The machine saw what five millennia of human eyes had missed.

In February 2026, a joint team from the University of Birmingham and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich deployed a new synthetic-aperture radar array beneath the Stonehenge monument, feeding raw geophysical data into a neural network trained on archaeological pattern recognition.

Stonehenge AI Scan: Has Artificial Intelligence Finally Solved the 5,000-Year Mystery?

BY DANIEL MERCER

Electric vehicles will not save the planet on their own but anti-EV rhetoric conveniently ignores the problems caused by petrol and diesel vehicles.

A recent article in The Australian warns that electric vehicles may ‘feel right for the wealthy’ but will ‘destroy our planet’. The script is familiar: EVs require minerals; their interiors contain plastic; some manufacturing uses coal-fired electricity; China makes many of them; Pauline Hanson mentioned it. Case closed. It manages to sound environmentally concerned, while showing little interest in environmental comparison.

Fred Zhang

One hundred four degrees Fahrenheit in Paris, a new record? That is what I read Thursday. Paris, as I figured out while studying there decades ago and freezing through the dark winters, is latitudinally further north (roughly 48.8°N) than Nova Scotia (43.5°N – 47°N).

The heat wave of all heat waves has Europeans in a state of shock and panic. There are “red alerts” across the Continent. In the foothills of the Alps temperatures are running into the mid–90s. The Swiss… how to put it?… do not know quite what to do when it is in the mid–90s.

PATRICK LAWRENCE: Heat Waves, Brain Waves

With people jumping into the Canal Saint–Martin in 100°–plus temperatures in Paris, it’s a good time to recall Paul Valéry and his regrets at the mental and spiritual consequences of Europe’s Great War on itself.

The Sanders, Corbyn, Ardern and Shorten moments were missed chances to renew social democracy through structural reform, leaving genuine economic grievances to be harvested by the populist right.

Every generation offers political moments that, in retrospect, appear as forks in the road. In the past decade, four such moments emerged across the English-speaking democracies: the rise of Bernie Sanders in the United States, Jeremy Corbyn in Britain, Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand and Bill Shorten in Australia. Each was different in ideology, personality and political circumstance. Yet together they represented something larger: opportunities to reverse the long retreat of social democracy from its founding purpose.

Former SBS journalist Mary Kostakidis was back in court on Monday, defending herself against racial discrimination claims by the Zionist Federation of Australia. Stephanie Tran with the update.

As the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion began its third hearing block, two of Australia’s highest-profile legal disputes arising from criticism of Israel returned to the Federal Court on Monday.

WhatsApp battle. Zionist action v Mary Kostakidis drags through discovery

by Stephanie Tran

In separate hearings, the court dealt with interlocutory disputes in proceedings brought by Zionist complainants against veteran journalist and former SBS news presenter Mary Kostakidis and University of Sydney academics Nick Riemer and John Keane.

A monument will be erected in Kiev honoring Ivan Mazepa, a 17th-century Cossack military commander who was infamous for switching sides between major powers seeking regional dominance in Eastern Europe, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has said.

Zelensky announced the project on Sunday at a ceremony to unveil a bust of Mazepa at the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery. He claimed that Russia has “smeared” Mazepa as a traitor and insisted that he was an outstanding statesman.

Mazepa led the Cossack Hetmanate, an autonomous entity that split from the Catholic Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth amid economic exploitation and religious persecution of its Orthodox Christian population.

A leak has revealed new details about Dialog, a secret society started by billionaire Palantir cofounder Peter Thiel — and man, does it sound weird.

With the details of the signed Memorandum of Understanding still unclear, it does appear, for all intents and purposes, that the United States has lost the war with Iran. That means Pete Hegseth, the first Secretary of War, has lost a war.

As if the US couldn’t look more foolish, the MoU gives the US nothing it wanted when it comes to the military objectives it was pursuing in Iran.

The First Secretary of War Loses A War

MAC SLAVOSH 

President Donald Trump’s Energy Secretary has downplayed the threat of rising temperatures at a fossil fuel industry-funded event in London, even as millions in the UK, France, Spain, and Italy endure a deadly record-breaking heatwave.

