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Guardian USA

Schumer confident on Senate leadership role despite dwindling votes – video

New York senator Chuck Schumer expressed confidence that he would become the majority leader after the Democratic party gained at least 54 seats in the Senate during the midterm elections. Schumer's remarks came after Vermont senator Bernie Sanders announced he would not support Schumer for the leadership position. Sanders joins a growing list of Democratic senators who have said they will not support Schumer

Guardian USA

NFL trade deadline: Kirk Cousins returns to Vikings as Raiders hand starting job to Fernando Mendoza

Minnesota acquire veteran quarterback for 2027 pick
Cousins returns to Vikings after six seasons with team
No 1 pick Mendoza set to make first NFL start
NFL trade deadline 2026 – as it happened

Kirk Cousins is heading back to Minnesota.

The Vikings have acquired the veteran quarterback from the Las Vegas Raiders in exchange for a third-round pick in the 2027 draft, according to multiple reports, including from ESPN’s Adam Schefter and NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport.

Guardian USA

NFL trade deadline 2026: Vikings reunite with Kirk Cousins; Colts stick with Taylor; 49ers get WR Allen – as it happened

Vikings reunite with QB Kirk Cousins in deal with Vegas
Niners add WR Keenan Allen; Bills land S Amani Hooker

In NFL-adjacent news:

Jordon Hudson is suing two Airbnb hosts over a Ring doorbell camera video of a shirtless Bill Belichick. Hudson says that the 2023 clip invaded her privacy by prompting public disclosure of her relationship with the former Patriots coach.

Guardian USA

Thomas Markle, Meghan’s father, jailed after cutting off ankle monitor, DoJ says

Estranged father of Duchess of Sussex was arrested for keeping child sexual abuse material, authorities say

The estranged father of Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, has been jailed after US authorities said he cut an electronic monitoring device off his ankle, days after his arrest for keeping child sexual abuse material in storage units in California.

Thomas Markle, 82, was in custody awaiting a hearing in federal court in Tampa, Florida, first assistant US attorney Bill Essayli said. He was arrested shortly after he cut off the ankle bracelet at 1.45am on Tuesday, Essayli said.

Slashdot

Fireworks AI Confirms Wider Breach Affecting Notion AI Chats

Fireworks AI says its October breach was broader than initially disclosed, with attackers gaining access to customer account and billing information as well as some datasets, incomplete model weights and secrets. Notion, the popular productivity and note-taking app, disclosed that it was impacted in the breach but "fewer than 1% of Notion workspaces" were involved. "Upon analysis of the new data, we discovered that it included Notion AI chat transcripts used for the Insights feature, which for the vast majority of impacted workspaces were unattributable," it said. "'Unattributable' means the chats weren't labeled with who wrote them or which workspace they came from, and the transcripts did not contain tool call results." The Hacker News reports: In a notice published on October 10, 2026, [Fireworks AI] said it detected unauthorized use of internal Fireworks credentials that allowed an unauthorized third-party to access environment variables used in evaluation jobs in a limited number of customer accounts. The activity was detected on October 6, 2026, at 9 a.m. PDT. [...] The latest bulletin from the company reveals that the scope of the breach may have been broader than previously thought. The company said attackers reached its development environment via an unnamed third-party cloud provider that hosted Fireworks research and development (R&D) machines on October 23, 2026. "On October 24, the unauthorized third party used it to reach Fireworks development machines and then run an unauthorized workload that led to additional customer data impact," it added. "As of October 25, we have not detected further evidence of successful unauthorized access by the threat actor on the Fireworks platform customers use." The breach is said to have provided access to the following types of information: [Resource metadata; Billing information; and Model weights and datasets]. Fireworks AI said payment card numbers are not stored by the company and were not impacted by the security incident. It also said it's alerting customers whose data was impacted.

