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“Dangerous” AI models are coming no matter what

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“Dangerous” AI models are coming no matter what

Late last week, Anthropic took its new Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 AI models offline following a United States government export-control directive barring “any foreign national” from using the services. The company has been in talks with the White House since Friday but has yet to secure an agreement that would allow it to reinstate the offerings.

Since Mythos debuted in April, Anthropic has claimed—and warned—that the model has advanced capabilities for not only finding software vulnerabilities to help defenders patch them, but also figuring out ways to exploit them that could be used by bad actors. Anthropic itself noted this double-edged sword in its launch of Mythos 5 and Claude Fable 5. “A great deal of advanced usage of AI models is dual use: the same queries that are beneficial in the hands of cybersecurity professionals and biology researchers could be dangerous if available to malicious actors,” the company wrote in a blog post last week.

With this in mind, the company initially released a version called Mythos Preview to a select consortium as part of a working group known as Project Glasswing. Mythos 5 was also privately released to this group last week, while Claude Fable 5, which is a Mythos-grade model, was released to the general public with specific blocks on its ability to give responses to questions about biology and cybersecurity.

Then, at the end of last week, the Trump administration moved to restrict both models because it believes that Fable 5’s guardrails can be disabled to allow full access to the Mythos 5 capabilities, allegedly making it a national security risk.

Experts say, though, that this institutional clash is simply delaying or masking a hard truth: Anthropic may be the tip of the spear in this moment, but AI capabilities in general and models from multiple companies and open-weight developers will almost certainly have similar capabilities to Mythos 5 in the near future—if they don’t already.

“It’s myopic in the extreme to think that no other competitors to Anthropic will develop similar capabilities to Mythos or even that they have not already done so,” says Tarah Wheeler, chief security officer of the specialized cybersecurity consulting firm TPO Group. “There are other companies hot on Anthropic’s heels who probably have the capabilities, too, and are holding them in reserve as they see how Anthropic is being treated in the current regulatory environment.”

Anthropic itself has emphasized this point since the launch of Mythos Preview. “The real message is that this is not about the model or Anthropic,” Logan Graham, the company’s frontier red team lead, told WIRED when Mythos Preview launched in April. “We need to prepare now for a world where these capabilities are broadly available in 6, 12, 24 months.”

OpenAI, for example, also did a private release of a cybersecurity-focused model in mid-April and announced an expanded cybersecurity strategy.

Researchers note that even before this next generation of models, existing AI offerings could be used for advanced vulnerability-hunting and exploit development with a refined harness. A large group of cybersecurity leaders emphasized this to the administration in an open letter on Sunday, arguing that the White House’s export-control directive was misguided.

“It’s not one model; it’s the general trend of technology,” says Bruce Schneier, a researcher at Harvard University and the University of Toronto who has been analyzing the situation. “Smaller, cheaper, open-source models, sometimes by themselves and sometimes in concert with each other, can match Mythos/Fable’s performance with more sophisticated prompting. And we should expect other models to match Mythos/Fable’s creativity and tenaciousness within months—slightly longer for open-source models.”

What the White House and governments around the world need to focus on, experts say, is democratically developing much broader and more transparent plans for how they will contend with advances in AI capabilities on cybersecurity and in other sensitive areas as they inevitably occur.

“The policy question is not whether a technology has risk,” says Chris Wysopal, cofounder of the cloud security firm Veracode. “The question is whether a specific restriction meaningfully reduces that risk or whether it mainly slows down the people trying to make systems safer.”

This story originally appeared at wired.com.

Reality Star, 22, Vows to Expose ‘Shocking’ Truth of Childhood

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Reality Star, 22, Vows to Expose ‘Shocking’ Truth of Childhood


Collin Gosselin is ready to tell his side of the story — and he says it is far darker than anything viewers saw on TV.

The former “Jon & Kate Plus 8” child star is releasing a bombshell memoir this fall, promising to pull back the curtain on what he describes as the shocking truth behind his famous family’s carefully polished image.

The book, titled “In the Shadow of Eight: Surviving the Reality of My Childhood,” is set to hit shelves on Oct. 13.

According to the publisher’s description, the tell-all will reveal the “never-before-told story” of how Collin survived a childhood lived in front of cameras while, he claims, the worst parts of his life were hidden from the public.

The description teases a brutal look at “the dark side of fame,” including the people and systems Collin says allowed him to be “erased.”

Now 22, Collin is expected to revisit deeply disturbing allegations from his childhood, including claims that he was held down, hidden in a basement, and forced to take powerful antipsychotic drugs when he was just 11 years old.

The book also reportedly includes a shocking memory from Christmas morning, when gifts were allegedly taken back once the cameras stopped rolling.

The cover itself is already raising eyebrows. It features an old photo of his mother, Kate Gosselin, with her hand clamped over Collin’s mouth.

Collin is one of Jon and Kate Gosselin’s sextuplets, along with Aaden, Joel, Alexis, Hannah and Leah. The former couple also share 25-year-old twins Cara and Madelyn.

