Image of the day

It is not a rumor nor a right wing conspiracy, but NY Governor Kathy Hochul repeatedly is wearing a hijab when she visits Muslims.

What a kotau! Appalling!

Recent visit of a Islamic center (Source)

Source: Hochul Facebook page (2024 on World Hijab Day [???])

The Trump administration shut down 270 truck-driving schools in a nationwide fraud crackdown

Good news, if warranted! Tough!

"... including 110 that officials say licensed drivers, many in the country illegally, who couldn’t meet English requirements."

"Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced the move alongside Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, saying tens of thousands of illegal drivers' licenses were issued during former [46th President's term]. ...

The administration is shutting down 110 driving schools that were the "greatest offenders" in granting drivers' licenses to illegal immigrants, as well as 160 additional schools that Duffy says lacked proper space for driving tests or had unlicensed instructors. ..."

Tuesday, September 1, 2026 - Join The Flyover

Trump admin shuts down 270 driving schools in fraud crackdown "The administration shut down hundreds of driving schools for granting licenses to illegal immigrants"

Batterierecycling in Europa: Studie errechnet 1,90 Euro Verlust je Kilogramm

Schlechte Nachrichten! Ja, wieder mal die schreckliche Bürokratie! Seit wann sind alte Batterien ein Gefahrgut? Ist da, wie so oft, das Vorsichtsprinzip übertrieben worden?

"Die Verfahren zur Rückgewinnung von Rohstoffen aus Lithium-Ionen-Batterien sind technisch weit entwickelt. Wirtschaftlich ist das Recycling ausgedienter Traktionsbatterien jedoch noch schwierig. Eine Modellrechnung der HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management kommt für den untersuchten Prozess auf einen Verlust von rund 1,90 € je kg Batteriepack. ..."

"Verkauft ein Recyclingbetrieb die aus einem Batteriepack zurückgewonnenen Rohstoffe zu Marktpreisen, bleibt nach Abzug aller Kosten ein Verlust von rund 1,90 Euro pro Kilogramm Batteriepack.

Ein wesentlicher Grund: Da ausgebaute Lithium-Ionen-Batterien als Gefahrgut gelten, ist ihr Transport im Schnitt 16-mal teurer als der eines normalen Frachtguts. Hinzu kommt: Unternehmen, die sich ausschließlich auf Batterierecycling spezialisiert haben, wirtschaften der Untersuchung zufolge deutlich schlechter als breiter aufgestellte Firmen. ..."

Batterierecycling in Europa: Studie errechnet 1,90 Euro Verlust je Kilogramm "Hohe Transport- und Demontagekosten machen Batterierecycling zum Verlustgeschäft, so das Ergebnis einer aktuellen Studie. Second-Life-Nutzung schafft zusätzlichen Wert: doch Kosten und Erlöse fallen bei unterschiedlichen Akteuren an."

Studie: Europäische Batterie-Kreislaufwirtschaft braucht neue Geschäftsmodelle (Original Nachricht) "Die Technologie, um Rohstoffe aus Elektrofahrzeugbatterien zurückzugewinnen, ist ausgereift. Trotzdem verliert Europas Recyclingindustrie beim aktuellen Prozess Ressourcen.

Die Hauptursachen: teurer Gefahrguttransport, aufwendige Demontage und unsichere Materialrückgewinnung. Das zeigt ein Zwischenbericht der HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management im EU-Forschungsprojekt SAFELOOP, in dem 15 Institutionen aus 11 Ländern an einer neuen Generation sicherer und nachhaltiger Lithium-Ionen-Batterien für Elektrofahrzeuge arbeiten."

Defense News ranks 3 Israeli companies in world’s top 30

Good news!

"Israel’s three biggest defense companies - Elbit Systems, Israel Aerospace Systems (IAI) and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems - have been ranked for the first time among the world’s 30 biggest defense companies, in terms of revenue from defense products, according to the latest 2026 "Defense News" rankings of the world’s top 100 defense firms. ..."

Defense News ranks 3 Israeli cos in world’s top 30 - Globes "Elbit Systems, Israel Aerospace Systems and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems have been ranked among the world’s 30 biggest defense companies, in terms of revenue from defense products."

2026 Top 100

Most Israeli desalination plants shut down again, water restrictions continue since Monday

Bad news! Desalination is salvation (when it works)!

The article does not mention whether any sabotage or cyber attacks were involved.

"Most of Israel's desalination facilities were shut down on Tuesday morning after operating overnight, following another increase in seawater turbidity, the Water Authority and Energy and Infrastructure Ministry said Tuesday. ...

Widespread malfunctions at desalination facilities began on Monday

The impact of a widespread malfunction at Israel’s desalination facilities reached central Israel on Monday ...

The warnings came amid an unusual disruption to Israel’s national water network, after five of the country’s six desalination facilities were forced to shut down.

