News Reel

Shifting from regular income to disability has a big impact on your paycheck, but what about your credit card debt?

Chinese authorities have barred two Manus executives from leaving the country while investigating whether Meta's reported $2 billion acquisition of the Singapore-based AI startup violated foreign investment reporting rules. "Manus was founded in China but last year relocated its headquarters and core team to Singapore," notes the Financial Times. "Meta acquired it for $2 billion at the end of last year." The Financial Times reports: Manus's chief executive Xiao Hong and chief scientist Ji Yichao were summoned to a meeting in Beijing with the National Development and Reform Commission this month, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. They said Xiao and Ji were questioned on potential violations of foreign direct investment rules related to its onshore Chinese entities. After the meeting, the Singapore-based executives were told they were not allowed to leave China because of a regulatory review, while they remain free to travel within the country, two of the people said. No formal investigation has been opened and no charges have been brought. Manus is actively seeking law firms and consultancies to help resolve the matter, said a person with knowledge of the move.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Justice Department lawyers said in the memo that it was a "regrettable error" to cite the memo in monthslong litigation.

US president addresses conflict at cabinet meeting with fresh barbs against Nato and the UK in particular

• Analysis: Trump pitches peace plan but military buildups rarely veer to off-ramp

An Iranian envoy has said South Korean ships can pass through the strait of Hormuz only after coordinating with Tehran, the Yonhap News Agency has reported.

Such an agreement had to be reached in advance of the transit, said Saeed Khuzechi, the Iranian ambassador to South Korea, at a press conference in response to a question about guarantees for South Korean vessels to navigate the vital conduit for oil.

Lawmakers are looking for a way out of the Department of Homeland Security shutdown that has roiled air travel after a potential deal stalled. Follow live updates.

Remarks come after defense secretary calls for changes to military’s chaplain corps, which had been ‘watered down’

The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, prayed during a religious service at the Pentagon that there be “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy”.

The Christian worship service, held on Wednesday before military and civilian workers at the Pentagon, was Hegseth’s first since the Iran war began, the Associated Press reported.

Laurence Gray charged with attempting to provide material support to terrorist organizations

An Arizona licensed gun dealer was charged this month with attempting to provide material support to terrorist organizations after federal agents caught him allegedly selling a series of rifles and guns to two Mexican cartels.

The federal charges against the American firearms dealer come amid years of pressure by the Mexican government to stop the flow of weapons into the country. Mexico’s violent and bloody internal conflict, between drug cartels and the Mexican government, has been largely fueled by American weapons smuggled into the country.

Quick question, some users asked me for the data recording aspect of your firmware.

Is the feature for development purpose only or for actual short term data logging? How does that work exactly? Do you still need an sd card somewhere or it is stored on the VESC internal memory itself?

Related to post above where I’m concerned: I should be able to add the file on GitHub eventually. I had some valid reasons to not do so until recently and I understand the frustration.

The comments were part of a broader address in which he condemned Nato allies

Yesterday the Conservative party said that it wanted to ban political parties from distributing campaign literature in a foreign language. Announcing a plan to propose an amendement to the representation of the people bill to make this law, the shadow communities minister Paul Holmes said:

Campaigning in a foreign language as the Greens did in Gorton and Denton only fosters greater division. A coherent national culture relies on shared values, and an inclusive electoral process relies on a common tongue.

I think it’s for political parties to choose how they campaign and communicate with British voters. If they’re using British money that is funding their campaigns and they’re speaking to people who have the right to vote, then why would you not show those voters the respect of communication?

What fuels division is Nick Timothy standing up and singling out Muslim forms of worship for a ban when he’s not applying that to forms of worship that other religions are talking about.

It just doesn’t compute, does it? I worked in Number 10. Briefly, I had a Number 10 phone. There was a paranoia about devices like that falling into other people’s hands.

And so whether it was the Met Police, whether it was Morgan McSweeney, and what sounds like pretty evasive set of reporting, even when you look at that transcript, or whether it was the Number 10 security team following up something that at the time they could not have been sure had not been taken by a state actor, a phone with all sorts of government secrets potentially in it, that’s precisely why people in government have two separate phones.

I don’t believe McSwindle had his iPhone stolen

Honest believe, Matt. It’s smacks of the liar Johnson defence of ‘lost all my WhatsApp messages’. We mustn’t take the public for fools. And I am afraid this smacks of too convenient by far. I won’t do it. I will say what I actually think. And I don’t believe it. End of!

I believe the report was made. McSwindle didn’t mention that he was the chief of staff to the PM. A significant omission of he’d wanted the police to prioritise the offence.

Negotiations to end funding standoff sparked by Trump administration’s immigration crackdown fail to find a breakthrough

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We are awaiting the start of Donald Trump’s latest cabinet meeting, which was due to start at 10am eastern time. This will be the 11th such session Trump has staged since re-entering the White House in January last year. Previous meetings have been open and freewheeling – as well as newsworthy.

The Pentagon is preparing plans for a “final blow” in the war with Iran that could include deploying ground troops and a massive bombing campaign, Axios reports, citing four sources – including two US officials.

The comments came after the US president lashed out as Nato, saying it didn’t help to open the strait of Hormuz when requested

Meanwhile, the US president, Donald Trump, has once again lashed out against Nato allies saying in a social media post that they have “done absolutely nothing to help” in Iran campaign.

“The USA needs nothing from Nato, but ‘never forget’ this very important point in time,” he warned.

“NATO NATIONS HAVE DONE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO HELP WITH THE LUNATIC NATION, NOW MILITARILY DECIMATED, OF IRAN. THE U.S.A. NEEDS NOTHING FROM NATO, BUT “NEVER FORGET” THIS VERY IMPORTANT POINT IN TIME! President DONALD J. TRUMP”

New partnership aims to create a secure, made‑in‑Canada system to power the country’s artificial intelligence future

KINGSTON, Ontario and BURNABY, British Columbia, March 26, 2026 — Queen’s University and Simon Fraser University (SFU) are partnering to design and build a national sovereign, secure, and sustainable high-performance supercomputing system to grow Canada’s research and development capabilities. The two universities have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to work together, sharing expertise to deliver scalable, high-performance computing to academia, government, and industry from coast to coast.

Credit: Shuhan/Shutterstock

AI supercomputers are the powerful engines that train AI models, analyze massive amounts of information, and support innovations in areas such as healthcare, clean energy, defense, manufacturing, dual-use technology and public safety. As demand for AI grows, so does the need for strong computing infrastructure that keeps data secure and ensures it stays within Canadian borders.

SFU and Queen’s bring deep, complementary experience to this work. Both universities currently operate trusted public high-performance computing platforms that support some of Canada’s most advanced AI projects, including those focused on critical infrastructure, life sciences, and next generation technologies. With this agreement in place, Canada would become home to its first global top-10 supercomputer, hosted by Queen’s in Kingston, Ontario, and a global top-25 supercomputer in B.C, hosted by SFU. Together, this distributed model will operate as a coordinated, “made in Canada” system, working with Canadian vendors and suppliers, and driving innovation in sustainable computing.

SFU currently operates Canada’s largest public supercomputing system, supporting more than 24,000 researchers and industry partners nationwide. The Cedar Supercomputing Centre is powered by clean energy and is part of Canada’s most sustainable data centre, with an industry-leading power usage effectiveness (PUE) of 1.07. This means the facility uses only about 7 per cent more energy than the IT equipment itself, far below the industry average PUE of roughly 1.56.

For the past five years, SFU has been ranked as Canada’s top university in the World University Ranking for Innovation (WURI), reflecting its leadership in AI, quantum technologies, and climate-change related research.

Queen’s is the only university in Canada home to researchers who have helped design and deploy some of the world’s most powerful supercomputers, including systems ranked among the global top-10 in the United States, Europe and Asia. Queen’s also runs the Centre for Advanced Computing, a research data centre and analytics hub, as well as CAESAR Lab, the country’s largest group of experts on the design and build of exascale systems in Canada and leaders in research advancing energy-efficient supercomputing.

Together, this partnership aims to accelerate Canada’s leadership in AI, attract global talent, work with leading supercomputing sites worldwide, strengthen national digital sovereignty, and ensure Canadian researchers and businesses have the tools they need to compete globally.

This collaboration aligns with the Government of Canada’s Sovereign AI Compute strategy to build a state-of-the-art, public supercomputing infrastructure and mobilize private sector investment. As part of the strategy, Canada is investing in a new AI supercomputing system through the AI Sovereign Compute Infrastructure Program. SFU and Queen’s plan to jointly apply to the program, which is expected to launch in 2026.

“Queen’s is pleased to partner with Simon Fraser University to help strengthen Canada’s sovereign, sustainable AI supercomputing capacity,” said Nancy Ross, Vice-Principal, Research, Queen’s University. “This collaboration, which brings together complementary expertise in high-performance computing and AI, will help cultivate talent and train the next generation of Canadian experts. As we have seen from global leaders in the space, advanced computing infrastructure that is partnered with research and academia will strengthen Canada’s economic competitiveness, enable breakthrough research at scale, safeguard digital sovereignty, and ensure we have the infrastructure needed to thrive in an increasingly AI-driven world.”

“Canada needs secure, world‑class computing infrastructure to lead in the next generation of artificial intelligence,” said Dugan O’Neil, Vice-President, Research & Innovation, Simon Fraser University. “By partnering with Queen’s, we’re bringing together the expertise, talent, and the national-scale facilities needed for a sovereign platform that Canadians can trust. This collaboration strengthens our research community, supports industry innovation, and helps ensure Canada remains competitive in a rapidly evolving global landscape.”

More from HPCwire

• Simon Fraser University Signs MOUs to Advance Sustainability at Cedar Supercomputing Centre
• Bell and Queen’s University Partner to Build Sovereign AI Supercomputing Infrastructure in Canada
• Bell Canada Expands Sovereign AI Fabric with BUZZ HPC GPU Capacity
• Simon Fraser University Installs Fir, Canada’s Most Powerful Academic Supercomputer
• VAST Data Expands Presence in Canada with SciNet and SHARCNET Deployments

About Queen’s University

Founded in 1841, Queen’s University, Canada, is an internationally ranked research-intensive university with more than 31,000 students and 5,000 faculty and staff. Queen’s is known for research in areas such as cancer detection and treatment, geoengineering, materials science, AI and supercomputing, and is home to the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics. Queen’s welcomes researchers and students from around the world and is one of Canada’s leading universities. To learn more, please visit queensu.ca.

About Simon Fraser University

SFU is a leading research university, advancing an inclusive and sustainable future. Over the past 60 years, SFU has been recognized among the top universities worldwide in providing a world-class education and working with communities and partners to develop and share knowledge for deeper understanding and meaningful impact. Committed to excellence in everything we do, SFU fosters innovation to address global challenges and continues to build a welcoming, inclusive community where everyone feels a sense of belonging. With campuses in British Columbia’s three largest cities — Burnaby, Surrey and Vancouver — SFU has 10 faculties that deliver 368 undergraduate degree programs and 149 graduate degree programs for more than 37,000 students each year. The university boasts more than 200,000 alumni residing in 145+ countries.

Source: Queen’s University

The post Simon Fraser University and Queen’s University Join Forces to Build Canada’s National Supercomputing Capability appeared first on HPCwire.

Lawmakers consider latest bill that targets trans people for using the bathroom that matches their gender identity

Idaho lawmakers are considering a bill that would make it a crime for transgender people to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity – even inside privately owned businesses.

At least 19 states, including Idaho, already have laws barring transgender people from using bathrooms and changing rooms that align with their gender in schools and, in some cases, other public places. The LGBTQ+ advocacy organization Movement Advancement Project’s tracking of the laws shows that three other states – Florida, Kansas and Utah – have made it a criminal offense in some circumstances to violate the bathroom laws.

Banks, governments and tech providers urged to upgrade security because current systems will soon be obsolete

Banks, governments and technology providers need to be prepared for quantum computer hackers capable of breaking most existing encryption systems by 2029, Google has warned.

The tech company said in a blogpost that quantum computers would pose a “significant threat to current cryptographic standards” before the end of the decade and urged other companies to follow its lead.

Transgender women athletes are now excluded from women's events at the Olympics after the IOC agreed to a new eligibility policy on Thursday.

Russia is providing intelligence support to Iran in the Middle East war to "kill Americans," Kaja Kallas said Thursday.

As a searing heat wave slowly expands over the western two-thirds of the U.S., more than 100 daily temperature records are forecast through Sunday.

The new album draws from the musician’s early childhood memories of growing up in Liverpool and his relationship with Lennon, with musical styles that span his entire career

• Alexis Petridis on single Days We Left Behind: ‘As McCartney-esque as possible’

Paul McCartney has announced his 18th solo album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane – its title a reference to the route from Liverpool to the Speke shoreline, the area where the former Beatle spent his young childhood.

A press release described the 14-track record as McCartney’s most introspective album yet, a “collection of rare and revealing glimpses into memories never-before shared, along with some newly inspired love songs”, presumably about McCartney’s third wife, Nancy Shevell, whom he married in 2011. The musical styles are said to span his entire career, including “Wings-style rock, Beatles-style harmonies, McCartney-style grooves, understated intimacy, melody-driven storytelling, character songs”.

Scisters Salon & Apothecary in the San Diego area is committed to sustainable beauty and going low-waste

The first thing you notice when you walk into Scisters Salon & Apothecary is what isn’t there. No wall of glossy plastic bottles promising “repair” or “shine”. No sharp chemical tang or aerosol haze. The only trash can is a tiny basket that mostly collects coffee cups and gum wrappers clients bring from home.

Instead, the shelves of this southern California salon are lined with large refill containers of shampoo and conditioner, houseplants dot the space, hair clippings are swept away for compost, and the air carries a trace of bergamot and vanilla.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Physics World: Researchers at the CERN particle-physics lab have successfully transported antiprotons in a lorry across the lab's main site. The feat, the first of its kind, follows a similar test with protons in 2024. CERN says the achievement is "a huge leap" towards being able to transport antimatter between labs across Europe. [...] To do so, in 2020 the BASE team began developing a device, known as BASE-STEP (for Baryon-Antibaryon Symmetry Experiment-Symmetry Tests in Experiments with Portable Antiprotons), to store and transport antiprotons. It works by trapping particles in a Penning trap composed of gold-plated cylindrical electrode stacks made from oxygen-free copper that is surrounded by a superconducting magnet bore operated at cryogenic temperatures. The device, which also contains a carbon-steel vacuum chamber to shield the particles from stray magnetic fields, is then mounted on an aluminium frame. This allows it to be transported using standard forklifts and cranes and withstand the bumps and vibrations of transport. In 2024, BASE researchers used the device to transport a cloud of about 105 trapped protons across CERN's Meyrin campus for four hours. After that feat, the researchers began to adjust BASE-STEP to handle antiprotons and yesterday the team successfully transported a trap containing a cloud of 92 antiprotons around the campus for 30 minutes, traveling up to 42 km/h. With further improvements and tests, the team now hope to transport the antiprotons further afield. The first destination on the team's list is the Heinrich Heine University (HHU) in Dusseldorf, Germany, which would take about eight hours. "This means we'd have to keep the trap's superconducting magnet at a temperature below 8.2 K for that long," says BASE-STEP's leader Christian Smorra. "So, in addition to the liquid helium , we'd need to have a generator to power a cryocooler on the truck. We are currently investigating this possibility." If possible to transport to HHU, physicists would then use the particles to search for charge-parity-time violations in protons and antiprotons with a precision at least 100 times higher than currently possible at CERN.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Terms of reference are to seek fullest disclosure of information and to produce a report by spring 2028

• UK politics live – latest updates

The government has announced the formal start of the promised official inquiry into the violent policing at the Orgreave coking plant during the 1984-85 miners’ strike and the discredited prosecutions of 95 men that followed.

Yvette Cooper, who was then the home secretary, announced the inquiry in July with Pete Wilcox, the bishop of Sheffield, as the chair. The government has since worked on appointing an expert panel to consider the evidence.

The price of gold has dropped considerably in recent days. Here's where it stands now (and what investors should do).

The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, whose board is filled with the president's allies, announced Bill Maher will receive the prize in June.

You may have more leverage with your credit card issuer than you think, but only under very specific conditions.

Nigeria and UK look to strengthen trade and economic ties amid growing calls from Africa and Caribbean for reparative justice

“There are chapters in our shared history that I know have left some painful marks,” King Charles said during a state banquet to welcome the Nigerian president, Bola Tinubu, to the UK, in a year in which the monarch is expected to come under renewed pressure to make a formal apology for transatlantic slavery and colonialism.

But while demands grow from African and Caribbean nations for the UK to further reparative justice, Nigeria and the UK are looking to the future of global trade.

Shaine March fatally stabbed Alana Odysseos, who was in early stages of pregnancy, after being released on licence for killing teenager in 2000

A man who murdered his pregnant girlfriend after being released from prison on licence must spend the rest of his life in jail, the court of appeal has ruled after finding that the original 42-year sentence was “too lenient”.

Alana Odysseos, 32, was in the early stages of pregnancy with her third child when she was killed by Shaine March last July at her home in Walthamstow, east London. She died at the scene from 23 slash and stab wounds.

Higher blend has been prohibited in warm weather because of concerns it could worsen smog

The US Environmental Protection Agency said on Wednesday that it would temporarily allow widespread sales of a higher-ethanol gas blend in a move that it hopes will tamp down consumer prices that have soared since the Iran war began.

The higher-ethanol blend has been prohibited in warm weather because of concerns it could worsen smog.

Here's what to know about peptides, what they can and can't do, and what's driving viral claims about possible health benefits online.

Other winners include Inter Alia’s Rosamund Pike, Ivo van Hove for All My Sons and Hayley Atwell who beat her Much Ado co-star Tom Hiddleston to best Shakespearean performance

Brendan Gleeson has been named best actor at the Critics’ Circle theatre awards for his West End debut in Conor McPherson’s pub drama The Weir. He beat fellow nominees including Bryan Cranston and Paapa Essiedu, both recognised for All My Sons, and James Hameed and Arti Shah, the duo who together portray Paddington in the new musical about Michael Bond’s bear. The Weir, directed by McPherson, was entirely omitted from the nominations for this year’s Olivier awards and is being turned into a film with Gleeson and the rest of the West End cast.

All My Sons, a critically adored production of Arthur Miller’s 1946 classic at Wyndham’s theatre, won in two categories at the Critics’ Circle awards: best revival of a play or musical and best director for Ivo van Hove. A new production of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into the Woods, directed by Jordan Fein at the Bridge theatre, also won two prizes – best designer (Tom Scutt) and the inaugural award for best ensemble or cast.

Electric buses are just 1% of the Australian fleet compared with 80% in urban China, a quarter in the Netherlands and 12% in the UK

• Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates

• Sign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter here

As diesel climbs past $3 a litre amid fuel security concerns, transport advocates are calling for the rollout of electric buses across Australia to be prioritised.

In Australia, just 1% of buses are electric, compared with 80% of the urban fleet in China, a quarter in the Netherlands and 12% in the UK.

New rules force trucking schools to cut staff and classes, and 7,000 training providers lose accreditation

Vasyl Kushnir and Gene Moik jovially greeted some of the young men studying the parts of the hulking 18-wheel trucks parked at their driving school – but behind their smiles were the growing worries that their business is at risk of closing down nearly a decade after it opened.

Every morning, Kushnir and Moik have been running numbers, projecting that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to stay afloat when they’ve suffered a significant drop in student enrollments at their business, Start CDL, since the second Trump administration announced new restrictions for immigrant drivers.

New federal restrictions threaten licenses for noncitizen truckers, including Ukrainians who fled Russia’s invasion

Karina Krainova, who worked as a trucker in the US after fleeing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, where she is from, rushed to the closest motor vehicle’s office last fall, just days after the US transportation department tightened commercial driver’s license requirements for immigrant drivers like her.

She was already afraid of being deported back to Ukraine as the war rages on. She had entered the United States legally in 2024 under a Biden administration program that granted hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians a safe haven.

Michael Rousseau says his lack of French overshadowed families’ grief after Mark Carney and Quebec denounced his video

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The chief executive of Air Canada has apologized for his inability to express himself in French after politicians called for his resignation for his English-only message of condolence after Sunday’s deadly crash in New York.

Air Canada’s CEO, Michael Rousseau, has been criticized for the four-minute condolence video posted online that included only two French words – “bonjour” and “merci”.

The TSA's top official says the situation at U.S. airports could get even worse if the partial government shutdown​ that has frozen officers' paychecks continues.

Commentary: The new emoji are also fun. But I'm more into the Apple Music updates.

First lady Melania Trump shares the spotlight with a Figure 03 robot to promote the use of artificial intelligence in education.

YORKTOWN HEIGHTS, N.Y., March 26, 2026 — IBM today announced new results that its quantum computer can simulate real magnetic materials with results that match neutron scattering experiments, marking a significant step towards using quantum computers as reliable tools for scientific discovery. The work, reported in a pre-print, was conducted by scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy-funded Quantum Science Center at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Purdue University, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Los Alamos National Laboratory, the University of Tennessee and IBM.

Credit: IBM

The ability to design new materials—such as better superconductors, more efficient batteries, or novel drugs—depends on understanding quantum behavior that is often challenging for classical methods to model. While quantum computers are expected to address this challenge, it has remained unclear whether today’s processors could deliver quantitatively reliable simulations of real materials. These results show that current quantum hardware, combined with new algorithms and quantum-centric supercomputing workflows, can already simulate properties of materials, which in general, can be difficult to predict using classical methods alone.

“There is so much neutron scattering data on magnetic materials that we don’t fully understand because of the limitations of approximate classical methods,” said Arnab Banerjee, assistant professor of Physics and Astronomy at Purdue University. “Using a quantum computer for better understanding these simulations and comparing experimental data has been a decade-long dream of mine, and I’m thrilled that we have now demonstrated for the first time that we can do that.”

The Experiment

Scientists have long used neutron sources to reveal the quantum properties of materials by measuring how incident neutrons exchange energy and momentum with spins in the material. In this study, the team focused on the well-characterized magnetic crystal KCuF3 and directly compared neutron scattering measurements with simulations on a quantum computer. The agreement between experiment and simulation demonstrates that quantum processors can now capture key dynamical properties of real materials. “This is the most impressive match I’ve seen between experimental data and qubit simulation, and it definitely raises the bar for what can be expected from quantum computers,” said Allen Scheie, condensed matter physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. “I am extremely excited for what this means for science.”

These results begin to establish quantum computers as reliable computational tools for material simulation. “Quantum simulations of realistic models for materials and their experimental characterization is a major demonstration of the impact quantum computing can have on scientific discovery workflows,” said Travis Humble, director of the Quantum Science Center at Oak Ridge National Lab.

The study also highlights how improvements in the scale and quality of quantum processors were crucial for the simulation accuracy achieved. “These results were really enabled by the two-qubit error rates that we can now access on our quantum processors,” said Abhinav Kandala, principal research scientist at IBM. “We expect further improvements in error rates and extensions to higher dimensions to enable predictions of material properties that are challenging for classical methods alone.” Leveraging the programmability of a universal quantum processor, the team has already extended the approach beyond KCuF3 to simulate material classes with more complex interactions.

Building Toward the Quantum Era

This experiment is part of a broader shift in how quantum computers are being applied toward scientific problems defined by laboratories. Recent results include the first quantum simulation of a never-before-seen in nature half-Möbius molecule and a large-scale protein simulation with Cleveland Clinic. Across chemistry, materials science, and molecular biology, quantum simulation is beginning to engage with problems that matter to scientists.

The quantum-centric supercomputing approach demonstrated here is designed to deliver scientific and commercial value by combining today’s quantum hardware with classical computing in workflows that make productive use of both.

Read more about IBM’s quantum-centric supercomputing work here.

More from HPCwire

• IBM Launches Reference Architecture for Quantum-Centric Supercomputing
• Cleveland Clinic and IBM Debut New Quantum Workflow for Simulating Proteins
• IBM and University Researchers Describe New Molecule Studied with Quantum Computing

About IBM

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

Source: IBM

The post IBM Quantum Computer Accurately Simulates Real Magnetic Materials, Reproducing National Lab Data appeared first on HPCwire.

Your chat history will be easier to transfer from iPhone to Android, and it's easier to delete large media files from your conversations.

BERKELEY, Calif., March 26, 2026 — Rigetti Computing, Inc., a pioneer in full-stack quantum-classical computing, has announced that it intends to invest up to $100 million in the UK to accelerate quantum computing development, which will be the Company’s first major investment outside of the US. With this investment, the Company plans to deploy a quantum computer with over 1,000 qubits in the next 3 to 4 years. This follows the UK’s recently announced program that will dedicate up to £2 billion of government investment with the aim of establishing the UK as a global leader in quantum computing.

Rigetti CEO Dr. Subodh Kulkarni said: “Our presence in the UK has been marked by fruitful collaboration across industry, government, and academia. The UK government’s unwavering dedication to advancing quantum computing technology is evident across the UK’s entire quantum ecosystem. The focus on driving end-user engagement and developing on-premises capabilities for meaningful R&D makes the UK an exemplary leader in this revolutionary field.

“We see strong alignment with the UK’s national quantum computing strategy and our own path to fault-tolerant quantum computing. By establishing critical, incremental milestones that work towards a quantum system capable of one trillion quantum operations (“TeraQuOp”) by 2035, we can rapidly learn and innovate throughout the scaling process.

“This investment in the UK’s quantum computing sector is a reflection of the success we’ve already achieved with our UK-based programs and the potential of what lies ahead through the UK’s own investments to drive the industry forward.”

UK Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said: “Last week, we made a world-first commitment to procure usable large-scale quantum computers by the early 2030s, backed by a £2 billion plan of Government funding, which is already having a positive impact on jobs and investment. Rigetti shares our ambition to harness quantum to improve lives, livelihoods, and public services, and this $100 million investment is a strong and immediate vote of confidence in our approach. The steps we are taking will deliver world-class infrastructure, access to talent, and a clear pathway which turns ideas from R&D into real-world use, building an environment which will support more companies to scale up and grow on our shores.”

This commitment builds on Rigetti’s long-time presence in the UK, which includes the deployment of a 36-qubit quantum system at the National Quantum Computing Centre. The system is part of a consortium focused on advancing quantum error correction capabilities on superconducting quantum computers.

About Rigetti

Rigetti (Nasdaq: RGTI) 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. Current Rigetti quantum computing systems achieve gate speeds of 50-70ns, which is about 1,000 times faster than other modalities such as ion traps and neutral atoms.

Rigetti sells on-premises 9-qubit to 108-qubit quantum computing systems, supporting 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 2025 with Cepheus-1-36Q, based on four 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.

Source: Rigetti

The post Rigetti Computing Intends to Invest $100M in UK to Accelerate Quantum Computing Development appeared first on HPCwire.

Catch up on this year's Oscar winners and more.

European Commission says social messaging app is exposing children to grooming and sexual exploitation

Brussels has opened an investigation into Snapchat over concerns that the social messaging app is exposing children to grooming, sexual exploitation and other criminality.

In a separate decision on Thursday, the European Commission also said four pornographic websites were failing to prevent minors seeing adult content.

Deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife are set to appear Thursday in federal court in Manhattan.

‘Misappropriation of financial resources’ from actor, 90, tracked to property, vineyards and olive groves in Tuscany

Italian authorities have seized €20m (£17.3m) of assets in Tuscany, including property, vineyards and olive groves, allegedly bought with money embezzled from the actor Ursula Andress.

Andress, 90, had filed a complaint in her native Switzerland alleging a “progressive and significant depletion of her assets” by individuals charged with managing her finances, Italy’s financial crimes police said in a statement on Thursday.

Population estimates released by U.S. Census Bureau show growth rates slowed sharply in metro areas in 2025, as immigration dropped and hurricanes pushed people out of some Gulf Coast counties.

Deposed Venezuelan president and his wife, who both pleaded not guilty, were captured by US military in January

The deposed Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro is again scheduled to appear in a Manhattan federal court on Thursday for his “narco-terrorism” case after his capture by US military forces earlier this year.

US special forces captured Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, on 3 January in a controversial pre-dawn raid during an assault on Caracas that reportedly killed 100 people.

• Lawyer says witnesses clear player of wrongdoing

• Receiver was guilty only of ‘horseplay’, says lawyer

Star Los Angeles Rams receiver Puka Nacua has been sued by a woman who says he made an antisemitic statement and bit her on the shoulder on New Year’s Eve.

The civil lawsuit was filed this week in Los Angeles, according to TMZ. The suit also cites gender violence and negligence.

Madison Atiabi and her attorney, Joseph Kar, claim Nacua said “fuck all Jews” during a New Year’s Eve dinner in Los Angeles last year. Atiabi is Jewish and says she “immediately felt uncomfortable and emotionally distressed” when the wide receiver made the comments. She says Nacua also bit her and left teeth marks on her shoulder later in the night. The lawsuit also alleges that Nacua bit Atiabi’s friend on the thumb “with such force that her companion screamed in acute pain”.

The Amazon Big Spring Sale has deals on just about anything you could want, from vacuums to TVs and anything in between, and we're vetting all the best discounts.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren's bill would raise taxes on households worth more than $50 million and on billionaires.

Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick of Florida is accused of using part of the $5 million to bolster her campaign and on luxury goods.

Trump warns Iran to make a deal on his terms "before it is too late," as Israel says it's killed the Iranian commander behind the Strait of Hormuz closure.

Israel said Alireza Tangsiri, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ navy, was responsible for blocking the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian authorities did not immediately comment.

Commentary: From Xiaomi's incredible sensor and zoom lens to Samsung's fun photo filters, there's lots Apple could bring to its next phone.

Eline van der Velden says she developed her ‘digital twin’ to provoke discussion but backlash from some has been worse than expected

The creator of the AI actor Tilly Norwood has said she received death threats after a global backlash against the project, and said she developed it to “provoke thoughts and discussion” about the impact of AI in the entertainment world.

Eline van der Velden caused anger and panic in Hollywood and beyond last year after she said talent agents had been interested in signing her creation. Prominent actors and acting unions immediately condemned the idea.

In a court of law, tech titans will be judged not for who they are, but what they do. We should take comfort in that

Jury verdicts are meant to speak the truth, and today’s verdict in a California courtroom spoke the truth about the pernicious effects of platforms such as Instagram and YouTube on young people in the United States and around the world. The jury found two social media giants, Meta and YouTube, responsible for injuries incurred by a 20-year-old woman over the course of her childhood.

The plaintiff, referred to in court as KGM, claimed that her social media use had begun when she was six years old. Her suit alleged that the sites she regularly used had features designed to hold her attention and keep her coming back.

Aipac-backed lawmakers denounce ‘extremist’ violence in West Bank as support for Israel becomes a political liability

As Israeli settlers ramp up violent attacks on Palestinian civilians in the West Bank, often as Israeli forces stand by, denunciations are mounting in the US, even from Democratic legislators and public figures who are typically staunch defenders of Israel.

In recent days, dozens of settlers have torched homes and vehicles and attacked Palestinians in apparently coordinated attacks. Since the start of the month, Israeli settlers and police have killed at least 10 Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank, including two young brothers and their parents as they returned from a Ramadan shopping trip.

Commentary: Super Mario Bros. Wonder's Bellabel Park DLC is here this week, but it's more about lots of chaotic multiplayer minigames than new courses.

Firm’s sales up 54% this month and Good Energy reports doubling of interest in solar after latest oil price shock

Solar panel sales have risen sharply since the start of the Iran war, according to Octopus Energy, and households are opting for bigger arrays of roof panels.

Sales were up 54% so far this month compared with the same period last month, the company said on Thursday.

The Teforia smart infuser was designed to brew a perfect cup of tea, but at $500 (previously, $1,500), I put it to the test to see if it lives up to its price and promise.

Iran’s foreign minister has said Tehran has ‘no intention of negotiating for now’. Plus, the AI users whose lives were wrecked by delusion

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Good morning.

Iran dismissed a US ceasefire proposal on Wednesday and responded with its own negotiation plan as intermediaries sought to keep diplomatic channels between the warring countries open.

What is the toll? The US-Israel war on Iran has killed more than 1,000 people in Lebanon, more than 1,500 in Iran and 16 in Israel, according to each country’s authorities. More than a dozen deaths have been reported in the West Bank and Gulf Arab states. Experts warn there has been a collapse in healthcare access.

This is a developing story. Follow our live blog for the latest updates.

What did the Los Angeles plaintiff allege? The 20-year-old woman testified that she became addicted to YouTube at age six and Instagram at nine, which she said harmed her wellbeing. She blamed the platforms for her experience of body dysmorphic disorder and social phobia in her adolescence.

How much will the companies pay the plaintiff? The jury awarded the plaintiff in the case damages of $6m, with Meta to pay 70% and YouTube the remainder.

The staff at a Florida sea turtle hospital is monitoring some animals they've rehabilitated from space -- especially amputees, such as one they named Amelie, who's back at sea.

Andy Ogles’ election victories in Tennessee are a product of an electoral system broken by gerrymandering

Andy Ogles represents more Muslims than any other Tennessee congressman. Yet he has no interest in representing them. He doesn’t even want them in the country.

“Muslims don’t belong in American society,” the third-term Republican wrote on Twitter/X last week. He’s proudly doubled down on his incendiary statement, which joins a long list of Islamophobic beliefs. During last year’s New York City mayoral campaign, Ogles called Zohran Mamdani “a communist who has publicly embraced a terroristic ideology”. The US naturalization system, he said, required “any alignments with communism or terrorist activities to be disclosed. I’m doubtful he disclosed them. If this is confirmed, put him on the first flight back to Uganda.”

Consider this your handy guide to maintaining your favorite treadmills, rowing machines and exercise bikes.

Reddit is rolling out human-verification checks for accounts that show signs of bot-like behavior, while also labeling approved automated accounts that provide useful services. The social media company stressed that these checks will only happen if something appears "fishy," and that it is "not conducting sitewide human verification." TechCrunch reports: To identify potential bots, Reddit is using specialized tooling that looks at account-level signals and other factors -- like how quickly the account is attempting to write or post content. Using AI to write posts or comments, however, is not against its policies (though community moderators may set their own rules). To verify an account is human, Reddit will leverage third-party tools like passkeys from Apple, Google, YubiKey, and other third-party biometric services, like Face ID or even Sam Altman's World ID -- or, in some countries, the use of government IDs. Reddit notes this last category may be required in some countries like the U.K. and Australia and some U.S. states, because of local regulations on age verification, but it's not the company's preferred method. "If we need to verify an account is human, we'll do it in a privacy-first way," Reddit co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman wrote in the announcement Wednesday. "Our aim is to confirm there is a person behind the account, not who that person is. The goal is to increase transparency of what is what on Reddit while preserving the anonymity that makes Reddit unique. You shouldn't have to sacrifice one for the other."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Clear Secure has seen jump in new sign-ups amid the partial government shutdown as TSA workers go unpaid

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As travelers continue to face sprawling security lines across the US, one company is thriving amid the ongoing chaos.

Clear Secure, a biometric firm that allows travelers to bypass Transportation Security Administration (TSA) lines at more than 60 airports in the US, has reportedly seen a jump in new sign-ups this month amid the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown.

Documents obtained by Guardian show company increased different fees to ‘offset revenue loss’ from FTC rule change

Following a wave of regulations banning the surprise fees that appear at the end of a transaction, Ticketmaster stopped charging the extra few dollars it added to each order at checkout. Typically shared with the venue, the order processing fee was a boon to a global platform that sells hundreds of millions of tickets a year.

But documents obtained by the Guardian show that while Ticketmaster eliminated this fee to comply with the rules, the company simply raised the cost of different fees in a number of its venues to ensure it didn’t lose money.

Oil is used to power the supply chain, from machines that manufacture a cell phone to diesel that powers a truck

Fertilizer. Phones and laptops. Flights. These are just some of the products made from or powered by crucial materials that ship through the strait of Hormuz, which still remains effectively closed due to the US-Israel war on Iran.

As the war approaches its fifth week, global oil shortages are forcing countries to take severe measures to save their reserves as Iran continues to block oil shipments.

Company reported loss of £125m after cyber-security attack hit sales and claims of ‘toxic’ culture

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The Co-op Group has announced that its chief executive will step down this weekend after a difficult year that included a cyber-attack and recent claims of a “toxic” culture at the business.

Shirine Khoury-Haq will depart on 29 March and Kate Allum, a board member and former boss of the dairy group First Milk, will step in as interim boss while a permanent replacement is sought.

A shift would highlight the growing trade-offs required for the U.S. to sustain its war with Iran as the conflict depletes the military’s critical munitions.

Twin mountain gorillas were recently born in the Virunga National Park, renowned for its biodiversity but threatened by conflict.

Market in North Darfur and truck carrying civilians in North Kordofan hit as civil war approaches fourth year

At least 28 civilians have been killed in two separate drone strikes in Sudan, according to health workers, as the country’s brutal civil war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) approaches its fourth year.

A strike hit a market in the town of Saraf Omra, in North Darfur state, on Wednesday, killing “22 people, including an infant, and injuring 17 more”, a health worker at the local clinic told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Why Should Delaware Care?
Wilmington residents and city officials have criticized the outcome of New Castle County tax reassessment completed in 2024, saying it exaggerated property values and drove up tax bills — especially for lower-income residents. In response, Mayor John Carney rolled out a new plan that could lower future bills, but it’s proving harder than expected to get the job done. 

Wilmington’s plan to reassess home values in the city by looking inside some of them is proving to be more difficult than expected, as officials struggle to secure a contractor to do the work. 

Amid outrage over steep jumps in tax bills last September, Mayor John Carney announced his initiative to hire a contractor to conduct interior appraisals of residential properties on a block-by-block basis for neighborhoods with assessments that were deemed to be “too high.” 

Asked during a budget address last week how the plan is progressing, Carney said, “not great.”

He said no company has submitted a formal bid for the work after the city solicited proposals. Four contractors did request additional information.

“So we’ve got to go back to the four, and we’ve got to say, ‘Why didn’t you bid?’” Carney said.

The city issued the request for proposals for the contract in January, Carney’s spokeswoman, Caroline Klinger, said. She also noted that the city will be reaching out directly to vendors.

“We are actively working to stand up a program to validate the reassessment as promised,”  Klinger said in a statement, referencing New Castle County’s reassessment of properties completed in 2024.  

Klinger also noted that the county’s appeals program remains active. 

When announced last year, Carney’s plan required a half-million-dollar budget amendment, which included $425,000 to hire the contractor, and $75,000 to establish a grant program to assist residents filing appeals with the New Castle County Board of Assessment. 

The City Council approved the budget amendment in October.

Without a city program to reassess the county’s assessment, Carney noted that residents would simply have to rely on New Castle County’s one-on-one appeal process. 

“That will take forever. We have whole neighborhoods that have been misvalued,” Carney said.

If the city is ultimately able to complete assessments of home interiors, officials will present the data to New Castle County in hopes it will accept the new numbers. Their goal for the process is to ultimately lower the amount of money some residents pay in property taxes.

Asked about the project, Natalie Criscenzo, a spokesperson for New Castle County, said County officials are looking forward to working with the city “to better understand the specific details and methodology of this proposal.”

“Any consideration of assessment changes would need to be reviewed carefully to ensure consistency with applicable legal standards and obligations,” she said.

Who will let appraisers into their homes?

Wilmington’s plan came after months of complaints from residents throughout the state, especially in northern Delaware, about sharp tax bill increases that came as a result of the first statewide property reassessment in more than four decades.

City officials have placed a particular focus on lower-income neighborhoods, such as Hilltop and Southbridge, where property taxes have doubled and tripled, according to a heat map the city released of property tax changes.

Spotlight Delaware also previously reported that Hilltop, the Eastside, Riverside and Southbridge experienced property assessment hikes between 700% and 1,000%.

Aside from the delay in finding a contractor to carry out the plan, one of the biggest hurdles may be convincing residents to allow assessors into their homes. 

Local community advocates previously told Spotlight Delaware that residents may be wary of letting contractors into their homes and that it would be important for the city to educate residents so they can better understand the process. 

But some residents are optimistic. 

Donald Ferrell, a longtime city resident and Eastside landlord, said he would be open to interior assessments on his properties if it would help bring taxes down.

Ferrell said he hasn’t seen major increases across most of his properties. However, he said one of his vacant property, which is not yet livable, saw a significant spike.

“It’s practically a shell, but it more than doubled,” he said.

The post Wilmington’s plan to curb tax hikes stalls as city struggles to find a contractor appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

Government-backed bank in talks about recompensing about 37,000 people whose money was misplaced

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National Savings and Investments is preparing to repay hundreds of millions of pounds to its customers over missing savings, in what is expected to be the single biggest payout in the bank’s 160-year history.

The government-backed savings institution is in discussions with the Treasury to recompense about 37,000 people whose money has been misplaced due to historical failings.

OECD says the Middle East war will test the world’s resilience with Australia expected to suffer from higher rates and inflation

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The world economy is on the brink of a major inflationary spike as soaring fuel prices threaten growth in European and Asian nations, the OECD has warned, and local economists are slashing Australia’s growth prospects for this year and the next amid the ongoing US-Israel attack on Iran.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s latest interim outlook said the US-Israel war on Iran will “test the resilience of the global economy”, and warned of the “significant downside risk” to their forecasts should the oil supply disruptions prove more persistent and push energy prices even higher.

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development says UK economy will grow by just 0.7% this year

The conflict in the Middle East will damage the UK’s economy more than any other industrialised nation, according to analysis by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which warned over rising inflation.

In the first major assessment by a leading international thinktank of the economic impact from the attack on Iran, the OECD said the UK economy would grow by just 0.7% this year, compared with its last forecast, made in December, of 1.2% for 2026.

One minute, Dennis Biesma was playing with a chatbot; the next, he was convinced his sentient friend would make him a fortune. He’s just one of many people who lost control after an AI encounter

Towards the end of 2024, Dennis Biesma decided to check out ChatGPT. The Amsterdam-based IT consultant had just ended a contract early. “I had some time, so I thought: let’s have a look at this new technology everyone is talking about,” he says. “Very quickly, I became fascinated.”

Biesma has asked himself why he was vulnerable to what came next. He was nearing 50. His adult daughter had left home, his wife went out to work and, in his field, the shift since Covid to working from home had left him feeling “a little isolated”. He smoked a bit of cannabis some evenings to “chill”, but had done so for years with no ill effects. He had never experienced a mental illness. Yet within months of downloading ChatGPT, Biesma had sunk €100,000 (about £83,000) into a business startup based on a delusion, been hospitalised three times and tried to kill himself.

