Trump Waives Russia Energy Tariffs He Signed Into Law

President Donald Trump has waived the sweeping tariffs on Russian energy exports mandated by a law he signed last month, reversing the harshest new Western economic measure against Moscow. The legislation, championed by Senator Lindsey Graham, was designed to punish countries still buying Russian oil, gas and uranium through secondary tariffs of extraordinary scale. Its abrupt suspension shows how the measures collided with a more immediate priority: lowering diesel prices ahead of the US midterm elections.

Administration officials frame the waiver as flexibility that preserves leverage over the Kremlin while talks on ending the Ukraine war continue. Critics call it capitulation, arguing the reversal guts the enforcement machinery Congress built and hands Vladimir Putin a financial lifeline. Refiners had warned the tariffs would disrupt fuel supply chains and raise pump prices at the worst possible moment for Republicans defending Congress.

For the Kremlin, the decision eases pressure on an energy-dependent war economy already showing strain. Eastern European allies will read the retreat as evidence that American sanctions carry expiry dates calibrated to US political calendars. With control of Congress at stake, economic pain at home has clearly outranked strategic patience abroad — a precedent adversaries will not forget.

Houthis Strike Riyadh Airport As Saudi Defenses Falter

Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels have repeatedly struck the airport in Riyadh and seized territory near a vital shipping chokepoint, a display of strength that has stunned the region. The attacks expose a marked upgrade in the group's missile and drone capabilities, honed through years of war with the Saudi-led coalition. Riyadh has struggled to respond despite fielding one of the best-funded militaries in the world.

Previous Saudi air campaigns failed to dent the rebel arsenal, and renewed sorties have done little to slow advances on the ground. Analysts trace the Houthis' extended reach to sustained Iranian support, including guidance systems that now put the heart of the kingdom within range. Capturing land along the Red Sea corridor threatens commercial shipping that has already endured years of Houthi interdiction.

The escalation leaves Washington and its Gulf partners with shrinking options, since diplomatic channels to Tehran remain frozen and heavier strikes risk igniting a broader war. Insurance premiums for vessels transiting the region are climbing again, pushing up the cost of goods moving between Europe and Asia. For Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the humiliation arrives just as he has tried to rebrand the kingdom as a haven for international capital.

Carney Makes Final Plea Against Alberta Independence

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney made a final appeal in Edmonton on Friday against a referendum that could set his home province of Alberta on a path toward independence. He warned voters that secession would be a dangerous gamble at a moment of growing threats to Canada's sovereignty. The vote represents the gravest challenge to national unity in decades, fueled by anger over energy policy and a conviction that Ottawa ignores the West.

Carney framed the choice in starkly personal terms, returning to the city where he grew up to argue that a divided Canada would negotiate alone against a far larger and newly assertive United States. Splitting now, he said, would leave both a diminished Canada and a landlocked Alberta with weak leverage. Separatist leaders counter that the province sends billions more to Ottawa than it receives and would thrive controlling its own oil wealth.

A yes vote would not legally dissolve the federation, but it would trigger a constitutional crisis without modern precedent. Indigenous nations have signaled they would assert treaty rights over any unilateral breakaway, complicating separatist maps before the first ballot is counted. Polls suggest the independence side trails, though organizers need only keep the question alive to maintain pressure on Ottawa.

Pope Appears After Surgery And Lung Cancer Diagnosis

The Pope has been pictured for the first time since surgery at Rome's Gemelli Hospital, where doctors operated on Tuesday and subsequently diagnosed lung cancer. Vatican watchers and more than a billion Catholics will scrutinize the images for clues to his stamina and prognosis. Few medical details have been released beyond the diagnosis itself, continuing a long tradition of opacity around papal illness.

The announcement places the church in territory its modern leaders have usually avoided acknowledging, as pontiffs from John Paul II onward concealed serious ailments while the world speculated. Pope Francis endured repeated hospitalizations that upended his schedule, and resignation became thinkable after Benedict XVI stepped down in 2013. Every public appearance now doubles as a health bulletin in an era when frailty cannot be hidden.

Attention will quickly shift to the machinery of succession, with Vatican observers already weighing which cardinals would dominate a conclave. Canon law permits a pope to resign if treatment impairs his capacity to govern, a path that now sits openly on the table. His agenda, travel plans and liturgical obligations hang on medical bulletins rather than the calendar of tradition.

