It's like a regular warranty, but it's German and has RGB Now the overclock-curious can buy a delidded AMD 9800X3D, with a warranty CPUs ready to blast past their limits can be had with a warranty, for a premium. Kevin Purdy Feb 27, 2025 1:51 pm | 41 A delidded AMD Ryzen 9800X3D, in der8auer's hands. Credit: der8auer/Thermal Grizzly A delidded AMD Ryzen 9800X3D, in der8auer's hands. Credit: der8auer/Thermal Grizzly Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreThe integrated heat spreaders put on CPUs at the factory are not the most thermally efficient material you could have on there, but what are you going to dorip it off at the risk of killing your $500 chip with your clumsy hands?Yes, that is precisely what enthusiastic overclockers have been doing for years, delidding, or decapping (though the latter term is used less often in overclocking circles), chips through various DIY techniques, allowing them to replace AMD and Intel's common denominator shells with liquid metal or other advanced thermal interface materials.As you might imagine, it can be nerve-wracking, and things can go wrong in just one second or one degree Celsius. In one overclocking forum thread, a seasoned expert noted that Intel's Core Ultra 200S spreader (IHS) needs to be heated above 165 C for the indium (transfer material) to loosen. But then the glue holding the IHS is also loose at this temperature, and there is only 1.52 millimeters of space between IHS and surface-mounted components, so it's easy for that metal IHS to slide off and take out a vital component with it. It's quite the Saturday afternoon hobby.That is the typical overclocking bargain: You assume the risk, you void your warranty, but you remove one more barrier to peak performance. Now, though, Thermal Grizzly, led by that same previously mentioned expert, Roman "der8auer" Hartung, has a new bargain to present. His firm is delidding AMD's Ryzen 9800X3D CPUs with its own ovens and specialty tools, then selling them with two-year warranties that cover manufacturer's defects and "normal overclocking damage," but not mechanical damage. der8auer explains his rather unique delidded CPU offering and shows you how it is made. In a video explaining this business for which almost no bank would ever provide capital, Hartung/der8auer makes it clear that "AMD has no clue what we're doing here" and that AMD will not help his business with anything. Thermal Grizzly is buying the CPUs from German store Mind Factory, spending the labor time to delid, test, and verify each chip, then selling them at a markup. That markup will mostly cover returns, as Thermal Grizzly has to eat the more than 500 euro cost of any chips that come back under warranty. The package you get from Thermal Grizzly when ordering a delidded AMD Ryzen 9800X3D, minus the USB drive. Credit: Thermal Grizzly The package you get from Thermal Grizzly when ordering a delidded AMD Ryzen 9800X3D, minus the USB drive. Credit: Thermal Grizzly You can also see the process by which batches of chips are put into a precision oven and baked, first at 170 C to loosen the indium and glue, then again upside-down at 160 C to let the IHS fall off. "It smells like CPU barbecue in here a little bit," Hartung says, while what he describes as "$10,000 worth of CPUs is going to be melted." After that, the chips are cleaned up, slotted into a testing system, run through a Cinebench R23 test, and monitored for their temperatures. Each customer receives the chip, the IHS, a USB thumb drive with a detailed shot of their chip and its IHS lid, and a verification card stating the temperatures the chip reached during its testing.Thermal Grizzly's delidded Ryzen 7 9800X3D chips are currently going for $712.95 in the US (VAT and shipping included) or about $230 over the official $479 suggested retail price. The chips are sold out as of this post's publication, but more will likely come available as they bake them. Hartung states in the announcement video that his firm may expand to other chips in the future, presumably after he finds out how many people like a slightly less risky kind of tinkering.Kevin PurdySenior Technology ReporterKevin PurdySenior Technology Reporter Kevin is a senior technology reporter at Ars Technica, covering open-source software, PC gaming, home automation, repairability, e-bikes, and tech history. He has previously worked at Lifehacker, Wirecutter, iFixit, and Carbon Switch. 41 Comments

This will happen again. The message flashes across smartphone screens as power, transit, air traffic control systems, phones, and life support systems simultaneously shut down for one minute. Chaos ensues, and it is up to Robert DeNiro as fictional former president George Mullen to get to the bottom of this massive cyberattack.Netflixs political thriller Zero Day, released Feb. 20, portrays the impact of a devastating critical infrastructure attack on the United States, the race to find the culprit, and prevent another incident. InformationWeek talked to two cybersecurity experts who watched the show with professional interest. How much of the show is grounded in reality, and how much of it is pure dramatization?What Could Actually Happen?Zero days, the namesake of the show, are vulnerabilities that developers are not aware of and are very real cybersecurity risks. In 2023, 11 of the top 15 common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs) were exploited as zero days, according to a report from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the National Security Agency (NSA). Attacks on critical infrastructure are also