The relatable, endearing authenticity of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the defending NBA champions is a wonder to behold

Winter is over, though perhaps most NBA fans feel as if it’s just beginning. After a midseason slump, the Oklahoma City Thunder have won 12 of their last 13 games They’re clinging to a slim but steady three-game lead over the San Antonio Spurs atop the otherwise chaotic Western Conference. (The Lakers are good now? The Nuggets can’t find their footing? The Rockets can’t even stand up?) The Thunder’s flirtation with vulnerability was fun, but the defending champions look as invincible now as they did during their 24-1 run to begin the season. So, now as then, with nothing to criticize in the Thunder’s basketball, we are compelled to discuss their character and vibes.

Reviews are usually poor. I myself celebrated the Spurs when they recorded a hat-trick of wins over the Thunder in December, simply for injecting intrigue into a season that already seemed decided. The Defector podcast Nothing But Respect recently featured a series of anti-Thunder guests; after discussing the idea that artists don’t like OKC with musician Will Anderson, a host announced, “next week, we will have a real, actual Thunder expert to defend his team’s values”. Most of the comments on that episode seemed unconvinced by Ringer staff writer Tyler Parker’s arguments.

Mauricio Pochettino will use friendlies against Belgium and Portugal to answer the final World Cup roster questions

When the US men’s national team booked Belgium and Portugal for the final pair of friendlies before the 2026 World Cup roster is named, it looked like a couple solid tests against European teams who will expect to reach this World Cup’s business end. They should be worthy tests of the US’s readiness for big matchups that could await if they advance from Group D. Oddly, they are also a pair of foes from the US’s 2014 World Cup campaign.

This will hardly resemble a 12-year reunion, though. Belgium arrives without Romelu Lukaku and Thibaut Courtois, two of the few remaining members from that round-of-16 clash that ended the United States’ tournament. Portugal arrives without the injured Cristiano Ronaldo, slightly dulling the demand for what might have been a hot ticket in Atlanta.

War tax resistance has a venerable tradition dating back to days before the US was even born. It’s time to revive this tradition

More than $20bn. That’s roughly the cost of our military operation in Iran to date.

Tax day is a month away. If you’re like me, it makes your stomach turn to watch the US practice regime change in the Middle East – again. If you’re like me, the reckless murder of more than 150 little girls in the name of “liberating” Iranian women fills you with rage. The worst part? You and I literally paid for this.

The woman, 52, lay on the exam table at a clinic in Richland, Washington. Her legs were parted and propped up.

The OB-GYN, Dr. Mark Mulholland, stood between her legs, inquiring about the woman’s sex life as he had in prior visits, she wrote in a complaint filed with Washington state health care regulators.

She said Mulholland had previously asked about her enjoyment of sex and if she had a boyfriend, a strange way to learn about a patient’s sexual activity, she thought. But this was her last checkup after her hysterectomy and the last time she expected to see Mulholland.

“Do you masturbate?” Mulholland asked the woman during their final appointment, according to her complaint.

The question shocked her. She wrote that Mulholland explained he wanted to “make sure the nerves were intact.”

Then, the woman wrote, he inserted his fingers into her vagina and pumped his hand back and forth in a way she said felt “sexual and not medical.”

“Does that hurt?” the woman said Mulholland asked her, before ending their visit by saying “the playroom is open” — a comment she interpreted as Mulholland clearing her for sexual activity.

The woman said she left the room in shock. She made her way to the parking lot of the Kadlec Clinic-Associated Physicians for Women, climbed inside her car and sat, incredulous, she said in an interview with KUOW and ProPublica. What happened felt terribly wrong, she said.

Mulholland did not respond to requests for comment for this article after being sent a detailed list of findings by email and by letter. His attorney declined to comment.

What the woman didn’t know was that by the time of her exam in February 2025, the Washington Medical Commission had already received complaints from four other women since 2022 accusing Mulholland of sexual misconduct. And yet he was allowed to keep seeing patients throughout.

The accounts related by the women, whom KUOW and ProPublica are not naming to protect their privacy, included descriptions of Mulholland touching them unnecessarily, using sexually charged language, or performing painful or seemingly sexual pelvic exams that involved moving his fingers in and out.

The commission also gathered testimony a year before the woman’s February 2025 appointment from three of Mulholland’s colleagues with their own troubling accounts. These included hearing firsthand about or observing him telling patients they had “tight” and “pretty” vaginas, touching and slapping his patients’ legs, and aggressively pulling a patient’s pants down without permission. 

Washington law allows the commission to take emergency action and suspend a doctor’s license while disciplinary proceedings are pending. The law says a suspension is defensible if it’s more probable than not that the physician poses an “immediate threat to the public health and safety.”

In Mulholland’s case, the commission did not choose suspension. Instead, it issued a formal statement of charges accusing Mulholland of abuse and unprofessional conduct in April 2025 — more than a year after the commission’s investigator submitted her reports on two of the complaints for review and 11 months after Mulholland was offered an informal settlement that he apparently did not sign.

Even after the commission declared its charges against Mulholland, he was allowed to keep practicing while the case proceeded. He saw patients as late as May, before he went on leave.

At least 84 patients have filed lawsuits against Mulholland or his employer since the state’s investigation became public. Court filings by Mulholland’s attorney, made in response to the lawsuits, have denied wrongdoing or improper conduct toward women. He also has denied the allegations made by the medical commission and is entitled to a hearing to contest them.

Emily Volland, a spokesperson for Kadlec and its affiliate, the Providence health system, said Mulholland is no longer employed by Kadlec. Volland declined to comment on the allegations against him but said via email: “We take our patient’s safety very seriously and are fully cooperating with the state in this matter.”

The lawsuits against Mulholland, Kadlec and Providence are ongoing. Lawyers for Providence and Kadlec in court filings denied allegations of negligence and wrongdoing.

While other news coverage has described the lawsuits and the commission’s actions in 2025, none has focused on how the state dealt with complaints against Mulholland during the three years before he agreed to restrictions on his license.

The Washington Medical Commission has faced criticism in the past for its handling of sexual misconduct complaints. A 2021 Seattle Times investigation found that in 282 cases of alleged sexual misconduct since 2009, state regulators took more than a year to impose discipline.

Several other states in recent years have dealt with their own high-profile cases of sexual misconduct involving OB-GYNs. On March 10, for instance, Columbia University in New York released a report detailing how a culture of silence at the institution had allowed OB-GYN Robert Hadden to abuse more than 1,000 patients over decades. 

States like Ohio and Delaware have moved aggressively to make it easier to keep doctors accused of sexual misconduct away from patients.

In Washington, the medical commission wasn’t the only organization that allowed Mulholland to keep practicing.

A Kadlec risk management employee, through an attorney, acknowledged to the commission that the clinic had received patient complaints against the doctor and said they were investigated. (The letter did not describe the complaints but said they included “communication with patients regarding obesity.”) Mulholland’s privileges were never restricted or terminated, the statement said.

When local news stories covered the commission’s charges against Mulholland in June, it unleashed a deluge of 18 new complaints in the following three months.

In September, the commission placed restrictions on his license that prevented him from seeing female patients. Mulholland agreed pending a hearing on his case.

Yanling Yu, a former Washington medical commissioner and a patient advocate with Washington Advocates for Patient Safety, wouldn’t comment on the Mulholland case directly. But she said it’s ethically wrong to allow a doctor facing serious allegations of sexual misconduct to continue seeing any patients while an investigation is ongoing.

“In an ideal regulatory system, if there has been enough or strong evidence to support the allegation, the doctor’s practice should be temporarily suspended or at least summarily restricted to protect patients’ safety,” she wrote in an email.

Kyle Karinen, executive director of the Washington Medical Commission, said the agency wasn’t slow to act and that it must operate under the system lawmakers created.

“I acknowledge that sometimes it takes longer than people would like, but we take that process really seriously,” Karinen said. “When we file a case and go to a hearing, we want to make sure that everybody has the opportunity to be heard on a particular topic.”

The woman who saw Mulholland in February 2025 filed a lawsuit against the clinic and a board complaint against the doctor, both in August. She said she was indignant after learning about the earlier complaints.

She said the commission should have taken those women more seriously. “They just let him keep practicing,” she said.

2022: The First Complaint 

The first sexual misconduct allegation against Mulholland landed in the commission’s email inbox in January 2022. The author was a first-time mother who, at 41 weeks pregnant, went to have labor induced at the Kadlec Regional Medical Center.

The woman said she had hoped a female doctor would deliver the baby. But Mulholland was the on-call doctor assigned the day she arrived. When she saw that the doctor was a man, she asked if the female nurse who was there could perform her predelivery cervical check instead, according to her complaint.

Mulholland insisted, she said. (He later told a commission investigator that because the woman was having labor induced, he had to personally know her cervical dilation and consistency, whether the fetus was in breech position or if her amniotic sac was intact. He also said because she was experiencing high blood pressure, her delivery couldn’t wait to be rescheduled with a female doctor.)

“I didn’t have a choice but to trust who was supposed to be trustworthy,” the woman said in an interview with KUOW and ProPublica.

In her complaint, she said Mulholland was inappropriate. When the nurse asked her if she still had her underwear on, Mulholland joked that he still had his on too, she wrote.

During the cervical check, with his fingers inside the expectant mother, he pressed in different directions, according to her complaint. The woman said Mulholland told her he doesn’t perform exams this way because it hurts. Then he showed her what he described as the correct way, she said in the complaint.

“The cervical check was the longest and most painful one I have ever had,” she said in the complaint.

Three OB-GYNs, when presented by KUOW and ProPublica with the woman’s description of the pelvic exam, said the maneuver sounded unnecessarily painful.

“That sounds strange,” said Alson Burke, an associate professor at the University of Washington who teaches medical students how to perform pelvic exams. “Saying ‘I don’t do something because it hurts’ and then doing it doesn’t make sense to me.”

Commission records show that Mulholland said the allegation that his cervical exam was longer than what’s typical was absurd.

“I do try to be as careful, quick, gentle, and efficient as I can be when doing a pelvic exam whether it is for gynecology or obstetrics,” he wrote in an email to a commission clinical health care investigator. “With regards to being the most painful one she ever had, for that I am surprised as well as sorry. I pride myself on trying to be as gentle as absolutely possible. I get frequent compliments on how much less uncomfortable my exams are than most other providers, male or female.”

The nurse present during the woman’s exam told the commission it seemed “no longer or any more painful than these types of exams are typically.”

Up until that day, the patient’s pregnancy had been a joyous experience, she said in an interview with KUOW and ProPublica. She was excited to meet her daughter and picked out the outfit she’d arrive home in.

The nurse was ultimately able to line up a midwife to assist with the woman’s delivery in place of Mulholland.

But her cervical exam with Mulholland made the birth experience “worse than we could have ever imagined,” the woman, now 27, said in an interview with KUOW and ProPublica. It brought about depression and anxiety, she said.

“My daughter’s an only child, and I’m not sure if she ever will get a sibling because of how traumatic that was,” she told the news organizations.

By the end of July 2022, the new mother’s case was closed without any disciplinary action.

At the time, it was an isolated complaint in the record of a doctor who, records show, had not faced accusations of sexual misconduct with the medical commission before.

Then, a little over a year later, came another complaint, this time filed by a woman who had worked with Mulholland for nearly a decade.

October 2023: A Co-worker and Patient Speaks Out

According to an investigator’s report, the woman said she had worked at Kadlec Regional Medical Center for nine years and her interactions as Mulholland’s colleague had always been professional.

The complaint she filed in October 2023 concerned events she said took place when she was Mulholland’s patient. She’d had her fallopian tubes and the tissue lining her uterus removed and developed pain that was only present when she was menstruating.

On the day of her appointment, her complaint said, she’d explained all this to Mulholland when he began a line of questioning.

“Does it hurt you to have intercourse?”

“No,” she replied.

Then, the woman wrote in her complaint to the medical commission, Mulholland stood close to her and in a lower tone asked. “Not even when he’s deep inside you?”

“No,” she said she asserted.

Mulholland told the woman he needed to do a pelvic exam, according to the complaint.

While examining her, the woman wrote, Mulholland used one hand to push down on the top of her abdomen and with the other hand began repeatedly and “powerfully” thrusting his fingers into her vagina.

Burke, the associate professor of medicine at the University of Washington, said repeated “thrusting” is neither a technique she uses nor something she has ever observed.

“The reason I wouldn’t recommend it is because it could be triggering and really uncomfortable for someone,” Burke said. “Is that actually helping you gather the information? And is the patient feeling safe in the way that you are examining them?”

She said that no part of the pelvic exam should be performed in such a way that its intent could be perceived as sexual.

According to the former colleague’s complaint, each time Mulholland shoved his fingers inside, he leaned in close and asked, “Is this the same as the pain you felt?”

The woman wrote that Mulholland was “effectively holding her in place” on the exam table and she was unable to move to escape the pain. A medical assistant was nearby, she said.

After the pelvic exam, she said, the assistant left. Mulholland told the woman that she had a “great looking vagina,” she wrote, and that he usually had to use three fingers, but with her, he could only use two. Before leaving, the woman said in her complaint, the doctor asked her if she worked out and said he could tell she did.

Through an attorney, Mulholland later told the commission that he conducts all of his exams “as respectfully as possible” and that he is “very cognizant of his patient’s reactions.”

The doctor was responding to a commission investigator’s December 2023 request for his version of what happened during the woman’s visit.

That same month, a complaint from a third woman arrived.

December 2023: Another Exam Complaint

It was three weeks before the new year when the woman went to the medical commission for help.

The patient, whose primary language is Spanish, had an interpreter join her in-person appointment virtually. A physician’s assistant had referred the woman to Mulholland to discuss a possible hysterectomy to relieve pain.

The woman later told a commission investigator that during her appointment, Mulholland entered the exam room and introduced himself. Then he lifted the paper sheet that covered her naked lower half, looked at her genital area, then looked back at her, which made her uncomfortable. Without asking her to reposition herself, he grabbed her by the butt to move her down the exam table, she said.

Mulholland’s pelvic exam was aggressive, she said in her written complaint to the commission. The investigator who interviewed her wrote that the woman said he’d moved his fingers in and out and that she felt a lot of pressure.

“I yelled at some point,” she wrote in her complaint.

A nurse was present but seemed fixated on the computer screen, the woman said.

Before the appointment ended, Mulholland said he was “eager to see” the woman’s vagina again, laughed and then said he was looking forward to reuniting with her womb, the investigator quoted the woman as saying. When the Spanish-language interpreter on the computer screen went quiet and asked Mulholland to repeat what he said, the woman wrote in her complaint, the doctor told the interpreter there was no need to relay that last message.

The woman was left in pain for 12 days after her appointment with Mulholland, she told the investigator, adding that she didn’t want others to go through what she had.

In response to this complaint, Mulholland’s attorney wrote to the commission, “at no time has he ever simply moved his fingers in and out several times with this patient or any other.”

(A separate report the woman filed with the Richland Police Department, which the department classified as a potential sex offense with “forcible fondling,” was closed in 14 days. The responding officer wrote that he hadn’t found facts to indicate a crime was committed “on the basis that the alleged incident occurred during a medical examination.”)

The state medical commission pressed ahead with its investigations into the two 2023 complaints, both of which asserted Mulholland had moved his fingers in and out during a pelvic exam.

The investigator assigned to both cases turned to Mulholland’s current and former colleagues. Two said that while some patients complained about the way Mulholland communicated with them about weight issues, they personally did not have concerns. Three other current or former colleagues, meanwhile, described problems.

Alexis Tuck, an OB-GYN who worked at Kadlec from 2017 to 2022, said in a statement to the commission that she noticed a pattern of Mulholland’s patients switching providers because they wanted anyone “except Dr. Mulholland,” and sometimes requested her.

She said that when she asked these patients about the reason behind their switch they replied:

“He grabbed my belly fat and shook it in front of my husband.”

“He called me fat and made fun of me.”

“He told me my vagina is tight during a pelvic exam.”

“He told me I have a pretty vagina during a pap smear.”

“He made a comment about my vagina being tight and I talked to my mom about him. Apparently she had a similar weird experience with him.”

Tuck told the commission that more than once, patients cried in her office while sharing their stories.

“These accounts were consistent in their tone and content, painting a troubling picture of a physician whose behavior repeatedly crossed the line of professional and ethical conduct,” she wrote to the commission.

Tuck told the commission that the woman who filed the October 2023 complaint was among those who described their experiences to her. Tuck said the woman was “visibly shaken and emotional” when she detailed what happened, which, based on Tuck’s retelling, was generally consistent with the woman’s complaint to the medical commission.

Another colleague told the commission that Mulholland once told her as a patient was leaving the office, “I bet you were skinny like her when you were pregnant,” and that another time he said he thought he’d seen her driving a BMW and that she looked “hot.” Another said she found Mulholland’s comments about overweight women disrespectful.

The claims against Mulholland were piling up.

In February and March 2024, Britta Fischer, commission investigator, submitted the 2023 cases for review.

What to do next was soon in the hands of commissioners.

March-September 2024: A Decision Awaits 

The medical commission takes its guidance on how to handle allegations against a doctor from Washington statutes, which prohibit physicians from engaging in a range of behavior defined as sexual misconduct.

The law bans statements about a patient’s “body, appearance, sexual history, or sexual orientation” except for legitimate purposes of care. The law also bars behavior, gestures or expressions that could “reasonably be interpreted as seductive or sexual.”

A doctor can’t remove a patient’s gown or draping unless it’s with a patient’s consent, during emergency care or in a custodial setting.

A doctor can’t touch a person’s breasts, genitals, anus or other “sexualized body part” unless it’s “consistent with accepted community standards of practice for examination, diagnosis and treatment and within the health care practitioner’s scope of practice.”

Determining whether or not behavior is appropriate can be particularly difficult when it comes to OB-GYNs, said Emily Anderson, professor at Neiswanger Institute for Bioethics and Healthcare Leadership and Loyola University Chicago’s Stritch School of Medicine.

“They have access to our naked bodies as women, to our vaginas, to our breasts,” Anderson said. “They are allowed to do things that we don’t give other people permission to do, and that’s part of their job.”

There are standards for physical exams. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ Committee on Ethics wrote that exams should be explained appropriately, done only with patient consent and “performed with the minimum amount of physical contact required to obtain data for diagnosis and treatment.”

State medical boards can also look to patterns of behavior.

Two of the three complaints against Mulholland from 2022 through 2023 mentioned movement in and out during pelvic exams, while all three described painful pelvic exams and comments the women considered inappropriate. Three colleagues also had described hearing about or witnessing him making disrespectful or inappropriate remarks, including one who said they were directed at her.

Anderson, in a journal article, wrote that it’s common to find repeated, lesser forms of misconduct in the backgrounds of doctors who act egregiously.

“For example, sexual violations are nearly always preceded by boundary violations such as inappropriate comments or touching,” the article said.

Anderson and her colleagues recommended state regulators consider restricting a doctor’s license for multiple smaller offenses.

Stephanie Loucka, executive director of Ohio’s medical board, said that if patterns of misconduct exist, the process will find them — even when an OB-GYN’s actions occur under the guise of legitimate care. Ohio began its overhaul of sexual misconduct investigations seven years ago.

“If a complaint gets made, we’re going to work the fact pattern from the assumption that there might be something there, and we’re going to gather the evidence and see where the evidence takes us,” she said. “And it typically takes us clearly one way or the other.”

If there’s a threat of immediate harm in cases of sexual misconduct, Loucka said, Ohio moves “with a sense of urgency” to file an emergency suspension. She estimated it has taken the Ohio board from six weeks to nine months to do so.

In Washington, the medical commission reviewed the investigator’s reports on  the 2023 cases and decided on what it considered an appropriate resolution.

It proposed an “informal way of settling” allegations against Mulholland.

A heavily redacted May 31, 2024, letter sent to Mulholland’s attorney by the commission does not reveal the terms of the settlement. But the letter said the settlement would not require an admission of “any unprofessional conduct or wrongdoing.” Although settlements appear in the commission’s newsletter with brief summaries, the letter told Mulholland that a settlement would avoid a hearing, typically a public process.

All Mulholland had to do was sign.

Months passed. Mulholland’s attorney asked for the information gathered about his client, and the commission sent it. A June 2024 deadline for him to accept the agreement passed, as did a subsequent one in August. Nothing in documents released by the commission indicates he signed — or that the commission took any disciplinary action.

Mulholland kept seeing patients.

2018-2023: What the Hospital Knew

Long before the commission’s investigator filed her report with her superiors, Mulholland’s employer had also heard repeated concerns, according to Kadlec Clinic records acquired by attorneys in a lawsuit against Providence and the clinic. The attorneys submitted the documents as an exhibit in court.

(In court filings, Providence and Kadlec denied that they were negligent or that they knew or should have known about the abuse the plaintiffs alleged.)

Kadlec’s records in the lawsuit show that the clinic conducted a 2018 human resources investigation into allegations that Mulholland had mocked a co-worker’s sexuality and religion, concluding that it was “more likely than not” the allegations were true. Afterward, the records say, Mulholland’s employer provided him “coaching.”

Kadlec’s records also say that the clinic conducted a 2019 workplace investigation into allegations that Mulholland made sex jokes and condescending remarks, displayed discrimination toward women, and challenged a co-worker who complained about him.

A labor nurse told a Providence investigator that year that Mulholland had pinched a patient’s labia while she was in labor and asked if she was hurting. A colleague told the nurse that Mulholland had done the same to another patient who was giving birth, according to the labor nurse’s account as written down by the investigator.

A different colleague reported to a Kadlec workplace investigator that a patient had disclosed that Mulholland told her to “masturbate more often,” Kadlec records say.

Separately, Tuck, the OB-GYN who worked alongside Mulholland, told a Kadlec investigator that a patient disclosed she felt Mulholland had assaulted her but that the woman didn’t report it because she felt no one would believe her.

Following the 2019 workplace investigation, Kadlec’s records say, Mulholland’s employer concluded in 2020 that he “engaged in multiple instances of inappropriate behavior” that violated the medical center’s expectations. He was placed on a “behavior agreement” and required to take harassment prevention training.

In 2022, Kadlec records show, more emails were sent to clinic leadership alleging that Mulholland was demeaning to patients and co-workers. They described a “toxic work environment” and said management failed to address employees’ concerns about the doctor.

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Concerned About Your OB-GYN Visit? A Guide to What Should Happen — and What Shouldn’t.

Tuck departed the clinic sometime that same year. She later told the medical commission she left because management failed to take action against him.

Tuck raised concerns about Mulholland within an email to Chief Medical Officer Rich Meadows in July 2022, writing that patients “felt they had been insulted/assaulted” by Mulholland.

Kadlec’s records in the lawsuit show that Tuck had also told a Kadlec workplace investigator in 2019 that the clinic manager, Lisa Mallory, protected Mulholland. In the statement she later gave the state medical commission, Tuck said when she brought concerns about Mulholland to Mallory, she responded, “He’s always been like that.”

Mallory, in response to a request for comment from KUOW and ProPublica, said this statement was taken out of context. She declined to say more. Meadows, through a Providence spokesperson, declined to comment.

In June 2023, clinic records in the lawsuit say, Kadlec took a phone call from a patient who said Mulholland shoved his two fingers inside of her so hard during a pelvic exam that she felt his knuckles slam up against her vagina and anus.

“Rough, jabbing and pushing up, like he was trying to arouse me or something,” according to Kadlec’s narrative describing the woman’s complaint.

She told Kadlec that she had alerted Mulholland before the exam that her vagina was prone to tearing and that she experienced vaginal pain with as little as a sneeze or a cough.

Kadlec’s summary of the woman’s account said that after a rectal exam, Mulholland told the patient: “Well, you took that surprisingly well. It’s a good thing my fingers are small.”

The woman said her body where Mulholland touched her was inflamed for two and a half days.

When the commission eventually contacted Mallory as part of the state’s own investigation, the clinic manager acknowledged there had been complaints within Kadlec. She did not seem to give them much credence.

“Dr. Mulholland has received his fair share of complaints over the years as have all the other providers here” at the Kadlec clinic, she wrote in a statement to the state board. “From what I have observed, he cares deeply for his patients and has spent his career trying to educate women on their health. They have not always appreciated how he has done that.”

September 2024: State’s Investigation Resumes

By September 2024, more than two years had elapsed since the state received its first complaint about a pelvic exam performed by Mulholland. Six months had passed since an investigator forwarded her report on two other pelvic exam complaints. That month, the commission learned of a new one.

“During examination, he said my vagina was very dry and that my husband wasn’t doing his job,” the woman wrote in her complaint.

The woman also described her interaction with Mulholland to a commission investigator. At the appointment, the woman had told a medical assistant that she was concerned about a fishy smell, she said. Upon entering the exam room, she told the investigator, Mulholland said loudly, “Hey, I heard you had a vagina that smells like fish.”

When he conducted his physical examination, the woman told the investigator, Mulholland penetrated her with his fingers and was “going in and out” and touching her clitoris.

The patient said she asked Mulholland to stop more than once. She was uncomfortable and what Mulholland was doing reminded her of her past sexual abuse, she wrote in her complaint. She said he eventually stopped.

Next, according to an investigator’s memo outlining the patient’s interview, Mulholland asked her if she masturbated and if she used sex toys or her fingers to do so. When the patient said she did not, Mulholland encouraged her to purchase some toys and to use them alone, she said. Then, according to the memo describing the woman’s account, Mulholland rubbed her shoulder and said, “You’re too young not to have good sex.”

A mandatory reporter filed a complaint supplementing the woman’s filing at around the same time.

By that time, the woman’s account brought to four the number of women asserting sexual misconduct by Mulholland since 2022. Counting a woman who reported rude behavior in a submission that was not marked as alleging sexual misconduct and that the commission closed, Mulholland had been named in six complaints.

Only 11 licensed physicians and physician assistants were the subject of six or more complaints in that time frame, the commission’s spokesperson said. As of last year, 41,256 people held this type of license in Washington.

A week after the mandatory reporter contacted the commission, Kelly Elder, a Washington Medical Commission staff attorney, sent the two pending 2023 cases back to Freda Pace, the commission’s director of investigations.

Elder asked Pace to have investigators try and reach people whose statements hadn’t been collected before.

Medical commission records show that investigator Britta Fischer also began looking into the new allegation.

Fischer’s inquiries produced statements from co-workers attesting to Mulholland’s good character and stating that they were unaware of any concerns raised by patients.

Mulholland himself, in a statement his attorney gave to the commission, said he didn’t have a “firm recollection” of the appointment the patient described in her complaint. He said he would never tell a patient anything to the effect that her husband was not doing his job. He said he addresses masturbation with patients who complain of sexual dryness or pain during sex, and he denied stroking the patient’s shoulder in a “suggestive way.”

Due to “unjustified allegations,” the statement said, Mulholland had changed the way he worked with patients. The statement said these changes included always trying to have a chaperone present instead of just during physical exams. He also started creating more physical distance from the patient during counseling and exploring “tangential issues, such as sexual health and wellbeing” only when a patient brought them up.

“Dr. Mulholland is truly sorry if his previous long-standing practice patterns have caused any patient any type of duress or anguish because of misinterpretation of what Dr. Mulholland was attempting to accomplish — excellent patient care,” the statement sent to the commission said.

Still, the commission also had the prior, adverse statements from colleagues and patients. In April 2025, the agency formally accused Mulholland of abuse and unprofessional conduct. (The allegations would later be amended to include sexual misconduct.)

Neither the medical commission nor the Washington State Department of Health, which oversees it, posted a news release on their websites. Members of the general public could have learned of the charges — if they knew to search for Mulholland’s name on the Health Department’s “provider credential search” page. Stephanie Mason, spokesperson for the commission, said the statement of charges would also go out to anyone who subscribed to quarterly email updates from the commission.

It wasn’t until a June Tri-City Herald story that the commission’s claims seemed to become widely known.

The outpouring of new patient complaints that followed echoed what the commission had already heard.

Their accounts included allegations that Mulholland had peeked at their pubic hair under the sheet, physically pulled them down the exam table, used sexual language and performed extremely painful vaginal exams.

Two of the women who have filed lawsuits against Mulholland or his employers told KUOW and ProPublica they attended appointments with him after the commission had received multiple complaints and before he agreed to restrictions on his license.

One said she was angry she hadn’t heard about allegations against Mulholland sooner. After a hysterectomy, she was directed to see him every four months for a year for pap smears.

She saw Mulholland for the last time on May 1, 2025 — two days after the commission filed its allegations against him. She learned about the commission’s case after the media coverage began.

“I don’t know if I expected the lady at the counter when you’re checking in to warn you and say, ‘Hey, you’re gonna see Mulholland, and he’s had complaints,’” she said in an interview with KUOW and ProPublica. “I don’t see a company or whatever ever doing that, but it would have been nice to know. I would have picked a different doctor.”

Another woman who sued, Torryn Kerley, said she was angry at Kadlec to learn of all the women coming forward in lawsuits after she had already complained to the clinic about Mulholland.

“Nobody was listening to me, and I did everything that I should have done,” said Kerley, who asked to be identified by name for this article. “I reported it. I told people about it. I told doctors in the office about it.”

Karinen, the medical commission director, said it’s very unusual for the commission to file a statement of charges and then get dozens of complaints in the same vein against that same doctor, as happened with Mulholland.

“That’s unheard of,” he said.

Mason, the commission spokesperson, cast the arrival of the new complaints as a positive outcome of the action that commissioners took against Mulholland.

“That’s what opened the door to these women coming forward, because at that point, really not very many people had said anything at all, by comparison,” Mason said.

No date has been set yet for a hearing in which Mulholland can challenge the commission’s allegations against him.

The post An OB-GYN Was Repeatedly Accused of Sexual Misconduct. The State Medical Board Let Him Keep Practicing. appeared first on ProPublica.

Apple introduced the Alarm slider when it released iOS 26.1 in November, but you can get rid of it in four steps.

Why Should Delaware Care?
Last year, the state conducted its first property reassessment in decades. As a result, school districts were able to implement an up to 10% school tax increase without voter approval. Resident outrage and concern over ballooning tax bills prompted Republican lawmakers to introduce two bills aimed at limiting those automatic increases. Those bills, however, both failed to make it out of committee. 

Two bills seeking to limit Delaware school districts’ ability to implement automatic tax increases following property reassessments were both tabled in committee, or not advanced to a full House vote, by their sponsors on Wednesday afternoon after nearly two hours of debate. 

The Republican-led bills were spurred by school districts across the state choosing to increase their property tax revenues by 10% last summer following Delaware’s first statewide property reassessment in nearly 40 years. But those tax increases, allowed under a little-known state law, only worsened the resident outcry that had been building following reassessment.

One of the bills, Rep. Bryan Shupe’s (R-Milford) House Bill 246, would have removed school districts’ ability to automatically implement a 10% tax revenue increase following reassessment and instead allow districts to take a smaller percentage, if needed. 

Shupe’s bill would have required districts to demonstrate that they would have lost revenue following a reassessment in order to instill an automatic tax rate increase. That automatic increase would then be limited to 2% a year for up to five years, or until a district makes up its revenue loss – whichever happens first.

Delaware will begin reassessing property every five years now that a new foundation has been determined.

The second bill, House Bill 245 sponsored by Rep. Mike Smith (R-Pike Creek), would have simply eliminated the 10% tax increase option altogether. That would require school districts to pass a referendum to adjust their tax rate, which was typical before the reassessment.

Following nearly two hours during Wednesday’s House Education Committee meeting, both Shupe and Smith asked for their respective legislation to be tabled. That allows the bills to potentially come back later in session rather than being denied at the committee level.

Back to the drawing board

During Wednesday’s meeting, Shupe said he had spoken with school district officials in Kent and Sussex County about his bill, but not New Castle County. 

He decided to table his bill, he said, in order to speak with school district leaders in Delaware’s northernmost county before introducing a new version of the legislation. 

New Castle County communities were hit hard by the reassessment results, but the largest increases came in some of Wilmington’s poorest neighborhoods.

Communities like Hilltop, Eastside, Riverside and Southbridge saw increases between 700% and 1,000%. Meanwhile, chateau country communities like Centreville, Greenville and Hockessin and the booming Middletown-Odessa-Townsend corridor saw increases of 300% to 450%.

Colonial School District Chief Financial Officer Emily Falcon, who also serves as the president of the Delaware Association of School Administrators, said that although there are aspects of Shupe’s bill that districts can work with, it ultimately would be operationalized differently than how he intended. 

Based on her interpretation of the bill, it could adversely affect school districts whose boundaries cross county lines and those who pass a referendum before a property reassessment takes place but are still awaiting the revenues afterward, Falcon said. 

If a district falls within those categories, Falcon said, HB 246 would require it to reset its tax rate to a revenue neutral level. Districts who fall outside those categories, though, would be exempt from that rate reset unless they projected to lose revenue because of a reassessment. 

During the meeting, Rep. Kim Williams (D-Stanton) also pointed out that, as the bill was written, there was no financial measure to determine which districts would be applicable to the annual 2% increase. 

Instead, a district could lose as little as $1 and implement up to 2% in tax revenue increases per year for five years, she said.

“My intention is not to put something out there that I think works in writing, but is not going to work on the ground level,” Shupe said, ultimately deciding to table his bill.

Eliminating the 10% increase?

Although Smith’s bill, HB 245, saw less debate than HB 246, it also did not pass through the House Education Committee to consideration within the full House of Representatives. 

Smith told Spotlight Delaware that rather than districts automatically being eligible for an up to 10% tax rate increase, they should instead show the public why additional funds are needed by going through a request process. 

“We’ve set the precedent for special session, and we have the budget markup process where they could come and ask the state for money, if it was necessary,” Smith said. 

But multiple House Education Committee members, and members of the public, expressed concern that eliminating the tax increase would increase districts’ reliance on referendum votes. 

School referendums are the only time that voters in Delaware have a direct say in their taxation rates. 

But multiple referendum requests have failed across the state in recent years, making it more difficult for school districts to continue funding staff recruitment and retention efforts, bus programs, and other operational costs. 

While Smith’s bill would require districts to demonstrate where money is needed, he said voters must also be accountable for referendum outcomes. 

“Not enough people do vote in those referendums, but then they have an opinion after,” Smith said. 

Like Shupe, Smith also decided to table his bill for further discussion. 

What led to this?

This past summer, multiple school districts, such as the Appoquinimink, Christina, Capital, and Indian River school districts, chose to implement the full 10% tax increase during July board of education meetings. 

At the time, some leaders said taking advantage of the increase would prevent their district from needing to hold, and pass, a referendum. 

Others, like the Brandywine School District, announced in July that it would implement a 1.7% tax rate increase, citing concerns over the future of federal education dollars. The following month, the Brandywine school board changed course, opting to reduce rates for residential properties and increase them for business properties.

Still, post-assessment property tax bills prompted outrage from many New Castle residents over the sticker shock of the increases in their bill. For some residents, tax bills doubled after the reassessment. 

By August, state lawmakers held a one-day special legislative session in response to residents’ outrage. They allowed the public school districts in New Castle County to split their property tax rates to provide additional relief to homeowners. 

The school boards for the Appoquinimink, Brandywine, Christina, Colonial, and Red Clay Consolidated school districts then approved new rates that lowered tax burdens for homeowners and raised them for commercial property owners.

Christina, Appoquinimink, and Colonial also chose to retain the extra revenue they raised through the automatic tax increases.

The post Republican-led school tax reforms held up in committee appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

The social media outfit TrackAIPAC’s signature anti-endorsement cards have become a fixture of the 2026 midterms. The ubiquitous graphics show a disapproved candidate’s face in grayscale over a smoky red backdrop. To the right, a number denoting their pro-Israel funding glows.

Controversially, not all of that money comes from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. 

“It’s as broad as possible, and that’s by design,” TrackAIPAC co-founder Casey Kennedy told The Intercept. Instead of just AIPAC, the group tracks spending from across the pro-Israel lobby. “We want to provide the most encapsulating picture that we can of who’s giving to the lobby and where they’re giving to,” Kennedy said.

TrackAIPAC started in 2024 as a scrappy bulwark to the powerful, conservative pro-Israel lobbying group for which it is named. Amid TrackAIPAC’s rise, U.S. voters’ support for Israel plummeted to historic lows as horrified Americans watched their government support genocide in Gaza, and AIPAC, once an indispensable ally for most federal politicians, transformed into an electoral liability. 

Depending on whom you ask, TrackAIPAC is a hero for pushing pro-Israel spending into the forefront of voters’ minds, a scourge peddling antisemitic tropes, or a well-intentioned activist group with an imperfect, ever-evolving model. An advocacy group called Citizens Against AIPAC Corruption launched in May 2024 and soon merged with TrackAIPAC, giving the lobby watchers the power to endorse and fund candidates. TrackAIPAC’s graphics are easily digestible and often go viral, lending the group political weight in an era when online audiences want to consume information in as little time and with as little brainpower as possible — and turning its signature red card into a political scarlet letter.

TrackAIPAC’s growing influence has set off a debate over its messaging and methodology, part of a broader conversation about outside spending in politics refracted through the lens of Israel. This was especially felt in Illinois’ recent primary elections, where AIPAC funneled its financial contributions through front PACs, or its major donors gave as individuals. AIPAC’s more elusive strategy proves the necessity of lumping several kinds of pro-Israel money together, TrackAIPAC allies say, giving the group the responsibility of acting as an analyst rather than a conduit of information.

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“The work tracker accounts do is important because AIPAC and other dark money lobbies are intentionally very difficult to track,” said Morriah Kaplan, executive director of the progressive Jewish-led Palestinian solidarity organization IfNotNow. Calling AIPAC’s tactics “extremely antidemocratic,” she noted that major donors can have a range of political aims, favoring tech giants, weapons manufacturers, and fossil fuels in tandem with supporting Israel.  

“Without understanding how TrackAIPAC defines ‘pro-Israel,’” Kaplan said, “it’s not as valuable a tool for transparency as it could be.”

In the 9th district of Illinois, TrackAIPAC’s broad approach drew controversy when it deployed a red graphic not just for state Sen. Laura Fine, the Congressional candidate AIPAC’s funders and front groups supported, but also for Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, who campaigned and won as a progressive, said he would support the Block the Bombs Act, and was a main target of AIPAC-funded attack ads.

When TrackAIPAC posted a red graphic for Biss, the group pointed to his refusal to call Israel’s actions a genocide, his opposition to the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement, his support for U.S. funding for Israel’s Iron Dome, and $460,357 “spent by the pro-Israel lobby groups and their donors.” 

That money mostly came from J Street, which bills itself as a liberal alternative for Zionist American Jews who want to counter AIPAC’s hardline influence. In recent years, the group has supported halting some weapons transfers to Israel and opposed Israeli settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. But J Street was slow to label Israel’s assault on Gaza a genocide — its president Jeremy Ben-Ami came around to the term in August— and it opposed initial calls for a ceasefire. 

Tali deGroot, J Street’s vice president of political and digital strategy, was frustrated by her group’s conflation with AIPAC, calling TrackAIPAC “intellectually dishonest” for the distance between its name and its methodology. TrackAIPAC does label the specific sources of pro-Israel funding that make up its sums on its website, along with a list of organizations it tracks in addition to AIPAC, but they seldom appear on the red cards that circulate on social media. Some critics have labeled this blurring of lines sloppy or confusing, while others on the left and right have accused the group of antisemitism over its generalized “pro-Israel” language.

“I think the candidates and members should be held to account for taking AIPAC support,” deGroot said, “but the way that [TrackAIPAC] is going about it is doing so much harm.”

A TrackAIPAC spokesperson said the group’s members “wholeheartedly agree” that J Street and AIPAC have significant differences, but said they would still classify J Street as part of the pro-Israel lobby.

“J Street might have some disagreements with AIPAC,” Kennedy said, “but they are both working in favor of a foreign government within our government.”

The group does appear responsive to some of the criticism. TrackAIPAC is planning to modify its anti-endorsement cards in response to recent controversies. They’ll still be red, but the graphics will now spell out how much a candidate has received from specific pro-Israel groups, or individual major pro-Israel lobby donors, as well as additional information about their policy positions on Palestine and Israel.

“Every graphic released regarding Daniel Biss stated clearly that the total of the donations reported were from the pro-Israel Lobby,” the TrackAIPAC spokesperson said. “It would be intellectually dishonest to call J Street anything but a member of that advocacy wing in the United States. That said – we will be breaking their donations out and labeling them separately for transparency purposes moving forward.”

Changing the Cards

As the founders tell it, the “AIPAC” in TrackAIPAC’s name was always meant as a synecdoche, with the lobbying giant serving as an eye-catching stand-in for the entire Israel lobby. The broad approach is intentional, said TrackAIPAC founders Kennedy and Cory Archibald, and their project is a work in progress.  

The group has made several changes to its methodology since its launch. Some of them are spelled out online, but others, such as how the group tracks individual donors, are not. At the beginning, TrackAIPAC relied on Federal Election Commission data compiled by the transparency organization OpenSecrets, which also groups the pro-Israel lobby as a whole. Last year, TrackAIPAC began to analyze the FEC data for itself and started adding individual expenditures, or money spent on campaign ads, which triggered jumps in some members’ totals. That was the case for Reps. Wesley Bell, D-Mo., and George Latimer, D-N.Y., who toppled progressive incumbents last cycle with massive amounts of AIPAC support. This year, the group began including bundlers and major donors ($200 or more) who have given to pro-Israel lobby groups and are donating directly to candidates, especially as AIPAC shields some of its spending. 

“They’re going underground, so we’re going to have to go underground too,” said Archibald, previously a campaign staffer for former Reps. Cori Bush, D-Mo., and Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., who were respectively unseated by Bell and Latimer in 2024. 

The approach still seems to rile candidates who find themselves on TrackAIPAC’s bad side, like Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, who accused the group on Instagram of being “MAGA plants who are meant to disrupt and confuse” for giving her a red card listing more than $100,000 from “Israel Lobby” donors. TrackAIPAC told The Intercept that it stands by Crockett’s rating, and that it used FEC data to identify major donors who have given to pro-Israel lobby groups and gave directly to Crockett. (It also gave a red card to Texas state Rep. James Talarico, who beat Crockett in the state’s Democratic Senate primary.)

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The founders also said they have received a number of requests from members who want their red graphics taken down. TrackAIPAC is working on a new questionnaire that would give members a chance to get their cards changed if they make specific policy commitments, like committing to an arms embargo and opposing laws that would restrict BDS or promote a controversial definition of antisemitism that conflates the term with criticism of Israel. 

Some politicians have already had their cards changed. Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., who has received J Street funding, used to have a red card, but his photo now appears on TrackAIPAC’s website in its original coloring, earning neither the damning red backdrop nor the smooth green ring that indicates endorsement. Khanna, who last year exchanged kind words with TrackAIPAC on social media, is among the members of Congress who receive the label: “We encourage this representative to continue improving their legislative record on Israel-Palestine issues.”