According to Water Authority Director-General Yehezkel Lifshitz, severe seawater turbidity that began over the weekend and moved from south to north has ..."

Most Israeli desalination plants shut down again, water restrictions continue | The Jerusalem Post "In areas experiencing localized supply problems, the scope of water use will be reduced as needed, while the Water Authority's operations center addresses individual disruptions."

Privates, digitales Geld, die RealUnit Schweiz AG

Empfehlenswert! Bedenkenswert!

Von Hayeks Denkschrift zur App - Liberales Institut

Rain bugs come out during monsoons in Arizona

Source 

Lesotho recruits male midwives

Good news! Bravo! So much for gender equality in Africa!

"As Lesotho health officials aim to lower the country’s maternal mortality rate, they are recruiting more men into a vital role usually left to women: midwifery.

~300 male midwives now provide care across the country, often traversing wide rural regions to assist underserved communities.

Stark care gaps: In Lesotho, ~530 women die for every 100,000 live births—more than 2X the global average. ..."

Global Health NOW: In the Himalayas, Widespread Destruction and Warning; and Men Join the Ranks of Lesotho’s Midwives

Midwife Sehloho Ntlhane leans over a pregnant patient and uses a Pinard horn to listen to the baby’s heartbeat during a prenatal exam at Mpharane Health Center, Lesotho, on July 10, 2026. (Source)

How much of the effects of the landslide and flash flooding in Nepal are to be blamed on China?

It appears again like with Covid-19, China was not very forthcoming with disclosures and relevant information regarding this natural disaster.

E.g. did China warn Nepal of the impending landslide? As far as I know, China did not warn Nepal despite early warning signs.

Also this natural catastrophe started in China not in Nepal as I understand it.

Caveat: I am not following this event closely nor am I familiar with it's details nor did I do any specific investigations.

Former Defense Minister Fedorov Receives Military mobilization Deferment while working for a charitable NGO

A case of rules for thee, but not for me?

"... Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s former defense minister, has obtained a legal deferment from military mobilization via work with the charitable group “Eastern Europe Foundation.”

Under Ukrainian law, Ukrainian men aged 25 to 60 must serve in the military unless they obtain a legal deferment for reasons ranging from critical infrastructure employment to medical reasons. Fedorov, aged 35, is eligible to serve without a government post. ..."

Former Defense Minister Fedorov Receives Military Deferment Via NGO "In brief: Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s former defense minister, received a deferment from mobilization via work with an NGO – but some lawmakers cast doubt on its legitimacy as the government hinted at upcoming plans to mobilize 30,000 troops per month to fend off a rumored 400,000-strong mobilization drive from Moscow."

Mykhailo Fedorov

‘They Will Hang Me’: Putin Fears Defeat in Ukraine, Plans to Send 400,000 More Russians to War

Does the megalomaniac and war criminal Putin the Terrible really fear for his life?

"... Russian President Vladimir Putin is preparing to escalate his war against Ukraine by sending up to 400,000 additional Russians to the battlefield, sources close to the Kremlin told The Economist. ...

One source said Putin believes ending the war without capturing at least all of the Donbas could threaten his survival. “They will hang me,” he reportedly told people close to him. ...

The planned recruitment could be delegated to Russia’s regional authorities, which would use pressure tactics to meet quotas while trying to prevent anger from spreading beyond the local level.

The system is reportedly already being tested in Russia’s Penza region, where men have allegedly been detained on the streets and forcibly sent to fight in Ukraine. ..."

‘They Will Hang Me’: Putin Fears Defeat in Ukraine, Plans to Send 400,000 More Russians to War "In brief: Russian President Vladimir Putin fears defeat in Ukraine could cost him his life and is preparing to send up to 400,000 more Russians to the battlefield, The Economist reported, citing Kremlin-linked sources. The escalation could include intensified recruitment, repression at home and expanded hybrid attacks against Ukraine’s allies."

Cornered, Vladimir Putin plans to escalate his war (behind paywall) "His refusal to back down is rooted in Russia’s gangster politics"

EU to suspend Brazilian meat imports from September 3, citing lack of compliance with antimicrobial rules. Other goods like honey and honey are affected too. Really!

Bad news! The EU is more and more becoming a bully! Another attack on global free trade based on strict non-tariff barriers!

What is good for humans is not good for animals? This is outrageous! Antimicrobial resistance is a dubious excuse by the EU!

"...

