Tootfinder

Waymo suspends operations in Atlanta and San Antonio as its robotaxis struggle with flooded roads and says it has yet to develop a "final remedy" for flooding (Sean O'Kane/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/21/waym

Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods | TechCrunch
Waymo's robotaxi service is now suspended in both Atlanta and San Antonio, as the company works to stop its vehicles from driving into flooded roads.

from my link log —
Weld: accelerating numpy, scikit and pandas as much as 100x with Rust and LLVM.
https://notamonadtutorial.com/weld-accelerating-numpy-scikit-and-pandas-as-much-as-100x-with-rust-and-llvm-12ec1c630…

Almost as good as a pardon (Joyce Vance/Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance)
https://joycevance.substack.com/p/almost-as-good-as-a-pardon
http://www.memeorandum.com/260520/p66#a260520p66

"Google Search as you know it is over"
#google

Google Search as you know it is over | TechCrunch
Google is transforming Search from a list of links into an AI-powered experience filled with conversational answers, autonomous agents, and interactive interfaces — a shift that could further reduce traffic to publishers across the web.

A red flower found nowhere else loses ground as mining expands in Brazil’s Amazon https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/04/a-red-flower-found-nowhere-else-loses-ground-as-mining-expands-in-brazils-amazon/

A red flower found nowhere else loses ground as mining expands in Brazil’s Amazon
In Brazil’s eastern Amazon, a bright red flower found nowhere else on Earth is threatened with extinction from expanding iron ore mining, scientists warn. The flowering plant, Ipomoea cavalcantei, known locally as flor-de-Carajás, only grows in cangas, an island-like ecosystem of metal-rich rocky soils and shallow vegetation in the middle of dense rainforest. There are […]

In Iran, at least 3,468 people were killed over several weeks of U.S.-Israeli strikes.
Recovery for Iran is expected to be costly after the strikes hit critical infrastructure like bridges, manufacturing, and oil depots, as well as civilian infrastructure like hospitals and schools.
As part of the agreement signed this week, the U.S. has said it would work with regional partners create a $300 billion reconstruction fund.
Meanwhile, in the U.S.:
as Trump seeks nearly $1.…

Trump May Be Drawing Down Iran War, But He’s Demanding Billions More for Bombs
The GOP is souring on Trump’s $1.5 trillion military budget as the president pushes for yet another reconciliation bill.

caida_as: CAIDA AS graphs (2004-2007)
A sequence of 122 network snapshots denoting Autonomous System (AS) relationships on the Internet, from 2004-2007, inferred using the Serial-1 method from RouteViews BGP table snapshots and a set of heuristics.
This network has 21157 nodes and 85468 edges.
Tags: Technological, Communication, Unweighted, Temporal

So Google is basically killing their main product? The ingenious money machine that made them billions? Or am I missing something … I mean: where are the ads? 🤔
https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/19/google-search-as-you-know-it-is-over/

Google Search as you know it is over | TechCrunch
Google is transforming Search from a list of links into an AI-powered experience filled with conversational answers, autonomous agents, and interactive interfaces — a shift that could further reduce traffic to publishers across the web.

From a Chinese state-sponsored news outlet. Can you say pot-kettle-black?
"Investigations found that the foreign intelligence agency had taken control of multiple routers within China and used them as platforms to send phishing emails disguised as invitations to participate in review work or traffic violation payment notices, targeting staff at key institutions."

China’s state security authorities uncover foreign agency using domestic routers as cyberattack proxies; users notice only slower speeds - Global Times
China’s state security authorities recently found that a foreign intelligence agency had used domestic routers in China as “proxies” and phishing emails to target personnel at key institutions to steal sensitive data, while affected users remained unaware, experiencing only slower internet speeds, frequent disconnections and unexpected reboots, according to China's Ministry of State Security (MSS).

Bills WR Keon Coleman describes 2026 season as 'make or break' for his future in Buffalo https://www.nfl.com/news/bills-wr-keon-coleman-describes-2026-season-as-make-or-break

8 Cowboys free agents remain unsigned as OTAs begin, including 3 starters https://cowboyswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/cowboys/2026/05/21/3-cowboys-starters-still-unsigned-as-nfl-clubs-kick…

Energy Game Changer: HaaS (Heating as a Service) Insight Summary - EGC: closing public summary and key points from the HaaS (Heating as a Service) Lite project. - https://www.earth.org.uk/EGC-WP5-Summary.html

Energy Game Changer: HaaS (Heating as a Service) Insight Summary
EGC: closing public summary and key points from the HaaS (Heating as a Service) Lite project.

