The AI developer Anthropic has confirmed it is investigating a report that unauthorised users have gained access to its Mythos model, which it has warned poses risks to cybersecurity.

The US startup made the statement after Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that a small group of people had accessed the model, which has not been released to the public because of its ability to enable cyber-attacks.

“We’re investigating a report claiming unauthorised access to Claude Mythos Preview through one of our third-party vendor environments,” said Anthropic.

Bloomberg said a “handful” of users in a private online forum gained access to Mythos on the same day Anthropic said it was being released to a small number of companies including Apple and Goldman Sachs for testing purposes.

A trio of political polls indicate public approval of Donald Trump’s management of the US economy, immigration and the Iran conflict is slipping, flashing warning lights for Trump-aligned Republican candidates with six months to go until the US midterm elections.

Polls by Reuters-Ipsos poll, Strength in Numbers-Verasight and AP-NORC had the president’s approval rating hovering in the mid-30s, at 36%, 35% and 33% respectively, which are near his lowest numbers.

The AP-NORC center for public affairs research poll published on Monday found that seven in 10 Americans described the economy as poor and think the country is headed in the wrong direction.

Polls by Reuters-Ipsos poll, Strength in Numbers-Verasight and AP-NORC had the president’s approval rating hovering in the mid-30s, at 36%, 35% and 33% respectively, which are near his lowest numbers.

The AP-NORC center for public affairs research poll published on Monday found that seven in 10 Americans described the economy as poor and think the country is headed in the wrong direction.

The poll showed that Trump’s handling of the economy has fallen to 30% approval, down from 38% in March, while 72% said the country is headed in the wrong direction, a figure unchanged since February. Just 23% approve of how he is handling the cost of living, while 76% disapprove.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday sided with Michigan in ruling that the state's lawsuit seeking to shut down a section of an aging pipeline beneath a Great Lakes channel will stay in state court.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for a unanimous court that Enbridge, a Calgary-based energy company, waited too long to try to move the case to federal court.

The case is part of a messy legal dispute about a pipeline that has moved crude oil and natural gas liquids between Superior, Wis., and Sarnia, Ont., since 1953.

The pipeline at issue is called Line 5. Concerns over the section beneath the straits rupturing and causing a catastrophic spill have been growing since 2017, when Enbridge engineers revealed they had known about gaps in the section's protective coating since 2014. A boat anchor damaged the section in 2018, intensifying fears of a spill.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources under Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, revoked the straits easement for Line 5 in 2020. Enbridge has filed a separate federal lawsuit challenging the revocation.

Archived version

The organization, which works to counter the KKK and other hate groups, says it’s being targeted for political purposes.

Online content producer MrBeast’s company wrongfully terminated a female staffer shortly after she returned from maternity leave, the woman said in a lawsuit alleging a sexist culture that pressured her to join a conference call from the labor and delivery room.

The staffer, Lorrayne Mavromatis, said company leadership subjected her to sexual harassment, demoted her after she complained internally about the harassment, and expected her to continue working during her parental leave in violation of the Family and Medical Leave Act.

The company, MrBeastYouTube LLC, had no policy for maternity leave and failed to inform her of her rights under the FMLA after she notified a manager of her pregnancy and said she would need to take leave, according to the complaint filed Wednesday in the US District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/45926481

🤖 Honestly you can't make this up:

Human Robot #Zuckerberg is gonna put an #AI based smart keylogger on his employees computers.

Nothing says we don't trust you and don't appreciate you like a regular screenshot of your work screen.

No more NSFW! Welcome to the future baby!

Guess them employees are gonna get a taste of their own medicine for once.

Seems like everything is going according to plan.

Use the employees data to train MaiRK, so Meta can finally become a synonym for MaiRK. https://mastodon.social/@madeindex/116402482806274908

Eventually we will only see his superintelligence controlling everything. https://mastodon.social/@madeindex/115871208581092120

Narcissism 2026 version 😋

If you are thinking: Wouldn't this make people quit? Meta is banking on it: https://www.reuters.com/world/meta-targets-may-20-first-wave-layoffs-additional-cuts-later-2026-2026-04-17/

Americans are shopping more for secondhand clothing as they look to spend less and save money, according to a new report.

