Ukraine’s drones reach Siberia and Europe rolls up Russia’s
covert networks — while the Patriot ledger, from Riyadh to Kyiv, runs
toward empty and Colombia digs out from its deadliest earthquake in
years.
Ukraine
strikes Russian energy infrastructure from Crimea to Siberia — 13 killed
at Tatarstan refinery
Ukraine’s deep strike campaign hit targets simultaneously across the
breadth of Russia in one of its deepest and deadliest operations of the
war. Drones struck the Tobolskneftekhim petrochemical complex in Tyumen
Oblast — 2,200 km from the border — damaging the central gas
fractionation unit of a facility that feeds rocket fuel, drone
composites and high-octane aviation fuel production. The TANECO oil
refinery in Nizhnekamsk, Tatarstan (13 Mt/yr) was halted the same day,
with at least 13 people reportedly killed and 75 injured. Fires broke
out at refineries in Orsk and at a Rosneft plant in Komsomolsk-on-Amur —
over 6,000 km from Ukraine. On the military side, Ukraine’s GUR
destroyed four S-400 launchers at Gelendzhik and two more in Crimea
using MAGURA naval platforms carrying FPV drones. Zelensky said the
attacks on energy infrastructure are a deliberate strategy to pressure
Russia’s war economy.
Europe
rolls up Russia’s hybrid war: mass expulsions in Germany, a Semtex drone
at Leipzig, networks busted in Sweden and Austria
Germany expelled hundreds of Russian nationals as intelligence
services dismantled a covert operations network run through the Russian
embassy — and security footage revealed that last week’s Leipzig drone
was no warning shot. The custom quadcopter, laden with Semtex, flew
directly at a parked Antonov cargo aircraft that ferries military
equipment for Ukraine, striking a wing near the fuel tanks before the
charge failed to detonate. US intelligence attributes the attack to
Russia; Berlin calls it ‘a new level of danger.’ The same day, Sweden’s
SÄPO announced it had shut down a Russian influence operation targeting
decision-making in Sweden and its NATO and EU partners, and Austrian
authorities broke up a sanctions-evasion scheme channelling components
to Russia’s arms industry.
The
Patriot ledger: Russia’s ballistic surge meets the West’s empty
stockpiles
Russia has more than tripled its monthly ballistic missile launches
since April, pivoting production toward purpose-built RM-48U ballistic
missiles fired from S-400 launchers — calibrated to exploit the one gap
Ukraine cannot close: a shortage of Patriot interceptors, the only
system that stops them. GUR says Russia now exceeds production targets
by 10–20%; its single-salvo capacity is 77 missiles, with a target of
200. The arithmetic on the other side is grim everywhere: Saudi Arabia
expended 86% of its Patriot stockpile in the war with Iran, the US war
effort is draining the same missiles Ukraine depends on — NRK’s experts
warn the situation could become catastrophic — and Lockheed Martin and
Raytheon are reportedly blocking Ukraine from licensing domestic Patriot
production, fearing it could build the system better and cheaper. ISW’s
assessment ties it together: as long as Putin believes the interceptor
gap gives him a viable military path, he will not negotiate seriously —
and a major concentrated campaign against Kyiv’s power grid is expected
within weeks.
Colombia
earthquake kills 130+, reduces Cali buildings to rubble
A magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck western Colombia on Monday, killing
at least 132 people and injuring more than 480, with more feared trapped
under collapsed structures. Buildings collapsed across Cali, Pereira and
Chocó; military barracks in Cali were flattened. The quake was felt in
Panama and triggered evacuations in Bogotá. Newly inaugurated President
Espriella took personal charge of emergency operations; the US has
pledged $15.5 million in aid. It is Colombia’s deadliest earthquake in
years.
