Stanley Druckenmiller said he was ‘proud of using it’ as wider media grapples with parameters around AI use

Stanley Druckenmiller, a billionaire investor, said he used artificial intelligence to pen his viral Wall Street Journal op-ed in which he sharply criticized the interference of Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, in the US bond market.

Many news outlets, including the Guardian, covered the editorial, highlighting Druckenmiller’s rebuke of his former mentee, Bessent. As the story circulated online, some readers questioned rhetorical choices that resembled AI-generated text.

The 12-bath, seven-bed home near the state capital boasts a 5,000-bottle wine cellar, a pool and a tennis court

California governor Gavin Newsom has put his Sacramento-area mansion up for sale, before his term will end in January.

The 12-bath, seven-bed Spanish-style home in Fair Oaks, a suburb of the California capital, hit the market on Monday with an asking price of $7.5m. The estate, which sits on a 8.2-acre (3.3-hectare) parcel of land, boasts an array of amenities including a full-size tennis court, a 5,000-bottle wine cellar, a pool, a cold plunge and a hot tub, according to a Zillow listing from realtors Matthew Hindy and Nick Sadek.

Unannounced trip reported by US media is said to be Ratcliffe’s first known visit to Russia as CIA chief

The CIA director, John Ratcliffe, has made an unannounced visit to Moscow, US media reported, after flight data showed an American military aircraft flew to the Russian capital, where a US diplomatic motorcade was later spotted.

CBS News quoted sources familiar with the situation as confirming Ratcliffe’s trip, saying it was his first known visit to Russia as CIA chief. Axios separately confirmed the visit, quoting a US official.

‘A child isn’t born to commit gun violence,’ Francisco Villarruel says

Francisco Villarruel and Gustavo Galvez sat in a park in Los Angeles reminiscing on their first boxing lesson together. They had gone to a big commercial gym, where they took turns hitting boxing pads and doing footwork exercises. They then started regularly training together.

For Villarruel, 40, working out together wasn’t really about boxing. It was about giving Galvez, 19, an opportunity to open up and to mentor someone whose pain he understands. “ I think a lot of the traumatic scenarios that he went through are very similar to mine in my upbringing,” Villarruel said.

Deaths from disease are first in state in 35 years and just one day after Maryland declared outbreak in three counties

Two unvaccinated individuals have died of measles in Pennsylvania, state health officials announced on Tuesday. The deaths are the first in the state in 35 years and have been announced just one day after Maryland declared a measles outbreak in three counties.

Measles is one of the most contagious diseases known to medicine, and is preventable with a highly effective vaccine.

Ukrainian investigators recovered an unencrypted American AI module from a Russian Molniya drone that killed three civilians near a Zaporizhzhia gas station on 6 July, and read the code that guided its targeting, the New York Times reported. No human operator made the final call.

Commercially sold AI boards have been turning up inside Russian strike weapons for more than a year, and autonomy is the direction both armies are moving in. What changed is the evidence rather than the technology. Until now, autonomy had to be inferred from what a wreck lacked—an antenna, a radio trace.

Tetiana Bubynets, a 19-year-old accounting student at Zaporizhzhia National University, was declared dead at a hospital, one of her professors said. Oleksii Svirin, 41, and Roman Karpii, 48, later died of their injuries. The drone had attempted to navigate around an apartment building toward the gas station's propane tanks but struck a wall and detonated near people sheltering there.

What investigators found in the wreckage

The wreckage contained an Nvidia Jetson Orin minicomputer, an off-the-shelf AI module that costs a few hundred dollars. The chip was not encrypted. Ukrainian officials said they could read the terrain imagery loaded for visual navigation and the object-detection code that defined what the drone was trained to target, NYT reported. The drone carried no radio antennas and was flying in a wave of approximately six, none of them transmitting. A missing antenna alone would not prove self-targeting—a drone flying a preprogrammed route needs no antenna either, but it would have no use for an Nvidia chip.

Human operators had programmed the drone to fly toward the gas station and set the general target area before launch. Once near the site, the onboard system identified and selected the specific object—most likely propane tanks it had been trained to recognize—on its own, drone experts and military officials said. Vadym Kushnikov, a drone expert at the Kharkiv Aviation Institute, described the drone as "a preprogrammed tool trained in virtual reality to track specific objects," NYT reported.

Where else the Nvidia module has turned up

Kateryna Bondar, a senior fellow at the Wadhwani AI Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, told NYT that no earlier Russian strike by a self-targeting drone has been documented killing civilians, which would make 6 July the first such case on record. She called the Nvidia module "the best proof" that Russia was experimenting with autonomous AI.

