Morning Digest
35 stories from 10 sources, 76 more held back.
Qwen 3.8 27B scores 52 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (via) That's the same score as GPT-5.6 Luna (max), and just one point behind GLM-5.2 (max) and DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 (max) - that GLM is 753B and that DeepSeek is 1.6B parameters, and Luna is size unknown but presumably a whole lot bigger than 27B. Qwen 3.8 27B is a truly astonishing model.
We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility. Excellent piece of reporting from 404 Media.
I started building my markdown-svg-renderer tool in May, but I've since added enough features to it that it's worth talking about here again. It's evolved into my ideal tool for sharing Markdown transcripts that include SVG documents. Given my proclivity for drawing pelicans riding bicycles this is a problem that I needed to solve!
Friday’s big release was Qwen 3.8 27B, an Apache 2 licensed 27B parameter vision-capable LLM from Alibaba’s Qwen research lab. I’ve been looking forward to this one: 27B is an excellent size for running a model on a reasonably specced laptop, and its predecessor Qwen 3.6 27B was impressive. Qwen’s self-reported benchmarks for this model are eye-opening.
CHICAGO – The Cubs swung a blockbuster deal to land Edward Cabrera over the offseason due to his top-of-the-rotation potential. His first season with the North Siders has featured frustratingly mixed results and multiple trips to the injured list. The latest setback arrived on Monday, when Cabrera was placed on the 15-day IL due to a second recurrence of a blister issue on his pitching hand.
Some might call these the dog days of summer, but with as much activity and excitement as there has been in baseball for the last week — Field of Dreams! A wild Brewers-Dodgers series featuring the best pitchers on earth — we’ll confess to not feeling particularly dogged down right now. If these are the dog days, sheesh, wait until things get really exciting.
CHICAGO -- The Cubs shuffled their pitching staff Sunday to accommodate the return of hard-throwing starter Edward Cabrera from the injured list. Javier Assad was optioned to Triple-A Iowa, and David Peterson was moved to the bullpen.
CHICAGO -- Dansby Swanson removed his helmet and immediately threw it to the dirt at his feet as he exited the batter’s box in clear discomfort on Sunday afternoon. Moments later, the Cubs shortstop knew he had to exit the game against the Cardinals.
CHICAGO -- There have been times this season when the Cubs’ rotation depth was thinned to the point of wondering how the team would fill out a five-man staff. Things have changed in the wake of the Trade Deadline and with Edward Cabrera coming off the injured list on Sunday.
Kentucky farmers take on AI data-center boom – WSJ. A farming family in rural America has rejected a multimillion-dollar offer to sell their land for a data center development, joining opposition to a rapid buildout of such facilities driven by the AI boom in the US.
Ukraine’s press gangs function like organized crime – Zelensky party MP. The government body overseeing Ukraine’s mobilization drive has all the hallmarks of an “organized criminal group,” with some officials allegedly paying bribes of up to $150,000 to secure senior positions, Ukrainian lawmaker Aleksandr Kachura has said.
Zuckerbeg’s Meta in $1.4 trillion addiction showdown: Why is the giant in court again? Meta is heading to court on Tuesday to face accusations that it broke child safety laws and harmed underage users’ mental health. A loss could bankrupt Mark Zuckerberg’s company and force permanent changes to Facebook and Instagram.
Belgium battles record wildfire near German border (VIDEO). Belgium is battling its largest wildfire on record, with the blaze scorching around 3,000 hectares and spreading toward the German border, according to local officials. The fire broke out on Friday in the High Fens nature reserve in eastern Belgium and remained out of control on Monday despite cooler weather and overnight rain.
Latvia wants EU billions for its anti-Russia policies. Latvia wants Brussels to provide billions in additional funding as lost trade with Russia and soaring military spending put growing pressure on the Baltic state’s finances, Politico reported on Monday.
Two Ukrainian children were attacked by two adults in Poland for speaking their native language, Kiev’s consulate in Gdansk has claimed. The incident has come amid increasingly negative attitudes toward Ukrainians in Poland and a diplomatic row over Kiev’s veneration of nationalist groups implicated in the WWII-era massacres of ethnic Poles.
Maggie Haberman comes up with viral nickname for Natalie Harp, Trump DOJ to send 1,000 election observers to polling places, sailors adrift for 4 days without power. U.S. President Donald Trump's executive assistant Natalie Harp disembarks Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, U.S., August 16, 2026.
