SCROLL NEWS / DISCOVERY
Search headlines
Find the stories shaping the conversation.
Results for " crisis " 1,910 found 🔀 AI-powered Shuffle
I had a health crisis at 46 — it forced me to change everything
Sydney Sajadi, 46, says a hysterectomy and severe burnout pushed her to overhaul her health and rethink her high-stress career.
Cubans self-medicate as crisis takes toll on mental health: ‘There is no idea to hold on to’
Many people are turning to prescription drugs – and some to herbal remedies and even hard drugs – amid an outlook that feels bleaker than the collapse of the Soviet Union
PlayStation 5 sees massive sales spike in the US, beating 2026 records so far as eager consumers rush to beat RAM crisis price hikes
PlayStation 5 sales have skyrocketed in the US following announced price rises, as people race to beat surging costs.
Is Science the Last Bastion of Sanity?
As we look forward to landing on the moon in 2028, we cannot afford to miss a golden opportunity to enhance the humanities precisely through science.
Attorney says suspect in attack on OpenAI CEO's home was in midst of 'mental health crisis'
The man accused of trying to kill OpenAI CEO Sam Altman by throwing a Molotov cocktail at his San Francisco home was experiencing a mental health crisis and has been overcharged by prosecutors, his public defender said Tuesday.
Suspect Was in Apparent Mental Health Crisis During Attack on Sam Altman’s House
The San Francisco Public Defender’s office said 20-year-old Daniel Moreno-Gama was in the midst of acute mental illness when he attacked the OpenAI CEO’s home and offices, and was “overcharged” by local and national authorities.
The RAM Crisis Just Royally Screwed Microsoft Surface PCs
We likely won't see a new Surface PC as cheap as the MacBook Neo anytime soon.
JD Vance says Trump's post of himself as Jesus was 'a joke'
Vice President JD Vance said President Trump's social media post apparently portraying himself as Jesus was "a joke."
After three years of conflict, Sudan faces a deeper health crisis
14 April 2026, Geneva, Cairo, Port Sudan – Three years of war in Sudan have created the world’s largest humanitarian and displacement crisis, with devastating consequences for people’s health.While the situation is...
After three years of conflict, Sudan faces a deeper health crisis
Three years of war in Sudan have created the world’s largest humanitarian and displacement crisis, with devastating consequences for people’s health.
Safeguarding health care in rural Missouri demands a new approach
Missouri lawmakers are right to treat the collapse of rural health care as an urgent crisis. Nearly half of the state’s remaining rural hospitals are at risk of closure, and many communities already know what it means to lose emergency rooms, labor and delivery services and timely stroke care. In this environment, legislation allowing MU […]
‘A crisis in the making’: Nebraska races to impose work requirements on Medicaid
The state’s May 1 enforcement will be a test case for what could happen nationwide in January.
Iran crisis epitomizes a world increasingly resistant to Trump’s demands
The iron laws of the world that govern Donald Trump’s presidency — strength, force and power — are increasingly being challenged at home and abroad.
Microsoft reveals major price increases for all Surface PCs as RAM crisis continues: Flagships now $500 more expensive than at launch
Microsoft is raising prices on all its current Surface PC offerings, with the midrange devices now starting at above $1,000, and flagships starting at $1,500.
How to spot and help someone in a mental health crisis
Experts wish more people spotted the signs earlier: feeling overwhelmed, not feeling “like yourself,” shifts in sleep, behavior and mood.
How to help someone experiencing a mental health crisis
If you know someone is in a mental health crisis, experts say the best thing to do is to spark a conversation and connect them to resources and professional help.
Fifteen bucks a signature: the crisis of money in US politics is growing
The fight over California’s billionaire tax is just the latest symptom of a crisis that has escalated since 2010
Oil prices jump on US plans to blockade Iranian ports in Strait of Hormuz
Oil prices climbed Monday, after the US military said it would implement a shipping blockade in the Strait of Hormuz — a move that could test the current ceasefire while further tightening global oil supply.
