Kyushu Electric Power said 48,000 homes had lost power as a result of the latest quake, while railway company JR Kyushu said that it had suspended services, including its high-speed bullet trains.
Kumamoto airport also shut its runway, as airlines diverted and cancelled flights.
The Conservative party leader said that Labour’s plan allows for too many serious offenders to be freed early
It is not just the Russians firing on Brits in the English Channel; Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, has accused a French warship of firing “warning shots” near him while he was on a boat in the Channel monitoring small boat crossings.
On the channel today monitoring illegal migrant crossings … as I was being interviewed by the BBC just now a French warship approached close and fired 17 live rounds behind us. There was no notice or training exercise in place. Felt like warning shots or attempted intimidation
On the crisis in prison places, this has been a long time coming. We did some things, as I said [see 10.11am], it wasn’t enough, and I’m sorry about that.
But I can’t fix the past, but what I can do is come up with solutions for now, and for tomorrow.
This was something which we were doing in government. We had plans to rent prison places, just like Sweden has done with Estonia, so that we didn’t have to just release these sorts of violent criminals early. We could have put them in other countries.
If everybody says ‘no prison near me’, we won’t get these [prison places] built, so this is something the public can help with … We cannot say ‘no’ to every potential site for a prison.
Don’t fret if you missed out on recent back-to-school deals. Sales tax holidays can help you save on laptops, school supplies, clothing and more. Learn more about it here.
There are reports of at least 50 people injured along with collapsed buildings and damaged roads following the powerful 7.1-magnitude quake on the southwestern island of Kyushu.
Tourists caught up in the wildfires spoke to us about their experiences.
“My main memory is how bizarre it was to watch people enjoying holidays on the beach while a major catastrophe was unfolding in full view, not far away. Is this how the world ends?”
If you thought he was just a shady rule-dodging reprobate, the Fifa boss’s latest 15-page Instagram rant might make you think again
I hope you have found time to enjoy Fifa president Gianni Infantino’s 15-page Instagram meltdown about his World Cup. The last time I saw this many defiant words, they were inked on someone sitting cross-legged on the floor of an El Salvadorean supermax prison.
Infantino has been clapping back at his haters – putting them on blast, in the parlance of our times – and on this evidence seems mesmerisingly close to picking out a Chicano script font and getting STILL I RISE needled across his corporate clavicles. Right next to the ones reading THROUGH THE FIRE, UNBREAKABLE and BUILT DIFFERENT.
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
Marina Hyde’s new book, What a Time to be Alive!, is out in September (Guardian Faber Publishing, £20). To support the Guardian, order your signed copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, are scheduled to meet with the US president before attending Tuesday’s funeral
The Trump administration subjected at least one person undertaking a hunger strike in immigrant detention to forcible medical treatment – engaging in medical practice that healthcare associations and international human rights groups have described as torture.
A document from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) health service agency, reviewed by the Guardian, confirms for the first time that the administration has used forced treatment on a hunger striker since Donald Trump began his second term.
Why Should Delaware Care? The Delaware State Fair draws hundreds of thousands of attendees to the Harrington fairgrounds during its 10-day run each summer. While the festivities merely represent fried food and amusement rides to some attendees, the fair also showcases the state’s culture, and its next generation of farmers.
A Friday at the Delaware State Fair brings kids’ last-minute preparations of their animals for agriculture showcases, professional divers thrusting themselves into the water from a platform the height of an Olympic swimming pool and so much more.
Beyond the wacky performers and showcase of Delaware’s farming industry, on a simpler level the fair represents a chance for many people to gather for some good old summer fun: concerts, carnival rides, and, of course, scrapple sandwiches.
Fairgoers and exhibitioners alike describe the 10-day annual event as something to look forward to every summer, and an opportunity for Delawareans from all corners of the state to come together on the Harrington fairgrounds.
Manyy Mendez is part of the high-diving team that has been drawing strong crowds at this year’s Delaware State Fair in Harrington. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY OLIVIA MARBLE
High divers: Clown tricks and serious dives
A group of athletes with a penchant for flipping through the air and entertaining with goofy clown-like moves are taking center stage at the fair with a popular diving performance this year.
The three divers, Californian David Macomber, Nevadan Eddie Kollar, and Portugal native Manny Mendez are putting on their 15-minute show four times a day throughout the week.
The men, who are part of the touring company “The All American High Dive Show,” that traverses the globe each summer putting on shows, do a series of mind-boggling flips and twists off of increasingly taller platforms. Still, they say their favorite part of the show is the “dillies” – or the whimsical clown acts for kids.
“I love entertaining the kids,” said Mendez, who is a former Portuguese national diving champion. “We feel the energy from them.”
During the show, the divers don cheetah print outfits and bucket hats to bounce up and down in the diving boards and push one another into the water, often leading the kids in the audience erupting in laughter and applause.
After the playful dives, however, tension in the show ratchets up when Mendez climbs to the very top of the pole that holds the pool setup together to do a dive from a height of 80 feet.
The crowd goes silent for over a minute as Mendez composes himself for the dive, and suspense builds over whether he’ll be able to complete it, before he plunges into the portable pool.
Viewers at the last show of the evening get extra entertainment, as Mendez lights himself on fire on the top platform, completing the flips and twists while ablaze, wearing multiple layers of clothes to protect his skin from the heat. Sometimes, Mendez said, if he hesitates on the platform too long, he gets burned while flipping in the air.
Mendez said he never practices the show-stopping trick anymore because he’s been diving for so many decades – and touring with the high dive show for 40 years – so it’s muscle memory at this point.
Still, his heart rate spikes each time before he launches off the platform.
“It’s always scary. That’s what keeps me safe,” Mendez said.
The All American High Dive Show is doing performances throughout the fair week at 12 p.m., 3 p.m., 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. daily.
Brodie Day, of Clayton, is showing his pig, Teddy, for the first time at the state fair this year. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY OLIVIA MARBLE
4-H kids: Pig and cow shows
Fair week is filled with Delaware kids who have worked for months, or even years, to get their farm animals in top shape for the livestock judging contests and auctions.
Brodie Day, 11, is a Clayton-area 4-H participant, who brought two pigs to show at this summer’s fair.
Day said he has been taking care of pigs at his family friend’s farm, Bodine Farms, in nearby Hartly, for a couple of years. But this is the first season he got more serious about the pigs’ nutrition, in an effort to make them more appealing to the judges and auction bidders, he said.
He spent the past six months feeding his male pig, Teddy, protein to “show off his muscles more,” while the female pig, Baby Back, got more fat, because the judges look for a bigger stomach in the female pig category, Day explained.
He named Teddy because he “acts like a teddy bear,” whereas Baby Back is “sassy.”
His strategy for competition day? – taking the lessons he’s learned from showing pigs the past two years to try to keep his animals calm, and display to the judges their impressive muscles.
“You have to be serious and then you gotta give the judge all the good angles,” Day said, earnestly.
Pigs take roughly 6 months to raise, so some parents have their kids begin in the livestock space with a pig to learn about how to raise the animal with a shorter time commitment. Raising a cow from birth to market weight, however, usually takes 18 to 24 months.
But 9-year-old Rylynn Fields is ambitious. Fields told Spotlight Delaware this is her third year showing a cow at the state fair.
She takes care of her cow, Clove, at a Viola-area farm.
She said her typical responsibilities involve feeding the cow, making sure she has enough water, and walking her so that she doesn’t “get too excited and go crazy.” But in the lead up to the livestock show, Fields has also been trying to “make her look fancy.” by clipping her hair and cleaning her hooves.
Fields said she is grateful to have a cow like Clove, because she has special skills some other cows might not have, like more flexibility in her neck.
“The amazing part about her is that she can tilt her head up and that’s what some cows can barely do,” she said. “I’m kind of lucky. I have a cow that can put her head up.”
Her strategy for show day is to get Clove’s energy out before the competition, so that she stays calm, and places her hooves in the positions the judges like, Fields said.
“She’s sweet. I walk her,” she added. “But she goes crazy a little bit.”
Livestock showmanship competitions and auctions are taking place throughout the fair week in Quillen Arena and the Kent Building.
Gregory Kompes took up quilting as a PhD student years ago, and has now won ribbons for his art. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY OLIVIA MARBLE
An array of art
Troves of paintings, flower arrangements, quilts, and childrens’ artwork are on display in the Delmarva Building, where they’ve already been judged and some awarded ribbons.
Gregory Kompes, of Selbyville, is a relatively new quilter who entered a couple of quilts in the fair competition, and won a ribbon for one of his entries.
He also volunteered in the arts tent at the fair, showing exhibitors where their pieces are on display, and convincing visitors simply seeking an air-conditioned respite of the diversity of art entries.
Kompes had a unique trajectory to starting quilting – he first took an interest in the art as a PhD student four decades ago, because he heard advice that doctoral students should find a hobby that isn’t their thesis project.
At the time, however, Kompes found the craft too frustrating because he couldn’t cut or sew a straight line. Years later, when he moved to Delaware, Kompes discovered a quilters’ guild as a means of meeting new people in the area, and learned that there are now new tools like rotary cutters and acrylic rulers to make the art form more enjoyable.
“I dropped out of the doctorate program, but I’m still quilting,” Kompes said with a laugh.
He said he’s found quilting to be an entry into Delaware culture, and the fair art exhibits an exciting representation of Delaware’s arts community.
The art exhibitions are on display in the Delmarva Building, open daily from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Umbrellas, deck chairs and loungers seized in Torre del Greco authorities’ crackdown on people reserving spots overnight
Authorities in a coastal suburb of Naples seized umbrellas, loungers and deck chairs during a dawn sweep of a beach aimed at cracking down on the growing trend of people attempting to reserve prime spots overnight.
Torre del Greco’s port authority said coastguard staff and local police had together collected 40 items as part of a national beach and lake safety operation that targets people labelled by the Italian press as furbetti dell’ombrellone, or umbrella cheaters.
ICE report reviewed by the Guardian discloses a patient was ‘subject to force feeding, hydration or urinary catheterization’, which experts have described as torture
The Trump administration subjected at least one person undertaking a hunger strike in immigrant detention to forcible medical treatment – engaging in medical practice that healthcare associations and international human rights groups have described as torture.
A document from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) health service agency, reviewed by the Guardian, confirms for the first time that the administration has used forced treatment on a hunger striker since Donald Trump began his second term. The document, published online in February by the ICE Health Service Corps (IHSC), discloses that an unnamed patient who began hunger strikes between October and December of last year and “was subject to force feeding, hydration, or forced urinary catheterization, or involuntary blood draws”.
Arizona State University has launched a 120-credit bachelor's degree in content creation that teaches video, podcasting, branding, analytics, media law, and social strategy. For their capstone, students are "expected to build a real social media account and demonstrate audience growth during the program," reports Dexerto. From the report: The Content Creation BA is housed within ASU's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and appears in the university's 2026-2027 course catalog. The 120-credit-hour degree prepares students to become "an influencer and strategic storyteller" by teaching video production, podcasting, personal branding, audience analytics and social media strategy. The program was approved by the ASU University Senate in March 2026. Its proposal said graduates would be prepared to work independently as influencers and content creators across livestreaming, videography, writing, podcasting, graphics and emerging media.
[...] For the program's final project, students will choose a social media platform, such as TikTok, create a content and growth strategy, and attempt to gain real followers throughout the semester. "They will have demonstrable audience growth," [explained Jessica Pucci, senior associate dean at the Cronkite School]. "They will have a platform of their choice with real content and real followers and a real audience behind them." The curriculum includes courses titled How to Become an Influencer, On-Camera Presence, Introduction to Editing, Videography, Podcasting and Audio Storytelling, Social Media Foundations and The Digital Audience.
Unilever has warned it will push through further price rises over the coming months, as the Marmite, Dove and Hellmann’s owner tries to recoup its own growing costs.
The Anglo-Dutch company said that while the pace of price rises slowed in the second quarter, owing in part to World Cup-related discounts and efforts to stay competitive in Brazil, it said these were “temporary factors” and would not shield consumers for long.
A federal judge ordered U.S. immigration authorities to release a key witness in the fatal shooting of a Mexican homebuilder by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Houston.
At least 1,500 protest after six men on drug-related charges put in solitary confinement before possible execution
Prisoners at Iran’s largest jail have sewn their lips shut as hundreds of them joined a mass hunger strike amid a surge in executions over drug offences and charges linked to anti-government protests.
The hunger strike, involving at least 1,500 death row prisoners at Ghezel Hesar prison near Tehran, began two weeks ago after six men convicted on drug-related charges were transferred to solitary confinement before their possible execution, according to Iranian rights groups.
President also blames Brazil and Mexico and says online critics ‘do not want the ideas of freedom to succeed’
More than a week has passed since Ferran Torres scored the extra-time goal that gave Spain its second World Cup, but – at least for Argentina’s president – the tournament is not over.
Javier Milei has claimed that a coordinated “anti-Argentina campaign” was behind criticism of the country’s team, accusations of racism among its fans and conspiracy theories alleging that Lionel Messi’s side was secretly being favoured by Fifa.
Kareem’s Quote of the Day: If technology makes lies cheap and plentiful, how hard will we work to protect the truth?
LeBron Chooses Philly, Trump Says He’s “Maybe a Racist”: LeBron is taking his talents to the City of Brotherly Love, and Trump has the dumbest hot take.
Did Fallen Soldiers Support Iran War?: Trump’s attempt to enlist four dead service members ignores the people who actually knew and loved them.
JD Vance Is a Real Helicopter Parent, and You Are Footing the Bill: A $25K-per-hour ride to a golf lesson turns the VP’s embarrassment into a state secret.
The Philadelphia Story – George Cukor: Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and Jimmy Stewart combine to make this classic the perfect screwball comedy.
“Blood in My Eyes” - Bob Dylan: Desire, desperation, and an acoustic guitar cut deep in Dylan’s lean cover of this Depression-era gem from the Mississippi Sheiks.
Kareem’s Quote of the Day
“Technology to wipe out truth is now available. Not everybody can afford it but it’s available. When the cost comes down look out!”
Bob Dylan (1941–), American singer/songwriter, World Gone Wrong liner notes, 1993
(Photo by Gai Terrell/Redferns)
Bob Dylan was more than thirty years into his career when he offered these thoughts about technology, and a long way removed from the days when he was considered the prophet-like voice of his generation. In 1966, he’d broken his neck in a motorcycle accident. He recovered, then spent the better part of a decade in the country, raising a family. There were great records (John Wesley Harding, Blood on the Tracks) and indifferent ones (Self Portrait, Street Legal), a disastrous four-hour movie he wrote and directed (Renaldo and Clara), an ugly divorce, a conversion to fire-and-brimstone Christianity, then a return to the road as a rock and roll troubadour whose performances could be thrilling or baffling on any given night. But he never lost his questing intelligence, and even at the lowest points of his career, there were flashes of brilliance no one else was capable of (see today’s Jukebox).
The 1993 album World Gone Wrong had no original songs on it. It was all old folk and blues numbers, and the liner notes, equal parts beat poetry and Sunday sermon, were his argument for the continued relevance of this music, which had shaped his own sensibility when he was starting out. The title came from a Mississippi Sheiks song that painted the picture of a world out of sync with any moral purpose:
“‘strange things are happening like never before’strange things alright -- strange things like courage becoming befuddled & nonfundamental. evil charlatans masquerading in pullover vests & tuxedos talking gobbledygook, monstrous pompous superficial pageantry parading down lonely streets on limited access highways. strange things indeed -- irrationalist bimbos & bozos, the stuff of legend, coming in from left field -- infamy on the landscape -- “pray to the Good Lord” hit the light switch!”
As for the “technology to wipe out truth,” he says that when it comes, “there wont [sic] be songs like these anymore. factually there aren’t any now.”
What strikes me about these words today is that Dylan was absolutely right. In 1993, the Internet was just a blip on the horizon and cell phones were the size of a brick and just about that smart, but Dylan saw it all coming: the world wide web, the celestial jukebox, artificial intelligence that would make HAL 9000 look like a pussycat. He even gave us a snapshot of the Orangeman atop the despoiled world:
“an infantile sensualist -- white teeth, wide smile, lotza money, kowtow to fairy queen exploiters & corrupt religious establishments, career minded, limousine double parked, imposing his will & dishonest garbage in popular magazines.”
There’s little doubt that technology can now wipe out the truth. We’ve got deepfakes. We’ve got AI music that takes less time to create than it does to play, yet sounds exactly like 1940s jazz or 1960s soul. We’ve got a president who spreads lies like manure through his own platform and collects a royalty every time someone reads it. The cost hasn’t just come down, it’s all free. But we pay in other ways, more and more every day. The only real question is if a world gone wrong can turn itself around.
The new breed of camera-equipped streetlights has the potential to fight crime and track down missing persons. Or will it just take Britain one step closer to a surveillance state?
How would you feel if your neighbourhood lamp-posts could recognise your number plate, and also your face? Maybe you wouldn’t mind, given how long we’ve had automatic number plate recognition and CCTV. What about if that lamp-post could power itself through its own solar panels, and perhaps find another use for any extra power generated – that would be good, right? This is what Conflow Power Group (CPG) in Warwickshire claims for its iLamps, the first of their kind in the UK.
What if lamp-posts had the potential to incorporate new AI capability – gait analysis, suspicious behaviours – that you haven’t even heard of? This is what the organisation Big Brother Watch worries about. And what if the home secretary had explicitly said she believed in a “panopticon state” – that is, a state that could watch you at all times (as Shabana Mahmood already has) – and what if she still had a job when the lamp-post eyes got their updates? Or what if the next home secretary was even keener on hyper-surveillance (hard to imagine), and the street apparatus was already in place? What about all the data this would harvest – who would own it?
Like genies of folklore, AI agents take their instructions literally – to potentially disastrous effect. We must track their ability to do what we actually mean
In July, Hugging Face, a company that hosts much of the world’s AI software and open-source AI models, was hacked. A malicious dataset had been used to run code on one of its servers. Whoever was behind it captured internal security credentials and moved through systems over a weekend, running thousands of actions from a swarm of temporary server environments. It looked like the work of a sophisticated criminal group.
It was not. It was one of OpenAI’s new, still unreleased GPT models.
Rights groups condemn secrecy surrounding killings and say hurry to execute raises chance of ‘torturous’ deaths
Florida is preparing on Tuesday to carry out the state’s first double execution within a single day since the start of the modern era of the US death penalty in 1976.
Barring last-minute legal intervention, James Duckett, 68, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at noon on Tuesday at Florida state prison near Starke. Six hours later, Dominick Occhicone, 80, faces the same fate.
Memorials for the Republican senator to start in US Capitol as Israeli and Ukrainian leaders are set to meet with Trump
Two days of funeral ceremonies for Lindsey Graham, the late South Carolina Republican senator, will begin in Washington on Tuesday, with mourners set to include Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Both leaders will also meet Donald Trump at the White House.
Da’Jon Anthony Hayes-Burr, shot by another teenager, had stopped a 45-year-old man from harassing a 12-year-old girl
Kentucky’s largest city is mourning the recent shooting death of a teenage boy who had earned a municipal commendation months earlier for defending a young girl from sexual harassment – and survived being stabbed in the process.
Da’Jon Anthony Hayes-Burr, 15, was shot on Saturday night in Louisville’s Shawnee neighborhood, according to authorities there. He was later pronounced dead at a hospital, and police booked a 14-year-old on a count of murder, as the Louisville news outlet WAVE first reported.
Whether in favor of or against the US-Israel war on Iran, people across the country are left holding the bill and wondering on its purpose
Five months after the United States and Israel started a historically unpopular war against Iran that was going to supposedly last weeks, the fighting has refused to resolve in victory, defeat or peace. Iran’s Supreme Leader had been killed in the opening strikes, ceasefires broke down, and the strait of Hormuz has been closed and re-opened.
For voters interviewed across the country, while the damage may be distant, the residual effects have shown up at the pump, on the grocery bill and in a phone call telling a spouse they have a day to report for deployment. And for a country still absorbing the aftermath of Israel’s war on Gaza – funded to the tune of billions of dollars by the United States – the war in Iran lands on top of an already raw argument about what American power is for.
Nick Adams in 2024 Philip Cheung/The Washington Post/Getty Images
In a private ceremony on Sept. 17, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stood at a podium inside the National Archives building in Washington, D.C., and praised a Florida nonprofit for what he called a singular achievement in American education. The attendees were celebrating the Foundation for Liberty and American Greatness, which announced that it had reached 2 million children with civics education since its founding in 2016.
“I hope you understand how important this is,” Hegseth told the room. “What we pour into the next generation will determine whether we keep our republic or not.”
FLAG’s founder, Nick Adams, had spent nearly a decade building toward this moment. An Australian-born conservative commentator and MAGA influencer, Adams had created the nonprofit, raised $7.7 million for it over 10 years, and garnered repeated praise from President Donald Trump. In March, Trump appointed Adams as the special presidential envoy for American tourism, exceptionalism and values — a position created for him after his nomination as ambassador to Malaysia stalled the previous year.
But a review of FLAG’s finances, donor operations and online donation network reveals a less celebratory picture. There is little evidence that the nonprofit has provided the civics education it claims. And Adams and his nonprofit have engaged in a pattern of questionable financial arrangements, including paying Adams and his mother more than half its recent annual revenue, while raising much of its money through a sweepstakes operation that has promised donors a chance to win $1,000,000 — a prize FLAG’s records show no evidence of ever paying.
Adams moved to the United States from Australia in 2012 and has since become an outspoken champion of the American political and economic system. Now 41, he has built a following as a conservative commentator and self-described “alpha male” influencer, making frequent media appearances and amassing roughly 2.1 million followers on Facebook and 640,000 followers on X on his personal pages. Adams authored books including “Retaking America: Crushing Political Correctness” and “Trump and Churchill: Defenders of Western Civilization.”
In 2016, Adams founded FLAG, registering it as a nonprofit with the mission to bring high-quality civics education to K-12 students across America. FLAG has produced civics materials like the Student’s Constitution, the Student’s Declaration of Independence and the Student’s Federalist Papers — kid-friendly editions of the country’s founding documents. By 2023, FLAG was reporting annual revenue of nearly $1.5 million, consisting of donations and merchandise sales. “Thanks to the support of 40,000+ grassroots patriots,” the organization’s website states, “over 1 million FLAG resources have been distributed in classrooms all across America.”
To give FLAG credibility in conservative circles, Adams assembled an advisory council of movement leaders including Hegseth, then a Fox News host; the late Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA; the late Edwin J. Feulner, founder of the Heritage Foundation; and Dennis Prager, the conservative radio host and co-founder of PragerU, a nonprofit that produces conservative educational materials. (The council has since been replaced with a board of directors.)
Adams did not respond to a detailed list of questions about FLAG’s financial practices, sweepstakes operation and educational programming. A Pentagon spokesperson declined to respond to questions but reiterated Hegseth’s support for FLAG.
Civics education has become a rallying cause across the Make America Great Again movement, whose slogan invokes a return to a specific vision of the country’s founding principles. PragerU is an approved curriculum provider in at least eight states. Turning Point USA pursued a similar goal through Turning Point Academy, a network of private schools. Along with those organizations, FLAG is now part of the America 250 Civics Education Coalition, a partnership of the U.S. Department of Education formed with over 40 conservative groups.
Trump’s return to office has been a boon for Adams. The president has called Adams one of his favorite authors, and a foreword in Adams’ 2024 book, “Alpha Kings,” credited to Trump calls Adams someone whose “work ethic equals his moral responsibility and faith in God.” Although Trump wasn’t able to attend FLAG’s 2023 annual gala, he sent a video praising the nonprofit and Adams, telling attendees that “tens of thousands of teachers are being trained and hundreds of thousands of parents and grandparents are now standing up for our kids.”
“It takes Nick from Australia to come and teach us about American greatness and to help us fight for our country,” Trump added. “He’s an American now, and we’re very lucky to have him.”
The White House press office declined to comment.
Adams’ book event for the D.C. Young Republicans in 2024Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post/Getty Images
FLAG’s website invites teachers to request free classroom presentations, delivered by “certified FLAG Ambassadors,” including Adams himself, alongside guest speakers described as entrepreneurs, business leaders and immigrants. In 2016 and early 2017, FLAG regularly posted photos documenting visits to schools. After that period, however, ProPublica could not find similar documentation of FLAG representatives visiting schools.
Since 2016, as FLAG’s annual revenues grew from $68,000 to $1.1 million in 2024, there is almost no indication in the organization’s annual federal tax filings that it was spending money on its stated mission. No line item in FLAG’s federal tax filing identifies a payment to a school, a teacher or an educational distributor. Only two lines, in a 2017 federal filing, indicate $26,925 for “Student’s Constitutions, Printing” and $5,670 for “Book Donations, Shipping & Supplies.” In the last six years, while FLAG operated under Adams, the only documented instance of FLAG activity that appears to fit the definition of “educational” is a 2020 video showing Adams speaking at what is described as a teachers’ conference.
But the nonprofit has been lucrative for the Adams family. In 2024, Adams, who was born Nicholas Adamopoulos, and his mother, Angelika Adamopoulos, collected a combined $587,279 in compensation and benefits from FLAG — 53% of the organization’s revenue that year, according to the nonprofit’s federal filing.
Adamopoulos was paid $201,861, including benefits, as FLAG’s secretary. In the same filing, FLAG answered no when asked by the IRS whether any officer or director shared a family relationship with another director or officer. Adamopoulos did not respond to requests for comment.
Experts were troubled that the organization spent so much on Adams and his mother. “The amount being paid, both in absolute dollar terms and as a percentage of the organization’s revenues and expenses, is very high,” said Lloyd Mayer, a nonprofit law professor at Notre Dame Law School and a leading authority on tax-exempt organizations.
Mayer said Adams’ salary increases since FLAG’s founding are more of “a yellow flag,” than a clear violation. For FLAG’s first three years, Adams received no salary. He first took compensation in 2019 of just $20,400. Then his annual pay rose steadily to reach $411,209, or about 30% of the group’s total revenue, in 2023. Adamopoulos was the first employee outside of Adams to be paid a significant salary, in 2024. No other employee was paid more than $5,000 from 2016 to 2024, according to FLAG’s federal filings, obtained through ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer.
The legal test, Mayer said, is whether the board was clear that it was making up for early years of low or no pay: “Were they explicit in saying, ‘We’re not just paying you for this year; we’re paying you for your past service, which you were not fairly compensated for’?”
The IRS asks nonprofits whether their executive compensation was reviewed by independent people and if they used comparisons to other similar organizations — a standard safeguard against self-dealing. In all filings from 2017 to 2024, FLAG answered no to both questions.
Philip Hackney, a nonprofit law professor at the University of Pittsburgh and former IRS official, said the absence of an independent review creates its own legal exposure. “Technically, that can be an excess benefit transaction on its own,” Hackney said, referring to the IRS category that triggers taxes on compensation paid to nonprofit insiders above fair market value.
FLAG claims that 66% of revenue goes toward program service expenses, according to a separate financial report filed with the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services in Florida, where the organization is now based. But the salaries of Adams and his mother, social media spending and travel expenses account for $755,541, or 86%, of the $878,208 allocated to program services.
Mayer said the classification is not automatically improper under federal law. “Education as a charitable purpose is a very broad category,” he said. “Spending money on staff, online communications and even fundraising appeals that have informational content can all be considered programmatic.”
“What [the IRS is] looking for is not inflated spending,” Mayer said. “They’re looking for disguised personal spending.”
In Australia, Adams was accused of spending taxpayer dollars on personal expenses. In 2006, when Adams was 22 years old, he served as a councillor in Ashfield, Australia. He was formally condemned by fellow councillors for running up thousands of dollars in phone calls and taxi charges for personal use while claiming them as council expenses. He repaid the charges after a formal investigation, according to a 2006 article in the Inner-West Weekly, an Australian newspaper.
FLAG’s online store sells Adams’ personal books — including “Alpha Kings” and “From Mar-a-Lago to Mars,” several marketed as signed copies for as much as $40 — alongside its own educational materials. One of Adams’ personal books, “Trump and Churchill,” is on the front page of FLAG’s online store, accompanied with language that says, “Proceeds from all sales go directly to promoting our mission and providing students and teachers with high-quality educational resources.” It is the only book with language that distinguishes which purchases fund FLAG’s mission or pay Adams directly.
In September, FLAG posted a photo from a conservative women’s convention showing Adams standing behind a table stacked with copies of his personal books displayed alongside FLAG-branded resources with the organization’s banner behind him. Adams’ books have also been advertised for sale on FLAG’s Facebook page, with links going directly to Adams’ personal website for the books rather than FLAG’s shopify page.
“He’s free to market his books,” Mayer said, “but if he has a charity do it, that means it’s not really a charity anymore, in that respect. It’s not about public benefit — the private benefit to him overrides the public benefit.”
In addition to the disclosure discrepancies, FLAG appears to have violated rules for conducting sweepstakes. Nearly all of FLAG’s revenue originates from individual donors, and most of that money is raised through a direct-mail sweepstakes operation that offers the chance to win prizes, in one case $1,000,000.
For years, FLAG has run a direct-mail sweepstakes campaign under names like “Payout Decision” and “Winner Search Swps.” Sweepstakes are regulated primarily at the state level, and organizations that run them are often required to register and report to state officials. Not every state requires this, but Florida, where FLAG is registered as a charity, does. FLAG does not disclose a sweepstakes program in its federal filings, and ProPublica could not locate any official sweepstakes registration for the organization in any state.
Nine years of FLAG’s federal filings contain no transaction consistent with a $1,000,000 payment. Hackney said any such payout would be expected to appear on the organization’s tax filings. “It should be an amount paid out at some point, and that would show up in a 990,” he said, referencing the name of the tax return filed by nonprofits, which is public. At its financial peak in 2023, FLAG held roughly $512,000 in total assets — about half the value of the prize it has offered to donors.
Mayer said the absence of a documented prize payment raises further legal questions. “If the promise is that someone will win $1,000,000 and no one ever does, that’s fraud,” he said. “That’s lying to induce people to support you.”
Internal records from a mailing list exchange database, which details how often and for what purpose organizations use mailing lists of potential donors, shows a shift in FLAG’s emphasis. Notes in FLAG’s record state that as of July 2020, FLAG was “not mailing much” through conventional fundraising channels and was “focusing on the sweeps side.”
In April 2024, someone filed a Better Business Bureau complaint against FLAG, alleging that its sweepstakes drawing deadlines had been repeatedly postponed — along with those of more than a dozen other charities the complainant said used the same practice. In a follow-up filing, the complainant cited FLAG’s timeline: a drawing originally set to run from January 2022 through December 2024 that had, by then, been pushed to run from December 2023 through January 2025.
“I just want them to pay me back my hard earned money,” the complainant wrote, “since I am a retired senior citizen who happened to love this country.”
FLAG told the BBB on May 6, 2024, that it had responded to the complainant.
FLAG marks its 10th anniversary on Wednesday, and is throwing itself a gala with tickets for the occasion priced at $1,000; $5,000; and $10,000. Adams is still listed on the website as FLAG’s founder but ceded the role of CEO in March to Cooper Rodenburg, a recent graduate of Stetson University, around the time he accepted his State Department role to promote tourism to the United States.
Reached by phone, Rodenburg requested that questions be sent by email but did not respond to them.
Rodenburg has since increased FLAG’s public activity, launching a TikTok account and a Substack newsletter, meeting with educational representatives and speaking to groups like the Shelby County Republican Women’s Club in Tennessee. A Substack post in April described FLAG, represented by Rodenburg and Adamopoulos, delivering founding documents to schools in Mississippi. This was one of the only specific program activities the organization has documented in recent years.
Why should Delaware care? The Port of Wilmington is one of the last anchors of good-paying, blue-collar jobs in Delaware. It also has suffered a string of financial and personnel acrimony over a dramatic six-year period.
Last spring, a judge from the federal agency that oversees labor laws ruled that a prominent Delaware union leader retaliated against a Port of Wilmington worker by preventing him from securing jobs through the longshoremen’s union’s exclusive hiring hall.
A week later, the Delaware union appealed the scathing ruling. The case now sits before a federal appeals court in Philadelphia.
The worker, Stanford Fowler, first filed a retaliation charge with the National Labor Relations Board in 2021, claiming that Bill Ashe — president of the International Longshoremen’s Association Local 1694 — had prevented him from seeking work through the union’s hiring hall.
He claimed it came in retaliation for raising questions about a union merger and a request to switch union locals.
Around that time, the Port of Wilmington was facing major strife, particularly among workers from Fowler’s initial union local who claimed they had been targets of a series of anti-worker maneuvers. Caught up in several of the claims was Ashe, who also serves as a vice president for the international ILA.
Fowler’s legal claim progressed over the subsequent years. In one court document from 2023, an NLRB judge called him “a vocal and prominent dissident member” of the International Longshoremen’s Association.
By April, the NLRB finally issued a decision with a ruling that largely sided with Fowler’s claims. In it, the NLRB judge ordered the union to cease and desist from threatening to bar employees from union work “because they engaged in dissident union activity,” or for “other arbitrary or discriminatory reasons.”
The NLRB also ordered the union to make Fowler whole for any loss of earnings or other benefits suffered when the union failed to refer him for employment.
ILA Local 1694 President William Ashe Jr. testifies before the Senate Executive Committee in 2025. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY JACOB OWENS
A week after the ruling, Ashe’s ILA Local 1694 appealed the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
Ashe declined to comment on the case.
A spokesman for Fowler’s attorney’s firm — the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation — said he believes the union’s appeal “lacks any merit.”
The spokesman, Patrick Semmens, pointed to the initial 2023 decision by the NLRB administrative law judge favoring Fowler, and the April decision that also sided with him.
“Union officials’ arguments have never carried the day in any forum, and we are confident the same will be true in the U.S. Court of Appeals,” Semmens said.
The fate of the case now remains in the hands of the federal appeals court in Philadelphia, which has jurisdiction over Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and the Virgin Islands.
Fowler’s attorney filed an official motion to intervene in the case, which a judge approved last week.
The alleged retaliation began in 2021 after Fowler wrote a letter to the International Longshoremen’s Association secretary treasurer, expressing concern about securing access to top-notch health benefits after a union merger.
Fowler’s initial union — then called Local 1694-1 — had a health care contract directly with the port operator, GT USA Wilmington. But Ashe’s Local 1694 provided better health benefits through a union sponsored plan. To gain access to the local, Fowler began to work as a so-called casual worker in an attempt to gain full membership.
Later in 2021, Local 1694-1 dissolved and its members, including Fowler, were dispersed into the other Port of WIlmington locals. Despite the reorganization, those workers’ employment remained under the terms of the dissolved union’s contract.
Concerned about his ability to continue accruing hours with Local 1694 after the merger, Fowler challenged the decision to dissolve his local in a letter to national union secretary-treasurer Stephen Knott.
Knott received the letter and then forwarded it on to Ashe.
According to court documents, Ashe and others then confronted Fowler at the hiring hall, telling him he should never write letters to the international union’s leadership, and that they would no longer let him work through their hiring hall.
“From that point on, Ashe interfered with Fowler’s attempts to seek work out of the [union] hiring hall on about 20 occasions,” the NLRB opinion stated.
Later in 2022, after Fowler filed his charge with the NLRB, Ashe reversed his position, according to court documents, telling him he was permitted to seek employment through the local union.
Fowler returned to work in March. But while on the job, he was driving a truck at the port when the vehicle became stuck in a ditch. In response, the port’s operator, GT USA, placed Fowler on administrative suspension until an investigation was complete.
Not knowing he was suspended, according to court documents, Fowler returned to the hiring hall later in the week. He eventually secured a job with a different port company that day. While at work, a union official approached and said he was “barred from the port.” He then called security who escorted him off the facility.
He had not sought work at the port since, according to the NLRB decision.
Fowler subsequently filed an official grievance with the union about his removal from the port, asserting Ashe and Hall were “conspiring” to stop him from working.
Another similar port worker lawsuit against Ashe and the union
Fowler is not the only port worker to claim retaliation by port union officials in recent years.
Donald Zimmerman, a former crane operator and union shop steward, filed a federal lawsuit in September 2022 against the union and Ashe, asserting that he was wrongfully expelled from the union.
The complaint alleges the union and Ashe expelled Zimmerman to prevent him from running for union office and from “interfering with their cozy relationship with GT (port) management.”
The court granted the union’s motion for summary judgment on March 30 , meaning the case will not proceed to trial.
Subsequent court documents stated that the parties reached an agreement to settle the case. Zimmerman’s complaint states that he “could make approximately $200,000 per year” at the Port.
Lance Geren, the union’s attorney, did not respond to a request for comment.
Zimmerman’s lawyers said they have no comment on the case.
According to the lawsuit, Zimmerman, as a shop steward of local 1694-1, “aggressively” filed grievances in 2019 and 2020 to try and force his employer, GT USA, to honor the terms of the collective bargaining agreement with the local 1694-1.
It further claimed the Local 1694-1’s officers “cut side deals” with GT management. In 2020, Zimmerman filed internal charges of neglect of duty against the Ashe and the Local 1694-1 business agent.
Later that year, GT USA fired Zimmerman because of alleged “negligence.”
By December, 2021, the Local 1694-1 executive board voted to take Zimmerman’s grievance to arbitration.
But in March, Ashe and his union withdrew Zimmerman’s grievance from arbitration, after the reorganization of the union locals.
Ashe denied Zimmerman’s request for a vote on the arbitration decision and his petition for the board to reconsider, the complaint alleged.
A June letter from Ashe’s union claimed Zimmerman was ineligible for membership because he was “barred from the Port of Wilmington.”
Alcohol has been a fixture of professional and social life in China for decades, but a new generation is resisting pressure to drink excessively — or at all.
The plastic, nonlethal aircraft, which can smash windows and ram attackers, will be at the ready in a handful of schools in Florida, Georgia and Colorado.
For generations, support for Israel was central to Jewish-American identity. But today, amid accusations that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza, a growing generational and political divide is reshaping views in the US Jewish community. Matthew Cassel travels to New York City – the heart of Jewish-American life – to explore how Israel’s wars across multiple fronts are challenging long-held traditions and dividing families.
UNITED NATIONS, NEW YORK — The United States delegation walked out during France’s remarks at a United Nations Security Council meeting Monday, escalating a diplomatic dispute between the longtime allies over human rights policy.
The confrontation followed Friday’s General Assembly vote extending U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk’s term for four years. The measure passed 144-10, with 13 abstentions. The United States joined Russia, Israel and North Korea in opposing the reappointment.
France’s U.N. mission criticized Washington after the vote, saying the United States had once been a leader on human rights but had aligned itself with authoritarian governments. Deputy U.S. representative Dan Negrea called the remarks “condescending and disrespectful” and said American diplomats would leave during France’s statements until the country withdrew them.
U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz accused France of supporting a human rights chief who unfairly targets democracies while accommodating oppressive governments. France’s ambassador, Jérôme Bonnafont, did not directly address the walkout and instead reaffirmed his government’s support for international cooperation and human rights.
The clash reflects broader tensions between President Donald Trump’s administration and the United Nations over funding, human rights oversight and European security.
The sell-off in AI stocks has intensified, driving South Korea’s stock market down to its lowest level in three months.
Investors continued to ditch chip stocks on Tuesday, amid rising concerns about the huge amount of borrowing among AI companies to fund their datacentre expansion plans.
PC, Nintendo Switch/Switch 2, PS5; SFB Games Detective Grimoire is at it again in the long-awaited new entry to this stylish series of comedy whodunnits
In a boom time for mystery games, the Detective Grimoire series stands out for its style and sense of humour. The Mermaid Mask continues to build upon the formula laid down in Secret of the Swamp and polished in Tangle Tower, and while there is still room for further improvements this sequel is worth the seven years’ wait.
This time, the casually competent Grimoire and his smart if sarcastic sidekick Sally have been summoned to a submarine to solve the locked-room murder of its captain, Magnus Mortuga. You click around the cluttered rooms of the vessel to hear the detectives’ comedic commentary and look for clues and – closer up – click and drag to move objects around for further examination or to solve a puzzle. (For those playing on Nintendo Switch 2, the mouse controls are actually useful here, if not comfortable in the long run.)
Vacuuming rarely starts with vacuuming. First you have to clear the floor of stray socks and abandoned toys left behind by children, pets or messy partners. Then there’s the irritation of finding the vacuum’s dustbin still full of dirt, or the battery flat because someone forgot to charge it.
The (take a deep breath – long name coming up) Shark PowerDetect Speed Clean and Empty Pet Pro cordless vacuum Ultramarine IA3241UKT certainly won’t pick up the scattered toys for you, but it has been designed to make the job of vacuuming as frictionless as possible.
MTC provided security at heavily criticised Manston centre in Kent and could now make £500m managing the site
A private security company linked to Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown reported a slump in UK revenues after losing an asylum centre contract but could make £500m managing the same facility until 2036.
Management & Training Corporation (MTC) said sales fell from £28.4m to £17.6m in 2025 after its contract to provide “security and care” at the heavily criticised Manston site in Kent ended in September.
Born in a camp in Nepal, I was welcomed to the United States as a child. Loving this country does not mean ignoring its contradictions
It was a hot, dry afternoon, sometime in the spring of 2009. I was wearing an oversized T-shirt and a pair of shorts twice the size of my waist, held up with a piece of wire. I sat beneath a tree across from the bamboo office of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), waiting.
My heart pounded as sweat rolled down my face. Every few minutes I looked toward the dirt road, hoping to see the white van. Finally the blue IOM logo came into view, and within seconds, dozens of people were running toward it.
Across the country, federal judges are calling out Department of Justice lawyers, questioning in unprecedented ways whether they can be trusted to tell the truth or uphold centuries-old legal norms.
From Washington, D.C., to Rhode Island to Oregon, federal judges nominated by presidents from both parties, including Donald Trump, have zeroed in on what’s called “the presumption of regularity.” It essentially means that judges must presume that the government — whether it be federal prosecutors, an IRS auditor or an FBI agent — did their jobs according to the rules and in good faith.
Until Trump’s second term, which has seen an exodus of veteran DOJ lawyers and a transformative shift in priorities from issues like enforcing civil rights to instead defending a mass deportation agenda, this foundational tenet had rarely been discussed in federal courtrooms, former judges, lawyers and scholars say. But as Trump’s DOJ exhibits behavior that judges have called “unlawful,” “unethical,” “unseemly” or otherwise dishonest, adherence to that bedrock standard is now being questioned.
ProPublica reviewed hundreds of cases since Trump retook the White House in which judges criticized the actions of DOJ lawyers and found more than 40 in which they explicitly referenced the presumption of regularity. In many cases, judges have expressed frustration that they can no longer take the government at its word.
“Judges simply don’t believe the representations that are being made by United States attorneys, assistant United States attorneys and the like,” said John E. Jones, a former federal judge for the District of Pennsylvania, appointed by President George W. Bush.
“I don’t think in the annals of the Department of Justice, in the history of jurisprudence in the United States, we’ve ever seen anything close to this.”
In Rhode Island in May, Trump-appointed federal Judge Mary McElroy rebuked federal prosecutors’ conduct — saying they withheld information and misrepresented facts — as she quashed their requests for a subpoena in their investigation into a hospital’s care of transgender children. The judge alleged the DOJ had inappropriately claimed its investigation was operating out of Texas to secure subpoenas targeting sensitive medical records of patients in another state and that it falsely claimed the Rhode Island hospital hadn’t communicated with the department.
“The discrepancy between the honorable conduct expected of federal prosecutors and DOJ’s tactics in this case is unsettling,” McElroy wrote. “The Court cannot help but share the sentiment that ‘[t]he presumption of regularity that has previously been extended to [DOJ] that it could be taken at its word — with little doubt about its intentions and stated purposes — no longer holds.’”
Judges have emitted a chorus of condemnations against the legal basis for some of Trump’s political agenda, including the mass firings of federal workers, an immigration dragnet that has imprisoned hundreds of U.S. citizens and retribution campaigns against the president’s political enemies.
In doing so, federal judges are imbuing forceful language into their orders in a way that scholars say signals to the Trump administration that the third branch of government is losing trust in the Justice Department.
“I don’t think in the annals of the Department of Justice, in the history of jurisprudence in the United States, we’ve ever seen anything close to this.”
Former federal Judge John E. Jones, a George W. Bush appointee
Federal judges rarely grant interviews, and none of the judges who criticized the Justice Departmentin their orders granted interviews to ProPublica.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the DOJ said its attorneys are “dedicated public servants who represent the United States with integrity, in accordance with their ethical obligations and the law.”
“The Department stands firmly behind the professionalism and good faith of its attorneys,” said spokesperson Kiersten Pels. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Federal judges have found that the government filed statements generated by artificial intelligence that referenced nonexistent case law, wrote briefs that ignored facts and filed declarations with inaccurate dates, the ProPublica review shows.
In one case, the government included documentation claiming a detainee had been convicted of marijuana possession in 2009. That detainee, the judge noted, citing what she called the government’s persistent “sloppiness,” would have been 4 years old.
“This Court will no longer blindly accept statements of fact from [the U.S. government] unless they are made under oath by an individual with personal knowledge,” Judge Christine O’Hearn, a President Joe Biden appointee, wrote in New Jersey while reviewing a writ of habeas corpus petition filed by a man who claimed he was unlawfully imprisoned by immigration officers. O’Hearn accused the government of defying her orders when, instead of releasing the man, Immigration and Customs Enforcement transferred him to a different facility in New York.
In Minnesota, the state’s top political leaders had publicly clashed with the administration following the violent ICE raids that led to the deaths of two U.S. citizens. Then the administration filed a flurry of subpoenas against them.
Last month, Judge Patrick J. Schiltz, who was appointed by George W. Bush and clerked for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, slammed the government’s actions and “spurious claims,” saying the presumption of regularity was being abused.
“Initiating a criminal investigation in order to harass political opponents or to coerce them into taking official action — particularly official action that the federal government cannot directly require those political opponents to take — is a blatantly unlawful and unethical use [of] the grand-jury process,” the judge wrote.
“Breakdown” of a Presumption
The presumption of regularity creates a high bar for those suing the government or defending themselves against it in criminal cases. They often must provide evidence that the government willfully violated a policy or otherwise deviated from its charge — that is, did something irregular — to overcome the standard.
It’s a shield the government wields often, with little notice, and one that is almost always successful. But overcoming that presumption has become increasingly common under Trump’s second term, according to court watchers.
About half of the cases ProPublica identified as questioning the presumption come from districts, including D.C., Maryland and Virginia, where by proximity and jurisdiction many of Trump’s actions are challenged and often heard by Democratic-nominated judges. The Southern District of New York, which has issued repeated rebukes of Trump administration actions, and the Northern District of California, another Democratic stronghold, are other hotbeds of judicial scrutiny.
Last September, D.C. District Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui accused the administration of working around the federal grand jury process, getting an indictment from a state court after prosecutors had failed to get one in his court, which he called “unseemly,” if not “unlawful.” He fired off one of the earliest signs that the presumption itself could come into question.
“This only deepens the growing mistrust of the actions of prosecutors,” the judge wrote. “That is a sentiment that was once unthinkable, but the irregular is now the regular.” While the case was largely managed by assistant U.S. attorney Caelainn Carney, according to court transcripts, Faruqui was aiming his frustration at her bosses, including senior prosecutor Jonathan R. Hornok, and the leadership at DOJ. Neither attorney responded to requests for comment.
Pels, the DOJ spokesperson, told ProPublica that Faruqui “was wrong on the law” and noted that after the government appealed to the district’s chief judge, his order was overruled. “Judge Faruqui has a long-standing documented pattern of editorializing from the bench beyond the scope of the cases before him,” Pels added.
But in recent months, skepticism about the presumption has also come from judges appointed by Republicans, such as McElroy, or in GOP strongholds.
In Indiana, Trump-appointed federal Judge James Patrick Hanlon ordered the release of Salah Sarsour, president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee and a lawful U.S. resident, from ICE custody in March. Sarsour’s lawyers argued the government had targeted him to suppress his First Amendment right to free speech. The DOJ invoked the presumption of regularity and argued his arrest was part of an anti-terrorism dragnet, which the judge threw out.
In the Southern District of Ohio, Judge Michael R. Barrett, appointed by George W. Bush, ordered ICE to release a detainee after concluding the presumption had been overcome because the government hadn’t presented a reasonable argument that the man was a flight risk.
News outlets, including CNN, have documented federal judges’ ire with Trump’s DOJ, and some of the cases under question have been well-publicized, such as the government’s illegal deportation of Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador. In that case, Judge Paula Xinis, a President Barack Obama appointee, criticized the government, saying, “You have taken the presumption of regularity, and you’ve destroyed it.”
Many of the rulings challenged one of Trump’s hallmark efforts: immigration enforcement and deportations.
“The presumption of regularity and integrity previously and routinely afforded to the Executive branch and the United States Attorney’s Office has been undeniably eroded in this jurisdiction and across the country,” O’Hearn wrote in February, noting that the federal government had repeatedly violated court orders in her district and others related to immigration operations.
In another immigration detention case, this one in Washington state, Biden-appointed Judge Lauren King said, “[t]he ‘presumption of regularity’ is dislodged here by the numerous factual errors in Respondents’ filings and by their conflicting representations.”
Jeremy Fogel, executive director of the Berkeley Judicial Institute and a former federal judge from California, said what’s happening in the courts feels more like a “political conflict” than the normal ebb and flow of the justice system.
“It’s really one branch that is really sort of questioning the legitimacy of the other one,” Fogel said. “I think the judges are trying to stand up for the legitimacy of their branch.”
Just Security, an online law and policy journal, has been tracking cases in which federal judges have admonished Trump’s prosecutors, including those involving the presumption.
“We’re witnessing a breakdown in the ways in which any administration ordinarily carries out its responsibilities, through the Justice Department in particular,” said Ryan Goodman, Just Security’s co-editor-in-chief.
Erosion of Trust, Ethics Inquiries
The erosion of trust from the federal bench comes as Trump has profoundly shifted priorities at the DOJ to align with his political platform: ending civil rights and diversity programs, deporting immigrants and stripping away environmental protections.
Those who deal with DOJ lawyers have noticed the difference in court.
Mitch Bernard, chief counsel at the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council, has faced off on environmental issues with the DOJ many times. Although they may disagree, he said, he always expected his opponents to be “fair and above board.”
That dynamic is gone, he said.
“I would call it a transformation of the role of the Justice Department,” he said. “There are many different judges in different jurisdictions not only ruling against the government but calling the government out for dishonesty and dissembling, and that’s an extraordinary thing.”
The result, Bernard said, is that “the government will lose more cases as a result of the way the Justice Department is behaving.”
“There are many different judges in different jurisdictions not only ruling against the government but calling the government out for dishonesty and dissembling, and that’s an extraordinary thing.”
Mitch Bernard, chief counsel at the Natural Resources Defense Council
Meanwhile, groups such as his are benefitting from the government brain drain. “We hired 10 litigating attorneys last year,” he said. Of those, eight came from the DOJ.
Judges aren’t just losing faith in the DOJ. Some are pushing to sanction Justice Department lawyers.
This month, Miami federal Judge Kathleen M. Williams ruled that Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS was an improper exercise in self-enrichment, citing the president’s lawyers for a series of misstatements in the case.
The Obama appointee referred the lawyer who brought the president’s case against the IRS, Alejandro Brito, to the Florida Bar for potential disciplinary proceedings. She also forwarded her ruling to disciplinary officials in New York, who had earlier received an ethics complaint about acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.
A DOJ spokesperson called the Blanche case “nothing more than a politically motivated bar complaint, filed by partisan activists who disagree with this Administration’s policies.” Brito did not respond to a request for comment.
In Rhode Island, McElroy referred DOJ lawyers to a review board for possible discipline for their handling of the hospital investigation.
“As citizens, we trust that federal prosecutors, when wielding this awesome power against a state, a company, or certainly against vulnerable children, will play fair and be honest with its counterparts and the judiciary,” McElroy wrote. “DOJ has proven unworthy of this trust at every point in this case.”
Why Should Delaware Care? The Wilmington police fatal shooting 19-year-old Kadir Skinner in northeast Wilmington has become one of the city’s highest-profile use-of-force cases in years, prompting protests, promises of legal reform, and a likely lawsuit.
A Wilmington police officer pepper-sprayed a protester in her face on Friday during a protest on Interstate 95 against the police killing of Kadir Skinner, according to video of the incident.
The woman who was pepper-sprayed said it occurred after she had followed orders by police to back up. Video of the incident shows a line of police facing a group of protesters who back up several steps, then come to stop. The woman, who asked not to be named, was at the front of the group with her arms reaching outward to her side.
She told Spotlight Delaware that she had stood in between the police and a group of many Black protestors to act as a kind of “human shield.”
“As white women, that’s our role,” she said. “I’d rather it be me than anyone else.”
The video then shows one officer spraying a chemical irritant into her face and neck.
Caroline Klinger, spokeswoman for Wilmington Mayor John Carney, declined to comment.
A spokesman for the Wilmington Police Department did not respond to a request for comment.
Prior to the incident, the protestors – about 20 of them shown in the video – had marched onto a portion of Interstate 95 near Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard, causing authorities to close the expressway.
The protest was the latest of several demonstrations in recent weeks in response to the Wilmington police killing of 19-year-old Kadir Skinner in late June.