A new report confirms that Donald Trump has stacked his administration with more centimillionaires and billionaires than the last three presidents combined. New polls shows that even the most hardcore Trump supporters are turning on him with less than three months to go before the midterms.
The league said in a statement Monday that the fans should have been free to wear the shirts. "The WNBA is aware of interactions at (Sunday) night's game in Atlanta in which fans were asked by league security to cover their shirts," the statement said. "This should not have happened."
OXNARD, Calif. -- Dallas Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones opened training camp saying he would be willing to give up some of the future to put his team over the top in the hunt for a Super Bowl. After agreeing to a one-year deal with veteran pass rusher Von Miller on Sunday, Jones remains more than willing to make a substantive move to further improve the roster if one should arise.
OWINGS MILLS, Md. -- O.J. Brigance, a former Baltimore Ravens linebacker and the team's longtime adviser in player engagement, has died 19 years after being diagnosed with ALS. The Ravens announced Brigance's death Monday.
The Diamondbacks did not give a reason for the move after delaying posting their starting lineup until about 15 minutes before first pitch. Arizona recalled infielder Jose Fernandez to fill Marte's roster spot. A three-time All-Star, Marte is hitting .249 with 21 homers and 67 RBIs in 118 games this season.
LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles Rams are taking it a day at a time when deciding when wide receiver Puka Nacua will return to practice, head coach Sean McVay said. Nacua, who left the Rams' joint practice against the Dallas Cowboys last Tuesday with a lower back injury, may not return to practice until next week.
With the new robot, Diligent is also launching its learning flywheel. The Austin, Texas-based company claimed that the proprietary world model learns from the experience of its robot fleet and improves continually with every hospital deployment. “Today, we’re deploying our most sophisticated physical AI platform yet,” stated Andrea Thomaz, founder and CEO of Diligent Robotics.
Coronary artery bypass grafting, or CABG, is the most common type of cardiac surgery in the world. Despite this, and the heavily invasive nature of the surgery, only 1% of these procedures are performed with the help of robots. At the El Camino Health Heart and Vascular Institute (HVI), surgeons are now performing CABG with Intuitive Surgical‘s da Vinci robotic system.
Summer is about creating memories. And for robots, that translates into generating lots of data. It’s also a time to catch up on reading.
The construction industry has been slow to automate, but demand for infrastructure repairs, AI data center buildouts, and U.S. reshoring and defense needs could change that. Gravis Robotics today announced that SoftBank is investing $200 million in its Series A round, which it claimed is the largest in construction robotics history.
Crosstown in the thick of a playoff race is interesting enough. Could you imagine Crosstown in October? “Sign me up,” Cubs skipper Craig Counsell said before the first of three games with the White Sox on Monday at Wrigley Field.
Things were feeling a lot like May and June on Monday at Wrigley Field, with ample injury news and the Crosstown-rival White Sox on the schedule, challenging for intra-city supremacy.
Fortunately, the local Fox affiliate has an over-the-air sister station for such occurrences. WPWR-Channel 50, branded as Fox Chicago+, will carry the Cubs’ game, with pregame coverage beginning at 6 p.m. First pitch is scheduled for 6:15 p.m., with Aaron Goldsmith and John Smoltz on the call for a regional audience.
The Cubs entered their weekend series against the Cardinals as one of the hottest teams in the majors. They had won nine of their last 12 games and were beginning to creep up on the National League Central-leading Brewers. Now they’re entering a three-game set Monday against the White Sox in a much worse place.
Wrigley Field is way better than Rate Field. Way better at attracting frat bros, you mean? The Cubs are the best team in the city.
Humanoids desperately need to stop making YouTube videos and get a job already, and Persona AI is one of the few humanoid companies which seems to be entirely focused on making that happen. Persona’s approach has been to carefully select a job that is economically viable for robots right now, and they’ve found one that was also the job of one of the very first industrial robots ever sold: welding.
The MOU also orders DOD to replace the aircraft carrier-based Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch Systems and the Advanced Weapons Elevators with “traditional steam and hydraulic systems” during the construction of the aircraft carrier CVN 81, or the USS Doris Miller.
Despite the U.S. economy losing 23,000 jobs last month, employment in manufacturing didn’t see much change according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, underscoring the sector's persistent demand for talent.
AI has a trust problem, and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei doesn't think a marketing campaign can fix it. Amodei just made a rare X appearance to answer claims that his AI safety talk is backfiring, framing the warnings as honesty rather than doom and pitching real breakthroughs in areas like medicine as the only route back for public opinion. P.S. — We’re hiring for seven open roles at The Rundown!