• The EU had announced ​in May that Brazil was set to be removed ​from a list of compliant countries exporting ⁠certain animal products to the bloc.
• The Commission spokesperson ​told reporters that the EU had not received guarantees ​of Brazil's compliance with the bloc's requirement that antimicrobials not be used for animal growth.
• For poultry and honey, an audit ​of Brazilian production is due to be completed ​at the end of this week, though results will not be ‌available ⁠immediately, the spokesperson said.
• For beef, of which Brazil was the EU's second-largest supplier in 2025, the EU was seeking guarantees covering the whole life cycle ​of animals, the ​spokesperson added.
• The ⁠Commission did not give a timeline for a possible lifting of the ban.
• The ​EU also prohibits giving animals antimicrobials that ​are ⁠used to treat humans, including antibiotics.

..."

EU to suspend Brazilian meat imports from September 3, citing antimicrobial rules | Reuters

EU suspends Brazilian meat imports over antibiotic compliance concerns "The European Union will suspend imports of Brazilian meat and other animal products from Thursday, citing concerns over Brazil’s compliance with EU rules on antibiotic use in livestock. The move affects poultry, beef, eggs and honey, with Brussels offering no timeline for when trade can resume."

Credits: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

New levy on Chinese ultra-fast fashion in France kicks in today

Bad news! What is this? Government interventionism? Government paternalism? Or is it government trade protectionism?

What is next?

If it is e.g. true that the Chinese yuan is systematically and significantly undervalued due to Chinese currency manipulation, then should this not be addressed first?

"France will from Tuesday impose a fee on ultra-fast fashion items that will eventually reach almost 20 euros per garment, as the government targets major Asian e-commerce platforms including Shein.

The levy follows legislation passed by the French parliament in June to regulate so-called "ultra-fast fashion" companies, known for selling large volumes of lower quality clothing at rock-bottom prices.

It is part of a push to rein in Asian e-commerce giants including Shein, Temu and AliExpress, which have exploded in popularity in France in recent years. ..."

France takes aim at ultra-fast fashion with new levy

France passes watered-down legislation to curb fast fashion "The law aimed at 'reducing the environmental impact of the textile industry' passed its final reading in the Sénat on June 29. Its content underwent numerous revisions over the past two years, particularly to accommodate domestic players in France, while excluding online giants Shein and Temu from those concessions."

Credits: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Female Ex high school teacher faces charges of nude photos from her home and inappropriate relationships with students

Another Me Too story! Welcome to the age of gender equality!

Men watch out!

She is also accused of furnishing alcohol to minors.

"A former Texas teacher was arrested and charged with tampering with evidence and furnishing alcohol to minors, following a year-long investigation into alleged inappropriate relationships with students. ...

Adams has not been charged with having a physical relationship with a student. ...

An unnamed student told school officials that an alleged victim initiated a FaceTime call to him from a bedroom inside Adams' home during the summer, and the bed was covered in nude photos of the teacher, according to the warrant. ..."

Ex-teacher, 41, faces charges after investigators seize 4 cell phones, nude photos from her home: Warrant | Blaze Media "The former teacher is accused of 'destroying' a Snapchat account while under investigation."

Startup Newlight Marine Technologies is fuel-injecting hydrogen to make cargo ships more efficient

Good news!

Remember the Hindenburg disaster of 1937!

Notice the website of Newlight Marine Technologies does not feature this news, but only outdated news from 2025. The company emphasises too much decarbonization and reduction in emissions.

"... The small team based in the San Francisco Bay Area has developed this hydrogen injection system as a retrofit, which it claims can be installed in less than two weeks without needing a dry dock. It cuts fuel use and emissions by more than 20%, and can save some vessels as much as $500,000 in annual costs, according to the startup.

Newlight does this by constantly monitoring the diesel engine and finding optimal moments, down to the millisecond level, to inject the hydrogen fuel. That includes measuring exhaust temperature, combustion pressure, and air intake pressure, and increasing or decreasing the hydrogen flow every time a piston moves inside the engine’s cylinders. ...

The startup says this hybrid system has completed its first long-range commercial voyage: an 8,500-nautical mile trip from Singapore to Ghana. Newlight installed its tech on a 650-foot-long Lomar Shipping bulk carrier ship for the test. The startup said its system reduced fuel consumption by 24% and carbon dioxide emissions by 28%. ...

The company claims it has signed agreements to put the hydrogen injection system on 12 vessels across multiple companies with “broader fleet rollouts planned for next year.” ..."

This startup is fuel-injecting hydrogen to make cargo ships more efficient | TechCrunch

Lomarlabs And Newlight Collaborate To Pioneer Hybrid Hydrogen-Diesel Retrofits For Greener Shipping (original, related news release, but from 2025)

Chart of the day

Is Canada falling behind the US in terms of living standards? Gap in living standards between Canada and the U.S. has more than doubled from 1999-2024; U.S. now $23,757 higher than Canada

And Canada wants to engage in a trade war with President Trump?

 

New mRNA immunotherapy eliminates pancreatic tumors in mice

Good news! Cancer is history (soon)!

"... have developed an immunotherapy using a cocktail of messenger RNAs (mRNA) that could potentially transform pancreatic cancer treatment.