firmly rooted in reality.Full series spoiler warning -- how the cyberattack unfolds in Zero Day gives reason for experts to raise their eyebrows. A single attack taking down multiple systems all at once is a far-fetched scenario. Even characters in the show note this isnt what youd expect of a typical zero-day attack.Related:They say that a zero day typically targets a single operating system, a single platform. This targeted multiple we didn't think that was possible, Kevin Breen, senior director of cyber threat research atcybersecurity training company Immersive Labs, tells InformationWeek. I like that they call that out really early on.Russia is immediately considered the top suspect behind the attack portrayed on Zero Day. In reality, Russia is considered one of the top nation state cyber threats to the US. The initial investigation on the Netflix series points in the direction of Russia, but the clues are intentionally misleading.Threat analysts investigating real-world incidents are well aware that threat actors will deploy deceptive techniques to make attribution more difficult. They might make their malware look like it was written by another state or by a specific group to try and throw researchers off, says Breen.And that ominous message on the phone? A possibility, given the ubiquity of certain apps and the right access. They could be weaponized to show that kind of message, says Breen.Related:The show features two more cyberattacks after the initial incident that kicks off the drama: one on a bank and another that takes out swaths of critical systems again, this time for a longer period.Banks are certainly targets of real-life attacks with major consequences. Earlier this year, due to a third-party vendor issue and not a cyberattack, Capital One and several other banks suffered an outage that impacted thousands of customers.A second cyberattack on the same system is not too much of a stretch either. Research indicates that once an organization has experienced a cyberattack it is more likely to suffer another within 12 months.As the show progresses, it comes to light that Russia is not the culprit. Rather, it is an elaborate conspiracy involving a domestic cyber threat group, a couple of billionaires, and members of the government. While that exact scenario may be hard to imagine actually happening, the idea of insider threats is very real. In the 2024 Insider Threat report from Cybersecurity Insiders, 83% of organizations reported experiencing an insider attack.Monica Kidder, the tech billionaire of Zero Day, decides to help orchestrate the attacks on critical systems in retaliation for a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigation into her company. She gets her hands on malware originally created by the NSA and pushes it out through her companys apps to execute the attack.Related:How feasible is this plot? If this was originally created by the National Security Agency, nobody really knows what their capabilities are, John Waller, cybersecurity practice leadat Black Duck, a provider of application security solutions, points out.Coupled with the resources of billionaires and government coconspirators, the possibilities are certainly frightening.The concept of a backdoor in systems is one we have seen. In 2024, a Microsoft engineer discovered a backdoor inserted into software used in Linux distributions. This particular backdoor was caught early, before it made it into mainline distribution.Somebody out there who put it in there would have had the ability to have command and control over virtually every server in the world that runs on Linux operating system that was updated to that version, says Waller.Threat actor access to critical systems is certainly a point of major concern. China-backed APT groups breached US telecommunications companies and the US Department of Treasury. And there is ongoing worry over persistent access that is laying the groundwork for destructive cyberattacks.Of course, being a television show, Zero Day takes creative liberties. The idea of turning off so many critical systems for a minute and then just as quickly turning them back on requires some suspension of disbelief for cybersecurity experts.So, turning something off, arguably easier than getting it back on, says Breen.While billions of dollars undoubtedly buy a lot of power when it comes to cyberattack capabilities, Breen is skeptical that Kidder would have been able to pull off the technical aspects of the attack with the help of just a handful of people.You'd have to have the entire development team on board with your methodology to get past all of the CI/CD and the code checks. Its not like it's a single developer who can just make those changes and push them, says Breen.Even if a few people were able to pull off this gigantic cyberattack with a stolen piece of malware that can somehow compromise so many different kinds of systems all at once, Waller is skeptical that its work would happen so invisibly.To think of that there's some technology, some way of bypassing all of our logging and monitoring systems, that's probably the hardest thing that I have to believe, says Waller.And what about the response to the cyberattack in the series? Naturally, the timeline for incident response is condensed and inflated in various ways for good storytelling, according to Breen.The team involved is also much narrower than what would likely occur in reality. Mullen leads a government team to get to the bottom on the attack. In reality, there would likely be much more public-private coordination, given just how many