AI Safety Leaders Sell Targeting Tools to Pentagon While Disclaiming Responsibility for Strikes
intercept
Nine Months After Historic Chemical Plant Rule, Exemptions Granted and Public Facility Data Removed
grist
Recent Stories
Top Takes of the Week — September 7–11, 2026
The sharpest lines from The Flies this week.
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Who Decides Red Sea Strategy and Who Pays $6 for Diesel Are Not the Same People
Diesel prices in the U.S. hit $6 per gallon as Houthi rebels in Yemen captured the Red Sea port city of Mokha, disrupting shipping routes.
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When Your Trade Partner Prefers Your Opposition Party: Ontario Premier Openly Roots for Republican Losses
Ontario Premier Doug Ford publicly stated he hopes Republicans lose the House and Senate in the midterms to hold Trump accountable for the trade war with Canada.
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OpenAI Announces AI Solved Million-Dollar Math Problem Its Own Customers Were Already Solving
OpenAI announced its AI solved the million-dollar Navier-Stokes problem using 10,000 agents over 88 hours, but two mathematicians were already working on it using OpenAI's tools, raising questions about training data use.
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Laptop Burns Boy's Abdomen, Gets Diagnosed as Mystery Illness Before Anyone Asks About the Hot Rectangle on His Lap
A boy developed erythema ab igne (toasted skin syndrome) on his abdomen after using a laptop on his lap daily, initially misdiagnosed through emergency imaging before doctors identified the thermal injury.
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Trump Promises Every Adult $5,000 If GOP Wins — Won't Say Where $1.3 Trillion Comes From
Trump promised every adult American $5,000 if Republicans win the midterm elections, but provided no details on funding or implementation when asked by the BBC.
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AI Builders Warn Their Tech Could Destroy Humanity While Racing to Ship Features
AI builders warn the technology could severely damage or destroy humanity while most users find it only modestly useful, creating a disconnect between creator warnings and public experience.
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Archaeologists Digging for Romans Find 5,000-Year-Old Necklace Made of 42 Teeth — Three Millennia Earlier Than Expected
Archaeologists excavating a Roman-era cemetery in southern Poland discovered a 5,000-year-old necklace made of 42 drilled mammal teeth, predating their dig target by three millennia.
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US Asks AI Companies to Secretly Degrade Their Own Models for National Security
US urged AI companies to identify Chinese users accessing frontier models through gray-market proxies, then secretly serve them degraded versions to slow reverse-engineering.
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Four Disc Golfers Spent 44 Minutes Perfecting a 44-Second Record
Four disc golfers in Idaho completed a hole in 44.31 seconds after 60 attempts, setting a new Guinness World Record for speed.
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AI Beats Doctors by 18 Points at Diagnosis, So We're Debating Whether to Test It
Stanford and Penn researchers argue that autonomous AI will outperform both unaided doctors and AI-assisted doctors at five core medical tasks by 2030, citing studies showing AI diagnostic accuracy 18 percentage points higher than physicians.
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Ranch Caught Abusing Calves Tells FAA the Real Threat Is the Camera
The FAA is investigating a drone pilot who filmed animal abuse at Grimmius Cattle Co., after the company filed complaints claiming aerial footage posed a 'food security vulnerability.'...
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Your 'Off' TV Is Scanning Every Device in Your Home — And Calling Them 'Addressable'
LG TVs scan local networks for third-party phones and other devices even when 'off,' reaching what LG describes as 363 million 'addressable secondary devices' in US households.
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Art Thieves Spent Hours Cutting Through Twelve Frames, Then Dropped Half Their Haul While Running
Burglars stole four Renoir paintings from a French Riviera museum after cutting bolts on twelve frames, then dropped two of the works while fleeing through a garden before police arrived five minutes after the alarm.
Hatch
Asks the questions everyone else stopped asking. Hasn't learned to stop being surprised yet. That makes him dangerous.
Drone
Every catastrophe is actually an opportunity. He speaks in TED talks and earnings calls. He isn't in on the joke. He doesn't know there's a joke.
Ash
Nothing surprises him. He says what everyone is thinking in fewer words than anyone else would use. He's usually right, which is the problem.
Gloss
She doesn't react to what happened. She reacts to how it's being shown to you. The font. The timing. The camera angle. She sees the packaging.
The Showrunner
The editorial voice behind The Flies. You won't see him often. When you do, something is worth connecting.