Tootfinder

🛡️ Big trees in Amazon more climate-resistant than previously believed
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/sep/25/study-shows-big-trees-in-amazon-more-climate-resistant-than-previously-believed

Cowboys Announce Reunion With Previously Suspended DB https://heavy.com/sports/nfl/dallas-cowboys/julius-wood-reunite-with-previously-suspended-db/?adt_ei=[email]

Trump is just the worst!
The National Park Service is reshuffling its free-admission schedule
so that visitors get in free on Donald Trump’s birthday next year,
while Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth (previously free days) will now require regular entrance fees.
https://bsky.app…

Alt National Park Service (@altnps.bsky.social)
Trump is just the worst! The National Park Service is reshuffling its free-admission schedule so that visitors get in free on Donald Trump’s birthday next year, while Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth (previously free days) will now require regular entrance fees. https://www.axios.com/2025/12/05/national-park-service-free-days-2026-trump-birthday-mlk-juneteenth

Commanders QB Jayden Daniels leaves game after landing hard on previously dislocated left elbow

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/jayden-daniels-injury-commanders-qb-elbow-vikings…

Police in Edmonton, Canada partner with Axon to test body cameras with AI facial recognition, and say the results will be verified by human officers (Associated Press)
https://apnews.com/article/ai-facial-recognition-axon-edmonton-21f319ce806a0…

AI-equipped police body cameras in Canada's Edmonton spark ethical concerns
Police in Edmonton, Canada, have started a pilot project using AI-equipped body cameras to detect faces on a "high risk" watch list. The move by Axon Enterprise, Inc. has raised ethical concerns, especially since the company previously paused facial recognition due to privacy issues. The pilot aims to enhance officer and public safety by identifying individuals flagged for a history of serious offenses. However, critics worry about societal risks and the lack of public debate. Axon CEO Rick Smi…

https://apnews.com/article/chinese-surveillance-silicon-valley-uyghurs-tech-xinjiang-8e000601dadb6aea230f18170ed54e88
“Over the past quarter century, American tech companies to a large degree designed and built …

How Silicon Valley enabled China's digital police state
An AP investigation reveals that U.S. technology companies to a large degree designed and built China’s surveillance state, playing a far greater role in enabling human rights abuses than previously known. Firms including IBM, Dell, and Cisco sold billions in technology to Chinese police and government agencies, despite repeated warnings that such tools were being used to quash dissent, persecute religious sects and target minorities. Critically, American surveillance technologies allowed a b…

Samba TV raised up to $60M in venture debt to scale through acquisitions and new AI-powered measurement tools; Samba previously raised $69M in equity funding (Kerry Flynn/Axios)
https://www.axios.com/2025/12/08/samba-tv-measurement-venture-debt

Exclusive: Samba TV raises up to $60M venture debt
The firm plans to boost AI-powered media measurement and pursue acquisitions.

Recasting the nature of INTEGRAL hard X-ray transients previously classified as active galactic nuclei
V. Sguera, L. Sidoli
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.06920 https://

Recasting the nature of INTEGRAL hard X-ray transients previously classified as active galactic nuclei
We present new broad-band X-ray results aimed at the identification and characterization of four poorly studied hard X-ray transients discovered by INTEGRAL: IGR J16426+6536, IGR J09446-2636, IGR J21268+6203, and IGR J02447+7046. The key properties and X-ray behavior of these sources have remained largely unknown until now. We investigated the temporal, spectral, and energetic characteristics of their hard X-ray outbursts detected above 20 keV by INTEGRAL. In addition, we performed a systematic…

Got the convergence mostly fixed after trying to fix it previously. Learned a heluva lot, but time to enjoy the fruits of my labor.
#retrogaming #snes #crt

„Tech companies’ use of Pfas gas at facilities may mean datacenters’ climate impact is worse than previously thought“ (via @… )
https://www.

CFO Palantir talking about how they're working to make the various data streams of surveillance efficiently useful and remove the needle-in-a-haystack anonymity we have previously enjoyed. Awesome.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/30/opinion

MIO: Multiverse Debugging in the Face of Input/Output -- Extended Version with Additional Appendices
Tom Lauwaerts, Maarten Steevens, Christophe Scholliers
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.06845

MIO: Multiverse Debugging in the Face of Input/Output -- Extended Version with Additional Appendices
Debugging non-deterministic programs on microcontrollers is notoriously challenging, especially when bugs manifest in unpredictable, input-dependent execution paths. A recent approach, called multiverse debugging, makes it easier to debug non-deterministic programs by allowing programmers to explore all potential execution paths. Current multiverse debuggers enable both forward and backward traversal of program paths, and some facilitate jumping to any previously visited states, potentially bra…

Interfacing Quantum Computing Systems with High-Performance Computing Systems: An Overview
Konstantinos Rallis, Ioannis Liliopoulos, Georgios D. Varsamis, Evangelos Tsipas, Ioannis G. Karafyllidis, Georgios Ch. Sirakoulis, Panagiotis Dimitrakis
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.06205

Interfacing Quantum Computing Systems with High-Performance Computing Systems: An Overview
The connection and eventual integration of High-Performance Computing (HPC) with Quantum Computing (QC) represents a transformative advancement in computational technology, promising significant enhancements in solving complex, previously intractable problems. This manuscript provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of HPC-QC interfacing, detailing architectural methodologies, software stack developments, middleware functionalities, and hardware integration strategies. It critical…

Constrained Natural Language Action Planning for Resilient Embodied Systems
Grayson Byrd, Corban Rivera, Bethany Kemp, Meghan Booker, Aurora Schmidt, Celso M de Melo, Lalithkumar Seenivasan, Mathias Unberath
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.06357

Constrained Natural Language Action Planning for Resilient Embodied Systems
Replicating human-level intelligence in the execution of embodied tasks remains challenging due to the unconstrained nature of real-world environments. Novel use of large language models (LLMs) for task planning seeks to address the previously intractable state/action space of complex planning tasks, but hallucinations limit their reliability, and thus, viability beyond a research context. Additionally, the prompt engineering required to achieve adequate system performance lacks transparency, a…

A few conservative representatives with ties to the FBI and the Justice Department have spilled that
the true details of the Epstein files are “worse” for Trump than previously reported, according to journalist David Schuster.
Michael Wolff, a longtime chronicler of Trump’s White House who conducted extensive interviews with Epstein prior to his death, told The Daily Beast last month that
Epstein had shown him photos of Trump with half-naked “young girls” in his lap.

DOJ Admits to Republicans That Epstein Files Are Even Worse for Trump
Details in the files are reportedly even more damning for Donald Trump than previously indicated—and it was already bad.

