Large Language Model (LLM) agents are increasingly utilized in AI-aided education to support tutoring and learning. Effective communication strategies among LLM agents improve collaborative problem-solving efficiency and facilitate cost-effective adoption in education. However, little research has systematically evaluated the impact of different communication strategies on agents' problem-solving. Our study examines four communication modes, \textit{teacher-student interaction}, \textit{peer-to-peer collaboration}, \textit{reciprocal peer teaching}, and \textit{critical debate}, in a dual-agent, chat-based mathematical problem-solving environment using the OpenAI GPT-4o model. Evaluated on the MATH dataset, our results show that dual-agent setups outperform single agents, with \textit{peer-to-peer collaboration} achieving the highest accuracy. Dialogue acts like statements, acknowledgment, and hints play a key role in collaborative problem-solving. While multi-agent frameworks enhance computational tasks, effective communication strategies are essential for tackling complex problems in AI education.

Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company xAI has been granted a permit to run methane gas generators at its massive datacenter in Memphis, Tennessee. The county health department approved the permit for the 15 machines late on Wednesday, a move that has sparked outcry from the local community and environmental leaders, who say the generators pollute their neighborhoods. "Our local leaders are entrusted with protecting us from corporations violating on our right to clean air, but we are witnessing their failure to do so," said KeShaun Pearson, the director of the local environmental non-profit Memphis Community Against Pollution. To supplement the facility's heavy power usage, the company brought in dozens of portable methane gas generators. In January, xAI did apply for a permit for 15 generators – even though it had been running up to 35 generators on-site, according to photographs.

A local health department in Memphis has granted Elon Musk's xAI data center an air permit to continue operating the gas turbines that power the company's Grok chatbot. The permit comes amid widespread community opposition and a looming lawsuit alleging the company violated the Clean Air Act. The Shelby County Health Department released its air permit for the xAI project Wednesday, after receiving hundreds of public comments. The news was first reported by the Daily Memphian. In June, the Memphis Chamber of Commerce announced that xAI had chosen a site in Memphis to build its new supercomputer.

Since Elon Musk announced that he'll be stepping back from his daily work with DOGE, perhaps you've been wondering if he has anything else to fill that time now that he's shut down operations at America's humanitarian-aid provider, wrecked much of the nation's scientific-research infrastructure, and disputed the communications systems at the Social Security Administration. One way to find out would be to ask Grok, his entry in the A.I. sweepstakes. "Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company, xAI, has been making significant moves in Memphis," Grok reports. "But these have sparked controversy." The Lede Reporting and commentary on what you need to know today.

Reading comprehension is a key for individual success, yet the assessment of question difficulty remains challenging due to the extensive human annotation and large-scale testing required by traditional methods such as linguistic analysis and Item Response Theory (IRT). While these robust approaches provide valuable insights, their scalability is limited. There is potential for Large Language Models (LLMs) to automate question difficulty estimation; however, this area remains underexplored. Our study investigates the effectiveness of LLMs, specifically OpenAI's GPT-4o and o1, in estimating the difficulty of reading comprehension questions using the Study Aid and Reading Assessment (SARA) dataset. We evaluated both the accuracy of the models in answering comprehension questions and their ability to classify difficulty levels as defined by IRT. The results indicate that, while the models yield difficulty estimates that align meaningfully with derived IRT parameters, there are notable differences in their sensitivity to extreme item characteristics. These findings suggest that LLMs can serve as the scalable method for automated difficulty assessment, particularly in dynamic interactions between learners and Adaptive Instructional Systems (AIS), bridging the gap between traditional psychometric techniques and modern AIS for reading comprehension and paving the way for more adaptive and personalized educational assessments. The manuscript has been accepted for presentation at the 27th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction in Gothenburg, Sweden, from June 22-27, 2025.

In July, Elon Musk made a bold prediction: that his artificial intelligence startup xAI would release "the most powerful AI in the world," a model called Grok 3, by this December. The bulk of that AI's training, Musk said, would happen at a "massive new training center" in Memphis, which he bragged had been built in 19 days. But many residents of Memphis were taken by surprise, including city council members who said they were given no input about the project or its potential impacts on the city. And in the months since, an outcry has grown among community members and environmental groups, who warn of the plant's potential negative impact on air quality, water access, and grid stability, especially for nearby neighborhoods that have suffered from industrial pollution for decades. These activists also contend that the company is illegally operating gas turbines.

Fox News Flash top sports headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. Pro Football Hall of Famer Shannon Sharpe ripped Memphis Grizzlies All-Star Ja Morant over his latest incident involving a handgun. Sharpe initially said he was disappointed in Morant for his actions after he was previously suspended for a separate gun incident while intoxicated at a Denver-area nightclub. That incident led to an eight-game suspension by the league.

Detroit carjackings are up 40 percent compared to last year - and the ages of the kids doing them – have become unbelievable. A Tennessee man stands accused of carjacking his Tinder date at gunpoint last year and trying to sell her car back to her for $500. Elijah Darius Scott, 25, of Memphis, Tennessee, landed in the Shelby County Jail on Tuesday after being charged with carjacking and aggravated robbery, as well as employment of a firearm during a dangerous felony, according to local outlet WREG. The alleged victim informed officers that after agreeing to meet a man she knew only as Darius, Scott entered the passenger side of the vehicle, placed a gun next to her and demanded her phone and money while threatening to shoot her. Elijah Darius Scott, 25, allegedly carjacked a Memphis woman and offered to sell her car back to her for $500.

Fox News Flash top headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. An unidentified inspector who failed to discover a crack in the Hernando de Soto Bridge linking Arkansas and Tennessee that prompted the span's closure was fired Monday morning and may face charges, according to reports. Arkansas Department of Transportation Director Lorie Tudor said the inspector was fired after drone video showed the crack on the bridge spanning the Mississippi River in May 2019. "This is unacceptable," Tudor said at a news conference.

FedEx plans to house small technology hubs at locations throughout its network that will better handle its computing needs, its chief information officer says, with the first being installed in Memphis inside an air-transport container. The team-up with Dell Technologies and data center company Switch will support FedEx's growing technological requirements for its highly automated facilities, its in-development delivery robot Roxo, SenseAware ID tracking devices and more, CIO Rob Carter said in an interview. "We see a world coming where you need ultra-high availability, ultra-low latency compute – much closer to the action than what traditional data centers or even cloud data centers provide," he said. The three companies announced the collaboration Nov. 12, with a news release saying the technology hubs will allow customers "to make real-time decisions using capabilities like artificial intelligence, machine learning and 5G." The localized approach will give its consumers "faster access to their workloads and data for greater flexibility and speed" as businesses rely more and more on near real-time connectivity, Dell Technologies Global Chief Technology Officer John Roese said in a statement.