Elon Musk’s SpaceX has agreed to carry Italian experiments on its Starship megarocket during planned future missions to Mars, according to a new deal announced on Thursday.”Italy is going to Mars!” Italian Space Agency president Teodoro Valente said on X, adding that the scientific experiments would fly on the first Starship trips to the red planet that have customers.Musk dreams of colonizing Mars using Starship, however the massive rocket has suffered several setbacks after recent tests ended in spectacular explosions.Still, the world’s richest man — who is known for his aggressively optimistic timelines — maintains that the first Starship launches will take place next year.SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell also announced the “first-of-its-kind” deal with the Italian Space Agency, saying that there was “more to come.””Get on board! We are going to Mars! SpaceX is now offering Starship services to the red planet,” she posted on X, formerly Twitter.Musk — the world’s richest man and a former close advisor to US President Donald Trump — has cultivated close ties with Italy’s hard-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.A proposed cybersecurity deal between the Italian government and Musk’s satellite company Starlink was heavily criticized by opposition parties in Italy earlier this year.In June, a SpaceX Starship rocket exploded during a routine ground test, resulting in the complete loss of the vessel.Standing 403 feet (123 meters) tall, Starship is the world’s largest and most powerful rocket and is billed as a fully reusable rocket with a payload capacity of up to 150 metric tons.

A US federal judge ordered a temporary pause on Thursday to further construction of the migrant detention center in the Florida Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz” in a case filed by conservation groups.District Judge Kathleen Williams issued the temporary restraining order in a lawsuit filed against the Trump administration by Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity.The detention center, built on the site of an abandoned airfield in the Big Cypress National Preserve, can continue to house immigration detainees, but the Miami-based judge ordered an immediate two-week halt to new construction while the suit proceeds.Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity are arguing that the detention center threatens the sensitive Everglades ecosystem and was hastily built without conducting the required environmental impact studies.President Donald Trump, who has vowed to deport millions of undocumented migrants, visited the center last month, boasting about the harsh conditions and joking that the reptilian predators will serve as guards. The name “Alligator Alcatraz” is a reference to Alcatraz Island, the former prison on an island in San Franciso Bay that Trump recently said he wanted to reopen.The conservation groups that filed the lawsuit welcomed the judge’s ruling.”We’re pleased that the judge saw the urgent need to put a pause on additional construction, and we look forward to advancing our ultimate goal of protecting the unique and imperiled Everglades ecosystem from further damage caused by this mass detention facility,” Eve Samples, executive director at Friends of the Everglades, said in a statement.Elise Bennett, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said it was a “relief that the court has stepped in to protect the Everglades’ sensitive waters, starry skies and vulnerable creatures from further harm while we continue our case.””We’re ready to press forward and put a stop to this despicable plan for good,” Bennett said.The ruling was also welcomed by the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, which joined the case.”The detention facility threatens land that is not only environmentally sensitive but sacred to our people,” tribal chairman Talbert Cypress said. “While this order is temporary, it is an important step in asserting our rights and protecting our homeland.”The detention center is also the subject of a lawsuit filed in another federal court claiming that detainees are not being given access to attorneys and are being held without charges.

US President Donald Trump’s administration is revising past editions of the nation’s premier climate report — its latest move to undermine the scientific consensus on human-caused global warming.The decision, announced by Energy Secretary Chris Wright during a CNN appearance Tuesday night, follows the government’s revocation of the Endangerment Finding, a scientific determination that underpins a host of regulations aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions.Asked by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins why previous editions of the National Climate Assessment were no longer available online, former fracking company CEO Wright responded: “Because we’re reviewing them, and we will come out with updated reports on those and with comments on those.”First published in 2000, the National Climate Assessment has long been viewed as a cornerstone of the US government’s understanding of climate science, synthesizing input from federal agencies and hundreds of external experts.Previous editions warned in stark terms of mounting risks to America’s economy, infrastructure, and public health if greenhouse gas emissions are not curtailed. But in April, the administration moved to dismiss the hundreds of scientists working on the sixth edition.Under the Global Change Research Act of 1990, the government is legally obligated to deliver the climate assessment to Congress and the president.Trump’s administration and the Republican-controlled Congress have pressed forward with their pro- fossil fuel agenda — dismantling clean energy tax credits through the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” and opening more ecologically sensitive lands to drilling.Last month’s proposed revocation of the Endangerment Finding by the Environmental Protection Agency was accompanied by the release of a new climate study from the Department of Energy, authored by climate change contrarians.The study questioned whether heat records are truly increasing and whether extreme weather is worsening.It also misrepresented the work of cited climate scientists, according to several who spoke to AFP, and suggested that rising atmospheric carbon dioxide could be a net benefit for agriculture.

