2026-08-27

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• The Kids are Okay

  The world today has major problems. 4% of children dying before they can grow up is far too many. But the real numbers, the real trends, tell a story of passionate optimism for anyone brave enough to join the fight. We have succeeded in making dramatic positive change, and the need for more change should drive motivation, not despair. Especially for a young person just starting out in the world! Imagine a young warrior, inheriting generations of heroic victories, now handed the opportunity to gain glory in the current fight. But overwhelmingly, these past victories are either unknown or forgotten. We don’t sing songs to the battles we’ve won, and too many people believe the war has already been lost.

Horseshit

• Scottish photographer shot portraits of Alabama gingers to find American unity

• The brain may be about to have its Ozempic moment

• Nine life lessons from the happiest man in the world

• The Death of San Francisco's Market Street

• Blink and you'll miss it: dogs may send humans subtle eye signals

• Have trouble sleeping in a new place? Most do because of the first-night effect

• Scientists make giant cyborg cockroaches that can fire drug-filled syringes

• As CTE Cases Soar, Why Do Football Crowds Still Go Wild?

• Much like cheese: Why Do Ancient Human Brains Not Always Rot

• And no one cared until now: Taylor Farms frequently fails to disclose workplace injury tallies

• Preserving glow-in-the-dark art and fashion for future generations

  the optical brightener compounds that give fluorescent pigments their brightness degrade more quickly than the pigment dyes. Thus, even when there is no degradation in the pigments, the colors can appear to darken. That poses a unique challenge for conservationists responsible for long-term restoration of these works. Not only must they match colors under both visible and UV light, but the pigments will also change subtly over time. Gaining a better understanding of the unique photochemistry of such materials is critical for this purpose. During her talk, Sobeck reported on the group’s most recent work, extending their research to glow-in-the-dark phosphorescence pigments, with particular focus on the museum’s Sprouse collection. Among the early findings: Such materials have a markedly different composition from fluorescent colorants, which typically use organic dyes. The phosphorescent materials contain mineral-based pigments and inorganic compounds. Also, humidity turns out to be a significant factor in the breakdown of phosphorescent pigments—as much if not more so than prolonged exposure to light, which will help the museum improve its storage and exhibition practices for such artworks.

• 11,000-year-old sculpture of man riding a leopard found in Turkey

• People’s bodies are changing in the age of Ozempic. How are we meant to talk about it?

celebrity gossip

• Olympic breakdancer Raygun says therapy helped after going viral

Obit

• Tim Curry, Rocky Horror Picture Show and It actor, dead at 80

  • Tim Curry, Star of Rocky Horror Picture Show and Stephen King's It, Dies Aged 80

  • Tim Curry, star of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, dies aged 80

  • Tim Curry Dies at 80

  • Tim Curry Dies at 80

  • Rocky Horror star Tim Curry dies at 80

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Fake US thinktank set up and funded by Israel sought to game AI for propaganda

Musk

• Musk's SpaceX to build $100B launch facility in Louisiana

  • SpaceX intends to invest up to $100B in Louisiana spaceport

• Watch Tesla FSD v14 Lite drive over a giant log without stopping

• 'It seems crazy': SpaceX's orbital data centre bet tests physics and finance

• X sends in the lawyers to shut down open source project

• Twitter Is Back at Twitter.now

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Iran war supercharged EV sales everywhere except the U.S.

• AI Lessons from Driving 200M Autonomous Miles

Robot uprising / Humanoid Helpers

• Chinese robot Tiangong clocks sub-9 second 100 metres

• World humanoid robot games show runners breaking records, bursting into flames

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• More than 18000 questionable images found in antibody catalogues of 15 companies

  • More than 100 suspicious images in Thermo Fisher antibody catalogue

  • Lab supply companies have been selling antibodies using manipulated images

• More than half of adults in U.S. say they lack basic statistical understanding

  62% of respondents reported no or limited statistical knowledge while only 11% regularly use statistics in daily life. Despite the perceived knowledge gap, most respondents also reported they would rely on statistics for decision-making more if they understood the topic better.

  • Statistics, as used today, is a means of dressing up lies with numbers. 83% of statistics are made up.

