India is home to about 60% of the world’s wild Asian elephants, and around 80% of the animals’ habitat lies outside protected areas, according to the Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change. That brings people and wildlife into close contact, and clashes can turn lethal: There have been some 3,000 human casualties in the…

Jos Benschop is climbing a ladder to get to the top of his newest machine.  It’s a bit of a schlep. The contraption is the size of a double-decker bus—more than 150 tons of gleaming precision-milled aluminum covered in thousands of snaking tubes, colored cables, and pressurized tanks. From the ground, it looks like a…

The global surge in AI cyber threats is no longer a distant problem for corporate data centres, according to an urgent public warning from the world’s most powerful intelligence alliance. On June 22, 2026, the cybersecurity chiefs of the Five Eyes nations—comprising the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand—issued a rare joint intelligence briefing stating that upcoming artificial […] The post Top spy agencies say AI cyber threats will impact you within months. Here’s why appeared first on AI News.

Frenchsemiconductor company AlpSemi has raised €17million in a funding round led by Yotta Capital, with participation from SE Ventures, Navitas Semiconductor and Cycle Group. The financing will suppor...

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Telecom operators are adopting AI across network operations, customer care, and back-office workflows, but most are still early in the journey to autonomy. In... Telecom operators are adopting AI across network operations, customer care, and back-office workflows, but most are still early in the journey to autonomy. In network operations, for example, automation typically sits in the Level 2–3 band of TM Forum’s autonomous networks levels taxonomy, streamlining execution of predefined solutions in selective network domains. Reaching Level 4–5 autonomy… Source

The purpose of Starfall is to support the "transport and delivery of goods through space."

Evelyn Cheng / CNBC: Syntun: online sales during China's 618 shopping festival grew 4% YoY, a sharp drop from 15.2% growth last year, amid a persistent consumer spending slowdown  —  BEIJING — China's consumer spending slowdown persisted in June, with growth during one of the country's largest online shopping …

Patrick Temple-West / Financial Times: Eli Lilly plans to use its $7.3B cash reserve to fund an “App Store” for biotech scientists after launching a data center with 1,016 Blackwell chips in 2025  —  Mounjaro maker is collaborating with small biotechs on AI as a tool for drug discovery

Financial Times: OpenAI debuts at Cannes Lions, pitching its new ChatGPT ad business and Codex to marketers, as it tries to build a multibillion-dollar business ahead of an IPO  —  Lossmaking AI group is presenting at Cannes Lions advertising conference for the first time  —  OpenAI is making its debut …

In today’s healthcare system, billing and insurance verification are two of the most time-consuming and complex … Can Virtual Medical Assistants Handle Insurance Verification & Billing?Read more The post Can Virtual Medical Assistants Handle Insurance Verification & Billing? appeared first on .

