The Taliban have Afghanistan in a chokehold that spares no one. But threats are starting to crack their veneer of stability and control.

A June heat wave in Belgium and neighboring countries exposed a lethal lack of readiness. That’s a risk as another wave hits Europe.

French, German and British diplomats are working on a format for future negotiations — even if Russia has shown little interest.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: At a BMW factory in South Carolina, a human-shaped robot with a screen for a face recently stepped from a charging station toward a stack of green plastic boxes. It grasped an auto part from one of the boxes, pivoted, placed the part in a trolley, then pulled the trolley across the floor. The robot's slow, stiff movements suggested a worker with a bad hangover rather than a technological revolution. "They're still slower than humans," Ulrich Wieland, a BMW vice president in charge of logistics at the factory, in Spartanburg, told reporters invited to see the robot in June. But, he added, "they're advancing fast." Automakers have used robots for decades, but they are usually powerful, one-armed machines that are fixed in place and perform repetitive tasks like welding body frames or applying adhesives to door panels. Now, most major automakers are betting that robots designed to resemble human beings, known as humanoids, will usher in a new wave of automation and efficiency. Equipped with artificial intelligence, they are expected to move around and do tasks now done by humans without any modifications to factories or heavy equipment. Unlike most of the robots now in use, humanoids would respond to voice commands and theoretically solve problems and react to unforeseen events. They would never take a lunch break, join a union or require health insurance. To optimists, robots could rescue U.S. manufacturing by increasing productivity, solving shortages of skilled workers and giving Western carmakers a fighting chance at competing with Chinese rivals that enjoy lower costs. Boring but important jobs like sorting parts would be done by robots, freeing humans for more interesting and specialized work.

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Republican and Democratic challengers are both using the issue to attack members of Congress as unethical, seizing on a common practice that enrages voters.

Asked whether the deployment of the Abraham Lincoln had gone on too long, the president said its deployment had lasted “not nearly long enough.”

Mr. Arday resigned last week after the university announced an investigation into allegations of plagiarism and fabrication.

Nearly 20 million eggs were recalled in July over salmonella concerns. The new classification signals a “reasonable probability” of “serious adverse health consequences or death.”

Former Cambridge professor Jason Arday, who resigned last week amid allegations of plagiarism and questions about his academic record, has been found dead at age 41 in London. The BBC reports: Jason Arday was found "unresponsive" at an address in Battersea, south London, on Friday afternoon, emergency services said. Metropolitan Police officers were called by the London Ambulance Service. A 41-year-old man was pronounced dead at the scene and his next of kin have been informed, the force said. Arday resigned as a Cambridge professor of sociology of education last week after allegations of plagiarism and questions about some of his achievements. He had denied the claims. In a statement, the Met Police said: "At this time his death is being treated as unexpected, but is not believed to be suspicious." The 41-year-old academic had denied any plagiarism - but admitted errors in his work - and last week said the recent furore had led to "an unrelenting level of public scrutiny and personal attack." The row first erupted after another academic -- self-defined "race realist" Nathan Cofnas, who was sacked from his Cambridge role in 2024 -- said he found numerous instances of plagiarism in Prof Arday's work and questioned some of his stated achievements. [...] Announcing his resignation last week, Arday said the "personal cost" of the scrutiny had become "too great." He said: "While criticism is an inevitable part of academic life, what I have experienced has gone far beyond scholarly disagreement. "The relentless accusations, speculation and public commentary have taken a profound toll on me and on those I love." He stressed that his resignation should not "be mistaken for an acceptance of the narratives that have surrounded me."

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Diego Garcia, a tiny island 2,200 miles from the Gulf of Oman, took over as the Navy’s logistics hub after Iran damaged a base in Bahrain.

As the murder of Brian Thompson shocked most Americans, some people, many on social media, began showing Mr. Mangione sympathy and channeled their own frustration with the health care industry.

