• Walmart is going big on AI and equipping employees across the company with tools and training.
• Logistics manager Leo Garcia used what he learned from an AI course to build new apps for work.
• One tool he made helps truck drivers get home faster while also running fewer empty trailers.

Leo Garcia is serious about getting his drivers home on time.

As a regional load manager for Walmart, Garcia is responsible for hundreds of semi-trailers hauling merchandise through the Chicago area.

He also knows what it’s like to be in the driver’s seat, having spent more than five years there before landing in his desk job.

“Being on the road for five days is difficult,” he told Business Insider. “You miss your wife, you miss your kids. We have to do our utmost best to get our drivers home.”

He’s using artificial intelligence to make that journey a little smoother for his team.

Garcia said he started vibe coding after taking a Google AI certification course through Walmart’s online education portal for employees. Walmart has a similar credential program with OpenAI.

“I’ve always wanted to build, I’ve always wanted to create things, but I was lacking the fundamentals to do it,” he said. “Doing the AI program gave me those fundamentals, it gave me that knowledge.”

Taking the AI course, as well as others on data analysis, changed the way Garcia looks at problems, he said.

Soon enough, he was tackling one of the most frustrating problems he faced every day: getting drivers home at the end of their routes without leaving the trucks empty.

Garcia could send a driver straight home, but that comes with costs, most notably a metric called empty miles. It’s more efficient for Walmart to send the trucks back after a delivery loaded with other merchandise than to send them empty.

Garcia said he used Walmart’s in-house coding agent, Code Puppy, to design a tool that analyzes hundreds of available truckloads in the region that need to be picked up and flags the best five or so for him to choose from based on location, timing, and other factors.

“If I’m in the San Gabriel Valley, how are you going to get me home to Oregon?” he said as an example. “It’s a difficult question to answer without knowing all the geographies, all our vendors, all our stores, and every option. What this does is it does that for you. It quantifies everything in seconds.”

Earlier this week, Garcia said a driver was scheduled to pick up a trailer on his way home to Wisconsin earlier this week. When the driver arrived, he learned the load wouldn’t be ready for three more hours.

“He could accommodate those three hours, but he would get home three hours later,” Garcia said. “And that’s rough.”

Instead, the program found a vendor five miles down the road with a load ready to go to the same town, keeping the driver on schedule. Later, the system assigned another driver to grab the initial load when it was ready.

Like many projects built with Walmart’s coding tool, the company can evaluate and distribute employee-made ideas across the organization. Garcia said that hasn’t happened with his tool yet, but it is being tested for wider use.

Garcia said he couldn’t have imagined himself designing software back when he first walked into a Walmart warehouse at age 18.

“If you had told me that now, over 15 years later, I would be sitting here running an area, learning how to implement tools that are going to help people learn and help the company grow, I wouldn’t have believed it,” he said.

Read the original article on Business Insider

The post Walmart truckers are getting a shorter drive home thanks to one manager’s AI project appeared first on Business Insider.

Andrew Farago, 54, hosted a birthday party at his South Berkeley house on May 23 and allegedly used a cellphone to secretly record people using his bathroom, according to court records.

Berkeley police confirmed that Farago was arrested June 3 on suspicion of invasion of privacy by using a hidden camera to secretly record someone under their clothing.

During the party, a woman found a video showing Farago “setting the phone up, concealing it with a towel, and aiming it to record people’s genitalia as they used the restroom,” Berkeley police said in court records.

Farago “made admissions and also stated that he had deleted the videos” from his phone and iCloud, according to Berkeley police.

Farago allegedly emailed guests after the party, writing: “I hid my phone in our bathroom for the purpose of spying on our guests, my closest friends in the world. I had never done anything like that before and don’t know what possessed me to do it,” according to court records. “This was an inexcusable violation of your privacy and our friendship and I am prepared to face whatever consequences will come from this tremendous lapse in judgment.”

Farago was listed as the curator at the San Francisco Cartoon Art Museum but a museum representative confirmed to KRON4 that Farago is no longer employed there.

The post Ex-curator of San Francisco’s Cartoon Art Museum arrested after allegedly filming people inside his bathroom appeared first on Los Angeles Times.

Take the tiny fruit flies that hover over overripe bananas. The male flies hold the world record for longest sperm, at a whopping two inches. That’s roughly twenty times their body size (and about 1,000 times the length of human sperm, which are 0.05 millimeters).

The physics of this presents a real packing nightmare. It’s like jamming thousands of strands of fishing line into a shoe box. The risk is that the male sex cells will get completely tangled up and unable to get to an egg. Yet, somehow, this doesn’t happen, and scientists have long wondered why.

A new study in Nature Physics offers an answer. Researchers at the Flatiron Institute in New York took a look at a readily available cousin: Drosophila melanogaster, the laboratory fruit fly that scientists use to study a wide range of biological processes, from genetics to cancer. Its sperm are about two millimeters long, nearly as long as the fly itself.

When Michael Shelley, an applied mathematician, and his team viewed the sperm under a microscope, they found that they were not clumped into a messy ball. Instead, they were neatly stacked in parallel rows, like spaghetti strands that stay together as they swirl in a pot of water. The sperm were lined up side by side, bending inside the confines of the sperm storage organ. The whole mass seemed to move together in a smooth, slow wave, while the sperm themselves were moving.

To understand how a sperm’s individual movements corresponded to the whole, the scientists conducted several more experiments using high-resolution visualizing techniques, including dyeing the sperm different glowing colors and tracking them in real time.

Based on the results, the team concluded that fruit fly sperm don’t become tangled because they’re constantly moving, sliding past one another in opposing lanes to keep the whole mass fluid and organized. “It’s like a 1,000-lane highway where all the cars are moving in opposite directions,” said Dr. Shelley, the paper’s senior author.

Dr. Shelley explains that such behavior is very different from that of human sperm, which swim in a pool of liquid by beating their tails to propel themselves forward. Fruit fly sperm are packed together so tightly that there is barely any fluid to push against. Instead, the sperm send rippling waves down their tails, like a snake. As the wave of one sperm meets that of its neighbor, which is traveling in the opposite direction, the two push off against each other. This motion keeps the whole mass moving and prevents tangles.

When the sperm were isolated one by one, they didn’t seem to move at all. Though their tails were still beating, their bodies just wriggled in place. “It’s not just one heroic swimmer getting to the egg; it’s a collective behavior,” said the study’s first author, the biologist Jasmin Imran Alsous.

This finding gives a different look at a long-held picture of how sperm get around, said John Fitzpatrick, an evolutionary biologist at Stockholm University who studies sperm evolution across the animal kingdom. “We have this view of sperm flapping their tails and swimming like someone in a pool, but that’s not what’s happening here at all,” said Dr. Fitzpatrick, who was not involved in the research. “They have to be pushing against something to propel themselves forward, and the thing they’re pushing against could be sperm or the female reproductive tract. That’s a really cool finding,” he added.

Dr. Fitzpatrick said that this research provides one of the first real-time visualizations of how tiny animals with large sperm manage to keep their sperm untangled and functioning. Fruit flies are not the only example: The minute featherwing beetle is another, producing sperm that are roughly double its body size. (The sperm have to coil into tight helical springs to fit inside the insect’s tiny body.) Another is seed shrimp, tiny crustaceans that produce sperm that reach lengths up to seven times their body length.

In each example, the animal has to overcome the same physical problem: how to pack and deploy a sex cell larger than itself. This study offers a seminal discovery in how the fruit fly does it.

The post Fruit Fly Sperm Are Giant. How Do They Stay Untangled? appeared first on New York Times.

Heat waves around the world are becoming hotter, more frequent and longer lasting. Europe is warming faster than any other continent. Temperatures in France just reached a record high, as they seem to nearly every year.

As Chico Harlan, our global climate correspondent, reports, it’s poised to get even worse. Because this year, El Niño, the natural phenomenon that can disrupt weather around the world, is back.

El Niño is back. Expect even more extreme weather.

By Chico Harlan

Less than a month ago, I was reporting on the consequences of a brutal weeklong heat wave across Europe that turned classrooms into “pressure cookers” and caused children to fall asleep at their desks.

Europe is going through another scorcher this week, and it’s not even July.

It’s a sign of a changing planet. In general, scientists know that heat seasons are getting longer and more intense. And now, on top of that, there’s another thing on the horizon that could make heat waves unbearable.

El Niño, a natural shift in Pacific Ocean winds and water temperatures that can drastically transform global weather patterns, comes around every two to seven years, and it’s a chaos maker. This one is bound to strengthen in the coming months.

If it reaches the record-breaking proportions that many forecasts suggest, this year’s El Niño, coupled with the effects of climate change, could set off a bout of extreme weather that the world will be stretched to handle.

‘Fuel on the fire’ of a warming world

The world has dealt with these events for eons. But El Niños are now playing out across a hotter planet with more moisture in the air. That means a potential for heavier downpours, stronger droughts and, above all, hotter temperatures.

The weather pattern is called El Niño because it usually peaks around Christmas; South American fishermen centuries ago named it after the baby Jesus. (In Spanish, “El Niño” means “the little boy” but also “the Christ child.”)

El Niños that formed in 1997, 2015 and 2023 helped set off global annual temperature records.

Because temperatures continue to rise in the months after an El Niño reaches peak strength, many scientists expect 2027 to become the hottest year humanity has ever experienced — at least until the next El Niño comes along.

“The world must treat it as the urgent climate warning it is,” the U.N. secretary-general, António Guterres, said. “El Niño conditions will pour fuel on the fire of a warming world.”

The return of El Niño was confirmed by scientists this month, and its signature wasn’t hard to spot. Heat maps of ocean temperature show a comet tail of pulsing red off the coast of South America. Water temperatures in a crucial monitoring zone have climbed to 29.4 degrees Celsius, the highest level ever for June.

Some research suggests El Niño could raise sea surface temperatures more than 3 degrees Celsius above the long-term average, which would be the biggest anomaly on record. That’s prompted a number of forecasters to call it a “Super El Niño.”