Trophim Laptev/Unsplash Cybersecurity agencies of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States issued a call to action on Monday for cyber defenders. The message was clear: artificial intelligence (AI) is a powerful weapon for cyber attackers; defenders must act urgently to improve their cyber defences. There is much hype and uncertainty surrounding AI and cybersecurity right now. This latest statement comes little over a week since the US government caused frontier AI provider Anthropic to block access to Mythos and Fable, its most advanced AI technology, over fears they might be misused by foreign adversaries to attack US government systems. In this torrid environment, it’s important for cyber defenders to look past the noise and prioritise what is truly important in protecting their systems. A call to arms The joint statement was issued by the heads of the national cybersecurity agencies of the Five Eyes. It warns that AI is dramatically shifting cyber risk and spells out how defenders must act to secure their organisations. It notes how powerful AI is already helping adversaries carry out more sophisticated attacks more quickly. One way this is happening is through automated vulnerability discovery and exploitation. No software is perfect. Adversaries leverage subtle design or implementation flaws in a system’s software to break into that system. They then take control of it and use it as a staging ground to launch further attacks. This is why it’s so important for cyber defenders to keep up to date with deploying software patches. These are small modifications to system software that close off known vulnerabilities. AI is enabling adversaries to find flaws orders of magnitude faster, as well as to work out how to exploit those flaws to carry out attacks. For this reason, the Five Eyes statement warns that AI is dramatically shrinking the time between when a vulnerability is first discovered and when it is first exploited in an attack. Defenders can no longer afford to wait weeks before deploying software patches. What can defenders do? The Five Eyes report notes cyber fundamentals are crucial and encourages organisations to use AI to boost defences. But deploying AI without first investing in cybersecurity basics would be a mistake. The cyber defenders who will be able to weather the AI storm will be those who already have mature practices. They know exactly what assets they need to protect, which systems in their organisation are exposed to attack, and what defences are in place to protect exposed systems. They also know to measure defence effectiveness and determine where defences are missing. They also use evidence-based processes for tracking known vulnerabilities in their systems and prioritising which are most important to patch. These are backed up by reliable processes for rapidly testing and rolling out software patches, as well as for responding to cyber breaches and incidents. When AI makes finding software vulnerabilities cheap, the next generation of software needs to be engineered to be secure by construction. Working out the best methods to do this is what I have devoted my research career to. Before reaching for AI, defenders should first invest in their fundamentals. Otherwise, they are effectively deploying a robot guard dog to defend an unlocked door. The role for AI in cyber defence This doesn’t mean AI can’t play an important role for cyber defence – just that it should augment rather than replace strong cyber fundamentals. AI benefits attackers and defenders alike. An AI model that can help attackers find software vulnerabilities can also help defenders fix those same vulnerabilities. AI that can automatically exploit software vulnerabilities is just as useful to defenders in helping them to confirm their software has been correctly patched. AI that can map and discover sensitive assets within a computer network is useful for both offensive and defensive purposes. This is why it’s so important that defenders have access to AI capabilities, so they can be leveraged to harden and protect systems before that same AI is used to attack them. Can regulation help? Working out how to balance the competing benefits and risks of new cybersecurity technology is nothing new. In the 1990s, society grappled with how to regulate the encryption that protects online communication from adversaries but also allows them to avoid law enforcement. In the 2000s the rise of cyber exploit kits allowed defenders to better test their systems but also enabled any disaffected teenager with an internet connection to become a “script kiddie” hacker, leading to arms controls debates a decade later. The 2010s gave us blockchain technologies such as Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which were built on defensive cyber technologies but whose lasting legacy remains the rise of ransomware attacks and online illicit marketplaces. The rise of AI presents a similar dilemma for regulators. A blanket export ban on advanced AI models is likely to be counterproductive. Open-source AI models such as DeepSeek lag only months behind the most advanced models of OpenAI and Anthropic. Recent research suggests that much of that gap can be closed by pairing less powerful AI models with complementary technologies. Defenders should therefore assume their adversaries already have access to AI on par with that used for cyber defence. Only by investing in strong foundations can they hope to escape the cat-and-mouse AI cyber arms race. Toby Murray receives funding for cybersecurity research from Google. He is Director of the Defence Science Institute, which receives Commonwealth and Victorian State Government funding.

Josh Eidelson / Bloomberg: A US NLRB judge ruled that Amazon violated federal law by not recognizing the Teamsters union at a SF warehouse and must collectively bargain with the workers  —  A US labor board judge ruled that Amazon.com Inc. must collectively bargain with California warehouse workers …

Rep. Daniel Goldman, who is facing a heated primary challenge, received an endorsement and more than $190,000 in donations from AIPAC for the 2026 cycle. Spencer Platt/Getty Images Poetica Coffee is facing a civil rights probe after banning a pro-Israel congressman from its cafés. The chain posted that they'd barred Rep. Daniel Goldman from stores, citing his ties to AIPAC. The Justice Department opened an investigation, calling the action "reprehensible." The Justice Department said Monday that it's investigating a chain of New York City coffee shops for banning a congressman over his support for Israel. In a Sunday post on Facebook, Poetica Coffee wrote that it had refunded and barred Democratic Rep. Daniel Goldman, from New York's 10th District, saying he was not "ever" welcome at its stores in Brooklyn and the East Village. "Hey Congressman Dan Goldman, we see that you stopped by our shop today for a coffee," read the post, which was accompanied by a photo of Goldman at the counter. "Do you see how it doesn't taste like genocide juice? Or are you still having a hard time telling the difference?" It continued: "See, here at Poetica, we don't serve racists, fascists, homophobes, genocide enablers, or anyone in between. Too bad we didn't recognize you right away, or we would have turned you away. We issued you a refund—we don't need your money (it's probably coming from AIPAC anyways)." Screenshots posted online showed that Goldman responded, saying he was sorry to see Poetica's post and that he bought a coffee from the business after a barista allowed his 7-year-old daughter to use the restroom, even though they had not purchased anything prior. "I made sure to buy a coffee in return for her kindness. I hope you at least make sure she gets the tip that she deserved," Goldman wrote. According to federal data, Goldman, who is facing a primary challenge from former city Comptroller Brad Lander, received an endorsement and more than $190,000 in direct and earmarked donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee for the 2026 cycle. Facing mounting pressure from Lander, Goldman publicly disavowed the donations and pledged to return the funds, Politico reported. By Monday evening, the coffee shop's founder, Parviz Mukhamadkulov, had become the subject of a pile-on of negative reviews and a federal probe, with Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, writing in an X post that the division was aware of the incident. "Federal law prohibits public accommodations such as coffee shops from discriminating against patrons based on their race, religion, or national origin," Dhillon wrote. "These actions are not only reprehensible, they're potentially illegal. The Civil Rights Division has opened an investigation, and will bring an enforcement action if warranted." Representatives for Poetica Coffee, the Justice Department, and Goldman did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider. Read the original article on Business Insider