The family became household names when their TLC reality show, “Jon & Kate Plus 8,” premiered in 2007. After Jon and Kate’s messy divorce, the show continued as “Kate Plus 8” and ran for years as viewers watched the children grow up on camera.

But Collin now says the public never saw the full story.

While speaking to Us Weekly, he said his childhood was “broadcast to millions,” but claimed that much of what really happened was deliberately kept hidden.

“Finally, I’m sharing what was really happening behind the scenes,” Collin told the outlet. “This book is about truth, survival, resilience and finding my voice after years of being silenced.”

He added that he hopes his story helps others feel less alone.

“If my story helps even one person feel less alone or gives them the courage to tell their own, then every difficult page was worth writing,” he said.

Collin also admitted he was scared to speak out for years.

“I was afraid,” he said, explaining that he did not think people would believe him and was not ready to tell his story.

Over the years, Collin has made headlines for accusing his mother of child abuse and exploitation. He has claimed he was zip-tied, locked in a basement and later institutionalized.

Kate has repeatedly denied his abuse claims.

The family feud has also divided the Gosselin siblings. In 2023, Collin’s sister Madelyn publicly defended Kate and accused Collin of physical violence and hate speech. Collin and his father, Jon, denied those claims.

Jon was granted sole custody of Collin in 2018. Hannah later moved in with him as well.

Jon appeared to support Collin’s new book by sharing pre-order links on Instagram Stories. Kate has not publicly commented on the memoir.

Collin says writing the book forced him to relive some of the hardest parts of his life, but also helped him find something he had long been searching for.

“This isn’t the story people think they know,” he said. “It’s the story I’ve lived.”

Loaded Twice-Baked Sweet Potatoes

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Loaded Twice-Baked Sweet Potatoes
Loaded twice-baked sweet potatoes topped with melted cheddar, crispy bacon, and sliced green onions on a white oval platter.
These Loaded Twice-Baked Sweet Potatoes are warm, cheesy, savory, and perfect for a cozy dinner or holiday table.

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Loaded Twice-Baked Sweet Potatoes are the cozy, savory side dish that somehow feels both comforting and a little special. The sweet potatoes bake until tender, then get scooped, mashed, and folded with butter, sour cream, smoky bacon, sharp cheddar, and green onions. Then, they go back into the oven until the tops are melted, golden, and just a little irresistible.

What makes this recipe so good is the balance. Sweet potatoes bring natural sweetness, while bacon, cheese, and smoked paprika keep everything rich and savory. A small touch of maple syrup rounds out the filling without making it taste dessert-like. These twice-baked sweet potatoes work beautifully for holidays, family dinners, or any night that needs something warm and satisfying on the table.

Loaded twice-baked sweet potatoes topped with melted cheddar, crispy bacon, and sliced green onions on a white oval platter.
These Loaded Twice-Baked Sweet Potatoes are warm, cheesy, savory, and perfect for a cozy dinner or holiday table.

Recipe Yield: 4 servings

INGREDIENTS

4 medium sweet potatoes, scrubbed and dried
4 slices bacon, cooked crisp and chopped
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese, divided
3 green onions, thinly sliced, divided
2 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup sour cream, plus more for serving
1 tbsp pure maple syrup
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp black pepper

1 tbsp olive oil

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Bake the sweet potatoes:
Preheat oven to 400°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Rub sweet potatoes with olive oil, pierce them several times, and bake for 45 to 60 minutes, until very tender.

2. Scoop the centers:
Let the sweet potatoes cool until easy to handle, about 8 to 10 minutes. Slice each one lengthwise, then scoop the centers into a bowl, leaving about 1/4 in. of potato inside the skins. Place the skins back on the prepared baking sheet.

3. Make the filling:
Mash the sweet potato with butter, sour cream, maple syrup, salt, smoked paprika, garlic powder, and black pepper until creamy but still slightly textured.

4. Add the loaded flavor:
Fold in 1/2 cup cheddar cheese, half of the bacon, and half of the green onions.

5. Fill and top:
Spoon the filling back into the sweet potato skins, mounding it slightly. Top with the remaining cheddar cheese and bacon.

6. Bake again:
Return to the oven and bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until the filling is hot and the cheese is melted with light golden spots.

7. Finish and serve:
Sprinkle with the remaining green onions. Serve warm with a small spoonful of sour cream, if desired.

HELPFUL TIPS TO PERFECT THIS RECIPE

  • Bake until truly tender: The sweet potatoes should feel very soft when pierced with a knife. If they are underbaked, the filling will be harder to mash and less creamy.
  • Leave a sturdy border: Keep about 1/4 in. of sweet potato inside the skins so they hold their shape after scooping and baking again.
  • Use sharp cheddar for the best flavor: Sweet potatoes are naturally mild and sweet, so sharp cheddar, smoky bacon, and green onions help create a rich, savory balance.
  • Make them ahead: Bake, scoop, fill, and refrigerate the stuffed sweet potatoes up to 1 day ahead. Then bake until hot and melted, adding a few extra minutes if chilled.