The study ... combines immune cytokine and tumor-associated antigen mRNAs into a single injection to treat pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.

Approximately 50% of mice with pancreatic cancer treated with the mRNA immunotherapeutic cocktail had complete tumor responses and, more impressively, remained disease-free for a year, even after treatment had stopped. 

"It's unheard of to get a response like this in these models of pancreatic cancer," ..."

From the abstract:

"Immunotherapy has limited success in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) due to an immune exclusive tumor microenvironment (TME) that lacks many cytokines necessary for Natural Killer (NK) and T cell responses.

Here, we design multiplexed mRNAs encoding interleukins, chemokines, and interferons as a safe and effective cytokine therapy for PDAC.

Intratumoral injection of IL-12, IL-18, CCL5, CXCL10, and IFNβ mRNAs achieves robust yet transient cytokine expression, leading to NK and CD8+ T cell activation and reduced tumor growth and fibrosis in PDAC transplant mouse models.

Combining cytokine with tumor antigen mRNAs enhances dendritic cell antigen presentation and CD8+ T cell priming locally and systemically that prolongs animal survival after a single dose.

Remarkably, nanoparticle encapsulation of the cytokine/antigen mRNA cocktail allows systemic administration and local delivery to autochthonous PDAC tumors in mice, culminating in curative responses in 50% of animals and antigen-reactive T cell persistence.

These results suggest that multiplexed mRNA approaches to deliver cytokines and antigens generally absent in the TME could pave the way for effective immunotherapy in PDAC."

New mRNA immunotherapy eliminates pancreatic tumors in mice

mRNA immunotherapy developed by UMass Chan scientists eliminates pancreatic tumors in mice (original news release)

Multiplexed cytokine and antigen mRNA administration generates durable anti-tumor immunity against pancreatic cancer (open access)

Fig. 2: A multiplexed cytokine mRNA cocktail mobilizes innate and adaptive immunity and reduces tumor growth and desmoplasia in “cold” PDAC-bearing mice.

Fig. 3: Combinatorial cytokine mRNA therapy can achieve robust cytotoxic T cell immunity in a “hot” PDAC model after a single dose.

Revenge of Monosemanticity: Specialized Neurons Improve Data Efficiency in MLPs

This could be an interesting new paper by Mikhail Belkin and his team. This is a more theoretical work.

From the abstract:

"Understanding how neural networks learn and organize features is central to understanding their behavior. Much existing theory of feature learning has focused on the emergence of a global low-dimensional predictive geometry.

We show that this picture is incomplete.

In regression problems with clustered data, we demonstrate that multilayer perceptrons (MLPs) naturally develop monosemantic specialized neurons: individual neurons become strongly aligned with a specific predictive feature relevant to a particular region of the input space.

Rather than learning a single global low-dimensional representation, MLPs learn a collection of local low-dimensional representations that can collectively span a high-dimensional space.

This specialization provably gives MLPs a data-efficiency advantage over feature-learning methods based on a global low-dimensional representation."

"... Our main contributions are as follows.

We show that in trained MLPs, a substantial fraction of individual neurons

become monosemantic, specializing by aligning predominantly with a single

cluster-specific predictive direction.

This specialization allows the MLP to learn both the relevant local low-dimensional features and an implicit clustering that determines where each feature is useful.

The resulting behavior resembles mixture-of-experts routing, but emerges within a standard MLP without an explicit routing module or expert decomposition. ..."

[2608.24007] Revenge of Monosemanticity: Specialized Neurons Improve Data Efficiency in MLPs (preprint, open access, 63 pages)

TrAct: Bridging Robot Control and Visual Prediction with Visual Tracks

This could be an interesting new paper by Li Fei Fei and her team!

From the abstract:

"Robot actions are inherently embodiment-specific and only weakly aligned with image-space visual changes, limiting their effectiveness as conditioning signals for robot world models.

In contrast, visual tracks provide an embodiment-agnostic representation of how task-relevant points move through a scene, offering dense image-space guidance for accurate and spatially precise future video prediction.

Building on this observation, we propose TrAct, a world-model-based robot decision-making framework that uses visual tracks as an intermediate interface between control and prediction.

TrAct consists of three components:

a Vision-Language-Action-and-Track model (VLAT) that jointly predicts candidate actions and corresponding visual tracks from the current observation and language instruction;

a track-conditioned world model (TWM) that predicts future visual outcomes conditioned on the proposed tracks; and 

a vision-language reward model (VLAC) that scores the predicted outcomes.

At inference time, VLAT generates candidate action-track pairs, TWM rolls out their visual consequences, and VLAC selects the track whose predicted outcome best satisfies the instruction; the action paired with the selected track is then executed by the robot.