Lucid ex-COO Marc Winterhoff said the company's partnership with Uber and Nuro was meant to deliver robotaxis fast and with capital discipline. Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images Lucid downsized its workforce by 18% on Monday and eliminated the COO role. The company said the cuts were meant to pave the way toward profitability and positive cash flow. COO Marc Winterhoff previously said that being capital-efficient is key to its robotaxi bet. Lucid Motors made a round of cuts that show how the EV maker is tightening its belt as it pursues an ambitious future in the midsize car market and robotaxis. Lucid said on Monday that it would cut about 18% of its US workforce, including eliminating the chief operating officer role held by Marc Winterhoff. Winterhoff also served as interim CEO for less than two years before Silvio Napoli was tapped for the role in April. In a securities filing, Lucid said it made the move to advance the company's path toward profitability and positive cash flow. The cuts come at a pivotal time for the company. Lucid has yet to prove that it can profitably scale its EV business. At an investor day in March, it laid out a sprawling future to diversify its vehicle lineup with sub-$50,000 midsize SUVs and to lay a stake in autonomous driving and robotaxis. Winterhoff told Business Insider in April that the company's robotaxi bet was deliberately designed to keep spending in check and avoid the kind of capital burn that would be required if Lucid had built a robotaxi operation from the ground up. "Our strategy is to offer solutions to individual customers and our robotaxi customers fast and, from our side, minimal deployment of capital investment in order to not hamper our way to profitability," he said, adding that robotaxi was a "second leg" for Lucid to stand on next to personally-owned vehicles. Lucid is pursuing robotaxis through a partnership with Uber and Nuro, targeting a commercial launch in San Francisco later this year. Uber is committing $500 million to supply at least 35,000 vehicles from Lucid, including 10,000 Gravity SUVs, Winterhoff said. Lucid's Gravity SUV will be retrofitted with Nuro's autonomous driving platform to deliver robotaxis for Uber. Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Image Winterhoff cited speed to market and capital-spending discipline as reasons Lucid chose the partnership route. The COO at the time said Uber wanted a robotaxi that could be ready for commercial deployment by 2026. "There was literally nobody out there saying, 'Okay, we can do that,'" he said. Building the autonomous vehicle stack in-house would also require "billions of investment," Winterhoff said, for returns that may not be seen until 2030 or beyond. Lucid expects to save some cash through its recently announced restructuring plans. The company said in the filing that it expects to generate about $158 million in annualized cost savings. As part of the cuts, Lucid also said it's eliminating the second production shift at AMP-1, Lucid's manufacturing plant in Casa Grande, Arizona. The company did not specify which vehicle programs or production lines would be affected. James Picariello, a senior analyst at BNP Paribas Equity Research, wrote in a note on Monday that Lucid remains on a "step road to breakeven." The analyst wrote that the cost-cutting effort suggests demand for the Lucid Air sedan and Gravity SUV remains soft, and the $158 million in cost savings does little to change the company's cash-burn trajectory. Still, Picariello told Business Insider that he does not see the latest cuts as a direct threat to Lucid's robotaxi plans. "I don't see any real direct implication from LCID's cost-cutting effort announced today, and its 'contract manufacturer' partnership with Uber/Nuro," Picariello wrote. "LCID should still be able to provide the Nuro-outfitted Gravity's & midsize CUVs as robotaxis to Uber." A spokesperson for Lucid said that Monday's announcement will not affect the company's robotaxi strategy or its Uber-Nuro partnership. Winterhoff did not respond to a request for comment. Read the original article on Business Insider

Gaby Del Valle / The Verge: Real estate professionals are increasingly using AI-powered virtual staging tools like Stuccco and BoxBrownie to create misleading house and apartment listings  —  “Virtual staging” might be able to cram a six-seater dining table into a studio apartment, but tenants can't.

A running look — in reverse chronological order — at the bigger tech companies that have announced significant layoffs this year with AI as a stated factor.