| Indicator |
Value |
Change |
| S&P 500 (f) |
7,775 |
-0.02% |
| Dow 30 (f) |
54,002 |
-0.11% |
| Nasdaq (f) |
29,766 |
+0.10% |
| Russell 2000 (f) |
3,027 |
+0.05% |
| VIX |
15.4 |
-0.39% |
| Gold |
4,417 |
-0.06% |
| BTC |
$64,027 |
-1.72% |
| EUR/USD |
1.1533 |
-0.11% |
| USD/NOK |
9.49 |
-0.02% |
- Nvidia and Wall Street mobilise $500bn for AI data centres (see
Tech)
- Norsk KPI steg 3,0 % i juli — renten ventes uendret torsdag (se
Norway)
World
Iran–Hormuz
talks collapse: Trump demands compensation for fifty years of
damages
US–Iran negotiations over reopening the Strait of Hormuz have stalled
again. Iran insists the strait stays closed until Washington meets
demands including war reparations; Trump countered by publicly demanding
Iran compensate the US for fifty years of alleged damages — a position
Iran rejected outright. NPR reports Trump is pivoting back toward
maximum pressure and sanctions as US weapons stockpiles have been
significantly depleted — a depletion whose knock-on effects now reach
from Riyadh’s air defences to Kyiv’s (see the Patriot ledger on the
front page).
Trump
hid in a catering container to board a secret military flight out of
Turkey
Donald Trump departed Turkey last month on a covert military aircraft
— not Air Force One as publicly stated — after US intelligence warned of
a specific Iranian threat to the president’s life. The extraordinary
security ruse involved hiding Trump in a catering container to transfer
him between planes undetected, while the White House actively maintained
the cover story that he was flying on Air Force One.
Trump-linked
American oil company lands drilling equipment in Greenland — without a
permit
An American oil company with ties to the Trump administration has
landed containers of exploration equipment in Greenland and is moving
toward drilling operations, despite not holding the required permits
from Greenlandic authorities. The move risks a direct confrontation with
Nuuk and Copenhagen, and comes amid Trump’s repeated stated interest in
acquiring Greenland — raising concerns that US commercial actors are
testing how far they can go under political cover from Washington.
Gaza:
Netanyahu’s public rejection of Trump’s plan read as tactical
posturing
The Trump administration says it is ‘unbothered’ by Netanyahu’s
rejection of its 15-point Gaza plan, viewing it as electoral performance
ahead of Israeli elections rather than a final position. Israeli
reporting suggests Netanyahu is simultaneously working on details of a
potential pilot military withdrawal behind the scenes. He faces
incompatible pressures: his far-right coalition partners demand the war
continue indefinitely, while Trump pushes for a deal. Trump has publicly
maintained the US–Israel relationship is ‘good.’
Turkey’s
parliament passes PKK amnesty bill in landmark peace process move
Turkey’s Grand National Assembly approved legislation establishing
conditions under which thousands of PKK fighters can return to civilian
life, contingent on the group fully disarming. The bill is the most
concrete legal step yet in the government’s long-running peace
initiative — the PKK, which has waged an insurgency against the Turkish
state for four decades, had earlier declared a ceasefire as part of the
process.
Russia’s
Supreme Court bars the country’s only anti-war party from parliamentary
elections
Russia’s Supreme Court has ruled that the country’s sole liberal,
anti-war party will be barred from participating in next month’s
parliamentary elections. The decision effectively eliminates the only
remaining organised political opposition to the Ukraine war from the
electoral sphere, completing the Kremlin’s lockdown of the formal
political system ahead of the vote.
Drone
attack ignites fire at Libya’s largest operating oil refinery
A drone strike hit Libya’s Zawiya oil refinery — the country’s
largest still in operation — triggering a large fire in storage tanks.
Libya’s national oil company warned it may be forced to halt operations
at the facility if attacks continue. The strike underscores how Libya’s
fragile stability remains vulnerable to armed factions, and threatens
one of the country’s few functioning energy assets.
75%
of England in drought, Europe smashes heat records — and monsoon floods
kill 100 in Assam
Nearly three-quarters of England has been classified as in drought
after the driest July on record. Across continental Europe the heat
intensified: Austria hit 41.2°C, Slovakia set national temperature
records, and Britain and France are bracing for mid-30°C temperatures
again this week — following globally record-breaking sea surface
temperatures in July. Indonesia is battling spreading wildfires
attributed to El Niño conditions. In India’s Assam state, sustained
monsoon rainfall has pushed the Brahmaputra and other rivers over their
banks, killing at least 100 people and displacing thousands in some of
the deadliest flooding there in recent years.
Kurdish
film-maker recounts 8 months of ICE force-feeding: ‘it mentally broke
me’
Gabar Choli, a Kurdish film-maker held in US immigration detention in
Texas, has spoken publicly for the first time about being force-fed
during eight months of hunger strike. He described being shackled,
pinned down by guards, and having a feeding tube forced through his nose
with such force that it tore tissue. Choli says the experience caused
lasting psychological damage. The case has attracted condemnation from
human rights organisations and sharpened scrutiny of practices inside
ICE detention facilities.
