The Spatial Update

Morning Edition · Friday, July 31, 2026
Port Orchard☀️61°Fclear · H81° L54° · 1% rain
Lebanon, OR☀️58°Fclear · H87° L53° · 0% rain
Does Congress Have the Power to Stop the Iran War?
nytimes.com · 4h ago

In theory, the War Powers Act gives Congress the power to end a war. But our chief White House correspondent, Peter Baker, describes how President Trump is the latest president to find ways to engage in war without congressional approval.

How global AI boom is intensifying US-China undersea stand-off
scmp.com · 11m ago

The US-China tech rivalry has escalated into a deeper battle over undersea fibre-optic cables powering the global AI boom. As demand for cross-border data to power and train advanced systems intensifies, so does the high-stakes battle to control critical network ecosystems – mainly submarine cables that send nearly 99 per cent of intercontinental data traffic at immense speed. Beijing on Tuesday accused Washington of “politicising” global undersea cable networks, following reports that the US...

Europe’s wildfire threat expands in latest heatwave
scmp.com · 34m ago

Central Europe was sweltering under the latest heatwave in an already record-breaking summer on Friday, with several countries taking steps to reduce the risk of fires and ease pressure on water and energy networks. Europe’s wildfire threat is expanding, as high winds and heat force evacuations from Greece to the UK, even as blazes were brought under control in France and Spain. In Hungary, Prime Minister Péter Magyar has called on businesses to voluntarily reduce their electricity consumption,...

Mainland Chinese families lose legal challenge over public university fees
scmp.com · 36m ago

A group of 87 mainland Chinese families who came to Hong Kong under talent visa schemes has lost a legal bid to challenge the government’s policy changes that affected their children’s access to publicly funded university places as dependants. High Court Judge Russell Coleman on Friday ruled that there was no irrationality in the Education Bureau’s requirement that children of parents who arrived through the schemes must have lived in the city for at least two years before they can enjoy...

How sell-off at flashy AI-focused US hedge fund is a wake-up call for Chinese investors
scmp.com · 41m ago

Chinese tech investors are hearing warning bells after volatility in US tech stocks forced a fast-rising Wall Street hedge fund to clear its stock portfolio at a steep discount within a few days. “Don’t use leverage! Don’t use leverage! Don’t use leverage!” Shanghai-based public-markets analyst Harry Shen repeated to the South China Morning Post in an interview on Friday. Another warning came from Shanghai-based mainland Chinese stock market veteran Michael Zhang: “Don’t trade with borrowed...

FTSE 100 on track for best month since first US attacks on Iran five months ago – as it happened
theguardian.com · 1h ago

Live, rolling coverage as London’s biggest companies defy Middle East disruption and UK petrol prices rise to around £1.60 per litre, the highest since Donald Trump ordered renewed strikes The story piquing the interest of the financial press this morning is that of Leopold Aschenbrenner , the AI Wunderkind (he’s German-born) who has been forced to sell off his fund in a fire sale after the AI boom ran out of steam. The 24-year-old had persuaded a lot of people to give him a lot of money for a hedge fund, after previously working for OpenAI and the FTX Future Fund, a charitable arm of the fraudulent crypto empire of Sam Bankman-Fried, who is now in prison . Aschenbrenner ploughed that money into debt-fuelled bets on artificial intelligence companies, earning huge returns until he found…

At least 43 people die as tens of thousands cross to Spanish enclave of Ceuta from Morocco
theguardian.com · 1h ago

Pedro Sánchez decries ‘violation of territorial integrity’ as other EU countries criticise Madrid over incident Europe live – latest updates At least 43 people have died trying to reach the Spanish enclave of Ceuta after as many as 50,000 migrants entered the tiny territory from Morocco in a matter of hours, triggering a political crisis for the Madrid government and unleashing a barrage of criticism from other EU countries. The large influx of people arriving in Ceuta by swimming across from neighbouring Morocco or scaling the border fence has caught the city of 85,000 off guard and resulted in what one local police association called a “serious humanitarian crisis”. Continue reading...