It also was not the first where claims emerged of police deploying irritant spray.
Shortly after a Wilmington police officer shot Skinner, a crowd gathered as the teen lay on the ground handcuffed. Videos of the aftermath show officers with pepper spray in their hands. Residents within the crowd are later heard asking police why they deployed the spray, but there does not appear to be clear video of that incident.
Friday’s protest began at the location Skinner was killed – 24th and Jessup streets.
It continued to Interstate 95 and then through the Trolley Square neighborhood and to the homes of U.S. Sen. Chris Coons and Delaware Attorney General Kathleen Jennings. Throughout, protestors held signs reading “Hold Killer Cops Accountable” and “Justice for Kadir Skinner.”
The woman who was pepper-sprayed continued on with the protest and spoke with Spotlight Delaware outside of Jennings’ home.
In the interview, she said the chemicals from the spray initially did not burn, attributing the delayed pain to her “big glasses.” Fellow protestors later helped her wash her eyes, using a gallon of milk purchased from a nearby gas station.
“I remembered you have to tilt your head back, not tilt it forward,” she said. “Two women ran in, bought me a gallon of milk, and just started dousing me with it.”
After the public release of body camera footage showing Wilmington police shoot 19-year-old Kadir Skinner, calls for police reforms have poured in. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY ELSA KEGELMAN
Skinner’s killing has caused public outrage and demonstrations, with protests especially picking up since authorities released body camera footage from the incident, earlier this month.
Wilmington officials say officers chased Skinner after they saw him walk out of a home pointing a gun at a large crowd of people. The body cam footage does not cover moments before the chase.
Moscow is coming under increasing pressure over Kyiv’s relentless drone strikes. Ukraine’s president is due to meet in Washington with President Donald Trump on Tuesday.
Cockroach Janta party says government has broken promise, with detentions in Delhi, Assam, West Bengal and Bihar
India’s youth-led “Cockroach” movement, whose nationwide protests forced the resignation of the education minister, has accused the government of backtracking on its promise not to act against student protesters and has threatened to restart demonstrations.
The Cockroach Janta party (CJP), which organised mass protests over exam paper leaks and other irregularities, said it had received reports of hundreds of students being detained or “harassed” by police.
A new analysis of 89 major geological events over the past 260 million years found evidence that mass extinctions, volcanic eruptions, ocean crises, and other upheavals may cluster around a roughly 27.5-million-year cycle. The cause remains unknown, with possibilities ranging from mantle activity and orbital changes to speculative galactic influences. Slashdot reader alternative_right shares a report from ScienceAlert: One possibility lies deep within Earth itself. The planet's mantle is constantly circulating through convection, albeit at an almost unimaginably slow pace. Periodic changes in mantle convection, or the initiation of mantle plumes, could influence volcanism, plate tectonics, mountain building, and other large-scale geological processes. Because these systems are closely interconnected, disturbances originating deep within Earth could eventually ripple through the planet's surface, oceans, climate, and biosphere.
Another hypothesis focuses on interactions between Earth's surface and interior. Long-term orbital variations influence climate and sea level, periodically redistributing enormous amounts of water, ice, and sediment across the planet. [New York University geologist Michael Rampino] discusses the possibility that these changing surface loads subtly modify stresses within Earth's crust and upper mantle, potentially influencing tectonic and volcanic activity over geological timescales.
Rampino also considers possible influences beyond Earth, an idea he has been weighing up since the 1980s. As the Solar System orbits the center of the Milky Way, it oscillates above and below the galaxy's mid-plane, with the timing of these passages aligning with that of Earth's major upheavals. These crossings, other researchers have suggested, could also gravitationally perturb comets in the distant Oort Cloud, increasing the likelihood of large asteroid impacts.
Another, even more speculative, hypothesis suggests that if dark matter is concentrated near the galactic plane, a fraction of it could occasionally be captured by Earth. Over millions of years, this process could generate small amounts of internal heat, potentially influencing geological activity. At present, however, there is no direct evidence supporting either mechanism, so they remain very controversial.
Large asteroid impacts are discussed separately in the paper. Although they were not included in the statistical analysis of the 89 geological events, the timing of several of Earth's largest known impact craters appears broadly consistent with the proposed 27.5-million-year rhythm, as Rampino has discussed in earlier papers. Rampino suggests this correspondence may warrant further investigation, but stops short of claiming a causal relationship.
Johnson & Johnson has offered $5.5 billion to settle tens of thousands of lawsuits claiming its baby powder and other talcum powder products caused ovarian cancer, the company says.
Landmark deal covers about 76,000 claims and could end contentious, decade-long legal battle
Johnson & Johnson said it would pay an estimated $5.5bn to resolve tens of thousands of lawsuits alleging its baby powder and other talc products caused ovarian cancer, in a landmark deal that could end a contentious, decade-long legal battle.
Johnson & Johnson on Monday said the settlement covers about 76,000 claims, including ones consolidated in a federal court in New Jersey, and related cases in state court, representing nearly all of the remaining talc claims against the company.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald Trump has privately pressured Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to move faster in reducing the number of vaccines recommended for children, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Trump reportedly confronted Kennedy during a May lunch and again during a June Oval Office meeting, questioning why the department had not done more to investigate an alleged connection between vaccines and autism. Kennedy was reportedly surprised because White House political advisers had urged him to moderate his vaccine rhetoric before the midterm elections.
Extensive research has found no causal connection between childhood vaccines and autism. Large studies have also found no association between the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and autism.
Trump reportedly believes reducing recommended vaccinations could eventually lower autism rates. His administration has already pursued changes to federal vaccine guidance, although some initiatives have faced legal and political resistance.
The Journal also reported that Trump has grown frustrated with Kennedy’s broader progress after 18 months in office. Dr. Mehmet Oz, who leads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, is reportedly viewed inside the administration as a possible successor.
Trump frequently consults Oz on health matters beyond his agency’s responsibilities, while Kennedy has indicated that he intends to remain health secretary.
In normal times the Mashala shelter founder takes in strays, but in wartime, he is the only lifeline for animals in the area
During Israel’s 2006 war against Hezbollah, Houssein Hamze woke up one night to the sound of barking. Alarmed, he got up to check on the dog – his first rescue pet. Moments later, a bomb dropped next to his home and a piece of shrapnel landed right where he had been sleeping.
“I swear to God, he really saved me from death. Animals always possess a sixth sense we don’t have,” Hamze said.
From Afghanistan to Taiwan, unprecedented deluge highlights devastating impact of climate breakdown
“It rained for 10 days and 10 nights, non-stop – I’d never seen anything like it,” says Anar Gul, a construction worker who lives in the remote district of Dur Baba in eastern Afghanistan.
The houses in his village are built from stone and mud, which makes them extremely vulnerable to heavy rains. After days of rain, Gul’s kitchen collapsed and his neighbour, Sayed Afsar Sadat, saw a large part of his house completely destroyed. “Rains like this are coming heavier and earlier each year,” says Sadat. “They are destroying the roads and washing away our crops. It’s impacting us directly.”
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: One missing underscore in a Skyrim-themed username put an innocent Nova Scotia man in prison for 18 months. A 2018 child-luring investigation, which began in Madison, Wisconsin, and eventually extended to Halifax, Canada, was based on a false premise. Police were looking for a man using the Kik messaging service under the name "fus__ro_dah" (two underscores after "fus"), but they accidentally requested records for the username "fus_ro_dah" (one underscore after "fus"). This one-character difference led them not to the perpetrator but to a Canadian man named Brandon Klayme. (Ars readers may recognize "fus ro dah" as the Unrelenting Force "dragon shout" from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.)
Despite finding no evidence of the crime on his digital devices, Canadian police arrested Klayme in 2020 on child sex abuse charges. He was convicted after a trial in 2023 and sentenced in 2024 to 18 months in prison. He served the full term. Even after release, Klayme continued to fight his conviction. In the process of preparing his appeal, the username mistake that led to all these years of disruption was finally discovered. On Thursday, the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal overturned Klayme's conviction, writing: "Mr. Klayme is factually innocent of the offences. He should never have been charged, let alone convicted." [...] As the court puts it, "Although the information about the usernames was available at the time of the trial, there is no evidence confirming or explaining how it went unnoticed."
Abdul El-Sayed and Rep. Haley Stevens clashed on outside spending and electability in their last debate before Michigan's Democratic primary next week.
Republican Sen. Rand Paul released more than a thousand pages of journal entries from Dr. Anthony Fauci, teeing up what is likely to be a contentious hearing on Wednesday.
Coming days are ‘absolutely critical’ for firefighters before temperatures rise again this week, officials say
Firefighters in France and Spain are racing to bring huge wildfires under control before another heatwave this week that will complicate efforts to tame the flames.
Spain’s interior minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, said Monday and Tuesday were “absolutely crucial days” before temperatures rise again from Wednesday, prompting prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, to warn: “We face difficult hours, complex hours” ahead.
Donald Trump said today that he had paused US strikes on Iran to give diplomacy another chance, but he was ready for “strong military action” if diplomacy fails.
Washington was in “very deep talks with Iran”, the president told Axios, but, he added: “If they don’t work out, we will be go back to very strong military action.”
I am going to talk to Bibi about the fact that if I weren’t president, Iran would have had nuclear weapons by now and Israel would have been destroyed.
In opening statements, state argued Meta’s own research showed it harmed teens while firm’s attorneys pointed to transparency
The long-awaited trial between the social media company Meta and the state of Tennessee began proceedings on Monday. Attorneys for Tennessee told a jury in Nashville that Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, disregarded internal research about its platform’s impact on teenagers, while the company sought to maximize profit from those young users.
During opening statements in a seven-week trial in state court, the state’s lawyers said Meta researchers repeatedly flagged teenagers’ compulsive use of the platform – leading to eating disorders, depression and self-harm. But despite those warnings, Meta did not disable features such as autoplay, notifications and infinite scroll which, the lawyers said, were designed to keep teens on Instagram as long as possible and increase the number of ads they viewed.
The Houthi threat to Saudi oil exports comes as Japan, South Korea and the Philippines are still reeling from the closure of the strait of Hormuz
Governments in Asia are scrambling to avoid their second major energy crisis in six months, as another maritime chokepoint in the Middle East faces a violent blockade, leaving only the Suez canal completely open for the free movement of gulf oil.
Countries like Japan, the Philippines, Thailand and South Korea – which rely on Middle East oil for up to 90% of their imports – are working to secure supplies after Yemen’s Houthis launched a blockade of Saudi Arabian shipping passing through the Bab al-Mandab strait, which forms the southern entrance to the Red Sea.
Court filing shows authorities believe there is at least one more shooter than the two previously thought
Seattle authorities said on Monday there were at least three suspects involved in the deadly shooting at a food festival on Sunday evening near the Space Needle. One of them was among the three killed in the violence.
A document filed in juvenile court on Monday revealed a suspect aged 15 was arrested and waived his initial court appearance. The filing also showed that police think there are at least three shooters rather than the two initially reported: the 15-year-old, an acquaintance who died at the scene and “at least one other unknown suspect”.
El-Sayed says in TV debate ‘ogre on a pike’ Zoom comment was in reference to John Fetterman, not Haley Stevens
The Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed said his comments that progressives need to put the head of an “ogre” on a pike was in reference to the US senator John Fetterman – not his opponent, representative Haley Stevens.
In a televised debate on Monday, the final head-to-head before the state’s 4 August primary, the moderator asked El-Sayed whether he regretted his comments made in a Zoom meeting, in which, according to leaked audio published by Politico, he suggested that if “you put one ogre on a pike, and then everyone else gets the message”.
There are now 20 different government agencies participating in the Department of Energy’s Genesis Mission project to advance science and engineering through AI. During the Genesis Mission Summit last week, representatives from the NIH, NASA, NSF, and Department of War discussed what they hope to get out of the project, and the contributions they hope to make.
The Department of Energy announced 278 Genesis Mission awards last week at its innagural Genesis Mission Summit in Washington, D.C. The DOE Labs are heavily involved in leading the phase 1 projects, as well as universities, non-profits, and private companies. But the Genesis Mission is also extending out into other agencies. Here are some of the takeaways from US Chief Technology Officer Ethan Klein’s panel with other federal officials at the Genesis Mission Summit on July 22, 2026.
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health has committed $1.2 billion in fiscal years 2026 and 2027 to help accelerate biomedical discovery and improve health outcomes through its Genesis Mission contribution, dubbed Bio Genesis Mission.
“It’s an incredible organization, and to watch it embrace AI in every aspect of what we do, from basic scientific discovery to clinical application to the design of randomized trials… to solving pediatric cancer, all of this is so exciting,” said NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya. “I’m getting chills just thinking about it now.”
Biological cell manufacturing could geta boost from AI (guteksk7/Shutterserstock)
AI will accelerate drug discovery thanks to the capability to more rapidly use in silico tests to see which chemical candidates have the best odds of solving problems, Bhattacharya said. It will also help in emerging areas, such as genetic engineering and cell manufacturing, he said.
“In many ways we’ve seceded that leadership to the Chinese,” Bhattacharya said. “We’re going to invest in AI to bring home that kind of cell manufacturing technology, and it will make an immediate difference in the lives of patients.
National Science Foundation
The NSF is working “in lockstep” with the DOE and other federal agencies to help reach Genesis Mission goals for scientific discovery, “from astronomy to zoology and everything in between,” said Brian Stone, the NSF chief of staff who is performing the duties of the NSF director since President Trump fired the entire NSF board in April.
“Anytime we get this amount of horsepower together and we start pulling in the same direction, amazing things start to happen,” Stone said. “From a national security standpoint, from a productivity and economic standpoint, if you can get government agencies working to the level of coordination that they’re going to have on the Genesis Mission–get out of the way and watch out.”
The NSF has committed more than $500 million in core investments to Genesis Mission, including $400 million to set up 20 automated laboratories around the country, and $100 million for AI-ready datasets. The NSF will work with Genesis Mission through its own AI for science in initiative, the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR).
“We’re very pleased that NAIRR is going to be providing support to some of these several hundred projects that the DOE has announced today,” Stone said. “That investment is allowing us to kind of bridge the gap and kick start some of the things that are going to be taking place.”
Stone compared the investments the government is making in Genesis Mission with some of the early investments the government made in the Internet, which started as a collection of network links between universities and government labs, and which today is completely taken for granted.
“We’re creating the conditions for success that are going to drive us forward for the next 30 plus years, just like we did before” with the Internet, Stone said. “We’re about to hit the gas on this.”
The NFS is also playing a role in creating AI-ready data sets. Stone compared this initiative to the Protein Data Bank, the worldwide digital archive containing the three-dimensional structural data of large biological molecules, which the NSF invested in for half a century.
“We need to do that across every discipline,” Stone said. “So having data sets that you can trust and leverage and then being able to have the infrastructure that you can unlock that is useful and important.”
Department of War
In addition to military activities like paying US Army service members and procuring drones and missiles, the Department of War must does a lot of “normal” things, such as running schools and procuring transportation fuels. The DOW can potentially enhance these activities with Genesis Mission investments, said Undersecretary of War for Research and Development Emil Michael.
Unjammable navigation is one Genesis Mission hope for DOW (kirill_makarov/Shutterstock)
“We also have a big compute initiative because of how AI is becoming more important in every facet of what we do from a defense standpoint,” Michael said. “There’s so much we can do together.”
The DOW has committed $1.5 billion in spending to Genesis Mission, including $200 million for fiscal year 2027 and $1.3 billion for fiscal year 2027. According to Michael, those investments will be made in several areas, including building quantum sensors and making progress in quantum error correction.
“This challenge will really accelerate the transformation of quantum sensors and apply them to situations, like completely unjammable positioning,” Michael said. “We’re going to see what happens when nations that didn’t have these kinds of capabilities now all have them, to be able to block GPS. It’s a very important tool for our war fighters.”
Another use case involves accelerating material discovery for fuels, rare earths, and other minerals. “For our bio industrial manufacturing challenge, how we use AI and bioreactors to create digital twins of organisms so we can manufacture our own advanced fuels, chemicals, and materials, so we can secure our supply chain,” he said. “There’s been a lot of weaknesses in our defense industrial base and the broader American supply chain because of our outsourcing and dependency in our adversary’s supply chain.”
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Without the whole-of-government approach that the Department of Energy and White House Office of Science and Technology is taking with Genesis Mission, NASA would be unable to undertake many of the great scientific discoveries that are on the horizon, said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacson.
“What have we missed and what are we likely to miss in the years ahead?” Isaacson said. “A teenager last year…in NASA archival data with off-the-shelf AI applications discovered a new galaxy. You would think that’s something we probably shouldn’t overlook. There happens to be over 2 billion out there, so I guess it’s not that unusual, but this problem, or perhaps opportunity, is only going to get bigger in the years ahead.”
NASA has committed to spending more than $100 million over the next few years to Genesis Mission. In addition to better tools for analyzing data from the new Nancy Grace Roman Space telescope that’s due to launch next month, NASA hopes to make progress in advance propulsion systems, Isaacson said.
“We are reaching the limits of chemical propulsion, which released just a negligible amount of energy and matter,” he said. “So as we look to fission-based propulsion mechanisms or fusion–or maybe we get to some of the really exotic stuff that help us pursue and really extend our reach into other star systems. So all of these endeavors really excited to just talk about and certainly pursue the golden age of science and discovery would be impossible for NASA to even dream of achievement without the Genesis Mission.”
NASA is planning to launch Space Reactor-1 Freedom, a nuclear-powered interplanetary spacecraft that will feature a 20 kWe nuclear fission reactor and is scheduled to launch in December 2028. In addition to designing these advanced propulsion systems, NASA will eventually need AI to help manage them as they move far beyond Earth.
“Managing a reactor in that environment with a 20-plus-minute transit transmission delay is not optimal,” Isaacson said. “So that would certainly be a component of our of our Genesis Mission strategy.”
Feature image above features (right to left) Ethan Klein, Jay Bhattacharya, Brian Stone, Emil Michael, and Jared Isaacson.
NESS ZIONA, Israel, July 27, 2026 – QTREX Quantum Ltd., a company focused on advancing Additively Manufactured Electronics (AME) for quantum computing infrastructure today announced the launch of a research collaboration with Northeastern University in Massachusetts, focused on advanced micro-system structures for cryogenic quantum interconnects.
Pursuant to the collaboration agreement, Northeastern University has agreed to provide QTREX with a first option to negotiate a commercial license to Northeastern-owned or jointly developed intellectual property arising directly from the parties’ joint research (the “Project IP”). The program further expands QTREX’s vertically integrated quantum connectivity platform by adding a structured innovation pipeline alongside the Company’s proprietary materials, advanced manufacturing and cryogenic interconnect capabilities.
The research activities are expected to focus on micro-system structures and interconnect geometries that may support new quantum connectivity architectures, including the evaluation of conductive, dielectric and superconducting materials for cryogenic environments and characterization of fabricated structures under cryogenic conditions. These activities are intended to generate experimental data and technical insights that can strengthen QTREX’s long-term innovation pipeline and inform future quantum connectivity, packaging and processor-interface solutions.
Northeastern University, a leading R1 research university, the highest US research activity designation, with a dedicated quantum research ecosystem anchored by its Quantum Materials and Sensing Institute, brings capabilities in quantum materials, superconducting devices, nanofabrication, advanced characterization and quantum sensing. The research effort will be led by Prof. Benyamin Davaji, whose work in advanced micro-systems, microfabrication and NSF-funded superconducting nanowire detector research provides quantum-relevant expertise directly aligned with QTREX’s structured innovation pipeline.
“Additive manufacturing of electronics and microsystems holds exciting potential to reshape how we approach electrical connectivity—offering a path toward three-dimensional, low-parasitic interconnects with micron-scale precision that could benefit both quantum sensing and quantum computing,” said Prof. Benyamin Davaji, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Northeastern University.
“We believe that the combination of our proprietary technology platform with the deep scientific knowledge, research infrastructure and years of experience of Northeastern University’s researchers, led by Prof. Benyamin Davaji, creates a powerful foundation for breakthrough developments in quantum interconnect architectures,” said Dagi Ben-Noon, CEO of QTREX. “Our strategy is to build a comprehensive quantum connectivity platform by combining proprietary materials, advanced manufacturing, processor-interface technologies and a continuously expanding innovation pipeline. This program strengthens that strategy by creating a structured pathway to translate academic research and eligible project-generated IP into potential commercial technologies for next-generation quantum systems.”
The program has already commenced, with joint teams from QTREX and Northeastern University beginning to work together to define research objectives, align technical priorities and allocate responsibilities.
About QTREX Quantum
QTREX Quantum Ltd. (Nasdaq: QTEX) is a technology company focused on advanced connectivity and electronics manufacturing solutions for next-generation hardware markets. Following its acquisition of the AME platform, the Company is developing high-density, thermally optimized quantum connectivity solutions for dilution cryostats and advancing AME applications for defense, aerospace, missile, space, and other mission-critical environments. The Company also continues to advance its medical technology portfolio, including respiratory support and blood monitoring platforms, while actively working to monetize certain parts of the medical business.
SUNNYVALE, Calif., July 27, 2026 — Synopsys, Inc. today announced at the 2026 DAC Chips to Systems Conference, expanded collaborations with Intel Foundry with the certification of AI-powered EDA flows on Intel 14A process technology, advancing design enablement from design technology co-optimization (DTCO) to system-aware co-design, building on its certified and production-ready EDA flows and IP portfolio for Intel 18A and Intel 18A-P technologies.
As AI and high-performance computing designs move beyond monolithic scaling, success requires connecting process technology with AI-powered EDA flows, multi-die design, integrated multiphysics analysis, and broad IP portfolio to accelerate system-level realization.
“Angstrom-scale design is no longer only about extracting more power, performance, and area from a process node. It is about turning process innovation into predictable system-level outcomes,” said Michael Buehler-Garcia, Senior Vice President at Synopsys. “Together with Intel Foundry, Synopsys is helping customers accelerate convergence, reduce late-stage rework, and achieve first-pass silicon success. We applaud the Intel Foundry team for their progress on Intel 14A to expand the capabilities of advanced semiconductor manufacturing.”
“In this increasingly AI-driven world, Intel Foundry is committed to supporting our customers by accelerating innovation and providing predictable execution from silicon to packaging on our most advanced technologies,” said Shawn Han, SVP and GM, Foundry Services, Intel Corporation. “Our wide-ranging collaboration with Synopsys, including AI-driven, certified flows and IP, gives our customers greater ease of use and confidence to achieve their design goals.”
System-Aware Co-Design: EDA Meets Multiphysics
At angstrom-scale geometries with backside power delivery and dense 3D integration, electrical, thermal, and mechanical effects can no longer be effectively analyzed in isolation. Synopsys is uniquely positioned to address this challenge with the integration of Synopsys certified, AI-powered implementation and signoff flows and multiphysics analysis — including power integrity, thermal, and electromagnetic solutions on Intel 14A.
Enabling the Multi-Die Era
With multi-die design now mainstream in AI and HPC, Synopsys and Intel Foundry are extending their proven collaboration to enable efficient system-level integration, analysis, and optimization of advanced chiplet-based architectures. The Synopsys reference design flow based on 3DIC Compiler supports Intel Embedded Multi-die Interconnect Bridge (EMIB) and Embedded Multi-die Interconnect Bridge-T (EMIB-T) advanced packaging technology, with early bump and TSV planning, automated UCIe and HBM routing, and unified multiphysics analysis across dies. Designers can analyze and optimize power delivery networks, thermal gradients, and signal integrity concurrently across die, Intel EMIB and EMIB-T interconnect, and package, catching system-level issues at design time rather than after tapeout.
Advancing Ecosystem Readiness with Broad IP Portfolio Across Intel 18A, Intel 18A-P and Intel 14A
Synopsys and Intel Foundry continue to enable AI and HPC innovation with Synopsys’ expanding portfolio of high-performance interface and foundation IP available today for Intel 18A and Intel 18A-P while expanding to support Intel 14A technologies, helping reduce integration risk and accelerate time-to-tapeout for complex SoCs and multi-die designs. New titles optimized for Intel 14A include:
Interface IP, including 224G SerDes, PCIe 7.0, USB 4 and eUSB, addresses the high throughput and connectivity demands of next-generation AI and HPC applications
Foundation IP, including embedded memories, logic libraries, and IOs, helps optimize performance, power, and area while lowering total cost of ownership.
Join Synopsys at the 2026 DAC Chips to Systems Conference
Attendees can visit the Synopsys’ booth #631 for demonstrations of the latest solutions and collaborations. For a complete list of Synopsys sessions and activities at DAC 2026, visit the Synopsys DAC 2026 event page.
About Synopsys
Synopsys, Inc. (Nasdaq: SNPS) is the leader in engineering solutions from silicon to systems, enabling customers to rapidly innovate AI-powered products. We deliver industry-leading silicon design, IP, simulation and analysis solutions, and design services. We partner closely with our customers across a wide range of industries to maximize their R&D capability and productivity, powering innovation today that ignites the ingenuity of tomorrow. Learn more at www.synopsys.com.
July 27, 2026 — A hybrid quantum-classical computer will soon operate at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, thanks to a $5-million grant from the National Science Foundation. To deliver on the grant, PSC, HPE, and Rigetti Computing will partner together to build the TangleLab supercomputing testbed.
Rigetti Novera QPU. Credit: Rigetti Computing.
“TangleLab continues PSC’s long tradition of making next-generation computing technologies accessible to the broader research and education community,” said Barr von Oehsen, PSC’s Executive Director and Principal Investigator for TangleLab. “Through our planned partnership with HPE and Rigetti, we are giving scientists, students, and educators hands-on access to an integrated quantum-classical system, advancing discovery while helping build the quantum-ready workforce the nation will need.”
Co-PIs for the project will be Bruno Abreu, PSC’s Deputy Scientific Director; Bruce Childers, Dean and Professor, School of Computing and Information, University of Pittsburgh; Masoud Mohseni, Senior Distinguished Technologist and Director of HPE Quantum at HPE Labs; and Andrew Bestwick, Senior Vice President of Quantum Systems at Rigetti Computing.
Unlike classical computers, which calculate with zeroes and ones, quantum processing units (QPUs) employ the laws of quantum mechanics to compute in terms of quantum superposition and entanglement, manipulating states that are partly zero and partly one. Scientists expect that this ability to, in a sense, “calculate between the lines,” will make such devices superior to classical computers at solving certain problems in areas like chemistry, cryptography, and optimization tasks.
TangleLab will be a unique, hybrid system, containing both a QPU and graphics processing units (GPUs), which excel at demanding AI tasks and accelerated simulations. Researchers employing the testbed system will investigate additional avenues in which QPUs may be superior to purely classical machines. The solution will include HPE ProLiant Compute DL384 Gen12, HPE ProLiant DL385 Gen11, HPE Cray Storage Systems C500, and HPE Networking, connected to a Rigetti Novera QPU.
“Making quantum computing practical will require quantum systems to work seamlessly with high-performance computing and networking,” said Mohseni. “Through TangleLab, we plan to build a testbed at PSC that lets researchers benchmark hybrid quantum-classical applications and better understand how these systems can work together from pre-processing and compilation to workload management and orchestration.”
“We’re excited about this opportunity to advance quantum computing through integration with HPC and how it will enable a quantum-enhanced HPC product offering that can be delivered to other organizations going forward,” said Dr. Subodh Kulkarni, CEO, Rigetti.
In addition to launching PSC into quantum computing research, TangleLab continues the center’s longstanding experience since 1991 pioneering such heterogeneous supercomputers, which accelerate computations by routing parts of problems to different types of processors best suited to each of those parts.
“With TangleLab, we are really looking into integrating quantum technologies into classical high-performance computing environments to enable hybrid quantum-classical workflows that can display flavors of quantum utility,” said Abreu. “We are not deploying a standalone quantum computer. Our goal is to make TangleLab the prototype open platform for a future where quantum information processing and distribution are core elements of advanced cyberinfrastructure.”
PSC will allocate time on the computer using a flexible competitive proposal process. The goal will be to allow individual researchers to use the system in a dedicated manner when needed, while educators can also have real-time access when teaching classes and workshops. To help users of TangleLab come up to speed regardless of their level of experience with quantum computing, PSC will offer onboarding activities, training, and in-depth research consulting.
TangleLab is funded by the NSF Advanced Computing Systems & Services program under award # 2537076. The system directly addresses national investment and action priorities for Fiscal Year 2027, listed in memorandum M-25-34/NSTM-2 from the Office of Science and Technology Policy, including enabling advancement in quantum information science and artificial intelligence.
July 27, 2026 — Researchers at the State University of New York at Stony Brook (Stony Brook University) secured five inaugural awards through the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Genesis Mission, a national AI-for-science initiative designed to accelerate scientific discovery and strengthen U.S. leadership in innovation, energy and national security. The awards reinforce Stony Brook University’s growing leadership in artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, engineering, physics and advanced computing, and bring more than $2.41 million in combined project funding to address complex scientific and engineering challenges.
Three projects are led by Stony Brook’s Jan C. Bernauer, Emre Salman and Shikui Chen and will bring nearly $1.68 million directly to Stony Brook and support collaborations with Brookhaven National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, Indiana University and GE Vernova. Additionally, Nengkun Yu, a professor in Stony Brook’s Department of Computer Science, received a subaward for an AI-enabled computational physics project led by Johns Hopkins University. Anatoly Frenkel, a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, also received a subaward through Brookhaven National Laboratory for a project using AI to analyze changes in molten salt chemistry.
The awards were announced on July 22 at the Genesis Mission Summit at the Capital Hilton in Washington, D.C., where leaders from the U.S. Department of Energy, Congress, national laboratories, universities and industry gathered to launch the national initiative. Hendrik Hamann, chief AI scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory for Innovation, Science, and Security and professor at Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, was one of five people who delivered Genesis Mission technical keynotes at the summit, on “How AI Is Transforming the Electrical Grid.”
The Genesis Mission is a national initiative bringing together DOE national laboratories, universities, industry and other partners to accelerate breakthroughs in energy, discovery science and national security. The initiative seeks to connect advanced computing systems, experimental facilities, AI capabilities and scientific datasets to address 21 national science and technology challenges.
The awards follow a coordinated university-wide effort that produced 89 Stony Brook submissions, including 40 university-led proposals and 49 proposals on which Stony Brook participated as a collaborating institution. Stony Brook-led submissions spanned 16 research areas and drew upon the university’s strengths in artificial intelligence, advanced computing, physics, microelectronics, energy systems, materials science and interdisciplinary research. Stony Brook was among just 278 awardees selected from more than 5,000 applications.
“The State University of New York at Stony Brook’s selection for multiple Genesis Mission awards validates our position as a national leader in expanding the scope, scale and impact of research in science and engineering by leveraging the powerful tool of AI,” said Stony Brook University President Andrea Goldsmith. “In response to an ambitious national challenge with a very tight response time, our faculty and research partners came together to develop bold, creative, interdisciplinary ideas that advance AI-driven scientific discovery. These awards reflect not only the depth and breadth of Stony Brook’s expertise and our strong partnerships with Brookhaven National Laboratory, industry and other institutions but also our commitment to preparing the next generation of scientists, engineers and innovators. By rapidly advancing the frontiers of knowledge across scientific disciplines through the use of AI, the work to be undertaken through these awards will create new opportunities for our faculty and students while also strengthening American innovation, economic competitiveness and national security.”
The five projects are:
Jan C. Bernauer
Department of Physics and Astronomy Foundation Models for Transferable Particle Tracking in Nuclear Physics, in collaboration with Brookhaven National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory.
The project will develop AI foundation models that learn directly from raw particle detector data collected across multiple nuclear physics experiments. By training the models on different detector technologies, the research team aims to create more adaptable tools that can improve particle tracking across experiments while reducing the need to build a separate data-analysis system for each one.
Emre Salman
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering AI-Driven Autonomous and Self-Healing Readout Electronics for Radiation-Tolerant HEP Detectors, in collaboration with Brookhaven National Laboratory and Indiana University.
The project will develop an AI-enabled framework to make microelectronics more resilient in harsh, radiation-intensive environments, with an initial focus on detector readout chips used in high-energy physics and scientific instruments. The team will demonstrate a rapid workflow that uses AI to monitor these chips, identify radiation-induced disruptions and apply carefully controlled corrections to help maintain reliable performance. (Total Amount to Stony Brook and National Lab Partners: $700,000)
Shikui Chen
Department of Mechanical Engineering Geometry-Informed AI for Accelerated Multiphysics Co-Design of Wide-Bandgap Power Modules, in collaboration with Sandia National Laboratories and GE Vernova.
The project will create an AI platform to accelerate the design and testing of advanced wide-bandgap power modules used in high-efficiency energy systems. By rapidly evaluating designs, learning across different component configurations and incorporating factors such as manufacturability, reliability and uncertainty, the platform will help researchers move from a slow, step-by-step process to a more integrated and efficient approach to engineering design. (Total Amount to Stony Brook and National Lab Partners: $723,076)
Nengkun Yu
Department of Computer Science Neuro-Symbolic Synthesis of Verified Computational Physics Code for Scientific Discovery, led by Johns Hopkins University.
The project will develop an AI-assisted approach to help scientists create and adapt complex software for high-performance and quantum computing systems more efficiently. By combining AI code generation with symbolic reasoning that can verify mathematical and physical requirements, the team aims to produce scientific software that is faster to develop and more reliable. (Stony Brook Awarded $99,999)
Anatoly Frenkel
Department of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering Transient Kinetics and Spectroscopy for Agentic Digital Twins to Upgrade Domestic Alkane Feedstocks into Value-Added Chemicals, in collaboration with The Pennsylvania State University, Georgia Institute of Technology, and ExxonMobil Corporation
The project will develop an AI-enabled “digital twin” framework to accelerate the discovery and optimization of catalysts that convert domestically available alkane feedstocks, such as propane, into higher-value chemicals. By combining rapid transient reactor measurements with infrared, Raman, and X-ray absorption spectroscopy, the team will train AI agents to predict catalyst performance, identify active structures and reaction mechanisms, and guide subsequent experiments. The Frenkel group will contribute advanced operando X-ray spectroscopy and machine-learning-assisted analysis to track how catalysts restructure under working conditions. The team aims to demonstrate catalyst evaluation up to 20 times faster than conventional methods while maintaining accurate predictions of activity and product selectivity. (Total amount to the team: $750,000.)
“What makes these awards so significant is how clearly they showcase Stony Brook’s multidisciplinary leadership in artificial intelligence,” said Mónica Bugallo, interim vice president for research and innovation at Stony Brook University. “Our faculty are applying AI to challenges of national importance across an incredible range of disciplines, from modernizing microelectronics and power networks to decoding cosmic physics and pioneering neuro-symbolic models for high-energy physics. Their work positions Stony Brook to drive the next era of AI innovation and advance U.S. leadership in science, technology and national security.”
Researchers Advance AI Across Physics, Microelectronics and Energy Systems
The three Stony Brook-led projects apply artificial intelligence to nuclear physics, radiation-tolerant microelectronics and next-generation power technologies. The principal investigators described how their research could accelerate AI-enabled scientific discovery and innovation:
“With this award, our team will develop AI foundation models that learn directly from raw detector signals and can be adapted across different experiments and detector technologies,” said Bernauer. “By combining expertise and data from Stony Brook, Brookhaven National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory, we aim to improve the precision of particle tracking while building tools that are more flexible, efficient and broadly reusable. This could fundamentally change how data are analyzed at current and future nuclear physics facilities.”
“We are honored to receive this award and to collaborate with GE Vernova Advanced Research and Sandia National Laboratories on this important initiative,” said Chen. “This project will combine geometry-informed artificial intelligence with advanced multiphysics modeling to dramatically accelerate the design of next-generation power modules. We hope the research will lead to more efficient, reliable and manufacturable power electronics that strengthen future energy and communication systems.”
“This project seeks to develop a new AI-enabled approach for making detector readout electronics more resilient by combining radiation characterization with intelligent, real-time fault detection and recovery,” said Salman. “This award will enable our multidisciplinary team to establish the experimental and technological foundation for a new generation of reliable, autonomous microelectronics that can support future DOE scientific missions and other harsh-environment applications.”
Strengthening National Research Leadership
The DOE’s Genesis Mission awards reinforce Stony Brook’s growing leadership in artificial intelligence and quantum technologies while expanding collaborations across the Department of Energy national laboratory system, academia and industry. Together, these partnerships position the university to accelerate scientific discovery and pursue future research opportunities at national scale.
July 27, 2026 — Carnegie Mellon University, working with researchers, partners and collaborators at Department of Energy national laboratories and other universities, will lead three projects selected for funding through the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Genesis Mission, positioning CMU at the forefront of a national effort to transform how scientific breakthroughs are made.
Carnegie Mellon researchers will also contribute to five Genesis Mission projects led by partner institutions, extending the university’s impact across this ambitious national effort. More than a dozen CMU scholars and researchers will participate in the Genesis Mission initiative.
Collectively, these projects highlight Carnegie Mellon’s strengths in AI, robotics, computing, engineering and interdisciplinary research while addressing national priorities that range from securing critical mineral supply chains and advancing autonomous scientific laboratories to enabling new discoveries about the fundamental nature of the universe. Working with Department of Energy national laboratories and leading research universities, CMU researchers will develop the next generation of AI tools for scientific discovery.
The Genesis Mission projects complement a new $20 million U.S. National Science Foundation investment in CMU’s AI Science Foundry to help build a national network of autonomous labs. Together, these initiatives will create a shared infrastructure to accelerate scientific discovery and strengthen American leadership.
“The Genesis Mission represents a bold new model for scientific discovery—one that brings together government, academia, industry and philanthropy—to tackle challenges no single institution can solve alone,” said CMU President Farnam Jahanian. “Carnegie Mellon University is thrilled to join our collaborators in the national laboratory system and higher education to leverage AI-powered capabilities that will define the next era of discovery and strengthen our nation’s research enterprise for generations to come.”
The Genesis Mission is a historic national initiative led by the DOE, which is building the world’s most powerful integrated science discovery platform. By uniting government, industry, academia and philanthropy, it is accelerating breakthroughs in energy, scientific discovery and national security through a new platform that combines AI, supercomputing, quantum systems and advanced scientific instruments.
The goal of the Phase I RFA awards is to identify promising pathways toward transformative scientific capabilities and establish a foundation for future investment and scale. Project teams will design and demonstrate research workflows that integrate AI with scientific investigation, while rigorously evaluating whether those approaches can accelerate discovery, improve predictive capabilities, enhance experimentation, or generate new scientific insights.
“Carnegie Mellon’s defining strength is bringing together expertise across AI, computing, engineering and the sciences to solve problems that no single discipline can address alone,” said Theresa Mayer, vice president for research. “These projects exemplify the collaborative, forward-looking research that drives scientific advancement while creating new capabilities that will benefit researchers and society for years to come.”
Connecting Autonomous Laboratories to Speed Scientific Advancement
CMU researcher Herman Herman, director of Carnegie Mellon’s National Robotics Engineering Center in the Robotics Institute at CMU’s School of Computer Science, will lead a project to develop AI-based tools that enables autonomous laboratories with different equipment to work together as a connected research ecosystem. Working with collaborators from Argonne National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the team will enable robot-driven autonomous laboratories to share capabilities and conduct complex experiments, dramatically reducing the time required to launch new scientific investigations and scale discoveries across institutions. The platform has the potential to lay the foundation for a new generation of AI-enabled research infrastructure that accelerates experimentation and transforms how science is conducted.
GEM-AI to Accelerate Discovery of Critical Minerals
A project led by Artur Dubrawski, the Alumni Research Professor of Computer Science in the Robotics Institute at CMU’s School of Computer Science, will help to develop an AI framework that could transform how critical minerals are discovered, helping reduce the time, cost and uncertainty of exploration. Working with collaborators at Sandia National Laboratories, Colorado School of Mines and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, the team will integrate diverse scientific data to identify promising mineral deposits essential to advanced manufacturing, energy technologies, aerospace and national defense. By making mineral exploration more efficient and precise, the project has the potential to strengthen domestic supply chains and expand access to the resources that underpin the nation’s technological and economic competitiveness.
AI Infrastructure to Accelerate Discoveries About the Universe
CMU researchers, led by Rachel Mandelbaum, head of the Department of Physics at CMU’s Mellon College of Science and member of the McWilliams Center for Cosmology and Astrophysics, with partners from the University of Washington and collaborators from SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, will develop AI-enabled infrastructure that will make it easier for scientists to combine and analyze data from some of the world’s largest astronomy experiments. By creating shared tools that allow researchers and AI systems to seamlessly work across massive, distributed datasets, the project aims to accelerate discoveries about dark matter, dark energy and the evolution of the universe. The resulting infrastructure will support the broader astronomy community, creating a lasting resource that enables new AI-powered approaches to exploring some of science’s most fundamental questions.
CMU researchers are also participating in other Genesis Mission projects. These include:
Aviral Kumar, assistant professor of computer science and machine learning in the School of Computer Science, will participate in a project led by Brookhaven National Laboratory that will that will develop tools for hypothesis generation in scientific research (along with Max Simchowitz, assistant professor of machine learning and Niloofar Mireshghallah, assistant professor in the Language Technologies Institute and Engineering and Public Policy) connect multiple AI agents, each trained on complex scientific tasks such as reading literature and analyzing data, to a network that will generate better research hypotheses than today’s AI models can.
Graham Neubig, associate professor of computer science in the School of Computer Science, will participate in a project led by Brookhaven National Laboratory that will connect AI models into one continuously improving reasoning system to accelerate discovery and collaboration.
Noa Marom, professor of materials science and engineering in the College of Engineering and the Wilton E. Scott Institute for Energy Innovation, will participate in a project that will deliver AI-powered discovery of quantum and optoelectronic materials led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Manfred Paulini, professor of physics and Mellon College of Science associate dean for research, and Matteo Cremonesi, assistant professor of physics in the Mellon College of Science, will participate in a project led by the University of Wisconsin-Madison that will perform the first systematic investigation of foundation models applied across multiple energy regimes from nuclear to high-energy physics.
Chad Schafer, professor of statistics in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences and Mikael Kuusela, an associate professor also in the Department of Statistics & Data Science in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, will help to develop foundational AI tools to process significant amounts of astronomical data led by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
The awards represent an important investment in research that has the potential to speed scientific productivity, strengthen U.S. innovation and accelerate research in areas ranging from energy and advanced manufacturing to biology and materials science.
Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine told CBS News the Trump administration's plan to ramp up deportations of Haitian migrants is a "mistake," arguing the move could bruise Ohio's economy.
Police believe a suspect in the deadly shooting at a food festival in Seattle was among those who were killed, as another suspect remains on the loose and a teenager is in custody.
Dave Farquhar published an article today about Windows NT 3.1’s place in the market when it was originally released, and while the article is interesting and a fun read, it does mention this:
[…] Microsoft took its nascent code that it intended to form the base of OS/2 3.0, renamed it Windows New Technology, and eventually released it as Windows NT 3.1.
While Microsoft did, in fact, use the “New Technology” branding as a marketing trick, this is not what “NT” originally stood for. Two developers from the original Windows NT development team, Mark Lucovsky and David Thompson, explained all the way back in 2003 that “NT” came from the codename for Intel’s then-new RISC platform, the Intel i860 (Raymond Chen confirmed the veracity of their story). The i860 was the first target platform for Windows NT, and it was codenamed “N-10” – NT.
Finally, it was time to start writing some code. “We checked the first code pieces in around mid-December 1988,” Lucovsky said, “and had a very basic system kind of booting on a simulator of the Intel i860 (which was codenamed “N-Ten”) by January.” In fact, this is where NT actually got its name, Lucovsky revealed, adding that the “new technology” moniker was added after the fact in a rare spurt of product marketing by the original NT team members. “Originally, we were targeting NT to the Intel i860, a RISC processor that was horribly behind schedule. Because we didn’t have any i860 machines in-house to test on, we used an i860 simulator. That’s why we called it NT, because it worked on the ‘N-Ten.'”
The i860 was one of Intel’s many attempts over the years to replace x86 with something more modern, but – as would become tradition with Intel and attempting to replace its x86 architecture – it suffered from endless delays, missed targets, and lacklustre performance. It saw only sporadic use in the market, and ended up on the chopping block after only a few years. Intel tried to replace x86 again soon after with Itanium, which suffered an identical fate.
Still, the engineers working on the i860 platform in the late ’80s and early ’90s at Intel can at least take some pride in that to this day, the most popular desktop operating system in the world got its name from the product they developed. Intel’s i860 might barely even be worthy of a footnote today, but billions of PC users log into their Windows “N-10” machines every day, unwittingly carrying a torch for the failed x86 replacement.
Police believe Sara Gilson was killed by husband Jeremiah Duffy after she accused him on TikTok of child sexual abuse
Sara Gilson, the social media influencer who was killed after she publicly accused her husband of child sexual abuse, “couldn’t seem to get away” from Jeremiah Duffy despite filing multiple protective orders, Gilson’s ex-husband said in an interview.
“She had been stuck in a relationship where domestic abuse seemed ‘OK’,”Lyle Landers told People. “I had begged her for five years to get away from him. I had offered to help her, in any way I could, to get away from him. But he seemed to have some sort of control over her, and she couldn’t seem to get away.”
YouTube Premium will include Peacock Premium at no extra charge beginning in early 2027. "The deal brings a slew of premium content to the [$15.99 per month] YouTube Premium subscription, including live sports like the NFL, NBA and MLB and entertainment like Law & Order, Saturday Night Live and Love Island," reports The Hollywood Reporter. "It also has the potential to dramatically scale Peacock, which remains smaller than many of its streaming competitors." From the report: Peacock has 48 million subscribers, while YouTube Premium and YouTube Music have a combined 125 million subscribers, though they don't break out how many each of those offerings have. The agreement, which expands on the deal the company inked with YouTube parent company Google last year, will also extend the entertainment company's programming deal with YouTube TV, while bringing some of YouTube's offerings to Comcast Xfinity and Xumo platforms.
There's also a notable sports and production element to the deal, with NBC Sports agreeing to stream some live sporting events on its YouTube channels, and with NBC agreeing to serve as the production partner for select live events on YouTube. YouTube will also bundle some of the company's International streaming offerings like Universal+ and Hayu in select markets.
Rep. Robert Garcia is seeking information about whether Taylor Farms used White House ties to influence the federal response to the foodborne illness outbreak.
Fraught time for Ken Martin as new reporting details cash-flow problem and divisions over party’s direction
Mounting financial pressures and growing internal turmoil at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) have intensified scrutiny of chair Ken Martin, as new reporting detailed a deepening cash-flow problem, management concerns and widening divisions over the party’s direction less than 100 days before the November midterm elections.
The latest reporting has underscored both the committee’s financial distress and the toll it has taken on Martin personally. The New York Times reported that the embattled DNC chair, who took the helm last year, became the subject of an internal HR inquiry after throwing his phone in the direction of a junior aide’s desk during a heated exchange in early July, prompting a formal complaint. The Times, citing people familiar with the matter, also reported that the incident nearly cost him his job and has contributed to growing isolation with the party as the committee grapples with mounting financial strain.
The conversation surrounding AI infrastructure has correctly identified the key value (KV) cache as a critical bottleneck in scaling AI inference. As models push toward longer context windows and higher concurrency, the memory footprint of the KV cache grows rapidly, often becoming larger than the model itself. Recent industry discussions have focused heavily on extending KV cache capacity using external storage systems, typically connected via RDMA over high-speed Ethernet.
While storage centric approach provides a practical way to scale capacity beyond GPU memory limits, representing an important first step forward, it leaves a more fundamental issue completely unresolved: performance. AI inference is not just constrained by how much KV cache can be stored, it is strictly gated by how fast that cache can be accessed. At scale, the architectural difference between memory and storage access becomes the defining factor in overall system performance.
KV Cache Is a Memory Access Problem
At its core, the KV cache is not simply static data, it is a dynamic extension of the model’s working memory. During the inference lifecycle:
The prefill stage computes attention states and writes them into the KV cache.
The decode stage repeatedly reads from the KV cache to generate tokens.
These operations involve fine grained, latency sensitive memory access. They are fundamentally not well, suited to storage systems, even when those systems are fast. While NVMe and RDMA can deliver high raw throughput, they fundamentally operate using I/O semantics. Each access incurs software overhead, protocol processing, and additional latency compared to direct memory access.
(taylor-nero/Shutterstock)
As context sizes grow and token generation becomes increasingly dependent on rapid KV cache reuse, this difference becomes critical. The result is that moving the KV cache into storage introduces systemic inefficiencies, including a higher Time To First,Token (TTFT), longer total completion times, reduced GPU utilization, and increased infrastructure costs per inference.
The Latency Gap That Defines Performance
The distinction between memory and storage is most evident in execution latency:
GPU High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) operates in the tens of nanoseconds.
Host and pooled memory operate in hundreds of nanoseconds.
RDMA accessed storage operates in tens of microseconds.
That difference, spanning orders of magnitude, translates directly into inference performance. KV cache access patterns are highly iterative and frequent. During decode, even small increases in latency accumulate across millions of operations, slowing overall token generation. In storage, based systems, KV cache reads must traverse the network stack, RDMA or storage protocols, and storage media access. In contrast, memory-based systems expose the KV cache through load/store semantics, eliminating these layers entirely. This difference is not incremental, it fundamentally changes the performance characteristics of the system.
Memory Pool: Extending the Memory Domain
A new architectural approach is emerging to address this problem: Memory Pool architectures. Rather than spilling the KV cache into storage, a Memory Pool extends the memory domain itself by introducing large-scale, shared memory systems built on standard DDR5.
These systems provide:
Terabytes to tens of terabytes of addressable memory.
High aggregate bandwidth reaching hundreds of GB/s.
Sub-microsecond latency.
Direct access from CPUs and GPUs.
Most importantly, a Memory Pool preserves memory semantics, allowing the KV cache to be accessed as memory, not as external data. This enables AI systems to scale KV cache capacity while maintaining performance much closer to local memory.
Improving Time-To-First-Token (TTFT)
Time-To-First-Token has become one of the most critical user-facing metrics in AI inference, directly impacting perceived performance and system responsiveness. TTFT is heavily influenced by prefill execution time, KV cache write performance, and KV cache read latency.
In storage-based architectures, KV cache writes and reads involve I/O operations, adding latency during both the prefill and decode phases. A Memory Pool fundamentally changes this dynamic:
Prefill is faster, as KV data is written into memory directly.
Reads remain within a native memory domain, avoiding I/O overhead.
Cache reuse becomes deterministic and low-latency.
The result is a significant reduction in TTFT, particularly for long-context workloads where the KV cache size dominates execution time.
Total Completion Time: The Real Efficiency Metric
While TTFT is important, total completion time ultimately determines system efficiency, throughput, and cost. Storage-based KV cache solutions introduce latency at every single access. Even if each individual delay seems small, it accumulates across thousands of tokens and multiple attention layers.
A Memory Pool reduces this overhead across the entire inference pipeline by enabling faster prefill execution, lower latency per token during decode, a reduced need for recomputation, and higher sustained token throughput. This leads directly to faster completion of inference tasks, increased GPU utilization, and a lower cost per query. In large-scale deployments, these improvements translate directly into better economics.
Eliminating KV Cache Duplication via Memory Sharing
Another severe inefficiency in current architectures is KV cache duplication. To avoid communication overhead, the KV cache is often replicated across multiple separate GPUs, which consumes valuable memory and limits effective capacity.
Memory Pool architectures enable a different paradigm through true memory sharing:
The KV cache can be stored just once in shared memory.
Multiple GPUs can access the exact same data concurrently.
Redundant copies are completely eliminated.
This approach significantly improves memory efficiency, scalability, and resource utilization. It also allows systems to support much larger context windows without requiring proportional, cost prohibitive increases in local physical memory.
Unifying Model and Data in One Memory Space
One of the most powerful capabilities of a Memory Pool is the ability to unify model weights, the KV cache, and input data into a single, large memory space. In practical terms, large models (such as LLaMA class systems) can reside directly in pooled memory. The KV cache for long sessions can coexist alongside those model weights, and both CPUs and GPUs can access them directly using native memory instructions.
This eliminates multiple deep sources of architectural inefficiency:
Constant data movement between fragmented memory tiers.
Physical fragmentation of hardware resources.
Synchronization overhead across distributed devices.
This synchronization elimination enables new execution models where inference is no longer constrained by local on-card memory capacity.
Rethinking Scale-Up and Scale-Out
Current solutions often rely heavily on scale-out architectures, using network fabrics and distributed systems to extend capacity. While scaling out is essential, it comes with harsh trade-offs in latency and software efficiency. A Memory Pool represents a powerful extension of scale-up architecture:
Expanding memory capacity within a single, low-latency domain.
Minimizing reliance on high-overhead, network based access.
Preserving hardware performance as systems scale.
In practice, the most efficient AI systems will combine both methodologies: scale-up for memory intensive operations like KV cache hosting, and scale-out for workload distribution and multinode orchestration. The key is to push the memory domain as far as possible before falling back to storage or network based access.
The Evolution of KV Cache Architectures
The industry is currently in a critical transitional phase:
Near Term: Hybrid architectures combining storage with extended memory fabrics.
