 1U1S platform supports a single AMD EPYC 9004/9005 processor and up to 6TB DDR5-5200 memory across 24 slots. It features 16 NVMe E3.S drive bays, dual PCIe Gen 5 x16 slots, an OCP 3.0 mezzanine, dual 10GbE ports, and 1+1 2,000W 80+ Titanium redundant power supplies.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
‘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.
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.
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 fillingwith 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.”
"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
The Supreme Court rejected a former Louisiana inmate's effort to sue state prison officials after they shaved his dreadlocks in violation of his religious beliefs.
Iran insists there are no plans for inspections of its bombed nuclear sites, but Trump says Tehran "fully and completely" agreed to let inspectors return.
Kent Kiehl convinced the US legal system he can find violence in prisoners’ brains. His theories have been since used by defense lawyers – with grave consequences for prisoners
Oracle cut roughly 21,000 jobs over the past year as it reorganized around AI and ramps up spending on data centers for customers such as OpenAI and Meta. The restructuring cost the company about $1.8 billion and, while Oracle says AI deployment may drive further reductions, it also warns the cuts could create skills shortages and hurt productivity. The BBC reports: The software and cloud computing firm says it had around 141,000 full-time employees as of May 31, 2026, down from about 162,000 workers at the same time last year. The "deployment of AI technologies across our operations have resulted, and may continue to result, in reductions to our workforce," the report says. The cuts, which amount to about 13% of Oracle's workforce, are part of a wider trend among tech firms as they spend hundreds of billions of dollars on building AI infrastructure like data centers.
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.”
Germany will gradually raise its retirement age to about 70by the early 2090s under recommendations backed by the chancellor, Friedrich Merz, as a means of future-proofing the pension system for an ageing population.
Presenting its findings on Tuesday, an expert commission set up to explore reforms to the pension system said retirement age should be linked to rising life expectancy and early retirement should be scrapped.
Local council secures high court injunction against four leaders of Raise the Colours campaign and ‘persons unknown’
Leaders of the nationalist group Raise the Colours have agreed to stop hoisting England flags on lamp-posts in Oxfordshire after the local authority secured a high court injunction against the campaign.
Ryan Bridge, Ben Cullen and Trudy Wells told the high court on Tuesday they would not raise St George’s flags from Oxfordshire county council property, encourage others to do so or impede council workers from taking them down.
Michel Barnier says UK could also join a new European security and defence council
Whoever becomes the next UK prime minister will have plenty of political space to move closer to Europe, polling expert John Curtice has said.
His comments come as many domestically and in Europe begin to question whether the potential future British prime minister will move further away or closer to the EU than Keir Starmer.
“Labour’s vote is something like three-quarters to four-fifths pro-Rejoin [the EU] vote.
Labour has always had much more potential political opportunity to be able to go further in terms of our relationship with the European Union, but it does mean that the Labour Party has to end its hang up about the ‘Red Wall.’”
“Actually the reason why public opinion has shifted from what was, 52:48 in favour of Brexit no being roughly 60, 40 rejoin is partly to do with the fact that leave voters are less likely to say they would vote to stay out, than remain voters … say rejoin.
There is a bit of a gut [feeling] there, but we have to remember now that there are 10 years worth of our population who were too young to vote in 2016.
And if you actually look at the perceptions of the people who did not vote in 2016, whether they were too young or not, they, and their perceptions of the consequences of Brexit, including on the economy, look much closer to the views of remain voters than those of leave voters.”
In a 6-3 opinion, the court says Louisiana prisoner cannot sue guards after he grew his hair for more than 20 years
The US supreme court refused on Tuesday to let a Rastafarian man sue state prison officials in Louisiana after guards held him down and shaved him bald in violation of his religious beliefs, in a landmark case.
The case was brought under a federal law designed to protect incarcerated people from religious discrimination.
Injuries reported as bus is said to have flipped on to its side after collision on roundabout on outskirts of Kidwelly
Police have declared a major incident after a bus crash in west Wales.
Dyfed-Powys police said on Tuesday afternoon there had been a collision involving a bus on a roundabout on the A484 on the outskirts of Kidwelly, in Carmarthenshire, at approximately 12.20pm.
Peter Walker is a senior Guardian political correspondent.
The Liberal Democrats are marking the tenth anniversary of Brexit by enjoying their favourite pursuit – being rude about Nigel Farage.
Nigel Farage pocketed a £5m “reward” for the damage he’s caused, while the rest of us are paying for it dearly. When he promised we would be better off, he clearly only meant himself. We are taking over billboards across the UK today to say enough is enough.
Key to a serious Jones run seems to what he makes of Burnham’s economic policies in the coming days - including public control of utilities. And whether Ed Miliband ends up as chancellor.
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.
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.
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.
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).
Who put Theresa May’s back up on Instagram, what did Boris Johnson say about bananas and much more
It is 10 years since the British public decided to pack up its troubles in its old kit bag, give Jacques Delors the final up yours and march off into an EU-free paradise. Opinions may differ on how that has worked out. Certainly several of the architects of the whole thing are enjoying lovely well-paid retirements on the speaking circuit or have seats in the House of Lords. Anyway, here are 18 questions about Brexit and the referendum campaign. How much do you remember about some of the weirder aspects of those few weeks, months and then years as the UK negotiated its exit?
The Guardian 10th anniversary Brexit referendum quiz
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Britain is considering forcing social media companies to prioritize what the government called trusted news sources as part of its broader push to tighten regulation of the sector. The culture department said on Monday it was considering requiring platforms such as Meta's Facebook, Alphabet-owned YouTube and TikTok to make content from public service media -- including the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 -- and other trusted news providers easier to find in users' feeds and searches.
Boosting the visibility of regulated news providers could help tackle misinformation, particularly during crises, the government said. However, any move to influence how platforms rank content is likely to face scrutiny from the social media firms, which say such rules could override user choice and disadvantage other creators. The proposals form part of a broader overhaul of Britain's public service media system to help broadcasters compete with streaming platforms and shifting viewing habits. Ministers are also considering widening public service media status to include online-only providers, extending free-to-air protections for major sporting events to on-demand viewing, and consulting on a shift to internet-based TV from 2034 or 2044. "It is vital that we make sure that people have better access to trusted and accurate news and that our regulated public service media is seen and heard in the fierce battle against mis- and disinformation," culture minister Lisa Nandy said in a statement.
The move follows the UK's recently-announced ban on social media use for those under 16.
Cabinet ministers loyal to Keir Starmer have said they will not back any candidate against Andy Burnham, urging the chief secretary to the prime minister not to run in a contest.
Darren Jones is being urged by some MPs to run against Burnham to avoid a “coronation” of the former Greater Manchester mayor, though several backbenchers tentatively backing Jones said they were doing so to put the spotlight on Burnham’s economic policies and to warn of the prospect of Ed Miliband as chancellor.
As the US tries to limit the damage from the Iran war, its vice-president has admitted he doesn’t understand diplomacy. Of course not: he’s been too busy churning out another memoir
Has JD Vance been injecting Barron Trump’s new energy drink straight into his veins? It would explain a few things, including how the man manages to juggle so much. First there’s the parenting: Vance has three young kids and a baby due soon. Then there’s the vice-presidenting. But despite his long to-do list, Vance still makes time for endless holidays. And he’s even managed to get some writing done: the bestselling Hillbilly Elegy author recently published his second book. It’s a memoir about his spiritual journey called Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith.
So, should you find your way to a bookshop to buy a copy? Most book critics seem to say no. It’s hard to know exactly what regular readers think because two of the biggest review platforms have restricted feedback. Amazon says reviews are limited to verified purchasers because of “unusual review activity” (translation: a torrent of one-star reviews), while Amazon-owned Goodreads has suspended reviews altogether. It’s a shame that Usha Vance, a voracious reader whose Goodreads account notes she just finished Communion (shortly after reading Death Comes for the Archbishop), hasn’t had a chance to give hubby a five-star review.
Suit alleged California-based company developed technology that allowed China to surveil members of movement
The US supreme court further limited the reach of a federal law used to hold corporations liable for human rights abuses committed abroad, as it issued a ruling on Tuesday ending a lawsuit by members of the Falun Gong movement accusing Cisco Systems of facilitating religious persecution in China.
The justices reversed a lower court’s decision that had breathed new life into the 2011 lawsuit, which was brought under the Alien Tort Statute of 1789. The suit had alleged that Cisco knowingly developed technology that allowed China’s government to surveil and persecute Falun Gong members.
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.
Rights campaigners and MEPs say meeting would normalise regime that erases women from public life
Rights campaigners and MEPs have warned that a meeting between EU officials and a Taliban delegation in Brussels risks normalising a regime that has banned girls from school beyond the sixth grade and sought to erase women from public life, while its ranks include two leaders accused of crimes against humanity.
Aspokesperson for the Afghan foreign ministry confirmed that a delegation representing the Taliban had travelled to Brussels after the Belgian foreign ministry issued five single-day visas.
PARIS, June 23, 2026 — Bull, a leader in advanced computing and AI, today announced that its systems continue to lead the Green500 ranking of the world’s most energy-efficient supercomputers, occupying the top three positions for the second consecutive edition. Bull has also increased its presence in the TOP500, the list of the world’s most powerful supercomputers, to 59 systems, including JUPITER, Europe’s most powerful supercomputer, ranked #5.
The latest TOP500 and Green500 rankings confirm that energy efficiency is becoming a defining metric in supercomputing. As demand for AI and large-scale computing accelerates, Bull continues to help organisations combine world-class performance with industry-leading sustainability.
With 59 Bull-built systems in the TOP500, Bull continues to expand its global footprint and strengthen its position as a leading supercomputing provider. Bull is now the leading provider by number of systems in Europe, South America and India, supporting the growth of sovereign computing capabilities across these regions.
Bull Sets the Benchmark for Sustainable Supercomputing
For the fifth consecutive edition, Bull has retained the number one position in the Green500 ranking, the global listing that measures the energy efficiency of the world’s most powerful supercomputers, while also securing the entire podium for the second edition in a row.
The three leading systems – Kairos (CALMIP), ROMEO (URCA) and the Levante GPU Extension (DKRZ) – demonstrate Bull’s ability to help customers achieve breakthrough performance while minimising energy consumption. As AI and simulation workloads continue to grow, these rankings confirm that sustainable computing can scale without compromising capability.
This achievement builds on decades of innovation in HPC, AI and quantum architecture, software optimisation and Bull’s industry-leading expertise in energy-efficient HPC technologies. It also reflects a long-standing commitment to helping organisations maximise the scientific and business value of computing resources while reducing operational costs and environmental impact.
Combining Performance, Sovereignty and Sustainability
Beyond energy efficiency, Bull continues to play a central role in the development of sovereign digital infrastructure worldwide.
A total of 59 Bull-built systems is listed in the latest TOP500 ranking, reflecting growing demand for trusted supercomputing platforms capable of supporting AI innovation, scientific discovery and strategic national capabilities. Bull ranks once again first by number of systems deployed in Europe, South America and India, underscoring its leadership in regions investing in technological independence and local innovation ecosystems.
Bull’s flagship exascale system, JUPITER, remains among the world’s most powerful supercomputers, ranked #5 in the TOP500. As Europe’s first exascale-class system, JUPITER serves as a showcase for Bull’s ability to deliver extreme-scale computing while maintaining a strong focus on energy efficiency. It also forms the foundation of the JUPITER AI Factory, supporting Europe’s ambitions in advanced AI and scientific research.
“Bull believes the future of HPC-AI infrastructure will be defined not only by performance, but by the ability to deliver sustainable, sovereign and economically viable computing at scale,” said Bruno Lecointe, SVP, head of HPC, AI and Quantum Computing at Bull. “Our results in the latest TOP500 and Green500 rankings demonstrate that these objectives can be achieved simultaneously. By securing the top three positions in the Green500 and expanding our presence to 59 systems in the TOP500, Bull demonstrates that the industry’s most advanced computing platforms can also be its most energy efficient. As demand for HPC-AI and scientific computing continues to accelerate worldwide, we remain committed to helping our customers build a sovereign and sustainable digital infrastructure.”
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.
The US health department said the enforced 42-day quarantine was necessary to protect the public
Eight Americans quarantined for six weeks in Nebraska after they were exposed to a deadly hantavirus outbreak were released on Monday, including one who accused the government of holding her against her will.
The US health and human services department (HHS) confirmed that it had ended the required isolation for the group, who were among dozens evacuated from the MV Hondius cruise ship in the Canary Islands early in May.
June 23, 2026 — The Flemish Supercomputer Centre’s (VSC) latest Tier-1 supercomputer, Sofia, has immediately made a strong international impression. Hosted by the VUB, the supercomputer features in the latest edition of the TOP500 list, published today, at number 222 among the world’s most powerful supercomputers. In the Green500 ranking, which assesses energy efficiency, Sofia is ranked 41st.
VSC’s latest Tier-1 supercomputer, Sofia
“The TOP500 shows that Sofia is a force to be reckoned with internationally,” says VUB Rector Jan Danckaert. “The Green500 shows that Flanders is achieving this in a well-considered and energy-efficient manner.”
The Sofia supercomputer is housed in the Nexus data centre at the Zellik Research Park. The system runs on green electricity and utilises a highly energy-efficient infrastructure. Where possible, rainwater is used for cooling. The heat generated by the supercomputer is used via a heat recovery system to partially heat buildings at the Research Park.
“Sustainability was part of Sofia’s design right from the start,” says Karin Voets, CIO of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. “We opted for a system that delivers as much computing power as possible per watt consumed, in a highly energy-efficient data centre. But it doesn’t stop there: we also want to make the most of the supercomputer and help users write their applications more efficiently. In this way, we ensure that every kilowatt delivers as much scientific and societal value as possible.”
“After months of hard work, we are delighted with this ranking in the Green500. Flanders now has a supercomputer that ranks highly internationally and is remarkably energy-efficient,” agrees Ward Poelmans of the Flemish Supercomputer Centre (VSC). “For AI and large-scale simulations, computing power is the new research infrastructure. With Sofia, we have an infrastructure close to our researchers, right here in Flanders.”
The funding was secured through the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO), which, thanks to the Flemish government, was able to invest 8.6 million euros in the purchase of a new Flemish supercomputer. From July 3, Sofia will be fully deployed for an initial series of academic research projects. The supercomputer will support Flemish researchers in areas including artificial intelligence, climate research, medical applications and large-scale simulations.
Decision comes after Aden Duale was held in contempt for ignoring previous high court ruling to stop work
Kenya’s health minister told a court he had ordered preparations for a US-run Ebola quarantine facility to stop, after being held in contempt for ignoring a previous order to end work.
Foreign Office failed to act on warnings of genocide due to ‘pressure’ from emirates, Yale human rights investigator will tell a parliamentary select committee
The British government had received intelligence that Ethiopia appeared to be supporting a genocidal militia in Sudan’s civil war as far back as 2024 but did not go public with the news for fear of upsetting the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a parliamentary committee will hear.
In May 2024, officials from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) told Nathaniel Raymond, an American human rights investigator at Yale University, that “significant private pressure” from the UAE meant the UK would not publicly divulge information linking Ethiopia and the emirates to their support for the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
June 23, 2026 — The New TOP500 and Green500 lists demonstrate the scale of AMD leadership across global supercomputing, with the company’s technology powering four of the world’s 10 fastest and four of the 10 most-efficient supercomputers, and a total of 191 systems – an 11% increase year-over-year.
Systems powered by AMD maintain a commanding presence in the 10 leading TOP500 systems, including El Capitan (No. 2) and Frontier (No. 3), along with the newly deployed HPC7 (No. 6). AMD EPYC CPUs and AMD Instinct GPUs serve as foundational technologies for many of the world’s most advanced systems, helping researchers and organizations accelerate scientific discovery and AI innovation.
Recognizing the most energy-efficient supercomputers in the world, the Green500 rankings are increasingly central to evaluating high-performance computing (HPC) capabilities. AMD systems continue to rank among the most efficient in the world, with four systems placing in the Green500 top 10, including Otus (No. 5), Capella (No.6), AMD Ouranos (No. 9) and Portage (No. 10), while powering 56% of the top 50 systems.
Together, these systems demonstrate how AMD architecture delivers the computational performance and energy efficiency required for the next era of AI and scientific discovery.
AMD Advances Europe’s Sovereign AI Ambitions
While many AI conversations are centered on model size and training, AMD’s work with European computing leaders is taking a broader path — one rooted in scientific excellence, technological sovereignty and open collaboration.
Across the region, AMD EPYC processors and AMD Instinct GPUs are powering new deployments across TOP500 supercomputing and AI projects. They include:
Eni’s new HPC7 supercomputer (No. 6 in the TOP500) is one of Europe’s leading industrial HPC systems. Building on the success of HPC6 (No. 8 in the TOP500), Eni continues to support advanced AI, modeling and simulation workloads that help accelerate energy research while strengthening Europe’s sovereign AI and HPC capabilities.
The first systems powered by AMD Instinct MI355X GPUs – two newly announced systems at the University of Cambridge – are ranked at Nos. 67 and 68 on the Top500 list.
LUMI, one of the world’s fastest and most efficient supercomputers, has become a cornerstone of European AI research. Operated by the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking and hosted by CSC in Finland, LUMI (No. 11 in the TOP500) provides access to cutting-edge computational resources for both traditional HPC and advanced AI workloads.
GENCI, France’s national high-performance computing agency, is advancing its HPC and AI capabilities with AMD technology to support scientific research, advanced simulation and AI workloads. This includes the development of Alice Recoque, France’s first exascale supercomputer that will be powered by AMD Instinct MI430X GPUs and 6th Gen AMD EPYC CPUs. This system will support the need for HPC and AI, serving as an AI Factory.
Precision Still Matters
Many of the world’s most important scientific applications continue to rely on double-precision (FP64) computing. Whether modeling climate systems, simulating advanced materials, designing next-generation aircraft or exploring nuclear fusion, accuracy remains essential for producing trustworthy results.
At HPC User Forum 2026, AMD previewed the AMD Instinct MI430X GPU, designed specifically to address the growing need for both AI acceleration and leadership-class HPC performance.
AMD projects the AMD Instinct MI430X GPU will deliver more than 200 teraflops (TFLOPs) of native FP64 performance, which would establish a new benchmark for simulation, modeling and AI-driven scientific computing. This level of performance is critical as AI and HPC workloads increasingly converge on the same infrastructure. You can learn more at about AMD Instinct MI430X GPUs at ISC High Performance 2026, June 22-26, in Hamburg, Germany.
AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) drives innovation in high-performance and AI computing to solve the world’s most important challenges. Today, AMD technology powers billions of experiences across cloud and AI infrastructure, embedded systems, AI PCs and gaming. With a broad portfolio of AI-optimised CPUs, GPUs, networking and software, AMD delivers full-stack AI solutions that provide the performance and scalability needed for a new era of intelligent computing. Learn more at www.amd.com.
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.
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.
A Mount Everest veteran tells CBS News why retrieving "Green Boots," whose remains have become a grim waypoint for climbers, would be a perilous mission.
Despite more than double the needed number of signatures to qualify for ballot, there’s uncertainty it’ll make it to voters
Hi and welcome to TechScape. Nick Robins-Early and Dara Kerr here, filling in for your usual host Blake Montgomery who is out on vacation. We’ll be talking about the fight over a proposed billionaire tax in California, the UK’s social media ban and SpaceX making a big buy in the AI arms race.
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.
In Germany, Downing Street was likened to a transit station, given the regular comings and goings of different prime ministers and staff. Meanwhile, a bemused Spanish newspaper concluded No 10 seemed to have been fitted with a revolving door.
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!
Building had been vulnerable before it collapsed in the middle of the night, killing 98 people in 2021
The deadly destruction of a Florida beachfront condominium actually started weeks before it collapsed into a pile of rubble in the middle of the night, killing 98 people in 2021 – but the building had been vulnerable from the start, federal investigators found in a final report issued on Monday.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) said in the report that two connections between garage columns and the pool deck started to fail around early June. The combination of a structure design that did not meet building codes and alterations made to it over its 40 years meant that the other parts of the pool deck weren’t strong enough to withstand the extra load, leading to the type of slow-motion collapse.
Most of MLB’s 30 teams celebrate Pride month with a themed game to acknowledge the LGBTQ community and its baseball fans. During a 12 June game against the Chicago Cubs, San Francisco pitchers Landen Roupp, JT Brubaker and Ryan Walker wrote Bible verses on their hats, which featured the Giants’ logo in rainbow colors, while pitcher Sam Hentges chose not to wear the themed cap at all.
Note reportedly said kidnappers her didn’t mean to kill mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie, but she died shortly after her disappearance
A ransom note related to the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie – the mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie – said the 84-year-old had died, CNN and other news organizations are reporting, citing law enforcement sources.
Some media outlets had previously reported receiving ransom notes tied to the case in the days after Guthrie’s disappearance in early February from her home in the foothills just outside Tucson, Arizona.
Putin’s Asia diplomacy may help Russia avoid isolation. But it won’t deliver his goals in UkraineExpert commentthilton.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.
Putin’s Asian diplomacy should be taken seriously, but it has its limits.
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.
Ukraine remains stuck
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.
China’s role
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.
The Russia–China relationship is not a coalition for victory in Ukraine.
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 Kazan summit
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.
Russia collecting herself?
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.
The Utah judge in the murder case of Charlie Kirk's alleged killer has denied a defense request to force Tyler Robinson's former roommate to testify in person during the preliminary hearing.
The administration interrupted data streams that are key to forecasting. These systems should not be vulnerable to political whims
In 1877, North Americans experienced an unusually mild winter – it was known as the “year without a winter”. It coincided with one of the strongest El Niño events ever recorded. Scientists suspect the same El Niño was a major factor in one of the worst environmental disasters in history. As much of the world was enveloped in drought, harvests collapsed in India, China, parts of Africa, and Brazil. The drought, compounded by colonial and other socioeconomic policies, led to the “Great Famine”, which killed between 30 and 60 million people, about 3% of the world’s population at the time.
What distinguishes us from the victims of 1877 is not luck but data. When I served as deputy administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, I saw modern ocean monitoring and forecasting provide the advance warnings the Victorians lacked. This lead time saves thousands of lives and billions of dollars each year. Today, we can anticipate climate shocks before they arrive.
Terry Garcia is a former deputy administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
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?”
It’s 10 years since Brexit – and it’s also another one of those weeks in British politics … Guardian columnist Rafael Behr will be here at 5pm to answer your questions about Burnham, Starmer, Brexit and more.
Sign up here to join the discussion and post your questions
Welcome to our latest Q&A with a Guardian journalist. Raf will be joining us at 5pm. We have originally asked him to take questions about Brexit as we mark 10 years since the UK’s vote to leave the EU. But … you may well have questions about the last 48 hours as Andy Burnham looks certain to become the next prime minister.
In the meantime, though, Andrew Sparrow is covering another busy and dramatic day in Westminster on the politics live blog and here’s some more on the end of Keir Starmer’s premiership:
Nigel Farage has said his £5m gift from a crypto billionaire is “not any of your business” as it was given unconditionally to be spent on anything from Ferraris to gambling on horses.
The Reform UK leader bristled at questions about the £5m gift from the British Thai-based businessman Christopher Harborne in two radio interviews on Tuesday, saying it was “a purely private matter”.
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.
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.
When André Robinson Jr was shot and killed in Oakland in 2020, his family was upended – how do siblings navigate the fallout from violent loss?
The Robinson family once looked forward to Sundays. It was the day they would gather with dozens of their closest relatives and friends to eat, laugh and catch up. “Sunday was the day that we cherished the most,” said RoShanda Robinson, the oldest child in the family.
But in the fall of 2020, these get-togethers abruptly stopped. A day that used to include bountiful meals and booming laughter suddenly became a painful reminder of life-changing loss.
Canada has unveiled a national strategy to build up to 10 new nuclear reactors over the next 15 years as it seeks to double electricity-grid capacity by 2050. Energy Minister Tim Hodgson called it a plan for a "new civilian nuclear renaissance."
"If our goal is to double our grid and build a low-carbon economy in less than 25 years, there is no credible plan to do that without nuclear energy and the clean, reliable baseload power it provides," Hodgson said. "There is no credible plan for Canada to become an energy superpower if we choose not to build upon one of the strongest energy advantages we have." CBC News reports: The strategy calls for construction to start on two new large-scale reactors by 2035, for five more to be planned or under development by 2040 and for at least one reactor to be under construction outside Ontario by 2035. It also calls for a Canadian-made microreactor to be finalized by 2035 and deployed to a remote community by the late 2030s. [...] Right now, Canada has four nuclear power plants -- three in Ontario and one in New Brunswick -- which generate about 15 per cent of Canada's electricity.
A new proposed facility at the existing nuclear plant in Darlington, Ont., would see the first small modular reactor in the G7, capable of producing up to 300 megawatts per unit. Saskatchewan is also looking at the potential to bring small nuclear reactors online by the mid 2030s. The energy deal between Ottawa and Alberta also committed to collaborating on developing a strategy to build a nuclear power plant. Officials from Natural Resources Canada told reporters in a background briefing that construction of the reactors outlined in the new national strategy could cost more than $100 billion. The strategy does not say how Canada would pay for them, though an official pointed to the Canadian Infrastructure Bank and the Canada Growth Fund as possible funding sources. Hodgson said the strategy would double the 90,000 jobs in Canada's nuclear sector "over the coming decades."
The plan also looks to expand sales of Candu reactors to new export markets. It says the government wants to break into at least four new international markets by 2040 and "engage six to 10 new nuclear entrant markets over a 15-year horizon, cementing Canada as their partner of choice." Thirty Candu reactors currently operate around the world, including in South Korea, China, India, Argentina, Pakistan and Romania, and there are plans to build two more. [...] "Reactor exports are not transactional. They establish multi-decade partnerships, creating durable geopolitical and commercial relationships that advance Canada's broader foreign policy interests," the strategy says. "As Canada works to diversify its trading relationships and strengthen ties with middle powers, Candu can be a central instrument of that strategy."
The boss of Royal Mail’s parent company received almost £7m in pay and bonuses last year – more than triple the previous figure – despite group profits slumping by a fifth.
Martin Seidenberg, group chief executive of International Distribution Services (IDS), took home £6.9m in pay, bonus and long-term incentive scheme awards in the year to 31 March, compared with £2.1m the previous year.
We’ve shown that rapid, measurable progress is achievable in our cities. Here’s how that can now be replicated worldwide
Sadiq Khan is the mayor of London. Michael Bloomberg is a former mayor of New York City
Some public health threats make global headlines: Covid-19. Ebola. Famine. When these disasters hit, photographs and videos of people suffering and dying spur countries to respond, international bodies to cooperate and individuals to donate supplies and money. Yet one of the world’s deadliest threats gets almost no attention at all, because it is largely invisible to the public and mostly absent from media coverage: air pollution.
Every day, billions of people are inhaling air that is shortening their lives and making them sicker with every breath. Every year, air pollution kills more than 8 million people worldwide. That’s more deaths than HIV, malaria and tuberculosis combined. It hides in plain sight and strikes without mercy, leading to heart and lung disease, cancers and other deadly conditions.
Sadiq Khan is the mayor of London. Michael Bloomberg is a former mayor of New York City
Central California US district court rejected claim policy was ‘unconstitutional’. Plus House of the Dragon star Olivia Cooke on being sworn at by people wanting selfies
Good morning. A California court has dismissed a lawsuit filed by Donald Trump’s administration against Los Angeles over a city ordinance making it a “sanctuary city” and limiting its cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
Fernando Olguin, a judge in the central California US district court, rejected the administration’s argument that the city’s policy was unconstitutional. He gave the administration permission to file an amended complaint. The White House did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.
What did the city say about the victory? The Los Angeles city attorney, Hydee Feldstein Soto, said: “This order reinforces the well-established principle that local governments have the authority to decide how to use their personnel and resources. The goal of this ordinance … is to encourage victims of and witnesses to crime to feel safe coming forward to seek help from LAPD regardless of their immigration status. It does not obstruct or impede lawful federal immigration enforcement operations.”
Why did both sides want the act to pass? The legislation comes as Democrats and Republicans prepare for November’s midterm elections, in which concerns about affordability are expected to loom large in the minds of voters. A shortfall in construction of new homes is seen as a key driver of housing costs, which have crept higher in recent years.
