'Pinprick of light': Artemis crew witnesses meteorite impacts on Moon

US President Donald Trump made a late intervention in Hungary's bitter election campaign on Friday, as nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban battles for votes against a pro-European opponent leading him in polls.

Trump vowed to bring US "economic might" to Hungary if Orban's party secures a victory over his arch-rival Peter Magyar in Sunday's election.

The comments added late drama to the campaign finale that saw Orban and Magyar trade accusations of dirty dealing. 

Orban, who has run Hungary for 16 years and is close to Trump and Russia's President Vladimir Putin, faces an unprecedented challenge with opinion polls putting Magyar's conservative Tisza party well ahead.

"We are excited to invest in the future prosperity that will be generated by Orban's continued leadership," Trump said on social media.

Trump's administration has embraced the promotion of hard-right forces in Europe -- casting migration and "woke" values as a "civilisational" threat to the continent.

Orban has locked horns with the European Union leadership, which accuses him of quashing dissent and eroding the rule of law, and has frozen billions of euros in funding.

"Our opponents will stop at nothing to seize power," Orban said in a social media video, accusing the opposition of "colluding" with foreign intelligence and threatening his supporters with violence.

"This is an organised attempt to use chaos, pressure, and international vilification to call into question the decision of the Hungarian people," he said.

Magyar fired back with accusations of his own.

"The series of ongoing election fraud carried out for months by the ruling party, Fidesz, along with criminal acts, intelligence operations, disinformation and fake news cannot change the fact that Tisza is going to win this election," he said in a Facebook post.

- 'Orban will be removed' -

"Viktor Orban will be removed by the very same people... he has abandoned and betrayed: millions of Hungariaalm and dignity".

Orban's government has repeatedly made accusations of foreign interference.

Magyar has in turn alleged the same, as US Vice President JD Vance visited the country this week to underline Washington's support of Orban.

The two rivals have also stepped up their campaign appearances, drawing big crowds to rallies.

"We came out here because we have faith in Peter Magyar, and we've had enough of the old system," Attila Jozsa told AFP at the opposition leader's rally before 20,000 people in Gyor, 120 kilometres (75 miles) west of Budapest, on Thursday.

Around 2,000 Orban supporters gathered in Hungary's second largest city Debrecen, as the nationalist leader appealed to them to "not put everything at risk" and to "protect what we have achieved".

Trump had already hailed Orban as a "truly strong and powerful leader".

"Hungary: GET OUT AND VOTE FOR VIKTOR ORBAN... I AM WITH HIM ALL THE WAY!" Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.

During Orban's tenure, his ruling coalition has used its two-thirds majority in parliament to overhaul the central European country's electoral system and leverage state resources to campaign, while his business allies radically changed the media environment.

burs/ach/tw

Anthropic postponing the release of its new AI model Claude Mythos, said to be so skilled at coding it could be a wicked weapon for hackers, has encountered a mix of alarm and skepticism.

The company is among several contenders in a fierce artificial intelligence race. Promoting the awe of Anthropic's own technology boosts business and enhances its allure in the event it soon goes public, as is rumored.

"The world has no choice but to take the cyber threat associated with Mythos seriously," said David Sacks, an entrepreneur and investor who heads President Donald Trump's council of advisors on technology.

"But it's hard to ignore that Anthropic has a history of scare tactics."

Mythos has sparked fears of hackers commanding armies of AI agents able to break through computer defenses with ease.

At this week's HumanX AI conference in San Francisco, Alex Stamos of startup Corridor, which addresses AI safety, acknowledged a real threat from agentic hackers.

And Stamos quipped about what he referred to as Anthropic's "marketing schtick."

"They have these adorable cutesy cartoons about these products that are so incredibly dangerous that they won't even let people use them," Stamos said of the San Francisco-based startup.

"It's like if the Manhattan Project announced the nuclear bomb within a cute little Calvin and Hobbes cartoon."

The heads of America's biggest banks met this week with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to weigh the security implications of the yet-to-be released Claude Mythos, according to reports Friday.

"Mythos model points to something far more consequential than another leap in artificial intelligence," Cato Networks co-founder and chief executive Shlomo Kramer said in a blog post.

"It signals a shift that could redefine the balance between attackers and defenders in cyberspace."

