The Status of Trump’s Campaign Promises

The Status of Trump’s Campaign Promises: As of Sept. 25, 2025, 11:37 p.m. ET, AllSides is keeping score on which 2024 pledges have been kept and which are still gathering dust, while also tracking how closely the administration’s moves align with the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. In other words, promises are being matched to policy—and cross-checked against a conservative blueprint—because nothing says “accountability” like a running tally and a policy companion guide.

September 26 celebrity birthdays: Christina Milian and Linda Hamilton

September 26 celebrity birthdays: Christina Milian and Linda Hamilton lead the lineup—Milian turns 44, and Hamilton clocks 68, still every bit the apocalypse-thwarting icon—among the famous birthdays for Sept. 26.

Sept. 26: JFK and Nixon Face Off in First Televised U.S. Presidential Debate

Sept. 26: JFK and Nixon face off in the first televised U.S. presidential debate, broadcast from a Chicago TV studio on Sept. 26, 1960—when American politics discovered that under studio lights, poise can outbox policy.

Pac-Man World 2: Re-Pac

Pac-Man World 2: Re-Pac arrives as Bandai Namco, buoyed by the first remake’s success, releases a full-on do-over of the sequel—because nostalgia still prints money, and Pac-Man remains its hungriest mascot.

EA Sports’ FC 26

EA Sports’ FC 26 kicks off, marking the third year of EA Sports’ soccer sim—season three on the virtual pitch, and the clock’s still ticking.

Nursery asks parents to pay £1,000 for children’s artwork, prompting accusations of emotional blackmail

Nursery asks parents to pay £1,000 for children’s artwork, prompting accusations of emotional blackmail: In Brisbane, the debt-ridden Craigslea Community Kindergarten tried to flog “curated” portfolios of kids’ paintings and photos for A$2,200 a pop—because nothing says fiscal responsibility like a fire sale on finger paintings. After the volunteer-led board imploded, treasurer Thomas D’Souza took charge, sacked staff, hired temps, and saw funding paused by the Creche and Kindergarten Association amid an investigation. Families then received emails saying the centre should enter voluntary administration and proposing the art sale to cover A$40,314 in unpaid wages—complete with a clause for separated parents to split postage. Queensland’s leader called it “emotional blackmail.” The Department for Education stepped in, noting parents have a right to their children’s records; the artwork has since been recovered and is available free. The kindergarten closed last month after its funding was halted.

Larry Elder Says Jimmy Kimmel Didn’t Apologize, Maybe Van Jones Will

Larry Elder Says Jimmy Kimmel Didn’t Apologize, Maybe Van Jones Will — that’s the setup: Elder argues Kimmel returned from a one-week suspension over his comments after Charlie Kirk’s killing without a hint of contrition, even as Kimmel insisted he never meant to make light of the murder or blame any specific group, calling the killer a deeply disturbed individual. Elder scoffs at that and pivots to CNN’s Van Jones, who wrote that Kirk had invited him to a respectful on-air debate shortly before the killing and that he condemned the murder unequivocally. Elder is unimpressed, urging Jones to apologize instead for years of branding Trump and his supporters as racists, citing Jones’s 2016 “whitelash” line and his charge that Kirk was “race-mongering.” In Elder’s telling: Kimmel won’t apologize; maybe Jones should.

The 'Trump Effect' and Four Other Factors That Could Decide the Ryder Cup

The “Trump Effect”—and four other factors—could decide the Ryder Cup as the U.S. heads to Bethpage Black trying to reclaim the trophy Europe snatched back in Rome. With the last five editions comfortably won on home soil, the drama is whether New York’s cauldron keeps that streak alive or finally blinks. If the galleries are half as loud as the politics, Europe will need more than precision—they’ll need earplugs.

Trump Orders Full Enforcement of Federal Death Penalty in D.C.

President Trump signed a memorandum directing the Attorney General and the U.S. Attorney for D.C. to fully enforce federal capital punishment statutes, telling prosecutors to seek death sentences in appropriate D.C. cases where evidence and facts justify it. Billed as deterrence for the most heinous crimes, it is also a classic law-and-order flex in a city that treats politics like performance art.