Switching phone providers is a big deal with a lot of moving parts. We look at the best postpaid and prepaid plans from Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T, Mint Mobile, US Mobile and others.
The independent senator David Pocock has challenged the Albanese government to prevent tech giants using Australian content to train AI models as cabinet considers proposals to change copyright rules for the rapidly developing technology.
His call came as the Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young called for a moratorium on the building and approval of new datacentres in Australia until “we get the regulations right”.
(Photo by Pablo Martinez Monsivais-Pool/Getty Images)
What I’m Discussing Today
Kareem’s Daily Quote: When we let cynicism take the place of wisdom, are we surrendering the very power democracy demands we use?
JD Vance on the Morality of the Trump Administration: Vance is trying to sell a shaky Iran deal and moral standing the Trump administration hasn’t earned.
Trump said Italy’s prime minister “begged” for a photo. She says that’s “completely fabricated.”: Trump’s habit of inventing flattering fairy tales has curdled into public humiliation.
Serena Williams back at Wimbledon in doubles wildcard with Venus: Greatness, longevity, and unfinished business still make the best drama in sports.
High Noon | Fred Zinnemann (1952): Gary Cooper stars in a lean, unsentimental reminder that communities often discover their principles only after one person is forced to stand alone.
“Higher Ground” | Stevie Wonder (1973): Stevie and friends turn his ode to perseverance into a groove so irresistible that hope sounds less like a slogan than a duty.
Kareem’s Daily Quote
“When we lose faith in each other, when we stop believing that voting matters, that citizenship matters, that our collective voices matter, that how we treat each other no longer matters, and then we give away our power to decide our futures, we open the door to the most ruthless, or the most careless, or the most fearful among us, who see some groups and some people as more equal than others, and see government as nothing more than a way to divvy up the spoils and punish enemies, and keep those who are different in their place. I do not believe that is the story of America that prevails in the end.” President Barack Obama
(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
President Obama delivered these words at the dedication of his presidential center on Chicago’s South Side, the same neighborhood where he arrived as a 23-year-old community organizer with a car so packed he couldn’t see out the rearview mirror. A man who came from virtually nothing, he rose to the pinnacle of power. He has watched civic faith get built and depleted, built and depleted, block by block, kitchen table by kitchen table, over decades spent inside the actual machinery of democratic life.
He has watched Donald Trump do his best to dismantle every one of his achievements, precisely because they were achieved by him. Not just a younger man, a smarter man, a Blacker man—but, quite simply, a better man. A bigger man. Donald Trump is a man so small that he would take away healthcare from the people he is sworn to serve just because it’s called Obamacare. In point of fact, it’s actually called the Affordable Care Act; it was Republicans who dubbed it Obamacare in hopes of attaching his name to a policy they were sure would be unpopular. It didn’t turn out that way.Today, as many as two-thirds of Americans view Obamacare favorably. (Trump, meanwhile, tries to slap his name on anything he can find, from a new class of battleship to the Kennedy Center to the U.S. Institute of Peace. Greenland better watch out.)
For all that he has seen, for all that he has been through, President Obama has never given in to pessimism, or its clever cousin, cynicism. Cynicism, despite what its practitioners would like you to believe, is not wisdom. It may look like wisdom: on the surface, a cynic may seem to be someone who has genuinely thought things through, weighed the evidence, and arrived at a sober conclusion. But cynicism isn’t wisdom; it’s just an excuse to surrender when you’re too lazy or indifferent to continue the fight.
So how did cynicism become the dominant political mood of our time, anyway? Why have so many Americans surrendered? It’s worth our while to answer those questions. Cynicism has spread through our civic life because it removes the burden of participation. If every institution is corrupt, if every candidate is equally compromised, if the whole political enterprise is a performance with a predetermined ending, we’re off the hook. We don’t have to show up. Making uncomfortable trade-offs between imperfect candidates, or learning the issues well enough to hold actual opinions, requires effort that cynicism conveniently excuses us from. The slow, dispiriting surrender of civic faith functions as a permission slip to disengage while still feeling morally superior about it. And the most ruthless, or the most careless, or the most fearful among us understand this perfectly. They have been counting on it for a very long time. But it’s like Obama says, we “give away” our power: present tense, active voice, the responsibility placed squarely on us.
Historically, it hasn’t always been this way. Civic participation has never had the same pricetag for everyone living in this country. For certain classes of people, it has cost more than they could possibly afford. In fact, the price has been deliberately inflated for some, even as it’s been drastically reduced for others. The historical record is full of Americans whose access was systematically obstructed rather than voluntarily surrendered—through poll taxes, grandfather clauses, the violent rollback of Black voting after Reconstruction, the 1898 Wilmington coup where a biracial government was overthrown at gunpoint by people who saw government as exactly the sort of zero-sum game Obama warns against. Their descendants are busy gerrymandering Black districts out of existence in certain red states while you’re reading this piece.
Obama’s challenge falls squarely on those who have meaningful access to participation but have chosen instead to curate a feed of outrage and call that civic engagement. His message is clear: that’s not good enough. Rev. Theodore Parker, writing in 1853 at a moment when the abolitionist cause looked, by any practical accounting, like a losing proposition, said he couldn’t see where the arc of justice was bending by sight alone; he could only divine it by conscience. But in the end, following your conscience, no matter where it leads or how hard the journey, is what distinguishes the worthwhile citizen from the cynic.
What the US president succeeded in obliterating was any rationale he offered for going to war
Before Donald Trump finally surrendered in his Iran war, he declared victory several dozen times, including on day eight– “We’ve already won!” – day 10 – “The war is very complete”– day 12, proclaiming he had won five times in 13 seconds – “We’ve won, let me say we’ve won. You know, you never like to say too early you won, we won, we won the bet in the first hour it was over”– and day 39 –“Total and complete victory, 100%. No question about it”– and claimed a deal to end the war was just around the corner 38 times. The first time he raised the prospect of peace, on day 24, he said the two sides had reached “almost all points of agreement”.
Trump boldly affixed his signature with a sharpie to the Memorandum Of Understanding on day 110, 17 June, at the Palace of Versailles, where the ruinous treaty concluding the first world war was signed. He seemed oblivious to the historical symbolism of the place, but bedazzled by its gold. “Versailles is not gold leaf – Versailles is the real deal,” he remarked.
Democratic primary elections to test strength of party’s left flank as old guard faces string of challenges
New Yorkers were voting on Tuesday in a slate of Democratic primaries poised to reveal the strength of the party’s left flank and shape the battle for control of the US House of Representatives in November.
Voters in Maryland and Utah will also nominate congressional candidates on Tuesday, while South Carolina holds a series of runoff elections for candidates who did not receive a majority of the vote earlier this month.
Film-maker talks about her documentary on John Barnett, the Boeing whistleblower who killed himself in 2024
It is widely recognized that for the Kennedys, tragedy has come often and from unexpected quarters. The filmmaker Rory Kennedy, born six months after the assassination of her father Robert Kennedy, has known her share. But in 2024 it was a loss outside the political dynasty that shook her to the core.
John Barnett, a quality inspector turned whistleblower at Boeing, one of the world’s biggest plane manufacturers, was found dead in his truck outside a hotel in Charleston, South Carolina. Affectionately known as “Swampy” because of his roots in Louisiana, Barnett had a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
The symbolic power of a stagnant pond beneath Lincoln’s statue has proven irresistible for the president’s critics
Narcissus was cursed to fall in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. Donald Trump is finding that his effort to overhaul the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool in Washington has turned into a perverse tourist attraction and 2,028ft national metaphor.
On Monday afternoon a massive algae bloom had turned the pool a green reminiscent of a plane passenger clutching a sick bag. It also stank, but that did not deter a steady flow of curious tourists snapping photos and TV crews doing eyewitness interviews about the folly of Donald Trump’s $14.7m renovation.
Sharper, who pleaded guilty or no contest to raping women in four states, was transferred to a halfway house in May
Convicted serial rapist and former National Football League champion Darren Sharper has registered as a sex offender in his home state of Virginia, after being transferred from federal prison to a halfway house there, according to official records.
With a projected 2028 release date nearing, the US Bureau of Prisons (BoP) recently confirmed that the 50-year-old Sharper had been moved on 27 May from a federal correctional institution near Elkton, Ohio, to either home confinement or a facility colloquially known as a halfway house overseen by the agency’s residential re-entry management office in Baltimore.
Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organizations. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html
Eleven months after unidentified Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil from his home in Morningside Heights, he met with his congressional representative, Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., for the first time.
The February meeting was scheduled as Espaillat, a fifth-term incumbent, was trying to improve his relationship with Khalil while a challenger against himgained steam. Darializa Avila Chevalier, an organizer from the Columbia University student encampments and a friend of Khalil’s, was at the time considered a long-shot challenger for the 13th Congressional District seat. But she was on her way to outraising Espaillat that quarter, and outside groups that anticipated a tough race for the incumbent had already started pouring money to bolster his campaign.
Espaillat now faces an unexpectedly heated battle to keep his House seat in New York’s primary election on Tuesday. Avila Chevalier is campaigning on criticizing Espaillat’s close ties to the pro-Israel lobby and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — whose super PAC gave $650,000 to a group backing Espaillat last month — and what she says was his reticence to go after ICE when the Trump administration first began targeting pro-Palestine students.
Outside groups have poured millions of dollars into the race — most of it, a reported almost $7 million, in support of Espaillat. Nearly $2 million has come in support of Avila Chevalier, most of it from the new pro-Palestine super PAC American Priorities and Justice Democrats PAC.
The race has aggravated an already strained relationship between progressive New York Democrats and an emboldened movement to their left, pitting the overwhelmingly popular democratic socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani against leaders once considered progressive stalwarts and now finding themselves lumped in with the establishment. Mamdani has bucked the preferences of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — poised to become House speaker if the Democrats take the House in November — and retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez, who endorsed Mamdani early in his mayoral primary campaign and helped guide progressive ideas into New York’s mainstream for more than 30 years in Congress. Espaillat, sworn in to the House in 2017, is the longest-serving incumbent Democrat in New York facing a serious challenger on Tuesday.
Avila Chevalier has pointed to Khalil’s detention as a key inspiration for her decision to run. On the campaign trail, she has slammed Espaillat for what she frames as a lacking response to the activist’s detention and targeting by the Trump administration for the better part of a year.
“Mahmoud’s case is really emblematic of a lot of what’s wrong with our system,” she told The Intercept. She pointed to Espaillat’s refusal to meet with Khalil’s wife, Noor Abdalla, as a continuation of his failure to address suppression of speech on Palestine in his district happening at Columbia and on the campuses of the City University of New York. “The fact that it was happening to a Palestinian man advocating for an end to the genocide of his people really highlights how all of this converges.”
In recent debates, Espaillat has responded to barbs from Avila Chevalier over his handling of the Khalil case by congratulating her for her work to assist his family and citing his meeting with Khalil and his attorneys in February. That month, when another Columbia student was detained on campus by ICE, Espaillat said the school needed to beef up its protections for students and described the Trump administration’s actions as “lawless,” calling on them to stop immediately.
Espaillat’s campaign did not provide comment for this story.
According to a member of his legal team present at the February meeting, the goal for Khalil was to use the meeting to allow the former organizer of the pro-Palestine encampment at Columbia University to vent his frustration that Espaillat had ignored multiple pleas to meet with Abdalla. A slew of progressive members from other districts, including Velázquez and Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., had launched efforts to free Khalil and support family in the immediate aftermath of the arrest. Several visited him in detention in Louisiana. But when Khalil’s legal and advocacy team asked Espaillat to meet with Abdalla, they never heard back, according to two people with knowledge of the events who spoke to The Intercept.
“When one of Espaillat’s constituents was kidnapped from his home by Trump’s ICE, he failed to take any action to protect or stand up for Mahmoud Khalil and his safety,” said Amira Hassan, political director for PAL PAC, another pro-Palestine political action committee backing Avila Chevalier. PAL PAC is affiliated with the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project, which has supported Khalil since his arrest.
“He did not meet with Mr. Mahmoud Khalil or his wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, until after he was released from ICE detention,” Hassan said. “Why was it that he chose to abandon his constituents? Was it because he was more invested in serving the interests of his AIPAC donors who spearheaded the campaigns attacking students like Mahmoud Kahlil who were protesting Israel’s genocide in Gaza?”
Velázquez, Espaillat’s retiring colleague, was one of 14 House Democrats who signed a letter to former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem three days after Khalil’s arrest demanding his immediate release. She was joined by Tlaib; Ilhan Omar D-Minn.; Summer Lee, D-Pa.; and Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass. Another letter the same day included Velázquez and more than two dozen other New York state and city politicians, like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, then-New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, and State Assembly Member Claire Valdez.
But Velázquez has since sided with Espaillat in an effort to hold onto power in key New York congressional races. She was upset with Mamdani for endorsing Valdez, another democratic socialist, for the 7th Congressional District seat Velázquez is vacating over Reynoso, her handpicked successor.
The mayor further angered Velázquez and Espaillat when he endorsed Avila Chevalier, after he had reportedly promised Espaillat he would endorse him after the congressman backed the mayor in the general mayoral election. Espaillat had at first backed former Gov. Andrew Cuomo but switched his support to Mamdani after he won the Democratic mayoral primary last summer.
Espaillat has said Avila Chevalier’s campaign has misrepresented his record on ICE by saying he cooperated with the agency and voted to fund it. His campaign has touted his work to help immigrants build political power in New York and fight the Trump administration’s attacks on immigrant communities. He has conducted oversight visits at ICE facilities and supported detainees who held a hunger strike to protest inhumane conditions at a New Jersey detention center.
After a December visit to an ICE facility at Federal Plaza in New York with Rep. Dan Goldman — who is facing his own powerful challenger from the left in Brad Lander — Espaillat said President Donald Trump was creating a humanitarian crisis. “The White House’s unhinged expectations are forcing DHS officials to cut corners,” he said. “This is not how America should enforce its laws.”
While Avila Chevalier has called to abolish ICE, Espaillat, who was previously an undocumented immigrant and built his political career on helping to expand Latino power among Democrats in New York, has said ICE should be “dismantled” and voted against funding the agency in January. Espaillat previously co-sponsored a bill in 2018 to dissolve the agency and transfer its “critical functions” to other agencies, but he has also voted with most Democrats to fund ICE in appropriations bills over his time in Congress.
At the time of Khalil’s arrest, in response to questions from The Intercept, Espaillat said that he expected Trump’s Department of Justice “to work within the confines of the law and that due process is guaranteed to him and his family.”
During the February meeting, Espaillat offered to do whatever he could to help Khalil and his family. By that point, after Khalil had already been secretly moved to a detention facility in Louisiana and later released from ICE custody after three months, during which he missed the birth of his son, there was not much Espaillat’s office could do except press the Trump administration to drop the charges.
No help for Khalil materialized after the offer, according to one person present at the meeting. Abdalla, his wife, has since appeared in an ad for Avila Chevalier.
Also running on Tuesday are Oscar Romero, chief information officer of the NYC Civic Engagement Commission, and Theo Chino-Tavarez, a socialist and computer engineer. Espaillat is the top fundraiser, with $2.6 million so far. Avila Chevalier has raised just over $1.1 million, a haul that slowed after an eye-popping first quarter that made her the only primary challenger that quarter to outraise an incumbent in New York City.
“This election is much bigger than this primary, it is much bigger than this seat, it is much bigger than this political moment,” Avila Chevalier said. “This campaign needs to be a vehicle to engage people in their own politics, in their own government, and if we build this coalition right, people will be able to find their political home as a result.”
Why Should Delaware Care? As lawmakers close in on the final days of the 153rd General Assembly, the policy decisions they make will reverberate far beyond the walls of Legislative Hall. From finalizing a nearly $7 billion state budget to passing bills that could impact healthcare costs, energy prices, property taxes and more, the legislation considered until June 30 could impact the lives of countless Delawareans.
Over the next week, Delaware lawmakers will finalize the state’s nearly $7 billion budget and make decisions about sweeping policy proposals that could impact residents’ property tax bills, healthcare costs and more.
As legislators work toward the close of the 153rd General Assembly on June 30, Spotlight Delaware has relaunched its end-of-session live blog to track the latest developments inside Legislative Hall.
The blog will be updated periodically throughout the day, highlighting the passage of key bills, providing insights from committee hearings and monitoring any tense moments that may arise.
Committee hearings generally begin at 10 a.m., and the full House and Senate generally convene at 2 p.m.
A full agenda for the week, include links to attend hearings virtually, can be found by clicking through the links under the “What’s Happening” tab here.
Initiative targets the creation of a scalable automated system for quantum resource estimation, a major bottleneck in quantum application development
BOSTON, June 23, 2026 — Zapata Quantum today announced it is applying agentic AI to accelerate quantum algorithm development by automating quantum resource estimation (“QRE”) workflows, in collaboration with NVIDIA. The effort initially targets applications in quantum chemistry, including drug discovery, energy, and advanced materials development.
“We believe that automation, powered by advances in AI and informed by domain-specific knowledge, is the key to scaling quantum application development for real-world applications such as drug discovery,” said Yudong Cao, Zapata’s Chief Technology Officer. “By working alongside NVIDIA, we’re applying agentic AI to address the challenge of efficiently benchmarking quantum algorithms, an underappreciated bottleneck in quantum application development.”
Orchestrated Multi-Agentic AI Solution
Today, the benchmarking of a single class of quantum algorithms often involves years of expert effort spanning molecular modeling, algorithm design, and hardware resource estimation. Zapata and NVIDIA are collaborating on an agentic AI workflow designed to compress this process into a scalable automated system to significantly lower the cost and time required.
“Agentic AI is proving transformative in shortening the timeline to useful quantum applications,” said Sam Stanwyck, Director of Quantum Product at NVIDIA. “This work with Zapata shows how crucial accelerated computing and AI is for practical and scalable quantum resource estimation, and how impactful that can be for developing meaningful applications in areas such as industrial quantum chemistry.”
The workflow combines AI orchestration, continuously verified quantum workflows, and an AI feasibility model capable of predicting hardware requirements before computation begins. The approach utilizes NVIDIA Agent Toolkit software to provide guardrails and monitoring for the workflow’s initial multi-agentic setup.
Approach Tested with Homogeneous Catalysis
The initiative has already demonstrated the potential of the approach in the field of homogeneous catalysis, building on Zapata’s prior work in the same area as part of the DARPA Quantum Benchmarking program. Homogeneous catalysis is a computationally demanding and strategically important quantum chemistry problem given its applicability to high-value areas such as pharmaceuticals, energy and advanced materials.
The team of scientists from both companies now seeks to refine the methodology and broaden its application within quantum chemistry. Zapata also recently filed a provisional patent application related to an “agentic framework for quantum,” reflecting the company’s broader verification-aware AI approach to scalable quantum application development.
“The future of quantum computing will not be determined solely by hardware progress but by our ability to systematically discover, evaluate, and develop high-value applications,” said Cao. “AI has the potential to do for quantum application development what modern software tools have done for traditional software engineering—enabling researchers to move faster, explore more ideas, and focus their expertise where it creates the most value.”
About Zapata Quantum
Zapata Quantum is a leading hardware-agnostic, pure-play quantum software company focused on accelerating quantum application development. With a portfolio of more than 60 granted and pending patents developed over seven years, Zapata supports applications across cryptography, pharmaceuticals, finance, materials discovery, defense, and more. The Company is the only organization to have participated across all technical areas of DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking program and has worked with Fortune 500 enterprises and government agencies to translate quantum advances into real-world impact. The Company’s study demonstrating the potential of quantum-enabled drug discovery was recognized as one of Nature Biotechnology’s Top 10 Papers of 2025.
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.
What we know about the shooting
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.
Dozens of police officers responded to Wilmington Hospital for the shooting. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY JACOB OWENS
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.
Locating the suspect
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.
John Wallace-Bey | PHOTO COURTESY OF WPD
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.
Hospital to examine safety protocols
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.
Incoming ChristianaCare CEO Jenn Schwartz spoke at a press conference Monday where Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings (left) announced felony charges against the suspect in last week’s Wilmington Hospital shooting that left one man dead and another injured. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY MAGGIE REYNOLDS
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/.
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.
Delaware House Speaker Melissa Minor-Brown (D-Delaware City) wants school districts to begin discussing how to better utilize facilities, which could save money. | PHOTO COURTESY OF DE HOUSE DEMOCRATIC CAUCUS
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.
Empty seats raise questions
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.
Warner Elementary School in Wilmington | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY JULIA MEROLA
“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.
What comes next?
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.”
State Sen. Tizzy Lockman serves as co-chair of the Redding Consortium. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY JACOB OWENS
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.
AJ Dybantsa is widely expected to have his name called first on Tuesday. But which other young stars are worth keeping an eye on?
AJ Dybantsa looked like a pro among college kids in his lone season at BYU, becoming just the fifth Division I player in the last 40 years to average more than 25 points per game while shooting better than 51%. Even beyond the numbers, Dybantsa’s natural length and ability to create his own shot make him look more like a future All-Star than Kansas’s Darryn Peterson, whose load-management habits stand in stark contrast to Dybantsa’s workhorse approach. Andrew Lawrence
Withdrawal of TPS designation puts workers who fill vital role in peril – and risks further shortages in US health system
When Dolores Jacoby’s doctor told her there was little she could do to treat her acute myeloid leukemia, a deafening silence filled the hospital room, where she was surrounded by her family. Dolores had only recently been diagnosed with the rare aggressive cancer. Her beloved nursing assistant, Janeth, was standing just outside her room. After the doctor left, Janeth entered with a tray containing each family member’s favorite beverage. “If there’s anybody who can recover, it’s your mother,” she told John Jacoby, Dolores’s son, before leaving the room as inconspicuously as she had arrived.
It was 2012. More than a decade later,John still remembers that day in his mother’s hospital room in the San Francisco Bay Area clearly. “We had just heard the worst news of our lives, and Janeth injected life into my mom, into her veins, into the atmosphere, you know, for all of us,” he said.
Photo illustration by Shoshana Gordon/ProPublica. Source image: Clive Mason/Getty Images.
My family’s morning routine is usually pretty ordinary. We wake up early, drink some coffee and get our 1-year-old ready for daycare. But one Wednesday morning last month, I found myself uttering to my wife a sentence that sounded frankly surreal to both of us: “Just to let you know, I’m about to call Trump.”
Then, hoping to avoid any urgent diaper events, I ducked into the next room and dialed up the president.
I’d been trying to reach President Donald Trump for a few days. Each time, my heart would start pounding. After nearly two decades as a journalist, I’m reasonably used to talking to powerful people. But cold-calling the president of the United States — on his personal cellphone — made me feel like a cub reporter all over again.
“Hello?” a voice said on the other end of the line. This time, the president had picked up.
I introduced myself and told Trump I’m a reporter with ProPublica.
“I’m writing a story about a big supporter of yours in the oil industry, Jeff Hildebrand,” I said. “Can I ask what you think about him?”
By this point I had spent months reporting on Hildebrand, a little-known billionaire — and major Trump donor — who owns an empire of low-producing oil and gas wells across the country. “Stripper wells” like these contribute relatively little to the U.S. energy supply but emit vast amounts of methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas.
By calling the president, I was hoping for some color on his relationship with Hildebrand. He had, after all, named Hildebrand’s wife ambassador to Costa Rica. My reporting so far had also revealed that the administration was gathering advice from oil industry groups backed by Hildebrand, and that it planned to weaken environmental regulations on stripper wells — potentially making Hildebrand even richer.
“I hear he does a good job,” Trump replied. “Don’t know him very well. OK?”
At first I thought the exchange undermined my story, making Hildebrand seem less central to the president’s energy policies than I’d suspected. But I realized that Trump’s comments illustrated something important about how this administration works. Trump appeared to have little clue about Hildebrand’s business, but when I mentioned that it was threatened by the “Biden methane rules,” the president was quick to respond, “Certainly we do the opposite of what Biden did.”
Trump, in other words, may be only vaguely aware of the people and groups helping to rewrite all manner of consequential policies. But what matters in Washington right now are not so much technical policy details but support for the president and an affinity with the broader ideological project: Deregulate everything.
Even if the president is only loosely familiar with Hildebrand, the oil tycoon is someone you should know about. As a climate reporter, I’m always looking for ways to make the seemingly abstract problem of global warming feel more concrete, approachable and even personal. With Hildebrand, I felt I had found a compelling character who is also the poster boy for a hugely consequential issue: Stripper wells collectively contribute just 6% of the nation’s oil and gas, but scientists have found they’re responsible for roughly half the sector’s methane pollution. That means they play an outsize role in climate change, which is amplifying heat waves, droughts and wildfires.
My previous reporting has shown that a former lobbyist for Hildebrand’s company — who now has a top post at the Environmental Protection Agency — has been rewriting methane regulations with advice from the oil industry. (An EPA spokesperson said the official “fulfilled all his ethical obligations to the letter.”)
The EPA’s press office declined to comment on the details of its plans but confirmed it is working on a proposal to “provide relief” to the oil industry, saying in a statement, “We heard consistently from American oil and natural gas producers (shocker that we meet with stakeholders) that the Biden-Harris Administration’s oil and gas methane regulations were unworkable and unnecessarily restricted American energy dominance.”
In the story we ultimately published, I took a deep dive into how Hildebrand made his fortune, racking up dozens of environmental violations across the country, and now stands to benefit from the rollback that his former lobbyist is carrying out.
I asked Hildebrand multiple times for an interview, even sending a letter to his home, but he didn’t respond. A spokesperson for his company, Hilcorp, said its operations complied with state and federal rules, adding that Hilcorp was “proud” of recent efforts to reduce its methane emissions.
As with many climate change stories, it can all sound pretty bleak. But in a world where global warming fixes can seem impossibly daunting, limiting methane pollution from stripper wells is the rare low-hanging fruit, Andrew Logan of Ceres, a climate advocacy group, told me. “If you could lose 6% of production and cut emissions in half, who wouldn’t make that trade?” Logan said.
Instead, the Trump administration is doubling down on the forms of energy that contribute most to global warming. In January, the president invited Hildebrand and two dozen other energy executives to the White House to discuss investing in Venezuela’s decrepit oil industry — which emits more methane, relative to production, than almost any other major oil producing country, according to the International Energy Agency.
Many of the executives couched their enthusiasm with caveats. ExxonMobil’s CEO called Venezuela “uninvestable” without changes to its legal system. The head of ConocoPhillips wanted U.S. government financing.
But Hildebrand had already seen how loyalty could be rewarded. Even though he had no notable operations outside the U.S., he hunched toward a microphone and said in a halting voice, “Hilcorp is fully committed and ready to go to rebuilding the infrastructure in Venezuela.”
“That’s good,” Trump said. “You’ll be very happy.”
My students don’t recognize his name, but you probably do. When he was chair of the Federal Reserve – for more than 18 years, from 11 August 1987 to 31 January 2006 – he not only ran the US (and most of the world’s) economy but was also in many ways the most powerful person in the US.
Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist and his newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. His new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, is out now in the US and in the UK
The Chinese supercomputer LineShine surprised the field and took the number one spot on the latest TOP500 list, which was unveiled today at ISC26 in Hamburg, Germany. The custom-built cluster composed of nearly 14 million ARM cores is the first to officially exceed 2 exaflops on TOP500’s Linpack benchmark, the second Chinese supercomputer to own the top spot, and the world’s fifth exascale system.
We first got wind of the existence of LineShine back in April, when the supercomputer’s chief designer, Lu Yutong of the National Supercomputing Center in Shenzhen (NSCC-SZ), gave a presentation on the new system, which was showcased on the center’s website and picked up by local reporters. The Chinese claimed that the full system not only was composed entirely of all Chinese-built components, but was capable of delivering 2 exaflops of FP64 compute, which we took with a fair bit of salt.
Well, it turns out the Chinese were telling it straight. What’s more, they had already built LineShine, which was not clear at the time. NSCC-SZ ran the High Performance Linpack (HPL) benchmark test and landed not only the highest score ever, but it achieved 2.198 exaflops on an all-CPU machine, which, of course, is unprecedented.
LineShine’s all-CPU system spans 20,480 computing nodes in an asymmetric NUMA configuration. Each LineShine node contains two ARMv9-based LX2 processors running at 1.55 GHz. Each processor contains two compute dies, and each of these dies is further divided into four NUMA domains. Each NUMA domain contains 38 ARMv9 cores and 4 GB of high-bandwidth memory (HBM). A dedicated Smart Direct Memory Access (SDMA) engine moves data between the HBM and 128 GB of off-package DDR memory per die, while a Chinese-built LingQi interconnect with a dual-plane, multi-rail fat-tree topology connects the nodes with 1.6 Tb/s of bandwidth per node.
