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Washington is confronting the boundaries of advanced AI as voters weigh an unsettled political landscape and markets get some relief from falling oil prices.

Elsewhere, scientists are recovering words buried for nearly 2,000 years, baseball's postseason picture is sharpening, and a changing American habit is forcing California growers to rethink generations of farming.

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Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Greg Casar unveil legislation today that would ban artificial superintelligence, pause advanced AI development until federal guidelines exist, and create a Department of Artificial Intelligence. Employees at leading AI firms are endorsing it. "It doesn't take a genius to say, 'slow it down,'" Sanders told AP.

The timing is pointed. President Trump, who has resisted oversight, used his UN address to announce the country will stop saying "artificial intelligence": "Welcome to the new world of super intelligence — SI," he said, directing US documents to adopt the term. Researchers say it is unlikely to stick, since the word already describes systems far beyond today's.

Republicans are increasingly pessimistic about the midterms, with aligned groups pumping money into reliably red states from Texas to Alaska and candidates distancing themselves from White House policies. The party holds narrow leads in both chambers and a record cash pile.

What it cannot buy is cheaper fuel. Campaigns describe an electorate soured by gas prices driven by an unpopular war, against palpable Democratic enthusiasm. "Everybody is tired. You see the poll numbers. Everybody is cranky about gas prices," said New Jersey Republican strategist Jeanette Hoffman. "The party in power is playing defense. This is a referendum on the incumbents."

A US Postal Service letter carrier in Utah threw more than 300 mail ballots into a church parking lot dumpster during the state's June primary, the Justice Department said Tuesday. Damon Matai Seei, 34, pleaded not guilty in federal court in Salt Lake City to a felony count of destruction or delay of mail, which carries up to five years in prison.

Seei was working a route in Eagle Mountain, a conservative suburb of Provo, and dumped the mail soon after his shift began, acting deputy attorney general Trent McCotter said. Utah US Attorney Melissa Holyoak said Seei told investigators he had no political agenda and did not mean to discard ballots, acting out of "laziness" to "lighten his workload."

Three gunmen killed 11 people at a house party near Durban, South Africa, including a woman believed pregnant; no arrests have been made.

Hurricane Polo exploded into a Category 5 storm off Mexico, with hurricane hunters clocking 180 mph sustained winds in an intensification forecasters called "truly remarkable."

Morocco votes today for a 395-seat parliament in an election shaped by youth frustration, high unemployment and 2030 World Cup costs.

The EPA released a $93.4 million plan to strip chemicals from a Richmond, California Superfund site, which advocates call a partial cleanup.

A "looksmaxxing" influencer known as Clavicular was charged with raping a 17-year-old at his family's Cape Cod home.

The US embassy in Canberra called Australia's proposed right to switch off social media algorithms "censorship of protected speech" in a rare intervention.

Oil slipped below $100, and Asian shares were mixed after Trump said US and Iranian officials had a "very good" meeting at the UN.

The IMF's Kristalina Georgieva warned the US and other advanced economies to cut borrowing, saying shocks have pushed debt "up like a staircase" with no action on servicing costs.

Xbox is cutting hundreds of jobs and handing the Halo franchise to Call of Duty publisher Activision in its company-wide reset.

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Researchers read text inside burnt scrolls without unrolling them, detecting lead in the ink rather than carbon, which Vesuvius left indistinguishable from papyrus.

A microscope chilled to −266°C can now hold atomic resolution for 30 hours, with the first three shipping to labs in Germany, Tennessee and Ontario by 2027.

Data centers are moving off copper, with the 20 tonnes of network wiring in a typical 100MW site first in line for fiber.

The Rays clinched the AL East behind Drew Rasmussen's one-hitter over 6⅔ innings, their first division title since 2021.

Shohei Ohtani returns to the Dodgers' lineup today, with manager Dave Roberts rating him "an eight or a nine" after weeks at a five.

Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart could miss the season and faces possible surgery, with his knee worse than first thought.

The Lynx locked up the top seed while losing 96-77 to Indiana, Cheryl Reeve benching her starters all second half.

Nigella Lawson's Bake Off debut drew warm reviews, the Telegraph saying she gives the show a "new lease of life".

Marlon James and Douglas Stuart, both past winners, are back on the Booker shortlist after a selection Mary Beard called, mildly put, hard work.

Tom Cruise took Catherine's hand on a black carpet as the Waleses joined the Leicester Square gala screening of "Digger".

What it is: It is harvest season in California, and growers cannot find buyers. Wine sales have fallen more than 20% over five years as drinking habits shift, dragging down grape prices and leaving families who have farmed the same rows for generations deciding whether to harvest, leave fruit on the vine, or pull the vines out entirely.

The detail: Roughly a quarter of the state's vineyards have already been taken out of production. Third-generation grower Bill Berryhill, standing in a block of unsold merlot near Lodi, is losing money for another year and dropping hundreds of tons of healthy grapes on the ground.

"It's just sickening," he said. "You raise a beautiful crop, and it's really a nice vintage this year, and you drop it on the ground. It's sad. All your work is just down the toilet."

Why it matters: Vineyards are slow assets. A vine takes years to bear fruit and decades to pay for itself, so growers ripping them out are not pausing production; they are leaving the business. What replaces them tends to be almonds, walnuts, pistachios and olives, crops with steadier demand but different water and labor needs, which quietly reshapes whole farm towns and the seasonal work in them.

What to watch: Whether vine removal accelerates through the fall, and how far grape prices have to fall before the acreage still standing matches what Americans are actually drinking.

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An amateur with a metal detector dug up 934 Roman silver denarii near Cologne, Germany's biggest hoard from Hadrian's reign.

Nauru told the UN it is now Naoero, its president reclaiming the older spelling and pronunciation: "There are moments in the life of a nation."

Singapore bus passengers now face fines up to S$500 for playing loud audio, eating, littering or putting their feet on the seats.

Pope Callixtus II and Henry V agree to the Concordat of Worms (1122) · John Paul Jones wins the Battle of Flamborough Head (1779) · Astronomers discover Neptune (1846) · Nixon delivers his "Checkers speech" (1952) · Eisenhower sends the 101st Airborne to Little Rock (1957) · Juan Perón returns to power in Argentina (1973)

"And our little girl—Tricia, the 6-year-old—named it Checkers. And you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we're gonna keep it." — Richard Nixon, then a senator and vice-presidential nominee, September 23, 1952

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