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One of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's central campaign promises was to fight for affordable housing. Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani's rent freeze for stabilized apartments starts in October 2026. Critics argue the rent freeze could degrade apartment quality and raise market-rate rents. Submit an inquiry to check if your apartment is rent-stabilized via the NY State Homes agency. One of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's signature campaign promises is officially coming to fruition. New York City's Rent Guidelines Board voted 7-1 on June 25 to freeze rents on one- and two-year leases for roughly 1 million rent-stabilized apartments. The rent freeze comes as many New Yorkers struggle to find affordable housing in one of the world's most expensive cities. Supporters see the policy as a way to address the affordability crisis by preventing housing costs from rising. Through Business Insider's Cost of the City series, we've spoken to New Yorkers about what it takes to make a living in the city and the financial pressures they face. Are you living in a rent-stabilized apartment? We'd like to hear from New Yorkers about how rising costs, taxes, repairs, or housing policies have affected you. If you're willing to share your experience, contact mros@businessinsider.com. Amid the chaos of the approval process, including some celebrations and a resignation, here's what tenants need to know about how the freeze will work and how it could impact you. When the rent freeze takes effect The rent freeze for the roughly 40% of NYC rental housing that is rent-stabilized will impact one- and two-year leases that start on or after October 1, 2026, up until September 30, 2027. Eligible leases signed or renewed between those two dates will be automatically subjected to the rent freeze. If your lease is renewed before this date, current regulations accepted by the Rent Guidelines Board as of June 2025 will apply. This includes a 3% allowed annual adjustment for one-year leases and a 4.5% allowed adjustment for two-year leases. These regulations have been in place since October 1, 2025 and will continue until September 30, 2026. The city's Rent Guidelines Board will vote again next year to determine rent adjustments for leases after September 30, 2027. How to find out if your apartment is rent-stabilized Rent-stabilized apartments are usually in buildings built between 1947 and 1974, though some newer buildings are also included because they received specific tax benefits, according to the Office of Rent Administration (ORA). The designation limits "rent increases, guarantees lease renewals, and protects tenants from eviction except as allowed by law." The best way to check if you live in a rent-stabilized apartment is by submitting an inquiry to the ORA, a government agency part of the New York State Homes and Community Renewal, the State's affordable housing agency. Through here, you can request your official apartment rent history or a form asking if your apartment is rent-stabilized. A response should be sent within 20 business days. If you believe you are being improperly charged, you can seek legal assistance or submit an overcharge complaint to the ORA. How the rent freeze could affect landlords and market-rate apartments Critics of the policy said the rent freeze could impact landlords' ability to maintain the quality of these rent-stabilized apartments. As landlords face higher operating costs and inflation, critics say the inability to raise rents could lead them to cut costs and make it harder for them to maintain buildings. Arpit Gupta, a public member of the Rent Guidelines Board and an associate professor of finance at NYU Stern, voted against the freeze and wrote in an article published Friday that the long-term condition of these rent-stabilized buildings is "troubling." "Freezing their rents while their expenses remain uncapped is therefore a threat to their long-term financial viability," he wrote. "Residents might continue to enjoy low rents, but at the cost of being trapped in units that no longer fit their needs, and with few alternatives and steadily deteriorating conditions." The freeze only impacts rent-stabilized apartments, which means rents on market-rate apartments are not directly affected by the policy. Yet, some critics said the freeze could push prices for market-rate apartments up due to the increased pressure on the housing market. Mamdani is implementing other measures to provide affordable housing in the city. His Block by Block Housing Plan aims to construct 200,000 additional homes over the next decade, while also preserving existing affordable housing. Read the original article on Business Insider

Sam Tabahriti / Reuters: The UK CMA proposes requiring Apple and Google to relax UK developer payment “steering” rules, and Apple to open NFC; Google says it “already made the changes”  —  Britain's competition regulator on Tuesday proposed allowing app developers to steer users …

China’s LineShine debuted as the world’s fastest supercomputer on TOP500, but mixed-precision benchmark results complicate its AI performance claim. The post China’s LineShine Tops Supercomputer List Despite AI Benchmark Gap appeared first on TechRepublic.

