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Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz was confronted by a raucous crowd of anti-Israel protesters Saturday outside his Houston home for a second time in one week. In a post to social media Saturday morning, Cruz, who has been vocal about his support of Israel amid its war with Hamas militants, wrote, "For the [2nd] time this week, anti-Israel protestors have come to my house early in the morning, waking up the neighbors & harassing my family. None expressed concern about Hamas’ Oct 7 murder of over 1200 or mass rapes of women & children." The senator added, "I’m proud to stand with Israel." Though it is not immediately clear whether Cruz was at his home when the protesters arrived, the footage shared online, which was captured from Cruz's front door, showed a little more than a dozen protesters holding signs and shouting anti-Israel chants. CRUZ DEMANDS DOJ LAUNCH CRIMINAL PROBE OF US NONPROFIT ALLEGEDLY HELPING TERRORISTS One sign featured an image of Cr...

Michael Crider / PCWorld : SPEC invalidates 2,600 benchmark results for some Intel Xeon CPUs, saying their compiler artificially inflated the results of its benchmark by as much as 9%   —  SPEC says Intel's Xeon processors were using a compiler that artificially inflated the results of its industrial benchmark by as much as 9%.

Democratic presidential candidate Dean Phillips announced Friday that he had to lay off "a lot" of his campaign staff as he faces difficulties raising enough cash to operate his campaign the way he wants to, but said he will remain in the race for the White House. "I found it almost impossible to raise enough to do this campaign the way I want. And today, sadly, I had to announce layoffs to a lot of my staff members," Phillips, who currently represents Minnesota's 3rd Congressional District in the House, said in a video shared to X. Describing those he laid off as "amazing people who gave up a lot personally and a lot professionally" to help his campaign , Phillips said it was a "really tough day" between himself and those who were let go. Despite the layoffs, Phillips vowed to remain in the race, insisting that's a "promise" he made to those who are no longer working on his campaign. BIDEN CHALLENGER DEAN PHILLIPS SAYS EV...

Telegraph : Sources: UK chip designer Graphcore explores a sale to foreign owners in a deal that could be worth $500M+; rumoured buyers include OpenAI, SoftBank, and Arm   —  Graphcore in talks with major tech companies after struggling to cash in on AI boom  —  The British microchip champion Graphcore …

Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., reintroduced the Kids Online Safety Act with more than half of the Senate's backing, including Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, suggesting that the bill will be filibuster-proof when it comes to the floor.  On Thursday, Blackburn and Blumenthal announced that the revised bill had 62 senators on board, split evenly between both parties. If passed, it would be one of the largest Big Tech crackdowns in recent years, restricting content for minors that promotes substance abuse, the promotion of suicide, sexual exploitation and alcohol abuse. It would also mandate social media companies to implement certain controls to limit screen time, ban restrictive features and limit access to potentially harmful user profiles.  "This overwhelming bipartisan support for the Kids Online Safety Act—62 total co-sponsors, Democrats and Republicans —reflects the powerful voices of young people and parents who want Congress to act,...

Associated Press : OpenAI, Google, Meta, TikTok, X, and others sign a voluntary accord at the Munich Security Conference to fight AI-generated deepfakes designed to mislead voters   —  Major technology companies signed a pact Friday to voluntarily adopt “reasonable precautions” to prevent artificial intelligence tools …

The U.S. Capitol Police arrested numerous pro-Palestinian demonstrators Thursday who had staged a die-in alongside a banner with the message "ceasefire now" inside the rotunda of the Cannon House Office Building.  One officer could be heard giving more than a dozen of the protesters a "final warning" through a megaphone as they dropped roses onto the banner and laid on the floor of the building in Capitol Hill.   "Alright folks, you are demonstrating in an area not permitted to do so. This will be your final warning," the officer said. "If you do not wish to be arrested, you will need to exit the building through those doors . . . . This is your third and final warning."  Footage captured by Fox News at the scene then showed numerous protesters, one by one, being detained and led away from the area by Capitol Police. Others left after heeding the warnings.  NETANYAHU TOLD BLINKEN THAT US RECOGNIZING PALESTINIAN STATE WOULD BE A ‘PRIZE’ FOR P...

Steven Levy / Wired : OpenAI unveils its first text-to-video model, Sora, which can create up to a minute of 1080p video, as a research product for some creators and security experts   —  OpenAI's entry into generative AI video is an impressive first step.  —  We already know that OpenAI's chatbots can pass the bar exam without going to law school.

FBI Director Christopher Wray made an unannounced trip to Israel, where he sat in on intelligence meetings before speaking to Fox News. Wray's visit was his first time on the ground in Israel since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.  The FBI director met with his counterparts in Israel's Shin Bet (Israeli intelligence) and others. He spoke to Fox News before boarding a plane to leave the country for Germany for the Munich Security Conference, where he’ll speak Thursday.  "We’ve seen a rogues' gallery of foreign terrorist organizations both express support and praise for the Hamas attacks and threaten to attack U.S. interests at home and abroad," Wray said. "We're working with all our partners to confront the elevated threat picture, which includes, I should add, the threats posed by Iran and Hezbollah, both in terms of the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, and more broadly."  ISRAEL CONDUCTS AIRSTRIKES IN LEBANON AFTER DEADLY HEZBOLLAH ATTACK "We have learn...