Can AI Fix the Mental Health Crisis?
Demand is outpacing care. AI tools are already filling the gap. But are they safe, effective, and ready for clinical practice?
The Movement Turns Ten. Black Mothers Are Still Fighting. Blood Donors Can Help.
Black Maternal Health Week turns 10. Dr. Monique Rainford on the maternal mortality crisis and how blood donors can help. #BMHW26 #NationalMinorityHealthMonth
18% of gray whales that enter San Francisco Bay die there, scientists find
The climate crisis seems to be altering gray whales’ access to food, leading them to change their migration paths and forage in San Francisco Bay — a busy shipping area with a narrow bottleneck both whales and boats must cross. Scientists surveying these whales suspect that many don’t survive to leave the bay: of the 114 individuals they identified, only four were seen in more than one year between 2018 and 2025, and 21 were found dead, giving a minimum mortality rate of 18%. Many deaths were caused by vessel strike injuries, while some others are due to starvation.
Paul W. Smith: Are friends avoiding political talk about Trump and Iran?
A childhood friend's note sparks a question: Are people avoiding political discussions about Trump and Iran with friends?
A president and a pope: Two of the world’s most influential Americans at odds over Iran
Never before has the relationship between Washington and the Vatican revolved around two Americans — specifically, a 79-year-old politician from Queens and a 70-year-old pontiff from Chicago.
Fallout from Eric Swalwell scandal grows as lawmakers eye House expulsion votes
The political crisis surrounding Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell is rapidly escalating into a broader bipartisan showdown that could reshape the makeup of the House.
Deadlock on Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s nuclear stockpile led to impasse, officials say
Entering this weekend’s high-stakes talks in Pakistan, US officials identified a number of key areas where they would need to see progress in order to declare success.
Opinion: The rural health program isn't so transformational
Rural health care systems have been in crisis for decades, a situation that will become more dire when steep cuts to Medicaid kick in next year.
Pope Leo for president someday? Don't even think about it
A recent meeting between Pope Leo XIV and Democratic strategist David Axelrod at the Vatican sparks some intrigue and slight political speculation.
Our View: Michigan must stop exporting its mental health crisis
Michigan is sending children hundreds of miles away for mental health treatment because it has failed to build the capacity to care for them at home.
State floats major mental health funding shift that could jeopardize North Bay mobile crisis teams
The proposed shift would shoulder counties with as much as $130 million annually to sustain the programs. For many, it would open a gap they can’t fill.
Iraq elects Kurdish politician Nizar Amidi as president amid Iran war fallout
Iraq's parliament voted Saturday to elect Nizar Amidi as president, five months after a parliamentary election that didn't produce a decisive majority.
Salah, Ngumoha ease Liverpool crisis with Fulham win
Liverpool's rising star and departing legend combined to ease the pressure on Arne Slot as goals from teenager Rio Ngumoha and Mohamed Salah beat Fulham 2-0, snapping the Reds' three-game losing streak on Saturday.Salah failed to get on the pitch at all during Liverpool's chastening 2-0 Champions League defeat by Paris Saint-Germain in midweek.
U.S. Moves to Deport Son of Prominent Figure in Iranian Revolution
Federal agents arrested a man whose mother served as a spokeswoman for the Islamist embassy captors during the hostage crisis that began in 1979.
San Jose faces legal heat over mental health crisis calls
A group of civil rights organizations is ratcheting up the legal pressure on San Jose over longstanding complaints that too often mental health-related emergency calls receive a police response — rather than assistance from mental health professionals.
Apple is 50: how Steve Jobs pulled it back from the brink
In an extract from his history of the company, David Pogue looks back on the year when its co-founder returned amid crisis and found its lost soul
Sports betting is creating a twofold public health crisis for some young men
“Even if not everybody is losing a ton of money right now, you're creating this culture of large numbers of gamblers,” Isaac Rose-Berman says on the First Opinion Podcast.
