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President Donald Trump shared security footage on social media Saturday, slamming a subcontractor accused of cracking the "most beautiful marble and stone available anywhere" in the recently renovated White House Rose Garden. In a post to Truth Social, Trump said he discovered a "huge gash" in the limestone three days ago, extending more than 25 yards. "Surfaces are very important to me as a Builder," the president wrote in the post. "As everyone knows, I built many GREAT Buildings, and other things, over the years. … [The limestone crack] was deep and nasty! I started yelling, ‘Who did this, and I want to find out now!’—and I didn’t say this in a nice manner." TRUMP WARNS HE WILL TAKE 'FEDERAL CONTROL' OF WASHINGTON, DC AS YOUTH VIOLENCE CONTINUES Trump said he questioned whether the damage was caused by vandalism or "stupidity" and credited White House security equipment with cracking the case. "They brought back t...

Tor Blog : How Turkmenistan turned censorship into a lucrative extortion scheme by intentionally restricting internet access in order to sell its own VPNs to citizens   —  In July 2021, a sudden drop in Tor usage in Turkmenistan called our attention.  Tor would come to understand that this marked …

Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal : The price per token for AI models has fallen, but costs for developers are rising as newer reasoning models require more tokens to complete tasks   —  With models doing more ‘thinking,’ the small companies that buy AI from the giants to create apps and services are feeling the pinch

David Gilbert / Wired : Purgatory, tied to online community The Com, claims responsibility for swatting attacks on US universities, airports, and more, charging $20 to $95 per incident   —  WIRED spoke to a self-proclaimed leader of an online group called Purgatory, which charged as little as $20 to call in fake threats against schools.

Los Angeles Times : California Gov. Gavin Newsom and lawmakers strike a deal with Uber and Lyft allowing drivers to unionize while remaining classified as independent contractors   —  - One bill in the deal, sponsored by the powerful Service Employees International Union, would allow Uber and Lyft drivers …

FIRST ON FOX: Homeland Security (DHS)  Secretary Kristi Noem slammed a group of former and current Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) employees who wrote a letter criticizing the Trump administration’s handling of the agency as she outlined her vision for FEMA’s role in the U.S.  More than 190 former and current FEMA employees  joined an open letter on Monday "in response to the Trump administration’s dismantling cuts and devastating attacks on FEMA programs and missions." On Wednesday morning, the agency’s current employees who signed on to the letter were placed on administrative leave. "I am not surprised that some of the same bureaucrats who presided over decades of inefficiency are now objecting to reform; including many who worked under the Biden Administration to turn  FEMA into the bureaucratic nightmare it is today," Noem told Fox News Digital on Thursday. "I refuse to accept that FEMA red tape should stand between an American citizen suf...

Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE : InstaLILY, whose industry-specific AI agents called InstaWorkers integrate with legacy systems, raised $25M from Insight Partners   —  InstaLILY Inc. said today it has raised $25 million exclusively from Insight Partners to fuel the growth of industry vertical-specific “AI Teammates” …

Kate Clark / Bloomberg : Sources: cloud startup Vercel is raising hundreds of millions of dollars led by Accel at a valuation of about $9B, up from about $3B in a round last year   —  Vercel, a startup that helps companies develop web and artificial intelligence applications in the cloud, is raising hundreds of millions …

A Chicago Teamsters local is demanding a packaging company refuse to allow federal immigration enforcement on its property without warrants as a top tenet of its overall demands. The workers are seeking assurances from Mauser that it will require ICE to display a warrant signed by a judge before it is allowed on the property. The strike at Mauser Packaging Solutions’ plant in the heavily Hispanic "Little Village" neighborhood has lasted more than two months, and the Teamsters Local 705 negotiator recently refused the factory’s latest offer, according to multiple reports. About 140 people work at the plant, which reconditions metal barrels for chemical storage, and a plurality are Latino, according to the American Prospect . CHICAGO MAYOR CONCLUDES COUNCIL-DEMANDED PROBE OF CITY POLICE’S ROLE DURING RECENT ICE RAID One striking worker told the outlet that he and others are concerned that ICE may target them on a racial basis even if they are able to prove legal residency....