different systems are involved.The task force wouldn't have just been a government agency. It would have been bringing together tech to solve the problem, says Waller.While Zero Day does make references to switching to analog technologies in the wake of the cyberattack, many of the characters continue to use their smartphones, despite the widespread compromise of those devices.If I was an attacker and I had that level of access to be able to put those kinds of things onto devices, I'd be intercepting phone calls, Id be stealing documents, capturing passwords, Breen points out.Prior to Breens work in cybersecurity, he spent time as a radio technician for the British Army. He calls out the threat actors use of radios to send encoded messages to one another.That is pure fiction. We have [the] modern technology to be able to run encrypted communications over radios and long distances without relying on number codes or sequences that can be trivially broken, he explains.Lessons from a Fictional CyberattackZero Day is meant to be entertaining and aims to keep viewers guessing with its increasingly nefarious conspiracy, lingering suspicions about a neurological weapon, and sticky questions about what is and isnt truth. Not every aspect of the cyberattacks depicted in the show are in the immediate realm of possibility, but the ongoing threat and goals of these attacks are real.The chances of that huge style of attack still remain in Hollywood myth, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't do everything we can to protect ourselves against it, says Breen.

Earth during a glacial periodZoonar/Alexander Savchuk/AlamyWithout human-induced climate change, Earth may have been on track to plunge into another ice age within 11,000 years. This long-term forecast of the planets natural climate is based on a new analysis of how wobbles in the shape of its orbit and the tilt of its axis combine to change the amount of solar energy reaching the planet.For millions of years, these orbital oscillations known as Milankovitch cycles brought the planet in and out of glacial periods about every 41,000 years. But the past 800,000 years have seen ice ages occur only every 100,000 years or so. Ambiguities in the record of when ice sheets advanced and retreated meant it wasnt possible to explain how orbital changes were involved in driving this longer cycle, a mystery known to palaeoclimatologists as the 100 thousand year problem. AdvertisementWhere previous studies tried to link changes in orbit to specific periods like the onset of an ice age, Stephen Barker at Cardiff University, UK and his colleagues took a new tack. They looked at the overall patterns of how glacial periods, also called ice ages, fade and return during the intervening interglacials. This enabled them to link changes in orbit with changes in ice despite fuzziness in the ice record over the past million years.They found these 100,000-year cycles appear to follow a straightforward rule. For the past 900,000 years, every interglacial has occurred after Earths axis wobbled at its furthest point from the sun as the planet was also tilting closer towards the sun, following the most circular phase of its orbit.This suggests all three of these aspects of Earths orbit known as precession, obliquity and eccentricity combine to create the 100,000-year glacial cycle, says Barker. Since 900,000 years ago this simple rule predicts every one of those major glacial termination events. This tells us that its really quite easy to predict, he says.Unmissable news about our planet delivered straight to your inbox every month.Sign up to newsletterBased on that rule, and absent the warming influence of our greenhouse gas emissions, we could expect the next interglacial period following the one we are currently living in known as the Holocene to begin around 66,000 years from now. But that could only start if there was a glacial period before then, says Barker.The phasing of obliquity and precession that preceded the Holocene suggests glaciation would be likely to be well underway between 4300 and 11,100 years from now. We might even be currently living at what would have been the onset of this next ice age. Of course, thats only in a natural scenario, says Barker.The more than 1.5 trillion tonnes of carbon dioxide humans have emitted into the atmosphere since the industrial revolution are expected to cause enough warming to disrupt this long-term glacial cycle.The amount weve already put into the atmosphere is so great that it will take hundreds to thousands of years to pull that out via natural processes, says Barker. However, he says more research is needed to define Earths future natural climate in more detail.This is in line with earlier modelling that suggests rising CO2 levels due to anthropogenic emissions will prevent the onset of the next ice age for tens to hundreds of thousands of years, says Andrey Ganopolski at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany.However, he says even pre-industrial levels of CO2 in the atmosphere may have been high enough to delay the onset of the next ice age by 50,000 years. That is due to the unusually minor orbital variations expected in coming millennia and the unpredictable way Earth responds to those changes.Journal referenceScience DOI: 10.1126/science.adp3491Topics:

