NASA has posted a contract opportunity notice, also known as a request for information, from commercial space orgs who can service the Hubble Space Telescope.

Hubble was always looked after by NASA astronauts flying on the Space Shuttle, yet the last Hubble Space Telescope (HST) servicing mission was the STS-125 Space Shuttle flight, launched on May 11, 2009. At the time, scientists hoped the mission would add another five years of operational life to the venerable spacecraft. Almost 17 years on, the HST (aka Hubble) is still delivering science.

However, time is running out for the observatory. NASA reckons there is a 10 percent chance it could reenter the Earth's atmosphere by September 2032, rising to 50 percent by December 2033. As the end of the Swift mission showed, increased solar activity can cause greater-than-anticipated atmospheric drag.

Also, like Swift, Hubble has no propulsion system, and so when it reenters (as it will, without intervention), the reentry will be uncontrolled. Hubble is sufficiently massive that there is a remote chance somebody on the ground could have a very bad day when that happens.

As such, one mission option suggested by NASA is a vehicle to grapple the observatory and perform a controlled reentry and disposal.

However, there are other options. Something to boost the telescope's orbit up to at least 600 km, or another to "enhance its ongoing performance and increase its resilience and expected on-orbit lifetime."

Both are intriguing options, and important since, as NASA acknowledges, no replacement for Hubble is expected before the 2040s, when the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) could become operational. Despite the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Nancy Roman Space Telescope, Hubble remains in high demand, with NASA reporting a 7:1 oversubscription.

Before becoming NASA Administrator, Jared Isaacman advocated a SpaceX mission to boost the Hubble, but the idea was ultimately rejected. Similar plans could now be dusted off. NASA's requirement is for a mission to occur by 2032, and not harm the Hubble.

A soft-capture mechanism was fitted to Hubble during the STS-125 mission, which will mean docking with the spacecraft will be easier than the grappling planned for Swift. Then, the question is what to do with it. A controlled reentry is one option. The other options - boosting to a higher altitude or "enhance its ongoing performance and increase its resilience" are intriguing. Northrop Grumman's Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV), for example, is capable of on-orbit servicing and extending the lifetime of satellites. The Hubble is an order of magnitude more challenging, but the technological hurdles can be overcome with time and funding.

Last year, The Register spoke with Dr John Grunsfeld, one of the astronauts (now retired) who worked on Hubble during the STS-125 mission. Grunsfeld told us that the veteran spacecraft faced death by a thousand cuts as its budget was whittled away. The observatory itself recently switched from three to one gyro mode (the telescope uses gyros to control where it is pointed) to eke out a few more years of operational life.

At this point, NASA is looking for information and comment - this isn't a request for proposals. There is no indication of how much the agency expects to pay. However, the timescale is immutable. Without intervention, Hubble will make an uncontrolled reentry in the coming years. ®

The University of Manchester is scrutinizing why growing adoption of AI tools has so far failed to translate into the forecast productivity gains, however, researchers are struggling to give easy answers to close the "AI ambition gap."

In a report, also called "The AI Ambition Gap," the UK university's Productivity Institute mulls over the advances that have been made in AI and the expanding adoption of it, and sets out what business leaders and policymakers can do to realize the potential benefits.

The report was commissioned by IT services biz Bytes Technology Group.

One reason for the lack of results is that organizations have invested heavily up front on retraining staff, reorganizing the way they work and other adjustments. Those costs show up straight away, yet the payback doesn't come until later.

Another reason, the report suggests, is that AI tools can raise productivity at the level of individual tasks, but these gains do not automatically translate into greater productivity across a worker's whole role or the entire organization.

It cites the example of software developers using GitHub Copilot who completed around 26 percent more tasks, and professionals using ChatGPT for routine writing and analysis that reduced task completion time by 40 percent while improving the quality of the output by 18 percent.

However, a study of AI dev tools found these have increased coding activity by approximately 240 percent, while the number of actual software releases has only grown by about 30 percent. The gap is due to humans still needing to check and test their work before release.

High task exposure to AI does not automatically make a worker more productive, the researchers say. Jobs typically combine automatable activities with tasks that require judgement, coordination, client interaction and critical thinking. As AI removes or accelerates some activities, those complementary human tasks become the constraint on time saving and the translation of task-level gains into greater productivity

Job outcomes therefore depend on task composition and complementary human expertise, the report continues. It suggests AI may in part displace labor from existing tasks, while also creating new tasks in which workers retain a comparative advantage.

This could be good news for the UK, the researchers state. Compared with five other nations (US, Brazil, Colombia, India and South Africa), Blighty has the highest share of workers in occupations with both high exposure to AI and "high complementarity," it claims. This is in part related to the country's large financial and professional business service sectors, which are characterized by a high share of cognitive occupations.

This is just as well, as the government is pinning its hopes on using AI to drive economic recovery in a strategy outlined at the start of last year.

Britain's AI sector is relatively large by European standards, and the report cites recent OECD estimates that high-exposure economies such as the UK and the US could see annual labor productivity gains of between 0.4 and 1.3 percentage points.

Even an annual uplift of around 0.5 to 0.7 percentage points would represent a significant step change relative to the UK's stalled productivity performance over the past decade, it says, if this effect is sustained.

The Productivity Institute lists several "mutually reinforcing enablers" to help organizations close the ambition gap it identifies. None is particularly surprising, especially if you have read other reports advising on corporate success with AI adoption.

One is management setting strategic direction for the organization, another is strengthening worker capabilities through greater knowledge and data literacy to help organizations turn individual insight into shared learning. Others include implementing AI governance and focusing on applications that can create new products, improve core processes or solve previously intractable problems.

"AI's productivity potential becomes real when faster tasks lead to better performance across the business," said Bart van Ark, professor at The Productivity Institute and lead author on the report.

"The ambition gap lies between those individual efficiencies and sustained business results. Closing it requires firms to invest in management, skills and the redesign of workflows alongside the technology."

The conclusion is that companies must have faith and keep investing in AI, and eventually the benefits will come if you are doing the right things. These include focusing on high-value use cases linked to strategy, customer value and operational bottlenecks, plus treating AI as a workplace redesign.

Policymakers could help out businesses here by assisting identifying relevant opportunities, the report says, to reduce adoption risks and uncertainty.