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India keeps undermining the Bangladesh reset it claims to want

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India keeps undermining the Bangladesh reset it claims to want

When Bangladesh’s newly elected Prime Minister Tarique Rahman took office earlier this year, there was a tentative hint that New Delhi and Dhaka might finally transcend the bitter recriminations that followed ex-leader Sheikh Hasina’s dramatic ouster in a 2024 uprising, from which she fled into exile in India.

Early indicators were positive. India’s diplomatic tone softened, officials preached the gospel of continuity and analysts heralded a long-overdue reset after nearly two years of corrosive mistrust.

Yet, in South Asian geopolitics, statecraft is rarely defined by the sterile pleasantries of communiqués. It is revealed in the unvarnished realities of border posts and airport terminals.

The friction became undeniable with the recent treatment of Zahed Ur Rahman, an adviser at the rank of a State Minister to Bangladesh’s prime minister, at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport.

Asked to wait for hours under the clinical guise of a “verification process,” Indian media later revealed he had been flagged on an immigration watchlist for past anti-India commentary.

The reaction in Dhaka was swift and unequivocal. Bangladesh’s Foreign Ministry summoned the acting Indian High Commissioner and lodged a formal protest, viewing the episode as an affront to a senior representative of the prime minister’s office.

New Delhi, however, offered little beyond a brief explanation that Rahman had been stopped for “verification,” a response that many in Bangladesh saw as inadequate, given that the individual involved was not an ordinary traveler but a high-ranking government adviser.

For a relationship attempting to find a new footing, this incident is, of course, detrimental. If New Delhi genuinely seeks to cultivate a functional rapport with Rahman’s administration, subjecting one of his close confidantes to an abrasive airport ordeal signals the exact opposite.

In an editorial, The Daily Star, Bangladesh’s largest English-language daily, branded the episode “unfortunate and avoidable,” warning that it cast a long shadow over bilateral ties precisely when both capitals needed to dismantle accumulated distrust.

If New Delhi harbored legitimate grievances regarding the adviser, the paper noted, discreet diplomatic channels — rather than public humiliation — should have been employed.

This airport skirmish was not likely an isolated bureaucratic hiccup; it was, in all likelihood, a symptom of a deeper malaise. Notably, it coincides with an increasingly volatile confrontation along the two sides’ 4,000-kilometer shared border, where Dhaka has protested India’s aggressive “pushbacks” of alleged undocumented migrants.

While Indian officials maintain they are merely repatriating illegal residents, Bangladesh counters that these unilateral expulsions lack proper verification and violate established bilateral protocols. The issue is a political tinderbox in Dhaka, directly bruising national sovereignty and public dignity.

Images of destitute individuals stranded in the borderlands feed a potent domestic narrative of Indian heavy-handedness, complicating matters for a Bangladeshi administration trying to stabilize relations with its overbearing neighbor.

The result is a stark, widening chasm between diplomatic rhetoric and transactional reality. On paper, the incentives for alignment are overwhelming. Bangladesh remains India’s vital security buffer and its gateway to regional connectivity, while New Delhi is an inescapable economic and geographic reality for Dhaka.

Yet, the institutional muscle memory developed during the Hasina era has proven remarkably resistant to change. For over a decade, India’s Bangladesh policy was mono-focused on a cozy, exclusive partnership with Hasina’s Awami League. The cataclysm of 2024 demolished that diplomatic architecture.

While India has formally accepted Bangladesh’s democratic transition, deep institutional discomfort persists toward a political class long viewed with suspicion by New Delhi’s security establishment.

The airport incident perfectly encapsulates this myopia. Immigration officials may view the enforcement of a watchlist as a routine administrative exercise, but diplomacy demands an acute sensitivity to optics. What a bureaucrat deems standard operating procedure can easily be interpreted by a neighbor as a deliberate, calculated insult.

Compounding this friction is the reality that India’s foreign policy toward Dhaka is increasingly hostage to its own provincial politics. New Delhi’s stance is heavily contaminated by electoral calculations in West Bengal. In the hyper-polarized environment of border-state politics, illegal migration and demographic shifts are potent electoral currency.

This reality incentivizes a hawkish posture that may yield domestic dividends in Kolkata and Delhi, but severely cripples India’s diplomatic maneuverability with Dhaka.

Dhaka’s strategy has also yielded meager returns. Since the post-Hasina transition, the interim administration, largely through its appointed High Commissioner, leaned heavily on a strategy overly dependent on cultural symbolism.

Exhibitions of sarees, culinary festivals and events highlighting a shared heritage became the preferred instruments of engagement. While soft power possesses inherent value, it is effective only when it serves as a handmaiden to hard political diplomacy. It can never serve as its substitute.

History is replete with examples of this structural limitation. Decades of cricket diplomacy and cultural exchanges between India and Pakistan have evaporated instantly whenever hard security crises — from Kargil to Pulwama — occur, exposing the underlying absence of foundational political trust.