The Jetson Orin is not new to the battlefield. The module is made by the American chipmaker Nvidia. Ukraine's sanctions on Russia's AI drone supply networks, imposed in August 2025, hit Russian, Chinese, and Belarusian drone developers and component suppliers—not Nvidia.

Ukrainian intelligence first identified the module in the V2U autonomous strike drone in June 2025, mounted in a Chinese Leetop A203 minicomputer. It has since reported Jetson-based AI modules in Russia's Lancet and Klin drones—the Klin an older Jetson TX2—and, most recently, in the S-71 Monokhrom cruise missile.

In those cases, the finding was the hardware, and what Ukrainian intelligence inferred from it. This time, the code itself was legible.

Nvidia confirmed to NYT that the photographed board was a Jetson Orin. The company said the minicomputer is a consumer-grade product "sold to students, developers and start-ups for a wide range of beneficial applications," that it does not sell the computer in Russia, and that it is widely available through resellers.

Zaporizhzhia as testing ground

Russia began test flights of AI-guided Molniya drones in May, and had begun testing self-targeting systems in the V2U several months earlier, some of those for last-mile guidance only, Ukrainian air defense experts told NYT. Local air defense officials said Russia has been aiming at civilian objects—pumps and propane tanks at gas stations—along with military recruitment centers while trying out autonomous drones in Zaporizhzhia. Why those targets were chosen for the tests is not clear.

Gas stations have been under sustained attack independently of the AI trials. Russia has destroyed approximately 200 across Ukraine since spring, around 50 in June alone, by UNITED24 Media's count.

In Zaporizhzhia, gas stations now prop plastic sheeting at odd angles around propane tanks to confuse the drones' image recognition, and Ukraine has turned to shooting down drones that electronic warfare cannot jam.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has made inadequate drone defenses and slow repairs grounds for putting private assets under state management. His 24 August security decree opens a new way to government control over Russia’s economy.

It expands a mechanism Russia has used against foreign-owned businesses since 2023, according to research by Nektorov, Saveliev and Partners (NSP), a Russian law firm that tracks state takeovers.

A business need not lose a facility before the measure can apply. Decree No. 604 allows action over late security measures, safety violations, conduct that endangers normal operations, ineffective counter-drone steps, or delayed restoration.

The text does not specify what counts as “ineffective” drone protection or how quickly a facility must be restored. Covered sectors include energy, industry, communications, utilities, transport, logistics, and life-support infrastructure, plus any sites deemed important to Russia’s security or economic stability.

Foreign controllers are also covered, including foreign organizations and citizens controlling Russian companies. Temporary management can reach all or part of an entity’s Russian property, securities, stakes in Russian companies, and other property rights—the rule is not limited to the damaged or vulnerable facility alone.

“Temporary” control has no deadline

At the same time, the text mentions no automatic return deadline. Putin must instruct the government to begin temporary management and then end it. By default, the Federal Property Management Agency assumes the owner’s powers, except for the right to dispose of the assets. The assets’ costs will be covered from its income.

Interfax published Denis Manturov’s remarks. The first deputy prime minister said the measure would be used selectively for specific security tasks and would leave formal ownership unchanged.

Komsomolskaya Pravda’s Alexander Kots raised a practical problem: Russian law, he wrote, gives businesses no instructions for defending sites against drones or cruise missiles, while barriers require extensive approvals, and private guards cannot easily be given weapons more powerful than shotguns.

The decree followed weeks of Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries, ports, and warehouses. Ozon reported six disruptions at its facilities after 22 August. The listed retailer’s shares fell as much as 29.09% from Friday’s close on Monday, after five weeks of strikes on privately held Wildberries.

Explore further

Why did Ozon fall as much as 29% while Russia’s market lost 2.9%?

Refining hit two-decade lows as strikes forced Russia to import gasoline, while a sixth Ust-Luga attack since March struck the country’s largest Baltic port.

NSP’s nationalization study records more than 100 cases since 2022 and about 6.5 trillion rubles (about $78 billion) in seized assets. It says cases averaged one court hearing and roughly two months.

The NSP temporary-management table lists several foreign-owned businesses placed under “temporary” management from 2023 whose owners still lack access because the arrangements remain indefinite.

In Trump administration’s plan, California, Arizona and Nevada face about a 20% cut to water supply over two years

Nevada filed a federal lawsuit on Monday challenging the Trump administration’s new plan for the imperiled Colorado River, launching what could become the first of many court battles over the waterway that supplies 40 million people, dozens of tribes and 5.5m acres of farm land across the American west.

The federal plan, issued Friday, cut roughly 20% from the water supplied to lower basin states – Nevada, Arizona and California – over the next two years, with a potential for harsher cutbacks in the future, based on conditions.