LineShine draws approximately 42.2 megawatts of power, for an efficiency of 52.07 Gigaflops/Watt, according to TOP500. It also takes the top spot on the High Performance Conjugate Gradients Benchmark (HPCG) ranking with 22.00 HPCG-Petaflop per second. It ranks number four on the HPL-MxP mixed-precision benchmark with 7.92 Exaflops per second. TOP500 notes that modest 3.6x speedup over its HPL score that “points to a CPU-only design without dedicated low-precision accelerators.”
The emergence of LineShine marks the first time the Chinese have submitted a Linpack result to the TOP500 organization for a leadership-class supercomputer since 2017, when the Sunway TaihuLight cluster at National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi topped the list with 93 petaflops on the HCL benchmark, a position it held for two-and-a-half years until the ORNL’s IBM Summit system debuted in the spring of 2018 (it now sits at number 27). While the Chinese government continued to build supercomputers, the country ceased submitting Linpack test results beginning in 2019, when the US government imposed sanctions on China and restricted its access to the most powerful chips. However, Chinese “service providers” have submitted Linpack test results for about 20 similarly configured Lenovo ThinkSystem HR650X systems, ranked in the mid-400s.
The debut of LineShine atop the TOP500 pushes the rest of the class down a spot. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s El Capitan moves into the number two slot with 1.809 exaflops, Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Frontier moves to number three with 1.353 exaflops, Argonne National Laboratory’s Aurora moves into the fourth slot with 1.012 exaflops, while the JUPITER Booster cluster at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre drops to number five with a rating of 1.000 exaflops.
There is a new top 10 entry. The Italian energy company Eni S.p.A.’s new system, dubbed HPC7, a smaller version of the same Cray system that powers El Capitan, debuts with 571.5 Petaflops, making it the sixth most powerful supercomputer in the world. That pushes Microsoft’s Azure-based Eagle system to number 7 on the list, and it pushes Eni’s HPC6 system to number 8 (so HPC7 is 6 and HPC6 is 8; there will be a quiz on this later). Rounding out the top 10 are Fugaku at 442 Petaflops, good for number 9, and Switzerland’s Alps system, number 10 with 434.9 Petaflops.
TOP500 notes the considerable architectural diversity in the upper echelons of the supercomputing world. From all-Chinese, all-CPU LineShine systems and a collection of HPE Cray clusters equipped with AMD accelerators (DOE’s El Capitan and Frontier to Eni’s HPC7 and HPC6), to Nvida Grace Hopper architectures JUPITER Booster and Alps and even a system with Intel’s Ponte Vecchio GPU, ANL’s Aurora, there is no one single architecture that dominates. Microsoft’s Eagle cluster combines Intel Xeon processors with Nvidia H100 accelerators, while Japan’s Fugaku system is built around Fujitsu’s A64FX Arm processors.
“The list demonstrates that there is no single dominant technology path to leadership-class computing,” TOP500 says in its press release. “Instead, vendors are pursuing a variety of CPU, GPU, APU, and custom-accelerator approaches coupled with different interconnect and system designs.”
Five systems now deliver more than one exaflop on the High Performance Linpack benchmark
HAMBURG, Germany, June 23, 2026 — 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. The new list also reflects continued depth in U.S. and European exascale capability, a new entrant in Italy’s HPC fleet, and unchanged leadership atop the Green500 energy-efficiency ranking.
LineShine Takes the No. 1 Position
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.
Five Systems Now Cross the Exascale Threshold
LineShine’s debut increases the number of systems sustaining more than one exaflop/s on HPL from four to five and, for the first time, places exascale systems across Asia, North America, and Europe simultaneously.
El Capitan, at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, drops to No. 2 but is otherwise unchanged at 1.809 Exaflop/s, 11.34 million cores, and 60.94 Gigaflops/Watt, built on the HPE Cray EX255a architecture with AMD 4th Gen EPYC CPUs and AMD Instinct MI300A accelerators. Frontier, at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, moves to No. 3 at 1.353 Exaflop/s, and Aurora, at Argonne National Laboratory, holds No. 4 at 1.012 Exaflop/s. JUPITER Booster, operated by the Jülich Supercomputing Centre under the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, moves to No. 5 at exactly 1.000 Exaflop/s, remaining Europe’s only system above the exascale threshold on HPL.
A New Entrant and a Reshuffled Top 10
Eni S.p.A.’s new HPC7 system enters the list directly at No. 6 with 571.5 Petaflop/s, built on the same HPE Cray EX255a / AMD Instinct MI300A architecture as El Capitan, and becomes the most powerful machine in Eni’s HPC fleet alongside its existing HPC6 system. Microsoft’s Azure-based Eagle system falls to No. 7 at 561.2 Petaflop/s, followed by HPC6 at No. 8 (477.9 Petaflop/s). Japan’s Fugaku holds No. 9 at 442 Petaflop/s, and Switzerland’s Alps system rounds out the Top 10 at No. 10 with 434.9 Petaflop/s. Finland’s LUMI and Italy’s Leonardo, No. 9 and No. 10 last edition, fall just outside the new Top 10 at No. 11 and No. 12, respectively.
Architectural and Vendor Diversity in the Top 10
The June 2026 Top 10 illustrates an unusually high degree of architectural diversity, reflecting the increasingly heterogeneous nature of high-performance computing. The systems span custom Chinese architectures (LineShine’s LingKun processors and LingQi interconnect), AMD-based systems ranging from exascale (El Capitan and Frontier) to sub-exaflop performance (HPC7 and HPC6), an Intel-based exascale design (Aurora), NVIDIA Grace Hopper architectures (JUPITER Booster and Alps), Microsoft’s cloud-based Eagle system combining Intel Xeon processors with NVIDIA H100 accelerators, and Japan’s distinctive Fugaku system built around Fujitsu’s A64FX Arm processors. The list demonstrates that there is no single dominant technology path to leadership-class computing; instead, vendors are pursuing a variety of CPU, GPU, APU, and custom-accelerator approaches coupled with different interconnect and system designs.
Looking at vendor representation, HPE/Cray is the dominant system integrator, supplying six of the ten systems (El Capitan, Frontier, Aurora, HPC7, HPC6, and Alps); Aurora runs on the HPE Cray EX platform but is credited to Intel as prime contractor. On the processor side, AMD has the strongest presence, powering four systems directly (El Capitan, Frontier, HPC7, and HPC6) and contributing more than 40 percent of the combined Top 10 HPL performance. NVIDIA technology appears in three systems (JUPITER Booster, Eagle, and Alps), while Intel is represented both as a complete platform vendor (Aurora) and through Xeon processors in Eagle. Eviden/Bull supplies the BullSequana XH3000 platform underlying JUPITER Booster, Fujitsu remains represented through Fugaku, and China’s Shenzhen Supercomputer Center enters the Top 10 with the custom-built LineShine system, demonstrating the emergence of a new indigenous exascale architecture. Overall, the Top 10 reflects a competitive landscape led by HPE/Cray integration expertise, AMD’s strong position in exascale computing, NVIDIA’s growing influence through AI-oriented accelerators, and continued innovation from national computing programs in China, Japan, Europe, and the United States.
HPCG: LineShine Leads a Reordered Field
On the HPCG benchmark, which measures performance on data-intensive, real-world application patterns rather than raw floating-point throughput, LineShine takes over the No. 1 position with 22.00 HPCG-Petaflop/s, ahead of El Capitan (17.41) and Fugaku, now third (16.00). Frontier holds fourth (14.05), Eni’s new HPC7 system takes fifth (5.95), and Aurora rounds out the top six (5.61). JUPITER Booster has not yet submitted an HPCG result.
HPL-MxP: El Capitan Holds the Mixed-Precision Lead
On the HPL-MxP benchmark, which measures mixed-precision performance, El Capitan remains the No. 1 system at 16.7 Exaflop/s, a 9.2x speedup over its standard HPL score. Aurora holds second place (11.6 Exaflop/s, 11.5x speedup) and Frontier holds third (11.4 Exaflop/s, 8.4x), while LineShine debuts in fourth at 7.92 Exaflop/s with a more modest 3.6x speedup, consistent with its CPU-only design. Further down the list, SoftBank’s CHIE-4 system posted the field’s largest gain at 24.4x over its standard HPL score.
Green500: Same Top Three, Same Order, Six Months Late
Energy-efficiency leadership is unchanged from the previous list. KAIROS, at CALMIP / University of Toulouse-CNRS in France, again ranks No. 1 on the Green500 at 73.28 Gigaflops/Watt (3.046 Petaflop/s on HPL), followed by ROMEO-2025 at the ROMEO HPC Center – Champagne-Ardenne, France (70.91 Gigaflops/Watt, 9.863 Petaflop/s) and the Levante GPU extension at DKRZ in Germany (69.43 Gigaflops/Watt, 6.747 Petaflop/s). All three share an identical BullSequana XH3000 architecture built on Grace Hopper Superchips and Quad-Rail NVIDIA InfiniBand NDR200; their order reflects system size, since smaller installations of identical technology consistently edge out larger ones on efficiency.
Together, the new list illustrates a high-performance computing landscape that is more geographically and architecturally diverse than ever — spanning custom national silicon, GPU-accelerated U.S. Department of Energy systems, and Europe’s sovereign computing infrastructure.
The TOP500 project began in 1993 as a one-time exercise for a small conference in Mannheim, Germany, followed by a second list compiled later that year for the SC93 conference in the United States. Comparing the two editions revealed how valuable the resulting statistics were, and the project has continued ever since, publishing an updated ranking of the world’s most powerful computer systems every June and November.
In his dreams, Aliaksei Shcharbachenia is on a plane with an immigration agent’s hands wrapped around his neck. When he wakes up, he’s freed from the memory of his traumatic and botched deportation attempt last month — but then he’s stuck languishing in Farmville, Virginia.
The 35-year-old asylum-seeker from Belarus has spent nearly a year at Farmville Detention Center. There, he says, he’s experiencing medical neglect as a tumor grows on his arm.
“It hurts when you touch it,” Shcharbachenia told The Intercept, holding his arm up on a video call to show a growth the size of an egg. He said he’d lost feeling in the fingers on his right hand, and though he requested to see a specialist in December, as of last week he hadn’t seen one nor received a diagnosis. Instead, as Shcharbachenia attested in an internal oversight complaint to the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. government illegally tried to deport him back to Belarus, where he fled political persecution in 2021.
Shcharbachenia is one of thousands of immigrants being held in detention facilities where the federal government or private contractors control their access to food and medical care. Soon tens of thousands more could be joining him, as the Trump administration and Congress move to rapidly expand the deportation and detention machine. And advocates warn that Farmville, purchased last year by private prison contractor CoreCivic for $67 million, has long been dogged by allegations of neglectful and unsanitary conditions.
“Dogs” live better than detainees there, Shcharbachenia told The Intercept. “I want people to know what really happens inside here.”
The Intercept spoke to Shcharbachenia via a Russian translator arranged by an abolitionist organization, Free Them All VA, and reviewed several complaints he submitted to the DHS Office of Inspector General about the lack of medical attention for the enlarged mass on his arm and his treatment on the attempted deportation flight. When The Intercept called the inspector general’s office to discuss Shcharbachenia’s case, the number was no longer in service.
Earlier this month, Congress approved roughly $70 billion for immigration enforcement efforts. Last year, the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act allocated more than $170 billion over the next four years for immigration enforcement. And the Trump administration has been rapidly purchasing detention centers with a plan to have the capacity to detain 100,000 immigrants at once.
“They’re using detention as a form of punishment as a way to get people to relinquish their rights to remain in this country.”
“What we expect is that the mass infusion of cash will only put online more detention facilities that are going to be run as private businesses, and offer the bare minimum at the cost of human life and human suffering,” said Sophia Gregg, senior immigrants’ rights attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia.
Gregg said that there’s no indication that the administration will manage these new facilities, many of which are converted warehouses and “temporary shelters,” any better than the current ones in operation.
“They’re using detention as a form of punishment as a way to get people to relinquish their rights to remain in this country and creating conditions that ultimately create suffering in order to induce people to elect to be removed,” she said. “And so with that being the goal of the administration to deport people as quickly as possible, they have no incentive in creating conditions that are humane.”
“They have no incentive in creating conditions that are humane.”
In fact, Shcharbachenia believes he was targeted for just that reason. In May, he was caught sharing “know your rights” information with new detainees, and guards soon placed him in solitary confinement. He was there for two weeks, Shcharbachenia recalled, and only let out of his cell with his legs and arms bound by chains.
In a statement to The Intercept, CoreCivic spokesperson Brian Todd said the contractor does not use solitary confinement and instead opts for “restrictive housing,” a term that describes confining a detained person in isolation from other people. He denied allegations of retaliatory treatment.
ICE did not respond to The Intercept’s requests for comment.
When Farmville Detention Center opened in 2010, its initial owners, Immigration Centers of America, argued that private management would be more humane than what the government could provide. They sold it to the community as “almost a summer camp environment,” said a spokesperson for Free Them All VA, which has been monitoring the facility for years.
Instead, advocates argue they created a hellscape for immigrants.
In 2015, a guard pepper-sprayed a detainee while he was in full restraints and confined to a medical isolation cell, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement records released under the Freedom of Information Act. In another instance from the same records, a detainee was restrained to a bed and chair for over four days. The “vendor” at the time, Immigration Centers of America, did not deny the incident but said that the action was justified. ICE responded that they would not sanction the facility for the use of force.
The facility did receive a “one-time deduction” of its monthly invoice after detainees found “white worms” in their food, but only because Immigration Centers of America had posted a memorandum threatening anyone who “attempted to degrade the reputation of” the facility, which the government interpreted as threatening complainants.
In 2020, detainees initiated a hunger strike to demand their release as Covid swept through the facility. In August ofthat year, 72-year-old Canadian man James Hill died after contracting the disease inside. Instead of responding to the growing concerns about the spread of the coronavirus, guards reportedly used pepper spray against detainees on hunger strike.
Then CoreCivic bought the facility in 2025.
“Things since [the facility] moved to CoreCivic have only gotten worse,” said Gregg. “Medical services are difficult to get for individuals, if not impossible.”
Shcharbachenia, who was picked up by immigration agents at a truck stop in Virginia in August 2025, agreed with Gregg’s assessment of the care. He said the facility’s ventilation system is dirty, and it’s often freezing inside. The water is “undrinkable,” he said, and the food is disgusting and “artificial.”
Shcharbachenia, who primarily speaks Russian, said CoreCivic staff have denied access to a translator or any assistance in filing his asylum claim. He said he had received documents related to his claims while in detention, but without a translator, he was unable to do anything about it.
In February, two months after he requested urgent medical attention, Shcharbachenia said he was finally seen by an onsite doctor about his arm, but he claims that she only measured the growth on his arm and did not provide any treatment, and that he still has not seen a specialist. He said he also had a telehealth appointment, but it was for mental health care. In a letter from Shcharbachenia to the DHS Office of Inspector General in March, he detailed his medical condition and repeated requests to receive outside “specialist evaluation and imaging.”
Todd, the CoreCivic spokesperson, told The Intercept that he was unable to comment on whether Shcharbachenia had seen a specialist or received a diagnosis but said he was seen multiple times by onsite medical staff.
“The safety, health and well-being of the individuals entrusted to our care is our top priority, and we take seriously our responsibility to adhere to all applicable federal detention standards at our Farmville Detention Center (FDC),” Todd wrote in a statement to The Intercept. He denied Shcharbachenia’s claims about his lack of access to a translator as well as the state of the drinking water and ventilation system, arguing that it’s the same “clean drinking water” that supplies the local community, and that the staff drink the same water and use the same ventilation systems.
On May 20, after his two weeks in isolation, ICE moved Shcharbachenia to a facility in Chantilly, Virginia, according to a separate complaint filed with the DHS Joint Intake Center. He recalled an agent asking him if he was ready to fly to Belarus.
ICE flew him to Turkey, where he begged not to be returned to Belarus as best he could in English. He said he showed officers documents he’d printed out on human rights abuses in his home country and warned that if he returned, he would likely be murdered, leaving his two daughters fatherless.
But it was to no avail. He was flown from Turkey to Azerbaijan, where was able to speak with immigration officers who understood his native Russian. He refused to board the next plane to Belarus.
Shcharbachenia said that agents from the United States and Azerbaijan began to argue, but because he did not have his passport, he was unable to leave the airport. ICE eventually escorted him back to Turkey, where he was placed in a cell in the airport.
What happened next still haunts his dreams.
“They took out of their backpacks some white plastic collars, like dog collars,” he said, referring to U.S. immigration agents. As they entered the cell, Shcharbachenia said he begged a Turkish police officer who was present for asylum. He said a U.S. immigration agent approached him from behind and hit him across the head, causing him to lose consciousness.
Shcharbachenia said he woke up on the floor with another officer “choking him so hard he couldn’t breathe.” Shcharbachenia passed out again and awoke with the plastic collars around his legs and arms, Shcharbachenia told The Intercept and wrote in three complaints filed with internal DHS oversight agencies.
Shcharbachenia was eventually transferred back to Farmville, where he said he received no medical treatment for the injury he sustained from being hit on the back of the head. Todd, the CoreCivic spokesperson, said that the assault and head injury were not reflected in Shcharbachenia’s medical records.
As for the growing mass on his arm, Shcharbachenia said he has made multiple grievance requests for treatment. He said staff at first promised to get him an appointment within the month, but eventually, Farmville Detention Center stopped responding.
Update: June 23, 2026, 10:53 a.m. ET This story has been updated with an additional statement from CoreCivic spokesperson Brian Todd sent after publication.
A massive blaze in Houston, Texas, sent black smoke billowing for miles across the city. About 100 firefighters were deployed to put out the flames. The cause of the fire was not immediately known
How five months in 2016 that encompassed Boris Johnson siding with Vote Leave, Jo Cox’s murder and David Cameron’s resignation shaped the UK’s future
David Cameron, having promised in 2013 that a future Conservative government would offer a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU, announces the dateof the vote: 23 June 2016. The next day, Boris Johnson, then the mayor of London, says he will campaign for leave.
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has arrived at Kennedy Space Center ahead of a Falcon Heavy launch targeted for no earlier than August 30. The observatory will survey the sky about 1,000 times faster than Hubble with a field of view at least 100 times wider, helping scientists study dark matter, dark energy, and exoplanets. Spaceflight Now reports: NASA's next great observatory, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, arrived at the Kennedy Space Center aboard the agency's massive Pegasus barge late Sunday morning. The spacecraft was nestled inside its protective case, which NASA nicknamed the "Chariot" in keeping with the "Roman" theme. That said, telescope is named not for the ancient empire, but instead for NASA's first Chief of Astronomy, Nancy Grace Roman. "She was a key person in our exploration of space. She understood that in order to better understand the universe, you have to go in space," said Lucas Paganini, the program executive for Roman. "That's why she's called the 'Mother of Hubble' because she made Hubble possible."
[...] Roman is designed to operate near a fixed point in space called Lagrange Point 2, about 1.5 million km away from the Earth on the side opposite the Sun. It's designed to operate there for a minimum of five years, but Paganini said with the propellant onboard, it will likely last for 10 years or more. The telescope is+ equipped with a 300 megapixel camera called the Wide Field Instrument, which features 18 detectors. It was developed by BAE Systems (formerly Ball Aerospace). "It's going to allow us to observe at least 100 times wider field of view than what we can do with Hubble. Same resolution, but a wider area, 1000 times faster," Paganini said. "So what takes Roman a year to observe, it would take Hubble thousands of years. So it's definitely much more efficient."
The observatory also features a chronograph instrument, developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which will allow Roman to observe the faint light of exoplanets near their stars. Paganini said Roman will also help scientists better understand dark matter and dark energy, the combination of which he calls the "dark universe." "100 years ago, we discovered that the universe was expanding. 25 years ago, we discovered that it was expanding at an accelerated pace and that's what led to a Nobel Prize," Paganini said. "What we don't quite know yet is if that acceleration is changing in ways. We don't know if it's actually dark energy, what is producing it, or is it simply that we don't understand gravity at all. "So eventually, we'll see if the laws of physics that we use these days are the right ones for what we are observing. But at the end is, we're trying to understand a very human question, which is where do we come from and where are wea heading in this universe that is our neighborhood?"
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
Monika Silva Koniuszek died from a blow to the head and strangulation, a postmortem found, despite government claim of suicide
Campaigners in Ecuador say a Polish anti-corruption activist who investigated allegations against the family business of the country’s rightwing president was murdered to silence her.
Monika Silva Koniuszek, 41, was found dead in her home in Montañita, a coastal town in Ecuador’s Santa Elena province. The single mother of daughters aged four and nine, was found on the floor with a noose around her neck on 8 June.
NSF-approved deployment upgrades more than 600 compute nodes and delivers up to 71% performance improvements for scientific computing workloads.
WAYNE, Pa., June 22, 2026 — Cornelis announced the formal acceptance of a CN5000 networking upgrade supporting a key compute partition within the Texas Advanced Computing Center‘s (TACC) Stampede3 supercomputer.
The deployment upgrades more than 600 compute nodes to provide improved performance and scalability for scientific computing workloads serving the U.S. open science and open research community. The upgrade helps researchers complete simulations faster and supports increasingly complex research across weather forecasting, engineering, and data-intensive analysis.
“TACC has long been one of the most respected research computing organizations in the world, and we’re proud to continue supporting its mission,” said Lisa Spelman, CEO of Cornelis. “The acceptance of this upgrade marks another milestone in our collaboration with TACC and reflects our shared commitment to helping researchers tackle increasingly complex scientific challenges.”
The acceptance further expands Cornelis’ support of one of the world’s leading academic supercomputing centers. Stampede3 serves more than 5,000 active researchers each year and powers a wide range of scientific and engineering applications, including weather forecasting, computational science, engineering simulation, and data analytics.
Accelerating Scientific Research
As scientific and engineering workloads continue to grow in complexity, efficient movement of data between compute resources becomes increasingly important to overall application performance.
The CN5000 upgrade enhances a core Stampede3 compute partition, helping improve application performance and enabling more effective use of shared compute resources.
“Researchers rely on Stampede3 to support a wide range of scientific discovery efforts,” said Dan Stanzione, executive director of TACC. “The successful acceptance of the CN5000 upgrade strengthens an important production partition within the system and helps ensure researchers have access to the performance needed for increasingly demanding workloads. Rigorous acceptance testing is how we ensure this system delivers for the thousands of researchers who depend on it each year, and it reflects the standard we hold for every technology partner we bring into the ecosystem.”
Measurable Application Performance Improvements
Testing using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, one of the HPC community’s most widely used weather and climate applications, demonstrated performance improvements ranging from 53% to 71% across multiple scaling points.
The results highlight how modern networking infrastructure can improve the performance of large-scale scientific applications, enabling researchers to complete simulations faster and maximize available computing capacity.
The upgrade further demonstrates Cornelis’ ability to support leading HPC organizations with networking technologies designed to improve application performance, system efficiency, and scientific productivity.
About Cornelis
Cornelis delivers high-performance, scale-out networking solutions that accelerate AI and HPC workloads. Built on the powerful Omni-Path architecture, Cornelis technology enables lossless, congestion-free networking that reduces training time, improves inference, and maximizes compute utilization. From foundation model training to complex climate modeling and real-time analytics, Cornelis’ solutions power the most demanding workloads across commercial, academic, and cloud environments. With a focus on performance, scalability, and efficiency, Cornelis helps organizations achieve faster insights and greater return on infrastructure investments.
PNNL will build an AI-powered modeling platform to help geothermal energy operators maximize electricity generation
RICHLAND, Wash., June 22, 2026 — All around the world, heat is key to generating electricity. By burning hydrocarbons, splitting atoms or tapping into Earth’s hot subsurface, humans generate much of the world’s electricity by heating water to create steam that turns massive generators.
Fervo Energy established the Cape Station geothermal energy plant in Utah, which will begin contributing electricity to the grid in 2026. PNNL is working with Fervo and NVIDIA to build a digital twin of an enhanced geothermal energy reservoir to help other geothermal plant operators maximize their electricity generation. Photo credit: Fervo Energy.
Of these resources, though, heat from Earth’s subsurface hasn’t contributed much to the nation’s electricity supply — in 2023, geothermal made up just 0.4% of all electricity generated in the United States. Energy experts see geothermal as a high-potential, untapped and underused resource. Especially as electricity demand is expected to rise over the next few decades, research institutions and industry alike are looking to increase geothermal energy production.
To help accelerate this production, the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has teamed up with geothermal company Fervo Energy and AI technology company NVIDIA to build a digital twin of enhanced geothermal reservoirs. A digital twin is a virtual platform that simulates a physical asset, like a battery, hydropower dam or, in this case, a geothermal reservoir. Through AI and computer simulations, digital twins mimic real physical processes.
With Fervo Energy and NVIDIA, PNNL researchers will build Enhanced Geothermal System Twin, a virtual platform that will mimic the behavior of a real geothermal reservoir. Once launched, the platform would ultimately be available to any geothermal plant operator to help them make quick decisions to maximize electricity generation.
“Current modeling capabilities for geothermal systems are too slow to fully incorporate and analyze production data, which can lead to an underutilized resource. A digital twin would allow EGS operators to understand, in real time, the dynamics of their reservoir and act quickly to maximize the power generation potential,” said Maruti Mudunuru, an Earth scientist at PNNL and principal investigator of the project.
“Fervo will provide us with their proprietary data for their geothermal sites in Nevada and Utah, and NVIDIA will provide their technical expertise on developing AI surrogates used in the digital twin for Earth’s subsurface,” he added.
In 2023, Fervo established Project Red in Nevada, which now generates 3 megawatts for the grid. Project Cape Station in Nevada is set to deliver 100 MW to the grid in 2026 and increase to 500 MW by 2028. The team will use currently available results to begin training the digital twin immediately and will continue developing it as additional production data comes online.
“We see digital twins as a critical step toward enabling data-driven geothermal operations,” said Sireesh Dadi, senior manager for data acquisition and advanced analytics at Fervo Energy. “Through this collaboration, we are contributing field data, operational context and validation use cases to ensure that the digital twin platform delivers actionable insights at the speed required for real-world decision-making.”
What’s Happening Down There?
“Geothermal energy is all about extracting heat from Earth’s subsurface. You inject cold water into the system and then you get hot water out of the reservoir,” Mudunuru said.
By “the reservoir,” he means an enhanced geothermal system, consisting of a series of drilled wells and fractures up to 10,000 feet below ground (for reference, the Empire State Building is about 1,250 feet high). Some of the fractures are “enhanced” by hydraulic fracturing — or high-pressure water injection — to be wider, longer or to connect fracture networks to each other. Enhancing the fractures means more surface area and better heat recovery.
Then, cold water is injected through the fractures, where it absorbs heat from the surrounding rock (which can reach up to 555 degrees Fahrenheit) and rises to the surface. At the surface, the water becomes steam, which then spins electricity-generating turbines. Fervo’s geothermal power generation process is designed so that the water can cool at the surface and none of it is lost to evaporation. The water is then injected back into the subsurface, creating a continuous electricity-producing process.
Although the process sounds straightforward, operators have a lot of factors to consider, Mudunuru said.
“When you pump the water, you want the water to pass through the whole network of fractures because if it doesn’t, you’re not accessing all the potential heat,” Mudunuru said. “Plant operators need to answer questions like ‘How many monitoring wells does the system need? How do we design those wells? How much water should we inject?’”
Building a Digital Twin
It’s difficult to answer these questions when operations occur 10,000 feet below ground. Fervo Energy deploys fiber-optic cables and uses acoustic technology to map and gather intelligence from the subsurface, but processing and analyzing all that data takes too much time for operators to act swiftly. Fluctuations in the operating data can indicate issues in the wells, reservoir or pipelines that may require attention. Current models that help represent the dynamics of a geothermal system can take weeks to run.
EGS-Twin would run in real time and allow operators to respond quickly to any underground problems that may arise.
To build the digital twin, PNNL researchers will train scalable AI models on NVIDIA AI infrastructure to learn and process field data from Fervo’s EGS asset. The team will then incorporate those trained AI models into the NVIDIA Omniverse libraries, which will be able to show a physical model of the geothermal system.