Kennedy said those lawmakers exist in the “squishy middle,” calling it “the most ambiguous part of what we do.” He said they removed their red graphics to avoid the members “getting harangued as an AIPAC supporter,” while nudging them toward continuing to vote in favor of Palestinian rights. 

One of the group’s enduring questions is “how do we still apply the pressure without kind of souring our relationship?” Kennedy said. “So it’s definitely, you know, there’s some politicking that goes on there.”

Archibald interjected with more precise terms. “But it’s still very much rooted in their record — we’re not ever picking winners or losers,” she said. “It’s all based on the scorecard … on the facts that are present.”

To round out its rating system, TrackAIPAC relies heavily on the Congressional Democrat Palestine Tracker, a spreadsheet run by the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America that uses a scorecard system devised by the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights Action. (It has a separate tracking system for Republicans.) For candidates who do not have a federal voting record, TrackAIPAC looks to public statements, public policy positions, or associations with pro-Israel lobby groups. If a candidate has pro-Israel positions but campaign finance data is not yet available, TrackAIPAC issues a red graphic with a “warning” label. 

In some cases, J Street and TrackAIPAC have backed the same candidate. Progressive Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., for example, is J Street-supported but has TrackAIPAC’s endorsement because of her policy positions on the genocide in Gaza, BDS, and blocking weapons to Israel.

“The money alone is not enough to get you a red graphic,” Archibald said.

A Political Force

The question of how TrackAIPAC assesses its more subjective measures — and whether its targeting is even-handed — has spurred controversy, too.

Last week, TrackAIPAC drew criticism for deploying a red card for Mallory McMorrow, a Michigan state senator running for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate on a platform that includes backing Block the Bombs and calling for a two-state solution. McMorrow’s graphic stood out because of her two opponents for the nomination: Rep. Haley Stevens, a hardline Israel supporter who has taken over $9 million from the pro-Israel lobby, by TrackAIPAC’s count, and appeared in an AIPAC promotional video earlier this month, and Abdul El-Sayed, a vocal supporter of Palestinian rights who earned the endorsement of TrackAIPAC’s campaign arm, Citizens Against AIPAC Corruption.

McMorrow’s most recently issued red graphic cites $100,439 from the general “pro-Israel lobby groups & their donors.” El-Sayed’s green endorsement card, meanwhile, lists only the amount he has received from AIPAC: $0. McMorrow’s campaign argued that this reflected an uneven treatment, pointing to El-Sayed donors listed in FEC filings who have previously given to J Street.

After previously staying out of the race, a J Street spokesperson told The Intercept on Thursday that the group was endorsing McMorrow.

“It remains unclear how Track AIPAC has arrived at their number, and we invite them to share their methodology so as to not mislead voters,” a spokesperson for McMorrow’s campaign told The Intercept, adding that she had not taken any money from AIPAC and had opposed its involvement in the race.

TrackAIPAC acknowledged that some J Street donors had given to El-Sayed and said the different treatment between the two candidates was decided only by their differing policy positions on Israel and Palestine. Circulating McMorrow’s red card, TrackAIPAC cited McMorrow’s admission of having “returned policy papers to at least one Democratic pro-Israel group,” as well as reporting from Drop Site News that she had drafted an AIPAC position paper, but critics noted that the group was harsh on a relatively untested candidate running as a progressive. 

Related

A New PAC Wants to Counter Israel’s Influence. It Also Welcomes Hitler Apologists.

DeGroot objected to a similar dynamic in Illinois’ 9th District, where the campaign side supported candidate and activist Kat Abughazaleh, who finished as the runner-up to Biss. To deGroot, the group’s dual work as a data project and a political action committee allows its “masquerading support for a chosen candidate – Kat – as journalism, as fact finding.”

Candidates in TrackAIPAC’s good graces, however, may have reason to appreciate the two-part approach. Angela Gonzalez-Torres, a Los Angeles community activist and congressional candidate in California, said Citizens Against AIPAC Corruption was among her earliest supporters, giving her campaign a boost months before the more established progressive group Justice Democrats got behind her. She said that she was initially drawn to challenge incumbent Rep. Jimmy Gomez, D-Calif., because of his responses to local issues like the construction of a controversial housing project atop a toxic dump site and an adjoined trucking depot that posed health risks to neighboring residents, but when she dug into his campaign, she came across TrackAIPAC’s red graphics. 

“When we as a community saw those profiting off of our pain and contributing to the very issues hurting our district and other humans, I think we were immediately encouraged to find someone to challenge Jimmy Gomez,” Gonzalez-Torres said, citing his AIPAC connections.

In a statement to The Intercept, a Gomez campaign spokesperson called the congressman “a progressive champion and has delivered for working-class families on the Eastside, securing hundreds of millions in funding to address environmental injustice, expand parks and housing, improve transportation, and combat climate change. He takes local concern about cost of living and quality of life seriously.”

Gonzalez-Torres said some of her supporters told her they donated to her campaign after seeing her and Gomez in TrackAIPAC’s side-by-side graphics. 

Update: March 26, 2026, 8:49 a.m. ET

This story has been updated with a statement from the Jimmy Gomez campaign.

Update: March 26, 2026, 9:57 a.m. ET

This story has been updated with the news that J Street is endorsing Mallory McMorrow.

The post How Does TrackAIPAC Actually Track AIPAC? appeared first on The Intercept.

On the day that federal immigration agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, I ran out of my house with my camera in hand to document the aftermath. As a visuals editor at ProPublica, I spend most of my time at my desk. But I couldn’t ignore this massive story rapidly unfolding in Minneapolis, the city I’ve called home for the past few years.

The first thing I photographed that day was a woman trying to calm a man with a hug. “There was a young man right at the police tape, honestly inches away from some of the agents, and he was so angry,” she told me later. “I was getting really scared for him.” Not long after, the scene grew volatile, as federal, state and city police forces tear-gassed and detained protesters in a standoff that lasted for hours.

Kristin Heiberg, I learned, is a 64-year-old technical writer, a volunteer at an animal shelter and a cancer survivor. And, like many other people here, she patrols her neighborhood with a whistle, on the lookout for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

As I’ve watched the Twin Cities rally to respond to Operation Metro Surge, I’ve wanted to see the one thing I had not: What do these people look like in their day-to-day lives? I wanted to know who they are and what motivated them to patrol their streets, drive strangers to work and provide food and rent money for the families who have been in hiding since the surge began. While media coverage has moved on, and there are fewer ICE agents on the streets, they’re still here, and my neighbors are still providing mutual aid.

When I asked Heiberg who she felt was involved, she said: “Everyone in the community. Anyone with a heart.” This is how it has felt to me as well. Whether gathering with friends or ordering coffee or running into a neighbor while walking my dog, every recent conversation has led to the same place: What are you doing to meet this moment? 

Each of the people I photographed scoffed at the idea that they were paid agitators, or that they were led in their efforts by state or city officials. They said they just wanted to help their neighbors.

These are my neighbors, in their city, in their own words.

The post “This Is What It Means to Be Minnesotan”: Why My Neighbors Continue to Stand Up Against ICE appeared first on ProPublica.

The World Series champions have somehow become even stronger. But there are a few teams who could stop them from retaining their title

A welcome introduction. Recent years have seen a tactical flattening of the game with the introduction of the universal DH, the banning of the shift and the three-batter minimum rule, but this adds an interesting wrinkle to game management. The league table of catchers’ challenge percentages will be fascinating. AE

In one talk radio appearance after another, Sheriff Jerry Sheridan has declared that his department had eliminated the racial bias that plagued it under his former boss Joe Arpaio. As a result, he’s quick to add, a landmark racial profiling court case dictating much of what the Maricopa County, Arizona, sheriff’s department does should be dismissed.

“I believe we are in compliance with the court order. We’re not a racist organization, and we don’t racial profile,” he said on Phoenix-area talk radio in March 2025. 

In May, he told the same radio host: “Is the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office racially profiling or are they racially biased? We have documentation for well over 10 years that that is not the case.”

His evidence for ending oversight stemming from Melendres v. Arpaio, the federal case whose 2013 settlement imposed parameters the department has operated under ever since, was a monthly sampling of a few dozen traffic stops. The settlement requires deputies to document each stop in exacting detail. The report, analyzed by a court-appointed monitor, showed individual deputies had not used race to initiate that limited sample of traffic stops.

But annual reviews of every traffic stop or arrest of a Latino driver have repeatedly contradicted Sheridan’s claim. With the exception of one year, each of the past 10 reports showed disparities affecting Latino drivers. The latest, covering 2024, found, “Stops involving Hispanic drivers were more likely to result in an arrest than stops involving White drivers.”

Under Sheriff Arpaio, deputies began in 2007 to use traffic stops to arrest people on immigration charges, illegally racially profiling Latinos in the process. When the constitutional violations spurred the Melendres lawsuit, a judge found they were so widespread that he included the county’s more than 1 million Latino residents as plaintiffs in the case. Fallout from it ended Arpaio’s political career.

Sheridan, a Republican, was Arpaio’s second-in-command. During his campaign for sheriff in 2024, Sheridan pledged to cooperate with the court-appointed monitor. He predicted that the judge overseeing the case, U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow, would be pleased to see him back in the courtroom given his understanding of the settlement. He could hit the ground running and bring the case to a close, Sheridan said.

In June 2025, the latest report finding bias against Latino drivers was released. Months later, in October, Sheridan was back on the radio repeating his argument: “There has been no racial profiling or bias in well over 10 years, and that’s the gist of this lawsuit. The judge didn’t want MCSO to racially profile or be biased, and we have proven time and time again that the deputies are not.”

Latino activists and residents who endured the racial profiling and anti-immigrant policing of the Arpaio era tracked Sheridan’s first year as sheriff with growing alarm. 

They remembered that as chief deputy, Sheridan was caught on camera telling deputies that court-mandated reforms were “ludicrous” and “crap.” (He later apologized to the judge.) They also pointed out that Sheridan staffed his administration with key figures from Arpaio’s time.

The activists and residents said their concerns were also rooted in the reality of the second Trump administration.

As Sheridan took office, President Donald Trump was initiating plans for mass deportations. Trump tasked Immigration and Customs Enforcement with expanding local law enforcement’s involvement in street and workplace operations. If the case ended now, Sheridan would be free to join forces with ICE, critics said. Without the court to keep it in check, the Sheriff’s Office could backslide. 

The anxiety and anger were evident in the town of Guadalupe in February 2025, as Sheridan arrived for his first court-mandated public meeting as sheriff. Guadalupe was among the communities most affected by Arpaio’s immigration patrols and workplace raids. Residents, who were there to receive an update on the court case, greeted the new sheriff with signs saying, “Deport Jerry Sheridan,” and “We belong together not separated.”

The court-appointed monitor, Robert Warshaw, told the crowd inside an elementary school cafeteria that Sheridan had requested that the meeting be canceled, citing safety concerns related to ongoing anti-ICE protests around metro Phoenix. (The request was denied.) This angered the residents.

Their frustration grew as Warshaw noted that although the Sheriff’s Office was complying with more than 90% of the settlement, it fell short in two critical areas: continued racial disparities in traffic stops and failure to quickly investigate misconduct claims against deputies. Long delays in such investigations discouraged the public from reporting wrongdoing by deputies, attorneys and advocates said.

When it was Sheridan’s time to speak, he addressed the doubters, citing the sample of traffic stops that showed deputies didn’t use race to initiate traffic stops. He has also noted that the department is prioritizing the investigation of deputy misconduct complaints from Latino residents.

“The judge wants bias-free policing, and I want bias-free policing,” Sheridan said. “All I can ask from all of you in this room, the people that live in this community, and the 4.6 million people in Maricopa County, is to let me show you by actions the things that I have said and the fact that we all want bias-free police.”

Joel Cornejo, a community activist from south Phoenix who had protested Sheridan’s arrival, told the sheriff that he’d come of age during Arpaio’s raids. He said he was skeptical that Sheridan would fully comply with the lawsuit.

“We learned to fight your department,” Cornejo said. “We destroyed Joe Arpaio’s career. And if you target our community, we will do the same to your career.”

Sheridan repeated his pledge to show them the department had truly changed.

“I need that opportunity from you, to give me that chance,” he said.

Sheridan’s victory in the sheriff’s race capped a comeback that began after Arpaio lost reelection in 2016.

Under Arpaio, Sheridan rose through the ranks to chief of custody in 1999, running the county’s jails. In 2010, Arpaio elevated him to chief deputy, helping oversee the entire department. He held the job for six years.

During those years, Snow later ruled, the Sheriff’s Office illegally enforced federal immigration laws, violated residents’ constitutional rights and ignored the judge’s orders to end these practices.

Sheridan tried to distance himself from the controversies that led to Arpaio’s defeat, rarely speaking of his former boss. He maintained that the immigration sweeps and patrols were carried out by a separate division while he was focused on running the jails.

Sheridan stands by his work as detention chief, which included supervising 60 detention officers certified through an ICE program known as 287(g), allowing the department to process people in its jails for deportation. Maricopa County remains the only Arizona county to provide office space for ICE agents in its jails.

Arpaio’s efforts to arrest undocumented immigrants began under the same 287(g) agreement, which also allowed local officers to question individuals’ immigration status during routine policing. Sheridan says he disagreed with Arpaio’s tactics and tried to persuade him to not target day laborers or set up patrols in mostly Latino communities like Guadalupe. (Arpaio told Arizona Luminaria and ProPublica that he considered enforcing immigration laws to be part of his job.)

During a 2015 court hearing, Sheridan denied that he knew about a 2011 preliminary injunction — issued while he was Arpaio’s chief deputy — barring the Sheriff’s Office from making immigration arrests. He didn’t learn about the injunction until 2014, Sheridan said.

Evidence presented in court showed Sheridan had been notified starting in 2011. Snow accused Sheridan and Arpaio of “deliberately” violating the order, withholding evidence and failing to investigate and discipline deputy misconduct, among other things. “Sheriff Arpaio and Chief Deputy Sheridan are the authors of the manipulation and misconduct that has prevented the fair, uniform, and appropriate application of discipline on MCSO employees,” Snow wrote in a 2016 ruling. He held them in civil contempt of court.

“I don’t even remember exactly why the judge held me in contempt of the court — what exactly he used against me,” Sheridan told Arizona Luminaria and ProPublica. “He didn’t think that I was truthful because I wasn’t aware of something. And I was very truthful.”

Arpaio did not endorse Sheridan’s 2024 bid for sheriff and has declined to talk about him while hinting at a falling-out. “I made a couple mistakes, which are management mistakes,” Arpaio told Arizona Luminaria and ProPublica. “I may have appointed a couple of wrong people. But in managing, you try to back up your people and so on. So, in any big organization, you can’t be perfect.”

Sheridan filled key leadership positions in his administration with former colleagues who worked under Arpaio and who, like Sheridan, had left the Sheriff’s Office after Arpaio lost reelection. Sheridan appointed retired Sgt. Clint Doyle to the Court Implementation Division, which is responsible for enforcing the court’s mandates. And he rehired Paul Chagolla, who ran public relations at the time of Arpaio’s raids and sweeps. Snow criticized Doyle’s appointment, calling out Sheridan for attempting to bypass a court requirement that key leadership roles dealing with the Melendres settlement be approved by the monitor.

Doyle and Chagolla didn’t respond to requests for comment. 

Christine Wee, the lead attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, told Arizona Luminaria and ProPublica that it was alarming to see so many from Arpaio’s administration return. “These folks were instrumental in the abuse and the terror that so many of our clients had to experience,” she said. “And then to bring them back in again, I think it sends a dangerous message to the community.” 

Sheridan acknowledges the criticism, but points to improvements like significantly reducing the misconduct complaints backlog. “From the sins of the previous administration, we’re now three different sheriffs since then, and some people just don’t want to let go.”

Since Sheridan took office last January, Arizona Luminaria and ProPublica have attended seven of his public appearances, reviewed his public remarks and interviewed him on three occasions. During that time, his assertions that the department had done enough to justify ending court oversight grew bolder, and Republican allies amplified his efforts.

“It’s about time that the public gets over some of the things that happened well over a decade ago and to realize the deputy sheriffs that work in their community are really good law enforcement officers,” he told Arizona Luminaria and ProPublica in a March 2025 interview.

Ending the settlement would eliminate the near-constant recordkeeping tasks deputies face while on duty, including documenting 13 details about each traffic stop. This hampers their “ability to do the job,” Sheridan said, and discourages interacting with the public. Deputies fear prolonging a traffic stop, even for a brief chat, will lead to discipline.

“If they see somebody walking down the street, they can’t just pull over and say, ‘Hi, how are you doing?’” Sheridan told Arizona Luminaria and ProPublica. “Every time they contact a member of the public, it is a lengthy process. And so it slows them down and it intimidates them not to want to do it.”

Last March, Sheridan began organizing meetings, in addition to the court-ordered gatherings, in rural communities policed by the Sheriff’s Office.

In Gila Bend, a town of about 1,800 southwest of Phoenix, Sheridan said he wanted to hear about locals’ needs. The town pays more than $900,000 a year to the Sheriff’s Office for public safety services.

“I’m a good leader and our deputies are responsive to your needs,” Sheridan told the group inside a community center. “And that’s really what this is all about, right? The sheriff’s main job is to keep people safe.”

A slide displayed data about traffic stops, calls for service and dispatch times. “For the population that’s here in Gila Bend, for the number of violent crimes — at least the ones that are notated here -– you guys are a very safe community,” a sheriff’s office lieutenant told the group.

The town’s vice mayor, Chris Riggs, a former deputy himself, disagreed. Crimes weren’t being reported, making the town seem safer than it is, he said. 

Residents “just don’t trust MCSO anymore,” Riggs said. “They’ll deal with it themselves.” Several residents agreed. 

No deputies live in Gila Bend, where response times lag and police services have suffered, they said.

“Deputies aren’t like they used to be, where they get out and they mingle with the community,” Riggs said.

Sheridan blamed the settlement for overburdening the department.

Ten days later, residents of Aguila, an unincorporated community nestled among farms where the population swells to about 1,000 during the winter growing season, told the sheriff they too felt neglected by deputies.

“We have 9,224 square miles to cover” and limited resources, Sheridan said. 

Sheridan has tried to address this. When he took office, there were about 140 vacancies for patrol deputies. He raised starting pay to compete with other local law enforcement agencies in the county. By the start of 2026, vacancies declined to 65, according to his office. Sheridan called it one of his biggest successes in his first year.

But hiring was still hindered by the paperwork deputies do to comply with the settlement, he said.

The Sheriff’s Office has made significant progress on a key requirement of the court: reducing the backlog of misconduct investigations. Although it has been cut by 76% since November 2022, there are still about 475 claims that haven’t been investigated, and three recently completed investigations dated from 2017.

In June, the Sheriff’s Office released the court-mandated traffic stop report for 2024.

It tracked some improvements. But when all traffic stops by deputies were analyzed, the report concluded: “Stops involving Hispanic drivers were more likely to result in an arrest than stops involving White drivers”; and traffic stops involving Black drivers, who are not covered in the Melendres settlement, were more likely to take longer and result in an arrest compared to stops of white drivers.

Despite the findings, Sheridan insisted there was no racial profiling at the department. 

In July, the court’s monitor team held another community meeting to review the Sheriff’s Office’s progress. It was in Maryvale, a West Phoenix neighborhood where three-quarters of the residents identify as Latino.

Before it began, Sheridan told Arizona Luminaria and ProPublica that while he remained committed to reaching full compliance with the court’s requirements, a majority of Republicans on the county’s governing board “have a different perspective because they’re the ones that fund what the sheriff does.”

Three members of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors were at the meeting.

Latino residents and advocates from the heavily Democratic area typically made up a majority of attendees. But this crowd was mostly white Republicans, including some from retirement communities miles away. From the front of the gym, Sheridan could see signs that read, “We support MCSO,” and, “Take the handcuffs off Jerry!”

Republican Supervisor Debbie Lesko, who represents retirement communities in western parts of the metro area, said she believed the settlement was getting in the way of public safety. “They’re spending a lot of time on paperwork instead of being able to provide public safety. And when I talked to the sheriff’s department, they said it’s hurting the morale of the deputies.”

When Latino residents asked questions and voiced concerns, they were interrupted by jeers and groans from white members of the audience.

Warshaw, the court monitor, pleaded for the crowd to allow others to speak.

Sheridan’s supporters focused on $350 million the county supervisors had approved since 2013 to implement the court-mandated reforms, including $226 million allocated to the Sheriff’s Office. The monitor later found that the Sheriff’s Office had greatly exaggerated total expenses, and the judge cautioned county leaders against citing the dollar figure because it was misleading.

“Mr. Warshaw, tell the judge to stop looting Maricopa County tax dollars to pay for that oversight,” Tom Berry, a retiree from Sun City, said to the monitor. “Advise the judge to stop the oversight.”

The case hinges on how well the Sheriff’s Office complies with 368 paragraphs outlined in four court orders aimed at rooting out racial profiling, Warshaw responded. “Is there still work to be done? Yes, there is still work to be done. Is this thing going to go on forever? No.”

“It looks like it,” a woman blurted.

Salvador Reza is a longtime organizer of Latino communities and day laborers who regularly attends meetings related to the settlement. He said it appeared Republicans were organizing to call for an immediate end to court oversight, which Sheridan would welcome.

“That’s what he’s hoping, that the federal court lets him off the hook so he can do whatever he wants,” Reza said, noting he was concerned by Sheridan’s history with Arpaio and approach to the case since taking office. “So there’s no way that we can rebuild trust in the community knowing very well who Sheridan is.”

Sheridan denied he had coordinated with the supervisors to publicly call for an end to the settlement.

Months later, debate over the settlement’s cost came to a head.

Community members asked for details about how the $226 million the sheriff’s department had attributed to enforcing the settlement was spent. The monitor’s team published a report in October that concluded the Sheriff’s Office had greatly exaggerated the cost. More than $163 million, about 72%, of the total attributed to the reforms was unrelated or lacked justification, the report found.

Sheridan attacked the audit.

“These guys are not CPAs, they don’t have the experience to do an audit of a huge government operation,” he said on the conservative talk radio show where he regularly appeared. “The sheriff’s budget is about $700 million a year, and the county’s budget is a couple of billion. They don’t have the expertise to do this, and so they come up with this report.”

He listed some expenses, including an order to create and staff new divisions. “We have three Ph.D.s that are analysts, and all of this has led to the fact that there has been no racial profiling or bias in well over 10 years, and that’s the gist of this lawsuit.”

Sheridan’s attorneys petitioned the court to dispute the audit but later dropped the challenge, saying the county wanted to avoid additional “unnecessary” expenses.

The audit reinforced many Latino community members’ belief that the agency couldn’t be trusted.

After the raucous gathering in Maryvale, advocates alleged there had been an effort to intimidate Latino residents, including the use of racial insults in a forum intended to gather their input and check on the Sheriff’s Office’s progress. 

Judge Snow held the next public meeting at the federal courthouse. He acknowledged the increasingly vocal opposition to the settlement and its costs, but defended it as necessary.

“This is not an easy case. It is an expensive case. It is a case where everybody in Maricopa County has benefited, whether or not they appreciate it,” Snow said, before noting there was still work to do resolving the backlog of misconduct reports. “Sheriff Sheridan has done a considerable amount in reducing the backlog he was left with, but there is still a considerable backlog to be resolved.”

Sheridan conceded the settlement had made his office better, even if it sometimes caused friction. Still, attorneys for the Sheriff’s Office and the county government argued to Snow that they had done enough to end his oversight.

In December, the county filed a motion to sidestep the remaining reforms and end court supervision. Sheridan’s attorneys signed onto the motion in January. 

“After 14 years, four sheriffs, and hundreds of millions spent tax dollars, it is essential to defend taxpayer money if federal oversight is no longer warranted,” Thomas Galvin, the Republican chair of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors at the time, said in a video statement released after the motion was filed.

Attorneys representing Latino residents in the Melendres case opposed the bid to end court oversight. Snow has yet to rule on the motion.

Raul Piña, a member of a court-mandated Community Advisory Board tasked with helping the Sheriff’s Office rebuild trust with Latinos, said the push to end oversight ignored a plain fact: The most comprehensive data still showed the department hadn’t eliminated bias from its policing.

“If Melendres goes away, that takes away significant protections for brown and Black people or the immigrant community in Maricopa County,” he said.

Since it joined the Melendres case and settlement in 2015, the U.S. Department of Justice had supported the reforms. But with Trump back in the White House, Suraj Kumar, an attorney in the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, informed Snow in January that the DOJ backed efforts to end oversight of the Sheriff’s Office.

This added to Latino community leaders’ worries that the Sheriff’s Office could once again, as it had under Arpaio, partner with ICE and allow deputies to enforce immigration laws.

Sheridan tried to put those concerns to rest, saying that if court oversight ended, he would not enter such an agreement.

But the questions grew louder as ICE surged into Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis to carry out mass deportations. Phoenix was reportedly next. 

After a U.S. citizen was killed during ICE operations in Minnesota, Sheridan was asked on a conservative radio talk show what he would do if something similar happened in Arizona.

His deputies would step in if ICE agents did anything “illegal,” Sheridan said in the mid-January interview.

Four days later, Sheridan backtracked, saying he would instead side with immigration officers: “I will be here to protect them to do that and keep people from interfering with them.”

Cornejo, the community activist who attended the meeting in Guadalupe, read the reversal as a sign that Sheridan was too easily swayed and could not be trusted without court oversight. “Facing a crowd that tends to lean to the left, he’s going to give rhetoric that kind of says that he’s working on those things that he’s supposed to be,” Cornejo said. “If he’s with more conservatives, his language and rhetoric is completely different.”

Sheridan said that his position has not changed and that he “firmly believes that the Sheriff’s Office is in full compliance and that the current oversight should be concluded.”

Later that month, ICE raided 15 metro Phoenix restaurants that federal prosecutors alleged had knowingly hired undocumented laborers. Protests erupted outside some of the raided restaurants.

Sheridan sent deputies to help with crowd control, saying ICE had first asked Tempe police for assistance but the request was declined.

“We went out there, not to facilitate what ICE was doing or get involved in their business, because we don’t do that,” Sheridan told Latino faith leaders and residents at a February town hall in the suburb of Gilbert. “We were there to keep the peace.”

The Tempe Police Department told Arizona Luminaria and ProPublica that it did not receive a request for help from ICE, nor was it notified in advance of the immigration operation. ICE did not respond to a question about local law enforcement participation in the raids. 

Latino activists said the episode raised more questions about Sheridan’s willingness to collaborate with ICE and whether he would be transparent about his intentions. It would be harder for him to earn back their trust, they said.

The post This Sheriff Says His Department Eliminated Racial Bias. Data Shows Otherwise. appeared first on ProPublica.

A judge last week struck down the Pentagon’s restrictions on journalists seeking “unauthorized” information, siding with the New York Times in its lawsuit against the government. In response, the Pentagon on Monday added some meaningless window dressing and essentially reissued the same restrictions. The administration pledged to “immediately” appeal the decision on the original policy, and on Tuesday, the Times filed a motion to compel the administration to comply with the judge’s order. 

As alarming as the Pentagon’s antics are, the Times’ lawsuit is not the only case about whether reporters have the right to ask questions. It’s not even the only one in the news this week. 

In 2017, police in Laredo, Texas, arrested citizen journalist Patricia Villarreal under an obscure and never previously used law making it a felony to ask government employees for nonpublic information for personal benefit. Her supposed crime was asking a police officer about two local tragedies — a suicide and a deadly car wreck.

Her arrest was widely ridiculed, and a judge quickly threw out the charges. When Villarreal sued over her arrest and mistreatment by officers, the legal question wasn’t whether the charges against her were permissible but whether they were so obviously bogus that she could overcome qualified immunity, the unjust and expansive legal shield that protects government employees from liability for all but the most blatant violations. That issue went to the Supreme Court twice, but on Monday, the Court declined to review a federal appellate court’s ruling that the officers were shielded from liability. 

Related

FBI Raid on WaPo Reporter’s Home Was Based on Sham Pretext

No matter what our severely compromised Supreme Court thinks, the local cops who arrested Villarreal were embarrassingly ignorant of the Constitution. But they were also ahead of their time: The Department of Justice is making the same claims that turned the Laredo police into a First Amendment laughingstock — that reporters simply asking questions to the government is criminal — to federal district Judge Paul Friedman. 

Most discussion of the Pentagon’s restrictions has focused on their conditions for reporters to receive press credentials, which the Pentagon says can be revoked if reporters publish “unauthorized” information. That policy is wildly unconstitutional on its own, and every mainstream outlet gave up their press passes rather than sign on, leaving war coverage inside the Pentagon to the likes of Turning Point USA’s Frontlines and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s LindellTV streaming service. 

But the Pentagon’s legal filings imply that reporters who don’t follow the rules risk more than their press passes. On March 12, the DOJ filed a brief to clarify its lawyers’ earlier comments in a discussion with Friedman at a hearing of “whether asking a question was a criminal act.” The government argued that although journalists may lawfully ask questions of “authorized” Pentagon personnel, “a journalist does solicit the commission of a criminal act, and that solicitation is not protected by the First Amendment, when he or she solicits … non-public information from individuals who are legally obligated not to disclose that information.”

There you have it. What was once a fringe, failed legal theory concocted by some local cops in one Texas border city is now the official position of the federal government’s lawyers, which it felt compelled to put in writing in case anyone wasn’t sure where it stood after the hearing. Both the rogue cops and the DOJ’s lawyers contend that journalists merely asking questions to government officials constitutes unlawful solicitation. 

As JT Morris, supervising senior attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (which represents Villarreal) told me in an email last week, the First Amendment “unquestionably protects our right to ask questions, whether it’s a citizen asking police about a local crime or the New York Times asking Pentagon officials about matters of national security. Officials can always respond, ‘no comment.’ But they cannot jail Americans for asking.”

The government’s argument would have turned countless Pulitzer-winning national security reporters into criminals. As Friedman put it in his ruling, the “role of a journalist is to solicit information. … [A] journalist asking questions is not a crime!” (You can tell a judge is miffed when scholarly language fails and they resort to exclamation points.)

The DOJ’s “concession” in its clarification brief (and later in its revised policy) — that journalists can direct questions to authorized spokespeople — makes no difference. That the administration even felt the need to state something so obvious, presumably because they thought it would make them sound more reasonable, signals the extent to which they’ve threatened the First Amendment. 

Government agencies have long routed journalists’ inquiries to PR flacks and instructed non-public-facing staffers not to answer reporters’ questions. That’s unconstitutional in its own right; earlier this month, the Village of Key Biscayne, Florida, became the latest government agency to settle a lawsuit over its employee gag rule. But until this administration, the government at least placed the burden on its own employees to comply with restrictions on talking to reporters. 

Now, the government expects journalists to make themselves a party to its censorship directives, and ignore Supreme Court precedent that they can print any government information they lawfully obtain, even if it shouldn’t have been released. “A contrary rule … would force upon the media the onerous obligation of sifting through government press releases, reports, and pronouncements to prune out material arguably unlawful for publication,” the Court reasoned. 

Journalist Kathryn Foxhall, who has for years sounded the alarm about “censorship by PIO,” including in collaboration with the Society of Professional Journalists, says the press has failed to meaningfully oppose these policies. “The media have done little to fight the ever-tightening rules at federal agencies and elsewhere banning reporters from buildings and prohibiting employees from speaking to journalists without the authorities’ oversight. With amazing negligence journalists just assume whatever reporters get is the whole story, even in the face of the many thousands of gagged staff people. Now these Pentagon policies remind us that people in power will stop literally at nothing to control the story,” she told me.

The Pentagon’s position that newsgathering is a prosecutable offense is not just theoretical. Although the DOJ’s brief didn’t explicitly reference it, just like the officers in Laredo, federal prosecutors have their own archaic and constitutionally dubious law on the books to sane-wash their nonsense arguments — the Espionage Act of 1917. Read literally, that law (Rep. Rashida Tlaib recently introduced a much-needed bill to reform it) arguably prohibits reporters and anyone else from obtaining or attempting to obtain national defense information.

But reading it that way to go after journalists would be unconstitutional and politically toxic, which is why past administrations have refrained. Had the Supreme Court denied the Laredo officers’ qualified immunity in Villarreal’s case, it would have signaled that arguments for expansive interpretations of arcane laws to criminalize routine reporting are a nonstarter. 

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The Court ducked the issue despite being fully aware that the present administration is looking for any excuse to punish reporters that dare to undermine its narratives. They’ve already claimed Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson — whose home they raided, seizing terabytes of data — violated the Espionage Act by obtaining leaked information. The Trump administration is barging through the door the Biden administration left wide open, when, despite warnings from First Amendment advocates, it extracted a plea deal from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Espionage Act charges for obtaining and publishing government records, including about Iraq war crimes. 

The DOJ’s adoption of the Laredo police’s discredited theory is an extension of the Assange and Natanson cases; the claim that publishing leaked documents is criminal has evolved into a theory that merely asking questions is, too. The administration lost in court this time, but it said it will appeal, and may be emboldened by the Supreme Court’s cowardice in the Laredo case. 

If this administration succeeds in chipping away at constitutional protections for journalistic practices as basic as asking questions, reporters who wish to do anything more than regime stenography may risk imprisonment just by doing their jobs. In her dissent to the Villarreal ruling, Justice Sotomayor put it well: “Tolerating retaliation against journalists, or efforts to criminalize routine reporting practices, threatens to silence ‘one of the very agencies the Framers of our Constitution thoughtfully and deliberately selected to improve our society and keep it free.’” 

The post Pentagon Wants It to Be Illegal for Reporters to Ask “Unauthorized” Questions appeared first on The Intercept.

The Saudis and Emiratis fear a deal that leaves the region less stable, and they have indicated support for an escalated campaign to force concessions from Tehran.

“I still can’t believe it,” said Shay Taylor-Allen, who landed a residency at Yale New Haven Hospital, where she was born and spent most of her adult life on the cleaning staff.

Henry Ford changed the face of industry forever – what kind of economic model do Musk’s methods presage?

Genius industrialist or clownish conman, humanity’s saviour from a rapidly crumbling planet or rabid social media troll – the verdicts on the world’s richest person vary in flavour, but most share something in common: they focus on Musk as an individual. In their study, Quinn Slobodian, a historian at Boston University, and Ben Tarnoff, a tech writer, wish to reframe the conversation. The most important question, they argue, is not “who is Musk?” but “what is Musk a symptom of?”

As the title suggests, their answer is “Muskism”, the coinage a deliberate nod to Fordism, the shorthand for 20th-century capitalism built on the pairing of mass production with mass consumption. If Fordism was the last century’s operating system, Slobodian and Tarnoff contend that Muskism is this century’s.

Jena Lisa Jones says she backed Trump in 2024 election because of his campaign promises to release Epstein files

After casting her vote for Donald Trump in 2024 in hopes that he would bring transparency around the Jeffrey Epstein case, Epstein survivor Jena Lisa Jones said in an interview this week that she now fears “we’re not going to get justice in all of this”.

“I wanted my day in court,” said Jones, who has said she was abused by Epstein when she was 14, in an interview on the Shadow Sessions podcast that aired on Thursday morning. “I didn’t get that, and we were so close to it, it really got ripped from us, and then after [Epstein] passed, everything just went into a circus show.”

Major League Baseball's "robot umpire" made its debut in the season-opening New Yankees-San Francisco Giants game in Oracle Park.

Eddie Otchere spent 10 years photographing the New York hip-hop stars and other musicians. Here are the highlights of his thrilling new photozine

Longtime Slashdot reader theodp writes: In Melania and the Robot, the New York Times reports on First Lady Melania Trump's inaugural Fostering the Future Together Coalition Summit, which brought together international leaders, First Spouses from around the world, tech leaders, educators, and nonprofits to collaborate on practical solutions that expand access to educational tools while strengthening protections for children in digital environments (Day 2 WH summary). The Times begins: "On Wednesday, Mrs. Trump appeared at the White House alongside Figure 3, a humanoid, A.I.-powered robot whose uses, according to the company that makes it, include fetching towels, carrying groceries and serving champagne. But Mrs. Trump joins tech executives and some researchers in envisioning a world beyond robot butlery. She is interested in how these robots could cut it as educators. Both clad in shades of white, the first lady and the visiting robot walked into a gathering of first spouses from around the world, a group that included Sara Netanyahu of Israel, Olena Zelenska of Ukraine, and Brigitte Macron of France. The dulcet tones from a (presumably human) military orchestra played as the first lady and her guest entered the event. Both lady and robot extolled the virtues of further integrating robots into the educational and social lives of children. In the history of modern first-lady initiatives, which have included building a national book festival (Laura Bush), reshuffling the food pyramid (Michelle Obama) and advocating for free community college (Jill Biden), Mrs. Trump's involvement of a humanoid robot in education policy was a first." "Figure 3 delivered brief remarks and delivered salutations in several languages. With its sleek black-and-white appearance, Figure 3 would fit right in with the first lady's branding aesthetic, which includes a self-titled coffee table book and movie, not least because the name "MELANIA" was emblazoned on the side of its glossy plastic head. After Figure 3 teetered gingerly away, Mrs. Trump looked around the room and told them that the future looked a lot like what they had just witnessed. 'The future of A.I. is personified,' she told her audience. 'It will be formed in the shape of humans. Very soon artificial intelligence will move from our mobile phones to humanoids that deliver utility.' She invited her guests to envision a future in which a robot philosopher educated children."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ukrainian president says peace deal proposed by US includes handing over land to Russia. What we know on day 1,492

In today’s newsletter: Th​is new war has exposed widening fractures between Israel and its allies, ​and the country finds itself increasingly out of step with global opinion

Good morning. Israel may be the only country in the world where there is overwhelming public support for the conflict in Iran. Despite its impact on everyday life in the country – at least 15 people have been killed and hundreds more injured by Iranian missiles since the war started in February, and school closures and missile warnings remain routine – polling puts support for the war at more than 90% among Jewish Israelis.

The contrast with the rest of the world is stark. Nearly a month into the fighting, polling shows that 60% of the US public oppose the war with Iran, and just one in four backed the initial strikes. In the Gulf, Europe and Asia, the conflict is widely unpopular, as severe economic consequences already begin to bite.

Middle East crisis | Iran dismissed a US ceasefire proposal on Wednesday and countered with a negotiation plan of its own as intermediaries sought to keep diplomatic channels between the warring countries open.

Media | Matt Brittin, Google’s former top executive in Europe, has been named the BBC’s next director general. Brittin will replace Tim Davie at a crucial time for the corporation.

UK politics | Political donations from British citizens living abroad are to be capped at £100,000 a year, in a move that is likely to limit further funding from Reform UK’s Thailand-based mega-donor, Christopher Harborne.

UK news | The former justice minister Crispin Blunt has been fined £1,200 for possessing illegal drugs after he told a court he entered the world of chemsex parties to help inform government policy.

Housing | People who lost their homes when a tower block in Dagenham burned down say they are being made to pay for the building’s fire safety works after the government demanded its money back.

Exclusive: Watchdog issues formal guidance to trustees at top AI research institute after staff expressed concerns

The board of the UK’s leading AI research institute has been reminded of its legal duties in areas such as financial oversight and managing organisational change by the charity watchdog after a whistleblower complaint.

The Charity Commission issued formal regulatory advice and guidance to trustees at the Alan Turing Institute (ATI), the organisation’s board, after it was contacted by a group of staff with a list of concerns.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt says talks with Tehran are ongoing hours after Iran's state media said the regime rejected Trump administration proposals.

Hostilities should halt and healthcare facilities must be treated as ‘safe havens’, WHO’s regional chief has said

• Middle East crisis – live updates

A total stop to hostilities in the Middle East is needed to halt a “health crisis unfolding in real time”, the World Health Organization’s chief in the region has said.

Hospitals and other healthcare facilities must be treated as “safe havens”, urged Dr Hanan Balkhy, the WHO’s regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean.

Reluctance to cheerlead alleged US ceasefire efforts reflects suspicion talk of peace could be another foil for escalation

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Not long after Donald Trump said the US was engaged in “strong talks” to bring the war with Iran to an end this week, Qatar took the unusual step of distancing itself from the alleged diplomatic negotiations.

Qatar was not involved in any mediation efforts, said government spokesperson Majed al-Ansari at a briefing on Tuesday night, before adding as a telling aside: “If they exist.”

Professionals from across Europe urge MEPs to reject plans, saying ‘climate of fear’ could stop people seeking care

More than 1,100 healthcare professionals from across Europe have urged MEPs to reject proposed measures aimed at increasing the deportation of undocumented people, warning they could threaten public health by transforming essential public services, including hospitals, into sites of immigration enforcement.

The draft plans, which are due to go to a vote on Thursday, have been in the works since last March, when the European Commission laid out its proposal to target people with no legal right to stay in the EU, including potentially sending them to offshore centres in non-EU countries.

The Italian PM has won plaudits for her tightrope-walking pragmatism. But have voters now had enough?

Giorgia Meloni has a long history of defying expectations. She holds the record as Italy’s youngest cabinet member, at 31, and is its first female prime minister, thus overcoming two of Italian politics’ most formidable obstacles, gerontocracy and machismo. After she took office in autumn 2022, she quickly put to rest concerns that her post-fascist background would make her a foreign policy radical. Staunch support for Ukraine and a pragmatic relationship with EU leaders won her international credibility.

Against this backdrop, the defeat she suffered in this week’s referendum – where Italians rejected the government’s proposed constitutional reform of the judiciary by 53.2% to 46.8% – appears all the more significant.

Riccardo Alcaro is head of research at IAI, Istituto Affari Internazionali in Rome

The Federal Communications Commission bans the sale of new foreign-made routers in the US to protect national security. The ironic side effect: It could stop your current router from receiving vital security updates.

Decades of preparation are paying off.

Trump’s war on Iran reveals a foreign policy without principles.

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Iranian nationals with valid Australian tourist visas will be blocked from entering the country for six months, Australia’s home affairs minister said, citing concern some may decide to stay longer than they’re allowed.

Tony Burke said the direction was necessary as there was a risk Iranians on tourist visas visiting Australia may be unable or unlikely to leave when their visa expires.
The order only applies to people with a valid tourist visa outside of the country.
The government said “sympathetic consideration” would be given to citizens with Iranian parents.

The government said it would closely monitor global developments and adjust settings as required.

If you’re just joining us, here’s a quick recap of the day:

An Iranian military spokesperson mocked US attempts at a ceasefire deal, insisting Americans were only negotiating with themselves. Lt Col Ebrahim Zolfaghari’s statement came after the Trump administration reportedly sent a 15-point ceasefire plan to Iran through Pakistan.