It’s time to panic about AI safety
theverge.com · 1h ago

When the phrase "OpenAI hacked Hugging Face" has more or less entered mainstream culture, you know we have an AI problem. This week, we learned more about exactly how OpenAI's agent broke out of a sandbox and autonomously traversed the web, including a bunch of other supposedly secure web services, all in the name of […]

Anthropic says Claude accidentally hacked real companies too
theverge.com · 1h ago

Anthropic just realized several of its Claude AI models hacked into the systems of three different organizations during testing, acting on their own and without the company noticing. The revelation comes days after rival OpenAI said one of its own models had breached developer platform Hugging Face, adding to growing unease over whether frontier AI […]

Curiosity Blog, Sols 4961-4967: Approaching a Break in the Rock Record?
science.nasa.gov · 30m ago

Written by Abigail Fraeman, Deputy Project Scientist, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology Earth planning date: Friday, July 24, 2026 Curiosity spent the week continuing to climb her way up through the layers of Mount Sharp, exploring the sedimentary rock strip chart of Martian history. The rover has reached a layer where the science […]

NASA’s Roman Telescope to Carry 1.35 Million Names to Deep Space
nasa.gov · 1h ago

On July 27, technicians at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida installed a memory card containing 1,350,144 names as part of a commemorative plaque on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The names were submitted by people globally, including astronauts from Artemis II and Artemis III. The memory card will travel with the Roman observatory […]

Daughter of British couple killed in Spanish wildfire rejects claim they ignored order to leave
theguardian.com · 1h ago

Exclusive: Danielle Kirton calls on Ed Miliband to help her get answers about why evacuation order came too late The bereaved daughter of a British couple who died in a Spanish wildfire is calling on Ed Miliband to get answers from Spain’s government about why her parents were not told to evacuate until it was too late. Severe wildfires have burned across Spain and France since early July, killing people, destroying thousands of homes and forcing more than 300,000 people to flee. Continue reading...

Wildfire near Sizewell nuclear plant causes ‘total devastation’ to Suffolk landscape
theguardian.com · 2h ago

Situation ‘stabilising’ as more than 100 firefighters continue to battle blaze that broke out on Dunwich Heath A wildfire near Britain’s biggest nuclear power station has caused “total devastation” to one of the UK’s most important landscapes, as fire crews said the situation was “stabilising”. More than 100 firefighters have been battling the blaze on Dunwich Heath, near Leiston, on the Suffolk coast since Wednesday evening. The fire service said on Friday the situation was stabilising but remained a “major incident”. Continue reading...

Huge great white spotted traveling off US and Canada as shark sightings surge
theguardian.com · 3h ago

Contender, largest tagged male great white, heading north as overheating oceans alter range of several shark species The largest tagged male great white shark in the Atlantic Ocean has been identified traveling up the US and Canada coastline amid a surge in sightings of sharks that are increasingly shifting their movement patterns due to the overheating of the oceans. The great white shark, named Contender, is nearly 14ft long and weighs more than 1,650lbs. The hulking fish has been pinged in several locations off North Carolina and Maine as he headed north for the summer, with Contender’s last known location located off Nova Scotia in Canada on 11 July. Continue reading...

New solar panels in Great Britain at 15-year high as fossil fuel costs soar
theguardian.com · 6h ago

Boom in solar farms and home installations in first half of 2026 began shortly after start of US-Israel war against Iran Great Britain has recorded more new solar power installations in the first half of this year than in any six-month period since 2011, as households turn to rooftop panels to help cut their energy bills. An analysis of the government’s official figures shows that Great Britain added 142,536 solar installations in the first six months of the year, putting it on track to top last year’s record solar additions. Continue reading...

‘Extremely scary findings’ show climate crisis is supercharging Europe’s wildfire weather
theguardian.com · 8h ago

Latest study says global heating has made hot, dry and windy conditions in Spain at least 20 times more likely The extreme heat and drought stoking huge wildfires in Spain and France were made far more likely by the climate crisis, a scientific analysis has found. Global heating made hot, dry and windy weather at least 20 times more likely in Spain and twice as likely in France, experts from the World Weather Attribution (WWA) consortium calculated . The finding is the latest to pin the blame for the continent’s sweltering and deadly summer firmly on the heating caused by the burning of oil, gas and coal. Continue reading...

APOD: 2026 July 31 – NGC 4372 and the Dark Doodad
science.nasa.gov · 11h ago

APOD Science APOD APOD: 2026 July 31 – NGC… Today’s APOD Archive Submissions Index Search Calendar RSS Education About Discuss APOD Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. NGC 4372 […]

Students Take on Airborne Field Research with NASA
science.nasa.gov · 18h ago

The gusty wind didn’t make it easy to hold tight to a balloon so large. The balloon, a scientific instrument called an ozonesonde, was about to be released into the atmosphere above the Texas Gulf Coast by students from NASA’s SARP (Student Airborne Research Program), which concluded its summer session July 27. The balloon’s job […]

Bray Road in Elkhorn, Wisconsin
atlasobscura.com · 1h ago

Bray Road looks like just another unassuming stretch of concrete surrounded by farmland in rural Wisconsin, and to some people, it is. To others, it’s home to the most famous werewolf in the United States. The beast is described as having shaggy, black or greyish-brown fur with pointed ears, sharp claws, and a sloping weakness to its back legs. Witnesses report seeing it walk upright on two legs, reaching a height of seven or eight feet, as well as on all fours; though, it’s specified to look unlike any other four-legged animal when it runs in this position. It has been observed to eat in a way more similar to humans and apes than canines, with the creature holding prey in it’s paws and bringing it to its mouth to eat rather than bending its head to its food. The first known sighting of…

7 Things Every Early 2000s Computer Room Had
mentalfloss.com · 1h ago

The 2000s were the golden age of the computer room. From floppy discs to a mouse with actual wires, here are seven things you would have found in them.