Experiments on the proposed LIBERO-INTEGRAL benchmark and real-world Franka manipulation show that TrAct improves success rates from 27% to 55% in simulation and from 49% to 76% on real-world tasks compared with the strong VLA baseline π0.5.

Furthermore, TWM consistently improves video prediction quality over the action-conditioned world model (AWM).

These results demonstrate that visual tracks provide an effective shared interface between robot control and visual prediction, enabling more accurate world modeling and stronger robot generalization."

[2608.24101] TrAct: Bridging Robot Control and Visual Prediction with Visual Tracks (preprint, open access)

English for trippers: The sincerity of sin

Since when? Verity in sincerity! How about the modesty of temperance?

Russia is trying to wear down Ukrainians with nearly continuous airstrikes by new, faster drones

Just how nasty is Putin the Terrible?

"The new generation of jet-powered Geran drones reaches speeds of about 300 miles an hour, roughly three times faster than previous versions of the drone, making them harder to intercept.

Russia is also shifting away from night barrages toward piecemeal attacks throughout the day. The new tactics are further disrupting life in Ukraine."

The Wall Street Journal What's news

Russia Turns to New-Generation Drones and All-Day Attacks to Wear Down Ukrainians (behind paywall) "Kyiv struggles to adapt to continuous attacks using faster drones that are harder to intercept"

Earth, Wind & Fire - December (Official Video)

Enjoy! Based on their song September. How confusing!

Earth, Wind & Fire - December (Official Video) - YouTube

India Locks in Uranium From Uzbekistan, Targets Nuclear Superpower Status with Molly Gambhir

Good news! India also recently achieved similar deals with Canada and Australia!

(231) India Locks in Uranium From Uzbekistan, Targets Nuclear Superpower Status | GRAVITAS - YouTube

Italy's Meloni is About to Set a Government Record. Why Does It Matter?

Good news! Congratulations Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni! Longest government in power since World War II. 

(226) Italy's Meloni is About to Set a Government Record. Why Does It Matter? | IGR | India Global Review - YouTube

Russia Saves Niger's Military Rulers From Mutiny with Palki Sharma

Recommendable!

(225) Russia Saves Niger's Military Rulers From Mutiny | The Palki Sharma Show | IGR | India Global Review - YouTube

Kuwait Holds Defence Talks With India After Pakistan Pact with Palki Sharma

Very recommendable! India, a rising superpower!

(224) Kuwait Holds Defence Talks With India After Pakistan Pact | The Palki Sharma Show - YouTube

Wind Energy bad Economics Explained in Under 4 Minutes

Very recommendable!

Wind power is a scam and highly subsidized and favored by some Western governments! Our ancestors not very long ago abandoned wind power for good reason!

(224) Wind Energy Economics Explained in Under 4 Minutes - YouTube

Github Copilot annoyances

I am a heavy user of Microsoft Visual Studio Code programming with Python for my own, non commercial projects.

Github Copilot provides only 2,000 free suggestions per months! This very stingy! But these suggestions are in most cases very usable and relevant!

Sydney woman recalls how she punched a shark again and again during attack near beach. She survived.

What a story!

"A Sydney woman who survived a shark attack has described the moment she came face-to-face with a 4m great white before repeatedly punching it.

Leah Stewart, 34, was dragged under the water at Coogee Beach in June as the shark bit into her thigh and arms, leaving her with extreme blood loss and injuries so severe that doctors had to amputate her left arm. ...

The shark's face was "horrific" with "black little beady eyes" and its "teeth and its mouth was massive".

"We were looking face-to-face," Stewart said, and at one point, the shark was just 30cm from her own.

Even in that moment, Stewart's thoughts remained calm.

"I'm right-handed, so I thought 'let's do a left hook'," she said.

"I just kind of throw my left arm and it just grabs onto my forearm and rips, rips away my skin, my muscle, everything... there's a big gap between my forearm and the hand."

The shark started to pull Stewart under the water, grabbing her leg. ...

Fighting the shark felt "like punching a brick wall" but she kept going.

"I must have got a really good one in and so it let me go. It was the hardest thing in the world, but I fought my way out of there." ..."

Sydney woman recalls how she punched shark during Coogee Beach attack

Leah Stewart

Famous never give up meme

EU Commission designates ChatGPT, Reddit, Roblox under Digital Services Act | Shaping Europe’s digital future. Really!

Most likely a very stupid big government decision! Reeks of government paternalism!

Apparently, the EU wants to fall further behind in AI!

I hope OpenAI or Reddit and others affected will shut down their service in the European Union in response to this decision by the EU Commission!

"These services declared that they reach at least 45 million average monthly users in the EU and thus meet the threshold for designation.