"As a Fed governor, Warsh made it clear that he sees the Fed’s role as one that deals exclusively with monetary policy and cautioned against the central bank slipping into “fiscal” territory – tax and spending decisions usually taken by the government."
Because as everyone knows, treating problems with complex, interacting functions by treating the functions as independent #silos with …

"As a Fed governor, Warsh made it clear that he sees the Fed’s role as one that deals exclusively with monetary policy and cautioned against the central bank slipping into “fiscal” territory – tax and spending decisions usually taken by the government."
Because as everyone knows, treating problems with complex, interacting functions by treating the functions as independent #silos with …

I created a Workshop called "Naming Files and Folders - Best Practices at the Microscope" and now the slides and examples are published under #CCBY40, so feel free to use and adapt if you are working in #RDM as well. I am open for Feedback.
This was work for the CRC TRR 384 "IN-CODE",…

this is so fucking funny
https://creepylink.com/

CreepyLink
Make your links look as suspicious as possible

Raiders coach Klint Kubiak talks to media as OTAs begin —LIVE https://www.reviewjournal.com/sports/raiders/raiders-coach-klint-kubiak-talks-to-media-as-otas-begin-live-3826792/

Just finished "Fustuk" by Robert Mgrdich Apelian. Without exaggeration, it is a true masterpiece, an absolutely stunning graphic novel about food, family, and magical contracts that reminds me of both Witch Hat Atelier and Young Bride's Stories. The truly impressive part is that Apelian is every bit as good an illustrator and storyteller as both Kamome Shirahama and Kaoru Mori.
In the author's note, Apelian says "So I asked to make the story I always craved growing up: a tale of Middle Eastern joy and magic that speaks to diasporic culture and how those of us within it relate to our two worlds." He succeeded at that goal abundantly, as far as I can tell, and has produced a truly impressive work.
Images are rough pictures of a few example pages showing very cool panel construction, lots of detail, and both dynamic action and expressive faces. I'm not going to spoil anything, but the second image here is one of the most powerful pages I've read in a while and the way it uses gutters demonstrates a beautiful mastery of the comics medium.
#AmReading #ReadingNow #Bookstodon

For as long as you can remember, time has always slowed down for you during moments of danger.
This power is automatic and time returns to normal once you are out of peril.
One day, however, the world stops, and you can't figure out why.
#MicroFiction #TootFic

You know, something tells me “They’re not as bloodthirsty as us… they haven’t nuked civilians” isn’t the great defense of Israel this guy thinks it is.
Also, my dude, your damn nation was founded on genocide. @… https://

MOSQUE SHOOTERS IDENTIFIED AS TWO FORMER GOP SENATORS!
[hey, if they're going to just completely make shit up, we might as well have a little fun as well.]

Are you in the US and want to work on Smartcards? My employer has a position available: https://redhat.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/jobs/job/Senior-Software-Engineer-in-Crypto--Smart-Cards-_R-056859
(It says Raleigh, but…

Solar and wind outpace coal as energy crisis fails to spark fossil fuel revival | Euronews
https://www.euronews.com/2026/04/20/solar-and-wind-outpace-coal-as-iran-war-energy-crisis-fails-to-spark-fossil-fuel-revival

Google Search is over – at least as we know it. Instead of links, we’ll see AI agents that generate answers directly. Whilst this sounds convenient, there’s a catch: the sources are obscured and publishers continue to lose search engine traffic. Google won’t compensate for this – its business model is to exploit content for its own gain.
Anyone publishing independently has long needed a model beyond Google: newsletters, donations, paid content.

Google Search as you know it is over | TechCrunch
Google is transforming Search from a list of links into an AI-powered experience filled with conversational answers, autonomous agents, and interactive interfaces — a shift that could further reduce traffic to publishers across the web.

Happy 50th #anniversary to you, #Z80! 🥳
https://www.to…

Zilog Z80 turns 50 as an open-source replacement heads to drop-in DIP40 silicon — iconic 8-bit CPU launched in July 1976 and was discontinued in 2024
The Z80 powered many retro favorites like the ZX Spectrum, TRS-80, MSX, Game Boy, Master System, Pac-Man arcade cabinet, and many more

❔ How can climate mobility function as a proactive strategy for women and marginalised groups? What influences decision-making processes to migrate or to stay? What do governments and stakeholders need to do to increase women's agency?
📝 New Paper Published:
Human mobility as a climate and disaster risk management strategy: Addressing intersectional vulnerability and enhancing women's agency
🔗

Le Monde is considering ways to grant access to AI agents of paying readers while maintaining its block on crawler bots and other unlicensed non-human traffic (Jessica Davies/Digiday)
https://digiday.com/media/le-monde-blo

Le Monde blocked the bots. Now it’s working out what to do about paying readers showing up as agents
Le Monde is "figuring out" how to maintain its subscription partnership with readers who use AI agents rather than its homepage or app.