HealthBlue Zones, places home to an unusual number of centenarians, are looked to for their secrets to living healthier lives but are they even real? 27 February 2025 Shimmering blue waters off the coast of Ogliastra, Italyguteksk7/AlamyWalk the shores of Ogliastra in Sardinia, an Italian island with crystal-clear waters and pink hillside flowers, and youll see families eating fresh fish, people working the land and older couples strolling the hills.You might also see an unusual number of centenarians. This area of Italy is one of three Sardinian provinces that make up a Blue Zone a handful of regions in the world with a disproportionately high number of exceptionally older people. These areas are highly prized by researchers keen to uncover the genetic and

OpenAI has just released GPT-4.5, a new version of its flagship large language model. The company claims it is its biggest and best model for all-round chat yet. It's really a step forward for us, says Mia Glaese, a research scientist at OpenAI. Since the releases of its so-called reasoning models o1 and o3, OpenAI has been pushing two product lines. GPT-4.5 is part of the non-reasoning line-up, what Glaese's colleague Nick Ryder, also a research scientist, calls an installment in the classic GPT series. People with a $200-a-month ChatGPT Pro account can try out GPT-4.5 today. OpenAI says it will begin rolling out to other users next week. With each release of its GPT models, OpenAI has shown that bigger means better. But there has been a lot of talk about how that approach is hitting a wallincluding from OpenAIs former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever. The companys claims about GPT-4.5 feel like a thumb in the eye to the naysayers. All large language models pick up patterns across the billions of documents they are trained on. Smaller models learned syntax and basic facts. Bigger models can find more specific patterns like emotional cues, such as when a speakers words signal hostility, says Ryder: All of these subtle patterns that come through a human conversationthose are the bits that these larger and larger models will pick up on. It has the ability to engage in warm, intuitive, natural, flowing conversations, says Glaese. And we think that it has a stronger understanding of what users mean, especially when their expectations are more implicit, leading to nuanced and thoughtful responses. We kind of know what the engine looks like at this point and now it's really about making it hum, says Ryder. This is primarily an exercise in scaling up the compute, scaling up the data, finding more efficient training methods, and then pushing the frontier. OpenAI wont say exactly how big its new model is. But it says the jump in scale from GPT-4o to GPT-4.5 is the same as the jump from GPT-3.5 to GPT-4o. Experts have estimated that GPT-4 could have as many as 1.8 trillion parameters, the values that get tweaked when a model is trained. GPT-4.5 was trained using similar techniques to its predecessor GPT-4o, including human-led fine-tuning and reinforcement learning with human feedback. The key to creating intelligent systems is a recipe we've been following for many years, which is to find scalable paradigms where we can pour more and more resources in to get more intelligent systems out, says Ryder. Unlike reasoning models, such as o1 and o3, which work through answers step by step, normal large language models like GPT-4.5 spit out the first response they come up with. But GPT-4.5 is more general-purpose. Tested on SimpleQA, a kind of general-knowledge quiz that includes questions on a wide range of topics, from science and technology to TV shows and video games, GPT-4.5 scores 62.5% compared to 38.6% for GPT-4o and 15% for o3-mini. Whats more, OpenAI claims that GPT-4.5 responds with far fewer made-up answers (known as hallucinations). On the same test GPT-4.5 made-up answers 37.1% of the time, compared to 59.8% for GPT-4o and 80.3% o3-mini. But on other benchmarks, including MMLU, a standard test for multimodal language models, gains on OpenAIs previous models were marginal. And on standard science and math benchmarks, GPT-4.5 scores worse than o3. GPT-4.5s special charm seems to be its conversation. Human testers employed by OpenAI say they preferred GPT-4.5s answers to GPT-4o for everyday queries, professional queries and creative tasks, including coming up with poems. (Ryder says it is also great at old-school internet ACSII art.) But after years at the top, OpenAI now has a tough crowd. The focus on emotional intelligence and creativity is cool for niche use cases like writing coaches and brainstorming buddies, says Waseem AlShikh, cofounder and CTO of Writer, a startup that develops large language models for enterprise customers. But GPT-4.5 feels like a shiny new coat of paint on the same old car, he says. Throwing more compute and data at a model can make it sound smoother, but its not a game-changer. The juice isnt worth the squeeze when you consider the energy costs, the complexity, and the fact that most users wont notice the difference in daily use, he says. Id rather see them pivot to efficiency or niche problem-solving than keep supersizing the same recipe. Sam Altman has said that GPT-4.5 will be the last release in OpenAIs classic line up and that GPT-5 will be a hybrid that combines a general-purpose large language model with a reasoning model. GPT-4.5 is OpenAI phoning it in while they cook up something bigger behind closed doors," says AlShikh. Until then, this feels like a pit stop. And yet OpenAI is convinced that its supersized approach still has legs. Personally, Im very optimistic about finding ways through those bottlenecks and continuing to scale, says Ryder. I think there's something extremely profound and exciting about pattern-matching across all of human knowledge.

