US support for nuclear energy is soaring. Meanwhile, coal plants are on their way out and electricity-sucking data centers are meeting huge pushback. Welcome to the next front in the energy battle. Take yourself back to 2017. Get Out and The Shape of Water were playing in theaters, Zohran Mamdani was still known as rapper Young Cardamom, and the Trump administration, freshly in power, was eager to prop up its favored energy sources. That year, the administration introduced a series of subsidies for struggling coal-fired power plants and nuclear power plants, which were facing increasing price pressures from gas and cheap renewables.

Four new books grapple with a global mental-health crisis and the dawn of algorithmic therapy. A technician adjusts the wiring inside the Mark I Perceptron. This early AI system was designed not by a mathematician but by a psychologist. More than a billion people worldwide suffer from a mental-health condition, according to the World Health Organization. The prevalence of anxiety and depression is growing in many demographics, particularly young people, and suicide is claiming hundreds of thousands of lives globally each year. Given the clear demand for accessible and affordable mental-health services, it's no wonder that people have looked to artificial intelligence for possible relief.

Jurisprudence Brett Kavanaugh Is Trying to Walk Back "Kavanaugh Stops." Justice Brett Kavanaugh does not seem happy that his name has become synonymous with racist immigration enforcement. In September, the justice wrote that Hispanic residents' "apparent ethnicity" could be a "relevant factor" in federal agents' decision to stop them and demand proof of citizenship. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection promptly seized upon his opinion as a license to stop any Hispanic person on the basis of race--often with excessive, even sadistic force --and detain them until they proved their lawful presence. Law professor Anil Kalhan termed these encounters "Kavanaugh stops," and the name swiftly caught on as evidence mounted that they had become standard practice across the country.

Great Britain's Olympic and Paralympic teams are going to need to harness artificial intelligence and work together more closely in order to continue their success at recent Games, says UK Sport chairman Nick Webborn. In his first interview since taking up the role, the head of the elite sport funding agency told BBC Sport: We've been a really successful nation, and to maintain that position or to even go higher, we're going to have to do things differently. It's about how we think smarter now, how we utilise things like AI appropriately in sport, how we work together as different sports bodies, rather than in silos. I think we're now in a frame of mind where we're united and moving together, that sharing of information between sports is happening much more than ever before. And we're going to need to do that to maintain ourselves in our position on the medal table.

Amid historically low birth rates and economic pressures from its aging population, China will eliminate a decades-old tax exemption on contraceptives. A visitor looks at condoms during the Beijing International Sex Supplies Exhibition. Amid historically low birth rates and economic pressures from its aging population, China will eliminate a decades-old tax exemption on contraceptives. China aims to impose a unique strategy to address a falling birth rate that threatens its long-term stability. As of January 1, 2026, the government will levy a 13 percent value-added tax (VAT) on various contraceptives, including condoms.

Daycare scandal deepens as unearthed video shows parents'pretending to drop kids off before they all leave just MINUTES later' Incredible Chinese military feat has chilling consequences for America and its allies as new'High North' threat emerges Everyone's getting sacked': An electrifying phone call, spiralling costs and a troubling'transition'... as Harry and Meghan's most loyal aide leaves, insiders tell ALISON BOSHOFF what's really going on behind the scenes I was told my weight gain, facial hair and fatigue were normal. Astronaut reveals depression after an'avalanche of misogyny' following Blue Origin all-female space flight The mob used Marilyn Monroe as bait to blackmail the Kennedys. And when it didn't work she was murdered... in the most obscene way George Clooney, wife Amal and their eight-year-old twins become French citizens despite the actor admitting he's'bad' at speaking the language Blonde-haired teenage girl reveals what she thinks of Elon Musk's'creepy' public lust for her CIA'carries out drone strike' on Venezuelan drug port in first US land attack inside the country I shed a staggering 100lbs WITHOUT Ozempic: How I conquered my'out of control' eating habits to transform my life with a simple change Grim details of how shark lover's body was identified after she was killed by one of the predators while swimming off California coast US strikes'terrorist boat' lurking in international waters as dramatic footage shows devastating moment of impact A Boy Scout vanished in the mountains then stumbled into a police station 12 years later. The tale gripped social media... but then the truth came out Inside the somber birthday of Rob Reiner's heartbroken daughter Romy: Pictured for first time since parents' murders... she seeks solace at the beach with boyfriend and family by her side Daycare accused of multimillion-dollar fraud shifts blame for'revealing' mistake above its front door... as kids are suddenly'trucked in' David Muir's stunning $7m lakeside retreat revealed... as locals in cozy town where ABC News star can be himself offer intriguing glimpses into his private life Why Dry January is a BAD idea: Expert warns the popular craze leads to a'binge or bust' approach to drinking READ MORE: Do you drink more or less than the national average? After one too many drinks on Wednesday night, many will wake up and swear off alcohol for the month.