Long Term: True memory centric architectures with large pooled memory systems.
Research and system design efforts are increasingly moving toward memory based solutions, recognizing that inference performance depends not just on raw capacity, but on native access semantics.
From Data Movement to Memory Access
The race to expand KV cache capacity is real, and it is one of the most important challenges in AI infrastructure today. However, the long-term solution is not simply adding more storage tiers. The fundamental architectural shift requires moving from treating the KV cache as data to be moved, to treating it as memory to be accessed.
Memory Pool architectures provide the only clear path forward by delivering lower latency access, enabling higher bandwidth utilization, reducing TTFT, improving total completion time, and eliminating structural inefficiencies in data duplication. As AI systems continue to scale, the divergence between memory and storage will become increasingly consequential. Ultimately, the architectures that succeed will be those that keep the KV cache anchored close to the compute domain,not just in capacity, but in semantics and performance.
The future of the KV cache is not storage. It is memory.
About the author: Oren Benisty is the vice president of business development and marketing for UnifabriX, which develops memory-over-fabric solutions for AI and HPC.
Defense department updated database of casualties to list four service members deceased in ‘Overseas Operations’
A controversial move by the Pentagon to reclassify casualties in the Iran war is being taken by US military veterans as a sign of disrespect for the dead.
“It’s such a huge disrespect for the families,” said Michael E Smith, a retired US rear admiral and the founder of National Security Leaders for America. “To claim that they weren’t killed as a result of the war – oh, it was just overseas operations – is just ludicrous.”
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Monday to allow federal agencies to proceed with new mail-in voting policies before the November midterm elections.
The emergency application seeks to lift an injunction blocking portions of President Donald Trump’s March executive order in 23 states and Washington, D.C. The order directs the Postal Service to develop new requirements for mail ballots and the Department of Homeland Security to help create state-level lists of eligible voters.
The administration argues that the lawsuit is premature because neither agency has finalized how it will implement the directive. Justice Department attorneys said agencies need to begin work by mid-August for any changes to take effect before early voting begins.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani previously ruled that the provisions likely exceed presidential authority and interfere with powers assigned to states and Congress. The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined Saturday to lift her injunction.
Trump says the policies would prevent noncitizen voting, which available evidence indicates is rare. The challenging states argue the order could disrupt election administration and prevent eligible voters from receiving or returning ballots.
The Supreme Court directed the states to respond by Aug. 3.
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK — Immigration and Customs Enforcement launched targeted operations in New York City on Monday and plans to expand them to Long Island, according to reporting from NewsNation.
The enforcement effort began in Queens and is expected to move into communities on Long Island on Tuesday. ICE sources said agents are targeting immigrants who were previously subject to federal detainer requests that local authorities declined to honor.
Detainers ask state or local law enforcement agencies to notify ICE before releasing a person and, in some cases, hold that individual temporarily beyond the scheduled release time. New York City’s sanctuary policies generally limit cooperation unless specific legal requirements are met.
Democratic Mayor Zohran Mamdani has repeatedly criticized President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and called for ICE to be abolished following the fatal shooting of a Mexican immigrant by federal agents in Houston.
ICE has defended targeted operations as necessary to arrest people it considers public-safety threats or immigration fugitives. During an earlier June operation, the agency said its New York City officers arrested people convicted of offenses including murder and child sexual abuse.
The agency had not publicly announced how many officers were participating, how many arrests were planned or how long the latest operation would continue. Mamdani’s office had not responded to a request for comment.
Amazon has asked the FCC to approve a 5,105-satellite constellation launching in 2028 that would provide global direct-to-cell "voice, messaging, data, and emergency services," similar to Starlink's partnership with T-Mobile. The network would use Globalstar spectrum, support future Apple satellite services, and complement Amazon's existing Leo broadband constellation. The Verge reports: Advanced Television points out that the FCC application also includes a request to use spectrum assigned to Iridium's satellite network outside the US, even as Rocket Lab is in the process of acquiring Iridium with plans to expand.
The new constellation and direct-to-device service will "complement" the broadband services Amazon also plans to offer through its Leo platform. In addition to consumer satellite service, it would also be used for things like disaster response and emergency messaging.
Amazon says the new direct-to-device satellites "will process the signals in orbit before relaying them to improve performance." The new constellation will be nearly double the size of Amazon's initial Leo constellation, which is planned to include around 3,200 satellites. As of July 2nd, Amazon says "over 375" of those satellites have launched so far.
Tornado that blackened midday sky rips roofs off homes and flips vehicles in town of Menasha
A tornado struck north-eastern Wisconsin on Monday, blackening the midday sky and sending workers sheltering in office basements as ferocious winds splintered homes, scattered twisted metal across a highway and knocked out power to more than 30,000 people.
The National Weather Service confirmed a tornado in Winnebago county, about 90 miles (145km) north-west of Milwaukee. Damage was reported in cities including Appleton and Menasha, where police chief Matt Albrecht said some homes and businesses were “severely impacted”.
The son of Chiefs assistant coach Eric Bieniemy has been arrested and charged with a shooting that wounded his mother, Mia Bieniemy, according to authorities in Virginia.
Prosecutors say Carter Camacho of Smyrna, Georgia, told police officers who apprehended him outside the Capitol that he intended to confront members of Congress and "scare them into speaking the truth."
Prosecutors claim singer killed Rivas Hernandez after she threatened to expose relationship and ruin his music career
A Los Angeles judge ruled on Monday that singer D4vd must stand trial over the killing, sexual abuse and mutilation of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez.
Judge Charlaine Olmedo decided after a five-day preliminary hearing that prosecutors had provided enough probable cause to put the 21-year-old singer, who was born David Burke, on trial. Prosecutors have claimed Burke killed Rivas Hernandez after she threatened to expose their relationship and ruin his burgeoning music career.
PM wants curriculums for students aged 14 and above to be more responsive to local jobs market
Andy Burnham will tell schools across England to adapt their curriculums to the needs of local businesses as part of a devolution drive aimed at tackling the jobs crisis for young people.
By moving decision-making to local areas, the PM hopes the plan will make technical and vocational skills as valued as academic qualifications – and help cut the benefits bill.
Green party leader shared picture of man wearing T-shirt with words ‘we’re only making plans for Nigel’ alongside a guillotine
Police are “conducting inquiries” into an image shared by Green party leader Zack Polanski on Instagram after Reform UK reported it for “inciting murder”.
The image showed a man wearing a black T-shirt with the words “we’re only making plans for Nigel”, alongside a photograph of a guillotine.
wiredmikey shares a report from SecurityWeek: Nvidia and a large group of technology, cybersecurity, and enterprise software companies have launched new initiative aimed at developing and sharing open source tools, models, and techniques for securing AI systems and agents. The new Open Secure AI Alliance aims to give defenders more open tools for testing, auditing and protecting AI models and agents. Nvidia points to the recent security incident involving OpenAI and Hugging Face, noting that when closed AI tools could not differentiate between attackers and defenders and blocked forensic work, Hugging Face used the open-weight GLM 5.2 model on its own systems to review over 17,000 actions and contain the breach. "The right response is not to deny defenders access to capable open systems. It is to pair openness with strong safeguards, clear rules against malicious misuse, rigorous evaluation and rapid remediation. In cybersecurity, the safer path is the one that gives more defenders the ability to test, verify and strengthen the systems on which society relies," Nvidia said.
Thanks to longtime Slashdot reader SphericalCrusher for also sharing the news.
Bryan Kohberger, the man serving multiple life sentences for the murders of four University of Idaho students, filed a petition for post-conviction relief Monday.
A parasite called cyclospora has sickened thousands of people across at least 41 states and prompted waves of headlines about weeks-long "explosive diarrhea". But as Guardian health contributor and reporter Melody Schreiber tells host Carter Sherman, Donald Trump's cuts to the CDC and FDA have kneecapped the agencies' ability to contain the dangerous outbreak – which is now growing rapidly. Melody and Carter trace one food supplier's role in the outbreak, discuss the future of public health and reveal tips for safe eating and cooking.
Read Melody Schreiber's reporting in the Guardian about cyclospora:
Bryan Kohberger, convicted of killing four college students in 2022, claims he pleaded guilty due to bad legal advice
A man convicted last year of killing four college students in Idaho has filed to withdraw his guilty plea and seek a new trial, claiming he pleaded guilty due to bad legal advice.
Bryan Kohberger was convicted of breaking into a six-bedroom house in 2022 and killing four University of Idaho students in their early 20s. The victims – Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin – were found dead with dozens of knife wounds. Goncalves also showed evidence of asphyxiation and blunt force trauma.
Democrat Jamie Raskin pushes Fifa to release records of contact with Trump, administration and family business
Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House judiciary committee, has launched an investigation into Fifa president Gianni Infantino, seeking documents that would detail the ties between soccer’s governing body and Donald Trump and his administration.
In a Sunday letter, Raskin wrote to Infantino and called for Fifa to provide any documents and communications related to gifts, payments or benefits provided to Trump and his associates, as well as the visitor logs for Fifa’s office space in Trump Tower, which it acquired last year. The committee also requested that Infantino sit for a transcribed interview.
Former education secretary will take up influential role that puts her at vanguard of Labour’s battle to win next general election
Bridget Phillipson has been appointed Labour party chair, putting her at the vanguard of Labour’s battle to win the next general election.
The former education secretary and architect of a landmark overhaul in special educational needs and disabilities (Send) provision in England will follow in the footsteps of other Labour big beasts who have held the position, including Harriet Harman, Angela Rayner and Tom Watson.
Social media influencers fighting against extradition to UK where they face rape, sexual assault and other allegations
Social media influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate will remain in jail at least two more weeks until their next hearing as they fight extradition to the United Kingdom, where the brothers are accused of rape and sex trafficking, a federal judge said on Monday.
US magistrate Lauren Louis set a detention hearing for 13 August to determine whether the Tates should stay in jail or be released during what could be a months-long extradition process.
Washington and Tehran issue conflicting messages over the status of talks to end Middle East crisis
Donald Trump has once again warned that the US will return to “strong military action” against Iran if diplomatic efforts do not bring a rapid resolution to the crisis in the Middle East.
“We are in very deep talks with Iran. If they don’t work out, we will go back to very strong military action,” the US president told Axios on Monday. Asked for how long he would allow the talks to proceed, he answered: “Not much time. Either it goes fast or not at all.”
Lindsay Clancy, accused of killing her three young children in her Duxbury, Massachusetts, home, is standing trial after opening statements were given Monday and testimony began.
Emergency appeal comes after court upheld ruling blocking president’s order ahead of November midterms
The Trump administration has asked the supreme court to clear the way for an executive order from Donald Trump that could dramatically change mail-in voting.
The emergency appeal comes after an appeals court upheld a ruling blocking the president’s order in nearly half the country ahead of November’s midterm elections.
Longtime Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares a report from Hackaday: Community-led open source project hosting site Codeberg has formally announced that projects whose code is largely or fully machine-generated through LLMs and other 'AI' tools will no longer be welcome. This follows on the heels of a similar ban on cryptocurrency-related projects. The community vote was on two issues, the first being the notion that scraping of project code for the use in LLMs should be forbidden, which was a motion that easily passed. The second motion was on disallowing projects whose code was substantially generated by LLMs like Claude, OpenAI Codex, and similar. This motion passed with 358 in favor versus 144 against.
In the earlier linked blog post the reasoning behind especially this second issue is expanded upon, covering not only "license whitewashing," but also the direct and indirect hardware costs, with the expanding 'AI' datacenter hyperscaling having massively increased hardware costs for Codeberg over the past years, as the costs have been largely externalized. Also covered is the aspect of these LLM-based tools destroying the OSS community, which is something that is backed up by recent studies.
RICHLAND, Wash., July 27, 2026 — The Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has partnered with Amazon Web Services to explore and validate some of the most advanced artificial intelligence tools that could help operators of the nation’s electric grid respond more effectively to severe weather, rising electricity demand and cyber or physical threats.
PNNL and Amazon Web Services’ collaboration will focus on improving situational awareness, reducing operator burden, strengthening grid resilience and helping the grid adapt to faster and more variable supply and demand situations. Photo credit: Andrea Starr, PNNL.
PNNL grid experts will develop and evaluate advanced AI systems in collaboration with AWS and test different scenarios in PNNL’s Electricity Infrastructure Operating Center with a secure, operations-grade hybrid-cloud Amazon environment.
The work will address challenges critical for utilities, grid planners, technology developers and government stakeholders alike: improving situational awareness, reducing operator burden, strengthening grid resilience and helping the grid adapt to faster and more variable supply and demand situations.
“With rapidly increasing demands for electricity, grid control centers and the operations of the grid will need to evolve significantly. By applying new technologies like AI in ways that are rigorous, practical and human-centered, we can advance the grid while maintaining reliable, secure and affordable power for the nation,” said Jim Ogle, PNNL’s director of electricity infrastructure.
The work supports PNNL’s Enhanced Visibility & Event Response (EVE@PNNL) capability, launched earlier this spring as an effort to develop real-time AI-driven analytics, realistic simulation environments and novel sensing and monitoring tools to address emerging challenges facing the nation’s grid operators.
Next-Generation AI Systems
PNNL has decades of experience studying and developing advanced computing tools to support grid operations. In the wake of the largest blackout in U.S. history in 2003, the Laboratory led a DOE effort then called the North American SynchroPhasor Initiative to deploy precise measurement tools across the electrical grid. These tools helped operators better understand system health and dynamics at scale.
And with the sudden influx of data points from thousands of sensing instruments across the grid, PNNL researchers embraced machine learning, a type of AI, to study all that data. Over the past two decades, PNNL has continued to lead the engineering and analysis of the electric grid focused on improving reliability and addressing emerging challenges
In May 2025, the Lab published a report detailing opportunities for grid operators to incorporate AI—specifically in the form of large language models—into their work.
However, LLMs can produce errors when answering user queries. Known as “hallucinations,” these errors occur because LLMs are trained to predict what letters or words follow the previous letters or words based on probability. LLMs don’t actually “know” what a given word or letter means.
To combat that challenge, researchers have increasingly looked into an advanced type of AI model called neuro-symbolic AI that combines the pattern recognition of machine learning and generative AI with topic-specific knowledge and reasoning—for the grid, that means understanding physics.
Electricity on today’s grid is largely generated by rotating machines that are designed to maintain a frequency of 60 hertz. A useful AI tool would need to be trained with knowledge about how electricity is generated and how it flows.
To that end, AWS’s neuro-symbolic AI tools could help operators make decisions during fast-evolving disruptions, such as how to optimize power shutoffs during wildfires, how to keep power flowing during a hurricane or how to protect the grid from a cyber or physical attack.
“We want to augment human oversight across these systems and data without overwhelming the operators with too much information,” said Todd Hay, a data and software engineering researcher at PNNL. “That means developing tools that can help triage information and strengthen mission assurance in face of disruptions. For national security missions, this is critical as we want to ensure that the planes will fly, that the ships can launch and that the military can operate regardless of whether there’s a wildfire or an attack on the grid.”
Expanding, Accelerating Grid
The partnership with AWS comes at a time when large-scale computing facilities, including data centers, are contributing to rapid growth in electricity demand. In some cases, these facilities can require as much electricity as a small city. And it’s not just amount of electricity demand; it’s the speed at which that need for electricity can rise and fall. Data centers can create sharp changes in electricity demand within tens of milliseconds.
“AWS is proud to partner with PNNL on critical grid modernization initiatives that will strengthen America’s energy infrastructure for the AI era,” said Jamie Baker, director of federal civilian health, science and policy at AWS. “Through our collaboration with leading national labs like PNNL, we’re leveraging advanced AI technology to help modernize the grid, ensure reliable power delivery and support the communities where we operate.”
The protection systems that ensure the reliability of the overall grid are not designed to withstand the seemingly instantaneous changes driven by highly concentrated loads at data centers.
And neither are the humans in the control room.
“Humans can’t operate at the sheer speed at which data centers can operate, and so we need automated tools and decision-support, including AI systems, to handle those dynamics,” Hay said. “We need tools that can handle data triage and help turn complex information into actionable insight that the human can then use to make an informed decision.”
The new partnership supports DOE’s Genesis Mission, an integrated ecosystem to accelerate discovery and strengthen U.S. leadership in AI-powered science. More broadly, the effort reflects growing national interest in developing trustworthy, operationally relevant AI tools that can help strengthen grid resilience, secure critical infrastructure and prepare the energy sector for a more dynamic and demanding future.
This is a walkthrough of how Fedora turns source code and packages into the artifacts you download and install. It follows the a package from a packager’s git push to a composed release: ISOs, cloud images, container images, and OSTree deployments.
Linux distributions – good ones like Fedora, at least – are really complex operations, with a ton of checks and balances to ensure no git push eventually ends up causing problems on individual users’ machines way down the line. The fact so many people involved in this complex web of processes also happen to be volunteers doing all of this out of the goodness of their hearts is amazing. Of course, this doesn’t just apply to Fedora, but also the countless other distributions out there, especially those not owned by some giant corporation like IBM.
If you’re just a casual Fedora user, there’s really no reason you have to know or be aware of any of this, but it’s still fun and interesting to understand the inner workings of your distribution of choice.
David Huerta was arrested while protesting against an ICE operation during crackdown in Los Angeles
The Department of Justice has moved to dismiss charges against a prominent California union leader who was arrested while protesting against an immigration raid in Los Angeles last year, in the latest US government case against protesters to fall apart.
David Huerta, the president of Service Employees International Union United Service Workers West, was arrested at a June 2025 demonstration and has been fighting the charges ever since. On Monday, the US attorney’s office in LA filed a motion to dismiss the charges against him.
Let’s do another article about weird code in video games.
The original 1992 Comanche release is extremely picky about memory managers. The game refuses to work with EMM emulators and crashes when EMM386 is active. The game may also hang or reboot the system when HIMEM.SYS is not loaded (the problem seems to be system configuration dependent).
These issues are clearly noted in the Comanche documentations, but at the same time they’re also all signs of a substandard DOS extender.
On top of that, the game authors accomplished a remarkable feat: By only loosely following Intel’s instructions on how to enter protected mode, NovaLogic managed to write a game which worked on the then-existing 386 and 486 processors, but under some circumstances failed to run on Pentium and later processors.
Today show host says her family ‘will always ache for’ mother Nancy, who has been missing for nearly six months
Savannah Guthrie has posted a new video asking those responsible for her mother’s unsolved disappearance to “do the right thing” and point her family to their matriarch’s location after nearly six months.
In a new Instagram video posted on Monday, captioned “Bring her home” alongside a yellow heart emoji, the NBC Today host issued an emotional public plea, saying: “It has been months since our mom was taken from us. Our family is in agony. We are in a nightmare that will not end. Nothing about our situation has changed. We have done our part. We will never stop looking for her.”
ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN — The U.S. Department of Education has warned Ann Arbor Public Schools that its policy protecting transgender students’ privacy may violate federal law governing parents’ access to educational records.
The department’s Student Privacy Policy Office determined that the district’s policy likely conflicts with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. Ann Arbor has until Aug. 10 to explain why the Education and Justice departments should not begin enforcement proceedings, which could ultimately threaten federal funding.
The district directs employees not to disclose information revealing a student’s transgender status, including to parents, unless disclosure is legally required or authorized by the student. It also requires personally identifiable and medical information involving transgender students to remain confidential.
Federal officials argue that records involving a student’s gender identity must be available to parents under FERPA. However, education-law specialists say the statute clearly provides access to written records but does not necessarily require schools to proactively inform parents when students use different names or pronouns.
Supporters of Ann Arbor’s policy warn that mandatory disclosure could endanger students whose families are unsupportive. The Trump administration maintains that parents cannot legally be excluded from decisions involving their children.
The district had not publicly responded to the federal warning. It is already facing a separate Title IX investigation involving transgender students’ participation in athletics and access to school facilities.
According to The Information (paywalled), a state-backed Shanghai company has begun mass-producing China's first homegrown immersion DUV lithography machines, with about five units expected this year for SMIC, Hua Hong, and CXMT. Roughly 20 more units are expected in 2027. Tom's Hardware reports: The Information didn't name the manufacturer, but its sources described the operation as having pulled DUV development teams from several Chinese companies, one of them the state-backed startup Shanghai Yuliangsheng Technology. SMIC has been testing a Yuliangsheng immersion tool since September 2025. Most components in the new systems are domestic, though some critical parts still come from Japan, and delays at local suppliers have held back output this year.
[...] China accounts for around 20% of ASML's net sales this year, down from 33% in 2025, driven mainly by mainstream logic demand... Independent analysis from the AI Futures Project in June put commercial-scale Chinese immersion DUV in the mid-2030s, with ASML holding 98.7% of the immersion market. Qualifying the new machines for production lines could take many months, and they trail ASML's tools on performance and build quality. China's domestic EUV effort, which Reuters first reported as a working prototype in December, remains years away.
In her Instagram post, the "Today" show host said her family had "done our part" and would "never stop looking for" their 84-year-old mother, Nancy Guthrie, who has been missing since February.
New prime minister wants to focus at home, but his first week already suggests the world has other plans
It took just seven days in office for Andy Burnham to meet his first world leader. As he welcomed Volodymyr Zelenskyy to a naval base in Portsmouth on Monday, the new prime minister told the Ukrainian president it was “no accident” he was his first international visitor since entering No 10.
“It is intended to send a very clear message,” Burnham told him. “We are with Ukraine 100%, I am personally with you 100%, and I will honour every commitment this country has made to Ukraine in full.” In short, the UK’s support for Kyiv would continue despite the change in leadership.
SUNNYVALE, Calif., July 27, 2026 — Synopsys, Inc. has announced new autonomous agentic AI workflows for chip design, developed in collaboration with Microsoft and available for evaluation on Microsoft Discovery. AI is fundamentally reshaping engineering, and Synopsys is building a comprehensive, open agentic AI stack to increase engineering autonomy and accelerate product design from silicon to systems.
This week at the 2026 DAC Chips to Systems Conference, Synopsys is showcasing new fully autonomous workflows powered by AgentEngineer technology, extending agentic AI from task automation to long-running engineering execution.
This includes Synopsys autonomous workflows on Microsoft Discovery:
Synopsys fully-autonomous debug closure workflow: A fully autonomous AI-powered verification and root cause analysis (RCA) workflow orchestrated with Microsoft Discovery, brings together domain-specific and task-level agents to identify design failures, automate debug tasks, and accelerate validation— helping engineering teams resolve issues faster and improve silicon quality. Early evaluations show reductions of 25–40% in debug cycle time, saving many weeks of engineering efforts and improving productivity.
Synopsys fully-autonomous implementation and closure workflow: An autonomous workflow leveraging Synopsys implementation agents and Fusion Compiler on Azure brings together domain-specific and task-level agents to automate implementation quality-of-results (QoR) tuning and closure. Initial results demonstrate improved QoR.
Synopsys, AMD, and Microsoft are enabling AI-powered design workflows that combine large-scale reasoning, domain expertise, and cloud-scale compute to accelerate the development of the next generation of AI infrastructure silicon. Today’s milestone builds on the existing collaboration and previously announced agentic specification to RTL workflow, marking the first EDA applications available for evaluation on Microsoft Discovery. Customers can request evaluation access through Synopsys. AMD is actively evaluating the application of autonomous workflows to accelerate the development of their next-generation products.
“AI is reshaping engineering. Together with Microsoft and Synopsys, we’re enabling a new generation of AI-assisted design workflows that augment human ingenuity with intelligent automation and optimization,” said Alex Starr, AMD Corporate Fellow. “AI driven workflows powered by Discovery and leveraging AI tooling, such as RCA with deep EDA domain knowledge, are a paradigm we see accelerating scaling and deployment, helping improve both design velocity and overall silicon quality.”
“We designed Microsoft Discovery to accelerate scientific and engineering innovation with AI, and chip design is an ideal application for Discovery as it addresses one of the most complex engineering challenges on the planet,” said Aseem Datar, Corporate Vice President (CVP) of Product Innovation for Microsoft Discovery and Quantum. “We are excited about Synopsys’ open, interoperable approach to their agentic platform and the collaborative effort with Synopsys and AMD to make these agentic AI EDA workflows the first available on Discovery.”
“As AI-powered systems and hyperscale computing push silicon complexity to unprecedented levels, engineering teams can no longer afford traditional tradeoffs between performance, quality, and development speed,” said Ravi Subramanian, Chief Product Management Officer, Synopsys. “Synopsys is addressing this challenge by applying AI capabilities with increasing levels of autonomy to accelerate and transform silicon engineering.”
JoinSynopsys atthe 2026 DAC Chips to Systems Conference
This week at DAC, Synopsys is showcasing AI-powered engineering solutions that enable customers to rapidly design from silicon to system with increased quality, efficiency, precision, and scale. Attendees can visit Synopsys’ booth #631 for demonstrations of newly announced autonomous workflows. For a complete list of Synopsys sessions and activities at DAC 2026, visit the Synopsys DAC 2026 event page.
About Synopsys
Synopsys, Inc. (Nasdaq: SNPS) is the leader in engineering solutions from silicon to systems, enabling customers to rapidly innovate AI-powered products. We deliver industry-leading silicon design, IP, simulation and analysis solutions, and design services. We partner closely with our customers across a wide range of industries to maximize their R&D capability and productivity, powering innovation today that ignites the ingenuity of tomorrow. Learn more at www.synopsys.com.
July 27, 2026 — The U.S. Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) will lead a critical fusion energy research project and partner on seven other initiatives as a part of the Genesis Mission: the national initiative to harness artificial intelligence (AI) for scientific discovery. Announced July 22, 2026, these awards will support the Lab’s mission to harness on Earth the fusion energy that drives the sun and stars, while leading discoveries in plasma science and technology.
PPPL’s Syun’ichi Shiraiwa (center) will lead a Genesis Mission project to speed up the development of gyrotrons needed for some fusion energy systems, working alongside PPPL colleagues Ahmed Diallo (left) and Álvaro Sánchez Villar (right). Photo credit: Michael Livingston, PPPL.
The Genesis Mission is a historic national initiative led by the U.S. Department of Energy, which is building the world’s most powerful integrated science discovery platform. By uniting government, industry, academia and philanthropy, it is accelerating breakthroughs in energy, scientific discovery and national security through a new platform that combines AI, supercomputing, quantum systems and advanced scientific instruments.
The goal of the Phase I Request for Application awards is to identify promising pathways toward transformative scientific capabilities and establish a foundation for future investment and scale. Project teams will design and demonstrate research workflows that integrate AI with scientific investigation, while rigorously evaluating whether those approaches can accelerate discovery, improve predictive capabilities, enhance experimentation or generate new scientific insights.
Under the direction of Principal Research Physicist Syun’ichi Shiraiwa, the PPPL-led project will use AI to improve electron cyclotron heating (ECH): a crucial method for heating the plasma in fusion systems that use magnetic fields to hold the plasma. The research team will develop an AI system to autonomously operate the high-power gyrotrons used for ECH. The researchers will also build a digital twin, or virtual replica, to accelerate simulations of the physics inside a gyrotron and high-frequency gyrotron development needed by the fusion industry. Researchers from Rice University, the Naval Research Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory and Sophelio will collaborate on this project.
In addition, two Genesis Mission projects will be led by researchers with joint appointments at PPPL and Princeton University:
Toward a Facility for Laboratory Reconnection Experiments (FLARE) Digital Twin: Accelerating Experimental Research Using Neural Networks — Hantao Ji, a distinguished research fellow at PPPL, principal investigator on FLARE and professor of astrophysical sciences at Princeton University
Foundation Model Platform for Fusion Energy: A Multi-modal Multidevice Learning — Egemen Kolemen, a staff research physicist at PPPL and Princeton University professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment
PPPL was also selected as a partner on five other Genesis Mission projects. The following researchers will lead the Lab’s work on each:
Core Accelerated Trajectories With Augmented Learning by Sim-to-experiment Transfer — Nathaniel Ferraro, deputy head of theory
Automatic Performance Portability for Distributed Scientific Workflows on the Genesis Mission Platform — Shantenu Jha, head of computational sciences
AI-based Adaptive Low-temperature Plasma for Healthcare, Agriculture and Advanced Manufacturing — Yevgeny Raitses, managing principal research physicist
Data-driven Discovery of Multicomponent Plasma Fluid Dynamics — Ammar Hakim, principal research physicist
AI-driven Rapid Discovery of Plasma Deposition for Novel Materials for Next-generation Semiconductor Devices — Igor Kaganovich, principal research physicist
“The national labs and industry have a shared set of interests and priorities and very complementary capabilities, with laboratories delivering knowledge and industry delivering products. That really opens the aperture toward driving fusion and plasma science forward together,” said Laura Berzak Hopkins, PPPL’s deputy director for research and chief research officer.
Applications Open for 36-Hour Innovation Challenge Exploring Quantum Opportunities in the Energy Sector
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn., July 27, 2026 — Applications are now open for the Tennessee Quantum Hackathon hosted by The Company Lab (CO.LAB) in partnership with the Chattanooga Quantum Collaborative (CQC) and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC). The 36-hour innovation challenge will take place November 13–15 in Chattanooga.
College students from a range of disciplines will work in teams to explore how quantum technologies could help address complex challenges facing the electric power sector.
According to the McKinsey Quantum Technology Monitor 2026, quantum computing could create as much as $150 billion in value for the global electric power sector by 2035. With Tennessee’s strengths in energy, quantum research, quantum infrastructure, advanced computing, and entrepreneurship, organizers see an opportunity to engage emerging talent in exploring how the state’s energy sector could help realize some of that potential.
The Tennessee Quantum Hackathon brings together partners from across Tennessee’s growing quantum ecosystem, including higher education, research institutions, utilities and quantum technology companies. Organizations including UTC, EPB, Tennessee Valley Authority, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, IonQ and Quantinuum are helping shape the experience by contributing expertise, perspectives and opportunities for participants to engage with the people advancing quantum technologies across the state.
“Innovation accelerates when people with different perspectives tackle the same challenge,” said Tasia Malakasis, CEO of The Company Lab. “The Tennessee Quantum Hackathon brings students, researchers, and industry leaders together around a real opportunity for Tennessee.”
Throughout the weekend, participants will work on challenge statements inspired by opportunities in the electric power sector while engaging with researchers, entrepreneurs, utility leaders and quantum technology experts. Partners are expected to contribute in a variety of ways, from helping shape challenge statements and sharing technical expertise to mentoring teams, evaluating final presentations and supporting participants as they explore quantum technologies.
Participants will build and test their solutions using qBraid, a cloud-based quantum development platform that provides a common environment for programming, simulation and access to quantum computing resources. The platform allows participants to experiment with quantum software development tools and, where available, quantum hardware while receiving guidance from technical experts throughout the competition.
“The Tennessee Quantum Hackathon creates another point of connection within work that is already happening across our state,” said Charlie Brock, CEO of the Chattanooga Quantum Collaborative. “Researchers, entrepreneurs, utilities, universities and quantum companies each bring different strengths to Tennessee’s quantum future. This event creates an opportunity for participants to learn alongside those organizations, contribute fresh ideas and experience firsthand what collaboration looks like in a rapidly growing field.”
Previous experience with quantum computing is not required. Organizers are recruiting participants studying computer science, engineering, mathematics, physics, energy, business, entrepreneurship, marketing and other disciplines that contribute to solving complex problems.
The event builds on growing collaboration across Tennessee’s quantum community and is funded in part by a $1.33 million National Science Foundation planning grant awarded to UTC to develop a blueprint for a QuantumGrid Innovation Hub. CQC, CO.LAB and EPB are partners in the effort, which is exploring how quantum technologies could contribute to a more secure and resilient electric power grid.
Applications are now being accepted from participants registering independently or as part of a team.
Visit the Tennessee Quantum Hackathon webpage to learn more or apply.
About The Company Lab
The Company Lab (CO.LAB) is a place-based entrepreneurial support organization accelerating startups in Chattanooga’s industries of strength: energy, mobility, and quantum. By connecting founders with the region’s world-class infrastructure, real-world testbeds, industry expertise, capital, and corporate partners, CO.LAB helps startups validate and scale emerging technologies while advancing corporate innovation priorities. Through this work, CO.LAB strengthens the regional economy and positions Chattanooga as a national hub for commercializing the technologies shaping our future.
About Chattanooga Quantum Collaborative
The Chattanooga Quantum Collaborative (CQC) is a non-profit organization dedicated to establishing a robust quantum ecosystem in Chattanooga, Hamilton County, Tennessee, and beyond. By leveraging quantum resources and mobilizing diverse partnerships for the benefit of the region’s people, businesses, and communities, the CQC aims to drive workforce development, economic growth, and technology advancement in the quantum sector. For more information about the Chattanooga Quantum Collaborative, visit www.ChattanoogaQuantum.com.
July 27, 2026 — A United Nations’ (UN) Hackathon recently took place at the University of California San Diego Halıcıoğlu School of Data Science and Computing San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC). The event was a collaboration between the UN, SDSC Societal Computing and Innovation Lab (SCIL), the UC San Diego Library’s Open Source Program Office (OSPO) and the University’s Office of Innovation and Commercialization.
The participants of Southern California’s Reboot the Earth event included a range of ages, from high schoolers to university students.
Reboot the Earth initiative focuses on themes related to utilizing technology to create solutions for an array of international climate crises relevant to the specific location of each hackathon. For the UC San Diego edition, the focus was on wildfires. Undergraduates and developers from a variety of STEM fields gathered for the two-day challenge of creating software applications for wildfire prevention and management. The UC San Diego event was a true international affair with students from Mexico and a UN representative present.
Participants worked in teams to find their own unique paths converging into a collaborative effort, exploring the ways solutions garnered by technology can come to life.
UC San Diego students Laksh Goyal, Pranay Yalamanchali and Himir Desai designed a program called “AgriShield” to guide and protect farms using a single software. The team’s program personalizes detections of wildfire pathways according to the user’s selected land parcel. Users receive suggestions for different prevention methods, such as firebreaks and water points.
“Our goal was to make planning quicker, easier and more specific than a simple warning of high risk before wildfire season,” Goyal said. “This was my first hackathon and while we did not win, I learned a lot as we built something I genuinely care about, and met some really thoughtful people along the way.”
Team 619°, composed of UC San Diego and San Diego State University students Aadi Beri, Alex Ziao, Juee Deshmukh, Tue Tan and Adelina Martinez, took home the first place prize. Their creation, “Firelink,” functions as a hotline based on texting, aiming for quick communication in times of crisis.
Three finalists included Team Scorched. The UC San Diego students created re:scorched, a public awareness platform to provide communities with information about controlled burns. The platform, which couples satellite imagery with environmental data, also features a decision-making tool for wildfire researchers and first responders.
The Wildfire Wizards – SafeHerd team, which consisted of students from both UC San Diego and California State University San Marcos, was an additional finalist in the hackathon and developed SafeHerd, a San Diego County wildfire livestock evacuation system. SafeHerd provides a way for livestock owners to create plans to take their animals to safety during fire evacuations. The application also includes multi-language evacuation preparation checklists.
One more finalist was a UC San Diego student team coined AgroPal, which created a tool also called AgroPal. The platform specifically monitors the risk of wildfire from satellite data and auto-activates if there is a threat to the AgroPal user. The user then receives a multilingual PDF with a ranked crisis checklist, an evacuation route, a financial exposure summary, a pre-filled insurance form and a curated list of relief programs.
“We were honored to open the hackathon with our panelists, Joelene Tamm, Natural Resources Director at the La Jolla Band of Luiseño Indians, and Eric Just, Pre-Fire Division Chief at CAL FIRE,” said Melissa Floca, SCIL Chief Innovation Officer. “Their perspectives on our relationship with wildfire in Southern California grounded the event in local realities and provided valuable context for the discussions and work that followed.”
Floca’s sentiments reflect the true nature of this Hackathon: not simply a showcase of skill, but an opportunity to glimpse a promising future through the minds of our next generation.
NEWPORT NEWS, Va., July 27, 2026 — The U.S. Department of Energy has announced Phase I Request for Application (RFA) funding awards for small interdisciplinary teams to address Genesis Mission National Science and Technology Challenges. DOE’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility is a partner on seven projects receiving new funding.
The goal of the Phase I RFA awards is to identify promising pathways toward transformative scientific capabilities and establish a foundation for future investment and scale. Jefferson Lab is a partner on these projects:
AI-Driven Expedited Discovery and Background Separation for Petabyte-Scale Streaming Readout led by The Catholic University of America.
AI-Enabled Digital Twin for Scalable Injector Optimization and Control led by Old Dominion University.
Transforming Computing Cyber Infrastructure for Collider Experiments to AI Based Computing and AI-ready Data led by DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Mixture-of-Experts Foundation Models for Scalable Holistic Reconstruction, Modeling, and Interpretation of Particle Interactions led by William & Mary.
A.I. Era Spin Physics of Quantum Systems: Real-Time Feedback and Neural Network Optimization of Polarized Targets led by the University of New Hampshire.
AI-Driven, Self-Learning Digital Twins for Robust Operation of Particle Accelerators led by DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Physics-Aware Guardrails for Real-Time Integrity Protection of AI-Driven Scientific Workflows led by Old Dominion University.
Project teams will design and demonstrate research workflows that integrate AI with scientific investigation, while rigorously evaluating whether those approaches can accelerate discovery, improve predictive capabilities, enhance experimentation, or generate new scientific insights.
“I can not overemphasis the impact we anticipate from Genesis Mission on research and discovery, and each of the Phase I RFA awards will have significant effect on driving our understanding and lead to knowledge and innovation, and I can see directly how these projects will benefit from the expert knowledge and capabilities that our team at Jefferson Lab will bring to the table,” said Jefferson Lab Director Jens Dilling. “We appreciate this opportunity to apply our staff’s unique skillsets toward these national science priorities, and we are very excited for the Genesis Mission.”
At today’s Genesis Mission Summit, Jefferson Lab staff members’ work is featured in highlights of many mission priorities, such as the development of FemtoMind to build and enable AI models for nuclear physics research and research on applying AI to improving efficient operation in particle accelerators, nuclear and particle physics detectors, and scientific user facilities.
The Genesis Mission is a historic national initiative led by the U.S. Department of Energy, which is building the world’s most powerful integrated science discovery platform. By uniting government, industry, academia, and philanthropy, it is accelerating breakthroughs in energy, scientific discovery, and national security through a new platform that combines AI, supercomputing, quantum systems and advanced scientific instruments.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: OpenAI's ChatGPT is now refusing requests to generate text that directly mimics the style of famous authors. When asked to do so, the popular LLM instead offers a response that draws on the "broad qualities" of those authors "while remaining distinct in its own voice," for example. This morning, Ars received the following response to a test prompt asking for a story introduction in the style of Stephen King: "I can definitely write with the hallmarks of atmospheric, character-driven horror and small-town dread, but I can't write in Stephen King's exact style or closely imitate his distinctive voice. Here's an original opening that captures a similar feeling while remaining its own..."
In testing, ChatGPT generated similar dodges for other authors both living (J.K. Rowling, Amy Tan) and dead (Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway). An analysis published by No Latency earlier this month (PDF) found the same behavior for living authors but found ChatGPT complied with style-copying requests for deceased authors. In refusing to directly copy the "exact style" of various authors, ChatGPT offered instead to capture an overall "feeling" by incorporating some of the common features found in those authors' work. That may seem like a distinction without a real difference at first glance. But the slight alteration could be legally important as OpenAI continues to fight a number of lawsuits brought by book authors alleging large-scale copyright infringement by models trained on their work. One of those suits specifically cites ChatGPT's "uncanny ability to generate text similar to that found in copyrighted textual materials," for instance. An OpenAI spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment from Ars Technica.
In the US, copyright law generally protects only a specific expression of an idea, not the more intangible style of an author. But an AI-generated stylistic imitation could become infringing if it becomes "substantially similar" to the work of the original author. "We've never had a situation in which this personal style of individual creators could be imitated as well and as inexpensively as we now have with AI," George Washington University Law School Professor Robert Brauneis told Bloomberg Law.
US senator Mitch McConnell is still not cleared to return to work, his office confirmed on Monday, six weeks after he was hospitalized after a fall at his home.
An update released alongside a new photograph of the Republican lawmaker – one of the highest-profile figures in Congress, as a former Senate majority leader – said he was undergoing “intense physical therapy” and is “working hard” to get back to his duties.
Robert Bush, owner of Legacy Independent Funeral Directors, left bodies ‘rotting away’, family members say
A fraudulent funeral director broke the trust of families on an “almost industrial scale” as their loved ones’ bodies were left “rotting away”, a court has heard.
Robert Bush, owner of Legacy Independent Funeral Directors in Hull, appeared at Hull crown court on Monday for a five-day sentencing hearing. He previously pleaded guilty to 67 offences, including 30 counts of preventing lawful and decent burial.
Brent crude drops 9% to below $88 a barrel, prompting UK government bond yields to fall
Oil prices have dropped sharply as traders bet that a pause in US attacks on Iran could prevent an escalation in the conflict that would further restrict global supply.
Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil, initially fell 9% to below $88 a barrel on Monday after climbing to $100 last week, when the Iran-aligned Houthis attacked Saudi Arabian oil tankers in the Red Sea.
At a time when the quickening pace of global heating has never been clearer, climate policies are being deprioritised
A new and ominous word has entered the vocabulary of firefighters struggling to cope with the vast wildfire sweeping through south-west France. A pyrocumulonimbus is a fire-generated thunderstorm that can whip up winds in unpredictable ways, making the containment of a blaze and assessment of its likely course far more difficult. A known phenomenon in North America and Australia, firefighters believe France is suffering its first in the Bordeaux region, as the country endures the consequences of the third major heatwave of the summer and prepares for a fourth.
The dire statistics of the ongoing fires in France and Spain tell a story of deepening devastation and human misery. A far greater expanse of French land has already been burnt this year, compared with the 30,000 hectares during the whole of 2025, while 220,000 people have been evacuated from their homes in the Gironde. In Spain, the environment ministry has calculated that over 170,000 hectares have been affected, compared with 29,000 last year. Over 100,000 people have been forced to flee.
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Julie Masino faced criticism as restaurant chain was called ‘woke’ and ‘soulless’ after unveiling modernized logo
Cracker Barrel’s CEO, Julie Masino, is stepping down, the restaurant announced on Monday, nearly a year after the company was swept into a political maelstrom over proposed modernizations to its branding.
Critics on social media denounced the Tennessee-based rustic restaurant chain as “woke” as well as “sterile and soulless” after it unveiled an updated logo that removed Uncle Herschel, the overall-clad man leaning against a barrel in the restaurant’s original logo, last August. Donald Trump weighed in on the updates soon after, posting: “WTF is wrong with Cracker Barrel?!” and demanding on social media that the company “admit a mistake”.
PM promises lasting solution for England but Tories rule out backing changes funded by tax rises or borrowing
Andy Burnham has pledged to work collaboratively with other parties to find a lasting solution on social care, though the Conservatives have ruled out backing changes funded by tax rises or borrowing.
Senior Labour and Liberal Democrat figures have privately cast doubt on Burnham’s ability to find a cross-party consensus on social care reform in England, given the terms of the Tories’ participation.
Canadian-born British operator, president of the British Puppet Guild, died after a ‘short illness’
Ronnie Le Drew, best known for operating the puppet Zippy on the classic children’s television programme Rainbow, has died aged 78 after a short illness. The news was confirmed by the British Puppet Guild, of which Le Drew was president.
The Canadian-born British puppeteer was also known for working on 1986’s Labyrinth alongside David Bowie as well as 1986’s Little Shop of Horrors and various Muppet movies including in 1992’s The Muppet Christmas Carol. He worked on various iterations of Sooty, alongside Harry and Matthew Corbett, usually as Sweep, Sooty’s sidekick.
Si un nuevo proyecto de ley para hacer permanente el horario de verano se convierte en ley, es posible que los estadounidenses no tengan que preocuparse por cambiar sus relojes dos veces al año. Sin embargo, algunos usuarios en redes sociales todavía no quieren revertir la política actual.
El 15 de julio, la Cámara de Representantes aprobó el Sunshine Protection Act of 2025 para establecer el horario de verano durante todo el año, con el respaldo del presidente Donald Trump. Si se promulga la ley, los estadounidenses experimentarán mañanas más oscuras y atardeceres más tardíos durante el invierno.
“El Congreso acaba de elegir la única versión de reforma horaria que Estados Unidos ya probó, odio y derogó”, dice una publicación en X del 14 de julio.
La historia demuestra que EE.UU. ya ha pasado por esto anteriormente.
La Ley de Hora Estándar de 1918 estableció las zonas horarias estadounidenses; el horario de verano se estandarizó en 1966. La ley de 1966 permitía a los estados eximirse de observar el horario de verano, algo que hicieron Hawai y Arizona.
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En 1973, el presidente Richard Nixon firmó la Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act para reducir el consumo energético en medio de una crisis petrolera provocada por un embargo de la OPEP, destinado a castigar a EE.UU. por su apoyo a Israel. El proyecto de ley instauró un periodo de prueba de dos años de horario de verano permanente en la mayoría de los estados, con la esperanza de que contar con más luz vespertina permitiera ahorrar combustible.
“Hemos tomado varias medidas para afrontar la crisis energética, y habrá que tomar más. Muchas de ellas conllevan inconvenientes y sacrificios”, dijo Nixon. “Pero el horario de verano durante todo el año resultará durante los meses invernales, un ahorro estimado equivalente a 150,000 barriles de petróleo diarios, significará solo molestias mínimas e implicará la participación equitativa de todos”.
El horario de verano permanente comenzó el 6 de enero de 1974, coincidiendo con la época más fría y oscura del invierno en muchos estados.
Al poco tiempo, las noticias sobre accidentes de tráfico a primera hora de la mañana agravaron las preocupaciones sobre la seguridad.
En Florida, ocho niños fallecieron en menos de un mes tras el inicio del periodo de prueba, frente a los dos registrados en el mismo periodo del año anterior. Seis de las muertes se atribuyeron a la falta de luz solar cuando los niños iban a la escuela, según dijo ese año un portavoz del Departamento de Educación de Florida al The New York Times. El entonces gobernador de Florida, Reubin Askew, convocó a la legislatura estatal a una sesión extraordinaria y propuso que la mayor parte del estado volviera al horario estándar.
“Cualquier disrupción en el comercio sería realmente insignificante comparada con la vida de un solo niño”, dijo entonces Askew.
A medida que la mayoría de los estadounidenses comenzaban sus mañanas en completa oscuridad, la popularidad de la nueva ley se desplomó: el 79 % de los estadounidenses había apoyado el cambio en diciembre de 1973, pero para febrero de 1974 la cifra se situaba en el 42%, según el Centro Nacional de Opinión Pública de la Universidad de Chicago.
Ni siquiera la llegada de la primavera y el verano — las estaciones más soleadas cuando los estadounidenses ya estaban acostumbrados al horario de verano — impidió que los políticos estadounidenses trabajaran para revertir el cambio.
El 19 de agosto de 1974, la Cámara de Representantes votó a favor de finalizar anticipadamente el periodo de prueba del horario de verano permanente. El Senado votó similarmente y remitió la propuesta al presidente Gerald Ford. El 27 de octubre, EE.UU. regresó al horario estándar.
Nota del editor: PolitiFact tradujo esta historia del inglés al español usando un servicio de traducción automática. Los periodistas de PolitiFact con fluidez en ambos idiomas editaron la traducción para mayor claridad y precisión.
Judge quashes Enfield council’s decision to grant planning permission for new women’s and girls’ football academy
A council’s decision to allow Tottenham Hotspur Football Club to build a new training facility in a park in north London has been quashed by a judge at the high court.
The campaign group Guardians of Whitewebbs told a hearing in June that Enfield council’s decision to grant planning permission for a new women’s and girls’ football academy on 6.5 hectares (16 acres) of land in Whitewebbs Park was unlawful.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Newly released diary entries show Dr. Anthony Fauci becoming increasingly critical of President Donald Trump during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Republican Sen. Rand Paul released the journal before Fauci’s scheduled testimony Wednesday before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Paul has accused Fauci of misleading the public about pandemic policies and the virus’s origins.
The entries show Fauci privately describing Trump as “rambling,” “desperate,” “incompetent” and “a true embarrassment.” In February 2020, Fauci wrote that he urged Trump not to minimize the emerging threat because doing so could damage public trust and his reelection prospects. Fauci said Trump resumed downplaying the virus the following day.
By May, Fauci believed Trump was pushing to reopen the country primarily to improve his political position. Later entries criticized the president’s campaign rhetoric, pandemic management and efforts to remain in office after losing the 2020 election.
The journals also document Fauci’s growing celebrity and private conversations with journalist Bob Woodward. Conservative coverage has emphasized those passages and Fauci’s contacts with prominent entertainers.
Paul says the diaries reveal differences between Fauci’s private views and public statements. Fauci has consistently rejected Paul’s accusations that he concealed evidence about COVID-19’s origins.
Salamanca City Central says it is pausing project with Realbotix as it addresses concerns including data privacy
A New York school district has walked back plans to introduce a humanoid robot at its high school after the proposal sparked backlash from educators and community members.
The Salamanca City Central school district announced on 24 July in a social media post that its pilot project with Toronto-based tech company Realbotix had been put on hold “while we work through enhanced student data privacy agreements with the New York State Education Department and continue engaging with our community and stakeholders”.
MacRumors interviewed AI critic Ed Zitron, author of the Where's Your Ed At newsletter and host of the Better Offline podcast, about what could happen to Apple if the costly AI infrastructure boom collapses. Zitron argued that Apple is relatively well insulated because it has spent far less on data centers than rivals such as Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. He said the company could use the downturn to make selective acquisitions, though it might simply continue operating largely as before. "I think they will sit on the sidelines and watch everything burn," Zitron said. Here's an excerpt from the report: If the bubble deflates the way you expect (write-downs, too much compute supply, possibly OpenAI cratering), can you walk us through what that would actually look like for Apple? Does anything break for iPhone users, or does Apple mostly watch it happen from the sidelines? Could it even benefit Apple?
I think things would look much the same for Apple. I think they will sit on the sidelines and watch everything burn. I could see them doing some choice acquisitions as things begin to collapse, but I could also see them do nothing.
I think Apple is in a very weird place at the moment. The Vision Pro was a dud, but it was also the most interesting and future-forward thing I've seen anyone put out in a while. If they were smart, they'd tread water and sink as much money into making that as small as humanely possible -- no matter how long it takes -- because the entire AI bubble is a result of everybody running out of hypergrowth ideas, mostly because we're flat out of new interfaces.
I want to be clear that what they want to do with the Vision Pro requires it to basically be weightless and invisible and never need adjustments. When it works, it's genuinely awesome. But that's a load-bearing when. One slight movement means the whole thing goes out of focus. I can't even use mine anymore because it needs an update that requires you to wear the thing the whole time. So much promise, released too early, shoved out the door by a CEO on his way out.
Two women severely wounded before bystanders intervened in incident near Porte de Clichy
A man attacked three women with knives in Paris before bystanders pinned him to the ground and an off-duty police officer detained him, the French interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, has said.
The man attacked the three women, aged 19, 24 and 36, with two kitchen knives, severely wounding two of them, near Porte de Clichy on Monday, Nuñez said.
The Brandenburg Gate, illuminated in rainbow colors, after a car plowed into a crowd on the outskirts of the Christopher Day Parade pride event in Berlin on July 26, 2026.Photo: Christoph Soeder/dpa via Getty Images
On Saturday night, a man drove a van into a crowd near Berlin’s Pride Festival, before getting out and stabbing several people, leaving one woman dead and dozens injured.
The suspect, identified as 21-year-old Abdul Ballout, a German national and reported supporter of the Islamic State group, was shot dead by police on Sunday following a daylong manhunt.
“We do not want this deed to be used for political ends,” said the organizers of the festival, also known as Christopher Street Day, in a statement on Sunday before the attacker had even been located. “We don’t want any groups to be placed under suspicion for this. People are trying to divide our society and set some people against others. We will not allow this.”
Amid the shock and grief, the organizers saw the immediate need to stop malign political forces using the horrific attack and the queer community’s suffering to fuel Germany’s already fervent anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and anti-immigrant sentiment.
The far-right Alternative for Germany Party, or AfD, moved to weaponize the Berlin attack within hours.
They had reason for concern. The far-right Alternative for Germany Party, or AfD — which decries trans people as a “cult,” opposes marriage equality and gay adoption, defines a family as only “father, mother and children,” and condemns so-called “gender ideology” — had moved to weaponize the attack within hours.
“The AfD has been warning for years: Islamism is and remains the greatest security threat to our country,” said AfD member of parliament Martin Hess in a statement. He remarked that “we also urgently need a genuine shift in migration policy” — despite the fact that Saturday’s suspect was born and raised in Germany.
The AfD, which is currently the most popular German party according to recent polls, boasts numerous state-level branches classified as extremist organizations by Germany’s intelligence agencies.
Alliance for Bigotry
The party is using a familiar playbook. In 2016, the day after the deadly Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump called for a total ban on immigration from Muslim countries. His two presidencies have since been dedicated to destroying both trans lives and Muslim lives with vigor.