Following the notification of the designations, these services have four months, i.e. by January 2027, to comply with the additional DSA obligations for VLOPs [Very Large Online Platforms] and VLOSEs [Very Large Online Search Engines], such as assessing and mitigating the systemic risks [???] stemming from their service and algorithmic systems related to the

dissemination of illegal content [???], the 

negative effects on minors [???], 

users’ physical and mental well-being [???], 

fundamental rights [???], 

electoral processes and public security [???]. ..."

"... The designations bring the total number of platforms and search engines under the DSA's strictest tier to 28.

The regulation has already produced around €870 million in fines, including a record €550 million penalty against AliExpress in July for failing to curb the sale of illegal and counterfeit goods, a €200 million fine against Temu in May for comparable failings and a €120 million fine against X in December 2025 over content moderation and transparency shortcomings. ..."

Commission designates ChatGPT, Reddit, Roblox under Digital Services Act | Shaping Europe’s digital future

EU places ChatGPT, Reddit and Roblox under strictest digital safety rules "Brussels has classified ChatGPT as a search engine under the Digital Services Act, a first for an AI chatbot, and designated Reddit and Roblox as Very Large Online Platforms. All three have four months to comply."

Credits: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Hugging Face Open ASR Leaderboard tracks speech-to-text in Hindi, its first Asian language

Good news! However, only phone conversations?

"added its first Indic language sets: Monsoon en-IN and Monsoon hi-IN. The leaderboard previously covered only European languages.

The data comes from unscripted, dual-channel phone conversations recorded by 4,888 speakers across hundreds of Indian districts, each tagged with 12 attributes including age, occupation, device model, and native district.

Each language has a public split for self-scoring and a private, held-out split so models can’t be tuned to the test data;

Hindi references use a lattice of accepted spelling variants rather than one fixed transcript, since no normalizer can resolve Hindi’s spelling variations.

Prior research cited here found ASR error rates ranging from about 4% to 44% across different districts, a gap that standard aggregate word-error-rate scores don’t show. The results show that South Asian languages require different assessment tools, but show promise as ASR extends to billions of speakers on the subcontinent."

OpenAI cuts off Cursor

The Open ASR Leaderboard Adds Its First Global South Language "Voice Arena and Hugging Face partner to launch open ASR evaluation for Hindi and Indian English"

Scientists Identify Fructose as a Surprise Driver of ovarian Cancer Spread

Will this be the end of fructose in soda drinks? Don't bet on it! 😊

Wistar Scientists Identify Fructose as a Surprise Driver of Cancer Spread - The Wistar Institute "A new study from The Wistar Institute has uncovered an unexpected link between fructose — a common dietary sugar — and the spread of an aggressive form of ovarian cancer. Published in Nature Aging, the study found that cancer cells not killed by chemotherapy send signals to neighboring tumor cells, helping them become more capable of spreading. The researchers identified fructose as a key messenger in this process, revealing a previously unrecognized way that treatment-surviving cancer cells may promote the spread of cancer."

Israel signs biggest-ever defense deal with Greece

Good news!

"Ministry of Defense director general Gen. (res.) Amir Baram today signed an historic agreement with Greece in Tel Aviv for the sale of three air defense systems for €3.1 billion ($3.6 billion).

The deal will surpass the $3.5 billion paid by Germany for a single Arrow 3 long-range air defense system, not including a follow-on agreement for an additional system for $3.1 billion, which "Globes" revealed. ..."

Israel signs biggest-ever defense deal with Greece - Globes "The $3.6 billion deal for air defense systems, signed in Tel Aviv, comes as Turkey is acting more aggressively towards both Greece and Israel."

Mechanical compression of electrolytes in solid-state batteries prevents short-circuits

Good news!

"In brief

• A SLAC/Stanford University research team found they could prevent short-circuiting of solid-state batteries by deflecting the dendrite propagation direction using mechanical compression.
• They provided direct evidence that dendrites start in the interior rather than merely at the surface of the electrolyte, settling a long-standing debate within the field.
• The results could have implications for future battery design by incorporating built-in mechanical compression or electrolytes with more defect-free interiors that suppress dendrite initiation.

...

Now, in a study ... researchers have discovered a way to both track these dendrites and suppress them enough to keep the battery from short-circuiting. ...

The team found that when they applied a metal ring to compress the solid electrolyte, it prevented vertical dendrites – the kind that cause short-circuiting – from forming during charging. ...

In fact, under this compression, batteries lasted for thousands of cycles. While vertical dendrites did not form, horizontal dendrites formed internally, but these did not reach the electrodes and therefore did not cause immediate short-circuiting. ...

Under compression, dendrites still formed during charging, but they spread horizontally instead of vertically. ..."

From the abstract:

"Lithium-metal solid-state batteries offer advantages of high energy density and improved safety compared with lithium-ion batteries.

However, solid-state batteries fail through short-circuiting even at low charging rates (less than 1 mA cm−2) due to lithium dendrite initiation and propagation.