Other reports published this week were more defined in their message: Gartner said 75 percent of corporate board members have yet to see any productivity gains or reduce costs from AI use, and private equity biz Apollo Global Management reckons only the biggest tech vendors are enjoying some sort of AI payoff. ®

The UK's top health quango has called on family doctors to figure out how to preserve health information and get in touch with patients after a website provider collapsed earlier this month.

NHS England has taken the unusual step of writing to GPs, warning them of the risks to patient information and continuity of service following the disruption to potentially hundreds of practices around the UK.

Silicon Practice Digital Health Solutions — owned by Schappit Ltd — has gone into administration. Reports suggest some GP websites have gone offline completely. Practice managers fear the extra workload and are struggling to stand up alternative forms of communication since the switch to digital channels.

NHS England is the government unit which runs the health service in England, but it is not directly responsible for GP practices, the vast majority of which are independent contractors.

Nonetheless, the quango's CTO, Kevin Humphries, wrote to practices and NHS organizations this week outlining his priorities in mitigating the impact of tech service collapse.

They include finding ways of preserving any historical patient information, particularly where it has not been moved to clinical systems, managing the online consultation backlog to make sure no additional requests are added, and identifying channels for patient access until new online systems are available.

Practices should also consider whether they have a legal obligation to tell the Information Commissioner's Office if the "availability, integrity, confidentiality or recoverability of personal data" is affected, according to the communication seen by The Register.

NHS management bodies called Integrated Care Boards are responsible for GP IT service arrangements, making sure they include "clinical safety, data security, cyber security and business continuity assurance across the GP IT supply chain," Humphries said.

They need to find someone to lead their recovery plan and contact affected practices and trusts. They should also "work with practices and other impacted organizations to support them in revisiting and assessing whether to enact business continuity and disaster recovery plans," Humphries said.

Questions over how an urgent NHS-wide response is required for the collapse of a relatively small supplier may come later. Among them will be the due diligence conducted before Schappit Ltd was added to a government framework in July.

GP and open-source tech campaigner Marcus Baw has published a free, open source template for an alternative website should practices want to bring systems in-house. He said the template is based on accessible NHS web standards, and has the same look-and-feel of common NHS websites.

"Practices can deploy it for free, and take back in-house control of their own website. It's a replacement website template which practices can set up using Claude Code in the web in an afternoon," he said. ®

Thousands of GCHQ storage drives containing sensitive data have been lost for years, and the British signals intelligence agency still cannot explain where they are.

According to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner's Office's (IPCO) annual report, the missing storage drives have been known to officials for years, and may contain data related to the Investigatory Powers Act (IPA).

"I remain concerned that GCHQ has not yet established a sufficiently clear understanding of the scale, location, and recoverability of lost removable media that may contain IPA-related data, notwithstanding that the underlying issues were first drawn to my attention several years ago," wrote investigatory powers commissioner Lord Brian Leveson.

"While I recognize the technical and practical challenges involved, the passage of time without a comprehensive account heightens the importance of sustained senior focus and assured remediation. Given the potential sensitivity of the material involved, I will continue to monitor progress closely."

Described as "a very significant number," the report notes that GCHQ has scoped the maximum number of potentially lost drives, but is unaware of the exact scale of the issue.

The agency has embarked on "a program of further work" to locate as many of the lost devices as possible, which includes implementing an automated asset-tracking system by the end of the year. After this is up and running, it said it will be able to provide a more precise number of lost drives.

A GCHQ spokesperson told The Register: "As IPCO have reported, our management system for removable media was previously not sufficiently robust to effectively track the items that were registered for use. IPCO are right to note the flaws in the data the system produced, and we have taken action against all their recommendations.

"We recognize the importance of security of removable media in our systems, and have a range of measures to mitigate the risks posed by these items. The findings in the report have been addressed comprehensively, and all necessary steps to correct this issue have been taken."

Peter Sommer, digital forensics expert and visiting professor at de Montfort and Birmingham City universities, told us:

"Bearing in mind the sort of highly sensitive data collected and processed by GCHQ IPCO is right to be very concerned, the more so as the issue is already several years old. Vast quantities of data can be stored on the cheapest lowest cost hard disks and cards. At a much more modest level as an expert witness I know how important it is to keep careful track of the data entrusted to me."

Losing important devices is not an achievement that's exclusive to GCHQ. Myriad stories like this have emerged from all corners of the public sector over the years, such as the British Minidstry of Defence misplacing USB drives containing secret information in the mid-noughties, civil servants routinely losing their BlackBerry handsets, and UK police losing thousands of devices, too.

The missing storage drives comprise just one of the agency's various transgressions highlighted by IPCO in its report.

There are also "significant concerns" over the lax safeguards used to restrict the UK's overseas partners when accessing bulk-intercepted data collected by GCHQ.

IPCO was satisfied at how GCHQ ensured its own analysts remained compliant with safeguards around accessing confidential material related to journalism, journalistic sources, and privileged legal information.

However, there were concerns around how these same safeguards were applied to its international partners, which have access to its so-called bulk data interception "product."

The report notes that most partners were properly restricted from accessing such material, although an internal probe found that there were inadequate arrangements in respect to one partner and their access to journalistic material.

Both GCHQ and the overseas agency committed to rectifying the situation.

GCHQ was also questioned after a software bug in a web app "used by a relatively small section of the public" misidentified individuals thought to be participating in terrorist activities.

The agency identified and reported the flaw in the software, which it used for "target discovery work," and although it only affected a small number of individuals, the errors led to five port stops made under the Terrorism Act and caused "serious prejudice" to the victims.

A port stop, for the uninitiated, involves law enforcement detaining a suspect at a UK port, airport, train station, or within one mile of the Northern Ireland border, and can be carried out without suspicion.

Once detained, individuals have a legal responsibility to provide passwords to their electronic devices, which can be seized for up to seven days, and in some cases have their biometric markers taken.

Failure to comply can lead to a three-month prison term.

IPCO ruled, however, that there was ultimately no error made as defined by the IPA.

"This is because the activity was lawfully authorised under an interception warrant and the adoption of an unintentionally and unforeseeably imperfect target discovery methodology did not constitute such an error," the report stated.

Despite the agency's vast technical expertise, IPCO said that the issue affecting the software was not foreseeable.

GCHQ was not the only offender among the UK intelligence community (UKIC), with MI5's mishandling of the infamous Agent X case taking center stage in the report. Agent X was an anonymous MI5 informant whose real identity has never been publicly released.