Americans still get most of their calories from ultra-processed foods, but consumption is trending down among both adults and children, official data showed Thursday.The survey results from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention come as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promotes diet reform — and suggest that awareness of the risks around burgers and sodas may already have been taking hold before he came to office.Between August 2021 to August 2023, the mean percentage of total calories consumed from ultra-processed foods (UPFs) among those aged one year and older was 55 percent.That still places the United States at or near the top of the table globally, alongside countries like the United Kingdom and Canada.Among Western nations, Italy consistently records lower UPF consumption — less than 20 percent, according to a paper published in 2021 in Public Health Nutrition that credited the Mediterranean diet.Breaking down the new US results by age, the percentage of energy consumed from UPFs was 61.9 percent for youths aged one to 18, and 53.0 percent for adults — a decline from 65.6 percent and 56.0 percent respectively during the last survey period, 2017–18.Former first lady Michelle Obama spearheaded a campaign in the 2010s to encourage healthier eating and more exercise, while a landmark 2019 study in Cell Metabolism found people ate more calories when exposed to ultra-processed foods.Ultra-processed foods tend to be “hyperpalatable, energy-dense, low in dietary fiber, and contain little or no whole foods, while having high amounts of salt, sweeteners, and unhealthy fat,” according to the CDC.They have been linked with ill health effects including higher risk of cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality.A study published in Nature this week randomized 55 adults in the UK who were overweight or obese to eat either minimally-processed food (MPF) diets or UPF — with significantly greater weight loss in the MPF group after eight weeks.Sandwiches, including burgers, topped the list of UPFs for both US youth and adults, followed by sweet bakery products such as donuts. Sweetened beverages were high up on both lists.Since taking office, Kennedy has launched a pressure campaign on industry to remove synthetic food dyes, which appears to be paying dividends, with cereal maker Kellogg’s one of the latest brands to sign on. A dozen states meanwhile have moved to restrict access of people with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits — known colloquially as food stamps — to junk food at grocery stores. 

US President Donald Trump on Thursday ordered officials to work on a new census excluding undocumented immigrants, as the White House presses Republican states to draw more favorable voter maps ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Trump called for a “new and highly accurate” census that he wanted based on unspecified “modern day facts and figures” gleaned from the 2024 election.”People who are in our Country illegally WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE CENSUS,” he said in the social media post.The US Constitution since 1790 has required a census every 10 years that counts the “whole number of persons in each state” — including people in the country illegally.The next one is not due until 2030, although preparations for the enormous task are already underway.Trump did not make clear if he was referring to the regularly scheduled population count or if he wanted a special survey undertaken earlier.The census is used to determine how many members of Congress are elected from each state, and the Pew Research Center estimates that ignoring unauthorized migrants in 2020 would have deprived California, Florida and Texas of one House seat each.It is also used for apportioning votes in the state-by-state “electoral college” that decides presidential elections and for allocating trillions of dollars in federal funding.Trump attempted similar moves in his first term, including the addition of a citizenship question to the census, but was blocked by the Supreme Court.The justices declined to rule on whether the millions of people in the country without legal status should be excluded.Trump’s call for a new census comes with state-level lawmakers and officials in Texas locking horns over a new electoral map that would likely net Republicans up to five extra House seats in 2026.- Threats to lawmakers -More than 50 Texas Democratic lawmakers have fled to multiple Democratic states in an effort to block the passage of the proposed blueprint during a special legislative session.Texas Republicans have threatened to arrest them, and US Senator John Cornyn announced he had successfully petitioned the FBI to help state and local law enforcement locate them.Republican governors in several other states are exploring new maps in a bid to protect the party’s razor-thin majority in the House, which would flip next year with three Democratic gains.Vice President JD Vance was scheduled to visit Indiana on Thursday to discuss redistricting with Governor Mike Braun and press local Republicans to eke out another seat for the party.Politico reported that Republicans could draw as many as 10 new seats ahead of the midterms and are targeting Ohio, Missouri, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida.In Indiana, Braun said any redistricting conversation would be “exploratory,” as the state’s maps were drawn fairly in 2021, Indianapolis public broadcaster WFYI reported.Democrats have vowed to retaliate with their own proposals, possibly in New York and California, the country’s largest states.Texas legislators were evacuated from their suburban Chicago hotel on Wednesday morning following an unspecified threat.Democratic Illinois Governor JB Pritzker authorized state police to guard the group, and insisted that the FBI — which investigates federal crime — and Texas authorities had no power to return them.”They’re all allowed to visit Chicago or Illinois and take in the great view of our lake and our city and enjoy the the the great restaurants that we have,” he told the leftist MeidasTouch podcast. “But they won’t be taking anybody home with them or away from the state. We are protecting those Texas House Democrats, and they are protecting, frankly, the entire country, in what they do.”

