India doubled its Russian crude purchases for April delivery after the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed in early March 2026, while the Philippines activated a 20 billion-peso emergency fund as its fuel reserves shrank to 45 days — exposing how deeply Asia’s energy security depends on a single chokepoint. NEW DELHI / MANILA — India’s crude imports from Russia jumped…
Two teenagers sentenced to probation for creating AI-generated nude images of 60 girls now face a second legal front — a civil lawsuit targeting the private school that knew about the abuse months before police did. LANCASTER, Pennsylvania — A Lancaster County juvenile court sentenced two 16-year-old boys to two years of probation on Wednesday, March 25, for producing 347 AI-generated sexually explicit images of 59…
OpenAI has indefinitely shelved its planned erotic chatbot feature, citing safety concerns and investor pressure, as the company accelerates a sweeping consolidation of its product line ahead of a possible 2026 public listing worth up to $1 trillion. SAN FRANCISCO — OpenAI indefinitely paused its planned “adult mode” for ChatGPT on March 25, 2026, according to a report by the Financial Times,…
The Kennedy Center confirmed Thursday that Bill Maher will receive the 2026 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, days after the White House called the same report “fake news” and intervened directly with the institution to block the award. WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Kennedy Center formally announced Thursday that comedian and HBO host Bill Maher will receive the Mark Twain Prize for American…
The Duffer Brothers’ first post-Stranger Things production arrives on Netflix today — but early reviews reveal the show’s greatest tension isn’t between its characters. It’s between the promise of the premise and the patience required to reach it. LOS ANGELES — All eight episodes of Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen, a psychological horror miniseries executive…
A federal judge has cleared a class of investors to sue Nvidia and CEO Jensen Huang over claims the chipmaker buried more than $1 billion in crypto mining GPU sales inside its gaming revenue, exposing shareholders to undisclosed market risk during 2017 and 2018. SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA — A U.S. federal judge certified a securities fraud class action…
Mistral’s new open-source text-to-speech model, built on a 3-billion-parameter architecture, runs directly on smartphones and smartwatches — moving voice cloning away from expensive cloud APIs and into users’ hands for the first time at this performance level. PARIS — French AI company Mistral released Voxtral TTS on Thursday, March 26, 2026, a new open-source text-to-speech model built to run locally on…
Germany and Australia signed a letter of intent on March 26, 2026, to deploy space surveillance sensors on Australian soil — part of a broader German-led global early warning network aimed at countering Russia and China’s growing capability to jam, blind, and destroy satellites. CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA — German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius and his Australian counterpart Richard Marles signed a…
Nicolás Maduro returned to a Manhattan federal court on Thursday as his defense attorney moved to dismiss all narcoterrorism charges, arguing that US Treasury sanctions are unconstitutionally strangling his ability to fund his own legal defense — a dispute that could unravel the most high-profile prosecution in a generation. NEW YORK — Attorney Barry Pollack filed a formal…
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has quietly turned the world’s most critical oil chokepoint into a toll booth — charging up to $2 million per ship, routing vessels through a 5-mile IRGC-controlled corridor, and accepting payments in cash, cryptocurrency, or barter. The diplomacy is heating up, but the mechanism itself has gone largely unexplained. HOUSTON…