Asia
Ukrainian mid-range strikes deal double blow to Russia's war effort
Ukrainian mid-range strikes deal double blow to Russia's war effort KYIV/LONDON - From burning oil refineries to a stalling ground offensive, Russia is suffering problems in its war against Ukraine that partly stem from a growing Ukrainian military strength: the use of medium-range drone attacks. By targeting Russian air defenses and logistics dozens of kilometers behind front lines, Ukraine is disrupting Russia's battlefield advances and opening the way for long-range strikes on Russian oil and military facilities, said two Ukrainian commanders, two drone specialists and three military analysts. Ukrainian officials say more resources have in recent months been poured into "middle strikes," typically ranging between 30 kilometers and 180 km behind front lines. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever. By subscribing, you can help us get the story right.
U.S. seeking transfer of intellectual property rights in drone deal, Kyiv says
U.S. seeking transfer of intellectual property rights in drone deal, Kyiv says Through a combination of new technology and tactics, Kyiv's forces have been able to strike deep into Russian territory, to slow and in some cases even reverse battlefield gains by Moscow's bigger army and inflict significant damage on oil facilities that help finance the Kremlin's war machine. Kyiv has said that the U.S. is seeking the transfer of technology and access to intellectual property rights from Ukraine as part of a drone deal that is awaiting approval at the highest political level, a person familiar with the matter has said. The U.S. Department of Defense has asked to test a range of Ukrainian defense products, including drones and electronic warfare systems, as Washington is considering their potential purchase for military use, the official said. The agreement has not been finalized, the person added, speaking on condition of anonymity because the discussions are private. Growing interest from the U.S. shows how the world's largest military is looking to tap into the drone expertise Ukraine has acquired over four years fighting against the Russian invasion.
Accurate Evaluation of Quickest Changepoint Detectors via Non-parametric Survival Analysis
Miyagawa, Taiki, Ebihara, Akinori F.
We propose non-parametric estimators for the average run length (ARL) and average detection delay (ADD) in quickest changepoint detection (QCD) under finite and irregular sequence lengths. Although ARL and ADD are widely used as optimality criteria in theoretical and simulation studies, their application to real-world datasets is hindered by limited and irregular sequence lengths. To address this issue, we propose non-parametric estimators for the ARL and ADD, termed KM-ARL and KM-ADD, by drawing an analogy between QCD and survival analysis to model detection probabilities under sequence truncation. We derive estimation bias bounds and prove that they are asymptotically unbiased unless extrapolation is required. Experiments on simulated and real-world datasets demonstrate their practical utility, enhancing robustness against limited and irregular sequence lengths, improving interpretability, and facilitating empirical, intuitive model selection. Our Python code is provided at https://github.com/TaikiMiyagawa/Kaplan-Meier-Average-Run-Length, offering ready-to-use implementations for practitioners.
MiMuon: Mixed Muon Optimizer with Improved Generalization for Large Models
Huang, Feihu, Luo, Yuning, Chen, Songcan
Matrix-structured parameters frequently appear in many artificial intelligence models such as large language models. More recently, an efficient Muon optimizer is designed for matrix parameters of large-scale models, and shows markedly faster convergence than the vector-wise algorithms. Although some works have begun to study convergence properties (i.e., optimization error) of the Muon optimizer, its generalization properties (i.e., generalization error) is still not established. Thus, in this paper, we study generalization error of the Muon optimizer based on algorithmic stability and mathematical induction, and prove that the Muon has a generalization error of $O\big(\frac{1}{Nฮบ^{T}}\big)$, where $N$ is training sample size, and $T$ denotes iteration number, and $ฮบ>0$ denotes minimum difference between singular values of gradient estimate. To enhance generalization of the Muon, we propose an effective mixed Muon (MiMuon) optimizer by cautiously using orthogonalization of gradient, which is a hybrid of Muon and momentum-based SGD optimizers. Then we prove that our MiMuon optimizer has a lower generalization error of $O\big(\frac{1}{N}\big)$ than $O\big(\frac{1}{Nฮบ^{T}}\big)$ of Muon optimizer, since $ฮบ$ generally is very small. Meanwhile, we also studied the convergence properties of our MiMuon algorithm, and prove that our MiMuon algorithm has the same convergence rate of $O(\frac{1}{T^{1/4}})$ as the Muon algorithm. Some numerical experimental results on training large models including Qwen3-0.6B and YOLO26m demonstrate efficiency of the MiMuon optimizer.
Latent Laplace Diffusion for Irregular Multivariate Time Series
You, Zinuo, Zheng, Jin, Cartlidge, John
Irregular multivariate time series impose a trade-off for long-horizon forecasting: discrete methods can distort temporal structure via re-gridding, while continuous-time models often require sequential solvers prone to drift. To bridge this gap, we present Latent Laplace Diffusion (LLapDiff), a generative framework that models the target as a low-dimensional latent trajectory, enabling horizon-wide generation without step-by-step integration over physical time. We guide the reverse process utilizing a stable modal parameterization motivated by stochastic port-Hamiltonian dynamics, and parameterize its mean evolution in the Laplace domain via learnable complex-conjugate poles, enabling direct evaluation over irregular timestamps. We also link continuous dynamics to irregular observations through renewal-averaging analysis, which maps sampling gaps to effective event-domain poles and motivates a gap-aware history summarizer. Extensive experiments show that LLapDiff improves over baselines in long-horizon forecasting, and its continuous-time generative nature supports missing-value imputation by querying the same model at historical timestamps. Code is available at https://github.com/pixelhero98/LLapDiffusion.