David Spade calls on California leaders to change course, save entertainment industry
David Spade, Dana Carvey, and Tim Dillon spoke about how the entertainment industry in LA has been in crisis for years, to the point people and projects are fleeing to other states. (Fly on the Wall podcast, April 8, 2026)
WHO Says Iran Health System Is in Crisis, Commits $800,000 Emergency Funds
The World Health Organization released $800,000 from its emergency contingency fund to support the health response in Iran. Hanan Balkhy, a regional director for the United Nations agency, welcomed the current cease-fire but warned the health crisis in Iran was ongoing. “Humanitarian and health nee
California’s crisis in rural health care is also a chance for transparency
Drug discounts aimed at rural hospitals serving uninsured or low-income patients actually profit hospitals that don’t serve those patients.
Trump endorsed former Fox host. It could tip balance in this CA race.
Does Trump's backing of former Fox News host Steve Hilton for California governor boost the leading GOP candidate chances? Experts don't think so.
Inland Northwest families face mental health coverage gaps
COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho — A leader with the Northern Idaho Crisis Center said insurance coverage gaps are leaving some families without enough behavioral health support when they most need it.
Fact-checking Trump and Hegseth's claims of U.S. 'victory' in the Iran war
Based on available information, the U.S. and its military partner, Israel, achieved significant battlefield wins, experts said. However, they said that calling it a "total victory" overlooks significant strategic setbacks for the U.S.
USPS to suspend payments to employee pension plan to free up cash
The US Postal Service said Thursday it would temporarily suspend payments to an employee pension plan to free up cash amid a financial crisis.
'Teacher crisis': Push to extend property tax to pay Duval County teachers continues
Homeowners may be asked to give a little more for a little longer.
America’s Furniture Stores Struggle to Survive a Frozen Housing Market
Retailers are going bankrupt and liquidating as record-low housing turnover leaves fewer customers looking to furnish homes.
Spring Health Data Reveals a "Silent Burnout" Crisis: Mental Health Leaves Surge as Employees Quietly Disengage
/PRNewswire/ -- Spring Health, the leading global mental health company, today released its 2026 Workplace Mental Health Report. The study, which surveyed more...
Goodhue County health officials create action plan to address community issues
Goodhue County health officials will be working alongside community partners to promote crisis resources, expand peer-led support groups and increase provider access for mental health.
Lebanon conflict drives mental health crisis for displaced women: “We hear, see and feel pain constantly” | UN Women
Escalating conflict in Lebanon has forced hundreds of thousands of women and girls to flee their homes, and women are on the frontlines of the response
The war is on hold. But the economy is still in danger.
The best-case scenario for the Iran crisis is still pretty bad.
Sen. Graham seeks congressional review of any peace deal with Iran
Sen. Lindsey Graham said in a post on X that he looks forward to the architects of the proposal, including Vice President JD Vance, coming to Congress and explaining how the deal meets America’s national security objectives.
Iran hawks seem to fear Trump will give Iran too much
Some aspects of the mostly unclear deal are raising alarms among hawkish Trump allies.
Israeli strikes kill 89, wound 700 in Lebanon, health ministry says
A dozen medics are reportedly among those killed.
Israeli Strikes Kill 89, Wound 700 in Lebanon on Wednesday, Health Ministry Says
BEIRUT, April 8 (Reuters) - A spokseperson for Lebanon's health ministry told Reuters that Israel's strikes across Lebanon on Wednesday had killed "89 martyrs and wounded 700 people." The spokesperson said 12 medics were among the dead in southern Lebanon. (Reporting by Maya ...
Trump says U.S. will work with Iran to 'dig up' enriched uranium. Iran hasn't confirmed that
He previously said the U.S. would retrieve the deeply buried material, which is expected to be an intensive undertaking, if it struck an agreement with Iran.
Sony Pictures Entertainment to cut hundreds of jobs in TV and film
The job cuts at Sony Pictures come amid a deep slump and existential crisis in Hollywood, which has faced setbacks, two labor strikes and the ongoing collapse of cable TV.
