Pentagon war toll exceeds 600 as accounting shifts

The Pentagon's official accounting of US military losses in the Iran war has surpassed 600 wounded as the agency quietly updated its casualty database amid ongoing diplomatic talks to contain the conflict. (via CNN)

Travis Kalanick's robotics startup Atoms closed a $1.7 billion funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with Uber committing $100 million to the fund despite Kalanick's contentious history with the ride-share company. The three-division firm targets food delivery, mining, and transport automation. (via TechCrunch)

Chinese memory chipmaker CXMT staged an extraordinary Shanghai debut on July 27, surging 466 percent to reach a market value of $488 billion—surpassing the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China to become the most valuable company on the mainland. The $8.6 billion IPO rode surging AI server demand. (via CNBC)

Anthropic's Claude Opus 5 model experienced elevated error rates on July 27, causing slower response times before the issue was resolved within an hour. The brief outage highlighted ongoing stability concerns in large-scale AI systems during peak demand. (via Anthropic Status)

GrapheneOS phone arrest. A 31-year-old Atlanta man faces federal charges after his Pixel phone running privacy-focused GrapheneOS automatically wiped itself during a January 2025 airport security search. Samuel Tunick had configured a duress password that triggered a factory reset when authorities attempted to access the device, raising questions about security feature liability under federal law. (via TechSpot)

Midwest Poultry Services recalled nearly 19 million eggs sold under multiple store brands after salmonella linkage sickened 98 people across 17 states, with 26 hospitalizations and no deaths reported. The recalled cartons were distributed through Kroger, Brookshire's, and other retailers. (via Today.com)

Baseball's Hall of Fame welcomed three new members on July 26 when Carlos Beltrán, Andruw Jones, and Jeff Kent were inducted in an emotional ceremony at Cooperstown that drew 12,000 fans and 57 existing Hall of Famers to Clark Sports Center. (via ESPN)

Brewers pitcher dominates. Jacob Misiorowski set a Milwaukee Brewers franchise record by striking out 12 batters in five innings against Colorado, using 66 pitches all over 100 miles per hour and fanning the first seven Rockies hitters consecutively. The performance marked the most dominant strikeout display in club history. (via CBS Sports)

Christopher Nolan's Odyssey pulled in $87 million in its second weekend, crossing the $600 million mark globally and achieving the strongest sophomore frame in the filmmaker's career. The sci-fi spectacle's durability at the box office has Hollywood watching closely as earnings season looms. (via Forbes)

Actors fight merger. Benedict Cumberbatch, Alan Cumming, and Benedict Wong penned a Guardian op-ed urging the United Kingdom's Culture Secretary to block Paramount Global's $111 billion merger with Warner Bros., warning that consolidation would diminish creative diversity and cost British jobs. The trio raised stakes in an ongoing international debate over media consolidation. (via The Hollywood Reporter)