OpenAI released a keenly awaited new generation of its hallmark ChatGPT on Thursday, touting “significant” advancements in artificial intelligence capabilities as a global race over the technology accelerates.ChatGPT-5 is rolling out free to all users of the AI tool, which is used by nearly 700 million people weekly, OpenAI said in a briefing with journalists.Co-founder and chief executive Sam Altman touted this latest iteration as “clearly a model that is generally intelligent.”Altman cautioned that there is still work to be done to achieve the kind of artificial general intelligence (AGI) that thinks the way people do.”This is not a model that continuously learns as it is deployed from new things it finds, which is something that, to me, feels like it should be part of an AGI,” Altman said.”But the level of capability here is a huge improvement.”Industry analysts have heralded the arrival of an AI era in which genius computers transform how humans work and play.”As the pace of AI progress accelerates, developing superintelligence is coming into sight,” Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a recent memo.”I believe this will be the beginning of a new era for humanity.”Altman said there were “orders of magnitude more gains” to come on the path toward AGI.”Obviously… you have to invest in compute (power) at an eye watering rate to get that, but we intend to keep doing it.”Tech industry rivals Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft and Elon Musk’s xAI have been pouring billions of dollars into artificial intelligence since the blockbuster launch of the first version of ChatGPT in late 2022.Chinese startup DeepSeek shook up the AI sector early this year with a model that delivers high performance using less costly chips.- ‘PhD-level expert’ -With fierce competition around the world over the technology, Altman said ChatGPT-5 led the pack in coding, writing, health care and much more.”GPT-3 felt to me like talking to a high school student — ask a question, maybe you get a right answer, maybe you’ll get something crazy,” Altman said.”GPT-4 felt like you’re talking to a college student; GPT-5 is the first time that it really feels like talking to a PhD-level expert in any topic.”Altman expects the ability to create software programs on demand — so-called “vibe-coding” — to be a “defining part of the new ChatGPT-5 era.”In a blog post, British AI expert Simon Willison wrote about getting early access to ChatGPT-5.”My verdict: it’s just good at stuff,” Willison wrote.”It doesn’t feel like a dramatic leap ahead from other (large language models) but it exudes competence — it rarely messes up, and frequently impresses me.”However Musk wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that his Grok 4 Heavy AI model “was smarter” than ChatGPT-5.- Honest AI? -ChatGPT-5 was trained to be trustworthy and stick to providing answers as helpful as possible without aiding seemingly harmful missions, according to OpenAI safety research lead Alex Beutel.”We built evaluations to measure the prevalence of deception and trained the model to be honest,” Beutel said.ChatGPT-5 is trained to generate “safe completions,” sticking to high-level information that can’t be used to cause harm, according to Beutel.The company this week also released two new AI models that can be downloaded for free and altered by users, to challenge similar offerings by rivals.The release of “open-weight language models” comes as OpenAI is under pressure to share inner workings of its software in the spirit of its origin as a nonprofit.