3 h. ago US judge orders release of grand jury transcripts in Epstein case

A US federal judge on Friday ordered the release of the grand jury transcripts from the investigation in Florida of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The Justice Department requested the unsealing of the transcripts after US President Donald Trump signed a bill last month requiring the public release of all government records regarding Epstein. Grand jury proceedings are generally kept secret and a previous Justice Department request to unseal the transcripts from Epstein’s Florida case...

Events

54 h. ago Photos of Epstein’s notorious private island released by US Democrats

Democrats in the US Congress released photos and videos on Wednesday showing the luxury island home where convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein allegedly forced underage girls into sex with powerful men. The images of Epstein’s former Caribbean hideaway shed little new light on the complex scandal. However, they could add pressure on the Trump administration to comply with a requirement to release all the investigative files compiled during years of probes into Epstein’s activities – with...

Politics

3 d. ago China’s DeepSeek challenges Google DeepMind with new AI model

Artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek has unveiled its most powerful model variant, DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale, which is said to match Google DeepMind’s new Gemini 3 Pro model in certain tasks, despite the Chinese firm having limited access to advanced semiconductor chips. The achievement by the open-source lab has sparked extensive discussion within the AI research community as it coincides with the prestigious annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems, or NeurIPS. In its...

Politics

4 d. ago Did Philippine VP Sara Duterte’s jailbreak ‘joke’ keep her dad in ICC detention?

The International Criminal Court’s ruling that Rodrigo Duterte is too politically connected to be trusted on interim release – citing his entrenched networks and even a “joke” from his daughter about breaking him out – has entwined the former president’s legal predicament with the political dynamics shaping the 2028 race. Analysts told This Week in Asia that the decision has narrowed the 80-year-old’s room for political manoeuvre while potentially strengthening, under some circumstances, the...

Events

5 d. ago China’s DeepSeek AI reaches gold at international maths olympiad

China’s DeepSeek AI reaches gold at international maths olympiad  Interesting Engineering

Politics

5 d. ago Beyond DeepSeek: Moonshot and MiniMax step up as China’s new frontier AI labs

Chinese artificial intelligence start-ups Moonshot AI and MiniMax have emerged as China’s strongest contenders to rival US frontier labs in 2025 – even as DeepSeek has stolen the spotlight as the poster child for the country’s AI ambitions. Moonshot AI, founded by 33-year-old Yang Zhilin, has sharply raised its profile in China’s AI ecosystem with the launch earlier this month of Kimi K2 Thinking, an upgraded reasoning model. The system outperformed OpenAI’s GPT-5 and Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet...

Politics

7 d. ago China's DeepSeek Releases New Open Source AI Model Amid Google's Gemini 3 Roll Out

China's DeepSeek Releases New Open Source AI Model Amid Google's Gemini 3 Roll Out  Investor's Business Daily

Politics

7 d. ago DeepSeek, Alibaba researchers endorse China’s AI regulatory framework

Researchers from artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek and tech giant Alibaba Group Holding have endorsed China’s emerging AI regulatory framework while calling for clearer feedback in a paper published in the US journal Science. The paper, published last month under the title “China’s emerging regulation towards an open future for AI”, said the country had so far facilitated an “innovation- and openness-friendly institutional environment for AI developers” but that it could be further...

Politics

1 week ago Anthropic says its new AI model is better at coding and office work

Anthropic is rolling out a new version of its most powerful artificial intelligence model that is designed to be better at automating coding and office tasks, part of an effort to compete with OpenAI and Alphabet’s Google for business customers. The new model, Claude Opus 4.5, was more capable than previous versions at software engineering work, like fixing bugs, without needing a user’s help, Anthropic said. Opus 4.5, released on Monday, is also intended to be better at carrying out complicated...

Politics

1 week ago AI fake audio clip of Trump ‘not releasing’ Epstein files goes viral

Left-leaning social media users have amplified an AI-generated audio clip purporting to show US President Donald Trump screaming at US officials to block the release of documents related to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, researchers said on Friday. In recent weeks, renewed public furore over the so-called Epstein files has consumed US politics, spurring a showdown between lawmakers and Trump, a former friend of the late convicted sex offender. “Not releasing the Epstein files,” a...