New NATO naval drones are being put to the test in the Baltic Sea.The uncrewed surface vehicles are part of the alliance's efforts to deter aggression and sabotage.The new Task Force X is reminiscent of the US Navy's Task Force 59 efforts.The NATO alliance has been testing new Task Force X naval drones in the strategic waters of the Baltic Sea, showing off the new capabilities of these uncrewed systems.The drones are intended to help the allies keep an eye on Russia's activities in the region and deter the potential sabotage of critical undersea infrastructure such as data cables.NATO Allied Command Transformation announced the drone demonstrations Wednesday, saying they "signal a significant step forward in integrating unmanned surface vessels, commonly referred to as USVs, to bolster NATO's ability to safeguard critical infrastructure and maintain security in an increasingly complex environment."French Adm. Pierre Vandier, the NATO Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, said Task Force X will fill surveillance gaps in the region. Bart Hollants, an official from NATO's Allied Command Transformation Branch, called it "the first tangible results" of NATO's efforts to curb security threats in the Baltic.The demonstration involved NATO maritime assets, including from the Royal Danish and German navies, testing how drones work together with crewed vessels. The testing activities included tactical maneuvering exercises like live-fire events with the goal of integrating drones into NATO's naval forces.NATO announced its plans to establish Task Force X and employ naval drones in late January. The aim of the project is to counter and deter state and non-state actors from sabotaging undersea cables, as well as curb potential Russian aggression.Task Force X is working to field "a fleet of maritime autonomous systems to provide persistent surveillance, detect and track potential threats, and enhance situational awareness," NATO said. "This approach offers a cost-effective and rapidly deployable solution to counter Russian aggression." Models of drones are kept in a warehouse at Naval Support Activity Bahrain. Jake Epstein/Business Insider The move came after several incidentsThese troubling incidents were suspectedConcern about the targeting of critical undersea cables and related infrastructure has led NATO to take action. NATO's new Task Force X, the alliance said, is similar to the US Navy's Task Force 59, an initiative fielding naval drones in the Middle East.Task Force 59 is a first-of-its-kind Navy initiative started in September 2021. Since then, the task force has conducted at least 35 bilateral and multilateral exercises, operating drones at sea for more than 60,000 hours across the Middle East.Both the US Navy and NATO's efforts speak to the growing employment of uncrewed systems and, to some degree, autonomy in surveillance and deterrence roles. In both cases, the drones are intended to give military forces more options for missions, as well as a wider reach in troubled waters.There are still plenty of unknowns about how these systems will be further integrated into naval warfare for both the US and NATO, though. Ukraine's use of drone boats to pummel Russia's Black Sea Fleet has been a notable win and asymmetric element in the war in Ukraine."The integration of autonomous systems also raises important issues such as command and control, data security, and the ethical implications of using artificial intelligence in warfare," NATO said in its release on the testing. "NATO is aware of these issues and is developing safeguards and protocols to ensure the responsible use of these technologies."