'Doomsday Glacier' Melting Faster Than Scientists Feared

Thwaites, the Antarctic glacier roughly the size of Senegal, is losing ice faster than scientists previously estimated, deepening fears of accelerating sea level rise. Nicknamed the Doomsday Glacier, it drains a vast basin of the West Antarctic ice sheet and acts as a cork holding back enough frozen water to lift global oceans by well over half a meter. Its melt rate appeared steady for decades; researchers now warn the loss is quickening.

Warm ocean water is penetrating beneath the glacier's floating tongue, eroding the grounding line where ice meets bedrock and weakening the friction that holds the mass in place. Satellite measurements and robotic surveys reveal retrograde slopes inland that could unleash runaway retreat once instability passes a threshold. Neighboring glaciers share the same vulnerable basin, making a cascade the nightmare scenario modelers have long dreaded.

For coastal cities from Miami to Mumbai, even modest upward revisions to sea level projections translate into trillions in defensive spending over coming decades. Small island states facing eventual inundation will cite the findings as pressure builds on wealthy nations over climate finance. Freshwater from melting on this scale also threatens to slow the ocean currents that help regulate weather across the Northern Hemisphere.

Four Dead In Three-Minute Oregon School Rampage

A teenager killed three children and a teacher at an elementary school in Bend, Oregon, in a rampage that police say lasted about three minutes before an armed bystander shot the gunman. Investigators have reconstructed a timeline that began with the shooter reaching the campus and ended moments later with four people dead. The speed of the violence has shattered a central Oregon city better known for trails and breweries than for tragedy.

Officials have not announced a motive, and detectives are combing through the shooter's recent history for warning signs as classmates and relatives are interviewed. How the teenager obtained the weapon remains a central question for prosecutors weighing charges against any adult involved. Vigils multiplied across the high desert community over the weekend as grief counselors arrived at local schools.

The bystander's intervention has already polarized the national gun debate, celebrated by some as proof that armed civilians save lives and challenged by others who note the danger of crossfire in crowded classrooms. Oregon's mix of urban support for restrictions and rural tradition guarantees a legislative fight in the session ahead. For a community now joined to the roster of American school massacres, the politics matter less than the empty desks.

AI Debt Fears Trigger Wall Street Tech Rout

Technology stocks slid sharply as Wall Street recoiled from the enormous borrowing that has financed the artificial intelligence build-out. Chipmakers led the decline, with investors questioning whether colossal spending on data centers, power and processors can generate matching returns. The retreat marks a rare wobble of confidence in the sector that has powered the market's multi-year rally.

At issue is the mountain of debt issued to fund AI infrastructure, which some analysts compare to the telecom borrowing spree that preceded the dot-com crash. Credit markets have begun demanding higher premiums from companies whose revenue depends on a technology still proving its profitability. Optimists insist computing demand remains overwhelming; skeptics counter that overcapacity is forming long before the profits arrive.

Concentration magnifies the danger, since a handful of mega-cap companies account for an outsized share of index gains and their stumble drags pensions and retirement accounts along. Regional banks and power utilities exposed to data center lending would feel the squeeze if financing tightens. Investors now await earnings season, where the gap between AI promises and cash flow will be tested in public.

• A mounting debt bill for AI infrastructure sent tech stocks tumbling, with investors fleeing chipmakers and other AI-exposed names across Wall Street. The slide left QQQ down 2.5% on the day and 5.5% on the week, while SPY dropped 1.1% for a 2% weekly decline. CBS News →
• Nvidia chief Jensen Huang is staying calm through the carnage, telling investors the AI market rout is temporary because "all of this is going to pass." His stock begs to differ: NVDA slipped 1.4% Friday and 6.6% on the week, though it remains up 19.4% from a year ago. Bloomberg →
• Dip-buyers, beware: MarketWatch flags several signs pointing to more pain ahead for tech stocks even after this week's drubbing. Microsoft shed 1.9% in the latest session, while Apple's 0.4% gain stood out as a rare megacap bright spot. MarketWatch →
• Brent crude touched $110 a barrel for the first time since May as supply shocks from the U.S.-Iran conflict and the war in Ukraine keep the oil market on a knife's edge. U.S. benchmark WTI ended near $99, up 1.1% on the day, 7.8% on the week and almost 70% from a year ago. The Hill →
• China warned the EU not to "fantasise" about its trade approach after Brussels confirmed a new "kill switch" mechanism. The flare-up signals the danger of a trade war between two of the world's three biggest economies is far from de-escalated, a lingering overhang for global risk assets. South China Morning Post →
• American banks are pushing back against AI agents moving customer money following the Muse launch, with Schwab CEO Rick Wurster scoffing that only "a relative handful of dummies" are permitting it. Money is rotating into the sector regardless: TD Bank jumped 5.7% this week and 55% on the year, powering the TSX to a 2.9% weekly gain while U.S. tech sank. Gizmodo →
• Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has placed a $330 million bet on Bending Spoons, venturing deeper into tech just as the sector convulses over AI debt. The move reads as a contrarian vote of confidence while other investors run for the exits. TheStreet →
• Tesla unveiled a flying Roadster — and used the moment to wave goodbye to the car business. The dazzling machine doubles as a statement that Elon Musk's ambitions now stretch well beyond autos, toward robotics, energy and AI. Axios →

No playoff games yesterday.