NVIDIA tools would be able to apply enormous amounts of records from Fervo’s field production to create a simulation of the entire fracture system, showing operators whether injected water is successfully flowing through that network to collect as much heat as possible. The final EGS-Twin will contain anonymized data so that other geothermal plant operators can adapt it to their own operations.
“Geothermal has the potential to be a reliable, always-on source of energy, but unlocking it at scale will require advanced computing to better understand complex reservoirs thousands of feet below the surface,” said John Josephakis, global vice president of high-performance computing and supercomputing at NVIDIA. “PNNL and Fervo Energy are using NVIDIA accelerated computing to build EGS-Twin, applying AI and simulation to help improve reservoir modeling, planning and operations.”
The EGS-Twin platform should be ready to deploy by 2029. The project is funded by DOE’s Hydrocarbons and Geothermal Energy Office.
About PNNL
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory draws on its distinguishing strengths in chemistry, Earth sciences, biology and data science to advance scientific knowledge and address challenges in energy resiliency and national security. Founded in 1965, PNNL is operated by Battelle and supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time.
Giannis Antetokounmpo wants more championships. So do the Miami Heat. And the Heat finally have another superstar.
The Heat landed Antetokounmpo – a two-time NBA MVP and 10-time All-Star – from the Milwaukee Bucks on Monday night in exchange for a massive haul of players and draft picks.
Met Office forecasters have issued a rare red weather warning for England, with temperatures potentially reaching 40C (104F) in some places. Europe is also dealing with a debilitating heatwave, with schools closed, trains cancelled and France even restricting the consumption of alcohol outdoors to take pressure off the emergency services. The high temperatures coincide with the coming El Niño, which some scientists have nicknamed Godzilla for its predicted strength. To find out whether the two are linked, Ian Sample hears from our Europe climate correspondent, Ajit Niranjan. He explains why it’s so hot, why we could be in for even worse and how we can keep as cool as possible
Exclusive: Data reveals 60% of 18 to 28-year-olds would vote to rejoin bloc if given the opportunity
A generation of young Britons who were locked out of the 2016 EU referendum because of their age now believe that Brexit has failed, with a majority demanding a fresh vote to rejoin the EU, exclusive polling shows.
Gen Z Britons show deep dissatisfaction with the UK’s departure from the EU, according to new polling of 18- to 28-year-olds conducted by the thinktank More in Common and shared with the Guardian.
I believe that chatbots have no place in a decent society, and am repelled by the topic of AI in general. But could I be seduced?
I received a text message from my editor: “Um, is it unethical to ask you to get an AI bf?? You can prob say no.”
Resentment. Contempt! Sorrow. Unease. I love text messaging. I have text message exchanges with, let’s say, 15 people a day. If you want me to do something, you should ask via text message. My editor knows this. She also knows, though it’s more complicated, that I love boyfriends. An AI boyfriend is a boyfriend who always, only texts back, immediately.
I find it hard to express my emotions openly. (No.)
I thrive to develop healthier, more trusting relationships. (Yes, though I prefer to use “thrive” correctly.)
I want a partner who supports my life aspirations. (Crossbow?)
I worry about being judged for what I want in a relationship. (Yes.)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Dozens of new robot arms have been installed at General Motors' flagship electric vehicle factory in Detroit -- even as 1,300 workers remain out of work following what was supposed to be a temporary layoff. The latest automation push has spurred union pushback over a potentially existential issue for automakers and their workers. General Motors installed approximately 50 robot arms at GM's Factory Zero plant in Detroit, Michigan, according to reporting by Crain's Detroit Business. Made by the Japanese robotics company FANUC, the robots are designed to help attach various components to vehicles during the assembly line process. But leaders at United Auto Workers (UAW), the primary US union for autoworkers, reacted with anger to the new robotic presence, given how GM has not yet called back any of the workers affected by supposedly temporary layoffs in March.
More than 1,000 union members are still "laid off indefinitely," James Cotton, president of UAW Local 22, told The Detroit News. He said that the company could bring some of those members back to work instead of installing the 50 robots. The temporary layoffs were preceded by permanent layoffs involving another 1,200 workers at GM's Factory Zero in October 2025. Many automakers, including Stellantis NV and Ford Motor Company, have deployed assembly-line robots, such as Fanuc robot arms, as they push to automate more of their US operations. Hyundai Motor Company plans to deploy Atlas humanoid robots made by Boston Dynamics -- which Hyundai acquired in 2020 -- to start working in the automaker's flagship EV facility in Georgia by 2028. "Technological development has the capability of making work safer for the working class and enabling workers to have a shorter work week without losing pay," said Andrew Bergman, a Local 22 member and union organizer who was among those laid off by GM. "But in the bosses' and billionaires' hands it's used to pad profits and lay off workers."
Can somebody tell me how to set the tire bead behind the rim it's a stock xr hub and Vega tire am I missing something this tire is super stiff and hard to flex to get even close to getting one edge on let alone enough Pizza circumference to foot around the rest of the hub smh
I currently own a gt with around 2500 miles that I ride almost daily. I don’t use it to get around or anything, just cruising and exploring, but I usually take long rides, regularly push my gt to 27 mph, and the range sounds appealing. I’m also completely new to vesc with no prior experience, but am interested in getting into it.
The price:performance just seems really good, so I’m curious if it’s a good buy. Do you guys have any issues with it that would be a deal breaker?
City hails victory after US officials sued over ordinance that limits LA’s cooperation with immigration authorities
A California court has dismissed a lawsuit filed by Donald Trump’s administration against Los Angeles over a city ordinance limiting its cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
Fernando Olguin, a judge in the central California US district court rejected the administration’s argument that the city’s policy was unconstitutional. He gave the administration permission to file an amended complaint.
Joint evaluation pairs the congestion-free CN5000 fabric with the Maverick-2 dataflow accelerator to attack the two bottlenecks that idle AI and HPC systems.
HAMBURG, Germany, June 22, 2026 —Cornelis and NextSilicon today announced at ISC High Performance 2026 a collaboration to build and evaluate joint reference architectures for AI and high-performance computing. The work pairs the Cornelis CN5000 fabric with the NextSilicon Maverick-2 compute platform. Joint evaluation is already underway, with the goal of commercialization through joint OEM partners.
The collaboration starts with the 400 Gbps CN5000 fabric, launched in 2025, paired with Maverick-2, which began shipping in volume late that year. The first phase validates how fabric and compute perform together across configurations, so OEM partners start from proven combinations rather than untested parts lists. The companies plan to extend testing to the 800 Gbps CN6000 fabric, due in the second half of 2026.
Two Bottlenecks, One Design
Each company targets a different bottleneck. Standard Ethernet was not built for the small, latency-sensitive messages that AI inference and HPC simulation generate at scale. Congestion builds, and expensive compute sits idle waiting on data. The CN5000 is designed to eliminate that idle time.
On the compute side, the von Neumann model that has defined processors for decades shuttles data between memory and a fixed execution unit. It stalls on the irregular, data-dependent workloads that now dominate AI and HPC. NextSilicon built Maverick-2 on its Intelligent Compute Architecture (ICA), a software-defined dataflow design that reconfigures to each workload at runtime and runs existing code without modification.
Pairing the two addresses both limits at once: a fabric that keeps data moving and an accelerator that keeps compute busy. The joint reference architectures will give OEM partners a blueprint for systems they can build and bring to market.
“Operators keep telling us their most expensive systems sit idle, waiting on the network,” said Lisa Spelman, CEO of Cornelis. “We built the CN5000 to end that wait. NextSilicon challenges the same kind of assumption on the compute side, so this collaboration is a natural fit. Together we can show partners and customers what a congestion-free fabric and a workload-driven compute architecture deliver as one design.”
“For decades, software had to bend to fit the processor,” said Elad Raz, founder and CEO of NextSilicon. “Maverick-2 makes the processor adapt to the software. Cornelis takes the same approach to the network. Evaluating our architectures together is the first step toward giving customers and OEM partners a faster, more efficient foundation for AI and HPC.”
Looking Ahead: Disaggregated Inference
Along with HPC, the collaboration will also target the shift in AI inference toward Mixture of Experts (MoE) models and agentic AI. Production inference for these workloads no longer runs as one model on one accelerator. Inference splits into stages, and data moves between stages across the network.
This pattern, often called disaggregated inference, makes the fabric part of the compute path. It rewards a network that moves small, bursty, latency-sensitive messages without congestion, and compute that adapts to each stage of the pipeline. As the CN6000 reaches availability in the second half of 2026, the companies intend to evaluate how a congestion-free fabric and a reconfigurable compute architecture can support disaggregated and agentic inference, with findings intended to inform future OEM reference designs.
See us at ISC 2026
Visit Cornelis at booth E02 and NextSilicon in the virtual exhibitor’s hall at ISC High Performance 2026, June 23-25, at Congress Center Hamburg in Hamburg, Germany.
About Cornelis
Cornelis delivers high-performance scale-out and scale-up networking solutions that accelerate AI and HPC workloads. Cornelis technology enables lossless, congestion-free networking that reduces training time, improves inference, and maximizes compute utilization. From foundation model training to complex climate modeling and real-time analytics, Cornelis solutions power the most demanding workloads across commercial, academic, government, and cloud environments. With a focus on performance, scalability, and efficiency, Cornelis helps organizations achieve faster insights and greater return on infrastructure investments.
About NextSilicon
NextSilicon builds computing infrastructure for algorithmically complex workloads. The company’s Maverick-2 accelerator uses a runtime reconfigurable dataflow architecture to deliver up to 10x performance over leading GPUs at less than half the power, with no requirement to rewrite existing applications. Maverick-2 is in production at customer sites across HPC, AI, and national security computing environments. NextSilicon is headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, with offices in Minneapolis, MN, in the United States.
President Trump has insisted that vandals, rather than questionable craftsmanship, are responsible for the enduring problems following the Reflecting Pool's $14.7 million sealant job.
Authorities believe two ransom notes addressed to Nancy Guthrie's family — including a note that said she had died — were likely sent by the person or group of people who abducted her.
I'm thinking of buying another Pint for my Grandkids. I want the Pint to have the Enduro tire. I bought a full size Enduro tire for my GT 6" hub upgrade but didn't end up using it.
Has anyone else used the full size 6" Enduro on a Pint? I hate to just buy another tire if this one would work.
Written in 1947, Kiyoshi Tanimoto’s account of the horrors of the atomic bomb attack will be published in August and is being made into a film
The memoir of a man who survived the horrors of Hiroshima is to be published for the first time this summer after its discovery in a US archive.
The 230-page memoir was written almost 80 years ago by Kiyoshi Tanimoto, who witnessed the city’s destruction after the atomic bomb was dropped in 1945. He will now be portrayed in a feature film by Takehiro Hira, whose acclaimed roles include the detective in the Netflix Japanese-British drama Giri/Haji. Pre-production begins in November, ahead of the shoot in February 2027.
California sued the Environmental Protection Agency on Monday after the agency sent Congress landmark state vehicle emissions rules for potential repeal, Reuters reports.
According to the EPA, waivers under the Clean Air Act for California environmental regulations that had been approved under prior Democratic administrations should have been sent to lawmakers under the Congressional Review Act.
A U.S. District Judge ruled the Trump administration's use of grand jury subpoenas against Minnesota state and local officials was retaliatory and unlawful, finding no legitimate investigatory justification for them.
I've been using this one I got from target like 5 years ago and it's the best I've ever tried. Once a year I go back and try all the chairs to try to find a backup and mine's really falling apart but nothing comes close. My butt sits perfectly on the fender so the chair supports me but it's as low as possible. It has the cross bars and is the perfect width. I saw online the Tommy Bahama one which I haven't tried but I'd love some confirmation or recommendations before I invest. Thank you! :)
Smoke has billowed from the warehouse, which was covered in solar panels and insulated like a freezer, filling the air surrounding the roughly 500,000-sq-ft (46,450-sq-meter) facility.
June 22, 2026 — Today, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order to supercharge U.S. innovation in quantum technologies and strengthen national security in this critical area.
Credit: turtix/Shutterstock
Accelerating Quantum Innovation
The Order directs the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, in coordination with other relevant government leaders, to update the National Quantum Strategy to support quantum-enabling technology and encourage partnerships with U.S. industry.
The Order establishes a national effort to develop the first ever quantum computer powerful enough to initiate the era of quantum-enabled scientific discovery and accelerate quantum capabilities for commercial applications. This includes evaluations of quantum computing system capabilities, an assessment of the resources necessary to build this science-enabling quantum computer, and development of specifications for such a system.
The Order directs the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology to coordinate this effort across the Departments of Energy, Defense, Commerce, and the Intelligence Community, as well as with U.S. industry and research leaders.
The Order calls on the Secretaries of Commerce, Defense, and Energy and the NASA Administrator to develop plans to deploy quantum-enabled sensors and networks in the next five years.
The Order prioritizes the development of a strong American quantum workforce through the expansion of registered apprenticeships, credentials, and the creation of National Quantum Workforce Development Institutes. It also directs the development of a plan and other measures to ensure adequate domestic supply chains and manufacturing capabilities for quantum technologies, as well as appropriate funding support for such efforts.
The Order reconstitutes the National Quantum Initiative Advisory Committee and directs the expansion of the Quantum Counterintelligence Protection Team. It also directs appropriate engagement with international partners on quantum matters.
Strengthening America’s Quantum Advantage
President Trump recognizes that quantum technologies are on the verge of a massive commercial breakthrough and require a bold new policy approach to ensure America continues to lead the field.
Quantum technologies, like a quantum computer or a quantum sensor, will provide transformational capabilities in manufacturing, drug discovery, energy, agriculture, and more. These breakthroughs will drive American innovation, power economic growth, generate high-paying jobs in existing and entirely new industries, and bolster national security.
Competing nations are moving quickly to challenge America’s quantum leadership, including adversarial countries that would use quantum to undermine U.S. economic and national security.
The Order ensures that the United States enters this new era of quantum innovation with ambitious national goals, a strong domestic workforce, and trusted supply chains in coordination with U.S. international allies and partners.
Furthering America’s Technological Dominance
President Trump continues to prioritize U.S. leadership and dominance in critical and emerging sciences and technologies.
In 2018, President Trump signed the National Quantum Initiative Act into law, establishing the first whole-of-government strategy for American leadership in quantum.
President Trump was the first president to identify quantum as an emerging research and development priority for the nation, resulting in a doubling of the Federal research and development budget for quantum.
In January 2025, President Trump announced the establishment of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology to spearhead American innovation and competitiveness in critical and emerging technologies.
In November 2025, President Trump signed an Executive Order launching the Genesis Mission, a new national effort to use artificial intelligence to transform how scientific research is conducted and accelerate the speed of scientific discoveries across multiple fields, including quantum.
The Trump Administration has invested $625 million so far in major national quantum research institutes, in partnership with industry and academia.
Technology to be used in six more areas next year as critics say tens of thousands of people will be forced into ‘digital police lineup’
The Metropolitan police is to expand its use of live facial recognition (LFR) technology, first into London’s West End by Christmas and then into a further six areas next year.
The new cameras will be fixed, and could be attached to street furniture such as lamp-posts. Critics said the new plans mean tens of thousands of people will be forced into a “digital police lineup”.
Microsoft has accidentally introduced a bug in Outlook for Mac that omits the original message from email replies, making it difficult for recipients to follow conversation history. Until Microsoft releases a fix, its suggested workaround is to roll back from version 16.110 and disable automatic updates, which is "great for users in full control of their devices -- not so good for anyone with a managed device," notes The Register. "Administrators with fleets of Macs running Outlook should brace for helpdesk tickets." From the report: In some instances, having a user copy and paste the salient bits of the email they are responding to might not be such a bad thing. We've all had emails that required epic amounts of scrolling to find what started the conversation, so forcing users to think about what they actually need to include is no bad thing. However, disrupting user workflows without warning -- well, that is undoubtedly a bad thing.
This is, after all, one of the most basic things an email client needs to do, so shipping a product with a bug that breaks this functionality says more about Microsoft's approach to quality than anything else.
NVIDIA contributed to the NAIRR pilot through a cloud-based resource that gives researchers dedicated access to a minimum of four NVIDIA DGX nodes for at least a month. NVIDIA also provided technical support to onboard and assist the researchers throughout their projects.
With NVIDIA’s AI infrastructure support and DGX reference architecture providing dedicated resources, researchers have collapsed workflow timelines and uncovered groundbreaking technologies that will reshape and advance industries such as healthcare, agriculture and energy.
The potential for scientific exploration and discovery across the nation through NAIRR is boundless. Learn more about a few NAIRR projects below.
Physical Simulations With Polymathic AI’s Well Dataset
Simulation-to-real pipelines are becoming increasingly common across industries as a safer, more cost-efficient deployment method.
Polymathic AI — a coalition of international scientists from Flatiron Institute, Cambridge University and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab — with the help of NVIDIA GPUs and NVIDIA NVLink interconnect technology, is strengthening physical, fluidlike simulations with its large-scale dataset called the “Well.” The dataset will be used to train the largest and most broadly applicable foundation model for fluidlike behavior to date.
This foundation model, named Walrus, has been made publicly available along with its data, code and pertained weights.
Polymathic AI’s approach builds on previous work in physics pretraining environments — addressing current limitations in scale and pretraining diversity. The research group also plans to explore scaling laws to help accelerate the development of more powerful foundation models for scientific applications.
University of Michigan’s Fusion Model for Energy Storage
Energy, a foundation of society, requires designing novel and efficient materials for energy storage and conversion.
Researchers at the University of Michigan, led by Professor Venkat Viswanathan in the Department of Aerospace engineering, are developing a model-fusion framework that brings together domain-specific molecular AI and general-purpose large language models. The goal is to help computational scientists more easily explore chemical space, ask chemistry-specific questions in natural language and identify promising materials for next-generation energy technologies.
The family of molecular foundation models, MIST (the Molecular Insight SMILES Transformers), is designed for discovery and exploration across chemical space.
MIST models were pretrained on large unlabeled molecular datasets and use a novel tokenizer, Smirk, to better capture nuclear, electronic, geometric, isotopic and stereochemical information from molecular representations. MIST models have been fine-tuned on more than 400 structure-property relationships and can match or exceed state-of-the-art performance across benchmarks spanning electrochemistry, quantum chemistry, physiology and other domains.
MIST was developed on a 40-GPU NVIDIA DGX cluster the researchers gained as part of a NAIRR allocation and an additional 200,000 NVIDIA GPU hours on ALCF’s Polaris cluster. The team used NVIDIA’s NGC PyTorch container to support reproducible GPU-accelerated development across the different clusters.
Boston University’s BEACON AI Pipeline for Infectious Disease Detection
Infectious diseases can spread rapidly in communities, causing surges in outbreaks.
Boston University’s Hariri Institute for Computing and the Center on Emerging Infectious Diseases is working to train and evaluate a LLM using NVIDIA accelerated compute, through an AI pipeline to support an outbreak monitoring program called BEACON — Biothreats Emergence, Analysis and Communications Network.
This LLM is being trained using a large corpus of documents on infectious diseases and epidemic-prone priority pathogens to support the work of field experts and outbreak analysts working on BEACON.
The model will be capable of analyzing online posts of emerging disease outbreaks on a global scale to extract features for downstream categorization and prioritization. BEACON will process signals from a variety of sources — including global disease-tracking platform HealthMap, news and social media feeds, subject-matter experts and individual communications via community boards or social media — to generate concise outbreak reports.
These comprehensive outbreak analyses can inform clinical practice guidelines for emerging infectious diseases and identify gaps where further data is needed.
Internationally deployed doctors, government organizations and academic researchers are already using the BEACON model to quickly identify and treat infectious diseases.
“When you talk to infectious disease experts about what they used to do before we developed this pipeline, it used to take several hours for them to compose a report,” said Ioannis Paschalidis, director of Boston University’s Hariri Institute. “Now, producing a report gets done in roughly two minutes.”
NAIRR and NVIDIA Across the Nation
The latest scientific research doesn’t end there. Many other universities — including Harvard, Stanford, Colorado State University and more — are pioneering scientific breakthroughs with the help of NAIRR and NVIDIA.
With scientists gaining broader access to AI and accelerated computing, innovation for a safer and healthier nation are more tangible than ever.
The Senate on Monday passed a bipartisan measure aimed at lowering housing costs by streamlining construction and permitting, ending months of fraught negotiations on a priority for both parties ahead of November’s midterm elections.
The 21st Century Road to Housing Act would limit investors’ ability to buy homes, waive some federal permitting rules in a bid to ease new construction, and authorize pilot programs to facilitate grants for home improvements and planning affordable housing. It passed the Senate overwhelmingly, with a vote of 85-5, and now heads to the House of Representatives.
President says ‘vandals’ to blame for algae blooms and peeling paint as $14m renovation to undergo further repairs
The Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool is set to be drained again after Donald Trump said on Monday – without providing proof – that five people were arrested for vandalism and five more are under investigation in connection to the algae blooms and peeling paint that appeared weeks after his ill-fated $14m renovation attempt.
“It’s not a lot of damage, but we’ll probably have to let the water out and refix it. They went in there with a knife,” Trump told reporters, describing what he first said was a 290- to 300ft slit in the paint but then later amended to a 350ft slit. He also said someone had put fertilizer into the water, which caused the algae to grow.
Showcasing End-to-End Solutions Across NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel Platforms for Accelerated Computing, Scientific Discovery, and Enterprise AI
June 22, 2026 — Giga Computing, a subsidiary of GIGABYTE and a leader in accelerated computing and infrastructure solutions, will showcase its latest AI, HPC, and data center portfolio at ISC High Performance 2026, taking place June 22–26 in Hamburg, Germany.
Visit GIGABYTE Booth H20 at ISC High Performance 2026.
Aligned with ISC 2026’s theme, “Connecting the Dots,” GIGABYTE will demonstrate how organizations can bridge AI innovation, scientific computing, and enterprise deployment through a complete infrastructure stack – from desktop AI systems and workstations to GPU-accelerated servers and next-generation rack-scale architectures.
Overview of The Must See and The Must Do at GIGABYTE Booth #H20:
NVIDIA-Powered AI from Desktop to Exascale
Headlining the showcase is the NVIDIA Vera Rubin NVL72, a third-generation rack-scale platform that combines 36 NVIDIA Vera CPUs and 72 NVIDIA Rubin GPUs with sixth-generation NVIDIA NVLink interconnects and advanced liquid cooling. Designed for large-scale AI training, inference, and scientific computing, it delivers 10x performance per watt versus the prior generation and represents the future of exascale agentic AI infrastructure.
Also, on display are:
AI TOP ATOM – a compact AI workstation powered by NVIDIA GB10 Grace Blackwell Superchip for local AI development and model fine-tuning.
W775-V10 – a high-performance workstation featuring NVIDIA GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip, designed to support AI, simulation, and digital twin workloads.
XL44-SX2-AAS1 and XLS4-SX2-LAS1 – NVIDIA MGX-based accelerated computing platforms equipped with NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server Edition GPUs, delivering powerful performance for AI, HPC, engineering simulation, and visualization.
Intel Infrastructure for Enterprise-Scale Computing
Powered by Intel Xeon processors, GIGABYTE’s Intel-based platforms provide the performance, memory capacity, and scalability needed for AI inference, analytics, cloud services, and traditional HPC workloads.
Featured solutions include:
B343-X40 with compute nodes for high-density cloud, HPC, and enterprise deployments.
G493-SB0, a GPU-accelerated server optimized for AI and data-intensive applications.
R1C7-K0A, a multi-node platform designed for efficient scale-out computing environments.
AMD Platforms for AI and HPC Innovation
GIGABYTE will also showcase AMD EPYC-powered solutions engineered for AI training, scientific simulation, and research workloads requiring high compute density and memory bandwidth.
Featured solutions include:
B683-Z80 – a high-density accelerated computing platform designed for large-scale AI training, scientific simulation, and HPC environments.
W793-ZU0 – a workstation platform that combines advanced CPU and GPU performance for AI development, computer-aided engineering, and research applications.
G893-ZX1 – a GPU-optimized server engineered for AI model training, inference services, and computational research workloads.
Connecting the Ecosystem
GIGABYTE continues to unify AI and HPC across environments – from desktop systems to rack-scale data centers enabling organizations to accelerate innovation and deployment.
Visit GIGABYTE Booth H20 at ISC High Performance 2026 to explore the latest innovations in AI, HPC, and accelerated computing.
GIGABYTE is an engineer, innovator, and leader in the tech world that offers a complete product and service portfolio of different scales to accelerate individuals and businesses in reaching their potential. With unique industry insights and strong eco-partnerships, GIGABYTE continues to expand its products and influence, enabling customers to facilitate AI implementation and future robotics, and align the advancement of computing with environment sustainability to “Upgrade Your Life.”
Company wants to sell objects despite agreements to only display them at museums and traveling exhibitions
A plan to auction more than 100 artifacts salvaged from the wreckage of the Titanic – including personal belongings, currency, kitchen items and decor – is facing pushback from the US government, according to newly unsealed court documents.
RMS Titanic Inc, the company that owns exclusive salvage rights to the famous wreck deep in the North Atlantic, wants to sell the artifacts for the first time despite previous agreements to only display them at museums and traveling exhibitions.
The U.S. military has conducted another strike against a boat accused of smuggling drugs in the Caribbean, killing two and leaving six survivors, the U.S. Southern Command said.
Last week, AMD was found to have stripped memory encryption from its consumer CPUs without any warning or notice. Now, following a wave of backlash on social media, the chipmaker has now reinstated the protection, though it still hasn't explained why the safeguard was disabled in the first place. Ars Technica reports: Following the revelation, social media was deluged by comments from AMD consumers decrying the move. They noted that AMD's quiet removal of TSME after supporting it for so long seemed underhanded. The move came solely as a result of firmware changes made in a recent update. With no physical changes required to silicon, continued support was largely, if not purely, a matter of will rather than a necessity required by changes to hardware. The critics called on AMD to reverse the move.
Over the weekend, AMD said it planned to do just that in a firmware update scheduled for release next month. More often than not, the chipmaker refers to TSME as Memory Guard. "Regarding certain non-PRO Ryzen 9000-series desktop processors, a BIOS option to enable Memory Guard was previously available but was removed in a recent update," AMD said in an email. "Based on valuable community feedback, we will reinstate this option in an upcoming BIOS release in July."
The company has yet to explain why it removed the protection. Critics speculate that AMD dropped it in an attempt to steer customers toward more costly CPUs. It's possible, though, that there were less nefarious reasons, such as the difficulty of continued support as chip designs changed. Another possibility is that AMD made the move for performance reasons. Encrypting and decrypting data in memory creates latency. Slowdowns are the enemy of gamers, one of the more popular customer segments using the 9000-line of Ryzen processors. Since many gamers already voluntarily disabled TSME and had little need for it in the first place, AMD may not have considered the change of much consequence.
UK Health Security Agency also issues red heat alert for six English regions, indicating risk to life even for the healthy
Met Office forecasters have issued a rare red weather warning for Wednesday and Thursday in the face of extreme heat and humidity, while a red heat health alert has been issued in England indicating “a risk to life for even the healthy population”.
The weather warning covers southern Wales as far west as Swansea, and an area of England that includes London and runs from the inland areas of Kent across to Somerset, as far north-west as Birmingham, and as far north-east as southern Cambridgeshire.
Firms including BP and 7-Eleven accused of coordinating prices to ‘wring more money from pockets of consumers’
Gas station operators including BP, Circle K, Marathon, 7-Eleven, Walmart and Albertsons were sued on Monday by California drivers who accused them of using artificial intelligence to boost prices at the pump.
According to a proposed class action, the defendants violated California’s main antitrust law, the Cartwright Act, by using an AI-based tool that uses data from competing gas stations to “coordinate high prices and wring more money from the pockets of consumers”.
Move for greater prominence on social media comes as ministers warn online misinformation risk becoming ‘existential for our democracy’
Plans to hand established broadcasters and media companies greater prominence on digital platforms such as YouTube and TikTok have been unveiled, as ministers warned online misinformation risked becoming “existential for our democracy”.
In proposals that set up a new clash with global tech companies, content from the likes of the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 would have to be awarded more promotion by their algorithms – with special rules considered for times of social unrest or crisis.