The fate of Earth during the Sun's giant phases - new constraints from ab initio tidal modelling and AGB mass loss: #Sun may spare Earth and Mars, as study reverses course on death of our planet: https://www.wionews.com/trending/sun-may-spare-earth-and-mars-as-study-reverses-course-on-death-of-our-planet-1781952003897

U.S. lead in science is shrinking fast as China, India and even Iran catch up https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2026-06-03/united-states-science-investment-china-india-iran Easy under the current Trump-led US administration.

Contributor: U.S. lead in science is shrinking fast as China, India and even Iran catch up
As global competition intensifies, the United States risks driving away the world’s brightest minds rather than drawing them in.

Moving as a metaphor for software management.
https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/moving-metaphor

A study conducted in the Phoenix metro area finds that waste heat from data centers can raise air temperatures in downwind neighborhoods by as much as 4°F (Tech Xplore)
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-centers-nearby-temperatures-degrees-phoenix.html…

Data centers raise nearby temperatures by up to 4 degrees in Phoenix
Waste heat from data centers can boost air temperatures in downwind neighborhoods by as much as 4 degrees Fahrenheit, researchers at Arizona State University report in a new study conducted in the Phoenix metro area, the hottest in the U.S.

OK, a •lot• of replies need this reponse:
Yes, of •course• they will start ignoring robots.txt etc as soon as they think it hurts their business. Of course.
It is important to •force that fight•, rather than just capitulating in advance.

É impressão minha ou o Porro abriu uma bandeira da Palestina durante as comemorações?!
EDITADO: Alarme falso, galera, acho que era bandeira de Extremadura, nome de uma Comunidade Autônoma da Espanha. Mas é mesmo muito parecida.

Deep sea mining identified as biggest threat to known and unknown deep-sea creatures https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/07/deep-sea-mining-identified-as-biggest-threat-to-known-and-unknown-deep-sea-crea…

Deep sea mining identified as biggest threat to known and unknown deep-sea creatures
The IUCN warns deep-sea mining is the greatest threat to hydrothermal vent species, more than 60% of known vent mollusks are now at risk of extinction.

I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as Linux, is in fact, Claude/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, Claude plus Linux.

As coding agents become better and better, the coding increasingly stops being the bottleneck, and the bottleneck is how many things you can keep juggling comfortable. As the number gets greater, you'll tend to lose context, drop things, etc. Your ability to handle many things is probably one of the greatest strengths in these workflows.
Which is to say, thanks to LLMs, attention is all you need.

I found an old WD NAS buried in all my computer parts clutter in the basement. I had completely forgotten about it after switching to the great uGreen NAS.
With 2x 4 TB WD Red drives, this WD NAS will now serve as my personal cloud at home, while the uGreen NAS will no longer function as a cloud solution connecting my smartphones and computers on the go, but rather as pure file and document storage on the internal network. So I’m splitting these functions between two NAS devices.

Tehran has announced the closure of the Strait of Hormuz once again
in response to Israeli strikes in Lebanon that have killed at least 83 people on Saturday.
Iran says the attacks are a violation of the US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding signed this week aimed at pausing the three month-conflict.

Iran shuts Strait of Hormuz as Israel tests MOU with Lebanon strikes
Iran shuts Strait of Hormuz as Israel tests MOU with Lebanon strikes.

🔊 #NowPlaying on #BBCRadio3:
#OperaOn3
- Britten's Peter Grimes
Allan Clayton stars as the outcast fisherman in Britten's masterpiece at the Royal Ballet and Opera, with a cast including Maria Bengtsson as Ellen and Bryn Terfel as Balstrode.
Relisten now 👇
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002xms1

One of the things thing I noticed at an academic music tech event I attended recently is that 'culture' is used as a pejorative term, as in 'cultural baggage'. When you create a new interface in the 90s it's wonderful and Utopian because there's no cultural baggage, people don't know what to expect! Then wii remotes etc came along and it was a disaster because there's now a cultural reference for a performer waving a sensor around to make noises. Collectively,…

And as far as I know, nobody has ever photographed a bat catching a mosquito in the wild.