“I think it will be the largest so far,” Wenju Cai, a scientist who researches El Niño events at the Ocean University of China, in Qingdao, told me. “Which means a humongous anomaly.”

Danger zones

Scientists like to say that an El Niño has teleconnections — a word that sounds almost mystical, but simply means that its disruptions can happen far away from the Pacific.

These disruptions are predictable: India is often much drier in an El Niño year, as is Australia and Southeast Asia. Some regions of Africa can plunge into drought, while others might be deluged. Parts of the southern U.S. can receive more rainfall. The Atlantic hurricane season tends to be suppressed, but cyclones in the Pacific can get a boost. In 2015, 16 tropical cyclones formed, more than three times the average.

Previous El Niños have also had grave consequences for the natural world and often coincide with widespread bleaching of coral reefs. In 1982 and 1983, an El Niño disrupted the cold waters that Galápagos penguins depend on for nutrients and caused the population to plunge by three-quarters.

History shows that El Niños can exacerbate existing problems, and this year, there are many of them. A global energy shock, brought on by the war in Iran, is driving up prices and causing fertilizer shortages, straining the same farmers who might now be dealing with drought.

The Philippines, prone to drought during El Niños, is a prime example of the concerns. The country happens to be heavily dependent on fuel imports and has already seen major price increases this year — both for transportation and food — because of the current war in the Middle East.

The government is working to distribute drought-resistant seeds and fertilizers and advising the conservation of water.

Still, the Philippines’ Department of Agriculture warned last month that production of rice could fall 3.5 percent short of targets if a strong El Niño materializes.

And that’s just one country. Rice production is threatened across Asia.

It’s the beginning of another strain on the food system, in an already strained year. The consequences of this year’s El Niño will be playing out even after the heat waves subside.

For more: Here’s why Europe is the world’s fastest warming continent.

MORE TOP NEWS

• France confirmed its first case of Ebola, in a doctor who had traveled to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Scientists are grappling with a mystery: Where did this virus come from? Here’s how bad it could get.

• Allies of Mayor Zohran Mamdani won Democratic primary races in New York, showing the strength of his progressive coalition.

• Israel said its troops have surrounded Hezbollah tunnels in the hills of southern Lebanon, trapping dozens of militants inside.

• Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited the Gulf as he tried to reassure allies about the U.S.-Iran deal.

• Bahrain is restricting commemorations of Ashura, a Shiite religious day — the latest measures taken against Shiite Muslims during the Iran war.

• China detained two Japanese citizens on suspicion of smuggling banned products, which could be rare earths, according to news reports.

WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING

• In an interview, Australia’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese, talked about steering his country through turbulent times: “The vibe out there is that governments can’t afford just to be defenders of the status quo.”

• A giraffe named Gracie wandered off a game reserve in Texas more than a week ago. There’s a $5,000 reward for information leading to her return.

TOP OF THE WORLD

The most clicked link in your newsletter yesterday was about Dua Lipa’s Chanel wedding gown.

WORLD CUP

48 games down, 56 more to go

Co-host Canada took on Switzerland in front of its home fans in Vancouver. Bosnia and Qatar look to avoid a group-stage exit in Seattle. We have live updates.

Seven teams have made it into the knockouts — Argentina, Colombia, France, Germany, Mexico, Norway and the U.S. — and five have been eliminated: Haiti, Jordan, Panama, Tunisia and Turkey.

Off-pitch politics: The U.S. eased some of its travel restrictions on Iran’s team before their pivotal game with Egypt on Friday.

New scouts: Recruitment apps powered by A.I. are gaining ground in Brazil, promising to even the playing field and find the next Pelé.

SUSPECTED WEDDING OF THE DAY

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce at Madison Square Garden

There are clues. A permit was filed to close streets near the New York City arena, and several members of Kelce’s football team have booked hotel rooms nearby. And a city official briefed on the preparations, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed it: The closest thing the U.S. has to a royal wedding will take place at the Garden on July 3.

The couple and their celebrity friends will draw packs of paparazzi and fans. Of course, it could all be an elaborate ruse — but that would make for a cruel summer indeed.

MORNING READ

Residents of Kyiv, who survived a brutal winter under Russian bombardment, are embracing summer. Shorts and T-shirts have replaced parkas, though the attacks continue. And the cost of the war is more visible in the missing limbs of former soldiers. One clinic estimates there are now at least 100,000 amputees in Ukraine.

Some of those soldiers are finding community for football on crutches, golf, paddle boarding, salsa dancing and more. “The main thing was to get out alive,” one veteran said of the day he was wounded. “Losing a limb is not a problem.” Read more.

AROUND THE WORLD

The ‘beautiful little universe’ of dive bars

New York City dive bars have a few key criteria: Can you buy a beer for less than $7? Is there a damp smell? Is its name a possessive proper noun, like “Frank’s” or “Rudy’s”? Is the bathroom scary?

And there’s another characteristic: A dive brings together people who would otherwise never be in the same room. “It’s this beautiful little universe within itself,” said a bartender in Manhattan. But in today’s New York, hole-in-the-wall establishments are facing high rents, rising costs and a vanishing clientele. Read more about what New York will lose if its dive bars go away.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Travel: From Malaysia to Malta, new boutique hotels keep the crowds at bay.

Read: The new novel “Nebraska” is an electrifying masterwork, our reviewer writes.

Don: Dress sneakers are everywhere. Our fashion critic has thoughts.

Consider: Do high-intensity workouts spike cortisol levels?

RECIPE

Changua, a simple Colombian soup from the dairy-rich areas of Cundinamarca and Boyacá, is divisive: warm onion milk with stale bread, cheese and half-curdled eggs may not seem particularly appetizing. But for fans it’s a comfort food — and a hangover cure.

WHERE IS THIS?

Where are these sulfur springs?

• Denmark

• New Zealand

• Ethiopia

• Greenland

TIME TO PLAY

Here are today’s Spelling Bee, Mini Crossword, Wordle and Sudoku. Find all our games here.

That’s it for today. See you tomorrow! — Katrin

Chico Harlan was our guest writer today.

We welcome your feedback. Send us your suggestions at theworld@nytimes.com.

The post A Climate Chaos Maker appeared first on New York Times.

David French, an Iraq War veteran and longtime conservative writer, laid out the diagnosis on MS NOW on Wednesday. Trump assumed Europe’s nationalist leaders were his natural allies. French said that the numbers prove that the assumption was wrong.

“You’re not much of a French nationalist or a German nationalist or a British nationalist if you’re gonna let an American president stomp all over your country,” French said.

Trump tried to acquire Greenland. He slapped tariffs on European allies. He launched a war in Iran that Europe never wanted. Fellow MS NOW panelist David Ignatius, a veteran foreign affairs columnist, said the damage landed hard.

“Trump simply wasn’t reliable,” Ignatius said. “He was erratic in his judgments. He leaped before he looked.”

A new Pew Research Center survey of more than 42,000 people across 36 countries, conducted February through May 2026, found just 23% have confidence in Trump’s global leadership. Among right-wing Italian populists — once among his most loyal European supporters — confidence dropped from 49% to 30% in a single year.

Those were supposed to be his allies.

“He has been thinking of himself, and a lot of people in that larger Trump movement have thought of themselves as having all these friends and allies out there in the European nationalist right,” French said. “But if you’re going to have nationalist allies, you have to treat their nations with respect. That is absolutely not what Trump has done.”

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, once Trump’s closest European partner, has publicly broken with him over Iran, reported Newsweek. British populist Nigel Farage has distanced himself too. The leaders Trump counted on are now the ones pushing back.

According to French, their voters love them for it.

“Other democratic leaders are now gonna see their popularity rise when they confront the president of the United States,” French warned. “It’s going to be the popular thing to confront and to frustrate the will of the president of the United States.”

“In the long run, that is bad for America,” he said.

The post Conservative warns Trump’s ‘giant miscalculation’ on allies just blew up in his face appeared first on Raw Story.

• Microsoft-owned GitHub just had its “best month ever,” an executive told employees in a meeting.
• Usage of the company’s Copilot AI coding tool surged after GitHub changed its billing model.
• The surge is a bright spot for GitHub as it competes with fast-growing rivals.

GitHub just had its “best month ever” thanks to a growing demand for AI coding.

The Microsoft-owned developer platform saw a significant jump in customer usage in June after changing how it charges for Copilot, its AI coding tool, Chief Technology Officer Vladimir Fedorov told employees during a meeting on Wednesday.

“June was by far our best month ever,” Fedorov said, declining to “talk about the numbers” because the company’s financial quarter is coming to a close.

The surge is a bright spot for GitHub as it competes with fast-growing rivals such as Cursor, OpenAI’s Codex, and Anthropic’s Claude Code, all of which help write, edit, and fix software.

Microsoft declined to comment. Fedorov also said he personally doesn’t think GitHub needs to raise prices much based on this usage spike, but he stopped short of disclosing any of the company’s definitive plans on pricing.

On June 1, GitHub changed how it charges customers for its Copilot AI coding tool to billing based on how much they use the tool, versus a flat-rate per user for a fixed number of requests. The change aligns GitHub with its coding tool rivals that charge based on consumption.

GitHub, which Microsoft acquired in 2018, is a popular place for engineers to store and manage code and collaborate on projects. GitHub had an early lead because of its popularity.

Lately, though, GitHub has faced more competition from Cursor and Anthropic’s Claude Code. In an internal meeting late last year, a Microsoft executive spoke about needing to overhaul GitHub to compete with those tools, according to audio reviewed by Business Insider.

Due to increased usage, GitHub experienced dozens of major outages in 2026. Microsoft is now turning to its biggest cloud rival, Amazon, to help address capacity issues after those outages, Business Insider recently reported.

Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at astewart@businessinsider.com or Signal at +1-425-344-8242. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here’s our guide to sharing information securely.