Revisiting Cases 2 and 11 of the Map Color Theorem
Timothy Sun
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.06407 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.06407

Revisiting Cases 2 and 11 of the Map Color Theorem
In 1968, Ringel and Youngs solved the remaining cases of the orientable Map Color Theorem by finding genus embeddings of the complete graphs $K_n$, for sufficiently large $n \equiv 2, 8, 11 \pmod{12}$. Following the approach previously explored by the author for $n \equiv 8 \pmod{12}$, we aim to streamline their constructions for $n \equiv 2, 11 \pmod{12}$ by finding families of current graphs with simpler patterns for the arc labelings.

The Linear System Package of Magma
Carlos Rito
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.06940 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.06940 …

The Linear System Package of Magma
We present a complete reimplementation of the LinearSystem package of Magma, with substantial improvements in design and performance. The resulting efficiency enables computations that were previously out of reach. We briefly describe the design principles, capabilities, and algorithms of the new implementation and illustrate them with examples that showcase its power. Rather than comparing speeds, our goal is to advertise the package by demonstrating what can now be achieved in practice. We al…

SER-Diff: Synthetic Error Replay Diffusion for Incremental Brain Tumor Segmentation
Sashank Makanaboyina
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.06283 https://arxiv.org…

SER-Diff: Synthetic Error Replay Diffusion for Incremental Brain Tumor Segmentation
Incremental brain tumor segmentation is critical for models that must adapt to evolving clinical datasets without retraining on all prior data. However, catastrophic forgetting, where models lose previously acquired knowledge, remains a major obstacle. Recent incremental learning frameworks with knowledge distillation partially mitigate forgetting but rely heavily on generative replay or auxiliary storage. Meanwhile, diffusion models have proven effective for refining tumor segmentations, but h…

Pulsar timing array analysis in a Legendre polynomial basis
Bruce Allen, Arian L. von Blanckenburg, Ken D. Olum
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.05913 https://ar…

Pulsar timing array analysis in a Legendre polynomial basis
We use Legendre polynomials (previously discussed in this context by Pitrou and Cusin [1]) to model signals in pulsar timing arrays (PTA). These replace the (Fourier mode) basis of trigonometric functions normally used for data analysis. The Legendre basis makes it simpler to incorporate pulsar modeling effects, which remove constant-, linear-, and quadratic-in-time terms from pulsar timing residuals. In the Legendre basis, this zeroes the amplitudes of the the first three Legendre polynomials.…

"Antarctica sees similar climate change effects as Greenland: Study"
#Antarctica #Climate #ClimateChange

Antarctica sees similar climate change effects as Greenland: Study
The planet's warming climate is having effects in Antarctica that increasingly resemble those observed in the Arctic, meaning global sea levels could rise faster than previously predicted, Danish researchers warned on Friday.

Police searched national network of automatic license plate reading cameras in abortion investigation https://therecord.media/police-searched-license-reading-cameras-abortion-investigation

Fractal Aggregate Aerosols in the Virga Cloud Code I: Model Description and Application to a Benchmark Cloudy Exoplanet
Sarah E. Moran, Matt G. Lodge, Natasha E. Batalha, Kazumasa Ohno, Sanaz Vahidinia, Mark S. Marley, Hannah R. Wakeford, Z\"oe M. Leinhardt
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.06708

Fractal Aggregate Aerosols in the Virga Cloud Code I: Model Description and Application to a Benchmark Cloudy Exoplanet
We introduce new functionality to treat fractal aggregate aerosol particles within the Virga cloud modeling framework. Previously, the open source cloud modeling code Virga (Batalha et al. 2025), the Python version of EddySed (Ackerman & Marley, 2001), assumed spherical particles to compute particle mass and size distributions throughout the atmosphere. The initial release of Virga also assumed spherical particles to compute Mie scattering properties, which include the single scattering albedo,…

🛖 Warming triggers unprecedented carbon loss from tropical soils, study finds
https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/warming-triggers-unprecedented-carbon-loss-from-tropical-soils-study-finds/

Warming triggers unprecedented carbon loss from tropical soils, study finds
Climate warming could cause much greater soil carbon losses in the tropics than previously predicted, with potentially dire consequences for the global climate, according to a new study published in Nature Communications. Tropical forests store around a third of the world’s soil carbon and exchange more CO2 with the atmosphere than any other land biome. […]

Another view into JWST-discovered X-ray weak AGNs via radiative dusty feedback
W. Ishibashi, A. C. Fabian, R. Maiolino, Y. Gursahani, C. S. Reynolds
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.05423

Another view into JWST-discovered X-ray weak AGNs via radiative dusty feedback
JWST has revealed a previously unknown population of low-luminosity active galactic nuclei (AGN) in the early Universe. These JWST-AGN at high redshifts are characterised by a set of peculiar properties, including unusually weak X-ray emission. Here we investigate the apparent lack of X-ray emission in the framework of the ``AGN radiative dusty feedback'' scenario based on the effective Eddington limit for dust. We analyse how the boundary in the $N_\mathrm{H} - λ$ plane, defined by the column…

Morphology of Polarization States in Strained Ferroelectric Films
L\'eo Boron, Ana\"is Sen\'e, Yuri Tikhonov, Anna Razumnaya, Igor Lukyanchuk, Svitlana Kondovych
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.06508

Morphology of Polarization States in Strained Ferroelectric Films
Ferroelectric thin films under epitaxial strain exhibit a variety of vortex-like topological polarization textures. To analyze them, we build on the Ginzburg-Landau-Devonshire framework and extend the previously introduced soft-domain approach. This formulation provides a compact variational theoretical description of polarization morphologies in strained PbTiO$_3$ films. It yields phase diagrams as a function of temperature, strain, and thickness, and clarifies the morphological structure of e…

Hups, ein bekanntermaßen unsicheres Passwort ergibt eine erstaunlich hohe neunstellige Zahl Treffer:
> This password has been seen 179,863,340 times before in data breaches!
https://haveibeenpwned.com/Passwords

The role of the initial distribution in population survival within a bounded habitat
Rafael de la Rosa, Elena Medina
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.06179 https://

The role of the initial distribution in population survival within a bounded habitat
In this paper, we analyze the role of initial conditions in population persistence. Specifically, we consider the reaction-diffusion equation $u_t\,=\,D\,(u^{ν-1}\,u_x)_x\,+\,a\,u^μ$, with $μ,ν>0$, accompanied by hostile boundary conditions and examine two families of one-parametric initial distributions, including homogeneous distributions. The model was previously studied by Colombo and Anteneodo (2018). They determined appropriate habitat sizes $l$ for the survival of a population, whose…