Philosophy of AI

Every day, millions of people ask a chatbot to draft an apology, let an algorithm triage a medical scan, or argue with a navigation app about the fastest route home. These encounters feel mundane until you notice what they quietly assume: that a machine can be helpful, persuasive, perhaps even wise. Philosophy of AI interrogates that assumption. It asks what intelligence actually is, whether it requires a biological brain, and what follows for ethics and self-understanding if the answer turns out to be no.

At its core, the discipline treats artificial intelligence as both an engineering achievement and a philosophical experiment. If a computer proves theorems, translates languages, or holds a conversation, philosophers want to know whether it is doing what a human does when performing the same task — or merely producing a flawless imitation. Two pieces of jargon organize the debate. "Strong AI" is the claim that a suitably built machine could genuinely think, feel, or understand. "Weak AI" holds that machines can only simulate intelligence, generating the outputs without any inner reality behind them. Nearly everything else — consciousness, meaning, moral status — hangs on which claim is true.

Three figures anchor the tradition. Alan Turing effectively launched it in 1950 with a playful provocation: since the question "Can machines think?" is too vague to answer, replace it with a test. A judge exchanges typed messages with a hidden human and a hidden computer; if the judge cannot reliably tell which is which, the machine passes. Turing's test reframed thought as something verified behaviorally, from the outside, and it still shapes how we talk about chatbots today.

John Searle pushed back in 1980 with his famous Chinese Room. Imagine a person sealed inside a room, following rules to shuffle Chinese characters without understanding a word of Chinese. From outside, the room appears fluent; inside, there is no comprehension at all. Searle's point is that syntax — rule-governed symbol manipulation — never adds up to semantics, genuine meaning. Computers, he argued, are elaborate versions of that room.

A third critic, Hubert Dreyfus, attacked from a different angle. Drawing on phenomenology, the philosophical study of lived experience, he insisted that human intelligence is not symbol-crunching but embodied know-how: a nurse's intuitive triage, a driver's feel for ice. Intelligence, on this view, grows from having a body, a history, and a world to cope with — resources that the disembodied programs of early AI conspicuously lacked.

Today's language models unsettle all three positions at once. They converse with startling fluency, which pressures Searle. They learn from vast interaction with human expression, which complicates Dreyfus. And their command of language has arguably carried them past Turing's behavioral bar while settling precisely nothing.

That leaves the oldest question standing, sharper than ever: if behavior is all we can ever observe, can we truly distinguish a mind from a flawless performance of one? And if we cannot, what do we owe the performers?

Want to go deeper? Read the full Stanford Encyclopedia entry on Philosophy of AI →

• Apple's first foldable, the $2,000 iPhone Duo, sold out within hours of going on sale, with deliveries now slipping to 2027. The company blamed "extraordinary" demand for the backlog. Financial Times →
• Apple has rewritten its App Store rules to explicitly ban "nudify" apps that use AI to generate intimate images of people without their consent. The crackdown also covers "bait-and-switch" apps that conceal nudification features. The Verge →
• A bug caused Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses to record audio without the wearer's consent, turning one of the product's biggest privacy fears into reality. Meta has patched the flaw, but concerns about the glasses' recording capabilities persist. Ars Technica →
• Verizon plans to charge $10 per month for iPhone Handoff, the feature Apple introduced in iOS 27 that lets one phone number work across multiple devices. The fee adds a recurring carrier cost to software Apple shipped for free. MacRumors →
• Apple's HomeView smart home device is available to pre-order now and ships November 13. The company has confirmed which Apple apps will run on the hardware from day one. 9to5Mac →
• The leap second has been abolished by the BIPM, the international body that maintains Coordinated Universal Time. Long a source of contention among timekeepers and a headache for the computing systems that rely on precise clocks, the adjustment will no longer be inserted. Wired →
• A US representative has proposed a bill that would give video game buyers "ownership" of their purchases rather than "a license." The legislation still faces substantial technical and legislative hurdles before it could reshape how digital games are sold. Ars Technica →