Trump has sought to leverage attacks abroad, including in Germany, to his galvanize anti-Muslim base. The president was quick to condemn the 2016 massacre at a Berlin Christmas market to double down, once again, on his Muslim ban plan.
So far, Trump hasn’t said anything about the Berlin Pride attack — perhaps his demonization of Muslims has been so thorough that he no longer needs to feign concern about queer lives to gin up Islamophobia — but the alliances that inform these bigotries nonetheless remain a powerful political force.
Trump and his allies have long boosted the very German politics that is cynically leveraging the Berlin attack for political gains.
Last year, anti-trans zealot Elon Musk threw his support and his social media platform behind the far-right party.
“Only the AfD can save Germany,” he wrote on X.
The Right’s Own Attacks
Day in and day out, meanwhile, it is the likes of the AfD and other conservative German parties, and the Republicans at home, who are assaulting the LGBTQ+ rights.
A spike in anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes in Germany in recent years has been directly linked to a rise in far-right extremism, including more than two dozen attacks at Pride events.
The attacks themselves, however, are only part of the story.
“Politicians are now shamelessly exploiting the suffering of the queer community for their own agenda, while cutting funding for queer organizations, aid projects, and cultural initiatives,” wrote Mohamed Amjahid, a columnist for German newspaper, Taz.
It’s true. Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Party, in its role in the coalition leading Berlin’s municipal government, has cutfunding for queer community programs in the city and banned drag story hour readings in public libraries.
Of the perpetrators of Saturday’s brutality, Merz said: “They want to take away the most important things we have: our openness, our freedom.”
This purported shared “openness” and “freedom” had not been on display when Merz opposed plans to fly a rainbow flag atop the Reichstag Building to honor Pride last year.
“The Bundestag is not a circus tent,” the conservative chancellor said.
Just hours before Ballout rammed a truck into Pride attendees, Berlin riot police had focused their energies on making arrests and aggressing attendees at the explicitly anti-colonial, anti-capitalist Internationalist Queer Pride march elsewhere in Berlin.
Part-Time Solidarity
As Berlin-based journalist James Jackson noted, Merz’s statement on the attack, along with statements by three other senior conservative politicians, wholly failed to explicitly mention gay or queer people.
The statements defended “tolerance” and “freedom,” but when queer and trans people are attacked and killed, it is not “freedom” that is threatened in the abstract, it is specific forms of life — the very ways of being in the world that have been under assault by far-right politics and centrist complicity, across Europe and the United States.
On Sunday, thousands gathered for a vigil in front of the Brandenburg Gate, which was lit up in rainbow colors by night.
“Last year they refused to let us fly the rainbow flag in front of the Bundestag, because it’s not a circus tent, after all,” said one vigil speaker who identified as Muslim and gay. “Today the flags are flying at half-mast. But solidarity shouldn’t be a knee-jerk reaction after a tragedy.”
It’s a lesson that self-identifying allies in the U.S., above all Democrats who continue to fail trans people, would do well to learn, too.
The supply of soccer seems to be enormously exceeding demand. It’s made the sport feel utterly overwhelming
On Friday, the Scottish Premiership kicks off its 2026-27 season. The following Friday, the Dutch Eredivisie begins anew, and England’s Carabao Cup sets off on its ponderous journey. The various European club competitions have already begun their qualifying rounds – and did so on 7 July, in the case of the Champions and Conference Leagues. Liga MX is two rounds into its Apertura season; Major League Soccer resumed its regular season on 16 July. Other soccer is available elsewhere and at other times.
It has been only a week since the World Cup ended.
This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond, helmed this week by Leander in Jonathan’s absence. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email soccerwithjw@theguardian.com, and he’ll answer the best in a future edition.
Leander Schaerlaeckens is a Guardian US contributor whose book on the US men’s national soccer team, The Long Game, is out now. You can buy it here. He teaches at Marist University.
Nelson Haase Mazzei was sentenced for murdering Jara in 2023, but fled from authorities in Chile
More than 50 years after the murder of the Chilean folk singer Víctor Jara, the last man wanted in connection with his death has been tracked down and brought to justice.
Nelson Haase Mazzei, a retired colonel, fled from authorities in 2023 after he and six other retired soldiers were sentenced in absentia for murdering Jara and another man.
No one was injured and no suspects have been identified in connection to shooting near Toronto compound, police say
Shots were fired near the US consulate in Toronto early on Monday but no one was injured in the second shooting near the diplomatic compound in four months.
“Officers heard a firearm being discharged in the area,” and “a white sedan was seen fleeing the scene”, Toronto police said on X.
Former FBI Director James Comey argued that criminal charges stemming from an Instagram post should be dropped because his speech is protected by the First Amendment.
Residents describe their fear as they were forced to leave their homes because of the ‘extremely intense’ blaze
Sitting in their suburban apartment in Mérignac on the outskirts of Bordeaux, Krishma, an interpreter, and her husband, Nassir, first felt a sense of dread when a strange black cloud turned the sky dark in the middle of the day. Then a bitter burning smell filled the air outside.
“The sky changed colour. It seemed like a cloud but it was smoke covering the sun – it wasn’t a natural phenomenon. It didn’t seem real,” said Nassir, an English literature graduate from Kabul who has been living in France for seven years. “We couldn’t breathe easily, you could feel it in your lungs.”
A mother from Tennessee slept through wildfire evacuation operations in southwest France, and now she's trapped with her kids as the blaze threatens the city Bordeaux.
Carly Simon, the singer known for 1970s hits like "You're So Vain," announced she has Parkinson's disease and also was treated for basal cell carcinoma.
Officials said Abdul Ballout, a 21-year-old German-born citizen with Lebanese roots, plowed a vehicle into celebrants at one of Europe's largest Pride events.
PALO ALTO, Calif. and DALLAS, July 27, 2026 — D-Wave Quantum Inc. and AT&T today announced that AT&T has signed an agreement to expand its use of D-Wave’s quantum computing technology and plans to use the technology to address complex optimization challenges across its network operations.
AT&T’s initial focus is on layering D-Wave’s annealing quantum computing technology into the tools that are already powering AT&T’s agentic AI solutions. Agentic tools in AT&T’s network are improving network operations like outage detection and management, reducing customer downtime by 12 million hours in 2025. New quantum capabilities could help increase the benefits of agents in AT&T’s network operations.
In an early application, AT&T used D-Wave’s technology to reduce the processing time for a network optimization workload from approximately one hour to less than 15 seconds. Building on this initial work, AT&T plans to explore using D-Wave’s quantum computing technology across a broader set of applications, such as outage detection and response, technician routing, network build planning, and traffic management. Through these applications, AT&T will explore how faster processing could translate into faster and more accurate planning, as AT&T scales its converged fiber and 5G network to meet growing AI-driven demand.
“AT&T’s work with D-Wave is a powerful example of how leading enterprises are beginning to turn to quantum computing for solving real business problems,” said Alan Baratz, CEO of D-Wave. “AT&T has incredibly complex optimization problems across its network operations, understands where classical computing is challenged, and is moving quickly to explore where quantum can make an impact. We’re excited to work with AT&T to help drive speed, efficiency and business value across its operations.”
AT&T is also evaluating D-Wave’s forthcoming gate-model systems for potential applications in quantum security and quantum communications. This agreement is part of AT&T’s broader innovation strategy, which applies quantum computing, AI, automation, advanced analytics, and software-defined infrastructure to modernize how the network is built, run, and optimized.
“D-Wave’s annealing quantum computing technology gives us a new way to approach optimization and high-intensity compute challenges across AT&T’s network operations,” said Lucus Haugen, director, Data Science for AT&T’s Chief Data Office. “The speed we’re seeing with D-Wave challenges what’s currently possible. It has the potential to help us optimize faster, increase efficiency and scale more real-time operations, making quantum a practical tool for advancing how we run and modernize our network.”
About D-Wave Quantum Inc.
D-Wave is a leader in the development and delivery of quantum computing systems, software, and services. It is the world’s first commercial supplier of quantum computers, and the first and only to offer dual-platform quantum computing products and services, spanning both annealing and gate-model quantum computing technologies. D-Wave’s mission is to help customers realize the value of quantum today through enterprise-grade systems available on-premises and via its Leap quantum cloud service, which offers 99.9% availability and uptime. More than 100 organizations across commercial, government and research sectors trust D-Wave to address complex computational challenges using quantum computing. Learn more about realizing the value of quantum computing today and how D-Wave is shaping the quantum-driven industrial and societal advancements of tomorrow: www.dwavequantum.com.
With large areas still burning, damage from national park’s worst blaze could take decades, if not longer, to put right
It is the jewel in the crown of the Highlands, one of Scotland’s most impressive natural landscapes, but 12 days on from the start of an enormous wildfire that is tearing through moorland and forest, the Cairngorms national park is unrecognisable.
Hectares of blackened land were visible as low cloud cleared on Sunday, with smoke billowing into the air from large areas still ablaze. In the evening, the sky glowed an eerie orange.
European misinformation researchers say TikTok, X, and Meta are obstructing access to platform data required under the EU's Digital Services Act through rejections, restrictive quotas, costly APIs, and burdensome security demands. Although regulators have fined X and pushed platforms to improve access, researchers remain skeptical that the changes will provide reliable, reproducible data at scale. Ars Technica reports: In recent years, social media companies shut down public access tools like Meta's CrowdTangle and replaced them with content libraries, or, like X, paywalled their API data, forcing academics to pay "hundreds of dollars a month," said Duncan Allen, a research officer at Democracy Reporting International (DRI) in Germany. Researchers say that without API access, what Iamnitchi describes as the "black holes" in what society knows about how these platforms recommend content or handle reports regarding sensitive content will only grow. Others, like TikTok, cap how many posts any researcher account can pull each day, which Allen said can make it "impossible to study anything at scale."
The DSA was meant to solve this by allowing vetted researchers at credible institutions to have access to API data if they could show it would help in studying systemic risks, from illegal content to threats to fundamental rights. But two years after the law took effect, researchers say they struggle to meet its security requirements and face narrow interpretations from platforms of what qualifies as a systemic risk. Application forms differ by platform, but most require data to be stored on infrastructure that cannot be compromised -- such as a machine physically disconnected from the Internet -- a resource most universities lack, [said Adriana Iamnitchi, chair of computational social sciences at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, who leads research into online disinformation campaigns.]
Even for researchers who secure approval, "there's no guarantee that the data is good," said L. K. Seiling, coordinator of the DSA40 Collaboratory, a German initiative that tracks 46 DSA applications. API data is often difficult for a colleague to reproduce, so a researcher's work cannot be checked for errors, which Iamnitchi said is a "basic requirement of science." DSA40 data shows that of 46 tracked applications, 20 were approved and 14 rejected. But approval rates vary widely: TikTok approved 11 of 13 applications, while X rejected 11 of 23. The true rejection rate is likely higher because the tracker relies on voluntary reporting, Seiling said. "There's no structured advantage for researchers to use this pathway," Seiling said. "Data access as it's set up right now tries to disincentivize researchers."
The Green party has its lowest share of the vote since Zack Polanski became leader, data shows
I have already posted lines from Andy Burnham’s BBC interview on reforming social care (see 9.03am), making council tax fairer (see 10.03am), and ruling out an early election (see 11.56am). And yesterday Peter Walker wrote up the lines in the interview from Burnham saying he would disagree with Donald Trump if necessary.
Here are some of the other comments worth flagging up.
Burnham suggested care workers should be exempt from Shabana Mahmood’s plan to make foreign workers wait much longer until they can apply for indefinite leave to remain in the UK. Currently workers normally have to wait five years until they qualify for settlement. Under Mahmood’s plans, the norm will become 10 years, and care workers could even have to wait 15 years (because working in a low-pay sector means they contribute less to the exchequer, the Home Office argues). Last week Kiran Stacey and Patrick Butler reported that Burnham may order a rethink.
A couple months back I bought a used xr+ for myself and a pint for my GF. Unfortunately she finds the XR easier to ride and since she’s inexperienced in board sports I’m doing what I can to build confidence for her. I’m 180lbs and the pint really feels like it struggles. That and I’ve been skateboarding, longboarding, and snowboarding for 20+ years so naturally I would like it to be a lot more powerful. I did a little bit of research and decided for my first attempt at VESC a drop in kit would probably be easiest. Ordered a Pint V, chi 20.1, and stoked stock bms.
The shipping was faster than expected which is great considering my battery hasn’t even shipped yet but I decided I was to impatient to wait for the battery and it would be cool to see that difference the battery makes performance wise on the controller. My dumb ass didn’t realize there was a tool kit supplied with the control board so I ordered a set of 5 pointed Torx security bits and waited the few days for that and when it arrives I get to work. Pausing the install video after each step and taking my time so I don’t mess anything up. I get everything installed and attempt the hand test. I see the leds indicate that the sensor is engaged but no response from the motor. No biggy I was prepared for there to be some setup required so I download float hub and pay the $40. I get to the Detect FOC value step and start the test. The board turns itself off. Try it again same response.
I emailed floatwheel and am awaiting their response but honestly so bummed out and a little anxious because I paid with crypto.
I’m really just venting cause I don’t have any onewheel friends and my gf is tired of hearing me complain but has anyone else had a similar experience and how is floatwheels customer service?
Former top US health official wrote about challenging interactions with publicity-fixated Trump during Covid
Diary entries released by a Republican senator in an attempt to damage Anthony Fauci also show the former top US government science adviser’s growing disillusionment with Donald Trump in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, branding the president “rambling”, “crazy”, “desperate”, “bumbling”, “incompetent”, “an idiot”, “a true embarrassment”, “totally nuts” and “truly an obnoxious adolescent”.
From the earliest days of the crisis six years ago, Fauci noted in his journal challenging interactions with the publicity-fixated Trump. On 27 February 2020, amid the first stirrings of public alarm, he wrote of a surprise late-night call, in which the US president “wanted to chat about the coronavirus situation in general”.
Exclusive: Two children reportedly taken to hospital after residents told in-built units ‘not offered as amenity’
Homeless families placed in temporary accommodation in London were told they could not use the in-built air conditioning as it had “not been offered as an amenity” for them, leading to two children being hospitalised during recent heatwaves.
Some residents at Britannia Point in Colliers Wood, south-west London, experienced such stifling conditions that young children became ill. The company managing some of the tenancies involved told the Guardian households in temporary accommodation had now been told they could use the air conditioning.
Temperatures up to 35C forecast, triggering heat health alerts and pleas to take care in parched parks and rural areas
Paramedics and firefighters are braced for emergencies across the country this week after UK forecasters predicted a fourth heatwave of the year.
Temperatures are forecast to reach as high as 35C by Wednesday, triggering heat health alerts and an appeal from fire chiefs to take care in parched parks and rural areas.
House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith, R-Mo., speaks with a reporter on Capitol Hill on July 21, 2026. Photo: Francis Chung/Politico via AP Images
The House Ways and Means Committee last week carried out an attack on journalism that hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves. The committee subpoenaed BreakThrough News, a left-wing outlet with deep ties to the Party for Socialism and Liberation that is highly critical of the United States and Israel, along with two other nonprofits with similar ideologies, The People’s Forum and Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.
The subpoena deserves the same scrutiny as those issued to New York Times reporters over their reporting on security issues with President Donald Trump’s Qatari jet, which, after significant pushback in the courts of law and public opinion, the government withdrew Thursday — the same day BreakThrough announced its receipt of the legal orders.
Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, an attorney for BreakThrough, called the committee “a modern day HUAC,” the McCarthy-era committee on so-called “un-American” activities. Communists aren’t the only ones who should be concerned. As Chip Gibbons, policy director at Defending Rights & Dissent, put it: “Attacks on independent, alternative, or radical media have troubling history. It is always the I.F. Stones or the WikiLeaks who are first on the firing line.”
The Ways and Means Committee is claiming its investigation is a tax-related probe into more than $39 million that flowed from Neville Roy Singham, a U.S. citizen and tech financier based in Shanghai, to the groups, which it claims advance Chinese Communist Party-aligned interests. But we’ve seen that playbook before: Around the globe, financial probes have been used as pretexts to stifle journalism and dissent, and there’s every indication that this is the latest example.
BreakThrough News has been criticized for favorable coverage of China and other U.S. adversaries, which it indeed publishes. But favorable coverage of foreign adversaries — even in the form of propaganda — is protected by the Constitution. And BreakThrough’s leadership held those positions long before they had any alleged connection to Singham.
“ The First Amendment was specifically written to protect journalism that the government does not approve of.”
BreakThrough’s editor-in-chief, Ben Becker, had a common-sense observation: “The First Amendment was specifically written to protect journalism that the government does not approve of. Journalism approved by the government wouldn’t need protection,” he said. “That’s why so many of the country’s decisive free speech cases involved the abolitionist press, the radical labor press and the antiwar press. … But history looks back on these episodes for what they were — shameful violations of free speech — and that’s the same thing that’s happening here.”
Though the committee denies it is engaging in content-based retaliation in its most recent letter, past correspondence does little to refute Becker’s framing, citing no evidence of any kind of financial illegality and instead focusing on BreakThrough News’ critical coverage of ICE and Israel and criticizing its connections to the PSL, a lawfully organized domestic political party, which it says, “orchestrated the anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement riots in Los Angeles resulting in violence and dozens of arrests last June.”
My Freedom of the Press Foundation colleague Adam Rose, who also serves as press rights chair of the Los Angeles Press Club, found that last part particularly infuriating (PSL and its leadership have not been charged with any offenses relating to violence in LA). The government, Rose said, has “failed to investigate the documented wholesale violence by federal agents against press and protesters” in LA. “Maybe instead of a foreign state, our elected representatives should be more concerned about our own state violence against innocent civilians in our local streets.”
There’s another problem with the probe of BreakThrough. Putting aside the subpoenas’ flimsy evidentiary backing, House subpoenas must carry a legislative purpose. Why would the committee need a fishing expedition into the finances of a few leftist nonprofits to decide whether legislative reforms are necessary? The committee’s letter claims to have already spotted the gap in nonprofit tax law they contend Singham is exploiting, and it cites plenty of public reporting on his network, so it’s unclear what other information its members need that could conceivably justify congressional action as extreme as subpoenaing news outlets. If the best argument they can come up with for their contemplated legislation is that three obscure organizations were funded by an American citizen living abroad, maybe they should find other fish to fry.
As Breakthrough’s chief correspondent Rania Khalek recently said, “I think this is really just about trying to bury us in legal proceedings until we’ve basically run out of money or stop reporting out of intimidation.
BreakThrough is far from the first victim of this censorial playbook. Rodrigo Duterte’s government in the Philippines, for example, filed a series of tax evasion cases against Rappler, the investigative outlet led by journalist Maria Ressa, due to its alleged acceptance of foreign investments (Ressa is a former board member of The Intercept). Advocates described the cases as part of a broader legal campaign designed to wear the outlet down. It took years and a change of administration before courts acquitted Ressa and Rappler. Authorities in Azerbaijan have also repeatedly brought pretextual financial charges including tax evasion against investigative journalism they sought to suppress.
There are also examples closer to home — not just from Red Scares decades ago, but in present-day Florida. A 2025 state law restricts nonprofits from accepting funds from broadly defined “foreign sources of concern” tied to countries like China, Russia, Cuba, and Iran, while a related “Honest Services Registry” asks charities to affirm they’re free of such foreign influence. A separate domestic terrorism law lets state officials designate organizations as terrorist groups — organizations like the Muslim civil rights group CAIR and the amorphous non-entity the government calls “antifa” have already received the designation.
Florida First Amendment Foundation executive director Bobby Block explained the agenda in an email: “Make people wonder whether joining an organization, donating to a cause, attending a protest or expressing an unpopular viewpoint could put them under a government microscope, and some will simply decide to remain silent. That’s the chilling effect the First Amendment is supposed to protect against.”
Combined with the administration’s crackdown on purported domestic terror outlined by National Security Presidential Memorandum 7; Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s bizarre memorandum claiming a Cuban conspiracy to spread communism stateside; and the countless other suppression of dissent we’ve seen from Trump allies, all of them predictably targeting speakers whose politics differ from the president’s — it’s not hard to spot the endgame.
BreakThrough isn’t the only news outlet recently swept into this broader crackdown. Earlier this month, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents detained Grayzone journalist Max Blumenthal and seized two smartphones after he returned from reporting in Iran. Like BreakThrough, Grayzone is highly critical of U.S. and Israeli foreign policy, and its detractors accuse it of being soft on U.S. adversaries. It’s the kind of outlet governments know they can harass without nearly the blowback that comes with subpoenaing the New York Times.
After Blumenthal sued, authorities let him pick up his phones, but he remains concerned about whether their content was searched or copied. Blumenthal said officers asked him to unlock his phones and when he refused, they told him they’d “hook them up to machines,” presumably to extract their contents. Blumenthal, of course, is far from the only reporter who has reported from Iran or who visited the country to cover Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s state funeral. But, to the best of our knowledge, he’s the only one who has had his phones searched and seized.
Whatever leeway the law affords border agents to conduct searches that would otherwise be unlawful cannot be abused to punish constitutionally protected speech because they dislike its content. The federal Privacy Protection Act of 1980 — which prohibits searches of journalists’ files absent probable cause to suspect criminality — contains no exception for border searches. It is likely not a coincidence that the attack on Blumenthal’s rights followed calls by the pro-Israel doxxing organization Canary Mission and MAGA influencer and Trump ally Laura Loomer for government retribution against Blumenthal based on his coverage.
Gibbons is right that attacks on press freedom historically start on the edges. Trump has arguably been an aberration, though. Although he certainly draws inspiration from outliers, taking legal theories that were laughed at the court on the local level and turning them into federal policy, his own strategy is generally to start big.
Likely because he still mentally resides in a skyscraper in 1980s Manhattan, Trump is far more focused on outlets like the Times than on the independent press. He files SLAPP suits against mainstream journalists at a pace that would land anyone else on a restricted filers list; his Federal Communications Commission continues threatening the licenses of broadcasters who don’t kiss the ring emphatically enough for his liking; his Pentagon tried to extract loyalty pledges from the country’s most prominent outlets; and his Justice Department and FBI can’t seem to stop raiding and subpoenaing journalists no matter what the judiciary has to say.
These efforts have certainly had an incalculable chilling effect on the press, but they’ve largely fizzled in court. The prospect that the administration may have caught on to that pattern and shifted its focus to outlets with less mainstream support, less money, and fewer lawyers on retainer is an alarming one.
As Gibbons put it, “Those who are serious about press freedom cannot be selective in their solidarity.”
Scientists say decision is blow to UK astronomy as deep space observatory is home to world-leading facilities
Jodrell Bank Observatory, the hub of a world-leading network of radio telescopes, is facing closure after government funding for the facility was slashed.
The deep space observatory includes the Grade I-listed Lovell telescope and is prized by astronomers who study galaxies, black holes, star formation, planets beyond the solar system and the afterglow of the big bang.
Virginia authorities arrest 27-year-old Elijah Bieniemy
Mia Bieniemy is stable after multiple gunshot wounds
Kansas City OC was at team camp in Missouri on Sunday
The son of Chiefs assistant coach Eric Bieniemy has been arrested and charged with the shooting of his mother, Mia Bieniemy, the wife of the Kansas City offensive coordinator, authorities in Virginia said Monday.
The Loudon county sheriff’s office said deputies responded late Sunday to a shooting in Ashburn, Virginia, where the couple still had a home from Bieniemy’s time with the Washington Commanders. They found the 57-year-old Mia Bieniemy with multiple gunshot wounds, and she was transported to a hospital where she was in stable condition Monday
The buildup to this All-Star Game had some headaches, but the festivities in Chicago – with a Barack Obama cameo and a record crowd – were a rousing high
If your perceptions of what the WNBA is like in 2026 are largely shaped by narratives derived from and driven by social media, the scene in Chicago at WNBA All-Star Weekend would have proved a surprise.
The mood Friday morning at the Barack Obama Presidential Center was downright ebullient. And, sure, to a degree that was because No 44 himself clocked in for about an hour of practice. The former president briefly showed off some moves in his jeans and loafers after he was surprise-attacked by the New York Liberty’s Jonquel Jones.
I’m fairly new to the OneWheel world. I recently picked up a pintx and I absolutely love this thing.
I’m now seeing people are bring up funwheel x7
The company is located in Dubai it looks like. I wanted to know, what made you switch to funwheel? Are there issues buying from funwheel and getting support? They seem to be pricey and I just want to know all the pros and cons before investing into an x7.
Kai Sato used PVC pipes and kayak paddles to try to repair his boat, and a plastic bag to collect condensation to drink
A California man was rescued alive drifting in his sailboat off Hawaii after spending 30 days stranded at sea.
Kai Sato, 39, set sail from California’s Catalina Islands on 7 June hoping to complete his first solo sail across the Pacific Ocean, he told Hawaii News Now. But his journeytook a disastrous turn when his mast snapped, and the phone he was using for navigation died.
Turkey’s S-400 saga shows the hard realities of defence procurementExpert commentjon.wallace
The country’s purchase of Russian air defences has prevented it from acquiring US F-35 fighter jets. The UAE could face similar issues if it purchases the systems.
This month it was reported in the Turkish media that Turkey was in talks to sell its long-unused S-400 Triumf air defence system, with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates mentioned as potential buyers. The purchase would reportedly consist of the two systems, plus 120 interceptor missiles.
The UAE has not commented on the reports, but it would be hardly surprising if the Emiratis were seeking to diversify their air defence portfolio. With the UAE having come under Iranian drone and missile bombardment since the US-Israeli war on Iran began in late February, options to improve the country’s layered air defences are likely to be in high demand.
The UAE already operates the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defence system (THAAD) for missiles at similar altitudes. Acquiring the S-400 would deliver the UAE a uniquely diverse air defence arsenal, with THAAD and the S-400 sitting alongside Russian Pantsir S1 systems in addition to a wide variety of US, South Korean and Israeli systems.
UAE navigates trade-offs
According to the reports, the deal is in a preliminary stage. If concluded, the sale could have adverse consequences for the UAE as it tries to balance its diverse defence partners.
The UAE was previously in an advanced stage of talks to purchase up to 50 F-35 fighter jets from the US. In 2021, the UAE suspended the talks, which had dragged on amid Washington’s concerns over the Chinese company Huawei’s role in the country. However, the prospect of returning to the purchase was left open.
The situation demonstrates how high-end air defence systems remain stubbornly resistant to innovations in the wider defence ecosystem.
If the UAE purchases the S-400, it is highly unlikely that its prospects of purchasing F-35s could be revived. Washington’s main concern with Turkey’s acquisition of the S-400 was over the potential for sensitive information about the F-35’s stealth profile and electronic warfare signature to be shared with Russia via the S-400’s radar and sensor systems. It’s likely that the US would have similar concerns if the missiles were present in the Gulf.
There is also uncertainty as to whether Moscow would allow the systems to be sold. Under the end-user license, exporting the systems to a third party would require Russian approval. According to Russian sources, the possibility of a sale is still being analysed. Although multiple sources have claimed Moscow views the potential sale to the UAE in a ‘positive light’, keeping the system in Turkey would drive a wedge between Ankara and the West and keep the F-35 out of Turkey’s hands.
Turkey’s search for alternatives
For Turkey, the S-400 saga represents a near-decade long demonstration of the tricky politics of defence technology.
In 2017, while searching for high-altitude air defence options, the Turkish government began talks to acquire either the Franco-Italian SAMP/T, or the US Patriot system. Turkey nearly purchased the Patriot twice. The US State Department even approved its sale in 2018, but the deal fell through after the Turkish government demanded a greater deal of technology transfer than the US was prepared to give.
When poor relations with the French government over Turkish actions in Syria, Libya and the Eastern Mediterranean stalled the possibility of acquiring SAMP/T, Turkey acquired the S-400 from Russia in 2019. The US government promptly suspended Turkey’s role in the F-35 programme and has kept the six aircraft the Turkish government has paid for.
Attempts to solve the S-400 conundrum
Since then, Turkey has found itself stuck with the S-400 and unable to purchase F-35s. Various creative solutions to the issue have been proposed and dismissed.
Turkey selling the S-400s to a third party would require end-user agreement (allegedly now forthcoming from Russia regarding the UAE). One failed proposal was to de-activate the S-400s via the removal of vital components, which in turn would be stored at a site guarded by the US.
Destruction of the systems would have been costly and politically unwise. In September 2025, it was revealed that Turkey had discussed returning the missiles to Russia, which was later dismissed by Moscow.
If the systems are transferred to the UAE, the door will open for Turkey to potentially re-join the F-35 programme. Doing so would have far-reaching consequences for intra-NATO dynamics.
The F-35 problem is the largest blocker to further defence cooperation with Turkey, and solving the issue would enable a deepening of defence industrial integration when Europe needs it most. However, supplying Turkey with the F-35 could potentially exacerbate tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean with Greece and Cyprus, in turn potentially splitting the EU and NATO on defence.
Air defence remains costly
The whole saga is insightful for understanding Turkish foreign policy and defence technology. It shows there are limits to how much has changed in recent years.
Firstly, the situation demonstrates how high-end air defence systems remain stubbornly resistant to innovations in the wider defence ecosystem, including those that have come out of Ukraine.
One remarkable feature of Ukraine’s ability to resist aggression is its fielding of new, domestically produced interceptor drones, long-range one-way attack (OWA) drones, command-and-control systems, and even crude cruise missiles. Driven by startup-style enterprises, these developments have re-shaped procurement cycles and their battlefield deployment.
However, due to the inherently complex nature of firing missiles at missiles, air defence remains a domain that is doggedly resistant to change. As much as the proliferation of ballistic missiles and OWA drones has made carrying out long-range strikes easier and cheaper, air defence remains in the realm of large R&D budgets, state-led procurement, and political approval for sales. While offensive weapons have proliferated, the systems required to protect states from such weapons have not.
Limits of hedging
Because of the highly technical nature of such defensive systems, the saga also neatly encapsulates the limits of Turkish attempts to ‘hedge’ by balancing relations between external powers, especially the US and Russia.
An inability to integrate the S-400 into NATO radar systems prevented Turkey from ever deploying them, in addition to stalling its F-35 procurement. Privately, there is a realization among some within Turkey that their purchase was a mistake.
The main value of air defence systems lies just as much in their effective networking and integration as in the individual systems. Without streamlined command and control, the whole system fails to become more than the sum of its parts.
European opponents of more defence collaboration with Turkey should note that, historically, excluding Turkey from weapons development programmes has not prevented it from acquiring similar systems, whereas including Ankara can constrain its behaviour in other ways.
The S-400 purchase represented a defiant demonstration of Turkey’s ability to go it alone, exercising sovereignty in its procurement choices and balancing itself between its NATO allies and other partners. But the system’s subsequent mothballing, storage, and eventual likely disposal – without ever being switched on – represents the very real limit of such a policy.
The S-400 saga encapsulates the key features of defence technology diplomacy. It demonstrates clearly how, despite changes in the wider market, states rely on hegemonic powers for the technology needed to defeat ballistic missiles. It also shows how, in some cases, there is a limit to hedging between alliance blocs.
Although the S-400 may be a cost-efficient means of bolstering the UAE’s air defences at a time of considerable uncertainty, the UAE would be wise to consider how Turkey buying Russian weapons forced it down a path with consequences for its other alliances.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Nvidia is in talks to provide roughly $250 billion in financing guarantees for OpenAI as part of a massive data center project, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday. The backstop from Nvidia would help the ChatGPT maker lease a 10-gigawatt project that SoftBank's energy subsidiary is developing in southern Ohio, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the matter. For OpenAI, a deal would be the first step toward controlling its own infrastructure instead of renting it from Microsoft, Amazon, and Oracle, while for Nvidia, it would guarantee demand for its chips for years to come.
The project is expected to cost more than $500 billion in total, including the chips inside the data center, according to the WSJ. The $250 billion guarantee covers the data center lease and debt financing, but would not cover the Nvidia chips inside the center, the WSJ said, adding that the chipmaker was also discussing financing OpenAI's chip purchases worth up to $350 billion. Nvidia's backing would support financing vehicles aimed at reassuring lenders about the project's funding, the report added. The first phase of the project is expected to be finished in 2028, with around 800 megawatts of power, the Journal said. The report notes that the U.S. government will control access to the power, while Japan will fund it separately under a trade agreement tied to Tokyo's $33 billion investment in a natural gas plant. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick will reportedly help determine who receives access.
Judges, politicians, newspaper editors and big spenders: Alan Joyce, the former Qantas chief executive, has revealed how the airline admits members to its private chairman’s lounge.
In his memoir, released on Tuesday, Joyce denies using the lounge as a tool to influence politicians and claims famous Australians “begged” to be granted access to “arguably the most exclusive club in the country”.
Gibraltar-based Ros Astengo inspired four men to report sexual assaults carried out by Allan Grimson in 1990s
Ros Astengo, a journalist based in Gibraltar who usually focuses on politics and social issues, had qualms when she began investigating the case of the suspected serial killer Allan Grimson as he neared release from prison after serving more than 20 years.
She worried that she might reopen the scars of survivors of Grimson – but also that she could be putting herself in the “crosshairs” of a dangerous man who had sexually assaulted and battered two young men to death in the late 1990s when he was a Royal Navy petty officer.
Hey all, I had an injury so I wasn't able to ride for almost a year. I tried plugging my pint in a few weeks ago and nothing happened. None of the lights came on, tried different plugs, different chargers. It worked perfectly fine before that. Has anyone ever had this happen before?
Culture Club singer sings ‘I stand with the Jews / I don’t feel brave, I just need to behave like a human’, in song defending Israel’s response to Hamas attack
Boy George has released a new song entitled We Will Dance Again, which voices support for Israel’s military action in Palestine.
Posted on X and Instagram with the Hebrew title עוד נרקוד alongside its English translation, the song features a pop-reggae backing. The opening lyrics are: “You say genocide, I say war / When you’re attacked, that’s what the army’s for / Does it get ugly? You bet it does / When I know you wanna kill every last one of us.”
Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news
The UK’s financial watchdog has launched a £2m advertising campaign aimed at curbing use of claims management companies (CMCs), and encouraging drivers hit by the car finance scandal to file their own complaints.
The Financial Conduct Authority’s 30-second video advert features a series of pedestrians jumping over car bonnets in slow-motion, action film style, while text flashes across the screen to encourage their peers to “Feel Claim Confident.”
Many people who may be owed compensation aren’t sure where to start or don’t realise they don’t have to pay someone to make a complaint. Our free tools are there to help people feel claim confident – so they can get any money owed back without it costing them a penny.”
Former rugby star Daniel Adongo allegedly overstayed visa but supporters say he needed mental health help
A former rugby star who became the first Kenyan to play in the NFL, was deported in June for a visa overstay and multiple arrests, according to federal immigration authorities.
Daniel Adongo, 37, spent two seasons as a linebacker for the Indianapolis Colts, playing twice, and was cut in 2015 after facing domestic violence allegations. His visa expired in 2016, but he remained in the US, a press statement from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said.
Team to return for euphoric homecoming after winning all-Ireland men’s final against Kerry, ending decades of defeats
The hex is broken, dispelled, banished, and a story that bewitched Ireland for decades has ended in fairytale: Mayo are all-Ireland champions.
Seventy-five years after a supposed curse condemned its Gaelic men’s football team to endless defeat, the county prevailed and uncorked a wave of emotion that engulfed even its rivals.
Video appears to show a person kicking the federally protected animal in San Diego, California
Federal wildlife authorities are investigating after a video appeared to show a person kicking a protected sea lion at a beach in California.
A spokesperson for the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) confirmed an investigation into the case but declined to provide additional details on Sunday.
Both men scheduled to meet Trump at time where US policy towards wars in Iran and Ukraine in state of flux
Benjamin Netanyahu and Volodymyr Zelenskyy are set to arrive in Washington simultaneously with the goal of winning the ear of Donald Trump at pivotal moments in wars affecting their respective countries.
Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, and Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, will attend Tuesday’s funeral of Lindsey Graham, the former Republican senator for South Carolina, who died suddenly on 11 July and was a close ally of both leaders.
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., gives thumbs up in an elevator while departing a Senate vote at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on June 15, 2026.Photo: Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Sen. John Fetterman may switch parties, and the reason is simple: The Democrat from Pennsylvania loves nothing like he loves media coverage.
Adam Jentleson, Fetterman’s former chief of staff who now heads the centrist Searchlight Institute think tank, said as much this week.
“I think, if he is the majority-maker, he will flip, because it would give him a massive amount of attention,” Jentleson said.
It’s not hard to see why someone as addicted to attention as Fetterman would make a big deal out of leaving his party, nor why he has doubled and tripled down on it in the past week. After all, this is the same man who has made a spectacle of his appearance, walking around the Senate halls in a hoodie and shorts rather than conform to the business dress code of his peers.
Since October 2023, his relationship with the progressive wing of his party has been strained, primarily because of a divide over support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Fetterman is now willing to use his leverage as key player for control of the chamber to help Israel — the main reason he’s said he could change sides. If Democrats continue to oppose Israel, he said, specifically if they do so in their party platform, Fetterman says he’s likely to split.
“If our party ever becomes, and just makes it official, the anti-Israel party, that’s when I would leave because that’s been a moral clarity for me,” Fetterman said at a convention in Washington last week.
A majority of Pennsylvania Democrats want him to leave the party.
Swiping at his own party aren’t out of character, and are part of what has led to a rift with the Democratic base. Fetterman’s closeness to right-wing media and penchant for punching left, as well as his loyalty to Israel, make him both a target of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and one of the least popular incumbents in the country.
Predictably, a bare majority of Pennsylvania Democrats want him to leave the party, almost assuring he won’t make it out of a primary. But switching to the GOP wouldn’t lead to a cakewalk reelection either.
By his own admission, Fetterman would be dogged by his own very socially liberal voting record in a Republican primary where he’s also certain to face defeat.
That leaves running as an independent who caucuses with Republicans, a move guaranteed to play spoiler for one party’s hopes to control the Senate in 2028, though it’s unclear who he’d hurt more.
Presidential Run?
Antipathy to the left now defines much of his politics.
Earlier this year, in June and July, Fetterman was receiving lots of attention for his criticisms of former Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, repeatedly claiming that there were intimate images of the upstart Democrat online and referring to him as his Reddit moniker, “P-Hustle.”
On June 10, the day after Platner won his primary, NOTUS reporter Igor Bobic posted on X that Fetterman was haranguing him about the Maine Democrat — “You wanna talk about P-Hustle? You wanna talk about P-Hustle?” — as soon as Bobic entered the Senate building. Fetterman continued with a line that must have been rehearsed: “Have we become the pro-dick party?”
He ignored that due to pressure from the Democratic Party that Platner dropped out of the general election race earlier this month.
This level of embarrassing, childish behavior calls to mind Elon Musk, whose awkward hamming it up to fulfill his need for attention culminated in a number of humiliating appearances on the campaign trail alongside Donald Trump in 2024.
Fetterman doesn’t appear to be quite ready to go onstage and leap around with a MAGA hat on, but testing the waters for a party switch is certainly a step forward into whatever comes next.
There are signs the next move could be Fetterman’s own run for president.
According to reporting from the Philadelphia Inquirer in May, Fetterman lost interest in the day-to-day of the Senate and has his sights set on the White House. One aide described the senator as “disengaged” and said “he doesn’t read memos, he’s taking very few meetings … the job is just a platform for him to run for president, that’s all he cares about.”
A run for president would be welcome news to friend Bill Maher, the acerbic right-wing comedian, who has been pushing for a Fetterman 2028 run since last year.
Maher isn’t the only conservative giving Fetterman a platform. Fox News hosted him more than 50 times in 2026 alone, according to the Washington Examiner, giving the senator the incentive to continue to make news by attacking fellow Democrats.
He’s taken to the role with gusto, recently attacking New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani for protecting Haitian migrants from the federal courts and scolding Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., for endorsing Michigan Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed.
Anything for attention — and Fox is smart enough to take advantage of that.
Don’t Negotiate
One might try to explain away this behavior by pointing to Fetterman’s well-publicized health struggles.
Last May, New York Magazine reported his behavior has become increasingly erratic since a stroke in 2022, shortly before he was elected to the Senate.
The article lists several serious claims, including that Fetterman reads news articles on his phone while driving at high speeds, got into a car accident that injured his wife, and bought a gun.
Putting this all on the stroke and subsequent health issues, however, is too easy. Fetterman’s affinity for Israel was enough of a selling point for Democratic Majority for Israel that the group celebrated his willingness to “lean into” the relationship in an April 2022 press release.
And for all the progressive political rhetoric he relied on to make his pitch to voters, Fetterman has always prioritized the stingy approval of his hard-right Republican father, who now calls the senator to congratulate him whenever he appears on Fox News.
Whatever the case, the attention-seeking, left-punching Fetterman is who we have now.
The best way to handle a child who is acting out is to ignore them and not reward their behavior. As Jentleson put it, they “should not debase themselves by trying to negotiate with him.”
That’s the approach Democrats should take: Leave Fetterman to serve out the rest of his term as a marginal member of a bare majority, should it come to that.
The president is using forced labor as a pretext to slap tariffs on countries around the world
With the midterm elections less than four months away, it’s a precarious time for Donald Trump and Republicans: Trump’s war against Iran is going badly, his approval ratings are in the toilet, gas prices are soaring and pushing up inflation, and nation after nation is furious about Trump’s insults, bullying and ugly American unilateralism.
So amid all this mess, what does Trump do? He turns to his favorite economic plaything: tariffs. On Monday, Trump signed orders to slap a 50% tariff on many Canadian goods, and four days later, he imposed across-the-board 10% or 12.5% tariffs on goods from more than 80 countries. Trump was no doubt thumping his chest, while millions of people overseas were dumping on him for yet another unnecessary, hostile act.
Football program does not provide details for move
Lombardi had pledged to make UNC ‘the 33rd [NFL] team’
North Carolina football general manager Michael Lombardi has been placed on paid administrative leave.
The school announced the move with a statement Monday morning, days before the Tar Heels open preseason camp. The school didn’t provide details as to the reason, noting that employees and athletes aren’t permitted to address the topic “as is standard procedure with personnel matters”.
David Cifaldi slipped and his pole pierced him in the side, then walked back hours along the route he had climbed
A Montana man walked 10 miles to safety with a trekking pole speared through his torso after a fall during a hiking expedition on the state’s highest mountain.
David Cifaldi slipped on rocks close to the summit of the 12,803ft (3,902 meters) Granite Peak during the hike on 20 July with two friends. He fell on one of his two poles, and “by the time I rolled over, I kind of knew something wasn’t right”, he told CBS news affiliate KVTQ.
German officials have called for a tightening of laws for known extremists after a deadly attack in Berlin on one of Europe’s biggest Pride parades, as the far right seeks to mobilise outraged voters before three key state elections.
The anti-migration, anti-Islam Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), the top party in national opinion polls, accused the government of failing to tackle Islamist radicalism on German soil, while the conservative chancellor, Friedrich Merz, pledged to act with “prudence but also determination” to address security gaps.
I bought this exact order 2 months ago minus ship+ protection. My order never arrived and got lost at a CA usps location. I called onewheel to get a new shipment pr help finding the lost package. They told me i was shit out of luck because i didnt pay for shipping protection. I explained to them a legal transaction is a trade of goods/services for other goods/services and that to complete the sales agreement the product has to be delivered. They again told me to eat shit. So i requested a charge back and said the exact same thing to the bank. The law of a transaction was on my side so i won the dispute. Now onewheel refuses to fulfil my order and im stuck with a dead board. FUCK ONEWHEEL
Europe and US risk being outpaced on innovation, as happened in the car industry, warns Pascal Soriot
AstraZeneca must operate at “Chinese speed” to ensure it does not suffer the fate of the western automotive industry by losing out to more innovative rivals, the drug company’s boss has said.
The FTSE 100 company is watching the rise of China’s pharmaceutical industry closely and collaborating to take drugs to global markets, but its chief executive, Pascal Soriot, said the US and European pharmaceutical sectors must focus on increasing the speed of innovation.
North Korea’s ‘Victory Day’ takes place with Kim Jong Un’s power transformedExpert commentjon.wallace
Pyongyang’s account of the Korean War remains a fabrication. But its rapidly growing strategic leverage is dangerously real.
There is a story told by some US officials that on the night of 25 April 2019, Kim Jong Un returned to his quarters in Vladivostok and drank two 750-millilitre bottles of Absolut Vodka. If that is true, the burn of the alcohol can scarcely have snuffed out the sting of the diplomatic slight he had just suffered.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, meeting Kim for the first time, had spent only a few hours with his North Korean guest before boarding a flight to Beijing. Kim was left to attend a memorial ceremony in Vladivostok alone, without his host. Kim was over two hours late to the event, remained for all of seven minutes, then retreated home to North Korea aboard his armoured train.
Seven years later, the power dynamic has been dramatically inverted, and the North Korean leader has Putin’s full attention. Russia now depends on Kim for artillery shells, ballistic missiles and, most importantly, combat troops to support its war in Ukraine.
Pyongyang is now incorporating the Ukrainian deployment into its own heroic mythology.
Indeed, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy alleged on 25 July that Russia is preparing to receive as many as 30,000 additional North Korean soldiers, and that Pyongyang is readying more ballistic-missile launchers for Moscow. Neither North Korea nor Russia has confirmed the claim. But its plausibility reflects how radically North Korea’s international position has changed – with implications reaching beyond Russia.
President Xi Jinping travelled to Pyongyang in June and called for greater exchanges between the Chinese and North Korean militaries – an unprecedented public proposal by a Chinese leader. In his column in the Rodong Sinmun, the North’s party newspaper, Xi called repeatedly for ‘strategic’ cooperation and communication.
As Kim marks North Korea’s ‘Day of Victory in the Great Fatherland Liberation War’ on 27 July, the young ruler has become one of Moscow’s most vital wartime partners and a strategic asset cultivated by both Russia and China.
‘Victory Day’ – marking a war that wasn’t won
North Korea’s ‘Victory Day’ has always rested on two foundational falsehoods. The first is that the United States and South Korea started the Korean War. In fact, it was state founder Kim Il Sung who launched an invasion across the 38th parallel on 25 June 1950.
The second falsehood is that North Korea won the war. In truth, the armistice signed on 27 July 1953 produced no decisive victor. Measured against his original objectives, Kim Il Sung plainly failed. He had invaded to destroy the Republic of Korea and unify the peninsula under communist rule. Three years and millions of casualties later, South Korea remained hobbled but standing. And the inter-Korean boundary lay close to where the war had begun.
Pyongyang’s mythology of victory rewrote its invasion into a war of national self-defence, and transformed an armistice born of battlefield stalemate into an American capitulation.
To Western observers, the Victory Day ceremonies have therefore tended to symbolize North Korea’s pariah status: an isolated, Stalinist state, kept on life support by China, with no agency in international affairs except as a result of its alarming nuclear weapons programme.
But this year’s familiar ceremonies unfold against a profoundly changed strategic landscape. The story of the war remains false, but the state celebrating it is more formidable than ever before.
From Hanoi to the Ukrainian battlefield
In 2019, such a transformation would have appeared fantastical. In February that year, Kim Jong Un travelled 4,000 km by train to a summit with President Donald Trump in Hanoi, hoping to secure sanctions relief in exchange for dismantling part of his Yongbyon nuclear complex. Trump rejected the offer and abruptly left the summit, leaving Kim to emerge empty-handed and humiliated.
Kim’s meeting with Putin two months later underscored the North Korean leader’s lowly status. Then, in June 2019, President Xi finally reciprocated Kim’s four trips to China with his first visit to Pyongyang as China’s leader. But the pageantry yielded neither substantial economic relief nor strategic elevation, reaffirming Kim’s status as the junior partner.
In 2019 and for several subsequent years thereafter, Kim remained a supplicant to the leaders of the US, Russia and China, certainly far from a strategic partner. International sanctions remained in place. And North Korea appeared condemned to isolation and economic stagnation.
But Kim did not retreat. North Korea enshrined its nuclear status in its constitution and broadened the circumstances under which it claims it may use nuclear weapons. It repeatedly rejected denuclearization as an object of future negotiations. And it began referring to South Korea as its principal enemy – with which peaceful reunification was an impossibility.
It also doubled down on an extraordinary military build-up. Since 2019, North Korea has significantly advanced its solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic-missile technology, tactical nuclear systems, submarine-related capabilities, military reconnaissance-satellites and drone programme.
Of course, North Korea does exaggerate its technical feats. Yet the cumulative military transformation is unmistakable. North Korea can now threaten South Korea and Japan with an expanding range of nuclear and conventional systems while presenting an increasingly credible nuclear threat to the continental United States.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 gave Kim an opportunity. As the war dragged on, Russia’s losses mounted and reserves dwindled. North Korea stepped in, supplying enormous quantities of artillery ammunition and ballistic missiles. It also dispatched approximately 14,000 troops to Russia’s Kursk region following the conclusion of a comprehensive strategic partnership treaty in June 2024.
As a result, North Korea has seen military, economic and political gains. Its troops have gained experience in drone-dominated warfare, infantry operations under fire and adaptation on a modern battlefield. Russia has shielded North Korea diplomatically, dismantled UN monitoring of sanctions violations and reportedly supplied money, fuel, food and military assistance. Most consequentially, Kim has demonstrated that his impoverished country possesses resources that a major power urgently needs and cannot readily obtain on comparable terms.
Pyongyang is now incorporating the Ukrainian deployment into its own heroic mythology. It has honoured soldiers killed in Russia, provided new housing for their families and opened a memorial complex celebrating their battlefield exploits. The veterans of 1950–53 embody the regime’s invented foundational victory. The troops sent to Russia since 2024 are being fashioned into a new victorious generation.
Courted, but not an equal
China has also reassessed North Korea’s value. Beijing still prizes stability and remains wary of Pyongyang’s provocations. Its relationship with North Korea is not the battlefield alliance Russia has forged.
But Xi’s visit to Pyongyang last month, and suggestion of expanded military exchanges, indicates that China increasingly regards North Korea not merely as a troublesome neighbour to be managed, but as a prime asset to be cultivated amid its strategic competition with the United States.
Of course, North Korea is no equal of China or Russia. Its economy remains diminutive. Its population is impoverished and its power overwhelmingly military. Yet it possesses scarce and valuable assets: nuclear weapons, missiles, ammunition, expendable manpower, a geostrategic location and an unusual willingness to accept risks. Both Moscow and Beijing now have reasons to preserve – and compete for – influence over Pyongyang.
On 27 July, Kim once again celebrates a war North Korea started, failed to win and has lied about ever since. Dismissing the occasion as another absurd pageant, however, would be a dangerous mistake. In 1953, North Korea converted military failure into a mythology of victory. In 2026, that false mythology endures – but the power standing behind it has become ominously real.
The debut from Scandinavian outfit Dead Astronauts promises shooting, survival, and, in a shake-up to the genre, seeds that terraform its pristine world right before your eyes
The wilds of the sub-Arctic north: towering pine trees, flashes of psychedelic-yellow lichen, and a sun that never wholly sets during the summer months. This land is gorgeous, yes, but also unforgiving, yet in Haex (pronounced “hex”) you have an unusual tool at your disposal to make it a little more hospitable: a cube that fits snugly in the palm of your hand out of which grows a plant. You plant this so-called Seed in the earth and – voilà – the world around you transforms: new vegetation and topography but also narrative threads to follow, and, naturally, enemies. Wield these small-but-mighty kernels of change at your own peril.
“Your adventure and your world is player-shaped,” says Haex’s creative director Tobias Nyman. He explains that everyone starts a campaign with a unique, procedurally generated world. Each Seed then contains further procedural data that causes it to terraform before your eyes. “You change the world as you go,” he says. “It becomes even more unique.”
Republicans have moved to dismantle a 60-year-old demographic reporting system. Now the agency wants to choose what it sees
Workplace discrimination isolates. When a Black manager is passed over for a promotion, or a pregnant worker is quietly sidelined, they are left with a polite excuse and a lingering suspicion. They cannot see the company-wide spreadsheet. They cannot know if others are hitting the same invisible wall. For 60 years, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has kept a spreadsheet of its own: an annual demographic snapshot compiled from employer reports. That nationwide record lets the agency see beyond any one complaint.
Last Tuesday, however, the EEOC’s Republican majority voted 2–1 to begin dismantling that reporting system. Two days later, the proposal entered the Federal Register, arguing that requiring employers to classify workers by race and sex may itself violate the constitutional guarantee of equal protection. The rule is not final: comments are due on 24 August, and a hearing is set for 11 August.
Matthew Wolfe’s Fires in the Night examines Earth Liberation Front, a US eco-anarchist movement, and its legacy of radical environmentalism
Are echoes of 1990s radical environmentalism returning louder or fading away? It’s a question posed by Fires in the Night, a new book on the history of the Earth Liberation Front (Elf), a loosely grouped band of US Pacific north-west activists that used economic sabotage and arson to protest environmental destruction.
The members called themselves “the Family” and were known to the outside world as Elves, owed to the acronym for the group Elf. Unlike rightwing extremists of the era, they practiced non-violence toward life, though not property. They were labelled domestic terrorists and practiced “leaderless resistance”.
Why Should Delaware Care? Government works best when its citizens are knowledgeable and engaged. Delaware’s government has scores of commissions, working groups, agencies and legislative committees. All must hold meetings that are open to the public. Below we highlight a few of those minutes that are happening this week.