There's a signing event today. The EO reportedly calls for only voluntary government testing of frontier AI systems and no mandatory oversight, which is pretty much what we have today.
Trump Set to Sign AI Cybersecurity Directive as Soon as Thursday
htt…

as_skitter: Skitter IP graph (2005)
An aggregate snapshot of the Internet Protocol (IP) graph, as measured by the traceroute tool on CAIDA's skitter infrastructure, in 2005.
This network has 1696415 nodes and 11095298 edges.
Tags: Technological, Communication, Unweighted
https://networks.skewed.de/net/as_s…

New father, Josh Allen, hoping 'dad strength kicks in' as he turns 30 https://www.nfl.com/news/new-father-josh-allen-hoping-dad-strength-kicks-in-as-he-turns-30

Airbus & the cloud.
"European aerospace giant Airbus has lined up on the runway and is pushing the throttles forward as it prepares to evict apps from America. Airbus has named French cloud services provider Scaleway as the destination for some 900 applications, with an initial 70 getting priority onboarding, as it seeks to put critical systems and data under European control."

Airbus takes flight from AWS. What happens next is critical
Which way to the Land of the Free again?

Cowboys OC Klayton Adams Eyed as Future NFL Head Coach https://www.si.com/nfl/cowboys/onsi/dallas-cowboys-oc-klayton-adams-eyed-as-future-nfl-head-coach

Solar and wind outpace coal as energy crisis fails to spark fossil fuel revival | Euronews
https://www.euronews.com/2026/04/20/solar-and-wind-outpace-coal-as-iran-war-energy-crisis-fails-to-spark-fossil-fuel-revival

“MSI prices its latest handheld at $1,800 as exec says ‘it will be a tough year for us and the gamers’”
Those poor souls will have to hand over their money and we’ll have the unenviable task of taking it.
https://www.videogam…

MSI prices its latest handheld at $1,800 as exec says ‘it will be a tough year for us and the gamers’
There's still potential for more price hikes, its marketing lead warns

Google Search as you know it is over -- The era of the "ten blue links" is officially over. (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/19/google-search-as-you-know-it-is-over/
http://www.memeorandum.com/260519/p85#a260519p85

Klint Kubiak handling first OTAs as Raiders head coach with 'direct' and 'straightforward' approach https://www.raiders.com/news/klint-kubiak-handling-first-otas-as-raiders-head-coach-with-direct-and-strai…

Sources: the EU Parliament plans to launch EPGenAI Hub as early as September, giving MEPs and staff access to Meta, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Mistral models (Max Griera/Politico)
https://www.politico.eu/article/the-european-parliaments-answer-to-its-ai…

The European Parliament’s answer to its AI worries: More AI
The institution is opening its doors to models from OpenAI, Meta, Anthropic and Mistral as it tries to bring lawmakers’ growing use of the technology under control.

TikTok users don't have as much agency over their FYPs as they think https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/07/how-much-control-do-tiktok-users-really-have-over-fyps/

TikTok users don't have as much agency over their FYPs as they think
The "not interested" feature is your friend, but users must intentionally and constantly curate their FYPs...

Kara Swisher says she'll leave CNN as soon as she can if the Ellisons acquire WBD, the network's parent company; she's under contract until the end of 2026 (Zoe Engels/Mediaite)
https://www.mediaite.com/media/im-just-not

‘I’m Just Not Staying’: Kara Swisher Jumping Ship At CNN As Soon As She Can Over ‘ ...
CNN’s Kara Swisher said she'll depart CNN as soon as she can if the "incompetent" Ellison family successfully acquires the network's parent company.

A woman named Lanna shared that she left the United States two-and-a-half years ago and is now living in Germany.
She recently got a job as a part-time barista to make some extra cash.
The experience, even before she has started the job, has “broken” her—but “in a good way.”
Per her residence permit, Lanna cannot work more than 20 hours per week.
Rather than a traditional interview, the employer had her come in for a “try-out day.”
At the end of it, she was surp…

An American got hired as a part-time barista in Germany. The job benefits blew her mind.
A young woman living in Germany shared that her part-time barista job came with over a month of paid vacation and healthcare benefits.

"Henderson noted that the statue cited by the government in its determination was specifically crafted to address risks from hostile nations and other bad actors, none of which seemed to apply to Anthropic."
https://www.courthousenews.com/dc-circuit-

DC Circuit slams Pentagon blacklisting of Anthropic as overreach
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth took issue with the AI company's refusal to remove two narrow contractual restrictions on Claude’s use for lethal autonomous warfare and the mass surveillance of Americans.

