A growing backlash against AI data centers is spilling into local politics, with residents in more than a dozen communities pushing recall elections against officials who approved projects. "People are standing up and saying, 'Sorry, we don't want these data centers in our communities for a number of reasons,'" Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, said in an interview. "'If you can't have the guts to stand up to some large corporation, you should not continue serving in office.'" The New York Times reports: In Festus, Mo., critics of a local data center project gathered enough signatures in May to force a vote to remove the mayor and City Council members who had approved a $6 billion data center, though the effort is tied up in legal wrangling. In Mason, Mich., residents will vote in November over whether to recall a City Council member over a vote to create zoning rules for data centers. Voters in Yukon, Okla., will also decide in November whether to recall their mayor after the town moved to sell land to a data center developer. And residents of Independence, a city of 121,000 that is 10 miles from Kansas City, will vote on whether to remove Mr. Perkins on Sept. 1.
Some local officials have already lost their jobs in the face of data center concerns in regularly scheduled elections. Last year, two members of the Georgia Public Service Commission lost their seats amid concern about data centers' driving up electricity prices. A Virginia state delegate, Geary Higgins, also lost his job last year after his opponent branded him "Data Center Geary." [...] Independence would be one of the first municipalities to hold a data-center-motivated recall election. A judge this month rejected a legal challenge by Mr. Perkins and others, who argued the recall violated Missouri's Constitution.
Agreement is among largest third-country deportations driven by Trump administration’s immigration crackdown
Twenty deportees from the United States arrived in Liberia on Thursday, as part of a new agreement that will see the west African country receive as many as 1,200 people under the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
The group arrived at the Roberts international airport outside the capital, Monrovia. The Liberia-US agreement is one of the largest third-country deportation arrangements pursued by the administration since Trump returned to office last year.
Unable to force Tehran’s surrender, President Donald Trump appears to be taking his frustration out on Oman and other U.S. partners in greater measure.
BOISE, Idaho, Aug. 20, 2026 — Micron Technology, Inc. today unveiled Micron Research Labs, a U.S.-based long-horizon premier research institution headquartered in Boise and backed by a planned $10 billion investment over the next decade. Building on Micron’s technology and manufacturing leadership, the new hub will bring together customers, academia, government and the broader semiconductor ecosystem to pursue breakthroughs beyond today’s technology roadmaps and help define what’s possible in the decades ahead. Key research areas include critical memory technologies, advanced memory and compute architectures, packaging and future semiconductor manufacturing.
As the first dedicated memory research hub of its kind in the U.S., Micron Research Labs will center on a flagship Boise campus designed to support advanced research across critical technology domains. The planned investment will also fund extensive university collaborations, global satellite labs and deep ecosystem partnerships, creating a connected research network focused beyond the next generation of technologies for the AI era.
“The decisions we make today will determine who leads the AI economy of tomorrow, and America’s AI future will be built on American-made memory,” said Sanjay Mehrotra, Chairman, President and CEO of Micron Technology. “With a planned $10 billion investment in Micron Research Labs, we are looking around the corner to the memory and compute systems the future will demand, bringing together the best minds across academia, government, startups and industry. This builds on the more than $250 billion we have separately committed to manufacturing and R&D across the United States, because as the only U.S.-based manufacturer of memory, we have long believed in the future that AI is now making real.”
Micron Research Labs is founded on a simple conviction: The future of memory and compute is too important and complex to invent alone. Anchored in Boise and connected to Micron’s research and technology footprint across the U.S., Europe, Japan, India, Singapore and Taiwan, the lab will link Micron researchers with external experts and research partners to accelerate the path from scientific discovery to real-world impact.
Building on Micron’s 62,000 lifetime patents and its position as a global technology leader, Micron Research Labs will advance foundational research across memory, compute and semiconductor manufacturing. The institution will look beyond a 10-year horizon while helping build the next generation of memory researchers and technology leaders. Breakthroughs in advanced memory make AI more powerful, scalable, accessible and sustainable, extending the benefits of intelligent technology to agriculture, healthcare, education and industries around the world and advancing Micron’s vision to accelerate intelligence to enrich life for all.
This new investment builds on Micron’s previously announced plans to invest more than $250 billion in manufacturing and research and development in the U.S. that will create more than 90,000 American jobs and will reinforce American leadership in memory and advanced manufacturing for years to come. This new investment draws on Micron’s unique position as the only U.S.-based company developing and manufacturing leading-edge memory.
“For nearly 50 years, from four people in a Boise basement to America’s memory leader, Micron has pushed the boundaries of what memory can do,” said Scott DeBoer, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology and Products Officer at Micron Technology. “Micron Research Labs gives that legacy a dedicated home for long-horizon innovation, the kind of research that sits upstream of every product we build.”
Micron anticipates breaking ground in calendar 2027 on a state-of-the-art Micron Research Labs facility capable of hosting hundreds of researchers. The facility is expected to convene world-class research conferences, workshops, and innovation forums in Boise.
“Micron is taking on one of the great challenges of the AI era — reinventing memory technologies and architectures to fuel the next generation of increasingly powerful AI systems,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO, NVIDIA. “By bringing together advanced manufacturing and the broader technology ecosystem, Micron is helping drive the breakthroughs that will define the next era of AI and computing.”
“For more than two decades, Micron has been an important partner, providing memory technologies for Apple’s groundbreaking products that people love and use every day around the world,” said Tim Cook, Apple CEO. “With the launch of Micron Research Labs, they are building on a legacy of leadership in semiconductor research to drive breakthroughs in memory and computing for decades to come. Apple believes deeply in American innovation, and we’re proud to support Micron as it expands leading-edge manufacturing and R&D in the United States.”
About Micron Technology, Inc.
Micron Technology, Inc. is a global leader in semiconductor memory and storage, powering AI and compute-intensive applications from cloud to edge. With a relentless focus on our customers, technology and product leadership, and manufacturing and operational excellence, Micron’s comprehensive portfolio of high-performance DRAM, NAND and NOR solutions deliver the speed, efficiency, and scale today’s workloads demand, accelerating intelligence to enrich life for all. To learn more about Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: MU), visit micron.com.
Aug. 20, 2026 — In a project selected for funding by the Department of Energy’s Genesis Mission, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and partners from other national laboratories, universities and industry will apply artificial intelligence and machine learning to enable precise and adaptive resonance control in particle accelerators. Their work aims to lower operating costs by millions of dollars each year and improve accelerator performance, driving scientific discovery.
Superconducting radio-frequency cavities are being assembled and tested for installation at the Proton Improvement Plan-II, part of the Fermilab Accelerator Complex. By fine tuning the cavities’ resonance, scientists can optimize accelerator performance. Credit: Ryan Postel, Fermilab
Inside the particle accelerators that power modern high-energy physics research, timing is everything. A fraction of a second off, and the delicate rhythm that keeps subatomic particles racing through an accelerator can slip out of tune. Now a Fermilab-led team will leverage artificial intelligence to protect that rhythm. Their project, selected for the Department of Energy’s Genesis Mission, is poised to reshape how accelerators are controlled, optimized and operated.
The most powerful modern particle accelerators use superconducting radio-frequency, or SRF, cavities to transfer energy to particle beams. By creating strong electromagnetic fields and leveraging a phenomenon called resonance, they give gentle nudges at exactly the right times to charged subatomic particles — much like a playground swing given repeated, well-timed pushes to send it higher.
As the effects of these nudges accumulate, the particles in an accelerator are pushed faster and faster — close to the speed of light — until they collide with other particles traveling in the opposite direction or with a fixed target. The data from these collisions enables scientists to investigate and understand the underlying principles governing our universe.
While SRF cavities are extremely efficient resonators, several factors can stand in the way of perfect performance. They can be knocked off frequency by pressure variations in the liquid helium that cools them, changes in their electromagnetic fields, or vibrations from other nearby equipment. These disturbances interfere with resonance, wasting power and potentially tripping off the particle beam. Precise resonance control increases available power, resulting in higher particle beam performance and new discoveries.
“Controlling resonance is a critical area of development for particle accelerator facilities, potentially saving millions of dollars a year on operating costs, optimizing power consumption and improving beam stability for accurate scientific results and increasing equipment lifetimes,” said Matthias Liepe, a professor at Cornell University who is collaborating on this research. “Applying AI and machine learning to automate control processes will make this easier.”
Led by Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the resonance control project aims to develop artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to substantially improve particle accelerator performance, driving scientific discovery while saving significant amounts of money in operating costs. Several partner institutions, including other national labs, universities and industry, are also contributing to the project.
“For decades, Fermilab has been a global leader in superconducting radio-frequency technology — building, designing and operating among the most sophisticated accelerators and making transformative technological breakthroughs,” said Sam Posen, a senior scientist at Fermilab and project principal investigator.
“Today, the lab is at the forefront of an exciting new era to use AI and machine learning to extend our scientific reach even further by improving resonance control in next-generation accelerators and accelerating the time to discovery. We’re excited to take this next step,” Posen added.
Staying in Tune
To make energy transfer to the beam as efficient as possible, each cavity is tuned to a specific frequency called a resonant frequency. Matching the cavity’s resonant frequency to the delivery of radio-frequency energy allows a relatively small amount of input power to build up large amplitude fields.
“While SRF cavities are incredibly efficient at speeding up particles using low power, shifts away from their correct frequencies consume power that could be better spent pushing the particle beam harder and furthering the discovery potential,” said Liepe.
Scientists use a fast-moving tuner attached to the cavity to squeeze it back to its resonant frequency. Applying AI and machine learning has the potential to significantly improve tuning precision, and the algorithms and models learn over time how to minimize disturbances and adapt as conditions change. AI can also tailor this learning and adaptation to each of the 100-plus cavities that a large accelerator contains. This can allow researchers to push the operation of particle accelerators, increasing maximum energy or letting them turn down the power between beam pulses.
One beneficiary of this research is the PIP-II accelerator, which will provide the world’s most intense neutrino beam for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment at the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility, an international collaboration hosted by Fermilab.
During its initial operation, PIP-II’s particle beam will be sent as pulses, but the cavities are designed to operate at full electromagnetic field strength between pulses. Reducing the field between pulses would significantly reduce average power, cooling costs and equipment wear, but it would also make resonance control harder because of the frequency shifts as the cavity field is turned up and down.
A key objective of this research is to test whether introducing AI to PIP-II’s existing control equipment will provide enough precision to operate in pulsed mode — handling the cavity’s frequency shifts, using less power and avoiding unplanned shutdowns known as trips.
Creating a Common Framework
In addition to cost savings and increased performance and reliability, this research aims to achieve other important objectives. One of these is to establish a common framework for resonance control data that can be shared across DOE laboratories and facilities and their partners.
Enabling data sharing from different SRF-based accelerators can benefit the broader Genesis Mission research community. Today, every facility measures detuning in its own way, so the data can’t be pooled, and a controller built for one machine may not work on the next.
“The open-source low-level radio-frequency control system Berkeley Lab developed is the baseline for PIP-II and runs the cavities at the SLAC Accelerator Center’s LCLS-II, said scientist Dan Wang, the project institutional lead from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who also leads a related hardware-aware AI project. “The control system is used more widely still on conventional accelerators that do not rely on superconducting materials, such as the Argonne Wakefield Accelerator and our own Advanced Light Source.”
“An AI layer built on that platform benefits every facility running it,” added Wang. “That is what we want to show the Genesis Mission community: better and lower-cost operation of SRF cavities, but also how AI can close fast control loops on real hardware. It is the right demonstration, and with all the labs working on it together, the right moment.”
Benefiting Society
Another objective is to build a workforce pipeline at the intersection of AI/machine learning and low-level radio-frequency engineering. This will help train the scientists, engineers and technicians to design and operate the precise control electronics used in particle accelerators — a highly specialized field that is currently facing a talent shortage.
By collaborating with industry partners, innovations can be applied in ways that directly benefit society and the U.S. economy. For example, industry partner xLight has developed a free-electron laser system, using particle accelerator technology pioneered at DOE national laboratories, to transform semiconductor manufacturing.
“This research exemplifies the Genesis Mission goal to use AI to dramatically improve our scientific tools so that we can innovate better, faster and more efficiently,” said Anna Grassellino, chief technology officer and associate laboratory director for the Technology Directorate at Fermilab. “By collaborating with other national labs, universities and industry, we are fostering innovation and developing a skilled workforce at the intersection of AI and science and engineering. This research will cement the role of the United States as a world leader in particle accelerator technology as we build more powerful, more sophisticated, more reliable and more autonomous accelerators.”
Along with Fermilab, partnering institutions on this project include Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, Cornell University, Michigan State University, Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago, University of Michigan, the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization in Japan and xLight Inc.
Annual forum highlights ORNL’s leadership in advancing hybrid quantum-HPC technologies and building the future quantum computing workforce
Aug. 20, 2026 — Researchers, software developers and technology leaders from across the global quantum computing ecosystem gathered at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in July for the seventh annual Quantum Computing User Forum (QCUF). The event highlighted ORNL’s leadership in advancing the future of computing through quantum technologies integrated with high-performance computing.
Attendees gathered for the seventh annual Quantum Computing User Forum. Credit: Alonda Hines/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy
Hosted by the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF), the forum welcomed 184 attendees, including users of the Quantum Computing User Program (QCUP), as well as researchers from universities, industry and national laboratories.
QCUP provides researchers around the world with cloud-based access to leading quantum computing systems, allowing scientists to explore how quantum computing can support a broad range of research applications. The program is part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Quantum User Expansion for Science and Technology (QUEST) initiative, which seeks to expand access to quantum computing resources for scientific research.
At the forum, QCUP users shared scientific discoveries and research enabled by the program. Discussions also highlighted advances in quantum applications, software development and simulations, as well as efforts to combine quantum computing with high-performance computing. These hybrid quantum-high-performance computing (QHPC) workflows are helping lay the groundwork for the next generation of scientific computing.
Day 2 of QCUF included an interactive poster session, where researchers presented their latest research. Credit: Alonda Hines/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy
“This year’s Quantum Computing User Forum was the most packed yet,” said Claire Marvinney, an ORNL research scientist who co-organized the event with Josh Cunningham, chief operating officer of the DOE’s Quantum Science Center. “We brought together current users, prospective users, technology vendors and collaborators from across the quantum computing community to create a truly remarkable week.”
Cunningham said the forum’s continued growth reflects the expanding role of quantum computing in scientific research.
“QCUP isn’t standing still. It’s growing year after year, and QCUF is growing right along with it,” Cunningham said. “We’re seeing more researchers who may not yet be QCUP users coming to learn what’s possible with quantum computing and how it can advance their research. It’s exciting to watch the forum evolve into a community where people come not only to share their work, but to build new partnerships and explore new ideas together.”
The event featured hands-on workshops led by QCUP sponsors Quantinuum, IonQ, IBM and IQM, followed by keynote presentations from each company. Technical sessions gave participants direct access to the companies developing today’s leading quantum computing technologies, covering topics ranging from quantum hardware and advanced job execution to algorithms, hybrid HPC-quantum workflows and the latest scientific applications.
QCUF attendees participated in a variety of talks where QCUP users were able to share scientific discoveries enabled by the program while highlighting advances in quantum applications. Credit: Alonda Hines/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy
“Our presentations covered topics from quantum error correction primitives and hyrbid HPC-QC, as well as subject areas with applications in astrophysics, finance, quantum chemistry, and optimization algorithms.,” Marvinney said. “Researchers at ORNL highlighted work performed through QCUP’s cloud-access resources as well as research using our on-site quantum systems, including the six-qubit Quantum Brilliance Quoll quantum computer and the 20-qubit IQM Pathfinder quantum computer.”
Showcasing Quantum Research
One of the week’s highlights was the interactive poster session, where researchers presented their latest work and explored new collaborations across the quantum community. Attendees selected three posters for recognition during the event:
Machine Learning-Enhanced Adaptive Fidelity Optimization in W-State Quantum Teleportation, by Faisal Ahmed Chowdhury and Farah Ferdaus, Lamar University.
Qiskit-Kokkos: A Kokkos-Accelerated, Multi-Engine Quantum Circuit Simulator, by Chao Lu, Murali Gopalakrishnan Meena and Kalyan Gottiparthi, ORNL.
Quantum Singular Value Decomposition and Transform for Solving Multidimensional Partial Differential Equations in Computational Fluid Dynamics and Nuclear Physics, by Esam El-Araby, University of Kansas.
The forum concluded with a workshop focused on the Open Quantum-HPC Software Ecosystem, or openQSE, a community-driven initiative developing an open, modular software ecosystem that enables seamless integration between quantum computing and HPC through interoperable, vendor-neutral technologies. Researchers from industry, academia and national laboratories discussed software standards and shared interfaces needed to support future heterogeneous computing systems.
Beyond the technical program, the forum fostered new collaborations among researchers, quantum hardware vendors and software developers.
Ashley Barker, OLCF program director, said the forum’s greatest value extends beyond the presentations.
“The forum isn’t just about sharing knowledge; it’s about building a community,” Barker said. “Bringing together users, facilities and organizations investing in quantum technologies gives us an opportunity to learn from one another, build partnerships and leverage our collective expertise and resources. We want people to leave with new insights and new connections — and a stronger community working together to advance the future of quantum science.”
Attendees enjoyed a variety of hands-on workshops at the 2026 Quantum Computing User Forum. Credit: Alonda Hines/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy
As quantum technologies continue to mature, the QCUF plays an important role in connecting researchers with the tools, expertise and partnerships needed to develop the next generation of quantum applications. The forum also complements DOE’s Genesis Mission by bringing together researchers, technology developers and users to accelerate the development, evaluation and adoption of quantum computing technologies.
By combining leadership-class computing, advanced software and emerging quantum technologies, ORNL is preparing researchers to harness hybrid computing systems and building the collaborations needed to transform quantum computing into a practical tool for scientific discovery.
The OLCF is a DOE Office of Science user facility at ORNL that is supported by DOE’s Advanced Scientific Computing Research program.
UT-Battelle manages ORNL for DOE’s Office of Science, the nation’s largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences. The Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. Learn more at energy.gov/science.
Aug. 20, 2026 — The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) is one of five institutions assisting a new national initiative headed by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to “create a unified environment for research computing, data and scientific applications across several U.S. National Science Foundation-supported national computing centers and two cloud platforms.”
Credit: NCSA
The Interactive Discovery Laboratory (iDLab) will create a single, browser-based environment for interactive computing across these centers, making high-performance computing even more accessible and aligning with the ongoing efforts of other NSF programs such as ACCESS and NAIRR. iDLab will supplant the current command-line interface, which requires more technical expertise than some potential users possess.
“iDLab will serve as a front door, providing interactive access to the computing and research data capabilities of participating national computing centers,” said Amit Chourasia, principal investigator of the iDLab project and chief research data architect in UCLA’s Office of Advanced Research Computing (OARC).
The new, simple entry point for advanced computing resources aims to broaden access to new users across all research disciplines, not just those in technical and STEM fields. iDLab will also have a catalog of data sets and applications available for researchers to use.
As a partner in this $9 million NSF award, NCSA is contributing to site integration and operations for its NSF-funded Delta and DeltaAI systems.
“Joining this new venture of the iDLab aligns seamlessly with the mission of Delta, DeltaAI and NCSA to bring advanced computing resources to the whole of the research community,” said Brett Bode, deputy project director for Delta and DeltaAI, and iDLab co-principal investigator. “We’re excited to work with our colleagues at UCLA and the other supercomputing centers to provide researchers with an intuitive and interactive tool to push innovation and strengthen their work.”
For more information on the launch of iDLab, check out the press release from UCLA.
About Delta and DeltaAI
NCSA’s Delta and DeltaAI are part of the national cyberinfrastructure ecosystem through the U.S. National Science Foundation ACCESS program. Delta (OAC 2005572) is a powerful computing and data-analysis resource combining next-generation processor architectures and NVIDIA graphics processors with forward-looking user interfaces and file systems. The Delta project partners with the Science Gateways Community Institute to empower broad communities of researchers to easily access Delta and with the University of Illinois Division of Disability Resources & Educational Services and the School of Information Sciences to explore and reduce barriers to access. DeltaAI (OAC 2320345) maximizes the output of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) research. Tripling NCSA’s AI-focused computing capacity and greatly expanding the capacity available within ACCESS, DeltaAI enables researchers to address the world’s most challenging problems by accelerating complex AI/ML and high-performance computing applications running terabytes of data. Additional funding for DeltaAI comes from the State of Illinois.
New NVIDIA GPU acceleration for Apache Spark in Cloudera Data Engineering delivers zero-code performance gains, lower cloud costs, and faster AI-ready data pipelines
SAN JOSE, Calif., Aug. 20, 2026 — Cloudera today announced native GPU acceleration for Apache Spark 4.1 in Cloudera Data Engineering, enabled by the NVIDIA CUDA-X library, cuDF. The NVIDIA cuDF plug-in for Apache Spark will support the just-announced Cloudera Anywhere Cloud, which is designed to enable organizations to accelerate Spark workloads without rewriting PySpark or SQL code. This helps data teams prepare AI-ready data faster while reducing cloud infrastructure costs across hybrid environments.
Credit: Michael-Vi/Shutterstock
As organizations expand AI initiatives, the speed of data preparation has become a critical challenge. Large-scale Spark workloads often take hours to complete, delaying analytics and AI applications while driving up cloud compute costs. By embedding GPU acceleration directly into Cloudera Data Engineering, organizations can dramatically reduce processing times using their existing Spark applications, without changing code or operational workflows.
Accelerating Spark for Enterprise AI
Apache Spark powers many of today’s enterprise data pipelines. With native GPU acceleration built into Cloudera Data Engineering, organizations can improve performance while maintaining the security and governance required for production workloads. Leveraging NVIDIA cuDF for Spark workloads, Cloudera will provide up to 4x workload acceleration on NVIDIA GPUs compared to traditional CPU infrastructure, enabling enterprises to drastically shorten data processing cycles.
Together, Cloudera Data Engineering accelerated by NVIDIA CUDA-X libraries will deliver:
Zero-code GPU acceleration for Apache Spark 4.1 workloads
Faster ETL and data preparation for analytics and AI
Lower cloud infrastructure costs through shorter compute runtimes
Built-in deployment with no manual driver configuration
Enterprise security and governance through the Cloudera Unified Data Fabric
Consistent performance across public cloud, private cloud, sovereign cloud, and on-premises environments
Unlike GPU acceleration offerings limited to a single cloud provider, Cloudera extends these capabilities across hybrid environments while preserving consistent governance and operations. Organizations can accelerate Spark workloads wherever their data resides— whether that is on premises, in the clouds, or at the edge— without sacrificing security or flexibility.
Faster Data Pipelines, Lower Infrastructure Costs
Preparing trusted data quickly, and at a reasonable cost, is essential for analytics and AI. Recent data from Cloudera’s The Great Re-Architecture Survey found that the vast majority (84%) of respondents said that AI workloads have caused infrastructure costs to increase. By accelerating Spark processing, organizations can deliver clean, model-ready data faster, helping to reduce infrastructure costs while improving productivity across data engineering, AI, and analytics teams.
“For many organizations, AI isn’t limited by models. It’s limited by how quickly they can turn raw data into trusted, usable insights,” said Leo Brunnick, Chief Product Officer at Cloudera. “Accelerating Spark inside Cloudera Data Engineering helps remove that bottleneck, allowing customers to move from data preparation to analytics and AI faster while keeping governance, security, and operational consistency at the center of their strategy.”
“The fastest path to accelerating AI deployments is the one that aligns with how enterprises already operate today,” said Pat Lee, vice president, Strategic Enterprise Partnerships at NVIDIA. “With NVIDIA AI infrastructure and CUDA-X libraries now native to Cloudera Data Engineering, enterprises can lower costs and dramatically speed up Apache Spark pipelines without changing a single line of PySpark or SQL code, turning business data into a foundation for AI.”
The GPU acceleration capability for Apache Spark will be available in Cloudera Data Engineering as part of the Cloudera Anywhere Cloud announced at EVOLVE Singapore on August 20, 2026. Additional demonstrations and technical sessions will be featured at NVIDIA GTC Berlin and Cloudera EVOLVE New York later this year.
To learn more, visit Cloudera.com or register for upcoming EVOLVE conferences to see how organizations are accelerating data engineering and AI across hybrid environments.
About Cloudera
Cloudera is the only hybrid data and AI platform company that large organizations trust to bring AI to their data anywhere it lives. Unlike other providers, Cloudera delivers a consistent cloud experience that converges public clouds, on-prem data centers, sovereign clouds, and the edge, leveraging a proven open-source foundation. As the pioneer in big data, Cloudera empowers businesses to apply AI and assert control over 100% of their data, in all forms, improving security, governance, and real-time and predictive insights. The world’s largest brands across all industries rely on Cloudera to transform decision-making and ultimately boost bottom lines, safeguard against threats, and save lives.
SUNNYVALE, Calif., Aug. 20, 2026 — The SimOps Foundation today announced the results of its evaluation of Open OnDemand against the SimOps Best Practices Framework. The open-source HPC access platform, developed by the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC), is recognized as SimOps Compliant and joins the SimOps Software Stack for engineering simulation and High-Performance Computing (HPC).
The evaluation compared Open OnDemand with the 20 SimOps Best Practices, a vendor-neutral framework developed from the analysis of more than 230 enterprise HPC and engineering simulation projects spanning fourteen years. The framework defines the operational practices that help organizations automate, optimize, and scale simulation-driven engineering across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid computing environments.
With deployments at more than 2,100 organizations worldwide, Open OnDemand provides engineers, scientists, and researchers with secure, browser-based access to HPC resources, engineering applications, visualization, interactive computing, file management, and job execution through a unified engineering workspace. Rather than replacing resource managers, workflow engines, or cloud platforms, Open OnDemand provides an accessible operational layer between users and the underlying HPC infrastructure.
“Open OnDemand was created to make advanced computing more accessible to researchers, scientists, and engineers. We are pleased to see the SimOps assessment recognize the importance of lowering barriers to these resources and helping more people take advantage of advanced computing in support of research and discovery,” said Alan Chalker, Ph.D., Director of Strategic Programs for the Ohio Supercomputer Center.
Open OnDemand reaches a High compliance level in 11 of the 20 SimOps Best Practices. The assessment found particularly strong alignment in several key areas of the framework, including:
Browser-based self-service access to HPC resources
Democratization of advanced computing across engineering organizations
Interactive engineering applications and visualization
Engineering productivity and ease of adoption
Workforce development and engineering education
Hybrid HPC and cloud accessibility
Cross-functional collaboration
Vendor-neutral support for heterogeneous HPC environment
These capabilities address an important dimension of Simulation Operations: making advanced computing accessible and usable by the people who need it, while reducing the operational barriers that can limit broader adoption of simulation-driven engineering.
“For many, Open OnDemand access is the first step into High-Performance Computing. People who would never have asked about HPC now start asking how to run complex jobs from the command line. They begin to explore what’s possible with HPC,” said Alain van Hoof, HPC Consultant at the TU/e Supercomputing Center.
Unlike traditional software reviews, SimOps evaluates platforms according to how effectively they contribute to the operational maturity of engineering organizations. The assessment considers not only compute performance, but also accessibility, self-service, automation, collaboration, reproducibility, operational efficiency, observability, governance, and the ability to simplify day-to-day engineering workflows.
The assessment also recognizes that Open OnDemand is not intended to provide every SimOps capability. Advanced engineering data lifecycle management, simulation cost management, enterprise governance, AI lifecycle management, sustainability metrics, and workflow orchestration typically require complementary technologies and organizational processes. The assessment nevertheless concludes that Open OnDemand provides a foundational Engineering Access and Collaboration Platform within a modern Simulation Operations environment.
“Simulation Operations is ultimately about enabling engineering organizations to scale simulation as a repeatable operational capability,” said Wolfgang Gentzsch, Executive Director of the SimOps Foundation. “Open OnDemand makes an important contribution to this objective by lowering the barriers to advanced computing and helping organizations turn HPC from a specialized resource into a more accessible everyday engineering capability.”
The SimOps Foundation is an independent, vendor-neutral, non-profit organization dedicated to advancing Simulation Operations (SimOps), the operational discipline for engineering simulation inspired by the principles of DevOps. SimOps develops best practices, workforce capabilities, certified education, and an open Software Stack ecosystem that help engineering organizations identify certified simulation and HPC infrastructure software to automate, optimize, and scale simulation-driven product development across HPC, AI, cloud, and emerging computing platforms. Learn more at https://www.simops.com or contact info@simops.com.
The attorney for Clancy, who strangled her three children, says she suffered from postpartum psychosis
Hundreds of Lindsay Clancy supporters, many wearing pink clothing emblazoned with phrases such as “Believe”, “She Needed Help” and “Peace For Lindsay”, gathered on Thursday outside the courthouse where she is on trial in the killings of her three children.
Several of the 300 women, and a few men, said Clancy’s story resonated with them and that they wanted to raise awareness about how the mental health system treats women. Clancy’s lawyer does not dispute that she killed the children, but says she should not be held criminally responsible because she was mentally ill.
Players guaranteed $140,000 for making first round
The world’s leading tennis players have welcomed the US Open’s announcement of a 20% increase in prize money and agreed not to continue their protests at this year’s tournament as a result.
The build up to both the French Open and Wimbledon was overshadowed earlier this year by a media boycott as the players continue to demand a greater share of tournament revenues, but after the US Tennis Association announced a record prize pot of $108m there will be no such disruption at Flushing Meadow.
Taken from the southern Lebanese village of Zawtar al-Gharbiyah, this photo shows smoke billowing from the site of an Israeli controlled explosion in the village of Bani Hayyan on Aug. 13, 2026.Photo: Ammar Ammar/AFP via Getty Images
Earlier this month, Roman Gofman, the new director of the Mossad, Israel’s shadowy national intelligence agency, dismissed the heads of its intelligence directorate and Iran division, known only by their heavily anonymized names “K” and “Y,” respectively. The Mossad prides itself on secrecy, and while terminations following the appointment of a new Mossad director aren’t unprecedented, such public oustings, which were reported by Israel’s mainstream news organizations, are almost unheard of.
The last known dismissals for incompetence came in 1997, when a botched attempt to assassinate Khaled Mashal, then chair of Hamas’s political bureau, resulted in the detention of several Mossad agents inside Jordan and a public relations disaster. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government found itself forced to supply the antidote for the poison its Mossad agents had administered, bringing down both the agency’s director and the director of operations.
Israel is now dealing with the aftermath of the largest mistake in its history, one of its own doing: its failed war on Iran. Sold to the United States as an easy war that would quickly bring down the Islamic Republic and its alleged nuclear weapons program, almost nothing Israel desired came to pass.
The promise of assassinating Ali Khamenei was that it would bring about governmental chaos and spur a spontaneous national uprising. Instead, it only led to the selection of his younger son as the new supreme leader, a leadership that may prove to be even more antagonistic to the United States and Israel than the previous one.
Israel also promised that any potential closure of the Strait of Hormuz would be militarily ineffective. Now, Iran’s ability to hold the world economy hostage — despite relentless claims by the U.S. that the waterway is “open” — is its most valuable weapon.
The Mossad’s particular role in this war involved weakening the Islamic Republic’s security structure in hopes of then funneling guns to Kurdish armed groups who would invade the country from Iraq, and then fuel mass demonstrations to topple the state. All of these lofty ambitions completely detonated on impact with reality, with Iran’s security structure remaining intact despite assassinations and airstrikes, Kurdish factions instead suffering constant Iranian military attacks, and no major protests occurring in any Iranian city, despite the massive anti-government protests in January that swept through the country.
For those who witnessed the Mossad’s public campaigns to encourage protests and defections — which it deployed in the open through Farsi-language social media accounts on X and Telegram bearing their name and seal — signs of the inevitable failure of this campaign were becoming evident. While images from June 2025’s Twelve-Day War of Mossad agents operating inside Iran and sabotaging Iranian military operations shocked many inside the country — that sabotage hampering Iran’s initial military response — its ability to change fundamental facts on the ground, and to move an entire country’s population against the sitting government, sputtered.
The Mossad chose to shift its image as that war began, capitalizing on its perception as an all-powerful and omniscient force to offer its supposedly unlimited power to help the Iranian populace. This shift manifested through cryptic social media posts, sarcastic quote-tweets of Iranian officials, and offering gifts to those who answered questions by direct message. The Mossad offered remote medical services through WhatsApp, and former radio host Menashe Amir, who notably hosted an Israeli radio show in Farsi aimed at anti-Islamic Republic Iranians, made videos on the Mossad’s behalf encouraging Iranians to listen to what the intelligence agency had to say.
The effort produced little. Iranian officials openly mocked the campaign online from the start, and it became increasingly desperate as mass protests failed to materialize. AI-generated videos of Iranian prisons having their walls blown open, and of happy Iranians following their defections to Israel, did next to nothing. The Mossad has continued to post AI-generated videos using Grok to encourage collaboration following the ceasefire.
While accusations were levied (and arrests made) of supposed Mossad agents inside the Iranian protests in January, their infiltration, alleged or otherwise, did not end up toppling or even shattering the Islamic Republic. Instead, more than 7,000 protesters were killed that month, in addition to hundreds of police officers.
After the plan to arm Kurdish groups, in collaboration with the CIA, apparently fell apart — either by Trump’s veto or, as Trump claimed, because the Kurds simply kept the weapons themselves — the Mossad apparently came up with a quick Plan B. The new bright idea: Overthrow the government via an airstrike campaign against Iranian police stations and checkpoints manned by the Basij, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ paramilitary militia component. Despite extensive strikes in broad daylight, with some Iranians tipping off locations to opposition media outlets to help facilitate this campaign, the mass uprising, once again, did not arrive.
The war did not continue long enough for a comprehensive Plan C to come to fruition on the ground, with the Israeli military beginning to strike railways and manufacturing infrastructure, and Trump taking the lead on calling for the destruction of Iran’s energy infrastructure and bridges. Both are unified in their hope to strangle the country economically in hopes of pushing Iranian society into oblivion, but this outcome is only truly possible through American military means.
But even the U.S. has seen itself overextended, unable to resupply its missile interceptors for its own bases in the Middle East, and potentially unable to protect Israel as effectively as it had in the past should open conflict break out over its skies again.
News of the dismissal of the Mossad officials was met with disbelief in the Israeli media and by veterans of the intelligence service, who accused Gofman of suppressing the agency’s ability to function. By firing two deputies, security analysts accused him of foisting the agency’s failure onto underlings to shield the decisions made at the top levels of government from scrutiny.
While overthrowing the Iranian government has remained a popular idea among Israeli officials and other elected politicians, Netanyahu chief among them, other politicians have acknowledged its difficulty. Gadi Eisenkot, the former Israel Defense Forces chief of the general staff, has spoken of the unlikelihood of being able to overthrow the entire Iranian system, instead stating that operations should have continued “in the shadows.”
Reporting from Israel Hayom in May revealed that many in the Mossad were opposed to the idea of focusing resources on overthrowing the Iranian government, seeing it as a massive gamble. The Mossad’s former chief of influence operations, known as O., told the newspaper that he felt he had to sell the operation to many in the agency, despite the fact that “no one actually knows how to overthrow a regime or what the chances are that it will succeed.”
In March, just days before he would be killed in an Israeli assassination strike, Ali Larijani, then-secretary of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council, told the Iranian news outlet ISNA that Netanyahu “seemed to believe that these attacks had set a movement in motion inside Iran and that, by portraying the system as being in disarray, he could incite the public.” But Larijani pointed out that in less than a day, the regime had appointed “replacements for the commanders who had been killed, addressed the public, changed the atmosphere, and, by issuing specific orders, authorized the launch of missiles.”
Netanyahu, having pushed for the military overthrow of the Iranian government across multiple American administrations, finally got the war he wanted. But neither raw force, nor covert operations executed on his orders, were enough to carry out his will.
While Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has remarked upon how the current situation is very much working for Israel — one in which southern Iran is constantly bombarded with no end, and America is doing all of the fighting and dying — Netanyahu has continued his rhetoric about the need to create the conditions for the fall of the Islamic Republic. But in a moment of rare humility, he admitted this may “not happen in a single day.”
Recent reporting from Ynet found Netanyahu’s government instructed both the Israeli military and the Mossad to prepare for a much larger campaign against the Iranian state, with eyes on a potential return to open war in autumn. As has been the case over and over again, in Yemen, Lebanon, Gaza, and now Iran, Israel hopes that what was not solved with bombs can still be won — this time with even more bombs.
DHS says Manuel Ernesto Hernandez-Umana is in US illegally after lying to border patrol when he entered in 2007
The captain of a boat that capsized in the New York harbor, resulting in the death of a woman and her infant daughter, has been taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), with the federal agency saying it intends to deport him.
The deadly incident unfolded near the Statue of Liberty on 8 August. Authorities said a 911 call was received at approximately 10.25pm that prompted a major emergency response including multiple boat teams, a scuba team and a helicopter unit.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A math professor at the University of California, Berkeley, criticizing a "severe" math deficiency among students in an op-ed for the San Francisco Standard, admitted to using artificial intelligence to help edit the piece. The Standard published a 2,000-word piece by Zvezdelina Stankova last week, in which the professor said some of her math students were "five to eight years" behind and lacked a "middle school" education on fractions and basic algebra. Stankova said the UC system's test-blind admissions were to blame, suggesting that students who weren't sufficiently prepared for the rigor of Berkeley's mathematics program were admitted because a longstanding benchmark like the SAT had disappeared.
Over the weekend, journalists at Berkeley's student newspaper, the Daily Californian, noticed the op-ed's language sounded like AI. According to Berkeley sophomore Francis Luo, they ran it through AI-detection software Pangram, which claimed 33% of the op-ed had been generated or assisted by AI. In response, Stankova admitted she had used AI software to "help edit the piece" but that the article was "the result of several hundred person-hours of intensive human work, of which about 80 hours are my own."
Stankova said by email she had used AI to locate "numerous documents and articles related to the initiative" but that "all analysis is the result of the team members." When asked about their AI usage policy, the Standard -- which published the op-ed -- shared this statement by email: "While AI may assist, our expectation is that humans are behind every article we publish and take responsibility for every word. Our understanding in working with the author of this op ed was -- and continues to be -- that this piece reflects her and her colleagues' extensive original analysis, research and expertise." Should the op-ed have been entirely written without artificial assistance or is the use of AI a distraction from the argument at hand? That's the question at the heart of the debate playing out online.
According to the op-ed, Stankova and her peers found that the number of students with a "severe deficit" in their readiness for a calculus I class had tripled after the University of California adopted test-blind admissions. Some students were allegedly five to eight years behind and struggling with basic algebra and fractions, among other concepts.
Much of that decline, Stankova argues, is from the removal of standardized tests like the SAT and ACT, which served as important benchmarks for identifying whether applicants were prepared for Berkeley-level coursework.
American Bridge 21st Century is a liberal hybrid PAC that conducts opposition research and runs ads to aid Democratic candidates and organizations. Since 2019, its official name has been AB PAC.
As part super PAC, AB PAC can accept unlimited donations and has largely been funded by major Democratic donors and labor unions. Those donors must be disclosed, according to federal election rules.
Bradley Beychok, a former president of Media Matters, is the co-founder of the hybrid PAC and served as the group’s president until March 2021. Opposition research veteran Pat Dennis took over as president in December 2022, replacing Jessica Floyd, who previously had been managing director of campaigns for the progressive Hub Project.
For the 2026 election cycle, the group has set a goal of spending $50 million on paid media focusing on nearly 20 House and Senate races in Iowa, Alaska, Colorado, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas. That is in addition to the nearly 150 races covered by its ongoing opposition research for the November elections.
“The campaign will feature local storytellers sharing firsthand accounts of rising costs due to Trump’s tariffs and Iran War, health care challenges including rising costs and Medicaid cuts, and other economic pressures,” American Bridge said in a June press release.
American Bridge said $50 million would be the most the group has ever spent in a midterm cycle, and it aims to expand the Democratic map by also spending in areas that are traditionally Republican.
As of June 30, it had received almost $34.8 million in the 2026 election cycle, and had about $5.1 million on hand, according to its latest monthly filing with the Federal Election Commission in July. Major donors include Deborah Simon, daughter of the late property developer Melvin Simon; AB Foundation, the hybrid PAC’s affiliated advocacy group; and Democracy PAC, a liberal super PAC created by billionaire George Soros.
AB PAC has already spent more than $1 million this election cycle on independent expenditures, which are advertisements and other communications that expressly advocate for or against candidates for office. During the 2026 primary elections, it opposed a trio of Iowa Republicans, including Rep. Ashley Hinson, who won the Republican nomination in the Iowa Senate race; Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, who won the Republican nomination for the state’s 1st Congressional District seat; and former state Rep. Joe Mitchell, who won the Republican nomination for the state’s 2nd Congressional District seat.
The group launched a project in April called “The Shaky Eights” targeting 17 “weak” Republican House incumbents, including Reps. French Hill of Arkansas and Virginia Foxx of North Carolina. In Mississippi, it said it planned to spend a little more than $2 million in support of Democratic Senate nominee Scott Colom in his race against Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith. It has also contributed over $7 million to Texas Majority PAC, which describes itself as “a project dedicated to electing a Democrat to statewide office in Texas.”
During the 2024 elections, AB PAC spent about $97.7 million in total, including roughly $58.6 million in independent expenditures opposing President Donald Trump. The group ran ads in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin focusing on Trump’s role in rolling back abortion protections, and it financed a $20 million campaign addressing his criminal conviction, his conduct surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and other aspects of his record.
FactCheck.orgUndergraduate Fellow Angela Lin contributed to this article.
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Months after Congress approved billions for infrastructure across one of the least-trafficked stretches of the southern border, bulldozers arrived at Big Bend National Park.
The latest court filings in cases involving the Kennedy Center and the White House ballroom project detail the work being done at the two institutions.
Carlos Alcaraz has won his battle to be fit for the US Open.
The seven-time grand slam champion has not played on the ATP Tour since April due to an ongoing wrist issue, but enlisted the help of football transfer journalist Fabrizio Romano to announce his comeback.
The U.S. on Thursday imposed fresh sanctions on 15 individuals and entities based in Ecuador for their roles in an alleged maritime cocaine trafficking operation.
Government announce plan for ‘stepping stone’ qualification as 620,000 year 11 students face retaking maths or English after failure to achieve grade 4
The government’s plans to make young people continue studying maths and English if they fail GCSEs could be demotivating and ineffective, according to education experts and school leaders after retake pass rates slumped this year.
Only one in seven students in the age group retaking GCSE maths after a previous failure got a grade 4 or above this summer, while only one in six managed to pass English, meaning the majority will have to retake the exams next year if they remain in education or training.
Researcher Nathan Cofnas previously claimed Black people would hold few high-profile positions in a meritocracy
Nathan Cofnas, the academic who made plagiarism allegations against Prof Jason Arday before his death, has been suspended by a university.
Arday, 41, resigned from his role at the University of Cambridge this month after coverage of Cofnas’s accusations of plagiarism. The allegations, which were not proven in any formal investigation, triggered questions about Arday’s achievements.
Federal agents also ‘seized electronic devices’ from former Democratic representative at San Francisco airport
Authorities are said to have searched the Washington DC home of disgraced former California Democratic representative Eric Swalwell on Sunday amid an ongoing law enforcement investigation into sexual assault allegations.
CNN reported that federal agents on Saturday also “seized electronic devices” from Swalwell at the San Francisco airport, citing unnamed sources familiar with the investigation. Multiple other outlets have confirmed the federal search; the Daily Mail was the first to report this law enforcement activity.
USS George Washington will replace warship families say suffers from shortages, plumbing problems and low morale
The USS George Washington aircraft carrier has arrived in the Middle East, where it is expected to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln from its record deployment amid concerns about poor living conditions and morale.
US Central Command announced on Thursday that the Washington arrived in the area on Wednesday, and posted an image of sailors working on the flight deck as the ship transited the Arabian Sea. No date has yet been announced for the Lincoln to return to the US.
Bloomberg reports that YouTube is offering major creators millions of dollars to keep some content exclusive to its platform as Netflix increasingly signs YouTube-native talent to non-exclusive deals. YouTube has also warned that creators who simultaneously publish on Netflix could lose marketing support, event opportunities, and access to revenue from certain brand campaigns. Quartz reports: Bloomberg described two categories of payment: funding directed at specific programs, and a portion of the revenue YouTube brings in through large advertiser partnerships. No agreements have been finalized, but YouTube is close to deals with several partners, citing people familiar with the negotiations who declined to be identified. Creators who sign with Netflix face consequences. YouTube has warned creators that those who simultaneously publish videos on Netflix risk being sidelined from the platform's marketing campaigns and events, and would lose access to a share of proceeds from certain major brand deals.
Netflix has been signing YouTube creators to non-exclusive deals that allow them to post the same content on both platforms simultaneously. Creators including Alan Chikin Chow and Nick DiGiovanni have already signed such agreements, and Netflix remains in active conversations with dozens of other channels and programs, including the celebrity talk show Hot Ones. Netflix's pitch is straightforward: creators receive a substantial additional payday for content they have already produced, and their work reaches an audience that numbers more than 325 million subscribers.
YouTube Chief Executive Officer Neal Mohan had previously held that creators who work with competitors tend to drive viewers back to YouTube. But Bloomberg reported that Mohan and his team decided in recent weeks that the growing number of creators posting simultaneously on both platforms had become a problem that needed to be addressed. The concern is that when a video runs on both platforms simultaneously, YouTube's ability to convince advertisers of that video's exclusive value is undermined.
The decision to phase out the Army drone battalion comes amid tension between senior officers who envisioned the unit and the acting chief of staff of the Army.
Prof Katya Rubia withdraws support for The Great ADHD Myth? as other leading figures voice criticisms
A contributor to a controversial Channel 4 documentary on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder has withdrawn her support for the programme, saying it was biased and could lead to an increased suicide risk by encouraging parents to take their children off medication.
Katya Rubia, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London, also said The Great ADHD Myth? misrepresented her views.
Security arrangements for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex while living in the UK are a “private matter”, Andy Burnham has said, after news that Harry and Meghan intend to relocate to Britain from the US this month.
The UK prime minister refused to be drawn on security funding, saying: “This is a private matter. It’s a matter for Harry and Meghan, and we wish them well in the moves that they’re making.”
The president’s empty advice that children should receive separate jabs against measles, mumps and rubella will only lead to less take-up by parents
Nobody wants to hurt a child. The howl of pain, the tears, the look of betrayed shock all make it very hard to deliver a cherished small person to the needle-wielding nurse. But that’s part of being a responsible parent. It becomes a lot tougher if mum or dad is being fed mixed and erroneous messages about the benefits and harms of vaccination.
Parents have to make a lot of decisions about what’s right for their child, from the school they should go to and the food they should eat to the hours they should spend on the phone or watching TV. In the US, Donald Trump wants them to add another: do they choose to give their children separate jabs against measles, mumps and rubella, involving six visits to the clinic, or should they opt for the combined MMR vaccine, which does the job in two? For decades, the vast majority of families have been taking the advice of doctors, accepting their assurance that the MMR vaccine is safe and very effective. But what are they to think when a US president announces that the triple jab could be “quite lethal” and signs an executive order advising states to offer separate vaccines?
Volodymyr Zhuravlev had been consulted on Snake Island, a dramatised reconstruction of incident
Earlier this month locals in Zagreb noticed something odd outside an art deco building. Sandbags and barricades appeared in front of the Esplanade hotel, along with a film crew and extras sporting Ukrainian military uniforms. Soon afterwards the actors Sean Penn and Adrien Brody were spotted on the set in the Croatian capital, together with Doug Liman, the Hollywood director of the Jason Bourne movies.
Liman had come to shoot his latest fictional political thriller. Its subject: the 2022 Nord Stream explosions, in which a team of Ukrainian divers allegedly blew up a pipeline supplying Russian natural gas to Germany. One of the chief suspects, Volodymyr Zhuravlev, had twice eluded the Germany authorities: once allegedly slipping out of Poland in the boot of a diplomatic car,and on another occasion freed by a court.
Meta chief executive paid roughly €20m for gothic-style mansion built in 1830 and its surroundings
It stretches the definition of pied-à-terre but Mark Zuckerberg now has a pad in Ireland: Strancally castle.
The Meta chief executive and his wife, Priscilla Chan, have bought the gothic-style mansion and its 178-hectare (440-acre) estate in county Waterford to use as a base during visits to Ireland.
Security researcher Jeremiah Fowler found that people-search service ClarityCheck left more than 9 million image files accessible in an unsecured Amazon S3 bucket, despite advertising its reverse-image search as "private and secure." A separate misconfiguration also exposed email addresses, phone numbers, and other personal information. Wired reports: Overall, according to findings from independent security researcher Jeremiah Fowler, the exposed ClarityCheck database contained roughly 450 GB of images, including what appeared to be profile images, screenshots, and other photographs of adults, teenagers, and children. All of the images were stored in an unsecured Amazon S3 bucket, with files in folders named "faces" and "profiles," which could be accessed by anyone online through a URL included in the company's publicly available website code.
ClarityCheck is one of a number of so-called people-finder tools that have appeared online in recent years. These websites broadly claim to be able to search the web, public records, and other databases to identify individuals. ClarityCheck's website says it can run searches on phone numbers, email addresses, vehicle identification numbers, and names. Its photo-search page says it can help "identify anyone in a photo" and find social media profiles "in seconds." While ClarityCheck secured the giant image database after WIRED contacted the company in July, Fowler warns that it was seemingly exposed for months, and his initial efforts to flag the problem to the company were unsuccessful. Accidental data exposures create risk for any personal information, but particularly for sensitive and unchangeable biometric data like face images.
[...] In addition to the face data, ClarityCheck had also misconfigured its APIs such that its website URLs could be manipulated to reveal data about people simply by entering names; anyone using any consumer browser could have done this. Entering a name into one of the URLs would return multiple potential email addresses, physical addresses, and phone numbers for people with that name. After WIRED contacted the company, the URLs were secured. The ClarityCheck spokesperson said in the statement that the details displayed were "sourced from publicly available information and licensed third-party data providers." A spokesperson for ClarityCheck said in a statement: "Once this was drawn to the attention of the appropriate teams, we acted immediately to restrict access." The company disputed any characterization that the data was "exposed," saying that an "ordinary member of the public" would not have come across it.
"We do not accept that data in the temporary storage location was 'publicly exposed,' which implies large-scale public access," the spokesperson says. "Access required knowledge of a specific, unindexed URL that was not discoverable through ordinary use of the ClarityCheck service or a general web search."
Government borrowing costs around the world have surged to the highest levels in decades amid growing fears over US bond market turmoil.
Anxiety about Donald Trump’s handling of the US economy, and concern that the US president’s war with Iran is driving up inflation, are causing a sell-off in the US bond market.
An FBI team seized electronic devices from former US representative Eric Swalwell at the San Francisco airport on Saturday, then raided his home in Washington, DC, the next day, CNN reported Thursday.
The raid is part of a federal investigation into the sexual assault allegations which ultimately drove the Bay Area Democrat to resign from office in April, sources familiar with the investigation told CNN. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department subsequently opened criminal investigations on Swalwell.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Federal Communications Commission last week eliminated the gigabit speed goal established during the Biden administration and declared that current levels of broadband deployment in the US are acceptable. Though fiber networks have routinely offered such speeds for years, the FCC said the gigabit speed goal is not "technologically neutral," suggesting that it isn't fair to other, slower technologies.
In 2024, the FCC raised its broadband benchmark to 100Mbps downstream and 20Mbps upstream, setting the new standard by which to judge whether deployment is reasonable and timely. The FCC at the time also set a long-term speed goal of 1Gbps download speeds paired with 500Mbps upload speeds, saying it would use the goal "as a guidepost for evaluating our efforts to encourage deployment." Republican Brendan Carr, who is now the FCC chairman, never liked that long-term goal. He proposed abolishing it last year, and the change was finalized on August 14 in the FCC's latest broadband deployment report. The reports are mandated by Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act.
"As part of our return to following the plain language of Section 706, we adopt our proposal from the Notice [of Inquiry] to abolish without replacement the long-term goal of 1,000/500 Mbps established in the 2024 Report," the order said. "A long-term goal is not mentioned in Section 706 and could appear to violate our obligation to conduct our analysis in a technologically neutral manner. At present, it is impossible to predict long-term technological developments and the evolution of consumer preferences." The FCC said that comments submitted by cable industry group NCTA and wireless industry group CTIA "support our reasoning for abolishing the long-term goal." Last year, the Brendan Carr-led FCC said (PDF) that the gigabit goal "may be unreasonably prejudicial to technologies such as satellite and fixed wireless that presently do not support such speeds." However, last week's report contradicts that stance.
"We disagree with commenters arguing that our concern about technological neutrality merely serves to accommodate technologies that may currently offer slower speeds," the FCC said. "At present, we do not know the nature of future consumer preferences and, considering that the goal is not required by the statute and does not serve any positive purpose (as discussed herein), we believe it prudent to abolish it."
Pre-tax profits rose at high street opticians to £429.7m in the year to February while sales increased 7% to £4.3bn
Specsavers has paid £12m to its parent company controlled by founders Doug and Dame Mary Perkins after the high street opticians’ profits soared by more than a quarter.
The group operates nearly 3,000 optometry, audiology and ophthalmology businesses globally in at least eight countries, including more than 900 in the UK, through hundreds of independent partners.
Kyle Spitze of Tennessee faced federal charges for targeting girls online as part of ‘764 network’ investigated by FBI
A 27-year-old Tennessee man described by the US justice department as a “nihilistic violent extremist” was sentenced to 77 years in prison on Wednesday for his targeting of girls online as part of the 764 network, an online group the FBI calls a form of “modern-day terrorism”.
Kyle Spitze of Friendsville received the federal sentence on Wednesday for “production of child sexual abuse material, abetting the distribution of animal crushing videos, and possessing and accessing with the intent to view”, the justice department said in a statement.
Even film-makers have been inspired by Insomniac’s take on Spidey. But the studio’s tried and tested format might not fit a superhero with such sharp claws
The recent Marvel’s Spider-Man games have become so tightly interwoven with the character’s core that they’ve been cited, by both actor Tom Holland and director Destin Daniel Cretton, as an influence on this year’s blockbuster film Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Now the same development studio – Sony-owned Insomniac Games – is taking on one of Marvel’s other most recognisable characters in his first video game-starring role since some deeply mid-tier film tie-ins back in the 00s. So can they pull off the same trick with Marvel’s Wolverine?
Storywise it certainly takes a similar approach, once again grabbing ideas from a wide selection of inspirations and remixing them into a brand-new continuity. We first meet this version of Wolverine as he is discovered: wild-eyed, wilder haired and practically nude. Before we see his saviour’s face, we hear a well-spoken voice (provided by legendary game actor Troy Baker) promising a safe place “for people like us”. Surely this is Charles Xavier?
The country risks ‘the collapse of the entire book ecosystem’ following destruction of warehouses in July and August, say Ukrainian publishers
The Ukrainian Book Institute has called on the international publishing community to support Ukrainian publishers after Russian attacks in July and early August destroyed about 10m books and a significant share of the country’s book production capacity.
The institute said the attacks on publishing, printing and warehouse infrastructure had left some companies at risk of financial collapse.A major attack on 1 August hit warehouses belonging to the RNK-Ranok publishing group in Kharkiv, destroying approximately 8m books, following July attacks in Kyiv which led to the loss of more than 1.5m books. In all, the recent attacks have led to the destruction of approximately 30% of the volume of books produced annually in Ukraine.
Testimony in Lindsay Clancy's murder trial ended after just one witness Thursday before the jury was sent home for the day. Attorneys and the judge are still in the courthouse for working through logistics.
Their move back from the United States sparks questions about security, their formal role — and whether the couple could overshadow the official royal family.
Device was near country’s Neptun Deep gas platform in the Black Sea
Romania’s military has destroyed a marine drone spotted just “a few hundred meters” from the Neptun Deep platform, a major offshore gas project in the Black Sea.
The drone, spotted just “a few hundreds of meters” from the gas extraction works at the Neptun Deep platform located some 80 miles east of the city of Constanța, was destroyed by a Romanian F-16 fighter jet.
You could pin the US’s staggering $40tn in government debt to Donald Trump’s Keystone Cops-style governance. Tariffs he sold as a new source of revenue were struck down by the supreme court, forcing the government to return tens of billions of dollars to importers. Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge), ostensibly created to stop wasteful government spending, decimated federal programs and probably killed millions of children, but did nothing to close the budget deficit. The burst of inflation following Trump’s misguided adventure in Iran sharply raised the cost of serving the government’s obligations.
Yet as the federal debt hits an all-time high, up from about $35tn when Trump took office less than two years ago, it is worth noting that the US’s gargantuan indebtedness is in fact the product of a longstanding Republican strategy that took shape well before Trump could even dream about gold-plating the White House. It was called “starve the beast”.
Max Lederer, longtime head of the US military news outlet, says his ‘philosophy of leadership’ differs from Pentagon’s
The long-serving publisher of Stars and Stripes could face an early dismissal just days after the taxpayer-funded military news outlet’s reporting revealed deteriorating conditions on the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, according to a news report.
Pentagon officials have discussed firing Max Lederer ahead of his scheduled retirement next month, according to CBS News, which quoted anonymous sources. Lederer, the publisher of the military daily for 19 years, had previously cited fundamental differences with the Trump administration for his decision to retire soon.
Africa Aware: What can Lagos teach us about Africa’s emerging megacities?Audiothilton.drupal
Lagos State Governor HE Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu discusses how Lagos is developing solutions to manage rapid population growth and deliver infrastructure at scale – all catered to its unique context.
By 2050, many of the world’s fastest-growing cities will be in Africa, and the choices made today will define how hundreds of millions of people will live then. A city like Lagos whose scale, economic dynamism and growth capture the opportunities and complexities of this transformation stands out as one of the world’s leading megacities.
In this episode, the governor of Lagos State, HE Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu joins Africa Programme Director and this week’s host, Tighisti Amare, to discuss how Lagos is developing solutions to manage rapid population growth and deliver infrastructure at scale – all catered to its unique context.
About Africa Aware
Africa Aware is a podcast from the Chatham House Africa Programme bringing together leading international experts to provide in-depth analysis and sharp insights on the political, economic and social issues shaping African countries, their international relations and the continent as a whole.
The prime minister plans to bring in the National Crime Agency to tackle the gangs behind dumps
Value being generated by student loans is “not what it should be”, Reform UK’s deputy leader said.
Asked by reporters about the funding of the scheme by stopping foreign students accessing loans, Richard Tice said:
Regarding the funding of this, cash is cash. Whether you think that it’s cash as a positive in a balance sheet or a bank account, or whether you’re borrowing it, it’s money. It’s cash.
As Suella quite rightly said, the amount of money going into student loans, it’s all government money, and this government is borrowing vast sums.
In terms of Mickey Mouse courses, listen, this has been well-chronicled for many years. Whether it’s gender studies, whether it’s golf course studies, I think I’ve seen there’s not a necessity. There’s not a value in many of these degrees.
Now I know that might be uncomfortable to those people who have those qualifications, but the reality is you’ve got to ask yourself: what are your graduate outcomes looking like?
Washington, D.C. — Federal agents seized electronic devices from former Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell at a California airport before searching his Washington home the following day, according to CNN reporting cited by Mediaite.
Agents approached Swalwell at San Francisco International Airport on Saturday and took his electronics, CNN reported. The FBI then executed a search warrant at his Washington residence on Sunday. The precise criminal allegations underlying the warrant have not been publicly disclosed.
The searches come months after FBI Director Kash Patel moved to release records from a decade-old investigation involving Swalwell and Christine Fang, a suspected Chinese intelligence operative. Earlier congressional and FBI investigations did not result in criminal charges against Swalwell, and the House Ethics Committee closed its inquiry without taking action.
Documents declassified by President Donald Trump this week reportedly show Swalwell told FBI agents in 2015 that he had several sexual encounters with Fang but denied they had a romantic relationship. Swalwell has previously maintained that he cooperated with federal investigators after being alerted to concerns about Fang.
Swalwell resigned from Congress in April and suspended his California gubernatorial campaign following separate sexual-assault and misconduct allegations, which he has denied.
Neither the FBI nor prosecutors have publicly announced charges connected to the latest searches.
Caption: On the day he became old enough under federal regulations to fly a glider solo, he was already prepared to take the controls.
On July 1, Cheng completed his first solo glider flight on his 14th birthday, reaching the minimum age at which the Federal Aviation Administration allows a student pilot to solo a glider or balloon.
By John Riddle
Most teenagers celebrate turning 14 with cake, presents and time with family and friends. Newark resident Jonathan Cheng celebrated his birthday a little differently.
He took control of a glider, climbed thousands of feet into the sky and flew solo.
On July 1, Cheng completed his first solo glider flight on his 14th birthday, reaching the minimum age at which the Federal Aviation Administration allows a student pilot to solo a glider or balloon.
For Cheng, the flight represented much more than a memorable way to celebrate a birthday. It was the culmination of years of interest in aviation and months of training, preparation and determination.
“I’ve been fascinated by aircraft since I was young and have always dreamed of flying one someday,” Cheng said. “Soloing a glider was an incredible experience, especially since I was able to do it on my 14th birthday, the youngest age possible.”
Cheng’s fascination with aviation began four years earlier when his father arranged a discovery flight for his 10th birthday. The hour in the air sparked an interest that quickly grew.
For his 11th birthday, Cheng wanted a flight simulator setup. He spent countless hours using it to learn more about the mechanics of flight. By age 12, he was ready to move beyond simulated flying and joined the Brandywine Soaring Association, where he began training at New Garden Airport.
Gliders provide a distinctly different flying experience from powered aircraft. Without an engine, pilots must understand air currents, locate rising air and carefully manage the aircraft’s available energy. Cheng describes it as the sensation of “flying like a bird.”
His involvement with the soaring association has extended beyond sitting in the cockpit. During more than a year of training, he has regularly volunteered as part of the ground crew, helping with wing-running, glider assembly and staging aircraft for flight operations.
The work eventually led to July 1.
In the days before his birthday, Cheng concentrated heavily on both ground and flight training. An additional challenge came when flight operations moved to a different airport, requiring him to become familiar with a new environment and traffic pattern.
When the day finally arrived, Cheng climbed into a Blanik glider. After being towed to 2,000 feet, he released the tow rope and was alone in the aircraft.
“I had spent a long time training and preparing for this moment, so finally being able to solo made me feel both excited and proud,” Cheng said. “It showed me that my hard work and dedication were paying off and motivated me to keep learning and pursuing my goal of becoming a pilot.”
He successfully flew his planned maneuvers and traffic pattern before bringing the glider back for a smooth landing on the grass.
The milestone was also a memorable moment for his father, Wei Cheng, who had watched his son’s interest in aviation grow from that first discovery flight into a serious pursuit.
“I couldn’t be prouder of Jonathan’s dedication and maturity,” Wei Cheng said. “Reaching this historic milestone on his exact 14th birthday is a testament to months of disciplined training, early mornings, and his unwavering commitment to his aviation goals.”
The conditions made the day even more challenging, with temperatures reaching about 100 degrees.
“Special credit goes to the Brandywine Soaring Association for making it happen,” Wei Cheng said. “We truly appreciate the local aviation community and feel blessed.”
Jonathan credits instructor Barry Muhlenberg, tow pilot Dan Wroe, his parents and members of the Brandywine Soaring Association with helping him reach his goal. His training has also received a boost from the Soaring Society of America, which awarded him the 2026 Purduski Flight Training Scholarship to help support his work toward a Private Pilot Glider Certificate.
Aviation, however, is only one part of Jonathan’s busy schedule.
He is a Cadet Master Sergeant in the Civil Air Patrol and a competitive archer. He also participated in the United States Naval Academy Summer STEM Camp. His interest in science and technology includes cybersecurity, software development, 3D printing and analog photography.
He reached the Platinum Tier in the CyberPatriot competition, with his team ranking in the top 30 percent of more than 5,000 teams. He also combines his engineering and aviation interests by 3D printing his own radio-controlled airplanes.
At school, Jonathan is the founder and president of the Rubik’s Club.
His father says Jonathan’s willingness to pursue opportunities has been an important part of his progress.
“He knows clearly what he wants to be, and he always drags us to take him to New Garden Airport whenever the weather permits,” Wei Cheng said. “His flight instructor is a USAFA graduate and retired fighter pilot, and Jonathan is learning not just how to fly, but also how to become a leader and serve our country.”
Jonathan already has his next aviation milestones mapped out. He hopes to earn his Private Pilot Glider Certificate at age 16 and a private pilot certificate for powered aircraft at 17.
His longer-term ambition is even higher. Inspired in part by aviation history and Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger’s book Highest Duty, Jonathan hopes to earn an appointment to the United States Air Force Academy as a member of the Class of 2030 and eventually serve as a fighter pilot.
For other young people who may think they need to wait until adulthood before seriously pursuing a dream, Jonathan has a different message.
“If you really care about something, don’t be afraid to work for it,” he said. “There will be challenges and days when things really don’t go perfectly, but you have to keep going and learn from your mistakes.”
He also encourages young people to seek out mentors, ask questions and surround themselves with people who will help them improve.
“Most importantly, start working toward your dream now,” Jonathan said. “You don’t have to wait until you’re older.”
Jonathan certainly didn’t.
On the day he became old enough under federal regulations to fly a glider solo, he was already prepared to take the controls.
Family relationships remain damaged and there is no clarity on how Sussexes’ security concerns have been resolved
Just as the departure of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’ from the UK six years ago came as a complete surprise, so too is their shock announcement they now intend to return.
Their unilateral decision could fairly be said to have blind-sided the royals. King Charles was only informed on Sunday and is said not to have been involved in the decision making. No mention was made when Harry, Meghan and their two children visited Charles at his private home, Highgrove, last month.
The soldier's eyes found mine across the room. His coat was tattered, his expression somewhere between exhaustion and resolve, the battlefield raging around him with no sign of mercy. His gaze suggested he knew how it would end. I did…
Japan is preparing a nonbinding "comply or explain" code that would urge generative AI companies, including foreign firms operating in Japan, to disclose what models they use, what training data they rely on, and how that data was collected. The proposal would also let rights holders ask whether specific webpages were included in training datasets. The Japan Times reports: The draft code comprises three principles. The first principle requires businesses to disclose the generative AI models they use, their training data and methods for collecting such data on their websites and make the information publicly accessible. Meanwhile, disclosure of sensitive information will not be mandatory. The second principle calls for businesses to disclose whether certain webpages are included in training data when requested by copyright holders and other rights holders who allege infringement. The third principle states that businesses will respond to requests for information from system and service users concerned about copyright infringement.
WAYNE, Pa. and TOKYO, Aug. 20, 2026 — Cornelis and NEC Corporation have announced an expanded collaboration that builds on the companies’ successful work together in Europe and will help organizations across Japan and the broader Asia-Pacific region deploy next-generation AI and high-performance computing (HPC) infrastructure using Cornelis high-performance networking solutions.
The expanded collaboration builds on NEC’s successful evaluation of the Cornelis CN5000 Omni-Path platform and the companies’ existing collaboration in Europe, creating a foundation to support enterprise AI, manufacturing, research, and high-performance computing deployments across Japan. As part of the collaboration, NEC also plans to participate in early evaluation activities for the next-generation Cornelis CN6000 platform, helping customers prepare for increasingly complex AI and HPC workloads.
“AI infrastructure is placing unprecedented demands on network performance, scalability, and efficiency,” said Lisa Spelman, CEO of Cornelis. “NEC’s extensive experience delivering enterprise and HPC infrastructure throughout Japan makes them an outstanding partner as we continue giving customers more choice and bringing advanced networking technologies to new markets. Together, we’re helping customers build AI and HPC environments that deliver greater performance today while preparing for the next generation of large-scale computing.”
The collaboration reflects growing adoption of open, high-performance networking alternatives as AI and HPC deployments continue to scale. Following a comprehensive technical evaluation of the CN5000 platform, NEC and Cornelis will continue collaborating to support customer opportunities by leveraging NEC’s long-standing relationships with enterprise, manufacturing, academic, and research organizations throughout Japan.
NEC’s evaluation included extensive MPI communication testing across multiple workloads and communication patterns, validating the capabilities of the CN5000 platform while also identifying optimization techniques that further improve application performance. The joint evaluation demonstrated the value of close engineering collaboration to help customers maximize networking efficiency across large-scale HPC environments.
The companies also plan to extend their collaboration to the upcoming Cornelis CN6000 platform, allowing NEC to evaluate next-generation networking technologies as customers prepare for larger AI training, inference, and HPC deployments.
“Organizations across Japan are preparing for increasingly complex AI and HPC environments that require higher performance, scalability, and efficiency,” said Takeshi Hirose, Senior Director of Compute Department, NEC Corporation. “Our collaboration with Cornelis broadens the high-performance networking technologies available to our customers while allowing us to evaluate next-generation capabilities that support future computing requirements.”
The collaboration further strengthens Cornelis’ growing global ecosystem of infrastructure partners, enabling customers to deploy high-performance networking through trusted server and infrastructure providers while benefiting from continued innovation across the Cornelis product portfolio.
As AI clusters continue to scale, Cornelis and NEC will continue working together to evaluate new networking technologies, optimize customer deployments, and support future AI and HPC infrastructure across Japan and beyond.
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, government and cloud environments. With a focus on performance, scalability, and efficiency, Cornelis helps organizations achieve faster insights and greater return on infrastructure investments. Learn more at cornelis.com.
About NEC Corporation
The NEC Group leverages technology to create social value and promote a more sustainable world where everyone has the chance to reach their full potential. NEC Corporation was established in 1899. Today, the NEC Group’s approximately 110,000 employees utilize world-leading AI, security, and communications technologies to solve the most pressing needs of customers and society. For more information, please visit https://www.nec.com.
Trade body says local chains would have to balance concerns with potential benefits of AI-enabled technology
Cinemas across the UK are considering banning customers from wearing Meta’s smart glasses amid fears they could be used to pirate films.
The UK Cinema Association (UKCA) trade body said that a number of local chains could end up introducing policies that restrict camera-enabled smart glasses at the big screen, adding to a growing list of venues concerned about covert use.
COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Aug. 20, 2026 — QC Ware, the organizer of Q2B conferences and a developer of computational chemistry and quantum computing software, has announced that the 2026 Q2B Copenhagen Conference will take place on September 9-10, 2026, in Copenhagen, Denmark. The conference is presented in joint partnership with a Danish Consortium comprising the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, Novo Nordisk Foundation, Novo Holdings and 55 North.
As the Co-Host and Platinum Sponsor of the Q2B Copenhagen Conference, the Danish Consortium will lead strategic discussions focused on real-world quantum impact and international cooperation. Denmark has established itself as a leading European quantum hub by connecting cutting-edge research with industry adoption. Through strategic investment, public-private collaboration, and a rapidly growing quantum ecosystem, Denmark is helping strengthen Europe’s global leadership and accelerate the path from scientific breakthroughs to real-world business impact.
“Quantum innovation depends on strong international partnerships. We are proud to welcome the global quantum community to Copenhagen and connect international partners with the Danish quantum ecosystem, fostering the collaborations that will accelerate the commercial adoption of quantum technologies,” said Susanne Hyldelund, State Secretary for Trade and Investments, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark.
The conference will be held at Copenhagen’s Øksnehallen, and will explore all major quantum technologies: computing, AI, sensing, communications, and security. Attendees can expect keynotes, industry case studies, and expert panel discussions on the leading edge of quantum R&D from some of the world’s top businesses and institutions across government, academia, and Fortune 100 companies.
The conference will open with a panel of ambassadors discussing the importance of international cooperation in advancing quantum technology. The session will be moderated by Ms. Louise Lund Henneberg, Acting Director of the Department for Techplomacy at the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It will explore quantum collaboration today and in the future, the role of government in supporting the commercialisation and scaling of quantum technologies, and what still needs to happen across talent, collaboration, funding and technology innovation.
“Together with our outstanding local partners, we’re excited to showcase how the Nordic region is helping drive Europe’s leadership in the global quantum race and accelerate the journey from scientific breakthroughs to real-world impact,” said QC Ware CEO Matt Johnson.
Through keynotes, business seminars, breakout sessions, technical workshops, and panel discussions, attendees at the Q2B Copenhagen Conference will learn about the latest quantum hardware and software breakthroughs and applications in optimisation, chemistry simulations, pharmaceutical and materials discovery, error correction, and machine learning. Notable speakers include:
Lene Oddershede – CSO & Professor, Novo Nordisk Foundation
Hiro Mori – Chair of Global Consortium Alliance WG, Q-STAR
Matt Johnson – CEO, QC Ware
Lauri Sainiemi – Corporate Vice President, Fabrication, Microsoft Quantum
Peter Krogstrup – CEO, NQCP & Quantum Foundry Copenhagen
Dr. Nathan Baker – Head of Partnerships for Chemistry & Materials, Microsoft Quantum
Ellen Devereux – CTO Advisor for Quantum, Fujitsu
Anders Broo – Senior CMC Project Leader, AstraZeneca
On day two, Steven Camp, Managing Director, Quantum Investment Banking at Needham & Company, will host a Venture Capital panel with investors, including 55 North, Deep33, Quantonation, Firgun Ventures and Qbeat Ventures.
Additionally, the conference will feature several panels and sessions from real-world practitioners and experts across industries, including AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim and Merck on pharmaceuticals and NTT Data Group Corporation on telecommunications.
Q2B is dedicated to promoting and growing the quantum technologies ecosystem. One of the critical components of the conference is the Start-up Pitch Competition organised by BioInnovation Institute. On September 9, a select group of early-stage start-ups will pitch their solutions to investors, corporates, researchers, and the wider ecosystem.
Industry leaders charting the future of quantum technology adoption from companies including NVIDIA, HPE Quantum, BCG.X, Quantum Security Defense Ltd., WISER, Alliander, Chicago Quantum Exchange, Resonance and GQI, will deliver sessions on recent advancements in the field.
The Q2B Copenhagen Conference will also host a number of vendors showcasing their latest advancements in quantum technologies, including Microsoft, Classiq, Multiverse Computing, Atom Computing, Nvision Quantum Technologies, Fujitsu, Quantinuum, Kvantify, Hamamatsu Photonics, Phasecraft, ZuriQ, kiutra, C12, Qpurpose, QC Design, IQM, AWS, and more.
Find the full agenda, featured speakers, exhibitors and register to attend the Q2B 2026 Copenhagen Conference here.
About QC Ware
QC Ware is a quantum computing software company. QC Ware develops applications that unlock the power of quantum computing for drug discovery, material design and other industry verticals. QC Ware’s Promethium platform provides GPU-accelerated quantum chemistry for molecular modeling and drug discovery, helping customers make better discovery decisions today while exploring the hybrid quantum-classical workflows of tomorrow. QC Ware also organizes and hosts Q2B quantum computing conferences in Japan, Europe and the United States.
(The Center Square) – Voting no to eliminate taxes on overtime, tips and for Social Security beneficiaries is back as a campaign issue for second term Democratic Rep. Don Davis of North Carolina.
ONLINE EMBARGO 12.00 BST, 20/08/26Adrián Carballo Casla. // People over 60 who leave over 12 hours between meals are more susceptible to chronic diseases, according to a new study.The findings show trendy fasting diets are not suitable for older people,…
One person was killed and two Pennsylvania State Police troopers were injured when a small plane collided with a state police helicopter on the ground in central Pennsylvania, authorities said.
Exclusive: Bridget Phillipson says politicians have helped fuel hatred and that police are not taking violence against women and girls seriously enough
Racism and sexism have become normalised in Britain, the equalities minister has said, as she warned that young men were being sucked into violent misogyny by the “cesspit” of social media.
Bridget Phillipson said she was increasingly worried about how commonplace misogyny and racism had become, fuelled by online interactions and statements by politicians she said would not have been acceptable a few years ago.
Joanna Boydell has quit as budget hotel chain scrambles to improve safety
Meanwhile, the UK’s sports fashion retailer JD Sports has slashed its profit forecasts as cost-of-living pressures, fuelled by the US war on Iran, weighed on sales of trainers.
JD Sports, which sells a range of sports brands including Nike and Adidas, said widespread inflation had hit shoppers’ wallets, resulting in falling sales across important markets such as the US, where it struggled to quickly shift trainers and other footwear.
Buying back more long-dated debt should ease pressure on longer-term yields, helping households through lower mortgage rates and corporations through lower borrowing costs. That’s positive.
For the dollar, lower long-term yields are initially negative, as they reduce the attractiveness of US assets to international investors. That’s partly why the dollar sold off so aggressively yesterday.
@edgeaholic Check your charge connector on the bms board, it may be burnt, the picture is not mine and my applogies to whomever posted this picture of a burnt pint charge connector.a9a9dc06-e7d0-4bd5-85c7-c1b4eff94662-image.png
Caption: This is the second installment of a three-part Delaware LIVE series examining Delaware’s literacy challenge.
Reaching the 2028 goal will require faster progress, interim measurements, and action when strategies fail
Editor’s note: This is the second installment of a three-part Delaware LIVE series examining Delaware’s literacy challenge. Part 1 reported the latest assessment results and introduced the state’s 2028 reading goal. Read Part 1.
By George D. Rotsch, Editor, Delaware LIVE
DOVER, Del. — Delaware has established a clear literacy destination: At least 53% of third graders reading proficiently by 2028.
The state has not yet presented an equally clear public path for getting there.
Third-grade English language arts proficiency reached 40% in 2026, up 1 percentage point from the previous year. That leaves Delaware with a 13-point gap and two annual testing cycles remaining. Note: the full report can be accessed online: https://news.delaware.gov/files/2026/08/State-Board-2026-Briefing-August-20.pdf
To reach the goal on a roughly even trajectory, proficiency would need to rise to approximately 46.5% in 2027 and 53% in 2028.
That would require average annual gains of 6.5 percentage points—more than six times the improvement recorded this year.
If proficiency continued rising at only 1 point per year, it would reach approximately 42% in 2028. At that rate, Delaware would not reach 53% until about 2039.
That is a mathematical illustration, not a prediction. Results can accelerate, particularly when effective instructional changes reach large numbers of classrooms. But the calculation demonstrates that incremental improvement will not be sufficient.
A goal needs interim benchmarks
Delaware’s Early Literacy Plan calls for a public dashboard, quarterly progress updates and an annual State of Literacy report.
Those measures can improve transparency. But reporting results is not the same as establishing what must happen when results fall short.
A complete accountability plan should identify:
The statewide proficiency target for 2027.
Corresponding district and school targets.
The officials responsible for implementation.
The expected effect of each major literacy strategy.
The cost of each initiative.
The measurements used during the school year.
The response when a benchmark is missed.
The conditions for expanding, revising or ending a program.
Without interim benchmarks, the public may not learn that Delaware is off track until the 2028 results are released.
Boards cannot wait for the next state test
Annual assessments show whether students met the state standard, but the results arrive after the school year has ended. For school boards, the challenge is to use that annual result to establish a clear student outcome goal and then monitor progress toward it throughout the year.
Keleher said the board and superintendent have different responsibilities in that process. The board establishes the student outcome it expects and monitors whether the district is making sufficient progress toward it. The superintendent and educators determine the strategy for achieving the goal and manage its implementation. That distinction is consistent with student-outcomes-focused governance frameworks, which place goals and progress monitoring with the board while leaving implementation to the superintendent and administration.
“The annual assessment tells a board where students finished, but boards don’t have to wait until the end of the next school year to know whether students are on track,” Keleher said. “Once the board establishes the outcome it expects, the superintendent can identify the measures that will show throughout the year whether the district’s strategy is being implemented and students are making progress.”
Boards should receive regular reports on:
Early literacy screening.
Students reading above, at or below grade level.
Students assigned to additional intervention.
Progress among students receiving assistance.
Attendance in kindergarten through third grade.
Differences among schools and student groups.
Implementation of approved literacy programs.
Program spending and the results expected from it.
Those measures will depend on the district’s strategy and the barriers it is trying to address. They could include student reading progress, early literacy screening, attendance, access to intervention, or evidence that the district’s literacy strategy is being implemented as intended. Academic KPIs and interim measures are commonly used by districts to track progress over time rather than relying solely on annual results.
“The board’s role is not to determine which intervention a student receives or manage how a literacy program is implemented. Its role is to set the outcome, understand the superintendent’s strategy, ensure resources and policies support it, and monitor the evidence that shows whether students are on track.” Keleher said.
If progress is insufficient, the board asks what the superintendent is changing and determines whether additional governance action is needed. This approach also creates greater transparency for the broader community: everyone can understand the outcome the district is working toward, the strategy for achieving it, whether students are making progress, and where there are opportunities to contribute.
Mississippi added a promotion consequence
Mississippi adopted a more consequential approach through its Literacy-Based Promotion Act.
Under the law, a third grader scoring in the lowest two achievement levels on the state reading assessment generally is not promoted to fourth grade unless the student later demonstrates sufficient competency or qualifies for a good-cause exemption.
The policy is not based on one testing opportunity. Mississippi provides reading intervention, individual plans, parent notification and opportunities to retest. The law also includes exemptions for specified students and circumstances.
The promotion requirement establishes a clear expectation: Students generally must demonstrate minimum reading competency before advancing to fourth grade.
Mississippi reported that 84.6% of third graders passed its reading assessment after their final opportunity in 2025.
That percentage should not be directly compared with Delaware’s 40% proficiency rate because the states use different assessments, performance standards and reporting methods.
Mississippi’s improvement also cannot be attributed solely to its promotion requirement. The state combined that policy with early screening, teacher training, evidence-based instruction, literacy coaches and intervention for struggling students.
Delaware emphasizes support and reporting
Delaware also is investing in evidence-based materials, teacher development, screening, coaching and family engagement.
Unlike Mississippi, Delaware has not made third-grade reading competency a statewide requirement for promotion to fourth grade.
Delaware’s assessment identifies whether a child met the standard, but students may advance without demonstrating proficiency. Promotion and retention decisions remain largely local.
The difference can be summarized simply: Mississippi added a gate. Delaware established a goal and a reporting system.
Delaware is not without accountability. Schools may be identified for support and intervention through the Delaware School Success Framework, which considers achievement, growth, attendance and other measures.
But Delaware has not established a comparable statewide consequence when a third grader fails to demonstrate minimum reading competency.
Who should face the consequence?
Mississippi’s approach raises a difficult policy question: Should the immediate consequence fall on a child who has not learned to read, or should it fall more directly on the adults and institutions responsible for delivering instruction?
Supporters of literacy-based promotion argue that advancing a student who cannot read does not solve the problem. It transfers the problem to fourth grade, when students increasingly must read independently to learn other subjects.
Critics argue that retention can impose social and emotional costs and disproportionately affect low-income students, multilingual learners and students with disabilities.
They also warn that repeating third grade will accomplish little if the student simply receives the same instruction that previously failed to produce results.
Delaware would not necessarily have to copy Mississippi. A graduated approach could require:
Early identification of reading difficulties.
An individual reading plan.
Intensive intervention.
Summer instruction.
Multiple opportunities to demonstrate competency.
A parent, teacher and principal review before promotion.
Appropriate exemptions.
Corrective action when a school repeatedly produces low results.
That would preserve professional judgment while making third-grade reading more than an annual statistic.
Accountability involves changing course
“Accountability involves changing course that goes beyond receiving a report and acknowledging disappointing results”, says Nancy Mercante, President of Citizens for Delaware Schools.
“It includes transparent reporting by every school board to the community about progress and setbacks. Every board must make academic achievement their top priority and engage in monthly discussions about improving it. Meeting thir goals will require particular attention to high-needs students, who keep falling further behind.”
A board’s response could include:
Strengthening implementation.
Directing more support toward struggling schools.
Revising an intervention.
Redirecting resources.
Replacing an ineffective program.
Requiring a school-specific corrective plan.
Making leadership changes when warranted.
The objective should not be to punish schools for serving high-need students. It should be to prevent persistently low performance from becoming accepted.
Promising programs need further evidence
The eight Delaware schools receiving literacy coaching and having comparable data averaged gains of nearly 7 percentage points.
That is approximately the annual statewide gain Delaware now needs to reach the 2028 target.
The results warrant further examination, but responsible expansion requires answers:
How much did the coaching cost?
How often did coaches work with teachers?
What other instructional changes occurred?
Did school leadership or enrollment change?
How did comparable schools perform without coaches?
Can the gains be sustained?
Does Delaware have enough qualified personnel to expand the program?
A program should not be considered successful merely because it was launched, fully staffed or well received. The ultimate measure is whether students receiving the service make meaningful and sustained progress.
Delaware must define the path
Delaware has defined where it wants third-grade reading proficiency to be in 2028.
Reaching that target will require interim measurements that show whether students are on track, clear responsibility for implementation and a defined response when strategies fail.
Otherwise, the 53% target risks becoming an aspiration rather than an accountability measure.
Coming Friday: Delaware’s new funding model will give school boards greater discretion over education resources. Part 3 examines how boards can use academic evidence, professional guidance and community participation to make better literacy decisions.
The couple's decision to move back to Britain comes after a high-profile split and tell-all memoir. Here are the biggest moments from a tumultuous eight years.
In a new video shared first with CBS News, Tulsi Gabbard said doctors discovered the cancer, a sacral chordoma, a rare tumor, after her husband, Abraham Williams, experienced back pain.
The Elden Ring creator is known for epic single-player RPGs, but its new action game is all about multiplayer interactions: fighting, chasing, befriending, even … proposing?
Lowanro City’s skyline is dominated by an oppressive clock tower, silhouetted against a moody red sky and an impossibly large, ominous moon. A retractable bridge splits the map in two, and a network of slimy sewers runs beneath the city streets, offering flanking routes for crafty players. This layered and multi-tiered map bears all the hallmarks of the team behind some of the most memorable stomping grounds in video games.
But The Duskbloods, which I recently spent two days playing in Tokyo, is a strange departure from developer FromSoftware’s usual offerings. These have included massive single-player RPGs with light, experimental multiplayer components such as Elden Ring and Bloodborne. Those games have always attracted duellists – players who love to invade other people’s games to fight them to the death – but this Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive is a different proposition entirely.
Administration’s plan to scrap drilling-free buffer zone around New Mexico site prompts scrutiny from Unesco
The Trump administration’s push to expand oil and gas extraction across the US is set to bring drilling near cherished natural and cultural sites, raising alarm among conservationists and prompting questions from the UN’s heritage body.
Unesco said it has received information on the administration’s plan to scrap a drilling-free buffer zone around the Chaco Culture national historical park in New Mexico, a world heritage site and one of the most important cultural areas in the US. A Unesco spokesperson said it has procedures regarding “potential threats” to a world heritage property and was awaiting a response from the federal government as to its impact.
In 2024, Constance Soule got a surprise from her landlord: a “notice of termination” that gave her 10 days to move out of her apartment.
Soule, a disabled Alzheimer’s patient with a housing voucher, had paid her rent at a Larkspur, California complex managed by Greystar, the country’s largest apartment manager. But she was about to be evicted from her home across from the Golden Gate Bridge solely over utility charges, court documents show.
Crustaceans are the subject of tests to see if alkalis added to seawater, so it absorbs more CO2, harm marine life. But Trump’s halt to funding threatens to scupper the research
For many in the US region of New England, the lobster roll is synonymous with summertime. Loaded into a toasted bun, chunks of the sweet meat are served hot and soaked in butter, or chilled and slathered in mayonnaise with celery and herbs.
The only thing more debated than the recipe is the price: the once-humble roll now routinely fetches $30 (£22), or even $50, in a sign of the changing times – and seas.
Scott Lord brings in his catch of lobster to the wharf in Tenants Harbor, Maine
A member of the online extremist network "764," which targets children and minors online, received a record 77-year federal prison sentence on Wednesday.
When Daniel arrived in the U.S. about two decades ago, he came on a legal tourist visa. Once here, having fled his home country in South America, he filed an asylum application. A judge, however, eventually denied his claim.
Then 11 years ago, he married his partner, a U.S. citizen. Together, they had two children, who are also citizens. The couple filed a petition to grant him legal status through their marriage, but then Daniel was issued a deportation order, which presented a barrier in his case.
It’s hard to comprehend how it can be so difficult to legally stay with one’s family, but Daniel, for whom The Intercept is using a pseudonym, would soon face an even more mystifying hurdle: He recently received a letter from the government saying he owes about $368,000, according to his attorney, who recounted his tale.
Last year, President Donald Trump issued an executive order using a never-before-touched law to levy fines on an immigrant for each day he “willfully fails or refuses” to leave after receiving a removal order. Trump’s order also increased the fine from $500 to $998 per day to, supposedly, update it for inflation.
“It’s ‘Hurry and pay — oh, by the way, we’re not going to give you any appropriate information.’”
The Trump administration quickly started issuing fines as high as $1.8 million — the maximum penalty for the maximum five-year period, although unpaid fines can also accrue interest — to immigrants last year. As of July, more than 100,000 immigrants had received notices of fines, totaling more than $84 million, according to the government.
The administration says it will forgive the debts if immigrants leave the country.
Daniel is eager to pay as much as he can, fearing the financial and immigration repercussions of not responding to the notice he received. But there’s a big problem: He can’t.
And it’s not for a lack of funds. Instead, Daniel simply doesn’t have the information necessary to make a payment; the government never provided it to him. The letter he received informing him of the fines he owed had a blank field where there should have been an identification number for the online payments system. (The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment.)
Daniel and his wife tried putting his Social Security number and the alien number that tracks him in the immigration system into the website. Neither worked. His wife even tried calling to find out how to pay, only to sit on hold for over an hour and a half and then have the call disconnect.
“It’s ‘Hurry and pay — oh, by the way, we’re not going to give you any appropriate information,’” said Melanie Zamenhof, a senior attorney on the New York Legal Response Team at Neighbors Link, who has been helping Daniel.
Daniel’s experience is not unique. Zamenhof hasn’t had a single immigrant client who was able to successfully pay the fine the administration levied against them. No one at her organization has, either.
No Way to Pay
The letters immigrants are receiving about the fines are typically brief.
They include the date an immigrant was issued an order of removal and a checked box saying, “You willfully failed or refused to depart from the United States pursuant to the order.” Based on that, the letters say, “you are subject to a civil monetary penalty.”
The letters don’t explain how the figures have been calculated, whether interest has been applied and at what rate, or even when the fines started being tolled or when they might stop.
The letters say recipients only have 15 business days after issuance to formally contest the fines, though many received them after the period had expired.
“Like any bill that anyone receives,” Zamenhof said, “you always want an explanation of benefits, some breakdown.”
This year, the helpline at Neighbors Link started getting calls from about a dozen immigrants saying they’d received letters. The callers asked the attorneys where they should go to pay what they were told they owe.
“All the attorneys are like, ‘What a great question. Where do you pay it?’” Zamenhof said.
Finding a working website to pay the fines leads to dead ends. Typically, immigration-related fees are paid to other agencies, such as the Department of Justice or U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, but none of those avenues work for the failure-to-leave fines.
“Where do you pay it?”
Instead, a sheet included with the government letters offers “payment options.” Those include a QR code that points to pay.gov and instructions to search for “DHS Civil Penalty and Fee” in a box on the website.
The pay.gov website is frequently down, Zamenhof said, and when it’s working, the option to pay the civil penalty is sometimes not on the dropdown menu.
The government also no longer accepts cashier’s checks or money orders, Zamenhof said, which means the fines can only be paid with a debit or credit card — a hurdle on its own for any immigrant who can’t qualify for a U.S. bank account yet.
Meanwhile, to get through the payment system an immigrant must have a payor number; the information sheet says they need a “penalty tracking number.” That’s supposed to be on the letters they receive about their fines, but Zamenhof has seen multiple letters like Daniel’s, where the field for the number is left blank.
Even if someone were able to get through to a payment page, most don’t have these vast sums of money at hand. Attorneys at Neighbors Link have seen amounts in the hundreds of thousands of dollars; the fines go as high as $1,820,352.
A recent report from the New York University Law School’s Immigrant Rights Clinic found that none of the immigrant advocates they spoke to had clients who were able to pay.
“They’re always going for the maximum amount that they think they can charge based on just the passage of time,” said Hasan Shafiqullah, the supervising attorney for immigration at the Legal Aid Society. “Nobody has that money laying around.”
A Willful Failure?
There doesn’t appear to be any way to make a partial payment or set up a payment plan. All the while, the fines and interest keep accruing as people are unable to pay any of it off. Even if someone pays the entire amount, it’s not clear that will stop more fines from accruing.
The Legal Aid Society is among a coalition that sued the Department of Homeland Security over the fines, arguing that they have not been legally assessed nor that recipients have a meaningful opportunity to contest them.
“They’re not making an individualized determination about: ‘Am I unwillful?’” Shafiqullah argued. “The fact that I have a removal order and I’m physically present isn’t enough to show that I willfully failed to depart. Y’all didn’t make an individual determination, there’s no space on the form to do that.”
According to the New York University report, 71 percent of survey respondents had legal immigration status or protection against removal or were in the process of pursuing remedies.
The immigrants who come to the Legal Aid Society often have or are seeking permission to stay in the country. Some have an order of supervision from ICE that allows them to stay and work; others are seeking legal status through visas for victims of crime or through their family members.
Some of the people facing the fines have even successfully reopened their immigration cases and no longer have an order of removal.
“They’re not willfully failing to depart, they’re doing all the things they’re entitled to do under the law,” he said.
Even when immigrants in these situations have appealed their fines, Shafiqullah said, they’ve been denied.
Failure to pay could result in the government seizing assets, including people’s homes, or wage or tax refund garnishment. As of May, the administration had initiated over 50 lawsuits against immigrants to get them to pay, in some cases seeking their tax refunds. One immigrant woman says the Treasury Department seized her and her U.S. citizen’s joint tax refund and reported her to credit bureaus.
The administration is also sending the debts to collections agencies, which are adding hundreds of thousands on to the original amounts in administrative fees.
Not paying could also harm potential pathways to legal immigration status: Judges can deem unpaid debt to the government a negative factor — potentially leading green card applicants to be labeled as “public charges,” blocking them.
Zamenhof, the lawyer from Neighbors Link, has been urging clients to document their attempts to pay their fines — recording how many phone calls they made and taking screenshots of the faulty website portal being down or broken — in case their debt is brought before a judge.
Daniel and his wife are ready to pay a quarter of what the government says he owes and find a way to pay down the rest, though they would still like to understand a breakdown of how the charges and interest were calculated.
“They’re very eager to comply with this, even though they dispute and don’t agree with the total amount,” Zamenhof said.
Constant Fear
For now, Daniel lives in constant fear because he can’t pay. He worries that his wages, tax refund, and children’s college fund could all be at risk of government seizure. Will debt collectors show up at the couple’s door and shake them down? Worse, will ICE show up and detain Daniel?
Even if none of this comes to pass, there’s still an open question: Will owing outstanding fines to the government harm his attempt to reopen and terminate the removal order against him and become a green card holder through his wife? What will a judge say?
“Is it now going to be seen as a negative factor,” Zamenhof said, “despite all of our best efforts to comply?”
BERKELEY, Calif., Aug. 20, 2026 — Rigetti Computing, Inc., a pioneer in full-stack quantum computing, has announced a new operating structure designed to scale deployment of on-premises quantum systems, strengthen end-to-end operational execution, and further focus its engineering resources on quantum processor development.
Rigetti is establishing a dedicated Systems Delivery organization and creating the role of Chief Operating Officer to lead manufacturing operations, systems delivery, commercial functions, and customer-facing engineering. Quantum processor architecture, chip development, and hardware engineering will be consolidated under the Chief Technology Officer.
The Company has seen increased demand for customer deployments of on-premises systems, ranging from 9-qubit Novera systems to large-scale 108-qubit Cepheus-class systems. Historically, installation and customer support activities have been supported within the engineering organization. The new structure creates dedicated leadership and resources for system deployment and customer success, while enabling engineering teams to concentrate on advancing processor performance and the Company’s published technology roadmap, including its target of 99.5% median two-qubit gate fidelity on Cepheus-1-108Q.
David Rivas, who has served as Rigetti’s Chief Technology Officer since February 2023, has been appointed Chief Operating Officer. In this newly created role, Rivas will oversee fabrication operations, systems delivery, software engineering, applications, business development, government programs, supply chain, and facilities.
Andrew Bestwick, Ph.D., currently Senior Vice President, Quantum Systems, has been appointed Chief Technology Officer. Dr. Bestwick has led the architecture of Rigetti’s Cepheus-class multi-chip systems and will oversee quantum processor development, chip fabrication development, and hardware engineering. The technology organization will remain Rigetti’s largest engineering organization, underscoring the Company’s continued focus on advancing processor performance and executing its technology roadmap.
Both executives report to Rigetti’s President and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Subodh Kulkarni. The appointments are effective August 18.
“Rigetti’s growing deployment activity makes this the right time to establish a dedicated organization focused on delivering and supporting systems for customers,” said Dr. Kulkarni. “This structure gives our commercial and operational teams clear, end-to-end accountability for scaling system delivery, while giving our technology organization even greater focus on quantum processor innovation and performance. David brings deep experience building the operational capabilities that support our systems and customers, and Andrew brings exceptional technical leadership to our chiplet-based architecture. Together, we believe these appointments position Rigetti to execute across both customer deployments and our technology roadmap.”
About David Rivas
David Rivas joined Rigetti in March 2019 as Senior Vice President of Systems and Services, where he oversaw the engineering and operations of Rigetti’s Quantum Cloud Services platform, and was appointed Chief Technology Officer in February 2023. He previously held executive positions at Sun Microsystems, Nokia, Bolt Threads, and Stage 3 Systems, including leadership of field engineering and services organizations of product management, and core engineering organizations. He holds a B.S. in electrical engineering and an M.S. in electrical engineering from the University of California, San Diego.
About Andrew Bestwick
Andrew Bestwick, Ph.D., joined Rigetti in August 2015 and has held technical and leadership positions spanning chip fabrication, circuit design, cryogenic RF hardware engineering, and system architecture. He was appointed Senior Vice President, Quantum Systems in January 2024. He previously worked in management consulting at Bain & Company. He holds an A.B. in physics and mathematics from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in physics from Stanford University.
About Rigetti
Rigetti is a pioneer in full-stack quantum computing. Rigetti quantum computers are based on superconducting qubits, which are widely believed to be the leading qubit modality given their maturity, clear path to scaling, and fast gate speeds. Rigetti quantum computing systems achieve gate speeds of 50-70 nanoseconds, which is about 10,000 times faster than trapped-ion systems and 100 times faster than neutral-atom systems.
Rigetti sells on-premises 9-qubit to 108-qubit quantum computing systems, which support national laboratories and quantum computing centers. Rigetti’s Cepheus 36-qubit to 108-qubit systems are based on the Company’s proprietary chiplet-based technology and include the Company’s control electronics. Rigetti’s 9-qubit Novera QPU supports a broader R&D community with a high-performance, on-premises QPU designed to plug into a customer’s existing cryogenic and control systems.