Similarly, Sri Lanka’s deep cultural and religious affinity with India has never sufficed to resolve thorny, politically sensitive disputes over Tamil rights and regional security. When hard questions arise, regional states judge one another by political actions rather than cultural showcases.

Trapped in symbolism at a time when borders, water sharing and migration demand hard-nosed negotiations, Dhaka’s strategy has yielded predictable results. Sarees produced photographs and biryani generated headlines, but neither facilitated genuine strategic breakthroughs.

Furthermore, an overreliance on soft diplomacy during moments of geopolitical tension carries a distinct reputational cost. Nations that substitute cultural programming for rigorous political engagement risk appearing unserious or incapable of defending their core interests. In international affairs, visibility should not be confused with influence.

A state that remains absent from critical political chambers while staying highly visible on the cultural circuit signals either a lack of leverage or a deficiency in confidence. Consequently, Dhaka made no significant diplomatic inroads with Delhi during this critical transition.

The overarching risk is thus cumulative. An airport detention, a border pushback, a formal protest, a hostile headline — individually, these are manageable crises. Collectively, they solidify a toxic perception in Dhaka that goodwill with Delhi is a one-way street.

The Zahed Ur Rahman affair matters because it serves as a litmus test for whether one of South Asia’s most critical bilateral relationships can decouple itself from the ghosts of 2024. For now, the verdict leans toward pessimism.

While official statements will continue to extol cooperation, actions on the ground reveal a colder truth that the promised bilateral thaw remains a mirage, constrained by old habits, domestic anxieties and enduring suspicion.

Faisal Mahmud is a Dhaka-based journalist.

Hulk, Punisher join Peter Parker in Spider-Man: Brand New Day trailer

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Hulk, Punisher join Peter Parker in Spider-Man: Brand New Day trailer

We’re about six weeks out from the debut of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, the follow-up to 2021’s No Way Home. It’s been five years since Spidey graced the big screen, so naturally Sony Pictures has released a new trailer to build audience anticipation.

(Spoilers for No Way Home below.)

As previously reported,  No Way Home ended on a pretty bleak note, with Peter Parker (Tom Holland) asking Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) to erase him from everyone’s memory to protect the multiverse, including MJ (Zendaya).

Brand New Day is directed by Destin Daniel Cretton (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings). Per the official synopsis:

Four years have passed since the events of No Way Home, and Peter is now an adult living entirely alone, having voluntarily erased himself from the lives and memories of those he loves. Crime-fighting in a New York that no longer knows his name, he’s devoted himself entirely to protecting his city—a full-time Spider-Man—but as the demands on him intensify, the pressure sparks a surprising physical evolution that threatens his existence, even as a strange new pattern of crimes gives rise to one of the most powerful threats he has ever faced.

Naturally, Holland is reprising his role as Peter Parker/Spider-Man, along with Zendaya as MJ and Jacob Batalon as Peter’s former bestie Ned Leeds. The film also features Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle/Punisher, Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Hulk, Michael Mando as Mac Gargan/Scorpion (captured by Spider-Man in Homecoming), Marvin Jones III as albino crime lord Lonnie Lincoln/Tombstone, and Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock/Daredevil (briefly Peter’s lawyer in No Way Home). Sadie Sink, Liza Colon-Zayas, and Trammel Tillman join the case in as-yet-undisclosed roles.

We learned from the first trailer back in March that something strange is happening to Peter physically; he woke up surrounded in webbing and sought the help of Banner. It’s possible that Peter’s DNA is mutating, which, said Banner, “would be enormously dangerous.” But if Peter can make it through this new cycle, he might just get a rebirth—and a fresh trilogy of Holland-starring Spider-Man.

In this latest trailer, Peter specifically asks Banner if there is a way to get rid of the bad parts and keep the good parts of whatever is going on with his mutation. Banner’s response: “How would you decide what parts of nature are good or bad?”

Meanwhile, our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is faced with a new threat that nobody can see. Peter is the only person who seems to immune to whatever strange power is affecting everyone else—and the “only one who can sense it.” He does have an ally in Banner, who naturally Hulks out when the situation calls for it. Peter gets a chance to save MJ, who still doesn’t remember their previous reality.  And he gets a grumpy pep talk from Frank Castle: “If you’re gonna do something you’d better do it now.” Perhaps those new powers will come in handy in the inevitable showdown.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day hits theaters on July 31, 2026.

 

Why dropping ‘Indo-Pacific’ clarifies the Pentagon’s China strategy

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Why dropping ‘Indo-Pacific’ clarifies the Pentagon’s China strategy

On June 16, the US Department of Defense announced that the US Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) will officially revert to its previous name, the US Pacific Command (PACOM).

The move reverses a decision made during President Donald Trump’s first term to include “Indo” in the name of its largest combatant command.

This publication reported in June 2018 that the original change “highlights the increasing significance of India in Washington’s strategic thinking and also marks India’s re-entry into the American government’s ‘Asia Nexus.’”