Man, 68, was left searching for help in 116F weather after his car became stuck in mud along remote park road

A French tourist recently died in Death Valley national park after a car mishap left him stranded in 116F (47C) weather.

The visitor, identified as 68-year-old Pierre Michel Formosa, was traveling with another French man along the park’s remote West Side Road when their vehicle became stuck in mud near Queen of Sheba Mine Road.

Arbitrator determined the Post improperly fired Karen Attiah, a union-protected employee, over social media posts

An independent arbitrator has ordered the Washington Post to rehire the high-profile opinion columnist Karen Attiah, abruptly fired by the news organization last September over comments she made on social media about Charlie Kirk, the then recently killed conservative activist.

On Monday, an arbitrator ruled that the Post had violated her rights as a union-protected employee and ordered the newspaper to reinstate her and compensate her for lost wages.

The newspaper often uses the word to describe elections with progressive contenders, implying a previous whole destroyed by the left

“El-Sayed and Stevens Project Party Unity After Divisive Race,” announced the New York Times on 5 August, the day the progressive Abdul El-Sayed beat out his centrist Democratic rival, Haley Stevens, in the Michigan senatorial primary. “Divisive” is now the Times’s favorite attack word, deployed repeatedly to disparage and try to undermine the astonishing recent advances by progressive candidates.

Four days after that first story, the Times again landed “divisive” under “Obama and El-Sayed Discuss Unity After Ugly Michigan Primary.” El-Sayed, it asserted, had “narrowly prevailed in a divisive primary after campaigning on a progressive and anti-establishment platform”.

Ukraine celebrated 35 years of independence on 24 August, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy marked the day with an address listing what the invasion has cost Russia, published by the President's Office. He said Putin is mortal and out of time to understand Ukraine, and said Ukraine will not hand over Donbas or save the Kremlin half a million soldiers. He also asked partners for sanctions and weapons strong enough to force an end to the war.

Russia has been invading Ukraine since 2014 and fighting a full-scale war on it since 2022, and Ukraine now supplies a growing share of the missiles and drones it fights back with, while the air defense shielding its cities still hangs on decisions taken in Washington and European capitals—which is what makes a holiday speech a statement of what Kyiv will not trade and what it needs built or delivered next.

The losses he read back to Moscow

President Zelenskyy turned from his own citizens to Russia partway through the speech. 

"You wanted to take all our Ukraine, all our land; instead, you lost your oil refineries, your fleet, your profits, your entire generation that you sent into the meat grinder," he said. 

A country that wanted Ukraine erased from the map, he added, is now absent from the international agenda of the future civilization.

He set Moscow's self-image against its filling stations. 

"For 27 years, the head of Russia has talked about greatness, while Russia is standing in lines for gasoline," Zelenskyy said. 

Moscow and St. Petersburg brought back gasoline rationing this month, and Rosneft capped fills at every station in the country.

On the Russian leader he was blunt. 

"Putin hopes that we are tired. But we know that he is mortal," he said, adding that Putin never understood Ukraine and now will not have the time to.

A fifth Independence Day at war

Before the holiday, Russian ballistic missiles hit Kyiv and its main airport hub twice in 24 hours. A solution to Russian ballistic terror must be found, Zelenskyy said, and that gamble must not pay off. 

Russia does not want peace, it wants mobilization, the president said. Ukraine will not let Moscow seize the initiative or convince Europe that surrendering Donbas ends the war. Russia keeps pushing back the dates for taking all of Donetsk Oblast and will keep pushing them back, he said.

The president called Ukraine's defense industry a giant that forges independence around the clock, and demanded more from it. Mid-range strikes cut Russian logistics and long-range weapons cut Russian profits, he said, listing Moscow, Tuapse, Tula, Ryazan, Olenya, and Omsk among the places already hit. 

Explore further

Ukraine’s drones hit two Russian fighters and a spy drone—and blinded radars from occupied Crimea to Rostov

Ukraine's home-built Flamingo cruise missiles should stop being a rare species and arrive en masse: "They must 'winter' in Russia," Zelenskyy noted. 

Previously, Flamingos have hit defense plants more than 1,000 km from the border, though they still appear in strikes in small numbers.

"China should no longer remain silent"

Ukraine is not asking anyone to fight for it, the president said — only for everything needed to stop the war before Putin starts the next one. He wants sanctions that make Russians howl and Moscow at a negotiating table, and said Washington has lost its illusions about Russian intentions. Europe must be Europe, he said: united, ambitious, brave. 

