• An international team including University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers measured the force of particle jets blasted from a black hole in the Cygnus system.
• This first-of-its-kind measurement confirms a prediction made by UW-Madison astronomers a decade ago.
• The findings validate long-standing theories on black hole jet mechanics, advancing astrophysics understanding.
Decision gives mapmakers in Republican states power to crack districts into pieces and dilute votes into oblivionThe Voting Rights Act was a political peace compact written in John Lewis’s blood.The Callais v Landry decision by the US supreme court, which set aside much of section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, whitewashed that blood from history, along with that of thousands of other Americans who fought segregationist white supremacists at lunch counters and bus stations and courthouses for political equality. Continue reading...
Terri Sewell and Shomari Figures are at risk of losing their seats in Alabama’s Black congressional districts after rulingThe lawmakers who represent Alabama’s two Black congressional districts, who are now at risk of losing their seats after the supreme court effectively decimated the Voting Rights Act, said the decision sends the US “backwards”.The 6-3 ruling in Louisiana v Callais on Wednesday weakens a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, opening the door for Republicans to eliminate majority-minority congressional districts across the south, and representatives Terri Sewell and Shomari Figures stand in the crosshairs. Continue reading...
Exclusive: Cambridge research finds socioenvironmental stressors may influence body’s ability to function healthily in pregnancyStress from racism and deprivation could explain why black women are more likely to die during childbirth, a study has found.Researchers reviewed 44 existing studies that examined three physiological pathways associated with worse pregnancy outcomes: oxidative stress, inflammation, and uteroplacental vascular resistance, and found black women had higher levels of the three metrics. Continue reading...
Though solar was initially blamed for loss of power, renewables have helped to insulate Spain from gas price rises caused by war in Middle EastOne year ago today, all of Spain, and much of Portugal, suffered through a blackout of unprecedented scale and duration. In mere seconds, a cascading sequence of events burst through the grid and created Europe’s first “system black” event in recent memory.Traffic signals failed, mobile networks stopped working entirely, petrol stations could not pump fuel and supermarkets couldn’t process payments. Madrid’s metro came to a halt and people had to be pulled out of carriages. “People were stunned because this had never happened in Spain,” Carlos Condori, a 19-year-old construction sector worker, told AFP at the time. “There’s no [phone] coverage, I can’t call my family, my parents, nothing: I can’t even go to work.” Continue reading...
Actions expected to exceed 3,000 as unions and groups expand protests inspired by Minnesota ICE crackdownLabor unions, democratic organizations and community groups are organizing an economic blackout this year to commemorate May Day, International Workers Day, inspired by the economic blackout in Minnesota during the massive ICE operation in the state.May Day Strong events are being planned across the US, with organizers calling for “no school, no work, no shopping”, in protest of government policies they say put billionaires’ needs above those of workers. Continue reading...
• Nvidia launched Blackwell Ultra B300 GPUs on April 25, 2026, at GTC US, delivering 20 petaflops FP4 performance for training models up to 10 trillion parameters.
• New chips feature 4.5TB HBM4 memory and NVLink 6 interconnect, reducing training costs by 40% for hyperscalers like Microsoft Azure.
• Announcement bolsters Nvidia's 92% AI accelerator market dominance amid US export controls on China sales.
Relatives of London pupils and German villagers mark anniversary of ‘English misfortune’ that Nazis turned into propaganda coupOn 17 April 1936, the bells of St Laurentius church in the Black Forest rang out to guide to safety a group of London schoolboys trapped in deep snow on a mountain hike gone very wrong. Ninety years on to the day, as the bells sounded again, there was hardly a dry eye in the congregation of British relatives and German villagers remembering the night that had brought together their parents and grandparents.The people of Hofsgrund risked their lives heading out with sledges and lanterns in the deadly weather to rescue the party of 27 and their teacher after two boys, fumbling though fog and frozen to the bone, had reached a farmhouse and told its startled inhabitants there were many more of them strewn over the Schauinsland mountain.The Daily Sketch from 20 and 29 April 1936 Continue reading...
Demographic also overrepresented when police officers use force such as handcuffs, firearms or Tasers, says children’s commissionerBlack children across England and Wales are almost eight times more likely to be strip-searched by police than their white counterparts, a report has disclosed.Rachel de Souza, the children’s commissioner for England, said Black children are also overrepresented when officers use force and were more likely to have their “size, gender or build” cited as justification. Continue reading...
Cerina Fairfax in Virginia and Nancy Metayer in Florida were also killed by their husbands, yet deaths of Black women are least likely to garner calls for policy changeOn Sunday, eight children were shot and killed in the deadliest US mass shooting in nearly two years. The gunman was the father of seven of the deceased children and the cousin of another.Three others were shot and injured: the shooter’s wife, with whom he shared four children, the mother of his other three children, and a 13-year-old boy. Continue reading...