Even as Donald Trump claimed productive negotiations to end the war were ongoing with Tehran, Iran’s relentless bombardment of the Gulf states showed no sign of relenting. Kuwait and Bahrain were both hit with damaging strikes on Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning, as the patience of the Gulf states after rebuffing constant attacks for almost a month began to wear thin.

The World Trade Organisation warned disruptions to international fertiliser supplies caused by the closing of the strait of Hormuz will cause food scarcity and high prices. A third of the world’s fertilisers normally transit the strait.

Oil prices fell nearly 6% and Asian shares gained, after reports Donald Trump had sent a peace plan to Iran fuelled optimism in the market. A barrel of Brent crude was down 5.92% at $98.30, while benchmark US oil contract, West Texas Intermediate, was down 5.01% at $87.72.

Israeli strikes on Lebanon killed nine people, state media reported. Citing the health ministry, Lebanon’s official National News Agency said strikes had killed people across towns and a Palestinian refugee camp.

News that Trump had approved the deployment of more than 1,000 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East further undermined the US president’s repeated claims of successful peace talks. Iran has previously threatened to mine the gulf surrounding the island if the US appeared to be landing troops.

President Trump suggested late Wednesday he's avoiding describing the military conflict with Iran as a "war" because of concerns around the fact that Congress hasn't authorized military force.

Thirty years after the alleged 1996 "ET of Varginha" encounter, debate continues to rage over the events that happened in Brazil's self-styled UFO capital. An anonymous reader quotes an excerpt from the Guardian: The skies over this far-flung coffee-growing hub went charcoal black, the heavens opened and one of Brazil's greatest mysteries was born. "It really was something unique," recalls Marco Antonio Reis, a zoo director, who was at his ranch outside Varginha one stormy day in January 1996 when, he says, an otherworldly creature came to town. Reis and other locals claim the unusually ferocious downpour heralded a series of disturbing and seemingly paranormal events. At least six of the zoo's animals, including a spider monkey, a tapir and a raccoon, died mysteriously after a horned interloper with bulging red eyes was spotted in the vicinity by a woman who had gone out for a smoke. When a vet examined their corpses, "they were all black inside," Reis claims. On a nearby wasteland, three young women spotted a peculiar and malodorous being with a heart-shaped face and three lumps on its head cowering beside a wall. "I've seen the devil," one of those witnesses would later tell her mum. Soon afterwards, an unexplained infection was rumored to have killed a strapping police intelligence officer who was said to have grappled with the oleaginous unidentified being. Three decades later, Reis says he is convinced Varginha received a non-human visit. His only doubt was from where it came. "We don't know if it was extraterrestrial or intraterrestrial," the 71-year-old says as he climbs a staircase to the veranda where the smoker claims to have seen what, in reference to Steven Spielberg's 1982 film, became known as the "ET of Varginha". A 2ft statue of a two-toed alien now marks the spot. "It's possible it was an intraterrestrial, from inside the Earth They don't just come from space," Reis says. "It might have come from the depths of the Earth, too. We don't even know what it's like at the bottom of the sea, do we?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Since Monday, much of the wreckage had remained on the tarmac, blocking access to one of LaGuardia's two runways at one of the country's busiest airports.

Several states saw record daily temperatures set on Wednesday, as the heat wave that has been scorching the West expands into the central U.S.

Former Olympic rower to lead corporation as it hammers out future funding model with government

The BBC has turned to a former tech executive to steer it through a critical period in its history, as it attempts to navigate government talks over its future and huge changes in media consumption.

Matt Brittin, who stepped down as Google’s president in Europe, the Middle East and Africa last year, will replace Tim Davie as the corporation hammers out its crucial future funding model with the government.

Emad Shargi, who was released from Iran's Evin prison in 2023, said "it's important" that President Trump "hears that there are innocent Americans being held like we were as political pawns."

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for March 26.

Melania Trump entered a White House event in lock step with an AI-powered robot at the opening of the inaugural Fostering the Future Together Global Coalition summit. At the summit, the first lady urged nations to work together to improve access to education and technology for children around the globe. The humanoid robot, 'Figure 3', welcomed attendees ahead of the first lady’s remarks.

"This is the first time I've experienced something like this in my entire life," one traveler said as TSA lines snaked through George Bush Intercontinental Airport.

New hires will not be ready to work checkpoints until well after the mega event, acting head of TSA says – key US politics stories from Tuesday 24 March

Anyone planning to travel to a US city hosting World Cup matches this summer might want to leave now.

World Cup travelers could face long waits due to staffing shortages caused by the partial US government shutdown, with the head of US airport security warning of a “perfect storm”.

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• Trump news at a glance: administration official warns of ‘dire situation’ at US airports ahead of World Cup

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Top officials at agencies affected by the ongoing Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown are testifying on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. The lapse in funding for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Coast Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), has lasted 40 days with little end in sight.

During opening remarks, the Republican chair of the House homeland security committee, Andrew Garbarino, said that the shutdown has caused “massive disruptions” across airports, “weakened our nation’s cybersecurity posture” and “left states unsupported with less than 100 days until the start of major events across the United States, such as FIFA World Cup”.

It's the first-ever surcharge from the USPS, and it's all due to rising gas costs. But it won't affect first-class stamps.

The launch of battery-powered versions of the company's powerful AI doorbells has been highly anticipated.

Bill Pulte reportedly urges examination of alleged fraud as New York attorney general’s lawyer attacks ‘vendetta’

The Trump administration’s federal housing finance director, Bill Pulte, is asking prosecutors to investigate New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, for insurance fraud, according to criminal referrals reported by MS Now and CBS News.

The referrals to prosecutors in Florida and Illinois allege that James may have committed mortgage insurance fraud. The allegations center on applications made to Universal Property Insurance, which is based in Florida, and Allstate in Illinois.

US president says he will host Chinese leader in a reciprocal visit later this year

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Donald Trump will meet Xi Jinping in May during the US president’s first visit to China in eight years, a closely watched trip that had been postponed due to the Iran war.

Trump was initially slated to travel next week, but will now visit Beijing on 14 and 15 May, he wrote in a post on Truth Social on Wednesday. Trump said he would host the Chinese leader in a reciprocal visit in Washington later this year.

A potential deal to end the DHS shutdown has stalled on Capitol Hill after Senate Democrats made their latest counteroffer.

The first lady shared the spotlight with the robot to promote the use of artificial intelligence in education.

Here are hints and the answer for today's Wordle for March 26, No. 1,741.

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for March 26 #1019.

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle No. 549 for Thursday, March 26.

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for March 26, No. 753.

The U.S. Postal Service is raising some postage prices to help offset the federal agency's rising transportation costs as fuel prices surge.

A Trump administration official has made new criminal referrals against New York Attorney General Letitia James to federal prosecutors in Miami and Chicago for two cases of possible homeowner's insurance fraud, sources told CBS News.

In a post on X Saturday, Musk offered to pay the salaries of TSA workers during the DHS shutdown.

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, head of the National Institutes of Health and interim leader of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told staff a permanent CDC director could be nominated soon. "I know that it has been such a difficult year," he said.

FEMA will make $1 billion available for the BRIC program​, which helps local governments harden against natural hazards like fires, floods, earthquakes and hurricanes.

GPUs are still important for Nvidia, which held its GPU Technology Conference (GTC) last week in San Jose. But the importance of GPUs appears to be waning as the AI boom is creating a surge in demand for general purpose CPUs and other processor types that offer advantages for AI inference. Nvidia wants to control this emerging market too, as CEO Jensen Huang, AKA the “Inference King,” made clear in his keynote.

Forget about Nvidia as the GPU company. “Most people forget that Nvidia’s business is much, much more diversified than a chip company,” Huang said during a Q&A with the press at GPC last week. “And the reason for that is because we’re full stack and we can help people build AI factories anywhere.”

If a company spends $30 billion to build an AI factory to generate tokens, they will want to equip it with chips that can generate tokens at efficiently as possible. That is Nvidia’s goal: to help customers build systems to generate a huge amount of tokens as affordably as they can.

“Inference is your workload and tokens is your new commodity,” Huang said in his keynote. “That compute is your revenues, [and] you want to make sure that the architecture is as optimized as you can in the future. Every single CSP, every single computer company, every single cloud company, every single AI company, every single company period, is going to be thinking about their token factory effectiveness.”

Nvidia is already leading the AI inference ballgame. Dylan Patel of the benchmarking company SemiAnalysis has run the numbers, and he found GB300 delivered not a 35x increase in performance per watt versus Hopper, but 50x. That led SemiAnalysis to name Nvidia the Inference King, a name that Huang instantly latched onto.

SemiAnalysis named Nvidia NVL72 the Inference King thanks to its leadership in token generation efficiency 

As part of that full stack, Nvidia is focusing on lowering the cost of delivering AI inference at massive scale. That is in line with a new prediction from Gartner, which today forecast that the cost of an AI inference token will drop by 90% by 2030. Judging by what Nvidia presented at GTC, it is planning to match this figure.

A Platform for AI Inference

GPUs still play a critical role in Nvidia’s Vera Rubin platform, but it’s not the big player that it was when the generative AI revolution really started to get going back in 2023. As part of the Vera Rubin architecture, Nvidia is offering five specialized systems, all based on its liquid-cooled MGX rack architecture, which it fills with these chips.

There is, of course, the NVL72, which features 36 Vera Rubin superchips connected with an NVLink switch. But in addition to that longstanding system, Nvidia is offering several more, which it dubs the MGX ETL line. The MGX ETL line includes:

• Groq 3 LPX, which features 256 Groq 3 language processing unit (LPU), connected with Groq’s chip-to-chip interconnect;
• Vera CPU Rack, which features 256 Vera CPUs linked with a SpectrumX Ethernet interconnect;
• BlueField-4 STX, a storage rack filled with 72 Bluefield-4 data processing unit (DPU), connected with SpectrumX Ethernet interconnect, which forms the basis for its new context memory storage (CMX) platform;
• and Spectrum-6 SPX rack, which can be loaded with either Spectrum-X Ethernet or NVIDIA Quantum-X800 InfiniBand switches to provide north-south and east-west connectivity within a data center.

“The new Vera Rubin platform: seven chips, five rack-scale computers, one revolutionary AI supercomputer for agentic AI,” Haung said during his keynote address at GTC 2026 last week. “Forty million times more compute in just 10 years.”

Prefill and Decode

GPUs are instrumental for AI model training, and they’re also needed in the first stage of AI inference, called prefill, when the prompt is received and input into the AI model. But GPUs are not as efficient at running the second stage of AI inference, the decode stage, which is where the AI model generates responses to the prompt.

During the decode stage, the AI model generates tokens one at a time based on the current prompt and other previous prompts, which are stored in the KV cache, a critical element in the modern AI inference workflow. The bottleneck during the decode stage is the speed at which data can be moved from memory to the processor, not the speed of the processor, which is the GPU’s biggest advantage. While GPUs have large amounts of high-bandwidth memory and can be used for decode, it’s not an efficient use of the GPU, and that inefficiency spells trouble in a $30 billion gigawatt AI factory.

Six months ago, Nvidia introduced a version of the Rubin GPU that was better at AI inference, dubbed the CPX. But Groq seems to have replaced it, and the CPX will not be delivered in 2026, as previously planned, the company said.

Nvidia wants its AI factory customers to use other chip types to accelerate various parts of AI acceleration. CPUs, like the new Vera ARM chip, will be used to run a variety of different workloads during AI inference, while LPUs like Groq 3 are specialized to handle specific parts of the decode phase, including pulling data from the KV cache. Other chips, like the BlueField-4 DPUs and Spectrum-X SuperNICs, will be instrumental in getting data to and from storage in the quickest amount of time, and potentially avoiding the dreaded GPU memory wall.

Vera, a ‘Cool’ CPU

The AI boom has moved processing demand back over the CPU sweet spot, which led executives at AMD and Intel to declare that CPUs are “cool again.” You could say that Nvidia got the message, too.

Nvidia rolled out its new Vera CPU at GTC 2026. The 88-core ARM chip boasts some impressive stats against its X86 rivals, including 1.5x the “sandbox performance” (or running compilers, runtime engines, and data analytics tasks), 3x the memory bandwidth (it offers 1.2 TB per second for its LPDDR5x memory), and 2x the efficiency, the company said.

An agentic AI workload that involves generating and running code will need to create a sandbox environment. That, along with other various other tasks, is best suited for a general-purpose CPU with very high single-threaded performance, such as Vera, according to Nvidia.

For example, Vera will be tasked with spinning up Linux instances, running interpreters to execute and compile Python code. The effectiveness of that generated code needs to be monitored to determine whether changes are needed, which is another workload where general purpose CPUs will shine. SQL queries may also need to be executed to grab structured data out of a database.

It’s all about matching the software workloads to the appropriate hardware to keep everything running as quickly and as efficiently as possible, said Ian Buck, Nvidia’s vice president and general manager of hyperscale and HPC.

“This might be a $30-billion, gigawatt data center [full] of GPUs. I’m not going to skimp on the CPU side and have this [GPU] sit idle or have the potential of that model come up short because I couldn’t run the compilation too long and I had to cut it off and drop that data on the floor,” he said.

“The world…needs a lot of CPUs,” Buck continued. “For training these models, they need fast CPUs in order to make sure that they get the best possible data back to the GPU and never let the GPU stall out. And then finally AI, when you actually deploy it after you’re done training, it’s not just the AI model…They call tools all over the place.”

Groq LPU

The Rubin GPU is a powerhouse of a machine, with each chip providing 50 petaflops of NVFP4 compute for AI inference. Combining Rubin with the Vera CPU in the NVL72 system creates an even better system that is tough to beat, Huang said during his keynote.

“However, if you extend it way out here…if you wanted to have services that deliver not 400 tokens per second, but a thousand tokens per second, all of a sudden NVLink72 runs out of steam and you simply can’t get there,” Huang said. “We just don’t have enough bandwidth. And so this is where Groq comes in.”

Accelerating the decode phase is why Nvidia paid $20 billion to license the Groq intellectual property and hire the Groq engineers in December 2025. Each Groq 3 LPU has only 500 MB of SRAM, which is much less memory than the Rubin GPU. But Groq LPUs feature 150TB per second of memory bandwidth, which is much more than Rubin’s 22TBps. With 256 Groq LPUs in an LPX rack, the total memory bandwidth jumps to an eye-watering 40 PBps of SRAM memory bandwidth, which is enough to power AI inference workloads with large context windows.

As Nvidia shared last week, the combination of a Groq 3 LPX rack with a Rubin NVL72 system will allow customers to generate a million tokens for $45 on a 1 trillion GPT model with a 400k context window, which is 35x more tokens than Rubin NVL72 could generate by itself.

Optimizing Decode at Scale

According to Buck, about one quarter of the computing demand in AI inference is the prefill stage, which can be handled effectively and efficiently with Vera Rubin (VR) superchips, while about three quarters is the decode stage, which works best with a combination of VR and LPX.

“Prefill is just step one, how quickly can you get to your first token,” Buck said in the press briefing at GTC. “After you’ve done that, those prefill. GPUs or CPXs or whatever you’re using to prefill, it doesn’t matter. Your token rate is all about the number of processors you’re using to generate every token after that. So it’s not a CPX thing. If you just did LPX, you would need a lot of chips because of all of that state, all that memory, all that context.

“By combining the LPX rack with VR rack, we cannot need all that,” he continued. “[LPX] is 7x faster memory bandwidth than HBM. That lets the little experts, the FFMs [feed forward networks]…we can run them here. The whole rest of the model, we can run all the … attention math, all the rest of the model can operate here [on the VR rack] so that we don’t need a dozen racks of LPX. We can deliver all that kind of performance with just two racks of LPX and one rack of VR.”

The result of that architecture is an AI factory that can deliver tokens at the rate of 1,000 per second, which we referenced earlier. This is the future that Nvidia is building

“Everything that we’ve optimized here in order to serve models can do that with high throughput, low-cost inference king economics,” Buck said. “We can bring down the cost of that of that volume of what the AI that market is today.”

Related Items:

Nvidia Boasts 7 Chips in Production for Vera Rubin Platform, Including Groq 3 LPU

AI Boom Comes for CPUs, Which Are ‘Cool Again’

What Nvidia’s $20B Purchase of Groq’s Assets Means for AI Accelerators

The post Nvidia’s Shift from GPUs and AI ‘Inference King’ Economics appeared first on HPCwire.

During a demonstration, cybersecurity experts showed how readily available apps can transform a person's appearance in real time to create a deep fake.

The U.S. Postal Service plans to impose its first-ever fuel surcharge on packages (source paywalled; alternative source), adding an 8% fee starting in April as it struggles with rising fuel costs and ongoing financial pressure. The surcharge will not apply to letter mail and is currently expected to remain in place until January 2027. The Wall Street Journal reports: Other parcel carriers, including FedEx and United Parcel Service, have imposed fuel surcharges, as well as a basket of other surcharges and fees, for years. Both FedEx and UPS have dramatically raised their fuel surcharges in recent weeks as the price of oil has increased amid the turmoil in the Middle East. [...] The post office has been trying to increase the volume of packages it delivers. It previously differentiated itself from commercial carriers by saying that it doesn't apply residential, Saturday delivery or fuel or remote-delivery surcharges.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Latest strike brings number of deaths to at least 163 since attacks on alleged ‘narco-terrorists’ began in September

The US has launched another strike on a vessel in the Caribbean, killing four people, the US Southern Command said.

The command, which oversees combatant operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, announced on X that it had conducted a “lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations”.

Check out the top trending gadgets that you can snag on sale now during the Amazon Big Spring Sale.

The Derpy McFlurry mixes popping boba pearls and berry sauce into a soft-serve dessert.

A survey of Minneapolis and St. Paul residents found the deployment of thousands of federal agents to their cities caused significant upheaval to their lives.

Gaming is about to become even more expensive.

As Iraq claimed “heinous aggression,” the U.S. denied it targeted a clinic. The incident threatens to sour relations between the countries amid the Iran war.

The U.S. military said it carried out a strike on a boat accused of smuggling drugs in the Caribbean Sea, killing four people.

Manus’s CEO and chief scientist are facing scrutiny from Beijing over the company’s $2 billion sale to Meta.

Right now, you need a Plus plan or better to access the library feature.

Surcharge, spurred by oil price spikes due to the Iran war, is set to take effect on 26 April and run until January 2027

The US Postal Service (USPS) plans to introduce its first-ever fuel surcharge on packages to offset rising energy costs, according to a statement.

The surcharge, set at 8%, is expected to take effect on 26 April and remain in place until 17 January 2027, under the current plan.

NotebookLM's latest features turn your notes into videos, podcasts and more.

Reversal by London police comes as Shabana Mahmood prepares an appeal against high court overturning ban on the group

The Metropolitan police has said it will resume arresting people who show support for Palestine Action just weeks after it said it would no longer do so following a high court ruling that the ban on the direct action group was unlawful.

After last month’s judgment, the Met police said it would immediately stop arresting people for such offences under the Terrorism Act but would gather evidence for potential future prosecutions.

New submitter haroldbasset writes: Canada's Immigration Department rejected an applicant because the duties of her current job did not match the Canadian work experience she had claimed, but the Department's AI assistant had invented that work experience. She has been working in Canada as a health scientist -- she has a Ph.D. in the immunology of aging -- but the AI genius instead described her as "wiring and assembling control circuits, building control and robot panels, programming and troubleshooting." "It's believed to be the first time that the department explicitly referred to the use of generative AI to support application processing in immigration refusals," reports the Toronto Star. "The disclaimer also noted that all generated content was verified by an officer and that generative AI was not used to make or recommend a decision." The applicant's lawyer was shocked "how any human being could make this decision." "Somehow, it hallucinated my client's job description," he said. "I would love to see what the officer saw. Something seriously went wrong here." The applicant's refusal came just as Canada's Immigration Department released its first AI strategy, which frames artificial intelligence as a way to improve efficiency, service delivery, and program integrity. The department says it has long used digital tools like analytics and automation to flag fraud risks and triage applications, and is now also experimenting with generative AI for tasks such as research, summarizing, and analysis. In this case, however, the department insisted the decision was made by a human officer and that generative AI was not involved in the final decision.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Guatemalan nationals Angelina Lopez Jimenez and Wendy Godinez Lopez, nine, apprehended en route to Miami, report says

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers targeted a mother and her child at San Francisco international airport for arrest after TSA agents tipped them off, according to a report from the New York Times.

The report, which cites federal documents, adds a new dimension to the arrest by ICE officers that went viral this week, casting new scrutiny on the Trump administration’s information-sharing agreements that critics say are leading to more indiscriminate immigration arrests.

Dell is bringing back the Precision Pro alongside a lineup of new Dell Pro laptops, the tiny Pro 5 Micro PC and a "conferencing monitor."

• Rybakina completes 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 comeback win

• American slumps to fifth straight defeat to Kazakhstani

Jessica Pegula had her chances. Midway through the second set of yet another showdown with Elena Rybakina, the American had engineered a flawless start. After bulldozing through the opening set, Pegula’s level at the beginning of set two put her in with a fair shot of snatching a win against her Kazakhstani opponent, who has dominated their recent meetings.

Instead, Pegula departed Miami with another tough lesson to parse through after being shown once again that the best players in the world pounce on even the smallest drops in intensity. Despite her mediocre start, Rybakina produced a brilliant comeback to reach the Miami Open semi-finals with a 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 win.

A panel of appeals court judges handed the Trump administration a major legal victory in its quest to detain large swaths of immigrants living in the country illegally without bond.

Writer looked to topics such as computer engineering and life in a nursing home to produce richly researched books

Tracy Kidder, an award-winning narrative nonfiction writer who turned everything from computer engineering to life in a nursing home into unexpected bestsellers, has died. He was 80.

Kidder’s longtime publisher Random House confirmed his death in a statement on Wednesday: “Tracy’s gifts for storytelling and tireless reporting are an enduring reflection of the empathy, integrity, and endless curiosity he brought to everything he did.”

President Donald Trump wants Congress to approve the SAVE America Act to add certain requirements for voting, and he also wants to ban most cases of voting by mail, even though he voted that way recently in Florida.

"Mail-in voting means mail-in cheating. I call it mail-in cheating, and we got to do something about it all," Trump said at a March 23 event in Memphis. He also said that the U.S. is the only country that "does mail-in voting," which is False.

Does voting by mail equate to cheating? No, more than a decade of studies, reviews and investigations of voting by mail show that fraud happens occasionally, but it is not widespread. 

The House passed the SAVE America Act in February and debate in the Senate continues. The bill would require voters to provide documentary proof of citizenship to register and a government-issued photo ID to vote. Trump wants lawmakers to add to the legislation a ban on voting by mail except for travel, illness, disability or military.

Voter fraud by mail is rare and sporadic

Trump voted by mail in the March 24 special election for a state house seat in the Florida district that includes his Mar-a-Lago home. Democrat Emily Gregory won the election, with a majority of votes received via mail-in ballots, according to unofficial results, flipping the district from red to blue. It was not the first time Trump voted by mail — he did so in some past New York and Florida elections.

Olivia Wales, a White House spokesperson, told PolitiFact that it was a "non-story" that Trump voted by mail because he primarily lives in Washington, D.C.

Trump was in Florida during some days of early voting. 

Wales pointed to some examples of mail-in voting fraud, including a former Atlantic City, New Jersey, councilman and political operative who in 2025 pleaded guilty in a vote by mail scheme. Some of the examples Wales cited stretched back a decade or more. Wales also pointed to a 2005 report by a commission co-chaired by former President Jimmy Carter that said "absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud." The report also said mail voting worked in some places, and Carter later embraced mail-in voting.

Voter fraud, including by mail, happens sporadically, but not enough to change the outcome of a statewide or nationwide election. There are anecdotal examples of people voting on ballots of dead relatives, for example.

A North Carolina congressional election was overturned in 2018 after evidence surfaced that the Republican candidate benefited from an effort to collect voters’ mail-in ballots. 

Mail voting fraud is extremely rare, occurring approximately four times per 10 million votes cast each election cycle, according to a 2025 analysis by Brookings Institution, a think tank. The analysis used voter fraud cases documented by the conservative Heritage Foundation for general elections from 2016 to 2022. 

In 2022, The Associated Press asked top election officials in each state whether mail-in ballot drop boxes were tied to fraud. None that allowed the boxes in 2020 said they were tied to fraud or stolen ballots. Another AP investigation into fraud in 2020 battleground states found too few cases to affect the outcome of the election that Trump lost.

Republican lawmakers have not gone along with Trump’s proposed ban on most voting by mail. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said during a SAVE America Act debate that her state had taken steps to ensure the security of mail-in voting.

"We have got an ability to track your ballot once you have cast it," Murkowski said. "So we have worked this long and hard and well to accommodate the many, many tens of thousands of Alaskans who will vote by mail."

The Heritage Foundation database showed five fraud cases in Alaska since 1982 and none were related to voting by mail. 

States take several steps to ensure the security of voting by mail. It starts with determining whether someone is eligible to vote. Election offices also periodically update their registration lists, including removing inactive voters or those who have died. Election officials track mail ballots to prevent double voting.

Trump has made false and ridiculous voter fraud allegations for a decade, such as grossly inflating instances of noncitizen voting. 

The day before the Florida election, the U.S. Supreme Court heard a case about whether to ban counting mail ballots that are postmarked by Election Day and arrive after the election, a practice allowed in more than a dozen states. A ruling is expected by July 4.

Our ruling

Trump said "mail-in voting means mail-in cheating."

Each election year, tens of millions of Americans, including Trump, vote by mail, and evidence from court records and studies shows only a tiny speck of votes are fraudulent. By saying that mail-in voting means cheating, Trump is wrongly lumping all such voting as a criminal act.

Our definition of Pants on Fire is a statement that is not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim. That fits here.

We rate it Pants on Fire.

RELATED: President Trump wants to slash voting by mail. About 1 in 4 Republicans voted that way in 2024

RELATED: Trump wrongly says Jimmy Carter said ‘don’t ever use’ mail ballots

March 25, 2026 — Ericsson and Forschungszentrum Jülich aim to push the boundaries of network performance and efficiency, ensuring future solutions use as little energy as possible, while delivering exceptional intelligence and performance.

Signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (from left to right): Prof. Paul Strachan, Prof. Thomas Lippert, Prof. Laurens Kuipers, Jan-Peter Meyer-Kahlen, Nicole Dinion, Bernd Mellinghaus. Credit: Forschungszentrum Jülich / Kurt Steinhausen.

The new collaboration brings together Ericsson’s global leadership in telecommunications with Jülich’s world-renowned expertise in high performance computing and next-generation computing technologies, including its work on JUPITER, Europe’s most powerful supercomputer, by the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC). The partners signed a Memorandum of Understanding yesterday, March 24, 2026.

A key focus of the collaboration is on neuromorphic computing, aiming to open up new possibilities for processing complex network tasks and advancing the underlying technologies that enable next-generation infrastructure.

The partners will explore advanced AI and High-Performance Computing (HPC) solutions that will underpin the continued evolution of 5G and form the foundation of future 6G networks. The first commercial 6G services are expected around the year 2030.

Prof. Laurens Kuipers, member of the Executive Board of Forschungszentrum Jülich, said: “This collaboration has the potential to make a significant contribution to a more sustainable digital future. By combining our excellence in high-performance computing and our research into novel, neuro-inspired computing approaches with Ericsson’s expertise in telecommunications, we aim to develop more energy-efficient network solutions and strengthen a sovereign European digital infrastructure.”

Nicole Dinion, Head of Architecture and Technology, Cloud Software and Services, Ericsson, commented: “The future of mobile networks is deeply intertwined with AI and the need for unparalleled energy efficiency. Our collaboration with Forschungszentrum Jülich, for years a global leader in supercomputing and applied physics, combines their research and computing power with our expertise in all domains of telecoms technology. We will explore architectures that define the next generation of telecommunication.”

The new partnership will explore AI models and methods to enhance Ericsson’s core network, network management, and Radio Access Network (RAN).

The collaboration covers several areas of research:

• AI methods for Ericsson products across the full portfolio: systematic benchmarking of approaches to assess execution speed, scalability to large datasets, information retention, and storage efficiency. Where security and commercial conditions permit, the teams may also use JUPITER for large-scale model training, leveraging its compute resources.
• Energy-efficient computing for AI inference at the radio and edge: developing and prototyping highly efficient solutions for tasks such as radio channel estimation and Massive MIMO – a key technology in modern mobile networks, in which many devices communicate simultaneously via numerous antennas. This includes exploring novel system architecture approaches like neuromorphic computing (e.g., memristors) to speed up optimization and reduce energy use versus classical methods.
• HPC and cloud architectures and operations for AI: researching and implementing Modular Supercomputing Architecture (MSA) concepts from exascale work at Forschungszentrum Jülich – in particular, at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC) – and studying operational strategies, such as heat recovery, to boost energy efficiency in HPC and cloud deployments.

The collaboration will provide insights into the feasibility of cloud strategies based on concepts from the EuroHPC ecosystem, which is establishing a world-class supercomputing infrastructure with leading European centres such as the JSC.

About Forschungszentrum Jülich

Shaping change: This is what drives us at Forschungszentrum Jülich. As a member of the Helmholtz Association with more than 7,000 employees, we conduct research into the possibilities of a digitized society, a climate-friendly energy system, and a resource-efficient economy. We combine natural, life, and engineering sciences in the fields of information, energy, and the bioeconomy with specialist expertise in simulation and data science.

About Ericsson

Ericsson’s high-performing, programmable networks provide connectivity for billions of people every day. For 150 years, we’ve been pioneers in creating technology for communication. We offer mobile communication and connectivity solutions for service providers and enterprises. Together with our customers and partners, we make the digital world of tomorrow a reality.

Source: Ericsson

The post Ericsson and Jülich Explore Neuromorphic, HPC Approaches for Next-Gen Telecom Infrastructure appeared first on HPCwire.

NEW YORK, March 25, 2026 — Salute has announced a new collaboration with Ecolab, a global leader in water, hygiene and infection prevention solutions and services, enabling customers to protect their AI investments by reducing complexity and mitigating risks in direct-to-chip (DTC) liquid cooling.

Credit: Salute and Ecolab

Though this collaboration, Ecolab’s Cooling-as-a-Service (CaaS) program will become integral to Salute’s DTC Liquid Cooling Operations Service. Ecolab’s CaaS solves one of the most complex challenges for liquid cooling in data centers by simplifying the management of the technology loop, which is the centerpiece of DTC cooling systems.

“To achieve operational excellence in AI environments, companies need to ensure the performance and reliability of the tech loop. It is the beating heart and circulatory system of your cooling systems, and it must be managed properly to prevent downtime and ensure performance. Ecolab’s CaaS program does exactly that,” said John Shultz, Chief Product Officer, AI and Learning Officer for Salute. “Ecolab is a globally trusted name in cooling management in dozens of industries; their solution for these cooling systems delivers tremendous value and peace of mind to data center operators. Together, we are further mitigating the risks of liquid cooling and protecting the investments that companies are making in AI computing.”

Enabled by Ecolab’s CaaS program, Salute’s DTC Liquid Cooling Operations service is a comprehensive solution that mitigates the risks that liquid cooling introduces into data centers, particularly as AI operations rapidly scale. It represents a state-of-the-art advancement for world-class AI and HPC operations, and has been adopted by a rapidly growing list of data center operators.

Ecolab’s CaaS program brings together a full suite of cooling management solutions that help unlock peak cooling performance all the way from the data center facility environment to the high-performance data computing servers. The program incorporates high-performance water management technology, smart coolant distribution units, connected coolants, and 3D TRASAR monitoring technology, all delivered through Ecolab’s global service team.

“Ecolab’s CaaS program simplifies one of the most complex aspects of AI operations: maintaining the performance of the technical loop that protects critical equipment in AI and HPC data centers,” said Mukul Girotra, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Ecolab’s Global High Tech division. “This service addresses complex operations challenges for companies investing in high-performance computing and supports companies to tap into the unmatched experience and global resources that Ecolab provides. Ultimately, CaaS enables operators to drive performance while navigating the pressure of reliably doing more with less. We are proud to be working closely with Salute to help AI implementations be successful.”

Salute’s partner ecosystem for world-class DTC Liquid Cooling Operations delivers integrated technology solutions, expertise and support that enable companies to achieve operational excellence for AI/HPC data centers.

About Salute

Founded in 2013, Salute is a leading provider of integrated lifecycle services for data centers, operating in over 102 markets with 12 global offices and a workforce of more than 2,200 employees. The company delivers comprehensive solutions for hyperscale, cloud, colocation, and edge facilities, with a strong focus on sustainability and talent development. Salute is a member of the NVIDIA Partner program and offers the first and only comprehensive Direct-to-Chip (DTC) Liquid Cooling Operations Service for AI/HPC data centers To learn more about Salute, visit www.salute.com. And to learn more about how Salute protects your AI Investments with industry best practices for high density, liquid based operations, visit our AI Hub here: https://salute.com/ai-hub.

Source: Salute

The post Salute and Ecolab Target DTC Liquid Cooling Complexity in AI Data Centers appeared first on HPCwire.

This 16-inch gaming powerhouse has an Intel Core Ultra 9 386H processor and up to RTX 5090 graphics but doesn't come cheap.

Republicans’ proposal would restart almost all of DHS operations but excluded key reforms that Democrats want

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The Senate remained deadlocked on Wednesday over funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), after Republicans proposed legislation that would restart all of its operations with the exception of those involved in deportations, but exclude reforms that Democrats want.

The Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, quickly shot down the offer, and said Democrats had countered with a measure that coupled DHS funding with a host of new guardrails on immigration enforcement operations – something the party has insisted on for months.

SAN JOSE, Calif., March 25, 2026 — Altera, the world’s largest pure play FPGA solutions provider and a leader in FPGA-based data center infrastructure, has announced an expansion of its longstanding collaboration with Arm. This expanded effort moves beyond traditional embedded systems, combining Altera’s robust, data center-optimized programmable solutions with the Arm AGI CPU, built on Arm Neoverse CSS V3, enabling system architects to build low-latency, highly flexible, highly scalable compute platforms targeting AI data centers.

Credit: Shutterstock

For more than two decades, Altera and Arm have worked together to jointly deliver multiple generations of SoC FPGAs across embedded, industrial, and communications markets, where real-time performance, adaptability and long lifecycle support are essential. The expanded integration now connects Altera FPGAs with the Arm AGI CPU, extending programmable acceleration into next-generation Arm-based AI data center architectures.

“The next generation of data center infrastructure will be shaped by increasingly intelligent AI workloads and the need for purpose-built compute,” said Mohamed Awad, Executive Vice President, Cloud AI Business Unit, Arm. “The Arm AGI CPU provides the efficient compute foundations required for these systems, and collaborating with partners like Altera helps expand that capability across the broader ecosystem.”

Today, Altera FPGAs are widely deployed in data centers alongside CPUs, GPUs and other accelerators to handle tasks such as data pre-processing, networking and AI inference orchestration. FPGA-based deployment models, including PCIe accelerator cards, SmartNICs and DPUs, place programmable acceleration where it delivers the lowest latency, security and fastest time to market. The combination of Altera FPGAs and the Arm AGI CPU opens new opportunities across high-growth AI data centers, where real-time performance, deterministic processing, and adaptability are essential.

“Altera and Arm have a long‑standing track record of delivering SoC FPGA solutions targeting embedded markets,” said Raghib Hussain, president and CEO of Altera. “At the same time, Altera has established a strong footprint in data center infrastructure with a significant install base of FPGA‑based SmartNICs and DPUs. This expanded collaboration with Arm enables a new class of heterogeneous computing designed to meet the growing performance and flexibility requirements of AI data centers.”

More from HPCwire: Arm Introduces AGI CPU, Expands Compute Platform into Data Center Silicon

About Altera

Altera is a leading supplier of programmable hardware, software, and development tools that empower designers of electronic systems to innovate, differentiate, and succeed in their markets. With a broad portfolio of industry-leading FPGAs, SoCs, and design solutions, Altera enables customers to achieve faster time-to-market and unmatched performance in applications spanning industrial automation, audio/video, robotics, aerospace, defense, data centers, telecommunications, edge AI and more. For more information, visit www.altera.com.

Source: Altera

The post Altera and Arm Collaborate to Deliver Efficient, Programmable Solutions for AI Data Centers appeared first on HPCwire.

This new feature is one of the best yet.

STAMFORD, Conn., March 25, 2026 — By 2030, performing inference on a large language model (LLM) with one trillion parameters will cost GenAI providers over 90% less than it did in 2025, according to Gartner, Inc. a business and technology insights company.

AI tokens are the units of data that GenAI models process. For the purposes of this analysis a token is 3.5 bytes of data, or approximately 4 characters.

“These cost improvements will be driven by a combination of semiconductor and infrastructure efficiency improvements, model design innovations, higher chip utilization, increased use of inference-specialized silicon, and application of edge devices for specific use cases,” said Will Sommer, Sr. Director Analyst at Gartner.

As a result of these trends, Gartner forecasts LLMs in 2030 will be up to 100 times more cost-efficient than the earliest models of similar size developed in 2022.

The forecasted model results are split between two sets of semiconductor scenarios:

• Frontier scenarios: Model processing is based on a representation of cutting edge chips.
• Legacy blend scenarios: Model processing is based on a representative blend of available semiconductors benchmarked to Gartner forecasts.

Modeled costs in the “blend” forecast scenarios are considerably higher than in the “frontier” scenarios, given lower computational power (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Gartner GenAI Inference Cost Scenario Forecasts

Source: Gartner (March 2026)

Falling Token Costs will not Democratize Frontier Intelligence

However, falling GenAI provider token costs will not be fully passed on to enterprise customers. Moreover, frontier intelligence will demand significantly more tokens than current mainstream applications. Agentic models, for example, require between 5-30 times more tokens per task than a standard GenAI chatbot, and can perform many more tasks than a human using GenAI.

While lower token unit costs will enable more advanced GenAI capabilities, these advancements will drive disproportionately higher token demand. As token consumption rises faster than token costs fall, overall inference costs are expected to increase.

“Chief Product Officers (CPOs) should not confuse the deflation of commodity tokens with the democratization of frontier reasoning,” said Sommer. “As commoditized intelligence trends toward near-zero cost, the compute and systems needed to support advanced reasoning remain scarce. CPOs who mask architectural inefficiencies with cheap tokens today will find agentic scale elusive tomorrow.”

Value will accrue to platforms that can orchestrate workloads across a diverse portfolio of models. Routine, high-frequency tasks must be routed to more efficient small and domain-specific language models, which perform better than generic solutions at a fraction of the cost when aligned to specialized workflows. Expensive inference of frontier-level models must be heavily gated and reserved exclusively for high-margin, complex reasoning tasks.

Falling Token Costs will not Democratize Frontier Intelligence

However, falling GenAI provider token costs will not be fully passed on to enterprise customers. Moreover, frontier intelligence will demand significantly more tokens than current mainstream applications. Agentic models, for example, require between 5-30 times more tokens per task than a standard GenAI chatbot, and can perform many more tasks than a human using GenAI.

While lower token unit costs will enable more advanced GenAI capabilities, these advancements will drive disproportionately higher token demand. As token consumption rises faster than token costs fall, overall inference costs are expected to increase.

“Chief Product Officers (CPOs) should not confuse the deflation of commodity tokens with the democratization of frontier reasoning,” said Sommer. “As commoditized intelligence trends toward near-zero cost, the compute and systems needed to support advanced reasoning remain scarce. CPOs who mask architectural inefficiencies with cheap tokens today will find agentic scale elusive tomorrow.”

Value will accrue to platforms that can orchestrate workloads across a diverse portfolio of models. Routine, high-frequency tasks must be routed to more efficient small and domain-specific language models, which perform better than generic solutions at a fraction of the cost when aligned to specialized workflows. Expensive inference of frontier-level models must be heavily gated and reserved exclusively for high-margin, complex reasoning tasks.

Gartner clients can read more in Navigating the Commoditization Trap as Token Costs Fall by Over 90% Through 2030 and Frontier Scale Models Threaten Software Margins and Solvency.

About Gartner

Gartner (NYSE: IT) delivers actionable, objective business and technology insights that drive smarter decisions and stronger performance on an organization’s mission-critical priorities. To learn more, visit gartner.com.

Source: Gartner

The post Gartner Forecasts 90% Drop in LLM Inference Costs by 2030 appeared first on HPCwire.

Several US states, the country of Brazil, and I’m sure other places in the world have enacted or are planning to enact laws that would place the burden of age verification of users on the shoulders of operating system makers. The legal landscape is quite fragmented at this point, and there’s no way to tell which way these laws will go, with tons of uncertainties around to whom these laws would apply, if it targets accounts for application store access or the operating system as a whole, what constitutes an operating system in the first place, and many more. Still, these laws are already forcing major players like Apple to implement sharing self-reported age brackets with application developers (at least in iOS), so there’s definitely something happening here.

In recent weeks, the open source world has also been confronted with the first consequences of these laws, as both systemd and xdg-desktop-portal have responded to operating system-level age verification laws in, among other places, California and Colorado, by adding birthDate to userdb (on systemd’s side) and developing an age verification portal (on xdg-desktop-portal’s side) for use by Flatpaks. The age verification portal would then use the value set in usrdb’s birthDate as its data source. The value in birthDate would only be modifiable by an administrator, but can be read by users, applications, and so on.

Crucially, this field is entirely optional, and distributions, desktop environments, and users are under zero obligation to use it or to enter a truthful value. In fact, contrary to countless news items and comments about these additions, nothing about this even remotely constitutes as “age verification”, as nothing – not the government, not the distribution or desktop environments, not the user – has to or even can verify anything. If these changes make it to your distribution, you don’t have to suddenly show your government ID, scan your face, or link your computer to some government-run verification service, or even enter anything anywhere in the first place.

Furthermore, while the xdg-desktop-portal’s proposals are still fluid and subject to change, consensus seems to be to only share age brackets with applications, instead of full birth dates or specific ages – assuming anything has even been entered in the birthDate field in the first place. Even if your Linux distribution and/or desktop environment implements everything needed to support these changes and expose them to you in a nice user interface, everything about it is optional and under your full control. The field is of the same type as the existing fields emailAddress, realName, and location, which are similarly entirely optional and can be left empty if desired.

Taken in isolation, then, as it currently stands, there’s really not much meat to these changes at all. The primary reason to implement these changes is to minimally comply with the new laws in California, Colorado, Brazil, and other places, and it’s understandable why the people involved would want to do so. If they do not, they could face lawsuits, fines, or worse, and I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of the western world’s most incompetent justice system. Aside from that, these changes make it possible to build robust parental controls, which isn’t mentioned in the original commits to systemd, but is clearly the main focal point of xdg-desktop-portal’s proposal.