• Pilot program offering free bus rides to Detroit students to become permanent

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• As world rages over Flock, SLC creates new rules for its license plate readers

  • Man sued local governments in WA over Flock records. He’s won $300K

• Meta, States Have Discussed Settling Teen Social Media Case

  • Instagram CEO says he doesn't tell team to 'hide anything'

  • Meta to pay $17B, overhaul Facebook and Instagram

  • Meta Agrees to Fork over $16B Settlement in Landmark Child Safety Case

  • Meta agrees to major changes in settlement over teen addiction for up to $17B

  • Meta settles social media addiction case with CA, other states for $16.7B

  • California says states, Meta agree to $17B settlement in child safety trial

  • Meta agrees multi-billion settlement to claims that its platforms harm children

  • Meta to Pay Up to $17.1B in Settlement over Social Media Addiction Claims

  • Meta reaches $16.68B settlement over social media harms to children

  • Meta agrees to settle social media addiction suit with states for up to $16B

  • Meta Agrees to Pay $16.7B to Settle Social Media Case

  • Meta settles social media addiction case for 18B dollars

  • Meta reaches $17B settlement in trial over teen social media addiction

  • Facebook, Insta owner Meta settles social media addiction case for $25B

• US consumer spending on Apple's App Store fell for the first time in a decade

• Amazon announced it's shuttering Mechanical Turk on Sept. 30

• Nintendo fan loses nearly complete NES collection in 'heartbreaking' theft

• Ubisoft forgot the actual game in Steam release of Heroes of Might and Magic 3

  Fork out $10 for it and you'll find an install that's only 23.49 KB big, which gives a "dummy executable" error message when you try to launch it. Because Heroes of Might & Magic 3 on Steam does not come with Heroes of Might & Magic 3. Somebody forgot to include the actual game files with the game.

• Buc-ee’s chain draws outcry in Ohio for launching fight over a mini mart's beaver logo

  A lip-licking alligator, a smiling moose and a hat-wearing bear are among the many cartoon animals to have found themselves in the crosshairs of Buc-ee’s, the popular Texas convenience store chain that has a penchant for protecting its buck-toothed beaver. But now Buc-ee’s has set off a Buckeye backlash across Ohio and beyond after taking on a beaver in the city of Beavercreek.

• Apple Maps Ads Are Here, and There's No Way to Turn Them Off

• Boston Scientific hit by cyberattack, global operations affected

• An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation

  in regard to 3D-printer software from Bambu Lab, and what is being done to try to provide users with alternatives. One aspect that is particularly interesting is that the circumvention that the company is employing is precisely what the AGPL was written to prevent.

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Why does anyone care what Gates claims to think about anything now? How much has he paid for this coverage?

  • Bill Gates was an AI optimist. Now he's scared of what could go wrong

  • Bill Gates says we've passed AI's danger thresholds. Now what?

  • Bill Gates warns A.I. is more dangerous than Big Tech will admit

  • 'This is crazy. This is insane': Bill Gates has changed his mind about AI,jobs

  • Bill Gates calls for 'human reserved' jobs to protect labour force from AI

  • Gates Criticizes Tech Companies for Downplaying AI's Risks

  • Bill Gates warns 'there is no plan' for the 'upheaval' AI will cause

  • What jobs should be "human reserved" as Bill Gates puts it?

  • Bill Gates proposes major limits on AI development

• The AI founders who walked away from Bezos-backed Prometheus to model universe

• Data Centers Are Driving an Alarming Gas Power Expansion in the US

• Big Tech's Frantic Race to Quell the Growing Backlash to AI

• Debian polls its developers on AI: permit or ban?

• Moonshot in talks with Microsoft, Amazon, Google over K3 inference revenue share

• Nvidia's $200B 'balance sheet-as-a-service'

• Wall St. Scrutinizes Nvidia's Deal Machine

• Wall Street Is Counting on Nvidia to Keep the AI Party Going

• LinkedIn's 'Seems Like AI Slop' button drops views by 40%

• U.S. gov't moves to suppress pushback on data centers

• Mark Zuckerberg had a bold plan to replace Meta staff with AI

• How kids feel about AI, in their own words

• AI can now credibly complete most undergraduate assignments, MIT warns

• Is it legal to train AI models on copyrighted books?