Tensor Product Decompositions, Limits in Excellent Filtrations, Affine Weyl Group Orbits, and Tableaux Counting
Laura Estivalez, Adriano Moura
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.04697 h…

Tensor Product Decompositions, Limits in Excellent Filtrations, Affine Weyl Group Orbits, and Tableaux Counting
We express the outer multiplicities in the tensor products of two fundamental simple modules for an affine Kac-Moody algebra of type $A$ in terms of counting certain sets of multipartitions by exploring the stabilizing limits of certain excellent filtrations. This extends for all ranks a previously obtained result by Jakelić and the second author for rank $1$. The same outer multiplicities were previously computed by Misra and Wilson in terms of counting certain sets of tableaux. By comparing …

Is Enerkem's Waste Gasification technology a Failure or a promising Climate Solution?🗑️💨♨️🏭
Gasification of waste and biomass🪵 could be an enormously helpful tool to make valuable circular or renewable chemicals. Yet, the list of failed gasification projects is long.
Enerkem looked like it had finally unlocked successful waste gasification, with the world's only waste-to-Methanol/Ethanol plant operating in Edmonton, Canada🇨🇦, since 2014. But in early 2024, it was shut down.…

Is Enerkem's Waste Gasification technology a Failure or a promising Climate Solution?
Repsol wants to build a waste gasification plant to make circular and biogenic Methanol in Spain. The Ecoplanta project will use a technology that previously failed to deliver on its promises in Canada.

Broadly discrete stable distributions
F. William Townes
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.05497 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.05497

Broadly discrete stable distributions
Stable distributions are of fundamental importance in probability theory, yet their absolute continuity makes them unsuitable for modeling count data. A discrete analog of strict stability has been previously proposed by replacing scaling with binomial thinning, but it only holds for a subset of the tail index parameters. Here, we generalize the discrete stable class to the full range of tail indices and show that it is equivalent to the mixed Poisson-stable family. This broadly discrete stable…

Exact many-body wavefunction of the Kondo model with time-dependent interaction strength
Parameshwar R. Pasnoori, Emil. A. Yuzbashyan
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.05640 https://…

Exact many-body wavefunction of the Kondo model with time-dependent interaction strength
We present an exact solution of the nonstationary Schrodinger equation for the Kondo Hamiltonian with a time-dependent spin-exchange coupling $J(t)$ under periodic boundary conditions. Unlike previously studied time-dependent integrable models, which are rooted in the classical Yang-Baxter structure and associated Knizhnik-Zamolodchikov equations, our approach is based on the quantum Knizhnik-Zamolodchikov framework and the quantum Yang-Baxter algebra. We demonstrate that the dynamics is integr…

The limit shape of the Leaky Abelian Sandpile Model on isoradial graphs
Th\'eo Ballu
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.06648 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.06648

The limit shape of the Leaky Abelian Sandpile Model on isoradial graphs
We study the limit shape of the boundary of the leaky sandpile model on isoradial graphs. These graphs are equipped with conductances and masses introduced by Boutillier, de Tilière and Raschel, which are defined with the help of the geometry of the graph and Jacobi elliptic functions. Building on the link between the shape of the boundary of the sandpile and the Green function of the graph, together with the asymptotics of the Green function obtained by the previously mentioned authors, we pr…

Advocates raise alarm over Pfas pollution from datacenters amid AI boom #environment

I just learned that Frank Gehry passed away. 😔
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/arts/design/frank-gehry-dead.html
One of his buildings that I hope to visit is the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao 🇪🇸. I looked at the list of buildings he designed and the only o…

The $3\times 3$ Solution to the Game of Tak
Joseph E. Marrow
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.05844 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.05844

The $3\times 3$ Solution to the Game of Tak
We provide answers to natural combinatorial questions which arise from learning the rules to Tak. We solve the discarded cases of the $3\times 3$ game not previously considered by Joshua Achiam, showing that Player $1$ has a forced win from any starting position, including random ones. Diagrams for both his and our solutions are provided in the hopes of making the results more accessible.

Temporal-Prior-Guided View Planning for Periodic 3D Plant Reconstruction
Sicong Pan, Xuying Huang, Maren Bennewitz
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.07028 https://

Temporal-Prior-Guided View Planning for Periodic 3D Plant Reconstruction
Periodic 3D reconstruction is essential for crop monitoring, but costly when each cycle restarts from scratch, wasting resources and ignoring information from previous captures. We propose temporal-prior-guided view planning for periodic plant reconstruction, in which a previously reconstructed model of the same plant is non-rigidly aligned to a new partial observation to form an approximation of the current geometry. To accommodate plant growth, we inflate this approximation and solve a set co…

Computational Certified Deletion Property of Magic Square Game and its Application to Classical Secure Key Leasing
Yuki Takeuchi, Duo Xu
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.04529 https:/…

Computational Certified Deletion Property of Magic Square Game and its Application to Classical Secure Key Leasing
We present the first construction of a computational Certified Deletion Property (CDP) achievable with classical communication, derived from the compilation of the non-local Magic Square Game (MSG). We leverage the KLVY compiler to transform the non-local MSG into a 2-round interactive protocol, rigorously demonstrating that this compilation preserves the game-specific CDP. Previously, the quantum value and rigidity of the compiled game were investigated. We emphasize that we are the first to i…

Causal Abstractions, Categorically Unified
Markus Englberger, Devendra Singh Dhami
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.05033 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2510.05033…

Causal Abstractions, Categorically Unified
We present a categorical framework for relating causal models that represent the same system at different levels of abstraction. We define a causal abstraction as natural transformations between appropriate Markov functors, which concisely consolidate desirable properties a causal abstraction should exhibit. Our approach unifies and generalizes previously considered causal abstractions, and we obtain categorical proofs and generalizations of existing results on causal abstractions. Using string…

Fourier interpolation in dimensions 3 and 4 and real-variable Kloosterman sums
Danylo Radchenko, Qihang Sun
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.04873 https://arxiv.…

Fourier interpolation in dimensions 3 and 4 and real-variable Kloosterman sums
We give a construction of radial Fourier interpolation formulas in dimensions 3 and 4 using Maass--Poincaré type series. As a corollary we obtain explicit formulas for the basis functions of these interpolation formulas in terms of what we call real-variable Kloosterman sums, which were previously introduced by Stoller. We also improve the bounds on the corresponding basis functions $a_{n,d}(x)$, $d=3,4$, for fixed $x$, in terms of the index $n$.