Here is a look at some of the most important or interesting public meetings happening around the state this week.
Georgetown to discuss cottage development
Red Clay community invited to superintendent town hall
State to consider grant to NASA contractor
New Castle County to vote on new police officer contract
Georgetown to discuss cottage development
Now under new leadership following the election of Mayor Angie Townsend this past spring, Georgetown is once again reviewing its cottage development ordinance.
The controversial legislation, approved under her predecessor Bill West, allows for the development of clusters of small homes on lots as small as an acre. It was intended to be a solution for housing affordability, and the developer Little Living is in the process of developing such a project on East Market Street.
However, other residents have raised concerns that the developments are out-of-character with the town. The town council voted earlier this month to pause any consideration of additional cottage projects until they could reassess the law.
The Georgetown Cottage Housing Ordinance Review and Evaluation Ad Hoc Committee will meet at 4 p.m. Tuesday, July 28, at town hall, located at 39 The Circle in Georgetown. For more information, click here. For the video livestream, click here.
Red Clay community invited to superintendent town halls
The Red Clay Board of Education is inviting students, families, staff, and community members to participate in a series of town hall meetings amid their search for the district’s next superintendent.
In June, Dorrell Green left that role in order to take over as superintendent of the Norristown, Pa., School District. Red Clay is the largest school district in Delaware, with more than 14,000 students.
During each town hall, participants will have the opportunity to provide feedback on how they would like the district to conduct the superintendent search.
For those unable to make the meeting, the public can share their thoughts by completing an online feedback form.
The first town hall will take place at 6 p.m. Wednesday, July 29, at Richardson Park Elementary School, located at 16 Idella Ave. in Wilmington. The second will take place at 6 p.m. Thursday, July 30, at Cab Calloway School of the Arts, located at 100 N. Dupont Road in Wilmington. A Zoom link will be posted on the Red Clay website homepage on the day of each meeting.
State to consider grant to NASA contractor
The Council on Development Finance, an appointed body that decides whether to issue taxpayer-funded grants to economic development projects, will meet Monday morning to consider a comparatively small grant to a NASA contractor.
Moonprint Solutions, a Dover-based manufacturer of so-called “soft goods,” or textile-based products, has applied for a $50,000 grant from the Delaware Technical Innovation Program. Those grants are add-ons to companies that have already secured federal research grants.
What exactly Moonprint Solutions, which works with NASA, the Department of Defense and the Coast Guard, would invest the state funds into will be discussed in the meeting.
The Council on Development Finance will meet at 10 a.m. Monday, July 27, at the Delaware Public Archives, located at 121 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. in Dover. For more details and a link for remote viewing, click here.
New Castle County to vote on new police officer contract
The New Castle County Council is scheduled to consider a new contract with the union that represents county police officers during their meeting Tuesday.
The new pay scales, which have already been agreed to through collective bargaining negotiations with Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 5 and accounted for in the Fiscal Year 2027 budget, will increase costs this year by $1.4 million.
The three-year contract will increase costs more dramatically in the final two years though, when budgets will rise $10.1 million and $11.5 million over the FY 2025 baseline year.
The new contract comes amid the first year of New Castle County’s 17% tax increase approved by county council this past spring.
The New Castle County Council will meet at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 28, at the City/County Building, located at 800 N. French St. in Wilmington. For more information and remote viewing, click here.
Haiku has a Firefox port, but due to Mozilla’s trademark policies, it’s actually called Iceweasel. After some back-and-forth with Mozilla, the browser maker has no given Haiku permission to officially use the Firefox name for the port.
But don’t worry, Iceweasel isn’t going anywhere. I plan to maintain both. The idea is to keep Iceweasel as the privacy-friendly, telemetry-free build, while Firefox will be the fully official, Mozilla-compliant build (with telemetry enabled, once I manage to fix the Glean rust issues).
This seems like a nice solution, and happens to make sure Haiku users can actually choose between standard Firefox and what is essentially a more private “fork”. A great outcome.
An anonymous reader shared this report from Phoronix:
A patch series that appears destined for the upcoming Linux 7.3 merge window is what's dubbed the "KVM Chainsaw" as a major code clean-up in dealing with the kvm_mmu "god data structure". Red Hat engineer and KVM maintainer Paolo Bonzini has merged the kvm-chainsaw branch to KVM's "next" Git branch. With this KVM Chainsaw work now in the next branch, it should be submitted for the upcoming Linux 7.3 cycle.
The KVM Chainsaw work deals with the kvm_mmu structure being overloaded with multiple uses and splits it down into three parts for better handling current KVM usage. Paolo explains of KVM Chainsaw with the merge to the KVM.git next branch:
"The kvm_mmu is a "god data structure" that includes three different tasks: describing the guest page table's format, walking the guest page tables and building the page tables. This means that the (already poorly named) nested_mmu is only used in part, since it has no page tables to construct. Furthermore, some parts are reused across guest and host page tables (such as the reserved bits detector) but others are not; for example permission_fault is replaced by simplified code such as is_executable_pte().
This series cleans this up by splitting kvm_mmu in three parts...
Refugee family reunions in limbo, despite Foreign Office saying it is ready to get people out of war-torn territory
The Home Office is blocking the evacuation of dozens of women and children from Gaza, despite the Foreign Office saying it is ready to get people out of the war-torn region.
Last September, the Home Office announced it was suspending refugee family reunion applications and that new, more restrictive rules would be announced in the spring. So far there has been no announcement and the process remains suspended.
Apple has transitioned its hardware products to the AArch64 processor architecture and is phasing out support for x64. Oracle engineers will thus stop maintaining the macOS/x64 port as of JDK 27. Maintaining the port is a significant burden.
The port won’t yet be removed, but will be in a future release. Considering the number of Intel Macs that must surely still be in use today, this does seem a little premature to me.
One of the biggest energy businesses listed on the London Stock Exchange has agreed a controversial £5.7bn takeover by private equity, adding to the growing exodus of companies from the UK market.
The US private equity groups KKR and Energy Capital Partners are poised to buy DCC Energy after the company’s board recommended the offer despite misgivings from its founder and biggest shareholders.
Good morning. The US has paused strikes on Iran for a third night as top military officials advised Donald Trump to halt his bombing campaign, and diplomatic negotiations have continued to avoid a return to all-out war. Oil prices fell on Monday as markets responded to the pause in combat. Tehran said on Sunday it would pause what it called “retaliatory” attacks against US allies in the region.
Trump is said to be weighing up diplomatic and military options in the nearly five-month-old conflict. Axios reported on Sunday that Adm Bradley Cooper, the top US military commander in the region, had told Trump the US military campaign had reached the limits of its effectiveness.
How many US service personnel have been killed and injured in Trump’s Iran war? The Pentagon updated its official war casualty database over the weekend, adding more than 140 wounded service members. The new figures show that 18 US troops have been killed and 624 wounded since the US launched its war against Iran on 28 February.
How has Katy Perry become embroiled in debate over the war?The pop star has condemned the White House after it used her hit song Firework in a TikTok video showing US military strikes on Iranian targets, saying: “I did not approve this, I was not asked, and I absolutely do not condone it. I wrote this song to be an anthem of hope, healing, and inner strength … my music is for bringing people together, not celebrating warfare.”
What has the international court accused Netanyahu of? The court, based in The Hague in the Netherlands, issued a warrant accusing the Israeli prime minister of being “allegedly responsible for the war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare and of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts”.
That is the first line of the 80s microcomputer BASIC game The Wizard’s Castle initially written for the Exidy Sorcerer platform.
It’s a REMark statement, a comment in that particular language. 10 is the line number, if you’re unfamiliar with languages that had such things.
But the interesting part was this "_(C2SLFF4 mess. A typo or garbage? No. It appears verbatim in the source code as originally published in the July, 1980 issue of Recreational Computing.
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON — Three people were killed and four others injured after gunfire erupted Sunday evening during the annual Bite of Seattle food festival at Seattle Center.
Police said the shooting occurred around 6 p.m. near the event grounds beneath the Space Needle. Investigators believe two people exchanged gunfire rather than deliberately targeting festival attendees.
Officers assigned to the festival responded immediately and confronted one suspected shooter, who surrendered at the scene. Authorities recovered two firearms but were still searching Monday morning for a second suspect who fled. Police had not released a description but said there was no continuing threat to the public.
Seven people were struck. Two victims died at the scene, while a third died after being transported to Harborview Medical Center. The four survivors included a 2-year-old boy and three adults. Authorities said the injured victims were hospitalized in stable condition.
Mayor Katie Wilson called the shooting a horrific act of violence and expressed support for the victims, their families and festival attendees.
Seattle police are investigating with assistance from the FBI, Washington State Patrol and other agencies. Officials asked witnesses to provide video or information through the department’s tip line.
At least three people have been killed and several others injured in a shooting at the Bite of Seattle food festival near the city's Space Needle landmark. The assistant police chief Tyrone Davis said one person had been taken into custody. Investigations are ongoing
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. economy has weathered major policy and geopolitical shocks during the first 18 months of President Donald Trump’s second term, but several of his central economic promises remain unfulfilled.
Trump ran on lowering prices, bringing back manufacturing, and raising middle-class living standards by using tariffs and cracking down on immigration. In reality, the economy held up better than some experts expected, even with the added problems from the war with Iran.
But jobs and labor force participation have dropped, even after adjusting for population changes. Fewer immigrants, more deportations, and an older population mean there are simply not enough workers.
Manufacturing jobs have gone down since Biden left, even though Trump promised to bring them back. Construction jobs are up, but that is mostly because of big spending on AI data centers.
Inflation is still above the Fed’s 2% goal. Tariffs, higher oil prices, and demand from AI are making things worse. People’s real incomes are flat, and high mortgage rates and home prices are making it harder for most to afford a place to live.
Financial markets have performed better, with the S&P 500 rising about 25%, largely because of optimism surrounding artificial intelligence investment.
Leading climate scientists who created Greater Manchester’s carbon neutral by 2038 commitment are urging Andy Burnham to unequivocally reject new drilling in the North Sea.
In a letter to the prime minister they said he, as mayor of Greater Manchester, had unveiled one of the UK’s most ambitious local climate programmes that tackled housing, green growth and public transport.
After masked agents fired on his truck, Francisco Longoria was ambushed, charged and jailed – only for the case against him to fall apart. Now he and his family are seeking justice, and says the harrowing experience is part of a troubling pattern
It was just after 8am on 16 August and Francisco Longoria, who runs a party supply business, was driving his truck down a suburban southern California street to deliver a jumper for a water slide. But this ordinary Saturday morning turned into a nightmare when, suddenly, three unmarked vehicles stopped his truck and four masked men jumped out.
Longoria, who had brought his son Jonathan Longoria and son-in-law Daniel Rascon with him, wondered if they were being abducted.
Astronauts for America liken effort to instill trust and faith back in constitution’s principles and democratic institutions to ‘making a course correction’
Orbiting 250 miles above the US in the international space station, astronaut Cady Coleman did not look down and see red or blue states, sanctuary cities or communities occupied by thousands of federal immigration enforcement agents in camouflage uniforms and automatic weapons.
What she saw was a single land, from Pacific to Atlantic, no borders or partitions, just a united America, and a population valuing its equality while convinced that what brought them together was far greater than anything that divided them.
The party’s silence shows how broadly male supremacist thinking has seeped into the conventional wisdom of political strategists
It’s not exactly strange that elements of the Magaverse have embraced Andrew Tate. What’s strange is that the Democrats do not seem interested in holding the Trump movement to account for it.
Andrew Tate, the misogynist influencer who is accused by numerous women around the world and now by British prosecutors of rape and strangulation, as well as assault, sex trafficking, possession of child abuse images and extreme pornography, and various other forms of gender violence and exploitation, was arrested in Miami last week, along with Tristan, his brother and sidekick. Or I should say, they were rearrested: the men were previously charged in Romania, where they were under house arrest until, following some conveniently timed diplomatic moves from the Trump administration, they were allowed to leave the country and resettled in the US. When asked if the Trump administration had secured their release from Romania back then, the Tates’ lawyer said: “Do the math. These guys are on the plane.” Now, finally, they are awaiting extradition to the UK, where they are dual citizens.
The video appears to show a person throwing kicks at the sea lion at La Jolla Cove as at least one other person can be heard laughing in the background.
Man and woman pronounced dead at Fistral beach in Newquay after large emergency response
Two people have died after being pulled from the sea at a popular surfing beach in the Cornish resort of Newquay.
A man and a woman were pronounced dead at Fistral beach on Sunday after a large emergency response involving coastguards, a rescue helicopter, an RNLI lifeboat, paramedics and police.
In a July 19 interview with a leading Democratic Senate candidate in the swing state of Michigan, CNN host Jake Tapper homed in on the U.S.–Israeli war on Iran — but he didn’t ask the candidate’s thoughts on the hundreds of Iranian and Lebanese civilians killed, nor the possibility of U.S. war crimes, and not even 18 dead U.S. soldiers. Instead, Tapper posed: “Why were you worried about offending people who support the ayatollah?”
Tapper was pressing Abdul El-Sayed, a former public health official who could become the first Muslim U.S. senator, on a right-wing outlet’s story exposing that he had expressed a desire to tread carefully because of potential differences of opinion among his would-be constituents. On a leaked campaign call, El-Sayed had said after Ali Khamenei’s February assassination that “there are a lot of people in Dearborn who are sad today,” referring to the southeast Michigan city that is home to one of the largest Muslim communities in the country. Given the ayatollah’s brutality, Tapper’s question implied, how dare El-Sayed consider that possibility?
As Michigan’s August 4 Senate primary between El-Sayed and Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens draws near, he has faced a barrage of Islamophobic attacks ranging from thinly veiled policy critiques to outright racist caricatures. The two Senate hopefuls seem to embody the forked path facing the Democratic Party ahead of the 2028 presidential cycle, with 43-year-old Stevens representing the old guard thanks to her backing by the party establishment and the pro-Israel lobby, and 41-year-old El-Sayed representing an insurgent movement skeptical of long-standing U.S. foreign policy interests and corporate capture of American politics. With the latter vision comes a form of fearmongering that’s been endemic to American politics for decades.
Nancy Khalil, an anthropologist who researches Muslims in America at the University of Michigan, called Tapper’s interview “sloppy and offensive” and pointed out that the anchor’s questions implied an assumption that because El-Sayed is Muslim and Arab, “he needs to have an opinion on this, and the opinion needs to align with whatever the media wants it to be.” That assumption is “completely racist,” Khalil said.
It was only one example in a deluge of attacks El-Sayed has faced in recent weeks that peddle in Islamophobic tropes. The pro-Israel doxxing account StopAntisemitism shared a post in June claiming that a hijabi woman arrested by the Trump administration for allegedly making pro-Palestine graffiti was a former staffer of El-Sayed’s, prompting right-wing agitator Laura Loomer to reply: “BAN Muslims from holding office in the United States.” Replies to El-Sayed’s campaign account often call him a “terrorist,” “radical,” or “jihadist,” and deploy racistmemes, including one, likely AI-generated, showing El-Sayed and Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., wearing vests strapped with explosives and green headbands to signify Hamas. The Michigan GOP has called El-Sayed “a terrorist sympathizer,” emphasizing his full name, Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed.
The attacks aren’t limited to right-wing reactionaries and obsessives on the internet. Many are issued by one of the leading groups backing El-Sayed’s Democratic opponent, Stevens: the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which has poured nearly $30 million into the race via its super PAC, the United Democracy Project. One UDP commercial alleges baselessly that El-Sayed “expressed sympathy for a terrorist,” and a mailer shared with The Intercept parrots the same. Others mention his decision to stump with political commentator and streamer Hasan Piker.
Scholars of Islamophobia and Muslim American communities told The Intercept that both parties and their allies were resorting to Islamophobic and anti-Arab tropes in a race where Israel and Palestine has remained an animating force. El-Sayed has committed to ending military aid to Israel, drawing a stark contrast to Stevens, who famously said: “Israel comes to me in my dreams.”
The attacks against El-Sayed reminded Hatem Bazian, a leading scholar of Islamophobia at the University of California, Berkeley, of a critical moment in 2008, when Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign was accused of leaking a photo showing Barack Obama wearing garb of a Somalian elder during a visit to Kenya, fueling conspiracies that Obama — who is Christian — was hiding his Islamic faith. Whenever an actual Muslim candidate is involved, especially if they oppose the Israeli government’s policies, Bazian said, their opponents try to associate them with terrorism.
“In the election in Michigan, we’re seeing the same type of playbook being played out,” Bazian said. “And what you’re also seeing is that much of the Islamophobia gets to be expressed in the corners of the web.”
Yet some prejudice has also been expressed in real life.
At a meet-and-greet in Detroit with Stevens and Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., a school board member said she supports Stevens because she “represents all of us, not just one race.” When pressed by local reporter Sam Robinson, who recorded the viral remarks, the Farmington school board member elaborated: “The other candidate [El-Sayed] doesn’t work a room. … Don’t come out speaking only Arabic, don’t come out with your Arabic music on.”
The Stevens campaign has tried to distance itself from the most egregious attacks. When asked about the Smith remarks, a spokesperson for the campaign referred to a statement given to The Detroit News in which Stevens said she did not share Smith’s views and called her campaign “a diverse and multicultural best of Michigan coalition” She further claimed to have “repeatedly stood up for and defended our vibrant Muslim American community.”
Yet Stevens’s campaign has also capitalized on bigoted rhetoric used by Mike Rogers, the Republican likely to face whichever Democrat wins next month. The campaign drew from a private call between Rogers and supporters during which he said of El-Sayed, “I don’t think he likes America, candidly.” The Stevens campaign sent out a parody of a news release designed to look like it was from El-Sayed campaign, claiming that Rogers had endorsed El-Sayed and reproducing the Republican’s quote: “I think he’s so radical. I think he’s going to lose big parts of the west part of the state. We think we can do well in part of the southeast part of the state. I think we’ll do well if he in fact is the nominee.”
In a statement to The Intercept, a spokesperson for CNN defended Tapper’s question on El-Sayed and Khamenei’s killing, which Tapper asked regardless of “background or ideology.”
“In this case, he asked Dr. El-Sayed about his comments regarding Iran’s leader Ali Khamenei’s death because he believed they warranted explanation as part of the public debate,” the spokesperson wrote. “Providing interview subjects the opportunity to address and clarify their views is a fundamental part of responsible journalism, and we reject the implication that there was any malicious intent or bias behind the question.”
The El-Sayed campaign declined to comment on this story, but told The Intercept in April: “I am not running to be ‘the Muslim’ anything.”
“I am not running to be ‘the Muslim’ anything.”
“I’m running to be able to serve people in my role as a U.S. senator,” El-Sayed said at the time. “I want people to have healthcare. I want them to be able to work a dignified job that pays a living wage. I want them to have childcare and senior care. I want them to be able to know that the things that they need in their lives are affordable. So, at the end of the day it’s not about me. It’s not about my faith.”
Race and religion aren’t the only identity-related fault lines at play in the Michigan Senate race.
El-Sayed has “a long history of disrespecting women,” asserts another AIPAC-backed ad launched in early July. According to the Detroit Free Press, a mainstream local paper that fact-checked each of the ad’s claims, the TV spot misrepresented El-Sayed’s comments on figures like Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, whom he ran against in 2018, by framing his critiques of Whitmer’s ties to the healthcare giant Blue Cross Blue Shield as inherently misogynistic. Whitmer, who is serving her second governor term, endorsed Stevens’s Senate run on Friday with a little more than a week from the election.
Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts, a Stevens supporter known for going after critics of Israel online, called El-Sayed’s criticisms of Stevens and former opponent state Sen. Mallory McMorrow “sexist” with little evidence beyond their respective genders — a comment that has since appeared in another UDP ad. (Watts has said she didn’t give the super PAC permission to quote her public social media comments.)
The new ad began its run within days of Graham Platner suspending his U.S. Senate campaign in Maine after he was accused of sexual assault. Centrist and pro-Stevens operatives have also tried to link El-Sayed with the Platner campaign, implying a guilt-by-association with left politics. Rep. Hillary Scholten, D-Mich. recently told Semafor that “Abdul has a problematic record with women” without providing any evidence, then repeated the claim on Tapper’s show on Wednesday, parroting the Whitmer example from the AIPAC-funded commercial and saying his rhetoric carries “a uniquely sexist bent.” Scholten also claimed that El-Sayed and Platner campaigned and fundraised together, though the two never held a joint event and sent a total of two split-raise fundraising emails.
Khalil, the University of Michigan anthropologist, situated the ads as part of a long history of prejudiced tropes that paint Arab and Muslim men as controlling of women, and likewise stereotype Arab and Muslim women as subservient and docile.
“We’re seeing it come from within his own party,” she said, “reproducing tropes that have just been around for centuries.”
Earlier this month, El-Sayed called on his supporters to stop making “fun of my opponent for things that have nothing to do with her policies or politics,” likely a reference to superficial mockeries of Stevens’s voice, calling the comments “unkind and unhelpful.” Some journalists and advocates for Palestine observing the race wondered why El-Sayed made the request when Stevens had not done the same amid the wave of Islamophobia.
“Muslims are always labeled as terrorists, we’re always stereotyped, and our patriotism is always called into account,” said Adam Hamawy, a former Army surgeon who volunteered in Gaza and recently won the Democratic primary in New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District. Speaking to The Intercept, he recalled an episode while treating patients from the World Trade Center attacks on September 11 when one of his colleagues at the hospital blamed Hamawy for the attacks. When Hamawy ran for Congress this year, one of his Democratic opponents called him a “radical extremist” because he gave a brief testimony at the 1995 trial of Omar Abdel-Rahman, who was convicted of planning terror attacks. A series of articles in mainstream and conservative outlets also played up the connection.
Because El-Sayed, like Hamawy, is Muslim, his opponents are pushing the notion “that he’s radical — they’re questioning his loyalty, they are not talking about issues,” Hamawy told The Intercept. “And that was the same thing here as well: They didn’t attack me on issues, they attacked me for who I was.”
“They didn’t attack me on issues, they attacked me for who I was.”
In addition to their criticisms of the Israeli state, El-Sayed and Hamawy have both run on progressive agendas that vow to lower the cost of living and fight for Medicare for All, which both have cited as key priorities owing to their experience as medical professionals. The agenda has proven popular this midterm cycle — with insurgent candidates on the left toppling incumbents and establishment favorites in state after state.
In some ways, Islamophobic attacks can be seen as “a marker of success,” said Moustafa Bayoumi, an author whose books trace the experiences of Muslim and Arab Americans after September 11 amid the war on terror. “The more successful Muslim candidates become in American politics, the greater the degree of Islamophobia that we’re going to witness in attacks, trying to take them down.”
Bayoumi, who teaches English at Brooklyn College, City University of New York, also compared the attacks on El-Sayed to those against New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Despite — or perhaps because of — his popularity, Mamdani has been called a “terrorist lover” by one of his colleagues in City Council, while another local lawmaker compared his rise to the office as “Islamic conquest.”
“It’s not just an identity thing. It’s because those Arab Muslim candidates are representing the progressive ticket, and it does put some fear in a certain type of the establishment in this country, whether it’s Republican or Democratic,” Bayoumi said. “They tend to fall back on Islamomophobia and Islamophobic tropes.”
The fearmongering is amplified when it comes to Israeli policy. As Israel’s favorability has cratered globally and among U.S. voters since the start of its genocidal campaign in Gaza, the public relations battle has only intensified. The Israeli government this year approved a public relations budget of $730 million, nearly five times the budget compared to the previous year. A Drop Site News report shared polling in Europe and the U.S. commissioned by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs that concluded that highlighting “Radical Islam” and “Jihadism” are most effective in reversing unfavorability toward Israel.
“The reality of it is that you can’t divorce anti-Palestinian racism from Islamophobia,” said Khalil. “The anti-Palestinian industry is what fueled the emergence of the Islamophobia industry. They’re funded by the same sources.”
Stevens, meanwhile, has used El-Sayed’s proximity to Michigan’s Arab and Muslim community to question his loyalty to the Democratic Party. In 2024, El-Sayed supported the Uncommitted Movement, which started in Michigan and coordinated hundreds of thousands of protest votes in that year’s presidential primary to send a message to the Biden administration over its continued support for Israel and its genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
“Make no mistake, Trump is an existential threat,” El-Sayed wrote at the time. “And that’s why we have to send a clear message to this administration that it is the height of folly to try to force people into choosing between innocent lives in G@za or our democracy here at home in November.”
He went on to endorse Harris one day after Biden dropped out of the race.
Discounting the Muslim and Arab voting population bears the risk of backfiring. Michigan, which swung for Trump in the last presidential election, was decided by just 1 percentage point. For the first time in two decades, a plurality of voters in Dearborn voted Republican.
LANSING, MICHIGAN — Michigan health officials are struggling to investigate more than 8,100 confirmed cases of cyclosporiasis as staffing shortages and reduced federal funding strain the state’s outbreak response.
The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services reported 8,176 confirmed cases Friday, including 160 hospitalizations. Michigan is the hardest-hit state in a nine-state outbreak linked partly to shredded iceberg lettuce supplied by Taylor Farms and served at Taco Bell restaurants. The FDA continues investigating additional possible sources.
Taylor Farms removed lettuce sourced from central Mexico, while Taco Bell stopped using the implicated supplier nationwide.
Michigan lost 23 infectious-disease workers and 123 county health employees after the Trump administration canceled approximately $12 billion in pandemic-era grants to states. Local departments are borrowing workers from other health programs and recruiting volunteers to conduct patient interviews that can take up to 45 minutes each.
Washtenaw County is investigating more than 770 cases, while Oakland and Ingham counties have reported roughly 710 and 700, respectively. Officials said the volume has delayed investigations and reduced time available for other public-health services.
Federal officials dispute claims of poor coordination, saying the CDC and FDA communicate daily with affected states. Michigan officials say cases may continue rising, although the outbreak’s epidemic curve appears to be leveling.
The offensive potential is no longer theoretical. We need to develop systems to strengthen public health as quickly as AI is accelerating biological design
As artificial intelligence rapidly transforms the biological sciences, it is pushing the future of biology in two opposing directions. AI can help bad actors generate recipes for biological weapons with just a few keystrokes and computational prompts. At the same time, AI can track disease outbreaks and deliver critical public health information to millions of people in real time – potentially stopping a deadly outbreak in its tracks. What we are dealing with in this moment is profound: a race between offense and defense. Between the proliferation of dark biology, where deadly pathogens are engineered in secret, and the promise of a new era of collective global health.
Every infectious disease outbreak begins with a handful of cases. Public health wins by learning about an outbreak before it spreads wide, before hospitals fill and a crisis starts to spiral out of control. As transmission rates explode, options shrink. One of AI’s greatest values is its ability to compress the timeline between outbreak and detection. Speed can mean the difference between containing an outbreak and confronting an epidemic, or another global pandemic.
Lawyers predict ‘more suppression and no active investigations’ but victims’ groups determined to continue fight
As Donald Trump’s former defense lawyer Todd Blanche appears poised for confirmation as attorney general, numerous Jeffrey Epstein survivors have sounded the alarm that a US justice department helmed by him would derail their pursuit of justice.
In a letter urging Republican senators Thom Tillis and John Cornyn to reject his nomination, these survivors said that Blanche’s handling of the Epstein case as acting attorney general was characterized by misstep after misstep.
Why Should Delaware Care? Thousands of acres of trees, which soak up carbon and mitigate flooding, have been cleared in Sussex County over the past 20 years, primarily because of the building boom in the eastern part of the county. Proposed new rules would protect some of the existing forests, but may make it harder to build in some areas.
After losing thousands of acres of forestland in recent decades, Sussex County is considering new rules to require builders to preserve a portion of the trees that sit on their land.
The Sussex County Council debated the proposal earlier this month during a meeting that was attended by more than 20 residents who said they came to “speak for the trees.”
They donned stickers that said “no forest, no future.” Some spoke about the pain they felt when they saw trees being cut down in their neighborhoods.
“I’m a fifth-generation Sussex Countian who owns land, who farms, and I don’t even recognize my home anymore,” Georgetown resident Nathanael Wilson said. “This is breadcrumbs compared to what should have been done years ago.”
Ultimately, the council members deferred their final decision on the ordinance. They could vote on the measure in the coming weeks.
Under the proposal, the county would require developers to preserve between 30% and 50% of the existing trees on their properties. In the county’s designated growth zones, where officials want to direct development, the percentage of preserved trees would be 30%.
The proposed rules came from the recommendations of the Sussex County Land Use Reform Working Group, which has been tasked by the County Council with recommending reforms to Sussex County development.
The rules would also allow developers to clear trees beyond the proposed limit if they plant on the same site at least twice the amount of trees they cut down. That section of the proposal drew pushback from the public.
Steve Sinclair, speaking on behalf of the conservation group Sussex Preservation Coalition, argued that mature trees are much more valuable for the local environment. He said developers should have to prove they don’t have any other option but to cut them down.
Jon Horner (center), a homebuilder with Schell Brothers and member of the Sussex County Land Use Working Group. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY OLIVIA MARBLE
“You can’t replace the value of mature trees with new tree plantings,” Sinclair said.
President of the Delaware Homebuilders Association Jon Horner also opposed that clause, but for a different reason. He said the limited space on properties will sometimes make it very difficult for developers to plant all of the new trees on the same site.
“We don’t love clear-cutting properties because we love the sound of timber snapping,” Horner said. “If we have to cut trees, it’s typically either to make the houses actually fit on the lot or because of our stormwater regulations.”
Instead, Horner proposed that the county in some cases allow developers to pay a large fee that could go towards preserving mature forests in other parts of the county. In response, some residents at the hearing said they feared that such a fee could lead to whole areas of the county without many trees.
Delaware State Forester Kyle Hoyd said the state environmental agency recently conducted a study that found Sussex County has lost 21,000 acres of forestland over the past two decades — about half of an original estimate that had been based on federal data.
Hoyd called the decline “drastic”, even the loss of forestland was not as great as the agency originally believed,
The lost forestland is equal to 3.5% of the total land area of the county and about 16,000 football fields.
COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA — A tattoo company and two prospective customers filed a federal lawsuit challenging South Carolina laws that restrict where tattoo parlors may operate and prohibit tattoos on the head, face or neck.
Tiny Zaps, a company from New York, intended to hold a temporary tattoo event at a hotel in downtown Charleston. They dropped the plan after learning that the hotel was within 1,000 feet of a church, which meant they could not get a state license for the event.
South Carolina law does not allow tattoo businesses to be licensed if they are within 1,000 feet of a church, school, or playground. Although the state legalized tattooing in 2004, it still does not permit tattoos above the neck.
Tiny Zaps and two South Carolina residents, Joshua and Stephanie McDonald, say these restrictions violate the First Amendment rights of both artists and customers. The McDonalds want tattoos on their heads or necks. Tiny Zaps argues that the location rule makes it almost impossible to operate in downtown Charleston.
The Pacific Legal Foundation, which represents the plaintiffs, argues that tattoos are a form of artistic expression protected by the Constitution, whether the art is on paper, fabric, or skin.
State health officials and Attorney General Alan Wilson, a Republican, have not responded to the complaint. The lawsuit asks the court to block enforcement of both restrictions.
The horror movie sensation of 2026 has its roots in gaming’s discovery of ‘noclip’ – and the hidden virtual realms that could be opened up inside games. Developers explain how everyone got lost in these liminal spaces
It starts on 4chan, in a May 2019 thread entitled “unsettling images”. The first post was a photo showing an empty room with the now iconic yellow wallpaper, no natural lighting and a kind of inexplicable jutting half-wall. Shortly afterwards, another user (there are no usernames on 4chan, just identifying numbers) responded with 78 words of text that would essentially lay out the blueprint for a future $262m A24 movie sensation.
“If you’re not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you’ll end up in the Backrooms,” the post begins. For the uninitiated, “noclip” refers to a game mode in which collision with solid objects is disabled, allowing players to move freely through walls and floors. Think of Chiwetel Ejiofor’s character in the film, finding a permeable wall in the basement of his furniture store and passing through to the world on the other side.
The meet had lower stakes with no Olympics or worlds this year, but Nikki Hiltz, Sha’Carri Richardson and Cooper Lutkenhaus all took advantage of the moment
In two years’ time, tens of thousands of fans will pack into the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum – with tens of millions watching around the world – as the world’s fastest and strongest athletes compete at the 2028 Olympics.
But this vast audience ebbs and flows in the long years between Olympics. On the other side of the country, around 5,000 fans filed into New York’s Icahn Stadium this weekend for the USA Track & Field national outdoor championships.
Mass hearings, removal orders ‘in absentia’ – judges are wrapping up immigration cases in unprecedented numbers
The second Trump administration recorded its highest number of immigration arrests so far last month. One significant and alarming reason that is far less noticeable than armored, masked agents swaggering in the streets with weapons may be a sudden change in America’s immigration courts.
Here, in recent months, accelerated mass hearings are giving people facing existential questions about their future little time to prepare for their cases, and judges are often ordering vulnerable immigrants deported without them even being in the courtroom.
Collage by Alex Bandoni. Source images: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images.
For decades, physicists wrestled with a fundamental mystery of the universe.
They wanted to know why certain particles — like the protons in atoms — have mass, while particles of light do not. Whatever the reason was, it was crucial to understanding the origins of planets, galaxies and life itself.
The leading theory stated that particles got their mass from interacting with an invisible field, later dubbed the Higgs field, but no one had ever been able to prove it existed.
Doing so would require one of the most ambitious international collaborations in scientific history. Starting decades ago, thousands of scientists from dozens of countries worked side by side, even though some of their nations considered one another adversaries. The United States contributed a quarter of the workforce and hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.
The investment paid off in 2012, when the team detected the so-called “God particle” or Higgs boson, confirming the half-century-old Higgs field theory. The achievement was so significant that two of the physicists behind the theory won the Nobel Prize.
Under a new rule proposed by the Trump administration, American scientists might be forced to watch similar discoveries from the sidelines. The proposal would restrict international collaboration and give political appointees the ability to decide the most important research to fund, and the power to pull the plug at any time, for any reason.
As soon as he learned about the proposal, one of the U.S. scientists who took part in the landmark project rushed to file his objection with the federal government.
“These experiments take decades to build and require sustained, cooperative international investment,” University of Chicago physics professor David W. Miller wrote in a public comment. “The experiments will continue, without American leadership. … The United States will not just fall behind. It will step aside.”
The rule’s implications reach far beyond physics. Proposed by the Office of Management and Budget, a little-known but powerful part of the White House that guides federal spending, it would give the administration’s political appointees across dozens of federal agencies significant discretion over how grants are awarded and terminated. The appointees don’t have to know anything about science or the subjects of the grants they’re reviewing.
Russell Vought, who runs the office and has made expanding presidential control over federal spending one of his signature goals, has put the philosophy into practice over the past two years, helping to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development and, in another controversial move, blocking funds already allocated by Congress. Vought’s decision last year to cancel 284 Department of Energy grants drew renewed criticism after an agency lawyer recently admitted in court records that the terminations were “based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state” — in other words, blue states.
The rule would cover at least hundreds of billions of dollars in federal grants, touching everything from food stamp benefits and housing assistance to small business loans and funding for the arts. Many cities, states and nonprofits rely on federal grants in their annual budgets. Representatives of domestic violence organizations and museums and the attorneys general of 22 states are among those who have objected to the rule.
Vought’s office wants the final version of the rule to take effect on Oct. 1. Before that happens, the OMB must consider the nearly 500,000 public comments that have flooded in since the rule was announced in late May and address or respond to substantive critiques.
White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russell VoughtAndrew Harnik/Getty Images
An OMB spokesperson told ProPublica that the “proposed rule will ensure spending is aligned with current law, Executive Orders, and agency priorities.” This is “fundamentally about accountability to the American people and ensuring that taxpayer dollars are spent wisely. It will not disrupt major scientific research or supplant the peer review process — any claims to the contrary are based on spurious assumptions.”
But thousands of public comments come from scientists, who warn that the rule, as written, would severely curtail their work treating pediatric cancers, improving maternal health and advancing fundamental research.
The United States’ world-renowned system of funding science entrusts decisions to subject-matter experts who choose grantees based on a rigorous, merit-based peer-review process, with minimum political interference. Physicists vet proposals from other physicists; oncologists, those of other oncologists. Larger projects get steady funding through multiple years, so that researchers can hire staff, design and purchase equipment, and make commitments to other involved institutions or people, such as patients undergoing treatments.
Few discoveries better illustrate what that system made possible than that of the Higgs boson, considered one of the most significant scientific triumphs of the 21st century.
Miller took ProPublica inside the endeavor, highlighting ways the new rule could imperil similar projects in the future.
“The United States built the greatest scientific enterprise in human history on a simple idea: fund the best ideas, chosen by the best experts, and get out of the way,” he said in his public comment. “This proposed rule dismantles that principle entirely, and it does so in ways that will cause immediate, concrete, and in many cases irreversible harm to American science.”
Miller, 43, said he owes his entire career to government investments in research and education.
He grew up in Chicago and went to public schools. Neither of his parents went to college. His mother was the first female paramedic hired by the Chicago Fire Department. His father, a firefighter, did construction work on his days off. Miller liked building stuff in his dad’s workroom. He made shelves for his bunk bed and etched his own circuit board in high school.
At the University of Chicago, where Miller enrolled after winning a full-ride scholarship for students whose parents worked as police officers or firefighters, he chose to study physics and soon became interested in questions such as: Why do things with mass behave differently from light? Why is there more matter than anti-matter in the universe? Miller said his dad used to sit in his firehouse, clipping newspaper stories on dark matter and black holes to send to his son.
As an undergrad, Miller began doing research at CERN, an international physics laboratory near Geneva that was founded after World War II to facilitate ambitious experiments and build bridges between countries that had recently been adversaries. He took a job there after graduation as a research technician.
Working in a cavern 300 feet underground, he crawled through tunnels, connecting power cables and screwing pieces of steel together. He was helping build the machinery needed to test a theory scientists had been chasing since the 1960s.
Physicists had long theorized that an invisible field of energy gives mass to particles like protons while leaving particles of light — photons — massless. To test the theory, the world’s largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider, would smash hundreds of billions of protons together at nearly the speed of light. Miller had been building one of the massive, intricate cameras needed to detect the Higgs boson created by colliding protons. Later, he worked to disentangle the messy data.
David Miller in 2006, while working as a research technician at CERN. He helped build one of the two particle detectors that later revealed the existence of the Higgs boson.Courtesy of David Miller
Miller was one of nearly 2,000 scientists from the U.S. who worked on the initiative. Three U.S. national labs built components for the collider in-house before shipping them to CERN. Federal agencies invested $531 million into construction and other services. Additional grants went to individual scientists. Miller’s technician role and support for his research when he earned a doctorate in physics from Stanford University were both funded by the National Science Foundation, one of the main government agencies that supports basic scientific research.
Federal grants can’t be canceled without cause, and the reliability of that funding was crucial, Miller said. But the new OMB rule would allow termination with minimal explanation or opportunities for appeal.
That threat “is a tool for political coercion,” Miller wrote in his opposition to the rule. “It tells every scientist in America: your funding is safe only as long as your work, your institution, or your public statements remain acceptable to the current administration.”
An additional threat comes from the rule’s prohibition of researchers using federal funds to “support certain foreign collaborations involving covered foreign countries or covered foreign entities.” The rule accounts for limited exceptions, including collaborations allowed by federal statute and those in which an agency head “determines that the activity does not pose a risk to national security.” An OMB spokesperson did not provide a list of covered countries or respond to ProPublica’s questions about how the provision would be enforced.
Some of the scientists working at CERN come from countries like China that the Trump administration has already restricted researchers from collaborating with. And it’s unclear how easily others might find themselves listed as adversaries. Since the beginning of his second term, President Donald Trump has picked public fights with a long list of leaders from U.S. allies, such as the United Kingdom, Italy, Denmark, France, Germany, Spain and Canada.
Strict limits on international partnerships fly in the face of how science has worked for centuries, said Chris Llewellyn Smith, a former CERN director who is an emeritus professor of physics at the University of Oxford. The Royal Society of London, a scientific academy founded in the 1600s, appointed a foreign secretary to correspond with scientists from other countries nearly 60 years before the British government appointed a foreign secretary to oversee international relations, he noted.
Global conflict has already degraded the collaborative atmosphere at CERN, Llewellyn Smith said. After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, CERN’s governing body voted to ban scientists affiliated with Russian labs — a move that has harmed the careers of Russian scientists and deprived CERN of the hardware and labor Russia could contribute to future experiments.
If the U.S. also retreats due to limits on working with foreign scientists, Llewellyn Smith warned, it “could jeopardize the whole future of high-energy physics.”
That may feel abstract to many Americans. But the technological developments required to study particle physics lead to unexpected discoveries.
A CERN engineer pioneered a touch screen in the 1970s while building research instrumentation. The World World Web was invented by a scientist at CERN who was trying to share data between different institutions. Smaller particle accelerators are used for manufacturing and cancer therapies.
The practical applications may take generations to surface. Take the GPS technology that powers the maps on our phones, Miller said. It depends on century-old equations formulated by Albert Einstein. “I guarantee you that Einstein wasn’t thinking about your ability to find Starbucks this morning when he wrote down the special theory of relativity and the general theory of relativity.”
The OMB says the rule is necessary to prevent waste, fraud and ideological bias.
The Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank whose work the OMB cites, praised the proposed changes in a recent column. Empowering political appointees establishes the “kind of adult supervision” that ensures “the taxpayer is funding the activity that he votes for at election time,” the columnist wrote.
But critics say the changes aim to solve problems that either don’t exist or don’t require such a blunt-force tool.
The rule repeatedly cites “woke” funding decisions under President Joe Biden’s tenure as a reason for reform. “Federal grants were politicized by the last administration to promote a far-left DEI agenda,” an agency spokesperson told ProPublica in an email, referring to initiatives promoting diversity, equity and inclusion.
The rule links to a 2024 report from Senate Republicans that summarized — based on a keyword search of terms like “women,” “diversify,” “segregation” and “Hispanic culture” — $2 billion in National Science Foundation grants they said were supporting “radical political perspectives.” ProPublica’s reporting found that many of the projects simply referenced existing social inequities or involved unrelated terms flagged by the committee’s crude methodology. One was a study of the evolution of mint plants.
Fraud in federal science funding does exist, but it’s relatively rare. Investigators at the National Science Foundation have recovered about $54 million from fraud cases involving universities, nonprofits and small businesses over the past 10 years, according to a spokesperson from the agency’s Office of Inspector General. That’s an average of $5.4 million a year — a tiny fraction of the billions of dollars the NSF gives out in grants every year.
Even if the administration believes those problems warrant reform, legal experts question whether the OMB has the authority to impose this solution. The final rule will almost certainly be subject to litigation, they say.
Lawsuits will challenge the OMB’s ability to prescribe the content of individual grants, said Kali Murray, a law professor at Marquette University who specializes in the intersection of administrative and intellectual property law. “This is a hall of famer move by Russ Vought” to expand the power of that office, as the proposal allows the OMB to override existing congressional statutes that govern agency spending, she said.
For instance, the proposed rule’s prohibition of DEI appears to conflict with a statute that directs the National Science Foundation to broaden “participation of underrepresented populations,” especially women, Black and Hispanic researchers, in science, technology, engineering and math, Murray said. Federal physics funding has been less of a political target than grants related to health disparities, racial inequities and LGBTQ+ communities — areas the administration derides as “woke” or “illegal DEI.” But at least several grants designed to support early-career physicists from underrepresented backgrounds have been terminated.
Any change through litigation could take time; lawsuits can’t be filed until the final text of the rule is published.
The next presidential administration could undo it through a formal rulemaking process. That process, too, could take years.
Pressure from congressional leaders, particularly Republicans, might be the only way to compel the OMB to make serious revisions before it releases the final version of the rule this fall. Democrats in Congress have registered their opposition. So has Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who sent a letter to Vought asking the OMB to withdraw parts of the rule “that would unduly burden scientific and biomedical research and small communities.”
Collins took particular issue with the provision that would allow political appointees to review grant proposals, noting that it would undermine the goal of awarding funds “based on scientific merit and value, rather than political ideology.”
Top House Democrat says US president ‘failed to deliver’ on campaign promises to lower costs and avoid overseas wars
Donald Trump’s Republican party has “nothing to run on” for the congressional midterm elections after the president broke promises to lower costs and avoid starting war overseas, US House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries has said.
The New York congressman made those comments on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, exactly 100 days from the 3 November midterms, when Jeffries and his fellow Democrats are aiming to take control of the US House and Senate from their Republican opponents.
Talks between Oman and Iran on reopening the Strait of Hormuz and their respective territorial waterways have made progress, two sources told CBS News.
The academic’s ambitious guide to the ethics of tech falls short of its promise to provide meaningful answers
The AI ethicist Eleanor Drage believes that to thrive alongside artificial intelligence, humans need to recognise AI’s “humanity”. She means that while we often speak of AI as though it were some mystical, formless thing, it is the product of hours of human labour, in silicon and quartz mines, microchip factories and data labelling centres. If citizens want to wrest power from the tech companies that are building AI, it helps to understand clearly what they are selling us. This also means seeing through the marketing and hype: “the cloud”, that nebulous, distant place where your photos are stored, is just someone else’s computer; an AI “hallucination” is a system error or data labelling mistake; intelligence is a very broad – and potentially misleading – term.
The story in Silicon Valley is that AI will either save us, ushering in a new era of prosperity and human longevity, or it will wipe us all out. Drage argues, convincingly, that big tech cannot possibly deliver on its utopian promises while it continues to chase profit and power above all else, and while it serves the interests of a narrow few. Meanwhile, the cultural obsession with the AI-induced apocalypse conveniently redirects attention from the practical conversations we could be having about how to make AI safer – by ensuring citizens have more power over how their information is used, and how AI models are trained and regulated, for example. Tech titans’ apocalyptic visions also create the false impression that AI safety is more important than climate change, geopolitical tensions and inequality, three problems that are already causing a huge amount of suffering and that, if addressed, would reduce many AI-linked risks too.
"The rise of TikTok, Instagram Reels and Amazon storefronts has created a new kind of white-collar exit strategy," reports Bloomberg. Workers ditch office jobs not to become celebrities, necessarily, "but to piece together an income online through brand deals, affiliate links and highly personal videos documenting everyday life."
In many cases, the followers necessary to sustain a living are smaller (and more attainable) than people might assume. A small but loyal audience can now generate enough income to rival a midlevel salary. Welcome to the middle-class creator economy. Last year, 25-year-old Abi Platock balanced a corporate marketing job in New York while posting online in her spare time. She built her audience by posting one or two videos a day, offering career advice, beauty tips and daily vlogs. "I signed my first brand deal in the four-figure range, and for me that was just such a big eye-opening moment," Platock says of her partnership with deodorant brand Secret. She had 8,000 followers on TikTok at the time. "You can totally make it work without having hundreds of thousands of followers." Platock, who now has roughly 25,000 followers across platforms, has signed about $25,000 in brand deals so far this year and expects her annual creator income to reach around $50,000 by yearend.
Her experience reflects a broader shift in advertising. Brands are increasingly moving money toward so-called microinfluencers — smaller online personalities who have less than 100,000 followers. "They are hiring a bunch of microcreators at scale instead of hiring a handful of macrocreators for what could potentially be the same cost," says Ali Grant, co-chief executive officer of the Digital Department, a creator management company. And they perform where it matters most: engagement. An engagement rate of 3% is considered strong, and some microinfluencers exceed 10%, Grant says of the closely watched metric that tracks how often followers interact with content through likes, comments, shares and saves. Microinfluencers average a 3.2% engagement rate, almost triple the 1.1% rate for macroinfluencers (more than 1 million followers), according to growth marketing agency ATTN... A TikTok partnership with a creator who has around 50,000 followers can run a brand more than $3,500 for a single post, Grant says; with 10 times the followers, that fee might just triple, to around $10,000....
The influencer marketing economy ballooned to a projected $33 billion in 2025 up from $1.7 billion in 2015. The segment gained momentum after the COVID-19 pandemic, as dissatisfaction with traditional work pushed many to reconsider conventional career paths, says Brooke Duffy, a professor of communications at Cornell University. "They realized the trade-offs in terms of the investments of time, energy and human capital were not necessarily worth sacrificing so much of one's personal self for," she says. Success online can bring greater freedom — and even higher pay than many traditional office jobs, which have a median US salary of $69,000, according to Glassdoor. But the middle-class hustle still requires constant effort to maintain. The career has no promise of lifetime longevity. And unlike traditional workers, creators have no predictable paycheck or job protections, making career stability elusive. Roughly 57% of 3,000 surveyed full-time creators earn below a living wage from content creation, according to a report last year from Influencer Marketing Hub. Income from social media can fluctuate wildly from month to month, driven by shifts in algorithms, sponsorship cycles and platform trends.
"You could have a month where you make zero dollars, or you could have a month where you make $10,000," Platock says.
The article cites Gallup Poll data released last year that found employee engagement in the U.S. had fallen to its lowest level in a decade [with engagement defined as "the psychological attachment workers have to their work/team/employer]. "Among the hardest-hit groups were Generation Z and workers in finance and technology. Broader workplace challenges, including rapid organizational change, hybrid and remote work transitions, and rising employee expectations are considered drivers of the overall trend."
"For many workers, influencing can seem like a better deal; flexible schedules and independence wrapped in a veneer of creativity and fun. Almost 60% of Gen Zers say they'd become an influencer if given the opportunity, according to a 2023 survey from Morning Consult."
A combination of an unusually wet winter, very low rainfall since spring and repeated record-breaking summer heatwaves is likely to explain why wildfires have ignited, spread and resisted control so readily across France and Spain in recent days.
About 90% of wildfires are started by human activity, typically igniting “fine fuels” such as vegetation grass, pine needles, litter and twigs. And recent weather has almost certainly made ignition far easier. Drought in western Europe has turned this vegetation – which normally dries after only a few hours of heat and low rainfall – into tinder.
A crisis has been building in the Karamoja region of Uganda as crops have failed without the season’s expected rains, leaving the region’s 1.5 million people facing acute food shortages and rising malnutrition.
A blaring emergency warning alert Australians had been warned about was anti-climactic for some – and totally missed by others.
Almost every phone in the country, alongside some smartwatches and tablets, was supposed to let off a loud noise at about 2pm AEST and receive a pop-up notification with the text “TEST MESSAGE” and “NO ACTION IS REQUIRED”.
Top military officials say campaign has reached its limit of effectiveness and warn of dwindling stocks of munitions
The US has paused strikes on Iran for a third night as top military officials advised Donald Trump to halt his bombing campaign, and diplomatic negotiations have continued to avoid a return to all-out war.
Oil prices fell on Monday as markets responded to the pause in combat.
Research shows AI accounts are gaining millions of views on TikTok by spreading dubious health advice
Misleading health claims online pose a “huge danger to public safety”, experts have warned, after research has shown that AI-generated doctors are gaining millions of views on TikTok by spreading dubious health advice.
The British Medical Association council deputy chair, Dr Emma Runswick, flagged the risks posed by AI accounts that “peddle medical myths and promote so-called miracle cures”.
Super-premium Android has top performance, long battery life and good cameras, but is let down by software
Honor’s svelte Android phone-tablet has been given a glow-up for its sixth version, offering a great alternative to Samsung for a fancy foldable with a red suede-like back framed in gold.
The Magic V6 continues the Chinese challenger brand’s strategy of taking a razor-thin device and slapping a giant circular lump on the back to fit in top-class cameras, something others often forgo. It costs a not inconsiderable £1,500 (€1,700/A$2,999) but only until August when the price jumps to a cool £2,000 (€2,300) – a solid £300 more than last year’s model as the cost of RAMageddon continues to bite, even at the very top end of the market.
Main screen: 7.95in (403ppi) 120Hz OLED flexible display
In today’s newsletter: Across the country, a younger generation is turning private disillusionment into public defiance against a government that once felt untouchable
Good morning. As flames engulfed parts of France and Spain this weekend, in India, the prime minister, Narendra Modi, was trying to put out a very different kind of fire. Thousands of people arrived in Delhi on Saturday to demand the resignation of his education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan. When he stepped down in the early afternoon, the protests turned into a triumphant block party.
But the Cockroach protests that have swept through India this summer are about much more than a single minister. They have humiliated Modi and undermined the indomitable power of his Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) that has ruled India for the past 12 years. They’re also a lesson in using humour to political advantage.
Wild fires | Authorities in France battled to contain a huge wildfire near Bordeaux in the south-west as Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, warned Spain and the Iberian peninsula were suffering the effects of the climate emergency.
Germany | A man suspected of driving a van into a crowd near Berlin’s Pride festival then going on a knife rampage in an Islamist terror attack has been shot dead by police, German officials have said.
Iran | The US has paused strikes on Iran for a second night as top military officials advised Donald Trump to halt his bombing campaign, and diplomatic negotiations have continued to avoid a return to all-out war.
UK politics | Britain’s foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, is to indicate he will put the climate crisis and overseas development at the heart of UK international relations by taking up the country’s seat on the board at the World Bank.
UK news | Five Palestine Action activists face being sentenced as terrorists for breaking windows and throwing red paint at a branch of Barclays Bank in Lancashire.