Trump
signs executive order limiting childhood vaccines and mandating split
MMR shots
President Trump signed an executive order calling for children to
receive fewer vaccines overall and requiring the combined MMR shot to be
administered as separate injections. The American Academy of Pediatrics
called the move ‘dangerous,’ noting there is no scientific basis for
splitting the vaccine and that doing so increases the risk of children
going unprotected. Courts have previously blocked the administration
from unilaterally altering the vaccination schedule; this order is
likely to face similar legal challenges.
Also today
- Colombia’s new far-right government becomes only the second country
to recognise Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights — Al
Jazeera · Jerusalem
Post via r/worldnews
- China’s Long March 7A rocket explodes shortly after liftoff from
Wenchang; no casualties reported — Al
Jazeera
- 20 million Shia pilgrims gather in Karbala for Arbaeen despite the
region’s wars — NPR
Ukraine
Zircon
and Iskander strikes on Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia kill six; children’s
hospital compound hit
Overnight, Russia struck Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia with Zircon and
Iskander-M/KN-23 missiles plus 120 drones (98 downed), killing six in
Zaporizhzhia in a combined ballistic and guided-bomb strike; a
children’s hospital compound in Kyiv was also hit. GUR reports Russia is
stockpiling Kalibrs rather than expending them — Ukrainian intercept
rates against them are near 100% — while shifting drone production to
faster jet-powered Geran-4/5 models that shorten Ukraine’s interception
window. Zelensky has already said no undamaged power plants remain in
Ukraine as the Kremlin prepares its concentrated campaign against Kyiv’s
grid.
Zelensky
confirms fresh North Korean missile batch; US intel flags NATO incursion
risk
Zelensky confirmed Russia has received a fresh batch of North Korean
ballistic missiles, with an additional DPRK troop contingent in the
pipeline — directly compounding the ballistic surge documented by GUR. A
new US intelligence assessment reported by the WSJ finds Putin could now
test NATO’s resolve with a limited incursion — an update from earlier
forecasts that dismissed that risk during the Ukraine war. South Korea
separately reconfirmed it will not supply weapons or air defence systems
to Ukraine.
Dobropillya
encirclement pressure builds; 212 clashes across the front
Russian forces are accelerating their approach to Dobropillya on
multiple axes: infiltration groups along the T-0515 Pokrovsk highway
reportedly reached the town’s southeast, while naval infantry brigades
attempt encirclement from the northeast, exploiting tactical heights
including a mine-waste heap seized east of Chernihivka now used as a
drone and infiltration hub. Russia is running a systematic air
interdiction campaign — 5–10 Geran strikes and multiple glide-bomb
sorties daily — to force Ukrainian drone operators back from the
frontline. The front logged 212 clashes in the past day, heaviest at
Kostiantynivka (26 assaults) and Pokrovsk (25). There are counters:
Russia’s new Arena-M ‘drone-proof’ tanks were overwhelmed by Ukrainian
drone swarms in a Donbas battle, and a Kremlin-affiliated milblogger
acknowledged the deteriorating Russian position in the Lyman direction,
where small Ukrainian groups have reached Dibrova and Ozerne.
Investigations
British
NGOs running coordinated influence campaign to end US internet
anonymity
An investigation documents how 5Rights, CCDH, ISD, and Reset Tech —
UK NGOs with foreign government funding — have lobbied across 21 US
states and Congress to enact age verification and digital ID laws
modeled on UK legislation, framed throughout as child safety measures.
The piece notes that analogous UK laws already enable surveillance and
arrest of political dissidents, characterizes the campaign as a foreign
influence operation against American anonymity norms, and maps the
funding relationships and legislative pushes state by state.
Chinese
components in UK Royal Navy drone cameras were transmitting data to
Beijing
An investigation found that Chinese-manufactured components embedded
in cameras installed on UK Royal Navy drones were sending information
back to China. The revelation is a significant supply-chain security
breach, illustrating how adversarial hardware can create covert
intelligence conduits inside Western military systems — and raising
questions about audit processes for Chinese-made components in sensitive
defence equipment.