As much as New Delhi may protest, this change signals the opposite: the decreasing significance of India in Washington’s strategic thinking – and its exit from the American government’s “Asia Nexus.”

There were already hints of this in US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue in late May. “India was mentioned last,” an Asian diplomat in attendance recalled.

Hegseth praised the efforts of South Korea, the Philippines, Japan, Australia, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam before finally turning to India.

A strong India, “acting in its own self-interest,” advances a shared goal of maintaining a regional balance of power, he said – hardly a description of a core ally in a coordinated strategy.

This name change, however, does not represent a toning down of competition with Beijing. On the contrary, it clarifies where competition with China will actually be fought — and where it will not.

The decision moves the strategy in the right direction. There are three key takeaways.

First, the fact that the Pentagon made this significant move absent any immediate trigger suggests it is sending a deliberate message: the Indian Ocean is not central to dealing with China.

That message is aimed at both allies and Beijing itself. To its allies, it signals that in a potential conflict with China, the United States will concentrate on the Taiwan Strait, operating primarily from Japan and the Philippines.

In all other regions, allies and partners will be expected to take primary responsibility for conventional defense. South Korea will deter North Korea, Europe will confront Russia and the Indian Ocean will largely fall to India to monitor and control.

Symbolically, Hegseth made no mention of “Indo-Pacific” in his Shangri-La speech, nor did he reference Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s efforts to “update” the Free and Open Indo-Pacific concept championed by her mentor, the late Shinzo Abe. Japan’s region-wide strategic framing may soon require a rethink.

To China, the message is equally clear: the US is laser-focused on the Taiwan Strait. 

Second, the shift signals that India is being written out of the core contingency that matters most: Taiwan.

Washington believes Chinese President Xi Jinping has instructed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to take Taiwan by force, if necessary, by 2027. The Trump administration has little patience for fence-sitters.

It is prioritizing allies such as South Korea and the Philippines – who act like they “live on the front lines,” as Hegseth said. India is not aligned, and Washington is no longer hoping that one day it will be.

Third – and most intriguingly – by treating India as a normal partner rather than a strategic centerpiece, Washington gains greater flexibility in dealing with Pakistan, India’s archrival.

Trump has turned to Pakistan’s Field Marshal Asim Munir as a key backchannel to Tehran, relied on him in defusing the 2025 India-Pakistan crisis and invited him to discussions on expanding the Abraham Accords.

Pakistan matters not because of India, but because of China’s westward pivot.

Over the past 15 years, China has steadily reduced its reliance on maritime energy routes through Indian Ocean chokepoints, such as the Malacca and Hormuz straits, shifting instead toward overland pipelines across Central Asia.

In responding to this Chinese pivot to Eurasia, Pakistan – not India – emerges as the more relevant partner.

The return to PACOM reflects these strategic realities. It is a recognition that clarity, not geographic sprawl or vague values-based alignments, will define how the US competes with China. And it is the right move.

Ken Moriyasu, a former correspondent for the Japanese newspaper Nikkei, is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.

Gold fever sends some vintage luxury watches to the melting furnace

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Gold fever sends some vintage luxury watches to the melting furnace


Omega’s Constellation watch has been flashed in campaigns, movies and at the Met Gala by stars like George Clooney and ​Nicole Kidman, turning it into a symbol of luxury and glamour.

But with gold prices near record highs struck in January, some such classic watches are being melted ‌down as the value of their metal content outstrips their resale worth.

Used models by the likes of Omega and LVMH’s TAG Heuer are most hit by the trend, according to Reuters interviews with over a dozen traders, industry experts, and investment advisers.

British dealer Jon White of Gold Traders melted down an 18-carat late-1970s Constellation in excellent condition in May, one of dozens of mainstream luxury watches he has had scrapped this year as demand for ​investment gold has risen.

“Beautiful watch. But in reality, had the customer consigned that to auction, what would they have achieved?” White, who also manages an auction house, told Reuters.

The ​gold content of the Constellation watch, one of many models produced by Swatch-owned Omega, was worth £5,750 ($7,749), 35% more than its estimated £4,000-4,500 auction value, White ⁠said.

James Lamdin, founder of Watches of Switzerland’s second-hand unit Analog Shift, said melting was “primarily happening with contemporary pre-owned and also with older vintage watches that are not already collectible.”

Spokespersons for Swatch and ​Rolex said they would not comment for this story. LVMH, Richemont, Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet did not respond to requests for comment.

LIQUID GOLD

Gold prices surged to a record $5,600 an ounce in January as ​geopolitical concerns and trade worries pushed investors towards safe-haven precious metals. Gold now hovers around $4,200 per ounce, almost double its 2024 average.

The market price for used watches has not moved in the same way, however.

“I find it very sad, because obviously once something has been melted, it’s gone forever,” said Adrian Hailwood, a specialist in horological history.

There are no official figures showing how many luxury watches are being melted. World Gold Council data shows overall ​gold recycling in the first quarter rose 5% to 366 tonnes, while gold jewellery demand rose 31% in value to $47 billion.

