Thousands of people across the United States poured into the streets this week to protest the Trump administration's immigration policies, joining a nationwide wave of resistance that began in Los Angeles. One of the most widely shared images from the city, where federal authorities have sent almost 5,000 active-duty Marines and National Guard members, is of five Waymo robotaxis that were vandalized and set on fire. The incident has become one of the most recognizable symbols of the demonstrations so far, and prompted Waymo to temporarily shut off service in several parts of the city as well as in San Francisco on Monday. The charred Waymo cars have also raised fresh questions about what kinds of technology authorities can use to surveil protestors and potentially collect evidence to make arrests. According to Waymo's website, its latest driverless cars have 29 external cameras, providing "a simultaneous 360 view around the vehicle," as well as an unknown number of internal ones.

Australia must "lean in hard" to the benefits of artificial intelligence or else risk ending up "on the end of somebody else's supply chain", according to the new industry and science minister, Tim Ayres, with the Labor government planning to further regulate the rapidly evolving technology. Ayres, a former official with the manufacturing union, acknowledged Australians remained sceptical about AI and stressed that employers and employees needed to have discussions about how automation could affect workplaces. The minister said Australia had "no alternative" but to embrace the new technology and seek to become a world leader in regulating and using AI. "It's the government's job to lean into the opportunity to outline that for businesses and for workers, but also to make sure that they are confident that we've got the capability to deal with the potential pitfalls," Ayres told Guardian Australia. "I think the Australian answer has got to be leaning in hard and focusing on strategy and regulation that is in the interest of Australians."

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. The yearslong international fight to lay claim to the suspected "world's richest shipwreck" likely won't end anytime soon, especially after a research team's most recent conclusions. Experts have confirmed that dozens of gold coins scattered across the ocean floor off the coast of Colombia belonged to the San José, an ill-fated Spanish treasure galleon that sank over 300 years ago during a battle with British warships. The findings were published on June 10 in the journal Antiquity. In June 1708, the San José and a fleet of 17 other vessels departed the capital of Colombia for Europe laden with gold, silver, and uncut gems.

President Trump's relationship with Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk appeared to blow up last week as the two feuded in public. Let's be honest: Most people thought the Trump–Musk feud would drag on for weeks. After all, you had the president threatening to review SpaceX contracts and the world's richest man reposting Epstein rumors. It looked like a real fracture between two of America's most powerful forces. Then, just like that, it ended with a conciliatory tweet from Elon Musk.

Meta is to announce a 15bn ( 11bn) bid to achieve computerised "superintelligence", according to multiple reports. The Silicon Valley race to dominate artificial intelligence is speeding up despite the patchy performance of many existing AI systems. Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's chief executive, is expected to announce the company will buy a 49% stake in Scale AI, a startup led by Alexandr Wang and co-founded by Lucy Guo, in a move described by one Silicon Valley analyst as the action of "a wartime CEO". Superintelligence is described as a type of AI that can perform better than humans at all tasks. Currently AI cannot reach the same level as humans in all tasks, a state known as artificial general intelligence (AGI).

Before Ibtihal Aboussad was fired by Microsoft for protesting the company's work with the Israeli military during a celebration of the firm's 50th anniversary, she sent two emails. The first went to all of her colleagues. She appealed to their universal humanity and urged them to stand against Microsoft's contracts to provide cloud computing software and artificial intelligence products to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). She sent the second to the "Muslims at Microsoft" email list. With her email, Aboussad told the Guardian, she wanted Muslim staff of companies such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon to stop regarding the question of whether they organize against their employer's work with the IDF as an issue of secular or professional ethics. It was a question of Islam, of their faith, she argued.

At 10:44 pm eastern time on May 16, Ryan Hall spotted a blue square on his radar indicating debris flying into the air and realized a huge tornado was racing toward Somerset, Kentucky. "We've been watching this storm for a while, we've been hootin' and hollerin' for a while, hopefully the message has gotten out there and we know to be in our safe spots," Hall warned his YouTube audience in a calm voice with a Southern twang. A silver robot with blue eyes popped onto the screen to tell Hall that a viewer had commented about tiny houses near the tornado. Hall replied to his AI robot, known as Y'all Bot. The 31-year-old host of Ryan Hall, Y'all--one of YouTube's most popular weather channels with 2.8 million subscribers--went live for nearly 12 hours that day as more than 70 tornadoes swept through the central U.S., killing at least 28 people.

Kyiv, Ukraine – Swarms of Russian kamikaze drones broke through Ukrainian air defence fire early on Tuesday, screeching and shrilling over Kyiv in one of the largest wartime attacks. Oleksandra Yaremchuk, who lives in the Ukrainian capital, said the hours-long sound of two or perhaps three drones above her house felt new and alarming. "This horrible buzz is the sound of death, it makes you feel helpless and panicky," the 38-year-old bank clerk told Al Jazeera, describing her sleepless night in the northern district of Obolon. "This time I heard it in stereo and in Dolby surround," she quipped. Back in 2022, she crisscrossed duct tape over her apartment's windows to avoid being hit by glass shards and spent most of the night in a shaky chair in her hallway.

Russian drone strikes have killed three people and wounded 60, including children, in the northeastern city of Kharkiv, officials say. The city, just 30 kilometres (18 miles) from the Russian border, bore the brunt of Russia's latest aerial assault early on Wednesday, with 17 drones striking two residential areas, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said. "Those are ordinary sites of peaceful life … that should never be targeted," he wrote on Telegram. Among the 60 wounded in the attacks were nine children aged between 2 and 15, according to Kharkiv regional head Oleh Syniehubov. One Kharkiv resident, Olena Khoruzheva, told the AFP news agency how she had run with her two children away from the windows of her building when she heard the drones approach.

New prosthetic arms combine artificial intelligence, machine learning and advanced sensor systems. If you've ever wondered what's next for prosthetic technology, you're not alone. For many people living with limb loss, finding a prosthetic that feels natural and works seamlessly with their body has always been a challenge. Now, a California startup called Atom Bodies is making headlines for its groundbreaking approach to prosthetic technology. By combining artificial intelligence, machine learning and advanced sensor systems, Atom Bodies is developing mind-controlled robotic arms that could soon make highly advanced prosthetics accessible to thousands of amputees.