‘Flamingo
Revolution’: Albania probes Kushner-linked coastal resort land
deals
Albanian prosecutors have opened an investigation into land deals
tied to a resort development backed by Jared Kushner, amid growing civil
unrest dubbed the ‘Flamingo Revolution.’ Protesters accuse the
government of corruptly privatising public coastal land to benefit
foreign-linked business interests. The probe tests whether Albanian
institutions can hold politically exposed transactions to account.
Norway
Frp
opp til 30,6 prosent — borgerlig flertall i ni målinger på rad
Fremskrittspartiet er nå det klart største partiet i Norge med 30,6
prosent på Norstats augustmåling for Aftenposten/NRK — partiets
sterkeste tall noensinne. Borgerlig side har hatt flertall i alle NRKs
partimålinger siden november 2025, noe valgforsker Johannes Bergh kaller
en klar trend.
UDI
avdekker store familienettverk som har jukset seg til opphold i Norge i
tiår
UDI og politiet har identifisert flere store familienettverk — hvert
på 20–50 personer — som har bodd i Norge i opptil 25 år under falske
navn og nasjonaliteter, og skaffet seg velferdsytelser og
statsborgerskap gjennom systematisk juks. Nettverkene, primært fra
Pakistan, Afghanistan og Somalia, knyttes til mektige klaner; flere
nettverksledere i utlandet skal ha hatt private militser og bånd til
ekstremistorganisasjoner, og store pengeoverføringer til
opprinnelseslandene er sporet. Avsløringene bygger på
ansiktsgjenkjenning, DNA-tester, boligransakelser og overvåking av
sosiale medier — jukset raknet først etter år med «levd liv» i Norge.
Sikkerhetsimplikasjonen er alvorlig: Norge vet ikke hvem flere av dem
som har fått statsborgerskap egentlig er. Mange får likevel bli: Barns
statsborgerskap kan ikke tilbakekalles, og humanitære hensyn gjelder.
UDIs seksjonssjef Camilla Torgersen sier sakene «utgjør en
sikkerhetsrisiko for norske myndigheter».
Norsk Tipping ble utsatt for et nytt dataangrep fredag kveld — det
tredje på kort tid. Sparkesykkelselskapet Ryde ble rammet av et massivt
dataangrep i helgen som eksponerte store mengder personopplysninger;
Datatilsynet har igangsatt undersøkelse. Lørenskog kommune hadde i mai
et datainnbrudd som lekket innbyggeropplysninger — berørte kan ha krav
på erstatning, mener advokater. Forsvarssjef Eirik Kristoffersen sier
Norge rammes av cyberangrep hver eneste dag, og at Russland står bak
noen av dem — 3. august traff et omfattende DDoS-angrep tusenvis av
offentlige tjenester, inkludert ID-porten. PST advarer samtidig om at
norske småteknologibedrifter — med spisskompetanse, men svakere
sikkerhetsrammeverk enn store konserner — er lett bytte for statlig
etterretning fra Russland og Kina.
Metas Ray-Ban AI-briller — med alltid-på kamera og mikrofon — utløser
en skarp politisk debatt i Norge. Datatilsynet har formelt bedt
Stortinget stanse salget, og KI-forsker Inga Strümke advarer om at
brillene er «litt dystopiske» og kan bli starten på normalisert skjult
overvåking i det offentlige rom. Digitaliseringsminister Karianne Tung
(Ap) avviser likevel et forbud og mener eksisterende lovverk er
tilstrekkelig — noe kritikere, deriblant Digi.nos redaktør, mener viser
at hun er «helt ukritisk overfor teknologigigantene».
Knivforbud-analogien lanseres som mellomvei: et målrettet forbud med
unntak for legitime bruksområder, som for den blinde brukeren Siri
Rudlende, som bruker brillene som et par øyne. Jussprofessor Ida
Thorsrud mener brillene «dytter oss nærmere et overvåkingssamfunn som
truer demokratiet». (Se også Metas åpne AI-offensiv i Tech.)
702
000 nordmenn utenfor arbeidslivet — stabilt høyt fjerde år på rad
NAVs ferske tall viser at 702 000 nordmenn i arbeidsfør alder verken
er i jobb eller utdanning — nær én av fem. Antallet har økt for fjerde
år på rad, til tross for år med intensiverte tiltak fra NAV og
regjeringen. Innlandet er fylket med høyest andel utenfor.
