Trump cites dislike of Israel as key factor in GOP midterm losses alongside war with Iran
US President Donald Trump said that growing dislike of Israel among American voters was one of the main reasons for the Republican Party’s sweeping defeat in the midterm elections, alongside the war with Iran and rising gasoline prices.
In an extensive interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes, conducted by correspondent Ross Douthat at the White House on Friday and scheduled to air Sunday, Trump offered his most detailed public assessment yet of the election results, which cost Republicans control of both chambers of Congress.
Asked to explain the defeat, Trump insisted that his personal popularity remained strong and suggested that Republican candidates had failed to translate his support into votes.
Eisenkot tasked with forming government, vows ‘creative and unconventional’ path to ‘emergency’ coalition
Gadi Eisenkot formally received the mandate on Sunday to form the next Israeli governing coalition, and vowed to pursue “creative and unconventional” pathways to assembling what he termed a “national emergency government.”
Eisenkot’s nomination was expected, after 67 of the incoming Knesset’s 120 members asked President Isaac Herzog to give him the opportunity. Now, after a ceremony Sunday at the President’s Residence, the leader of the centrist Yashar party will have up to six weeks to form a government that, he has pledged, will unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and usher in a new era for the country.
“Israel is in a challenging and fateful state of emergency,” Eisenkot declared near the beginning of his remarks. He pointed to active combat on multiple fronts, Israel’s plummeting international standing among allies and adversaries alike, and what he termed “one of the most vulnerable moments Israeli democracy has ever known.”
OpenAI President Greg Brockman Death Will Become Optional Thanks to AI
Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s co-founder and president, told an audience at a WSJ Tech event that artificial intelligence could deliver major medical breakthroughs within the next year and a half, and that death itself might eventually become optional.
TechSpot reports that Brockman said the field has long promised cures for disease, a promise that’s circulated since ChatGPT’s launch, but argued the technology is now close to delivering on it. “Having cures for diseases is something that’s become also a trope in this field, but I think that you’re gonna see real delivery and real significant strides and impacts on biology, health, and curing of diseases over the next 12 months, 18 months,” he said.
Krakow shooting declared an ‘act of terror’: 6 killed, 16 wounded
Six people were killed and 16 wounded after a gunman opened fire Saturday afternoon in Krakow’s busy Main Square, with Poland’s defense minister describing the shooting as an “act of terror” against the city. In a major new development, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said two women and one man had been found dead in the gunman’s home. Tusk said the three were most likely members of the shooter’s family.
Tensions flare as demonstrators target Jewish restaurants, drawing massive counterprotest
Tensions flared in a Philadelphia neighborhood Sunday after a bike ride organized to boycott several Jewish-owned restaurants sparked overwhelming backlash from the city’s Jewish and pro-Israel communities.
The “boycott ride” targeted at least six restaurants in Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Square, labeling them “Zionist establishments” and calling for them to leave, according to pro-Palestinian group Philly Bike On Your Left, which organized the event.
As riders cycled through the streets waving Palestinian flags, hundreds of Jewish and pro-Israel community members turned out to oppose the demonstration, with heated exchanges unfolding across several city blocks. Dozens of diners also lined up outside the targeted restaurants in a show of solidarity with the Jewish-owned businesses.
Google proposes using digital credentials for secure account recovery
Digital IDs could help users recover accounts when lost devices leave passkeys inaccessible.
Google is developing an account recovery method using digital identity credentials to address security weaknesses in traditional recovery methods when people lose their phones.
The company sees recovery as a complement to the security advantages provided by passkeys. Passkeys offer security, but if someone loses their device and has no synced device or alternative authentication method set up, account recovery can be challenging without resorting to less secure methods.
Scientists Discover Two Enormous Tears in a Tectonic Plate Beneath Iran
On the scale of human generations, the tectonic plates that form Earth’s crust and upper mantle are moving incredibly slowly.
They are constantly moving, though, and across millions of years, that movement leads to some globally significant shifts in the landscape.
Researchers led by a team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences have now found extensive evidence of two giant tears in a tectonic plate called the Arabian Plate, underneath southeastern Iran.
The tears are being caused by different rock densities. One part of the plate is what’s known as an oceanic slab and was once part of the ancient Neo-Tethys Ocean.
Nvidia investigates Jensen Huang over alleged affair with ‘Chinese spy’
One of the world’s biggest companies has launched an investigation into whether its chief executive was compromised by a foreign espionage plot after he admitted that he had been unfaithful to his wife.
Nvidia said on Sunday that it had started an internal inquiry, assisted by outside legal counsel, into Jensen Huang, the driving force behind the chipmaker, which is valued at $4.5trn.
It comes after reports that Nvidia’s leader was targeted by Alice Huang, a former Megaspeed International executive who the US government suspects was likely to have been recruited by a Chinese spy agency.
Microsoft AI CEO Says He’s Open to Agents Deserving Rights If He Sees the Right Evidence
Mustafa Suleyman, Microsoft’s AI CEO — a human in charge of its AI operations, we should clarify — says he’s willing to consider giving AI models rights if they ever become conscious. But he really doesn’t want that to happen in the first place.
The comments came in a post he made on X clarifying some of the things he said in a recent essay he penned on “model welfare.” He began that essay with an unequivocal statement: “AIs are not conscious. They do not feel, experience, or suffer.”
That shouldn’t be too controversial. But in this day and age, when trillion dollar AI companies like Anthropic are pushing the idea that their language models could already be conscious, it very much is. This was not lost on Suleyman, who observed in his update that a “surprising number of people on X think we should take AI rights seriously.”
As such, Suleyman clarified that he doesn’t think that “AIs cannot be conscious.” What he meant is that they aren’t currently — and, if he had his way, “this is how they must remain.”