Keir Starmer has finally bowed to intense pressure to stand down as British prime minister as he conceded that he was no longer the right man to lead the country, leaving Andy Burnham all but certain to succeed him.
In an extraordinary day at Westminster, Starmer announced a timetable for his departure after months of growing discontent among Labour MPs and cabinet ministers, many unnerved by the threat from Reform UK before the next general election.
Burnham will begin to set out his policies next week with a series of speeches to demonstrate a symbolic shift from Starmer’s government, starting with the economy and devolution.
He is considering appointing Ed Miliband as chancellor in order to challenge Treasury orthodoxy but has not made a final decision. Sources said Burnham was aware of the potential risks with business and the unions opposed to the move, but could be prepared to make the argument.
Shabana Mahmood is expected to stay at the Home Office after the former Greater Manchester mayor praised the home secretary for “facing up” to the big issues on immigration during the byelection campaign.
Wes Streeting could be appointed to one of the top cabinet jobs, but did “not come with any leverage” to discussions, as campaign sources rejected his claims he had the numbers to run. Others have argued for him to be appointed chancellor to reassure the markets.
Starmer loyalists are still seeking a candidate who could stand against Burnham – depending on whether Miliband was chancellor. Darren Jones has been touted as a possibility, and although sources said he was not organising a run, they stopped short of a categorical denial.
Barrister who was given material produced by Garfield AI says advocacy at trial ‘remained fundamentally human’
An artificial intelligence law firm has won a case in an English court, in what is believed to be the first time a trial has been won using an AI lawyer.
A freelance HR consultant, Tamires Camal Taquidir, paid the firm, Garfield AI, about £400 to send a legal letter and then issue court proceedings over an unpaid debt of £7,000.
I've ridden friends one wheels, have 0 issue riding them Quite enjoy it , avid snowboarder in the winter time. However , not sure which board to buy as a firstboard. Have been looking at the gt. Any recommendations?
The federal government awarded a company owned by a Trump donor $1.7 million to install a new water cleaning system for the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, records show.
Club América star did not appear in first two US games
Dual-national was surprise pick to Pochettino’s squad
Dead-rubber Turkey match could be time for debut
As his US teammates finished off group-clinching wins over Paraguay and Australia, all Alex Zendejas could do to help was watch.
It isn’t the role Zendejas aspired to have at this World Cup. The 28-year-old was a coveted dual-national who chose to represent the nation he grew up in over Mexico, where he was born and has played most of his professional career. At the USMNT’s open training before the Paraguay match, Club América jerseys were the best represented of the club shirts held by fans for signing.
With the price of the new Steam Machine starting at $1,049, you might want to consider making your own Steam Machine instead. An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Valve says that "starting with the SteamOS 3.8 release, you can put together your own Steam Machine using whatever PC parts you want." SteamOS 3.8.10 launched last week with a slew of updates, including "improved compatibility with recent Intel and AMD platforms." Alongside that improved compatibility, Valve is giving gamers the green light to install SteamOS on their own desktops. In an interview with The Verge, Valve's Pierre-Loup Griffais said Valve has been "rolling out improvements to [SteamOS] so it's more compatible with desktop hardware," including eventual support for Nvidia graphics. Griffais says Valve has "a growing team" working on Nvidia driver support for SteamOS, adding, "We're collaborating with Nvidia very closely." While he mentioned that Nvidia support might not come this year, Griffais emphasized that "it's certainly something that we're working on in the background."
It's technically been possible to run SteamOS on your own hardware for a while now, but compatibility has been mostly limited to AMD systems. So far installing it has also required using a Steam Deck recovery image, a process that, speaking from experience, is much less straightforward than the installation process for most other Linux distributions. Trying to run SteamOS on Intel or Nvidia hardware has not been easy so far. According to Griffais, Valve is working to change that, which could mean that down the line, you'll be able to run SteamOS on just about any gaming PC hardware you want, including Nvidia.
For the more immediate future, Griffais says SteamOS in its current state should offer a "good experience" on console-like PC setups: "If you have something that is similar to the use case of a Steam Machine, where you have a PC that's gonna be plugged into a TV, and has a single hard drive that you're not going to try and dual boot [] you can put SteamOS on there, and you'll have an experience that is very similar to a Steam Deck docked or a Steam Machine, with some caveats, of course," like a lack of HDMI-CEC support. But "the core bits of the experience are there. The SteamOS graphics driver, the shader precompilation [...] you can get at all of that with the SteamOS." Griffais says SteamOS does not yet offer an easy way to dual-boot alongside Windows or another operating system, but envisions "a time where it's a better experience to install on your desktop and have it coexist with a different operating system."
After tracking quantum computing for years, Intersect360 Research says the market has matured enough to begin forecasting.
During a webinar last week presenting its latest research, the analyst firm previewed its first quantitative outlook for quantum computing, projecting a midpoint total addressable market of $27 billion by 2037. But analysts stressed that the forecast carries significant uncertainty, with outcomes varying widely depending on how quickly the industry overcomes technical, manufacturing and ecosystem challenges.
“This is the first time we’re putting out quantified forecasts,” said Addison Snell, CEO and co-founder of Intersect360. “We think there’s enough market there that we can measure it, that we can forecast it, we can survey around it.”
According to Intersect360, many organizations have moved beyond simply monitoring quantum developments and are beginning to gear up for eventual adoption.
“This is about preparation. Organizations are investing in quantum now, are building vendor relationships,” said Kevin Jackson, an analyst at Intersect360. “The other thing is expertise. We need people who are well versed in this technology who are able to program in it. And that just takes time.”
The firm’s quantum forecast spans an unusually broad range. Intersect360 projects a midpoint market opportunity of $27 billion by 2037, but estimates outcomes could vary from $13 billion to $56 billion, with a best-case scenario reaching $100 billion.
Jackson stressed during the webinar that the fourfold spread between the low- and high-end scenarios reflects “genuine technical uncertainty” surrounding the industry’s development trajectory rather than limitations in forecasting methodology. The firm expects quantum adoption to remain relatively slow through the early 2030s before accelerating later in the decade if key hurdles are overcome.
“Quantum adoption is nonlinear and it will continue to be. So we believe that it’ll be slow through the early 2030s, then steep once error correction matures,” he said.
But technical milestones such as error correction are only part of the equation, Snell argued. “I think we also have to look at manufacturability and management at scale,” he said. “How easy is it to build and house these things?” He added that achieving the higher end of the forecast range “implies that we’ve adopted something that can be manufactured at scale.”
Survey data presented during the webinar suggest that, despite growing interest, the quantum market remains in an educational phase.
Jackson noted that roughly half of respondents declined to answer a series of questions about quantum computing’s future utility, a finding he described as significant given that the survey audience consists largely of HPC users.
“Even within the HPC community, which is arguably one of the most technically sophisticated buyer segments, quantum methodologies are not yet broadly understood,” Jackson said. “That just tells us that the market is still in the education phase.”
Among respondents who did answer, Intersect360 found broad optimism tempered by considerable uncertainty. Most participants neither strongly agreed nor disagreed with statements regarding quantum’s future value.
“Most respondents aren’t saying quantum won’t help them,” Jackson said. “They just don’t really know yet. It’s just kind of an honest state of the market right now.”
Notably, respondents expressed the strongest agreement with the idea that quantum computing will enable entirely new applications rather than simply accelerate existing workloads. That finding reinforces Intersect360’s broader view that quantum systems will augment classical HPC infrastructure rather than replace it.
The webinar also highlighted a significant gap between what quantum buyers say they need and what vendors currently deliver. Intersect360’s satisfaction-gap analysis, which compares the importance of various capabilities with buyer satisfaction, revealed some of the largest gaps the firm has observed across any technology market it tracks.
Jackson said the gaps observed in quantum computing were substantially larger than those typically seen in other technology markets studied by the firm, suggesting that the sector remains in a very early stage of maturity. Some of the largest gaps appeared in areas such as application software, error correction and fidelity, highlighting the capabilities buyers believe must improve before quantum systems can move into broader production use.
Jackson singled out the significant disconnect between how quantum technologies are often marketed and what potential customers say they actually need.
“Speed is how quantum has been marketed, but it’s not what buyers say they need the most,” Jackson said. “They want reliability. They want programmability. They want integration.”
The findings paint a picture of a market that is progressing, but remains years away from broad commercial deployment.
Intersect360 expects the strongest growth period for quantum computing to occur between 2033 and 2037, assuming the industry can overcome challenges in error correction, software, manufacturing and operational scale. In the meantime, organizations appear to be laying the groundwork.
For Intersect360, that combination of growing investment, rising customer interest and emerging commercial activity was sufficient to justify publishing its first formal quantum market forecast. But the firm’s unusually wide range of outcomes also serves as a reminder that the trajectory of quantum computing over the next decade remains far from settled.
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Officials say Sarita Kimble, 62, and Delores Shelton, 83, killed in Mount Vernon as several buildings destroyed
Authorities in Illinois say that two older residents were killed and at least five other people were injured in a tornado that ripped through a rural county and destroyed several buildings on Sunday evening.
The fatalities occurred in Mount Vernon, Sheriff Jeff Bullard of Jefferson county said on Monday. He identified the victims as Sarita Kimble, 62, and Delores Shelton, 83, who were inside separate structures leveled by the tornado.
The runaway favorite to succeed Prime Minister Keir Starmer is a longtime mayor equally comfortable in the corridors of Westminster and in working-class northern England.
Google is investing roughly $75 million in A24 as part of a research partnership with DeepMind to develop AI-powered filmmaking tools and workflows. "The deal represents the latest marriage between a Hollywood studio and AI in an era where companies have oscillated between partnerships and lawsuits," reports Variety. From the report: A24 partner Scott Belsky, who leads the studio's technology division A24 Labs, told the Journal the studio's Google partnership differed from other deals because AI developers mistakenly advertised their products as a means to make films cheaper and faster. His division is developing applications for AI-generated storyboards, another reimagination of the production process that has seen filmmakers like Martin Scorsese rubber-stamp. "We think there are better uses that preserve creative control and support risk-taking," said Belsky, arguing the new tools "won't look anything like the prompted generation type of AI that people feel uncomfortable with."
The board won’t power on at all. One thing I noticed is that the wheel has noticeable resistance when I try to spin it by hand, which made me think maybe a MOSFET on the controller has blown and is partially shorted.
Another weird symptom is with charging:
When everything is connected normally, plugging in the charger does nothing. The charger light stays green and never switches to charging.
If I disconnect the battery from the controller module and then plug in the charger, it seems like the battery will charge.
So right now I have:
Board completely dead / won’t power on
Resistance when spinning the wheel
Charger stays green when battery and controller are connected
Battery appears to charge when disconnected from the controller
Has anyone seen this combination of symptoms before?
Most of the posts I’ve found discuss either a blown MOSFET causing wheel resistance, or charging issues, but I haven’t found much about both happening together.
Does this sound like a failed controller, shorted MOSFETs, damaged BMS, or something else entirely?
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.”
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 repeatedthroughoutthe 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.
Right to Try and the FDA
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 consideringRight 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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This is fromTom Baldwin, Keir Starmer’s biographer, and head of communications for Ed Miliband when he was Labour leader.
We seem to be in a strange place where Keir Starmer is being told he must quit to prevent more uncertainty and chaos (by those who have caused much of it) but then stay on for a couple of months because the guy who has been desperate to take his job is not yet ready to do so…
Keir Starmer has a mandate from Labour members.
He stood on a manifesto and won a mandate from the British people
AI-focused Super Pacs are spending heavily in the midterms, and half has gone to a single Manhattan congressional race
The artificial intelligence industry is spending heavily in the 2026 midterms, hoping to secure influence over the technology’s first generation of legislation – and New York City’s primary has emerged as the key battleground.
AI-focused Super Pacs have raised over $100m this cycle, of which $49m has been spent so far, in dozens of congressional races across the country. Half of all spending has converged on a single Manhattan race: Tuesday’s Democratic primary in the district of NY-12.
Will Craft and Andrew Witherspoon contributed reporting
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: As Big Tech dumps billions of dollars into America's data center buildout, a slew of opportunities have opened up to the electricians wiring these massive facilities. In some cases, the scale of the projects and the demanding construction timelines are fueling talent wars for the industry's best and brightest. The US-based International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) has argued that its workers are "powering the AI Revolution," and a set of "Data Center Principles" published in March argues that union labor is "essential to the future of AI." Tech companies are trying to meet the moment: Meta recently announced a skilled trade academy program, and Google committed $50 million to help train people in skilled trades.
But amid growing national opposition to data centers, debates over the ethics of the massive buildout have started to pop up in some online pockets of the community. Threads about how AI will affect the economy now pepper r/electricians, a subreddit with around half a million monthly visitors. Some users wonder whether the work will eventually prompt widespread job losses. Others aren't sure if their labor makes them complicit in the damage done to local communities or whether it's unethical to take on data center work. For some, the answer is a firm no. Ultimately, they argue, work is work. An anonymous Midwest electrician who spoke to Wired acknowledged concerns about scams, corporate greed, and AI's impact on workers, but said he views data centers as an important source of career advancement. "This is most likely going to be a major part of our future. And if you can't beat them, join them," he said.
An electrician named Ryan, meanwhile, is strongly opposed to working on data centers because he distrusts the corporations and political environment driving AI development. Still, if the facilities are going to be built, he would prefer union workers construct them. "If they're going to get built, I'd rather they go union," he said.
Jesse, an IBEW electrician, sympathizes with communities negatively affected by data centers but does not believe the electricians building them should be blamed. In his view, opposition should instead be directed toward policymakers and the project approval process. "I think it's ridiculous if, to build a data center or any kind of a business, you're going to significantly impact the lives of that community in a negative way," he told Wired.
An electrician named Dante echoed some of those sentiments, arguing that data center work is no more ethically compromised than many other commercial construction projects. "We're almost always working for the worst possible people in the end, but we all need a paycheck," he said. He added that such projects are "essentially the same kind of work," typically performed for wealthy corporations seeking to become even richer.
Briefing war breaks out between advocates for Wes Streeting and those close to Ed Miliband
Andy Burnham’s supporters are divided over who should be his chancellor, with a briefing war breaking out between advocates of the former health secretary Wes Streeting and those close to the energy secretary Ed Miliband.
Some of those advising the Makerfield MP are urging him to choose Streeting if he becomes prime minister, in a bid to reassure the business community and fossil fuel industry.
The developer working on Xfwl4, the Wayland compositor for Xfce, has published the new compositor’s very first alpha release. Considering it’s only been six months or so of work, it’s impressive to see the effort reach this state already.
The end goal of xfwl4 is to behave as closely as possible to an Xfce desktop running on an X server. Ideally a user could switch between the two without even knowing there’s a difference. In reality, of course, it won’t be quite that seamless, and there’s still more work to be done to get as close as possible to that ideal. This is a first solid cut at it, at the very least.
Being the very first alpha release, it won’t surprise you there’s a few things missing or broken at this point. Still, if you’re brave, you can download and build the release and try it out.
A federal judge agreed to quash the US federal government’s subpoenas of leaders in Minnesota issued during the Trump administration’s controversial immigration crackdown on the state earlier this year.
The US Department of Justice issued subpoenas to the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz; the attorney general, Keith Ellison; the Minneapolis mayor, Jacob Frey; and other local officials in the Twin Cities in January.
A Wall Street Journal investigation found that the prediction market paid content creators to produce videos of fake trades purporting to show big financial gains.
Scotland’s first minister expresses solidarity with communities affected by apparently anti-Muslim violence
John Swinney has said victims of the allegedly anti-Muslim knife attacks in Edinburgh last week have been deeply traumatised by their experiences.
Scotland’s first minister spoke to some of the five men injured in the series of attacks that appeared to target Muslims and people of colour around the city on Friday evening, with four taken to hospital.
Network launches ad on The View, which is target of one of two FCC investigations currently seeking public comment
The television network ABC is seeking the public’s backing as it faces simultaneous investigations from the Brendan Carr-led Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
The media regulator has two pending inquiries into ABC – one focuses on the daytime talkshow The View, and the other is a broader challenge into whether the network should be able to renew licenses for the eight local television stations it owns.
Valve's new Steam Machine will launch June 29 starting at $1,049 and go up from there depending on the configuration. Although it costs considerably more than the PS5 ($599.99) and Xbox Series X ($649.99), "the value proposition for the Steam Machine is that it can play your library of Steam games you may have accumulated over years (or even decades), rather than just PlayStation games, and it's also a full Linux PC that you can customize to your heart's content," reports The Verge. "Valve also says that it's selling the Steam Machine for the cost of its components alone instead of subsidizing the price." From the report: You can now register your interest to buy a Steam Machine as part of a reservation system. To offer a fair playing field for people who want to buy one, Valve will randomize everyone in the queue on Thursday at 1PM ET. After that, anyone who registers their interest will be added to the end of the waitlist. The first emails giving people the opportunity to buy will go out on June 29th.
Valve will sell four configurations of the Steam Machine:
- A 512GB model for $1,049
- A 512GB model with a bundled Steam Controller for $1,128
- A 2TB model for $1,349
- A 2TB model with a bundled Steam Controller for $1,428
Britain is to get its fifth prime minister in four years after the current incumbent of Downing Street, Keir Starmer, announced on Monday that he would resign.
It was widely expected and comes after months of mounting pressure on Starmer, who led the Labour party to a landslide victory in the 2024 UK general election but who has faced months of pressure to go from members of parliament (MPs) for the centre-left party.
Valve officially made the Steam Machine available (sort of but not really) today, and if you were hoping for the president of the Yacht Collectors’ Club to have found a loophole through the RAM and storage crisis, I’ll be the bearer of bad news: the base Steam Machine model with 512GB of storage and no controller costs $1049 or €1039. It’s clear that this price is significantly higher than Valve had originally anticipated, as the company dedicates the first part of its press announcement to this sticker shock.
Steam Machine, like our other hardware products, is made up of many components that we source from manufacturers around the world. The price at which we sell our hardware is a direct result of the cost of these components. We felt like we had a good understanding of how those costs might change over time when we first started sourcing them for Steam Machine back in 2023. That understanding was born from the many years of data we all have about the evolution of PC hardware prices – primarily, that it tends to get cheaper over time as new technology arrives.
Over the past year or so, that has changed quickly and significantly, most visibly for RAM and storage components. There are a variety of reasons, all of which are affecting hardware products everywhere. The overall effect is that our original goal for the price of Steam Machine is no longer viable. So the prices we’re sharing today reflect the state of the world for manufacturing; or, more accurately, it reflects the price of the components as we’ve secured them over the past 6 months.
Price wasn’t the only thing impacted by all of this: availability was as well. There were periods where we found we couldn’t source some of our components at all, at any price. More than anything else, this has impacted the number of units we’ve been able to produce for launch.
As Valve mentions, availability is also going to be an issue, and thus they’ve had to settle on a complex reservation and lottery system. Between now and 25 June, you can sign up for a model, after which the entire pool of reservations will be randomised to determine a waitlist order. As machines become available, they will simply go down the list from first to last as determined by that randomisation. In other words, you can’t just go out and buy one right away.
At this price and for the hardware the Steam Machine contains – an AMD Zen 4 CPU with 6c/12t up to 4.8 Ghz, a custom RDNA3 GPU, and 16GB of DDR5 RAM and 8GB of DDR6 video RAM – you’re probably better off sticking with what you already have. Until the “AI” bubble pops and prices come down again, that is.
Analysts say foreign policy was an ‘area of relative strength’ for the prime minister – but goodwill with the White House soon evaporated
Keir Starmer inherited two wars and a country disconnected from the EU when he arrived in Downing Street – and that was before Donald Trump crash-landed at the White House and undermined the foundations of the UK’s most important alliance.
It was a context that would have tested any prime minister, though in many respects Starmer negotiated it carefully. But longer-term questions of Britain’s security remain unresolved, and the UK’s place in the world is less certain.
City’s police force faces investigation of 16 officers accused of disproportionately targeting Black and Arab residents
Montreal’s mayor has called for a halt to random police checks as the city’s police force grapples with an internal investigation into racism and racial profiling by 16 officers.
Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada told reporters last week that her husband, who is Black, had been repeatedly stopped by police while driving.
I can only ride like once or twice a month. I know it's going to take a long time to really feel comfortable (it's like my fear almost resets back to square one each time I ride). I'm just looking to hear from others who have been in my shoes that you did eventually start to feel more confident, even when you could only ride occasionally. And if so, when did it start to happen for you? Right now I've ridden maybe 20ish miles max.
Edit: I really appreciate you guys taking the time to tell me your experiences and suggestions. I'm gonna try to get a balance board to get some extra practicing in at home. (I actually used to use an "Indo" board a lot, years ago, and I can tell that experience has already helped me from the get go.)
My time is so limited because we have a new baby (yay!), so weekdays after work I have zero time before it is dark out and I am frankly 200% exhausted. I have a couple blocks of time on the weekend and my onewheel is really just a fun pass time for me so if I don't feel in the mood to go for a ride during my extremely limited free time, I don't want to force myself about it and suck the fun out of it when that's the whole point. My time will free up as baby gets older but for a while I will be very limited.
Some of your comments have given me hope, and I guess I have noticed some small improvements even now. Today I dealt with numerous unexpected obstacles and I was able to react without falling off! I would just like to feel less fear.
Swindlers now use AI to send out floods of fraudulent messages to gain the personal information of job seekers
Americans are seeing more employment scams than ever as job seekers, facing a tough job market, report a bombardment of messages from swindlers try to lure them into giving sensitive information.
Experts say the technology behind these scams has only gotten better over time, allowing fraudsters to easily impersonate employers and send out huge floods of direct messages and emails to job seekers.
Unions condemn ‘insensitive’ internal cybersecurity test sent to healthcare workers in Newfoundland and Labrador
For years, healthcare staff in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador have felt overworked and underappreciated. Turnover, burnout and thinning resources were pushing workers in the sector to a breaking point.
So when the email titled “June Holiday” arrived in thousands of inboxes, they felt a moment of overdue joy.
The Trump administration has been ratcheting up pressure on defense contractors to prioritize production and American manufacturing capabilities over shareholder payouts.
Mission, Vision and Veritas supercomputers with Vera CPUs to advance materials simulation, scientific AI agents and molecular design.
June 22, 2026 — Mission, Vision and Veritas — new Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) supercomputers to be built with HPE and NVIDIA — are tapping NVIDIA Vera CPUs to accelerate scientific discovery, unlocking agentic AI for science.
The supercomputers will use the HPE Cray Supercomputing GX5000 architecture with the NVIDIA Vera Rubin platform, combining NVIDIA Vera CPUs, NVIDIA Rubin GPUs and NVIDIA Quantum-X800 InfiniBand networking.
Under the planned configuration, Mission will include NVIDIA Vera Rubin GPU nodes and 2,300 standalone NVIDIA Vera CPUs using the HPE Cray Supercomputing GX240 blade. Veritas will feature approximately 1,150 standalone NVIDIA Vera CPUs to complement NVIDIA Vera Rubin nodes.
Veritas will arrive alongside Mission and Vision and serve the Laboratory Directed Research and Development program, helping accelerate agentic AI for science. The system will test these technologies for use in larger systems being built out at LANL.
Researchers are adding a new tool for science with AI agents that can form hypotheses, choose tools, launch simulations, analyze outputs and refine the next step. LANL’s public work on URSA, the Universal Research and Scientific Agent — running on Venado and soon Mission and Vision — points in this direction: a modular, feedback-driven AI framework designed to help scientists brainstorm hypotheses, plan experiments, run simulations and analyze results.
LANL demonstrated that the Vera CPU delivered 7x higher performance on URSA workloads than the CPUs in the Crossroads x86 supercomputer.
Vera CPU for Agents and Simulation
In LANL’s early testing of NVIDIA Vera CPUs on Branson — an open source Monte Carlo heat transfer simulation tool — Vera outperforms the CPUs used in the Crossroads x86 supercomputer by over 3x.
These results were made possible by Vera, including its custom Olympus core, LPDDR5 memory and fast on-chip fabric.
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.
Building on Generations of LANL Systems
Mission, expected to be operational in 2027, will be the fifth Advanced Technology System in the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Advanced Simulation and Computing program and will replace Crossroads for classified national security workloads.
Vision, also expected to be operational in 2027, will serve as a resource for fundamental science, including materials and nuclear science, energy modeling, biomedical research and AI — letting more scientists test methods, train models and explore ideas before moving into higher-consequence work.
The work extends more than a decade of LANL and NVIDIA’s deep collaboration on CPUs, from Grace to Vera, using extreme codesign for LANL simulation workloads.
The three new supercomputers build on Venado, the HPE Cray EX supercomputer installed at Los Alamos in 2024 with NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper Superchips and NVIDIA Grace CPU Superchips.
Garfield AI, the UK's first regulator-approved AI law firm, has won its first court case after helping a freelancer recover 7,000 pounds in unpaid fees. "I was owed money for work I had done, but it felt like the process of recovering it could be too stressful, expensive and time-consuming," said Tamires Camal Taquidir, a freelancer who had provided HR-related services to a hospitality business. "Garfield made it possible for me to pursue the claim and keep going. When the counterclaim was brought, it was intended to intimidate me, but I knew I had accessible, cost-effective and competent support. I'm delighted by the result." Computer Weekly reports: After attempting to resolve a dispute over paid fees without court action, Camal Taquidir [...] used Garfield AI to help her pursue the case in court. She was able to generate pre-action correspondence, and then prepare and issue court proceedings. The AI legal assistant conducted all of the legal work preceding the court trial. The defendant instructed solicitors and brought a counterclaim, which the claimant disputed with the support of Garfield AI.
The claimant continued to trial, including dealing with document production, the preparation witness statements and trial bundles. Garfield then instructed a junior, shortly before the trial began. She won the claim over unpaid fees following a three-hour trial at Wandsworth County Court. The claimant paid around 400 pounds in Garfield AI fees to recover the 7,000 pounds owed, while the defendant instructed both a solicitor and a barrister. [...] Following a three-hour trial at Wandsworth County Court on 14 May 2026, in which both sides were represented by barristers, the court found in favor of the claimant, awarding 7,000 pounds and dismissing the counterclaim.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is resigning, and the man widely expected to replace him is a fellow Labour Party lawmaker known as the "King of the North."
Thalha Jubair and Owen Flowers, linked to the Scattered Spider hacking group, change pleas on first day of trial
Two British cybercriminals from the Scattered Spider hacking group have pleaded guilty to a cyber-attack on Transport for London in 2024 that cost £39m and affected 10 million people.
Thalha Jubair, 20, and Owen Flowers, 18, pleaded guilty to offences under the Computer Misuse Act at Woolwich crown court on Monday.
The vice president said the move represented a ‘major milestone’ in ending Iran’s nuclear programme
According to Palestinian news agency Wafa, a high school student was killed and several other civilians were injured earlier today in an Israeli attack on a civilian vehicle in Gaza City. The Gaza health ministry says at least 1,021 people have been killed in Israeli attacks since the ‘ceasefire’ between Israel and Hamas came into effect in October 2025.
In a post on X, Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, said US-Iran talks have concluded “successfully” in Switzerland, adding that discussions produced agreement on the establishment of a “high-level committee” to provide “political oversight” of the talks which are now entering a more “technical” phase.
Other measures include Washington lifting sanctions on Tehran’s oil exports and reopening the strait of Hormuz
Iran has agreed to allow UN nuclear inspectors back into the country as part of an agreement under which Washington will lift sanctions on Tehran’s oil exports and the strait of Hormuz will reopen, the US vice-president, JD Vance, has said.
Long-term independent monitoring of Iran’s nuclear programme, which it says is for energy purposes only, was in effect halted last summer after Israel and the US attacked the country. Tehran suspended cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in response to strikes on its nuclear facilities.
Appeals court had ruled Pedro Hernandez, 64, was wrongly convicted over 1979 disappearance of New York six-year-old
The US supreme court has reinstated a murder conviction in the long winding case of Etan Patz, whose 1979 disappearance at age six from New York City garnered national headlines.
In a 6-3 decision on Monday, the supreme court agreed with New York prosecutors in their request to reverse a lower court ruling that had thrown out the murder conviction of Pedro Hernandez, 64, in the Patz case.
HAMBURG, Germany, June 22, 2026 — DDN today announced a major expansion of its AI & HPC data platform portfolio at ISC 2026, delivering breakthrough innovations across performance, efficiency, security, and cloud-scale AI infrastructure.