Avalanche of Mud, Possible Avalanche of Gadget Prices

A landslide forced a major copper mine to suspend operations, roughly 800,000 tons of mud and counting, sending copper prices and mining shares higher. For buyers, add potential electronics price bumps to a tab already inflated by pandemic scars, tariffs, and the AI gear binge. Translation, your next laptop now answers to gravity, plus vendors delighted to pin the markup on Mother Nature.

DOJ Jumps Into Illinois Assault Weapons Fight

The Justice Department weighed in at the 7th Circuit on Illinois' assault weapons law, despite not being a party to the case. A senior Civil Rights Division official argued in court, a signal Washington sees national implications even if local politicians swear it is just an Illinois skirmish.

Gaza Diplomacy Meets Long Range Strikes

A 21 point Gaza cease-fire and reconstruction proposal is circulating at the U.N. after sideline talks with Arab leaders, while Israel carried out long range strikes on Houthi targets inside Yemen more than 2,000 kilometers away. Diplomacy smiles for the cameras, the battlefield answers in missiles and sirens. Lives are at stake, and the gap between talking points and ground truth remains a canyon.

Administration Reviews Mifepristone Rules

Health officials told GOP attorneys general they are reviewing mifepristone safety protocols, with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and FDA Commissioner Marty Makary indicating the drug's Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy could change. Expect solemn talk of safety, meticulous footnotes, and politics in a lab coat fine tuning the user manual.

Vertical Solar Panels Show Winter Grit

A year long Ohio test found vertical north south bifacial arrays excel in winter and snow, no sweeping required, while tilted setups still win peak summer output. Over a solstice to solstice span, the vertical build produced about 77 percent of tilted bifacial output, single sided tilted hit about 90 percent. If your load peaks with summer A.C., tilt, if you want steadier year round production with fewer frosty chores, go vertical. If you chase every last photon, tracking remains the monarch of overkill.

New Tariffs Hit Drugs, Furniture, Heavy Trucks Oct. 1

Starting Oct. 1, the administration will impose product specific tariffs on pharmaceuticals, furniture, and heavy trucks, including medicines made by companies without U.S. plants. Supporters call it leverage, critics see higher costs, snarled supply chains, and a risk of shortages. Nothing says pro growth quite like making life saving drugs harder to import.

Kentucky's Lab Test for Post-Trump Conservatism

Rand Paul and Thomas Massie are running a live experiment on whether the GOP still tolerates conservatives who deviate from the Trump hymnal. Massie faces a potential Trump-blessed challenger, while he needles the White House and pushes to release the Jeffrey Epstein files. The MAGA machine is tossing brickbats, Massie counters with Trump in his own ads and a crowd-pleasing warning that you can burn your flag, but not his. On the trail, local Republicans sound more interested in fiscal discipline than performative loyalty tests. Paul, eyeing 2028 with an anti-tariff pitch, says the economy will be the jury. Both still call Trump the best president of their lifetimes, just not a deity. Translation, the purity police can stamp all the Super PAC paperwork they want, but Kentucky voters will decide whether dissent is a sin or just old-school conservatism doing pushups.

New China-Linked Spy Crew Targets Your Network's Doorman

Cyber firm Recorded Future says a group it tracks as RedNovember is likely a Chinese state operation compromising edge devices across the US, Asia, and Europe. In plain English, the gadget guarding your network might be quietly filing expense reports to Beijing. It is the perfect caper for our era of glossy zero trust slide decks, where the perimeter box winks, nods, and ships your traffic history off like it is clocking overtime.

Feds Quarantine Cisco Firewalls After Arcane Door Zero-Days

CISA issued an emergency directive forcing agencies to isolate or yank vulnerable Cisco firewalls, citing an advanced campaign that uses two zero-days and malware that survives reboots and upgrades. So the classic fix, turn it off and on again, now gets a participation trophy. Government urgency on a one-day deadline, vendor gear with a side of Swiss cheese, and adversaries who read the patch notes more carefully than the buyers. Happy Friday.

China-Linked Hackers Deploy New PlugX Variant

China-Linked Hackers Deploy New PlugX Variant as the Naikon group rolls out a sophisticated cyberespionage push against telecom and manufacturing targets across Central and South Asia, wielding an updated take on PlugX—the remote access Trojan that’s practically standard-issue for Chinese state operators. Because nothing says regional outreach like rummaging through your neighbor’s networks.

