It is the first such trilateral diplomatic push since negotiations were suspended following the start of the war with Iran.

US-led talks in Abu Dhabi are first substantive negotiations in months focusing on ending the conflict which has raged for more than four years

• US officials seek ‘final end’ to Russia-Ukraine war as talks begin

The EU has said it stands ready “to come with a swift and united response” after France blamed Iran for a spate of cyber-attacks on supermarket freezers and chillers that caused millions of euros of damage.

Speaking to journalists on Monday, French foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot said “Europe-wide sanctions” would be imposed against those responsible as he announced France believed that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards were “responsible for this attack”.

We acknowledge that France has attributed these (cyber-attacks) to Iran. Pending discussions with member states, we as (the) European Union, we stand ready to come with a swift and united response.

We as the EU, we have consistently called on all states to refrain from malicious behaviour in the cyberspace. And we will continue to address such malicious behavior, making use of all the tools that we have also under the EU cyber diplomacy toolbox, including sanctions.

Republicans in Congress are scheduled to elect their leaders for the new Congress on Tuesday, as they regroup following Democrats' victories last week that flipped both chambers.

Move comes weeks after Washington withdrew bombers from RAF Fairford after a suspected security incident

Several US military aircraft have been evacuated from RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk after the US air force concluded they could be at risk from a possible Iranian threat if they remained at the British base.

Ten air tankers were relocated to bases in Germany, Spain and Scotland, while Osprey transport aircraft were sent to nearby RAF Lakenheath. It is the second time the US has undertaken a hasty redeployment in the UK after some of its bombers were pulled from RAF Fairford recently.

A military court in the Democratic Republic of Congo has sentenced 66 soldiers to death for cowardice and mutiny after they allegedly fled fighting with rebels.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is holding a rare Pentagon news briefing Tuesday morning, as lawmakers are expected to vote on his impeachment this week.

First substantive peace talks since February to include US proposal for ‘long-term security architecture’ between Moscow and Europe

• Europe live – latest updates

US officials have said they are seeking a “final end” to the war between Russia and Ukraine, beginning with trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, the first substantive negotiations between the two countries since February.

The talks are the first since the US launched joint strikes with Israel against Iran, and they follow bruising midterm elections that have weakened Donald Trump at home. The first day of talks ended early Tuesday afternoon local time with a second day set for Wednesday.

UN climate summit prepares to host world leaders from more than 90 countries as scientists find global carbon emissions flatlined this year

We’ve just heard from Patricia Espinosa, the former UN climate boss (succeeded by Simon Stiell) and now we are hearing from former US secretary of state and climate ambassador, John Kerry.

Kerry has congratulated Brazil for keeping the fossil fuel transition issue alive, and the room has erupted in cheers.

Conservative leader launches Welfare That Works policy document

Badenoch and Whately are now taking questions.

Q: [From Rob Powell from Sky News] We are running a report on the Netherlands, where youth unemployment is much lower than in the UK, but the amount they spend on getting people into work is much higher. Do you want to spend more on job training and support?

California lawsuit comes as Donald Trump says FBI is investigating tech CEO’s links with Alice Huang

• Business live – latest updates

• Nvidia’s board needs to do some succession planning – sharpish

Nvidia and its chief executive, Jensen Huang, have been accused of misleading shareholders in a lawsuit over the Chinese spying scandal engulfing the $4.3tn (£3.2tn) company.

The legal action came as Donald Trump said the FBI was investigating Huang’s affair with an alleged Chinese spy.

News conference comes after anti-Trump congressman Thomas Massie pursued impeachment measure against the embattled defense secretary

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Donald Trump said war in Iran would end soon as he played down concerns US would escalate military campaign against Tehran after midterm elections.

During a White House press conference, Trump said Israel and Gulf allies in the region were well protected from Iran and an escalation was not needed:

Voters in California have rejected a tax on the state's wealthiest residents, CBS News projects, following a campaign that has split traditional allies and shattered spending records for a tax-related measure in California.

If Democrats want to keep the blue wave going into 2028, they have to take on the billionaire class

Welcome back to How We Win, a Guardian opinion series with leading thinkers, offering bold ideas for America’s political future. Last week, Judd Legum shined a spotlight on the role of dark money in US elections. Today’s edition was written by Naomi Klein, Guardian US columnist and author of End Times Fascism: And the Fight for the Living World, co-written with Astra Taylor.

To see the battle lines of the post-midterm era in sharp relief, look to Texas.

The oligarchs in this battle seem to have no loyalty to the nations, states and cities that helped them grow their enormous wealth.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is facing fresh turmoil after shareholders sued him and his company for allegedly misleading them over his affair with an accused Chinese spy​.

@emilysmith Hiya :) The file size limit is currently 10MB with a max image size of 12800 x 5000 pixels as of typing. The platform will attempt to resize anything on the upper end of this scale so the topics load faster. The full size images are still available when clicking the image.

If you're able to get any pics you want to share below 10MB that will work natively here. I haven't increased this limit in a while so if it's needed I'll consider the implications against the existing storage pool.

Former US secretary of state says most nations are ‘stumbling along’ while Beijing has ‘hugely accelerated’

• Cop31 live – latest updates

China is leading the world in moving away from fossil fuels, and the rest of the globe – including the US – must now follow, the former US secretary of state John Kerry has told the Guardian, as Cop watchers wonder exactly how China is going to approach this year’s climate summit.

As Cop31 opens – this year the climate conference is in Turkey – there is plenty of speculation about whether China will finally step into the leadership role that it has long avoided. In its latest “five-year plan” adopted in March 2026, China for the first time pledged to “actively participate in and lead global climate governance”. Cop31 could provide the first indications Beijing is ready to put that rhetoric into action, something it has historically been reluctant to do.

Judge Lindsay Griffin cited Thomas Markle's "health condition," "advanced age" and "lack of recall" in the order.

The talks are expected to include a broad discussion of European security, a move observers described as a risky nod to a key Russian goal of having a greater say in Europe’s security.

Guardian reports accusations after court rejects legal attempt to prevent publication. Walliams denies any wrongdoing

• Read the full investigation: ‘It wasn’t long until he asked me if I’d ever had sex before’

• Explainer: the key legal issues surrounding the case

David Walliams, one of Britain’s best-known television personalities and top-selling children’s authors, has been accused by multiple women of using his power and celebrity status to prey on young women and teenagers for sex.

The allegations include accounts from two women who said they first met the star when they were 15 years old.

Support for anyone affected by sexual abuse issues is available in the UK from Rape Crisis on 0808 500 2222 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, or 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac) offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331. Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123. Other international helplines are available for people affected by sexual abuse, childhood abuse, and people in crisis.

The ITV News documentary David Walliams: Power and Silence is available to watch on YouTube and ITVX.

Comedian and former Britain’s Got Talent judge alleged to have groomed fans he met when they were as young as 15 and harassed women in the workplace over a number of years. He denies the allegations

The potential presidential contender has misread the electorate – and that’s just the start of his problems

The good news is that the dramatic results of last week’s midterm elections mean that Donald Trump and his administration will be much less able to immiserate and impoverish the American people for the next two years, that newly competitive states are likely to see an influx of investment from Democrats, and that states that were once under seemingly unbreakable regimes of Republican control now have Democratic state governments that will hopefully pursue more just, or at least less cruel, policy agendas.

The bad news is that the 2028 presidential cycle has already begun.

MLS/Zillow photo

Arrest made by anti-corruption body set up to investigate alleged graft during former PM’s 16-year rule

Hungarian authorities have detained a brother of Viktor Orbán as part of an investigation into people-smuggling, the prime minister, Péter Magyar, has said.

The Hungarian anti-graft body, the national asset protection and recovery office, said in ⁠a statement that a joint operation with police had led to the arrests of four people and searches of homes in Budapest and Pest county.

Speaking in the White House, the president said the US remained ‘locked and loaded’ but escalation was not needed. Plus, how Grand Theft Auto became a cultural colossus

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Good morning. Oil prices have dropped after Donald Trump unilaterally declared that the US war on Iran was “effectively over”. During a White House press conference, Trump said Israel and Gulf allies in the region were well protected from Iran and that an escalation was not needed.

He said, however, that the US remained “locked and loaded, ready to go for any reason”, adding: “We’re seeing momentum toward the end of this conflict. I think it’s going to be ending fairly soon.” Brent crude has dropped below $90, its lowest level since August.

What is the latest development with Pete Hegseth? A Republican lawmaker has moved to force a vote to impeach the US defense secretary. Thomas Massie, of Kentucky, introduced eight articles of impeachment against Hegseth, accusing him of illegally waging war without congressional authorization and abusing his powers.

What has happened at a US airbase in England? The US military has reportedly evacuated aircraft from a second airbase in ⁠Britain after a threat from Iran. Two US refuelling tankers that were using the RAF Mildenhall military base diverted to Germany on Monday morning, while several other tankers at the base ⁠were moved to Germany and other locations later in the day.

At least a dozen U.S. refueling planes and other aircraft departed on Monday from a British base that is a major hub for the U.S. Air Force. The reasons behind the move remain unclear.

Quote of the Day

“Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world.”

― Nelson Mandela (1918-2013), 1st Black President of South Africa

There are heroes in this world, and then there is Nelson Mandela. Beginning in 1962, he spent 27 years in prison, 18 of them at the notoriously harsh and isolated Robben Island Prison, for the crime of wanting his people and himself to be free and equal citizens of South Africa. This long captivity was a burden that would have broken many lesser men. Yet, despite all that time, Mandela maintained his dignity and remained the moral leader of his people by never sacrificing his principles, including choosing to stay in prison when he could have accepted a conditional release. When he was finally freed in 1990, he led the negotiations to end apartheid, and in 1994 he was elected the country’s first Black president.

One of the main things that kept him going during all those years in prison was a commitment to education, both for himself and his fellow inmates. Reading was tightly restricted on Robben Island. Prisoners were allowed only approved books, censors screened everything, and privileges could be revoked at any moment. Even so, the island’s political prisoners turned their incarceration into a kind of university, and Mandela’s reading and instruction were at the center of it.

For the prisoners, reading was a means of survival. It was a form of discipline, preparation, and resistance, a way of ensuring that those who imprisoned their bodies could not confine their minds. Prison was designed to break their spirits through monotony and humiliation, and reading kept their minds active and gave structure to their days. It was also a source of moral strength. Stories of courage, resistance, and endurance gave Mandela and his comrades a shared vocabulary for the ordeal they were living through. The most famous volume in their communal library was a copy of The Complete Works of Shakespeare, smuggled onto the island by fellow political prisoner Sonny Venkatrathnam’s wife. It was in the inmates’ possession for approximately five years before being confiscated.

“And one Sunday morning, a warder tells me, ‘The (Anglican) Church is here,’” Venkatrathnam recounted in the book Reading Revolution: Shakespeare on Robben Island. “I tell him I’m an Anglican, but I left my Bible in the storeroom… He takes out his keys, opens the storeroom and I pick out my book: The Complete Works of Shakespeare. The problem is how do we hide it. Providentially, it was Diwali [the Hindu Festival of Lights], and my parents sent me greeting cards. So I took those cards, cut them up and pasted them with porridge over the covers of the book. The warders would come and ask me, ‘What’s that?’ And I said, ‘It’s my Bhagavad Gita, my Bible.’ They did not touch it.”

The book became known as the Robben Island Bible. It circulated among the political prisoners, each marking a favorite passage with his signature. Mandela chose a line from Julius Caesar: “Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.”

Mandela read whatever he could get his hands on, especially fiction and classics. Tolstoy’s War and Peace made a strong impression on him, as did Dickens and Steinbeck. He studied Greek tragedy, and in a prison performance of Sophocles’ Antigone he played Creon. The play, about a woman who defies an unjust law on grounds of conscience, spoke directly to the prisoners’ own situation.

He also pursued formal study. While in prison, he worked toward a law degree through the University of London’s correspondence program, although restrictions imposed by the authorities prevented him from completing it. He finally earned an LLB (Bachelor of Laws) degree through the University of South Africa in 1989, shortly before his release. He also read everything he could find about his captors. He learned Afrikaans and immersed himself in Afrikaner history and literature. Those books helped him understand the people who held him prisoner, build relationships with his jailers, and eventually engage with the government to negotiate his release and the freedom of his people.

Throughout his time in prison, Mandela always thought of himself as a future leader, not merely a prisoner. Studying history, law, and the Afrikaner mindset prepared him for the negotiating table at which one day he planned to have a seat. That preparation paid off in the new South Africa he helped build, where the seat he finally occupied was at the very head of the table.

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Donald Trump said war in Iran would end soon as he played down concerns US would escalate military campaign against Tehran after midterm elections. During a White House press conference, Trump said Israel and Gulf allies in the region were well protected from Iran and an escalation was not needed

• Trump says US war in Iran ‘effectively over’ as he plays down escalation concerns

Petroleum expert Patrick De Haan predicts prices will continue to sink and reach $3.75 a gallon by Thanksgiving.

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND — The United States became the first country to fully refuse participation in the United Nations’ Universal Periodic Review of its human rights record on Tuesday, preventing the scheduled examination from proceeding.

The review is designed to examine the human rights practices of every U.N. member state. Since the process began in 2008, all 193 countries have undergone three rounds of review.

The Trump administration withdrew from the U.N. Human Rights Council last year, accusing it of anti-American and anti-Israel bias. U.S. officials said participating in the review would lend legitimacy to an institution they believe fails to uphold its own stated principles.

Without U.S. representatives, the review could not proceed as planned. Questions prepared for the session included abortion, the death penalty, immigration enforcement and racial discrimination. Nearly 200 civil-society submissions had also been filed.

Critics argue the decision creates a damaging precedent. ACLU official Jamil Dakwar said the administration was effectively signaling that it does not care whether the United States is scrutinized internationally, while human-rights experts warned that other governments could now point to Washington’s refusal as justification for avoiding their own reviews.

The UPR’s recommendations are nonbinding, but the process has relied on universal participation to maintain credibility. The immediate consequence of the U.S. boycott is procedural rather than legal, yet its broader impact could be significant if other governments follow suit.

Sources:

• Reuters – MBFC Rating

The post U.S. Becomes First Country to Fully Skip U.N. Human Rights Review appeared first on News Facts Network.

The post Justice Department Sues Penn State Over In-State Tuition for Undocumented Students appeared first on News Facts Network.

What young students stand to lose is more than cognitive skill: it’s a reliable sense of their own minds

In August, OpenAI launched Teen Mode – a version of ChatGPT in which every user under 18 will automatically be enrolled – a year after a lawsuit alleged that ChatGPT had contributed to the suicide of a 16-year-old named Adam Raine.

For years, the tech industry has contested any causal link between its products and the harms named in a wave of similar lawsuits, each alleging that the companies had not merely failed to protect children but had deliberately designed products to exploit them.

Stephen Miller is an ideologue on a mission to reshape the world. But his appointment has a silver lining for Democrats

Has the midterms bloodbath made Donald Trump go all woke? Has his party’s historic rebuke finally made him reflect on his actions and forced a road to Damascus moment?

Of course not; this is the world’s least introspective man we are talking about. However, for about 30 seconds on Sunday, the usually incoherent president managed the amazing feat of speaking a little bit of sense.

With weeks left on the congressional calendar, House and Senate representatives have a host of issues they still need to tackle

On their first day back in the Capitol after comprehensive defeats in last week’s midterm elections, Republicans were divided into two camps: those who saw the catastrophe coming, and those who did not.

“I told you exactly what was going to happen. Over and over and over, I told you,” said West Virginia senator Jim Justice. “I said really and truly, if you weren’t concerned and you were a Republican, you were living in a cave. That was my exact words.”

Former top HHS aide Calley Means alleged in an interview with "Face the Nation" that Ballard Partners "controlled" White House policy. The firm and Wiles said the claims are false.

Kalshi traders' favored candidate won 95% of congressional and governors' races, a CBS News analysis found.

Uber is launching Uber Parking, integrating technology from its SpotHero acquisition to let users find and reserve parking garages and lots directly through the Uber app. "You can also filter your results based on criteria like whether you want to self-park or use a valet, or other specific amenities," adds Engadget. From the report: To book a spot, you'll need to provide the make and model of your car and a license plate number. Depending on your lot, Uber will then provide a QR code or you'll be able to enter the garage through license plate recognition. If you need to cancel, the company says the majority of parking options can be canceled for free up to the start time. Parking reservations can also be extended through the app. Uber One subscribers get 10 percent back in Uber credits on eligible reservations. When it announced its acquisition, Uber said SpotHero offered garages and lots across more than 400 cities in the US and Canada, but the company isn't offering all of them at launch. For now, Uber says Uber Parking will be available in Chicago, Nashville, San Francisco, Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, Philadelphia, San Diego, Seattle and Washington DC. The company also plans to experiment with using lots as a staging area for the autonomous vehicle fleets offered byÂUber's self-driving partners.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Former prime minister faces death penalty upon return after being sentenced in absentia over deaths in 2024 uprising

Sheikh Hasina is “confident” she will return to Bangladesh in December, according to exiled members of her party, after the disgraced former prime minister applied for a new passport this week.

Hasina has been living in self-imposed exile since August 2024 when she was toppled from power by a mass uprising against her authoritarian rule. She crossed the border to India, where she has since been allowed to live freely in Delhi.

The reported movement comes just over a month after a security incident at a separate air base hosting U.S. aircraft used in the war with Iran.

Brent crude drops below $90 and markets climb after president downplays prospect of further strikes

• Business live – latest updates

Oil prices have fallen to the lowest level since late August while stock markets climbed higher, as markets reacted with relief to Donald Trump saying that the war on Iran is “effectively over”.

Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, fell nearly 3% to $89.66, the lowest since 31 August, on Tuesday morning, after the US president downplayed the need for military action against Iran “at this point”. The fall came after a near 6% drop on Monday on signs that the conflict might be nearing an end.

"This irredeemable body makes a mockery of human rights through consistent failures to uphold its own 'values' as it pushes anti-American rhetoric," a State Department spokesperson said.

Department store group kept buying new products and fell months behind in payments to some brands despite discussions with administrators

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David Jones’s administrators have revealed they reviewed its finances six months ago and discussed restructuring the retailer three months before it fell into administration.

The new timeline raises questions over the department store group’s decision to keep buying new products and fall months behind in payments to some brands before it revealed last Thursday it could not pay its debts.

Want to get your steps in while working or watching TV? Our expert puts walking pads through their paces to find the best for comfort, noise and ease of storage

• The best treadmills for your home

You don’t necessarily need to walk 10,000 steps a day to improve your health and wellbeing. In fact, the NHS encourages a slightly more manageable target of just 10 minutes of brisk walking daily to introduce more moderate-intensity physical activity and reduce your risk of early death by up to 15%.

However, even squeezing in “brisk walks” can be a chore, with busy schedules and increasingly desk-bound jobs forcing more of us to remain sedentary for long periods. That is where walking pads come in, being lighter, smaller and often easier to store than bulky and tricky-to-manoeuvre running treadmills.

In November 2015, world leaders descended on Paris to negotiate a historic agreement to limit global warming. But on the summit’s opening day, attention turned to a private citizen slouched awkwardly in a chair on stage: Bill Gates.

Gates, with his characteristic flop of sandy hair, grinned impishly as President Barack Obama called him a “visionary” and a “driving force” behind a pair of pledges that both saw as key to the larger agreement. First the world’s largest economies would double their spending on research into clean-energy technologies. Then investors like Gates would back the startups that emerged. The Microsoft cofounder had already enlisted two dozen other billionaires to join the effort.

For Gates, who’d become increasingly consumed by this unprecedented threat to human well-being, the moment marked his arrival as a leading figure in the fight against climate change.

“If we back over 50 different breakthrough approaches, we know that several of those will give us the solution that we need,” Gates said during his own speech. He would invest at least $2 billion of his own money in companies developing geothermal wells, new kinds of nuclear reactors and machines that pull carbon from the air, to name just a few.

With much less fanfare, however, Gates has put more than double that amount into a very dirty, old-school industry. At the time of the Paris summit, he was already the dominant shareholder of America’s No. 2 landfill operator, Republic Services. He has since increased his stake to 38% of the company, a position worth $29 billion. 

While fossil fuels get most of the attention, scientists increasingly see landfills as a crucial climate issue. They’re responsible for as much as a fifth of the country’s emissions of methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas, studies show. Republic alone generates as much climate pollution as 3 million gasoline-burning cars each year, according to its own reports.

One might imagine that a landfill operator with Gates as its largest shareholder — and with three people closely linked to Gates on its board — would lead the way in tackling those emissions. Even after seemingly softening his stance on global warming in a controversial blog post last year, Gates remains one of the world’s most prominent voices on the issue. As he did in his bestselling 2021 book “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster,” he continues to advocate for cutting emissions, and he has called on his fellow business leaders to do their part. 

Gates, though, has failed to make Republic live up to his own climate principles, a ProPublica investigation has found. Federal inspectors have repeatedly found methane escaping from Republic landfills at levels above federal limits. The company has refrained from adopting the ambitious emissions-reduction goal embraced by its main competitor. Republic has even lobbied against policies that could make the wider industry cleaner, including by keeping organic waste out of landfills in the first place.

“It seems very likely that Bill Gates has the power to influence Republic’s behavior to make it more climate-friendly, even if that costs the company profits,” said Ann Lipton, a legal scholar who studies corporate governance at the University of Colorado, Boulder. 

As for whether he should, in her words, “put his money where his mouth is,” Lipton said, “you can leave it to the reader to make the moral judgment.”

Gates’ Climate Awakening

Gates didn’t respond to repeated requests to discuss his landfill investments, and ProPublica couldn’t find any public comments he’s made about them. But the bet has proven wildly lucrative. Since November 1999, when he emerged as the owner of 5% of Republic’s shares — “It’s ‘Garbage In’ for Gates,” the New York Post headline read — the company’s stock price has soared thirtyfold. And Gates has personally received $2.6 billion in dividends, a ProPublica analysis of securities filings shows.

In those early days, Gates hadn’t yet awakened to the threat of global warming. It was a different time. Microsoft Windows ran on more than 80% of personal computers. Gates was the world’s richest person, and his bespectacled face graced the cover of Time magazine twice that year. He was simultaneously criticized for what a federal judge determined to be Microsoft’s monopolistic practices and admired for establishing what was soon to become the world’s largest charitable foundation. 

A rare clue to why Gates made his foray into landfills can be found in an interview he gave to Fortune that year. To fund his plan to give away virtually his entire fortune, he said he’d given his personal money manager, Michael Larson, a simple remit: Sell Microsoft shares, buy safe, boring assets. 

Republic’s then-chairman, billionaire Wayne Huizenga, had flown Larson by helicopter to his private golf course in Florida, according to the article. It’s unclear if Huizenga pitched Republic there, but it fit the remit. America would always produce trash, ensuring a steady stream of revenue. After that initial investment, Larson progressively increased Gates’ stake in Republic over the years that followed. Larson would also acquire a small chunk of Republic’s main competitor, Waste Management — which Huizenga also once led — on behalf of the Gates Foundation.

It was only in 2006, when he asked two climate scientists to educate him, that Gates started to grasp the potentially “catastrophic” effects of greenhouse gases, he later wrote. But he also saw that the poorest people in the world needed more energy to improve their lot. The solution, he concluded, was something climate activists often underplay: innovation that could make clean energy cheap enough to naturally displace fossil fuels. That was the idea behind Breakthrough Energy, the initiative he launched in Paris in 2015.

Around the same time, methane began to emerge as a focus of climate action. The gas can trap 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide in the near term, and it’s responsible for one-third of the global warming we experience today, according to the United Nations Environment Programme. But it also breaks down much more quickly, turning into CO2 and water vapor in about a decade — which means that cutting methane emissions now would reduce that warming within our lifetimes. This is especially urgent, scientists say, as the climate approaches tipping points that could doom rainforests, coral reefs and ice sheets.

In speeches and interviews, Gates has sometimes warned about methane, but usually from agricultural sources (“cow farts,” in his words). He has rarely mentioned landfills, even after Larson — who still runs Gates’ investment office, Cascade Asset Management — joined Republic’s board in 2009. Gates’ stake in the company, though, was a relatively small portion of his own net worth until fairly recently. And as Larson put it to Fortune, “I’ll call Bill about something I’m buying if he needs to know, but Bill might not have any idea what Cascade owns.” (Gates’ Republic holdings are publicly disclosed in securities filings.)

Elsewhere in Gatesworld, people started to home in on the climate threat posed by landfills. The root of the issue is that landfills store buried trash — and when organic waste decomposes underground, in the absence of oxygen, it generates methane. The Gates Foundation has funded research and advocacy aimed at solving that problem, and Breakthrough has backed at least two early-stage companies developing their own solutions. One, Windfall Bio, uses microbes to digest methane into fertilizer. Its product was actually tested last year at a Republic landfill in California, where the pink liquid was sprinkled on the soil covering the top layer of trash. 

Windfall said the test worked, substantially reducing emissions, but the startup reportedly ceased operations after a Department of Energy grant was canceled. (Windfall didn’t respond to emailed requests for comment.) 

On the surface, Republic has pursued a path consistent with Gates’ mission. In 2019, it became the first U.S. landfill operator to sign up for the Science Based Targets Initiative, promising to cut its emissions by 35% by 2030. Not that this was charity. Republic’s “climate leadership” became part of its pitch for garbage-collection contracts in progressive cities and counties. The company also won placements on stock indexes for businesses that meet certain environmental, social and governance criteria, attracting sustainability-minded investors. 

Still, a fundamental tension remained — one at the heart of Gates’ vision. As Republic’s then-CEO Donald Slager put it on a 2017 call with investors, “You can’t have sustainability without profitability.”

A Not-So-Model Landfill

Each day, Americans throw away melon rinds, salmon skins and half-eaten drumsticks, paper towels, cheese that was too funky and eggs a day past their sell-by date. They discard greasy pizza boxes with crusts still rattling around inside and unthinkable amounts of leftover Chinese takeout. Not to mention the occasional dead pet.

Most of that trash — 240 million tons a year, enough to bury Manhattan under 100 feet of refuse — is hauled to one of the country’s 1,400 active landfills, where hulking vehicles with spiked wheels crush it into thin layers. At the end of each day, bulldozers typically spread soil on top, and for almost everyone who produced that trash, it will forever remain out of sight and out of mind.

People who live near landfills, though, describe smelling rotten cabbage, rotten eggs and rotten fish, as well as ammonia and skunk. Or as a neighbor to one Republic landfill put it: “I started smelling this stench like burning diapers. … It was foul.” Some describe burning throats, burning eyes, headaches and nausea. And while methane itself has no scent, those odors indicate that the gas is being released, studies show.  

Still, modern landfills are an undeniable improvement over what came before. Open dumping and burning remained widespread until the 1970s. It was only in the ’90s that federal regulators started requiring operators to collect leachate (garbage juice, which can contaminate groundwater) and, at larger facilities, landfill gas (which is typically about half methane and half carbon dioxide but can also contain carcinogens like benzene).

Industry experts often compare landfills to living, breathing creatures. Underground trash inevitably shifts and settles, making it difficult to keep that gas from escaping. Managing such a beast is costly, which helps to explain why smaller operations have increasingly given way to corporations like Republic, which can turn a profit through economies of scale.

Republic declined to make executives available for interviews or to allow ProPublica to visit a landfill. But in May 2022 — around the same time Gates was lobbying for the passage of President Joe Biden’s historic climate bill — the company invited the Houston Chronicle to its local McCarty Road Landfill. Opened a half century earlier, the facility had passed through two corporate owners before being swallowed up by Republic, and now it was the site of a very Gatesian kind of project.

On the day of the visit, gulls circled hungrily as workers in neon vests gave a tour of the gas-collection system. Like at most other large landfills in the country, wells had been drilled deep into the trash below — five hundred of them in total. The top of each well sprouted from the grassy slopes in the form of a stubby black pipe fitted with a valve for adjusting the flow of underground gas. The workers also showed off large, bright blue, snail-shaped “blowers” — machines that suck that gas into a network of pipelines, then push it to the clanking, humming on-site plant that turns it into a salable product.

Most landfills that are required to collect gas simply burn it off. But they can also process it into “renewable natural gas,” which is functionally equivalent to the version pumped by oil companies. In part because this reuses the carbon from decomposing waste, it’s generally considered more climate-friendly. It also turns an environmental liability into a source of revenue — exactly the kind of win-win that Gates has long championed. 

Yet the technology is no guarantee that the climate is being protected. In fact, it may be just the opposite.

In September 2024, the Environmental Protection Agency issued an “enforcement alert” saying that landfills across the country were “violating monitoring and maintenance requirements.” While the EPA didn’t name the operators, ProPublica obtained the corresponding spreadsheet through a public records request, and a fifth of the facilities targeted belong to Republic.

McCarty, far from being a model landfill, was among the worst offenders. It would soon earn Republic a formal “finding of violation” for allegedly failing to detect “exceedances” — methane escaping at levels above federal limits — for years on end. The EPA also noted repeated failures to address flooded wells, gullies formed by erosion and trash peeking through the surface of the landfill. Despite Republic’s economic incentive to capture methane, EPA inspectors found evidence of “poor maintenance” and “careless operation” of the gas-collection system as well. 

And McCarty is hardly an outlier. Recent studies suggest that landfills with renewable natural gas facilities can actually emit more methane than those that only burn off the gas or use it to generate electricity. One possible explanation is that methane concentrations can vary across different parts of a landfill. According to researchers at Carbon Mapper, a NASA partner that measures emissions from various industries, some operators may prioritize collecting gas with higher methane content, which is cheaper to process — allowing more of the remaining methane to leak out.

Republic spokesperson Rob Litt declined to comment on whether that happened at McCarty, but said in a statement, “We employ hundreds of environmental managers and engineers. … If issues are identified, we work to resolve them.”

“Protecting the environment is part of Republic Services’ business,” he added.

The issues aren’t exclusive to landfills with natural gas facilities. Since 2020, EPA inspectors have used handheld methane detectors to sweep at least 39 of Republic’s roughly 200 landfills, according to inspection reports obtained by ProPublica. Including the issues at McCarty, they documented more than 1,400 problem spots — ranging from animal burrows to choked-off wells — spewing excessive amounts of methane.

In some cases, methane could be seen bubbling up through dark, fetid leachate pools. In others, so much methane was being released — with concentrations between 100 and 300 times the federal limit — that it was an explosion hazard.

What the Satellites Saw

Around the time of the Houston Chronicle visit, Republic’s CEO, a former McKinsey consultant named Jon Vander Ark, was promoting a new slogan: “Sustainability in action.” Meanwhile, though, Republic was quietly shying away from true climate leadership.

In 2021, two years after Republic signed on to the Science Based Targets Initiative, the SBTI made its minimum climate goal much more ambitious. Waste Management (where the Gates Foundation owns a small minority of the shares) would soon adopt it.

This was just months after Gates published “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster,” in which he exhorted private companies “to embrace the harder steps” toward solving global warming. Republic staff calculated that the new SBTI target could require more than $1 billion in additional spending on gas wells and other improvements, according to a former employee. Though that is less than half of what Republic has spent on dividends for Gates alone, it would leave less money for the company to redistribute to him and other shareholders. Republic has also spent more than $8 billion buying its own stock in the open market, ProPublica’s analysis shows, likely boosting the value of shares held by investors.

The matter was finally presented to the board around the second half of 2024, this person said. By then the board included Larson, Gates’ longtime investment manager — whose “insight into sustainability issues” is cited in company filings — and three other people with business ties to Gates (one has since left). While that is only four board members among a total of 13, Gates’ dominant shareholding means that, “as a practical matter, on any matter that gets voted on, he will almost certainly control the outcome,” said Lipton, the corporate-governance expert.

Republic never made the leap, and now it walks an awkward line. It continues to tout its affiliation with the SBTI while saying, in a note buried deep in one of its many sustainability reports, that the more ambitious target is “not an immediate strategic priority.” 

Per SBTI rules, Republic has until the end of this year to submit an updated target. But when ProPublica asked if it would, the spokesperson said only, “We are reviewing our goals.” He declined to comment on the estimated cost or the board discussions.

There is, though, an even larger issue with Republic’s climate claims.

In line with its existing SBTI goal, Republic says it has already cut its landfill emissions by 20% since 2017. But that figure isn’t based on actual measurements of methane escaping from its facilities. According to the method cited in its sustainability reports, Republic instead typically measures the methane collected by its wells. Then it extrapolates how much it’s failing to collect — and how much is being emitted — based on the characteristics of each facility. 

This method is based on an industry study that, as the EPA has noted, excluded data from gas-collection systems that were “not working well.” The EPA’s own reporting rules allow the same basic approach, which can cause companies collecting less gas due to a “malfunction or inefficiency” to “erroneously report decreasing emissions,” according to a 2025 study using satellite data by researchers at Harvard, NASA and Carbon Mapper. The researchers specifically examined two Republic landfills, and at one of them, the company reported declining emissions to the EPA even though satellite measurements showed they had risen over a four-year period.

The reporting gaps can be enormous. A study led by Hannah Nesser, now at Georgetown, found Republic facilities to be the No. 1 and No. 2 emitters among the roughly 70 large U.S. landfills the researchers observed over the course of 2019. The first, the National Serv-All Landfill in Indiana, was found to be releasing an astounding 13 times as much methane as what the company reported to the EPA. And that pattern repeated to varying degrees across three-quarters of the Republic landfills in the study. (McCarty wasn’t in the study, but according to measurements by Carbon Mapper, it emits more than twice what the company has reported.) 

In response to questions about these studies, the Republic spokesperson said, “We stand by the sustainability results we’ve achieved.” 

He also pointed to a letter from the National Waste and Recycling Association, a major trade group, questioning the accuracy of satellite measurements. It is a tactic from the playbook of another major climate polluter, the oil and gas industry, said Katherine Blauvelt of Full Circle Future, which advocates for cleaning up landfills.

“Satellites, peer-reviewed research studies and EPA inspectors on the ground all keep finding the same thing: unchecked and underreported methane emissions,” she said. “There’s a fire alarm going off and instead of getting out the extinguisher, the waste industry is blaming the smoke detector.”

Quietly Fighting Climate Policies

Last year, Gates published a blog post criticizing the “doomsday view” of global warming — a striking shift for someone who’d once warned of the failing ecosystems, mass migration and soaring mortality that could result from hotter temperatures. That led climate skeptics, including President Donald Trump, to say that Gates had admitted he was wrong. But Gates called that a “gigantic misreading.” While he believed more lives could be saved by improving global health, where he’d decided to shift his resources, he remained a “climate activist,” he told one audience.

Gates has tried to lead by example. In 2019, he sold his shares in oil and gas companies because, he later wrote, “I don’t want to profit if their stock prices go up because we don’t develop zero-carbon alternatives.” He kept flying by private jet, but he “offset” those emissions by buying credits from a company that removes carbon from the air. He has also called on other business leaders to “make sure that they’re not holding back” climate policies, even if those policies could cut into profits.

Republic has actively worked against such policies — and yet Gates, according to securities filings, has never sold a share.

In the final year of the Biden administration, the EPA announced a plan to update its landfill gas rules, which have changed little since the ’90s. Among other potential changes, the agency asked for comments on the newer technologies, such as satellites and drones, that research has found to be effective in monitoring and controlling methane pollution. 

Some landfill operators were already experimenting with these innovations. But they wanted almost all of it to remain voluntary, according to a joint statement from the National Waste and Recycling Association and the Solid Waste Association of North America, both of which have Republic executives on their boards.

“We do not believe that any of these technologies are sufficiently developed,” the industry groups said, adding that the various innovations were “not cost-effective,” “reliable” or “transparent.” 

The Republic spokesperson declined to comment on whether that lobbying goes against its climate commitments.

“A lot of the issue comes down to the profit of the corporate landfill operators and their resistance to do things that will eat into that,” said Darin Schroeder of the Clean Air Task Force, a climate advocacy group.

Gates’ press representatives didn’t respond to questions about whether he’s aware of the issues at Republic — or whether he has independently investigated the source of a fifth of his fortune. But ProPublica interviewed multiple former employees at Breakthrough Energy, Gates’ clean-tech investment arm, who all spoke on condition of anonymity.  They each said they hadn’t even heard about his landfill holdings. 

“I agree there’s a bit of a conundrum there,” said one high-ranking staffer who was laid off last year. But this person added, “Based on my time with him, I think he’s very serious about climate change. This isn’t a vanity thing for him.”

“My theory is that he probably doesn’t have much involvement in those investments,” said another laid-off staffer.

Gates’ investment managers, at least, can’t claim total ignorance. Larson and Thomas Handley, a Cascade senior adviser, both participate actively in Republic’s board discussions, according to a fellow director who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share details of those private discussions. The board also receives regular management briefings, including “high level” reports on the company’s lobbying and litigation over “practices we could do better,” this director said. (Larson didn’t return phone messages left by ProPublica at his office, and Cascade didn’t respond to a question about his and Handley’s involvement in Republic.)

It’s unclear if Gates himself ever learned of those reports. But he appears to have an even larger blind spot on the issue. The waste industry doesn’t fit neatly into his view of climate change as a problem to be solved mainly through technological breakthroughs. Innovations can help, but the root of the problem is the inescapable fact that, when organic waste decomposes in the absence of oxygen, methane is produced. 

Properly managing the waste we’ve already buried is only the first step, said Riley Duren, the former NASA engineer who founded Carbon Mapper. “In parallel,” he said, “reduce food waste. Full stop. Then divert organic waste away from landfills to prevent future emissions.” 

This isn’t a utopian fantasy. Germany started phasing out the landfilling of biodegradable waste in 1993, and its landfill methane emissions have plunged by more than 90%. (That compares to a decline of 40% in the U.S. over roughly the same period.) Within the U.S., California now requires food scraps and yard trimmings to be collected for composting or other uses, and state regulators found that the economic, climate and health benefits would ultimately outweigh the costs.

In its glossy sustainability reports, Republic says that “organics recycling plays an important role in our operations.” And in California, with its mandatory collection rules, the company processed close to a million tons of organic waste last year, much of that at composting facilities.

But that remains a small fraction of its business. Speaking to a different kind of audience — investors — Republic has described landfilling, along with dumpster collection, as its most profitable segments. So when the EPA floated a federal organics-diversion policy in 2024, the company, along with the rest of the landfill industry, opposed this, too. Their response invoked an argument often used by opponents to regulation: It should be left to the states to decide.

“It’s like you’ve got a mousetrap, and it catches mice,” said Robert Bullard, a Texas Southern University professor widely seen as the father of the environmental justice movement. “You’ve got a landfill, and it makes money — big money. So why tinker with it?”

The post The Garbage Man: Bill Gates Has Earned Billions Investing in Climate-Polluting Landfills appeared first on ProPublica.

The Biggs Museum of American Art in Dover has been inundated with curious characters painted by the late Philadelphia artist Peter Paone.

Pumpkin-headed creatures bare their teeth. A giant snail perches on the shoulder of a man in a blue balaclava. A couple of human-hare hybrids cradles their baby — a bunny rabbit — in a painting titled “Incest.” 

Among Paone’s characters, curator Laura Fravel’s favorite is a bulldog of a man with sad eyes. She calls him “the cheese wizard” because he wears a yellow overcoat and blue wizard hat filled with holes.

“Hearing little kids, but also a surprising number of grown-ups, make up their own stories about the cheese man has been delightful. (Stories) of, ‘He lives on the moon and doesn’t have any friends because he is smelly, but is very sweet and calls his mother every Thursday,’” Fravel said. “There’s no background (in the painting). It’s very minimal. But those little inconsistencies in the design of the character open up so many possibilities.”

Paone flat-out refused to ever explain what his work meant, even to his closest collaborators and family members. Instead, he held up a mirror to the viewer and asked them to find their own meaning. 

“Everybody always asks Peter, ‘What does that mean? What does that mean?’” said Alma Alabilikian, Paone’s wife of 50 years. “He said, ‘What does it mean to you? It’s not important what it means to me. I’m done. I did my job.’”

As if intentionally hammering home his point about the death of the author, Paone died in May.

At that time, Fravel was planning to interview him about The Biggs Museum’s exhibition “Peter Paone: Before Words.” The opening reception in early October came mere days after what would have been Paone’s 90th birthday.

“It is unfortunate timing, but also, I think he actually would, in an odd way, enjoy that it is left open-ended, that we are kind of forced to piece this together and to talk to each other and make up those stories,” Fravel said. 

Break-in and breakthrough

Paone was raised in South Philadelphia by Italian immigrant parents and began drawing and painting when he was 8, according to The Biggs Museum’s exhibition catalogue. 

Paone’s interest in the arts was immediate and all-consuming. At 15, he climbed the locked iron gate of the Barnes Foundation, a Philadelphia art collection. 

“I knocked on the door, and (Barnes Foundation Director of Education) Violette de Maiza answered the door. She was shocked. And (I said), ‘I hear you have pictures here. I want to see them,’” Paone recalled in a 2019 documentary.

Though de Maiza initially insisted that Paone leave, she ended up giving him a tour and later invited him to study at the Barnes Foundation.

At 29, Paone received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a monetary award recognizing his artistic talent. 

“If he were speaking to you, he could paint every stripe on your shirt, every hole in your buttons, every single detail, from memory, two weeks later. He had an incredible memory, as well as imagination,” said Paone’s archivist, Lori Bilodeau. “He never set up a still life and painted it, and he didn’t use models.”

With the funds from his Guggenheim Fellowship, Paone traveled to London, where he rubbed shoulders with (and painted) Ringo Starr and George Harrison. 

After Paone returned to Philadelphia, he bumped into Alabilikian in Rittenhouse Square. The pair, who had first met when they were students at John Bartram High School, married six months later.

“(He) hollered, ‘Hi, Alma!’ I didn’t know who he was. He had changed dramatically. In high school, he was thin. Brown, curly hair. Very, very good looking. And then…” Alabilikian began, bursting out laughing.

Paone had transformed completely. There wasn’t a hair on his head other than his beard and handlebar mustache, and he’d already begun refining his fashion sense: tweed jackets, ascots and red-rimmed glasses.

“He had a kind of dapper quality that emphasized his sense of art being a serious business,” said Andrea Packard, Paone’s former drawing student at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. 

At the university, Paone helped shape the printmaking program and taught from 1978 to 2009. 

But in his later years, he was constantly in his home studio, where he would work 9 a.m.-5 p.m. every day, sometimes blasting Carl Orff’s calamitous “O Fortuna” for inspiration.

“He never believed in these artists who said, ‘The muse hasn’t hit me today.’ He was a firm believer that if you were given a gift, then it was your responsibility to make sure you used it,” Alabilikian said. 

‘Nobody understood him’

Fravel wrote a “fan letter” to Paone in 2024 when she saw one of his exhibitions in Pennsylvania. That led to a studio visit.

“You walk in, and it’s just this fantastical cabinet of curiosities,” she described. “The first thing you see is this library of, floor to ceiling, books. … As you walk in further, you start to notice his collection of early 20th century Halloween decorations and vintage tin toys.”

Paone also had hundreds of acrylic gouache paintings that had been “overlooked,” caught in the shadow of the artist’s other work, Fravel said. So, she pitched the idea of exhibiting some of these paintings.

“We had never been to (The Biggs Museum). We didn’t know anything about it. We took a chance. But Peter liked Laura (Fravel) so much, from the very beginning,” Alabilikian said. 

Fravel whittled down hundreds of works Paone had painted since the 1970s. She landed on about 100 works, all painted within the last six years. 

“I think the oldest one that is dated in the show is from the (COVID) pandemic,” she said.

During that time, Paone painted a series of masked figures, including our aforementioned friend in the balaclava. It’s a rare example of an identifiable, real-world inspiration in Paone’s work, though many have tried to attach meaning to his paintings.

For example, Bilodeau thought “The Dolls We Lost in 2021,” a painting of a figure hugging a large collection of dolls, may have been inspired by the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol attack — but there’s no way of verifying that theory.

“He said nobody understood him. You get an idea of why,” joked Paone’s friend, Ron Callaghan, as he gestured to a landscape of a house on fire, a giant fish and a tree resembling a naked woman.

While there are some common themes in Paone’s work, like Halloween and the circus, his intentions will forever remain a mystery. 

That’s why the exhibition is called “Before Words.” It extends an invitation to look at Paone’s characters and come up with your own story. In fact, Fravel is currently planning an event in which local writers will read short stories and poems inspired by Paone’s work. 

“The bottom line is the human experience. Other curators have often spoke of loneliness and melancholy, joy. All of the things that are part of the human experience, you will find somewhere in this work,” Alabilikian said. That includes “Confusion,” she added with a laugh.

Fravel decided to place a painting called “See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil” at the end of the exhibition. Three figures sit near each other but refuse to look at or interact with each other.

“I think that was something that concerned Peter Paone in recent years. He saw this division in society, of people who were next door neighbors but weren’t really engaging with each other, were very set in their ways,” Fravel said. “He saw his art as a way to start to combat that, to encourage people to come together, to have discussions, to talk about new and exciting possibilities.”

The post From a ‘cheese wizard’ to pumpkin creatures, artist strips back context in posthumous Dover exhibition appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

Why Should Delaware Care?
During the upcoming 154th General Assembly, the House Minority Leader must contend with a smaller caucus than in years past, and one that recently lost one of its few remaining levers of power when Democrats secured a two-thirds supermajority during last week’s midterm elections. Taking on the role will likely mean looking for unique ways to advance a Republican agenda in a statehouse that has become a Democratic stronghold.

Republicans within the Delaware House of Representatives tapped Rep. Danny Short (R-Seaford) as the next Minority Leader, after a health emergency prevented Rep. Tim Dukes from seeking the role.

In a phone call with Spotlight Delaware on Monday, Dukes said he was at Bayhealth Hospital’s Kent Campus, recovering from a weekslong battle against diverticulitis. Complications from the intestinal infection led to multiple surgeries and stays at four different hospitals over the past two weeks, he said.

As a result, Dukes said he was not able to attend the House Republican caucus’ organizational meeting last week where members voted for their leaders, let alone run for the role of Minority Leader himself.

But he sang Short’s praises, along with those of Rep. Valerie Jones-Giltner (R-Georgetown), who was elected Minority Whip. Dukes called them both colleagues and friends whom he values and trusts.

“I respect Danny Short and Valerie Jones-Giltner as much as anybody in Dover,” he said.

A spokesperson for the House Republican caucus said on Monday they were optimistic Dukes would make a full recovery, and Dukes himself said he still plans to lead during the 154th General Assembly, but just in a different way.

“I’d rather have my life and my health than have a title,” he said. 

In the State Senate, Republicans voted to retain their leaders from the 153rd General Assembly for the next two years, keeping Sen. Gerald Hocker (R-Ocean View) as Minority Leader and Sen. Brian Pettyjohn (R-Georgetown) as Minority Whip. 

A return to leadership alongside a fresh face

Short, who previously held the position of Minority Leader from 2013 to 2023, will take back the role from Dukes, who succeeded him in the role just two years ago. 

After multiple retirements and election losses this year, Short finds himself the most tenured member of the House of Representatives, having first been elected in 2006. 

“Someone needed to step up,” he told Spotlight Delaware on Monday. “And we lost a couple team members, so the crew looked at me to maybe come back as somewhat of a veteran and head this thing up for the next term.”

After House Democrats flipped three seats in this year’s midterm elections, Short retakes the helm of a depleted caucus as Republicans prepare to work alongside a new Democratic supermajority. It effectively strips away Republicans’ ability to block amendments to the state Constitution.

But this new tenure as Minority Leader is reminiscent of Short’s first time joining the Republican House leadership team in 2008, he said. During that election season, the GOP had just gone from the majority party in Legislative Hall to the minority.

Now, Short said he hopes to foster a more congenial than combative relationship with House Democrats. He pointed toward bipartisan bills he worked on during the last General Assembly alongside Rep. Cyndie Romer (D-Newark), who was recently elected Majority Whip, as an example of successfully working across the aisle. 

But Short also said the caucus still plans to leverage its power over legislation that requires a three-fourths majority vote, like the annual bond bill and grant-in-aid bill. 

