Former head of the FBI who investigated Russia’s involvement in the 2016 US presidential election

Robert Mueller, who has died aged 81, led an investigation, as US special counsel, into Russian interference in the 2016 White House election and alleged collusion with Donald Trump’s campaign team. Trump was enraged by the two-year-long investigation, which dominated much of his first term as president. He repeatedly dismissed it as a “witch-hunt”.

Mueller’s report, published in 2019, was inconclusive. He found links between Russians and those around Trump, and that his bid for the presidency had benefited from Russian leaks that undermined the Democratic campaign. But he failed to establish collusion on the part of the Trump campaign.

Aerial video shows floodwaters around Oahu’s North Shore and Waialua in Hawaii’s worst flood in more than 20 years.

Officials urged people in hard-hit areas to ‘LEAVE NOW’ after heavy rains fell on soil already saturated by downpours from a winter storm a week earlier.

Muddy floodwaters covered streets and farmland. On Maui, authorities upgraded an evacuation advisory to a warning for some parts of Lahaina, which is still reeling from a deadly 2023 wildfire, because of retention basins nearing capacity

• Hawaii urges residents to ‘leave now’ amid worst flooding in over 20 years

Today show host Savannah Guthrie’s family released new statement asking for help in locating missing mother, 84

Savannah Guthrie and her family have released a new statement about their missing mother, urging Tucson, Arizona, residents to come forward with potential clues about 84-year old’s Nancy Guthrie’s whereabouts.

In their statement on Sunday, the NBC Today show host and her siblings said: “We continue to believe it is Tucsonans, and the greater southern Arizona community, that hold the key to finding resolution in this case. Someone knows something. It’s possible a member of this community has information that they do not even realize is significant.”

Today show host released new statement asking for help in locating mother, 84, now missing for seven weeks

Savannah Guthrie and her family have released a new statement about their missing mother, urging Tucson, Arizona, residents to come forward with potential clues about 84-year old’s Nancy Guthrie’s whereabouts.

In their statement on Sunday, the NBC Today show host and her siblings said: “We continue to believe it is Tucsonans, and the greater southern Arizona community, that hold the key to finding resolution in this case. Someone knows something. It’s possible a member of this community has information that they do not even realize is significant.”

Aerial video shows floodwaters around Oahu’s North Shore and Waialua in Hawaii’s worst flood in more than 20 years.

Officials urged people in hard-hit areas to ‘LEAVE NOW’ after heavy rains fell on soil already saturated by downpours from a winter storm a week earlier.

Muddy floodwaters smothered streets and farmland. On Maui, authorities upgraded an evacuation advisory to a warning for some parts of Lahaina, which is still reeling from a deadly 2023 wildfire, because of retention basins nearing capacity

• Hawaii urges residents to ‘leave now’ amid worst flooding in over 20 years

AI analytics firm has become influential in Whitehall, and FCA deal gives it yet more access to data

• Palantir extends reach into British state as it gets access to sensitive FCA data

Palantir’s latest UK contract takes the AI and data analytics company into the heart of one of Britain’s biggest industries: financial services, which accounts for 9% of the economy.

The Miami-based company embedded its technology in the NHS in 2023, the police in 2024 and the military in 2025. Land and expand, they say in the tech industry. Palantir has followed the script, building contracts worth more than £500m.

CNN looks at "the Magic AI fitness mirror," a new product "watching you, and giving you feedback automatically," while sometimes playing footage of a recorded personal trainer. Long-time Slashdot reader destinyland describes CNN's video report: CNN says the device "tracks form, counts reps, and corrects technique in real-time — and it doesn't go easy on you." (Although the company's CEO/cofounder, Varun Bhanot, says "we're not trying to completely replace personal trainers. What we are providing is a more accessible alternative.") CNN call the company "more a computer-vision firm than a fitness company, building the tech for this mirror from the ground up." CEO Bhanot tells CNN he'd hired a personal trainer in his 20s to get fit, but "Going through that journey, I realized how old-fashioned personal training was. Dumbbells were still dumb. There was no data or augmentation for the whole process!" "The AI fitness and wellness market is already huge — and it's growing," CNN adds. "In 2025 the global market was worth $11 billion, according to [market research firm] Insightace Analytic. By 2035, this market is expected to reach just shy of $58 billion. And Magic AI is far from alone. Form, Total, Speediance, and Echelon, to name a few, are all brands vying for a slice of this market. Even the most purely physical of activities — exercising your body — now gets "enhanced" with AI accessories...

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"Google is beginning to replace news headlines in its search results with ones that are AI-generated," reports the Verge: After doing something similar in its Google Discover news feed, it's starting to mess with headlines in the traditional "10 blue links," too. We've found multiple examples where Google replaced headlines we wrote with ones we did not, sometimes changing their meaning in the process. For example, Google reduced our headline "I used the 'cheat on everything' AI tool and it didn't help me cheat on anything" to just five words: "'Cheat on everything' AI tool." It almost sounds like we're endorsing a product we do not recommend at all. What we are seeing is a "small" and "narrow" experiment, one that's not yet approved for a fuller launch, Google spokespeople Jennifer Kutz, Mallory De Leon, and Ned Adriance tell The Verge. They would not say how "small" that experiment actually is. Over the past few months, multiple Verge staffers have seen examples of headlines that we never wrote appear in Google Search results — headlines that do not follow our editorial style, and without any indication that Google replaced the words we chose. And Google says it's tweaking how other websites show up in search, too, not just news. The good news, for now, is that these changed headlines seem to be few and far between, and they're not yet the kind of tripe we've seen in Google Discover. (For example, Google Discover told me this week that the PlayStation Portal was getting a 1080p streaming mode, when it actually got a higher bitrate mode instead.) Compared to that and other lying Google Discover headlines like "US reverses foreign drone ban" — on a story reporting the opposite — the nonsense headlines we're seeing in Google Search are downright tame. The article points out that Google "originally told us its AI headlines in Google Discover were an experiment too. A month later, it told us those AI headlines are now a feature..." "Google confirmed that the test uses generative AI, but claimed that 'if we were to actually launch something based on this experiment, it would not be using a generative model and we would not be creating headlines with gen AI'..."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.