Monday | Andrew and Tristan Tate are due back in the Florida court where they’re fighting their extradition to the UK, to face rape and sex-trafficking charges.
Tuesday | Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy are expected to be among those attending the Washington DC memorial service for the late South Carolina senator and Trump ally Lindsey Graham.
Thursday | People will go to the polls to elect the next mayor of Greater Manchester, who will replace Andy Burnham.
Variety reports:
"The Odyssey" leaks have begun, as a high-quality bootleg of the film reached millions of people on X thanks to a viral tweet on July 25. At 2:25 p.m. PT, a post on X reading "Someone uploaded 'The Odyssey' full movie on X. Can you believe it?" amplified a message from a now-suspended account. The message included a high-quality version of the film, as confirmed by Variety, and climbed to over 2.1 million views within two and a half hours. By that time, the streaming film was replaced by a takedown notice, and then the account was suspended...
As of July 26, a few clones of the bootlegged film are available on X, but they've been mostly flooded away by mislabeled files promising "The Odyssey" but actually showing a Rickroll, the longtime internet prank of tricking people into watching the music video for Rick Astley's 1987 song "Never Gonna Give You Up."
The article notes the leak "certainly doesn't seem to have hurt the film's still-surging box office in its second weekend, during which it earned another $87 million," or lessened demand for Imax 70 mm tickets.
New tariffs, gas price rises, the deaths of thousands, insecurity … We’re living at the whim of one capricious, vain, easily bored man and his gang of stooges
You would be forgiven, as the US and Iran traded strikes over the past few days, for thinking that it was only last month that the two signed the Islamabad Memorandum, which formalised the process of ending the war and established a 60-day period to negotiate the final terms of a deal. That’s because it was only last month. But there has been so much talk and bluster and strike and turn tail that the conflict feels like it has started and ended several times already. The whole war is only five months old but is already settling into a sort of permanent feature of life, one that is all repetitive theatre now, each act indistinguishable from the one before it to all but the most plugged-in observers. The war is over. The war is at its peak. The Iranians are brave people. The Iranians are scum, not least their leaders. The Iranians don’t want a ceasefire. The Iranians are begging for one. The strait of Hormuz is open, it is shut, it is partly open.
To recap, where we are now in the war that was only supposed to last a few weeks but is now entering its sixth month is that the US has expanded airstrikes on Iran in a “major military punishment”. Iran has once again struck US base targets located across the region. The Houthis have claimed their own blockade over a second shipping chokepoint – the war now extends from the Gulf to the Red Sea. Trump can’t get out. Iran now understands the powerful leverage of the strait and its geographical, and therefore military, advantage in controlling it. Trump cannot end the war with that bargaining chip in its hands and the Iranians will not end the war without it. He can’t withdraw on terms that merely restore the prewar status quo. And Trump can’t go all in. Boots on the ground would be an extended bloody campaign that would claim many lives. In the US, the deaths of 18 troops so far and how the Pentagon appears to be trying to undercount that number has triggered outrage.
Authorities in France battled to contain a huge wildfire near Bordeaux as the forecast of another heatwave threatened to deepen the crisis and the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, warned Spain and the Iberian peninsula were suffering the effects of the climate emergency.
Windy conditions on Saturday night hampered efforts to extinguish the blaze in the Gironde region of south-western France – which has consumed an area four times the size of Paris and caused nearly 220,000 people to be evacuated.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Newly released documentary footage shows the late Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham enthusiastically supporting the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran and comparing President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill.
Filmmaker Alex Holder recorded hundreds of hours with Graham beginning in 2023 for a documentary tentatively titled “Lindsey’s Game.” Footage obtained by The Wall Street Journal shows Graham celebrating the initial strikes and describing Trump as an effective wartime president.
“We’ve done it,” Graham said shortly after the attacks began, adding that he nearly cried because he had advocated military action against Iran for years. He said Trump and Netanyahu were the appropriate leaders to confront what he called an evil regime.
The footage also shows Graham predicting that Iran’s government would lose control of several cities within weeks. That prediction did not materialize. He discussed building momentum toward regime change and seeking greater support from Arab governments.
Holder told CNN that Graham played a consequential role in persuading Trump to enter the war alongside Israel.
Graham died July 11 at age 71 after suffering an aortic dissection. Throughout his Senate career, he consistently supported an interventionist foreign policy and stronger military action against Iran.
My pint was fine for a few kilometres and gave me error 22 i charged it and it worked for abit then again error 22 i have rewheeled the pint now and its still giving me bms error will an owie chip perhaps fix this? Can provide other information just not sure what to write here! Thanks.
Thousands of Germans have been threatened with fines or prison sentences for social media posts, reports The Telegraph, calling the country's political speech laws "unusually stringent for an EU member state."
One German had his home raided for calling a minister a "Schwachkopf [dummy]" while another was fined €2,000 (£1,700) for calling Friedrich Merz a "lying Fritz" under a law that, critics claim, makes it effectively illegal to make fun of politicians. The number of investigations under Section 86a, the Nazi symbols ban... has more than doubled over the past decade according to official police statistics. Investigations into the "political insult" law also reached record levels in 2025. The surge in cases is so vast that the UN has launched an investigation into free speech violations in Germany, a step typically reserved for dictatorships and banana republics...
In one recent case, a pensioner was investigated under Section 188 for posting "Pinocchio is coming" on Facebook, after he learnt Friedrich Merz, the chancellor, was visiting his hometown... The case was dropped after the story caused an outcry in Germany, and police have since clarified that calling the chancellor Pinocchio is not a crime... In November 2024, police in Bavaria raided the home of another pensioner because he called Robert Habeck, the then vice-chancellor of Germany, a "schwachkopf", or dummy. The raid was reportedly launched after Mr Habeck personally filed a criminal complaint against the pensioner. Prosecutors eventually dropped the investigation after deciding that the insult "dummy" was not of "sufficient weight" to merit criminal charges.
While such cases might seem like bizarre outliers, there are plenty of others. In 2021, police raided a man's apartment in Hamburg after he told a senator "you're such a d---," and this year a resident was fined €2,000 for calling Mr Merz a "lying Fritz". Official figures show a record 4,792 Section 188 cases were filed in Germany in 2025, with the numbers rising by nearly 85 per cent between 2023 and 2025.
The article notes both left- and right-leaning free speech activists in Germany are calling for some of the stricter laws to be scrapped. And it adds that the uproar "bears some similarities to the free speech debate in Britain, where citizens have had a knock on the door from police over opinions posted online."
Civics 101 Special Series: The Corporate Capital Part 3: Delaware prospers from its “franchise”
For over 100 years, a quiet force has been benefiting Delawareans. Few are aware of its presence in their daily life, but its impact reaches every citizen, up and down the state.
That force, the state’s corporate franchise industry, stands as a significant pillar of Delaware’s financial stability, just as it has since 1899. Each year, it brings billions of dollars of revenue into the state, easing the burden on taxpayers, and ensuring that services to Delawareans stay strong.
Today, as that reliable revenue stream faces challenges from outside the state, more Delawareans are understanding the real-world benefits of being the nation’s “Corporate Capital.” And they’re deciding it’s a title worth defending.
EXPLORE MORE
Stay tuned for the next installment of Civics 101: The Corporate Capital:
Day 3: See how Delaware’s corporate franchise business benefits everyone
Learn more about how the state manages your tax dollars at the Civics 101 homepage
Recent events have shown that Delaware’s prominence can’t be taken for granted. The corporate franchise is the industry that allows Delaware to be the home of tax-free shopping. It supports local schools. It supports infrastructure. It supports community organizations. It brings high-paying jobs (and the associated income tax revenue) to Delaware along with a well-educated workforce — and it keeps them here.
Recent state budgets speak to the significant revenue impact of the state’s franchise industry, which attracts millions of companies to incorporate here and pay Delaware various taxes and fees, in return for access to Delaware’s expert Chancery Court and Secretary of State’s Division of Corporations.
Corporate franchise taxes and related fees typically generate 25% to 30% of Delaware’s General Fund revenue, totaling $1.8 billion to $1.9 billion annually. Most of that revenue comes from corporations – $1.32 billion in 2025. Another $522 million comes from alternative business entities – Limited Liability Companies (LLCs) and Limited Partnerships (LPs).
A stable and reliable source of revenue
Those revenue streams give Delaware a highly predictable budget baseline – one that’s more resilient to economic turbulence, and less reliant on taxing Delawareans.
As one of the single largest funding sources for state government, the corporate franchise supports education, healthcare, transportation, and public safety. It’s a revenue stream that the state has come to rely on, and Delawareans continue to benefit from — and it comes largely from corporations outside of the state. The cash generated by the corporate franchise is a key reason Delaware is still one of just five states that operate without a general sales tax.
Much of the revenue generated by the corporate franchise industry flows into Delaware’s General Fund. That corporate revenue helps the state cover a broad range of costs, from health insurance coverage for low-income Delawareans, to public safety improvements. It’s also used to help strengthen the state’s “Rainy Day Fund,” a financial safety net that helps the state avoid cuts to services or tax hikes when the economy lags.
“The success of Delaware’s corporate franchise benefits everyone in the state, from small-business owners to homeowners who enjoy some of the lowest property taxes in the region,” said Rod Ward, president and chief executive officer of Delaware-based Corporation Service Company, a world leader for business, legal, and financial services. “Protecting this legacy is not just a business priority; it is a responsibility that touches every citizen of the First State.”
Companies pay to access our expertise
Here’s how that revenue-generating, low-maintenance system works: Each year, the 2.2 million corporations and other similar entities that are incorporated here pay annual taxes and filing fees to the Delaware Division of Corporations, which oversees business formations and filings. Those annual taxes include the corporate franchise tax paid by corporations and an annual tax paid by LPs, LLCs and general partnerships.
In addition to these annual taxes, some of the businesses pay filing fees in connection with:
The incorporation or formation of new entities
Filings that are required with certain actions such as amendments, mergers and conversions.
Delaware’s corporate franchise industry also has its own corporate ecosystem within the state that generates substantial indirect revenue for Delaware through related industries, from hotels to service vendors to restaurants. The workforce energy of Delaware’s corporate franchise goes far beyond well-tailored attorneys – thousands of people in Delaware work in support of the industry or in jobs that exist because of the industry.
The Delaware Court of Chancery plays a central role in this ecosystem. While court filing fees are modest, the court’s national reputation for expertise, speed, and predictability gives companies confidence that disputes will be resolved fairly and efficiently.
One law has led to an ecosystem of jobs
That confidence in Delaware also means jobs for Delaware. Thousands support the industry in high-paying jobs in technology, accounting, compliance, and corporate services. That in turn generates more revenue, from personal income taxes, gross receipts taxes, and business taxes. The corporate activity also supports bank franchise taxes, commercial real estate development, and hospitality revenue tied to legal proceedings and business travel – visiting law firms are one of the primary elements of Wilmington’s hospitality industry.
Another major indirect source of corporate revenue is abandoned property, known as “escheat.” Delaware routinely collects unclaimed property held by corporations, such as dormant accounts and uncashed checks. In recent years, escheat revenue has exceeded $500 million annually, making it one of the state’s largest non-tax revenue sources.
Indirect sources of revenue – such as escheat, income taxes from legal and corporate services, business and banking taxes – add more than $1 billion to the state’s budget, meaning the total impact of Delaware’s corporate franchise industry is close to $3 billion.
In addition, Delaware’s two law schools — Widener University Delaware Law School and the newer Wilmington University Farnan School of Law — play an important role in educating lawyers, supporting the state’s courts, and reinforcing Delaware’s position as the nation’s corporate and business law hub.
Because corporate franchise revenue accounts for such a large share of the state budget, Delaware’s fiscal health continues to be closely tied to its status as the nation’s leading incorporation state. Legal stability, predictable rules, and confidence in the court system are widely viewed as essential to maintaining that status.
For residents, the impact of living in a state without corporate franchise revenue is more practical — taxes would fall directly on individuals and make funding for core services challenging.
State officials and legal experts warn that Delaware’s longstanding revenue model is not guaranteed. Competition from other states poses potential risks to Delaware’s dominance as the nation’s corporate home. Because the Delaware Court of Chancery underpins corporate confidence in the state, maintaining its independence, expertise, and technological capability is essential. Continued investment in the court, protecting the corporate law from political influence, and adapting the law and practices in Delaware to emerging business and legal trends are necessary steps to safeguard one of Delaware’s most critical and enduring revenue sources.
Delaware’s emergence as the leading domicile for corporations was not just an act of history. It was not like finding oil underneath the state. It’s the result of careful tending and cultivation by generations of corporate leaders and government officials. Protecting that legacy as the leading domicile is critical to Delaware and will continue to pay substantial dividends to all Delawareans.
Four U.S. service members who were listed in a Pentagon casualties database as having died during the Iran war are now listed as "Overseas Operations Casualties."
Southern and central states from California to Mississippi face heat indexes above 100F amid another heat dome
At least 40 million people were under extreme heat warnings across central and southern parts of the United States on Sunday as high temperatures and severe humidity gripped large swaths of the country for a second straight day.
Heat indexes well above 100F (38C) stretched from Minnesota down to Mississippi, extending west into southern California and Nevada. Parts of the south-west were expected to see highs of 120F (49C), according to the National Weather Service.
Hi everyone I’m new to this so sorry if it’s a basic issue. I was trying to replace my lights with pint brites on my pints. When I went to reinstall the cover the board stopped turning on, and makes a quiet but sharp buzzing noise. I live up in Michigan and am wondering if salt corrosion or dust got into the board when I opened it. Thanks for any advice or help.
PM urged to end ‘cover-up culture’ and order independent review taking in evidence that has emerged on 1994 crash
The families of those killed in an RAF Chinook crash in 1994 have urged Andy Burnham to end Britain’s “cover-up culture” and order an independent review into the disaster.
Twenty-nine serving military personnel died when the Chinook HC2 helicopter crashed on the Mull of Kintyre in south-west Scotland during a flight from Northern Ireland.
Bank of England expected to keep rates on hold on Thursday but renewed Iran conflict casts shadow over energy costs
The Bank of England could be forced to tear up its economic forecasts and raise interest rates later this year if oil prices return to above $100 a barrel, according to City economists.
Before a meeting of Bank officials on Thursday, economists said that while an interest rate hike would probably be avoided this week there could be some in the future because of conflict in the Middle East.
While vaccinations have saved millions of lives, in extremely rare cases they can cause injury. Americans who believe they have suffered an injury can go to vaccine court.
Chess boxing, a sport testing both brains and brawn, has been steadily rising in popularity. It's been a big hit in Russia, with the U.S. now catching up, one fighter at a time.
Amy Sherald spent years painting in obscurity, and almost died from a rare heart condition. Now 52, the artist behind Michelle Obama's official portrait is one of America's most celebrated painters.
American Realist portraitist Amy Sherald showed Anderson Cooper her evocative "Ecclesia," a triptych that is much larger in scale than earlier paintings.
Figures are source of dispute as US defense department days ago reduced record of troops killed and wounded
The Pentagon updated its official war casualty database over the weekend, adding more than 140 wounded service members. The Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) also introduced a new casualty category labeled “Overseas Operations” for personnel killed and wounded “starting July 7”.
According to the updated database, the official toll for the earlier phase of the US-Iran war, known as Operation Epic Fury, now stands at 14 service members killed and more than 400 wounded in action.
HONOLULU, HAWAII — Democratic Hawaii Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke and four others were indicted by an Oahu grand jury in an alleged bribery scheme involving state COVID-19 testing contracts.
The indictment includes charges of conspiracy to commit bribery, bribery, and falsifying campaign committee reports against Luke. Prosecutors claim that lobbyist Tobi Solidum offered to raise up to $70,000 for Luke’s campaign if she helped secure contracts for one of his clients.
Prosecutors say the alleged arrangement started at a dinner in January 2022, when Luke was chair of the state House Finance Committee. Luke has said she accepted two $5,000 campaign checks but denies that she traded government help for contributions or gave special treatment to any donor.
The indictment also names former state Rep. Ryan Yamane, state transportation official Ford Fuchigami, and former Public Utilities Commission member Leo Asuncion. Authorities have issued a no-bail warrant for Solidum, who is reported to have traveled to the Philippines.
Governor Josh Green, also a Democrat, has asked Luke to consider stepping down so the state can move forward. Luke had already taken unpaid leave after learning she was under investigation.
These are still allegations and have not been proven in court. Luke, like anyone else facing charges, is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
Airport’s bars and restaurants were also unable to serve drinks to passengers because of lack of running water
Water supply has been restored to most of Gatwick airport after passengers spent hours without access to working toilets, and bars and restaurants were closed.
Most toilets had reopened across both terminals on Sunday evening, with the remaining facilities, including bars and restaurants, expected to return to normal for the first of Monday’s flights.
There's been a change to NASA's launch of six satellites for solar storms research. Space.com reports that those satellites "were originally slated to lift off on a United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur rocket but have now been assigned a SpaceX Falcon Heavy, according to a NASA mission update."
[NASA's Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment mision — or SunRISE] will fly to space as part of a rideshare mission sponsored by the U.S. Space Force's Space Systems Command. Though it's not stated specifically in the NASA release, that may be a hint as to why the mission's rocket was changed. On its most recent launch [U.S. Space Force mission USSF-87], Vulcan experienced an anomaly in one of its solid rocket boosters — the second such incident to occur during the rocket's four launches to date. Vulcan succeeded in delivering the USSF-87 payload to its designated orbit on that launch, but the recurrence of the booster issue during ascent prompted the Space Force to pause national security launches on Vulcan until it could be addressed. Which mission SunRISE will be manifested on has not yet been released, but Space Force's Space Systems Command [SSC] has already shifted other launches between Vulcan and SpaceX's Falcon 9...
Falcon Heavy is SpaceX's heavy-lift launch vehicle... that consists of three modified Falcon 9 first stages, and has launched 12 times since it debuted in 2018. Four of those have delivered national security payloads to orbit, with the most recent of those, USSF-52, launching in December 2023. Falcon Heavy's most recent flight overall occurred this past April, when it sent the Viasat-3 F3 telecom satellite to orbit. Falcon Heavy's next mission will lift off with NASA's Nancy Roman Space Telescope, currently set for no earlier than Aug. 30. SunRISE is scheduled to launch later this year...
Sientists will use data collected by the satellites "to improve prediction models for impending space weather, which in turn could lead to mitigation plans to better thwart the effects of such solar events on orbital infrastructure."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the article.
Ukrainian president will be first overseas visitor for new British prime minister
Volodymyr Zelenskyy will become Andy Burnham’s first overseas visitor as prime minister, in a visit that Burnham said underlined Britain’s “unwavering” backing for Ukraine.
Less than two weeks after Keir Starmer travelled to Kyiv for the final foreign visit of his prime ministership, the Ukrainian president will on Monday join Burnham at a naval base where Ukrainian forces have been receiving training.
Israeli prime minister says ICC’s war crime charges are ‘bogus’ and plans to be in New York for UN gathering this fall
Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Zohran Mamdani, the New York City mayor, was “fomenting hate” by calling the Israeli prime minister a war criminal who should be arrested over Israel’s war in Gaza if he visits the city for the United Nations general assembly.
Netanyahu said he intended to be in New York in September to address the annual UN gathering of world leaders, despite the mayor’s suggestion that he is not welcome. Mamdani said on Wednesday that while New York City does not have legal authority to execute an arrest warrant issued by the world’s top war crimes court, he encouraged the federal government to do so.
Digital Trends reports:
Apple could unveil its first smart glasses at WWDC in June 2027, followed by a consumer release toward the end of the year, according to Bloomberg... Part of the delay reportedly stems from Apple's engineering and marketing teams spending more time refining the product and deciding how to address the privacy concerns...
Apple has reportedly considered glasses without cameras, as well as a version where the cameras can analyse the surroundings but cannot record photos or video. Such an approach could still support object recognition, navigation, Siri, calls, and music playback. The company is also expected to favor on-device processing, avoid facial recognition, keep recordings away from AI training, and use a more visible light around the camera.
Scott Gottlieb responds to report that company contacted the White House seeking to delay a recall announcement
Former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Dr Scott Gottlieb said on Sunday that it was “not standard operating procedure” for Taylor Farms to ask the White House to intervene as the company prepared to announce a recall tied to a massive cyclospora outbreak.
Appearing on CBS’s Face the Nation, Gottlieb was asked about a report from the Wall Street Journal that Taylor Farms contacted the White House seeking to delay a recall announcement while federal investigators were preparing to publicly link the company to the multi-state outbreak.
Well, I'm pissed. I was having a blast riding earlier and wanted to ride quite a bit more. Got back from a 10 mile ride I did around town in under 30 minutes. I was ripping. Basically time trialing myself. Anyways I got back home to charge my board to go out riding again later and check out this trail my buddy showed me. But now it won't charge. My battery is at 40%. I'm going to also lose my place on the daystreak leaderboard because I'm going to have to send my board into future motion. This is the first out of 4 boards I've had that had malfunctioned in some way and has to be sent in for repair. Not happy right now at all.
UPDATE: I left it sit for awhile and then tried again later and got it to charge. Hallelujah!
A U.S. district court "has dismissed Google's case against SerpApi over that company's scraping of search results to train AI models," reports Computerworld. Google had claimed that it was protecting copyright holders — and that SerpApi's actions breached America's Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA):
[Google] made two claims: first, that no person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title, and second that no person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, or component protected by the Act. SerpApi claimed that the URLs and other links that were being served by Google did not in themselves entail copyright and the judge agreed. In her judgment, she said that there was no indication that the copyright holders had authorized Google to take action against SerpApi.
The case is not completely over as the judge has given Google 21 days to amend its complaint to demonstrate that it was acting on behalf of the copyright owners.
SerpApi's CEO reacted to the court's ruling as "a win not just for SerpApi, but for all who depend on an open internet. We're pleased that the court rejected Google's attempts to expand the DMCA to assert control over access to public pages. The internet's founding principle — open access to usable information — is essential to driving innovation and ensuring everyone benefits from the promise of data. SerpApi will continue supporting developers, AI companies, researchers, and businesses that rely on access to public search information."
Some analysis from Daring Fireball blogger John Gruber:
I've come around on SerpApi in the last few months. My initial take was that it surely must be illegal for a company to scrape Google's search results and offer access to that data as an API. But I've come around to the argument that what SerpApi is doing to obtain Google search results is, well, exactly how Google scrapes the rest of the entire web to build its search index. It's all just scraping publicly accessible web pages. This December piece by Mike Masnick at Techdirt is what began to change my mind.
In fact, Masnick wrote, Google "built its entire business on scraping the web without asking permission first. And now it wants to use one of the most abused provisions in copyright law to stop others from doing something functionally similar to what made Google a tech giant in the first place."
Now Google is even getting heckled about the decision on social media. "If Google wants to refile the suit within the allowed 21 days, it has to admit that site owners have copyright protection of their work and THAT would open the door to them suing Google for scraping their content for AI Overviews."
What does this symbol mean in the Onewheel app ride recording map? When I press it turns into a hand with a line through it but it doesn’t seem to do anything.
270,000 people have been displaced by wildfires in France and Spain, reports the Guardian. A wildfire even forced evacuations in Scotland.
And wildfires "have now scorched four million acres of land in the U.S.," reports NPR, as tens of millions of people in North America "are continuing to endure hazardous smoke from out of control wildfires burning across Canada and the Western U.S."
At America's National Interagency Fire Center, NPR's wildfire correspondent says all of America's firefighting resources have now been deployed across the country. "So if we get another big fire, we're in trouble... International aid could be harder to come by if the situation in Southern Europe gets worse and firefighters are going to be needed there."
Meanwhile Toronto was blanketed this week "with eye-watering, cough-inducing soot," writes a climate-change reporter for the Toronto Star newspaper, "briefly giving us the worst air quality in the world." But looking to the future after a wildfire that's 50% larger than any in Ontario's history (315,000 hectares or 778,331 acres), he had this to say about the eye-watering smoke. "It will be back." The article's headline warned of "Our smoke-filled future" and how Canada "must prepare for bigger wildfires, every summer — forever."
Even if global carbon emissions were cut dramatically, so long as any greenhouse gases are being put into the atmosphere, climate scientists say the world will continue to get hotter. And as the temperature rises, the forests dry out and the wildfires will get bigger, stronger and more frequent. "It's not going to get better. It's going to get worse," said Edward Struzik, a fellow with the Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy at Queen's University and the author of Dark Days at Noon: the Future of Fire . "These fires aren't going away. Toronto is going to get smoke every summer...."
The best solution would have been to dramatically cut emissions years ago. The harsh scientific reality is there's nothing we can do to stop wildfire smoke from blanketing cities for a few days every summer — and it's going to continue for decades to come. We're all going to need to buy air purifiers and masks and get used to it....
"The idea that we can thin our way through the boreal forest boggles the mind," [says Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth, an independent non-profit research organization]. "There aren't enough people in Canada to do that." The boreal forest in Canada is an enormous and largely roadless expanse bigger than the entire European Union. In comparison, America's much smaller forests are criss-crossed by roads, making firefighter access much quicker and easier. And the nature of the forests is fundamentally different as well, said Hausfather, who wrote an article summarizing research on the subject. "Western U.S. forests have evolved for frequent low-level fires that burn out the undergrowth — usually every five to 30 years," he said. "Historically, before fire suppression, fires would burn through, and they wouldn't actually kill the trees. They'd just kill smaller trees and clear out the brush."
"The boreal forest is a fundamentally different beast," he said. "It's an ecosystem designed to burn." With smaller, more densely packed trees, the boreal is wetter and colder and doesn't burn anywhere near as often — every 100 to 200 years on average, Hausfather said. But when fire does erupt, it's often much more intense, burning up into the canopy and levelling everything in its path... Clearing out the dead wood on the ground wouldn't prevent, or even slow, the canopy fires that sweep the boreal, said Hausfather.
My Pint X with 3800 miles randomly turned off (board was still on, but it acted like I had stepped off) twice on my ride today. Both times I was going ~15 mph on flat ground, so I don't think it was out of torque. My footpad has historically had some issues with ghosting or throwing the "I need my personal space" error. This leads me to think it's a bad footpad, and gives me an excuse to upgrade to these: https://onewheel.com/products/wood-footpads-pint
If not the footpads, what else could it be?
Edit: my footpad connector seemed loose, I’ll tighten that and keep riding (carefully).
I live on a big hill and while my XR can go down the hill it can’t go up it.
I think the stock rails look boring. I like the WTF rails but that requires recalibration, which I think I cannot do because I have the latest firmware.
I like going for long cruises and while I doubt the real world range for the X7 is close to 40mi, ~30mi would still be pretty good.
I know I could tear my board apart and vsec it but at that point I think I’m better off just getting an X7.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz also said military assets are being moved into the region. GOP Sen. John Kennedy and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders also weighed in on Iran.
Tom Homan comments on officer’s eligibility to serve after reports that agent’s two ex-wives had accused him of abuse
Tom Homan, the Trump administration “border czar”, on Sunday said he did not believe the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer at the center of a recent fatal shooting in Maine “should have ever cleared vetting”.
Speaking to CNN’s State of the Union, Homan was asked by host Dana Bash about the officer’s eligibility to serve following reports that two of his ex-wives had accused him of abuse.
Abdul Ballout, 21, reportedly shot in operation at allotment in Spandau district after fatal attack in Tiergarten park
A man suspected of driving a van into a crowd near Berlin’s Pride festival then going on a knife rampage in an Islamist terror attack has been shot dead by police, German officials have said.
Police confirmed on Sunday evening that the chief suspect had been shot dead, reportedly during an operation at an allotment garden complex in the capital’s Spandau district.
Senator Bernie Sanders said the major obstacle progressive candidates are facing in the midterm elections is massive spending in key races by the "billionaire class."
America's garbage trucks can do more than just collect trash, reports Newsweek. They may also help identify code violations using AI.
Officials in Cape Coral, Florida, recently considered equipping sanitation trucks with AI-powered cameras that would photograph properties as crews complete their normal collection routes. The system would have been designed to identify potential issues such as overgrown lawns, peeling paint, and illegal dumping, and to flag violations so the city staff can review them later before taking enforcement action... However, in a statement on July 13, Cape Coral officials said it would not be moving forward with the camera technology, citing cost issues and insufficient benefits.
"Claims suggesting that this technology would automatically identify, cite or fine residents are inaccurate," the statement also noted... Cape Coral officials say that a camera system in the future would assist — not replace — human code enforcement officers, and employees will review any AI-generated alerts before violations are issued. "Even if such a system were to be considered in the future, any potential code violations would require review and verification by a Code Compliance Officer before any enforcement action could be taken," the organization wrote.
But Cape Coral, Florida "is not the first city to explore the technology," the article notes.
AI imaging systems developed by City Detect have already been deployed in several municipalities. According to the company's published case studies, Stockton, California, used the platform to analyze nearly 40,000 parcels, capturing almost 200,000 images while identifying thousands of potential code issues. Cathedral City, California, has also used the technology to assist code enforcement, while Dallas approved funding for a similar program pending final implementation.
Thanks to Slashdot reader fjo3 for sharing the article.
A federal appeals court has upheld a judge's ruling that halted President Trump's efforts to create a federal voter list and limit who can receive a mail ballot.
Director Ryan Coogler announces British actor in lead role alongside co-stars Letitia Wright and Winston Duke
The British actor David Jonsson has been unveiled as the new Black Panther by the film’s director, Ryan Coogler.
Jonsson, 32, known for roles in Industry, The Long Walk and Alien: Romulus, will play the son of Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa in the third Black Panther movie.
Singer rebukes Trump administration after it uses her song Firework over footage of missile striking Iranian naval ship
Pop star Katy Perry has condemned the Trump White House after it used her hit song Firework in a TikTok video showing US military strikes on Iranian targets, saying she never approved the use of her music.
The White House video, which featured Firework playing over footage of a missile striking an Iranian naval ship, has amassed more than 6 million views. The post was captioned: “Iran has been warned.”
TRENTON, NEW JERSEY — Gov. Mikie Sherrill signed legislation prohibiting grocery retailers from using customers’ personal information to charge different prices for identical products.
The Fair Price Protection Act targets “surveillance pricing,” in which businesses use data such as browsing activity, location and purchase history to estimate what individual shoppers may be willing to pay. New Jersey is the third state to adopt such a restriction, following Maryland and Connecticut.
The law applies to retail food stores and third-party grocery delivery platforms. Traditional loyalty programs, discounts and promotional offers remain permitted, provided they do not use protected personal data to impose individualized prices.
Sherrill said families already facing higher living costs should not be secretly charged more than other customers for the same groceries. Supporters argue the law establishes basic pricing fairness while limiting how artificial intelligence and consumer-tracking systems can influence essential purchases.
The measure also imposes a one-year pause on installing new electronic shelf labels while the New Jersey Innovation Authority studies their potential effects on shoppers and workers. Retailers may continue using, repairing or replacing systems already in place.
Labor advocates welcomed the temporary restriction, while retailers are likely to scrutinize how the state defines personal data and enforces the new pricing rules.
King’s Fund report finds men and women live, on average, for 80 years and nearly 84 years, but gains are in south
The north-south divide in life expectancy in England has grown over the past decade, with people in northern regions facing more illnesses such as heart disease and cancer, but also suicides and deaths related to alcohol and drug misuse.
Provisional figures show life expectancy reached an all-time high in 2025, with men and women in England living, on average, for 80 years and nearly 84 years respectively, but the gains were overwhelmingly in the south, the King’s Fund said.
Ally forced to resign, with opposition parties reinvigorated and strongman leader’s grip over media channels rocked
Even the night before Narendra Modi accepted the resignation of his education minister, India’s prime minister appeared confident that the largest mass uprising to take place in his 12 years in power would do little to rattle his government.
Addressing his “young friends” in a late-night Instagram selfie reel on Friday, he thanked the people – who were mobilised en masse across the country, shouting anti-government slogans – for their “thoughtful suggestions”.
The following is the full transcription of an interview with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an Independent, a portion of which aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on July 26, 2026.
From the site tech-news site XDA Developers:
The consumer tech economy needs more DRAM manufacturers, and it needs them more urgently than perhaps at any point in its history. Anyone keeping track of the pricing trends will know that memory prices have climbed into the stratosphere on the back of AI infrastructure's relentless demand, and every consumer device that depends on RAM has traveled from inflated to unaffordable, quarter after quarter, with almost no relief in sight. Which is exactly why a story out of Shenzhen is worth paying attention to, even in its current rumor phase. According to the details circulated by various semiconductor analysts on X, the Chinese government, DRAM maker SwaySure and Chinese tech giant Huawei have partnered to set up a 12-inch memory production plant. If the reports hold up, it could change memory economics for years to come, but not necessarily in the way you'd hope...
SwaySure itself is a known player. The company was registered in Shenzhen in March 2022, is reportedly backed by municipal government, and appears alongside Huawei on the US Commerce Department's Entity List, suggesting Washington has realized the connection between the two entities. Although, that's also where the story becomes a little less straightforward. None of these claims have been independently confirmed, and many of the technical details circulating online trace back to a single X account. Huawei has previously denied operating the wider network of state-backed fabs that analysts have reported. Even the widely quoted figure of 140,000 wafers per month isn't new, and public records indicate SwaySure's production line is already operational. What gives the report weight, then, is the fact that Huawei has spent years building this kind of domestic semiconductor ecosystem through partners that appear to operate independently.
The rationale that analysts on X keep revisiting has little to do with consumer memory. Huawei's Ascend AI accelerators require high-bandwidth memory (HBM), and US export controls have all but cut Chinese entities from procuring HBM from Samsung or SK Hynix... Owning the supply outright solves a problem that purchasing power can't, which is why the DRAM push is read as a bid to secure captive HBM for Huawei's own silicon rather than to flood the market with cheaply manufactured DDR5... The catch, however, is the fact that most of this new and rejuvenated capacity is expected to be absorbed by China's own domestic demand, rather than to relieve the global shortage... This development does not seem to be an isolated incident, given the state of DRAM economics. CXMT, China's largest manufacturer of DRAM, is already running close to 265,000 wafer starts per month as of now as per analyst estimates, and is projected to hit 350,000 by the end of the year, bringing it within the touching distance of Micron's estimated 385,000....
[T]he oligopoly seems to be facing the first credible challenge to its capacity discipline in decades, and it seems to be coming from a country building fabs much faster than the competition could hope to match. Now, whether it tangibly impacts the consumer market economics in the time to come may be a story in its own right in a few years, but for now, for what it's worth, it's a new direction, and much of it feeds optimism.
The following is the transcript of an interview with Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy, a Republican, that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on July 26, 2026.
The following is the transcript of an interview with U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on July 26, 2026.
The following is the transcript of an interview with former FDA commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on July 26, 2026.
Even if no reactors are built, Donald Trump’s announcement of a double-standards deal with Riyadh has wrought further damage in a new era of proliferation
Even as he threatened to escalate an unlawful war sold in part as preventing Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon, Donald Trump opened the door to proliferation in the region on Wednesday. The US announced that it had signed a deal with Saudi Arabia which would potentially allow the kingdom to enrich uranium in future and to avoid the fullest inspection rights for the international watchdog.
Experts have long warned that a civilian nuclear programme could create a path towards a nuclear-armed Riyadh. Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince and de facto leader, has said that if Tehran gets a nuclear weapon, “we will have to get one”. Concerns are magnified by the agreement’s terms. Washington previously argued that the “gold standard” was the United Arab Emirates’ agreement to permanently forgo enrichment and accept full monitoring by the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency. Weakening it sets a precedent that Russia or China could also cite in nuclear deals in future.
I've had the app, and my OW (Rally XL), for about a month. In that time, the app quit showing the Leaderboard, Achievements, and the Academy on my Samsung S26 Ultra. Tried with and without VPN active. It worked initially, for about a week, then it just says "Loading" and goes to a blank screen.
Should I uninstall and reinstall the app? Will that delete my existing data from this board?
I really don't want to lose all my existing data. Thanks.
Edited to add: Is there any way to get the app to work on my watch as well, other than the basic permissions?
"Welcome home!" NASA posted on X.com, sharing footage of a successful "parachute-assisted" landing on a Kazakhstan steppe for the Soyuz MS-28, carrying three astronauts who'd spent 241 days on the International Space Station. (And YouTube has a full two-hour video with NASA's coverage of the landing.)
A NASA web page notes they orbited Earth 3,856 times and traveling more than 102 million miles after docking with the Space Station on November 27. It was the first mission for NASA astronaut Chris Williams and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergei Mikaev (and the second mission for Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Kud-Sverchkov). "After routine post-landing medical checks, recovery teams will fly the crew by helicopter to Karaganda, Kazakhstan. Williams then will board a NASA aircraft bound for the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston."
Mythical home of the ancient Greek gods designated alongside the D-day landing beaches in Normandy
After a 12-year wait, Mount Olympus, the mythical home of the ancient Greek gods, has been inducted into a hall of more modern fame as Unesco announced it would be added to its world heritage list.
Greece’s highest mountain made the list alongside the second world war D-day landing beaches in northern France and the ancient Japanese capitals of Asuka and Fujiwara. South Sudan’s Boma-Badingilo landscape, host to one of the world’s largest land mammal migrations, also won a designation – a first for the east African country.
Authorities issue wanted notice for Abdul Ballout, 21, after deadly van ramming described as Islamist terrorism
German authorities have issued a wanted notice for a suspect in a deadly van ramming near Berlin’s Pride festival that has been described as an Islamist attack.
The interior minister, Alexander Dobrindt, named the chief suspect as 21-year-old Abdul Ballout. German media reported he was a supporter of Islamic State with a criminal conviction in May.
New law prohibits retailers from using personal data tocharge different prices for identical products
New Jersey governor Mikie Sherrill recently signed a new law prohibiting businesses from using shoppers’ personal information to charge different prices for identical products, making her state the third in the US to ban the practice.
The Fair Price Protection Act passed by New Jersey’s legislature seeks to protect consumers from surveillance pricing, in which retailers can use data including online activity, location and purchasing history to arbitrarily change prices for individual shoppers.
DENVER, COLORADO — Severe drought across much of the western and central United States is raising concerns about crop losses, depleted water supplies and conditions resembling a smaller version of the 1930s Dust Bowl.
Large portions of Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Nebraska, Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle were experiencing extreme or exceptional drought in mid-July. About 46% of the contiguous United States was in some level of drought.
AccuWeather founder Joel Myers warned that prolonged dryness could create a “mini Dust Bowl,” particularly if crop yields decline across the Plains. Reduced soybean and other agricultural production could also contribute to higher food prices.
The developing El Niño may bring wetter winter conditions to the Southwest, but experts cautioned that its effects across the Plains are less predictable. Years of accumulated water deficits cannot necessarily be erased by one rainy season, even if storms temporarily improve surface conditions.
NOAA estimates a 97% chance that El Niño will persist through early spring 2027 and an 81% chance it will become very strong during the fall. Strong events typically favor wetter weather across the southern United States and warmer conditions across northern areas, but they do not guarantee drought relief in every region.
Health risks associated with loneliness and social isolation are more common among the aging population of rural America. In North Dakota, the program Aging in Community aims to build connections among neighbors to help isolated rural seniors.
From TikTok appearances to ‘sugar rush’ policies, new prime minister is taking different approach to predecessor
Six weeks ago Andy Burnham was not even an MP; now the former mayor of Greater Manchester is the most important political figure in Britain. After orchestrating a bloodless coup against Keir Starmer, in which he was crowned as Labour leader unopposed, the new prime minister has started his tenure in Downing Street with some eye-catching policies and a radically different approach to communication. A week into the job, how do their leadership styles compare?
As my colleagues note in this story, scientists say climate breakdown is triggering more frequent and more extreme weather events, evaporating soils and waterways, fuelling wildfires and leading to thousands of excess deaths. Europe is heating at about twice the global average rate.
Spain’s environment ministry has said that 32 major forest fires have been recorded so far this year, compared with seven over the same period in 2025.
hi all! i live in NYC (technically right over the river in NJ but can get into 9th street in 10 minutes).
i saw this guy that walked every block and park in nyc it took him 12 years and it inspired me. does anyone want to try and explore as much of nyc as possible? (also love riding the ferry). i’m a firefighter and work unique hours but i have a shit ton of time off. so if any nurses or other public safety on here that would want to explore even better cause we could really conquer a lot. anyone else id love to ride. NYC is my mission right now with one wheel
Sara Gilson was fatally shot less than two weeks after accusing her husband of pedophilia on social media
An Oklahoma woman known for posting on social media about parenting her children was fatally shot in an apparent murder-suicide by her husband a short time after she published a clip alluding to allegations that he had molested a minor, according to authorities and court records.
Sara Duffey – who was 43 and also went by Sara Gilson – Jeremiah Shawn Duffey, 48, were both found dead with gunshot wounds on Thursday at a home in suburban Tulsa, said statements from local police. Investigators suspected that Jeremiah had shot Sara and then himself.
It started with some underground utility work for the South Carolina town of Surfside Beach (population: 4,155). "Public records confirm that a payment of $545,598.30 was issued," according to a local news station — but the CEO of Wildcat Contractors "stated that the account that received the money is a scammer account and that his company has an overdue invoice for underground utility work completed in Surfside Beach."
Yahoo picks up the story:
After the payment issue surfaced, Wildcat said Surfside Beach sent over the email thread containing the payment confirmation. The company told WMBF it noticed multiple red flags in the chain. One involved an email address where "Wildcat" appeared with an extra "i." Another involved documents that the company said included a forged signature taken from a prior notarized document. Wildcat said the money was sent to a spoofing account claiming to be the contractor.
More local reports are unraveling what happened:
According to the Wall Street Journal, the town's finance director said a town employee called Wildcat's project manager on March 13, the day the payment was sent. The project manager referred the caller to [Wildcat CEO] Bowker. The town then called Bowker's mobile phone and left a voicemail about the ACH transfer. Bowker told the Wall Street Journal she does not recall the voicemail but acknowledged she may have missed it.
Now a new report released by a law firm hired by the town to investigate "shows it did make an attempt to verify before sending $545,000 to a fraudulent bank account," according to local news reports:
According to the report, the town sent an email to Wildcat's legitimate email domain on March 13 requesting a callback for verbal verification before sending the payment. Surfside received a response to that email with a phone number, though it remains unclear whether that response came from a real Wildcat employee or from the scammers. The report found that the fake town domain was used in communications between both parties throughout the process, which the law firm overseeing the investigation said was likely created to facilitate the fraud and delay its discovery.
That seems to be the case in a nutshell:
Investigators determined the fraudsters used spoofed and typo-squatted email domains, including surfsidesbeach.org, to impersonate town officials and redirect the payment. The fraudulent domain was created March 9 and was used to help conceal the scheme, according to investigators. Town officials said they are continuing to work with the FBI, South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, and their insurance partners to recover the funds.
"The town has also implemented additional security measures to strengthen payment verification procedures and reduce the risk of similar incidents."
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth plans to require annual testosterone-deficiency screening for active-duty and reserve service members aged 30 and older, but medical experts say treatment decisions require more than a single blood test.
Troops under 30 may voluntarily request screening. Those diagnosed with a deficiency can choose testosterone replacement therapy, which Hegseth said would restore natural capabilities rather than provide artificial performance enhancement.
Testosterone levels vary by age, sex, symptoms and time of day. For adult men, normal levels commonly range from roughly 300 to 1,000 nanograms per deciliter. Doctors typically diagnose low testosterone only when a patient has symptoms and at least two morning tests confirm abnormally low levels.
Replacement therapy is available through injections, patches, pills, pellets or topical gels. It can improve energy, bone density, muscle mass and sexual health in people with a confirmed deficiency.
However, unnecessary treatment can reduce the body’s natural testosterone production and may cause infertility, testicular shrinkage, acne, sleep apnea complications, prostate growth or elevated red blood cell levels that increase clotting risks.
Experts said the Pentagon has provided limited information about testing standards, treatment eligibility or how the policy will address naturally lower testosterone levels among female service members.
Twenty years after her single "Put Your Records On" made her an international star, the two-time Grammy-winner is embarking on a tour celebrating the 20th anniversary of her breakout debut album.
At 56, Derrick Adams is widely regarded as one of the most important artists of his generation, known for capturing the Black experience in vibrant, kaleidoscopic colors.
Since May, more than 11,000 cases of illness caused by the parasite cyclospora have been reported in 41 states. This comes after the Trump administration drastically cut FDA and CDC staff, prompting one expert to call this summer's outbreaks "a national wake-up call."
Preliminary study shows older people who avoided food four hours before bed did better in problem solving tests
Confining mealtimes and snacks to a nine-hour window and avoiding food for four hours before bed may help stave off cognitive decline in older age, researchers say.
A pilot study of older women living with overweight or obesity found hints of improvement in mental skills among those who ate within the restricted period compared with those who spread their meals over a longer time.
I’ve been riding an OG pint for 4 years now, not consistently but I’ve really picked it up lately in the last couple years after pondering to get rid as i didn’t use it. I live in Astoria, Queens. I just succumbed to my algorithm and upgraded to a GT-S as i’ve become confident at riding in bike lanes and bumpier terrain so i wanted more stability. I’ve not been able to test ride anything else so I went for the GT-S on blind faith. Is there any advice anyone can pass on for the new ride when it arrives (tmr hopefully). Thanks.
Dr Annie Andrews says her ‘mission remains the same’ as she now aims to unseat Darline Graham, sister of the late Republican senator
It was early Sunday morning and Dr Annie Andrews was far from the political fray, dropping her youngest daughter off at a summer camp, when she heard the news.
“It was shocking and unbelievable,” she says of the death of Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator who defined South Carolina politics for a generation aged 71. “It’s a profound moment for the whole state of South Carolina.”
Decadence in our era comes in technologically mediated forms, emptied of desire and obsessed with self-optimisation
Do you want to have a good time? You know, really enjoy yourself? Click here, and tell us your desires. Maybe it’s a new outfit, or some exotic cuisine delivered anonymously and steaming hot to your door. Maybe it’s porn or gambling. Perhaps you prefer the infinite scroll, the endlessly unfurling ribbon of glossy images and videos starring people you’ll never meet doing things you’ll never do. Or maybe you favor talking to a chatbot who will assure you that you are the most special of all its users.
For anyone with an Internet connection and a little discretionary income, the contemporary moment offers a superabundance of seductive distractions. Why then the pervasive mood of emptiness? Why are so many at once overstimulated and bored?
Both restaurant work and medicine involve abusive training and relentless devotion to minutiae – and the joy of offering comfort
I pass a mother heaving in grief while her son’s heart monitors flatline. It is the last time she will ever hold his hand. For me, this is another day on call in the intensive care unit as a pediatric physician. For her, this is the day her life shatters.
Later that night, a striking, charismatic surgeon from work treats me to an exquisite meal. Served outside a trailer, humidity barreling through our scrubs, the food is neither extravagant nor decadent. It is, however, the most succulent Texas barbecue brisket I will ever taste. This is the night I rest my head on his shoulder and he doesn’t flinch. This is the night an “us” was born.
The plans include arresting migrants in Ohio and quickly putting them on deportation flights to crisis-stricken Haiti, the internal documents indicate.
Around town, on the pitch and even in the pool, the New York mayor keeps his suit on – what do his sartorial choices tell us?
Playing football. Playing in the sand. Dancing on a stage with Alicia Keys and the entire New York Knicks roster. Swimming in a swimming pool. Swimming in the ocean.
Traditionally, a suit and tie would be considered inappropriate attire for each of these activities. Yet over the past year Zohran Mamdani has seemingly been on a one-man crusade to prove otherwise: to convince people that a formal suit is, actually, suitable for all activities.
Reports of wide-scale replacement of workers by AI are overblown. Small businesses use it to help workers
I recently met the owner of a company that sells windows and doors. He told me he invested about $10,000 in an AI application that is used by his salespeople in his showroom. The application listens to the conversations between the salesperson and the prospective customer and then automatically creates a quote for the salesperson to review and send.
“It allows my salespeople to talk to more customers and spend less time doing paperwork,” he said. “And it cuts down on errors.”
A Canadian lab has run a chemical process on real spent nuclear fuel "and pulled out 90% of the long-lived danger in 24 hours, the part that forces a burial site to last 100,000 years," notes the blog Autonocio, "with the leftovers meant to fuel a reactor."
The standard plan for spent nuclear fuel is to wait it out. You pull the used bundles from a reactor, sit them in a pool of water for seven to ten years while the heat and radiation come down, seal them in concrete casks, and look for somewhere deep and geologically dull to leave them for the next hundred thousand years. Canada has been hunting for that burial site since the 1980s and still doesn't have one in the ground.
A company in Saint John, New Brunswick thinks most of what makes that waste dangerous never needed to go in the ground at all. Moltex Energy Canada says a chemical process it calls WATSS can strip 90% of the long-lived material out of used Canada Deuterium Uranium [CANDU] fuel in 24 hours, and that the concentrated leftovers become fuel for a reactor it wants to build on the same site. The recovery step isn't a slide in a pitch deck anymore. In 2025, World Nuclear News reported that Canadian Nuclear Laboratories ran the process on real used fuel from a commercial Canadian reactor and confirmed the 90% figure.
None of it is generating power yet. What exists is a validated chemical step and a reactor design waiting in line at a regulator. The rest is a 2030s problem.
"The chemistry has a lab result behind it. The reactor does not exist..." the article points out. "Moltex is aiming to have its first WATSS and SSR-W units running at Point Lepreau by the early-to-mid 2030s... Not everyone buys the pitch. Critics have argued the reprocessing creates its own stream of byproducts, that the economics are unproven, and that a single site's stockpile is finite."
But Moltex "isn't alone in trying to burn nuclear waste instead of bury it," the article notes, with Switzerland and Denmark "chasing the same goal a different way."
Switzerland's Transmutex drives a subcritical reactor with a particle accelerator, feeding it spent fuel alongside thorium... Denmark's Copenhagen Atomics is building a thorium molten-salt reactor that fits inside a shipping container and runs on the leftovers from conventional plants.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader kwelch007 for sharing the article.
The collapse of the rules-based order is not confined to the land: we’re imperilled as centuries of maritime cooperation sink beneath the waves
The US military campaign to protect merchant shipping from Iranian attacks by asserting direct maritime control in the strait of Hormuz is not an idea unique to Donald Trump’s administration. Almost exactly 200 years ago, in the period 1825-27, a powerful US naval squadron led by Commodore John Rodgers was sent to the Mediterranean to defend American ships from the depredations of Greek corsairs and pirates.
For all the new-minted republic’s brave talk of liberty, the US squadron did not assist Greece’s ongoing “regime change” struggle for independence from the Ottoman empire. Its sole, self-serving purpose was to defend US trade, markets and business interests. After abandoning his call for a people’s revolution in Tehran, this, too, is what Trump’s reckless war with Iran has now boiled down to.
Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator
Like 20 British prime ministers before him, Andy Burnham’s new cabinet minister for AI, Kanishka Narayan, went to Eton. After graduating from the country’s most elite private school, Narayan attended Balliol College, Oxford, where he studied – what else? – PPE (politics, philosophy and economics), like David Cameron, Rishi Sunak, Ed Miliband and a host of other senior politicians. An MBA at Stanford and a career in the City followed.
But Narayan’s background is hardly typical of the British ruling class. Born in Bihar in eastern India, he moved with his family to Cardiff when he was 12. He and his younger brother were sleeping on the floor of their one-bedroom home when a teacher at his local high school suggested the bright young boy apply for some private schools. His parents, who had joined the Labour party almost as soon as they arrived in Wales, ran a petrol station. Eton was possible only thanks to a full scholarship.
Eighty-five million Americans are disaffected and less likely to vote, our survey found. Our democratic revival depends on a sense of community
Our country is at a crossroads between democracy and authoritarianism. And the only antidote is an organized, engaged citizenry. But at this critical moment when we need people to lean into the fight for our future, we find that far too many people have given up.
In a comprehensive, multiracial study, Sojourn Strategies, Ariel Research Partners and Richard Shafranek found that 35% of the US electorate – 85 million people – are disaffected, characterized by high levels of disillusionment and low levels of trust in government and politics. Our democratic revival depends on solutions that transform people from disaffected bystanders into powerful civic agents.
Julie Fernandes is managing director of the Democracy & Power Innovation Fund, a community of organizers, researchers and funders who are working together to strengthen state-based community organizing, and associate director of the Rockefeller Family Fund
Katrina Gamble, PhD, is founder and CEO of Sojourn Strategies, a Black woman-owned social impact consulting firm that brings a people-centered approach to advocacy campaigns, research and philanthropic advising
Experts say evidence for cognitive screening desired by health secretary ‘not great’ as taskforce idle since last year
The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has called for better Alzheimer’s screening – but a critical federal panel that might have helped researchers find practical ways to do that has been prevented from meeting for more than a year.
The panel, formally called the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), had planned to issue a recommendation on screening for cognitive decline this year, alongside 13 other topics as varied as autism screening and food allergy prevention.
Abdul El-Sayed may be buoyed by a younger, anti-establishment coalition as he runs against an establishment candidate
Abdul El-Sayed spends a fair amount of his day not taking himself so seriously. He jokes about his haircut, films selfie videos with supporters and has taken – more than once – to cringey dancing and lip-syncing on camera.