A secret inquiry by IPCO as well as the report revealed that MI5 managed Agent X despite knowing he was a violent misogynist obsessed with extreme violence.

Lord Leveson said "the case of Agent X is as serious as anything I have dealt with as Commissioner," after MI5 gave false evidence to the High Court and Investigatory Powers Tribunal to protect a foreign neo-Nazi informant who was under police investigation for abusing his partner, referred to publicly as "Beth." ®

Keen to join in the revelry but don't have a costume? You can still fashion a get-up without buying - or wasting - anything

• Change by degrees offers life hacks and sustainable living tips each Saturday to help reduce your household's carbon footprint

• Got a question or tip for reducing household emissions? Email us at changebydegrees@theguardian.com

The thrill of an event like Halloween doesn't come from a brand new costume or "two pillowcases' worth of sweets", says play specialist Cat Sewell.

The fun comes from carving out the time to play, making ridiculous outfits, and the terror and delight of haunting the neighbourhood, says the artistic director and co-CEO of Polyglot Theatre, a company that creates participatory, immersive, child-led theatre.

Congress must act to ensure that families are able to heat their homes before the start of the season

Heating oil may be the clearest warning yet of how the war in Iran is deepening the US's energy affordability crisis. Families who heat their homes with oil are facing bills that could be 50% higher this winter, adding nearly $900 to the cost of keeping their homes warm. These families were already struggling before the war began.

As the Guardian recently reported, research by my organization found that electricity shutoffs in 10 states had increased 28% over the past two years. Millions of Americans were already falling behind on their utility bills, forced to choose between paying for energy, food, medicine and rent. Now they face another round of increases in gasoline, electricity and home heating costs.

B2B News | Source: Nucular Electronics Inc. | The Nucular X6F, a 15 kW motor controller with roughly the footprint of a credit card, has been named Best New E-Mobility Technology at the 2026 E-Mobility Awards. For the company, the award recognises more than ten years of in-house power electronics development for light electric vehicles.

Size and output

The X6F weighs 227 grams and is housed in a CNC-machined aluminium enclosure. Nucular rates it at 15 kW peak output using Field-Oriented Control (FOC). The company targets applications ranging from high-performance electric off-road motorcycles to commercial light EV fleets.

An in-house development approach

Many controllers in the LEV market are built on off-the-shelf platforms. Nucular instead develops its full electronics stack internally: motor controllers, battery management systems (BMS), on-board computers and the software that runs them.

Founder Dmitry Bogdanchikov said the product is the result of many prototypes, extensive testing and repeated revisions of circuit boards and firmware. He also credited feedback from riders, builders and partners using the hardware in the field, and said recognition in a pure technology category is an important milestone for the team.

Technical details

According to Nucular, reaching 15 kW in this footprint required changes to how the controller manages heat, current and signal integrity.

• Thermal management: The X6F uses top-side cooled (TOLT) MOSFETs. Instead of routing heat into the circuit board, they transfer it from the top of the transistors directly into the aluminium housing. Nucular says this allows peak power to be sustained almost twice as long.
• Dual-board layout: An 8-layer heavy-copper power board with ultra-low-ESR polymer capacitors handles high current peaks. A physically separate logic board keeps the microcontroller away from much of the electrical noise.
• Firmware and connectivity: The controller runs Nucular's own bare-metal firmware with more than 200 tuning parameters. It communicates with the rest of the company's hardware through the open LEVCAN bus protocol.
• Durability: The X6F has recessed IP67 waterproof connectors. Nucular reports a field failure rate below 1% and offers a three-year warranty.

Relevance for manufacturers and builders

For OEMs and custom builders, the X6F's combination of high output, low mass and compact packaging addresses a key constraint in LEV design, where space and weight around the drivetrain are limited. The open LEVCAN protocol and the broad parameter set also support integration with third-party components and tuning for specific applications.

About Nucular Electronics

Nucular Electronics Inc. designs and manufactures motor controllers, BMS units, on-board computers and open communication protocols for light electric vehicles. More information:

Turkey's central Anatolian plateau is one of the country's most important agricultural regions, producing wheat, maize, sugar beet and other crops. Yet beneath its cultivated fields, the ground is becoming increasingly unstable.

Large sinkholes, some tens of metres wide and deep, have appeared across the Konga basin, swallowing farmland, and threatening nearby roads and settlements.

These collapses can occur suddenly, sometimes in fields that have been cultivated for generations. Around 20 are opening up every year, according to a recent study.

Known locally as obruks, sinkholes are not a new geological phenomenon. They have existed in the Konya basin for thousands of years, but they have become far more frequent over recent decades.

Konya's sinkholes are consequently both a geological hazard and evidence of a wider water-management problem. The cavities beneath the fields are the product of geological processes extending over thousands of years. Their recent instability, however, is occurring within a groundwater system profoundly altered by human activity and increasingly exposed to drought.

As representatives of countries all over the world prepare to head to Turkey to discuss climate change at the UN's Cop 31 conference, Ankara continues to grapple with this escalating environmental disaster at home.

The nation's disaster and emergency management authority (AFAD) has recently documented 684 sinkholes across Konya, Karaman and Aksaray in Turkey's agricultural heartlands.

The growing number of sinkholes is often attributed to drought and climate change. But intensive groundwater extraction for agriculture can also increase the risk of collapse.

Decades of intensive agricultural irrigation have altered the conditions beneath the basin's surface. Groundwater, which is the layer of water below the Earth's surface, is also not being replenished during long, dry periods, which adds to the problem.

Konya is a closed drainage basin. This means water entering the basin does not flow towards the sea. It is stored underground, and accumulates in lakes and wetlands, or returns to the atmosphere through evaporation and plant transpiration.

Rainfall is relatively low here, and much of it falls outside the main growing season. Groundwater has, therefore, become indispensable to agriculture, particularly for irrigated maize, sugar beet and fodder crops.

Read more: Subsidence claims: after drought, ground can shrink, swell or even collapse when it rains - causing damage to homes

The difficulty is that demand for water has grown beyond the rate at which the aquifers, a body of porous rock or sediment saturated with groundwater, can recover. A recent regional study estimated an average annual loss of groundwater storage, equivalent to 3.4 centimetres of water. This figure clearly points to a system under sustained pressure.