The Company operates quantum computers over the cloud through its Rigetti Quantum Cloud Services (QCS) platform, enabling global enterprise, government, and research clients to pursue R&D. The Company’s proprietary quantum-classical infrastructure provides high-performance integration with public and private clouds for practical quantum computing.
Rigetti developed the industry’s first multi-chip quantum processor for scalable quantum computing systems. Leveraging this proprietary technology, Rigetti deployed the industry’s largest multi-chip quantum computer in 2026 with Cepheus-1-108Q, based on twelve 9-qubit chiplets tiled together. The Company designs and manufactures its chips in-house at Fab-1, the industry’s first dedicated and integrated quantum device manufacturing facility. Learn more at https://www.rigetti.com.
In announcing the latest FBI annual report on nationwide crime, President Donald Trump wrongly cast the decline in crime in 2025 as a dramatic turnaround and made misleading claims about the impact of his administration’s policies.
Speaking to an audience of law enforcement officers at the Nassau County police academy on Aug. 14, Trump said that his speech was meant to “celebrate the historic progress our administration is making together with law enforcement partners nationwide to restore law and order in America.” The FBI that day released data collected from local law enforcement agencies showing that both violent and property crime nationwide declined from 2024 to 2025, with the largest one-year drops in the violent crime and murder rates since the FBI began publishing these estimates in 1936.
The president accurately cited those large one-year reductions, but he ran afoul of the facts and available evidence in taking credit for them:
Trump claimed that the decline happened “because of what the federal government’s doing.” Criminology experts say there are many plausible factors and the exact reasons are unclear.
He claimed that the U.S. experienced “a horrible four years” of violent crime during the Biden administration. But violent crime fell during the second half of Biden’s presidency and was lower in the last year of Joe Biden’s term compared with Trump’s final year in office.
Trump vastly overstated the decline in crime since his deployment of National Guard troops in Washington, D.C., Memphis and New Orleans, citing 70% or 80% reductions that don’t match up with police data. Experts also say the troops aren’t the primary reason for crime dropping in those cities.
The president suggested that an executive order he signed upon taking office in 2025 contributed to a significant decline in police officers dying in the line of duty that year. However, the law enforcement organization that keeps records of such deaths said the decrease was “likely” due to other factors.
Trump’s speech embracing the FBI’s report for 2025 is noteworthy because he previously disparaged the FBI reports as “fake,” “phony” and “a fraud” when they showed a decline in crime under Biden.
Reasons for Crime Drop Unclear
Trump cited several statistics from the FBI report and claimed credit for the 2024-to-2025 crime reduction. But criminology experts have said the reasons behind the decrease are myriad and unclear. Also, the large single-year declines in 2025 follow a few years of crime dropping after a spike during the 2020 pandemic.
“And with your help, last year, we achieved the largest drop in murder rate ever recorded, the lowest level in 125 years. That’s since the year 1900,” Trump said, adding that according to the FBI crime report, “we achieved the single largest reduction in violent crime in American history.”
Trump is correct that the FBI report says the data it collects from local law enforcement agencies show the 2024-to-2025 decreases in both the violent crime rate and the murder rate were the largest one-year declines since the FBI began releasing the nationwide crime estimates in 1936. The violent crime rate went down by 9.7%, and the murder and nonnegligent manslaughter rate dropped by 18.5%, the FBI said.
The data are estimates based on figures submitted by more than 17,000 local law enforcement agencies covering about 96% of the U.S. population. The violent crime rate went from 362.9 offenses per 100,000 population in 2024 to 327.6 per 100,000 population last year. The murder rate dropped from 5.1 per 100,000 to 4.1.
Trump’s reference to the murder rate being the lowest since 1900 comes from a report by the Council on Criminal Justice, a nonprofit think tank, which used FBI statistics dating back to 1960 and public health data going back to 1900 in determining that. (See Figure 20 in CCJ’s year-end report for 2025.)
The murder rate is the lowest over that time, per CCJ’s methodology. The FBI said the 4.1 rate is tied with the bureau’s 1955 and 1956 figures. (CCJ explained to us that it didn’t use the FBI estimates prior to 1960 because they weren’t standardized and are considered less reliable.)
Regardless, the murder rate is now at a historic low.
“Overall, it was the largest percentage point drop in murder, violent crime and property crime ever recorded,” Jeff Asher, a co-founder of AH Datalytics, a consulting firm that compiles crime data, wrote on Substack. “With murder you have to go all the way back to 2024 to find the previous largest one-year drop in murder and before that the previous largest one-year drop was in 2023.”
In his speech, Trump went on to credit his administration. “But we have the numbers down because of what the federal government’s doing,” the president said. “We get no — we get no credit for it. … They like to take all the credit, but everyone knows we’ve done an amazing job.”
In an Aug. 18 press release, the White House similarly said that Trump and his administration “have delivered the most dramatic decline in violent crime in American history.” It wrongly said the FBI crime estimates “mark the decisive reversal of the crime crisis Democrats left behind.” As we explain later in this article, the rates for violent crimes were lower in 2024 than in 2020, Trump’s last year of his first term. The press release went on to cite figures on arrests made by the FBI.
Presidents of both parties often take credit for the good things that happen while they’re in office, but experts say the reasons behind the 2025 crime figures aren’t yet known.
“The homicide drop is historic and crystal clear. But right now, what’s driving it is about as clear as a glass of milk,” Adam Gelb, the president and CEO of the Council on Criminal Justice, said in a statement. “Rates are falling in cities with very different public safety strategies, economic conditions, and political leadership.”
Criminology experts have told us before that one or even a few years of crime data isn’t enough to draw conclusions.
“As with every edition with these kind of reports, the feeding frenzy begins to take credit,” Matthew Cavedon, director of the Cato Institute’s Project on Criminal Justice, told the Washington Post. “Everybody wants to be able to go to the public and the voters and say, ‘This is exactly what did it.’ It’s a bit of a fool’s errand to even try.”
The Trump administration, however, is taking a victory lap. We asked the White House if there were reports or other information it could point to showing the crime drop in 2025 was due to the administration’s actions or policies. “President Trump is right: thanks to this Administration’s tough-on-crime policies, 2025 showed the largest year-to-year decrease in violent crime. President Trump has restored law and order,” Lauren Bis, a White House spokeswoman, said in response.
In an interview, Gelb told us that there could be some impact on crime from what the administration is doing, but we don’t know what that is yet.
He said that attrition is one factor that could be playing a role, as there are fewer high-risk people on the street. Factors contributing to that, he said, include a surplus in murders beginning in 2020 (resulting in more arrests and some criminals killed), a spike in drug overdose deaths, and the federal government’s immigration enforcement and other activities. While clearly not all those who die from drug overdoses, or all immigrants swept up by the federal government, have committed crimes, some percentage of them would have some involvement in criminal activity.
Available data have shown that the majority of immigration enforcement by the federal government has swept up people without convictions or charges for violent crime. A February CBS News report said that about 14% of nearly 400,000 arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2025 involved those with charges or convictions for violent crimes, according to an internal Department of Homeland Security document. We’ve also reported that an increasing percentage of ICE arrests over Trump’s first year back in office were of those with no criminal convictions or pending charges, whether for violent or lesser offenses. Still, the increased enforcement does result in some number of violent criminals being detained.
Gelb cautioned, however, that reducing crime isn’t “as simple as taking bad guys off the street,” because of the replacement effect, where those arrested are quickly replaced by someone else in a criminal organization, such as in gang activity, drug dealing or organized retail theft.
Asked when there might be clarity on the Trump administration’s impact on crime, Gelb said, “We’re still trying to understand the crime drop that started in the early 1990s. So, I don’t think we can expect definitive conclusions that with any precision assign credit to any particular policy, program, party or leader. … But with careful and rigorous analysis, we can get a lot closer.”
Next month, CCJ is convening about 50 crime researchers and scholars to discuss the reasons behind the decline in crime in recent years, and they’re looking at about 40 different plausible factors. Gelb said that they fall into three buckets: criminal justice operations, strategies, policies and programs; technology; and social and cultural shifts.
He went on to list several factors in each of those buckets. Criminal justice would include local and federal policies under multiple administrations, community violence intervention programs, and mayoral offices’ whole-of-government strategies that involve everything from policing to improving street lighting. Technology includes a “massive expansion in the last few years of surveillance” through cameras; a shift to a cashless society, which reduces robberies; and improvements in emergency medical care that can lower the lethality rate from assaults or robberies. Finally, the broad social and cultural changes include people drinking less, particularly young people, and kids spending more time at home alone — on their phones — rather than being out with friends.
“You know the movie ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’?” Gelb asked. “That’s what we’ve got here. And when you have so many, so many things happening at once, it can be extremely hard to disentangle.”
Violent Crime Under Biden
Trump also claimed that the U.S. had “four years in hell” because of violent crime under Biden. But the violent crime rate was lower when Biden left office than when Biden was inaugurated.
“And in the past four years, before I took office, our country was overrun by violent criminals,” Trump said. “I mean, you remember just a couple of years ago, how bad it was, right? It was really bad, foreign gangs, savage thugs with Biden, sleepy Joe. What a — what a horrible four years. That was four years in hell. We lived in hell.”
FBI data show the overall violent crime rate did increase a smidge during the first half of Biden’s term. It was 389.5 per 100,000 population in 2022, a slight bump from the rate of 389.2 per 100,000 in 2020, Trump’s last full year in office, when violent crime spiked during the pandemic. (See Table 1 after downloading the FBI’s 2025 estimations for crime in the U.S.)
But violent crime began to fall in 2023 and the rate was down to 362.9 per 100,000 in 2024. That was 26.3 fewer offenses per 100,000 population than in 2020 and even down from the pre-pandemic rate of 368.6 per 100,000 in 2019.
In fact, the rates of murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault were all lower in 2024 than in 2020. The murder rate in particular dropped from 6.6 in 2020 to 5.1 in 2024, and the number of murders declined by about 21%. At the same time, the rate of aggravated assaults declined by 13.7 offenses per 100,000 and the raw number went down by almost 2%.
Impact of National Guard
Trump touted his efforts to deploy the National Guard and federal law enforcement to assist several cities with crime, and he said it has paid dramatic dividends. But he vastly overstated the drop in crime post-National Guard. And crime experts say the infusion of National Guard troops is not the primary reason for the reduced crime those cities have experienced.
Members of the U.S. National Guard patrol near the Washington Monument on the National Mall with the Lincoln Memorial in the background on Aug. 6 in Washington, D.C. Photo by Kevin Carter/Getty Images.
Via presidential memos, Trump deployed the National Guard in several cities to focus on public safety: in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 11, 2025; in Memphis on Sept. 15; and in New Orleans in late December.
“In Memphis, crime is down 71%. In New Orleans, crime is down 75%. And in D.C., crime is down 81%,” Trump said. “I’ll tell you, because D.C. is very personal for me, but in D.C., crime is — it was so bad when I got there. A year and a half ago, people were being murdered, three a week on average. We have very few murders anymore.”
There were 16 homicides in Washington, D.C., in July, more than the “three a week on average” Trump said was the norm before he deployed the National Guard there.
But overall, crime and homicides are generally down in the three cities where Trump deployed the National Guard, just not by nearly as much as Trump claimed. And crime had been trending down for at least a few years prior to the National Guard arrival.
The White House did not respond to our question about the source of Trump’s figures.
Washington, D.C.
On Aug. 11, 2025, Trump declared what he called “Liberation Day in D.C.” to “rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse.” He put the Metropolitan Police Department under temporary federal control and deployed the National Guard to the nation’s capital to help with law enforcement.
Data from the city’s Metropolitan Police Department indicate a 20% reduction in overall crime in D.C. so far in 2026, compared with a similar period in 2025.
Digging into the numbers, there were 67 homicides between Jan. 1 and Aug. 14, 33% fewer than over the same period in 2025 (nearly entirely before the National Guard deployment). Robberies over the same period were down 14%. But sex abuse cases were up 2%, and assaults with a dangerous weapon rose 40%. Overall, violent crime rose 4%. Property crimes declined by 23%.
“If you want to argue that there was an additional decline on top of that [the downward trend] due to all these interventions, you could plausibly make that argument,” Asher, with AH Datalytics, told the Washington Post. “But you can’t make the argument that the intervention caused that decline or even was a major factor in those trends turning over.”
Thaddeus Johnson, an assistant professor at Georgia State University and a senior fellow at the Council on Criminal Justice, echoed that conclusion, telling the Washington Post, “One would be hard-pressed to say that it didn’t play a role, but you would also be hard-pressed to say it was the only or primary reason why we’ve seen reductions.”
“DC homicides fell from 187 in 2024, the year before [Trump] took office, to 127 in 2025, and are down another 32% so far this year, from about 3.6 murders a week in 2024 to about 2 a week now,” Richard Hahn, senior manager for research and evidence in the Niskanen Center’s criminal justice department, told us via email. “That is a roughly 40% improvement on the pace he inherited, not 81%, and the sharpest single drop (274 homicides in 2023 to 187 in 2024) happened entirely under local policing before his term began.”
Hahn is one of the co-authors of a report from the Niskanen Center, a centrist think tank, titled, “Washington, D.C.’s Crime Decline and Its Lessons for American Policing.”
The analysis concluded that deployment of the National Guard to D.C. gets “some credit” for “a narrow slice of crime,” Hahn told us. “The Guard was posted in tourist corridors, transit hubs, and federal areas rather than the neighborhoods where violence concentrates, and Guard members could detain but not arrest. We found the deployment produced a real reduction, about 24%, in opportunistic property crime where the Guard was visible, and no detectable effect on violent crime. That is what the research on policing would predict: visible uniformed presence deters crimes of opportunity, but it does not reach violence rooted in interpersonal disputes.”
According to the report, “What the Guard brought was a massive, sudden shock from the visible presence of uniformed military personnel on the streets of Washington almost overnight. For crimes driven by opportunistic calculation, that visibility appears to have mattered. For violent crime, which is less deterrable by patrol presence alone, it did not.”
The report concluded that while the Guard’s deployment “reduced the occurrence of specific crimes, it was (and remains) a blunt and expensive instrument.” The report’s analysis found that “a targeted, data-driven policing strategy optimized on where and when crime actually occurs could achieve comparable or better outcomes at a fraction of the cost.”
Memphis
Last September, Trump’s executive order created the Memphis Safe Task Force, which included sending hundreds of federal law enforcement agents and deploying 1,450 National Guard troops to the city.
In Memphis, total crime dropped nearly 39% from the period of Oct. 1 to Aug. 18 compared with the same period the year before, according to city data. That includes drops in crimes across the board: -41% for murder; -30% for aggravated assault; -32% for sexual assault; -48% for robbery; -28% for burglary; -36% for larceny; and -62% for motor vehicle theft.
Memphis Mayor Paul Young told Action News 5 in Memphis that the task force “amplified” state and city efforts — including millions in state funds targeting violent crime and other targeted enforcement approaches — that had already resulted in crime dropping 27% in the year before the task force was created.
“I think two things can be true at the same time,” Tyreece Miller, U.S. marshal for the Western District of Tennessee, told Action News 5. “I think crime was trending downward. But I think the task force certainly escalated the decrease in crime.”
New Orleans
In late December 2025, Trump deployed 350 National Guard members to New Orleans. But the results have been mixed.
In New Orleans, crime began to markedly drop in late 2023, but leveled off in mid-2025. Since the National Guard arrived in New Orleans in late December, crime overall has remained relatively unchanged. The rolling yearly total number of crimes on Aug. 18 was 13,375, up slightly from the yearly total ending Aug. 17, 2025, of 13,207. Year-to-date, overall crime is up 4.8% compared with the same period last year; murder is down 23.9%; and sexual assault is up 1.6%.
“The National Guard has had no impact on New Orleans’ murder trend,” Asher, of AH Datalytics, told us via email. “To begin with, the Guard is deployed largely in the French Quarter where gun violence is very rare. In addition, shootings in New Orleans began falling dramatically in mid-2023 with the city experiencing a 60 percent drop in shooting incidents between mid-2023 and early 2025. This trend began long before the National Guard arrived and almost certainly has been caused by other factors.”
Hahn also cautioned not to ascribe too much credit to National Guard deployment in the three cities.
“The whole country is in a historic crime decline,” Hahn said, citing the FBI’s 2025 report that found the largest one-year drops in violent crime and murder since the bureau started tracking the data. “The Council on Criminal Justice found homicide down 21% in 2025 across its big-city sample, and down another 18% in the first half of 2026, putting the country on track for a historic low. Against that backdrop, the three deployment cities look much like everywhere else. When crime is falling nearly everywhere, falling crime in three cities is not sufficient evidence that any particular intervention worked.”
Trump, meanwhile, said he stands ready to implement similar federal surges in other cities that are receptive.
“For other cities like New York, Chicago, L.A., all they have to do is call us and we will stop that crime,” Trump said. “We’ll stop that horrible crime.”
But Hahn said the data do not support that, as big cities around the country saw major crime drops over the last several years, commensurate to the cities where Trump sent the National Guard.
“Crime has not dropped more dramatically in the deployment cities than in New York, Chicago, and LA,” Hahn said. “In 2025, the NYPD recorded the fewest shooting incidents in its recorded history (688, down 24% from 2024) with murders down 20%. Chicago ended 2025 with 411 homicides, down 30% and the fewest in decades, per CPD data. Los Angeles recorded its fewest homicides since 1966, down 19%. And Denver led the nation’s large cities with a 41% homicide decline. None of these cities had a Guard deployment. That they matched or beat the deployment cities without federal troops is strong evidence that the Guard is not what is driving the numbers.”
Decline in Police Dying on Duty
Trump appeared to credit an executive order he signed in early 2025 for last year’s decline in the number of police officers who died in the line of duty. But that was not one of the reasons for the decrease that was cited by the law enforcement organization that tracks those deaths.
“Shortly after taking office, I signed a historic executive order directing that anyone convicted of killing a police officer should face the death penalty,” Trump said. “And last year, deaths of law enforcement — well, think of this — deaths of law enforcement officers in the line of duty fell to an 80-year low.”
Trump did sign an executive order on Jan. 20, 2025, directing the attorney general to “pursue the death penalty for all crimes of a severity demanding its use,” including “murder of a law-enforcement officer.” The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund also reported that 109 officers died in the line of duty in 2025, representing a 26% decrease from 148 officers in 2024.
The 2025 total — which included 45 officers who died after being shot — was the lowest since 93 officers died in the line of duty in 1943, according to NLEOMF figures. But as far as the reason for the overall decline in 2025, the NLEOMF did not mention Trump’s executive order.
“We lament to document even a single such death, but this encouraging downward trend in fatalities likely reflects the continued adoption of proven best practices by police, sheriff, and corrections agencies, as well as a growing emphasis on the physical and psychological health of the men and women who work to keep our communities safe,” NLEOMF CEO Bill Alexander said in a statement in January. “These practices align directly with — and underscore the importance of — NLEOMF’s Officer Safety and Wellness initiatives, which are designed to help ensure that more officers return home safely at the end of each shift.”
Experts on the death penalty previously told us that there is no conclusive evidence that capital punishment is “a very strong preventative” to violent crimes such as murder, as Trump has claimed.
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TALLAHASSEE, Fla., Aug. 20, 2026 — Researchers at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering and the Florida State University-headquartered National High Magnetic Field Laboratory have designed new quantum computing architecture that uses magnetic levitation to smooth over design flaws in the intricate bits necessary to run a quantum computer.
Study co-author Wei Guo, a professor at FSU, the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering and the MagLab.
Quantum bits, or qubits, can be as small as a few nanometers, and manufacturing them inevitably introduces random flaws onto their surface. By using superconducting magnets to levitate neon particles, the research addresses a challenge in electron-on-neon qubit devices: the tendency for electrons to become trapped by random tiny bumps on the neon surface, making them function unpredictably.
The study, published in the American Physical Society journal PRX Quantum, could help pave the way for more reproducible and scalable quantum computing technologies.
“Instead of hoping that the right nanoscale feature appears in the right place, we want to decide where each electron qubit sits,” said study co-author Wei Guo, a professor at Florida State University, the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, or MagLab. “Magnetic levitation gives us a way to place a clean neon carrier above the chip, while the chip still provides the circuitry needed to control and read the qubit. In this architecture, the qubit is no longer found by chance. It is built by design.”
What They Made: A New Design for Electron-On-Neon Qubits
The researchers proposed a chip design that uses superconducting loops to magnetically hold tiny solid-neon particles above the chip surface. Instead of placing a solid-neon film directly on the chip, where it can inherit roughness from the substrate underneath, the new architecture uses nearly spherical neon microparticles as carriers for electron qubits.
“A simple way to think about it is that we give the electron a tiny, clean, floating island to sit on, rather than asking it to find a good spot on a rough landscape,” said study co-author Yinghe Qi, a MagLab postdoctoral researcher. “The chip underneath still provides the microwave circuits needed to control and read the qubit.”
Why It Matters: Engineering a Better Chip
The work opens a path toward a new class of hybrid quantum devices, where clean quantum materials are integrated directly with chip-based control circuits.
“We have not built a full quantum computer in this paper, but we showed that the essential ingredients can work together in a realistic design: clean electron confinement, tunable qubit energy levels, strong coupling to microwave circuits and a way for neighboring qubits to communicate,” Guo said.
Technological Advantages
Unlike the bits in ordinary computers, which store information as 0s or 1s, qubits use the rules of quantum mechanics to process information that can represent multiple possibilities at the same time until it is measured. To build a useful quantum computer, researchers need qubits that are clean, stable, controllable and practical to arrange in large numbers on a chip — a mix of properties that is difficult to achieve.
A diagram showing qubit design developed by researchers. High-temperature superconducting loops magnetically hold tiny solid-neon particles above the chip surface. Credit: Wei Guo.
Electron-on-neon qubits, which use a single electron held above solid neon, are a promising platform for qubit design because of their accuracy and their ability to maintain their quantum information long enough to perform calculations. The electron sits in a clean environment, while the chip underneath provides the microwave circuits needed for control and readout.
The design shown in this study preserves the advantages of these qubits while using levitation to remove the randomness of a bumpy surface.
“The main advantage is reproducibility,” said study co-author Yiming Xing, an assistant professor in the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering. “Right now, useful electron-on-neon qubits depend on random nanoscale surface features, almost like hoping the right defect appears in the right place. Our approach replaces those random traps with designed, clean neon carriers placed at intended locations on a chip. If demonstrated experimentally, this could make electron-on-neon devices more predictable, reduce unwanted charge noise and make it easier to build larger arrays of qubits.”
Future Research: Building a Working Prototype
The researchers plan to use their design to build a working prototype of an electron-on-neon qubit.
The main components of their design — superconducting loops, microwave resonators and patterned chip structures — are compatible with fabrication methods already used in quantum-device research, which will help researchers move from design to prototype and beyond.
Collaborators and Support
Co-authors on this study included FSU postdoctoral researchers Sosuke Inui and Charles Peretti. Dafei Jin, an associate professor at the University of Notre Dame, was also a co-author.
The project received support from the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory and the Florida State University Quantum Initiative. The FAMU Center for Quantum Science and Engineering supported contributions by Xing and supported the Notre Dame team through the National Science Foundation ExpandQISE grant administered by Florida A&M University.
Some political actors are warning that a vote during wartime, which would require changes to Ukraine’s constitution and other laws, could aid Russia by destabilizing the government and dividing society.
Despite policy victories over Flock, Americans are finding themselves under similar monitoring by a new company – or unable to remove the original cameras
Activists in Colorado thought they would be celebrating a victory against mass surveillance in December when the Longmont city council decided to let a contract with Flock Safety lapse.
But that excitement was cut short only months later when lawmakers voted to approve a new vendor to install automated license plate readers (ALPRs) on the city’s streets.
Avenal has been rocked by the council’s refusal to accept the results of a recall election – and the repercussions extend far beyond the Central valley
From the outside, the city of Avenal appears to embody every bit of its motto – an “oasis in the sun”. Approaching the community, passing through the dusty yellow hillsides of the Central valley, Avenal emerges with a sudden burst of green on the horizon.
Its small-town feel and quiet tree-lined streets offer respite from the bustling Interstate 5 about five miles away. But trouble is brewing here that has brought this lonesome city national attention.
Where Harry and Meghan will live, why they are returning and what it means for the rest of the royals were among the questions British media outlets are scrambling to answer.
Fashion site also broke rules on labelling by using terms ‘leather’ or ‘suede’ for synthetic products
The British online fashion seller Boohoo has been fined €2.3m (£2m) by France’s consumer watchdog for deceptive practices such as offering fake discounts.
The Manchester-based firm, whose parent company renamed itself Debenhams Group last year, was found to have exaggerated the discounts it was offering, giving shoppers a false impression of the savings they were making, according to the directorate-general for competition, consumer affairs and fraud control.
Far-right minister says those convicted in military courts of terror offences will be executed after passing of death penalty law that does not apply to Jewish extremists
Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has posted a gloating video of the construction of a gallows complex where Palestinians convicted of terror offences – but not Jewish extremists accused of similar crimes – will be hanged.
Ben-Givr, who has previously attracted international sanctions and condemnation for his activities, said the new execution site would be equipped with viewing booths for families of victims to watch the hangings.
Hours after Trump said he expects to hold new talks with Kim Jong Un, South Korea and Japan said several short-range missiles were launched by the North.
U.S. immigration officials worked with Iran to deport more than 100 Iranians to Iran in 2025, newly released emails show, revealing a working relationship between them despite tensions mounting at the time.
Max Lederer, who has served as the publisher of Stars and Stripes for 19 years, this week announced to colleagues his decision to retire on Sept. 30, citing fundamental differences with the Trump administration.
The founder of Evergrande, one of China’s largest property developers, has been sentenced to life in prison and had all of his personal property confiscated.
Hui Ka Yan, 67 and once named by Forbes as China’s richest man, with a net worth of $42.5bn (£31.2bn) in 2017, pleaded guilty in April to eight charges.
Washington, D.C. — A sweeping Trump administration effort to identify noncitizens who illegally voted has generated tens of thousands of investigative leads but only a few dozen election-related prosecutions, according to a ProPublica investigation based on internal emails, federal records and Justice Department data.
Homeland Security Investigations was directed to cross-reference state voter rolls with federal immigration databases, despite warnings from agency staff that incomplete identifying information could produce large numbers of false matches. Between January 2025 and May 2026, fewer than 150 suspected noncitizen voters were referred for prosecution, and just 41 were charged with voting illegally or related election offenses. More than 150 million people voted in the 2024 presidential election.
In Minnesota, investigators subpoenaed records involving about 130 people but referred only one case for prosecution. A senior federal prosecutor described the effort internally as “disjointed and disorganized.”
Career Justice Department lawyers also raised concerns that transferring voter data to Homeland Security could violate federal privacy protections. Some proposed safeguards were later abandoned.
The administration says the initiative is necessary to keep voter rolls accurate and prosecute illegal voting. However, state audits and previous studies have consistently found noncitizen voting to be exceedingly rare.
Former HSI officials also warned that redirecting agents toward election investigations has reduced resources available for drug trafficking, human trafficking and other complex federal cases.
Format would resemble that of Australian rules football
League will ditch conferences for five-division setup
Major League Soccer is planning a significant overhaul of its playoff format, multiple league and club sources told the Guardian this week. The changes, which would debut in 2028 alongside the league’s shift to a fall-to-spring schedule, could include a “double-elimination” component and see as many as 20 teams feature. Sources spoke on the condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to discuss the league’s plans.
The Guardian has viewed a potential schedule for the new format, in which the playoffs start in late April and unfold over roughly three weeks with MLS Cup being played on Sunday 21 May 2028. The changes to the playoff format would pair with long-reported changes to MLS’s regular season, with the league going to a five-division setup in place of its current Eastern and Western Conference structure.
Myles McGinley, managing director of the Cambridge OCR exam board, said more pupils are taking GCSE business studies than in previous years, describing this generation of young people as “increasingly entrepreneurial”.
He said business studies entries are a third higher than five years ago, adding: “The founders of some of the next great unicorn businesses may well be among those achieving GCSEs in business studies today.”
Alessandro Rapinese denies he is waging personal vendetta against cyclists amid a public backlash
The mayor of Como has set the wheels of controversy in motion for banning bikes in the walled historical centre of the lakeside city after being hit by one.
Alessandro Rapinese’s ban, which comes into force in September, targets about 30 streets and means cyclists, whether on e-bikes or push bikes, will have to dismount and walk through those areas.
Missile and drone attack one of heaviest since war began, with children’s hospital and residential areas hit
A heavy Russian missile and drone bombardment has killed at least 15 people in and around Kyiv in one of the most intense aerial attacks on Ukraine’s capital since the start of the war.
Vitali Klitschko, the city’s mayor, said homes, a school and a children’s medical centre were among the buildings damaged overnight in an attack that began at about midnight and was continuing into the early afternoon.
Almost one in four boys in England received top grades in maths while results in English improved across the board, helping to propel improved GCSE results for this year’s cohort of 16-year-olds.
The stronger performances in maths helped pupils taking GCSEs in year 11 reach a record level for higher grades in England outside the Covid pandemic years, when exams were replaced by teacher assessments.
Washington, D.C. — Thousands of National Guard troops deployed to Washington under President Donald Trump have played only a limited direct role in criminal cases, despite becoming a highly visible part of the administration’s effort to reduce crime in the capital.
A Reuters review of Superior Court records found Guard members mentioned in about 1.3% of criminal cases since the deployment began in August 2025. Reuters identified 217 cases involving troops, including 62 in which soldiers stopped suspects themselves and 43 where they assisted police. Many involved relatively minor offenses such as shoplifting or fare evasion.
The roughly 4,500 Guard members currently deployed outnumber the city’s approximately 3,200 police officers. Their primary assignment is what the Defense Department calls “presence patrols,” intended to deter crime. Troops can detain suspects but generally rely on police to make formal arrests.
Reuters found little Guard involvement in neighborhoods that accounted for 82% of Washington’s murders over the previous five years. A Niskanen Center study also found no measurable reduction in violent crime attributable to the deployment, though vehicle thefts declined.
The White House credits the broader federal crime initiative with improving public safety. Separate federal agencies have made thousands of arrests since the surge began, complicating efforts to isolate the Guard’s impact.
The Pentagon estimates keeping troops deployed through January 2029 will cost about $1.4 billion.
bryanandaimee shares a report from ScienceDaily: A Finnish study has found an unexpected association between screen use and cognitive performance. Children who accumulated more screen time as they grew up tended to show better cognitive processing during adolescence. One of the researchers cautions against viewing screen time as entirely harmful and says the goal should be to balance physical activity with screen use that encourages active thinking. [...] "The findings suggest that screen time can support children's and adolescents' cognitive processing. Presumably, the essential point here is what kind of things they do in their screen time. Teachers and parents should encourage children to use devices and screens in such ways that promote active thinking, problem-solving, creativity and learning," states Doctoral Researcher Petri Jalanko from the University of Jyvaskyla.
Digital activities that involve learning, creativity, problem-solving, or other forms of active mental engagement could potentially help explain the association observed in the study. "We should not regard screen time solely as harmful but seek balance between physical activity and screen time that promotes active thinking," Jalanko summarizes. The relationship between physical activity and cognition was more complicated. Among girls, greater amounts of light intensity physical activity since childhood were associated with better working memory during adolescence. Among boys, greater participation in guided physical activity from childhood through adolescence was linked to better working memory.
The researchers also found an unexpected pattern involving unsupervised exercise. Lower levels of self-reported unsupervised physical activity were associated with better cognitive processing in adolescence. By contrast, physical activity and sedentary time measured using a device that tracked heart rate and movement were not associated with cognitive processing. One possible explanation is that these sensors can measure movement and physiological activity but cannot determine exactly what a person is doing during periods of activity or inactivity. The findings have been published in the journal Pediatric Exercise Science.
Manny Rutinel hopes price-tag politics can win key voters in Colorado House race
During his presidential campaign in October 2024, Donald Trumpstaged a photo op at a McDonald’s franchise in Pennsylvania, where he was briefly taught how to work the fryer and drive-thru window at the closed restaurant, while making several unsubstantiated claims about Kamala Harris’s past summer job at McDonald’s.
The posturing around McDonald’s garnered significant publicity, as Trump and Republicans capitalized on an affordability crisis triggered by high inflation that occurred globally due to the Covid pandemic.
By now we know that charity, generosity and compassion are virtues that the US president doesn’t seem to have even in trace amounts
Many years ago, in the crowded corridor of a Manhattan hotel, I was surprised to find myself standing face-to-face with Imelda Marcos, then the first lady of the Philippines. At that time, she was said to possess 3,000 pairs of shoes.
I desperately longed to ask the wife of the dictatorial president Ferdinand Marcos why anyone could need all those shoes. And more importantly, why would someone spend so much of her country’s wealth on stiletto heels when so many citizens were so desperately poor? But natural reticence, good manners or simply fear prevailed, and I walked away.
The prince and his wife have been estranged from the royal family but are now returning to England with their children, Prince Archie, 7, and Princess Lilibet, 5.
Launches, detected by South Korea and Japan, came after US scaled back exercises with South Korea in apparent overture to Kim Jong-un
North Korea has launched about 10 short-range ballistic missiles towards the sea, South Korea’s military said, a day after Pyongyang shrugged off Donald Trump’s order to scale back US military drills with South Korea in an apparent attempt to resume diplomacy.
The joint chiefs of staff said the missiles were launched from the region of Pyongyang at around 5pm (08.00 GMT) on Thursday towards North Korea’s eastern waters.
Joanna Boydell steps down after widespread criticism over company’s handling of guest safety issues
The boss of Travelodge has resigned after widespread criticism of her handling of security failings at the hotel chain, including a shocking case where a domestic abuser was given a key to a woman’s room before assaulting her.
In a brief company statement on Thursday, Travelodge said Joanna Boydell had stepped down and been temporarily replaced by its finance chief, Ray Reidy. The company has launched a formal search for a permanent substitute.
Washington, D.C. — Nearly two-thirds of Americans say it is inappropriate for President Donald Trump and his family to profit from cryptocurrency while he serves in the White House, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.
The survey found 63% considered the Trump family’s crypto profits inappropriate, while 32% said they were appropriate and 5% did not answer. About 30% of Republicans agreed the profits were inappropriate, compared with large majorities of Democrats.
The poll also found broader concern about the relationship between Trump’s private businesses and presidential decisions. Sixty-nine percent said they believe his business interests influence his actions as president, including half of Republican respondents.
Trump’s family earned more than $1.4 billion from cryptocurrency ventures last year, including World Liberty Financial and the Trump-branded meme coin, according to Reuters. Trump has publicly promoted cryptocurrency while his administration has pursued industry-friendly regulatory policies.
Trump says he has no day-to-day involvement in the family businesses and that his investments are independently managed. The White House denies any conflict of interest.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll surveyed 1,166 U.S. adults online from Aug. 14-17 and has a 3-percentage-point margin of error for the overall sample.
Americans are backing progressives not because they want socialism, but because they want candidates who will fight for the working class
Most discussions about the Democratic party in this election cycle focus on the remarkable rise of progressive Democrats, such as the Florida state representative Angie Nixon, a democratic socialist who scored an upset win in the Democratic US Senate primary on Tuesday.
But an equally big story is the remarkable decline of corporate Democrats.
Why Should Delaware Care? Delaware farmers have been strapped over the past year by the uncertainty of international tariffs, rising fertilizer and machinery costs and low sales prices for their crops. Local farmers say the continued delay in Congressional approval of new federal farm subsidies has made the situation more challenging, as the future of crop insurance and other support programs remains unclear.
Delaware farmers are eager for a clearer understanding of the future of federal agricultural subsidies, but partisan gridlock in Congress has further complicated a path forward.
Negotiations over the federal farm bill, legislation typically passed by Congress every five years that sets agricultural and food assistance policies for the country, have stalled — in large part due to disagreements among lawmakers about the future of food assistance programs included in the proposal.
But while federal lawmakers are stuck in a stalemate, farmers in Delaware face a growing financial and environmental uncertainty. They are stretched thin by rising costs of fertilizer and machinery, which have been exacerbated by the war in Iran, and dropping prices of corn and soybeans.
At the same time, some Delaware producers say their reliance on the farm bill at all is a symptom of fundamental problems with the American agriculture industry. They argue farmers should not be in financial situations where they need government crop insurance or price subsidy programs to stay afloat.
“I don’t want the government’s help,” Dover-area grain farmer Paul Cartanza said. “I want to be able to sell my product and make money without having interference from the government.”
The last comprehensive five-year U.S. farm bill was passed in 2018, and was due for renewal in 2023.
Due to disagreements over nutrition programs in the bill, however, Congress has not yet advanced a complete farm bill since, forcing the government to pass temporary funding extensions to the 2018 legislation.
The House of Representatives passed an updated farm bill in April, but it has since been held up in the Senate Agriculture Committee because of disagreements over Trump administration cuts to the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) — otherwise known as the food stamp program — expected to go into effect in 2027.
While the majority of dollars in the farm bill actually go to food assistance programs like SNAP, the legislation also has a substantial impact on farmers’ access to crop insurance subsidies, price stabilization measures and conservation programs.
Delaware farmers have varying opinions on specific provisions within the bill, but they agree that getting a comprehensive bill passed this year should be a top priority, so the federal government’s support for farmers becomes more predictable.
“Basically, it’s hard to play a game that you don’t know the rules to yet,” said John Clendaniel, a farming outreach program director at Delaware State University.
Crop insurancea particular concern
Roughly $150 billion in a typical farm bill is spent on crop insurance programs, which subsidize the amount of money farms must pay for coverage against severe weather events or price drops.
A handful of local farmers told Spotlight Delaware the crop insurance program is the part of the omnibus legislation that has the most tangible impact on their day-to-day operations.
Cartanza, the Dover-area farmer, said he uses the crop insurance subsidy to make the “gamble” a bit less stressful each year about how much his crops will yield.
Dover-area farmer Paul Cartanza uses crop insurance to help offset the uncertainty of his industry. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY MADDY LAURIA
Jim Minner, a Felton-area farmer and the president of the Kent County Farm Bureau, said he, too, utilizes the federally subsidized insurance so as not to lose his operation in a challenging financial year.
While the 2018 farm bill subsidized about 60% of farmers’ costs under the federal crop insurance program, the specifics of future subsidies are less clear without a renewal of the farm bill.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed by Congress in July 2025 included additional crop insurance subsidies, which alleviated some of the near-term uncertainty created by temporary extensions to the 2018 farm bill, said Nate Bruce, a University of Delaware agricultural researcher.
Delaware farmers said they would like to see a similar crop insurance program in the updated farm bill, with some adjustments to better suit the smaller size of Delaware farms.
Ray Ellis, who operates a 700-acre grain farm in the Millsboro area, said the program itself can be a risk because the payments are made based on weather at the county level. But there can be a wide variance in how different farmers within one county – or even different crops on one farmer’s land – fare.
The system makes more sense in the Midwest, where many farms are larger, and might stretch across a sizable portion of the often smaller counties. But on smaller Delaware farms, especially across the large geographic footprint of Kent and Sussex counties, the weather experience can vary dramatically.
For example, Cartanza said his farm in Dover fared relatively well this year, while Dave Marvel, a Harrington-area farmer, and Minner said they experienced substantially less rain further south in Kent County.
The weather patterns also tend to be more volatile in Delaware because of the state’s proximity to the Atlantic Ocean, Bruce said.
Marvel said farmers in Delaware must work to keep the state’s federal delegation attuned to the needs of the mid-Atlantic when they are working on the farm bill because the legislation tends to be “heavily influenced from the South and the Midwest.”
Additional fruit, fuel considerations
While it is relatively certain that a crop insurance program will be included in the farm bill, local growers said, more controversial provisions on fruit and vegetable production along with a now-dead-in-the-water proposal relating to corn fuel production are also top of mind for some Delaware farmers.
A proposed segment of the new farm bill would provide expanded funding for research and crop insurance for fruit and vegetable farmers. Local farmers argue this would help encourage the state’s horticulture industry.
Marvel, the Harrington-area farmer, grows both grain and watermelons.
He said the watermelon side of his operation more commonly gets wiped out by disease or weather issues, and crop insurance for fruits and vegetables can be too expensive to buy, making the business risky.
Marvel said more support for domestic fruit and vegetable production would be a win-win situation. More produce might also be available for purchase in the United States, potentially addressing some of the food insecurity debates surrounding the farm bill.
Increased federal subsidies for fruit and vegetable production could help Delaware watermelon farmers like Dave Marvel. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY MAGGIE REYNOLDS
“Realistically, the farm bill impacts every American citizen in one way, shape or form,” Marvel said. “They just don’t realize it.”
Clendaniel, the DSU researcher, said he works with many farmers who are just starting out through the university’s farm incubator program. These growers often face financial barriers to getting off the ground, which could be solved, in part, by increased support for horticulture programs, he explained.
Along with fruit and vegetable subsidies, a number of local farmers expressed their support for the hotly debated E15 proposal, which would have allowed year-round sales of E15, a blend of gasoline and ethanol, for car fuel.
It is unlikely the measure will be included in the final farm bill, as it was not a part of the House version passed in April.
However, some local producers said they believe the expansion of E15 sales would have been a viable solution to the country’s problem of corn overproduction, as it would have increased demand for corn, thereby raising the price of the crop.
“There was a lot of back and forth about E15 ethanol all year, and that would be huge,” Bruce said. “It would definitely help out corn producers in Delaware.”
Other members of the agriculture industry are skeptical, though, that an E15 sale expansion would be a viable permanent solution.
Looking ahead
Uncertainty remains for Delaware farmers as senators continue to hash out the largely partisan disagreement over whether the updated farm bill will include a delay in the implementation of the Trump administration’s SNAP benefit cuts.
Many Delaware farmers echoed a sentiment of frustration that the gridlock and prevailing discussion about the farm bill revolves around nutrition programs rather than actual assistance to farmers.
Some growers said they would like to see the two decoupled into a separate “food bill” and “farm bill,” which might allow the farm bill to pass more swiftly. Others said the two topics are too closely connected to be separated.
“I think both sides agree that if we don’t have agriculture, the country’s pretty much done,” said Minner, the Felton-area farmer. “Agriculture keeps this country alive.”
But as senators are set to continue to hash out their largely partisan disagreement over food assistance programs when they return from their summer recess in mid-September, uncertainty remains for Delaware farmers.
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? Delaware spends millions of taxpayer dollars on its prison healthcare annually to treat medical and behavioral issues for inmates. But according to a whistleblower lawsuit filed by two employees that worked for the state’s former prison healthcare provider, Centurion of Delaware, the company routinely billed the state for services it did not provide.
Late last month, Delaware’s embattled former prison healthcare provider rebuked allegations that it engaged in fraud by requesting payment for medical services for inmates it did not provide.
The former provider, Centurion of Delaware, was the sole contractor responsible for providing health services to inmates at the state’s prisons during the COVID pandemic. It responded last month to a whistleblower complaint filed by two former employees, denying the fraud allegations.
Centurion’s multi-billion-dollar parent company, Centene, was also named in the lawsuit on claims the healthcare provider denied patients care and falsified claims to taxpayer insurers like Medicaid.
At the center of their lawsuit, the whistleblowers claim Centurion fraudulently charged the state for services inmates never received, and it systematically passed inmates through programs they did not complete, like drug treatment programs.
The lawsuit also alleges a pattern of medical staff denying care to patients.
For years, healthcare providers inside Delaware prisons have been under scrutiny for either financial mismanagement or denial of care to patients, including the state’s current provider, VitalCore Health Strategies.
Earlier this year, the State of Delaware also joined the case after a review of the whistleblowers’ materials.
Reuben Guttman and Dan Miller, lawyers for the whistleblowers, said in an email they look forward to the case proceeding, and they appreciate the Delaware Department of Justice joining the case.
“This case involves serious questions of public health, human decency and issues that should be of concern to all taxpayers,” the lawyers said. “We look forward to litigation and our day in court and are pleased that the State of Delaware has joined the case.”
Lawyers for Centurion and Centene did not return a request for comment.
The ACLU further claimed the failures were a direct result of Centurion’s policies, which the advocacy group said amounted to “callous and deliberate indifference.”
Also named as defendants in the ACLU case are five Delaware Department of Correction officials along with Delaware’s new prison health care provider, VitalCore Health Strategies.
In December of 2023, Centurion’s attorneys argued in a motion to dismiss the class-action suit that the ACLU had “not plausibly alleged” the company had any such policies “of deliberate indifference toward inmates’ serious medical needs.”
Secret whistleblower complaint
In the fall of 2023, the whistleblower complaint against Centurion was quietly added to the court’s database, but was quickly sealed weeks after its appearance. For the better part of two years, it had sat under seal.
A spokesperson for the Delaware Department of Justice on Tuesday said a motion to unseal the case was approved by a judge earlier this year, after the case had been reviewed by its staff.
According to the spokesperson, the next step in the case will be discovery, where lawyers will likely battle for access to highly confidential and revealing information about Centurion’s business practices.
The lawsuit, which was filed back in August 2023 by two former Centurion employees, Jamie Basara and Deneen Rayne, challenges the prison healthcare provider under the Delaware False Claims and Reporting Act.
That statute allows whistleblowers alleging fraud in government contracts to sue a private contractor, and to list the State of Delaware as the plaintiff in the case.
A key part of their complaint targets the company’s “Road to Recovery” program, of which both former employees had at one point staffed. The program was aimed at helping inmates recover from addiction, the complaint said.
But when the whistleblowers worked in the program, they claimed it was understaffed, and inmates would receive credit for treatment they did not receive.
The complaint also said Centurion would submit “false and fraudulent” reports to the Delaware Department of Correction surrounding inmate attendance in its programming.
In its denial of the complaint, lawyers for Centurion and Centene argued the case is invalid because of the statute of limitations on such claims. Additionally, the healthcare provider firmly defended that all payments received were for services rendered to inmates.
“Defendents did not knowingly or recklessly present or cause to be presented any false or fraudulent claim for payment to the State of Delaware,” the response said.
The lawyers also claimed the company had no knowledge of any wrongdoing. They also skirted the allegations the provider denied patients care, citing a lack of access to medical records.
In their request for relief, the lawyers asked the judge to toss the case and require the whistleblowers to cover attorneys’ fees for the companies.
Embattled prison healthcare providers
Centurion came to Delaware in 2020 with the promise of bringing professionalism back to the state’s prison health care system after years of mismanagement by its predecessor, Connections Community Support Programs.
When announcing the new contract at the time, Centurion CEO Steven H. Wheeler said his company was committed to working with state officials to improve prison healthcare.
Claire DeMatteis, then-commissioner at the Delaware Department of Correction, told The News Journal that Centurion had “deep experience providing quality medical care.”
“Centurion was the unanimous choice,” she said at the time.
Terra Taylor, commissioner of the Delaware Department of Corrections. | PHOTO COURTESY OF DELAWARE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS
But three years later, Centurion lost the prison contracts – valued at more than $70 million a year — when state officials opted not to automatically renew the agreements.
Shortly thereafter, Delaware officials announced VitalCore Health Strategies as the state’s new provider of prison healthcare, which includes mental health and addiction services.
In the announcement, then-DOC Commissioner Monroe B. Hudson said VitalCore has a “strong track record of success providing high quality medical and behavioral health care to patients.”
“We look forward to our partnership with VitalCore to advance this important work at the best value for Delaware taxpayers,” Hudson said in the 2023 announcement.
Five months later, VitalCore was named as a defendant alongside Centurion in the class-action lawsuit the ACLU filed on behalf of inmates.
In 2024, the DOC’s newest commissioner, Terra Taylor, said VitalCore is “doing well,” but added that the company has found it challenging to fill staff positions in Delaware prisons.
“When you’re talking about hiring someone to work in a correctional setting, it’s a difficult job,” Taylor said at the time.
Israeli military orders criminal investigation into deaths of Hind and six family members. Plus, FCC chair Brendan Carr’s close coordination with White House revealed
Good morning.
The Israeli military admitted on Wednesday its troops had opened fire on a car carrying five-year-old Hind Rajab and six family members in Gaza in 2024, saying it had ordered a criminal investigation into the killing.
What prompted theinvestigation? The Israel Defense Forces repeatedly denied its troops had been in the area, but investigations by the media and others found evidence that strongly suggested nearby Israeli tanks were responsible.
How significant is it? The IDF published reviews on Wednesday into five high-profile incidents in Gaza. But criminal misconduct investigations into Israeli troops over the killing of Palestinians rarely lead to convictions. A UN report published in February described “a pervasive climate of impunity” by Israel in occupied Palestine.
What is the wider context? In September last year, a UN commission found that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, citing tens of thousands of civilian deaths and massive destruction.
What did Béjar say in his testimony? That his job often included him briefing Meta’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, on product issues. He estimated that he spoke to Zuckerberg at least 100 times. One email Béjar sent to Zuckerberg in 2021 showed the engineer warning of constant reports of harmful content and damage to teenage wellbeing on Facebook and Instagram. Béjar said he emailed Zuckerberg after the chief executive publicly said the company did not prioritize profit over safety. Meta denies all allegations in the case.
‘Emma’ the Rotherham chatbot has 17 languages says AI firm – but health watchdog says system struggling with local ‘twangs’
Patients in a South Yorkshire town are frustrated by an AI GP receptionist not understanding their “broad accents”, a health watchdog has said.
Healthwatch Rotherham, a local health and social care watchdog, said a number of practices in the area had introduced a new AI receptionist called Emma.
I want a VESC board but I don’t know enough about how to do it. I’d be okay with paying for the service to copy someone’s homework who already went through the trial and error process.
The defense is now expected to call one more witness Thursday before potentially resting its case and giving the prosecution an opportunity to call rebuttal witnesses.
The sports fashion retailer JD has cut £50m from its profit forecast as cost of living pressures, fuelled by the US war on Iran, weighed on sales of trainers.
JD Sports, which sells brands including Nike and Adidas, said widespread inflation had hit shoppers’ wallets, particularly its core young shoppers, resulting in a drop in sales across important markets such as the US, where it struggled to shift trainers and other footwear.
Improvements in fire management however could mitigate increases by more than 70%, study shows
Wildfires are projected to burn 39% more of Europe by the end of the century even in the best-case scenario for stopping the planet from heating, a study has found, unless action is taken to manage them better.
The increase in hot, dry and windy weather that leads to small fires turning into raging infernos is to engulf more of Europe as carbon pollution pushes temperatures higher. In the worst-case scenario the researchers modelled, which would see global heating reach 3.6C above preindustrial levels, the burnt area would almost triple.
The former Sunday Night Football stalwart is now one step from a seat in the US Senate. And she could cause a shock in liberal Minnesota
As the third leg of NBC’s Sunday Night Football crew alongside play-by-play man Al Michaels and the tart-tongued analyst Cris Collinsworth, Michele Tafoya was a paragon of deference and neutrality for 11 years as an NFL sideline reporter, dutifully relating boilerplate tactics, talking points and injury updates when she wasn’t nodding along to softball interviews or fumbling through hammy production gimmicks for viewers who might have been too offline to get the bit. She was almost pathologically committed to not doing anything to draw attention to herself or her gender in an era when sideline reporting was a fast track to national celebrity. Even her football takes hewed to the middle. (“New Orleans doesn’t want to lose to Atlanta twice in a season …”) Anyone who says they saw the 61-year-old emerging as a rightwing firebrand was watching a different game.
And yet here we are. Last week, Tafoya was the decisive winner of Minnesota’s US Senate Republican primary, earning the party’s nomination for November’s general election. Even more striking: she beat back eight challengers, not least Adam Schwarze, the party-endorsed pro-gun, pro-military ex-Navy SEAL, and Royce White, the anti-leftist, anti-trans NBA flameout currently testing WNBA gender norms.
Legal experts dispute Abbott’s claims that the ritual washing stations are discriminatory, with some saying his attack fits a pattern of anti-Muslim actions and rhetoric.
On one side, you face the domination of the Islamic Republic; on the other, the imperialist forces that republic claims to stand against
August marks the anniversary of the 1988 mass executions in Iran, a horror that echoes in the country’s current surge in death sentences. It also marks the 19 August anniversary of the UK- and US-orchestrated coup against the prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953. Amid the current, indiscriminate waves of US-Israeli military assaults against Iran, this letter of solidarity denounces the repression of the Iranian people and their political prisoners by forces both at home and abroad.
In an altered image from a video montage Ryan Richardson posted to Instagram in June, the coach works with a young athlete. Collage by Lisa Larson-Walker/ProPublica. Left: via Instagram. Right: Sarah Blesener for ProPublica.
The first time Ryan Richardson was suspended from coaching volleyball, in early 2024, he gathered the parents of his teenage players in the back room of his gym in the border city of Pharr, Texas. It was a dark, cool space, one wall lined with shelves of trophies and dangling medals. The tinted windows looked out onto the courts where Richardson trained some of the best young female players in the Rio Grande Valley, but the glass was one-way, and from outside, nothing that happened in the room was visible.
For years, the room had also contained a twin-sized mattress that sat in the corner on a box spring, covered with dark sheets. By the 2024 season, though, the bed had disappeared.
On that winter day, the parents of Richardson’s club, Texas Fierce Elite, were worried. Their 14- and 15-year-old daughters were bound for the Girls Junior National Championship that summer in Las Vegas, but now Richardson was barred from attending. The organization overseeing volleyball in the state, Lone Star Region Volleyball, had suspended him after complaints about Richardson’s Instagram posts, including a mirror selfie in which he posed in skin-tight orange boxer briefs. The case had quickly been escalated to USA Volleyball, the sport’s governing body and the host of the upcoming national championship.
There was much more at stake than a single tournament. For more than 15 years at the helm of Texas Fierce Elite, Richardson had been trading on a dream: girls who wanted to play college sports, and parents who wanted to get them there. In Pharr and the cities surrounding it, which are more than 90% Latino and have poverty rates more than double the national average, opportunities to go to college were rare, and paying for it was even harder. Richardson’s players said he often told them that he and Texas Fierce Elite were their only path to a scholarship.
Although they were barely in high school, the Texas Fierce Elite girls were entering the most important period of college recruiting. The sidelines of the national tournament would be flooded with college scouts from all corners of the country. If Richardson could no longer coach, the parents feared, all of that might be derailed.
On that day in the back room of his gym, Richardson did not acknowledge the Instagram posts at all, according to two parents present. Instead, the former football receiver claimed that the suspension was the result of vindictive parents with complaints about their kids’ playing time. He promised the suspension would go away in a matter of weeks. And even if it didn’t, Richardson told them, he would find a way to keep coaching.
Richardson posted this selfie on his public Instagram account before his suspension.via Instagram
The suspension didn’t go away. Instead, it surfaced a flood of allegations far more serious than Instagram photos: One mother would allege that Richardson had been having a sexual relationship with her daughter that began four years ago, when the girl was 16 and he was 36, she told ProPublica and The Washington Post. Other players would come forward to say Richardson had groomed and physically and emotionally abused them. USA Volleyball referred the case to the U.S. Center for SafeSport, an oversight body created to police abuse in youth and Olympic sports, which eventually suspended Richardson and put his name on its public disciplinary list.
Richardson was right about one thing, however: None of that mattered. Although he was barred from attending USA Volleyball events, including nationals, Richardson was able to keep coaching his teams of teenage girls. He attended daily practices and appeared on the sidelines of tournaments hosted by other volleyball groups for two years.
In February of this year, SafeSport listed Richardson as “permanently ineligible” to coach, saying it had substantiated a litany of allegations against him: that he had had an intimate relationship with a minor, committed sexual misconduct involving a minor, and engaged in physical misconduct and bullying.
But Richardson is still coaching teenage girls at his gym in Pharr. And that fact is not a secret. Nearly every day for the last two years, Richardson has posted videos in which he works with Texas Fierce Elite players, supervises practices and promotes the club — hundreds of posts in all, often visible to the public.
After his suspension in early 2024, Richardson said complaints against him were an effort to “retaliate and defame someone’s character,” telling the local news website MyRGV that he “would never do anything to risk the physical or mental wellbeing of these strong young ladies.” He called himself an “enthusiastic proponent” of SafeSport and the strict rules it has in place to protect children.
“I am extremely surprised by the suspension and disappointed that I have not been given any information regarding what I allegedly did wrong,” he said at the time. “The safety and security of the athletes that train with Texas Fierce Elite Volleyball is always my primary focus and concern.”
Richardson, who has not been charged with any crime, did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story. Last week, after ProPublica and The Post sent him a detailed summary of our reporting, Richardson posted a video of a girl training at his gym on Instagram with the caption, “Say what you want but this work will be on display for as long as I live !! Not interested in answering to the narrative created by outsiders just invested into the next one who is looking for change!!”
For more than a year, ProPublica and The Washington Post have been investigating failures in a system that is supposed to protect children from sexual abuse in youth sports. Those flaws, the investigation found, are putting a new generation of young athletes at risk.
The sexual abuse allegations against Richardson triggered that system, which was created by Congress in 2018 in the wake of revelations about sexual abuse in Olympic sports — among them the prolonged abuse of dozens of athletes by USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar. The 2018 law charged the new Center for SafeSport with overseeing the country’s 50 national sports governing bodies, including USA Volleyball, which prepare and train young athletes in sports overseen by the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee. SafeSport investigates allegations of abuse in these sports, especially sexual abuse. It has the power to suspend coaches as it investigates them, recording their names in a public database known as the SafeSport list, and can ban abusive coaches for life.
The SafeSport list was intended to address the decades-old problem of coaches who were accused of abuse but were able to continue working with young athletes for years, often as sports governing bodies looked the other way. But that system did not stop Ryan Richardson. SafeSport, USA Volleyball and its regional partner Lone Star all failed to keep Richardson from interacting with children, ProPublica and The Post found, even as allegations of inappropriate behavior and abuse piled up.
SafeSport delayed suspending Richardson for months despite the serious allegations, ProPublica and The Post found. Later, the organization failed to take action against a coach accused of “aiding and abetting” Richardson by allowing him to work with players after he was suspended. SafeSport said it could not comment on individual cases“to protect the integrity of our investigative process.”
Once Richardson was suspended by SafeSport, the law required USA Volleyball to ensure he was not working with its athletes. ProPublica and The Post found that both USA Volleyball and Lone Star had received multiple reports that Richardson was still coaching, but Lone Star allowed his club to remain a regional member, and USA Volleyball did not object. Richardson kept showing up to coach.
Hilary Nemchik, a SafeSport vice president, said in a statement that it was the job of national governing bodies like USA Volleyball to “enforce the U.S. Center for SafeSport’s sanctions” and that governing bodies had the ability “to make decisions regarding membership.”
The public SafeSport list is one of the most powerful tools for parents looking to research their kids’ coaches. But many families have no idea it exists or how to use it. Critics also say the organization has serious flaws.
“We recognize there are gaps in the system, whether it be coaches avoiding SafeSport sanctions by going to organizations outside of the Movement or a reluctance by some NGBs to do everything in their power to prohibit the participation of banned individuals,” Nemchik said. She cited a case in which another governing body, USA Gymnastics, had terminated the membership of a club for repeatedly violating SafeSport sanctions.
“This should be standard for any NGB that prioritizes protecting their members,” Nemchik said.
A spokesperson for USA Volleyball said in a statement that the organization had done an “internal review” of the incidents in ProPublica and The Post’s story and “confirmed that USA Volleyball has fully complied with all SafeSport requirements, U.S. Center for SafeSport regulations, and our own organizational policies and procedures.”
“USA Volleyball places the highest priority on the safety and well-being of all athletes, coaches, and staff,” the statement said.
Lone Star said in a statement that it “disputes the accuracy of several factual assertions, characterizations, and implications” in the story, but would not comment on individuals or internal processes. It declined to say what was inaccurate.
“The Region takes its responsibilities concerning athlete safety seriously,” the statement said, “and will continue to fulfill its obligations under applicable USA Volleyball and SafeSport requirements.”
Rise of Richardson
When Richardson opened Elite Sports Performance, there was little like it in the Rio Grande Valley, a string of rapidly growing border cities isolated from the rest of Texas by miles of scrubland. There were sports teams and there were gyms, but what Richardson started selling was something else: a version of youth sports that went beyond practices and games. In 2013, they opened a gym in a warehouse-like green building on Feather Avenue in Pharr where expensive rigs hooked children up to elastic bands to improve their jumping height, a crane-like device served balls one after another so they could master technique, and trampolines and battle ropes made them strong.
Richardson had played football at Texas A&M University-Kingsville, but his coaching specialty was volleyball, soon to become the country’s fastest-growing sport for girls. Richardson told his young players that he became involved in volleyball after college, where he’d dated a libero, a defensive position held by the smallest players on the court.
Richardson demanded perfection. He wanted his players’ elbows at the right angle, their jumps timed exactly right. He was known to curse and scream, former players said, and even a small mistake could mean being called a “pussy” and a “piece of shit.” If a girl didn’t jump high enough, she was “fucking fat.”
“He would tear us down to the point where we needed validation from him because he was the only one to build us up,” said Madisyn Sosa, now 20, who played with Richardson from the age of 14.
His behavior was tolerated for one reason, another former Texas Fierce Elite athlete said: College “was always the end goal.” Richardson quickly established a track record of sending athletes to local and even Division I colleges, often with scholarships.
“We’re extremely limited on good training,” said one local volleyball club director, Rafael Castañeda Jr., who owns a rival gym several miles from Richardson’s. “He’s known to be one of the top ones, so these parents, they took the chance.”
On social media, Richardson chronicled the rise of his program with hundreds of videos of the group of teen girls he called his “family.” The back room at Elite Sports Performance began to fill with trophies and medals. In the summer of 2022, at the USA Volleyball national championship in Indianapolis, Richardson’s team of girls under 14 finished ninth in the country.
Richardson also spent hours with his teenage players outside of sports. He took them on fishing expeditions and to the beach. They accompanied him to church and hung out in his hotel room on trips to tournaments doing TikTok dances. He posted photos and videos of all of it online, with Instagram captions calling the girls pet names like “my fierce baby” and “my love.”
Richardson took particular interest, three former players said, in girls who played libero — the same position as his former girlfriend. In one Instagram story, a screenshot of which was viewed by ProPublica and The Post, Richardson described a “journey” with one libero, a girl he called his goddaughter.
“This little 11 year old redheaded girl laid her head on my shoulder and fell asleep, for some odd reason I couldn’t shake the feeling of a father,” Richardson wrote. “So I asked her mom if things were ok to really love this child … the relationship blossomed from coach to godfather to dad.” He added a photograph of himself holding the girl’s hand. The girl, who is now an adult, did not respond to a request for comment.
Richardson required his teenage players to hug him at the end of practice, four former players said, sometimes pulling girls down onto his lap and telling them, “I love you.” He required hugs even on days when prospective parents were touring his gym.
One parent recalled thinking it was odd, she said, but quickly doubted herself: Why would he do something like that in front of parents if it was inappropriate?
And then there was the bed. He kept it for years in the back room, five people said, telling parents it was for recovery and massages. Parents sometimes sat in the dark room, too, watching their daughters train through the windows from a set of lounge chairs that lined the wall.
“He Convinced Me Not to Say Anything”
That was the room where Maggie Gutierrez first found Richardson alone with her teenage daughter.
Gutierrez had brought her daughter to Elite Sports Performance nearly four years earlier, when she was a promising 13-year-old libero, for one reason: Richardson was supposed to be the best. He was “aggressive” with the girls, Gutierrez acknowledged, but under his vigilance her daughter grew to be one of the team’s best players — so good that Richardson had stopped charging her for expensive private sessions. Gutierrez often dropped her daughter off at the gym to practice, then returned a few hours later to bring her home.
When she arrived that day in 2022, Gutierrez told ProPublica and The Post, Richardson’s car was the only one in the parking lot. Inside, the gym was empty.
Gutierrez opened the door to the back room to find Richardson and her daughter, then 16, in the dark.Richardson turned his back to her and appeared to be tying up the string of his pants. (ProPublica and The Post, which do not name alleged victims of sexual abuse without their consent, are referring to Gutierrez by her maiden name to avoid identifying her daughter, who declined to be interviewed.)
“I was furious,” Gutierrez said. “I could tell my daughter was nervous, and didn’t know how to react.” Gutierrez confronted Richardson, she said, but he denied anything had happened, following up with a flurry of WhatsApp messages that she said he later deleted.
“He convinced me not to say anything,” Gutierrez said. “And I didn’t say anything.”
Gutierrez’s daughter also insisted there was nothing romantic between them, Gutierrez said. And her daughter wanted to keep playing; she had a scholarship offer to a Division I school out of state.
“I was just like, OK, I’m going to keep an eye, make sure I’m there all the time,” Gutierrez said.
For a while, Gutierrez believed she was able to keep her daughter from being alone with Richardson. But her daughter began to turn off her location on her phone, she said.
The relationship between Richardson and the girl continued for more than a year after the incident, according to Snapchat messages included in the SafeSport investigation and reviewed by ProPublica and The Post.
In August 2022, several months after Gutierrez found Richardson and her daughter alone, Richardson and Gutierrez’s 16-year-old daughter exchanged messages saying, “I love you,” to each other and planning when they would next be able to meet up.
Throughout the spring of 2023, when the girl was 17, Richardson wrote, “I want to camp in you love.” A day later, he wrote, “I love my girlfriend.” He sent the girl a video that he’d filmed of her sleeping on his chest, saying, “We look so peaceful together. It’s beautiful.”
Snapchat messages between Richardson and Maggie Gutierrez’s daughter in spring 2023Obtained and reproduced by ProPublica
That May, Richardson wrote, “I don’t like that we are only sex right now so I really would love to get past this high school Shit when you are on your own pretty much,” he wrote. “I love you very much and I’ll be that man for you!!”
Gutierrez had no idea that any of it was happening, she said. When her daughter got an opportunity to start college a semester early so that she could train with the team, Richardson encouraged it.
In January 2024, at 18, she left for college in another state. Richardson quickly started a WhatsApp group with Gutierrez that he named her daughter’s “support group,” asking what kind of things her daughter would want in a gift box he said he was sending to her campus from the club.
Then, in February, Gutierrez said, she got a call from her daughter’s college volleyball coach. He told Gutierrez that Richardson had met up with her daughter for a weekend out of state and that other players on the team had spoken about her daughter’s “older boyfriend” — a man they identified as Richardson. The college coach believed they were having a relationship, he told her. Gutierrez said she was frozen in shock.
By the spring, when her daughter returned to the Rio Grande Valley from college, Gutierrez decided she had to act to protect her daughter. She went to police in McAllen and Pharr to report that Richardson had had a relationship with her daughter that she believed began when the girl was under 17, the age of consent in Texas.
Police in both jurisdictions denied records requests from ProPublica and The Post by citing an exemption under state privacy statutes, but the news organizations obtained excerpts from the police report in McAllen. In the text, an officer describes meeting with Gutierrez at the McAllen police station.
Gutierrez left the station with a promise to return with her daughter, the officer wrote. But she never did. When the officer called back, Gutierrez said her daughter did not want to speak. The officer closed the case, noting that her daughter was now 18 and legally an adult. Pharr police also declined to investigate, Gutierrez said. She felt stuck.
So she turned to Lone Star, the regional volleyball arm of USA Volleyball. If she could not get police to investigate, she thought, at least she could stop Richardson from coaching.
New Allegations
By the time Gutierrez went to Lone Star, Richardson had already been suspended for several months over his social media posts, drawing coverage from local news outlets.
When he was first suspended that February, Richardson told MyRGV that he was innocent and planned to file a grievance with USA Volleyball. But weeks later, MyRGV reported that USA Volleyball had upheld the suspension, keeping Richardson from coaching or training for at least six months. Richardson told the website he was “shocked.”
USA Volleyball had previously sent the report about Richardson’s behavior on social media to the U.S. Center for SafeSport, as required by law, according to one person familiar with the case. But SafeSport initially declined to investigate because it said the allegations were not sexual and referred the case back to USA Volleyball, that person said.
Only when Gutierrez reached out to Lone Star in May, the person familiar with the case said, did SafeSport accept the case.
Over the course of its investigation, SafeSport would receive other reports about Richardson, ProPublica and The Post found. Two former players, two parents and Castañeda, the rival club owner, all said they had spoken to SafeSport investigators.
Sosa, a former teammate of Gutierrez’s daughter, said she had also experienced inappropriate behavior from Richardson, which she eventually described to a SafeSport investigator. Richardson had sometimes FaceTimed her while he showered, she said, and often brought up sex and boys, once telling Sosa that a teammate was gaining weight because she was “having sex with that boyfriend all the time.”
At one training session, she said, Richardson embraced her and laid his body on top of hers, saying, “Why don’t you love me?”
Another player who witnessed the incident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she is still involved in volleyball in the region, said she remembered Richardson remaining on top of Sosa for an uncomfortably long time. “I remember thinking she must be out of breath right now,” the player said.
In a video Richardson posted to his Instagram, he is lying on the floor of the back room gym with Sosa, who said she was 17 at the time. He is gripping her arm, which is lying across Richardson’s chest. They both squeeze each other and laugh. Richardson captioned it, “The love is unreal … .”
“That was the normal for us,” Sosa said.
Beliza Longoria, another former player, said she spoke to SafeSport about what she believed was grooming by Richardson. As her coach, Richardson was obsessed with her teenage sex life, she said, and had once called her a “fucking slut” when he found out from a teammate that she’d had a sexual relationship with a boy.
Once, Richardson told her and a teammate to rest their heads on his shoulder, and she had woken up, she said, to him filming them as they slept. On trips for out-of-town tournaments, she said, he often encouraged the girls to spend time in his hotel room, where he sometimes wore only a pair of shorts.
Left: Richardson opened Elite Sports Performance in the Rio Grande Valley in 2013, offering a version of youth sports that went beyond practices and games. Right: Beliza Longoria.
Longoria recalled one night when Richardson sat shirtless in bed drinking green apple Crown Royal until she and her teammates grew uncomfortable and left. Sosa and another teammate also recalled the incident.
This was not the first time Longoria had tried to report Richardson. In 2021, she said, when she was 14, Richardson slapped her face and cursed at her during a training session. She and her parents went to the Pharr police, her mother said, but no action was taken, and Longoria left the club immediately after.Police acknowledged there were records related to the incident but declined to provide them under state privacy statutes. Richardson denied any wrongdoing at the time, and Sosa said when he told the team that Longoria was lying, they believed him.
A SafeSport investigator eventually told Longoria that a report had been filed about the incident in 2021, she said. She had told many people about what happened, she said, but she was not sure who had filed the report. A person familiar with USA Volleyball’s operations confirmed the existence of a report about the incident in 2021 and said that Lone Star had appeared not to discipline Richardson.
Three years later, Longoria said, she hoped that this time would be different.
Investigating the Investigator
The SafeSport investigator assigned to Richardson’s case was Jason Krasley, a former police officer. Krasley could have immediately placed the coach on SafeSport’s public disciplinary list, temporarily suspending him from coaching while the investigation continued. SafeSport says it uses such suspensions to keep people safe in the case of “severe” allegations, including “allegations of child sexual abuse regarding a coach with current/ongoing access to minor athletes.”
But months passed without Richardson’s name appearing in the database. Richardson told parents at Texas Fierce Elite that this was a sign he had done nothing wrong.
And although Richardson remained suspended by Lone Star and USA Volleyball, he found a way to keep coaching.
Richardson gave control of Texas Fierce Elite’s teams to an employee, Gavin Rudder, according to a social media post that June. Richardson and Rudder had been close for years. Rudder posted photographs of them together, giving their duo a nickname — “Ebony and Ivory,” a reference to their races — and praising Richardson’s “incredible legacy.” Richardson’s Instagram username for a time was “Mr_ESP,” a reference to Elite Sports Performance. Rudder’s is “Mr_ESPvolleyball.” Rudder did not respond to multiple requests for comment, including a detailed list of questions.
Under Rudder, Texas Fierce Elite could remain registered with Lone Star. Rudder’s name appeared on the club paperwork, and he took the girls to USA Volleyball-sanctioned tournaments. But ProPublica and The Post found that Richardson was, for all intents and purposes, still in charge of the club, a violation of his suspension. He set practice schedules and arranged tournaments, collected fees and ordered jerseys, according to team WhatsApp messages and interviews with a former coach at the club and two parents of former players.
Richardson was also the main coach of the oldest team of girls at Texas Fierce Elite, these people said. Richardson’s social media posts show him running drills at practices, and online streams of games show Richardson coaching on the sidelines.
“He was the only one that touched the team,” the former coach said. The coach, who left the club in early 2025, asked not to be named because she is still involved in volleyball in the region. Richardson allowed Rudder and other coaches to instruct younger teams, but he was still present at most practices and would frequently step in to coach, she said.
One mother, whose daughter played on Texas Fierce Elite’s team for girls 15 and under at the time, shared a series of WhatsApp messages that showed Richardson remained heavily involved in that team following the suspension. In the messages, he also required girls to book “at least one private session a week” with him ahead of USA Volleyball’s national tournament. Rudder was part of the WhatsApp group and had watched it all happen, the mother said.
The mother sent the messages showing Richardson’s involvement — and what she said was Rudder’s enabling of Richardson’s coaching — to Lone Star in July 2024, emails show. But with the new season set to begin in September, Lone Star renewed Rudder’s membership, and Texas Fierce Elite remained in good standing.
Left: Dusk in Pharr, Texas, where Elite Sports Performance is located. Right: Longoria.
As Longoria watched Richardson’s social media posts, she grew increasingly desperate — and furious. In January 2025 she emailed Krasley, the SafeSport investigator. It had been eight months since SafeSport’s investigation began.
“WE NEED TO SCHEDULE A MEETING,” she wrote. “I am so worried for these kids who are under [h]is program and I am so angered that he is still coaching.”
Longoria attached a photo that she had just been sent: Richardson in a Texas Fierce Elite zip-up at a tournament in New Orleans, his arms around a young volleyball player, pulling her against his chest.
Krasley didn’t respond. It turned out he no longer worked for SafeSport; he had been fired in November after he was arraigned on allegations that, as a police officer, he had stolen money seized in a drug bust. And three days before Longoria reached out, Krasley had been arrested again, this time on charges of felony rape and involuntary sexual servitude.
He is awaiting trial on multiple sex crime charges, although the theft and other charges were eventually dropped. Krasley has yet to enter a plea, and his attorney has argued the case should be dropped because of “egregious” prosecutorial misconduct. The attorney did not respond to requests for comment.
SafeSport’s CEO at the time, Ju’Riese Colón, said in a statement after firing him that she was “appalled that a former staff member has been accused of such heinous acts in his previous role as a police officer.” SafeSport conducted an audit of Krasley’s 114 cases and said that it had reopened three of them, without providing details.
“Defy the Opps”
In February 2025, one year after Richardson’s social media posts were sent to SafeSport, Richardson’s name appeared in the center’s disciplinary database. He was temporarily suspended from coaching under USA Volleyball and all other sports organizations covered by SafeSport’s mandate while the investigation ran its course.
Longoria was hopeful: Maybe SafeSport would make sure that Richardson no longer had access to young volleyball players.
In reality, ProPublica and The Post found, the SafeSport suspension made almost no difference.
Shortly after being placed on the SafeSport list, on March 8, Richardson was at the Adidas Bluegrass Tournament in Louisville, coaching the Texas Fierce Elite team that another coach had said “no one else touched.” Richardson was registered as the coach.
Richardson was taking advantage of a gap in the SafeSport law. While national governing bodies like USA Volleyball are required to ban coaches on the SafeSport list, the law does not apply to private nonprofit groups. The Junior Volleyball Association, a nonprofit that says it has more than 250,000 participants, had allowed Richardson to join while he was suspended by USA Volleyball. The Louisville tournament was not affiliated with JVA, but it allowed coaches to use JVA memberships to register.
In late April 2025, Richardson and the girls attended a tournament in Tennessee called Showdown in the Smokies. In an online stream of the event, he can be seen pacing in front of the team bench in gray shorts and a black T-shirt. After the tournament, which took place on his birthday, Richardson posted a video on Instagram of himself at a restaurant, having dinner with five of his teenage players. There are no other adults visible at the table.
In July 2025, four months after Richardson was suspended by SafeSport, JVA renewed his membership.
Like some other independent youth sports nonprofits, JVA has a policy banning coaches on the SafeSport list from working with kids, and a representative, Taylor Jakubowski, told ProPublica and The Post that JVA conducted monthly audits of the list against its membership roster. She acknowledged that JVA had not done so in Richardson’s case.
“That would be my colleague, the one that checks the list,” she said, but did not provide a name. Jakubowski said JVA “canceled” Richardson’s membership in December 2025, the same month that a reporter reached out with questions about him.
JVA’s executive director, Lisa Wielebnicki, said in a statement that JVA did not “operate or administer” either of the tournaments or determine who would be allowed to participate. “Any suggestion that JVA permitted or enabled Mr. Richardson to participate in those events … based on his JVA membership status would therefore be inaccurate.” (Richardson later reapplied, she said, and JVA denied his membership.)
Richardson’s gym had also been able to gain affiliation with another outside organization: the Amateur Athletic Union, a massive youth sports nonprofit with some 760,000 athletes, which an investigation from ProPublica and The Post found has developed a reputation as a refuge for coaches who have been accused of abuse. The AAU does not have a policy barring coaches who are suspended or banned by SafeSport or other sports organizations.
The AAU said it had “permanently banned” Richardson back in November 2024, after Gutierrez and the other Texas Fierce Elite mother said they reached out to the organization to express fears that Richardson would try to move his gym there. The AAU declined to comment further, but in a previous statement, the AAU said that it is “committed to protecting its athletes through comprehensive protection policies overseen by our Compliance Department.”
But the following summer, Richardson, Rudder and Texas Fierce Elite began advertising a sleek new brand: “The Complex, est. 2025.” On social media, a video from Richardson called it “a new chapter.” He also included a new slogan: “DEFY THE OPPS” — slang for “the opposition.”
In the AAU’s member directory, there is a girls’ volleyball club at the address of Richardson’s gym. It is called The Complex. The AAU did not answer questions about who owned the club.
For all of Richardson’s maneuvering with other sports groups, though, he still needed USA Volleyball. To players and parents determined to secure college scholarships, USA Volleyball memberships are vital. While the AAU and JVA host their own tournaments, USA Volleyball remains the gateway to the sport’s regional and national championships, where hundreds of college scouts gather every year to recruit a new class of athletes.
With a new season set to begin in September 2025, Lone Star allowed Texas Fierce Elite to remain in good standing. And it approved Rudder, who was listed as the club’s director, for another year of membership.
Richardson celebrated the start of the season with a video of a Texas Fierce Elite practice with the caption, “TAKING BACK EVERYTHING THAT WAS TAKEN FROM THESE KIDS !! GOD SEE ME THRU IT ! Let’s work!!”
Rudder was violating the SafeSport code just by allowing Richardson to work with his athletes. As a USA Volleyball member — and the registered owner of Texas Fierce Elite — he was prohibited from allowing people banned or suspended by SafeSport to be “in any way associated with” a registered club or to “coach or instruct Participants.” On social media, months of public posts by Richardson showed that Rudder had been standing by as Richardson coached his teams, sometimes literally. In one video, Richardson and Rudder stood on opposite sides of a volleyball net feeding balls to players. Public registration forms online show Richardson had listed Rudder as his assistant coach at tournaments.
Under the SafeSport code, USA Volleyball is “responsible for enforcing” the center’s bans and suspensions. But a senior official with USA Volleyball said it leaves enforcement to regional affiliates like Lone Star.
Karen Tarmon, the SafeSport coordinator for Lone Star, said in November 2025 that the organization had been unable to take action against Rudder or Texas Fierce Elite for violating Richardson’s suspension because “a club director or parent of an athlete is required to submit complaints and video documentation.”
In Richardson and Rudder’s case, Tarmon said, “The Lone Star Region has not received documentation of this possible violation.”
But by then, Lone Star had received reports from three people alleging that Richardson was violating his suspension, ProPublica and The Post found. Castañeda, Longoria and the other Texas Fierce Elite mother had all reported that he was still coaching, emails they provided show. The emails included videos, text messages and photos.
In addition, Tarmon said that Lone Star did not have “authority over a club” until the start of what she called the “sanctioned season” on Nov. 23. SafeSport says its rules apply at all times, and Lone Star’s handbook at the time said the region is allowed to govern teams for as long as they are registered.
Frustrated with inaction by Lone Star, Castañeda said he contacted USA Volleyball’s SafeSport office that November with photographs and videos pulled from Richardson’s public Instagram page.
By January, Rudder and Texas Fierce Elite were back at USA Volleyball-sanctioned tournaments.
Longoria
“Permanently Ineligible”
Richardson has made no effort to hide that he is still coaching.
He posts videos of himself working with the girls almost every day, sometimes accompanied by Rudder. He filmed himself spending time alone with players in the darkened back room of his gym, where the twin bed once sat, and performing cupping therapy on a girl who is lying face-down on a table wearing only a sports bra and shorts.
On Feb. 13, 2026, Richardson posted a video of himself training Texas Fierce Elite’s under-14 team. He captioned it with “TFE14” and stamped the video with the Texas Fierce Elite logo and the brand of a new training center named after one of his former players.
On Feb. 19, the Center for SafeSport ruled that Richardson was banned from coaching. His name now appears in the SafeSport database under a new category: “permanently ineligible.”
On Feb. 20, Richardson was back to training Texas Fierce Elite players, and he was back to posting. He has not stopped since.
Collage by ProPublica. Photo by Sarah Blesener for ProPublica.
As a reporter for The Washington Post and now ProPublica, I’ve investigated how youth sports organizations have failed to protect kids from sexual predators. I’ve spoken to dozens of parents. Some had children who were victimized by coaches. Others wanted to know how to keep their children safe.
Nearly every parent I’ve met said they didn’t have the information they needed to understand the system set up to protect their kids.
Here’s what you need to know (and how to get in touch with tips):
How is the system supposed to work?
The system revolves around one organization: the U.S. Center for SafeSport. SafeSport, as it’s known, is charged with investigating allegations of abuse at all levels of sport, from elite Olympic athletes to young recreational players. Its focus is sexual abuse, but it can also look into allegations of emotional and physical abuse.
The center has the power to suspend coaches as it investigates them, recording their names in a public database known as the SafeSport list. It can ultimately ban abusive coaches for life, declaring them “permanently ineligible.” It can also ban coaches based on certain types of criminal convictions, like those involving abuse of minors.
SafeSport was set up by Congress in 2018, in the wake of revelations about abuse by USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar and other prominent sports figures.
How do coaches get on the SafeSport list?
Coaches and club administrators are required to report misconduct to SafeSport, but anyone can make a report online or by phone.
SafeSport then decides whether to investigate; it doesn’t take every case. Usually coaches can keep working with kids while SafeSport looks into an allegation, but if the allegations are recent or serious, SafeSport can issue a suspension — temporarily placing a coach on the list — while it investigates. If the coach is found not to have engaged in misconduct, they’ll be removed from the list.
If SafeSport substantiates allegations, it can issue sanctions ranging from suspensions or other restrictions to permanent bans.
Which sports does SafeSport cover?
The center has jurisdiction only over the country’s 50 national sports governing bodies, which oversee and set rules for volleyball, swimming, basketball, soccer and any other sports that are included in the Olympics. Those governing bodies are overseen by the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee.
That covers millions of young athletes, but there are millions more who don’t fall under that system or who are only partially covered by it.
What does it mean if a coach is banned or suspended?
Banned coaches cannot be associated in any way with a team or organization that falls under the 50 sports governing bodies. That means they cannot interact at all with athletes in those groups, including at practices. Any adult in the organization who allows that to happen is also in violation of the SafeSport code.
A banned coach can keep working with kids, however, by joining clubs or organizations that are not covered by SafeSport.
What else does SafeSport do?
SafeSport also creates and mandates training for coaches and other adults that is centered on recognizing and reporting sexual abuse, and it enforces strict rules meant to govern how adults interact with kids, like making sure an adult is never alone with a minor.
Athletes have to take the training only if they are over 18, although the organization provides optional courses for younger kids. The training is optional for parents. Understanding how to recognize patterns that coaches use to abuse and groom children can become an important way to keep their children safe.
As part of my reporting on a volleyball coach who has been accused of sexual misconduct, I spoke to a mother and daughter who both told me that the coach had groomed the girl when she was a young teenager in his gym. The mom told me she tried her best to protect her daughter, but there was a lot she didn’t know.
When she finally watched a SafeSport training video with her daughter, who had just turned 18, the mother told me, “Had we watched this earlier, my kid might have been more open to be like, ‘Mom, my coach made a comment about my butt.’ ‘Mom, he sent me a message to my phone.’”
SafeSport said it has since resolved some of those issues, improving its process to resolve cases more quickly and cut down its backlog. In a statement, the center’s new CEO, Benita Fitzgerald Mosley, an Olympic gold medalist, said the organization “acknowledges the challenges we have met as the first national sport safeguarding organization in the world. We are on surer footing today.”
My reporting has also found gaps in the system and failures by both SafeSport and national governing bodies that put young athletes at risk.
What can you do?
First, ask your child’s club or team if your child is competing under a national governing body, which is legally bound by SafeSport, or in an organization that voluntarily follows the SafeSport list. Keep in mind that this still might not mean the organization is regularly checking the list or enforcing bans, as my reporting has documented.
Check for your child’s coach in the SafeSport database. It’s important to remember that coaches can be added to the list temporarily while an investigation is ongoing, which means they ultimately might not be found to have engaged in misconduct.
If you find a coach you know on the list, review SafeSport’s resources for deciding on your next steps.
Take SafeSport training yourself to learn about red flags for abuse and grooming, and discuss them with your child.
Do you have a story about a coach?
I know these are sensitive topics that can be difficult to discuss. I also know how important these stories are. If you’d like to share what you found in the SafeSport database, or you have other experiences with how youth sports organizations have handled abuse allegations, please fill out our brief questionnaire.
I’m particularly interested in:
Finding instances of coaches who are continuing to work with kids after being banned by SafeSport.
Better understanding how abusive coaches manipulate and deceive parents.
Learning about coaching abuse, safety and misconduct in basketball, a sport in which SafeSport has far less influence compared with many other popular youth sports.
We take your privacy seriously and will contact you if we wish to publish any part of your story.
The South Australian premier, Peter Malinauskas, has declared a “significant escalation” in H5 bird flu in the state after the detection of three mass mortality events involving more than 1,000 greater crested terns.
Malinauskas said the cause of the deaths was presumed to be H5 bird flu.
It’s simple, says the SpaceX boss – according to something called the ‘Kardashev scale’, we just have to move energy production ‘off-planet’
Next time the weather gives the UK 61 days without rain and we wonder idly if this is the end, there is a term we may whistle up to soothe us. Like murmuring the rosary, or putting our fingers in our ears and humming, this phrase is to be mumbled on repeat – “the Kardashev scale, the Kardashev scale” – a buzzy concept in tech, much favoured by Elon Musk, and precisely the thing we’ve been waiting for. The Kardashev scale is the answer both to our impending doom and our anxiety around it – and if we decide to believe in it, we won’t have to give the climate crisis a single thought until the last drip falls from the tap.
This is the idea and it’s a familiar one to anyone who has watched tech billionaires take intractable, commonplace crises and decide that, among the measures and proposals in play, the vital missing ingredient so far has been them. Do you remember when Jeff Bezos, rather than doing something quotidian and loserish like funding public education by ensuring Amazon pays the same tax rate as regular Americans, decided instead to reinvent preschools?
NASA has called off a $30 million mission to rescue its aging Swift space telescope after Katalyst Space's Link spacecraft developed persistent control and positioning problems. The Associated Press reports: Katalyst said Link will not attempt to capture Swift and boost it to a higher orbit because of problems with controlling the spacecraft. NASA said this means the telescope will plunge through the atmosphere after more than 20 years of tracking some of the biggest explosions in the universe like gamma ray bursts and exploding stars. Its demise is not expected before October.
NASA paid $30 million to Katalyst in an attempt to raise the telescope to a safer, longer-lasting orbit. Intense solar activity caused it to lose altitude faster than expected. The rescue spacecraft went into an uncontrollable spin a few weeks after its liftoff in early July. While flight controllers managed to slow Link's tumble, issues continued to plague its pointing and positioning in orbit.
"This is not the outcome we were working toward, but it does not change why this mission was worth attempting," NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in a statement. As a consolation prize, Katalyst will continue to operate Link in proximity with the telescope to demonstrate capabilities for future rescue operations. Katalyst CEO Ghonhee Lee said it was an ambitious mission on an aggressive timeline that was thrown together in under a year. "We took on this high-risk, high-reward challenge and are proud of the milestones we reached along the way," Lee said in a statement. "We have already learned a tremendous amount."
A ‘capacity for despair’ forged by political oppression has long been considered a Magyar national trait. But after Orbán, writers in the country remind us that melancholy must not always be bleak
A lone visitor looks for a garden outside an empty monastery. A morose housekeeper won’t let anyone behind the door of her own home. A retired general living alone on a crumbling estate waits 40 years to confront the only friend he ever had. Melancholy, an affinity with oblivion without a concrete cause, suffuses the Hungarian fiction translated for foreign audiences over the past 30 years, from the tortured tales of Sándor Márai to the taut novels of Magda Szabó.
In his book In Praise of Melancholy, essayist László F Földényi tells the story of an Englishman who monomanically decides to teach himself Hungarian. For Földényi, the commitment to studying a language with 26 cases and with no connection to any other language, from a culture besieged by centuries of invasion, is to embrace melancholy, a seductive “capacity for despair”. To read Hungarian literature as an outsider, the poet János Pilinszky claimed in 1972, is to acquire unique spiritual insights that come from centuries of rootlessness, alienation and strife.
Hello! This is my first time using a CBXR. I got it secondhand off a seller on Facebook marketplace and it was working just fine when I bought it. When I brought it home, I noticed the headlight wasn’t on, so I opened up the controller, cleaned the headlight connector and re-plugged it in.
The headlight now works, but the board will not activate after a couple seconds. It will flash three times giving me the overcharge error. I checked the Nosedive app and it appears my cells are mostly normal but one is at 3.5 and the other one is at 4.5. I attached screenshots below of the app. Any ideas on how I can fix this? Sorry I’m new to any XR modding.
US president pivots towards ‘crushing’ economic operation against Iran and its trading partners as military strikes fail to bring Tehran to the table
Donald Trump has announced a new campaign to isolate Iran’s economy, threatening “tremendous economic consequences” on any country that helps or does business with Tehran, a move that could set up a fresh confrontation with China if implemented.
“Today, I am announcing the most crushing economic operation ever taken against any country!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Any country that allows its financial institutions, businesses, airports, or government entities to provide any type of lifeline to Iran will itself face tremendous economic consequences.”
The Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm creator says Dershowitz, who also defended Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein, ‘only has himself to blame’ for being ostracised
Larry David has opened up about the collapse of his friendship with Alan Dershowitz, saying that Dershowitz “made a deal with the devil” when he became Donald Trump’s lawyer.
Dershowitz, a former Harvard University law professor, has been a member of legal teams for Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, OJ Simpson and Harvey Weinstein at various points in his career, and served on Trump’s defense team during the president’s first impeachment trial in 2020.
For most of modern history, technology sought to imitate humans. Humans increasingly seek to imitate technology
Two faces that appeared on my Instagram feed in recent months gave me pause. One belonged to John Travolta at Cannes. The other to Carla Bruni on a date night with her husband, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Both looked recognisably themselves, yet, they both also looked oddly unfamiliar. Their looks have provoked speculation about cosmetic enhancement, though never acknowledged by them. Bruni has previously denied having had work done.
In any case the feeling lasted only a second: a flicker of unease, as though I were looking at people who had become approximations of themselves.
Joseph de Weck is an associate fellow with the German Council on Foreign Relations and writes for Guardian Europe from Zürich and Paris
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Spotlight Delaware hosted a debate Tuesday night in Wilmington for the three Democrats vying for the party’s nomination in the Sept. 15 primary election.
Incumbent Attorney General Kathy Jennings faced challengers Dwayne Bensing, the former legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Delaware, and Patty Rickman, a domestic abuse survivor turned advocate and author.
Each candidate answered a dozen questions from Editor in Chief Jacob Owens around criminal prosecution, civil rights litigation and public transparency of law enforcement over the course of more than an hour of conversation.
The entire unedited conversation can be found in a podcast while the transcript that follows is lightly edited for clarity and concision.
Patty, you are not an attorney, but the state Constitution does not require you to be one, to be attorney general. Delaware has never elected an attorney general who is not a member of the state bar, though. Why should voters buck that trend, and how would you approach the role if elected?
Rickman: So thank you very much for that question, and I’ve been getting that question a lot lately. I’m a domestic violence survivor turned advocate, turned author, and now your next attorney general. And I have seen the criminal justice system from the inside out.
My abuser pled guilty twice to domestic violence related to crimes like stalking, domestic terrorism, and multiple violations of the court order. So I’ve seen where the laws that are supposed to defend and protect all Delawareans, not be adjudicated in our criminal justice system.
I do have vast litigation experience with my health care background. For 25 years, I owned a small accounts receivable company where I stood up to big insurance payers like UnitedHealthcare and Blue Cross/Blue Shield, where I stood toe-to-toe when they denied claims, and they could have been adjudicated and fallen to our seniors and our veterans.
And I stood toe-to-toe with them multiple times, and I had a 96% success rating, which is the same as litigation. And why I’m running is because we need someone to stand up and say, law and order should be applied and adjudicated, and that we should make sure that all laws are enforced to protect all Delawareans. And I’m that attorney general that will do that. Thank you.
Dwayne, the attorney general represents the interest of Delaware in civil and criminal cases. You clearly have a long career in civil rights litigation, but you have never served as a prosecutor. How would you approach bridging that gap for DOJ’s criminal division oversight?
Bensing: That’s right. I certainly approach this as a civil rights attorney.
My career has been as a civil rights attorney. And the reason that I’m running is because I think that the challenges we’re facing right now as a society, not just from Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., but also the tech bro billionaire class, the so-called broligarchy, needs leadership in the office for attorney general in the Department of Justice who understands the North Star of our civil rights protections.
And those civil rights are the cornerstone of our criminal prosecution as well. Our constitutional rights to privacy, our constitutional rights from cruel and excessive force, our constitutional rights to be treated equally under the law.
And I think that what many Delawareans have experienced is that our Department of Justice is not evenly applied to our criminal matters and our civil matters. So we need a leader in that office who understands the challenges our democracy faces, that the call is coming from inside the house.
And so I’m ready to lead the Department of Justice, lead our criminal division and our civil division and our civil rights division to ensure that all of the constitutional and civil rights of our citizens are enforced, enforced with vigilance, because we’ve got to protect democracy right here in the first state.
Kathy, you have served as attorney general for nearly eight years now. Delaware has rarely seen the role held for more than two terms in its modern history. Why do you want a third term and why should voters entrust you to it?
Jennings: I grew up in this city to a single mom. My father left me before I was born and my mother was penniless. We moved in with my grandparents and I was raised in a very loving family, but we had very little in the way of material goods. So I grew up thinking, you know what, we need to help everyone achieve the American dream. My mom became a nurse. She was the first college graduate in our family. My grandma made it to eighth grade and that was it. But my mom was a real model for me. I have her wedding band on tonight because she will always be my hero. She became a public health nurse and I went with her everywhere.
So it’s no surprise that I joined the attorney general’s office to help Delawareans. I joined the criminal division, second female in the criminal division. And I was lucky enough to have learned a great deal about the justice system, about trying cases.
I believe that where we are at this point in our history, in Delaware, we have had the safest years on record in terms of violent crime. There’s still more work to be done, especially with respect to gun violence. And then we have a president in the White House who has turned the Constitution and the rule of law on its head. I have sued him 60 times and he has two years left.
I will keep fighting for Delawareans, for their rights, for the money they deserve, as long as that man is in the White House. And I hope that we can then elect a Democratic president.
Kathy, you told the Joint Finance Committee last year that the Department of Justice was, “critically understaffed,” with 31 vacancies among 243 attorney positions, including many senior deputy attorney general positions. Has that situation materially improved? And what have you learned about why experienced attorneys were or are leaving?
Jennings: Retention is a national issue for public service attorneys. It always has been. And unfortunately, our deputy attorneys general can serve 10 years in the office and they still don’t make a starting salary in a private firm in this city. It’s outrageous.
And each and every year, I fight for more attorneys, more support staff. And each and every year, we fight to get them raises.
They unionized. Our office is a union shop right now. And that is a very good thing. With the union’s help, I advocated successfully with a brand new governor that we should get a substantial raise for the people in our office. What I can say is they got it. They got 20% over three years. But it is not nearly enough.
We need more and I’ll keep fighting for more. Our vacancy rate has gone down dramatically with that improvement. And I can tell you that I am so honored to work with amazing people in our office. They certainly don’t stay for the money.
Dwayne and Patty, how would you address the DOJ hiring practices to ensure the department isn’t shorthanded into the future?
Bensing: I think acceptance is the first step to recovery here. And I’m glad to hear that our attorney general is now working on this issue. But it shouldn’t have ever reached crisis levels. And it was just last year that it was a vacancy crisis.
And let me tell you, that results in taxpayer dollars going to private elite law firms, the ones that were just referenced in this city, making a lot more than I make as legal director of the ACLU of Delaware. That we’re outsourcing that work to those private law firms because we don’t have enough talent in the Delaware Department of Justice.
Our attorney general has been there for eight years. Any public interest attorney, and I’ve spent my career as a public interest attorney, could see this crisis coming down the pike. It should not have taken the unionization of our Delaware Department of Justice to be the wake-up call that we needed to increase the morale, to increase the pay.
I’ve spent my career as a public interest lawyer. I know what motivates folks. I like to joke that I’m the lowest paid lawyer in the state of Delaware. I’m not quite sure that’s true, but it’s pretty close. And so I know that what calls people to public interest is not the paycheck. It is the work that we do. And so you really need a leader who understands how to retain talent.
I grew the ACLU legal department from a department of one to a department that now has three staff attorneys, two first-year legal fellows, and a paralegal. I know how to recruit people. I know what the call to service feels like for a young generation. So I’m a professor at the Delaware Law School, and we will increase that pipeline of young talent with the work and the mission of the Department of Justice.
Rickman: I’m a lead-by-example type leader. I feel like the buck stops with me, and I totally take accountability for all of my businesses that I’ve owned.
And from what my experience is in the criminal justice system from a domestic violence survivor turned advocate is that I did not experience many, and I have to say many, employees from the Delaware Department of Justice that seemed happy. And there was a lot of retention turnover.
Just in my experience, it was between six and eight. And the feedback that I would get off the record, they’d say, ‘Off the record, Ms. Rickman, is that the policies and procedures were not followed and abided by, and that it was seemingly a catch-and-release system.’ And what I know about leadership is, if you’re not happy with what you do, if you’re not abiding by the rules and the policies and procedures as an employee, if you don’t have the leader that stands by that integrity, then you’re not going to be happy with what you do. And it’s not going to speak to us Delawareans.