"China should no longer remain silent," he added, saying Beijing must cool the ardor of someone who puts on a sailor's uniform and cap and talks about a nuclear strike—a description that fits Putin.

On 23 August, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said Norway will keep Ukraine aid unchanged in 2027, Ukrinform reported. He spoke during Ukraine’s State Flag Day ceremony in Kyiv, attended by six Nordic-Baltic leaders. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked them and tied the flag to Ukraine’s resistance against Russia’s war.

Norway keeps 2027 support at about $9 billion

Norway's PM Støre put Norway’s 2027 assistance at about $9 billion, the same level as this year. It will cover military, humanitarian, and financial support.

“In 2027, we will maintain aid at the same level as this year—approximately $9 billion,” Støre said.

He said every party in Norway’s Parliament supports continued aid. Støre also said the package would follow Ukrainian priorities. He noted that supporting and rebuilding Ukraine is not just aid but an investment in Europe's own security.

Støre said Norway and Ukraine were due to sign a strategic partnership declaration later on 23 August. He said it would put cooperation on a long-term footing and benefit both countries.

Zelenskyy puts Ukraine’s flag at the center of the ceremony

Ukraine marked State Flag Day on 23 August, one day before Independence Day. In his address, President Zelenskyy pointed to the historic Independence Flag displayed at the ceremony. Ukrainians carried that flag into Parliament after restoring independence on 24 August 1991.

Zelenskyy said Ukrainians had preserved their blue-and-yellow symbol through 70 years of Soviet rule. He then connected it directly to Russia’s invasions.

“In 2014 and in February 2022, Russia attacked to take away this flag, our symbols, our freedom and independence,” Zelenskyy said.

He also thanked the Nordic-Baltic leaders standing alongside him. The visitors came from Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Norway.

Ukraine marks the 35th anniversary of restoring its independence tomorrow, on 24 August.

Norway’s support already spans defense, budget, and energy needs

The 2026 Nansen Program covers Norwegian support for Ukraine’s military and civilian needs.

• Norway supplied Ukraine with missiles for NASAMS air defense systems in January.
• In March, Oslo provided $200 million in budget support for pensions, teachers, emergency workers, and other civilian needs.
• Zelenskyy and Støre signed a declaration on enhanced defense and security cooperation in April.
• Norway then pledged $45 million for Ukraine’s energy resilience in May.
• In June, Støre pledged further support for Ukraine’s air defenses after a Russian attack.

Ukrainian FP-1 drones struck an Ozon warehouse in Chapayevsk, Russia’s Samara Oblast, overnight on 22 August 2026, manufacturer Fire Point said.

The attack on the Chapayevsk facility expands Ukraine’s warehouse campaign from Wildberries, Russia’s largest online marketplace, to its second-largest rival, Ozon. Ukraine has repeatedly targeted Russia's major e-commerce distribution hubs to disrupt commercial logistics that Kyiv says help sustain Moscow’s war.

Ozon said the attack injured people and prompted the evacuation of more than 500 employees.

The strike was the first confirmed Ukrainian attack to damage and set fire to an Ozon warehouse, Reuters reported. A drone alert forced Ozon to evacuate a facility in Tatarstan on 31 July, but the building was undamaged and later reopened.

Fire Point said the facility is one of Ozon’s largest warehouses in Volga Oblast, storing goods and processing more than 215,000 orders for delivery each day.

Ozon and Wildberries—Russia’s two largest online marketplaces—and their smaller rivals collectively sell goods and services worth the equivalent of 8.5% of Russia’s GDP and employ 4 million people, Reuters reported in July.

Ozon suspended operations indefinitely and stopped accepting seller deliveries, the company said. As a result, shipments are being redirected to other facilities, while affected orders will either be fulfilled elsewhere or canceled and refunded.

Several people were receiving medical treatment, Samara Oblast Governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev claimed. Neither he nor Ozon specified how many people were injured, and the extent of the damage remains unclear.

Ukraine’s previous strikes on Russian warehouses

Ukrainian drones had previously concentrated on Wildberries, Russia’s largest online retailer. Since 18 July, Ukraine has struck at least two dozen Wildberries warehouses, Reuters reported.

Ukrainian officials have alleged that Wildberries warehouses move military-linked goods, including drone components. The Kremlin has denied that the company supplies Russian forces. Fire Point made no corresponding claim about the Ozon warehouse.

Ukraine’s military said the same overnight wave also hit the Novokuibyshevsk refinery in Samara Oblast and caused a fire.

Russian and occupation officials claimed that the broader wave caused civilian deaths and injuries in Yeysk, Belgorod, Bryansk, and Russian-occupied Luhansk.