Part of the problem is that Turkey experienced its most severe drought for decades in 2025, putting more pressure on farmers.

Farmers often respond by extracting more groundwater, causing underground water levels to fall. This reduces the pressure exerted by water within the pores and fractures of rocks and sediments, potentially destabilising existing underground cavities and increasing the risk of collapse.

The consequences extend beyond water scarcity, because groundwater also puts stress on underground geological formations. The Konya basin contains extensive carbonate rocks, including limestone. Over long periods, groundwater circulating through fractures dissolves minerals and enlarges openings. This process, known as karstification, can produce underground channels, caves and cavities. Sinkholes form when the material above such voids becomes unstable.

Lower groundwater levels can also change the movement of water and sediment through existing underground cavities, allowing loose material to shift downwards. Where the roof of a cavity is already weak, these changes may eventually lead to collapse.

But the response is highly dependent on local conditions. The depth and shape of underground cavities, the thickness and strength of the layers of rock and sediment above them, the distribution of fractures and the history of groundwater fluctuations all matter.

This helps explain an important finding from a study on sinkhole formation in the Konya basin between 2000 and 2024. The researchers identified a sharp increase in the annual formation rate, from approximately three sinkholes a year during 2000-10 to 32 during 2016-19. Yet the rate subsequently declined to around 22 a year after 2020, despite continuing groundwater depletion.

If falling groundwater is responsible, why would fewer sinkholes form while water levels continue to decline? One possible explanation is that the most vulnerable cavities in some areas have already collapsed. Sinkhole formation depends on the number of unstable underground structures, not simply on the volume of water extracted.

The basin is also experiencing another type of ground deformation, known as land subsidence, in which the surface gradually sinks as underground sediments compact. This can cause cracks in the ground and damage to roads and buildings, although the sinking is often too gradual to notice without satellite measurements.

Satellite radar measurements revealed widespread land subsidence in the area, of up to 90 millimetres per year. Unlike sudden sinkhole collapse, this can develop as groundwater withdrawal increases stress on the land and compresses sediments in the ground.

The problem is not unique to Turkey. A global analysis estimated that over 6.3 million square kilometres of land are subsiding by more than five millimetres annually. The researchers identified groundwater extraction as the most influential factor worldwide.

In Konya, the pressure on groundwater is closely connected to agricultural production. Farmers cultivate crops for established markets and processing industries, often under policies that have favoured high levels of production, rather than water conservation.

Irrigation provides a way for farmers to maintain yields of crops during dry years, but it also allows production to continue at levels that the basin's renewable water supply may not sustain.

However, restricting how much groundwater is extracted without providing support for farmers could impose substantial economic pressure on them, as well as on the nation's food supply. But continued groundwater depletion could progressively undermine the agricultural production that made the region economically important in the first place.

More efficient irrigation could help, but is not enough. If water saved through improved technology is used to expand the area being irrigated, total groundwater consumption may remain unchanged or even increase.

A long-term response would require reliable monitoring of groundwater levels and withdrawals, enforceable extraction limits, agricultural incentives aligned with local water availability and detailed mapping of geological hazards. Satellite measurements can help identify areas under pressure.

The most immediate danger is that another field, road or building may collapse, putting lives at risk.

Preventing the next sinkhole is difficult. The government could address the problem. But it needs to introduce agricultural policies that treat groundwater as a finite resource, rather than a permanent substitute for rainfall.

Nima Shokri is affiliated with Hamburg University of Technology.

The biennial FIM Intercontinental Games (ICG) returns this season for its second edition, with the 2026 Goiás FIM Intercontinental Games scheduled for 11-13 December at the Autódromo Internacional Ayrton Senna in Goiânia, Brazil.

The prestigious event will bring together teams from the six FIM Continental Unions (CONUs) - Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, North America and Oceania - to compete across circuit racing and motocross. Each CONU will field twelve riders, split evenly between Supersport (SSP), Supersport 300 (SSP300) and MX2. The two circuit racing classes featured at the inaugural ICG at Jerez, Spain, in 2024, while MX2 joins the programme for 2026, extending the competition to off-road racing.

Each CONU may select one 'specialist' rider with a permanent place in an FIM World Championshipin 2026. Teams must also include at least one female rider per category, who may likewise be a permanent FIM World Championship rider this season. All other selected riders must be considered 'rising talents' and must not have competed in an FIM World Championship as permanent riders during 2026.

Yamaha will provide machinery for both circuit racing classes, with a fleet of YZF-R7 and YZF-R3 models available. Motocross competitors will race on locally supplied motorcycles, according to each rider's requested brand and model and in compliance with FIM regulations.

In the run-up to the event, we will take a closer look at each CONU's selection. This week, FIM North America takes the spotlight.

FIM North America's efforts in Brazil will be overseen by Circuit Racing Team Manager Michael Martin who returns to his 2024 role alongside Steve Westfall who is the Motocross Team Manager.

Captaining the team's SSP300 riders, Kensei Matsudaira only turned sixteen in October, but the Californian already has a wealth of experience across a variety of disciplines including Flat Track, SuperMoto and Speedway. A multi-time champion in the MotoAmerica Mini Cup, he finished a close second in both the MotoAmerica Talent Cup and the FIM Moto4 Latin Cup this season.

He is joined by Ella Dreher in an SSP300 squad that is filled with young, talented riders. A fighting fifth in the 2025 MotoAmerica Talent Cup, the sixteen-year-old Floridian represented Melissa Paris' team in the first three rounds of the 2026 MotoAmerica Supersport championship before a crash in May sidelined her, although she returned for the final two rounds and will be fighting fit for the ICG.

The team's third SSP300 rider is sixteen-year-old Hank Vossberg who has dominated the 2026 MotoAmerica Twins Cup, claiming eight race wins on his way to the national title. Last season the rider from Minnesota placed third overall - with three race wins - in the 2025 MotoAmerica Talent Cup series and also made appearances in the Twins Cup on his way to fourth overall.

Completing FIM North America's all-teenaged line-up in the SSP300 category, sixteen-year-old Texan Michael 'Mikey Lou' Sanchez was eighteenth in this year's FIM Moto4 European Cup. A former champion in the 110cc and 160cc classes of the MotoAmerica Mini Cup, he has had a base in Europe in recent seasons.