M.G. Siegler / Spyglass : Zuckerberg makes valid points on the Quest 3 being better overall than the Vision Pro today, but he risks having his own “Ballmer laughs off the iPhone” moment   —  After trying the Vision Pro, Mark Zuckerberg says Quest 3 ‘is the better product, period’  —  Here we go again.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said a series of environmental directives and goals he initiated to protect and restore forests and wetlands in the state will help counter climate change and aid the economy. Cooper signed an executive order on Monday that in part sets statewide targets for governments and private land-protection groups by 2040 to both "permanently conserve" 1 million acres of forests and wetlands and to restore 1 million new acres of similar lands. The governor also wants 1 million new trees planted in urban areas by 2040. Cooper’s office called the executive action the most significant by a governor to protect the state’s ecosystems since then-Gov. Jim Hunt’s "Million Acre Initiative" for land preservation was announced in 1999. PLANS FOR MINE NEAR GEORGIA WILDLIFE REFUGE PROCEED, ENVIRONMENTALISTS CALL IT A 'DEATH WARRANT' "As our state continues to grow, we must be mindful to conserve and protect our natural resources," Coop...

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre revealed Tuesday that it was President Biden’s idea to hold what has since become a widely criticized press conference following the release of Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report on his handling of classified documents.  Jean-Pierre, speaking at the White House press briefing, said "it was the president’s idea" to appear last Thursday in front of the media to defend himself from the findings in Hur’s report, which described the 81-year-old as a "sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory."  During the barrage of questions, Biden at one point raised his voice at a reporter and later made a gaffe by referring to Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi as the "president of Mexico."  "He wanted to, it was his idea," Jean-Pierre said when asked Tuesday about how the unexpected event came to be. She then deflected when a reporter asked "did anyone advise him against it?"  BIDEN...

House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., is calling for New York Attorney General Letita James to be disbarred over her handling of the Trump Organization civil fraud trial, according to a letter obtained by Fox News Digital. Stefanik filed an ethics complaint against James with New York state’s Committee on Professional Standards on Tuesday and accused the Democratic official of weaponizing political bias against former President Trump. "New York Attorney General Letitia James violated the Rules of Professional Conduct by conducting a biased investigation and prosecution of President Trump and by attacking President Trump through extrajudicial statements during a trial," Stefanik wrote. TRUMP ATTORNEY SOUNDS ALARM ON NY AG LETITIA JAMES AMID CIVIL FRAUD CASE: ‘SHE CAMPAIGNED ON TRUMP’ "In just the first five weeks of the trial that began in October 2023 – before I stopped counting – Ms. James made over 50 highly inappropriate and prejudicial comments on ...

Wisconsin's Republican-controlled Senate is taking another shot Tuesday at passing a new legislative map before the liberal-controlled state Supreme Court does it. It marks the second time in less than a month that the Legislature has tried to enact new Senate and Assembly boundaries before the court issues its order drawing the lines. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers vetoed the Legislature's last attempt, which was based on maps he proposed but that made changes to protect Republican incumbents. This time, GOP legislative leaders are talking about passing the Evers maps without any changes. When asked last week if he would sign his own maps, Evers responded "Why not?" while also voicing skepticism that the Legislature would actually approve them. WISCONSIN REPUBLICANS WOULD MAINTAIN MAJORITY IN PROPOSED LEGISLATIVE MAPS, BUT WITH REDUCED DOMINANCE The political stakes are huge in the presidential battleground state, where Republicans have had a firm grip on the Legis...

The surprise retirement of a GOP congressman in a solidly Republican Wisconsin congressional district has potential candidates weighing a run, even as a former state lawmaker quickly jumped into the race. U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher announced Saturday that he won’t run for a fifth term representing the 8th Congressional District in northeast Wisconsin. The abrupt move came just days after he angered his fellow Republicans by refusing to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Just hours after Gallagher announced his retirement, former state Sen. Roger Roth, of Appleton, announced his candidacy Saturday and endorsed Trump at the same time, something he did not do in his 2022 run for lieutenant governor. GOP REP. MIKE GALLAGHER ANNOUNCES RETIREMENT FROM HOUSE: 'CONGRESS IS NO PLACE TO GROW OLD' The district Gallagher represents is firmly Republican. Seen as a rising star in the Republican Party, the 39-year-old Gallagher sometimes found himself at odds both with...

Jordan Novet / CNBC : Analysts estimate Microsoft Azure's revenue, fueled in part by AI growth, is ~75% as big as AWS', up from ~50% five years ago   —  - Microsoft's cloud is growing significantly faster than Amazon Web Services of late, thanks in part to its cozy OpenAI relationship.

A large majority of Americans believe both President Biden and former President Trump are too old to serve another term in the White House. Eighty-six percent of Americans think Biden, 81, is too old to serve another term as president, while 62% think the same of Trump, 77, according to the results of a new ABC News/Ipsos poll. Concerns about the ages of Biden, who is seeking a second consecutive term as president, and Trump, the Republican frontrunner looking to return to the White House after losing his 2020 re-election bid, have been growing. An ABC report on the poll notes, citing an ABC News/Washington Post poll in September, that 74% believed the president was too old to service another term and 49% believed the same about the former president. BIDEN LEAD OVER TRUMP SHRINKS WITH THIRD PARTY CANDIDATES ADDED  That trend became even more clear in the most recent ABC News/Ipsos poll, which found that 59% of Americans believe both candidates are too old, the report notes. ...

Allies of President Biden joined Sunday morning shows to defend the commander in chief following Special Counsel Robert Hur’s months-long report on classified documents that characterized Biden as an "elderly man with a poor memory."  "He's smart. He's on his game," Biden campaign co-chair Mitch Landrieu told NBC’s "Meet the Press" on Sunday. "And as Secretary Mayorkas said a minute ago, when you go in to brief the president, you better have your big boy pants on. And this kind of sense that he's not ready for this job, it's just a bucket of BS that's so deep, your boots will get stuck." Landrieu and Biden’s personal attorney Robert Bauer joined morning shows on Sunday to defend the president’s mental clarity following Hur’s report. The report, released Thursday, described the president’s memory as "hazy," "fuzzy," "faulty," "poor," and suggested Biden did not remember when his son Be...