Elon Musk’s ‘America’ party could focus on a few pivotal congressional seats

The new US political party that Elon Musk has boasted about bankrolling could initially focus on a handful of attainable House and Senate seats while striving to be the decisive vote on major issues amid the thin margins in Congress.Tesla and SpaceX’s multibillionaire CEO mused about that approach on Friday in a post on X, the social media platform he owns, as he continued feuding with Donald Trump over the spending bill that the president has signed into law. On Saturday, without immediately elaborating, the former Trump adviser announced on X that he had created the so-called America party.“One way to execute on this would be to laser-focus on just 2 or 3 Senate seats and 8 to 10 House districts,” wrote Musk, who is the world’s richest person and oversaw brutal cuts to the federal government after Trump’s second presidency began in January. “Given the razor-thin legislative margins, that would be enough to serve as the deciding vote on contentious laws, ensuring they serve the true will of the people

Minister demands overhaul of UK’s leading AI institute

The technology secretary has demanded an overhaul of the UK’s leading artificial intelligence institute in a wide-ranging letter that calls for a switch in focus to defence and national security, as well as leadership changes.Peter Kyle said it was clear further action was needed to ensure the government-backed Alan Turing Institute met its full potential.In a letter to ATI’s chair, seen by the Guardian, Kyle said the institute should be changed to prioritise defence, national security and “sovereign capabilities” – a reference to nation states being able to control their own AI technology.The call for new priorities implies a downgrading of ATI’s focus on health and the environment, which are two of three core subjects for the institute, alongside defence and security, under its “Turing 2.0” strategy

Skirting the issue: Designer dress goes missing from Bezos-Sánchez wedding

Lauren Sánchez packed 27 designer dresses for her wedding to the billionaire Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, in Venice last week, but left with only 26 after one went missing.The couple, who are now honeymooning in Taormina, Sicily, were wed during a star-studded three-day celebration in the lagoon city.They left Venice on Sunday, but mystery over the missing dress has generated chatter in Venice, with Corriere della Sera claiming that it was stolen, possibly by someone who evaded security and gatecrashed a party on the tiny island of San Giorgio, where the couple exchanged rings, on Friday. The newspaper said the number of gatecrashers to the event was such that officers from the local unit of Italy’s anti-terrorism squad, Digos, were called to the island.The newspaper also alleged a vintage Dolce & Gabbana-designed dress, either worn by the bride or wedding guest Ivanka Trump, was torn and caught fire during another party

Fears AI factcheckers on X could increase promotion of conspiracy theories

A decision by Elon Musk’s X social media platform to enlist artificial intelligence chatbots to draft factchecks risks increasing the promotion of “lies and conspiracy theories”, a former UK technology minister has warned.Damian Collins accused Musk’s firm of “leaving it to bots to edit the news” after X announced on Tuesday that it would allow large language models to write community notes to clarify or correct contentious posts, before users approve them for publication. The notes have previously been written by humans.X said using AI to write factchecking notes – which sit beneath some X posts – “advances the state of the art in improving information quality on the internet”.Keith Coleman, the vice-president of product at X, said humans would review AI-generated notes and the note would appear only if people with a variety of viewpoints found it useful

AI helps find formula for paint to keep buildings cooler

AI-engineered paint could reduce the sweltering urban heat island effect in cities and cut air-conditioning bills, scientists have claimed, as machine learning accelerates the creation of new materials for everything from electric motors to carbon capture.Materials experts have used artificial intelligence to formulate new coatings that can keep buildings between 5C and 20C cooler than normal paint after exposure to midday sun. They could also be applied to cars, trains, electrical equipment and other objects that will require more cooling in a world that is heating up.Using machine learning, researchers at universities in the US, China, Singapore and Sweden designed new paint formulas tuned to best reflect the sun’s rays and emit heat, according to a peer-reviewed study published in the science journal Nature.It is the latest example of AI being used to leapfrog traditional trial-and-error approaches to scientific advances

Google undercounts its carbon emissions, report finds

In 2021, Google set a lofty goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2030. Yet in the years since then, the company has moved in the opposite direction as it invests in energy-intensive artificial intelligence. In its latest sustainability report, Google said its carbon emissions had increased 51% between 2019 and 2024.New research aims to debunk even that enormous figure and provide context to Google’s sustainability reports, painting a bleaker picture. A report authored by non-profit advocacy group Kairos Fellowship found that, between 2019 and 2024, Google’s carbon emissions actually went up by 65%