FIM North America's effort in the SSP category is Captained by twenty-year-old Californian Max Toth. Another rider who competed in Jerez in 2024, Toth was fourth in the opening SSP300 race two years ago before his early exit from race two. A MotoAmerica Junior Cup race winner and Twins Cup podium finisher, Toth competed in the 2024 FIM Europe Moto2 European Championship and after injury marred his 2025 season he bounced back this year, racing in selected rounds of the FIM Harley-Davidson Bagger World Cup and the MotoAmerica King of the Baggers series and finished twenty-second in the FIM JuniorGP Moto2 World Championship.

Toth is joined on the SSP team by eighteen-year-old Maryland racer Matthew Chapin who achieved SSP300 finishes of seventh and twelfth at Jerez in 2024. This season he has continued to show his huge promise and was just two points away from an overall podium finish in the seven-round MotoAmerica Twins Cup after finishing second on his series debut in 2025.

A veteran of the 2024 ICG when she recorded a pair of thirteenth-placed finishes in the SSP class, thirty-two-year-old Mallory Dobbs from Washington State works as a civil engineer when she is not racing. A late convert to motorcycling having only learned to ride at the age of twenty-two, Dobbs raced at amateur level until making her MotoAmerica debut in 2022 and has competed in all three editions of the FIM WorldWCR series with end-of-season rankings of eleventh in 2024, fourteenth in 2025 and twenty-third this year.

Completing the FIM North America SSP line-up, twenty-year-old Blake Davis was fifth in this season's MotoAmerica Supersport championship after finishing third in 2024 and 2025. A two-time MotoAmerica Twins Cup champion, the Virginian - winner of the AMA Youth Road Racer of the Year award in 2018 and AMA Nicky Hayden Road Racing Horizon Award in 2019 - competed in the inaugural ICG when he recorded an eleventh in the second SSP race after retiring on the opening lap of race one.

Canadian Dylan Rempel is Captain of the MX2 squad and the nineteen-year-old from Ontario will be aiming to lead by example having already forged a hard-earned reputation for his determination and commitment. With experience of running near the front in both the AMA Pro Motocross Championship SMX Next and Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship 250SX Futuresclasses, this season Rempel was crowned 250cc Pro Class champion in the national Canadian Triple Crown series.

Aged just seventeen and hailing from Colorado, Mayla Herrick had to wait until round three of the 2026 AMA Women's Motocross Championship until she was old enough to compete and she immediately claimed a moto win before crashing out of the second race. Despite this she still finished the season ranked eighth with overall podiums at Unadilla and Ironman Raceway and she was the youngest member of the Team USA squad that won the FIM Oceania Women's Motocross Cup in early 2026.

The third member of the MX2 team, twenty-four-year-old Preston Kilroy won the 250 Pro class of the national 2025 Triple Crown Series before graduating to the 450 Pro division this season where he finished fourth and claimed the overall win at the final round. The rider from Wyoming made his professional Motocross debut in 2020 and his professional Supercross debut two years later and has competed in both the 250 and 450 classes of the AMA Pro Motocross Nationals as well as the 2023 SuperMotocross World Championship.

Hailing from Manitoba in Canada, twenty-one-year-old Ryder McNabb is a two-time 250 Pro Canadian Motocross Champion who was tenth in this season's 450 Pro class in the Triple Crown Series after finishing seventh in the 250 Pro class in 2025. Making his professional debut in the 250cc class in 2024, he has achieved three top-twenty finishes in the 250cc class of the AMA Pro Motocross Nationals and also has a top-twenty finish in the Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship 250SX Futures class on his racing résumé.

Rob Dingman, President of FIM North America, said: "The FIM Intercontinental Games brings the spirit of competition on two wheels under the international spotlight, and we are eager to showcase the collective talent of the riders from our continent. As we celebrate the second running of this event later this year, we anticipate a strong showing from our twelve riders in Brazil."

Mike Pelletier, FIM North America Delegate, stated: "We have built a competitive team with a collection of skilled Circuit and Motocross riders that we feel very confident in for this year's FIM Intercontinental Games. Team managers Michael Martin and Steve Westfall bring plenty of experience to their respective roles. I look forward to watching our team compete at this prestigious event, with a chance to bring international glory to North America."

Michael Martin, FIM North America's Circuit Racing Manager, commented: "I'm very honoured [to be Manager]. It's a pleasure for me to do it and I certainly enjoy it. It's been very rewarding so far and, hopefully, we're going to go down there now that we have our feet underneath us and get a good result."

Steve Westfall, FIM North America's Motocross Manager, added: "To be asked to be a Team Manager for such a cool event is an honour. The fact that they considered me means a lot! The team is going to be great. Mike [Pelletier] and I went with what we thought would be the best team to win the FIM Intercontinental Games. Good luck to all the other CONUs competing in this event."

The post FIM Intercontinental Games: Meet Team North America for Goiás appeared first on Roadracing World Magazine | Motorcycle Riding, Racing & Tech News.

Reload.Land brings the Silent Ride back to Milan during EICMA for a very special night: bringing together electric two-wheel culture, music, art and our international community.

SILENT RIDE
TUESDAY, 3 NOVEMBER 2026
MEET FROM 19:30
DA ORIENT
Viale Montello 8, 20154 Milano, Italy

On Tuesday, 3 November, we meet from 19:30 at Da Orient for some welcome drinks, snacks and good vibes before heading out into the streets of Milan together.

Expect an evening surrounded by electric motorcycles, scooters and mopeds from across the scene. This is an open-brand event — every electric two-wheeler is welcome, whatever you ride!

Please note: Parking around Da Orient is very limited, so plan your arrival accordingly.

After cruising through Milan, we'll continue the night at DURO CLUB, where an exclusive Reload.Land party awaits. Expect an immersive light installation by our friends at House of North, music, familiar faces and a very special atmosphere.

Everyone is welcome, but registration is mandatory. The Silent Ride and the DURO Club party are RSVP only, so make sure to secure your spot in advance.

SPREAD THE VOLT

An elegant and slightly flamboyant Japanese-Peruvian fusion with delicate, floral notes and a fruity finish

Inspired by our restaurant's Japanese-Peruvian roots, and to mark the 1-2 November Day of the Dead celebrations, this drink combines white rum and sake with a dash of bitters and a red-wine float: the result is a light, layered cocktail with delicate, floral notes, juicy berry fruit and just enough theatre to impress without being hard to make.

