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Ines Ferré / Yahoo Finance : Drones caused a Qatari Helium-producing energy hub to shutter; crucial in chipmaking, Bloomberg says the closed hub makes up ~33% of global Helium production   —  It's not just oil.  —  The near-standstill in the Strait of Hormuz is raising fears of a price surge for commodities used …

Repairs have been completed following the historic Potomac River sewage spill in Washington, D.C., less than a month after President Donald Trump approved a disaster declaration that allowed the Federal Emergency Management Agency ( FEMA ) to help. "Emergency repairs to the Potomac Interceptor are complete," DC Water said Saturday. "Full flow has been restored and the C&O Canal has been fully drained as part of site restoration. Since Jan 19, crews worked around the clock to stabilize the site and protect the Potomac River." The declaration came after a sewage pipe interceptor ruptured on Jan. 19, releasing more than 240 million gallons of raw sewage into the Potomac River. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser declared a disaster emergency over the Potomac sewage spill and requested federal assistance with the cleanup. Trump said he was worried the Potomac River would still stink when America250 celebrations kick off this summer, according to the White House. SEWAGE ...

The Obama Foundation is looking for 100 unpaid volunteers to work alongside the former president's highly paid cronies at the $850 million Obama Presidential Center in Chicago when it opens in June. Officials are pitching the no-paycheck gigs as rooted in former President Barack Obama ’s legacy of civic engagement. The recruitment campaign comes after Fox News Digital reported that the organization’s CEO, former top Obama aide Valerie Jarrett, earned $740,000 in 2024. Foundation officials told Fox News Digital the volunteers will complement about 300 full- and part-time employees at the long-delayed center, which the organization is promoting as a $3.1 billion economic catalyst for the Windy City's South Side. The new program will see 75 to 100 volunteers, known as "ambassadors," greet and direct visitors around the campus and share information about exhibits at the 22-story museum tower, athletic center and Chicago Public Library branch , among other amenities. It...

Vicky Ge Huang / Wall Street Journal : Kaiko: cumulative trading volume on crypto exchange Hyperliquid's perpetual oil futures surged to ~$7.3B on March 12 from $339M on February 28 amid the Iran war   —  A new generation of investors doesn't want to wait for the traditional market open  —  While traditional energy investors spent …

Senate Republicans are gearing up for a floor battle over Trump-backed voter ID legislation, but another GOP senator plans to oppose it. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., won’t support the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act, a decision that could throw a wrench into the GOP’s plan to force Senate Democrats into tough vote after tough vote next week. "I'm a no," Tillis said. "I'm going to do everything I can to prevent it from even moving forward." SENATE GOP EYES BLAME GAME AS TRUMP-BACKED SAVE ACT HEADS FOR DEFEAT He did offer an alternative, arguing that if Republicans were "serious" about voter ID, they’d consider legislation that incentivized states to use the practice in exchange for federal funding. If not, the money would go toward ensuring "election integrity" oversight. "Who could be against that? You know, and then rock on, California, if you want to enable ballot harvesting," Tillis said. "M...

Anthropic : Claude Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6 now offer a 1M context window at standard pricing; it is the default for Claude Code Max, Team, and Enterprise users on Opus 4.6   —  Standard pricing now applies across the full 1M window for both models, with no long-context premium.  Media limits expand to 600 images or PDF pages.

Karandeep Singh Oberoi / Android Police : Meta updates a support page to say that end-to-end encrypted messaging on Instagram will no longer be supported after May 8   —  Can you imagine a world where WhatsApp stops offering end-to-end encryption (E2EE)?  That's not happening, but a different Meta-owned company …

Lauren Forristal / TechCrunch : Tinder unveils updates designed to reinvigorate its product, bolster safety, and harness AI, including an Events tab and a virtual speed dating test in LA   —  Tinder held its inaugural product keynote on Thursday, unveiling an ambitious slate of updates designed to reinvigorate its product, bolster safety, and harness AI.

Senate Republicans are accusing Senate Democrats of trying to rip apart the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) piece by piece after again blocking a bid to reopen the agency. Little has changed in the stalemate over the last 27 days of the partial shutdown, and communication breakdowns are dominating what could be opportunities for negotiations. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and his caucus are still demanding stringent reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, while Senate Republicans are dug in against their top demands. 'YOU CAN CRY ABOUT IT': TEMPERS FLARE IN SENATE AS DHS SHUTDOWN DEBATE ERUPTS, STALEMATE DIGS DEEPER Throughout the day, Senate Democrats tried to offer individual bills to fund pieces and parts of DHS. A fired-up Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., accused Senate Democrats of trying to rip the agency apart at a moment it was designed for, as the war in Iran has spurred threats of retaliation in the U.S. by sleeper cells....