Miracle as All 11 Onboard Survive Harrowing Seaplane Crash and Fire in Puget Sound’s Frigid Water
goodnewsnetwork.org · 2h ago

Miraculously, all 11 souls walked away with their lives after a seaplane both crashed and caught fire in the Puget Sound. Operator Kenmore Air said in a statement that one of its planes, a de Havilland DHC-3 Otter, was on route out of Seattle with 10 passengers and a pilot when “an accident” saw the […] The post Miracle as All 11 Onboard Survive Harrowing Seaplane Crash and Fire in Puget Sound’s Frigid Water appeared first on Good News Network .

Climate-Friendly Heat Pumps Are Becoming Dominant Home HVAC System in America
goodnewsnetwork.org · 4h ago

The rapid adoption of heat pumps in the United States is becoming little short of a revolution, such that these clever HVAC devices in a few years will effectively replace previous systems. Indeed of all new homes built last year, 46% were completed with heat pumps, just 1% below other more recognizable systems like water […] The post Climate-Friendly Heat Pumps Are Becoming Dominant Home HVAC System in America appeared first on Good News Network .

Good News in History, July 31
goodnewsnetwork.org · 8h ago

240 years ago today, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect by Robert Burns, the National Poet of Scotland, was published in Kilmarnock. It was a hit, and catapulted him to Scottish Stardom. Among the collection is one of his two most famous poems, To a Mouse, which is actually called To a Mouse, on turning up her […] The post Good News in History, July 31 appeared first on Good News Network .

MLBMariners 2–6 DodgersFinal
MLBTwins 0–0 Mariners7/31 - 10:10 PM EDT
MLBYankees 1–2 White SoxFinal/11
MLBCubs 4–2 CardinalsFinal/10
MLBYankees 0–0 Cubs7/31 - 2:20 PM EDT
MLBRed Sox 0–0 Dodgers7/31 - 10:10 PM EDT
Fifa rapidly accelerates plan to expand World Cup to 64 teams from 2030 tournament
theguardian.com · 2h ago

Research analysis to be delivered by 11 September Decision on expansion could be taken this year Fifa is pushing ahead with plans to expand the World Cup to 64 teams from 2030 and has opened a tender to research companies to assess the economic benefits on a hugely accelerated timescale. In another twist during a week of astonishing revelations about the global governing body’s plans to reshape football, the Guardian has seen a “research brief” outlining a consultation process to assess the potential increase from the current 48 teams. A period of just four weeks has been allocated for the successful party, which will be selected on 14 August, to analyse the proposed expansion. Fifa has required that the analysis is delivered by 11 September, indicating a decision could be taken this…

Infantino increasingly embattled after senior adviser resigns over World Cup sell-off plans
theguardian.com · 4h ago

Infantino’s role as president under increasing pressure 143 of Fifa’s 211 members now stand against scheme Gianni Infantino’s authority has been dealt a fresh blow after Carlos Cordeiro, one of his senior advisers, resigned with immediate effect in protest at proposals to sell a stake in the World Cup. In the latest embarrassment for Infantino, who saw European FAs threaten to boycott future Fifa tournaments on Thursday, the former US Soccer chief Cordeiro criticised “a bad deal for football” and pointed out that the global governing body already sits on huge amounts of debt-free reserves. Continue reading...

Precise-location events from GDELT · last 6h

Gaza, Israel (general), Israel — ADMINISTRATION and AL JAZEERA — intent to cooperate (engaging in cooperation) reported near Gaza, Israel (general), Israel, covered by 142 source(s) across 491 mentions. source
Fnideq, Tanger-Téuan, Morocco — AFRICA and MIGRANT — fighting / clashes (in conflict) reported near Fnideq, Tanger-Téuan, Morocco, covered by 65 source(s) across 339 mentions. source
Gaza, Israel (general), Israel — ADMINISTRATION and AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL — diplomatic cooperation (engaging in cooperation) reported near Gaza, Israel (general), Israel, covered by 86 source(s) across 299 mentions. source