Shak Nematulloev, bar manager, Ayllu, London W2

Whenever I need a good laugh, I look at an Instagram account called Good Advice for Shitty People. This satirical account is like an advice column for the worst people ever, determined to stay that way. Every time I start reading through it, I can't stop because it's so ridiculous and funny. — Read the rest

The post Good Advice for Shitty People is an advice column for the worst people ever appeared first on Boing Boing.

Did you miss out on National Pumpkin Day? If so, this video has you covered. Watch three cute and ferocious little hippos enjoy their pumpkins at the Cincinnati Zoo.

Eating a handful of pumpkin seeds takes me at least a few minutes. — Read the rest

The post Watch the Cincinnati Zoo's hippos eat whole pumpkins like potato chips appeared first on Boing Boing.

These stone face artworks by Chen and Kai make me so happy to look at. These decorative works can be placed on your bookshelf, coffee table, or wherever else you choose. Each one features a spooky and simple face carved from a slab of stone. — Read the rest

The post These spooky stone faces look like little spirits emerging from the rock appeared first on Boing Boing.

This video shows what happens when you allow a puppy to watch a large steak cooking on TV. The confused dog thinks it's real. Despite the screen having no flavor, the puppy is determined to lick through the screen and get to the steak. — Read the rest

The post Puppy tries to lick a steak off the TV screen appeared first on Boing Boing.

This photograph shows Tim Burton as a kid wearing his Halloween costume in 1967. If you've seen The Nightmare Before Christmas, you'll immediately recognize the similarity between this costume and Jack Skellington. I have a feeling that this creation made by Tim Burton's mom (at least subconsciously) influenced the design of Jack Skellington. — Read the rest

The post Tim Burton's 1967 skeleton costume looks a lot like Jack Skellington appeared first on Boing Boing.

This video shows a gigantic water spout seen on the Kama River in the Perm region of Russia. The water spout against the sunlight looks like a portal leading up into the sky. It's fascinating that something real can look so supernatural. — Read the rest

The post A giant waterspout on a Russian river looks like a portal to the sky appeared first on Boing Boing.

I did not care for this one bit. I found it cloying, infantilising, and far too circuitous.

It starts off as a bit of an overwritten melodrama, where every phrase is a delicious flower waiting to bloom, but ends up being a over-sugared mess with a rotten heart. Parts are just exhausting to read, with no time to catch your breath between scenes. That can work in some books when spaced out - here I just found it annoying.

My main problem with it, though, is that it feels like it is entirely exposition. Because of the (unnecessarily) jumbled order of the story, every paragraph feels like it is introducing us to something or someone. Rather than progress the plot, I felt like I was being drip-fed morsels for what was coming up. In the end, the story just isn't interesting enough to support that.

Parts of the writing are gorgeous, but they're in service of so little that it seems like an unfair sleight of hand; you're too busy admiring the prose to realise how dull and uneventful everything is. The repetition hammers away like a vocal tic - wearing out its welcome by the tenth occurrence. The mannered spelling, punctuation, and extemporising is similarly grating after a while.

I don't mind characters being unsympathetic - but every single one is painted as a monster or a simpleton. It's hard to keep reading when nearly all the main characters are so relentlessly unlikeable. I know I'm not a big fan of sad or upsetting books, but there was so little joy or happiness in this one that I felt grimy reading it. Afterwards I was left wondering what the point of it was. I do not doubt that the depictions of casteism were well done but, again, to what end?

I read this for a book club and wondered what my fellow readers made of it. All of us found it a challenging read, with most raising similar criticisms to mine. We all found the prose to be beautiful but the plot lacking. Only one of use gave it a positive review - but we all agreed it was a fascinating book to discuss.

Perhaps we were all just philistines? Yet each of us came up with a compelling reason why we found it so unpalatable. There truly was something for everyone to complain about.

Ideally, I think it makes sense to open up the U.S. market to Chinese goods (AI, EVs, robots), but have functional and well-funded regulators that police all labor, competition, environmental, privacy, national security, and consumer rights abuses. But big U.S. companies don't much like that because it would boost competition and regulatory accountability, eroding quarterly revenues.

So instead we get corruption-fueled protectionism run by a bunch of racist, and incompetent clowns who gutted most of our federal regulators, then saddled them with an elaborate new policy ask that's impossible to implement, even if the admin were competent.

Which it isn't.

For example, I recommend this recent Verge piece about the Trump effort to ban Chinese drones, which notes how it has been trivial for Chinese companies to trick the administration and bypass the ban simply by renting a strip mall office, tweaking a few names, and pretending their equipment is produced domestically. Curiously, officials who don't believe in government can't govern. Fancy that.

Another report this week by Ars Technica indicates that U.S. chip giant Intel has also been so disoriented and confused they felt it necessary to get a waiver from the Trump administration's "foreign robot ban" because executives didn't really understand what is or isn't covered:

"Intel's waiver request stated that it was "unclear" whether its robotic vehicles even qualify as robots covered by the FCC ban but said it sought relief just in case. The tech company also received approval to "make certain hardware, software, and firmware changes" that would help ensure the continued operation and maintenance of the robotic vehicles."

So it's a foreign robot ban, unless we need foreign robots. In which case big U.S. companies have to spend a bunch of time and money kissing the Trump administration's ass to ensure they have what they need to function. It's far from the "free market" dogma the administration rose to power on. It's a weird and racist autocratic nanny state operated by the dimmest people imaginable.

A recent study by the International Data Corporation predicts that the foreign robot ban could reduce US humanoid robot revenues by 58 percent over expected baseline. China is still expected to dominate the market with most of its cheaper, better gear avoiding the U.S. for the EU. And much like the FCC "drone ban," a big impact will be less tech product availability and higher prices overall for U.S. consumers.

Not content with screwing up the drone, robot, vacuum, and lawnmower sectors, the Trump FCC last week announced it would also soon implement a ban on "foreign surveillance chips." You're to ignore that the FCC can't really define what this means. And doesn't really want to answer any serious questions about how this will be implemented in a country already dominated by Chinese tech.

The Trump administration makes an endless stink about protecting U.S. cybersecurity defenses by taking aim at Chinese-made tech. But with its other hand it has devastated U.S. cybersecurity agencies with policies that are indistinguishable from a foreign attack, make it easier for foreign governments to surveil U.S. citizens at scale (the refusal to pass real privacy laws or regulate data brokers, for example), and function largely as a way for the administration to line its own pockets.