This all seems well and good, but given today’s political climate in the United States, as well as the course of history, that “as it currently stands” is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Rightfully so, a lot of people are worried about where this could lead. Sure, today these are just inconsequential, optional changes in response to what seems to be misguided legislation, but what happens once these laws are tightened, become more demanding, and start requiring a lot more than just a self-reported age bracket?

In Texas, for instance, H.B. 1131 requires any commercial entity, including websites, that contains more than one-third “sexual material harmful to minors” to implement age verification tools using things like government-issued IDs or bank transaction data to verify visitors’ ages before allowing them in. The UK has a similar law on the books, too. It’s not difficult to imagine how some other law will eventually shift this much stricter, actual age verification from websites and applications into operating systems instead. What will systemd’s and xdg-desktop-portal’s developers do, then? Will they comply as readily then as they do now?

This is a genuine worry, especially if you already belong to a group targeted by the current US administration, or were face-scanned by ICE at a protest. Large groups of especially religious extremists consider anything that’s LGBTQ+ to be “sexual material harmful to minors”, even if it’s just something normal like a gay character in a TV show. It’s not hard to imagine how age verification laws, especially if they force age verification at the operating system level, can become weaponised to target the LGBTQ+ community, other minorities, and people protesting the Trump regime.

You may think this won’t affect you, since you’re using an open source operating system like desktop Linux or one of the BSDs, and surely they are principled enough to ignore such dangerous laws and simply not comply at all, right? Sadly, here’s where the idealism and principles of the open source world are going to meet the harsh boot of reality; while open source software has a picturesque image of talented youngsters hacking away in their bedrooms, the reality is that most of the popular open source operating systems are actually hugely complex operations that require a ton of funding, and that funding is often managed by foundations. And guess where most popular Linux distributions’ and BSD variants’ foundations are located?

Developers from all over the world may contribute to Debian, but all of its financials and trademarks are managed by Software in the Public Interest, domiciled in New York State. Fedora is part of Red Hat, owned by IBM, and we all know IBM. Arch Linux’ donations are also managed by Software in the Public Interest. The Gentoo Foundation is domiciled in New Mexico. The FreeBSD Foundation is domiciled in Boulder, Colorado. The NetBSD Foundation is domiciled in Delaware. Ubuntu is a Canonical product, a company headquartered in London, UK, a country with strict age verification laws for websites and applications. Hell, even Haiku, Inc. is domiciled in New York State. I could go on, but you get the gist: all of these projects manage their donations, financials, trademarks, and related issues in the United States (or the UK for Ubuntu).

It’s relatively easy for these projects to take a principled stance against the relatively limited age verification laws that exist today, but what about if and when these laws are expanded to infiltrate the very operating systems we use? It’s easy to resist the boot when it’s pressing down on some porn website or a sex worker’s OnlyFans page, but once that same boot is pressing down on your own throat? That’s a whole different story. Will Debian, FreeBSD, or Fedora still stand their ground when the organisations managing their donations, finances, and trademarks become the target of lawsuits or the US justice system, because they refuse to implement age verification?

I sincerely doubt it.

And this is why I am of two minds about this issue. On the one hand, I fully understand that the various developers involved with these efforts want to make sure they follow the law and avoid getting fined – or worse – especially since compliance requires so little at this time. On top of that, these changes make it possible to implement a fairly robust set of parental controls in a centralised way, keeping the data involved where it makes sense, so it also brings a number of benefits for users. There really isn’t anything to worry about when looking at these changes in isolation.

On the other hand, though, I also understand the fears and worries from people who see these changes as the first capitulation to age verification, nicely making the bed for much stricter age verification laws I’m sure certain parts of the political compass are already dreaming about. With so many Linux distributions, BSD variants, and even alternative operating systems having their legal domiciles in the United States, it’s not unreasonable to assume they’re going to fold under any possible legal pressure that comes with such laws.

I’m not rushing to replace my Fedora KDE installations with something else at this point, but I’m definitely going to explore my options on at least one of my machines and go from there, so I at least won’t be caught with my pants down in the future. The world isn’t ending, age verification hasn’t come to Linux, but we’d all do well to remain skeptical and prepare for when it does make its way into our open source operating systems.

Apple reportedly has full access to customize Google's Gemini model, allowing it to distill smaller on-device AI models for Siri and other features that can run locally without an internet connection. MacRumors reports: The Information explains that Apple can ask the main Gemini model to perform a series of tasks that provide high-quality results, with a rundown of the reasoning process. Apple can feed the answers and reasoning information that it gets from Gemini to train smaller, cheaper models. With this process, the smaller models are able to learn the internal computations used by Gemini, producing efficient models that have Gemini-like performance but require less computing power. Apple is also able to edit Gemini as needed to make sure that it responds to queries in a way that Apple wants, but Apple has been running into some issues because Gemini has been tuned for chatbot and coding applications, which doesn't always meet Apple's needs.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Lawmakers say moratorium on construction would buy time to create strong, federal guardrails for AI

Amid an unprecedented energy crisis and the rapid buildout of artificial intelligence infrastructure, progressive lawmakers have unveiled a new policy to place a moratorium on the construction of AI datacenters.

“Despite the extraordinary importance of this issue and its impact on every man, woman and child in this country, AI has received far too little serious discussion here in our nation’s capital,” Sanders told reporters on Wednesday. “I fear that Congress is totally unprepared for the magnitude of the changes that are already taking place.”

Removal of Maria de Jesus Estrada Juarez after arrest during green-card appointment decried as ‘flagrant violation’ of legal rights

A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to return a recipient of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) to the US, ruling that her deportation to Mexico last month was a “flagrant violation” of the legal protections afforded to immigrants who arrived in the country as children.

Judge Dena Coggins said in her Monday ruling the administration must return Maria de Jesus Estrada Juarez, a Daca recipient, to the US within seven days. She was arrested on 18 February in Sacramento during her green-card appointment, and was deported to Mexico the next day.

Father of Grace O’Malley-Kumar calls decision to take sample from his daughter after her death ‘disgusting’

The father of a university student killed while trying to protect her friend from Valdo Calocane in Nottingham told an inquiry it is “disgusting” the stabbing victims were tested for drugs and alcohol but their killer was not.

Sanjoy Kumar, Grace O’Malley-Kumar’s father, said he could not understand why the diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic had not been tested for drugs while in custody after the attacks.

Jury in Los Angeles awards plaintiff damages of $6m, with Meta to pay 70% and YouTube the remainder

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Meta and YouTube have been found liable for deliberately designing addictive products that hooked a young user and led to her being harmed, a jury ruled on Wednesday. Jurors found the tech companies to be both negligent and having failed to provide adequate warnings about the potential dangers of their products.

The jury awarded the plaintiff in the case damages of $6m, with Meta to pay 70% and YouTube the remainder. It took nearly nine days of deliberations for the Los Angeles jury to reach its verdict. This lawsuit, over social media’s alleged harm to young people, was the first of its kind to go to trial.

• Automated Ball-Strike System will start this season

• Players will be able to challenge calls under system

Former major league umpire Richie Garcia is worried about the impact that robot officials will have on their human counterparts.

Major League Baseball has introduced the Automated Ball-Strike Challenge System for regular-season play in 2026, starting with the New York Yankees’ opener at San Francisco on Wednesday night. Teams will have a chance to appeal strike zone decisions to a system based on 12 Hawk-Eye cameras.

The verdict, which caps a weeks-long trial in Los Angeles, could set a legal precedent for similar allegations brought against social media companies.

With Social Security's trust fund sliding toward insolvency, one group wants to cap benefits for the wealthiest U.S. couples.

Former Trump national security official and right-wing activist Michael Flynn sued the Justice Department for $50 million, alleging wrongful prosecution during the first Trump administration.

The proposal offered sanctions relief to Iran in return for the removal of all its enriched uranium and other U.S. demands, officials said.

Longtime Slashdot reader JackSpratts writes: The Supreme Court unanimously said on Wednesday that a major internet provider could not be held liable for the piracy of thousands of songs online in a closely watched copyright clash. Music labels and publishers sued Cox Communications in 2018, saying the company had failed to cut off the internet connections of subscribers who had been repeatedly flagged for illegally downloading and distributing copyrighted music. At issue for the justices was whether providers like Cox could be held legally responsible and required to pay steep damages -- a billion dollars or more in Cox's case -- if they knew that customers were pirating music but did not take sufficient steps to terminate their internet access. In its opinion released (PDF) on Wednesday, the court said a company was not liable for "merely providing a service to the general public with knowledge that it will be used by some to infringe copyrights." Writing for the court, Justice Clarence Thomas said a provider like Cox was liable "only if it intended that the provided service be used for infringement" and if it, for instance, "actively encourages infringement." Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, wrote separately to say that she agreed with the outcome but for different reasons. [...] Cox called the court's unanimous decision a "decisive victory" for the industry and for Americans who "depend on reliable internet service." "This opinion affirms that internet service providers are not copyright police and should not be held liable for the actions of their customers," the company said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

They asked nicely at first. 

After an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three who’d recently moved to Minneapolis, local law enforcement officials requested a partnership with the federal government to investigate the case, as they’d done in past shootings involving federal agents.

When the Trump administration refused to cooperate, Minnesota prosecutors ratcheted up their efforts. They sent a series of strongly worded legal letters demanding evidence in the Good shooting as well as the shootings of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, a Venezuelan immigrant who was wounded a week after Good was shot, and Alex Pretti, who was killed on Jan. 24.

Still, the administration rebuffed the requests.

This week, prosecutors from Hennepin County and the state of Minnesota took the next step to force the Trump administration’s hand. They filed a federal lawsuit against the departments of Homeland Security and Justice over the evidence in the shootings, an action that Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, whose jurisdiction covers Minneapolis, characterized as “unprecedented in American history.”

The Trump administration has declined to release the names of the agents involved in the shootings, even after the Minnesota Star Tribune and ProPublica identified the officers involved in the Good and Pretti incidents.

“The federal government has refused to cooperate with state law enforcement, which is unique, rare and simply cannot be tolerated,” Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison told reporters. “[We] can’t sit around and let them do it.”

In the standoff over evidence, the case has already become a game of constitutional chicken over states’ rights versus federal immunity, a battle that will have implications for others who wish to hold agents in the president’s immigration surge criminally accountable. 

So far, neither side is showing signs of backing down, foreshadowing a fight that could take years. If prosecutors do eventually file charges against federal agents involved in the shootings, legal experts said the path to trial, much less winning convictions, will be filled with legal and procedural challenges.

“State prosecutors across the country are going to be watching what happens in Minnesota really closely,” said Alicia Bannon, director of the judiciary program at the nonprofit Brennan Center for Justice.

The first test for prosecutors, if they file charges, would be to prove the agents don’t qualify for immunity through the Constitution’s supremacy clause, a rarely invoked legal doctrine that protects federal officers from state prosecutions if they’re acting lawfully and within the scope of their duties.

Failing to pass that test would likely end the case.

The U.S. Supreme Court hasn’t taken up a case involving supremacy clause immunity in over 100 years, Bannon said, and judges have come down differently on legal issues related to its application. 

There’s no easy answer as to whether Minnesota will be able to get past a supremacy clause defense, said Jill Hasday, a constitutional law professor at the University of Minnesota.

“That depends on the facts, but probably the odds are stacked against it,” she said.

Even if they survive such a fight, the cases could be dogged by a series of logistical challenges. Moriarty, who has been leading the investigations, has decided not to seek reelection and will leave office at the end of the year. That means whoever wins the election for her seat in November could inherit the prosecutions. 

In addition to not having the names of the agents, prosecutors don’t know where those agents are now. Minnesota may need to extradite them, potentially from a MAGA-leaning state that may balk at sending them to Hennepin County to stand trial. 

“Will the federal government or other states cooperate with that? I think the answer to that is sort of iffy,” said Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University in Virginia. (Indeed, in a case involving a doctor charged with illegally mailing abortion medication to a Louisiana woman, the state of California has rejected an extradition request, citing its own laws protecting doctors from prosecution elsewhere.)

The fight is focused on three shootings. But Moriarty’s office has opened criminal investigations into 14 additional cases of potentially unlawful behavior by federal agents during Operation Metro Surge, which started in early December and has wound down over the past few weeks. 

The other cases Moriarty is examining involve allegations of excessive force or other misconduct by federal agents, such as an incident in early January in which agents allegedly used force on staff and students on the grounds of a high school.

Prosecutors are also investigating Gregory Bovino, the outgoing Border Patrol commander who helped to lead immigration surges into several American cities and who was seen on video lobbing green-smoke canisters into crowds at a park in Minneapolis. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said at the time that Bovino and other agents were responding to a “hostile crowd.”

The tension has played out in a series of demand letters sent by Moriarty to the Justice and Homeland Security departments. “Public transparency is vitally important in these cases — not just for the people of Hennepin County and Minnesota, but for the public nationwide,” Moriarty wrote in one of the letters. “The only way to achieve transparency is through investigation conducted at a local level.”

In January, after the shooting of Good, federal officials had agreed to participate in a joint investigation with the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension — Minnesota’s state police agency tasked with examining use of deadly force cases — according to the letters signed by Moriarty. 

State officials presumed they’d be able to examine evidence, such as the car Good was driving and the guns used to shoot her and the other victims. But the investigators later learned through public statements by high-ranking Trump administration officials that federal agents were no longer planning to share evidence, the letter states. 

Local and state prosecutors don’t have the authority to subpoena them for evidence like in a typical criminal investigation. The demand letters, called Touhy letters, are formal written requests, used as an alternative to a subpoena, asking a federal agency to provide evidence or testimony in a case in which the government is not a party. Moriarty sought an extensive list of evidence in the shootings, from the guns fired by the agents in all three cases to official reports, agent GPS devices and witness statements. The Touhy letters asked for a response by Feb. 17. 

Normally, the federal government complies with Touhy letters as a matter of protocol, as long as releasing the information doesn’t violate an internal policy, said Timothy Johnson, a political science and law professor at the University of Minnesota. 

But on Feb. 13, the FBI told BCA investigators that it won’t share investigative materials in the Pretti case, BCA Superintendent Drew Evans said in a statement. Evans said the police agency had reiterated its requests for evidence in the Good and Sosa-Celis cases.

More than a month after the deadline set by prosecutors, the Trump administration still hasn’t turned over the materials.

“There has been no cooperation from federal authorities,” BCA spokesperson Michael Ernster said. 

The agents involved in the shootings have not spoken publicly, but a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security defended Good’s shooting, saying the agent acted in self-defense. They said the Pretti shooting was under investigation by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, with the Border Patrol conducting its own investigation. Those investigations could result in discipline or charges, including for civil rights violations. 

The Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said federal officials found that, after Sosa-Celis’ shooting, officers made false statements. But the agency did not say whether it would cooperate with the local authorities or follow a court ruling requiring it to do so.

The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment or to questions. Neither agency has responded to the lawsuit.

Moriarty called the lawsuit “critically important” to investigating the shooting cases but also said she had not made any decisions on whether her office will file charges.

“There has to be an investigation anytime a federal agent or a state agent takes the life of a person in our community,” she said. “And ultimately the decision may be it was lawful. You don’t know, but that’s why you do the investigation. You are transparent with the results of that investigation, and you are public with your transparency about the decision and how you got there.”

But a lawsuit does not guarantee that prosecutors will get all they want. “The question then becomes, even if Hennepin County or Minneapolis wins the suit, will they comply then?” Johnson asked. “And the answer is probably no.”

If the Trump administration did eventually defy a judge’s order, he said, prosecutors could try to appeal up to the U.S. Supreme Court. As far as what could happen next: “It’s anyone’s guess.”

The post Minnesota Kicks Off Legal Battle With Trump Administration to Hold ICE Shooters Accountable appeared first on ProPublica.

Summer gasoline regulations will be waived for 20 days, and possibly longer to try to ease gas prices.

Trump says Iran's navy is "gone," so how does it still have a chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz? Part of the answer may lie off Ukraine's Black Sea coast.

Legislation subject to MPs’ approval but will be backdated due to urgency of threat to UK democracy, says minister

Keir Starmer is set to embark on a fundamental overhaul of the political finance system, starting with an emergency ban on cryptocurrency donations and £100,000 cap on donations from Britons living abroad in a blow to Reform UK.

In a hugely significant move, the government said it would bring in the annual cap as well as a moratorium on crypto donations from Wednesday as part of its new elections legislation.

Requiring third-party campaigners to declare donations all year round, not just election periods, and allowing funding only from permissible donors.

More stringent checks on the source of funds from political donors, bringing it more into line with know-your-customer checks in the financial services industry.

Preventing donations from shell companies by ensuring funding is from post-tax profits rather than revenue.

Requiring foreign consultant lobbyists to join the official register, from which they are currently exempt because they do not charge VAT.

Banning foreign-funded political adverts.

CBS News reviewed dozens of reports dating back three decades about New York's LaGuardia Airport.

British Medical Association blame government for longest proposed walkout so far, with NHS leaders warning it could cost £300m

Resident doctors in England will strike for six days after Easter after rejecting what they said was the final offer by the health secretary, Wes Streeting, to end the long-running pay and jobs dispute.

The British Medical Association blamed the government for its decision to undertake its longest stoppage so far, from 7am on Tuesday 7 April to 6.59 on Monday 13 April.

March 25, 2026 — Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Center for Artificial Intelligence Security Research (CAISER) is shining a light on AI vulnerabilities. While AI models offer tremendous economic, humanitarian and national security potential, they are also increasingly susceptible to exploitation. Identifying and characterizing these vulnerabilities has required considerable intellectual effort and specialized expertise.

Photon leverages Frontier’s exascale speed to run multiple AI vulnerability scenarios simultaneously. Credit: ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

To bring both efficiency and effectiveness to AI vulnerability detection, CAISER researchers developed Photon, a groundbreaking framework designed to rapidly detect vulnerabilities in AI models at exascale. The technology can help ensure AI-based systems remain secure and robust against attacks, a key protection as models are deployed across critical domains — from energy and healthcare to finance and national security.

ORNL researchers designed Photon by reimagining their existing technology, DeepHyper, originally developed for training large neural networks to find optimal network parameters. By inverting its purpose, now trained to detect nefarious activity, Photon can detect the most efficient attack parameters against AI models and help model developers understand how to prevent these attacks.

“It might sound devious, but it’s worked very well,” said ORNL’s Edmon Begoli, director of CAISER. “Photon accelerates the design and development process and reuses the most effective methods for exploring and exploiting vulnerabilities.”

“Exploration and exploitation” is a fundamental AI concept that describes the balance between discovering new possibilities (exploration) and making use of existing knowledge (exploitation).

Photon begins by applying publicly known attacks from a catalog of published scientific literature against a target model. It then refines these attacks by exploiting vulnerabilities discovered in the model. While this exploitation happens, Photon is also exploring the model further to uncover new weaknesses, which are subsequently exploited. The cycle continues until no further degradations of the model’s performance are observed.

Through the DeepHyper framework, Photon’s automated testing efficiently explores large hyperparameter spaces through asynchronous, decentralized execution. In other words, Photon can quickly try many different settings at once, even when the tests run on separate computers. This model differs from traditional centralized schemes where a single manager “agent” coordinates the entire optimization process.

Instead, each of Photon’s attack agents coordinate their findings with the others so if one attack seems to be most effective, other attack agents learn in real time and improve their own attacks, allowing them to exploit weaknesses to the maximum.

Frontier Enables Large-Scale AI Vulnerability Testing

This kind of attack testing speed and efficiency is made possible through ORNL’s Frontier exascale supercomputer. Photon’s ability to run in parallel – such as running several different attacks at the same time on different nodes – sets it apart from any other known AI vulnerability testing approach. For example, running on Frontier nodes, Photon can execute 60,000 “jailbreak” prompts, inputs designed to unlock restricted behaviors in an AI system, each hour. Comparably, it could take human “red teams”, groups mimicking adversaries, years to accomplish similar results, especially knowing that Photon not only executes jailbreaks in parallel, but it also coordinates these attack campaigns to constantly pursue the most effective paths.

By adapting and evolving its tactics in real-time, Photon mimics nature’s most efficient search strategies — much like ants exploiting high-yield niches in their environment — ensuring that every exploration is efficiently converted into actionable intelligence.

This approach significantly reduces auxiliary tasks and bottlenecks associated with conventional red team jailbreaking campaigns, scales effectively without loss of computational efficiency, and maintains above 95 percent resource utilization across 1,920 GPUs on Frontier.

“When we’re talking about running something at this scale, it becomes difficult to use as much of the available compute power as possible. Since you are running at such a large scale, eliminating resource downtime is not trivial,” Jack Hutchins, ORNL robust AI engineer, said. “There is still downtime when resources are waiting for what to do next but maintaining 95 percent utilization is very high.”

DeepHyper’s exploration strategy prioritizes potentially impactful parameters while ensuring coverage across the entire parameter space. As a result, Photon can detect both obvious and subtle vulnerabilities, offering a comprehensive understanding of model performance under adversarial conditions.

“Since our goal is to find highly effective jailbreaks, finding the parameters that have the most effect quickly speeds up our search for effective jailbreaks,” Hutchins said.

In a market where AI integrations drive critical operations at a global scale, ensuring the reliability, robustness and safety of these systems has never been more vital. Photon not only provides a window into the vulnerabilities that may lie within our AI models, but it also offers a pathway to rapid remediation, thus safeguarding the integrity and performance of mission-critical systems.

“Photon represents a paradigm shift in how we approach AI security. By running coordinated, high-scale experiments, we can uncover hidden vulnerabilities far more efficiently than ever before,” Begoli said. “This technology ensures our AI advancements can continue bringing much-needed innovation to a wide variety of industries without also introducing safety or security risks.”

Frontier is housed in ORNL’s Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility, a DOE Office of Science user facility.

UT-Battelle manages ORNL for DOE’s Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. The Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.

Source: ORNL

The post ORNL Introduces ‘Photon’ Framework for Accelerating AI Vulnerability Discovery on Frontier appeared first on HPCwire.

Now that more major brands are competing in the foldable market, a growing number of people are making the switch.

Tehran puts forward five-point counter-proposal and says war will end when it decides and on its terms

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Iran dismissed a US ceasefire proposal on Wednesday and countered with a negotiation plan of its own as intermediaries sought to keep diplomatic channels between the warring countries open.

Iranian state TV quoted an anonymous official as saying Tehran had rejected the plan it had received via Pakistan, saying it would “end the war when it decides to do so and when its own conditions are met”, and until then would continue fighting across the region.

March 25, 2026 — The High Performance Software Foundation community gathered in Chicago for HPSFCon 2026, bringing together developers, researchers, and industry leaders focused on advancing high performance software through open collaboration.

Credit: HPSF

Over the course of the event, attendees explored a packed schedule of technical sessions, project updates, and community discussions that reflected the depth and growing momentum of the HPSF ecosystem.

A Week of Technical Insight and Collaboration

This year’s program highlighted the importance of open, community-driven approaches to high performance computing and software infrastructure. Sessions spanned topics including performance optimization, scalability, interoperability, and real-world deployment challenges. Videos from the sessions will be available on YouTube soon (stay tuned!)

Project communities across HPSF came together for dedicated meetings, creating space for contributors and users to align on roadmaps, share progress, and collaborate on next steps. These project meetings continue to be a value-added part of HPSFCon, turning conversation into action.

Project Communities at the Center

HPSFCon 2026 placed a strong emphasis on project-level collaboration. Maintainers, contributors, and adopters gathered to exchange ideas, address challenges, and strengthen the foundations of the ecosystem.

These sessions reinforced what makes HPSF unique: a focus on practical, production-ready software built through open governance and shared ownership.

HPSF would like to thank the following for sharing updates: AMReX, Apptainer, Chapel, Charliecloud, E4S, Flux, HPCToolkit, HPX, Kokkos, Modules, OpenCHAMI, Spack, Trilinos, WarpX and Viskores.

Continuing the Conversation

The momentum from HPSFCon does not stop when the event ends. Attendees can revisit key moments and continue learning through a range of post-event resources:

• Session recordings will be published on the HPSF YouTube channel in coming weeks
• Presentation slides are available through the event schedule platform
• View the event photos here (Please credit HPSF if you use them!)
• Subscribe to our newsletter for more updates from HPSF

Thank You to the Community

HPSFCon 2026 was made possible by the contributors, speakers, and attendees who continue to invest their time and expertise into the ecosystem. Community participation is what drives progress across HPSF projects and helps shape the future of high performance software.

Source: HPSF

The post HPSFCon 2026: Bringing the Community Together in Chicago appeared first on HPCwire.

The prime minister says the condolence video after the fatal LaGuardia crash revived anger over linguistic rights

Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, has said a decision by Air Canada’s top executive to post an English-only message of condolence after a deadly crash in New York showed a “lack of judgment, a lack of compassion”.

Amid growing calls for his resignation, the airline chief’s misstep has once again revived frustrations and fears over linguistic rights protections in the province of Quebec, where French is the only official language.

Tehran skeptical of president’s offer – and troop deployments for potential ground operations – suggest claim of imminent end to war not credible

Somewhere between the strait of Hormuz and the screens of Bloomberg terminals around the world, the standard laws of cause and effect appear to have been suspended for Donald Trump’s war in Iran.

Trump this week soft-launched his latest Iran peace talks – which he has said must be accepted or “we’ll just keep bombing our little hearts out” – with few details or proof that anyone in the Iranian regime was willing to listen to him. The ultimatum was described as “maximalist” by Iran and quickly derided as a non-starter by analysts and former government officials.

A $60,000 deposit into a CD account could produce a lucrative return for savers right now. Here's what to know.

Two EV models that Sony was developing with Honda, the Afeels 1 sedan and an Afeela SUV, are now discontinued.

Members call for reparatory justice as landmark resolution aims for ‘political recognition at the highest level’

The United Nations has voted to describe the transatlantic chattel slave trade as the “gravest crime against humanity” and called for reparations as “a concrete step towards remedying historical wrongs”.

The landmark resolution passed on Wednesday was backed by the African Union (AU) and the Caribbean Community (Caricom). It had been proposed by Ghana’s president, John Dramani Mahama, who said: “Let it be recorded that when history beckoned, we did what was right for the memory of millions who suffered the indignity of slavery.”

The show will now debut before 2027.

Reform’s ability to fundraise is hobbled in a move that draws attention to donations from an overseas billionaire

Reform UK are no doubt the biggest losers from the government’s emergency measures to overhaul political donations.

Labour MPs are absolutely delighted that No 10 is at last bringing in changes that will hobble Reform’s ability to raise money from its Thailand-based mega-donor, Christopher Harborne, at the same time as making the electoral system fairer in the eyes of the public.

Nvidia's NemoClaw adds some significant advancements to OpenClaw, but experts believe more work needs to be done.

Ha Nguyen McNeill testified before House committee about airport wait times amid DHS funding shutdown

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The acting head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said on Wednesday that airports across the country are experiencing the “highest wait times in TSA history”, as the partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) enters its sixth week.

At a House homeland security committee hearing, Ha Nguyen McNeill said her agency has been shut down for 50% of the fiscal year so far – a stretch that includes last year’s record-breaking 43‑day lapse in federal funding. She told lawmakers that by Friday, TSA employees will have missed $1bn in paychecks as a result of the closures.

Cuts to family planning aid are linked to an 11% increase in deaths during pregnancy and childbirth in some countries

When Republican presidents win power in the US there is a stark consequence for many pregnant woman around the world – a significant rise in maternal mortality as aid is withdrawn, a new study has found.

Global family planning aid typically drops under Republican presidents and then rises again by 48% once Democratic presidents are elected, the research, published in BMJ Global Health, finds.

• State department to expand program on 2 April

• Algeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Tunisia, Cape Verde affected

• No apparent exceptions for athletes or officials

A newly expanded policy from the Trump administration could require travelers from five World Cup-qualified countries to front a bond of up to $15,000 in order to enter the United States for the tournament.

Visa bonds operate like security deposits: a one-time payment meant to be refunded after a traveler exits the US under the terms of their visa. The amounts generally run between $5,000 and $15,000, and are required for passport holders from certain countries to enter the US legally under B-1 or B-2 visas, the types required for business travelers or tourists.

My favorite carpet cleaners do more than just tackle tough stains and pet messes -- they also remove pollen, dust and pet dander to help keep your seasonal allergies at bay.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: Stephen Colbert already has a new job lined up for when he ends his 11-year run as host of "The Late Show" in May -- the comedian and well-known J.R.R. Tolkien superfan announced he will co-write and develop a new film in the blockbuster "Lord of the Rings" franchise. Colbert joined "LOTR" director Peter Jackson to reveal the news in a video announcement. "I'm pretty happy about it. You know what the books mean to me and what your films mean to me," the late-night host told Jackson, who led the Oscar-winning team behind the nearly $6 billion original "Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" trilogies. [...] Colbert said the next installment will be based on parts of Tolkien's "The Fellowship of the Ring" book that didn't make it into the original movies. "The thing I found myself reading over and over again were the six chapters early on in (The Fellowship of the Ring) that y'all never developed into the first movie back in the day ... and I thought, 'Oh, wait, maybe that could be its own story that could fit into the larger story.'" he said. Colbert said he discussed the idea with his son, screenwriter Peter McGee, to work out the framing of the story. "It took me a few years to scrape my courage into a pile and give you a call, but about two years ago, I did. You liked it enough to talk to me about it," Colbert told Jackson. Colbert said he, McGee and Jackson have been working alongside screenwriter Philippa Boyens on the development of the story. "I could not be happier to say that they loved it, and so that's what we're going to be working on," Colbert said. Colbert's LOTR movie, tentatively titled "Shadow of the Past," will be the second of two new upcoming films in the franchise from Warner Bros. Discovery. The first of which is called "The Hunt for Gollum" due to be released in 2027.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Cabinet Office thought to have a number of exchanges between the friends, which are expected to be released within weeks

The Cabinet Office is understood to hold a number of text and email exchanges between Peter Mandelson and Morgan McSweeney, despite the theft of the former chief of staff’s phone in October last year.

The whereabouts of McSweeney’s messages with Mandelson has been under intense scrutiny since it was reported his work device was stolen last year shortly after Mandelson was sacked as US ambassador.

Senate nominee in Texas James Talarico says ‘Christian nationalism kills’ in response to Brooks Potteiger remark

James Talarico, the Texas Democratic state representative and Presbyterian seminarian, has said he forgives Pete Hegseth’s pastor for praying for his death. On Tuesday, Texas’s popular Democratic nominee for a US Senate seat pushed back against comments from Brooks Potteiger, the defense secretary’s closest spiritual adviser, who said: “We want him crucified with Christ.”

Talarico said on X: “Jesus loves. Christian Nationalism kills. You may pray for my death, Pastor, but I still love you. I love you more than you could ever hate me.”

The spacecraft will deliver NASA's Skyfall payload, which is a group of helicopters designed to find subsurface water on Mars.

New unitary councils will replace 43 county and district councils, in latest round of local government overhaul

Fifteen new councils will be created in the south and east of England under the latest round of a major local government overhaul, aimed at boosting economic growth and accelerating mass housebuilding plans.

The new unitary councils will replace 43 counties and districts across Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Hampshire, with hundreds of councillors’ roles axed. A decision on future arrangements for East Sussex and West Sussex has been delayed.

Custom hardware enables real-time error correction on 64-qubit Kaveri quantum processor, achieving a ‘significant milestone’ for India’s National Quantum Mission (NQM).

BENGALURU, India, March 25, 2026 — QpiAI, a leading global provider of integrated AI and quantum solutions, today announced a major advancement in the development of utility-scale quantum systems. The company has successfully demonstrated high-speed quantum error correction (QEC) on its superconducting quantum processors using a newly developed, high-performance decoder platform.

Credit: QpiAI

A scalable quantum error correction system has been developed by QpiAI to enable fast, scalable error correction using a rotated surface code architecture. The decoder, based on a union-find algorithm, is designed to operate in real time alongside superconducting qubits and represents a key step toward practical fault-tolerant quantum computing.

“The design of QpiAI QEC for 64 qubit Kaveri QPU is a promising development towards large scale Quantum computing deployment,” said Dr. Nagendra Nagaraja, Founder and CEO, QpiAI. “With this setup we would like to prove Error correction and reduction in errors possible and eventually lead to fault tolerant Quantum computing.”

The system implements a distance-5 rotated surface code using 49 physical qubits. While current state-of-the-art QEC decoders for distance 5 surface codes run at 60 microsecond latency on CPUs and GPUs, QpiAI has achieved an end-to-end latency of just 1.5 microseconds and decoder-only latency of less than 1 microsecond.

Significant Milestone for Indian National Quantum Mission

Indian NQM invested in QpiAI to design the 64-qubit Kaveri QPU. Dr. Abhay Karandikar, Secretary of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), commented: “Quantum Error Correction (QEC) is essential for scalable quantum computing. By implementing distance 5 surface code QEC in custom hardware rather than traditional CPUs, QpiAI is accelerating the deployment of its 64-qubit Kaveri QPU in India, marking a major step toward practical, large-scale quantum utility.”

Technical Specifications

• Cycle Time: ~1.5 microseconds per error-correction cycle.
• Robustness: Performs five rounds of stabilizer measurements per cycle to account for measurement errors.
• Coherence: Qubit coherence times in 64-qubit Kaveri show T1 ~100μs and T2 ~95μs.
• Hardware: Compact hardware decoder completing decoding in max 40 clock cycles.

More from HPCwire

• Rigetti to Supply 108-Qubit Quantum Computer as India Expands Domestic Capabilities
• QpiAI Raises $32M Backed by India’s National Quantum Mission
• QpiAI Partners with L&T-Cloudfiniti to Advance Quantum Computing and AI Integration
• QpiAI Launches 25-Qubit Superconducting Quantum System in India

About QpiAI

QpiAI is a deep-tech company pioneering the convergence of AI and quantum computing. With a vertically integrated stack spanning hardware, software, and applications, QpiAI is dedicated to delivering powerful quantum solutions for enterprises and research institutions worldwide.

Source: QpiAI

The post QpiAI Achieves High-Speed Quantum Error Correction on Superconducting Systems with New Decoder Platform appeared first on HPCwire.

Events in Denmark and Italy show geopolitical instability is creating opportunities for a centre-left response to the far right

In the lead-up to Denmark’s snap election on Tuesday, it was revealed that blood supplies were flown into Greenland in January in order to treat Danish military casualties in the event of a US invasion. Against that surreal backdrop, the country’s Social Democrat prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, did not need to work too hard to justify a “stick to what you know” message in uncertain times.

Ms Frederiksen’s surprise gamble in calling an early poll duly paid off, but only just. Donald Trump’s threats to annex territory belonging to a Nato ally handed her party a patriotic lifeline, after it had endured a historic humiliation in local contests last November. But in a campaign dominated by domestic issues, the hoped-for Trump bump was modest, meaning that any Frederiksen-led coalition will depend on centrist support. The Social Democratic party remains comfortably the biggest political force, but its vote share dropped markedly compared to the last general election, while rivals to the left and on the far right made notable gains.

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Giorgia Meloni made public request for Daniela Santanchè to quit in effort to restore credibility after voters rejected judicial reform

Italy’s embattled tourism minister has resigned, heeding a call to step down as the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, strives to restore credibility after a bruising defeat in a referendum that has thrown her far-right government into turmoil.

The resignation on Wednesday of Daniela Santanchè, a prominent and brash member of Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, came after the prime minister took the unusual step of calling in a public statement for her to go.

Woman pleads not guilty to firing shots at Rihanna’s home while the singer and her family were there

A woman from Florida pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to the attempted murder of Rihanna.

Ivanna Lisette Ortiz, of Orlando, also pleaded not guilty through her attorney to more than a dozen other felony counts in Los Angeles superior court.

Exclusive: Parental consents in Greater Manchester up 40% as demand surges in various parts of the country

School immunisation services and pharmacies are reporting surging demand for routine vaccinations after the Kent meningitis outbreak in which two teenagers died.

Thousands of teenagers across England have booked or received jabs in the past fortnight against the A, C, W and Y strains of meningitis (MenACWY), and diphtheria, polio and tetanus (Td/IPV).

See if you qualify for one of these student-focused discounts.

El Paso, Texas, and Los Angeles, California, had some of the worst air pollution in the U.S. last year, according to a new report.

Tax relief companies promise to assist with IRS debt, but that help isn't always necessary — or worth the cost.

Markets in Asia, Europe and US move higher after Iran says it will permit ‘non-hostile’ ships through strait of Hormuz

The price of oil has dipped and stock markets around the world have moved higher on reports that the US has sent a 15-point framework for peace to Iran, amid hopes of a ceasefire in the Middle East.

Positive sentiment may also have been bolstered by reports that Iran had announced it was permitting “non-hostile” ships to pass safely through the strait of Hormuz, a move that could help to reopen the vital shipping lane.

The best VPNs for Google Chrome enhance privacy so you can browse the web, stream videos and download files away from prying eyes.

A jury found Meta and YouTube negligent in a landmark social media addiction case, ruling that addictive design features such as infinite scroll and algorithmic recommendations harmed a young user and contributed to her mental health distress. The verdict awards $3 million in compensatory damages so far and could pave the way for more lawsuits seeking financial penalties and product changes across the social media industry. "Meta is responsible for 70 percent of that cost and YouTube for the remainder," notes The New York Times. "TikTok and Snap both settled with the plaintiff for undisclosed terms before the trial started." From the report: The bellwether case, which was brought by a now 20-year-old woman identified as K.G.M., had accused social media companies of creating products as addictive as cigarettes or digital casinos. K.G.M. sued Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, and Google's YouTube over features like infinite scroll and algorithmic recommendations that she claimed led to anxiety and depression. The jury of seven women and five men will deliberate further to decide what further punitive damages the companies should pay for malice or fraud. The verdict in K.G.M.'s case -- one of thousands of lawsuits filed by teenagers, school districts and state attorneys general against Meta, YouTube, TikTok and Snap, which owns Snapchat -- was a major win for the plaintiffs. The finding validates a novel legal theory that social media sites or apps can cause personal injury. It is likely to factor into similar cases expected to go to trial this year, which could expose the internet giants to further financial damages and force changes to their products. The verdict also comes on the heels of a New Mexico jury ruling that found Meta liable for violating state law by failing to protect users of its apps from child predators.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

First lady Melania Trump argued that humanoids can help children develop critical thinking skills — and robots never get impatient.

A California woman sued the tech giants, alleging Instagram and YouTube were designed to be addictive to children.

Role for Social Democrats’ leader confirmed after meeting with king

Speaking at the debate, Frederiksen confirms she has submitted her government’s resignation as it is clear the outgoing three-party government will not have enough mandates to continue.

But she stresses the urgency of the task to form the new government, as “the world is not waiting for us out there and it has only become more unsettled since the election was called.”

An internal watchdog report in the Department of Homeland Security identified serious vulnerabilities in TSA's screenings at airports nationwide.

Ukraine said eight people were killed as Russia launched a bombardment that included its largest single-day drone assault of the war.

The mayor of Hammond, Indiana, says train company Norfolk Southern is reneging on a promise to partly finance the construction of a pedestrian overpass at a dangerous rail crossing that was the subject of a ProPublica investigation. And without the funding, he added, the project is dead.

Officials began pursuing the overpass in 2023, after the news organization and its reporting partner, InvestigateTV, documented dozens of children crawling through, over and under trains that blocked them from getting to and from school in the city.

Hammond is a nearby suburb of Chicago, the busiest train hub in the nation. At the time, the area served as a kind of parking lot for Norfolk Southern’s trains as they idled between two busy intersections — a growing problem in Hammond and railroad communities like it across the country as trains get longer.

After publication, Norfolk Southern’s CEO at the time, Alan Shaw, called Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott to discuss solutions, including a pedestrian overpass. The mayor said Shaw committed to paying the full cost of the project. A spokesperson for Norfolk Southern told ProPublica the company never made any such commitment.

The company would later make operational changes, such as stopping the trains in a different location to reduce the impact to Hammond and the schoolchildren. Still, one child was captured on video jumping from a moving train after Norfolk Southern said it made those changes.

For a while, the overpass effort seemed to have some momentum. The company paid for engineering and design plans, and in June 2023 the city received a $7.7 million federal grant for the project. While it required a local match of $2.6 million, McDermott said Shaw agreed to pay it.

The mayor said the company made no written commitment, and Shaw was fired by the railroad in 2024. Now, McDermott is accusing Norfolk Southern, under its current CEO, Mark George, of backing out of the handshake deal. “The new guy got amnesia,” the mayor told ProPublica.

Shaw did not respond to messages seeking comment.

A spokesperson for Norfolk Southern, which reported $2.9 billion in profit in 2025 according to its Securities and Exchange Commission filings, disputed McDermott’s claims that the company agreed to provide the matching funds but said it did provide the city with $450,000 and “assisted officials in successfully applying for a federal grant to make the city’s plan for a pedestrian bridge possible.”

The spokesperson also said that the changes the company made in 2023 to reduce the impact on schools are working.

“More than two years later, these changes continue to yield results, including a nearly 50% drop in blocked crossing calls into our communications center at this location,” the spokesperson wrote in an email.

But local and state officials say Hammond is still seeing blocked crossings near schools. Carlotta Blake-King, the local school board president, told ProPublica that district employees saw children at a different location traversing a stopped train as they left school as recently as last week.

A Norfolk Southern spokesperson acknowledged the blockage but said it was “not typical for that location.” The company said its trains normally have clear passage through that area without stopping. “We never want to inconvenience our communities with a stopped train, and we encourage everyone to always stay off railroad tracks and never attempt to cross between rail cars,” the spokesperson wrote. 

McDermott said he’s also noticed Norfolk Southern’s trains beginning to block the roadways again and worries that “it will slowly but surely resume to where it was.”

“I’ve already been lied to once by Norfolk Southern,” the mayor said, “so I have no reason to believe that they’re going to keep on trying to reduce the impacts upon our city.”

McDermott said the community will ultimately see some relief in the form of a vehicle overpass in the area where the children routinely encounter the train. The project, however, won’t be completed until at least 2029. And while it will include a path for pedestrians, it won’t help many students, as they would need to walk at least a mile out of their way to reach it.

Indiana state Rep. Carolyn Jackson, a Democrat who represents the Hammond area and has in the past introduced legislation to address blocked crossings, said she doesn’t want the community’s children to grow “up thinking that crawling under or over the train is a way of life.” Her fear is that without the bridge, “a child will be severely injured or killed in Hammond.”

McDermott said he has the same fear: “I hope to God, and I pray it never happens.”

The post Walkway Over Dangerous Train Crossing Is Dead After Norfolk Southern Backtracks on Funds, Mayor Says appeared first on ProPublica.