• Nvidia launched the Blackwell Ultra B300 GPU series on April 19, 2026, claiming 50% faster AI training speeds compared to the prior B200 model.
• The new chips feature 208 billion transistors and support FP4 precision, targeting data centers for large language model workloads.
• This positions Nvidia to maintain dominance amid intensifying competition from AMD and custom silicon by hyperscalers like Amazon and Google.
Museum says The Music is Black is part of a push to reposition scene as central to UK’s cultural historyJacqueline Springer is standing in the middle of the V&A’s new exhibition space looking wistfully at a pair of drainpipe trousers, a tailored suit jacket and a porkpie hat, which create the unmistakable silhouette of Pauline Black, lead singer of the 2 Tone group the Selector.Springer is the curator of the V&A East’s inaugural exhibition, The Music is Black, a landmark survey of Black British music, which opens this weekend. It starts with the early drumbeats in Africa and takes us right up to the latest innovations in pop and drill via jungle, grime, garage and two-tone. Continue reading...
• University of South Florida engineering Professor David Simmons led a research team that solved a century-old materials science puzzle: how tiny carbon black particles transform soft rubber into material strong enough to support loaded aircraft.
• The findings, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show that refining existing models to reflect carbon black's real structure and dispersion patterns provided the answer.
• The discovery matters for the $260 billion global tire industry and could lead to designing safer, longer-lasting materials used in car tires, aircraft components, industrial seals, and medical devices.
Justin Sun said World Liberty Financial built a ‘backdoor blacklisting function’ that froze his account. ‘We have the truth. See you in court,’ the company respondedSign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inboxThe largest investor in Donald Trump’s crypto venture has claimed that the firm “secretly” implemented a tool to unilaterally freeze his holdings of its cryptocurrency. He claimed the company could do the same to any other user.In posts on social media platform X on Sunday, crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun said, without offering evidence, that World Liberty Financial had embedded what he described as a “backdoor blacklisting function” in the blockchain-based contracts used for the WLFI tokens. Continue reading...
Suit alleges the billionaire’s AI company is illegally spewing toxic pollutants from its datacenter in the Memphis areaA new lawsuit accuses Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company of illegally spewing toxic pollutants into the Black neighborhoods on the border of Tennessee and Mississippi.The suit, filed Tuesday in Mississippi federal court, alleges xAI is violating the Clean Air Act due to emissions from its enormous datacenter in Southaven, Mississippi. The plaintiff – storied civil rights group the NAACP, represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center – says xAI has been polluting the surrounding historically Black communities by using dozens of methane gas generators without permits. The organization is seeking to force the company to stop operating its unpermitted turbines in Southaven. Continue reading...
• Tina Fey, Jonah Hill, and Melissa McCarthy appeared alongside Jack Black during his Saturday Night Live monologue.
• The celebrity cameo-filled segment aired as part of recent SNL entertainment highlights.
• It underscores ongoing TV comedy trends with major Hollywood stars.
• Nvidia unveiled Blackwell Ultra GPUs on April 9, 2026, at GTC US keynote, delivering 50 petaflops for AI training in a single rack.
• Chips target US hyperscalers with 4x inference speed over prior gen, shipping Q4 2026 at $50,000 per unit.
• CEO Jensen Huang called it 'the dawn of agentic AI,' boosting Nvidia's dominance in $200B US AI hardware market.
• Blackstone closed a $10 billion opportunistic private credit fund on April 8, 2026, reaching its hard cap target despite ongoing capital outflows in the sector.
• The fund's successful close highlights Blackstone's strength in private credit as investors remain cautious due to market volatility and higher interest rates.
• This deal underscores the resilience of top alternative asset managers in attracting institutional capital amid broader private credit struggles.
Iranian authorities cut access to internet on 28 February leaving many with limited information about warIran’s internet shutdown, which began shortly after the first US-Israel strikes in late February, is now the longest national-scale blackout since the Arab spring, monitors have said.Iranian authorities cut all access to the internet on 28 February, the day the war began, after an earlier shutdown in January during nationwide protests. This current blackout has lasted more than 38 days. Continue reading...
Datacentres ‘directly competing’ with possible residential builds near public transport, one council tells NSW inquiry, amid growing concernsGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastDatacentre developments are crowding out opportunities for housing and job-rich industries across Sydney, a New South Wales inquiry has heard, with one local council reporting a rise in blackouts linked to the industry’s expansion.Several Sydney councils, all facing an influx of datacentre developments, have raised concerns about the health, environmental and amenity impacts on their local communities in submissions to the state’s datacentre inquiry. Continue reading...