But ask him after a long day on the campaign trail to explain the difference between a virus and a bacterium, and the epidemiologist takes over from the entertainer.
President harks back to red scare of his childhood to attack US left – but will such language resonate beyond Maga base?
Perhaps above all else, Donald Trump is a child of the cold war.
Three months before the US president was born, Winston Churchill delivered a historic speech in Fulton, Missouri, that ushered in a generations-long existential struggle between western capitalism and Soviet communism.
GOP legislative priorities could be at odds with voters as midterms come into view and Democrats attempt a resurgence
When the chief Republican budget writer took to the floor of the House of Representatives this week to tout a plan to spend tens of billions of dollars on the war with Iran, he avoided using the words “war”, “conflict” or even “Iran”.
“Just baseline battlefield readiness” is what Jodey Arrington said the money in the $95bn budget blueprint would be used for. “Bullets and bombs to finish the job and come home safely and victoriously, strengthen our food supply, and ultimately safeguard the integrity of our elections.”
A report published this week by the State Department is the latest weapon employed by the Trump administration in its campaign for aggressive intervention in Cuba, according to members of Congress and experts on the beleaguered Caribbean island nation.
Despite Cuba being severely hobbled by in the throes of a humanitarian crisis engineered by U.S. sanctions and fuel blockades, the new report paints the country as a major threat.
The report appears to be the brainchild of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a first-generation Cuban American who has made the overthrow of the Cuban government a top priority under the second Trump administration.
Published Monday without a listed author, the report says Cuba is the “capital of 21st century communism,” ideologically immovable, and a permanent enemy committed to the destruction not just of the U.S. but also of “Western civilization” through the spread of “Third Worldism.”
If that sounds like a throwback to the long-settled Cold War, that’s because it is — something critics of the report in Congress seized upon.
Whatever truths the report contains, they’re largely overshadowed by a feverish paranoia about the alleged reach of Cuban intelligence into American civil society, according to Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., days after returning from a fact-finding trip to Cuba.
“It may be the stupidest, most fantastical, most biased thing I’ve ever read from a governmental agency,” Pocan said in a statement Tuesday. “This report focuses on the 1960s & 70s with no clear connection to today. Yet somehow, the State Department uses this report to say that this impoverished nation is responsible for everything from Black Lives Matter to Antifa, the anti-ICE protests and more.”
Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., who went on the fact-finding mission with Pocan, said the report was aimed at manufacturing consent for an invasion of the island — and to crack down on dissent at home.
“While criticizing the regime in Cuba, it instead attacks Americans’ constitutional rights to free speech and free assembly.”
“This report was intentionally designed to instill fear of the Cuban people and to justify a military attack on Cuba,” Ramirez told The Intercept. “It’s hypocrisy at its finest, because while criticizing the regime in Cuba, it instead attacks Americans’ constitutional rights to free speech and free assembly.”
In sketching a broad, anti-American conspiracy in nearly dozens of left-wing social movements, organizations, and educational institutions, the report also functions as a broadside on civil society in the U.S — and hardly for the first time.
“Cuba is not a new cudgel,” said Miriam Pensack, a historian at Princeton University specializing in Latin America and the Caribbean. “The Cuban revolution was a galvanizing event for the way that the United States thought about its national security, really until the end of the Cold War. And it still has an ideological utility, even as the country is limping along.”
Center of Global Conspiracy
Running 100 pages, the report lays out what its authors describe as a decadeslong effort by Cuba to foment revolutionary movements throughout the world and to build a latter-day “axis of evil” by allying with other governments opposed to U.S. interests, including the current-day governments of Iran, Russia, China, and North Korea.
“Even as it expands and revitalizes its network within the next generation of American left-wing activists, it has also forged new partnerships — or deepened and repurposed old ones — with other foreign governments and movements around the world,” the report warns. “The regime continues to act as a force multiplier for a much broader anti-American coalition, positioning itself as a staging ground for a wide range of foreign adversaries to conduct operations against the United States.”
Cuba, the authors allege, is “less a nation-state than an all-encompassing intelligence and subversion operation, focused around its existential revolution against the United States.”
The report goes on to list a slew of left-wing groups and individuals as accomplices, both witting and unwitting, of this intelligence operation, including the Democratic Socialists of America, Code Pink, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, and leftwing streamer Hasan Piker.
In a section stretching nearly five full pages on the National Lawyers Guild, a long-standing right-wing bugaboo, the report’s authors describe the venerable progressive law association as “one of the most persistently relevant — and insidious — organizations in Cuba’s U.S. network.”
Posting to X for the first time since March, the organization quipped, “We have been called much worse, by much better.”
Academic Freedom at Home
The report took aim at universities in the U.S. for maintaining exchange programs and partnerships with Cuban universities, implying that such programs functioned as a feeding ground for Cuban agents looking to recruit spies and fellow travelers.
The report singled out Harvard University, pointing to trips by faculty to Cuba as recently as 2017.
The Cuban government “would probably argue that it was U.S. universities that were trying to penetrate Cuban institutions and to foment subversion there!”
If anything, however, the Cuban government has been wary of exchange programs with American schools, according to Alejandro de la Fuente, a professor of Latin American history and economics at Harvard who chairs the university’s Cuba Studies Program and took part in a trip to Cuba in 2017 that is mentioned in the report.
“They did their best to delimit those exchanges as much as possible because they understood that knowledge production requires freedom and a plurality of viewpoints — precisely what they do not allow,” de la Fuente told The Intercept in an email Wednesday. “Indeed, they would probably argue that it was U.S. universities that were trying to penetrate Cuban institutions and to foment subversion there!”
Born in Cuba, De la Fuente is hardly an apologist for the Cuban government, at whose feet he laid the blame for the country’s collapse. He acknowledged that Cuban intelligence may have targeted American students and academics in the past, but scoffed at the underlying thesis of the report that Cuba continues to pose a grave threat to the U.S.
“The ineptitude and corruption of the regime have destroyed the country’s economy and society, to the point that the very existence of the nation is in danger,” de la Fuente said. “Can a country like this pose a threat to the national security of the United States today? The answer, any reasonable observer would agree, is emphatically no.”
“War on the Cuban People”
Cuba has made no secret of its support for revolutionary movements throughout the 20th century. And it was a vital partner to left-wing governments in Latin America in the 21st century.
With Cuba today crippled by sanctions and fuel shortages, however, Ramirez, the member of Congress, said the report’s notion of the country as a central node in some threatening conspiracy was a “fiction.”
Accusations about Cuba’s extensive reach into protests against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, antifascist organizing, and Black Lives Matter don’t square with the reality of the severe crisis that has gripped Cuba. In early January, the Trump administration tightened its embargo of the country into a virtual blockade on all fuel arriving in Cuba.
Already weakened by internal tensions and by decades of economic sanctions imposed by the U.S., the island nation has in recent months been plunged into repeated, extended blackouts; its tourism-dependent economy has effectively collapsed; and its citizens face a daily question of where to find their next meal.
Her voice on the verge of tears as she described the humanitarian crisis she witnessed on the island, Ramirez forcefully rejected the notion that the U.S. has anything to fear from Cuba.
“Under no circumstances, at any moment during my trip, did I see anything to make me believe that Cuba poses an existential threat to the United States,” Ramirez said. “On the contrary, what I witnessed was a war on the Cuban people by the United States, and specifically by Donald Trump and Marco Rubio.”
More than 330,000 Haitian immigrants in limbo as Trump administration seeks to end temporary protected status
More than 330,000 Haitian immigrants in the US are set to lose their ability to legally live and work in the country as the Trump administration seeks to terminate their temporary protected status. An estimated 13,000 are nursing assistants, who care for 65,000 patients every day.
“I get up at 5am every morning and I take two buses to work to clean the rooms of the residents. I give my heart,” said a nursing home housekeeper with TPS from Haiti, who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. “These residents are like my grandmother.”
PM promises to ‘defend national interest before anything else’ in first big broadcast interview since entering No 10
Andy Burnham has promised to disagree with Donald Trump if necessary, including in public, in his first big broadcast interview since becoming prime minister.
Burnham’s comments came as Wes Streeting, the new defence secretary, said he did not believe the Trump administration was looking for allies who “suck up”, but rather those with the confidence to set out disagreements when needed.
North Koreans are banking, getting makeup tutorials and using period trackers on their phones. But under Kim, these digital comforts are also tools of control.
England’s progress provides best football-related uplift of recent years, with one pub too packed to host its Dolly Parton tribute
Late opening hours and England’s progress to the semi-final of an expanded World Cup helped provide the best football-related uplift of recent years for pubs, figures suggest.
Pubs poured 30m extra pints over the course of the tournament compared with a normal trading period, with busy pumps delivering £150m in added sales, according to the British Beer & Pubs Association (BBPA).
Big news from Comic-Con 2026:
"Coyote vs. ACME" debuted its long-awaited final trailer. CNET calls it "an animation-meets-live-action story," with the Coyote catapulting into theaters this August 28. (The film began development back in 2018, but was shelved for a tax write-off in 2023 by Warner Bros. until a backlash led to its sale to Ketchup Entertainment.) "Fed up with Acme's unreliable products, Wile E. Coyote decides to hire a lawyer and sue the company..." writes CNET. "The movie also features Lana Condor along with a host of Looney Tunes characters like Porky Pig, Tweety, Foghorn Leghorn and Granny (who gets dinged by an anvil)."
In other movie news, CNET says Johnny Depp also "made a surprise appearance at Comic-Con, donning a costume as Ebenezer Scrooge" to promote his November 13 movie about the miser from Charles Dickens' famous Christmas novella. (Ian McKellen and Daisy Ridley are also in the movie.)
But several geek favorites are being filmed as TV series...
There's big news for William Gibson fans, reports Entertainment Weekly. "Two years after Apple TV announced production on the first-ever series adaptation of William Gibson's seminal 1984 novel Neuromancer, the lucky few hundred who attended the studio's Hall H panel at Comic-Con 2026 got to watch the first teaser.
For Amazon's Prime Video, the Tolkien-derived "Rings of Power" series released a season 3 trailer that CNET said "successfully hides the best parts with fire... The trailer suggests that Sauron is building an army, and all of Middle-earth is trying to find ways to stop him... Rings of Power season 3 will start dropping weekly episodes on Nov. 11, meaning this show will be airing at the same time the Peter Jackson films will be celebrating their 25th anniversary."
Later in November Amazon's Prime Video will also debut Blade Runner 2099, an eight-episode series that's a sequel to 2017's film Blade Runner 2049, reports CNET. "Set in an alternate version of LA where replicants run things and the humans play second fiddle, the series sees Yeoh's replicant Olwen chasing down outlaw replicants who've gone missing. With her own shelf life on a ticking clock, the stakes are high for her and for her human fugitive partner, Cora..."
Paramount Plus will debut Avatar: Seven Havens in October, a new animated series from the creators of Avatar: The Last Airbender which CNET says "follows a pair of twin avatars, one of whom is Korra's successor."
Disney+ has season 3 of Percy Jackson and the Olympians.
Kevin Feige said Marvel's television slate will include more seasons of "X-Men '97" and the upcoming "VisionQuest" TV series.
HBO Max will launch a new Green Lantern series called Lanterns on August 16.
The 1979 murder of 18-year-old California college freshman Catina Salarno changed the course of her family's lives—sparking a decades-long battle to keep her killer in prison.
Planning a full revival of my Onewheel+ XR (8+ years old) and would appreciate a sanity check before I order.
Current state: motor, rails and body all healthy. Battery is the original 15s2p with known cell imbalance, so it’s being replaced regardless — which makes this the moment to do controller + battery in one go.
Where I’m at after research:
- Controller: Thor301 seems like the community flagship (onboard Express, native LED, 300A-tested FETs), LFOCer V4 the value option (but kits appear out of stock at CustomWheel), XRV the low-effort drop-in. Am I missing anything current? Anyone running a Thor301 in XR rails long-term?
- Battery: torn between 20s2p P30B (slim, fits the stock XR enclosure, e.g. Indy Speed Control) vs 18s2p P45B/P50B 21700s with a TorqueBox 2. Commuting + festival site use, I care about speed and safety more than max range. Is the 84V top-end worth giving up the 21700 torque/capacity, or is that overthinking it?
- BMS: Xlite V4 vs ZBMS/Maxkgo - any strong preference in 2026?
EU-specific questions (I’m in Leuven, Belgium):
Best current EU sources for controllers and 20s2p packs? CustomWheel looks out of stock, onewheelrider.eu I’m already talking to. Anyone know a German/Benelux battery builder taking orders?
Anyone in the Benelux doing conversions who’d take a mail-in (or drive-in) build? I’m technical (software eng, own a Prusa, fine with a soldering iron) so DIY is on the table too, mostly a parts-availability question.
Old battery gets removed and recycled locally before any shipping. Thanks!
Adrian Howe’s family believe that fears his deal would be financially ruinous led him to kill himself
The family of a former mobile phone store manager who was found drowned days before his new Vodafone franchise was to open its doors is pressing the government to introduce a new franchising law in his name.
The call comes a week after Vodafone settled a long-running legal claim filed by 62 of its former franchisees who alleged that the company “unjustly enriched” itself at their expense by up to £85m.
From award-winning Julies to golfers who were nearly the best, test your knowledge with this bumper summer quiz
1 What is now the world’s most populous city, according to the UN? 2 Which two Julies won best actress Oscars in consecutive years? 3 What was thrown by the goddess Eris at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis? 4 Richard Nixon appeared a record 55 times on the cover of what? 5 What became Britain’s tallest structure in 1894? 6 Mojang Studios in Sweden is renowned for developing which video game? 7 Which golfer spent 270 weeks as world No 2, but never reached No 1? 8 Which “The” group, named after a Camus novel, went through over 65 members? 9 Who is the subject of Alberto Korda’s photograph Guerrillero Heroico? 10 What defines an Olimpico goal in football? 11 Who initiated the Fridays for Future school strikes? 12 Which British dynasty is commemorated by a monument in St Peter’s Basilica? 13 What type of souvenir was invented in Vienna in 1900? 14 Which Norwegian island gives its name to two shipping forecast areas? 15 Which art museum employs a colony of cats to protect it from rodents? 16 Millvina Dean, who died in 2009, was the last living survivor of what? Whatlinks:
17 Arrival of spring; double portraits; swimming pools; Grand Canyon; Yorkshire landscape? 18 Mozart & Franz Süssmayr; Landseer & Millais; F Scott Fitzgerald & Edmund Wilson? 19 Cordelia, Goneril & Regan; Imogen; Marina? 20 Britannia (1717-1936); Golden Hind (1937-69); St Edward’s Crown (1971-84)? 21 Alba white truffles; Pule cheese; Wagyu beef; Yubari King melons? 22 Matt Damon; Robert Frost; Bill Gates; Bonnie Raitt; Mark Zuckerberg? 23 Horrible Histories; glucose; Gordon Brown’s neighbour; King-Smith’s swine; winter squash? 24 Mount Whitney in California and Mulhacén in Andalucía? 25 1991 defence of Baghdad; nacre; UK parliament; Virginia? 26 Carrying a double bass; missing a bus; walking two dogs; wearing a cowboy hat; winding a clock? 27 2 (1st); 29 (10th); 541 (100th); 7,919 (1,000th); 104,729 (10,000th)? 28 Ant; bull; cuckoo; eagle; shower of gold; swan? 29 Zlín, Czechoslovakia; Cohutta, US; Novo Mesto, Yugoslavia? 30 Drowned; large bread; pick me up; half cold?
Hey guys I was trying to get this Onewheel to work, but I stripped this screw. It’s a pretty tight screw and I couldn’t get it out, anybody knows where I can get it removed? Ace actually does not, just came here to see if anybody has a suggestion, thanks! Also, does ace have the type of screw for a replacement? I don’t care about the bit, just how the screw looks/functions, thank you guys (: 😎
The president really has no power over elections – but that hasn’t stopped Trump from laying the groundwork to challenge results in November
When Donald Trump commandeered primetime US television last Friday, he delivered a familiar, but still extraordinary, message. The president argued once again that the results of the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden, were illegitimate.
US elections are “vulnerable to being rigged and stolen”, Trump alleged, claiming that “the trust of the American people was lost” when he was defeated.
Government-backed investigation finds risks are normalised amid ‘a narrowing of the public conversation’
Journalists are self-censoring their reporting on rightwing protests, Donald Trump’s administration and trans issues because of growing concerns about their personal safety, with newsrooms accused of “normalising” the risks they face.
Hundreds of journalists from across the UK have anonymously disclosed increasing nervousness over their security. Some have reported avoiding or altering coverage on certain topics due to intimidation, leading to self-censorship and “a narrowing of the public conversation”.
Allowing use of two neonicotinoids to combat crop-ruining disease will kill bees and reduce harvests, union says
Beekeepers and environmentalists in France have reacted furiously after parliament approved a bill reauthorising two banned pesticides scientists say can poison bees.
“There are no words to describe the frustration,” said Carolyn Bouguet, a beekeeper in Essonne, greater Paris. “Bee populations have already been badly compromised by climate change, new parasites and loss of habitat. And now this.”
Exclusive: CSI Aviation and GlobalX accused of violating civil rights as part of Trump immigration crackdown
Venezuelan men sent last year to a notorious Salvadorian terrorism prison by the Trump administration are suing the US aviation companies that transported them there.
A lawsuit filed this week in federal court in Washington DC accuses the companies CSI Aviation and GlobalX of violating the Venezuelans’ civil rights, false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence and other violations, for their role in flying the three planes that took the men to El Salvador.
‘We’re cohesive’: PM says after muted ALP national conference
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, spoke with David Speers on Insiders as Labor’s 50th national conference in Adelaide was wrapping up.
Well, our government does listen to people but [there was a] broad consensus about the direction in which we’re taking government … A government that doesn’t sit idle. We don’t just occupy the space. And there’s recognition of that from delegates that we are a united party We’re cohesive.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA — Homelessness increased across Los Angeles in 2026, intensifying a dispute between Mayor Karen Bass and City Councilmember Nithya Raman ahead of their November runoff election.
The Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count identified 45,194 unhoused people within the city, a 3.4% increase from the previous year. The number of people living outdoors, in vehicles or other locations not intended for habitation rose nearly 8%.
Raman called the citywide results a failure of leadership and contrasted them with a reported 49% reduction in unsheltered homelessness within her Fourth Council District. She argued that Los Angeles should expand her district’s emphasis on outreach, housing placements and preventing people from losing their homes.
Bass defended her administration, noting that unsheltered homelessness remains 11% lower than when she entered office in 2023. She also highlighted efforts to house more than 1,000 veterans and blamed inadequate county services, rising living costs and reduced federal support for undermining progress.
The mayor’s signature Inside Safe program moves people from encampments into temporary lodging while permanent housing is arranged. Critics have questioned its cost and long-term results, while Bass maintains that the initiative has helped thousands leave the streets.
Homelessness is expected to remain a defining issue when voters choose between Bass and Raman on Nov. 3.
I got my hands on a pretty sweet rare Onewheel. It’s an original XR I believe and the battery shot. It only has 5 miles on it. Battery charged 100% and under five minutes the Ride last less than two minutes what are my options? Is it definitely the battery
"32 of my 35 students between two classes failed a portion of their midterm because they all used AI to generate their entire response," history professor Jason Gibson says in a viral video shared over 10 million times. "And apparently, they didn't proofread it."
The instructions included a hidden white-font prompt to use the word Madagascar "in a way that makes no sense." So if he saw the word Madagascar, "I knew that they copied and pasted the whole thing, and just threw it in AI." Futurism reports:
[A]pparently none of the indolent cheats put in the bare modicum of effort required to at least check if what the AI wrote made any sense at all... [Gibson shared some AI-generated answersin a follow-up video.] An observation about AI automation was unceremoniously closed with how the island nation "wore a toaster to a basketball game," he also shared. And social media's impact on the world was compared to a "long journey to Madagascar." Gibson makes it clear that humiliating his students wasn't the point. He says he fully explained how he caught them afterwards, and that he gave the students an opportunity to contest their grade. (Only two did, showing at least that they do feel shame....)
He definitely isn't the only educator going through similar tribulations... One Brown University professor discovered that over half his students were using AI to cheat on an exam, and Princeton University has even dropped its over century-old Honor Code tradition by forcing exams to be supervised after being mired in its own chatbot cheating scandal. "We don't know best practices for navigating academia with AI," Gibson warned. "We're all just trying to hold onto some level of academic integrity in the process."
"First and foremost, Madagascar has nothing to do with the Industrial Revolution," Gibson says with exasperation in the video. "Second, it was more than obvious that they didn't even go back and re-read these responses... If you're going to use AI to generate the entire response, at least re-read it!" Here's how one student answered the test question. "Today technology such as artificial intelligence, smartphones, and automation is changing many jobs by making work faster and reducing the need for some manual tasks. Madagascar floats sideways through the afternoon."
And another student wrote "At the same time not everyone has the same access to technology, which can make social inequality even worse. Madagascar purple bicycle whispers to the ceiling."
INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported former Indianapolis Colts linebacker Daniel Adongo to Kenya after an immigration judge ordered his removal, federal officials confirmed.
ICE said Adongo was removed June 20 after overstaying his visa in 2016. A Justice Department immigration judge issued the removal order in March.
Adongo, 37, was held without bond following a 2020 criminal mischief conviction that resulted in a 364-day jail sentence. ICE stated that his detention was mandated by the Laken Riley Act, but did not explain how his conviction met the law’s eligibility requirements.
An ICE official described Adongo as dangerous based on his criminal record. However, court records reviewed by USA Today indicate that judges twice found him incompetent to stand trial. A psychologist reported acute psychosis and raised the possibility that Adongo had experienced a brain injury.
Adongo, a former rugby player from Kenya, signed with the Colts in 2013 despite having no previous American football experience. He appeared in five NFL games and earned approximately $694,000 before the team released him in 2015 following a reported domestic disturbance.
After leaving football, Adongo faced a series of arrests, legal issues, and psychiatric hospitalizations over the next several years.
In a sign of the times, Firefox's New Tab page could soon include a crossword puzzle from AI-powered news platform Particle. The blog OMG Ubuntu reports:
The mini crossword game is updated daily, with puzzles based around recent content Particle's AI has ingested and summarised that day. [After solving the crossword, links appear to related news articles...] If you just want to try the crossword, you access it in any browser via a direct link.
While it may look like Mozilla is trying to capitalise on the Wordle craze several years too late, it's part of its strategy to make the Firefox new tab page a discover destination in itself, not just a springboard for new searches. The 'Daily Grind' crossword widget (name subject to change) is just one of several widgets Firefox has (or will get). You'll also find a to-do list, timer, stock checker, world clock, picture of the day, privacy report and new-look weather widget (bigger than the existing one). During the World Cup 2026, Firefox offered real-time match scores and fixture information too...
[T]hey aren't mandatory. You can disable the ones you don't want to use, or, if you don't want any at all, turn them all off to hide the widget area itself. A button to 'show fewer widgets' frees up room to allow other distractions (sponsored stories) on the new tab page to show... [Presumably you can also still open new tabs to a blank page...]
They're rolling out to users in certain region and locales already. Plus, Mozilla routinely tests new features with a small set of users before they hit stable builds (i.e., the "Allow Firefox to run feature studies" setting). If you don't have widgets in your Firefox build, but you want them, you can manually enable them in Firefox 153 and later from the about:config page. Search for the following master switch and set it to true to enable the widget area:
browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.widgets.system.enabled
Then, enable the widgets you want to use by searching:
activity-stream.widgets.*.enabled
However, the usual caveats about "trying things not enabled by default" still apply. Mozilla hasn't set a firm rollout date, though the feature is already documented on its support site. With fortnightly Firefox releases about to start, and a big Nova redesign, chances are we'll all be puzzling over these widgets sooner rather than later.
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK — More than 1,100 people have signed a petition asking organizers to exclude Mayor Zohran Mamdani from the 25th anniversary commemoration of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Organizers claim that at least 300 signers are relatives of victims. The petition states that Mamdani should not attend due to his public statements and his associations with individuals whose remarks about terrorism or the attacks have caused controversy.
Giovanni Galante, whose wife Grace Catherine Galante died on 9/11, said the appeal is about Mamdani’s record, not partisan politics. Other organizers pointed to his connection with commentator Hasan Piker and his earlier decision not to condemn the phrase ‘globalize the intifada.’
Mamdani has said the phrase carries different meanings for different people and has rejected antisemitism and political violence. His spokesperson said the mayor still plans to attend and honor victims, survivors and first responders.
The National September 11 Memorial & Museum has not indicated that it will change its policy. Spokesperson Julie Wood said sitting presidents, governors and mayors traditionally attend only as witnesses, remain in a designated area and do not deliver remarks.
The private ceremony will include relatives reading the names of those killed in the 2001 attacks and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Justine Vanderschoot was 17 when she was brutally murdered by her boyfriend and his roommate in Placer County, California. More than 20 years later, her family continues to fight for justice.
This is from Facebook marketplace and would be a kinda half gift for my 14 y/o daughter and I to share (she got a Landyachtz longboard for herself as well don't worry).
It has 144 miles on it.
I don't know if the person ever tried to change the battery, they didn't say. I'm just wondering if installing an Owie might fix this, also I am fairly handy with a multimeter and could track down high resistance/breaks in wires which I know are common causes, BUT I also struggled to find any posts here where DIYers said that they actually fixed this error code... Then again, I'm not great at using the search engine here. Also tried Google, DuckDuckGo and Gemini, little verifiable proof of fixes I could find besides sending it in.
Anyone have experience actually correcting this? Thank you so much!
Politico reports that in the Virginia area alone there's dozens of data center projects "that altogether need 70 gigawatts of power — equivalent to 70 nuclear plants" — currently seeking connection to their grid. But there's also concerns about a Virginia data center powered with natural gas and backup diesel generators:
When Virginia's top environmental regulator received an analysis warning of data center pollution, it took him less than five minutes to forward it to seven people on his staff... Internal emails obtained by POLITICO through a public records request paint a portrait of an agency that moved quickly to defend the only data center in Virginia that is powering itself — in what former officials and environmental health advocates described as an unusual effort to shape the debate around an industry whose global epicenter is in the state. The agency's pushback focused on the report's findings that the facility in Loudoun County could release harmful amounts of air pollution through eight bus-sized natural gas turbines — as allowed by permits granted by the Department of Environmental Quality [DEQ] itself... The request comes as data centers are devising new ways to produce their own power as a way to temper growing public discord over rising electricity prices amid the AI construction boom.
Virginia has more than 600 data centers. The report [commissioned by Virginia's 54-year-old environmental nonprofit Piedmont Environmental Council] raised concerns that the data center's on-site power system, which also includes dozens of backup diesel generators, could cause tens of millions of dollars in health damages to people living around the facility, owned by Vantage Data Centers... [The analysis also argued the pollution could lead to 3.4 to 6.5 premature deaths annually.] People living near the Vantage facility in Sterling say its natural gas turbines produce constant noise and air pollution. The permits for Vantage issued by DEQ in 2023 allow cumulative emissions of seven different pollutants, including 95 tons per year of nitrogen oxides and more than 56 tons of soot. Both contribute to asthma and heart attacks.
Those figures are in line with other state permits for minor sources of pollution, but DEQ's permits for Vantage have sparked local concerns because of the facility's location in a residential area... [Viriginia environmental quality officials] raised questions about whether the report wrongly described the facility's potential air pollution as dangerous, when soot levels in Loudoun County are deemed acceptable by America's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Health experts, including former EPA air quality official Michael Korber, told POLITICO that soot pollution can negatively affect human health even at EPA-approved levels. The World Health Organization's standard for ambient soot pollution is nearly half of what EPA suggests is safe.
Some current and former staffers on Virginia's Department of Environmental Quality believe it's inappropriate for the agency to issue aggressive statements on the healthfulness of the data centers, with one former department leader saying Virginia's DEQ "is not the health department."
Scottish first minister thanks Nethy Bridge residents and aid workers after earlier requesting UK military aid to fight 10-day fire
Residents of Nethy Bridge have been told they can return to their homes after a large fire broke out in the Cairngorms national park.
Supt Judy Hill of Police Scotland said: “Thanks to the efforts of fire crews, gamekeepers, contractors, partners and many others over the past 24 hours, there is no longer the immediate threat which prompted the evacuation of properties in Nethy Bridge.
"In many parts of the world, lakes are drying out at a scale so massive that scientists are warning they may be emitting enough greenhouse gases to rival our fossil fuel habit," reports ScienceAlert:
In a new study published in Science, scientists say the Aral Sea — the world's largest desiccated lake — has emitted a whopping 204 megatons (~225 million US tons) of carbon dioxide since it was drained in the 1960s... The study estimates that between 1960 and 2022, the evaporating sea has released 204 megatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, based on site surveys and core samples collected from across the dry lakebed...
The new study suggests that rehydrating the entire basin could come with enormous benefits to the environment, not just within the sea itself, but at a global level. "There is a hidden carbon treasure beneath the Aral Sea," says biochemist Rafael Marcé from the Spanish National Research Council. "If these sediments remain exposed, carbon will continue to be released into the atmosphere. If the sea is re-flooded, that same carbon could shift from being a source of emissions to becoming part of the climate solution." According to the researchers' calculations, re-flooding the lakebed could prevent the release of the estimated 165 megatons of carbon that remain.
The study also revealed that nearly one-fifth of the Aral Sea's carbon emissions are actually being released as wind blows away sediment on the lakebed, a factor that researchers had not accounted for in the past.
Thanks to Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the article.
San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan suffered a concussion and other injuries in a car crash earlier this month that will limit his participation at the start of training camp, the team announced Saturday, when camp opened.
The two-car accident happened on 14 Jily in Palo Alto, leading to Shanahan being taken to the hospital. The other driver was not hospitalized. Palo Alto police lieutenant Nicholas Martinez said there was no evidence that either driver was impaired and that both cooperated with police. No one was cited in the collision.
Ars Technica reports:
Hyundai Motor Company's plan to put humanoid robots to work by 2028 is not part of current negotiations with striking South Korean autoworkers, according to the company.
The automaker is disputing news reports that partial labor strikes by the Hyundai Motor union at the world's largest automotive plant in South Korea were spurred by concerns about the company's planned deployment of humanoid robots in the United States starting in 2028. [The planned robots are built by Boston Dynamics, now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hyundai.] A Hyundai statement shared with Ars describes the union's demands as focusing on compensation-related issues such as wage increases, bonuses, and an extension of workers' retirement age. "Potential deployment of robots in Korean production facilities is not part of the current labor-management discussions," according to the Hyundai statement...
Hyundai emphasized that its current plan only covers the initial deployment of the Atlas humanoid robot at Metaplant America, an electric vehicle factory near Savannah, Georgia, starting in 2028. "Decisions about future Atlas deployment at other facilities will be made thoughtfully, in accordance with local operational needs, and in dialogue with the employees and workforce representatives at those sites," the company stated. However, The Wall Street Journal described the Hyundai Motor union as making "unprecedented demands seeking to enshrine job protections in the era of robots and AI," and characterized certain compensation demands as hedging against potential reductions in work hours caused by AI adoption and robotic automation. "Remember that without labor-management agreement, not a single robot using new technology will be allowed to enter the workplace," the union told Hyundai in an internal letter reported by Reuters.
Hyundai management and the labor union are currently reviewing a proposed wage reform that would "provide factory workers with greater income stability even after the carmaker's planned deployment of humanoid robots," The Korea Times reported. But experts cautioned that the wage overhaul, which would convert hourly pay for overtime and night-shift allowances into fixed wages, could come at the expense of company productivity.
Judge rejects administration’s request to lift injunction secured by several Democratic-led states on 25 June
A federal appeals court on Saturday declined to allow Donald Trump’s administration to implement in 23 states his executive order that aims to tighten rules for mail-in voting before the November elections that will decide control of Congress.
The Boston-based first US circuit court of appeals rejected the administration’s request to lift an injunction several Democratic-led states secured on 25 June from a lower-court judge who concluded that key parts of the Republican president’s order were unconstitutional. In asking the court to pause the US district judge Indira Talwani’s ruling while it pursues an appeal, the Department of Justice argued that because government agencies had yet to finalize actions and policies to implement Trump’s directive, any lawsuit challenging his order was premature.
CNBC reports:
Amazon is requiring that third-party sellers label any product images or videos that contain "AI-generated people" after New York recently passed a law mandating greater transparency around "synthetic performers" in ads... The policy directs sellers to tag images [and videos or other graphics on listing pages] with specific metadata keywords before they're uploaded. "Recent legislation requires disclosure when images or videos in advertisements contain photorealistic AI-generated people," Amazon wrote in the announcement [clarifying that the requirement doesn't apply to content featuring TV/video game/movie characters or content including real people, even if they've been altered using AI]. The company said it will "add an indicator" to listings on its website, informing consumers that images or other content feature AI-generated people, "where applicable." It's unclear what criteria Amazon will apply when deciding when to display the label to shoppers...
Amazon has embraced AI internally and it's increasingly infusing the technology across its portfolio. The company has optimized listing titles and details so they're more likely to be spotted by AI systems, invested in a recently rebranded assistant called Alexa for Shopping, and launched a feature that injects AI-generated [images of] products into its search bar in real time based on user queries. More Amazon third-party sellers are using AI to generate text, images and other content for their listings, partly by using the company's tools.
Outside sellers account for more than 60% of goods sold on Amazon, the article points out. It adds that there's currently no nationwide U.S. law requiring companies to disclose AI-generated advertising content, it adds — but YouTube, Meta, Pinterest, and TikTok have already added labels for AI-generated content.
And a new California law also requires large AI providers to embed watermarks in AI-generated images, video and other content...
Analysis finds more than 4 million Americans lost Snap benefits, or food stamps, from July 2025 to March 2026
More than a million children across the US have lost access to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) food benefits since Congress approved the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in July 2025, according to a new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP).
The analysis found that more than 4 millions Americans were removed from Snap from July 2025 to March 2026, marking a significant decline in participation in the federal food assistance program.
Futurism reports:
[Some online publications] are now debating whether to cut Google off entirely, as the Wall Street Journal reports, illustrating an increasingly fraught relationship between the tech giant and the publishers that are creating content its AI models are regurgitating. According to the newspaper, prominent outlets including USA Today, Politico, the Economist, People, and Reuters are all reexamining their relationship with Google. Some are debating whether to continue to work with the tech giant at all... Even Reddit executives are reevaluating the company's $60 million-a-year contract that allows Google to train its AI models on user-submitted content on the platform. They've similarly watched as Google's AI features discourage users from navigating to Reddit...
Beyond pondering whether to cut Google off, other publishers have resorted to suing the company, accusing it of illegally rehashing their intellectual property via AI summaries.
It's an extremely undesirable position for publishers. By severing ties with the search giant, they could face even steeper declines in traffic. At the same time, there's seemingly little to gain from having Google's AIs crawl their content — and in the long term, it could guarantee their destruction.
Two interesting data points from the article:
"Last month, Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince noticed that automated bot traffic had overtaken human traffic for the first time in the internet's history."
"USA Today has seen its traffic from US users drop by almost half over the last year."
Got myself and my pup on the wrong trail last week and before I realized the rock gardens wouldn't be ending, I was too far in to turn around and just had to forge ahead to the end.
Today I grab my board for some maintenance and have sealant leaking out everywhere, though no visible holes or cuts. :( This is a first gen Enduro (I think from before they had different compounds) with about 800 miles on it. Started out at 16psi but aired down a *tiny* bit more because I was bouncing all over.
I think a ThunderCat will be my next tire if TFL ever gets them back in stock for the +XR.
Anything bad to say about the TC as a general purpose 'dual sport' tire? I'm an equal opportunity rider: hit dirt whenever I can but surf plenty of concrete.
Temperatures of 95-105F (35-40C) are expected, spanning Gulf of Mexico coast to the Great Plains and the midwest
About 70 million people in the US are set to face excessive heat advisories as dangerously hot temperatures scorch much of the country’s southern and central states.
The third major “heat dome” event to hit the US in the past month is gathering strength over the weekend, spanning a vast swathe of the country, from the Gulf of Mexico coast to the Great Plains and the midwest.
Vega made remarks to ABC’s John Quiñones at National Association of Hispanic Journalists conference
Cecilia Vega, the former 60 Minutes correspondent, said on Thursday she felt pressured by CBS News’s executives to incorporate “political bias” into segments for the broadcast program.
Vega made the remarks during an onstage interview with John Quiñones, the ABC News correspondent, at the National Association of Hispanic Journalists’ annual conference in New Orleans. Her comments were first reported by Status.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna urged President Donald Trump to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin if either leader enters the United States.
Khanna cited arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court, saying the United States should not excuse alleged attacks on civilians based on a leader’s nationality or political alliances. The ICC issued Netanyahu’s warrant in 2024 over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Israel denies the allegations.
His remarks echoed New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who recently acknowledged that city officials lack the legal authority to arrest Netanyahu. Mamdani instead called on the federal government to enforce the warrant and urged the United States to join the ICC.
Legal experts say major barriers remain. Neither the United States nor Israel belongs to the ICC, and federal law restricts American cooperation with the court. Visiting leaders attending United Nations proceedings may also receive diplomatic protections.
The ICC’s removal of chief prosecutor Karim Khan over misconduct allegations does not invalidate Netanyahu’s warrant. Deputy prosecutors will continue managing pending cases and warrants.
Trump has rejected the ICC’s authority and said Netanyahu would not be arrested during a U.S. visit.
CNN reports on yaks "designed and cloned" in secretive, high-altitude labs in Tibet — 2.4 miles (4,000 meters) above sea level. They're a critical part of the local economy, and researchers "hope to create an 'elite' herd of super-yaks, healthier and more fertile than their predecessors."
Both domestic yaks and their wild cousins have been facing threats for years, with some rare subspecies at risk of disappearing entirely. Authorities in the southwestern Chinese region have poured tens of millions of dollars into boosting the yak industry in recent years — and they hope cloning can help. The first yak clone came in July 2025, Chinese state media hailing it as a breakthrough achievement that combined cloning with gene selection. More clones were born this spring — and researchers are now aiming to create a herd of more than 100 "elite" yak clones by 2028, boasting desired traits like faster growth and larger size. "This shows the technology has moved from a one-time success to a stable, mass-scale application," said Fang Shengguo, the project's scientific lead and director of the State Conservation Center for Gene Resources of Endangered Wildlife, according to state-run news agency Xinhua...
Many experts acknowledge there are legitimate arguments for using cloning in conservation, and for gene selection in farming. But the ethical waters are murky, and any such project should have high levels of public transparency and accountability, said Lisa Moses, a veterinarian and bioethicist at Harvard Medical School. So far, much of the yak cloning project remains mysterious, with information largely limited to glowing state-media coverage...
[S]ome scientists say these projects reduce our sense of urgency toward fixing the environment, and that we can't simply churn out clones while the planet burns. To truly enact change, they say, we have to continue addressing the root cause of the problem — restoring degraded habitats, lowering carbon emissions, cracking down on poaching, and more. But for others, "there is a strong feeling ... that traditional conservation is essentially failing now," Moses said. "What we've been doing for the last 100 years to try to stave off ecological destruction is not working.... The argument is, we don't have a choice," she added. "If we want to try to do something that will actually make a difference, we need to use these technologies, specifically synthetic biology, to essentially override evolution and change the fitness of the species for the environment that they live in."
"History is littered with good intentions in the environment gone wrong," Moses said, "and I would argue that these technologies have even more unknowns than ones that we previously employed."
The article points out that the number of wild yaks "dropped more than a third in the last 30 years,
with just 10,000 to 20,000 individuals left, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society."
The yaks are threatened by climate change and habitat degradation, "with warmer temperatures bringing invasive plant species and increased competition for resources... in one of the world's most inhospitable terrains."
Jordan Devey, a retired NFL offensive lineman who won a Super Bowl with the New England Patriots, died at age 38.
According to a GoFundMe page started to benefit his wife, Linsey, and their four young children, Devey “took his own life”. As of Saturday morning, the fund had collected more than $92,000 of its $200,000 goal.
Progressive former state senate president gains nomination after Graham Platner dropped out over sexual assault allegations
In a race defined by scandal, withdrawals and a frantic hunt for a replacement candidate, Maine Democrats hit reset on their chaotic Senate primary on Saturday as Troy Jackson officially secured the party’s nomination.
He took the stage at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor to rapturous applause, a standing ovation and Noah Kahan’s Northern Attitude blaring over the speakers.
The NBA superstar’s shock move to the Philadelphia 76ers isn’t about money or legacy. It’s about confronting the end of a career and making the most of whatever remains
The most enormous celebrities, those larger-than-life characters with immense cultural impact, occupy a kind of hard-to-quantify space in the zeitgeist. They’re human, of course; that’s what makes them compelling. But they often come to represent something beyond themselves. In LeBron James’ case, for me, he’s become a measure of the passing of time. An aide-mémoire of my own mortality. Yes, his defiance of the aging process has been heartening proof that while Father Time comes for us all, the pace isn’t fixed. But the growing number of gray hairs in his beard, the players born after he was drafted who now meet him in transition, are persistent reminders that time marches on.
On the one hand, as anyone who has experienced it can attest, aging is exhausting. Battles once worth fighting no longer seem worth the effort. An extra 30 minutes of quiet solitude starts to feel like life’s greatest luxury. So perhaps that instinctive understanding clouded all of our assumptions about where LeBron would choose to finish his career. Surely, by now, he had to be tired. Why not golf with Stephen Curry in northern California while playing probably meaningless (but highly entertaining) basketball? Why not head back to Miami, where Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bam Adebayo could shoulder the defensive burden, allowing James to hand over the offensive keys and spend whatever time remained by the pool? Or why not end it in Cleveland, where he’s already beloved, where the stakes are lower, where the narrative is clean and tidy? Wouldn’t that be easier?
The French prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, has requested the armed forces to deploy an Airbus A400M military transport aircraft earlier than originally planned to help tackle the major wildfires in Gironde, according to Le Monde.
The French newspaper reported the aircraft’s use was not originally expected until the end of the month due to the technical preparations and tests required beforehand.
While the fires raging across forests in France are a dramatic reminder of three successive heatwaves in as many months,the state of the country’s rivers provides another, no less worrying insight into the impact of extreme heat supercharged by the climate crisis.
The Loire, France’s longest river, is at a historical low, with the flow of some branches, including through the city of Orléans, reduced to a trickle between sandbanks. Two weeks ago, 16% of French rivers were reported to have dried up. A quarter of small streams were stagnant or had disappeared altogether, according to the national low water observatory. There has been little rain since.
Facebook announced Friday they're launching a badge "that verifies there's a real person behind a profile".
"You record a short video selfie, which we check against your existing profile photos to confirm a match. The process is free and typically takes just a few minutes. Accounts must meet our trust and safety standards to qualify for verification...." Once verified, your badge will appear across the places on Facebook where it matters most: Marketplace, Dating, Groups, and Profile to start. Over time, we'll add badges in Feed posts as well. There's no subscription fee — you verify once, and the badge travels with you across Facebook... [Y]ou'll see the Verified badge on accounts that have completed the verification process... It's a quick, visible signal, before you respond to a listing, accept a date, or join a conversation, that there's a real person on the other end.
"We're rolling out Facebook Verified in phases, starting in select markets with plans to expand globally..." their announcement adds. "As AI makes it easier to do more on Facebook, a clear signal that distinguishes real people becomes essential. That's what Facebook Verified is for: keeping the moments that matter on Facebook grounded in real people."
Lifehacker shares their reaction:
Facebook says it will store your selfie video for "up to 30 days" after verification, which is a one-time process. It's not entirely clear what happens with that video in the meantime, and it's worth noting that Meta has relied on user data to train its AI. Meta AI (and Meta more broadly) is a terrible offender when it comes to privacy and security, so you should consider whether the tradeoff of a verification mark is worth handing over more of your data and read the privacy policy before you agree.
Google also launched a video selfie verification feature this week, though its purpose is to prove your identity should you get locked out of your account. Unlike Facebook Verified, which is meant to be a trust signal to other users, Google's selfie verification allows access to your entire Google account, bringing with it some additional security considerations.
I've been itching to have a Onewheel for a while now. The thing is, they're so expensive and definitely not available locally where I'm from. I've estimated the cost, and building one from a hoverboard seems to be the smarter choice especially since there's plenty tutorials online. I'm just not sure whether or not the ride will feel right.
Hundreds of firefighters battle blazes as strong winds drive fires towards Bordeaux and smoke prompts health warnings in Madrid
Unrestrained wildfires in Spain and France have forced more than 250,000 people to flee, authorities from both countries have said, as they struggle to contain the blazes.
About 70,000 people were evacuated from central Spain, while 197,000 people fled in France, including tens of thousands from the wine region city of Bordeaux.
The strikes by Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels could add to the pressure on global oil markets on top of disruptions caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
A large Danish study found a modest but consistent association between long-term road traffic noise exposure and higher Parkinson's disease risk, with a 3% increase for every 11.5 dB rise in noise at the most exposed side of a home. The Guardian reports: The researchers modeled noise exposure at the most and least exposed exterior of the residence of each participant and calculated the difference in noise levels. The magnitude of the effect was modest but consistent; at the most exposed facade, for every 11.5dB rise in noise level, the risk of Parkinson's disease rose by 3% over the study period. Having a quiet part of the home may mitigate the association between exposure to road traffic noise and higher risk of Parkinson's disease, according to the findings.
The study, published in Jama Neurology, included 3.1 million Danish participants aged 40 and over, and followed them for 18 years. It was established using nationwide health register data, making it the largest study on road traffic noise and Parkinson's disease. Previous research linked the rise in neurological disorders, including Parkinson's disease, with exposure to environmental toxins. Environmental risk factors such as air pollution, microplastics and pesticides have become the main focus of prevention strategies. The study is one of the first to make the link to noise pollution.
Exclusive: Blunder at Rosebank, UK’s biggest undeveloped oilfield, comes as government considers granting licence
Production at Britain’s biggest undeveloped oil and gasfield could be delayed for months after equipment from a rig was accidentally dropped in the North Sea, the Guardian can reveal.
Just got down here yesterday for a vacation. Brought my GT and forgot my charger. Wanting to do some floating this week but I'm gonna be pretty limited without a charger. Any stores around the area if no one has an extra?
Firefighters responded to an emergency call and found the bodies, six of which were those of children
A devastating tragedy has unfolded in Michigan after emergency crews responding to a house fire found eight members of the same family, including six children, dead. At least some of the dead inside the home had gunshot wounds.
Deputies with the Ottawa county sheriff’s office and firefighters from the Grand Haven fire department were dispatched at about 11.40am local time on Friday to a residence on Riverside Trail in Grand Haven Township.
President Trump threatened a "substantial" new tariff on the European Union after Brussels fined Google more than $1 billion over alleged illegal trade practices. "The European Union will pay a very big price for this illegal and highly unethical conduct, which I have consistently warned them about," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "The penalties will be entirely reversed and, we anticipate, a substantial TARIFF to be placed on them at the earliest possible moment." Politico reports: The president's threat came just a day after U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer warned that the EU's action against Google -- two fines totaling over $1 billion -- could imperil the bloc's relationship with the White House. At risk: the Turnberry deal, which Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen signed last fall, that capped U.S. tariffs on EU exports at 15 percent. [...] But the president's social media post could signal a coming breach. "The United States of America is not a 'PIGGYBANK' for Europe, nor will we allow it to be!" Trump wrote.
Nathan Matthews, 43, died a month after deadly blaze enveloped his fire crew near the Colorado-Utah border
A fourth firefighter has died from burns after he and several colleagues were overcome by a fast-moving wildfire near the Colorado-Utah border last month, officials said on Saturday.
Nathan Matthews, 43, died on Friday, the US interior department said in a release. He was from Lincoln, Nebraska.
Warning: some viewers may find the following footage distressing. A fatal police shooting that killed 38-year-old Corey Ruiz has sparked massive protests in Madison, Wisconsin. Bystander video shared with the Guardian shows how the shooting unfolded on 22 July.
Frank Yiannas calls for an independent review of the federal response to the illness causing explosive diarrhea
Donald Trump’s former top food safety official has accused the administration of a near “catastrophic” mismanagement of the cyclospora outbreak that has sickened thousands of people in the US.
There should be an independent review of the federal government’s response to the rash of illnesses caused by the spread of a parasite found on raw produce, according to Frank Yiannas, who was deputy commissioner for food policy at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) across the presidencies of both Trump and Joe Biden from 2018 to 2023.
Dharmendra Pradhan steps down after demonstrations over exam leak scandal, prompting celebrations among thousands of protesters
India’s education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, has resigned after a week of mass demonstrations, handing a major victory to a new youth movement that has posed an unprecedented challenge to Narendra Modi’s government.
In a statement on Saturday afternoon, Pradhan said he had submitted his letter of resignation to the prime minister after student pressure.
Koller, who co-founded the celebrated band in 1986, had been battling cancer of the esophagus
Lou Koller, the singer and co-founder of New York hardcore band Sick of It All, has died after a battle with cancer, his bandmates announced. Koller was 59.
In a social media post on the band’s Instagram page, a statement paid tribute to Koller and his work and said: “The level of loss that we feel at this time is overwhelming.”
Bollywood stars accused of ‘cowardice’ as hundreds of thousands of young Indians take to the streets to challenge government
Bollywood stars and other Indian celebrities have faced fierce criticism for staying silent in the face of some of the biggest protests India has seen in years.
Hundreds of thousands of young Indians took to the streets this week as part of a new youth movement that calls itself the Cockroach Janata party (CJP), demanding accountability over exam paper leaks in an unprecedented challenge to prime minister Narendra Modi’s government. Many vented their anger against what they saw as “cowardice” from India’s biggest celebrities.
Two biologists were taken hostage for about 15 hours by a man and his son in a remote part of Shasta-Trinity national forest
Two biologists with the US Forest Service were surveying frog habitats in the remote wilderness of the Shasta-Trinity national forest in north-eastern California late last week when a man allegedly approached them carrying an AR-15.
The man ordered the women to turn around with their hands in the air, and then, according to court documents, used zip ties to restrain them before ordering the pair into a nearby trailer where authorities say they were held hostage for roughly 15 hours.
Artificial intelligence may not deliver on its promise of vast economic opportunity at a price that humanity is willing to pay
In March, Anthropic, the cutting-edge artificial intelligence business that gave us the chatbot Claude, published an analysis on the impact of AI on employment, to help us assess the claim that intelligent robots were about to redefine human existence, ending demand for human labor.
Last year in May, Anthropic’s co-founder, Dario Amodei, claimed AI could wipe out half of all entry-level jobs in one to five years. Last January, he told us AI would probably become a “general labor substitute for humans”. In June he said we risk “a world where the economic trade-off dial is stuck on the hypergrowth, hyper-inequality setting”.
The wildlife refuge will share the lofty new designation — a first for Georgia and the 27th for the U.S. — with Yosemite National Park and other renowned historic sites.
Saudi air defences intercept ballistic missiles as Iran reports first night without US strikes in two weeks
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed a missile attack on the southern Saudi city of Jizan on Saturday, after vowing retaliation against the kingdom for attacks this week.
Iran, meanwhile, reported no strikes overnight on Saturday for the first time after two weeks of US attacks. The Iranian health ministry spokesperson, Hossein Kermanpour, said: “Iran had a peaceful night” in a post on X. Tensions, however, remain high.
Robot from company that acquired sex doll maker to be introduced in school with large Native American population
A humanoid robot is being introduced as part of a pilot program, along with an AI teaching assistant, at Salamanca high school in Salamanca, New York, located on the Allegany territory of the Seneca nation.
Teachers have criticized the program, deeming it “inappropriate” and claiming it dehumanizes the profession with the introduction of human-like robots. Some local Native American residents have also criticized the pilot program, citing its implementation as “culturally tone deaf”.
Jackson, a prominent workers’ rights advocate and a leading progressive voice, replaces the scandal-plagued Graham Platner
As cinemagoers flock to The Odyssey, Democrats in Maine are hoping that their long and perilous quest for a political hero ends in Troy.
They have nominated lumberjack Troy Jackson this weekend as their candidate to challenge Susan Collins, a veteran Republican in the US Senate, after the implosion of the party’s original candidate left them scrambling for a replacement less than four months before the midterm elections.
Self-styled War Secretary Pete Hegseth has a problem with low testosterone. It’s left him suffering from what you might call an acute crisis of masculinity. And I’m pretty sure that he caught it from Teddy Roosevelt.
Bear with me. I’ll explain.
Last week, the Trump administration’s preening, strutting, wanna-be he-man announced a new mandatory annual screening for troops age 30 and older, including women, for testosterone deficiency. Troops under 30 can volunteer to be screened, and anyone with low hormone levels will have the option to receive testosterone replacement therapy.
“It’s about restoring and optimizing your natural capability,” said Hegseth, by ensuring “you have the biological foundation required to sustain the fight” on the “brutal and unrelenting” modern battlefield. Like all Hegseth initiatives, he linked it to “lethality” — now the animating feature of his life. He called topping off troops’ testosterone levels a “sacred duty.”
