BUSINESSUpdated 41 days ago • 5 min read5 Sources
+2
AI capex in 2026: the headline totals range from $630bn to $800bn, and the gap is who gets counted
Published estimates for hyperscaler AI spending this year differ by nearly $200 billion. The disagreement is not about the companies' plans — it is about how many companies are in the set, and which baseline year the growth is measured from.
SCIENCEUpdated 41 days ago • 4 min read5 Sources
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Does El Niño mean more snow? Seasonal outlooks cannot answer that, and here is why
The maps people check for a snow answer measure precipitation, which combines rain and melted snow into one number. They cannot separate the two. That is a built-in limitation of the product, not a gap someone forgot to fill.
TECHNOLOGYUpdated 41 days ago • 5 min read5 Sources
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Will AI take my job? The measured effect is real, narrow, and concentrated on people under 26
The clearest evidence so far comes from payroll records, not forecasts. It shows a 16 per cent relative employment decline for 22- to 25-year-olds in the most exposed occupations — and growth where AI augments the work instead of replacing it.
TECHNOLOGYUpdated 41 days ago • 4 min read4 Sources+1
Which jobs are safe from AI? The dividing line is not the industry — it is whether the work is augmented or automated
The same payroll analysis that found employment falling for early-career workers in exposed occupations found it rising elsewhere. What separates the two is not the sector but how the technology is applied to the task.
TECHNOLOGYUpdated 41 days ago • 4 min read5 Sources
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How much energy does one AI prompt use? The only measured figure comes from Google, and it is 0.24 watt-hours
OpenAI has published nothing comparable for ChatGPT. The one production measurement in the public record is Google's, for a median Gemini text prompt — and it is small enough that the interesting number is not per-prompt at all.
TECHNOLOGYUpdated 41 days ago • 5 min read5 Sources+2
How much water do data centres use? The answer depends entirely on whether you count the power plants
Published figures differ by orders of magnitude, and almost none of the gap is disagreement about physics. It is whether the estimate stops at the cooling tower or follows the electricity back to where it was generated.
WORLDUpdated 41 days ago • 5 min read4 Sources
What is the most unbiased news source? The two organisations that rate this do not measure the same thing
AllSides and Ad Fontes both publish bias ratings and they are not interchangeable. One measures lean only and says outright that it does not rate accuracy. The other treats bias and reliability as separate axes — which is why a centre rating answers less than people assume.
SCIENCEUpdated 41 days ago • 4 min read4 Sources+1
What is El Niño? A defined temperature threshold in one box of the Pacific
Not a storm, not a season, not a forecast. El Niño is the warm phase of a Pacific pattern, declared when sea-surface temperature in a specific region runs at least 0.5 °C above average and holds there. It is running now, at +1.2 °C.
BUSINESSUpdated 41 days ago • 5 min read4 Sources
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Is OpenAI profitable? No — but the $38.5bn everyone quotes is not what it cost to run the company
Leaked 2025 statements verified by the Financial Times show a $20.92bn operating loss on $13.07bn of revenue. The larger figure in circulation includes a one-off accounting charge from the for-profit conversion. OpenAI has published none of it.
SCIENCEUpdated 41 days ago • 5 min read6 Sources+2
El Niño vs La Niña: the difference, the thresholds, and what neither one predicts
They are the warm and cool phases of one Pacific pattern, separated by a defined temperature threshold. The Pacific is in El Niño now, at +1.2 °C. What that shifts is the odds for a season — not the weather on any given day.
TECHNOLOGYUpdated 43 days ago • 5 min read5 Sources
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Is ChatGPT accurate? The number everyone quotes is not its score
The widely repeated finding that 45 per cent of AI news answers contain a significant issue is an average across four assistants. The one study that broke the figures out by name put ChatGPT lowest — which is not the same as putting it right.
USUpdated 44 days ago • 4 min read8 Sources
+5
Spokane's fires destroyed more than 700 structures. The smoke is now the story for five states
Three fires that began on 1 August have burned over 10,000 acres and forced roughly 67,000 people out. No deaths have been reported. The smoke has spread far beyond the fire line, and air quality is what most of the region is now checking.
TECHNOLOGYUpdated 44 days ago • 5 min read5 Sources
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Are data centres bad for the environment? The global numbers say one thing, the local ones say another
Data centres account for just over 1 per cent of world electricity and about 0.5 per cent of CO2 emissions. In Ireland the figure approaches a third of national supply. Both are true, and the gap between them is the entire argument.
TECHNOLOGYUpdated 44 days ago • 5 min read6 Sources
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How much water does ChatGPT use? The researcher behind the famous number has revised it
The figure everyone repeats — roughly a bottle of water per email — came from a 2024 estimate its own author now calls outdated. His revised number is about 35 times smaller, and Google's published figure is smaller still. Almost all of the gap is what each one counts.
HEALTHUpdated 44 days ago • 4 min read8 Sources
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Michigan's cyclosporiasis outbreak is six times the size of the federal Taco Bell cluster — and its source is still unnamed
Two investigations are running at once and they say different things. Federal investigators have named a lettuce supplier for a 1,947-case cluster. Michigan's own health department, counting 11,234 cases, says it has not identified a source.
SCIENCEUpdated 44 days ago • 3 min read5 Sources
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Big Bear eagle Jackie's anemia has worsened, and vets still do not know what is causing it
Bloodwork on 3 August put her packed cell volume at 13 per cent, down since the previous update. She was found with no injuries from the attack that led to her rescue — the anemia and kidney inflammation are unexplained.
