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SpaceX turns a profit after a string of losses as its satellite and computer leasing businesses soar
SpaceX reported a bigger quarterly profit than expected Tuesday as its satellite communications operations and its business of leasing computing power to other companies boomed.
Gemini's Personal Intelligence is coming to cars
It's probably time to audit your Gemini settings.
Xbox Game Pass Reportedly Getting 'Major Overhaul,' Will Feature 'À La Carte' Options
Microsoft is reportedly planning a substantial revamp of Xbox Game Pass that will allow subscribers to choose the features they want in an à la carte fashion. The report comes by way of a new Fortune profile piece on Xbox CEO Asha Sharma.
How to watch Vanderpump Rules Lisa Las Vegas limited series live with Sling
Lisa Vanderpump is bringing the glamour to Las Vegas with a new three-episode Bravo series. Here's how to watch live with Sling.
How to watch Vanderpump Rules Lisa Las Vegas limited series live with Sling
Lisa Vanderpump is bringing the glamour to Las Vegas with a new three-episode Bravo series. Here's how to watch live with Sling.
Shrek 2 Remastered Reveal Trailer Parodies GTA 6, Sets November Release Date
Shrek 2 Remastered is real, and its release date is less than a month away.
Sundar Pichai: Google’s Frontier Imperative, Compute Scarcity Dilemmas, Future AI Products and Businesses
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has little patience for doubts about Google’s willingness or capacity to compete at the frontier of AI. His company’s latest Gemini 4 Argon model — long-promised and recently delivered — beats OpenAI and Anthropic’s latest public models on coding, math, science, and knowledge-work benchmarks and has placed Google’s AI back among the world’s best. Amid chatter that Google was fine with good-enough lightweight ‘Flash’ models, Pichai pushed back hard against any suggestion that company is limiting its research ambitions. “We won’t do it any other way,” he told me in a Big Technology Podcast interview recorded this week at Google’s Mountain View headquarters. Pursuing cutting-edge research is costly for Google, requiring compute and chips that otherwise could be sold at a high markup by its cloud business. But Pichai said allocating resources to frontier AI development is “ground zero” for Google. “Our cloud business is at any given moment in time forgoing short-term revenues because we are making compute trade-offs to support frontier AI development,” Pichai told me. In our conversation, we discussed Argon (which Pichai says processed three times as many tokens as Gemini 3 in the 72 hours after launch), AI’s role in developing better models, the AI interface of the future, competition with OpenAI, Google’s partnerships with Anthropic and Apple, data centers in space, and the nature of his optimism. You can read the full conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity, below, or listen to it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice. Alex Kantrowitz: Google is back at the frontier with Gemini 4 Argon, which beats OpenAI’s and Anthropic’s public models on benchmarks spanning coding, math, science, and knowledge work. The conventional wisdom was that Google had given up on the frontier to focus on fast, good-enough models for its products. That was wrong? Sundar Pichai: Very wrong. Look, we are so committed to being at the frontier. It’s in our DNA. We won’t do it any other way. We’ve been thinking about the AI frontier for well over a decade now. The frontier is very dynamic. It’s very competitive. It’s very exciting. I couldn’t be more pleased with how Argon has come together. We took our time with it. We made sure we tested it safely and deployed it carefully. We took a bit longer than our other models, given its capabilities. Across the board, be it for agentic work, knowledge work, coding, creative tasks, Argon is one of the really good frontier models. The first 72 hours since we launched, it’s almost up to 25 trillion tokens used, which is about three times what Gemini 3.0 had in the first 72 hours. And we are capacity constrained as we are serving it. Excited, but there are always areas….. You know, the frontier is very dynamic, and you have to keep evolving the models. There are areas which we can see we need to improve as well. We’ll be at work on all of that as well. Which areas? On any given model, Argon would be across the board better at everything if you just look even two months back. But the space is so evolving. Even on coding, for example, there are pockets where we know we need to do better, and there’s clear feedback. We’ll make it better. The argument for standard models is that they’re already good enough to build great products, with the frontier valuable only for certain tasks. Meta built Muse with good models rather than the best, and Google could put standard models into Maps, Gmail, and Search. Why isn’t that sufficient? It’s definitely not how I have thought about it at all. We are deeply committed to driving the state of the art and actually pushing where this technology can go, all the way from transformers. That’s a journey we’ve been on. You will see us continue to do that. When you’re at the frontier, you get an earlier look into the emerging capabilities, earlier than others, which helps you better prepare for the future. We are fortunate to have a wide set of opportunities across consumer and enterprise. Some of our cloud customers, for sure, want the model at the frontier. The frontier models will be better at developing the next set of models in an era of recursive self-improvement. I would argue it matters there. Internally, we have definitely seen a steep point of inflection by deploying Argon to our developers. It definitely tackles problems which our previous models could not do. Being at the frontier puts you at the innovation frontier and helps you drive that as well. There is room for models of all sizes and capabilities. That’s why we did Flash, Flash-Lite, etc. I agree with you that you can develop very good product experiences with not necessarily the most frontier model, because they tend to be slower and more expensive too. But we care about the Pareto frontier, and we’re committed to doing all of that. You said developing frontier models gives you a look at what’s coming. What do you see on the horizon? What makes this moment so exciting is you build something which you think is a culmination of months of work, and you put it out. You already see clear headroom ahead. We’ve all been working on these agentic, long-horizon capabilities, but clearly the frontier is going to have multiple of these agents working together to do things. That’s an example of an exciting