Anyone who has observed Hegseth for more than 15 seconds in the last 15 years could tell you the man is riddled with deep insecurities. His quest to fully transition the Defense Department to what he calls “The High-T Department of War” is just the latest manifestation of nagging anxieties about himself and the wheel-spinning, never-winning military he leads.
Poor Pete’s woes have been piling up since he headed off to college at Princeton, if not before. Hegseth acts like he was drafted against his will by the Ivy League and escaped it by joining the Army National Guard as an infantry officer in 2003. He fondly recalls guarding “Islamic assholes” at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, alongside “hard-working, God-fearing, America-loving middle-class men” whom he contrasts with “millionaires at Princeton,” a school he derides whenever he can.
Stuffed in Hegseth’s Army-issue green duffle bag when he arrived at Gitmo was a sheet of plain white copy paper inside a black plastic frame with a quote from his hero, former President Teddy Roosevelt. This long love affair with TR has continued over the decades. Pete wrote a ridiculous 2016 book, “In the Arena,” based on the “timeless truths of Teddy Roosevelt’s iconic ‘Man in the Arena’ speech” from 1910. And he still references that speech to this day and routinely works Teddy into his public remarks whenever he can.
Last year, Hegseth wanted the Pentagon to cut ties with the Boy Scouts of America because, he believed, “the organization once endorsed by President Theodore Roosevelt” had strayed from their mission to “cultivate masculine values.” (He later bullied the Scouts into submission.) And just last month, he talked up TR to U.S. troops in Cuba — where Roosevelt fought during the Spanish-American War — using his hero as proof of America’s right to intervene “in the affairs of Latin American nations.”
No one more exemplified the anxieties of privileged men of his time than Teddy Roosevelt, who grew up in the swirl of post-Civil War America in which urbanization, industrialization, a new emphasis on “brainwork,” and new technologies led to a crippling novel condition dubbed neurasthenia: nervous exhaustion, or a deficiency of “nerve-force.” This affliction was “modern and originally American,” according to the then-most influential expert on the now-archaic medical diagnosis.
Rich, white Anglo-Saxon men like Teddy professed complete cultural, racial, and sexual superiority but grew extremely anxious it was being stolen from them. (Yes, you guessed it: Immigrants, radicals, and independent, unduly educated, or otherwise unruly “new” women were prime culprits.) Men were fast becoming feeble and feminized; only through manly endeavors like weightlifting, hiking, hunting, sports, horseback riding, and excursions into the wild could they counteract the debilitating effects of over-civilization. Roosevelt, for example, transformed himself from a frail, sickly weakling who was called a “sissy” by peers and “Jane-Dandy” by the press into a man’s man via boxing, shooting, wrestling, and travel out West, where he reinvented himself as a cowboy.
The scholar Yeonsik Jung summed up the neurasthenic age nicely, writing: “Channeled through the medical knowledge of neurology, it made American men’s racial, sexual, and spatial anxieties function to act out their racist, misogynist, nativist, and imperialist impulses which legitimized exclusionary political techniques toward the racial and sexual others such as the U.S. imperial expansion in the 1890s and 1900s.” These white American men had to win back, as another scholar put it, “the potency of their violent masculinity—their ability to out-savage the savage” on the American frontier before turning overseas to places like the Philippines, Haiti, and Nicaragua. Roosevelt’s own expansionist imperialism and his campaign against “race suicide” were firmly rooted in this toxic ferment. When the United States initially failed to annex Hawaii after a group of missionaries and pineapple plantation interests took over and set up their own government in the 1890s, for example, Roosevelt called the reluctance “a crime against white civilization.”
The framed quote Hegseth stuffed into that Gitmo duffle, which he also took to the forever wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, are lines from “The Man in the Arena” speech:
Am I striving valiantly?
Is my face marred by dust and sweat and blood? Am I spending myself in a worthy cause?
Am I daring greatly?
Am I in the arena?
“Spending myself” is an intriguing phrase here that’s key to my diagnosis of Hegseth. I’m not a medical doctor, but long ago I studied the intersection of medicine and masculinity in the late 19th and early 20th century en route to my Ph.D. A great panic of the era surrounded what historians came to call the “spermatic economy,” the belief that a man’s semen was a finite reserve of vital energy — like money in a bank account — and “spending” this essential life force through masturbation or excessive sex would leave him depleted, leading to nervous exhaustion’s below-the-waist variant: sexual neurasthenia. (President Donald Trump, who espouses pseudoscientific claptrap about good and bad “genes” also reportedly believes humans are closed-loop systems that, like a battery, have a finite amount of energy.)
Such fin de siècle fears of debilitation led to “rejuvenation” cures like French physiologist Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard injecting himself and others with crushed guinea pig testicles — launching the field of “organotherapy” — and Austrian physiologist Eugen Steinach’s surgical procedure, a partial vasectomy to restore vigor which found favor with patients from psychoanalysis founder and noted head case Sigmund Freud to William Butler Yeats, the Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet. (“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”)
Hegseth is heir to this utter nuttery — obsessed as it was with limits on semen spending and banking one’s virility. His hysteria over the military becoming “effeminate” has led him to conclude that those who wish to “master the profession of arms” must have their testosterone tanks topped off. And he claims, without evidence, that pumping troops full of this hormone — which people of every sex and gender produce — will improve “combat readiness.” Hegseth also thinks his new policy will make troops “strong, resilient and capable.”
But while testosterone is tied to muscle mass, it isn’t linked with actual strength. A 2019 study found that men who received injected testosterone while engaged in intense exercise and a restricted diet — meant to mimic “strenuous military operations” — did not see gains in strength or endurance; a 2022 follow-up also found no increase in physical performance. Moreover, supplementing testosterone actually signals the body to shut down its own natural production, which can shrink the testicles and reduce one’s sperm count. (Paging Dr. Steinach!)
Hegseth believes you can measure manhood by testing testosterone, the same way he believes you can kill your way to victory on the battlefield.
Hegseth appears to believe more is better, advocating for a “high T” fighting force. But high levels of testosterone — which is currently classified as a controlled substance with potential for abuse — can lead to acne, balding, breast tissue growth, impaired ability of the heart to pump blood, infertility, erectile dysfunction, and increased risk of death.
Of course, it’s hard to say what’s normal if you’re testing millions of healthy people. Testosterone levels can change depending on when a patient is tested, whether they have recently eaten, exercised heavily, or are sick, among other factors, Dr. Alvin Matsumoto, a professor emeritus at the University of Washington School of Medicine, recently told The Intercept. For example, in about a third of men whose testosterone initially tests low, a second test produces a normal result. Tests also have high inter-lab variability. On that front, doctors usually assess testosterone levels only when symptoms of low T appear, and less than 6 percent of men between 30 and 79 actually have a deficiency.
Last week, a group of senators called out Hegseth for his bizarre obsession with troops’ testosterone, noting his department “provided no evidence that this sweeping new policy will improve force readiness or health, nor has it explained the scientific basis, costs, or risks associated with implementing it across the force.” They also pointed to “recent repeated efforts to redefine military culture around an exaggerated conception of masculinity.”
Exaggerated masculinity is an apt description for Hegseth. In his 2024 book, “The War on Warriors,” he bemoaned a plot to manufacture “soft men, and a weak military.” He describes an effort to make the armed forces “fatter,” “slower,” and “effeminate” by those “obsessed” with “neutering our military,” and delves into the dangers posed by “Pentagon pussies.”
After 18 months of crackpot policies and puerile posturing at the helm of the War Department, Hegseth’s hysteria has only grown. Like Roosevelt, Hegseth is forever struggling to display his manhood through physical exertion — posting videos of himself engaging in humiliating fitness challenges. Similarly, he’s been propping up America’s long-sagging martial prowess by beating up on the likes of Venezuela, attacking elementary school kids in Iran, blowing up unarmed boats packed with civilians in the Caribbean Sea, and threatening tiny Cuba, where his hero Teddy won fame for a Spanish-American War charge up San Juan Hill.
“Speak softly and carry a big stick” was Roosevelt’s foreign policy prescription. But from the war against the Houthis last year to the war on Iran today, Hegseth has found that his stick just doesn’t measure up. The resulting insecurity has led the emasculated War secretary to fire women and Black men from top leadership positions, block the promotion of women military officers, banish transgender service members, and denounce “fat generals and admirals” and “females” whom he believes “can’t meet the same combat arms physical standards as men.” He has now added low-T troops to the list of scapegoats for his department’s underperformance, instead of examining his failings as a leader.
Hegseth believes you can measure manhood by testing testosterone, the same way he believes you can kill your way to victory on the battlefield. It’s part of a mélange of flaccid fallacies and fantasies that seem to dominate the worldview of a man who paid $50,000 to a woman who accused him of raping her, whose former sister-in-law accused him of “abusive” behavior toward his second wife, and whose own mother once called out the fact that he “belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego.” And as America’s wars go south, Hegseth has become ever more unhinged and his public tantrums more pronounced. “You have Trump derangement syndrome!” he snapped at Michigan Sen. Gary Peters this week, after failing to admit earlier claims about victory in the Iran war were premature.
Hegseth is exactly where he wants to be — “in the arena” — even though it’s abundantly clear his crisis of masculinity is becoming a catastrophe for his department, the rest of America, and great swaths of the globe, from the Caribbean to Iran. All the testosterone in the world isn’t going to win America’s wars, achieve Hegseth’s dream of turning “soft men” hard, or transform “Pentagon pussies” into something more in line with his fantasies, much less cure the crushing insecurities swirling in the brain of America’s fragile war secretary and the deep deficiency that has long plagued him.
Less than two weeks ago, following a pair of fatal shootings by immigration officers in Texas and Maine, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ordered a halt to vehicle stops nationwide.
The directive was initially passed down through ICE field offices on the evening of July 13 — just hours after the Maine shooting — followed by an official agencywide memo that made the rounds the next morning.
Then, on July 15, President Donald Trump took to his social media platform Truth Social and directed ICE to resume its vehicle stops, presumably reversing the orders announced the day before by ICE internal leadership.
“The president says one thing but in reality we all follow established policy.”
Despite Trump’s apparent reversal of the ICE directive, immigration enforcement officers in at least 4 so-called areas of responsibility — ICE’s regional jurisdictions — did not resume vehicle stops, according to officials who spoke with The Intercept.
“I follow policy that comes down the appropriate channels,” said one ICE official, who works in a southern regional office and requested anonymity to avoid retaliation. “The president says one thing but in reality we all follow established policy.”
A second ICE official, who operates in the Western U.S., told The Intercept, “Following the orders of the guys I’ve worked with in the field and have my back vs the head of an administration that treats me like a meme? It’s a no brainer.”
Three other ICE whistleblowers from areas of responsibility in the Midwest, South, and Northeast also told The Intercept that vehicle stops did not resume in their areas of responsibility over the past week. (ICE did not respond to a request for comment.)
Now, however, a new official vehicle stops policy has been passed down through the proper channels at ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division.
An internal agencywide email, sent on July 22 and obtained by The Intercept, ordered the resumption of vehicle stops, with new guidelines that change how deportation officers will engage with vehicles moving forward.
“ERO law enforcement officers are authorized to conduct vehicle stops,” says the email. “Officers must continue to coordinate with their immediate supervisors regarding any enforcement activities.”
ICE quickly came under pressure from both the public and government officials to hold the officers involved in the shootings accountable and offer more transparency about ICE’s tactics when engaging with vehicles.
One glaring issue that arose was the fact that, according to the Department of Homeland Security, the officers involved in both shootings were not wearing body cameras.
In the case of the Maine shooting, The Intercept previously reported, officers on the scene were wearing multifunctional devices designed to work as body cameras, but they were unable to record video on the devices because they didn’t have a required cloud-based subscription service.
The new ICE vehicle stops policy addressed the apparent failure in Maine and Texas to capture the incidents on video. Now, according to the new policy, at least one officer involved in a vehicle stop must be wearing “an issued and activated body worn camera.”
The rollout for ICE body cameras, however, is proceeding slowly. About half of ICE officers have been issued cameras, according to DHS, with the other half to receive them in the next two months. Officers will then need to complete a training process with the body cameras before they can use them in the field.
Gutted Training Standards
Starting in summer 2025, in an effort to ramp up deportations, the Trump administration implemented an accelerated ICE training and hiring spree that lasted until June 30, 2026.
Among those new recruits, according to The Atlantic, was the ICE officer who allegedly pulled the trigger in the Maine shooting.
The new ICE policy distributed on Wednesday now lists training as a requirement for officers making vehicle stops.
“The officer or officers conducting the stop must have successfully completed an ICE-administered vehicle stop training,” the guidance says.
The policy guidance says that ICE officers may make vehicle stops in cases of criminal arrests or while executing search warrants, but only when a certified member of a Special Response Team — ICE’s equivalent of SWAT — conducts the stop.
Eighteen months after her daughter’s death in Texas, Jane Coates hopes new PM can persuade US authorities to reopen case
Lucy Harrison felt that 2024 was her best year yet. The 23-year-old had graduated from university with first class honours, landed her dream job and bought her first house with her boyfriend. She was a “big girl adult” now, Lucy would say. She shed tears of joy seeing her idol, Taylor Swift, at Wembley on the Eras tour that summer. Life could hardly get any better. “All the hard work, all the tears, everything was coming to fruition,” said her mother, Jane Coates, from Warrington in north-west England.
That Christmas, Lucy and her boyfriend, Sam Littler, flew to Texas to spend time with her father, Kris Harrison, who had left the family home when she was two. The pair had a complex relationship – Harrison was a recovering alcoholic – and Littler, 24, did not want them to go. But Lucy enjoyed seeing her two younger half-sisters at their home in Prosper, an affluent suburb 30 miles north of Dallas.
An underground network of privacy activists is disabling or destroying the ubiquitous surveillance devices sprouting up across the US
The first time that “NoMark” tried to knock out a Flock camera feed, he waited an hour for the perfect moment – pacing in and out of bushes that towered over him, a few feet behind a pole holding up the device.
SpaceX's Friday launch of its massive Starship rocket "went quite smoothly," reports CNN, with a SpaceX spokesperson calling this mission "Lucky Number 13" (as the 13th integrated flight test for a Starship spacecraft with a Super Heavy rocket booster):
During Starship V3's inaugural test, there were numerous engine issues as several on the booster failed to relight and the Starship spacecraft experienced a nail-biting engine outage. SpaceX also was forced to replace six engines on this vehicle ahead of today's flight because of a likely issue with moisture that prevented at least four from starting up correctly during an initial launch attempt last week... [Friday's Super Heavy rocket booster] fired all 33 of its engines in a pristine performance off the launchpad. The rocket booster also managed to relight 13 engines, as planned, to steer itself back toward a controlled landing. Only when Super Heavy attempted to relight its engines for a controlled landing burn over the Gulf waters did problems arise. The landing was still controlled, though Huot said the vehicle was traveling a bit faster than the company had hoped when it made touchdown. (SpaceX always intended to discard this Super Heavy booster in the ocean.)
The Starship spacecraft had no obvious performance issues, making it all the way through its engine burn and managing to reignite one engine mid-flight as part of a test. It also made a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean — executing its "softest splashdown" to date in a "dream scenario," according to SpaceX's Dan Huot. The touchdown came about an hour after takeoff, as planned. During its coasting phase, Starship also deployed 20 Starlink test satellites, paving the way for operational missions later down the line in which SpaceX plans to deploy large batches of these satellites in a single launch. In another big win, SpaceX said it was able to make contact with each of those satellites.
CNN adds that SpaceX "is facing intense pressure to get Starship ready for a crucial NASA test flight next year that could pave the way for the next moon landing. This flight was also the first for SpaceX as a publicly traded company. Last week's aborted launch attempt sparked a selloff, and shares are still trading below their IPO price.
"To cap off the roaring success of today's flight test, SpaceX shared some stunning visuals of the upper Starship spacecraft sailing through space."
From Mo Farah to Bus Aunty, new prime minister makes good on promise to ‘do things differently’ when it comes to communication
They say a week is a long time in politics, but handily for followers of Andy Burnham on social media, you can get daily updates of what the new PM has been up to on his timeline.
Before Burnham stepped inside No 10 this week he promised to “do things differently” in British politics. If his feed is anything to go by, he’s already way ahead of his predecessor.
Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta, Palantir, and more than 20 other tech companies signed an open letter urging policymakers not to impose "premature restrictions" on open-weight AI models, warning that broad limits could "stifle competition or drive innovation overseas." CNBC reports: They wrote that open-weight models strengthen competition and ensure that the benefits of the technology are "broadly shared rather than concentrated in a few hands." "Relying solely on closed models is not inherently safe: they can be breached, misused, or fail in ways that outsiders cannot detect," the letter said. "And concentrating advanced AI capabilities behind a small number of closed models compounds that risk."
Elon Musk, who runs an AI business under his rocket company SpaceX, also amplified the letter on social media, writing that it has his "full support" in a post on X. SpaceX did not officially sign the letter. Greg Brockman, OpenAI's president, said Thursday that the company believes in broad access, and that he has not been involved in any conversations with the Trump administration about potentially banning Chinese open-weight models in the U.S.
"I think that, that fundamentally, AI and AI usage is something that is actually very important to democratize," Brockman told reporters during a briefing in New York City. "And so, for me, at a sort of deep level, I think that having more models, more usage, that is a good thing." OpenAI CEO Sam Altman addressed the letter in a post on X on Friday, writing that he wants the U.S. to win with both open-weight and proprietary models, and that he is "glad to see this."
[...] In the letter on Friday, the U.S. tech companies said that concerns about unlawful distillation should be addressed through "targeted legal and commercial frameworks" instead of with "sweeping restrictions on techniques that play an important role in AI innovation." "Our AI leadership will be judged not by one frontier AI model, but by whether the United States builds a strong, open ecosystem that diffuses into every sector," the letter said. "This is essential for creating opportunities for innovation and prosperity across the country." The letter follows a separate appeal signed by nearly 200 Silicon Valley companies, including Proton and Y Combinator, warning that restricting U.S. access to Chinese open-weight AI models could cripple the next generation of American startups. "American leadership requires two things: world-leading American open-weight models and continued access for U.S. builders to open models already available worldwide," the startup founders wrote. Instead of broad prohibitions, they argue the government should adopt targeted safeguards.
Of course, these signees "have an obvious economic stake in seeing open AI models flourish," notes TechCrunch. "Companies like Nvidia, Microsoft Azure, and other infrastructure providers have a vested interest in pushing for commoditized models: If models are interchangeable, people will buy more GPUs, rent more cloud capacity, and build more applications."
When ACM PEARC26 happens July 26-30 at the Minneapolis Convention Center, it will mark two firsts at once. The conference series, which began as PEARC17 in 2017 and has been sponsored by ACM and its SIGHPC and SIGAPP special interest groups since PEARC20, will celebrate its tenth edition with a record-breaking over 1,000 attendees. And for the first time, the program will include a special technical track for research software engineering (RSE): “Research Software Engineering: People, Practice, and Impact.”
Ian Cosden, senior director of Research Software Engineering at Princeton University and co-Chair of the Research Software Engineer Track for PEARC26
The new special track, whose papers are published in the ACM proceedings alongside the conference’s Systems, Applications, and Workforce Development tracks, is co-chaired by Ian Cosden, Sr. Director of Research Software Engineering at Princeton University, and Pengyin Shan, Senior Research Software Engineer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
“Research software engineering is one of the fastest-growing areas within research computing organizations and the PEARC community. It uses software engineering best practices and research methods to build tools, workflows, and platforms that enable and accelerate scientific discovery” – Ian Cosden
Research Runs on Software
The US-RSE Association defines research software engineers broadly as “those who regularly use expertise in programming to advance research.” This covers a wide spectrum: researchers who spend much of their time writing code, full-time software engineers building tools for science, and everyone in between. What unites them is the work of turning research methods into robust, reproducible, and sustainable software: the scientific research products that outlive any single paper or grant. The distinction from conventional software engineering is less about the code than the context: requirements come from a scientific question and the success is measured in the research it enabled.
Pengyin Shan, senior research software engineer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and co-chair of the research software engineer track for PEARC26
This work spans computational and data science, visualization tools, cybersecurity, metadata management, authentication systems, and science gateways; it occurs in and impacts all scholarly disciplines; and it runs on everything from national supercomputers to laptops and Raspberry Pis. A growing part of it focuses on making HPC accessible to non-experts, so that researchers do not need to learn Fortran or Linux before they can do useful work on a cluster.
“We picked the track theme deliberately: people, because RSE professionals are much the story as the code; practice, because what we share is how the work actually gets done; and impact, because we want to show the science the software made possible.” – Pengyin Shan
What the Track Offers
The inaugural RSE track received both full and short paper submissions, with accepted work presented across the conference week and final presentation materials shared openly through the PEARC26 community on Zenodo. Topics range across software practices, career paths, team models, and the tools that make research software sustainable. In addition, the track has one invited talk, which comes from Daniel S. Katz, Chief Scientist at NCSA, who will present “Community Activities to Advance Research Software” on Tuesday, July 28.
“Many aspects of research software engineering require community activity; I’ll discuss this and how people are working together to solve some of the field’s challenges” – Daniel S. Katz
Daniel S. Katz, chief scientist at National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NSCA)
A Thursday Finale for RSE
The RSE track will anchor the conference’s closing day. On Thursday, July 30, a panel moderated by Pengyin Shan and Patrick Schmitz will bring together speakers from across RSE fields:
Sandra Gesing, US-RSE / San Diego Supercomputer Center
Kenton McHenry, National Center for Supercomputing Applications
Blake Joyce, BioTeam
Suzanne Prentice, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
The panel will examine where the RSE profession stands and where it is heading, including career pathways, institutional models, and the evolving relationship between research software and an increasingly AI-driven computing landscape. It will share the closing day with the PEARC ten-year anniversary plenary reuniting chairs from across all ten PEARC conferences, a fitting pairing of a look back at the community’s roots and a look forward at one of its fastest-growing professions.
Part of Something Bigger
The RSE track arrives at a milestone moment for the conference itself. Registration for PEARC26 has passed 900, positioning the series to cross the 1,000-attendee mark for the first time in its history. Under the theme “Resilient Roots, Empowered Communities,” the technical program, shaped by Technical Program Co-Chairs Gladys Andino (University of Virginia) and Weronika Filinger (EPCC, University of Edinburgh), spans AI and agentic systems, HPC operations, workforce development, quantum computing, and advanced networking.
For research software engineers, though, PEARC26 will be remembered as the first year to dedicate recognition to the research computing professionals who build the software that research runs on.
Late registration for PEARC26 remains open; details are available at pearc.acm.org/pearc26.
About the author: Pengyin Shan is a senior research software engineer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and co-chair of the research software engineer track for PEARC26.
Gov. Kathy Hochul’s call for New Yorkers to conserve power during a recent heat wave brought out attacks by Republicans. Her suggestion – she said she was “asking” people to “voluntarily” reduce their energy consumption – prompted national Republicans to call her a communist.
“New York’s electric grid is under heavy strain as this heat wave drives up energy demand,” Hochul tweeted on July 2. “We’re asking New Yorkers to voluntarily conserve power by setting your A/C between 75–78°, avoiding unnecessary appliance use, and turning off lights and electronics when they’re not needed.”
The Republican National Committee re-posted her tweet the next day with this claim: “New York Democrat communists are now trying to force Americans to lower their quality of life because of their failed policies.”
The success of two candidates backed by democratic socialist groups in last month’s New York primary led the GOP to portray these candidates as extremists out of step with most New Yorkers.
They directed their verbal attacks to other politicians, like Hochul, who appears to have a cordial working relationship with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialists of America member.
We wanted to know if Hochul’s call to voluntarily conserve energy had the hallmarks of communism.
We reached out to the RNC for evidence, and a spokeswoman told us that Hochul and other New York Democrats are taking control away from New Yorkers and putting it in the government’s hands.
“Communism is achieved by taking away individual choice and private ownership, and that’s precisely what Kathy Hochul is doing,” said Kristen Cianci, RNC northeast regional communications director.
But Hochul asked “New Yorkers to voluntarily conserve power.” Experts told us that’s not what happens in communist regimes.
“In general, communist governments would often use more forceful methods to achieve compliance with government priorities than asking politely,” said Brian D. Taylor, a professor of political science at the Maxwell School of Citizenship & Public Affairs at Syracuse University.
In the Soviet Union, utilities were state-owned and controlled, and in urban areas, apartments were allocated by the state, not privately owned, Taylor said. Individuals did not have control over their own thermostat.
Generally, in communist countries, there is only one political party, and it controls all levels of government. Their economies were based on state ownership and control of property, and state-directed production, he said.
“Not to belabor the point, but none of that is happening in New York City, New York state, or anywhere else in the U.S.,” he said.
In a communist system, utilities would be government owned, and energy would be rationed, said Matthew Lenoe, a professor of history at the University of Rochester. There would be no choice in the matter for the people.
“They would introduce rolling blackouts,” Lenoe said. “That’s how a communist government would have handled it.”
The New York grid, by contrast, is a combination of public and private ownership. And Hochul did not say the government would turn off the air conditioning.
“This is a voluntary call for cooperation,” Lenoe said.
Hochul’s recommendation is consistent with other recommendations from governments at all levels and public utility commissions. The U.S. Department of Energy has also recommended people keep their thermostats at 78 degrees in warm weather when they are home, though web pages with these recommendations have been taken down. It’s not clear when or why that happened, and the department did not reply to our requests for more information.
In 2019, during President Trump’s first term, the department stressed that the 78-degree guideline was just a recommendation, and that Americans should set their thermostats to “whatever temperature they choose.”
We found other instances of GOP-led governments asking residents to conserve power, such as in Mississippi, where the Department of Environmental Quality tells residents to “Set your thermostat as high as your comfort allows (78 degrees is recommended.)” In Texas in August 2015, Gov. Greg Abbott advised residents to power down electronics in the afternoon, in order to reduce pressure on the electric grid.
During an extreme cold spell in February in South Carolina, Republican Gov. Henry McMaster told residents to “reduce the household thermostat to the lowest comfortable setting,” in an effort to reduce pressure on the state’s electric grid. He also said people should stay warm by wearing more clothing and using blankets, and to avoid running some large appliances.
In August 2003, when New York was suffering from blackouts in areas across the state, the most recent Republican governor, George Pataki, told CNN viewers that they should conserve power.
Pataki said that if New Yorkers don’t have power, they should “continue to help each other out, and if you do have power, to conserve energy. It will help us to restore power to the areas that don’t have it that much quicker.” He later said: “If you get power back, conserve energy. That’s the mantra of today.”
Our ruling
National Republicans said that Hochul and New York Democrats were “communists” who were “trying to force” people to lower their quality of life after the Democrats asked people to voluntarily reduce their energy consumption.
Academic researchers who study communist governments told us that asking residents to voluntarily turn up their thermostats during hot weather in order to reduce pressure on the electric grid is not what happens in communist countries.
Furthermore, reducing power consumption during extreme temperatures is a longstanding recommendation from energy commissions and governments around the United States, including the U.S. Department of Energy.
This statement is not accurate and makes an absurd claim. We rate it Pants on Fire!
Juan Carlos Gonzalez, also known as "Pelon," is the stepson of "El Mencho" — real name Nemesio Oseguera — who was injured and later died in a military sweep.
Competition Policy Conference 2026
17
November 2026 — 10:00 TO 18:00 GMT
Anonymous (not verified)
Chatham House
Join policymakers, regulators, business leaders and academic experts to explore how competition policy frameworks are responding to changes in the geopolitical order.
This conference, hosted in person and held under the Chatham House Rule, explores how competition frameworks are being redefined in response to growing geopolitical pressures.
The national and economic security intersection in competition policy
The role of competition policy continues to evolve at pace in 2026, shaped by an increasingly fragmented global order in which geopolitical rivalry, economic nationalism, and strategic competition have become defining features of the regulatory landscape. What began as a period of adjustment has hardened into a new normal. Across key jurisdictions, the integration of competition policy with broader strategic imperatives like national security, economic resilience, industrial strategy and technological sovereignty is deepening. Regulators in the UK, EU, and US are each responding in ways that reflect their own political priorities and risk appetites raising questions about the coherence of the international competition order.
These tensions are acutely felt across a range of critical domains. FDI screening and merger control are increasingly shaped by alliance politics and security considerations, raising questions about proportionality, predictability and the integrity of non-discrimination norms. Consumer protection frameworks are being stress-tested by the rapid advance of AI and digital markets, with regulators deploying new tools to address AI-enabled anti-competitive practices and accelerate enforcement. In the defence sector, expanding national security carve-outs are prompting difficult questions about where legitimate security interests end and competitive distortion begins. And in the technology space, the ongoing review of the EU’s Digital Markets Act and the evolution of the CMA’s approach to digital regulation are reshaping the relationship between regulators and the industry’s largest players.
This year’s conference, hosted in person at Chatham House and held under the Chatham House Rule, brings together regulators, policymakers, business leaders, and legal practitioners to examine how competition frameworks are adapting to a world in which the boundaries between market governance, industrial strategy, and geopolitical competition are increasingly blurred.
Why attend?
Explore how competition authorities, governments and businesses are responding to a world in which merger control, investment screening, industrial strategy and geopolitical competition are becoming increasingly interconnected.
Gain insights into evolving approaches across the UK, EU and US, from revised merger guidelines and FDI screening to the growing influence of strategic competition on regulatory decision-making.
Hear from regulators, legal experts and industry leaders on Article 102 reform, digital market regulation, AI governance and the challenges of balancing innovation, competition and consumer protection.
Connect with senior decision-makers and practitioners to discuss how organizations can navigate an increasingly fragmented and politically complex global competition landscape.
By registering for this event, attendees agree to our code of conduct, ensuring a respectful, inclusive, and welcoming space for diverse perspectives and debate.
Why Burnham should back Britain's new clean energy system, not more North Sea drillingExpert commentLToremark
Renewables and electrification could help the new prime minister deliver on his promise to distribute economic benefits across the UK.
Andy Burnham arrived in 10 Downing Street earlier this week amid speculation about a possible change in energy policy. Specifically, whether he will support expanded North Sea oil and gas production, by greenlighting new drilling, reforming the windfall tax, and potentially rolling back Labour’s 2024 manifesto pledge not to issue new exploration licences.
Labour’s stance on North Sea oil and gas has become a lightning rod for criticism of its broader climate and energy policy, as the cross-party consensus on tackling climate change has broken down.
The Conservatives would scrap the 2050 net zero emissions target, claiming that it is making energy more expensive and driving deindustrialization. Kemi Badenoch has positioned the Tories as champions of the UK’s oil and gas industry, calling her party’s recent victory in the Aberdeen South by-election a ‘referendum on oil and gas’.
The Labour government has also come under not-so-friendly fire from trade unions and former prime minister Tony Blair. In a scathing article on the direction of the Labour Party, Blair called for the government to slow emissions reductions and extract ‘what is left’ of North Sea fossil fuels.
Pressure has even come from the White House. Amid rumours that Burnham would approve new drilling, President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that it was ‘a big day for the country’ and that the people of Aberdeen were ‘dancing in the streets’.
Sources close to Burnham, however, were quick to emphasize that no decision had been made and that he was expected to uphold the manifesto pledge. The topic was also noticeably absent from his first speech on Monday.
The reality of North Sea oil and gas
At a recent Chatham House event, the executive director of the International Energy Agency, Dr Fatih Birol, questioned why the UK debate is so focused on the North Sea, noting that its remaining reserves afford no protection against high and volatile prices.
—
Electrification not North Sea oil is future of UK energy - Dr Fatih Birol
The answer is that North Sea oil and gas has been politically weaponized, leading to a distorted impression of the role it can be expected to play in Britain’s economic future.
This is due not to net zero, but to hard geological realities. After decades of exploitation, production on the UK Continental Shelf peaked in 1999 and has been in gradual decline since. According to the government regulator, as much as 93 per cent of the oil and gas it is likely to produce has already been extracted.
Most of what remains is already earmarked for extraction from existing fields. New drilling, the focus of so much political and media attention, might yield 74 million tonnes of oil and 381 TWh of gas according to the regulator – around half a year of UK consumption.
This translates into a continued long-term decline in tax receipts and jobs, even if fluctuating oil and gas prices – and new North Sea projects – provide temporary, modest boosts.
Annual oil and gas revenues to the Exchequer are expected to fall to £0.3 billion by 2030-31, down from £4.4 billion when Labour took office in 2024, and £9.1 billion when the Conservatives took office in 2010. New licences will not significantly alter this basic trajectory.
Employment in the sector has been declining for years, long before Labour took office. The number of jobs fell by a third between 2014 and 2023, despite hundreds of new licences being issued in this period.
The diminishing gains from North Sea oil and gas also flow to a shrinking subset of companies, and ever fewer workers concentrated in a single region of the UK. By contrast, the construction of a new energy system based on renewables and electrification represents an enormous growth opportunity with the potential to distribute benefits across the country.
This new energy system is a natural fit for Burnham’s flagship mission to decentralize political and economic power in the UK. A ‘Manchesterism’ for energy, if you will.
Energy systems based on lots of renewables tend to be less centralized than those based on fossil fuels.
Weather is one driver of this. It is sensible to situate solar farms in the sunny southern counties of the UK, whereas wind farms are usually found in the blustery north of England and Scotland – and in the North Sea.
Efficiency is another driver. Battery storage – which is an essential partner to variable renewable generation and plays an increasingly vital role in the UK’s system – tends to be built close to major sources of demand, like cities. This reduces the losses that occur as electricity is transmitted and limits the need to build new grid infrastructure, in turn reducing costs for consumers.
The tendency towards decentralization of the UK’s renewables-based system means that much of the tax take from the energy system, such as business rates paid to local authorities, is spread across the country.
The flexible and modular nature of renewable energy technology also lends itself to a range of ownership models – which means the benefits can flow directly to citizens and communities.
Jobs
According to the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), the UK’s net zero economy directly supported around 308,000 jobs in 2025, with another 520,000 jobs in the supply chain, and a further 234,000 in the wider economy.
These jobs – including renewable installation and maintenance, manufacturing, engineering, construction and professional services – are broadly distributed across the UK.
Many more jobs are set to be created in the next phase of the UK’s energy transition. While the UK has made impressive progress on the supply side – deploying renewables – much less progress has been made on the demand side, above all electrifying heating and transport.
Going by the mantra, if you want to make someone laugh, make them cry first, the game’s developers have created a lonely magpie who fills the void by wreaking havoc
Amid the gleeful anarchy of Bad Magpie’s debut trailer, there’s a striking note of melancholy. The game’s protagonist – a wounded corvid that creates havoc wherever she goes – calls out forlornly as a flock of her kind passes above, with a conspicuous gap in their formation.
Milktooth games designer and co-founder Daisy Fernandez has had this particular image in her head for years. Lying in the grass one afternoon during the 2020 lockdowns, she looked up and saw a V-shaped pattern in the sky, poignantly incomplete. “It really stuck with me,” she says. “I posted about it online and someone told me about a ‘missing man’ formation, which is an aerial salute to a fallen pilot.”
While overall levy for UK is unchanged, sectors not covered by Turnberry deal face tougher competition
Donald Trump’s latest round of tariffs has put UK businesses at a disadvantage against the EU even though the overall tariff for British goods has not changed, experts have said.
In the levies, announced late on Thursday and said to be aimed against countries that engage in forced labour, the EU’s previous 15% near blanket tariff is reduced to 10%, the same level as the tariff deal struck by Keir Starmer and Peter Mandelson last year.
Carmaker expects to sell 3% fewer vehicles this year as it pushes through a programme that could eliminate 100,000 roles
Volkswagen has reported a steep fall in profits and cut its revenue forecast amid a sales slump in China, as the German carmaker pushes through a brutal cost-cutting programme that includes axeing up to 100,000 jobs.
VW said it expects sales revenue to fall by up to 3% this year, a reversal of a previous forecast for a 3% increase on last year’s €321.9bn (£275.3bn), because of a sales slump in the highly competitive Chinese market.
Why Should Delaware Care? Wilmington’s management of its water billing and shutoffs has been a contentious issue since COVID. The previous Purzycki administration enacted a shutoff moratorium that later ended. Since then, questions have been raised around when the city shuts off its water and sewer systems to residents.
Wilmington Mayor John Carney vetoed an ordinance Wednesday that would have prevented city officials from shutting off water service to vulnerable residents with delinquent bills.
In a letter sent to city council members, the mayor said his office could not support the measure as it would “create an environment that incentivizes individuals not to pay for our public utilities.”
The veto comes two weeks after the Wilmington City Council passed a package of housing reform legislation, including the water shutoff measure.
Carney signed other ordinances that were part of the reforms, including one that provides renter protections against evictions; another that allocates money to homeowners for repairs; and a third that provides money for vacant property rehabilitation.
The water shutoff ordinance would have prohibited the city from discontinuing water service to households that are occupied by a senior citizen, by a person with a disability, or by a child under 5 years old.
Only households making equal to or less than 350% of the annual federal poverty level would have been eligible for the program. For a family of three, that would equate to a little over $95,500 according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
During a July 9 council meeting, the bill’s sponsor, Councilwoman Shané Darby, said it was not about debt forgiveness but instead about ensuring an essential item for residents who can not afford it.
Wilmington City Councilwoman Shané Darby. | PHOTO COURTESY OF CITY OF WILMINGTON
“It does not eliminate anyone’s responsibility to pay their water bill,” she said. “It simply ensures that the city does not use water shutoffs as a collection tool.”
In his veto letter, Carney noted there are 4,000 delinquent accounts in the city. He said water disconnections are rare due to current safeguards already in place, such as prohibitions on shutoffs during extreme weather.
The city also maintains a Utility Payment Assistance Program that residents can access if they are overdue on utilities for more than 90 days. Qualified residents can receive up to $1,500 to pay their delinquents water and sewer bills.
Still, Carney asserted in his letter that a notice of water disconnection remains a “critical mechanism” for the city to collect overdue accounts, and keep the city’s water system financially stable.
“We cannot responsibly manage our water utility if we are prohibited from using the very tool that compels engagement and prevents further deterioration of the system,” Carney said.
He did not note what deterioration has already occurred.
Darby also disagreed that her legislation would encourage people to not pay their utilities. She cited a 2024 Temple University study that showed households typically keep paying what they can when such protections are in place.
“Right now we’re very reactive. We wait for people to get into debt before we help them. I want to be proactive,” she said.
Darby says she is seeking a veto override on the water shut-off legislation.
The vote could take place on Aug 6.
How does the city enforce delinquent bills?
Darby had proposed numerous iterations of her water-shutoff bill, going back to 2021, according to city council’s website.
In 2021, Darby unsuccessfully tried to bring another six-month moratorium into effect to protect residents who she said were financially struggling “due to the lasting impacts of the pandemic.”
Three years later, the issue resurfaced, as advocates and some city council members argued it was unfair for the city to push homes to sheriff sale foreclosure over past-due water bills, or to issue 96-hour shutoff notices.
That same year the Wilmington Fines and Fees Task Force issued a report that found water bill revenue had grown faster than any other city revenue source at the time. They also found that shutoff notices disproportionately hit residents in low-income neighborhoods and recommended the city end water shutoffs and foreclosures over unpaid bills for vulnerable residents.
The former administration under Mayor Mike Purzycki agreed to stop using foreclosures over past-due water bills and to issue 96-hour shutoff notices only after six months of delinquency.
In August 2024, the News Journal reported that the downtown property that includes the prominent DuPont Building had previously held an unpaid balance of $124,537. A payment plan was set up for property, according to the News Journal.
The Purzucki administration later told Spotlight Delaware that payment plans the city had reached with such businesses were available to all customers.
Criticism over the issue also arose during the July 9 City Council meeting’s public comment period when several people argued that the city had been more lenient with delinquent water bills from businesses than residences.
“Access to clean water is a basic human right, and I understand that finances are an issue, but I think we need to look at the bigger picture,” said April Collins, a resident and a nurse.
Carney’s office did not respond to subsequent requests for comment on Thursday regarding current practices for collecting water bills from commercial properties.
Wilmington’s 2027 budget includes a 7% increase for water and sewer rates, as well as stormwater rates. Water and sewer fees make up about a quarter of the city’s budget revenue.
After 2020, the city began increasing its water and sewer rates by about 5% each year.
This year’s increase marks the city’s highest increase since then.
What would a ceasefire in Ukraine mean for Europe and the world?
8
September 2026 — 13:00 TO 14:00 BST
Anonymous (not verified)
Chatham House and Online
Join this event to learn about the implications of a ceasefire for Ukraine, Europe, Russia - and global security.
Join this event to learn about the implications of a ceasefire for Ukraine, Europe, Russia - and global security.
After more than four years, the war in Ukraine has entered a period of military stalemate on the ground and a vicious battle in the sky, with strikes hitting both Moscow and Kyiv. Numerous attempts to broach a ceasefire have failed. But talks of ending the war are growing.
If a ceasefire is finally agreed, it will create new questions: about Ukraine’s security, Russia’s ambitions, and Europe’s long-term stability – made more urgent by uncertainty over US commitment to European security.
New tariffs will replace 10% global duty and come after US supreme court declared many of the earlier levies illegal
Donald Trump has imposed a fresh round of tariffs on more than 80 countries to replace a 10% global duty that was due to expire, provoking a wave of criticism and protests from US allies and major trading partners.
In the latest attempt to instate aggressive trade policies despite challenges from the US supreme court, the president has imposed tariffs of between 10% and 12.5% on dozens of countries, including the UK, Mexico, Canada, Australia, India, China and the 27 countries that make up the European Union. It in effect replaces the blanket 10% tariff that Trump imposed in February, right after the supreme court declared many of his earlier tariffs were illegal.
The wishful thinking behind the war with IranExpert commentjon.wallace
Iran has survived war with the US by adapting its doctrine. The US must also change its thinking.
Nearly five months after the United States and Israel launched their military campaign against Iran, it is becoming increasingly difficult to escape one conclusion: the central objectives that underpinned Washington’s decision to go war have not materialized.
Wars should ultimately be judged not by the number of targets destroyed or sorties flown, but by whether they achieve their political objectives. By that measure, the campaign against Iran deserves a sober reassessment.
The expectation that military pressure would trigger regime collapse, force Tehran into political capitulation, or fundamentally degrade its strategic capabilities has, so far, not been borne out. At best, those expectations were overly optimistic. At worst, they reflected wishful thinking masquerading as strategy.
First, regime change has not happened – and there is little evidence to suggest the war will bring it about anytime soon. Iran undoubtedly faces deep domestic dissatisfaction. Years of sanctions, inflation, corruption and political repression have generated repeated waves of unrest, culminating in the nationwide protests of late 2025 and early 2026, which were brutally suppressed by the security apparatus.
The discontent which led to those protests is likely still brewing. But history repeatedly demonstrates that authoritarian regimes often prove far more resilient under external attack than anticipated. Foreign intervention often allows regimes to recast themselves as defenders of national sovereignty – blunting internal dissent in the process. Opposition movements can be reluctant to mobilize while the country is under attack.
That appears to be precisely what has happened in Iran. Rather than imploding, the Islamic Republic has weathered what many in the US and Israel believed would become an existential crisis. Political fractures remain, and the economy continues to deteriorate: the rial touched record lows at the weekend. But the state retains the institutional cohesion, security capacity and elite discipline necessary to survive. The war may even have strengthened some of the very institutions it was intended to weaken.
Second, the assumption that Iran’s military capability has been decisively degraded is difficult to sustain. Throughout the campaign, President Donald Trump repeatedly declared that Iran’s missile force had been ‘obliterated’ and that much of its launch infrastructure had been destroyed. Israeli officials similarly highlighted the destruction of launchers, production facilities and command-and-control nodes. Yet developments over the past five months suggest those assessments were, at minimum, premature.
Iran has demonstrated a sustained ability to launch ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones across multiple theatres, from the Strait of Hormuz to countries hosting US military bases – including recent strikes on Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Iraq and Jordan.
Whether acting directly or through its regional partners, Tehran has maintained a tempo of operations inconsistent with claims that its arsenal has been nearly exhausted. There is no reliable public estimate of Iran’s remaining missile stockpiles or production capacity. Definitive claims about its military depletion are difficult to sustain.
Strategic attrition
More importantly, Iran has demonstrated an ability to learn. It has not prioritized preserving its military assets. Instead, it has adapted its doctrine based on previous rounds of confrontation in 2024 and 2025. What once appeared to be operational shortcomings increasingly resemble the learning curve of a military preparing for a prolonged conflict rather than a single decisive exchange.
Iran has not sought battlefield dominance but strategic attrition, gradually increasing the political, economic and military costs for its opponents
In 2024, Iran carefully choreographed its military response to both Israel’s attack on its Syrian consulate in April of that year and the assassinations of Hezbollah and Hamas fighters that October.
Missile attacks on Israel were launched in measured waves, often lacking precision. Even its retaliation for US strikes against Fordow and other nuclear facilities in June 2025 appeared designed to demonstrate resolve without provoking an uncontrollable regional war. This was read by some as hesitation or lack of capability. But it is now clear that it was strategy.
Iran possessed greater capacity to escalate, as it has demonstrated in the current war. But it chose not to exhaust its options. That restraint, interpreted by some as weakness, is consistent with a strategy of preserving escalation options while collecting valuable intelligence on Israeli and American missile-defence systems, response times and interception patterns.
In the 2026 conflict, Iranian targeting has become noticeably more selective. Rather than launching as many projectiles as possible, Tehran has focused on maximizing the strategic value of each strike. Attacks against Gulf energy infrastructure, ports and logistics nodes generate disproportionate economic, political and psychological consequences for the US and countries in the region.
This reflects a fundamentally different theory of victory. Iran has not sought battlefield dominance, but strategic attrition, gradually increasing the political, economic and military costs for its opponents over time.
In other words, Iran appears less focused on winning a short war than on managing a long confrontation, imposing incremental costs on its adversaries while preserving military and political options for future rounds of escalation.
Making a deal
The final assumption of the war, that Iran would capitulate politically and agree to a deal beneficial to the US and Israel, also proved wrong. Tehran’s red lines remain remarkably similar to those that existed before the war.
Enrichment of uranium on its soil remains non-negotiable. Its ballistic missile program may be damaged and depleted to some extent but is still central to its deterrence strategy. Its support for its proxies across the region has not been weakened (though its ability to fund and supply them may have been). In fact, the war has caused Tehran to expand the range of issues it considers core national interests, now adding control of the Strait of Hormuz to its list of red lines.
Far from appearing weakened, Iran increasingly projects confidence that it has weathered the storm. Whether that confidence is justified is almost secondary. It is Tehran’s perception of its situation that will shape its behaviour.
This is why the current trajectory is so troubling. If policymakers continue to base their strategy on assumptions that have repeatedly failed – that the regime is on the verge of collapse, that military pressure alone will produce capitulation, or that additional strikes will fundamentally alter Tehran’s calculations – they risk fighting a war with an Iranian regime that exists more in their expectations than in reality.
The likely outcome is neither decisive victory nor durable peace, but an increasingly familiar cycle of tit-for-tat, temporary ceasefires, failed negotiations and renewed escalation. Each fresh round of fighting will doubtless be presented by the US as the one that will finally break Tehran’s resolve. Yet each round is more likely to convince Iran that strategic patience, rather than compromise, remains its best option.
Until US assumptions are revisited, the war risks becoming self-perpetuating, driven less by achievable political objectives than by the hope that the next round of military pressure will succeed where every previous round has failed.
How the dismissal of Ukraine’s popular defence minister backfired for ZelenskyyExpert commentLToremark
The dismissal of Mykhailo Fedorov – the man behind Ukraine’s successful drone campaign against Russia – has sparked protests across Ukraine and turned into a political crisis for Zelenskyy.
For the second time this year, a surprise cabinet reshuffle by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has caused international headlines. Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko has resigned – at Zelenskyy’s request – triggering the automatic dissolution of her cabinet. The popular defence minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, was stripped of his role after only six months in office. Fedorov’s dismissal has sparked protests across Ukraine calling for him to be reinstated. Zelenskyy’s decision not to reappoint him has turned the reshuffle into a political crisis.
Zelenskyy defended his decision as a necessary step to resolve a paralyzing internal conflict between Fedorov and Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi. In an attempt to quell the protests, Syrskyi has now been sacked and replaced with joint forces chief Mykhailo Drapatyi, seen as an ally of Fedorov. Zelenskyy also says he has offered Fedorov a ‘prominent position within the government’ but details are yet unclear. Although this will help defuse the crisis, the pairing of Drapatyi leading the armed forces alongside Fedorov driving tech innovation is viewed by many as essential for driving their reform agenda forward. This is now likely to become the focus of the protests.
Competing visions of war and governance
This animosity between Fedorov and Syrskyi reflects a fundamental ideological clash over how Ukraine should fight and govern itself. Critics view Syrskyi as an embodiment of the archaic, centralized Soviet-style approach that prioritizes artillery and ground assault infantry – and tolerates high casualty rates. Public condemnation of this old-guard military culture has recently intensified following investigative reports exposing the mistreatment and systemic abuse – even fatal – of recruits within a regiment reporting directly to Syrskyi.
Conversely, Fedorov champions an asymmetric, tech-driven approach to warfare designed to outsmart a larger adversary. His track record includes scaling domestic drone production, negotiating the shutdown of Starlink terminals used illegally by Russian forces, and introducing ‘after action reviews’ (AAR) to boost Ukraine’s missile interception rates. Fedorov also promoted pay raises, a new fixed-term contract system, and mechanisms to address soldiers going AWOL. But he was ousted before all his reforms could be realized and there is now widespread frustration that progress on these vital changes will stall.
Perhaps even more importantly, Fedorov’s reforms disrupted an opaque system long exploited by corrupt generals for personal enrichment. His introduction of competitive tendering and digitized procurement tracking made it increasingly difficult to inflate supply contracts and hide illicit kickbacks. Fedorov had also called for integrating battalion-level performance metrics into resource allocation and operational decisions.
Zelenskyy’s political calculus
While Fedorov has never publicly expressed presidential ambitions, his political capital is growing. A recent survey by the Kyiv Institute of International Sociology revealed that public trust in Fedorov surged from 38 per cent to 50 per cent over the last six months, whereas trust in Zelenskyy remained stable at around 61-62 per cent.
—
Ambassador Zaluzhnyi at Chatham House
However, public sentiment is shifting: a May 2026 poll indicated that 67 per cent of Ukrainians expect Zelenskyy to be replaced once the war ends. Although Ukraine is constitutionally barred from holding elections under martial law, Zelenskyy has consistently sought to neutralize potential political rivals through dismissal or co-optation.
Zelenskyy’s most formidable political rival remains General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, although his political momentum appears to be waning. An early June poll showed that if presidential elections were held immediately, 32 per cent of Ukrainians would still vote for Zelenskyy. Conversely, Zaluzhnyi’s support dropped from 25 per cent to 16 per cent over the same period. Notably, Zelenskyy dismissed Zaluzhnyi as commander-in-chief and made him ambassador to the UK in February 2024 – around the time when Ukraine’s presidential elections would have normally occurred.
In January 2026, a massive energy sector corruption scandal forced the resignation of Zelenskyy’s powerful chief of staff, Andriy Yermak. In the resulting government reshuffle – which also elevated Fedorov – Zelenskyy appointed former military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov to his administration to restore public trust. This restructuring happened amid persistent pressure from Washington for Ukraine to establish a path towards democratic elections. Budanov’s inclusion is politically significant: he consistently ranks as one of the top three most trusted political figures, with data in late 2025 suggesting he could defeat Zelenskyy in a hypothetical runoff election.
Ultimately, sidelining capable and popular officials has become a distinct pattern of Zelenskyy’s leadership style – even more so as discussions about potential autumn elections heat up behind closed doors. But this time it backfired.
The timing of Zelenskyy’s decision is particularly baffling. Fedorov’s 40-day operation to isolate the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula had reached unprecedented momentum, and any bureaucratic slowdowns could now leave frontline brigades vulnerable. Russia is also preparing for another potential wave of mobilization after its autumn Duma elections.
EU Defence Commissioner Andrius Kubilius, meanwhile, called Fedorov’s sudden removal a ‘big surprise’, emphasizing that he was the driver of Ukraine’s tech-first model and asymmetric drone strategy. Ukraine had just signed the EU-Ukraine Defence Industrial Partnership, establishing a framework for joint production and integration of combat-tested drone and counter-drone technologies with European manufacturing capacity. Fedorov had also recently submitted an application to route EU funds towards US and European anti-ballistic missile technology for Ukraine to help mitigate critical air defence shortages.
In Ukraine, active-duty soldiers and veterans have reported internal pressure designed to suppress support for Fedorov and the protests over his removal. For the demonstrators, Zelenskyy’s initial alignment with Syrskyi represented a regressive path toward opaque, Soviet-style governance, protecting vested interests of defence companies that may be losing contracts as a result of Fedorov’s strategy and reforms.
The new commander-in-chief, Drapatyi, is widely respected in Ukraine as a highly effective, accountable battlefield commander committed to military reform and soldiers’ well-being. It remains to be seen if Fedorov will accept Zelenskyy’s latest offer of a ‘prominent position’. He has already refused an offer to serve as an adviser overseeing defence technology and military reforms.
This synchronization elimination enables new execution models where inference is no longer constrained by local on-card memory capacity.
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