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Imen Ben Youssef/Hans Lucas/AFP/Getty Images North America/TNS

OpenAI says it's working with Anthropic, Google on AI safety

OpenAI is working on steps to address artificial intelligence safety issues with its top competitors Anthropic PBC and Google DeepMind, escalating industry efforts to respond to a groundswell of concern that the technology poses an economic and security threat.

Chris Lehane, the global policy chief for OpenAI, said Tuesday that the company’s ...Read more

Jefferee Woo/Tampa Bay Times/TNS

Democratic group lays out environmental, economic roadmap

WASHINGTON — Members of House Democrats’ Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition and its affiliated nonprofit released a set of policies on Tuesday to serve as a template to address both economic and climate concerns in the next Congress should their party make big midterm gains.

The SEEC Institute’s Thriving Economy Project is ...Read more

BLUE ORIGIN/TNS

'Incredible progress' for Blue Origin rebuild of Cape Canaveral launch site, CEO says

ORLANDO, Fla. — Blue Origin continues to push through a rebuild of its launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station after suffering catastrophic damage in a rocket explosion earlier this year.

CEO Dave Limp posted side-by-side drone images of Canaveral’s Launch Complex 36 showing the extensive damage seen May 29 the day after a hot fire...Read more

Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times/TNS

As the coast begins to crumble, the clock ticks on moving San Onofre's radioactive waste

As parts of the Southern California coastline crumbled into the sea, slammed by intense waves and flooding in recent days, oceanographer Kim McCoy had one thing on his mind: the nuclear waste set in concrete on the beach near San Clemente at the shuttered San Onofre nuclear power plant.

“Rising sea levels, storm waves, El Niño which ...Read more

Christina House/Los Angeles Times/TNS

'Cognitive stunting' and the potential threat generative AI poses for children's brains

Los Angeles Unified School District recently announced it will bar student use of generative artificial intelligence on school devices for the 2026-27 academic year, joining New York City Public Schools in limiting children's access to a technology no one yet knows how to safely manage.

The nation's two largest school districts made the move at...Read more

Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune/TNS

Want to go apple-picking? Some Illinois orchards might not open after several spring frosts killed crops

In almost three decades of growing apples at her family’s orchard in northern Illinois, SueEllen Arndt and her husband, Ralph, never experienced anything like this year.

Five spring frosts killed most of the blooms on their trees, she said, forcing Prairie Sky Orchard to close for the 2026 fall harvest season.

“In the last few years, they�...Read more

Dan Kitwood/Getty Images North America/TNS

Google DeepMind staffer says AI may 'kill us all' in exit post

An AI researcher who recently resigned from Google DeepMind warned humanity is running out of time to prevent artificial intelligence from causing widespread harm, the latest staffer to voice concerns about the direction of the technology.

“At Google, I witnessed AI development first hand. I too am extremely concerned by the default ...Read more

Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images North America/TNS

Talk of AI pause slams Nvidia, AMD and Intel as fears of doomsday scenarios spread

Artificial intelligence stocks tumbled on Monday after American leaders of the AI revolution called for a coordinated slowdown in building more powerful AI systems.

Over the weekend, Dario Amodei, the chief executive of Anthropic, published an essay titled "We Must Pace the Frontier," calling for an industrywide effort to slow AI development. ...Read more

HG BIGGS/The Sacramento Bee/TNS

What are some of the California environmental bills the Legislature sent to Gavin Newsom?

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California legislators passed a bill last month that pushed back against changes to a state law Gov. Gavin Newsom had previously jammed through the Legislature, as part of an array of environmental measures that headlined this year’s legislative session.

That measure joined bills regulating data centers, home energy use...Read more

Jon Cherry/Getty Images North America/TNS

EPA scraps power plant emissions limits in sweeping rollback

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Monday it will no longer regulate dangerous planet-warming pollution from power plants that burn coal or natural gas.

The nation’s top environmental authority is rolling back the majority of Biden-era limits on greenhouse gas emissions in an effort to remove “red tape” that drives up energy ...Read more

Kevin Clark/The Seattle Times/TNS

Microsoft sets its own AI guardrails amid rising industry concerns

As top artificial intelligence labs call for a slowdown in the development of the technology, Microsoft released a code of conduct for how it plans to clamp down on its own AI models.