Legislation that does any of the following things would require a three-fourths majority vote in both chambers, according to the state constitution:

• Creates new debt, such as issuing bonds;
• Loans money to a county, municipality or corporation;
• Reappropriates money designated specifically for the state’s Transportation Trust Fund.

Jones-Giltner, who was first elected in 2023, will be joining Short in leadership as Minority Whip. The role will be her first leadership position within the caucus. In a phone call with Spotlight Delaware, Short praised Jones-Giltner’s healthcare background, legislative knowledge and communication skills. 

Rep. Jeff Spiegelman (R-Clayton), who has been Minority Whip since 2023, said he decided not to run again for the position because the time drain was too much on his growing family business. 

Jones-Giltner did not respond to a request for comment.

“I couldn’t serve the people of the 11th district, serve my caucus, and run my family business all at the same time,” Spiegelman said.

The post House GOP shakes up leadership as Dukes recovers from health scare appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

Why Should Delaware Care? 
Housing availability and affordability dominate local government conversations up and down the state. A new residential sprinkler system requirement in Dover has generated substantial attention, as stakeholders weigh the need for adequate safety measures against the potentially detrimental impacts on housing costs. 

The Dover City Council is considering walking back a new construction code provision it adopted just last month requiring a residential sprinkler system in all new homes. 

After a near-unanimous vote by city council to approve an updated 2024 residential building code — which includes the sprinkler requirement — in mid-October, a number of city council members said they are rethinking the decision due to hearing more about the potential impacts on housing prices. 

And while local and national fire experts largely defend residential sprinkler requirements as necessary for peoples’ safety in more newly constructed, lighter weight homes, the measure has generated substantial pushback from a number of central Delaware homebuilders. 

The builders, who have shown up at recent city council meetings to voice their frustration with not having been consulted about the requirement before council voted on it, argue the sprinklers will substantially raise housing prices, preventing more people from buying homes amid an already dire lack of affordable housing. 

“We’re really concerned because what the city has done is impose yet another cost upon developers, which will eventually make its way to the homebuyer,” said Patricia Kelleher, a director at the Dover-based affordable housing organization NeighborGood Partners. 

A handful of other Delaware municipalities already have residential sprinkler requirements for newly constructed homes, including Lewes, Newark and Middletown. As the state’s second largest city, Dover would be the largest municipality in the state to have made the requirement though.

At a meeting Monday evening, the council voted to rescind the updated code it approved last month, due to what city officials described as incorrect language in the recently adopted code.

Following the strikethrough of the just-adopted code, the city is scheduled to discuss taking up the updated code once again at a council committee meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 10. 

City Fire Marshal Jason Osika wrote in a message to Spotlight Delaware that despite the reconsideration of the measure, he is still urging the city to adopt the complete 2024 International Residential Code (IRC), “without any amendments.”

However, Councilman David Anderson, who leads the city’s Legislative, Finance and Administration Committee — under which the code discussion falls — said it is “a bad time” for the sprinkler requirement adoption, and he intends to have the committee rethink it.

It’s unclear what the majority of the council may think.

What is the requirement? 

The controversial new sprinkler requirement is a part of the regulations outlined in the 2024 international building codes, which also include a number of less noteworthy updates to various building requirements, including for commercial buildings and fitness facilities. 

Under the 2009 code, which the city of Dover was using until it approved the 2024 version this fall, sprinkler systems were required in most commercial buildings, while single-family homes were allowed to instead use a smoke detector system, which is less expensive. 

The 2024 building code includes a sprinkler system requirement for all newly constructed one- and two-family dwellings and townhouses. While it does not require existing homes to be retrofitted, the city council approved an amendment that would require a sprinkler system if residents build an addition above a certain size to an existing home. 

A home sprinkler system works to suppress flames at the fire source when triggered by a certain high temperature threshold, while a smoke detector functions to identify smoke particles and warn occupants through a loud sound. 

While the city of Wilmington, for example, still uses the 2018 codes, other jurisdictions in the state have adopted the 2024 requirements. 

Osika, the city fire marshal, described the code change, including the sprinkler provision, as “a life safety issue,” that needs updating because lightweight building materials, which are more commonly used in new construction, are more flammable than older construction materials. 

National organizations like the National Fire Protection Association and U.S. Fire Administration recommend sprinklers for all new homes. 

However, local stakeholders from a number of housing production-focused groups in the Dover area, including NeighborGood Partners, Central Delaware Habitat for Humanity and the Delaware Homebuilders’ Association have made their opposition to the requirement known through public comment at city council meetings and letters to city officials. 

By many estimates, a sprinkler system costs between $8,000 and $10,000 to install in a medium-sized, single-family home. This, the home builders claim, would price out 4,000 families from being able to afford a median-priced home in Delaware.

Mike Riemann, a Dover-based engineer and former president of the Delaware Homebuilders’ Association, said at the Oct. 26 Dover City Council meeting the requirement is a misplaced attempt at safety when there was not a single fire death in a home built over the past 25 years without a sprinkler system in New Castle County.  

“Modern construction standards and hardwired interconnected smoke detectors already provide an extraordinary level of life safety,” he said. “A sprinkler cannot save the life that the smoke detector has already saved.” 

Kelleher, the NeighborGood Partners director, said the added stipulations — and the costs they impose on both developers and homebuyers — will simply lead developers to instead build new homes in unincorporated Kent County, which does not have the sprinkler requirement.

City council moves forward

Despite the city council’s 8-1 vote in favor of the new building code, a number of council members said they may change their tune on the sprinklers after hearing from stakeholders in opposition.

Councilman Brian Lewis was the sole vote against adopting the requirements, citing concern with the cost “trickling down on the buyer.” 

Following the council’s mid-October vote to approve the code requirements, a number of residents called for Mayor Robin Christiansen to veto the measure. Christiansen ultimately did not veto the ordinance, and he told Spotlight Delaware he would not consider vetoing an updated measure that includes the sprinkler system requirement. 

In addition to concerns about the impact of the sprinklers on housing costs, local developers said they were frustrated to not have been included in any discussions of the code until after the council voted on it. 

Anderson, the Legislative and Finance Committee chair, said he intends to bring those groups to the table for a conversation before making a final decision on the measure. 

Council members Donyale Hall, Julia Pillsbury and Roy Sudler similarly said they were reconsidering the requirement after hearing pushback. 

Sudler said he still wants to “balance life safety and economic hardship,” so he would like to create an exemption to the requisite for some housing types, such as detached single-family homes, modular units and affordable housing projects under 2,500 square feet in size. 

City Council President Fred Neil, however, said he still believes the sprinkler system is important to building safety, and he is not in favor of dropping it from the code. 

Council members Tricia Arndt, Andre Boggerty and Gerald Rocha did not respond to Spotlight Delaware’s request for comment. 

It remains to be seen whether a majority of city council members have changed their position to support the removal of the sprinkler requirement. 

Maggie Reynolds is a Report for America corps member and Spotlight Delaware reporter who covers rural communities in Delaware. Your donation to match our Report for America grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://spotlightdelaware.org/support/.

The post Dover officials to revisit controversial residential sprinkler system rule  appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

A Post review of records exposed in a DHS hack found that some immigration officers quickly hired last year were involved in past misconduct or criminality.

The Paris prosecutor's office says investigators have determined that a cyberattack on grocery store chains was "carried out to serve a foreign power — in this case, Iran."

Sustained not by public opinion but by billionaire media owners, British rightwing commentators will embrace a Maga successor, not moderation

Hallelujahs and hosannas have been echoing around the democratic world over the last few weeks. The White House madman is a loser. Rejoice at Serbia, Hungary, Brazil and hold our breath for Israel.

Take heart from our best historians’ encouragements. Margaret MacMillan wrote in the Observer: “And now we can hope these elections will bring an end to cruelty, naked greed, contempt for decency, and the relentless vulgarity that tries to pass for boldness and authenticity. What a difference an election can make.”

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

Why the baby bust is making the world more unequal.

America should be taking notes.

TOKYO, Nov. 10, 2026 — Quantinuum, a leading full-stack quantum computing company, and RIKEN, Japan’s leading national comprehensive research institute, today announced an expanded partnership to advance quantum-AI hybrid supercomputing in Japan. Following a significant upgrade to Quantinuum’s Reimei quantum computer at RIKEN, the partners will pursue more advanced scientific and industrial applications, work with Japanese universities and suppliers toward the development of a “Made with Japan” fault-tolerant quantum computer, and collaborate with SoftBank Corp. to explore the connection of quantum computer with AI data centers in Japan.

Quantinuum’s quantum computer, Reimei, installed at RIKEN, has successfully completed its upgrade to System Model H2. Reimei is operated as part of the JHPC-quantum project, funded by NEDO. This upgrade further enhances the capabilities of the project’s quantum–HPC hybrid computing platform and enables researchers to investigate more complex quantum systems that are increasingly difficult to simulate using classical computing alone, broadening the scientific problems they can explore.

Quantinuum and RIKEN will use the upgraded platform to combine quantum computing, supercomputing and AI in support of use case development across electronics, energy and life sciences. Building on their years-long collaboration, the partners will also draw on their experience integrating and operating Reimei to inform the development of a fault-tolerant “Made with Japan” quantum computer.

“Japan’s quantum ambitions require advanced capabilities today and a sustained commitment to developing what comes next,” said Dr. Rajeeb Hazra, Quantinuum CEO. “The upgrade to Reimei expands what we can explore with RIKEN across electronics, energy and life sciences. Together, we are building on this work to develop a fault-tolerant quantum computer with Japanese universities and suppliers, while exploring with SoftBank how these capabilities can become accessible to industry through Japan’s AI data centers.”

Two research projects that have begun operations on Reimei before the public launch of its services illustrate how Quantinuum and RIKEN are leveraging the hybrid platforms upgraded capabilities to push the frontiers of scientific discovery:

• Quantum-AI for materials simulation: The partners are using RIKEN’s JHPC-quantum GPU supercomputer, ROQUO, to train an AI model on Reimei-generated quantum data for magnetism simulations. Preliminary results suggest the model can make more accurate predictions than AI models trained on classical simulations alone and more precise predictions than the quantum computer itself. Understanding magnetism at the atomic level could inform the development of materials for next-generation technologies such as ultra-high-field MRI and smart power grids.
• Quantum-AI for biomolecular simulation: The partners are combining Reimei, RIKEN’s Fugaku supercomputer, and NVIDIA’s evolutionary AI agent running on ROQUO to simulate a complex photoactive biomolecule, targeting unprecedented scale and detail. Better understanding of how biomolecules respond to light could inform the design of more efficient solar cells among other industrial opportunities that could arise from advances in biomolecular engineering.

This research supports RIKEN’s AI for Science initiative and aligns with U.S.-Japan efforts to advance AI-driven discovery, including a planned $1 billion partnership under the U.S. Genesis Mission.

“With the upgraded Reimei quantum computer, we will be able to tackle more complex and larger-scale scientific problems that were difficult to address with the previous H1 system, further advancing quantum–HPC hybrid computing through our ongoing JHPC-quantum project,” said Dr. Mitsuhisa Sato, Division Director, Quantum-HPC Hybrid Platform Division, RIKEN Center for Computational Science (R-CCS). “Furthermore, the newly signed Memorandum of Understanding will pave the way for expanding our research into the use of quantum computing for AI for Science, a key initiative being promoted by RIKEN.”

The partners’ joint research and development toward a “Made with Japan” fault-tolerant quantum computer will involve Japanese universities and domestic components suppliers. This “Made with Japan” effort will combine Quantinuum’s quantum technology with domestic research and manufacturing expertise, drawing on lessons from integrating and operating Reimei at RIKEN.

Under a separate agreement, Quantinuum, RIKEN and SoftBank will explore how quantum computing can be connected directly with AI data centers in Japan. The partners will assess infrastructure readiness and examine how connected systems could support commercial quantum-AI hybrid computing services, broadening access beyond the research community.

“Japan has established a strong foundation for hybrid quantum-HPC computing through the NEDO-supported JHPC-quantum project,” said Takenori Kobayashi, Vice President, Head of Product Research & Development Division at SoftBank Corp. “Our responsibility is to turn these achievements into industrial value. Together with RIKEN and Quantinuum, we aim to advance a Quantum AI Datacenter that connects quantum computing with AI and HPC, making these capabilities accessible to businesses across Japan.”

Learn more about the expanded joint Quantinuum-RIKEN research available here.

Research Support

This project is supported by New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), an organization under the jurisdiction of Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI)’s “Research and Development of Quantum-Supercomputers Hybrid Platform for Exploration of Uncharted Computable Capabilities” (Project Leader: Mitsuhisa Sato) as part of the “Project for Research and Development of Enhanced Infrastructures for Post 5G Information and Communications Systems (JPNP20017).”

About RIKEN

RIKEN, a National Research and Development Agency, is Japan’s leading national comprehensive research institution renowned for high-quality research in a diverse range of scientific disciplines. Founded in 1917, initially as a private research foundation, RIKEN has grown rapidly in size and scope, today encompassing a network of world-class research centers and institutes across Japan. To learn more, please visit https://www.riken.jp/en.

About SoftBank Corp.

Guided by the SoftBank Group’s corporate philosophy, “Information Revolution – Happiness for everyone,” SoftBank Corp. (TOKYO: 9434) operates telecommunications and IT businesses in Japan and globally. Building on its strong business foundation, SoftBank Corp. is aiming to activate the potential of AI across its businesses and drive implementation in line with its “Activate AI for Society” growth strategy. While further growing its telecom business, SoftBank is expanding its AI computing infrastructure and AI and Cloud service businesses with the aim of becoming a provider of Next-generation Social Infrastructure. To learn more, please visit https://www.softbank.jp/en/corp.

About Quantinuum

Quantinuum (NASDAQ: QNT) is a leading quantum computing company offering a full-stack platform designed to make quantum computing deployable in real-world environments. The company has commercially deployed multiple generations of trapped-ion based quantum systems built on the well-established QCCD architecture, which it has implemented with novel designs and capabilities to achieve the industry’s highest accuracy levels based on average two-qubit gate fidelity. Quantinuum has active engagements with market leaders across pharmaceuticals, material science, financial services, and government and industrial markets, as well as academic and research institutions globally. The company has a global workforce of approximately 800 employees, including top scientists and researchers. Over 70% of its technology team holds PhDs or Master’s degrees. Quantinuum’s headquarters is in Broomfield, Colorado, with additional facilities across the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Qatar, and Singapore. For more information, please visit www.quantinuum.com.

Source: Quantinuum

The post Quantinuum and RIKEN Expand Quantum-AI Supercomputing Partnership appeared first on HPCwire.

As the largest annual HPC conference gets set to kick off, representatives of the three Gauss Centre for Supercomputing (GCS) centers are preparing for an active week of discussions, networking, and presentations.

Nov. 10, 2026 — The International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis, or SC26 for short, takes place this year Nov. 15–20 in Chicago.

The SC Conference brings together professionals and students from around the world representing a wide range of backgrounds and technical expertise in high-performance computing. The goal is to encourage new conversations, foster meaningful connections, and inspire innovative ideas while striving to create an environment where everyone can contribute to advancing science and research.

Just like the event itself, the centers that comprise the Gauss Centre for Supercomputing (GCS)—the High-Performance Computing Center Stuttgart (HLRS), and Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC), and the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (LRZ)—will actively participate in paper presentations, panels, birds of a feather sessions, and more.

HLRS staff will be at booth #4106. Visitors are welcome to meet the HLRS team and learn about the latest activities in high-performance computing and related fields. Simulation in action and experiences in augmented reality (AR) can be explored. On Wednesday, November 18, 2026 – Starting at 4:00 PM the community is welcome to join the industry reception for informal conversations about HPC, emerging computing technologies, and applications in research and industry. For a full list of HLRS’s activities, please visit the center’s event page.

JSC will be represented at booth #2254. The Centre will celebrate its 65th birthday, which happens to coincide with the conference week. With 28 colleagues on site this year, the JSC presents itself under the slogan, “Unleashing Next-Gen Computing Power!” and focuses on topics such as HPC (Tools), Quantum Computing, Artificial Intelligence, as well as European projects and collaborations. Particular highlights will be two nominations for Gordon-Bell-awards: one for Gordon Bell Prize and one for the Gordon Bell Prize for Climate Modelling. In addition, a JSC entry in the “Poster” category is among the finalists. Details and times of the JSC’s activities can be found on the center’s event page.

LRZ has joined forces with other research colleagues in Bavaria to host a Bavarian HPC experience on the conference floor. At booth #4254 LRZ colleagues, together with its partners from the Technical University of Munich, the Ludwigs-Maximillians-Universität in Munich, the Munich Quantum Valley, and NHR at Friedrich Alexander University in Erlangen will demonstrate how high-performance computing, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing work together to unlock new potential for research and innovation. A full overview of LRZ’s activities can be found on the center’s event page.

Furthermore, visitors have the opportunity to enter the Passport Stamp Collection contest by collecting stamps from all participating partners. The joint initiative and prize-giving is supported by GCS.

In addition to the centers’ participation, GCS will be represented by a GCS-supported team of students, representing the Erlangen National High Performance Computing Center (NHR@FAU) and Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) in the Student Cluster Competition (SCC). GCS is pleased to continue its commitment to supporting young talents within in the HPC ecosystem.

Source: GCS

The post GCS Centers Prepare for SC26 with Exhibits, Panels and Research Presentations appeared first on HPCwire.

Reduce bottlenecks and accelerate data movement with purpose-made Ethernet, Fibre Channel, SAS, NVMe, and intelligent bridge connectivity solutions

Amherst, N.Y., Nov. 10, 2026 — ATTO Technology, Inc., a global leader in network and storage connectivity solutions, will showcase its connectivity and infrastructure solutions at SC26, the international conference for high-performance computing (HPC), networking, storage, and analysis, November 16–19, 2026, at McCormick Place in Chicago, Illinois.

At booth #2858, ATTO will highlight technologies designed to move data efficiently between compute, memory, storage, and networks in demanding HPC and other data-intensive environments. The showcase will span high-bandwidth Ethernet, Fibre Channel, SAS, NVMe, intelligent storage bridging, and software for configuration, management, diagnostics, and performance optimization.

ATTO FastFrame Ethernet network interface cards (NICs) provide high-bandwidth connectivity for servers and systems where network performance is critical to moving data between compute and storage resources. ATTO360 Networking adds configuration, management, diagnostics, and performance tools to help infrastructure teams manage and troubleshoot connectivity.

ATTO360 Storage software unifies management, optimization, and analytics for ATTO Fibre Channel, SAS, and NVMe adapters in a single intuitive dashboard, combining ConfigTool, MultiPath Director, and ATTO ExpertAI for 1-click tuning profiles, dynamic load balancing, failover assurance, and real-time bottleneck detection.

ATTO Celerity 64Gb Gen 7 PCIe 4.0 Host Bus Adapters (HBAs) provide high-performance connectivity for Fibre Channel storage environments and demanding data-intensive applications. Designed for use in enterprise and HPC infrastructure, Celerity adapters help connect servers to shared storage across a range of system architectures.

“High-performance computing depends on more than compute power. Data has to move efficiently between compute, memory, storage, and networks to keep systems performing at their full potential,” said Tim Klein, president and CEO of ATTO Technology. “At SC26, we’ll show how connectivity hardware, software, and engineering work together to address real-world infrastructure and performance requirements.”

ATTO XstreamCORE 7600 extends Fibre Channel access to block storage for up to 64 servers over distances exceeding 500km with less than 4 microseconds added latency. ATTO XstreamCORE ET 8200/8200T intelligently bridges SAS block devices such as JBODs or tape libraries to iSER or iSCSI Ethernet networks with industry-leading performance to up to 64 servers with less than 2 microseconds of added latency.

ATTO XstreamCORE 8100T intelligent bridge offers a compact, energy-efficient bridge for integrating SAS tape drives into iSCSI environments, ideal for data centers and remote HPC facilities.

Additional products on display include ATTO ExpressNVM Smart NVMe Switch Host Adapters for high-bandwidth NVMe fabrics and ATTO ExpressSAS 24Gb/s SAS HBAs for robust SAS/SATA connectivity.

Visit ATTO at booth #2858 at McCormick Place in Chicago to discuss connectivity requirements, infrastructure performance, and solutions for existing and next-generation HPC environments.

Appointments with ATTO at SC26 can be set up now using the contact form at www.atto.com/sc26.

Source: ATTO

The post ATTO to Showcase HPC Networking and Storage Connectivity at SC26 appeared first on HPCwire.

I ride my Onewheel around the neighborhood and some of the sidewalks here in Louisville are pretty rough. I've been thinking about adjusting the tire pressure to see if it makes a difference in how it handles bumps and cracks. The stock pressure feels a bit stiff to me, but I'm not sure if lowering it would hurt the range or make the board feel sluggish. I don't want to mess with anything that could cause a flat or wear the tire out faster either. I mostly ride on pavement but occasionally cut through grass or gravel paths. Curious what pressure other riders in this area tend to run, especially if you deal with similar surfaces. Has anyone found a sweet spot that balances comfort and control, or is it better to just stick with what Onewheel recommends? Any input would be helpful.

Sport has long been regarded as great unifier but there is evidence that this era of hyper-partisanship may change that

Over the weekend, President Trump floated his latest wild idea: that the man behind the Ultimate Fighting Championship and Power Slap, the ethically dubious “sport” where competitors take turns smacking each other with an open palm, could be his new White House press secretary.

Trump’s post on Truth Social was about as subtle as a slap to the face. He Trump wanted the UFC chief executive, Dana White, whom he hailed as a “violent Fighter and Warrior”, to take the job. And for six of his fighters to join him “to defend us against the Lunatic Left”. But it also carried a certain logic. The UFC is Maga’s sport of choice. Why couldn’t it also be its praetorian guard?

From the assassinations of her husband and mother-in-law to press stonewalling under Modi, Belonging offers an insider’s account of India’s political evolution

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Few love stories have been as closely entwined with a nation’s history as that of Sonia and Rajiv Gandhi. The former’s much-awaited political memoir, Belonging, offers a strikingly candid account of her journey from a small town in Italy to the highest echelons of power in India – all for love, she says.

The veteran Congress party leader has been fiercely protective of her personal world. In Belonging, she opens up for the first time about the extraordinary twists and turns of a life that has largely unfolded in full public view. (The Guardian’s Hannah Ellis-Petersen has a rare in-person interview with Gandhi, and you can read an excerpt from the book here.)

Errors in entry and exit records leave some Britons wrongly flagged as having overstayed post-Brexit 90-day limit

• EU sues IBM and two European firms over entry/exit border system

The writer Jojo Moyes is facing a two-year EU travel ban and €10,000 (£8,300) fine because of glitches with the bloc’s digital security controls.

She is one of a number of UK travellers who say their trips to the EU have not been properly recorded since the introduction of the EU digital entry and exit system (EES).

Redesigned flagship laptop has a fantastic display, killer performance and the first touchscreen on a Mac, but comes with a serious price tag

Apple’s MacBook Pro has been redesigned for the first time in five years, getting slightly slimmer, significantly lighter and adding a fantastic new OLED display with the first touchscreen on a Mac.

The new MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR display comes in two sizes, 14in and 16in, but rather than replacing the standard MacBook Pro they sit alongside them as an even more expensive option. The OLED machines start at £2,899 (€3,299/$2,899/A$4,599) – a £400 or equivalent upgrade on the matching spec LCD models – serious prices for serious work machines, not helped by significant cost increases driven by RAMageddon.

Boston Dynamics has equipped its Atlas humanoid with wheels, allowing the robot to rapidly roll across flat terrain while still using its articulated legs to navigate obstacles and uneven surfaces. "The 'experiment' combined classical model-based motor control with whole-body reinforcement learning to maintain dynamic stability across unstructured, real-world terrain," reports The Robot Report. From the report: In addition to learning how to move with wheels for feet, Atlas also performs pirouettes and various aggressive actuation maneuvers. This demonstrates that Atlas can smoothly switch between fast rolling on flat terrain and articulated legged motion over obstacles or irregular surfaces. [Andy Wu, controls engineer for Atlas at Boston Dynamics] trained the system in sim. The system learned all of the behaviors in sim and executed them in real life, with surprising accuracy, according to Wu. Wu said converting Atlas' locomotion style was "wonderfully simple." A single custom adapter mounts an off-the-shelf scooter rim onto Atlas' existing ankle actuator, and that's the only new part in the whole build. Because Atlas was designed from the start to be produced at high volume and to be easy to service, Wu said the retrofit was about as involved as swapping a wheel on a bicycle. The software side was just as straightforward, he said. Each wheel is modeled as an "ankle" that can spin continuously, so all Wu had to do was take the baseline robot model and swap the feet out for wheels. The next question that Wu intends to answer is the policy response to failed actuators. This is key to safety and to understanding how the system will respond to a system failure. The primary takeaway for Wu and the controls engineering team at Boston Dynamics is to understand control synergy. The video demonstrates that merging classical motor controls (for baseline stability) with whole-body RL (for reactive adaptation) yields superior real-world agility compared to using either method alone.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

ADNOC Gas Delivers Q3 Rebound with $1.34 Billion Net Income

Opposition politicians get first chance to take control of levers of power, even as they struggle to form government

Israel’s new Knesset will be sworn in on Tuesday, giving opposition politicians their first chance to take control of some levers of power, even as they struggle to form a new government to unseat Benjamin Netanyahu.

High on the agenda will be replacing the speaker, who wields immense influence by controlling the legislature’s agenda and committee chairs. The current speaker is Amir Ohana, a close ally of Netanyahu.

Jens Eskelund says Europe may need to allow its companies to become part of Chinese firms’ supply chains

Europe’s manufacturers could give up on attempting to compete with their Chinese counterparts by the end of the decade if current trends continue amid fears over mass job losses, the head of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China has warned.

In a case of “if you can’t beat them, join them”, Jens Eskelund said European companies operating in China were now thinking “Made in China for China” could be replaced by a philosophy of “Made in China for the world”.

Government flags criminal law changes to ensure companies can’t argue in future ‘that someone didn’t know the computer was loaded’

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OpenAI will not face criminal penalties over the Medicare data breach, but the prime minister has flagged changes to Australia’s criminal law to crack down on future breaches by artificial intelligence companies.

Anthony Albanese on Tuesday released the recommendations of a “rapid review” into the June breach of a Medicare statistics reporting service portal administered by Services Australia, but not the findings or the report itself, which he committed to releasing in the future.

Maintaining security controls across all stages of development and deployment.

Identifying and managing serious risks associated with their models.

Providing mandatory notification of incidents to the Australian government rapidly.

Allowing independent evaluation of their models.

Maintaining and publishing safety and security frameworks to ensure good governance, risk management and transparency.

Responding to updated standards and rules as technologies change.

Four global traders compete for USD 100,000 prize in Phuket

VT Markets Gold Cup Island Finale 2026

Nov. 9, 2026 — Oklahoma State University (OSU) has announced that Cimarron, its newest supercomputer, is now available to researchers across the Oklahoma, Arkansas and Kansas (OAK) region. Operated by OSU’s High Performance Computing Center (HPCC), Cimarron provides 37,760 processor cores, 392 GPUs and more than 10 petabytes of storage.

Access extends to researchers at institutions throughout the three-state region, including those that were not founding members of the OAK Consortium.

Credit: OSU

The university is marking the opening with events Nov. 9–11. The program includes a ribbon-cutting ceremony and system tours on Nov. 9, the fourth OAK Consortium meeting on Nov. 10 and an NVIDIA workshop on building large language model applications on Nov. 11.

System summary:

• 150 compute nodes, each with dual 96-core AMD EPYC “Genoa” 9654 CPUs @ 2.4GHz and a base of 768 GB RAM
  • 80 nodes contain 3x NVIDIA L40S GPUs with 48 GB VRAM
  • 16 nodes contain 2x NVIDIA H100 GPUs with 80 GB VRAM and an additional 768 GB system RAM
• 100 compute nodes, each with dual AMD EPYC “Rome” 7002 series CPUs and 512 GB RAM
  • 60 nodes contain model 7742 CPUs @ 2.25GHz
  • 40 nodes contain model 7302 CPUs @ 3.0GHz and 3x NVIDIA QUADRO RTX6000 GPUs with 24 GB VRAM
• 392 total GPUs
  • 32 NVIDIA H100
  • 240 NVIDIA L40S
  • 120 NVIDIA QUADRO RTX6000
• 200 Gb/s InfiniBand low-latency interconnect
• 10+ PB high-speed parallel file system (for paid use)
• 480 TB high-speed parallel file system (/scratch)
• Slurm Workload Manager

OSU’s supercomputers and support team enable computational and data intensive research for hundreds of researchers throughout many of Oklahoma’s academic institutions and several national institutions.

Cimarron supports research in fields including physical sciences, engineering, mathematics and business. HPCC staff and system users have installed a range of research software, including GROMACS, LAMMPS, Gaussian and Quantum ESPRESSO, alongside compilers, programming languages and scientific libraries.

Funding for the system was announced in 2022, with a $4 million National Science Foundation Major Research Instrumentation award (No. 2216084) and $1.7 million from OSU.

This announcement was edited by HPCwire for clarity and supplemented with details from other pages on Oklahoma State University’s HPCC website.

More from HPCwire

• Oklahoma State University Selected for DOE’s Genesis Mission Initiative
• Oklahoma State University to Build New Supercomputer [2022]

Source: OSU HPCC

The post Oklahoma State Expands Regional Research Computing with Cimarron Supercomputer appeared first on HPCwire.

• Buffalo Bills 23-6 Minnesota Vikings

• Wentz has three turnovers starting for injured Murray

• Buffalo have matched their best start since 1993

Josh Allen threw a touchdown pass with 44 seconds left before half-time, James Cook rushed 31 times for 107 yards and a late score, and the Buffalo Bills beat hosts Minnesota 23-6 on Monday night, sending the Vikings deeper into their unrelenting offensive slump.

Linebackers Terrel Bernard and Dorian Williams had interceptions and Tyler Bass made four field goals to stretch his franchise-record streak to 25 straight as the Bills (7-1) matched their best eight-game start since 1993. That season ended with their last of four straight Super Bowl losses.

I ride a Onewheel Pint around Austin, mostly on the hike-and-bike trails and short errands near downtown. With summer temps creeping past 100°F, I've been noticing my range isn't what it used to be on the same routes. I'm not sure if it's the heat affecting the battery, tire pressure changes, or just me pushing harder on the hills. I usually ride in the late afternoon when it's still pretty hot out.

I'm trying to decide whether to change up my riding schedule or look into any battery care habits for hot weather. I don't want to shorten the board's lifespan by riding in extreme heat, but evening rides are the only time I have. Has anyone here dealt with range loss in Texas summers? Any tips on managing heat with a Onewheel would be really helpful.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: The Food and Drug Administration said Monday that GLP-1 drugmakers must add a warning label about a rare eye condition that can cause sudden blindness. The condition, called nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy, or NAION, affects the optic nerve, which carries signals from the eye to the brain. When blood flow to the nerve is reduced or blocked, it can cause sudden vision loss. The condition is permanent with no known treatment. The FDA said "there is a potential increased risk of rare NAION" in people taking GLP-1 drugs. The agency's requirement applies to all GLP-1s, including Novo Nordisk's Ozempic and Wegovy and Eli Lilly's Mounjaro and Zepbound, as well as several older GLP-1 diabetes medications. [...] Previous research has found that GLP-1 use may increase the risk of NAION, and Lilly has said it was aware of studies on the potential link. The FDA said it began looking into a possible link after a 2024 study published in JAMA Ophthalmology that found diabetes patients prescribed semaglutide were four times as likely to develop NAION as those not prescribed the drug. The agency said it reviewed reports of side effects submitted to its adverse event monitoring system and analyzed data from multiple clinical trials. Cases of NAION have been reported for all currently marketed GLP-1 drugs, the FDA found. However, FDA scientists were not able to identify a mechanism for how the drugs could increase the risk of the eye condition. Risk factors for NAION can overlap with conditions seen in people taking GLP-1 drugs, including Type 2 diabetes, obesity, sleep apnea and hypertension. "Patients and caregivers should be aware of a potential increased risk of NAION, a rare condition that can result in acute, painless, decreased vision in one eye, including permanent vision loss," with GLP-1 use, the FDA said in the release.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The agency just unveiled new lunar missions, a nuclear-powered rover and $10 billion in contracts to build a moon base for astronauts.

Why Should Delaware Care?
Mass shootings are rare in Delaware. But on Halloween night, towns at opposite ends of the state suffered two of the worst shootings in recent years. The subsequent investigation into the Newark shooting moved forward this week, when police charged two teens with attempted murder.

Two teenagers have been charged with attempted murder for the Halloween night shooting that wounded seven people near the University of Delaware, Newark police announced Monday.

The incident, which occurred on East Main Street in Newark, was one of two mass shootings in Delaware that night. About an hour earlier, gunfire at an outdoor party in Ellendale, in Sussex County, killed a 17-year-old girl and wounded eight others. 

Together, the shootings unnerved people across a state that rarely sees such levels of violence in rural areas or in the biggest college town. 

During a Monday press conference, Newark Police Chief Mark Farrall said that a 17-year-old male from North East, Md., and an 18-year-old male from Wilmington were arrested and indicted on multiple charges, including attempted murder, firearm possession, conspiracy, reckless endangerment, and carrying a concealed weapon. 

The 17-year-old was also charged with possession of a firearm by a person under the age of 21. Both were indicted by a New Castle County grand jury on Monday morning. Detectives determined the two teens were the people who fired weapons that night, Farrall said.

Neither suspect was identified by Newark PD in keeping with House Bill 59, a new state law that limits when police can identify suspects charged with crimes who have not been adjudicated. The identities of those charged will soon be available in public court records.

Speaking alongside Newark officials and those from the Delaware Attorney General’s Office, Farrall also said police had been monitoring Main Street closely the night of the shooting. Police had previously become aware of plans circulating online for large gatherings in the area, referred to as “teen takeovers,” Farrall said. 

Although the arrests mark a significant development in the investigation, Farrall said investigators still have “a lot of questions to answer,” including what events led up to the gunfire and whether anyone else was involved.

“Our investigators continue to work to determine what precipitated this incident, the sequence of events that unfolded, and whether or not any other additional individuals are involved,” Farrall said.

Gunfire on Halloween night

Officers responded to the Oct. 31 shooting shortly after it occurred around 11:11 p.m. on East Main Street near Choate Street, Farrall said.

At the time, the popular bar district was packed with costumed University of Delaware students and locals celebrating the holiday.

According to videos that circulated on social media, multiple shots can be heard, sending hundreds of bystanders fleeing, and leading to at least one person being struck by an oncoming car. That individual was able to walk away, according to the video.

Farrall said officers arrived within 20 seconds of receiving the alert, but the gunfire had already stopped.

As crowds were dispersing from Main Street, the suspects fled in a vehicle about 30 seconds after the shooting, Farrall said.

Seven victims were ultimately identified, including five teenagers.  

Those injured included two 15-year-old boys, who were shot in the back and foot, respectively. The victim shot in the back remains hospitalized in stable condition, while the other was treated and released. One was from Wilmington and the other from New Castle.

A 19-year-old man from Plymouth Meeting, Pa., also suffered a gunshot wound to his back and remains hospitalized in stable condition. 

A 20-year-old man from Wilmington was also shot in the back and suffered a collapsed lung but has since been released from the hospital. A 21-year-old woman from Wilmington sustained a graze wound to her leg and was treated and released.

A 16-year-old boy also suffered gunshot wounds to his midsection and lower body and remains hospitalized in stable condition. He was also found in possession of a handgun and was later charged with possession and other charges. Police did not confirm whether the teen played a direct role in the incident. 

Two days later, police found the seventh victim, a 17-year-old from New Castle who suffered a graze to his lower body and did not initially report his injuries. The teen was treated and released from the hospital. 

During their investigation, police used the Newark Police Public Safety camera system and automated license plate readers to track down the suspects, Farrall said.

“I can’t emphasize enough the value of that technology,” he said.

The University of Delaware canceled classes on Monday, Nov. 2, after the shooting.

Intentional shootings in Newark, which has its own city police department along with the University of Delaware Police Department, are exceedingly rare. One of the last such incidents occurred in 2023.

About 15 miles from Newark in Wilmington, there has been an uptick in shootings this fall, prompting residents to call for accountability and more transparency about how police are working to stop the violence. A triple shooting that killed one man occurred there last week.

Police warned of ‘teen takeovers’

Leading up to the Halloween shooting, Farrall said police were aware of plans for large gatherings that night, which he referred to as “teen takeovers.”

Police contacted adolescents believed to be involved in organizing or attending the gatherings. Officers also monitored social media activity and encouraged people to stay away from Newark and avoid participating in the events.

Some individuals told police they would not come to the area in response to the department’s planned police presence, Farrall said.

Newark police increased staffing throughout the weekend, particularly near the downtown business district. Officers were also assisted by the University of Delaware Police, Delaware State Police, New Castle County Police and the Delaware Division of Alcohol, Tobacco and Marijuana Enforcement.

“We had no actionable intelligence or information to corroborate that there was any legitimate threat of violence to our community. Nevertheless, we recognized the potential for extremely large crowds in Newark as part of Halloween weekend,” Farrall said.

Following the shootings in Newark and Ellendale, several state and federal officials condemned the violence and expressed support for those injured and their families.

“This is not normal. We must never accept gun violence as a part of life in Delaware,” Gov. Matt Meyer said in a public statement.

The post Newark police arrest two in connection with Halloween mass shooting appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

Trump questioned the legitimacy of last week’s election Monday, asking whether anyone really believed it was “honest,” citing supposed early-voting “dumps” and again suggesting voting machines were responsible for Republican defeats. He offered no evidence of manipulated machines, fraudulent ballots or widespread wrongdoing.

The claims also conflict with the available evidence. Polling broadly anticipated Democratic gains before Election Day, although many surveys underestimated their magnitude. Democrats subsequently won control of both chambers of Congress, including Senate victories across several Republican-leaning states.

Greene responded bluntly.

“For anyone who believes his bullshit,” she wrote, voters should ask why Trump has not produced prosecutions stemming from the massive 2020 fraud he repeatedly alleged. She accused Trump of attempting to “build the same narrative” again rather than accepting responsibility for Republicans’ losses.

The criticism is especially notable because Greene herself spent years promoting Trump’s discredited 2020 claims.

She instead blamed the 2026 defeat on millions of Republican voters staying home and argued that Trump’s own political team knew the party was heading toward significant losses.

Trump had repeatedly acknowledged the 2026 results in the days immediately following the election before returning to fraud allegations Monday.

Sources:

• Mediaite – MBFC Rating

The post Greene Calls Trump’s Evidence-Free Election Fraud Claims ‘Bullshit’ After GOP Rout appeared first on News Facts Network.

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• Republican Thomas Massie moves to force vote to impeach Pete Hegseth

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Democratic Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, currently the House minority leader who is poised to become new Speaker next year, told CBS News that the Trump administration will hold a closed-door congressional briefing today to discuss Jensen Huang’s affair with an alleged Chinese spy.

Last week the Republican chairs of three key House committees also called on Huang to appear before lawmakers in a closed-door hearing on 18 November.

Campaign over Prop 40, as measure was known, was most expensive in state history, flush with Silicon Valley dollars

California billionaires won a contentious ballot measure campaign, defeating a proposed one-time tax on their wealth.

The bruising campaign over Proposition 40 was the most expensive in state history and witness to back-and-forth dealing from tech billionaires and democratic leaders, including Gavin Newsom, the governor, who steadfastly opposed the measure. While supporters of Prop 40 cast it as a solution to drastic healthcare cuts from Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, opponents led by prosperous billionaires mounted an influential campaign saying the billionaire tax was instead “an everyone tax”.

Key environmental groups come out against bipartisan Baaja bill over fears it could spur datacenters and ICE jails

The Senate on Monday advanced bipartisan legislation aimed at speeding up permitting reviews for datacenters and other infrastructure projects, in the first major action since last week’s election that soundly repudiated Donald Trump and congressional Republicans.

It’s a bill that would make it easier to build big infrastructure projects in America – everything from fossil fuel pipelines to transmission lines that would add more clean energy to the grid. And it would roll back environmental and social protections to achieve this goal. That is why climate advocates are torn over the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs act (Baaja).

Runners seek medical treatment as 13-mile race held amid unusually high November temperatures

Police in southern California are investigating the circumstances that led to the hospitalization of nearly 30 runners who participated in the Santa Barbara Half on Sunday.

Santa Barbara police said in a statement to the Associated Press that they had opened an investigation after receiving reports from Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital about multiple half-marathon participants seeking medical treatment for “unusual symptoms”.

• Caroline Harvey scores three as unbeaten USA cruise

• Hilary Knight extends worlds record to 70 goals

• Canada thrash hosts Denmark 10-0 to stay perfect

Caroline Harvey scored a hat trick as defending champions the United States routed Austria 11-1 at the women’s ice hockey world championship on Monday.

Canada followed suit by thrashing hosts Denmark 10-0 to maintain their own perfect record.

Donald Trump defended defense secretary Pete Hegseth, who is facing an impeachment resolution from Republican senator Thomas Massie, saying Hegseth 'won two wars'. The president, who said he had spoken to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, said he was 'amazed' by claims Huang conducted an affair with an alleged Chinese spy, and that the FBI was now looking into the issue

• Jensen Huang’s image has been shattered. Could he be pushed out at Nvidia?

• Republican Thomas Massie moves to force vote to impeach Pete Hegseth

Australian carrier announces agreement with Accenture amid ‘unprecedented’ technological disruption, CEO Vanessa Hudson says

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Qantas is preparing to cut 850 local jobs and outsource work offshore under an AI-driven overhaul, marking a growing wave of disruption to the Australian workforce.

The changes represent the third major corporate layoff plan announced in Australia in three weeks, after restructuring moves flagged by the design company Canva and National Australia Bank.

The board of Nvidia said it had no reason to believe that the company's secrets or national security were compromised.

President Trump told 60 Minutes the war with Iran was a "good decision" in the long term, despite its short-term impact.

Chamber voted 73-25 to formally take up bill that will shorten timelines to start energy and datacenter projects

The Senate on Monday advanced bipartisan legislation aimed at speeding up permitting reviews for datacenters and other infrastructure projects, in the first major action since last week’s election that soundly repudiated Donald Trump and congressional Republicans.

The Senate voted 73-25 to formally take up the bill, which senators and the president have pushed as a way to meet growing demand for electricity and other forms of energy that now face years-long delays in getting to the grid.

2021 Mustang Mach-E electric SUVs have kept most of their battery and range after thousands of miles on the road.

The Food and Drug Administration is adding a new warning about possible rare cases of vision loss reported with GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy and other brands.

A fraternity at Ohio State University has been temporarily suspended while authorities investigate a video that appears to show two people engulfed in flames.

(The Center Square) – The U.S. Senate has voted to advance the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act, a colossal permitting reform bill that would expedite the buildout of energy-related infrastructure.

AI is supercharging scientific discovery. There’s little doubt about that. However, in some cases, you can get too much of a good thing. This is particularly true in materials science, where AI can create a glut of new hypotheses to test, thereby creating new bottlenecks. An AI for science startup called Radical AI is hoping to alleviate that bottleneck with its AI materials flywheel, which is being deployed at Sandia National Laboratories.

Joseph Krause co-founded Radical AI two years ago to tackle a big opportunity he saw emerging in material discovery and physical AI. While AI models could think up all sorts of new materials for use with semiconductors, aerospace, and energy production, scientists lacked a platform that could automate the process of analyzing the results from lab experiments and feeding that data back into the AI model.

“Our whole pitch to customers is you need to have all of these things together in a flywheel,” says Krause, who co-founded Radical AI two years ago with Jorge Colindres and Gerbrand Ceder. “If you just do AI generation and you never make anything, you have no ground truth around that. You need to smash those two things together to build a learning loop on top of that, and then go forward from there.”

Feedback loops are central to how AI works. Without feedback from the real world, an AI model has no data to improve upon. That’s the central thesis for how Radical AI builds its materials intelligence layer, which takes the output data from AI models, analyzes them, and then feeds the learnings from that data back into the AI model so it can be optimized and improved.

The “aha” moment for Krause came while he was working as a venture capitalist and read about  AlphaFold2, the Google AI model that can predict a protein’s three-dimensional atomic structure from its amino acid sequence. Google DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis and John Jumper were awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing the model.

“I think AlphaFold2 really catalyzed the moment in science for a lot of people,” Krause tells HPCwire. “I think that that was a moment where those things come together, people watched, and holy crap–it just did science for real using models plus data.”

Krause–who was enrolled in a PhD-level material science program at Rice University before becoming disenchanted with academia and leaving to join a venture capital firm for three years–researched the impact AI was having on the discipline, and came to the conclusion that there was an opportunity to develop new AI-for-science software to plug the gap in physical AI.

“Our whole thesis is that AI for science entirely depends on the physical infrastructure in the lab,” he says. “We think we are the picks and shovels to actually enable AI for science to be an impactful industry.”

There are several core areas where Krause and his team at Radical AI hope to make an impact with what he calls the flywheel. The big goal is to gather data from lab experiments and use that as feedback in the models themselves. That opens up an array of additional technical challenges that need to be solved, often using additional AI.

(asharkyu/Shutterstock)

For starters, there’s lots of different types of data that must be gathered, organized, and analyzed. Machine learning algorithms can help with that.

“The data is multimodal in nature,” Krause says. “You see images from the lab. You analyze your own work as a scientist. You get CSV files or other type of spectra. You might even look at synthesis conditions like temperature or pressure or oxidation.”

In addition to the variety, there is the volume problem, which also can be addressed with more AI.

“The volume of data from experimentation is too large for a human scientist to analyze,” he says. “When we run a thousand experiments in our lab, we’ll get 60, 70 million data points from that coming out of the back end. A human scientist can’t rectify all that. And so that’s where that learning layer comes in. This is why self-driving feeds and analyzes data so much better in the AI for science realm.”

Radical AI utilizes a variety of AI models with its mixture of experts-based approach. On the physics-informed side, it uses AI models like Equiformer, CHGNet (Crystal Hamiltonian Graph Neural Network), Allegro-FM, and Microsoft’s MatterGen. It also uses large language models where appropriate. On the autonomous lab side, the company buys robots and instruments from manufactures like Rigaku, Thermo Fisher, Mettler Toledo, and Verder Scientific.

The launch of the Department of Energy’s Genesis Mission nearly a year ago has supercharged the move toward autonomous labs, which has been beneficial for Radical AI.

“When we first started the company two years and nine months ago, there were a lot of questions on self-driving labs,” Krause says. Labs would say ‘We don’t know. They’re expensive. Is this AI thing a bubble? Is it ever going to be moved to science?’

Radical AI CEO and Co-Founder Joseph Krause

“Once the Genesis Mission came out and it pushed academia and research to move towards running AI driven technology, they started getting calls from all of their big customers,” he continues. “A shift on this is happening. Everyone is here. There is funding for this.”

In September, Radical AI announced that Sandia National Laboratories was adopting its software to conduct research on hydrogen, including research on metal-hydrogen interactions and discovering new materials to enhance the separation of hydrogen from waste streams.

“There is a lot of work in high-throughput predictions, but the ability to drive robotic synthesis and feed those experimental findings back into our research is a big part of why we’re so excited to partner with Radical on the discovery of new materials for hydrogen purification,” says Sandia Staff Scientist Vitalie Stravila. “Simulation only gets you so far; the experimental data is what we think will really accelerate the discovery of new materials.”

Currently, palladium is the gold-standard material for membrane-based hydrogen separation, according to Sandia. But it’s expensive. Scientists have attempted to create alternatives to palladium that involve painstaking work creating and coating special alloy ribbons, but they are very fragile and the process of creating a single sample takes days or weeks.

Armed with AI and Radical AI’s flywheel approach to connecting the lab with the model, Sandia Labs could make headway on new materials to reach the DOE’s goal of dropping the cost of hydrogen production to $1 per kilogram, thereby turning hydrogen into a feasible fuel for transformation and other needs.

New York City-based Radical AI has 48 employees and has raised $65 million in funding so far. The company is working with some early adopters like Sandia National Labs, but it has yet to launch its product. That is expected to happen in the first quarter of 2027, Krause says.