Antibacterial products may contribute to dangerous superbug crisis, study suggests
Antibacterial soaps and cleaning wipes may contribute to antimicrobial resistance, a new study suggests, with experts recommending plain soap and water instead.
Sea-level rise is a health crisis and we must hold polluters accountable
Those facing the earliest and harshest consequences are, overwhelmingly, those who did the least to create them
DA identifies man killed by Boston Police after alleged sword attack, mental health crisis
A 29-year-old Boston man has been identified as the person shot and killed by police over the weekend after he allegedly stabbed first responders with a sword during a mental health crisis.
Boston man killed by police during mental health crisis ID'd
Experts say the police shooting highlights the risks associated with an underfunded, overburdened mental health treatment system.
S.F. Supervisor Jackie Fielder extends leave of absence to June 30
Fielder had already missed two weeks’ worth of board and committee meetings before news broke on March 27 that she was in the hospital amid an “acute personal health crisis.”
City’s BLM-era mental health push puts cops in danger after sword-wielding suspect stabs officer: police
Boston's mental health-first crisis response model faces scrutiny after police say a man emerged with a sword and stabbed an officer on Saturday.
The Boundless Deep: Young Tennyson, Science, and the Crisis of Belief by Richard Holmes
Pantheon Review by Walter Cummins The image of Alfred Tennyson I’ve carried for decades goes back to the childhood card game of Authors that depicts him with a stately continence sharpened by a jutting black beard. He’s formidable, his aura superior. Holmes opens his biography of the youthful Tennyson by describing the similar formality of the imposing Tennyson statue at Trinty College Cambridge, sharing the honor with other Trinity greats, including Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon, and Thomas Babington Macaulay. Holmes doesn’t want to chip away at that statue but rather reveal its inner youthful core of the man—tall, handsome, and talented but unformed, emerging from a disturbed family of addicted or insane male siblings and four unusual sisters struggling under a violent alcoholic clergyman father. Alfred was certainly statuesque, but would he end up a block of unformed stone like his equally promising brothers? He was youngest of three equally regarded Tennyson brothers at Cambridge, all bright, handsome, and talented, in fact Alfred regarded by some as less promising than his elders who also wrote poetry. Yet Alfred wrote one of his major poems, “The Kraken,” at twenty, revealing both his talent, his interest in geological forces, and the haunting creature that embodied his anxieties. While Holmes focuses on Tennyson of the 1830s and 1840s, he can’t tell his story without exploring his involvement with the Victorian intellectual upheaval. Tennyson was fascinated by new scientific perspectives, following the latest findings as soon as books and articles were published. He was especially taken with Charles Lyell’s deep studies of geology and the discovery of fossils and a timeline of the planet’s development that did much to question fundamental religious assumptions. The impact of these discoveries is reflected in Tennyson’s poetry and led to the crisis in belief he shared with so many contemporaries. He was especially taken by the cycles of destruction and renewal that informed the struggles he confronted in In Memoriam, Maud, and Idylls of the King. Tennyson was only one of the eventual major figures at Cambridge at the same time, young men just beginning to realize their potential. Charles Darwin was at Christ College, although there is no evidence that he and Tennyson even met as students or later in life. Yet evolution became significant in Tennyson’s thinking and the issues of his poetry. One of Tennyson’s best and most important Cambridge friends was Edward FitzGerald, who became the translator of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám and in their on and off relationship served as Tennyson’s harshest critic. FitzGerald was also a friend of the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray, the two of them partying in Paris as undergraduates. That connection led to a friendship between Thackeray and Tennyson. Others who came to play significant roles in Tennyson’s life were Thomas Carlyle, the Brownings, and the Pre-Raphaelites. Tennyson’s deepest friend at college was Arthur Hallam, who at twenty wrote a glowing review of Tennyson’s first poetry collection, travelled on European adventures with him, and fell in love with his sister Emily. Hallam