Getty Images; Alyssa Powell/BI Baby boomers are having some second thoughts about the whole "till death do us part" thing. Instead of waiting for someone to land in a coffin to go their separate ways, they're going to the courthouse. Longer lives have married people wondering whether they actually want to spend their now-extended golden years with some not-so-golden feelings about the person next to them. A growing number of people over 50 — especially those over 65 — are deciding that they don't. The face of divorce has a lot more wrinkles and gray hair than it used to, and that brings with it a fresh set of financial calculations and complications. The challenge isn't just what to do with the kids and the house. It's dividing up retirement savings that were supposed to support one household, rewriting wills and trusts, and overhauling estate plans. It's also digging up 25-year-old paperwork and worrying about what happens to your inheritance if your 70-year-old Dad dives into marriage No. 2. For families, a late-in-life split can be a financial quagmire. As the US enters the largest intergenerational wealth transfer in history, gray divorce may quietly reroute trillions of dollars and reshape the retirement many people have envisioned. "It doesn't matter if they're high net worth or if they have fewer resources," says Susan Guthrie, a divorce attorney and mediator based in Chicago and the host of the Divorce & Beyond podcast. "You're talking about a lifetime of creation being completely upended late in the game." The overall divorce rate in America peaked at 22.6 per 1,000 married women in 1980 and has generally declined since then, hitting 14.2 per 1,000 in 2024. Break it down by age group, however, and the picture shifts: Divorce has fallen among people in their 20s and 30s since 1990, but for people over 50, it's doubled, and for those over 65, it's tripled. Older people still get divorced at lower rates than younger people, but nowadays, nearly 40% of divorces involve adults over 50. Do baby boomers love leaving their spouses? Not entirely, but experts say the reasons for this surge in silver splits are tough to pin down. Longer life expectancies mean the prospect of being in an unhappy marriage for a longer period can be daunting. Now that most middle-class households have two incomes, both partners may feel they have greater financial independence to take a leap. The stigma around divorce has declined, too. You're talking about a lifetime of creation being completely upended late in the game. Whatever the exact combination of motives, divorce attorneys say they've seen an uptick of older people showing up in their offices. Frank Perrone, the cochair of the matrimonial law practice at Tarter Krinsky & Drogin in New York, says he's working on two gray divorce cases, including one where the parties are in their 80s. The wife wants to go out, travel with her grandkids, and spend money, while the husband doesn't want to leave the house. The conflict has caused a lot of financial animosity between the pair, so they've decided to go their separate ways and split everything up. "It's very sad," Perrone says, but "everybody deserves to try to be happy." Divorce is always messy, but the logistics of it after decades together can feel disastrous. For younger couples, divorce tends to focus on child custody and support, alimony, and what happens to the house. Because people are early or mid-career, they have more runway to rebuild their assets. For older people, their high-earning years are largely behind them, and if one spouse hasn't been working for years, the prospect of jumping back into the workforce is daunting. There's a lot more to divvy up and unwind. "The major issues often focus on income, retirement assets, pensions, 401(k)s, annuities. The biggest asset may not be the house anymore. It's more likely the retirement account," Perrone says. "It's not just the end of the marriage, it's basically, especially in long-term marriages, restructuring almost an entire lifestyle." There's lots of little bugaboos and caveats, whatever you want to call them, that most people don't know to look for. The post-divorce math is often brutal: A single-person household is much more expensive to run than a two-person household. Retirement accounts are slashed, and newly single Americans may have to reevaluate how they'll spend their time and money in their later years. Gray divorce tends to hit women harder financially. Research shows women experience a 45% decline in their standard of living compared to a 21% decline for men. While times have changed, many women still spend years at home caring for their children, which can dampen their earnings prospects and career advancement even if they do stay in the workforce. They also have longer life expectancies, which may mean they ultimately need more money for retirement. Sharon Klein, president of family wealth at Wilmington Trust in New York and the head of its divorce advisory practice, says that lingering traditional gender roles mean that women sometimes don't have a clear picture of their families' finances or even have credit histories. They need a crash course in managing their money. "Women need to get educated about what they have," Klein says. They're often inclined to lean on friends and family who've been through similar experiences, and while that support is invaluable, those networks aren't equipped to handle the administrative nightmare of a late-life split. "That's tax issues, legal issues, investment decisions, making decisions too quickly," she says. Laws around how assets are divvied up vary state by state, and every divorce is unique. But couples often underestimate how many moving parts there will be: taxes, illiquid assets, estate planning, and more. "There's lots of little bugaboos and caveats, whatever you want to call them, that most people don't know to look for," says Jeff Judge, a managing partner at Chesapeake Financial Planners. People may update their wills post-divorce to remove their former spouses and not realize that there are other accounts whose beneficiaries also need to be updated—think trusts, 401(k)s, life insurance. Or, they'll forget to change powers of attorney, and no one wants their ex deciding whether to pull the plug at the hospital. People believe that they split assets fairly upon separating, only to find out later that because of different tax liabilities