🫓 Ultra-flat optic pushes beyond what was previously thought possible
#optics

Ultra-flat optic pushes beyond what was previously thought possible
Cameras are everywhere. For over two centuries, these devices have grown increasingly popular and proven to be so useful, they have become an indispensable part of modern life.

A Holographic prescription for generalized Schwinger-Keldysh contours
Martin Ammon, Jette Germerodt, Christoph Sieling, Julio Virrueta
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.03404 https://

A Holographic prescription for generalized Schwinger-Keldysh contours
We provide a holographic prescription to compute real-time thermal correlators with arbitrary operator ordering. In field theory, these correlation functions are captured by a multi-fold Schwinger-Keldysh time contour. We propose a holographic dual for these contours, which generalizes the gravitational Schwinger-Keldysh geometry previously advocated in the literature. Our geometry consists of multiple AdS-black holes glued together at the future and past horizons, with matching conditions dete…

"For nearly 20 years, the [#SNP] has acted, in many respects, as a bulwark to the worst of Westminster – or so the story goes. Not good policy, just not as bad as Westminster. Just enough to hold power without disrupting the status quo.
When the SNP had the political capital to finally scrap the regressive Council Tax – something they had previously promised to do – they baulked. On LGBT ri…

On-Grid Equivalence of Continuous-Time Doubly Selective Channels: A Revisit of Bello's Models
Jun Tong
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.03626 https://arxiv.o…

On-Grid Equivalence of Continuous-Time Doubly Selective Channels: A Revisit of Bello's Models
Significant studies on communications over doubly selective channels have utilized on-grid DD channel models, which are previously investigated in Bello's seminar paper in 1963. The DD grid is typically specified by the bandwidth and time duration of the transmission frames. However, the physical channels are determined by the propagation environments and they are typically off-grid. Hence, there is often a gap between an actual physical channel and the on-grid model. This paper revisits the on…

As a security precaution I had previously configured every single 11ty repository to have its own single-package-scoped npm token (there were probably ~30 or so), so this is a lovely improvement 😅

Beyond the Final Answer: Evaluating the Reasoning Trajectories of Tool-Augmented Agents
Wonjoong Kim, Sangwu Park, Yeonjun In, Sein Kim, Dongha Lee, Chanyoung Park
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02837

Beyond the Final Answer: Evaluating the Reasoning Trajectories of Tool-Augmented Agents
Although recent tool-augmented benchmarks incorporate complex user requests and diverse tools, the evaluation methods for most of them remain limited to answer matching. However, as the number of steps required to resolve a user request increases, a proper evaluation of an agent's performance must go beyond the final answer to also assess the problem-solving trajectory, including previously ignored aspects such as efficiency, hallucination, and adaptivity. The most straightforward method for ev…

[M]any consumers might not realize the privacy risks just by glancing at the flyer sent to them, according to Florian Schaub, associate professor at the University of Michigan School of Information.
"The privacy policy is very specific that we're going to track everything, including what you do in Incognito Windows. Previously anonymous data may now be identifiable. All those risks are not disclosed here," Schaub said, after reviewing a copy of the flyer.

Tensor tomography on asymptotically hyperbolic surfaces
Nikolas Eptaminitakis, Fran\c{c}ois Monard, Yuzhou Joey Zou
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.04144 https://

Tensor tomography on asymptotically hyperbolic surfaces
We initiate a study of the inversion of the geodesic X-ray transform $I_m$ over symmetric $m$-tensor fields on asymptotically hyperbolic surfaces. This operator has a non-trivial kernel whenever $m\ge 1$. To propose a gauge representative to be reconstructed from X-ray data, we first prove a "tt-potential-conformal" decomposition theorem for $m$-tensor fields (where "tt" stands for transverse traceless), previously used in integral geometry on compact Riemannian manifolds with boundary in Shara…

Handling Data Gaps for the Next Generation of Gravitational-Wave Observatories
Noah Pearson, Neil J. Cornish
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.05479 https://arxiv…

Handling Data Gaps for the Next Generation of Gravitational-Wave Observatories
In the coming decades, as the low frequency sensitivity of detectors improves, the time that gravitational-wave signals remain in the sensitive band will increase, leading to new challenges in analyzing data, namely non-stationary noise and data gaps. Time-frequency (wavelet) methods can efficiently handle non-stationary noise, but data gaps still lead to spectral leakage due to the finite length of the wavelet filters. It was previously shown that Bayesian data augmentation - "gap filling" - c…

Sources and docs: after Marc Andreessen donated $5M to Trump's 2024 campaign, most CFPB probes have stalled, including three into Andreessen-backed companies (Jake Pearson/ProPublica)
https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-cfpb-marc-andreessen-silicon-vall…

Tech Billionaire Marc Andreessen Bet Big on Trump. It’s Paying Off for Silicon Valley.
The Trump administration’s gutting of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been good for venture capitalists like Andreessen, who previously accused the agency of “terrorizing” fintech startups and crypto companies.

Bridging integrated information theory and the free-energy principle in living neuronal networks
Teruki Mayama, Sota Shimizu, Yuki Takano, Dai Akita, Hirokazu Takahashi
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.04084

Bridging integrated information theory and the free-energy principle in living neuronal networks
The relationship between Integrated Information Theory (IIT) and the Free-Energy Principle (FEP) remains unresolved, particularly with respect to how integrated information, proposed as the intrinsic substrate of consciousness, behaves within variational Bayesian inference. We investigated this issue using dissociated neuronal cultures, previously shown to perform perceptual inference consistent with the FEP. Repeated stimulation from hidden sources induced robust source selectivity: variationa…

Searching for the Largest Radio Galaxies
Heinz Andernach
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.06132 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.06132…

Searching for the Largest Radio Galaxies
The origins of radio astronomy and the discovery of the first radio galaxies are described which showed that the radio emission of active galaxies is very diverse in shape and can reach a size of many times their optical extent. In 1974 the first "giant" radio galaxy (GRG) was discovered, several times larger than any previously known one. Since 2012, when about 100 such GRGs larger than 1 Megaparsec (3.3 million light years) had been reported in literature, the author is performing his own sea…

Trump un-banned the use of no-click, smartphone Spyware for use by ICE against immigrants & PROTESTORS.
☑️ICE reactivates contract with previously banned spyware vendor
https://wapo.st/4httse1
(Archive:

ICE reactivates contract with previously banned spyware vendor
The Biden administration had barred Paragon Solutions from U.S. government use after finding that the company’s software had been used unethically elsewhere.