was also regarded as one more very promising Cambridge student. His sudden death at twenty-two in Vienna from a stroke while travelling with his father devastated many friends, but perhaps Tennyson most of all. He did not write immediate poems of grief but took years to compile those collected in In Memoriam A.H.H., published in 1850, almost twenty years after Hallam’s death For all of Tennyson’s early poetic successes and successes, Holmes reveals him as an often troubled young man suffering periods of depression, fearing planetary upheaval, concerned about supporting himself, disappointed in romances, and worried that he would inherit the family’s mental illness tendencies. Yet despite his seeming withdrawals, he was always writing poetry that he kept private and would not let go, constantly revising. 1850 became a transformative year for Tennyson. He finally consented to publishing In Memoriam with a last-minute prologue that acknowledged God and perhaps convinced the religious Emily Sellwood to marry him after years of pursuit.. He opened up to Emily, revealing his struggles with fears of depression and “weird seizures.” The devastating event of that time was the stillborn death of his unnamed first son. It shook him, but Emily’s faith brought them closer and convinced him to believe in an afterlife. Two later sons survived. With the death of William Wordworth in April of 1950, Tennyson was named poet laureate at age forty-one, reluctantly accepting. It’s as if Tennyson’s life split in half in that year. He lived another forty years, now a recognized success, with the prestige of being an official poet writing patriotic verse, wealthy and revered, no longer the insecure young man seeking an outlet for his immense talent. He earned a place in the Authors deck, now dignified and in 1884 elevated to the peerage as Arthur, Lord Tennyson. Richard Holmes is the author of twenty previous books on the Romantics and Victorians, several of which received awards. The Boundless Deep was shortlisted for the 2025 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. He captures the complex vicissitudes of Tennyson’s youth, illustrated by frequent excerpts from the poetry, placing that life in the full context of the shattering discoveries that led to an upheaval of thought in the Victorian age.
When is Trump's deadline for his Iran ultimatum? What to know.
The president has doubled down on his threats to bomb Iranian power plants and bridges. Here's what to know about his ultimatum, and its deadline.
Google updates Gemini with crisis hotline tool, pledges $30M for mental health
The updates come after a Florida family sued Google, claiming Gemini coached a man through suicide
Fixing Health Care’s Affordability Crisis
In a rare display of bipartisan alignment, Ezekiel Emanuel and Brian Blase decried health care’s “perverse incentives” and monopolistic practices
WATCH LIVE: Hegseth and Caine hold Pentagon briefing as Trump threatens Iran's infrastructure
Could the 25th Amendment be invoked against Trump? Here's how it works
President Donald Trump’s profanity-laced Easter Sunday social media post threatening to bomb civilian infrastructure in Iran led some Democratic lawmakers to call for his removal via the 25th Amendment.
Democrats face an identity crisis over taxes: From the Politics Desk
Plus, the Iran war stretches into its sixth week.
Steve Ballmer commits $110M to LA youth mental health crisis; Cal State LA receives record $48M gift
A landmark $110M investment from Steve and Connie Ballmer is set to transform youth mental health in Los Angeles. Learn how Cal State LA is using a record $48M grant to provide scholarships and double its social work programs.
‘Building a better future’: UCLA receives $33 million to address LA’s youth mental health crisis
The Ballmer Group investment will support academic and clinical training that will bring more Bruin practitioners into local communities.
WATCH LIVE: Trump holds news conference after unleashing latest threat against Iran
Popular rock band cancels, postpones tour dates due to family health crisis
If you were planning on seeing Cold on tour in the near future, you might have to wait a bit longer.
We students need mental health counselors not empty promises
'We' are the many Kentucky students drowning in mental health crisis, staring at a counselor’s door that, for all intents and purposes, is locked.
Jonathan Chapman: Florida must act to curb rising preterm birth crisis
Florida must act now to improve maternal health outcomes statewide
Internet betting is a bad bet and a public health crisis
The outcome that some people feared in the 2000s has seemingly come to pass, to our culture's detriment, writes Greg Ganske.