The announcements include the launch of the new AI400X3M high-performance appliance, the official release of DDN’s distributed KV Cache acceleration technology integrated with NVIDIA Dynamo, and new security, observability, and infrastructure efficiency enhancements for large-scale AI environments.
As organizations race from AI pilots to production-scale AI operations, DDN is addressing the industry’s most critical bottlenecks across the entire AI data pipeline — from data ingestion and preparation to training, inference, RAG, and agentic AI. The company’s latest innovations are designed to maximize GPU utilization, accelerate inference performance, reduce infrastructure complexity, and significantly improve AI economics by lowering cost per token and increasing tokens-per-watt efficiency across enterprise AI factories.
“AI infrastructure is no longer just about compute. The economic success of AI depends on how efficiently organizations move, manage, secure, and operationalize data across the entire AI lifecycle,” said Alex Bouzari, CEO and Co-Founder at DDN. “At ISC 2026, DDN is introducing the next generation of AI data intelligence innovations designed to help customers maximize GPU utilization, reduce inference costs, accelerate time-to-token, and improve the overall economics of AI factories at massive scale.”
Introducing the AI400X3M: Extreme Performance Density for AI and HPC
Leading the announcements is the new DDN AI400X3M appliance, the latest evolution of DDN’s industry-leading EXAScaler platform.
Designed for the most demanding AI and HPC environments, the AI400X3M delivers:
Up to 35% higher read throughput over the previous generation
Up to 190 GB/sec throughput performance to accelerate GPU access to data
Exceptional performance density in a compact footprint (up to 30 PB in a single rack)
Hybrid disk support for optimized economics and scalability, especially due to rising NAND costs
Extreme parallel throughput for supercomputing, training, inference, checkpointing, and large-scale AI pipelines
The AI400X3M enables enterprises, sovereign AI programs, and cloud providers to dramatically increase infrastructure efficiency while reducing power, cooling, and operational costs.
General availability is expected by the end of Q3 2026.
Official Launch of DDN KV Cache Acceleration with NVIDIA Dynamo Integration
Following its preview at GTC 2026, DDN also announced the official launch of its distributed KV Cache acceleration architecture integrated with NVIDIA Dynamo and available across DDN Infinia and EXAScaler AI data platforms.
The solution dramatically accelerates large-scale AI inference by eliminating memory bottlenecks and enabling ultra-fast retrieval of model context directly from DDN’s AI-native data intelligence platform.
Key capabilities include:
Shared distributed KV Cache fabric optimized for large-scale inference environments
Ultra-low latency data access for large-context inference and faster token generation
Optimized support for agentic AI, reasoning models, RAG, and multi-step inference pipelines
Deep integration with NVIDIA Dynamo, vLLM, and modern inference frameworks
Improved GPU utilization and reduced idle compute cycles
Up to 55x faster KV cache loading performance for large-scale inference workloads
Lower cost per token and improved AI factory ROI through more efficient GPU and infrastructure utilization
By moving KV cache closer to the data layer and reducing memory and networking bottlenecks, DDN enables enterprises and cloud providers to dramatically increase inference efficiency while reducing power consumption and infrastructure overhead associated with large-scale generative AI deployments.
Accelerating the AI Data Pipeline from Training to Inference
DDN’s latest innovations extend across the full AI data pipeline, helping enterprises operationalize AI faster and more efficiently from data preparation and model training to inference, RAG, reasoning, and agentic AI workflows.
DDN Infinia delivers AI-native object storage engineered specifically for modern inference and retrieval-intensive workloads, providing ultra-low latency metadata performance, massive concurrency, and high-speed object access required for enterprise-scale AI factories. Combined with EXAScaler’s industry-leading parallel file system performance for training and checkpointing, DDN enables organizations to unify AI data infrastructure across the entire AI lifecycle.
This architecture allows customers to eliminate data silos, maintain consistently high GPU utilization, accelerate time-to-first-token, and optimize AI infrastructure economics at scale.
Additional Enterprise AI Infrastructure Enhancements
DDN also introduced several platform enhancements focused on security, enterprise AI operations, multi-tenancy, and infrastructure observability, including:
Security
Bare-metal multi-tenancy
KMIP-based encryption and key management
VictoriaLogs integration for operational visibility
Multi-tenant APIs with and without CSI
Efficiency
Intelligent file pinning capabilities
NAND-accelerated Hot Pools to tier data from expensive all-flash drives to lower-cost HDDs
The updates are designed to help enterprise, sovereign, and cloud AI operators improve workload isolation, governance, visibility, and infrastructure efficiency across production AI environments.
Expanding Cloud AI Momentum with Managed Lustre and Salesforce
DDN also highlighted continued momentum in cloud AI infrastructure, including new Managed Lustre innovations announced alongside Google Cloud Next and a new Salesforce deployment showcasing enterprise-scale AI performance and operational efficiency.
The announcements further validate DDN’s leadership in enabling AI-native cloud architectures optimized for large-scale enterprise inference, RAG, and AI training workloads.
DDN’s work helping Salesforce clear data bottlenecks offers a clear example of that momentum in action. With Google Cloud Managed Lustre, powered by DDN EXAScaler, Salesforce achieved 1.5x faster model training, a 75% reduction in I/O latency, and a 42% reduction in training costs. The results demonstrate how DDN is helping enterprise customers remove data bottlenecks and get
DDN’s AI data intelligence platform powers many of the world’s largest and most advanced AI environments, including deployments supporting hyperscalers, sovereign AI initiatives, cloud providers, research institutions, and enterprise AI factories operating at massive GPU scale.
By combining ultra-high-performance data infrastructure, AI-native orchestration, inference acceleration, observability, and operational efficiency, DDN continues to define the future of AI data intelligence — enabling organizations to build AI factories that maximize GPU ROI, reduce cost per token, and accelerate business outcomes across the full AI lifecycle.
About DDN
DDN is the world’s leading provider of AI data storage and data management platforms, powering over 20 years of innovation across HPC, enterprise, and the largest AI deployments on Earth. With its EXA, Infinia, and intelligent data management platforms, DDN delivers unmatched performance, scale, and business value for customers building next-generation AI factories, hyperscale clouds, and Sovereign AI initiatives. DDN is the trusted partner for thousands of the world’s most data-intensive organizations, including the leading national labs, research institutions, enterprises, hyperscalers, financial firms, and autonomous vehicle innovators. For more information, visit www.ddn.com.
LED face masks are booming in popularity – despite being one of the most expensive at-home beauty products to hit the market. They claim to either reduce the appearance of fine lines, stop spots or calm redness, with some even combining different types of light to enhance the benefits.
However, it’s wise to be sceptical about new treatments that are costly and non-invasive, and to do your research before you buy. With this in mind, I interviewed doctors and dermatologists to find out whether these light therapy devices work.
Trump-admiring Abelardo de la Espriella has vowed to ‘disembowel’ the left and kill criminals like ‘rats and cockroaches’
When more than 20 women accused a Colombian evangelical pastor in 2012 of sexually abusing them, the defendant’s lawyer sought to discredit the allegations by telling the court that they were “trepadoras” – a pejorative term meaning social climbers.
He ultimately secured his client’s acquittal – although the case remains under review by the supreme court – but footage of the remark resurfaced during Colombia’s presidential campaign, sparking outrage among many progressive voters.
American economist and long-serving head of the Federal Reserve widely praised for the US boom whose reputation was re-evaluated in the wake of the 2008 crash
For his work chairing the US Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, who has died aged 100, was regularly hailed by financiers, politicians and journalists for his handling of the economy. He was variously dubbed the Oracle, the Wizard and the Maestro.
As head of the central bank of the US from 1987 to 2006, tasked with setting interest rates and supervising and regulating banks and other financial institutions, he easily ranked as one of the most powerful individuals in the world. He served under four presidents: Ronald Reagan, George HW Bush, Bill Clinton – even though Greenspan was a lifelong Republican – and George W Bush.
A pregnant fin whale was found dead on the bow of a cruise ship in Alaska last week. Fin whales are endangered and particularly threatened by vessel strikes.
But let’s return to Iran for a moment. Their goalie, Alireza Beiranvand – or “The Wall of Persia” as he’s known – had to run away from home to become a footballer, his old fella less than enchanted by the ruse and cutting up his gloves. I wonder how he feels now his boy has been player of the match at a World Cup.
Trump’s pre-Fourth of July renovation project has endured problems with algae, peeling paint and an inflating price tag
Donald Trump’s rush to repaint the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, a symbol of Washington DC, has hit roadblock after roadblock as the country’s 250th anniversary nears.
The public has been gripped by the ill-fated $14m attempt to renovate the reflecting pool, which the US president vowed to make “beautiful” in time for this summer’s birthday celebrations at the capital.
The famed US music industry executive and record producer Clive Davis has died aged 94, his family has confirmed.
He had recently been hospitalised with respiratory problems and was recovering at home. He had also been diagnosed with neurological condition Bell’s palsy in 2021.
José Luis Ábalos found to have taken bribes on Covid-era public contracts in damaging blow to Pedro Sánchez
Spain’s supreme court has jailed the former transport minister José Luis Ábalos for 24 years for taking bribes on public contracts for sanitary equipment such as face masks during the Covid pandemic.
Ábalos’s aide, Koldo García, was jailed for 19 years in a trial that is one of several scandals to have enveloped the government of Pedro Sánchez over recent months.
Death of Kohen Wiley is latest in series of troubling police encounters that have outraged community members
The recent fatal shooting of a one-year-old boy by police who were responding to a shoplifting call has ignited simmering tensions between police and Black residents in the small town of Senatobia, Mississippi.
The death of Kohen Wiley is the latest in a series of troubling encounters with police that have outraged community members in recent years. It has led to protests and calls for greater police accountability in the town of 8,000, with some civil rights activists pointing to Kohen’s death as another example of a Black life lost over something of nominal value. In this case, it was an allegation of stolen diapers, which the boy’s family has denied.
Russia intercepted 300 Ukrainian drones across the country and temporarily suspended operations from Moscow airport
Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy also responded to Starmer setting out his plans to resign as Britain’s PM, telling him he would always be “a welcome guest” in Ukraine for his support to the wartorn country.
In a statement on his social media, he said:
“Keir, thank you for all our cooperation, your support, and the joint decisions that have helped make our Europe and our protection of life stronger.
The United Kingdom has been, is, and will remain among the world’s leaders. Here in Ukraine, we deeply value Britain, and every meeting and every conversation we have had has always been filled with real substance.
HSINCHU, Taiwan, June 22, 2026 — A research team led by Professor Hao-Wu Lin from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at National Tsing Hua University (NTHU) has developed the world’s brightest room-temperature single-photon source, which uniquely combines ultrafast and non-blinking emission. The device emits more than 2.3 billion photons per second, setting a new global benchmark and marking a significant milestone toward practical quantum communication and integrated quantum photonic chips. This breakthrough has been published in Science Advances.
Professor Hao-Wu Lin (center) and his research team, including doctoral student Tzu-Hao Liao (right) and Dr. Yung-Tang Chuang (left), developed the world’s brightest room-temperature single-photon source, capable of emitting more than 2.3 billion photons per second and setting a new world record. Photo credit: National Tsing Hua University.
Quantum technologies are widely regarded as a transformative frontier with the potential to reshape communication, computing, and sensing. Around the world, including in Taiwan, governments and industries are investing heavily in the development of quantum hardware, with single-photon sources serving as one of the most fundamental enabling components. These devices generate photons one at a time, making them essential for secure quantum communication and photonic quantum information processing.
“The brightness of a single-photon source directly determines the rate at which quantum information can be transmitted,” said Professor Lin. “Achieving high brightness, ultrafast emission, and stable, non-blinking operation at room temperature has remained one of the most challenging goals in quantum optoelectronics.”
To overcome this challenge, the NTHU team integrated perovskite quantum dots with silver nanocubes approximately 100 nanometers in size, creating a plasmonic nanocavity that strongly enables strong light–matter interactions. One of the major obstacles was the inherent incompatibility of the two materials. Silver nanocubes must be dispersed in highly polar solvents such as alcohol, while conventional perovskite quantum dots rapidly degrade and lose their luminescence in such environments.
Doctoral student Tzu-Hao Liao, the study’s first author, was responsible for quantum dot synthesis and modification, nanocavity fabrication, and optical characterization. He explained that the team employed specially designed zwitterionic ligands to encapsulate the quantum dots, effectively providing a protective molecular coating. This strategy enabled the quantum dots to withstand polar solvents while maintaining an exceptionally high photoluminescence quantum yield of 95%.
The stabilized quantum dots were then embedded within a plasmonic nanocavity formed between a silver nanocube and a silver film, separated by a gap of only about 10 nanometers—roughly one ten-thousandth the diameter of a human hair. This architecture dramatically enhanced brightness.
Co-author Dr. Yung-Tang Chuang, who led the photophysical analysis, explained that coupling the quantum dots to the nanocavity generated a strong Purcell effect. As a result, the emission rate increased by a factor of 435, the emission lifetime was reduced to less than 12 picoseconds, and the overall emission intensity improved by approximately 250 times compared with the uncoupled quantum dots.
Professor Lin noted that the Purcell enhancement also produced an unexpected advantage. “The emission process becomes so fast that the quantum dots have little opportunity to enter non-emissive states,” he said. “This effectively eliminates the blinking behavior that has long limited the performance of single-photon sources.” Unlike many conventional semiconductor single-photon emitters that require cryogenic temperatures near absolute zero, the perovskite-based platform operates stably at room temperature, significantly reducing system complexity and cost.
The source proved so bright that when the team measured it using a domestically manufactured confocal microscope modified in-house, the detector immediately became overexposed and saturated. Professor Lin compared the experience to “pointing a camera directly at the sun.” To obtain accurate measurements, the researchers had to insert multiple neutral-density filters into the optical path—effectively placing “sunglasses” on the instrument. The results confirmed that the device surpasses the previous world record for brightness by more than an order of magnitude.
The breakthrough did not come easily. Dr. Yung-Tang Chuang recalled that no previous study had successfully enabled perovskite quantum dots to maintain such high performance in alcohol-based solvents. With few precedents to follow, the team explored numerous approaches, including alternative device architectures and reaction conditions, but repeatedly encountered setbacks. At several points, the researchers considered abandoning the effort altogether. Progress finally came when Chuang and first author Tzu-Hao Liao developed and optimized the zwitterionic-ligand strategy, opening a viable path toward integrating perovskite quantum dots with plasmonic nanocavities.
The project was carried out entirely by the NTHU research team with support from the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) and the Ministry of Education’s “National Featured Areas Research Center Program.” Looking ahead, Professor Lin estimates that the technology could find applications in quantum-encrypted communication within the next five years and may serve as a key building block for future quantum computers within five to ten years. The team is now developing multicolor light sources to increase communication bandwidth and is extending the technology toward infrared wavelengths compatible with optical-fiber networks.
Number of countries issue alerts with sustained and rising temperatures expected to present danger to health
Two children aged four and two have been found dead in their family’s car in south-eastern France, the local prosecutor said, as a large swathe of western Europe suffers a ferocious heatwave forecast to shatter absolute temperature records.
“The causes of death are yet to be determined, but the heat is the leading line of inquiry,” said Hélène Mourges, the prosecutor in the town of Carpentras, where the temperature was expected to exceed 39C (102.2F) on Monday afternoon.
STOCKHOLM, June 22, 2026 — FirstQFM, a pioneer in machine learning foundation models for quantum computing, has announced a significant milestone in the commercial application of quantum computing today at the ISC High Performance conference. Built on NVIDIA accelerated computing, FirstQFM’s Quantum Reservoir Computing system delivered a 56.1% series-level win rate against the strongest classical foundation-model baseline in zero-shot forecasting evaluation.
The breakthrough demonstrates the power of FirstQFM’s Quantum Foundation Models (QFM) when integrated with NVIDIA’s quantum computing platform. In rigorous benchmarking of financial time series, FirstQFM’s QRC model delivered superior directional accuracy and lower forecast error than leading classical time series foundation models, marking a pivotal moment for near-term quantum utility at scale.
Unlocking the NISQ Era with Quantum Foundation Models
While the industry has historically focused on future fault-tolerant systems, FirstQFM is already delivering production-ready results on today’s Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) hardware. By utilizing patent-pending, device- and problem-aware reservoirs, FirstQFM’s Quantum Reservoir Computing (QRC) solution targets high-value use cases on near-term systems and establishes a foundation for continued performance gains as quantum hardware advances.
“Building QRC on top of our proprietary quantum foundation models enables us to generate reservoirs that are both device-aware and problem-aware,” said Vish Ramakrishnan, CEO and Co-Founder of FirstQFM. “That is what allowed us to outperform state-of-the-art AI forecasting models developed by teams at major technology companies, including Google, Salesforce, and Amazon. We believe this can become one of the first commercially viable applications of quantum computing.”
Scaled on the Leonardo Supercomputer
The development and scaling of FirstQFM’s models were powered by NVIDIA CUDA-Q, NVIDIA cuQuantum, and NVIDIA cuTensorNet. FirstQFM optimized its workflows for training on the Leonardo Supercomputer, one of the world’s most powerful systems, accelerated by NVIDIA infrastructure.
For enterprise “on-premises” deployments, the solution will leverage NVIDIA NVQLink, which provides the critical low-latency and high throughput connection between GPU-enabled servers and quantum processors required for real-time inference.
Rigorous Validation
To ensure the performance gains were robust, FirstQFM employed a strict evaluation protocol: zero-shot forecasts on series excluded from the training set, ensuring that the results were not contaminated by data leakage or overfitting.
“The objective was to demonstrate gains over state-of-the-art zero shot forecasting systems on a selected set of tasks with commercial relevance,” said Isaiah Hull, CTO and Co-Founder of FirstQFM. “To ensure the performance gains were robust, we designed the training set and evaluation protocol to avoid data leakage and overfitting, benchmarked zero-shot forecasts against zero-shot forecasts, and tested against some of the strongest forecasting systems available. NVIDIA’s CUDA-Q platform and its GPU-acceleration, were indispensable to the project.”
A Dual Go-To-Market Approach
FirstQFM is moving forward with a versatile Go-To-Market strategy that includes both cloud-based and on-premises business models. This flexibility allows enterprises to integrate quantum-enhanced forecasting into existing infrastructure and gain a decisive edge in forecasting.
About FirstQFM
FirstQFM is a Stockholm-based quantum technology startup specializing in the development of foundation models that improve the performance and scalability of quantum computers. By developing models that understand the nuances of specific quantum processors, FirstQFM enables the deployment of high-performance, commercially viable applications for the NISQ era and beyond. For more information, visit www.firstqfm.com.
This noise sometimes occurs on my GT, but not every time I ride it. I’ve only done about 1,800 km (1,100 miles) so far. Could the wheel bearings already be going bad, or is there something else that might be causing it? Any ideas?
Ursula von der Leyen, Friedrich Merz and Volodymyr Zelenskyy say British PM helped increase security
European leaders have paid tribute to Keir Starmer after he announced his resignation as the British prime minister, triggering the postponement of an EU-UK summit.
The European Council president, António Costa, said: “For sure we need to postpone it, but we are reassessing the opportunity to hold this new summit …
HAMBURG, Germany, June 22, 2026 — ISC High Performance 2026 — NVIDIA today announced that 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.
Credit: NVIDIA
The systems represent Europe’s largest one-year expansion of supercomputers, spanning national supercomputing centers, AI factories and academic research institutions. Built on full-stack NVIDIA AI infrastructure, the systems will support research across climate science, healthcare, clean-energy decarbonization, quantum computing and fundamental science.
The NVIDIA Blackwell and NVIDIA Hopper platforms are powering the majority of Europe’s AI factory buildout, with 800 AI exaflops deployed or announced since last year. With NVIDIA Quantum InfiniBand networking, NVIDIA CUDA-X libraries, NVIDIA NIM microservices and NVIDIA AI Enterprise software, NVIDIA provides a full-stack platform for science, spanning model training, simulation, inference and agentic AI.
“AI is the new instrument of science, and Europe is building the infrastructure to put it in the hands of millions of researchers,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “With NVIDIA accelerated computing, researchers can simulate more complex systems, train scientific AI models and build agentic AI workflows that turn Europe’s data and expertise into breakthroughs for the world.”
Supercomputers including Barcelona Supercomputing Center’s EuroHPC MareNostrum5 AI upgrade, BavariaAI’s Blue Swan, IT4LIA, HLRS’s HammerHAI and NAISS’s Mimer EuroHPC AI Factory are among those based on advanced NVIDIA AI infrastructure.
“BSC is committed to building AI infrastructure that advances science, industry and society,” said Mateo Valero Cortés, director of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center. “With the upgrade to MareNostrum5 and NVIDIA accelerated computing, the consortium composed of Spain, Portugal and Türkiye will make available to European researchers the tools to tackle some of the world’s most complex challenges, from climate modeling to biomedical discovery.”
“With the project ‘Blue Swan Platform,’ Bavaria is working on an innovative and independent, multimodal AI foundation model for important application areas like health and robotics,” said Bavarian Minister of Science Markus Blume. “This will allow us to provide a powerful AI tool for science and industry that fully meets European standards. For this ambitious goal, we are currently building a special computing infrastructure at Friedrich-Alexander University in Erlangen — the biggest GPU cluster you can find at any German university.”
“IT4LIA marks a strategic step in strengthening Europe’s AI and HPC ecosystem, providing a high-performance infrastructure to the research and innovation ecosystem,” said Gabriella Scipione, high-performance computing director of CINECA. “Through advanced accelerated computing, EuroHPC with CINECA, the Italian Ministry of University and Research, and the Italian Cybersecurity Agency are creating a trusted environment for open AI model development and applications across agritech, cybersecurity, meteorology, climate and manufacturing, strengthening Europe’s technological autonomy and reinforcing Italy’s role in the global AI landscape.”
“Germany has long been a leader in engineering, science and industrial innovation,” said Michael Resch, director of the High-Performance Computing Center Stuttgart. “With HammerHAI, Germany’s first AI factory, we are building on that foundation with secure, national AI infrastructure that will help researchers and industrial users accelerate simulation, inference and scientific discovery, strengthening Europe’s ability to turn advanced computing into real-world breakthroughs.”
Europe’s latest AI infrastructure expansion includes advancements at:
Barcelona Supercomputing Center’s AI Factory, the first EuroHPC AI-specific installation: Will expand MareNostrum 5 with NVIDIA GB300 NVL72 and NVIDIA GB200 NVL4 systems, connected by the NVIDIA Quantum-X800 InfiniBand platform. Delivering up to approximately 20 exaflops of AI training and 33 exaflops of AI inference performance, the system will accelerate generative AI, climate modeling, health and biotech research, sustainable agriculture, energy systems and government AI services.
BavariaAI’s Blue Swan: Brings 1,000 GPUs via NVIDIA GB200 NVL4 systems and NVIDIA Quantum-2 InfiniBand networking to FAU Erlangen and LRZ supercomputing centers. Delivering up to 11 exaflops of AI training and 22 exaflops of AI inference performance, the platform will support Bavaria’s foundation model initiative, advancing open multimodal models for science, public administration, health research, robotics and perception.
IT4LIA: An AI factory with over 8,000 GPUs via NVIDIA GB200 NVL4 systems, NVIDIA Quantum-X800 InfiniBand networking and NVIDIA AI Enterprise software, delivering 82 exaflops of AI training and 164 exaflops of AI inference performance.
HLRS’s HammerHAI: Will equip Germany’s first AI factory with over 850 GPUs via NVIDIA GB200 NVL4 systems connected with NVIDIA Quantum-X800 InfiniBand. Delivering up to approximately 8 exaflops of AI training and 15 exaflops of AI inference performance, HammerHAI will give researchers and industrial users secure AI infrastructure for engineering simulation, large language model inference and scientific discovery.
NAISS’s Mimer AI Factory, owned by the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking: Hosted at Linköping University, this supercomputer will deploy 100 NVIDIA GB200 NVL4 systems, totaling 400 GPUs, with NVIDIA ConnectX-8 networking. Delivering up to 4 exaflops of AI training and about 7 exaflops of AI inference performance, Mimer AI Factory will advance Sweden’s AI science ecosystem across life sciences, materials research, autonomous systems, trustworthy AI and data-driven innovation.
AI for Climate and Decarbonization
NVIDIA is supporting initiatives that deploy AI infrastructure and software to help researchers apply AI to scientific challenges including climate and Earth systems modeling, biomedical research, and clean-energy technologies such as fusion, hydrogen and carbon capture.
Accelerated simulation and industrial engineering are already enabling breakthroughs in clean-energy research.
Siemens Energy is using the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio, accelerated by NVIDIA technologies, including NVIDIA Omniverse libraries, CUDA-X and AI infrastructure, to unify design, computational fluid dynamics simulation and manufacturing for gas turbines built to run on up to 100% hydrogen — a complex physics challenge involving extreme heat, fluid dynamics and combustion behavior.
The workflow supports rapid, simulation-driven design iterations for complex gas turbine burner configurations, followed by fast technology validation using additively manufactured combustors. This cuts simulation times by up to 77% to advance hydrogen-capable, low‑carbon gas turbines.
Quantum-GPU Supercomputing Advances in Europe
NVIDIA is enabling European supercomputing centers and institutions to develop and run useful hybrid quantum-classical applications using NVIDIA CUDA-Q, an open, qubit-agnostic platform for hybrid computing, extending Europe’s leadership in quantum-GPU supercomputing.
CINECA, EuroHPC and Pasqal are integrating a neutral-atom QPU at the CINECA supercomputing center. The Pasqal hybrid environment is deploying the CUDA-Q platform through integration with Slurm. CUDA-Q provides Pasqal and CINECA with a platform for developing and running quantum applications including for optimization and materials science use cases.
Fraunhofer FOKUS is facilitating the integration of NVIDIA CUDA-Q with the quantum programming language Eclipse Qrisp. Qrisp, initiated at Fraunhofer FOKUS and being further developed by the Eclipse Foundation, enables researchers to more easily write complex quantum algorithms which can then be simulated, optimized and run with NVIDIA CUDA-Q.
The Barcelona Supercomputing Center has recently deployed a new analog quantum computer from QPU builder Qilimanjaro Quantum Tech, through the EuroHPC JU initiative. Qilimanjaro integrated NVIDIA CUDA-Q into its quantum software development kit, QiliSDK. Qilimanjaro is also working toward making its QPU available in the NVIDIA CUDA-Q platform for seamless control of quantum accelerated workflows at BSC.
Researchers at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre, working with a team from NVIDIA, set a world record by fully simulating a universal 50-qubit quantum computer. The simulation was run on JUPITER, powered by its NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper Superchips. Jülich’s JUQCS-50 (for 50 qubits) quantum simulator allows researchers to now test the largest possible quantum problems on supercomputers, to scale quantum computing.
About NVIDIA
NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) is the world leader in AI and accelerated computing.
Brown skuas and giant petrels are a common sight offshore in southern Australian waters in the winter months, but they will rarely risk venturing on to land.
So when two of these birds were discovered sick – on beaches a few kilometres apart on Western Australia’s southern coastline – it was a sign something might be wrong.
Original organizers, joined by new wave, are demanding the government not undo four decades of progress
On a warm evening in June, hundreds of people holding candles marched toward the Stonewall Inn in New York City, the birthplace of the US LGBTQ+ rights movement. Once they arrived, they all dropped to the ground – on the sidewalk and in the roadway – and put their backs against the pavement. The Aids rally, marking 45 years since the first reported cases, ended the way many have since the 1980s: with a die-in, dozens of bodies lying still for a long moment of silence.
The Aids crisis has killed more than 700,000 Americans and an estimated 40 million people worldwide since it was first named in 1981. But the marchers at Stonewall earlier this month were not only mourning the past. They came to protest against a wave of federal policy moves to restrict Medicaid, slash international funding and shrink the National Institutes of Health’s research budget. The original generation of HIV and Aids activists, joined by a new wave of organizers, were there to demand that the government not undo four decades of progress with catastrophic funding cuts.
The major winner has rebuilt both his swing and confidence and learned to function without the approval of the masses
On the evening before he won the US Open for a second time in four years, Wyndham Clark marched up the 18th fairway at Shinnecock Hills to put the finishing touches on a third round that would leave him six shots clear of the field. He had spent the past three days patiently defanging one of the crown jewels of American golf, building the third-largest 54-hole advantage held by a US Open leader since the second world war. The title was his to lose.