Datasenterdebatt:
kraft, verdiskaping og nasjonal kontroll
En SINTEF/NTNU-rapport slår fast at datasentre gir mindre lokal
verdiskaping enn tradisjonell kraftkrevende industri. SVs Lars
Haltbrekken advarer om at datasentrene vil «mangedoble» Norges
strømforbruk. Regjeringen varsler energimerkeordning og offentlig-privat
samarbeid for mer effektiv kraftbruk i sentrene. Parallelt avslører
Amazon at selskapet finansierer et enormt gasskraftverk i Texas for sine
datasentre — og Nvidia mobiliserer Wall Street for 5000 milliarder
kroner til KI-infrastruktur (se Tech).
Norsk
Tipping inngår forlik med 17 000 — egen milliontrekning på vei
Norsk Tipping har inngått forlik med rundt 17 000 nordmenn som gikk
til gruppesøksmål etter en årelang milliontabbe; rettssaken som var
berammet fra 24. august, blir det ikke noe av. Ifølge VG innebærer
forliket en egen milliontrekning for de berørte. Reddit-kommentatorer
gjorde raskt regnestykket: med 100 kr i uken over ti år har de 17 000
kundene samlet betalt inn rundt 884 millioner kroner — et relativt
billig forlik for spillmonopolet. Selskapet ble i helgen samtidig utsatt
for sitt tredje dataangrep på kort tid.
EM
i Birmingham: Ingebrigtsen tilbake med gull etter elleve måneder — og
historisk stafettgull
Jakob Ingebrigtsen (25) løp inn til EM-gull på 5000 meter i
Birmingham i comebacket sitt — hans første konkurranse på elleve måneder
— og slo ut konkurrentene taktisk presist. Familien vil nå holde ham
igjen; selv ønsker han å konkurrere mer, men Ingebrigtsen-laget mener
han må beskytte seg mot seg selv. Norge vant også gull i blandet stafett
— første gang landet stilte lag i øvelsen — med Henriette Jæger på en
avgjørende ankeretappe; laget dedikerte gullet til en avdød venn.
Åpningsdagen ellers ga en rekke norske skuffelser, blant annet et
dramatisk fall for Lovise Skarbøvik Andresen (22), som var i rute mot en
sterk tid.
Friidrettslegende
Atle McAdam (49) drept i sykkelulykke
Atle McAdam, tidligere norsk friidrettsmester og innehaver av
norgesrekorden på 400 meter hekk i ti år, døde i en sykkelulykke i
Nordre Follo fredag 7. august. Han ble 49 år. Friidrettsmiljøet er
preget av dødsfallet; Karsten Warholm hyllet ham som «en assistenttrener
for oss» og takket for minnene.
Norske
språkmodeller lansert — trent på norske avisers tekster
Nasjonalbiblioteket har lansert de første gratis, norskutviklede
språkmodellene for bokmål og nynorsk. Opphavsrettsbeskyttet tekst fra
norske aviser er brukt i både grunntrening og fintrening. Prosjektet har
vært teknisk og byråkratisk krevende — beskrevet av IT-direktøren som
«mye stanging av hue i veggen». Kulturminister Lubna Jaffery og
digitaliseringsminister Karianne Tung var til stede ved lanseringen.
Norway — Street Level
Kun én
av fire unge forskere vil anbefale forskeryrket
En ny undersøkelse fra Akademiet for yngre forskere og
Forskerforbundet viser at bare 27 prosent av norske forskere under 45
vil anbefale en forskerkarriere — ned fra 53 prosent i 2018 og 29
prosent i 2022, en jevn nedgang over åtte år. Driveren er ikke selve
arbeidet (70 prosent opplever det intellektuelt givende), men
strukturell usikkerhet: 56 prosent er midlertidig ansatt, to tredjedeler
av disse ser små utsikter til fast stilling, og bare 30 prosent regner
med å fortsatt jobbe som forskere i Norge om ti år. Også
forskningsetikken påvirkes: Fast ansatte føler seg tryggere på å avslå
tvilsomme medforfatterskap. Én respondent oppsummerer at man i dag
nesten må være uhelbredelig idealist for å bli forsker. Funnene
debatteres under Arendalsuka.
Utvikler
gjenoppliver det klassiske nettspillet Superia
En utvikler på r/norge melder om å ha reverse-engineert serverkoden
til Superia — et klassisk norsk nettspill mange husker med glede — og
fått serverfunksjonaliteten til å kjøre igjen. I stedet for en ren
restaurering planlegger utvikleren å utvide spillet med nye funksjoner.
