September 16 2024

1 Second Assassination Attempt on Trump Thwarted, Butler Report Blames Secret Service 
2 In Possible Precedent, Big Tech Battles Utilities Over Soaring Data Center Energy Costs in Ohio
3 OpenAI to Launch AI Model Capable of PHD-Level Reasoning
4 Global Jihadi Threat on the Rise
5 Dangerous Escalation Deferred: Western Powers Delay Decision on Long-Range Missiles for Ukraine
9/16/1620 Mayflower departs England

See the new Ad Astra Podcast! Released on Apple and Spotify around 9a CST.

1 Second Assassination Attempt on Trump Thwarted, Butler Report Blames Secret Service 

Yesterday’s attempt

 Donald Trump was the target of a second apparent assassination attempt Sunday when Secret Service agents opened fire on a gunman at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Fla., where the former president was golfing just a few holes away. Trump was unhurt, and the suspect fled but was arrested shortly later.  At least one agent, who was one or two holes ahead of Trump on the course, fired after spotting the man pointing a rifle through a fence, law-enforcement officials said. A witness saw the man dart out of bushes and take off in a black Nissan, which helped sheriff’s deputies track and stop him while he was headed down I-95.  The man, whom law-enforcement officials familiar with the investigation identified as Ryan Wesley Routh, born in 1966, was detained and is facing criminal charges. Investigators said they didn’t know if the gunman himself fired a shot during the encounter. Authorities found an AK-style rifle with a scope, two backpacks and a GoPro portable camera—suggesting the gunman wanted to film himself—in the bushes where he was hiding, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said. The gunman had been about 400 yards away from the former president.

The would-be assassin’s motives are as yet unclear. Last year the man, identified by media outlets as Ryan Wesley Routh, a 58 year old, gave an interview to the New York Times, saying that he wanted to volunteer to fight for Ukraine in its war against Russia. That interview, along with others and accounts of his social-media postings, portrayed a man with shifting partisan views who was agitated about the difficulties of volunteering in Ukraine and who spoke at times about participating in violence.

I was put in touch with Mr. Routh through an old colleague and friend from Kabul, Najim Rahim. Through the strange nexus of combatants as one war ended and another began, he had learned of Mr. Routh from a source of his in Iran, a former Afghan special operations soldier who was trying to get out of Iran and fight in Ukraine.

Butler probe blames Secret Service

A Secret Service investigation has confirmed security breakdowns that paved the way for an attempted assassination of Donald Trump, while also revealing new information — including that agents never directed local police to secure the roof of the building used by the gunman, according to two senior government officials familiar with the probe. The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe an internal probe, said the investigation found that agents from Secret Service headquarters and the Pittsburgh field office had an alarmingly slipshod strategy to block a potential shooter from having a clear sight of the Republican nominee for president at the July 13 rally in Butler, Pa. Agents securing the event had discussed possibly using heavy equipment and flags to create a visual impediment between the Agr International building and the rally stage, the officials said. But supervisors who arrived at Butler the day of the rally found cranes, trucks and flags were not deployed in a way that blocked the line of sight from that roof.

Article Source: WSJ, Economist, NYT, WaPo

2 In Possible Precedent, Big Tech Battles Utilities Over Soaring Data Center Energy Costs in Ohio

A regulatory dispute in Ohio may help answer one of the toughest questions hanging over the nation’s power grid: Who will pay for the huge upgrades needed to meet soaring energy demand from the data centers powering the modern internet and artificial intelligence revolution?  Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta are fighting a proposal by an Ohio power company to significantly increase the upfront energy costs they’ll pay for their data centers, a move the companies dubbed “unfair” and “discriminatory” in documents filed with Ohio’s Public Utility Commission last month. American Electric Power Ohio said in filings that the tariff increase was needed to prevent new infrastructure costs from being passed on to other customers such as households and businesses if the tech industry should fail to follow through on its ambitious, energy-intensive plans.  The case could set a national precedent that helps determine whether and how other states force tech firms to be accountable for the costs of their growing energy consumption.