Watches can hold anything from a sliver of gold to more than ​200 grams, meaning their scrap value can run into tens of thousands of dollars. In an Omega Constellation, the gold can be found in the case and the strap.

With gold expected to reach between $5,400 and $6,300 ‌an ounce this ⁠year, the pressure to dismantle some watches will continue, especially as traders that resell them must cover costs and the expense of providing a warranty.

New watches that are over-produced might also be melted down.

“I’ve seen a lot of totally mediocre watches get melted down,” said Lamdin. “There’s a lot of unsold overstock in the Swiss market. And those watches are basically brand new, unworn, and they’re just getting stripped down… they made too many of them.”

“But when you have something that’s vintage and rare and has some story or some patina, that’s where it becomes a short-sighted tragedy.”

THE RESALE TRAP

High-end ​brands that tightly manage new production like privately ​owned Patek Philippe and Rolex command the highest ⁠premiums over melt value, three industry experts said.

For some models “the wait lists are astronomical. You’re talking anything from two to eight years,” said Simon Lazarus, head of PR and content at online luxury watch platform Chrono Hunter.

“I’ve seen a lot of totally mediocre watches get melted down,” said Lamdin. “There’s a lot of unsold overstock in the Swiss market. And those watches are basically brand new, unworn, and they’re just getting stripped down… they made too many of them.”

“But when you have something that’s vintage and rare and has some story or some patina, that’s where it becomes a short-sighted tragedy.”

Rolex accounted last year for 61% of the sales value of new Swiss ​watches priced above 3,000 Swiss francs ($3,770), up from 57% in 2023 despite lower volumes, according to Vontobel.

Less exclusive brands like TAG Heuer, Breitling ​and Omega struggle to ⁠command high new retail prices, however, as buyers can buy a second-hand timepiece for much less.

Models like Omega’s Speedmaster often depreciate sharply once sold, exposing them to scrapping, three experts said.

TO SELL OR NOT TO SELL

Higher gold prices motivated retired New York engineer Mitchell Talisman to sell two gold watches and a chain containing a combined 35 grams of gold with 58% purity for $2,660 cash in December.

“I’d had a ⁠bunch of stuff ​sitting in a safety deposit box for over 10 years,” he told Reuters.

For some owners however, the idea of ​selling a watch only for it to be melted by a dealer is too much to bear.

“It may be a family piece, it may be their first watch,” said Hailwood.

“They don’t like the idea of it being destroyed, so they ​keep it.”

Source: Reuters

AI coding agents taught robots how to install GPUs and cut zip ties

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AI coding agents taught robots how to install GPUs and cut zip ties

What happens when you give AI coding agents a lab full of robotic arms, some compute resources, and a “generous token budget” for teaching the robots various tasks? The agents can apparently figure out a training regimen that teaches the robots to successfully cut zip ties and even insert GPUs into thin sockets on motherboards.

That glimpse into how AI can act in a fully autonomous way to automate robot training was made possible by a new agent harness framework—software that wraps around AI models to enable their use of various tools while also providing capabilities such as memory, context, constraint, and feedback loops. That agentic harness, called ENPIRE, was developed by robotics researchers at the Nvidia GEAR (Generalist Embodied Agent Research) lab alongside collaborators from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and the University of California, Berkeley.

“A part of our NVIDIA GEAR lab now self-improves tirelessly overnight,” wrote Jim Fan, director of AI at NVIDIA, in a LinkedIn post. “We just read the reports in the morning.”

Fan also jokingly described the goal of such AI-directed robot training, saying, “We all take a holiday and Jensen wouldn’t even notice,” in reference to Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang. But it’s not only Nvidia robotics researchers who could benefit—Fan said the team would be open-sourcing everything so anyone can host their own “self-running robot lab at home.”

The ENPIRE harness has four modules that enable AI coding agents to perform automatic reset and verification on tasks, refine policies that guide robotic behavior, evaluate such policies across multiple physical robots working in parallel, and address failures by analyzing logs, ingesting research papers, and improving training infrastructure and algorithm code. More technical details are available in the research paper uploaded on June 16, 2026.

The harness was tested with three different AI coding agents, including OpenAI’s Codex with GPT-5.5, Anthropic’s Claude Code with Opus 4.7, and Moonshot AI’s Kimi Code with Kimi K2.6. Teams of the coding agents independently developed different algorithmic approaches to robot training, tested them in real-world experiments, and then retained whatever changes helped raise the overall success rate over repeated cycles of self-directed testing.

The success and limits of AI-directed robot training

Equipped with ENPIRE, the AI coding agents developed strategies for robotic self-improvement that achieved a 99 percent success rate across several manipulation tasks, including the standard “Push-T” task that challenges robots to move a T-shaped block to fit a target position on top of a table. Other tasks included organizing pins in a pin box, tying and cutting zip ties, and placing a GPU into a motherboard before unplugging the graphics card again to reset for the next trial.