on different assets, they wound up getting the short end of the stick. Judge once worked with a woman who, years after her divorce, realized that their "equal" split was not so equal because she'd gotten accounts with a higher tax burden than her husband. He also recalls a client who didn't realize until after her husband died that he'd never changed the beneficiary of his life insurance policy. Hundreds of thousands of dollars went directly to his ex-wife. "It is very common in a gray divorce for them to have left assets in the name of the ex, even if they've been divorced a long time and even if they paid a lot of money during the divorce," says Craig Parker, assistant general counsel of Trust & Will, a website that helps with estate planning. "The estate plan is a separate stop." There are all sorts of novel hiccups that come up in later-in-life divorces. Parties may not be able to prove that inherited property is only theirs because they no longer have a copy of the will that left it to them. Prenuptial agreements weren't as common decades ago, and even if one existed, people sometimes can't find them. Adult children sometimes push their parents to fight out their divorces in court, says Sophie Spears, an associate attorney at Mosberg Sharma Stambleck Gross LLP in New York, instead of going through mediation or settling. Not only is that route "inconvenient, uncomfortable, and invasive," but it's also expensive. Divorcing couples — particularly women — may also not like that courts won't be amenable to including gifts to grandchildren and travel with family in their expenses for potential maintenance payments. Judges don't care about how much people want to leave their kids. The court bases its determinations only on how much the spouse needs for essentials such as housing, food, and generally getting back on their feet. Blended families, in particular, are when gray divorces get hairy. In many cases, gray divorces are actually second marriages, says Michael Calogero, a partner at Cohen Clair Lans Greifer & Simpson in New York. The parties are "not just focused on dividing those assets of this second marriage, but also preserving and protecting particular assets and property for their heirs, who will be different than their spouse's heirs." This is particularly acute among high-net-worth families. Things can get even dicier if the gray divorce is followed by a gray marriage. If Mom or Dad remarries and retitles their assets or home to their new spouses, children may be disinherited. People, understandably, want to make sure their new spouse is taken care of in the event that they die, but their kids may not love that someone they're not related to winds up with a chunk of money they thought was headed their way. In many states, even if a person leaves everything to their children, the spouse has a legal right to a percentage of their fortune, which can then be rerouted to their own kids. Families avoid planning around it because it's uncomfortable, and then they wind up in court. "When it comes to money, all of a sudden, when a parent dies, the children want their money immediately, and a good relationship between the children and a surviving step-parent can change really quickly," says Todd Bornstein, a trust and estates attorney at Selzer Gurvitch Rabin Wertheimer & Polott, P.C. in Maryland. Gray divorces represent a confluence of major life stressors all at once — broken relationships, retirement, estates, inheritance, declining health. It can induce a scarcity mindset. People have to think of everything from family holidays to long-term care differently. This financial anxiety can hit even at the highest levels of wealth. Spuds Powell, managing director at Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management in California, points to one client who was left with $75 million after her divorce. She still lives a "life of frustration," he says, because she was previously married to a billionaire. She wants to try to maintain her lifestyle, but she's also worried about overspending since she's no longer clued in on her ex-husband's estate plans for their children. "In a world where the exes are not communicating effectively with one another, how do you try to handle the uncertainty around what ultimately that means for inheritance for kids?" Powell says. You don't get divorced suddenly. To be sure, most people are not dealing with millions of dollars. They're just trying to make it through and keep the disruption to a minimum. Valerie Montague, now 69, was 54 when she left her marriage of two decades. Her husband was a financial manager and always handled the couple's accounts, so she prepared quietly. "You don't get divorced suddenly," Montague, who lives in Maryland, says. "I had started saving, and I told myself, 'When I get to $10,000, I'm going to leave.'" After her mother died in 2009, Montague inherited the proceeds of a condo sale and a life insurance policy. She used it as a financial life raft to rent an apartment in the same school district so that her two teenage daughters could finish high school undisturbed. She was laid off from her job soon after, however, and spent six months unemployed before landing a new, lower-paying role. Montague and her ex agreed to wait to sell the house until after both of their daughters graduated from college, so they could use equity lines of credit to help pay for tuition. That meant that the most difficult part of their divorce came years later, when the house finally went on the market. "We argued over every little thing," she says — the inspection, the contract, the fact that after she moved out he'd finally taken out a loan for the kitchen renovation she'd wanted for years. "Having to deal with him so much during that period was very stressful," she says. The sale closed shortly after her youngest daughter finished college in 2015, and Montague used the proceeds to buy her current condo in 2016 — five years after her divorce was finalized. Montague retired last fall, but she still runs a side business helping people get their financial affairs in order. It's inspired by her experience managing her estate — and, in part, by her divorce. "If you believe you're going to get divorced," she says, "plan for the financial situation." Emily Stewart is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, writing about business and the economy. Read the original article on Business Insider

