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Hadi Matar, the man who stabbed Salman Rushdie repeatedly at a 2022 literary conference in western New York, was found guilty of providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization. Prosecutors said the attack was carried out for Hezbollah, honoring the decades-old Iranian fatwa against the author.

Matar was already convicted last year of the attempted murder that left Rushdie blind in one eye and unable to use one hand. He now faces the possibility of life in federal prison.

Israel is quietly building new land barriers deep inside Gaza, and satellite evidence suggests families are being displaced in the process. Earthworks reviewed by experts point to plans for a long-term internal border rather than a temporary military line.

The construction has forced families from neighborhoods that many had only recently managed to return to. Analysts warn the barriers could permanently reshape the territory's map, hardening divisions that outlast any eventual ceasefire.

The White House is now weighing new AI controls after a string of hacking incidents struck OpenAI. Such a move would mark a sharp reversal for an administration that has long championed a hands-off approach to the technology.

Officials are reportedly considering fresh guardrails on how frontier AI systems are secured and deployed. Industry leaders are watching closely, wary that even light-touch rules could reshape a race they currently dominate.

An explosion at a Mediterranean port on Egypt's coast set fire to two ships, including a US gas storage tanker, in what maritime firms described as an apparent drone strike. Any spillover of Red Sea–style attacks into the Mediterranean would rattle shipping insurers and energy markets already stretched thin.

Record heat and wildfires are devastating the continent, with scientists warning the climate crisis is accelerating faster than models predicted a decade ago. Tourism economies from Greece to Portugal are burning — literally — through what should be their most profitable weeks.

The Security Council begins straw polls Thursday to narrow a field of seven candidates vying to replace António Guterres. Whoever emerges will inherit a body straining to stay relevant amid wars in Gaza, Ukraine, and Sudan.

The Senate passed a resolution declaring its opposition to any presidential pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime Jeffrey Epstein associate serving a 20-year sentence for sex-trafficking crimes. The vote was symbolic — Congress can't block a pardon — but the unanimity says plenty.

A new court filing indicates President Trump personally requested details of Secret Service agents' interview with former FBI director James Comey. The disclosure adds a new layer to an already unusual investigation into one of the president's longtime critics.

The administration eliminated SNAP-Ed, a landmark nutrition education program, even as the White House publicly campaigns for healthier American eating habits. Public health experts called the move contradictory given the stated policy goals.

Microsoft shares surged after the company raised its capital spending plans, citing runaway demand and a shift in how it accounts for data centers and office buildings. The signal is clear — the AI infrastructure arms race isn't near a ceiling.

Starbucks shares jumped in extended trading after a strong quarterly report suggested CEO Brian Niccol's turnaround plan is gathering real momentum. Analysts raised price targets, betting the coffee giant has finally found its footing.

Robinhood posted record quarterly revenue as volatility drove a trading bonanza, with prediction-market revenues jumping tenfold year over year. The app that started with commission-free stocks now runs on the adrenaline of everything else.

NASA's Roman Space Telescope, the agency's next great observatory, is ready to launch Aug. 30 with a field of view roughly 100 times wider than Hubble's. Scientists expect it to map dark energy and hunt exoplanets on scales previously impossible.

Researchers identified a sulfur-containing compound that appears to shield critical muscle-repair signals from the chemical damage that drives age-related decline. If the finding holds, it reframes muscle aging as signal corruption — not signal loss.

A small clinical trial found that restricting food intake to an eight-hour daily window produced cognitive benefits in older adults beyond what weight loss alone could explain. The pilot is early, but it hints that time-restricted eating may act on the brain directly.

Taysom Hill, the only player in the Super Bowl era with more than 1,000 career yards rushing, receiving, and passing, will not return to New Orleans for a 10th season. The Swiss Army knife of the NFL is officially between drawers.

Kings guard Zach LaVine picked up his $49M option for next season, his agent confirmed publicly on Wednesday. Sacramento failed to trade him before the deadline after an injury-wrecked and franchise-worst campaign.

Eddie Howe is leaving Newcastle with immediate effect, the Premier League club confirmed early on Thursday. Howe's abrupt and unexpected exit ends a defining era that delivered the club's first major trophy in decades.

Ben Affleck took home the top prize on ABC's "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," exactly one year after Matt Damon pulled off the same feat. The Affleck-Damon rivalry has finally reached its most benign form — game show trivia.

Oscar-winning Irish singer and songwriter Glen Hansard was killed in a crash in Dublin at the age of just 56. Hansard famously won the Best Original Song Academy Award for the acclaimed 2007 film "Once."

The beloved and enduring Care Bears have been sold to Authentic Brands Group, the firm's very first character-based franchise. Care Bears have quietly generated more than $12B in lifetime retail sales all around the world.

What it is: The biggest artificial intelligence companies are recruiting electricians and carpenters by the thousands to build the physical infrastructure their models depend on. The future of AI, it turns out, is being wired by hand.

The detail: Data centers need enormous quantities of skilled trade labor — electricians running high-voltage lines, pipefitters installing cooling systems, carpenters framing out server halls. Tech firms are now partnering with trade schools and unions to accelerate pipelines that historically took years to fill. Demand has surged so quickly that contractors in major AI hubs are competing for the same limited pool of workers, driving up wages and stretching project timelines. In many regions, labor shortages have become as significant a constraint as access to land, electricity, or computer chips.

Why it matters: For all the talk of software eating the world, the AI boom has slammed into a very physical wall. You can't ship a large language model without a building to run it in, and buildings need humans in boots to build them. The race to build AI infrastructure is also reshaping local economies, creating well-paid jobs in construction and skilled trades while forcing companies to rethink how quickly they can expand their computing capacity.

What to watch: Wages for skilled trades near data-center hubs, the political fight over immigration and labor supply, and whether AI companies start vertically integrating into construction itself. If the bottleneck holds, the next AI cycle gets told in hard hats — not headsets. How governments, utilities, and the construction industry respond could determine which companies build the next generation of AI fastest.

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—The Five Minute Daily Team