Meta lost a child safety trial in New Mexico after a court found that its platforms failed to adequately protect children from exploitation and misled parents about app safety. According to Ars Technica, the jury on Tuesday "deliberated for only one day before agreeing that Meta should pay $375 million in civil damages..." While the jury declined to impose the maximum penalty New Mexico sought, which could have cost the company $2.2 billion, Meta may still face additional financial penalties and could be forced to make changes to its apps. From the report: The trial followed a 2023 lawsuit filed by New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez after The Guardian published a two-year investigation exposing child sex trafficking markets on Facebook and Instagram. Torrez's office then conducted an undercover investigation codenamed "Operation MetaPhile," in which officers posed as children on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The jury heard that these fake profiles were "simply inundated with images and targeted solicitations" from child abusers, Torrez told CNBC in 2024. Ultimately, three men were arrested amid the sting for attempting to use Meta's social networks to prey on children. At trial, Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram chief Adam Mosseri testified that "harms to children, such as sexual exploitation and detriments to mental health, were inevitable on the company's platforms due to their vast user bases," The Guardian reported. Internal messages and documents, as well as testimony from child safety experts within and outside the company, showed that Meta repeatedly ignored warnings and failed to fix platforms to protect kids, New Mexico's AG successfully argued. Perhaps most troubling to the jury, law enforcement and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children also testified that Meta's reporting of crimes to children on its apps -- including child sexual abuse materials (CSAM) -- was "deficient," The Guardian reported. Rather than make it easy to trace harms on its platforms, the jury learned from frustrated cops that Meta "generated high volumes of 'junk' reports by overly relying on AI to moderate its platforms." This made its reporting "useless" and "meant crimes could not be investigated," The Guardian reported. Celebrating the win as a "historic victory," Torrez told CNBC that families had previously paid the price for "Meta's choice to put profits over kids' safety." "Meta executives knew their products harmed children, disregarded warnings from their own employees, and lied to the public about what they knew," Torrez said. "Today the jury joined families, educators, and child safety experts in saying enough is enough." Meta said the company plans to appeal the verdict. "We respectfully disagree with the verdict and will appeal," Meta's spokesperson said. "We work hard to keep people safe on our platforms and are clear about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors or harmful content. We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Here's what to know about the biggest iPhone update since iOS 26 dropped six months ago.

Explosions lit up Tehran skyline as Israel launched new airstrikes but by morning joggers were in the park

• Middle East crisis – live updates

The days after Nowruz, the Persian New Year, are usually a bustling time in Tehran, with spring arriving, trees blossoming, businesses reopening after the holidays, and people returning to work and school.

This year, however, Iranians are trying to maintain a semblance of ordinary life against the constant backdrop of explosions, airstrikes – and a conflict many fear may drag on for weeks or months.

Julius Pursaill, Andy Roberts and Jane Oberman respond to Polly Hudson’s article that decried Josh Wardle for creating a new game

Josh Wardle, the inventor of Wordle, a game that gave huge pleasure to so many people during lockdown, reportedly sold it for a seven-figure sum. According to Polly Hudson (The Wordle guy’s latest move tells us a lot about modern-day ambition, 22 March), he now has the temerity to create another word game, Parseword, rather than kicking back on his yacht. Imagine if everyone who has a creative impulse kicked back after their first recognised achievement – if Michelangelo had kicked back after creating the Pietà, or Picasso had kicked back after Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. Well done to Wardle, keep creating.
Julius Pursaill
London

• It seems a little unfair to characterise Josh Wardle’s new game as trying his luck again, equating it with naked ambition. It certainly seems out of kilter to be drawing parallels with that and the rampant egotism displayed recently by Timothée Chalamet. Wardle just strikes me as a bit of a word nerd and coder who likes making games. His new one seems to be a love letter to cryptic crosswords – it certainly isn’t a tilt at creating another viral sensation.
Andy Roberts
Witney, Oxfordshire

Ofcom says decision is ‘real win for children and families’ but some users raise concerns over privacy

Millions of Apple iPhone customers in the UK will now have to confirm they are 18 or older to use all available services, including by showing a credit card or by scanning an ID.

The move, believed to be a first for a European market, comes amid pressure on tech companies from the government to do more to protect children online.

MONTRÉAL, March 25, 2026 — Bell Canada today announced the continued growth of Bell AI Fabric through an expanded partnership with BUZZ High Performance Computing (HPC), a wholly owned subsidiary of HIVE Digital Technologies LTD., to deliver advanced, sovereign AI infrastructure in Merritt, B.C.

BUZZ HPC has secured an immediate 6.5 MW of gross capacity at the Bell AI Fabric Merritt facility with an option for potential additional power that may become available over time. At this site, BUZZ HPC will continue scaling its next-generation GPU clusters for commercial use. Expected to come online in the coming weeks, the facility represents the next step in Bell AI Fabric’s data centre supercluster, providing Canadian organizations with the high-performance computing capacity needed to drive the next generation of AI innovation.

The Merritt data centre is specifically engineered to handle AI’s most intense computational demands. Powered by BUZZ HPC’s specialized high-density, liquid-cooled infrastructure and accelerated GPU compute, the facility provides the design, implementation and scaling expertise required for complex AI workloads, including inference and training.

“We are excited to deliver cutting-edge AI infrastructure and deployment expertise to our customers through our partnership with BUZZ HPC at our Merritt facility,” said John Watson, Group President, Business Markets, AI and Ateko, Bell. “This partnership provides another important layer to the Bell AI Fabric ecosystem, delivering the advanced workloads our customers need in a sovereign, private and secure Canadian facility. Partnerships like these are instrumental to BCE Inc. delivering on our ambition to grow our revenue from AI-powered solutions to $2 billion by 2028.”

This partnership brings together BUZZ HPC’s expertise in GPU-accelerated computing with Bell AI Fabric, a full-stack AI offering anchored by the company’s nationwide fibre network, data centre infrastructure, software, cloud capabilities, advanced professional integration services and partner ecosystem – allowing Canadian innovators to access massive compute power while adhering to strict data residency standards with a comprehensive, made-in-Canada AI solution.

“BUZZ HPC is expanding its AI infrastructure with Bell AI Fabric across two Canadian provinces, including new capacity in British Columbia to scale near-term deployments,” said Craig Tavares, President and COO, BUZZ HPC. “This marks a major step in BUZZ’s journey to become a leading national sovereign AI platform, scaling our reach to serve both Canadian innovators and international customers. Together, Bell and BUZZ are delivering the secure, high-performance accelerated compute Canada needs to compete globally in AI.”

“Purpose-built AI infrastructure – sometimes described as AI factories – is essential to transforming compute power into intelligence at scale and accelerating the potential of AI technology,” said Frank Holmes, Executive Chairman, BUZZ HPC. “Through our partnership with Bell AI Fabric, we are providing Canadian companies with sovereign compute to help them deploy AI securely and at scale to support advanced use cases across sectors ranging from healthcare to defence and beyond.”

Today’s announcement expands upon Bell and BUZZ HPC’s previously announced partnership to deploy high-performance GPU clusters in Bell AI Fabric’s sovereign facilities.

More from HPCwire

• BUZZ HPC Launches 504-GPU AI Cluster Backed by $30M in Contracts
• Bell and Queen’s University Partner to Build Sovereign AI Supercomputing Infrastructure in Canada
• VAST Data Powers BUZZ HPC’s Sovereign AI Cloud Expansion

About Bell

Bell is Canada’s largest communications company, leading the way in advanced fibre and wireless networks, enterprise services and digital media. By delivering next-generation technology that leverages cloud-based and AI-driven solutions, we’re keeping customers connected, informed and entertained while enabling businesses to compete on the world stage. To learn more, please visit Bell.ca or BCE.ca.

Source: Bell Canada

The post Bell Canada Expands Sovereign AI Fabric with BUZZ HPC GPU Capacity appeared first on HPCwire.

Susie Wiles was on plane and witnessed event, according to files shown to House judiciary committee

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Federal prosecutors examined whether Donald Trump showed a classified map to people on his plane after his first term, including to his now White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, according to justice department materials produced to the House judiciary committee.

The incident was described in a 13 January 2023 briefing memo prepared for the then attorney general, Merrick Garland – roughly six months before special counsel Jack Smith charged Trump with retaining classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club.

Savannah Guthrie said her family is in agony as she made a tearful plea for someone "to do the right thing" nearly two months after Nancy Guthrie disappeared.

The Supreme Court ruled that internet service provider Cox Communications cannot be held liable for copyright infringement by its subscribers.

Commentary: We need to have a serious conversation about what AI tools we need and the ones we really don't.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Vanity Fair: Focus Features is releasing The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist in theaters on March 27. If you're even slightly interested in what's going on with AI, it's required viewing: The film touches on all aspects of the technology, from how it's currently being used to how it will be used in the near future, when we potentially reach the age of artificial general intelligence, or AGI. AGI is a theoretical form of AI that supposedly would be able to perform complex tasks without each step being prompted by a human user -- the point at which machines become autonomous, like Skynet in the Terminator franchise. [...] [Director Daniel Roher] interviews nearly all the major players in the AI space: Sam Altman of OpenAI; the Amodei siblings of Anthropic; Demis Hassabis of DeepMind (Google's AI arm); theorists and reporters covering the subject. Notably absent are Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. "Have you seen that guy speak? He's like a lizard man," Roher says regarding Zuckerberg. "Musk said yes initially, but it was right when he was doing all the stuff with Trump, and we just got ghosted after a while," adds [codirector Charlie Tyrell]. Altman, arguably AI's greatest mascot, is prominently featured in the documentary. But Roher wasn't buying it. "That guy doesn't know what genuine means," he says. "Every single thing he says and does is calculated. He is a machine. He's like AI, and it's in the service of growth, growth, growth. You can be disingenuous and media savvy." [...] How, exactly, is Roher an apocaloptimist? "We are preaching a worldview," he says, "in a world that's asking you to either see this as the apocalypse or embrace it with this unbridled optimism." He and his film are taking a stance that rests between those two poles. "It's both at the same time. We have to try and embrace a middle ground so this technology doesn't consume us, so we can stay in the driver's seat," says Roher -- meaning, it's up to all of us to chart the course. "You have to speak up," says Tyrell. "Things like AI should disclose themselves. If your doctor's office is using an AI bot, you have to say, I don't like that." The driving message behind the film is that resistance starts with the people. That position is shared by The AI Doc producer Daniel Kwan, who won an Oscar for directing Everything Everywhere All at Once and has been at the forefront of discussions about AI in the entertainment industry. [...] Roher and Tyrell both use AI in their everyday lives and openly admit to it being a helpful tool. They also agree that this technology can make daily tasks easier for the average consumer. But at the end of our conversation, we get into the economics of AI and how Wall Street is propping up the industry through huge evaluations of these companies -- and Roher gets going yet again. "This is all smoke and mirrors. The entire economy of AI is being propped up by a Ponzi scheme. The hype of this technology is unlike any hype we've seen," he says. "I feel like I could announce in a press release that Academy Award winner Daniel Roher is starting an AI film company, and I could sell it the next day for $20 million. It's fucking crazy." [...] "These people are prospectors, and they are going up to the Yukon because it's the gold rush."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The company has unleashed a slew of new soundbars, subwoofers and Bravia TVs.

Getting the cold shoulder from candidates? The problem might not be the market. It could be the job post itself.

Today show co-host appeared in pretaped interview as her mother, Nancy Guthrie, has been missing for seven weeks

Savannah Guthrie, the co-host of NBC’s Today show, has described her family’s ordeal as “agony” in her first interview since her mother’s disappearance more than seven weeks ago.

“Someone needs to do the right thing. We are in agony. We are in agony. It is unbearable,” Guthrie said through tears in a preview of the pretaped interview with her co-host, Hoda Kotb, which previewed on Wednesday.

Archaeologists believe remains found in Maastricht, Netherlands, may be of soldier who inspired novel character

More than three-and-a-half centuries after a musket ball to the throat put an end to decades of exemplary swashbuckling, the French soldier who inspired Alexandre Dumas and went on to be immortalised on the stage and screen – not to mention as a plucky cartoon dog – may rise again.

Workers repairing a church in the Dutch city of Maastricht have discovered a skeleton that could belong to the 17th-century Gascon nobleman Charles de Batz-Castelmore – better known as d’Artagnan – whose exploits led Dumas to make him the hero of the Three Musketeers.

Steve Reed makes statement to MPs following the Rycroft review into political funding

Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question at PMQs.

Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has urged people to reject “conspiracy” theories about the loss of Morgan McSweeney’s phone.

The NBA’s board of governors voted to move forward with the cities as targets for its first expansion since 2004. Here’s what it means for the future of the league

The NBA has moved a step closer to adding teams in Seattle and Las Vegas.

The league’s board of governors met this week and voted to explore bids and applicants for teams exclusively in those two cities, beginning the process for its first expansion in more than two decades. Bids are expected to be in the $7bn to $10bn range per franchise.

Some Iranians who'd hoped for regime change say the realities of the U.S. and Israel's war have been a "rude awakening," and they just want it to stop.

Danish palace says it has asked Mette Frederiksen to try to form new majority with her Social Democrats and leftwing parties

Denmark’s outgoing prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, has been given the first shot at forming another coalition government after an election which saw her leftwing bloc and the opposing rightwing parties fail to win a parliamentary majority.

A statement released by the Danish palace on Wednesday said Frederiksen had been asked to see if she could pull together a new majority involving her Social Democrats, who had their worst general election since 1903 but remain the biggest force in parliament.

France’s National Rally missed key targets in local elections ahead of next year’s seismic presidential vote – and the mainstream is doing OK elsewhere, too

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The Rassemblement National is not invincible. A year out from a make-or-break presidential vote, that might be the main lesson (though there are others, which may prove more significant) from last weekend’s local elections in France. What’s more, news elsewhere – Giorgia Meloni’s referendum defeat in Italy, Janez Janša beaten in Slovenia, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán in trouble, the left bloc largest in Denmark – might suggest the rest of Europe’s far right are not having it all their own way, either.

But let’s focus first on France – if only because while local elections are rarely a wholly accurate guide to future national outcomes, these ones seem to provide some pointers – and the stakes in the country’s next major election are vertiginously high.

Industry fears strait of Hormuz closure could disrupt shipping of crucial parts for UK and German North Sea projects

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A string of large offshore wind projects in Europe are facing potential delays as the Iran war threatens to disrupt shipping of crucial parts manufactured in the Gulf.

Temporary ban on crypto donations is being introduced after review into countering foreign interference in politics

Ministers are introducing a temporary ban in cryptocurrency donations following an official review.

Philip Rycroft, a former senior civil servant, made the recommendation as part of a review into countering foreign financial influence and interference in UK politics.

Man credited with cooling Greenland tensions with Donald Trump is poised to play central role in any coalition deal

• Europe live – latest updates

At the end of a long, gruelling night for the biggest parties on the right and left, there was one veteran of Danish politics who came out of Tuesday’s general election with a smile on his face – and a pipe in his mouth.

Lars Løkke Rasmussen, the two-time prime minister whose Moderates party is not aligned with the country’s left or right-leaning political blocs, is poised to play a central role in any coalition deal reached in the coming weeks.

Debt consolidation can slash interest charges, but how much you actually save depends on your balance and rate.

Greater London Authority seeks £6m refund for uncompleted fire safety work on destroyed Spectrum Building

• UK politics live – latest updates

People who lost their homes when a tower block in Dagenham burned down say they are being made to pay for the building’s fire safety works after the government demanded its money back.

Former leaseholders of the Spectrum Building, a seven-storey block of flats which was demolished after a major fire in August 2024, said it was “absolutely outrageous” the Greater London Authority (GLA) was seeking to reclaim £6m for the safety works because the blaze meant they were never completed.

Contributing to the early application of quantum computers in drug discovery and new material development

TOKYO, March 25, 2026 — Fujitsu Limited and the Center for Quantum Information and Quantum Biology at The University of Osaka today announced the development of a new technology designed to accelerate the industrial application of quantum computers in the era of early fault-tolerant quantum computing (early-FTQC).

Credit: Sergiy Palamarchuk/Shutterstock

By combining ver. 3 of the STAR architecture, a unique highly efficient phase rotation gate quantum computing architecture, with a novel molecular model optimization technique, researchers have significantly reduced computational resource requirements. This breakthrough will enable the energy calculations for chemical material design such as catalyst molecules, within a realistic timeframe using early-FTQC quantum computers.

These kinds of calculations are currently not possible using current computers, and would take millennia even using previous versions of the STAR architecture. The technologies are expected to contribute to solving various societal challenges, including accelerating drug discovery, improving the efficiency of ammonia synthesis processes, and advancing carbon recycling technologies.

Background

Quantum computing holds significant promise across a wide range of industries, including drug discovery, cryptography, and finance. However, current quantum systems are highly error-prone, and practical applications are generally believed to require quantum computers with millions of qubits.

In addition, the accurate calculation of complex molecular chemical energies for practical applications has required excessive computational resources, with prior methods limited by insufficient computational power or impractical timeframes.

Future plans

Fujitsu and The University of Osaka will continue to advance the STAR architecture and molecular model optimization technology, expanding the practical application range of quantum computers in the early-FTQC era. The partners aim to contribute to solving societal challenges by applying these technologies across various industrial fields, including drug discovery, new material development, and finance.

More information can be found here.

About Fujitsu

Fujitsu’s purpose is to make the world more sustainable by building trust in society through innovation. As the digital transformation partner of choice for customers around the globe, our 113,000 employees work to resolve some of the greatest challenges facing humanity. Our range of services and solutions draw on five key technologies: AI, Computing, Networks, Data & Security, and Converging Technologies, which we bring together to deliver sustainability transformation. Fujitsu Limited (TSE:6702) reported consolidated revenues of 3.6 trillion yen (US$23 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2025 and remains the top digital services company in Japan by market share.

Source: Fujitsu

The post Fujitsu and University of Osaka Develop New Tech for Chemical Material Energy Calculations on Early-FTQC Quantum Computers appeared first on HPCwire.

NATO members Estonia and Latvia say Russian drones hit their territory amid one of Moscow's biggest assaults on Ukraine.

Longtime Slashdot reader cusco writes: A private company in China has developed hypersonic missiles that cost the same as a Tesla Model X. This missile, the YKJ-1000, is being marketed for sale at a reported price of $99,000, and it's in mass production now after successful tests. That is far below what countries will spend to target and shoot down the missile if it's heading their way. Besides the low cost, they can be launched from anywhere. The launcher looks like any one of the tens of millions of shipping containers floating around on the ocean, or sitting at ports, or riding along on trucks, or sitting on industrial lots. The launchers for these missiles are hiding in plain sight, in other words. Whatever tactical advantages great-power countries have in ballistics is going away, fast; 1,300 kilometers is 800 miles, and so the range is anything within 800 miles of wherever someone can send a shipping container. To keep the price down, the missile is reportedly using civilian-grade materials and widely available commercial parts, along with simpler manufacturing methods like die-casting. There are also broader savings from tapping mature supply chains and using China's large-scale civilian industrial base.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

BOULDER, Colo., March 25, 2026 — Atom Computing today announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Cisco to explore how neutral-atom quantum computers can be linked together through quantum networks to enable distributed quantum computing architectures.

Under the terms of the MOU, Atom Computing and Cisco will collaborate to address critical challenges in distributed quantum computing, including physically linking neutral-atom quantum computers via quantum networks. By combining Cisco’s quantum networking hardware, software, and expertise in networking protocols with Atom Computing’s cutting-edge neutral-atom quantum hardware, the collaboration aims to accelerate the development of scalable, distributed quantum systems.

“Neutral‑atom quantum computers are uniquely suited for modularity and scaling,” said Dr. Ben Bloom, CEO and Founder of Atom Computing. “By integrating them into advanced quantum networks, we can begin to realize architectures capable of supporting the next era of quantum applications.”

As part of the collaboration, Atom Computing and Cisco will evaluate opportunities to integrate Atom Computing’s hardware into Cisco’s quantum networking infrastructure and network-aware distributed quantum computing compiler, enabling more a tightly coupled full-stack distributed quantum platform.

Areas of collaboration under the MOU include:

• Software and Algorithms: Extending Cisco’s network-aware distributed quantum computing compiler to support distributed workloads across neutral-atom systems.
• Transduction and Hardware Integration: Jointly investigating technologies required to interface neutral-atom quantum processing units (QPUs) with Cisco’s quantum networking systems, aligned with Cisco’s broader quantum networking roadmap.

“Scaling quantum computing to its full potential is a challenge the entire industry must tackle together,” said Ramana Kompella, VP & Head of Cisco Research. “At Cisco, we believe the future of quantum lies in distributed systems that connect many smaller processors, instead of relying solely on a single massive machine. This collaboration with Atom Computing allows us to explore how advanced networking technologies can help turn that vision into reality.”

The MOU reflects the shared commitment of Cisco and Atom to advancing the global quantum ecosystem and driving progress toward utility‑scale quantum computing. Additional details about the collaboration will be announced as the partnership evolves.

About Atom Computing

Atom Computing is developing large-scale quantum computers to enable companies and researchers to achieve unprecedented computational breakthroughs. Utilizing highly scalable arrays of optically trapped neutral atoms, the company has developed systems with over 1,000 qubits, featuring advanced capabilities towards fault-tolerant quantum computing. Atom Computing’s on-premises systems provide customers with new computational tools and logical qubit capabilities to address increasingly complex applications and to grow their quantum ecosystem.

Source: Atom Computing

The post Atom Computing Partners with Cisco to Advance Scalable, Networked, and Distributed Quantum Computing appeared first on HPCwire.

Former prisons minister pleads guilty to four drugs charges stemming from raid on his Surrey home

The former justice minister Crispin Blunt has been fined £1,200 for possessing illegal drugs after he told a court he entered the world of chemsex parties to help inform government policy.

Blunt, 65, a former Conservative MP for Reigate, pleaded guilty at Westminster magistrates court to four charges of possessing methamphetamine – commonly known as crystal meth – cannabis and the chemical sedative GBL.

D'Artagnan was killed during the siege of Maastricht in 1673. His final resting place has remained a mystery ever since.

The Minnesota mom of two and U.S. soldier was days from returning home from her tour in Kuwait when she was killed in an Iranian strike.

• Lead runners were led off course by guide vehicle

• World Athletics gives runners special entry

Three runners who were led off course in a race that served as a qualifier for the World Road Running Championships have been given entry into the upcoming competition.

Jessica McClain, Emma Grace Hurley and Ednah Kurgat were leading the USA Track & Field Half Marathon Championships in Atlanta earlier this month when the guide vehicle took the trio off course. Molly Born, who had been more than a minute behind the leaders, came through to win the race, with Carrie Ellwood and Annie Rodenfels in second and third. McClain, Hurley and Kurgat finished in ninth, 12th and 13th respectively, around two minutes behind Born.

Human Rights Watch and others say they have documented use of weapon in civilian areas during war on Gaza

When the M825-series 155mm artillery projectile bursts, expelling its felt wedges containing white phosphorus, it leaves a distinctive knuckle-shaped plume. That is how Human Rights Watch (HRW) researchers said they were able to verify that Israel was again using the notorious weapon over south Lebanon, reigniting accusations that it is breaking the laws of war.

The New York-based rights group said it had verified and geolocated eight images showing airburst white phosphorus munitions exploding over residential areas in the southern Lebanese town of Yohmor in the opening days of Israel’s assault during the war on Gaza.

Rising inflation and unemployment mean effects of Iran war could be even worse than the post-Covid cost-of-living crisis

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As diesel prices make history by passing $3 a litre in nearly every capital city around the country, the stresses of high fuel costs are beginning to show.

Truckies are warning they will go out of business if they can’t renegotiate their contracts with customers; farmers are warning the same, telling families that food in our supermarkets could soon cost more.

The orphaned bear cubs will receive intensive care even as their exposure to humans is limited, the San Diego Humane Society said.

Mortgage interest rates have changed considerably this month. Here's where they stand as of March 25, 2026.

UK urged to tackle transnational repression, as dissidents say Beijing has targeted them with tax bills and other threats

“I didn’t feel safe, even though I’m not based in Hong Kong any more,” said Christopher Mung Siu-tat after getting tax bills from Hong Kong authorities. “The regime can reach me by their long arms wherever I am.”

Siu-tat, the executive director at the Hong Kong Labour Rights Monitor, a UK-based NGO, fled Beijing’s sweeping national security laws years ago. The letters are the latest example of a series of transnational repression (TNR) tactics the 54-year-old has faced in recent years.

Change raises age limit from 35 and removes barrier for entry for recruits who have a legal conviction for cannabis

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The US army has raised the maximum enlistment age to 42 years old and scrapped a barrier for potential recruits who have a legal conviction for marijuana or drug paraphernalia possession.

People aged up to 42 can now enlist in the army, the army national guard and the army reserves, according to the new US army regulation, lifting the previous ceiling of 35 years old.

Move comes after judge voided Kennedy’s ACIP picks, leaving key flu, Covid and RSV vaccines in limbo

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Amid upheaval to the US vaccine advisory committee Robert Malone, the former co-chair and controversial figure who has opposed vaccines, says he has been pushed out and will not be involved in any future decisions. The move comes after a federal judge stayed the appointment of 13 members of the advisory committee on immunization practices (ACIP), essentially invalidating their roles on the committee and the decisions they have made.

Those new advisers were all hand-picked by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, after he fired the previous 17 members of the ACIP in June – but the judge ruled they were unqualified and not selected properly.

Legislation initiated by far-right Otzma Yehudit party drew mounting criticism from opponents and rights groups as it moved through the Knesset

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Israel’s parliament has advanced a contentious bill to impose the death penalty on Palestinians convicted of terrorism to its final vote, after the Knesset’s national security committee approved the measure on Tuesday.

The legislation, initiated by the far-right Otzma Yehudit party led by the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has drawn sharp criticism from opponents who warn it would mark a significant escalation in Israel’s penal policy. Members of Otzma Yehudit have worn noose-shaped pins in support of the bill.

HELSINKI, March 25, 2026 — atNorth today announced that its heat reuse partnership with Kesko Corporation went live in November 2025 and is delivering waste heat generated at atNorth’s FIN02 data center in Espoo to a neighboring branch of the Finnish retail giant.

The project marks a significant milestone in atNorth’s ongoing commitment to integrating circular economy principles into its operations. By repurposing excess heat generated by the data center’s infrastructure, the collaboration will supply almost all of the heating required by the adjacent Kesko store, reducing reliance on district heating and lowering emissions for both organizations.

For Kesko, the project supports its target of achieving a 58.8 percent reduction in Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions, a large portion of which results from heating its buildings. The recycled heat from FIN02 is expected to reduce Kesko’s emissions from district heating use by approximately 200 tons of CO₂ equivalent per year, representing around 0.9 percent of Kesko’s district heating emissions.

“Reducing emissions from the heating of our properties is a key priority within our sustainability strategy,” said Antti Kokkonen, Director of Energy at Kesko. “Through this collaboration with atNorth, we are able to significantly cut emissions at one of our stores while demonstrating how innovative partnerships can accelerate the transition to lower-carbon operations.”

The initiative also highlights the broader role data centers can play in supporting local energy ecosystems. By capturing and repurposing surplus heat, the project enhances the energy efficiency of the FIN02 facility while contributing to Finland’s wider circular economy ambitions.

“As demand for AI-ready digital infrastructure continues to grow, it is essential that data centers scale responsibly,” said Erling Gudmundsson, COO of atNorth. “This project demonstrates how data centers can become active contributors to local energy systems. By recycling excess heat, we can reduce our client’s environmental footprint while supporting our partners’ sustainability goals and delivering tangible benefits to the surrounding community.”

The FIN02 facility is part of atNorth’s expanding presence across the Nordics and forms a key element of the company’s strategy to develop sustainable digital infrastructure across the region. The business continues to explore innovative partnerships that reuse excess heat and support circular energy solutions.

The launch of the Kesko initiative follows several other heat reuse collaborations across atNorth’s portfolio, including a new community greenhouse in Akureyri, Iceland and also partnerships with waste-to-energy company Vestforbrænding in Denmark and Stockholm Exergi in Sweden to provide heat for the local district heating networks. These initiatives reinforce the company’s commitment to responsible and community-focused data center development.

About atNorth

atNorth is the leading Nordic data center company that offers cost-effective, scalable high-density colocation and built-to-suit services trusted by industry-leading organizations. With sustainability at its core, atNorth’s data centers run on renewable energy resources and support circular economy principles. All atNorth sites leverage innovative design, power efficiency, and intelligent operations to provide long-term infrastructure and flexible colocation deployments. atNorth is headquartered in Reykjavik, Iceland and operates eight data centers in strategic locations across the Nordics, as well as a ninth under construction in Kouvola, Finland, a tenth site in Ølgod, Denmark and an eleventh campus in Stockholm, Sweden. The business has also announced a new mega-site development in the Sollefteå Municipality in Sweden.

Source: atNorth

The post atNorth Brings Data Center Heat Reuse Online with Kesko in Finland appeared first on HPCwire.

About 111 million Americans are carrying credit card balances, a 17% increase in five years, new research shows.

Most of Shark's cordless vacuum models are on sale during Amazon's Big Spring Sale, and I've tested quite a few. These two deals stand out.

• Shiffrin holds off challenge from Germany’s Emma Aicher

• US star ties record set by Annemarie Moser-Pröll in 1970s

Mikaela Shiffrin secured a record-tying sixth women’s overall World Cup skiing title by holding off a challenge from Germany’s Emma Aicher in the final race of the season.

Shiffrin needed only to finish in the top 15 of Wednesday’s giant slalom in Lillehammer, and the American secured that before Aicher had even began her second run. Shiffrin finished 11th and Aicher – who needed to win the race and hope that Shiffrin finished 16th or worse to clinch her first title – finished 12th.

“It’s quite emotional,” Shiffrin said. “This thing sums up a whole season of work and fighting with the whole team and I have to say to Emma that her skiing has been just outstanding and today it was just so cool to watch her, especially on the first run.

“I think the outcome of this day is that she can do this. And I think that’s the coolest thing about ski racing – that anything is possible,” Shiffrin added.

Starmer’s handling of Trump and Iran reflects public opinion, but shows the limits of UK power Expert comment jon.wallace 25 March 2026

The war threatens the UK prime minister’s hopes for economic recovery and heaps pressure on US relations he has worked hard to maintain. A long war will see his problems mount.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has navigated the early weeks of the Iran war relatively well. 47 per cent of all UK voters believe he has managed the response to the war badly, according to recent polls. But a majority of Labour and Liberal Democrat voters believe he is doing well. 

And with 59 per cent of all UK voters opposing the Iran conflict, Starmer’s decision to deny the US military access to British bases for their initial attacks seems to have reflected wider public opinion. Starmer also had the satisfaction of seeing domestic political rivals like Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage having to rapidly U-turn on their initial enthusiasm after seeing the war’s unpopularity.

Internationally, the picture has been more mixed. The prime minister’s position aligned with European and other Western allies. But it prompted anger and repeated insults from US President Donald Trump. 

Beyond the US, the war has frayed the UK’s relations with Cyprus, whose president has called for a ‘frank discussion’, about the future of British bases on the island after it was targeted by Iranian drones. The slow deployment of a Royal Navy destroyer, HMS Dragon, to help protect Cyprus has raised further concerns about Britain’s military credibility.  

Similarly, while UK forces have helped defend allies from Iranian attacks, some Gulf officials have expressed frustration at their limited nature. The UK’s decision to remove its only mine-hunting ship from Bahrain for maintenance in the weeks before the war, despite the US’s obvious build up, fed into these criticisms.

The longer the war drags on, the more challenges emerge. President Trump’s capriciousness means it would be equally unsurprising if he declared the war over tomorrow or dramatically escalated it, through an action like occupying Kharg Island or attacking Iran’s power infrastructure. But the Iranian regime has also proven itself unpredictable and may expand and/or prolong the conflict whatever actions the US and Israel take. Yemen’s Houthis may also decide to intervene, threatening trade routes in the Red Sea.

Two big problems for the prime minister

None of this is good for Starmer, as the continuing conflict threatens to undermine two of his core goals. The first is economic recovery. Starmer and his chancellor, Rachel Reeves, have bet their political fortunes on achieving sufficient growth to repair public finances and reduce the cost of living. 

The war may have already shattered those hopes for 2026. The Bank of England did not cut interests rates in March, as it had been expected to do, citing the effects of the conflict. Energy bills, mortgage costs, petrol prices and food bills are all rising. The fear for Starmer and the chancellor is that things will get even worse as the war continues – a situation beyond their control dealing a significant blow to their electoral hopes.

A second goal for Starmer – and one of his few achievements in office so far – has been to maintain strong ties with Trump. Cracks were appearing before the war, as London stood by Denmark over the White House’s public threats to seize Greenland.

But Iran has worsened relations. Starmer has tried to tread carefully, seeking to fulfil Britain’s alliance obligations as much as possible without being sucked into the conflict. This has meant gradual concessions: initially denying the US access to British bases but then later permitting their use to defend allies against Iran’s retaliations.

Related work

UK arguments for US operations from its bases blur the line between lawful self-defence and unlawful war on Iran 

Similarly, the UK belatedly allowed Washington to use the joint airbase on Diego Garcia in ‘limited and defensive’ Iran operations, having initially refused. But London has been slow to commit to protect shipping through the Strait of Hormuz as Trump has publicly demanded, creating a significant row.

Starmer may hope that, just as the ‘special relationship’ survived Harold Wilson’s unwillingness to send forces to Vietnam, it can also endure his refusal to engage in Iran – if he simply ignores Trump’s insults. Donald Trump though, is not Lyndon B. Johnson. He may forgive Starmer and other allies should the war end well for him. But if things go wrong, Britain may have to deal with a humiliated, vengeful and unpredictable president.

Bigger questions for Britain

These are not Starmer’s only concerns. Another is to support key Gulf allies like Bahrain, Oman, and the UAE, and to ensure the safety of the UK citizens living there. The UK has done a good job of getting its people out of harm’s way rapidly, with over 100,000 evacuated within days. 

But the UK armed forces have not projected reassuring power in the region as they once could. Small numbers of RAF Typhoon and F35 aircraft are intercepting Iranian attacks in the region. And the UK is reportedly considering deploying assets to help secure the Strait of Hormuz once the war is de-escalated. But the absence of minesweeping assets at the outbreak of war highlighted significant reductions to Royal Navy capability, according to some Gulf observers.

Beyond this, the war could affect the UK in ways currently unforeseen. Regime collapse or civil war in Iran could lead to migration crises or increased international terrorism, as did the Syria conflict a decade earlier.

But even the foreseeable challenges pose difficult questions. Might the need to limit the economic impact of the war force Britain into a more active role? And might this result in more British assets being targeted by Iran, as Cyprus and Diego Garcia have already been?  

The war also raises bigger, long term strategic questions for British foreign policy. When the US begins a war that the prime minister judges not to be in the national interest, is it better to remain distant and try to manage the fallout or stay close in the hope of shaping decisions? 

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair reportedly argued that Starmer should have ‘backed America from the very beginning’ and supported the use of UK bases for attacks on Iran. Though this criticism, from a figure whose legacy in the region is the source of significant unpopularity, may lead Starmer to conclude he is pursuing the right course.

Calls for the UK to make serious plans for greater strategic autonomy, as recently argued by the UK’s Liberal Democrat party, may look increasingly convincing.

Britain’s future in the Gulf and wider Middle East also looks uncertain. Will the economic shockwaves of the war mean Britain tries to insulate itself better from future shocks, by decreasing its dependence on fossil fuels? Or should it reverse its recent distance from the region and play a fuller role securing price and supply?

The woman was arrested at routine ICE check-in and separated from two children, aged 18 months and four

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A Venezuelan mother of two who was allegedly trafficked to the US has been unlawfully detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and could soon be deported, according to her lawyers.

The woman has applications in process for asylum and a visa designed for victims of trafficking.

Yes, you should absolutely marathon them.

In House depositions, disgraced financier’s associates say they were not contacted after his 2008 plea deal

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Jeffrey Epstein’s accountant and his attorney have both said that federal government investigators never interviewed them about the late financier’s crimes and their work with him, according to deposition videos released by the House of Representatives’ oversight committee.

Richard Kahn, Epstein’s accountant, and Darren Indyke, Epstein’s lawyer, said in hours of closed-door interviews with the committee that they did not witness, nor were involved in, any wrongdoing relating to Epstein, who died in 2019 after being charged with child sex trafficking.

This Eureka outperformed the competition during our tests, and it currently has a meaty discount during Amazon's Big Spring Sale.

As physical media makes an unlikely comebac​k​ among younger gamers, the humble VHS emerges as an unexpected archive of gaming’s messy, magical evolution​ that I saw first time around

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As I am nostalgic and of a certain age, I recently bought a VHS video recorder, just for the retrospective thrill of it; then I won a 32-inch CRT television at an auction in Shepton Mallet. Partly, this was to play a few old videos I had found in my loft, including one of me appearing in a 1990s youth TV show talking about sexism and Tomb Raider. (I was against the sexism, to be clear). But it was also because I wanted a new way of spending my money on fragile video-game nostalgia.

The rise of the games industry in the 1980s and 90s coincided with the explosion of the home-video business, and the two crossed paths in lots of interesting ways. There are the obvious treasures I want to get hold of: VHS copies of Street Fighter: The Movie and the 1993 Super Mario Bros. movie, naturally, as well as early games-inspired hits such as The Last Starfighter, The Wizard and WarGames. I rented most of these from my local video shop in the 80s – which, like many others, also sold computer games by the budget publisher Mastertronic, another interesting (at least to me) crossover between these two entertainment formats.

Huge cuts announced this week show that truly no developer working in games is safe from corporate whims

The video game industry is currently experiencing a seemingly endless bout of ruinous deja vu. Every month, another publisher posts an all too familiar statement about job losses in its development studios. There will be airy expressions of regret and platitudes praising the skill and contribution of the imminently jobless; it is all filtered through layers of corporate doublespeak intended to disguise the human cost of downsizing.

On Tuesday, it was the turn of Epic Games, creator of Fortnite, one of the most successful titles on the planet. In a note posted online, CEO Tim Sweeney announced that more than 1,000 jobs would be lost – this followed the cutting of 830 staff in September 2023.

Wael Sawan warns of pressure on diesel and petrol if strait of Hormuz does not reopen to oil and gas shipping

Europe could face a shortage of energy and fuel as soon as next month without a reopening of the strait of Hormuz, Shell’s chief executive has said.

The boss of Europe’s biggest oil company said it was working with governments to help them address the oil and gas supply crisis, which has already led to energy rationing in Asian countries.

With Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents deployed to more than a dozen airports across the U.S. and border device searches growing increasingly common, it’s more important than ever to consider your digital security before you travel.

The risks are real. Customs and Border Protection agents have the authority to examine travelers’ devices. In June, for instance, federal agents denied a Norwegian tourist entry to the U.S. after looking through his phone. (Authorities claim they turned him away for admitted drug use; he says it was over a meme depicting Vice President JD Vance as a bald baby.)

Immigration and Customs Enforcement have already started targeting travelers, with agents in plain clothes forcefully detaining a mother in front of her young daughter at San Francisco International Airport on Sunday after a tip from the Transportation Security Administration.

If you’re flying, take these steps to reduce the likelihood that your sensitive information is compromised at the airport.

Don’t Bring Your Usual Devices

The only surefire way to keep your devices from being searched and seized is to simply not bring them with you on your trip. If you can’t leave them at home, consider mailing them to and from your destination.

Related

Marine Detained in Minneapolis Says Feds Copied His Phone Without a Warrant

Another option is to leave devices that contain sensitive information at home and instead bring throwaway travel devices you’re willing to have searched or confiscated. This doesn’t need to be an expensive proposition. You can reformat and repurpose an old phone or tablet, or purchase refurbished older models that are comparatively cheap. Then buy a temporary SIM card or eSIM so that you’re not using your usual number. Remember to let contacts know that for the duration of your trip you’ll be reachable at a different number.

Create a travel account for these devices. You can do so by starting a fresh account in the App Store or Google Play. This should ensure that if you’re forced to log into your device by authorities at the airport, the only information they’ll find is data you’ve put on this specific piece of hardware. CBP agents are supposed to only be able to look at data that’s local on the phone.

If you have anything sensitive in your accounts (say, emails from confidential sources) or anything you believe federal agents could consider damning (such as party pics or memes), be sure not to sync your apps, files, and settings onto your travel devices.

Disable Biometrics and Power Off

Regardless of whether you opt to bring your usual devices or specialized travel burners, take these steps to lock down your devices.

Related

Washington Post Raid Is a Frightening Reminder: Turn Off Your Phone’s Biometrics Now

First and foremost, disable any biometrics, like using your face or fingerprint, to unlock your phone. Instead, set up a unique and random alphanumeric passcode; eight characters consisting of random digits and numbers is a good start. Be cautious of entering your passcode in open view of surveillance cameras. Use one hand to shield your screen, and the thumb of your other hand to put in your passcode. Consider using privacy screens on your devices to further diminish the chance of wandering eyes noticing things that are none of their business.

When going through security checkpoints, turn your devices completely off. Don’t just put them to sleep — fully shut them down. Though having a locked device is better than having it be unlocked, turning it off is best, as this makes it much harder for data to be forensically recovered from your devices.

That means you’ll need to print out paper copies of boarding passes, rather than rely on digital versions stored in a device wallet or via your airline’s app.

If you’re asked to unlock your devices, you can say “no.” But doing say may result in being delayed and hassled, and your device could be confiscated. You should receive paperwork attesting to the confiscation and establishing chain of custody (this is called CBP Form 6051D, or a custody receipt for detained property). As the Electronic Frontier Foundation points out, it may be months before your devices are returned — or even for an indefinite period of time if agents believe there is evidence of a crime.

Delete Files and Log Out

To practice what’s known in security circles as “defense in depth,” it’s best to think of your digital security as an onion: If an outer layer is peeled off, you want there to be a good second layer to minimize the damage to the core. To that end, assume that even if you have a strong passphrase and have powered off your device, someone may still be able to find a way in. Your travel devices should, therefore, minimize the amount of sensitive information they store. In that case, even if someone manages to break through the outer layer, the information exposed would be trivial.

If you use a password manager — a specialized app that securely stores your passwords — put it into a “travel mode,” limiting the passwords it will reveal for the duration of your trip. Remove access to sensitive accounts that you very likely won’t have a reason to need to access during your travels; for example, removing your work email if you’re going on vacation, or leaving and deleting and sensitive Signal chats, like local ICE watch groups.

Log out of or delete apps you won’t need while traveling. You can reinstall and log back in when you are safely away from the airport. Remember to remove them once again when you’re on your way back — and keep in mind that this may lead to some apps deleting your history.