Trump’s Energy Secretary Says ‘Cold Is Larger Killer’ During Record European Heatwave

Chris Wright, a former oil and gas executive, urged the UK to embrace fossil fuels at right-wing Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in London.

By Adam Barnett

The United States expanded its Entity List to slow China's technological rise, expecting restrictions to weaken Chinese semiconductor ambitions. But what if those sanctions ended up accelerating something else entirely?

This [AI] video explores how export controls, blacklists, and chip restrictions may have unintentionally created demand for hundreds of Chinese suppliers that previously struggled to compete against established foreign companies.

From SMIC and YMTC to semiconductor chemicals, specialty materials, industrial equipment, and localization efforts backed by China's Big Fund, we examine whether Washington's strategy is preserving America's technological lead or encouraging China to build a more resilient industrial ecosystem.

Did America successfully slow China's progress?

Or did it simply show Beijing exactly which industries needed to be developed first?

As the EU flushes its first $3.7 billion tranche from a roughly $105 billion set to be funneled over the next two years to Ukraine, Russian Special Envoy Kirill Dmitriev offers up the hard math.

This EU “generosity” announced by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen - along with the over $234 billion already EU-provided to Ukraine - has European pensioners tightening their belts, workers struggling with energy bills, and industries bleeding out, the CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund points out on X.

As Dmitriev neatly pointed out: add the ~$3.5 trillion EU self-inflicted wound from rejecting Russian gas, and suddenly every EU household is down minus roughly $19,300.

But war hawk Ursula gets her to do her victory lap.

Originating in the United States, the term "think tank" refers sometimes to a "reflection group," sometimes to a "laboratory of ideas." Here, at least, behind the scenes of parliamentary politics, they claim to be thinking. The question remains: what are they thinking about, and on whose behalf?

Qu’y a-t-il dans le crâne des think tanks ? La politique à l’américaine...

What's going on in the SHITTY PIGEON LOFTS* of think tanks? American-style politics.....

Julie Lescarmontier [CHARLIE HEBDO]

THE FOLLOWING VIDEO MAKING PREDICTION ON THE WAR IN UKRAINE IS WRONG. IT IS WRONG FOR MANY REASONS BUT THE MAIN ONE IS THAT PUTIN IS NOT AFTER AN EMPIRE, NOR ABOUT THE DEFEAT OF UKRAINE BUT ABOUT MORE SERIOUS OUTCOMES THAN CONQUEST OF THE ENTIRE UKRAINE — NOR OF EUROPE AS OFTEN IS REPORTED BY MEDIA MALIGNERS.

PROFESSOR JIANG XUEQIN MAKES THREE BASIC MISTAKES: THE TERRITORIES UNDER THE CONTROL OF RUSSIA DEMAND THAT RUSSIA CONTROLS THESE TERRITORIES NOT THE REVERSE.

PUTIN IS NOT NAPOLEON, NOR HITLER, BUT A MODERATE LEADER FIGHTING AGAINST THE ENTIRE WEST, WHICH HAS WOWED TO DESTROY RUSSIA SINCE 1917. THE AGGRESSOR IS NOT PUTIN BUT THE WEST, SO ACCORDING TO THE GAME THEORY, THE WEST WILL LOSE.

As I wake up this morning, something strange has happened. My bed is made of soft mud and grass. Quite comfortable though… But this is the least of my worries. The people who talk to me, if you can use the word talk when you hear grunts, do not make any sense… They seem more curious than friendly, they are grossly unkept — men are unshaven and women are, dare I say, ugly… 

I did not mean ugly, really. I mean they are not lookers like Hollywood stars, and one can hardly make a difference if their armpits are hairy or the bear fur — it looks like bear fur I’d say — is a tight fit under their arms. Eyebrows are definitively non-plucked. Great make up.

The air smells of organic decomposition — like my garden compost when I upturn it. There is also a fragrance of mouldy venison that could be coming from unwashed body sweat. 

I speak: “Where am I?”