Lebanon says 19 killed in Israeli air strikes
Israeli air strikes have killed at least 19 people in southern Lebanon, the country's health ministry has said. Ten of them, including three children and three women, were killed in a single attack that hit a house in the town of Deir Qanoun, the ministry said. Lebanon was drawn into the war on 2 March, when the Iran-backed armed Shia Islamist group Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel in retaliation for US-Israeli strikes that killed Iran's supreme leader. The latest deaths less than a week after the US said that Lebanon and Israel had agreed to extend a ceasefire by 45 days, with the two sides set to resume talks at the beginning of June. Despite the extension, both Israel and Hezbollah have continued to exchange fire, especially in southern Lebanon.
More than 15,800 people killed in Russia's all-out war on Ukraine: UN
What are Russia's gains from the Iran war? 'We are not losers; we are winners' More than 15,800 people killed in Russia's all-out war on Ukraine: UN The United Nations has said 15,850 people, including 791 children, have been killed in Ukraine since Russia's full-scale invasion of the neighbouring country in February 2022. The "actual figures are likely significantly higher", Kayoko Gotoh, Europe and Central Asia director of the UN's Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA), told the UN Security Council on Tuesday. US President Donald Trump has attempted to mediate and announced the most recent three-day ceasefire earlier this month, but fighting has resumed. Tuesday's Russian attacks on Ukraine killed at least six people. A 15-year-old boy was among three people killed in a Russian ballistic missile attack on the city of Pryluky in north-central Ukraine's Chernihiv region on Tuesday morning, according to the State Emergency Service of Ukraine.
Estonia says Nato jet shot down drone over its territory
Estonia has said a Nato fighter jet shot down a drone, which it suspects was a Ukrainian projectile knocked off course by Russian electronic jamming, over its territory. Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur said a Romanian F-16 fired a missile and drone debris fell in a marshy area in central Estonia on Tuesday. Ukraine reacted by accusing Russia of deliberately redirecting Ukrainian drones launched at legitimate military targets in Russia, apologising to Estonia and all of our Baltic friends for such unintended incidents. Russia has not commented on the latest in a series of recent drone incursions over Nato members Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Last week, Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silina resigned following a political crisis over Russia-bound Ukrainian drones straying into Latvian territory.
Brendan Sorsby's lawsuit against NCAA could set a dangerous precedent in college sports moving forward
WNBA superstar Caitlin Clark will be the grand marshal of this year's Indianapolis 500 Victor Wembanyama's historic game one performance was personal, Spurs star reveals in postgame interview Dana White says gnats at Trump's White House Rose Garden dinner raised concerns for outdoor UFC events High school athlete slams CIF's shared podium rule as humiliating response that fails female competitors Kuwaiti Muslim jiu-jitsu champion refuses Israeli athlete's handshake: 'We do not respect them at all' Caitlin Clark's fiery Fever teammate tells WNBA haters to relax with perfect three-word response Red Sox legend Jason Varitek's wife appears to take massive swipe at team after ugly ouster Taiwan warns US about China's regional ambitions as Trump weighs arms deal Nate Bargatze takes clean comedy to big screen with'The Breadwinner' Retired vice admiral on Iran standoff: Trump has'time on his hands' Jury dismisses Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman Strikes must resume if Iran fails to negotiate'in good faith': Brig Gen John Teichert Trace Gallagher: What does liberal America want? 'Rededicate 250' faith event draws thousands to DC OutKick-Sports Brendan Sorsby's lawsuit against NCAA could set a dangerous precedent in college sports moving forward Chris Fallica weighs in on the Brendan Sorby sports betting incident. Fallica is skeptical on if Sorsby will even play college sports again after checking himself into a betting rehab. Brendan Sorsby's college football career should likely be over, according to rules put in place, after the gambling revelations detailed this week in a lawsuit filed against the NCAA by his own attorneys. At a time when athletes are suing the NCAA over nearly every restriction tied to earning opportunities, this case feels far more straightforward.
Inside the trans athlete podium controversy sending political shockwaves in California ahead of elections
Victor Wembanyama's historic game one performance was personal, Spurs star reveals in postgame interview Dana White says gnats at Trump's White House Rose Garden dinner raised concerns for outdoor UFC events High school athlete slams CIF's shared podium rule as humiliating response that fails female competitors Kuwaiti Muslim jiu-jitsu champion refuses Israeli athlete's handshake: 'We do not respect them at all' Caitlin Clark's fiery Fever teammate tells WNBA haters to relax with perfect three-word response Red Sox legend Jason Varitek's wife appears to take massive swipe at team after ugly ouster Reds vs. Phillies betting preview: Why Cincinnati is the play despite their 4-12 skid over 16 games Bubba Wallace'seeing red' after being wrecked, female driver rage-quits and cries & NASCAR missed the mark Taiwan warns US about China's regional ambitions as Trump weighs arms deal Nate Bargatze takes clean comedy to big screen with'The Breadwinner' Retired vice admiral on Iran standoff: Trump has'time on his hands' Jury dismisses Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman Strikes must resume if Iran fails to negotiate'in good faith': Brig Gen John Teichert Trace Gallagher: What does liberal America want? 'Rededicate 250' faith event draws thousands to DC OutKick contributor Riley Gaines discusses female high school athletes speaking out after a transgender participant won multiple events at a California track meet on'Fox & Friends.' MOORPARK, Calif. - On the morning of a day that would live in girls' sports infamy, a letter was handed out to coaches who entered a championship track and field meet at Moorpark High School. The letter announced that any girl who finished behind a biological male trans athlete would be bumped up by one spot on the podium, if that girl finished behind the trans athlete. The letter was dated May 16 -- the day of the event. The California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) will implement the pilot entry process introduced last season at the 2025 CIF Track and Field State Championships.