Read the original article on Business Insider

The post GitHub just had its ‘best month ever,’ executive says at internal meeting appeared first on Business Insider.

But that was not what people were looking at, not today. After 104 years of alluring visitors with its reflections of some of America’s most majestic buildings, the attraction of the Reflecting Pool now is the pool itself.

All morning, tourists took selfies with the water. A visiting Irishman recorded a short film of it on his phone. People leaned over their bikes, debating the colors like art critics analyzing a Rothko painting. Nobody dared touch it, out of fear of being arrested.

The water is no longer the color of a putting green, but what color it was exactly — what the different shades might mean, whether there were cracks on the basin floor, how much this all cost — these were the things people were reflecting on.

“I guess it looks fine, but you can definitely see the algae,” said Allie Eardley, 40, who had promised her co-workers she would report on the state of the pool before she caught a noon flight back home to St. Louis. She added that she was more offended by President Trump’s demolition of the East Wing.

Over the past few weeks, the Reflecting Pool has truly lived up to its name, as the president, a good portion of the Washington press corps and large swaths of social media have reflected on it relentlessly. The drama began in April, when Mr. Trump announced on social media that he was “proud to be fixing the once beautiful Reflecting Pool” and that when he was done it would be “much more beautiful than the day it was built!”

Lucrative contracts were handed out to friends and donors, the pool was drained and refilled, and around June 10, it began turning green. Soon after, pieces of the resurfacing material on the bottom were peeling and the pool itself had grown ever more seasick. Dead ducks were found.

Mr. Trump blamed vandalism, “probably in the dark of night,” though he has presented no evidence for this. The Interior Department, which manages the site, said half a dozen people have been arrested, including a 67-year-old former U.S. Olympian who said he was charged with a federal crime after reaching into the water to feel one of the peeling pieces.

On Wednesday morning, the area around the pool was calm. There were quartets of National Guard soldiers standing in the shade here and there, but that is a familiar enough sight these days in Washington. Every few dozen yards along the side of the pool was a “nanobubble” machine at work, pumping ozone bubbles through long pipes that snaked along the pool floor. In the background, crews assembled tents and stands for the Great American State Fair, set to kick off Wednesday night with a Trump rally.

When it was finished in December 1922, the Reflecting Pool was intended as a place of dignity and tranquillity, inspired by the Grand Canal of Versailles and the reflecting pool before the Taj Mahal. It has in many ways lived up to this aspired stateliness, as a place where people found a unity they had been denied elsewhere: whether the 1939 concert by Marian Anderson, after she was barred from singing at Constitution Hall because of her race, or the 1963 March for Jobs and Freedom, where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have A Dream” speech.

But national divisions have arrived here, too. On July 4, 1970, as thousands gathered to listen to the evangelist Billy Graham as part of an “Honor America Day” celebration, a semi-clothed group of Yippies, who had assembled for a “pot smoke‐in,” marched through the reflecting pool and chanted antiwar slogans. That confrontation ended in tear gas and at least 34 arrests.

The current moment, to some of those who were studying the water on Wednesday, was similarly discordant.

“You sort of took the Reflecting Pool for granted,” said Chris Sadun, 51, who was visiting from Kansas. “Just like we assumed our courts and Congress were functioning properly.”

That an American institution that people had long taken for granted had become an expensive fiasco, tainted by accusations of corruption and questionable arrests, she said, “was emblematic of the entire Trump presidential experience.”

She said she would post a picture of the pool on a family chat but would not comment in the thread on what color it was, as she did not want to get political. For the record, she remembered the pool as looking a lighter blue in the past.

Albert Anthony, 41, a Louisiana man standing not far away, said the whole episode — the algae, the peeling surface, the greenness — was cooked up by the media. Just look at the water, right now. It isn’t green. “Fake news,” he said.

He declared the pool better looking than it had ever been, “cause Trump’s the best president we ever had.”

Between the two of them, it would be difficult to come up with a better reflection of the national mood.

The post Visitors Look at the Reflecting Pool and Disagree on What They See appeared first on New York Times.

Tuberville demanded, “Let’s put him in jail.”

The Alabama senator also publicly vouched for Dr. Anthony Fauci to be imprisoned for allegedly lying to the American people.

His comments drew criticism on social media.

Journalist John Harwood called Tuberville a “racist goober” on X.

Sports reporter and NY Daily News columnist Mike Lupica wrote on X, “Lord, this guy is a tool.”

Eric Michael Garcia, D.C. bureau chief for The Independent, sarcastically commented, “the next governor of Alabama.”

Democratic strategist Christopher Webb argued on X, “This is what Tuberville says because he had no plan to lower grocery prices for Alabama, just another imaginary enemy.”

Watch the video below.

Your browser does not support the video tag.

The post Alabama’s Gubernatorial threats to former President Barack Obama spark outrage appeared first on Raw Story.

In light of what happened last night, Mamdani’s intervention might have saved the political career of a man who could become the nation’s first Black House speaker next year. Mamdani picked other primary battles across the city, and he won them all. Candidates whom the mayor backed defeated two House Democratic incumbents: Representative Dan Goldman in Manhattan and Brooklyn, and Harlem Representative Adriano Espaillat, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. In an open-seat race, the Mamdani-endorsed state legislator Claire Valdez swamped a Democrat who had the support of much of the party’s local establishment.

The insurgent victories exposed a striking dynamic with significant implications for national politics: America’s two most powerful Democrats, Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, both hail from New York City, but they are not the dominant force in their own hometown. For the moment, that distinction belongs indisputably to Mamdani, the 34-year-old whose winning mayoral campaign last year took both men—and almost everyone else—by surprise.

Mamdani first endorsed Brad Lander, a rival turned ally in last year’s mayoral race. Lander trounced Goldman, a second-term Democrat and an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, largely by playing up their differences over Israel in a district that includes some of the city’s most progressive neighborhoods. The mayor made a much bigger bet in backing Darializa Avila Chevalier, a 32-year-old democratic socialist challenging Espaillat, a five-term incumbent whom Mamdani had initially promised to endorse. Avila Chevalier has taken positions that could make her the most far-left Democrat elected to Congress in the past decade; she has said that “all deportations are wrong,” describes herself as a prison abolitionist, and attended a rally on the day after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel that was widely perceived as expressing support for the attack. (Lander, who now accuses Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, condemned the event at the time.) Avila Chevalier narrowly defeated Espaillat, who had the support of Jeffries and New York Governor Kathy Hochul, among other establishment figures.

[Read: The liberal district that could oust a Trump-defying Democrat]

“Mayor Mamdani made a calculation that this was a moment where we could get progressive fighters into Congress,” Rebecca Katz, a Democratic strategist whose agency made ads for Mamdani’s campaign last year, told me. “He took that risk, and he is reaping that reward.”

The wins by Lander, Avila Chevalier, and Valdez reflect the recent success of the left in deep-blue areas across the country. Last week, the democratic socialist Janeese Lewis George won the Democratic nomination for mayor of Washington, D.C.; in Los Angeles, Nithya Raman advanced in a primary to challenge Mayor Karen Bass in November. The Senate candidacy of Graham Platner in Maine will test how well leftist candidates can do in more closely divided and rural areas.

[Read: D.C. progressives’ great socialist hope]

Republicans are—unsurprisingly—trying to use the left-wing victories to paint the entire Democratic Party as captive to extremists. The National Republican Congressional Committee headlined a press release last night, “The Democrat Party Officially Belongs to the Socialists.” It also included a photo of condolence flowers placed at Jeffries’s office door. “Every House Democrat, in safe and competitive districts alike, will now answer to the radicals calling the shots,” the NRCC spokesperson Mike Marinella said in the press release. “And Americans should be terrified by where the Democrat Party is headed.”

In New York, the influence of a new mayor at the height of his popularity seemed to be as big a factor as any last night. Establishment candidates fared better in races that Mamdani chose to sit out. In a Manhattan contest that became one of the nation’s most expensive House races, Micah Lasher prevailed over Alex Bores; President John F. Kennedy’s grandson, Jack Schlossberg; and George Conway, a former Republican who is one of President Trump’s biggest critics. Lasher won with the support of both retiring Representative Jerry Nadler and former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is not popular with left-wing Democrats in New York. North of the city, in New York’s Hudson Valley, the moderate Cait Conley easily defeated a more progressive opponent in a GOP-held district that Democrats will contest aggressively this fall.

Whether Mamdani can sustain his clout remains to be seen. His moderate predecessor, Eric Adams, flamed out quickly after an initial political honeymoon; Adams’s bid for a second term last year ended before Election Day. The three previous New York City mayors—Rudy Giuliani, Bloomberg, and Bill de Blasio—all failed badly in their campaign for the presidency. (Lest we get ahead of ourselves: Mamdani is constitutionally ineligible to become president, because he was born in Uganda, and no New York City mayor has risen to higher office in more than 150 years.)

Yet it’s clear that Mamdani is a more powerful broker in New York than either Schumer or Jeffries, whose decisions as national party leaders have often put them at odds with Democratic-base voters back home. “If I’m Hakeem Jeffries or Chuck Schumer, and I’m looking at 2028, I would be somewhat nervous—especially Hakeem,” Christina Greer, a political scientist at Fordham University, told me.

Jeffries’s team has been dismissive of would-be left-wing challengers, referring to them as “Team Gentrification.” After last night, progressives told me, that attitude has to change. “It’s time for Leader Jeffries to recognize the left as a part of the bigger Democratic coalition and start building with it, not around it,” Katz said. “That’s how we win.”

Jeffries has said that he and Mamdani have a good working relationship, and he told reporters yesterday that he and the mayor had simply “agreed to strongly disagree” on the primary races involving Espaillat and Goldman. “A handful of primaries,” he said, would not “reshape” the Democratic caucus in the House.

Allies of Jeffries defend his relationship with progressives and insist that he is much better positioned to withstand a primary challenge in 2028 than was Espaillat, pointing to frequent appearances he makes in his district.