Astronomers Discover Previously Unknown Quasi-Moon Near Earth - Slashdot
https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/09/22/0034204/astronomers-discover-previously-unknown-quasi-moon-near-earth

General framework for quantifying dissipation pathways in open quantum systems. III. Off-diagonal system-bath couplings
Ignacio Gustin, Chang Woo Kim, Ignacio Franco
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.04372

General framework for quantifying dissipation pathways in open quantum systems. III. Off-diagonal system-bath couplings
This paper extends the previously reported theory of dissipation pathways [J. Chem. Phys. 160, 214111 (2024)] to incorporate off-diagonal subsystem-bath coupling, which is often required to model molecular systems where the environment directly influences transitions and couplings between subsystem states. We systematically derive master equations for both population transfer and dissipation into individual bath components, for which we also rigorously prove energy conservation and detailed bal…

Donald Trump has pardoned the former Tennessee House speaker and his former top aide in the state legislature
just weeks after they were sentenced to prison on public corruption charges.

Glen Casada, 66, was sentenced in September to three years in federal prison on charges
related to a kickback and bribery arrangement involving the legislature’s state-funded constituent mailer program.
Cade Cothren, 38, previously Casada’s chief of staff, was also convicted of fraud…

Trump pardons former Tennessee House speaker, top aide awaiting prison
Trump has granted clemency in the opening year of his term to several former elected officials convicted on corruption-related charges.

1. Video DPD driver parking on crossing where child killed previously
2. Upload to Operation Snap at https://nextbase.co.uk/national-dash-cam-safety-portal/
3. Driver gets prosecuted
4. Result!
PF20HSD

Enhancing Foveated Rendering with Weighted Reservoir Sampling
Ville Cantory, Darya Biparva, Haoyu Tan, Tongyu Nie, John Schroeder, Ruofei Du, Victoria Interrante, Piotr Didyk
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.03964

Enhancing Foveated Rendering with Weighted Reservoir Sampling
Spatiotemporal sensitivity to high frequency information declines with increased peripheral eccentricity. Foveated rendering exploits this by decreasing the spatial resolution of rendered images in peripheral vision, reducing the rendering cost by omitting high frequency details. As foveation levels increase, the rendering quality is reduced, and traditional foveated rendering systems tend not to preserve samples that were previously rendered at high spatial resolution in previous frames. Addit…

Investigating Language and Retrieval Bias in Multilingual Previously Fact-Checked Claim Detection
Ivan Vykopal, Antonia Karamolegkou, Jaroslav Kop\v{c}an, Qiwei Peng, Tom\'a\v{s} Jav\r{u}rek, Michal Gregor, Mari\'an \v{S}imko
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.25138

Investigating Language and Retrieval Bias in Multilingual Previously Fact-Checked Claim Detection
Multilingual Large Language Models (LLMs) offer powerful capabilities for cross-lingual fact-checking. However, these models often exhibit language bias, performing disproportionately better on high-resource languages such as English than on low-resource counterparts. We also present and inspect a novel concept - retrieval bias, when information retrieval systems tend to favor certain information over others, leaving the retrieval process skewed. In this paper, we study language and retrieval b…

Vestigial $d$-wave charge-$4e$ Superconductivity from Bidirectional Pair Density Waves
Ethan Huecker, Yuxuan Wang
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.05209 https://…

Vestigial $d$-wave charge-$4e$ Superconductivity from Bidirectional Pair Density Waves
We analyze the leading vestigial instability due to the melting of a bidirectional pair-density-wave state in two dimensions. In a previous work by one of the authors, it was found that the interplay between pair-density-wave fluctuations with ordering momenta along the $x$ and $y$ directions can provide a strong attractive interaction for charge-$4e$ superconductivity in the $d$-wave channel. In this work, we go beyond the artificial large-$M$ mean-field theory previously adopted and compute t…

Improved Clifford operations in constant commutative depth
Richard Cleve, Zhiqian Ding, Luke Schaeffer
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.04921 https://arxiv.org/p…

Improved Clifford operations in constant commutative depth
The commutative depth model allows gates that commute with each other to be performed in parallel. We show how to compute Clifford operations in constant commutative depth more efficiently than was previously known. Bravyi, Maslov, and Nam [Phys. Rev. Lett. 129:230501, 2022] showed that every element of the Clifford group (on $n$ qubits) can be computed in commutative depth 23 and size $O(n^2)$. We show that the Prefix Sum problem can be computed in commutative depth 16 and size $O(n \log n)$, …

"In Al-Mughayyir, a village near Ramallah, more than 3,000 olive trees were bulldozed by Israeli forces, part of a broader pattern of destruction. Similarly, Deir Ballout has been targeted once again. It’s where, in 2021, Zaytoun customers helped plant 2,000 olive trees with the Palestine Fair Trade Association to replace those previously destroyed by Israeli forces."
Olive Harvest 2025: a season of hope, struggle, and solidarity - Zaytoun

Olive Harvest 2025: a season of hope, struggle, and solidarity - Zaytoun
As the olive harvest commences this month, the outlook is grim. A number of forces are converging in real time: a poor harvest, soaring local prices, and a fragile economy already on the brink, all dealing a harsh blow to farmers who are contending with so much.

"""
Traditional politics of assistance and the repression of unemployment were now called into question. The need for reform became urgent.
Poverty was gradually separated from the old moral confusions. Economic crises had shown that unemployment could not be confused with indolence, as indigence and enforced idleness spread throughout the countryside, to precisely the places that had previously been considered home to the purest and most immediate forms of moral life. This demonstrated that poverty did not solely fall under the order of the fault: ‘Begging is the fruit of poverty, which in turn is the consequence of accidents in the production of the earth or in the output of factories, of a rise in the price of basic foodstuffs, or of growth of the population, etc.’ Indigence became a matter of economics.
But it was not contingent, nor was it destined to be suppressed forever. There would always be a certain quantity of poverty that could never be effaced, a sort of fatal indigence that would accompany all forms of society until the end of time, even in places where all the idle were employed: ‘The only paupers in a well governed state must be those born in indigence, or those who fall into it by accident.’ This backdrop of poverty was somehow inalienable: whether by birth or accident, it formed an inevitable part of society. The state of lack was so firmly entrenched in the destiny of man and the structure of society that for a long time the idea of a state without paupers remained inconceivable: in the thought of philosophers, property, work and indigence were terms linked right up until the nineteenth century.
This portion of poverty was necessary because it could not be suppressed; but it was equally necessary in that it made wealth possible. Because they worked but consumed little, a class of people in need allowed a nation to become rich, to release the value of its fields, colonies and mines, making products that could be sold throughout the world. An impoverished people, in short, was a people that had no poor. Indigence became an indispensable element in the state. It hid the secret but most real life of society. The poor were the seat and the glory of nations. And their noble misery, for which there was no cure, was to be exalted:
«My intention is solely to invite the authorities to turn part of their vigilant attention to considering the portion of the People who suffer … the assistance that we owe them is linked to the honour and prosperity of the Empire, of which the Poor are the firmest bulwark, for no sovereign can maintain and extend his domain without favouring the population, and cultivating the Land, Commerce and the Arts; and the Poor are the necessary agents for the great powers that reveal the true force of a People.»
What we see here is a moral rehabilitation of the figure of the Pauper, bringing about the fundamental economic and social reintegration of his person. Paupers had no place in a mercantilist economy, as they were neither producers nor consumers, and they were idle, vagabond or unemployed, deserving nothing better than confinement, a measure that extracted and exiled them from society. But with the arrival of the industrial economy and its thirst for manpower, paupers were once again a part of the body of the nation.
"""
(Michel Foucault, History of Madness)