paradigm underway. It’s also clear to me that users, both in consumer and enterprise, will have access to some multi-agent framework for them, working all the time doing things. It feels like a moment of infinite possibilities. Sergey Brin said one of Argon’s core innovations was relying more on the model to help develop the model. Yet incidents involving OpenAI’s bots breaking containment and Google’s bots accessing a site they shouldn’t have suggest these systems still aren’t perfectly aligned. Isn’t there reasonable cause for concern about accelerating toward recursive self-improvement? There are three parts to your question. Let’s first talk about RSI itself. You’re right, Sergey mentioned RSI being a critical contributor as we are developing Argon. But to be very clear, today, in a continuum, we are pretty far from the end state of RSI or something like that. The right way to describe it is you have RSI loops along with AI researchers in various aspects of model development. You almost have agents helping AI researchers in some automated way work together to build these models. It’s good to at least understand where we are today, and it’s super exciting. I expect that continuum to keep making progress as we go into next year. The second question is around safety. Security comes from defense in depth. You’re talking about alignment, obviously. We all are doing a lot of work to make sure the models are as aligned as possible. But it’s an active area of research, and there are clear gaps. That’s not the only thing we rely on. You have the work you do on alignment, but beyond that, we put a lot of effort into real-time monitoring as these models are working. Making sure you have good telemetry into what’s happening so that you can intervene in real time if you see unexpected behaviors. How you do that, the architecture with which you do that, how you make sure it’s all sandboxed and isolated in a way that it can continue doing its job during real-time monitoring — these are all areas of investment. Obviously, when we deploy these models, giving customers, enterprises, control, both with real-time monitoring, but their ability to decide where they deploy, what type of data which models ever have access to, etc. All that work is very, very important, and we are doing a lot of that. As an industry, we need to constantly up our game and take the time to do all this stuff, including dedicating the compute required to make sure you can safely deploy these models. The third part is: Is it all enough? This is why there are a lot of conversations in the industry, and I think it’s reasonable to be worried. The right way to approach something you worry about is early on thinking about what more we can do. As an industry, you’re definitely seeing increased levels of work on alignment, testing for safety, etc., as we deploy these models. The next step would be developing better standards so there are cross-industry standards of how we do these things, including the ability to evaluate using independent evaluators. If you look at areas like financial controls, we have accounting standards, we have independent auditors. Those are all the next natural steps for us as an industry to work toward, and regulation will end up playing a role as we go through all of that as well. Google pursues both language models and world models, while some other AI companies like OpenAI have focused more heavily on LLMs as the path to AGI. Why is world-model research important to you? As humans, you obviously perceive the world around you, and you’re taking all those inputs. Making sure these models are able to understand the laws of physics, simulate the world in high fidelity. All that, I think, are key enabling blocks for intelligence. We are working across all possible applications of this. Take an area like robotics. It’s not an accident: If you look at embodied reasoning benchmarks, Argon is state of the art. That all comes from our experience building world models. Inherently, I would expect there will be architectures which will converge all of this in the future. But for us, we view this as, today, this jagged frontier that is intelligence. We want to be at the frontier of all the possible approaches, and that will help us both drive better research, better insights, and develop a much better AGI model, is how we think about it. Some people argue Google should focus on selling its computing resources rather than using them for AI research. Cloud wants to sell compute at a high markup, while researchers need a very big computer to build the best models. How do you balance those demands? Ground zero for us is making sure we are investing in the compute that’s needed to be at the AI frontier. In 2015, I set the company to be AI-first. AI is that key horizontal ingredient across everything we do, all the way from Search to Cloud to Waymo. That is ground zero for us, making sure both for research and developing the models that we have enough compute needed. Beyond that, we have these independent businesses which each have their own long-range plans. They’re using those long-range plans to project forward, and we plan for compute for all of them. The cloud team, they have a business and they have a projection and they have demand signals. They have committed contracts. With that help, we can plan on a long-term compute trajectory for them. We’re fortunate to have this wide set of opportunities. There’s no company in the world which isn’t making trade-offs at any given moment in time. But the first principles we operate on is making sure we have enough compute to invest in the frontier, and that’s non-negotiable, and everything else works on top. Remember, we are building our own compute, our own data centers. There are long lead times. The compute we have today is a function of decisions I made in 2024. Even if you think back to a year from today, last year the agentic coding takeoff hadn’t happened. Today, obviously, when you sit and look at anything, everyone is short—not just us, other companies—and everyone wishes you had two times what you had planned for. That comes with the territory. At any given moment in time, we are planning for what we would need two to three years out in the future. You’re going to find some decisions you make may look suboptimal two years out, depending on where the state of the art is. I don’t spend too much time thinking about it. The way I think about compute allocation is making sure Google DeepMind, both for research and frontier model development, is cutting edge in terms of compute access. After that, we plan for all our businesses. It’s great we can provide our compute to other people too, like we have done. It allows us to scale that up, get real tests for it in the widest