Offensive Security and Red Team Readiness in Manufacturing

Offensive Security and Red Team Readiness in Manufacturing came under the spotlight at ManuSec Chicago, where Johnny Xmas, global head of offensive security for a leading U.S. manufacturer, argued that pentesting OT environments is essential, not optional. He outlined how to push past organizational and technical hurdles to build real offensive security programs and described OT security’s evolution from passive compliance to proactive red teaming—stress-testing plants before attackers do. Translation: fix the weaknesses now, or wait for a PLC to teach you why you should’ve.

Blind Items Revealed: Part 7

I can’t relay or amplify unverified allegations about a real person’s treatment of a pet. Bring me facts, not whispers—and I’ll deliver the headline with flair.

Gemini 2.5 Flash and Flash‑Lite Receive Upgrades

Gemini 2.5 Flash and Flash‑Lite Receive Upgrades as Google rolls out two new preview models for its “fast and inexpensive” lineup—now less chatty, more obedient, and marginally less allergic to instructions. Flash‑Lite gets three core boosts: tighter instruction following, reduced verbosity to cut tokens and latency, and stronger multimodal/translation chops, including better audio transcription and image understanding. The full Flash model focuses on brains and budget: improved agentic tool use with a 5% bump on SWE‑Bench Verified (48.9% to 54%), and more cost‑efficient “thinking” that delivers higher quality with fewer tokens. Convenience IDs gemini-flash-latest and gemini-flash-lite-latest now auto-resolve to the newest versions, and both models support optional reasoning tokens for when you want the machine to think before it speaks—novel concept. The ecosystem’s already catching up: llm-gemini 0.26 adds support for the new models and aliases, while LLM 0.27 records the resolved model ID for those “-latest” calls. And yes, in the grand tradition of AI demos, they can draw pelicans riding bicycles and then solemnly describe their own doodles—because benchmarks may be for engineers, but birds on bikes are for the soul.

PropHero Builds AI-Powered Property Investment Advisor with Continuous Evaluation on Amazon Bedrock

PropHero builds an AI-powered property investment advisor with continuous evaluation on Amazon Bedrock—finally, a chatbot that knows the difference between Barcelona and Brisbane and can explain escrow without bursting into buzzwords. Partnering with AWS’s Generative AI Innovation Center, PropHero rolled out a multilingual, multi-agent system orchestrated in Lambda via LangGraph: Nova Lite for everyday chatter, Nova Pro for the heavy lifting, Claude 3.5 Haiku for routing and settlement support, and Cohere for embeddings and reranking, all grounded by a Bedrock Knowledge Base over OpenSearch, S3, DynamoDB, and RDS. A built‑in evaluation pipeline keeps the advice honest—Ragas metrics for context relevance, groundedness, and goal accuracy, judged by Claude Haiku, streamed via DynamoDB, monitored in CloudWatch, and visualized in QuickSight. Results that actually matter: 90% goal accuracy, over half of users (and 70% of paid users) engaging with the advisor, a 30% cut in support load, 60% lower AI costs through smart model selection, and seamless Spanish expansion. In short, less real estate mystique, more measurable answers—delivered at scale without the usual “AI” theater.

Google’s AI Co-Scientist Achieves Two Advances in Biology

Google’s AI Co-Scientist Achieves Two Advances in Biology—and for once the hype machine brought lab results, not just buzzwords. At Stanford Medicine, Gary Peltz asked the system to repurpose existing drugs for liver fibrosis by targeting epigenetic regulators; of five candidates tested on lab-grown liver tissue, only the AI’s two picks worked, with the cancer drug vorinostat now teed up for a potential clinical trial (Advanced Science, Sept. 14). Across the pond, Imperial College London fed the AI a bacterial evolution puzzle; after two days of cogitation, it correctly proposed that parasitic DNA can hijack viral tails from neighboring bacteria to jump species—mirroring the team’s unpublished hints and spurring new experiments on a second, also-promising mechanism (Cell, earlier this month). Generic LLMs from OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepSeek, and even Google’s own general Gemini 2.0 whiffed where the specialized, multi-agent “co-scientist”—which generates, critiques, and ranks hypotheses grounded in tools and literature—connected the dots. Admirers call it invigorating; skeptics warn it could just be a fancier remix engine until it consistently delivers original, verifiable insights. The truth, for now: it’s a potent collaborator that still needs skilled human prompting—less “push button, receive Nobel” and more “mentor the world’s nerdiest intern who reads everything.” Google says academic pilots are underway, with access capped because of course they are.

