Chris Pappas Defeats Progressive Challenger in New Hampshire Senate Primary
Mr. Pappas, a moderate Democrat who has served four terms in the House, will face former Senator John E. Sununu, the Republican nominee, in November.
They Fled Cuba for Better Lives. They Were Cut Short by a Cargo Plane.
Days after an Amazon cargo jet plowed into a van at Miami International Airport, killing five, portraits of the victims started to emerge.
U.S. Hits 5 Iranian Oil Tankers, Citing Attempted Strikes on Warship
Iran retaliated by launching missiles at Jordan, raising the specter of still more fighting.
Why Politics Has Become So Frenzied
The political historian Anton Jäger on his theory of “hyperpolitics.”
Democracy Is on the Ballot in Both America’s and Israel’s Elections
Israel and the United States each hold elections one week apart in the fall. The fate of their democracies lies in the balance.
At 9/11 Tribute, Trump Adds New Claim to His Disputed Role After Attack
President Trump has long sought to position himself close to the Sept. 11 recovery effort and has made a series of questionable and provocative statements to burnish his political brand.
Canada’s Carney Doubles Down on Pivot Away from the United States
With tariffs on U.S. goods in effect and high-profile international engagements coming up, the Canadian leader keeps moving toward his goal.
Why Did Trump Order Up 660 Million Pounds of Mystery Meat?
On second thought, I’m not that hungry.
Chinese Threat Requires a Broader Spying Mission, C.I.A. Deputy Director Says
China’s economic competition with the United States makes Chinese companies a legitimate target, the agency’s deputy director, Michael Ellis, said at a conference.
Google Will 'Degrade' Search In Europe to Avoid EU Fines
Google says it will overhaul Search in Europe to comply with the EU's Digital Markets Act, giving more prominence to comparison services like Expedia and Hotels.com while stripping some real-time features from hotel, airline, and restaurant results. "These changes degrade the user experience for Europeans -- boosting online intermediaries at the expense of local businesses, and removing helpful features people rely on every day," said Nick Fox, senior vice-president of knowledge and information at Google. The company claims its past search changes for DMA compliance were tied to a 30% decrease "in free, direct booking traffic to European businesses." Engadget reports:
That sanction was the latest salvo between the EU government and a US tech company for infringing on its Digital Markets Act. The debate centers on the DMA requirement that major tech brands "must not treat their own services more favorably in ranking than third-party services."
[...] According to Reuters, Google's revised search results "will highlight one specialized search engine at the top of the page, followed by two others with fewer details. A carousel of hotels, airlines and restaurants, for example, will sit below them with key features such as real-time prices stripped out." Those specialized engines include sites like Expedia or Hotels.com, also known as vertical search services, so European users may soon see those aggregators and comparison sites prioritized more highly than individual businesses' websites in their results.
Reuters noted that "the rankings will be determined by Google's algorithm," meaning the tech company still holds a lot of control over how results are displayed. The EC had given Google 60 days to comply with its rules, but the company has not specified an exact timeline for when European users will start seeing the changes.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Feds Accuse China of 'Systematic' Distillation of US AI Models
The NSA, CISA, and FBI are accusing (PDF) several Chinese AI companies of carrying out "industrial-scale" distillation campaigns against leading U.S. models such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Grok. Since at least 2024, the companies have allegedly routed millions of requests across accounts, APIs, proxies, cloud providers, and third-party aggregators to extract capabilities for their own models. "China-based artificial intelligence companies are conducting systematic extraction of proprietary functionalities and capabilities of U.S. AI companies' models through industrial-scale knowledge distillation campaigns that form the core -- not merely a supplement -- of their AI development strategy," the agencies wrote. CyberScoop reports: DeepSeek, for example, distilled frontier U.S. models to generate synthetic training data for its R1 and R3 models, including four different versions of Claude, two versions of Gemini, five versions of ChatGPT and Grok 4. Those models helped train DeepSeek's capabilities in areas like agentic functioning, question and answer optimization, creative and occupational writing and others.
Another Chinese company, Moonshot AI, allegedly distilled 18 different U.S. models -- including Fable 5, Anthropic's current, most advanced commercially available model -- to train its Kimi-K2 and Kimi K3 models. The company used millions of queries meant to extract enhanced capabilities in areas like agentic reasoning, coding and data analysis, computer vision, larger logical frameworks, visual processing and others.