application set possible, test it in the real world, and make sure we are at the cutting edge of technology at every layer of our AI stack as well. Ben Horowitz relayed on a podcast that Andy Jassy had said compute was sold out until 2028. Are you seeing the same thing? If today a customer is coming out and asking us for compute in ’27, that is incredibly difficult to do. Even last year we went out and leased some short-term compute to accommodate some customers and help them out. But yes, we are all dealing with similar timelines. Every major technology shift seems to involve overbuilding, from railroads to fiber. Do you think that’s happening here? It depends on the time frames you’re looking at. This level of build, if I take a long enough time frame, it makes complete sense to me. We are at early stages of the most consequential technology ever, and this is not like fiber. It’s not dark. We are using it. We are capacity constrained on a daily basis. The applications, the underlying technology is improving rapidly. But running a company, the way I work through the moment is you look at your demand signals. You look at your committed revenue opportunities that you’re getting in the form of contracts. You balance that with the underlying technical capability, or internally you balance how we are using it internally, the model trajectories. Based on all that, you take a disciplined approach—a confident, aggressive, but disciplined approach—to plan out compute. But when you talk about the broader economy as a whole, you’re having people operate with various levels of risk. I focus on what I can control as a company and plan through it. If your question is, can there be an overbuild? Yes, because you can have some constrained components. Remember, what matters is a set of everything you need to build out that compute. Memory, electricity, electricians…. Land. Like 2,000 components or more. You could get constrained at some point. There could be things which cause bottlenecks, and then you could have overbuilds. There could be external shocks to the economy. There are macro risks. All that is possible at any given time. But am I confident that the compute we are planning for, we will have uses for it given enough time? Absolutely, yes. I was in the room when you said AI would be as profound as fire and electricity. If you believe that, shouldn’t you give researchers the biggest possible computer, even at the expense of today’s cloud profits? We’re all doing some form of that. Our cloud business is at any given moment in time forgoing short-term revenues because we are making compute trade-offs to support frontier AI development. What you’re seeing is true already. But you want to be thoughtful. Even our AI researchers have some constraints, which are also good. That’s what inspires creativity. That’s what helps you come up with a more efficient algorithmic breakthrough, maybe to use less memory. What we are committed to is to invest what’s needed to stay at the frontier. OpenAI President Greg Brockman told me a few months ago that the ideal AI product might have no interface at all—just as natural as conversation. What do you think the interface looks like in the age of AI? Computing historically has been humans adapting to computing. With AI, it’ll be the other way around. The technology will adapt seamlessly to how humans live and go about their day-to-day life. You want to be able to speak to that AI when you want to. It has context. It can be persistently running somewhere, give you continuity. You’re not dealing with a lot of complexity. It’s natural. All that makes sense to me. That doesn’t mean it won’t have any interface, however. Nowadays, even on my phone, Gemini voice models are so good. I can just press the microphone button. I can just ramble. That’s why we call it Rambler. I can ramble. It intelligently corrects with my personal context. Even my friends’ names, weird names, it gets it right, even if it first guesses it wrong. It’s amazing. I’m not going in, backspacing, editing once I finish saying it. It’s remarkable how good it’s gotten. But there are going to be moments you will need an interface. You may want to entertain yourself. You may want to watch a video. You may ask your AI to create something, and you want to watch it, consume it. The way I think about it is, you want it to be as seamless and as natural as possible, and that you are not doing the hard work adapting to whatever the interface is. The technology is adapting to how you’re working at any given moment in time. When I asked Sam Altman about competition from Google, he argued that OpenAI was building AI-native products and implied Google was bolting AI onto existing ones. Do you accept that framing, and can a “bolt-on” compete with an AI-native product? First of all, it’s a very dynamic moment. We are all pushing each other. OpenAI has pushed us as a company too. This is not just we are doing something to them. Far from it. Yes, Google went into its own version of a code red too. In the AI moment, all of us have to respond with varying levels of urgency at any given moment in time. We are constantly building new products as well. Gemini was built from the ground up as a product—the Gemini app I’m talking about. Or tomorrow, as all of us are adapting to agents, are you bolting agents onto ChatGPT, or are they building it natively? How would you think about that? You can always put these questions back. I don’t think of it that way. I think of it as you want to build world-class product experiences that are AI-native and they are winning. Some of it is adapting products, some of it is rethinking new experiences. They will all be part of how you approach this moment. How do you expect to make money from these AI interfaces? If an agent recommends a product and I buy it, should it take a cut of the sale, even if that’s disclosed? I’m going to put enterprise aside. Consumers are going to increasingly value this technology. Take software developers today. Developers are willing to pay for these coding models because it really helps make them more productive. Nobody would want to code the way they were coding three years ago, or even the same time last year. When you’re delivering value, there’s value to be had. I’ve never seen examples where consumer products really scale to billions of users, where people are using it intensely, and haven’t had monetization to go along with it. If you’re providing value to people, there is inherent value to be had. The nature of it may change. You’re asking a scenario in which agents are doing stuff for you. At the end of the day, you will have commercial needs. The agents need to fulfill those commercial needs. The providers on the other side are going to see value in that. There’s