Octopus Energy to spin off $8.65bn tech arm Kraken Octopus Energy is set to spin off its Kraken Technologies arm as a standalone company after a deal to sell a stake in the platform valued it at $8.65bn (£6.4bn). The energy giant, Britain's biggest gas and electricity supplier, has sold a $1bn stake in the AI-based division to a group of investors led by New York-based D1 Capital Partners. The move paves the way for Kraken to be demerged from Octopus, and for a potential stock market flotation for the business in the future. Octopus founder and chief executive Greg Jackson told the BBC there was every chance Kraken would list its shares in the medium term, with the location of the flotation between London and the US. Kraken uses AI to automate customer service and billing for energy companies and can manage when customers use energy, rewarding them for reducing consumption at peak times. It was initially built for use by Octopus but has since picked up a raft of other utilities clients, including EDF, E.On Next, TalkTalk and National Grid US.

Throughout the year we've reported on some of the larger stories, and some of the lesser-covered happenings, in our regular monthly digests. We look back through the archives and pick out one or two stories from each of our digests. This month, AI startup DeepSeek released DeepSeek R1, a reasoning model designed for good performance on logic, maths, and pattern-finding tasks. The company has also launched six smaller versions of R1 that are tiny enough to run locally on laptops. In Wired, Zeyi Yang reported on who is behind the startup, whilst Tongliang Liu (in The Conversation) looked at how DeepSeek achieved its results with a fraction of the cash and computing power of its competitors.

Could Ukraine hold a presidential election right now? Will Europe use frozen Russian assets to fund war? How can Ukraine rebuild China ties? 'Ukraine is running out of men, money and time' Each week, Myroshnyk Vassyl Savych heads north to deliver his newspaper to border communities exposed to Russian fire and disinformation. Editor-in-Chief Myroshnyk Vassyl Savych gets ready to deliver his weekly newspaper, Zorya Visnyk (The Dawn Bulletin), from his office in Zolochiv, in Ukraine's Kharkiv region, to front-line villages in November 2025 [Louis Lemaire/Al Jazeera] Editor-in-Chief Myroshnyk Vassyl Savych gets ready to deliver his weekly newspaper, Zorya Visnyk (The Dawn Bulletin), from his office in Zolochiv, in Ukraine's Kharkiv region, to front-line villages in November 2025 [Louis Lemaire/Al Jazeera] It's a cold, foggy morning in early November, and Myroshnyk Vassyl Savych is driving north on a narrow road in eastern Ukraine towards the Russian border. He's headed to villages where, owing to increasing exposure to Russian fire, only a fraction of residents remain. The war has cut them off from regular services. They no longer receive mail, and Russian transmitters often overpower or interfere with their Ukrainian mobile-phone signals. Before large-scale signal jamming was introduced to counter drones, Russian television and radio channels were accessible on televisions and radios in border-area communities. In his trunk are bundles of Zorya Visnyk ( The Dawn Bulletin), a local newspaper that Vassyl edits and delivers to front-line communities in Ukraine's Kharkiv region.

Daycare scandal deepens as unearthed video shows parents'pretending to drop kids off before they all leave just MINUTES later' Incredible Chinese military feat has chilling consequences for America and its allies as new'High North' threat emerges Everyone's getting sacked': An electrifying phone call, spiralling costs and a troubling'transition'... as Harry and Meghan's most loyal aide leaves, insiders tell ALISON BOSHOFF what's really going on behind the scenes I was told my weight gain, facial hair and fatigue were normal. Astronaut reveals depression after an'avalanche of misogyny' following Blue Origin all-female space flight The mob used Marilyn Monroe as bait to blackmail the Kennedys. And when it didn't work she was murdered... in the most obscene way George Clooney, wife Amal and their eight-year-old twins become French citizens despite the actor admitting he's'bad' at speaking the language Blonde-haired teenage girl reveals what she thinks of Elon Musk's'creepy' public lust for her CIA'carries out drone strike' on Venezuelan drug port in first US land attack inside the country I shed a staggering 100lbs WITHOUT Ozempic: How I conquered my'out of control' eating habits to transform my life with a simple change Grim details of how shark lover's body was identified after she was killed by one of the predators while swimming off California coast US strikes'terrorist boat' lurking in international waters as dramatic footage shows devastating moment of impact A Boy Scout vanished in the mountains then stumbled into a police station 12 years later. The tale gripped social media... but then the truth came out Inside the somber birthday of Rob Reiner's heartbroken daughter Romy: Pictured for first time since parents' murders... she seeks solace at the beach with boyfriend and family by her side Daycare accused of multimillion-dollar fraud shifts blame for'revealing' mistake above its front door... as kids are suddenly'trucked in' David Muir's stunning $7m lakeside retreat revealed... as locals in cozy town where ABC News star can be himself offer intriguing glimpses into his private life Loch Ness Monster has been'spotted' FIVE times this year, official records show The Loch Ness Monster was'spotted' five times in 2025, official records have revealed. The mythical creature has been a staple feature of Scottish folklore for centuries, but gained worldwide attention in 1933, when the first photo was snapped.