Chinese AI companies manage a sophisticated set of tools and systems that route requests and prompts through multiple pathways to avoid detection. The advisory lists common tactics observed by Chinese companies, including spreading requests across different accounts, models and platforms, using native APIs, remote cloud providers, and third-party aggregators to obfuscate user metadata, and leveraging proxies and gray tech markets to get around geographic restrictions, terms of use and safeguards built into frontier models.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Smithsonian Leader Is Resigning After Clashes With Trump
Also, OpenAI says it solved one of math’s “Millennium Problems.” Here’s the latest at the end of Tuesday.
The 25 Most Influential Fashion Photographs
Two photographers, a fashion designer, a stylist, a creative director, an editor and a supermodel debate the images that have had an indelible impact on how we dress.
Southern California Is Hot and Steamy Again
Temperatures soared across the region on Tuesday. The muggy weather will get worse before it gets better.
Lonnie G. Bunch III, Departing Smithsonian Secretary, Faced ‘Mounting Pressure Campaign’
Under Lonnie G. Bunch III’s leadership, President Trump accused the Smithsonian of liberal, anti-American bias. Supporters say he was dedicated to nonpartisan scholarship.
OpenAI Says It Has Cracked One of Math’s ‘Millennium Problems’
The company’s announcement is the most dramatic sign yet that artificial intelligence is fundamentally transforming the field of higher mathematics.
Meta Debuts Muse, Its Long-Planned Personal AI Agent
Meta has launched Muse, a personal AI agent developed under chief AI officer Alexandr Wang. "The product, long in development, was touted as a key next step by CEO Mark Zuckerberg in his recent 6,500-word manifesto," reports Axios. From the report: Muse, as the agent is known, exists in a chat interface, similar to a text thread. It's designed to be more proactive and long-running than typical chatbots. Users can name their agent, create an avatar and customize how it communicates. The Muse agent runs on a dedicated virtual machine in Meta's cloud, using a built-in browser that's visible to the user.
Meta is offering a free tier of Muse, as well as two subscription options, at $20 per month and $100 per month. "For the vast majority of users, they should be able to do what they need to within the free tier," Wang told Axios. "But for real power users, you know, those subscription tiers help us cover the computer costs." There is no advertising within Muse, but Wang said the company is exploring commerce opportunities that could generate additional revenue. Initially Muse will be available in the U.S. and works on iOS, Android and the web, with support coming soon for Meta's AI glasses. "The full vision in the future is we want to develop personal superintelligence that helps people accomplish their goals, pursue their passions, build things that they never would have built if they didn't have the technology," Wang told Axios.
Meta offers users more privacy controls with Muse than in its previous AI products, including the option to prevent queries from being used by Meta and a planned confidential mode where the company cannot see activity inside a user's virtual workspace. There's also an entirely separate system called Sentinel that governs Muse's access to the internet and connected services.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Trump Administration Asks Supreme Court to Allow Voter-Screening Tool
Voting rights organizations had challenged a Trump administration overhaul of a government database, arguing it could be used to disenfranchise eligible voters.
Australia To Let Social Media Users 'Opt Out' of Algorithm-Based Feeds
Australia is proposing the "My Feed, My Way" initiative that would force social media platforms to let users over 16 turn off algorithmic recommendations and instead see only posts from people and creators they follow. Platforms that fail to comply could face fines of up to $79 million. CNBC reports: The legislation, which is being drafted and released Tuesday for targeted consultation, would require platforms to send notifications to new and existing users so they can choose their default feed. [...] The measures, set to be introduced to the Parliament of Australia this year, will also require AI chatbots, online games and other digital services to take action to protect under-18s from addictive design features. "This is not about giving government control. It's about giving people control. It's about putting choice back into the hands of Australians online," said Prime Minister Anthony at a press conference on Tuesday.
"This is sensible, pragmatic, practical reform. It gives users choice, and it will hold the big tech companies responsible for inaction."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Trump Cannot Pardon Lindsay Clancy, but Her Lawyer Asked Anyway
President Trump does not have the power to wipe away the state murder charges Ms. Clancy faces. Her lawyer’s spokesman said the comments were “a statement to the country.”