Antarctica sees similar climate change effects as Greenland: Study #Antarctica

Antarctica sees similar climate change effects as Greenland: Study
The planet's warming climate is having effects in Antarctica that increasingly resemble those observed in the Arctic, meaning global sea levels could rise faster than previously predicted, Danish researchers warned on Friday.

#RIP Jane Goodall.
https://apnews.com/article/jane-goodall-obit-78698397851bc7634717206f7eba07b2

Jane Goodall, pioneering conservationist and primatologist, dies at 91
Jane Goodall, the conservationist renowned for her groundbreaking chimpanzee field research and globe-spanning environmental advocacy, has died. She was 91. The Jane Goodall Institute announced her death Wednesday, saying she died of natural causes while in California on a U.S. speaking tour. Goodall is best remembered for living among chimpanzees in Africa decades ago and documenting the animals using tools and doing other activities previously believed to be exclusive to humans. She also note…

Since we started using `cargo vet` in #ArielOS, I'm happy to see that some of the crates that we previously on our list of "yes we should review them but don't have the resources now" are vanishing from there because other parties we trust have actually reviewed them.
The ecosystem is growing! ❤️

🧋 Study: There is less room to store carbon dioxide, driver of climate change, than previously thought
#co2

Study: There is less room to store carbon dioxide, driver of climate change, than previously thought
The world has far fewer places to securely store carbon dioxide deep underground than previously thought, steeply lowering its potential to help stem global warming, according to a new study that challenges long-held industry claims about the practice.

Apple says general counsel Kate Adams and policy chief Lisa Jackson will retire, and Jennifer Newstead, Meta's former chief legal officer, will replace Adams (Kif Leswing/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/04/apple-announces-departure-lisa-jackson-k…

Apple announces departure of general counsel and policy chief
The two executives previously reported to Apple CEO Tim Cook and represent the latest sign that Apple's senior leadership is seeing a slew of exits.

New from 404 Media: logins for Flock, the company behind the nationwide AI-camera network, are included in malware infections. Includes government and police accounts, meaning hackers could potentially break in. Senator Wyden asking FTC to investigate Flock via @…

Flock Logins Exposed In Malware Infections, Senator Asks FTC to Investigate the Company
Lawmakers say AI-camera company Flock is violating federal law by not enforcing multi-factor authentication. 404 Media previously found Flock credentials included in infostealer infections.

Faint supernovae and hyper-runaway white-dwarfs from single He-detonation in double HeCO-white-dwarf mergers
Hila Glanz, Hagai B. Perets, Aakash Bhat
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.03396

Faint supernovae and hyper-runaway white-dwarfs from single He-detonation in double HeCO-white-dwarf mergers
We present three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations of mergers between low-mass hybrid HeCO white dwarfs (WDs), offering new insights into the diversity of thermonuclear transients. Unlike previously studied mergers involving higher-mass HeCO WDs and CO WDs, where helium detonation often triggers core ignition, our simulations reveal incomplete helium shell detonations in comparable-mass, lower-mass WD pairs. The result is a faint, rapidly evolving transient driven by the ejection of interm…

Jerry Jones previously eyed Sean Payton for Cowboys job, but timing never aligned, he explains

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/jerry-j…

Comcast's board approves the spinoff of Comcast's cable TV networks and their digital platforms to create Versant Media Group, trading as VSNT as of January 5 (Jill Goldsmith/Deadline)
https://deadline.com/2025/12/comcast-board-approv…

Comcast Board Approves Separation Of Cable Networks Into New Versant Media Group In January
Comcast’s Board of Directors said it’s board has approved the previously announced separation its cable television networks into a new company called Versant.

Counterdiabatic driving at Rydberg excitation for symmetric $C_Z$ gates with ultracold neutral atoms
I. I. Beterov, K. V. Kozenko, P. Xu, I. I. Ryabtsev
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.04766

Counterdiabatic driving at Rydberg excitation for symmetric $C_Z$ gates with ultracold neutral atoms
We extend the scheme of neutral atom Rydberg $C_Z$ gate based on double sequence of adiabatic pulses applied symmetrically to both atoms using counterdiabatic driving in the regime of Rydberg blockade. This provides substantial reducing of quantum gate operation times (at least five times) compared to previously proposed adiabatic schemes, which is important for high-fidelity entanglement due to finite Rydberg lifetimes. We analyzed schemes of adiabatic rapid passage with counterdiabatic drivin…

An appeals court in Missouri
✅has ordered the rewording of a misleading explainer for a Republican-backed ballot measure
🔥that aims to undo a previously passed initiative that expanded abortion and reproductive rights in the state.
The order from the three-judge panel within Missouri’s Western District of Appeals
represents the second time in just a few months that the explanation accompanying the anti-abortion ballot measure was found to be confusing or deceptive.

Missouri Court Orders Clearer Wording on GOP Measure to Undo Abortion Rights
The ballot measure seeks to undo a citizen-driven one that passed in 2024, which expanded abortion rights in the state.

