Automattic’s board placed founder and CEO Matt Mullenweg on paid leave against his wishes, according to an employee Slack message reviewed by TechCrunch. The company confirmed his leave and named CFO Mark Davies interim CEO. The change affects the business behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Tumblr and Pocket Casts amid litigation and earlier staffing cuts. WordPress.org’s executive director said Mullenweg remains leader of the open source project. The board’s reason for acting, and why it acted now, remain unclear.
Researcher Auberon López reports that a webpage using WebGPU can freeze the desktop on M-series MacBooks running macOS Tahoe, with reproduction in Chrome, Firefox and Safari. A looping GPU workload blocks dependent graphics work and reportedly leaves WindowServer unresponsive until restart. The account exposes a browser-to-desktop availability problem, although it does not demonstrate code execution or a data breach. López says Apple reproduced the issue but subsequently declined to classify it as a security issue.
Anthropic says it identified users attempting to employ its models for biological research, weapons software, espionage, surveillance and propaganda. Its 154-page threat intelligence report includes five biological research cases involving attempts to evade access restrictions or conceal purpose; the company says it banned those accounts. The findings illustrate possible harms from existing AI capabilities, but they are company-reported investigations. Anthropic withheld institutions and countries for the biological cases and acknowledged uncertainty about researchers’ intentions, including research with potential civilian and military uses.
developers.openai.com / First-party announcement / / Via Hacker News
developers.openai.com
OpenAI’s Agents API exposes a managed Codex harness that handles orchestration, context compaction and recovery while applications choose tools and execution environments. Developers can maintain sessions across tasks, stream progress and steer work in progress, potentially reducing infrastructure needed for persistent agents. The documentation specifies separate model, tool and hosted-container charges. It also establishes a significant deployment constraint: US-only data residency and no Zero Data Retention support, including with self-hosted sandboxes.
Google announced a €13 billion investment in Finland covering three new data centres, expansion of its Hamina facility and supporting energy projects. A 22-year agreement with Fortum will secure up to half the output of the Loviisa nuclear plant. The package illustrates how AI infrastructure expansion increasingly depends on long-term electricity supplies. Construction is scheduled for 2027 and 2028; estimates of more than 37,000 construction jobs and €3.6 billion in annual GDP benefits come from Google.
Government bonds sold off across major economies as oil rose 6% to above $107 a barrel amid concern over Saudi export routes through the Red Sea. UK 10-year yields exceeded 5.37%, their highest since 2007, while US 10-year yields reached 4.92%. The European Central Bank raised its main rate to 2.5%, warning of persistent inflation. Rising energy and financing costs increase pressure on household budgets, government finances and growth; further central-bank responses remain uncertain.
Senator Hawley's office / First-party announcement /
Senator Hawley's office
Senator Josh Hawley’s office announced on September 10 that he had launched an investigation into OpenAI over an alleged July attack on Hugging Face involving AI agents. Acting as chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Subcommittee on Disaster Management, Hawley also said the inquiry would examine existential risks from new AI products. His September 9 letter to chief executive Sam Altman requests documents and information by October 1. The statement establishes the announced inquiry; the supplied evidence does not independently establish the alleged hacking or OpenAI’s handling of it.
Military sources and witnesses say Yemen's Houthis captured Mokha from Saudi-backed government forces, bringing the group within 75 kilometres of the Bab al-Mandab Strait. Residents described fighting, displacement and Houthi patrols, while a government commander acknowledged relocating his headquarters. The advance threatens an increasingly important route for Saudi oil exports and deepens Yemen's humanitarian crisis. The Houthis had not explicitly confirmed Mokha's capture and maintained threats against Saudi vessels despite broader assurances about shipping safety.
At least 24 schoolchildren died in a stampede while escaping a fire that engulfed two schools in Bukavu, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, according to local officials. Adults were also reported dead, survivors were hospitalized and roughly 300 houses were destroyed. The disaster struck the densely populated Kadutu commune in a city held by M23 rebels. Authorities described the toll as provisional, and the cause of the fire remained unknown.
August tied July 2023 as the hottest month ever recorded, according to the EU climate service, with temperatures 1.65C above pre-industrial levels. Human-caused warming and a strengthening El Niño contributed to the heat, while western Europe experienced its warmest summer. Researchers expect El Niño’s largest global temperature effects over the coming year, raising the prospect of further records. A single month above 1.5C does not mean the long-term warming threshold has been permanently crossed.
Dwarkesh Podcast / Analysis / / Via Techmeme, TLDR AI
Dwarkesh Podcast
Experiments comparing public model recipes and datasets from 2019 through 2025 find that better data delivered larger pretraining compute-efficiency gains than model changes. At the highest tested budget, the authors estimate gains of 12 times from data and 3.7 times from model recipes. The result highlights data engineering's economic significance, but the study uses small models and relatively easy benchmarks. It does not establish which improvements matter most at frontier scale or during reinforcement learning.
Brock Purdy threw three touchdown passes as San Francisco beat the Los Angeles Rams in the NFL’s first regular-season game in Australia. Mike Evans, Demarcus Robinson and Deebo Samuel caught the scoring passes. The 49ers’ defense held Los Angeles to one touchdown, while 100,021 spectators attended at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
An MRI confirmed a high ankle sprain for Patriots receiver A.J. Brown, with an absence of at least four weeks expected, a source told NFL Network. Brown was injured in New England’s season opener after emerging as a key target for Drake Maye. Mack Hollins took over most of his role after he left.
Jamal Musiala scored Bayern Munich’s opener against Bodo/Glimt on his first start since collapsing during two preseason matches. He had returned as a substitute on Saturday after missing three games while adapting to a medication change, according to coach Vincent Kompany. His goal was Bayern’s 900th in European Cup and Champions League history.
Ismail Kartal announced his resignation after Fenerbahce’s Champions League draw with Roma, but club president Aziz Yildirim insisted he remained head coach. Yildirim said Kartal cited pressure and being struck by a bottle thrown from the stands. The club said it identified and banned a spectator involved in the incident.
Como defeated RB Leipzig at home in their first appearance in European competition, opening their Champions League campaign with a landmark win. Cesc Fabregas’s side took control before the hour and Máximo Perrone added a late goal. The club also gave seats to older supporters, with directors surrendering their own places for the occasion.
Federal prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into the Clippers' alleged salary-cap circumvention involving Kawhi Leonard, ESPN reports, citing The New York Times. The inquiry adds potential criminal scrutiny after the NBA imposed major penalties. The Times says the investigation is in its earliest stages and at least one subpoena has been issued.
From yesterday's late edition: ESPN reported September 9 that Amen Thompson agreed to a five-year, $208 million rookie-scale extension with Houston, keeping him under contract through 2032. The agreement includes a 10% trade kicker and extends the Rockets' commitment to a young core that also includes Alperen Sengun, Jabari Smith Jr. and Tari Eason.
Elena Rybakina came from a set down to beat Coco Gauff and reach the US Open final, while Aryna Sabalenka defeated Jessica Pegula. The semifinal results confirm a meeting between the top two seeds, following yesterday's news of Rybakina's assured rise to world number one. Sabalenka is seeking a third successive US Open title.