going to be some mechanism by which it gets fleshed out. That’s what an efficient system does. But what matters is that you’re building those world-class consumer experiences. I promised myself one product feature request: Can you make Gemini-powered search in Gmail as good as searching Gmail through ChatGPT? What’s going on here? One of the exciting things we announced recently is the unified Gemini agent for enterprise, and we’re bringing that to consumers. These are persistent agents which run 24/7 in the cloud. We’re spinning up a micro VM effectively for every query, and from the runtime, the harness, the model—it’s all a headless service. It’ll work everywhere, and it has your context with you. You can address this agent whether you’re in Workspace, in Search, in Gemini. Agents are going to drive this unification from a customer experience, which people are looking for. When you have a broad product portfolio and you’re moving forward fast, there are always areas where you’re moving forward faster than some other areas. That’s valid feedback. But we are putting a lot of time and effort into making sure, as we build out our agentic experience, that unification and that capability works well across all these services. People have asked where Google’s equivalent of Muse or Dots is. Do you anticipate creating a new product to compete with them? Our goal with Gemini is to be a personal, proactive, and powerful assistant. That’s what we are working toward. You saw us describe the early versions of it at Google I/O this year with Spark. Effectively, already, if you open the Gemini app as a Pro or an Ultra user, you see Chat and Task, and they start giving you that agentic experience. With Argon now, that capability is dramatically accelerated. What we announced recently in our enterprise event, we are bringing that to consumers as well. Soon in Gemini, you will be able to ask something, and it’s a continuum. You don’t need to think about whether you’re asking a chat or an agentic task. It’ll just automatically do the right thing, and it can work persistently in the background securely and get things done for you. Already, empirically, when I look at what’s coming into Gemini in our app, last year you would have tagged them and most of them would have been chats. But a steadily growing percentage is already agentic tasks in Gemini. Yes, we are going to bring personal agents to our consumers. It’ll work in the Gemini app. It’ll work in Google Search. It’ll work in Gmail. You can address it, call it, etc. We want to make sure we’re getting it right. It’ll be powered by Argon, and we are very excited to bring it to our users. Google has invested and committed tens of billions of dollars to Anthropic. What do you see in Dario Amodei that makes you want such a deep investment and partnership? Very early on, when we looked at the founding team of Anthropic, it was very clear to us this was a world-class team which was involved in some of the earliest GPT models. We were quickly able to assess that they would be at the frontier. We’ve always tried to identify and partner with companies which would be at the cutting edge of technology. We’ve done that with SpaceX. We’ve done that with Anthropic. That’s what we saw, and we had a chance to partner. Is your partnership with Apple to license Gemini for Siri expanding, contracting, or standing still? For both us and Apple, that partnership was about translating the capabilities of AI into better experiences for users. I thought Apple has done a phenomenal job of incorporating—they customize these models and build it into Siri—and it’s been great to see the reception. We are committed to doing more. You’re going to do more with them? There’s nothing specific to comment, but it’s a partnership. It’s working well. What have you learned so far about the feasibility of data centers in space? It’s a very exciting project. Projects like this remind me—I still recall that moment in the desert for the DARPA Grand Challenge, watching the Stanley car compete in it, which ended up being the basis for Waymo. With all these technologies, you’re at a moment in time where it looks a bit like sci-fi, but 10 to 20 years down the line, it’s actually working in a meaningful way. I feel the same in space. We’ve always believed in betting big on these technologies. Quantum has been a great example of it. We’re probably 10 years into the journey. Waymo, we are almost 20 years into the journey. Space, we are two to three years into the journey. It’s clear to me that it’s an approach which will make a lot of sense in the future. Being in sub-synchronous orbits with 24/7 access to the most abundant form of energy we have access to will make a lot of sense for this exponential increase in compute that we are going to need. Having said that, this is a challenging project. The team has disciplined milestones. It was a super exciting milestone to send the TPUs up to space. Sometime, as we are speaking, we are expecting a “hello world” moment from them. I look forward to seeing that happen, and we’ll continue investing here too. You previously said 25% of the code written within Google was written by AI. What’s the number today? That number in our world today is meaningless in the sense that every part of what we now touch is influenced by AI deeply. What we are tracking with Argon, for example, it’s been a point of inflection. People are using Argon to really go tackle complex projects, including projects which affect millions of lines of code. In the four weeks since we have launched Argon, we have seen a 30% increase in CLs, and more importantly, almost a similar increase—a one-third decrease in rollbacks. People are writing code more productively and better code with it. We are tracking it with newer metrics now. How are you dealing with opposition to data centers? If you can’t build in the U.S. the way you want to, where else do you go? We’re very committed to building our data centers very responsibly. When I look at our largest data centers in some of the communities where we have been the longest, I visit them, I talk to people. There are people who come and tell us their kids have gone to college because of our investments in these communities, and we’ve grown in those communities. To me, this is about doing it right. Engaging with the communities early, doing it transparently. We are committed to making sure we are bringing incremental power, and we cover 100% of the cost of our power needs for these projects. It’s understanding the impact on neighborhoods and making sure you’re working thoroughly to address them. Done rightly, you can continue making progress. But we are constantly taking feedback into account. I do worry not everyone operates the same way. People