Posten utløste nostalgisk engasjement — et lite, men talende eksempel på
grasrot-bevaringsimpulsen i norsk digital kultur.
Også i dag
- Politikk
-
Nei-siden øker ledelsen på ny EU-måling — nesten to av tre sier nei — Aftenposten
· Dagsavisen
-
Vedum fredar formuesskatten — NHO kaller ham «i utakt med veljarane»,
Høyre frister Sp — NRK:
Vedum · NRK:
Høyre
-
Norgespris-kostnaden kan nå 24 milliarder — MDG vil skrote ordningen,
kraftanalytikere anbefaler å tegne før prishopp i Midt-Norge — NRK:
prisstigning · NRK:
MDG · TU.no
- Økonomi
-
KPI steg 3,0 prosent i juli — strøm inkludert nettleie opp 7,3 prosent
fra juni; renten ventes uendret torsdag — NRK
· E24
-
Streikefrykt i luftfarten: mekling tirsdag, nesten 2000 ansatte ved seks
flyplasser kan gå ut torsdag — NRK
· Aftenposten
-
Nytt jernbanesignalsystem (ERTMS) kan bli over 20 år forsinket — ferdig
først på 2050-tallet — Aftenposten
· TU.no
- Samfunn
-
USAs finansdepartement knytter norske IS-tilhengere til en sentral
«finansmann» for terrorgruppa — NRK
Urix
-
Generalmajor Lars Sivert Lervik utnevnt til ny sjef for
Etterretningstjenesten — TU.no
-
MIFF-teltet i Arendal skjært opp og tagget med «folkemord» — andre år på
rad — NRK
-
Marius Borg Høiby anker avgjørelsen om fortsatt varetekt med fotlenke på
Skaugum — NRK:
anke · NRK:
tingretten
-
Sivert Guttorm Bakkens dødsårsak fortsatt uklar — italiensk
etterforskning pågår — NRK
-
Prinsesse Ingrid Alexandra starter ved UiO; prins Sverre Magnus til
Lisboa — NRK:
UiO · NRK:
Lisboa
Tech
Claude
advances Riemann Hypothesis zero bound from 41.6% to 67.2%
Anthropic published research showing an unreleased Claude version
made a genuine mathematical contribution: improving the proportion of
Riemann zeta zeros known to satisfy the hypothesis from 41.6% to 67.2% —
a longstanding open bound. Claude was attempting the full Riemann
hypothesis when it found this adjacent result by synthesizing recent
work from Baluyot, Goldston, Suriajaya, and Turnage-Butterbaugh with
earlier Bombieri results. The finding was independently verified by
expert mathematicians and formally checked — not a benchmark game but a
novel mathematical result extending known human research.
Token
efficiency advantage of dynamic languages disappears at real task
scale
Dan Luu tests the widely-cited claim that dynamic languages use 1/2
to 1/3 the tokens of static languages (Rust, Go, C++) when prompting
LLMs to code. On trivial benchmark problems the advantage holds; on
substantive tasks — a Zstd decoder, a Pandoc implementation — the gap
largely disappears, especially at high effort levels. Key practical
finding: language popularity (better training data) correlates more with
reliable outcomes than language type, and harness design and testing
strategy dominate over language choice for agentic coding.
Nvidia
and Wall Street raise $500bn to build AI data centre infrastructure
Nvidia has partnered with six major financial institutions —
including Apollo, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, and KKR — to mobilise more
than $500 billion for AI infrastructure investment, funding data centres
at scale. Jensen Huang calls it ‘the next chapter in financial
engineering’: the ambition is to make compute a new asset class
alongside real estate and bonds. It is one of the largest coordinated
private capital deployments in technology history, and cements the AI
build-out as a defining macro investment theme. (Also feeding the
Norwegian data-centre debate — see Norway.)
Zuckerberg publicly attacked closed AI rivals and formally committed
to releasing open models, framing open-source AI as essential to
preventing centralized control of superintelligence. Meta’s accompanying
policy document calls for loosening US restrictions on training data use
and model distillation to keep American open-source AI competitive
globally. A clear strategic repositioning: open AI as both competitive
weapon and political stance. (Meanwhile Meta’s AI glasses are
splitting Norwegian politics — see Norway.)