Ukrainians who want to learn to fly drones come to the Killhouse, an intensive training program run by the military. Jake Epstein/Business Insider KYIV, Ukraine — The pilot was learning to hunt. Inside a warehouse strewn with hanging tires and metal hoops, a small quadcopter lifted off the floor and crept slowly toward a fake Russian tank. The drone cleared several hoops, then drifted toward a tire and clipped the rubber, sending it crashing into the dusty concrete floor. In the Killhouse, it was a lesson. On the battlefield, that same loss of control could mean losing a drone before it can cripple Russian armor, reach a trench, or deliver supplies to soldiers fighting for their lives in the kill zone. "With an FPV drone, you can't afford to lose control," said a Ukrainian soldier with the call sign Radio, referring to the first-person-view drones now prolific in combat. Uncrewed systems in Ukraine, both in the air and on the ground, are moving supplies, guiding attacks, and killing troops and vehicles in unforgiving combat. But these tools are only as useful as their operators' skills. Drone pilots are trained to fly through jamming, evade defenses, conserve battery, and adapt to shifting Russian tactics. That is what Killhouse Academy, run by Ukraine's elite 3rd Assault Brigade, is built to teach. It trains new pilots and constantly updates its courses with fresh battlefield lessons. It draws Ukrainian soldiers, as well as foreign volunteers eager to learn from the world's most intense drone war. The academy serves as an important reminder that in war, the side with the most expensive weaponry isn't necessarily the one that wins. Armed conflict tends to reward the side that learns the fastest as the battlefield evolves. In this war, a cheap drone in the hands of a skilled pilot can be devastating, but that outcome takes intensive training. "It's like driving a car," said a foreign soldier who goes by the call sign Sante. "You need to learn properly, and you need to practice and practice and practice and practice." Business Insider recently went inside the Killhouse training facility and spoke with brigade personnel, instructors, and students about how Ukraine is turning battlefield experience into a training pipeline for drone warfare — and what other militaries can learn from it. The Killhouse draws students from across Ukraine and around the world Combat drone pilots in Ukraine's 3rd Assault Brigade set up the Killhouse Academy two years ago as Ukraine looked for ways to offset Russia's larger military. Unable to match Moscow force-for-force, Ukrainian troops turned to cheap drones to achieve mass, strike expensive targets, and gain an asymmetric edge. Ukraine has poured money and urgency into drones, ground robots, and other unmanned systems, turning battlefield necessity into hard-won expertise. Once reliant on Western weapons to hold off Russia, Kyiv is now using its combat experience to teach foreign militaries how drones are changing the fight. The 3rd Assault Brigade launched the Killhouse two years ago as Ukraine tried to offset the larger Russian military. Jake Epstein/Business Insider "People come from all over the world to study here," said Radio, a Killhouse spokesperson. Moments later, the interview was cut short by the piercing sound of an air-raid siren, forcing students and staff to take shelter. Drone schools and training sites, much like operators on the battlefield, are priority targets. The warning is a reminder of the risks graduating students may take in the field. Sante, a foreign fighter from the Mediterranean who arrived in Ukraine last year, had never flown a drone when he enrolled in the academy. In combat, he had received supplies from some drones and hid from others. Their growing importance on the battlefield convinced him he needed to learn more, he said. The Killhouse began as a basic FPV training course but has since expanded to include an advanced training program, a fixed-wing drone engineering course, and a school for uncrewed ground vehicles. These changes reflect broader evolutions in the war. And as uncrewed warfare evolves, training must change with it. The basic FPV course costs roughly $180 for Ukrainians and twice that for foreigners, who make up about 5% of students. Ukrainian soldiers receive a discount, while disabled military personnel and members of the 3rd Army Corps can attend free of charge. Some students are as young as 15 — they have to get their parents' permission — while others are older than 60. Most participants are soldiers, but courses also draw civilians and defense industry workers who want to learn more about drones, especially if they're involved in military-technology work. For Ukraine, the challenge has moved beyond building drones. The country produces millions a year. Now, it's finding enough people who can fly them well enough to survive electronic warfare, dodge Russian defenses, and hit targets in the heat of battle. Business Insider reporters traveled across Ukraine to document how new technologies, tactics, and industries are radically changing warfare. Read more dispatches from Ukraine: Ukraine's war robots are surging into the kill zone Ukrainian troops are losing days just getting to their positions in the kill zone. It's when they're most at risk. Ukraine is turning heavy bomber drones into supply haulers as front-line logistics