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Nine Republican candidates vying to permanently fill late Sen. Lindsey Graham's Senate seat spoke directly to voters Saturday at an event in Florence County, South Carolina, where they addressed the war with Iran , the rising tide of socialism in the Democratic Party and potential privacy concerns around Flock cameras. The event was hosted by Alan Wilson, South Carolina's Republican gubernatorial nominee, who pitched the gathering a kind of "speed dating," since each candidate was given six minutes to address the crowd. The special Republican Senate primary is coming up on Aug. 11, which made Saturday's event one of the last chances for the candidates to make their closing arguments to voters. Here's what they chose to focus on in their elevator pitches. REPUBLICANS DEFY TRUMP, JUMP INTO SOUTH CAROLINA SENATE RACE DESPITE HIS HANDPICKED SUCCESSOR Sen. Darline Graham — who was chosen to finish out her brother's term after his death in July — was the last ...

The Senate wrapped up its summer session at 4:57 a.m. ET. Senators knocked two major items off their checklist. They confirmed Todd Blanche as the nation’s 88th Attorney General.  They also approved a bipartisan interim spending bill that likely goes a long way toward preventing a government shutdown in October. But nearly as important as what senators accomplished is what didn’t get done. The Senate did not stay in session and attempt to pass the SAVE America Act .  In fact, there was not even procedural stunting by the pro-SAVE America Act Republicans, who advocated blowing up the August recess. TRUMP PUMPS BRAKES ON SENATE BUDGET PLAN, DELAYING GOP SAVE AMERICA PUSH Moreover, the Senate did not take a vote on a budget framework which could enable them to eventually tack on some election integrity measures – and pass them at a later date in a bill not subject to a filibuster. Expect some conservatives to rail against the Senate for not working this out.  The SAVE America Act continue...

The U.S. Army is opening up military test ranges to private defense companies and promising "concierge" access aimed at dramatically cutting the time it takes companies to test new weapons and technologies. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll told reporters in a call on Friday that companies will be able to secure testing opportunities within 30 days of submitting a request, compared with a typical wait of roughly 18 months. "We just had to get out of our own way," Driscoll said. "And so the 30-day clock starts today. So if somebody goes to testrange.army.mil, submits it in the next hour, we will have you on a range within 30 days." 'A NEW KIND OF WAR': INSIDE UKRAINE'S HIDDEN FACTORIES MASS-PRODUCING COMBAT DRONES The move is part of a broader Army effort to speed up the development and delivery of technologies including drones, counter-drone systems , long-range fires and low-cost interceptors. "If you look at what is occurring all over the w...

Rahul Raj / EU-Startups : Munich-based NavVis, which provides enterprises with spatial data on factories, plants, buildings, and more, raised an $85M Series D led by The Jordan Company   —  NavVis, a Munich-based spatial twin platform for the built world, has raised a €73.7 million ($85 million) …

Terrence O'Brien / The Verge : Suno plans to adopt new watermarking and fingerprinting tech, transparency tools, and a new download policy to limit the spread of spammy AI tracks   —  The company is changing its download policy and rolling out new watermarking technology. … Suno announced plans to implement …

Jonathan Vanian / CNBC : Meta releases Muse Code in beta, a terminal coding agent powered by Muse Spark 1.2, a coding-focused model priced at $1.25/1M input and $4.25/1M output tokens   —  Meta is rolling out its first coding agent called Muse Code as the company tries to challenge leading AI labs Anthropic and OpenAI.

Julian Beaudion, the Democratic candidate who was challenging Republican Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota , announced he is dropping his election bid, a move that leaves independent candidate Brian Bengs going head-to-head against the incumbent lawmaker. "As many of you know, we experienced a devastating house fire while continuing to navigate significant personal financial hardship," Beaudion explained in part of a lengthy statement issued Tuesday. "Through it all, my wife, Inkka, and our daughters have shown incredible strength. They have sacrificed more than anyone should ever be asked to sacrifice for a campaign. Today, my first responsibility is to them. "After the fire, an opponent and those associated with the opponent, hit my family and I with intimidating threats to drop out of this race,' he said in the statement. "Those attacks were personal and never about politics. The mental and physical safety of my family is my priority and for this reason...