Still more reasons the AI boosters are full of as much shit as the AI itself.
#Sexism

Jen Horsburgh (@jenatlionra) on Threads
I just wanted to update my resume. Instead, I accidentally proved how a multi-billion-dollar AI tool hallucinates a glass ceiling for women. I changed a single variable: My name. Here is what happened when "Jennifer" became "Jeff." I fed Gemini, Google's AI tool, my old resume, my current info, case studies, and the kinds of roles I wanted, and asked it to write me a new resume. Simple. Except it wasn’t. The first thing I noticed was the softening.

The biggest issue for Dallas heading into training camp is clear as day https://insidethestar.com/the-biggest-issue-for-dallas-heading-into-training-camp-is-clear-as-day

SkyeChip becomes the first Malaysian chip design company to IPO on the Bursa Malaysia exchange, surging 300% ; the company was valued at ~$397M at its IPO price (Nikkei Asia)
https://asia.nikkei.com/business/markets/ipo/skyechip-soar…

SkyeChip soars in IPO at open as Malaysia bets on chip design
IC design specialist targets global expansion on AI demand

Klint Kubiak handling first OTAs as Raiders head coach with 'direct' and 'straightforward' approach https://www.raiders.com/news/klint-kubiak-handling-first-otas-as-raiders-head-coach-with-direct-and-strai…

Keir Starmer expected to announce departure as prime minister on Monday (The Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/21/keir-starmer-expected-to-announce-departure-as-prime-minister-on-monday
http://www.memeorandum.com/260621/p22#a260621p22

More than 17,000 people were under evacuation orders in southern California on Tuesday as a wildfirethreatened suburban homes.
The wind-driven #Sandy fire was reported Monday in the hills above Simi Valley, about 30 miles (48km) north-west of Los Angeles.
By Tuesday morning, it had consumed more than 2 sq miles of dry brush and destroyed at least one home, according to the Ventura county fire dep…

Extreme temperature warnings in place as ‘heat dome’ bakes US https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/15/extreme-heat-warnings-us
Heat wave smashes records across central US

Is Tom Brady eyeing a WWE future as he continues his public spat with Logan Paul? https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7458839/2026/07/20/tom-brady-logan-paul-slap-wwe/

Bandero Premium Tequila joins Raider Nation as the Official Tequila Partner of the Las Vegas Raiders https://www.raiders.com/news/bandero-premium-tequila-joins-raider-nation-as-the-official-tequila-partner-of-the-las…

Russian-occupied Crimea completely suspends gas sales to civilians as Ukrainian drone strikes squeeze peninsula (Luca Léry Moffat/The Kyiv Independent)
https://kyivindependent.com/crimea-completely-suspends-gas-sales-as-ukrainian-drone-strikes-squeeze-occupied-peninsula/
http://www.memeorandum.com/260621/p10#a260621p10

The Senate succeeded in advancing legislation Tuesday to force Donald Trump to withdraw from the Iran war,
Since Trump ordered the attack on Iran at the end of February, Democrats have forced repeated votes on war powers resolutions that would require him to either gain congressional approval for the war or withdraw troops.
Republicans had been able to muster the votes to reject those proposals,
-- but Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy
— fresh off a primary election loss in…

Senate advances bill aimed at ending Iran war as Cassidy, after primary loss, flips to support it
The Senate advanced legislation Tuesday that seeks to force President Donald Trump to withdraw from the Iran war, as a growing number of Republicans defied the president's wishes.

Already overburdened by growing alert volumes and expanding attack surfaces, SOC workers now have to deal with more AI-generated information that must itself be evaluated.
Check out my latest CSO on the human challenges that AI brings to SOCs.
Thanks to Fernando Montenegro of the Futurum Group, SOC expert Chris Crowley, SANS expert John Hubbard, and Jose-Marie Griffiths, president emerita and former CIO of Dakota State University, for their insights.

SOCs face a human challenge as AI speeds alerts and threats
The future of the security operations center may depend less on technology than on how well security leaders manage human attention, expertise, and resilience.