BUSINESSUpdated 44 days ago • 3 min read5 Sources
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There is no confirmed list of the Walgreens stores closing in 2026
Walgreens has not published an updated closure target since going private, and has not confirmed any nationwide list. The figures circulating — fewer than 100, or about 700 — trace to reporting that cites no company document or named source.
BUSINESSUpdated 45 days ago • 2 min read5 Sources
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A $400bn drug merger is being talked about, and AstraZeneca's own shareholders hated the idea
The Financial Times reported talks with Bristol Myers Squibb. AstraZeneca shares fell about 9 per cent in London — its worst day since 2020. Neither company has confirmed anything.
WORLDUpdated 45 days ago • 2 min read5 Sources
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An FBI counterintelligence agent is accused of taking $1m in crypto from the wallets he was watching
Prosecutors say a supervisory special agent used bureau intelligence to obtain passphrases for foreign adversaries' wallets. He has been charged, not convicted, and the case rests on an affidavit.
SCIENCEUpdated 45 days ago • 2 min read5 Sources
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AI flagged 1,309 possible Nazca figures. Six months of walking the desert confirmed 303 of them
The machine narrowed where to look; people on the ground decided what was real. Around a quarter of the candidates were checked, and the confirmed figures split into two kinds with different audiences.
SCIENCEUpdated 45 days ago • 2 min read5 Sources
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Bald eagles fledged on San Miguel Island for the first time since the 1950s
Fourteen breeding pairs hatched at least sixteen chicks across Channel Islands National Park this season. The birds vanished from the islands after DDT; the effort to bring them back began in 1980.
USUpdated 46 days ago • 3 min read5 Sources
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A seven-year case just forced the Education Department to erase $23bn in student debt
Nearly 450,000 borrowers who said their colleges misled them are covered. An appeals court refused the department's request for another eighteen months, noting it had waited three years to object.
SCIENCEUpdated 46 days ago • 5 min read5 Sources
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Will it snow this winter? NOAA's outlook cannot say — here is what it can
NOAA's seasonal outlook does not forecast snowfall, and the reason is built into how it measures precipitation. It gives El Nino a 97 per cent chance of lasting into spring and tilts the odds wet in the south, dry in the northwest.
USUpdated 46 days ago • 3 min read5 Sources
+2
The 2027 Social Security raise is being guessed at at 3.6 to 3.8 per cent, and none of it is official yet
Three forecasters put next year's cost-of-living adjustment above this year's 2.8 per cent. The figure that counts is not calculated until October, from three months of data that are not all in.
USUpdated 46 days ago • 2 min read6 Sources
+3
Senators wrote a funding patch that runs past the midterms, and quietly took back some spending power
The stopgap holds the government open to 11 December. Buried in it are a blocked grant rule, a bar on moving money to Border Patrol, and a battleship request that did not survive.
WORLDUpdated 46 days ago • 3 min read6 Sources
+3
Nauru is now Naoero, and the change went through parliament rather than a vote
The Pacific state has adopted its own-language name by constitutional amendment. A referendum was skipped, the country code changes, and a separate diplomatic reversal landed the same fortnight.
TOP STORY· UPDATED 41 DAYS AGO
AI capex in 2026: the headline totals range from $630bn to $800bn, and the gap is who gets counted
Published estimates for hyperscaler AI spending this year differ by nearly $200 billion. The disagreement is not about the companies' plans — it is about how many companies are in the set, and which baseline year the growth is measured from.
◆Developing·5 sources
5 SourcesLatest updates
BUSINESS· 41 DAYS AGO+2
AI capex in 2026: the headline totals range from $630bn to $800bn, and the gap is who gets counted
Published estimates for hyperscaler AI spending this year differ by nearly $200 billion. The disagreement is not about the companies' plans — it is about how many companies are in the set, and which baseline year the growth is measured from.
◆Developing·5 sources
5 SourcesSCIENCE· 41 DAYS AGO+2
Does El Niño mean more snow? Seasonal outlooks cannot answer that, and here is why
The maps people check for a snow answer measure precipitation, which combines rain and melted snow into one number. They cannot separate the two. That is a built-in limitation of the product, not a gap someone forgot to fill.
✓Verified·5 sources
5 SourcesTECHNOLOGY· 41 DAYS AGO+2
Will AI take my job? The measured effect is real, narrow, and concentrated on people under 26
The clearest evidence so far comes from payroll records, not forecasts. It shows a 16 per cent relative employment decline for 22- to 25-year-olds in the most exposed occupations — and growth where AI augments the work instead of replacing it.
✓Verified·5 sources
5 SourcesTECHNOLOGY· 41 DAYS AGO+1
Which jobs are safe from AI? The dividing line is not the industry — it is whether the work is augmented or automated
The same payroll analysis that found employment falling for early-career workers in exposed occupations found it rising elsewhere. What separates the two is not the sector but how the technology is applied to the task.
✓Verified·4 sources
4 SourcesIn-depth explainers
View allWhich jobs are safe from AI? The dividing line is not the industry — it is whether the work is augmented or automated
How much energy does one AI prompt use? The only measured figure comes from Google, and it is 0.24 watt-hours
How much water do data centres use? The answer depends entirely on whether you count the power plants
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