Existence and qualitative behavior of solutions of abstract differential-algebraic equations
Maria Filipkovska
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.04433 https://arx…

Existence and qualitative behavior of solutions of abstract differential-algebraic equations
Abstract differential-algebraic equations (ADAEs) of a semilinear type are studied. Theorems on the existence and uniqueness of solutions and the maximal interval of existence, on the global solvability of the ADAEs, the boundedness of solutions and the blow-up of solutions are presented. Previously, an ADAE is reduced to a system of explicit differential equations and algebraic equations by using projectors. The number of equations of the system depends on the index of the characteristic penci…

Non-negative diffusion bridge of the McKean-Vlasov type: analysis of singular diffusion and application to fish migration
Hidekazu Yoshioka
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.03692 http…

Non-negative diffusion bridge of the McKean-Vlasov type: analysis of singular diffusion and application to fish migration
McKean-Vlasov stochastic differential equations (MVSDEs) have broad potential applications in science and engineering, but remain insufficiently explored. We consider a non-negative McKean-Vlasov diffusion bridge, a diffusion process pinned at both initial and terminal times, motivated by diurnal fish migration phenomena. This type of MVSDEs has not been previously studied. Our particular focus is on a singular diffusion coefficient that blows up at the terminal time, which plays a role in appl…

folks migrating away from hosting providers that hadn’t previously considered how tightly coupled their web framework was to said host are about to learn some things — I’m sorry and I wish you the best on your journey

Computing the number of realisations of a rigid graph
Sean Dewar, Georg Grasegger, Josef Schicho, Ayush Kumar Tewari, Audie Warren
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02988 https://

Computing the number of realisations of a rigid graph
A graph is said to be rigid if, given a generic realisation of the graph as a bar-and-joint framework in the plane, there exist only finitely many other realisations of the graph with the same edge lengths modulo rotations, reflections and translations. In recent years there has been an increase of interest in determining exactly what this finite amount is, hereon known as the realisation number. Combinatorial algorithms for the realisation number were previously known for the special cases of …

Neyman Pearson Detector for Multiple Ambient Backscatter Zero-Energy-Devices Beacons using Near-Perfect Code
Shanglin Yang, Jean-Marie Gorce, Muhammad Jehangir Khan, Dinh-Thuy Phan-Huy, Guillaume Villemaud
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02785

Neyman Pearson Detector for Multiple Ambient Backscatter Zero-Energy-Devices Beacons using Near-Perfect Code
Recently, a novel ultra-low-power indoor localization system based on Zero-Energy Devices (ZEDs) has shown promising results in ambient backscatter communication. In this paper, we study detection of multiple coexisting ZEDs in ambient backscatter systems under interference and synchronization uncertainty. Building on a Neyman-Pearson (NP) formulation previously applied to single-tag detection, we introduce a detector tailored to multi-tag scenarios. The core idea is to use a Near-Perfect Code …

Tech Billionaire investor Marc Andreessen has long criticized the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)
— calling it an impediment to fintech and crypto companies. 
Andreessen’s investment firm (Andreessen Horowitz aka A16Z) backed many fintech/crypto players that were under CFPB scrutiny,
Under the Trump administration, the CFPB’s enforcement efforts were sharply scaled back:
investigations suspended,
consumer-protection rule-makings shelved,
and …

Tech Billionaire Marc Andreessen Bet Big on Trump. It’s Paying Off for Silicon Valley.
The Trump administration’s gutting of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been good for venture capitalists like Andreessen, who previously accused the agency of “terrorizing” fintech startups and crypto companies.

The US DOJ has indicted two Virginia brothers, Muneeb and Sohaib Akhter, for allegedly deleting 96 US government databases while working as Opexus contractors (Sam Sabin/Axios)
https://www.axios.com/2025/12/03/virgina-twins-doj-arrest-opexus-data-breaches

Virginia brothers arrested for allegedly tampering with government databases
The brothers worked for a contractor and previously pled guilty for hacking into the State Department.

Doubly Discordant SH0ES NGC4258 Cepheid Relations (HVI), and Impactful Extinction Laws
Daniel Majaess
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.04998 https://arxiv.org/pd…

Doubly Discordant SH0ES NGC4258 Cepheid Relations (HVI), and Impactful Extinction Laws
S$H_0$ES 2016-2022 $HVI$ data for classical Cepheids in the keystone galaxy NGC4258 yield doubly discordant Wesenheit Leavitt functions:~$ΔW_{0,H-VI} = -0.13\pm0^{m}.02$ ($-0^{m}.17$ unweighted) and that is paired with a previously noted $ΔW_{0,I-VI}\simeq-0^{m}.3$, which in concert with complimentary evidence suggest the 2016 S$H_0$ES NGC4258-anchored $H_0 \pm σ_{H_0}$ warrants scrutiny (i.e., $σ_{H_0}/{H_0}\gtrsim 6$\%). Cepheid distance uncertainties are further exacerbated by extinction…

60 Minutes heavily edited down its interview with President Trump, after previously settling with him over editing a pre-election interview with Kamala Harris (Jeremy Barr/The Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/03/trump-cbs-60-minutes…

Marc Andreessen is one of America’s most well-known investors and an outsize figure in the so-called fintech industry.
His firm seeded eight companies since 2016 that landed in the crosshairs of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
-- the small watchdog agency that Congress created after the 2008 financial crisis to protect vulnerable consumers from exploitation.
Some of those inquiries have resulted in consent orders, fines and, for one company, a lifetime industry ba…

Tech Billionaire Marc Andreessen Bet Big on Trump. It’s Paying Off for Silicon Valley.
The Trump administration’s gutting of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been good for venture capitalists like Andreessen, who previously accused the agency of “terrorizing” fintech startups and crypto companies.

The Vegan Logic Test: If You Believe These 6 Things, You’re Nearly There https://veganfta.com/blog/2025/09/24/the-vegan-logic-test-if-you-believe-these-6-things-youre-nearly-there/?utm_source=Mastodon

The Vegan Logic Test: If You Believe These 6 Things, You’re Nearly There
People have some serious issues when the word ‘vegan’ comes up. It can trigger defensiveness. But have you considered that you may, in some ways, think like a vegan more than you previously thought?

Colorado voters overwhelmingly supported a pair of ballot measures that aim to ensure every public school child in the state is able to access free meals at their schools.
Proposition MM increases taxes on wealthy households earning more than $300,000 annually.
The measure supplements a previously passed referendum from 2022 that also called for increases in taxes in order to help fund schools, but which fell short of its funding goals.
The tax increases will affect around …

Colorado Passes Measures to Feed All Public School Kids by Taxing the Wealthy
Excess funds from the school meals program would be redirected toward the state-managed SNAP program.

Lagrange-Mesh Method in Momentum Space: an Alternative Formulation
Cyrille Chevalier, Joachim Viseur
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.03015 https://arxiv.org/pdf…

Lagrange-Mesh Method in Momentum Space: an Alternative Formulation
This work presents a new methodology for computing potential matrix elements within the Lagrange-mesh method in momentum space. The proposed approach extends the range of treatable potentials to include previously inaccessible cases, such as Coulomb and linear interactions. The method is validated across a variety of systems. A particular attention is given to the representation of both momentum and position probability densities.