Finally, be sure to prune your contacts to remove any that are sensitive, such as sources, if you’re a journalist. If you have sensitive materials on your devices that you’ll need to access during your travels, use a tool like Cryptomator to encrypt them and upload them to a cloud drive, then delete the files from your devices. You can download them when you reach your destination.

These extra steps are undoubtedly a bit of a pain, but any inconvenience would pale in comparison to the potential damage if sensitive information is disclosed during your time in the airport.

The post How to Keep ICE Agents Out of Your Phone at the Airport appeared first on The Intercept.

Any Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon will work to Hezbollah’s advantage Expert comment jon.wallace 25 March 2026

The Lebanese government has failed to effectively confront Hezbollah. But a prolonged Israeli incursion will only reenergize the group.

As many focus on the US/Israeli war on Iran, another related conflict is intensifying in Lebanon. On 2 March Hezbollah fired rockets and drones into Israel in retaliation for the attacks on Iran. Since then, the Israeli military has attacked Beirut, the Beqaa Valley, the Baalbek-Hermel governorate, and the south. 

More than 1,000 people have been killed and 2,500 injured and over one million (almost a fifth of the population) have been displaced. On 22 March, Lebanon’s leadership warned of the threat of invasion. On 24 March, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz announced that Israel intends to seize control of southern Lebanon up to the Litani River to create a ‘defensive buffer’. 

The war on Iran may yet see the US declare victory relatively early, perhaps in a matter of weeks, and disengage. But the conflict unfolding in Lebanon is unlikely to see Israel walk away any time soon.

Instead, it reflects Israel’s shift towards a longer-term struggle for regional primacy after Hamas’s cross border attacks of 7 October – one that Lebanon’s fragile state may not endure.

Hezbollah’s role in the Lebanese state

For decades since its formation, Hezbollah operated a parallel state in Lebanon, with significant logistical and financial support from Iran. The group wielded a veto over the country’s politics and maintained a military force far stronger than the Lebanese army. 

The situation changed after 7 October 2023. Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel the very next day in support of Hamas, and conflict between the group and Israel quickly intensified. 

That culminated in a sequence of attacks in September 2024 which saw Israel decapitate Hezbollah’s senior leadership, including long-time secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah. In November, a fragile ceasefire was agreed, though in practice it remained tenuous, with Israeli operations continuing and the terms only partially observed.

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Hezbollah’s refusal to disarm makes direct negotiations between Lebanon and Israel more likely

For a time afterwards, Hezbollah seemed to be in decline, with public perception shifting, as Hezbollah was seen by many Lebanese as having unnecessarily exposed the country to conflict. 

The technocratic Lebanese government that took office fifteen months ago appeared to offer something different. Led by Prime Minister Nawaf Salam alongside President Joseph Aoun, the former head of the Lebanese Armed Forces, it moved quickly to assert that it alone should hold the monopoly on arms in the country. That push was strongly encouraged by the US and Israel as part of a broader plan to dismantle Hezbollah. 

The new government deployed the army south of the Litani River for the first time in decades, reasserted control over Beirut’s airport, and signalled a harder political line, including efforts to curb the language and symbols of ‘resistance’ that had long normalized Hezbollah’s armed presence in the state. 

These early moves suggested a government that was attempting to reclaim control of territory and establish legitimacy.

The Hezbollah dilemma

Yet the limits of that push were clear. Hezbollah has refused to disarm north of the Litani River and continues to wield political influence. US Special Envoy for Syrian Affairs Tom Barrack recently called it a ‘legitimate political party in Lebanon’ (though the US has designated it a Foreign Terrorist Organization since 1997). 

Reportedly, Hezbollah has been reconstituting and adapting, returning to a more dispersed, guerrilla-style organization rooted in asymmetric warfare and a mission of long-term resistance. Crucially, it still commands loyalty across much of Lebanon’s Shia community. 

These realities point to the Lebanese state’s continuing structural fragility. The country’s sect-based political system fragments authority and, combined with decades of political corruption and mismanagement, undermines coherent governance. 

Hezbollah has filled gaps left by the government within Shia communities, providing social services, education, healthcare and local support. As a result, in these areas, citizens still tend to turn to Hezbollah rather than the government to meet their everyday needs. 

Disarming Hezbollah illustrates the government’s dilemma. It can insist that arms belong in the hands of the state and declare Hezbollah’s military arm illegal. But any attempt to use force to disarm the group would likely lead to civil war. There is little political or public appetite for that, in a country still marked by the memory of fifteen-years of civil war in the 1970s and 80s. 

Others will believe that disarming Hezbollah leaves the country even more exposed to Israeli attacks, given the weakness of Lebanon’s army. 

The Lebanese people are paying the price

The Lebanese people have not yet had the chance to recover from a series of devastating events. An economic collapse in 2019 was followed by rampant inflation, the port explosion of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Israeli bombing and ground incursions of 2024. 

Populations that had only recently returned to their homes now once again find themselves displaced or forced to live exposed to Israeli attacks. Communities remaining in the south of the country are now at risk of being cut-off, with Israel destroying bridges across the Litani River and intent on creating the ‘defensive buffer’ announced by Katz.

Those who have been displaced are now homeless or sheltering in cramped or unfit facilities. The Lebanese government is making efforts to track displaced people and provide shelter and relief items. Its response is a marked improvement compared to previous crises. However, with no end to the fighting in sight the state is having to rely on civil society and international actors to provide support to communities in need.

What next for Lebanon?

Israel’s strategy risks undermining what little possibility remains of a coherent Lebanese state operating in place of Hezbollah. 

Parliamentary elections, due in May 2026, were postponed for two years due to the violence, with some parties already using developments to stoke sectarian divisions and further party interests. The gains made by independent parliamentarians and the fragile new government hang in the balance. 

A prolonged Israeli military presence will likely deepen instability and further weaken Lebanese state institutions. It will also create the conditions for Hezbollah to reconstitute its military capabilities and rebuild popular support.  

The first step should be a ceasefire by both sides and an end to Israeli incursions into Lebanon. But this now looks highly unlikely in the near term. 

That means the only viable path to keep Hezbollah weakened and potentially one day disarm it is to build the Lebanese government’s capacity to provide reliable public services and to protect the entire population, including Shia communities, both of which the government has historically struggled to do. US and international engagement should therefore be concentrated on this objective. 

A first step would be tying international reconstruction assistance to visible state delivery, ensuring that aid reaches all affected communities through government channels. Diplomatic efforts toward a broader regional settlement should also address the external flows of support, namely from Iran, to Hezbollah that have long undermined the Lebanese government’s authority over its own territory.

In the meantime, in the event of Israel seizing territory in the south, Lebanon’s government will have limited options. It can transmit messages of national solidarity. And it can deploy the army to Beirut to signal stability there and deter civil tensions.  

But the damage being done will make the government’s job even harder: it was already unclear how it would pay to rebuild infrastructure destroyed in 2024. Dealing with the destruction and displacement caused by this new fighting will need more time and money, something which the government does not have, and which will be hard to raise. 

The Lebanese government will also need to carefully assess the risk of if and how to confront Hezbollah. The government banned Hezbollah’s military activities on 2 March and expelled the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon on 24 March. But challenging Hezbollah while the group is fighting Israel could inflame internal tensions and increase the risk of civil war. 

Meanwhile the displaced will be vulnerable to exploitation, creating possible public health risks, forcing children to stay out of school and adults out of work, creating possible tensions with local residents, and compounding decades of trauma. 

Regardless of when the fighting stops, Lebanon and its citizens will be left picking up the pieces for years to come.

Government’s pilot ban for under-16s accompanies consultation as peers vote on Australia-style restrictions

Hundreds of UK teenagers will trial social media bans, digital curfews and time limits on apps under a government pilot, which will run alongside a consultation to decide whether the UK should ban access to social media for the under-16s.

During the test, led by the UK government, a proportion of 300 teens across all four nations of the UK will have their social apps disabled, “mimicking the enforcement of a social media ban at home”.

FedEx said it will give customers the option of two-hour or end-of-day delivery, including for large and oversized packages.

Democrat Emily Gregory won a special election for a Florida state House seat on Tuesday, flipping a district that is home to President Trump's estate, Mar-a-Lago.

A handful of moments at SXSW had me wondering: How much of AI is me playing a game and how much is it a game playing me?

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As US raids spread, a grassroots pantry delivers food, medicine and basics to immigrant families too afraid to leave home

Last summer, months before Memphis became overrun with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, local activists and Latino leaders came together to figure out how to best meet their community’s needs. The Trump administration’s expansion of ICE was still nascent; the agency had conducted raids in Los Angeles, but hadn’t yet begun its operations in Chicago or Minneapolis.

Amber Hampton and another member of Indivisible Memphis, a volunteer-run chapter of the nationwide civil rights organization, attended the meeting. Though neither of them spoke much Spanish, and many of those gathered from the Latino community spoke little English, they understood each other, Hampton told the Guardian.

From Nokia and BlackBerry to LG and Russia's YotaPhone, these phones tried some questionable things.

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Iran has targeted Israel and Gulf states while denying Trump’s claims that any negotiations are taking place. Plus, Democrats flip seat in district that includes Mar-a-Lago

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Good morning.

The US appeared poised to deploy airborne troops to the Middle East, according to reports, as strikes intensified across the region.

What is the 15-point framework? Diplomats with knowledge of the talks believe it is likely to be a rehashed version of a proposal put forward by Trump’s negotiating team during nuclear talks in May 2025.

What is happening with the strait of Hormuz? Iran has announced it is permitting “non-hostile” ships to pass safely through the strait.

This is a developing story. Follow our liveblog for the latest updates.

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Why Should Delaware Care?
As New Castle County faces another difficult budget year, officials are proposing a significant property tax increase to close a projected shortfall while prioritizing funding for public safety initiatives.

In his annual budget address Tuesday, New Castle County Executive Marcus Henry proposed a 17% property tax hike on residents – a major increase that officials say will only partially close a $42 million budget deficit facing the county in the coming fiscal year.   

Henry’s remarks follow a year in which county officials repeatedly had to pull money from reserves to cover expenses amid a drop off in federal funding and fallout from the county’s recent property tax reassessment. 

If the New Castle County Council approves Henry’s proposed budget, the next fiscal year would become the first since 2019 to feature a tax rate increase for the county’s share of property taxes. 

“It’s time, unfortunately,” Henry told reporters during a budget briefing on Monday. 

Asked then about budget conversations he had with the outgoing county executive — now-Gov. Matt Meyer — Henry took a deep breath and laughed. Then he said he didn’t know in late 2024 that the deficit was going to be as large as it is today.

“I was presented information that showed us in a deficit, but it ended up being much, much larger than what I was shown,” Henry said. 

Tuesday marked Henry’s second budget address, after entering office in 2024. 

Henry also said the county kept “revenue neutrality” following a 2024 property reassessment, meaning it did not take in additional tax dollars. The county’s share of property tax bills is a little under 20% of the total, Henry said. The rest goes to school districts. 

If approved, the tax hike will bring in about $23 million for the county to cover the $42 million gap between expected costs and revenues for the next fiscal year, which begins in July.

The county will also split tax rates for commercial and residential properties for another year, according to Henry’s budget.

The proposed operational budget totals just over $387 million — a 4.4% increase over the 2026 fiscal year. 

Henry said the county had been in a budget deficit for several years, but costs were previously covered by one-time federal appropriations that the county received as a result of the COVID pandemic. 

Budget cuts and increased fees

To restore fiscal balance over the long-term, county officials have described a “multiyear approach,” which includes some plans to increase spending, such as on workforce training and in public safety and public works.

Henry also said the county is going to work with state legislators in Dover to diversify its sources of revenue. County officials also said they want to convince the General Assembly to allow them to shift the responsibility of school tax billing and collections back to the school districts.

“This structural deficit was built over several years, and that’s what we’re trying to cure,” Henry said.

After relying on reserves for the past year, officials also say those backup funds are under strain.

If approved, Henry’s budget would reduce the general fund tax stabilization reserve to roughly $25 million and the real estate transfer tax reserve to about $22.5 million, according to County Chief Financial Officer David Del Grande.

And in order to make ends meet, county officials are also raising fees. 

The county will begin charging credit card fees for sewer bills and land use permits. Sewer consumption rates would also be increased by 5%.

Additionally, a total of 56 positions of the county’s full-time workforce, which Del Grande called “back office” positions, will also go unfunded for 2027, saving the county nearly $6 million in expenses.

The county currently has a hiring freeze on all “non-essential” employees. 

“It’s also health care that we don’t need to provide for 56 people, which is actually the burden.” Del Grande said.

Henry asserted that there will be no layoffs or salary reductions for existing employees as part of the new budget proposal. 

County officials have also decided to cut $2.5 million for open space and Agricultural Preservation. DelGrande and Henry noted that both projects currently have funds in them, so they are not being eliminated.

The county is also cutting $2.8 million from the Community Services Department, with a portion of that from a reduction for part-time employees. 

Almost $1 million has also been cut from some of the county’s special events, some of which, like New Castle’s annual Sleep Under the Stars event, will be paused for a year. 

Finally, libraries also will be impacted. Under Henry’s budget, the county will close libraries to the public one day a week, though no two locations will close on the same day, allowing residents to still access services. The closures will contribute to almost $900,000 in avoided costs.

Separately, in its capital budget, the Glasgow Library project will be pushed back for a year. The proposed capital budget has also been reduced by 10% to more than $75 million.

Budget increases

This year, Henry wants to focus on public safety. 

For fiscal year 2027, the county will propose an allocation of almost $4 million for union-negotiated wages, reflecting contracts covering about 84% of the workforce. It also added a little over $5 million to public safety to maintain service levels and support filling vacancies, such police, paramedics, and 911 operators.

“Keeping people safe is our priority,” Henry said. 

The county will also allocate $1 million toward its property assessment office to add 10 more positions.The additions, if approved, would bring the office total to 39 positions. The County Council recently approved adding the first five positions to the office.

Rounding out the increases in spending is a $1 million increase for wastewater treatment, and $4 million for county employee healthcare premiums. 

The County Council is set to vote on the budget on May 26.

The post New Castle County proposes 17% tax hike to partially close deficit appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

Israel and Gulf states targeted by Iran while Tehran denies any negotiations with US to end war

• Middle East crisis – live updates

The US is poised to deploy airborne troops to the Middle East as strikes intensified on Tuesday, signalling that it may consider boots on the ground despite Donald Trump’s claims of “very good” talks with Iran, as it was reported that the US president had delivered a 15-point negotiation plan to Iran via Pakistan.

Early on Wednesday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they had launched a new wave of attacks against locations in Israel including Tel Aviv and Kiryat Shmona, as well as US bases in Kuwait, Jordan and Bahrain. Drones hit a fuel tank and sparked a fire at Kuwait international airport, the Gulf state’s civil aviation authority said.

Ruling linked to takeover of Autonomy in 2011 comes two years after tech tycoon died in superyacht disaster

The estate of the late British tech tycoon Mike Lynch has been ordered to pay £920m to the technology company Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) two years after he died in a superyacht disaster.

The ruling by London’s high court said the estate was liable to pay the sum as compensation, costs and interest for the acquisition of Lynch’s firm Autonomy by Hewlett-Packard (HP), after a UK legal ruling in 2022 that he duped the US company into paying £8.2bn for the software firm.

Paul Kovacich's defense team contends that long-suppressed evidence debunks claims that he killed his dog weeks before his wife disappeared.

The US is recklessly spreading economic havoc among global friends and foes while suffering little harm itself

To shield ordinary Indians from the war in Iran, the government in Delhi redirected supplies of liquefied gas to Indian families, for which it is the main cooking fuel, limiting supplies to the plastics industry. The Nepalese government rationed gas and the Philippines trimmed the government workweek to four days. Bangladesh closed universities and rationed fuel.

They have been hardest hit by Iran’s closure of the strait of Hormuz. Economies in Asia import over a third of the energy they consume, on average. Korea imports four-fifths; Japan nine-tenths; Thailand 55%. Most of this comes from the Gulf. About 80% of oil and oil products transiting through the strait in 2025 was destined for Asia, according to the International Energy Agency. But traffic through its waters has collapsed by 90%.

The world of soccer throws up no shortage of questions. Today, Graham Ruthven endeavors to answer three of them.

Twenty-six minutes. That’s all the game time Gio Reyna has played in 2026. He hasn’t played at all for Borussia Mönchengladbach in the last two months. For any other player, this surely would’ve kept them off the US roster for the upcoming friendlies against Belgium and Portugal. US manager Pochettino has consistently repeated the point that club form matters when building these squads. Reyna, however, isn’t any other player.

The president promised to spill the beans about little green men. Is that why the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency registered the domains alien.gov and aliens.gov?

There are some very important files sitting in a US government building right now, full of shocking details that certain entities would prefer to keep hidden. For far too long the public has been kept in the dark but, thanks to the self-proclaimed “most transparent administration in history”, the truth could be about to be revealed.

Obviously I’m not talking about the Epstein files. I’ve got a funny feeling we’re never going to see the rest of those. FBI agents have been paid nearly $1m in overtime to work on the “Epstein Transparency Project”, also referred to as the “Special Redaction Project”, but even with all that special redacting, more than 2m documents have reportedly not been released. No, I’m talking about proof of alien life – which is far less fanciful than the idea that powerful people might actually face accountability.

Mildred Danis-Taylor dropped everything to advocate for the release of her husband, Rodney Taylor. A brutal year of legal and health challenges led her to Capitol Hill

Shortly after 1pm on 4 March, in a crowded hearing room on Capitol Hill, Mildred Danis-Taylor and two of her daughters stood up from their seats so that Kristi Noem could see them.

As they looked across the chamber at the homeland security secretary, the Georgia representative Lucy McBath took the mic to describe the neglectful and dangerous conditions Danis-Taylor’s husband said he had experienced during 14 months of being locked up at ICE’s Stewart detention center in south Georgia.

Idris Robinson says Texas State violated his constitutional rights over off-campus talk seized on by pro-Israel activists

Philosophy professor Idris Robinson has sued Texas State University officials, asserting that the school violated his constitutional rights by ending his contract after he gave a talk on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict off-campus in another state where a fight broke out, the Guardian has learned.

Perhaps in part because Robinson did not introduce himself as connected to Texas State at the event, it took several pro-Israel social media accounts a year to identify him and launch a campaign to get Robinson fired, targeting the school’s leadership and accusing him of being a terrorist and inciting violence.

alternative_right shares a report from Phys.org: Astronomers have an answer for a long-running mystery in astrophysics: why is the growth of supermassive black holes so much lower today than in the past? A study using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and other X-ray telescopes found that supermassive black holes are unable to consume material as rapidly as they did in the distant past. The results appeared in the December 2025 issue of The Astrophysical Journal. [...] The team ran tests of the three main possible scenarios currently being considered for the slowdown of black hole growth. These options were: could the decline in black hole growth be caused by less efficient rates of consumption, or by smaller typical black hole masses, or by fewer actively growing black holes? Their analysis of the data, extending over billions of years of cosmic history, led them to the conclusion that black holes are indeed consuming material less rapidly the later they are found after the Big Bang. The researchers expect this trend of slower-growing black holes to continue into the future.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Why Should Delaware Care? 
School referendums are the only time that Delawareans can have a direct say in their taxation rate, but they also make it harder for school districts to meet rising costs. One year after the Smyrna School District’s referendum attempt failed, and eight months after staff members began picketing board meetings, the district and Smyrna Education Association have come to an agreement regarding staff pay increases. 

A yearlong standoff between the Smyrna School District and its union of teachers and other school staff has ended with a small pay raise for employees.

Following the agreement last week, the two sides released a joint statement saying the deal “serves both parties fairly.” 

The statement also noted that the district will likely ask voters to increase school taxes in the near future. If successful, the referendum would fund staff retention and recruitment, as well as other items, according to the statement. 

“The parties look forward to a successful operating revenue referendum in the near future and will work collaboratively toward this goal,” the district and union said in the statement. 

The statement comes in sharp contrast from what was months of turmoil in the district that sits along the Kent and New Castle county line. Sometimes it was obvious to the public with protests outside of school board meetings. Other times, a quieter tension existed as the two sides engaged in months in mediation or other formal negotiations.   

Now, with a deal secured, employee raises will be based on their years of experience. The newest workers will receive a $150 raise per year, while the most senior employees will get $420 increases, according to a memorandum obtained by Spotlight Delaware.

The increases take effect immediately, and carry forward into the 2027 fiscal year beginning in July, but there will be no additional increases.

Those raises cannot exceed 4% for any employee, according to the memorandum.

Smyrna Board of Education President Jonathan Snow told Spotlight Delaware that the board has not planned when the district will hold its next referendum vote, but conversations about future referendum plans will start this summer. 

“Given our financial situation and the escalating cost associated with running schools in the state of Delaware at the moment, another referendum will have to happen,” Snow said.

What led to this?

The deal resolves what has been an ongoing fight between the district and its employees’ union since a referendum request failed last year, leaving schools struggling to pay their bills.

More than half of the $5.4 million that could have been raised by the 2025 referendum in its first year would have paid for staff salaries, with teachers receiving raises during the subsequent two years.

It also would have funded extracurricular activities, technology upgrades, utilities costs, and the hiring of additional school constables.

Still, nearly 60% of district voters rejected the referendum last year. In their joint statement last week, school officials did not say how they will try to convince voters to approve a referendum next time. 

In the wake of the vote last year, school staff claimed the district backtracked on promised pay increases, while district officials said they needed to ensure their schools remained financially stable. 

While the Smyrna Education Association is not legally allowed to strike, union members picketed district board meetings last fall, with dozens of teachers wearing black shirts, and some holding signs that said “Worth More Than 0%.” 

The signs referenced the district’s decision to not increase the educators’ pay scale. 

In October, the Smyrna Board of Education released a statement in response to the ongoing protests, stating it would be “fiscally irresponsible” to provide raises with “non-sustainable funding.” 

The board also cited recent inflation in its statement, saying Smyrna schools will have to spend $750,000 more this year just to maintain the level of services they previously provided.

In Delaware, educators’ salaries are funded by a combination of state and local tax revenue, with the state paying approximately 70% of an individual’s total salary.

The post Smyrna School District, teachers union reach deal on pay raises  appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

As the number of people with cameras on their dashboards and doorbells has grown, so have reports of such sightings.

If you’re looking for the best hair dryer for your specific hair type and budget, we tested popular models from Shark, Dyson and more.

Federal health officials posted a warning about misleading statements by biotech billionaire Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong about his company's bladder cancer drug Anktiva.

Apple has the cutting-edge sci-fi you're looking for.

The 37-year-old may come across as corny and gauche. But he’s already won one NBA championship and it probably won’t be his last

The Boston Celtics’ head coach, Joe Mazzulla, is a very odd man. He is also a very good coach.

Take, for example, a story Celtics guard Derrick White told in an interview last November. According to White, the first sound at one Celtics practice wasn’t a whistle.

Trump’s oil blockade is starving the island of vital resources. His brute force isn’t making America great again – it’s breeding resentment across the globe

The US has become a power that knows only how to destroy. In the Ramón González Coro maternity hospital in Havana, Cuba, I saw what that looks like in human terms.

Maria lies on a hospital bed, wrapped in a dark blue blanket, two friends at her side. She is 50, with terminal cervical cancer, and nothing but praise for her doctors. But she is also a victim of a decades-long US siege, drastically intensified by Donald Trump’s decision earlier this year to threaten tariffs against countries that deliver fuel to Cuba. The result has been no fuel imports for three months, meaning the island is running out of diesel and fuel reserves. The electricity grid is collapsing and life is grinding to a halt.

Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist

Tony Burke says decisions about permanent stays should be ‘deliberate decisions of the government, not a random consequence of who booked a holiday’

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Iranian tourists will be banned from entering Australia for the next six months after the home affairs minister, Tony Burke, triggered tough new immigration laws over concerns visitors may not be able to return to Iran.

The ban could apply to up to 7,200 Iranians with valid tourist visas – though some may still be given the chance to enter the country under special consideration.

Report by Verdant says rooting out waste, fraud and tax avoidance would save money that could help improve public services

A “Doge of the left,” could save up to £30bn a year for taxpayers by rooting out waste, fraud and tax avoidance, according to the first report from a new green thinktank.

Launched amid growing interest in the future manifesto of Zack Polanksi’s Green party, the Verdant thinktank will be co-chaired by James Meadway, a former adviser to Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell, and civil society campaigner Deborah Doane.

Dayton Webber’s former playing partner says: ‘Dayton has a great family, and I care about that family. Yet obviously, there is somebody [who] died’

The former doubles partner of a professional, championship-winning cornhole player who had his four limbs amputated in his infancy and is now accused of a deadly shooting says he was shocked to learn about the case, calling it an instance of at least two families being torn apart in one fell swoop.

“I’ve been mad, sad – it sucks,” Mike Hoffman said of his past cornhole teammate Dayton Webber during a telephone interview on Tuesday.

Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek is on the verge of giving the Portland Trail Blazers a major gift: hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars to overhaul the team’s arena in an effort to keep the Blazers’ incoming owner, billionaire Tom Dundon, from moving the NBA franchise to a new city.

The deal came together with little public discussion of how Oregon and other states in 2020 landed a $550 million settlement with the car loan company where Dundon built his wealth. The settlement followed an investigation into lending practices that Oregon’s then-attorney general, in a news release, described as “predatory and harmful.”

Now, Oregon Public Broadcasting and ProPublica have obtained documents that reveal the role Dundon played in pushing some of the key company practices that regulators later presented as problematic.

Specifically, the documents show that Dundon, as the company’s CEO, was behind what regulators called an “aggressive push” at Santander Consumer USA in 2013 to waive requirements that car dealers prove borrowers had enough income to afford loans. The company would then charge more for those loans to ensure profit even in cases where borrowers ultimately failed to keep up with payments, according to internal emails and a slide deck that described findings in the multistate investigation.

Oregon officials wrote in their 2020 court complaint against Santander Consumer that many customers took out loans under the “false pretense” that they were acquiring a car they’d eventually own, when in fact the terms of the loans were so onerous that they would “almost certainly” result in the loan defaulting and the car getting repossessed.

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, when asked about Dundon’s call for waiving proof of income on car loans when he was at Santander Consumer, said in a statement: “Proof of income requirements exist for a reason — they protect borrowers from being sold loans they cannot afford. When those guardrails get waived, dealerships win in the short term, and consumers lose.”

Rayfield, who was elected in 2024, is working with other state attorneys general in a continuing investigation into another auto loan company, Exeter Finance, where Dundon’s website lists him as an investor and where he has served as chairman of its board. Dundon left Santander Consumer in 2015.

“Working families put a lot on the line when they take out a loan,” Rayfield said, “and they deserve lenders who treat them fairly and follow the law.”

Read More

Before Tom Dundon Agreed to Buy the Portland Trail Blazers, Oregon Accused the Company He Created of Predatory Lending

Dundon, whose deal to buy the Trail Blazers is expected to close on March 31, did not answer emails sent to his investment firm from OPB and ProPublica that included a copy of the newly obtained records and a list of questions. When provided separately with an overview of the story via text to his phone, he responded simply: “Can talk after 3/31.”

Exeter has said in regulatory filings that it is cooperating with the current multistate investigation. A spokesperson for Exeter declined to comment. 

Asked for comment by OPB and ProPublica, Santander Consumer referred back to the statement it gave the newsrooms for an October story: “Operating in a highly regulated industry, we have robust processes in place that are designed to protect customers and adhere to all regulatory requirements and industry best practices.”

Lawmakers recently approved $365 million in public funding to renovate Portland’s 30-year-old Moda Center, home to the Blazers, one of Oregon’s most prominent businesses. The bill awaits Kotek’s signature. Combined with city and county money, the total proposed public backing has reached $870 million, far exceeding what the team originally asked for.

Kotek’s office did not respond when asked when she became aware of the investigations into businesses connected to Dundon and whether it affected her position on giving public money to the team. Instead, a spokesperson pointed to public remarks Kotek made in support of public funding for the Blazers arena as the Legislature adjourned.

“This is a great first step,” Kotek told reporters at the time. “We’re going to get the best deal possible for Oregon, and the economic impact of keeping not only the Blazers but all the activity at Moda is really important for the state.”

The chief sponsor of the bill, Senate President Rob Wagner, a Democrat representing the Portland suburb of Lake Oswego, also declined to answer when asked if he was aware of Oregon’s investigations into Dundon’s businesses.

“The Oregon Legislature does not have a role in who owns the Trail Blazers,” Wagner said in a statement. “Our goal all along has been to support the renovation of Oregon’s Arena so it can remain an economic and entertainment hub for the region.”

But a prominent critic of the deal with the Blazers said Dundon’s history with regulators is troubling.

State Sen. Khanh Pham, a Portland Democrat who cast one of just six no votes in the 30-person chamber, wrote at the time that she supported a public investment in the arena but worried the Legislature wasn’t including enough protections for taxpayers. She tried unsuccessfully to win amendments that would require the state to negotiate a private investment and revenue sharing with the Blazers.

Pham said she wasn’t aware of Dundon’s history in Oregon until OPB and ProPublica asked her about the newly obtained emails.

“This new information affirms that guardrails on public-private partnerships are important in all instances and especially this one,” Pham said in a statement.

“Ignoring This Internal Concern”

Dundon was known as a key player in the rise of subprime lending to car buyers, a niche that supporters say makes car ownership possible for people with poor credit. He sold the subprime company he founded to a Spanish firm in 2006, retaining a 10% stake and becoming CEO of the newly formed company.

In January 2013, he took a step that would keep the company’s lending from being slowed down by people having to prove they could afford the cars they were buying. He set a plan in motion that would let the company advertise to car dealers that Santander Consumer wasn’t going to ask anymore for proof of income, or “POI,” in order to issue a loan.

“Lets do a test,” Dundon wrote to two of his senior employees, Karthik Chandrasekhar and Steve Zemaitis. “I want to waive poi more often.”

As the plan moved forward, Santander Consumer’s chief risk and compliance officer, Michele Rodgers, sent an email on Jan. 21, 2013, to Zemaitis and various senior executives expressing worry the company’s plan could violate federal law.

Rodgers identified potential concerns surrounding anti-money laundering and identity theft laws. She also noted that federal regulators were less than a year from implementing a new rule for another type of loan — home mortgages — requiring those lenders to “determine the consumer’s ability to repay both the principal and the interest over the long term.”

But the records collected by the attorneys general indicate the plan proceeded.

Two weeks after Dundon’s email, Santander’s marketing and sales teams got involved, records show.

Matt Fitzgerald, Santander Consumer’s executive vice president of sales and marketing, described a conversation with Dundon about “stips,” or statements stipulating the borrower’s income, address and phone number have been verified.

“I just rode up the elevator with TD and he wants us to market (fax, e-mails, sale handout) the waiving of stips to all dealers,” Fitzgerald wrote on Jan. 30, 2013. “And he wants to see these communications by the end of the day.”

He added: “We can serve it up to dealers that due to their good performance of the loans, we have decided to waive these certain stips to make it easier for you to close deals.”

Mark Williams, a former Federal Reserve regulator who teaches finance at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, reviewed the state’s summary of the company’s correspondence and said it was troubling that internal concerns seemed to go unheeded.

Williams described proof of income as one of the pillars of bank lending.

“To say, ‘Sure, I’ll give you a loan and we don’t even care whether you make income or not,’ or, ‘You don’t even have to state your income,’ that’s counter to just sound banking practices,” he said.

By early February of that year, the company was days away from announcing its new plan to car dealers, including a fax-based marketing plan and promotional flyer, ready for final approval.

“Flyer looks good,” Robert O’Brien, senior vice president at Santander, wrote on Tuesday, Feb. 5, “however the POI change will not be in the system until Thursday.”

He suggested holding off a couple of days. Then Rodgers, the company’s chief risk and compliance officer, chimed in again with a question.

“What is the POI Change?” she asked.

“Tom wants to waive POI as much as possible and build in pricing to cover the incremental risk,” O’Brien wrote back. O’Brien said that their tests showed the stated income was correct on most loans, and that they would continue to require proof of income for dealers with a history of problems. He said they found that requiring proof of income “reduces capture especially in the nearprime segment.”

In other words, the company felt it was limiting its business opportunities by forcing potential customers to prove they could afford to pay back a car loan. Any increase in risk created by the new approach would be made up through fees and interest rates.

“I am just trying to ensure we aren’t disparately treating any of our customer base,” Rodgers wrote to O’Brien on Feb. 5, 2013. Under fair lending laws, companies are not allowed to enact policies that would have disparate impacts on certain groups of customers, such as people of a particular race or gender.

Dundon is not listed as a recipient on the emails that Rodgers sent, and the degree to which her concerns may have been shared with him is unclear from the company emails obtained by OPB and ProPublica. 

However, in the slide presentation regulators gave to Santander Consumer, they  said the remarks O’Brien and Fitzgerald described Dundon making showed he continued to push for waiving proof of income even after Rodgers raised red flags on Jan. 21. The slides characterized Dundon as “ignoring this internal concern” from his company’s risk and compliance officer.

Oregon’s subsequent 2020 legal complaint against the company alleged Santander Consumer did not, as O’Brien’s email suggested it would, continue requiring proof of income from dealers with a history of fudging borrowers’ incomes as it launched its new approach.

“When Santander rolled out this change to its funding requirements, Santander did not bar those dealers identified as ‘problematic’ by Santander from using stated income on loan applications,” Oregon’s attorney general wrote in the 2020 complaint. “Santander’s decision to broadly market its new stated-income policy, even to dealers with a history of misstating income, led to a significant spike in the number of early payment defaults.”

Dundon’s 2015 departure from Santander Consumer came with a separation agreement of more than $700 million, including cash for stock he owned, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

Rodgers, Zemaitis and Chandrasekhar all left Santander Consumer and are currently listed as senior executives at Exeter Finance, a subprime car lender where a number of top Santander Consumer employees have landed.

They did not respond when OPB and ProPublica sent copies of the Santander Consumer correspondence in which they are named and requested comment. O’Brien and Fitzgerald are no longer alive.

Santander Consumer did not admit any wrongdoing as part of the settlement it paid to 33 states — including Oregon — and the District of Columbia.

Private Business, Public Money

Six years after the settlement, Dundon and his associates are playing hardball in negotiations with state and city leaders to secure public money to revamp Portland’s Moda Center.

Although sports arena renovations in some cities have been 100% taxpayer-financed, at least 10 — including in Atlanta; Phoenix; Jacksonville, Florida; and Cleveland — have been funded wholly or partially with private money during the past decade. Just north of Portland, Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena opened in 2021 after $1.15 billion in renovations that were entirely privately financed.

That same precedent exists in Portland: When the Moda Center opened in 1995 — back then it was Portland’s Rose Garden — Blazers owner Paul Allen got $34.5 million from the city of Portland but financed the rest of the $262 million construction himself.

Dundon, too, has offered private dollars as part of arena renovations in the past. In 2023, he agreed to a new arena lease in Raleigh, North Carolina, for his professional hockey team, the Carolina Hurricanes. Raleigh put $300 million toward the arena while Dundon committed to investing $800 million over 20 years toward developing an entertainment district in the surrounding area.

Portland was a different story.

According to a January chat group message from a city employee whose job is to manage sports venues, a consultant for the team and Dundon’s billionaire ownership group was asking for the public to cover 100% of the cost to renovate the Moda Center.

A phalanx of lobbyists hired by the Blazers, meanwhile, were telling state lawmakers they’d need a total of $600 million, starting this year.

“The assumption that the incoming ownership group can finance an additional $600 million for Moda Center — which is now a publicly-owned community asset is not possible,” lobbying materials from the Blazers stated.

After state and local leaders concluded that the team’s initial ask wasn’t nearly enough to cover rising construction costs, they bumped up the investment to $870 million.

Team representatives wrote in the lobbying material that the Blazers’ future in Portland was at stake — and that a departure would threaten the city’s turnaround from pandemic-era headlines about downtown retail vacancies and crime.

“If the Portland Trail Blazers leave Rip City,” team officials stated, “we are losing far more than the tax revenue the Blazers generate for the General Fund. It would have a devastating impact on the City’s national and international reputation and would feed the ‘doom loop’ narrative we have all been working to refute.”

The Blazers did not respond to emailed questions. When asked about the lobbying effort in a March 17 interview on OPB’s “Think Out Loud,” the Blazers’ President of Business Operations Dewayne Hankins said Dundon’s ownership group never explicitly told the team it would move without a public investment. But he noted that other cities are pushing hard to get an NBA team and said the Blazers had “heard rumblings” of interest.

“You have a team that has very few years left on their lease,” Hankins said of the Blazers. “You have a team that could potentially be portable.”

Portland Mayor Keith Wilson declined to say whether Dundon’s business history would affect the city’s ongoing negotiations with the Blazers after the late Paul Allen’s sister agreed to sell the team. The council plans to take up the issue of arena funding no later than this summer.

“Jody Allen chose to sell the team to the ownership group led by Tom Dundon,” Wilson said in a statement, echoing a point made by Oregon’s Senate president. “The City is not a decision maker in the process of approving franchise ownership changes; that authority lies exclusively with current team ownership and the NBA. The City will work in good faith with whoever owns the Trail Blazers.”

John Van Alst, senior attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, said state and local officials should use caution in negotiating with someone whose business the state previously accused of violating consumer protection laws.

“If they’re willing to violate those rules, I’d be concerned about doing business with them,” Van Alst said.

Van Alst said leaders in Portland, far more so than people buying a car through a subprime lender like Santander Consumer or Exeter, have options at their disposal as they negotiate for the Blazers’ future.

“They have more resources to make good choices, hopefully, than a lot of folks do who get themselves tangled up in really bad subprime auto financing,” Van Alst said.

The post New Portland Trail Blazers Owner Played Key Role at Company Oregon Accused of Predatory Lending appeared first on ProPublica.

Concern that Iran was amassing missiles to overwhelm defenses was a key factor in the push for war, officials said, and recent strikes laid bare Israel’s vulnerability.

Triple J signed off with the hip-hop anthem Express Yourself while other radio and TV networks filled the air with BBC broadcasts, re-runs and soothing music

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Broadcasters had warned their audiences that the ABC would look “a bit different” on Wednesday – and as the clock struck 11am, they weren’t wrong.

As more than 2,000 ABC staff walked off the job for the first time in two decades in protest of their working conditions, the public broadcaster’s news channel switched over to the BBC.

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The fragility of the global food system fills me with dread – and the war with Iran has exposed just how close to collapse it is

The fate of environmentalists is to spend their lives trying not to be proved right. Vindication is what we dread. But there’s one threat that haunts me more than any other: the collapse of the global food system. We cannot predict what the immediate trigger might be. But the war with Iran is just the right kind of event.

Drawing on years of scientific data, I’ve been arguing for some time that this risk exists – and that governments are completely unprepared for it. In 2023, I made a submission to a parliamentary inquiry into environmental change and food security, with a vast list of references. Called as a witness, I spent much of the time explaining that the issue was much wider than the inquiry’s scope.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

NASA is reportedly halting work on the lunar Gateway in favor of a more direct push to build a lunar base. The new plan would cost tens of billions over the next decade, though the change could face hurdles because Congress previously funded Gateway specifically. SpaceNews reports: "Starting today, we're building humanity's first deep space outpost," said Carlos Garcia-Galan, program executive for NASA's moon base effort. The lunar base will take place in three phases. Phase 1, running from 2026 to 2028, "is all about getting to the moon reliably," he said. That includes a significant increase in the cadence of lander missions through the Commercial Lunar Payload Services and other programs. It will also focus on developing enabling technologies and getting "ground truth" for potential base locations at the lunar south pole. Phase 2, from 2029 through 2031, starts building the base, he said. That would include building out communications, navigation, power and other infrastructure, developing larges CLPS cargo landers and supporting two crewed missions a year. Phase 3, beginning 2032, will enable "long distance and long duration human exploration" on the moon, he said, with routine logistics missions to the moon and uncrewed cargo return missions from the moon. Garcia-Galan said NASA foresees spending $10 billion each on Phases 1 and 2. Phase 3, lasting to at least 2036, would cost an additional $10 billion or more. The base would leverage existing programs, although with some changes. NASA is planning to revamp the Lunar Terrain Vehicle program after concluding the current approach would take too long to get a crew-capable rover to the moon. "We were projecting a delivery on the lunar surface by 2030," he said. The agency is instead issuing a draft request for proposals for simplified rovers that could be quicker and easier to develop but could be upgraded later. The base, though, would include some new capabilities and technologies. One example Garcia-Galan provided was MoonFall, a drone that would be able to hop from one location to another on the lunar surface. The drones will be "built on the legacy" of Ingenuity, the small Mars helicopter. "We're going to take everything that we learned from Ingenuity's systems, the avionics, all of that, to build this."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

President urges people to reduce consumption after power line passing through Ukraine damaged by drones; Moscow spring offensive steps up. What we know on day 1,491

Moldova declared a state of emergency in the energy sector after a key power line with Europe was disconnected following Russian strikes in Ukraine. The declaration comes into effect on Wednesday and lasts for 60 days. The prime minister, Alexandru Munteanu, appealed to people to “avoid unnecessary consumption, especially during peak hours” and “stay united”, according to a statement from parliament. The former Soviet republic imports electricity from neighbouring EU member Romania, mostly via a power cable that passes through southern Ukraine. Moldovan authorities said crashed drones had been identified in Ukraine near the line and that “demining operations” were needed before repairs could be done. Restoring the power line itself was expected to take up to seven days, the energy minister, Dorin Junghietu was quoted by the Moldovan media outlet Ziarul de Gardă as saying. “Russia alone bears responsibility,” the Moldovan president, Maia Sandu, wrote on X, while the foreign ministry also condemned the Russian attacks. Russia has frequently targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure since it invaded its neighbour in 2022.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has accused Russia of “absolute depravity” after Moscow fired an unprecedented daytime barrage across Ukraine, including on the historical centre of the western city of Lviv. “Iranian ‘shaheds’ [attack drones], modernised by Russia, are striking a church in Lviv – this is absolute depravity, and only someone like [Vladimir] Putin could find this appealing,” Zelenskyy said in his daily address. “The scale of this attack makes it abundantly clear that Russia has no intention of actually ending this war,” Zelenskyy added, vowing that Ukraine “will certainly respond to any attacks”.

Russia’s military said on Wednesday it had shot down 389 Ukrainian drones overnight in one of the largest attacks to date. Russian regions bordering Ukraine, as well as Moscow and northwestern Leningrad were the main areas targeted, according to the military.