have been surprised by data centers showing up in their backyard. Those are all important. As an industry, we should continue to do better. But part of the reason, in a 20-year time frame, we are thinking about things like data centers in space is making sure we are able to put these data centers where maybe the trade-offs will be different. What unproven area of AI is Google working hardest to crack? Is it continual learning—getting models to keep updating after release—or something else? There are multiple parallel paths. You saw with Argon we have a million output tokens. With our Gemini models early on, we had a one-million context window on the input side. These are all examples of breakthroughs we are constantly working on. How do you think about synthetic data? How do you think about continual learning? How do you think about more efficient architectures? We do dedicate a meaningful percentage of our compute to these research bets too. It always goes hand in hand, including our world models. Those are all bets we are placing. Sometimes, as part of these bets, there are ideas that emerge which just make their way into the mainline models. Maybe we don’t fully talk about it, but we have multiple steps in these areas. Working in technology requires optimism that building something will improve the world, but those bets can leave real consequences when they fail. I recently returned to a town in El Salvador where enthusiasm for Bitcoin had given way to unfinished construction and something resembling a ghost town. How do you maintain the optimism you spoke about in your Stanford commencement address while accounting for those risks? I genuinely have a deep conviction that improving technology and improving access to technology makes people’s lives better. It’s been my personal experience in my life, out of which comes that deep conviction, optimism. But with that, I’ve always felt humanity’s journey is always about working hard to harness that technology to make it work well for society. The optimism is not an optimism that you just build whatever you want, whenever. You work hard to make sure you’re building technology in the service of humanity, to make the human condition better. That’s got to be the defining goal as we are approaching it. With that framework, I’m very, very optimistic. We are in very early stages of the kind of progress that we are going to see on many areas. We’re all talking about areas like healthcare. A lot of the progress is ahead. The ability to make things in a fundamentally cheaper way on many things where things have been getting expensive for a long, long time, discovering new materials, etc., which really bend the curve—it’s tough to step today and understand the impact of all that, but they’re going to be very profound. I’m very optimistic, but we have to be rightfully concerned about all the ways this technology can go wrong. Sundar, I know you don’t do many of these. Thank you. Thanks, Alex. Appreciate it.
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Vowels have become the latest players in partisan politics, a barometer of how beliefs and values fit within the old vs. new South.
How governments worldwide are shaping what AI can say about politics
Some governments use legitimate AI concerns as a pretext to control political discussion, particularly chatbot responses about those in power.
‘These risks are real’: the threat of AI bioweapons
In his annual speech on threats to the nation, Sir Ken McCallum, the head of the UK’s intelligence service, MI5, warned that AI had the potential to ‘change the stakes’ on existing and even new bioweapons. To find out why, and how, Ian Sample speaks to Dr Tom Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and the Bloomberg School of Public Health. He explains what has governments so worried and what measures could be put in place to reduce the risks
The Science Communication Challenge in Cosmetics
The Cosmetic, Toiletry and Perfumery Association held its inaugural scientific conference and discussed the importance of clear, concise communication in cosmetics.
No. 1 Exercise To Boost Bone Density, According to a Doctor
In TODAY.com’s Expert Tip of the Day, a doctor shares his favorite compound exercise to boost bone density and protect against bone loss in midlife.
GTA 6 is so detailed no single Rockstar employee has seen it all - which is exactly how we got shrinking horse testicles in Red Dead Redemption 2
The infamous Red Dead Redemption 2 horse testicles were an unplanned feature because Rockstar staff apparently work autonomously, which bodes well for GTA 6.
GM's core profit rises 22% on strength of pickup-truck business
GM shares fell about 6% in premarket trading.
Warren Madden, Iowa State leader who shaped campus growth, dies at 87
Warren Madden, revered business leader at Iowa State University, has passed away.
SBA urges Iowans to nominate their favorite small business for an award
There are all kinds of small businesses in Iowa that we can’t do without, from diners and donut shops to tailors and auto mechanics, and it’s time to recognize those merchants that make our lives better. Ryan Lincoln, the Iowa district director of the U.S. Small Business Administration, says the agency is taking nominations for […]
‘Big business’: little-known court system in Louisiana churns out thousands of evictions – and millions in fees for judges
Guardian investigation: Louisiana’s justice of the peace courts may violate tenants’ constitutional rights as eviction fees boost judges’ incomes
A note to readers: Science, accountability and elections
Dear readers, As early voting begins, I wanted to share some news — and why it connects to the decisions we make at the ballot box. I’ve been selected for the inaugural cohort of the South Atlantic Climate Journalism Hub mentorship program, hosted by Covering Climate Now. I’m excited to join this group, learn from scientists and fellow journalists, and expand my science reporting. Science directly ties to governance. Local officials make decisions about where development goes, how infrastructure is maintained, what emergency preparations receive funding, and how communities rebuild after disasters. Understanding the evidence behind those decisions helps us evaluate whether our government is serving us well. Here in western North Carolina, those connections are all around us, in Lake Lure and beyond. Flood maps inform decisions about property and development. Engineering assessments help identify risks at dams and bridges. Rainfall forecasts guide emergency preparations. Geological information helps explain landslide hazards. Water testing gives communities information they need to assess conditions. Meteorologists’ knowledge and public perception of weather events