Schumer has kept even more distance from Mamdani, which some New York progressives see as a sign that he might not seek a sixth Senate term in 2028, when he’ll turn 78. The Senate leader, who lives in Brooklyn, did not endorse Mamdani even after he won the Democratic mayoral nomination, and he stayed out of this year’s primary fights entirely. (His office did not return a request for comment.) The left’s preferred successor to Schumer is Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but she could instead run for president in 2028. Ocasio-Cortez won her House seat by toppling a Democratic leader in a primary, but she declined to endorse in any of this year’s competitive congressional races.

The progressive movement is a considerably stronger force within the five boroughs of New York City than it is in the rest of the state, and the past few years have demonstrated that it’s not particularly hard to mount a serious challenge against an incumbent in the city, where turnout for House primaries is frequently low. Jeffries, who is hoping to make history in a few months, would certainly not want to spend his early tenure as speaker fighting both Trump in Washington and a Mamdani-backed opponent in Brooklyn.

New York City’s ascendant left might not care, however. At Valdez’s victory party, which took place not far from Jeffries’s own district, the crowd began booing when Jeffries appeared on TV screens. Then it began chanting: “You’re next!”

The post New York’s Warning for Democratic Leaders appeared first on The Atlantic.

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals handed down the 2-1 decision Wednesday, siding with Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D-MI), who refused to turn over the birthdates, partial Social Security numbers, and driver’s license numbers of every registered voter in the state.

This wasn’t a one-off request.

Starting in the summer of 2025, the Department of Justice sent the same demand to more than 40 states and Washington, D.C. Most refused. The DOJ sued 30 of them.

The lawsuits were part of something bigger.

President Donald Trump signed executive orders in early 2025 trying to take control of elections — a power the Constitution gives to Congress and the states, not the president. Courts blocked most of those orders. So the administration tried a different route: sue states for their voter data using a 1960s civil rights law.

However, that law was written to protect Black voters from discrimination — not to hunt for people who shouldn’t have voted. The court noted the administration had flipped the law’s original purpose upside down, now invoking it “to ensure that some people have not voted.”

“I told them they can’t have it,” Benson said.

Critics say the endgame is a national voter database the federal government would use to flag voters as ineligible and pressure states to purge them before the 2026 midterms.

“Collecting, consolidating, and misusing highly sensitive personal voter data is part of the Trump administration’s strategy to usurp control of elections in order to baselessly cast doubt on and ultimately overturn any unfavorable results the 2026 midterms,” said Sara Chimene-Weiss, counsel for Protect Democracy.

The court ruled Michigan’s voter file doesn’t qualify under the 1960 law because the state built it — it wasn’t handed over by voters. The DOJ also botched its own demand letters, failing to include both legally required elements in a single request.

At least eight district courts had already tossed similar DOJ suits. But this is the first federal appeals court ruling — and it sets a binding precedent.

The DOJ still has active suits against more than 20 states — and today’s ruling just handed every one of them a powerful new weapon to fight back.

The post Court thwarts Trump election meddling scheme by nixing Michigan voter rolls demand appeared first on Raw Story.

Avila Chevalier, a 32-year-old doctoral student and activist, unseated Rep. Adriano Espaillat with the backing of Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the Democratic Socialists of America. She’s a first-time candidate with no experience in government and has spent years advocating for Palestinians, including as an organizer at Columbia University, since spending a summer in the West Bank at age 20.

That history of activism and her social media posts have brought Avila Chevalier intense scrutiny.

Claire Valdez and Brad Lander, the other Mamdani-backed candidates who won competitive House primaries in New York, have not drawn the same level of attention.

Here’s what to know about Avila Chevalier, who as the Democratic nominee in a heavily Democratic district will almost certainly join Congress.

Who is Avila Chevalier, and what is her campaign’s appeal?

Avila Chevalier, an Afro-Latina daughter of Dominican immigrants, moved to New York from Florida in 2012 to attend Columbia University. After graduating with a degree in Middle Eastern studies, she became an activist for groups, including BYP100, a Black racial justice organization founded after the killing of Trayvon Martin, and Families for Freedom, which focuses on helping those facing deportation.

She has cited her experiences organizing, and being surrounded by Muslim friends and allies, as prompting her recent conversion to Islam.

Since 2019, she has been a doctoral student in sociology at the City University of New York. In recent years, she has also worked as an investigator in a public defender office.

Last year, Avila Chevalier worked as an organizing lead for Mamdani’s mayoral bid before launching her campaign against Espaillat, who is chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

Avila Chevalier said during her campaign that she was better suited to represent the upper Manhattan and Bronx district’s progressive values and that “people’s lives haven’t gotten better” under Espaillat’s representation. She also slammed him for taking money from groups lobbying for Israel and the real estate industry.

Avila Chevalier’s social media history

Avila Chevalier’s past comments on social media followed her throughout the campaign. Between 2018 and 2022, Avila Chevalier frequently posted profanity-laden criticism of Democratic leaders on X.

In a 2021 tweet responding to then-Vice President Kamala Harris telling migrants not to enter the United States from Mexico, Avila Chevalier posted, “I have no nuance to add. F— Kamala Harris.” Espaillat’s allies amplified that post in fliers and television advertisements. Asked about the comment during a debate, Avila Chevalier apologized to Harris and said she would “have loved to have seen a Black woman president.”

In 2020, Avila Chevalier called Joe Biden a “rapist” as he neared clinching the Democratic nomination. She has since said that she voted for both Biden and Harris.

In other posts, Avila Chevalier disparaged interracial relationships with White people, described the covid-19 pandemic as a “European plague,” and called for “no more police at all ever.” She also advocated for abolishing prisons, getting rid of borders and seizing private property.

“I am a millennial with an internet connection, and obviously the way I talk about these things now is not at all how I talked about them then,” Avila Chevalier said this year.

Avila Chevalier’s activism

While an undergraduate student at Columbia University, Avila Chevalier joined Students for Justice in Palestine and led an effort calling for the university to divest from Israeli assets.

The day after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, which prompted the Gaza war, she attended a pro-Palestinian rally in Times Square, according to City & State New York. The rally was later condemned by Democratic officials, including Lander, the city’s comptroller at the time, and Gov. Kathy Hochul.

“I can only say I have been advocating for the human rights of Palestinians for most of my adult life,” she recently told City & State NY about the event. NYC-DSA, which promoted the event, said it aimed to show “solidarity with the Palestinian people and their right to resist 75 years of occupation and apartheid.”

Avila Chevalier was also involved in Columbia’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment as an alumni organizer who was present on the protest’s first day in 2024. She was among those who blocked the entrance to Hamilton Hall while protesters occupied the building. She was arrested for her involvement, according to Time magazine.

Avila Chevalier supported Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia campus protest leader, and his wife after federal immigration authorities detained him last year. During the campaign, Avila Chevalier said Espaillat failed to stand up for Khalil.

Reactions to Avila Chevalier’s win

Republicans have signaled that they will use Avila Chevalier as a cudgel against Democrats in the midterm election.

They seized on a recent interview in which Avila Chevalier stood by her past comments calling all deportations “wrong,” including those of people convicted of crimes. In the interview, she said that the U.S. criminal system should not be “discriminatory on the basis of where people were born” and that deportation following criminal penalties amounts to “double punishment.”

“I wonder if she would say that to the parents and loved ones of Sheridan Gorman, Shane Jones or Laken Riley,” Tricia McLaughlin, a former spokeswoman for the Trump administration immigration enforcement effort, wrote on X, referencing people killed in incidents involving undocumented immigrants.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign arm of House Republicans, also referred to the results across New York City as the Democratic establishment having “surrendered” to its “socialist wing.”

“Every House Democrat, in safe and competitive districts alike, will now answer to the radicals calling the shots,” NRCC spokesman Mike Marinella wrote on X.

The post Democratic socialist won N.Y. primary despite scrutiny over inflammatory posts appeared first on Washington Post.

On Thursday, staff from Friends of Mount Hope Cemetery emerged into the sunlight after a severe storm swept through the area.

While surveying the area, they stumbled on a large Norway Maple tree that had been ripped out of the ground by intense storms, revealing a long-forgotten grave.

The uprooted tree uncovered a headstone for Edna Amelia Goodman Allen, who was born in 1892 and died at 26 in 1918.

According to the cemetery, she was survived by her husband, son and six siblings.

The headstone was nearly completely buried underground, and once the intense winds picked up and ripped the tree from the ground, it emerged.

The National Weather Service reported that wind gusts reached as high as 55 mph, along with heavy rain and thunderstorms.

The headstone is in remarkable condition, aside from some cleaning needed for a 108-year-old headstone, and the writing is very legible.

According to the cemetery, once the tree is removed, they will clean and treat the headstone.

The post 108-year-old gravestone unearthed after severe storm uproots tree appeared first on New York Post.

General Donahue is expected to relinquish command of U.S. Army Europe and Africa on July 2, the Army said in a statement. He plans to retire in August.

The general spent most of his Army career in the secretive world of U.S. military special operations, first as an Army Ranger and later as a commando in the elite Delta Force, where he rose to become the unit’s commanding officer.

It is unclear why Mr. Hegseth, who has fired or sidelined many of the Army’s most experienced combat leaders over the last 18 months, viewed General Donahue with skepticism. The general has long been seen as one of the Army’s rising stars.

Mr. Hegseth, who fought in Iraq and served in the National Guard, was forced out of the Army for tattoos the service deemed extremist. “The military I loved, I fought for, I revered,” he wrote in a 2024 book, “spit me out.”

General Donahue and Mr. Hegseth have met only once, during a troop visit by Mr. Hegseth to Poland in February 2025, and their brief interaction there has been described as friendly. The Pentagon declined to comment on General Donahue’s future, referring questions to the Army. The Army said in a statement that General Donahue will relinquish command on July 2.