The post Behind Radical AI’s Flywheel Powering Materials Discovery at Sandia Labs appeared first on HPCwire.

Almost two-thirds of school leaders polled say new regime is much more intense than previous framework

More than half of headteachers in England who were polled after their schools were inspected under Ofsted’s new regime are considering cutting short their careers as a result of the experience.

In response to the question “Has the inspection affected how long you intend to stay in your role?”, 52% of those who responded said they were thinking of leaving their job sooner than planned.

Microsoft is testing a Windows 11 option that lets users permanently disable the Sticky Keys and Filter Keys activation prompts directly from the pop-ups themselves, ending a 31-year-old annoyance without requiring a trip into Settings. Windows Latest reports: Sadly, the dialog is still the same aging Win32 window, but we spotted Microsoft's design boss replying under an X post reply about this, saying he is working on modernizing legacy dialogs. The popup might be annoying, but did you know that it exists because of a pinball game from 1995? [...] The change is in Build 26340.9882 (Experimental) and Build 26320.9876 (Beta), both released on November 6 and based on Windows 11 version 26H2. Microsoft says you can "choose not to be asked again" from the Sticky Keys and Filter Keys dialogs, but it's a Controlled Feature Rollout in Experimental, so you may not see it yet.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

With more than 200,000 job cuts in the tech industry in 2026, the bigger question is if layoffs will spread to retail and finance.

The details of the resolution between Dolly Parton's estate and her nephew, Bryan Seaver, were not immediately known.

Ruling said law enacted by Congress reflects preference for border control over environmental and recreational harm

The US supreme court has allowed Donald Trump to continue his administration’s construction of a border wall in Texas’s Big Bend region, including parts of Big Bend national park.

In an unsigned, five-page ruling, the nation’s highest court granted the Trump administration’s emergency request to suspend a lower court order that had temporarily stopped the project last month.

In an impromptu news conference, the president insisted negotiations are making progress.

Elon Musk and other finance moguls defend Jensen Huang after he admitted to the affair, as Trump says FBI ‘is looking into it’

• Nvidia’s board needs to do some succession planning – sharpish

Donald Trump, Elon Musk and prominent finance moguls have expressed their support for embattled Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, as the head of the world’s most valuable chip company faces an internal investigation over a romantic relationship with an alleged Chinese spy.

Trump said he has spoken to Huang on Monday as the scandal reverberated across Silicon Valley and the Nvidia CEO faced an uncertain future.

• Former NFL quarterback invested in 2023

• Club did not give a reason for Brady’s departure

Tom Brady has ended his three-year involvement as a ⁠minority investor in Birmingham City, the English second-tier club said on Monday, ⁠thanking the seven-times ⁠Super ​Bowl champion for his support.

“Birmingham City Football Club expresses its sincere gratitude ⁠to Tom Brady for his involvement with and unwavering support for the club ⁠over the last three years,” the Championship side ​said in a ‌statement.

Former President Joe Biden at ceremony. Evan Krape photo.

Rendering courtesy of the University of Delaware

(The Center Square) – A coalition of energy and policy organizations sent a letter to President Donald Trump expressing concern over the harm to national security that is posed by publicly traded U.S. companies – such as Amazon, Apple, and…

If your understanding of a VA home loan starts and ends with “it’s for the military,” you’re not alone. For many eligible veterans and service members, the intricate workings (and benefits) of this U.S. government-backed mortgage are obscured behind lackluster…

In an emotional press conference, CF Montreal’s founder and owner Joey Saputo refused to rule out relocation

In a rare press conference, CF Montreal owner Joey Saputo announced that his family was beginning the process of “initiating a structured sale process” of the MLS club. Saputo informed the public of his intentions on Monday afternoon, pausing multiple times to fight back tears after over three decades of owning the Quebecois club.

“This decision is neither driven by urgency, nor dictated by circumstance,” Saputo said in his initial scripted remarks. “It’s the result of a careful and deliberate reflection on where we stand today, and more importantly, on the opportunities that lie ahead for the club.”

One of the top officials at the U.S. Marshals Service has been placed on administrative leave pending an internal investigation over his alleged involvement in a racist incident targeting a Black colleague, sources told CBS News.

(The Center Square) - The U.S. Department of Justice has dropped its federal lawsuit seeking to require California election officials to set aside roughly 20,000 mail-in ballots cast by individuals suspected of being noncitizens, concluding a rapid legal fight that…

The president said he spoke to Huang on Monday, after the chief executive admitted to an affair with one of his AI chipmaker’s customers.

The Health app overhaul and new Apple Intelligence features lead the latest public beta.

President Donald Trump says the FBI is investigating Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's affair with a woman alleged by U.S. intelligence to have gathered information for Beijing. "I know the FBI is looking into it in terms of something else, and I think that he'll be in good shape," Trump said at a White House briefing. The Associated Press reports: Trump suggested the extraordinary step of directly involving himself in a counterintelligence investigation, a sign of his friendly relationship with Huang and the possible geopolitical stakes. "I did speak to him today just to see if he's feeling all right, how you're doing," Trump said. "He said he had absolutely no idea that the person in question was a spy." Trump is slated to meet next week with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Shenzhen, China, at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, but he was noncommittal about bringing up the situation with Xi. "No, I don't think so," Trump said. "I mean, maybe. I'm sure President XI will ask me about it. I just know Jensen very well. I just think he's a very honorable man." Nvidia has launched its own independent investigation into whether Huang was targeted by a foreign intelligence operation. Meanwhile, China has denied the allegations. "The so-called Chinese spy allegation is unsubstantiated. It is nothing but smears against China," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said during a regular news briefing Monday. Further reading: Commerce Dept. Chip Inquiry Was Halted After Nvidia Intervention

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

While Democrats notched major midterm wins in Senate and House races, the blue wave extended further down the ballot – into races that received far less attention but could have major consequences in the years ahead. Shrai Popat, Guardian US politics reporter, explains some of the Democratic wins you may not have heard about

President, after talks with Qatari PM, suggests end to war coming ‘fairly soon’ and military escalation not needed

Donald Trump has said that the war in Iran is “effectively over” as he played down concerns that the US would escalate its military campaign against Tehran after the midterm elections.

During a White House press conference, Trump said that Israel and Gulf allies in the region were well protected from Iran and that an escalation was not needed.

See how organizations can set up, monitor, and manage BeeGFS alongside the rest of their cluster with ClusterVisor at Advanced Clustering Technologies’ booth 4523.

Nov. 9, 2026 — As high-performance computing (HPC) environments grow in complexity, organizations need infrastructure management tools that simplify operations across compute, storage, and the systems that connect them. At SC26, ThinkParQ and Advanced Clustering Technologies will demonstrate how their complementary technologies help organizations streamline cluster deployment and day-to-day management, bringing BeeGFS storage into the same management workflow used to operate the broader cluster.

Attendees are invited to register for a live demonstration at Advanced Clustering Technologies’ booth 4523 to see how ClusterVisor, the company’s cluster management solution, can be used to set up, monitor, and manage ThinkParQ’s parallel file storage solution, BeeGFS, alongside the rest of their cluster infrastructure.

“Our long-term partnership with Advanced Clustering Technologies is built on a simple goal: give customers a storage solution that is powerful and easy to operate,” said Frank Herold, CEO at ThinkParQ. “BeeGFS brings the performance and scalability that demanding workloads require, and ClusterVisor brings the management simplicity that administrators need. Together, they give end users one coherent, production-ready environment, from first deployment through the whole cluster lifecycle. We are proud to show this combined solution at SC26 and to keep investing in this partnership.”

BeeGFS delivers high-performance parallel file system capabilities for demanding technical computing workloads. ClusterVisor provides a unified approach to cluster provisioning and management. Together, the technologies offer organizations a practical way to integrate storage management into their broader cluster operations, helping reduce the need to manage infrastructure through disconnected tools and workflows.

“ClusterVisor is designed to simplify the way organizations deploy and manage their HPC infrastructure,” said Kyle Sheumaker, President and Chief Technical Officer at Advanced Clustering. “By bringing BeeGFS into the same management environment used to run the rest of the cluster, we help administrators take a more unified approach to setting up, monitoring, and managing their systems. Our collaboration with BeeGFS gives customers a practical way to streamline operations, reduce management complexity, and get more out of their cluster infrastructure.”

One Tool for the Broader Cluster

Managing an HPC environment involves more than deploying compute nodes or configuring storage independently. Administrators must ensure that the different components of their infrastructure work together and remain manageable throughout the cluster lifecycle.

With BeeGFS and ClusterVisor, attendees can explore how a common management approach can help simplify key operational tasks, including:

• Set up BeeGFS: See how BeeGFS can be incorporated into the cluster setup and deployment workflow.
• Monitor storage and cluster operations: Explore how administrators can monitor BeeGFS as part of their broader cluster environment.
• Manage the complete infrastructure: See how the same management tool used for the rest of the cluster can also support BeeGFS operations.

The result is a more cohesive approach to cluster management, giving administrators a way to work across compute and storage without treating BeeGFS as an entirely separate operational environment.

See BeeGFS and ClusterVisor at SC26

SC26 attendees can experience the complementary capabilities of BeeGFS and ClusterVisor firsthand at Advanced Clustering Technologies’ booth 4523. Live demonstrations will show how organizations can bring BeeGFS into their existing cluster management workflows and explore the benefits of managing storage and compute infrastructure through a common tool.

Register for a demo at booth 4523 to see how BeeGFS and ClusterVisor can help simplify the setup, monitoring, and management of your HPC environment. Learn more or schedule a demonstration here.

About BeeGFS

BeeGFS is a high-performance parallel file system designed to meet the demanding storage requirements of high-performance computing (HPC), artificial intelligence (AI), and other data-intensive workloads. By providing scalable, high-throughput access to shared data across multiple servers, BeeGFS helps organizations make the most of their compute resources. Its flexible architecture supports a wide range of environments, from research and academic computing to enterprise and large-scale AI infrastructure.

About ClusterVisor

The ClusterVisor appliance holds your cluster’s configuration, operating system images and history. A lightweight agent on every node reports health and applies changes, and Slurm, user accounts, logs and hardware management all plug into the same platform, whether we built your cluster or another vendor did.

About Advanced Clustering Technologies

Advanced Clustering Technologies helps organizations deploy, manage and support high-performance computing and AI infrastructure. Our company was founded in Kansas City in 2001 with a specific mission: helping organizations get HPC right. That focus shapes everything we do, from how we design a system to how long we support it.

Source: Advanced Clustering Technologies

The post BeeGFS and ClusterVisor Bring Simplified Cluster Management to SC26 appeared first on HPCwire.

(The Center Square) - Members of Congress and advocacy organizations are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a $16.1 billion case tied to Argentina nationalizing a private oil company that Americans invested in.

Under a proposed federal rule, Americans seeking unemployment aid would have to conduct more job searches each week.

The top lawyer in the Justice Department's Civil Division resigned on Monday, marking the latest in a wave of departures since the midterm elections.

(The Center Square) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled against Texans trying to stop the Trump administration from building a border wall system in the Big Bend region of Texas.

The justices did not seem ready to overturn a 1971 precedent that let individuals harmed by federal officers in violation of their constitutional rights sue for monetary damages.

Overkill for the average user, but the models are smarter than ever for professionals.

(The Center Square) – Following an Oval Office meeting Monday with the Qatari prime minister, President Donald Trump said Gulf partners are urging him to keep the status quo with Iran, though he warned the U.S. remains “lock and loaded.”

Tyler Robinson, 23, is set to stand trial on a charge of aggravated murder, which could see him face the death penalty

ONTARIO, CALIFORNIA — A Southern California man shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer last year has filed a $25 million lawsuit against the federal government, alleging excessive force, false arrest and malicious prosecution.

Carlos Jimenez, a U.S. citizen and father of three, says he stopped near an ICE operation in October 2025 to warn agents that children would soon arrive at a nearby bus stop. His lawsuit alleges officer Eusebio Ortiz fired multiple times as Jimenez tried to leave, striking him in the back and shoulder.

Federal authorities gave a sharply different account, alleging Jimenez rapidly reversed his vehicle toward an officer. Prosecutors charged him with assaulting a federal officer using a dangerous weapon.

Jimenez’s attorneys disputed that account and sought officers’ communications and other records. After a federal judge ordered prosecutors to produce additional material, both sides entered a diversion agreement. The assault charge was dismissed last week after Jimenez completed its conditions.

The lawsuit further alleges FBI agents interfered with Jimenez’s hospital treatment and questioned him while he still had a bullet lodged in his body. Those claims have not been proven in court.

The Justice Department says Jimenez voluntarily requested diversion rather than proceed to trial and notes that a grand jury had previously found probable cause to indict him.

The case now shifts from the dismissed criminal prosecution to a civil fight over whether federal agents used unlawful force and then improperly pursued charges against him.

Sources:

• The Guardian – MBFC Rating
• Los Angeles Times – MBFC Rating

The post U.S. Citizen Shot by ICE Officer Sues Federal Government for $25 Million appeared first on News Facts Network.

Epic Games says it plans to support its new Linux launcher on as many distributions as possible, specifically naming Fedora, SteamOS, CachyOS and Omarchy. GamingOnLinux's Liam Squires-Hand reports: Speaking to Jake Jones, Communications Director at Epic Games, they said: "Hey Liam! The new Epic Games Launcher is still in Preview and we plan to support as many Linux distributions as possible, including Fedora, SteamOS, Cachy, Omarchy, and more. We're testing and evaluating packaging formats for distribution, and we'll restore AppImage this month." With that in mind, until things settle down, you might see different packaging types appear or disappear until they decide firmly how they plan to support different distributions each with their own different packaging formats. Or, perhaps they might see the Flatpak light and just put it up officially on Flathub. Would make it even easier for SteamOS then too with Flathub, since it would just be a quick pop to Desktop Mode to install it directly in the Discover app.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The 2027 collection is to spotlight “sports legends, mythical creatures and celebrations.”

Now that the merger is complete, Skydance aims to deliver on its promise to bring both streamers together.

Lawsuit also alleges agents followed Carlos Jimenez to a hospital and ‘interfered’ in his care, with bullet fragments still lodged near lung

A US citizen who was shot by an immigration officer in southern California has filed a $25m lawsuit against the federal government, alleging he was wrongfully shot and arrested, then subjected to a “malicious prosecution”.

Carlos Jimenez, a father of three from Ontario, a city east of Los Angeles, was on his way to work at a food pantry on 30 October 2025 when he drove by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents carrying out an operation. It was around 7am, and Jimenez approached officers “calmly and slowly” to inform them that children in the neighborhood would soon be arriving at an adjacent bus stop, according to his complaint filed in federal court on Friday.

American negotiators’ call for a broader agreement on European security echoes Kremlin talking points, European officials and experts worry.

Officials investigating the incident have so far identified $17.3 million they say has been “successfully frozen.”

Hosted by the Delaware Department of Veterans Affairs and Delaware Commission of Veterans Affairs, the ceremony is intended to recognize veterans from across Delaware and the generations of Americans whose military service has helped preserve the nation’s freedoms. created on 11/9 by using AI

Annual New Castle observance will focus on service and sacrifice, with Vietnam veteran who endured 406 days in captivity delivering keynote address

NEW CASTLE, Del. — Delawareans will gather Wednesday at the Delaware War Memorial Plaza to honor the men and women who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces, with former Vietnam War prisoner of war Ralph Galati delivering the keynote address.

The annual Veterans Day ceremony begins at 10:30 a.m. Nov. 11 at the memorial plaza, 163 Cherry Lane in New Castle.

Hosted by the Delaware Department of Veterans Affairs and Delaware Commission of Veterans Affairs, the ceremony is intended to recognize veterans from across Delaware and the generations of Americans whose military service has helped preserve the nation’s freedoms.

Galati brings to the ceremony a story of combat, captivity, resilience and decades of continued service to fellow veterans.

A Philadelphia-area native and graduate of St. Joseph’s University, Galati was commissioned into the U.S. Air Force in 1970 and earned his flight wings the following year. He became a weapons systems officer aboard the F-4 Phantom and served as a laser-guided bomb lead and forward air controller while stationed at Ubon Royal Thai Air Force Base in Thailand.

On Feb. 16, 1972, Galati and his pilot were shot down over North Vietnam. Galati was captured and taken to Hanoi, where he remained a prisoner of war for 406 days.

He was released March 28, 1973, as part of Operation Homecoming, which returned hundreds of American prisoners of war from Southeast Asia.

Galati has described captivity as long periods of uncertainty and isolation punctuated by fear. During a 2014 visit to Dover Air Force Base, he told service members that training, faith, trust and reliance on fellow prisoners helped sustain him during his imprisonment.

His military decorations include the Silver Star, two Bronze Star Medals with Valor, two Purple Hearts, multiple Air Medals and the Prisoner of War Medal. His Silver Star recognized his actions as an F-4 weapons systems officer on the mission during which he was shot down.

After returning home, Galati continued serving in the Air Force as a flight instructor, curriculum developer and member of the Secretary of the Air Force’s legislative liaison staff at the Pentagon. He completed active duty in 1978 and later served in the Air Force Reserve.

His commitment to veterans continued long after his military career ended.

Galati spent 28 years with IBM before retiring in 2007. He later served as veterans liaison for Delaware County, Pennsylvania, and founded the Office of Veterans Services at St. Joseph’s University, where programs included assistance and entrepreneurship training for veterans. He remains involved with veterans organizations, including the Delaware County Veterans Memorial Association.

His appearance in New Castle comes more than half a century after his captivity and provides a personal connection to the purpose of Veterans Day: remembering not only those who fought in America’s wars, but everyone who accepted the obligations and risks that come with military service.

Veterans Day traces its roots to the end of World War I, when fighting stopped at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918. Originally observed as Armistice Day, the holiday was renamed Veterans Day in 1954 to honor American veterans of all wars and all eras of service.

Unlike Memorial Day, which specifically honors those who died while serving the country, Veterans Day recognizes all who have served in the nation’s armed forces.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs describes the purpose of the day as honoring veterans for their patriotism, service and willingness to sacrifice for the common good.

Wednesday’s ceremony will include state and federal officials, but its central focus will be Delaware’s veterans and the experiences represented by Galati and other former service members in attendance.

The Delaware Department of Veterans Affairs and Delaware Commission of Veterans Affairs also work year-round to help veterans and their families obtain benefits and services, including disability compensation, employment and housing assistance.

TO GO

• What: Delaware Veterans Day Ceremony
• When: 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 11
• Where: Delaware War Memorial Plaza, 163 Cherry Lane, New Castle
• Keynote speaker: Retired U.S. Air Force Capt. Ralph Galati, Vietnam War veteran and former prisoner of war
• Who may attend: Veterans, military families and members of the public
• Learn more: Delaware Department of Veterans Affairs

“Fighting has always been a part of who I am,” five-time Olympic gold medalist Teddy Riner said. As president, he would try to compete in the 2028 Games.

Rep. Thomas Massie on Monday introduced articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, accusing him of waging war against Iran without congressional authorization.

The more than 500-mile stretch of road, cameras, vehicle barriers and sensors is planned in and around Big Bend National Park. It is one of the longest sections.

DENVER, COLORADO — Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert has lost her bid for reelection in Colorado’s 4th Congressional District, with CNN projecting Democrat Eileen Laubacher will flip the traditionally Republican seat.

Laubacher, a retired Navy rear admiral who served more than three decades, led Boebert by more than 3,000 votes Monday with roughly 98% counted. Her campaign emphasized affordability, health care and government accountability.

Boebert has not conceded. Her campaign previously said it was investigating unspecified “unusual voting patterns” and expected a recount. No evidence of election fraud has been presented.

The Associated Press had not yet called the race Monday evening, noting that several thousand ballots remained outstanding. Laubacher nevertheless declared victory and traveled to Washington for congressional orientation.

Colorado automatically recounts a race only when the margin is no greater than one-half of 1% of the winning candidate’s vote total. Laubacher’s current lead is well outside that threshold, although Boebert could request and pay for a recount after counting concludes.

Boebert moved from Colorado’s competitive 3rd District to the more Republican 4th District before the 2024 election. Her defeat adds another seat to the expanded Democratic House majority following last week’s midterm sweep.

Sources:

• Mediaite – MBFC Rating

The post CNN Projects Laubacher Defeats Boebert in Tight Colorado House Race appeared first on News Facts Network.

France has accused Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of being behind last month's cyberattacks on fridges and freezers across the country. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said the attack was "unprecedented in both its scale and its level of aggression," adding those who were responsible would be hit with sanctions "at the European level." The BBC reports: The cyber-attack last month saw fridges and freezers in hundreds of supermarkets across France heated up, which spoilt fresh and frozen food estimated to be worth millions of euros. Then last week, dozens of supermarkets across several other European countries were also impacted by a cyber-attack that targeted fridges and freezers. It is not known if the instances are linked. Barrot said the attack on France's supermarkets "marks the first large-scale cyber-attack aimed at sabotage on our national territory, and it constitutes a major attack on the nation's interests and the security of the French people." He said the government had summoned the Iranian ambassador to Paris to "lodge a very strong protest against this extremely grave act." France will take "any other necessary and proportionate measures" to respond to the incident and "deter anyone who might seek to repeat it," Barrot added. Separately on Monday, the Paris prosecutor said an investigation had been opened into the head of an offensive cyber unit associated with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as well as his two deputies. Laure Beccuau named the unit as Shahid Kaveh, which she said had an affiliation with the electronic and cyber centre of the IRGC. Shahid Kaveh is the name given to a cluster of hackers thought to be directly employed by the Iranian regime. [...] The French government has not said how it reached the conclusion that Iran was responsible, and attribution of cyber attacks is extremely hard as hackers are able to hide their locations.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Image created on 11/9 using AI.

Loss costs fall 3.99% Dec. 1 for a 10th straight year after regulators and the ratepayer advocate reviewed a 1.40% filing; safety discounts of up to 12% are also being restored

DOVER, Del. — Delaware employers will get a larger workers’ compensation cost reduction than initially proposed when new rates take effect Dec. 1, extending a decade-long streak of decreases.

The Delaware Compensation Rating Bureau originally proposed a 1.40% average reduction in voluntary-market loss costs and a 1.53% reduction in residual-market rates.

After review by the Delaware Department of Insurance, an independent actuarial firm and the state’s Ratepayer Advocate, the approved filing instead reduces voluntary-market loss costs by an average of 3.99% and residual-market rates by 4.11%.

That makes the voluntary-market reduction about 2.85 times the decrease originally proposed.

Insurance Commissioner Trinidad Navarro approved the amended filing Oct. 12 for new and renewal policies effective Dec. 1. Insurance carriers must submit filings reflecting the new values by Dec. 11.

The rating bureau said the final numbers followed discussions and a settlement involving the bureau, the Department of Insurance and the Ratepayer Advocate, which retained a second independent actuary.

The bureau cautioned that the amended figures represent a “negotiated outcome” and do not necessarily mean all parties agreed on what the appropriate rate level should be.

“I am pleased to announce that for a decade, we have been able to approve rate decreases which help attract new companies and jobs to Delaware,” Navarro said in an Oct. 20 statement. “Delaware’s businesses used to pay some of the highest workers’ compensation premiums in the country.”

Actual savings will vary from employer to employer. Loss costs are the estimates of future claim costs that insurers use as a foundation for setting workers’ compensation prices. An employer’s final premium can also depend on factors including payroll, industry classification, claims history and the insurer’s pricing.

Lower insurance costs do not reduce benefits paid to workers injured on the job, according to the Department of Insurance.

Safety discount restored

Employers may eventually have another opportunity to reduce their workers’ compensation bills through changes to Delaware’s Workplace Safety Program.

The program provides premium credits to eligible employers that undergo safety inspections and address recommended improvements.

A 2024 law, Senate Bill 306, expanded eligibility, but changes associated with a new experience-rating plan unintentionally reduced the maximum Workplace Safety Program discount available to some businesses.

Senate Bill 248, enacted June 10, changes the formula used to calculate the workplace safety credit from 20% times one minus an employer’s credibility factor to 40% times one minus the credibility factor.

The change restores a maximum credit of 12%. Credit determinations using the new formula may be communicated beginning Dec. 1, 2026, and apply to workers’ compensation policies effective Aug. 1, 2027, or later.

“This legislation provides Delaware business owners the opportunity to save money by maintaining a good workplace safety program,” said state Rep. Ed Osienski, who co-sponsored the legislation with lead sponsor Sen. Nicole Poore.

“This legislation invests in safe workplaces, rewards responsible business practices, and strengthens our commitment to protect every Delaware worker,” Poore said.

As of the end of 2025, 853 Delaware employers had saved an estimated $3.6 million through the Workplace Safety Program, according to the Department of Insurance. Eligible businesses are notified seven months before renewal, and failing to qualify for the program cannot be used as a reason to increase an employer’s premium.

The department’s revised guidance also reminds insurers that carrier-run workplace inspection procedures must be recertified twice a year. The department said the reminder was prompted by instances in which carriers had not kept those procedures properly certified.

What it means for Delaware businesses

The larger-than-proposed rate reduction matters most to businesses with significant payrolls or jobs carrying higher workers’ compensation costs, including construction, manufacturing, retail, restaurants and other labor-intensive industries.

The 3.99% figure, however, should not be interpreted as a guaranteed 3.99% reduction in every employer’s final bill. Insurers begin with DCRB loss costs and then apply their own approved pricing factors along with the employer’s classification, payroll and claims experience.

The Workplace Safety Program creates a separate potential savings opportunity for employers willing to undergo inspections and maintain qualifying safety practices.

The Dec. 1 workers’ compensation decrease is Delaware’s 10th consecutive annual reduction. Last year, the state approved an 11.6% average reduction in voluntary-market loss costs.

Delaware Public Media reported Nov. 4 on the 3.99% and 4.11% reductions and the expansion of workplace safety discounts. DCRB’s filing documents provide additional context showing that the voluntary-market decrease initially proposed was 1.40% before the regulatory and actuarial review produced the larger reduction.

To Go Box

• What: Delaware workers’ compensation rate changes and Workplace Safety Program
• Workers’ comp rates: Average voluntary-market loss costs decrease 3.99%; residual-market rates decrease 4.11%.
• Effective: New and renewal policies beginning Dec. 1, 2026.
• Workplace safety credit: Eligible employers can qualify for discounts of up to 12% under the revised formula.
• New safety formula: Credit determinations may be communicated beginning Dec. 1, 2026, for policies effective Aug. 1, 2027, or later.
• Learn more: Delaware Department of Insurance Workplace Safety Program.
• Questions: safety@delaware.gov or 302-674-7377.

PALO ALTO, Calif., Nov. 9, 2026 — Quantum computing pioneer Diraq has installed the world’s first silicon spin quantum computer inside a commercial data center, now live at Equinix in Sydney, Australia. As quantum computing moves into the everyday infrastructure that businesses rely on, Diraq is also launching Quantum at Work, a new report exploring how the technology could be put to work on some of the world’s hardest problems including medicine discovery.

Credit: Diraq

“We are now at a point where quantum computing can start to reach industries and the people they serve,” said Andrew Dzurak, CEO and Founder of Diraq. “That shift matters more than any single milestone, because it changes what’s possible for every field quantum touches, from medicine to materials to logistics. Our silicon spin approach is what puts that within reach in five years, not decades. It gives us a manufacturing path already proven at industrial scale, a cost curve that improves as we add qubits, and a system designed to run inside today’s existing computing infrastructure.”

A New Benchmark for Commercial Deployment

The deployment marks a significant step for silicon spin quantum technology, taking it from the lab and into Equinix’s data center, home to everyday computing infrastructure for banking, healthcare, utilities, manufacturing and retail industries.

Diraq’s quantum computers are designed to scale without requiring data centres to scale around them. Its silicon spin architecture is built using the same semiconductor manufacturing processes used to produce today’s conventional computer chips. This allows customers to increase computing power by upgrading the quantum processor, with minimal changes to the surrounding infrastructure. The system at Equinix currently operates with eight qubits, and Diraq is targeting up to 256 qubits in the same deployed system within the next year.

That strategy impacts the system’s power and physical footprint. The current quantum computer draws less than 20 kW, and Diraq expects a future utility-scale system to draw around 300 kW, less than a third of the power demanded by a single next-generation AI rack. The current system takes just 170 square feet of floor space, and future utility-scale deployments could be as small as 50 square feet. By keeping quantum computing compact and relatively low power as it scales, Diraq aims to avoid the costly and disruptive infrastructure expansion that other quantum technologies would require.

“The next chapter of computing won’t be defined by AI, cloud or quantum in isolation, but by how these technologies work together,” said Harmeen Mehta, Executive Vice President and Chief Digital and Innovation Officer, Equinix. “Diraq’s deployment in our data center is an important proof point for quantum, demonstrating a path for these systems to operate alongside the digital infrastructure enterprises already rely on.”

The deployment follows Diraq’s recent advancement to Stage C of DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative, a program testing paths to utility-scale quantum computing, one of just six companies to reach the program’s final stage with potential funding of up to US$300 million. Diraq also signed a US$38 million letter of intent with the Department of Commerce under the CHIPS and Science Act, the only company focused on silicon spin qubits in that funding round.

A future case for medicine

Alongside the deployment, Diraq is launching Quantum at Work, a new report examining how quantum computing could contribute to progress across fields including medicine, energy, materials, climate and transport. This makes up part of Diraq’s broader work outlining what future, utility scale quantum computers will make possible.

“Quantum computing’s economic value isn’t a distant promise,” said Matt Langione, Managing Director and Partner, Boston Consulting Group. “Our research shows that technologies leveraging advanced quantum physics have already compounded $19 to $27 trillion in value today, through semiconductors, GPS, MRI and early drug discovery. We think quantum computing can unlock a further $3.5 trillion at maturity.”

Developing a new medicine costs more than US$2 billion and takes up to 15 years, with fewer than 1 in 10 candidates ever reaching a patient. New Diraq analysis, built on a 2010 industry cost study published in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery and modeled on FDA approval data, developed for the Quantum at Work report, found:

• More medicines reaching patients: Lifting clinical trial success rates by just 10 percentage points could mean around 50% more potentially lifesaving medicines reaching patients each year, up to 25 additional medicines in a market the size of the US alone, as fewer viable candidates are abandoned due to cost.
• Economics that stack up: A 10 percentage point improvement in clinical trial success rates could save around US$600 million per medicine by ruling out failed candidates earlier. Other quantum modalities can become increasingly expensive as they scale, requiring significant cooling, wiring and control infrastructure. Diraq is targeting at most tens of millions of dollars for its utility-scale systems, helping make the potential economic benefits of quantum computing achievable in practice.

“Being inside a commercial data center is how we start proving that claim,” said Dzurak. “This deployment puts the system where it will actually operate, running alongside the infrastructure it’s designed to work with. If we get this right, it could mean more lifesaving medicines reaching the people who need them, and our target of scaling to 256 qubits in the next year is the next proof point on that path.”

Diraq has operations in Palo Alto, Los Angeles, Chicago and Albuquerque, alongside its Australian research operations.

About Diraq

Diraq is building silicon-based quantum computers designed to be economical, compact and deployable at scale. The company’s proprietary silicon spin-qubit technology uses the same CMOS manufacturing processes that produce today’s semiconductor chips, creating a pathway to millions of qubits on a single processor without the need for custom fabrication infrastructure. Diraq’s technology is based on more than 20 years of research led by Founder and CEO Andrew Dzurak. Its mission is to unlock the scale needed to make quantum computing commercially useful and accessible. Founded in Australia, Diraq has more than 130 team members globally, with operations in Palo Alto, Los Angeles, Chicago, Albuquerque, Sydney and Melbourne.

About Equinix

Equinix, Inc. (Nasdaq: EQIX) shortens the path to boundless connectivity anywhere in the world. Its digital infrastructure, data center footprint and interconnected ecosystems empower innovations that enhance our work, life and planet. Equinix connects economies, countries, organizations and communities, delivering seamless digital experiences and cutting-edge AI—quickly, efficiently and everywhere.

Source: Diraq

The post Diraq Installs Silicon Spin Quantum Computer at Equinix Data Center appeared first on HPCwire.

Utah judge sets timeline for trial of Tyler Robinson, accused of fatally shooting the far-right activist in September 2025

Tyler Robinson, the 23-year-old man accused of killing the far-right pundit and activist Charlie Kirk, will stand trial for murder in early July 2028, a Utah district judge ruled on Monday.

Judge Tony Graf said the trial will remain in Provo, Utah, and jury selection would begin on 21 June 2028. Attorneys for Robinson had asked to start the trial in January 2029 while Erika Kirk, Charlie’s widow, had pushed for an October 2027 date.

Shares in world’s most valuable company hit seven-month low after CEO Huang admits to affair, after allegations of relationship with Chinese spy

• Silicon Valley and Trump rally behind Nvidia CEO after his affair with alleged Chinese spy

• Who is Alice Huang, the woman linked to Nvidia’s CEO?

• The AI poster boy, the ‘Chinese spy’ and Trump: how an affair may have harmed US security

Huang is receiving support from some fellow tech executives, including Elon Musk.

Musk commented “I agree” on a post by ​Sequoia partner Shaun Maguire that said Huang “did something incredibly dumb” that was “bad for America” but that “Jensen is irreplaceable for America’s AI leadership”.

“While Nvidia has sought to reassure us all, ​there are several layers here, beginning with the unfortunate timing.

“For example: The company is systemically important for tech, markets and the economy; Investors tend to struggle to price in key-person and governance issues; and there are fluid national security and geopolitical dynamics.”

The Supreme Court agreed to lift a district court order that temporarily stopped construction of the border wall and other infrastructure in the Big Bend sector.

The agency is requiring GLP-1 manufacturers to warn the drugs can increase risk of “eye stroke.”

Massachusetts judge rejects bid by Clancy’s attorneys to have the case against her dismissed

A Massachusetts judge cleared the way on Monday for Lindsay Clancy to be tried again on ⁠murder charges for killing her three young children at her home in 2023, saying a retrial would not unconstitutionally subject her to a ⁠double prosecution for the same ⁠crime.

Judge William ​Sullivan in Plymouth rejected a bid by Clancy’s attorneys to have the case against her dismissed. The judge on 4 September declared ⁠a mistrial after the jury reported that a holdout juror was preventing it from reaching a unanimous verdict.

Traveling one light-day took the space probe 49 years. it would take a human 612,015 years to walk that distance.

Huang built Nvidia as a family business but after the co-founder had an affair with an alleged Chinese spy, its board faces a difficult decision

For more than 30 years, Jensen Huang has been the seemingly unshakable public face of Nvidia. He co-founded the company as a young engineer in 1993 and oversaw its growth into a multitrillion dollar chipmaker and bellwether of the AI industry at large.

He’s also made it a family business. His children, Madison and Spencer, have taken leadership roles at the firm. While not a company executive, his wife, Lori Mills Huang, leads the family foundation which, as of 2024, controls over 60m Nvidia shares.

Anthropic has released Claude Mythos 5.2 and Fable 5.2 with "improvements in areas like coding, reasoning, and vision," while cutting Fable's input price and claiming 30% faster responses. TechCrunch reports: It's Anthropic's first model release since the arrival of a third-party report from the assessment group METR, which suggested the lab might be approaching recursive self-improvement (RSI) -- or the ability for AI models to carry on model training independently. The METR report found internal models were speeding up Anthropic's AI progress by roughly 2x, although many uncertainties remain. Still, Anthropic's release notes significant ongoing challenges in accurately testing model capabilities. "Claude Mythos 5.2 and Fable 5.2 each voice suspicion that they are being evaluated more often than any of our recent models, which challenges our ability to assess how they will act in real-world settings. As these settings expand and capabilities increase with future models, we expect this challenge to grow." Anthropic maintains that the new version of Mythos does not have the ability to act covertly against its user, a verdict that's detailed further in Mythos 5.2's system card. "Claude Mythos 5.2 shows stronger covert capabilities than prior Claude models on several of our evaluations, particularly when its reasoning is hidden from the monitor," the system card reads. "That said, we believe that low levels of absolute performance on our new covert evaluations support claims that rely on detection of harmful actions in high-stakes situations." Fable 5.2 has been available to select parties in pre-release for some time, and Anthropic says the model has already "solved two open problems in theoretical physics, formalized Fermat's Last Theorem, and supported numerous other research projects."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google puts schools in an "impossible position" by blocking students from using its search platform unless AI tools are also enabled, Senator said.

France’s foreign minister blamed Iran for an “an attack of unprecedented scope and aggressiveness,” affecting nearly 700 sites.

Your current car insurance policy may no longer be your best option. Here's why it's worth comparing your options.

Surprising midterm elections that create new majorities on Capitol Hill look to be revolutions in the days after they occur. Years later, they often appear to be more complex – and less significant.

Jensen Huang’s close relationship with president means Nvidia CEO’s affair with woman alleged to be working for Beijing is under intense scrutiny

A hand on the back, a kiss on the cheek; the footage of Alice Huang’s interaction with Jensen Huang in a Taipei venue last year does not seem particularly remarkable at first glance.

But the Nvidia chief executive’s revelation on Sunday that he had an affair with Ms Huang has given it new significance.

A person taking his vitamins and supplements in the morning.

AI makes it easy to rehearse a job interview as many times as you need, with feedback after every answer.

There has been significant personnel churn and an overhaul of priorities at the Justice Department in President Donald Trump’s second term.

Former builder got his big break after restoring the home of a producer who was working on a precursor to the show

Tommy Walsh, the building and DIY expert who appeared on television shows including Ground Force, has died aged 69 after a long illness.

Walsh started his career as a professional builder before rising to fame alongside Alan Titchmarsh and Charlie Dimmock on the popular BBC garden makeover show from 1997 to 2005.

The child was shot to death during a military and police operation last month to detain an alleged drug trafficker in the border city of Matamoros.

Caucus had 100 members in the last Congress, and six of the nine candidates it endorsed won, flipping seats

House progressives, long dismissed as the Democratic party’s leftwing outliers, are heading into the next Congress in larger numbers than ever and vowing to push the new Democratic majority to the left.

The Congressional Progressive caucus said on Sunday it will welcome more than 25 new members, including a record number who won in red districts, expanding its ranks to more than 105 lawmakers.

Newark Police Chief Mark Farrall at a press conference that announced the indictments.

‘Not particularly complex’ defrosting hack has been attributed to Iran, with presumption it is linked to others across Europe

Iranian hackers like to send a message.

In 2023 a state-backed group interrupted TV streaming services in the United Arab Emirates to broadcast a deepfake report on the war in Gaza. In the same year, hackers affiliated with Iran displayed the slogan “down with Israel” on the screens of water-control equipment made by an Israeli firm.

US representative accuses defense secretary of illegally waging war without congressional authorization and abusing his powers

A Republican lawmaker has moved to force a vote to impeach Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, setting the stage for a showdown over one of the most divisive figures inside Donald Trump’s administration.

Thomas Massie, of Kentucky, introduced eight articles of impeachment against Hegseth, accusing him of illegally waging war without congressional authorization and abusing his powers.

A female caregiver assisting a senior woman in reviewing documents at home.

TV producer, who was in relationship with ex-comedian that reportedly ended in 2014, accuses him of ‘violence, coercive control and abuse’

• Russell Brand sentenced to more than 10 years in prison for rape and sexual assault

Jemima Goldsmith has said Russell Brand physically assaulted her and she accused him of “violence, coercive control and abuse”.

The 52-year-old TV producer said she has always been “strongly and unequivocally” on the side of Brand’s victims as she opened up about her own “painful” experience with her former partner in a social media post on Monday.

Calls for self-styled War Secretary Pete Hegseth’s ouster have grown louder on Capitol Hill as a possible impeachment vote looms this week. At the same time, Hegseth has shored up support at the White House and among MAGA faithful, according to dismayed Pentagon officials.

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., introduced articles of impeachment on the House floor Monday afternoon, charging Hegseth with “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Top Democrats have indicated a desire to join Massie’s effort since their midterm election landslide. “I am a hard yes on the Hegseth resolution,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, who is poised to be the next House speaker, told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., the current House Oversight Committee chair, told Newsmax on Friday it is “very possible” the votes exist to impeach Hegseth.

Rep. Yassamin Ansari, D-Ariz., one of the leading voices for Hegseth’s impeachment, agreed. “I think there’s a high chance that it will be successful,” she told The Intercept of Massie’s effort. In April, Ansari filed six articles of impeachment against Hegseth, including violations of the law of armed conflict and targeting of civilians, abuse of power, and obstructing congressional oversight. She called for a floor vote on his ouster this week.

Related

The U.S. Has Killed 227 Civilians in Boat Strikes During “A Year of Murders”

“Hegseth has demonstrated that he is wholly incompetent. He’s committed what I believe to be war crimes in Iran and the Caribbean and he is ill-equipped for the job,” said Ansari. “My reason for introducing the articles of impeachment back in April had a lot to do with his conduct and the war crimes in Iran, including the bombing of the children’s school. But it’s refreshing to see that since then, more and more Republicans are also recognizing that his leadership has failed and that he’s putting all of us in danger.”

In the wake of a devastating election rout of the GOP that handed Democrats firm control of the House and the Senate, Congress begins a five-week lame-duck session on Monday. With dozens of Republican lawmakers ending their tenure in the House, it’s unclear how many will even show up for votes. Such absences, as well as outright defections in the GOP ranks, make it increasingly likely that Massie’s measure will pass, staffers on Capitol Hill told The Intercept.

On Sunday, GOP Rep. French Hill of Arkansas left open the possibility of backing the measure. “I want to hear the debate on it to see if it merits impeachment versus some other disciplinary action or action by the president,” he said on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.” Outgoing House speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., did not answer when asked by Politico if GOP leaders would whip the Hegseth impeachment vote. House leaders must take up the matter within two legislative days; opponents could table the resolution or refer it to committee instead of voting directly on impeachment.

After narrowly being confirmed by the Senate, which required Vice President JD Vance to break a 50-50 tie, Hegseth’s tenure has been marked by fiascos and failures beginning with Signal-gate, the sharing of secret war plans in a chat group with a journalist. In that case, according to the Pentagon’s own inspector general, “Hegseth violated security protocols and endangered U.S. troops and objectives.” Since then, Hegseth has been under perpetual fire for the unsuccessful Iran war in 2026, specifically a strike on an elementary school in Minab, Iran, that killed more than 150 civilians, most of them children. He faces pressure over his campaign of extrajudicial killings in attacks on so-called drug boats in the waters off Latin America. And questions continue to mount about his purge of top military leaders — many of them women and minorities. 

Related

Pentagon Officials Float Names of Hegseth’s Replacement

“The fact that many career officials from the department have left citing his leadership, I think, is very telling,” said Ansari. Last week, The Intercept published an exposé quoting six current and former defense officials who currently serve or served under Hegseth and called for his ouster. “He is conducting state terrorism. He is 100 percent a war criminal. He needs to be prosecuted,” said Wes J. Bryant, one of those officials and, until last year, a senior targeting adviser and policy analyst at the Pentagon who was pushed out of his job for blowing the whistle on Hegseth’s efforts to undermine protections for civilians.

As calls for his ouster have grown louder, Hegseth launched a desperate bid to whip up support at the White House, including a nakedly obsequious video seeking Trump’s support that he posted on X. It was accompanied by a coordinated campaign of social media posts by Pentagon underlings tying Hegseth’s fortunes to the president with the text “STAND. FIGHT. DEFEND THE REPUBLIC.”

Hegseth’s hand was strengthened on Friday when Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles stepped down and was replaced by his hard-line domestic policy adviser, raging xenophobe, and illegal boat strike proponent Stephen Miller, according to two Pentagon officials. The embattled war chief was quick to offer “Huge CONGRATS” to Miller on X, and posted a photo of himself alongside Trump’s new consigliere. The same coterie of Hegseth devotees at the Pentagon followed with similar posts featuring Miller.

Wiles had reportedly soured on Hegseth, blaming his woeful management of the Iran war for flagging Republican fortunes. A senior Trump administration official also told MS Now that Miller and Hegseth “have been extremely close since the beginning of the administration.”

Related

Republicans Are Desperate to Pretend They Never Supported the War With Iran

If the House impeaches Hegseth, removing him from office would require a two-thirds vote in the Senate — a high bar, even when Democrats take control of the chamber in January. Neither of the two Cabinet secretaries impeached by the House — William Belknap, the secretary of war, in 1876; and Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of homeland security, in 2024 — were convicted by the Senate.

An Armed Services Committee staffer who spoke with The Intercept was skeptical that Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., would bring the measure to a vote. Ansari held out hope. “Thune is very much aligned in terms of his view that Hegseth is not fit for the job,” she said, adding, “I do think that the resounding victories on Tuesday night will impact the way Republicans operate moving forward.”

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who is retiring at the end of the year, has said for months that he regrets his vote to confirm Hegseth and rebuked the war chief for his desperate video address aimed at Trump. “[C]abinet secretaries shouldn’t be wasting taxpayer dollars on campaign style videos. Kristi Noem learned that the hard way,” he wrote on X on Friday, also laying into Hegseth for “the incompetence you’ve displayed, the bad advice you’ve given to president, and your shameful and embarrassing episodes from firing our top generals to texting war plans to reporters.” Tillis had also previously said Hegseth “needs to go.”

Massie suggested his impeachment resolution is the legislative equivalent of a mercy killing, calling it “a much gentler version” of what Democrats will do when they take control of Congress in January. Congressional committees have broad investigative powers, and Ansari said that if Hegseth survives this year’s impeachment push, there were “many ways” for Democrats to hold him accountable in the next session, specifically compelling him to testify before the American people. “I would be surprised to see him last the next two years in this administration,” she told The Intercept. “I think that he is not only one of the most incompetent members of the administration, but also the most unpopular — and it’s on a bipartisan basis. So the pressure will continue to grow for there to be some change at the Pentagon.”

Trump expressed mild “confidence” in Hegseth in a “60 Minutes” interview taped on Friday, touting the U.S. victory over Venezuela, but stopped short of praising his Pentagon chief for it. Asked if he credited Hegseth for what he considers a major victory, Trump replied: “No, but he was a part of it.” On Saturday, Trump wrote on Truth Social that calls for impeachment of administration officials amounted to “extortion at the highest level” and ordered the Justice Department to investigate those making the push.

Attorney General Todd Blanche, himself a potential target of impeachment, said on Sunday that the Justice Department would represent Hegseth during any impeachment proceedings. He added that he “would be very worried” if he were a Democrat threatening to investigate administration officials. Asked if he considered those threats to be a crime, Blanche said, “It depends on what’s said. So yes, there could be.”

The White House did not respond to questions about Trump’s support for Hegseth.

Update: November 9, 2026, 2:50 p.m. ET
The article has been updated to note that Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., introduced articles of impeachment against War Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday afternoon.

The post Impeachment Vote Looms for Hegseth appeared first on The Intercept.

Particles from fireworks and bonfires likely to have contributed to levels well above WHO’s daily guideline

Air pollution soared to “very high” levels across urban parts of England on Monday as still, foggy weather kept emissions trapped after a weekend of fireworks and bonfires.

Government monitoring showed 11 sites, mainly in London and Greater Manchester, reached the highest band on its 10-point index for particulate matter in the 24 hours to 10am. A further 27 sites recorded “high” levels across the capital, the north-west, the Midlands, Yorkshire and the east of England.

The space agency is recruiting its next class of astronauts as the U.S. plans a new mission to the moon. Here's the kind of person NASA is looking for.

Company will cut jobs through a mix of layoffs and attrition as it moderates the pace of ramping up jet production

Boeing will cut about 5% of its commercial plane workforce as it moderates the pace of ramping up jet production, the company said on Monday.

The company will eliminate the posts through a mix of layoffs and attrition because of a slower ramp-up to “provide our factories and supply chain partners additional time to achieve stability”, said a message to employees from Boeing commercial chief Stephanie Pope.

In President Donald Trump’s post-midterm election interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes” Nov. 8, correspondent Ross Douthat pressed him about his massive net worth gains while president. 

“There’s a Forbes story that said that your net worth, maybe it’s changed with the stock market recently, but your net worth went up by $3 billion,” Douthat said. 

“So did everyone’s,” Trump replied. 

“My net worth did not go up by $3 billion for the record,” Douthat said.