Ukrainian forces struck production facilities at the Novokuybyshevsk oil refinery in Russia’s Samara Oblast overnight on 22 August, sparking a fire at the Rosneft-owned plant, Ukraine’s General Staff said. The extent of the damage remains under assessment.

Ukraine has repeatedly targeted Russia’s oil refineries to restrict military fuel supplies and reduce the energy revenues supporting Moscow’s war. The latest strike came as gasoline rationing returned to Moscow and St. Petersburg, and Rosneft capped nationwide purchases. Militarnyi described the plant as one of Russia’s 10 largest refineries.

The Rosneft-owned refinery can process about 8.8 million metric tons of crude annually and produces more than 20 petroleum products, including aviation fuel and diesel, Ukraine’s General Staff said.

Fire Point said FP-1 long-range drones were used to strike the refinery.

The same overnight wave also hit an Ozon logistics center in Chapayevsk, where people were injured, and work was halted, Reuters reported, citing the company.

Neither the damage to the refinery nor any interruption to production has been independently confirmed.

Ukraine keeps pressure on Russian fuel supplies

The strike came one day after Ukraine confirmed hitting Lukoil’s Perm refinery, approximately 1,530 kilometers from Ukraine’s northern border. That attack also caused a fire, according to the General Staff.

At least four Russian refineries went offline during August amid continuing Ukrainian attacks.

By mid-August, filling stations in at least 12 Russian regions were experiencing hours-long lines. Some areas had reintroduced purchase limits or rationing based on license-plate numbers, according to the same report.

Gasoline limits had also been reinstated in Moscow and St. Petersburg, while Rosneft had capped sales at 30 liters per vehicle across its nationwide filling-station network. Diesel purchases remained unrestricted.

Russia has struck Kyiv and its suburbs with ballistic missiles for a second consecutive day, killing civilians. Meanwhile, Ukraine lacks enough interceptors to stop them because deliveries from the US have halted.

The strikes land at a moment when Ukraine's ability to shoot ballistic missiles down has been cut off at the source. Ukraine intercepts ballistic missiles mainly with US-made Patriot systems. During the recent Oval Office meeting, President Donald Trump declined President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's request for hundreds of additional Patriot interceptors, according to the Financial Times.

At the same time, when Ukraine sought to destroy Russia's ballistic launchers on Russian territory, US billionaire Elon Musk did not allow Ukraine to use Starlink to guide strikes on those launchers, The Atlantic reported. Ukraine can neither shoot the missiles down at the rate it needs nor freely strike the launchers that fire them.

A railway worker was killed in Kyiv

The overnight attack hit Ukraine's railway. On the night of 22 August, a Russian ballistic missile struck a railway enterprise in Kyiv's Darnytsia area, killing a Ukrzaliznytsia worker, the railway's board chairman Oleksandr Pertsovskyi said.

He described a strike timed to the threat.

"In Darnytsia, ballistic strikes hit one of the railway enterprises, at the same moment as, or even a second before, the ballistic threat appeared. One of our workers, a foreman, was killed on the spot. The rest we managed to evacuate quickly after the first strike," Pertsovskyi reported.

Russia launched about six ballistic missiles, with launches recorded from three directions, Kursk, Bryansk, and Millerovo, according to monitoring channels.

A morning strike on Boryspil killed two civilians

Russia struck again in daylight. In the morning, six to eight ballistic missiles attacked the Boryspil area in the Kyiv agglomeration, likely with cluster warheads, according to monitoring channels. Boryspil city is home to the Boryspil International Airport, Ukraine’s main and largest international passenger airport.

The strike killed civilians and hit infrastructure. Two civilians, a man and a woman, were killed, and the number of wounded rose to eight, including a child, with the daytime strike hitting a truck parking lot along with warehouses, a fuel station, a private household, and vehicles. Two trucks caught fire, and a blaze spread across 700 square meters of open ground, the State Emergency Service (DSNS) said.

The strikes come days before Independence Day

The attacks landed two days before Ukraine marks its Independence Day. The Security Service (SBU) has already urged citizens to be especially vigilant before and during the 24 August holiday because of the threat of attacks, warning that in wartime, Russia may use mass events for strikes, provocations, sabotage, cyberattacks, and other crimes.

The service has also warned against recruitment. It reminded Ukrainians not to publish photos or videos of military objects, critical infrastructure, checkpoints, or air-defense systems, nor to share information on the consequences of strikes or the movement of Ukrainian forces.

Russian special services may try to recruit Ukrainians to prepare attacks and sabotage, the SBU said, urging anyone offered money for arson, property damage, planting unknown objects, or collecting information on military sites to report it immediately.