become too dangerous for humans "Statistically speaking, older people usually have a harder time, especially if they've never played video games before," Radio said. By contrast, teenagers with this experience can master the course in a matter of days, he said. About 80% of drone students graduate Every month, roughly 250 students participate in the basic FPV course. Those in the daytime session train for six hours a day, six days a week. There's another held in the evening for people who have work or school — it's only three hours a night but goes for 10 days. When Business Insider visited the academy in May, students were in the middle of their final day of the basic course. It's a tough program, and not everyone makes it through; only 80% of students graduate, receiving a certificate showing they are qualified drone pilots. Those who fail the final exam can try again later. The instructional portion of the course is held in a temporary module-turned-classroom inside the large warehouse, where students learn the basics of FPVs — including how they are built and how they work — and practice flying on computer simulators before they hit the obstacle course with 7-inch quadcopters, a standard size for FPV drones. There are two additional modules in the warehouse that serve as ground control stations, allowing multiple students to fly through the obstacle courses simultaneously. While it's possible to pilot using a virtual reality headset, they work with computer screens, allowing students to work in teams while instructors watch their moves from behind. The basic FPV course costs $180 for Ukrainians. Foreigners, who make up 5% of students, pay twice that. Jake Epstein/Business Insider Students usually begin working on the obstacle course of tires and metal hoops on the second or third day, after completing simulator exercises. To graduate, they must show they can handle the basics that matter most in combat: takeoff, hovering, flying through at least three obstacles, and landing. To wage war effectively, they'll want to continue honing their skills. Piloting an FPV is not too difficult, Sante said, but "it takes time to get adapted to the drone controller and the drone itself," both of which are highly sensitive. "It takes getting used to," Radio said. "You have to understand how it works. Your brain has to build those neural connections, and that's probably the hardest part. Ironically, the hardest thing in FPV piloting is flying very slowly or hovering in one place." The FPVs lack a stabilization feature, he said. They can't hover in place at the push of a button, so pilots have to constantly make little movements to keep the drones from crashing. The basic course focuses on teaching pilots that sense of control, said Tokyo, an instructor who goes by her call sign. Students learn to hover, make tight turns, and handle practical issues such as signal loss. Later in their training, they may learn how to hunt moving targets. "We are teaching them to fly slowly because that means you can fly much longer distances because your battery wouldn't discharge fast," Tokyo said. The program is a mix of classroom-style instruction and flight training through an obstacle course. Jake Epstein/Business Insider Ukraine is constantly updating its courses to meet new battlefield challenges Killhouse is part of Ukraine's attempt to turn battlefield experience into something repeatable: train pilots, absorb new lessons from the front, update the course, and send those lessons back out. Ukraine recently signed drone and security deals with NATO and Middle Eastern countries, and it has sent specialists abroad to train foreign militaries in drone and counter-drone warfare. Radio said discussions are underway with several countries, including some NATO members, to launch Killhouse courses abroad. Fresh battlefield data has led to improvements in the courses, and that constant updating is central to the academy's purpose. Drone warfare has changed significantly in the two years since Killhouse launched, and it continues to change, forcing instructors to adjust the course so pilots are not learning tactics already overtaken by evolutions in the war. Radio said Killhouse is always watching what's happening on the front lines, including through the eyes of its instructors with combat experience. Sometimes this means making adjustments, such as creating harder obstacle courses to challenge students. Drone warfare has changed significantly over the past two years, and the Killhouse is constantly updating its program. Jake Epstein/Business Insider "The situation changes constantly," he said. "Fiber optics appeared, the role of ground robotic systems is becoming more visible and more important, and we, of course, adapt to the modern conditions of war." One of the biggest shifts in the war this year has been Ukraine's push to replace humans with drones for logistics missions. That has made flying skills important beyond attack missions. Drones are now part of how Ukrainian forces move ammunition, food, water, and other supplies through areas where sending people can be fatal. "Logistics today can't be executed without drones — ground drones or flying ones," Sante said. "Without drones, you're dead." He said the role of drones could change again as the war evolves, but for now, "they are vital." Read the original article on Business Insider