Luxury hospitality companies have been expanding into the cruise industry.Four Seasons, Aman, and Orient Express have all announced plans to debut luxury ships.This article is part of "Well Charted," a series for travelers planning cruise adventures.Luxury hotel brands are cashing in on the cruise boom and introducing wealthy travelers to their take on floating resorts complete with helipads, 10,000-square-foot suites, and dinners crafted by Michelin-starred restaurant chefs.Four Seasons, Aman, and Orient Express plan toDespite this nascent frenzy, the hotel-to-cruise pipeline is nothing new. Just look at Virgin, which has found success with its nine hotels and three (soon to be four) ships. Or Margaritaville, which launched its second vessel last year.Unlike Richard Branson's and Jimmy Buffett's vacation-at-sea companies, these industry newcomers cater to travelerspopular hotels and enjoy niceties such as high-touch service and butlers.Take a look at new and coming yacht offerings from Ritz-Carlton, Four Seasons, and other luxury hotel brands:The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection In 2022, the Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection launched its first ship, Evrima, shown here in a rendering. The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection Ritz-Carlton kicked off the craze for luxury-hotel-owned cruises with the launch of its 624-foot-long Evrima in 2022.It was a triumphant test for the business model, with few availabilities during its first year in service.It's easy to see why. Evrima offers a transverse marina that opens onto the water, an infinity pool, a cigar lounge, and an almost one-to-one guest-to-staff ratio. Its five eateries include a European-inspired tasting menu for a fee. The menu was designed by the chef of Aqua, a restaurant with three Michelin stars in Ritz-Carlton's Wolfsburg, Germany, hotel. Ritz-Carlton's Ilma set sail in 2024. Gerard Bottino/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images The smallest of its 149 cabins is 317 square feet, while the most spacious is over five times as large. All have terraces, a double-vanity bathroom, and a butler.Following Evrima's success, the luxury cruise line debuted a second, larger ship, Ilma, last year. A third vessel, Luminara, is expected to sail in July.Voyages start at $3,100 a person for three nights on Ilma.Four Seasons I Four Seasons I, shown in a rendering, is scheduled to launch in 2026. Four Seasons Like Ritz-Carlton, Four Seasons hopes its loyal fan base will follow it to sea aboard Four Seasons I, scheduled to debut in January.When it does, the 679-foot-long vessel could set sail as one of the cruise industry's most luxurious options.Renderings show a sleek, modern interior with 11 restaurants and a transverse Four Seasons says the Funnel Suite, shown in a rendering, will span four decks and have upscale amenities like a private elevator. Four Seasons Cabins start at $17,300 for a five-night round-trip voyage starting in Miami.Breakfast will be complimentary lunch, dinner, and booze won't. The soon-to-be cruise line suggests setting aside about $250 a person per day for food and drinks.Alejandro Reynal, Four Seasons' CEO, told Business Insider late last year that reservations had been "very successful," with about two-thirds coming from previous guests. "People were very favorable for us to pursue a Four Seasons experience at sea," he added.The company tapped Fincantieri to build the 34,000-gross-ton vessel. The famed Italian shipbuilder has also been hired to construct Four Seasons' second ship, expected to debut in 2026.Aman at Sea Aman at Sea's ship, shown in a rendering, is scheduled to launch in 2027. Aman "We are led by the demand of our guests, who often call for us to expand into certain categories," Ben Trodd, Aman's chief operating officer, told BI in an email in late 2024.In this case, the category is cruising.Aman, a buzzy ultraluxury hotel group, already offers vacations aboard Amandira, a five-cabin yacht. Its next floating resort, debuting in 2027, is set to operate more like a traditional 600-foot-long cruise with 10 times as many suites. Its shipbuilder says the vessel will have a spa with a Japanese garden, shown in a rendering. Aman Its builder, Italy's T. Mariotti, says guests can expect a spa with a Japanese garden, two helipads, a lounge, and a transverse-marina-like "beach club." Planned dining options include international and informal eateries.No word yet on the ship's name, pricing, or itineraries.Orient Express Orient Express says Orient Express Corinthian, shown in a rendering, will debut in 2026 as the world's largest sailing yacht. Orient Express The historic Orient Express is planning a comeback with the springtime launch of its luxury train and hotel.Come June 2026, the company also plans toOrient Express says the vessel will travel the Mediterranean, Adriatic, and Caribbean seas with help from 48,437-square-foot sails. (The company says Corinthian will be the world's largest sailing yacht.) The Orient Express Corinthian is set to have 54 suites, like the one shown in this rendering. Orient Express - Maxime d'Angeac Expect spacious accommodations with 54 suites ranging from 505 to 10,255 square feet and amenities like a movie theater, a recording studio, a transverseThe company's second ship, Orient Express Olympian, is set to debut a year later. The famed French shipbuilder Chantiers de l'Atlantique plans to build both vessels.VidantaWorld Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement Cruise Services plans to manage VidantaWorld's ship's maritime logistics Grupo Vidanta Grupo Vidanta's