Kentucky farmers take on AI data-center boom – WSJ. A farming family in rural America has rejected a multimillion-dollar offer to sell their land for a data center development, joining opposition to a rapid buildout of such facilities driven by the AI boom in the US.
Ukraine’s press gangs function like organized crime – Zelensky party MP. The government body overseeing Ukraine’s mobilization drive has all the hallmarks of an “organized criminal group,” with some officials allegedly paying bribes of up to $150,000 to secure senior positions, Ukrainian lawmaker Aleksandr Kachura has said.
Zuckerbeg’s Meta in $1.4 trillion addiction showdown: Why is the giant in court again? Meta is heading to court on Tuesday to face accusations that it broke child safety laws and harmed underage users’ mental health. A loss could bankrupt Mark Zuckerberg’s company and force permanent changes to Facebook and Instagram.
Belgium battles record wildfire near German border (VIDEO). Belgium is battling its largest wildfire on record, with the blaze scorching around 3,000 hectares and spreading toward the German border, according to local officials. The fire broke out on Friday in the High Fens nature reserve in eastern Belgium and remained out of control on Monday despite cooler weather and overnight rain.
Latvia wants EU billions for its anti-Russia policies. Latvia wants Brussels to provide billions in additional funding as lost trade with Russia and soaring military spending put growing pressure on the Baltic state’s finances, Politico reported on Monday.
Two Ukrainian children were attacked by two adults in Poland for speaking their native language, Kiev’s consulate in Gdansk has claimed. The incident has come amid increasingly negative attitudes toward Ukrainians in Poland and a diplomatic row over Kiev’s veneration of nationalist groups implicated in the WWII-era massacres of ethnic Poles.
The league said in a statement Monday that the fans should have been free to wear the shirts. "The WNBA is aware of interactions at (Sunday) night's game in Atlanta in which fans were asked by league security to cover their shirts," the statement said. "This should not have happened."
OXNARD, Calif. -- Dallas Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones opened training camp saying he would be willing to give up some of the future to put his team over the top in the hunt for a Super Bowl. After agreeing to a one-year deal with veteran pass rusher Von Miller on Sunday, Jones remains more than willing to make a substantive move to further improve the roster if one should arise.
OWINGS MILLS, Md. -- O.J. Brigance, a former Baltimore Ravens linebacker and the team's longtime adviser in player engagement, has died 19 years after being diagnosed with ALS. The Ravens announced Brigance's death Monday.
The Diamondbacks did not give a reason for the move after delaying posting their starting lineup until about 15 minutes before first pitch. Arizona recalled infielder Jose Fernandez to fill Marte's roster spot. A three-time All-Star, Marte is hitting .249 with 21 homers and 67 RBIs in 118 games this season.
LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles Rams are taking it a day at a time when deciding when wide receiver Puka Nacua will return to practice, head coach Sean McVay said. Nacua, who left the Rams' joint practice against the Dallas Cowboys last Tuesday with a lower back injury, may not return to practice until next week.
Maggie Haberman comes up with viral nickname for Natalie Harp, Trump DOJ to send 1,000 election observers to polling places, sailors adrift for 4 days without power. U.S. President Donald Trump's executive assistant Natalie Harp disembarks Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, U.S., August 16, 2026.
A new report confirms that Donald Trump has stacked his administration with more centimillionaires and billionaires than the last three presidents combined. New polls shows that even the most hardcore Trump supporters are turning on him with less than three months to go before the midterms.
CHICAGO – The Cubs swung a blockbuster deal to land Edward Cabrera over the offseason due to his top-of-the-rotation potential. His first season with the North Siders has featured frustratingly mixed results and multiple trips to the injured list. The latest setback arrived on Monday, when Cabrera was placed on the 15-day IL due to a second recurrence of a blister issue on his pitching hand.
Some might call these the dog days of summer, but with as much activity and excitement as there has been in baseball for the last week — Field of Dreams! A wild Brewers-Dodgers series featuring the best pitchers on earth — we’ll confess to not feeling particularly dogged down right now. If these are the dog days, sheesh, wait until things get really exciting.
CHICAGO -- The Cubs shuffled their pitching staff Sunday to accommodate the return of hard-throwing starter Edward Cabrera from the injured list. Javier Assad was optioned to Triple-A Iowa, and David Peterson was moved to the bullpen.
CHICAGO -- Dansby Swanson removed his helmet and immediately threw it to the dirt at his feet as he exited the batter’s box in clear discomfort on Sunday afternoon. Moments later, the Cubs shortstop knew he had to exit the game against the Cardinals.
