First look at a biopic on a Hollywood icon's early years
Toby Jones, Lesley Manville, and Harry Lawtey lead a true-story feature peeking at a legend's formative chapters. Hollywood loves an origin myth, and this one arrives neatly polished, ready to reassure you that childhood flashbacks count as character development.
DOJ charges three J-1 scholars in alleged bio-materials smuggling case
The Justice Department charged three exchange scholars at the University of Michigan, identified as Xu Bai, 28, Fengfan Zhang, 27, and Zhiyong Zhang, 30, alleging they conspired to import concealed roundworm-related materials from China by lying to Customs and Border Protection. Prosecutors link the shipments to Chengxuan Han, a Chinese Ph.D. student in Wuhan previously convicted of smuggling and removed from the United States. After Han’s removal, the university opened an internal probe, the scholars declined to cooperate, and were terminated, making them eligible for deportation. CBP intercepted the trio at JFK before an October 16 flight to China. Officials say one lied about Han while the other two admitted receiving packages after his ouster. Authorities cast the case as part of a broader pattern of exploiting academic programs, complete with the full national-security chorus. Translation, research is not a magic word at the customs desk. All allegations at this stage.
OpenAI CFO says markets lack AI exuberance, floats federal loan guarantees
At WSJ Tech Live, CFO Sarah Friar scolded investors for bubble worries and urged more optimism about AI, while suggesting federal loan guarantees to lower borrowing costs for the sector’s massive build-out. A spokesperson said there are no immediate plans to seek a backstop. Context matters, OpenAI is reportedly unprofitable, has around 13 billion dollars in revenue, and has committed to more than 1.4 trillion dollars in infrastructure spending. Partnerships with Nvidia and AMD have drawn criticism as circular vendor financing, which Friar rejected as simply building the world’s compute supply. When investor Brad Gerstner asked Sam Altman how those commitments square with the balance sheet, Altman replied, Happy to find a buyer for your shares. When exuberance runs low, try confidence, and if that fails, try Washington.
Heritage Foundation president apologizes over Tucker Carlson defense
In a leaked all-staff meeting, Kevin Roberts told employees, I made a mistake, and I let you down. Period. Full stop. He then absorbed sharp criticism from Heritage scholars over his handling of the episode. Translation, primetime monologues play poorly in the research wing.
SpaceX launches while ULA scrubs on Florida twofer
Wednesday night at Cape Canaveral produced one rocket skyward and one stuck on the pad. SpaceX lifted off, United Launch Alliance called it a scrub. Scoreboard, Falcon gets the flight log, Vulcan gets the rain check.
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