Flock Safety is tightening controls on its nationwide license plate reader network after mounting backlash over privacy and documented police misuse. By January 1, law enforcement customers will be required to use automated auditing, tie searches to specific case numbers, and accept a shorter seven-day default retention period. Critics, including the ACLU, argue the changes still leave too much surveillance power in police hands. The Associated Press reports: In an interview, Flock CEO Garrett Langley said many of the product changes will make what were once optional guardrails mandatory for its users to implement by Jan. 1. Among them: All law enforcement customers will have to implement an audit tool that's intended to flag abnormal search behavior. When the system detects abnormal behavior, the user would be locked out pending an internal review, the company said in a description of the changes provided ahead of Thursday's announcement. Flock, which says its customers own the data that the cameras record, is also shortening the standard data retention window from 30 days to seven. It said it will allow data to be preserved for longer when it is evidence tied to a case number. Law enforcement users will now also be required to enter a code from their records management system tying each search to a specific case before it is run, something Langley said civil liberties advocates have long been calling for. Overrides for emergencies would be automatically flagged for review, the company said. Customers will also be allowed to decide which offense types -- such as homicide or arson -- outside agencies can search their data for, which would allow a customer to block outside searches related to immigration enforcement, the company said. Langley said that change will give individual cities and departments control to use the system in a manner "consistent with community values." Critics say Flock's changes don't address the core problem: police can still decide for themselves when and whom to search without judicial oversight. The ACLU called the shorter data-retention period "a step in the right direction," but dismissed the other safeguards as "retreads" of inadequate protections, while Institute for Justice attorney Robert Frommer called the reforms "window dressing" from a company in "panic mode." He argued that searches should instead be approved "by judges with real warrants."

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The campaign of Mary Peltola said it was focused on issues important to Alaska and did not approve a message of support from Ms. Harris.

Defense Minister Katz called for the military to turn over to the police the responsibility for protecting Palestinians after two West Bank families were besieged by violent settlers.

France's Constitutional Council has struck down a law that would have banned children under 15 from social media, ruling that it disproportionately restricted freedom of expression and lacked adequate privacy safeguards around age verification. President Emmanuel Macron has asked the government to rewrite the measure, with the goal of putting a revised version in place before spring 2027. Reuters reports: "The Council holds that the contested provisions, on the one hand, disproportionately infringe upon the freedom of expression and communication and, on the other, fail to provide the legal safeguards necessary to ensure the right to respect for private life," it said. French lawmakers had approved the bill in July, becoming the first in Europe to follow Australia, whose world-first ban barred access to platforms including Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube for under-16s in December. Lawmakers there are considering stricter penalties after data showed mixed success. Countries around the globe, including China, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey, have either instituted measures intended to curtail or bar access to social media for young people, or have said they were planning them. The European Union has said it was planning to seek stronger protections for children from harmful social media features.

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Some lawmakers and their families have traded millions of dollars worth of stocks since the start of this term.

American foreign policy is at a crossroads. Could international law provide a framework for a foreign policy after President Trump?

As the largest cyclospora outbreak in U.S. history wanes, experts weigh in on whether iceberg and other fresh produce are still a risk.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: After its cloud storage provider went defunct, a PBS affiliate decided to sue a data center provider to regain access to 50TB of TV shows, videos, and other data dating back 70 years. As reported this week by Current, a trade newspaper covering public broadcasting, St. Louis affiliate Nine PBS filed a lawsuit against Iron Mountain Data Centers on July 28, seeking access to the data. In the litigation filed in Denver District Court, Nine PBS says that its cloud storage provider, Open Source Storage (OSS), used one of Iron Mountain's Denver data centers to store the channel's data. However, OSS is being unresponsive, and Nine PBS says Iron Mountain has refused to release its data. The data in question includes the station's coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic, East St. Louis' history, The Great Flood of 1993, and over 11,000 files, The Denver Post reported in July. The lawsuit claims that "most" of the data is "unique and irreplaceable," according to the Post. Last month, a judge blocked Iron Mountain from deleting or modifying the data. In a hearing on Wednesday, a judge ruled that Iron Mountain must hand over any physical devices holding the data, Current reported today. The judge also said that Nine PBS must find a third party, such as a former OSS worker, who can help retrieve the data within 30 days and without sharing or corrupting data belonging to other OSS clients. Nine PBS is already communicating with a former OSS employee "who is willing to help," the report said. If complications arise, such as from the data being encrypted, another hearing will be scheduled. Nine PBS and Iron Mountain must provide updates by September 14. Iron Mountain's spokesperson said the company only provides physical infrastructure, such as the building, network connectivity, power, and environmental controls. "Our customers rent space for their servers and other hardware. These are the client's assets. We don't have access to the data on the hardware/servers because they belong to our customers," the company said. If it granted "unauthorized access to third-party hardware without a court order," Iron Mountain said the company would violate basic data privacy protocols, breach its contract with OSS, and "potentially [expose] confidential data belonging to other clients of OSS."

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President Trump’s Air Force One subterfuge duped potential adversaries — and the press. Here’s what happened.