Lebanon’s political elites are using displacement and humanitarian crisis to delay elections again
With the return of Israeli forces, the Lebanese parliament scrapped elections scheduled for May. The move is a recurring theme in the country’s fractured politics.
The Rural Health Transformation Program Isn’t So Transformational
Rural health care systems have been in crisis for decades, a situation that will become more dire when steep cuts to Medicaid kick in next year.
White House Forced to Address Claims of Trump Health Crisis
Administration officials aren’t having any of the gossip about the president’s health.
Boston Police officer stabbed with sword during "mental health crisis" near Northeastern University
Egypt raises electricity prices for higher-use households, businesses from April
Egypt raised electricity prices for higher-use residential consumers and commercial users starting in April, the electricity ministry said in a statement on Saturday, citing a severe global energy crisis linked to the war in the Gulf region.
Community members remember Katelyn Hall, demand change after mental health call turned deadly
The Kentucky Alliance, VOCAL_KY, and other community organizations held a press conference Saturday, following the police shooting that led to the death of a Louisville woman in a mental health crisis.
BWC: N.Y. officers save person suffering mental health crisis from frigid river
Auburn Police Officers Edward Pickard and Lucas Drancsak spotted the person, climbed down a 10-foot wall and ran to shoreline; Pickard entered the water and helped the person to safety
The global oil crisis is turning into an everything crisis
One month into the war in Iran, a growing shortage of crude oil is threatening to morph into something worse: a shortage of nearly everything.
Georgia lawmakers pass bill that lets property owners sue over homeless encampments
Homelessness advocates say the bill would cause law enforcement to arrest people because they have nowhere to sleep and spur frivolous lawsuits paid for by taxpayers.
LMPD to release video Friday from officers who responded to mental health crisis call
Louisville Metro Police will release body camera video Friday from the deadly shooting of Katelyn Hall.
Gemma 4 and what makes an open model succeed
Having written a lot of model release blog posts, there’s something much harder about reviewing open models when they drop relative to closed models, especially in 2026. In recent years, there were so few open models, so when Llama 3 was released most people were still doing research on Llama 2 and super happy to get an update. When Qwen 3 was released, the Llama 4 fiasco had just gone down, and a whole research community was emerging to study RL on Qwen 2.5 — it was a no brainer to upgrade. Today, when an open model releases, it’s competing with Qwen 3.5, Kimi K2.5, GLM 5, MiniMax M2.5, GPT-OSS, Arcee Large, Nemotron 3, Olmo 3, and others. The space is populated, but still feels full of hidden opportunity. The potential of open models feels like a dark matter, a potential we know is huge, but few clear recipes and examples for how to unlock it are out there. Agentic AI, OpenClaw, and everything brewing in that space is going to spur mass experimentation in open models to complement the likes of Claude and Codex, not replace them. Especially with open models, the benchmarks at release are an extremely incomplete story. In some ways this is exciting, as new open models have a much higher variance and ability to surprise, but it also points at some structural reasons that make building businesses and great AI experiences around open models harder than the closed alternatives. When a new Claude Opus or GPT drops, spending a few hours with them in my agentic workflows is genuinely a good vibe test. For open models, putting them through this test is a category error. Something else to be said about open models in the era of agents is that they get out of the debate of integration, harnesses, and tools and let us see close to the ground on what exactly is the ability of just a model. Of course, we can’t test some things like search abilities without some tool, but being able to measure exactly the pace of progress of the model alone is a welcome simplification to a systematically opaque AI space. Share The list of factors I’d use to assess a new open-weight model I’m considering investing in includes: Model performance (and size) — how this model performs on benchmarks I care about and how it compares to other models of a similar size. Country of origin — some businesses care deeply about provenance, and if a model was built in China or not. Model license — if a model needs legal approval for use, uptake will be slower at mid-sized and large companies. Tooling at release — many models release with half-broken, or at least