Reuters : Report: German banks blocked €10B+ in PayPal payments on Monday over fraud concerns; PayPal says a temporary service interruption affected some transactions   —  German banks blocked PayPal (PYPL.O) payments totalling more than 10 billion euros ($11.7 billion) over fraud concerns …

President Donald Trump said he plans to pursue reviving the death penalty in Washington for those convicted of murder amid his crime crackdown in the nation’s capital.  "If somebody kills somebody in the capital, Washington, D.C., we're going to be seeking the death penalty," Trump told reporters during a Tuesday Cabinet meeting. "And that's a very strong preventative. And everybody that's heard it agrees with it. I don't know if we're ready for it in this country, but we have it. … We have no choice."  The 1972 Supreme Court decision in Furman v. Georgia determined that the death penalty violated the Eighth Amendment's provision barring cruel and unusual punishment, and the D.C. Council officially rescinded the death penalty in 1981, according to the nonprofit organization the Death Penalty Information Center.  Twenty-seven states still permit the death penalty, while 23 states do not have capital punishment. Four states — California, Pe...

Eric Berger / Ars Technica : Google DeepMind's Weather Lab, launched in June, showed superior accuracy in forecasting Hurricane Erin's path up to 72 hours ahead, beating traditional models   —  In early June, shortly after the beginning of the Atlantic hurricane season, Google unveiled a new model designed specifically …

New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, 33, needed help doing two bench press reps at the annual Men’s Day event in Brooklyn on Saturday. The 33-year-old Uganda-born socialist required assistance from his spotter while attempting the 135-pound lifts. He shifted the spotlight to his spotter, a member of "500 Men Making a Difference," which hosted the event, as a "combined" effort. Political rivals teed off on the display, with Mayor Eric Adams labeling him "Mamscrawny" on X, and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo saying, "It's easy to talk, it's hard to carry the burden. ZOHRAN MAMDANI LAUNCHES ANTI-TRUMP TOUR ACROSS FIVE BOROUGHS IN NEW YORK CITY "This guy can't bench his own body weight, let alone carry the weight of leading the most important city in the world," Cuomo wrote on X. "64 vs. 33," Adams posted on X, with his own bench press clip. "A lifetime of hard work vs. a silver spoon. The results speak for...

Chris Eudaily / CNBC : Filing: Intel warns the US taking a 10% stake could trigger “adverse reactions”, including in international sales, which made up 76% of revenue last fiscal year   —  Intel on Monday warned of “adverse reactions” from investors, employees and others to the Trump administration taking …

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson on Sunday called President Donald Trump’s plan to send the National Guard to Chicago a "flagrant violation of our Constitution."  "What the President is proposing would be the most flagrant violation of our Constitution in the 21st Century," Johnson wrote on X. "The City of Chicago does not need a military occupation." Johnson also shared a clip from his appearance on MSNBC’s "The Weekend." On the show, Johnson said Chicago has made clear what it needs instead of troops. GOV. PRITZKER SAYS TRUMP TRYING TO 'MANUFACTURE A CRISIS' AS ADMIN PLANS NATIONAL GUARD DEPLOYMENT TO CHICAGO "We need to invest in people to ensure that we can build safe and affordable communities. That’s what I’ve done as mayor since assuming office," he said. "It’s unfortunate that this president is working overtime to divide in his attempt to conquer working families and to conquer cities across America. "But ...

Fresh off a major appellate win, President Donald Trump on Sunday tore into New York Judge Arthur Engoron, who oversaw his state civil fraud trial, calling him "incompetent," "crooked" and nearly as "corrupt" as New York Attorney General Letitia James. Trump's barbs followed an appellate ruling that erased a $500 million penalty in James’ high-profile civil fraud case, handing Trump one of his biggest legal wins yet.  "The Appellate Court removed incompetent Judge Engoron, but he refused to go, or even to acknowledge them," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "He’s a highly overturned, CROOKED Judge, who is retiring into a life of lawsuits, along with his Chief Clerk, soon! He is almost as Corrupt as Leticia James, but not quite!" Engoron presided over the non-jury trial, and Trump allies accused him of bias against the president-elect, his family and his company. Trump was accused of inflating the value of his assets to get more favor...

Wall Street Journal : Two former executives who ran the CHIPS Program Office say the US-Intel deal won't solve Intel's real issue: a lack of external customers for its foundry unit   —  The Chips Act wasn't about raising revenue, and an equity share wouldn't enhance national security.

Brave : Researchers detail an indirect prompt injection flaw in Perplexity's Comet AI browser, letting attackers manipulate it into performing unauthorized actions   —  The threat of instruction injection  —  At Brave, we're developing the ability for our in-browser AI assistant Leo to browse the Web on your behalf, acting as your agent.