Morning Skim

AI

The Seattle Times and Newsday sue OpenAI and Microsoft over training data

The two newspapers argue that ChatGPT and Copilot are "rapacious consumers, devouring human-authored content" and then sell derivative versions of it back to readers. The complaint calls the arrangement "a snake eating its own tail" that could "destroy the very organizations" producing the original reporting.

Why it matters: Both outlets have taken Microsoft and OpenAI money for journalism fellowships and projects, so suing anyway suggests funded partnerships are no longer a substitute for a licensing deal.

Dive deeper → TechCrunch

Three hikers rescued on Mount Shasta after Gemini undercounted their food and water

The Siskiyou County sheriff's office said the group set out at 3am, did not summit until 7pm, descended in the dark and spent the night in Mud Creek Canyon before Forest Service rangers and volunteers reached them. Deputies said the men were "advised by Gemini to bring far less food and water than their group required."

Why it matters: It is a rare case of a public safety agency naming a specific chatbot as a factor in a rescue, and the sheriff's advice was blunt: call the local ranger station instead of relying solely on AI for trip planning.

Dive deeper → TechCrunch

Tech

Attackers are taking over MikroTik routers through exposed SSH with no password

CERT Polska warned that a two-flaw chain it calls MikroTick hands attackers full administrative control of internet-facing RouterOS devices without authentication, with exploitation seen since at least September 2. RouterOS 6.0.0 through 6.49.20, 7.0.0 through 7.23.3 and 7.24.0 through 7.24.1 are affected.

Why it matters: Fixed builds are already out in 6.49.21, 7.23.4 and 7.24.2, but routers are the box nobody patches, and a hijacked edge device gives an attacker a durable seat inside the network.

Dive deeper → The Hacker News

A Magento zero-day is backdooring online stores while Adobe stays silent

Dutch security firm Sansec published early on a flaw it calls StyleSmuggler, saying stores "are being compromised right now" and dating attacks to September 4. The unauthenticated exploit injects PHP into files Magento writes, then triggers it through the Payment Transaction Failed Reminder email, and every current version including 2.4.9 is affected.

Why it matters: Adobe has issued no CVE, advisory or patch, leaving shop owners to disable GraphQL and install unofficial community fixes ahead of a September 8 security release that may not even address it.

Dive deeper → The Hacker News

Business

Foxconn posts its biggest August ever as AI server orders keep climbing

Revenue reached T$921.8 billion, about $29.15 billion, up 51.98% from a year earlier and the second straight month above T$900 billion. The Nvidia supplier said third quarter results should beat market expectations, and its shares closed 3.4% higher on Friday against a 1.5% gain for the wider Taiwan market.

Why it matters: Foxconn assembles a large share of the world's AI server capacity, so its monthly order book is one of the least filtered reads on whether the datacenter buildout is still accelerating.

Dive deeper → Investing.com

The SEC goes to court to pry four years of client voting records out of ISS

Regulators asked a federal court to force proxy adviser Institutional Shareholder Services to turn over detailed records identifying which clients voted which way, part of a probe opened in March into whether its guidance is "influenced by political or policy objectives at the expense of clients." ISS says it will cooperate but is fighting the scope on First Amendment grounds, warning that clients could face retaliation over protected speech.

Why it matters: Proxy advisers quietly shape thousands of shareholder votes a year, and forcing their client lists into the open would change who is willing to be seen taking their advice.

Dive deeper → Investing.com

Science

Princeton's AI caught a fusion plasma instability 200 milliseconds before it hit

PACMAN, built at Princeton and the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, chains several machine learning models into a control loop that runs in about 20 milliseconds, reading tokamak sensors, predicting plasma behavior and applying safety limits before it issues commands. Across five experiments it coordinated all six plasma-heating gyrotrons at once and headed off one disruption it saw coming roughly 200 milliseconds early.

Why it matters: Plasma instabilities unfold far faster than any human operator can react, so automated control is less a convenience than a precondition for a fusion machine that runs longer than a few seconds.

Dive deeper → ScienceDaily

80,000-year-old arrowheads in Uzbekistan push projectile weapons back by 25,000 years

A team led by archaeologist Andrei Krivoshapkin found triangular points under 2 cm wide at the Obi-Rakhmat rock shelter in the Tien Shan mountains, and microscopic impact damage marks them as weapon tips rather than tools. Nearly identical points turn up 25,000 years later at the Mandrin site in France's Rhone Valley, the team reports in PLOS One.

Why it matters: It suggests Homo sapiens were long established in the middle of Eurasia and invented the technology there, complicating the tidy story of one migration out of Africa into Europe about 45,000 years ago.

Dive deeper → ScienceDaily

World

Saxony-Anhalt votes with the AfD polling at 40% and within reach of running a German state

Sunday's election in the eastern state put the far-right party roughly 17 points ahead of the CDU, whose incumbent premier Sven Schulze is defending the job. An absolute majority would let AfD candidate Ulrich Siegmund govern without the mainstream parties that refuse to work with him, and organizers counted 15,000 to 20,000 people at a pro-democracy rally the night before the vote.

Why it matters: No far-right party has held power in a German state since World War Two, and the AfD is openly treating Saxony-Anhalt as the proving ground for a national run in 2029.

Dive deeper → Al Jazeera

Anak Krakatau's ash shuts Jakarta's main airport and grounds 301 flights

The volcano began erupting late Friday with lava fountains heard up to 700km away and erupted twice more on Sunday, sending ash 6,000 meters up over Java and as high as 15,000 meters over Sumatra and Banten. Soekarno-Hatta International was one of six airports suspended, 301 flights were grounded including 58 international ones, and Singapore Airlines scrapped its Jakarta service for the day.

Why it matters: Indonesia's disaster agency says there is no imminent tsunami risk, the fear that shadows any Anak Krakatau eruption since its 2018 flank collapse sent waves into the Sunda Strait and killed more than 400 people.

Dive deeper → Al Jazeera

Culture

Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime show wins seven Emmys

The performance took Best Variety Special (Live) along with choreography, directing, music direction, lighting design, sound mixing and technical direction at the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards on Saturday. They are the first Emmys of Bad Bunny's career, and Kid Rock's competing halftime show won nothing.

Why it matters: A Spanish-language halftime set sweeping both the top variety prize and the technical categories retires the argument that it was a novelty booking.

Dive deeper → Consequence

Bruce Campbell says he has roughly five years to live

The 68-year-old actor told The Adam Carolla Show he is working with "a five year prognosis," adding "give or take," while promoting his film Ernie & Emma. He first disclosed the diagnosis in March, describing the cancer as treatable but not curable, and has not named the type.

Why it matters: His framing, "I've decided though pretty specifically to live with it not die with it," is a rare public account of a terminal prognosis that is neither a fundraising push nor a farewell tour.