Salvaged railway timber removed for testing from Rozelle parklands, which was previously closed in 2024 when asbestos was found in garden mulchGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastParts of a Sydney children’s playground where asbestos was found in garden mulch in 2024 has been closed again, with authorities removing salvaged railway timber for testing.Areas of Rozelle parklands in Sydney’s inner west were fenced off on Monday, with a council notice advising: “Thank you for your patience while we work with the NSW government to carry out works.” Continue reading...
• Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced expectations of at least $1 trillion in demand for its Blackwell and Rubin AI systems through 2027, doubling from $500 billion projected through 2026.
• This projection signals over 100% annual sales growth for Nvidia amid booming data center demand.
• The forecast underscores AI's role in driving U.S. tech sector expansion and GDP growth, with analysts citing non-inflationary productivity gains.
• Finnish quantum hardware company IQM secured a €50 million financing facility from BlackRock-managed funds to fuel R&D and U.S. market expansion.
• The funding supports IQM's preparations for a potential US stock market listing, enhancing its position in quantum computing technology.
• This investment underscores growing Wall Street interest in quantum breakthroughs amid competition in advanced computing sectors.
US defense secretary axed the four officers’ names from list to become one-star generals, the New York Times reportsSign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inboxPete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, is reportedly attempting to block the military promotion of four officers – two women and two Black men – to become one-star generals.The remaining promotion list includes about three dozen officers, most of whom are white men, though a few women and Black officers are still included, according to the New York Times. Continue reading...
Report shows black music accounts for 80 per cent of money generated by UK industry in past 30 yearsLeading figures in the UK music industry are calling for more work to be done to support black talent in executive roles as a report finds that 80% of UK music revenue has been generated by black music in the past 30 years.A recent report by UK Music states that black music has made £24.5bn out of the £30bn generated by the UK music industry in the past 30 years. However, industry figures have highlighted that black people are still kept out of top executive roles. Continue reading...
European parliament votes in favour of sending refused asylum seekers to offshore hubs, in ‘historic setback for refugee rights’People with no right to stay in the EU could be detained for up to two years or sent to offshore centres described by experts as possible “human rights black holes” under plans voted for by the European parliament on Thursday.An alliance of mostly centre-right and far-right lawmakers voted for a proposal to increase returns of undocumented migrants to their home countries, in a further sign of strain on the grand coalition of centrist political forces that has traditionally driven EU lawmaking. Continue reading...
A study found correlation between the environment and long-term wellness in sample of 1,978 who attended college between 1940-80Attending a historically Black college or university (HBCU) as a young adult may be linked with better later-life cognitive outcomes for Black Americans, according to a recent study. The authors sampled 1,978 Black American adults who attended college between 1940 and 1980 (35% attended an HBCU), and who attended a high school in a state with an HBCU. The conclusion? There may be a correlation between collegiate environment and long term wellness.During that time frame of attendance, two major policy implementations shaped schooling in the country: first, in 1952, Brown v Board of Education ruled that racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional; and second was the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which barred racial discrimination in school. Continue reading...
PMI figure reveals impact on economy of rise in oil prices driven by Iran warBusiness live – latest updatesThe UK’s manufacturers have suffered the sharpest one-month acceleration in costs since the aftermath of Black Wednesday in 1992, as conflict in the Middle East has driven up oil prices, new survey evidence shows.The closely watched purchasing managers’ index (PMI) lays bare the impact of the conflict on the UK economy, with growth slowing sharply across manufacturing and services and costs rising. Continue reading...
CEO of asset manager says only a few firms and investors may reap rewards from growth in the technologyThe boom in artificial intelligence risks widening inequality, with only a handful of companies and investors likely to reap its financial rewards, the BlackRock chief executive, Larry Fink, has warned.The boss of the $14tn (£10.4tn) asset manager used his annual letter to investors on Monday to highlight potential hazards around the exponential growth in AI, which has attracted rapid investment and become “central to strategic competition” between global powers such as the US and China. Continue reading...
• The Trump administration designated AI company Anthropic as a 'supply chain risk' and ordered federal agencies to stop using its technology, prompting Anthropic to file a lawsuit against the government.
• Major tech firms including Google, Microsoft, Meta, and OpenAI have backed Anthropic through amicus briefs and legal support, warning that blacklisting an American company harms U.S. innovation and competitiveness against China.
• The conflict stems from late February tensions when Trump publicly criticized Anthropic, leading to contract cancellations and raising concerns about uncertainty throughout the broader technology industry.
Image: University of Wisconsin News