The most promising result may have come from the pin insertion and organization task. In that robot-training scenario, AI coding agents achieved nearly 100 percent success faster than a “frontier human-in-the-loop method” developed by many of the same human researchers.

Such experiments also showed how larger teams of up to eight AI coding agents could achieve high success rates in robot training more quickly than smaller four-agent teams or single agents working alone. For example, the eight-agent team achieved 99 percent success on the Push-T task in two hours of research time, compared to the four-agent team requiring three hours and the single-agent team requiring nearly five hours.

But the human researchers also discovered some crucial limitations when unleashing AI coding agents as autonomous robot trainers. The robots often sat idle and unused while the coding agents were busy “reading logs, writing code, debugging, or waiting for the language-model backbone.” Larger teams of coding agents also spent more time summarizing each other’s ideas and less time actually using the robots, and the coding agents sometimes failed to make full use of available compute resources when launching parallel training sessions.

The faster success rates enabled through more agents and robots working together also came at the cost of higher token consumption—a noteworthy consideration at a time when AI developers such as Anthropic are weighing pricing changes that would significantly increase the token-related costs of using AI services.

Flush with cash from the AI boom, Nvidia has been busily pushing its vision for physical AI through multiple robotics initiatives. On May 31, the company announced a partnership with the prominent Chinese robotics company Unitree to provide a “Reference Humanoid Robot” for research labs developing general-purpose AI-powered robots.

During a whirlwind tour of South Korea in early June, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang also met with Hyundai Motor Executive Chair Chung Euisun to discuss scaling up the mass manufacturing of AI-powered robots. Hyundai Motor Group owns the US robotics company Boston Dynamics, which is already well-known for its four-legged “robot dog” Spot and has been working to commercialize its Atlas humanoid robot.

Senate Democrats Aren’t Happy About Trump’s Spy Law Ultimatum

By
Matt Sledge
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senate-democrats-aren’t-happy-about-trump’s-spy-law-ultimatum
Senate Democrats Aren’t Happy About Trump’s Spy Law Ultimatum


Before President Donald Trump threw his latest hand grenade into congressional negotiations over a key domestic spying law, two factions of Senate Democrats seemed to believe they were on the verge of a breakthrough.

Privacy advocates thought they had their best chance in years of passing reforms, including a warrant requirement for searching American communications collected abroad.

Centrists allied with U.S. intelligence agencies, meanwhile, thought they were close to renewing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act with only minor tweaks.

Then Trump, who had once already thrown the renewal process into chaos, announced on Wednesday that he wouldn’t sign it unless Congress passed an unrelated voter suppression bill.

Claiming that Democrats were poised to walk away from a spy law compromise, Trump said that “to add a slight bit of intrigue but, for the Good of the Nation, and the People of our Country, I will not approve FISA without THE SAVE AMERICA ACT going along with it.”

Trump’s surprise outburst on Truth Social on Wednesday scrapped the confirmation hearing set later in the day for Jay Clayton, a federal prosecutor in New York, to serve as the permanent director of national intelligence. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., had said that he hoped to quickly confirm Clayton.

Clayton’s impending confirmation had appeared to solve a problem — at least for some Democrats — that Trump created by tapping lapdog housing chief, Bill Pulte, as the Cabinet-level intelligence chief. It might also have opened a route for Congress to renew Section 702, the surveillance law that allows federal agents to conduct “backdoor,” warrantless searches of Americans’ communications collected abroad.

In a joint press conference on Wednesday, top Senate Democrats revealed the cracks in their coalition over next steps on FISA.

A key reformer, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said he still hopes to pursue adding a warrant requirement to Section 702, while a centrist aligned with the intelligence agencies, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., expressed disappointment that the easiest route to renewal without major changes had been foreclosed.

“We had a path forward, as of yesterday, and today we don’t, and that’s because of this president.”

“This has become a complete debacle, and now it’s up to the White House to figure out a path forward here,” said Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., a member of the intelligence committee. “We had a path forward, as of yesterday, and today we don’t, and that’s because of this president and his advisers.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., remained cagey about what version of the law he would like to see ultimately passed. But in comments at the joint press conference, he sought to portray Democrats as the more responsible party when it came to Section 702.

“It’s on our Republican colleagues to work with us to find A) a capable director, not someone who is a menace, and second, then to work with us on renewing FISA. It is up to them,” Schumer said at the press conference. He said he was deeply concerned about Trump’s appointment of Pulte, who appears likely to step into the office on Friday.

Republicans “have got to have the courage to buck the president, who clearly doesn’t want a DNI director and doesn’t want FISA renewed,” Schumer said. “All he wants is Pulte.”

Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, claimed Sunday that Section 702 renewal was on a “glide path” before Pulte’s nomination. He also praised Clayton’s selection, while reserving the right to ask about Clayton’s views on election integrity.

Reformers said Thursday, however, that Section 702’s renewal was never as assured as Warner and Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Tom Cotton, R-Ark., have suggested in public comments.

Majorities of both Republicans and Democrats voted in recent weeks against advancing the law’s renewal in versions of the bill that do not include a warrant requirement.