Politics

2 w. ago Khashoggi’s widow and Democrats demand release of ‘shocking’ Trump

A Democratic lawmaker who served on Donald Trump’s National Security Council in his first term urged the White House on Friday to release a transcript of Trump’s 2019 call with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s killing. “The Khashoggi family and the American people deserve to know what was in that call the receipts will raise serious questions,” congressman Eugene Vindman told a news conference with Khashoggi’s widow, Hanan Elatr Khashoggi. In 2019,...

Politics

2 w. ago Singaporean Amos Yee released on parole from US prison after child porn sentence

Singaporean Amos Yee on Thursday was released from a United States prison on parole. Yee, now 27, was serving time at Danville Correctional Center in Illinois after being sentenced in 2021 to six years’ jail by a US court for possessing child pornography and grooming. According to a victim’s information network, Yee had been released on November 7 and immediately taken back into custody. He was then released again on November 20. Yee has been registered as a sex offender, according to checks on...

Events

2 w. ago Bondi says she’ll ‘follow the law’ on Epstein files, as bill heads to Trump

US Attorney General Pam Bondi said the Justice Department “will follow the law” after the passage of legislation forcing the government to release files on sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Bondi, speaking to reporters Wednesday after the Senate sent the bill to US President Donald Trump for his signature, said the law will be followed “while providing maximum transparency and protecting victims”. The attorney general, who, like Trump, has faced criticism for previously declining to release the...

Politics

2 w. ago Trump signs bill approving Epstein files release after fighting it for months

US President Donald Trump signed legislation Wednesday that compels his administration to release files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, bowing to political pressure from his own party after initially resisting those efforts. Trump could have chosen to release many of the files on his own months ago. “Democrats have used the ‘Epstein’ issue, which affects them far more than the Republican Party, in order to try and distract from our AMAZING Victories,” Trump said in a social media post...

Politics

2 w. ago Trump signs bill for Epstein files release after fighting it for months

US President Donald Trump signed legislation on Wednesday that compels his administration to release files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, bowing to political pressure from his own party after initially resisting those efforts. Trump could have chosen to release many of the files on his own months ago. “Democrats have used the ‘Epstein’ issue, which affects them far more than the Republican Party, in order to try and distract from our AMAZING Victories,” Trump said in a social media...

Politics

2 w. ago Harvard reopens probe into Larry Summers after release of Epstein emails

Harvard University has reopened an investigation into connections between former President Larry Summers and Jeffrey Epstein, a university spokesman said on Wednesday, and Summers’ office said he would resign from the board of OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT. The university did not mention Summers by name, but the decision to restart the probe follows the release of emails showing that Summers, a former Treasury secretary, maintained a friendly relationship with Epstein long after the financier...

Politics

2 w. ago Larry Summers takes leave from teaching at Harvard after Epstein emails

Former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers abruptly went on leave on Wednesday from teaching at Harvard University, where he once served as president, over recently released emails showing he maintained a friendly relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, Summers’ spokesperson said. Summers had been retreating from his public commitments amid the fallout of the emails revelation, but he had maintained that he would continue teaching economics classes at Harvard. Yet by Wednesday evening, Summers had...

Politics

2 w. ago China ‘cements global AI leadership’ as Hong Kong builds niche as innovation hub

China has cemented its position as a global leader in artificial intelligence, while Hong Kong is carving out a niche as a specialised innovation hub, underpinned by the country’s strong governance and regulatory competitiveness, according to a global index. Technology breakthroughs such as the low-cost, highly efficient AI models introduced by start-up DeepSeek, combined with national support, propelled China to the forefront of the global AI race, alongside the US, the European Union and...

Politics

2 w. ago Google launches Gemini 3, its ‘most intelligent’ AI model yet

Alphabet’s Google debuted an updated version of its artificial intelligence model, Gemini, that executives said represented a “massive jump” in reasoning and coding ability. The new model, Gemini 3, will be available immediately across all of Google’s major products, including search, and can answer questions with interactive graphics. Gemini 3, like its predecessor, could process text, images and other media as well as solve complex science and maths problems, the company said. It had...

Technology

2 w. ago US lawmakers vote overwhelmingly to force release of Epstein files

The US House voted overwhelmingly in favour of a bill on Tuesday to force the Justice Department to publicly release its files on the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a remarkable display of approval for an effort that had struggled for months to overcome opposition from President Donald Trump and Republican leadership. When a small bipartisan group of House lawmakers introduced a petition in July to manoeuvre around House Speaker Mike Johnson’s control of which bills reach the House...

Politics