A tightly restricted preview of Mythos was shared with partner organizations this week, under an initiative called Project Glasswing. They include Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Cisco, CrowdStrike and JPMorgan Chase.

According to Anthropic and partners, Mythos can autonomously scan vast amounts of code to find and chain together previously unknown security vulnerabilities in all kinds of software, from operating systems to web browsers.

Crucially, they warn, this can be done at a speed and scale no human could match, meaning it could be used to bring down banks, hospitals or national infrastructure within hours.

"What once required elite specialists can now be performed by software agents," Shlomo said.

"The immediate consequences will be a surge in vulnerability discovery, a true tsunami" of exploiting known and unknown vulnerabilities.

- 'Agent-to Agent War' -

At HumanX, the apparent consensus was that it makes sense that AI agents already adept at coding will excel at finding weaknesses in software.

"We're not in an era where human beings can write code when we have superhuman (AI models) that are then going to find bugs in it," Stamos contended.

"It's just not possible."

He predicted the coming dynamic will involve humans supervising AI agents to protect networks against hackers using that same technology to attack.

Stamos referred to it as "agent-to-agent war," with humans on the sidelines giving advice.

Wendy Whitmore, of cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks, expects "some sort of catastrophic attack" this year connected to AI agent capabilities.

"The thing that keeps me up at night is that we're staring down the barrel of a massive influx of new vulnerabilities that are going to be found by AI," said Adam Meyers of CrowdStrike.

Meyers saw embedding a tiny AI model directly into malicious code infecting networks as a natural tactic to be explored by hackers.

"The ultimate weapon would be malware that has no pre-programming," Meyers said.

"It can do whatever you ask it to."

gc-bl/mlm

World number one Scottie Scheffler sank down the Masters leaderboard Friday, twice splashing into the water on a difficult day, but insisted he played much better than his score suggested.

The four-time major champion, seeking his third Masters crown in five seasons, struggled to a two-over par 74 in Friday's second round.

It was his second-worst score in 26 rounds at Augusta National, leaving him on level par 144 at the tournament's midway point.

"Was really challenging. I played really pretty well. I felt like I played a lot better than my score," Scheffler said.

"Just the little things that I felt like I was close to having a really good round. Just a few things here or there, a few breaks that didn't go my way. Yeah, the margins are small."

Scheffler's round snapped the third-longest streak in Masters history of rounds at par or below at 11, his run eclipsed only by the record 16 of Tiger Woods and 15 by Jon Rahm.

Scheffler stumbled early with bogeys at the par-three fourth and par-four fifth holes but responded with birdies at the par-five eighth and par-four 10th.

The big heartbreak came with bogeys at the par-five 13th and 15th holes.

Scheffler plunked his second shot at 13 into Rae's Creek and found water again at 15.

"I got off to a slow start. A few up and downs early that I should have had that I didn't convert. Then I fought back to get it to even," Scheffler said.

"And then the fairway on 13, probably my only shot I would rather be able to hit again. Maybe a different decision there. That's a tough shot, but I felt like I could make something happen to that pin."

His 3-iron missed badly.

"I just didn't draw it enough," Scheffler said. "I just tried to swing it with the slope and just didn't catch it that solid and kind of hung out there.

"It was frustrating to get it back to even, have a couple of par-fives in front of me, and then not do many things I felt wrong and wasn't able to convert really basically anything coming down the stretch."

Scheffler also struggled on the greens.

"I would like to hole a few more putts. I felt like it was rolling nice but balls just weren't dropping," he said.

"Maybe my reads were a little bit off. I felt like I was starting on line, could have been speed on a couple of putts, but overall I felt like I definitely played better than my score."

Scheffler said he thought Augusta National officials could have made the green speeds even tougher but relented after a tough afternoon Thursday.

"I was surprised at the greens," Scheffler said. "I think they may have saw how difficult it was late in the day yesterday. It felt like they softened them up a bit, but I couldn't imagine them doing that the rest of the weekend."

js/amz

A statue reveal to honor Japanese baseball legend Ichiro Suzuki went awry on Friday when a key detail in the bronze tribute broke during a ceremonial unveiling.

Seattle Mariners legend Ichiro was among the onlookers as former teammates Ken Griffey Jr and Edgar Martinez yanked off a sheet covering the statue.

Unfortunately, the big reveal of the statue -- depicting the Japanese star in his famous batting stance -- appeared to have snapped the bat at its handle.

