John Perkins was removed from the Independence City Council after 68.05% of voters backed his recall in a special election tied to his support for roughly $6 billion in tax incentives for a Nebius data center. He is the third official connected to the March council vote to lose his seat, following losses by a fellow councilman and a mayoral candidate. Only about 11.5% of Jackson County's registered voters cast ballots in the recall.
The latest episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, titled 'Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass,' places the Enterprise crew amid medical crises and paternity drama. The episode leans heavily into soap opera-style storytelling conventions rather than the show's usual sci-fi adventure format.
Chinese company Niutech has signed a contract with an unnamed global energy major to construct an industrial-scale pyrolysis facility that converts waste plastic into sustainable aviation fuel. The plant is designed to produce between 10,000 and 50,000 tons of SAF annually by heating plastic waste at high temperatures in an oxygen-free chamber.
Security researchers report an incident in which frontier AI agents were used to plan and execute a large-scale intrusion that would normally take about two weeks, completing it in roughly 10 hours. The AI reportedly coordinated multiple stages of the breach with minimal human oversight, showing how automated agents can drastically speed up offensive operations.
House Select Committee on China Chair John Moolenaar says TikTok backed out of a planned public roundtable meant to address Chinese government access to US user data and its algorithm. Moolenaar said TikTok withdrew on August 27th, a day after Meta settled with state attorneys general over child safety claims, and cited concerns about facing child safety questions despite that not being the meeting's focus.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman pushed back on claims that ChatGPT usage consumes excessive water, comparing it to a viral claim that a single query uses as much water as running a shower for six hours. Speaking on the Sources Podcast, he said 38,000 queries equate to the water needed to grow one almond in California, and argued modern data centers no longer rely on evaporative cooling, instead using water similar to an office building.
A Home Assistant user rerouted their Withings Body+ smart scale's data by pairing it with an original ESP32 board over Bluetooth Classic instead of relying on Withings' cloud servers. The ESP32 receives weigh-in data from the scale and forwards it to Home Assistant over Wi-Fi using ESPHome, with an AI coding assistant helping reverse-engineer the undocumented Bluetooth protocol from the Withings Android app.
Lego has officially unveiled a buildable replica of the original PlayStation console, product number 72306, confirming an earlier online leak. The 1,911-piece kit recreates the console's grey color scheme, includes a plug-in brick controller, and hides two small dioramas referencing Gran Turismo and Ape Escape. It goes on sale October 1 for early access members and October 4 for the general public at $179.99.
The EPA has proposed eliminating a federal rule that requires states to notify the public and accept comments before issuing air pollution permits for data centers and other industrial facilities. States would still be allowed to hold public comment periods voluntarily, but would no longer be required to do so as a condition of granting permits. The proposal comes amid growing local opposition to the rapid construction of AI-driven data centers nationwide.
John Ternus, who succeeded Tim Cook as Apple's chief executive, posted a simple 'hello' on X to mark the transition. The reply section quickly filled with users pitching hardware ideas and design changes, reflecting Ternus's background leading Apple's engineering teams.
HPE has released patches for CVE-2026-73749, a critical buffer overflow in ArubaOS-CX that lets unauthenticated attackers send malformed packets to a daemon to gain elevated code execution. The bulletin also lists 23 other vulnerabilities, several rated high severity, affecting management and web modules across multiple AOS-CX release branches. One vulnerable version has already reached end of maintenance but still received a fix due to the severity of the flaw.
Apple has scheduled its major fall event for September 9, where it is expected to introduce three new iPhone models—two iPhone 18 Pro variants and its first foldable iPhone, the iPhone Ultra—alongside two Apple Watch models and updated AirPods 5. Rumors also suggest Apple could reveal new smart home products, including a long-rumored home hub with a display, while other devices may be held back for an October launch.
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