In August 2021, while serving as the commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, General Donahue helped lead the evacuation of Afghan allies from the airport in Kabul as the country fell to the Taliban. During the chaotic U.S. withdrawal, a suicide bomber killed 13 American troops and more than 150 Afghans at an entry to Hamid Karzai International Airport.

As defense secretary, Mr. Hegseth has vowed to investigate and hold accountable those who were responsible for the chaos at the airport and the American deaths. General Donahue and his troops were not responsible for security at Abbey Gate, the site of the airport bombing, a defense official said.

Instead, he and his soldiers were rushed to the airport to restore order as the Taliban closed in on Kabul and desperate Afghans tried to flee the country.

His troops enabled the evacuation of as many as 124,000 Afghan allies, one of the largest airlifts in U.S. military history.

A photograph, fluorescent green because it was taken with night vision optics, captured the moment when General Donahue stepped on board a C-17 transport plane at the airport, becoming the last U.S. service member to leave Afghanistan.

General Donahue was promoted the following year to lead the 18th Airborne Corps. In that role, he oversaw the establishment of a partnership that supplied the Ukrainians with weapons, intelligence and battlefield advice that helped them fend off a full-scale Russian invasion.

Those efforts culminated that fall when the Ukrainians successfully retook large swaths of their territory during a U.S.-backed counteroffensive in the eastern regions of Kharkiv and Kherson.

In his role over the last 18 months as the commander of U.S. Army Europe and Africa, General Donahue established the so-called Eastern Flank Deterrence Initiative, a warfighting concept and network of physical barriers, manned and unmanned weapons systems, advanced ground and airborne sensors, one-way attack drones, affordable drone interceptors and other capabilities designed to defend NATO against Russia and other threats. The initiative drew on lessons learned from Ukraine and other conflicts.

General Donahue was widely seen as Army Secretary Daniel P. Driscoll’s top choice to become Army chief of staff after Mr. Hegseth fired Gen. Randy George in early April, according to defense officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive personnel matters. Mr. Driscoll and General George had worked closely together to modernize the Army for an era in which low-cost, deadly drones play a larger role on the battlefield.

General Donahue’s retirement from the Army was reported earlier by The Atlantic.

General Donahue also had strong backing from Democratic and Republican senators in Congress who saw him as the best choice to lead the Army at a moment when ground warfare was being revolutionized by robotics and artificial intelligence.

Mr. Hegseth’s decision to bypass General Donahue for the top Army job cements his control over the Army, whose top generals Mr. Hegseth has systematically replaced with leaders he views as in line with his vision for the military.

Maj. Gen. Christopher Norrie, General Donahue’s deputy at U.S. Army Europe and Africa, will perform the duties of the commanding general until a replacement is named. General Donahue’s four-star command is expected to be reduced to a three-star position, a sign of the Pentagon’s efforts to shift the focus of U.S. troops from Europe to Asia.

“General Donahue has been a driver, reimagining how NATO, including the U.S., needs to adapt and use A.I. and data to dominate future battlefields based on what we are seeing in Europe and around the world, especially the use of drones,” said U.S. Army Col. Martin O’Donnell, a spokesman for the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe.

Lara Jakes contributed reporting.

The post A General Many Hoped Would Lead the Army Is Forced to Step Aside appeared first on New York Times.

• Garfield, an AI-powered law firm, has helped a freelancer win a court case in England.
• The freelancer used Garfield’s software to draft a legal letter to try to recover unpaid fees.
• Garfield is part of a new class of startups using technology to make legal services more accessible.

An English court has handed a victory to a law firm that uses artificial intelligence more than lawyers to bring legal claims.

Garfield, a tech company that is also a regulated law firm, helped a freelancer recover £7,000 in unpaid fees from a former client after a trial in Wandsworth County Court in May.

The case was small, but its implications are big. Garfield is part of a new class of startups trying to use artificial intelligence to make legal services cheap enough for the everyman to pursue. The company believes it is the first robo-firm to win a case in an English court.

Garfield’s software helps users chase unpaid invoices by uploading documents such as contracts and invoices, then producing legal letters and court documents. Its founder, Philip Young, a longtime litigator, said the company is starting with small debt claims because they are common, painful, and often costly for businesses to solve with traditional lawyers.

“You don’t want to spend a lot of money on lawyers to collect a £4,000 debt,” Young said. “It’s just not worth it.”

In this case, Tamires Camal Taquidir, a human-resources consultant, said she had not been paid for work she performed for a hospitality company. Young said she was originally owed about £6,000.

When she pressed the claim, the defendant denied owing her anything and brought a counterclaim of about £1,500, Young said. He said he believed the counterclaim was meant to pressure her into dropping the case or accepting a steep discount.

“To her credit, because she did have a meritorious claim, she wasn’t willing to accept that,” he said.

Garfield drafted the pretrial materials. A human barrister ultimately represented Camal Taquidir in court. She paid Garfield about £400.

After the hearing, the judge issued a decision weeks later. Her claim succeeded, and the counterclaim failed.

Young said the outcome was “very satisfactory” for Camal Taquidir and for Garfield.

The ruling has already brought Garfield a surge of attention. Young said visits to the company’s website spiked 1,000% on Monday, after The Financial Times and The Guardian published articles about the case.

Garfield has processed more than 600 claims and recovered about £500,000 for clients, Young said. He said usage has been increasing over the past six months, with early adopters giving way to larger businesses and even a regulator in England using the platform.

Young began his career at the white-shoe law firm Baker McKenzie before starting his own boutique, Cooke, Young, & Keidan. After retiring from the London firm, he started playing with ChatGPT on a family road trip. He believed the technology would transform how legal services are delivered.

Last May, Garfield became the first regulated law firm of its kind when it won approval from the Solicitors Regulation Authority, the ruling body for lawyers in England and Wales. Domestic rules let non-lawyers own or invest in law firms — a structure that makes room for law firms to take on outside capital.

Even so, Young said Garfield has not raised institutional capital. So far, the company has been funded by him and his close friends.

Young said the idea for Garfield was inspired in part by his brother-in-law, a plumber in South Yorkshire who would call him when customers failed to pay.

“In England, we’ve got a choice,” Young said. “Either we can build things to solve access to justice gaps, or we can rearrange it so that every plumber has a brother who happens to be a litigation partner.”

Read the original article on Business Insider

The post Score 1 for AI. Law firm staffed by bots wins a case in an English court. appeared first on Business Insider.

Mark Joseph Stern, a senior writer at Slate, argued in a new articlethat four decisions the Supreme Court handed down on Tuesday were a “blunt reminder that the GOPappointeesremain in total control of the court” because each of the cases was decided by a 6-3 majority. Stern also argued that the opinions show the Court’s claims that it does not always rule along ideological lines is “dubious at best.”

“What’s alarming about these decisions is not just the outcomes, but the fact that the supermajority went as far as it possibly could in each of them,” Stern wrote. “Again and again, it reached out for expansive holdings that did maximum damage to precedent, congressional authority, and civil liberties.”

For instance, Stern pointed out that the Supreme Court overturned a precedent allowing people to sue corporations for human rights abuses. The court also gutted laws that allowed individuals to seek damages when their religious liberty was violated, Stern noted.

He added that the opinions showed that there is no conservative justice on the court willing to act as a check on their colleagues.

“There was, it seems, no member of the supposedly ‘moderate conservative’ bloc that sought to tap the brakes, to exercise caution before radically reshaping the law,” Stern wrote. “All six went full steam ahead in tearing down the guardrails constructed by their more moderate Republican-appointed predecessors. The problem is not merely that the court regularly divides 6–3; it’s that among those six, nobody seems inclined to serve as a check on the others’ most sweeping ambitions. With no more swing justices, the supermajority has no one left to pull it back from the brink.”

The post Expert sounds alarm as Supreme Court reveals ‘no one left to pull it back from the brink’ appeared first on Raw Story.

Gen. Christopher Donahue, head of U.S. Army Europe and Africa, will leave his role on July 2 after an unusually brief 18-month tenure, these people said, some speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters. Hegseth’s move has exasperated some Army officials, considering Donahue’s background as a highly regarded Special Operations commander and the secretary’s stated focus on making the military more lethal.

“He’s singularly our best warfighter at every level,” one retired senior Army officer said of Donahue.

The general’s expected departure makes him the latest apparent casualty in Hegseth’s purge of senior military leaders whom the secretary has deemed insufficiently loyal to the Trump administration or branded “woke” for their past defense of diversity initiatives.

Hegseth has fired or otherwise removed dozens of generals and admirals, often without specifying a reason. In April, the Army’s top officer, Gen. Randy George, and two other generals were forced into retirement. The administration has not yet nominated anyone for those roles.

Through a spokesman, Donahue declined to comment. A spokesman for Hegseth, Joel Valdez, referred questions to the Army. A spokeswoman for the Army, Cynthia Smith, acknowledged in a statement on Wednesday that Donahue will step down but did not address why.

“Maj. Gen. Christopher Norrie, deputy commander, U.S. Army Europe and Africa will perform the duties of the commanding general,” Smith’s statement said. “The Army thanks Gen. Donahue for his leadership of U.S. Army Europe and Africa.”

Donahue submitted retirement paperwork after months of uncertainty about his future and as Hegseth’s team plans to downgrade his role and many others across the services to three-star commands. The general left the door open to taking another position, but no next assignment has been offered, three people familiar with the matter said.

The general’s pending retirement was first reported by the Atlantic.

Advocates for Donahue have made the case that he would be a good fit to replace George as the Army’s chief of staff or become its No. 2 officer if Hegseth elevates Gen. Christopher LaNeve, a former top military aide to the defense secretary who became vice chief in February, people familiar with the situation said. LaNeve was nominated for that position after Hegseth forced another officer, Gen. James Mingus, into early retirement last year.

Some also saw Donahue as a candidate to take over Army Transformation and Training Command, an organization that oversees efforts to train and prepare soldiers for war. Its commander, Gen. David Hodne, was fired by Hegseth in April along with George. Top Army leaders had considered Hodne a contender to become chief of staff, officials said.

