Ukraine faces'toughest winter' since Russia's full-scale invasion, UN official tells BBC Image caption, Efforts are under way to repair Ukraine's power network so people can run heaters and access water during winter Ukraine is facing its toughest winter since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, a top United Nations official told the BBC. Alexander De Croo, head of the UN development agency, said there was a risk of humanitarian catastrophe if Russian attacks cut off access to power and water. Speaking in Ukraine, De Croo - the UN's third most senior official - accused Russia of systematically targeting the country's energy infrastructure. He said there was now a race against the clock to repair the power network before winter sets in and temperatures plummet. Russia and Ukraine have been intensifying aerial attacks in recent months, and both deny deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure.

Israel's military says it has destroyed a large underground complex operated by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. It said it used more than 1,000 tonnes of explosives to destroy two tunnels spanning more than 2km (1.2 miles) beneath the Ali Taher Ridge. The blast triggered seismic activity equivalent to a magnitude 4.1 earthquake, according to the US Geological Survey. There was no immediate public response from Hezbollah or the Lebanese government. Israeli forces took control of the ridge last week after months of fighting with the Iran-backed group there.

The AI Researcher Who Just Quit Anthropic Says It's'Crunch Time for Humanity' Jacob Coxon talks to WIRED about the "mini Manhattan project" inside Anthropic, the problem with alignment, and why AI labs have just a few years left to make their systems safe. Artificial intelligence researcher Jacob Coxon sent shock waves through Silicon Valley and beyond on Tuesday by announcing his resignation from Anthropic and delivering a grave warning that the AI race is putting all of our lives at risk. In his post on X, which now has more than 100 million views, Coxon wrote that many of the people building AI share his views and believe time is running out to ensure AI systems are built safely . "The consensus is that the next year or two is crunch time for humanity," Coxon, who worked on the pretraining stage of AI development, said in an interview with WIRED. "These are actually just literal quotes from my colleagues at Anthropic. They'll say things like'endgame' or'crunch time,'" he says. "From their perspective, this is when Anthropic and its competitors decide the fate of humanity." It's far from the first time someone has sounded the alarm about AI, but it comes at a delicate moment.

The new Apple Watch includes several "intelligent" listening features that have privacy and security baked in. But the protections can't change the facts of what the tools do. The new Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 come not just with better fitness tracking and upgraded noise reduction, but a whole new way to listen. Apple announced on Wednesday that the two smartwatches come with four opt-in "audio intelligence" tools that are powered by audio gathered by the watches' microphones. They include sound and music recognition, a conversation recap feature, and "Live Rewind" so a user can see a transcription of anything that was said in their environment in the previous 15 seconds.

Google will buy up to half the electricity produced by one of Finland's nuclear power plants as part of a record €13bn (£11bn; $15bn) investment in the country's AI infrastructure, the company announced. The US tech giant said the package would fund three new data centres, expand an existing site and support energy projects to power growing demand for AI services. This is Google's largest single investment in Europe and a testament to Finland's leadership in responsibly building AI infrastructure, the company said on Wednesday. Google's decision is a clear testament to our strengths, Finland's Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said in a statement. As part of the deal, Google signed a 22-year contract with Finnish utility Fortum to buy up to 50% of the output from the Loviisa nuclear power plant.

Robots are a crowd-pleasing example of American innovation and global technological leadership. The latest press release of Boston Dynamics' executing the'Ghost Rabona' soccer kick highlights the increasingly natural movements of humanoids ( 1). At the other end of the spectrum, academic researchers are redefining the limits of miniaturization and building robots at the micrometer scale ( 2). Private and government funding propel foundational research forward, leading to breakthroughs in both hardware and software across U.S. labs and corporations ( 3, 4). Such progress reaffirms the U.S. as an intellectual and innovative powerhouse, a reputation that carries large geopolitical weight.

What is Iran's Pickaxe Mountain? Did Iran capture a US submarine? Share Did Iran capture a US submarine? Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said its naval forces have captured an unmanned United States submarine near the Strait of Hormuz, as Tehran and Washington continue to exchange tit-for-tat attacks on ships to exert control over the crucial waterway that connects the Gulf and the Arabian Sea. Iranian state media identified the vessel as a Dive-LD - an autonomous underwater vehicle built by California-based defence firm Anduril Industries.

Water cyberattacks from Iran, China, and Russia target America's critical infrastructure. AI detection and anomaly detection tools could help defend aging water utility systems.

An empty lot is stacked with aluminum brackets, steel rods and wooden planks in Ulanqab, China. Set in rolling grassland, Ulanqab is an unlikely technological hub. Yet this modest city of less than 2 million people in Inner Mongolia has found itself on the front line of China's efforts to relocate computing power away from its crowded eastern megacities and out to its western regions, where both space and inexpensive green energy are abundant. At one cluttered intersection on the eastern edge of the city on a Friday at lunchtime, workers streamed out of a cluster of data-center construction sites -- a reminder of the scale of the endeavor here, some 350 kilometers northwest of Beijing. Still wearing hard hats and high-visibility vests, their pants and boots caked in dust, they congregated at a cluster of trucks selling cheap meals, beer and cigarettes.

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