Yet when Clark arrived at the final green on Saturday bathed in golden-hour light, one thing was conspicuously absent: the crowd. Most of the spectators had left or were leaving and the grandstands around the green were only thinly populated. It was a remarkably muted backdrop for America’s once-and-future champion golfer as he stood on the doorstep of a rare wire-to-wire US Open victory.
Will the US–Iran ceasefire hold? Expert commentjon.wallace
Both sides want to buy time. But other factors like midterm elections, Israel, and deep mistrust may intervene.
Since the US and Iran signed the memorandum of understanding (MOU) ending the war, much discussion has centred on the simple question of who won. There is no clear-cut answer.
Washington and Israel point to the penetration of Iranian air defences, the decapitation of parts of its leadership and the damage inflicted on nuclear and military sites. Indeed, the US and Israel demonstrated that they could inflict far greater damage on Iran than Tehran could impose on them. Yet they could not translate that military superiority into their objectives of regime change – or at least, rapid political submission by the Iranian regime.
Tehran, for its part, survived the 38-day assault and demonstrated that it could impose costs beyond its borders – through strikes across the region and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. In doing so, it preserved meaningful bargaining power. But it also emerged economically weaker, militarily exposed and more isolated across the region.
With the MOU, both sides extracted concessions. But neither secured enough to claim a decisive victory. Washington secured a pathway towards reopening Hormuz, calming energy markets and reducing the risk of further regional escalation. Tehran gained a pause in the fighting and the prospect of renewed oil exports, sanctions relief and protection from further attacks. The outcome is therefore best understood as an unequal draw.
Washington enters the talks with military superiority, while Tehran retains enough disruptive capacity to refuse some American demands.
This helps explain why President Donald Trump and the Iranian leadership accepted the agreement. But it also foreshadows a bumpy road ahead.
For Trump, the priority was to reopen Hormuz and prevent a prolonged confrontation that would push up oil prices and inflation ahead of the US midterm elections. Meanwhile Tehran needs time to assess the damage to its military and nuclear infrastructure, stabilize the economy and reduce the risk of renewed attacks. It must also restore oil exports, regain access to frozen funds and manage the domestic consequences of the war.
Both sides are therefore using diplomacy to buy time. Washington calculates that the pressure Iran has already absorbed may make it more willing to accept nuclear restrictions. Tehran believes that concerns over Hormuz, energy prices and further rounds of escalation may persuade Trump to offer economic concessions. The same imbalance that produced this unequal draw will now shape the negotiations. Washington enters the talks with military superiority, while Tehran retains enough disruptive capacity to refuse some American demands.
The negotiations will have to bring together four connected issues: Hormuz, the future of Iran’s nuclear programme, sanctions relief, and the guarantees needed to hold the arrangement together. Reopening the strait is the most urgent because of the impact on shipping and energy markets. Here, Washington and the Gulf states will want assurances that Tehran cannot disrupt the waterway whenever negotiations reach an impasse. Iran will argue that it cannot guarantee the free flow of maritime traffic or give up its leverage while Israel remains free to strike Iran or Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The two-day delay before negotiations began in Lucerne, Switzerland, illustrates the problem. Tehran postponed the talks after insisting that a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah forms part of the MOU. Iran was making clear that it does not regard Hormuz, Lebanon and the threat of renewed Israeli attacks as separate fronts.
The nuclear negotiations will be harder because of the unresolved outcome of the war. The two sides must decide whether Iranian enrichment can continue, what limits are placed on Tehran’s remaining capacity and what access the International Atomic Energy Agency obtains to damaged and possibly undeclared sites.
Trump will need to present any new agreement as an improvement on the 2015 nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA). A final deal will therefore likely see a moratorium on enrichment, the down-blending or removal of Iran’s highly enriched uranium and a more intrusive monitoring system. Tehran however will resist compromises that strip it of what it considers both a sovereign right and a form of insurance.
Sanctions relief will be inseparable from these nuclear demands. Iran will want immediate and visible benefits including access to frozen assets, restored financial channels and investment. Washington will be reluctant to offer broad relief before Iran has made verifiable nuclear concessions. But Tehran will not want to surrender its remaining leverage before receiving meaningful benefits.
That question of trust will run through every stage of the process. After decades of hostility, Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018 and two wars there is little basis for confidence on either side. Israel adds another layer of uncertainty: Tehran will judge Washington in part by its ability to prevent renewed Israeli attacks on Hezbollah.
Signal agencies in Australia, the US, the UK, New Zealand and Canada sound alarm after Trump blocks foreign nationals from Anthropic’s Fable AI model
Powerful AI models capable of devastating new cyber attacks on governments and businesses are mere months away, intelligence agencies for the Five Eyes have warned in a rare joint statement, urging leaders to “act now”.
Greenspan served under the presidencies of Ronald Reagan, George HW Bush, Bill Clinton and George W Bush
Alan Greenspan, the influential economist who steered US monetary policy during his five terms as chair of the Federal Reserve under four presidents, has died aged 100.
The central bank said its former chair “helped establish the credibility that remains one of the Federal Reserve’s most important assets” in a statement on Monday that announced Greenspan’s death.
At the same time, 29% of small-business owners also report having open positions they can’t fill
Amid rising fuel prices and inflation across the US, confidence among small-business owners has declined in recent weeks as many continue to grapple with higher costs and economic uncertainty.
According to the National Federation of Independent Business, its Small Business Optimism Index fell by 0.6 points to 95.3 in May. At the same time, 29% of small-business owners reported having open positions they could not fill – the lowest level since the Covid-19 pandemic.
The US investment firm trying to buy easyJet has gone public with its latest £4.7bn takeover proposal for the budget airline, its third and latest offer to be rejected.
Castlelake said on Monday that an all-cash offer of 625p a share, valuing easyJet at just over £4.7bn, had been rejected by the airline’s board on Sunday, after previous offers at 560p and 600p.
After searching high and low for a BTG slick, I reached out to Burris last week inquiring on whether they'd ever do another batch of their 11.5" SS-11 Slick that they sold years ago. To my surprise responded super quickly and seemed open to it saying that they've had a number of requests for another run of that tire over the years and something they have considered and if they did decide to do another batch it would be about a 3 month time from pulling the trigger to being available. Basically seemed like they weren't saying 'no' but it definitely was not a 'yes' either. I basically thanked them while asking what kind of minimum would need to be reached for some kind of group buy to which I was expecting a fairly large number but instead he said he already got the ball rolling at the factory for a new batch and that preorders were open and they'd probably be available sometime in September!! Dude what?!
After receiving a number of requests, we are making a special run of the 11.5 x 7.0-6 SS-11’s. We anticipate receiving this run early to mid September. Place your order now if you want to be in line to receive one of these while they are available. Your card will not be processed until the tires are in our hands and ready to ship.
I never thought we'd see another batch of these and those of us that missed the boat on a BTG Slick weren't ever going to have another shot, but holy shit they're doing it!
Why Should Delaware Care? For the better part of a year, a proposed ordinance banning panhandling has been the subject of debate and controversy across the city of Dover. Now, as the city government has decided to re-consider the proposal, residents are using it as an avenue to express their broader grievances with homelessness and public safety in the capital city.
Following nearly nine months of debate, legal opinions, public outcry and a February city council vote striking it down, Dover’s controversial panhandling ordinance is back for consideration.
This time around, Dover residents are showing up in even higher numbers to council meetings and public demonstrations to voice their opinions on the proposal, which would ban panhandling in city road medians.
Residents’ reactions to the ordinance have become not just about people asking for money in roadways, but also a referendum on a series of other issues they say are plaguing the capital city – homelessness, drug use, the struggle of attracting businesses to the downtown area and public safety.
“How did we get to a point where we have allowed people that are not being held accountable to take control of our community?” asked Gina Bloom, one of roughly 20 residents who spoke on the measure at the June 9 city council meeting.
Community leaders from the downtown revitalization efforts and a homeless shelter that have become a focal point of the debate over the panhandling ordinance say they recognize the need for policy to address people soliciting and standing in roads. But the measure will not resolve homelessness and the challenge of attracting business downtown in the way some are suggesting, they say.
City Councilman David Anderson originally introduced the ordinance last fall.
Dover City Councilman David Anderson has made addressing the city’s quality of life a major issue. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY MAGGIE REYNOLDS
Then, in late April, after a ruling by Attorney General Kathy Jennings’ office that the city needed to ratify its February final vote on the measure due to an open meetings law violation, Anderson used an obscure governmental procedure to revive the debate over the ordinance for another vote by council.
The measure has not since been placed on a city council agenda for consideration. Anderson told Spotlight Delaware he is still “building momentum” and seeking legal review of the ordinance before he plans to reintroduce it later this summer.
Other city council members are divided as to whether to reignite the debate and whether its approval would open the city to legal challenges.
“I’m concerned with whether this is a good use of resources and time, given the fact that we’ve already addressed this matter,” Councilman Roy Sudler said.
Council members Anderson and Julia Pillsbury told Spotlight Delaware they intend to vote in favor of the ordinance once again on the re-vote, while Sudler, Brian Lewis and Donyale Hall said they will again vote against the ordinance.
Council President Fred Neil, who voted affirmatively on the ordinance in February, and council members Tricia Arndt, Andre Boggerty and Gerald Rocha, all of whom voted against it, did not respond to requests for comment.
More residents are expressing their support for greater restrictions on the city’s homeless population in Delaware’s capital city, but finding a constitutional solution could be difficult. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY MAGGIE REYNOLDS
Protests, petitions & public comment
Since the re-introduction of the debate over the panhandling ordinance, officially called a “Traffic, Vehicles and Pedestrian Safety” measure, Dover residents have held rallies, signed petitions and written letters linking a range of issues they are experiencing in the city to the ordinance.
In a clear escalation of the tension over the ordinance, Anderson held so-called “reclaim our streets” rally in favor of his proposal prior to the June 9 city council meeting, while a handful of opponents of the measure simultaneously held a counter-protest in the same location.
Roughly 70 people stood outside of city hall for the two protests with hand-held signs, megaphones and shirts signaling which side of the debate they were on.
Attendees of Anderson’s event and the subsequent hour-long public comment period during the city council meeting said they are frustrated with the individuals soliciting money, drugs and sex acts across downtown neighborhoods and prominent road medians.
Councilman Anderson’s wife, Jeannie Anderson, who has been gathering support for her husband’s proposal on social media in recent months, said at the rally that the conversation needs to not be just “about the homeless,” but also the rights of residents in the area.
Other vocal supporters of the ordinance included a number of residents and business owners in the Bradford Street and Governor’s Avenue area, which has received increased attention in recent months since the city council tried to shut down the People’s Church homeless shelter there due to resident complaints.
Frustrated residents have used the opportunity around the panhandling ordinance to discuss a variety of issues on city streets. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY MAGGIE REYNOLDS
One Governor’s Avenue resident, Michelle Walls, said during public comment at the meeting that her neighborhood has turned into an active market for drug trafficking, loitering and prostitution.
“My home should be my sanctuary, but instead I feel entirely exposed to this criminal behavior,” she said.
As it is written, the proposed ordinance would not apply fines to individuals soliciting on streets like Governor’s Avenue, as it applies strictly to larger, busier roadways with medians.
On the opposite side, a group of community activists and homeless individuals argued that the proposal is both unconstitutional and unfair to people who panhandle because they do not have another option to afford food and shelter.
Community activist Vonda Smack said the city police department already has alternative statutes at its disposal to charge individuals aggressively panhandling or causing a public nuisance.
The ordinance is simply opening the city to more legal expenses in an already precarious financial situation, since the state attorney general told municipalities around the state not to enforce any loitering and solicitation laws in 2024, Smack added.
Mike Potanovich, a Dover resident who has been living in his truck and panhandling for money for the past year, said at both the rally and city council meeting that it is unfair for peaceful, respectful panhandlers like himself to be conflated with individuals using drugs and aggressively soliciting money.
“I’m just out there trying to make a living, put gas in my truck, food in my belly. I’m not hurting anybody,” he told Spotlight Delaware.
In the midst of continued debate over panhandling and homelessness in Dover, city leaders have turned their ire toward the People’s Church Community Center, a homeless shelter in the heart of the city. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY NICK STONESIFER
Stakeholders respond
Anderson is holding up his ordinance as “one piece of the puzzle” toward addressing the issues of homelessness, drug use and economic opportunity about which residents are sounding the alarm.
Community leaders in these realms, however, are more mixed in their assessment as to whether the measure is an effective focus of the city’s efforts.
The Rev. Derrick Hodge is the lead pastor at the People’s Church of Dover, which has been the subject of scrutiny by the city council due to residents’ complaints of loitering and other illegal activity in the neighborhood near its shelter.
Hodge said his organization is not weighing in specifically on the merits of Anderson’s ordinance, but he believes many people in the city are conflating “the real problems” and “how we can fix these problems.” The city council denied grant funding for the shelter in March, arguing that the shelter was attracting more people to loiter on the streets near it.
Hodge added that he would urge city leaders to focus on creating more affordable housing and drug treatment centers as solutions to the issues in the downtown area.
A number of residents have raised concerns about how the city will successfully attract more residents and businesses back downtown with the safety and loitering concerns.
At the same time, skeptics of the ordinance have drawn a link between the desire to clean up panhandling and the city’s ambitious 2030 downtown Dover revitalization project, which includes adding a housing project, parking garage and new businesses to the area.
Diane Laird, executive director of the Downtown Dover Partnership (DDP), acknowledged that her organization has concerns about panhandlers impeding businesses’ and residents’ “unobstructed, clean access” to the downtown area.
Still, she said the DDP is leaving it to other city and state entities to address the safety concerns, while her group focuses on bringing more businesses and residents downtown.
Photo illustration by Mark Harris for ProPublica. Photos by Getty Images.
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.
Do You Know More About This Topic?
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.
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.
Spending Less — or Not at All
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.”
A “Fundamental Threat to the Rule of Law”
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.”
A vivid and entertaining polemic on the economics of the tech revolution, filled with righteous ire
As former Google CEO Eric Schmidt could tell you, AI is a hard sell these days. Last month, he tried talking up the AI revolution during a commencement address at the University of Arizona and was loudly booed by students about to enter an AI-ravaged job market. His discombobulation was telling.
Schmidt is not the only AI booster to crash out with students recently as the popular backlash grows. Every week brings a new story about some writer, publisher or academic who has torched their reputation by using an unreliable chatbot. Most US voters are opposed to the construction of vast, resource-guzzling new datacentres. A majority believe AI will negatively impact not just jobs but creativity and human relationships. In some quarters, saying that AI has any benefits at all is akin to saying that biological warfare gets a bad rap. As a New York Times column put it: “AI populism is here. And no one is ready.”
The summer sale ends tomorrow and I’m eyeing a Pint S. Any recommendation on whether I pull the trigger or wait for a new board later this year? Budget not an issue, just a plus that the sale is going on.
Why Should Delaware Care? Housing costs are rising in Delaware, leading to strained budgets, longer commutes and an increase in the homeless population. The most ambitious bill to tackle the issue this session has passed the Senate and now faces a tight margin to pass the House.
Senate Bill 23, dubbed “The Housing for Every Delawarean Act,” would require most localities to allow more townhomes, apartments and other dense types of housing, along with adopting other measures to make homes more affordable.
Delaware is facing a shortage of affordable housing. Half of renters in the state are defined as “cost-burdened,” meaning they pay more than what they can reasonably afford for housing.
“We know that without action, housing costs will continue to rise, and more Delawareans will struggle to find homes that they can afford,” said bill cosponsor Rep. Kendra Johnson (D-Bear) at the House Housing Committee meeting last week.
But many local government officials oppose SB 23 because they see it as part of an erosion of local control, a long-running point of tension between local governments and the Delaware legislature.
“This is the same old, same old,” Kent County Levy Court Commissioner Allan Angel said. “I don’t think we’re ever really asked what we would like to have.”
The bill cleared the State Senate last week purely on party lines, but it will need some House Republicans to reach the two-thirds majority vote it requires.
Despite general Republican opposition to the bill, two New Castle County Republicans have signed the bill as co-sponsors: Reps. Kevin Hensley and Michael Smith. Still, House Minority Leader Tim Dukes (R-Laurel) said his party will try to come to a consensus on how they will vote.
“I think we all want affordable housing, but we have different ideas and methods about how to get there,” he told Spotlight Delaware.
Gov. Matt Meyer’s office said he supports the bill, meaning the House vote will likely be the final hurdle for its passage.
Local control concerns reemerge
Many local government officials across the state have spoken out against the bill, while affordable housing advocates, healthcare organizations and building trades representatives have expressed support.
Local leaders take issue with the state trying to implement what they describe as a one-size-fits-all approach to affordable housing, when each locality has specific infrastructure, public safety, and other community needs that can’t be captured in the bill.
“The zoning requirements in Laurel are different than the zoning requirements in, say, Smyrna, which are different than the zoning requirements in Kent County, and they’re lumping all of those into the same basket,” Kent County Levy Court Commissioner Jody Sweeney said.
The bill also requires municipalities to allow dense housing, such as apartments or townhomes, in certain areas. The public would have a say over which areas are designated for dense housing. But once those rules are set, city or county councils would not be able to deny proposals for developments that meet those requirements.
Janelle Cornwell, executive director of the Delaware League of Local Governments, said this provision “takes away the voice of the public.”
“It takes away the transparency and the public input for development applications, it takes away the ability for neighbors to improve an application,” she said.
Jon Horner, president of the Home Builders Association of Delaware, argued that the public would still be able to comment through public meetings. He also said that people often use the public hearing process to stop or delay housing projects.
Some of the disagreement also comes down to how “affordable” housing is defined.
Sussex County Councilman Steve McCarron said he opposes the bill because it requires local municipalities to increase allowed housing density without requiring any of those homes to be income-restricted.
The Sussex County Council recently approved some long-anticipated reforms, which include allowing a higher rent threshold and more density within the county’s affordable housing program.
McCarron argued denser housing and the population increase it would bring would put a strain on the county’s infrastructure without bringing any homes that are truly affordable for low-income people.
“It’s a hope and a dream that we’re going to get affordable units out of this,” McCarron said.
But Sen. Russ Huxtable (D-Lewes), who sponsored the bill, said that smaller homes and apartments are inherently more affordable than single-family homes. And currently, it is easier for developers to build single-family homes in much of Sussex County because of restrictive zoning laws.
Some localities also point to Senate Joint Resolution 8 – signed into law by Gov. Matt Meyer last August – which created a pilot program for a handful of municipalities to receive free, technical assistance to include more affordable housing in their zoning and land use codes, as a reason that SB 23 is not necessary right now.
Gene Dvornick, the town manager in Georgetown, one of the jurisdictions participating in the technical assistance program, said he doesn’t think it makes sense to introduce another affordable housing mandate given how recently SJR8 was implemented.
“Sometimes it’s better to wait and see. Trying something was SJR8,” Dvornick told Spotlight Delaware. “Let’s see the results of that.”
Brian Frazee, president and CEO of the Delaware Healthcare Association, which represents that state’s hospital systems, said his organization supports SB 23 because it is currently difficult for healthcare workers to find housing that they can afford.
Sonya Starr, representing the Delaware Affordable Housing Coalition, said that’s not a unique problem in healthcare.
She cited statistics from the National Low Income Housing Coalition that show that the Delaware minimum wage is only enough to cover a rent of $780 per month. And workers making less than $32 an hour cannot afford the average cost of a two-bedroom apartment.
“What we’re hoping is that this bill will allow the people we need to work here… to also live and thrive here,” Starr said.
Why Should Delaware Care? Government works best when its citizens are knowledgeable and engaged. Delaware’s government has scores of commissions, working groups, agencies and legislative committees. All must hold meetings that are open to the public. Below we highlight a few of those meetings that are happening this week.
Below are some of the most important or interesting public meetings happening around the state this week.
General Assembly marks last full week
Grant-In-Aid to be determined
Capital budget to be marked up
PSC to start new Delmarva rate case
White Clay Creek Park to host info session
State Legislature marks last full week
The Delaware General Assembly will meet on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week, where they will have to complete the bulk of their annual work – and there remain a number of high-profile bills to be considered in the final days.
Those bills include must-haves like the annual state budgets as well as a variety of priorities from Senate and House leadership, ranging from healthcare reform to voting rights, energy costs to reassessment reform.
On Tuesday, lawmakers will vote on major bills like Senate Bill 23, which would relax permitting requirements for affordable housing but has proven controversial with municipalities, and Senate Bill 13, which would increase the number of eligible patients for free and reduced healthcare. A number of bills related to data centers and energy costs will be heard in committee on Tuesday too.
The voting agenda for Thursday has not been set yet, but lawmakers will also meet in committee where they will discuss the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, among other bills.
The final day of the legislature is Tuesday, June 30, and any bill not passed by then will have to restart the legislative process next year.
📍 The General Assembly is set convene beginning at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday inside Legislative Hall, located at 411 Legislative Ave. in Dover. For more details, including information about virtual attendance, click here and scroll through the “What’s Happening” tab.
Grant-In-Aid to be determined
Each year, the state legislature pays nonprofits around the state to outsource work in a variety of needs, including fire companies, social services, arts organizations, neighborhood programs, and more.
The decisions around the so-called “Grant-In-Aid” bill can mean the difference between expansion and closure for some of the smallest nonprofits. Which organizations get funded and to what degree is a process that will only grow more cloudy this year following questions around prior appropriations to organizations bedeviled by money issues, including the PAL of Delaware.
📍 The Joint Finance Committee will meet at 11 a.m. Thursday to discuss the “Grant-In-Aid” bill. The committee will meet in the JFC Hearing Room downstairs at Legislative Hall, located at 411 Legislative Ave. in Dover. For remote viewing, click here.
Capital budget markup this week
The Bond Bill Committee will meet Tuesday this week to decide on final priorities for bond funding this year.
The state government issues debt annually on the bond market in order to pay for capital projects, one-time purchases and more.
Gov. Matt Meyer proposed a $656 million capital budget for non-transportation-related projects – they are funded from taxes and fees paid by drivers – which included $60 million for a new state medical examiner site, $73 million for a new Appoquinimink school and millions to the state’s universities for renovations and repairs.
📍 The Joint Capital Committee will meet at 10 a.m. Tuesday to discuss the capital improvement bill. The committee will meet in the JFC Hearing Room downstairs at Legislative Hall, located at 411 Legislative Ave. in Dover. For remote viewing, click here.
Public Service Commission opens Delmarva rate case
Delaware’s energy market regulator will formally open the docket for Delmarva Power’s latest request for additional funding.
If approved by the PSC, the energy distributor will be allowed to temporarily raise rates on customers while it argues for making the rates permanent.
It is the third rate hike request filed by Delaware’s largest energy provider in five years, drawing criticism from the state’s Public Advocates and legislative leaders. The new request also seeks to raise the maximum profit the regulated utility could earn by about $9.4 million.
If the proposal is approved, a residential customer using an average of 810 kilowatt hours per month would see a bill increase of $6.42, or 4.13%, from $155.37 to $161.79, according to Delmarva.
📍 The Public Service Commission will meet at 1 p.m. Wednesday in the first floor hearing room of the Cannon Building, located at 861 Silver Lake Blvd. in Dover. For remote viewing info, click here.
White Clay Creek hosts open house
The DNREC Division of Parks and Recreation is hosting a community open house for projects at White Clay Creek State Park.
The open house is an opportunity for division staff to share information about the park and allow the public to provide feedback. The open house features a series of informational boards highlighting existing park features, upcoming capital projects, and future planned efforts to improve the amenities and services provided to park visitors.
Projects include Big Pond restoration, White Clay Creek Nature Center, trail projects, office location and overnight rentals.
📍 DNREC will host the open house from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Monday at Deerfield Golf Club, located at 507 Thompson Station Road in Newark.
I saw these back in 2019, but now that the tech is real, do I just ball out and get an xr classic?
There’s a crazy aftermarket support, and where I am original xr boards go for about 1k usd, but is it worth getting og with outdated teck, or no brainer classic? 2.5x the price.
I am planning to rebuild my 15s px pack to replace the damaged wiring and get it ready for a stoke bms. The question i have is if the bms is reverse polarity like the battery or am i going to have to flip them with a new xt30. Just trying to plan the repair and want to make sure i have more xt30 on hand in case of hiccups. Also, since im in the butt of the board, would it be wise to upgrade the charge port to something a little more hardy. If so, any suggestions.
Today marks exactly 80 days of riding this absolute beast! Hands down some of the most ahh inspiring floating of my life, adrenaline inducing, stoak injecting, & pure happiness I've ever had on an euc. This baby is the best thing since sliced bread "corny" reference but IDC.
I've racked up exactly 780 miles so far in 80 days. That equates to an average of 10 miles of riding each & every single day! 🤘🏻💥
Thank you to the fungineers team, I swear this board has been so much fun & every single time I jump on it I feel like it's that very first time I rode a one wheel board, but much much better. Every ride is so damn enjoyable.
Any people on the fence deciding on getting on a funwheel or a future slow motion board... Do yourself the favor & make the right choice...
This is the end all be all of boards in my opinion.. idk how y'all are going to top this board with the next iteration.. don't seem like we could get much better then this, cause gahhhhhh dayummmm this baby is the bizzznesss 😋🔥💯
Has anyone bought and used the CHI-VE XR 20.2 battery from chibattery systems and if so how much range do you get? Also have their been any big issues with their batteries?
Figures including Jared Kushner and Scott Bessent named in directory of Dialog participants that was exposed online
A website leak has exposed participants in the secretive, Peter Thiel-founded Dialog retreats which includes top politicians from across the American divide, officials from foreign countries, other titans of the tech industry world and prominent media figures.
The annual Dialog retreats, which have been compared to other quasi-secret elite conferences like the Bilderberg Group and Bohemian Grove since they began in 2006, have had some participants revealed in previous media reports. Fairly little is known about the invitation-only event, which is usually held at luxury establishments around the world and features organized discussions on global affairs.
This article was updated on 22 June to show that it was Epstein associate Lisa Randall who was invited to the retreat, not Epstein.
President Trump's efforts to spruce up the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool faced a snag this week, with algae turning the water green while rips appeared in an "American Flag Blue" surface picked by the president.
Britain’s next prime minister faces deep foreign policy challenges – whether Burnham or anotherExpert commentthilton.drupal
Whoever is leading the country must deal with a fundamental shift in the UK’s most important relations – with the US and Europe – in an increasingly dangerous world.
The UK will have a new prime minister after Keir Starmer resigned on Monday. Andy Burnham, who has returned as a Labour MP after securing a strong victory in the Makerfield by-election, announced his leadership bid the same day.
Given that Wes Streeting – the main expected challenger to Burnham – has announced his support for Burnham’s leadership bid, it now seems highly likely that Burnham will become the next prime minister. If standing unopposed, Burnham would enter office by mid-July; if there is a leadership contest, whoever wins will be in place by September.
Much of the debate around how Burnham, or other potential challengers, may differ from Starmer has focused on their approach to pressing domestic issues, especially the cost of living and growth, public services and immigration. Future relations with the EU have made the occasional appearance.
These issues are crucial. But Starmer’s short time as prime minister was largely consumed by foreign affairs. Any potential new prime minister will face a relentless deluge of international issues and challenges.
This is not just the result of unexpected overseas crises, although there have been many of those. It is tied to the fact that the UK’s most critical post-war relationships – with the US and Europe – are shifting.
There are positive lessons to take from Starmer’s track record in government. But his government struggled to address the deeper strategic questions – and find the resources – needed to tackle this fundamental shift and its impact on defence and security.
Whoever is the next prime minister will have the opportunity for a reset. This would need to address the US’s increasing reluctance to underwrite European security, the intensification of US-China rivalry, and the resulting increase in threats facing the UK.
What Starmer did well
Starmer was consistent and reliable when it comes to personal diplomacy. He navigated a difficult relationship with President Donald Trump by correctly reading, and managing, the MAGA camp’s extreme sensitivity to apparent European condescension. He refused to be publicly baited into conflict with the administration if it didn’t serve the UK’s interests.
There are positive lessons to take from Starmer’s track record so far.
As pieces of diplomatic theatre, reciprocal US–UK state visits have been handled well. And Starmer sought to learn from the past, carefully delimiting the UK’s role in the US–Iran war in recognition of the lessons of Iraq – and the subsequent Chilcot Inquiry – about not committing limited UK resources to US missions with no clear strategic end goal.