I know that from my experience, and as an advocate, I’ve talked to now thousands of domestic violence survivors, sexual assault survivors, their neighbors, their friends, their family. And it’s been the same report. They’ve had the same experience with the criminal justice system. And if you’re a survivor and you’re having that as a victim, and the neighbors and the friends and the nieces and the nephews, there’s something going on.
And it starts with the leadership. And as an attorney general, that would default to me. And I intend on leading by example and having an inclusive leadership staff with me and following laws and following policies and procedures so that retention is higher, so that we don’t have the issue that has just been within the last year.
Gun violence has been a historic issue in Delaware. The state reached a recent peak in 2022 when 82 people were killed in 233 shootings. The numbers have fallen significantly since then, but 47 people still died last year in shootings as deaths had ticked up in recent years. What is one change you would make to Delaware’s approach to prosecuting gun crimes? And what evidence convinces you that that change would make Delaware safer?
Bensing: So I applaud our General Assembly for taking on this challenge. We’ve had some amazing progress in our enforcement opportunities at the Delaware Department of Justice to really stem the gun violence where it starts.
We have got to track down these illegal guns that are getting out into our community, and we need to get it at its source. And so I think that this whack-a-mole approach to gun violence that we’ve had that really lends itself to unconstitutional policing, we have stops that occur and then we seize the weapon, we need a more strategic approach that really comes from or addresses the supply side of where these weapons are coming from.
Delaware is the source of a lot of where these illegal guns are coming from in Delaware crimes for gun crimes and also regionally. And so this has been an issue that we’ve been working on for years, and it’s taken years for us to finally get the General Assembly to wake up to this crisis of gun violence.
I think Delaware is a microcosm of what we’re seeing on the national level. We brag about crime rates being low, well, that tracks perfectly with our national crime rates. I don’t think that any person at this table can take any credit for that decrease in our crime levels or the priority that needs to be placed on reining in gun violence and the gun access in our communities. But I think it starts at the source, who are the gun distributors, who are the gun sellers, who are providing the community with these illegal guns.
Rickman: So I want to start off by a name, Kadir Skinner. You know, and I find myself getting emotional just talking about him, but I feel like we have to have the ‘meet-our-Delawareans-where they-are approach.’
We cannot say that pointing the fingers as adults, as politicians, as humans, is not going to filter into our youth. It is. And I will piggyback on a little bit of what Dwayne said, because I agree with that. We need to get the illegal guns off the streets. And meeting our youth where they are, going into communities, talking to leaders, talking to the families, sitting down and having conversations.
You know, I have to be fair and just, because that’s who I am, but hearing a little bit of Kathy Jennings’ private story really got to me, because I’d never heard it before. And I appreciate her sharing that with us.
That’s how we connect as humans. That’s how we connect as individuals. And we need to go into our communities and have mentorship programs for our youth. That’s what they need. They don’t need to see the redirection as politicians. They need inclusion. They need unity. And that’s going to be my approach as your next attorney general.
Jennings: Public safety is the No. 1 issue that the attorney general is responsible for. And it’s the No. 1 issue above all else. Always has been. Always will be.
Gun violence has been an almost intractable problem for so many years. There was a time when Wilmington was known as “Murder Town.”
And it was incredibly frustrating to learn about. And so when I took office in 2019, we went to work. We are equipping our police departments with crime gun intelligence centers. Wilmington has one now, which is a huge benefit because we can trace a gun, a crime gun, back to its origin. And that makes a big difference. Every month, I sit down with the U.S. attorney, with the mayor, with the police chief, with the federal partners like ATF and others. And we track every gun arrest in our city. And we make sure that we are focused on the most violent gun offenders. That’s the No. 1 reason why someone goes to prison right now.
But, you know, Patty’s right. The answer is not just locking people up. We need to do it. We need to make our streets safer. And we have made our streets safer. But the problem is that if we’re not working on prevention, we’re not giving children the tools that they need from the very beginning of their lives, then we’re going to rinse and repeat. And so we’re heavily involved in a gun violence intervention program that, in part, is run by an employee in our office, Corie Priest. And it’s making a difference. They’re taking the most violent offenders among us, and they’re teaching them a different way.
Juvenile arrests remain substantially lower than a decade ago. But violent offense arrests have risen from their pandemic-era lows. How do you assess Delaware’s current approach to juvenile diversion? And what would you change, if anything, to reduce serious youth offending while keeping young people out of the criminal justice system when appropriate?
Rickman: I think I kind of touched on that with the last question. We need to meet our youth where they are. I’m originally from Baltimore, Maryland. And my parents owned a home right outside the city.
And I remember a time where our Baltimore City police officers would play hopscotch and jump rope with our youth. And what that did is that built bridges, that planted seeds, and then mentors and priests and pastors would come into that. And then organizations like Campus Life, which is what I belonged to as a 14-year-old, it literally breathed life back into the human that I am. I would not be the candidate that I am sitting here if it wasn’t for a woman by the name of Sarah Woodlawn, who believed in me, who breathed that life back into me. Because I could have been caught up in different situations. And that’s what’s needed. We need to, you know, spend time with our youth.
If we’re not listening as leaders, and again, if we’re pointing fingers in the other direction, and constantly it’s the Democrats versus the Republicans versus the independents, and we can’t meet somewhere in the middle, then that is what our youth is ingesting. That is going to set them up for negativity. And depending on situations, they might go into a different direction. They might not have people like Sarah to breathe life back into them.
We need to open our minds and realize that there are other things that we can do as leaders who would be able to achieve that. And then there’s conversations that me, as a 53-year-old white lesbian woman, will not understand that we’ll be having in Black American and Delawarean homes. They have conversations with their young sons that I will never understand. So we need to meet our Delawareans where they are.
Jennings: This is the most important issue of our time in our state and across our nation. Our children need us. They are our future. And we need to be their future as well.
That means that we need to have a public education system that is strong and that nurtures reading. I think the most important thing a young child can learn is how to read. It will guide the rest of their lives. And I can tell you that there are really great programs in Delaware that focus on children, but there’s not enough. There’s not enough. And we need to do more.
We need to make sure that our children have the ability to grow up in a nurturing environment and to succeed. We have cut back in the criminal justice system, especially, and we have led on this effort, to make sure that children stay out of the school-to-prison pipeline. Civil citations are the norm now for a huge variety of crimes because that means a child never even needs to go to Family Court and get caught up in that system.
Once a child ends up at Ferris School, the recidivism rate is 85%. That’s outrageous. That needs to change. We should never get there. And if we can continue to nurture youth throughout their childhood, I believe we can do a whole lot better in our state and that we’ll be safer and our children will be better off.
Bensing: Well, our youth is exactly what brought me to Delaware. I was on the legal team that sued our state because of their failure to provide an adequate education to our students.
We’ve had leaders in Delaware who talk platitudes about our youth and our future, but when push comes to shove, have not made the investments that are necessary. The result of our litigation against the state, then-Gov. Carney argued there was no constitutional right to an education. The result, the independent studies showed that we are underfunding our school systems by $600 million to $1 billion each year. That is a crisis level. And to put it in comparison, Gov. Meyer called a special session when Donald Trump threatened to withhold $600 million of Delaware state funds. I don’t know why an emergency session wasn’t called when the independent report on our education funding came out.
Our education system is at crisis level, and we cannot address our juvenile justice system without addressing our education system. And it was our county executive, our counties’ executives, who ignored our property tax crisis. When Attorney General Jennings was No. 2 in the New Castle County executive’s office, they turned a blind eye to the plain letter law that we need to reevaluate our property values. That has a direct impact on the resources available for our public schools to serve those students.
And the 85% recidivism rate that you just heard, that is such a failure that we are there after this many years of the current administration that we still cannot provide alternative pathways for our youth. I’m a former middle school teacher, so this issue matters tremendously to me. And we have got to find diversion programs that actually work and that do not result in the revolving door for our school-to-prison pipeline. We need to invest in programs and schools, not school resource officers that fast-track that school-to-prison pipeline. And we need to find actual community-based interventions that work and provide the necessary resources for our youth.
Jennings: I served as second-in-command at the county for one year. During that period of time, my role in reassessment was zero.
In the past two years, Delaware State Police have announced at least 16 arrests involving people accused of their fifth, sixth, seventh, or even ninth DUI offense. Several were allegedly driving on suspended or revoked licenses. What is failing when a driver reaches that level of repeat offending? And what should Delaware do differently to prevent chronic DUI offenders from getting back behind the wheel?
Jennings: Delaware has a good record with respect to DUI enforcement. The first time someone is arrested for a DUI, the numbers are very low in Delaware. We’re among the best.
Having said that, how in the world does someone get their third, fourth, fifth DUI arrest? They get them because they’re driving. They’re not allowed to even start their car. They don’t have a license. What they do have is likely an addiction; a substance use disorder. That is exactly what these fifth, sixth, and seventh offenders have. They go to prison for a pretty long time, but when they get out, they’re still suffering from addiction, and they get behind the wheel. And when they get behind that wheel, that car becomes a deadly weapon.
I read every fatal incident report from the state police. They’re tragic. They’re horrible. Children get killed. Families get killed. And we need to make sure that the people who are killing motorists on our roadway are kept behind bars. We also need to use some of the $250 million I brought into this state for addiction treatment, because they’re not getting better without a whole lot of redirection. In the meantime, we have to keep our state safe.
Bensing: Well, one of the first issues we have here is that we have a two-tiered approach to how we enforce our DUI laws. There’s one set of rules for college presidents and state senators and children of judges, and there’s a whole other set of laws applicable to everyone else. And what we need, if we really are concerned about these DUI repeat offenders, we need to ensure that there are consequences for these actions.
But you just heard the statistics from our attorney general. We cannot incarcerate our way out of addiction. And so when we’re trying to solve an addiction problem, we need addiction-based solutions. We had the $250 million settlement funds, and we had the opioid commission that our attorney general was the co-chair of.
A lot of communities are asking, where do those funds go? It is a shame that we still have this kind of crisis level for addiction-related criminal behavior, because I’ll tell you, it costs a lot more to send someone to jail than it does to send them to Yale. We need to figure out a way that we get folks out of this recidivism, this cycle of addiction. And the program, our Department of Corrections, isn’t correcting any of this addiction problem. It’s just opening their revolving door for people to come right back in. So you have to set the standard high, enforce it evenly, and then ensure that you have programs that help lift people out of this crisis.
Rickman: I don’t know about you guys, but I’m exhausted with opening up Facebook or social media, seeing the pictures and images of DUIs of five and six. My youngest daughter, Destiny, just turned 19, and what happens – as it relates to DUI arrests affects and impacts all Delawareans – as a mom, it’s destabilizing and scary and traumatizing to know that Delaware has such a high rate.
In 2025, it’s 2,977 arrests. And from the experience from the Delaware State Police’s perspective, it’s not that the arrests aren’t being made. It’s that we are known as the catch-and-release criminal justice system.
Both of my brothers suffered from the disease of addiction. And my brother, Jack, was arrested with a DUI, his first and his only. And in Maryland, he lost his license for two years. And Maryland made it so difficult that, thank God, he never was able to get it back.
What is happening in Delaware? This is a safety issue. This is a human issue. We all shouldn’t be scared and nervous as Delawareans worried that we’re going to be hurt when we’re driving to, you know, a grocery store. Because we can’t do what we need to do as leaders. We cannot hold people accountable. There’s a delineation between the disease of addiction and holding someone accountable for multiple DUIs. Both can be true. It’s my “and” approach.
One of the most prevalent issues around Delaware this past year has been how to address increasing homelessness. Local governments have increasingly sought DOJ guidance on how they can address homelessness while respecting constitutional protections and responding to quality of life concerns. What should the attorney general’s role be in defining those legal boundaries? And where should the DOJ stay out?
Bensing: So this is really my attorney general race origin story, because as legal director of the ACLU, I had to sue our attorney general to stop enforcing unconstitutional laws that criminalize poverty, that criminalize our unhoused.
For me, this is very deeply personal. Like our attorney general, actually, I was raised by my grandmother as a result of a car accident that my mother had on her way making the nightly deposit for her boss. And while the millionaire boss went on vacation, my family lost our mobile home and we ended up sleeping in sleeping bags in my grandma’s living room. And it wasn’t until I was an adult and a lawyer that I realized some agency laws probably applied there to that millionaire boss. But also that I was definitionally unhoused. And so this is a personal issue.
Just like we can’t criminalize our way out of addiction, we cannot criminalize our way out of poverty. I had the opportunity to tour some of the facilities at Friendship House just a couple of weeks ago. And the programs and resources that they’re providing to the under-resourced communities here in Wilmington and throughout New Castle County are phenomenal. We cannot address our homeless issue with the Department of Justice.
It must be addressed as a community of neighbors. And I’ll tell you what, if I had been attorney general when Mayor Carney decided to do that sweep right here in Wilmington, I would have sued him under Delaware’s Constitution protection against cruel punishment. Because while the Supreme Court might say that’s OK under Grants Pass, Delaware’s Constitution prohibits cruel punishment. And the homeless sweep that happened here in Wilmington was cruel. Full stop.
Rickman: I echo a lot of what Dwayne said, and this is near and dear to my heart. I’m from Baltimore. As I stated, my father did not have a legal degree, but he was an engineer for Bethlehem Steel, where he worked for the majority of his career. And when they did layoffs, my father was laid off, and we were just a few paychecks away from being homeless. And my mother took up child care to help save and sustain our family.
So I am acutely aware of what this could do to a family. I believe that most of us Delawareans are one or two paychecks away from this catastrophic event of being homeless. And I also want to share something else. There is a pastor by the name of Jill, and she, I don’t remember the name of the church, and I apologize on her behalf, but she is right now filing a lawsuit against the city of Ocean City, Maryland, where she has housed, I believe it’s 50 homeless citizens in Ocean City. And I just applaud her.
That’s what we need to do as humans. We need to take care of one another. That’s what we’re here to do. This is a human issue. And as your next attorney general, I will make it one of my platforms to make sure that we remain human, and I will be a lead by example type person. And never forget where I came from.
Jennings: Well, I’ll tell you what it’s not. The presence or absence of a loitering law isn’t solving homelessness. I can tell you that.
We have a national issue. This is a public health and housing crisis. And when I talk to Friendship House, the No. 1 reason someone is homeless is because they couldn’t pay their rent, or their mortgage got foreclosed on, and they’re out on the street. There is no way on God’s green earth that those people who were living in the homeless tents, in the tents in Christina Park, should have been prosecuted. I was told, prosecute these people if they’re there after dark. That’s ridiculous. That’s not solving a problem. That’s creating another problem. So maybe we actually agree on something.
But I can tell you this, that our office has sued the federal government because Trump decided he was going to cut funding to make sure that people were housed. That would have caused hundreds of Delawareans to lose their homes under the continuum of care. And we won, just like we won 90% of our lawsuits. That’s hundreds of people who are housed. Our office mediates something probably not any of you know. Our office mediates mortgage foreclosure cases to keep people in their homes. We have saved thousands of people from becoming homeless. Those are direct things that an attorney general can do. But it is a crisis. We need to be kind. We need to be decent. And we need to be helpful.
Attorney General Jennings, you’ve sued the Trump administration more than 60 times. Some critics say that’s evidence that you’re concerned more about politics than the results, especially when it comes to multi-district litigation that may impact Delaware regardless of whether the DOJ is involved. So how do you decide which cases to join, which cases not to join, and where do you feel the appropriate role for the DOJ is when suing the federal government?
Jennings: The appropriate role for DOJ in Delaware is how the federal government’s actions are affecting Delawareans. And when it affects Delawareans in their pocketbook, we’re going to sue.
I was the chair of the Democratic Attorney General Association for four years. So a lot of those years were under Trump. What I can tell you is he keeps threatening to cut off our funding over and over and over again for unlawful reasons. And we keep suing him. And, yes, we’ve sued him 60 times. And we’ve saved the state $1 billion in federal funding that is still coming into Delaware because of those lawsuits.
I am so proud of the work that our attorneys in the office have done. They’re proud of their work. It’s amazing. Joining a lawsuit is a lot of work. We have led on lawsuits over funding. And we have joined lawsuits. But that means we have to be able to show that Delawareans would be harmed. And I think $1 billion is a heck of a lot of your taxpayer money that’s still coming in as a result of those lawsuits.
I will never stop fighting for Delawareans. One of the most important lawsuits we filed was the suit against Trump’s tariffs. He imposed these tariffs. You know what tariffs are? They’re a tax on consumers. That’s all they are. It’s your groceries. It’s gas. It’s food. It’s cars. It’s everything you pay for. We went all the way to the United States Supreme Court, and we won. So we tried it again with Trump 2.0’s tariffs, and we won. And we will continue to fight this battle for you.
Bensing: I agree with the framework there, but I really want to pull back the curtains. I think our attorney general acts like she’s the Elena Delle Donne of the attorneys general. Not one of those cases have been filed in the State of Delaware. Not one. These are all group projects.
I watched the attorney general’s campaign ad this weekend and it’s her entire narrative for reelection. I mastered signing my name in elementary school. I will join those cases. The Delaware attorney general will sign on to these multi-state litigation.
What we need is to get real about what we’re taking credit for and the actual impact and work that we’re doing within the state of Delaware. Our attorney general wasn’t there when other attorneys general were suing Elon Musk when he was destroying our federal government under DOGE. Our attorney general wasn’t there when Sam Altman wanted to convert OpenAI from a nonprofit to a for-profit. Our attorney general wasn’t there to investigate all the Epstein anonymous LLCs that are operating and using the Delaware franchise. She wasn’t there when Donald Trump was cashing out on the inaugural committee with his LLCs that use the Delaware franchise.
So really, we need to clean up our own backyard. If we’re going to talk the talk about fighting Trump, we need an attorney general who knows how to walk the walk and fight the fight. I’m at the ACLU. So as many cases as the Democratic attorneys general have brought, and I applaud them for their work, there are about twice as many that have been brought by the national ACLU. So if we’re taking credit for group projects, I’d like to sign my name on those briefs.
Jennings: That’s just flat out false, Dwayne, and you know it. It is flat out false. We have been the leader. The reason none of these lawsuits have been filed in the state of Delaware is because we have the Third Circuit of Appeals, and not one Democratic attorney general in the country wants to be in front of the Third Circuit, which just said assault weapons bans are unconstitutional, for God’s sakes.
So that’s a tactical decision that is made by all of the Democratic attorneys general. I am proud of these lawsuits. These lawsuits matter. The lawsuit that we filed on day two of Trump’s administration to preserve birthright citizenship under the Constitution of the United States, under the 14th Amendment, yeah, that matters.
Rickman: So, first and foremost, I am not a fan of Donald Trump. I have not really said that publicly, but there you have it.
But 60 lawsuits? When our Delawareans are suffering, when we’re talking about homelessness, when we’re talking about our youth incarceration, when we’re talking about violence, when we’re talking about whether the public can pay for their gas or electric? Because I know it’s like tripled in the last year. How about we worry about Delaware?
I’m not saying that we can’t file lawsuits, but can we share the responsibility? Can we worry about Delaware primarily and then get into Donald Trump? How about, with all due respect, Kathy, how about you answer when your constituents email you? I’ve been waiting for four years and three months for a response from you. Worry about what’s going on in Delaware primarily, not what’s going on in Washington, D.C.
I believe that some of her lawsuits are legitimate. I will hand her that. I will say that I agree with some of them. But for the love of God, could we worry about Delaware? Like, we need to focus on Delawareans. We need to make sure that we have safety and our kids are being looked after. And we’re not pointing the fingers because that’s the political partisan issue to do. How about we meet in the middle? How about we stop pointing the finger at one man and start looking at our own backyard like what Dwayne said? I agree with him. That would be my approach. I am a lead by example type person. What you see is what you get. There will be no surprises with my administration. I am not saying that I wouldn’t file a lawsuit against Donald Trump, but I will definitely say that my Delawareans will be taken care of primarily.
The Trump administration has taken a hardline approach to immigration enforcement, which has often come into conflict with Delaware leaders’ efforts to support undocumented residents. When federal immigration enforcement conflicts with Delaware policies or requests for state-held information, what legal standards should the attorney general use to decide when Delaware cooperates, when it refuses, and when it challenges the federal government in court?
Rickman: Now, this is something that’s near and dear to my heart. My youngest daughter that my ex-wife and I adopted from Guatemala is brown-skinned and we had to have a talk with her about a year and a half ago. I would say that she has to go everywhere with her passport because we were worried that she was going to be pulled over and searched.
So, as your next attorney general, I’m going to make sure that’s an “and” approach. That we make sure that we have legal documentation, but there will be no time that anybody in my state, and no Delawareans, are going to fear that they’re going to be dragged out of their houses in front of their children. That will not happen under my leadership.
Both things can exist. And I believe that no one in the state of Delaware and beyond should ever fear these things happening, should ever worry about those things. That would never happen under my watch. Just watching as certain things were televised, and our youth is watching these things as they’re unfolding. Can you imagine what they feel? Especially our Latino and Hispanic communities in other states where it’s propagated.
I’m not good with names. I’m dyslexic. But there was a young woman that was killed right on camera. Those things would not happen under my administration.
Jennings: ICE, as we know it right now, is a bunch of stormtroopers that have descended upon cities across our country. Now they have shock gloves. I mean, it’s outrageous. And we can’t cooperate with an organization that is that evil, that separates parents and children, that ships off a domestic violence victim to a detention center in Louisiana in the middle of the night. We fought successfully to get her back. But, you know, that should never happen in this country.
What’s happening is outrageous. That’s why I fought to make sure that the police in our state were being policed in our state for Delawareans and not cooperating with ICE. That should not happen. And now we have a law that says it will not happen.
I also fought against the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the federal government’s subpoena for Department of Labor records that were based on the origin of those business owners and that were clearly designed to get at Latino and other business owners. We fought for almost a year to make sure those records weren’t produced. We didn’t win in court, but you know what? That was a fight worth fighting.
And we will continue to fight against ICE. If they do anything to break the law in Delaware, I will be there.
Bensing: Well, let’s start where our attorney general just ended. The first step is called a motion to quash. And that’s what the Department of Justice failed to do. And our chief judge reprimanded our Department of Justice and said, “This was not your best day.” We can’t afford not to have our best day in federal court against the Trump administration, particularly when one of the most vulnerable communities is under attack.
That’s the record of the attorney general. That’s the one case: Donald Trump v. Kathy Jennings. We lost. We should not have lost that case. This 287g agreement issue is really important because it’s about public trust. It’s about whether our vulnerable communities can relay information to their local police departments. And the ACLU, as soon as Donald Trump was elected, advocated.
The reason that we have that bill is because the ACLU actually discovered that our local police departments were working with federal ICE agents. And we said, ‘Whoa, you’ve got to stop this. This is undermining the public trust in our local police departments.’ Fortunately, our General Assembly responded quickly. But we were raising these flags early on.
We cannot be caught flat-footed with any of the attacks on our immigrant community. There is a national group called the Federation Against Federal Overreach. Larry Krasner, the district attorney in Philadelphia, is a part of that group, FAFO. You get it? And we need to join that. We need to join that federation because if any federal agent violates state law, we need to ensure that our attorney general is there to enforce state law that protects our communities.
Also, I just want to underscore, because we talk a lot about Trump, but what we’re not talking about are the other threats against our society. And that’s this broligarchy class. And we have employers here in Delaware that are taking advantage of our immigrant community, that are taking advantage of those that are vulnerable in our workplaces and consumers. We need to prosecute those that are violating and the fraudsters that are violating the rights of our immigrant communities right here in Delaware.
Delaware has long debated transparency reforms around law enforcement and the Law Enforcement Officer Bill of Rights, including in 2023, when reforms didn’t quite go as far as some advocates had hoped. One of the biggest omissions from that debate was opening police disciplinary files to the public under the Freedom of Information Act. Should those records be open to the public? And if so, what information, if any, should remain confidential?
Bensing: Absolutely those records should be open to the public. Our police officers are public servants. The News Journal just published last week our top 10 paid folks. Seven of the top 10 are law enforcement officers. That’s your taxpayer dollars. We must, as taxpayers, be able to hold our police officers accountable.
Our attorney general is fighting to keep their names concealed. I had to go to the Delaware Supreme Court to have the Delaware State Police issue the names of our Delaware State Police officers. Now, that should offend everyone in here. We should not have a secret police force, especially when we have the kind of authoritarianism happening at the national level.
Our attorney general has broad jurisdiction to enforce our Freedom of Information Act. And time and again, whether it’s to sue to find out how much of our taxpayer dollars are paying elite law firms here in Wilmington to represent the state, whether it’s Rep. Bryan Shupe’s FOIA request to find out how much our Delaware Department of Justice is actually spending to fight Trump, those records time and again get denied. Those requests get denied time and again by our attorney general.
The LEOBOR is about the personnel records, but our Department of Justice investigates our criminal activities. And so we have to be as transparent as possible. It’s not enough that we’re the first state to have body-worn cameras. Why was that law passed without any policies in place to describe to Delawareans when and how that information will be released so that we can hold bad actors accountable, including when that is our police officers? I have a deep commitment to transparency. I don’t believe we should just trust our government. I think that they should show their work. And so as leader of the Department of Justice, I will ensure that our state agencies show their work.
Rickman: Absolutely. Government trust, public safety, and government transparency should be paramount. And it will be paramount under my leadership.
I believe it was 2023 when Gov. Carney passed the transparency law. And that was about the body cam footage. I myself, as a domestic violence survivor turned advocate, filed a FOIA request when I was the victim. And I was denied. And every single victim that I talked to that has gone through the same process has been denied. Those are questions that need answers.
It shouldn’t be about who you know. It shouldn’t be about if your uncle is a Superior Court judge in the state of Delaware or who you’re affiliated with or what political figure you know to get you out of trouble. It’s about government transparency. There should be policies and procedures. There should be transparency.
I’m the leader that’s going to make sure of that, because the buck stops with me. If there is a law that’s enacted that states that body cam footage should be available, then if a victim of a crime requests that body cam footage, they should be able to access it. I’m not sure why that is. Those are questions that need to be answered. And we as Delawareans, we the people, we the people decide. Not the politicians, not who you know, we the people.
Jennings: I was part of the reforms that took place with the legislature. I was the head of the Use of Force Task Force and we made substantial changes to LEOBOR. Founded instances of serious misconduct are open to the public. And that’s by law. That’s because I worked for it.
I am the reason there is a body-worn camera on every officer in the state, because I fought for that. And as the General Assembly convenes again, I’m going to fight to have a law passed that requires every police department to publicly make available body-worn camera footage. We have 47 police departments in this state, and there are probably that many policies. That is wrong, and it should be uniform. The police should be required to release body-worn camera footage to the public. We’re going to work on that in the next General Assembly.
The recent police-related killing of Kadir Skinner has raised questions of whether the public deserves more access to officer-worn body camera footage. Attorney General Jennings pushed to release the footage even ahead of a determination of whether the incident should lead to charges. When police use deadly force, should officer body camera footage generally be released before the DOJ completes its criminal investigation? And what circumstances would justify withholding it?
Jennings: I think it’s important to look at what the laws are out there. Colorado has an outstanding law on public release of body-worn camera footage. There is a delay of anywhere between two weeks and I think 30 days, I could be wrong on that, before it should be released because it can influence how a witness ends up perceiving the events.
Not intentionally, but it can influence a witness who has to really talk about what that witness knows, not what they saw on the body-worn camera footage. So that’s important. And that takes probably a couple of weeks.
But yes, I believe that body-worn camera footage should be shown to the public.That’s the reason we got the law.
Bensing: Yes, it should be. It should be revealed. These are public records. You are paying for these body-worn cameras.
And I’m surprised to hear the attorney general say what she just said, because her office has issued opinions saying that body-worn cameras are not public records that ought to be accessible to the public. So I’m glad to hear it, and they should be. And I don’t believe that the body-worn camera footage law should have ever been implemented without the policies in place for how we were going to make sure that that footage is accessible to the public.
It makes you wonder, what’s the purpose? And the purpose has been to defend law enforcement officers’ actions. It has been to delay investigations of the investigations of excessive force that result in fatalities. Not one of those police officers have been held criminally accountable. And oftentimes, those investigations take not months, but years before the public has access to that full investigative file.
These are important matters that undermine public trust. If our communities don’t believe that the police officers who are sworn to protect and serve them are actually going to protect and serve them, if they don’t believe that the Department of Justice will be independent, when you have an attorney general who campaigned as the “top cop,” it’s very difficult for our community to then turn to that attorney general to investigate police abuse, to investigate police excessive force, and to investigate police fatalities.
I’m not beholden to any police department or the status quo in any way whatsoever. I was actually in court against the Wilmington Police Department the same day that Kadir Skinner was shot and killed. So we need an independent attorney general who will hold our officers accountable when they step out of the line of their duty. Thank you.
Jennings: I have prosecuted police officers when they violate their oath to serve the public and break the law 15 times. That’s more than any other attorney general in the history of our state. And I don’t hesitate to prosecute when someone breaks the law.
But speaking of dropping bombs, Mr. Bensing, you’ve never prosecuted a single case, not one, not one in the history of your profession. And so I have to say, it’s really hard to hear you talk about, we do this wrong, we do that wrong, you’re going to drop bombs.
I’ve been there. I’ve done that. I’ve prosecuted domestic violence cases. I have prosecuted rape cases. I have prosecuted murder cases. And I have prosecuted Delaware’s only serial killer. You have not once.
Bensing: Well, it is the Department of Justice, not the Department of Prosecution. I know that our constitutional rights are what underpin our entire fabric of our society. I’ve brought plenty more civil rights cases than our attorney general ever has.
The question is, do we have the leadership and the independent oversight to lead this office forward? And she’ll talk about those 15 prosecutions of police officers, but the truth of the matter is over 20 civilians are dead because of a police officer shooting. And not one of those cases has resulted in criminal charges being brought by our Delaware Department of Justice. That undermines trust, particularly when it takes years for those investigations to complete. It looks like a cover-up.
Rickman: Well, I wouldn’t be the leader that I will be if I didn’t say it should be a case-by-case basis. There should be a full investigation. But I also agree that public trust, we have to meet people where we are and there are large communities that are feeling like they are invisible to the criminal justice system.
And why wouldn’t they? If there hasn’t been any formal accountability, like to speak to what Dwayne just said, then why wouldn’t communities feel invisible? Why wouldn’t they feel like we need answers? We need to be protected.
Kadir Skinner, he’s no longer with us. His parents will never see his smile again. And we need accountability for that if that turns out to be, from an investigation standpoint, what it directs to. That’s what the attorney general is supposed to do. It shouldn’t be about how much money you have or what lawyer you can afford or what community you’re from or who you know. It should be about law and order, justice, criminal justice. That’s what attorney generals are supposed to do.
The DOJ has been criticized in recent months for not disclosing certain charges, including against public officials charged with misdemeanors or in the case of at least one sex abuse case when concerns for the victim were raised. What should trigger a public announcement by the Department of Justice when someone is criminally charged? And should the standard differ for misdemeanors, public officials, or cases involving particularly sensitive victims?
Rickman: So this is a difficult question for me to answer, and it’s only because there have been so many political figures that have gotten away with things that they should have never gotten away with.
I don’t typically name people out loud, but Mr. John Atkins. He’s getting ready to go through, he’s campaigning for a race but he’s a domestic violence offender. He’s been convicted. I believe he had gotten a DUI.
What is happening in Delaware? How is this so common? Why do we have politicians protecting domestic violence abusers? Why is that a thing? And it’s not a one-time thing. If you pay attention, if you do your research, you’ll find that this is very prevalent in our state. It’s disturbing. It should not happen.
Across the board, domestic violence is a non-partisan issue. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat, Republican, or Independent. If you commit a violent act, you should be held accountable. I don’t care if you’re a politician. Again, I don’t care if your uncle is a Superior Court judge.
Under my leadership, that will not exist. Full stop. And I’m not sure I understand why it’s happening at such an alarming rate. I’m used to politicians like Barbara Mikulski. She was who she said she was. She stood for all Marylanders. I’m not sure what’s happening here in the state of Delaware. So as your next attorney general, I will prosecute and make sure that I hold accountable politicians, police officers, whomever you are.
Jennings: I think there are rare occasions.
There are occasions, when a victim is so traumatized and has already been through the process once. For example, in another state where the offender receives seven years in prison, but cannot go through it again a second time in the state of Delaware where if the case is publicized, everyone around this victim will know who she is. I’m going to side with the victim each and every time. And that’s my own belief.
I side with the prosecutors who tried to prosecute that case. You can’t prosecute a case if you don’t have the evidence. And if a victim is completely unwilling and too hurt to come forward, that’s our system. And we have to understand that victims come first.
So for me, it matters a great deal. There’s also a law that just got passed, by the way, that I’m not sure, Jake, you might be a fan of, which is that there will be no announcements of felony indictments unless there is a clear public safety reason. So even though a victim may be named, you can’t name the defendant and you can’t publicly announce that indictment. That will set transparency back a long way.
Bensing: Whatever the policy is, it needs to be evenly applied. And we need to know what the rules of the road are in our Department of Justice. What records will be transparently provided to the public on what timeframe?
And it should not depend who that defendant is. It should not be that those who are politically connected have one set of rule books and then everybody else has another. And I think far too often what has been uncovered is that there are inconsistencies.
Living in Wilmington, I get Nixle reports on a regular basis. And it has the mugshot and the name and age of the person who’s been arrested for a crime. And we still, to this day, six weeks later, don’t know the name of the person who shot Kadir Skinner. So there’s a different rulebook depending on who the defendant is, who the person who has engaged in criminal activity.
We just have to have the same rules for everyone. I think that there are sensitive matters and I think that there are ways to redact the names of victims and still keep our dedication to transparency of those who have violated our laws and violated our public trust.
We’re going to go to closing statements. I’m going to start with Attorney General Kathy Jennings and work our way down the table. And Patty, if you want to take an extra 60 seconds for not getting rebuttals tonight, please feel free to do so.
Jennings: I want to thank Jacob Owens and Spotlight Delaware for arranging this debate. Debates really are the foundation of our democracy and I am so proud of all of you for showing up tonight because you took time out of your busy schedules to participate in democracy. So thank you.
I’ve said countless times before that I’m not really interested in criticizing other Democrats. I am interested in helping Delawareans. We have seen the six safest years this state has seen since records began in terms of violent crime in our state. That takes a lot of work and it really matters.
I’m running again because I want to continue that work. I know what works, I know what doesn’t, and we’re making substantial progress in our state and I want to keep doing that. I also know that we have a president who is completely out of control. He is destroying our democracy, he ignores the Constitution and as long as I am your attorney general, I’m going to keep fighting him because it’s a fight we must win as we go forward.
Bensing: Well, I will also fight Donald Trump as your attorney general. Unfortunately, we have two more years, but there will be life after Donald Trump and what we need is a leader who’s ready to bring Delaware forward to address the challenges that our democracy faces right now, not just from Donald Trump, but for the two years of the next attorney general’s administration of fighting to ensure that we are committed to our democracy right here.
I think the challenges we’re facing not just from Donald Trump but the broligarchy, the Elon Musk, the Sam Altmans of the world, these challenges are unprecedented and the decisions our attorney general has made show us that the old playbook does not work to address today’s problems.
We need to pass the torch to a new generation of leadership that understands the threats that our democracy faces. I’ve had an entire career as a civil rights lawyer. This is exactly the fight of my professional career. And so I’m ready to lead the Department of Justice. I’m ready to lead the broad jurisdiction that this office has, not just criminal safety issues but also our civil enforcement issues and our civil rights protections; to be an independent attorney general that holds our government agencies accountable so that those who take the oath of office are serving you and making sure that civil rights is the fundamental North Star of the Delaware Department of Justice.
Rickman: Thank you so much for all the Delawareans that are here tonight, for Spotlight Delaware and for everybody that’s listening online. I really appreciate you, I will stand, protect and fight for all Delawareans.
What’s interesting to me is that we have such a push and redirection. We’re like pointing at the Wizard of Oz behind the screen. We’re saying that that person is the evil dictator and yes, he very well may be, but there’s so many other evil people out in the world. To Kathy’s point, she mentioned I don’t want to spend time addressing anything with Democrats. We need to. As an attorney general we need to make sure that even our Democrats are upholding laws or upholding the Constitution or abiding by their own ethics, which some of them are not.
We need to be holding them accountable just as much as we are holding Donald Trump accountable. And I know that’s the first time I mentioned his name tonight but there you have it. That’s what I will be as attorney general.
I am a lead-by-example-type person. I’m a domestic violence survivor turned advocate author and now your next attorney general. I want to meet with my Delawareans. I want to hear from you. I want to hear what you would like to see as your next attorney general. It’s “We, the people.” Our Constitution was created by that premise. We the people decide democracy. And I think I don’t want to speak for anybody but I think that I’ve heard it from so many victims, so many neighbors, so many brothers and sisters: we’re exhausted.
Do you guys feel safe? I know I don’t. I don’t feel safe. I’m a stalking victim and I don’t feel safe. I don’t feel safe with the number of DUIs in the state of Delaware. I don’t feel safe when we’re allowing some part of people that know politicians to get away with things that other people most of us are not able to get away with. I do not feel safe when there’s two sets of rules. Why is that? We need to speak to that. And as your next attorney general, I will.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: Meta was infused with a culture in which employees obsessed over user numbers and consistently pushed safety to the side, according to Arturo Bejar, a former employee turned whistleblower, who testified today in the landmark child safety trial against the social media company. Only one man had the ability to change that, Bejar said: CEO Mark Zuckerberg. But he didn't. "At the end of the day, it was the company culture that Mark had created that made it so that it was practically impossible to deliver features that addressed the wellbeing and safety issues that we've been talking about," he said.
Bejar is a linchpin witness for a consortium of states led by California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey that sued Meta, alleging violations of consumer and child data protection laws, and that the company lied to the public about risks its platforms posed. The attorneys for the states say Meta designed Facebook and Instagram to hook young users and to keep them on site longer thanks to features such as infinite scrolling and the "like" button. Meta has denied the allegations. In his opening statement on Tuesday, attorney Paul Schmidt argued that the company was sensitive to the risks to teens, sought to address them and did not deceive the public about them. The state attorneys have not yet said if they will call Zuckerberg as a witness.
Testifying in federal court in Oakland, California, for a second day on Wednesday, Bejar, who worked on safety issues at Meta for eight years, said he interacted with Zuckerberg dozens of times, and charged that Zuckerberg was not telling the truth when he made public denials that the company put profits over safety. In particular, Bejar addressed a widely-shared Facebook post Zuckerberg made in 2021 after another whistleblower, Frances Haugen, shared internal documents with The Wall Street Journal that highlighted risks to the mental health of teens. In the post, Zuckerberg said it's "just not true" that Meta prioritizes profit over safety and wellbeing. "Based on my experience at Meta, that is not an accurate statement," Bejar said. [...] Bejar testified, at almost every turn the company chose policies that boosted usership and revenue over safety. Safety was "not a meaningful priority," he said.
Washington, D.C. — President Donald Trump brought cryptocurrency executives and federal regulators to the White House Wednesday as he pressed Congress to pass legislation giving the industry clearer rules, while his family’s extensive crypto holdings continued to raise conflict-of-interest concerns.
Trump urged lawmakers to approve a “fair version” of the Clarity Act, which would establish whether digital assets fall under securities or commodities law and divide oversight between the SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev and Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi were among the executives attending.
The meeting also included SEC Chair Paul Atkins and CFTC Chair Michael Selig. Both agencies have moved toward substantially more crypto-friendly regulation under Trump, including proposed exemptions that would make it easier for companies to issue tokens and raise capital.
Sludge reported that several participating companies have financial relationships with Trump-family crypto ventures or have contributed money to Trump-aligned political committees and projects.
Those connections have become a central obstacle to broader crypto legislation. Reuters reported that many Democrats and some Republicans want restrictions preventing elected officials from personally profiting from cryptocurrency ventures while shaping industry policy. Trump’s latest financial disclosures showed more than $1.4 billion in crypto-related family income last year.
Trump says he does not participate in day-to-day management of his family businesses, and the White House rejects allegations that his financial interests influence administration policy.
New York City, New York — Mayor Zohran Mamdani is suing the City Council to block a law providing $10,000 in additional compensation to roughly 25,000 school paraprofessionals, arguing that lawmakers improperly bypassed the city’s collective-bargaining process.
The Council unanimously approved the measure, which became law Wednesday after Mamdani declined to sign or veto it. The first $2,500 payment is scheduled for January 2027, with additional installments eventually bringing the benefit to $10,000 per worker.
Mamdani’s administration estimates the program would cost about $324 million and argues that wages and compensation for unionized city employees should be negotiated between the administration and labor unions rather than established directly by legislation. The mayor’s office also warns the law could encourage other municipal unions to seek compensation through the Council instead of bargaining.
The United Federation of Teachers and Council supporters argue the payments are necessary because paraprofessionals are underpaid and increasingly difficult to recruit and retain. The aides work directly with students, including children with disabilities and other specialized needs.
The dispute creates an unusual confrontation between Mamdani, a democratic socialist with strong labor ties, and one of the city’s most influential unions.
The lawsuit will determine whether the Council has authority to mandate the payments or whether compensation must remain within collective bargaining.
The US president waxed lyrical about grass being added around the new White House helipad in front of the media. 'You know, grass has a life like humans have a life,' Trump said
Those unfamiliar with Alaska politics are likely raising an eyebrow at some repeated names.
No, we’re not talking about Dan S Sullivan and Dan J Sullivan, two Republicans with the same name running for US Senate – an issue that went to the state supreme court earlier this summer. We’re talking about the Begiches. Nick Begich III, a Republican, is currently leading the race to represent Alaska in the US House of Representatives for a second term while Tom Begich, a Democrat, is advancing to the general election for governor in November.
Former real estate developer leads press corps on tour of grounds and says ‘one thing I know how to do is build’
As the US national debt climbed past $40tn for the first time on Wednesday, and the war with Iran that Donald Trump started nearly six months ago dragged on, forcing Americans already struggling to pay the bills to spend more on fuel, the US president led the press corps on a tour of the extensive remodeling of the White House grounds he is personally overseeing in his role as the self-styled “builder-in-chief”.
The tour, during which Trump showed off upgrades such as a new granite driveway and refurbished columns, and expounded at length on newly laid grass, culminated in Trump autographing the back of a stone, inscribed with his name, to go in the center of the ornate new helipad he insists he needs.
CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Céline Gounder, who has had melanoma herself, said Moderna's experimental trial is "a big win for mRNA vaccines against cancer."
A landslide triggered by the quake had blocked access to the village where Paulina Pobi had lived, leaving her buried under the collapsed remains
An 84-year-old woman has been discovered alive in the flattened remains of her home three days after a powerful earthquake hit eastern Indonesia, authorities have confirmed.
Officers reportedly believed invitees were trying to make unauthorized entry on to Vandenberg base in California
Five news reporters and two members of the military who were invited to an event at Vandenberg space force base in California were briefly detained at gunpoint by security officers who thought they were gatecrashers, according to local news reports.
The incident happened Monday ahead of an invitation-only groundbreaking for a new training facility for missile operators at the federal airfield near Santa Barbara, California. Reporters from Noozhawk and KEYT were among those detained, and both outlets published articles detailing the detainment.
The Standard published a 2,000-word piece by Zvezdelina Stankova last week, in which the professor said some of her math students were “five to eight years” behind and lacked a “middle school” education on fractions and basic algebra. Stankova said the UC system’s test-blind admissions were to blame, suggesting that students who weren’t sufficiently prepared for the rigor of Berkeley’s mathematics program were admitted because a longstanding benchmark like the SAT had disappeared.
Meta is no stranger to large scale computing, with more than 3.5 billion daily users and one of the top AI labs in the world. Getting data from all those users where it needs to go is no easy feat and requires a mix of various networks, topologies, and interconnects. One of Meta’s top network gurus, Omar Baldonado, shared some tips on building the various networks needed to support the company’s massive operations today at the Hot Interconnects show.
During his keynote address at IEEE’s Hot Interconnects Symposium 2026 today in San Jose, Baldonado, whose formal title is senior director of data center and AI networking at Meta, gave an overview of the three main types of interconnects that Meta uses–scale up, scale out, and scale across–as well as some advice for how to get the most out of them.
Meta’s Omar Baldonado presenting his session “Networking for Met’as Gigawatt-scale AI Fleet) at Hot Interconects 2026
“When I started at Facebook 13 years ago, now Meta, our infrastructure budget was in the millions of dollars. Our fleet was in the megawatts,” said Baldonado, who manages the groups in charge of developing and operating Meta’s data center network in support of the social media properties as well as the AI lab that develops Llama, a popular open-weight frontier model.
“But about 6 or 7 years ago, we started with AI specific networking, and that has just caused the ramp,” he said. “I’ve seen it since 2019, where now millions became billions, megawatts became gigawatts. And we started now measuring on the order of zettaflops.”
Meta’s AI training clusters have grown considerably over that time. A few years ago, the biggest ones maxed out around 32,000 GPUs (or Nvidia H100 equivalents, which is Meta’s preferred metric). In 2024, the company rolled out its biggest cluster yet: 129,000 H100-equivalent GPUs. By the end of 2025, Meta had 1.3 million H100 equivalents in the fleet. It’s still expecting to bring its 1GW Prometheus Supercluster online by the end of 2026, with a 5GW Hyperion Supercluster following in the years to come.
Making all this compute accessible, reliable, and performant is an extremely tough job. Baldonado’s job is to make it seem easy, even when it’s not.
“If you look at the networking that’s required to build this and all the infrastructure, there’s a lot of components and it’s massive,” Baldonado said. “[Users] would love to think of it as, the network as an infinite port, infinite bandwidth, zero latency switch. You plug in everything and somehow it just works, GPUs, CPUs and storage. But obviously that’s not reality but that’s what they want. And everything we do in networking when working with AI workloads tries to achieve that. But there are compromises. We have nods to physics, technology, speed of light, economics. But that’s the overall goal.”
Scale Up
A scale-up system essentially behaves as a single computer, with one operating system that’s in charge of all of the hardware, which typically spans a rack or perhaps several racks. An interconnect for a scale-up system must be extremely fast with very low latency, as numerous processors are connected to appear as a single massive, unified compute engine with shared memory.
Image courtesy Omar Baldonado
Some of the most demanding applications require scale-up systems, including LLM training, traditional HPC workloads like modeling and simulation, and in-memory analytics. Meta has a variety of scale-up systems running Nvidia and AMD GPUs, primarily for training AI models.
“Low latency is the key factor, because certain parts of the workloads expect individual matrix multiplies, tensor parallelism to work at low latency,” Baldonado said. “That’s the tightest computation loop of AI jobs, and they want that with no delay.”
It’s critical to tie the selection of the scale-up network, as well as the design of the scale-up network itself, to a specific target application, Baldonado said. “Anyone working on scale up must deeply think about you’re targeting that it’s going to go into,” he said.
The technologies, vendors, and equipment with scale-up networks are changing constantly, making it difficult to plan three to five years out, Baldonado said. “If you’re doing research or you’re building a product, you have to know what what’s in the rest of the rack,” he said.
Meta has invested in Ethernet for Scale Up Networking (ESUN), an Open Compute Project (OCP) technology.
Scale Out
When the size of your workload exceeds the limits of what a scale-up network can do (typically about 5 meters for a copper network, perhaps more if silicon photonics are used), you may want to move to a scale-out system. These systems sacrifice the coherence that comes with having a single operating system in order to tackle the biggest jobs.
Image courtesy Omar Baldonado
Scale out systems have traditionally housed the biggest clusters of machines in AI, big data, and HPC. Meta built a pair of 32K scale-out clusters that used Nvidia’s InfiniBand interconnect. These were used to train Llama3, Baldonado said. After that, Meta switched to Ethernet for its 129k GPU cluster.
For a while, Meta was happy to build mini-clusters out of large chassis switches, like the Arista 1700 or the Cisco 8000, Baldonado said. “You can plug a lot of GPUs into that one switch and it works pretty well,” he said. “So for a while, a number of us were thinking, should we make mini clusters just with say 128, 256, or 512 GPUs plugged into that one switch, because that one switch provides very predictable high performance to all the ports on it.”
Instead, Meta took the backplane credit-based logic that runs across its large switches, disaggregated it, and put it into a large fabric, which it calls the Disaggregated Scheduled Fabric, or DSF, Baldonado said. This was instrumental in allowing Meta to run a very diverse collection of AI accelerators from Nvidia and AMD, as well as its homegrown MTI chips.
“One of the things that you see when you’re dealing with scale out and connecting up AI systems is there winds up being a lot of tuning to understand how do I get the highest performance out of that fabric?” he said. “But given that this fabric, DSF, acted like one giant backplane, it made our job easier to bring on this heterogeneous set of accelerators.”
The decision to switch to a dedicated backend network was instrumental in Meta’s capability to scale its AI training workloads, Baldonado said.
Image courtesy Omar Baldonado
“We made this decision pretty much from the beginning in 2020 that we would have a separate back-end AI network primarily to allow us to iterate quickly with the AI systems and now drive a lot of bandwidth,” he said. “And so the RDMA back-end NICs are often at the edge of the NIC’s speed and AI systems are pushing that more quickly than, say the front end needs with our compute fabrics and our compute NICs. So that’s why we have that split.”
Baldonado also had a word to say about how data center architecture impacts network design and topology. In an ideal world, you would know exactly what workloads you’ll need, what processors will go into the data center, what are the networking needs, and the power and cooling requirements that come with them.
“But you can’t be certain that you’re going to get that accelerator exactly when you need it, and over time, it changes. So we wound up trying to provide as much optionality with these fabrics,” he said.
There are a ton of variables in terms of building the scale-out network to meet the specific workloads. What ASIC vendors are you using? What radix speed switches do you have? If you’re building a multi-tiered network, how many tiers are in them? Or maybe you’re building a flatter, multi-planar network? How do you load balance? How do you handle failures in the network?
“This is one of the reasons that personally Meta has pushed so hard in developing our FBOSS switch network operating system,” Baldonado said. “Because especially now in AI fabrics, we can program the switch ASICS exactly to get the features that we need, whether they’re for performance or for debugging and be able to iterate quickly on the scale-out fabrics.”
Scale-Across
If the size of your workload exceeds the energy or processor capacity of a single data center or even a collection of several data centers within a certain geographic region, you’ll need to move up to scale-across networks.
Image courtesy Omar Baldonado
There’s no hard and fast limit to where this limit resides. Beyond a few hundred meters, which is the limit of what InfiniBand and RoCE (RDMA over Converged Ethernet) can handle, is typically relegated to scale-across status (although some RoCE systems can handle distances up to 50 kilometers away).
The tradeoffs are similar to what we see with moving from scale-up to scale out: a further reduction in coherence as latencies increase. On the other hand, this may be the best way to tackle some of the biggest jobs, such as training trillion parameter models, which require enormous amounts of energy–more energy than a single data center can deliver.
For Meta, the diversity of compute types is an even bigger factor than the distances involved with scale-across networking.
“Heterogeneity is really the problem that scale-across deals with,” Baldonado said. “Sometimes when folks think about scale-across, it’s only about they think about distance, which is an important factor. But you have to really think about what is it that you’re connecting, the distances that you’re connecting, the bandwidth that you’re connecting are, are going to be very diverse.”
The Prometheus Supercluster, for instance, is really a collection of multiple data centers, some of which have liquid cooled infrastructure and some of which are air-cooled.
“There’s different amounts of capacity in each of those areas that you’re trying to connect,” Baldonado said. “At a high level, logically, what’s the topology between those regions?…They’re all fully connected here. But do I have a spanning tree between regions? How much redundancy do I need between regions in my scale-across. So ti’s very heterogeneous, at all levels: distance, bandwidth, technologies.”
Image courtesy Omar Baldonado
Meta owns some of its own data centers, and it also rents space in third-party data centers, as well as with cloud providers around the world. Thanks to its expertise in scale-across networking, it can provide a coherent connection among them.
Job scheduling and job placement becomes a bigger issue with scale-across networks, Baldonado said.
“Life finds a way, right?” he said. “I think that was from Jurassic Park. I like to say here that jobs find capacity. So if I’m a researcher and I’ve got 5,000 GPUs in one of those regions, and then I come to learn, hey, there’s another 30,000 GPUs over there–somehow they find a way to connect them and start using them.”
Baldonado and his colleagues in networking do not like it when researchers do this. They didn’t anticipate that AI workloads would traverse the system in that way, at those distances, and they can’t provide the guarantees that they would at scale-up or scale-out levels.
Knowing the workloads is key across all types of networks, Baldonado said. That means testing them and benchmarking them in production to make sure they’re not exceeding capabilities. This is especially important as new agentic AI workloads come online and bring new demands to the network, such as maintaining a KV cache, he said.
“In the end, we’re just trying to provide the network,” he said. “That breakdown of scale up, scale up, and scale across is a way to think about it. It’s how it actually works. Jobs run on it and it doesn’t really matter where it’s happening–they expect the network to work.”
The collapse was caused by a landslide, while local officials say the death toll is likely to rise as recovery efforts continue
More than 100 people have died after an artisanal goldmine at a small village in western Central African Republic (CAR) caved in due to a landslide, local officials and aid workers said on Wednesday.
The landslide happened on Tuesday afternoon in the village of Zamboye, about 50km (31 miles) from the town of Baboua and close to the border of Cameroon. Footage on social media appeared to show an avalanche of sand descend on a group of people, likely the miners, and cover them.
Regulations that would block sale of older tires praised by environmental groups amid rightwing backlash
California has become the first state in the nation to mandate that replacement tires be energy efficient, a major auto industry regulation set to block the sale of older tires and make vehicles on the road greener.
State regulators have said the new rules will reduce emissions and drivers’ fuel costs. But the rules – which come as the Trump administrations fights to block other California restrictions to promote greener cars – have already sparked a rightwing backlash, with one conservative news outlet calling the policies a “massive overreach”.
The couple said in January 2020 that they would be stepping away from "senior" royal roles and were working to become financially independent from the royal family.
Washington, D.C. — President Donald Trump’s executive assistant Natalie Harp is facing renewed scrutiny after a former White House official said Harp’s intense devotion to Trump unsettled campaign staff and even alarmed Secret Service personnel.
Sarah Matthews, who served as a deputy White House press secretary during Trump’s first term, said Harp repeatedly contacted her during the 2020 campaign asking how she could become more helpful to Trump. Matthews said it was clear Harp wanted to remain inside Trump’s political orbit.
Harp has since become one of Trump’s closest aides. She reportedly helps control access to information reaching the president and is among the few aides authorized to publish posts through his Truth Social account. Court filings in a separate lawsuit describe Harp as one of two aides with direct access to the account.
Matthews also accused Harp of supplying Trump with inflammatory social-media material and described her as someone who regularly provides flattering news and commentary.
Harp’s unusual devotion has attracted additional attention following reports that she once rode in the trunk area of an SUV after arguing with staff over being excluded from a presidential motorcade.
Trump has continued to rely heavily on Harp despite concerns reportedly raised within his political operation. Other accounts describe her as a trusted aide who frequently travels with the president and handles sensitive communications.
St. Paul, Minnesota — MyPillow founder Mike Lindell is paying for a statewide recount of Minnesota’s Republican gubernatorial primary after losing by more than 45,000 votes to state House Speaker Lisa Demuth.
Lindell, who was endorsed by President Donald Trump, finished about 11 percentage points behind Demuth in the Aug. 11 primary. Minnesota law provides taxpayer-funded recounts only when candidates are separated by less than 0.25 percentage points, but candidates outside that margin may request and finance their own recount. The Minnesota Star Tribune reported the effort could cost Lindell roughly $825,000.
Lindell said Tuesday that he wants every paper ballot hand-counted and audited. He cited election-night results that temporarily decreased and vote percentages that remained relatively stable as returns arrived. However, state election officials have reported no evidence of fraud or irregularities that would call Demuth’s victory into question.
Demuth won about 44% of Republican votes, while Lindell received roughly one-third. She performed particularly well around the Twin Cities metropolitan area and the Minnesota River Valley, while Lindell led in portions of northern Minnesota.
Lindell has spent years promoting disproven claims that voting machines helped steal the 2020 presidential election from Trump.
Demuth will face Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar in November’s general election.
hi all be CAREFUL! i love my one wheel have over 1000 miles on it from exploring nyc. today i was riding my board and it ran away from me when i jumped off. thank god i was in staten island (miserable place but wanted to see it, no reason to ever go back). i jumped off my board on some military base thing, and it ran away like an 8th of a mile since nothing was in the way. if that was in a populated area or in a rural area could have been bad. when i jump off as of now i make sure to knock my board over or use the sensor thing when you pick your leg up.
Review by paediatricians links child vaping with poor respiratory health such as coughing, wheezing and asthma
Young people who start vaping risk developing breathing problems and going on to smoke cigarettes, children’s doctors have warned.
Child vaping is consistently linked with poor respiratory health, such as coughing, wheezing, bronchitis symptoms and asthma exacerbations, while vapes have been shown to act as a gateway to smoking cigarettes, according to one of the most comprehensive reviews of the available evidence so far undertaken by the Royal College of Child and Paediatrics Health.
BrianFagioli writes: PINE64 has some very bad news for Linux hardware fans. PINE64 says it has no plans to produce additional Linux devices in the near future because of the ongoing DRAM and eMMC shortage. Future production will depend on component pricing after mid 2027, while existing PineNote and PineTab2 inventory could run out in roughly three months. The company says PineTime, PineVoice, and Pinecil production will continue as usual, but the outlook for its Linux hardware is much less certain. "That's it for this post, all in all it's a bit bleak for the Linux devices, but in the meantime PineStore still have a great lineup of MCU powered devices which will continue to expand with more exciting devices," the company said.
Recalled frozen blueberries and mixed berries that could be contaminated with E. coli pose the most severe category of health risk, according to the FDA.
(The Center Square) – The Pentagon has notified 30 higher education institutions that they must review their academic and research ties to foreign entities or risk losing federal funding.
Two members of the Milligan University cycling team were killed, and several more injured, in a collision with a vehicle on a rural highway in eastern Tennessee Wednesday morning.
With development activities already underway, the new facility expands Diraq’s R&D capacity and strengthens its U.S. presence as part of a global push toward utility-scale quantum computing.
Aug. 19, 2026 — Diraq has opened its first U.S. laboratory in Chicago as part of the Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park’s (IQMP) On-Ramp program at mHUB.
“Chicago’s superb quantum facilities offer Diraq the ability to rapidly test and prototype our uniquely scalable technology as we advance toward deploying commercial systems,” said Diraq CEO and founder Andrew Dzurak. “Chicago has become an important center for quantum development in the U.S. and establishing a research and development base here puts us in the heart of the country as we expand our capabilities and work toward utility-scale systems.”
The facility expands Diraq’s global testing and measurement capabilities, complementing existing R&D operations in Sydney. Onsite, Diraq’s Chicago team has access to dedicated cryogenic and measurement infrastructure to test and characterize the silicon quantum technology underpinning Diraq’s roadmap to utility-scale quantum computing. This includes two quantum refrigeration units and supporting infrastructure. Development work is already underway in Chicago, including qubit measurements, cryogenic CMOS testing, and component testing and verification.
Building a Global Quantum R&D Network
Diraq’s Chicago team operates as part of a global R&D effort, using complementary time zones to extend experimental work across the day. Work conducted in Chicago will contribute directly to Diraq’s broader development program as it works toward a commercially useful quantum computing system containing many thousands of physical qubits by 2029.
Diraq plans to grow its Chicago team over the next 12 months, building on current capabilities in quantum theory and device fabrication, with the potential to expand into broader engineering functions as the operation grows.
IQMP’s On-Ramp program provides Diraq with access to dedicated cryogenic and measurement infrastructure at mHUB while the permanent IQMP campus is under development. As a key center for quantum development in the U.S., Chicago offers access to industry partners, national laboratories, and a robust innovation ecosystem.
“Diraq’s first U.S. laboratory is exactly the kind of momentum we hoped for when they joined the IQMP,” said Harley Johnson, CEO of IQMP. “Our On-Ramp program at mHUB means Diraq—and every participating tenant—can start collaborating within Illinois’ innovation ecosystem right now, well before the Park officially opens its doors. That’s the foundation we’ve built in Illinois: one ready to sustain momentum like this and make Illinois the global destination for quantum discovery and commercialization.”
“The opening of Diraq’s Chicago laboratory represents the progress we envision for Illinois’ growing quantum ecosystem: Leading companies putting down roots, building their teams, and conducting cutting-edge work here,” said Illinois Economic Development Corporation Chief Quantum Officer Dr. Preeti Chalsani. “Illinois EDC is proud to support Diraq’s continued expansion and to help connect the company with the workforce and resources it needs to succeed in Illinois.”
Scalable Silicon-Based Quantum Computing
Diraq builds quantum processors using silicon spin qubits and CMOS-compatible production processes, an approach designed to leverage established semiconductor manufacturing infrastructure and ultimately enable millions of qubits on a single chip. Diraq’s utility-scale quantum computers (USQCs) will be rack-scale systems that can integrate into existing computing facilities worldwide.
For Diraq, utility scale means reaching the point where a quantum computer generates computational value that exceeds its cost to build and operate. The Chicago expansion adds U.S.-based infrastructure, technical capability, and access to a major quantum center as Diraq works toward that goal.
(The Center Square) – The United States government passed a sobering milestone Wednesday as the national debt topped $40 trillion, up from $39 trillion only five months ago.
Stripe is acquiring AI model marketplace OpenRouter as it pushes beyond payments into the infrastructure behind AI applications. According to The New York Times, the deal is reportedly valued at about $7.5 billion, with $1.5 billion allocated to OpenRouter's founders. Less than three months ago the company was valued at about $1.3 billion. CNBC reports: OpenRouter has become popular with developers seeking to use AI models, particularly those considered non-proprietary and available for free. Many of these so-called open-weight AI models stem from Chinese labs like DeepSeek and Z.ai, which have gained steam among developers for generally being more cost-efficient relative to proprietary AI models from U.S. companies like OpenAI and Anthropic.
In a blog post about the deal, Stripe noted that it's been working with companies to "optimize their token costs and route tokens efficiently," referring to a kind of metric used to measure AI model usage. Stripe said it's difficult to manage AI costs relative to performance because of the rapid "pace at which models are released and repriced." [...]
OpenRouter said in a blog post that combining with Stripe will help with its overall vision of "a healthy AI ecosystem where many models thrive, where AI neurodiversity is a strength, where a lab or an inference provider with a breakthrough can reach millions of developers, and where no single model becomes the default by inertia." "Stripe is building the economic infrastructure for AI, and together with OpenRouter we'll help businesses maximize profitability by routing their requests intelligently and spending their tokens efficiently," Stripe CEO Patrick Collison said in a statement.
When I wrote about using Windows 11 for a month as part of the ongoing OSNews fundraiser (keep donating to get me to do the same for macOS!), one of the things I mentioned was that “the modern desktop context menu has its own classic Win32 context menu”. This is, in fact, a long-standing complaint I’ve repeatedly used as the perfect example of just how chaotic and low-quality Windows has become. Thankfully, and naturally I fully attribute this to my repeated complaints (*), Microsoft has been working on a brand new, faster, configurable context menu, and Neowin actually reviewed it.
If you ask me, this revamped context menu addresses just about the biggest problem users had with the one in Windows 11, and that is the need to click through more buttons than necessary to do simple things like renaming a file or opening its properties. That problem is now basically gone.
I have no issues with the new design. It looks modern, it feels more consistent with the rest of Windows, and even though all the new sections can still make it look a little busy, you now have the option to make it as simple or as button-packed as you want. That should cover most use cases and preferences well. I’d even say that when the new context menu becomes available to everyone, my guide on how to bring back the classic context menu might become obsolete.
The biggest reason I’m linking to this is not because I care about whatever monster of a context menu Windows users are having to deal with. No, I’m only linking to this because I never in my life imagined I’d be linking to a review of a context menu. I mean, at least it’s not the chess application icon. That would be embarrassing.
Reports say Duke and Duchess of Sussex intend to relocate from US, with children to start British school in September
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are planning to return to live in Britain, six years after leaving for the US, it has been reported.
The couple and their two children, Prince Archie, seven, and Princess Lilibet, five, are expected to relocate later this month to a non-royal residence.
MyPillow founder and Trump ally lost primary to Lisa Demuth by 11 points, but still refuses to concede defeat
The pillow salesman, Donald Trump supporter and election denier Mike Lindell has offered to personally fund a recount and audit of every paper ballot cast in Minnesota’s Republican gubernatorial primary, which he lost last week.
Lindell’s announcement on Wednesday escalates his bid to challenge the results of last week’s vote, after finishing a distant second to the Minnesota house speaker, Lisa Demuth.
Andy Burnham promises drive to tackle toxic waste, raise fines and use AI-powered drones to detect illegal activity
Illegal dumps in West Yorkshire, Surrey and Kent will be cleared up using taxpayer money, Andy Burnham has announced, as the prime minister promises a new drive to tackle toxic waste.
Ministers have identified dumps in Bradford, Runnymede and the Isle of Sheppey, which collectively contain about 22,000 tonnes of illegal waste, to be cleared in the next phase of the government’s national clear-up effort.
Arturo Béjar, former Meta safety engineer, tells jury tech company was aware of products’ potential harm to children
Meta has taken a “don’t ask, don’t tell” strategy when it comes to the safety of children on its social media platforms, according to a whistleblower who testified during a landmark trial against the company on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Arturo Béjar, a former Meta safety engineer, told the jury that the company was aware of the harm its products caused children, which included its recommendations pushing content from sexual predators and violent and graphic images. He said he repeatedly raised the issue to various Facebook and Instagram executives but that they did little to resolve it.
(The Center Square) – State Sen. Aisha Wahab continues to enjoy a small lead over Bay Area Rapid Transit board member Melissa Hernandez in the race for California’s 14th Congressional District.
Based in Belgium/EU. I have a 9-month-old Pint X that occasionally gives a battery temperature hot/cold error, even though diagnostics show the battery temperature is within the normal range. Rebooting clears it, but it can return the next day.
FM initially said it was a controller issue, so the controller was replaced. The exact same error returned about a week later.
It’s a newer production Pint X, so I assume the known pinched battery-wire issue should already be fixed. Could this still be a thermistor/wiring/connector/BMS or software issue? FM is now telling me I need to buy a new battery module.
I also saw on another forum that if it’s a sensor issue rather than the battery cells, it should be covered by FM’s 1-year warranty. Is that correct? And since I’m in the EU and the board is only 9 months old, wouldn’t the 2-year legal guarantee normally cover a defect like this? Any advice/experience appreciated!
Just had my X7LR delivered today as well as a fender and hex screws to fit it all from different sellers on the same day the stars perfectly aligned for me today in time to celebrate my 58th birthday 🎂 tomorrow only had a quick go after fitting fender with tap washers(faucet) 😁till I get adapters printed I gotta say it’s freaking awesome and big thanks to K fungineers support as she said perfect timing for you we have your colour spare in Europe warehouse so from paying to receiving my new board 8days 1hr is this a record me be so god dang lucky on my birthday 😁
(The Center Square) - Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry has signed a pair of executive orders that fast-track environmental permitting for critical minerals and rare earth production as part of an effort to attract heavy industries to the state.
Amazon says its Prime Air drone delivery service will expand sixfold to nearly 500 U.S. cities and towns by the end of 2026, including metro areas around Chicago, Syracuse, Cleveland, Atlanta, and Boise. According to Amazon Prime Air vice president David Carbon, the service has already delivered "hundreds of thousands of packages to customers" this year, typically within about an hour. The Verge reports: These will join 11 locations across the US where Amazon already offers drone deliveries, with each Prime Air site serving an area of approximately 175 square miles. The service aims to quickly deliver packages of up to 5 pounds or less [...]. Amazon reiterated its drone safety features alongside these expansion plans, including Prime Air's "industry-leading Detect-and-Avoid system." That's likely an attempt to minimize any concerns raised by the communities where the service is expanding, given these drones have already been scrutinized for crashing into cranes, internet cables, gardens, and an apartment building.
(The Center Square) – Agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement are blocked from entering churches of Cooperative Baptists, Quakers and Sikhs to carry out enforcement operations unless they have a warrant, or in certain specified circumstances, the 4th U.S.…
(The Center Square) – The Trump administration unveiled a proposed rule clarifying that hundreds of thousands of noncitizen taxpayers are ineligible for refunds from four individual income tax credits. The move could save the U.S. up to $2.6 billion in…
The Rhode Island town of Narragansett was left with a very smelly cleanup over the weekend after thousands of squid spilled over the highway. The incident happened on Sunday morning when the driver of a tractor-trailer transporting the squid failed to make a turn and the vehicle fell on to its side, the town’s police department said in a statement. It created hours of delays for motorists and a foul stench
Officials say all seven people onboard killed, including Telemundo executive and Ecuador intelligence chief
Seven people, including five Americans, were killed when a safari helicopter crashed on Wednesday morning in a remote part of northern Kenya, according to local police and the state department.
Among the dead were an executive with Telemundo, the US-based Spanish-language network owned by NBC Universal, and the director of Ecuador’s national intelligence service.
Military orders criminal investigation into deaths of five-year-old and six family members in Gaza in 2024
The Israeli military admitted on Wednesday its troops had opened fire on a car carrying five-year-old Hind Rajab and six family members in Gaza in 2024, saying it had ordered a criminal investigation into the killing.
The killing of Hind and her family was one of the most high profile of a series of incidents involving civilian casualties during the first months of the Gaza conflict which prompted international outrage.
Independent music publisher Round Hill is suing Suno and Anthropic for allegedly using hundreds of copyrighted songs without permission to train their AI systems. The company says potential damages could exceed $1 billion, arguing there is "nothing fair" about building multibillion-dollar AI businesses on copyrighted material while rights holders receive nothing. From The Hollywood Reporter: Round Hill is a prominent music publisher whose copyrights include the Goo Goo Dolls' "Iris," Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart," the Kinks' "Lola" and Dio's "Holy Diver." The company provided a list of 500 songs that the defendants had infringed upon. Round Hill said in the suits that the company plans to "amend to list potentially ten thousand or more of their musical compositions," with those damages potentially exceeding $1 billion. "While in other cases for copyright infringement, Defendant has waxed poetic about the necessity of progress and AI's value to society, there is simply no reason -- other than rote expediency -- to have that progress come at the cost of copyrights holders," prominent music attorney Richard Busch, representing Round Hill, wrote in the suits.
Round Hill further argued that the latter "'expediency' arguments completely falter" when taking into account Suno and Anthropic's significant cash valuations they've earned while "exploiting illicit copies of copyrighted works, including the Round Hill Works." "There is simply nothing fair about a company using theft to build for purely commercial purposes a multi-billion dollar business while those from which they steal receive nothing," Round Hill said.
Suno also faces a lawsuit from Universal Music Group and Sony Music Group.
The UAE, one of Iran’s biggest trading partners, said the move was “in light of regional escalations that undermine regional and international peace and security.”
In conservative Florida, Alex Vindman – a retired army intelligence officer who blew this whistle on Donald Trump in his first term – appeared set to carry the Democratic establishment banner as the party staged a long-shot bid to topple a Republican US senator.
I'm planning to bring my GT to Burning Man for the first time. (Experienced Burner and floater, but haven't yet merged the two). Any advice for me? Whether for sick/respectful playa carving (e.g. I figure flight fins setup is clutch), cleaning/maintenance afterward (is it still inevitable that my grip tape is forever changed?), or whatever.
I've seen some older Reddit advice á la AirTag + bearing seals that I am planning to follow. But I'm curious for floaters' latest tricks and musings, hence posting here rather than in a Burner sub.
Note I'll also likely have a basic bike, for those times when altered, tired, extra stormy, etc. I tend to be a very-cautious and very-respectful rider; you won't blow my mind with general warnings, but I don't mind hearing those either. ✌️
CISA says the Medusa ransomware operation has breached more than 500 U.S. critical infrastructure organizations since 2021, up from more than 300 reported last year. The group has targeted healthcare, government, defense, manufacturing, IT and financial organizations, evolving into a ransomware-as-a-service operation that recruits initial-access brokers and uses stolen data to pressure victims into paying. BleepingComputer reports: The three federal agencies recommended that network defenders secure their networks against the ransomware group's attacks by mitigating security vulnerabilities to protect operating systems, software, and firmware from exploitation attempts. Security teams are also advised to segment networks to block lateral movement after compromise and to block access from untrusted origins to remote services on internal systems.
[...] "Medusa developers typically recruit initial access brokers (IABs) in cybercriminal forums and marketplaces to obtain initial access to potential victims," the advisory says. "Potential payments between $100 USD and $1 million USD are offered to these affiliates with the opportunity to work exclusively for Medusa."
Meeting attendees discussed the open-source library for high performance computing
COLUMBUS, Ohio, Aug. 19, 2026 — Researchers, developers, system administrators, engineers, and students who share an interest in the MVAPICH open-source library for high performance computing (HPC) gathered at the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) Monday, Aug. 17, through Wednesday, Aug. 19, for the 14th meeting of the MVAPICH Users Group (MUG).
Participants in the 2026 MVAPICH Users Group (MUG) meeting gather at the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) facility in Columbus, Ohio. Image credit: OSC.
The Network-Based Computing Research Group led by Dhabaleswar K. “DK” Panda, a professor of computer science at The Ohio State University, developed and maintains the popular HPC system software package, which is used by more than 3,500 organizations in 94 countries worldwide. As of August 2026, more than two million downloads have occurred from the project’s site. The software is distributed by many vendors and powers several supercomputers in the TOP500 list of global supercomputing systems.
“We are pleased to feature more than two dozen academic and industry speakers from across the globe at this year’s conference,” Panda said. “This annual meeting is a great opportunity for our growing user base to share their knowledge and experiences and learn from each other.”
In addition to expert talks, the event featured presentations from the MVAPICH team on tuning and optimization strategies for various components, an interactive/hands-on session with the MVAPICH developers to discuss issues, and student poster presentation sessions.
Sponsors of this year’s event are 1Finity, Broadcom, Cornelis Networks, National Science Foundation, D-Matrix, Keysight, NVIDIA, Ohio State, ParaTools, X-ScaleSolutions, and OSC.
“OSC is excited to sponsor and host the MVAPICH Users Group meeting,” said Karen Tomko, OSC director of research software applications. “As many OSC clients rely on the software package, we are pleased to provide a forum in which the developers and users can exchange information and optimize its use in their high performance computing work.”
OSC and Panda have collaborated on several research initiatives, including the AI Institute for Intelligent CyberInfrastructure with Computational Learning in the Environment (ICICLE), as well as a new National Science Foundation-funded project, “Collaborative Research: Frameworks: Designing Next-Generation HPC and AI Middleware with Power-Performance Tradeoffs.”
The Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) addresses the rising computational demands of academic and industrial research communities by providing a robust shared infrastructure and proven expertise in advanced modeling, simulation, and analysis. OSC empowers scientists with the services essential to making extraordinary discoveries and innovations, partners with businesses and industry to leverage computational science as a competitive force in the global knowledge economy, and leads efforts to equip the workforce with the key technology skills required for 21st-century jobs.
Aalim Ahmed, five, fell from 15th-floor window at tower block family had asked to be moved out of, court hears
An inquest into the death of a five-year-old boy who fell from a 15th-floor window has heard that more measures could have been taken to make it safer.
Aalim Ahmed, who was autistic, died when he fell from a kitchen window at a residential block in Plaistow, east London. His father, Makail Ahmed, rushed from the top floor temporary social housing flat and discovered his body shortly before 6am on 16 May 2024.
PM wants to reduce department’s stranglehold on public purse and bring long-term thinking to economic policy
Andy Burnham is far from the first prime minister to dream of taming the power of the mighty Treasury.
Boris Johnson all but forced the resignation of Sajid Javid by handpicking his team; Margaret Thatcher favoured her economic adviser Alan Walters over Nigel Lawson, prompting the latter’s furious resignation; and Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s power struggle was the stuff of Whitehall legend.
Israel says military police will investigate the killing of Hind Rajab, a young girl in Gaza whose death at the hands of its forces drew an international outcry.
UCL researchers warn repeated exam attempts may dent students’ confidence and raise risk of dropping out
Forcing teenagers who fail GCSEs into multiple resits has a negative impact on their mental health, according to research to be published as pupils receive their grades on Thursday.
The study by academics at University College London (UCL) compared the mental wellbeing of students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland who failed to reach a grade 4 or equivalent in maths or English GCSEs – and found that only those in England, where resits are mandatory, showed significantly lower wellbeing.
Aug. 19, 2026 — AI is an increasingly useful tool for researchers across the scientific landscape, showing deep promise for accelerating discovery and innovation. However, incorporating AI into research may require training and adjustment for scientists—and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), in conjunction with organizers from other institutions, is bridging that gap.
DL4SCI 2026 attendees have the opportunity to share their findings at a poster session. Credit: Berkeley Lab.
From July 20–24, over 230 researchers gathered at UC Berkeley for the 2026 Deep Learning for Science School (DL4SCI), a five-day intensive workshop featuring the newest and most innovative methods and technologies in AI for science.
Initiated in 2019, DL4SCI has become a benchmark in training researchers in AI, even as it has evolved with the technology. This year’s school featured in-depth lectures and research talks, along with sessions on reasoning-centric workflows and agentic systems.
“The school spans the life cycle of AI in science, from foundation models and large-scale training to scientific applications, reasoning, and agentic AI,” said DL4SCI co-organizer Shashank Subramanian. “Bringing together experts from academia, national labs, and industry gives participants a unique perspective on where AI for science is today and where it’s headed.”
DL4SCI is bolstered by advanced theory in deep learning and generative AI, but organizers say what makes the school special is interaction and collaboration with practitioners using these techniques in real, challenging applications in industry and academia. From conversation with experts to networking opportunities and an optional poster session, DL4SCI is known for offering participants the chance to learn how to apply AI for practical science impacts.
Ultimately, DL4SCI is one important way in which Berkeley Lab is preparing researchers to incorporate transformative technologies into their work and developing the workforce of the future.
“This summer school series has been incredibly effective in bringing deep learning techniques to complex science domains,” said Jonathan Carter, Assistant Lab Director for the Berkeley Lab Computing Sciences Area. “Equipping the next generation of researchers with these capabilities is a vital part to fulfilling the objectives of the Genesis Mission.”
About Computing Sciences at Berkeley Lab
High performance computing plays a critical role in scientific discovery. Researchers increasingly rely on advances in computer science, mathematics, computational science, data science, and large-scale computing and networking to increase our understanding of ourselves, our planet, and our universe. Berkeley Lab’s Computing Sciences Area researches, develops, and deploys new foundations, tools, and technologies to meet these needs and to advance research across a broad range of scientific disciplines.
(The Center Square) – Gov. Greg Abbott is pushing back against a request to extradite a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in custody in Texas, saying he doesn’t trust Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
SUNNYVALE, Calif., Aug. 19, 2026 — Cerebras Systems has introduced the CS-4, a rack-scale AI system built with three new Wafer Scale Engine 3 Turbo processors. The CS-4 is the first system based on the company’s new Nexus platform architecture and delivers up to twice the performance of the CS-3, according to Cerebras.
Cerebras said the CS-4 delivers up to 30 times the tokens per second per user of GPU-based systems and up to 10 times the throughput per watt of the CS-3. First shipments are scheduled to begin this quarter.
“In AI, speed is productivity,” said Andrew Feldman, CEO and co-founder of Cerebras. “Historically, fast inference meant using smaller and less capable models. Cerebras CS-4 delivers industry-leading speeds on the largest frontier models, fundamentally changing the paradigm. Every aspect of the design has been optimized to deliver the highest speeds with massive throughput. With the CS-4, AI is so fast that it fundamentally reshapes product experiences.”
The rack scale CS-4 is built from three of the newly released Wafer Scale Engine 3 Turbo (WSE-3T). The CS-4 delivers 750 PFLOPs of AI compute, 7.2 terabits per second of I/O, and 129.6 petabytes per second of memory bandwidth. Total compute fabric bandwidth jumps to 160.5 petabytes per second, and wafer to wafer latency drops as low as two microseconds, enabling the creation of very large clusters and the support of models with over 50 trillion parameters.
“CS-4 makes dramatic improvements in system deployability, reliability, and networking, which enables scaling performance to larger models for large scale token factories,” said Dylan Patel, founder and CEO, SemiAnalysis. “CS-4 will scale ultrafast tokens for larger models and significant user volumes. The Cerebras Backpack is focused on time to market. As ultrafast inference continues to grow, Cerebras’ newest hardware will help ensure frontier speeds.”
A New Leader in AI Inference Speed and Capacity
In a head-to-head comparison on GPT-OSS-120B, when given identical prompts, the CS-4 delivers more than 4,400 tokens second per user (TPS/user), up to 30 times faster than GPU solutions.
“Being 30 times faster doesn’t just make a response feel fast. It gives an agentic system room for more than an order of magnitude as much reasoning, verification, or tool use in the same wall-clock time,” said Sean Lie, CTO and co-founder of Cerebras. “That’s the difference CS-4 makes for real production workloads.”
A New Processor
CS-4 is powered by the newly announced WSE-3 Turbo (WSE-3T). Like the WSE-3, the WSE-3T is the largest AI processor ever built, containing four trillion transistors and 900,000 AI-optimized cores across 46,225 square millimeters of silicon, with 44GB of SRAM integrated directly on the wafer.
The WSE-3T doubles AI compute to 250 PFLOPS per wafer and doubles memory bandwidth to 43.2 petabytes per second. And since memory bandwidth is the determining factor in driving speed and throughput, this translates to a step-change improvement in both. The on-chip fabric bandwidth and off-chip I/O both double to 53.5 petabytes per second and 2.4 terabits per second respectively. I/O latency shrinks from five microseconds to as low as two microseconds.
New System and Rack Design
CS-4 is the first iteration of the new Cerebras Nexus Platform Architecture. It is built around a modular concept with three foundational elements: Compute, Power and I/O. Cerebras brings significant innovation to each element. Modularity enables each element to scale independently so innovations get to market faster. The modular architecture also supports extremely rapid deployment and upgrades.
Pluggable Backpack Design: Cerebras has fundamentally re-imagined the compute subsystem into a rear mounted “backpack” that attaches vertically to the power array. Each Wafer-Scale Backpack is a self-contained assembly that folds power conversion, direct liquid cooling, high-speed I/O, and control electronics into a compact, three-dimensional package built directly around the wafer. By decoupling compute from the power supplies, the Wafer-Scale Backpack simplifies manufacturing and reduces deployment time from days to hours. Compared with the prior-generation system, the Wafer-Scale Backpack has 50% fewer components and uses 60% more automated manufacturing.
High-Density Power Delivery: The Nexus Platform Architecture drives significant power delivery improvements. For example, by moving power conversion 100x closer to the processors – from roughly 50 millimeters away from the processor as on conventional GPU boards to approximately 0.5 millimeters – CS-4 nearly eliminates board-level power loss. This delivers twice as much power to the WSE-3T, enabling higher operating frequencies and faster token generation.
New Modular I/O Subsystem: CS-4 introduces a new programmable I/O subsystem that supports two connectivity modes while doubling I/O bandwidth and reducing latency. More bandwidth and lower latency benefits both aggregated and disaggregated solutions.
The fully programmable Wafer I/O Module supports standards-based RoCE v2 RDMA over Ethernet for seamless integration into existing infrastructure and with an ecosystem of heterogeneous systems. Aggregate off-wafer bandwidth doubles to 2.4 terabits per second per wafer and 7.2 terabits per CS-4 rack solution.
The Wafer I/O Module also supports a new communication mode, called Direct Wafer Links, which enables wafers to be linked within and across racks without a switch. Direct Wafer Links enables wafer-to-wafer latency as low as two microseconds. This low latency communication will allow the creation of massive CS-4 clusters and the ability to support models with more than 50 trillion parameters.
Programmable low latency I/O is particularly beneficial for heterogeneous disaggregated inference, in which a purpose-built prefill engine processes an incoming prompt and then hands it to Cerebras for ultra-low latency decode. The combination of programmability, standards-based interfaces, and very low latency will allow the rapid creation of disaggregated solutions from different Cerebras ecosystem partners, like AMD Helios and AWS Trainium.
Cerebras Systems (NASDAQ: CBRS) builds 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. We 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. Visit cerebras.ai for more.
Prosecutors faced a backlash for bringing felony charges against Los Angeles police officer Daniel Flores, whom they accused of illegally recording colleagues' offensive comments.
Moderna and Merck say their personalized mRNA melanoma vaccine significantly reduced both cancer recurrence and spread in a late-stage trial. The treatment could reach patients as soon as next year if regulators approve it. Reuters reports: Moderna developed the vaccine with Merck and tested it together with immunotherapy drug Keytruda, a widely used treatment for melanoma. [...] This is the first positive late-stage trial result for an mRNA cancer vaccine, which trains a patient's immune system to fight tumors by targeting specific mutations in those cells and the first such study to show that adding a treatment to Keytruda worked better than that therapy alone. Similar approaches are being tested against lung, breast and pancreatic cancers.
[...] The cancer treatment combines Merck's Keytruda with a made-to-order mRNA vaccine from Moderna that is based on an analysis of mutations found in the patients' own tumors. The trial enrolled 1,137 high-risk patients with stage IIB-IV melanoma that had been surgically removed. Volunteers were randomized to receive up to nine doses of Keytruda plus the personalized vaccine or Keytruda alone for about one year. The companies said no new safety signals have emerged in the trial. In January, the companies announced results of a mid-stage trial of the treatment showing that it reduced the risk of recurrence or death by 49% after five years. Karen Knudsen, CEO of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, said the Moderna results could signal a new era for treating solid-tumor cancers. "The positive hit here leads us into truly this next phase in immunotherapy," Knudsen said. "This is an auspicious start -- this is where things begin."
Moderna shares more than doubled on the news, adding about $30 billion to its market value.
The Trump administration’s ‘America first’ approach has contributed to the scale of the crisis now unfolding in one of the world’s poorest countries
For months health experts have warned that the scale of the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) could surpass the one that swept west Africa in 2014-16. This week, the authorities in the DRC announced that a grim milestone has already been passed: at least 2,325 people have died from the virus, making it the deadliest of the country’s 17 outbreaks and the fastest-growing in history.
There is no effective vaccine against Bundibugyo – a rare strain of the virus that spread fatally undetected during the spring, often being misdiagnosed as malaria or typhoid. In contrast to neighbouring Uganda, which succeeded in eliminating an outbreak, multiple factors are combining to let the disease rip through the DRC. The worst-affected region is contested by armed groups, and a context of population displacement and chronic insecurity has made monitoring and surveillance more difficult. Ebola treatment centres have been attacked as a result of misinformation and community distrust.
(The Center Square) – Despite crime down across the country, antisemitic crimes remain high as 2025 marked the “third highest year on record” for hate crimes targeting Jewish people, according to a new FBI report.
Officers still investigating deaths of Zeina Alayn, Hassan El-Khawas and daughter Sara El-Khawas at Shoreham-by-Sea
A father, mother and their teenage daughter who died off the Sussex coast on Tuesday have been identified.
Sussex police named the victims as Hassan El-Khawas, 55, his partner, Zeina Alayn, 37, and their 14-year-old daughter, Sara El-Khawas. A younger girl who was also part of the family is in hospital in a critical condition. She has not been named.
Caption: On September 12, Cub Scouts, Scouts BSA members and Girl Scouts in second grade and older can spend two 2½-hour sessions doing maritime activities that connect naturally with Scouting’s emphasis on learning through experience. Photos courtesy of the Kalmar Nyckel and edited with AI on 8/19.
Kalmar Nyckel event on September 12 will challenge Scouts with boat racing, knot tying, cannon drills, sea chanteys and an outdoor adventure course
By George D. Rotsch, Editor and Publisher of Delaware LIVE
WILMINGTON — Long before young people learned leadership around a campfire, sailors learned many of the same lessons aboard ships: Work together, master practical skills, accept responsibility and be prepared when conditions change.
Those shared traditions will come together Sept. 12 when the Kalmar Nyckel Foundation hosts its annual Scout Day at the Copeland Maritime Center campus and nearby Fort Christina Park.
The event is designed for Cub Scouts, Scouts BSA members and Girl Scouts in second grade and older. Two 2½-hour sessions will offer maritime activities that connect naturally with Scouting’s emphasis on learning through experience.
Participants will be assigned to groups and rotate through five hands-on stations: a Rain Gutter Regatta, an outdoor adventure course, knot tying, sea chanteys and cannon drills.
Each activity introduces a different part of maritime life while reinforcing teamwork, communication, problem-solving and personal confidence.
Small boats create a big challenge
The Rain Gutter Regatta brings one of Scouting’s familiar traditions to the maritime campus.
Scouts will race small boats through narrow channels, discovering how a boat’s design, balance and movement can affect its performance. The activity combines friendly competition with basic lessons about buoyancy, propulsion and the challenges of moving a vessel through water.
It also encourages Scouts to observe what works, make adjustments and try again — the same problem-solving process used by sailors, engineers and shipbuilders.
The regatta may be on a much smaller scale than the Kalmar Nyckel, but the challenge reflects a much larger maritime principle: A successful voyage begins with a vessel designed to move efficiently through the water.
Knots with a purpose
At the knot-tying station, Scouts will practice one of the most fundamental skills in both Scouting and sailing.
Knots aboard a ship are not decorative. Sailors depend on them to secure equipment, manage lines and keep people and cargo safe. Each knot must be appropriate for the job and tied correctly.
Scouting teaches the same combination of knowledge, practice and responsibility. Learning a knot requires concentration and repetition, but it also gives a young person a skill that can be used while camping, boating or responding to an emergency.
The station will help Scouts understand why sailors had to know not only how to tie a knot, but also when and why to use it.
Cannon drills demand coordination
The cannon drill will introduce Scouts to the highly organized teamwork required aboard a historic vessel.
Operating a ship’s cannon required crew members to perform different tasks in a precise order. Each person had to understand an assigned role, listen for commands and work safely with the rest of the team.
The activity turns history into a group exercise. Instead of simply hearing how a tall ship’s crew worked, Scouts will experience how communication, timing and shared responsibility allowed sailors to complete a complicated assignment.
Those lessons closely match Scouting’s patrol system, in which young people learn that a team succeeds when every member understands the plan and carries out a responsibility.
Singing that helped sailors work
Sea chanteys will bring music into the Scout Day experience, but the songs historically served a practical purpose.
Sailors used chanteys to establish a rhythm when performing demanding group tasks, such as hauling a line or raising a sail. The song helped crew members coordinate their movements and apply their effort at the same time.
For Scouts, the station will demonstrate how music could become a tool for teamwork. It also provides a window into the culture of sailors who spent long periods living and working together at sea.
The activity connects history, performance and cooperation while giving Scouts an opportunity to participate together.
An outdoor test of confidence
The outdoor adventure course will draw on another strong connection between the Kalmar Nyckel and Scouting: the belief that young people build confidence by confronting manageable challenges.
The course will require Scouts to listen, move, think and work with others. Like many Scouting activities, the objective is not simply to finish. Participants must determine how to approach a challenge and support the other members of their group.
The station brings maritime adventure onto land while reinforcing the qualities needed aboard a ship: awareness, preparation, perseverance and trust.
Learning by doing
Together, the five stations create a progression of experiences rather than a traditional classroom lesson.
Scouts will race, tie, sing, drill and navigate physical challenges. Each station approaches maritime education differently, but all are built around active participation.
That approach reflects a central value shared by Scouting and the Kalmar Nyckel Foundation: Young people often understand a lesson more deeply when they have an opportunity to put it into practice.
The activities also demonstrate that leadership is not limited to the person giving directions. Leadership can mean completing an assigned task, communicating clearly, helping a teammate or remaining focused when a challenge becomes difficult.
Adventure tied to Delaware history
The event’s setting adds another layer to the experience.
The original Kalmar Nyckel carried Swedish settlers to the Delaware Valley in 1638. They established New Sweden at The Rocks, near present-day Fort Christina Park.
The modern Kalmar Nyckel serves as Delaware’s tall ship and a floating classroom, helping visitors understand the maritime skills, risks and decisions that shaped the region’s early history.
Scout Day allows young people to encounter that history near the place where Delaware’s colonial story began. It supports another value shared by Scouting and the Kalmar Nyckel Foundation: Citizenship begins with understanding the community and history people inherit.
Before or after their assigned session, Scouts may also participate in the Junior Ranger Program at Fort Christina Park, part of First State National Historical Park. Scouts who complete that program will receive a wooden Junior Ranger pin.
Every Scout who completes the five-station Scout Day rotation will also receive an exclusive Kalmar Nyckel Scout patch.
Registration is limited and open to troops as well as individual Scouts.
To Go Box
What: Annual Kalmar Nyckel Scout Day
When: Saturday, Sept. 12, 2026
Morning session: Check-in at 8:30 a.m.; activities from 9 to 11:30 a.m.
Afternoon session: Check-in at 12:30 p.m.; activities from 1 to 3:30 p.m.
Where: Copeland Maritime Center at the Kalmar Nyckel Shipyard, 1124 E. Seventh St., Wilmington. Sessions conclude at Fort Christina Park.
President says he plans to meet dictator this year but Kim Yo-jong says Washington remains Pyongyang’s enemy
Donald Trump has said he is planning to meet North Korea’s Kim Jong-un later this year, though the reclusive leader’s younger sister cast doubt on their communications and dampened hopes of a diplomatic breakthrough between them.
Trump, who also claimed North Korea had 57 nuclear weapons, had suggested he and Kim were holding secret negotiations on Tuesday after announcing the US would downgrade its participation in military exercises held by South Korea, a US ally. Asked whether Kim had responded to his request for a conversation, Trump said: “Yeah, he has.”
Result tees up marquee race in US midterm elections, which could decide if Republicans or Democrats control Senate
Incumbent Dan S Sullivan, the US senator, advanced in Alaska’s non-partisan primary race for his seat on Tuesday alongside Mary Peltola, a former Democratic congresswoman.
With the top four candidates moving forward from Alaska’s open primaries to the general election, the Associated Press reported that Sullivan and Peltola had qualified for November’s general election.
Discovery marks latest grim finding in lake as water levels in crucial reservoir outside Las Vegas continue to decline
Human remains have once again been discovered at Lake Mead outside Las Vegas, Nevada, marking the latest in a line of gruesome discoveries as water levels in the crucial reservoir continue to drop, authorities said.
These remains were discovered on 16 August, USA Today reported. The National Park Service (NPS) told the outlet there did not appear to be anything suspicious about the body.
Image captured in early June shows animal foraging in the waterway in first since early 1900s, signaling its recovery
An otter has been spotted in the Bronx River for the first time in more than 100 years, in a further sign that New York’s previously befouled waterways are recovering some of their ecological health.
The North American river otter was photographed by a motion-activated camera foraging near some vegetation in the Bronx River, a waterway that flows through New York’s Bronx and empties into the East River.
PALO ALTO, Calif., Aug. 19, 2026 — SandboxAQ today announced the general availability of AQPotency, its Large Quantitative Model (LQM) for predicting how well a potential drug will work, now available on Claude via Model Context Protocol (MCP). For any disease target, AQPotency scores how strongly candidate molecules are likely to act on it, and it does this without the expensive, time-consuming lab work that older methods depend on. Drug discovery teams can now rank enormous libraries of molecules by computer in seconds, then spend their limited lab budgets only on the candidates most likely to succeed.
Early drug discovery is a high-stakes guessing game. Teams have to decide which molecules to test in the lab, and a wrong call can cost months of work and significant expense. The established computer methods for narrowing the field are slow and costly to run, and they only work when scientists already have a detailed structural map of the disease target. Many of the most valuable targets have no such map, so those methods never reach them, and promising programs stall before they start.
AQPotency clears that roadblock. It runs on ordinary computing hardware, ranks pairs of molecules and targets in seconds, and costs as little as $1 per 1,000 comparisons. For every prediction, it also reports how confident it is and whether the target falls within the range where the model performs reliably. Older tools give scientists a single score with no sense of its reliability. AQPotency tells them not only what it predicts, but when they can trust it, which makes the results something teams can act on.
AQPotency also works in the other direction. Starting with a single promising molecule, it scans a broad panel of proteins across the body and returns a ranked list of the ones it is most likely to act on. When a molecule shows a useful effect but no one yet knows why, this gives research teams a focused set of leads to test.
“SandboxAQ’s models have been very impactful for our work as we develop new treatments for Parkinson’s,” said Professor Dario R. Alessi, OBE, FMedSci, FRS, Director of the MRC Protein Phosphorylation Unit at the University of Dundee. “These models enable us to explore a much larger biochemical space in a short timeframe and improve both activity and selectivity. SandboxAQ’s unique datasets and models stand out in the industry for their impact.”
“This collaboration with SandboxAQ highlights the power of combining advanced AI-enabled discovery with rigorous experimental validation to unlock novel opportunities against historically difficult membrane targets. By identifying selective SV2C binders from a broad commercial library, the work establishes a compelling foundation for the development of first-in-class small-molecule tools and future therapeutics aimed at Parkinson’s disease and other disorders of dopaminergic signaling,” said Dr. Gary W. Miller the Adrienne Block Professor of Environmental Health Sciences and the Vice Dean for Research Strategy and Innovation at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.
Andrea Bortolato, Vice President of Drug Discovery, at SandboxAQ, said: “AQPotency has given us and our customers a faster, scalable and reliable way to prioritize compounds in the workflows we already run, without needing a 3D crystal structure of the target. This opens up programs that structure-based methods simply couldn’t reach. The confidence intervals make the output actionable for biopharma companies, and the model has already been successfully used in eight customer programs with experimentally validated impact.”
“What’s compelling about AQPotency is that it makes high-value discovery decisions faster and more practical,” said Robin Roehm, CEO and Co-Founder at Apheris, which offers federated data and AI networks for life science companies. “Researchers can prioritize the most promising compounds with greater confidence, focus experimental resources where they matter most, and expand discovery efforts to targets that have traditionally been harder to pursue.”
AQPotency is generally available today through Claude via MCP and SandboxAQ’s website, with availability on Google Cloud’s Marketplace to follow. Its general availability is paired with the GA on Claude and Claude Science of a second LQM, AQCat Adsorption Spin, for catalyst discovery.
About SandboxAQ
SandboxAQ is a B2B company delivering solutions at the intersection of AI and quantum techniques. The company’s Large Quantitative Models 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, BNP Paribas, Eric Schmidt, Breyer Capital, Ray Dalio, Marc Benioff, Thomas Tull, and others. For more information, visit www.sandboxaq.com.
Andy Burnham has said government money alone may not be enough to get rough sleepers off the streets by Christmas, as experts called for more of a plan to deal with the problems that cause homelessness.
Speaking on a visit to the north-east of England, the prime minister said he felt “very passionately” about tackling rough sleeping and wanted the wider society to play a part in wiping it out.
The Republican nominee for the South Carolina Senate seat will be determined in the runoff between Sen. Darline Graham and Rep. Ralph Norman on Aug. 25.