CHICAGO -- There have been times this season when the Cubs’ rotation depth was thinned to the point of wondering how the team would fill out a five-man staff. Things have changed in the wake of the Trade Deadline and with Edward Cabrera coming off the injured list on Sunday.
Crosstown in the thick of a playoff race is interesting enough. Could you imagine Crosstown in October? “Sign me up,” Cubs skipper Craig Counsell said before the first of three games with the White Sox on Monday at Wrigley Field.
Things were feeling a lot like May and June on Monday at Wrigley Field, with ample injury news and the Crosstown-rival White Sox on the schedule, challenging for intra-city supremacy.
Fortunately, the local Fox affiliate has an over-the-air sister station for such occurrences. WPWR-Channel 50, branded as Fox Chicago+, will carry the Cubs’ game, with pregame coverage beginning at 6 p.m. First pitch is scheduled for 6:15 p.m., with Aaron Goldsmith and John Smoltz on the call for a regional audience.
The Cubs entered their weekend series against the Cardinals as one of the hottest teams in the majors. They had won nine of their last 12 games and were beginning to creep up on the National League Central-leading Brewers. Now they’re entering a three-game set Monday against the White Sox in a much worse place.
Wrigley Field is way better than Rate Field. Way better at attracting frat bros, you mean? The Cubs are the best team in the city.
With the new robot, Diligent is also launching its learning flywheel. The Austin, Texas-based company claimed that the proprietary world model learns from the experience of its robot fleet and improves continually with every hospital deployment. “Today, we’re deploying our most sophisticated physical AI platform yet,” stated Andrea Thomaz, founder and CEO of Diligent Robotics.
Coronary artery bypass grafting, or CABG, is the most common type of cardiac surgery in the world. Despite this, and the heavily invasive nature of the surgery, only 1% of these procedures are performed with the help of robots. At the El Camino Health Heart and Vascular Institute (HVI), surgeons are now performing CABG with Intuitive Surgical‘s da Vinci robotic system.
Summer is about creating memories. And for robots, that translates into generating lots of data. It’s also a time to catch up on reading.
The construction industry has been slow to automate, but demand for infrastructure repairs, AI data center buildouts, and U.S. reshoring and defense needs could change that. Gravis Robotics today announced that SoftBank is investing $200 million in its Series A round, which it claimed is the largest in construction robotics history.
Humanoids desperately need to stop making YouTube videos and get a job already, and Persona AI is one of the few humanoid companies which seems to be entirely focused on making that happen. Persona’s approach has been to carefully select a job that is economically viable for robots right now, and they’ve found one that was also the job of one of the very first industrial robots ever sold: welding.
Qwen 3.8 27B scores 52 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (via) That's the same score as GPT-5.6 Luna (max), and just one point behind GLM-5.2 (max) and DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 (max) - that GLM is 753B and that DeepSeek is 1.6B parameters, and Luna is size unknown but presumably a whole lot bigger than 27B. Qwen 3.8 27B is a truly astonishing model.
We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility. Excellent piece of reporting from 404 Media.
I started building my markdown-svg-renderer tool in May, but I've since added enough features to it that it's worth talking about here again. It's evolved into my ideal tool for sharing Markdown transcripts that include SVG documents. Given my proclivity for drawing pelicans riding bicycles this is a problem that I needed to solve!
Friday’s big release was Qwen 3.8 27B, an Apache 2 licensed 27B parameter vision-capable LLM from Alibaba’s Qwen research lab. I’ve been looking forward to this one: 27B is an excellent size for running a model on a reasonably specced laptop, and its predecessor Qwen 3.6 27B was impressive. Qwen’s self-reported benchmarks for this model are eye-opening.
The MOU also orders DOD to replace the aircraft carrier-based Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch Systems and the Advanced Weapons Elevators with “traditional steam and hydraulic systems” during the construction of the aircraft carrier CVN 81, or the USS Doris Miller.
Despite the U.S. economy losing 23,000 jobs last month, employment in manufacturing didn’t see much change according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, underscoring the sector's persistent demand for talent.
AI has a trust problem, and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei doesn't think a marketing campaign can fix it. Amodei just made a rare X appearance to answer claims that his AI safety talk is backfiring, framing the warnings as honesty rather than doom and pitching real breakthroughs in areas like medicine as the only route back for public opinion. P.S. — We’re hiring for seven open roles at The Rundown!