Starmer had also been a credible European ally. He continued the approach of previous UK governments in being a long-term and clear-eyed supporter of Ukraine. He recognized that the UK’s security priority should be in Europe and coordinated with European counterparts effectively, signing a new security treaty with Germany and refreshing the existing one with France.
A longer-term plan for European defence and security
While Starmer’s personal diplomacy as a European ally was a relative success, it is at threat of being undermined by the failure of his government to reckon with the costs of rising defence and security commitments.
Defence spending challenges are by no means a new phenomenon, and are shared across Europe. Previous UK governments similarly said they would hit ambitious defence spending targets without explaining how. Part of the difficulty for Starmer’s government had been untangling a long history of British governments making too many commitments for UK defence without an honest assessment of the total costs.
But the defence spending issue is about more than just litigating competing claims on the public purse – though this is challenging enough. With the US no longer such a reliable European security backstop – and Washington planning to withdraw some resources from Europe – the UK needs a longer-term defence and security relationship with European allies.
The UK’s active and immediate response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 increased Britain’s credibility as a contributor to, and shaper of, the future of European security. The UK sent weaponry and helped train Ukrainian forces, in some cases before other partners, and played an important role in coordinating support. It worked closely with Nordic and Baltic countries, particularly via the Joint Expeditionary Force, to build an increasingly active European defence coalition. Post-Brexit, the UK has made it clear that it can play an important strategic and security role in Europe.
President Donald Trump has touted more than $500 billion in prescription drug savings over 10 years from his policies. But the savings are largely aspirational, and not based on the more limited actions the administration has taken so far.
The administration’s most favored nation policy seeks to bring down drug prices to levels paid in other countries. The bulk of the savings, estimated in a May 5 report by the White House Council of Economic Advisers, comes from assuming that all new drugs will be sold in the U.S. at MFN prices going forward, saving $529 billion. A smaller amount of savings, $64.3 billion, comes from applying MFN pricing to Medicaid.
“People are saving a lot of money,” Trump said at a May 18 event announcing the addition of more drugs to TrumpRx, the administration’s website directing people to cash prices for prescription drugs. “Over the next 10 years, the Council of Economic Advisers estimates that our most favored nation drug policies will save Americans over $500 billion. And this has been the greatest breakthrough in lowering healthcare costs in modern history.”
“Think about the $600 billion of savings to the average American over the next 10 years,” Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said on June 2 at an event announcing further additions to the TrumpRx website, while calling on Congress to codify MFN pricing.
“It’s just a massive number that they voluntarily, sort of, gave back because the president went after them and said: ‘You got to deal with this problem,’” Oz continued, referring to the president’s negotiations with drug companies.
There isn’t evidence that drug companies have agreed to give back $600 billion in savings to Americans, much less savings that will go to “average” Americans. So far, the administration has made voluntary deals with 17 drug companies to lower drug prices. The White House and the companies have reported commitments to launch new drugs at MFN prices, as well as to offer MFN prices to states for Medicaid. However, the details of the deals have not been disclosed, and some companies have reported that they end after three years.
“Right now we just have a lot more questions than we have answers, and that makes it really difficult to assess the validity or accuracy or even ballpark-ness of this very large estimate of savings in the White House report,” Juliette Cubanski, vice president and director of the Program on Medicare Policy at the health policy organization KFF, told us. She added that it’s difficult even to evaluate the impact of the current voluntary deals given a lack of answers to key questions, such as “how many of these manufacturers’ drugs are subject to MFN pricing.”
When asked for more details on what has been done so far to achieve the savings in the report, White House spokesperson Kush Desai told us that “the research report lays out all of the assumptions underlying this analysis.” CMS did not respond to our request for comment.
The hundreds of billions in savings calculated in the CEA report do not come from offering people discounts on TrumpRx. As we’ve written previously, the prices on the site for brand-name drugs negotiated under the administration’s voluntary deals only represent savings for individuals in a few specific situations, such as when paying for fertility or weight loss drugs not covered by insurance, since many people will get better prices by using insurance rather than paying in cash. The CEA analysis only attempted to calculate 10-year savings from TrumpRx for Americans paying for fertility treatments, estimating these savings at $4.6 billion.
TrumpRx also recently started pointing people toward existing websites to access discounts on generic drugs. But as the CEA analysis itself acknowledged, generics are already cheaper in the U.S. than in other high-income countries, and they are not a target of MFN policies.
The U.S. does generally pay more for brand-name drugs than other nations. Prices in 2022 for these drugs were more than three times higher in the U.S. than in other high-income nations after adjusting for rebates, according to an analysis from the research organization RAND. But it is not clear how policies aiming to equalize drug prices will play out. As we have written previously, the president has repeatedly claimed broad victories over drug prices, even though they are hardly a done deal. There are significant uncertainties with his MFN approach, which still requires legislative action to further implement.
“We’ve seen no indication from pharma, from other key stakeholders, that this $600 billion number is real,” Jeromie Ballreich, an associate professor in the department of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told us, saying that one would expect companies to disclose to shareholders such an impact, which would be about 10% of U.S. pharmaceutical company revenue. “You would hear it outside of the White House, because $600 billion is, as Trump would say, huge.”
Missing Details From Trump’s Deals
Experts told us that it is difficult to evaluate the estimated nearly $600 billion in savings without more information on the president’s current or future MFN policies.
“This report is partly a report and mostly a press release,” Joseph Antos, a senior fellow emeritus at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, told us, adding that it is not possible to do an independent analysis based on the information provided.
Andrew Mulcahy, a senior health economist at RAND, told us that the hundreds of billions in savings are theoretically possible with a broad MFN policy but he said the administration’s actions so far only have “semblances” of accomplishing such a policy.
“Other countries’ prices are much lower than ours, and if policies are designed to piggyback on those prices, you can get savings in this order of magnitude,” he said. “That said, I don’t think that what’s happened so far — or plans for what will happen in the future — will align with that estimate in the CEA report for a variety of reasons.”
One key question is the length of the voluntary deals the administration has made with drug companies.
To get to nearly $600 billion in savings, the “key assumption” is that MFN pricing “will be implemented through legislation and affect all new product launches going forward,” Jens Grueger, a partner at Boston Consulting Group and affiliate professor at the University of Washington, told us in an email. The deals, however, appear to be limited to Trump’s time in office, he said.
Filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission from some of the companies have indicated the deals are limited overall, with two companies specifying they only last three years, STAT reported.
Photo illustration by Karen Bleier/AFP via Getty Images.
“It’s very unclear how you can estimate savings over a 10-year period based on deals that we understand to be lasting only for three years, unless you assume that Congress will actually codify MFN pricing,” Cubanski said. Meanwhile, she added, many Republicans in Congress even oppose legislation that allows the government to negotiate drug prices, much less price-setting.
Rena Conti, a health economist at Boston University Questrom School of Business, told us that the assumption of MFN legislation was “hypothetical at best, as there is no movement in Congress to pass legislation.”
A second question is what exactly the companies agreed to in their commitments to price newly launched drugs at MFN prices. As we’ve said, the bulk of the savings — $529 billion — estimated in the report come from assuming new drugs will be broadly offered at MFN prices over 10 years.
While Trump has claimed his administration has achieved the lowest drug prices in the world, the CEA report explained that his administration’s MFN pricing policies ask that companies offer U.S. payers the second-lowest drug prices among those paid in a small collection of countries: the G-7 nations, plus Switzerland and Denmark. The approach uses net prices after adjusting for gross domestic product per capita in comparison to the U.S., the report said.
The CEA report estimated the 10-year savings from new drug launches at MFN prices by comparing historical prices in these countries between 2021 and 2025 and imagining that this MFN policy had been applied, the report explained. (The analysis omitted Denmark due to a lack of data.) The White House economists then extended their estimate to 10 years, assuming a 3% growth rate.
In coming up with the hundreds of billions of dollars in savings, the CEA report “essentially said it’s going to be the second-lowest price out of the reference basket,” said Ballreich, the pharmaceutical policy researcher from Johns Hopkins. “There’s a number of question marks about whether or not these drug companies that came and met with the White House and did this agreement actually agreed to this.”
Some of the White House announcements of the deals specify commitments companies have made to provide MFN prices on “all new innovative” or “all new” medicines. However, SEC filings have sometimes indicated limitations, saying that companies agreed to “price certain future medicines” at or below MFN levels or mentioning “certain exceptions” to promises to price new products at these levels.
Three companies recently declined to tell STAT whether three new drugs would be launched at MFN prices.
Questions About Medicaid Savings
There are similar questions about the $64.3 billion in estimated savings for Medicaid.
Press releases on the voluntary deals with drug companies indicate that the companies will provide MFN prices to state Medicaid programs for at least some drugs. CMS is launching GENEROUS, a voluntary Medicaid initiative running five years, and the companies that have signed deals are expected to participate for at least some of this time, according to a May 8 analysis from KFF. However, the KFF analysis said that it is unclear how many drugmakers and states will ultimately participate in GENEROUS and for how long, as well as which drugs will be included.
The prices states pay for Medicaid drugs are not publicly disclosed, but they are generally already the lowest in the U.S., researchers have previously told us, making it difficult to assess whether the MFN deals will be better than existing Medicaid prices.
“It feels very difficult to believe that companies are actually giving up a good chunk of revenue with these deals,” Mulcahy said. “What seems far more likely is that they are finding a way to formalize the discounts they are already offering” to Medicaid.
Ballreich said that in a study that has not yet been published, he and his colleagues had estimated savings in the first year of the GENEROUS program at “just about a third” of what the CEA report projected for that timeframe. His group’s estimate assumed complete participation in GENEROUS by drug companies and states but also attempted to take into account some mechanisms Medicaid already has to reduce drug prices.
Roadblocks to Achieving MFN Savings
Even assuming the Trump administration enacted policies to require all drug companies to offer MFN prices to all payers, it’s not clear how much money the U.S. would save. MFN policies could affect global drug prices in ways the report did not take into account.
Trump has suggested that companies would make up for losses in revenue in the U.S. by increasing prices in other countries. However, researchers expressed skepticism that other high-income countries would agree to significantly higher prices.
In addition, Antos of AEI pointed out that MFN policies could lead some drugs to never make it to market. “I don’t believe they try to take into account the effects of this process on future innovation,” he said, referring to the CEA estimate.
A June 10 release from the White House listing Trump’s “recent wins” said his MFN initiative was “projected to save Americans $500 billion over the next decade while protecting innovation and expanding access.”
Cubanski, however, said that if the report is correct, and prices fall some 30%, “we’d be looking at a pretty significant hit to revenues for pharmaceutical companies, and that could translate to somewhat less innovation, or maybe significantly less innovation.”
The estimate also doesn’t take into account how drugmakers and other countries might push back against the policies.
The CEA report “assumes that companies continue launching products in reference countries and that prices in these countries would converge towards US prices,” Grueger said. He suggested that this could happen for some products “that address a high unmet medical need and provide transformative benefits for patients.” Other countries consider benefits to patients relative to costs in determining what they will pay for drugs.
“However, for the majority of products this will be difficult to achieve, and companies might consider not launching these products outside the US to protect US prices,” Grueger said, citing recent statements from pharmaceutical executives suggesting such delays. “As a consequence, lower prices in reference countries would not be available and prices in the US would not drop as much as projected in the CEA report.”
“Not only would you potentially impede access to new medications in other countries, but we wouldn’t end up with lower prices here in the US either,” Cubanski said. She added that it is already typical for drugs to launch in the U.S. before they are in other countries, making it difficult to figure out how to set an MFN price for new drugs in the first place.
The researchers also questioned the administration’s ability to assess whether companies had fulfilled promises to offer drugs at MFN prices.
Companies provide list prices for drugs, but these are rarely paid. The CEA analysis said that drugmakers will report net prices, taking into account various forms of discounts. But experts said it was unclear how the government will independently evaluate these prices.
“The government obviously can try to compel [drug companies] to report this information, and there is some wording in there about auditing, but I don’t know how you audit something when you don’t have full disclosure or any basis for really determining in a systematic way whether numbers are correct or not,” Antos said.
Antos called it “telling” that the CEA analysis itself does not rely on net prices for its analysis. Rather, the report says, because of “the confidential nature of rebates, there are no existing data sets with net pricing information.”
Mulcahy explained that instead, the data the CEA used has gross prices a healthcare data company derives using complicated and varying methodologies in different countries. In general, he said, the numbers are based on invoices at various stages of the drug supply. He said that this dataset is the “best we’ve got” and is what he and his colleagues at RAND have used for international comparisons of drug prices, but it has limitations.
“If you can put whatever number down you want on an invoice and then negotiate something secret later, you can make it look like you’re saving a ton of money,” Mulcahy said, expressing concern that the MFN pricing deals would incentivize even more secrecy about international drug prices.
“I think there will be ways to hide discounts and backchannel funds for this,” Ballreich said, suggesting various ways drugmakers could give money back to payers outside the U.S. For example, they could institute rebates or taxes that are not drug-specific. He also said that drugmakers will be restricted from disclosing the true price of their drugs in other countries due to confidentiality agreements and laws in those countries.
“If you want to make a claim about how launch prices are going to change or if a company wants to promise to change launch prices … that’s easy to fudge,” Mulcahy said. “And then you find creative ways on the back end to make yourself whole again.”
“It’s kind of like everyone wins except for consumers,” he added.
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In the early hours of January 6, 2026, two 911 callers near Ypsilanti, Michigan, reported a white van driving erratically.
Within an hour, police had found a white van, crashed into it twice on purpose, and fired 27 shots at the driver while the vehicle lay on its side, burning. At least eightcops watched as 34-year-old Navy veteran John Andrew Jenuwine bled out and died inside.
Of several inconsistencies in the police response, one stood out: The only physical description provided to the dispatcher was that “two Black guys” were driving the van, and a caller said they’d brandished a handgun at his wife. Jenuwine was white, driving alone, and unarmed.
That’s not what police told Jenuwine’s parents when they contacted them the following evening, 17 hours after killing their son.
“We were told that there was an exchange of gunfire, and that John was killed,” John’s father, Larry Jenuwine, told The Intercept. “Call it naïveté or whatever you want to call it, but our first thoughts were, ‘Oh my God, what did he do, why did he cause this?’”
On the phone with Larry and Kelly, John’s mother, a deputy with the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office claimed their recently deceased son had a gun. But Jenuwine, an industrial field engineer traveling to repair million-dollar lasers, just had his work equipment; no gun was ever found in his van. And the officers who caused two intentional collisions appear to have violated their own policies, which the department updated after the police killing of George Floyd — testing the limits of post-2020 police reforms.
“We were told that there was an exchange of gunfire, and that John was killed. Come to find out, he didn’t do anything to cause any of this.”
The Jenuwine family is now suing Washtenaw County and eight sheriff’s deputies who responded to the case for wrongful death; for violating John’s constitutional rights to protection under the law, and against unreasonable searches and seizures; and for gross negligence and willful misconduct, including improper use of deadly force. The suit seeks to hold the county responsible for what it calls the sheriff’s failures to train officers and enforce its policies.
“Come to find out, he didn’t do anything to cause any of this,” Larry said. “He was not the guy that they were supposed to be chasing.”
Less than 15 minutes elapsed between the time Washtenaw County Sheriff’s deputies incorrectly identified Jenuwine’s van and when they started shooting. Officers fired their first shots seconds after causing Jenuwine’s vehicle to flip on its side and catch fire.
Only seven out of the 27 shots fired hit Jenuwine. None of them alone was responsible for killing him, according to an independent autopsy obtained by Jenuwine’s family and described by their attorneys in a press conference last week, which found he bled out and died over time. While Jenuwine struggled and died, dashcam footage shared with The Intercept recorded officers outside discussing whether any of the shots had hit him.
After several minutes had passed, one officer said over the radio, “He’s kicking around inside the vehicle right now.” None of them called for emergency services.
According to the footage, an edited version of which was viewed by The Intercept, Jenuwine lay dying in the van for at least five minutes.
“The cruelty of it, I suppose, is what strikes me the most,” said Maura Battersby, one of the attorneys representing the family. “If aid had been rendered, he may have survived this.”
Of the four deputies attorneys said fired shots, two names have been publicly released: Jacob Gombos and Jonathan Earley. Both received awards in 2024 for distinguished service; Gombos got the department’s Life Saving Award.
“If aid had been rendered, he may have survived this.”
The sheriff’s office placed Gombos, Earley, and the other deputies involved on paid administrative leave pending an investigation by Michigan State Police, which was completed last month and is now pending review by the Michigan attorney general. The state AG will decide whether to bring criminal charges against any of the officers in the case.
A spokesperson for the Michigan State Police confirmed that their investigation is closed and referred questions to the attorney general’s office, which did not respond to a request for comment. Spokespeople for the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office and the Ypsilanti Police Department did not respond to requests for comment.
One of the officers who shot at Jenuwine had received the department’s Life Saving Award.
The case has brought renewed scrutiny to the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office, which is currently facing dual lawsuits from whistleblowers who claimed the department hired unqualified officers and fired them in retaliation for reporting it. Both plaintiffs are former office staff who said they were fired after raising concerns that Sheriff Alyshia Dyer and other staff pushed them to hire candidates who had lied about their qualifications and in one case had an “extensive” criminal history. Another sheriff’s deputy resigned in March while under investigation for allegedly having a sexual relationship with a subordinate officer. Dyer herself was also independently investigated last year after a partially burned cannabis cigarette was found in her county-issued vehicle. (She denied it was hers, and an independent report could not determine whether the joint belonged to Dyer.)
“It seems like every day we hear something about the Washtenaw Sheriff’s department,” Kelly Jenuwine told The Intercept. “They are in the news constantly, and it’s not for a good reason.”
Jenuwine’s killing raises a new round of questions about the efficacy of police reform. In 2024, Michigan implemented new statewide guidelines restricting vehicle pursuits to “protect the lives of innocent bystanders.” Following the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office released a memo outlining how its policies aligned with a series of proposed reforms pushed by activists against police violence that grew out of 2014 protests in Ferguson, Missouri. And the sheriff’s office adopted a new use of force policy in 2022, which classifies intentional vehicle collisions — known as a “PIT” maneuver, a precision immobilization technique — as deadly force.
“That’s something you’re trained not to do,” said Todd Flood, the lead attorney on the Jenuwines’ case.
The new policy also guides officers to “seek voluntary compliance and operate with minimal reliance on the use of force,” using techniques in crisis intervention and “rapport-building communication,” and try to de-escalate, even after using force. It requires a mandatory medical evaluation when deadly force is applied, if an officer observes an injury, or if they believe one has occurred; and it ties the degree of appropriate force to how certain they are that the subject committed a crime. The policy states: “Sheriff’s Office employees shall never employ excessive force.”
Officers did not verbally engage with Jenuwine a single time, Battersby told The Intercept.
“I would have expected them to be calling out over the loudspeaker,” Battersby said. “There were many instances in which they were in close proximity to him, and it doesn’t appear that they did that.”
At a press conference after the shooting, the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office played a dashcam video that showed Jenuwine reversing his van and driving on the wrong side of the road. Before the sheriffs hit Jenuwine’s van in the first PIT maneuver, the dashcam video cuts ahead, with the video timestamp jumping forward 30 seconds.
The Jenuwines said what they describe as John’s “execution” changed the way they look at law enforcement after having considered themselves generally supportive of police. “I want the people that executed my son to never have the opportunity to work in law enforcement again,” said Kelly.
“They ran around with those guns like they were playing video games, guns held sideways,” Larry said, referring to the dashcam footage. “I’m still struggling with this and I anticipate that’s going to be a continuing struggle.”
Despite believing the vast majority of police were “good, honest, hard-working people,” he said, “I don’t believe these guys that were involved in this shooting were. And that’s the kind of people we need to get out of that system.”
“We want to make sure that the people involved in this, in John’s death, are held accountable,” Larry said. “We’re hoping that there will be criminal charges as well, but we can’t count on that.”
Jenuwine liked to spend his time outdoors fishing and hunting with his family, his parents told The Intercept. He was on his high school football team, spent six years in the Navy, and was a member of a Detroit motorcycle club. When he was growing up, he and Larry worked on cars and tractors together.
On what would have been Jenuwine’s 35th birthday last month, his parents said they spent the evening crying over a birthday cake.
“Those officers get to go home to their families every night,” Kelly said. “What Larry and I get, we get a box of ashes and a lock of my son’s hair.”
Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, at the launch of the company’s initial public offering Spencer Platt/Getty Images
A businessman with ties to Chinese military contractors was among the overseas investors who acquired stakes in SpaceX while it was still a private company. An entity linked to the Qatari royal family also took a stake.
The new details come from a private investor list obtained by ProPublica that sheds light on a particularly delicate issue for Elon Musk’s rocket company: which people in countries like China bought into the company, and how. SpaceX built its business off sensitive U.S. government work like making spy satellites for the Pentagon. While there is no ban on Chinese investment in U.S. military contractors, such investment is heavily regulated.
In a sign of its sensitivity to the concerns, SpaceX barred investors from China and Hong Kong from buying shares in its initial public offering last week due to “regulatory and compliance risks,” Bloomberg reported. The U.S. government alleges that China has a strategy of using investments in sensitive industries for espionage and to get access to cutting-edge technology.
The company’s IPO last week was the largest ever, making Musk the world’s first trillionaire. Musk has extensive business interests in China, where Tesla builds many of its cars.
The new records detail at least a dozen investors with addresses in mainland China, Hong Kong or Russia who acquired stakes in SpaceX years ago through a middleman firm in the U.S. called Tomales Bay Capital. The investments are relatively small, ranging from $800,000 to $40 million, and were made between 2018 and 2021.
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One investment came from an entity owned by David Su, the co-founder of the prominent Beijing venture capital firm MPCi. The Su entity invested $15 million in a SpaceX fund in 2020, according to the investor list. It was not Su’s only foray into the space industry; his company has been a high-profile backer of some of SpaceX’s Chinese competitors. Two satellite companies that Su’s firm invested in were sanctioned by the U.S. government for allegedly assisting the notorious Russian mercenary organization the Wagner Group. One of the companies was sanctioned again last month for allegedly helping Iran attack U.S. military forces during the war.
MPCi has also worked with Chinese government investment funds. Last year, the website for China’s Ministry of Science and Technology named Su’s firm as a partner in a state-backed effort to develop the country’s aerospace industry.
There is no evidence that Su did anything improper. But the key question from the U.S. government’s perspective would be whether China-based investors got access to nonpublic information about SpaceX’s technology or strategies, said Sarah Bauerle Danzman, an Indiana University professor who has worked for the State Department scrutinizing foreign investments. “If an investor has conflicts of interests with other companies in China — if they could feed that information to competitors — it could be a national security concern,” she said.
In a statement, MPCi said that Su “has not received any nonpublic information of SpaceX.” The statement described Su as “a Singapore citizen who resides in Singapore,” adding: “MPCi is a brand name with different teams and funds. Mr. Su is responsible for the US dollar funds.” According to a 2024 profile of him, Su “spent almost 100 per cent of his time in China over the last 20 years.”
A lawyer for Tomales Bay Capital said in a statement that the firm “has not provided any non-public, sensitive information regarding SpaceX to investors.” He said the investors are passive limited partners: “Aside from fund financials that include quarterly valuations, Tomales Bay’s investors have not received any further information regarding SpaceX.”
“The vast majority, if not all, of the investors included on the unsealed Tomales Bay investor list are not citizens of any foreign adversary, including Russia or China,” said the lawyer, Ryan Stonerock, “and certainly none of them are agents of Russia or China, or any other foreign adversary.” He added that some of the investors “may have mailing addresses listed” in Russia or China but do not actually live there “and are in fact citizens and residents of the United States or other countries that are not foreign adversaries.”
SpaceX did not respond to questions. One of the Chinese space companies sanctioned by the U.S. government, Spacety, previously denied providing support to the Wagner Group.
All the investors located in China or Russia that ProPublica identified appeared to be either wealthy businesspeople or their children.
The new documents come from a corporate dispute in Delaware involving Tomales Bay Capital. The court records were unsealed this month after ProPublica moved to make them public, with the help of attorneys from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the law firm Shaw Keller. Tomales Bay Capital appealed to the Delaware Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of ProPublica.
Tomales Bay Capital is run by an investor named Iqbaljit Kahlon, who has long been close to SpaceX’s leadership and even involved in the company’s operations. SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen, who’s worked there for 15 years, testified that Kahlon “has been with the company in one form or fashion longer than I have.”
Before SpaceX went public, Kahlon made a fortune by acting as a middleman for investors hoping to add the rocket company to their portfolio. His firm regularly bought SpaceX stock, packaged it into investment funds and then charged fees to investors who bought pieces of those funds.
In a 2021 pitch to one potential investor in China, Kahlon promised special access to SpaceX, including quarterly updates on the company’s business development, “visits to SpaceX, and the opportunities to interview with Space X’s CFO,” according to the meeting minutes, which later appeared in court records.
While ProPublica and other outlets have previously reported on the existence of Chinese investors in SpaceX, the identities of most of the rocket company’s investors have been closely guarded. The Kahlon investor list adds hundreds of names to the public picture of who owns SpaceX. The list details investments in several Tomales Bay Capital funds that have acquired SpaceX stock; it is possible that some of the funds own stakes in other companies too.
Some of the SpaceX investors on Kahlon’s ledger are easy to identify: the Indian politician Abhishek Singhvi; Betsy DeVos, the former U.S. secretary of education; a British Virgin Islands company owned by Indonesian billionaires. But others on the list are shell companies whose ultimate owners remain hidden.
One such company is a Delaware LLC called HAL9001 Partners Fund I, which invested roughly $10 million in a SpaceX fund in 2020. The incorporation documents for HAL9001 were signed by the venture capitalist Roman Sobachevskiy. The Treasury Department recently fined a company that was co-owned by Sobachevskiy hundreds of millions of dollars for managing a different investment on behalf of a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Sobachevskiy has not been personally accused of wrongdoing.
A Tomales Bay Capital spokesperson said that the oligarch “had no involvement with the investment.” Sobachevskiy did not respond to questions, including who put up the money for the SpaceX investment.
The records also shed some light on the connections between SpaceX and Qatar. Funds affiliated with Bracket Capital — an investment firm with offices in Los Angeles, London and Qatar — invested about $48 million through a series of deals from 2017 through 2020, the documents show. Bracket has money from the Qatari royal family, according to an email that Kahlon sent to SpaceX’s CFO. The ledger also lists Doha, Qatar, as the address for a mysterious entity called AM FIG Cayman Limited, which invested around $10 million in 2020.
The documents do not specify whether the Bracket investments were made on behalf of the royal family or some other client. In 2021, as Kahlon was soliciting backers for yet another SpaceX deal, he texted a Bracket employee: “At the end we can just send Yalda to talk to big guy. We need a bail out lol.” (Yalda Aoukar is Bracket’s co-founder. It’s unclear whether the “big guy” refers to a member of the royal family and what Kahlon meant by “a bail out.”)
Bracket did not respond to requests for comment.
The investments covered in the ledger were tiny percentages of SpaceX but would have generated windfalls. The company’s valuation has exploded in recent years, from $33.3 billion in 2019 to $2.7 trillion as of Wednesday morning.
Last year, ProPublica reported on SpaceX’s unusual approach to accepting money from Chinese investors. According to testimony from the Delaware case, the company allowed Chinese investors to buy stakes in SpaceX so long as the money was routed through the Cayman Islands or other offshore secrecy hubs.
As companies integrate AI and hire fewer employees, a shift toward a ‘gig economy’ will commence
In 2024, the buy-now-pay-later company Klarna announced that it would cut hundreds of customer service roles and begin using an artificial intelligence chatbot instead. The move was expected to save the company millions. But a year later, after customers complained about the degraded quality of customer service, Klarna began to recruit human customer service agents back.
At first glance, the reversal appeared to be a victory for human workers in the age of AI. The reality was more complex. Instead of bringing on full-time customer service agents, who Klarna contracts through an outside agency, it instead brought on workers in what Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski has described as “an Uber type of set-up”. Now, an AI chatbot continues to handle most of customers’ basic queries, while a growing number of gig workers handle the more advanced ones. “Just like somebody can go and drive an Uber for a while, they can actually jump on and work for Klarna’s customer service,” Siemiatkowski said on a podcast in February.
The 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.
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.
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