Kim Stanley Robinson won’t read aloud his climate disaster scene from ‘The Ministry for the Future’

September 18, 2026

NEW YORK (AP) — Kim Stanley Robinson, author of one of the most famous novels on climate change, says he has done more than 600 speaking events since “The Ministry for the Future” was published in 2020 — but he won't read the first chapter out loud. In those opening pages, a prolonged heat wave grips a large swath of northern India. Told from the perspective of an aid worker named Frank, the book starts with a breakdown of the electrical grid, generators that run out of fuel and high temperatures combined with high humidity that lead to death everywhere. Unable to get relief, ...

The Iran war is driving clean energy development. It’s not enough to help the planet, yet

September 18, 2026

Countries are embracing clean power and taking steps to use less energy because of the war against Iran, but it is not yet enough to help address climate change. When the U.S. and Israel launched the war in February, some backers of renewables opined it could drive a green transition as ...

Man accused of ties to bin Laden and tortured after 9/11 has 20-year Guantanamo detention reviewed

September 18, 2026

FORT MEADE, Md. (AP) — A man initially accused of being a high-profile al-Qaida figure and who was tortured in CIA custody appeared Thursday at a hearing to review his detention at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he has been held for 20 years without charges. A U.S. government official said Abu Zubaydah, who wore a neatly trimmed beard and glasses, had “probably” served as one of Osama bin Laden’s most trusted facilitators. The roughly 20-minute hearing offered rare visibility into the secretive military court proceedings of a suspect who had been ...

Tiny TV, 1977

September 18, 2026

AP Photo/Dave Pickoff Clive Sinclair, founder of Sinclair Radionics, a New York-based firm, displays the Microvision television in New York, Sept. 18, 1977. The tiny TV, about the size of a paperback book, was made in England and sold in U.S. department stores for about $395.

A global AI safety strategy depends on US-China cooperation. They each see the other as the problem

September 18, 2026

HONG KONG (AP) — As concern rises over the risks of artificial intelligence, hopes for any kind of global approach depend on cooperation between the U.S. and China — superpowers that seem only to be more skeptical of each other’s AI strategy. AI governance is expected to be on the ...

The fight over congressional maps put nearly 35 million people into new House districts, report says

September 18, 2026

WASHINGTON (AP) — The unprecedented spate of mid-decade redistricting for the U.S. House has changed the congressional districts for one-tenth of Americans and significantly altered the makeup of at least one-fifth of districts, according to a new study. A report by Protect Democracy found that 34.8 million people — about one in 10 Americans — now live in a different district than they did during the 2024 election cycle. And about one-fifth of all Americans now live in a district where more than a quarter of voters are new to the district compared with the last election ...