"I did not do that," Griffey was quoted as saying according to the Seattle Times.

Ichiro -- the first Japanese-born player to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame -- laughed at the mishap as Griffey covered his eyes.

Ichiro meanwhile blamed the incident on New York Yankees pitching legend Mariano Rivera, renowned for breaking hitters' bats.

"I didn't think Mariano would come out here and break the bat," Ichiro said via an interpreter, according to the Times.

Ichiro retired from baseball in 2019 after a near-two-decade Major League Baseball career as an outfielder famed for extraordinary bat control and ball placement.

Ichiro was a 10-time MLB All-Star and set an MLB record with 262 hits in a single season. He was the American League Most Valuable Player and Rookie of the Year in 2001, when he led the AL in batting and stolen bases.

He finished his MLB career with 3,089 hits, a .311 batting average with 117 home runs, 780 runs batted in and 509 stolen bases.

rcw/bb

Chinese golfer Li Haotong battled through illness and into Masters contention with four consecutive birdies Friday, despite being so sick in the morning he could barely leave the bathroom.

Speaking after his second-round 69 propelled him to just a shot off the clubhouse lead, Li admitted he was surprised to have even completed 18 holes, let alone reach the tournament midway point at four-under-par.

I "went to the toilet last night a lot of times, and this morning when I got to the golf course and was still feeling really bad and kind of, like, (living) in the toilet," he told reporters.

"I was feeling really, really bad. No energy, fuzzy, want to throw up something. I actually just planned to play a few holes, see how it goes," he said.

"If (I was) really sick, then I probably just decide not to. So glad I survived today."

Li, the top-ranked Chinese golfer and world number 84, birdied his second hole on Friday, but endured an otherwise shaky front nine including two bogies.

Somehow he then pulled himself together and scored straight birdies on holes 13 through 16.

Li sank a nine-foot putt on 13 to begin his hot streak, then nearly holed a 150-foot approach iron on 14 to leave himself an tap-in for birdie.

Despite running his ball way off the back of the par-five 15th, Li threaded an extraordinary recovery wedge through the trees.

"I think the best moment is that number 15, the par-5," he said. "I got the wind wrong. It was a super tough chip over there and I got something, like, incredibly up and down."

He then completed the run by barely missing a hole-in-one on the par-three 16th.

"Especially after that four birdies, somehow I felt quite nice... Major makes me feel good," he joked after.

amz/

Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid was discharged from hospital on Friday after an appendectomy, the NBA team said.

The Cameroonian-born big man, who won Olympic gold with the United States in 2024, was diagnosed with appendicitis and underwent surgery in Houston, where the 76ers played the Rockets on Thursday.

The Sixers said Embiid's surgery was successful and his recovery will be managed by team doctors in consultation with his surgeon.

"A timeline for his return to basketball activities has not yet been determined," the team said in a statement.

With Embiid out, the 76ers fell to the Rockets on Thursday. They are eighth in the Eastern Conference with two games to play and have a mathematical chance of rising as high as sixth -- and avoiding the play-in tournament altogether -- or falling as low as 10th -- which would require them to win two play-in games in order to reach the playoffs proper.

Embiid, the NBA Most Valuable Player in 2023, is averaging 26.9 points and 7.7 rebounds in 38 games this season.

The 32-year-old has steadily returned to his top form this season while still missing multiple games to manage long-term injuries as well as new injuries including an oblique strain and a stress reaction in his right shin.

bb/rcw

(The Center Square) – Planned Parenthood received $832 million in taxpayer funding in 2024-2025, an increase of $39.8 million from its previous report. A record number of abortions also were performed by the organization.

President of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America Marjorie Dannenfelser told The Center Square that "taxpayer dollars should never be used to fund Planned Parenthood, a business that profits off of killing hundreds of thousands of unborn children every single year.”

“Planned Parenthood is an abortion business, not a health care provider, and they have no business using our tax dollars to prop up their operations,” Dannenfelser said.

“Further, women deserve quality, comprehensive care while Planned Parenthood brazenly refuses to adhere to basic safety regulations – even lobbying against such requirements,” Dannenfelser said.

SBA Pro-Life America’s education and research arm the Charlotte Lozier Institute published an analysis of Planned Parenthood’s 2024-25 report, revealing that taxpayer funding increased by $39.8 million from the last report.