shape public safety. Each involves scientific or technical knowledge. Each also raises questions about public responsibility: What did officials know? How did they use that information? What did they tell the public? What did taxpayers receive for their money? A study can identify a problem. Elected officials still have to decide what to do about it, how to pay for it, and how to explain their choices. Reporting should examine both the evidence and the response. That is where I want to strengthen my work. My reporting on Helene recovery, infrastructure, flooding, public safety, and public spending has repeatedly brought me to questions that require scientific expertise alongside public records. This mentorship may help me better understand the research, ask more precise questions, and explain the answers clearly. I also bring the perspective of someone living with these concerns. I live downstream of Lake Lure Dam, and landslides affected my property during Helene. Those experiences bring urgency to my questions. Careful reporting helps establish the answers. Readers deserve to know what the evidence shows, where uncertainty remains, and whether officials accurately describe the information guiding their decisions. You also deserve scrutiny of proposed solutions: what they cost, what they are expected to accomplish, and what risks remain. Access to that information matters. As a mostly deaf journalist who relies on written communication, I will continue pressing for written public warnings, records, and explanations that people can read and use in real time. As you consider the candidates seeking your vote, consider how they approach evidence, preparedness, and transparency. Do they support local journalism, even when it’s not parroting a press release? Do they explain weather events clearly in plain English and explain their decisions after them? Make supporting records available? Acknowledge uncertainty? Follow through when a report identifies a risk? Those are practical questions about governing. Thank you for supporting Cops & Congress and the work that makes these questions part of the public conversation. I’m grateful to David Dickson and the CC Now team for this opportunity, and I look forward to bringing what I learn back to you. Annie DanceEditor & Publisher, Cops & Congress — Learn more about this newsletter, ethics policy, how you can help shape this work, and support it. Follow on X and Facebook. Send constructive criticism, fan mail, and tips with public documents for future stories: CopsandCongress@gmail.com ICYMI: View the Cops & Congress archive — Annie Dance is the publisher of Cops & Congress, a newsletter that analyzes what happens when crime, courts, disaster, democracy, and small-town policies collide. Views expressed here are covered by the First Amendment. Dance has a Bachelor of Arts from Manhattan University in Communication with a focus in Journalism and Government. She has been a journalist for over 20 years. Share Upgrade now or give a gift subscription
Bungie plans to share first details about surprise 'unvaulting' of Destiny 2 content soon
We should learn more about Bungie's 'unvaulting' of previously removed Destiny 2 content very soon.
Kratos Would Have Had a Different Name Were It Not for Relentless Domino's Pizza Jokes, God of War Creator Reveals
God of War's Kratos almost went by a different name, but developers at Santa Monica Studio made too many Domino's pizza jokes.
GM’s core profit rises 22% on strength of pickup-truck business
By Kalea Hall Oct 20 (Reuters) - General Motors’ third-quarter results easily beat analyst expectations on the back of resolute shoppers who continue to spring for pricey pickups and SUVs. The company on Tuesday said quarterly earnings before interes...
Meet the 2026 Power Partners in Business Products & Services
These companies help you grow your business and achieve your goals.
How an acclaimed opera singer became Providence’s Bride of Cthulhu
What happens when an opera singer/organist/conductor meets Lovecraft? You get Gigi Mitchell-Velasco, a consummate performer and Bride of Cthulhu.
Westland puts $50K grants on the table to attract new restaurants
Westland officials say residents are leaving town to dine out. Now they're hoping to change that – and breathe new life into aging buildings.
Business owners like Hendricks and Uihleins create jobs
The voices that demand we “tax the rich” treat every successful entrepreneur as a potential villain whose gains must be redistributed or regulated.
What to know about the two candidates in Wisconsin's 7th District
Republican Michael Alfonso and Democrat Fred Clark are squaring off in the 7th Congressional District. The winner will succeed Tom Tiffany.
Sensor Tower data shows the yawning gap between GTA 6 and everything else
In terms of preorder numbers, Rockstar's game is 148% head of 2022's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 at this point from launch
The Data Dive: Steve Kornacki on how Susan Collins could transcend Trump in Maine
Seeking re-election in a blue state, the longtime Republican senator is relying on her personal brand to defy political gravity — again.
Xbox 'Business Strategist' Claims Video Game Industry Is 'Pretending to Not Use AI,' Deletes Twitter Account After Deluge of Replies
An Xbox staff member went viral this week for taking to social media to tell "the truth that nobody wants you to know": that the video game industry is "pretending" to not use AI.
South Florida is pivoting from tourism to national biz hub
Carnegie Mellon, Vanderbilt join companies opening campuses and offices in South Florida as it pivots from tourism to being a national business hub
'We lost the battle': Local businesses prepare as DEI crackdown hits OEV
New Florida law forces Tallahassee to replace its minority business aid program with a neutral alternative. Some business owners worry about the future.
$42 million Purdue donor wants support for Black and Hispanic students
McDonald's millionaire and Purdue alum Roland Parrish says, \
"This act is intended to demonstrate solidarity with Palestine" - Umurangi Generation studio blocks new game Penguin Colony from being sold in Israel
"In the absence of more organised sanctions," Umurangi Generations studio Origame has blocked the sale of its new game Penguin Colony in Israel.
GDC Festival of Gaming 2027 moves to four-day format to "create a higher quality, more focused and valuable experience"
"We're concentrating programming and opportunities during the days when the community is most active," say organisers
As midterm tensions mount, here's how to have civil disagreement
My friend had the wisdom to see being flexible and pragmatic was more effective in real-world situations than following preapproved talking points.