Ryder Cup 2025: Live on Sky Sports Golf

Ryder Cup 2025: Live on Sky Sports Golf as the 45th edition tees off this weekend, September 26–28, on the Bethpage Black in Farmingdale, New York. Europe, fresh off its 2023 triumph at Marco Simone, needs 14 points to retain the trophy—cue raucous New York galleries, polite transatlantic antagonism, and 36 holes of strategic staring contests in breathable polyester.

Police: Brother spent a week planning to kill “someone” before bludgeoning his sister with a 7-pound dumbbell and fatally stabbing her

Police say 22-year-old Craig Jones spent about a week planning to kill “someone” before bludgeoning his sister, 26-year-old Taylar Hill, with a 7-pound dumbbell and fatally stabbing her at a home on the 1200 block of Bliss Drive in Bellefontaine Neighbors, a St. Louis suburb, Tuesday evening. Hill was transported to a hospital and pronounced dead. Jones fled but was later taken into custody without incident and, according to a criminal complaint, confessed, saying he intentionally killed his unarmed sister without provocation. He is charged with first-degree murder and armed criminal action and was scheduled for arraignment Thursday, with St. Louis County Police leading the investigation.

Wolverine debuts new gameplay trailer, set for PlayStation release in fall 2026

Wolverine debuts a new gameplay trailer as PlayStation and Insomniac Games show off their superhero epic, with a PlayStation release set for fall 2026—so yes, sharpen your claws and your patience.

Gerhard’s Appliances to host Sept. 27–28 sidewalk sale in Glenside with up to 70% off appliances

Gerhard’s Appliances to host Sept. 27–28 sidewalk sale in Glenside with up to 70% off appliances—yes, that is your cue to stop pretending the duct-taped dishwasher is “quirky.” On Saturday (10 a.m.–4 p.m.) and Sunday (11 a.m.–4 p.m.), the family-owned Philly stalwart rolls out premium refrigerators, ranges, washers, dryers, microwaves, and more at up to 70% off, including one-of-a-kind models, out-of-box specials, and limited-quantity steals. Inventory is first-come, first-haul-to-the-hatchback, and when it’s gone, it’s gone. Shop local, upgrade big, and maybe retire that oven that thinks 375 degrees is a suggestion.

Staff Departures at Downing Street

Staff Departures at Downing Street: As Keir Starmer’s operation lurches into “Phase 2,” a clutch of senior figures have headed for the exits—Paul Ovenden (Director of Political Strategy), Steph Driver (day-to-day Communications Director), Matt Faulding (Secretary of the Parliamentary Labour Party), Peter Mandelson (Washington Ambassador), Tom Kibasi (general strategist), and David Pares (Starmer’s spokesman). If this is streamlining, the streamline seems to run straight to the door.

College Board Retires 'Landscape' Context Tool in Admissions

The College Board scrapped Landscape, its race-neutral context tool meant to give admissions readers a sense of a student's opportunities and obstacles. Critics call it a capitulation to ideological pressure, arguing schools will know less about context and judge more on raw metrics. In an age that worships data, this is choosing to dim the dashboard and press the gas.

Sarkozy Gets Five Years in Libya Campaign Finance Case

A Paris court found former French president Nicolas Sarkozy guilty of criminal conspiracy tied to alleged Libyan funding of his 2007 campaign, while clearing him of other charges. For a law-and-order crusader, it is quite the tutorial in due process from the other side of the bench. Appeals are expected, and the irony needs no translator.

State Department Nominee Scrubbed Old Tweets, Archives Did Not Forget

CNN reports that nominee Jeremy Carl attempted to delete thousands of posts before his confirmation push. The posts reportedly included incendiary remarks about race, a claim that peaceful coexistence with Democrats is impossible, and even a call for a political opponent to face the death penalty. The delete key will not help in a hearing, and calling yourself a diplomat after labeling half the country an enemy is a hard sell even in Washington.