Presidential deputy chief of staff Iryna Mudra dismissed day after former defence minister called for wartime election
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has fired a senior aide amid a fresh corruption investigation – one day after a former defence minister warned the country was facing “a crisis of governance” and needed to hold a wartime presidential election.
Iryna Mudra, a presidential deputy chief of staff, was dismissed by decree after multiple reports in Ukrainian media that her house was being searched by officials investigating an alleged money-laundering scheme.
Austin, Texas — Gov. Greg Abbott says dozens of technology companies have agreed to tougher standards for data center development after Texas temporarily halted approvals for projects seeking connections to the state power grid.
The pause affects an interconnection queue containing more than 1,800 projects representing about 474 gigawatts of proposed electricity demand — more than five times Texas’ record peak demand. Abbott said roughly 90% of those requests involve data centers.
Under Abbott’s directives, regulators must audit proposed projects before approving grid connections. Developers must disclose information about electricity and water use, ownership, tax incentives and measures intended to limit impacts on surrounding communities. Projects failing the review can be denied access to the grid.
Abbott also wants developers to pay infrastructure costs rather than shifting them to other electricity customers, conserve water and avoid disrupting residential areas. Reuters reported that the pause has created uncertainty for developers that have already committed substantial deposits toward grid connections.
Companies including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Equinix and Core Scientific have publicly supported stronger development standards, according to The Center Square.
Texas has at least 335 operating data centers, with hundreds more proposed as artificial intelligence drives rapidly increasing electricity demand.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: X's algorithm learns what you hate and shows you more of it, according to a new study just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The paper, titled Value misalignment of X's feed algorithm is a reflection of value tensions in engagement, found that the site's algorithm prioritized engagement above all else when it generated a user's For You Page. It also showed that X serves more ragebait to people who say they are Democrats, although the exact reason for that is unclear. "In 2026 that's maybe not the most surprising headline ever," Ziv Epstein, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University, and co-author of the paper, told 404 Media. "So we actually dug in a little deeper to figure out why this is actually happening, and it turns out that X's feed algorithm, like a lot of these social media algorithms, is optimized for engagement [but] it turns out that not all types of engagement are considered equally."
The researchers found that X's algorithm can push users toward content that conflicts with their stated values, especially when they reply to posts that anger or provoke them. Although replies accounted for just 6.8% of interactions, they appeared to carry disproportionate weight: "It's this feedback loop of outrage baiting. The algorithm learns that you get outraged and then continues to serve more content in that direction," said Epstein.
It's unclear why X seems to serve ragebait to Democrats more often than Republicans. 404 Media speculates that it may be because there's more rightwing content on X overall or that Democrats tend to engage with posts they disagree with more often. "There might be some kind of differential effects on information diets there, or it might be something more psychological about how different you know partisan identities are triggering different kinds of actions and reactions, but ultimately I don't want to speculate too much," said Epstein.
X's former product chief Nikita Bier confirmed that the site had been set to favor replies. "This is no longer true," Bier said in a post on X. "The largest contributor of seeing ragebait was the reply predictor and we were aware that angry replies were causing people to see more of that content. So last month, we gave the reply predictor a 15x boost if it's a friend's post -- and it reduced ragebait by [an] order of magnitude."
A weak yuan guarantees Beijing massive trade surplus even as the White House tries tamp down on Chinese imports
Since China offered a truce in the trade war last October following its threat to deprive the United States of rare-earth magnets, the Trump administration has been happy to stop escalating. After all, imports from China have been falling, down by 40% in the year to June, compared with the same period in 2024. Best to declare victory and call it a day.
But the US hasn’t won this battle – and there’s strong evidence to show it’s too chicken to really try.
Overton has said that Congress should strictly regulate abortion drug mifepristone ‘to protect women and children’
Donald Trump nominated Dr Heidi Overton – an abortion opponent who stood next to the president as he made false claims about vaccines – to be commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
“Today I am honored to nominate the wonderful Dr. Heidi Overton, MD, PhD, as our next FDA Commissioner. Dr. Heidi has been a ROCKSTAR in my Administration, where she has worked directly with Secretary Kennedy, Dr. Oz, and team, to deliver on the MOST TRANSFORMATIVE Health Agenda in History. She is known to take on the HARDEST issues, and bring me solutions that work best for the Country,” the president wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday.
Police in Philadelphia are searching for a man they say chased at least a half dozen people last week within a half hour while wearing a Chucky-style mask.
A U.S. Army battalion at Fort Stewart is offering soldiers a four-day pass timed to the release of Grand Theft Auto VI if they reenlist for at least two years. The program is limited to one unit for now, but it fits the Army's broader effort to appeal to gamers as a recruiting and retention pool. CBS News reports: Twenty soldiers at Fort Stewart in Georgia in the Army's 9th Brigade Engineering Battalion, part of the 3rd Infantry Division, have already chosen this incentive as part of their reenlistment, an Army spokesperson told CBS News on Wednesday. "The idea was to have a unique incentives program that connects to what Soldiers are interested in," Lt. Col. Angel Tomko, a spokesperson for the 3rd Infantry Division, said in a statement. "The command team, in conjunction with the career counselor, wanted to get soldiers excited to reenlist."
[...] The Army memo, which has circulated online, says any soldier who signs a reenlistment contract between Aug. 1, 2026 and Nov. 14 will be authorized for a special four-day pass designated to coincide with "the highly anticipated release of the video game Grand Theft Auto VI (GTA 6)." About 130 soldiers are currently eligible for the incentive, Tomko said. Eligible soldiers must reenlist for a minimum of two years and up to six years.
Travelers counting on a cheaper vacation this fall may be in for a surprise. Shoulder season has traditionally brought lower prices, but some of those bargains are getting harder to find this year.
Physicists use advanced quantum technologies to test decades-old theory predictions
Aug. 19, 2026 — When different materials transition from one phase to another, such a water coming to a boil or a magnet losing its ability to attract metals, something remarkable can happen: They begin to behave identically, following the same mathematical rules. “Physicists call this trait universality—the messy, microscopic details wash out and only a few essential features survive,” explains Jason Alicea, William K. Davis Professor of Theoretical Physics at Caltech. The math underlying these universal traits is commonly described by a theoretical framework called conformal field theory.
Left to right: Yuan Le, Xiangkai Sun, Jason Alicea, Manuel Endres, Stephen Naus, and Richard Bing-Shiun Tsai in the Endres lab at Caltech. Credit: Caltech/Gyohei Nomura
Reporting in the journal Nature, a collaboration between the experimental group of Caltech’s Manuel Endres, professor of physics, and Alicea’s theory group, together with theorists at Université Paris-Saclay and the Technical University of Munich, performed first-of-their-kind experiments on two different conformal field theories using quantum simulators, which are simplified versions of quantum computers tailored for specific tasks.
Using new technology developed for these quantum simulators, the team reports the first direct measurement of energy levels in synthetic quantum matter as predicted by the Ising and tricritical Ising conformal field theories. (Ising refers to Ernst Ising, a physicist who, in the 1920s, solved an early model of magnetism.) Both theories describe universal behavior that emerges when a quantum system—exhibiting exotic traits such as entanglement and superposition—is placed at a tipping point between two states, one of which is more ordered than the other.
Unlike transitions familiar from everyday life such as water turning into steam, this one is driven not by temperature but by quantum effects alone that happen to take place at temperatures near absolute zero. Once at that tipping point, the system can be excited by lasers to reach a series of specific energies, like the rungs of a ladder. “The energy levels predicted by these theories are important because they encode profound information about the theories themselves,” Alicea says.
For four decades, researchers used conformal field theories to calculate the spacings between those rungs, which come in precise ratios, but nobody had measured them in an experiment until now.
“Our new tools borrow from quantum computing platforms,” says Xiangkai Sun, a co-lead author of the new study and a graduate student working in the Endres lab. “Over the past 10 years, people have been learning to control these systems, and now we are at the point where we can use them to do fundamental physics research.”
The quantum system in the study is based on platforms the Endres lab uses to build quantum computers: arrays of neutral atoms trapped by lasers called optical tweezers. A related neutral-atom platform in the lab recently set a milestone by trapping 6,100 atoms in a single array. Though the tweezer technology behind these arrays was developed largely with quantum computing in mind, in the new study, the team turned it toward a question in fundamental physics.
For the experiment, the researchers used optical tweezers to trap strontium atoms in a line. They used other lasers to excite the atoms into high-energy states called Rydberg states, which makes neighboring atoms interact strongly. The chain of atoms then behaved as a single entity rather than as independent particles. Next, the researchers tuned the lasers in a way that placed the chain at the tipping point.
To read out the energy ladder, the team applied a new tool developed for these studies, called many-body modulation spectroscopy. In this approach, the researchers gently shook the entire chain by modulating the lasers at a chosen frequency, then measured how strongly the atoms responded. By sweeping through frequencies and noting where the response spiked, the team was able to map out the rungs of the ladder. The method is similar to running a wet finger around the rim of a wine glass: At the right speed the glass resonates with sound, and at the wrong speed nothing happens.
“We repeated the experiment on chains of up to 35 atoms, and the rungs came out as predicted by the Ising conformal field theory: the spectra collapsed onto a single universal curve once rescaled for size,” Sun says. “We then tuned to the tricritical point and measured the lowest levels of its distinct spectrum, which came out in the different ratios theory predicts.”
Because every atom in the array can be addressed individually, the team could also do things that are far harder using traditional materials. They sorted the excitations according to their symmetry, revealing a second family of rungs hidden from the first measurement. And by adjusting the atoms at the two ends of the chain, they changed how the ladder was arranged—each setting produced a different pattern that the tricritical Ising theory predicts.
“Even though we believed these theories to be true, it’s important to have an experimental realization, something you can poke and prod,” Alicea says. “To see those predictions borne out is a beautiful thing.”
In the future, the team plans to use an even larger quantum system to study conformal field theories using not just atoms in a line but atoms in a grid. “In two dimensions, the conformal field theories are not as well understood, so this is an exciting opportunity,” Sun says.
“What excites me is that the technique doesn’t require knowing the answer in advance. Here we could check our measurements against exact predictions,” Endres says. “The next step is to point this at systems where nobody knows the response of the system quantitatively—including regimes that classical computers can’t reach.”
The Nature study, “Observation of conformal field theory spectra in a quantum simulator,” was funded by the US Department of Energy, including its Quantum Systems Accelerator and its Quantum Science Center; the National Science Foundation, including the Institute for Quantum Information and Matter at Caltech (IQIM); the Army Research Office; the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; the Air Force Office of Scientific Research; the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation; and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. Other Caltech authors include Yuan Le, Stephen Naus, Richard Bing-Shiun Tsai, and Lewis Picard, who is now working at the Caltech-linked startup Oratomic. Additional authors are Sara Murciano of the Université Paris-Saclay (previously a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech) and Michael Knap of the Technical University of Munich and the Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology.
President Trump wants to meet again with Kim Jong Un to discuss denuclearization, the Wall Street Journal reports, despite having nothing to show for 3 previous summits.
Mykhailo Fedorov’s blistering critique comes at a time of growing pressure for democratic renewal in Ukraine
For more than a month, demonstrators have gathered in Ivan Franko Square outside Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office. The protesters have been chanting a name – not that of Ukraine’s embattled president but that of the man he recently sacked as defence minister, Mykhailo Fedorov. On Sunday evening, 2,000 people marched along Khreshchatyk, Kyiv’s main boulevard, waving cardboard banners in support of their ousted hero.
Zelenskyy has refused to reinstate Fedorov, who during his six months in the job was widely seen as an effective and reforming figure. On Wednesday, Ukraine’s parliament, the Rada, voted to approve a successor as defence minister, Yevhen Khmara. The move shows that Fedorov has been shut out from government permanently, and confirms his transition from trusted insider and Zelenskyy loyalist to a potent political opponent.
Republican James Comer writes to private equity investor demanding full cooperation with investigation
The Republican chairman of the House oversight committee has threatened to hold the private equity investor Leon Black in contempt if he does not fully cooperate with the panel’s ongoing investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, amid accusations that the billionaire is purposely delaying and disrupting the panel’s inquiry.
A letter released by Representative James Comer’s office on Tuesday, which was addressed to Black’s lawyer, revealed new details about the high-stakes clash between the powerful Kentucky congressman and Black, the co-founder of Apollo Asset Management who was Epstein’s friend and former client and paid Epstein tens of millions of dollars in fees.
Senator Jon Ossoff, who is up for re-election, came up with arguably the standout line of the midterm elections so far
Jon Ossoff really struck a nerve. That much is clear.
The US senator for Georgia, running for re-election in November, came up with arguably the standout line of the midterm elections campaign so far when discussing Donald Trump at a rally on Sunday.
Nige’s dodgy donations, Dicky’s love of global heating and so much more – what fun it is watching the party implode
You would need to have a heart of stone not to fall about laughing. There was a time not so long ago when Reform could give a passable impression of a vaguely functional political party. One that knew its audience and had learned how to get its message across through the media. Admittedly this was largely because the party was a one-man band with all its MPs accepting that they owed their entire existence to Nige. They were satellites to his sun. Nigel Farage was Reform, and Reform was Nige.
In recent months though, things have been falling apart and Reform now resemble an anarchic end–of-the-pier clown show. And chaos has seldom been this entertaining. The fun started when Nige had an uncharacteristic fit of humility and tried to pretend he was only a first among equals with the grandiose announcement of a “shadow cabinet” of four people. Largely because that’s about as many serious politicians as he had at his disposal.
Elections in Florida, Alaska and Wyoming provide a sense of how voters are feeling ahead of November’s midterms
Primaries in Florida, Alaska and Wyoming held on Tuesday provided the latest view into how voters are feeling ahead of November’s US midterm elections.
One candidate aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) netted an extraordinary win while another was defeated handily. Donald Trump’s handpicked candidates received a mixed reception from voters. In Alaska, voters chose their fighters for one of the year’s marquee US Senate races, and in Florida, extremism remained alive and well among Republicans.
Chery, which makes the Jaecoo and Omoda car brands, said the launch of a new R&D site was “the next step in our long-term plan” for Britain as it also moves towards manufacturing its cars in the UK.
2026 Chatham House Prize awarded to the women of AfghanistanNews releasethilton.drupal
The prize is presented to ‘the person, persons, or organization deemed to have made the most significant contribution to the improvement of international relations’.
The women of Afghanistan have been awarded the 2026 Chatham House Prize, in recognition of their courage and resilience in the face of systematic gender persecution, and for embodying the determination of a broader movement for women’s rights.
Five years since the Taliban returned to power, women and girls in Afghanistan have faced an expanding range of restrictions on their participation in public life. They have been excluded from secondary and higher education, restricted from many forms of employment and faced increasing limits on their freedom of movement.
Against this backdrop, women across Afghanistan have continued to resist restrictions on their rights and freedoms, including through protests, advocacy and efforts to maintain access to education. Their resistance has drawn international attention to the treatment of women and girls in Afghanistan and the consequences of their exclusion from public life.
Bronwen Maddox, Director and Chief Executive of Chatham House, said:
‘The women of Afghanistan have shown extraordinary courage and resilience in the face of systematic efforts to exclude them from education, work and public life.
Five years after the Taliban returned to power, women across the country continue to resist their erasure, defend their rights and those of future generations, and keep alive hope and opportunity for women and girls.
Their courage embodies the determination of a much broader movement for women’s rights and challenges the rest of the world not to look away. This award recognises those efforts and the example they set in the face of extraordinary restrictions.’
Dr Farzana Shaikh, Associate Fellow in the Asia-Pacific Programme at Chatham House, said:
‘The 2026 Chatham House Prize awarded to the women of Afghanistan is richly deserved and stands as testimony to their resistance and determination never to be erased from public memory. Their fortitude in the face of draconian and discriminatory laws imposed by Taliban rule sets a matchless example for all those dedicated to equal rights for women and to the ideal of a fairer world.’
Dr Chietigj Bajpaee, Senior Research Fellow for South Asia in the Asia-Pacific Programme at Chatham House, said:
‘No community has suffered more under renewed Taliban rule than the country’s women and girls, as they have lost access to various aspects of public life, from education and employment to the right to move freely throughout the country. Reports of girls attending secret schools and women leading demonstrations against the regime illustrate their courage and fortitude in the face of unjustified adversity.
Through awarding the Chatham House Prize to the women of Afghanistan, we aim to do our part in raising awareness of an issue that has tragically fallen off the radar of the international community.’
The Prize will be presented at a special event at Chatham House later this year, together with a scroll signed by His Majesty The King, Patron of The Royal Institute of International Affairs.
If you or your organization would be interested in supporting the event through sponsorship, please do get in touch with Zara Berry.
The Chatham House Prize is voted for by Chatham House members, following nominations from the institute’s staff.
The Prize was launched in 2005. Previous recipients include President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, Médecins Sans Frontières and the Committee to Protect Journalists.
In 2025, the Prize was awarded to Sudan’s grassroots mutual aid groups, the Emergency Response Rooms (ERRs), for their humanitarian response to the war in Sudan.
Chatham House is a world-leading policy institute based in London. Our mission is to address geopolitical challenges and international problems. Through this, we aim to help governments and societies to build a secure, sustainable, prosperous and just world.
We do this by providing independent analysis and advice, and convening meetings of the people and organizations that can bring about change.
(The Center Square) – A new report from the Archbridge Institute ranks states by occupational licensing, with Oregon ranking the worst by having the most “barriers to work,” and Missouri ranking the best by having the least barriers to work.
After their hit Untitled Goose Game, Australian studio House House is back with a new game where your only goal is to go exploring with friends – so we took them on a big walk inside Big Walk
When I arrive to meet with the tiny team at Melbourne game developer House House, they’re sitting in a circle under a eucalyptus tree. After introductions, the five of us set off into the scrub. Over the course of our hike we take a train to the beach, huddle on deck chairs in the sand dunes and climb a mountain as the sun rises. All without ever leaving our desks.
Welcome to the world of Big Walk: House House’s new game after the runaway global success Untitled Goose Game, which saw millions fall in love with being a naughty goose rampaging through a bucolic village. After Untitled Goose Game’s overwhelming success, House House wanted their next game to be very different and “unusual”. Despite this, Big Walk has been an immediate success, with more than 1m downloads in the first week of release.
Chinese robotics giant Unitree surged more than 600% in its Shanghai stock market debut, marking the first mainland Chinese listing by a humanoid robot maker and a major milestone for Beijing's robotics ambitions. The BBC reports: Unitree, officially known as Yushu Technology Co Ltd, was founded in 2016 and now plays a key role in Beijing's ambitions to develop advanced technology. It has become a robotics industry leader, selling devices from sensors and automated arms to four-legged and human-like machines. The firm shipped more than 5,500 humanoid robots last year as demand for the technology grows.
Unitree is one of the few companies in the sector to make money, delivering a net profit of 278 million yuan in 2025. It is a fierce rival to developers in the US as it produces robots with similar features but at lower prices. The company is based in Hangzhou, in eastern China. The region is home to a so-called golden cluster zone of robotics firms, which have benefited from huge government investments. That support helped drive a more than threefold increase in the number of Chinese robotics firms between 2020 and 2024, according to state-run China Daily.
[...] Unitree's robot dogs start at $2,700, a fraction of the roughly $70,000 price tag for Boston Dynamics' four-legged device, Spot. "They're not exactly comparable because some of Unitree's dogs are much smaller," [said Harold Soh, a researcher from the National University of Singapore]. "But the price is a big difference." Unitree has been selling humanoid robots since 2023, with its $13,500 child-sized G1 model hitting the market the following year. Meanwhile, major US rivals -- including Elon Musk's Tesla -- have yet to start delivering rival products.
[...] Some experts expect Unitree's market debut to be a gauge of investor appetite for the fast-growing humanoid robotics sector. The listing has given the public a rare chance to invest in a humanoid robotics company and could set a benchmark for other manufacturers, said Jack Pearson from investment firm RoboStrategy. The listing also marks a "turning point" for China's robotics industry, as Unitree's success comes even as the US is curbing imports of foreign-made robots, Pearson said.
Interest rates, now sitting at about 3.5-3.7%, expected to go up if inflation doesn’t come down to Fed’s 2% target
The US treasury is doubling its buyback of government debt in an effort to balance out the bond market as officials at the US Federal Reserve remain divided over how to deal with high inflation.
The yield rate on 10-year, 20-year and 30-year treasury notes all hit 20-year highs this week, with the 30-year treasury yield rising to its highest rate since 2007. The rapid rise was concerning news for borrowers as major loans, including mortgages, are backed by treasuries.
Ukrainian anti-corruption agencies said they uncovered group responsible for money laundering $3.35m but did not name individuals involved
The rise in Germany’s borrowing costs to a 15-year high reflects the increased security challenges facing the country following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the need to spend much more defence, the Finance Ministry said on Wednesday.
German 10- and 30-year borrowing costs hit a fresh 15-year high in Wednesday’s session. Bond yields of other major Western economies including the US and Japan have also climbed to multi-decade highs this week due to ballooning government debt and geopolitics, increasing borrowing costs for companies and households and complicating policy.
“I am grateful to the MPs for supporting Andrii Sybiha for the position of Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine and Yevhenii Khmara for the position of Minister of Defence of Ukraine.
The tasks for both ministers are absolutely clear: Ukraine needs more strength. And it will have it. Glory to Ukraine!”
Network Rail and Southern owner GTR apologise after investigators reveal picture of possible heat-buckled track
Rail operators have apologised after a report into last Thursday’s derailment in East Sussex found a track defect on the approach to where the train derailed on the hottest day of the year so far.
An interim report by the Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) said CCTV images showed the “track geometry irregularity” existed before the incident near Lewes injured 30 people.
PM pledges to get rough sleepers off streets for Christmas but issues ‘rallying call’ for community and voluntary organisations to help with plan
Andy Burnham has admitted government funding “may not fully be enough” to achieve his aim of offering a place to stay to every rough sleeper by Christmas, as he made a “rallying call” for communities to get behind his plan.
Speaking on a visit to the north-east of England, the prime minister said:
The government money itself may not fully be enough. So I am saying, putting the call out to community and voluntary organisations – we’re at one here in Newcastle today, doing fantastic work.
But we’re saying to the wider community, voluntary, and faith sector: come on, let’s get behind this. Let’s show what Britain can do when we all pull in the same direction.
We did it in the pandemic, we can do it again, and it’s a rallying call, really, that I’m putting out there today with a lot of government money behind it.
We did bring the numbers right down, but because we were the only area providing a high level of support, more people started to travel and it became difficult.
Asked whether Taiwan and the South China Sea threaten US national security, Republican fill-in senator Darline Graham hesitated. “I’m just going to be honest here,” she told Tuesday night’s debate audience. “I’m – not that informed on national security, so – but I do support the military.”
Gasps, and boos, rolled through the opera house hosting the only debate before next week’s Republican runoff – a race to succeed her brother, Lindsey Graham, who was one of the Senate’s most committed rightwing foreign policy hawks before his sudden passing in July. She did not retreat.
The Spanish government has U-turned and said it will allow 500 migrant children in Ceuta to relocate to the mainland.
The majority of the estimated 70,000 people who crossed into Ceuta – a Spanish territory on the coast of north Africa – on 30 July have returned to Morocco. However, under Spanish law, the state has a duty of care to young, unaccompanied migrants until they reach the age of 18.
In just over two weeks’ time, Saxony-Anhalt – home to historic timber-framed houses, the dramatic Harz mountains and the birthplace of Martin Luther – will hold what could prove one of the most significant state elections in Germany’s postwar history.
The vote, on 6 September, could see a far-right party whose local branch is officially classified by the country’s domestic intelligence service as “confirmed rightwing extremist” appoint a state premier and govern a state alone, for the first time.
Expected quarterly price cap rise of 4% likely to wipe out benefits of Andy Burnham’s VAT cut on electricity bills
Household energy bills across Great Britain are expected to climb to a three-year high this winter as the impact of the Middle East war wipes out Andy Burnham’s tax cut on electricity bills.
The government’s cap on energy prices is on track to rise by 4% from this October to the equivalent of £1,729 a year through the last three months of 2026, which could hit struggling households especially hard this winter, according to analysis by the energy consultancy Cornwall Insight.
Justice department claims there’s ‘no dispute’ over whether ex-FBI head’s post could be read as a threat against Trump
The US Department of Justice has defended its prosecution of former FBI director James Comey, claiming in new court documents there is “no serious dispute” that his social media post last year featuring a photo of seashells arranged to read “8647” could be interpreted as a threat against Donald Trump.
“There is no serious dispute that an objective viewer of Comey’s post could read it to mean ‘Kill President Trump’,” prosecutors wrote in a document filed on Tuesday in response to efforts by Comey’s efforts to have the case dismissed.
Berlin to seek suspect’s extradition for 2022 explosions that damaged gas pipelines to Russia
A Ukrainian man has been arrested in Croatia as part of an investigation into the 2022 bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipelines between Germany and Russia.
Undersea explosions in September 2022, just months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, damaged three of the four pipelines built to carry Russian fossil gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea.
People say they’ve been secretly filmed in their own homes, at concerts and at work. Are the wildly popular smartglasses the final nail in the coffin of personal privacy?
“I’ve had one person who told me that their intentions were creepy,” a man tells me over a video call, on condition of anonymity. He’s based in Los Angeles, and while we speak, he eats what appears to be tuna directly out of the can. “He said: ‘I go to strip clubs, and I want to record the strippers … Normally I put my phone in my chest pocket, but the glasses are more convenient.’”
The man I’m talking to runs a business called Ghost Metas. He’s one of hundreds of vendors, easily discoverable online, who specialise in disabling the flashing LED light embedded in Meta’s smartglasses that blinks when wearers capture photos, videos and audio. After Ghost Metas disables the LED, it’s impossible for someone to know they’re being filmed.
This is the first installment of a three-part Delaware LIVE series examining Delaware’s literacy results, announced by the State Department of Education this week; the changes required to reach the state’s 2028 goal; and the expanding responsibilities of local school boards.
Third-grade proficiency rose 1 percentage point, leaving Delaware with a 13-point gap to close in two years
Editor’s note: This is the first installment of a three-part Delaware LIVE series examining Delaware’s literacy results announced by the State Department of Education this week, the changes required to reach the state’s 2028 goal and the expanding responsibilities of local school boards.
By George D. Rotsch Editor, Delaware LIVE.
DOVER, Del. — Delaware students made modest progress in reading on the latest statewide assessments, but the results show the state remains far from its goal of having 53% of third graders reading proficiently by 2028.
Across grades 3 through 8, English language arts proficiency increased from 41% to 42%.
The movement is positive, but the larger result remains concerning: Six in 10 Delaware third graders did not meet the state’s grade-level proficiency standard.
Delaware now needs to gain another 13 percentage points over the next two testing cycles to reach its 2028 target.
State highlights literacy-coaching gains
In an announcement this week, the Department of Education emphasized results from schools receiving state-supported literacy coaching.
All eight schools with literacy coaches and comparable third-grade results improved from 2025 to 2026. Those schools averaged gains of nearly 7 percentage points, compared with the 1-point statewide increase.
Johnson Elementary School in the Red Clay Consolidated School District and Las Américas ASPIRA Academy each posted 12-point gains. Gateway Charter School improved by 11 points.
The department said those results give state and local leaders reason to examine the relationship among literacy coaching, instructional materials, school leadership and classroom practices.
The results do not prove that coaching alone produced the improvement. Changes in leadership, curriculum, enrollment, attendance and student intervention also may have contributed.
The proficiency level after an increase also matters. Johnson Elementary, for example, improved from 3% to 15%. That is a substantial one-year gain, but it means 85% of the school’s third graders remained below proficiency.
State calls progress modest
The state’s announcement acknowledged that Delaware’s overall performance remains inadequate.
“A one-percentage point statewide increase is not the win,” Education Secretary Cindy Marten said. “The more important question is what we learn from schools where students are moving faster and what we change where students are not making enough progress.”
Marten said Delaware must study schools showing stronger improvement and apply those lessons more broadly.
The department also said proficiency remains below where students need it to be, progress is uneven and achievement gaps remain significant.
Schools highlighted for improvement should be studied, the department said, but their results should not be interpreted as evidence of statewide success.
Understanding what the numbers mean
Julia Keleher, executive director of First State Educate, said statewide averages are an important starting point, but the work of a local school board begins with understanding what those results look like for the students and schools it governs.
“The statewide result tells us the size of Delaware’s literacy challenge, but every board needs to understand its own results,” Keleher said.
School boards are responsible for establishing the outcomes they expect for students and monitoring whether the district is making progress toward them. “State assessment results give boards an annual measure of performance, but effective governance requires going further: understanding how the district performed against its goals, where results differ across schools and student groups, and what the superintendent is doing in response. Boards can then monitor progress throughout the year rather than waiting for the next annual assessment to know whether the district is on track.”, Keleher said.
Board members could ask
What do these results tell us about progress toward our district’s student outcome goals?
Where are students making progress, and where are they not?
Are all student groups making progress toward the outcomes we established?
What does the superintendent believe is driving the differences in performance, and what is the district doing in response?
Are our budget, policies, and resources aligned with the outcomes we are trying to achieve?
What will we monitor throughout the year to know whether the district’s strategy is working and students are on track
Keleher’s organization works with school board members on governance and data interpretation. It is one of several potential resources boards may use to understand local results and evaluate district strategies.
High school performance declines
The elementary results were accompanied by a decline in high school reading and writing performance.
Among students taking the SAT School Day assessment, generally administered in 11th grade, 44% demonstrated proficiency in evidence-based reading and writing. That was down from 47% in 2025.
SAT essay proficiency rose by 10 points to 43%.
The high school results suggest Delaware’s literacy challenge does not end after elementary school. Students who advance without strong reading foundations may face greater difficulty as assignments become more complex across English, history, science and other subjects.
Proficiency and growth are different
The results released this week measure proficiency—whether students met grade-level expectations.
Delaware will release student-growth results separately. Growth measures how much students improved academically, including students who made progress but remain below grade level.
Both measures are important.
Growth can show whether a student is catching up and whether an intervention is helping. Proficiency shows whether the student has reached the state’s grade-level standard.
The state’s 2028 third-grade target is based on proficiency.
A significant challenge remains
Delaware has recorded an improvement, but the state is not currently progressing fast enough to reach its goal.
The 2026 results provide encouraging examples that deserve further examination. They also raise difficult questions about schools where most students remain below the reading standard.
As Keleher noted, the next step is not merely acknowledging a statewide number. It is understanding what produced improvement in some schools and what must change in schools where progress remains limited.
Coming Thursday:
Delaware must raise third-grade reading proficiency by an average of 6.5 points in each of the next two years. Part 2 examines what that would require, how boards can measure progress between annual tests and whether the state has established sufficient accountability.
Compton’s Cafe is one of the earliest examples of LGBTQ+ resistance. Today, a prison company occupies the site
One of the earliest documented examples of LGBTQ+ resistance against police happened on a hot summer night 60 years ago this month. It started not with the throwing of a brick, as it did in New York City’s 1969 Stonewall riots, but with the throwing of a coffee cup inside Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco.
When police attempted to raid Compton’s – a hub for the drag performers, trans people and sex workers in the city’s Tenderloin neighborhood – hundreds of people in the community fought back. A drag queen threw a coffee mug at a police officer; others threw dishes and chairs outside. It was the culmination of years of police harassment, arrests and violence against the community and the beginning of the city’s trans movement.
Firefighters describe being pushed to limit by a brutal wildfire season, with key leadership roles going unfilled
The US has faced a critical shortage of firefighters at the US Forest Service (USFS) this summer as thousands of fires erupted across the country.
Despite officials’ claims that the firefighting workforce was stronger than ever, the agency has failed to keep pace with escalating conditions and the catastrophic fires fueled by them, according to nine firefighters who spoke to the Guardian anonymously, because they are barred from disclosing the information to the public.
Michael Caruso, once praised by Ron DeSantis, removed from Palm Beach county civic official roles after arrest
Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, has suspended a former close ally and senior civic official who was arrested on felony child sexual abuse charges.
Michael Caruso, who was removed as clerk of court and comptroller for Palm Beach county on Tuesday, was a vocal supporter of a law signed by DeSantis in 2023 that allowed the death penalty for anybody convicted of the sexual battery of a child under 12.
Long weekends do not last forever, so make the grill count. These 13 dishes cover steak, chicken, seafood, vegetables, salads, and a smoky guacamole for the cookouts still left on the calendar.The post 13 grill dishes worth making before the…
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Fernando Cerimedo, 42, arrested on suspicion of ordering shooting of Bolivian lawyer Nadia Beller
A senior adviser to many of Latin America’s new wave of far-right leaders has been arrested for allegedly masterminding the attempted murder of his girlfriend.
The businessman and political consultant Fernando Cerimedo, 42, had been working as an adviser to the Bolivian president, Rodrigo Paz Pereira, and was one of the main strategists behind Javier Milei’s campaign in Argentina’s 2023 presidential election.
An appeal over a Texas state law requiring Ten Commandments displays in public school classrooms is heading to the Supreme Court after a federal court upheld the law in April 2026.
On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union and others announced they were filing a joint petition for a writ of certiorari to reverse the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit’s decision in Nathan v. Alamo. The ACLU published the petition on its website. Justice Samuel Alito had extended the filing deadline for the petition until Wednesday.
On April 21, 2026, a deeply divided Fifth Circuit, in a 9-8 en banc ruling, held that a state law, S.B. 10, requiring the commandments classroom display did not violate the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause or Free Exercise Clause. These clauses read as follows: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”
In a statement issued after the Fifth Circuit ruling in April, the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas said it anticipated appealing the decision to the Supreme Court.
The joint petition for a writ of certiorari
In a press release accompanying Monday’s cert petition, the ACLU says that more than two dozen Texas families were challenging S.B. 10. In addition to the ACLU, the Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Freedom from Religion Foundation, and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP are involved in challenge. It also includes a related case, Cribbs Ringer v. Comal Independent School District, in the petition.
The petition asks the Supreme Court to decide two questions. The first is whether the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause forbids a state from “mandating the permanent, conspicuous display of a government-selected version of the Ten Commandments in every public-school classroom.”
The second is whether permanently displaying the Ten Commandments in every public-school classroom “interferes with parents’ Free Exercise Clause right to direct their children’s religious education and burdens children’s religious freedom.”
“The Court should grant the petition because the court of appeals, in upholding S.B. 10, flouted this Court’s binding precedents and gutted the religious freedom rights of public-school children and parents,” the petition claims. The ACLU asks the Supreme Court to act soon, since “no Article III barriers exist, the Fifth Circuit having reached the merits in full in Nathan.”
The Fifth Circuit’sdecision in Texas
Central to the Fifth Circuit’s majority opinion are two key Supreme Court precedents. In Stone v. Graham (1980), a divided Supreme Court ruled that a Kentucky law requiring the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms violated the Establishment Clause. However, the Fifth Circuit majority also cited the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District as rendering the Stone precedent obsolete.
In his majority opinion, Circuit Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan said the Fifth Circuit majority properly discarded Stone since Stone relied on a prior Supreme Court precedent, Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971). Under Lemon, the Supreme Court created a three-part test to determine if a law violated the Establishment Clause.
However, in Bremerton, Justice Neil Gorsuch established a new method to replace the Lemon test. In his majority opinion, Gorsuch cited the “shortcomings” associated the Lemon test’s “abstract, and ahistorical approach to the Establishment Clause. “
“This Court long ago abandoned Lemon and its endorsement test offshoot,” Gorsuch wrote in Bremerton. “In place of Lemon and the endorsement test, this Court has instructed that the Establishment Clause must be interpreted by ‘reference to historical practices and understandings.’
Applying the Bremerton test, Duncan said “S.B. 10 looks nothing like a historical religious establishment. It does not tell churches or synagogues or mosques what to believe or how to worship or whom to employ as priests, rabbis, or imams. It punishes no one who rejects the Ten Commandments, no matter the reason.”
Duncan also disagreed with arguments that S.B. 10 conflicted with a recent Supreme Court decision, Mahmoud v. Taylor (2025), where a divided Supreme Court held that parents could opt their children out from public school instruction they believed violated their free exercise of religion rights.
In a dissent joined by six other judges, Circuit Judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez stated S.B. 10 clearly violated the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause. Ramirez objected to Duncan’s claim that the Supreme Court has overruled the Stone precedent, and she said that under Bremerton’s historical test, the Texas law was still unconstitutional.
She repeatedly cited the Supreme Court’s precedent in Lee v. Weisman (1992), where a divided court ruled that including prayers from a rabbi at a public-school graduation was a subtle and indirect religious coercion because students felt compelled to stand during the recitals.
The ACLU agrees with the minority dissent
In its petition to the Court, the ACLU echoes arguments from the Fifth Circuit’s Nathan dissent.
“Nearly fifty years ago, Stone v. Graham held that permanently posting the Ten Commandments in public-school classrooms violates the Establishment Clause. And Mahmoud v. Taylor recently reaffirmed that public schools burden parents’ free-exercise rights when they ‘substantially interfere with the religious development’ of their children or ‘pose ‘a very real threat of undermining’ the religious beliefs and practices the parent[s] wish to instill in the[ir] child[ren],” it argues.
“Notwithstanding these precedents, the en banc Fifth Circuit declared that Stone is no longer good law and upheld a Texas statute mandating the display of a state-selected version of the Ten Commandments in every public-school classroom,” it concludes.
It also cites the holding in Lee v. Weisman that acknowledged there are “heightened concerns with protecting freedom of conscience from subtle coercive pressure in the elementary and secondary public schools.”
The ACLU also asks the Supreme Court to consider the national implications of the Fifth Circuit’s decision. “In the last two years, legislatures in two dozen states have either enacted or considered proposed laws regarding the display of the Ten Commandments in public schools, with more sure to follow absent this Court’s intervention.”
The petition concludes with a plea for a full Supreme Court review of the case on the merits with oral argument, or that the Supreme Court reverse or remand the judgments in Nathan and Cribbs Ringer back to the appeals court to apply the precedent in Stone.
Given the case’s national importance, it will be watched closely as the justices consider accepting cases for its next term starting in October 2026.
Scott Bomboy is the editor-in-chief of the National Constitution Center.
Some restraint on Trump’s excesses might be accomplished if November’s midterm elections give Democrats more power
Donald Trump is essentially unrestrained when it comes to enriching himself during his second term, with no sign of stopping. If anything, he’s ramping things up.
The numbers so far are astonishing. He amassed $2.2bn in 2025 revenues, the Guardian and other news outlets have reported.
In an upset for the Democratic establishment, progressive Angie Nixon won the party’s US Senate primary in Florida, beating former army intelligence officer Alexander Vindman.
Nixon, a state representative and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, had significantly less funding going into the primary – with $975,000 to Vindman’s $16.3m at the end of July, according to Florida Politics.
YORKTOWN HEIGHTS, N.Y., Aug. 19, 2026 — IBM today announced it has successfully joined and cooled down two cryogenic modules into a single environment. The new architecture is designed to scale into the modular, shared, and ultra-cold system required to link hundreds of quantum chips into a more powerful quantum computer capable of solving large problems. Its deployment is a milestone on IBM’s path to delivering IBM Quantum Starling in 2029, which is expected to be the world’s first fault-tolerant quantum computer and will integrate advances across error correction, processor design, decoding, and systems engineering.
IBM’s scalable and modular cryogenic system to support fault-tolerant quantum computing. Credit: IBM.
Combined, the first two operational modules stand more than 8 feet tall and 8 feet wide, and initial tests demonstrated they can jointly cool down to 4 Kelvin (the temperature of liquid helium) in under 5 days, reaching a final temperature of below 15 millikelvin shortly after. Each module’s vacuum enclosure offers up to 12 times more wiring space than the most widely used IBM quantum systems, enabling more chip-to-chip connections both within and between modules.
IBM’s new box-shaped design allows modules to connect in a tight row and use this larger space to directly link quantum processors with IBM’s “L-coupler” technology. L-couplers connect separate quantum chips together to share information, communicate, and operate as part of a larger quantum computer.
By 2027, IBM’s quantum roadmap plans to use L-couplers to link multiple processors into a larger quantum computer with at least 1,000 programmable qubits, which are qubits that can be directly used to perform computations. Towards this goal, IBM will install IBM Quantum Nighthawk processors into the cryogenic modules later this year to expand operational performance testing. At the time Starling is delivered, IBM plans for each cryogenic module to house thousands of qubits.
IBM’s plans for Starling were introduced last year with a new error correction code that dramatically reduces the physical resources required for fault tolerance. Since then, the company’s progression has remained on course, including the demonstration of core hardware components and breakthroughs in efficient error-correction decoding.
“Bringing fault-tolerant quantum computers to industries depends on several fundamental advances,” said Jay Gambetta, Director of IBM Research and IBM Fellow. “The successful connection and operation of these cryogenic modules signals a leap forward in that direction and will accelerate our progress alongside continued innovation in quantum hardware, software, and algorithms.”
IBM expects its scalable cryogenic modules to help speed its pace of innovation. For example, three essential components of IBM Quantum System Two’s environment are built into the new architecture, but now in a way that allows each part to be independently tested, improved, and rapidly iterated.
The delivery of these new cryogenic quantum modules is further evidence that IBM is systematically delivering against its quantum roadmap, solving another one of the major hurdles required to accelerate its path to fault-tolerant quantum computing.
About IBM
IBM is a leading provider of global hybrid cloud and AI, and consulting expertise. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Thousands of governments and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and consulting deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s long-standing commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service. Visit www.ibm.com for more information.
Trump administration put sanctions on the international criminal court’s president and a senior trial lawyer
The international criminal court on Wednesday condemned the latest US sanctions targeting senior ICC staff, including its president, as a “flagrant attack” on the global tribunal’s independence and vowed to continue seeking justice for atrocities around the world.
The state department announced on Tuesday that it had hit the ICC president, Tomoko Akane, a Japanese national, and ICC senior trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye, who is from Senegal, with sanctions that freeze any assets they have in US jurisdictions or come into contact with the US financial system.
Aug. 19, 2026 — To commercialize quantum computing, manufacturers need high-quality superconducting materials for microchips, but they also require a reliable, sustainable nanofabrication process.
Tantalum is a corrosion-resistant metal that meets the first criteria but not the second. That’s because it has to be deposited on a substrate at temperatures that typically exceed 400 degrees Celsius – too hot for many semiconductor foundries’ current tools.
A team led by Valla Fatemi, assistant professor in the School of Applied and Engineering Physics in Duffield Engineering, developed a method that uses krypton gas to slash the deposition temperature of the corrosion-resistant metal tantalum, resulting in thin films that have substantially higher electronic conductivity. Photo credit: Bridget Reinsko.
Cornell University researchers have developed a method that uses krypton gas to slash that deposition temperature to 200 degrees while depositing on silicon, a standard high-quality substrate. The process resulted in thin films that also have substantially higher electronic conductivity.
“Tantalum as a material has been shown to be very exciting from a device performance perspective, but its manufacturability had some question marks because of integration challenges such as required process temperatures,” said Valla Fatemi, assistant professor and Aref and Manon Lahham Faculty Fellow in the Cornell Duffield College of Engineering, who led the project. “We figured out a relatively simple change, by using some physical and materials insights, to bring that temperature down into a zone that is translatable to nanofabrication systems in industry, while showing that in our academic context we can have leading-edge performance of these devices.”
The findings published Aug. 18 in Nature Materials. The study’s lead author is postdoctoral researcher Maciej Olszewski.
Quantum computing promises to handle faster, more complex computations by leveraging the unique quantum mechanical properties of superconductors, which carry current with little to no energy loss. The basic building blocks of the hardware are quantum bits, or qubits, which can store and process massive quantities of information. But correctly combining high-performance materials and nanofabrication techniques has proved to be one of the primary bottlenecks slowing the technology’s commercial development.
Fatemi’s lab explores the intersection of experimental condensed matter physics and quantum devices. Recently, his team developed the characterization and nanofabrication methods to achieve high-end performance for niobium-based materials. In that work, niobium was bombarded with ions of the noble gas argon, which knocked off nobium’s atoms so they deposited on a substrate – a process called sputtering – forming a thin film.
“That work got the ball rolling for us in understanding a lot of the surface science and how that correlates with improving performance,” Fatemi said.
The researchers swapped niobium for tantalum, a transition metal with more stable surface properties and high resistance to corrosion – and a leading material for many superconducting components. But tantalum is not without challenges. When deposited at lower temperatures, the material is in a crystal phase with undesirable properties. That problem that can only be remedied by heating it more than 400 degrees Celsius for deposition or by seeding the surface with other materials to alter its performance. At the same time, if tantalum gets too hot, it can mix with the silicon substrate and form a thick layer that leads to information loss and lowers the chip’s performance.
The new solution: Olszewski hypothesized that using krypton as the ionized gas instead of argon would transfer more momentum and kick off the tantalum atoms with greater energy, thereby stabilizing the targeted crystal phase on the silicon substrate – all at a much lower temperature.
“There’s this whole set of tooling and fabrication lines that don’t really go above 400 Celsius, and they’re built for that. And tantalum on silicon, when you use the old method, was right on the border of that,” Olszewski said. “There was little margin to do things reliably. Using krypton brought that threshold down to 200 Celsius. So you now have this big window to be able to do reliable fabrication.”
A crucial final step of the process: adding what is known as a Josephson junction, an overlap of two metals separated by an electrical insulator that enables the quantum tunneling of electrons that creates qubits.
“The performance of the devices in our lab are very sensitive to that step now. Historically, that was not necessarily obvious. But our devices are at a level of performance that we’re able to see big differences based on subtle changes that we make to the formation of the Josephson junction,” Fatemi said. “So we’re entering a new domain for what matters or doesn’t matter.”
The researchers found that the resulting thin film produced qubits of incredibly high quality and greatly boosted device performance.
“We’re right at the world-leading edge,” Fatemi said. “This is a big step forward not only for our group but also Cornell’s efforts in superconducting quantum information devices.”
Co-authors include David Muller, the Samuel B. Eckert Professor of Engineering in Duffield Engineering and co-director of the Kavli Institute at Cornell for Nanoscale Science; doctoral students Lingda Kong, Daniel Tong, Haoran Lu, Saswata Roy and Luojia Zhang; postdoctoral researchers Simon Reinhardt and Xinyi Du; Gabriele Di Gianluca of University of Florida, Gainesville and the Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility Research Experience for Undergraduates (CNF REU) program; and Aleksandra Biedron of the New York Center for Research, Economic Advancement, Technology, Engineering and Science (NY CREATES).
The research was supported by the Microelectronics Commons Program, a DoW initiative, and the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research. The researchers made use of CNF, a member of the National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure, which is supported by the National Science Foundation, and the Cornell Center for Materials Research.
The Trump-backed incumbent has struggled to raise money for his reelection bid as the House Ethics Committee investigates numerous allegations against him.
The former defense minister, whose firing sparked weeks of protests, said Ukraine needed to find a way to hold elections despite the prolonged war with Russia.
The move from an architect of Ukraine’s drone program is a remarkably direct challenge to President Volodymyr Zelensky’s authority and may test Ukrainian unity.
Lansing, Michigan — Republican U.S. Senate nominee Mike Rogers received about $95,000 from telecommunications industry political committees over two decades while supporting legislation that aligned with some of those companies’ policy priorities, according to federal campaign finance records reviewed by Michigan Advance.
The contributions came from AT&T, Verizon and wireless industry group CTIA and went to Rogers’ congressional campaigns, Senate campaigns and political action committee. AT&T accounted for $56,000, Verizon contributed $28,500 and CTIA gave $10,000, according to the report. Federal Election Commission records confirm Rogers is currently running for Michigan’s U.S. Senate seat.
While chairing the House Intelligence Committee, Rogers introduced the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA, which would have expanded private companies’ ability to share cybersecurity information with the federal government. AT&T, Verizon and CTIA supported the legislation, while civil-liberties organizations warned it could weaken privacy protections.
Rogers also opposed federal net-neutrality regulations before leaving Congress in 2015. He subsequently worked as a cybersecurity adviser for AT&T, continuing his ties to the telecommunications industry.
Rogers’ campaign rejected suggestions that contributions influenced his policymaking, saying his national-security positions have remained consistent throughout his career.
Rogers is running against Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed for the seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Gary Peters.
AUSTIN, Texas and PALO ALTO, Calif., Aug. 19, 2026 — EigenQ, Inc., a quantum technology company, and Silicon Valley Acquisition Corp., a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company, today announced the confidential submission of a draft registration statement on Form S-4 for review by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission relating to EigenQ’s and SVAQ’s previously announced proposed business combination transaction to take EigenQ public. Submission of the Draft Registration Statement for SEC review reflects continued progress and forward momentum relative to the proposed Business Combination and represents another key milestone toward completing the transaction.
Completion of the proposed transaction is subject to shareholder approval, SEC review and effectiveness of the Registration Statement, among other customary closing conditions. Upon completion of the proposed Business Combination, the combined company is expected to operate under the name EigenQ Holdings, Inc., securities of which are expected to trade on Nasdaq, subject to exchange listing approval.
“The submission of the Draft Registration Statement for review by the SEC represents another important milestone in our journey toward becoming a public company. We are pleased to continue advancing this transaction together with SVAQ while remaining focused on disciplined execution, furthering our commercialization plans with channel participants, OEMs and customers, and creating sustainable long-term value for our shareholders,” said Dr. José Rosas-Bustos, EigenQ’s Chief Executive Officer.
The proposed Business Combination remains subject to approval by the shareholders of SVAQ and stockholders of EigenQ, respectively, the registration statement on Form S-4 being declared effective by the SEC, and the satisfaction of other customary closing conditions. The Business Combination is currently expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026, subject to satisfaction of applicable approvals and closing conditions. Upon completion of the proposed Business Combination, the combined company is expected to operate under the name EigenQ Holdings, Inc., securities of which are expected to trade on Nasdaq, subject to exchange listing approval.
While the go-public process continues to advance, EigenQ remains focused on executing its technology and commercialization strategy.
“Our mission is to build and deploy trusted infrastructure enabling governments, enterprises, and critical industries to operate securely in the Quantum Era. We believe that becoming a public company will expand our ability to accelerate innovation, deepen strategic partnerships, and bring foundational quantum technologies to U.S. and global markets. We remain committed to leading the transformation toward trusted, resilient, and quantum-ready digital infrastructure,” said Dr. Jesse Van Griensven, Chairman of EigenQ’s board of directors.
About EigenQ
EigenQ is an applied quantum technology company building the trusted infrastructure for the Quantum Era. Headquartered in Texas, USA, the Company develops foundational technologies across quantum security, communications, networking, and sensing – helping public and private sectors prepare for a future shaped by quantum computing and AI.
Working alongside a developing ecosystem of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), technology partners, and industry leaders, EigenQ is poised to deliver deployable, market-ready solutions that combine post-quantum cryptography, quantum-derived entropy, hardware-rooted trust, secure identity, and cryptographic agility to strengthen the existing digital infrastructures of governmental and commercial enterprises.
EigenQ has entered into a previously-announced definitive business combination agreement with SVAQ to effectuate the proposed go-public transaction. In connection with the completion, if any, of the Business Combination, the transaction parties are seeking approval from Nasdaq for shares of Pubco common stock to trade under the symbol “EIGQ”.
Additional information about EigenQ is available at www.EigenQ.com. The Registration Statement will become publicly available at a later stage of the transaction process; supplemental information about the proposed Business Combination and its terms can be found in SVAQ’s public filings which are available, free of charge, at the SEC’s website (www.sec.gov).
About Silicon Valley Acquisition Corp.
Silicon Valley Acquisition Corp. (Nasdaq: SVAQ) is a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company organized for the purpose of effecting a merger, share exchange, asset acquisition, share purchase, reorganization, or similar business combination with one or more businesses. For more information, visit https://svacquisitioncorp.com.
US midterm elections 2026: what happens next?
3
November 2026 — 18:00 TO 19:00 GMT
Anonymous (not verified)
Chatham House and Online
Come and listen to first-hand analysis from Chatham House experts who will examine how the midterms might reshape US politics, foreign policy and the 2028 presidential race.
Come and listen to first-hand analysis from Chatham House experts who will examine how the midterms might reshape US politics, foreign policy and the 2028 presidential race.
The 2026 US midterm elections represent a major test of two political parties in transition and the rest of President Trump’s second-term agenda. The results will shape the balance of power in Washington, influencing the administration’s ability to govern, how much leverage opposition lawmakers will wield, and what risks lie in between.
Legal challenges and electoral interference could lead to a range of outcomes. But the results will also offer an early indication of the debates, candidacies, and narratives likely to define the race for the White House in 2028.
This event discusses:
What do the midterm results reveal about public support for Trump’s presidency?
What impact will the outcome have on the administration’s legislative agenda?
What do the results mean for US foreign and economic policy going forward?
Which issues and voter groups drove the election outcome?
What do the results suggest about the 2028 presidential race?
During the 1990s, a new strata of independent film studios and distributors revitalised the Hollywood movie machine. The likes of Miramax, New Line Cinema and October Films challenged the ageing behemoths of the industry and pushed forward offbeat directors such as Quentin Tarantino, Darren Aronofsky and Jane Campion. The decade is widely considered an artistic high point for western cinema after the bloated mainstream excesses of the 1980s. Could something similar now be happening in games?
Certainly, we have a comparable setup. The big players of the games business are in various states of creative disarray: Electronic Arts (EA) has been bought out by a Saudi-led consortium, which is likely to lead to more cautious, hit-driven decisions; Microsoft bought Activision and Bethesda and then ordered waves of redundancies; Ubisoft has cancelled several titles and is posting big losses. Those companies are also facing rising development costs, so they’re circling the wagons, focusing on legacy brands and freezing recruitment. It’s hard to imagine any left-field works of genius emerging from this imaginative quagmire.
About 100 people crammed into a Harrington Public Library meeting room for a city council meeting discussing the future of data centers. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY OLIVIA MARBLE
Prosecutors in Charlie Kirk 's killing pointed to an engraved bullet, arguing that its inscription shows Kirk was targeted for how the defendant perceived his politics.
The UK’s competition watchdog has launched investigations into Trainline, Virgin Atlantic and Red Driving School over concerns that all three companies displayed misleadingly low prices to their customers.
The Competition and Markets Authority’s investigations are part of a broader clampdown on “drip pricing”, an illegal practice that makes a product appear cheaper by not including all mandatory fees.
Right to assisted dying established for patients with conditions assessed as incurable and causing unbearable pain
Legislation granting incurably ill adults the right to assisted dying has been formally adopted in France after the text was approved by the country’s highest constitutional authority and published in the official journal.
The law, known as a law on “end of life” or “aid in dying” rather than “assisted dying” or “euthanasia”, means France joins the small group of countries including the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and Canada to have legalised the practice.
Move by Years, which provides personalised meals in subscription-based service, follows recipe change
A dog food brand has recalled all of its fresh meals after reports that a recipe change may have caused some animals to develop an eye condition that, if left untreated, can lead to sight loss.
The brand Years said owners should stop feeding its fresh meals to their dogs “immediately” and also told them not to feed the meals to any other animal, or to donate or sell them.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s co-opting of conservative language to discuss a movement against state-sanctioned killings of Black people is damning
August has brought us a referendum on “Woke 1” – a term that reductively brands 2020’s social justice movement – as prominent liberal voices reflect on that time period with disappointing hindsight. During a recent appearance on ABC’s This Week, when asked about 2020-era demands to abolish prisons and police, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the US congresswoman from New York, abandoned her previous support of the “defund the police” movement, and instead joked: “Woke 1 was crazyyyyy.”
Ocasio-Cortez, a democratic socialist, implied that the still-resounding calls for municipalities to reduce police budgets and to divert aid to poor communities were worth advocating for during the 2020 uprising, but are now “crazyyyyy”. In 2020, she noted that “a lot of people cannot fathom what an abolitionist America looks like. Tell them it looks like a suburb. Affluent white communities already live in a world where they choose to fund youth, health, housing more than they fund police.” But she has since backtracked on that idea.
New findings further call into question scientific judgment of current health leaders in the Trump administration
A French researcher whose work was praised by Donald Trump and Dr Mehmet Oz during the Covid-19 pandemic published hundreds of papers with “substantial” ethical and legal concerns, according to a new analysis.
An international team of scientists found concerns in 853 articles published by the Institut Hospitalo-Universitaire Méditerranée Infection, or the IHU, hundreds more than previously flagged by past investigations into work at the large research hospital. Of those, institute founder Didier Raoult was listed as co-author on 758 of them, according to one of the researchers behind the new analysis.
A study of more than 64,000 people born around the end of Britain's postwar sugar rationing found that those exposed to less sugar during their first 1,000 days had lower rates of five cancers decades later, including roughly 69% lower liver cancer risk and 36% lower breast cancer risk. They also "showed signs of slower biological aging" and "continued to consume less sugar and had healthier diets overall," according to the authors of a new study published in The Conversation. From the report: After the second world war, sugar remained rationed in Britain for several years. But in September 1953, rationing ended and people started eating a lot more sugar. Consumption nearly doubled. This meant that children born just a few months apart had very different levels of sugar exposure both in the womb and during early childhood. For our study, we used data from over 64,000 people born in Britain between 1951 and 1956. Those born earlier spent a larger share of their first 1,000 days under sugar rationing, while those born later experienced progressively less of it.
[...] What is most surprising, however, is not the cancer results or the biological markers of ageing. It's how early-life sugar exposure continued to affect people's diets even 50 years later. We found that people who experienced sugar rationing early in life still consumed less sugar in adulthood, around age 50. They also ate less overall, and their diets were healthier and more diverse. This suggests that the level of sweetness people are exposed to very early in life may shape their taste preferences for a long time.
A rise in lawsuits over AI use in employment decisions is raising questions about how companies hire and fire
For the last four years, Erin Kistler has applied for thousands of jobs at companies like Paypal, Microsoft and Netflix, only to find her résumé disappear into a black hole. A product manager with nearly 20 years of experience, Kistler believes she was qualified for every role, yet she never received a single interview.
Now, Kistler is suing Eightfold AI, the Silicon Valley maker of hiring software used by hundreds of companies, including those where she applied, in a class-action lawsuit. The case, filed in January in California court, is one of the first to argue that automated screening functions as an undisclosed consumer report or applicant dossier, ranking job applicants on their likelihood of success without giving them the chance to see or challenge the results, according to Kistler’s legal team.
Harvard University has agreed to pay $53 million to resolve lawsuits by families alleging it mishandled the bodies of loved ones donated to its medical school.
Move could be confirmed along with $100m US Open pot
Slams have been in dispute with players for 18 months
Tennis’s grand slam tournaments have agreed to establish a formal player advisory council in a move aimed at defusing the row over prize money. The joint venture could be confirmed on Wednesday as part of the US Tennis Association’s (USTA) announcement of this year’s US Open prize money, which is expected to top $100m (£74m) for the first time.
The four slams have been in dispute for almost 18 months, with leading players – including Jannik Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka– demanding a greater share of tournament revenues as part of a wider overhaul of the sport’s finances and operations that would also lead to the major tournaments making contributions to player welfare and offer meaningful player representation.
Rightwing populist’s inconsistent positions on Europe and Russia suggest he is testing how far he can push partners and electorate
One evening nine years ago in the Bulgarian town of Balgari, a Brazilian tourist approached the casually dressed, middle-aged man surrounded by bodyguards, bystanders and photographers. “Why are you important?” she asked. “I’m not so important,” he replied. She repeated the question and he admitted: “I’m the president.”
Now, in 2026, the rightwing populist Rumen Radev is no longer the president, but the prime minister – the more powerful of the two positions – after his Progressive Bulgaria party secured an overwhelming majority in April’s election. While many in Europe breathed a sigh of relief that month at the demise of Viktor Orbán in Hungary, others wondered if Radev would become the EU’s next disruptor-in-chief.
Ahead of U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds’ win in Florida’s Republican gubernatorial primary, he launched an attack ad against Democratic nominee David Jolly over transgender issues.
The Friends of Byron Donalds PAC ad shows short clips of Jolly speaking about issues involving transgender people, including Florida’s crackdown on rainbow street art and school sports participation.
The ad’s text says Jolly supports “gender changing surgeries on kids” and plays a clip of Jolly saying, “We embraced it, the medical pathways, the gender-affirming care.”
The ad echoes what Donalds told patrons of a Doral restaurant in July, when he said that Jolly believes “it’s okay to change the gender of young kids.”
Did Jolly say he supports surgeries for children to affirm their gender? No, the ad twists Jolly’s words from a 2025 podcast interview.
In context, Jolly was quoting someone else when he made the comment about gender-affirming care — a broad term that isn’t limited to surgery.
When asked by reporters about medical care for trans youth, Jolly has said he supports families making medical decisions with a doctor. It is not standard medical practice for doctors to provide gender-affirming surgeries for young children.
PolitiFact contacted Jolly’s campaign about the ad and his position on gender-affirming surgeries for minors but received no response.
Although he relayed a story about healthcare for a youth transitioning from one gender to another, we found no examples in the public record of Jolly talking specifically about gender-affirming surgeries for kids. The Donalds’ campaign did not provide any in response to our inquiry.
“I do not know what further statement you need when he says it pretty plainly himself,” Donalds spokesperson Skylar Swanson said.
The clip of Jolly speaking about gender-affirming care comes from his September 2025 interview with “For St. Pete’s Sake,” a LGTBQ+ focused podcast hosted by members of Pinellas County’s Stonewall Democrats. In the interview, Jolly talked about a grandfather whom he said called Jolly a few years earlier about the man’s trans grandchild in high school.
Jolly said the man said his grandchild was experiencing suicidal thoughts and wondering whether they should leave home. “As a family we embraced it, we sought the right pathways, the medical pathways, the gender-affirming care, for this grandchild,” Jolly recounted that the man as saying.
Jolly said the call happened a few years ago, when state lawmakers were weighing SB 254, which criminalized providing gender-affirming medical care to minors, making it a third-degree felony. By Jolly’s account, the man told him the family’s doctor could be arrested for providing gender-affirming care for his grandchild and the parents could lose custody under the bill.
The bill became law in May 2023. In addition to criminal penalties for healthcare providers, the law grants courts emergency jurisdiction over child custody disputes in cases where a minor is receiving gender-affirming care.
What Jolly has said about gender-affirming care for minors
Gender-affirming care includes a range of approaches to support a person’s gender identity, including using a different name or the person’s preferred pronouns. According to medical best practices, gender-affirming treatments available to adolescents can include puberty blockers, hormone therapy and, in rare cases, surgeries for older teens. Medical intervention for minors requires parental consent.
When Politico asked Jolly in July for his position on “gender medicine for minors,” he responded: “I simply subscribe to the old-school Republican position that government should stay out of your life, out of your doctor’s office, and out of your bedroom. The last person you need sitting on the foot of your bed during hard family conversations is Byron Donalds.”
In August, Jolly told a crowd in The Villages that Donalds was stoking a culture war because “I believe that local communities should be able to celebrate their own and that government should stay out of your medical decisions.” His campaign labeled the clip, “My response to Byron Donalds.”
Our ruling
A Donalds PAC campaign ad said Jolly said that he supports “gender-changing surgeries on kids” and uses a clip of him speaking about gender-affirming care.
The clip was deceptively edited to make it look like Jolly was saying he “embraced” giving kids gender-affirming surgery. The full video shows Jolly was quoting another person, and he doesn’t mention surgery.
When asked by reporters about medical care for trans youth, Jolly said he supports families having the ability to make medical decisions with their doctor. Gender-affirming care can include using a different name or a person’s preferred pronouns, and treatments are typically available only to adolescents and adults. In rare cases, that can include surgeries for older teens with parental consent — not young children.
Dearborn, Michigan — Roughly 2,000 protesters and counterprotesters gathered Tuesday outside the Henry Ford Centennial Library as a Christian nationalist demonstration led by pardoned Jan. 6 rioter Jake Lang brought heightened tensions to the heavily Arab American community.
Lang organized what he called a “Christian Crusader March” and later addressed the Dearborn City Council, accusing Muslims of attempting to gain political and demographic control. Police in riot gear formed a line separating Lang’s supporters from counterprotesters as both sides traded chants and insults.
The council meeting was moved to the library because of safety concerns. Although several confrontations appeared close to becoming physical, much of the hostility remained verbal. Dearborn police had not immediately released information about arrests or injuries.
Lang organized the event with Detroit pastor Lorenzo Sewell, a Trump supporter who serves on Republican Senate nominee Mike Rogers’ Faith Coalition Leadership Team. Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign called on Rogers to disavow the rally and Sewell’s participation.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Sen. Elissa Slotkin and Rep. Rashida Tlaib were among Democratic officials condemning the demonstration as anti-Muslim.
Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud said fear surrounding the rally caused some businesses to remain closed. Resident Muhammad Al-Thibabawi said many participants ultimately saw Dearborn as “just a normal city” whose residents value their constitutional rights and America.
Poll after poll shows the same thing. The American people know that the current economic system is rigged
The media pundits have written article after article desperately trying to understand why progressive candidates, despite being heavily outspent, keep defeating establishment Democrats in primaries around the country. Well, the answer is not complicated.
Whether it is a corrupt campaign finance system, unprecedented income and wealth inequality, a broken and wildly expensive healthcare system, the enormous threats posed by AI or an immoral and destructive foreign policy, progressives are talking about the real issues facing working families. And they are providing real solutions. Establishment Democrats are not.
Klaire Rhodes was attacked by a brown bear in state park but spray helped her escape with ‘relatively minor injuries’
An Alaska marathon athlete used a repellant spray to fend off an attacking bear that officials say injured her while she ran on a popular trail recently – an encounter that she has since described as “a nightmare come to life”.
The particularly harrowing episode unfolded on 13 August, when a woman who later identified herself online as marathon winner Klaire Rhodes, 28, was running alone on the Wolverine Bowl trail in Chugach state park, officials with Alaska’s fish and game department said. A brown bear on the trail attacked and injured her, according to the agency.
What Happened: Citing reporting by ProPublica, eight Democratic U.S. senators have criticized the Trump administration’s demands to access the health data of millions of people as a condition of giving lifesaving aid to other countries. In a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the senators, including minority leader Chuck Schumer, said the U.S. demands were “unprecedented and at odds with U.S. policy concerning the data of American citizens.”
The inquiry into the administration’s approach to foreign health data referred to a ProPublica story published in June about agreements the U.S. struck with African countries — and the risks they posed to people there. Experts told ProPublica that the deals are vague and lack language used in most data-sharing agreements to adequately limit what information is collected and how it can be used. As a result, they said, there is an increased risk that individuals’ personal data could be exposed, misused or commercialized without their consent.
The senators — who include Tim Kaine of Virginia; Chris Van Hollen of Maryland; Brian Schatz of Hawaii; Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota; Christopher Coons of Delaware; Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Raphael Warnock of Georgia, who led the effort — requested a briefing on the healthcare agreements’ data requirements. They also asked Rubio to respond in writing to a list of questions by the end of August.
What They Said: In the letter, which was sent last week, the senators expressed concern that the requirement to access foreign health data might reverberate beyond the countries where the aid agreements were struck and “set international precedents that ultimately harm Americans.” They noted that the demands for data appear to be at odds with the Trump administration’s National Cyber Strategy, which emphasizes the right to privacy for Americans and their data.
“These new demands set an alarming precedent that is seemingly contrary to the Administration’s longstanding support for the privacy of U.S. citizens’ data,” they wrote.
The senators also laid out the details of a data-sharing agreement between the U.S. and Uganda that were first reported by ProPublica. The deal demanded that Uganda provide the U.S. — and its contractors — with logins “or other secure access mechanisms” to directly enter the nation’s health data systems.
“While global health programs have historically included data sharing components,” the senators wrote, “they have never required direct access to privileged electronic systems for U.S. government representatives.”
The letter ends with more than a dozen questions for Rubio, including why the State Department has not made the health care agreements public, as federal law requires, and whether any of the data will be shared with “U.S.-based third parties for any commercial purpose, including to train any artificial intelligence models.”
The senators also asked what privacy rights foreign citizens will have over data that is transferred to the U.S. and how those rights will be enforced in the case of a data breach or another unethical use of their personal information.
Background: After the Trump administration dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development and drastically reduced funding for international health work done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Congress required the executive branch to continue providing foreign aid. The State Department has since faced the challenge of finding new ways to get the funding to countries, ensure that it was being spent wisely and address potential pandemics. The task has been especially challenging because the administration cut ties with most of the international partners and fired staff the government had previously relied on to carry out this complex work.
In the past, PEPFAR, the U.S. program that provides aid for treating and preventing HIV around the world, built its own systems to handle anonymized data, separate from foreign government health records. In contrast, the Ugandan agreement provides the U.S. with direct access to the government’s own health data systems.
Through separate agreements, the U.S. has also arranged for countries to provide it with specimens of pathogens that could cause pandemics, along with related information.
The effort to establish these new aid arrangements was led by Brad Smith, an entrepreneur who founded three healthcare companies, one of which sold for a reported $2.7 billion. Before joining the State Department, Smith led the government efficiency panel that would become the Department of Government Efficiency and oversaw some $67 billion in cuts to the Department of Health and Human Services.
The U.S. agreement with Uganda provides up to $1.7 billion in aid for HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, among other diseases. As a condition, the deal calls for the sharing of aggregated data with all personally identifiable information removed and specifies that the information should be used for delivering and auditing healthcare services. But experts told ProPublica that it is possible to reverse-engineer data that has been anonymized.
The shift in the approach to health data is part of the America First Global Health Strategy, which is intended to make America “more prosperous” and “promote American health innovations.” Rubio explained in September that under this new strategy, aid will be given “in a way that directly benefits the American people and directly promotes our national interest.”
Why It Matters: Privacy experts say that, if health data is mishandled under the agreements, it could have serious consequences. Revealing healthcare histories, including whether someone has had an abortion, a mental health condition, substance-use treatment or a sexually transmitted disease can be devastating anywhere. In Africa, research has shown it can lead to discrimination and violence.
In the age of artificial intelligence, health data has become especially valuable. But the agreements reviewed by ProPublica provide no guarantee that Africans subject to them will have a say in how their data is used or whether they would receive any potential financial benefits.
Response: The State Department declined to answer specific questions about the senators’ letter, saying that it does not respond to questions about congressional correspondence. In a statement sent to ProPublica, a State Department spokesperson defended the data requirements in the health agreements.
“Neither the U.S. government nor any private American companies receive or review any personally identifiable information (PII) under these data sharing agreements,” the statement said, going on to note that the new deals “share only the same kinds of aggregated, de-identified data that has been shared and used for years in the fight against HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and other diseases. All data sharing is consistent with each country’s laws and approvals.” The spokesperson also said no country has been coerced to sign the agreements with the U.S.
(The Center Square) – U.S. Sen. Dan S. Sullivan and Mary Peltola advanced to November's general election for U.S. Senate in Alaska's crucial race to determine control of the upper chamber.
The Devotion of Suspect X, Keigo Higashino (2005) This is one of those books that stays with you long after you finish it. The hit from Japanese mystery writer Keigo Higashino, who died last month, puts a dark twist on a story about loyalty and the obligations that come with it. This was my first interaction with Higashino’s famous “Detective Galileo.” Think of a police procedural wrapped in a shroud of mathematical philosophy. This book is a dark gem. — Akela Lacy
Good People, Patmeena Sabit (2026) It’s easy to be lulled into thinking this propulsive, polyphonic novel is a true crime beach read: The book opens with a disclaimer about police refusing to weigh in on an open investigation, followed by short vignettes that serve as witness testimonies to an unfolding crime narrative. But it’s actually a beautiful picture of community, family tragedy, and the court of public opinion, and a wonderful reminder that, despite the current political climate, we should be proud to be a nation of immigrants. — Celine Piser
Questions 27 & 28, Karen Tei Yamashita(2026) It’s become almost cliché in this era of wanton imprisonment of immigrants to invoke the incessant relevance of the United States’ WWII concentration camps for Japanese Americans, but Karen Tei Yamashita brings hundreds of new lives to one of the country’s most infamous domestic crimes. She once thought “that about ‘the camps,’ we’d been there, done that,” she writes in a postscript to Questions 27 & 28, “but as those who continue to research and write about these events know very well, it’s never done.” The questions that make up the novel’s title were the last two in an infamous loyalty questionnaire administered to incarcerees: The first asked if they would enlist in the Army for the same United States of America that had incarcerated them; the second if they would swear undying allegiance to the U.S. and forsake any ties to Japan. Between those two questions, “There are eight possible answers,” Yamashita writes, some of which would get you sent to war, others that would deepen your incarceration. “But or if answers are useless … it doesn’t matter what you think or believe; only your answers to 27 and 28 matter.”
In a rigorous history lesson coated in a fun, twisty work of fiction, Yamashita sets out to capture the varied political leanings and personal narratives that might lie behind a single checkbox marked yes or no or left blank. The novel — and it is one, despite being stuffed with historical figures who really lived through the incarceration — is multi-formatted and polyvocal, making use of the kind of staggeringly varied structure that has become something like Yamashita’s signature. It’s broken into three “boxes,” as if in a historical archive, which Yamashita plumbs for precisely reproduced documents and imagined conversations about how they came to be. With stories spanning more than a century, it grapples with the role of Japanese imperialism in constructing racial identity, the place for violence in politics, what it means to be a citizen of a state — and whether one that would lock people up over race or nationality is worth having at all. — Maia Hibbett
The Vivisectors, Missouri Williams (2026) I read a lot of contemporary fiction and have the scars to prove it. And, candidly, I haven’t even finished Williams’s sophomore novel, which takes place in a lightly dystopian college town being consumed by enemies both plant and animal. Let that make this endorsement all the more ringing: It’s truly rare that I slow my reading of a novel because I want to take in each sentence fully, and that I want to immediately start re-reading before I’ve even closed the hardcover. Williams is a sly, darkly funny observer of our world and what she imagines as the next. Jump on board now, or risk being left behind on one of literature’s up-and-coming voices. — Katherine Krueger
The Full Catastrophe, David Carkeet (1990) We often say a string of words in a very specific order that intentionally has no meaning. Or spit out a different combination of them that has the opposite meaning of what is spoken. Why is it hard to say what we want to really say?
A lovelorn, laid-off linguist who gets enraged by empty expressions like “Have a good one” and “We’ve come full circle” finds a new job at the Pillow Agency, run by the rich, eccentric, incomprehensible Mr. Pillow, a believer of love. The linguist is to embed (“occupy”) with an assigned couple at their home, listen to their verbal interactions, and analyze whether this marriage can be saved, despite his own lack of experience in the field of commitment. This is somehow not the premise of a couple’s therapy reality TV show today; it’s much funnier and less self-conscious! Perhaps because it published in 1990? I thought it was headed in a surreal “Being John Malkovich” direction at the start, but The Full Catastrophe author, David Carkeet, takes a more difficult path and, with serious honesty, tackles the later-stage, post-honeymoon relationship troubles — excavated down to their true awkwardness — that come from miscommunication. Brutal things get said and heard! Because of that, I was surprised by how romantic (and hilarious) this book is. Pairs well with Ross McElwee’s 1986 film “Sherman’s March.” — Nara Shin
The Makioka Sisters, Jun’ichirō Tanizaki (1948) This quiet, deeply thoughtful novel follows several years in the lives of four sisters in a once-prominent upper-middle-class family in a suburb between Kobe and Osaka in the late 1930s. The slowly building characterization of each sister’s personality and how she moves through the world is one of the most artfully realistic portraits of family life I’ve ever read.
While mostly focused on the relationship between the sisters, the novel takes place in the shadow of the impending world war, and in scattered moments throughout the book Tanizaki sketches a compelling depiction of people who — despite being otherwise caring, empathetic, and worldly — are reflexively loyal to a government that is, at the time of narration, actively committing unspeakable crimes abroad.
For fans of: Thomas Mann, Colm Tóibín, Elena Ferrante. — Noah Hurowitz
The Odyssey, translated by Emily Wilson (2017) A great contrast from the Nolan movie, which simply regurgitates the male heroic stereotype — I think (I have not seen it). — David Bralow
Nonfiction
The Kentucky Cave Wars, David Randolph Kem (2014) Soliciting recommendations, our editor helpfully intoned that “It doesn’t have to be a nonfiction book about war!” So, naturally, this is a nonfiction book about war.
Beneath the gentle rolling hills of Kentucky are hundreds of both mapped and hitherto yet uncharted miles of labyrinthine subterranea which have wormed their way through hollowed limestone over queer aeons. Yet all is not sanguine in these netherworlds, the mirthful perusal of which has been rendered “quixotic” if one is attempting the maintenance of a fairly fairy tale vernacular (or “illegal,” if one is not) through the corrosive joint forces of State and Capital, which seep hideously into the ground, oozing from the words and deeds of those who have no business being alive.
And so, we have the Kentucky Cave Wars, wherein to stop people from killing one another over rival private cave enterprises, the government stepped in and closed off miles of caverns under the standard doublespeak veneer of ostensibly opening them up under the hollow promises of a cavernous national park. This is America, land of the free, where entry into cave systems now requires government permission.
The real losers of the cave wars weren’t manipulative businessmen, who were arguably already losers by simple clear cut reason of being businessmen in the first place; no, they were those of us who were imprisoned in the outer realm by the unbridled malignity that is the National Park Service, condemned to beg for entry into the Earth on which we live, and into which we die. — Nikita Mazurov
Things in Nature Merely Grow, Yiyun Li (2025) “Grieving mother’s resilience in the face of repeated tragedy” doesn’t feel quite right here. While I hesitate to call the word “resilience” trite, the way Yiyun Li narrates the process through which she navigates her two sons’ deaths makes me feel like the word does not encompass enough — that living through Terrible Things necessitates a kind of self-justification, but also doubt, denial, and optimism, that threatens the living and spurs it on. Things in nature do merely grow, and they’ll develop based on different external conditions. But their interiority, we’ll never know. — Fei Liu
Learn Faster, Perform Better: A Musician’s Guide to the Neuroscience of Practicing, Molly Gebrian (2024) Some really interesting discussion that is applicable to everything we do. — David Bralow
Double Eagle, Charles McCarry (1979) A chronicle of the first successful balloon journey across the Atlantic. Previous attempts claimed five lives. Written in 1970s magazine style with occasional odd asides about the crew’s marriages, it’s a fascinating tale of rich men determined to do the impossible for no particular reason. — Matt Sledge
A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs, Andrew Hickey(launched October 2018) Fair warning: Host Andrew Hickey is the kind of obsessive cataloguer of popular culture who never met a parenthetical — say, about the session drummer’s later production credits — that wasn’t worthy of explication. So while I can’t recommend this podcast for the kind of casual half-listening that the medium often invites, I can promise that your attention to detail will be well rewarded.
Over and over again, Hickey offers a helpful corrective to the various mythologies of early rock ’n’ roll, especially by later (mostly white) critics who have policed genre boundaries and exalted a narrow range of guitar gods and studio auteurs. From the beginning, he is careful to emphasize the communal and collaborative nature of musical production, drawing attention to figures who’ve been marginalized in other histories. Along the way, he smuggles in some fascinating lessons in social history, political economy, and even music theory. — Michael Sherrard
The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century, Amia Srinivasan (2021) It is incredibly well-written and easy to read. The book grapples with the realities of gender, class, race, and politics in really thought-provoking ways. — Jessica Washington
Days of Love and Rage: A Story of Ordinary People Forging a Revolution, Anand Gopal (2026) Defiance: A Memoir of Awakening, Rebellion, and Survival in Syria, Loubna Mrie (2024) The constant onslaught of news these days can make us forget that, just a decade and a half ago, the Middle East and North Africa were rocked by a series of uprisings and revolutions that changed the face of the region. Perhaps none was more consequential than Syria’s eventually successful revolution, and yet so few people have an in-depth understanding of the circumstances. If the old saw about being doomed to repeat history holds true, we would do well to educate ourselves, to better understand the pitfalls and potentials of our paths. That’s where two new books from Anand Gopal and Loubna Mrie come in.
Gopal’s Days of Love and Rage traces the story of the Syrian Civil War through the eyes of the mid-sized city of Manbij. A masterwork of literary reporting, Gopal’s hearty volume recounts the waves of political power that swept over the city — a revolutionary movement, a more neoliberal city council, the Free Syrian Army, the Islamic State group, and so on — with Gopal deftly reporting out intimate views of each, provided by those who fought for, against, or simply lived through them.
Loubna Mrie’s striking memoir about the war, Defiance, provides the one view Gopal doesn’t go deep on: Syria’s ruling Alawite sect. Neither does Mrie, however, provide a straight-ahead understanding of the regime that controlled the country for more than half a century. Instead, it provides a window into that world precisely by departing from it. Mrie’s family was firmly in the pro-regime fold, but her observations, empathy, and intellect quickly led her to become a revolutionary. What follows from there is a harrowing personal journey whose contours are best left to Mrie herself, who lets the reader so far into her travails and inner life that it feels almost intrusive to keep reading — but also makes it impossible to stop. — Ali Gharib
Here Where We Live Is Our Country, Molly Crabapple (2026) At this point it is perhaps redundant to recommend this extraordinary, beautifully written history of the Jewish Labor Bund, by friend-of-The-Intercept, Molly Crabapple. But for those who have yet to read it, I couldn’t recommend a book more highly. Molly offers us a gift: richly rendered revolutionary characters, rigorously researched history, and a corrective to Jewish historical narratives that treat Zionism as transhistorical and inevitable. Here’s to Molly! — Natasha Lennard
The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the Nineteenth Century, Wolfgang Schivelbusch (1977) I first read German historian Wolfgang Schivelbusch’s The Railway Journey about 20 years after it was published. My mind wasn’t blown. It was blown up.
I suspect that almost 50 years after it was published, the book still packs a formidable punch. Every page seemed to be a revelation, drawing on myriad sources from 19th century philosophy, sociology, psychology, literature, physics, medicine, and, seemingly, everything else. The volume was slim, but it seemed to be packed with more startling information than any three great books. It wasn’t a history of train travel, it was an exploration of modernity and an explanation of how human perceptions of distance, time, space, speed, personal autonomy, psychological integrity, and physical trauma were shattered and remade by the advent of railway travel, creating a new “industrialized consciousness.”
Much of The Railway Journey now exists as a blur in my mind, much like the sheer speed of the train fundamentally changed how people experienced the landscape, forcing passengers to focus only on distant vistas and transforming what had been an immersive experience in nature to a series of (window-)framed, here and gone, two-dimensional images of a panoramic landscape. But for all that I’ve forgotten of the book, for every fact that has long since fled my mind, I have never looked at the world in the same way again.
“The notion that the railroad annihilated space and time was not related to that expansion of space that resulted from the incorporation of new spaces into the transport network,” Schivelbusch observed. “What was experienced as being annihilated was the traditional space-time continuum which characterized the old transport technology.” Travelers had, that is, experienced the physical space between cities as a “living entity” and had been embedded in that landscape before the train obliterated such “travel space.” Schivelbusch called on 19th-century poet and writer Heinrich Heine to explain the incredible disorientation experienced by early train travelers. Without The Railway Journey, I would probably have been ignorant of the existence of Heine (and so many other forgotten thinkers past). But I’d pick up a copy of the book for Heine’s commentary on the opening of railway lines from Paris to Rouen and Orléans in 1843, alone:
What changes must now occur, in our way of looking at things, in our notions! Even the elementary concepts of time and space have begun to vacillate. Space is killed by the railways, and we are left with time alone. … Now you can travel to Orléans in four and a half hours, and it takes no longer to get to Rouen. Just imagine what will happen when the lines to Belgium and Germany are completed and connected up with their railways! I feel as if the mountains and forests of all countries were advancing on Paris. Even now, I can smell the German linden trees; the North Sea’s breakers are rolling against my door.
Why Should Delaware Care? For years, policymakers have debated why Delaware public school students have consistently scored low on standardized tests. The state’s 2026 assessment and accountability results showed some growth for third through eighth grade English language arts and math proficiency rates.
Delaware’s public school students continue to struggle academically, but kids who attend schools with specialized literacy coaches have shown signs of improvement.
According to annual proficiency scores released by the state Tuesday, less than half of Delaware’s third through eighth graders read and do math at a proficient level. And just 18% of 11th graders were proficient in math.
The scores, taken from the 2026 statewide assessment and accountability results, reflect an average for Delaware’s public schools across all three counties. They are the first of multiple performance releases coming from the education department in the coming weeks, which includes multilingual learner progress.
The proficiency scores showed that the highest performing traditional school district in Delaware was Cape Henlopen. The lowest was the Capital School District. Among charters, the highest performing school was Newark Charter while the lowest was Positive Outcomes Charter School in Camden.
Delaware Secretary of Education Cindy Marten says the scores show the state’s students are not where they need to be. But she said there are bright spots.
Students who attend nine schools in Delaware that received state-supported literacy coaches last year showed increases in their English proficiency rates.
Delaware Education Secretary Cindy Marten.
Third graders at Johnson Elementary School in the Red Clay Consolidated School District and third graders at Las Americas ASPIRA Academy charter school saw their English proficiency increase by 12 percentage points.
The other schools with new literacy coaches saw more modest gains for their third graders, except for South Dover Elementary where reading proficiency dropped.
Marten said the results should not be seen as a “victory lap,” noting that the proficiency rates in these schools are still low.
But the gains for schools with literacy coaches are one of her “proof points.” The next step, she said, is to “scale and replicate” the literacy coach initiative into more schools.
“Lock it, load it, replicate it,” she said.
Overall, 42% of Delaware’s third through eighth graders scored proficiently in English on the state’s assessment, compared with 41% the year before. The same age group’s math proficiency crept up from 34% to 35%.
The report also included SAT results for 11th grade students, which showed that high school mathematics remains a concern for the state.
According to the report, Delaware’s SAT mathematics proficiency rate remained at 18% for the third consecutive year.
Earlier this year, Marten unveiled what she said was the Department of Education’s first strategic plan in over a decade.
According to the plan, the department’s funding would focus on four central pillars.
Those include expanding access to early childhood education; supporting student well-being and teacher retention; improving student achievement and test scores; and transitioning to a school funding formula that would send additional dollars to schools with large numbers of low-income students or English-language learners.
At the time, Marten also announced the Delaware Department of Education’s target goals for 53% proficiency in third grade English, and 35% proficiency in eighth grade math by 2028.
During a legislative budget committee hearing earlier this year, Sen. Dave Lawson (R-Marydel) said he has heard similar sentiments for the last 14 years as test scores have declined.
“So if [performance metrics] aren’t accomplished, what are going to be your actions? Are you still going to be secretary?” he asked.
In order to meet Marten’s goals, Delaware’s third grade students’ reading proficiency would have to jump 13 percentage points within two years. Eighth graders’ math scores would have to increase by 6 percentage points.
Marten told Spotlight Delaware that Delaware students can meet those goals within the next two years, but reiterated that what she wants to see is “sustained movement, not quick fixes.”
“Not, ‘They hired this consultant, or they bought this program, and they went up 15%,’” she said.
More accountability to come
In recent years, Delawareans across the political spectrum have grown increasingly frustrated with the state’s education spending, compared to students’ test scores.
Marten said the fact that the SAT math proficiency rate has remained at 18% for three consecutive years means the state must look at how students are faring in middle school algebra and other earlier coursework, which impacts students’ understanding of more complex math principles later.
She also said greater accountability is needed.
To do that, state education officials are working with school districts, charter schools, and other stakeholders to discuss how Delaware can strengthen its support and responses to low proficiency.
“We’ve got to create a clearer and a more differentiated support system for monitoring and accountability as a state,” Marten said.
Gov. Matt Meyer, who previously spent time as a middle school math teacher, has plans to reform the state’s education system. | PHOTO COURTESY OF MEYER CAMPAIGN
Her statements come just two months after Gov. Matt Meyer signed into law two bills that would lay the groundwork for Delaware to implement a new school funding system.
One of the bills, sponsored by State Sen. Laura Sturgeon (D-Brandywine Hundred), would enable the Delaware Department of Education to begin implementing the hybrid school funding model.
The hybrid model will shift education spending away from a per-student basis to one that directs more dollars toward students with higher need.
The bill also includes a provision to mandate that no school receive less money under the model than it would have under the previous funding model. It also allows for the hybrid model to be implemented during the 2028 fiscal year.
It is not immediately clear whether any financial accountability mechanism will be in place under the new funding model.
But, because the new formula offers tiers of support, there will be “real action” taken if a school continues to underperform “for so many numbers of days, weeks, months, years,” Marten said.
Marten did not specify what those actions may look like, but said the Delaware Department of Education’s responses to districts’ proficiency rates would be made available to the public.
“When you provide the support and the funding, which we’re doing, you’re going to move, and if you’re not moving, you get another treatment from the state,” she said.
Why Should Delaware Care? A boom in the construction of data centers to power the artificial intelligence industry has sparked a nationwide backlash over fears that the facilities’ electricity use could cause power bills to surge. In Delaware, the backlash has centered most recently around Kent County where residents have called for moratoriums and even outright bans on data centers.
About 100 people crammed into a Harrington Public Library meeting room on Monday for a city council meeting discussing the future of data centers in the Kent County municipality.
The crowd spilled into the hallway and out the back door, many wearing stickers that said “No data center.”
It was the largest showing at the small city’s council meeting in at least six years, Assistant City Manager Amanda Marlow said.
When attorney Max Walton asked the crowd who was against a proposed rule change that would allow data centers in the city, every resident in the room raised their hand.
“It’s really a shame that you guys would even consider a cute town like this to have a horrible data center,” Harrington resident Ardyn Overko said during the hour-long public comment period.
At issue during the council meeting was a measure to change the city’s zoning code to allow data centers in manufacturing areas. Developer Maguire Hayden requested the change so it could build a data center on the site of a former cold storage warehouse. The proposed facility would use 24 megawatts of energy — or about the same as 20,000 homes.
Ultimately, the council voted unanimously against the zoning change, prompting cheers and a standing ovation. Also eliciting support from the crowd was a call from Vice Mayor Darrin Simpson for a ban on data centers in the city, although the council did not discuss that measure further.
The council’s denial of the zoning change came after the developer behind the proposal offered the city of about 4,000 people contributions totaling $1 million, according to a summary of a proposed community benefits agreement.
The offer was particularly striking because historically in Delaware, governments have offered money to companies to attract them, rather than the other way around.
But, for the case in Harrington, the proposal came amid rising opposition to data centers across the county, which has made it more difficult for developers to find sites to build the sought-after facilities.
Following Harrington’s vote, the developer’s attorney, John Paradee, said the team does not have any additional plans for the site and may have to return it to the bank.
Proponents argue that the facilities, which are the backbone of the booming artificial intelligence industry, would bring construction jobs and tax revenue to places that desperately need it.
Harrington rejected a plan to change zoning for a property to allow for a data center. Pictured above is the Cloud HQ data center facility in Loudoun County, Virginia | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY OLIVIA MARBLE
Despite those arguments, when data center proposals come before elected bodies, local residents have made passionate pleas to officials to reject them. Many cite concerns about the impact they could have on electricity bills and the local environment.
“Just say no!” Harrington residents shouted repeatedly during the meeting.
Communities across the country have also opposed data center development, just as tech companies race to build the massive energy-hungry facilities needed to train and operate their artificial intelligence technologies.
Over the past year, the Delaware legislature passed several laws to try to ensure data centers do not raise energy bills. New Castle County Council also passed other regulations aimed at preventing environmental harm.
The flurry of regulations continued last month when Kent County Levy Court passed regulations similar to New Castle County’s.
In nearby Dover, city leaders also advanced a proposed moratorium on data centers earlier this month in order to writing updated zoning regulations to address the industry.
Why Should Delaware Care? Next month’s primary elections will decide the fate of more than half of Delaware’s statewide or statehouse races this cycle. Gov. Matt Meyer’s recent endorsement of two candidates seeking to unseat sitting senators has bucked historic precedent and opened new controversies within the state Democratic Party.
Gov. Matt Meyer’s endorsement of two Working Families Party-backed candidates looking to unseat Wilmington-area state senators in next month’s primary election has drawn the ire of a top Democratic leader.
The endorsements — of Adriana Bohm and Shay Frisby over Sens. Dan Cruce (D-Wilmington) and Ray Seigfried (D-North Brandywine), respectively — were part of a larger slate of 10 candidate backings the governor released Tuesday morning, and they drew swift criticism from Delaware’s top senator.
In a statement to Spotlight Delaware, Senate President Pro Tempore Dave Sokola (D-Newark) — who is not seeking reelection this year — said the endorsements amounted to political grudge-holding by the governor.
Sokola said Meyer’s endorsement of Frisby comes after he “failed in his 11th hour effort to run roughshod over State code and State Party rules to undermine the special election in Senate District 5.”
“As Democrats, we shouldn’t be trying to undo past elections that didn’t go our way,” he added.
Sokola’s comments harken back to the intra-party conflict among Delaware Democrats surrounding the 2025 special elections that first sent Seigfried and Cruce to the Senate.
“After County Executive Meyer hid the results of his botched reassessment from the public until he was elected Governor, he refused to sign legislation that largely cleaned up the mess,” Sokola said, referring to Senate Bill 228.
In an interview with Spotlight Delaware, a spokesperson for Gov. Meyer rebuffed Sokola’s statement, saying Meyer chose to endorse candidates who “align most closely with his values.”
“No one is entitled to his endorsements,” said Nick Merlino, Meyer’s deputy chief of staff.
Merlino also said Meyer chose candidates who are willing to buck “The Delaware Way,” a term often used to describe the go-along-to-get-along mentality of First State politics, and work against the grain.
Bohm and Frisby both expressed gratitude on Tuesday afternoon for receiving Meyer’s endorsement.
Adriana Bohm secured the endorsement of Gov. Matt Meyer Tuesday morning. | PHOTO COURTESY OF ADRIANA LEELA BOHM FOR STATE SENATE / FACEBOOKShay Frisby secured the endorsement of Gov. Matt Meyer Tuesday morning. | PHOTO COURTESY OF SHAY FRISBY FOR DELAWARE / FACEBOOK
Both candidates said they could not speculate on Meyer’s motives, but highlighted their respective advocacy and community-focused work they said stretches far beyond their current campaigns.
Along with Bohm and Frisby, Meyer also endorsed the following candidates on Tuesday, part of what his statement called his first slate of endorsements:
Kathy Jennings for Attorney General
Nisha Lodhavia for Senate District 15
Rep. Alonna Berry for Representative District 20
Rep. Krista Griffith for Representative District 12
Rep. Nnamdi Chukwuocha for Representative District 1
Rae Krantz for Representative District 6
Dave Redlawsk for Representative District 23
Kyle Grantham for New Castle County Council District 3
Meyer’s endorsements, motives aside, mark an unusual move for a sitting governor, as they have not historically endorsed candidates in statehouse races ahead of a primary election.
Special election drama turns into deja vu
Sokola’s grudge-holding claims date back to late 2024, and the campaigns to replace then-state Sens. Sarah McBride and Kyle Evans Gay.
After McBride and Gay were elected to higher office — the U.S. House of Representatives and office of Lieutenant Governor, respectively — in November 2024, two special elections were needed to fill their seats inside the Senate Chamber.
When a senate seat goes vacant in Delaware, the head of that legislative chamber must issue what state law calls a “writ of election” within 10 days. The law further directs the state to hold a special election between 30 and 35 days after the issuance of the writ of election.
The law also directs committees from the political parties of the relevant district to submit someone as their nominee. Due to the quick turnaround, state law does not call for a primary election. As a result, a small number of active political party insiders ultimately choose who could represent these districts for years.
Meyer criticized that system, arguing in a letter to Democratic Party leaders at the time that they should hold a primary prior to special election slated for February 2025.
Such a process “would require our candidates to organize, persuade, and get out the vote in order to earn the Democratic nomination,” he said in the letter.
Party leaders, however, said there was not enough time to amend the special election structure.
“We welcome a dialogue to evaluate the current official replacement process under the Delaware Code, the Delaware Democratic Party rules, and the laws of other subdivisions and municipalities,’’ then Delaware Democratic Party Chair Betsy Maron wrote in a response letter, first reported by WHYY. “At this time, however, we cannot support your proposal.”
Along with Meyer’s critiques, Spotlight Delaware also reported that a handful of political influencers coalesced around the establishment candidates, Cruce and Seigfried, and lobbied others to do the same.
Both men would go on to win the Democratic Party nomination, beating out the women they are once again facing in this election cycle.
Earlier this year, a bipartisan coalition of state lawmakers attempted to change how special elections are conducted in Delaware, but their efforts stalled in the House of Representatives.
That bill, House Bill 183, would have called for special elections to include primaries, moving the state away from its current process of political party leaders choosing candidates.
Karl Baker contributed to this report.
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Rae Krantz’s name. We regret our error.
I have been considering getting this for some time. I recognize that it is quite rare to find one locally, with essentially no retailers carrying it here. Still, do you know any active Malaysian Onewheelers? I would also like to know how shipping to Malaysia works. I am aware that Malaysian law restricts riding it publicly, but I am simply curious. Quick Google search brings me nowhere.
Labour could lose dozens of seats to the Green party if the government allows new drilling in the North Sea, according to internal research shared with the Guardian.
Green party analysis suggests up to 50 Labour MPs, including Andy Burnham’s key ally Louise Haigh, could lose their seats at the next election if the government fails to make urgent climate action a priority or allows new drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea.
The Guardian’s climate forum 2026: On Tuesday 20 October, join Damian Carrington and our panel of experts, including Prof Andy Haines, Katie White, Asad Rehman, Shruti Suresh, Gareth Thomas and Amy Fairman, for a hopeful and solutions-focused evening. Book tickets here or at guardian.live
The Ebola outbreak in Congo has passed 5,000 cases, government data showed, an unprecedented rate of spread that's outpacing efforts to slow it in one of the country's remotest regions.
Beto Coral held up banners in Florida warning fellow Colombians to not vote for Abelardo de la Espriella
In the week before Colombia’s presidential election, Beto Coral, a well-known activist living in the United States, travelled to Florida to persuade fellow Colombians not to vote for the far-right candidate Abelardo de la Espriella.
Coral held banners outside polling stations in Miami warning that the millionaire lawyer, whose candidacy was endorsed by Donald Trump, would “help deport all of you”.
Human by day, vampire by night, Coen has difficult choices to make – beginning here in the 1300s, his adventure could span centuries in upcoming sequels
The Blood of Dawnwalker could be the start of an epic saga. Created by some of the talent behind The Witcher 3, this dark fantasy role-playing game takes place in the 14th century in the fictional land of Vale Sangora, a Carpathian valley of wetlands, mountains and forests cut off from the rest of the world and under the rule of a vicious vampire clan.
The developers envisage Dawnwalker as a trilogy. And because protagonist Coen is half vampire himself, that trilogy can skip across time, culminating in the modern day.
Speculation about US president’s executive assistant sparks furious backlash from White House
Wearing shoulder-length blonde hair, gold earrings and a red dress, cancer survivor Natalie Harp introduced herself to the 2020 Republican national convention as “a formerly forgotten American from California” and compared Donald Trump with George Bailey, the everyman hero played by James Stewart in the classic film It’s a Wonderful Life.