Shoppers are not only buying from secondhand retailers more but are also spending less on each purchase.

“The number of secondhand fashion transactions per household grew nine times faster than secondhand spending in March, yet consumers across all income groups are spending less on each purchase since April 2025,” according to a Bank of America Institute report published Tuesday using credit and debit card data.

American Lung Association report comes amid Trump EPA’s expansive rollback of environmental protections

Nearly half of children in the United States are breathing dangerous levels of air pollution, according to a new report, as experts warned Donald Trump’s expansive rollback of protections will make the situation worse.

The 27th annual air quality report from the American Lung Association (ALA) released on Wednesday evaluates pollution across the country by grading levels of ground-level ozone – also known as smog – as well as year-round and short-term spikes in particle pollution, commonly referred to as soot. The report analyzed quality-assured data collected between 2022 and 2024.

It found that 33.5 million children in the US – 46% of those under 18 – live in areas that received a failing grade for at least one measure of air pollution.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/45916401

A nuclear physicist and MIT professor fatally shot outside his Massachusetts residence. A retired Air Force general missing from his New Mexico home. An aerospace engineer who disappeared during a hike in Los Angeles.

These are among at least 10 individuals connected to sensitive US nuclear and aerospace research who have died or disappeared in recent years, prompting concerns whether they are connected and fueling speculation online about the possibility of nefarious activity.

The Trump administration is in discussions to potentially send up to 1,100 Afghans who helped US forces during the war in Afghanistan to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a non-profit confirmed on Tuesday.

The resettlement talks, first reported by the New York Times, come after Donald Trump’s decision to stop an initiative that allowed Afghans who assisted US war efforts to apply to resettle in the US.

This group of more than 1,000 Afghans, who have been waylaid in Qatar for a year, reportedly includes interpreters as well as relatives of US military members. The group also includes more than 400 children.

According to the Times, the US evacuated these Afghans to Qatar for their protection because they supported US military efforts in their home country, which, since the US military withdrawal, is once again under Taliban control.

Two lawmakers—Eric Swalwell and Tony Gonzales—resigned from office last week amid unrelated House Ethics Committee investigations over alleged sexual misconduct. And yesterday, the Committee stated that since 2017, they have initiated no less than 20 misconduct investigations against members of Congress, most of whom have not ended up resigning.

Sexual misconduct is pervasive in America’s statehouses, too, according to a new report by the National Women’s Defense League, a group focused on preventing sexual harassment in the workplace. The group started reporting on accusations against state lawmakers in 2023, tracking accusations going back to 2013.

NWDL has found credible sexual harassment allegations against 162 sitting state officials, in 424 incidents between 2013 and 2026. Six of those lawmakers were accused in 2025 — Ryan Armagost (R-Colo.); Ron Weinberg (R-Colo.); Jeremy Dean (D-Mo.); Dan McKeon (R-Neb.); Jeremy Olson (R-N.D.); and Solicitor General Judd Stone (R-Texas). Of those 162 lawmakers, 17 are still in office.

“The public record is only the tip of the iceberg,” said Sarah Higginbotham, NWDL co-director. Higginbotham noted that the report only includes public-facing accounts from people able to withstand the fear of retaliation from their bosses. “These numbers understate the harm.”

In a scathing ruling describing Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as an “unserious” and “unsafe” leader, a federal judge in Oregon issued an order that will protect doctors and hospitals, and the transgender kids they treat, from the federal crackdown on gender-affirming care.

On Saturday, US District Judge Mustafa T. Kasubhai ruled that Kennedy was acting illegally when he attempted last December to unilaterially cut off federal funding for healthcare providers treating kids with gender dysphoria. “Unserious leaders are unsafe,” Kasubhai wrote in his ruling, adding that Kennedy’s actions “caused chaos and terror for all those people and institutions of our great nation.”