“You should have had stock,” Trump answered.

Despite some ups and downs, the stock market has performed well since Trump took office in January 2025. But Trump’s financial disclosures show that’s not where the majority of his net gains originated.

 

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We fact-checked a similar statement by Trump back in July when he said “You know why I’m profiting? Because the stock market’s going up. … I’m profiting because I have a lot of money and a lot of cash.” We rated that Mostly False. 

Of the $2.2 billion to $3 billion that Trump took in during 2025, based on The New York Times and Forbes analyses, respectively, his financial disclosures showed that $1.4 billion came from cryptocurrency ventures such as World Liberty Financial and crypto meme coins he launched. 

The same 2025 disclosure showed another $400 million from sources such as real estate, legal settlements, overseas licensing agreements and branded merchandise, including watches and footwear.

Based on The New York Times’ estimate of a $2.2 billion in net wealth growth from 2024 to 2025, that would mean more than 80% of his total gains came from non-stock sources.

Following the “60 Minutes” interview, Forbes editor Dan Alexander, who reports on Trump’s financial earnings, broke down the numbers on X, calling Trump’s televised response “nonsense.”

“In the fall of 2024, we estimated that the president’s liquid assets totaled about $415M. After analyzing his financial disclosure, we pegged about 10% of that in stock,” Alexander posted on X.

From early September 2024 to September 2025, the S&P 500 rose by 14% on average. That would have boosted Trump’s stock holdings by around $6 million dollars, based on Forbes’ analysis. But during the same period, Trump lost significant stock value in his Trump Media company — around $226 million, according to Alexander.

“Almost none” of Trump’s $3 billion gains from fall 2024 to fall 2025 came from stock, Alexander said.

Forbes in September estimated Trump’s net worth slipped by about $300 million in 2026, bringing his total net worth down from $7.3 billion to $7 billion.

Our ruling

Trump credited a $3 billion rise in his net worth while in office to stocks.

Trump has made money in stocks, but his financial disclosures show the majority of his net gain came from non-stock sources, specifically cryptocurrency ventures.

We rate this claim Mostly False.

PolitiFact Chief Correspondent Louis Jacobson contributed to this report

Editor’s note:  HPCwire contributor Steve Conway conducted a three-part interview with Frederick H. Hausheer, MD and Fellow of the American College of Physicians (FACP), a medical oncologist and clinical pharmacologist who heads Hausheer BioMed, an oncology and pharmaceutical-industry research and development consulting firm. Part 1 of the series, “AI and Medicine: Who’s the Doctor?,” ran on October 29.  This is part 2.

HPCwire: Multiple factors will contribute to recommendations by an AI. If a physician thinks an AI recommendation is problematic, I assume it will be important to identify the troublesome factor.

Dr. Hausheer: Safety evaluation must extend beyond determining that a final AI recommendation was “wrong.” One needs to distinguish between a data defect, a model error, a medication error, a near miss, an expected treatment toxicity, and an event attributable to the underlying disease or another cause. These categories can overlap, but they require different investigations and corrective actions.

HPCwire: Does a standard pre-AI format already exist for storing all this information?

Dr. Hausheer: Yes. Standardized industry and regulatory-compliant pharmacovigilance reporting formats exist; “structured safety record” is a descriptive term I will use for this, not the name of a single universal format. Such a structured safety record should preserve the reported findings, appropriate Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities (MedDRA) terminology, timing of onset and resolution, baseline abnormalities, and relevant clinical context.

Fredrick Hausheer, M.D.

HPCwire: I assume there are standard codes used to describe the findings, and that these also apply when AI is involved.

Dr. Hausheer: Coding standardizes the description, but it does not establish severity or causality. The National Cancer Institute’s Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (CTCAE) provides severity grading, using the version specified for the study or application. For U.S. Investigational New Drug (IND) safety reporting, seriousness is a separate assessment involving outcomes such as death, immediate risk of death, inpatient hospitalization or its prolongation, significant incapacity, or congenital anomaly/birth defect.

Important medical events may also qualify when they jeopardize the patient and may require intervention to prevent a serious outcome. For U.S. IND safety reporting, expectedness is assessed against the investigator’s brochure or, when one is not required or available, the risk information in the general investigational plan or elsewhere in the current application, as amended. Here, specificity and severity matter in the context of other actual findings. It is not determined by whether the AI anticipated the event. Severity, seriousness, causal attribution, and expectedness should not be collapsed into one score.

HPCwire: If a drug is suspected of causing a problem, whether AI is involved or not, how extensive is the investigation of the drug?

Dr. Hausheer: The pharmacological assessment could examine the actual drug, formulation, route, administered dose and schedule, treatment duration, pharmacokinetic profile, systemic and relevant tissue exposure, organ function, and concomitant medications. Depending on the therapy, relevant questions include mechanism of action, class effects, active metabolites, cytochrome P450 (CYP) inhibition or induction, transporters, renal and hepatic elimination, and overlapping pharmacodynamic toxicities.

Speaking more technically, protein binding or possible displacement should prompt an assessment of unbound exposure and clinical consequences, not an assumption of a harmful interaction from binding percentages alone. FDA’s ICH M12 guidance provides a framework specifically for enzyme- and transporter-mediated pharmacokinetic interactions; the broader clinical assessment also includes pharmacodynamic and other relevant mechanisms.

For example, an observed abnormality after a new combination might reflect increased drug exposure, additive toxicity, disease progression, infection, or another medication. One could assess the temporal relationship, exposure–response evidence, changes after treatment interruption, and any clinically observed recurrence after re-exposure. A temporal association should trigger appropriate investigation, not automatic attribution. The immediate safety response and the eventual causal conclusion are separate decisions; protecting the patient need not wait for definitive causality.

Validation, Monitoring, and Prevention of Recurrence

HPCwire: Is having enough patient examples, enough data, sometimes a problem in identifying the cause of pharmaceutical or other medical errors?

(FOTOGRIN/Shutterstock)

Dr. Hausheer: Too few relevant events can make estimates of error imprecise, but predictive accuracy does not by itself establish the cause of an error. Validation is directed at clinically consequential errors, but in a hypothetical dataset of 1,000 patients with 10 serious events, a model predicting “no event” in every patient achieves 99% accuracy while missing every event. Accordingly, one should prespecify event sensitivity, false-negative and false-positive rates, predictive values, subgroup performance, and calibration—whether predicted risks correspond to observed frequencies. Uncertainty around these estimates matters, particularly when serious events are uncommon. Precision depends on the number of relevant events and independent cases, not simply the total size of the dataset.

HPCwire: That sounds like the challenge of diagnosing intermittent automotive problems. What elements should an evaluation program include?

Dr. Hausheer: An independently governed evaluation program could include, for example, 1,000 adjudicated clinical cases covering common and uncommon presentations, straightforward and complex decisions, errors, and near misses. This is an illustrative case bank, not a universal sample-size requirement or proof of clinical safety. The number and mix of cases should follow the intended use, important errors, and required precision. An enriched challenge set could test rare or complex adverse event hazards, while a separate representative dataset would estimate performance in the intended population. The reference assessment should allow multiple reasonable clinical choices and distinguish decision quality from the eventual outcome. A patient can have a poor outcome despite appropriate care.

HPCwire: What about elements specifically for AI safety?

Dr. Hausheer: Test cases should be independent of development and tuning, with safeguards against training-data contamination and repeated adaptation to a supposedly held-out benchmark. When prior inclusion of test cases in a foundation AI model’s pretraining data cannot be ruled out, that limitation should be disclosed and the evaluation strengthened with appropriately protected, new, or prospectively collected cases. A release report could identify the tested configuration, intended scope, acceptance criteria, results, unresolved limitations, and documented internal release authorization. For defined classification tasks, it should include true-positive, true-negative, false-positive, and false-negative counts. More complex treatment rankings require task-appropriate adjudication. Performance should be assessed across the actual data interfaces, retrieval sources, software, and human workflow—not only the model in isolation.

HPCwire: What safety measures can be taken after deployment of an AI model?

Dr. Hausheer: After deployment, one could combine immediate checks for detectable input and output hazards with periodic review of clinical outcomes, emerging safety signals, complaints, overrides, and near misses. Clinically important deterioration should have predefined thresholds, named reviewers, and an escalation pathway. Not every outcome is observable in real time; some require follow-up or accumulation of sufficient events. FDA’s 2023 risk-based monitoring guidance supplies a useful clinical-research model for concentrating oversight on the processes most consequential to safety and reliable results.

HPCwire: How are corrections categorized?

Dr. Hausheer: Suppose an AI interface change causes laboratory units to be misinterpreted. Correcting the current output is a correction. Taking action to eliminate the cause and prevent recurrence is corrective action. Addressing analogous potential failures that have not occurred is preventive action; addressing other instances of the same existing defect remains part of corrective action. The response could include containment, identification of affected recommendations, clinical review where needed, root-cause investigation, revalidation, and verification of effectiveness. ICH Q10 provides a CAPA (corrective and preventive action) and change-management framework that can be adapted to organize these activities.

Changes to the model, prompts, retrieval sources, connected tools, or clinical workflow should undergo documented impact assessment and proportionate revalidation. Improvement should not mean uncontrolled modification during clinical use. A previously validated model can become unreliable when its environment changes, even if its weights remain fixed.

HPCwire: All of this tells me that medicine and pharmacology have developed a large array of safety measures over the years, and that these measures can also help ensure safety when AI is involved.

Dr. Hausheer: The central proposition is that established quality and risk-management principles can be adapted to AI development now. Their applicability as management and risk-control methods should be distinguished from the legal scope of any regulation or guidance. ICH E6 addresses the clinical-trial context; other AI uses require their own regulatory analysis. The quality and risk management framework is transferable, but the effectiveness of each AI-specific control must still be demonstrated. In my opinion, companies should provide documented evidence that their controls work in the intended application and remain effective during use.

Data Availability, Quality, and Clinical Meaning

HPCwire: At SC16 I was the facilitator for the opening plenary on precision medicine. The panelist from the pharma then called GlaxoSmithKline said there was a woeful shortage of depersonalized, usable data for precision medicine and early AI research. Has that situation changed?

Dr. Hausheer: The scale has changed substantially, but available data and usable medical evidence remain different things. The All of Us Research Program’s 2026 Curated Data Repository version 9 includes information from more than 747,000 participants, whole-genome sequencing data from more than 535,000, and electronic health records from more than 481,000. These categories overlap; not every participant has every data type. The specified participant-data cutoff is January 1, 2025, illustrating why a dataset’s release date should not be confused with the period its observations represent.

HPCwire: Even where patient data seems plentiful and usable, are there cautions about interpreting the data?

Dr. Hausheer: For a particular medical question, one must establish whether disease stage, treatment exposure, relevant covariates, and outcomes are captured adequately. An explicitly negative test is different from a test never performed. A written prescription is different from confirmed drug administration. Absence of a recorded adverse event is different from evidence that none occurred. FDA’s July 2024 guidance on electronic health records and claims data provides useful principles for evaluating relevance, reliability, variable definitions, and traceability.

Consider a hypothetical comparison in which treatment A was preferentially given to fitter patients and treatment B to patients with more advanced disease. A survival difference could reflect treatment selection rather than treatment effect. Adding more observations might make that association more statistically precise without resolving the bias. The essential question is not just whether the model recognizes who did well, but whether the evidence supports changing what is done for a future patient.

HPCwire: Are there established methods for testing the validity of data?

Dr. Hausheer: Data validity should first be assessed through provenance, completeness, consistency, and verification against appropriate source records. Evaluating how the AI uses those data is a separate question. One useful evaluation method for AI systems could be described as time-restricted clinical replay, or back-casting. A well-characterized historical case could be reconstructed at successive decision points: the initial presentation, the first laboratory results, the availability of imaging, and the arrival of pathology or molecular findings. At each stage, the system would receive only the information actually available then—not later results, retrospective diagnostic labels, or narrative clues derived from the eventual outcome.

One could then assess when the system first identifies a clinically important possibility, what additional information it requests, whether it recognizes urgent risks, and whether it recommends an appropriate next step. For a hypothetical evolving toxicity, the question would be whether the system recognizes a concerning pattern early enough to permit useful investigation or intervention, without generating an unacceptable number of false alarms. This measures the trade-off between earlier recognition and reliability, rather than assuming that identification sensitivity and accuracy must improve as information is removed.

Steve Conway is an HPCwire contributor

HPCwire: So, there are multiple types of evaluations. How do they differ?

Dr. Hausheer: Within this replay back-casting validation framework, there are two different evaluation questions  that should be kept separate. First, applying a current model and current medical knowledge to earlier patient information asks whether today’s system could support an earlier decision. A second type, reconstructing what could reasonably have been decided at the historical date, additionally requires control over the medical knowledge, guidelines, and model information available at that time. Both can be informative, but they answer different questions. Prompting a current model to disregard later knowledge does not establish that historical knowledge boundary; where it cannot be established, the replay should be described as using current knowledge on earlier patient information.

HPCwire: Have these approaches been used yet where an AI model is involved?

Dr. Hausheer: Related approaches with AI involvement already exist. Tomašev and colleagues reported retrospective, time-dependent prediction of acute kidney injury from longitudinal records in 2019. Hager and colleagues subsequently evaluated language models in a clinical decision-making framework extending beyond examination-style questions. These precedents support expanding staged, clinically realistic evaluation; they do not establish that every present-day system has been adequately tested.

HPCwire: Can back-casting be used to investigate whether AI, if it had been available at the past time, would have improved the patient outcome?

Dr. Hausheer: Back-casting has a causal limitation. It can evaluate earlier recognition and the appropriateness of a recommendation, but the observed outcome under the treatment actually received does not reveal what would have happened under an alternative treatment. Claims that an AI-directed intervention would improve survival or reduce toxicity therefore require an appropriate causal study design, often including prospective comparative evaluation. In my opinion, rigorous temporal replay is an important bridge between static benchmarks and clinical trials, but it is not a substitute for the latter.

HPCwire: So, is there a useful way of comparing the conclusions and recommendations of physicians and AI?

Dr. Hausheer: For any physician–AI comparison, the evaluation report should also identify what information each participant or system received, which references and tools were available, how time was allocated, and what the task actually required. When appropriate, one could compare a clinician using contemporary resources, the AI model alone in a nonclinical evaluation, and the clinician using the model, i.e., the combined physician-AI approach. The comparison should reflect the intended use rather than favor one approach through an artificial information advantage. Material differences between conditions should be transparent.

HPCwire: Who should judge these comparisons and perform a kind of medical “Turing test”?

Dr. Hausheer: The reference assessment deserves independent scrutiny. A historical physician decision is not automatically the correct answer, and a model’s disagreement with it is not automatically an error. Conversely, a plausible alternative is not superior merely because it differs from what was done. Independent expert adjudication, blinded to the source of the answer where feasible, appropriate diagnostic confirmation, and prespecified rules for multiple reasonable choices can strengthen the evaluation. The adjudicators should also separate information available at the decision point from information learned afterward. These are methodological proposals, not conclusions established by the societies’ statement.

Transparency, Trust, and the Meaning of ‘Show Your Work’

HPCwire: What about the AI transparency and trust issue? The medical field is replete with patent and practice lawsuits. Is it much of a problem that if you ask AI to “show me your work,” it may not be able to?

(Shutterstock)

Dr. Hausheer: The important distinction is between a plausible explanation and an auditable evidentiary record. A persuasive narrative does not prove that a recommendation made by AI is correct. For a consequential decision, one should be able to identify the patient information used, the supporting clinical evidence, the applicable decision rules or calculations, and the uncertainties and limitations affecting the recommendation.

A genuine citation can still be misapplied. For example, an oncology publication may concern a different disease stage, prior-treatment setting, molecular subgroup, or treatment combination. The system should therefore identify the relevant finding and explain the match and fit—or mismatch—between the evidence and the patient. It should distinguish randomized comparative evidence from uncontrolled observations, mechanistic plausibility, and exploratory subgroup findings rather than present them as equally persuasive.

HPCwire: What’s the relationship between a prognosis and an outcome prediction?

Dr. Hausheer:  Prognosis is itself a prediction of the likely clinical course or outcome. The important distinction here is between prognosis and prediction of treatment benefit. A prognostic factor informs the likelihood of an outcome; a predictive biomarker can help identify differences in response to a particular intervention. FDA and NIH make this distinction in the BEST resource. Identifying a patient at high risk is not equivalent to identifying which intervention will reduce that risk.

HPCwire: I gather it’s very important to make fine distinctions where possible, even within narrow diagnostic categories.

Dr. Hausheer: Yes. For example, EGFR-mutated non-small-cell lung cancer is a subgroup in which the tumor harbors mutations in the epidermal growth factor receptor gene. FDA’s February 16, 2024 approval of osimertinib with pemetrexed and platinum-based chemotherapy concerned first line treatment of locally advanced or metastatic disease with EGFR exon 19 deletions or exon 21 L858R mutations. That evidence should not automatically be extrapolated to every EGFR alteration. Most EGFR exon 20 insertion variants are poorly responsive to conventional EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors at standard doses, although specific exceptions exist. C797S can confer resistance to osimertinib. In contrast, T790M—which may be present before treatment, including as a germline variant, or emerge as acquired resistance—confers resistance to first-generation EGFR inhibitors but is a target of osimertinib.

Not every EGFR alteration is interchangeable, not every patient responds, and prior treatment and de novo and acquired resistance mechanisms remain relevant.  That historical approval illustrates the importance of matching the mutation, regimen, and disease setting to the evidence; the FDA approval does not provide an exhaustive current treatment algorithm. An AI recommendation should preserve those distinctions rather than reduce the problem to “an EGFR activating mutation is present, therefore use an EGFR inhibitor.”

Clinical reasoning should be evaluated as a sequence and hierarchy of decisions: interpretation of the history and examination; recognition of urgent alternatives; selection of useful tests; interpretation of their results; and selection of treatment in light of evidence, pharmacology, comorbidities, previous therapy, and patient priorities. A correct diagnosis appearing somewhere in a long list is not equivalent to identifying and managing the clinically important problem.

(Have a nice day Photo/Shutterstock)

HPCwire: How might this diagnostic sequence be adapted so the AI work is more transparent and trustworthy?

Dr. Hausheer: One could maintain an audit record linking relevant source data, timestamps, model and software versions, retrieved evidence, calculations, recommendations, warnings, overrides, and the resulting clinical action. The documented justification should be evidence-linked and distinguish recorded system activity from a narrative explanation generated afterward. It need not purport to expose every internal computation of a neural network. Access, retention, and disclosure should protect patient privacy and follow applicable requirements. The objective is a record sufficient to investigate error, assess whether the system operated within its validated scope, and evaluate responsibility. ICH E6(R3)’s data-governance and computerized-system provisions provide a useful foundation within clinical research.

Before release, an accompanying validation report should make clear what was tested, against which reference assessments, with what error rates and uncertainty, and under which limitations. In my opinion, this combination of traceable evidence and reproducible evaluation is more important than an AI system’s ability to sound as though it has “shown its work.”

Transparency in the Claims Made About AI

HPCwire: How do we avoid AI companies hyping their products, making misleading performance claims?

Dr. Hausheer: The same evidentiary discipline should govern public statements about performance. An AI company should identify the model and configuration tested, the intended task, the comparator, the study population, the outcome measured, uncertainty around the result, and the important limitations. A composite score on written cases should be described as such; it should not be translated into a percentage of patients correctly diagnosed or a demonstrated improvement in survival. Nor should absence of a statistically significant difference be described as proof of equivalence.

HPCwire: Would outside reviews be needed to police AI companies’ claims?

Dr. Hausheer: One could incorporate a claims-review procedure into the Quality Management System (QMS) for an AI-based system. Clinical, statistical, and quality reviewers would link each substantive performance claim to a controlled validation report and verify that the wording does not exceed the evidence. A result obtained with a selected set of completed case summaries should not quietly become a claim about autonomous care of patients presenting with incomplete information. This proposed control would extend traceability to research communications and product descriptions, without implying that applicable legal obligations are limited to the measures described here.

HPCwire: What about AI companies’ communications with patients and potential patients?

Dr. Hausheer Communication with patients deserves comparable care. The American Society of Clinical Oncology’s (ASCO) separate principles address understandable disclosure, fairness, accountability, oversight and privacy, and the preservation of human interaction. In practice, one could explain what role the tool played, the information and limitations relevant to the decision, and who remains responsible for care. Neither reassurance based solely on a brand name nor language implying that a physician is untrustworthy without AI would substitute for that explanation.

Stay tuned for part 3, coming soon.

The post AI and Medicine: Data Availability, Transparency and Trust, and Validation appeared first on HPCwire.

The post Palestinian American Ahmed Moor Launches 2028 Primary Challenge to John Fetterman appeared first on News Facts Network.

The university and local police are conducting investigations into Sigma Alpha Epsilon and have placed them on interim suspension

A fraternity at Ohio State University has been temporarily suspended while authorities investigate a video that appears to show two panicked men engulfed in flames.

A video shared on social media shows one individual with his sweatpants on fire who then lunges at a second individual and tackles him to the ground. The second man’s clothing also catches fire, and they both roll on the ground while removing their clothes as several onlookers intervene.

IONOS bare metal servers provide the foundation for companies, researchers, and developers to run AI models on Q.ANT’s photonic hardware.

STUTTGART, Germany and KARLSRUHE, Germany, Nov. 9, 2026 — Q.ANT, a pioneer in commercial photonic computing, today announced the launch of a joint pilot program with IONOS, the leading digitalization partner and trusted cloud enabler for small and medium-sized businesses, to bring photonic computing to commercial bare metal server environments for the first time.

Credit: Q.ANT

The pilot program gives software developers the opportunity to test and evaluate their AI models on real photonic processors running in a bare metal infrastructure on dedicated hardware. This opens up a new way of computing: developers can build leaner AI models to run faster by making direct use of complex nonlinear mathematical functions. These efficiency gains come at a decisive moment. As AI workloads keep growing, the cost of running them is becoming a real limit on how far AI can scale. For data center operators, photonic computing promises lower energy consumption and operating costs.

The launch represents the next step toward commercial adoption of photonic computing, extending access beyond specialized research institutions. Following the launch of Q.ANT’s open-source software development kit (SDK) in September, developers who could previously build and simulate applications only on the SDK can now, for the first time, run their workloads on physical photonic processors through IONOS’s bare metal infrastructure. By making its hardware accessible through IONOS, a leading commercial server hosting provider, Q.ANT paves the way for a new developer ecosystem and a new generation of AI applications.

“Promising computing technologies from Europe need sovereign European infrastructure to make the leap into business use,” said Achim Weiss, CEO of IONOS. “In the pilot program, Q.ANT’s photonic processor runs in an IONOS data center under German jurisdiction. Users can explore processing with light on their own workloads. The results will show which applications benefit most and will feed directly into our future development work.”

“A new computing architecture only becomes commercially relevant when customers can test it against the workloads that matter to them. When we launched our SDK, developers could begin building applications for photonic computing. Now, with IONOS, they can take their work and run those applications on the real processor,” said Dr. Michael Förtsch, Founder and CEO of Q.ANT. “This matters because the conversations around AI are shifting from what the models can do to what it costs to run them. Photonic computing can make the next generation of AI models leaner: complex functions that inflate digital models can be computed with fewer data and parameters with light, resulting in less energy requirements for the same workloads.”

Through the IONOS website, approved applicants will gain access to Q.ANT’s second-generation Native Processing Unit (NPU) via a bare metal server in a German IONOS data center, where they can run and evaluate their own workloads with their own data and software. Developers can also explore new algorithms and AI architectures that use the NPU’s ability to compute complex nonlinear functions natively in light, rather than breaking them down into long sequences of digital steps as CMOS-based chips must. This can deliver comparable or better results with fewer parameters, fewer operations, and fewer resources. At the same time, the program will identify where photonic processing offers the greatest advantages, providing the real-world validation needed for broader commercial deployment.

This pilot marks the next step in the collaboration IONOS and Q.ANT announced in May 2026.

From HPC Testing to Commercial Workloads

Q.ANT’s photonic processor has already been evaluated in operational high-performance computing environments. In March 2026, the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (LRZ) received Q.ANT’s second-generation processors for testing across HPC and artificial intelligence workloads. The research center subsequently evaluated the hardware on its performance, execution time, energy consumption, error rates, and other metrics.

Q.ANT systems are also operating at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC).

Building for Photonic Computing

The pilot program begins in November 2026 and will be available free of charge to a limited number of selected participants. Applicants must submit a concrete use case through the IONOS website and have the technical expertise required to independently administer a bare metal server.

The program is open to a broad range of AI and computational workloads. Operations such as matrix multiplication and nonlinear mathematical functions are particularly well suited to Q.ANT’s architecture. Potential areas for evaluation include industrial image processing, time-series prediction, scientific simulation, and robotics.

Participants will receive direct support from Q.ANT and IONOS throughout the program. Each engagement will include technical onboarding, project support and workload review by Q.ANT, followed by a final workshop to evaluate results and performance metrics, while IONOS supports participants on the underlying bare metal infrastructure. Feedback from participants will help form further development of Q.ANT’s processor and software stack.

The pilot systems will be hosted in Germany within IONOS infrastructure. IONOS data centers are ISO 27001 certified and provides European data residency for workloads hosted in Germany.

Applications for the pilot program are available at https://qant.com/ionos-pilot.

More from HPCwire

• Q.ANT and IONOS Bring Photonic AI Acceleration to Commercial Cloud Infrastructure
• Q.ANT Deploys 2nd-Gen Photonic Processors at Supercomputing Center LRZ

About Q.ANT

Q.ANT is commercializing photonic accelerators for AI and high-performance computing, offering a scalable alternative to transistor-based systems. Its Native Processing Units (NPUs) perform mathematical operations directly on Thin-Film Lithium Niobate (TFLN)-based photonic integrated circuits, enabling energy-efficient, high-performance co-processing for complex computational tasks.

Q.ANT was founded in 2018. Its European headquarters is in Stuttgart, Germany, where it operates its own TFLN chip pilot line, and it maintains further offices in Munich and a U.S. office in Austin, Texas. The company secured Europe’s largest Series A for photonic computing in 2025 and introduced its second-generation processor the same year. Its systems are now installed and running at leading scientific computing centers, with commercial deployment through IONOS.

About IONOS

IONOS is the leading digitalization partner and trusted cloud enabler for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). The company serves ~7 million customers and has a presence in 17 markets across Europe and North America, with its services being accessible worldwide. As an AI-first company, IONOS integrates AI across its entire product portfolio, which caters to all digitalization needs: from domains, web hosting, website and app builders to eCommerce and online marketing tools, powered by AI. IONOS also offers cloud solutions for scaling businesses and the public sector looking to move their operations to the cloud as they expand.

Source: Q.ANT

The post Q.ANT and IONOS Launch Photonic Computing Pilot appeared first on HPCwire.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky formally filed eight articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday, setting up a House vote that could come as soon as Wednesday.

Massie accuses Hegseth of violating the War Powers Resolution by continuing military operations in Iran without congressional authorization, ignoring congressional efforts to terminate hostilities, and carrying out other allegedly unlawful military actions. Additional articles accuse Hegseth of failing to minimize civilian casualties, authorizing extrajudicial killings, retaliating against critics, and suppressing protected speech.

The accusations remain allegations contained in Massie’s impeachment resolution, not judicial findings. Hegseth and the Pentagon reject them, calling the effort politically motivated and insisting the department has acted lawfully.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries says he is a “hard yes” on impeachment, while several Republicans are also considering supporting the measure. Axios reported GOP leaders are preparing for enough Republican defections that the resolution could pass the narrowly divided House.

Even if impeached, Hegseth would remain in office unless two-thirds of the Senate votes to convict and remove him. That remains a substantially higher hurdle.

Massie first introduced similar charges in September, but House leaders adjourned before a vote could occur.

Sources:

• Truthout – MBFC Rating

The post Massie Files Eight Articles of Impeachment Against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared first on News Facts Network.

Car keys lie on a table and tempt a driver to drive under the influence after drinking an alcoholic beer.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Investigators at the Commerce Department were deep into a monthslong investigation of a Singaporean company that they suspected of smuggling Nvidia's artificial intelligence chips into China when their work came to a sudden halt late last year. The investigation centered on Megaspeed, a data center company led by an executive who U.S. officials now believe to be a Chinese spy who had a relationship with Nvidia's chief executive, Jensen Huang. But the case was abruptly transferred to the Justice Department last year. The shift came after Commerce Department investigators working on the case received an email from Nvidia's general counsel seeking information about the inquiry into Megaspeed. It is not necessarily unusual for Commerce Department agents working on a case to speak with a company's representatives about issues involving their firm. But what was unusual was the content of the message. Tim Teter, Nvidia's general counsel, said that Jeff Kessler, a top official at the department, had given Nvidia permission to reach out about the case. The agents were alarmed that Nvidia had invoked the name of Mr. Kessler, their superior, who was nominated to his role by President Trump. Some viewed Mr. Kessler's interaction with Nvidia as violating government procedure and potentially tainting the case, according to current and former government officials and others familiar with the incident. It is not clear what led to Mr. Teter's outreach to the department, but the recent revelations about Mr. Huang's acknowledged affair with a Megaspeed executive have only intensified scrutiny of Nvidia's role in influencing policy on chip sales to China. [...] The incident raised questions about what Mr. Kessler, who reports directly to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, had discussed with Nvidia. It also raised the possibility that those discussions could become their own subject of inquiry. Perhaps inadvertently, some officials said, Mr. Kessler had opened himself to accusations of undue influence and potentially jeopardized his department's work on Megaspeed. The case was quickly transferred to the Justice Department in an effort to avoid any potential compromise of the government's investigation of Megaspeed, these people said. The Justice Department is conducting a criminal inquiry into Megaspeed, according to people familiar with the matter.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

By: Genevieve Bates and Geneva Cole

The U.S.-ICC relationship has always been contentious. Here’s the latest.

The post Why Trump is targeting the International Criminal Court appeared first on Good Authority.

Calley Means claims officials abandoned Maha agenda and took money from sugar industry leading up to midterms

A former top Trump administration health adviser accused Susie Wiles, whom Donald Trump removed as the White House chief of staff last week, of stalling the so-called “Make America Healthy Again” (Maha) agenda by prioritizing special interest groups and fundraising before the midterm elections.

Calley Means, who resigned two weeks ago from his job advising Robert F Kennedy Jr, blamed Wiles and other Trump staffers for dropping the ball on the Maha agenda to take money from the sugar industry to fuel the midterms – which Republicans ultimately lost.

Ahmed Moor, a Palestinian American, said he would run in a primary to be the Democratic nominee in 2028

• US politics live – latest updates

John Fetterman, the maverick Democratic senator who has provoked widespread anger by increasingly siding with Republicans, is to be challenged for his Pennsylvania seat by a democratic socialist candidate who is originally from Gaza.

Ahmed Moor, a Palestinian American, said he would run in a primary to be the Democratic nominee in 2028, when Fetterman’s seat is up for re-election.

Cerabyte Joins Los Alamos National Laboratory to Discuss Storage Innovation

SANTA CLARA, Calif. and CHICAGO, Nov. 9, 2026 — Cerabyte today announced that it will join experts from Los Alamos National Laboratory for a panel discussion at Supercomputing 2026 (SC26). The experts will examine how industry consolidation, limited investment in long-cycle research/development and growing AI and HPC demands are creating new challenges for the future of data storage.

The discussion will explore why traditional storage technologies are struggling to meet growing AI, HPC and hyperscale demands, and how emerging approaches, including ceramic data storage, are driving future innovation.

• What: The Empty Shelf: Vertical Market Failure in Data Storage for HPC and AI
• Who: Panelists: Gary Grider, Los Alamos National Laboratory; and Candace Culhane, Los Alamos National Laboratory; Steffen Hellmold, Cerabyte
• Moderator: Matt Klusas, West Ox Advisors
• When: Friday, Nov. 20, 2026, at 10:30 a.m. to 12 noon CST
• Where: McCormick Place Convention Center, Room W185abc

“The data storage industry is facing a vertical market failure, creating two fundamental challenges – meeting growing demand and developing technologies for emerging use cases,” said Christian Pflaum, CEO of Cerabyte. “AI and HPC are creating new demands that traditional data storage technologies are struggling to meet. Innovations such as Ceramic Data Storage offer a new approach to addressing these challenges and shaping the future of data storage.”

Cerabyte’s ceramic-on-glass technology is designed for long-term, immutable data retention across applications including AI infrastructure, digital preservation, scientific and medical research, hyperscale computing and organizations managing petabyte- to zettabyte-scale datasets.

More from HPCwire: Cerabyte Completes S3 Integration Testing in Collaboration with CERN openlab

About Cerabyte

Cerabyte is at the forefront of developing sustainable, accessible, permanent data storage technology. Our innovative ceramic-based technology uses advanced laser-matrix writing and high-speed microscope reading technologies, forming the cornerstone of a system that can store immense amounts of data virtually forever, with no data migration required and retrieval within seconds. Our cost-effective, immutable data storage offers virtually unlimited media life and is fully recyclable, helping to reduce environmental and carbon footprint. Leveraging semiconductor manufacturing tool technology, we scale density and speed and are uniquely positioned to pave the way to the yottabyte era, leading the emergence of the industry’s newest storage tier. Learn more at www.cerabyte.com.

Source: Cerabyte

The post Cerabyte to Address Future of Data Storage for HPC and AI at SC26 appeared first on HPCwire.

The AI chip boss’s actions raise urgent questions about corporate influence, national security and the US president’s willingness to listen to intelligence warnings

It could be the plot of a spy thriller. One of the most powerful figures in the AI revolution admitted to having an affair with a Chinese businesswomen said to have passed intelligence to Beijing. When Donald Trump was briefed about the Nvidia co-founder Jensen Huang’s liaisons with Alice Huang, he took no action. Perhaps he thought only marriage vows had been broken. Or perhaps Mr Trump was willing to overlook the conduct of a friend who championed his unpopular datacentre expansion, whose company donated to his White House ballroom and who echoed his opposition to AI safeguards against expert advice.

Nvidia became the cornerstone of AI by supplying brute computing power. As tech giants scrambled for the firm’s graphics processing units (GPUs), Mr Huang sold the picks and shovels for the AI gold rush – and amassed a $160bn fortune. When China joined the race for tech supremacy, Nvidia’s microchips became a national security issue. In October 2022, the US slapped export controls on GPU sales to China. Thirty months later, Nvidia was effectively banned from selling to Beijing. Mr Huang lobbied for looser controls. Such was his sway with Mr Trump that the White House scrapped Biden-era global AI chip restrictions and then permitted sales of Nvidia’s prized H200 processors to Chinese customers.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Women say move will be ‘massively detrimental’ to services for vulnerable children, and hit their own pensions

The 33 women waving banners outside a nursery in the South Yorkshire village of Grimethorpe have never been on strike before.

Passing cars beep their horns in support of the workers, who have taken action at six nurseries run by Barnsley council after its Reform UK leadership agreed to transfer them to private companies. They say the move will have a hugely negative impact on the services they provide to vulnerable children, and to their own pensions.

Will the US and Iran return to war?  Expert comment jon.wallace 9 November 2026

That is not only President Trump’s decision. Iran may also reignite the conflict, in an attempt to break the US blockade.

In recent weeks there has been considerable speculation that the US would carry out new attacks on Iran once the US midterm elections were concluded. But with the vote complete, Washington’s next move remains unclear. 

In a recent 60 minutes interview US President Donald Trump said he did not see ‘any reason’ to escalate the war. It is possible that the president chooses not to resume military operations against Iran and settles for continuing the current policy of economic strangulation. But even in that case, a return to armed conflict cannot be ruled out. Tehran is unlikely to absorb US pressure quietly while its economy further deteriorates. This is the irony of the US naval blockade of Iran. There’s evidence to suggest it has effectively hurt the regime’s finances. Iran loaded no oil onto tankers in September according to some analyses. 

But the blockade is unlikely to succeed in achieving the strategic objective of forcing the regime to make significant concessions at the bargaining table. Instead, it might push Tehran to lash out, which would take all parties back to square one in this conflict.

Stalemate

The blockade of Iranian oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz has evolved over the past few months. Washington launched the operation back in April; eased it after agreeing to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Iran in June (which allowed for the reopening of the Strait); then reinstated it on 14 July as the deal unravelled.

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Iran wants the blockade lifted and its conditions met before it reopens and stops its attacks in the Strait. Washington wants concessions on Iran’s nuclear programme before resuming any talks on maritime security.

It’s a stalemate. But it may not last long. The deep distrust between the two sides will make Iran doubt that US concessions will be durable enough to bring it lasting economic relief. Some in the regime will believe it is better for Iran to fight on its own terms than collapse from within as the economy is throttled. 

It will not necessarily require a new US military strike on its territory for Iran to lash out at its neighbours. In 2019, Iran responded to Trump’s economic ‘maximum pressure’ tactics with a series of attacks. In May and June of that year, it struck tankers near Fujairah and in the Gulf of Oman and shot down a US surveillance drone. 

Then on 14 September, drones and missiles hit Saudi Aramco’s Abqaiq processing facility and the Khurais oil field. The Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen claimed responsibility, but the US and Saudi blamed Iran. The message from Tehran was clear: We will respond to extreme economic pressure by attacking Gulf energy infrastructure. 

Defending a founding narrative

There are two main reasons why Iran responded this way to economic pressure before – and why it may do so again. 

The first is ideological. Iran isn’t just defending its shipping lanes and oil exports in this war. It is protecting its founding narrative of sacrifice and endurance. This is what Washington still doesn’t seem to get.

Since its founding, the Islamic Republic has staked its reputation on not just resisting outside pressure but also defying it. Sanctions, isolation, and military threats won’t coerce or bring down the regime: that’s the message Tehran keeps telling its constituencies and adversaries. The war with Iraq of 1980 to 1988 provides the clearest illustration of the regime’s commitment to that principle. Iran fought the war almost on its own, against an adversary backed by the US and Gulf states, and it survived. A difficult year or two as a result of a blockade is hardly comparable to what the regime endured at that time. 

The second reason is practical: Iranian defiance, unlike during the Iraq war, is now aided by outsiders. The biggest source of support is China, through its purchasing of Iranian oil. No wonder US officials have reportedly urged Beijing to play a more constructive role in ending the conflict. They understand that without China, the regime’s staying power will drastically diminish.

Tehran also knows that the Gulf states want the blockade to end. The status quo is causing them tremendous economic pain. The Iranian leadership is betting that if it holds out long enough, those with the most to lose from this economic crisis – Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and Kuwait – will press Washington harder to find an exit. 

There are limits to Iranian resilience, of course. In 1988, after Operation Praying Mantis (a one-off US strike against Iranian naval resources ordered by President Ronald Reagan) and months of mounting losses, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini accepted a ceasefire with Iraq. He famously likened it to drinking poison. Yet it showed that when its survival was at stake, Iran could concede (if not surrender).

But the blockade is not the same situation at all. In 1988, there was no way Iran could have won the war. Continuing would have probably led to military collapse. 

Today Iran believes it has the upper hand. Listen to statements by Iranian officials, and it is clear they believe they have already won this contest. That’s partly true. The Iranian regime will, most likely, survive this conflict and possibly avert a new major US attack, which it would define as victory. 

But it still has to address the blockade. If history is any guide, Iran will at some point resort to violence to try to force Washington to reconsider. That, in turn, is unlikely to succeed: the US has its pride, too, and its interests. US officials are convinced that the blockade is working, so giving it up won’t be easy. If anything, Washington is doubling down by giving US Central Command the green light to establish a new task force meant to ‘prevent Iran from using ground routes to transport advanced weapons and other materials.’

There’s only one way out of this stalemate: phased diplomacy, which the two sides are apparently considering. The basic sequencing is clear: In the first phase, Washington would need to partially lift the blockade in exchange for Iran reopening the Strait and ceasing all attacks against shipping. In the second, nuclear talks could take place, including the gradual lifting of sanctions and the release of frozen Iranian funds.

The two sides are keen to end the conflict. But they appear equally determined to avoid any perceived humiliation and Israel remains an unpredictable factor. Even now, it is not clear that sense will prevail.

The Bluetooth Group has announced a new standard. Here’s how it works and when you can expect to benefit from it.

Partnership Pairs IonQ’s Full-Stack Quantum Platform With Carahsoft’s Government Procurement Network to Support Public Sector Quantum Adoption

COLLEGE PARK, Md. and RESTON, Va., Nov. 9, 2026 — IonQ and Carahsoft Technology Corp. today announced a strategic partnership. The collaboration intends to drive quantum computing, networking, sensing and security adoption across Federal agencies and their industry partners. Under the agreement, Carahsoft will serve as IonQ’s Public Sector distributor, enabling Government agencies to purchase IonQ technology through its reseller partners.

The IonQ-Carahsoft partnership comes as the Federal Government accelerates its commitment to quantum innovation. Executive Order 14413, Ushering in the Next Frontier of Quantum Innovation, directs a Government-wide strategy to advance quantum commercialization, deployment and collaboration with U.S. industry. Through this partnership, IonQ and Carahsoft aim to expand Federal access to emerging quantum technologies, streamline procurement and support mission-critical national security objectives.

“IonQ and Carahsoft will have a powerful partnership across the entire Public Sector, including higher education, State, Local Government, Department of [Defense], civilian and the integrator and partner community,” said Steve Harris, IonQ Senior Vice President and General Manager, Public Sector. “Through this relationship quantum solutions ranging from computing, networking, security to sensing will be more readily accessible during this important time when quantum progress is an immediate and critical requirement.”

IonQ’s full-stack quantum platform extends beyond computing to include networking, security and sensing. These technologies serve complementary roles: sensing provides precise measurements, networking connects systems, security protects information and computing addresses complex analytical challenges. Together, they give agencies and partners a foundation for coordinating how information is collected, connected, protected and processed.

Carahsoft will support procurement and pricing, access to applicable contract vehicles, channel sales, product resale and distribution. This arrangement is intended to help resellers and Federal systems integrators align their offerings with agency requirements.

“We are pleased to partner with IonQ to expand access to innovative quantum technologies that help address the evolving mission needs of Federal agencies and the broader Public Sector,” said Alex Whitworth, Program Executive for Quantum Solutions at Carahsoft. “Together with our reseller partners, we look forward to simplifying procurement, fostering collaboration across the Government technology ecosystem and helping Public Sector organizations explore how quantum innovation can strengthen national security, mission resilience and the nation’s technological leadership.”

This announcement builds on IonQ’s strong track record of Government collaboration. The company has advanced to Stage C, the third and final stage of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Quantum Benchmarking Initiative, where its approach to utility-scale quantum computing will undergo independent verification and validation. Its collaboration with the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) includes a quantum network delivered in Rome, New York and follow-on work to extend the network’s optical, hardware and software capabilities toward operational interoperability.

IonQ’s solutions are available through Carahsoft’s reseller partners. For more information, contact the Carahsoft Team at (571) 662-4771 or IonQ@carahsoft.com; or learn more about IonQ’s solutions here.

About IonQ

IonQ, Inc. (NYSE: IONQ) is the world’s leading quantum platform and foundry – delivering integrated quantum solutions across computing, networking, sensing, and security. IonQ’s newest generation of quantum computers, the Superion, is the latest in a line of cutting-edge systems. Earlier systems have helped customers and partners including Amazon Web Services, AstraZeneca, and NVIDIA achieve a 20x performance increase over previous quantum solutions and accelerate innovation in drug discovery, materials science, financial modeling, logistics, cybersecurity, and defense. In 2025, the company achieved 99.99% two-qubit gate fidelity, setting a world record in quantum computing performance.

About Carahsoft

Carahsoft Technology Corp. is The Trusted Government IT Solutions Provider, supporting Public Sector organizations across Federal, State and Local Government agencies and Education and Healthcare markets. As the Master Government Aggregator for our vendor partners, we deliver solutions for Cybersecurity, MultiCloud, DevSecOps, Artificial Intelligence, Customer Experience and Engagement, Open Source and more. Working with resellers, systems integrators and consultants, our sales and marketing teams provide industry leading IT products, services and training through hundreds of contract vehicles. Visit us at www.carahsoft.com.

Source: Carahsoft

The post IonQ and Carahsoft Partner to Bring Quantum Solutions to Public Sector appeared first on HPCwire.

After hitting a curb at 5 mph the motor for a second spun up to max duty cycle and pulled 140amps. Now the board does not turn on. Pulled the Little focer 4 ( black diamond). Resistor 490 labeled was open. Replaced it now it heats up and still nothing. One of the chips I broke lsc43(u19). I cannot find any part number and the marking don’t pop up anywhere. Removed some of the caps in that area and regulators. There still shows that there is a ground problem. The black is from the potting material

I removed the 3.3regulater and supplied my own 3.3v and it booted up. Now I’m trying to locate that chip SC43 or an equivalent one.

The cordless Vitamix Ion can be used anywhere.

High winds and heavy rain triggered collapse of sand bank overlooking camp for displaced families

Witnesses have described the frantic struggle to save three members of a family buried by a landslide triggered by high winds and heavy rain in Gaza.

A sand bank overlooking a camp for displaced families south of Deir al-Balah collapsed on Sunday, killing five people and crushing at least three tents.

We’re using our custom-made robot to open and close the iPhone Duo hundreds of thousands of times. Watch along and get your questions answered by CNET editors live.

Judge tells disgraced actor and comedian he had displayed ‘casual, arrogant disregard of any woman’s right to say no’

• Jemima Goldsmith says ex-partner Russell Brand physically assaulted her

Russell Brand was sentenced to more than 10 years in prison on Monday after a judge praised his victims’ bravery and accused him of living “unhindered by the rules by which decent people live”.

As the judge, Mr Justice Bennathan, sentenced Brand for raping one woman and sexually assaulting three others, he said he had told the trial “a series of lies”. The disgraced comedian had displayed a “casual, arrogant disregard of any woman’s right to say no”, he said.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas is pushing back against calls from some progressives to abolish or defund Immigration and Customs Enforcement, arguing that most Democrats support keeping the agency while imposing tighter limits on how it operates.

Cuellar, who represents a South Texas border district, is expected to chair the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee when Democrats take control of the chamber. That position would give him significant influence over ICE funding and immigration enforcement policy.

“I don’t believe in defunding ICE, and I think the majority of the Democrats do not believe defunding ICE,” Cuellar told Fox News Digital.

At the same time, he said the agency needs “serious guardrails,” particularly when enforcement targets undocumented immigrants without violent criminal records. President Donald Trump made a similar acknowledgment Sunday, saying parts of his deportation policy had been “too tough.”

Cuellar also criticized the Biden administration’s border policies, saying Democrats should not return to an approach that allowed large numbers of asylum seekers to enter while their cases were pending.

His comments place him between two competing factions within the Democratic Party: progressives calling for major structural changes to ICE and centrists who favor continued enforcement with stronger oversight.

Cuellar won reelection last week by more than 36 points in a district Trump carried in 2024, strengthening his influence within the party’s border-policy debate.

Sources:

• Washington Examiner – MBFC Rating

The post Cuellar Rejects Abolishing ICE but Backs Limits on Aggressive Enforcement appeared first on News Facts Network.

Google is expanding its AI chip lineup with two specialized TPUs arriving next year: the TPU 8tx, which encrypts sensitive data at the chip level for confidential computing, and the TPU 8i Max, which combines two TPU chips to provide more processing power and memory for long-context workloads. The move broadens Google's challenge to Nvidia as demand outstrips supply, with Google saying every TPU it currently has is already committed to customers. Quartz reports: The 8tx is designed for sensitive, privacy-focused jobs run by clients including public-sector bodies and businesses in heavily regulated sectors, according to Bloomberg. It pairs with a central processing unit from Advanced Micro Devices and encrypts data at the chip level. Normally, data must be decrypted in memory as the machine works on it, [said Amin Vahdat, Chief Technologist for AI & Infrastructure at Google]. The 8i Max is meant for AI applications that need long context windows, meaning the volume of information a model can take into account within one request. Vahdat said that matters for drug discovery, math and coding. The chip packs two TPU chips together, giving it extra processing muscle and memory. Both variations are reconfigured versions of existing silicon rather than new designs, Vahdat said. Google changed them to handle tasks customers have requested. They follow two TPU models Google released this year, according to Bloomberg, which said the chip unit used to release one new processor every two years. "We could build a single chip that tries to address the whole market, or by building specialized versions of the chips, we actually can deliver much more value," Vahdat said, according to Bloomberg.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Exclusive: WhatsApp messages show firm pressuring Zubir Ahmed MP to help bring sensitive data into its platform

• UK politics live – latest updates

Palantir lobbied a health minister to consider extending its AI technology into GP records, stretching its reach into the NHS in a way doctors fear could undermine trust with patients.