Again, protectionism is bad. But what we have here isn't really even that. There's zero real indication that the Trump administration has any idea what it's doing. There's simply no reality in which the Trump administration can implement or enforce any of this. And because our consolidated corporate press sucks, most coverage simply refuses to make this clear to anybody.

Outlets like Reuters, for example, inform the public that the Trump administration is "aiming to safeguard the U.S. artificial intelligence supply chain from Chinese threats." Others will parrot claims that the Trump administration is "dedicated to creating safety guardrails for AI." But there's no real evidence that's true or that the administration is capable of doing literally any of that.

This sort of pseudo-journalism will be all the rage in the new year as the Trump administration sets its sights on a likely ban of foreign AI models (to lock in the dominance of U.S. giants that dutifully kiss the authoritarian ring). Which is to say: expect this sort of normalization and sanewashing to increase despite zero evidence that any of this is working or makes any coherent sense.

Accenture is using AI across its recruiting process, although it maintains that final hiring decisions remain in human hands.

Speaking to at its recent investor day, the global tech consultancy and outsourcing biz said it was using AI agents to sift through resumes (or CVs if you're in the UK) and schedule interviews.

Kate Clifford, global chief leadership and HR, said it was helping clients adopt a similar application of the nascent technology.

"We call it frictionless recruiting, which is really our agentic recruiting solution. We put in an agentic recruiting solution where agents now do all the interview scheduling. Agents can screen a resume. We have assessments that deeply understand the skills of the candidates to help that process move much, much faster. Now a human always makes a hiring decision," she said.

Clifford said the agent technology was used to help recruitment staff get through their work more quickly. "Our recruiters needed to spend time with candidates. They needed to spend time sourcing, but where they were actually spending their time was scheduling interviews, where they were actually spending their time was typing information into a system," she said.

The executive claimed the agentic process reduced the time taken to hire for roles by 28 percent and improved candidate quality by 30 percent.

AI agents also help new recruits get up to speed. Whereas it once took six months for an entry-level hire to become productive, the time has been cut to six weeks using AI agents, Clifford claimed, allowing them to produce billable work more rapidly.

Accenture claims to serve around 9,000 clients — including some of the world's largest businesses and government departments — with tech advice and services. For example, it won a contract with the US Internal Revenue Services worth $2.6 billion in 2023. Any tech pro looking for a job with the company is likely being screened by AI as part of the process.

The company also expects internal staff to get on the AI bandwagon. A memo sent to senior staff in February informed them that promotions to top roles at the corporation would necessitate "regular adoption" of AI tooling, and it is tracking usage.

But not everyone is convinced by the value of AI in recruitment. A study published in 2022 found the idea that AI-powered recruitment software creates a fairer process was unfounded. A paper published in the journal Philosophy and Technology demonstrated that the software is little more than "automated pseudoscience."

Tech job-hunters applying for a lucrative role at Accenture will be hoping the technology has moved on since then. ®

Ex-energy secretary Ed Miliband's agenda appears undermined as money is diverted from renewables to defence

Britain is unlikely to hit its targets on green heating after the cuts announced by John Healey this week, experts have warned, as critics of Ed Miliband claim the former energy secretary's green agenda is being dismantled.

The chancellor unveiled more than £3bn worth of cuts to the energy department's budget this week, much of which will pay for higher defence spending.

Turkey has been hit by powerful thunderstorms and a fatal tornado this week with more heavy rain expected

Heavy rain and strong winds will continue to affect parts of south-eastern Europe and Turkey over the next few days, as an area of low pressure in the region has allowed for the formation of powerful thunderstorms. During a particularly intense thunderstorm in Antalya, a coastal city in the south-west of Turkey, the formation of a tornado resulted in the deaths of four construction workers on Tuesday. Authorities in Greece and Turkey have released severe rainfall and flooding warnings, as a further 100-150mm (nearly 4-6in) of rain is expected this week in central Greece and western parts of Turkey, with locally higher totals possible.

Travelling eastwards towards south Asia, strong winds and heavy rainfall have swept across the Indian regions of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh as Cyclone Arnab made landfall. With wind gusts in excess of 85mph (140km/h) and rainfall totals in some regions exceeding 200mm, the severe storm has prompted mass evacuations of more than 180,000 people, as well as widespread disruption to energy and transport infrastructure. The cyclone will weaken as it continues to traverse northwards over the coming days, though will continue to deliver heavy rain to parts of northern and central India as it does so.

B2B-News | LiveWire Group, the Harley-Davidson-controlled electric motorcycle company, is going through the most uncertain period since it went public in 2022. In just over a week, its CEO stepped down, the board brought in a restructuring specialist, and the company said there is substantial doubt it can keep operating for another year. At the same time, its third-quarter figures show sales and losses moving in the right direction. Both things are true.

Leadership change

Karim Donnez resigned as CEO effective October 21, 2026, and no new CEO has been named. Instead, Roy Gallagher was appointed Chief Restructuring Officer and serves as the principal executive officer. Gallagher is a Senior Managing Director at Ankura Consulting Group with more than two decades of financial experience, and he reports to the committee.

Q3 2026: growth in units and revenue

The quarterly numbers, published on October 29, show growth across the business. Consolidated revenue rose 38% to $7.9 million, from $5.7 million a year earlier. Total units grew 21% to 7,233. The operating loss narrowed to $17.5 million from $18.8 million, and the net loss came in at $18.6 million, compared with $19.4 million.

The electric motorcycle segment was the main driver. LiveWire sold 241 motorcycles in the quarter, up 31% from 184. Segment revenue rose 178% to $2.7 million, and the operating loss improved to $17.0 million from $18.4 million. Part of the revenue jump reflects a weak base: Q3 2025 revenue had been reduced by higher incentives used to stimulate demand.

STACYC, the electric balance bike brand for children, remains the volume business. It sold 6,992 units, up 20%, with revenue up 9% to $5.2 million. Its operating loss grew slightly to $0.6 million, mainly due to higher freight costs.

Over the first nine months, revenue reached $22.1 million versus $14.3 million in the same period of 2025, while the operating loss fell to $53.2 million from $57.7 million. Cash used by operations dropped 16% to $38.3 million.