Article Source: WaPo

3 OpenAI to Launch AI Model Capable of PHD-Level Reasoning

OpenAI will launch an AI product it claims is capable of reasoning, allowing it to solve hard problems in maths, coding and science in a critical step towards achieving humanlike cognition in machines. The AI models, known as o1, are touted as a sign of the progression of technological capabilities over the past few years as companies race to create ever more sophisticated AI systems. In particular, there is a fresh scramble under way among tech groups, including Google DeepMind, OpenAI and Anthropic, to create software that can act independently as so-called agents — personalised bots that are supposed to help people work, create or communicate better and interface with the digital world.

We trained these models to spend more time thinking through problems before they respond, much like a person would. Through training, they learn to refine their thinking process, try different strategies, and recognize their mistakes.  In our tests, the next model update performs similarly to PhD students on challenging benchmark tasks in physics, chemistry, and biology. We also found that it excels in math and coding. In a qualifying exam for the International Mathematics Olympiad (IMO), GPT-4o correctly solved only 13% of problems, while the reasoning model scored 83%. Their coding abilities were evaluated in contests and reached the 89th percentile in Codeforces competitions.

Article Source: FT, OpenAI

4 Global Jihadi Threat on the Rise

The terrorist threat from jihadi groups was progressively degraded by counterterrorism measures after 9/11. The military defeat of the Islamic State ushered in a period from about 2017 of unusually low threat in non-conflict zones around the world, followed by some disinvestment from CT by Western governments. However, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the Gaza war have seen a collapse of international unity of purpose on CT. Meanwhile, the underlying factors driving violent jihadi extremism are growing more acute, and the success of the Islamic State and al-Qa`ida in conflict zones is generating safe havens for them to revive their external operations capabilities. The global jihadi threat has already risen and is likely to increase further. Attacks should be expected in the West, and it would be a mistake for governments to disinvest further from CT

Article Source: West Point

5 Dangerous Escalation Deferred: Western Powers Delay Decision on Long-Range Missiles for Ukraine

Britain and the U.S. are poised to cross a decisive Rubicon in the Ukraine war on Friday at a White House summit where they will discuss plans to allow Kyiv to strike targets inside Russia with Western-supplied missiles. In a final bid to scare off the West, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on Thursday evening he would regard such an agreement as tantamount to NATO directly entering the war. “This will mean that NATO countries, the United States, and European countries are fighting Russia,” he said. The threat came with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer still en route to Washington ahead of Friday’s talks with President Joe Biden over Ukraine’s possible use of British-made Storm Shadow cruise missiles on Russian soil.   

Volodymyr Zelensky accused the West of emboldening Vladimir Putin as the United States put off a decision to arm Ukraine with long-range missiles amid escalating tensions. The Ukrainian president questioned Britain and America’s commitment to supporting Ukraine’s defence against Russia, expressing frustration at the time it was taking for them to authorise the use of western-supplied missiles to strike targets across the border. Sir Keir Starmer and Joe Biden met for two hours in the White House to discuss strategy on how to bring the war in Ukraine to an end. However, the US National Security Council said there was “no change to our policy” about letting Ukraine use long-range weapons in Russian territory, including the British-made Storm Shadow missiles.

Article Source: Politico, The Times

9/16/1620 Mayflower departs England

Sources

1. https://www.wsj.com/us-news/authorities-say-trump-is-safe-after-gun-shots-nearby-654b6fab?st=yq9Wpd&reflink=article_copyURL_share; https://www.economist.com/united-states/2024/09/16/another-attempt-to-kill-trump-raises-fears-of-political-violence; https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/15/us/politics/trump-routh-ukraine-interview.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare; https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/09/13/trump-shooting-secret-service-failures/

2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/09/13/data-centers-power-grid-ohio/

3. https://www.ft.com/content/af6b293c-113d-4aac-b9d8-d4f65596f645; https://openai.com/index/introducing-openai-o1-preview/

4. hhttps://ctc.westpoint.edu/commentary-the-global-jihadi-terror-threat-in-september-2024/

5. https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-vladimir-putin-war-in-ukraine-missile-strike-deal-britain-keir-starmer-united-states-joe-biden-white-house-summit-nato-iran-diplomacy/; https://www.thetimes.com/world/russia-ukraine-war/article/zelensky-starmer-biden-long-range-missiles-russia-sm0f8bhs0