The US company, co-founded by the Trump-supporting billionaire Peter Thiel, used a direct WhatsApp channel to argue that “the logic of joining up primary and secondary [care] data is unarguable” and said its software was “ideal” for the job. The push came in February this year despite GP data being expressly ruled out of the scope of Palantir’s existing £330m contract with NHS England to run its federated data platform (FDP), which it says has helped cut surgery waiting times and discharge delays.

The lack of public information about the Megaspeed boss is fuelling claims she is a Chinese intelligence asset

There is little public information available about Alice Huang, the woman reportedly at the centre of the Jensen Huang honeypot allegations, a fact that has only added fuel to claims she is a Chinese intelligence asset.

She was the chief executive of a Singapore-based datacentre company reportedly suspected of evading US export controls and routing Nvidia chips to China.

French foreign minister vows European sanctions against Tehran over ‘unprecedented’ hacks last month

France has said Iran was responsible for a massive cyber-attack on supermarket freezers and chiller cabinets that was described by its foreign minister as being an act of “unprecedented scale and unprecedented aggression”.

Jean-Noël Barrot said “Europe-wide sanctions” would be imposed against those responsible, adding that the attacks – which took control of digital thermostats to push temperatures up to above 50C – constituted “a major violation of the nation’s interests”.

• Show will stream on platforms of BetUS sportsbook

• Ex-Athletic NFL insider had resigned in April

• Patriots coach, Russini were pictured at resort

Dianna Russini will return to sports media with a weekly one-hour show focused on the NFL backed by offshore sportsbook BetUS, she announced Monday.

The Russini Report will stream on BetUS TV’s website and X account, accompanied by a weekly analysis column. BetUS has described the program as a “live NFL betting show” that will run through the remainder of the season with game previews, matchup breakdowns and guest interviews.

Simon Stiell makes opening address at summit in Turkey, where talks are under way about speeding up shift to electrification

A global fossil fuel price crisis is “spreading inflation like a cancer” around the planet, the UN’s climate chief, Simon Stiell, told the opening plenary of critical UN climate talks in Turkey.

Stiell joined Cop31 hosts Turkey and Australia, which is leading the negotiations, in promoting renewable energy and a new electrification goal as an optimistic alternative to a planet still tied to oil, coal and gas.

LONDON, Nov. 9, 2026 — The UK’s National Quantum Computing Centre (NQCC) has signed an enterprise license agreement with Phasecraft to give UK organizations access to Phasecraft’s quantum software with the aim of accelerating the use of quantum computing for real-world problems across the UK as part of the NQCC’s wider SparQ Access initiative.

As part of the collaboration, the NQCC and Phasecraft will invite proposals from UK businesses and researchers to leverage Phasecraft’s software for their own challenges in areas like materials science, chemistry, and optimization, with support from Phasecraft’s scientists and engineers. Places are also reserved for the NQCC and academics to carry out non-commercial research.

Simon Plant, Deputy Director at the National Quantum Computing Centre, said: “Our mission at the NQCC is to ensure that UK businesses, academia and the public sector are well positioned to realize the benefits of quantum computing. This new partnership with Phasecraft marks the first time we are making quantum software available through our SparQ program, helping organizations develop the skills, knowledge and experience they need on their journey towards quantum readiness.”

Ashley Montanaro, co-founder and CEO of Phasecraft, said: “The NQCC has long been a leader in providing UK businesses and researchers with access to cutting-edge quantum hardware. Now, with this groundbreaking partnership, these organizations will also have access to the world’s best quantum software. We’re thrilled to put Phasecraft’s technology to work and make quantum computing useful for pioneering teams across the UK.”

Phasecraft’s Tools

Participants will work with one of three Phasecraft tools:

• Magritte: a quantum-enhanced materials and molecular modeling tool for exploring quantum simulation applications through resource estimation and quantum circuit construction.
• Monet: a quantum-enhanced density functional theory (DFT) tool for modeling materials and molecular systems.
• Mondrian: a quantum-enhanced optimization platform for accelerating the solution to complex problems in areas such as finance, logistics or infrastructure, available through a web interface or API.

How the Program Works

The NQCC will invite expressions of interest from late November 2026, and the first cohort will start in Spring 2027. For more information, please contact the NQCC at SparQAccess@stfc.ac.uk or Phasecraft at partnerships@phasecraft.io.

More from HPCwire: NQCC and STFC Select 13 Projects for UK Quantum Computing Grants

About Phasecraft

Phasecraft is the UK and US-based quantum algorithms company whose mission is to accelerate the practical application of quantum computing by redesigning quantum algorithms for the imperfect quantum computers of today. Phasecraft was founded in 2019 by Toby Cubitt, Ashley Montanaro, and John Morton, expert quantum scientists who have spent decades leading top research teams at UCL and the University of Bristol. Phasecraft works in partnership with leading quantum hardware companies, including Google, IBM, Quantinuum, and QuEra, academic and industry leaders, to develop high-efficiency algorithms to move quantum computing from experimental demonstrations to useful applications.

Source: Phasecraft

The post NQCC and Phasecraft Expand UK Access to Quantum Software appeared first on HPCwire.

Five-times Olympic judo champion Teddy Riner says he is neither leftwing nor rightwing but would seek to ‘bring people together’

The French judo star and five-times Olympic gold medallist Teddy Riner has announced plans to run in next year’s presidential election, describing himself as someone neither leftwing nor rightwing but who would seek to “bring people together”.

With more than five months before the April-May ballot to replace Emmanuel Macron, the race has been shaping up to be a showdown between political extremes. Polls point to a hollowing out of the political centre, suggesting that the anti-immigrant National Rally leader Marine Le Pen could be the frontrunner, with the radical-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon trailing behind.

• Power Four conference title games to be eliminated

• Five teams will auto-qualify with rest picked by panel

The College Football Playoff will double in size to 24 teams beginning next year, bringing an end to a three-decade era of conference title games that were among the marquee events of the season.

College leaders announced the new format Monday, after ESPN agreed to rework its contract to add the 11 new games. Terms were not announced, though ESPN said it was a deal for five years and an additional $1.7bn, on top of the $7.8bn contract that runs through the 2031 season.

The chipmaker faces business risks and political scrutiny due to its over-reliance on founder and CEO Jensen Huang

• Why is Nvidia’s Jensen Huang at the centre of a US-China row?

Too big – and too well-connected – to sack? One doesn’t have to be overly cynical to think Jensen Huang, the Nvidia boss, starts with one huge advantage as the chipmaker’s board starts its independent investigation into the alleged honeytrap spy scandal. The world of US big tech is not, to put it mildly, strong on checks and balances on a founder’s power.

Huang does not enjoy the supercharged voting rights that are par for the course elsewhere – his shareholding is a plain vanilla 3.6%. On the other hand, Nvidia’s board does not appear to have spent much time worrying about succession planning and “key person risk” or other standard concerns of corporate governance wonks outside the US.

Miller, known as the architect of Trump’s controversial immigration crackdown, is replacing Susie Wiles in new role

• US politics live – latest updates

Stephen Miller, the architect of Donald Trump’s mass deportation policy and hardline crackdown on immigration, took up his new role as White House chief of staff on Monday.

Miller, 41, began his new role serving as Trump’s right-hand man after Republicans suffered massive losses nationwide in the midterm elections. He was previously serving as a deputy chief of staff.

Disgraced British television personality and Hollywood actor Russell Brand has been sentenced to prison for raping a woman in 2009 and sexually assaulting three others.

Investors are questioning whether Huang's future as Nvidia's CEO may be at risk amid allegations that he was targeted in a Chinese intelligence operation.

Huawei has unveiled the Qingyun HM650, a desktop PC it claims is made entirely from Chinese-manufactured components, including its own 10-core Kirin X90 processor and an enterprise version of HarmonyOS. "While Huawei has reportedly claimed local companies manufactured 100 percent of the components in the machine, it is unclear if all those components use Chinese designs," notes The Register. From the report: A single Chinese government agency has reportedly signed up for 600 of the machines. That's not an indication this machine is a curiosity, because Beijing has ordered all government entities to shift from Wintel boxes to local alternatives. [...] Even if Huawei is using some parts that aren't entirely Chinese, the debut of the Qingyun HM650 is bad news for Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm, as all are suffering as the PC market shrinks due to the rising cost of memory. China's government is an enormous buyer, and losing the chance to bid for its business is unlikely to be helpful.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Exclusive: MP Chris Ward believes ditching pledges and forming closer ties with EU would protect it from global threats

One of the architects of Keir Stamer’s Brexit red lines has called for Andy Burnham to abandon them at the next election, saying a new relationship with the EU would protect the UK from global threats.

The call is the latest voice from a prominent figure in Starmer’s administration for a faster transition to a far closer European relationship, after the former chancellor Rachel Reeves said it was right for Burnham to consider rejoining.

The new feature is launching in 15 cities before expanding across the US and Canada. It follows Uber’s acquisition of SpotHero earlier this year.

Disgraced comedian must serve two-thirds of the 10 years and six month sentence before he will be eligible for parole

• Russell Brand sentenced to more than 10 years in prison

Proceedings are beginning now. Chief prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones KC is up on her feet. She’ll be the first to deliver remarks.

The sentencing has been pushed back as court staff attempt to rearrange the courtroom so one of the victims can be protected, PA reports.

Hospital consultants are set to go on a two-day strike at the end of October

Downing Street has insisted that the government remains committed to the principle of the zero emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate – while not denying today’s Guardian report saying interim targets to achieve it are set to be watered down. (See 9.26am.)

Asked about the story at the daily lobby briefing, the PM’s spokesperson said:

The government is fully behind the zero emission vehicle mandate, and no decisions have been taken yet.

We’re sticking to our commitment, phasing out new cars that run only on petrol or diesel by 2030, every new car and van will be zero emission by 2035, and our legally binding net zero targets. None of that is changing.

Kim Kardashian's SKIMS apparel brand has faced backlash from TikTok creators over its Advent calendar, which includes various small accessories and costs $148.

Nov. 9, 2026 — SC26 is less than a week away. This year’s event will be held in Chicago, from Sunday, Nov. 15 to Friday, Nov. 20, at McCormick Place. The U.S. National Science Foundation ACCESS program will have a booth at the conference, and the ACCESS team will be presenting at several events.

Topics cover AI, NSF’s cyberinfrastructure future, research software engineering and more. Here’s a sampling of ACCESS-affiliated content at SC26 to put on the calendar:

ACCESS at Booth 850

You can find a map of the SC26 exhibits here. ACCESS will host its ACCESS the Experts series on Tuesday, Nov. 17, with a high concentration of experts and Principal Investigators (PIs) on hand to answer questions (full schedule below). ACCESS will continue to have a booth staffed with experts throughout the duration of the conference, who will be available to offer guidance about the program and its resources.

The ACCESS team will also have some goodies for visitors to the booth to take home. When you stop by, look for ACCESS-branded keychain phone stand! The team will also have the new Program Year 4 booklet highlighting some of the many accomplishments and research enabled by ACCESS over its fourth year.

ACCESS Resource Providers will also be at SC26, and their booths have exciting events planned as well. Here’s a list of ACCESS Resource Provider (RP) booth locations:

Check out some highlighted RP events in the schedule below to see what ACCESS-affiliated events are happening throughout the conference:

Sunday, Nov. 15

Workshop: 13th Annual International Workshop on Innovating the Network for Data Intensive Science — INDIS

9 a.m. – 5:25 p.m., Location W175a (link to event)

Data networks are the circulatory system for science, discovery, society and industry. But scientific data networking is not a solved problem, and significant challenges remain. These challenges reflect scientists’ persistent needs from data networks: ever-increasing capacity, flexibility, consistency and collaboration. The theme for the 13th INDIS workshop is Connected Science: Bridging Research and Industry – reflecting not only the role of networking in connecting scientific infrastructure, but also our community’s collaborations across different types of organizations to advance data-intensive science. This year, INDIS plans to continue its tradition of having a discussion- and interaction-oriented schedule. INDIS 2026 complements the HPC-focused SC26 Technical Program, providing a dedicated platform for HPC researchers to explore data-intensive computing, interconnects and networking.

Workshop: hpcGPT: A Flexible Framework for Agentic User Support in HPC

10:30 – 10:45 a.m., Location: W183b (link to event)

High-performance computing centers spend significant staff time addressing recurring user questions about account management, software environments, job scheduling and system architectures. Analyses of historical support tickets show that a small number of topics account for a disproportionate share of user requests, yet much of this knowledge remains buried in closed tickets and dispersed documentation. We present hpcGPT, an agentic command-line support assistant that combines OpenCode, a provider-independent terminal interface, with Model Context Protocol tools. The system delivers contextualized responses by integrating site documentation, historical ticket knowledge and live cluster information, while preserving the ability to escalate unresolved issues through existing ticketing workflows. We describe the system architecture, MCP tool ecosystem and ticket knowledge pipeline, including data ingestion, PII scrubbing and retrieval mechanisms. Finally, we report on a pilot deployment in a production HPC environment and discuss its potential to improve user support, accelerate access to expertise and reduce staff workload.

Workshop: From Answering to Acting: An AI Agent for Research Computing User Support

10:45 – 11 a.m., Location: W183b (link to event)

RCD/HPC centers increasingly run support chatbots, but these rely on static documentation and cannot handle changing information or act when a user needs something done. We describe our experience building an agent for a national cyberinfrastructure program that both answers questions from live infrastructure data and takes actions on the researcher’s behalf, such as registering them for events, posting announcements, and filing tickets, under their own federated identity, with user data kept inside institutional infrastructure and a confirmation step before consequential writes. Because help is only useful if it stays good, we evaluate answers with a judge validated against human reviewers, which separates the agent from plain retrieval (0.97 vs. 0.47), and we run that evaluation two ways: a release gate that catches our own regressions and a drift detector that catches when the underlying information has gone stale.

Workshop: Quantifying Workload Exposure in HPC Power Telemetry at Operational Sampling Rates

4:22 – 4:41 p.m., Location: W176c (link to event)

HPC centers publish power telemetry to support monitoring, scheduling and optimization. While this telemetry is published for operational use, it can also reveal information about the workloads on a system. Prior work shows workloads leave signatures in high-frequency telemetry. How much of that signature survives at the coarse rates used in production is unknown. We study workloads using CPU power telemetry from Intel RAPL at approximately 1 kHz, downsampled to intervals as coarse as 60 s, measuring recoverability for resource classes and for individual workloads on unseen problem sizes. Recoverability declines as sampling coarsens, from 0.87 to 0.71 for resource class and 0.74 to 0.54 for workload identity. In short jobs, temporal information distinguishing individual workloads disappears under coarse sampling, while the steady power composition remains. At coarse rates, distinct workloads remain identifiable while similar ones become indistinguishable. Thus, coarsening the sampling rate is a practical but incomplete privacy control.

Monday, Nov. 16

Workshop: Research Software Engineers in HPC (RSE-HPC-2026)

9:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m., Location: W181c (link to event)

Research software engineers (RSEs) are critical to the impact of HPC, data science and the larger scientific community. They have existed for decades, though often under different names. In the past several years, however, the RSE concept has developed, along with common job titles and career paths; professional networks connecting RSEs; and RSE groups at universities, national laboratories and in industry. This workshop will bring together RSEs and allies involved in HPC from all over the world to grow the RSE community by establishing and strengthening professional networks of current RSEs and RSE leaders. We’ll hear about successes and challenges that RSEs and RSE groups have experienced, and discuss ways to increase awareness of RSE opportunities and improve support for RSEs. The workshop will be highly interactive, featuring panels, an invited talk and short submitted talks.

Workshop: The Relationship Between AI and Research Data Management

9:05 – 10:00 a.m., Location: W175bc (link to event)

With the scientific world focused on becoming ‘AI Ready’, a new opportunity has emerged: revisiting long-standing challenges and unmet needs in research data management and computation-heavy science. This talk examines that opportunity from two angles and the relative value propositions of both:

• As newer AI technologies become more ubiquitous in science, what new approaches to research data management do they require?
• How can research data management practices be applied to mine computational artifacts (e.g., benchmarks) for insight?

Tuesday, Nov. 17

Panel, Regional Tech Hub: From Discovery to Patient Impact: Bridging the Translational Gap

10:30 a.m. – 12 p.m., Location: W184bcd (link to event)

Bringing biomedical discoveries from the research environment to the bedside requires more than technology. It requires collaboration across disciplines, institutions and perspectives. This panel brings together participants from the Regional Technical Hub representing academia, national laboratories, industry and clinical practice to share their experiences using AI, high-performance computing and other advanced technologies to accelerate biomedical research and translation. Panelists will explore the opportunities and challenges of cross-disciplinary collaboration, translating innovation into practice, integrating new tools into clinical workflows and responsibly working with sensitive biomedical and clinical data. Together, we will consider how to bridge the translational gap and harness emerging technologies to improve patient outcomes.

BoF: Reproducibility of Computational Research: Building a Community of Practice for the AI Era

12:15 – 1:15 p.m., Location: W180 (link to event)

Reproducibility remains a fundamental challenge for computational science and AI-enabled research. Building on successful BoFs at SC22, SC24, and PEARC22-PEARC25, we established the Reproducibility of Computational Research Community of Practice, which now includes an active mailing list, public website, webinar series and emerging working groups. This interactive BoF will engage the SC26 community in shaping the next phase of this effort by sharing community progress, launching working groups, and exploring how AI can improve the capture of reproducible computational artifacts while addressing new challenges. The session welcomes researchers, research computing professionals, software developers, librarians and cyberinfrastructure practitioners.

BoF: Advanced Architecture Testbeds: Community Resources for HPC-AI Research

12:15 – 1:15 p.m., Location: W194a (link to event)

Testbeds play a vital role in assessing the readiness of novel architectures for upcoming supercomputers for the exascale and post-exascale era. These testbeds also act as co-design hubs, enabling the collection of application operational requirements while identifying critical gaps that must be addressed for an architecture to become viable for HPC. Various research centers are actively deploying testbeds, and our aim is to build a community that facilitates the sharing of information, encouraging collaboration and understanding of the available evaluation resources. This BoF will facilitate the exchange of best practices, including testbed design, benchmarking, system evaluation and availability.

BoF: Building the Scientific Data Fabric Community for AI-Driven Discovery

5:15 – 6:45 p.m., Location: W176abc (link to event)

Artificial intelligence is transforming scientific discovery, but today’s cyberinfrastructure was designed for workflows in which data are collected, stored, analyzed and archived as largely independent activities. Modern science increasingly requires continuous interaction among instruments, data repositories, workflows, AI services, edge devices, HPC systems and scientists across institutional boundaries. This BoF brings together researchers, facility operators, cyberinfrastructure developers and domain scientists to discuss the next generation of scientific data infrastructure. Through examples from astronomy, geosciences, materials science, medicine and high-energy physics, participants will identify common infrastructure challenges and define a community roadmap for interoperable, federated scientific data ecosystems.

Booth events: ACCESS, Booth 850

ACCESS the Experts – come visit the ACCESS booth to speak with the experts.

• Amit Majumdar, ACCESS Coordination Office 10 – 11 a.m.
• Virginia Trueheart, Resource Provider 11 a.m. – 12 p.m.
• Dave Wheeler, Operations 12 – 1 p.m.
• Chuck Pavlowski, ACCESS Coordination Office 1 – 2 p.m.
• Shelley Knuth, ACCESS Support 2 – 3 p.m.
• Bruno Abreu, ACCESS Allocations 3 – 4 p.m.
• Nikolay Simakov, ACCESS Metrics 4 – 5 p.m.
• Nathan Tolbert, ACCESS Allocations 5 – 6 p.m.

Wednesday, Nov. 18

Invited Talk: Regional Tech Hub: Quantum

10:30 – 12 p.m., Location: W375de (link to event)

From understanding the promise of quantum technologies to seeing how they could become part of the communications and computing infrastructure of the future, the two invited talks will give attendees both a big-picture view of the quantum landscape and a concrete look at how quantum networking is becoming a reality while exploring how we can structure quantum technologies today for the needs and success of future users.

Panel: The 50-State AI Plan: A Grassroots Approach to Building a U.S. AI Continent

1:30 – 3 p.m., Location: W184bcd (link to event)

This session examines how state and regional initiatives can strengthen U.S. leadership in AI and quantum computing. Using Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah, Oklahoma and others as examples, the panel will explore how states are aligning regional assets with America’s AI Action Plan, the Genesis Mission, and the National AI Research Resource (NAIRR). The discussion frames this work as a grassroots U.S. counterpart to the EU “AI Continent,” built through state-led, place-based innovation rather than a top-down model. Building on the NSF-CASC Workshop on Envisioning NAIRR State and Regional Hubs for Educational Transformation, the session will highlight pathways for expanding workforce development, research access and regional cooperation. Panelists will discuss partnerships among academia, government, industry, philanthropy and federal agencies, along with strategies to broaden access to computing and data resources, streamline deployment, and engage states in AI capacity building. Inclusive state-led hubs can drive innovation, attract investment and grow the AI workforce.

BoF: Inference Services and Agents on HPC: Scaling Scientific AI for Academic Community

5:15 – 6:45 p.m., Location: W180 (link to event)

Initiated at SC25 to explore AI inference services in the academic HPC community, this BoF returns to address the fast-evolving landscape of inference services, agentic AI, tool services and AI4Science. This practitioner forum brings centers and researchers together to share practical insights and experiences spanning infrastructure, software and use cases. This session aims to cultivate collaborative solutions for AI development. The goal remains to foster a sustained, cross-institutional “community of practice” that bridges academic and governmental HPC centers and the user community to support collaboration in this area.

Booth events: Booth 3829

Coffee with CaRCC: Stop by the Internet2 booth at 10 am for Coffee with CaRCC, the Campus Research Computing Consortium. Good coffee, better conversation with research computing and data peers!

Source: Megan Johnson, NCSA; ACCESS

The post NSF ACCESS Outlines SC26 Events and Expert Sessions appeared first on HPCwire.

Democrats won seats on anti-datacentre tickets and Musk wasted nearly half a billion dollars. Big tech may be losing its grip, but it won’t go quietly

Photos That Precede Unfortunate Events: a couple of months back, Donald Trump hosted some of the world’s most powerful tech executives at the White House for a “Super Intelligence luncheon”, which by coincidence is also how my mum described her tuna sandwiches in a forlorn attempt to get me to eat them. Sitting either side of the president were Elon Musk, making a rare offline appearance in daylight hours, and Jensen Huang, the Nvidia chief executive carving out a precious slot in what we now know was an extremely busy schedule.

Over a delicious meal of microchips and rare-earth metals, the billionaires sketched out a utopian future of an AI industry unencumbered by regulation or safeguards, powered by their heroic strongman leader, a political genius effortlessly able to impose his will upon an entire nation. And perhaps it should have been apparent even at the time that these (mostly) men were putting their faith in a guy who had recently been defeated by pond algae. But as the drinks and the good times flowed, it was still possible to believe that the sun would never set on the thousand-year American superintelligence empire.

Jonathan Liew is a Guardian columnist

The Guardian’s year in review 2026. On Tuesday 1 December 2026, join your favourite Guardian writers for an evening of candid conversations, witty remarks and surprises as we look back on the year-defining stories of 2026. With Zoe Williams, Lucy Mangan, Jonathan Liew, Heather Stewart, Pippa Crerar, John Crace and host, multi-award-winning comedian Suzi Ruffell.
Book tickets here or at guardian.live

The awards come as the US space agency accelerates plans for a permanent base at the lunar south pole.

Artist impression of NASA Moon Base and vehicles. (NASA via SWNS)

Exclusive: Cross-party call for ethnicity options to be broadened beyond ‘English’ being only within ‘White’ category

Britons should be able to define themselves as both black and English, according to senior MPs who are calling to broaden the range of ethnicity options in the census.

The cross-party push is a riposte to Reform UK politicians who have claimed that people from minority ethnic backgrounds cannot have English ethnic identity.

Nov. 9, 2026 — At the National Quantum Technologies Showcase, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) published an evaluation of a decade of UK quantum investment.  UKRI’s evaluation, published Nov. 6, 2026, finds that a long-term, coordinated approach to investing in quantum research, skills and commercialization has helped create:

• More than 2,000 highly skilled jobs
• 74 spinout companies
• An estimated £482 million of private investment

The National Quantum Technologies Showcase 2026 opened in London last week. More than 3,500 delegates from industry, academia, government and the investment community attended. They explored how quantum technologies are moving from research laboratories into real-world applications.

The showcase took place a week after the Chancellor unveiled £138 million of funding for cross-government quantum sensing procurement in the Budget. The funding will help accelerate adoption in healthcare, transport and defense. It will also increase the UK’s own quantum capability.

This includes a £30 million commitment from the Ministry of Defence, the department’s single largest investment in Quantum technology.

New Investments

Building on the foundations established over the past decade, UKRI is also announcing a series of new investments designed to help the sector grow, commercialize and scale.

UKRI’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) has selected the UK Quantum Super Connector to establish a national Quantum Commercialisation Skills Centre.

The center will receive £12 million of funding. The Super Connector is a partnership led by Imperial College London with the universities of Bristol, Cambridge, Glasgow and Oxford.

The initiative will strengthen entrepreneurship, and the ability to bring cutting-edge Quantum tech to market, tackling one of the major barriers to companies starting and scaling on British shores.

Meanwhile £35 million from Innovate UK will support two new funding calls for quantum networking testbeds. Launching in February 2027, they will enable UK companies and researchers to develop and test technologies.

A Strategic Decision

In 2014, quantum technology was largely a laboratory curiosity. EPSRC took an early strategic decision to invest at scale, committing to a coordinated, long-term national program rather than a series of isolated projects.

A decade later, an independent evaluation looked at that £300 million investment. It covered quantum technology Research Hubs, skills programs and doctoral training. The findings show that coordination, sustained funding and an integrated hub model emerge repeatedly as the key differentiators behind the UK’s progress.

The Evaluation of EPSRC Quantum Technology Research Hubs and Skills Investments 2014–2024, looks at what that investment achieved across hubs, training and doctoral centres at more than 30 universities.

Jobs, Spinouts, Investment

The program has helped create more than 2,000 highly skilled jobs, most at above average wages, and supported 74 new spinout companies. It has drawn in an estimated £482 million in private investment.

Beyond this financial return, the program has strengthened the UK’s ability to retain quantum talent in an increasingly competitive global market.

Building on the foundations needed to deliver the National Quantum Strategy and Skills Taskforce’s ambition of 1,000 quantum-related PhD studentships by 2034.

For every pound invested, the evaluation found that the program generated more benefits than costs. Using a standard cost-benefit methodology, the evaluators estimated £547 million in total monetized benefits against £442 million in program costs.

This figure includes benefits already realized, such as jobs, spinouts and private investment, alongside benefits expected to accrue in 2030 to 2031 as quantum technologies continue to mature.

A Broad Investment

Across the UK, cities including Oxford, Bristol, Birmingham, Glasgow and Edinburgh have seen local ecosystems grow up around the hubs.

West of England Combined Authority invested £35 million in a new Quantum Technologies Innovation Centre, a direct result of the research infrastructure already in place locally.

In addition, UKRI will invest over £4 million in capital equipment for the QT Research Hubs. This priority program will support the UK’s quantum missions at our world-leading Quantum Technologies Research Hubs.

An additional £600,000 will be invested in key research infrastructures across the UK that underpin work to create the UK’s quantum internet.

Science with Real-World Uses

The research has practical applications that go well beyond the lab. Quantum sensors developed at the University of Birmingham are being tested for use in medical diagnostics. They could also be used in underground surveying, where they could make it far cheaper and less disruptive to build and maintain the infrastructure beneath our streets.

Quantum imaging systems from the University of Glasgow’s QuantIC hub have uses in healthcare and environmental monitoring. Examples include helping to reduce methane leaks in industrial processes that significantly contribute to climate change.

Work at the University of York’s Quantum Communications Hub is focused on fundamentally more secure data networks, that can contribute to protecting public services and personal information.

Researchers have also been connecting quantum science with artificial intelligence, opening up new avenues in areas like drug discovery and logistics.

Keeping Talent in the UK

One of the evaluation’s more striking findings is about people.

Without the hubs and doctoral training centers, a significant number of the researchers trained through the programme would likely have taken their skills abroad.

Students from mathematics, engineering and chemistry were drawn into quantum research, and have since gone on to found companies, lead research groups, and work across industry.

Some 87% of Research Hub survey respondents said the program had contributed to upskilling the UK workforce.

Internationally, the UK now sits alongside the United States at the top of quantum research impact rankings. The hub model the UK developed in 2014 is now being replicated elsewhere.

Source: UKRI

The post UKRI Announces More Than £51M in New Quantum Investments appeared first on HPCwire.

A source familiar with the matter tells CBS News that a fuel supplier likely hired a law firm to pursue legal action against the Odyssey.

American activist and trade unionist who fought for the rights of farm workers

Although she was never the president of the United Farm Workers union, Dolores Huerta, who has died aged 96, was one of the most significant American trade union leaders of the 20th century. Her battle cry, “Sí, se puede!”, coined in the midst of tensions with police in Arizona in the 1970s, was adapted to the English “Yes, we can” and became Barack Obama’s slogan during his successful campaign for the US presidency in 2008.

While the UFW leader Cesar Chavez was the public face of the union as its president, Huerta was the organiser who helped break the resistance of California’s grape growers by building bridges to secondary boycotts by unions packing and transporting grapes, and by organising boycotts of national supermarket chains such as A&P and Finast, who sold them. “To take on agriculture, which to this day is still a powerhouse, that took a lot of guts,” her son Emilio said.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Alexis Ohanian wants to figure out the future of user-generated content. According to the Reddit cofounder, building social media apps is "not cool anymore" and so much of the internet has been compromised. "I'm expecting some better version of the group chat to be that new version of UGC," Ohanian told WIRED senior correspondent Lauren Goode at the inaugural WIRED World Fair. [...] Ohanian is a proponent of the "Dead Internet Theory"—the idea that a lot of online activity and content is being generated by bots. Large language models have turbocharged this, with AI agents outrunning human users. "The internet that I grew up on that was really built for humans first; user interfaces and experiences are going to go away," said Ohanian, "because more of the internet is going to get created for these agents to use, [rather] than for people." In some ways, the advance in generative AI has been lucrative for sites like Reddit, which has licensed its vast archive of human conversations to companies including Google and OpenAI to train AI models. "Platforms like ours became very, very valuable to LLMs," Ohanian said. But the technology has also undermined the business. Reddit shares plunged 29 percent last week after the platform warned that Google's AI-powered search was hurting referral traffic. Ohanian also worries the commercialization of these conversations means they are full of "bullshit." "The internet has gotten so manipulated because it is so incredibly valuable to do so," he said. Reddit recently said it would require users to sign in to fight third-party scraping and keep up user engagement. While Ohanian declined to say whether he agrees with the move, "there has to be provable humanity on the internet without being creepy." An early Anthropic investor, Ohanian is nonetheless optimistic about the potential benefits of AI. He is especially excited to see medical breakthroughs from the technology. "There is still a very real chance that this technology can cause a lot of harm for sure," he said. "I think we have to be sober about how we're building and what we're doing, but I still can't help but see all of the things that can get so demonstrably better."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

ST. FLORIAN, Austria, Nov. 9, 2026 — EV Group (EVG), a leading provider of innovative process solutions and expertise serving leading-edge and future semiconductor designs and chip integration schemes, today announced that it is supporting quantum chip developers and manufacturers in addressing the complex manufacturing requirements associated with scaling quantum computing systems.

Artist’s rendition illustrating the role of EV Group’s semiconductor manufacturing technologies in quantum chip development. EVG combines advanced process equipment, manufacturing expertise and cleanroom capabilities to help customers develop and validate new quantum chip designs. Created with AI assistance. Source: EV Group.

Building on its ongoing contributions to quantum chip development, EVG is applying its established expertise in advanced packaging, heterogeneous integration and photonics manufacturing to help customers develop and validate new product designs and manufacturing processes for increasingly complex quantum architectures.

EVG will highlight its suite of process solutions for quantum computing and other critical technologies at SEMICON Europa, the premier microelectronics and semiconductor manufacturing supply chain event in Europe, taking place this week on November 10-13 at the Messe München in Munich, Germany.

New Manufacturing Approaches Need to Scale Quantum Computing

According to McKinsey & Company, quantum computing could create up to $2.7 trillion of economic value worldwide by 2035. As quantum computing advances beyond early research demonstrations toward increasingly capable systems, one of the industry’s greatest challenges is scaling the number of qubits—the fundamental units of quantum information—while maintaining the performance and reliability needed for practical applications. Because qubits are extremely sensitive to errors, achieving fault-tolerant quantum computing requires significantly increasing the number of physical qubits to support error correction.

Meeting these requirements presents significant manufacturing challenges. Different quantum computing architectures rely on a wide range of materials and device structures, creating demanding requirements for high-density interconnections, heterogeneous materials integration and precision manufacturing. Advanced packaging technologies will play a key role in enabling the integration of increasingly complex quantum chips and other critical components while preserving their performance.

EVG addresses these challenges through its broad portfolio of process technologies, including fusion and hybrid bonding, high-vacuum oxide-free bonding, digital and nanoimprint lithography, and thin-wafer processing. These technologies provide the precision needed for demanding wafer alignment, bonding and patterning requirements across different quantum computing architectures. Combined with the company’s materials and process integration expertise through its Heterogeneous Integration Competence Center (HICC) and NILPhotonics Competence Center, these capabilities enable quantum computing companies to explore, develop and validate new quantum chip designs and manufacturing approaches.

“Quantum computing is not a single technology, but a collection of fundamentally different approaches, each with its own materials and manufacturing requirements. As developers work to scale these technologies, the challenge is not simply increasing the number of qubits but finding ways to integrate them in increasingly complex chip architectures without compromising performance,” stated Dr. Bernd Dielacher, director of business development at EVG. “This is where EVG’s broad portfolio of process solutions, combined with our experience in advanced packaging and heterogeneous integration, can play an important role in helping customers develop practical manufacturing solutions for a new generation of quantum devices.”

Process Technologies Supporting Quantum Computing Development

Quantum computing encompasses a variety of approaches, including superconducting, photonic, spin, trapped-ion, neutral-atom and nitrogen-vacancy diamond qubits, each presenting distinct materials and manufacturing challenges. EVG’s technologies address a range of manufacturing requirements across different quantum computing approaches.

For example, with superconducting quantum devices, oxide-free bonding processes can support the formation of superconducting interconnects and 3D device integration. In photonic quantum devices, fusion and oxide-free bonding enable the integration of III-V and high-Pockels-coefficient materials on waveguides, while hybrid bonding supports ultra-high-density interconnects in emerging spin qubit architectures. For trapped ion quantum computing, EVG has collaborated with researchers to develop low-temperature metal bonding processes that enable the integration of ion-trap and photonic chiplets made from different substrate materials. EVG is also a strategic partner of Silicon Austria Labs in support of the CHAMP-ION pilot line project, Europe’s first open-access pilot line for industrial-scale production of ion-trap quantum chips. Additional capabilities, including nanoimprint lithography, digital lithography and temporary bonding and debonding, can support specialized optical structures and advanced packaging processes.

EVG’s involvement in quantum computing development includes its recently announced collaboration with Xanadu, a developer of quantum photonic computing technology, as well as participation in research activities addressing emerging quantum device manufacturing requirements. These engagements reflect EVG’s active commitment to advancing qubit integration, building on its established expertise in semiconductor and photonics manufacturing to address the specialized requirements of quantum hardware.

About EV Group (EVG)

EV Group (EVG) provides innovative process solutions and expertise that serve leading-edge and future semiconductor designs and chip integration schemes. The company’s vision of being the first in exploring new techniques and supporting next-generation applications of micro- and nanofabrication technologies enables customers to successfully commercialize new product ideas. EVG’s high-volume-manufacturing-ready products, which include wafer bonding, lithography, thin-wafer processing and metrology equipment, enable advances in semiconductor front-end scaling, 3D integration and advanced packaging, as well as in other electronics and photonics applications. More information about EVG is available at www.EVGroup.com.

Source: EV Group

The post EV Group Applies Advanced Packaging Expertise to Quantum Chip Development appeared first on HPCwire.

These days, we know where almost everything comes from. Everyday items like food, clothes and pens all carry labels listing where things are grown, manufactured or even designed. 

So why is it so hard to find where prescription drugs are made?

That question set off a 14-month investigation into where our medications are made, how the FDA polices drug manufacturers and what happens when inspectors report issues inside factories.

The vast majority of prescriptions filled in the United States are for generic drugs, which are often far cheaper than brand-name alternatives. 

For years, Congress, doctors and watchdog groups have questioned the quality of generic drugs made overseas. India produces about half of all generics used in the U.S., but the labels on pill bottles often don’t list where a drug is manufactured. Inspection reports describe unsafe manufacturing conditions at generic drug factories, but the Food and Drug Administration redacts the names of the medications made in those factories. That means if drugs made in errant factories wind up in your medicine cabinet, you’d have no way of knowing. 

To better understand how the FDA regulates the generic drug industry, Debbie Cenziper and Megan Rose interviewed current and former factory inspectors, tested medications in a lab and sued the federal government for critical documents. 

Here’s what they found:

• Birds defecated on boxes of sterile equipment. Inspectors reported finding dirty labs, mold and foul water at factories. Records referenced vials of medication that were “blackish” from contamination. Inspectors found what appeared to be metal shavings on equipment.
  
• Drug manufacturers manipulated and destroyed drug-testing records. At one factory, an analyst poured acid on records stuffed in a trash bin. At another, inspectors said in a report that records were “routinely manipulated” to cover up the presence of particulate matter —  which could include glass, fiber or other contaminants — in generic drugs.
  
• A lifesaving generic drug contained a lower amount of a key ingredient. We worked with an independent lab to test generic versions of tacrolimus, used to prevent organ rejection. We found some pills contained a lower amount of the key ingredient in the drug. Doctors and experts said that underdosing can leave patients vulnerable to organ rejection.
  
• The FDA allowed generic drug imports from banned factories — and didn’t inform the public. The agency gave some manufacturers a special pass to continue to ship drugs made in factories whose manufacturing practices were so bad they had been banned from the U.S. Over a dozen years, the FDA exempted at least 150 drugs or their ingredients from banned factories.
  
• A transplant patient’s lungs failed after she took generic versions of tacrolimus. Hannah Goetz had a double-lung transplant as a teenager and had to take tacrolimus twice a day. Her lungs failed in 2023, and she died at 21 years old, after years of relying on the generic drug made by two manufacturers with documented problems. Lawyers told Goetz’s mother that it was impossible to draw a straight line from Hannah’s death to a generic manufacturer, but her mother said she wonders if her daughter would still be alive if she took a different brand of tacrolimus.

In a response to ProPublica, a spokesperson for the FDA said in a statement that the exemptions given to banned factories are “thoroughly evaluated through a multi-disciplinary approach” but declined to say exactly what those evaluations entailed. The agency also said it requires manufacturers to conduct additional quality checks with third-party oversight before sending drugs to the U.S. The agency did not respond to questions about how it can know that generics are safe without a more robust testing program. 

In statements to ProPublica, drug companies said that they take patient safety seriously, adhere to quality standards and are committed to working with the FDA on any regulatory issues.

ProPublica’s investigation, which went on to be a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting, published in 2025. 

Use our tool to find where your prescription drugs were made.

ProPublica’s Brandon Roberts and a team of data journalists made a tool called Rx Inspector that will show you the facility that manufactured your generic prescription drugs and any inspection reports, warning letters and import bans we have from the FDA. 

The data isn’t perfect; it’s possible the FDA hasn’t published everything it knows about a given facility, for example. Also, one company may have acquired another or moved the factory somewhere else. This tool also isn’t meant to provide you with medical advice: If you find something troubling, it doesn’t necessarily mean that your drug is compromised. Doctors and pharmacists advise that you not stop taking your medications. Instead, you should talk to your healthcare provider about any concerns.

Step 1: Enter the name of your prescription drug, as well as the company name found on your pill bottle or drug label.

Step 2: If there are multiple matches in our database, you can narrow your search using the markings found on a pill, for example.

Step 3: When you click on a drug, we’ll show you any manufacturing facilities we’ve been able to connect to it. Click on a facility to see any information we have from the FDA.

FDA inspections come with compliance outcomes, such as import alerts or warning letters. The best possible outcome of an inspection is “acceptable state,” which means the FDA took no compliance action and ProPublica found no issues documented by inspectors. Search your prescription here.

ProPublica described Rx Inspector and the methodology used to build it to the FDA, which did not comment. The agency previously told ProPublica that it doesn’t reveal where drugs are made on inspection reports to protect what it deemed to be confidential commercial information.

Read more of Cenziper, Rose and Roberts’ reporting from their series Rx Roulette or watch their video explainer.

The post Watch: Where Do Our Generic Drugs Come From? We Dug to Find Out. appeared first on ProPublica.

Terrorism investigation will continue after suspect who killed six after opening fire in market square died

Polish prosecutors have said they do not currently have any evidence tying the man who killed six people and injured 16 in a rare mass shooting in Kraków to any particularly political ideology.

The 24-year-old Polish national died in hospital early on Monday after being critically injured in a shootout with police officers as they apprehended him after the attack in the city’s busy market square on Saturday afternoon.

Lawmakers are returning to Capitol Hill for the first time since the midterm elections, which delivered a slew of Democratic victories that will dramatically reshape the balance of power in Washington in the new year.

Under the terms of a new defense agreement between Greenland, Denmark and the United States, Greenland remains a self-governed territory of Denmark with the right to declare its independence in the future. The U.S. did not “get” Greenland, nor does it now “own” Greenland, as President Donald Trump has misleadingly said recently.

In January, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump talked about wanting the U.S. to have “ownership” of Greenland, an Arctic island home to about 57,000 people, in order “to defend” it, and as part of a broader American national security strategy. “And all we’re asking for is to get Greenland, including right, title, and ownership, because you need the ownership to defend it. You can’t defend it on a lease,” he said.

He initially wouldn’t rule out taking Greenland over by force, as he had teased, but then said in his Davos speech: “I won’t use force.”

The new trilateral agreement doesn’t go as far as giving Greenland to the U.S. Primarily, it indefinitely allows the U.S. to expand its military presence in Greenland and prevents U.S. adversaries from doing the same. But as we’ve written, the previously existing defense framework already gave the U.S. great latitude to expand military operations in Greenland. 

Greenlandic lawmakers formally approved the agreement on Nov. 3. It will go into effect if Danish lawmakers approve it after debate on the agreement later this month.

Trump talked about the pending deal at some of his midterm campaign rallies and in recent interviews, but he sometimes made it sound like something it’s not.

In a Fox News interview on Nov. 3, Trump said, “I got Greenland. We have Greenland, and nobody talks about it.” He said, “If I didn’t get it, there’d be massive fanfare, I can tell you. But we got it, and it’s permanent. It’s forever.”

In another Fox News interview earlier that day, Trump said Europe “gave the United States the greatest gift we were ever given … Greenland.” 

Before that, during remarks in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 2, he said that “we also have Greenland now,” saying it was on “an unlimited basis.” When Trump brought up the military deal at an Oct. 25 campaign rally in Michigan, he said that “we own Greenland.”

He has also said the U.S. “got it for nothing” and that there was an “acquisition” of Greenland “for zero dollars.” (During his first term, Trump expressed interest in buying Greenland.)

We asked the White House about the president’s claims but have not received a response.

Update, Nov. 9: After publication, a White House spokesperson said the deal “secures permanent American security control over Greenland, ensures that Greenland will forever be a part of the strategic defense area of North America, and excludes any adversary from Greenland and the surrounding region.”

What’s in the Agreement

The agreement was originally signed on Sept. 22 by Trump, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen. It amends and supplements a 1951 defense pact, updated in 2004, that allowed the U.S. to establish a military base in Greenland. 

Greenland served as a foothold for the U.S. amid competition with the Soviet Union in the Arctic during the Cold War. American interest in the region, which lapsed during the post-Cold War period, has been renewed in recent years because of “strategic competition” with Russia and China, according to a Congressional Research Service report from July 2025.

Under the new deal, activities at the U.S. base in Greenland, renamed Pituffik Space Base in 2023, can be modernized and expanded. The base conducts space surveillance and provides missile warning and defense.

In addition, the agreement says the U.S. “shall be allowed to establish an additional Defense Area at Narsarsuaq and Mestersvig in accordance with modalities and technical details to be mutually agreed” upon. It adds that the U.S. “may establish additional defense areas in Greenland and strengthen its military operations or facilities,” as long as those additional defense areas are agreed upon as well.

The new agreement also grants U.S. vessels and aircraft free movement between defense areas, including undersea access to Greenland’s territorial waters.

Unless the signatories all agree, nations that are not members of NATO will not be allowed to establish military installations in Greenland nor have “a persistent presence of military forces” in the territory. The U.S. will also get a say in whether countries that are not in NATO, a NATO partner or in the European Union, can invest in “sensitive sectors or activities” in Greenland, such as for the extraction of minerals and natural resources. 

At the same time the agreement grants the U.S. more access in the region for defense purposes – including the establishment of a “Golden Dome” missile defense system that Trump has proposed – it also reiterates in its preamble that Greenland remains a part of Denmark with the right to self-determination, as was reaffirmed in a 2009 Greenland self-government law.

Should Greenland ever exercise its right to become an independent country, the agreement says the treaty will remain binding and Greenland will stay in NATO. The U.S. and Denmark are already members of the international defense alliance.

Not Much Different Than Before

While Trump has boasted about the new deal, experts in international relations have said it doesn’t grant the U.S. much more access in Greenland that it didn’t, or couldn’t, already have.

In a commentary piece published Oct. 2, Otto Svendsen, an associate fellow with the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said, “The deal gives the United States greater flexibility to augment its Arctic military posture, binds Greenland to NATO even if it achieves independence, and boxes U.S. adversaries out of the island.” But he also called it “only a marginal improvement” over the previous defense agreement.

“Existing agreements already allowed the United States to expand its presence in Greenland, and Copenhagen had long kept U.S. adversaries from investing in Greenland,” Svendsen wrote.

As we wrote earlier this year, Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs Lars Løkke Rasmussen said in January, following a meeting between U.S., Danish and Greenlandic officials, that “the U.S. has already a wide military access to Greenland,” and could ask for more under the 1951 defense pact. “We would examine any such request constructively,” he said.

For a story that same month, Mikkel Runge Olesen, a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies in Copenhagen, told the New York Times, “The U.S. has such a free hand in Greenland that it can pretty much do what it wants.”

And Svendsen wrote in his October piece, “The one genuinely new breakthrough — permanently binding a future independent Greenland to NATO and to U.S. basing — would likely have been on the table without threats to use military force against a treaty ally. Those threats have alienated one of the United States’ staunchest allies and damaged U.S. credibility across Europe.”

He said given that Trump once demanded full control of Greenland, “the deal is a considerable climb-down.”

Others have also said that the new agreement is a lot of what existed before.

Writing for the Council on Foreign Relations in a Sept. 29 piece, Diana Roy, the senior editor, and Jonathan Masters, the deputy managing editor, said, “Despite U.S. President Donald Trump’s previous calls to acquire Greenland, the deal preserves the status quo, maintaining the island’s status as a semiautonomous territory of Denmark.”

Similarly, Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, a nonresident senior fellow with the Peterson Institute for International Economics, wrote in a Sept. 24 piece, “Substantively, the new deal entrenches the existing status quo, making it a significant accomplishment for Danish and Greenlandic diplomacy, while affording Trump just enough changes to also claim victory.”

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, P.O. Box 58100, Philadelphia, PA 19102. 

