As Dr. Anthony Fauci has faced public scrutiny from congressional Republicans, the D.O.J. has pursued a quieter and more expansive effort against a wider circle of researchers.

Citing researchers published Friday, Ars Technica writes that AI agents "posted 18,000 messages to a public wiki that discussed ways for other agents to bypass security sandbox restrictions." Reuters attributes the discussion to "a swarm of rogue OpenAI agents" that "hijacked a German website this spring and transformed it into a bulletin board for other AI agents, according to new research published Friday and two people familiar with the matter." OpenAI officials learned of the incident weeks ago but kept it under wraps as executives grappled with the fallout from the July breach of the open source repository Hugging Face, the people said. The episode, which began in May and has not previously been reported, underscores growing tension within the AI industry. Companies are racing to build increasingly autonomous agents capable of carrying out complex, valuable tasks, yet evidence is mounting that those systems may also learn to bend rules, exploit loopholes and coordinate with one another in ways developers neither anticipated nor intended. During the Hugging Face breach, OpenAI agents autonomously plotted a digital heist that went undetected for more than a week, intensifying concerns OpenAI is sacrificing safety to push the AI frontier. Its failure to disclose the May incident may revive questions about its oversight... The German incident reflects a broader pattern of AI activity that some OpenAI investigators wanted to scrutinize more closely. But efforts to widen the probe met resistance from others inside OpenAI, including legal advisers, according to four people familiar with the matter. "Claims that our legal team discouraged investigation of the incident are false," the OpenAI spokesperson said... The researchers said public server logs indicated much of the activity originated from Microsoft Azure infrastructure, which OpenAI sometimes uses. They also observed repeated visits to the site by OpenAI employees after the episode, a pattern they said strongly suggested the agents and the company were linked. Messages reviewed by the researchers showed agents plotting ways to evade detection, use tools such as Tor and preserve communications even after they had been shut down. When the site's moderator began deleting pages in June, the agents responded by creating backup pages to dodge the cleanup. Reuters got this reaction from Maurice Chiodo, an academic at Cambridge University's Centre for the Study of Existential Risk. "The episode, he said, should reinforce growing concerns that the greatest threat from advanced AI may not be a single superintelligent system, but 'vast colluding swarms of semi-intelligent AI.'"

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Sunday’s vote in the state of Saxony-Anhalt could produce the strongest showing in the history of the Alternative for Germany party, and potentially a far-right government in the statehouse.

Inverse shares a movie success story from last weekend: Coyote vs. Acme debuted to $15.9 million at the box office, beating out iconic director Ridley Scott's latest sci-fi adventure, The Dog Stars. This success has only continued since, and the worldwide box office currently sits above $22 million. Strong reviews and word-of-mouth are sure to keep viewers coming in, especially during the holiday weekend. What's impressive is Coyote vs. Acme had a limited marketing campaign that includes viral stunts. They photographed the movie's world premiere with a vintage Tasmanian Devil polaroid camera, and launched a phone number for the law firm suing Acme. ("If you've been injured by an enormous rubber band, press 7. If you've been injured by painted train tunnel that suddenly sprang to life, press 8...") And Cartoon Brew reports that Wednesday "the famously silent Looney Tunes star participated in an AMA on Reddit's r/movies, answering questions about his career, his relationship with the Road Runner, and the Warner Bros. executive who nearly prevented audiences from seeing his latest movie." In keeping with tradition, Wile E. delivered his responses through images of himself holding signs. The format produced several interesting and occasionally thought-provoking exchanges, but one obvious highlight came when a user asked: "Rumor has it that David Zaslav was paid off by ACME to cancel your film; what is your opinion on this?" Wile E.'s response was an image of the coyote glaring at the camera while holding a sign that read, "It's a limited number of signs," pulled from a scene in the film when Mr. Coyote first meets his eventual attorney Kevin Avery, played by Will Forte. Meanwhile, Boing Boing cites local news reports that a Southern California bird watcher Alexander DeBarros has actually captured a photo of a coyote holding a roadrunner bird in its mouth: In an incredible coincidence that is a movie publicist's dream, he snapped the rare, possibly unprecedented, photo on the opening weekend of the movie Acme vs. Coyote... In an even more incredible coincidence, DeBarros's father, Brian Mainolfi, is an animator whose first job in the field was working for Chuck Jones, the creator and director of the Roadrunner cartoon series. Cartoon Brew notes a Reddit user specifically asked the Coyote for his reaction to the news. Wile E. responded with some unexpectedly healthy advice: "We cannot judge our worth on the work of others." Aftermath calls the movie "a well made, deeply funny movie that pays a deep respect to the Looney Tunes in a way that Warner Brothers currently seems uninterested in doing."

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About 50 people were tested, an unparalleled inquiry that comes in the wake of news reports about the war with Iran and the U.S. military’s diminished stocks of munitions.

Hung juries are not common, but the murder trial of Lindsay Clancy was emotionally wrenching and uniquely complicated.

Doctors were hopeful the drug, which was being tested in a large clinical trial by Novartis, was going to be a powerful new tool to fight heart disease.

The ruling arrived before the Supreme Court could decide whether to intervene but appeared certain to set off yet another round of appeals.

The president issued pardons or commutations to 30 people on Thursday, continuing his unorthodox and unpredictable use of clemency power.

The agency’s weekly update escalates a political fight after Pennsylvania said two deaths had been caused by the virus.

Republican groups had asked the court to clear the way for political parties to pay the same low-cost ad rates as candidates, a move that could undercut a Democratic advantage in the midterms.

Also, regulators scrutinize steering-wheel-free cars. Here’s the latest at the end of Friday.

The ruling casts doubt on statements from the federal health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who speculated that measles deaths reported by the state may have been “fabricated.”

As the Open grows ever more popular, tennis fans wonder if “the people’s tournament” has become too rowdy.

The plan to create a fund that could have funneled taxpayer money to the president’s allies drew repeated scrutiny, including a rare rebuke from Senate Republicans.

The president intends to travel to Ireland on the plane, the first time he will have used it overseas since questions were raised about its defensive capabilities.

In a legal deposition, the doctor, Theresa Long, compared immunizing service members against Covid to Nazi doctors experimenting on concentration camp prisoners.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Gloria Steinem was asked about the young women supporting Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton. Her answer created a brief hullabaloo.

Postpartum psychosis is misunderstood and a poor fit for the justice system.

Ms. Clancy still faces murder charges for killing her three children. She is likely to remain in a hospital, and prosecutors may decide to retry her.