“They don’t want to have to deal with people who want things like warrants.”

“They want that to be the narrative, because they don’t want to have to deal with people who want things like warrants,” said Kia Hamadanchy, a senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union. “At no point have they actually demonstrated that they have a deal that one, has 60 votes in the Senate, and two, has any chance of going anywhere in the House.”

Wyden expressed alarm about Trump’s actions at the joint Senate Democrat press conference. Wyden said that he always wanted to reform the law — not allow it to expire.

“It is now even clearer than before that the only path to 60 votes in the United States Senate on intelligence is real reform, actual black-letter law, that addresses these issues,” Wyden said.

Privacy advocates argue that the way out of the congressional logjam is to allow members of Congress to vote on whether to add a warrant requirement, something that Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson have not been willing to allow so far. Even then, however, Trump could veto whatever version of the law emerges from that process.

Belfast unrest including racist attacks shows social media power

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IwPost
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belfast-unrest-including-racist-attacks-shows-social-media-power
Belfast unrest including racist attacks shows social media power

Photo: Sipa US / Alamy Live News

Footage of a horrific knife attack in Belfast began to circulate on social media on Monday evening. A Sudanese asylum-seeker in his 30s, who entered the UK in 2023, has been charged with attempted murder. Meanwhile, the far-right was quick to exploit the situation to further an anti-immigration agenda.

Violent unrest followed on the streets of Belfast and beyond on Tuesday evening. Houses, cars and a bus were set alight, and masked men were seen smashing in windows. Some of the attacks on property were reportedly racist in nature.

Posting earlier on social media, activist Tommy Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) urged supporters to join street protests against this “invader attack.” Robinson provided a list of locations across Great Britain and Northern Ireland where protests were planned on Tuesday night.

His post on X was shared by tech billionaire Elon Musk, who called for citizens to protest “repeatedly and loudly” to change government policies around immigration.

Elon Musk. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

The leader of Restore UK, Rupert Lowe, pledged that his party would begin mass deportations and reintroduce the death penalty to prevent attacks committed by “barbarians.”

At the same time, WhatsApp messages from anonymous accounts began to circulate, calling for men aged 18 and over in Northern Ireland “be prepared to fight or be arrested.”

Calls for calm

Politicians from across Northern Ireland’s political divide appealed for calm with some condemning rightwing English politicians like Lowe for appearing to exploit the attack for their own ends.

And the chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), Jon Boutcher, urged citizens not to be “duped” into violent disorder by people online intent on provoking trouble.

The fact that a man had been charged with attempted murder did little to deter the crowds of mostly young men who gathered across Belfast, setting a bus on fire on the Lower Newtownards Road and engaging in sporadic clashes with police across the city.

Youtube video

There were reports of violence in towns such as Ballyclare and Portadown. In Ballyclare, the premises of a Turkish barber was attacked. There were also arrests made after demonstrations in Glasgow in which three members of the public were injured.

You could be forgiven for thinking this playbook has been seen before. In the past two years, far-right actors have used online platforms to weaponise incidents involving minorities as part of their anti-immigration campaigns. These incidents include allegations of an attempted rape of a teenage girl in Ballymena, the murder of three young girls in Southport and the murder of Henry Nowak in Southampton.

Misinformation frequently circulates in online spaces as authorities come under pressure to confirm the ethnicity and asylum status of suspects. The PSNI were very quick to give these details, presumably to avoid creating an information vacuum in which falsehoods might spread quickly.

Emergence of a toxic discourse

Facts don’t appear to matter to those leveraging shock and trauma to advance their claims that immigration is to blame for acts of violence. Condemnations of online far-right agitators from politicians usually follow amid criticism of big tech companies for not doing more to stop agitators inciting violence on their platforms.

Politicians and public figures must do more than say “not in our name”. They must take some of the blame for helping to create a toxic discourse around immigration that “others” asylum-seekers and migrants.

The Overton Window, the barometer of what is considered a politically acceptable argument, has shifted towards the right, as demonstrated by Lowe’s remarks. Misinformation and disinformation about immigration take root in some communities because they frequently hear how asylum-seekers receive priority access to already under-funded public services.

A frequent refrain among politicians is that these are “legitimate concerns”, even when there is little evidence to support these claims. This often leads to minority communities being blamed for issues that are nothing to do with them.

The mainstreaming of rightwing views on immigration is reinforced by media coverage that frequently fails to fact-check claims about issues such as asylum-seekers and welfare benefits. In this context, it is perhaps unsurprising that immigration features among the issues of most concern to voters in Great Britain.

It is now for politicians to decide how to respond to the violence seen in Belfast and elsewhere this week. While online platforms can clearly do better when it comes to removing inflammatory posts, public figures must also fix the problem they helped to create. The public needs a fact-based narrative on immigration that stops blaming asylum-seekers and refugees for broader societal problems.

Paul Reilly is a senior lecturer in communications, media and democracy, University of Glasgow.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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