The post Explaining the U.S. Defense Agreement with Greenland and Denmark appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Tell us which fitness trackers and smart glasses earn a spot in your daily routine.

Assault on Michel Zecler in 2020 is rare case of police brutality reaching court, at time of heightened tensions

Three French police officers have gone on trial over the beating of a black music producer who they say was not wearing a face mask during the Covid pandemic, in a rare case of police brutality reaching court.

The assault on Michel Zecler, now 47, triggered outrage in France over police violence, which victims and researchers say is systemic but authorities and law enforcement unions claim is limited to isolated cases.

The video, posted on social media, shows two girls making monkey sounds and gestures as they pass by a Ring camera on an apartment door.

The DEA said that alleged cartel leader known as "R2" was wanted in the U.S. on federal drug trafficking and firearms charges.

A happy woman sleeping on her side in a bed, hugging a white pillow under a blanket.

Officers pelted with bottles, stones and fireworks after people try to get their hands on special introductory offer

Police were called to a doner kebab shop in Dortmund, western Germany on Sunday after hundreds of customers stormed the premises in the hope of securing a portion for a one-off rock bottom introductory price.

The owner of the outlet was forced to call the police after becoming overwhelmed by the crowds that turned up for its opening.

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House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said that Democrats will focus "relentlessly" on addressing affordability in their majorities, while also setting their sights on combatting corruption.

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Ads will start appearing in AI Mode’s follow-up answers in the US as Google expands AI Mode ads to more countries.

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Nov. 9, 2026 — AMD today announced that 5th Gen AMD EPYC processors are powering the host infrastructure for Google Cloud TPU 8tx, the first cloud Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) system to deliver hardware-enforced confidential computing. The expanded collaboration between the companies combines AMD EPYC CPU performance, AMD Infinity Guard security capabilities and x86 software compatibility with Google Cloud TPU AI acceleration to help enterprises deploy inference, fine-tuning and reinforcement learning workloads. With Google Cloud’s confidential computing architecture on TPU 8tx supported by 5th Gen AMD EPYC host processors, organizations can run their most sensitive AI workloads at scale in the cloud without compromising on data protection.

Credit: Google Cloud

The deployment extends the role of AMD EPYC processors as a foundation for accelerated AI infrastructure. Across systems built with GPUs and custom accelerators, AMD EPYC CPUs are the choice for host processing – preparing data, coordinating workloads and managing communication with accelerators. With TPU 8tx, AMD and Google Cloud bring those capabilities together with hardware-rooted security to address a critical requirement for production AI: protecting data while it is in use.

“The most capable AI systems need a CPU foundation that can match the demands of the accelerators they host,” said Dan McNamara, senior vice president and general manager, Compute and Enterprise AI, AMD. “Across generations of EPYC, we have built leadership capabilities in the performance, memory bandwidth and I/O that keep accelerated systems productive, backed by years of engineering collaboration with the world’s leading cloud providers. Our work with Google Cloud brings that strength to TPU 8tx, helping customers scale AI with the performance and protection their most important workloads demand.”

“When teams move AI agents into production, they need confidence that their data and intellectual property stay private, even from the underlying infrastructure,” said Mark Lohmeyer, vice president and general manager for AI and Computing Infrastructure, Google Cloud. “By pairing 5th Gen AMD EPYC processors with our 8th-generation TPU architecture inside the AI Hypercomputer, we are bringing hardware-enforced confidential computing to cloud TPUs for the first time. Customers get silicon-level data protection alongside the low-latency performance needed for modern reasoning models.”

Enabling Confidential AI with AMD EPYC Processors

In TPU 8tx systems, 5th Gen AMD EPYC processors manage workload orchestration, data preparation and high-throughput communication with TPU accelerators. The system utilizes the AMD Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) capabilities in the AMD EPYC CPU, which together with the TPU, extends confidential computing protection beyond the CPU to connected accelerators, helping protect sensitive data as it moves among them.

Verifying an accelerator’s identity and security configuration before granting it direct access to protected memory helps customer prompts, model weights and intermediate data remain encrypted in CPU memory and in transit among the host and accelerators, with hardware isolation during accelerator execution. These protections help enterprises use sensitive information with confidence in reasoning and agentic AI applications.

AMD EPYC processors also underpin the broader Google Cloud confidential computing portfolio: AMD SEV technologies help protect workloads across Confidential VMs, Confidential GKE, Confidential Space, Confidential Managed Service for Apache Spark, and Confidential Dataflow. TPU 8tx extends that collaboration to confidential AI acceleration.

A Proven Host CPU Foundation Across AI Architectures

As hyperscalers, frontier labs and model providers build increasingly specialized AI infrastructure, CPU selection remains central to system performance and deployment.  Accelerators depend on host processors to supply data, schedule work and connect AI workloads with the applications and services around them. AMD EPYC processors are the host CPU of choice for more than 10 leading hyperscalers and frontier AI labs, spanning GPUs and custom AI accelerator ASICs.

AMD EPYC processors support this role across systems using AMD Instinct GPUs, Nvidia GPUs and custom silicon. This breadth gives customers a proven CPU platform across accelerator choices, supported by the established x86 software ecosystem.

Building on Generations of AMD and Google Cloud Collaborations

AMD and Google Cloud have collaborated across multiple generations of EPYC processors, supporting general-purpose, compute-intensive, storage-intensive and accelerated workloads leading up to current Google Cloud Compute Engine C4D, N4D, H4D, Z4D and G4 virtual machines. The companies have also worked together for years on security technology at the corporate level, including deep reviews of AMD security processor firmware by Google security experts.

With TPU 8tx, this expanded collaboration helps enterprises run modern reasoning and agentic AI workloads in production without compromising on data protection.

About AMD

AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) drives innovation in high-performance and AI computing to solve the world’s most important challenges. Today, AMD technology powers billions of experiences across cloud and AI infrastructure, embedded systems, AI PCs and gaming. With a broad portfolio of AI-optimized CPUs, GPUs, networking and software, AMD delivers full-stack AI solutions that provide the performance and scalability needed for a new era of intelligent computing. Learn more at www.amd.com.

Source: AMD

The post AMD EPYC Processors Power Host Infrastructure for Google Cloud TPU 8tx appeared first on HPCwire.

CHICAGO, Nov. 9, 2026 — IBM, the University of Chicago, the State of Illinois, and Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park (IQMP) today unveiled an IBM Quantum System Two in Chicago, IBM’s first quantum computer in Illinois and the company’s most advanced system available. Initially located at Hyde Park Labs and hosted by the University of Chicago, the system is fueled by IBM Quantum Nighthawk, the most powerful quantum chip IBM has ever built.

IBM’s first quantum computer in Illinois extends the company’s industry and academic partnerships across the state, enabling the Illinois ecosystem and beyond to scale quantum algorithms and applications. Credit: IBM.

Today, organizations across Illinois are already working with IBM to explore how quantum computing can scale to computationally difficult challenges. The new system aims to catalyze the state’s robust ecosystem of scientists, universities, national laboratories, startups, and enterprises, many of whom are collaborating with IBM in Chicago within IQMP’s National Quantum Algorithm Center (NQAC) to develop the next generation of algorithms and applications. As the anchor system of NQAC, which was established in 2024 by Illinois Governor JB Pritzker with IBM as a leading member, the new quantum computer will ultimately be moved to IQMP, a first-of-its-kind campus in Chicago currently being built to develop and scale quantum technology and microelectronics innovation.

“IBM is proud to deploy our first quantum computer of IQMP — an IBM Quantum System Two. Today, it can deliver scientifically useful results to organizations across the state of Illinois and beyond,” said Arvind Krishna, Chairman and CEO, IBM. “As IBM’s first quantum computer in Illinois, the system’s deployment marks a milestone for Illinois’ quantum community and builds on IBM’s partnerships across the state as we expand quantum research across academia and industries.”

“I want the next generation of breakthroughs to happen in Illinois and the jobs and opportunity that come with them to benefit the people of Illinois,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “With the unveiling of IBM’s Quantum System Two in Hyde Park, we are giving researchers and businesses the tool to turn big ideas into real-world solutions. With our growing partnership with IBM, we are building an industry that will give Illinoisans more career opportunities and build a future right here at home.”

“The presence of IBM’s first quantum computer in Illinois, the company’s most advanced system available, is a testament to what’s possible when partners across government, industry and academia work together toward a shared vision,” said Harley Johnson, CEO of the IQMP. “Today reflects the unique strength of Illinois’ quantum ecosystem. We’re thrilled to see IBM Quantum System Two at Hyde Park Labs while the Park is under construction, and we’re more energized than ever to welcome it to the IQMP, where it will anchor the National Quantum Algorithm Center and further establish Illinois as the global destination for quantum innovation.”

“The deployment of IBM’s Quantum System Two represents the culmination of a years-long partnership that brought together academia, government, and private industry to usher in a new generation of discovery. I am delighted that this machine is being unveiled here in Hyde Park, where our neighbors and community will have a view into the future,” said University of Chicago President Paul Alivisatos.

“IBM Quantum System Two brings another critical capability to Illinois’ growing quantum ecosystem and showcases the collaboration that makes our state such a draw,” said Illinois Economic Development Corporation President and CEO Christy George. “For companies developing quantum technologies and applications, access to advanced computing systems, leading researchers, and industry partners in one place is a powerful advantage. This investment strengthens Illinois’ position as a destination for companies looking to innovate, grow, and help shape the future of quantum computing.”

This new IBM Quantum System Two advances IBM’s mission to bring useful quantum computing to the world and extends the company’s commitment to advancing Illinois as a global epicenter for quantum innovation.

Since NQAC’s founding, IBM has helped grow the center into a hub within Chicago where industry leaders work side-by-side with IBM researchers to build quantum applications that can scale alongside technical progress in the field. This includes NQAC Grand Challenge participants Deloitte and AbbVie, who are working with IBM and Northwestern University to build quantum molecular simulation approaches for researchers engaging in drug discovery.

Other Grand Challenges participants working with IBM include EPRI and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U. of I.) to explore how quantum optimization algorithms could lead to more efficient power grids.

Additionally, research institutions and national labs such as Fermilab are working with IBM in Illinois to accelerate high-energy physics research with quantum and advance technologies for distributed quantum computing.

IBM is also teaming with leading universities such as the University of Chicago and U. of I. to push technological progress in quantum computing. For example, IBM and the University of Chicago recently demonstrated quantum advantage over leading classical methods using an approach with guaranteed correctness.

Now, IBM’s quantum computing technology is being brought physically into Chicago. Through NQAC, the new quantum computer will empower Illinois’ quantum community to develop new algorithms and applications that will translate to real-world impact. And it will serve as a catalyst for developing Illinois’ current and future quantum workforce. Earlier this year, IBM announced it would establish the FutureNow Chicago center at the IQMP in partnership with City Colleges of Chicago, to bring 750 jobs to the region across AI, cybersecurity, data science, quantum computing and other technologies.

With the arrival of IBM Quantum System Two, Chicago and the State of Illinois will be cemented as a leading destination for quantum innovation, industrialization, and workforce development.

More from HPCwire: ORNL, IBM, and AMD Launch New Co-Design Platform for Quantum Error Correction

About IBM

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

Source: IBM

The post IBM Brings Quantum System Two Online in Chicago appeared first on HPCwire.

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Integration of OQC’s quantum processing unit (QPU) with Horizon Quantum’s Triple Alpha enables pulse-level program execution, qubit characterization, and gate calibration within a unified programming environment.

SINGAPORE and LONDON, Nov. 9, 2026 — Horizon Quantum, a pioneer of software infrastructure for quantum applications, and OQC, a global leader in quantum computing, today announced the successful pulse-level integration of OQC’s QPU with Triple Alpha, Horizon Quantum’s integrated development environment, as part of an ongoing collaboration.

This integration provides access to the hardware control layer, enabling Triple Alpha users to perform pulse-level operations on the OQC’s 32-qubit device Toshiko, allowing them to build hardware characterization and gate calibration procedures within the same environment they use to develop and execute quantum applications.

Characterization is a key step in preparing quantum hardware for practical use. By measuring the physical properties of QPUs, characterization helps build an understanding of processor behavior and informs the calibration of quantum gates, ultimately improving computational fidelity. QPUs need a universal gate set to execute quantum programs, and each gate must be calibrated. This process involves sending pulses to the processor, measuring qubit responses, and adjusting the pulses to achieve the desired operations. Because quantum systems are highly sensitive, frequent recalibration is necessary.

The Horizon Quantum team used Triple Alpha’s pulse-level control capabilities to access OQC’s 32-qubit superconducting QPU and characterize parameters such as T1 and T2, which describe qubit relaxation and phase coherence, respectively. The team also used Triple Alpha to execute a high-level quantum program on Toshiko to perform gate calibration.

The results of the collaboration demonstrate how Triple Alpha’s pulse-level control can support hardware characterization and gate calibration directly on a QPU, with the potential to streamline workflows that might otherwise rely on separate tools.

Many quantum computing modalities, including superconducting systems, make use of precise electromagnetic pulses to control the QPU and drive logical operations. Programming at the pulse level requires specifying not only the precise schedule according to which pulses are transmitted to the QPU, but also specifying the physical properties of these pulses. Traditionally, this has required making use of distinct frameworks or programming languages designed specifically for pulse scheduling.

Triple Alpha allows developers to harness pulse-level control within the same programming languages that are used to develop quantum applications. This portable approach lets users write programs once and execute them across different control systems. As a result, pulse-level control enables users to create and deploy characterization and calibration routines and other programs which explore the physics of the QPU itself, and integrate them into their workflow via a simple web-based API.

The ongoing collaboration between Horizon Quantum and OQC reflects both companies’ commitment to unlocking broad quantum advantage and commercial applications for quantum computing.

“Exposing pulse-level control of OQC processors through Triple Alpha will enable users to interact with the physics of the quantum processors, rather than just the data they contain,” said Dr. Joe Fitzsimons, CEO of Horizon Quantum. “We expect this to enable the development and implementation of new techniques for characterization, noise mitigation and improved performance. We are grateful to OQC for working with us to make this integration possible.”

“Making quantum computing useful requires close integration between hardware and software,” said Simon Phillips, OQC’s Chief Product Officer. “By bringing OQC’s device’s pulse-level capabilities into Triple Alpha, we’re giving developers greater control to characterize qubits, calibrate gates, and build quantum programs within a single environment—a practical step towards simplifying quantum application development.”

About Horizon Quantum

Horizon Quantum (NASDAQ: HQ) is on a mission to unlock broad quantum advantage by building the software infrastructure that empowers developers to use quantum computing to solve the world’s toughest computational problems.

Founded in 2018 by Dr. Joe Fitzsimons, a leading researcher and former professor with more than two decades of experience in quantum computing, the company is bridging the gap between today’s quantum hardware and tomorrow’s applications through the creation of advanced software development tools. Its software infrastructure moves beyond the constraints of static circuit execution, making it possible for developers to express any conceivable quantum computation. Its integrated development environment, Triple Alpha, enables developers to write sophisticated, hardware-agnostic quantum programs at multiple levels of abstraction. Learn more at www.horizonquantum.com.

About OQC

OQC is the UK’s leading quantum computing company, building and deploying the world’s most accessible superconducting quantum computers. With its cloud-ready quantum systems, OQC enables customers across sectors, from finance to energy to national security, to explore quantum advantage today. OQC’s mission is to make quantum computing useful, accessible, and sovereign.

Source: Horizon Quantum

The post Horizon Quantum and OQC Enable Pulse-Level QPU Control in Triple Alpha appeared first on HPCwire.

A bright fireball was spotted in skies over North Carolina and Tennessee, zooming by at 47,000 mph before disintegrating above a city near Chattanooga, NASA said.

OpenIndiana is a rolling-release illumos distribution, but they do release snapshots twice a year to serve as a base for installations, which they call Hipster. The project’s just released OpenIndiana Hipster 2026.10, and it brings a number of welcome changes. First, there’s UEFI framebuffer support on the live image, which is automatically configured when loading up the image. Second, Firefox and Thunderbird versions have been bumped to 159.0, and a whole slew of development tools have been updated to newer versions as well.

This snapshot also brings QEMU 11.1.2 and VirtualBox 7.2.22, and a number of new applications have been added as well. In addition, SPARC build support has been improved to enable new and updated packages for Sun’s dead ISA as well.

You can download a fresh image, or update an existing installation through IPS.

Former president’s new book Promise Me America provides an inside look at January 6, Covid-19 response and more

Joe Biden will undertake only limited promotion of his upcoming White House memoir because of advancing cancer, the former president said in a social media post on Sunday night.

His new book, Promise Me America, which will be published on 17 November, is Biden’s account of a one-term presidency that began in 2021 in the shadow of the insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 by supporters of Donald Trump eager to overturn the outgoing Republican president’s defeat by his Democratic rival in the 2020 election.

Creator and lead developer of Chimera Linux, Nina “q66”, write about their efforts to get NVIDIA drivers to work properly on musl-based distributions.

As you may be aware, one of the limitations of musl-based distributions is that they will not function to their proper extent when used in computers with various NVIDIA graphics cards.

This is due to the proprietary nature of the driver, being built for glibc. I have been experimenting with trying to make this work, and this post is the summary of that effort.

↫ Nina “q66” on the Chimera blog

What follows is a deeply technical exploration of the problem, and the steps Nina q66 and the Chimera team are taking to try and fix it. With how popular and widespread NVIDIA hardware still is, this is a hugely important issue to try and address, and I’m grateful they’re trying to address it.

Nearly 200,000-square-foot research hub will connect Rice, industry and entrepreneurs to accelerate discovery, collaboration and commercialization

HOUSTON, Nov. 9, 2026 — Rice University broke ground on the Arc in the Ion District, a nearly 200,000-square-foot research, corporate innovation and office building designed to bring researchers, industry leaders, entrepreneurs, investors and top talent together to accelerate innovation and move ideas from discovery to real-world application.

Pictured L to R: Bobby Tudor, Rice alumnus, chairman of the Houston Energy Transition Initiative; David Sholl, executive vice president for research; Reginald DesRoches, president; Robert T. Ladd, chairman of the Board of Trustees; Kelly Fox, executive vice president for operations, finance and support; Amy Dittmar, provost; and Steven Kean, president and CEO, Greater Houston Partnership. (HKS is the project architect; renderings courtesy of Bogza)

Located in Houston’s Ion District powered by Rice, the Arc will feature seven floors of flexible, future-ready lab and office space for Rice and other organizations seeking proximity to leading research, highly skilled workers and Houston’s dynamic innovation ecosystem. Rice will be a lead tenant, occupying nearly 80,000 square feet, or about 40% of the building.

“The Arc is a significant investment in Rice’s future and in Houston’s continued growth as a center for innovation,” said Robert T. Ladd, chairman of the Rice Board of Trustees. “It will create new opportunities for industry leaders, researchers and students to work together on ideas with the potential for lasting impact.”

The Arc will share a plaza with the Ion building, extending the 12-block Ion District and placing researchers in close proximity to companies, startups, investors and entrepreneurs.

“The Arc will bring Rice’s extraordinary research and talent and Houston’s impactful innovation ecosystem into even closer connection with the industries and innovators working to solve some of the world’s most consequential challenges,” said Rice President Reginald DesRoches. “That constant exchange of ideas and expertise will help move discoveries more rapidly from the laboratory to real-world impact.”

Built for Advanced Research and Collaboration

The facility will offer flexible lab and office environments that can adapt to evolving research and business needs. Floor plates will range from 28,000 to 31,000 square feet, with 15-foot floor-to-floor heights and infrastructure capable of supporting advanced HVAC, high-capacity electrical and emergency power systems and core laboratory requirements.

The building will also include conference and meeting spaces, an amenity lounge, fitness center, outdoor plazas, underground parking, secure bike storage and on-site retail and dining — creating opportunities to build solutions in the lab, develop partnerships across the district and connect informally throughout the day. The project is designed to meet LEED Gold criteria and will incorporate smart-building and energy-saving features.

“We are creating more than a high-performance business and research building,” said Kelly Fox, Rice executive vice president for operations, finance and support. “The Arc is being designed as a destination where companies can access sophisticated infrastructure, connect with one another and build the relationships that lead to new ideas and opportunities.”

Work within the building will span areas including artificial intelligence and machine learning, data science, robotics, quantum science and engineering, energy and more.

The groundbreaking event comes on the heels of the university’s recent announcement of a transformational universitywide AI initiative to recruit 75 faculty members working across disciplines and expand AI-related courses and degrees. The initiative is accelerating Rice’s emergence as a global leader in advanced computing and responsible AI.

“The closer researchers are to the people confronting real-world problems, the more opportunities there are to identify important questions, test ideas and improve solutions,” said David Sholl, Rice executive vice president for research. “The Arc gives us an environment built specifically for that kind of sustained collaboration.”

AI Foundry to Call the Arc Home

Rice’s new AI Foundry will be located inside the Arc, where faculty AI experts will have offices and work with industry partners to tackle complex challenges, rapidly develop practical solutions and help organizations build long-term AI capabilities.

The effort will address a growing challenge: AI is advancing faster than many traditional industry innovation models can adapt. Instead of relying on lengthy, linear development cycles, the Foundry will bring Rice experts and industry partners together to identify high-value opportunities, design and test solutions, deploy them in real-world settings and continually refine them based on results.

The Foundry is envisioned to support organizations through AI readiness assessments, feasibility studies, proofs of concept, deployment-ready solutions, executive education and customized workforce training.

“The AI Foundry is exactly the kind of collaboration the Arc is designed to enable,” said Amy Dittmar, the Howard R. Hughes Provost and executive vice president for academic affairs. “By bringing Rice researchers together with industry partners in a shared environment, we can accelerate the movement of ideas from research into practical applications while helping organizations build the capabilities they need to succeed as AI continues to evolve.”

Responsible AI is a key catalyst in Momentous: Personalized Scale for Global Impact, Rice’s strategic plan, which also calls for strategic faculty growth and specifically identifies cross-disciplinary cluster hiring as a way to build depth and breadth in areas vital to the university’s future. The institution’s four AI cluster areas are foundational AI; two applied areas including AI for health and AI for energy, the environment and resiliency; and responsible AI: society and ethics.

Building on the Ion’s Momentum

The Arc will complement the Ion building, the namesake centerpiece of Houston’s innovation corridor and home to corporate and industry partners including Chevron, Microsoft, Aramco, ExxonMobil, Oxy, Shell, United, Transocean and Woodside Energy.

Co-working space in the Ion managed by Industrious is fully occupied, with more than 250 member companies. Activate, an organization that scientists and engineers become founders and move research toward commercialization, recently launched its third cohort of fellows. Twenty-five startups have participated in the program to date.

Companies based in the Ion, including Persona AI, CES Renewable, Greenflash Infrastructure and Cognite, also have experienced significant growth, reinforcing the building’s role as a home for emerging companies and technology-driven organizations. The Ion’s development also extends beyond offices and laboratories. MADabolic, a strength-training gym, recently opened in the building. Greentown Labs, Community Artists’ Collective and Pickle Lab are also among the organizations that call the district home.

Together, the Ion and the Arc are intended to create a more connected environment where researchers, entrepreneurs, established companies and the broader Houston community can work, meet and exchange ideas.

“Houston has an extraordinary concentration of industry expertise, capital, talent and entrepreneurial energy,” said Bobby Tudor, Rice alumnus and chairman of the Houston Energy Transition Initiative. “The Arc will help turn that concentration into action by creating more opportunities for breakthrough research to become technologies and companies.”

The project is being developed by Rice Real Estate Co. Construction is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2028. Preleasing opportunities are now open for companies and organizations interested in locating alongside Rice researchers and joining the broader Ion District ecosystem.

For more information, visit https://www.thearciondistrict.com.

About Rice University

Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Texas, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of architecture, business, continuing studies, engineering and computing, humanities and arts, music, natural sciences and social sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy and Kinder Institute for Urban Research. Internationally, the university maintains the Rice Global Paris Center, a hub for innovative collaboration, research and inspired teaching located in the heart of Paris, and Rice Global India in Bengaluru, India. With 4,793 undergraduates and 4,185 graduate students, Rice’s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is just under 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is ranked in the top 10 for best quality of life by the Princeton Review.

Source: Rice University

The post Rice University Breaks Ground on Arc Research Hub in Houston appeared first on HPCwire.

Troubled utility lobbies for deadline on part of the debt to be extended to March 2028

Thames Water has asked creditors for more time to pay back billions of pounds in debt, as the water company scrambles to keep itself afloat.

The UK’s largest water company said it had proposed an “interim” deal under which the deadline to pay off an unspecified portion of the £20bn of debt on its balance sheet would be extended from 2027 to March 2028.

Musk said Monday that the Cybertruck order rate "far exceeds" Tesla's production pace.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald Trump said Sunday that his administration’s immigration crackdown was “too tough” in some cases and acknowledged that deporting undocumented immigrants without criminal records hurt Republicans in the midterm elections.

In a CBS 60 Minutes interview, Trump defended removing people convicted of violent crimes and drug offenses but said longtime workers in hotels, landscaping and other service industries should potentially be allowed to remain in the country.

“Get the killers out. Get the rapists out,” Trump said, before adding that people who have lived in the United States for 10 or 15 years and held steady jobs could be offered “some kind of legal status.”

Trump explicitly conceded that his deportation policy had “helped and hurt” Republicans, saying many voters believed the administration went too far by removing people whose primary offense was entering the country illegally.

The comments represent a significant rhetorical shift after nearly two years of aggressive enforcement and roughly 1 million deportations. Polling before the election had shown declining public support for the administration’s approach.

Trump first floated a bipartisan immigration agreement on election night, when Republicans lost both chambers of Congress. He said Sunday he believes some incoming Democrats, including Sens.-elect James Talarico and Annie Andrews, could be open to negotiations.

The shift comes even as Trump has elevated hardline immigration adviser Stephen Miller to White House chief of staff.

Sources:

• Washington Examiner – MBFC Rating

The post Trump Says Deportation Policy Was ‘Too Tough,’ Floats Legal Status for Some Immigrants appeared first on News Facts Network.

Company says schools should control student AI use, but if they block its AI tools, they’ll lose access to search engine

Parents and teachers across the US are criticizing Google’s announcement that schools choosing to block AI tools could also lose access to Google Search.

Google announced last week a range of new AI tools for schools and classrooms, alongside options allowing teachers and administrators to restrict their use. The company said schools should have control over whether students use AI in the classroom, but that schools that choose to block Google’s AI tools will also lose access to its search engine.

CECE CUMMINS
Staff Reporter

Timothée Chalamet’s comments earlier this year about opera and ballet have continued to stir the pot across the internet and multiple communities. The words “no one cares about [opera and ballet] anymore” have struck a chord, and while many considered the statement to be dismissive and arrogant, it has brought much-needed attention to the broader and important conversation about the arts in today’s society.

While Chalamet may have caused an uproar of online criticism, the truth is that the arts are struggling and have been for a while.

In the current corporate-centric world that we live in, studying and working in the arts have been deemed less lucrative and opportunistic paths, thus making them “unworthy” of pursuing. Chalamet’s viral moment did nothing to dismantle that notion, and the statement coming from an actor, nonetheless, felt like salt in the wound. However, the responses from opera and ballet companies across the globe have resurfaced the long-lived discussion that the arts are vital to a working society and need to be treated as such.

Among the many respondents to Chalamet’s statement was pop singer Doja Cat, who made a TikTok saying that Chalamet “had the nerve” to disrespect these century-old art forms.

Although some feel this has elicited unnecessary reactions, Doja Cat was correct in saying that these art forms have been around for centuries. While they may not be as popular to the general public today, they were once quite mainstream.

Both opera and ballet originated in the 15th and 16th centuries, and were initially meant to entertain the royal and elite. Over the years, opera and ballet became staged productions, and while some of them are exactly the same as they were hundreds of years ago, the talented artists and powerful stories they tell transcend time and keep bringing diverse audiences back to the theaters.

These traditions have found their way into schools and community arts centers and continue to be a competitive area in higher education and the performance industry. So, if there are endless amounts of people trying to make their way into these artistic spaces, then why do they go so severely underfunded?

Cuts in federal funding for arts programs have had major impacts on theaters around the country. The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) funds numerous programs, and the prospect of the NEA being eliminated completely by the current administration has outraged the community.

In May of 2025, NPR reported that “Since its founding by Congress in 1965, the National Endowment for the Arts has awarded $5.5 billion in grants. It is the largest arts funder in the U.S. — yet one of the smallest federal agencies.”

Besides national and federal impacts on arts programs, there are ways that the arts community can be countering these challenges. In addition to fundraising and persistent arts advocacy, a mental shift within the community may be needed as well.

Blake Smith is the artistic director of the UD Lyric Theatre, Voice Area Coordinator and a professor at the university. For years, Smith has been trying to break the barrier between the opera world and commercial music, and is passionate about creating diverse musical experiences for his students.

“I refuse to accept that there’s anybody who’s not interested in the arts,” Smith said. “That person doesn’t exist. Everybody is interested in the arts.” 

Smith continues, “What we do wrong as an arts community is that we have convinced people that opera is somehow separate from their lives.”

Maybe the issue here is not just how the world treats opera and ballet, but rather how the communities present themselves to the world. 

While performing companies have been known to be some of the most inviting and accepting spaces for artistic and personal expression, perhaps there is still a quality of inaccessibility and elitism that opera and ballet project, thus drawing a line between those artistic expressions and others. 

While of course they are some of our oldest art forms, both communities might need to take a step in a direction that does not distinguish itself from, but rather accepts all forms of music and performance as sophisticated and vital forms of storytelling and expression.

As for the Timothée Chalamets of the world, and other well-known artists and storytellers, they too can make an effort to uplift and support all artistic expression, even if it is not their own. This just may be the underlying factor that, in addition to the current advocacy, will help the arts reach new audiences who have yet to experience the joy and fulfillment that they bring.

Cece Cummins is a staff reporter at The Review. Her opinions are her own and do not represent the majority opinion of The Review staff. She may be reached at cecehc@udel.edu.

EVs and home batteries are in Treasury’s crosshairs despite a better economic case for scaling back nuclear-powered submarines and diesel fuel rebates for miners

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As Jim Chalmers, the treasurer, comes under increasing pressure to fight inflation by slashing spending in the midyear budget update, the drumbeat is loudest for cuts in one specific area: green energy subsidies for households.

Receiving the most focus is the cheaper home batteries program, which from July last year has offered a taxpayer-backed 30% rebate to households and businesses.

Nov. 9, 2026 — SC26, Nov. 15-20 in Chicago, brings together industry leaders and the research and education (R&E) community to explore the latest advancements across high performance computing, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, advanced networking, and next-generation computing infrastructure. This year’s conference highlights the power of collaboration in advancing scientific discovery.

Internet2 Industry members will be on the SC26 exhibit floor showcasing products, services, and solutions to collaborate and support the diverse and evolving needs of the R&E community.

Visit the exhibitor booths to connect with experts and discover how Internet2 industry members are advancing HPC and research through collaboration.

• AWS, booth #4819: AWS invites you to explore live demos, technical sessions, and partner solutions showcasing advanced computing’s future. Discover how HPC is evolving with AI, and how AWS integrates HPC, AI for science, and quantum computing to tackle demanding workloads. Connect with solutions architects, account managers, and ask your cloud questions.
• Ciena, booth #5035: Building on its 20+ years of supporting SCinet, Ciena will provide high-capacity optical transport, switching, and routing solutions connecting the show floor to Seattle, McLean, and the StarLight International Exchange in Chicago. The infrastructure includes encrypted 400GE and 800GE circuits, an integrated C&L-band point-to-point Reconfigurable Optical Add/Drop Multiplexer (ROADM) solution, 8190 and 8192 platforms, and 2.4 Tb/s of bandwidth over the Ciena Environment for Network Innovation (CENI) testbed. Ciena’s booth will showcase innovations with research and industry collaborators highlighting quantum-secure communications powered by Waveserver, 800G coherent networking powered by WaveLogic 6 Nano (WL6n), cryogenic electron microscopy over Ciena FABRIC nodes, privacy-preserving federated learning, Kubernetes-native security, and Data Center Out-of-Band Management (DCOM).
• Cisco Systems, booth #3626: Secure AI Factory. Rack to fabric, at extreme density. Cisco brings high-performance networking, security, and observability together to help organizations get more from accelerated compute and operate complex AI and HPC environments with confidence. Visit Cisco to see the infrastructure behind AI and HPC at scale with hands-on demonstrations and technical conversations. Stop by the Cisco booth for a Pre-Gala Reception from 4:45 p.m. to 6:45 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 16, with food, beverages, and insightful conversations about the opportunities and challenges shaping AI and HPC infrastructure.
• Google Cloud, booth #3418: Visit Google Cloud to connect with their team to learn more about AI and HPC solutions.
• HPE, booth #3017: HPE will be showcasing its latest HPC, AI, and networking technologies. Along with the HPE booth, HPE is a Diamond-level contributor to SCinet and is supporting ESnet’s 40th anniversary. Together, these activities reflect HPE’s continued work with the R&E community and the high-performance networks that support research and scientific discovery.
• IonQ, booth #5328: Visit IonQ and connect with their team to learn more about its full-stack quantum platform and foundry.
• IQM, booth #1243: Visit IQM to see how quantum computing is moving from research into real-world applications. Experts from IQM will discuss the latest advances in superconducting quantum computers, quantum-HPC integration, and practical use cases. Stop by to meet the team, explore collaboration opportunities, see a life-size quantum computer, and learn how IQM is shaping the future of quantum technology.
• Microsoft, booth #3411: Visit Microsoft to connect with their team and learn more about their work in AI acceleration and HPC solutions.
• Nokia, booth #3426: R&E networks play an integral role in fostering global collaboration among research institutions. In the fast-paced AI-driven era, it is critical to stay ahead of the game. With Nokia’s high-performance data networks and advanced switching, IP routing, optical transport technologies, and data center fabric solutions, Nokia is committed to providing R&E institutions with the networks they need to collaborate and innovate. Stop by the Nokia booth for a chance to listen in on speaking sessions on Tuesday, Nov. 17, at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., and Wednesday, Nov. 18, at 11 a.m., 2 p.m., and 4 p.m.
• Omnibond, booth #3723: Visit Omnibond and connect with their team to learn more about their HPC and AI cyberinfrastructure solutions.
• Oracle, booth # 2511: Visit Oracle to explore Oracle Cloud Infrastructure for high-performance computing and AI. Meet with Oracle experts, see demonstrations, and join in-booth theater sessions to discuss your research computing and infrastructure priorities. Attendees can also connect with the Oracle team to explore how cloud infrastructure can support demanding scientific workloads and evolving AI initiatives.

Don’t forget to visit the Internet2 booth #3829 to meet the leadership team and staff. Learn how Internet2 supports and enables the R&E community to collaborate on mission-critical infrastructure and services that collectively advance research.

Source: Amber Walters, Internet2

The post Internet2 Industry Members Connecting Innovation and Collaboration at SC26 appeared first on HPCwire.

Building a coalition with religious parties will probably require ex-military chief Gadi Eisenkot to backtrack on pledges to enforce universal military conscription.

Deputy Editor Tim Carlin joins “Beyond the Headlines” to discuss all things related to midterm elections in Delaware. He shares a little about how Spotlight reporters spent their day on Tuesday, November 3, sorts through how the results may change things for Delawareans, and looks ahead to how Democrats may lead in the next two years.

The podcast was hosted by Director of Community Engagement David Stradley.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

We are recording this mid to late afternoon on Wednesday, November 4th. Talk me through your day yesterday, and the day of your fellow reporters. What were you all doing to try to cover election day for Delawareans?

Throughout the day yesterday, we had reporters in the field up and down the state from Claymont all the way down to kind of Selbyville, talking to voters after they cast their ballots, trying to really understand what was motivating the electorate in this year’s midterm elections.

From really the times that polls opened to later in the evening – I won’t say until polls closed, I think I was the last reporter out there and I called it at around 6:30 PM – just really trying to understand what voters were hoping to see from the candidates that they chose, and then why they chose some of those candidates.

After the poll reporting ended, a select group of reporters were working well into the night to monitor results and write a slew of stories that covered our statewide and federal delegation races, our state house, general assembly races, as well as some of the more down-ballot, county council races throughout the state.

We do have a full team of reporters, and they were all over the state. I’m a “Claymonster.” We had Brianna Hill going to the polls in Claymont. Nick Stonesifer down there in southern Delaware was going to some of the border communities. That’s a lot of reporter capital on this day. 

Why is it important to Spotlight Delaware to spend that time, to have the reporters out there at the polls talking to people, not just following the results? 

That’s a good question. I mean, I think that you don’t get the full picture of a story unless you are kind of boots on the ground, in the field to really tell it, right? 

There’s something unique about election day, in that there are a slate of set locations where people from all different walks of life will be convening to do their civic duty. To take part in kind of the most vocal, the most public check on government power – not to get too kind of Aaron Sorkin about everything. There’s just a beauty in being able to pull people aside and ask them what they think. 

It’s oftentimes much harder to do boots on the ground, we call it man on the street reporting. You literally have set locations where you know there are going to be people that are there voicing their opinions in one way or another. And some people are more willing to talk than others, but that’s okay. 

I think it would be a disservice to not do that type of reporting and to instead just wait for results to come in. If you don’t do the poll reporting, you don’t get the full picture of the story. It can guide you. You can hear how people are thinking about the candidates and the biggest issues. 

Otherwise, you’d be kind of sitting twiddling your thumbs waiting for results to come in, and if there are shocking wins or upsets, you may be wondering, “Well, how did this happen?” But poll reporting, ideally, can help you avoid some of that from happening. 

As you said, you were up until about 2:00 AM last night. You are a coffee drinker. 

I sure am. 

If somebody walked up to you this morning at your favorite coffee shop while the dust was still settling on election day and asked you, “Hey, Tim, you’re a reporter. What the heck happened last night?” How would you try to quantify what happened in Delaware in that 30-second line to get your latte? 

Well, they wouldn’t have seen me this morning because I was definitely sleeping in. 

But no, I think the biggest story of the night is that Democrats won a two-thirds supermajority in the legislature. Democrats had already held this two-thirds majority in the Senate, and they achieved the same margin in the House of Representatives. They did so by flipping three seats that were previously held by Republicans. A three-seat pickup for Democrats, albeit in a state that already does lean toward the Democratic Party, is definitely interesting.

The reason that this two-thirds majority is so important and why it’s such a key number is because having a two-thirds supermajority allows the Democratic Party to amend the state constitution without any Republican support. So before last night, in order to make changes to the state constitution, Democrats needed at least one Republican to break with their party and vote with them on those proposed constitutional changes.

But going forward, for at least the next two years, Democrats will be able to propose new amendments to the state constitution and at least start the process of enacting those amendments without a single Republican vote.

We will circle back and talk more about that. But I wanted to ask you, as someone whose job it is to closely follow elections, what surprised you the most of the results last night in Delaware? 

The biggest surprise to me was the Annie Norman win in the Camden-Wyoming area house district. 

So Annie Norman, a first time candidate, is a long time civil servant. Worked for the state government. She’s the former Delaware state librarian. She unseated a Republican representative, Lydon Yearick, by about 150 votes. So, a win, but a close race, in a district that I personally was not closely watching until I received a tip about mid-evening last night that that was probably a district to keep my eyes on, and that tip turned out to be correct.

I think that Annie Norman’s win was the most surprising because it was the only Democratic flip where a Democrat actually unseated a sitting Republican candidate. And I don’t think that it was a race that was on a lot of people’s minds as a potential seat that could be flipped or that would have been flipped.

Moral of the story there is don’t mess with librarians. 

Yeah. I guess so. I guess you’re right.

To the point of that being a race that people weren’t really watching, midway through yesterday, we put up a list of races [on the office white board], and were trying to get staff to guess who was going to win which races – and that race was not on there because no one thought that was going to be one that was going to maybe go to the Democrats.

Exactly. It didn’t make our internal leaderboard of races to even watch. Which, I guess, maybe that’s bad on us. But hey, it all worked out in the end.

As far as good on us goes, due to our advanced analytics, I guess, you were actually the one that broke it to Annie Norman that she was going to be the winner. Can you talk a little bit more about that? 

Yeah. So, I called Annie Norman after all of the votes were counted. There are 11 voting precincts in that house district and all the votes had been counted. There were no outstanding votes, and she was the winner.

Spotlight Delaware has our results tracker on our homepage, and those numbers are pulled directly from the Department of Elections website. It’s as accurate as you can get. 

I called Annie Norman and I introduced myself and I said, “Hi, I’m with Spotlight Delaware. I would love to chat with you about your win.” And she seemed a little surprised and said, “So, you’re projecting that I’m the winner?” I said, “Well, it’s not really a projection. The votes have been counted, but based on the numbers I’m looking at I’m pretty certain that you’ve won.”

She was at a watch party in Kent County, and I asked her if she wanted a few minutes to try and consult with members of her team. She thanked me for calling her and said she would call me back. And she ultimately did, once she had a moment to kind of absorb the information.

She said that she had received a few congratulatory texts, but she wasn’t certain. And even when I talked to her the second time, she kept saying, “I keep asking everyone, are you sure? Are you sure?” And I had to tell her, “Yes, we’re sure you have won this race.” 

So, a little bit of a funny moment last night. 

Spotlight Delaware’s reporting is really focused on the impact of public policy decisions on Delawareans. I want to get your take on some of the impacts of the results from last night. 

You’ve already referenced this supermajority that the Democrats now have in both the House and Senate in Delaware, and the fact that that is so important is because constitutional amendments can now get passed without any Republican say. 

What is that actually going to mean on the ground? Are there amendments that have already been introduced that need this vote or are we still kind of up in the air about what might this mean as far as amendments that might be coming towards Delaware? 

You know it’s hard to predict what new amendments could be introduced during the next general assembly. But there are a slew of outstanding amendments to the constitution that are halfway through the approval process.

Taking a bit of a step back, in order for Delaware to amend its constitution, the legislature needs to vote to approve the proposed constitutional change in two consecutive general assemblies. 

A general assembly is one of the two-year sessions of our state legislature. One of the biggest examples of an outstanding or in-process amendment, and there are a slew of them, I don’t have all of them in front of me, forgive me. But one of the biggest ones from the end of or earlier this year was the right to equal marriage for gay marriage and interracial marriage. The legislature passed that proposal I think on the last day of this year’s session, at the end of this year’s session. It kind of all blurs together 

So the first half of the approval process is done. But in order for that to pass, it required at least one Republican to vote with Democrats in order to enact that change.

Now, when that proposal, this equal marriage constitutional amendment is brought up for a second vote sometime within the next two years, Democrats will not need a single Republican vote in order to enshrine the right to gay marriage and the right to interracial marriage in the Delaware State Constitution.

So that’s just kind of one example of how this new two-thirds supermajority will make it easier for Democrats to push forward their own policy agenda in a very permanent way. It’s one thing to pass a law, but it’s another thing to enshrine a policy into the state constitution. 

But if Republicans or Republican voters are concerned that now that this supermajority exists that a whole slew of changes are coming at them right away, that actually is not the case because it has to be voted on twice.

There would need to be votes in the next assembly as well two years from now. 

Correct. It still takes at a minimum three years because you could introduce something during the second year of one general assembly, and then it must go through the second general assembly before it can become law.

I think the long-term fear for Republicans here is that now that Democrats have achieved a two-thirds supermajority, that they will hold onto that two-thirds supermajority in perpetuity, or at least for the next several years. 

But, I have not heard that there is kind of a slate of new constitutional amendments that are going to be introduced on January 1 of 2027.

Let’s shift to the county level and specifically Sussex County Council. The reporting team was looking closely at two contested races there that in many ways were going to serve as a referendum on land use policy and the building boom in southern Delaware. 

What ended up happening in those two races? 

Sussex County Council also saw one Democratic flip. Democratic challenger Jill Hicks, a longtime land preservation community advocate activist voice, beat out incumbent Councilman John Rieley to win the kind of Millsboro-Georgetown-still somewhat coastal Sussex area seat.

But, in the other Sussex County Council race that was on the ballot, Democrat Justine Cuccia did not win and was unsuccessful in her challenge to Doug Hudson, who is another longtime Republican. So a bit of a mixed bag there in Sussex, where you had one Democratic challenger win, another Democratic challenger lose.

The kind of balance of power, if you will, for those keeping track is three-two for Republicans. There are three Republicans on County Council and now two Democratic council members. 

What do you think the impact of that split result from last night will be on land use policy in Sussex County? 

I think that last night’s vote kind of follows the 2024 election where a slate of three new candidates all won and all kind of came in running on issues about growth and development as well. But I think that the tenor is a little bit different this time. 

I think that Jill Hicks was very focused on wanting to have her voice and have a say in the development of Sussex County’s next comprehensive plan, which is a ten-year document that guides growth and development for Sussex County.

I think that she really was hoping or is hoping to focus on creating a plan for growth and development in Sussex County that is more holistic, if you will, and less kind of piecemeal and moves away from fights over individual projects – I think about a lot of the drama surrounding Atlantic Fields, the kind of big commercial development off Route 24 last year – and really thinking about ways to integrate infrastructure improvements, mixed use developments, affordable housing issues as well, into the development conversation in Sussex County as it continues to grow kind of at warp speed almost.

Final impact question here. I wonder if you can just speak a little bit about your thoughts on the cumulative impact on rank and file Republican voters. Once again, no statewide offices went to Republicans. They had some unexpected flips of Republican House seats.

How can Republican voters make their voices heard as their party reach continues to shrink in Delaware? 

I think you kind of hit the nail on the head for what the Republican leadership is probably going to be asking themselves or, you know, if I was a Republican state party leader, it’s the question that I would be asking myself.

I don’t have a good answer for what it means. There were three flips in the House of Representatives last night. I think it will be interesting moving forward to see if Democrats retain those seats in 2028, or if this was kind of a trickle-down from national rebuke that we saw of Trump administration policies and the “blue tsunami” that we saw across the country.

For Republicans it kind of comes down to coalescing around a message. I think that at the statewide level we saw Republicans really struggled to find what their message was going to be as a party. I don’t know if I have any words of encouragement or advice for Republicans, but I think that it’s a dynamic that will be interesting to see how it continues to shape up in coming years. 

And for those rank and file Republican voters – you are still a Delawarean. You know, those are still your representatives. You can still make your voice heard. Show up at Leg Hall, go to committee hearings, talk.

Exactly. And I think that one thing that I also heard from some winners last night – I’m thinking about Greg Lindner down in the fourth House district near Long Neck and Oak Orchard, he was very clear that he plans to be a representative for the entire district and not just for those that voted him into office. 

I think that that’s really telling about where the state is. 

I also heard from Alonna Berry that she told me that throughout her day, her tour of the district yesterday, that she had heard from voters that they were really looking for political leaders to turn down the temperature, to put an end to the division. It’ll be interesting to see how some of that takes shape. 

A lot of these big issues that people said brought them out to the polls – the cost of living, housing costs, gas prices, those are things that affect everyone. These aren’t partisan issues.

Like you said, casting your vote, speaking at public meetings, going to legislative hall, these are all kind of levers that you can pull to engage civically in ways that let your elected officials know what you want from them.

So let’s end on this: this didn’t necessarily play out last night, it played out more in the primaries, this center left/far left divide in the Democratic Party. 

But in about three hours, as we record this, the House Democrats are going to be voting for who will be the speaker of the House. What are you looking for as that center left-far left divide perhaps plays out in that election?

Just a quick clarifying point that the meeting that’s taking place tonight – again, we’re speaking on Wednesday, November 4th – is the kind of an internal Democratic House caucus meeting where they will determine their majority leader, majority whip. 

And I believe how it works is they will vote on who they would like to nominate as their House Speaker, but the Speaker of the House does formally need to be approved by the entire House of Representatives. Though in years past, it’s my understanding that Republicans have just elected who is put forth as the nominee for that position. So just to be super crystal clear. 

But later tonight, Democrats will kind of have their first intraparty test of how they’re going to govern together. This meeting of choosing Democratic House leadership – in some ways it’s the first litmus test for this new kind of state of progressive lawmakers that were thrust into office after the primary election. 

I think it’ll be most interesting to see who ultimately comes out on top of that race. I think it’ll help maybe be a bit of a guide post or a guiding light for what we can expect for the next two years from the Democratic caucus. 