“George Bailey’s father was right,” smiled Harp, her voice echoing in the Andrew W Mellon auditorium in pandemic-hit Washington. “All you can take with you is that which you’ve given away. Mr President, that makes you the richest man in the world.”
Baseball showman Bill Veeck’s most audacious stunt sent Eddie Gaedel to bat for the lowly St Louis Browns in 1951 – and created an unforgettable diamond spectacle
Bill Veeck had a track record for designing some of the most elaborate marketing promotions during his four stints as a Major League Baseball owner, including an exploding scoreboard in 1960. But his most outlandish publicity stunt was sending 3ft 7in inch pinch-hitter Eddie Gaedel to the plate at a game 75 years ago Wednesday.
Sporting uniform number 1/8, Gaedel was greeted with a standing ovation at Sportsman’s Park in St Louis as he came to bat in the second game of a doubleheader on 19 August 1951 for the St Louis Browns. A famous Associated Press photo shows Detroit Tigers catcher Bob Swift sitting on his knees with a ball in his glove, towering over Gaedel and his tiny strike zone. Not surprisingly, he walked on four pitches, and was immediately lifted for a pinch-runner.
Illustration by Shoshana Gordon/ProPublica. Source images: Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Francine D. Martin, Army National Guard photo by Sgt. 1st Class Brandon Nelson, Stuart Lutz/Gado/Getty Images, Jake Warga/Corbis via Getty Images, Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images, Getty, U.S. Treasury via Wikimedia Commons.
ProPublica is examining U.S. military budgeting, spending and contracting, and we’re asking for your help.
We’ve spent years talking to people who’ve worked in the defense industry, the Pentagon and the armed services, so we know that these topics are critically important.Every day, Pentagon contracting officers, defense industry workers, congressional staffers and others make decisions that affect the most expensive military in the world, with great consequences for the safety of soldiers and for the country at large. Yet it’s well documented that, even when those involved have good intentions,many Pentagon projects end up mired in delays, cost overruns and performance issues. The causes of these problems are often opaque to the taxpayers who foot the bill.
“There’s no way that you can follow the money, because it keeps getting twisted like a Rubik’s Cube,” said John Ferrari, a retired Army major general and now a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “None of it is set up to be transparent.”
ProPublica is setting out to untwist this Rubik’s Cube with the help of those who understand the issues best. These topics are especially relevant right now, with Congress considering the president’s proposal to increase the defense budget to a record $1.5 trillion next year. To help the public understand what’s really at stake here, we need to speak to experts in this world,which means anyone who knows how the Pentagon is spending taxpayer money and what defense contractors are doing with it.
We especially want to learn from those who can help us understand whether things are working as they should. In our first story in this series, we spoke to dozens of people who’ve worked for General Dynamics, the Army and the Pentagon. Many of them spoke to us because they felt that things they were seeing on the job weren’t good uses of taxpayer money or weren’t helping to keep the country safe.
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The sums are vast, but the explanations for the spending range from vague to inscrutable. Consider these items in the law that funded the Department of Defense this year:
For “Other Procurement, Air Force”: $32.6 billion. For “Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, Defense-Wide”: $35.2 billion. And for “supplies and associated support services” related to U.S. Code Title 10 Section 3601 subsection(c)(3)(B) clauses (i) through (iv): a mere $650 million.
Determining what, exactly, all this public money is paying for requires cross-referencing thousands of pages of financial tables, accounting records and congressional committee documents that will leave all but the most determined budgeting sleuth at a loss. Yet this is how the U.S. government explains its funding decisions for the most expensive military in the world. And the cost is growing.
“There’s no way that you can follow the money, because it keeps getting twisted like a Rubik’s Cube,” said John Ferrari, a retired Army major general and now a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “None of it is set up to be transparent.”
ProPublica is setting out to untwist this Rubik’s Cube in a series of investigative articles, and we’re asking for your help. In the months to come, we will grapple with how President Donald Trump is spending taxpayer money at the Department of Defense (or the Department of War, as his administration calls it). With your assistance, we hope to emerge with vital, previously untold investigative stories.
While accounting is rarely the stuff of action thrillers, the black box that is the Pentagon budget contains a world of grandiose plans and staggering consequences, from extraordinarily expensive jets, ships and missiles, to high-stakes projects gone terribly awry, to closed-door dealmaking with the world’s most powerful arms sellers. (Consider our first story in this series, about the epic dysfunction of an artillery factory bankrolled by $533 million from the U.S. Army.)
The scale is hard to fathom. Congress appropriated $1 trillion for defense this year, more than the combined appropriations for agencies overseeing health, veterans affairs, education, housing, agriculture and justice — twice as much, in fact. If the president prevails in his priorities for next year’s budget, defense spending will soar dramatically higher still, to $1.5 trillion. That would be more, adjusted for inflation, than the country spent annually on defense during the height of World War II. The Pentagon’s balance sheets are opaque even to the Pentagon itself: The agency as a whole has never received a passing grade on a comprehensive financial audit. (The Department of Defense did not respond to a request for comment.)
One thing is clear: Vast sums are funneled into developing costly weapons systems that often come in over budget, get delivered behind schedule or are rendered obsolete by the time they’re finished — if they’re finished at all.
These poor outcomes follow grand promises. The Zumwalt class of naval destroyers was lauded for its “affordable and flexible design.” A ground-control system for GPS satellites called Next Generation Operational Control System was billed the “best-value GPS control system for the future.” And the F-35 jet was promised as “a truly remarkable, capable and affordable multirole fighter” that would be built “on schedule and on cost.”
Each of these programs went years past their original delivery deadlines and cost far more than originally budgeted. In 1998, the price tag for Zumwalts was estimated at $1.5 billion per ship, according to the Government Accountability Office. Now the expected price exceeds $10 billion per ship (in part because the Navy reduced the quantity it ordered). Expected costs for the GPS control system increased from $4.5 billion to over $7.5 billion. And developing, producing and maintaining the F-35 is anticipated to require $2 trillion, making it the DOD’s most expensive weapon system in history, according to the GAO. (A Lockheed Martin spokesperson called the jet “a critical capability for the United States and our allies” and said the company “is proud to serve as its prime contractor.”)
Estimates include research and development costs. The Zumwalt increase was in part because the program was reduced from 32 ships to three. All numbers are in 2024 dollars.
After the delays and cost increases, these projects have not exactly delivered reliable marvels. Only three of the originally expected 32 Zumwalts have been built. The GPS system was canceled — after 16 years and $6.27 billion in program costs, including payments to defense contractor RTX (formerly Raytheon Technologies). And F-35s are able to perform all of their missions only a quarter of the time.
Experts in defense spending cite many systemic causes for such outcomes, including the Pentagon’s frequent preference for complex designs, its habit of starting production before the design has been finalized and, not least, its dependency on companies operating virtual monopolies over niche defense products. There are few lasting consequences for contractors who fail to deliver, the experts said. “Industry just says, ‘Shucks, write us another check,’” said one defense congressional staffer, who requested anonymity to speak about internal defense spending deliberations. “Congress just throws cash at the problem.”
Other types of notable figures abound, like the $7 million that the Pentagon reportedly spent on lobster tail in one month last year, the thousands of pages of regulations that would-be Pentagon contractors must navigate, the 4,000% by which a company was found to be marking up products sold to the DOD and the $111 million that RTX fraudulently extracted from the Pentagon by misleading the agency, according to the Department of Justice. (In 2024, RTX admitted to engaging in two schemes to defraud the Pentagon, including for Patriot missile systems, and paid over $950 million to resolve federal investigations. RTX did not respond to a request for comment.)
Those in positions to reform U.S. military spending can benefit from the high-spending status quo. Former four-star generals, Pentagon officials and congressional staffers alike find a welcome reception in the industry they once oversaw. Defense spending bills present excellent opportunities for members of Congress to direct jobs to their districts. And the largest defense firms enjoyannualprofits in the billions of dollars.
This windfall ends up in the hands of a powerful few. From 2020 to 2024, just five companies — Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, RTX and Northrop Grumman — received DOD contracts worth a combined $771 billion. (General Dynamics and Boeing declined to comment. Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin did not respond to requests for comment on the value of their DOD contracts.)
None of this is a secret. It was four decades ago, during another military buildup under a Republican president, that reports of the Pentagon paying $400 for a hammer led a presidential commission to study wasteful defense spending. It’s because this dynamic has been allowed to persist (despite periodic reform efforts) that ProPublica believes the topic deserves renewed attention.
The current administration, for its part, says that it is undertaking its own reforms, limiting stock buybacks by defense contractors, boosting new entrants to the defense industry and promising new financial accountability. Yet some fear Pentagon spending is becoming even more unrestrained in the second Trump era. Two of Trump’s marquee Pentagon programs, panned by some as boondoggles, are estimated to collectively cost more than $1 trillion. Companies connected to the president’s family and appointees have scooped up numerous DOD deals. The administration gutted the office that tests weapons systems for safety and efficacy. All in all, Lockheed Martin CEO Jim Taiclet told investors in April: “This is a golden opportunity right now based on who’s in government.”
Not everyone views U.S. military spending as excessive — some defense hawks have spent years clamoring for more of it. Measured as a percentage of gross domestic product, they note, U.S. defense spending has fallen from previous highs. A large chunk of the defense budget goes toward paying the salaries of service members. And even if they take longer and cost more than expected, American defense products are sought after the world over. “Weapons are expensive because our standards are high,” said longtime defense lobbyist Jim Dyer. “The outcomes are good.”
ProPublica is setting out to examine military spending and its outcomes. If you have worked in the world of defense budgeting, spending or contracting, we’d like to hear from you.
Many Pentagon projects face delays, budget increases and performance issues. The causes of these problems are often opaque to the taxpayers who foot the bill. Help point us to the most important stories.
Turn the Volume Up! at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University highlights the activism of everyday people who have confronted injustice. New York’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, quoting the Bronx rapper KRS-One’s song Turn The Volume Up during his election-day victory speech inspired the name of the exhibit. Featuring work by artists such as Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems and the Guerrilla Girls, the show examines how protests and collective action can create and inspire social change
July’s increase in inflation, to 2.9%, is likely to be the first of several, underlining the challenge facing Andy Burnham in shielding consumers from a fresh cost of living squeeze this autumn.
Rising energy bills, as an increase in Ofgem’s quarterly price cap came into force, were the main driver of the jump in inflation, from 2.6% in June. That was partly offset by cheaper fuel prices – the knock-on effect of hostilities easing in the Middle East, after Donald Trump hailed his “memorandum of understanding” with Iran in June.
Virgin Australia has apologised to a disability advocate who said he was “humiliated” by his removal from a flight over his wheelchair motor.
The airline called Shane Hryhorec on Wednesday afternoon to offer an apology, two days after the Adelaide-based man published a viral video showing the incident onboard a flight from Sydney.
Washington, D.C. — President Donald Trump has delayed a planned 50% tariff on roughly $20 billion in Canadian imports for three days after the United States and Canada reached a tentative agreement aimed at keeping broader trade negotiations alive.
The tariffs had been scheduled to take effect Aug. 19 and would have covered products including dairy, liquor, cement, honey and hockey sticks. Energy products, potash, fish and critical minerals were among the goods excluded from the tariff action.
Trump said the temporary pause would give negotiators time to complete documentation for the agreement. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney had intensified talks with the administration as the deadline approached, while Canadian officials prepared possible retaliatory measures if the tariffs took effect.
The dispute has centered partly on automobiles, alcohol and dairy products, areas where Trump has repeatedly accused Canada of maintaining unfair barriers to U.S. exports. Business groups on both sides of the border have warned that prolonged tariff uncertainty could disrupt supply chains and raise costs for companies and consumers.
Canada sends roughly 72% of its exports to the United States, making the trade relationship especially important to its economy. The latest pause prevents an immediate escalation but does not resolve the broader disagreements between the two governments.
Negotiators now have three additional days to finalize the terms of the agreement.
alternative_right shares a report from Phys.org: Optical fibers are already the backbone of global communication systems. Recently, however, physicists have started to explore how their functionality could be boosted further by conveying information via entangled quantum particles -- potentially enabling instantaneous exchanges of information across vast distances. Such a system could eventually be the basis of a future 'quantum internet,' offering a level of security and computing power beyond anything possible today. In new research published in Physical Review Letters, a team led by Xi-Yu Luo at the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei has pushed that vision further than ever, entangling two quantum memories across 420 kilometers (261 miles) of optical fiber -- more than four times the previous record.
Tallahassee, Florida — State Rep. Angie Nixon scored one of Tuesday night’s biggest primary upsets, defeating former National Security Council official Alex Vindman for Florida’s Democratic U.S. Senate nomination despite being dramatically outspent.
Nixon, a progressive lawmaker and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, won about 56% of the vote to Vindman’s 44%, according to election results. Vindman had raised roughly 16 times as much money as Nixon, making her victory particularly unexpected.
Vindman became nationally prominent after testifying during President Donald Trump’s first impeachment proceedings in 2019. Following Tuesday’s defeat, he congratulated Nixon and pledged to support her against Republican Sen. Ashley Moody in November.
Nixon has emphasized her labor activism and progressive economic policies while downplaying ideological labels. Although she belongs to the DSA, the national organization did not endorse her campaign. Her victory comes amid uneven results for democratic socialists: Rep. Jared Moskowitz easily defeated DSA-backed challenger Oliver Larkin elsewhere in Florida.
Nixon now faces a difficult general-election environment. Florida has shifted substantially toward Republicans in recent election cycles, and Moody, a former state attorney general appointed to Marco Rubio’s Senate seat, enters the race as the favorite.
The November winner will serve the remaining two years of Rubio’s Senate term.
Lee Jae Myung has long pushed for stronger homegrown defences, yet Donald Trump’s move has sparked alarm in some quarters
At their first summit, in August last year, the South Korean president, Lee Jae Myung, told Donald Trump: “If you, Mr President, become the peacemaker, then I will assist you as the pacemaker.”
The remark at the Oval Office captured the thrust of Lee’s approach to North Korea: dial down the military posturing and make repeated peace overtures to revive dialogue, even if they have been consistently rejected by Pyongyang largely over Seoul’s insistence on denuclearisation.
Food Foundation sounds alarm over supply risks and price shocks as about 40% of Britain’s food is imported
The UK is vulnerable to food price shocks because of its dependence on imports of fruit and vegetable from countries even more exposed to the climate crisis, researchers say.
The City of Newark is once again facing a budget shortfall, and officials warn that residents should expect to pay more in taxes and utilities next year.
Alpine communities hit out after influencer videos draw huge queues to Friedrich August refuge in Dolomites
Hundreds of people overwhelmed a mountain hut in the Italian Dolomites, not for the panoramic views but in search of a creamy pastry, reigniting the debate about social-media-driven tourism.
The visitors ventured en masse to the Friedrich August refuge – perched at 2,300 metres (7,500ft) above sea level, between Col Rodella and Passo Sella in Val di Fassa – some reportedly waking up at dawn or camping overnight, just to ensure they could buy a freshly baked krapfen, a traditional German pastry similar to a doughnut, before they ran out.
The steep levies, announced last month, were set to take effect at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday. Trump said the pause would last three days, subject to the finalization of the agreement.
US president delays 50% tariffs by three days, and says contentious oil project ‘may be awoken from the grave’
Canada has temporarily avoided a bruising 50% US tariff, reaching a Tuesday-evening agreement with Trump administration officials hours before a hike that would have affected $20bn worth of goods was set to take effect.
Donald Trump posted late on Tuesday on social media that he had paused the tariffs for three days “based on the fact that Canada and the USA, subject to the finalization of documents, have a DEAL!”
Milwaukee match major-league record dating to 1887
Yelich, Hamilton and Lara hit three-run home runs
Catcher Sánchez completes five-hitter with slowballs
The Milwaukee Brewers matched baseball’s modern-era record for the biggest shutout, beating the Seattle Mariners 22-0 on Tuesday night behind three-run homers from Christian Yelich, David Hamilton and Luis Lara and a two-run shot by Jake Bauers.
The major league-best Brewers (78-48) matched a franchise record for runs in a game.
GOP Sen. Ashley Moody and Democratic State Rep. Angie Nixon will face off in November after winning their primaries for U.S. Senate on Tuesday night, the Associated Press projects.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The release of a new album by Taylor Swift might be a cause for celebration among her fans, but such events have also been linked to a more sombre phenomenon: an increase in fatal car crashes. The team behind a new study say it sheds light on the impact of distracted driving. Writing in the journal Jama Network Open, [Vishal Patel, first author of the study based at Harvard Medical School] and colleagues report how they focused on the release of 10 major albums, launched between 2017 and 2022, selected for having the highest number of Spotify streams over a single day. [...] The team found streaming volume for the top 200 songs in the US was 43% higher on the date of major album releases compared with the days surrounding the releases -- although such data does not reveal whether the music was being streamed in a car.
[...] The researchers used data from a population-based registry of fatal US motor vehicle crashes to look at the number of traffic fatalities on the dates these albums were released, as well as for the 10 days either side. After taking into account the day of the week upon which the album was released, as well as federal holidays, and time of year, the researchers found the number of US traffic fatalities showed a relative increase of 15.1% on the date of major album releases, compared with similar days either side. "This is equivalent to approximately 182 fatalities in the US attributable to the release days of the 10 included albums," the team writes.
Patel said the release of a new album could distract drivers because accessing music is a search task, not a single button press. "You unlock the phone, open the app, find the release, read down a tracklist, tap the right song. That's several seconds of looking at a screen," he said, adding unfamiliar music also demands more attention, while research has suggested listening to new, high-energy music measurably degrades driving performance. The researchers add the rise in traffic fatalities was greater among certain groups -- such as younger drivers, male drivers, people who were driving alone, and people driving cars with a built-in infotainment platform. The authors say the results suggest that "online music streaming through smartphones may significantly contribute to distracted driving and traffic fatalities."
Saints’ Bell alert as he was driven from the field
At least six fights mar joint practice at training camp
Donovan Ezeiruaku ejected for throwing punches
New Orleans wide receiver Ronnie Bell was carted off the field because of the effects of Southern California heat after being involved in one of several fights during a chippy joint practice between the Saints and Dallas Cowboys on Tuesday.
“He just had to go inside for a little bit. He just got a little bit overheated,” New Orleans coach Kellen Moore said.
President Trump ordered the exercises be scaled back, citing what he said was a good relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korea's refusal to join the U.S. war against Iran.
South Korea’s military has confirmed that joint military drills with the US will be cut short, days after Donald Trump ordered the Pentagon to scale back the exercises.
In a statement on Wednesday, South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff said at the request of the US side, the Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) exercise – which began on Monday would end on Friday, six days earlier than originally planned.
Relatively new (under 100 miles) rider on a new GT. I was riding down a long, straight gradual downward-slope road with headphones on and I realized could not slow down. I kept my cool and just kept trying to lean my body back but it was so awkward as the board was leaning back but wasn’t slowing down. Holy shit that feeling was intense panic but I just kept breathing and hoping. I finally was able to slow down right before the end of the road and didn’t crash thank god. I got back after a shaky ride home and googled and found I was caught in a speed loop because I ignored the pushback noises and vibration and got into a condition where the board was at maximum speed and couldn’t respond to subtle feedback. I had switched a few days before to the “flow” profile maybe this contributed. I switched to highline. Any advice from those with a lot of experience if I ever make this blunder again?
Greenbelt, Maryland — A former senior adviser at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiring to conceal federal records connected to COVID-19 research and government grants.
David Morens, 78, admitted using a personal Gmail account and other methods to keep communications outside government systems and evade Freedom of Information Act requests. Prosecutors said the conduct began in 2020 as scrutiny intensified over coronavirus research grants and the origins of the pandemic.
Morens worked in NIAID’s Office of the Director and served under longtime agency director Dr. Anthony Fauci. According to prosecutors, Morens also shared nonpublic government information with associates while helping coordinate efforts related to an EcoHealth Alliance grant involving bat coronavirus research.
Court records cited by The Hill say Morens received bottles of wine from an associate while engaging in what he called “behind-the-scenes shenanigans.” His guilty plea covers conspiracy to commit offenses and defraud the United States. He faces up to five years in prison, with sentencing scheduled for Nov. 12.
Fauci has not been charged in the case and previously said Morens was not an adviser on policy matters. The case grew from investigations into government transparency and pandemic-era research funding.
This follows comments made on Friday at a speech at a police academy on Long Island, New York, where Trump said “After we finish defeating Iran, which is being very badly defeated, pretty soon I’ll be declaring the Hormuz strait a territory of the United States. … Essentially, that’s what it is. We have the blockade. No ships get through unless we want them to.”
PALO ALTO, Calif. and TOKYO, Aug. 18, 2026 — D-Wave Quantum Inc. and NTT DOCOMO, INC. today announced that DOCOMO has deployed a second D-Wave-powered quantum computing application in production. The new application reduced location registration signals generated when devices cross tracking area list (“TA-List”) boundaries by 65.3% at the daily peak while also reducing paging signals by 7.0%, lowering network signaling load and improving operational efficiency. TA-Lists group geographic areas within a mobile network and must be carefully optimized to reduce signaling load while maintaining network performance and connectivity.
The deployment expands DOCOMO’s production use of quantum computing to a broader network optimization challenge. While its first D-Wave-powered application reduced paging signals within tracking areas, the new application optimizes TA-Lists across multiple tracking areas, balancing location registration and paging signals that typically move in opposite directions.
The application reduced the daily peak volume of location registration signals by 65.3% and paging signals by 7.0%. In a representative problem spanning 333 base stations, three TA-Lists and nine tracking areas, it completed the optimization in approximately five minutes, with the results incorporated into DOCOMO’s network planning and day-to-day operations.
“DOCOMO is showing telecom operators around the world what production quantum adoption looks like: move beyond a single use case and apply the technology to distinct, increasingly complex operational challenges,” said Dr. Alan Baratz, CEO of D-Wave. “Telecom networks are highly complex, resource-constrained environments, and these results demonstrate how D-Wave’s annealing quantum computing technology can help operators improve network performance and efficiency today.”
“With our second production application powered by D-Wave’s hybrid quantum technology, we are applying quantum optimization to a broader and more complex area of network operations,” said Hiroshi Kawakami, Senior Manager of Data Platform Department, NTT DOCOMO, INC. “The application balances two competing network requirements, significantly reducing location registration signaling while also lowering paging signals. Together with our first production application, it demonstrates how quantum computing can help us address multiple aspects of network optimization and use our infrastructure more efficiently.”
About D-Wave Quantum Inc.
D-Wave is a leader in the development and delivery of quantum computing systems, software, and services. It is the world’s first commercial supplier of quantum computers, and the first and only to offer dual-platform quantum computing products and services, spanning both annealing and gate-model quantum computing technologies. D-Wave’s mission is to help customers realize the value of quantum today through enterprise-grade systems available on-premises and via its Leap quantum cloud service, which offers 99.9% availability and uptime. More than 100 organizations across commercial, government and research sectors trust D-Wave to address complex computational challenges using quantum computing. Learn more about realizing the value of quantum computing today and how D-Wave is shaping the quantum-driven industrial and societal advancements of tomorrow: www.dwavequantum.com.
Byron Donalds, a congressman backed by Donald Trump, won the Republican nomination for governor on Tuesday in the race to succeed Ron DeSantis.
Donalds, who has represented south-west Florida since 2021, trounced three reasonably prominent Republican rivals, including Jay Collins, DeSantis’s handpicked lieutenant governor.
Ossoff, running for re-election in Georgia, intensifies White House feud after remarks about ‘Natalie’ drew ire of president and allies
The Democratic senator Jon Ossoff called Donald Trump a “draft-dodging, crook president” while defending the senator Mark Kelly as a hero during a Tuesday campaign appearance in Georgia, escalating his public feud with the US president.
“I don’t think anything illustrates the times more aptly than that the draft-dodging, crook president, who has plunged our nation recklessly into a war he knows not how to end or to win, tried to imprison this man, who embodies American heroism,” Ossoff said while appearing alongside Kelly and his wife, the former Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.
The AI boom has largely been powered by standardized hardware, including powerful GPUs, all-purpose CPUs, and as much HBM and DRAM as one can comfortably grab. But recent events–including AMD’s acquisition of Taalas, Etched’s $700 million fundraising round, and frontier AI labs developing their own chips–suggest that custom-built hardware could play a bigger role in AI’s future than initially thought.
There has always been a tradeoff between performance and flexibility in hardware design, and there likely always will be one. For instance, general-purpose CPUs can run all sorts of workloads, and do it somewhat efficiently. But if you want to run math- or graphics-heavy workloads in parallel, you’re better off with a more specialized chip, like a GPU.
Talaas HC1 demonstration chip plugs into the PCIe bus
Even within GPUs, chipmakers make decisions about the types of workloads they’ll run. AMD has decided that double-precision 64-bit computing is important for its HPC customers, so it’s loading its upcoming Instinct MI430X GPUs with loads of FP64 cores. Nvidia, on the other hand, foresees more demand for AI workloads that run with 4-bit to 32-bit precision, so that’s how it designed its latest data center-class GPU.
As the focus in AI moves from training to inference, it’s shaking up the chip design precepts again, forcing the big chipmakers to rethink their priors. It’s also driving the big AI labs and cloud companies to double-down on developing their own custom chips.
For instance, instead of delivering the DRAM-heavy Rubin CPX GPU, which it announced nearly one year ago as its flagship AI inference chip, Nvidia pivoted in December 2025 and spent $20 billion to acquire the assets of Groq, which developed a speedy chip, heavy with Static Random Access Memory (SRAM), called a language processing unit (LPU). At its March conference, Nvidia announced the Groq 3 LPU, which is optimized for extreme low-latency token generation, with rates in the thousands of tokens per seconds, while quietly removing the Rubin CPX from its roadmap.
Source: Talaas
AMD is now making a similar move with its planned acquisition of Taalas, which it announced two weeks ago. Like Groq, the Talaas ASIC was designed to do one thing: generate tokens as fast as possible. When it came out of stealth in February, Talaas touted a demo chip, the HC1, that could generate 16,000 tokens per second, nearly 10x faster than the next fastest chip on that particular AI model.
There was just one catch: HC1 only works on Meta’s Llama 3.1-8B model. The Toronto-based chipmaker had achieved that tremendous token generating figure by essentially hard wiring Llama 3.1-8B weights directly onto the silicon. This allows the chip to generate tokens at an astounding rate, but it eliminates nearly all programmability. It also forces Talaas to tweak its hardware to adapt to new or changing software, which slows its responsiveness to changing market forces. This reduced flexibility is the cost of gaining speed.
It’s not clear exactly what AMD has in mind for the Talaas’ chip. The deal–terms for which were not disclosed–has not closed. In any case, we do know that AMD plans to combine a Talaas ASIC with other chips, including its Epyc CPUs and Instinct GPUs into its new Helios rack, which it unveiled last month. Perhaps AMD will have an easier time incorporating Talaas into its ROCm software stack by utilizing the newly announced AI capabilities in ROCm.ai.
Meanwhile, the startup Etched is taking a similar approach to developing custom hardware. The company’s flagship Sohu chip is an ASIC that’s designed specifically to run transformer models. Sohu can run multiple transformer models, so it’s not restricted to running just Llama, like Talaas’s chip. But it also cannot run other types of AI models, including concurrent neural networks (CNNs), long short-term memory (LSTM) models, and recurrent neural networks (RNN). (Anybody remember those?)
By specializing the hardware to a certain workload and stripping out all the extraneous stuff, Etched is able to reap huge performance gains out of the ASIC. The company claimed that its Sohu chip could generate 500,000 tokens per second on Llama 70B, which it says is 20x the throughput of an eight-GPU H100 system.
Etched Sohu ASIC (Image source: Etched)
“We co-design chips, racks, software, and manufacturing methods so frontier models can run with best-in-class throughput, latency cost, and power efficiency for both prefill and decode workloads,” the company claims.
Today, Etched announced it has raised $700 million at a $21 billion valuation. The round was led by Jane Street with participation from other investors. In addition to being an investor, Jane Street is also a customer, and is running an Etched cluster in production. All told, Etched said it has $1 billion in orders across public and private frontier AI companies and clouds.
Etched also announced that it’s looking to innovate further up the stack. The company has developed what it dubs Low Voltage Inference (LVI), which boosts the overall efficiency and density of a cluster by throttling down the math cores during AI inference. It also touts Cluster Scale Memory (CSM), which is “a hybrid memory subsystem that creates a massive shared memory pool across an entire cluster rather than a single chip.”
“Our inference systems are built to push the entire pareto curve on frontier models, including many-trillion-parameter MoEs, long context, and agentic workloads,” the company says on its website. “This required intense co-design, from new chips, packages, PCBs, cold plates, interconnects, and more.”
To be sure, there are technical challenges up and down the AI stack that have yet to be solved. For instance, we’re still waiting for Nvidia to start shipping the BlueField4 DPUs, which are the last and critical components for its CMX architecture that it hopes will address the KV cache bottleneck. You can have the fastest processors in the world, but they’re useless if you can’t move data in and out of them.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman (left) and Broadcom CEO Hock Tan displaying the Jalapeno wafer
Meanwhile, the leading AI labs are also looking to get into the custom-processor game. First we had OpenAI announcing the first custom-built AI inference processor. Dubbed the Jalapeno, the chip was co-developed by OpenAI and Broadcom, with help from Celestica. The company promises to provide performance details in the months to come.
Not to be outdone, Anthropic is also looking to make a move with custom chips. The company reportedly is in discussions with Samsung to take advantage of its advanced 2nm fabrication nodes and packaging technology to develop custom chips for AI training. While the Claude maker will still continue to rely on chips from Nvidia, Google, and Amazon, it also sees a future in custom hardware.
All three cloud giants have their own custom hardware too, Google Cloud with its TPU, Amazon Web Services with Trainium, and Microsoft Cloud with Maia. When you’re running a certain fraction of the world’s computational workload, the economies of scale work in your favor to develop a chip that meets your exact needs, as the cloud giants have done.
As the AI boom plays out and companies demand to see returns on AI investments, squeezing as much performance from hardware will become even more important. The two stages of the AI inference workload, prefill and decode, are unique enough from other AI and HPC workloads that the costs of not only developing custom silicon–but also the cost of eliminating the flexibility to do anything else with it–are such that it makes financial sense to do so.
Police report shows Brian Hickerson and his brother, Zach Hickerson, were at Greenville, South Carolina, residence
Hayden Panettiere’s on-and-off boyfriend Brian Hickerson and his brother, Zach Hickerson, were at the South Carolina apartment where the actor died over the weekend, according to a police report released on Tuesday.
A Greenville police officer who responded to the residence on Sunday afternoon was met by the brothers and then observed paramedics performing CPR on an unresponsive woman, the report states.
More than 40 charities write to Pat McFadden and review head Alan Milburn over fears of stricter eligibility rules
More than 40 of the UK’s leading charities have warned ministers against imposing tougher benefit sanctions or cuts on disabled young people, as the government considers how to encourage more young people into work.
The charities raised concerns that an imminent review of young people and work by Alan Milburn could bring in stricter eligibility rules for keeping disability benefits – or remove them altogether – as part of a wider plan to boost flagging youth job rates.
Cursor has launched Origin, a GitHub-style code hosting platform built directly into its AI coding environment. The company is initially positioning Origin as a low-risk layer on top of GitHub, keeping GitHub as the "source of truth," but the launch landed just as a major GitHub outage highlighted growing concerns about reliability in the age of AI-generated code. VentureBeat reports: Cursor began rolling out Origin, its own code hosting platform, to paid users on Monday morning. Roughly three and a half hours later, GitHub's status page lit up with what became a six-hour-and-forty-two-minute global degradation -- error rates near 20% across pull requests, issues and the API, and near 50% on archive and raw file downloads, according to GitHub's incident log. Enterprise single sign-on went down with it: SAML, OIDC, SCIM provisioning and Team Sync all failed. So did Copilot.
The developer internet did what the developer internet does. "You can now host your repos in Cursor Origin and deploy to Vercel via Cursor Origin which is itself hosted on Vercel," Vercel chief executive Guillermo Rauch posted on X. "And unlike GitHub, it's online [smile emoji]" Asked why he was smiling, Rauch replied: "trying to make light of the situation. We ourselves are stuck because of github rn!" Matt Palmer, who works at Cursor, quote-tweeted his own company's launch with the day's best line: "We were going to ship this earlier, but GitHub was down." A GitHub outage, in other words, delayed the launch of a GitHub competitor.
Product launches get locked weeks in advance, and no evidence suggests Cursor timed this one. But the coincidence did the company an enormous favor, because it dramatized the argument Origin exists to make. For eighteen years, choosing where to host your team's source code has been the least interesting decision an engineering organization makes. Cursor is betting that AI agents have made it interesting again -- and for technical decision makers, that is the real news here. Not a new product, but a new procurement question with a governance problem attached.
US supreme court declined to halt execution of William Frances Silvia, and state has two executions next month
A Florida man convicted of fatally shooting his estranged wife and wounding his mother-in-law was executed on Tuesday, continuing the state’s aggressiveuseof the death penalty in the final term of the Republican governor, Ron DeSantis.
William Frances Silvia, 61, was pronounced dead at 6.11pm after receiving a three-drug injection at the Florida state prison near Starke.
Researchers find capacity stunted by pollution was restored after introduction of ultra-low emission zone
Children’s lungs grew bigger and stronger after the most polluting vehicles were restricted from entering London, a study has found.
Examinations of London schoolchildren before and after the introduction of the city’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) found a restoration of lung capacity that had been stunted by exposure to pollution.
If you put your front foot at the very front and your rear foot as close as you can to the tire push back doesn’t turn on and you can send it but you’re playing with fire we do(already crashed myself multiple times lol all I did is bad road rash) lol
Mykhailo Fedorov’s appeal is most direct challenge to Volodymyr Zelenskyy since Russian invasion in 2022
Ukraine’s recently dismissed former defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov has called for a wartime presidential election in the most direct political challenge to Volodymyr Zelenskyy since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
The politician, whose abrupt sacking last month triggered a wave of protests, said that Ukraine had to “restore a full democratic process even amid a prolonged war” in a video address released online late on Tuesday evening.
(The Center Square) – President Donald Trump's 50% tariffs on a range of Canadian goods, including cars, dairy and alcohol, take effect Wednesday, and the U.S. importers who pay them still have no federal estimate of what the levies will…
National Trust for Historic Preservation filing comes after president made emergency bid for construction to continue
A historic preservation group that sued to block construction of Donald Trump’s White House ballroom urged the US supreme court on Tuesday to suspend the project while it considers whether the work can continue.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation filed its request less than a week after the Trump administration asked the nation’s highest court to allow the White House to continue construction on its $400m ballroom project during the appeals process.
Advice and guidance services for doctors in England found to be creating risk of missed or late detection of illness
Cancer diagnoses have been missed or delayed because of a system designed for GPs to seek specialist advice before referring patients to hospital, according to an investigation.
The Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) identified patient risks linked to how advice and guidance (A+G) services have been implemented across England.
Comcast is activating Wi-Fi motion sensing on millions of compatible Xfinity gateways, allowing the routers to detect movement by measuring disruptions in signals between the gateway and connected devices. The free feature, part of Xfinity Shield, can send activity alerts through the Xfinity app and offers Home, Away, and nighttime monitoring modes without requiring separate motion sensors. The Verge reports: Wi-Fi motion sensing is a technology that has been around for a while, but it's only recently that it's become accurate and reliable enough to catch on. Linksys launched a similar service in 2021, but discontinued it a few years later. Lighting company Wiz launched a line of Wi-Fi-sensing smart bulbs in 2023, and more recently Philips Hue deployed a similar radio-frequency sensing technology in its products (using Zigbee rather than Wi-Fi). Comcast's motion sensing pairs with new modes in the Xfinity app -- Home Watch, Away Watch, and Dark Watch (a night/sleep mode) -- allowing you to turn sensing on or off based on your activities.
(The Center Square) – After months of not commenting on federal border wall and barrier construction in the Big Bend region of Texas, including barrier construction underway in Big Bend National Park, Gov. Greg Abbott broke his silence on Monday.
(The Center Square) – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will implement several new diagnosis codes that medical watchdog Do No Harm says are important for supporting those who underwent transgender procedures and later detransitioned.
Following an executive order that called for breaking up the combination measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, vaccine, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that a “recent” study “just came out” that “very strongly supports” the idea. But there’s no evidence of any such credible study, past or present.
In a CNN interview that aired on Aug. 15, Kennedy defended President Donald Trump’s Aug. 10 executive order on childhood vaccines, which among other things, asked officials to begin pursuing a way to offer single-disease shots. Those vaccines have not been available in the U.S. for nearly two decades. The combination MMR vaccine has been in use for more than 40 years.
The order did not present a scientific reason to split up the shot, but while signing the document, Trump falsely claimed that in contrast to single vaccines, the combination shot is “quite lethal” and that breaking it up “will have a huge impact on autism.”
The president doubled down the next day, claiming that given separately, the MMR is “fine,” but when combined, the vaccine is “sort of like a nuclear weapon, according to some.”
In the CNN interview, after the host noted that the current Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website says there is no evidence showing a benefit to separating out the MMR vaccine, he asked Kennedy who was right — Trump or the CDC.
Kennedy replied that the CDC website “probably is outdated.”
“There is a recent study that just came out that supports President Trump on that,” he continued. “It looks at the timeline for when the autism epidemic began and … it’s a synthesis of — essentially a meta review — of all the existing science. And it very strongly supports the president.”
Later, Kennedy again suggested that new evidence had emerged, saying that “particularly in light of recent science,” he thought people “should have that option if they want to go with a single antigen vaccine.”
Throughout the interview, he emphasized that while he thought the MMR was effective in preventing measles, he did not think there was enough evidence on its safety, including on whether the shot causes autism. The MMR vaccine has been rigorously studied and no credible link to autism has been found.
We searched PubMed, the National Library of Medicine’s online database of the biomedical literature, but did not find any new study suggesting that the MMR vaccine needed to be split up. Experts, too, said they were not aware of one.
“There are no data to suggest that the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine, if divided into its three component parts, will make the vaccine safer,” Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician and vaccine expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told us.
“Quite the opposite,” he added. “It will mean that children will get six shots instead of two. It means that there will be a delay in when they receive these shots, which will only increase the period of time during which children are susceptible to these diseases with no benefit.” (The MMR is typically given in two doses at 12 to 15 months and 4 to 6 years.)
“Since the current combined MMR vaccine is safe, it does not make sense” to split it up, Dr. Andrew Pollard, an immunologist and director of the Oxford Vaccine Group at the University of Oxford, told us.
“There is no safety problem that is trying to be fixed by separating MMR and doing so would take a tremendous amount of time and effort” since those shots aren’t currently licensed, Daniel Salmon, a vaccinologist and director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at Johns Hopkins University, told us. “This is a solution in search of a problem.”
HHS did not respond to our inquiry asking what study Kennedy was citing or whether the CDC website would be revised.
Contrary to Kennedy’s claim, in our search, one recent study, published on July 28 in the Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, supported the safety of the combined shot. Consistent with many previous studies, it analyzed electronic medical records from more than 2.5 million American children and found no association between the MMR vaccine and autism.
Similarly, we also identified a review published last month that compared the vaccination policies for mumps in the U.S. and Japan. It noted the shortcomings of the Asian country’s approach. In the CNN interview, Kennedy briefly mentioned Japan, saying the country has “a single vaccine … and it works for that population.”
As we’ve noted before, and as Dr. Jake Scott, an infectious disease specialist at Stanford Medicine explained in the same CNN segment, Japan did discontinue its combination MMR vaccine in 1993 after a rare side effect was observed with that vaccine’s mumps component, which was never used in U.S. vaccines. Autism rates did not decline after Japan stopped using the MMR shot.
Today, however, Japan doesn’t split out all of the components. Instead, there is a combination measles and rubella vaccine, along with an optional mumps standalone vaccine. And the country may be moving back to a fully combined vaccine. In May, Japan licensed a new combination MMR vaccine with a mumps component similar to the one used in the U.S. and much of the rest of the world.
According to the recent review, Japan’s policy has not been very successful in controlling mumps, in contrast to the U.S., which still has some outbreaks but is not plagued by the same large-scale issues.
“Low vaccination coverage has led to a lack of herd immunity and recurrent epidemics, and ‘mumps deafness’ is an unresolved public health concern,” the review states. Mumps is usually mild, but the disease can cause complications, including brain or testicle inflammation. Deafness, usually in a single ear, might occur in as many as 1 in 1,000 cases, according to a study in Japan.
Years of relying on separate shots has also likely contributed to low vaccination rates for measles. A massive measles outbreak in 2001 infected more than 250,000 children, and Japan was for many years a major source of imported measles cases in the U.S.Scott, who wrote about this concern in October 2025 when health officials first broached the idea of separating out the MMR, said then that Japan “provides a cautionary tale.”
A ‘Junk’ Autism Review
We did identify a paper that Kennedy might have been thinking of, but it is not new evidence, nor is it published in a reputable journal.
“It’s junk and would never be published in a legitimate medical journal,” Salmon told us.
The paper, which purports to be a review on the “determinants” of autism, is from May 2026 and roughly matches Kennedy’s description of a study looking at a “timeline.” It was mentioned in a Children’s Health Defense news story about Trump’s executive order. Children’s Health Defense is the nonprofit that Kennedy used to lead and that has long been a source of inaccurate vaccine information.
Citing Dr. Andrew Wakefield, the British physician who fraudulently proposed the MMR vaccine might cause autism in 1998 and first suggested the vaccine be split up, the CHD story described the paper as a “comprehensive review” that “identified vaccination as the leading ‘modifiable risk factor’ for the condition.”
Wakefield is in fact one of the authors of the paper, as are several otherindividuals, such as Peter McCullough, whom we andothers have fact-checked before for sharing inaccurate medical information.
The paper appears in an outlet called the Journal of Independent Medicine, which is not indexed on PubMed — a very basic indicator of at least some reliability — and is published by a group that has promotedunproventreatments for COVID-19.
“This is a narrative review of previous studies,” Anders Hviid, head of the epidemiology research department at the Statens Serum Institut in Denmark, who has studied the MMR vaccine in large studies in his home country, told us. There is a short section titled “Compound Vaccination,” he said, “but there is no evidence there to suggest breaking up the vaccine would be beneficial.”
“There is no credible study which links MMR vaccine to autism and a very large body of data which finds no association between vaccination and autism,” Pollard said.
If there were a legitimate new study showing a problem with the combined MMR vaccine, which has been used for decades and given globally to more than a billion people, it would almost certainly be major news. Offit said in that case, scientists would act upon that information.
“Historically, when vaccines have been shown to be harmful, we do act on it,” he said. “We care about vaccine safety deeply — deeply. And that’s why we are very responsive to studies that are well done, well controlled, and published in reputable journals and reproduced by others.”
“That’s not this,” he said, of Kennedy’s claim. “This is just a sort of vague handwaving reference to a study that doesn’t exist.”
Splitting the Vaccine Could Lower Vaccination Rates
Multiple experts told us that splitting up the MMR vaccine was not necessary and was unlikely to happen — but if it did, it would not lead to greater vaccine uptake, as Kennedy suggested.
Kennedy said in the CNN interview that if single-disease shots were available, “maybe then more people are going to end up taking the vaccine because they don’t want to take all three.”
While that’s possible in some cases, vaccine experts told us it’s likely that more people overall would miss one or more shots or be left unprotected for longer periods of time.
“I think splitting up MMR will lead to lower uptake,” Hviid said, noting the burden of six appointments rather than two. “Some of these will be postponed or missed completely. I am speaking as a parent myself here.”
He cited a 2017 study that found that kids in the U.S. who get combination shots when they are available were more likely to complete their vaccination schedule and to do so on time. Scott, the Stanford doctor who fact-checked Kennedy’s claims for CNN, also pointed to this study.
“Delaying vaccines or separating doses unnecessarily does not make vaccination safer and can leave children unprotected,” the World Health Organization said in a statement two days after Trump signed the executive order.
When “vaccines are split and more doses or visits are needed,” Pollard said, “the result is that doses are missed and protection in the population drops. This is very dangerous in the cases of these viruses, not least with outbreaks of measles already [o]ngoing,” he said in an email. “[T]he last thing we need for the health of our children is to have more doses missed.”
Kate Yandell contributed reporting to this story.
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(The Center Square) – As the national debt quickly approaches $40 trillion, economists warn that skyrocketing deficits will distinctly impact Americans of all generations, including students, families and retirees.
Disney and ABC are suing the FCC to block an early review of eight station licenses, arguing the Trump administration is using the agency's regulatory power to punish the network over programming and editorial decisions it dislikes. Reuters reports: In a lawsuit (PDF) filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, Disney said the FCC was seeking to coerce and retaliate against "a network that refuses to bow to the administration's demands," calling the agency's actions an "extraordinary assault on free speech."
Trump has waged an aggressive series of attacks on the news media and the latest move follows a two-year-long battle between Trump and Disney. Last month, Trump again called for ABC stations to lose their licenses because the network refused to air a prime-time speech on elections. The court case will pose a key test of the free speech rights of media outlets. Disney and ABC asked the court (PDF) to quickly issue a temporary restraining order halting the license renewal proceedings and preventing the FCC from scheduling a hearing. The company said the public comment period ended earlier this month and the FCC could act at any time.
The lawsuit alleges that the administration is violating the company's First Amendment free speech rights, saying that the FCC "is using its regulatory power to retaliate against (Disney and ABC) for programming and editorial decisions the administration dislikes." The FCC said the move stemmed from a year-long investigation into whether Disney's diversity policies amounted to unlawful discrimination, an allegation the company denies. U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan issued an order on Tuesday directing the company and the FCC to propose a schedule for considering the request for a temporary restraining order and told the agency to notify her if it moves to start the process of revoking the ABC licenses.
Larry Montes, already facing state charges, allegedly attacked 63-year-old woman and security guard on Friday
The man accused of attacking a woman and security guard at a New York City synagogue during Shabbat services Friday has been charged with hate crimes in Manhattan federal court, prosecutors said.
Larry Montes, who is already facing state-level hate crime charges, allegedly struck a 63-year-old woman as security was trying to boot him from Central synagogue. He allegedly spat at, and head-butted, a security team member and damaged synagogue property, authorities said.
Almost 45m acres of national forests could be potentially opened to road construction, drilling and logging
The Trump administration said on Tuesday it plans to rescind the “roadless rule” that has protected old-growth forests in the US for 25 years, potentially opening up almost 45m acres of national forests to road construction, drilling and logging.
Conservationists had feared the announcement was coming since last summer after Brooke Rollins, Trump’s secretary of agriculture, targeted a rule brought in by Bill Clinton’s administration, describing it as “overly restrictive” and an “absurd obstacle” to development.
"Today, Elwood and I lost a great friend and collaborator, and the world lost one of the most naturally innovative drummers and a great and true son of Texas," ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons said in a statement.
Brian Hickerson and his brother, Zach, made the 911 call that brought first responders to the apartment where Hayden Panettiere was found unresponsive.
The lawsuit accuses the social media giant of contributing to the youth mental health crisis by deliberately designing features that addict children to its platforms.
Washington, D.C. — The Trump administration is moving to eliminate a 25-year-old federal rule that limits road construction, logging and other development across millions of acres of national forest land.
The U.S. Forest Service on Tuesday formally proposed rescinding the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. The Agriculture Department says the change would return more authority to local forest managers, who could approve projects aimed at reducing overgrowth, insect damage and wildfire hazards.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the current rule has prevented managers from taking steps needed to improve forest health. The administration argues that removing the restrictions would make it easier to thin forests and respond to dangerous conditions.
Environmental groups strongly dispute that reasoning. The Natural Resources Defense Council says the rollback could expose roughly 45 million acres to new roads and development, threatening wildlife habitat, drinking-water sources and recreation areas. Research cited by conservation groups has found wildfires are more likely to start near roads than in roadless forests because of increased human activity.
The Roadless Rule covers about 30% of National Forest System lands, although state-specific protections in Colorado and Idaho reduce the acreage directly affected by the federal change.
The Forest Service is accepting public comments on the proposal through September 21.
RAM prices have exploded over the past year, with some DDR5 kits approaching 500% year-over-year increases and a 128GB kit now selling for $3,399, which is more than 10 times its previous low. Tom's Hardware reports: Things improve as you step down the memory capacities and speed tiers, but not as much as we'd like. You're still looking at $392 for a memory kit that was just $72 last year. To reinforce the point, I pulled the latest average price data from PCPartPicker, comparing where we are today (August 2026) to exactly one year ago. This data is somewhat approximate, but it should be broadly accurate. [...] A standard 64GB (2x32GB) DDR5-5600 kit that would have cost you under $200 last summer is now demanding over $1,100. It is a 5x multiplier on a component that used to be a fairly boring and predictable line item in a PC build budget.
If you plan to just wait it out on an older AM4 or LGA1700 motherboard with DDR4, you'd better hope your memory holds out too, because DDR4 isn't safe from the fallout. With DDR5 entirely out of reach for most builders, the resulting scramble for older platforms running DDR4 memory has created a massive knock-on effect, and as a result, DDR4 kits are up anywhere from 120% to nearly 180% across the board. Nowhere near as bad as DDR5 pricing, but it still stings when a kit that was $105 last year is $281 this year.
This phenomenon is by no means exclusive to the US, either. German tech site ComputerBase have also been tracking this global trend, reporting just this week that average RAM prices in Europe have skyrocketed by 345% compared to September 2025. Their data shows the squeeze is bleeding into other components too, with hard drive and SSD prices both climbing over 125% in that same timeframe. In fact, the situation is so severe that hyperscale buyers have reportedly already locked in almost all of the global DRAM production capacity for 2027, handing over advance deposits to guarantee their supply of precious DRAM, which is now among the highest-value commodities in the world by weight; mainstream DRAM chips are worth over half as much per kilogram as solid gold.
Harvard, Yale, Stanford and others face directive to review and cut alliances Pentagon deems national security risk
Thirty US universities could lose federal funding unless they review and cut foreign academic partnerships the Pentagon considers a national security risk within the next two weeks, under a Pentagon directive aimed largely at ties to Chinese institutions.
Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins, Georgetown and Cornell are among the institutions ordered to conduct and report the reviews – and end partnerships deemed problematic – by 31 August, according to a US official who provided the full list to the Guardian.
Riley English said she was in the grips of a mental health crisis and abusing drugs, and that she planned to kill Scott Bessent
A Massachusetts woman who told police that she brought homemade firebombs to the US Capitol to kill Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, was sentenced on Tuesday to just over six years in prison.
Riley English, a 26-year-old transgender woman, said she was in the grips of a mental health crisis and abusing drugs when she drove to Washington in January 2025 and told Capitol police that she was there to kill Bessent on the day of his Senate confirmation.
The Trump admin. pressured attorneys to investigate allegations of antisemitism at elite universities even though there was no factual or legal basis to do so, former DOJ lawyer says.
Minnesota attorney general sues Texas governor in case of ICE agent charged with wounding a man in Minneapolis
Minnesota’s attorney general has sued the governor of Texas to force him to extradite an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent charged with wounding a man and then lying to justify the shooting during the US agency’s controversial crackdown in Minneapolis.
Keith Ellison, Minnesota’s attorney general, is asking a federal judge to bar the sheriff in Cameron county, Texas, from releasing ICE agent Christian Castro, and to order Greg Abbott, Texas’s governor, to sign his extradition warrant so that Minnesota officers can take custody.
(The Center Square) – Seventeen Iranian men have been charged in a cybercrime case being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Rodney Greer accused of securing unauthorized prescriptions for GLP-1 drugs and selling them to customers
An Illinois man allegedly impersonated doctors – and evidently referred to himself online as “$hotboy1” – is facing criminal charges that he secured unauthorized prescriptions for Ozempic and Mounjaro pharmaceutical drugs that facilitate weight loss and are taken by some for cosmetic rather than legitimate medical reasons.
Rodney Greer purportedly launched the allege scheme in early 2023, according to court filings from federal prosecutors and a US justice department news release issued on Monday.
The narwhal’s tusk is the left canine tooth, which grows through the jaw and lip and can reach more than two meters in length. (Mads Peter Heide-Jørgensen, Greenland Institute of Natural Resources via SWNS)
One in seven Americans (15%) who are married or in a relationship admit they have romantic feelings for someone who isn’t their partner, according to new research. The survey of 2,000 Americans revealed that Gen Z Americans were the most…
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Your iPhone, SamsungGalaxy, andGoogle Pixel have a 1-year warranty. Unless you cough up extra dough for an extended service plan, you'll pay a hefty fee if you damage the screen and need a replacement (around $329 for an iPhone 17 done directly from Apple). But it doesn't have to be this way. What if you could order the part from the manufacturer and do the repair yourself? That dream is finally being realized for American consumers, thanks to Fairphone.
The Dutch company is bringing its repairable and sustainably built Android smartphone -- the Fairphone (Gen 6+) -- to the US. Each one comes with a screwdriver. A replacement screen from Fairphone costs just $90. A new USB-C port is $20. A fresh battery is $40. In all, there are 12 modular elements you can swap yourself. It remains the only smartphone series with a 10/10 repairability scorefrom iFixit, not to mention an unmatched 5-year warranty and software updates through 2033.
The new Fairphone (Gen 6+) is a small upgrade over the Gen 6 that the company launched last year. It has a newer Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 processor and double the RAM at 12 GB, but is otherwise largely the same device (hence the "plus" in the name). It now comes in Cobalt Blue, a nod to the miners who extract the cobalt used to make phone batteries, and the company's efforts to improve working conditions in mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The new Fairphone is available on Amazon and at Fairphone.com for $650, and it's officially certified to work on T-Mobile and AT&T's networks. While this will mark the U.S. debut of its flagship smartphone, the company first entered the stateside market last year with its repairable earbuds and headphones. It also plans to launch its next-generation Fairbuds 2 wireless earbuds later this year.
As President Donald Trump has pressured Congress to rewrite election laws, many of his allies have said Democrats support requiring identification for all sorts of activities — but not voting.
Most recently, a Florida Republican congressman said New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani will require ID to shop at city-owned grocery stores.
“He’s requiring ID to prevent non-residents (and non-citizens of NYC) from walking in and snatching up the discounted food,” U.S. Rep. Randy Fine said in an Aug. 16 fundraising email.
“Democrats are perfectly fine putting up barriers and demanding identification when it comes to rationing cheap groceries,” Fine’s email said. “But the second we talk about protecting the integrity of our elections, they act like requiring ID is some kind of civil rights violation.”
Fine’s fundraising email called on Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, which would require people to provide documentary proof of citizenship such as a passport or birth certificate when registering to vote, and a government-issued photo ID when voting.
Fine’s accusation about Mamdani came nearly two weeks after the mayor and his spokespersons said they will not require an ID to shop at the stores. Fine’s congressional office referred us to his reelection campaign, which did not respond to our queries.
Official mentioned a ‘library card-esque thing,’ but Mamdani has said no ID will be required
On July 27, New York City officials announced they will create five municipal grocery stores where certain items such as fresh produce, meat and milk will be 30% cheaper than in retail stores.
Mamdani asked grocers and operators to apply to run the stores.
City officials aim to reduce the price of food for New Yorkers who struggle to pay their bills, but the discounted prices will be available to anyone who shops there, regardless of income. The first store is expected to open by the end of 2027.
A written announcement from the city did not say shoppers would need ID, and Mamdani didn’t say it either. However, an official with a city-affiliated organization raised the possibility during a July 27 press conference.
A reporter asked whether there will be a limit on the number of discounted items someone can purchase.
Mamdani replied that the goal is to help New Yorkers put food on the table and not to let people “make a quick buck through reselling.”
He then asked Jeanny Pak, interim president and CEO of New York City’s Economic Development Corporation, to provide details.
Pak said the city is seeking proposals from potential store operators, and she floated the idea of “a library card-esque thing” for shoppers.
Republican politicians and others — including the House Republicans X account; U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C; and podcaster Joe Rogan— took a clip of Pak saying “library card-esque” and shared it online. They said her statement was evidence that Mamdani will require ID at the grocery stores.
Mamdani has refuted those claims.
He chuckled at the idea of requiring ID in an Aug. 3 interview with liberal commentator Joy-Ann Reid. “When we’re talking about a city-run grocery store — one in each borough, which, by the way, you do not need an ID to shop at, no matter what you’ve just heard.”
Mamdani spokespersons said on X there is no ID requirement.
“The only card we’ll have is a voluntary savings card like they have at any typical supermarket,” Dora Pekec wrote.
A New York City Economic Development Corporation spokesperson told PolitiFact that officials are discussing the possibility of a customer card to prevent people from buying large quantities of discounted staples for resale. The card, which will have a bar code, is expected to function similarly to a supermarket loyalty card. However, details have yet to be decided because store operators have not been chosen.
The city’s July 27 request for proposals said that the operator(s) “will create a voluntary free-to-access membership card program to monitor sales activity, and implement the discount program and any associated demand management measures.” It said that the card will not be required to access the stores and will be made easily available to anyone requesting one.
Fine sent his email more than a week after multipleoutlets, including the conservative New York Post, debunked the grocery store ID requirement idea.
Fine said Mamdani is “requiring ID” to shop at city-run grocery stores.
An official with a city-affiliated organization said the city was considering a “library card-esque thing,” without elaborating, at a news conference.
But Mamdani has said people won’t need an ID to shop. The city is considering having the stores’ operator develop a card that would prevent people from buying at a discount and then reselling large quantities of food.
The burden of proof is on the speaker, and Fine provided no evidence to support the statement.
Migration minister asked how he intends to stop deportations of people ‘who had lived in Sweden for decades’
The deportation and removal of British citizens from Sweden over Brexit residency rights is damaging relations with the UK amid efforts to improve links with London, a Swedish MP has said.
Häkan Svenneling, representative for Vârmland, where a 78-year-old British widow, Joyce Thomas, has been given four weeks to leave Sweden after 21 years of residency, has written to the migration minister, Johan Forssell, asking what he “intends to do to stop the deportations”.
Marco Rubio targets ICC’s Tomoko Akane and Abdoulaye Seye, who was investigating Israeli war crimes in Gaza
The US has sanctioned the president of the international criminal court (ICC) and a prosecutor tasked with investigating crimes committed by Israel during its war on Gaza.
The new sanctions designations were unveiled by Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, who called the Hague-based ICC a “corrupt and fatally politicized supranational court that has maliciously abused its authority and exceeded its mandate”, in a statement.
The Trump administration has been quietly deporting migrants from Mexico to Central America, despite the Mexican government's willingness to accept the return of all its citizens.
Aug. 18, 2026 — Biology doesn’t happen at one scale. Molecular interactions unfold in milliseconds and nanometers, while disease-associated change such as in Alzheimer’s spreads across millimeters of brain tissue. Understanding complex biological systems requires scientists to watch both — ideally at the same time and with the same sample. Historically, this has meant shuttling samples between specialized instruments, often damaging biological context and slowing results. There’s also a common crux across microscopes: the closer you look at living tissue, the more the image blurs, and the more detail you capture, the more overwhelming the resulting data becomes.
Five imaging modes provide complementary views of the same dividing human retinal pigment epithelial cell (hTERT-RPE1). From top left, clockwise: Lattice Light-Sheet Structured Illumination Microscopy (LLS-SIM), widefield, 3D-SIM, oblique illumination, lattice light sheet. This shows how different microscopy techniques compare when imaging the same cell, giving them a more complete picture of what’s happening inside. (Credit: Fu, Liu, Milkie, Ruan et al., Nature Methods, 2026)
A new instrument aims to address these problems — and has revealed a third, arguably harder challenge that Berkeley Lab is uniquely positioned to address.
Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and collaborating institutions have developed the Multimodal Optical Scope with Adaptive Imaging Correction (MOSAIC) — a reconfigurable microscope that consolidates more than ten imaging techniques into one compact instrument. It processes its massive datasets using computational tools developed at Berkeley Lab, funded by a Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) award and supported by the Perlmutter supercomputer at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC).
Featured on the cover of Nature Methods, MOSAIC allows scientists to track biological processes across scales and compare imaging methods on the same sample. It generates data at a pace that is pushing the boundaries of what biology can discover.
“MOSAIC can generate up to four terabytes of data per hour — far beyond what conventional processing workflows or human inspection can handle,” said Srigokul “Gokul” Upadhyayula, a faculty scientist in the Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging Division and co-corresponding author. “The microscope is only as useful as our ability to process those data and extract biological meaning from them. Berkeley Lab’s expertise in high-performance computing and large-scale data analysis is essential to closing that gap.”
How MOSAIC Works
MOSAIC grew from the adaptive-optical lattice light-sheet microscope reported by Nobel laureate Eric Betzig, Upadhyayula, and their colleagues in 2018. That earlier system delivered exceptional performance but was so large it occupied a 10-foot by 4-foot optical table. As demand from the broader research community grew, the team designed the MOSAIC to retain and expand those capabilities while reducing the instrument’s footprint.
“MOSAIC has been built over a dozen times in different places with over 50 research licenses already shared. We also created comprehensive documentation on how to build this instrument — think an IKEA-style instruction set geared towards a scientist who has no deep optical expertise but is willing to learn.”
MOSAIC’s main innovation is that it can be quickly reconfigured in two to five seconds to switch between a dozen distinct imaging modes. The team designed a smart modular system where the same lasers, mirrors, cameras, and computational hardware serve multiple imaging functions through a custom optical switching system. Critically, every one of those modes is enhanced with adaptive optics: a technology borrowed from astronomers who developed it to sharpen images of distant stars blurred by Earth’s atmosphere. This corrects blurring caused by aberrations in the living tissue itself.
“ Sample-induced aberrations distort and redirect light, reducing both signal and resolution,” said Upadhyayula. “Adaptive optics measures those distortions and corrects them. It is like turning on the windshield wipers while driving in the rain: the information is present all along, just obscured.”
MOSAIC also relies on fluorescent molecules that allow biologists to mark specific cellular structures and molecular activities in living cells, fast and gentle light-sheet imaging that captures cellular dynamics with minimal stress or damage, and high-speed data transfer infrastructure capable of moving and processing massive imaging datasets.
What Becomes Visible When You Clear the Windshield?
MOSAIC’s ability to image with minimal invasiveness at large scales over long durations has already enabled several experiments: tracking single molecules in living cells, observing organelle dynamics in developing zebrafish embryos, mapping neuronal architecture in expanded human brain tissue from a person with Alzheimer’s, and imaging neural activity in live mouse brains. In that last application, adaptive optics correction revealed roughly 2.5 times more detectable neural calcium events than imaging without it — suggesting conventional microscopy has been quietly undercounting brain activity.
MOSAIC is also the instrument that powered a related study on Volumetric Imaging via Photochemical Sectioning (VIPS), published in Science in 2025. That project used MOSAIC and the computational tools developed at Berkeley Lab to image two complete adult mouse olfactory bulbs at nanoscale resolution, generating roughly a petabyte of data in approximately two weeks. Analyzing it took two years: an illustration of the gap between what these instruments can see and what researchers can currently process.
“ The bottleneck is no longer our ability to acquire the data,” said Upadhyayula. “These microscopes can generate massive datasets at staggering rates. The key bottleneck is turning dense five-dimensional observations into biological understanding.”
Berkeley Lab’s contribution helps to target this gap.
Round-the-Clock Data Collection for Biological AI
Supported by an LDRD award, Eric Betzig and Upadhyayula’s group developed PetaKit5D, an open-source software toolkit that can handle MOSAIC’s terabyte-per-hour output in real time and cuts processing costs by more than an order of magnitude compared to previous approaches. The team also secured computing allocations on the Perlmutter supercomputer at NERSC to process and visualize portions of the largest datasets. But processing data efficiently is only half the equation. The other half is generating enough of it — consistently, at scale, and of sufficient quality — to train the kind of AI model that could one day make sense of it all.
At UC Berkeley, two MOSAIC instruments now run around the clock, capturing the five-dimensional data — three spatial dimensions, time, and molecular identity — that will be needed to train a new state-of-the-art AI model.
The data flowing from those instruments already represents a fundamental shift in how biology can be practiced. For the first time, researchers can watch in vivo biochemistry unfold inside cells living within their native tissues, inside a living organism.
What comes next, he believes, could be transformative: a vision language model that reasons natively over biology, connecting what it sees with molecular identity, experimental context, and prior biological knowledge to determine which observations matter and which experiments should come next.
“Connected to automated microscopes, sample handling, and perturbation systems, that capability could provide the foundation for self-driving biological laboratories — and fundamentally change the rate at which we can make discoveries,” said Upadhyayula.
Twenty-nine US states are seeking huge damages, claiming Meta’s platforms were addictive by design
In 1994, more than 40 US states came together to sue one of the most powerful industries on Earth: big tobacco.
The suits brought together diverse claims centred on tobacco companies’ misleading advertising and contribution to a mounting public health crisis. They ended in a negotiated settlement with the US government, in which the companies agreed to pay more than any industry ever, and the states agreed to drop a large portion of their claims.
Latest LightBundle eKit delivers terabit-class optical connectivity with up to 335 microLED channels operating at 3 Gbps each
SUNNYVALE, Calif., Aug. 18, 2026 — Avicena today announced that it has begun shipping 1 Tbps LightBundle evaluation kits (eKits) to customers and partners developing next-generation AI infrastructure. The shipment milestone follows the introduction and demonstration of the LightBundle eKit in March 2026 at the Optical Fiber Conference (OFC26) and advances the platform from initial evaluation availability to terabit-class operation in customer laboratories.
The latest LightBundle eKit incorporates a 335-channel microLED array, with each microLED data channel operating up to 3 Gbps, coupled with an Avicena multicore fiber bundle to a 335-element integrated photodiode array. Together, the channels provide up to 1Tbps of aggregate raw throughput displaying the core advantages of Avicena’s laser-free optical architecture: low power, high bandwidth density, robust operation at elevated temperatures, and flexible reach beyond the practical limits of copper interconnects.
The platform enables hyperscalers, AI accelerator and memory developers, networking companies, and system architects to evaluate terabit-class microLED optical connectivity for both AI scale-in and scale-up applications. Target use cases include die-to-die and die-to-memory links, XPU-to-XPU connectivity, and XPU-to-switch interconnects.
A Terabit-Class Platform for AI Connectivity
AI systems are driving rapid increases in the bandwidth required between accelerators, memory, and switch fabrics. As link rates rise, copper interconnects face increasing challenges in reach, routing density, and energy efficiency. Conventional optical solutions based on lasers and silicon photonics can extend reach, but have power, bandwidth density, cost, and reliability challenges.
Avicena’s LightBundle technology replaces lasers with dense microLED transmitter arrays coupled through a multi-core fiber bundle to integrated photodetector arrays. This architecture is designed to deliver high bandwidth density and energy-efficient optical connectivity while operating reliably across demanding system temperatures.
The 1 Tbps eKit gives engineering teams a complete platform for evaluating link behavior in their own laboratories. Host interface boards, integrated diagnostics, and a graphical user interface support a set of features, including characterization of optical signal integrity, link budgets, eye quality, crosstalk, power efficiency, and bit error rate performance.
“Shipping our 1 Tbps LightBundle eKits extends Avicena’s microLED-based optical interconnect leadership and represents a significant milestone in delivering the terabit-class connectivity required to scale next-generation AI infrastructure,” said Marco Chisari, CEO of Avicena. “LightBundle addresses the bandwidth density, power, reliability, reach and cost requirements that are critical for scale-in and scale-up links, such as XPU-to-XPU, XPU-to-memory, XPU-to-CPU and XPU-to-switch connectivity.”
“Avicena shipments of a 1 Tbps LightBundle evaluation platform is a meaningful milestone for the optical-interconnect industry and reinforces the company’s pioneering leadership in microLED-based connectivity,” said Bob Wheeler, Analyst at Large at LightCounting. “Providing AI infrastructure developers with a practical terabit-class platform enables them to evaluate microLED technology for demanding XPU-to-XPU, XPU-to-memory, and XPU-to-switch links. This advances microLED interconnects towards production for next-generation AI scale-in and scale-up architectures.”
Availability
Avicena is now shipping 1 Tbps LightBundle eKits. Organizations interested in evaluating the platform or discussing LightBundle integration may contact Avicena at nigel@avicena.tech.
About Avicena
Avicena Tech Corp. is a privately held company headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, pioneering microLED-based optical interconnects for AI infrastructure. Avicena’s LightBundle technology enables low-power optical connectivity with high reliability, scalability, and bandwidth density, helping semiconductor and datacenter innovators build the next generation of AI systems.
Enables vendors and consumers to test custom workloads and run proprietary models for greater flexibility and security
GAINESVILLE, Va., Aug. 18, 2026 — The Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC) today announced the release of the SPECapc for Siemens NX 2024 Workload Development Kit (WDK). Integrated directly into the existing SPECapc for Siemens NX 2024 benchmark, the new WDK offers a powerful, standardized framework for users to run and measure their own GPU-specific workloads and proprietary graphics models.
Siemens NX is award-winning, processor-intensive software that helps designers and manufacturers deliver better products faster through a powerful combination of CAD and CAM solutions. The SPECapc for Siemens NX 2024 benchmark executes graphics tests that include rotation, pan, zoom and clipping for each model. Viewport tests within the benchmark measure performance for field of view and feature regeneration operations.
Professionals, students, and artists, as well as hardware developers and vendors, use the benchmark to discover how different hardware configurations affect the performance of their applications. The addition of the SPECapc for Siemens NX 2024 WDK gives these users a framework to evaluate internal models and specialized workflows, providing greater flexibility and security for proprietary information.
“Adding the SPEC Workload Development Kit to the SPECapc for Siemens NX 2024 benchmark means users have the flexibility and framework to gain greater insight into the performance of workloads that matter most to them,” said SPECapc Chair Jessica Heerboth. “This is another important way that SPEC is responding to the needs of our user communities.”
Seamless Integration for Current Users
The WDK operates as a parallel customization framework and does not modify the base benchmark or baseline scoring. Current licensees can access the WDK immediately by downloading and reinstalling the updated benchmark package.
About SPEC
SPEC is a non-profit organization that establishes, maintains and endorses standardized benchmarks and tools to evaluate performance for the newest generation of computing systems. Its membership comprises more than 120 leading computer hardware and software vendors, educational institutions, research organizations, and government agencies worldwide.
New benchmark categories for generative AI and agentic workflows arrive alongside updated LLM tests, as the industry standard for measuring PC AI performance evolves
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 18, 2026 — MLCommons, an open engineering consortium dedicated to improving machine learning performance and transparency, today announced the release of MLPerf Client v2.0, the latest version of its industry-standard benchmark for evaluating AI performance on personal computers.
MLPerf Client measures how effectively PCs—from laptops and desktops to workstations—run AI workloads locally. With the release of v2.0, the benchmark now includes new Agentic AI and Image Generation capabilities alongside its established LLM benchmarking of real-world tasks like summarization, content creation, and code analysis, reporting metrics for both responsiveness and throughput.
New in MLPerf Client v2.0
Version 2.0 introduces a range of new features, refinements, and expanded support designed to keep pace with the rapid evolution of AI-enabled hardware and software:
Major Workload Changes
New Image Generation Category: Adding this category significantly enhances the benchmark’s utility by enabling evaluation of generative visual capabilities. This category features Flux.2 klein 4B as an experimental test.
New Agentic AI Category: Benchmarks agentic AI performance through Software Engineering (SWE) Agent and Data Analyst Agent scenarios. It reports end-to-end performance, including a breakdown of LLM inference and tool execution times.
Updated LLM Inference tests: This release upgrades Phi 3.5 mini instruct in the required workloads to Phi 4 Mini Instruct, while introducing Qwen 3 8B as an experimental test. Base tasks now include an Intermediate Summarization task featuring an input prompt of roughly 4K tokens.
These updates mark another major step toward a comprehensive, cross-platform benchmark for client AI computing.
MLPerf Client is the product of a collaboration among technology leaders, including AMD, Intel, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., and top PC OEMs. These participants have contributed resources and expertise to the creation of this AI benchmark.
MLPerf Client v2.0 is freely available for download, and the source code is open for inspection and community contribution via the MLCommons GitHub repository. For downloads, documentation, and additional details, visit mlcommons.org.
MLCommons is an open engineering consortium with a mission to make machine learning better for everyone. The organization produces industry-leading benchmarks, datasets, and best practices that span the full range of ML applications—from massive cloud training to resource-constrained edge devices. Its MLPerf benchmark suite has become the de facto standard for evaluating AI performance.
ST. PAUL, Minnesota — Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison sued Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday, seeking to force the extradition of an ICE agent charged with shooting a man in Minneapolis and then allegedly filing a false account of the encounter.
Christian Castro, 52, faces four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime stemming from the Jan. 14 shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis during Operation Metro Surge. Prosecutors say Castro fired through the front door of a Minneapolis home, striking Sosa-Celis in the leg. The bullet ultimately lodged in a child’s bedroom wall.
Federal officials initially said Sosa-Celis and another man attacked an officer with a broom handle and snow shovel. Those federal charges were later dismissed, and ICE Director Todd Lyons acknowledged that agents had lied about circumstances surrounding the incident.
Castro was arrested in Texas on May 29 and remains jailed in Cameron County on a $200,000 bond. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz requested extradition in June, but Abbott has not signed the warrant.
Ellison is now asking a federal judge to order Abbott to comply and prevent Castro’s release. He warned that Texas law could require Castro’s release after 90 days in custody and said jail calls indicate Castro has discussed moving to Mexico.
Abbott’s office said it would not comment on pending extradition matters.
The lawsuit cites a 1987 Supreme Court ruling holding that governors generally have no discretion to refuse valid interstate extradition requests. Minnesota prosecutors say three unrelated defendants have been extradited from Texas without difficulty since Castro’s arrest.
Castro has not been convicted, and the charges remain allegations.
SANTA CLARA, Calif., Aug. 18, 2026 — Velaura AI, Inc., an AI compute infrastructure company developing ultra-low-power silicon and software technologies, today announced that it has raised $110 million in Series A financing, bringing its total valuation to more than $1 billion. The round reflects investor conviction in a proven technology foundation, multiple hyperscaler engagements, an experienced leadership team, and a vision for AI compute spanning data centers and Physical AI.
Credit: Velaura AI
Velaura is addressing two of the biggest growth opportunities emerging from the AI megatrend: ultra-low-power compute and Physical AI. Artificial intelligence is increasingly constrained not by the demand for compute, but by the electrical power required to support it. Hyperscalers are investing hundreds of billions of dollars in AI data centers with long lead times on power availability for deployment. Also, as Physical AI with intelligent robots, drones, and autonomous systems move toward mainstream deployment under strict power and thermal limits, energy-efficient computing with purpose-built solutions has become one of the industry’s defining challenges.
Velaura’s Series A financing to address these growth opportunities was led by Seligman Ventures, with participation from new investors Capricorn Investment Group and Prosperity7 Ventures, as well as existing investors including Mayfield, Maverick Silicon, MARA, Premji Invest, Samsung Catalyst Fund, and StepStone Group.
The new capital will accelerate the development and commercialization of Velaura’s AI compute portfolio, including its recently announced Titan Core silicon platform. It will also support the expansion of the company’s engineering and customer-facing teams with deepening collaborations with strategic partners and customers developing next-generation AI infrastructure and Physical AI solutions.
The company’s leadership team combines decades of experience delivering many of the semiconductor industry’s leading high-performance and low-power platforms. Velaura brings together executives and engineers from Apple, NVIDIA, Google, Qualcomm, and Marvell, along with leaders who have built and scaled multiple semiconductor companies and shipped billions of devices.
Velaura’s Titan Core, proprietary digital chip IP and design platform, delivers a 2-4x improvement in performance per watt for mathematical operations in AI accelerators while maintaining performance. The underlying technology has been validated at commercial scale and deployed in more than 30 million ASICs in leading semiconductor process nodes, demonstrating world-class manufacturing yield and reliability. The company is applying this expertise across AI accelerators while extending the ultra-low-power architecture to Physical AI, including intelligent robots, drones, and other embodied AI systems.
“Every advance in AI, from reasoning models to embodied intelligence, creates demand for more compute, and ultimately more power,” said Rajiv Khemani, Co-founder and CEO of Velaura AI. “The next era of AI will be defined not only by better models, but also by fundamentally better compute economics. Velaura is building the ultra-low-power silicon and software foundation needed to scale AI from hyperscale data centers to intelligent machines operating in the physical world.”
About Velaura AI
Velaura AI develops ultra-low power silicon and software technologies that enable the next generation of AI infrastructure. Its solutions are designed for hyperscale data centers and Physical AI applications, including robotics, autonomous systems and embodied intelligence. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Velaura combines proven semiconductor innovation with deep expertise in architecture, silicon design, and software to fundamentally improve the energy efficiency of AI computing. For more information, visit www.velaura.ai.
NEW YORK, New York — Former presidential candidate Andrew Yang is reviving his signature direct-payment proposal as artificial intelligence rapidly reshapes the economy, this time calling for families to receive $15,000 annually.
Yang told Scripps News that Americans should be compensated because their personal data helped create the enormously valuable AI systems now being developed by companies such as OpenAI, Google and Meta.
“These AI models are built upon our data,” Yang said, arguing that technology companies are capturing enormous value while ordinary Americans receive little direct benefit.
The proposal echoes Yang’s 2020 presidential campaign, when he promoted a “Freedom Dividend” of $1,000 per month for every American adult as protection against automation-driven job losses. His warnings that technology would displace large numbers of workers were considered unconventional at the time but have gained renewed attention as companies increasingly use AI to reduce staffing and automate white-collar work.
Yang also criticized both major political parties, saying elected officials have been too slow to address AI’s economic consequences and remain focused on partisan conflict rather than emerging problems.
His $15,000 proposal raises significant unanswered questions, including whether payments would go to individuals or households, how they would be financed and whether they would replace or supplement existing benefits. The Scripps interview did not detail a full funding mechanism.
Yang, who founded the Forward Party after leaving the Democratic Party, also declined to rule out another presidential campaign in 2028, saying he remains interested in helping the country if circumstances align.
SAXONBURG, Pa., Aug. 18, 2026 — Coherent Corp., a global leader in photonics, has announced that it has begun sampling of its 300mm high thermal conductivity silicon carbide (SiC) substrates to leading AI semiconductor partners. The milestone advances Coherent’s scalable materials platform for the growing thermal management requirements of artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) systems.
As AI processors move toward higher power densities, effective heat removal is becoming a primary constraint on system performance, reliability, and datacenter efficiency. Customer sampling moves Coherent’s 300mm SiC platform from internal development to customer evaluation across the AI semiconductor ecosystem.
Silicon carbide combines high thermal conductivity, mechanical strength, and thermal stability for next-generation heat spreaders and related packaging solutions. Coherent’s vertically integrated capabilities in SiC crystal growth, wafering, polishing, and characterization provide control across the production process and support progression toward future high-volume manufacturing. The high thermal conductivity substrates are engineered to improve heat spreading by up to 25% more than current solutions while maintaining compatibility with existing semiconductor manufacturing platforms.
“AI performance is increasingly constrained by the industry’s ability to remove heat from next-generation processors,” said Craig Mullaney, Senior Vice President and General Manager at Coherent. “Advanced SiC thermal management materials can play an important role in addressing that challenge. By combining decades of silicon carbide expertise with a scalable 300mm manufacturing platform, Coherent is helping build the materials foundation for future AI infrastructure.”
This milestone marks the next step in Coherent’s roadmap to expand its 300mm SiC platform for AI and high-performance computing. By combining customer engagement, vertically integrated materials expertise, and a scalable manufacturing strategy, Coherent is positioning its SiC capabilities to support successive generations of AI infrastructure.
About Coherent
Coherent is the global photonics leader. We harness photons to drive innovation. Industry leaders in the datacenter, communications, and industrial markets rely on Coherent’s world-leading technology to fuel their own innovation and growth. Founded in 1971 and operating in more than 20 countries, Coherent brings the industry’s broadest, deepest technology stack; unmatched supply chain resilience; and global scale to help its customers solve their toughest technology challenges.
San Diego Padres minor-league catching coordinator Oswaldo Pirela remained in federal immigration custody on Tuesday after being detained at an airport in El Paso, Texas, while returning from a work trip.
Pirela’s family said the 34-year-old Venezuelan has a pending asylum claim and has continually renewed his work authorization. The Department of Homeland Security said he does not have legal status and will face removal proceedings.
Google has agreed to pay $10 million for a massive trove of anonymized Spirit Airlines data following the carrier's shutdown, including internal communications, spreadsheets, booking and frequent-flyer records, transactions, and employee information. CNN reports: Did you ever fly on Spirit Airlines? Or work there? Or send an email to someone who worked there? Then your information will soon be feeding Google's artificial intelligence model. The discount airline halted all operations in May, and it's been selling off its remaining assets through the bankruptcy process ever since. While most of that is planes, equipment, and real estate, there's other things that are valuable, too.
It was disclosed late Monday that the company agreed to sell its data to Google for $10 million. That includes emails and internal communications, spreadsheets, transactions with the public including bookings and frequent flyer information as well as human resources information on its employees. The data has been stripped of anything that would allow individuals to be identified, according to the court filing. But it is still a massive amount of useful intelligence.
Patrons at two of the chain’s London pubs were all for Tim Martin’s ban on playing music or taking calls on speaker
The terrace of the Moon Under Water Wetherspoons pub in Leicester Square was full of people enjoying the warm weather and chatting between tables – without a TikTok video or speakerphone call in earshot.
At Wetherspoons, the convivial atmosphere can no longer be punctuated by rude customers taking phone calls on blast, or playing videos without headphones after Tim Martin, the owner of the pub chain, banned both on his premises.
Jacque St Ann, 17, and his friends broke into Plaza Tower and he fell as they were descending an interior staircase
A high school student recently fell to his death after entering an abandoned high-rise tower in downtown New Orleans with his friends – in an apparent case of urban exploration highlighting the dangers of unaddressed city blight.
New Orleans police said Jacque St Ann, 17, and his friends, of the nearby community of Belle Chasse, Louisiana, traveled into the city and broke into the fenced-off, 45-story Plaza Tower in the central business district, which has stood derelict for years.
Once again, the subject of changing how many justices sit on the Supreme Court—and for how long—is in the news.
On Aug. 13, 2026, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) spoke at the National Association of Black Journalists conference about the various changes he felt were needed at the Court. Jeffries was upset with the Court’s April 2026 decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which struck down a state law that allowed the use of race as a determining factor in creating election districts, and a related decision about districts in Alabama, Allen v. Millgan (2026)
“The Supreme Court steps in and overturns that decision [in Alabama], it tells me that they don't have the credibility for us to move forward, acting like everything is okay and the status quo is acceptable. It's not. And we're going to push for dramatic reform of the Supreme Court,” Jeffries said.
Among the various Supreme Court changes proposed recently, and in prior years, are establishing term limits for the justices; changing the number of justices on the bench; creating an enforceable ethics code for justices; and regulating cases appearing on the Court’s emergency or interim docket.
Some of these ideas are hardly new. In the aftermath of the 2020 election, President Joe Biden formed a presidential Supreme Court commission to study possible reforms. In 2015, Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee openly discussed Supreme Court term limits during his primary campaign. There was a robust academic debate on term limits nearly a decade earlier in the aftermath of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist’s death.
And famously, President Franklin D. Roosevelt fell short in his 1937 attempted to change the number of justices on the Supreme Court.
Term Limits for Supreme Court Justices
Limiting the time served by the justices on the Supreme Court is perhaps the idea most discussed among reformers.
Article III of the Constitution defines the Supreme Court’s basic role in the separation of powers and the lifetime tenure of the justices. “The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish,” it states. And the justices serve as long as they show “good behavior” in office.
In Federalist 78, Alexander Hamilton supported the idea of lifetime service from the justices to serve the principle of judicial independence. “The standard of good behavior for the continuance in office of the judicial magistracy, is certainly one of the most valuable of the modern improvements in the practice of government,” Hamilton wrote. “It is the best expedient which can be devised in any government, to secure a steady, upright, and impartial administration of the laws.”
The 2021 Biden commission report identified several arguments made by Supreme Court term limits supporters. Supporters argued that the United States is the only democracy without term and age limits for high court justices. Also, many supporters believed a staggered system where each justice was limited to 18 years on the bench would allow a president to appoint two justices during a four-year presidential term, thus reflecting the voice of the electorate in choosing the president and senators who take part in the nomination and confirmation process.
Lifetime tenure supporters countered that the Constitution’s text and history strongly supported the system of service during “good behavior” in office, and a staggered system with term limits would make the Supreme Court nomination process more political as a recurring election issue.
One of the key challenges for supporters of Supreme Court term limits is the method of implementing change. The Congressional Research Service, in a December 2023 report, raised questions about the ability of Congress to set term limits by statute and not by a constitutional amendment. “Because Article III guarantees that Supreme Court Justices ‘shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour,’ most commentators agree that Congress could not impose a term or age limit for Supreme Court Justices without amending the Constitution,” wrote legislative attorney Joanna R. Lampe.
Others argue that Congress can pass laws to create an active/senior justice model where justices serving on the Supreme Court would become senior justices after 18 years and move on to other duties in the judicial system. Justices with senior status would be fully compensated members for life and able to exercise official duties on and off the bench for as long as they choose.
If a term limits law survived the Senate filibuster and passed Congress, opponents could still bring a challenge to the law in court.
Changing the Number of Justices and Other Ideas
Unlike the idea of term limits, the Constitution grants Congress the power to choose how many justices serve on the Supreme Court—a power that Congress has exercised many times across American history. The Judiciary Act of 1789 established the first Supreme Court, when Congress decided that six justices should serve. The number of justices on the Court varied from 1802 to 1869. A Judiciary Act sponsored by Sen. Lyman Trumbull in 1869 put the number at nine Justices. Since then, the number has remained stable.
Some proponents of reform would like to see the number of Supreme Court justices increased for several reasons. During a House hearing in May 2026, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D- Md,) offered one rationale for a change to 13 justices to match the number of federal circuits in America. But a bill changing the size of the Court is still subject to a filibuster and would face opposition.
In 1937, the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill sponsored by President Roosevelt failed in the Senate, where the Democrats held 76 out of 96 seats. The bill would have allowed the president to appoint an additional justice for every sitting justice who was over 70 years of age.
Also, creating an enforceable ethics code for the justices faces its own set of problems. In November 2023, the Supreme Court adopted a voluntary code of conduct. However, the ability of Congress to sanction the justices is limited by the Constitution. Article III of the Constitution bars Congress from altering the justices’ compensation. The House could impeach a Supreme Court justice, as it did when Justice Samuel Chase faced charges in the Senate in 1804, but the removal decision would still be left in the hands of the Senate. Chase was acquitted by the Senate, setting a precedent that justices shouldn’t face impeachment for political reasons.
Congress could have role in determining how cases are presented to the Court’s non-merits interim or emergency docket. According to the Congressional Research Service, “Judicial procedures are generally based on statutes or court-created rules rather than constitutional mandates, and Congress can alter those procedures through legislation.” In May 2026, Rep. Raskin offered several reforms that would require the Court to explain in writing how it issued orders on the docket and would create a panel federal appellate judges to decide which emergency cases go before the justices.
Such efforts likely would face resistance in Congress. Reforms also could raise separation of powers issues, especially about the ability of Congress to compel the Supreme Court to write non-merits opinions on short notice.
Scott Bomboy is the editor in chief of the National Constitution Center.
ST. PAUL, Minnesota — A federal judge dismissed the Justice Department’s lawsuit seeking Minnesota’s voter-registration data, marking the latest defeat in a nationwide Trump administration effort to force states to turn over sensitive voter information.
The Justice Department sued Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon after he refused to provide a voter list containing names, birthdates, addresses and partial Social Security numbers. Simon argued the request was unusually broad and lacked a clear legal justification.
U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez rejected the government’s case, writing that DOJ appeared to be seeking discovery before establishing a valid claim.
“The government suggests it is permitted to use a civil action as a ‘fishing expedition,’” Menendez wrote. She added that ordinary litigants cannot seek evidence first and develop a legal theory later, and that the federal government has no special privilege to do so.
The ruling adds Minnesota to a long list of states where similar federal lawsuits have been dismissed. According to Route Fifty, the Justice Department is now 0-23 in these cases.
The administration has justified its voter-data push as an election-integrity effort, but it comes amid President Donald Trump’s continued false claims that widespread voter fraud affects U.S. elections. Documented illegal voting remains rare.
A recent ProPublica investigation found that federal authorities subpoenaed about 130 people in Minnesota as part of a high-priority illegal-voting investigation, but only one case had been referred for prosecution.
The Minnesota ruling further weakens the administration’s effort to centralize access to voter-roll information maintained by the states.
I bought the Sidewinder motor from TFL to use with the x7 powertrain, but the cable is too long to use on stock XR rails. Does anyone know if there’s an easy way to shorten the cable?
Apple is overhauling its EU App Store fees to settle its Digital Markets Act dispute, simplifying the fee structure and "[resolving] Apple's disagreements with the Commission over business terms and alternative distribution." Developers can sign the new terms starting today, and the changes go into effect on October 1. MacRumors reports: The initial acquisition fee and store services fee are being removed for apps distributed outside of the App Store, and Apple will now charge a 5% Core Technology Commission on digital purchases that replaces the prior per-install Core Technology Fee. Commission rates are changing for App Store apps, alternative payments, and apps distributed through alternative app marketplaces or the web.
Developers can offer in-app purchase options alongside alternative payment options in the EU, which is something Apple did not allow before. Apple says there will be presentation requirements so users have a consistent, transparent experience. Developers distributing apps in the EU must select their payment options and maintain those options for 12 months before making changes to "provide consistency and clarity for users." Apple will still use a Notarization process for apps downloadable through the web and through alternative app marketplaces.
Apps in the Kids category or being used by children under 13 will not include links to websites to complete transactions. All apps that use alternative payment processing or link to a website for transactions have to include a parental gate if the user is under 18. Apple is relaxing the rules for operating an alternative app marketplace.
Madonna leads all artists with 11 nominations at this year's MTV VMAs, and a full sweep would tie her with Beyoncé and Taylor Swift for the most VMA wins in history.
Deepens Colorado investment with new global headquarters and celebrates alongside government and community leaders
LOUISVILLE, Colo., Aug. 18, 2026 — Infleqtion is celebrating the grand opening of the Colorado Quantum Innovation Center (CQIC), its new facility in Louisville, Colorado at 1315 W. Century Drive. The grand opening coincides with growing recognition of the Boulder–Louisville–Broomfield corridor as “America’s Quantum Peak,” recognizing the region’s concentration of quantum research, talent, and industry.
“Colorado is leading America’s quantum future, and Infleqtion’s new Quantum Innovation Center is further proof that our growing technology sector draws more businesses to our state and strengthens our economy,” said Governor Jared Polis.
“Quantum is no longer a future technology, it’s becoming foundational to national security, scientific discovery, advanced sensing and space systems,” said Matt Kinsella, CEO at Infleqtion. “Neutral-atom technology was born out of research happening right here in Colorado, and it’s fueling a new generation of jobs, companies and breakthroughs. We see our new headquarters as both a reflection of our roots in Colorado and a convening point for the quantum ecosystem, including our partners across industry, national laboratories, research institutions and academia.”
The Colorado Quantum Innovation Center will serve as Infleqtion’s global headquarters and anchor facility in the region, supporting the company’s work across quantum computing and quantum sensing, including deployments with the U.S. Department of Defense, NASA, and the UK Royal Navy. The opening reflects the broader shift underway in the quantum industry, from scientific discovery toward industrial deployment at scale.
“Colorado is the epicenter of America’s quantum future, and Infleqtion’s new Quantum Innovation Center is proof of what’s possible when we invest in research, talent, and industry together,” said Rep. Brittany Pettersen (CO-07). “From our national laboratories to our universities to companies like Infleqtion, Colorado is building the ecosystem the quantum industry needs to thrive.”
The company is celebrating in an event featuring remarks from Colorado Governor Jared Polis, U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen and Louisville Mayor Chris Leh, alongside CU Boulder Chancellor Justin Schwartz, Elevate Quantum CEO Jessi Olsen, Infleqtion CEO Matt Kinsella and Infleqtion founder Dana Anderson. The ribbon-cutting also includes participation by representatives from the offices of U.S. Senators John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet and U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse; members of the Louisville City Council; leadership from Elevate Quantum; Infleqtion employees; and leaders of the local quantum community.
The Boulder–Louisville–Broomfield corridor is home to more than 30 quantum companies and an ecosystem spanning industry, national laboratories, research institutions, and academia. The region’s roots trace to JILA, a joint institute of the University of Colorado Boulder and the National Institute of Standards and Technology founded in 1962, which has produced four Nobel Prize-winning physicists whose work laid the foundation for modern quantum science. Elevate Quantum, the federally designated Tech Hub for the region, anchors a broader consortium of more than 100 organizations across Colorado and the Mountain West.
About Infleqtion
Infleqtion, Inc. (NYSE: INFQ) is a global leader in quantum technology, delivering neutral-atom solutions for quantum computing, networking, sensing, and security. With a product portfolio spanning quantum computers, quantum optical clocks, RF receivers, and inertial sensors, Infleqtion’s full-stack approach combines high-performance hardware with the company’s proprietary Superstaq quantum computing software platform. Infleqtion’s systems are already in use by the U.S. Department of Defense, NASA, the U.K. government, and in multiple collaborations with NVIDIA. Infleqtion, in collaboration with NVIDIA, published the world’s first demonstration of a materials science application using logical qubits. With operations in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, Infleqtion meets the demands of government and commercial customers across the space, defense, energy, finance and telecommunications sectors.
I'm considering buying a Onewheel, but I constantly see wipeout posts (mostly on my FB feed) of people getting injured. Breaking bones, needing surgery, etc. Ones that concern me especially are the ones that say they knew about board pushback but - for whatever reason - they didn't get pushback before the nosedive.
So my question is, is it pretty much inevitable to have a nosedive crash at some point in one's onewheeling life, even if you're careful and aware of pushback?
Has anyone who has been riding for a while successfully avoided it? If so, what are your techniques for doing so?
The guided-missile destroyer USS Benfold spent four days without power last month after a problem with its engineering, according to a spokesperson for the Navy's 7th Fleet.
Picture showing White Helmets volunteer unconscious and with bruises on his body went viral
Syrians have protested over the death of a man who was arrested and allegedly beaten by security forces, sparking widespread anger at a practice thought to have ended with the fall of Bashar al-Assad.
A crowd gathered in the city of Aleppo, demanding accountability for the security forces who are alleged to have carried out the torture, with participants holding signs and slogans such as: “Do not repeat the same oppression that we revolted against.” Protests were also planned to take place in front of Syria’s parliament in Damascus on Tuesday, as well.
Wildfires and extreme heat show climate change is now Europe’s biggest security threatExpert commentthilton.drupal
The continent is increasingly vulnerable to arson attacks, while climate disasters are diverting militaries from other threats. Policymakers must respond with a security-based approach to climate change.
Climate change is now Europe’s biggest systemic security risk. As the continent faces its worst ever summer of extreme heat, drought and wildfires, no other threat is simultaneously affecting so many countries, people and critical systems.
The extreme heat contributed to an estimated 10,000 excess deaths during the June heatwave, which also destroyed roughly 9 million tonnes of crops from the European harvest. Drought and wildfires have affected almost the entire continent; so far this year over 600,000 hectares of land and forests have burned, with hundreds of thousands of people forced to evacuate.
The disruption extends far beyond the immediate disaster zones and across national borders. Extreme heat and water shortages are threatening water and food security, restricting river and rail transport and putting strain on health and emergency services.
Homes, businesses and essential infrastructure have been damaged. Falling river levels have forced nuclear reactors to shut down due to a lack of suitable cooling water, threatening to disrupt energy supply chains.
Climate terrorism
Climate change is also making Europe more vulnerable to non-conventional attacks. Prolonged heat and drought can turn countries into a ‘tinderbox’, as UK prime minister Andy Burnham warned last week, before his government sent a national emergency alert over wildfires.
Arson attacks are easy to carry out and difficult for authorities to prevent.
In these conditions, a single act of arson can cause mass evacuations, destroy infrastructure and overwhelm emergency services. These arson attacks are easy to carry out and difficult for authorities to prevent. This makes wildfire a potentially devastating instrument of terrorism or asymmetric warfare.
This year, France has arrested almost 500 people on suspicion of starting fires; as of 30 July, the interior ministry said around 70 per cent of those detained were accused of deliberate arson.
Meanwhile, Russian strikes have repeatedly set forests ablaze in Ukraine. In May 2026, drone attacks caused multiple forest fires in the Chernobyl exclusion zone and Zhytomyr.
Demands on militaries
Climate change also affects European military readiness by damaging bases, airfields and transport networks. For example, prolonged dry conditions contributed to wildfires that began at military training grounds in the Netherlands in April.
Any disruption to wider infrastructure such as electricity or transport networks can also directly undermine military operations.
Europe’s armed forces must now prepare to be called upon more frequently to fight fires, reinforce flood defences, support evacuations, deliver emergency supplies and restore critical infrastructure. This will divert personnel and logistical capacity away from other security threats.
This is already happening. According to the Council on Strategic Risks, militaries were deployed over 30 times in response to wildfires across Europe in June and July alone. In July, Spain deployed more than 1,200 military personnel and 400 vehicles for a single major fire. In the UK, around 200 military personnel are currently fighting wildfires in south Wales.
How to respond
The scale and scope of these risks require action.
The NATO Science and Technology Organization’s January 2026 climate security assessment already acknowledges climate change as a ‘systemic problem’ that impacts all other security risks.
It concludes that NATO’s existing Climate Change and Security Action Plan (published in 2021) should be thoroughly updated and translate climate knowledge into practical action. This should be supported by better, more institutionalized coordination between scientists, defence professionals and policymakers.
Beyond NATO’s plan, a broader European security-based approach to climate change is needed. It must achieve four goals.
Deal with wildfires
First, it must strengthen preparedness for climate disasters that are already happening.
In the case of wildfires, this means acting before they break out. This involves managing dry vegetation and landscapes, enforcing fire-safe building and land-use rules, monitoring high-risk areas and reducing preventable sources of fire. It must account for both deliberate and accidental fires.
It also requires adequately staffed and trained emergency services, better specialist equipment such as ‘water bomb aircraft’, stronger early-warning and evacuation systems, and greater capacity to respond to several emergencies at once.
The military has an important supporting role within this system. Armed forces will need to provide aircraft, engineering expertise, communications, logistics and personnel when civilian capacity is overwhelmed, particularly during large-scale evacuations or simultaneous disasters. But they should form part of a planned, multi-agency response rather than become a permanent substitute for underfunded fire and rescue services.
Consider climate spending as security
Second, governments need to consider spending on climate as a core security investment.
European NATO members have committed to spend 5 per cent of GDP on defence by 2035, including up to 1.5 per cent on broader investment related to defence and security, such as critical infrastructure and resilience.