Krebs on Security

Microsoft Fixes Nearly 1,100 Security Vulnerabilities

Microsoft did another four-digit patch drop today, releasing updates to fix almost 1,100 security vulnerabilities in its Windows operating systems and supported software. This month's Patch Tuesday addresses 63 critical flaws -- including a zero-day in Microsoft Outlook -- and comes amid important security updates from other software makers, including Adobe, Apple, Google and Mozilla.

Chinese Dictionary

麻 [蔴] má

hemp (variant of 麻[ma2]) (HSK 7-9)

Guardian USA

US prosecutors charge Iranian operative allegedly responsible for UK air force base attack

New indictment claims Mohammad Dawood al-Saadi, a dual Iranian and Iraqi national, plotted while in US custody

US federal prosecutors have said that an Iranian operative jailed in New York was responsible for the foiled attack on a UK air force base where American B-1 bombers were stationed.

A new indictment alleged that Mohammad Dawood al-Saadi, a dual Iranian and Iraqi national, plotted while in custody and then transmitted plans – using coded messages in calls to his family – to two co-conspirators to buy large quantities of chemicals that could be used as explosives in an attack on the RAF Fairford base in September.

Guardian USA

Thomas Markle, Meghan’s father, cut off his ankle monitor, DoJ says

Estranged father of Duchess of Sussex was arrested for keeping child sexual abuse material, authorities say

The estranged father of Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, cut an electronic monitoring device off his ankle, just days after his arrest for keeping child sexual abuse material in storage units in California, according to US authorities.

Guardian USA

Bernie Sanders says he will not back Schumer for Senate Democratic leader

Progressive senator says ‘I like Chuck … but the time is now for change’ as calls grow for new Democratic leadership

Bernie Sanders, a progressive senator from Vermont, said on Tuesday he would not support Chuck Schumer’s bid to serve as the Democratic leader in the US Senate, joining a growing cohort of Democrats calling for a change in leadership.

“I personally have known Chuck Schumer for over 30 years, and I like Chuck. Nobody who works harder than Chuck Schumer. But in my view, the time is now for change, and I will not be supporting Chuck to be re-elected as the Democratic leader,” Sanders told reporters on Capitol Hill.

Slashdot

New York Launches Nation's First State AI Testing Program

New York is launching a state-backed AI safety research center at Binghamton University that will independently study and test AI systems, develop safety and security techniques, and train researchers in responsible AI. "While the federal government fails to act, New York is leading the way on AI safety and holding big tech accountable," New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said. "The stakes are too high to simply take AI companies at their word." Politico reports: The center -- which is funded by a $30 million gift from Bloomberg co-founder Tom Secunda and a $25 million research investment from SUNY and New York state -- is set to launch before New York's major AI safety law, the RAISE Act, comes into effect on Jan. 1. That will require submissions of detailed safety frameworks from AI companies operating in New York State, which Hochul's office hopes will be scrutinized by researchers at the new center. "AI is opening up questions that scientists could not tackle before," said Secunda, who also serves as the board chair of Empire AI, a $500 million public-private partnership. "With Empire AI and researchers across New York, the Center can test systems independently and give public officials evidence they can use." Over 80 leading scientists and researchers on AI systems from across New York state will contribute to the effort, which will be run by the New York Center for AI Responsibility and Research at Binghamton University, according to details shared by Hochul's office. The initiative will be led by Jeannette Wing, the executive vice president for research at Columbia University, and Greg Morrisett, the vice provost of Cornell Tech. "We need new techniques that can be applied to this new kind of system with swarms of autonomous agents acting independently and without control. How can you first detect that they're going to do harm, and how can you prevent them from doing harm?" said Wing. "The beauty of what's being proposed is that this state is committing resources to really light this up."

Guardian USA

NFL trade deadline 2026: Vikings reunite with Kirk Cousins; Colts stick with Taylor; 49ers get WR Allen – live reaction

All the latest news and deals before today’s deadline
Vikings reunite with QB Kirk Cousins in deal with Vegas
Niners add WR Keenan Allen; Bills land S Amani Hooker
Follow the buildup to the 4pm ET cutoff and fallout
Email Bryan with your thoughts on the deadline moves

In NFL-adjacent news:

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