Sources: Tomlin joining NBC as studio analyst https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/48551327/mike-tomlin-joins-nbc-nfl-studio-analyst-sources-confirm

Sources: the UK government is expected to consult as early as this month on rules to make public service news more prominent on social media and video platforms (Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/7f147e35-d2ca-48fe-a886-95721002ce3c

Jimmy Kimmel taps longtime Trump nemesis Rosie O'Donnell to replace him as he steps back from late-night show (BreAnna Bell/Page Six)
https://pagesix.com/2026/06/20/entertainment/jimmy-kimmel-taps-longtime-trump-nemesis-rosie-odonnell-to-replace-him-as-he-steps-back-from-late-night-show/
http://www.memeorandum.com/260620/p47#a260620p47

A lot of the attention to changes in higher education has focused on cultural issues, such as debates over free speech.
“But there’s also a real economic and geopolitical dimension to what’s happening, in terms of the shifting away from the scientific enterprise and the leading global role that the United States has played for decades.”
Federal funding isn’t flowing to MIT as it typically has, Kornbluth said.
Some federal agencies are talking about taking geography — not …

MIT president blames federal policy shifts for big drop in research on campus
Federal funding cuts have curtailed research at elite universities such as MIT, dulling America’s competitive edge globally.

Under acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, the pace of investigations against Mr. Trump’s perceived enemies has accelerated
— most strikingly, the indictment of the former F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, for posting on social media an image of seashells that prosecutors cast as threatening.
Blanche has used his new perch to boost debunked election conspiracy theories promoted by the president.
But the moves that most starkly illustrated Blanche’s evolving approach came th…

Trump’s Fund Shows Blanche Choosing Loyalty Over Pushing Back
Once seen by some as the most conventional of President Trump’s political appointees, Todd Blanche has taken off the gloves in his new role as acting attorney general.

Small-scale farming, logging eclipse megaprojects as top threats to Tapanuli orangutan habitat https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/small-scale-farming-logging-eclipse-megaprojects-as-top-threats-to-tapanuli-orangutan-ha…

Small-scale farming, logging eclipse megaprojects as top threats to Tapanuli orangutan habitat
JAKARTA — Large infrastructure projects have long dominated debate over the future of Indonesia’s Batang Toru ecosystem, the main stronghold of the critically endangered Tapanuli orangutan. But a new study suggests that while those projects have accelerated forest loss, the greatest direct threat to the ape’s habitat now comes from a much less visible source: […]

Trump mocks Democrat Texas Senate candidate James Talarico: 'Can't get elected as a vegan in Texas' (Steven Nelson/New York Post)
https://nypost.com/2026/05/20/us-news/trump-mocks-democrat-texas-senate-candidate-james-talarico-cant-get-elected-as-a-vegan-in-texas/
http://www.memeorandum.com/260520/p45#a260520p45

Sources: OpenAI is preparing to file confidentially for an IPO as early as Friday (Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/openai-is-preparing-to-file-for-an-ipo-very-soon-0ec95af5?st=6pJKH3&reflin…

A look at Russia's push to develop homegrown AI talent, as the country is hampered by scarce access to AI hardware and a brain drain of top technical talent (Nikita Ostrovsky/Time)
https://time.com/article/2026/06/18/russia-ai-putin-chip-us-china/

Russia Wants AI Sovereignty. It Has a Chip Problem
As Vladimir Putin's daughter helps lead a new push for AI talent, Russia's biggest obstacle may be the chips it can't make.

“Stand up if you know someone who’s been affected by community violence,”
Dr. Khalid Griffin prompted the group of Fort Wayne high schoolers. 
Almost all 60 teenagers who had been seated in the center of the downtown church stood up.
The teens, a predominantly Black group of students, were selected as part of a youth program that does violence prevention work with local high schools.
As area business leaders, city officials, judges, and police officers watched and too…

Teens in This Small Indiana City Want to Talk About Shootings. Adults Are Listening.
“Stand up if you know someone who’s been affected by community violence,” Dr. Khalid Griffin prompted the group of Fort Wayne high schoolers.  Almost all 60 teenagers who had been seated in the center of the downtown church stood up. The teens, a predominantly Black group of students, were selected as part of a youth […]

Internal memo: Xbox hires game industry analyst Matthew Ball as chief strategy officer, and names Scott Van Vliet, who led Azure AI infrastructure, as Xbox CTO (Tom Warren/The Verge)

Xbox hires game industry analyst Matthew Ball to lead strategy
The second major Xbox leadership changes this month.

Filing: SpaceX set aside $530M for potential litigation losses, including lawsuits involving Grok's "Spicy" mode, which it described as a "heightened risk" (Wired)
https://www.wired.com/story/spacex-ipo-grok-spicy-mode-risks/

SpaceX Listed Grok’s ‘Spicy’ Mode as a Risk in Its IPO Filing
The rocket company has set aside more than $500 million for potential litigation losses, in part to account for complaints alleging that Grok created sexualized images.

