x01 Archives
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EXCERPT:
When the start-up Fermi America announced plans to build the Donald J. Trump Advanced Energy and Intelligence Campus near Amarillo, Texas, last year, investors clamored for a chance to cash in on the artificial intelligence boom sweeping through the U.S. economy.
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Scientists are still working to understand why Neanderthals went extinct while Homo sapiens established a lasting presence in Europe. The answer is not simple. It likely involves several overlapping factors, but a new study using techniques inspired by digital ecology is offering a clearer picture.
The research was led by Ariane Burke, a professor of anthropology at Université de Montréal and head of the Hominin Dispersals Research Group in Quebec. Building on work by her doctoral students, Benjamin Albouy and Simon Paquin, Burke adapted models commonly used to study the distribution of plants and animals and applied them to ancient human populations. The approach combines archaeological evidence with ethnographic data to better understand how early humans lived and moved.
The team focused on Europe during the last glacial cycle, between 60,000 and 35,000 years ago. This period was marked by dramatic climate swings, shifting between cold (stadial) and warmer (interstadial) phases. It was also the time when Homo sapiens first appeared in the archaeological record in Europe and when Neanderthals disappeared.
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Mistral AI, the Paris-based artificial intelligence company valued at €11.7 billion ($13.8 billion), today released Workflows in public preview — a production-grade orchestration layer designed to move enterprise AI systems out of proofs of concept and into the business processes that generate revenue.
The product, which launches as part of Mistral’s Studio platform, is the company’s clearest articulation yet of a thesis that is quietly reshaping the enterprise AI market: that the bottleneck for organizations adopting AI is no longer the model itself, but the infrastructure required to run it reliably at scale.
“What we’re seeing today is that organizations are struggling to go beyond isolated proofs of concept,” Elisa Salamanca, who leads go-to-market for Mistral’s enterprise products, told VentureBeat in an exclusive interview ahead of the launch. “The gap is operational. Workflows is the infrastructure to run AI systems reliably across business-critical processes.”
The release arrives at a pivotal moment for both Mistral and the broader AI industry. The dedicated agentic AI market has been valued at approximately $10.9 billion in 2026 and is projected to reach $199 billion by 2034. Yet despite that staggering growth trajectory, industry research points to a stark reality: over 40% of agentic AI projects will be aborted by 2027 due to high costs, unclear value, and complexity. Mistral is betting that Workflows can help its enterprise customers avoid becoming one of those statistics.
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Chinese researchers have unveiled a groundbreaking ‘Zero-Carbon-Emission Direct Coal Fuel Cell’ (ZC-DCFC) that fundamentally transforms coal-based energy. Led by Xie Heping at Shenzhen University, this innovation bypasses traditional combustion – the process responsible for massive carbon emissions and energy loss in conventional power plants. By utilising electrochemical oxidation, the system converts coal’s chemical energy directly into electricity, as noted in the Energy Reviews journal.
This closed-loop technology not only prevents the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere but also captures it in situ, converting it into valuable chemical feedstocks like synthesis gas or sodium bicarbonate. This development challenges long-standing assumptions about the environmental impact of coal, potentially providing a cleaner pathway for utilising vast fossil fuel reserves.
News Source
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The 142m-long (465 ft) multi-deck luxury boat, named Nord, is linked to sanctioned Russian billionaire Alexei Mordashov. It travelled from Dubai to Muscat, Oman, over the weekend – one of few private vessels to transit through the strait in recent months.
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The man accused of opening fire during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner is now facing a sweeping set of federal charges, including an alleged attempt to assassinate President Donald Trump, as officials laid out new details Monday about the lead-up to the attack.
Cole Allen appeared in federal court in Washington for the first time but did not enter a plea. Prosecutors say he is also facing two additional firearms-related charges.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche stood alongside FBI Director Kash Patel and U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., Jeanine Pirro to announce the charges, underscoring the severity of what authorities say was a direct threat against the president and top officials.
According to an FBI affidavit, Allen traveled cross-country by train from Los Angeles to Washington in the days leading up to the event. He checked into the Washington Hilton one day before the dinner, where thousands of journalists, lawmakers and high-profile guests were set to gather.
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Why are these parasites continue to enjoy our protection and aid? If we won’t leave NATO, then those who don’t support NATO must leave.
Socialist Spain Blocks US Military Aircraft From Airspace
🚨 IT’S OFFICIAL: Spain BANNED the US Air Force refueling tankers involved in the Iran war from flying through Spain airspace
Spain is a NATO “ally”
What a freaking disgrace.