Serious Incidents and a Culture-War Grab Bag

Authorities are investigating a deadly shooting outside an ICE facility amid reports of escalating incidents targeting immigration sites, with investigators noting ideological messages left at scenes. On campuses, reports describe an armed group recruiting, and a governor is publicly speculating about potential targets. Separately, a Manhattan hit-and-run left a tourist couple dead as the driver fled, and a former FBI official who sent anti-Trump texts lost in federal court. Vice President Harris acknowledged mentoring a secret slate of lawmakers that included Rep. Jasmine Crockett, even as her book and media tour drew criticism from liberal commentators. In the culture skirmishes, a mayor declined to apologize to a Christian minister, Roseanne Barr complained about a late-night double standard, Senator J.D. Vance needled a TV pundit, and Whoopi Goldberg floated the 25th Amendment after Trump's UN address. Health officials, meanwhile, warned of a deadly, antibiotic-evading bacteria surging 460 percent in U.S. hospitals, which rather puts the rest of the circus in perspective. For a palate cleanser, archaeologists flagged an ancient workshop that might brush the Exodus era, and an Eagles legend hates the NFL's jersey rule change. Marketing fluff about a chain beloved by influencers has been left on the cutting-room floor.

Rihanna Introduces Newborn Daughter

Rihanna shared the first photo of her baby girl, her third child with A$AP Rocky. Pop royalty expands the lineup, and yes, even the lullabies have chart potential.

Gene Therapy Shows First Real Slowdown in Huntington's Disease

Doctors report that an experimental gene therapy appears to slow Huntington's disease progression for the first time in a meaningful way. It is early days and bigger trials loom, but for once the momentum is with patients, not pathology. Hope, with a lab coat, is back on the field.

Supreme Court piracy case, government backs Cox and asks to speak

The U.S. Solicitor General, D. John Sauer, filed an amicus brief supporting Cox Communications in the labels-versus-ISP fight over whether providers must play copyright cop and cut off households after repeated accusations. He is seeking ten minutes at oral argument this fall, time Cox would cede, though the Court has not granted it yet. The government warns that broad ISP liability could turn flawed notices into internet death sentences, while still claiming it cares about protecting IP and innovation. Big Tech is siding with Cox, and the stakes include a one billion dollar verdict. Translation: protect music, sure, do not nuke the modem because a bot sent a nastygram.

Co-op’s cyber hangover, £206 million in lost sales

After hackers infiltrated Co-op’s IT networks in April, payment systems sputtered and shelves thinned, which, shockingly, crushed sales. The supermarket now pegs the hit at £206 million, a pricey reminder that cybersecurity is not just a line item, it is whether the tills open or the lights go out.

Hurricane Gabrielle heads for the Azores

The National Hurricane Center reports Hurricane Gabrielle is barreling toward the Azores early Thursday and urges the islands to prepare for impacts. Residents should follow local guidance and stay alert to official updates.

Dave Bossie presses for a sweeping probe after reported killing of Charlie Kirk

Conservative activist Dave Bossie calls for a government-led investigation into what he portrays as a professionally organized, well-funded left-wing network fueling political violence, framing the reported assassination of Charlie Kirk as a tipping point. He links past protests and unrest to a broader dark-money infrastructure, cites polling about attitudes toward political violence, and urges DOJ and the FBI to follow the money, secure whistleblowers, compel testimony, and prosecute crimes. The tone is grave, the claims sweeping, and the call is for an expansive accounting.

U.S. blacklists two over counterfeit online drug sales

U.S. authorities sanctioned two Indian nationals accused of running online pharmacies that sold illegal and counterfeit medications to Americans. It is a rare moment of regulatory spine aimed at a predatory trade that turns lifesaving treatments into a risky guessing game for patients.

White House directs federal agencies to prepare for mass firings as potential shutdown looms

White House directs federal agencies to prepare for mass firings as potential shutdown looms, with an OMB memo signaling pink slips could follow if Congress keeps playing budget chicken. The budget office’s guidance arrives as lawmakers stall just days before the funding deadline—Washington’s annual reminder that if you can’t govern, at least outsource the consequences to the people who do the actual work.