Donahue had long been seen within the military as a transformative leader and a potential future chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or Army chief of staff.

As commander of the elite Delta Force, he played a key role in leading operations against the Islamic State militant group in Iraq and Syria. He went on to serve as a top Special Operations commander in Afghanistan and lead the 82nd Airborne Division and 18th Airborne Corps before taking his current role in Germany in December 2024.

But Donahue became a political target after the chaotic and deadly U.S. evacuation from Afghanistan under the Biden administration, even though he was dispatched there as commander of the 82nd Airborne Division days after the U.S.-backed government collapsed and the Pentagon decided that reinforcements were necessary as Taliban fighters swept into the capital.

Donahue’s soldiers arrived at the airport in Kabul with weapons drawn, people familiar with the matter said. He met with Taliban leaders as U.S. military officials sought to get control of the airfield and issued them a pointed warning, he later told military investigators who examined the episode, according to documents first reported on by The Washington Post in 2022.

“We told them that we would control the gates and they would push people out,” Donahue told investigators. “We expressed that they will comply, because if they fight us on this we would be able to kill more of them than they would ever hope to kill of us. After that their tone changed.”

Thirteen U.S. troops and about 170 Afghans were killed in an Islamic State suicide bombing near the end of the evacuation effort on Aug. 26, 2021. They were not under Donahue’s control at the time, officials said.

Four days later, the U.S. military departed the airfield. The Pentagon released a widely publicized photograph of Donahue stepping onto an aircraft as the last American service member to exit the war, elevating the general’s profile.

In 2024, Donahue’s nomination to his current role was placed on hold by then-Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Oklahoma), now the Trump administration’s secretary of homeland security, threatening the promotion. Mullin released the hold after days of advocacy by top Army leaders and lawmakers.

At that time, critics argued that someone needed to be held accountable for how the Afghanistan war ended. Among them was Anthony Tata, a retired Army general who now serves as the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness.

“Aren’t commanders accountable?” Tata wrote on social media then. “Under Chris Donahue’s command, 13 servicemen and women were killed with dozens of others grievously wounded, not to mention the hundreds of civilians. Many reports show the intel was there to prevent or mitigate the attack.”

Tata added in his post that hundreds, if not thousands, of U.S. citizens were left behind and that Donahue had “reaped the accolades for being the last boots on the ground, as evidenced by the staged photo.”

“Is this what success today looks like?” Tata wrote.

Donahue’s advocates have argued that he did not have control of the airport’s Abbey Gate, where the suicide bombing occurred, and brought a measure of order and security in what became a weeks-long crisis.

“He did everything he could,” said one supporter who served with him. “This is someone who carried out their duty, even if they disagreed with the policies behind them.”

Last year, Donahue was seen as a potential nominee to become the head of U.S. European Command, which oversees all American military operations in Europe. But he was bypassed by Hegseth, who nominated then-Air Force Lt. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich.

Hegseth has raised the Afghanistan photograph of Donahue in some private discussions about that decision, people familiar with the matter said.

Before the start of the second Trump administration, Donahue also scoffed at assertions, pushed by Republicans in recent years, that the American military had gotten weak as a consequence of efforts to diversify its ranks.

“We’re focused on people, war-fighting, and making sure that we’re prepared for the next fight,” he said in 2023. “There ain’t no ‘woke’ here.”

It’s unclear whether those remarks played any role in Hegseth bypassing Donahue.

The post Hegseth thwarted internal efforts to extend key Army general’s career appeared first on Washington Post.

After four Senate Republicans bucked the president last night and voted to limit his ability to wage war against Iran without congressional approval, the president aired his frustration with members of his own party at today’s Senate Republican Party lunch at the Capitol.

But Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) — one of the Republicans who sent Trump a harsh rebuke last night — was having none of it, especially after Trump reportedly told him to sit down.

“I stood and said, ‘You have not told the American people what’s going on. It’s lasted four months. Our original objectives have not been achieved, and I want to know what’s going on,’” Cassidy told congressional reporters after the heated exchange.

Cassidy said he’d heard it all before from Trump.

“The president just kind of talked and talked and talked and talked and talked,” Cassidy bemoaned.

“I lost my temper,” Cassidy admitted, before quipping, “It’s the Irish in me.”

But it seems to be more than the Irish in the retiring senator who recently lost a primary challenge to Rep. Julia Letlow (R-LA), a more MAGA-aligned lawmaker who had the backing of President Trump.

According to Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), Trump was “mad as a murder hornet about the war power vote.”

But when facing the congressional press corps after the closed-door meeting, the president put on a happy face for the cameras.

“I think we had a really great meeting, and we’re very proud of the party,” Trump told the congressional press corps after the meeting. “And we like the leader, we like everybody — really in the room, I don’t like a few people, but that’s okay, I think you know who they are. I’ll give you that information someday.”

Few to no Republican Senators were buying what the president was selling this time.

“It was not a good discussion,” Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) told reporters after the meeting. “But you know, sometimes two guys just have to get it off their chest.”

The post ‘Lost my temper’: Republican spills on his blowup with Trump appeared first on Raw Story.

The humanitarian worker was admitted to a special health care facility and is in stable condition, the health ministry said in a statement. French health workers were racing to trace anyone who may have come in contact with the doctor. Contacts will have to be isolated for 21 days and will be closely monitored, the ministry said.

Congo is at the center of an outbreak in central Africa that was declared on May 15, with most cases in the northeastern Ituri Province. At least 260 people have died, and there have been more than 1,000 confirmed cases in the country, according to the World Health Organization.

The doctor works for the Alliance for International Medical Action, an aid organization known as ALIMA that has been part of the emergency response to the outbreak, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of W.H.O., said in a news conference. The nonprofit has helped in setting up treatment centers, he said.

“This case is a reminder of the risks faced by frontline responders,” Dr. Tedros said, adding that 82 health care workers have become ill during the outbreak.

Dr. Tedros and the French officials did not disclose further details about the patient, including when he returned to France.

ALIMA said the physician is a man who had been working in an area where the virus is circulating. The nonprofit said its work in the region would continue as it investigates how a staff member contracted the virus.

“Contamination prevention measures have been in place since the beginning of our intervention to protect our teams,” ALIMA said in a statement.

Dr. Tedros warned against an “overreaction” to the discovery of cases outside of Africa, saying that the risk to the rest of the world remained low. In 50 years, fewer than 30 cases of have been detected outside the continent.

The French health ministry said the risk of infection for the wider European population was low, citing the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control. Most of the positive cases in Congo have been in remote parts of the country, and Ebola spreads only through direct contact with the bodily fluids of a sick person.

ALIMA is one of several organizations rolling out clinical trials for treatment, which are set to begin next week in Congo, Dr. Tedros said. Since the outbreak was declared last month, the number of treatment beds has increased from fewer than 10 to more than 500 across 19 health centers, and daily testing has increased from 30 to more than 2,000.

But he said the emergency response was still too slow. “Despite the good progress we have made, we still face major challenges, and the outbreak is continuing to outpace the response,” he said.

Before the confirmed infection in France, the only active case in Europe was an American doctor who was transferred to Germany for treatment after he contracted the virus in Congo. Dr. Peter Stafford was likely infected on May 9 while treating a woman who had a fever and severe stomach pain, according to Serge, the Christian mission organization that he works for. It was not known that the patient had Ebola when Dr. Stafford treated her. After she died and an Ebola outbreak was declared, it was presumed that she had the virus.

Dr. Stafford made a full recovery and was released this month. His wife and four children were also evacuated to the same hospital, where they were monitored for 21 days and did not become sick.

A positive case in Europe should not be surprising as the virus continues to spread in eastern Congo, Dr. Daniela Manno, a clinical assistant professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said.

“Health care workers are particularly vulnerable because they may encounter patients in the early stages of Ebola disease, when symptoms are often nonspecific and can be mistaken for other common infections,” she said in a statement. But the risk to the general population in Europe remained low, she added, as health facilities have “well-established protocols for identifying and managing suspected cases of viral hemorrhagic fever.”

The outbreak is the 17th in Congo in recent decades, and it has tested the country’s expertise and resources. The type of Ebola virus behind this outbreak, known as Bundibugyo, is rare, with no targeted vaccines or treatment.

Conflicts in the region has caused the forced displacement of people, creating conditions for the rapid spread of the virus.

The post France Identifies Its First Case of Ebola appeared first on New York Times.

Hayden Arnot put the concert series together as a passion project inspired by his love of the island. Arnot spent childhood summers on Nantucket, and in 2022, founded the potato chip company Nantucket Crisps. His company is sponsoring The Muse Summer Series.

“It’s bringing in awesome musicians and giving them the experience of why I think Nantucket is lovely, so hopefully they love it too, and then also bringing the island together over great music,” Arnot told Billboard. He said that comments on the lineup announcement have ranged from disbelief to queries about finding a summer job on Nantucket.

Nantucket Summer Concert Series Bringing Fountains of Wayne, Dashboard Confessional, and More To Tiny Island

The lineup was posted on social media back in May. For the first concert on June 6, The Bends traveled across the Nantucket Sound. Marcus King Band, Spin Doctors, Everclear, New Found Glory, and Jimmy Eat World have already played The Muse as well.

The next show is on June 26, bringing Jesse McCartney to the island. Other acts include The Maine, Sugar Ray, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Natasha Bedingfield, Fountains of Wayne, Mt. Joy, The Band Camino, Yellowcard, Dashboard Confessional, The Fray, and Better Than Ezra. And that’s not even the full lineup. The shows are scheduled through the long, hot summer, concluding on September 5.

So how were all these artists convinced to travel to a tiny island to play an even tinier venue? A lot of it came down to Hayden Arnot’s sales pitch. Which is mostly just his passion for Nantucket.