Ashley Capoot / CNBC : Emil Michael says Anthropic's Claude models would “pollute” the DOD's supply chain because they have “a different policy preference” that is baked in   —  Defense Department CTO Emil Michael on Thursday said Anthropic's Claude artificial intelligence models would …

FIRST ON FOX: Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., is introducing a new bill to strip FDA approval from the popular abortion pill mifepristone. The new bill builds upon proposed legislation Hawley introduced last year that would ban mifepristone and allow women to sue manufacturers profiting off of what the lawmaker deems an "inherently dangerous" drug. The Safeguarding Women from Chemical Abortion Act was introduced in the Senate Tuesday and would prohibit the use of mifepristone for ending pregnancies.  "The science is clear: The chemical abortion drug is inherently dangerous to women and prone to abuse. Yet major companies like Danco Laboratories are making billions off it," Hawley told Fox News Digital in a statement. "That's why I am introducing new legislation to ban the use of mifepristone for abortion and empower women to sue its manufacturers. Congress must act now to protect the health and safety of women." If passed, the legislation would withdraw...

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch : WordPress debuts my.WordPress.net, which lets users run WordPress entirely in the browser to set up a private workspace not accessible from the public internet   —  WordPress's publishing software can now run entirely in the web browser, the organization behind the open source publishing software announced on Wednesday.

During the first year of President Donald Trump's second term, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Enforcement and Removal Operations Houston arrested 414 illegal aliens charged or convicted for child sex offenses.  The figure amounts to nearly twice as much as the 211 arrested during the final year of President Joe Biden's tenure, according to a press release. "As a group, the arrested criminal illegal aliens accounted for 761 child sex offenses and 525 other criminal offenses ranging from homicide to robbery," ICE noted in the release . The Trump administration has been working to crack down on illegal immigration since he returned to office last year. MAN ACCUSED OF SPRAYING ANTI-ICE GRAFFITI AT OKLAHOMA CAPITOL IS REGISTERED CHILD SEX OFFENDER; CHARGES FILED One of the individuals arrested was a man who unlawfully reentered the country a whopping 12 times, according to ICE. "Juan Leonardo Garcia Ibarra, a 48-year-old criminal illegal alien ...

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch : Sandbar, which is developing the Stream Ring, a $249+ AI-powered wearable that transcribes audio notes, raised a $23M Series A, bringing total funding to $36M   —  Sandbar, a startup by former Meta employees Mina Fahmi and Kirak Hong, attracted much attention last year when it showed off its note-taking wearable, the Stream ring.

In a little over a year, the United States has carried out dozens of airstrikes on vessels in the Caribbean tied to alleged narco-trafficking networks, launched sustained operations against Houthi forces in the Red Sea, captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro , struck Iranian nuclear facilities and now embarked on an extended military campaign aimed at degrading Tehran’s missile, drone and command infrastructure. The tempo marks one of the most assertive stretches of American force projection in recent years, spanning Latin America, the Middle East and critical maritime corridors. For War Secretary Pete Hegseth , it also represents a striking turn.  HEGSETH BLASTS BRITS, SAYS IRAN'S CHAOTIC RETALIATION HAS DRIVEN ITS OWN ALLIES 'INTO THE AMERICAN ORBIT' Just before the 2024 presidential election, he described himself as a "recovering neocon," expressing regret over his support for Iraq-era interventionism and warning against open-ended wars.  Several ana...

Jake Angelo / Fortune : NBC News poll of 1,000 registered voters: just 26% had a positive view of AI, while 46% had a negative view, the third worst net negative score of all topics   —  Artificial intelligence has permeated nearly every part of daily American life.  It's being adopted across the professional sphere …

Harvard Business Review : A study of ~1,500 US workers finds AI use can reduce burnout but also cause “AI brain fry”, a mental fatigue from using AI tools beyond one's cognitive capacity   —  On New Year's Day, programmer Steve Yegge launched Gas Town, an open-source platform that lets users orchestrate swarms …

Fresh satellite images give a rare aerial view of the damage across Iran after U.S.-Israeli strikes and what Tehran’s retaliation left behind across the region. Planet Labs satellite imagery captured burning ships and damaged facilities at the Konarak base in southern Iran, as well as significant destruction at Iran’s naval headquarters in Bandar Abbas on the Persian Gulf, reflecting the scale of the strikes on military infrastructure. WATCH SHIPPING THROUGH THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ GRIND TO A HALT AMID IRAN CONFLICT Imagery from Vantor shows damage to facilities and vessels located in Iran's Bushehr port in the Persian Gulf. In addition to naval assets, satellite photos show a bunker at Bushehr air base hit by a strike, leaving a large crater and destroying several nearby small buildings. More strikes targeted the Choqa Balk drone facility in western Iran . Radar systems at the Zahedan air base in eastern Iran — near the country’s borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan — were al...

Matthias Bastian / The Decoder : Luma AI debuts Uni-1, an image model that combines image understanding and generation in a single architecture, topping Nano Banana 2 on logic-based benchmarks   —  Ask about this article...  Like Google's Nano Banana Pro and GPT Image 1.5, Uni-1 is built on an autoregressive transformer …

Emily Mason / Bloomberg : How Circle, Stripe, Coinbase, and others are building stablecoin-based agentic payments infrastructure that makes microtransactions between AI agents economical   —  Circle Internet Group Inc. and Stripe Inc. are racing to build payments systems for a world that doesn't exist yet …