Records reveal why AI political ads raise alarms in NY
The USA TODAY Network obtained records from state agencies tasked with overseeing AI uses in elections. See what it means for 2026 midterms.
Pfizer makes ‘business decision’ to end phase 2 trial of autoimmune drug as program’s future uncertain
Pfizer has called time on a phase 2 trial of its CXCR5 antibody in an autoimmune blood disorder, with the company tight-lipped on whether this marks the end of the road for the asset. The Big Pharma had been evaluating the therapy, dubbed PF-06835375, in a phase 2 study of 61 patients with primary immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) that kicked off in 2022, according to the federal trials register. However, Pfizer confirmed to Fierce on Monday that this study had been terminated “due to a business decision.” “The decision to terminate the trial was not based on any safety concerns,” a spokesperson pointed out. At time of publication, PF-06835375 remained listed on Pfizer’s website for both ITP and lupus. A phase 1 study in lupus wrapped up in 2022, according to the trials database. ITP is an autoimmune disorder characterized by a low platelet count. Novartis was at one point evaluating its B-cell-depleting antibody ianalumab—recently approved as Fabhalta to treat immunoglobulin A nephropathy—as a potential treatment ITP. But the therapy struggled to demonstrate a benefit in the clinic for this indication. When contacted by Fierce, Pfizer wouldn’t confirm whether all work on PF-06835375 has been halted, and whether the company has any other plans to explore C-X-C chemokine receptor type 5 (CXCR5) as a mechanism. CXCR5 is found in blood cancers such as diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and mantle cell lymphoma chemokine receptor. However, there is little expression in normal tissue, which has led some drug developers to explore its potential. Vincerx Pharma had at one point been planning to take an anti-CXCR5 ADC into the clinic to treat B-cell malignancies, but that ambition was scrapped due to cash constraints. Where Big Pharma is placing its bets is one of the hot topics being discussed at Fierce Biotech's high-impact event in London next month. Find out more information and register by clicking on the banner below: [ ](https://qtxasset.com/quartz/qcloud5/media/image/where_big_pharma_is_placing_its_bets.png?VersionId=B8JrRbJ.pFUSK1pJgjeWHLGm_18RdLAy)
Volkswagen bet on Xpeng to save its China business. It’s not going to plan
By Ju-min Park and Christina Amann BEIJING/BERLIN, Oct 20 (Reuters) - When Volkswagen turned to EV maker Xpeng in 2023 to help fix its flailing Chinese business, executives touted the partnership as a shortcut to developing cars tailored for China at t...
Trump uses antisemitic slur in defending Sen. Roger Marshall at rally in Kansas
Trump had used the term during a speech last year, leading to backlash. He said at the time that he wasn’t aware of the word’s antisemitic connotations.
Things to do: These are the best entertainment events in Brevard for Oct. 16-22
Find your weekend adventure! Film festival, Oktoberfest and Reggae top our list of Brevard's best entertainment events.
Nearly $1M in sports, Pokémon cards stolen from FedEx truck in California
The cards were swiped from a trading card authentication company. One collector said he was “absolutely financially destroyed.”
Political hate speech can have real-word fallout. After the alleged attack on Helen Haines, our leaders must act
Social media amplify the worst excesses of what passes for public discourse, while some media outlets foment polarisation
Actor, activist Jane Fonda makes appearances, endorsements in Oregon
Actor and progressive activist Jane Fonda made appearances in Salem and Portland to support Oregon Democratic candidates for the November election.
AI-generated political ads are showing up on TV screens, experts say they are getting harder to spot
Richard Riehle, dependable TV and film character actor who was in 'Glory and 'Office Space,' dies
Beloved character actor Richard Riehle has died at 78.
Your Company Doesn’t Need More AI Tools. It Needs These 6 Operating Changes
Giving employees another AI tool won’t transform a business by itself. Leaders from Homebase, Tiny Health, and Zoom explain the operating changes that turn access into measurable work.
Steam Fans Are Begging for a No-AI Filter as Steam Next Fest Is Filled With Slop
Steam Next Fest, Valve's festival for indie games and demos, started earlier today, and while there are usually a ton of low-effort games, there seems to be more than usual this time around.
GTA 6 Features “Significantly Narrower” Roads Than GTA 5; Devs Wanted Weapons System to Be More Like Red Dead Redemption 2
Vehicle chases are often a big part of any Grand Theft Auto game, and if you find it easy to drive around pedestrians and other vehicles in GTA 5, that…
Texas Democratic candidate for governor sues to review emails between Elon Musk and Greg Abbott
State Rep. Gina Hinojosa alleged in her lawsuit that Gov. Greg Abbott is “unlawfully withholding communications” between his office and tech CEO Elon Musk.
Four AI Agents Have Slain Minecraft's Ender Dragon
"To our knowledge, this is the first end-to-end autonomous completion of Minecraft by AI agents."
'There's No One Person That Has This Whole Thing in Their Head' — GTA 6 Devs Had Freedom to Add Cool Features Just Like RDR2's Horse Balls
Rockstar Games gave the GTA 6 developers so much freedom to add cool details that not even the studio's top executives are aware of everything in the game.
How the midterms will shape 2028 and beyond: From the Politics Desk
Plus, a long-running GOP streak is at risk in Kansas.