“Hayden’s really hospitable and makes it fun for the band,” Mt. Joy’s manager, Jack Gallagher, said via Billboard. “A lot of times agents and managers might be skeptical of an underplay, but knowing him makes it [a] more compelling thing to do.”

The intimacy of playing for a small community means that there’s a personal touch to the whole experience. Arnot typically picks up the bands and their teams when they arrive at port. He then takes them on a tour of historic Nantucket, sharing his love for the island.

“Bringing these artists out to Nantucket is my opportunity to give them something back,” Arnot explained. “We can give them three days in a special place they’ve never been before.”

The post Want to Catch Your Favorite World-Famous Rock Band at a Tiny Dive Bar in New England? It’s More Possible Than You Might Think appeared first on VICE.

• A new legal filing is pushing to stop the transition of millions of student-loan borrowers off the SAVE plan.
• Beginning July 1, borrowers will start to receive their 90-day timeframe to leave the plan.
• The lawsuit said that borrowers who reached the relief threshold would be harmed by the transfer.

A new legal filing asks a federal judge to pause the forced transfer of millions of student-loan borrowers off of SAVE, the income-driven repayment plan that the Trump administration eliminated in March.

On Tuesday night, the law firm Public Goods Practice filed a motion in a US District Court seeking to block borrowers enrolled in SAVE from being automatically moved to a new, more expensive repayment plan while their broader lawsuit continues.

The case, filed in March, challenges the Department of Education’s decision to eliminate SAVE, a Biden-era plan that reduced monthly payments and shortened the timeline for debt relief.

The motion argues that legal procedure requires the department to make the benefits of REPAYE, a precursor to SAVE, available to borrowers and to pause forced transfers to a new plan while the case proceeds.

A Department of Education spokesperson disputed the merits of the argument and recommended that borrowers enroll in “a lawful repayment option,” such as the new Repayment Assistance Plan, which will become available on July 1.

Also beginning July 1, borrowers enrolled in SAVE will start receiving notices from their servicers on their 90-day timeframe to transfer to a new plan. If they do not voluntarily switch, those borrowers will automatically be placed in the standard repayment plan or the new tiered plan, both of which are the most expensive options.

Austin Hinkle, a managing partner at Public Goods Practice, said he’s pushing to pause that transfer before borrowers reach the deadline.

“Once borrowers start getting transferred over, injuries for lots of borrowers could start to happen right away,” Hinkle said, referring to the higher monthly payments borrowers would face under new repayment plans.

Democratic lawmakers have previously pushed the department to give borrowers more time to transition to a new plan. They wrote in an April letter that “borrowers deserve to have the time, critical information, and support necessary to successfully enroll in another affordable repayment plan and continue to pay down their loans.”

Have a story to share about student loans? Contact this reporter at asheffey@businessinsider.com.

Read the original article on Business Insider

The post A new legal filing calls to stop the transfer of millions of student-loan borrowers off a key affordable repayment plan appeared first on Business Insider.

Like those TV finalists, Vance might think he’s auditioning for an audience of one. But the job here is trickier than that. Beyond satisfying Trump, the vice president needs to make both GOP primary voters and general-election swing voters happy. Balancing those three very disparate constituencies is going to be tough.

Satisfying Trump might be the easiest part. Trump’s justifications for the Iran war have been all over the map, but he has always been crystal clear on two things: Iran must not be able to develop nuclear weapons, and the Strait of Hormuz must remain open to all. The Iranians might not want to comply with either or both of those conditions. But in that case, if Vance returned empty-handed, it would be for a clear and acceptable reason.

The greater danger arises if Vance and Trump sign off on an agreement that complies only facially with those red lines. Foreign policy experts in both parties have spent decades thinking about Iranian nuclear capabilities. Any deal that fails to satisfy the bulk of them will be loudly attacked, with large and receptive audiences across the political spectrum.

The larger immediate danger for Vance is with the Republican primary electorate that will decide the party’s 2028 presidential nominee. The fight to succeed Trump as the party’s standard-bearer will be fierce. As vice president, Vance has as strong a claim to that mantle as anyone, but there are plenty of others — Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis follow Vance in early polling — in position to mount a vigorous challenge.

Even today, a recent CBS News poll shows that 40 percent of Republican adults want the war to continue until the Iranian regime gives up more. Many of those Republicans will be drawn to a candidate who offers a hawkish, confrontational approach to Iran and other American enemies. Will Vance be that candidate?

Those hawkish voters punch above their weight in GOP primaries. Polls consistently show a large age differential on foreign policy among Republicans. A late 2025 Pew Research poll reveals this strikingly, with supermajorities of GOP voters over 65 favoring an active U.S. role in the world. Republicans older than 50 also hold very positive views of Israel and think Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu makes good decisions.

Could Vance just rely on a younger support base? Probably not. In the 2024 primaries, voters 65 and older outnumbered those 44 and younger in every state for which we have exit polls. The median age of 2024 presidential GOP primary voters was at least 50. Given current American demographics, expect that to creep up in 2028.

To win the nomination, the 41-year-old Vance will need to get substantial, and probably majority, support from the older, highly pro-Israel and hawkish age cohort within the GOP. Authoring a peace plan credibly attacked by foreign policy experts, Jewish leaders and their Christian allies would complicate his path immensely.

But say he succeeds. After that comes a new test. In a general election, Vance would need to appeal to the small but crucial number of independent swing voters to get to the White House. Swing voters tend to be more moderate and less politically informed than partisans. They also tend to be more interested in economic and quality-of-life issues — think inflation, crime or a general sense of disorder in their communities. That means Vance will need to deliver a deal that credibly addresses those concerns to convince them that he’s been successful.

That’s no problem if Hormuz reopens and stays toll-free. In that case, gas prices will surely come down significantly from this year’s peak. Returning to a stable situation in the region also avoids the chaos these voters dislike.

But there’s a catch: Will Iran go along? Already, Tehran is indicating that it intends to control access to the strait after negotiations conclude. If a final deal is ambiguous on this point, Vance could suffer.

Vance will also face problems if Iran tries to wiggle out of whatever deal it signs. If traffic in the strait goes up and down in response to Iranian threats, or if American forces are continually pulled in and out of the region to compel compliance, a Vance-brokered deal will look like it continued the very chaos it was meant to end.

The vice president is often underestimated in the mainstream media. He is intelligent and thoughtful and is also an unusually good communicator. But he can’t sell a pig in a poke, and even a Trump endorsement won’t solve that conundrum. As we often see, Trump has no compunction about withdrawing an endorsement or expanding one to include a person’s primary opponent.

So on the eve of the presidential season, Trump has fashioned a fascinating test for his understudy. Can Vance obtain a peace deal that provides the security and economic benefits that Trump, older Republicans and swing voters want?

Because if he can’t, and he’s tasked with selling a problematic deal, it will significantly increase the likelihood that either Trump or a key voter demographic will utter the two words every aspiring apprentice dreads most: “You’re fired.”

The post Trump’s understudy faces a fascinating audition appeared first on Washington Post.

Generally, geophysicists use seismometers to measure movements and ground vibrations like the seismic waves generated by earthquakes. But during this year’s World Cup, researchers at the University of Bergen have noticed that the seismometer they have in a basement on the campus record anomalous signals during Norway’s matches. The instrument, they note, is capable of detecting ground vibrations with an accuracy of one-millionth of a millimeter.

2026 FIFA World Cup

Here’s WIRED’s complete guide to the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

The activity, professors Mathilde Sørensen and Lars Ottemöller said in a statement accompanying their findings, “shows that Bergen is a vibrant city with a lot of energy.” They concluded the statement with “go Bergen, and go Norway.”

The University of Bergen team first noticed the anomalies during the Norwegian national team’s match against Iraq on June 17, which the team won 4-1. The signal during that match became especially evident when striker Erling Haaland scored one of his two goals.

A few days later, on the night of June 22–23, during Norway’s 3–2 victory over Senegal, the phenomenon repeated itself: every Norwegian goal produced recognizable vibrations in the data collected by the seismometer.

As the researchers explain, when thousands of people cheer, jump, and shout simultaneously, they generate a significant amount of energy that can travel through buildings and into the ground. In other words, collective enthusiasm has become scientifically measurable in Bergen during this year’s World Cup, and although this isn’t the first time that sporting events—as well as concerts or other large gatherings—have been detected, the case of the city of Bergen represents yet another example of how human activity can be recorded even by instruments designed to study the Earth.

This story originally appeared on WIRED Italia and has been translated from Italian.

The post Every Time Norway Scores at the World Cup the City of Bergen Trembles appeared first on Wired.

The Cuban government, responding to the country’s worst crisis in modern history, recently announced a sweeping economic restructuring. The package of 176 measures would allow more private enterprise and loosen the Cuban government’s grip on the island’s economic activity.

Cuba denies the measures were designed to placate the Trump administration, which is demanding the island adopt wholesale economic and political changes, but few experts accept that denial. Official speeches have stressed the urgent need to resuscitate an ailing economy that is collapsing under decades of centralized rule as well as increased pressure from Washington, while insisting that Cuba will remain a socialist country.

Economists say the blueprint, which was rushed through Cuba’s legislature last week, represents a drastic shift. It’s the first time since the 1959 revolution, which ushered in Communist rule, that the regime is offering to relinquish full control of commerce.

But even as Cuba’s government says it will allow private banking and individuals to own more than one business and real estate property, experts are skeptical.

A wholesale move toward a system like those in place in Vietnam or China, away from a strictly state-controlled, centrally planned economy toward a flexible, market-driven mixed economy, would be hard to pull off unless the Trump administration eases sanctions.

Some foreign businesses have started pulling out of Cuba because they fear running afoul of recent U.S. rules that make it even more difficult to do business there. For them to come back, more than just Cuba’s regulations would have to change.

And the Cuban government has a serious credibility problem, experts say. Officials have announced economic changes before, only to pull them back without explanation. Cuba lacks the rule of law and a separation of powers and often fails to pay its bills. It’s a notoriously risky business environment.