Despite NATO recognizing climate change as a security threat, it has not explicitly designated climate adaptation as defence-related spending. But investing in climate change adaptation can make a critical contribution to long-term resilience.
Likewise, investments in infrastructure, civil protection and preparedness should all be climate-resilient and future proof. These could potentially be categorized under the vaguely defined 1.5 per cent of broader security-related spending.
Considering climate measures as important security investments would therefore help to focus scare resources and improve resilience, while also potentially helping members to meet their spending commitments.
Address underlying causes
Third, a security approach must accelerate decarbonization to mitigate climate change as the underlying cause of the escalating threat.
European climate and energy policies have helped cut EU27 emissions to approximately 35 per cent below their 1990 levels, but the EU27 is still responsible for 3.2 gigatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions annually, or six per cent of global emissions. Europe’s decarbonization matters not only for reducing emissions but also for its global signalling effect in encouraging other countries to follow suit.
Preparedness and adaptation can reduce casualties and damage, but they cannot keep pace indefinitely with worsening heat, drought, floods and fires. Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent. Its existing policies and climate pledges will not be sufficient to adapt fully to the expected 2.4°C to 3.9°C increase in global mean temperature this century.
Investment in resilience must therefore be accompanied by rapid emissions reductions and stronger political commitment to decarbonization. This is the principal way to prevent the threat from becoming progressively more severe and unmanageable.
Public involvement
Fourth, building societal resilience to climate shocks will depend on governments working with the public.
This does not mean just issuing one-off instructions during emergencies. People need trustworthy information, practical guidance and opportunities to participate in local preparedness activities. Examples include ‘heat-health’ plans to protect people from heat-related risks, water conservation to cope with drought, and evacuation exercises and support for vulnerable neighbours.
Such measures are all part of the basic infrastructure that allows society to continue functioning during a crisis.
The benefits outweigh the costs
What will all this cost? Assessments suggest the EU needs to invest approximately €70 billion a year in climate adaptation until 2050 to prevent the worst impacts. The UK needs to invest around £11 billion annually, according to a May report by the UK Climate Change Committee.
Although these sums may appear substantial, they are modest compared with the escalating cost of inaction. Climate-related disasters caused a yearly average of €45 billion in direct EU losses during 2020–2024, while inadequate adaptation could cost the UK £60-260 billion annually by 2050.
Many measures will pay for themselves several times over. For example, according to the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, every euro invested in protection against coastal flooding can avoid around €6.35 in damages while also saving lives and protecting other resources.
The estimated costs for adaptation are small compared to the risks averted and damage avoided. Climate adaptation should therefore be understood not as an environmental expense, but as a cost-effective and necessary investment in European national security and strategic autonomy.
Tune in to our upcoming episode of the Independent Thinking podcast this Friday to hear more from our experts on the challenges of climate change.
Microsoft MVP Loryan Strant has created the Microsoft Rebrand Registry, cataloging 72 Microsoft products and the 158 names they've had over the years. His analysis finds that Microsoft product names survive an average of two years and eleven months. The site even predicts which products are most likely to get renamed next, "by considering the amount of time the current name has applied, prior names, and the frequency with which Microsoft changes names of products in the same family," reports The Register. "That methodology led him to suggest an 'elevated' likelihood of name changes for the Azure App Service, Azure SQL Database, Azure DevOps, and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service." From the report: Readers may remember that Strant has also created the site Let Me Correct That For You, which lists the exact names of Microsoft products -- an effort he told The Register he thinks is useful because Microsoft in its wisdom uses Camel Case for names like PowerPoint but went with conventional capitalization for Copilot.
Another of his sites immortalizes Microsoft cloud product logos. He's also created HumbledandHonored.com, a site that generates social media posts MVPs can use to announce they have earned or retained Microsoft's awards.
Strant told The Register that the Rebrand Registry came about after some banter between himself and other MVPs, during which the topic of Microsoft's many product name changes came up. He decided to do something about it.
The prime minister says the ‘absolutely massive’ move would protect thousands of jobs
Moscow has threatened the UK with “consequences” after reports that British drones have been used to strike targets on Russia’s mainland for the first time.
Ukraine used drones made by two UK companies as part of a so-called deep-strike campaign, the Sunday Times reported.
Buses in Manchester and London are franchised (ie owned by a private company but operated under a local authority brand.) It seems strange that the Government didn’t try and facilitate this or encourage another private operator to take over the enhanced partnership operation in the West Midlands but instead transfer c. £100m of liabilities to local taxpayers backed by The UK Govt & ultimately UK taxpayers.
Aug. 18, 2026 — Webster University has been awarded a three-year grant for $746,008 by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to fund the Connect-HPC project. Led by Webster University Professor Xiaoyuan Suo, who teaches in the George Herbert Walker School of Business & Technology, the venture will expand access to high-performance computing (HPC) education across Missouri through a collaboration between Webster, Missouri Western State University, Drury University, Truman State University and Southeast Missouri State University.
This is the second NSF grant Suo received this year that will improve technology education in Missouri.
“There is a growing demand for employees with skills in high-performance computing as data needs from employers and consumers continues to grow exponentially,” Suo said. “Through this collaboration, we will be able to train up to 40 STEM instructors on how to integrate HPC and computational methods into their courses, sharing that information with more than 800 undergraduate students among the five partner institutions. This program also will serve as a model that can then be shared with other institutions, further enhancing the quality of technical education offered in the state.”
According to the grant, the project is unique because it is a scalable, low-barrier approach that integrates HPC concepts, ranging from unplugged algorithmic activities to hands-on distributed computing tasks, directly into existing introductory and intermediate coursework without requiring full curricular redesigns. As part of the project, the 40 STEM instructors will be trained through summer workshops and a sustained mentoring network, while simultaneously preparing undergraduate student instructional facilitators to provide peer support.
Suo is listed as the principal investigator. Professor Marcus R. Bond from Southeast Missouri State University, Professor Jeffrey N. Woodford from Missouri Western State University, Professor Colin DeGraf from Truman State University and Professor Ying Cao from Drury University were listed as co-principal investigators.
Earlier this year, Suo received a $300,000 National Science Foundation CyberTraining grant to create a summer bootcamp for undergraduates to study and research cyberinfrastructures. That project will provide undergraduate students with hands-on experience using high-performance computing to solve real-world scientific problems across STEM disciplines through peer mentoring and authentic research experiences.
In 2023, Webster was one of four institutions in Missouri awarded a two-year grant by the National Science Foundation to expand high-performance computing education.
“These grants further strengthen Webster’s work in advanced computing education, undergraduate research, and workforce preparation,” said George Herber Walker School of Business & Technology Dean Sam Dotson. “Congratulations to Professor Suo for leading the way in ground-breaking research and programs that continue to propel Webster into a leadership position in technology education.”
The latest award is pursuant to the authority of the National Science Foundation Act of 1950, as amended (42 U.S.C. 1861-75) and is subject to the NSF Grant General Conditions dated May 29, 2026. Named “Collaborative Network for STEM Undergraduate Education through Computational Training in High Performance Computing,” the award is number 2539366.
The Delaware Coalition for Human Trafficking Survivors hopes to close those knowledge and coordination gaps through Delaware’s inaugural Human Trafficking Awareness, Prevention and Action Summit on Friday, Oct. 2, at Hyatt Place Dewey Beach.
Delaware’s inaugural statewide summit will bring survivors, national experts, professionals and concerned citizens together to improve prevention, identification and survivor support.
By George Rotsch, Editor of Delaware LIVE
DEWEY BEACH — Human trafficking can remain hidden in plain sight, leaving teachers, medical professionals, police officers, business leaders and concerned residents uncertain about how to recognize the warning signs or respond safely.
The Delaware Coalition for Human Trafficking Survivors hopes to close those knowledge and coordination gaps through Delaware’s inaugural Human Trafficking Awareness, Prevention and Action Summit on Friday, Oct. 2, at Hyatt Place Dewey Beach.
The summit is open to professionals, organizational leaders and members of the public who want to better understand human trafficking and help Delaware build a more informed and coordinated response.
“It’s for everybody,” said Jennifer Cooper, the coalition’s Community and Continuing Education Committee chair and one of the summit’s organizers. “It’s not just for people doing the work. It’s for people who may want to learn a little bit more.”
Cooper, a registered nurse and forensic coordinator at Nemours Children’s Health, said the program will explain trafficking, challenge common misconceptions and help participants understand how exploitation occurs in Delaware.
“We’re going to break down the myths, dispel the myths and talk about what trafficking looks like in Delaware,” Cooper said.
Public engagement is part of the response
Marcia Ferranto, board chair of the Delaware Coalition for Human Trafficking Survivors, said public involvement is essential because human trafficking cannot be addressed solely by law enforcement agencies or organizations serving survivors.
“Human trafficking affects Delaware communities, but too often it remains unseen or misunderstood,” Ferranto said. “We need residents, business leaders, educators, health care professionals, faith communities and policymakers to understand the warning signs and recognize that each of them can play a role in prevention.”
Ferranto said trafficking affects Delaware even when victims are not immediately identified and cases are not publicly described as trafficking.
“Trafficking does not happen only somewhere else; it is affecting people here in Delaware,” Ferranto said. “When the public understands what exploitation looks like and knows how to respond, we become better able to protect vulnerable people, support survivors and make Delaware a much more difficult place for traffickers to operate.”
Delaware needs its own summit
Cooper has worked with the forensic team at Nemours since 2012 and became its coordinator in 2019. Through that work, she began seeing more young patients affected by or vulnerable to exploitation.
Her involvement in Delaware’s anti-trafficking efforts also showed her that professionals frequently had to travel outside the state to receive advanced training.
“I went to a lot of conferences, and I realized that I wasn’t going to anything in Delaware,” Cooper said. “I was traveling. And I said, ‘Delaware needs its own.’”
That realization helped lead to the October summit.
National experts and local authorities are expected to participate as keynote speakers, panel moderators and breakout-session presenters. The program will include learning tracks focused on survivors, law enforcement, mental health, direct-service workers and medical providers.
Continuing education credits for eligible medical and other professionals are planned, with additional details to be announced.
Bringing Delaware’s response together
Cooper said the summit has two immediate goals: raising awareness among leaders and bringing together the professionals and organizations already working with vulnerable people and survivors.
“I want to bring together the people who are doing the work,” Cooper said. “There are organizations doing phenomenal work, and right down the street there may be another organization doing something a little differently. They really could benefit from each other.”
Better coordination could help Delaware identify trends, determine where services are missing and direct resources toward needs involving young people, labor trafficking, health care, housing and other areas.
“By bringing all of the people together, we can see what our trends are in Delaware and where we need more services,” Cooper said.
The summit also is intended to support professionals engaged in emotionally demanding work.
“From a trauma perspective, this is very challenging and very tough work,” Cooper said. “Making sure that everybody has their own resources and people to bounce things off of is really important.”
A private executive roundtable will precede the public summit Thursday, Oct. 1. Attendance at the roundtable is by invitation only.
The roundtable is expected to bring Delaware leaders and decision-makers together to review state-level information and consider potential policy, training and legislative responses. The public summit the following day will focus on education, professional development and building connections among participants.
A problem that can be difficult to identify
Cooper said one of the challenges involving young people is that victims may not identify themselves as having been trafficked. They may believe they willingly participated in an exchange or may not recognize food, housing, drugs, alcohol or other items of value as part of commercial sexual exploitation.
Under federal and state law, proof of force, fraud or coercion is not required when a minor is induced to perform a commercial sex act. A commercial exchange also does not have to involve cash.
Cooper said 80 juvenile cases were referred to Delaware’s Juvenile Trafficking Oversight Team last year. Those cases involved young people identified as being at risk of trafficking, suspected of being trafficked or confirmed as victims.
The National Human Trafficking Hotline has identified 301 trafficking cases involving 662 victims in Delaware since 2007. The hotline received 51 signals from Delaware in 2024, including eight from victims or survivors.
Hotline figures reflect only situations reported to the organization and should not be interpreted as representing the full extent of trafficking in the state.
Survivors and experts lead the program
Opening keynote speaker Kevin McNeil is a retired police officer, trafficking and sexual-abuse survivor and motivational speaker. His presentation, “Stuck in Traffic,” will compare the experience of being trapped in vehicle traffic with the sense of being trapped in exploitation.
Marty MacGibbon, a trafficking survivor, therapist, author and comedian, will discuss the intersection of human trafficking and substance abuse. She also will close the program with a presentation addressing mental wellness, self-care and trauma-informed practices.
Breakout sessions will address trafficking fundamentals, myths and realities; care for survivors; familial trafficking; legal and law enforcement considerations; trauma among children and adults; and the development of multidisciplinary response teams.
The program also will include survivor perspectives and discussion of vulnerabilities affecting boys and members of the LGBTQ community.
Why leaders and residents should attend
For leaders in government, health care, education, law enforcement, hospitality, nonprofits and other community institutions, the summit offers an opportunity to examine whether their organizations have adequate training, policies and referral relationships.
Front-line professionals can learn more about recognizing possible exploitation, interacting with survivors without causing additional trauma and coordinating with other service providers.
For parents, faith leaders, volunteers and concerned residents, the summit offers a clearer understanding of what trafficking can look like, which warning signs deserve attention and how to report concerns without placing a potential victim at greater risk.
Established in 2014 as Meet Me at the Well Delaware, the Delaware Coalition for Human Trafficking Survivors provides individualized assistance to survivors seeking to leave sex trafficking and rebuild their lives. Its work includes education, street outreach, advocacy, mentoring and connections to housing, employment and treatment resources.
The larger objective of the summit is to create a more unified statewide response capable of recognizing exploitation sooner, supporting survivors more effectively and making Delaware a more difficult place for traffickers to operate.
To Go Box
What: Human Trafficking Awareness, Prevention and Action Summit
When: Friday, Oct. 2, 2026
Where: Hyatt Place Dewey Beach, 1301 Coastal Highway, Dewey Beach
Who may attend: Professionals, organizational and community leaders, service providers and members of the public
Hotel: A discounted room rate is available through Sept. 3. Call 1-855-556-1297 and request the Delaware Coalition for Human Trafficking Survivors rate using group code G-DECO.
Information: Visit the coalition’s summit information page, call 302-250-5918 or email contact@dcfhts.org.
The Justice Department is scrapping its longtime practice of hiring outside experts to help review competitive grant applications, multiple sources told CBS News.
Teen version is intended for children aged 13 to 17 and includes content protections on self-harm and sexual chats
OpenAI is launching a version of ChatGPT designed for teenagers – the first generation to grow up with artificial intelligence – who are already using it for schoolwork, questions about daily life and even companionship.
The San Francisco-based company says ChatGPT for Teens, which launches on Tuesday, is tailored for children aged 13 to 17 with stronger protections including content restrictions around things such as suicide, self-harm and romantic or sexual chats. It also provides homework and study support designed to help students learn rather than spit out answers and school essays.
Bonnier Books will no longer publish UK’s top-selling true crime author following Guardian investigation
The main publisher of the bestselling true crime writer Christopher Berry-Dee has dropped the author after a Guardian investigation into allegations of violence andsexual abuse against him, which he denies. Waterstones has also removed his books from sale.
“We are shocked and appalled by the very serious allegations relating to Christopher Berry-Dee, and our thoughts are with those affected,” said the publisher Bonnier Books in a statement to the Guardian.
(The Center Square) – The taxable value of Wisconsin property went up 8% again in 2026, matching the rise from the year before, according to new data from the Wisconsin Department of Revenue.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: For most Indians, paying by Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has become almost absurdly routine. Scan a QR code, tap a few buttons and the money moves instantly. There is no card machine, no cash, and -- most importantly -- for the user, no visible fee. That may be about to change. India has paved the way for banks and payment companies to charge merchants a fee on UPI transactions, potentially ending a decade-long experiment in free digital payments.
The government has yet to decide the rate or exactly where it will apply, but proposals under discussion include a merchant discount rate (MDR) of 0.3-0.5% -- a small fee paid by a business to the banks and payment companies that process its UPI payments -- on larger transactions at big businesses. The government says consumers and person-to-person UPI payments will remain free. If merchant fees are introduced, they will apply only to some transactions above a set threshold, at a nominal rate, meaning most UPI payments will remain free. The question is whether putting a price on UPI could weaken the network that made it such a success.
The stakes are enormous. Launched in 2016, UPI has grown into one of the world's biggest real-time payment networks. According to official data, in July alone, there were 23.6 billion UPI transactions worth 29.87 trillion rupees ($313.5 billion). Fintech apps such as PhonePe and Google Pay account for most UPI payments. In the financial year just ended, the figure was about 241.6 billion transactions -- almost 12,000 times the volume in UPI's first full year. More than 550 million people now use it, and the system is now available in some form for payments in 11 countries outside India. India's UPI became ubiquitous partly because it made digital payments almost frictionless for merchants, including small vendors who can accept payments with little more than a QR code. New research suggests that merchant acceptance was "not just a result of UPI growth, but one of its key drivers."
As RBI governor Sanjay Malhotra put it, "Someone will have to pay the cost." The challenge will be making UPI sustainable without weakening the merchant network that helped it take off.
‘First meaningful rain for a long time’ is forecast but water firms continue to ask customers to restrict use
Floods and drought could hit the UK at the same time this week, with heavy rain forecast to fall on hard, parched soil.
While some parts of the UK will have the “first meaningful rain for a long time” in the coming days, it will not reverse widespread drought conditions that have put pressure on wildlife, farmers, firefighters and water resources.
lately the weather has been so nice that it feels ridiculous to work indoors. i’ve been taking my lightweight camp chair and laptop outside on my onewheel and hotspotting with my phone. it’s magical
U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack says an Israeli attack on a Syrian air force base was an "unnecessary escalation that does not advance regional stability."
Aug. 18, 2026 — Each year, the SC Technical Papers program recognizes outstanding research through its Best Paper and Best Student Paper awards. To make this process more transparent, the following is an overview of how these papers are nominated, evaluated, and selected.
Credit: SC
The nomination process begins within each technical area. During the online review discussions and subsequent Program Committee meetings, reviewers and Area Chairs identify papers they believe merit consideration for the Best Paper or Best Student Paper awards. Each area may nominate papers in one or both categories. In some cases, a student-authored paper may be nominated for both Best Paper and Best Student Paper and may be a finalist in each category. Best Paper is selected first and takes precedence. As such, if a student-authored paper wins, it is no longer eligible for Best Student Paper. Candidates for the Best Student Paper award must be presented by a student author who made a significant intellectual contribution to the work.
Because nominations are made independently within each area, an area-level nomination should not be interpreted as the strongest submission across the entire Technical Papers program. Instead, these nominations identify those papers that each technical area believes should advance for broader consideration. This approach gives every area the opportunity to highlight technically diverse papers with the greatest scientific merit.
After the area-level nominations are complete, the nominated papers become finalists for the corresponding award. A separate committee of judges will evaluate the finalists during the conference. The judges remain anonymous until the Awards ceremony. This preserves the independence of the evaluation process and allows the committee to assess each finalist without external influence.
Final award decisions will be based on two components:
Quality of the final published paper.
Quality and effectiveness of the conference presentation.
The judging committee will complete its evaluation during the conference after attending the finalist presentations. They then consider both the written papers and presentations as part of the review. Following these deliberations, the Best Paper and Best Student Paper award winners will be announced during the SC26 Awards Ceremony.
In addition to recognizing the winners, all finalist teams will be acknowledged for their outstanding contributions to the SC26 Technical Papers Program.
The Nominees Are…
Eligible for either Best Paper or Best Student Paper
Sensor Placement for Tsunami Early Warning via Large-Scale Bayesian Optimal Experimental Design
Sreeram Venkat, Omar Ghattas, Stefan Henneking, University of Texas at Austin, USA
Real-time tsunami early warning relies on distributed sensor networks to infer seismic sources and seafloor motion. Optimizing these networks via Bayesian optimal experimental design (OED) is exceptionally challenging for systems governed by hyperbolic partial differential equations, which lack the spectral decay required by standard low-rank approximations. We present a scalable Bayesian OED framework for linear time-invariant systems. By reformulating the inverse problem in the data space, we transform OED into dense matrix subset selection. We propose a multi-GPU, Schur-complement-update-based, greedy algorithm that solves the OED problem using a pipelined approach that fully overlaps I/O with GPU computations. Our framework achieves near-perfect weak and strong scaling across hundreds of GPUs on Perlmutter and Frontier. Applied to the 2025 Gordon Bell Prize-winning digital twin for tsunami forecasting in the Cascadia Subduction Zone, we optimize a 175-sensor network, minimizing the uncertainty of a parameter field with over one billion degrees of freedom.
Format-Driven Automatic Pipeline Construction and Load Balancing for SpMM on GPUs
Kelun Lei, Hailong Yang, Kaige Zhang, Zhongzhi Luan, Kejie Ma, Tianyu Feng, Xin You, Yi Liu, Depei Qian, Da Huo, Beihang University, China
Sparse Matrix-Dense Matrix Multiplication (SpMM) is critical for graph neural networks, yet GPU optimization faces challenges from irregular sparsity and load imbalance. Existing hand-tuned solutions tightly couple format design with kernel implementation, requiring complete reimplementation when the format changes. We present Sparsene, a format-driven automated framework that derives all kernel-level optimizations from a single sparse format specification. A hierarchical DSL decouples format structure from implementation via declarative blocking primitives and dynamic lowering transformations. The frontend compiles the DSL into a pGraph of fine-grained pTasks, whose granularity and dependencies are entirely determined by the format. This format-derived pGraph then drives both automatic pipeline construction, where a hardware-aware simulator and two-stage hybrid search identify high-quality pipeline plans, and format-aware load balancing, which selects among binding strategies to mitigate thread-block imbalance. Experiments on NVIDIA A100, H100, and RTX 4090 demonstrate up to 8× speedup over state-of-the-art solutions with strong performance portability.
Every Microsecond Matters: Achieving Near Speed-of-Light Latency in GPU Collectives Torsten Hoefler, Siyuan Shen, Tiancheng Chen, ETH Zürich; Jeff R. Hammond, Anton Korzh, John Bachan, Nishank Chandawala, Kamil Iskra, Sylvain Jeaugey, Arnav Goel, Zhenhao He, NVIDIA
GPU collective communication is often optimized for bandwidth, yet many emerging workloads are latency-bound. Long-context LLM inference is a key example, where small collectives lie on the critical path of token generation, making microsecond-scale overheads impactful. In this work, we study how to approach the hardware Speed-of-Light (SoL) lower bound for GPU collectives within a scale-up network. We identify key design principles, including barrier-free synchronization and efficient use of symmetric memory and multicast. Building on NCCL’s device-side API, we develop low-latency interfaces for constructing custom kernels and implement new symmetric collectives in NCCL. Microbenchmarks show substantial latency reductions, achieving within 10% of the measured SoL bound. Integrated into applications, these kernels reduce inter-token latency and improve throughput in LLM inference, while also accelerating cuSOLVERMp, demonstrating benefits across AI and HPC workloads.
Best Student Paper Nominees
Do We Need Tensor Cores for Stencil Computations? Qiqi Gu, Haibing Guan, Chenpeng Wu, Jianguo Yao, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China; Heng Shi, Shanghai Enflame Intelligence Technologies Co. Ltd, China
Stencil computation is a fundamental kernel in scientific computing, widely used in applications such as fluid dynamics and weather simulation. Although stencils are traditionally considered memory-bound and thus ill-suited for compute-oriented Tensor Cores, recent studies report substantial acceleration, creating an apparent contradiction. This paper resolves this discrepancy through a systematic performance analysis of stencil computations on Tensor Cores. We revisit stencil-to-Tensor-Core mappings, quantify the computational redundancy introduced by hardware-driven transformations, and develop an enhanced performance model that captures arithmetic-intensity shifts under temporal fusion. From this model, we derive analytical criteria that provide a first-order estimate of whether Tensor Cores will outperform, match, or underperform CUDA Cores for a given stencil and hardware setting. Our analysis identifies the performance sweet spot for Tensor Core acceleration. Evaluations on NVIDIA GPUs with state-of-the-art implementations, including EBISU, ConvStencil, and SPIDER, validate our criteria and show its value for guiding stencil optimization.
DOLPHIN: Scalable Disk–RAM–GPU Pipelined Training for Massive Temporal GNNs Wenbo Zhen, Xike Xie, Rui Guo, Zezhong Ding, Junlin Lv, University of Science and Technology of China, China; Jianliang Xu, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong SAR
Temporal graph neural networks (T-GNNs) play a key role in modeling dynamic graphs by learning representations that capture evolving structures and interactions. However, scaling T-GNNs remains challenging, as massive real-world graphs and complex temporal dependencies incur prohibitive runtime and memory costs. Existing systems often preload entire datasets into RAM and rely on RAM–GPU pipelines, suffering from batch-boundary pipeline bubbles, thereby limiting throughput. In this paper, we present DOLPHIN, a scalable Disk–RAM–GPU pipelined system for massive T-GNNs. DOLPHIN groups training batches into chunks and incorporates two key techniques: an I/O-efficient feature window scheduler for just-in-time Disk-to-RAM chunk provisioning, and a dependency-graph–based parallel execution plan that improves GPU utilization while preserving model quality. Together, these techniques improve pipeline efficiency across the Disk-RAM-GPU memory hierarchy and computation phases. Experiments on six real-world graphs show DOLPHIN delivers up to \textbf{21.07$\times$} faster training and reduces RAM usage by up to \textbf{92.04\%} compared to state-of-the-art baselines.
Best Paper Nominees
FSZ: Breaking the Prediction-Throughput Trade-off in GPU Lossy Compression
Jiajun Huang, University of South Florida, USA
Existing fast GPU error-bounded lossy compressors achieve high throughput but limited compression ratios because they use a fixed first-order predictor on independent blocks. We propose FSZ, which redesigns the prediction stage with three mutually reinforcing innovations within a single CUDA kernel: (1) cross-block prediction state carries Lorenzo prediction across block boundaries, eliminating 7 of 8 boundary residuals; (2) per-tile adaptive multi-order prediction and centering selects the best strategy per tile from first-order, second-order, and centering variants; and (3) single-pass four-way evaluation exploits a mathematical property of finite differences to evaluate all variants from a single data read. Experiments on NVIDIA GH200 with 8 real-world HPC datasets show that FSZ outperforms cuSZp-P by up to 10.95x and the state-of-the-art cuSZp-O by up to 2.92x in compression ratio, while simultaneously achieving the highest throughput (676 GB/s compression, 785 GB/s decompression) among all evaluated compressors.
From Alert Fatigue to Root Cause: Causal Failure Cascade Discovery in HPC System
Awais Khan, Christopher Zimmer, Anjus George, Ahmad Maroof Karimi, Feiyi Wang, Woong Shin, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA
Production HPC systems generate massive volumes of heterogeneous logs that encode rich signals about failure propagation across hardware and software layers. In this paper, we present a framework for causal discovery in HPC logs that combines three complementary methods: Transformer-based counterfactual intervention, PCMCI+, and transfer-entropy. Because production environments lack labeled ground truth, our framework uses cross-method triangulation to assign confidence to discovered causal relationships. We further introduce an architecture-aware AI-agent that evaluates the physical plausibility of these relationships and enriches them with mechanism-level explanations, diagnostic commands, and severity assessments grounded in Frontier system documentation. We apply the framework to 18.4 billion log events from the Frontier supercomputer and construct a structured taxonomy of 87 event types spanning diverse hardware and software subsystems. Our results reveal causal relationships across HPC-subsystems, including rare failure pathways and multi-hop cascade chains. This work provides a scalable path toward architecture-grounded root-cause diagnosis in production HPC-systems.
DySpin: A Plug-and-Play Library Advancing Dynamic Sparse Long-Context Inference Chengyu Sun, Dazhao Cheng, Yaqi Xia, Wuhan University, China; Xiaobo Zhou, University of Macau, China; Donglin Yang, NVIDIA Corporation, USA; Ruirui Pan, Central China Normal University, China
We propose DySpin, a plug-and-play library designed to advance Dynamic Sparse long-context inference. DySpin introduces a training-free runtime allocation strategy that dynamically adjusts token budgets, preserving critical tokens that fixed-budget methods would otherwise discard, thereby improving model accuracy. To mitigate the attention kernel workload imbalance inherently caused by runtime allocation, we develop FastEstimate, a fused kernel that integrates token importance evaluation and selection to efficiently generate dynamic scheduling indices. These indices then guide a specialized decoding attention kernel, ensuring fine-grained, load-balanced computation. To tackle memory capacity constraints with accuracy preservation, DySpin incorporates 6-bit KV cache quantization. By enabling register-level parallel unpacking and dequantization through a novel packing format, DySpin significantly alleviates the severe dequantization overhead during attention computation. DySpin can be seamlessly integrated into existing sparse frameworks, delivering superior model accuracy and lower latency for long-context inference.
SwarmLoRA: Batched Computation across Isolated Functions for Serverless LoRA Inference Mausam Basnet, Tong Shu, University of North Texas, USA
Low-Rank Adaptation (LoRA) has produced over 100,000 adapters for Large Language Models, driving demand for efficient multi-adapter serving. All adapters share the same expensive base-model computation, creating a natural opportunity for batching. Existing serverful systems batch across adapters for high throughput but sacrifice per-tenant isolation and elastic scaling. Serverless systems provide both, but at the cost of redundant computation and cross-adapter batching efficiency. We present SwarmLoRA, a disaggregated serverless architecture that resolves this tradeoff by batching shared computation across isolated functions. A persistent aggregator executes a single GEMM for all active requests, while lightweight workers hold only per-adapter state. SwarmLoRA achieves 4.4-5.6x higher throughput than ServerlessLoRA and ServerlessLLM; under trace replay, it completes 98-100% of requests, where baselines complete fewer than one-third. Cold starts take 619 ms (2.9x faster than the fastest baseline) with 95 ms adapter swaps. SwarmLoRA delivers serverful batching efficiency with serverless isolation.
Source: Trilce Estrada and Hatem Ltaief, SC26 Papers Co-Chairs
At the cybersecurity conference Black Hat, researchers showed how an AI assistant at one of America’s largest retailers could be tricked into following hidden instructions and exposing sensitive system information.
Melting ice and power shifts: Europe and Canada should seize their Arctic momentExpert commentLToremark
As geopolitical competition heats up in the Arctic, security and science must go hand in hand.
The Trump administration has once again churned up the frozen waters of the Arctic. This time by ending federal support for an annual Arctic climate report. On 10 August, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced it will no longer produce the well-respected Arctic Report Card, which for two decades has collated, analyzed and published key data on the health and changes of the greater Arctic environment. More than 100 international scientists and organizations have fed NOAA information ranging from ice coverage measurements to sea depth and weather patterns, expanding US situational awareness and scientific leadership of the Arctic.
Trump’s team now says that someone else must take the lead.
While detrimental to both the US and the greater Arctic research community in the short term, this is an opportunity for an allied Arctic nation or organization to take the lead – with the potential to gain both a strategic and data edge. The Arctic is in the crosshairs of almost all top geostrategic interests – including energy, defence, tech, transportation, minerals and fishing – and is changing quickly as ice melts and previously unnavigable areas open.
Controlling data collection, priority-setting and analysis at a time when data is one of the most valuable assets to have should be high on the list of many nations. It certainly is for China. Although it is a non-Arctic nation, China has seven polar research stations – compared to America’s four – a fleet of dual-purpose ice breakers, and prioritizes polar research within its annual $1 trillion research budget.
It is ironic that the Trump administration is diminishing the US position in the Arctic research community while at the same time raising the alarm about Chinese and Russian ambitions in Greenland and the North Atlantic. US military leaders know well that their ability to defend against submarine and other incursions in the north will depend on a continuous research and development process using every scientific input available.
Even the US’s own Arctic Research Commission has stressed the link between national security and research. In 2025, it identified research topics within four key sectors – military, community, energy and economy – which ‘inform both domestic and foreign policy, ideally, in a mutually reinforcing manner, and are often interlinked’. The key to securing the vast North American Arctic area is cutting edge research and knowledge, from reinforcing US national scientists to linking arms with partners, allies and indigenous communities.
This is not the first time the Trump administration has made counterintuitive policy moves in the Arctic. Key to Trump’s foreign policy doctrine is the concept of geographical spheres of influence. US control of Greenland – an autonomous territory of US ally Denmark – as a geographical security imperative has become a regular talking point for Trump. It has also inspired significant new European and Canadian activity in the region.
European governments are stepping up under the rubric of increasing Arctic security against Russian and Chinese expansion. This is a good outcome from an unnecessarily tense standoff with their American ally. Indeed, underneath it all, Trump’s concern about Chinese and Russian activity in the Arctic is well founded. And it requires concrete European Arctic leadership and action.
Such recent action includes a growing strategic presence in Greenland. Norway, France, Canada and the European Union all have (or soon will have) diplomatic offices in Nuuk. Meanwhile, European leaders and their defence teams have met regularly this year to discuss Arctic security and Greenland, while the seven Arctic NATO members (Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and the US) gather as a NATO subgroup. In May, following a NATO foreign ministers meeting in Sweden, they called out the shift in American policy in a joint statement noting the increased role played by Europe and Canada.
More recently, Denmark announced that it has begun to rotate groups of new conscripts through Greenland for training, while the UK sent a carrier strike group to the North Atlantic/High North as part of NATO’s new Arctic Sentry mission, completing its first phase in July.
This increased activity is well timed. Russia and China are taking historic steps this summer that signal future intentions.
In an unprecedented operation, Russia is sending a convoy of tankers carrying up to one million tonnes of oil along a rarely used route north of 81.5°N, accompanied by nuclear-powered icebreakers. Meanwhile, six Chinese carriers have signed up to use Russia’s northern sea route (NSR) this month to avoid the treacherous Red Sea. For the first time, the ships will go from Ningbo-Zhoushan to Felixstowe, saving an estimated 22 days. Crucially, it is also the first time Chinese ships will have access to predictive rather than observational ice data from the Chinese Ministry of Transportation – made possible thanks to China’s years of investment in Arctic research.
This should be a wake-up call for the US and its allies. Domain awareness is and will continue to be the linchpin for success for all nations with interests in the Arctic. To take the lead, European allies and Canada should focus on three key areas.
One, they should extend and resource initiatives that enhance shared domain-awareness assets: satellite coverage; underwater sensor arrays in the GIUK gap (the open waters between Greenland, Iceland and the UK) and the Barents Sea; and maritime patrol aircraft rotations. A priority satellite project could be the Hybrid Alliance Layered Operations in Space (HALO), launched at this year’s NATO summit, through which seven European allies and Canada have agreed to connect and integrate their military satellites into a shared ‘mega constellation’ architecture. For underwater awareness, both the UK’s new Atlantic Bastion and NATO’s Arctic Sentry programmes are building underwater sensing technology networks. In the air, Germany and Denmark have new or planned Boeing P-8 capabilities to add to substantial operations already run by the UK, Norway and Canada.
Two, Arctic research and development should be prioritized in national planning and budgeting processes. This should include establishing a joint Europe–Canada Arctic data consortium – within or tightly connected to the existing research architecture to avoid duplication of efforts – to take on the Arctic Report Card work and build a top-in-class digital research infrastructure. European and Canadian leaders should also reorient the Arctic Council to overcome the stagnation stemming from Russia’s suspended engagement following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, compounded by a consensus system that makes formal workarounds difficult. They must also work to resolve a key Arctic research dilemma: the current lack of Russian data.
Three, NATO’s Arctic seven should establish a shared policy position on Chinese and Russian control of the NSR, which could include building Arctic maritime support systems and physical infrastructure to erode Russia’s monopolistic claim. As one proposal highlights, ‘the goal is not confrontation, but normalization, so that the rules of the High North reflect global interests – not unilateral control’.
As Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen famously said: ‘adventure is just bad planning’. While there was arguably never a time for adventure in the Arctic – it’s too brutal, too vast and too changeable – now is the moment for European Arctic nations and Canada to take the lead in both Arctic research and security. One without the other would be a foolish adventure.
Network alleges FCC is trying to send ‘chilling message’ in retaliation for content the administration disapproves of
ABC has sued the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), arguing that it is being retaliated against for content-based reasons in a move it warns threatens the independence of the press.
The network filed the lawsuit on Tuesday after being forced to apply early to renew its license to broadcast on the eight local television stations it owns. It is waiting to hear whether the Brendan Carr-led FCC approves its renewal requests, or, more likely, holds a hearing on their merits.
Great Britain risks running out of gas in the 2030s despite its growing clean energy sources, unless ministers take “unprecedented” action to guard against a future supply shock, according to an official assessment.
The government is considering plans to provide direct financial support to safeguard the country’s ageing gas infrastructure after a consultation found that a “high stress scenario” could mean homes and businesses run out within the next decade.
Bridget Phillipson writes to watchdog asking it to look into claims Tether.bet and Fispay operated without a licence
The Gambling Commission has been urged to investigate claims that companies linked to Reform UK donors and allies of Nigel Farage have been operating without a licence.
The Labour party’s chair, Bridget Phillipson, has written to the watchdog asking it to look into Tether.bet, a Montenegro-based gambling company, and Fispay, a UK company owned by Reform’s data protection officer, Mowbray Jackson.
Whether Tether.bet, and its operators, provided or advertised remote gambling facilities to consumers in UK without the required licence
Whether Fispay Ltd, or any other UK company, provided or supported gambling facilities or services to consumers in the UK without the required licence.”
Country’s second fatal school shooting in two months took place in southern city of Zamboanga
A student livestreamed himself shooting and killing another pupil in a classroom in the southern Philippines before taking his own life, the second school attack in the country in less than two months.
The shooting took place at a school attached to Ateneo de Zamboanga University in the southern city of Zamboanga, a Catholic private institution in western Mindanao. Zamboanga city’s mayor, Khymer Adan Olaso, told the DZMM radio station that the shooter “managed to enter carrying a high-powered firearm and a .45-calibre pistol”.
Attorneys for Ábrego, who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador, say the DoJ’s appeal was ‘flat wrong’
The Trump administration has asked a federal appeals court to reinstate criminal charges against Kilmar Ábrego García that were dismissed in May by a judge who said the prosecution of the man who unwittingly became a symbol of the White House’s mass deportation campaign was “vindictive in nature”.
In a filing to the US sixth circuit court of appeals, the justice department insisted that human smuggling allegations against Ábrego are genuine – and not retaliation for challenging his wrongful deportation to El Salvador in March 2025.
Tech Transparency Project’s report shows whenever governments mull platform regulations, company recruits influencers to promote its safety features
In July 2025, Meta gathered parenting influencers from all over Australia at a waterfront venue overlooking the Sydney Opera House. It was a camping-themed event and in many ways was like any other influencer affair. There were Instagram-branded tents to take pictures in, an Instagram-branded step-and-repeat, a custom-tote making station and Instagram-branded snacks and coffee cups.
But this “screen smart” event wasn’t about the photo op.
Funding boost worth $100,000 has recently materialized in form of new marmot-themed cryptocurrency
Scientists who turned to OnlyFans to help save long-running research into marmots have raised more than $100,000 after harnessing the support of another, very modern, funding avenue – cryptocurrency.
The 60-year project of continuous study of marmots – stout, ground-dwelling rodents that are the largest members of the squirrel family – across the US west was facing termination following science funding cuts imposed by Donald Trump’s administration.
Popular American chat app Discord says it suspended livestreams in line with a Brazilian government order, amid fierce criticism over a 13-year-old girl's death.
Andy Burnham says the UK will continue to “support Ukraine 100%” after Russia threatened consequences after strikes by British-made drones.
The Russian embassy to the UK said on Monday that Britain had been deliberately escalating the Ukraine conflict and the deeper its involvement, “the higher the price it will pay”.
Edward Zimbardi, 59, who had fled US, will appear in court in Los Angeles on wire fraud and money-laundering charges
A man from Flowery Branch, Georgia, has been deported from Fiji to face charges in his home state accusing him of defrauding more than 6,000 investors and causing more than $165m of losses in a cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme, the US attorney in Atlanta said on Monday.
Edward Zimbardi, 59, was indicted on 12 counts of wire fraud, 12 counts of money laundering and one count of money-laundering conspiracy.
Marie Ebert, Alexander Cromie and their pilot died when their aircraft crashed on island of Sifnos
Greek police believe a mechanical fault may have caused a helicopter to crash moments before it was due to land on the island of Sifnos, killing a British couple on honeymoon and the pilot.
Authorities were focusing on Tuesday on the “strange noise” the aircraft, a privately chartered Bell 206, is reported to have made before falling to the ground and exploding on impact.
Critics called it the "anti-transparency" bill. Newsom quietly enacted the controversial part and may now veto the part the rail watchdog says he needs, sources tell CBS California.
Oil prices have risen again after the two-month window to negotiate a peace deal in the US-Israel war on Iran expired on Monday with no end to the conflict in sight.
Iran said on Monday that it would take a more aggressive stance if talks with the US failed, while Donald Trump demanded Tehran “put up the white flag of surrender” in an interview with Fox News.
Some petrol stations are still not passing on changes in wholesale prices quickly enough and more than 1,000 warning letters have been sent to retailers failing to give prices to the Fuel Finder service, the UK competition watchdog has said.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) raised concerns in its latest quarterly update on the fuel market over “passive pricing strategies” used by the majority of retailers, which it said were helping to keep profit margins high amid soaring cost pressures on drivers from the Iran war.
Creators of chase compilations reject any moral qualms and say they show ‘death is waiting’ for those who join war
To many observers they will appear dehumanising and offensive. To many Ukrainians, however, they are a brutal reminder of the fate that awaits Russian soldiers who take part in Vladimir Putin’s invasion, as well as a potent propaganda weapon.
Over the past year and a half, videos of kamikaze drones chasing Russian service personnel to their deaths have become a distinctive genre on social media. They are the brainchild of Robert Brovdi, the head of Ukraine’s unmanned systems forces and founder of “Magyar’s Birds”, named after his call sign.
Several US states have accused Instagram and Facebook’s parent company of deliberately causing young people harm with its products. Plus: the Italian nuns fighting to keep control of their spot in the sun
Good morning. More than half of the states in the US have joined together in an unprecedented lawsuit against Meta that goes to trial on Tuesday, accusing the parent company of Instagram and Facebook of deliberately designing addictive products that lured in young people and caused them harm.
The sweeping legal proceedings could have profound consequences for the company. The attorneys general say that if Meta is found liable, damages could be as high as $200bn – equivalent to the company’s 2025 annual revenue. The lawmakers are also asking that Meta be compelled to change the design of its products to make them safer for children, which may have longer-term effects than a fine.
What is Meta accused of? The 233-page lawsuit, first filed in October 2023, alleges that Meta regularly collects data on children under the age of 13 without parental permission. The lawmakers claim in court documents that Meta “refuses to abandon its use of known harmful features” and that its motives are based solely on profit.
How has Meta responded? Meta denies all allegations and says: “Rather than sticking to the facts or the law, the states have instead decided to chase an outlandish payout. The state AGs may call this a landmark case, but their limited claims are unsubstantiated and their financial demands are vastly disproportionate.”
Why have conditions onboard the ship become contentious? The Lincoln, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier left port from San Diego on 21 November 2025 and has now set a modern record for the longest time at sea without a port call. It has been more than 250 days since it has touched land.
What else is causing concern with US navy ships? A US guided-missile destroyer reportedly spent four days adrift and without power in the South China Sea in July. The USS Benfold was reported to have been towed to Subic Bay in the Philippines.
Sonic’s creators explain how the speedy scamp has kept on running through generations as an enduring avatar of ‘attitude in the face of adversity’
One day in the early 1990s, I came home from university for the weekend and discovered that my dad had bought himself a Sega Mega Drive, bundled with a copy of Sonic the Hedgehog 2. I knew about Sega’s mascot of course. The launch of the original Sonic the Hedgehog game in 1991 was a landmark moment for the company, massively boosting the sales of its 16bit console in the west, ripping market share from the dominant Super Nintendo. While Mario was the family favourite, Sonic with his speed, attitude and brash visual energy encapsulated the edgy spirit of the early 1990s MTV culture. That weekend, Dad and I did little else but team up for daylong Sonic sessions, the game’s two-player mode letting us play cooperatively as we zoomed through those dense, beautiful play zones.
Thirty-five years later, I am still a Sonic fan. There have been plenty of rough times (Sonic 06, Sonic and the Secret Rings, Sonic Free Riders – sorry, I can’t go on), but there have been plenty of good ones too. (Rush, Mania and Colors, and I have a soft spot for Sonic R, a racer developed by Traveller’s Tales, which went on to make the Lego games). Few people know this rollercoaster better than Takashi Iizuka, who worked on Sonic 3 as a designer and has been series producer for almost 20 years. When he joined Sega in 1992 he wanted to work for the company’s arcade division, but after playing the original Sonic – especially Sonic 2 – he was seduced.
Officials have had to remove thousands of tons of sargassum from Florida’s beaches amid the climate crisis
Dealing with seaweed is the bulk of Chris Bumpus’s job during the summer. As chief of conservation for Miami-Dade county’s parks, recreation and open spaces department, Bumpus is in charge of cleaning sargassum off 17 miles (27km) of county beaches. But some days, the odds are stacked against him and his team.
More and more sargassum, a kind of floating brown algae, has been washing up on the beaches of south Florida, west Africa, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean.
Last-minute talks were continuing between the U.S. and Canada in an effort to head off President Trump's plan to impose 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods.
Woodland Trust says trees struggling in drought stress, with older ‘survivors’ disproportionately affected
England’s ancient oak trees are dying in the summer’s extreme heat and dry weather, according to the Woodland Trust, with trees and ecosystems unable to adapt fast enough to the changing climate.
The heatwaves across much of Europe this summer have had a notable impact on crop growth and plant health. To cope with the extreme conditions, many trees are undergoing “early autumn”, wilting and losing their leaves early.
Bruce66423 shares a report from The Guardian: Sainsbury's has paused the use of AI face scanning in one of its stores after a customer was wrongly identified as a shoplifter and ejected from the shop. "I was embarrassed, mortified even, and felt quite humiliated and powerless," Matt Arnold, 46, said of his ordeal. The comedy promoter was buying supplies in the store in East Dulwich, in south-east London, for a standup event at Dulwich Hamlet football club when, after scanning his items and a Nectar card, he was approached by two managers who told him he could not be served owing to an earlier incident. He was then asked to leave and they tried to escort him from the store.
As he left, he saw an overhead CCTV monitor alert with a red circle surrounding his face. He asked the shop staff to keep his shopping in the trolley so his friend could come and pick up the supplies for the comedy night happening soon next door. "I think they were quite confused by this, understandably, but agreed and my colleague Dave went in to pay for and pick up the shop about five minutes later. There was no pause for thought from the staff, no suggestion that they understood this is not how a shoplifter would behave. Just blindly following the machine's orders." Sainsbury's head office apologised to Arnold the next day and has paused use of its AI-assisted Facewatch technology in the store while an investigation takes place. Arnold says the facial recognition tech should be paused in all stores. "Anyone could be falsely accused and at some point that will be someone vulnerable, someone with mental health issues like anxiety. It's inevitable," said Arnold. "Also, I would worry about the confidence-destroying effect of it happening to a younger person or someone less willing or able to stand up for themselves as I have done."
A Sainsbury's spokesperson said: "We have contacted Mr Arnold to apologise for his experience at our Dulwich superstore. The incident was caused by human error, not the facial recognition technology. Customers can be reassured that the Facewatch system has a 99.98% accuracy rate, and every match is reviewed by a trained manager." A Facewatch spokesperson said their technology was not at fault in this case. "A correct alert was sent to the retailer, but was subsequently subject to human error in the way it was handled in store," they said.
Case of Abderrahim Fakir is first in which legal shield giving police greater protection from prosecution has been invoked
If, before 19 July, few people in Italy beyond his family and friends knew who Abderrahim Fakir was, by the late afternoon of that day the final moments of his life were being watched across the country.
Video footage widely shared online showed him being handcuffed and forcibly restrained by police on a street in Pilastro, a neighbourhood in the north-east of Bologna.
Government borrowing costs in several advanced economies continued to rise to levels not seen in decades on Tuesday, as hopes of an end to the US-Iran war faded.
Shopping baskets took on a decidedly summery complexion during last month’s heatwaves as consumers filled up on a British picnic staple: picky bits, and grocery inflation slowed.
Spending rose on foods such as potato salad, olives and coleslaw, while ice-cream sales also increased, according to new data from Worldpanel by Numerator, a market research company.
PALM BEACH, Florida — President Donald Trump voted by mail in Florida’s Republican primary Tuesday, even as he continues pushing to sharply restrict the same voting method nationwide and repeatedly claims, without evidence, that mail ballots are inherently vulnerable to fraud.
Palm Beach County records show Trump requested a mail ballot in late July and returned it Aug. 13. The White House defended his decision by pointing out that Trump’s proposed restrictions would preserve exceptions for voters who are traveling. (thehill.com)
The irony is difficult to miss. Trump has repeatedly described mail-in voting as “crooked,” “cheating” and a source of widespread election fraud, despite no evidence of systemic fraud sufficient to alter national election outcomes. Reuters has noted that Trump has pushed those claims for years while using mail voting himself.
Trump’s administration is currently asking the Supreme Court to allow implementation of an executive order tightening mail-ballot procedures before the November midterms. Federal judges have blocked key provisions, finding that the president lacks authority to unilaterally regulate state election procedures.
The administration’s March order would require states to provide approved mail-voter lists and directs the Postal Service to restrict delivery of ballots that do not meet federal requirements. The White House says the measures are intended to improve election security.
Trump also voted by mail in a Florida special election earlier this year while publicly denouncing the practice, making Tuesday’s ballot another example of him personally using a system he portrays as fundamentally suspect.
LOUISVILLE, Kentucky — A 21-year-old Louisville woman was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement while attending a scheduled interview for a marriage-based green card, separating her from her U.S.-citizen husband and their 19-month-old son.
Armelle Bondonga arrived legally from the Democratic Republic of Congo as a child in 2013 but remained after her visitor visa expired. Her attorney, Arianit Osmani, said Bondonga later became part of her father’s asylum proceedings and is now pursuing legal permanent residency through her marriage to Terrance Bradshaw.
Bondonga appeared voluntarily for the Aug. 12 USCIS interview. Bradshaw said the meeting initially appeared to be proceeding normally before ICE agents separated the couple and detained his wife.
ICE said Bondonga received a final removal order from an immigration judge on Nov. 6, 2025, and defended the arrest by saying she had overstayed her visa. Her attorney says separate proceedings involving her family’s earlier asylum case remain unresolved and is seeking an administrative stay to prevent deportation while those issues and her marriage petition are considered.
Local reporting also indicates attorneys are considering a habeas corpus petition challenging her continued detention. A marriage to a U.S. citizen can provide a pathway to permanent residency, but it does not automatically erase an existing removal order.
Bondonga remains detained in Indiana while her attorneys seek to keep her in the country long enough for her pending legal claims to be reviewed.
Kareem’s Quote of the Day: A faithful copy of the world can’t compare with art that displays the imagination to understand it.
The Intersection of Tastelessness and Nepotism: A government museum’s new patriotism exhibit shows what happens when politics replace artistic judgment.
Disgrace on the USS Lincoln: Sailors enduring a punishing deployment deserve leaders who recognize that exhaustion is more than a public-relations problem.
The 2026 Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Induction: This year’s inductees remind us that basketball’s greatest achievements aren’t earned alone.
Basquiat, directed by Julian Schnabel: Jeffrey Wright gives this visually vivid but occasionally crowded portrait of Jean-Michel Basquiat the humanity it needs.
“Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered,” Ella Fitzgerald: A witty Rodgers and Hart lament becomes something braver—a woman hearing herself clearly at last.
Kareem’s Quote of the Day
“If hand-painting does not correspond with the natural optics, then it should be made illegal by a decree from the state.” - Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), German dictator
“You don’t paint what you see, you paint what you feel.” - Romare Bearden (1911-1988), American visual artist
(Romare Bearden Foundation)
Here we have two contrasting philosophies of painting. The first is by a failed artist who wanted to inflict his ideas about art (and everything else) on the entire world. The second is by an artist who understood that true art is always an act of interpretation, not reproduction. Today, anyone with a smartphone can reproduce an exact likeness of the world. But even in the Vienna of the early twentieth century, when Hitler tried and failed to make a living as a painter, people who could paint the world as it appeared on its surface were a dime a dozen—or, rather, a heller a hundred. But a true artist’s job is to offer up an image of the world filtered through their skills, their imagination, and their vision of the world. That’s what Picasso did, and Chagall, two painters born on the same continent and in the same decade as Hitler, who succeeded as artists, and are remembered today far more fondly than their Austrian contemporary.
Romare Bearden was a true artist. He was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1911, but his family moved to Harlem when he was a toddler as part of the Great Migration. His father was a grocer and a pianist, his mother a journalist and the founder and leader of the Colored Women’s Democratic League, and their home was a meeting place of many of the key figures of the Harlem Renaissance. In the early 1930s, Bearden attended Lincoln University, the nation’s second-oldest historically Black college, then transferred to Boston University before returning to New York to study at NYU. His degree was in science and education, but his heart was already leading him in another direction. He began to study at the Art Students League and worked as a cartoonist for African-American newspapers like The Baltimore Afro-American.
He was also a talented athlete: at BU, he was the football team’s starting fullback and pitched for the school’s baseball team. Legend has it that Connie Mack offered him a Major League contract with the Philadelphia Athletics in the early 1930s, more than a decade before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, on the condition that the light-skinned Bearden pass as white—something Bearden was unwilling to do.
As he developed his artistic style in the 1930s and ‘40s, he supported himself as a case worker for the Harlem office of the New York City Department of Social Services, a job that gave him a particular window into the city life that would become his abiding subject. He also served in the U.S. Army in Europe during World War II.
He was one of the era’s great expressionists, a style “in which the artist seeks to depict not objective reality but rather the subjective emotions and responses that objects and events arouse within a person,” according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Incorporating the influence of jazz, cubism, and photomontage, one of his signature styles was a collage that layered cut paper, photographs, and paint to depict aspects of community, spirituality, and struggle, combining scenes of Harlem life and Southern memory into a unified vision.
Yet, Bearden didn’t see himself as a pioneer of African-American art. “Black art has always existed,” he said. “It just hasn’t been looked for in the right places.” That was a generous point of view. More likely, it hadn’t been looked for at all. The museums, critics, auction houses, and schools that were the gatekeepers of the era simply weren’t interested in visiting the regions or neighborhoods where Black art was being made. When they finally did make those trips, they classified their “discoveries” as folk art, a form of segregation that put those artists in their own lesser corner as gifted primitives, rather than center stage with the real artists.
Bearden understood the institutional weight of that frame, and the way it diminished the value of the canvases it contained. If the existing rooms wouldn’t display his people’s work, he would help build new rooms that would. He helped found Spiral, a collective of Black artists, as well as Cinque Gallery, and the Black Academy of Arts and Letters. I learned a lot of this story as a teenager when I wandered into the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and read about the Harlem Renaissance. An entire movement of painters, writers, and musicians was sitting right there in plain sight, though the mainstream culture had given me no reason to look for it. I had assumed that silence meant absence, but it was just another form of prejudice. Inside that library, I found poetry, paintings, and music, all organized, dated, and undeniable. An empty space in my education suddenly overflowed.
Health data appears to be most affected by administration’s attempt to wipe findings that don’t align with its priorities, tracker shows
A database of federal law enforcement officer misconduct records. A survey measuring physical, sexual and emotional violence against children and youth. Real-time pollution readings collected by air quality monitors from US embassies around the world.
These are among the hundreds of federal datasets that the Trump administration has taken down or altered as part of its aggressive campaign to wipe all mentions of data findings that do not align with the administration’s priorities.
Mohammad Ali Kialha’s first hours were all he knew of peace. He was born on February 26 in Iran’s capital, Tehran. Two days later, President Donald Trump began his war on that country. “Bombs will be dropping everywhere,” Trump wrote on social media on February 28.
That day, the U.S. attacked the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school in Minab, killing more than 150 people, most of them children. In the weeks that followed, tens of thousands more would be killed or wounded in U.S.–Israeli strikes, according to World Health Organization estimates. Since a June ceasefire collapsed and the U.S. resumed attacks, Iran’s Health Ministry says U.S. strikes have killed or wounded more than 650 people.
Mohammad’s parents — Fatemeh Rostami, known to her family as Hannaneh, and Ali, her husband — brought him home to their apartment in eastern Tehran’s Pirouzi neighborhood. Despite the danger, Hannaneh’s mother, Tahereh Sarbaz, traveled almost 100 miles from the city of Qazvin to meet her newborn grandson, as Trump lobbed threats and missiles at Tehran. “Today Iran will be hit very hard! Under serious consideration for complete destruction and certain death, because of Iran’s bad behavior, are areas and groups of people that were not considered for targeting up until this moment in time,” he wrote on Truth Social on March 7. Sarbaz witnessed the destruction that week and felt a blast wave firsthand while driving through the capital. “I was in Tehran. I saw what happened there,” she recalled. “People were being bombed every night. Families everywhere were losing their children.”
Pirouzi, a crowded working- to middle-class residential area, with a major shopping mall, hospital, sports complex, and several transit hubs, is home to around 600,000 people. When the war erupted, it was hit hard. As U.S. and Israeli munitions laid waste to buildings there, people flooded into the streets — Hannaneh’s family among them — seeking safety. Ali was still going to work each day but suggested that Hannaneh and the children decamp for the relative safety of Qazvin, which was not attacked nearly as much as the capital. “My daughter refused,” Sarbaz recalled. “She told him, ‘I will not leave you here alone.’”
Sarbaz eventually headed across town, to northern Tehran, where her son, Mehdi Rostami, lived with his wife and their three children, thinking it would be safer. After a short visit, she returned, alone, to Qazvin.
On March 17, Sarbaz checked in with Hannaneh by phone. “I called her and asked how she and the baby were doing,” Sarbaz said. “I asked whether the fighter jets were still coming. Whether she was afraid. Whether there was a lot of noise. And I told her to be careful.”
“Mother, the thing you were afraid of has happened.”
The next day, Rostami’s whole family traveled across Tehran to visit Hannaneh and her children. Not long after, Sarbaz received a call from another daughter-in-law. “She sounded extremely distressed. She was trying to prepare me for something,” Sarbaz recalled. “Finally, I asked her, ‘What happened? Why are you so worried?’” The daughter-in-law said: “Mother, the thing you were afraid of has happened.”
Sarbaz was initially so stunned that she couldn’t process the news. It wasn’t until other family members broke down in tears that she could comprehend the enormity of her loss. An airstrike hit Hannaneh’s apartment building while her brother’s family was visiting. The attack killed Rostami; his wife, Manzar al-Sadat Zarrabadi; and their three children: Ali, 13; Fatemeh, 9; and Zeynab, 7. Also slain were Hannaneh and her two children: Mohammad Hassan Kialha, 7, and Mohammad Ali Kialha, who was just 20 days old. Ali, Hannaneh’s husband, survived; he was out at the time of the attack.
“They told me that my family in Tehran had been killed,” Sarbaz said. “Inside, I was heartbroken.”
Dr. Nader Azadeh, a high-ranking official with the Tehran Fire Department, was coordinating emergency response and rescue operations in the capital following airstrikes and deployed to the Pirouzi neighborhood just after the attack on the family’s apartment building. Amid all the carnage he witnessed over weeks of war in Tehran, the toll on the Rostami family — eight dead — had a lasting impact on him. He said he could not forget the scale of their loss.
A rescue worker who participated in the response said that the entire building was demolished by the strike. He estimated that 30 people, in total, died. It took hours to unearth what was left of the family and other victims from the rubble. Most of the dead had been exhumed when neighbors explained that an infant was still somewhere under the debris, prompting the search to begin anew. Hours later, they finally located the tiny body, he recalled.
No one knows how many survivors in Iran are grieving over loved ones killed in Trump’s war. Global attention has focused on Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school — almost to the exclusion of the other schools, homes, hospitals, apartment buildings, and other civilian sites damaged or destroyed in other U.S.–Israeli strikes. The U.S. military has used this tunnel vision to its advantage, advancing the farcical claim that the elementary school strike is the only incident of civilian harm during the entire conflict. “There is one active civilian casualty investigation from the 13,629 munitions,” Adm. Brad Cooper, the chief of U.S. Central Command, told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee in May.
CENTCOM has continued these claims in response to queries from The Intercept. “We have no new updates at this time pertaining to current investigations or munitions that were expended during Operation Epic Fury,” a spokesperson said.
Asked if CENTCOM was aware of any allegations of civilian harm in Iran on or about March 18, the command dodged the question. “The U.S. military takes all reports of civilian harm seriously,” a defense official told The Intercept. “All allegations of civilian harm reported to CENTCOM have been reviewed.”
While CENTCOM was tight-lipped, Sarbaz refused to stay silent. “I want people around the world to know that civilians died in this conflict. I want people around the world to know that the president of the United States, a man mired in corruption and scandal, came and took my children from me,” she told The Intercept. “What crime had my 20-day-old grandchild committed?”
The funeral of 20-day-old Mohammad Ali Kialha in Qazvin, Iran, on March 23, 2026.Photo: Azam Dadashi/ISNA Photo
It’s unclear if Hannaneh and Ali’s apartment building was the intended object of a U.S. or Israeli strike, a targeting error, or so-called collateral damage. The family says it knows of no regime officials who resided in the building or military uses of the site.
The Israel Defense Forces announced it killed “Mehdi Rostami Shamastam, one of the key commanders in Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence” in Tehran on the same day that Mehdi Rostami and his family lost their lives in Hannaneh’s apartment. Sarbaz said her son was an academic, not an intelligence official. “I deny this,” she said of the assertion. “My son was a university professor. But if what Israel claims were true, I would be very glad.”
Sarbaz said that if her son was, in fact, a top intelligence chief, killing him alongside his family, including a baby, would make it an even graver atrocity. “The presence of a 20-day-old infant among the victims, and the killing of eight members of one family, is such an enormous crime,” she said. “Why didn’t they target him in the street?”
Following the attack, the Iranian regime did not treat Mehdi Rostami as it often does senior commanders or influential figures killed in enemy strikes, making no public acknowledgment of his service to the state. Mehdi and Rostami are also common names. The Israeli military did not respond to multiple requests for clarification if the Mehdi Rostami Shamastam it referenced and Mehdi Rostami were the same person. CENTCOM did not respond to multiple requests for comment on whether it or Israeli forces had conducted airstrikes in Tehran’s Pirouzi neighborhood on March 18.
The strike that killed the Rostami family was part of an unrelenting blitz. The U.S. and Israel struck more than 17,000 separate targets in 40 days — a rate of strikes near unprecedented in modern conflict, according to the civilian harm monitoring group Airwars. In the first 24 hours of the war alone, the U.S. said it had struck more than 1,000 targets, and Israel 500. A May 18 report by Human Rights Activists in Iran counted 12,798 “unique attacks” by the U.S. or Israel, 77 percent of them involving civilian harm or damage to civilian infrastructure.
The U.S. bears some responsibility for all attacks as the chief of the coalition attacking Iran. “Only the United States of America could lead this,” self-styled War Secretary Pete Hegseth said on March 4. “But when you add the Israeli Defense Forces, a devastatingly capable force, the combination is sheer destruction for our radical Islamist Iranian adversaries. … Fighting shoulder to shoulder with such a capable ally is a true force multiplier and a breath of fresh air.”
After initially striking Iranian military assets in the opening rounds of the war, the U.S. shifted to targeting civilian infrastructure, Sina Toossi, a senior nonresident fellow at the Center for International Policy specializing in U.S.–Iran relations, told The Intercept. Targets included oil facilities; steel and pharmaceutical plants; universities; and even the headquarters of Iran’s space program. He noted that bridges were targeted, killing civilians as well as first responders.
This summer, as a second ceasefire imploded and Iran stepped up attacks on U.S. bases causing large numbers of casualties, Trump has increasingly unleashed unhinged rants, including threats to attack civilian infrastructure such as bridges and power plants, that would “affect 91 million people.”
In July, Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., cajoled chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine into what seemed like a half-hearted pledge to “not target, even in retaliatory sense, infrastructure that is generally considered to be primarily for civilian survival.” The very next day, Trump announced that “any time the Islamic Republic of Iran shoots at a ship in the Strait of Hormuz … the United States will bomb and destroy ONE BRIDGE OR POWER PLANT, including those located next to, or in, the Capital City of Tehran.”
Harrison Mann, a former U.S. Army officer and intelligence official and now the associate director for campaigns and policy at Win Without War, drew specific attention to the attacks on the bridges and water reservoirs. It is “quite dangerous to be conditioning the U.S. military to carry out orders that are clearly war crimes,” he warned.
The World Health Organization puts the Iranian casualty toll at an estimated 37,181, including 3,375 deaths. Iranian state and semi-official media reported similar figures, just under 3,500 killed. Mansoureh Mills, a regional researcher with Amnesty International, noted that earlier government figures put the civilian toll at roughly 45 percent of the total, including 383 children.
The total number of U.S.–Israeli strikes on apartment buildings is unknown, but certainly significant. Reports of civilian harm were recorded every day from the beginning of the war on February 28 to the first ceasefire on April 8, according to Airwars. This includes six strikes on March 18, the day that the Rostami family was killed. Airwars found that civilians were frequently slain in attacks on residential areas, with such strikes accounting for 147 out of the 297 — almost 50 percent — of the civilian harm incidents it tracked. Eighty-seven of these took place in Tehran province. A Washington Post investigation, relying on data from the Institute for the Study of War, counted 285 attacks across Tehran with strikes “blanket[ing] almost a third of all neighborhoods, some with upward of 11 strikes.”
“To kill one person, they bombed a 14-story residential building and killed somewhere between 50 and 200 people living there.”
Azadeh, the fire department official, recalled chaotic and emotionally overwhelming nights of bombardment that killed untold numbers of civilians. In one attack on an apartment building in central Tehran, on the first day of the war, he recalled the death of a mother, her daughter, and the child’s grandmother. In another strike on a 10-unit apartment building in the Pirouzi neighborhood, he recounted the slaying of most of its residents, including seven children and teenagers. “When our rescue teams arrived, the force of the explosion had thrown many of the bodies into the street,” Azadeh said.
Azadeh drew specific attention to the death of Saeed Shamghadri, an academic killed with his son and daughter in an attack on their home in northern Tehran in March. “To kill one person, they bombed a 14-story residential building and killed somewhere between 50 and 200 people living there,” Azadeh said. “To eliminate one person, many civilians were attacked.”
When asked how many civilians have been killed in U.S. strikes and, if the military did not know the answer, to explain why, CENTCOM told The Intercept: “The U.S. military does not deliberately target civilians.” After being told that response didn’t address the question, Maj. Emma Thompson, the command’s media operations chief, said CENTCOM had “nothing additional to add.”
The WHO estimates that 229 healthcare centers, 49 hospitals, and 78 pharmaceutical facilities, laboratories, and warehouses were damaged in U.S.–Israeli strikes. “While I was on my way to my son’s house, Gandhi Hospital came under attack,” said Sarbaz of the medical facility in northern Tehran that saw its entire front facing torn off in a March 1 strike. Sarbaz said that the massive shockwave from the explosion rocked the car she was in. “The media are lying when they say ordinary people were not targeted. Gandhi Hospital, where pregnant women were present, was also attacked.” Videos of the private hospital, known for fertility treatments, show it sustained significant damage, and government sources noted it had to evacuate patients, including babies in incubators.
These attacks came after Hegseth’s Pentagon spent a year slashing measures to prevent civilian casualties, including firing the military’s top lawyers, who advise leaders on international laws of armed conflict. “U.S. strikes on civilian infrastructure in Iran, including the elementary school in Minab, have been absolutely devastating and completely inexcusable,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., told The Intercept. “I continue to have deep concerns about how the school in particular was targeted, especially as the strike was deliberately planned for the first day of the conflict and did not occur amid the fog of war. Secretary Hegseth’s catastrophic cuts to civilian harm mitigation efforts at the Department of Defense and his disdain for the rules of engagement will only continue to put innocent men, women, and children in danger.”
A group of Democratic lawmakers told Hegseth in a July letter that his “gutting civilian harm mitigation and response (CHMR) efforts” has left the Pentagon unable to “comply with the law and its congressionally-mandated CHMR responsibilities.” They added: “The Trump administration — potentially in violation of federal law — has defunded and impeded civilian protection efforts.”
That letter, sent by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Gillibrand, and eight other lawmakers, echoed concerns raised by a War Department inspector general report that described civilian protection efforts as largely “inactive.” The May report by the Pentagon’s top watchdog says cuts to civilian harm mitigation and response efforts have been so severe under Hegseth that the United States cannot adequately protect civilians in conflict zones or track harm when it occurs.
These criticisms were echoed in an as-yet-unreleased official report revealed by The Intercept that found Hegseth’s Pentagon gutted its premier center devoted to preventing civilian casualties in war zones. The War Department’s Civilian Protection Center of Excellence reduced its staff from 40 personnel in January 2025 to just nine by the end of the year, according to the report. And cuts have been even more catastrophic at the tip of the spear.
When questioned by lawmakers about U.S. attacks on civilian targets in Iran, Caine dismissed the concerns. “We have a robust process which considers a target. It goes through a system that looks at a variety of considerations, to include what you’re alluding to around both purely civilian or dual-use targets,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff chair said. “I have trust and confidence in CENTCOM that they’re looking at the range of those things on a daily basis.”
There are good reasons not to trust that system. The 10-person civilian harm mitigation team at CENTCOM has been reduced to just one individual, according to Cooper, the CENTCOM commander. Another recent yet-to-be-released Pentagon report on civilian casualties noted that 15 attacks in Yemen from early 2025 are still under review by CENTCOM. “How will they get through hundreds of cases for Iran if their one civilian harm person still hasn’t finished Yemen?” a U.S. official lamented to The Intercept. Both current and former government officials told The Intercept that the massive cuts have left the Pentagon unable to protect civilians in war zones like Iran.
Asked if anyone would be held accountable for the February strike on the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school, Trump replied in June: “No. If it was a fault — and as you know that’s under investigation. It’s such a strange question to be asked at this date. You’re talking about a long time ago.”
The Rostami family was large and close-knit. Sarbaz said that 16 children and grandchildren made a pilgrimage from Tehran to Qazvin every Friday. “We would spread a large tablecloth and eat together,” she said. After the bodies of her children and grandchildren were pulled from the rubble, the eight deceased made a last trip to their ancestral home for a funeral procession and burial.
A large crowd gathered outside Sarbaz’s home on March 23. “They were crying,” she recalled. “People came from everywhere. They were chanting ‘Death to America’ and mourning my children.” Azadeh, who accompanied the bodies back to Qazvin, recalls being deeply affected as Sarbaz received the corpses. “When we returned the bodies, I saw the mother arrive carrying an Iranian flag. She was the only surviving immediate family member there,” he said of Sarbaz. “She said the reason she was crying was because she herself had not been martyred alongside them.”
Footage from Iranian state television of the martyrs’ procession shows a huge crowd with women pushing children in strollers, men waving Iranian flags, and others carrying poster-sized photos of the dead, behind decorated funeral trucks bearing the bodies of the victims. Photos from the Iranian Students’ News Agency show crowds carrying coffins wrapped in the green, red, and white of the Iranian flag and a cleric clad in a black robe and turban holding the body of a white-shrouded baby aloft.
The funeral was attended by thousands of people, Sarbaz remembered.
Mourners at the funeral of Mohammad Ali Kialha in Qazvin, Iran, on March 23, 2026.Photo: Azam Dadashi/ISNA Photo
In June, just after agreeing to a ceasefire that quickly collapsed, Trump returned to threatening to kill Iranians. “If they don’t behave,” he said, “we’ll go right back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their head.” Attacks followed. “We can knock down their bridges in one hour. We can knock out their energy supply,” he said in July. “We can knock out their electricity and power generating plants. … Every plant will be gone.” Later that month, Trump posted: “Every time Iran kills an American Soldier, they will pay for that killing many times over!”
Sarbaz now lives with the fallout of Trump’s war of choice and his disregard for civilian lives. “After three sons, God gave me this daughter, and she was all my hope. We had named her Fatemeh, but because her father loved the name Hannaneh, we used to call her that,” she explained. “But today, I no longer say Hannaneh or Fatemeh.”
As his war in Iran has imploded, Trump has increasingly lashed out, calling for cataclysm, slaughter, and even genocide. “We’re knocking the hell out of it,” he said of Iran earlier this month. “I do not want to kill people. But at some point we’re gonna.” But Trump has already killed many thousands of Iranians — including school children, hospital patients, the elderly, and, in Tehran’s Pirouzi neighborhood on March 18, most of a family, including its youngest member. “Knocking the hell out of them,” said Trump as he continued to rant about his attacks on Iranians last week. Mohammad Ali Kialha was one of those people; perhaps the youngest killed by Trump’s war.
And Sarbaz wants an answer from Trump about why he had to die: “What sin had my 20-day-old grandchild committed that he had to be martyred?”
This article is published in collaboration with Egab.
Why Should Delaware Care? Guatemalan immigrants have established a community in Georgetown — some having been here for decades, and others who recently moved here to reunite with family members and start jobs. The community organizes themselves once a year to remember Tacaná, the town where most Georgetown Guatemalans come from.
Yolanda Mendez remembers having the crown placed on her head that made her queen of the town fair in Ixchiguán, Guatemala, during her teenage years.
Last Saturday, it was her teenage daughter, Jenny Marisol Robles, who was crowned “Reyna de Tacaná,” or Queen of Tacaná, during Georgetown’s annual festival honoring the Guatemalan namesake.
Despite being thousands of miles away from their birth place, Guatemalan natives like Mendez have managed to keep a piece of their home through the Feria Internacional Tacaná — a yearly cultural event that features traditional Marimba music, dance groups and several soccer tournaments to remember the small town where they migrated from.
This event in Georgetown mirrors a festival taking place on the same day in Tacaná, which falls every year on Aug. 15 and honors the Virgin Mary. Both are filled with the same music, food and dances that could be seen in Georgetown on Saturday.
Amel Lopez, another Guatemalan native living in Georgetown, remembers the mountains overlooking Tacaná that brought in fresh cool air and were filled with vegetation.
This year, he continued to honor those memories with his fruit stand selling cut up watermelons, mangos, cucumbers and traditional Guatemalan snacks like raspados, or fruit-flavored water ice.
Lopez still recalls the days he took part in Tacaná’s soccer tournaments that characterized the annual festival.
“This reminds me of when I was little, and although we didn’t have an official soccer ball like they do right now, but at least we had a soccer ball we made from nylon rags when we were little,” Lopez said. “Even if it wasn’t real, it was still soccer.”
A little Tacaná
Kevin Santizo, a Guatemalan native, has lived in southern Delaware for about 20 years. When he first came, Guatemalans were far and few in between. Those numbers have more than doubled, he said.
Hispanics make up around half the town’s population. By Santizo’s estimates, around 3,000 are from Guatemala. And of these, most migrated from Tacaná or San Marcos, mountainous regions located near Mexico’s southern border.
Some Guatemalans have been here for decades, like Santizo and Lopez, who have been here for 22 years.
Others have migrated more recently.
Florencio, one of four music players who filled the crowd’s ear with traditional music characterized by the fluctuating pitches of wooden Marimba bars, has been in Georgetown for two years.
Florencio was joined by three other musicians who played traditional Marimba music characterized by the long percussion instrument. He felt the most “Chapin” or Guatemalan when people began requesting songs from their childhood, he said. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY CRISTAL SANCHEZ
He took turns playing the Marimba and the drums. He said participating in the festival makes him feel more “chapino,” an endearing term for being Guatemalan.
“May we never forget where we came from or who we are,” Florencio said. “I am not ashamed of where I come from the mountain ranges, I grew up there and I am not ashamed because I might be here today but perhaps tomorrow or the day after that I’ll be in Guatemala.”
Florencio is currently undergoing a legal process to obtain residency. His story resonated with other attendees who came to the U.S. escaping poverty and violent situations in parts of Guatemala.
A business-minded community
Guatemalans in Georgetown work across a variety of industries.
Ziulin Moreno, a Venezuelan native, is a business coach at La Plaza, a nonprofit in Georgetown that helps Hispanic entrepreneurs. Her first community event after moving to Georgetown in 2023 was the Feria Internacional Tacaná, where she quickly learned what characterizes the large Guatemalan community.
Moreno said she has seen many Guatemalan immigrants go from being employees to employers, particularly in the construction industry, commercial cleaning service and the food business.
“Latinos have a reputation of being very hardworking, but in the case of the Guatemalan community, they are not only hardworking but also perseverant — and that is important,” Moreno said. “Many of them started with small businesses, yet they remained steadfast in their efforts. And today, I truly see successful businesses run by Guatemalans.”
Sebastiana Mendez, Robles’ grandmother, attended the festival not only to witness her two grandchildren carry their crowns, but also to sell chuchitos — traditional, savory Guatemalan corn tamales with chicken or pork. She goes around to different grocery stores on a weekly basis selling the typical street food.
Sebastiana Mendez had her own stand with homemade chuchitos, a savory Guatemalan treats wrapped in corn husk and elote or corn. Mendez said she enjoys making them week-by-week and sharing these home-cooked foods with Georgetown’s Guatemalan population. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY CRISTAL SANCHEZ
The fair’s sponsors included local construction groups, painting services and car repair shops.
Political landscape decreases participation
Santizo, one of the fair’s organizers, said participation has been dwindling since President Donald Trump took office two years ago.
At its peak, Santizo said the event would bring in upwards of 5,000 people. When Spotlight Delaware spoke to him the day before this year’s event, he hoped at least 2,000 would show up.
Santizo even made changes to this year’s fair to encourage attendance, like making the celebration free of charge, focusing more on his partnerships with local businesses and leaning heavily on social media promotion.
Lopez said he also has felt the decrease in attendance from his fruit stand.
“It’s a little sad to be honest, what’s going on in our community,” Lopez said. “But a lot of people, despite what’s been going on, have the bravery and strength to go out, and that’s what’s most important.”
Attendees said other predominantly Hispanic events have also been affected.
Moreno, the business coach from La Plaza, said parents are hesitant to let their children attend events, fearful they will be racially profiled for their Latin features, even if they are U.S. citizens.
It is a fear that resonates with Moreno. Her own 19-year-old nephew was arrested by U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement in Newark earlier this year. Moreno’s family has since been able to bring him home after the attempted deportation.
The community is not only attending fewer events, they are also becoming more distrustful, said Yamaris Zabzla, a coordinator with the nonprofit organization Abriendo Puertas/Open Doors, which offers help to victims of domestic violence.
“Our hotline calls have diminished, too, because the victim has fear of calling because they think we are going to report them to [ICE],” Zabzla said.
Despite this, the community remains eager to carry on their traditions, especially to the new generation of Guatemalans in the U.S.
“It’s thanks to God that they want to continue this when they are young women,” Sebastiana Mendez said of her two grandchildren who took part in this year’s coronation for Reyna de Tacaná in Georgetown. “They put the example for other young women to get closer to their culture and participate because we are all children of God.”
The festival also chooses a specific cause to fundraise for each year. In the past, donations were used to help fund the construction of a church in Tacaná. This year, vendors were encouraged to donate part of their earnings to Hospital Los Angelitos, a local hospital in Tacaná that offers free medical services to its patients.
The festival is set to continue next year in Georgetown.
For now, festival organizers share updates on their Facebook page — from events in both Tacaná and Georgetown, to soccer matches and images and videos of Tacaná’s festivities — to further connect the Delaware community with its Guatemalan roots.
Why Should Delaware Care? Proposed data centers could have major impacts on electric bills and water use in New Castle County. Three primary races for New Castle County Council seats could shape the future of the debate over how to regulate the facilities beyond rules passed earlier this year.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the district number that Syam Kosigi and Valerie George are running in. The story has been updated.
The debate in northern Delaware over how best to regulate data centers has reemerged this primary election season between candidates for the New Castle County Council.
And whoever ultimately wins could have outsized influence over the future of data center policy in the county.
Two seats in contention this year are currently held by retiring council members Janet Kilpatrick and Penrose Hollins. Earlier this year, each voted against a narrowly rejected measure that would have retroactively imposed new data center regulations onto projects that had already been submitted to the county – including the controversial Delaware City data center project, known as Project Washington.
Another of the no votes on the measure, Valerie George, also is facing a primary challenger.
Now, each of the three races for those council seats includes one candidate who wants to impose the county’s new stricter data center rules onto Project Washington, as well as other existing data center plans.
The others argued that such retroactivity moves may not be legal or effective. The policy split also extends to a potential county moratorium on new data center land-use applications.
Primary Election Delaware’s primary election will be held from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 15, with early voting running from Sept. 2 to 13. Polls are closed Sept. 6 and 7 for the Labor Day holiday. The new voter registration deadline for the primary is Aug. 22.
The debate, which has played out largely on social media, has grown testy this month, most recently from dueling posts by candidates Jason Hoover and Curtis Linton, who are seeking to replace Hollins.
Earlier this month, Linton accused his opponent of misleading the public about his stance on a previous county measure to regulate data centers.
“Jason Hoover is playing politics with the truth,” Linton said.
In response, Hoover said Monday that his critique of Linton’s stance on data center regulations was simply taken from comments he made about the measure last year.
“I have relied on primary sources: his own public comment before County Council,” Hoover said in his post.
A year since the Delaware City data center
Jason Hoover, an engineer and web designer, is running for the New Castle County Council. | PHOTO COURTESY OF JASON HOOVER
Last March, New Castle County passed data center regulations that require new data centers to maintain buffer zones around them, and to use energy-efficient backup generators, among other regulations.
Councilman Dave Carter first proposed the rules last summer, after developers submitted their proposal for Project Washington, which would consume 1.2 gigawatts of energy – or roughly the same amount as a million homes.
What followed was a monthslong political fight that largely pitted the Delaware trade unions against an array of individuals concerned about the environmental and affordability impacts of data centers.
Curtis Linton, business manager for the Delaware Laborers Local 199, is running for New Castle County Council. | PHOTO COURTESY OF CURTIS LINTON
The fight hit its height in November when Councilman Tim Sheldon flipped the middle finger at Councilman Kevin Caneco, a data center opponent.
Shortly after that, the debate also veered into electoral politics when a union leader from the Delaware Building Trades announced what became a short-lived challenge to Carter for his seat.
Shortly after that, Linton announced his candidacy.
Although he is also a trade union leader, Linton at the time told Spotlight Delaware that he was not as staunch in his support for data centers as others in organized labor.
Over the months after Carter proposed the regulations, other data center proposals have also been submitted to New Castle County. If all are ultimately built, they collectively could double the state’s electric demand.
What do the candidates think?
There are only three competitive primaries for New Castle County Council seats, and all of them are Democratic.
Syam Kosigi, a former nonprofit executive, is running against the incumbent Valerie George in District 5.
Kira Alejandro and Kyle Grantham are competing to replace Kilpatrick in District 3.
Syam Kosigi, a former nonprofit executive, is running for New Castle County Council. | PHOTO COURTESY OF SYAM KOSIGI
And in the three-way primary for Hollins’ District 4 seat, Helena Creamer is running against Linton and Hoover.
George and Creamer did not respond to requests for an interview.
Kosigi, Hoover and Alejandro all said they support a data center moratorium out of worries that the recently-passed regulations do not do enough to protect residents from potential effects of the facilies to the electric grid and the environment.
Hoover, an engineer and web designer, cited a study that suggested the proposed data centers in New Castle County could raise the wholesale electric rate in Delaware by 80%.
He said he supports the laws the Delaware legislature recently passed to try to put those costs onto the data center companies. But he said the scale of the proposed data centers are so unprecedented that the county needs more time to study their impacts.
“Our laws are clearly not ready for data centers,” Hoover said.
Alejandro, a barista and community advocate, also expressed concerns about electric bills rising, as well as potential environmental impacts of data centers.
“I think [a moratorium] gives us more time to learn about some of these consequences, which are still coming to light,” Alejandro said.
Kira Alejandro, a barista and community advocate, is running for the New Castle County Council. | PHOTO COURTESY OF KIRA ALEJANDRO
Kosigi, an IT professional, said a moratorium would allow the council to create additional regulations with more public input.
“The approach should be bottom up,” Kosigi said.
Kosigi, Hoover and Alejandro said they would use the moratorium to try to figure out a way to make the county’s existing data center regulations apply retroactively to data center projects currently in the pipeline.
Two of the opposing candidates, Linton and Grantham, also said they are worried about the effects of data centers.
Kyle Grantham, a documentary filmmaker, is running for New Castle County Council. | PHOTO COURTESY OF KYLE GRANTHAM
Grantham said he personally dislikes the idea of new data center development and supports further regulations. He also wants the county to look closely at its code for any loopholes data center developers could exploit.
Linton said he is open to the idea of more regulations, but would need to hear the specific proposal and the reasoning behind it.
But Linton and Grantham were both hesitant about the idea of a moratorium, and both opposed making the current data center regulations retroactive.
Grantham, a documentary filmmaker and a former New Castle County communications staffer, said he doesn’t think the moratorium or applying the regulations retroactively would be legal moves.
“We’re probably going to wind up going to court, probably going to spend millions of dollars, and probably lose,” Grantham said.
But he said more regulations may act effectively as a moratorium.
“If we can change those things and make this an area where they’re going to pay their fair way … then this no longer becomes an attractive area,” Grantham said.
Linton, a local union leader, said he may support a moratorium, but he is concerned it may not be effective.
“If we do that, are we actually going to take a deeper dive and research … or are we just going to say we’re putting a freeze on them because we don’t want them here?” he said.
Linton said he would likely oppose making the regulations retroactive because it could discourage other industries from coming to Delaware.
“They might be saying, ‘OK, I don’t know if we want to invest in Delaware because we could be investing, and next thing you know, they change the rules on us,’” Linton said.
Participants race during the 2025 Special Olympics Delaware Cycling Classic. Photo Courtesy of Special Olympics Delaware.
The Special Olympics Delaware Annual Cycling Classic will be held on August 22, at DelDOT’s Danner Campus in Dover.
Special Olympics Delaware announced that the 2026 Special Olympics Delaware Cycling Classic will be held at the Danner Campus located in Dover, Delaware, on Saturday, August 22, via a press release on August 13.
The event will bring over 90 athletes and 30 coaches from Delaware and surrounding states to the campus to compete in multiple different cycling events. The other states represented in the event are Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia, according to the release.
“Cycling showcases so much more than athletic achievement. Behind every athlete is a network of coaches, family members, volunteers, and supporters who help make success possible,” said Director of Sports & Area Engagement for Special Olympics Delaware, Kylie Lavelle, via the press release. “The encouragement athletes receive throughout training and competition builds confidence, creates meaningful connections, and reinforces the sense of belonging that is at the heart of Special Olympics. It’s inspiring to see our community come together to celebrate each athlete’s accomplishments both on and off the course.”
The event will start at 8:00 a.m. with registration and warm-ups for participants. The opening ceremonies will begin at 9:30 a.m. and the racing will start at 10:00 a.m. The event will end around 3:00 p.m.
Awards for racers will be given out throughout the day.
To learn more about the event and Special Olympics Delaware check out their website here.
A great and concise history of the run-up to MS-DOS 2.0.
Yet, there was a nagging feeling that a single-tasking CP/M clone was inadequate for the new generation of personal computers. Digital Research released multi-user, multitasking MP/M-86 in September 1981 and announced the single‑user multitasking Concurrent CP/M in early 1982. In response, Microsoft came up with a plan for tiered approach to its operating systems: single-user/single-tasking MS-DOS at the bottom; multi-user/multitasking XENIX at the top; and in the middle, something called XEDOS: a single-user version of XENIX. This “pyramid of upward-compatible operating systems” was announced in a Byte Magazine editorial in January 1982.
I’ve always found this tiered approach fascinating, and the world surely would’ve looked quite different had Microsoft been able to make it work. I doubt Windows NT would ever have existed, and most of the world would probably be running a XENIX-based Windows today (all else being equal, which is of course unlikely and silly). Regardless, MS-DOS 2.0 contained a few UNIX-like utilities to deal with its brand new support for directory trees and other new features, and even had a /dev directory.
ATLANTA, Georgia — Vaccination rates among Georgia kindergarteners remain below 90% for several major childhood diseases, while vaccine exemptions continue to rise, according to newly released federal data.
For the 2025-2026 school year, roughly 89% of Georgia kindergarteners were vaccinated against diseases including measles, diphtheria and polio. That was an improvement from about 87% the previous year, but still below the national rate of roughly 92%. (cdc.gov)
At the same time, about 5.1% of Georgia kindergarteners received vaccine exemptions, up from 4.8% a year earlier. Only 0.1% were medical exemptions, meaning most were granted for other reasons allowed under state law.
The trend matters because measles is highly contagious and requires very high vaccination coverage to prevent sustained spread. Georgia’s current rate remains below the level generally associated with strong population protection. More than 2,500 measles cases have been reported nationally this year, according to the CDC. (cdc.gov)
The data arrives amid a broader political fight over childhood vaccines. President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order seeking changes to federal vaccine guidance and challenging states that restrict religious or personal exemptions. He also repeated false claims linking vaccines to autism, despite extensive research finding no causal connection.
Georgia physician Dr. Cecil Bennett blamed misinformation and weak federal leadership for declining confidence in vaccination, urging parents to consult pediatricians and family doctors rather than relying on online claims.
If you thought pervert glasses weren’t bad enough, Apple is taking it up a notch by adding cameras to its AirPods.
Apple is working on camera-equipped AirPods that appear to be nearly ready to launch, based on a video MacRumors found in the macOS Tahoe 26.7 release candidate.
In a short demo, a man holds a book up so the camera in the AirPods can see the title. “With Visual Intelligence, your world becomes savable. See something you like? Just ask me to save it for later,” says the voiceover text.
AirPods are tiny. I’ve seen people use them at the gym. I’ve seen them on playgrounds. I’ve seen them around swimming pools. People use them at the beach. They’re used at schools. In locker rooms. Tiny cameras in tiny AirPods that can photograph anything in front of the user are a pervert’s wet dream. Abusers are going to love this. Why wear bulky glasses anyone can see and try to demand you take off, when you can wear tiny AirPods that have already been fully normalised in society? Was there not a single woman or parent on the team that made this?
All over the United States, people are destroying Flock surveillance cameras. More and more communities are rising up and demanding these things removed from their streets and neighbourhoods. The awareness of just how pervasive mass government surveillance has become is growing, and Silicon Valley’s complicity is not exactly a secret. And in this climate of rapidly growing concern and anger, Apple is going to add tiny cameras to its tiny AirPods. Was there not a single person of colour or protester on the team that made this?
How detached from reality do you have to be to greenlight something like this? Does anyone – regardless of skin colour, gender, or political leaning – want even more cameras around them?
I was around when Quake was launched, but I was entirely unaware of this story.
By June 1996, after three years of hard work, id Software had completed their next title, Quake. As for their previous title, they were going to release both a shareware version and a full version of their game. Since it used a mere 22 MiB of storage, people at id Software had the idea of leveraging the remaining capacity of a CD-ROM. Why not include encrypted versions of the full id catalogue of games? Not only this would cut out the middlemen, it would give instant access to gamers with a simple phone call and a credit card.
The concept was implemented. The CD was announced on July 3, 1996 and released on August 30th[5]. The hacker group GNOMON released Quakecrk.zip only 39 days later. The archive contained QCRACK.EXE, a tool allowing to decrypt every single game on the CD-ROM.
The system id employed turned out to be incredibly primitive and simple, and hackers found out quite easily that the system required no secret sauce from id at all – the code you’d get over the phone contained no secret, and all the validation program on the disk did was check to ensure the code received over the phone matched the code generated by the disk.
No wonder it took them only 39 days to crack this.
Earlier this year, Natalie Vock made a splash with a set of patches to the Linux kernel that greatly increased performance on AMD GPUs with lower amounts of VRAM. With that work now accepted by upstream, Vock decided to turn their attention to another interesting problem: what if you run out of VRAM, and how can we improve performance when we do?
Regardless, what I hope this blogpost can demonstrate is that even if you end up with some memory evicted to system RAM, the slowdown can be manageable. There’s measures that drivers (particularly, the kernel driver) can take to make overcommit work as fast as possible, and even applications can do their part in coordinating with the driver stack to mitigate the effects of their memory being evicted. With everything in place, VRAM overcommit isn’t really as big of a deal as one may think it is at first sight.
The work Vock has done has already been in SteamOS for a while, and they’re currently in the process of upstreaming it to the vanilla kernel as well. Since this is a complex set of patches and changes, this may take a while, and as such, they’ve prepared custom kernel and Mesa branches for adventurous users. Do note that these branches won’t be maintained much, and are entirely experimental, not as well-tested as the SteamOS kernel, and probably won’t yield the same performance improvements.
Still, this is the kind of work that has a material impact for users. Not everyone has a 16GB monster GPU, especially not today with supply chains ravaged and ruined by slopmakers, so it’s great to see the Linux world working to improve performance for everyone, not just the wealthy few.
Buying a vacuum cleaner isn’t as easy as you might think. With so many brands and models to choose from, it can be bewildering. Sticking with established brands isn’t necessarily a safe bet, with past performance being no guarantee that the latest models will be as good. Meanwhile, prices can be deceptive, with some affordable models now closing the gap on top-of-the-range brands when it comes to cleaning performance.
You can’t know all this by browsing through a department store or online. The ideal thing to do would be to take a few models home to try them out – but good luck persuading anyone to let you do that. Thankfully, you won’t have to try because I’ve tested an array of models for you. I’ve measured each one’s ability to perform a range of real-world cleaning jobs, so you can discover the best vacuum cleaner for you.
Co-created by a developer and his sewing-obsessed partner, this design game is ‘the most technically challenging’ its lead programmer has ever made
When Jonathan Hau-Yoon wanted to make something as meaningful as the environmental strategy game Terra Nil, he turned for inspiration to his longtime partner. Sabrina Becker had worn a dress she made herself to their very first date, and would have studied costume design abroad had hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (a connective tissue disorder I also have) not put those plans on hold.
The pair developed a concept around the creative decisions involved in dressmaking, like trying to fit pattern pieces on to available fabric while observing the grain line (the direction of the thread in woven fabric). Other decisions followed: a 3D model on which to place garment pieces, buttons and trims with which to decorate them, clients with commissions as creative prompts.
There are many tech irritants that are a scourge of modern life, yet we have lacked the vocabulary to describe them ... until now
The “dickover” is the scourge of the modern age. Coined in May by John Gruber, a tech writer, it is defined as “a modal panel, popover, or curtain presented by a website or app, deliberately obscuring its own content to frustrate the user”. Essentially, it is the thing (or more often, things) you have to click away in order to read the thing you wanted to read. It is the “accept cookies” box, the “allow notifications?” box, the “sign in with Google” box, the pop-up video box, etc.
We shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that dickovers are the only terrible thing about technology in 2026. Until now, though, we have lacked the vocabulary to describe them, so here are some suggestions.
The former Dallas Cowboys star is on indefinite leave after being arrested on suspicion of drunk driving. His future in a competitive business is now in doubt
After Tony Romo’s arrest last month, TMZ published a 31-minute “extended cut” of the body-camera footage from the Wisconsin police officer who arrested CBS Sports’ star NFL analyst on suspicion of operating a vehicle while under the influence.
It’s an uncanny watch. The former Dallas Cowboys quarterback’s familiar goofy geniality collides with the gravity and stilted formality of an encounter with law enforcement. The video of a disoriented Romo struggling to answer basic questions and failing a field sobriety test, and his rictus-grinning, disheveled, head-askew mug-shot, form a glaring contrast with his smart-suited look a year earlier: beaming as he posed in the spotlight with his play-by-play partner, Jim Nantz, at the network’s preseason media preview.
Politics that worked for Democratic candidates in New York, Minnesota, Michigan won’t cut it in red Florida, analysts say
If primary elections elsewhere this summer were tussles between progressives and moderates for the direction of the Democratic party’s political future, Tuesday’s contests in Florida could not be more different.
In a former swing state that has in recent years become reliably red, moderate Democratic candidates Alex Vindman and David Jolly are heavily favored to become the party’s nominees for November’s Senate and governor’s race, respectively.
Authorities blamed Nanner for knocking over a heat fixture, but Brittany Jacobs contends it was trying to escape blaze
The snake didn’t start the fire. So says a Virginia science teacher who owns a python that was found outside its enclosure in a middle school classroom that caught fire recently.
Authorities, meanwhile, have publicly blamed the fire on the snake, named Nanner, alleging the python knocked over a heat fixture in her owner’s classroom, igniting a blaze that caused damage at Bedford county’s Forest middle school and killed a tortoise there.
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents appear to have worked directly with government officials in Iran to deport over 100 Iranian nationals as the United States prepared to bomb their home country, according to a newly released trove of internal emails from ICE.
In the process, immigration officials indicate they complied with an Iranian request to repatriate three specific people who were living in the United States.
Hundreds of emails spanning from May to November of last year show ICE officials, operating under the orders of then-Acting Director Todd Lyons, scrambling to put together plans for three controversial charter flights to Iran in the clearest picture yet of the Trump administration’s behind-the-scenes planning for the trips.
The flights delivered more than 100 people to an uncertain fate in Tehran just months or weeks before the U.S. and Israel launched their current devastating war, which has to date killed thousands of Iranians. While Israel and the United States bombed Iran during the Twelve-Day War last year, the flight planning remained ongoing. The coordination marked a reversal in decades of immigration policy toward Iranians, who were typically allowed to remain in the United States, even with a final removal order, due to fear of persecution from a regime U.S. leaders have accused of wantonly murdering its own citizens.
The emails, which were released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from the National Iranian American Council, or NIAC, and provided exclusively to The Intercept, show heavy pressure from high-ranking Trump administration officials to make the flights happen; discussion of coordination between ICE and Iranian officials, often through Qatari intermediaries but at times directly; and even an apparent mix-up in which ICE officialsaccidentally put the wrong person on a deportation flight bound for Iran.
Iranians were already under increased targeting by ICE, according to data obtained by NIAC. The timing of the about-face from long-standing policy was particularly cruel, said Jamal Abdi, the group’s president.
“It seemed clear that Iranians were under the microscope all of a sudden,” Abdi told The Intercept. “And we now know that it was actually in the middle of the [Twelve-Day] war where the White House was directing ICE to start removing Iranians.”
“We now know that it was actually in the middle of the [Twelve-Day] war where the White House was directing ICE to start removing Iranians.”
Each flight arrived in Tehran carrying at least a dozen deportees, including political activists and ethnic and religious minorities who had good reason to fear persecution upon arrival. Many of the people flown to Tehran were transported against their will, including one man who later told the New York Times that he attempted suicide before the flight and ICE agents physically forced him onto the plane.
The bulk of the emails released to NIAC illustrate the planning and execution of the first mass deportation to Iran on September 29, 2025.