A coalition of 21 mostly Democratic-led states and Washington, DC, immedialy sued, arguing Kennedy had skipped the legally required procedures for such a drastic policy change. Last month, Kasubhai agreed that Kennedy had overstepped his authority and issued an order temporarily blocking the declaration. “The notion that ‘I will go forward and issue a declaration and see if we can get away with it’ is not a principle of governance that adheres to the overarching commitment to a democratic republic that requires the rule of law to be regarded and respected and honored as sacred,” the judge said at the time.

Now, Kasubhai has thrown a new wrench in the administration’s plans. His ruling on Saturday makes permanent his prior order blocking Kennedy’s declaration. But the judge also went further, prohibiting HHS from enacting any similar policy “which supercedes or purports to supercede the professionally recognized standards of care” in the states that sued. “Despite repeatedly emphasizing their commitment and obligation to protect children, Defendants have sweepingly wielded the Kennedy Declaration to threaten children’s hospitals that provide life-saving care to children,” Kasubhai wrote.

Governor called referendum after president urged GOP-led states to redraw maps to protect House majority

Voters in Virginia on Tuesday approved new congressional maps intended to boost Democrats’ chances of retaking the House of Representatives, in the latest blow to Donald Trump’s effort to use mid-decade redistricting to preserve his control of Congress.

The tit-for-tat redistricting battle began last year after Trump pressed Texas’s Republican-controlled legislature to redraw that state’s congressional maps in a bid to oust as many as five Democratic House lawmakers in the November midterm elections.

California voters retaliated by approving new maps that could flip five Republican-held seats, and in Virginia, Abigail Spanberger, the newly elected Democratic governor, backed an effort to redraw her state’s maps following her January inauguration. Tuesday’s referendum could help Democrats win four additional House seats in November’s midterm elections.

Irvine police department announces bust in pun-filled social media post about alleged $34,000 Lego looting

So much for using his noodle.

A California man pilfered thousands of dollars in Lego toy sets from the retailer Target in a return-based scam, sometimes swapping valuable figurines with dried pasta pieces and before returning the construction-centric toys, authorities recently alleged.

The alleged plot ended with the arrest of 28-year-old Jarrelle Augustine, accused of grand theft for allegedly stealing the Lego sets, whose manufacturer is known for the interlocking miniature bricks and figurines, according to Irvine, California, police.

“You read that correctly,” police said in a Facebook post announcing the 14 April arrest. “We are talking about durum wheat semolina pasta, and what we are calling a pasta-tively terrible plan.”

Kaja Kallas, the EU foreign policy chief, said proposals for a part suspension of the EU-Israel association agreement remained on the table but required states to shift their positions to come into force.

Speaking after a meeting between EU foreign ministers on Tuesday, she told reporters: “We didn’t see that today, but these discussions will continue.”

"What’s different in the last two years is the ease with which Americans can find writers, historians, and good Samaritans sharing their tips and hard truths online for planning to move. An entirely new genre has emerged that’s part survival manual, part dispatch from beyond a deteriorating state. Those resources aside, the process is anything but easy and frictionless. Still, there is a sense of possibility"

New study demonstrates effects of cocaine contamination on wild fish behaviour for the first time

Cocaine pollution is changing how juvenile Atlantic salmon move through their environment, making them swim farther and disperse more widely, a new study finds.

The study is the first to demonstrate the effects of cocaine contamination on fish behaviour in the wild, and can help better understand how chemical pollutants influence aquatic animal migration, according to researchers from Griffith University in Australia.

Cocaine and its metabolites are increasingly appearing in rivers and lakes around the world. They mainly enter waterways through wastewater systems that are not designed to fully remove these compounds.

Donald Trump on Tuesday told CNBC that he will gratefully “remember” U.S. companies that do not seek refunds for the tariffs he unilaterally imposed, which the Supreme Court later ruled were illegal.

Trump’s comment on “Squawk Box” came a day after U.S. Customs and Border Protection opened a portal for importers to seek more than $160 billion in potential refunds for the so-called IEEPA tariffs.

He was asked about a number of large companies, among them Apple and Amazon, that have not filed requests for refunds for the tariffs they paid, potentially because they are worried about “offending” Trump.