Xbox Series X will offer identical graphics to the base PS5 in Grand Theft Auto VI
Social media is buzzing about user XGREEN's claim that the Xbox Series X console will supposedly offer better value for money.
Angels of Assisi to hold 4th annual Pet Health Fair at Berglund Center
Angels of Assisi is preparing for their 4th annual Pet Health Fair on Saturday, Oct. 24!
Today’s Top Deals From IGN: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, 512GB Switch 2 Memory Card, Sony Noise Canceling Earbuds
Plus, save on more Square Enix games, a LG OLED C6 TV, LEGO Succulents, and Audible.
Moonlighter dev delays Steam playtest for its "Tower Defensevania" ReVamp over concerns that AI copycats might clone it before launch
Digital Sun has delayed a planned Steam playtest for ReVamp due to "games being reverse-engineered, cloned and published before the original."
Top business leaders sound the alarm over skilled worker shortage
From the people who keep us safe on the roads to those who wire our homes and are building the infrastructure powering the AI boom, America needs skilled workers. But a new report finds that the nation isn’t doing enough to keep up with demand. NBC’s Christine Romans sits down exclusively with BlackRock’s Larry Fink, Ford’s Jim Farley, Google’s Ruth Porat and Carhartt’s Linda Hubbard, who have come together with an urgent message.
Nick Saban recalls kind gesture from Jalen Hurts amid ex-Alabama football QB health concerns
Nick Saban will remember his former Alabama football QB Jalen Hurts as a \
A blue-collar bellwether weighs ousting longtime GOP Sen. Susan Collins in Maine
Voters in Lewiston helped propel Collins to victory in her last election. Some are ready for a change, but others are wary of losing Collins’ sway in the Senate.
PEGI begins moving existing digital-only games with loot boxes up to a 16 rating
Existing digital-only games that include paid random items, such as loot boxes, are being re-rated PEGI 16 if they curr…
Oak Ridge hosts Nuclear Science Week 2026 events
Oak Ridge invites the public to explore the future of nuclear energy during Nuclear Science Week this October.
Final Fantasy 7 Revelation's Hard Mode is available from the start this time, so you won't need to replay the mammoth RPG to get to the good stuff
Final Fantasy 7 Revelation director Naoki Hamaguchi has confirmed that Hard Mode will be available to select from the beginning, unlike Remake and Rebirth.
New AI Tool Could Help Scientists Make ‘Rare’ Cross-Disciplinary Leaps
Using a system called BootLoops, scientists produced 36 papers in three months. Paired with experts, the tool could pollinate ideas across fields.
This Guy Is Endurance-Racing 1:64 Diecast Cars On A Belt Sander And The Cars Have Been Running 29 Days Nonstop - Watch Live!
A clever youtuber is racing 1.64 ("Hot Wheels sized") cars using a belt sander as a treadmill/road for endurance races that stretch on for weeks
Arc Raiders player numbers hit a six-month high following the release of the extraction shooter's huge Frozen Trails update
Embark's Studios' PvEvP phenomenon Arc Raiders is still going strong, and it's all thanks to the game's recent free weekend and huge Frozen Trails update.
PlayStation founder Ken Kutaragi says discs became "metaphor for 'owning' games", and that upset at their discontinuation is a "mentality issue"
The founder of PlayStation has weighed in on Sony's decision to end game discs, saying it isn't "economically reasonable" to continue supporting them.
PlayStation 6 RAM and Storage Alone May Cost $680, According to Leaker
The PlayStation 6 hasn't even been announced yet, but little rumors pop up now and then that add speculation on what to expect from Sony's next-gen console. The latest is a shocking claim that the RAM and storage configuration of the console will cost more than the entirety of the PS5.
Early Black Friday Deals Already Live on Square Enix Games, Slashing Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and More Down to Brand-New All-Time Lows at Amazon and Best Buy
Amazon and Best Buy have both dropped early Black Friday sales on select Square Enix games that features big price cuts on Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, and loads more.
New prediction for Cincinnati Democrat Greg Landsman ahead of race
Cincinnati Democratic Rep. Greg Landsman may have an easier path to reelection, according to a new race leaning from the Cook Political Report.
Entertainment Company Sponsors NJ Student Film Showcase in Atlantic City
Netflix has signed on as a sponsor for the New Jersey School Boards Association’s Workshop (NJSBA) 2026 Student Film Showcase in Atlantic City. The Workshop 2026 runs Oct. 19–22. It…
With GTA 6's Dating System Incoming, a Surprising Percentage of Adults Think Investing in a Video Game Relationship Is Cheating
With GTA 6's Dating System Incoming, a Surprising Percentage of Adults Think Investing in a Video Game Relationship Is Cheating.
Get an exclusive new look at JFK assassination movie 'November 1963'
John Travolta, Dermot Mulroney and Mandy Patinkin star in crime drama "November 1963," which offers the mob's perspective on JFK's assassination.
Rep. Neguse’s Boulder office one of multiple politicians targeted with suspicious mailing
The FBI and U.S. Postal Inspection Service are looking into the mailings, some of which included an unidentified powdery white substance.
The Knox Regional Health Science Education Center over the years
Here's photos that The Oak Ridger has run over the years from Roane State Community College of the Knox Regional Health Science Education Center.