“Taxpayer funding in the form of government grants, contracts, and Medicaid reimbursements hit $832 million, nearly $2.3 million per day – an increase of $39.8 million from the previous report and representing 39% of Planned Parenthood’s overall revenue,” the analysis said.

Charlotte Lozier’s analysis said that “taxpayer funding is reported by Planned Parenthood’s affiliates” and these affiliates’ information “lags behind the national office and covers fiscal years ending in 2024, before Planned Parenthood was defunded of Medicaid dollars in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in 2025.”

The analysis also noted that an increase in tax money given toward Planned Parenthood is not new to the past couple of years. 

As stated by Charlotte Lozier, “Planned Parenthood’s taxpayer funding has increased by 50% since 2014.”

For reference, according to the Heritage Foundation, from 2013 to 2015 $1.5 billion in taxpayer funds was given to Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood also received $728.2 million from "private contributions,” which is “up 6% from the previous report.”

Furthermore, Planned Parenthood performed a record breaking number of 434,450 abortions in 2023-2024 on the taxpayer’s dime while its advertised healthcare services’ performance trailed severely behind.

Planned Parenthood’s service data is behind the rest of its report, which is why the year noted is 2023-24, Charlotte Lozier said.

As Charlotte Lozier Institute’s senior research associate Tessa Cox told The Center Square: "In 2023-24, Planned Parenthood performed more abortions than pap tests, miscarriage care, preventive and primary care visits, prenatal services, HPV vaccines, examination and treatment of abnormal cervical cells (including LEEP, colposcopy, and cryotherapy procedures), and diagnostic procedures for cancer treatment and prevention (including biopsies, samplings, and other gynecological surgeries) combined.”

For reference again, according to the Heritage Foundation, from 2015-2016, Planned Parenthood performed 328,348 abortions.

Cox told The Center Square: “Planned Parenthood's focus is abortions, not health care.”

The analysis stated that in the report it’s shown 97 percent of the time “women seeking help related to their pregnancy at Planned Parenthood were sold an abortion rather than given prenatal care, provided care for a miscarriage, or helped to make an adoption plan.”

“Prenatal services, miscarriage care, and adoption referrals accounted for only 1.7% (7,685), 0.6% (2,852), and 0.7% (3,038) of these services, respectively,” the analysis showed.

Justin Rose isn't taking extra motivation from his playoff loss to Rory McIlroy as the "nearly man" of Augusta National tries to capture a long-sought Masters title.

The 45-year-old Englishman, a three-time Masters runner-up including last year's dramatic win by McIlroy, fired a three-under-par 69 on Friday to put himself in the hunt for a green jacket again on five-under-par 139.

Rose, the 2013 US Open champion, says he doesn't need any extra inspiration.

"Not really, if I'm honest," he said. "Of course I want to win this tournament. I don't really need to try any harder.

"The experience in that is probably trying harder ain't going to help me. So that's probably the dance I'm doing with myself. I know the intrinsic motivation is there. It's about execution, and typically when you play your best golf, you're always lighting it up rather than getting more intense."

Rose opened with a bogey and struggled early but found his form on a three-birdie run from the ninth through 11th holes and answered a bogey at the par-three 12th with a birdie at the par-five 15th for his 18th career Masters round in the 60s.

"A few putts slid by for me, a few missed chances. I felt like I played really well. Got into to a rhythm. Got off to a slow start.

"I said to myself going down the third fairway, 'Let's build some momentum. The masters rebuild starts here.'"

Rose remains steadfast that the true battle at Augusta won't come until Sunday's back nine.

"I can't really get ahead of myself. It's all about back nine on Sunday for me and jockeying for position," Rose said. "I'm in a good position. That's all I can say."

Rose compared parts of the firm and fast grounds at Augusta National to a cricket pitch in his homeland.

"It's beginning to look baked out," Rose said. "Obviously this whole area here where everyone is walking feels like a cricket pitch rather than a golf course now."

At 45, Rose takes pride is how well he competes with younger rivals.

"I feel good with where I'm at. That's all I know," Rose said. "I can still chip away at certain things. I've still got tons of improvement. I feel like that's the bit that keeps me going -- I do believe that next week I can be better than this week."

He feels a lot like he did last year.

"That means I'm doing a lot of other good things because I'm not feeling older," he said. "I feel in good form. I feel in good spirits. Enjoying it."