“At Microsoft AI, we begin with a simple premise: people matter more than AI,” the company said in a Monday blog post.

Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman told...Read more

Jeff Wheeler/Minnesota Star Tribune/TNS

AI use is straining customer loyalty. It's playing out in a local grocery store

NORTH MANKATO, MINN. — Shantelle Colum, a 33-year-old artist, loved supporting small local businesses, especially Seoul Foods, the newly opened Asian grocery store near her.

Then this summer, Colum noticed Seoul Foods’ ads on Facebook weren’t showing real pictures of delicious dumplings or spicy ramen noodles. Instead, she saw computer-...Read more

Qualcomm/TNS

Qualcomm aims to make everything smart with these new processors

Qualcomm debuted two new processors this month, its latest step toward integrating intelligence into seemingly everything.

The Q-2390 and IQ-2390, which were unveiled Sept. 1, fall under the company’s Internet of Things, or IoT, business — one of Qualcomm’s fastest-growing sectors — building hardware and software that make things like ...Read more

A firefighter monitors a backfire in California, set to clear away dry vegetation that could fuel wildfires.   Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images

Wildfire strategy doesn’t need a winner – with 3 camps fighting for dominance, the system can’t keep up with the risk

One of the problems with how America deals with wildfires is thinking there is one primary strategy that can end the nation’s wildfire crisis. Whether that’s detecting and putting out every fire fast, increasing logging and forest thinning, or allowing fires to burn under safe conditions, the default choice today is to pour more money and...Read more

Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group/TNS

A new California law will ban watering decorative grass, even in non-drought years, starting Jan. 1

It’s been more than three years since California was in a drought. Reservoirs are above average levels. A strong El Niño is brewing in the Pacific that could bring soaking storms this winter.

But there’s a new endangered species across the state: grass. A broad new water conservation law will soon take effect in phases, banning the ...Read more

Courtesy U.S. Department of Energy/TNS/TNS

Microreactor tests at Nevada security site fuel promise, questions

A facility at the Nevada National Security Site outside of Las Vegas has been used to perform testing on key components for very small nuclear reactors — a technology that some believe holds great promise for advancing energy production in the United States.

Several companies around the world are now racing to produce what are known as ...Read more

Before satellites, fire crews watched for smoke from fire towers across the national forests. K. D. Swan, U.S. Forest Service

Big fires demand a big response: How 1910’s Big Burn can help us think smarter about fighting wildfires and living with fire

Over two days in the summer of 1910, wildfires roared across the bone-dry forests of the inland Northwestern U.S., the Rockies, and parts of British Columbia. Whole towns burned. The blazes scorched 3 million acres of forest, an area the size of Connecticut, and left behind a legacy that profoundly changed how the U.S. managed wildfires – ...Read more

Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times/TNS

California's biggest lake is in crisis. Now tribes are coming back to save its sacred fish

Jose “Moke” Simon III recalls as a child in the ‘70s watching the creeks that flow into Clear Lake in Northern California turn black with fish — a fish found only in these waters — as they made their springtime run.

Someone would call from the neighboring reservation with the news: “The hitch are running!” Everybody would grab ...Read more

A combine harvests soybeans in a Minnesota field. Richard Hamilton Smith/Design Pics Editorial/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

How soybeans took over the American diet – without anyone noticing

U.S. farmers will produce a record-breaking harvest of 4.52 billion bushels of soybeans in 2026, according to projections from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. At 60 pounds to the bushel, that is roughly 800 pounds of soybeans for every American.

Most people don’t think of themselves as soybean consumers. Few sit down to a plate ...Read more

Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images North America/TNS

With support from loggers and (some) environmentalists, Congress unites on major wildfire bill

A sweeping bipartisan bill that seeks to prevent catastrophic wildfires and restore fire-ravaged forests has revealed a schism in the nation’s environmental movement as some conservation advocates find themselves allied with a longtime foe: loggers.

The Fix Our Forests Act, which Congress is close to passing, aims to speed up forest ...Read more