Jensen Huang says its Blackwell GPUs are now in full production in Arizona, after being solely manufactured in Taiwan previously (Kif Leswing/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/28/nvidia-jensen-huang-gtc-washington-dc-ai.html

Jensen Huang says Nvidia's AI chips are now being manufactured in Arizona
Previously, Nvidia's fastest GPUs were solely manufactured in Taiwan.

Towards Electrophysiological and Histological Mapping of Upper Limb Nerves in Pigs Using Epineural Stimulation
Jonathan Baum (CAMIN), Chamot-Nonin Manon (CAMIN), Oppelt Vera (CAMIN), David Guiraud (CAMIN), Christine Azevedo Coste (CAMIN), Thomas Guiho (CAMIN)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02979

Towards Electrophysiological and Histological Mapping of Upper Limb Nerves in Pigs Using Epineural Stimulation
Understanding the relationship between nerve anatomy and the functional outcomes of electrical stimulation is critical for optimizing neural interface design. In this study, we conducted acute experiments on four pigs in which epineural cuff electrodes with multiple contacts were placed around upper limb nerves. A subset of electrical stimulation configurations -- previously identified via computational study -- was applied, and the resulting evoked electromyographic (EMG) responses were record…

Hunt for the mHz variability in the TESS and XMM-Newton observations of nova-like cataclysmic variables
Andrej Dobrotka, Jozef Magdolen, Martin Melicher\v{c}\'ik
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02834

Hunt for the mHz variability in the TESS and XMM-Newton observations of nova-like cataclysmic variables
We analysed the flickering of selected nova-like cataclysmic variables observed by the TESS satellite and XMM-Newton. We searched for break frequencies ($f_{\rm b}$) in the corresponding power density spectra (PDS), and for any long-term evolution. We found a new optical $f_{\rm b}$ in three nova-like systems and confirmed that the value of this frequency is clustered around 1 mHz. V504 Cen and V751 Cyg show possible X-ray counterparts of $f_{\rm b}$ that had previously only been seen in MV Lyr…

Jay Yarow, who previously led digital strategy at CNBC and Business Insider, is named president of CoinDesk Insights, the media and events division of Bullish (Aoyon Ashraf/CoinDesk)
https://www.coindesk.com/business/2025/12/01/cn…

CNBC Veteran Jay Yarow Joins CoinDesk to Expand Media and Events
Yarow will oversee CoinDesk Insights as its parent company looks to expand digital asset coverage across the globe.

Decentralized exchange Ostium raised a $20M Series A led by General Catalyst and Jump Trading, a source says at a ~$250M valuation, after previously raising $8M (Ben Weiss/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/2025/12/03/ostium-series-a-fundraise-perpetuals-perps-cry…

Exclusive: Harvard grads raise $20 million for Ostium, a platform focused on a derivative popular with crypto traders
The marquee investors General Catalyst and Jump Crypto led the funding round.

If the November 2025 election was a referendum on President Trump, the Democrats have a lot to celebrate tonight.
Democratic candidates swept key races:
Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old Democratic socialist, beat Trump-endorsed former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a historic election for New York City mayor.

Former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a 46-year-old Democrat who previously worked as a CIA officer, beat a Republican candidate to become Virginia governor.

Rep…

Voters approve Prop. 50, California redistricting, in a win for Democrats
Prop. 50, California’s congressional redistricting measure, was on the ballot on a high-profile election day that saw Democratic wins in New York, New Jersey and elsewhere.

Paramount hires Josh Silverman, previously Mattel's chief franchise officer, as president of global products and experiences, overseeing consumer products, more (Alex Weprin/The Hollywood Reporter)
https://www.

Paramount Hires Josh Silverman as President of Global Products and Experiences
The exec, most recently the chief franchise officer of Mattel, will oversee consumer products, live experiences, partnerships and publishing for the Skydance-owned media company.

Perplexity is making its AI browser Comet, previously $200 per month as part of Perplexity Max, free for all, with rate limits (Charles Rollet/Business Insider)
https://www.businessinsider.com/perplexity-makes-200-ai-browser-free-to-battle-ai-sl…

Find out how Perplexity wants to fight AI 'slop' with its latest browser
Perplexity's Comet browser is now free as the AI startup fights low-quality content and partners with publishers like CNN and The Washington Post.

🌴 Satellite study reveals 6.5 million hectares of 'hidden' oil palm across Africa
#africa

Satellite study reveals 6.5 million hectares of 'hidden' oil palm across Africa
Researchers have identified 6.5 million hectares of previously unrecorded oil palm growing wild, semi-wild and in gardens, across Africa—an area three times larger than all African commercial plantations combined.

The Trump administration is going to restrict the number of refugees it admits into the United States next year to the token level of just 7,500
– and those spots will mostly be filled by white South Africans.
The low number represents a dramatic drop after the US previously allowed in hundreds of thousands of people
fleeing war and persecution from around the world

Rachael Bade, who previously co-authored Politico Playbook, Sean Spicer, and Democratic strategist Dan Turrentine plan online political show The Huddle (Status)
https://www.status.news/p/sean-spicer-rachel-bade-dan-turrentine-show-youtube

The 'Huddle' in Washington
Rachael Bade is teaming up with Sean Spicer and Dan Turrentine on a new venture, Status has learned, braving the crowded independent media space with a new political show.

Google rolls out an AI-powered conversational photo editing tool, previously exclusive to the Pixel 10 series, to all Google Photos users on Android (Artie Beaty/ZDNET)
https://www.zdnet.com/article/android-users-just…

Your Android phone just got a massive Google Photos upgrade - here's what it can do now
Previously exclusive to the Pixel 10, you can now edit photos with a simple AI prompt - remove glare, add clouds, and more.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX
has taken money directly from Chinese investors,
according to previously sealed testimony,
raising new questions about foreign ownership interests in one of the United States’ most important military contractors.
The recent testimony,
coming from a SpaceX insider during a court case,
marks the first time direct Chinese investment in the privately held company has been disclosed.
While there is no prohibition on Chinese ownership i…

Elon Musk’s SpaceX Took Money Directly From Chinese Investors, Company Insider Testifies
The newly unsealed testimony marks the first time direct Chinese investment in the company has been disclosed, raising new questions about foreign ownership interests in one of America’s most important military contractors.

US private payrolls unexpectedly declined in November, the ADP employment report showed on Wednesday.
Private employment decreased by 32,000 jobs last month
after an upwardly revised 47,000 increase in October.
Economists polled by Reuters had forecast private employment rising by 10,000 jobs after a previously reported 42,000 rebound in October.