GitHub
Actions OIDC lets any CI dependency mint tokens for services it
shouldn’t access
Unlike GitLab CI — which requires OIDC token audiences to be declared
statically in the job definition — GitHub Actions lets workflows request
tokens for any audience at runtime. Any malicious dependency or
supply-chain compromise in a CI job can thus silently mint OIDC tokens
for AWS, PyPI, or other cloud services the job was never meant to touch.
The proposed fix mirrors GitLab’s model: a
permissions: id-token: [pypi] key restricting which
audiences a job may request, making unauthorized token minting fail
rather than silently succeed.
Researcher
buys noreply.net, receives 400,000 automated emails containing corporate
secrets
Cory Solovewicz bought noreply.us and noreply.net as privacy
catch-alls — and accidentally built a corporate honeypot. In 1.5 years
he received 400,000 automated emails from 14,000 sender addresses across
6,200 root domains, with 28,000+ containing attachments. Companies
routinely configure internal systems to send notifications, password
resets, and sensitive operational data to addresses like
noreply@noreply.net, treating the domain as a digital trash can without
verifying that no one owns it.
SMM
desynchronization: software-only path to 100+ hardware
vulnerabilities
Christopher Domas (xoreaxeaxeax, author of sandsifter) published a
technique that breaks x86 System Management Mode’s guarantee that all
CPU cores enter SMM simultaneously. By issuing a memory read from
deliberately slow MMIO — taking ~1 second, longer than the SMI
rendezvous timeout — one core can exit SMM while another is still
trapped inside, shattering the synchronization invariant. This converts
100+ documented SMM TOCTOU vulnerabilities from theoretical (previously
requiring DMA-capable hardware) into practical software-only exploits.
The mitigation is genuinely unsolved: removing the timeout hangs
platforms, extending it degrades performance on many-core systems.
AI is dismantling
the web’s collective memory
The Walrus makes the case that the web’s archival function is
collapsing under converging pressures: AI summaries hallucinate and
bypass source sites entirely, companies delete digital archives after
acquisition (Disney erased most of FiveThirtyEight’s), publishers block
the Wayback Machine fearing copyright exposure from AI training, and
platforms like Instagram and WhatsApp produce ephemeral content that was
never crawlable to begin with. Meanwhile, companies now plant fake
content on Reddit specifically to influence AI summaries, poisoning
sources upstream. The argument is structural: knowledge infrastructure
requires public ownership and cannot survive on corporate goodwill.
Also today
- Languages
-
Rust call-for-testing:
impl(crate) sealed traits and
pub mut(crate) field mutability restrictions — Rust
Inside Blog · Lobsters
-
Rust portable SIMD runs on GPUs via warp-level mapping — write-once
compute portability — VectorWare · HN
-
Chicken Scheme 6.0 released — Release notes ·
HN
-
C89’s implicit declaration scope ambiguity: GCC and Clang still
disagree, and always will — sebsite.pw ·
Lobsters
- Agents & tooling
-
Cache reads, not token pricing, are the dominant cost in agentic LLM
workloads — Martin
Alderson · Lobsters
-
atago: black-box E2E testing for CLIs from plain YAML — exit codes,
snapshots, PTY/TUI — GitHub · r/commandline
Linux & Infrastructure
Hyprland
0.57 drops .conf support — community transpiler available now
Hyprland 0.57 ends support for the .conf config format,
requiring migration to the native Lua API (hl.*). A
community member published hyprlangtranspiler (Go + ANTLR)
to automate the conversion. It handles all major constructs:
bind/bindde/binddm/binddl,
monitorv2, workspace rules, bezier/spring curve
definitions, and source = path (becomes
require("path")). The tool is maintained solo, so edge
cases may exist — worth testing against your full config before 0.57
lands.
A busy day on r/hyprland. HyprWindowShade combined with a GLSL shader
library ported from niri now supports per-class opening animations and
window closing effects — dissolve, glitch, voronoi-shatter, ink-splash
and ~20 more, assignable declaratively via window rules.
omarchywritingtool brings macOS-style Writing Tools (Translate /
Proofread / Correct / Summarize) to any Hyprland text field via PRIMARY
selection and Super+H, backed by Gemini or local Ollama
models and run as a systemd user service. And the Desktop Goose port
gained physics-based window stealing: the goose can now grab and fling
your windows across the screen.