Business Insider : Source: Yunfeng Capital, a PE firm co-founded by Jack Ma, invested ~$30M in AI insurance tech startup Corgi, leading a round that reportedly valued Corgi at $4B   —  Jack is back.  —  Chinese billionaire Jack Ma's private equity firm secretly led the latest funding round for Corgi …

Rep. Max Miller, R-Ohio, is calling for an investigation into abuse allegations made against him by his ex-wife, as the dramatic family feud overshadows his race for re-election. Miller has consistently denied wrongdoing and accused both his ex-wife and her father, Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, of trying to take down his political career. "In light of all the renewed interest in my family affairs, I am going to file my own paperwork for an ethics investigation into myself to clear my name from these horrific attacks on myself and my family. I have absolutely nothing to hide," Miller wrote on X on Tuesday. "We will be providing the committee all necessary documents needed for a detail examination. The accusations continue to change, but my facts stay the same. I am looking forward to my colleagues reading everything for themselves." OHIO GOP FAMILY FEUD EXPLODES AS SEN BERNIE MORENO CALLS ON REP MAX MILLER TO RESIGN The Ethics Committee confirmed on Tuesday afternoon ...

Emanuel Maiberg / 404 Media : Internal email: Microsoft introduces token budget limits for employees' AI use, saying “tokenmaxxing is not what we are optimizing for”   —  Microsoft is introducing budget limits for AI use but says it still wants to be an ‘AI-first’ company.  —  Microsoft has introduced …

Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch : Samsung says it's restricting app registrations and removing apps with SDKs that can turn smart TVs into residential proxy exit nodes, after a similar ban by LG   —  Several popular Samsung smart TV apps contain code that share the owner's internet connection with strangers …

A House GOP lawmaker is accused of sexually harassing two "young female staffers" in his office in an explosive report that details lavish gifts, trips, and even reciting a poem for one of the aides in an incident that made others in his office uncomfortable. The House Ethics Committee is recommending a censure for Rep. Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., after an extensive probe found that he violated the House of Representatives' code of conduct with repeated incidents targeting the two staffers. "Specifically, the Committee found that Representative Edwards engaged in persistent unprofessional and inappropriate conduct towards two young female staffers. While Representative Edwards denied that any of his conduct was intended as a sexual or romantic advance, his pattern of behavior would lead a reasonable observer to interpret it as such, including providing the young women with lavish and recurrent gifts, making comments regarding their appearance and dress, inviting them to ...

Devlin Barrett / New York Times : Court docs: an FBI agent has been charged with amassing ~$1M worth of cryptocurrency, largely by making unauthorized withdrawals from a criminal target overseas   —  The agent confessed to making unauthorized withdrawals from a criminal target overseas, according to court papers.

President Donald Trump 's effort to remake the Smithsonian is reaching the institution's bottom line, with the administration proposing its smallest budget request in years while pushing to eliminate what it calls "woke" ideology from federally funded museums and programs. A Fox News Digital analysis of Smithsonian budget requests found the institution submitted steadily larger funding requests during the Biden administration, with annual requests rising from $1.11 billion in fiscal year 2021 to a record $1.24 billion in fiscal year 2024. The fiscal year 2025 request also exceeded $1 billion before the Trump administration proposed reducing the institution's request below that threshold in its fiscal year 2026 and 2027 budgets—the first time since fiscal year 2020 that the Smithsonian's annual request has fallen below $1 billion. The proposed funding reduction comes as the White House expands one of its most ambitious efforts to reshape a federally funded cul...

Mariah Timms / Wall Street Journal : Researchers used AI-assisted code to undetectably tamper with data from computerized scans of physical DNA evidence produced by widely used crime-lab machines   —  Researchers found that widely used lab machines produced digital DNA files that are vulnerable to tampering

Every member of the "Squad," an informal left-wing congressional caucus, has endorsed Abdul El-Sayed ahead of Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, according to his campaign website. The Squad is made up of Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , D-N.Y., Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., Summer Lee, D-Pa., Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., and Greg Casar, D-Texas. Many of the squad’s current and former members have past or ongoing affiliations with the Democratic Socialists of America , an organization El-Sayed is attempting to distance himself from as he attempts to moderate ahead of a swing-state general election. The unified endorsements sharpen the ideological stakes of the Tuesday primary, linking El-Sayed to the party’s most prominent progressive bloc even as he rejects the socialist label and seeks to present himself as a viable candidate in a battleground state. The support also gives Republicans an early line of attack should El-Sayed defeat the m...