high-end resorts and golf courses dot Mexico's warm coastline.Soon, it could head offshore and out to sea with its first cruise ship, set to be adults only but not without delays.The Mexican hospitality company recently postponed the launch of its 500-foot-long VidantaWorld's Elegant by a year to 2026, a spokesperson told BI. The hospitality company acquired its ship in 2017. Grupo Vidanta When it does set sail, VidantaWorld says its first vessel will welcome guests with three pools, 13 restaurants and bars, and an almost one-to-one crew-to-guest ratio. Cabins are set to start at 139 square feet, but only the suites (which start at about double the size) are planned to have balconies.Norma Suarez, the ship's director of operations, told BI in an email in late 2024 that a seven-night voyage starts at $12,500 a person. The buffet, she added, will

On Wednesday night, Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily halted a lower court order, which would have required the Trump administration to make approximately $2 billion in foreign aid payments that it had stopped as part of a broader attack on the US Agency for International Development (USAID).Its important not to read too much significance into Robertss temporary order in this case, known as Department of State v. AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition. Judges often have the power to hit pause on a case while they take more time to figure out how the law requires them to act indeed, many of the lower court judges whove halted Trump administration policies relied on similar authority when they did so. Its likely that Roberts issued Wednesdays order to give himself and his colleagues more time to consider the questions presented by the AIDS Vaccine case.But the current dispute before the Supreme Court is significant for at least two reasons. The first: it is the first Trump-era case involving impoundment, a legally dubious claim that the president may cancel federal spending that is mandated by laws enacted by Congress. The Impoundment Control Act of 1974 places very strict limits on the presidents ability to second-guess Congresss spending decisions typically the president must seek permission from Congress before canceling spending. But Trump has nonetheless claimed the power to do so without legislative approval.The second reason is that, in a document Trumps Justice Department recently filed in the Supreme Court, Trumps legal team seems to reveal how they plan to get around the Impoundment Control Act and similar rules requiring the president to obey federal spending laws.Significantly, the Trump administration does not argue at least not yet that the president has the inherent constitutional authority to impound funds. Indeed, the DOJs recent filing does not even argue that Trumps decision to halt USAID spending is legal. Instead, the Trump administration suggests that federal courts lack the authority to issue broad orders reinstating whole swaths of government spending canceled by the administration, and that these cases must instead be resolved on a piecemeal basis.Think of it this way: Suppose that the Trump administration issues an illegal order forbidding the government to pay any contractor named Susan. Now suppose that 10,000 Susans who are owed money by the federal government seek a single court order declaring this anti-Susan policy illegal. The Trump administrations legal arguments suggest that such a court order is not allowed, and each Susan may need to bring their own individual legal proceeding to get paid.Needless to say, this tactic could significantly hinder efforts to make the Trump administration comply with federal spending laws. If the Supreme Court embraces the administrations arguments, Trump and his subordinates would remain free to issue blanket orders canceling entire categories of federal spending. Meanwhile, anyone impacted by these cancellations would potentially need to retain their own legal counsel, determine which court or federal agency has jurisdiction over their claim, and then bring a proceeding that could take months or years to resolve. Many of these potential litigants may simply give up. Others could go out of business while waiting for the government to pay what it owes.The president is not allowed to impound funds appropriated by CongressThe question of whether a president may simply refuse to spend money that Congress has ordered the executive branch to spend is very easy to resolve. As future Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote in a 1969 Justice Department memo, it is in our view extremely difficult to formulate a constitutional theory to justify a refusal by the President to comply with a congressional directive to spend. Theres simply nothing in the Constitution which supports the claim that the president may impound funds. And there are several provisions of the Constitution that cut against this claim, including one which states that the president shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed. That provision imposes a duty on the president to faithfully execute any law calling for federal spending.At least two members of the Supreme Courts current Republican majority, moreover, have previously indicated that they agree with Rehnquists 1969 memo. As a White House attorney in 1985, Roberts wrote that it is clear that the president cannot impound funds in normal situations (though he did, in a potentially ominous sign for USAID, suggest that the presidents authority may be greater in cases involving foreign affairs). Roberts added that no area seems more clearly the province of Congress than the power of the