As calls mount for accountability over the ICE killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston,
we speak with Democratic Congressmember Al Green,
who represents Texas’s 9th Congressional District.
He demands an independent investigation into the shooting to stop
“an attempt to cover up” the killing by the Trump administration.
Democratic lawmakers led by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus will hold a public hearing in Houston on Friday
to gather testimony from…

Texas Rep. Al Green Accuses Trump Admin of Attempting to Cover Up ICE Killings
As calls mount for accountability over the ICE killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston, we speak with Democratic Congressmember Al Green, who represents Texas’s 9th Congressional District. He demands an independent investigation into the shooting to stop “an attempt to cover up” the killing by the Trump administration. Democratic lawmakers led by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus will hold a public hearing in Houston on Friday to gather testimony from community members about Salgado …

Analysis: Samsung could distribute ~$26.6B to chip employees, or ~$340K each for its 78,000 staff, as a bonus in early 2027 as part of a last-minute union deal (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-05-21/samsu…

The media is "abnormalizing" Mamdani as pathologically as they normalize Trump
https://bsky.app/profile/michaelhobbes.bsky.social/post/3moqkac5rl22j

Michael Hobbes (@michaelhobbes.bsky.social)
Even his policy proposals — free buses, freezing rents on rent-controlled apartments, five city-run grocery stores — weren't all that far outside the political mainstream. The media has conjured a radical antisemitic insurgent out of thin air.

Sources: Chinese startup Moonshot AI is seeking formal approval from investors to start a Hong Kong IPO process, which could happen in as soon as six months (Juro Osawa/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/moonshot-ai-seeks-…

Moonshot AI Seeks Investor Approval to Begin IPO Process
Chinese startup Moonshot AI, whose powerful new open-source model is upending Silicon Valley, is seeking formal approval from investors to begin preparations for an initial public offering in Hong Kong, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. The Beijing-based company recently distributed a shareholder resolution regarding its IPO plan, according to the people. The timing of its

Republicans are all abuzz about socialism because the party’s political prospects look dire this fall.
Donald Trump’s approval ratings are in the thirties,
Americans are experiencing surging energy prices,
and Trump and other Republicans are engaged in open corruption while cutting vital government programs.
They need something, and in a pinch, socialism has always been the go-to emergency button for the right to push.

Why the GOP loves to use ‘communism’ as an attack
Explaining the Right this week explores why Republicans keep trying to scare people into thinking Democrats want communism.

AMD plans to ship Helios, its first rack-scale AI system to rival Nvidia, later in 2026 to Microsoft, Meta, OpenAI, and others; Helios costs an estimated $5M (Katie Tarasov/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/20/amd-helios-microsoft-ai-nvidia.html

AMD launches Helios, its first rack AI system to rival Nvidia, adding Microsoft as newest buyer
AMD is taking aim at Nvidia with Helios, its first AI rack system, and has landed Microsoft as a new customer, joining Meta, OpenAI and Oracle.

One might see needy children getting less food assistance as a horrifying outcome.
But the Trump administration has sold all this as a success story.
Those losing benefits, we’re told, were all lazy grifters who were probably defrauding the government anyway.
Or, alternatively, maybe they really did once deserve their benefits, but they have since graduated out of their undignified need for federal assistance thanks to Trump’s economic boom.
“A lot of [the enrollmen…

Trump’s One Big Beautiful Hunger Crisis
His solution to the food affordability crisis is to cut programs that help people afford food.

Singapore announces a National AI Partnership with Google and an MoU with OpenAI, which will set up an AI lab and commit $234M to the city-state's AI ecosystem (Dylan Butts/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/20/singapore-

Singapore inks AI deals with Google, OpenAI as ChatGPT-maker commits $234 million to local ecosystem
Singapore has signed new partnerships with Google and OpenAI to strengthen the city-state's position as a global AI hub and accelerating AI deployment.

‘The biggest threat is the president’
Election fears in Arizona as Trump sows fresh doubts
Experts warn election denialism could bubble up again in November,
despite truce in bitter power struggle
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/j

‘The biggest threat is the president’: election fears in Arizona as Trump sows fresh doubts
Experts warn election denialism could bubble up again in November, despite truce in bitter power struggle

A speculative scenario titled "Europe 2031" projects economic and political instability in the EU if it fails to keep pace with the US and China in the AI race (Aisha Down/The Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jun/20/e…

A viral doomsday scenario aims to shake Europe out of its AI complacency
Does a thought-experiment about US ascendancy in the technology say as much about AI jitters as it does about the reality?