Cachix
ships two pure-Rust Nix primitives: nix-archive and nix-derivation
Cachix released two Rust crates building a Nix toolchain outside of
CppNix. nix-archive 0.1 encodes, decodes, and hashes
NAR files in pure Rust — 2.2× faster than CppNix, hitting 1.46 GiB/s on
hashing and 6.14 GiB/s on encode. nix-derivation 0.1
parses, validates, serializes, and constructs store paths for
.drv files — parsing Firefox’s derivation in 100 µs vs
Nix’s 486 µs. Both use #![forbid(unsafe_code)], support the
dynamic derivations ATerm format, and require no Nix installation.
BPF
in binfmt_misc could eventually solve NixOS’s PT_INTERP patching
problem
An LWN article covers a kernel proposal to let BPF programs handle
binary format dispatch via binfmt_misc, as an alternative to the
PT_INTERP-based dynamic linker path. For NixOS this is
directly relevant: unpatched third-party ELF binaries fail because their
hardcoded /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 path doesn’t exist,
and today’s workaround is patchelf or wrappers like
steam-run. A BPF hook in the kernel’s binary loader could
let NixOS intercept ELF execution cleanly, without modifying the
binary.
Bubblewrap:
full Linux sandboxing without root, Docker, or a container registry
A practical walkthrough of using bubblewrap (Flatpak’s underlying
sandbox tool) to create unprivileged Linux sandboxes for build processes
and untrusted code — no daemon, no image pull, no sudo. Demonstrates
PID/UTS/cgroup/user namespace isolation, capability dropping, selective
filesystem mounts, and optional Wayland/GPU access. Host binaries mount
directly into the sandbox, the current directory is read-write by
default, and the whole setup fits in a shell script.
Firefox
Containers lands as a native feature in Firefox 153
Firefox 153 ships Multi-Account Containers as a built-in feature — no
extension required. Containers isolate cookies and tracking across
separate browser contexts (work, banking, shopping, personal),
preventing cross-context tracking. Previously only available via
Mozilla’s add-on, the feature is now integrated directly into Firefox
Settings with workspace naming and color customization.
Google Assistant ends on September 4th. The r/homeassistant thread
covers options for repurposing Google Mini speakers and Nest Hub
displays: Home Assistant Voice Preview, Wyoming satellite, local TTS/STT
via Piper + Whisper, or kiosk dashboard use. Several users are
evaluating whether the hardware is worth keeping at all.
Also today
- Nix
-
Dynamic derivations working group proposed as the feature approaches
maturity — experimental
builder-rpc-v0 daemon available,
Sandstone demoed incremental Haskell builds — Discourse
· Sandstone
-
Nixpkgs core team disbandment follow-up: a Steering Committee member
acknowledges the SC bears responsibility for the outcome — Discourse:
disbanded · Discourse:
SC’s role
-
nix-housing: always-on shell sandboxing — your default terminal opens
inside a “house”; Wayland security context included, C component
unaudited — Discourse
- Desktop & homelab
-
edgepad: configurable touchpad edge gestures for Wayland, with NixOS +
Home Manager modules and hot-reloading TOML config — GitHub · r/NixOS
-
CoolDeck: keyboard-first TUI for managing Coolify from the terminal — GitHub · r/commandline
-
Home Assistant plain-webpage tablet dashboard open-sourced — single
index.html, WebSocket API, no Lovelace, no build step — GitHub
· r/homeassistant
Smoke rising after the Ukrainian
drone strike on the Tobolskneftekhim petrochemical plant in Tyumen
Oblast, Russia — 2,200 km from the border. Photo: Kyiv Independent
Store ødeleggelser etter
jordskjelvet i Colombia, særlig i byen Pereira. Foto: Aftenposten/VG
Fire at the scene of the Russian
ballistic missile and guided-bomb strike on Zaporizhzhia overnight 10–11
August. Photo: Zaporizhzhia Oblast Military Administration
Frp-leder Sylvi Listhaug etter
partiets rekordmåling på 30,6 prosent. Foto: Aftenposten/VG
Forsvarssjef Eirik Kristoffersen.
Foto: Aftenposten/VG
Digitaliseringsminister Karianne
Tung, fotografert til Digi.nos kommentar om Metas AI-briller. Foto:
Digi.no
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai
presenting Circle to Search at Google I/O. Photo: The Walrus
The native container configuration
options in Firefox 153. Image: Mozilla