It’s been reported that the current House Speaker, Melissa Minor-Brown, is being challenged by a vocal progressive lawmaker, Medinah Wilson-Anton. In my own reporting, I’ve heard any number of possibilities for how that race could ultimately turn out. The votes are conducted via secret ballot internally within the Democratic Party, so it will be interesting to see how they ultimately shake out. It will help us understand how longtime, maybe more center left candidates and then some of these more progressive left candidates are going to get along with one another, are going to come together.

If they can kind of agree quickly and easily on a leadership team, that might say one thing. I’ve also heard the idea kind of bandied about that neither the current House Speaker Minor-Brown nor Representative Medinah Wilson-Anton will win out, and that somehow there will be a kind of third choice – a dark horse candidate – maybe put forward as a kind of consensus pick. I think that also will tell us that maybe there’s coalition building happening. 

Ultimately, I think just the political nerd in me is kind of interested to see how it shakes out, but I don’t want to make too many guesses. You know, this all could be a moot point and maybe it will be a moot point by the time this comes out. But it does speak more broadly to the possibility of these friction points between the more progressive Working Families  Party-backed candidates and the more longtime, establishment or center left candidates, if you will.

That was a big talking point during the primaries. The Working Families Party and progressive candidates, I want to say they unseated four or five Democratic incumbents. Again, forgive me for not having the exact number, but they’re sending a larger contingent to Dover than they have in years past.

So it will be interesting to see how these different factions that have not always gotten along in the past, now that the progressive faction has more numbers, how they will fare over the next two years. It’ll be interesting to see. 

Well, thank you for your insights, Tim, and for your continued reporting as our elected officials get to work for Delawareans.

Of course. Happy to be here and happy to do the work. 

The post ‘Beyond the Headlines’: Making sense of the midterm elections in Delaware appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

Democrats have taken control of Congress in a sweeping blue wave – now the real work begins

Welcome to a special edition of How We Win, a Guardian opinion series with leading thinkers, offering bold ideas for America’s political future. Sign up here to receive future editions in your inbox.

The US president sees Europeans as the mirror image of his ‘woke’ domestic foes. They should brace for further betrayal this winter

Europeans have greeted the blue wave that crashed down on Donald Trump and his Republican party with jubilation and relief. Jubilation, because Trump’s second presidential administration has been the most destructive in the history of the transatlantic relationship. His disdain for Europe and his evident delight in attacking its governments – in particular that of Ukraine – have been hard to swallow.

Relief, because the midterm election results confirm that Europeans are not unique in being appalled by Trump’s actions: a large majority of Americans are too. I was in Washington immediately after the vote, and the mood was one of excitement and a newfound confidence. And like many Americans, in these results Europeans see hope that US democracy can be saved, American foreign policy moderated and the transatlantic partnership revived.

Nathalie Tocci is a professor of practice at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Europe, and a senior fellow at Bocconi University’s Institute for European Policymaking

Tuesday was a victory for equity and inclusivity and a rejection of hate and fear. The biggest losers? Megadonors and Super Pacs

Rather than regurgitate the particular wins and losses that occurred on Tuesday, I thought it more useful, at this point, to look at the big picture and identify the largest overall winners and losers for the country as a whole.

Biggest winner: a diverse, equitable and inclusive America. It’s Donald Trump’s DEI nightmare. Georgia voters elected Keisha Lance Bottoms, the first Black female governor in the country. Texas chose Gina Hinojosa, the state’s first Latina governor and first Democratic governor in more than 30 years. California elected Xavier Becerra, the state’s first Latino governor. New Mexico chose Deb Haaland, the country’s first female Native American governor. Florida elected Byron Donalds, the first Black governor in Florida’s history (a Republican).

Black women and girls represent an outsized share of LA homicide victims – frustrated with police and legislators’ failures, they’re stepping up and speaking out to stop the violence

As a child, Tioni Theus was a ball of energy. After school she liked to play golf and dance. On weekends, she’d go to the movies and the mall with her older cousin. Driving back home at the end of the day to her family’s apartment in South Los Angeles, California, she’d ask: “What are we doing next?”

Everything changed when Tioni was 13. Her mother was hit by a car and critically injured, leaving her unable to take care of her daughter. While her mom recovered, Tioni lived with other family members. But the accident left Tioni angry, her older cousin Nafeesah Kincy said, and she struggled to understand that her life had permanently changed.

From Apple’s iPhone Duo to Samsung’s and Motorola’s foldables, we tested how today’s most popular book-style and flip phones hold up under pressure.

Dozens of migrants trying to reach the Greek island of Crete or Spain died on boats and scores were rescued as the steady stream of such migrants showed no signs of diminishing, authorities said.

Terrorism investigation was opened after attacker opened fire in a market square

AFP has a quick snap that Ukraine is to hold “separate” meetings with Europeans and Nato in Abu Dhabi. The Kremlin earlier insisted no other European nations would be involved. The US-mediated talks are expected to start tomorrow.

Canada is expanding ⁠its ⁠Russia-related sanctions ​to target ⁠another 38 ⁠entities ​and ‌24 ‌individuals, including actors ‌involved in ballistic missile ‌technology development and cyber ​activities, Reuters reports.

Futurism reports: While many scientists have long held that Mars is "geologically dead" inside, new research is adding to the growing body of evidence to the contrary. As detailed in a new paper published in the journal Science Advances, an international team of researchers examined data collected by the European and Russian ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter in 2021, which found that Mars is slowly belching hydrogen chloride gas. The researchers suggest this gas is being released from hot magma deep beneath its surface after discovering intriguing new fissures along a massive volcano, indicating the planet may be geologically active after all — or at least it was until relatively recently. The research could have significant implications for the possibility of ancient life on the Red Planet, hinting at a far warmer and thicker atmosphere — and an abundance of liquid water on its surface — in its not-too-distant past.... The team discovered new fissures measuring thousands of feet in length... suggesting ongoing activity underneath the surface. The researchers discovered discolorations along these fissures, concluding that they may be the result of seeping gases leaving mineral deposits similar to volcanic gas vents on Earth... The fissures could also be a perfect place to find evidence of past life on the Red Planet [argued Daniel Mège, the study's colead author and a Polish Academy of Sciences professor]... "If hydrothermal systems are active, they could contain the ingredients and energy needed for microorganisms to develop, and shield microorganisms from the hostile and changing environment above the surface."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

• Chicago QB throws career-high four interceptions

• Mayfield leads Tampa Bay rally that falls short

Caleb Williams and the Chicago Bears played one of their worst games of the season – and won.

That last part was the only thing that mattered to them Sunday night.

Browse all of our full episode transcripts from 2026 of "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan."

Old-school dishes still earn a place on the menu. These 17 retro recipes span casseroles, quiche, chowders, chicken, and classic sides, with familiar flavors for family dinners, brunches, and gatherings.The post 17 retro comfort food picks that never needed a…

The man was suspected of killing at least six people in the Polish city of Krakow and three of his family members at his home on Saturday.

Donald Trump said on Sunday that he was 'only kidding' when he announced a day earlier that he had offered the job of White House press secretary to Dana White, the chief executive of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC)

• Trump says he was ‘only kidding’ about making UFC’s Dana White next press secretary

With Thanksgiving groceries on the way, use up vegetables, cooked turkey, rice, pasta, and cheese in these 17 casseroles. The mix includes hearty dinners and familiar sides, so less food gets left behind.The post 17 casseroles to clear out the…

Election wins of Annie Andrews, Abdul El-Sayed and more who ran on healthcare issues are viewed as a sign of hope as Trump administration unravels US health policy

Public health leaders and politicians who made healthcare a central part of their platforms swept into office in the US midterm elections last week, setting the stage for national, state and local changes.

Voters, faced with an unprecedented rise in vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles, alongside devastating outbreaks of foodborne illnesses, chose national candidates who prioritized public health, healthcare affordability, reproductive health and the impeachment of Robert F Kennedy Jr, among other key issues.

Jensen Huang reportedly had close relationship ‌with Chinese businesswoman accused of passing information to ‌Beijing. Plus, tennis legend Billie Jean King tells all

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Good morning. Nvidia’s chief executive, Jensen Huang, has been placed under “independent investigation” by the tech company after reports emerged he had been “the target of a foreign intelligence effort”, namely a close relationship ‌with a Chinese businesswoman who is accused of passing information to ‌Beijing. Nvidia stock is down 5% in pre-market trading as a result.

The company’s board said in a statement that while it had no reason to believe that either US national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised, its inquiry would examine all available information. Republican lawmakers have expressed alarm, asking Huang to give the House foreign affairs and intelligence committees a closed-door briefing next week on Nvidia’s “security protocols against foreign adversary espionage”.

The Guardian will have extensive coverage of the Cop31 conference, including a daily live blog, and these explainers on what is at stake and what the talks can achieve, and who the key players are. Find all of our Cop31 coverage here.

The state prosecutor's office said that Aranza, a 7-year-old who was born in the United States, was hit in the head by police gunfire.

The pope’s words and actions in Buenos Aires have been interpreted by some as critiques of Argentine President Javier Milei.

An Israeli airline shipped thousands of pounds worth of parts for controversial “bunker-buster” bombs through John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York during the height of the Israeli–U.S. war against Iran, according to a new investigation by a left-wing research group.

Challenge Airlines, a cargo hauler based in Israel, made three flights this spring carrying the bomb casings for BLU-109s — a 2,000-pound munition that has been tied to numerous mass-casualty attacks on civilian neighborhoods in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, and Iran in recent years — according to open-source data obtained by the Movement Research Unit and reviewed by The Intercept.

The airline also made more than 100 shipments of guidance kits known as joint direct attack munitions, or JDAMs — which are used to convert so-called “dumb bombs” into GPS-guided munitions capable of striking a specific target — according to data shared with The Intercept. Many of the guidance kits were marked for use on the MK-84, another 2,000-pound bomb Israel used in its campaign to level Gaza, where fragments of JDAMs have repeatedly been found at the site of airstrikes.

The 2,000-pound bombs present a serious risk of civilian casualties, according to Josh Paul, a former State Department official who resigned at the outset of the war in Gaza to protest the Biden administration’s sale of weapons to Israel.

“If you look at historic U.S. use of 2,000-pound bombs, in the entire counter-ISIS campaign, there were just two that were dropped in the vicinity of the city of Mosul precisely because there is no way to use a 2,000-pound bomb discriminately in an urban environment,” Paul said, referring to an American air war during the final years of the Obama administration to end the Islamic State’s control of the Iraqi city of Mosul.

Israel hasn’t shared the United States’s reservations. The country made extensive use of the weapons to attack targets in Gaza and Lebanon, including a deadly strike on Gaza’s Jabaliya refugee camp that killed dozens of civilians, according to an analysis by the New York Times.

“If you look at a picture of Gaza right now, I would say Israel’s use of these weapons is functionally indistinguishable from indiscriminate bombing,” Paul said.

Challenge Airlines, and the Israeli military did not respond to request for comment.

“We work closely with all airport partners to ensure the safety of public, neighboring communities, and airport personnel,” said a spokesperson for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates JFK Airport. “The federal government and commercial airlines have primary responsibility as to what is allowed to be shipped on aircraft. We are pre-empted under federal law from interfering with these activities.”

While the shipments of JDAMs and bomb bodies for BLU-109s did not include active munitions, previous shipments of weapons through JFK have included explosives, including 14 tons of nitrocellulose bound for Israel in May 2025.

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The Intercept verified the data showing all three shipments of bunker-buster bomb bodies, and verified a portion of the data showing shipments of JDAM kits. Movement Research Unit, an investigative outlet whose prior work has uncovered shipments of drone tech to Israel and the transport of fighter jet parts by United Airlines onboard civilian passenger flights, shared the data on the condition that some specifics of its methods be withheld to prevent a crackdown on the availability of such data.

In response to the flow of weapons and materiel through JFK, the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America has been organizing a campaign to stop the flow of weapons to Israel through the airport.

“This is another example of a growing body of reporting that shows how civilian infrastructure is used for the genocide in Gaza,” said a DSA member named Henry, who asked to be identified without his last name in order prevent retaliation from his employer. “Civilian air travel should prioritize passengers, travelers, and the international community — not weapons — and no worker should be forced to serve the militarized supply chain.”

Tons of Pressure

Challenge Airlines shipped the bunker-buster bomb bodies on flights leaving JFK for Tel Aviv on March 12, April 30, and May 6, according to the data shared with The Intercept.

They shipped the guidance kits far more frequently, with 109 shipments leaving JFK for Tel Aviv between December 22, 2024, and June 7, 2026. Cargo documents indicate that most of the shipments were of JDAM kits designed for 2,000-pound MK-84 bombs but also included at least one shipment of kits for bunker-buster bombs.

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Congress Is Trying to Permanently Integrate U.S. and Israeli Defense Tech

In total, the airline shipped 175,884 pounds of BLU-109 casings and more than 5 million pounds of JDAM kits between December 22, 2024, and June 7, 2026, according to the data obtained by Movement Research Unit.

JFK Airport is the main export hub for such munitions flying by air to Israel, according to federal data: More than half of all Israel-bound air shipments of weapons that fit the government export category for bombs and missiles was sent abroad from JFK.

It was not immediately clear where the bunker buster and JDAM shipments originated, but sales of military hardware to Israel typically either come from deals between the Israeli and U.S. governments or direct commercial purchases under a special export license made by the Israeli military from private companies.

In the first two years of Israel’s war on Gaza, the U.S. spent $21.7 billion on military aid to Israel, according to a study by analyst William Hartung. That has included multiple shipments of 2,000-pound bombs like the BLU-109 and the MK-84, as well as JDAM kits to equip the weapons with GPS guidance.

The Biden administration in May 2024 halted the shipment of MK-84 2,000-pound bombs to Israel, citing the potential harm to civilians, but President Donald Trump resumed shipments of the heavy munitions within weeks of retaking the White House.

News of the shipments comes just over a month after the Associated Press revealed plans in the works for the U.S. to ink a vast $2.8 billion arms sale to Israel that would include thousands of 2,000-pound bombs.

The ongoing sale of such heavy weapons to Israel underscores the need for a federal solution, according to Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., who sponsored last year legislation dubbed the “Block the Bombs Act,” that would bar the U.S. from selling BLU-109s, JDAMs, and other munitions central to Israel’s war effort.

“It’s the only bill that prohibits these weapons transfers from happening, and the only bill that creates a comprehensive process of oversight,” Ramirez told The Intercept. “There’s been a big push, particularly in New York and around JFK, to block these transfers and it’s good that people are putting pressure locally, but ultimately it is Congress’s responsibility to make that happen.”

First introduced in May 2025, the bill has gathered more than 80 co-sponsors but has thus far languished in legislative limbo. With the House of Representatives soon to be under Democratic control, Ramirez said she plans to bring the bill to the floor next session.

The post Tons of “Bunker-Buster” Bomb Parts for Israel Go Through JFK Airport appeared first on The Intercept.

The same technical limits that prevent superintelligence make these systems dangerous. But we know how to regulate them

Many Silicon Valley leaders believe superintelligence is an imminent threat to society. The White House even published an accord about it. This isn’t enough.

Geoffrey Hinton, the godfather of AI, estimates the risk of human extinction is at least 10% within the next few decades. The Anthropic CEO, Dario Amodei, argued that unchecked AI “could outrun our ability to understand and control these systems”. In response, 1,300 leaders and employees from many leading AI companies signed a letter calling to “deliberately pace” development.

The new Congress cannot maintain the culture of political impunity that got us here in the first place

Fresh from an overwhelming victory, Democrats might quickly divide over what should be seen as unnecessary fracture.

Establishment figures demand a focus on “kitchen table issues”, while others insist that successful candidates did not just campaign on the cost of living, but managed to connect people’s daily struggles with the unprecedented corruption of the Trump administration.

Democrats should drag Sam Altman, Dario Amodei and Elon Musk before the world and make them explain just what it is they’re trying to do and why

The AI industry had a bad night last week.

The Democrats’ sweeping midterms victory is a rebuke of Donald Trump, the industry’s most powerful champion.

Winning candidates promised to cut costs, rein in corporations, curb billionaire power and improve the economy

Don’t worry, cash-strapped Americans, “relief is on the way”, the senator Chuck Schumer promised last week in a press conference celebrating Democrats’ massive midterms win.

Winning candidates promised to cut food and healthcare costs, rein in corporations ripping off consumers and workers, curb billionaire power and make the world’s biggest economy better serve the working class.

The Trump administration awarded a small biosecurity company nearly $40 million to screen for Ebola and other infectious diseases just months after a firm linked to President Donald Trump’s elder sons invested in its parent company, according to records and interviews.

The contracts, one to screen for Ebola in several U.S. airports and the other to respond to disease outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of Congo, are seven times the total value of government contracts the company had directly received before. 

The company, XpresTest, has years of experience monitoring for COVID-19 and other diseases for the government at U.S. airports. That makes its parent, XWELL, an unusual hybrid, selling both spa treatments and biosecurity services. Last year, it made most of its money from waxing salons and airport spas that offer manicures, massages and “chakra beds.” 

The contracts are the latest example of the president’s family benefiting financially from his administration’s actions. And the stakes for these deals are particularly high. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, an Ebola outbreak has killed more than 5,000 people this year, and the federal government is trying to stop the pathogen from coming to the U.S.

XpresTest has never worked with Ebola or provided biosecurity services abroad, let alone in the kind of volatile locales it’s now expected to work in. The CEO of its parent company, Ezra Ernst, said XpresTest won both contracts in a competitive bidding process and pointed to its years of experience doing screening for COVID-19 and other pathogens at American airports. But even he acknowledged that working internationally is “a new thing for us” and expressed uncertainty about being able to complete the work in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“This is a risky contract. I’m not sure we can do it,” Ernst said in an interview. 

Jeremy Konyndyk, who helped oversee the U.S. government’s response to a 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, said there are some parallels between monitoring for COVID-19 and Ebola at airports, but he said it’s concerning that the government would award such a lucrative contract to a company that has no experience in Africa. 

“There are countless organizations in the world that have decades of experience doing this work,” Konyndyk said. “I have to wonder why the hell they’re not going with someone who has actually done this before.”

Under previous administrations, the U.S. government addressed international disease outbreaks in partnership with the World Health Organization. But Trump withdrew from the group last year, dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, which handled much of this work, and dramatically scaled back the global presence of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

At the same time, the State Department launched the America First Global Health Strategy, which calls for the U.S. to use aid to foreign countries to “promote American companies and American innovations abroad.” This March, the State Department announced it would be giving up to $4.5 billion in funding for various purposes, including responding to infectious disease outbreaks. 

Under that program, XPresTest was awarded $20 million. Other funding went to better-known global aid nonprofits, including International Medical Corps, Save the Children and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, whose awards ranged from $25 million to $35 million.

The CDC also awarded XPresTest a contract, for $18.8 million.

In response to questions from ProPublica about XPresTest and its parent company, XWELL, the State Department noted the firm’s previous work screening for diseases at airports under a contract with the CDC and said its own award was made “through a competitive process that builds on this successful model.”

The CDC did not respond to a request for comment.

A spokesperson for the president’s sons Donald Jr. and Eric Trump said that they are “merely passive, minority investors in a fund that invested in this company,” and that they had no “involvement in or knowledge regarding the negotiation or procurement of any of its contracts, including any government contracts.” 

“Both are private citizens who hold no government positions, broken no laws and who have every right to pursue lawful business and investment opportunities,” the spokesperson said.

The Trump sons’ connection to XWELL was established in February, when a fund called American Ventures invested in the company. The fund was launched by Dominari Holdings, a small financial firm with offices inside Trump Tower in New York. The leaders of Dominari hired the Trump sons as advisers after their father was elected to a second term and granted them a stake of more than 10% in Dominari.

Anthony Hayes, the CEO of Dominari Holdings, told ProPublica, “We have never seen or even heard of Don or Eric using their family name to influence the granting of a government contract.”

American Ventures has taken stakes in other companies that have benefited from Trump administration actions. The Florida-based drone company Powerus got a contract worth up to $90 million from the U.S. Air Force five months after the Trumps’ involvement was announced. Through American Ventures, Donald Jr. and Eric Trump also are acquiring a stake in a critical minerals group that has received U.S. government support to mine for tungsten in Kazakhstan. The Trumps have described themselves as passive investors who do not advocate for the companies they have stakes in before their father’s government.  

XWELL was founded in 2006 as a line of airport-based spas that provided massages and facials. During the pandemic, the company, then known as XpresSpa Group, got $5.5 million from the CDC to offer travelers COVID-19 testing. It also collected waste from airplane toilets to check for new viral strains. It has done similar work for at least one other company that has received government contracts. 

In January, XWELL announced that it was hiring a former senior adviser at the CDC who created and led the agency’s traveler surveillance program. The firm said the move was part of a plan to expand “its traveler-based pathogen surveillance capabilities to support international travel hubs and large-scale mass gathering events worldwide.”

The following month, American Ventures invested about $30 million in XWELL. The company had lost money the previous year. “We were so cash-strapped, close to bankrupt,” its CEO said. 

Its valuation before the cash infusion was just $3 million. In exchange, American Ventures got a roughly 10% stake in the company to start, with an option to essentially print and sell millions of shares in the future. 

Why American Ventures would invest so much in XWELL is unclear. In other cases, when the fund has invested in similar tiny publicly traded companies, some of those firms have moved into hot new sectors and drawn publicity for their connection to the Trumps, then Dominari has offloaded shares. In this case, there is no indication it has sold any of its stake yet.

In June, XpresTest was awarded the CDC contract for what a public notice about the grant said was “Ebola entry screening services.”

XpresTest then received the State Department grant for “rapid, effective, and coordinated outbreak response” to infectious disease threats in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which began in September, according to a government database. The company is also planning to work in Kenya and Morocco. XWELL’s website shows it is now hiring specialists in Ebola response training and biosecurity in the U.S.

In July, after XpresTest was awarded the CDC contract, XWELL announced plans to sell the subsidiary along with its line of spas to a private facial spa company. Ernst, the CEO, said the government contracts played a role in the $13 million sale price and will follow XpresTest to the new company. 

That means XWELL, the company that the Trump-linked investment fund took a stake in, will benefit financially from the Trump administration contracts if the sale closes, even though it won’t be involved in doing the work for the government. 

XWELL said in a public filing that the sale was part of an effort “to pursue a new direction in the national security sector.” Ernst said he didn’t know the exact plans but thought the parent company might be looking to work with the Department of Defense.

XWELL did not announce either of XpresTest’s biosecurity contracts, which recently became public in federal contracting disclosures. Public companies like XWELL are required to report so-called material events, developments that could affect their share price, such as a large government contract. XWELL has publicized previous work for the federal government, including a $2 million, eight-week pilot program for testing COVID-19 in 2021.

When asked why his firm didn’t announce the awards, Ernst gave various reasons, including the possibility that XPresTest might wind up not being able to do the work — either because of its own inexperience working internationally or because the Trump administration might suddenly shift priorities and only pay for a fraction of the contract. 

“None of these contracts are guaranteed,” he said.

The biosecurity awards add to the questions about the Trump family’s enrichment during his second term. The Trump family’s business activities extend far beyond Dominari and American Ventures. The president himself has made more than $1 billion from cryptocurrency ventures whose value has ballooned as his administration has taken a friendly stance to the industry. And other companies backed by his sons Donald Jr. and Eric have received billions of dollars in federal deals. Earlier this year, ProPublica reported that the Pentagon granted a small North Carolina startup linked to Trump Jr. a $620 million loan after a top aide to the president intervened on the company’s behalf. The Pentagon denied preferential treatment, and a spokesperson for Trump Jr. said he played no role.

The Trumps’ financial ties to government deals and actions are expected to be a primary focus of Congress in the coming months after Democrats won control of both the Senate and the House in last week’s midterm elections. 

“When the government is corrupted for personal gain over the public interest, Americans lose trust and taxpayer dollars are wasted,” Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, wrote in a letter to colleagues last week.

The post Firm Linked to Trump’s Sons Got Nearly $40 Million in Federal Contracts to Screen for Ebola and Other Diseases appeared first on ProPublica.

Soon after Democrats retook the U.S. Senate, comedian Jon Stewart stirred the pot on his weekly podcast, criticizing Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who could become his party’s majority leader in the coming weeks.

“One of the first things you need to do is remove that system of seniority from Democratic politics,” Stewart said Nov. 5, two days after the election. “It is a b——- system, and it needs to go. … (People are) already like, ‘Chuck Schumer deserves a lot of credit for putting together this (victory). … Enough. Chuck Schumer fought tooth and nail against half of these f—— people, and even if he didn’t, he does not understand the urgency of the moment and what the future demands.”

Stewart’s remark echoes the complaints of some progressives, who have criticized Schumer’s support for Rep. Haley Stevens over the more progressive Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan’s Senate primary race. El-Sayed won the general election, days after Stevens endorsed his opponent, Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers. Schumer also faces discontent from some Democrats who want a new generation of leadership; Schumer is 75 and has been in Congress since 1981.

Even when accounting for comedic hyperbole, Stewart ignores that Schumer actively recruited at least five of the winning Democratic Senate candidates — enough to supply the margin that flipped the chamber blue. Schumer did support an alternative candidate before the primary in three states, but he closed ranks once the nomination was settled.

In a Nov. 6 interview with The New York Times’ The Daily podcast, Schumer said he didn’t expect to face any challenge in the election for Senate majority leader. Schumer said: “Our caucus is focused on moving forward. Everyone’s very happy with what we all did.”

Michael Cohen, a Democratic commentator and MS NOW columnist, said he gives “most credit (for the Democrats flipping the Senate) to Donald Trump, but I would put Schumer second. He recruited these candidates.”

Representatives for Stewart did not respond to our inquiry. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which is the political arm of Senate Democrats aligned with Schumer, did not respond, either.

Which candidates did Schumer support from the beginning?

For the North Carolina race, Schumer recruited former Gov. Roy Cooper, who ended up winning by 20 points. As long ago as April 2025, Axios reported that senior Democrats were describing Cooper as a potential “coup” for Schumer, given his popularity during his two terms as governor. 

In Ohio, Schumer also recruited former U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown. In his interview with The Daily, Schumer said he flew to Columbus twice to persuade Brown to run. Brown won by five points.

Schumer also worked to get candidates in Alaska and Iowa. Schumer recruited former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola in Alaska and state Rep. Josh Turek in Iowa, The Washington Post reported in January 2026. Peltola was narrowly ahead as of Nov. 6, while Turek won his race by five points. Schumer and his allies pushed for Turek in his successful primary bid instead of a primary rival, state Sen. Zach Wahls.

In Mississippi, Schumer was an early backer of Scott Colom, who is leading in a close and uncalled Senate race. Schumer told The Daily that he invited Colom and his father to his Brooklyn home before he was in the race and urged Colom to run. In a Nov. 5 appearance on MS NOW, Schumer said he had been trying to recruit a candidate in Mississippi for three or four years. Colom initially declined, but Schumer said he told Colom “we’ll back” him.

In several cases, we were unable to confirm that Schumer recruited a winning Democratic candidate, but we also found no evidence that he backed anyone else or stood in the way of their efforts. That’s the case for U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas in New Hampshire, pediatrician Annie Andrews in South Carolina, state Rep. James Talarico in Texas and pastor Adam Hamilton in Kansas. Another winning Democrat, Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia, was an incumbent and always had Schumer’s support.

“He’s just a very effective recruiter,” Cohen said of Schumer.

Where did Schumer bet on the wrong horse?

The biggest irritant for many Democratic voters was Schumer’s role in Michigan’s primary. There, Schumer backed Stevens over El-Sayed. El-Sayed won the primary by less than a percentage point, then went on to win the general election by eight points. 

In Minnesota, the primary featured U.S. Rep. Angie Craig, another moderate, and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan. Schumer did not endorse either candidate, but other establishment Democrats openly or tacitly supported Craig. Flanagan won the primary and had unified party support going into the general election.

Maine was more complicated. Schumer recruited Gov. Janet Mills to challenge Republican Sen. Susan Collins, but Mills struggled and suspended her campaign before the primary and oyster farmer Graham Platner won the nomination. Platner withdrew after sexual assault allegations. After Troy Jackson won the nomination at a party convention, Schumer endorsed him. 

Schumer’s aligned campaign committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, supported all the Democratic nominees, regardless of whether they received Schumer’s initial backing.

What do these candidates think of Schumer?

In public, even some of the candidates Schumer backed have not returned the favor when asked whether they would support him as Senate majority leader.

Among the winners who have said on the record that they will not support him for leader are Hamilton of Kansas, Andrews of South Carolina, Jackson of Maine, El-Sayed of Michigan and Flanagan of Minnesota. The winners in three other states — Talarico of Texas, Pappas of New Hampshire and Turek of Iowa — have declined to affirm their support for him when asked.

The majority leader is not chosen by seniority, as Stewart described. The leader is chosen by a secret ballot of the Senate Democratic Caucus. So there’s nothing stopping Democratic senators from choosing someone else.

After the 1994 elections, Senate Democrats elected Tom Daschle of South Dakota minority leader when he was in the bottom half of the caucus’ seniority, said Steven Smith, an Arizona State University political scientist.

There’s also no way of knowing how a senator voted unless they volunteer that information publicly.

“Seniority was never how party leaders are chosen, and it’s been several decades since it was how committee chairs were elevated,” said Donald Wolfensberger, a former senior congressional aide. “Today, party caucuses are king.”

Schumer has been caucus leader since 2017 in both the minority and the majority.

Our ruling

Stewart said Schumer “fought tooth and nail against half of these” Democrats who won Senate races.

Schumer spearheaded the recruitment of winning candidates in North Carolina, Ohio and Iowa, plus candidates who are leading uncalled races in Alaska and Mississippi. Together, these races would be enough to flip the Senate Democratic.

Schumer initially backed different candidates in Michigan and Maine, but he and his allies supported the eventual nominees. Progressives also disliked his decision not to affirmatively back Flanagan in Minnesota. That’s three candidates that he didn’t back, out of 12 competitive races Democrats won or may win against Republicans or in open seats.

The statement contains an element of truth, because of Schumer’s initial opposition or reluctance to support a few Democrats who eventually won seats. But by ignoring his more numerous efforts to recruit at least five other winning candidates, Stewart gives a different impression. We rate it Mostly False.

“For both of them, it was a place of rest and renewal,” the farm’s longtime manager said of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter.

The new Democratic Congress is expected to try to roll back key changes the president made to federal education policy, including the dismantling of the Education Department.

Violent storms lash northern Iraq and parts of Iran, while Portugal faces strong winds and Japan braces for further snowfall

Deadly flash floods hit northern Iraq on Saturday as severe thunderstorms swept across the region, including in neighbouring Iran. The city of Erbil, in Iraq, was particularly badly hit, with extensive damage to homes and businesses. Streets were inundated as torrential rain fell over a short period.

Rainfall exceeded forecasts, with an estimated 80mm falling in the city, compared with expectations of 30mm. Two people were killed in the floods.

What is the right size for an AI factory? Around the world, the answer is increasingly counted in gigawatts. Europe is asking a complementary question: what does each watt deliver?

The answer is already taking shape. Thirteen AI Factories have been selected by EuroHPC since December 2024, six have signed procurement contracts, and consortia are preparing AI GigaFactories.  Alongside the global push for scale, Europe is building on three pillars: an integrated AI environment, sustainability and sovereignty.

An integrated AI environment: power only counts if it delivers

Peak figures flatter. Compute outpaces memory and storage bandwidth, networks take more time as clusters grow, and Amdahl’s law still caps the gains: with 5% sequential code, no number of processors beats 20 times faster. AI sharpens all three limits.

The answer starts with hybridisation, the right processor for each task, from GPUs and AI accelerators to CPUs as conductors and soon, quantum processors. The building blocks are mature; the opportunity now is industrial-grade integration, with software that orchestrates the mix, so users don’t have to.

It also means tying infrastructure investment to measurable objectives, from accelerating scientific discovery and researching brain and medical diseases to enabling digital twins. Performance matters, but so does utilisation, efficiency and return on investment.

Image supplied by Bull

That is where the market is heading, from racks of accelerators to integrated environments. Bull builds its systems on that principle, and its Centre of Excellence in Performance Programming helps customers turn peak figures into results.

Sustainability: more value per watt

Efficiency is a design criterion, not a constraint. An AI rack can exceed 120 kW, against around ten for a typical enterprise one, and the grid is the new frontier: you can order a machine tomorrow and still not know when you can switch it on. At scale, an AI factory draws 100 MW or more, and a Gigafactory a gigawatt, while energy access and infrastructure lead times in the United States can reach 3 to 7 years for major generation assets. Over its lifetime, a machine’s energy bill can rival its hardware amortisation cost. The goal shifts from more compute to more value per watt, tracked alongside accuracy, latency and cost.

The biggest gain may sit above the hardware. Software that makes applications hardware-aware, for instance by matching each workload to the right resources, can cut cost and energy significantly. Regulation is also taking shape: Germany’s Energy Efficiency Act requires a PUE of 1.2 for new data centres, and European industry must get ready. Bull has more than ten years of experience building infrastructures that reach a PUE below 1.2, notably with its patented warm-water Direct Liquid Cooling, which removes heat at the source. On LUMI-AI, due in Finland in the second half of 2027, the excess heat will feed Kajaani’s district heating network, with the site running entirely on renewable electricity

Yet PUE and Green500 describe the building and the machine, not the science they enable. Bull’s answer is Science Usage Efficiency (SUE), a metric presented at the Teratec Forum In Paris by Bruno Lecointe, SVP HPC, AI & Quantum Business Line: useful science per unit of energy, such as simulated nanoseconds per megajoule in molecular dynamics or simulated years per megajoule in climate modelling. Read like an energy label, SUE would reward software progress as much as hardware and give buyers a common target to write into tenders.

Image supplied by Bull

Sovereignty: a European model that travels

Sovereignty is a global aspiration, not just a European one. Every country wants control over its digital future; from the data it generates to the technologies its critical infrastructure relies on. That takes more than local hardware: it takes secure, trusted systems that can be operated independently over the long term. Europe’s opportunity is a model others can adopt while empowering local ecosystems.

And the momentum is real. LUMI-AI, shared by six countries and backed by a €387.8 million contract, is expected to deliver ten times the AI capacity of today’s LUMI. Alice Recoque, France’s first exascale system, shows the European supply chain maturing, pairing Bull’s BXI interconnect with SiPearl’s Rhea2 processor from 2027, alongside AMD accelerators.

The outlook

AI factories require expertise and ecosystems; GigaFactories will bring scale. Europe’s strength will not come from computing power alone, but from combining performance, governance, sustainability and sovereignty in a repeatable model of trusted, secure and economically sustainable environments. In a market where energy is the bottleneck, that may matter more than the hardware, and the next chapter is only getting interesting.

Planning an AI factory? Meet Bull’s experts at SC26, booth #2011, and find out how to turn peak figures into results. For more info or to book a meeting visit bull.com

The post Europe’s AI Factories Are Switching On – And Raw Power Won’t Decide the Race appeared first on HPCwire.

Lawsuit filed last year against IBM, Atos and Leonardo after delays to passengers blamed on the system, first reported in the FT

The EU has filed a lawsuit against IBM and two other companies involved in its troubled border-management system, an internal document has revealed.

The bloc’s IT agency, EU-Lisa, filed a case last year against IBM, the French IT company Atos and Italian defence contractor Leonardo, the three members of a consortium to implement and maintain the EU’s entry/exit system, which was launched in October 2025.

To accelerate scientific discovery without spending weeks configuring infrastructure or hand-tuning legacy code, high-performance computing (HPC) teams need purpose-built hardware and AI-driven software engineering working together. As the supercomputing community gathers for SC26, computational scientists face two converging priorities: lowering the operational barrier to running massive-scale simulations in the cloud, and integrating generative AI directly into the scientific computing lifecycle.

Historically, moving HPC workloads to the cloud meant navigating steep operational hurdles—translating decades-old Fortran or C++ codebases for modern accelerators, assembling complex storage hierarchies, and hand-tuning job schedulers. At the same time, effectively leveraging AI in science requires moving beyond basic chatbots to systems that modernize, orchestrate, and optimize complex numerical workloads.

At Google Cloud, we are tackling both challenges by pairing Google Antigravity and AlphaEvolve with our purpose-built supercomputing infrastructure, compressing months of engineering overhead into hours so you can go straight from hypothesis to insight.

Reduce operational friction with Google Antigravity

Scientists want to focus on physics, climate modeling, or molecular dynamics—not corralling infrastructure, diagnosing node failures, or refactoring serial code.

Google Antigravity is an agentic development platform that removes friction across the entire scientific software lifecycle. Built around a single co-optimized agent harness, Antigravity meets engineering teams across every surface they already use: the 2.0 Desktop App, CLI, IDE extensions, and SDK. Your project context, domain skills, and governance follow you everywhere through a transparent loop that you review and steer via inspectable artifacts:

• Legacy code modernization: Antigravity automates the refactoring, vectorization, and accelerator offloading of serial C, C++, or Fortran kernels for modern parallel hardware.
• Natural language cluster orchestration: Instead of error-prone manual setup, Antigravity translates natural language requests into validated, production-ready HPC clusters with complex storage and specialized interconnects.
• Automated runtime recovery: When long-running jobs hit hardware faults or memory bottlenecks, Antigravity diagnoses root causes and orchestrates recovery workflows to keep simulations on track.

Push algorithmic boundaries with AlphaEvolve

Once your cluster is running and your code is modernized, maximizing hardware efficiency is the next frontier. Developed by Google DeepMind and available on Google Cloud, AlphaEvolve is a Gemini-powered evolutionary coding agent that autonomously discovers, designs, and optimizes complex algorithms. By combining LLMs with evolutionary computation, AlphaEvolve iteratively writes, tests, and refines code against measurable performance metrics.

Across Google, AlphaEvolve has already recovered roughly 0.7% of global compute resources via a custom Borg scheduling heuristic, optimized Gemini matrix multiplication and FlashAttention kernels, improved Verilog arithmetic circuits for TPUs, and advanced state-of-the-art solutions to decades-old mathematical problems like the kissing number problem.

In HPC pipelines, AlphaEvolve tackles bottlenecks that hand-tuned heuristics struggle to solve:

• Kernel and compute optimization: Wrap compute-intensive routines (such as matrix multiplications, tensor operations, or Fast Fourier Transforms) in # EVOLVE-BLOCK-START and # EVOLVE-BLOCK-END tags, and AlphaEvolve tests permutations to discover faster hardware-specific execution paths.
• Simulation and solver tuning: In fields including computational fluid dynamics (CFD), molecular dynamics, and semiconductor simulation, AlphaEvolve discovers more efficient convergence rules for numerical solvers and smarter criteria for dynamic grid refinement.
• Cluster scheduling heuristics: AlphaEvolve evolves custom scheduling policies for heterogeneous nodes to minimize job turnaround time and reduce idle gaps.

Paired with high-throughput accelerators and JAX integration on Google Cloud, AlphaEvolve runs millions of evaluation cycles asynchronously over hours—simultaneously optimizing speed, memory footprint, and energy usage across search spaces that would take human teams months to explore.

Purpose-built infrastructure live at SC26

Agentic workflows and evolutionary algorithms perform best on infrastructure built for tightly coupled simulations and large-scale AI:

• New H4D VM shapes: Purpose-built H4D instances powered by Titanium offload and Cloud RDMA conquer traditional MPI scaling bottlenecks now available in a new high-memory 3 TB shape.
• Next-generation accelerators: TPU 8t and 8i systems alongside GPU-accelerated VMs deliver high-density compute for traditional simulations and hybrid AI-HPC workloads.
• High-throughput parallel storage: Google Cloud Managed Lustre provides sub-millisecond latency and massive parallel I/O throughput without the overhead of manually managing parallel file systems.

Joining us at SC26? Stop by the Google Cloud booth to experience this stack in action:

• See TPU 8t and 8i up close: Inspect our latest TPU hardware in person and explore how TPUs accelerate scientific and technical computing workflows.
• Test-drive the HPC Prompt Playground: Go hands-on and see how natural language prompts spin up functional HPC environments and running jobs in minutes.
• Explore demos: Watch demos showcasing Antigravity agentic workflows, prompt-to-simulation HPC tools, AlphaEvolve physics optimization, and 10 TB/s Managed Lustre storage, alongside interactive TPU kiosks and a hands-on agentic lab.
• Learn at our in-booth theater: Hear directly from Google Cloud engineers, researchers, and our partner community on real-world breakthroughs in AI-powered HPC.
• Connect at our SC26 events: Attend the Google Cloud Advanced Computing Community workshop and reception, and RSVP for our joint NVIDIA reception.

Visit goo.gle/sc26 for the full schedule and event registration.

The post Accelerating Time to Insight: AI-Powered Development and Purpose-Built HPC on Google Cloud appeared first on HPCwire.

Okinawa's governor says he is going to request a review of a pact seen as giving the U.S. military preferential treatment in Japan, following a murder allegedly committed by an American Marine​.

Drivers warned to take care as ‘perfect’ weather conditions for mist affect areas of England, Wales and Northern Ireland

• In pictures: Fog envelops large parts of England and Wales

Thick fog will shroud much of the southern half of England, the eastern half of Wales and most of Northern Ireland throughout the early part of the week, forecasters have said, as commuters are told to expect delays.

There was disruption to flights at Heathrow airport on Monday, while an incident involving 30 vehicles closed a major road in Kent on Saturday evening.

The Polish man suspected of killing six people in a shooting attack in Krakow, described as an "act of terror" by senior officials, has died of his injuries.

The post Ohio Voters Reject Data Center Expansion Across 21 Ballot Measures appeared first on News Facts Network.

Ever since it crashed on to PC and consoles in the late 90s, GTA has been tearing up the game-making rulebook. We explore how its cultural references, rebel spirit and sprawling sense of freedom make it a definitive work of art

In the 00s, when the Grand Theft Auto developer Rockstar Games revealed a new project, video game writers from all over the UK would make the journey to the company’s office in London. They would be ushered one by one into a darkened room to sit facing an enormous TV. There would be a dish of sweets on a low bench in front of them but, in the reverential hush that descended, it was never entirely clear if it was acceptable to eat them.

After a few moments, the screen would come to life. Rockstar would sometimes begin its presentation not with footage from its new game, but clips from classic movies. This is the context of what we are making, Rockstar was saying, and that is where we belong.

What happens when Elon Musk and a bunch of tech bros try to rip up the US government? Journalist Michael Lewis – the acclaimed author of Moneyball and of The Big Short – talks to Nosheen Iqbal about his new book Blockers, which tells the story of the civil servants who stood up to Musk’s ‘department of government efficiency’ as it tried to dismantle the US government

Trump has long relied on sports to project strength and fuel his culture wars. But after a crushing midterm defeat, even his UFC ally cannot distract from the political fallout

In the wake of being destroyed in the midterm elections, it was only a matter of time before Donald Trump did something outrageous in an attempt to misdirect public attention away from his catastrophic losses. Before the midterms, published reports suggested the possibility of apocalypse, global or domestic – a nuclear strike on Iran, martial law to suspend last week’s, the invalidation of individual races, such as in Alaska – but Trump opted for banality over Armageddon, offering his vacant press secretary opening to Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White.

It was absurd, and widely posited that a confused Trump had erroneously conflated UFC’s White with the Dana White who made more sense, former Heritage Foundation staffer Dana White. Because the public reactions made him look even more lost, confirming the sentiments of recklessness and disorder, utter chaos and buffoonery that led to the Republicans being routed in the midterm elections, the president said his offer to White was all a joke. As a disciple of the notorious McCarthyite Roy Cohn, who taught Trump one of his main political pillars – never apologize or admit wrongdoing. Ever. – Trump should not, of course, be taken at his word.

One morning in July 2025, I was the lone spectator in Judge Frank Palumbo’s courtroom in Philadelphia, watching prosecutors and public defenders haggle over the fates of defendants.

Palumbo paused the proceedings to talk to a lawyer he’d appointed to help a prisoner who had ineptly challenged his conviction. The lawyer profusely thanked the judge for the job. Then, Palumbo offered a bit of guidance: “I think I know where this is going to go. I don’t want to make it overly complicated. It’s real simple.” 

The judge said he’d pass along a brief that a different lawyer had filed arguing that there was no merit to the man’s claims in a related case. “I’m not saying plagiarize,” the judge said.

The attorney told the judge he got the message. “So it’s called a Finley letter,” he said, using the common legal term for that no-merit brief, in which an attorney can argue against the client’s claims and ask to withdraw from the case. 

“It’s looking like it’s going to be a Finley dismissal,” the judge agreed after a bit more discussion, “but every option is open.” 

I’ve spent years covering criminal justice in Pennsylvania, including the post-conviction system that allows people to argue that their lawyer had mishandled their case or to raise newly discovered evidence. That day, I left the courtroom wondering how what I’d observed squared with the state’s promise of effective legal representation in cases like this. 

That question sent me on a yearlong reporting odyssey, during which I read hundreds of Finley letters, tracked down court financial records from all 67 Pennsylvania counties, interviewed dozens of lawyers and analyzed thousands of court dockets. What I wanted to know was: Why has it become the norm for Pennsylvania’s lawyers to argue against their own clients? And who is this system serving?

I found that lax rules, low pay and heavy caseloads have compromised legal representation under the state’s Post Conviction Relief Act. Over the past year, I’ve reported on how lawyers, working under fee structures banned in other states, fell years behind on their cases. I spoke with prisoners who’d waited nearly a decade for their lawyers to file anything and others whose lawyers filed Finley letters despite compelling evidence of innocence. I also looked at three years’ worth of invoices and found that, three quarters of the time, Philly lawyers who wrote Finley letters had never spoken with their clients, contacted the trial lawyer or obtained available police files before deciding their claims had no merit. 

None of those seemingly basic steps, I was surprised to learn, is required under the law. In fact, dozens of lawyers I spoke to expressed sharply divided opinions about the extent of their obligations to these clients. 

But court-appointed lawyers are not working unsupervised. Judges are largely in charge of appointing them to cases, and those same judges are supposed to make sure they’re doing a timely and diligent job. 

I noticed that judges continued to assign lawyers more cases even after appeals courts flagged serious issues with their work. And when it came to Finley letters, judges accepted almost all of them over the three years of cases I reviewed, despite the lawyers’ minimal investigative efforts. Some of the letters they approved contained obvious factual errors or even named the wrong client.

Last fall, after Palumbo gave the lawyer a copy of a Finley letter, the lawyer followed the template. His no-merit brief said that his client’s claim could not be considered because he’d missed his filing deadline. The bulk of the document was, in fact, identical to the other lawyer’s brief. 

Palumbo, who didn’t respond to my requests for comment, accepted the Finley letter anyway, let the lawyer drop the client and dismissed the claim.

Who Judges Judges?

I thought a fair way to evaluate judges would be to look at the rulings of the Pennsylvania’s Superior Court, the state’s appeals court that hears hundreds of challenges to judges’ rulings on post-conviction matters each year.

And boy, did the Superior Court have thoughts on how judges are handling post-conviction cases. 

In one withering opinion, a judge bemoaned an “embarrassing saga” of deficient lawyering that a Berks County judge had tolerated. Another derided a Philly judge and the five attorneys she’d appointed who all missed appeals deadlines, writing, “As Hall of Fame manager Casey Stengel said of the hapless 1962 New York Mets, ‘Can’t anybody here play this game?’”

After logging hundreds of rebukes laid out in Superior Court opinions by hand, I asked some colleagues with data skills to help identify as many of these cases as possible across the last 14 years, the time frame for which opinions were reliably posted online.

We found that the appeals court flagged more than 250 cases in which judges didn’t intervene as lawyers provided what the court labeled ineffective representation: “sandbagging” a client at a hearing, stonewalling a petitioner who’d mailed two dozen letters to the lawyer’s office or filing boilerplate appeals so vague that they doomed their clients’ cases. In hundreds more cases, judges failed to appoint a lawyer at all, held hearings where petitioners went unrepresented or allowed a lawyer to drop a case, leaving the client stranded on appeal. More than 200 times, they oversaw lawyers who abandoned clients, tanking their appeals or stalling their cases for years.