The location of dendrite initiation is under debate, particularly regarding whether initiation occurs within the interior of the solid electrolyte or at the surface.

Here we develop an in-plane biaxial compression method that provides direct evidence that dendrite initiation occurs within the interior of garnet Li6.6La3Zr1.6Ta0.4O12 solid electrolytes during long-term cycling when the surface initiation mechanisms are rendered ineffective in shorting the cell.

The biaxial compression deflects dendrite propagation so that it is perpendicular to the electric field direction, leading to the generation of an unprecedentedly high density of dendrites without short-circuiting, even at an extreme fast-charging rate of 100 mA cm−2.

After long-term cycling, dendrites eventually appeared throughout the entire thickness of the solid electrolyte.

Under extreme cycling conditions, isolated lithium deposits are observed at grain-boundary junctions and pores, and these act as the dendrite initiation sites.

This work reconciles the surface and interior initiation mechanisms in garnet solid electrolytes and demonstrates that in-plane biaxial compressive stress can prevent both from short-circuiting the cell."

Squeezing solid-state batteries prevents short-circuits | Stanford Report "SLAC and Stanford research shows that mechanical compression stops lithium buildup in solid-state batteries, making them faster to charge and longer-lasting."

Dendrite initiation and deflection in biaxially stressed solid electrolytes (no public access)

Dendrite initiation and deflection in biaxially compressed solid electrolytes (preprint, open access)

Compressed electrolyte showing horizontal dendrite propagation, which prevents short-circuiting.

Gefährliche Gedankenspiele: Von der Leyen will private Bankguthaben staatlich lenken

Will sich die EU Kommission tatsächlich an den Sparguthaben der EU Bürger vergreifen oder war das wieder nur ein peinlicher Ausrutscher der Flintenuschi?

Gefährliche Gedankenspiele: Von der Leyen will private Bankguthaben staatlich lenken "Die EU steht am Rande einer Staatsschuldenkrise. Gleichzeitig lähmen Klimapolitik, Überregulierung und Staatswirtschaft die Ökonomie. Ursula von der Leyen bietet eine Lösung an: die Aktivierung der Bankguthaben der EU-Bürger per Staatsdekret."

Ursula von der Leyen mit erhobenen Fäusten

Erneute Wahl-Panne in Sachsen-Anhalt: Diesmal 1.200 Kuverts doppelt verschickt

Neues aus der Bananenrepublik D! Ist das Ernst oder nur eine journalistische Übertreibung?

Gabe vor 1990 solche Pannen oder wurden sie verschwiegen oder täuscht mich mein Gedächtnis?

Briefwahl ist an Sich mehr unsicher als Urnenwahl in Person z.B. wegen dem potential doppelter oder mehrfach Stimmabgabe. Bei einem knappen Wahlausgang können wenige falsche Stimmabgaben eventuell den Wahlsieg bestimmen.

Erneute Wahl-Panne in Sachsen-Anhalt: Diesmal 1.200 Kuverts doppelt verschickt "Kurz nach dem Auffliegen von massiven Problemen bei der Briefwahl-Vorbereitung in Magdeburg wurde nun auch ein Zwischenfall in Halle bekannt: Erneut wurden hunderte Briefwahl-Unterlagen doppelt verschickt."

Want less spoiled kids? Have more kids

Food for thought! This is a very old adage and often repeated news story!

Are single children or one child per family more spoiled and egoistic than children growing up with siblings?

Want less spoiled kids? Have more of them | Blaze Media (behind paywall) "Big families impose something modern parenting desperately needs: limits on how much the household can revolve around any one child."

Huge Breakthrough in the Math of Imbalance

Recommendable! It took 15 years to refine the algorithm.

"... You can always make [two or more] teams [of extremely different individuals] surprisingly even, according to researchers studying combinatorial discrepancy theory.

Discrepancy theory is a branch of mathematics concerned with allocating resources as evenly as possible. ...

In the early 1980s, the mathematician János Komlós came up with a counterintuitive [conjecture]. He [predicted] that no matter how many objects (your players) or dimensions (... categories [or dimensions, attributes]) you consider, the discrepancy — which you can quantify — will never exceed a constant amount. There will always be a way to divide the teams with a discrepancy below that exact amount. ...

If the Komlós conjecture is true, it could unlock answers to many other problems, both within discrepancy theory and in fields like operations research. ...

Then, in fall 2025, [researchers] announced the first major advance on the problem(opens a new tab) in nearly 30 years. They found a limit that changes so slowly with the dimension that it is only a hair away from constant, even with an astronomical number of dimensions. ...

The Komlós conjecture imagines each person (or object) as an arrow of length 1 called a unit vector. This vector is defined by a list of coordinates, where each coordinate measures how much of a particular attribute that person has. ...