Most of the correspondents have their identities and contact information redacted, with the exception of officials such as then-acting director Lyons, head of removal operations Marcos Charles, then-deputy director Madison Sheahan, and Joshua Coster, whose email signature identifies him as the ERO — Enforcement and Removal Operations — attaché at the agency’s U.S. Embassy branch office in Tel Aviv. In the run-up to the flight, Coster appears to have acted as the primary liaison with the Qatari government in back-and-forths over landing permits, passenger manifests, and details of the transfer in Doha to the final leg of the journey on a Qatar Airways charter. His level of involvement, Abdi said, “reveals how integral the ICE office in Tel Aviv has been to this transnational network of ICE officers removing people from America.”
In one of the most confounding episodes that took place during the first flight, Coster informed his colleagues that an Iranian national not included on the final list of deportees somehow wound up on the plane to Doha.
“An Iranian national not included on the final manifest we sent to Qatari MOI was boarded on the flight,” Coster wrote to colleagues on September 30, 2025. “This is unfortunate.”
“I have no idea how the case/person got through to the plane,” one of Coster’s colleagues responded.
Screenshot: ICE emails provided to NIAC via FOIA / Illustration: The Intercept
After the stopover in Doha, the accidental passenger was sent to Iran anyway.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency of ICE, declined to comment on the apparent mix-up.
Formal diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Iran have been severed since 1979, and communications between the two nations have typically taken place either through intermediaries or through Iranian representatives operating out of the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, D.C. That made the issuance of travel documents necessary for deportation nearly impossible, and Iranians were often allowed to remain in the country indefinitely.
Yet the move to begin deporting Iranians took place at a time in which relations between the U.S. and Iran were at a particularly low point.
Screenshot: ICE emails provided to NIAC via FOIA / Illustration: The Intercept
The so-called Twelve-Day War was in full swing when, on June 19, 2025, the orders came down to ICE officers to begin putting plans into motion.
In an email sent from his BlackBerry to Charles and Sheahan that day, Lyons directed his underlings to “launch target cases as a priority.” Less than an hour later, Charles forwarded Lyons’s missive to several ICE officials and included marching orders of his own.
“Please begin working on a plan to remove all removable FO [final order] Iranians in custody,” Charles wrote. “We need a plan forward ASAP.”
In a series of emails among ICE officials, all of whose names were redacted, the pressure to develop a plan was clear. One staffer, whose email signature listed them as an assistant director of the ERO’s removal division, appeared pessimistic about the timing.
“Unfortunately I do not have great news,” wrote the staffer. “I’ve learned from the team that Iran is currently uncooperative and does not issue [travel documents] in a timely manner.”
As a result, the staffer told Charles, “removal will prove difficult.” To make matters worse, “due to the current conflict, the airspace in Iran is closed to all ( not just U.S.) until further notice,” wrote the official. “Neighboring land borders are also a challenge.”
Screenshot: ICE emails provided to NIAC via FOIA / Illustration: The Intercept
Still, in other emails, the assistant director urged colleagues to press ahead with the orders.
“Please initiate conversations with [the Department of] State first this [sic] tomorrow,” the official wrote in an email forwarding the commands to his colleagues. “They need to help us identify a solution for this WH [White House] priority.”
Just 24 hours later, however, an ICE official wrote with good news.
“The team has come together and developed a few viable options for removals to Iran,” the official wrote. All of the plans were redacted.
Screenshot: ICE emails provided to NIAC via FOIA / Illustration: The Intercept
Lyons, Charles, and Sheahan did not respond to requests for comment. When The Intercept contacted Coster at his official ICE email address, the reporter received an automatic out-of-office reply indicating that Coster’s area of focus had shifted to North Africa.
For years, Iranians facing deportation from the U.S. have been protected by two realities: the lack of diplomatic relations between the two nations and the threat of retribution at home.
But the Trump administration has dispensed with both roadblocks in its quest for mass deportations, in which Trump has dismantled the asylum system for refugees from almost any country — with the notable exception of white Afrikaners.
“It seems that this administration will stop at nothing to make sure that these physical deportations actually happen, no matter what the cost, and they’ll just turn people over to despotic regimes,” said Hassan Ahmad, an immigration attorney who has represented a number of high-profile people targeted for deportation in recent years. “I’ve been an immigration lawyer a long time, but with this administration, every day it’s a new low.”
It has become virtually impossible for ethnic minorities and political dissidents fleeing persecution in Iran to find safety in the United States, despite Trump’s strident criticism of the Iranian government’s human-rights record.
“Iran commits grievous human rights abuses and arbitrarily detains foreigners, including United States citizens, on spurious charges without due process of law, subjecting them to abuse,” Trump wrote in a February 2025 national security policy memo announcing his administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign. The following January, during a deadly crackdown on protests against the Iranian government, Trump issued messages of support for the people of Iran opposed to the regime — even as ICE agents were set to deport a dozen more people to Tehran later that month.
Amid all its bluster against Iran, his administration was doing everything it could to send Iranians back to that government.In June 2025, according to figures tallied up in an email from Charles, there were 522 Iranian nationals in ICE detention, including 244 who were under a final order of removal, and another 278 who were in removal proceedings. Charles wrote that the agency’s internal portal showed more than 5,000 other cases of Iranians in deportation proceedings who were not in ICE custody.
Around that time, ICE embarked on a dramatic scaling up of detentions of Iranian nationals not already in custody, arresting between 290 and 300 people between June and July of that year, according to NIAC’s data.
“At the same time the U.S. and Israel were plotting a new phase of war with Iran, ICE’s attaché in Israel was coordinating to send asylees back to a government that threatens their lives,” Abdi said. “The people of Iran are wronged at every turn: by their authoritarian government and by the U.S. that speaks as if it is their ally, only to pursue policies that block them from the American dream, impoverish them, and drop thousands of bombs on their country.”
The first war with Iran under the second Trump administration ended on June 24, 2025, and efforts to organize the first flight to Tehran continued apace. Throughout August, ICE agents at field offices around the country made repeated mention of a charter flight scheduled for later that month. But by August 22, that charter appears to have fallen apart.
“It looks like there is some finger pointing going on,” wrote Coster, the ERO attaché then based in Tel Aviv, “because the Qataris, [Ministry of the Interior] and [Ministry of Foreign Affairs], are saying the Iranians did not approve in time.”
A few days later, his colleague was passing on an ask from Iranian officials. “Iran has requested that I amend the previous manifest an expedite the removal process,” an ERO officer wrote on August 29, with further specifics redacted. Within a month, the plan was a go.
On September 29, a plane operated by the private contractor Omni Air and brokered by CSI Aviation, neither of which responded to The Intercept’s requests for comment, took off from the Alexandria Staging Facility in Louisiana and flew to Puerto Rico for a brief refuel before traveling on to Cairo, according email records and to data provided to The Intercept by ICE Flight Monitor at Human Rights First.
After a stop in Cairo, the plane continued on to Qatar, with 54 Iranians onboard, who were transferred to a charter flight operated by the state-owned Qatar Airways. On October 1, at about 11:00 a.m. local time, the Qatar Airways flight arrived at its final destination, at Imam Khomeini International Airport in Tehran.
Screenshot: ICE emails provided to NIAC via FOIA / Illustration: The Intercept
For reasons that are not made clear in the emails, the Iranian deportees numbered fewer than half the 120 Iranian nationals that Qatar and Iran were expecting. The Qataris were not happy.
“We would like clarification on why the number of passengers has been reduced from 120 to 54, as this directly affects our internal operations,” wrote a representative of the Qatari Ministry of the Interior in an email to ICE officials. “Last-minute changes are not welcome, especially since we are an intermediary with the Iranians.”
If U.S. officials gave an explanation to Qatar, it does not appear in the correspondence. The emails do reveal the inclusion of an Iranian not slated for the flight — as well as further specific requests from Iran, in which officials appear to ask that certain individuals be sent back to the country.
“The lran Embassy just issued passports or travel documents for the three listed below. They requested they be added to the flight leaving out on the 29th,” an official wrote on September 26, 2025.
Screenshot: ICE emails provided to NIAC via FOIA / Illustration: The Intercept
The description of coordination between representatives of the two hostile nations, and the requests from Iran that individuals be included in the flight appears to bolster claims made in a lawsuit filed last month in federal court by the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund, which accused ICE of handing over sensitive information to the Iranian government. In court filings, ICE has dismissed those claims as “hearsay.”
In response to a detailed list of questions, a spokesperson for DHS again denied sharing sensitive information with the Iranian government.
“These allegations that ICE shared asylum application records with the Iranian government are FALSE,” the spokesperson wrote. “ICE is committed to ensuring that illegal aliens are informed of their right to communicate with their consular representatives. Consistent with established protocols, ICE provides illegal aliens the opportunity to contact their consular post and facilitates consular access to detained individuals, in accordance with applicable laws, regulations, and agency policy.”
The emails end on November 25, when the U.S. was planning a second flight that transited deportees to Iran through Kuwait on December 7. A third flight took place on January 25, again through Kuwait, and a fourth one was scheduled for late March.
According to filings in the lawsuit, it was derailed when, in late February, the U.S. and Israel again began bombing Iran.
Russians are withdrawing billions, causing liquidity problems for banks and undermining the Kremlin’s ability to issue bonds to finance the fight in Ukraine.
Hospitals set up special testing sites to prevent measles patients from spreading the disease in waiting rooms. The virus can linger in the air for up to two hours after an infected person leaves. Jan Sonnenmair/Getty Images
The U.S. recently reached a grim milestone: As of July 23, more measles cases have been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention than in any year since 1991. It took less than seven months to blow past the three-decade high recorded last year.
This potentially deadly disease is easily prevented. Shots are widely available and, in many cases, free. Still, since the beginning of last year, more than 4,850 people here have been infected, and three have died. Among them were two unvaccinated girls in West Texas whose deaths made national headlines.
It may feel like the continuous stream of cases is just the way things are now. But it is dangerous to shrug off the resurgence of measles. In a story I reported earlier this year, I showed what’s happened in parts of the world that have let their guard down to vaccine-preventable diseases. My reporting found that long-forgotten scourges roared back, killing and disabling children. Even countries that made what seemed like subtle changes to immunization policies suffered disastrous consequences years later.
Babies were born blind, deaf and with intellectual disabilities because their mothers caught rubella in the early weeks of pregnancy. Parents saw why diphtheria used to be known as “the strangling angel of children.” Doctors told me they couldn’t undo the damage when these horrors returned. Modern medicine can do a lot of things, but it can’t reverse paralysis from polio.
The story also showed how Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s top health official, and President Donald Trump have been transforming a government that for decades promoted the lifesaving benefits of shots into one that sows doubts about their safety. Last week, the president issued another executive order that’s sure to fuel further hesitancy about the shot that has protected children from measles, mumps and rubella for decades.
It’s a sharp departure for a government that, since the 1960s and with bipartisan support, built vaccination programs that shielded kids from deadly and disabling diseases. Federal and state health leaders strengthened those policies based on lessons learned from measles outbreaks. That’s because measles, among the most contagious diseases in history, is almost always the first vaccine-preventable disease to strike when immunization rates fall.
Some U.S. schools have set up vaccination clinics as immunization rates have dropped in many parts of the country.Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post via Getty Images
In my many months of reporting for that story, I learned that measles is like the bright dye that plumbers flush through pipes to find leaks in a complex system. The continued appearance of the virus’ telltale rash in state after state since last year warns of cracks in our once-solid protection, leaving communities vulnerable to other deadly contagions.
My reporting also found that access to vaccines may be in peril: Since last year, Kennedy has been considering changes to an obscure but crucial government program that could prompt the few companies that make vaccines for American kids to flee the U.S. market. If that were to happen, even parents who still want vaccines for their kids wouldn’t be able to get them.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services said the agency has not limited access to vaccines. In an email, the spokesperson wrote, “Secretary Kennedy believes that trust is rebuilt through an open review of safety data, the willingness to ask the hard questions, and ensuring the American people have all emerging information as soon as we know it.”
Several dozen people who’ve worked on U.S. government vaccination programs here and around the world conveyed to me a sense of foreboding about America. They fear that children will wind up fighting for their lives against infections that have long been preventable.
“I think there always was a worst-case scenario,” said Dr. Melinda Wharton, who retired last September after more than three decades leading CDC immunization programs. “I don’t think I imagined it could or would be this bad.”
Doctors I spoke to told me they had seen images of those diseases in textbooks, but these were problems medicine had solved long ago. They never thought they’d see an actual patient until an unvaccinated child lay before them, gravely ill with one of these ancient scourges.
I’ll never forget what one German doctor, whose hospital treated an unvaccinated boy who later died of diphtheria, told me of the infection: “It was taught as history,” he said.
Here in the U.S., measles was taught as history, too. Now it isn’t.
We’ve been covering public health and vaccine policies for years. Let me walk you through reporting from my colleagues and me that helps show how we ended up here and where we might go.
In 2020, I reported with my colleagues on how the world’s greatest public health organization was brought to its knees by COVID-19, the president and the capitulation of its own leaders. And we also foreshadowed how the government’s response to COVID-19 led to a loss of trust in public health institutions — a lingering resentment that RFK Jr. has tapped into. (The CDC and the White House declined to comment on this story.)
At the beginning of the second Trump administration, I learned that CDC leaders ordered staff not to release their experts’ assessment that found the risk of catching measles was high in areas near outbreaks where vaccination rates were lagging.
In an aborted plan to roll out the news, the agency would have emphasized the importance of vaccinating people against the disease that had then infected fewer than 500 people in 19 states, the records show. (At the time, the CDC told us that the agency decided against releasing the assessment “because it does not say anything that the public doesn’t already know” and that the agency continued to recommend vaccines as “the best way to protect against measles.”)
Not long after I broke the news about the buried measles forecast, I learned more about a vaccine program that RFK Jr. plans to overhaul, one that’s vital to Americans’ access to immunizations. I showed how dramatic changes to this little-known program — which offers payouts for people who suffer rare side effects from shots without having to prove that drugmakers were negligent — could prompt vaccine makers to stop selling them here.
(HHS declined to answer detailed questions about Kennedy’s plans. Previously, an HHS spokesperson had said that Kennedy is “not anti-vaccine — he is pro-safety.”)
That story laid bare how surprisingly fragile the nation’s vaccine system is. Kennedy still hasn’t revealed what he plans to do.
Two Stanford epidemiologists had modeled the scenario. My colleague Lucas Waldron created a chilling visualization that allowed us to depict how many people could die or be disabled in 25 years if vaccines for polio, measles, rubella or diphtheria were no longer available.
ProPublica shared the key findings of that scenario with HHS. An agency spokesperson didn’t address the modeling but said “HHS has not limited access or insurance coverage to any FDA-approved vaccines” and routinely recommends the shots for children.
As measles cases continued to rise, a team at the CDC was investigating whether the disease has become endemic in this country again. In June, my colleague Nat Lash and I showed how hard it will be for them to prove that it isn’t, after what Nat found when he analyzed the genetic code of cases around the country.
A CDC spokesperson told ProPublica that the agency was conducting a more comprehensive investigation and that genetic sequences “alone cannot determine whether” measles is endemic.
The Touch Bar arrived in 2016 seemingly already pre-doomed, on a generation of machines that had a “we’ve run out of ideas” smell all around them. The arrow keys were reshaped, the keyboard got a slimming down, and even the beloved MagSafe wasn’t, in fact, safe. All of these changes would prove unpopular and get reverted in time, and the axe would eventually come for the Touch Bar, too.
With an enormous benefit of hindsight, a decade after its arrival, and on the (rumored) eve of fully multitouch MacBooks, I wanted to look critically at the Touch Bar in more detail. I put a spicy title above this post, and while I’m not sure I can answer it in the affirmative, I feel I got surprisingly close to that.
I have never spent this much reading about and pondering a technology seemingly nobody liked and that I never really used. I still think there’s merit to the idea of screen on a keyboard, but only if the screens are integrated into the individual keys (as some products have tried over the years). Of course, this would also be astronomically expensive, delicate, and virtually impossible to repair, so I’m not sure something like that can be reasonably made at an affordable price.
AleRunner writes: "Solar has been doing the 'heavy lifting' to help Europe meet its energy needs amid a string of blistering heatwaves," Euronews tells us. Meanwhile, as Europe's energy demands rise with the heat, jellyfish have been causing shutdowns and reduced power output at multiple reactors at French nuclear plants, as we already discussed. Euronews reports: A new analysis from energy think-tank Ember found that solar output in European countries rose by up to 17 percent on heatwave days in June and July. Researchers say that this helped power the grid as electricity demand increased by as much as a quarter on hot days. Heatwaves often trigger a spike in electricity consumption due to the sudden need for cooling, mainly from energy-intensive air conditioning (A/C) units.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that space cooling, which is mostly A/C units and fans, consumed around seven percent of the world's electricity in 2022. Even in countries where A/C ownership is low, countries experience energy demand spikes when scorching temperatures hit. During the early summer heatwaves of 2025, France, for example, recorded an evening electricity peak that was 25 percent above the off-season average due to air conditioning.
Ember's analysis found that during the late-June heatwave this summer, daily electricity demand rose byup to 28 percent in Italy, 23 percent in Hungary, 14 percent in France and 13 percent in Spain compared with pre-heatwave days. It says as heatwave-driven demand increased, solar was the only major power source to perform "better than usual." Compared with other days in June and July, average daily solar generation during the heatwaves was 17 percent higher in France and Hungary, five percent higher in Spain and the same in Italy.
State attorneys general allege that tech company intentionally designed addictive products that harm young people
More than half of the states in the US have joined together in an unprecedented lawsuit against Meta that goes to trial on Tuesday, accusing the parent company of Instagram and Facebook of deliberately designing addictive products that lured in young people and caused them harm.
The jury trial is taking place in federal court in Oakland, California, and is expected to last between six and eight weeks. The jury is expected to hear from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri and employee turned whistleblower Arturo Béjar.
Cruising around the local lake with my kids a couple days ago, I actually remembered to snag a picture of my OW this time! Meet "Mongoose," so named for its green and gold (yellow) livery—made me think of Master Chief from Halo, and this puppy isn't big enough to be a warthog!
South Korea’s president has renewed his push to regain independent control of the military from the US in the event of war and urged faster progress in acquiring nuclear-powered submarines after Donald Trump’s order to cut joint drills.
On Sunday night, Trump instructed the Pentagon to “substantially reduce” this week’s joint military exercises with South Korea, saying the nuclear-armed North “has been unthreatening and respectful” and that the US president had a “very good relationship with Kim Jong-un”.
Marta Kostyuk and Peyton Stearns beat American pair 6-2, 1-6, 10-8
Serena and Venus enjoy ‘fun’ on-court reunion despite defeat
One game into the family reunion of the decade, Venus Williams launched herself inside the baseline in her single-minded pursuit of a puffball second serve. For a brief moment the Cincinnati Open was transported back 15 years. Williams pounded her forehand return directly at the right hip of her opponent Marta Kostyuk, instantly eliciting gasps from the audience as she snatched the point. Back when the Williams sisters spent their spare time racking up grand slam titles for fun, this was how they dealt with most adversaries.
In the end, Venus and Serena’s first doubles match together in four years, and only their second in the past decade, ended in a rollercoaster 6-2, 1-6, 10-8 defeat to Kostyuk and Peyton Stearns, another wildcard pair and two formidable singles players. For once, the result did not seem to matter.
Many hoped that the march of technology would usher in an egalitarian utopia – but some foresaw the threat it would pose to liberal society. Why did nobody listen?
One of the stranger things about this dizzying, headlong moment in time is that it doesn’t have much of a past. Everything is about the future of this, the future of that: the future of work, the future of humanity, the future of the planet. It’s as if everyone is screaming (some ecstatically, most terror-stricken): robots are taking over the world! Meanwhile, you can’t put down your phone, unplug, delete your AI apps, tell Zoom to piss off; it feels as if you are racing toward something, and can’t stop, or look back, or think straight.
But of course this weird moment in history does have a past. It comes from somewhere. It wasn’t inevitable. Things could have turned out differently. They still can. And if you look back, one thing you’ll see is that a lot of people saw this all coming. They foresaw our present when it was still the future. They thought it might turn out fabulously, a computer utopia. And they worried it might turn out disastrously. Above all, they issued warning after warning about the rise of what I call the artificial state, the replacement of the liberal democratic nation-state, the consent of the governed, with the rule of people by machines. They warned of a future in which democratic deliberation would be replaced by prediction by calculation, the public sphere would be supplanted by data-driven commerce, and drones would take the place of the demos. Why didn’t anyone listen?
The new underworld is made up of innocent and well-intentioned people who work with slide rules and calculating machines and computers which can retain an almost infinite number of bits of information as well as sort, categorise, and reproduce this information at the press of a button. Most of these people are highly educated, many of them are PhDs, and none that I have met have malignant political designs on the American public. They may, however, radically reconstruct the American political system, build a new politics, and even modify revered and venerable American institutions – facts of which they are blissfully innocent.
A quarter century before 9/11, an upsurge in global terrorism prompted the historian David Fromkin to examine its purpose and method. Terrorism was a strategy of the weak, Fromkin wrote in these pages, but modern technology had enabled it “to enter the political arena on a new scale.” And its surprising success seemed to be due, in large part, “to a miscomprehension of the strategy by its opponents.”
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Buy now, pay later" loans took off during the pandemic as a way for online shoppers to go on retail splurges without using a credit card. Now, lenders are offering the loans as a means for people to finance basic households needs. The lending apps Flex and Zip allow customers to take out loans to pay for their broadband, electricity, health insurance, mobile phone service, mortgage and water bills. Affirm, one of the most popular pay-later apps, has started providing some tenants loans to extend their monthly rent payment for a few weeks. Many dentists, veterinarians and medical clinics now often offer instant pay-later financing, and Intuit this year started promoting "File Now, Pay Later" loans to TurboTax users who owe money in their tax return.
Pay-later loans are becoming the "working capital for the modern middle class," said Karen Webster, the chief executive of Pymnts, a news and market research company for the payments industry. "Consumers are using it more for essential, everyday things." Americans spent $160 billion last year through pay-later loans, according to research released recently by Federal Reserve economists -- nearly twice what consumers spent two years earlier, in 2023. That's still a fraction of the more than $3 trillion U.S. shoppers spend annually on consumer credit cards. But the industry continues to expand by double-digit rates each year.
How much of that growth reflects consumer preferences, versus desperation, is a question economists and industry analysts are trying to unravel. The rise in pay-later financing comes as many households are leaning more on debt to keep up with their daily expenses. Paying interest -- to afford basic needs -- adds to the overall cost of living, which has already been rising amid higher medical, housing and fuel costs. For many borrowers, the loans have become their only option: Half of those using them said they could not make ends meet otherwise, according to the latest edition of a survey that LendingTree, a loan marketplace, has compiled for years.
Family were set to sell stake to Bob Iger and Josh Kushner
Jeanie Buss is reportedly challenging her siblings’ attempt to sell the family’s remaining stake in the Los Angeles Lakers.
Hours after the Buss family released a statement revealing their intention to sell their 17.8% ownership of the franchise to Bob Iger and Josh Kushner, CNBC and ESPN reported that Jeanie Buss’s lawyer sought to halt her siblings’ sale on legal grounds.
CNN says attack ‘beneath the office’ after Kristen Holmes asked president about Jon Ossoff’s comments on key aide
The White House launched a personal attack against a CNN reporter on Monday with a social media post that mentioned her children and accused her of asking a “disgusting and inhumane question”.
A White House post targeted Kristen Holmes, a senior White House correspondent for the network, after she asked Donald Trump to respond to a widely shared comment by Democratic senator Jon Ossoff in a speech on Sunday.
Republican senator Thom Tillis deplored Trump’s decision to cut US military drills with South Korea, which comes despite military officials from both countries warning that Kim Jong-un’s regime is learning new battlefield expertise, including new drone tactics, from assisting Russia with its war in Ukraine.
South Korea has been a solid military ally for over 70 years that possesses exquisite military capabilities. Reducing joint exercises with South Korea does nothing more than free up thousands of North Korea’s troops to support Putin’s systematic kidnapping, torture, rape, and murder of innocent Ukrainian citizens.
U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang ruled that the Trump administration's move to divert funding and cancel a plan to move the FBI to Maryland was "arbitrary and capricious and not in accordance with law."
On Monday, Judge Gregory Carro issued an order giving prosecutors until Oct. 9 to respond to Mangione’s lawyers’ motion that the state charges be dismissed.
President, who has decried mail-in ballots amid false claims of election fraud, issued March order to curb voting by mail
Donald Trump voted by mail in Florida’s Republican primary, Politico reports, citing Palm Beach county voting records. The White House has confirmed the president’s mail-in vote, according to the New York Times, which added that this was at least the third time the president has mailed his ballot.
In March, the president signed an executive order restricting the use of mail-in ballots ahead of the November midterm elections that will decide control of US Congress. Trump has repeatedly criticized mail-in voting, calling for restrictions on the policy for years and falsely claiming that his 2020 election defeat was the result of widespread voter fraud.
BIG BEND NATIONAL PARK, Texas — The Trump administration has temporarily halted all border construction inside Big Bend National Park after bipartisan opposition from Texas officials, residents and conservationists over new roads, barriers and surveillance infrastructure.
Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott announced Monday that work would stop while he conducts a personal “on-the-ground evaluation” and meets with local officials, community members and law enforcement.
The pause follows weeks of criticism after heavy equipment began clearing land in the remote West Texas park. Earlier plans for a 30-foot border wall inside Big Bend had already been abandoned, but CBP continued preparing for patrol roads, vehicle barriers, lighting and surveillance technology.
Opposition has crossed party lines. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he discussed the project with federal officials, while Republican Sen. John Cornyn and Democratic lawmakers have questioned whether extensive construction is necessary in terrain already dominated by steep cliffs, desert and the Rio Grande.
Big Bend historically sees far fewer illegal crossings than many other sections of the southern border, and crossings there have fallen further during the past two years. Critics argue the relatively low numbers make environmental disruption particularly difficult to justify.
The administration has not said how long the pause will last or whether portions of the project will ultimately be canceled.
Scott said CBP remains committed to border security while also protecting “the natural beauty and cultural significance” of the national park.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. national debt is approaching $40 trillion, a record milestone that economists warn reflects years of rising deficits, higher borrowing costs and repeated failures by both parties to confront the government’s long-term fiscal imbalance.
PBS NewsHour reported that annual interest costs on the debt now exceed $1.2 trillion, meaning the federal government spends more servicing past borrowing than it does on national defense.
The debt accelerated during major economic shocks, including the 2008-09 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, but has continued climbing even outside emergencies. Recent administrations have added to the imbalance through a combination of higher spending and tax cuts, while Congress has repeatedly avoided politically difficult changes to major programs or revenues.
The warning comes as the Congressional Budget Office projects a roughly $2.1 trillion federal deficit for fiscal 2026, about $200 billion more than it forecast earlier this year. Rising Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid spending, weaker corporate tax receipts and sharply higher interest expenses are contributing to the shortfall. (cbo.gov)
Fiscal watchdogs warn that continued borrowing could eventually mean higher taxes, deeper spending cuts or both. The risk is not that a crisis is imminent, but that delaying action makes the eventual adjustment more painful.
PBS noted that the debt is already on track to approach $50 trillion within several years if current trends continue.
Author Adam Johnson criticises Waverley council saying ‘reality is often upsetting’ while Palestinian group says libraries should hold ‘challenging’ books
A Sydney library has removed a book critical of Israel called How to Sell a Genocide, following a complaint reportedly from a survivor of the Bondi beach terror attack.
Waverley library at Bondi Junction is in the same council area as Bondi beach.
The Loco Beach Coconuts and Texas Tailgaters played the first ever Banana Ball series in Wilmington, Delaware, from August 13 – August 15.
Fans enter the plaza before the gates to the stadium officially open for the game.
A young fan dressed as a Banana walks around the plaza pregame.
Delaware resident Mike Husni came dressed in a hot dog costume to see Banana Ball in person for the first time.
Husni meets Tailgater assistant coach Andrew Bartman pregame.
A couple young Banana Ball fans pose for a picture with their signed yellow baseballs. Players from both teams spent over an hour in the plaza signing autographs before the game.
The Hulagans share the stage with the Coconuts’ traveling band “Sitting on Saturn” during the Loco Beach Live Show during the pregame festivities.
Tailgater head coach Joe Mikulik (No. 00) and Coconuts assistant coach Anthony Marks pose for a selfie with a group of fans on the field pregame.
Texas Tailgater Zach Watson leads off the first Banana Ball ever played in Delaware.
Coconuts Peyton Chatagnier (No. 1) fields the throw down to second on Sal Jacobo’s (No. 2) shoulders during warmups.
Tailgater outfielder Travis Moniot (No. 16) bumps the ball into the air to intiate a trick play out between him and Jordan Hussein (No. 5).
Hussein completes the trick play out, catching the ball in his cowboy hat.
Catcher Ashby Vining (No. 11) looks into the Loco Beach dugout ready to celebrate after driving in a walk-off run in the bottom of the first inning. Banana Ball rules require teams to win the inning to earn a point. The team with the most runs in an inning wins the inning and the point.
(To read more about the Banana Ball experience click here.)
Coconut players Grady Morgan (No. 31) and Dane Tofteland (No. 23) recreate the scene from “Titanic” after Tofteland as hit by a pitch.
Coconut outfielder Gideon Antle (No. 18) just barely gets a hand in before the tag from Tailgater catcher Taj Porter (No. 26) winning the fourth inning for the Coconuts. They led, 2-1, through four innings.
A pair of dualing fathers pick up their youngest children on first base as they race around the diamond to collect there children before reaching home during the fourth inning. The two dad’s hilariously “forgot” their middle child on second base.
Both teams broke out into an impromptu water balloon fight during Nick Lopez’s (Tailgaters’ No. 9) at-bat. Lopez was not allowed to step out of the box because a rule of Banana Ball requires the hitter to stay in the box no matter what. If the batter steps out of the box the batter is out.
Tailgater Kyle Martin (No. 27) gets the handoff from his head coach on his way home after hitting a solo home run.
The stadium goes dark in the middle of the eighth as the teams and crowd sing along to “3 Little Birds” by Bob Marley.
Tailgater Jose Gonzalez (No. 28) celebrates after getting a hit. The Tailgaters ended up winning the game, 6-3.
All photos courtesy of Dave Reeder. To see more of Dave’s work check him out on Instagram @bfr_photo
Person dies after landslide hits apartment building in southern city of Geoje as torrential rains lead to power cuts and mass evacuations
Torrential downpours that pounded southern parts of South Korea since Saturday have killed one person and injured four others, officials have confirmed.
Heavy rains have been recorded in South Gyeongsang province, including the city of Geoje, where an 800mm (31in) deluge over the weekend triggered a landslide, the interior and safety ministry said. The rain continued on Monday, bringing the cumulative rainfall total to 912mm by 6pm.
Shasta county, hotbed of US election denialism movement, set to appoint ex-Colorado clerk who served prison term
A northern California county that has become a hotbed of activism for those who sow doubts about the reliability of voting machines plans to hire Tina Peters, the prominent Colorado election denier recently released from prison, to work on elections.
Clint Curtis, the top election official in Shasta county, told the Guardian he plans to hire Peters as a consultant to replace Brent Turner, his top deputy, who has been on medical leave. He said Peters would not have access to the county’s voting system and did not directly respond when asked what her responsibilities would be. Plans to hire Peters, who is still on parole and must receive permission to travel outside Colorado, were first reported by Action News Now.
Lindsay Clancy has pleaded not guilty to murdering her children, but her attorneys don't deny that she caused the deaths of 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan.
Lindsay Clancy's Massachusetts murder trial resumed Monday in Plymouth Superior Court. Clancy's mother and sister were on the stand after the prosecution rested its case.
President hosts Nathanial Rai and lifeguard Ryder Williams at White House after video of California rescue went viral
Nathanial Rai had been swept off his feet along the California coast, was rescued by a 16-year-old lifeguard – and was now sitting in the Oval Office with Donald Trump.
Of the rescuer, Ryder Williams, Trump said to Nathanial: “He’s a real hero. I don’t know if I’d do it.
The baby was born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, which requires a series of surgeries. The parents had asked the surrogate to get an abortion when they learned of the diagnosis.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Supreme Court today rejected Verizon's attempt to get a $47 million refund from the Federal Communications Commission. In a list of orders (PDF) issued by the court, Verizon's petition was denied without explanation. The denial apparently ends any possibility of Verizon asking a lower court to review the fine and order the FCC to issue a refund. However, AT&T and T-Mobile are continuing to challenge similar fines on grounds that selling device-location data did not violate US telecom law.
AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon were fined a total of $196 million in 2024 for selling mobile users' real-time location data without their customers' consent. The carriers sold device-location information to data aggregators, who resold it to other firms. The carriers paid the fines and sought to have them overturned in courts, claiming their Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial was violated. Challenges by AT&T and Verizon were combined into a single case, and the Supreme Court ruled against the carriers in June of this year.
The court ruled that the FCC penalty process does not violate the Seventh Amendment because the carriers could have obtained jury trials if they refused to pay the fines and waited for the government to try to collect. The ruling (PDF) against the carriers was 8-1, with Justice Clarence Thomas dissenting.
The Sydney Swans coach, Dean Cox, says he is “extremely disappointed” as the team and the AFL face a decision on whether to stand down several Swans players under investigation over an alleged sexual assault.
Victoria police attended the Pullman Hotel in East Melbourne on Monday and said they were investigating a report of sexual assault in the early hours of the morning.
Prosecutors accuse Duane Davis of orchestrating 1996 shooting in retaliation for attack by rapper’s entourage
The trial of a former gang leader accused of orchestrating the 1996 killing of rap star Tupac Shakur began in a Las Vegas courtroom on Monday, featuring testimony from a witness to the shooting and a former police officer.
Duane “Keffe D” Davis is on trial for murder for his alleged role in the shooting of Shakur, who died after a drive-by shooting. Prosecutors allege Davis was the “on-the-ground, on-site commander of the effort to kill Tupac” and that he planned the shooting in retaliation for Shakur’s entourage attacking Davis’s nephew.
One of my neighbors is in his early 40s, drives a fancy German sports sedan, and seems to always be on his way to the golf course by the way he's dressed. One day he says out loud, as I'm OneWheeling by his driveway to the community mailbox, "Aren't you a little old to be riding one of those?"
I am old, like deep in my 50s old, so I turn around and without blinking shoot back, "Aren't you a little stupid to be talking?" Which came out way harsher than I intended. He gives a weak laugh, I give a weak laugh, which makes it worse, and I think really hard for a few seconds how to make this less awkward and apologetically say, "Hey, man, sorry about that stupid comment... When I ride, I feel like a thirteen-year-old and thirteen-year-old me was quite the asshat. I'm sorry about that."
With a weak smile, he gets in his car and says, "Ya, no problem," unconvincingly.
My question is... how many days, weeks, or months do I wait before I leave a flaming bag of dog poop on his porch? Kidding!
Hey friends - I’ve been riding Onewheels for about 6 years. I’m on my 7th board and probably around 50-60k total miles. I think I’m ready for my first non-FM board. Can y’all please recommend what would be best on my requirements here?
Needs to be plug and play. I hate tinkering. I don’t mind initial set up but I don’t have much free time and I’d rather be riding than fixing my board. I’m more of a rider than a gear head. Can’t break down too often. I try locally get around 10k miles out of a board and would hope for something similar.
Flat footpads. I love the feel of the original XR footpads. I ride 50-100 miles a day and concave is not comfortable.
Flight fins system. I love my fins and the board needs to be compatable.
Long range. I typically ride 25-30 miles at a time.
Tire. I love the maxxis 5.5-6. Carvy treaded tires are for me. Do any boards come with something like that stock?
So that’s it. Is there an out of the box VESC board that would meet these requirements?
Nurses, medical experts and green campaigners reject party deputy leader’s dismissal of efforts to reach net zero
Reform’s deputy leader has been accused of spreading misinformation after he dismissed efforts to tackle the climate crisis and urged British people to enjoy the warmth of the recent heatwaves.
Richard Tice prompted a backlash from nurses, medical experts and green campaigners on Monday after he told a press conference he believed it was “arrogant” to try to stop the climate emergency, while encouraging people to focus on upsides such as better English wine.
The ship’s crew lost access last month to drinkable water, running toilets and air conditioning, as the fleet sees heavy use by the Trump administration.
(The Center Square) – The U.S. Navy awarded Raytheon a $22.9 billion, multi-year contract to accelerate production of Tomahawk cruise missiles, aiming to build more than 1,000 of the long-range strike weapons a year.
Apple Wallet's driver's license and state ID feature is set to expand to North Carolina, Oklahoma, Utah, and Virginia, bringing the total to 18 states plus Puerto Rico. The digital IDs can be used at participating TSA checkpoints and businesses without handing over or unlocking an iPhone, though users are still generally advised to carry a physical ID because acceptance remains limited. MacRumors reports: A few days ago, North Carolina's DMV announced that it plans to launch a mobile ID program later this year. As reported by WRAL, North Carolina residents will be able to set up a digital ID through a new NC Wallet app starting in December, with Apple Wallet, Google Wallet, and Samsung Wallet support to follow in "early 2027." As mentioned, you do not need to unlock, show, or hand over your device to present an Apple Wallet ID in person, ensuring user privacy.
Apple Wallet IDs are generally not accepted by law enforcement, so carrying a physical ID is still legally required for traffic stops. In addition, the number of businesses that accept Apple Wallet IDs is still quite small. At least for now, Apple Wallet IDs are designed to be a convenient alternative where they are accepted. "Your mobile ID is a valid form of identification in North Carolina," the DMV said, in a FAQ on its website. "However, as retailers, restaurants and other businesses transition to mobile IDs, some may not be set up to accept them right away. For now, carrying your physical card gives you a backup when needed." According to code seen by MacRumors, Apple Wallet IDs are also coming to Oklahoma, Utah, and Virginia, but there is no timeframe for availability.
Paula Musgrove stated her daughter had said medications were ‘destroying’ her mind and she was becoming ‘paranoid’
The defense in the Lindsay Clancy filicide case called the defendant’s mother as one of its first witnesses Monday, after three weeks of prosecution evidence laid out, in often harrowing detail, events surrounding Clancy’s killing of her three children.
Under questioning from defense attorney David Reddington, Clancy’s mother, Paula Musgrove, testified that her daughter’s statements and actions had unsettled her in the months leading up to 24 January 2023.
Previous winners of the award have included Saint Peter, Attica, Orana by the late Jock Zonfrillo, and Quay
Armenian-Lebanese eatery Zareh has been named Gourmet Traveller’s restaurant of the year, in a category of the annual industry awards that has historically been dominated by European-leaning cuisine and fine-dining establishments.
The restaurant’s menu pulls from the Armenian, Egyptian and Lebanese backgrounds of co-owners Tom Sarafian and Jinane Bou-Assi: aish baladi (Egyptian flatbread) is made with flour milled in the Mornington Peninsula; kafta nayyah comprises raw minced lamb from Tasmania and Victoria; hummus is crowned with spanner crab.
Donald Trump berated a CNN reporter at a press availability, insisting that she 'be quiet' after she asked about a reduction in US military exercises with South Korea. The CNN correspondent, Kristen Holmes, pressed Trump on whether Kim Jong-un had requested a reduction in military activities. When another reporter asked about the extensive accounts of deteriorating living conditions on the USS Abraham Lincoln during its lengthy deployment in the strait of Hormuz, the president dismissed the complaints: ' It was fake news reporting from CNN'
After three years of construction, the glistening, state-of-the-art new Hodgson Vocational Technical High School that opens next week is "a place that will change lives for generations," Principal Christine Colihan said.
Move means holders will be able to travel free on local services at any time of day or night from April next year
Disabled people across England will be able to use their free bus passes at any time of day from next April, as Andy Burnham expands a policy he introduced as mayor of Greater Manchester.
The prime minister has said the current weekday restrictions on when disabled people can use their bus passes will be removed from 1 April 2027. Their passes are valid only between 9.30am and 11pm on weekdays, although some councils pay to allow people free travel outside those hours.
Wilmington's Riverfront has been one of the biggest recipients of state bond money for decades now, helping to spur economic development in Delaware's largest city. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY MAGGIE REYNOLDS
Lawyers seek dismissal of state charges after Mangione pleaded guilty in federal case over Brian Thompson killing
A New York state judge on Monday effectively postponed Luigi Mangione’s trial on murder and weapons charges over the 2024 killing of a health insurance company CEO, after Mangione pleaded guilty last week to separate federal charges.
The trial had previously been scheduled to begin on September 8. Mangione has pleaded not guilty to the state charges. Mangione’s lawyers on Friday asked New York state justice Gregory Carro, who is overseeing the state case, to dismiss the charges.
President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and envoy first held rare talks with Hamas’s new leader in Egypt over the weekend in his effort to advance the stalled 15-point plan.
(The Center Square) – President Donald Trump says he'll declare the Strait of Hormuz a U.S. territory, but no federal agency has said what controlling the key oil chokepoint would cost taxpayers.
Deep Origin this month announced that its AI drug discovery framework delivered nearly a 31% hit rate for a cancer immunotherapy enzyme, nearly 100x higher than common machine learning-based approaches. The company said the breakthrough is a function of its approach to combining physics-based simulations alongside AI-based approaches, including new co-folding models.
A big challenge in computational drug discovery is creating models that are accurate as well as generalizable. New co-folding models based on deep learning approaches, such as AlphaFold and Boltz-1, are trained on vast repositories of existing molecules, which boosts the predictive capacity of the model. In some cases, the accuracy of these models can exceed 80%.
Source: Deep Origin
However, when these models are exposed to novel compounds, that accuracy deteriorates considerably and predicting which ligands will fit into which proteins becomes more of a crapshoot. In the real world, AI-based virtual screening methods are credited with discovery about 1% of new drug candidates, thanks to numerous false positives, according to Deep Origin.
Deep Origin seeks to overcome this limitation with its AI drug discovery framework, which spans two products. That includes DODock, an AI-powered and physics-based molecular docking engine, as well as DOScore, its engine for estimating thermodynamic binding affinities across ultra-large chemical spaces.
DODock combines a diffusion model with a physics-based search and refinement stage that’s built on a Vina-style energy function (DOFast) and an enhanced global optimizer. “The goal is to put learned components exactly where they add value (proposing and ranking poses) and keep an interpretable, low-parameter physical model wherever generalization is what matters,” the company says on its website. “Once machine learning proposes candidate poses, a compact physics model refines them, reasoning from how molecules physically interact with each other rather than from resemblance to training data. These refined poses are then ranked, giving our resulting structures.”
The use of physics allows DODock to build on first principles rather than on prior data. This is an important distinction, as it enables the software to maintain its accuracy on novel targets, where AI-only approaches lose accuracy, the company says.
Deep Origin says the combination of AI and physics-based modeling is a key differentiator for its approach. Rebuilding platforms to get established C++ and Fortran-based physics engine to run on GPUs also represents a technical hurdle that not every company will be able to overcome.
“Building physics-ML hybrids requires deep integration across quantum mechanics, molecular dynamics force fields, and differentiable neural network architectures,” the company tells HPCwire. “Most startups lack the architecture and skill sets to blend both.”
Deep Origin co-founders
The company, which was founded in 2022 by Michael Antonov and Garegin Papoian, says it is taking a long view of the challenge of AI-powered drug discovery. It’s not a quick ‘chase milestones’ effort,” the company tells us.
“Virtual screening has been widely used for more than 40 years, yet it has rarely delivered an actual drug,” stated Garegin Papoian, the company’s chief scientific officer of Deep Origin. “The field learned to live with a low accuracy ceiling. We set out to change that by pairing physics with machine learning, ensuring our method holds its accuracy on novel targets where training data alone runs out.”
The zero-leakage split is also an important aspect of how Deep Origin works. It’s common practice in machine learning to hold back a portion of one’s training data for evaluation purposes to avoid “snooping.”
Deep Origin says that, in order to test and validate it AI, it uses a “strict double-similarity filter” that removes any protein sharing 30% or more sequence identity and any ligand exceeding 0.4 Tanimoto similarity. (Tanimoto similarity is a mathematical metric used to compare how alike two objects or sets are, with 1 being a perfect match and 0 being no match.)
Combined, these approaches allow Deep Origin to successfully run virtual screens against novel biological targets without existing crystallographic data (the structural information about atoms, ions, and molecules inside crystalline solids) or known small-molecule binders. The company claims it’s able to maintain 50% to 89% pose accuracy where the pure AI and ML approaches failed.
Source: Deep Origin
The San Francisco company, which has raised $82 million, is publishing an article in BioRxiv on the wet-lab validation work it did in the lab against a synthetic compound library with more than 80 billion compounds. Deep Origin highlighted the results on four compounds in particular, including CD73 (nucleotidase), IRAK4 (kinase), Factor XIa (protease), and IL-17A (protein-protein (PPI) target).
Across all four targets, Deep Origin’s hits “demonstrated high scaffold novelty, with a ECFP4 Tanimoto similarity of 0.22–0.27 relative to known binders. “The screens discovered entirely new chemical matter rather than minor variations on existing drugs,” the company says.
In particular, against CD73, which is important in slowing cancer’s growth, Deep Origin achieved a 30.6% hit rate in finding ligands that pair with the enzyme, which is about 100x better than pure AI/ML-based approaches, the company said.
These results demonstrate Deep Origin’s approach, said Antonov, who is the CEO.
“What matters is how a screen behaves on a target no one has solved yet, so that is where we tested our model with strict splits and cases built to make it fail,” Antonov stated. “How our model performs on those rigorous tests, not on inflated benchmarks, is what dictates how many molecules brought to the bench are likely to be real.”
USS Benfold lost power after ‘engineering casualty’ leaving sailors without galley services, toilets and air conditioning
A US guided-missile destroyer reportedly spent four days adrift and without power in the South China Sea in July, furthering concerns about strain being placed on deployed military members.
The USS Benfold, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer which had been sailing with the George Washington carrier strike group, was reported to have been towed to Subic Bay in the Philippines, according to the US Naval Institute News, an independent military publication.
District Court Judge Eric Elliff has ordered Iron Mountain to cooperate with Nine PBS in recovering roughly 50TB of archival material stored through now-defunct vendor OSS. "He found that the station is the rightful owner of the materials and entitled to recover them from OSS' storage systems," reports Current.org. Nine PBS must identify a third party to help retrieve the files, pay outstanding storage fees, and ensure that data belonging to other OSS customers isn't disturbed or accidentally recovered. From the report: Under his order, Nine PBS is to identify a third-party vendor, such as a former OSS employee, who can assist in accessing and retrieving the data from the infrastructure that's housed in Iron Mountain's center within 30 days. Elliff acknowledged the complexities of Iron Mountain's position as a vendor to OSS, which, according to Nine PBS' complaint, is in delinquency. Iron Mountain is the "custodian" of Nine PBS' data, but it isn't the vendor that contracted with the station to store and preserve its data. That obligation remains with OSS. Under the order, Nine PBS will pay Iron Mountain current and past-due fees for data storage, starting from when OSS stopped paying Iron Mountain for use of its data storage facility.
During the hearing, Gregory Rich, an attorney representing Nine PBS, said the station seeks access to a physical cage where the data is housed within Iron Mountain's facility. The station is in contact with a former OSS employee who is willing to help obtain the data. The attorney noted that the data could potentially be stored in physical form, such as tapes that could be easily retrieved. But if the materials are on a server, Nine PBS could lose the materials forever if Iron Mountain shuts it down. William Cravens, the attorney representing Iron Mountain, told the judge his client doesn't know the format of Nine PBS' materials that were stored by OSS. He expressed concern about whether Nine PBS' archival material is lumped together with data from other OSS clients. Iron Mountain wants to avoid potentially corrupting the other data, Cravens added.
Elliff ordered the immediate return of any physical devices that hold Nine PBS' data once access to OSS' storage system is granted. If data retrieval turns out to be more complicated -- if it is encrypted, for example -- he will schedule another hearing to determine how to proceed. Once Nine PBS retrieves its data, the station must work with a third party to ensure that no data from other OSS customers is among those materials.
My Onewheel XR sat unused for a couple of months. When I went to use it, the battery was dead, so I put it on charge. After charging, it turned on, the lights came on for a moment, then it shut off. After that, the blue power-button ring started flashing. At the time, the app also showed Error 16. I opened the controller, disconnected/reconnected all the connectors and harnesses, and Error 16 eventually disappeared, but the blue power-button ring keeps flashing and the board still won’t work and won’t turn off. I then opened the BMS, inspected everything, disconnected/reconnected it, and checked the battery voltage — ~58 V. Everything looks reasonably clean, no obvious burns or serious corrosion. Still flashing! Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this or what I should test next?
Any XR veterans who have dealt with this before? 🙏
If I can repair the original XR first, I’d prefer that. But if I go VESC, which setup would you recommend for mainly city riding, floatwheel XRV kit or fungineers powertrains?
Storm that brought heavy rains and winds damaged at least 100 homes and bridges and left over 100,000 without power
Hawaii residents began to clean up after tropical storm Lala blew past the Big Island, leaving more than 100,000 without power and damaging at least 100 homes and bridges.
Lala was downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it grazed the islands, but it brought heavy rains and winds to the Big Island. Hawaii’s total rainfall over 48 hours topped 3.5ft in some areas, according to AccuWeather. The rising floodwaters damaged or swept away about 100 homes in the area, along with six bridges.
El 60% de los aperitivos tienen demasiados ingredientes y muchos estadounidenses ya están buscando opciones más simples. Una encuesta de 2.000 estadounidenses encontró que, para el 66%, entre menos ingredientes tenga un aperitivo, más confianza les genera. Esta preferencia es…
When 18-year-old Nolan Wells went missing, his story immediately touched a nerve in Black families. He was last seen while hanging out with a group of white friends, at a popular beach near Ocean Springs, Mississippi. Wells never came home from the trip, and he was found dead days later. Many questions about how he died remain unanswered publicly. And the mystery surrounding his death has revived an old conversation within Black communities: are we ever truly safe in white-dominated spaces? Who will feel responsible for our children’s safety when we send them out into a world where Black life is not valued? Host Kai Wright talks with historian Stacey Patton and writer Ashley Stoney about why Wells’ story has captured so much attention – and sparked so much anxiety – among Black parents, in particular. What does our collective reaction to Wells’ disappearance and death reveal about the limits of interracial society today?
(The Center Square) – U.S. Customs and Border Protection Chief Rodney Scott said he paused all construction activity in Big Bend National Park and arrived in Texas on Monday to meet with Texas officials and stakeholders in person. He said…
MPs, friends and campaigners gathered to remember former Cambridge professor after his death on Friday
Tens of thousands of people gathered in Trafalgar Square in London to remember and pay tribute to Jason Arday, the former Cambridge professor who died on Friday.
Stand Up to Racism, which organised the vigil, estimated that 30,000 mourners had gathered in the square to listen to emotional speeches from MPs, friends and campaigners on Arday’s life and legacy and join in a minute’s silence. Many were dressed in black and held flowers, which they were asked to leave beneath Nelson’s column. People also carried placards reading “rest in power”.
Image: Hillary Olson comes to Hagley Museum and Library with nearly 30 years of experience working in natural and cultural history museums, science centers and planetariums. Photos courtesy of Hagley Museum and Library and image created using AI on 8/17/26
Museum innovator Hillary Olson plans to invite employees, visitors, educators and the wider community to help shape Hagley’s future
WILMINGTON — For Hillary Olson, Hagley Museum and Library is more than a place to study what inventors and business leaders accomplished in the past. It is a place where a child, family or researcher can begin imagining what might be possible in the future.
Olson, who became Hagley’s CEO in July, wants to build on that sense of inspiration and discovery as the museum prepares for its next era.
Hagley is now in the fifth and final year of its current five-year strategic plan, which will conclude at the end of 2026. In 2027, Hagley will begin developing its next strategic plan through a collaborative process involving employees, volunteers, board members, visitors, educators, community organizations and other stakeholders.
The new plan has not yet been written. Input gathered during the 2027 planning process will help establish Hagley’s priorities and direction for the years ahead.
“In any strategic planning process I’m a part of, when we say that we’re engaging our stakeholders, it’s not just our board, it’s not just our members,” Olson said. “It is people who don’t visit, because it’s a great time to find out why.”
The effort will consider how Hagley can reach more people, strengthen its educational programs, expand community partnerships and maintain its historic property for future generations.
“I can tell you that it will probably be a visitor-focused strategic plan,” Olson said.
Visitors will be broadly defined to include families, students, museum guests, scholars and researchers who use Hagley’s library.
A career built around museums and stories
Olson comes to Hagley with nearly 30 years of experience working in natural and cultural history museums, science centers and planetariums.
Her original academic background is in astronomy and geology. She later returned to school and earned a master’s degree in museum leadership, bringing together her interest in science with a passion for helping museums tell stories in engaging and understandable ways.
Before joining Hagley, Olson served as president and CEO of the Rochester Museum and Science Center in New York. There, she led an organization with three sites and more than 1.2 million collection objects. Her work included strategic and master planning, capital improvements, fundraising and building relationships with regional communities.
Olson said her passion is helping people engage with authentic artifacts, documents and historic places in ways that encourage them to see history, science and culture differently.
A museum visit, she said, should do more than present facts. It should give visitors an opportunity to encounter an object, understand how it was used and consider what they might create or improve themselves.
That focus on storytelling and discovery made Hagley especially appealing.
Olson had visited Hagley when she lived in Philadelphia and later returned with her young children. She remembered the powder yards, exhibitions and setting along the Brandywine.
When she learned the CEO position was available, she began studying the museum, its library, finances and programs. She was drawn to the complexity of an institution that combines industrial and business history, science, technology, horticulture, historic preservation and public education.
“I saw the wonderful complexity of it all, which is something that I’m drawn to,” Olson said.
Hagley’s board also helped persuade her to take the position. She said its members are open to change and new initiatives while remaining committed to protecting Hagley for future generations.
Inspiration built into the property
Hagley occupies 235 acres along the Brandywine and includes the site of the gunpowder works founded by E.I. du Pont in 1802. Its working machinery, millrace, historic homes, gardens, museum artifacts and collections, and business history archives allow visitors to encounter history through objects and experiences.
Olson sees those resources as tools for inspiring people to ask how things work, how they can be improved and what problems they might solve.
“The historic gunpowder yard is full of STEM,” she said. “It’s an engineering endeavor.”
Visitors can watch water turn machinery installed during the 19th century. They can study small patent models created to demonstrate inventions and improvements. They can also see how science, mathematics and engineering helped transform a gunpowder operation into the foundation of a major American company.
Olson said innovation does not always require creating something entirely new. Frequently, it begins by improving something that already exists.
“You’re not just inventing the wheel; you’re improving the wheel,” she said.
That message could be particularly valuable for children who may not yet think of themselves as scientists, engineers or inventors.
During Hagley’s gunpowder demonstrations, the sound of a small explosion immediately captures people’s attention. Olson said that excitement creates an opening to ask how people solved difficult problems hundreds of years ago — and what problems today’s students might one day solve.
“What are you going to figure out, fourth grader, in your life?” Olson said. “What is the problem that you’re going to solve?”
Bringing classroom lessons to life
Expanding school partnerships is expected to be an important part of Hagley’s planning.
Olson wants the museum to speak directly with teachers about their curriculum requirements and develop field trips that support what students are learning in school. Hagley guides create programs using the working equipment in the powder yards to demonstrate technology concepts that can be difficult to understand from a textbook.
Hagley also offers opportunities involving history, social studies, horticulture, and science. Its DuPont Discovery Loft includes current technologies like 3D printers and space for hands-on STEM activities.
Olson described the goal as providing “hands-on, minds-on” experiences that offer something beyond what children can receive in a classroom.
The programs must be educationally useful because teachers often need to demonstrate that a field trip meets curriculum standards before a school can approve the cost.
Hagley will also expand fundraising to provide free or subsidized field trips for students from underserved communities. Olson said access to transportation and admission should not prevent students from experiencing the museum’s resources.
Expanding partnerships with community organizations could help Hagley reach new audiences while also bringing in expertise and connection, meeting the needs of community members in setting rooted in the history of innovation.
Asking the community what it needs
Olson began listening immediately upon arriving at Hagley.
During her first several days, she sent a survey to the museum and library’s more than 150 full- and part-time employees. She asked what they wanted her to understand about their jobs, what they believed Hagley was doing well and what opportunities they saw for its future.
The responses reflected considerable pride in Hagley and its mission, as well as an interest in more collaboration and connection with each other.
That internal conversation is expected to grow into a broader community discussion when Hagley begins developing the new strategic plan in 2027.
Olson said outreach should include people who attend Hagley’s popular events, families who visit its museum and gardens, teachers who bring students and scholars who travel to Delaware to use the library. It should also reach residents who live in the region but have never visited.
Their absence, she said, is itself valuable information. Hagley must understand whether people are unfamiliar with its programs, do not see something that speaks to their interests or face practical barriers to visiting.
The objective is to make Hagley welcoming and relevant to more people while staying true to its strong connection to northern Delaware.
Local roots and a wider reach
Olson believes Hagley can remain a community institution while attracting more visitors from the broader region.
Its museum audience is largely local, but its library already has a national and international reputation. Scholars travel from around the world to examine its collections of business records, advertising materials and other primary-source documents. Some researchers visit for a few hours, while others remain on campus for months.
Olson sees an opportunity to expand the museum’s regional reach and impact, introducing Hagley to new visitors and people who are traveling to the Brandywine Valley.
But expanding Hagley’s audience will not mean leaving the local community behind.
“Serving the people in the immediate community is step one,” Olson said.
Preserving a complicated historic site
Hagley’s future also depends on maintaining the property that makes its educational mission possible.
Historic buildings, waterways and working machinery require specialized skills and regular investment. Hagley must address rising costs while raising money for capital improvements, operations and educational programs.
The 2027 planning process is expected to examine philanthropic support as well as earned revenue from admissions, memberships and programs.
Olson said Hagley benefits from long-serving employees, dedicated volunteers, support from members of the du Pont family and many other donors, and a board willing to consider change while protecting the institution’s legacy.
That balance — preserving the past while encouraging discovery — helped attract her to Hagley.
Few institutions bring together industrial history, science, a dynamic library and archive, gardens, historic homes and hands-on education in one place. Olson believes those resources can be used to inspire more people to understand how earlier generations solved problems and to imagine what they might make possible themselves.
The answers will come not only from Hagley’s leadership. They will also come from the employees who care for its collections, the teachers seeking new ways to reach students, the families and guests who use its grounds, and the community that surrounds it.
At a glance
What:Hagley Museum and Library’s next strategic planning process
When:Hagley is in the final year of its current five-year strategic plan, which concludes at the end of 2026. Development of the next plan will begin in 2027.
Who will participate:Hagley employees, volunteers, board members, donors and sponsors, visitors, educators, community partners, academics, researchers and people who do not currently visit
Likely areas of discussion: Visitor engagement, educational access, community partnerships, digital engagement, regional growth, fundraising, capital improvements and long-term sustainability
Central question: How can Hagley use its history, library, land and collections to help more people discover what they can create, improve or make possible?
President says US carrier is ‘beautifully maintained’ and calls network ‘fake news’ over reports of poor conditions
Donald Trump claimed he had third-hand reports that the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln was “beautifully maintained” despite extensive accounts of deteriorating living conditions during its lengthy deployment in the strait of Hormuz.
At the White House on Monday, the president berated Kristen Holmes, a CNN reporter, at a press availability, insisting that she “be quiet” and describing the reporting as fake news.
(The Center Square) – More than two dozen organizations writing briefs for a pivotal U.S. Supreme Court case on the future of climate change had ties to fossil-fuel linked companies, according to a new report.
(The Center Square) – The president of the Illinois Education Association applauded Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s record on Monday, but other teachers unions have called on the governor to do more for schools.
Controversial project has faced bipartisan opposition by critics who say it mars pristine environmental area in Texas
Construction on a US-Mexico border project in Big Bend national park has halted, the Trump administration said Monday, as Customs and Border Protection (CBP) evaluates the controversial project in Texas.
“CBP is pausing all construction activity in Big Bend National Park while I visit and conduct a personal, on-the-ground evaluation,” CBP’s head, Rodney Scott, wrote in a social media post.
Likud’s depiction of Zohran Mamdani is latest move in spat between Israel’s prime minister and New York City mayor
Benjamin Netanyahu’s party has compared the New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani, to the leaders of Iran and Hezbollah on a campaign billboard.
The billboard in central Tel Aviv depicts Mamdani alongside the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Iran’s supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, and the chief of the militant group Hezbollah, Naim Qassem.
Image: State Rep. Josué Ortega and Councilwoman Shané Darby want the Delaware Department of Justice to use its authority to obtain records from the city and its towing contractor and independently examine the program.
Officials cite 19,083 vehicle tows, incomplete financial records and questions about how cars are selected, held and disposed of
WILMINGTON — A state representative and Wilmington City Council member are asking the Delaware Attorney General’s Office to investigate the city’s vehicle-towing and parking-debt collection practices, citing records they say raise questions about financial accountability, enforcement and the loss of residents’ vehicles.
State Rep. Josué Ortega and Councilwoman Shané Darby submitted the referral after reviewing city records covering 19,083 vehicles towed from fiscal years 2020 through 2025.
The officials are not alleging that any individual committed a crime or asking the attorney general to accept their conclusions. They want the Delaware Department of Justice to use its authority to obtain records from the city and its towing contractor and independently examine the program.
“The reason we are asking the attorney general to look at this is straightforward,” Ortega said. “Some of the questions raised by those records can be answered only by an office empowered to compel the city and its towing contractor to produce records that a member of the public cannot reach on their own.”
The Attorney General’s Office had not publicly announced whether it would open an investigation as of Monday.
Wilmington’s tow volume questioned
According to the referral, Wilmington towed more vehicles during the six-year period than all other Delaware municipalities that responded to related public-records requests combined.
The officials said Wilmington’s per-capita towing rate was roughly twice that of comparable Delaware cities.
They contrasted Wilmington’s system with Newark, which generally immobilizes vehicles for parking debt instead of towing them. Immobilization allows an owner to recover the vehicle after resolving the debt without the vehicle being immediately removed and impounded.
The figures and comparisons were presented by Ortega and Darby based on records obtained through Delaware’s Freedom of Information Act. They have not been independently audited by the Attorney General’s Office.
Questions about money collected
A central issue is whether the city can document how much parking debt it collects when a vehicle is towed.
According to the referral, an assistant city solicitor responded to a public-records request by saying the city “does not maintain records responsive to this request” when asked for the amount of ticket revenue collected through towing.
Ortega and Darby said the city’s reported revenue appears to account for a flat vehicle-release fee but does not separately identify payments toward the parking tickets that triggered the tow.
“Delawareans expect that when a government takes a person’s car, the records will show the debt that justified the tow,” Ortega said. “When those records cannot be produced, an independent look is warranted.”
Thousands of vehicles reportedly scrapped
About 29% of all vehicles towed during the period were scrapped rather than returned to their owners, according to the referral. Among vehicles towed specifically for parking debt, the figure was approximately 58%.
Under the city’s arrangement, the towing contractor retains proceeds from vehicles that are scrapped or resold, the officials said. The city then waives the underlying ticket debt when ownership is transferred to the contractor.
Ortega said towing itself is not evidence of misconduct but argued that government must be able to document what happened to a vehicle and the debt associated with it.
“Cities tow cars,” he said. “But how a city tows cars matters.”
Few appeals and no recorded owner victories
The referral also raises questions about the appeals process.
Of approximately 4,564 tows reviewed over an 18-month period, only 30 vehicle owners appealed, according to the officials. None of the records showed an appeal decided in favor of the owner.
Appeals are heard within the same city department responsible for ordering tows and collecting the debt, the referral said.
Darby said investigators should examine whether the process provides vehicle owners with a meaningful opportunity to challenge a tow.
“Why not one appeal is recorded as decided in an owner’s favor — those are questions that require access to records the council cannot reach on its own,” she said.
Uneven enforcement alleged
The officials also questioned how the city selects vehicles for enforcement.
More than 2,000 vehicles reportedly carried balances above the city’s threshold for booting, but only a small percentage were towed during any particular month. Some vehicles with the largest unpaid balances were apparently not targeted.
The referral does not conclude that the differences resulted from favoritism or intentional discrimination. It asks investigators to determine whether the city follows consistent criteria when choosing which eligible vehicles to boot or tow.
Vehicles held for years
Ortega and Darby identified 182 vehicles that were held for more than 180 days after the city ordered them towed under collection-related accounts.
Fifty-eight of those vehicles had no recorded release or final disposition, according to the referral. Some had reportedly remained in the records for more than five years.
The city identified five vehicles as having been disposed of through Justice of the Peace Court lien proceedings initiated by its towing contractor. However, the officials said the contractor’s operational records did not contain corresponding entries documenting a release, sale or other disposition.
One was a 1990 Lotus Esprit whose record reportedly contains only its towing date. The five vehicles had a combined estimated private-party value of at least $55,000 based on current published valuation guides, while the contractor’s records listed each with a zero balance, according to the referral.
Those valuations are estimates and do not establish the vehicles’ condition or value when they were towed.
Earlier review raised similar concerns
The referral contends that questions about Wilmington’s towing records predate the current contractor.
In 2018, an assistant city solicitor told AAA Mid-Atlantic that the city had never received vehicle-sale records from its towing contractor and said monthly reporting would begin.
AAA’s 2019 report examined 3,671 vehicles towed during a 15-month period. It found records of only 468 notices to owners and said 1,320 vehicles appeared never to have been released.
Although Wilmington has since changed towing contractors, Ortega and Darby contend that gaps in recordkeeping remain.
City did not respond before referral
The officials said they presented their questions to the city in July and gave the administration until Aug. 14 to respond or announce an audit. According to their release, the city did neither.
Darby sponsored a 2024 City Council resolution calling for a comprehensive audit of Wilmington’s towing and parking-enforcement practices. The administration declined to conduct it, she said.
Ortega previously worked in the city’s Office of Constituent Affairs from 2016 to 2021, where he said he handled complaints from residents about towing.
“This request is not adversarial to the city of Wilmington,” Darby said. “I represent the city. I want its systems to work fairly, uniformly and lawfully.”
The referral asks the attorney general to determine what the city collects when it tows a vehicle for parking debt, whether payments are reconciled with the underlying tickets, how enforcement targets are selected, whether appeals are handled fairly and what happens to vehicles that are not reclaimed.
At a Glance
What happened: State Rep. Josué Ortega and Wilmington Councilwoman Shané Darby asked the Delaware Attorney General’s Office to investigate Wilmington’s towing, impoundment and parking-debt practices.
Period examined: Fiscal years 2020 through 2025.
Vehicles involved: 19,083.
Vehicles reportedly scrapped: About 29% of all towed vehicles and approximately 58% of those towed for parking debt.
Appeals reviewed: Thirty appeals among roughly 4,564 tows during an 18-month period. None was recorded as decided for the vehicle owner.
Long-term impounds: The referral identifies 182 vehicles held longer than 180 days, including 58 with no recorded release or disposition.
What the officials want: An independent investigation with authority to obtain records from the city and its towing contractor.
What happens next: The Attorney General’s Office must decide whether to open an investigation. The referral itself does not establish wrongdoing.
US president’s abrupt order to scale back joint exercises with Seoul is meant to ‘flatter’ North Korea’s dictator, top Democrat says
Donald Trump’s move to gut Washington’s 73-year-old military alliance with Seoul has been called “inane” and “shortsighted” as lawmakers warned it risked strengthening Russia’s hand in Ukraine.
The US president abruptly ordered the Pentagon to scale back joint exercises with South Korea just days after North Korea test-fired ballistic missiles, justifying the decision by citing his “very good relationship” with Kim Jong-un, the nuclear-armed dictator such exercises exist to deter.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Aug. 17, 2026 — HIVE Digital Technologies Ltd., through its wholly owned subsidiary BUZZ High Performance Computing Inc. (BUZZ HPC), today announced that it has signed a five-year GPU cloud services agreement with an investment-grade enterprise customer (all amounts in US dollars, unless otherwise indicated).
The agreement represents approximately $350 million in total contract value over five years and adds approximately $70 million in annualized revenue. This brings BUZZ HPC’s total annualized revenue to approximately $180 million, comprised of approximately $35 million in active, realized ARR today and approximately $145 million in contracted ARR expected to come online through Q4 2026. The contract is expected to generate attractive long-term economics and meaningful recurring cash flow as the cluster reaches full deployment.
Under the agreement, BUZZ HPC will deliver a dedicated AI infrastructure cluster consisting of 2,016 NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra GPUs in NVIDIA GB300 NVL72 rack-scale systems, interconnected with NVIDIA Quantum-X800 InfiniBand networking and supported by VAST Data’s high-performance storage platform. The system is being designed in accordance with NVIDIA’s reference architecture to support large-scale AI training, inference and advanced enterprise workloads.
The cluster is expected to become operational later this year at the Bell AI Fabric facility in Merritt, British Columbia.
The Merritt facility is powered by 100% renewable hydroelectric energy and utilizes advanced closed-loop liquid cooling technology, eliminating ongoing water consumption for cooling and reinforcing BUZZ HPC’s commitment to delivering sustainable, high-performance AI compute infrastructure.
Accelerating BUZZ HPC’s AI Cloud Growth
The new contract represents another significant step in the rapid expansion of BUZZ HPC’s AI cloud platform and demonstrates the Company’s ability to secure large-scale, long-term commitments from investment-grade customers.
The five-year term provides BUZZ HPC with long-term contracted revenue visibility while supporting the Company’s strategy of building a portfolio of high-performance accelerated computing infrastructure serving Canadian sovereign AI requirements, global enterprises and leading AI organizations internationally.
The dedicated cluster will support advanced AI training and inference workloads while leveraging BUZZ HPC’s expertise in NVIDIA accelerated computing, high-performance networking, enterprise storage and AI cloud infrastructure.
Attractive Long-Term Contract Economics
The Company expects capital expenditures associated with the deployment (including the accelerated computing cluster and all associated hardware and service warranties) to total approximately $185 million. The Company will receive an upfront deposit of approximately 10% of the total contract value of $350 million from the customer. The approximately $35 million deposit, together with HIVE’s previously announced financing initiatives and additional equipment financing, is expected to support the deployment and optimize the Company’s capital structure.
Upon completion, HIVE will retain ownership of the NVIDIA AI infrastructure, creating a long-lived strategic asset, with potential for continued cashflows. The five-year contract is anticipated to deliver an attractive return on invested capital, with meaningful upside from continued ownership. That value is driven by the long, useful life of NVIDIA accelerated computing, enabled by industry-leading throughput per watt and lowest token cost.
NVIDIA accelerated computing infrastructure is expected to be delivered and deployed in calendar Q4 of this year, at which point, HIVE’s HPC/AI daily revenue will be approximately $500,000.
Sustainable AI Infrastructure
BUZZ HPC’s AI cloud strategy combines leading-edge computing performance with access to sustainable power infrastructure.
The Merritt deployment will operate entirely on renewable hydroelectric power while utilizing closed-loop direct liquid cooling technology designed to maximize energy efficiency without requiring ongoing water consumption for cooling.
By combining renewable energy, advanced cooling technology and NVIDIA accelerated computing, BUZZ HPC is building AI infrastructure designed to deliver both the performance and sustainability increasingly required by enterprise and AI customers.
Building a Canadian AI Cloud Platform with Global Reach
BUZZ HPC continues to rapidly scale its position as a leading Canadian AI cloud provider, delivering sovereign accelerated computing infrastructure and enterprise AI cloud services to customers in Canada and internationally.
By combining purpose-built AI infrastructure, renewable energy, NVIDIA accelerated computing, high-performance networking and enterprise cloud technologies, BUZZ HPC is building a vertically integrated AI platform designed to support the growing global demand for AI.
The agreement further demonstrates the increasing demand for BUZZ HPC’s infrastructure and the Company’s ability to translate its growing AI platform into long-term contracted revenue.
SANTA CLARA, Calif. and REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Aug. 17, 2026 — NVIDIA today announced that it has secured land, power and shell (LPS) capacity through a partnership with SB Energy at the PORTS-Pike Technology Campus in Pike County, Ohio, to host NVIDIA compute. OpenAI will be the customer. SB Energy will build, own and operate the data center under a 20-year lease to OpenAI.
Credit: Shutterstock
Demand for AI is growing at an extraordinary pace. AI is becoming infrastructure, requiring a full stack of critical resources, including LPS. To meet this moment, NVIDIA is securing the LPS capacity at PORTS-Pike to exclusively host NVIDIA AI factories. This unique campus development will lay the foundation for tomorrow’s breakthroughs, enabling communities to drive scientific discovery, health care advances and regional economic development.
OpenAI will utilize the capacity at the site. The AI factory will use NVIDIA’s full-stack DSX AI factory platform, including GPUs, CPUs and networking. The initial deployment is designed to support 4.25 IT-GW of AI factory capacity. NVIDIA has the option to extend the opportunity at PORTS-Pike beyond the initial capacity. The DSX AI factory architecture used at PORTS-Pike will deliver resiliency across the full stack – facilities, hardware, and software together – reducing infrastructure overhead and accelerating time to tokens for the next generation of AI factories.
“AI is becoming infrastructure – the foundation for intelligence in every industry – and land, power and shell have become vital in the age of AI. Now is the time to scale the AI infrastructure that will power the next industrial revolution,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “We are securing long-lived infrastructure for NVIDIA compute so OpenAI can deploy the most productive AI factories that can be upgraded repeatedly with each new generation delivering more intelligence and better economics.”
“Infrastructure is vital for the AI economy. With SoftBank Group, OpenAI and NVIDIA, SB Energy is building power-first infrastructure at unprecedented scale while strengthening the communities that make it possible – protecting ratepayers, creating tens of thousands of well-paying jobs, and investing in infrastructure to revitalize Southern Ohio that has long shaped America’s future,” said Rich Hossfeld, co-CEO of SB Energy.
“This is going to be a huge site, with enough computing power to help millions of people use AI to do things we can only start to imagine today, from finding new medicines to starting businesses and solving hard problems,” said Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI. “We’re proud to build it in Pike County, a place that is once again at the heart of American industry and leading the future. We want the people who live here to feel the benefits too, through good jobs, more opportunity for local businesses, and investment in the community for years to come.”
“The next era of intelligence will transform every industry — and require infrastructure built at unprecedented speed and scale. Together with our partners, SoftBank will help unlock the power of AGI and move humanity forward,” said Masayoshi Son, Chairman and CEO of SoftBank Group Corp.
Campus to Bring New Jobs and Benefits to Ohio
SB Energy’s PORTS-Pike Technology Campus is reindustrializing the decommissioned Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant and the surrounding area, bringing a new generation of jobs to Appalachian Ohio, while creating an opportunity for the region to play an important role in the next era of American industry. Spanning private and federal land, the campus is being developed in collaboration with AEP Ohio, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the U.S. Department of Commerce. The planned capacity is expected to come online in phases beginning in 2028.
In support of the surrounding Ohio community, SB Energy and SoftBank will build at least 10 GW of new energy generation, which results in 8 IT-GW of AI factory capacity, and invest at least $4.2 billion in new regional grid infrastructure through an innovative partnership with AEP Ohio designed to protect ratepayers. OpenAI has agreed to build on SB Energy’s originally announced $40 million community benefits fund with an incremental $40 million designed to support local priorities, including affordable energy, job creation and workforce development, and community and economic development.
NVIDIA Invests in SB Energy
NVIDIA will invest $1.5 billion in SB Energy, joining existing investors SoftBank Group and OpenAI. The investment supports SB Energy’s continued evolution into a leading AI infrastructure developer, while supporting Pike County and other local communities, with the vast opportunity ahead to deliver compute infrastructure at speed and scale.
This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any securities, nor shall there be any sale of any securities in any state or other jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to the registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or other jurisdiction.
Advisors
Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan served as financial advisors for SB Energy. Morgan Stanley served as NVIDIA’s financial advisor.
About NVIDIA
NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) is the world leader in AI and accelerated computing.
About SB Energy
SB Energy is a leading integrated data center and power infrastructure company purpose-built for the AI economy. The company develops, constructs, and operates gigawatt-scale data center campuses and utility-scale power generation assets. Through its vertically integrated, power-first model, SB Energy addresses the industry’s primary bottleneck and accelerates speed-to-compute, with a focus on community, reliability, and cost discipline. For more information, visit www.sbenergy.com.
About OpenAI
OpenAI is making powerful AI accessible, useful and abundant for people and businesses everywhere to build, solve problems and expand what they’re able to do.
Funding opportunities prioritize foundational research across the sciences and engineering and advance a new portfolio-based approach to grant-making, offering researchers more flexibility in award periods and reducing administrative burden
Aug. 17, 2026 — The U.S. National Science Foundation today released 12 new notices of funding opportunity (NOFOs) providing over $1.5 billion for foundational research, including basic and use-inspired inquiry across the sciences and engineering.
These funding opportunities support the foremost goal in the administration’s memorandum “Ushering in a New Golden Age of American Innovation: Fiscal Year 2028 Administration Research and Development Budget Priorities” which calls for investing in the foundational research that remains the bedrock of American science and technology leadership. They also deliver on a central premise of the report Science: A New Golden Age — that America must respond to the forces reshaping the scientific enterprise and create conditions in which exceptional science can occur more often and progress more rapidly. Rather than treating every research question alike, NSF will take a portfolio-based approach to federal grantmaking that deliberately matches funding mechanisms, institutional models, research modalities and grant durations to the character of the research. NOFOs announced today will support a mix of long-horizon awards for ambitious, transformative research and rapid short-term grants to quickly test promising ideas.
NOFOs advance NSF’s core mission to support foundational research that leads to scientific breakthroughs and opens new frontiers of knowledge. NSF investments in foundational research underpin technological innovation across industries, strengthening U.S. economic competitiveness, enhancing national security and improving quality of life for all Americans. The funding opportunities place particular emphasis on bold, paradigm-challenging inquiry, foundational research that forges new connections across disciplines, and projects that harness artificial intelligence, advanced computation and automation to make qualitatively new science possible.
“America’s scientific enterprise is shaped by how we empower researchers to explore the frontiers of discovery,” said Brian Stone, Performing the Duties of the NSF Director. “The investment that we are announcing today will enable researchers to accelerate fundamental research, giving rise to the transformational breakthroughs that will power our future.”
“In Science: A New Golden Age, the administration made foundational research in the sciences and engineering a national priority,” said Michael Kratsios, Assistant to the President and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “NSF’s investments today ensure the United States continues to drive the scientific breakthroughs that underpin the industries of the future and will support a wider range of meritorious science by matching the size, speed and duration of an award to the character of the research it supports.”
The new opportunities reflect a wider range of R&D funding mechanisms so that the structure of an award better fits the research it is intended to support. Where scientifically justified, researchers are encouraged to request awards of up to five years of support for long-term, ambitious research questions, allowing them to focus on truly paradigm-shifting research instead of producing incremental results to secure the next award. To rapidly test and de-risk novel ideas, researchers are also encouraged to make greater use of NSF’s existing rapid, short-term grant mechanisms.
Many of the new funding opportunities will also enable structured experiments in how NSF supports discovery. NSF plans to rigorously assess and validate whether changes in proposal design, award duration, review methods and funding speed improve the quality and ambition of scientific results. NSF plans to scale these changes over the long term as appropriate, building the metascience capabilities and self-improving scientific enterprise called for in the administration’s FY 2028 R&D budget priorities memorandum.
The new solicitations are shorter, fewer in number and easier to navigate, opening NSF’s funding opportunities to a broader cross-section of the nation and advancing NSF’s ongoing efforts to reduce paperwork burden. They also complement NSF’s announcement last winter that the agency is piloting changes to the merit review process, including new mechanisms to surface unconventional proposals that may not advance through traditional consensus-driven review panels. Early-career researchers are especially encouraged to apply across funding opportunities.
View the full list of new funding opportunities here.
SAN JOSE, Calif., Aug. 17, 2026 — Credo Technology Group Holding Ltd (Credo), an innovator in providing connectivity at scale through fast, reliable, and energy-efficient system solutions, has announced its plans to standardize an interconnect within the Open Compute Project (OCP) Community for addressing the memory wall challenge. The memory wall is the gap between how fast processors can compute and how fast memory can supply data, causing expensive compute resources to sit idle waiting for data. In modern AI inference environments, memory bandwidth and capacity—not compute power—are often the dominant constraints on system performance.
Credit: Credo
Credo has formed the OCP Open Chiplet Economy (OCE) Lightweight Serial Interconnect (LSI) Workstream to develop interconnect solutions to overcome the memory bottlenecks that limit AI inference scalability in data infrastructure. In combination with the creation of the OCE LSI Workstream, Credo intends to contribute its OmniConnect lightweight AXI framer specification to OCP, with the goal to advance an open ecosystem of OmniConnect products from Credo and third parties that enable memory disaggregation and chip-to-chip communications.
High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM) suffers from very high cost, limited availability, and density issues. The standardization of a lightweight, high-efficiency serial interconnect option promotes the flexible composition of chiplet-based and modular AI systems and reduces reliance on HBM. AI system designers can flexibly compose domain-specific architectures optimized for diverse and evolving AI models, data flows, and workload characteristics, enabling up to 25x increase in memory density and 5% increase in bandwidth compared to HBM4. The effort supports the broader industry transition toward composable infrastructure—where compute, memory, and storage can be optimally combined—helping unlock higher performance, better resource utilization, and greater cost efficiency for AI at scale.
“We formed the OCP LSI Workstream to address a clear industry need for innovative interconnect solutions that address the memory wall problem while also enabling a new generation of high-bandwidth and power-optimized modular architectures for AI systems,” said Vishal Shah, Vice President of Product, Credo. “Advancing an open approach to lightweight framing and serial interconnect is critical to enabling flexible chiplet integration, including near-package pluggable configurations, for the next wave of AI inference.”
“We welcome Credo’s leadership in helping to define open frameworks and standards that can accelerate innovation and scalability across the ecosystem with the OCP LSI Workstream,” said Anu Ramamurthy, Co-Lead, OCP Open Chiplet Economy Subproject. “Credo’s intended contribution of the lightweight AXI framer specification to OCP is an important step toward aligning the industry around AI interconnect architectures that enable interoperability, reduce complexity and support the high-performance requirements of next-generation AI infrastructure.”
The Lightweight Serial Interconnect (LSI) Workstream operates within the OCP Open Chiplet Economy Subproject, under the Server Project. More information on the LSI Workstream can be found here.
Credo’s intended contribution to OCP of its OmniConnect lightweight AXI framer specification is part of Credo’s OmniConnect versatile AXI-over-VSR (Very Short Reach) SerDes bus that enables both die-to-die interconnect and scale-up networking by connecting multiple compute engines via external chiplets. For more information on Credo OmniConnect, visit the product page linked here.
About Credo
Credo’s mission is to transform connectivity at scale through fast, reliable, and energy-efficient system solutions. Our high-speed copper and optical interconnect products deliver industry-leading power and performance at up to 1.6T to meet the ever-expanding data infrastructure demands of AI. Our product portfolio includes ZeroFlap (ZF) Active Electrical Cables (AECs) and ZF optical transceivers, OmniConnect memory solutions, and a suite of retimers and DSPs for optical and copper Ethernet and PCIe, all leveraging the PILOT diagnostic and analytics software platform. Credo innovations enable our customers to connect the systems that connect the world.
How much of learning curve is there, really. Is there much more to it then adjusting endless sliders? Is there any actual coding or more complicated alignment procedures that are dangerous if done incorrectly?
State police charged a 36-year-old Hockessin man with six felonies following the early-morning confrontation
HOCKESSIN — Wawa employees disarmed and subdued a knife-wielding man after he allegedly cut a co-worker’s hand during an altercation early Sunday, Delaware State Police said.
Troopers responded shortly before 3 a.m. Aug. 16 to the Wawa at 605 Yorklyn Road, near Lancaster Pike. When they arrived, employees were restraining 36-year-old Matthew Ralston of Hockessin, police said.
Investigators said Ralston initially entered the store, made a purchase and went outside but remained in the parking lot. He later returned, went behind the counter, displayed a knife and allegedly threatened and attempted to stab an employee.
Ralston then left the knife on the counter and walked outside, police said. He allegedly returned again, retrieved the knife and waved it above his head before leaving the store once more.
Police said Ralston entered the store again and approached an employee who was calling 911. He allegedly lunged at her and swung the knife, cutting her hand.
Other employees disarmed and restrained Ralston until troopers arrived. The injured employee was taken to an area hospital with injuries that were not considered life-threatening.
Ralston was charged with three counts of possession of a deadly weapon during the commission of a felony, second-degree assault, attempted second-degree assault and aggravated menacing.
Following his arraignment, Ralston was committed to the Delaware Department of Correction in lieu of a $46,000 cash bond.
Ralston is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
TO GO
What: Delaware State Police report on the Hockessin Wawa stabbing investigation When: The incident occurred at about 3 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 16 Where: Wawa, 605 Yorklyn Road, Hockessin Learn more: Read the Delaware State Police report
Manufacturing company 3M knew more than 50 years ago that its firefighting products – including components in Pfas “forever chemicals” – could be hazardous to the health of humans and animals and damage the environment, the federal government has claimed in court documents.
In filings as part of its $2bn lawsuit against the multinational company, commonwealth lawyers said products sold to Australia were known to stay present in water and soil, were persistent in the human body and in animals, and contributed to conditions including reduced kidney function, alterations in immune function, effects on fertility and puberty and lower birth weight in babies.
Why Should Delaware Care? The bond bill is a massive, billion-dollar capital budget the General Assembly passes each June that taxpayers will help to repay over a decade. The details of specific items within the bond bill are often unclear, as the legislature negotiates the capital budget amid its annual end-of-session rush.
While Delaware’s two largest cities will receive roughly $23 million from the state’s omnibus capital budget this year, smaller municipalities will receive no money at all.
And that funding disparity is not abnormal.
A Spotlight Delaware analysis found that lawmakers in recent years have poured hundreds of millions of tax dollars into construction and redevelopment projects in Wilmington and Dover through Delaware’s bond bill, often allocating much less for initiatives in the state’s smaller communities.
Much of the money doled out to Delaware’s largest cities flows through public entities and private nonprofits like Wilmington’s Riverfront Development Corporation and the Downtown Dover Partnership — organizations working to revitalize the downtown cores of the state’s largest and capital cities, respectively, through multi-year master plans.
But money in the bond bill – the state’s annual budget to fund construction and development projects through the issuance of long-term debt – can also be allocated directly to local governments, along with nonprofits or corporations.
And while other municipal projects, like “economic development” in Seaford or “community initiatives” in Newark, have sporadically received capital dollars in recent years, the Riverfront Development Corporation and Downtown Dover Partnership are unmatched in the consistent stream of funding they receive from the bond bill each year.
The result, some local leaders said, is having to apply for grants and seek out private investment — which can be an uphill battle.
Lorissa McAllister, director of the Laurel Redevelopment Corporation, described having to be “very financially responsible,” in order to fund her organization’s projects with limited state support.
For Rep. Bill Bush (D-Dover), who sits on the legislature’s Joint Capital Improvement Committee tasked with putting together the bond bill each year, the difference in funding decisions comes down to how organizations vocalize their financial needs.
“A master plan helps, but you have to communicate it, too,” he said.
How do Wilmington, Dover spend bond bill funds?
Over the past five years, the General Assembly has appropriated roughly $45 million to the Riverfront Development Corporation and $21 million to the Downtown Dover Partnership, according to the Controller General’s office, which oversees legislative finances.
Those distributions often come with relatively few stipulations as to how the funds can be spent.
In this year’s bond bill, Wilmington’s Riverfront Development Corporation received $11.5 million, and the Downtown Dover Partnership received $5 million — amounts that are on par with allocations in recent years.
Megan McGlinchey, director of Wilmington’s Riverfront Development Corporation, gave a presentation to the Joint Capital Improvement Committee in April to explain her organization’s funding request.
She argued the economic returns the redevelopment of Wilmington’s riverfront provides to the city and the state in the form of new jobs and tourism far outweighs the money government officials have invested in the project.
When asked by Spotlight Delaware how the corporation will spend its $11.5 million, McGlinchey said the sum will fund renovations at the Chase Convention Center, a new park next to a luxury apartment complex, beginnings of a new mixed use development project on the east side of the Christina River and updates to the Blue Rocks baseball stadium, among a laundry list of other projects.
The city of Wilmington was separately allocated $7.1 million for the opaque purpose of “city of Wilmington initiatives.”
A spokesperson for Mayor John Carney’s office said this will translate to $1 million for improvements to city-owned golf courses, $3 million for improvements to parks such as Brown Burton Winchester Park and HB Dupont Plaza, and $2 million to acquire vacant properties through the city’s land bank.
The Queen, a well-known concert venue in downtown Wilmington owned by the Buccini Pollin Group, was also given $1 million for building renovations through a so-called “Cultural Access Fund.” The bond bill describes the fund as aimed at enhancing the “quality and availability of Delaware’s recreational and cultural offerings.”
The Downtown Dover Partnership did not present to the Joint Capital Improvement Committee about its funding request this year.
However, Bush, whose district encompasses the downtown Dover area, said the committee has a clear idea of the Downtown Dover Partnership’s long-term master plan, so committee members were inclined to fund the organization.
“In my mind, it’s a great investment,” he said.
The partnership’s Executive Director Diane Laird said its $5 million will go toward its Capital City 2030 plan. The primary projects in the master plan are a “mobility center” parking garage and a 120-unit apartment complex in downtown Dover.
Dover has worked for several years on its Capital City 2030 plan to redevelop the downtown. Officials didn’t even have to pitch the latest investments to get state bond money this year. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY MAGGIE REYNOLDS
Laird told Spotlight Delaware she cannot provide a breakdown of how much will be spent on specific projects because “funds will be used in concert with other public/private funds to ensure projects come to completion.”
The city of Dover has also received multi-million dollar sums from the bond bill in conjunction with the Downtown Dover Partnership in recent years to make wastewater improvements necessary for the downtown project, Laird said, but the city was not allocated those additional funds for FY27.
Redevelopment projects elsewhere
While Wilmington and Dover often receive more than other localities, redevelopment initiatives in other communities around the state also are eligible to receive capital improvement money.
The Riverfront Development Corporation is a public entity, created by a task force of then-Gov. Tom Carper and the General Assembly in 1995. The Downtown Dover Partnership is a private nonprofit with some elected officials on its governing board.
A spokesperson for the Controller General’s office told Spotlight Delaware public entities like the Riverfront Development Corporation, local governments and nonprofit organizations or corporations are all equally able to receive bond bill funds.
Nonetheless, local redevelopment initiatives outside of the state’s two largest cities are frequently left out of bond bill appropriations.
The Laurel Redevelopment Corporation, a nonprofit focused on revitalization around the Broad Creek riverfront in Laurel, did not receive any bond dollars this year.
The organization has sporadically been allocated funding over the past decade, but it has not been given a bond bill appropriation since 2019, according to the Controller General’s office.
The Laurel Redevelopment Corporation has a number of ongoing capital improvement projects, such as a workforce housing development and a park along the creek.
McAllister, the organization’s director, said her group must rely on a combination of grants and private investment, while hoping the state might decide to provide the group funds in future years.
Seaford has also been working on a downtown revitalization project, which includes a riverwalk along the Nanticoke River and transforming the former Nylon Capital Center into a coworking space. City Manager Charles Anderson said Seaford has not received bond bill dollars since 2024, when it was allocated $1.3 million for a combination of different “economic development” projects.
Lauren Swain, Milford’s economic development director, said her city, too, has a redevelopment concept called the “Rivertown Rebirth Master plan,” which has not received any state funding in recent years.
While Bush emphasized that redevelopment organizations need to effectively communicate their plans to the General Assembly in order to receive bond bill funds, he also suggested groups seek out other funding sources, like the state’s Downtown Development District program.
Downtown Development Districts
An additional avenue for local redevelopment funding exists in the form of Delaware State Housing Authority (DSHA)’s Downtown Development Districts program, which offers state dollars and other financial incentives for residential and commercial projects within a specified area of participating cities and towns.
Still, these funds tend to skew toward larger cities, organizers said.
DSHA received $10 million in bond bill funding for the Downtown Development District program this year.
A dozen towns or cities currently participate in the program, and the state is planning to add three more districts this fall.
Wilmington, Milford and Dover were the top three users of the program’s funding in the 2025 fiscal year, receiving $5.4 million, $838,000 and $541,000 in rebates, respectively.
Smaller municipalities like Georgetown and Harrington fell to the bottom of the list, only receiving around $100,000 in state investment, respectively.
DSHA Director Matt Heckles said the unequal distribution of the program’s funds between communities is something his agency frequently “wrestles with.”
Heckles said the housing authority recently changed the scoring process of developer applications for one of its rebate programs in an effort to ensure funding is equitably distributed.
Still, he said, the challenge is that projects in Wilmington tend to be much larger than in other communities, translating to more money being allocated.
While Heckles said his agency is continually focused on ways to make participation in the Downtown Development District program equitable, he argued that it is “apples to oranges” to compare the amount of funding between Wilmington and Milford, for example, because a $2 million project would have a substantially greater impact in Milford.
Can Syria build lasting accountability?
26
August 2026 — 14:00 TO 15:00 BST
Anonymous (not verified)
Online
Human rights and political experts assess how transparency, oversight and civic freedoms can shape Syria’s future governance.
As Syria’s new political order takes shape, experts and polocymakers discuss what reforms are needed to build lasting accountability, protect civic freedoms and strengthen public oversight.
The fall of the Assad regime has created new opportunities for Syrians to engage with public institutions and demand greater accountability. However, the legal and institutional frameworks needed to support public scrutiny and freedom of expression have lagged behind. As Syria’s new political order takes shape, embedding accountability within institutions will be critical to the country’s long-term governance and stability.
This event discusses:
What barriers is Syrian civil society currently facing in advancing accountability?
What opportunities exist to strengthen transparency and public oversight?
What legal reforms are needed to protect freedom of expression?
What institutional changes could help embed accountability in governance?
What role should Syrian actors play in shaping accountability mechanisms?
How can international partners support a more transparent and accountable system?
President Trump said Sunday that the joint military exercises with South Korea are costly and they "send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile" to North Korea.
New signs in the City of Newark's downtown parking lots depict a cartoon rabbit holding a coffee cup – part of the way the city is promoting its new program that offers visitors free parking for up to 15 minutes…
One of the Loco Beach Coconuts’ mascots, Peter Colada, interacts with a fan during the first Banana Ball game in Wilmington, Delaware. Photo Credit: Dave Reeder.
The Texas Tailgaters and Loco Beach Coconuts of the Banana Ball Championship League played the first ever Banana Ball game in Delaware in front of a sold out crowd Thursday, August 13.
WILMINGTON, DE — “You’re going to see the most entertainment during a baseball game with tricks and being fans first [both] players and staff.”
That’s how Texas Tailgater Zach Watson said he’d sum up Banana Ball in a sentence to a new fan.
Watson got to meet with many new fans as Banana Ball took over Frawley Stadium, Thursday night, in the first ever Banana Ball game in Wilmington, Delaware. The game featured Watson’s team — the Texas Tailgaters — in a matchup against one of Banana Ball’s newest teams, the Loco Beach Coconuts.
Banana Ball isn’t a traditional baseball setting. For starters, the Coconuts were the home team but in this format they’re deemed the “headliners”. That’s because Banana Ball is geared to constantly entertain its fans with more than just the product on the field.
“I don’t think there’s ever a quiet moment,” Watson said.
Pregame
Fans lined up outside the front parking lot of Frawley Stadium around 3:00 p.m. waiting to enter the plaza area for the “rope drop” at 3:30. The plaza was themed in accordance with the weekend’s headliners. Beach themed signs, palm trees and surf boards transformed the parking lot into “Loco Beach”. The Coconuts’ players and staff greeted the fans under the Loco Beach Coconut themed archway and welcomed them into the plaza over three hours before the game was set to officially start.
The minute fans enter the plaza their Banana Ball experience begins.
Fans could check out the merchandise available for both teams at merchandise tents or grab free refresher samples at the Dunkin truck. Tropical Smoothie Cafe served smoothies out of a small tiki hut and a couple of food trucks were available for hungry patrons.
The real excitement of the plaza experience wasn’t any of that though. It was the players and cast members themselves.
The players spent over an hour outside meeting with fans, taking pictures and signing autographs. Each interaction was genuine. Players not only signed but had a conversation with each family or fan that approached. Cast members like the Hulagans and Loco Beach lifeguards did the same, creating an environment completely in line with the Banana Ball motto of “Fans First. Entertain Always.”
“Just going out there and making sure a fan has the best time of their life,” Watson said. “Even if it’s trying to influence one fan, hoping they’re having fun and introduce yourself and talk to them, so yeah, fans first.”
A member of the Hulagans poses for a picture while out in the plaza interacting with fans. Photo Credit: Dave Reeder.
The players eventually left the plaza area, but some fans didn’t even notice, because a pregame party was erupting on the stage to the right of the stadium. The official band of the Coconuts — Sitting on Saturn — ushered in the start of the Loco Beach Live Show — a portion of the pregame festivities.
The Band
Sitting on Saturn is a band from California that found their way to Banana Ball through a direct message from Banana Ball creator Jesse Cole.
“I guess he saw like one of our TikToks and listened to like our album and was like ‘I’m starting up a team called the Coconuts and I would love if you guys would be like, you know, play some music for us’ and I’m like, ‘dude I’m so down’,” said lead singer Hoyt Yeatman.
The three person band includes guitar players and singers Yeatman and Kyle Hart as well as drummer Trevor Smith.
Yeatman and Hart said the band was thrown right into the action performing their first show with the Coconuts at Petco Park — the home of the San Diego Padres — in March of this year, becoming the official band of the Coconuts. The band travels with the team, plays pregame and postgame shows and are a part of the action during the game whether that be playing a song on the field or in the stands.
“We can’t like see what the players are doing behind us so we’re just playing our, what we normally do, and yeah, they’re dancing and stuff and we normally [don’t] see it until we watch the video after,” Hart said.
“We’ll be playing a song or something and then they have like a dance that they’re doing with us and it’s like you got the whole team, like it’s just like when two worlds collide kind of. I don’t think it’s ever really been done honestly. It’s cool,” Yeatman said.
Sitting on Saturn performs during the pregame Loco Beach Live Show. Photo Credit: Dave Reeder
Yeatman and Hart said their experience in Banana Ball and playing live music in coordination with a live baseball game is still a little strange, but it’s an experience they’re thankful to be a part of.
“Honestly, it’s cool. We have like our own baseball card, Banana Ball card, and I’m like, I would never in a million years think that our band would have like a baseball trading card, but like here it is,” Yeatman said. “It’s so cool we’re very blessed, very fortunate.”
Game Time
The Loco Beach Live Show continued up until the gates to the field opened at 5:30 p.m. entertaining fans with the band’s music and interactive games coordinated by each team’s Banana Ball Host.