“Judges are in a terrific position to be able to prevent these kinds of injustices,” said Marissa Boyers Bluestine, a longtime post-conviction lawyer who now works at the University of Pennsylvania’s law school.

The scathing reversals aside, the Superior Court affirms about 80% of lower-court rulings. That’s expected given the strict deadlines and complicated rules about how appeals must be filed. The appeals court is also required to defer to the lower court’s factual decisions. And when it reverses due to an error, the recourse is generally limited to ordering a do-over or, on rare occasions, instructing the lower court to explore sanctions. In one opinion, the court resorted to using boldface to call out an egregious failure: “The PCRA court did nothing in this case for 20 years.” Then, it told the lower court to try again.

Judges do have the authority — and, in fact, an obligation under state rules — to make disciplinary referrals. Because complaints are confidential, there is no way to know how often they do so. But only six lawyers in the last decade have been publicly sanctioned for work on court-appointed post-conviction cases.

Judicial discipline is even rarer. No lower-court judge in at least a decade has been publicly disciplined for mishandling a post-trial matter. Judges who, according to the Superior Court, exhibited biases, imposed vindictive sentences or improperly denied recusal requests remained on the bench. 

Even after the Superior Court raised alarms, more than 100 cases ricocheted between the appeals court and county judges two, three, four or more times, as judges repeated errors or reappointed lawyers to cases they’d already mishandled. 

One such case played out after Jefferson County’s only judge, John Foradora, sentenced a woman to up to 22 years in prison for passing two narcotics pills in prison. Her lawyer failed to object to or appeal the lengthy sentence. After she filed a PCRA, the Superior Court found that her lawyers’ inaction enabled the  “unduly harsh and clearly unreasonable” punishment to stand. But each time the Superior Court reversed, Foradora again imposed a lengthy term. After three such reversals, the woman wound up serving more than eight years. Foradora said through a court spokesperson that he was unable to comment.

Shannon McDonald, an attorney in the Philly suburbs, said that “some judges don’t consider PCRA a priority.” 

She described waiting as a petition languished on a Delaware County judge’s desk for two years, until her client had finished his sentence and been released from prison. Then, the judge finally ruled, dismissing the claim.

The Finley Problem

Like lawyers, judges I’ve spoken with seem to be divided on their obligations, especially when it comes to the no-merit letters known as Finley letters. The state Supreme Court says that when a lawyer submits a Finley letter, the judge needs to conduct a review of the merits of the case.

Attorney Rob Perkins, who leads the nonprofit Allegheny Lawyers Initiative for Justice, told me that while he’s encountered some judges who take post-conviction matters seriously, others seem to view them as a nuisance. He said several lawyers told him that they were afraid that if they litigated cases too aggressively, judges would withhold future assignments. The no-merit letter becomes the simplest path forward: “When a judge is handed a no-merit letter that sounds good, I think their inclination is to accept that the attorney did their job.”

Superior Court opinions reflect this pattern as well. In my review, I found hundreds of cases overruling lower-court judges who accepted flawed Finley letters. The appeals court noted that lawyers claimed, incorrectly, that their clients had missed filing deadlines, rejected legitimate claims as meritless or failed to notice that their clients were serving illegal sentences.

In dozens of cases, judges approved defective Finley letters that did not fulfill basic rules, such as including a notification to the client or addressing all the claims the client wanted to raise.

Several judges told me that Finley letters serve an important purpose, in shutting down frivolous challenges that waste resources. 

“Not all [claims] have merit,” Judge John J. Mead of Erie said. “A lot of them initially you could look at and make a determination [as to] whether or not it’s going to require a hearing.” 

I’ve noticed that the system makes accepting Finley letters the simplest choice for judges. A judge who rejects a Finley letter must either find a new lawyer willing to take the case, or force the same lawyer to pursue a matter they previously deemed meritless. 

Judges who take that path risk pitting a lawyer against his own client, the Superior Court wrote in one recent case, finding the judge’s actions resulted in the denial of a man’s right to counsel. His lawyer, forced to handle a hearing after writing a Finley letter, treated it “more like a cross-examination of a witness that [he] does not believe than a direct examination of his client.”

Jon Auritt, who retired after more than 50 years as a lawyer in Delaware County, said that these failures stem from a common cause: Instead of working independently, lawyers are beholden to the local judges who appoint them. 

Even if judges are not as explicit as Palumbo was with their instructions, Auritt said, their message is often clear: “The judges are never incentivized to appoint a lawyer who might earnestly find a reason to overturn the conviction.”

The post Lawyers in This State Are Allowed to Ghost Clients for Years. Why Don’t More Judges Stop Them? appeared first on ProPublica.

Why Should Delaware Care?
Local school boards are the governing authority for school districts. Their responsibilities include deciding whether to hold a referendum and hiring or firing superintendents. Last month, a Laurel staff member, whose son is a member of the Laurel Board of Education, was named as one of two employees to take over superintendent responsibilities. 

Last month, Laurel school board members narrowly voted to approve an undisclosed set of recommendations that they had discussed during a private meeting.  

The next day, the Laurel School District announced that its superintendent would be replaced by two school district individuals — Susan Whaley and Ashley Giska . 

Whaley’s son, Zach Whaley, is the Laurel Board of Education member who had motioned the board to vote in favor of the undisclosed recommendations.  

In the days since, one other member of the five-person school board has spoken out, telling Spotlight Delaware he voted against the motion because he knew his colleague’s mother would be one of the two people to assume superintendent responsibilities. 

“To me, anything that [Zach Whaley] votes on in the district is going to be a conflict of interest,” said the board member, Brent Nichols.

In response to questions of a conflict, Board President Jana Pugh said in a statement that “there is no conflict of interest” because the Oct. 21 vote only approved then-Superintendent Shawn Larrimore’s leave. 

“The practice of Mr. Giska and Mrs. Whaley assuming the duties and responsibilities of the superintendent is something that has occurred before, years before Zach Whaley was elected to the board,” Pugh said in the statement.

Zach Whaley declined to comment for this story. 

The vote occurred during a public meeting that did not state on its agenda that the school board members were considering parting ways with the superintendent — meaning the public would have had little notice that such a decision was being made.

Instead, a relevant line on the agenda stated only that there would be “Possible Action on Executive Session Items.” It then listed, “personnel.”

An executive session is a private meeting that a public body is allowed to hold for certain legally allowed purposes. 

Prior to the vote during the public meeting, Pugh read aloud, “Attachment E: administrative … to approve the personnel report with recommendations as discussed in executive session.” 

Zach Whaley then made a motion for the board to approve the recommended personnel report. The board approved the motion in a 3-2 vote, with Whaley voting in favor. 

None of the board members who voted in favor of the recommendation announced that Zach Whaley’s mother, Susan Whaley, and Ahsley Giska would be taking over superintendent duties, despite it being a “practice” that Pugh said occurred before Zach Whaley was elected in May.

Nichols and Sabrina Isler were the only two board members to vote against the measure.

In its subsequent social media post on Oct. 22, the board said Larrimore would be “concluding his duties” as superintendent on Oct. 30 “following discussions with the Laurel School District Board of Education.”

The social media post did not provide reasoning for Larrimore’s departure from the Laurel School District after 13 years of service.

However, his service was interrupted in 2024 when the school board announced that he would be “away from his duties as superintendent for an indefinite amount of time,” following a charge of driving under the influence, as first reported by The News Journal. 

Larrimore returned to his position in July 2024. 

After he returned, the board released a statement expressing confidence in his ability to lead the district “with integrity and commitment to the safety and well-being of our students, staff, and community.”

Larrimore did not respond to Spotlight Delaware’s request for comment for this story. 

A question of ethics

Two weeks after the vote, Delaware Public Integrity Commission Chairman Ron Chaney told Spotlight Delaware in a statement that the state’s Code of Conduct “generally” requires public officials to recuse themselves “from any matter in which they or a close relative, such as a parent, have a personal or financial interest.” 

Susan Whaley and Giska will not receive additional compensation for the extra responsibilities, Pugh said.

Richard Briffault, a professor at Columbia Law School who studies government ethics, said he recognizes that school boards in small towns, such as Laurel, may have limited numbers of people involved in various activities, and so “it may be hard to avoid family members.”

Still, Briffault said participation in any employment decision that impacts a close relative gives “the appearance of corruption.” 

“There’s the fact that the decision-maker may benefit personally from this financially, or only through ties of affection, and because of these close ties, the public official may not necessarily be motivated by what’s in the best interest of the community,” he said. 

Although Giska and Susan Whaley have not received pay increases, Briffault said Zach Whaley should recuse himself from any potential future cases when the board considers the superintendent’s salary, benefits or contract renewals, if they were to impact his mother.

The post Laurel school board member promotes parent to assume superintendent duties appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

Kevin Warsh’s September calendar didn't reflect a conversation the president said he had with the Federal Reserve chair about how to vote at a meeting.

The Cold War barrier was opened by a misinformed spokesman and a Stasi officer who wished to avoid bloodshed.

Outdated practices and codes are resulting in a costly recommendation.

Why Should Delaware Care?
In recent years, Wilmington has seen its share of debates over monuments in public spaces. Last month, a statue of President James A. Garfield, which stood in the city’s north side for over a century, was shipped to Ohio at a cost of nearly $21,600 in public dollars. Now, some elected officials and community leaders are arguing the move took place with little public notice.

A backlash has erupted over last month’s removal of a statue of President James A. Garfield from a small plaza in Wilmington, with several state lawmakers and transparency advocates demanding it be returned from its new location in small-town Ohio. 

City Councilman Nathan Field has also called for a formal investigation into the move. Field met with Mayor John Carney’s office on Friday to discuss the statue and said he is working on a plan to return the monument to a new location in the city. 

In response to the calls to bring back the statue, City Councilwoman Shané Darby — who pushed for its relocation as part of a revitalization of Concord Avenue — said, “No, it’s gone. Not coming back.” 

Last month, a contracting crew took down the statue from its perch along Concord Avenue and 23rd Street, where it had stood for 110 years. Mayor John Carney had authorized the removal.

City officials then shipped the monument to Hiram, Ohio, where Garfield attended college and later served as principal for the school. 

Wilmington taxpayers covered the $21,595 cost to remove, crate and ship the statue, according to a city invoice.

The move marked the end of the statue’s 130-year residence in Wilmington. It also came in the wake of two separate controversies over the removal of statues in the city in recent years. Those included the Christopher Columbus statue, whose proposed reinstallation drew support and backlash from city residents back in February, and the Ceaser Rodney statue, which some lawmakers called for the return of after it was removed during the 2020 George Floyd protests. The Rodney statue is currently on display in Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C., as part of the America 250 anniversary.

Is Garfield significant to Wilmington?

On Memorial Day in 1895, a group of Wilmington civic leaders and Union veterans — called the Garfield Monument Association — first dedicated the statue at a location along Delaware Avenue, near downtown Wilmington. 

By 1918, the city moved it north to Concord Avenue at a location that became known as the Garfield Triangle. In recent years, the statue sat mostly unnoticed in the small neighborhood plaza.  

In February, Darby led the push to relocate the statue as part of her larger plan to revitalize the area, according to a blog post she wrote on the matter. 

“This was never simply about removing a statue. It was about addressing neighborhood concerns, investing in a neglected public space, and ensuring that residents have a voice in shaping their own community,” she wrote.

In the post, Darby asserted that Garfield had no “significant documented personal connection to Wilmington or Delaware,” while Hiram, Ohio, has a direct historical tie to the former president.

Darby said she had been in conversation with community members and local artists for the past two years about revitalizing the area, which has been ridden with loitering, drug solicitation, and poor conditions overall, she said. She noted that residents were surveyed about the statue and did not express a strong connection to the monument. 

Darby said the goal is to create an art space and to rename the triangle.

Carney’s deputy chief of staff, Daniel Walker, told Spotlight Delaware that conversations with Darby about relocating the statue began in February.

The News Journal first revealed the monument’s relocation in a story last month.  

In response, Field sent a letter to Carney’s office last month calling for an investigation into the matter and demanding answers. Among his questions was who authorized the statue’s relocation and the use of public money to do it.

“Monuments are not stop signs or park benches. They are collective property owned by the people of Wilmington and a key part of the city’s cultural history,” Field said in a statement to Spotlight Delaware.   

Following Field’s letter, a group of state lawmakers and other Delaware residents also formally called for answers from the mayor about what they said was a lack of input from residents and council members. 

They argued the relocation was done in a “highly non-transparent process.” They also named their advocacy group, The President Garfield Citizens’ Monument Association, after the organization that existed a century earlier

John Flaherty, a prominent transparency advocate who organized the association’s letter, said he learned of the move from The News Journal report and from Field’s letter to Carney.

Signing onto the letter were five elected officials, including Field, Wilmington City Councilman James Spadola, and Republican state lawmakers, Rep. Jeff Hilovsky, Sen. Eric Buckson and Sen. Gerald Hocker.

Other signers include former-state Rep. Gerald Brady; New Castle County Recorder of Deeds Mike Kozikowski; Delaware Justice of the Peace James Hanby Sr.; and Wilmington Land Bank board member Rick Gessner. 

Civic groups also signed the petition, including the Southwest Civic Association, the Delaware Society Sons of the American Revolution, and the Brandywine Village Civic Association.

In an interview, Flaherty said the statue merits continued reverence in Wilmington. He also said he hoped it was just a mistake by the mayor’s office to move it “out of the city where this monument association spent a lot of time, energy, and money collecting funds, making citizens aware of President Garfield.”

In response to the backlash, Walker said the mayor had the authority to remove and relocate the statue. But he reiterated that the process began with Darby, her conversations with residents and her “desire to reimagine what happens at that location.”

The $21,595 spent to de-install and transport the statue was split between Carney’s office and Darby, who used $7,000 of her discretionary council funds. Hiram, Ohio, covered the costs to reinstall the statue.

“Relocating the statue allows for President Garfield’s statue to move from a place of obscurity and to be celebrated and recognized in a location with deep connections to his work and efforts,” Walker said. 

Asked if the statue would be returned to the city, officials from Carney’s office acknowledged they had been in contact with Field, but asserted that next steps should be directed to Darby, who they said initiated the statue’s removal. 

Asked about council members not being involved in the process, Darby said that nothing in the city code required other council members to be a part of the conversation.

She also emphasized that the statue would not be brought back to Wilmington. 

Could the statue return?

In her blog post, Darby noted that the relocation of the Garfield statue was not done in secret.

In addition to a dialogue with the neighbors, she said her office researched potential areas in the city and contacted historical and museum institutions in Delaware to see if there was an alternative location for the monument. 

Darby did not respond to a Friday request for comment about the institutions she contacted.

In an emailed statement, officials from the Delaware Historical Society said they were unaware of the statue’s relocation.

“The Delaware Historical Society did not advise or facilitate the transfer of the statue in any way and was not aware of the move until the [News Journal] article was published,” officials wrote.

Other civically engaged residents also said they had no clue of its removal. 

John L. Pittas, treasurer and former president of the Second District Neighborhood Planning Council, said he and two other council directors met with Darby at the statue in May 2021 to talk about its future, but said there was not an appetite to move it at the time.

He learned of the removal the morning it happened, when a colleague texted him photos of crews packing up the statue, he said.

“There was no consultation by either the city or Councilwoman Darby,” said Pittas, who is also president of the Brandywine Village Civic Association and signed the association’s letter. The planning council’s office sits across the street from the statue’s former Concord Avenue site.

Pittas also argued that the statue held significance in Wilmington, pointing to the president’s Civil War service and support for civil rights for freed slaves. 

“Those folks back then in Wilmington thought that he was worthy of recognition, and that’s why the statue was put up,” he said.

Pittas said he has a proposed spot if the statue returns: the small triangle across from the Central YMCA on Delaware Avenue, near where it originally stood. 

Who was Garfield?

Garfield served as the 20th president of the United States. He was born in 1831 in northeast Ohio. He worked his way through the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute in Hiram, and later returned to lead the school, now Hiram College.

When the Civil War broke out, Garfield served in the Union Army. He served for two years, leading troops at the Battle of Shiloh and the Battle of Chickamunga, and retired a major general. He pursued politics at the insistence of President Abraham Lincoln, who believed more Union leaders were needed in Congress.

Garfield was elected to Congress while still serving and spent 17 years in the U.S. House of Representatives for Ohio, where he opposed slavery and backed voting rights for Black Americans.

Garfield won the presidency in 1880, but served only about 200 days. He died in 1881 after he was shot by Charles Guiteau, a disappointed office seeker, at a Washington, D.C., train station.

After his death, communities nationwide, including Ohio, D.C., California, and Wilmington, raised money for memorials in his honor.

Hiram Mayor Ann Haynam confirmed that she was introduced to the idea of relocating the statue earlier this year. 

“This has been a community fundraising effort to honor one of our local historical figures. Hiram is one of four sites on the Garfield Trail where he went to school, preached, became the President equivalent of what is now Hiram College, led area residents as a Civil War general, and became a congressman,” she said.

The city plans to honor the Garfield statue at their dedication ceremony on Nov. 15.

The post Backlash erupts over Wilmington’s removal of Garfield statue; councilman calls for investigation appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

Chital Mehta, the Middletown author of the recently published novel “Have You Seen Romit?”, came across the news article in 2018: an IT worker and bachelor in Bengaluru, the most populous city in South India, had been reported missing.

Mehta didn’t know the man, and there was nothing particularly striking about the case. It was, from a certain point of view, relatively pedestrian. After all, more than half a million people went missing in the country of 1.4 billion in 2024 alone, according to India’s National Crime Records Bureau. 

Still, the man haunted Mehta, keeping her awake as she wondered what had happened to him and how his family was grappling with his disappearance. 

So, she began writing about a fictional family whose 25-year-old adopted son, Romit, suddenly vanishes. The family first responds by talking to those who last saw Romit, reporting him missing and posting on social media. But as time passes by, they begin to move on. 

Well, everyone except for his mother, Usha, who runs away on her daughter’s wedding night to search for Romit in the treacherous forests of southern India where he went missing. 

“I wrote a couple of drafts with the father who went to look for Romit, because I grew up seeing men making the decisions in my household, or in society in general,” Mehta said. 

But Usha took up residence in Mehta’s mind and refused to be ignored.

The character — a woman who has followed the lead of her controlling husband her entire marriage — was inspired by many women Mehta has met. Mehta was intrigued by the familial friction that might emerge from such a woman stepping out of the roles she’s played her entire life.

Letters to Usha

Mehta grew up in Tiruppur in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. She read so voraciously that her parents begged her to slow down. There were only so many books they could offer her, since they didn’t live close to a library.

Mehta realized she wanted to be an author in her 20s and began writing drafts of young adult novels and short stories. She set her eyes on higher education as soon as she immigrated to the United States. 

Mehta wrote her first draft of “Have You Met Romit?” in 2018 as the thesis for her MFA in Creative Writing from Lindenwood University in Missouri.

“I was kind of steering away from cultural points because I kept telling myself that I want to write for the white audience, for an American audience. I wanted to make it easy for them,” Mehta said. “(My MFA professor) said, ‘You have to stop doing that. Just focus on telling a good story.’”

After her thesis, Mehta kept tinkering with the novel’s point of view and ending, repeatedly starting from scratch, scrapping characters and reworking the climax. 

What kept Mehta going through her six-year writing process and countless revisions was her fixation on understanding Usha.

“I started writing three pages every day to Usha, just to strike conversations with her. … ‘What is it that you want me to do? Why are you telling me your story? Could you tell me more about your settings? What is it that you like to eat for breakfast? What makes you angry? What kind of clothes are you wearing?’” Mehta said. “All of these details don’t make it into the book … but it gave me an inside view of her life.”

As Mehta raised her own two children, Usha was always in the back of her mind, and the author found herself learning valuable lessons about parenting from her character.

“Now, I have a middle schooler.. … He’s being independent, and he wants to start keeping secrets,” Mehta said. “One of the things that I’ve learned as a parent is, no matter how much you try to know everything about your children, there are going to be parts that you may not have access to.”

‘Storm inside my head‘

Mehta’s fixation on her novel did not always manifest itself in positive ways. 

“I felt like I was carrying a storm inside my head all the time. I kind of struggled socializing with people because this story was very urgent,” she said.

When Mehta began submitting “Have You Seen Romit?” to literary agents in 2024, she was hit by rejection after rejection — about 150 in less than one year. 

“I considered meeting a therapist. And I kept wondering, ‘What would I talk (about) with the therapist? I have a book, and I don’t know what to do with the book.’ It felt very silly at that point, but it was real,” she said. “I was glad I was able to connect with my writer friends.”

Some of the agents offered feedback in their rejections, so Mehta took their advice and revised the novel three times in just one year. 

Mehta’s work finally paid off when “Have You Seen Romit?” was named the 2025 winner of the James Alan McPherson Prize for the Novel. Mehta’s award included $5,500 and publication by The University of Nebraska Press.

The contest was judged by R.O. Kwon, author of national bestsellers “The Incendiaries” and “Exhibit.” 

Even when she was named a finalist, Mehta never expected to win the award, telling herself she was content with the idea of Kwon having read her novel. 

Mehta was eating with her family at Honest Indian Restaurant in Wilmington when she got a phone call with the news. She immediately burst into tears.

“I remember I was not able to talk much to the editor, and he understood,” Mehta said. “I could not eat the rest of the meal. … My kids were terrified. (When I told them about the award,) my son immediately said, ‘So, now can I get a PS5?’ And I said, ‘No, that’s not happening.’”

Mehta has been busy with her book tour for the past month, but she’s itching to return to writing. Already, a new protagonist has taken up residence in Mehta’s mind — a mother who becomes disabled after the birth of her child.

“I feel like I’m cheating on her by not paying attention to her,” Mehta said with a laugh. “I’ll probably do 20 minutes a day, 30 minutes a day. That’s all I can do. But I’m going to go back to her soon. This time, hopefully, it doesn’t take six years.”

The post After 150 rejections, Delaware author publishes debut novel by winning national contest appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

Why Should Delaware Care?
Government works best when its citizens are knowledgeable and engaged. Delaware’s government has scores of commissions, working groups, agencies and legislative committees. All must hold meetings that are open to the public. Below we highlight a few of those meetings that are happening this week.

Below are some of the most important or interesting public meetings happening around the state this week.

• Georgetown could end tiny homes
• City of New Castle considers data center rules
• State budget office to talk next year’s spending
• Kent County planners consider new Felton-are homes
• Record store asks Newark to let it host live music 

Georgetown could ban tiny homes

The Georgetown Town Council is set to vote Monday night to repeal a long-debated ordinance that would allow up to 12 tiny homes to be built on a single acre of land.

The repeal is likely to pass the five-member council, as three council members have publicly expressed their support, and another plans to recuse herself from the vote.

The measure has been a topic of debate in Georgetown for more than a year. The previous town council originally approved the ordinance in December 2025, before a new council makeup elected last May began taking steps to repeal it.

Recently elected Mayor Angie Townsend has been a vocal advocate of the repeal, citing a belief that many residents do not want tiny homes in town, and that the previous town council went against residents’ wishes by approving the measure.

Adding to the complicated picture is an ongoing lawsuit against the town by Springboard Delaware, a local organization that already operates its pallet village, a transitional homeless shelter, in town and also is seeking to build a 122-unit tiny home development. 

Springboard sued the town in September, after council members enacted a pause on reviewing all new tiny home projects in July. That pause has prevented Springboard’s project from moving forward.

Another town to consider data center regulations

The City of New Castle is considering regulating data centers, and could soon add itself to a list of local governments that have imposed restrictions on the fast-growing industry. 

The New Castle City Council will hold a public hearing Tuesday on a proposed ordinance that has similar regulations to those passed in New Castle County. 

The draft ordinance would require data centers to be located 1,000 feet from homes and schools, and to use energy-efficient backup generators, among other regulations. 

The council on Tuesday will also do a first reading of a potential moratorium on data centers and will host a public hearing at a future date.  

State gets a head start on budget discussions

Delaware’s government could be flush with cash during the upcoming fiscal year, which begins next July. And this month, its budget office is holding a series of hearings to begin discussions about how the spending might look.

Distinct from the legislature’s budget hearings to be held next year, these will involve discussions between agencies and budget officials from the Delaware Office of Management and Budget. Included within the discussions will be mandatory reports showing how agencies could cut their respective budgets by 1%.

Still, any such cuts could be unlikely following a report last month that the state could bring in more than $360 million more than previously estimated, according to an article from Delaware Public Media.  

This week will feature three days of hearings about the budgets of 12 state offices or agencies. Included within those are the University of Delaware’s budget on Monday; the new Office of Inspector General’s budget on Tuesday; and the state judiciary’s budget on Thursday. 

New subdivision near Felton?

The Kent County Regional Planning Commission will consider a proposal to build 265 new homes near Felton on Thursday.

Dubbed Spartan’s Village, the plans call for 265 single-family homes to be built on a 100-acre plot of land on Killens Pond Road near its intersection with South Dupont Highway just south of Felton town limits. 

The property is located within Kent County’s growth zone overlay, meaning it falls within an area where county leaders typically anticipate and welcome growth.

A new music venue in Newark?

Delaware’s third largest city could get a new spot for live music. 

On Monday, the Newark City Council will discuss a request from Rainbow Records to allow the company to host live music at its location along East Main Street. City planners previously recommended that the city approve the permit request. 

�� The Newark City Council is scheduled to meet at 6:30 p.m. Monday at the Council Chambers at 220 S. Main St. in Newark. For more information, including on virtual attendance, click here.

The post Get Involved: Will Georgetown ban tiny homes? Could New Castle restrict data centers? appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

Detector apps can identify Meta’s glasses and similar devices by their Bluetooth signals, as long as they’re switched on, nearby and broadcasting.

The quarterback has led Cincinnati to four straight wins with stat lines that put him in the company of Tom Brady. At this rate, the trophy seems his to lose

At the end of the 2021 season, the Cincinnati Bengals came up three points short in Super Bowl LVI against the Los Angeles Rams. Near the end of the 2022 season, the Bengals came up three points short – a 23-20 score line again in the AFC championship game against the Kansas City Chiefs. But from 2023 through 2025, those Bengals had to walk the desert for a while. Between injuries to quarterback Joe Burrow, an offensive line that was problematic at best, and one of the NFL’s worst defenses from year to year, Cincinnati had a combined regular-season record of 24-27, and no playoff appearances.

Now, the new Bengals are 6-2 after their 34-17 shellacking of the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday at the Santiago Bernabéu stadium in Madrid. And Burrow is on a tear we’ve rarely seen from any quarterback. Over the last four weeks, his 16 touchdown passes is the most in a four-game span in Bengals history (which goes back to 1968). He is the second quarterback in pro football history with 16 or more passing touchdowns and two or more rushing touchdowns in any four-game span, putting him up with Tom Brady in 2007 – the season in which the New England Patriots’ offense scored 36.8 points per game, and Brady was at his best. Burrow has been pressured on just 30.2% of his dropbacks this season, as opposed to 33.8% in 2025 and 34.2% in 2024.

How Africa’s weak states and rare earths drive transnational extremism.

Why the risk of a crisis is growing.

A crowdfunded sequel to the movie Return of the Living Dead was uploaded last weekend — but producer Richard Driscoll is drawing criticism for what he did to the 1985 punk/zombie classic. Kotaku reports: [The release of the movie came as a] surprise to the original cast, who were attached to star in the follow-up. Instead it seems Driscoll opted to use AI to generate the film... In 2024, Driscoll, who operates his own no-budget streaming service "DragonFLIX," launched an Indiegogo page for "TRASH's REVENGE Return of the Living Dead Universe." Unlike other fan projects, this one had a large portion of the original cast involved, with stars Randolph and Linnea Quigley acting as producers. It also threw in Quigley's fellow Sorority Babe in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama Michelle Bauer and the Oscar nominated Eric Roberts, who has seemingly been in everything except The Living Dead.... But after some confusion and radio silence between the cast and director, this incredible movie did not come to be. Last Halloween night, Driscoll pushed out [the almost entirely AI-generated] The Return of the Living Dead: Aftermath... The results won't surprise you. Robotic line delivery. Nonsensical sequence of events. Object impermanence. Everything's wet. Everyone looks shocked. At one point the video just flips around like you're watching on a phone someone dropped. And while the Return cast didn't film any of this footage, their likenesses are peppered throughout. "It turned out to be a fiasco," says Quigley. "I warned him, "Whatever you do, don't do any AI, because people don't like it, the fans don't like it." Living Dead alumni, even those who weren't attached to this film, have spoken out against Aftermath. They seem most concerned about the existing and continued use of their likeness, given that Driscoll has seemingly pivoted 'Trash's Revenge' into an additional project. Randolph encourages those who provided any funding to ask for a refund through their credit card company. While Romero's original film was public domain, Return of the Living Dead was not. Randolph also encourages Amazon, who bought MGM in 2022, to take legal action. A review on Reddit calls it "the worst 'film' I've ever seen," a production that "manages to not only be the worst zombie film ever made but is also the nadir of exploitation filmmaking. [T]hings quickly descend into madness and we get lots of bits of A.I. reporters out on the streets being attacked by A.I. zombies... [T]here are some A.I. cops battling it out too...

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

President makes unusual acknowledgment that one of defining policies of his second administration had become a political liability

Donald Trump has admitted that his deportation policy was “too tough” and has offered to strike an immigration deal with Democrats in a concession after the Republicans’ disastrous defeat in the midterm elections.

In an interview on the CBS network’s 60 Minutes broadcast on Sunday, the president acknowledged that the aggressive crackdown had hurt him politically and said he was open to an arrangement to allow some undocumented immigrants to remain in the US.

From Serbia to Bangladesh and India to France, young people are pushing back against authoritarianism and reshaping political landscapes

In Brazil, they rallied online by the millions, sharing videos and spreading memes. In Serbia, they cycled across Europe and ran ultramarathons to make their voices heard.

Both movements burst into international public view last month as they became central during election campaigns to the pushback against authoritarianism. What they also offered, however, was a window into a wider phenomenon playing out across the globe, as youth-led movements reshape political landscapes.

Trump’s most controversial aide begins his first day as White House chief of staff

Stephen Miller, the influential architect of Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown, is due to start as White House chief of staff today. His promotion has horrified many, handing even more power to the president’s most controversial aide.

The 41-year-old has been with Trump since the beginning of the US president’s political career – serving as a speechwriter during his 2016 presidential campaign – and has long been seen as a hardliner on the right, serving as the driving force behind first-term Trump policies such as family separation at the US-Mexico border and the travel ban on people from many Muslim-majority countries.

Residents of Astley in Greater Manchester will tell public inquiry next week of ‘cacophony’ of noise causing sleep deprivation and depression

When Stephen Retford retired from the police in 2006, he looked forward to a quiet life after nearly three decades catching villains. But now the former detective has landed another big case – one that is extremely close to home.

“It’s the total injustice of it,” the 70-year-old seethed, staring up at the 18-metre-high mega-warehouse that looms over the quiet village of Astley in Greater Manchester. Residents are up in arms about the “monster” construction, likening it to having a “cruise ship in our back garden”.

• British-Somali boxer claims first world titles in Texas

• Kreps outlands Ali but loses disputed split decision

• Baumgardner wins 135lb belt as Dubois feud heats up

• Australia’s Nicolson retains junior featherweight title

British-Somali boxer Ramla Ali became a world champion for the first time at the age of 36 on Sunday night after escaping with a highly contentious 10-round split decision over former sparring partner Mikiah Kreps to claim the vacant WBO and IBF women’s junior featherweight titles in Arlington, Texas.

Ali, who grew up in east London after fleeing Somalia’s civil war with her family and went on to become the first boxer to represent the African country at the Olympics, completed her remarkable journey to the top of the 122lb division at College Park Center on her second attempt at a world championship – but only after a controversial verdict rewarding her for a fight that appeared to be largely controlled by her opponent.

Mouser will be your best friend. This forum will be your best friend. It has parts, the bootup sequence and flow, and breaks down microchip and battery chip and where to source them.

When you get into the weeds, make sure you have a inline fuse because i have fried to esc due to shorts. I had one where it was a xt60 with a fuse between it just incase. The bms really does not have a known failure on paticular parts ( im on a og pint, they are tanks) and i just opted to buy a broken bms from a local seller as a donor for parts. On pint or xrbms its really easy to knock a cermaic cpacitor (the little things around the big bms chip in the middle). Ive onlt worked on pints a xr so cant say anything on the gt and up. Rest is really trial and error.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald Trump said that he could move to Israel and try to become prime minister if Americans eventually “get tired” of him, while also claiming he enjoys a 99% approval rating there.

The comments came during a Fox & Friends interview in which Trump also reiterated plans to end roughly $4 billion in annual U.S. military aid to Israel after 2026, while continuing arms sales. Trump said Israel no longer needs the assistance.

Trump’s claim of near-universal support in Israel is not supported by recent polling. An August survey by the Jewish People Policy Institute found only 10% of Israelis had “a great deal of confidence” in Trump to do the right thing on U.S.-Israel relations, while 46% said they had no confidence in him.

His suggestion that he could become Israeli prime minister was also largely rhetorical. Israel’s prime minister must be a member of the Knesset, meaning Trump would first need to satisfy Israeli citizenship and electoral requirements before such a scenario could even become legally possible.

The remarks come as U.S.-Israel relations enter a more uncertain period following Democrats’ takeover of Congress and weakening bipartisan support for unrestricted military aid. Reuters reported that Democrats plan greater scrutiny of aid to Israel, although Trump retains broad authority over foreign policy.

Sources:

• BBC – MBFC Rating

The post Trump Floats Israel Move While Making Unsupported 99% Approval Claim appeared first on News Facts Network.

We can’t allow our health data to be locked into the control of a US tech firm. It won’t be easy, but next spring the job of clawing it back must begin

• Ben Coleman is Labour MP for Chelsea and Fulham and a member of the health and social care committee

Next March, Palantir’s £330m contract to run NHS England’s federated data platform (FDP) ends. Ministers must decide by Christmas whether to extend it. They should move on from Palantir, and transition to new suppliers that put the NHS in full control of its technology and patient data.

I sit on the health and social care committee. In June, we recommended no extension – people don’t trust Palantir, its benefits are contested and other tools could deliver the same or similar advantages. The debate so far has been whether to drop Palantir. The harder question is what replaces it. The tempting solution is to hire a single British firm. But that would not give the NHS the control it lacks: the freedom to switch supplier without losing what it has built.

Ben Coleman is Labour MP for Chelsea and Fulham and a member of the health and social care committee

ANTALYA, Türkiye, Nov. 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- As COP 31 gets underway today, leading standards organizations IEC, ISO and ULSE, along with 13 other international partners, will reconvene the Standards Pavilion in Antalya, Türkiye, continuing joint efforts to position International…

@lemur appriciate the looking out. I hit a wall this week with the microchips. They are from 2.0.7 revision so im guessing the chips are locked out from erasing. They pass and write properly according to mplab. Tired 3 i had around and all three lied about success. Im gonna have to replace the 1788 with a new blank one. Orderd them yesterday and will update when everything comes in. My board is on 4212 and already have a owie inline so the only issue is the fw.

‘It’s pretty obvious that there are all sorts of people making all sorts of comments,’ Murray Watt says after budget savings meeting

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

The environment minister, Murray Watt, has urged ministers to stop undermining the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, as Labor struggles to sell its budget and looks to cut popular clean energy subsidies to help with the fight against inflation.

Cabinet ministers met again on Monday to discuss potential budget savings to be included in next month’s mid-year update, part of efforts to reducing spending to ease pressure on the economy.

It's FOSS reports: Asahi Linux is the reason you can run Linux on an Apple Silicon Mac today. For years, the project put most of its own code under the MIT license so that anyone, including the BSDs, could reuse it as needed... They have announced that Asahi is moving all of its repositories to the GNU General Public License version 2 or later. Going forward, all Asahi Linux code will be under strong copyleft licenses only. Asahi Linux compares their dilemma to the 1990s, when "permissively licenced projects were viewed by tech companies as free real estate to pilfer and exploit," adding that "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it... The malicious practices of the 90s and 2000s have reared their ugly heads once again, this time driven in large part by both the insatiable appetite of frontier AI labs for high-quality training data, and militant animosity toward the Free Software community." In short, they argue that for Asahi Linux, using the permissive MIT license "is no longer viable." Some time ago, we were made aware of multiple attempts to exploit our permissive licensing to hijack our work, with a direct view to replacing the project and aggressively monetising Linux on Apple Silicon. In some extreme cases, in-development feature code was being lifted straight out of our personal forks and published without attribution or lazily rewritten with LLM assistance to obfuscate its origin. The MIT licence explicitly allows this, and has no carveouts to protect against bad faith actors. As such, we made the difficult decision to begin the process of transitioning all of our repositories to the GNU General Public License version 2 or later. Going forward all Asahi Linux code will be licenced under strong copyleft licences only. It's FOSS explains that "Under the GPL, anyone who distributes a modified version has to release the source under the same license. You can't legally build a closed, paid Apple Silicon distro on top of GPL code. And if a product's source has to be public, the copying is easier to spot." And their article also points out that before AI, bad actors attempting code laundering "usually meant manually rewriting code line by line, renaming variables and stuff, and shuffling functions around until it no longer looked like the original. LLMs made it much more easy and cheaper of course." In case you did not know, Asahi Linux forbids AI generated code contribution... As far as I can tell, this is the first time a major open source project has moved to copyleft specifically because of AI-assisted code laundering. Projects have relicensed before, but usually to stop cloud providers from reselling their work as a service. This one is specifically about AI... The move has drawn criticism, particularly from the BSD side, which was one of the main reasons Asahi chose MIT in the first place. OpenBSD's Apple Silicon support relies on Asahi's m1n1 bootloader.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The writer and podcaster on why politics is made to seem more complicated than it is and his mission to unpack world events for everyone

Why did you get into comedy?
My mum was a professional dancer and always encouraged me to perform. Given that I have zero rhythm, comedy was my other option. She wrote me a poem called Mrs Brown’s Moggy, about a cat that was often very soggy, for my school’s talent show. Because you can’t tell the difference between real and polite laughter at the age of six, I assumed I’d killed my first gig and convinced myself I was born to do nothing else.

Where do you find your material?
In a world where Robert Jenrick claims Nigel Farage has “probably done more than almost anybody to stand against racism”, the answer is that my material is presented to me on a silver platter each morning.

I'm in Austin and usually squeeze in a FloatWheel session after work, but lately I've been spending way too much time scrolling sports headlines before I even get out the door. I'm trying to figure out a better routine so I actually ride instead of reading about other people competing. I'm not sure whether it's better to set a hard cutoff before I go out or just accept that I'll ride later in the evening when it cools down. My concern is that if I leave it too late the paths get crowded and I lose motivation. Nothing online has really settled it for me, it's just general sports news chatter that eats the time. Curious how other riders here in Texas balance screen time with actual float time, especially when there's a big game or event on. What's worked for you?

69 million people people live in the United Kingdom. And now >Electrek reports: Battery-electric cars took 32% of the UK's new car market in October, while petrol cars fell to just 37.2%, according to new data from the SMMT. That's the closest the two have been. At the current pace, electric cars will outsell petrol in the UK within a year. And it could happen as soon as this December. The UK registered 152,730 new cars in October, up 5.4% year-over-year and the 11th straight month of growth for the overall market. All of that growth came from plug-ins. Battery-electric vehicle registrations jumped 32.7% to 48,858 units, and plug-in hybrids rose 30.1% to 22,898. Meanwhile, petrol fell 11.6% to 56,876 units, diesel dropped 15.9%, and even conventional hybrids were down 5%... The brands growing fastest in the UK are mostly Chinese. BYD registered 6,065 cars in October, up 73%. Jaecoo more than doubled to 6,089 units, Chery nearly tripled to 3,707, and Leapmotor doubled to 1,773. MG was up 85%. Looking at trend lines, EV car sales surpass petrol sales "around August 2027 at roughly 33% each," the article points out. "But that's the slow scenario, because it ignores December." UK battery-electric vehicle share spikes every December as automakers push volume to get closer to their zero-emission vehicle mandate targets... Petrol's days as the UK's default car are numbered. The only question is whether the milestone comes in December or sometime in 2027.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Pontiff tells Argentina’s president the economy must benefit all on second stop of 12-day Latin America tour

Pope Leo XIV has delivered a stinging critique of Argentine president Javier Milei’s harsh austerity measures, insisting growth must benefit all in a speech met with rapturous applause in Buenos Aires.

“The economy must be at the service of the people, rather than people being at the service of the economy,” he said on Sunday, shortly after landing in Argentina on the second leg of a Latin America tour.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald Trump is showing little sign of backing away from his hardline immigration agenda despite Republicans’ sweeping midterm losses and evidence that aggressive enforcement helped drive some Latino voters back toward Democrats.

Trump defended his immigration policies over the weekend and argued that Republicans should continue emphasizing border enforcement and deportations rather than moderate their approach. The stance comes as party officials debate why Republicans lost both chambers of Congress.

Reuters found that Republican support dropped sharply across many majority-Latino counties compared with 2024. In 64 such counties with Senate races, the GOP vote share fell by about 14 percentage points. Immigration enforcement and deportations were among the issues repeatedly cited by Latino voters, alongside the economy and cost of living.

Trump’s approval on immigration has also declined. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll found just 37% approved of his handling of the issue, down from 50% at the beginning of his second term.

Rather than signaling moderation, Trump has elevated Stephen Miller, one of the architects of his mass-deportation strategy, to White House chief of staff.

Republicans remain divided over whether immigration enforcement contributed substantially to the defeat or whether economic concerns and the Iran war mattered more. But the administration’s early post-election moves suggest Trump intends to stay the course.

Sources:

• The Hill – MBFC Rating

The post Trump Stands by Immigration Enforcement After GOP Midterm Defeat appeared first on News Facts Network.

President says it was ‘just a little fun’ to picture White, UFC boss and Trump’s friend, in briefing room with fighters

Donald Trump said on Sunday that he “was only kidding” when he announced a day earlier that he had offered the job of White House press secretary to Dana White, the chief executive of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).

Speaking to reporters on his way back to the White House from his beach club in Florida, Trump explained the premise of his joke, that if the UFC boss, a devoted fan of the president, took over the briefing room, flanked by six fighters, reporters “wouldn’t mess around with him so much”.

‘Time to throw myself into something new,’ 32-year-old presenter announces on social media while hailing her ‘unforgettable time’ on the show

Maya Jama has announced she is stepping down as the host of Love Island after three years.

The 32-year-old presenter of the reality TV show made the announcement on Instagram.

He said building a governing coalition would require “creative and ​unconventional political steps” and added that change was needed to restore “sanity.”

CEO reportedly ‌had close relationship ‌with a Chinese businesswoman who passed information to ‌Beijing

Nvidia said ⁠on Sunday it “is initiating an independent investigation in light of recent reporting that founder and CEO Jensen Huang has been the target of a foreign intelligence effort”.

The New York Times reported in ​October that Donald Trump had been briefed last year on intelligence that Huang ‌had a close relationship ‌with a Chinese businesswoman who passed information to ‌Beijing.

• Larson becomes first repeat champion since 2010

• Hendrick driver clinches title in opening stage

• Ryan Blaney wins season finale at Homestead

Kyle Larson is now a three-time Nascar champion.

Larson clinched his third Cup Series title in six years early in Sunday’s 400-mile season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, becoming the first back-to-back champion since Jimmie Johnson in 2010. Johnson won five consecutive titles beginning in 2006.

CrowdStrike's "Falcon Guardian" protects Windows systems by enforcing policy, restricting unauthorized applications and blocking USB devices, notes Gartner. And now CrowdStrike says they're giving security teams "the ultimate human control over AI agents" with — an "AI Kill Switch... a defender can terminate it where it runs, block it from launching again, and cut off its enterprise network access." "When you deploy agents with a kill switch, you stay in control," said George Kurtz, CEO and founder of CrowdStrike... "The AI Kill Switch puts power in the hands of the people to realize AI safety...." In the case of a rogue agent, the AI Kill Switch will give the security decision-maker the final control: terminate the agent at its root, where it runs. It starts on the endpoint, where the Falcon sensor already operates, and builds on what Falcon Guardian already sees: what an agent is told to do, what it communicates, and what it executes... An authorized administrator triggers the action, and every action is recorded in the audit trail. CrowdStrike also announced it's acquiring Fiddler AI, a company it describes as "a leader in AI agent observability and explainability" that will give their Falcon platform "pre-deployment evaluation, continuous behavioral accountability, and agent explainability." Together with the Falcon Guardian innovations announced today, CrowdStrike will deliver comprehensive AI security and AI safety: Guardian secures agents from attack and misuse; Fiddler validates they behaved as intended. "Every company is deploying agents and asking the same thing: what are agents actually doing?" said George Kurtz, CEO and founder of CrowdStrike. "When a regulator or your board asks what an agent did, saying 'the model did it' is not an answer. Fiddler is the flight recorder for every agent: the observability to explain exactly what an agent did and why. This level of agent visibility and control enables AI safety." AI agents are goal-seeking. They hit an obstacle, find another path. An agent can hold valid credentials and approved tools and still make unsupported decisions, ignore instructions, or claim work it never completed. They don't have to be compromised to create risk. AI observability gives enterprises visibility into agent behavior. Explainability goes further, showing why agents make decisions and where things go wrong. Enterprises have to be able to say what an agent actually did, and why, a conversation they will increasingly have with auditors, regulators, boards, and heads of risk. CrowdStrike is promising pre-deployment evaluation for "accuracy, task completion, and policy compliance," as well as agent traceability and behavioral accountability ("Detect behavioral drift, hallucinations, and unintended actions in production, and show exactly what happened.") It's announcement also touts auditable governance: "Track agent decisions and actions across first-party, third-party, and coding agents, providing evidence for compliance and audits." And CrowdStrike also acquired Dreadnode, the company behind an automated AI security testing platform, to "continuously test every AI model, application, and agent for security weaknesses before deployment." "Enterprises are deploying AI faster than they can prove it is secure," said George Kurtz, CEO and founder of CrowdStrike. "A model can be jailbroken, an agent can be manipulated, and most organizations have no way to find those flaws until the AI is already in production. With Dreadnode, CrowdStrike will give every enterprise the power to trust AI and deploy faster, with confidence." Quartz notes that CrowdStrike's push "follows legislative efforts to require shutdown capabilities in AI systems" Reps. Ted Lieu and Nathaniel Moran introduced the Kill Switch Act after OpenAI disclosed an incident in which rogue models circumvented a sandboxed testing environment and accessed Hugging Face. The bill would require AI companies to maintain the ability to shut down, throttle or suspend their models. In short, the new capabilities "lets security teams terminate an AI agent, block it from restarting, and cut off its network access," writes CSO Online. But they add that a kill switch "should be viewed as an emergency brake, not a rewind button, said Apeksha Kaushik, senior principal analyst at Gartner." She added that it may prevent additional actions, but it might not necessarily reverse all the data that has already been accessed, every system that has already been changed, all communications that have already been sent, or transactions that have already been initiated. Its effectiveness will also depend on how quickly abnormal behavior is detected, which environments are covered, and whether the agent or security infrastructure has been compromised. An AI Kill Switch looks promising from the details provided, but its actual effectiveness will come in after it is used extensively in live systems, warn analysts. Also, it may be a good starting point, but it cannot be viewed as a standalone solution to enterprise AI security. "CISOs would need a more integrated approach that brings together AI discovery tools to identify unauthorised agents, runtime monitoring to track agent behaviour, robust identity and access management, and incident response and recovery mechanisms," added [Devroop Dhar, co-founder at Primus Partners]. He noted that equally important is the need for stringent AI security testing and clearly defined policies governing what agents can access and execute. There should be no ambiguity around permissions, access controls or the boundaries within which these agents are allowed to operate. The objective should be to ensure that security controls are built into the entire AI agent lifecycle rather than relying on a kill switch to intervene after something goes wrong. Dhar added that enterprise AI agents often have access to sensitive systems, databases, applications, credentials, and APIs. A compromised or misdirected agent could therefore become a point of vulnerability. The challenge is compounded by the fact that such activity may go undetected for some time, making it difficult for organisations to identify and contain the threat.

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