Global health leaders are considering whether vaccines or medicines still in development could be used to fight Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,
as the World Health Organization’s chief said he was deeply concerned by the outbreak’s speed and scale.
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said there had been at least 500 suspected cases of Ebola
and 130 suspected deaths in DRC since the new outbreak began
– up from about 200 cases and 65 deaths when it was announc…

Sources: Anthropic is in talks to rent servers powered by Microsoft-designed chips; source: Anthropic has steadily increased its Azure usage since November 2025 (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/anthropic-talks-use-microsofts-ai-chips…

Anthropic Is in Talks to Use Microsoft’s AI Chips
Anthropic is in talks to rent servers powered by Microsoft-designed AI server chips as it seeks more computing power to meet rising demand for its AI, according to two people who spoke to executives involved in the discussion. Winning Anthropic as a customer would be a coup for Microsoft, whose ...

Around a Third of Santa Rosa Island Has Burned
The fire on Santa Rosa Island has “burned 17,554 acres and was 44% contained as of Wednesday night.
https://www.noozhawk.com/crews-increase-containment-santa-rosa-island-fire/

Santa Rosa Island Fire Now 44% Contained as Weather Conditions Improve
Firefighters, their food and gear, and even wildland fire engines are being sent to Santa Rosa Island by boat to battle the wildfire that had burned

Sources: Kalshi plans to offer crypto trading in the US, offering perpetual futures, putting it in competition with exchanges like Coinbase (Yueqi Yang/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/exclusive-kalshi-launch-crypto-t…

Exclusive: Kalshi to Launch Crypto Trading With Perpetual Futures
Prediction market Kalshi plans to offer crypto trading in the U.S., according to people familiar with the matter, putting it in direct competition with crypto exchanges such as Coinbase. Kalshi will enter the crypto market by offering perpetual futures, the most popular type of trading products, on crypto tokens such as bitcoin, the people said. Crypto perpetuals, largely off-limits to U.S.

It was all starting to feel like a good old-fashioned something-gate,
the kind of scandal that might even bring down a presidency.
But then, as with so many other stories in the era of Trump, its spark was subsumed by a new fire.
On 28 February, Trump launched an unprovoked and likely illegal war against Iran,
and the Epstein files were once again pushed off the front pages.
The Donald J Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Reading Room is an attempt to stem the d…

Starmer expected to resign on Monday and set out orderly exit
The prime minister now accepts that his time has run out as majority of Labour MPs back Andy Burnham
https://observer.co.uk/news/politics/article/starmer-expected-to…

Starmer expected to resign on Monday and set out orderly exit
The prime minister now accepts that his time has run out as majority of Labour MPs now back Andy Burnham

Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) on Wednesday slammed Donald Trump for appointing Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence,
arguing the move increases the risk of a terrorist attack on the U.S. 
“The installation of a thug and a hack like Pulte as the acting director of national intelligence is maybe the most chilling and the most dangerous nomination or appointment that this president has made,” Ossoff told host Jen Psaki on MS NOW’s “The Briefing.”

This type of hopeful news on a gene therapy cure for sickle cell disease would go against Trump’s policies,
as OMB director Russ Vought says.
Why? Because it is DEI.
Sickle Cell Disease disproportionally affects African Americans
due to an evolutionary trait that helps protect them from malaria.
https:…

Princess Vimentin PhD | Cancer Biologist (@princess-vimentin.bsky.social)
This type of hopeful news on a gene therapy cure for sickle cell disease would go against Trump’s policies, as OMB director Russ Vought says. Why? Because it is DEI. Sickle Cell Disease disproportionally affects African Americans due to an evolutionary trait that helps protect them from malaria.

The nation’s largest public four-year university may soon be barred from replacing faculty with generative AI
as a bill backed by a union of professors comes nearer to reaching the governor’s desk.
Few examples exist of the California State University’s attempting to replace faculty labor with generative AI tools,
but the faculty union wants to prevent such efforts from ever getting off the ground.
The bill so far has garnered no opposition from lawmakers and may clear…

Cal State faculty push to prevent AI tools from replacing them as schools and staff experiment
The union representing California State University professors is contesting the system's use of artificial intelligence tools and backing legislation that would protect their jobs from the technology.

Lack of transparency on who manages Trump’s investments adds to questions about possible conflicts of interests that have followed Trump throughout his time in the Oval Office.
"The confusion from the White House as to who manages the president's stock portfolios is deeply troubling,”
Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, acting vice president of policy and government affairs at the Project On Government Oversight, told NOTUS in a statement.
“It would raise serious ethical quest…

What Donald Trump Knows About His Stock Investments
The president is playing the market again as Congress weighs banning elected officials from trading stocks.