• Data Centers and the Open Access Order

  The US discussion over datacenters is depressing. Datacenters do not use a lot of water, they produce very useful outputs, they are not a blight on the landscape. All of this is obvious. But I don’t want to restate the obvious. What bothers me most about the discussion is that people seem to think this is or should be a collective decision. No. We have a simple set of rules that everyone must follow. You buy land from someone willing to sell it. You contract for electricity. You hire workers who want the job. Your obligations to your local neighbors come from the same laws that govern everyone else. We do not ask what the land, electricity and labor is for. If you follow the rules, that is nobody’s business.

• The Nvidia-sized hole in US GDP statistics

  we show that this explanation is incomplete: GDP statistics have a blind spot around the value American firms, most notably Nvidia, create by designing AI chips that are manufactured and sold abroad. This has led to a substantial underestimation of AI’s contribution to US GDP.

• IBM's new Granite 4.2 models ride the wave of interest in local LLMs

• Kids outlearn AI–and we still don't know why

• OpenAI chips could potentially outperform Nvidia?

• OpenAI is "80% of the way" to AGI

• Inside The Warehouse Where Amazon Scans and Destroys Books for AI Training

• The multiplying risks of financing data centres

• Charges Dropped Against Person Who Clapped at a City Data Center Meeting

• Microsoft Paint and Photos add invisible watermarks to AI-generated content

• AI Is a Harsh Mistress

• Aw, It's Baby's First A.I. Surveillance System

• In the Land of AI and Bamboo Forks

  For a place that prides itself on tolerating—and making billions from—the peculiarities of the “neurodiverse,” San Francisco is remarkably determined to make you stick bamboo in your mouth.

• Legato is building AI glasses for hearing

• The sperm whale 'phonetic alphabet' revealed by AI

• Sam Altman tells TIME that OpenAI will achieve AGI by the end of this year

• OpenAI staff saw warning signs before agent hacking crusade caused global alarm

  • OpenAI saw warning signs weeks before Hugging Face breach

  • OpenAI Says It Could Have Reacted Sooner to Prevent AI Hack

  • The story on why OpenAI agents hacked Hugging Face

• The AI writing taboo begins to fade following WSJ op-ed

  • Wall Street Journal defends billionaire's use of AI to write op-ed

• There's Only One Way to Stop Students from Cheating

• Over a third of webpages created after ChatGPT's debut show signs of AI writing

Neo Gambling / Crypto con games

• They Looked Like They Were Getting Rich on Polymarket–But None of It Was Real

• Revolut Joins Global Stablecoin Race with Euro-Backed Token

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Short Squeeze in US Swaps, Options Shows 'Bessent Put' at Work

• Scandal-hit KPMG to cut jobs

• Running out of money: Kraft, McDonald's, Whirlpool CEOs flag consumer concern

• The Connections That Turned a Precocious Teen into the Fallen Nostradamus of AI

• PepsiCo Scraps Coverage of Weight-Loss Drugs for Employees

• Mark Walter's Troubles Are Disrupting the Insurance World's Hottest Trade

• Nvidia's Blowout Second Quarter Leaves Investors Unmoved

  • Nvidia Announces Financial Results for Second Quarter Fiscal 2027

  • Nvidia reports earnings beat as revenue more than doubles

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Utilities Break California Lobbying Record Under Newsom While Former Aides Lead

• "I took off a dead voter and guess what? That dead voter was put back on"

• Utility and tech firms 'educate' regulators with big donations, secret retreats

• Florida Catholics slap down state AG by rejecting religious vaccine exemptions

Democrats

• Years Late, Billions over Budget: CA's High-Speed Rail Hasn't Laid a Track

• House Dems' pro-Israel wing gains power on key panel

  It is a substantial win for the party's pro-Israel wing despite growing pro-Palestinian sentiment among the party's grassroots. And it could have global ramifications, with Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) indicating that, if he becomes chair of the Middle East and North Africa subcommittee next year, he will use the position to shore up U.S. support for Israel. "If Democrats take control of the House, I'll be in a position to help steer U.S. policy on Israel and the Middle East," he told Axios.

• Appeals court rejects Rep. McIver's challenge to charges for alleged assaults at ICE facility

  Rep. LaMonica McIver is not immune from prosecution for her contact with ICE officials during a heated scrum at New Jersey’s Delaney Hall detention facility, even though it occurred during a legislative investigation, a federal appeals court panel ruled Wednesday.