substantially slower, implementations in popular software like vLLM, Transformers, SGLANG, etc due to pushing the envelope of architectures or tools. Model fine-tunability — how easy or hard it is to modify the given model to your use-case when you actually try and use it. The core problem is that some of these are immediately available at release, e.g. general performance, license, origin, etc. but others such as tooling take day(s) to week(s) to stabilize, and others are open research questions — with no group systematically monitoring fine-tunability. In the early era of open models, the days of Llama 2 or 3 and Qwen pre v3.5, the architectures were fairly simple and the models tended to work out of the box. Some of this was due to the extremely hard work of the Llama, Qwen, Mistral, etc. developer teams. Some is due to the new models being genuinely harder to work with. When it comes to something like Qwen 3.5 or Nemotron 3, with hybrid models (either gated delta net or mamba layers), the tooling is very rough at release. Things you would expect to “just work” often don’t. I’ve been following this area closely since we released Olmo Hybrid with a similar architecture, and Qwen 3.5 is just starting to work well in the various open-source tools that need to all play nice together for RL research. That’s 1.5 months after the release date! This is just to start really investing more into understanding the behavior of the models. Of course, others started working on these models sooner by investing more engineering resources or relying on partially closed software. The fully open and distributed ecosystem takes a long time to get going on some new models. All of this is lead-in for the most important question for open models — how easy is it to adapt to specific use-cases? This is a different problem for different model sizes. Large MoE open-weight models may be used by entities like Cursor who need complex capabilities in their domain, e.g. Composer 2 trained on Kimi K2.5. Other applications can be built on much smaller models, such as Chroma’s Context-1 model for agentic search, built on GPT-OSS 20B. The question of “which models are fine-tunable” is largely background knowledge known by engineers across the industry. There should be a thriving research area here to support the open ecosystem model. The first step is to understand characteristics of different base and post-trained models to understand what they look like. The second step is to tune pretraining recipes for open models so they’re more flexible. Interconnects AI is a reader-supported publication. Consider becoming a subscriber. Subscribe For The ATOM Project and other Interconnects endeavors, we’ve put in substantial effort to measuring adoption trends in the open ecosystem. Everything takes a long time to unfold after a model is first publicly available — and adaptability is why. What we know for sure now, when Qwen has been going from strength to strength with its releases, is that technical staff across the industry has gotten comfortable working with Qwen models. Countless research methods and datasets were made to work with Qwen. It’ll take patience for any other model family to get to this point — a patience I’m not sure many open model builders have. This takes us to Gemma 4, Google’s latest open models. Gemma 3 was released more than a year ago, in March of 2025, and is a bit underrated. Gemma 4 comes in 4 sizes for now, with a bigger, MoE model of over 100B total parameters rumored but not released yet. The models we have today come in sizes of ~5B dense, 8B dense, 26B total 4B active MoE, and 31B dense. I’m most excited that they’re finally adopting a standard Apache 2.0 open source license. This’ll massively boost adoption. The standard of better licenses for strong open-weight LLMs was set by mostly Chinese open model labs in the last 1-2 years, and now U.S. companies are following suit. I will personally be so happy if the horrible Llama licenses and Gemma terms of service were an ~18-month transient dynamic of the industry being nervous about releasing strong open models. The Gemma 4 scores look very solid, the small models have incredible benchmark scores (especially in general domains like LMArena) and the 31B model rivals the recent Qwen 3.5 27B, which is the leading member of that class. The ~30B size range is an important one, as it’s accessible both to researchers and to enterprises looking to deploy the model in real use-cases. Where the 7B model scale is the default for tinkering and research, a 30B model is the default for seeing if an open model can unlock substantial value in your specific workflow — a good mix of intelligence, low price, tractability for downstream training, etc. This takes us back to the above adoption criteria I mentioned for open models and the bigger question — do I think Gemma 4 will be an overwhelming success? Previous Gemma models have been plagued by tooling issues and poorer performance when being finetuned. Gemma 4’s success is going to be entirely determined by ease of use, to a point where a 5-10% swing on benchmarks wouldn’t matter at all. It’s strong enough, small enough, with the right license, and from the U.S., so many companies are going to slot it in. I’m cautiously optimistic that Gemma 4 is going to work better here. Winds are shifting for open models built in America. We saw GPT-OSS go through a bumpy launch to become an overwhelming success. There’s a collective energy around the likes of Reflection, Arcee, Nemotron, Gemma, Olmo, and peers that show substantial demand for building new stacks around open models. There’s capital to be spent on AI stacks across the economy by those who want more ownership of everything, including the model. After launching The ATOM Project 240 days ago, the conversation is shifting into the next stage. Summer of 2025 was a crisis moment where the U.S. AI scene realized it can’t wait and figure out open models after building AGI. The two markets will capture different areas and proceed in parallel. Now that more companies in the U.S. are releasing strong models, we need to improve the ecosystem so that these models are easy to use, understand, and build value around. It’s the hard work to build another inflection point in these adoption plots I’ve been updating consistently, but that’s the work to be done. Join me in it. More data coming soon! Here’s a sneak peek:
What Trump's Iran war means for Republicans ahead of midterms
This is not the run-up to the midterm elections that Republicans wanted.
Maternal health crisis: Why Massachusetts is losing its edge
Despite years of investment by the state, maternal health disparities continue to grow.
Trump calls for a major increase in defense spending alongside cuts in domestic spending
The White House is releasing details of President Donald Trump’s 2027 budget, including a $1.5 trillion defense spending request. That's the largest of its kind in decades.
Xiaomi reveals how much smartphone costs have actually risen due to the DRAM crisis
For the first time, Xiaomi has commented specifically on the impact of the DRAM crisis, revealing the extent to which the rising costs of RAM and flash memory are affecting the production costs of a smartphone.
How Israel is destroying healthcare infrastructure in southern Lebanon
Israel's attacks on hospitals, medical centres and healthcare workers are fuelling displacement and a health crisis.
Exclusive: US intelligence assesses Iran maintains significant missile launching capability, sources say
Roughly half of Iran’s missile launchers are still intact and thousands of one-way attack drones remain in Iran’s arsenal despite the daily pounding by US and Israeli strikes against military targets over the past five weeks, according to recent US intelligence assessments, three sources familiar with the intel told CNN.
Grief causes our emotional software to glitch. This simple tip can help
We need to treat emotional health "as something we practice, not something we address only in crisis," KD Hall writes.
With Iran war address, Trump urges increasingly skeptical electorate to give him a bit more time
President Donald Trump finds himself not only negotiating with an enemy that refuses to throw in the towel but also dealing with an American tolerance for a conflict that's being stretched.
4 takeaways from Trump's address on the Iran war
President Donald Trump sought Wednesday to explain his rationale for the war against Iran at a pivotal moment at home and abroad, but he offered few new details as he amasses extraordinary executive authority to prosecute the military operation.
Dolly Parton Talks Health Crisis, Reveals She ‘Got Worn Down’ While ‘Grieving’ the Loss of Carl Dean
Dolly Parton dropped out of the spotlight in September after announcing she was battling health issues and needed to have “a few procedures.” But the 80-year-old country legend finally reemerged in mi...
WhatsApp Alerts 200 Users After Fake iOS App Installed Spyware; Italian Firm Faces Action
WhatsApp alerted 200 users in Italy to spyware iOS app, highlighting Europe’s expanding surveillance crisis.
Trump's war: A head for the exits in Iran leaves complications behind
33 days after the Iran war began, President Trump addresses the nation on when it might end, and how.
Strengthen CT’s mental health crisis response
Every person experiencing a psychiatric crisis deserves care that preserves dignity, prioritizes safety, and connects them with the treatment they need.
Trump makes his best case for the war — but fails to ease worries about how it will end
Donald Trump faced a high bar Wednesday night in his national address on Iran.