On the product side, LiveWire delivered the first S4 Honcho Trail units in the US in August and the S4 Honcho Street reached US dealers in October. European deliveries of the Trail were expected in October, with the Street following in November. The company also reports an 80% share of the US on-road electric motorcycle segment above 50 kW through September.

The balance sheet

The issue is not the direction of the numbers, but the size of the gap and the cash left to bridge it. Cash stood at $39.9 million on September 30, down from $82.8 million at the end of 2025. Shareholders' equity turned negative at minus $5.5 million, from plus $46.0 million at year-end. The related-party term loan stood at $76.8 million. That loan comes from LiveWire's majority shareholder. Related-party interest added $1.5 million in costs during the quarter.

Going concern warning

Management concluded there is substantial doubt about the company's ability to continue as a going concern within one year of issuing its September 30 financial statements, citing recurring losses, negative operating cash flow, limited liquidity and future funding needs. The options under review include significant capital raises, strategic partnerships or investments, and sales, though the company says there is no guarantee any of these will succeed or be available on acceptable terms. The board pointed to a debt maturity in December 2027 as a factor in setting up the restructuring committee.

What comes next

More detail on liquidity, management's plans and the going concern assessment will be included in the 10-Q filing, expected on or before November 9, 2026. LiveWire was also expected to present at EICMA next week, including the production version of the Dust Hightail off-road model. Whether those plans go ahead unchanged, and what role Harley-Davidson will play in any financing or transaction, are the key questions for the coming weeks.

LiveWire's articles archive at THE PACK >

Two insurers are teaming up to launch what every high-tech homeowner may soon need: household insurance for robotic mishaps.

Humanoid robots are tipped by some to be the next big technology trend, with industry figures like Nvidia's Jensen Huang predicting they'll be everywhere from factories to the home.

But as with anything AI-driven, things can go horribly wrong, especially when automatons are roaming a home carrying out tasks. They have even been labelled as potential "botnets in physical form."

The timing may be apt, then, for the UK's first domestic humanoid robot insurance policy. Specialist insurer Adrian Flux is offering to cover British customers as part of its home insurance range, underwritten by Texas-based Tokio Marine HCC.

The two firms say the product is meant to get ahead of an emerging market, with domestic robots expected to appear in UK homes from 2027. Demand has already appeared in the US, where robotics and AI companies have launched humanoid robots for the home, with early models costing around $20,000.

These are less like the near-human elderly care robot in the BBC comedy series Ann Droid, and more like vaguely human-shaped machines.

The policy covers damage to, and theft of, the robot itself, plus any damage it causes to the home or belongings. It also includes personal liability if the android injures someone or damages their property, and emergency recovery or safe disablement of the humanoid after a sudden or unforeseen malfunction, such as - perhaps - attempting to chop off your fingers or put your cat on the stove.

"As robots start to arrive in people's homes, we wanted to provide clarity on who is responsible if something goes wrong," says Gerry Bucke, general manager for the insurance biz Adrian Flux. "Like the driverless car policy we launched in 2016, it will be updated as the technology and the risks evolve."

Beyond the home, investment is pouring into humanoids across a range of applications. Chinese carmaker Chery using them as showroom sales staff, while another firm has demonstrated them in automotive manufacturing.

Elon Musk famously predicted thousands of Optimus robots in Tesla factories by the end of 2025, but still believes its humanoid robot will be the company's biggest product. ®

US spy- and killing-firm Palantir has put its latest parliamentary revolving-door hire Tom Watson to use — 'threatening' other politicians for criticising it. Labour MP Clive Lewis has outed the manoeuvre, publishing a letter that the former deputy party leader sent him and categorising it as an "implicit threat".

Lewis had already criticised Palantir's appointment of Watson, already considered one of Labour's most odious and problematic figures for his Israel-fanaticism and his part in the plot to topple Jeremy Corbyn through the 'Labour antisemitism' scam:

Palantir didn't hire a former Labour deputy leader for his coding skills. It hired him for access.

Tom Watson's move is more than a private career choice. It's the revolving door in action and another blow to public trust.

The integrity gap won't close until politicians pick a…

— Clive Lewis MP (@labourlewis) September 24, 2026

Now Watson has written to Lewis, listing Lewis's supposed transgressions and warning the Norwich South MP that Palantir has its eye on him:

Lewis read out the letter to a fringe at Labour's annual conference this week:

"For years, especially over the past year, you have made the case against Palantir itself more or less continuously - in the Commons, in written questions, in early-day motions, in interviews and opinion pieces, and on social media. By my count, you've spoken about Palantir almost 130 times since 2020; around 50 in the past year alone."

"I'm quite impressed by that, actually," Lewis interrupted to say, before continuing to read the letter from Watson out: "You have called us a 'spytech firm', said our 'business is death and destruction', called the NHS contract a deal that 'stinks', and urged the Health Secretary, the FCA and others to cut ties with us entirely."

Lewis went on to say Watson's "Big Brother" message was that "your card is marked":

It's an incredibly defensive response. There's a level of detail there that I didn't even know. That, to me, was an implicit threat. They're saying: 'We are watching you. We are monitoring you. And that's what we do. Your card is marked'.

Honestly, it feels very Palantir. Very Big Brother. 'We are watching you. We know what you are saying.' There's definitely a sense of power there. 'This is what you are up against'. If ever I needed a reason to fight harder for democracy, they've just given it to me.

But it's pretty concerning. They have access to my health records. What else do they have access to? And how could they use it?"

He also dismissed Watson's attempt to claim that his 'leave of absence' from the House of Lords removed the problems with his appointment:

He hasn't burned his contacts book. He understands how the system works and where the bodies are buried. Palantir aren't the good guys. I think it's really important people pick a side. You need to either commit yourself to public service or you need to commit yourself to working for them, and you can't do both and you shouldn't do both.

Labour's bureaucrats had already blocked a conference motion calling for the government to exercise its contractual rights to terminate Palantir's £330m NHS contract to manage NHS patient data. The firm's bosses have boasted how they use their technology to terrify and kill people the US doesn't like. Palantir has over £670m in UK government contracts across health, defence and policing, but some police forces have started to end their use of its systems.

Amnesty International, anti-genocide groups and human rights organisations are holding an international day of action today, 1 October 2026, against Palantir's infiltration of governments, including the UK's National Health Service.

Featured image via Facebook

By Skwawkbox