Pull out of NATO! pic.twitter.com/hEkjhOf0Ei
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) April 6, 2026
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A federal appeals court blocked a lower court ruling that had found ICE went too far in suppressing riots in Portland, Oregon, saying the officers weren’t retaliating against protesters but rather trying to clear out an unruly crowd.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision Monday, said demonstrators were engaged in clearly illegal activity but state and local authorities refused to respond, due to their “sanctuary” policies.
So U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had to take matters into its own hands.
The court said some of ICE’s conduct may have strayed over the line, but they said that wasn’t evidence of a broad, unwritten policy to punish protesters who were exercising their First Amendment rights.
EXCERPT:
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal in a case involving the Leon County School District that inspired Florida’s new laws regarding the teaching of gender and sexuality in the classroom.
In 2021, January Littlejohn sued the school district, alleging teachers and administrators violated her parental rights after speaking with her child about a “gender support plan” without her consent.
The case was a catalyst for Florida’s “Parental Rights in Education,” law, also known by critics as “Don’t Say Gay,” and quickly became state and national news. Littlejohn appeared alongside Gov. Ron DeSantis when the measure was passed in 2022, and President Donald Trump called Littlejohn a “courageous advocate” at a joint address to Congress last year.
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Speaker Mike Johnson said Monday that language in a Homeland Security funding bill the Senate passed unanimously near three weeks ago is “problematic” and will have to be changed to pass the House.
The bill as written, Johnson said, would “orphan” funding for key immigration enforcement agencies including Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Passage of that measure is part of a two-track DHS funding approach that won President Donald Trump’s endorsement but has faced skepticism from some conservative hard-liners.
The failure of the House and Senate GOP to align on a plan threatens to further delay the passage of DHS funding, even after Saturday’s attempted assassination at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
“It has some problematic language because it was haphazardly drafted,” Johnson told reporters of the Senate-passed bill. “We have a modified version that I think is going to be much better for both chambers.”
News Source
EXCERPT:
Cole Thomas Allen, 31, of Torrance, California, has been identified by multiple media outlets as the suspect in custody following the Saturday shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, attended by US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump.
According to CNN, Allen had shared posts comparing Trump to Hitler and even called upon others who criticised his presidency to purchase guns. His activity on social media ranged from posts about video games to angry political messages.
The postings on his handles appear to mirror sentiments from a message Allen allegedly sent to family members prior to the attack, in which he outlined a plan to target Trump administration officials and voiced his grievances over their conduct.
Moreover, investigators told the publication that Allen showed ‘animosity’ towards Trump and his administration.
News Source
EXCERPT:
Manufacturing’s traditional design-build-test cycle rested on a single assumption: Real-world testing was the only reliable test environment.
That assumption is now shifting.
Today, high-fidelity simulation produces synthetic training data accurate enough for production-grade AI. This is enabling perception systems, reasoning models and agentic workflows to excel in live factory environments.
OpenUSD has emerged as the connective standard that makes this practical, and the manufacturers building on it are already experiencing measurable results.
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Some House Republicans spent weeks warning against a drastic redraw of Florida’s congressional map.
Now that it’s out — with Gov. Ron DeSantis targeting as many as four Democratic seats for a GOP takeover — they’re mostly keeping any criticism to themselves.
“I think they did a pretty good job,” said Rep. Gus Bilirakis, who said he was one of the Florida Republicans whose district changed “quite a bit.”
“But I think they could touch it up a little bit, too,” he added.
Rep. Scott Franklin said he is set to represent his third constituency in four terms. He still lives within the confines of the 18th district, he said, though it is much smaller in area.
“Mine gets significantly less red than it was,” Franklin said. “But it’s still a conservative performing seat.”
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Trump Media, which is to say the Twitter clone Truth Social, is ditching CEO Devin Nunes (formerly a congressman, also cows and relentless complaints) after what the Associated Press reports as a “stock collapse that wiped out billions in investor wealth. — Read the rest
The post Trump Media shakeup after stock collapse appeared first on Boing Boing.
News Source
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As of April 20, the DHS reported that 830 TSA officers had quit due to the lapse in funding, according to Politico. In the last eight days, another 300 handed in their notices.
The latest figure is roughly the same number of TSA employees who departed the agency during the historic 43-day government shutdown last fall.
With the current shutdown, airport security is especially taking a toll and could have a serious impact on air travel as the nation hosts the FIFA World Cup and the semiquincentennial this summer.
Last month, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to pay TSA employees until a funding deal comes to fruition. However, the money could run dry if the shutdown lasts much longer.