Now assign each vector to a team. If you put a vector in Team A, leave its coordinates alone. If you put it in Team B, multiply each of its coordinates by −1. (This flips the vector around.) ...

If you’re able to make a perfect split, dividing people into two teams so that each team has an equal ..., then all of these vectors should add up to zero. Perfect harmony.

But perfection usually isn’t possible. So the question becomes: How close to zero can you get? ...

Consider one naïve strategy: Simply assign vectors to teams at random. This leads to a discrepancy that skyrockets as the number of vectors, N, increases.

In 1985, Joel Spencer found a better bound, capping discrepancy below the logarithm of N;

in 1998, Wojciech Banaszczyk improved the bound to

, which can also be written as log(N)½. Both were meaningful strides, but the amount of imbalance still grew as the number of vectors did. Komlós’ constant felt out of reach. ...

In 2010, he came up with an idea for an algorithm(opens a new tab). He started by splitting each vector in half. ..."

‘Huge Breakthrough’ in the Math of Imbalance | Quanta Magazine "For the first time in 30 years, computer scientists have found a better way to allocate objects evenly between two groups."

Decoupling via Affine Spectral-Independence: Beck-Fiala and Komlós Bounds Beyond Banaszczyk (preprint, open access)

From the abstract

Silent artery plaques may appear in one in 13 adults before age 30 showing a systemic, progressive disease process

Concerning, if not shocking!

"... “These data from multiple locations support the concept of silent atherosclerosis as a systemic, progressive disease process,” ..."

"Atherosclerosis, the process underlying most cardiovascular diseases, begins long before the first symptoms appear.

An international study shows that the disease can already be detected in apparently healthy young adults and is much more common than previously thought. ...

that 57.1% of the more than 16,000 participants included in the study had atherosclerotic plaques, despite having no symptoms or previous diagnosis of cardiovascular disease. ...

The data come from the first phase of REACT, one of the largest studies conducted to date to map the presence of silent atherosclerosis throughout adult life. ...

In the first phase, 16,808 people ages 18–70 were recruited in Denmark and Spain. None of the participants had a known history of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Each participant underwent advanced imaging to detect atherosclerotic plaques in the carotid, femoral and coronary arteries. Cardiovascular risk factors, blood biomarkers, samples for omics studies and retinal images were also analyzed, generating one of the most comprehensive databases on atherosclerosis developed to date.

The results show that the disease is already present in very young adults. Approximately 1 in 13 people ages 18–29 had atherosclerosis in at least one artery. This proportion increased progressively with age, reaching 9 in 10 people ages 60–70. ...

The study also reveals important differences between women and men.

In men, prevalence began to increase at younger ages, with an atherosclerotic profile five–10 years ahead of that observed in women.

In women, the sharpest increase was observed between the ages of 40 and 60, a period that broadly coincides with the menopausal transition. ...

Another of the study's most relevant findings is that the conventional methods currently used to estimate cardiovascular risk, including risk scores such as SCORE2, identify only a small proportion of people who already have silent atherosclerosis. ..."

Silent artery plaques may appear in one in 13 adults before age 30

Early imaging of atherosclerosis identifies silent disease not captured by conventional risk assessment

REACT: Use of Imaging to Detect Silent Atherosclerosis in Early Adulthood

Prevalence of Silent Atherosclerosis across Adult Life (no public access)

A former White House teleprompter operator must surrender more than $100,000 in profits and pay a $65,000 fine

Good news!

"... for using advance knowledge of President Trump’s speeches to place bets."

"... The settlement with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, announced Friday [8/28/2026], also dealt Gabriel Perez a three-year trading ban. Perez was placed on unpaid leave from his job at the White House after it was determined he used his position to make bets on what President Trump would say in speeches, two sources familiar with the matter told CBS News last month. ..."

"... A Kalshi spokesperson told CBS News in July that the company investigated Perez's trading activity after its surveillance systems detected trades that didn't adhere to typical buying and selling patterns. Kalshi froze Perez's account, locking more than $90,000 in profits he made on the platform, the spokesperson confirmed. 

After completing its investigation, Kalshi referred the case to the CFTC. The Kalshi spokesperson said the company has been working with the CFTC for months. ..."

"... Under the order, Perez must disgorge the profits he made from his unlawful trading totaling $107,539.02 and pay a civil monetary penalty of $65,000, representing a substantial discount under the Division of Enforcement’s new cooperation advisory because of Perez’s exemplary cooperation with the CFTC. Perez agreed to cease and desist from further violations of the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC regulations. Under the order, a three-year trading ban is imposed on Perez. ..."

Sunday, August 30, 2026 - Join The Flyover

Ex-White House teleprompter operator ordered to pay $172,000 for insider bets on Kalshi

CFTC Orders Gabriel Perez to Pay $172,000 for Insider Trading of Mention Market Event Contracts (official news release)