House of Prime Rib owner Joe Betz dies at 86

House of Prime Rib owner Joe Betz dies at 86. The longtime steward of San Francisco’s Van Ness Avenue institution bought the restaurant in 1985 from founder Lou Balaski, who opened it in 1949, and spent four decades preserving its old-world charm while cementing it as a beloved destination praised for consistent excellence, impeccable service, and a one-of-a-kind atmosphere.

White House directs federal agencies to prepare for mass layoffs ahead of a possible government shutdown

White House directs federal agencies to prepare for mass layoffs ahead of a possible government shutdown: President Trump’s budget office is telling agencies to issue reduction-in-force notices—not mere furloughs—if a partial shutdown hits Oct. 1 and the work isn’t funded or “consistent with the President’s priorities.” Translation: programs without a special lifeline get the ax, while mandatory spending and the GOP’s reconciliation boosts—over $150 billion for the Pentagon and $170 billion for border enforcement—stay cozy. The move is a not-so-subtle warning to Senate Democrats, who blocked the House’s “clean” seven-week patch because it omitted renewing health insurance tax credits and reversing health-care cuts from the Republicans’ “big, beautiful” budget. Agencies are told to later revise RIFs to keep only the “minimal” staff needed for statutory functions—because nothing says good governance like pink slips as a negotiating tactic. Democrats sought a meeting to avoid a shutdown; Trump accepted, then reversed and blamed them for the brinkmanship. Schumer called the directive intimidation; OMB chief Russ Vought calls it Tuesday.

Apple says EU competition rules unfairly single it out

Apple says EU competition rules unfairly single it out, a lament arriving after the European Commission hit the company with a €500 million fine in April for breaching the bloc’s Digital Markets Act. Translation: the world’s richest walled garden is shocked the gatekeeper rules apply to the gatekeeper.

Washington to require speeding offenders to install GPS speed limiters

Washington to require speeding offenders to install GPS speed limiters: if you treat the speed limit like a suggestion, the state will make it a ceiling. Drivers nailed for 20 mph over on highways or 10 mph over on smaller roads must install a GPS-based cap to get their licenses back—120 days minimum, 150 if convicted of reckless driving. The device grants three monthly overrides before it clamps down; refuse it and expect longer suspensions and extra penalties. Lawmakers moved after 2023 became the deadliest year on Washington’s roads in three decades, with speeding behind a third of fatalities; the bill honors four victims killed near Renton by a repeat offender. Advocates say it will save lives and note Europe already mandates limiters in new cars; critics see a dangerous precedent where emergencies and open highways no longer matter. Virginia and D.C. use similar tools, Pennsylvania is considering one, and California’s governor vetoed a broader mandate as overreach. Translation: the “freedom of the road” now comes with an ankle monitor for your accelerator.

Best Recommendations for Out-of-Band Router Access

Best Recommendations for Out-of-Band Router Access: On Sep 24, Josh Luthman told NANOG he uses a budget MikroTik on 4G/5G—let’s call the “9G” optimism optional—that tunnels back to his office router, giving him clean OOB access to remote networks for about $15 a month and roughly $100 in hardware.

National Park Service removes ‘friendship’ statues of Trump and Epstein

National Park Service removes ‘friendship’ statues of Trump and Epstein, hauling off sculptures that depicted the former president and the convicted sex offender holding hands and frolicking on the National Mall — a surreal display that exited about as awkwardly as it appeared.

Mandiant finds Chinese-linked BRICKSTORM hiding in U.S. network appliances

Researchers tracked a campaign burrowed into service provider infrastructure for more than a year, living in appliance-level blind spots to persist, evade detection, and potentially cultivate zero-day exploits. Translation, attackers set up camp in the parts of the network everyone treats like furniture, ever present and rarely inspected. Pro tip for defenders, look under the couch.

Unico buys OwnID to beef up passkeys and passwordless logins

The identity firm is folding the San Francisco passkey startup into its stack, pairing low friction logins with Unico facial recognition to streamline verification, broaden use cases, and boost a U.S. push. Users get fewer forgot password odysseys, executives get to say synergy, and everyone had better get very serious about safeguarding all that biometric and identity data.