Rose was under a tree with his first tee shot and made bogey to start. He missed seven-foot birdie putts at the par-five second and par-three fourth -- tossing his putter into the air in frustration at the latter.

"I'm under a bush on five already one-over for the round. I felt like momentum was definitely going the wrong way," Rose said.

"I did a good job of digging in at that point and rebuilding the round. I give myself a lot of credit for finding that momentum and finding that good play."

js/rcw

The luxury San Francisco home of OpenAI boss Sam Altman was hit by a Molotov cocktail on Friday, the company said, as police announced the arrest of a suspect.

No one was injured in the incident, and the firm behind the popular ChatGPT artificial intelligence chatbot would not confirm if the CEO was home at the time.

The motive for the attack, and subsequent threats to set fire to OpenAI's San Francisco headquarters -- apparently by the same man -- were not immediately known.

But they come as Altman's profile has risen with the increasing use of AI both in the workplace and in the US military, amid fears it could massively disrupt employment patterns and cause irreversible societal changes.

Police in San Francisco, a hub for tech development, said they had responded after reports that someone had tried to set fire to a gate at the sprawling home.

A statement from the San Francisco Police Department said officers were dispatched to the home just after 4:00 am (1100 GMT).

"At the scene, officers learned that an unknown male subject threw an incendiary destructive device at a home, causing a fire to an exterior gate. The suspect then fled on foot," SFPD said.

A short time later they were called to the firm's offices where a man was making threats.

"When officers arrived on scene, they recognized the male to be the same suspect from the earlier incident and immediately detained him," the statement said.

The man they arrested has not been named, but police said he was 20 years old.

A spokesman for OpenAI confirmed the attack on the chief executive's residence and the threats to the San Francisco headquarters.

"We deeply appreciate how quickly SFPD responded and the support from the city in helping keep our employees safe," the spokesman told AFP. "The individual is in custody, and we're assisting law enforcement with their investigation." 

Altman and OpenAI have become targets for people protesting AI as a threat to humans.

Protesters have been particularly troubled by OpenAI's decision to provide its technology to the US Department of Defense.

OpenAI last month said it was valued at $852 billion after a funding round that raised $122 billion.

The figure reflects the surging costs of computing power and came amid lingering questions about whether OpenAI and rival companies can generate sufficient revenue to cover expenses.

ChatGPT claims the top position in consumer AI, with more than 900 million weekly active users and some 50 million subscribers.

Use of ChatGPT's online search engine has tripled over the course of a year, according to OpenAI.

hg/mlm

(The Center Square) – A new survey from the CQF Institute found 76% of finance professionals believe their academic training did not adequately prepare them for the artificial intelligence skills required in the workforce.

The CQF Institute, a global quantitative finance membership organization based in London, reported 88% of quantitative finance professionals worldwide believe a skills gap exists across the industry. Quantitative finance is a field that analyzes investment opportunities.

Additionally, 76% say the gap between required skills and available talent has grown over the past three years.

“AI is raising the technical bar across quant finance,” Dr. Randeep Gug, managing director of the CQF Institute, said in a statement. “Financial institutions are discovering that deploying advanced AI systems requires far more professionals with strong quantitative and computational foundations than the market currently produces.”

The Center Square reached out to the institute, which was not available for an interview by press time.

As AI technology and tools become embedded in the education world, 58% of the institute's respondents said the technology has expanded the scope of their responsibilities over the past two years.

Those changes are expected to accelerate. Nearly 74% of respondents predict artificial intelligence will drive a major or complete transformation of quantitative roles within the next five years.

The growing technical demands are already affecting hiring. More than half of those surveyed, 55%, said it is difficult to find strong quantitative professionals with the necessary mix of mathematical, computational and AI-related skills.

At the same time, 75% of professionals reported their current roles require capabilities they were never taught in college, prompting many to rely on self-directed learning or on-the-job experience.  

But educators continue to express concern that AI could become a shortcut for cheating. They're concerned that current safeguards are insufficient. 

As this AI boom continues in 2026, more than 130 AI-related bills have been introduced across 31 states, addressing restrictions on AI classroom use and curriculum integration. 

The survey, titled the “Careers in Quantitative Finance Survey,” was conducted among 135 quantitative finance professionals globally, according to the CQF Institute.