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Stephanie Stacey / Financial Times: Hotels, tour operators, and travel agencies rush to launch proprietary online tools and loyalty schemes to fend off future competition from AI travel agents  —  Chatbots could help to find, filter and book customers' destinations  —  Hotels, tour operators and travel agencies are rushing …

Developers did not lose their AI credentials to a phishing email. They lost them to a … JetBrains Plugin Attack Exposes the New Weak Point in Developer Tooling: AI API KeysRead more The post JetBrains Plugin Attack Exposes the New Weak Point in Developer Tooling: AI API Keys appeared first on .

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Stuart A. Thompson / New York Times: Political campaign managers and consultants are using AI to analyze voter data, create campaign materials, and more; survey: 87% of campaigners use AI daily  —  A.I.-generated images are the public face of this election overhaul.  Behind the scenes, campaigns are using the technology to analyze voter data …

Reuters: Five Chinese tech and advanced manufacturing companies launched Hong Kong listings today to raise up to $5.6B, led by Apple supplier Luxshare's $3.15B offering  —  Five Chinese technology and advanced manufacturing companies launched Hong Kong listings on Tuesday to raise up to HK$44.1 billion …

Nikkei Asia: Sources: Chinese smartphone makers like Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo told suppliers they will again cut 2026 shipment targets, with Xiaomi cutting 30% to ~95M units  —  TAIPEI — Major Chinese smartphone makers including Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo have told suppliers they will again cut shipment targets …