Moscow appears to be stepping up a spring offensive intended to break Ukrainian resistance, writes Pjotr Sauer. Ukrainian officials said Moscow fired nearly 400 long-range drones and 23 cruise missiles overnight, followed by another 556 drones in an unusual daytime assault on Tuesday, hitting cities across the west of the country and killing at least seven people. Taken together, the barrage marks one of the largest aerial bombardments of Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion more than four years ago. One Russian drone struck the Bernardine monastery, a 16th-century church in Lviv’s Unesco-listed medieval centre, causing damage, local authorities said.

North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, said his country would always support Russia in a thank-you letter to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. Ties between the two have grown closer since Putin began the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with Pyongyang sending ground troops and weapons systems to aid Russia’s war effort. “I express my sincere thanks to you for sending warm and sincere congratulations first on my reassumption of the heavy duty as president of the state affairs,” Kim said in the message on Tuesday, the official Korean central news agency said. “Today the DPRK and Russia are closely cooperating to defend the sovereignty of the two countries,” Kim said, using the initials of the North’s official name. “Pyongyang will always be with Moscow. This is our choice and unshakable will,” he added. South Korean and western intelligence agencies have estimated that the North has sent thousands of soldiers to Russia, primarily to the Kursk region, along with artillery shells, missiles and long-range rocket systems. Analysts say the assistance has been provided in exchange for Russia’s provision of food and weapons technologies.

President’s declaration allows officials to tackle fuel hoarding or profiteering, while energy secretary says country will lean more heavily on coal

• Middle East crisis – live updates

The Philippines president, Ferdinand Marcos, has declared a state of “national energy emergency” as a result of the Middle East war, which his administration said posed “an imminent danger of a critically low energy supply”.

The state of emergency, which will initially last for a year, was declared just hours after the country’s energy secretary said the Philippines planned to boost the output of its coal-fired power plants to keep electricity costs down as the war wreaks havoc with gas shipments.

• American No 4 seed beats Belinda Bencic 6-3, 1-6, 6-3 in quarter-final

• Gauff next faces 13th seed Karolína Muchová for a place in final

Coco Gauff may be struggling with an unfamiliar arm injury, indifferent form and the pressure of attempting to transform her serve with the entire tennis world watching, but the one quality that will never evade her is her fighting spirit.

Under far from ideal circumstances, Gauff’s mental toughness continues to guide her through the Miami Open draw and to her best ever result at her home town tournament. She navigated a path into the semi-finals for the first time in her career with an arduous 6-3, 1-6, 6-3 win over Bencic.

Dozens of former Israeli military, police and spy chiefs describe situation as ‘organised Jewish terrorism’

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Israel has not prosecuted its citizens for killing Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank since the start of this decade, a Guardian analysis of legal data and public records show, creating impunity for a campaign of violence.

Attacks have spurred former prime minister Ehud Olmert to call for an intervention by the international criminal court (ICC), to “save the Palestinians and us [Israelis]” from state-backed settler violence, carried out with the complicity and sometimes participation of the police and military.

I had to deal with the energy shock in Germany after Putin invaded Ukraine. The solution now is the same: buy ourselves out of the fossil fuels trap

Yes, there are big differences between the war of aggression that Russia has now been waging against Ukraine for four years and the war the US and Israel launched against Iran. The biggest difference: the US is still a democracy. Even a president who considers himself all-powerful is not. From scathing press coverage to anger over high oil prices, fear of the midterm elections and – the capitalist form of democracy – falling stock prices, what people think makes a difference. That is why the US president is occasionally forced to change his mind. That is not the case in Russia.

Vladimir Putin had a clear plan: Russia wanted to occupy the whole of Ukraine and turn it into a satellite state or annex its territory. Putin was preparing for this war for years, in my view; this included a cheap energy trap into which he successfully lured Germany through the construction of Nord Stream 2 and the purchase of gas storage facilities and refineries by Gazprom and Rosneft.

A California sheriff running for governor has seized more than half a million ballots cast in a November special election from county election officials, saying he's investigating a ballot count discrepancy.

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• JD Vance role touted as Pakistan attempts to broker US-Iran peace talks

In Australia, the number of petrol stations running out of fuel continues to climb as the Middle East war drags on, with at least 184 dry across the country’s three most populous states.

On Tuesday, 51 service stations in the state of New South Wales were out of fuel and 164 out of diesel, compared with 38 and 131 respectively the previous day, premier Chris Minns said.

A pliant autocracy in Iran won’t solve America’s problems in the region.

How America and China can avoid the blunders that led to World War I.

Moscow’s missteps offer a warning—and an opening—for Washington.

The Justice Department's investigation of a $2.5 billion renovation project at the Federal Reserve found no evidence of a crime, a federal prosecutor privately conceded under questioning by a judge.

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for March 25.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Hong Kong police can now demand phone or computer passwords from those who are suspected of breaching the wide-ranging National Security Law (NSL). Those who refuse could face up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $12,700, and individuals who provide "false or misleading information" could face up to three years in jail. It comes as part of new amendments to a bylaw under the NSL that the government gazetted on Monday. The NSL was introduced in Hong Kong in 2020, in wake of massive pro-democracy protests the year before. Authorities say the laws, which target acts like terrorism and secession, are necessary for stability -- but critics say they are tools to quash dissent. The new amendments also give customs officials the power to seize items that they deem to "have seditious intention." Monday's amendments ensure that "activities endangering national security can be effectively prevented, suppressed and punished, and at the same time the lawful rights and interests of individuals and organizations are adequately protected," Hong Kong authorities said on Monday. Changes to the bylaw was announced by the city's leader, John Lee, bypassing the city's legislative council. The NSL also allows for some trials to be heard behind closed doors.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Grammy winner seeks more than $20m in damages over mistranslation of The Lion King chant

A Grammy-winning South African composer who wrote and performed the opening chant in Circle of Life for Disney’s The Lion King is suing a comedian for allegedly damaging his reputation by intentionally misrepresenting the song’s meaning on a podcast and in his standup routine.

Lebohang Morake’s lawsuit accuses the Zimbabwean comedian Learnmore Mwanyenyeka, known as Learnmore Jonasi, of intentionally mistranslating the chant, which launches the 1994 movie and is central to staged versions as well as Disney’s 2019 remake.

Lawmakers and President Trump appear to be edging closer to a framework to wrap up the Department of Homeland Security shutdown — but a breakthrough has remained out of reach. CBS News contacted every House and Senate office to ask what they're doing to end the shutdown.

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Gregory Bovino, the customs and border protection (CBP) commander who led the agency’s aggressive anti-immigration push in Minneapolis before being sidelined by the White House, has decided to go out with a bang it would seem.

Having announced his forthcoming retirement from the CBP, the publicity-hungry Bovino – known for his florid statements – has given an interview to the New York Times that stresses defiance over contrition.

The report also recommends government do more to make tech companies liable for ‘psychosocial harms’

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Australia’s climate change and energy “information ecosystem” is fuelling conflict in communities, with misinformation and disinformation confusing the public, slowing renewable energy projects and undermining policy responses to the climate crisis, a cross-party Senate inquiry has concluded.

The inquiry’s final report, released on Tuesday evening, recommended the government do more to make tech companies liable for “psychosocial harms” spread on their platforms.

Panel denies attorney general’s bid after Riverside county sheriff Chad Bianco seized 650,000 special-election ballots

A three-judge panel has denied a filing by California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, seeking a court order to stop the Riverside county sheriff’s department from continuing its recount of ballots from the November 2025 special election.

The LA Times reported that Bonta filed a petition with the fourth appellate district on Monday, writing that “the sheriff’s misguided investigation threatens to sow distrust and jeopardize public confidence” in upcoming elections.

March 24, 2026 — The Computing Research Association (CRA) Board of Directors has selected Dan Reed — Emeritus Presidential Professor in Computational Science at the University of Utah — as the recipient of the 2026 CRA Distinguished Service Award, recognizing his sustained and transformative contributions to the computing research community through technical innovation, national policy leadership, and extensive professional service.

Dan Reed

Across more than four decades, Reed has helped shape the evolution of high-performance computing, national cyberinfrastructure, and U.S. science and technology policy, with leadership roles spanning academia, industry, and government.

“Professor Reed’s contributions to the computer research community, coupled with his innovative individual research, extensive policy service, and his collaborative spirit have had significant positive impact for our community, sustained over four decades,” said Charlie Catlett, Senior Computer Scientist at Argonne National Laboratory.

Reed’s influence on the field has been widely recognized.

“Dr. Reed has been a global thought leader in advanced scientific computing for forty years,” said Jack Dongarra, Research Professor Emeritus at the University of Tennessee.

Through his technical achievements and policy leadership, Reed has played a pivotal role in advancing high-performance computing from a specialized capability into foundational infrastructure for science, commerce, and society.

A Career of Transformative Service

Reed’s career reflects a rare combination of deep technical impact and national leadership in computing research.

His contributions include:

• Shaping the Computing Research Community: As a member of the CRA Board of Directors (1998–2009) and Board Chair (2005–2009), Reed helped guide federal computing research strategy and led the proposal to create the Computing Community Consortium (CCC), fostering high-impact research and community visioning.
• Advancing National Cyberinfrastructure: As Director of NCSA and chief architect of the NSF-funded TeraGrid, Reed helped design one of the nation’s first distributed supercomputing infrastructures, laying the groundwork for today’s NSF XSEDE and ACCESS programs serving thousands of researchers.
• Influencing Science and Technology Policy: Reed has served on PITAC, PCAST, and numerous National Academies activities, and most recently chaired the National Science Board, where he helped secure passage of the CHIPS and Science Act while guiding NSF strategy on workforce, competitiveness, and research priorities.
• Bridging Academia, Industry, and Government: During his tenure at Microsoft, Reed led the Technology Policy Group and helped pioneer partnerships enabling NSF to provide Azure cloud resources to support academic research.

Supporters also emphasized the breadth of Reed’s impact across research, policy, and community leadership.

“Professor Reed (Dan) is an outstanding scientist, a community leader, and a mentor. His many foundational and translational research contributions, coupled with his policy leadership and national and community service, have helped transform the field of high-performance scientific computing over the years and helped shape national policy,” said Manish Parashar, Presidential Professor and Director of the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute at the University of Utah.

About the Award

The CRA Distinguished Service Award recognizes individuals who have made outstanding service contributions to the computing research community in government affairs, professional societies, publications, conferences, and leadership.

The CRA Committee on Awards – Selection reviews nominations and recommends recipients to the CRA Board of Directors, which votes on the awardees at its February Board meeting.

Recognizing a Computing Research Leader

Please join CRA in celebrating Daniel A. Reed’s exceptional contributions to the computing research community. If you have worked with him or benefited from his leadership, consider sharing this announcement and reflecting on how his work has helped shape the field.

More from HPCwire: 35 HPC Legends Daniel Reed

Source: Matt Hazenbush, CRA

The post Dan Reed Wins 2026 CRA Distinguished Service Award appeared first on HPCwire.

The orders follow weeks of speculation about whether the 82nd Airborne Division would join the war, after its headquarters unit abruptly pulled out of a training exercise this month.

President continues to tout ‘very good’ talks with Iran, which Iranian officials continue to deny – key US politics stories from 24 March 2026 at a glance

Donald Trump declared victory in his war on Iran on Tuesday amid reports that the US is in the process of deploying about 1,000 more soldiers to the region as the president touts “very good” talks with Iran are ongoing. Iranian officials continue to deny that.

Iranian barrages targeted Israel, Gulf Arab states and northern Iraq on Tuesday, while Israeli and US warplanes continued to carry out strikes across Tehran and on other targets in the Islamic Republic. Israel indicated that it planned to occupy control over swaths of southern Lebanon in what one Hezbollah official told Reuters was an “existential threat” to the Lebanese state.

Sophomore season brings new characters, more energy and more blood, making for a can't-miss watch.

Growing numbers of young voters are signing up to the Māori electoral roll as debate flares over the need for dedicated seats ahead of November’s election

More young people have signed up to vote in Māori electorates, new figures from the electoral commission show, as New Zealand prepares for an election this year.

The rise comes after years of tense relations between Indigenous New Zealanders and the centre-right coalition government. The latest figures show 58% of eligible 18- to 24-year-olds have registered for the Māori roll, up from 50% in 2023.

The pilots killed in a collision between a jetliner and a fire truck on a New York runway have been identified as Capt. Antoine Forest and First Officer Mackenzie Gunther.

Arielle Konig took the stand to testify against her husband, anesthesiologist Gerhardt Konig, exactly one year after he allegedly tried to kill her by pushing her off a cliff during a hike in Hawaii.

This Android smartphone with a tactile QWERTY keyboard has already raised over $2.1 million.

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for March 25 #1018.

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for March 25, No. 752.

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for March 25 No. 548.

Here are hints and the answer for today's Wordle for March 25, No. 1,740.

President Trump said several members of his administration were involved in talks with Iran about the ongoing war.

A judge sharply questioned a lawyer for the federal government on Tuesday over the Pentagon's efforts to cut Anthropic's AI out of its classified systems.

Centre-left coalition appears likely as Social Democrats and other left-leaning parties win 84 seats, while right-leaning bloc wins 77 seats

Mette Frederiksen’s Social Democrats and Denmark’s other left-leaning parties appear to have failed to win enough votes to gain a clear mandate to form a government in an election fought amid geopolitical tensions with the US over Greenland.

With 100% of the vote counted in the early hours of Wednesday morning, the prime minister’s party won the most votes but performed worse than expected, with nearly 22% of the vote, leaving the Social Democrats and the other left-leaning parties that form the “red bloc” with 84 seats short of a majority in the 179-seat parliament.

Apple is testing a standalone Siri app, a new interface and deeper AI features for this year's software update, Bloomberg reports.

Democrats have vowed to keep forcing votes on the issue as they seek public testimony from administration officials.

Mette Frederiksen’s red bloc wins 84 seats, blue bloc wins 77 seats and Moderates win 14 seats

• Denmark election: far right has slowed under Frederiksen – but at what cost?

in Copenhagen

The far-right Danish People’s Party (DPP) is attempting to win over voters by paying for their petrol.

“We would like to contribute to the debate about fuel prices, but we do not really have a desire to be party political.”

The landmark decision comes after a nearly seven-week trial. Jurors sided with state prosecutors who argued that Meta prioritized profits over safety.

Democrats are pushing for reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement as the Senate appeared to be closing in on a deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security.

New Mexico hails ‘historic’ win after jury finds firm misled consumers over safety and enabled harm against users

A New Mexico jury on Tuesday ordered Meta to pay $375m in civil penalties after it found the company misled consumers about the safety of its platforms and enabled harm, including child sexual exploitation, against its users.

The lawsuit – the first jury trial to find Meta liable for acts committed on its platform – was brought by the state’s attorney general office in December 2023.

Nathan Newby set to receive George Medal for stopping a potential atrocity with an act of kindness

A hospital patient who managed to talk a man out of detonating a bomb in a maternity wing said the would-be attacker “asked for a cuddle” before standing down.

Nathan Newby, who stopped an atrocity through an act of kindness, spoke publicly for the first time about his encounter with Mohammad Farooq before receiving the George Medal for bravery.

Nearly a thousand pounds of steak went into the meaty effort, and TSA agents, unpaid for weeks, ate the results

Philadelphia has set a world record for the “Longest Line of Cheesesteaks”, with 1,200ft of the city’s iconic sandwich stretching across the B/C connectors at the Philadelphia international airport (PHL).

The airport achieved the record on Tuesday with help from more than 100 employees and volunteers, who assembled foot-long rolls using 990lbs of Philly’s Best Steak and 225lbs of cheese sauce. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the full line took about an hour to complete.

DoD announces ‘interim’ policy for journalists decried by newspaper as ‘end-run around the court’s ruling’

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The New York Times on Tuesday accused the Pentagon of disobeying a judge’s ruling that undid much of the restrictive agreement journalists were forced to sign or lose access to the building.

The judge, Paul Friedman, granted an injunction on Friday that overturned much of the language in the “media in-brief” document that had so concerned many news organizations that cover the Pentagon that almost all journalists chose instead to give back their press badges. He also ordered that seven journalists from the Times be returned their badges.

Linux gamers are seeing massive performance gains with Wine's new NTSYNC support, "which is a feature that has been years in the making and rewrites how Wine handles one of the most performance-sensitive operations in modern gaming," reports XDA Developers. Not every game will see a night-and-day difference, but for the games that do benefit from these changes, "the improvements range from noticeable to absurd." Combined with improvements to Wayland, graphics, and compatibility, as well as a major WoW64 architecture overhaul, the release looks less like an incremental update and more like one of Wine's most important upgrades in years. From the report: The numbers are wild. In developer benchmarks, Dirt 3 went from 110.6 FPS to 860.7 FPS, which is an impressive 678% improvement. Resident Evil 2 jumped from 26 FPS to 77 FPS. Call of Juarez went from 99.8 FPS to 224.1 FPS. Tiny Tina's Wonderlands saw gains from 130 FPS to 360 FPS. As well, Call of Duty: Black Ops I is now actually playable on Linux, too. Those benchmarks compare Wine NTSYNC against upstream vanilla Wine, which means there's no fsync or esync either. Gamers who use fsync are not going to see such a leap in performance in most games. The games that benefit most from NTSYNC are the ones that were struggling before, such as titles with heavy multi-threaded workloads where the synchronization overhead was a genuine bottleneck. For those games, the difference is night and day. And unlike fsync, NTSYNC is in the mainline kernel, meaning you don't need any custom patches or out-of-tree modules for it work. Any distro shipping kernel 6.14 or later, which at this point includes Fedora 42, Ubuntu 25.04, and more recent releases, will support it. Valve has already added the NTSYNC kernel driver to SteamOS 3.7.20 beta, loading the module by default, and an unofficial Proton fork, Proton GE, already has it enabled. When Valve's official Proton rebases on Wine 11, every Steam Deck owner gets this for free. All of this is what makes NTSYNC such a big deal, as it's not simply a run-of-the-mill performance patch. Instead, it's something much bigger: this is the first time Wine's synchronization has been correct at the kernel level, implemented in the mainline Linux kernel, and available to everyone without jumping through hoops.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

After breaking heat records in 14 states, the heat wave pummeling the Southwest is moving eastward.

A command element and some ground forces are expected to be part of the Middle East deployment, according to a source familiar with the planning.

Tech firm ‘says goodbye’ to Sora, made publicly available in 2024, just six months after its launch of a stand-alone app

In an abrupt announcement on Tuesday, OpenAI said it was “saying goodbye” to its AI video generator Sora. The move comes just six months after the company’s splashy launch of a stand-alone app with which people could make and share hyper-realistic AI videos in a scrolling social feed.

“To everyone who created with Sora, shared it, and built community around it: thank you,” the company wrote in a post on X. “What you made with Sora mattered, and we know this news is disappointing.”

The New Mexico ruling comes as a Los Angeles jury is still debating whether Meta's social media platforms are addictive to children.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has said the SAVE America Act “could disenfranchise over 20 million American citizens,” while Republicans dispute that the voter registration and ID bill would block any legitimate voters. Election experts say the bill, which isn’t expected to pass, would make it difficult for some unknown number of voters to register and cast a vote.

At times, Schumer has used more definitive language about the bill’s impact, saying that “more than 20 million legitimate people … will not be able to vote under this law” or that it “would disenfranchise tens of millions of people.”

Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, told us the legislation wouldn’t meet the dictionary definition of “disenfranchise,” which is to “deprive a person of the right to vote.” But it would, as described by Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, “‘make it harder and more expensive for [many people] to [register and] vote,'” Olson said in an email. “That extra hassle and expense would mean that some citizens eligible to register and vote will in practice not complete the needed process even though the bill does not take away their legal right to register or to vote.

“How many eligible people will fail to complete the process? Any estimate is guesswork at this stage in part because it depends on factors that the bill itself leaves unspecified,” he said.

Schumer’s 20 million figure comes from an estimate of the number of voting age Americans who don’t have easy access to citizenship documents that the bill would require to register to vote. According to a 2023 survey by New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice and other groups, more than 9% of Americans of voting age, or 21.3 million people, wouldn’t be able to “quickly find” documents such as a passport, birth certificate or naturalization papers if they “had to show it tomorrow.” More than 3.8 million of those people don’t have those documents, the survey found.

That doesn’t mean that at least some of those Americans couldn’t obtain or find proof of citizenship in order to register to vote under the legislation. But some could find the process too onerous to complete, experts say. Under the bill, citizenship documents also would need to be presented in person to an election official if registering to vote for the first time or reregistering after moving, changing one’s name or making other changes to voter registration.

Eliza Sweren-Becker, deputy director of the voting rights and elections program at the Brennan Center for Justice, told us that “it’s definitely safe to say that millions of Americans would be blocked from voting” by the bill’s registration requirements, among other provisions. She noted that tens of millions of Americans register or update their registrations in the two years before elections. More than 103 million did so in the two years before the 2024 election, according to survey reports by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

“As many as 21 million could be stopped from voting” under the SAVE America Act, she said, because they lack ready access to a passport, birth certificate or naturalization document required under the bill for voter registration.

Schumer has repeatedly used the 20 million estimate, adding that these voters could be purged from the voter rolls and not know about it until they showed up to vote, at times linking this to a requirement under the bill for states to use a Department of Homeland Security database to remove noncitizens. “Our objection is it’s a voter suppression bill. Twenty million, maybe more people, when they show up to vote … will be told, you’re off the rolls. That’s the problem with the bill,” Schumer said in a March 17 press conference.

On the Senate floor the same day, the Democratic leader said, “It could purge millions of American citizens from the voter rolls through a screening algorithm designed by Elon Musk’s DOGE squad. It could disenfranchise over 20 million American citizens.”

The DHS database is known to have wrongly flagged as noncitizens some Americans who are, in fact, citizens. But the extent of those flaws is unclear — as is how voters might be notified and purged from voter rolls under the legislation.

Republican Sen. John Cornyn objected to Schumer’s remarks. On the Senate floor on March 19, Cornyn said that Schumer’s “general argument that American citizens would be denied the opportunity to vote is patently false. Thirty-eight states, including states like Georgia and Rhode Island, currently represented by Democrats, require voter ID. Are those states suppressing the vote? Is the minority leader suggesting that 38 out of our 50 states are actively engaged in voter suppression? Well, that is preposterous on its face.”

“So the idea that the SAVE America Act will disenfranchise legitimate voters is a bald-faced—well, let me try to be generous. It is not true, and he knows it,” Cornyn said, adding that Schumer was telling “people who may not be informed about the details of this that we are trying to take away their right to vote.”

Cornyn is nearly correct on the number: 36 states have some form of voter ID laws. But the requirements in the bill before the Senate are “stricter” than most of those state laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

We’ll explain what the bill would require for registering and casting votes, and how this could affect voters. (For more, see our article “Q&A on the SAVE America Act.”)

The SAVE America Act passed the House in February, and the Senate began debate on the bill on March 17. Similar legislation in recent years has failed to pass the Senate. A proposed Senate amendment would impose more restrictions on voting by mail, eliminating universal mail-in voting and only allowing mail ballots in certain cases, such as illness or disability, travel, or military service. Here, we describe the bill as it passed the House.

Registering to Vote

Republicans say the bill is needed to prevent noncitizens from voting in federal elections, though election experts say, and state audits have shown, this is rare.

Current federal law requires those registering to vote to attest that they are citizens under penalty of perjury. The SAVE America Act would require documentary proof, presented in person to election officials, for those registering or reregistering to vote.

This would happen “any time you conduct what we call a registration transaction, which usually comes from a life event, a move or a change of name,” David Becker, founder and executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, which works with election officials throughout the country, said in a March 18 media briefing.

For most people, this would likely mean showing a U.S. passport or a certified birth certificate along with a driver’s license or government-issued photo ID. As we’ve explained, the bill stipulates elements the birth certificate must have, such as a government seal.

Some voters could prove citizenship with other documents. A REAL ID driver’s license doesn’t typically show citizenship, but five states issue REAL IDs that do. Also acceptable under the bill: a military ID and service record that says the person was born in the U.S., or a government-issued photo ID that shows a U.S. birthplace. Those with government-issued photo IDs that don’t indicate citizenship would also need either the certified birth certificate or a hospital birth record, adoption decree, a consular birth report, a naturalization certificate, or an American Indian card with the classification “KIC,” which designates U.S. citizenship for Mexican-born members of the Kickapoo tribes of Texas and Oklahoma. 

As we said, surveys show millions of Americans could have trouble producing the proper citizenship documents. In addition to the 2023 survey Schumer has cited, the Bipartisan Policy Center, in analyzing the 2024 Survey on the Performance of American Elections, found that 12% of registered voters, the equivalent of 28.4 million citizens of voting age, lacked either a valid passport or a birth certificate they could easily find along with a valid government-issued photo ID.

For those who do have the proper documents, the requirement to show them “in person” could dissuade others from registering to vote. The bill says that people registering by mail won’t be registered unless they present “documentary proof of United States citizenship in person to the office of the appropriate election official.”

Sweren-Becker said that this in-person requirement would be “especially hard” for “working parents, people with disabilities, elderly voters, voters who live in rural areas.”

The bill calls for states to make unspecified “reasonable accommodations” for people with disabilities.

Republican Sen. Mike Lee said on the Senate floor on March 19 that claims about the legislation disenfranchising voters were wrong. “Ideally” Americans have the proper documents, he said, but “even if you do not have a single shred of documentation as to your citizenship — you can’t find it, it burned down, whatever it is — all you have to do is swear an affidavit.”

“The state is in a very good position to track down the details of the affidavit and easily confirm or refute what the person says,” Lee said.

The bill does provide a process for those who don’t have the required documents. It says: “Subject to any relevant guidance adopted by the Election Assistance Commission, each State shall establish a process under which an applicant who cannot provide documentary proof of United States citizenship … may, if the applicant signs an attestation under penalty of perjury that the applicant is a citizen of the United States and eligible to vote in elections for Federal office, submit such other evidence to the appropriate State or local official demonstrating that the applicant is a citizen of the United States and such official shall make a determination as to whether the applicant has sufficiently established United States citizenship for purposes of registering to vote in elections for Federal office in the State.”

The election official making that determination also would need to sign an affidavit “swearing or affirming the applicant sufficiently established United States citizenship for purposes of registering to vote.”

There’s a similar process for people whose names differ from their documents, such as married women who changed their names. They can provide “additional documentation” on the name discrepancy or sign an affidavit.

Olson said there’s uncertainty about these alternative methods of citizenship verification. Will they “be relatively easy and generous, accepting common sorts of documents and an uncomplicated sworn statement that most eligible persons will feel comfortable signing?” he asked.

States’ procedures will be governed by guidance from the Election Assistance Commission, the bill says, an independent agency that has two commissioners appointed by Trump and two appointed by former President Barack Obama.

“In short, we aren’t going to find out what the bill does on many key questions until after we pass it into law and the EAC begins issuing guidance,” Olson said. “One of the reasons I am critical of the bill is that I don’t believe we should be asked to take it on faith that the EAC will issue practical guidance in good faith. If the EAC is going to issue guidance that causes an uproar because it sets requirements many legitimate voters cannot meet, we should know that now, not later.”

Sweren-Becker said that the affidavit method “is only available if a state or local election official deems that the registered has sufficiently established U.S. citizenship … so it leaves an enormous amount of discretion in local and state election officials’ hands.” The bill also would impose criminal penalties and civil liability on election officials who register someone “who fails to present documentary proof of United States citizenship,” the legislation says. “So in practice,” she said, election officials “will face a lot of pressure to construe it [the affidavit method] very, very, very narrowly out of rightful concern about their own liability,” Sweren-Becker said.

Becker, in the March 18 briefing, said the legislation “would incredibly negatively impact voters across the political spectrum. … I don’t think there’s anyone who can say definitively, if this were to pass, which party would be hurt more by it,” he said. “I think it’s highly likely that Republicans would likely be more hurt” than Democratic voters, “because a lot of the voters who have difficulty digging up their documentary proof of citizenship are Republicans.”

Casting a Vote

In pushing back on Schumer’s comments about disenfranchisement, Cornyn spoke about the bill’s photo ID requirements for casting a vote. “Thirty-eight states, including states like Georgia and Rhode Island, currently represented by Democrats, require voter ID,” he said.

As we said, 36 states do have some form of voter ID laws, but the SAVE America Act is “stricter” than most of them, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The Republican bill would require “a valid physical photo identification” in order to cast a ballot in person. Those voting by mail would need to submit a copy of a photo ID, or the last four numbers of their Social Security number and an affidavit saying that they couldn’t obtain a copy of their ID.

A valid photo ID under the bill includes: a state-issued driver’s license or ID card issued by the motor vehicle agency that includes a photo and expiration date, a U.S. passport, a military ID, or a photo ID issued by a tribal government that includes an expiration date. There are exceptions for overseas uniformed services members and those who have the right to vote absentee via the Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Act.

The NCSL said most states’ laws are less strict. “Currently, each state determines the types of ID acceptable to vote, and that often includes student IDs, hunting and fishing licenses or other state-specific identification cards,” it said in a post on its website updated in March.

Thirteen states also accept non-photo identification, such as a bank statement. NCSL classified 10 of the voter ID states as having “strict photo ID” laws.

Georgia is one of them, but it still accepts a broader range of documents than the SAVE America Act would. Georgia accepts a student ID from a public college in the state, an expired state driver’s license, an employee photo ID from a government entity, or a free voter ID card issued by the state, among other documents, the Georgia Secretary of State’s office explains. To get an absentee ballot, a voter submits the number on a driver’s license or state-issued ID card, or a photo or copy of another listed ID, or a document that shows a name and address, such as a utility bill, bank statement or paycheck.

NCSL puts Rhode Island in its “non-strict photo ID” category, along with 13 other states. Rhode Island also issues free voter ID cards and accepts “ID issued by a U.S. educational institution,” the state Board of Elections says. No ID is required to cast a ballot by mail.

When we asked Cornyn’s office about his comments, a spokesperson pointed to some of his other remarks, including a March 19 post on X, which said: “These tactics are nothing more than fearmongering by Dems who are objecting to this because they want to make it easier for people to cheat. In a country with citizens bright enough to put a man on the moon and to build the strongest, most powerful military & the greatest economy the world has ever known, Americans are smart enough and capable enough to be able to locate their driver’s license when they cast a ballot and to establish their citizenship in order to qualify to vote. Any suggestion to the contrary is ridiculous.”

Purging Voter Rolls

Schumer also objected to the bill’s provision requiring states to submit their voter rolls to DHS’ Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program and remove noncitizens from their rolls. The legislation “could purge millions of American citizens from the voter rolls,” Schumer said in the March 17 press conference. He later added: “Our objection is it’s a voter suppression bill. Twenty million, maybe more people, when they show up to vote … will be told, you’re off the rolls.”

On the Senate floor that same day, he repeated the idea that people could be removed from voter rolls and not know about it until they try to cast a vote. “The way this works, you don’t have to be notified if you’re kicked off the rolls. You show up on Election Day and they say, ‘We’re sorry Mr. Smith, Ms. Jones, you’re not on the rolls anymore.’ And then they make it impossible to re-register. Certainly, on that day you lose your right to vote,” the senator said.

In March 15 remarks, he said the bill’s requirements for states to use the DHS system “will purge tens of millions of people from the voter rolls. Once purged, you don’t even know it.”

There are a couple of provisions regarding purging voters. The first requires states to use the DHS system “for the purposes of identifying individuals who are not citizens of the United States and taking the necessary steps to remove such individuals who are not citizens from the official list, after notice is given to such individuals and such individuals are given the opportunity to provide documentary proof of United States citizenship.” As we’ve explained, the DHS system has been shown to have flaws and has wrongly identified people as being noncitizens.

When we asked Schumer’s office about the language in the bill, a spokesperson said the bill included “a requirement that they [voters] be told they have been flagged,” but no requirements about what form the notice would take or the “length of time” people would be given to respond. And there’s “no language in the bill about notice to the voter that they have been purged,” the spokesperson said.

The bill doesn’t provide more details on how states should give “notice” and an opportunity to dispute incorrect information before removing people from the rolls; nor does it say people should be notified again before being purged.

There’s another provision in the bill that says states could remove someone “at any time.” It says: “A State shall remove an individual who is not a citizen of the United States from the official list of eligible voters for elections for Federal office held in the State at any time upon receipt of documentation or verified information that a registrant is not a United States citizen.” That provision doesn’t say anything about a notice given before removing someone.

Election experts told us there’s ambiguity in the bill regarding these provisions. We reached out to the offices of Sen. Lee and Rep. Chip Roy, the authors of the legislation, about this issue, but we haven’t yet received a response.

“[I]t’s not obvious that all of the ways people will be removed from the rolls will be subject by the SAVE Act to notice and an opportunity to respond,” Justin Levitt, a professor of constitutional law at Loyola Marymount University’s law school, told us in an email. “I’d think there are constitutional protections that would kick in, but they’re not explicit in the statute, and that’d take someone litigating.” Levitt, who briefly was a White House senior policy adviser on voting rights during the Biden administration, said the bill “seems to contemplate at least some people being kicked off the rolls without being told,” though this could be a mistake in the drafting of the bill.

“As for how many, it’s a question I can’t answer,” he said, explaining that it depends on the accuracy of the SAVE database and how the process of comparing voter rolls works.

Olson told us that the provision on using the DHS SAVE system “appears to establish protections (notification and a chance to contest removal by supplying documents)” for voters flagged for removal under that system. But “some other persons removed from the voter rolls may not have rights to notification and challenge unless their states have separately legislated to provide such rights,” he said, pointing to the provision on states removing noncitizens “at any time.”

“So far as I can tell, this means that anyone, including the federal government or some private person or group, can send ‘documentation or verified information’ to a state that a certain person, or a list of persons, on its voter rolls are not U.S. citizens. The state then ‘shall’ remove them,” Olson said. “So long as this is not being done by the method carved out for the SAVE database and its intersection with state voter rolls in federal possession, I don’t see where the bill provides any assurance of notification.”

Sweren-Becker had the same reading of the bill. “Absolutely, I think that the second provision … indicates that people could be removed, but on the basis that something has flagged them as a noncitizen, without notice to the voter or an opportunity to provide evidence of their citizenship,” she told us. “And it is also important to note that it is very unclear what ‘documentation or verified information’ means” and from what sources. “I think there’s a risk that election officials may receive, essentially, purge lists generated by activist groups who are not doing careful list matching.”

As for how many legitimate voters could be removed from voter rolls through this process, “I don’t know how to hazard a guess there,” Sweren-Becker said, noting that “shoddy” purge lists by activist groups have listed thousands of people.

Schumer, however, has gone as far as saying that, under the bill, 20 million could be wrongly purged without knowing they were removed from the voter rolls. But that figure comes from the estimate of those lacking easy access to a passport, birth certificate or naturalization papers. It’s not an estimate of voters who could be purged without their knowledge.

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, P.O. Box 58100, Philadelphia, PA 19102. 

The post Competing Claims on SAVE America Act Disenfranchising Voters appeared first on FactCheck.org.

OpenAI said Tuesday that it will discontinue the company's Sora app, which let users create AI-generated videos.

Google is expanding Android Automotive from the infotainment screen into the broader non-safety "brain" of software-defined vehicles. With its new Android Automotive OS for Software-Defined Vehicles, the in-car experience will feel "much more cohesive and the latest features will reach your driveway faster," Matt Crowley, Android Automotive's group product manager, writes in a blog post. "From a truly integrated voice experience to proactive maintenance reminders, your car will become a true extension of your digital life," Crowley adds. The Verge reports: With its new software, Google is promising faster over-the-air software updates, better voice assistants, and more proactive vehicle maintenance alerts. Non-driving functions like climate control, lighting, and seating adjustment would fall under Android's control. And the system would move beyond basic infotainment to create a unified ecosystem for features like remote cabin conditioning, digital key management, and personalized driver profiles. For automakers, the new system promises less expensive software development costs and an opportunity to focus on what matters most to them: branding. By providing the "foundational code and a common language for their software," Google says automakers will be free to design cool experiences for their customers. Google says its already working with companies like Renault Group and Qualcomm to bring its new software-defined vehicle version of Android Automotive to more cars. A variety of automakers already use regular Android Automotive, like Volvo, Polestar, General Motors, Nissan, and Honda.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

LaGuardia’s air traffic control tower failed to recognize it had granted permission for a plane and an emergency vehicle to use the same runway, officials said.

Nearly 100,000 claims have been filed by authors as the deadline looms.

State officials allege the federal government is trying to evade responsibility for shootings by officers amid an immigration crackdown that killed two citizens and wounded an undocumented immigrant.

The new initiative includes a base on the moon, a nuclear-powered flight to Mars and a replacement for the ISS.

March 24, 2026 — There’s a pattern in how complex technology matures. Early on, teams make their own choices: different tools, different abstractions, different ways of reasoning about failure. It looks like flexibility but at scale it reveals itself as fragmentation. The fix is never just more capability; it’s shared operational philosophy. Kubernetes proved this. It didn’t just answer “how do we run containers?” It answered “how do we change running systems safely?” The community built those patterns, hardened them, and made them the baseline.

Credit: Shutterstock

AI infrastructure is still in the chaotic phase. The shift from “working versus broken” to “good answers versus bad answers” is a fundamentally different operational problem, and it won’t get solved with more tooling. It gets solved the way cloud-native did: open source creating the shared interfaces and community pressure that replace individual judgment with documented, reproducible practice.

That’s what Microsoft is building toward. Since the last update at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2025, Microsoft has continued investing across open-source AI infrastructure, multi-cluster operations, networking, observability, storage, and cluster lifecycle. At KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2026 in Amsterdam, the company is sharing several announcements that reflect that same goal: bring the operational maturity of Kubernetes to the workloads and demands of today.

Building the Open Source Foundation for AI on Kubernetes

The convergence of AI and Kubernetes infrastructure means that gaps in AI infrastructure and gaps in Kubernetes infrastructure are increasingly the same gaps. A significant part of the upstream work this cycle has been building the primitives that make GPU-backed workloads first-class citizens in the cloud-native ecosystem.

On the scheduling side, Microsoft has been collaborating with industry partners to advance open standards for hardware resource management. Key milestones include:

• Dynamic Resource Allocation (DRA) has graduated to general availability, with the DRA example driver and DRA Admin Access also shipping as part of that work.
• Workload Aware Scheduling for Kubernetes 1.36 adds DRA support in the Workload API and drives integration into KubeRay, making it more straightforward for developers to request and manage high-performance infrastructure for training and inference.
• DRANet now includes upstream compatibility for Azure RDMA Network Interface Cards (NICs), extending DRA-based network resource management to high-performance hardware where GPU-to-NIC topology alignment directly affects training performance.

Beyond scheduling, Microsoft has continued investing in the tooling needed to deploy, operate, and secure AI workloads on Kubernetes:

• AI Runway is a new open-source project that introduces a common Kubernetes API for inference workloads, giving platform teams a centralized way to manage model deployments and adopt new serving technologies as the ecosystem evolves. It ships with a web interface for users who shouldn’t need to know Kubernetes to deploy a model, along with built-in HuggingFace model discovery, GPU memory fit indicators, real-time cost estimates, and support for runtimes including NVIDIA Dynamo, KubeRay, llm-d, and KAITO.
• HolmesGPT has joined the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) as a Sandbox project, bringing agentic troubleshooting capabilities into the shared cloud-native tooling ecosystem.
• Dalec, a newly onboarded CNCF project, defines declarative specifications for building system packages and producing minimal container images, with support for SBOM generation and provenance attestations at build time. Reducing attack surface and common vulnerabilities and exposures at the build stage matters for any organization trying to run AI workloads responsibly at scale.
• Cilium also received a broad set of Microsoft contributions this cycle, including native mTLS ztunnel support for sidecarless encrypted workload communication, Hubble metrics cardinality controls for managing observability costs at scale, flow log aggregation to reduce storage volume, and two merged Cluster Mesh Cilium Feature Proposals (CFPs) advancing cross-cluster networking.

What’s New in Azure Kubernetes Service

In addition to Microsoft’s upstream contributions, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) has new capabilities across networking and security, observability, multi-cluster operations, storage, and cluster lifecycle management.

From IP-based controls to identity-aware networking

As Kubernetes deployments grow more distributed, IP-based networking becomes harder to reason about: visibility degrades, security policies grow difficult to audit, and encrypting workload communication has historically required either a full-service mesh or a significant amount of custom work. Microsoft’s networking updates this cycle close that gap by moving security and traffic intelligence to the application layer, where it’s both more meaningful and easier to operate.

Azure Kubernetes Application Network gives teams mutual TLS, application-aware authorization, and detailed traffic telemetry across ingress and in-cluster communication, with built-in multi-region connectivity. The result is identity-aware security and real traffic insight without the overhead of running a full-service mesh. For teams managing the deprecation of ingress-nginx, Application Routing with Meshless Istio provides a standards-based path forward: Kubernetes Gateway API support without sidecars, continued support for existing ingress-nginx configurations, and contributions to ingress2gateway for teams moving incrementally.

At the data plane level, WireGuard encryption with the Cilium data plane secures node-to-node traffic efficiently and without application changes. Cilium mTLS in Advanced Container Networking Services extends that to pod-to-pod communication using X.509 certificates and SPIRE for identity management: authenticated, encrypted workload traffic without sidecars. Rounding this out, Pod CIDR expansion removes a long-standing operational constraint by allowing clusters to grow their pod IP ranges in place rather than requiring a rebuild, and administrators can now disable HTTP proxy variables for nodes and pods without touching control plane configuration.

Visibility that matches the complexity of modern clusters

Operating Kubernetes at scale is only manageable with clear, consistent visibility into infrastructure, networking, and workloads. Two persistent gaps Microsoft has been closing are GPU telemetry and network traffic observability, both of which become more critical as AI workloads move into production.

Teams running GPU workloads have often had a significant monitoring blind spot: GPU utilization simply wasn’t visible alongside standard Kubernetes metrics without manual exporter configuration. AKS now surfaces GPU performance and utilization directly into managed Prometheus and Grafana, putting GPU telemetry into the same stack teams are already using for capacity planning and alerting. On the network side, per-flow L3/L4 and supported L7 visibility across HTTP, gRPC, and Kafka traffic is now available, including IPs, ports, workloads, flow direction, and policy decisions, with a new Azure Monitor experience that brings built-in dashboards and one-click onboarding. For teams dealing with the inverse problem (metric volume rather than metric gaps) operators can now dynamically control which container-level metrics are collected using Kubernetes custom resources, keeping dashboards focused on actionable signals. Agentic container networking adds a web-based interface that translates natural-language queries into read-only diagnostics using live telemetry, shortening the path from “something’s wrong” to “here’s what to do about it.”

Simpler operations across clusters and workloads