Author: Frank Salvato

Twenty-five years ago, Americans watched the unimaginable unfold in real time. On September 11, 2001, terrorists turned commercial airliners into weapons, murdered nearly 3,000 people, brought down the World Trade Center towers, struck the Pentagon, and would have attacked another symbol of American government had the passengers and crew of United Flight 93 not fought back. The weapons were brutally simple. Box cutters. Airplanes. Fanaticism. Surprise. A quarter-century later, the lesson of September 11 should not merely be that America must remember those who died. It should be that our enemies study our vulnerabilities, exploit our assumptions, and look for…

Bitdeer has fully contracted the 9.5-megawatt capacity of its A102 artificial-intelligence data center in Malaysia under five-year agreements representing more than $800 million in expected revenue, securing customers before the facility is even energized. The company had contracted roughly half of A102 for approximately $400 million on August 19, then committed the remaining capacity within just 12 days. The liquid-cooled facility, designed for rack-scale NVIDIA GB300 NVL72 deployments, is scheduled to begin service in the first quarter of 2027. Bitdeer’s ability to secure long-term customers and substantial prepayments before committing the full capital required for construction underscores both the extraordinary…

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is warning that America’s technological contest with China has reached a point where leadership in artificial intelligence could outweigh virtually every other measure of national power. Bessent argues that the United States presently holds the advantage because of its unmatched combination of private capital, advanced chips, innovative technology companies and entrepreneurial culture, but Beijing continues aggressively pursuing American capabilities while building its own AI ecosystem. His warning comes as Washington confronts questions over Chinese acquisition and replication of American AI technology, massive investments in computing infrastructure, and domestic resistance to the data centers and energy…

Australia is preparing a major expansion of its regulation of Big Tech by requiring social media platforms to give users a meaningful choice between algorithmically curated feeds and posts limited to accounts they deliberately follow. The proposed Digital Duty of Care framework would require platforms to periodically offer users that choice while placing greater responsibility on technology companies to identify and mitigate harmful material, particularly content affecting minors. Regulators and approved researchers could also operate accounts posing as children to examine what recommendation systems actually deliver to young users. Companies violating the rules could face penalties exceeding A$100 million. The…

The death of Dolly Parton has become an unsettling example of how artificial intelligence can blur the boundary between tribute, entertainment, exploitation, and outright deception. Following Parton’s death on August 25 at age 80 after a private battle with cancer, her sister Stella Parton publicly condemned the flood of AI-generated images, songs, videos, and misinformation circulating online. Among the fabricated material were an artificial image depicting Dolly with President Trump at the White House and a song falsely attributed to her goddaughter Miley Cyrus. Stella said the Parton family has endured considerable pressure and insensitivity while grieving and urged the…

AI-powered surveillance cameras are rapidly becoming fixtures at public-school campuses across the country, prompting students, parents and civil-liberties advocates to question whether school security is evolving into a sprawling government surveillance system. Flock Safety technology—including automated license-plate readers and searchable vehicle data—is now used in more than 100 school districts, while critics warn that information collected for campus safety can potentially become accessible to law-enforcement networks far beyond school grounds. Students in Colorado and Georgia have organized efforts seeking removal of the cameras, while some districts have canceled contracts or paused their systems for review. Supporters contend the technology can…

A proposed nationwide class-action lawsuit accuses Amazon of systematically discriminating against thousands of pregnant warehouse employees by denying reasonable accommodations, penalizing pregnancy-related absences, and terminating some workers whose medical needs conflicted with company attendance and productivity policies. Four former employees allege that pregnant workers were denied or delayed access to basic accommodations including chairs, additional bathroom and water breaks, modified duties, and time away for prenatal appointments. Amazon disputes the allegations, saying it accommodates tens of thousands of pregnant employees annually and approved more than 99.9 percent of pregnancy-related accommodation requests over the past year. The lawsuit follows other legal…

PayPal is eliminating another 251 jobs at its San Jose headquarters as part of a much larger restructuring designed to cut costs, simplify management and accelerate artificial-intelligence adoption. The latest reductions, which include senior engineers, managers and product executives, come as the company pursues at least $1.5 billion in savings over the next two to three years and reportedly plans to shrink its global workforce by roughly 20 percent. Despite remaining profitable, PayPal faces declining earnings, weaker branded-checkout growth, formidable competition from Apple Pay and Google Pay, and a stock price dramatically below its 2021 high. The layoffs illustrate an…

Federal campaign-finance data from the 2024 election cycle through early 2026 reveals a striking occupational divide in Bay Area political giving: highly educated professionals, academics, physicians, lawyers and creative workers overwhelmingly favored Democrats, while farmers, repair workers, construction laborers, couriers and delivery workers were comparatively more Republican. Even within one of America’s most Democratic regions, the results reflect the national political realignment separating credentialed professional institutions from substantial portions of the working class. The findings do not establish how every employee votes, since campaign donors are not representative of the entire electorate, but they provide another measurable indication that occupation,…

There is perhaps no responsibility more fundamental to a school district than protecting the children entrusted to its care. Parents have every right to expect administrators to take reasonable precautions against violence, abduction, reckless drivers, unauthorized visitors, and other threats. Yet the legitimate pursuit of security does not automatically justify every technology capable of advancing it. That is the ethical dilemma presented by Flock cameras and similar automated license-plate recognition systems on school campuses. Unlike an ordinary security camera, an automated license-plate reader does more than record what happens within its field of view. It can identify vehicles, record license…