Left Angst

• US halts all immigrant visa applications amid tightening restrictions

  • Trump administration issues pause on immigrant visa

  • U.S. State Department Pauses Immigrant Visa Applications

• Guillotine found near US Capitol, California man arrested

• Trump tried to curb clean energy. It's booming anyway

• The journalist facing an $800 daily fine to keep her sources secret

  Herridge will be on the hook for the daily fines until or unless she reveals her sourcing for a series of 2017 stories about the Chinese-American scientist Yanping Chen, who had been federally investigated – but not charged – over her ties to China’s military and whether a Virginia school she operated was secretly aiding the communist country. It’s a case that has unsettled not only Herridge and her family, but also the community of press freedom organizations that exist to ensure against the unthinkable – a reporter being forced to disclose confidential sources, shattering the foundation of national security reporting in the public interest.

• Wiped out: US faces surging toilet paper prices amid trade war with Canada

• Indian workers seeking U.S. green cards could face 179-year wait, report finds

• America's immigration policy is driving away future AI leaders

• 'A Bible-sized blind spot': alarm on rising Christian nationalism

• The Trump admin is expanding immigration crackdown to people entering legally

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Maryland felony cases against Zizian trans death cult members abruptly suspended.

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Trump Sends Nuclear Agreement with Saudi Arabia to Congress

• US removes Syria from terrorism sponsor list, lifting major investment obstacle

• CIA Director John Ratcliffe met Russian intel counterparts on secretive visit to Moscow, Kremlin says

  CIA Director John Ratcliffe was in Moscow, Russia, for meetings on Tuesday, sources familiar with the situation told CBS News. News of his trip came after a U.S. Air Force Boeing C-17A Globemaster III transport plane was spotted flying into a Moscow airport Tuesday morning, and then a U.S. diplomatic motorcade was seen driving through the city. The CIA did not comment on his trip, but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow on Wednesday that Ratcliffe held talks with Russian intelligence officials during his visit, but that he did not meet President Vladimir Putin.

  • CIA Chief's Surprise Moscow Trip Was to Warn Russia Not to Attack NATO

• Chinese Hackers Broke into Justice Department, NASA, Federal Reserve, Senate

  • Hackers Broke into Justice Department, NASA, Federal Reserve, Senate

• FBI Shuts Down Sprawling China-Linked Hacking Network

World

• France to ease strict rules on iconic cheeses as heat dries pastures

• Social media use on the rise among Australian under-16s after ban: data

• New Zealand just announced legislation that bans children under 16 from social media and from using AI companions.

• France, Saudi Arabia agree on €6B Dragon Ball Z theme park project near Paris

• Radiation link in flight attendant's breast cancer, French court finds

• Why Ceuta is European, and what came of it

• German airport worker dies of malaria after 'mosquito arrives on plane'

• Over 400 missing after flash flood on Nepal-Tibet border

  • Flash flood on Nepal-Tibet border

  • Hundreds missing and many feared dead after flash flood hits Nepal-China border

• Germany plans sugar tax that includes sugar free drinks

• BBC destined to shrink at 'accelerating rate'

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Nvidia Jetson Orin-guided Russian AI drone killed three civilians in Ukraine

  • Minicomputers Made by Nvidia Are Powering Moscow's A.I. Drones

• Ukraine's Most Potent Weapon: The Software Orchestrating Its Drone Army

• Putin Moves to Escalate War in Ukraine With Talks at Dead End

China

• Chinese regulators tell Tesla to fix nearly 3M cars

• Chinese government fears talking to AI might replace human intimacy

• China's MiniMax sees revenue nearly quadruple in first half as AI demand surges

Health / Medicine

• Shingles vaccine linked to lower risk of heart attack and stroke, study finds

• Running as good as a nap to help cope with sleep deprivation

• FDA Approves First in Class Targeted Therapy for Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer

  • RevMed's Pancreatic Cancer Pill Priced Above $475,000 a Year

• Science magazine casts doubt on genes hailed as warding-off Alzheimer's disease

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• Pennsylvania reports first 2 measles deaths in the US this year

  • Two unvaccinated people in Pennsylvania are first measles-related 2026 US deaths

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Global snakebite envenoming and mortality are higher than previously reported

• America's Desert Metropolis Is on the Short List to Lose Water

• Rare polyamorous bird of prey's location has been kept a mystery

• Companies Are Promising Cloud Seeding Can Make Rain

• To predict tree death, scientists tapped gamma rays to peer underground

• A Manhattan-sized ice island just broke free from Greenland