Some experts likened the ambitious new package of incentives designed to encourage foreign investment in Cuba to a recurring bit from the cartoon “Peanuts”: Lucy trying to sweet talk Charlie Brown into taking another swing at that football.

So What Exactly is Cuba Planning to Do?

The package includes an expansion of the fledgling private sector with greater freedom to import and export without state interference.

• Businesses in Cuba would for the first time be permitted to hire more than 100 employees, a limit meant to prevent the private sector from growing too big. Entrepreneurs would also be allowed to own multiple private businesses, ending a stifling practice and longstanding grievance of the private sector.

• The changes open the door to private real estate development on the island and propose transforming state-owned businesses into private commercial ventures with shares and equity stakes. It would allow private banks to enter Cuba’s once exclusively state-run finance sector.

• The government also plans to eliminate 70 of 125 prohibited business activities, but did not specify which ones. Businesses are highly regulated in Cuba and government prohibitions are wide ranging; they include buying wholesale, selling honey directly to the public and making orthopedic footwear.

• State-owned properties can now also be sold to national and foreign companies and individuals, including Cubans residing abroad. It even permits fast-food chains to open franchises on the island.

• Acknowledging that its safety net is fraying, the Cuban government wants to shift responsibility for old-age homes and other social welfare programs to private businesses.

What do experts say about it?

Most experts say the ideas sound familiar: Economists have been proposing them for decades. Others said it was maybe not too little, but likely too late to rescue the economy or satisfy the United States.

Experts also believe some measures violate the Cuban Constitution, which enshrines socialism. Economists worry that the Cuban government announced a slew of measures, all at once, without a timeline or a clear path forward of how to implement or finance them.

“Some of them are quite radical,” said Pedro Monreal, a Cuban economist. “The problem is not so much whether they arrived late or early, but whether it’s feasible — if they can really work.”

Daniel Torralbas, a former policy analyst at Cuba’s Ministry of Economy and Planning, said that though many questions remain unanswered, “without a doubt” the changes “are the most profound” the Cuban government has announced since taking power in 1959.

“But that doesn’t mean that they are going to work, nor does it mean they are going to be implemented all at once, nor does it mean they will be successful,” said Mr. Torralbas, who is currently studying in London.

Several experts warned that some measures, like opening state assets to private ownership, while unthinkable even a few months ago, could open the door to cronyism.

Pavel Vidal, a Cuban economist who teaches at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Cali, Colombia, said such changes are risky. Without oversight, transparency and a clear legal framework, he said, they could lead to inside dealing.

“They can create opportunities for corruption, rent-seeking, and opaque asset transfers to elites with political power or privileged access to information,” Mr. Vidal said.

What are Cuban government loyalists saying about it?

Prime Minister Manuel Marrero bluntly stated that the accumulation of wealth in private hands — for decades a communist taboo in Cuba — would no longer be forbidden. He explicitly recognized “the legitimate growth of the financial and material assets of legal entities and individuals.”

President Miguel Díaz-Canel added: “If there is no wealth, there is nothing to distribute. If there is no wealth, there is no social justice.”

Carlos Luis Jorge Méndez, Cuba’s deputy minister of foreign trade and foreign investment, said the government would cut back on bureaucracy and other obstacles to making deals.

He told a United Arab Emirates newspaper that Cuba was “open for business.”

But what about Washington?

The U.S. State Department, responding to questions, said in a statement that President Trump would continue to apply pressure to drive much more substantial economic and political overhauls.

Mr. Trump, the State Department said, wants to “make Cuba investable” and allow private businesses to grow in ways that will help the Cuban island develop and recover and “give the Cuban people the freedom, dignity and opportunity they deserve.”

On Tuesday, the State Department announced new sanctions against more Cuban state-run financial businesses, as well as a member of the Castro family.

“These gradual ‘economic reforms’ are modest, long overdue and ultimately superficial smoke signals from the Cuban regime,” the State Department said.

Cuban activists such as the free speech advocate Yoani Sánchez and the dissident José Daniel Ferrer largely agreed, stressing that the lengthy list of changes did not include any mention of political freedom or a multiparty system.

“Cuba doesn’t need stopgap measures,’’ Mr. Ferrer said, “but a profound economic transformation and a complete political transition.”

The post Under U.S. Pressure, Cuba Rushes Drastic Economic Overhaul appeared first on New York Times.

U.S. House

Maryland had two highly contested Democratic primary races in districts near the D.C. suburbs, both defined by an unusual onslaught of cash.

To the east, Rep. Steny H. Hoyer’s (D-Maryland) retirement in January touched off a six-month campaign sprint that drew 24 Democrats to the race, including some former federal workers, multiple current and former local officials, some state lawmakers and business leaders.

Del. Adrian Boafo (D-Prince George’s), a former Hoyer campaign manager, was the incumbent’s preferred successor and decisively won the primary shortly after polls closed, according to the Associated Press.

Boafo had collected endorsements from Maryland’s top political power brokers, but he was also the beneficiary of $11 million in outside spending from super PACs aligned with the cryptocurrency industry and AIPAC, the pro-Israel group Hoyer has championed for decades.

A crypto-industry group took credit for Boafo’s win.

“We went big and we went early. We did our part to move Adrian Boafo from fifth place to the halls of Congress. He is poised to be a leader in the largest pro-crypto Congress in history,” Fairshake spokesman Geoff Vetter said.

Boafo’s top competitors included Harry Dunn, a former Capitol Police officer who served during the Jan. 6 riots, and business executive Quincy Bareebe, who put $5.7 million of her own fortune into the race. The candidates held similar views on many issues and are best distinguished from each other by identity or biography, though U.S. support for Israel has been a flash point.

In the district that stretches from the D.C. suburbs to West Virginia border, Rep. April McClain Delaney (D) fended off a comeback bid by her predecessor, former congressman David Trone (D). Trone, owner of national liquor retailer Total Wine & More, smashed self-funding records in an acrimonious fight to win back the seat he gave up two years ago. McClain Delaney also has sunk millions from her personal fortune into defending herself and piled up endorsements from the state’s political establishment.

She won the seat Trone had vacated during his failed 2024 Senate bid, and the two Potomac-area multimillionaires have collectively spent more than $33 million fighting each other. A super PAC aligned with the cryptocurrency industry put $500,000 behind boosting her.

Governor

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) faced a primary challenge from a little-known liberal running to his left on nominal resources.

The first-term governor and a rising star in the national party easily beat Eric Felber, who raised less than $1,000 since February, and pitched increasing the state’s minimum wage to $30 an hour and providing free universal child care.

Moore, who amassed a $13.8 million reelection fund during his first term, will face a rematch against MAGA-aligned Republican Dan Cox, his 2022 opponent who won the GOP nomination again on Tuesday.

The Maryland Democratic Party sent mailers that boosted Cox in the primary against businessman Ed Hale, who until recently was a Democrat. A banker who also owns Baltimore’s indoor soccer team, Hale weighed a primary challenge against Moore before switching parties and running as a Republican instead.

Full primary results from June 23

The races we’re watching:

New York 12th Congressional District primary results

All New York House and governor primary results

Other elections:

Utah primary results

South Carolina runoff results

The post Maryland results: McClain Delaney fends off comeback bid, and Moore to face Cox appeared first on Washington Post.

During tests conducted by US intelligence agencies, Mythos identified certain vulnerabilities in government systems within hours – though that does not mean the bot would be able to exploit those same sensitivities within that timeframe, the Associated Press reported this week.

Those tests were part of an Anthropic initiative known as Project Glasswing, which partnered with other companies and agencies to resolve potential security concerns – following reports Anthropic’s Mythos and “Fable” were so advanced that they could spark an AI doomsday.

The dire warnings about the software have prompted skepticism from some observers, who say they’re basically marketing for Anthropic in the highly competitive AI race.

But after a congressional hearing earlier this month, Sen. Mark Warner, the top Dem on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Gen. Joshua Rudd, chief of the National Security Agency, told lawmakers that Mythos “broke into almost all of our classified systems, not in weeks, but in hours.”

A White House official told The Post that various parts of the US government have been using cutting-edge AI models to identify and mitigate cyber vulnerabilities, and that President Trump has taken action to protect classified systems.

The National Security Agency and Anthropic did not immediately respond to The Post’s requests for comment.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration slapped foreign export controls on “Mythos” and “Fable,” after Amazon CEO Andy Jassy warned the administration that researchers had found evidence it was possible to bypass their safety guardrails.

Anthropic responded by pulling the models offline entirely, claiming that was the only way to comply with the new restrictions – as it sent several top officials to Washington, DC, in an attempt to win over government officials.

The National Security Agency had been testing versions of Anthropic’s latest AI tools when the latest models were shut down, according to the New York Times, in a sign of how important the bots have already become for cybersecurity and national security measures.

Meanwhile, tensions between Anthropic and the US government have been heating up ever since Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei refused to give the Pentagon unchecked access to AI tools during contract negotiations, seeking limits for their use in mass surveillance or weaponry. 

After the government slapped Anthropic’s latest models with export restrictions, the company argued the steps were unnecessary, saying it had simply flagged potential security risks in the bots.

But as The Post previously reported, White House officials were irked that Anthropic had downplayed the safety risks as a “narrow” problem – after years of warning about the potential catastrophic consequences of unruly AI bots.

Now Anthropic is scrambling to cozy up to the government and resolve security concerns, most recently pledging to work more closely with the White House in a proposal to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, as The Post exclusively reported.

Talks between Anthropic and Trump officials are progressing well, though a timeline for a permanent fix remains unclear, a source said.

At the G7 Summit in France last week, Trump said talks with Anthropic were “going fine,” while Amodei urged world leaders to “resist the temptation to splinter” in their approaches to AI regulation.

The post Anthropic’s ‘Mythos’ sniffed out vulnerabilities in classified US government systems within hours: report appeared first on New York Post.