The entertainment didn’t stop once the fans entered the stadium.
Even as fans were finding their seats or grabbing concessions for the game there was a member of the Banana Ball cast interacting with a fan, hosting an activity or setting up for the next activity.
As fans entered the stadium, the excitement to see the actual on field product was palpable. First time viewers speculated on what they were about to witness while some fans that had seen clips or portions of Banana Ball before, speculated on what trick plays they’d get to see.
Once the clock hit 7:00 p.m. anticipation and speculation became reality.
Banana Ball is a fast-paced game that never lacks in action. Banana Ball rules like no mound visits, no bunting and no stepping out of the batter’s box keep the game moving to fit within the two hour time limit. The players on the field are always participating in something whether that be the game itself, cheering from outside the dugout or interacting with the audience from the field.
“I say to anybody that’s joining, it’s Crossfit baseball,” Watson said. “You got two hours of nonstop movement. You don’t sit down ever.”
Zach Watson turns toward second base after getting a hit against the Coconut pitcher. Photo Credit: Dave Reeder
Some normal baseball rules still apply. There are nine defenders, one batter in the box and the pitcher still initiates the play with a pitch. The bases are the standard distance and when a runner crosses home it still counts as a run scored, though that doesn’t mean the team is up one to nothing.
In Banana Ball, the goal is to get the most points. Points are earned by winning an inning. The team that scores the most runs in an inning earns the point, making each frame its own mini game. The final inning is more traditional where every run that crosses the plate counts as a point.
On Thursday, the Tailgaters won the game 6-3, earning a point with wins in the second, sixth and seventh innings. The Tailgaters also won the equalizer point awarded to the team with the most trick plays going into the final inning. The Tailgaters pulled off 14 trick play outs sending hitters back to the dugout with tag team catches and grabs with a cowboy hat.
The trick plays are an exciting feature to what is still a competitive baseball game at its core.
There is still plenty of entertainment to the product on the field. Players have creative walk-up dances, skits and antics during play. For example, after a hit by pitch the Coconuts recreated the scene of Jack and Rose from “Titanic” and during one at-bat Coconut player, Kaden Bowler, took an at-bat while riding a hoverboard designed to look like a surfboard. Those creative entertainment features add spectacle to what is a high level baseball game played by high level athletes.
“It’s a completely different game than what you see on TikTok,” Watson said. “You just see the dances and everything mostly on TikTok so when you actually come to a game you’re like dang these boys are actually, we’re actually playing baseball. You don’t expect that.”
Coconut Kaden Bowler glides to first on a hoverboard designed to look like a surfboard. Photo Credit: Dave Reeder.
Postgame
After the game is over there is still more to experience.
Players from both teams returned to the plaza to sign autographs and talk with fans. Sitting on Saturn played more music and the entertainment continued until about 9:30 p.m. when the venue closed. The postgame plaza party ends a Banana Ball experience that begins over three hours before a pitch is even thrown.
“I’m excited for these fans, if they have never been, to experience Banana Ball in a different way,” Watson told Delaware Live before the game.
The Tailgaters and Coconuts wrapped up their three game series in Delaware, Saturday night, with a 4-3 win from the Tailgaters giving them the 2-1 series win. The Tailgaters have already secured their spot in the Banana Ball Championship League postseason, but the Coconuts are still fighting to claim one of the three remaining spots.
Fans that want to keep track of the rest of the 2026 Banana Ball World Tour can check the Banana Ball website for upcoming events and ways to watch the games.
This story was updated on August 17 to include pictures from gameday.
Studies have shown no connection between COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy and increased risk of miscarriage. Despite this, Republican Sens. Rand Paul and Ron Johnson resurrected a long-debunked claim of an astronomical rate of miscarriage after vaccination while also accusing Dr. Anthony Fauci of deceiving the public about the safety of the shots during pregnancy.
On Aug. 10, the lawmakers released texts from the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’s government-issued cell phone from January 2021.
“Privately over text, Fauci admitted concerns about COVID vaccine side effects ‘associated with miscarriage in the 1st trimester,’ yet told the public there was nothing to worry about,” Paul, of Kentucky, said in an Aug. 11 post on X. “Once again, we expose Fauci’s dishonesty.”
“The safety signals, the red flags, were screaming at these people, and you got Anthony Fauci there lying bold-faced to the American public,” Johnson, a senator from Wisconsin, said in an Aug. 12 Fox News appearance.
“We will never know how many babies were miscarried because of Fauci’s lies,” Johnson said in an X post the following day.
In a video accompanying Paul’s post and in an Aug. 10 press release, the senators juxtaposed a single text from Fauci about a theoretical concern about vaccination and miscarriage — which was not subsequently borne out by data — with a series of public comments from Fauci between Feb. 3, 2021 and Aug. 30, 2021.
The senators’ claims of deception are missing key context, both on what Fauci said and how information on maternal vaccine safety evolved in the months after the COVID-19 vaccines were first authorized, as we will explain.
“By January and February of 2021, we knew that COVID infection during pregnancy increased the risk of pregnancy loss and other pregnancy complications, such as pre-eclampsia,” Victoria Male, an associate professor of reproductive immunology at Imperial College London, told us in an email. “On the other hand, the limited evidence we had about the safety of COVID vaccination in pregnancy was reassuring, and evidence was accumulating rapidly.”
Paul and Johnson also resurfaced a claim that a study found an 82% rate of miscarriages after COVID-19 vaccination — a falsehood that some other Republican politicians amplified. We originally fact-checked this claim, based on an incorrect calculation from vaccine safety monitoring data, in 2021.
Meanwhile, National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya told Martha MacCallum during an Aug. 11 Fox News interview that it is “certainly possible” that COVID-19 vaccines could have led to miscarriages. He also said that the debate about miscarriage and COVID-19 vaccines “rages on in the scientific literature.”
Those claims are unsupported. “The current data continue to show no increased risk of miscarriage (or any other pregnancy complication) associated with COVID-19 vaccination,” Male said.
We asked the NIH for more information on the literature Bhattacharya was referring to, but we did not receive a reply. Paul’s office did not reply to our request for comment.
Johnson’s communications director, Grace Carnathan, did not directly defend the 82% figure. “The question isn’t what the actual percentage of miscarriage risk is — we probably will never know because of grossly inadequate and negligent, if not corrupt, safety surveillance,” she said. “The question should be why federal health officials consistently withheld information on safety signals, thereby depriving the public of fully informed consent.”
Citing the testimony of a gynecologist who has made incorrect claims before, she maintained that “there is controversy over what the data shows” and that “Fauci withheld information from pregnant women that they had the right to know.”
What Fauci’s Early Texts and Interviews Show
Fauci’s January 2021 texts, which shared reassuring information alongside the theoretical concern Paul and Johnson highlighted, were sent the month after the first two COVID-19 vaccines received emergency use authorizations. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and medical organizations at the time did not make a recommendation as to whether people should get vaccinated during pregnancy, citing a lack of data.
The posted exchange begins on Jan. 25, 2021, with then-Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy asking Fauci and then-CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky if they are “aware of any data or theoretical reason why vaccinating early vs late in pregnancy would be preferred.”
At first, Fauci replied that there was none. But a bit later that day, he said, “I asked around a bit more and another issue came up that you need to be aware of. Since many people have significant cytokines storm and fever after the 2nd dose, this theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the 1st trimester.”
Sens. Ron Johnson and Rand Paul prior to an Aug. 6 committee vote to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress. Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images.
High fever is associated with certain poor outcomes in pregnancy, as we will explain below, although it’s not clear it can cause miscarriage. The term cytokine storm isn’t strictly defined, although it generally refers to a level of severe inflammatory response that isn’t seen after COVID-19 vaccination, but can occur with severe COVID-19. Vaccination triggers an immune response that temporarily increases the levels of certain cytokines to coordinate that response, but not to the degree of a cytokine storm.
“In January 2021, when there was very little evidence about the safety of COVID vaccination in pregnancy, it was sensible to be cautious and consider the theoretical possibility that fever associated with vaccination might be harmful in pregnancy,” Male said.
“Subsequent evidence found no increased risk of pregnancy loss, or any other pregnancy problems that might be caused by fever, following vaccination,” she added.
The day after passing along the point about fever, Fauci shared his overall thoughts on COVID-19 vaccination and pregnancy in the text message thread.
“I would say that in any vaccine in which data are lacking in pregnant women one must weigh the potential risks against the benefits,” he said. “COVID-19 can be a serious disease especially in pregnancy. In the vaccine trials, pregnant women were not allowed but following the EUA, a large number (more than 10,000) pregnant women have been vaccinated. No issues have arisen.”
Fauci went on to acknowledge recommendations giving pregnant women a “choice” on whether to get vaccinated while adding that toxicity studies in animals “did not raise any red flags.”
Paul and Johnson portrayed Fauci’s private comments as contrasting with his public ones. But while he did not publicly mention risks of fever during pregnancy in the interviews we reviewed, his contemporaneous statements in fact hewed fairly closely to his Jan. 26 text message.
Fauci accurately shared on several occasions in late January and February that in the data on people vaccinated during pregnancy to date, therewereno “redflags” — comments the senators highlighted in their video and press release. He also repeatedly noted that the vaccines had not been tested in clinical trials on pregnant women and described the need to weigh the benefits versus potential risks, given the dangers of COVID-19 during pregnancy.
Male, who was tracking data on pregnancy and COVID-19 vaccination in early 2021, explained that data on the subject grew quickly. Originally, scientists knew that among the few dozen people who got pregnant while participating in the clinical trials, “there was no difference in the rate of miscarriage between the vaccinated and unvaccinated groups,” she said.
As the vaccine rolled out after the original two EUAs in December 2020, U.S. health agencies tracked outcomes. As of Feb. 28, 2021, “35,691 people had been vaccinated during pregnancy and spontaneous reporting to VAERS did not suggest any safety concerns,” Male said, referring to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System.
A day later, a CDC scientist presented data to the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices from multiple vaccine safety monitoring systems, finding that thus far, miscarriage and other pregnancy outcomes did not appear to be elevated.
“So even by the end of February, we were beginning to have good, reassuring data on the safety of COVID vaccination in pregnancy – although of course we got lots more later,” Male said.
Fauci’s Comments Evolved With the Evidence
To give an impression of duplicity, Paul and Johnson misleadingly mixed Fauci’s comments from different time periods, following a pattern of deception Paul has used before. The video Paul posted sandwiched an abbreviated version of Fauci’s moretempered comments from early 2021 betweencomments from around six months later.
During this interval, the data supporting vaccination during pregnancy had continued to mount. By mid-August 2021, many medical organizations and the CDC had endorsed vaccination for pregnant people.
At the time, the U.S. was experiencing the Delta wave of the pandemic, and data would go on to show that this was a particularly dangerous phase of the pandemic for those who were pregnant and unvaccinated. Such people had higher rates of preterm birth and stillbirth than had been seen previously.
“It’s very, very clear that it is safe in pregnant women,” the video shows Fauci stating on the “Today” show on Aug. 12, the day after the CDC recommended that pregnant people get vaccinated. In that interview, Fauci cites “the extraordinary amount of data now that’s accumulated with pregnant women” demonstrating safety, as well as the harms of COVID-19 to the woman and the fetus.
“It’s pretty clear that pregnant women should get vaccinated,” Fauci said during an interview posted Aug. 30, which was highlighted in both the video and press release.
The Facts on Fever in Pregnancy
Fauci’s January 2021 comment was also in keeping with longstanding general knowledge that fever can be associated with risks during pregnancy — a fact that prominent guidance on COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy shared at the time.
“The complication of pregnancy that is most closely associated with fever is congenital abnormalities,” or birth defects, Male said. She explained that primarily because of this, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists advises that pregnant people take acetaminophen, or Tylenol, if they have a fever, in consultation with a doctor.
Since the beginning of the vaccine rollout, this recommendation has included pregnant people who get a fever following COVID-19 vaccination. “Pregnant women who experience fever following vaccination should be counseled to take acetaminophen, as fever has been associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes,” December 2020 guidancefrom ACOG and the CDC both said. Both the CDC and the medical organization continue to recommend treating fever in consultation with a doctor, including after COVID-19 vaccination.
That said, birth defects “are associated specifically with high fevers (higher than would be expected from vaccination) early in the first trimester,” Male said. And indeed, studies have not gone on to show COVID-19 vaccination in the first trimester is associated with an increased risk of birth defects, she added.
Male explained that when it comes to miscarriage, fever itself may not even be what increases the risk. “Some infections that cause fever also increase the risk of miscarriage, but it isn’t clear that the fever (or the cytokines that cause the fever) are causing miscarriage in these cases: it could well be other aspects of the infection,” she said.
Persistent, False Claim of High Miscarriage Rate
Despite datathat has failed to show that COVID-19 vaccination increases miscarriage risk, Johnson and Paul in their press release elevated a false claim of an 82% miscarriage rate after COVID-19 vaccination. The senators highlighted a January 2022 letter on the topic from Dr. James A. Thorp, an gynecologist whose erroneous and misleading claims we have written about before.
Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, repeated the false statistic on X on Aug. 12, while referring to an episode of his podcast titled in part, “Bombshell Data: Fauci Covered up that Covid Vaccine Produced 82% Miscarriage Rate.” The post and podcast were subsequently taken down, and Cruz noted a correction on his podcast, although he maintained that the broader point about Fauci was still true.
Rep. Lisa McClain, a Republican from Michigan, falsely claimed on Fox Business on Aug. 11 that “in fact, The New England Journal of Medicine said 82% of women who got the vaccine in their first or second trimester had a miscarriage.” (The next day, the host of the show followed up to “clarify” the segment.)
We first wrote about the 82% claim in July 2021, when it was circulating in multiple online posts. As we explained at the time, the statistic relies on distortion of CDC data in a New England Journal of Medicine study published in April 2021 that summarized early information on COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy.
The study tracked results for 827 people who got vaccinated during pregnancy between December 2020 and the end of February 2021 and had already completed their pregnancies by the end of March, preliminarily finding that 104 had miscarriages. The false claim of an 82% miscarriage rate comes from dividing the 104 miscarriages by the 127 people in the study who got vaccinated in the first or second trimester — a calculation that the paper did not present.
It’s an improper calculation because most people vaccinated during the first or second trimester would not have yet had time to complete their pregnancies unless their pregnancies ended early.
“It’s like calculating a school’s dropout rate in October by looking only at the students who have already left,” Dr. Jake Scott, an infectious disease physician at Stanford Medicine, said in an Aug. 11 X post explaining the claim.
Dr. Eve C. Feinberg, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, told us in July 2021 that the 82% was “pure number manipulation and propaganda” and “a ridiculous claim and simply not observed clinically.”
A subsequent paper was published in September 2021, also based on the CDC data, showing a miscarriage rate of lower than 15%, which the researchers said was not higher than expected during pregnancy. Miscarriage is common, especially early in pregnancy.
A final analysis of CDC pregnancy monitoring data, published in February 2026, found a miscarriage rate of 10.79%. “It looked at the week-by-week risk of miscarriage in 12,097 people vaccinated before they were 20 weeks pregnant, finding that there was no increased risk,” Male said.
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Today, you can get low-quality knockoffs of just about any popular smartphone on sites like AliExpress or Temu, whether they be iPhones, Galaxy phones, or whatever else. They have terrible build quality, bottom-of-the-barrel components and specifications, and all run outdated versions of Android – badly. At the same time, various consumer electronics brands, once popular in a bygone era, sell the rights to their brand name to unknown companies, who then put these brands on generic hardware to give their products a sheen of legitimacy. That’s why today, you can still buy Nokia smartphones, Polaroid cameras, and low-effort Hi-Fi equipment from various once-respected brands.
None of this is new, however. In the late ’90s and early 2000s, companies were already doing the same thing. In fact, there’s one device from this era which combines both business practices – it’s both a cheap knockoff of a wildly successful device, and it carries a once-revered brand name. Also, just to add some juice, this story involves stolen source code.
Let’s take a look at the worst PDA of all time, the Olivetti daVinci.
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In 1997, Palm launched the Palm Pilot, and it and its successors proved to be a massive hit. Where countless before it had failed, Palm found the magic formula to make pocket computing work. I wrote an in-depth article about Palm over 13 years ago which goes into much (much) more detail, but the reason the Palm Pilot succeeded where things like the Newton, PenPoint OS, and Windows for Pen Computing failed, is that Palm’s founder, Jeff Hawkins, realised that they were competing with paper, not with desktop computers. Instead of trying to shove the capabilities of a full personal computer into a (barely) pockatable device, a pocket computer had to be as fast and convenient as paper, and therefore extremely strict about which features to add, and which to omit.
To this day, the entirety of smartphone computing stands on the shoulders of Palm. Palm’s ideas, implementations, approaches, paradigms, and even people were absorbed by Apple and Google, where they shaped both iOS and Android. The phone you’re looking at right now has a ton of Palm DNA in it, still. After all, you’re still using the homescreen-with-apps paradigm Palm already perfected in the late ’90s and early 2000s.
The success of the Palm Pilot and its successors did not go unnoticed. Microsoft, most prominently, felt incredibly threatened by Palm’s success:
The success of Palm’s products got the attention of Microsoft, and the company pretty much announced it was going to crush Palm. According to Hawkins, Microsoft had a sales conference, where, at some point, a big target appeared on the projector screen, with the Palm logo dead in the centre of it: “we are going to crush and kill these guys”, was the central message. Hawkins recalls that he got condolence letters after that, stating things like “Sorry Jeff. Too bad.”
While Microsoft proved to be unable to “kill and crush” Palm, it did manage to build a relatively successful business selling PDAs running various incarnations of Windows CE. Together, Palm and Microsoft dominated the PDA market pretty much throughout its entire existence, and while the market was a mere fraction of the smartphone market of today, other companies still wanted a piece of this pie too. One of these companies was Olivetti, a storied Italian company with a long history making typewriters, computers, and other electronics.
I’m not going into detail about Olivetti’s history, but the company was renowned for its attention to design, creating iconic products like the Lexikon 80, Lettera 22, Elea 9003, Programma 101, and so, so many more. Olivetti also entered the personal computer market, first with a variety of custom machines featuring Z80 and later Motorola 68000 processors running a variety of custom operating systems developed by Olivetti (including its own UNIX variant, X/OS). After a few machines using MIPS and Alpha processors in the early ’90s, the company would eventually focus entirely on Intel-based PCs (including this amazing failure) running Windows. Like so many other computer makers from that era, Olivetti eventually left the PC business by selling it off in 1997.
To this day, Olivetti PCs tend to cost more on the used market than those from other brands, despite no technical merits dictating so.
At around this time, our current story begins. Seeing the success of the Palm Pilot and the emergence of copycat devices running Microsoft’s Windows CE, Olivetti wanted in on the action. And so, in the late ’90s, the company introduced the Olivetti daVinci, a line of PDAs whose software looked suspiciously like Palm OS. There’s not a ton of information out there about the development history, but it seems that while Olivetti designed the hardware, it contracted the development of the operating system out to a company from Hong Kong, Echolink Design.
And this is where things went horribly wrong for Olivetti. The software Echolink Design developed for the daVinci didn’t just look like Palm OS, it was Palm OS – at least, according to Palm. After being on the market for about a year, the Palm Pilot maker, then a subsidiary of 3Com, filed for an injunction, alleging that the daVinci operating system designed by Echolink Design contained actual Palm OS source code. In addition, Palm also filed suit against CompanionLink Software, the company that developed the Outlook synchronisation software for the daVinci. Palm won handily, and within a day of the filing, temporary restraining orders were put in place on both Olivetti and CompanionLink, stopping sales of the daVinci and its software dead in its tracks.
It seemed to have been a pretty clear-cut case. From The Wall Street Journal at the time:
U.S. District Judge James Ware ruled Olivetti’s Royal daVinci organizer contains software that appears to have been copied from the operating system for 3Com’s Palm organizers. Judge Ware said a review by a software expert found the daVinci software contains private Palm code and even grammatical mistakes that appear to have been “copied verbatim.”
It’s difficult to ascertain what code, exactly, was stolen, but my personal educated guess is that it probably involved Palm’s unique Graffiti handwriting recognition system. Graffiti actually predates the first Palm Pilot, and was available on a variety of non-Palm devices; it doesn’t seem entirely unlikely to me that the code for it escaped containment that way, eventually finding its way to Echolink Design. I’m just guessing here, though, as I can’t seem to find any of the original court documents concerning the case.
In a bind, Olivetti claimed the copied code represented less than 2% of the operating system’s code, and set about to release a new version of the software for the daVinci.
And so we end up at the device I have in my collection. Several years ago, I bought a boxed version of the Olivetti daVinci DV3, including all of its original accessories for a pittance on eBay, and I’ve been fascinated and repulsed by this device ever since. It looks like a cheap Palm knockoff, and it feels like one too; the hardware is made out a really unpleasant form of plastic, with buttons worse than what you find on the cheapest possible pack-in remote control. The case feels creaky and unrefined, like the cheapest possible children’s toy.
The display has a resolution of 128×99, much lower than the 160×160 of even the first Palm Pilot, and it’s incredibly dim and hard to read without the backlight on; even with the backlight on, it’s difficult to read anything. Worse yet, the various hardware tap targets on top of and at the bottom of the display are not backlit at all, making them unreadable in all but the most illuminated environments. Considering you need these buttons a lot, it’s a major stumbling block. Turning on the backlight is confusing, too, as it you need to hold down the on/off button (while the display is on) to engage it, something only mentioned in the manual.
The display is, of course, a resistive touchscreen, as was the norm at the time, but its precision seems much lower than anything Palm ever offered. The accompanying stylus, too, is plasticky and cheap, definitely worse than the plastic styluses Palm shipped with its earlier models, and obviously no match for the metal styluses that would accompany later models.
Finding out exactly what type of processor the daVinci DV3 uses is remarkably hard. A contemporary review by Smart Computing claims it’s using an unspecified Epson processor, without giving any further details. There’s only one source that specifically states what processor it has, and considering that source is the only person to have written a third-party application for the DV3, I’m inclined to believe they’re right (opening the device up is of no use, as the SoC is of the epoxy blob type). According to them, the DV3 runs on a Sharp SM6010 microprocessor, for which a datasheet and more detailed documentation exists. The SM6010 is a very basic 16bit single-chip microcomputer of an unspecified architecture (probably something custom and proprietary), running at 30Mhz.
The SM6010 is a 16-bit single-chip microcomputer incorporating a 16-bit CPU core, LCD controller, watchdog timer, serial interface (UART, SCI), SIR, PWM output, real time clock, A/D converter and bus controller.
The DV3 stores its operating system in flash memory – making it upgradable – and has 2MB of RAM, stated proudly all over the box and on a sticker on the device itself. Performance is actually not that bad, but it’s not quite as instant and responsive as Palm OS. The operating system and its user interface are rather inscrutable; there doesn’t seem to be a single home screen you can always go back to like on Palm OS, and closing/leaving applications/screens is done differently for each individual application/screen (tap the hardware “OK” button? An on-screen “OK” button? Press the cancel button? Tap one of the hardware application shortcuts atop the display? Who knows!).
The core tools of the DV3 are incredibly basic, and cover merely the bare necessities of a PDA in the late ’90s, with things like an address book, notes application, calendar, calculator, and a few others. There’s no consistency among any of these tools, and they all look, feel, and work just differently enough to be confusing. The daVinci is also Very Serious™, as there’s no games or even a simple drawing gimmick; in fact, while there is a button labeled “Apps.”, it doesn’t actually do anything (we’ll get back to that). There’s barely any preferences to fiddle with either.
Input is done via a terrible Graffiti ripoff called daVinci Script, which uses strokes much more cumbersome than its inspirator, not aided by the absolutely trash recognition algorithms. This input method is effectively unusable, as it’s impossible to predict which strokes will produce what character or action. Even something as simple as the right-to-left stroke to delete a character is entirely unreliable, ensuring this is more of a random character generator than a text input system. Luckily, there’s a tiny on-screen keyboard you can use to hunt and peck with the stylus, but this isn’t exactly a particularly fast input method either.
It’s hard to convey just how utterly terrible the software experience is, especially in 2026 when many people reading this lack the frame of reference of its time. This isn’t utter trash compared to what we’re used to today – this is utter trash compared to the competing devices running Palm OS and Windows Pocket PC of its time. Even in 2026, I love using Palm OS and Pocket PC, but I absolutely despise, dread, and hate using the daVinci. I’m struggling to find a comparison with something contemporary, but the best I can come up with is like comparing an Apple Watch or WearOS device with one of those cheap knock-off smartwatches that run some shitty custom low-res UI on an underpowered SoC, but honestly, even that does a disservice to these knock-off smartwatches.
The daVinci I have came with all of its original accessories. There’s a vinyl pouch, a dock, and an external, fold-up keyboard. The pouch has not withstood the test of time, and has shrunk, so much so the daVinci no longer fits inside of it. The dock is, well, a dock, and uses the connector at the bottom of the daVinci. This connector looks and feels exactly like a crunchy ISA slot from the ’80s, as if the PCB was cut off with a hacksaw. The keyboard is the most interesting, and can be connected straight to the device’s bottom connector, or to a passthrough port at the back of the dock. Unsurprisingly, this keyboard is really bad, with dome-shaped mushy rubber keys with very little stability and a featherlight base that moves at the slightest of touches, making it almost impossible to type on.
Thanks, I hate it.
I mentioned the mysterious, non-functional “Apps.” button earlier, and there’s actually a bit of history here. It turns out that Olivetti fully intended for people to write third-party applications for this thing, promising to release an SDK at some point in time. Of course, this never ended up happening as the daVinci is trash and nobody in their right mind bought one or would want to develop for it, but it does mean that somewhere out there, perhaps in an attic somewhere in Ivrea, Italy, there’s a dusty hard drive or CD-ROM carrying this unreleased official SDK.
SDK or no, there’s always someone crazy, skilled, and determined enough to develop something for any computer, and for the daVinci DV3, that person was Alex Zwiesele. Zwiesele figured out that while the official SDK was never released, the CD-ROM that came with the daVinci DV3 contained the entire operating system of the DV3 and a loader program. This was enough for Zwiesele and a few other people to start disassembling the operating system and inject their own custom code into the binary file, reassemble it, and load it onto the DV3 using the loader program.
This was not a walk in the park. Zwiesele documented the entire process on their website, and it involved Zwiesele and several others writing their own disassembler and assembler (still available from their website!) based on the available Sharp SM6010 documentation, as well as learning how to actually program for the device’s hardware. In the end, they managed to develop an actual game for the daVinci DV3, a Breakout clone. You load the game onto your DV3 in the same way you’d load the operating system; as such, the game will replace the entire operating system and load automatically on power-on. That’s as far as they got back in 2003, as efforts seem to have stalled after that.
Back when I bought my daVinci, about 6-7 years ago, I mentioned online that I had bought the worst PDA of all time, without mentioning it by name. Immediately, fellow hardcore PDA enthusiasts (we exist) knew I was talking about the daVinci. This thing is just plain trash, e-waste before the term had been popularised, a waste of everyone’s time, effort, and money. Not even its one redeeming quality – its low price of just $99 compared to the cheapest Palm device at $249 – could make anyone want to use it.
Still, I’m glad I have it in my collection, if only to serve as a reminder that shitty e-waste devices aren’t something exclusive to our current smartphone era. It also serves to underline just how great Palm OS and Windows Pocket PC (yes, I will fight you on this) really were, and how many things they each got right out of the gate. So much so that especially Palm OS laid the foundations for every smartphone we use today.
Now that I’ve finally written and published this article, I can put this abomination back in its box, and never take it out again.
The accelerator does not simply improve permitting for every business, developer and organization. It creates a priority lane, with the Governor’s Office deciding which applicants receive expedited attention and which remain in the regular bureaucratic process. Image created with AI on 8/14
JobsFirst promises permitting decisions within 120 business days, but leaves government deciding which projects move first — and which applicants must continue to wait
WILMINGTON, Del. — Delaware will fast-track three broadband and health care projects through a state permitting system designed to produce decisions within 120 business days, but the announcement is also raising a broader question: If state government can move quickly for selected applicants, why can’t it do so for everyone?
Gov. Matt Meyer announced Thursday that a rural broadband expansion and two ChristianaCare health campuses have been accepted into the JobsFirst Permitting Accelerator.
The program gives designated projects a single government contact, coordinates reviews across state agencies and creates a process for escalating unresolved problems. Reviews that might otherwise take 18 to 24 months are targeted for completion in about six months.
“JobsFirst is about tackling Delaware’s biggest challenges with urgency, not bureaucracy,” Meyer said. “Whether it’s expanding access to health care, closing the digital divide or building the infrastructure our communities need, Delawareans shouldn’t have to wait years for projects that people need now.”
That argument makes a strong case for faster permitting. It also highlights the unequal treatment built into the program.
The government chooses who moves first
The accelerator does not simply improve permitting for every business, developer and organization. It creates a priority lane, with the Governor’s Office deciding which applicants receive expedited attention and which remain in the regular bureaucratic process.
Executive Order 18 establishes eligibility categories covering housing, broadband, energy, water and sewer, and mixed-use development. However, meeting an eligibility definition does not guarantee admission. The order says the governor or the governor’s designee “may designate” a nominated project as a priority.
The state’s published process says the Governor’s Office considers eligibility, readiness and permitting constraints. It does not provide a public scoring system explaining how competing qualified projects are ranked or why one applicant moves ahead of another.
That distinction matters. Without clearly published selection standards, the accelerator gives state officials significant discretion over who receives a dedicated coordinator, enforced deadlines and direct access to an expedited review.
The administration’s announcement did not say how many projects applied, whether any were rejected or why these three were selected over other potentially eligible projects. It also did not identify the category under which the two ChristianaCare health campuses qualified. Health care is not listed among the program’s five initial project categories.
Projects promise public benefits
The projects themselves promise substantial public benefits.
Talkie Communications plans to install buried fiber within existing roadway rights-of-way, bringing gigabit-speed internet service to 1,448 unserved homes and businesses in Kent and Sussex counties. The project is supported by the Federal Communications Commission’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund.
ChristianaCare’s planned Georgetown campus would combine a health center and neighborhood hospital. It would provide primary, specialty, behavioral health and outpatient services, along with an eight-bed emergency department and eight inpatient beds.
A similar campus planned for Camden would expand health care and community-based hospital capacity in Kent County.
Accelerating those projects does not mean environmental or public safety requirements will be waived. The administration says JobsFirst changes the speed and coordination of reviews, not the standards applicants must meet. The 120-business-day target also promises a decision, not necessarily an approval.
Those safeguards make the faster process easier to defend. But they also support extending it to other applicants.
Why shouldn’t every applicant receive faster service?
If agencies can review applications simultaneously instead of sequentially, provide applicants with a single checklist and hold employees accountable for missed deadlines, those practices should become the normal permitting system — not a special service reserved for projects selected by the executive branch.
There is also a question of agency capacity. Unless the state has added staff or eliminated unnecessary work, moving priority projects ahead could divert attention from businesses and organizations already waiting.
The administration has not disclosed whether the accelerator is reducing the overall permitting backlog or rearranging the order in which applications are processed.
Small businesses could be especially disadvantaged. Large institutions often have attorneys, engineers and government-relations professionals to help navigate state processes. Smaller applicants are more likely to need the coordination and accountability provided by JobsFirst, but they may be less likely to propose projects large enough to receive priority status.
Transparency should begin with selection
The state has created a public dashboard to track designated projects, participating agencies, required permits and approaching deadlines. That is a meaningful transparency measure once a project is accepted.
Transparency should also cover the selection process. The public should be able to see all applications, the standards used to evaluate them, the reasons projects were accepted or rejected, and whether giving one project priority caused delays for others.
The administration says JobsFirst is being introduced in stages and could eventually lead to a coordinated permitting system covering the full range of state approvals.
That should be the objective.
Everyone should have access to the fast lane
Broadband service and health care facilities should not remain trapped in government bureaucracy. Neither should a housing project, a new employer or a small Delaware business simply because the Governor’s Office did not put it in the priority lane.
The real measure of JobsFirst will not be whether government can move three selected projects faster. It will be whether Delaware uses what it learns to give every qualified applicant a clear, accountable and timely decision.
To Go Box
Program: JobsFirst Permitting Accelerator
New priority projects: Talkie Communications broadband expansion and ChristianaCare campuses in Georgetown and Camden
Target: State permitting decisions within 120 business days after applications are complete
Central question: Why aren’t the same coordination, deadlines and accountability available to every applicant?
Newark’s Shop Take 15 shows how business coaching and grant support can help entrepreneurs expand
DOVER, Del. — Applications are now being accepted for the Business on Main Street Accelerator, an eight-week program designed to help Delaware entrepreneurs strengthen their operations, pursue funding and prepare for growth.
The program’s potential impact can be seen in Shop Take 15, a Newark self-care business led by founder and CEO Asia Coleman.
Coleman began working with the Delaware Division of Small Business while Shop Take 15 was primarily an online business. Through the Main Street program, she received help structuring the company, developing marketing ideas and updating its business plan.
The improved plan helped Coleman position the business to pursue funding and qualify for grant support. That grant had a tangible impact: Shop Take 15 grew from a virtual business into one with a physical Newark location.
Coleman also expanded the company’s product offerings and began providing courses. She said the business continues to grow.
Shop Take 15 sells handmade self-care products, including body butters, scrubs, soaps, oils and home fragrances. Its mission encourages people to devote at least 15 minutes each day to their mental and physical well-being.
Coleman’s experience provides a practical example of how technical assistance and access to funding can translate into measurable growth for a small business.
The Business on Main Street Accelerator is a joint initiative of the Delaware Division of Small Business and Launcher. It includes six virtual sessions and two in-person sessions in Dover.
Participants receive assistance with preparing a comprehensive business plan, examining their companies’ financial health, developing compelling pitch decks and using modern marketing strategies. Individualized coaching is also included.
“The feedback that I’ve gotten on the program, which began June 9, 2025, is incredibly positive,” said Anastasia Jackson, coordinator for Delaware on Main Street. “Participants are telling me that the financial reviews and personalized coaching are invaluable to them as business owners.”
The accelerator has graduated 37 small-business owners since it began last year.
Applications for the next class will be accepted through Aug. 31.
To Go Box
What: Business on Main Street Accelerator
Program: Eight weeks, including six virtual sessions and two in-person sessions in Dover
Who: Delaware small-business owners and entrepreneurs seeking assistance with planning, finances, marketing, funding and growth
The Aug. 13 program was hosted by Yvonne Johnson of First State Educate, a Delaware nonprofit working to strengthen school governance and increase public participation in education, focused on the new funding model for our schools.
Discretionary funding could rise from about 8% to more than 30%, increasing local responsibility and accountability
By George Rotsch, Editor, Delaware LIVE
WILMINGTON, Del – First State Educate brought state and local education leaders together Thursday night to explain how Delaware’s new funding model will give school boards significantly more control over spending — and greater responsibility for the results.
During the organization’s monthly “Board Matters” webcast, panelists said school boards could soon have discretion over more than 30% of their districts’ funding, up from about 8% today.
The change means boards will need to better understand student needs, establish clear priorities and make informed choices about where resources can produce the greatest results. They will also face greater accountability for explaining those decisions and demonstrating whether the spending improves student outcomes.
The Aug. 13 program was hosted by Yvonne Johnson of First State Educate, a Delaware nonprofit working to strengthen school governance and increase public participation in education.
Johnson led a discussion featuring Delaware Education Secretary Cindy Marten; Emily Falcon, chief operating and financial officer for the Colonial School District; and Brittany Mumford, an Appoquinimink School Board member.
First State Educate organized the forum to help school board members, families and community leaders understand how the new formula will work and how local governance responsibilities will change.
“With greater flexibility comes greater responsibility,” Mumford said. “The buck literally stops with us.”
Although superintendents, financial officers and instructional leaders will develop many spending recommendations, school boards have final responsibility for approving district budgets.
Moving beyond restricted funding
Delaware’s traditional unit system provides districts with state-funded positions and money based on enrollment and student demographics. Much of that funding is assigned to specific positions or purposes, limiting districts’ ability to move resources when local needs differ from state categories.
The new hybrid model retains parts of the unit system while adding weighted funding based more directly on student needs. Additional resources will be directed toward multilingual learners, students from low-income households, vocational students and students receiving special education services.
Falcon said approximately 32 separate appropriations or funding categories will be consolidated into three broader tiers.
The first will provide base funding for teachers, paraprofessionals, principals and other essential employees. The second will expand opportunity funding for multilingual learners and students from low-income households. Falcon said that investment is expected to be about four times its current level.
A third tier will provide flexible operational funding based on enrollment and student characteristics, including special education and vocational education needs.
Federal and state special education requirements will remain in place. The primary funding changes are expected to begin in fiscal 2028, which starts July 1, 2027.
Decisions move closer to students
First State Educate’s discussion focused heavily on what greater local flexibility will mean in practice.
A school struggling with early literacy could invest in reading specialists or intervention programs. Another with a growing multilingual population could expand language services, while a school facing chronic absenteeism could add attendance or mental health support.
Marten said those decisions are often best made closer to students rather than through a statewide, one-size-fits-all system.
“If you’re treating every school identically at the board level and just sending out a common treatment to everybody, that does not create equity,” she said.
But flexibility does not mean every school can spend independently without a districtwide strategy.
“Flexibility is not freedom from accountability,” Marten said. “It means people closest to the students have more ability to solve the problems in front of them.”
Boards must connect budgets to results
Marten urged school boards to begin with student needs and a clear strategic plan rather than starting with the amount of money available.
Before approving an investment, boards should ask what student problem the district is trying to solve, what results it expects and how progress will be measured.
“A budget is an expression of the strategy,” Marten said. “It’s not a separate document.”
She said boards should establish priorities and define the results they expect without becoming involved in daily management decisions.
“Know your lane. Own your lane,” Marten said.
The board determines what the district should accomplish and why it matters. The superintendent and administrative team determine how the work will be done, who will be responsible and when it will happen.
Marten also warned boards against assuming their oversight work is finished once a budget is approved or a clean financial report is received.
“A board can receive a perfect financial report and still fail at governance,” she said.
Following spending rules does not necessarily mean the spending helped students. Boards should regularly determine whether programs are being implemented as promised and producing measurable results.
Marten described the process as a continuing cycle: identify a need, select a strategy, make the investment, implement the plan, examine the evidence and adjust when necessary.
“If your superintendent doesn’t have a plan, ask for one,” she told board members.
State and community oversight
Marten said the Delaware Department of Education will not consider its work finished after distributing the money.
The department intends to examine the strategies districts select, whether those strategies reach classrooms and whether early indicators show students improving. It also wants to identify successful approaches that could be replicated elsewhere.
Marten said that accountability system must be built as the new formula is implemented rather than added years later if questions arise about how districts spent the money.
First State Educate also used the webcast to encourage families and community members to follow district budgets, attend school board meetings and ask how spending decisions are connected to student outcomes.
The organization provides school governance information through its Knowledge Hub and Delaware School Board Index. The resources are intended to help residents learn about their school boards, district priorities and education issues.
Marten said families, educators and community organizations should participate before district priorities and budgets are finalized.
“If a decision is essentially finished before people enter the room, that’s not engagement,” she said.
Districts should explain the student problems they are trying to solve, share relevant data and identify the choices and trade-offs involved, she said.
Equalization reform remains ahead
One significant part of Delaware’s education funding system remains under review.
Equalization funding is intended to offset differences in property wealth and local tax-generating capacity among districts. Falcon said statewide property reassessment produced data that requires additional review, particularly in New Castle County.
Officials hope to develop an equalization proposal during the next legislative session and implement changes in fiscal 2029, she said.
That means the full effect of the funding overhaul will vary among districts depending on student needs, property values, local revenue and state funding.
Marten said the ultimate test will not be whether Delaware successfully reorganizes its funding formula. Success will be determined by whether students can read, receive support when they struggle and graduate prepared for college, careers, military service or other opportunities.
“The formula is a means to the end,” she said. “The accomplishment is what changes for students.”
To Go Box:
What: Delaware is moving to a hybrid school funding model that combines the existing unit system with weighted funding tied more closely to student needs.
Local control: School boards could have discretion over more than 30% of district funding, up from about 8% today.
Accountability: Boards will be expected to establish priorities, connect spending to student needs and measure whether investments improve outcomes.
When: Major funding changes are expected to begin July 1, 2027, with fiscal 2028.
Who hosted the discussion: First State Educate presented the Aug. 13 program as part of its monthly “Board Matters” webcast series.
Panelists: Delaware Education Secretary Cindy Marten; Colonial School District Chief Operating and Financial Officer Emily Falcon; and Appoquinimink School Board member Brittany Mumford.
What remains: Equalization funding reforms are expected to be considered separately, with possible implementation in fiscal 2029.
Learn more: First State Educate offers school governance information through its Knowledge Hub and Delaware School Board Index.
Should Egypt join the Mecca Pact?Expert commentthilton.drupal
Egypt may yet join Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan in their mutual defence pact. But for now, Cairo is continuing its cautious approach as it seeks to avoid taking sides.
Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, known as the ‘Mecca Pact’, on 7 August. The pact states that any armed attack on one member will be considered an attack on all members. It sends a message to both Iran and Israel, while diversifying regional security away from the US.
However, the pact leaves two key questions unanswered: can regional countries build deterrence without the US? And why hasn’t Egypt joined the pact, at least for now, given it has worked closely with all three members?
Not a Middle Eastern NATO
The Mecca Pact builds upon the Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement signed between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan last September. However, it is a separate deal. The new agreement includes Turkey and leaves space for other states to join.
The pact has been compared to NATO; Indeed, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan described the pact’s mutual defence element as being ‘technically the same’ as NATO’s Article 5 collective defence clause.
However, comparisons to NATO are overblown. Once they are put aside, the pact looks relatively modest.
Saudi officials have played down the scope of the agreement, presenting it as an exercise in ‘sustainable capabilities’ rather than a joint defence front against any country. Turkey has likewise emphasized that the pact is not directed against Iran or any other country. Pakistan described the agreement as ‘purely defensive in nature.’
While Pakistan is a nuclear power, the agreement does not mention Turkey and Saudi Arabia coming under its nuclear umbrella. And while mutual defence featured in the September 2025 agreement between Riyadh and Islamabad, the latter has continued to engage Tehran as a mediator amid Iranian attacks on Saudi Arabia.
The Mecca Pact should therefore best be understood as an experiment in regional self-reliance rather than a joint defence front or war-fighting alliance.
Wider regional impact
Yet while the agreement is modest in scope, it has deeper implications for the regional order.
The pact provides Saudi Arabia with another means of diversifying and strengthening its security and defence architecture. It gives Riyadh leverage in any future engagement with Tehran over regional security, and reduces its dependency on the US.
For Ankara, the deal could lead to financial support and a huge market for its defence industrial technology, while Islamabad could benefit from Saudi economic backing and position itself as an active and responsible player in the Middle East.
Tehran and its proxies are likely to test the agreement in the near future, potentially by attacking Saudi Arabia via the Houthis or Iraqi militias. The three signatories’ response to that first stress test will tell the region far more about this pact than official statements.
Why Egypt hasn’t joined
Egypt is not a signatory of the Mecca Pact, despite working closely with all three countries as part of an informal four-country grouping that has been referred to as ‘STEP’ or ‘the quad’.
Egypt’s foreign minister, Badr Abdelatty, said on Friday that Cairo is studying the pact ‘very seriously’ and that deciding whether to join ‘requires deep studies in the light of Egypt’s constitution and legal commitments.’
Turkey’s Fidan previously said he believed that Egypt would join the pact ‘at the next stage’ once ‘a few technical issues’ were implemented.
Regardless of whether it eventually joins the pact, Egypt’s absence is in line with the country’s strategic hesitancy since Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi became president in 2024.
Egypt views itself more as a mediator, which requires maintaining positive relations and open channels with all actors.
For decades, Egypt’s leaders have taken a cautious approach, embracing non-alignment and avoiding military blocs to prevent entrapment. But joining the Mecca Pact could signal that Egypt is choosing sides to the three members’ various geopolitical rivals – which together could be seen as including Iran and the Houthis, Israel, the UAE, Greece, Cyprus and India. This perceived alignment could negatively impact Cairo’s relationships with these actors without delivering a significant payoff.
This reflects the pact being more about political signalling than military value. The pact is short on public details but could potentially include air and missile defence cooperation, intelligence sharing, expanded maritime security and defence-industrial cooperation. However, Cairo already cooperates with the three countries on many of these areas through the quad grouping and its support for the Saudi-led maritime coalition in the Red Sea.
Under Sisi, Egypt views itself more as a mediator, which requires maintaining positive relations and open channels with all actors. It seeks to avoid being entangled in military alliances that would complicate this role or escalate regional tensions.
Israel and the US
Egypt may share the alliance’s security concerns around non-state actors, maritime security, and Sudan. But for many Egyptian policymakers, a potential conflict with Israel will remain the greatest future security threat, despite the two countries’ peace treaty and security coordination.
Given Israel’s status as the US’s key regional ally, there is no other security alliance that can conceivably provide Egypt with sufficient protection in a potential conflict with Israel.
Therefore, while joining the Mecca Pact may help confront Egypt’s immediate concerns in Sudan, Libya or the Horn of Africa, it won’t solve its long-term security priorities. For now, the US remains Egypt’s most important security partner.
Cairo is also concerned about its sovereignty. Integration in Saudi-led security arrangements would boost Riyadh’s pursuit of Arab leadership. From Cairo’s perspective, this risks creating a patron-client relationship with Riyadh.
The case for joining, eventually
For Egypt, the risks of joining the pact likely currently outweigh the rewards. But this assessment may change with time.
The Mecca Pact is less a military alliance than a statement of intent about the shape of the next regional order. While Washington remains the most important partner for most regional powers, including Turkey and Saudi Arabia, they are seeking to reduce their reliance on the US. This trend is likely to accelerate.
The pact also allows its members to hedge against Iran and Israel’s regional ambitions and test a new balance of power anchored in middle powers. Egypt has every interest in taking the initiative by participating in these arrangements.
There is no harm in waiting.
Egypt will be more motivated to join the pact if the agreement’s binding mutual defence obligations are not implemented in practice. This flexibility would ensure that Cairo could join without surrendering its ability to mediate or deepen coordination with the pact’s rivals, even as it would raise questions about the alliance’s credibility.
This room for manoeuvre matters, as Egypt needs diversification and partnerships across the region’s fault lines due to its chronic economic plight and its declining standing in the Arab world. At the same time, joining the pact would enhance Cairo’s ability to assert influence by being central in regional security arrangements.
Wait, watch and keep options open
Egypt should be patient, but not hesitant. The pact is appealing in principle but not yet a pressing priority for Egypt. There is no harm in waiting.
The new accord is less sophisticated than NATO. But it is more serious than previous regional coalitions. The pact may converge into a more focused, issue-based partnership rather than a binding bloc. This would be the best-case scenario for Egypt.
The real test of any alliance lies in its implementation, especially in wartime. With uncertainty around the Iran war’s end and periodic escalation in the Red Sea, Egypt should watch and evaluate the alliance’s reaction when a member is threatened.
For now, Cairo should take its time to observe the pact’s structure, military commitments and operational integration. It should reserve judgement on membership until all these aspects are more certain.
Residents of District 23 will have a chance later this month to learn more about the four candidates running in the hotly contested race for state representative.
The refinery argues that the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control changed the way it interprets the refinery’s air permit. Image created with AI on 8/13
Company says state regulators changed how they interpret its air permit and failed to consider efforts to reduce emissions
By George D. Rotsch, Editor, Delaware LIVE
DELAWARE CITY, Del – Delaware City Refining Company is appealing a $960,000 state penalty tied to an equipment outage in May.
The refinery argues that the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control changed the way it interprets the refinery’s air permit. It also says DNREC failed to give enough weight to the company’s efforts to reduce emissions and safely complete repairs.
The appeal was filed July 30 with the Delaware Environmental Appeals Board. The board can uphold, change or reverse DNREC’s decision.
The case involves the refinery’s fluid coking unit, commonly called a coker, and a boiler that is part of the unit’s main pollution-control system.
The boiler was taken offline from May 7 through May 30 after workers found a leak. The refinery continued operating the coker while replacing the damaged equipment. Exhaust was sent through a backup incinerator during the repairs.
DNREC said the event released about 745 tons of sulfur dioxide and 50.5 tons of nitrogen oxides.
The department fined the refinery $40,000 for each of 24 days, the maximum daily penalty allowed under state law.
Dispute centers on permit language
The refinery does not appear to dispute the amount of pollution released. The disagreement is over whether the emissions violated the refinery’s permit.
DNREC says the coker has an annual sulfur dioxide limit of 182.3 tons. The department says that limit includes emissions released through the backup incinerator.
Under that interpretation, the 745 tons released during the May outage far exceeded the annual limit.
The refinery argues that the annual limit applies only during normal operations, when exhaust passes through the main boiler and a wet-gas scrubber. The scrubber removes sulfur dioxide from the exhaust before it is released.
The backup incinerator controls carbon monoxide and particulate matter, but it does not control sulfur dioxide or nitrogen oxides.
The refinery says its permit has separate rules for operating during periods when the main boiler and scrubber are unavailable. Those rules limit the coker’s production rate, the sulfur content of its feedstock and its hourly sulfur dioxide emissions.
The company argues that those backup rules would serve little purpose if the refinery were required to shut down the coker every time the main pollution controls went offline.
DNREC’s record is mixed
DNREC has previously said the refinery violated its permit by continuing to operate the coker when the main pollution controls were unavailable.
A 2016 violation notice covered two similar outages in 2015. DNREC said continued coker operations without the boiler and scrubber violated the refinery’s operating requirements.
In that respect, DNREC’s current position is consistent with its earlier enforcement.
However, the 2016 notice did not accuse the refinery of violating the 182.3-ton annual sulfur dioxide limit. That was true even though the two outages released a combined total of more than 570 tons of sulfur dioxide.
DNREC clearly applied the annual limit to backup-incinerator emissions in a September 2025 violation notice. It applied the same interpretation again in the current case.
The refinery says DNREC issued about 12 earlier violation notices involving similar outages without applying the annual limit in this way.
That suggests DNREC has been consistent in questioning continued coker operations without the main pollution controls. But counting backup-incinerator emissions against the annual limit appears to be a newer or expanded enforcement position.
The appeals board will have to decide whether DNREC properly applied the permit or changed its interpretation without enough explanation.
Refinery points to safety concerns
DNREC argues that the refinery should not have continued operating the coker while the main pollution equipment was offline.
The refinery says an immediate shutdown could have created other environmental and safety problems.
According to the appeal, an emergency shutdown could increase flaring, damage equipment and place workers at risk. Because the coker is connected to several other refinery systems, shutting it down could also force other parts of the refinery to reduce or stop operations.
The company says it can take about six weeks to return the coker to normal operations after a long shutdown.
Those claims are the refinery’s arguments and have not yet been tested during a hearing.
Company says it reduced emissions
The refinery says it informed DNREC, elected officials, Delaware City representatives and community members before beginning the work.
The company also says it:
Reduced the coker’s operating rate.
Reduced activity in another major refinery unit.
Used material with a lower sulfur content.
Stopped certain processing work.
Added sulfur dioxide monitoring.
Published real-time air-monitoring information.
Finished the repairs eight days earlier than expected.
The refinery estimates that reducing its operations cost the company about $4.3 million.
It also says air readings around the refinery remained within public-health standards during the repairs.
Those air readings do not prove the refinery complied with its permit. Air-quality readings in the surrounding community and emissions limits at the refinery are separate regulatory measurements.
Monitoring showed no reported community harm
No injuries, illnesses or known exposures were reported during the release, according to the refinery’s appeal.
Air monitors at the refinery’s property line and nearby state monitoring stations showed ground-level sulfur dioxide concentrations remained below federal public-health standards throughout the repairs. DNREC had also told the public before the work began that emissions could increase at the refinery while air quality at ground level remained in the “good” range.
The refinery argues that those readings show the release did not reach levels expected to harm the surrounding community.
The monitoring results do not settle the permit dispute. Public-health standards measure the air people breathe at ground level, while the refinery’s permit limits the amount of pollution released from its equipment. DNREC can therefore allege a permit violation even when nearby air readings remain below levels considered harmful to the public.
Maximum penalty questioned
DNREC said the large amount of sulfur dioxide released, the refinery’s history of violations and the economic benefit of continuing production justified the $960,000 penalty.
The department also said the refinery had not done enough to prevent repeated boiler outages.
The refinery disputes those findings. It says it ordered a replacement part after a 2025 outage and installed it in May rather than making another temporary repair.
The company also argues that DNREC did not adequately explain why the maximum penalty was appropriate. It says the state failed to fully consider the reduced production, extra monitoring, repair costs and safety risks of an immediate shutdown.
DNREC has a duty to enforce environmental laws and protect nearby communities. The refinery, however, is entitled to clear permit requirements, consistent enforcement and a penalty that reflects all the facts.
The Environmental Appeals Board will decide whether DNREC reached the proper balance.
To Go Box:
Case: Environmental Appeals Board No. 2026-06 Company: Delaware City Refining Company LLC Penalty: $960,000 Outage: May 7-30 Reported emissions: 745 tons of sulfur dioxide and 50.5 tons of nitrogen oxides Refinery’s request: Reverse DNREC’s findings and penalty Status: Appeal pending
A century-old youth organization is attracting new interest as Delaware families seek outdoor adventure, leadership, service and more face-to-face experiences for their children.
WILMINGTON, Del. — Scouting is finding renewed momentum in Delaware as families look for structured activities that get children outdoors, build confidence and create stronger face-to-face connections.
Ray Teat, Scout Executive for the Del-Mar-Va Council, said the organization is seeing families return to Scouting following the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The number of scouts, scouting units and families involved with Scouting is once again growing following a challenging time for the program coming out of COVID,” Teat said. “But the number of young people, both boys and girls, is growing.”
The growth comes after a period in which Scouting America experienced significant national membership losses, including a sharp decline following 2019. In Delaware, however, local leaders say the focus has shifted to renewed family interest and the reasons parents are taking another look at Scouting.
“We’re seeing strong interest across Delaware because families want exciting programs with hands-on experiences that promote life skills — from Cub Scouts through high-adventure crews — and plenty of chances for parents to get involved,” Teat said.
Parents are looking for connection
Tim Holly, Executive Board President of the Del-Mar-Va Council, said the renewed interest reflects broader changes affecting children and families.
After the isolation and disruption of the pandemic, Holly said many parents are deliberately looking for structured activities that put children together in person and give them opportunities to build friendships, confidence and independence.
“Parents are looking for ways to reconnect their children with other kids and with their communities,” Holly said. “They want them outside, interacting face to face, learning how to work with other people and building confidence through real experiences.”
That desire for connection comes as families continue to wrestle with concerns about youth mental health, social isolation and the amount of time children spend online.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that about 40% of U.S. high school students experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness in 2023.
The statistic does not establish a direct connection between mental health concerns and Scouting enrollment, but it provides context for parents seeking activities that emphasize friendship, physical activity, adult mentorship, responsibility and belonging.
Holly said Scouting offers a setting where children can step away from some of the pressures of an increasingly digital childhood.
“Families are increasingly concerned about how much of childhood is happening on a screen,” Holly said. “Scouting gives young people a reason to put the phone down, go outside, solve a problem, make friends and discover that they can do things they may not have thought they could do.”
An old idea fits a new concern
That may be giving one of Scouting’s oldest ideas new relevance.
Scouts camp, hike, cook, build, navigate, volunteer and work together. As they get older, Scouts gradually take greater responsibility for planning activities, solving problems and leading other young people.
“Scouting has always been about learning by doing,” Holly said. “What has changed is that parents now see even more value in experiences where kids have to interact with one another, solve problems together and learn how to lead.”
Holly said parents also are attracted to the resilience that can develop when children are allowed to encounter manageable challenges.
“You learn something about yourself when the weather changes on a camping trip, when something doesn’t go according to plan or when your patrol has to figure out what to do next,” Holly said. “Those are small challenges, but they teach independence, perseverance and leadership.”
More than camping
Modern Scouting reaches well beyond the traditional image of tents, campfires and knots.
Scouts can pursue interests involving science, technology, robotics, environmental conservation, public safety, communications, fitness and dozens of other subjects.
Holly said that combination of traditional outdoor experiences and contemporary skills has broadened the program’s appeal.
“Families don’t have to choose between outdoor adventure and the skills young people will need in the future,” Holly said. “Scouting can expose a child to conservation, technology, engineering, leadership and public service while still getting them outside and away from a screen.”
That flexibility also allows young people with different interests to find their own paths through Scouting.
Delaware is well suited for Scouting
Delaware’s geography gives local Scouting programs another advantage.
Families in New Castle County are within easy reach of state parks, trails, waterways, historic sites and camping opportunities. Farther south, Scouts have access to forests, coastal environments and Scout reservations across the Delmarva Peninsula.
Holly said Delaware’s compact size makes those experiences unusually accessible.
“One of the strengths of Scouting in Delaware is that adventure is not very far away,” Holly said. “Families can live in Wilmington or Newark and still be on a trail, near the water or at a campsite without spending half the day getting there.”
That accessibility allows local units to combine outdoor recreation with conservation, history and community service.
A broader Scouting organization
Scouting also looks different than it did for many of today’s parents and grandparents, although boys and girls participating together is not new to several of its older-youth programs.
Girls began joining Cub Scout programs in 2018, followed by the expansion of Scouts BSA to girls in 2019.
Young women, however, had already participated in other Scouting programs for decades. Exploring and Sea Exploring, now Sea Scouts, began welcoming young women in 1971. Venturing has included both young men and young women since the program was created in 1998.
Those programs continue to offer different paths for older youth, including high-adventure activities, maritime programs and career-focused experiences.
“Families and society have changed over time and Scouting has evolved,” Holly said. “We are reaching more young people, including girls, while remaining steadfast in teaching the things that have always made Scouting valuable — things like leadership, service, outdoor adventure and character.”
The organization has also adopted the Scouting America name as part of an effort to better communicate its broader mission to today’s families.
New Castle County shows momentum
Some of the most visible growth has come in New Castle County, where local units have expanded recruitment and held Join Scouting Nights designed to introduce parents and children to nearby packs and troops.
Teat said the growth is giving the council reason for optimism and reinforcing the relevance of Scouting for today’s families.
The experience also suggests Scouting may be benefiting from a broader shift in what parents value.
For earlier generations, playing outside, exploring a neighborhood and spending long stretches of time away from a screen were ordinary parts of childhood.
Today, Holly said, parents may have to create those experiences more intentionally.
“The things Scouting provides are not really new,” Holly said. “What may be new is how much families value them today. Being outdoors, having real friendships, serving other people and learning to take responsibility have become increasingly important in a world where so much of life is virtual.”
More than a century in Delaware
Scouting has deep roots in the First State.
The Wilmington Council was founded in 1914, became the Wilmington Area Council in 1931 and was renamed the Del-Mar-Va Council in 1936.
More than a century later, Scouting has changed considerably, but much of its fundamental proposition remains familiar.
Young people still go outside. They learn skills. They work in teams. They serve their communities. And gradually, they are expected to assume more responsibility for themselves and others.
For Teat and Holly, that combination may help explain why a century-old youth organization is finding renewed momentum.
In a childhood increasingly filled with screens, schedules and virtual connections, Scouting offers something decidedly different: a chance to get outside, build friendships, overcome challenges and learn how to lead.
To Go Box:
What: Scouting America programs in Delaware and throughout the Del-Mar-Va Council
Who can participate: Programs serve boys and girls, with opportunities based on age and interests. Several older-youth Scouting programs have been coed for decades.
What Scouts do: Camping, hiking, community service, leadership development, STEM activities, conservation, public safety programs and other hands-on experiences.
Local leadership: Ray Teat, Scout Executive of the Del-Mar-Va Council; Tim Holly, Executive Board President of the Del-Mar-Va Council
Where: Scout units operate throughout Delaware, with parks, waterways, historic sites and Scout camps providing opportunities for outdoor and educational programs.
How to learn more: Visit www.beascout.org to find a nearby pack or troop, email the Del-Mar-Va Council at info@dmvc.org or call 302-622-3300.
Photo Courtey of Volunteer Engagement Accelerator. Created with AI on 8/13
For nonprofits, volunteers can expand capacity, relieve pressure on staff and help organizations serve more people. For volunteers, Williamson believes the rewards can be equally significant.
By John Riddle
For Angela Williamson, volunteering is about much more than filling an empty shift, helping at an event or adding another name to a nonprofit’s roster.
It is about belonging.
Williamson, founder of Volunteer Engagement Accelerator (VEA), has spent nearly two decades working in volunteer engagement and nonprofit leadership. Today, she helps mission-driven organizations develop stronger systems for attracting, supporting and retaining volunteers, while helping those volunteers find meaningful ways to contribute.
“As a consultant, I help nonprofits create places where people belong, and I focus on volunteer engagement,” Williamson said. “Volunteer engagement is where people give of their time, their talents, their heart, their passion and their donations because they want to make their world and the nonprofit a better place to be.”
Williamson holds the Certified in Volunteer Administration credential, or CVA. She is a past president of the Delaware Association of Volunteer Administrators and received the AL!VE Impact Award in 2022. She has presented at conferences, appeared on podcasts and serves as an instructor for NOVAA 101, helping volunteer administrators develop stronger leadership skills.
Her passion for volunteering, however, began long before it became her profession.
As a child, Williamson watched her parents volunteer in many different capacities. One of her earliest memories involves volunteering at the Delaware State Fair, where she helped pick up litter and received concert tickets in return.
“I thought that was the best, most amazing thing ever as a kid,” she recalled.
Those childhood experiences also taught her something about the importance of making people feel included.
“I’ve always had that heart, I think, of helping the ones that don’t feel belonging, because I have felt left out before,” Williamson said. “As a kid, feeling left out, I think my heart grew for those people who did also feel left out.”
That desire to create connections remains at the heart of her work.
“I love volunteering because it helps people. It helps the community,” she said. “I get to grow, others get to grow, and it just builds a better world, a better community and better people along the way.”
Volunteering Is Changing
While the desire to help remains strong, Williamson says the way people volunteer has changed.
“I think volunteering has changed in what and how and when, but the passion and the desire to help others of volunteers is still deep-seated,” she said.
One challenge is that people are busy and often reluctant to make long-term commitments. Some prefer to decide at the last minute whether they are available, while nonprofits may need to know well in advance if someone will fill a particular shift.
Williamson believes organizations need to adapt by reconsidering what volunteers can do, how much time they need to give and even where the work takes place.
“We do need to, as a nonprofit field, adapt and change and create different volunteer roles and responsibilities and times and places,” she said.
That could include shorter assignments, one-time opportunities, virtual volunteering and skills-based projects.
Williamson also believes volunteering can help address another challenge facing many people today: a need for greater human connection.
“By volunteering and getting out into the world, doing things that are good for the world and connecting with people, people’s mental well-being can be supported and encouraged toward a more positive view,” she said.
Finding the Right Fit
For someone interested in volunteering, Williamson recommends starting by understanding what kind of experience best matches his or her personality.
“Know your personality,” she said.
Do you prefer working behind the scenes or interacting with people? Do you like structure or flexibility? Would you rather work independently or as part of a team?
“There are so many options,” Williamson said. “Sometimes a bad fit isn’t great. Even though you want to help, maybe it’s not the best fit for you. So, find the best-fit volunteer role for you, and you will flourish and do great, and the nonprofit will appreciate it.”
Opportunities can include one-time events, ongoing assignments, direct service, behind-the-scenes work, skills-based volunteering, leadership positions and board service.
And not having much free time does not necessarily rule out volunteering.
“You might not think you have time to volunteer, but sometimes it’s just an hour,” Williamson said.
Virtual and at-home opportunities can provide additional flexibility.
Once someone finds the right opportunity, Williamson emphasizes some basics that can make a big difference: Show up when promised, communicate if plans change, ask questions and speak up if something is not working.
When the Nonprofit Doesn’t Call Back
What happens when someone wants to volunteer, contacts an organization and never hears back?
Williamson says not to give up too quickly.
“If you’ve had a ‘bad’ experience or an organization did not get back to you, please be patient and ask them again,” she said. “Maybe give them three tries. Three strikes and you’re out, maybe. But not all volunteering is like that.”
Ironically, the reason a nonprofit does not respond may be the same reason it needs volunteers.
Staff members are often juggling numerous responsibilities with limited time and resources. An organization may desperately need additional help while lacking an effective system for recruiting and onboarding the people offering it.
That is one of the problems Williamson created Volunteer Engagement Accelerator to address.
“That’s where, as a consultant, I go in and help nonprofits organize themselves better so that they can respond more quickly and in more efficient ways,” she said. “I like helping nonprofits build that bridge toward volunteers and understanding to get people more involved.”
For nonprofits, volunteers can expand capacity, relieve pressure on staff and help organizations serve more people. For volunteers, Williamson believes the rewards can be equally significant.
“When you volunteer, you feel great because you’re making a difference in a cause, a movement, somebody’s life, a pet’s life, whatever that is, whatever the nonprofit mission is,” she said.
People looking for opportunities can contact nonprofits directly or explore resources such as AARP Create the Good and Idealist. In Delaware, Williamson points potential volunteers toward Volunteer Delaware, United Way of Delaware and Delaware Difference Makers.
And for anyone who thinks volunteering is simply about giving away valuable time, Williamson offers another way to look at it.
“It can be a résumé builder. It can be the reason and purpose to get out of bed in the morning,” she said. “It can be all sorts of things to all sorts of people, but it’s all beneficial.”
In the competitive world of youth sports, few organizations have a reach as vast as the Amateur Athletic Union.
With 760,000 athletes and coaches nationwide, the AAU hosts competitions in dozens of sports across the country. This summer alone, hundreds of thousands of children competed in AAU events for elite young athletes: a staggering 100,000 at the world’s largest volleyball championship in Orlando, Florida; 8,000 at its storied basketball championships at Disney World; more than 15,000 at the Junior Olympics in Iowa.
To the hundreds of thousands of parents whose children play under the red, white and blue AAU badge, the organization offers more than a place to compete. The AAU promises their children will be safe — that its coaches are vetted, monitored and trained; that strict rules govern how adults interact with children; and that it responds effectively to allegations of abuse within its ranks.
But that trust is misplaced, according to an investigation from ProPublica and The Washington Post. The AAU is failing on nearly every level to adequately protect the hundreds of thousands of children in its care from sexual abuse, the investigation found, misleading the public about its prevention measures and suppressing allegations of sexual misconduct.
In doing so, the AAU is breaking many of the pledges it made in the wake of a 2011 sex abuse scandal involving its CEO and young basketball players. AAU leaders at the time said they would build a “new culture in which the overarching priority” was protecting young athletes, committing the organization to sweeping safety reforms. But they did not implement the majority of those reforms, ProPublica and The Post found, putting many children at risk. Some AAU athletes have had devastating experiences.
The AAU does not offer child abuse prevention training, though it claims to the public that it does. It does not verify whether coaches take the training it does offer, though it calls the course “mandatory” on its webpage for parents.
The AAU has become a haven for coaches suspected of abuse, ProPublica and The Post found, based on a review of public disciplinary lists and interviews with current and former executives from six national sports governing bodies and other key stakeholders. Those sports officials say the AAU has earned a reputation as a place where coaches can escape discipline and are not bound by strict safety laws, making it more difficult to protect young athletes. ProPublica and The Post identified eight coaches who continued to work with children under the AAU in the last five years after being banned or suspended by other youth sports organizations — even though the AAU pledged in 2012 that it would ban such coaches.
Serious allegations of sexual misconduct against coaches in the AAU are handled by its Board of Review, a group of four elected AAU members and a chair whose names are not made public. Asked about written guidelines for when to ban coaches, one former member who sat on the board for nearly 25 years said the group “just decided on our feelings.”
The abuse reporting hotline AAU promised to create as part of the reforms redirects to the AAU’s general office line with no option to report abuse, though callers can press 5 to reach a department for “medal orders.”
Instead of protecting children, the AAU has prioritized building an ever-bigger footprint across youth sports through cheap and easy team registrations, ProPublica and The Post found, allowing it to dramatically grow its revenue in recent years.
The scope of the consequences for young athletes nationwide is impossible to quantify, ProPublica and The Post found, because the AAU operates with a secrecy that is unusual for a nonprofit that serves children.
The AAU declined to answer questions from ProPublica and The Post over the course of more than a year, including whether the organization trains its coaches, how it investigates abuse claims, and how it enforces policies and safety rules. It would not verify if specific coaches overseeing AAU-registered teams had been authorized and background-checked by the AAU, as its rules require. While other youth sports organizations post public lists of coaches found to have abused children, the AAU does not.
In a statement, the AAU said it is “committed to protecting its athletes through comprehensive protection policies overseen by our Compliance Department.”
Athlete protection “is at the forefront of our safety measures such as a verified identity check and mandatory background screenings for all non-athlete AAU members, including coaches,” it said. The statement also cited “supplemental medical benefits” and “mandatory concussion protocols” as measures that it said prioritized the “physical well-being of its members.”
“These safety measures reflect our ongoing commitment to providing a safe, secure, supportive, and trusted environment where athletes can thrive,” the statement said.
The public SafeSport list is one of the most powerful tools for parents looking to research their kids’ coaches. But many families have no idea it exists or how to use it. Critics also say the organization has serious flaws.
The AAU also took action on one point raised by the news organizations. After ProPublica and The Post asked the AAU last year whether it actually mandated training for coaches, as its website claims, the organization quietly changed its website to say the training was “encouraged.”
For the first time, using thousands of pages of internal, legal and court records and interviews with key stakeholders, ProPublica and The Post were able to document how the AAU handled some child sex abuse claims in the years after it promised reform. Several years after allegations were made against a former AAU president, ProPublica and The Post found, its review board exonerated another top AAU executive accused of sexual abuse by a former player without interviewing a single witness or considering a past allegation from a different player, court records show. A current AAU official, Jim Fox, said he believed the AAU’s handling of the case was an attempt to “cover it up.”
The AAU has taken other steps that have had the effect of keeping sexual abuse claims out of the public eye, ProPublica and The Post found. Clauses in AAU registration forms require all claims against the AAU to be resolved through confidential arbitration hearings instead of jury trials in open court. The AAU uses those agreements to quash lawsuits over child sex abuse claims — arguing in court that children who say they were victimized by their coaches had signed away their right to sue when they registered for an AAU team, records show. That practice is extremely rare in sex abuse cases at other major youth sports organizations, according to attorneys, court records and sports groups, and was mostly banned by a Biden-era law in 2022.
ProPublica and The Post found that the AAU has attempted to force sex abuse claims into arbitration as recently as 2024, in the case of a lawsuit filed by a teenage girl in Florida who said she had been abused by her AAU volleyball coach. The case was settled out of court last year.
The AAU declined to comment on this practice or any of these cases, saying it could not comment on “legal matters.”
The AAU’s use of arbitration agreements meant that even in a high-profile case in which an AAU coach was convicted of decades of prolific abuse, the AAU itself escaped scrutiny.
The co-director of an influential basketball club in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Greg Stephen, was accused of sexually exploiting more than 400 of his young basketball players in 2018 and sentenced to 180 years in prison on multiple charges. But arbitration clauses prevented his former players from suing the AAU, ProPublica and The Post learned, even though boys’ families initially argued that the AAU was partly responsible because it had failed to enforce its 2012 safety policies, including a ban on coaches sharing bedrooms with players.
A judge sided with the AAU and ruled that the victims could not sue the wealthier parent organization, allowing the AAU not to respond to the claims in court. The club, Barnstormers Basketball, denied the claims.
The Barnstormers’ AAU-provided insurance limited payouts for sexual abuse claims to $1 million, said Guy Cook, the families’ lawyer, the equivalent of a few thousand dollars for each young victim.
Cook said the AAU had grown “sophisticated” in its attempts to suppress child sex abuse lawsuits: “It’s not unlike what the Catholic Church has done.”
In 2018, in the wake of revelations about sexual abuse by USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar and other powerful figures in Olympic sports, Congress created a new oversight system to prevent sexual abuse. The law charged the U.S. Center for SafeSport with investigating allegations of sexual abuse in sports overseen by the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee — made up of national sports governing bodies like USA Gymnastics — and enforced strict new rules about safety and training.
But the AAU exists outside of that system, allowing it to benefit from a gap in the law. Because it is not a sanctioned national sports governing body, the AAU is not overseen by SafeSport and does not have to follow its rules or mandate that coaches take its trainings. ProPublica and The Post found that it does not abide by SafeSport suspensions or bans.
“It should scare parents,” said former Florida state Sen. Lauren Book, a child sex abuse survivor and prevention advocate who was a member of a task force established by AAU to reform its abuse prevention practices in 2011. Along with most other members of the task force, she said she has since lost faith in the organization.
“What AAU does is protect institution over children,” Book said. “They have never done the right thing when it comes to child protection.”
Broken Promises
Before he was caught at the center of a scandal, Bobby Dodd saved the AAU. When the former youth basketball coach took the helm of the nonprofit in 1992, it was struggling. It had been founded in the 19th century to oversee amateur sports, but Congress had given that role to the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee and its national sports governing bodies in 1978. The AAU’s relevance had been declining since.
Dodd saw youth sports for what they would soon become: a booming business. He built the AAU of the 1990s and 2000s into the juggernaut of youth basketball, the home of virtually every future NBA star; invested in a Junior Olympics brand that brought in thousands of children from across track and field; and moved the organization’s headquarters to the ESPN Wide World of Sports complex inside Disney World.
Under Dodd, there were few barriers to becoming an AAU coach: Anyone who paid a $16 membership fee could start a team, no background check required. By joining the AAU, basketball and other sports clubs got perks like cheap and easy liability insurance. More importantly, they got access to a circuit of organized tournaments, from local weekend events to major national championships.
But along with Dodd’s stewardship of AAU came criticism that the fast-growing organization was becoming a free-for-all.
After a 2004 Seattle Times investigation found dozens of people with felony convictions were coaching AAU-sanctioned teams in Washington and Idaho, including a coach who was a convicted murderer, Dodd pledged to consider background checks for AAU’s 65,000 coaches. “We are going to try to ensure more integrity in the process,” Dodd told the paper.
The AAU still had not introduced those background checks when, in 2011, ESPN reported that two men had accused Dodd of molesting them as youths in the 1980s, when he was their basketball coach. Dodd denied the allegations but stepped down as president, collecting a $1.5 million payout from the organization and putting the AAU back in an uncomfortable spotlight. He was not charged with a crime, andhe could not be reached for comment.
Again, the organization promised change.
Under a new president, Louis Stout, the organization convened a task force of child safety experts. It vowed in June 2012 to implement all of the task force’s recommendations, which it called “historic child protection measures.”
The AAU rolled out mandatory background checks. It also pledged to train all adults in child sex abuse prevention and create policies that would “prevent adults from being alone with children.” Participation was a privilege, AAU vowed, not a right: “Anyone who is prohibited from participating in an organization that serves youth or who violates the AAU’s child protection policies should be barred.”
The most important change, the AAU said, would be cultural. Child safety would now be “an overarching priority.”
Within a matter of months, there were signs that little was actually changing.
That year, the AAU gave a 2012 leadership award to a man named Rick Butler, one of the country’s most prominent girls’ volleyball coaches at the time. Butler had been instrumental in building AAU volleyball into a powerhouse.
But he had also been banned by USA Volleyball from coaching girls since 1995, after the sport’s governing body concluded that he had had sexual intercourse with three teenage players years earlier, when he was in his late 20s to mid-30s. Butler’s attorney called them “legal, consensual relationships in the 1980s,” noting that there was no law or rule against coach-player relationships at the time.
Months before giving Butler the award, the AAU had promised it would bar anyone “banned by other youth-serving organizations” from coaching children.
But Butler continued coaching girls under the AAU until 2018. That year, USA Volleyball pulled its affiliation with the AAU over Butler’s membership, and the AAU subsequently banned Butler, according to a letter reviewed by ProPublica and The Post. Butler’s attorney said he has not been accused of more recent misconduct.
Stout died unexpectedly in September 2012, just a few months after he committed the AAU to the list of reforms. (After an interim period, Roger Goudy, who had run the AAU’s volleyball program for decades, was elected president in 2014.)
When the AAU published its first youth protection handbook in December 2012, there was no rule barring coaches banned by other groups. The handbook did say it was following another key reform: All AAU coaches were now taking an “educational course.”
The organization had repurposed training it had used since before the Dodd scandal — an online seminar called “Double Goal Coach” from the nonprofit Positive Coaching Alliance. The course was focused on sports psychology and coaching techniques, not sexual abuse prevention training. The AAU claimed that “all registered non-athletes” were taking the course, even though no one verified whether they did, according to officials, stakeholders and a person directly familiar with the training.
“It’s never been mandatory,” said Peg Adams, a longtime regional official at the AAU who spent more than two decades reviewing abuse claims against AAU coaches as part of its Board of Review. “It should be, but that’s something they [AAU] have to work out.”
When they were first announced, the AAU’s child safety rules, if implemented, would have put the organization at the vanguard of youth sports. But in 2018, Congress passed a landmark new sports safety law, known as the Safe Sport Act, that forced much of the rest of the sports world to make sweeping changes.
Under the new law, the U.S. Center for SafeSport was charged with investigating sexual abuse allegations in all 50 national sports governing bodies, the organizations that oversee and set rules for specific sports. SafeSport could ban or suspend accused coaches in these groups, placing their names in a searchable public database known as the SafeSport list. It required adult coaches and volunteers to take SafeSport-provided child abuse prevention training annually and follow strict new safety rules governing how they interacted with athletes.
But because the independent AAU is not a national governing body, SafeSport could not require the AAU to follow its disciplinary list, rules or training. Only a few provisions tucked at the end of the 2018 bill applied to the AAU — including a requirement that all sports groups “offer and provide consistent training … regarding prevention and reporting of child abuse.” Only Congress, not SafeSport, could enforce that provision.
The new Center for SafeSport was far from perfect. Underfunded and understaffed, the center quickly racked up a backlog of unresolved complaints and closed many others without findings or with what critics said were inadequate investigations.
SafeSport has since resolved many of those issues, improving its process to resolve cases more quickly and cut down its backlog, the organization said. In a statement, the center’s new CEO, Benita Fitzgerald Mosley, an Olympic gold medalist, said the organization “acknowledges the challenges we have met as the first national sport safeguarding organization in the world. We are on surer footing today.”
SafeSport also drove up costs for the governing bodies, who were required to help fund the center’s investigations and often pay for expensive background checks and compliance staff. That meant higher membership fees for their athletes.
The AAU was not required to pay for any of that. So while governing bodies and SafeSport inched toward reform, ProPublica and The Post found, the AAU did not.
Ashlee Orndorff
“People Tried to Cover It Up”
In 2018, the year that the Safe Sport Act took effect, the AAU faced a test of its most significant promise: to remake its culture to protect children.
That January, a woman named Ashlee Orndorff claimed on social media that she had been groomed and sexually abused as a teenager by an AAU executive, its second vice president, Matt Williams, who was also a paid employee of the organization at the time.
Orndorff had been a teenage basketball phenom in the tiny unincorporated town of Hawthorne, Nevada, two hours outside of Reno. She won three state titles and was named the state Gatorade player of the year during her senior year of high school in 2000, setting records that she still holds. But for many of the years that she excelled on the court, Orndorff said, she had carried a terrible secret: Williams, her AAU club coach, had been sexually assaulting her. The abuse began when she was 15, she said, and carried well into her adulthood, resulting in the birth of a child she gave up for adoption at 19.
Williams was more than just a storied coach. He founded the Western region’s most prominent AAU basketball brand, Jam On It, which generated revenue for the AAU through the enormous tournaments it hosted every year.
After Orndorff’s allegations, the AAU pledged to investigate, saying Williams had “volunteered” to be placed on administrative leave. Orndorff’s allegations went before the AAU’s Board of Review a month later. The small group of AAU members, one elected to represent each region, had no training in law, investigation or child sexual abuse, according to Adams, the former board member.
Transcripts reviewed by ProPublica and The Post show the hearing frequently resembled a contentious criminal trial. Williams had a lawyer, but Orndorff said she had not been able to afford one at the time.
In a statement to the AAU, Williams denied sexually abusing Orndorff as a minor. But he admitted that he fathered Orndorff’s child, who was born when she was 19 and he was over 30 and just a year out of coaching her — a violation of the organization’s policy against having sexual relationships with former players, which was part of the 2012 reforms. The attorney asked Orndorff if her “anger” at Williams “is what has prompted this complaint.”
“No, sir,” she responded. “Being fingered by my coach at 15 in a gym and him making me think that that is all that I was good for, was to be his sexual satisfaction, that is where my fucking anger comes from. Next question.”
The board did not interview any witnesses or introduce records that could corroborate Orndorff’s account. Orndorff had submitted a 34-page narrative of the alleged abuse that included dates, locations and names of potential witnesses, 10 of whom later corroborated aspects of her story in depositions for a 2019 lawsuit she filed against Williams and Jam On It, according to a review of thousands of pages of court records. (Williams and Jam On It denied wrongdoing. Orndorff settled the case in 2023, and Williams died from cancer the following year. An attorney for Williams’ estate did not respond to a request for comment.)
An altered photo, left, shows Orndorff when she was one of the country’s best teenage basketball players. Now 44, Orndorff says she still carries the trauma of abuse but is almost nine years sober and rebuilding her life.
Adams, who is a former Georgia gymnastics coach and gym owner, sat on the board during the Williams case. She said board members did not interview any witnesses because Orndorff had not provided a separate list of their names and phone numbers.
The hearing also did not consider an accusation of sexual abuse against Williams by a different player in 2005, the case records show. Rod Seaford, the board chair and the attorney running the hearing, had personally responded to the allegations in 2005, court records show. But Seaford did not mention them at the hearing, and Adams said Seaford had not told her they existed. (The girl who made the accusation declined to speak to police or the AAU at the time, records show, and that case did not proceed. Now an adult, she did not respond to an interview request from ProPublica and The Post.) Seaford declined multiple requests for comment.
By May 2018, within six months of learning of Orndorff’s allegations, the Board of Review cleared Williams of wrongdoing and reinstated him to his $84,000 position as an AAU officer. He was free to coach at Jam On It.
Internal records show that the board cited a lack of evidence and questioned Orndorff’s credibility because of an admitted history of drug use and what the board called “disturbing” discrepancies in her story. She had alternately claimed, for example, that Williams had “taken her virginity” at 15 but that they had first had sex when she was 16. In the hearing, Orndorff tried to explain that she had been referring to Williams digitally penetrating her when she was 15.
Adams spent more than two decades on the Board of Review before leaving in 2024. She was never aware, she said, of any written rules used to decide whether a coach should be allowed to return to working with children.
“I think we just decided on our feelings,” Adams said of the board’s process.
She told ProPublica and The Post that the board had not considered sanctioning Williams for having a relationship with Orndorff because there was no regulation against having relationships with former players at the time. The AAU said in 2012 it had implemented that rule.
“It certainly would be [a violation] now,” Adams said. “And after, well — it was not a very pleasant — that was one of my unhappiest decisions.”
Orndorff said she still carries with her the trauma of Williams’ abuse. She left college during her freshman year as a result of the relationship with Williams, she said, eventually turning to drinking and drugs for much of her adult life. She is now 44 and says she has been sober since 2017.
But the AAU’s handling of the case when she was finally ready to step forward has made it much more difficult for her to heal. “I tried so hard to get the truth out, and I don’t know why I couldn’t do it,” Orndorff said, her voice choked with emotion.
Jim Fox, a youth basketball executive who records indicate joined the AAU Board of Directors after the case was resolved, said he believed the “old boys’ network” of the AAU had worked to suppress Orndorff’s allegations to avoid “embarrassment.” Fox tried to convince the board again to ban Williams in 2022, internal AAU records revealed in the court case show, citing new evidence in Orndorff’s civil suit, but it refused to even consider the case.
“Anybody could look at it and see that it was true,” Fox, a former probation officer, said of Orndorff’s allegations. “People tried to cover it up.”
Goudy, the president, died in 2020. Fox told ProPublica and The Post that Williams was stripped of his membership shortly after a new president, Jo Mirza, was elected in October 2022. Mirza, who court records show also advocated to terminate Williams’ membership in 2022, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
“Short, Fast, Easy and Quick”
Something did change inside the AAU in 2021: It started making money.
Since 2015, the nonprofit had been spending more than the $20 million it took in annually, losing money each year.
But that year, the AAU’s revenue jumped to $24 million, and two years later, the number had grown to $34 million. In 2024, the most recent year the AAU’s nonprofit tax returns are public, the organization brought in nearly $44 million. It reported cash and investment reserves of around $30 million — triple what it held in 2019.
The organization’s momentum wasn’t in basketball. It was everywhere else. In boys’ volleyball, the AAU had become the dominant force, and in sports like martial arts, gymnastics and flag football, it was staking out a growing presence. The expansion meant that the AAU was increasingly competing with national sports governing bodies overseen by SafeSport.
In swimming, some large clubs joined the AAU, where they could register less serious swimmers for $20 apiece instead of the more than $70 cost of USA Swimming. In 2023, USA Swimming’s registrations fell by almost 5%.
AAU meets are “short, fast, easy and quick,” said Chris Davis, whose juggernaut Georgia swimming club, SwimAtlanta, has moved hundreds of kids to the AAU. “I could theoretically have a senior in high school run the meet. I don’t have to have an official.” Davis said he opts to use officials, and all of his coaches take SafeSport training because they are also members of USA Swimming.
The AAU’s cheaper fees weren’t the only selling point. On one swimming website’s list of reasons for clubs to switch to the “easier” AAU, the top of the list was a lack of “mandatory training hoops.”
By 2023, five years after the SafeSport Act’s passage, the AAU was publicly acknowledging that the law required all organizations to offer some form of child sex abuse prevention training, even if it isn’t created by SafeSport. Its new youth protection handbook cited the law — and said that the AAU’s mandatory course, offered through the Positive Coaching Alliance, now included “child abuse prevention training.”
Jason Sacks, the CEO of the Positive Coaching Alliance, told ProPublica and The Post in a statement that the material “was not an official training by any stretch.” It constituted “a few slides with resources.”
The links to those resources from AAU’s website are currently broken.
As an organization, Sacks said, PCA’s focus is not sexual abuse prevention but youth sports culture, with trainings that emphasize positivity and character development. He noted its courses can play a role in preventing emotional and physical abuse by discouraging coaches from mistreating athletes. But Sacks said they “are not currently built to satisfy the Safe Sport Act requirements.”
Though some 20,000 AAU coaches took the PCA course in its earliest days, Sacks’ statement said, those numbers have declined steadily in the decade since. In 2024, AAU reported more than 100,000 adult volunteers.
On Nov. 10, 2025, ProPublica and The Post reached out to the AAU with questions about whether the organization offered sexual abuse prevention training and if the PCA course was mandatory for all coaches.
Eight days later, the AAU approached PCA, Sacks said in his statement. Officials had two requests: “They wanted to incorporate more abuse prevention material in the PCA online coach course training, and make it mandatory for all coaches.”
Aleesa Bravata
“SafeSport Does Not Apply”
SafeSport’s public disciplinary list quickly became a central part of the sports landscape. By 2025, there were more than 2,500 coaches on the list — some temporarily suspended during investigations and hundreds more banned permanently from any sport that fell under the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee.
Though they were not required to do so by law, many independent organizations, including Pop Warner and Little League, implemented rules to keep coaches on the list out of their programs, too. In 2012, the AAU had said it would bar anyone “banned by other youth-serving organizations.” But it never adopted the rule, according to a review of its written policies.
Instead, ProPublica and The Post found, the organization has become known as a refuge for coaches who are suspended or banned by SafeSport and national governing bodies.
“The AAU has absolutely developed a reputation that they are the place to go if you are banned from our world,” said the president of one national governing body, who asked not to be named because he still works with the AAU.
The issue has been raised repeatedly to the U.S. Center for SafeSport, top governing body officials, attorneys and former SafeSport executives told The Post.
ProPublica and The Post identified eight people who coached AAU-affiliated teams within the last five years despite being banned by SafeSport or national governing bodies. The AAU’s director of compliance, Aaron Oandasan, would not verify if any of them were registered with the AAU, but ProPublica and The Post confirmed they were coaching teams registered with the organization through interviews with parents, administrators or the coaches themselves, as well as online records and social media posts.
Among them were three elite gymnastics coaches who had been suspended by either USA Gymnastics or SafeSport over emotional and physical abuse allegations in the wake of the Nassar revelations but continued working with AAU athletes. Another was a fencing club owner who started advertising his gym as affiliated with AAU while SafeSport investigated allegations of sexual misconduct against him that it eventually substantiated. And a Georgia basketball coach who was suspended for three years by SafeSport over allegations that were not publicly disclosed even took his team of boys to AAU nationals.
Last year, a regional governing body official said he reached out to the AAU to warn it about a local volleyball club owner who had told parents he planned to join the AAU to evade a SafeSport suspension for alleged sexual misconduct.
The AAU’s response to the official was curt, the official told ProPublica and The Post: “SafeSport does not apply.”
Adams, the former review board member, said that the AAU does not check the SafeSport list unless it receives a report about a coach. The AAU then conducts its own investigation, she said, because it does not trust SafeSport. That is because SafeSport is prohibited from sharing confidential details of cases, she said, but also out of concern that the center punishes coaches for frivolous reasons.
“At times, SafeSport hasn’t liked the way somebody dressed or they drank in college,” she said, without providing examples. SafeSport’s vice president, Hilary Nemchik, called Adams’ characterization “not accurate” and “concerning.”
“SafeSport’s cases are proven through evidence, and our process allows for appeals by the accused,” Nemchik said.
Adams said the AAU board does sometimes ban coaches who have been barred by SafeSport.
She recalled one case in which the board ruled that a coach banned by SafeSport should be allowed to continue working with the AAU. That coach was later seen acting inappropriately with an AAU athlete, Adams said, and the AAU banned him at that time. She declined to name the coach, and because the AAU does not make a public list of banned members, the claim is not verifiable.
One of the coaches who was still working with children under AAU following a SafeSport suspensionwas Elias Perez in Southern California.
Aleesa Bravata told SafeSport last year that Perez, her former volleyball coach, had groomed and inappropriately touched her while she was in high school.
But a few weeks after his name appeared on SafeSport’s disciplinary list, temporarily suspending him, Bravata saw Perez’s truck in the parking lot of the local volleyball gym. Perez was still coaching.
Bravata had met Perez when he began coaching the girls’ volleyball team at her high school in Huntington Beach, California. He was 33; she was 16, a junior. As her senior season began, she said, Perez began to isolate her from her teammates and text her with increasing frequency about things other than volleyball, including making comments about her appearance.
ProPublica and The Post reviewed interviews and records that were part of SafeSport’s investigation, including text messages between Bravata and Perez, and corroborated parts of her story with a former coach in whom Bravata confided while she was still in high school.
In September 2024, around the time Bravata turned 18, Bravata said Perez asked her for a ride home from training because his car was broken down. Parked outside Perez’s apartment, Bravata said her coach told her, “You know how I feel about you.”
She asked him what he meant. Bravata said she remembers his reply word-for-word: “I’m going to put this in a way you understand. I have a crush on you, I like you, I want to hold your hand and take you on dates.”
“I froze,” Bravata told ProPublica and The Post. “It scared me.”
An altered photo, left, shows Bravata when she played volleyball in high school. Now 19, she is a sophomore in college.
Perez went inside, Bravata said, but a few days later, he asked her to come to his apartment to drop off a set of keys to the high school gym. Parked outside his apartment, Bravata recalled that she sat in the passenger seat of her truck and, with the door open, Perez came to stand close to her, his body between her legs.
Bravata told Perez that she didn’t want to have sex, she said, and Perez said he would never do anything that made her uncomfortable.Then, she said, Perez began to touch her, rubbing his fingers under her bra strap and touching the waistband of her pajama pants.
Perez tried to kiss her, Bravata said, and Bravata turned her head. He then took her wrist, she said, and pressed her hand against his clothed penis, which was erect under his loose pants. When he let go, Bravata said, her hand dropped loosely into her lap.
Bravata got out of the passenger seat to return to the driver’s side, she said, and Perez asked her, “Hey, if anyone asks, Eli accidentally touched your ass, right?”
With the volleyball season over, Bravata and Perez stopped spending time together. Later in her senior year, her confused feelings turned to something else: “It took me till the end of the school year to realize that he had been grooming me, basically brainwashing me,” she said.
Bravata confided in a former coach, SafeSport records show, who escalated the issue to school administration and the school resource officer. By then, Perez had left the high school. Bravata said Huntington Beach police told her that because it was possible the incidents had occurred when she was no longer a minor, the district attorney was unlikely to prosecute. (The police declined to release any records to ProPublica and The Post because the case is still open.)
In August 2025, when Bravata learned Perez was coaching a team of 14- to 15-year-old girls at Balboa Bay, a prestigious local volleyball club, she called SafeSport’s reporting hotline.
Within weeks, SafeSport issued a temporary suspension against Perez while it finished its investigation — a measure it typically takes only in limited cases where allegations are serious and recent.
Perez did not respond to requests for comment. But in an interview with a SafeSport investigator, a transcript of which was reviewed by ProPublica and The Post, he denied any inappropriate contact with Bravata, saying that they had rarely texted and had not been close.
Balboa Bay was a member of two organizations: USA Volleyball, which is legally bound by SafeSport, and the AAU, which is not. So while Balboa Bay eventually stopped Perez from coaching girls on its USA Volleyball teams, it allowed him to continue coaching teenage boys on its AAU-affiliated teams for several months.
The club director, Travis Turner, said he initially decided to keep Perez because AAU rules did not forbid it and the alleged misconduct had not taken place at Balboa Bay. After ProPublica and The Post reached out to him in November, Turner said, he decided to fire Perez. He said he had not initially understood the severity of SafeSport suspensions.
This April, SafeSport issued a permanent ban against Perez for sexual misconduct and an intimate relationship “involving a power imbalance,” its online database shows.
But Bravata said she fears that there is nothing to prevent Perez from finding another AAU club — and another chance to coach children.
Sen. Susan Collins was one of three Republican senators who voted against passing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in July 2025, and she cited the legislation’s many changes to Medicaid as the main reason. But an ad from a Democratic outside group falsely claims she “voted to support Donald Trump on the largest Medicaid cut in history.”
Democrats have criticized Collins, who is running for reelection in Maine, for her earlier procedural vote on a motion to advance the OBBBA to the Senate floor for consideration. But the ad ignores the fact that she ultimately voted against the bill instead of supporting it.
The nearly 30-second ad is sponsored by a group called Affordable Maine, which, as of Aug. 12, had spent more than $473,000 to air the TV and digital ad, according to AdImpact.
Collins is facing Democrat Troy Jackson, a former state Senate president, in the toss-up race.
The ad features an intensive care unit nurse who says she has “seen patients being bankrupted by the cost of care.” She then says, “This didn’t just happen. Susan Collins voted to support Donald Trump on the largest Medicaid cut in history.” At the end, the nurse says, “Healthcare is getting even more expensive. People are losing coverage, labor and delivery centers are closing, hospitals are closing. We need to tell Susan Collins to stop siding with Donald Trump. We can’t afford it.”
We reached out to Affordable Maine about its ad, but we have not yet received a response. (Update, Aug. 18: We received a response after publication and have included it at the end of this story.)
The ad only cites a May 21, 2025, post from Partners in Health that said the OBBBA included the “Largest Medicaid Cut in U.S. History.” The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office later estimated that the law — which makes several changes to the Medicaid program, including eligibility requirements — will reduce federal Medicaid spending by more than $900 billion over a decade. The Medicaid provisions in the law will increase the number of uninsured people by 7.5 million, CBO also estimated.
But, as we said, Collins didn’t “support” the legislation, as the ad claims.
On July 1, 2025, when the Senate voted on whether to pass the bill, Collins joined the 47 senators in the Democratic caucus and Republican Sens. Thom Tillis and Rand Paul in voting against the OBBBA.
In a statement issued that day, Collins said while she “strongly” supported the legislation’s extension of tax relief for families and small businesses, her vote opposing it was “primarily” because of the impact the legislation would have on Medicaid.
“The Medicaid program has been an important health care safety net for nearly 60 years that has helped people in difficult financial circumstances, including people with disabilities, children, seniors, and low-income families. Approximately 400,000 Mainers – nearly a third of the state’s population – depend on this program,” her statement said. “Certainly, there are improvements that should be made to the Medicaid system. For example, I support work requirements for able-bodied adults who are not raising young children, who are not caregivers, or attending school. However, a dramatic reduction in future Medicaid funding, an estimated $5.9 billion in Maine over the next 10 years, could threaten not only Mainers’ access to health care, but also the very existence of several of our state’s rural hospitals.”
“While I continue to support the tax relief I voted for in 2017, I could not support these Medicaid changes and other issues,” which included the elimination of certain energy-saving incentives and tax credits for businesses and individuals, she said.
In the end, the reconciliation bill — which only required majority support to advance — passed when Vice President JD Vance, as president of the Senate, cast the “yea” vote that broke the 50-50 tie. Then, after the House of Representatives passed the amended Senate version of the bill, President Donald Trump signed it into law on July 4.
Collins’ Procedural Vote
On June 28, a few days before that vote, Collins did join 50 other Republican senators in voting to proceed with debate on the OBBBA. That debate ended with the vote on passage.
Collins later told Maine Public that she voted in favor of the motion to move forward on consideration of the bill because “the majority leader, whether it’s a Democrat or Republican, always has the right to determine which bills come to the floor, except under very few circumstances.” And she had also told reporters that her vote on passage would “depend on whether the bill is substantially changed.”
The Maine Democratic Party has criticized Collins for her procedural vote, which it called “a decisive vote to greenlight Medicaid cuts.” But while Collins could have voted not to advance the bill, that likely would not have stopped the OBBBA in its tracks.
Without Collins, the vote on the motion would have been 50-50. The vice president was present and prepared to make the tie-breaking vote to move the bill forward anyway.
Update, Aug. 18: On Aug. 18, Phoebe Kilgour, a spokesperson for Affordable Maine, provided the following statement to us in defense of the ad: “The largest Medicaid cuts in American history would not have passed without the vote Susan Collins took to advance the bill. Collins was a ‘pivotal’ and ‘key’ vote in advancing Trump-backed legislation to strip health care from people across Maine. Collins is intentionally misleading Mainers about her record. The fact is, she voted to advance a bill that included massive cuts to health care knowing that it would ultimately pass. Collins had the chance to stop this bill from becoming law and chose not to.”
Kilgour’s statement linked to news articles that said Collins “cast a pivotal vote to begin debating the bill” and was “a key vote in advancing the bill” for consideration. As we noted in our article, a “no” vote from Collins would have made the vote on the motion to advance the OBBBA 50-50. Vice President Vance would have then been able to vote “yea,” breaking the tie and advancing the bill.
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