A new report finds "high-intensity AI adopters” saw headcount increase 10.2%. Among those companies, entry-level headcount rose by 12%, countering the rhetoric that AI kills junior jobs.

arXiv:2606.28524v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Recent work suggests that Large Language Models (LLMs) are sensitive to the belief states of agents described by text, as measured by the false belief task (FBT), yet persistent concerns of construct validity remain. We adopt a **developmental perspective**, tracing the pattern of mental state reasoning behavior -- and likely **preconditions** for this behavior -- across multiple training stages in the Olmo2 and Pythia language model suites. We find that above-chance FBT performance depends both on model size and sufficient training volume, emerges relatively late in pretraining, and is most improved by post-training interventions (SFT, DPO) in the condition most diagnostic of mentalizing (False Belief, Implicit). However, FBT performance is fragile: consistent with past work, the use of non-factive verbs (e.g., thinks) increases false belief attributions even in the True Belief condition. To contextualize these findings, we track the emergence of **situation modeling**: the ability to report on basic factual properties of a described scene. Situation modeling accuracy generally precedes and exceeds FBT accuracy, yet situational representations also prove surprisingly incoherent in certain respects: when asked about the knowledge states of the Antagonist agent -- who always knows the item's true location -- Olmo2 13b is consistently influenced both by the Target agent's knowledge state and the presence of non-factive verbs. Together, these results suggest that larger, sufficiently trained models build partially coherent situation models in a developmentally appropriate sequence, yet display surprising fragility -- highlighting the value of developmental and stress-testing approaches for evaluating LLM capabilities.

arXiv:2606.28526v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: The clinical and communication skills of medical students are commonly assessed through Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs), which consist of brief scenario-driven simulations of doctor-patient interactions. However, training is often limited by the low availability of human standardized patients, motivating the development of realistic virtual patients (VPs). To address this gap, we introduce a French OSCE dialogue dataset comprising 240 student-patient training interactions. We build upon it a controllable LLM-based pipeline to generate synthetic OSCE dialogues. The pipeline integrates modular components, such as retrieval-based grounding and a reflection loop, to ensure patient fidelity, coherence, and realism. Additionally, we propose a multi-level evaluation framework assessing patient simulation quality, student performance, and linguistic quality, using an LLM-as-a-Judge approach. Experiments suggest that controllability modules generally improve patient fidelity and student evaluation consistency. Finally, we implement an interactive prototype in which students can practice with a VP and receive automatic feedback.

arXiv:2606.28548v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Sparse autoencoders (SAEs) have become a useful tool for extracting interpretable features in language models. However, standard SAE architectures operate on individual token activations, meaning that the number of active features scales linearly with context length, and studying long model transcripts becomes difficult. We introduce turn-averaged SAEs, which represent a single Human or Assistant turn with a fixed number of features by learning to reconstruct the average model activation across the turn. We find that turn-averaged features describe a single turn's high-level characteristics more completely than per-token features when judged by an LLM. We also demonstrate that turn-averaged SAEs greatly simplify common downstream uses of SAEs like attribution graphs. Broadly, turn-averaged SAEs make interpretability techniques practical at long context lengths.

arXiv:2606.28538v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We investigate domain adaptation of modern BERT models in the legal domain. We further pre-train ModernBERT on all US court opinions using the masked language modeling objective. Although ModernBERT has been trained on roughly 500x more data than original BERT, we still find that this model benefits from further pre-training and domain adaptation in the legal domain: we report significant improvements compared to vanilla ModernBERT on all datasets connected to US court opinions. We find gains similar to those reported in early work on domain adaptation of BERT-like models. However, from scratch pre-training does not match the performance of further pre-training an existing ModernBERT checkpoint in our experiments. The resulting models are capable of processing sequences up to 8,192 tokens, and can be used to compute meaningful embeddings of legal passages, or could quickly rerank hundreds of legal passages for a given search query. We release all model checkpoints publicly.