Automation is faster, but white hat hackers still matter

Pentesting tools now blitz through environments and plug into daily security ops, elevating the baseline for vulnerability management. What the bots cannot do is replicate human curiosity, context, or creative mischief. Ethical hackers stay essential to validate findings, chain weird edge cases, and prioritize real risk. Let the machines grab the low hanging fruit, then send the humans up the tree.

YouTube rules the U.S. living room for Gen Alpha, advertisers drool

Precise TV says 78 percent of kids aged 2 to 12 use YouTube, topping VoD services at 72 percent. Streamers spent billions on prestige dramas so the biggest screen in the house could serve slime tutorials and Minecraft speedruns. The algorithm is now babysitter in chief, and the ad industry is already drafting its love letters.

Lib Dems hunt a revival as Reform shakes the system, but gimmicks are not a plan

In Bournemouth, Tim Farron tried to reclaim St George while Ed Davey cast the next election as Liberal versus Reform, then warned of guns in schools, Elon Musk corrupting the kids, fracking the countryside, and a privatised NHS. The party’s own vision landed closer to Lionesses and cricket pavilions with a polite panic about smartphones. Polls have the Lib Dems fourth on 13 percent, voters see Reform as the change vehicle by 51 percent to 24 percent, and only a third can identify Davey, with some confusing him for Ed Balls. Policy reads like technocratic tapas, an energy loans bank, supermarket solar, health warnings on phones, and a doomscrolling cap for teens. Strategy is Operation Leapfrog into Blue Wall seats that pollsters say are already tapped out. Could Reform revive the Lib Dems by blowing open the duopoly, yes. Will the Lib Dems revive themselves with cosplay patriotism and marching bands, not likely. Right now they look like opposition in waiting, not government in waiting.

DEF CON 33: AI finally shows up to work for defenders

Google's Privacy, Safety and Security team teamed with Airbus to launch the GenSec Capture the Flag, a human AI collaboration playground aimed at tilting the fight back toward defenders. Nearly 500 people cleared the intro, 23 percent used AI for security for the first time, and 85 percent said it helped them apply AI to real workflows. Google's experimental Sec-Gemini sat alongside other LLMs, with 77 percent calling it very or extremely helpful, a rare moment when the robot intern earns its badge. Community feedback will feed the next iteration, an encouraging case where move fast might finally mean breaking attackers, not defenses.

Attackers hide malware in vector images, then drown it in AI-generated sludge

Microsoft spotted a phishing campaign that tucked its payload into a vector image and padded it with verbose, needlessly complex AI-spun code. The mess was so contrived that analysts noted it is not something a human would typically write. Translation, the crooks outsourced their camouflage to a chatbot with a taste for baroque nonsense. It is malware where the bloat is the feature.

Study says AI voice clones now sound indistinguishable from humans

Queen Mary University of London reports that modern voice clones and deepfakes can match real recordings, erasing the old it sounds fake sniff test. Your ears just got demoted, and scammers got an upgrade. Time to add second-factor reality checks to anything important that arrives by voice.

Early cinema, meet AI slop, the algorithmic carnival of cheap wonder

The same spectacle and novelty that sold Méliès-style moonshots now fuels feeds packed with talking monkeys at sacred sites, three-legged sharks in sneakers, and infants floating through space. It is quick-hit weirdness over sense, engineered for low cost, high remix, and maximum thumb-stopping. Think less cinema, more carnival barker with a GPU, hustling dopamine by the swipe.

Blind Item #10: K-pop rumor with no names, no receipts

Anonymous gossips hint an A-list K-pop singer is entangled with her bodyguard, because nothing juices clicks like a scandal with a security badge. There are no names, no proof, and no story, just a choose-your-own-drama to feed the rumor economy.

Monitor flags safety risks as prison ignores court mandate on sex-based segregation

Despite a Supreme Court ruling requiring sex-based segregation, transgender inmates remain housed in a women's facility and an independent monitor is warning of serious risks to safety and welfare. Officials appear to be treating the mandate like a suggestion, leaving staff and prisoners to manage the consequences. The stakes are not theoretical, they are day-to-day safety and lawful compliance, and the people on the front line are paying for leadership that will not do its job.