Day: August 14, 2026

A small British seaside town voted Thursday in a special election between a hard-right populist and a man who wears a trash can on his head. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage resigned to call the by-election after being accused of accepting an unlawful gift, but no major parties ran against ...

China’s AI ecosystem is trying to intensify its push to meet and surpass leading US models. ByteDance is reportedly developing an AI model rivaling Anthropic’s most advanced Mythos system, and DeepSeek is touting its efforts to build a challenger to Claude Code. Meanwhile, as Beijing attempts to erect a firewall ...

Chinese chipmaker CXMT overtook Tencent on Thursday to become the country’s most valuable company, as memory makers surf a tidal wave of AI-fueled demand. The changeover occurred after Tencent, itself a CXMT customer, reported it had doubled its quarterly AI spending, worrying investors; Tencent has invested heavily in AI but ...

The US has lost upwards of 25% of its Reaper drones during the Iran war, The Washington Post reported Thursday, as the conflict taxes diminishing American stockpiles. Costing up to $50 million each, the slow, low-flying drones present easy pickings, and represent something of a bygone era. The Pentagon is ...

Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed new attacks on a Saudi Arabian oil refinery Thursday, as the US-Iran war threatened to expand further. The strikes could impact the kingdom’s efforts to maintain shipping volumes amid ongoing disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, Bloomberg reported. Riyadh is weighing support for a new ground ...

The region’s fire chief says the service took thousands of 999 calls across “one of the most significant” incidents in its history. ...