purse.Similarly, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a 2013 opinion, when he was still a lower court judge, that even the President does not have unilateral authority to refuse to spend funds appropriated by Congress.Nevertheless, Trump signed sweeping executive orders seeking to halt federal spending. That includes a January 20 order purporting to impose a 90-day pause in United States foreign development assistance for assessment of programmatic efficiencies and consistency with United States foreign policy, as well as a domestic spending order so broad that it seemed to freeze Medicaid (although the White House backed off that policy somewhat after it triggered a bipartisan backlash). The AIDS Vaccine case offers this Supreme Court its first opportunity to weigh in on Trumps efforts to halt federal spending. The Justice Departments narrow arguments suggest that, at the very least, Trumps lawyers would prefer to delay a broader showdown over whether Trump can simply cancel any funding he wants.So whats the specific question before the Court in AIDS Vaccine?The specific dispute before the justices right now arises out of a pair of orders issued by federal District Judge Amir Ali. The first indicated that the Trump administrations blanket suspension of USAID funding was illegally arbitrary because the administration has not offered any explanation for why a blanket suspension of all congressionally appropriated foreign aidwas a rational precursor to reviewing programs for inefficiency or noncompliance with Trumps policy goals.Accordingly, Ali temporarily forbade the administration from suspending, pausing, or otherwise preventing the obligation or disbursement of appropriated foreign-assistance funds that had been authorized as of January 19.The second order sought to enforce the first one, by requiring the State Department and USAID to pay all invoices and letter of credit drawdown requests on all contracts for work completed prior to the entry of the Courts [first order] on February 13. The bulk of the Trump administrations brief to the justices, meanwhile, argues that Judge Ali lacks jurisdiction over this case, and that Alis orders were also too broad because they sought to reinstate payments that arent owed to the specific plaintiffs who brought the AIDS Vaccine case. Again, Alis second order requires the State Department to pay all invoices for work completed prior to a specific date, even if that work wasnt done by the AIDS Vaccine plaintiffs.At least some of these claims are plausible. The Justice Department, under both the Biden and Trump administrations, has long railed against nationwide injunctions lower court orders which suspend a federal policy on a nationwide basis, rather than issuing more narrowly tailored relief to individual plaintiffs. Some members of the Court, most notably Justice Neil Gorsuch, are passionate advocates of the view that broad, nationwide relief must be curtailed. (I have also argued that Gorsuchs stance against nationwide injunctions has significant merit.)But a Supreme Court decision preventing judges from issuing broad injunctions would also give the Trump administration considerable leeway to act illegally. Again, the administration would be free to issue broad new policies canceling funding that impacts millions of Americans. Then, even if the courts later determined that this new policy is illegal, the individuals and businesses who are owed money would have to bring their own proceedings demanding repayment.Some of this imbalance could be resolved through class actions lawsuits which allow multiple parties with similar legal claims to join together in the same proceeding. But there are also limits on who can bring such class actions, and its unclear whether multiple parties seeking to enforce multiple contracts with different terms would be able to show that their cases are sufficiently similar to permit a class action to move forward.All of which is a long way of saying that the courts are unlikely to fully constrain a president who is determined to cancel federal spending, even if he does so illegally. The executive branch is much more nimble than the judiciary, and this will be doubly true if the Supreme Court limits lower courts ability to block the Trump administrations policies on a nationwide basis.See More:

Since Christmas Day, four commercial jets have crashed, killing nearly 300 people and injuring many others. Harrowing images of the explosion over the Potomac after a Black Hawk helicopter collided with a plane, and of a Delta flight upside-down on the runway in Toronto have people spooked about their next trip. The US National Transportation Safety Boards report of over a hundred accidents so far in 2025 is not helping.But despite it all, experts maintain that yes, it is still safe to fly.Statistically, its safer to fly now than at any point since the 1960s thanks to advances in aircraft manufacturing, more sophisticated weather imaging, and tighter safety regulations. You could fly twice a day for roughly 2,500 years before you run even a small risk of getting into a fatal aviation accident. Though driving provides the illusion of control, taking a road trip is much more dangerous than flying. Your chance of getting into a fatal car crash at some point in your life is a little bit less than 1 in 100. Its about a 1 percent chance, said Darryl Campbell, aviation reporter for The Verge. Campbell told Sean Rameswaram on Today, Explained that the number of high-profile aviation accidents right now, combined with depictions of plane crashes on TV and in movies, make the situation seem worse than the data proves. When youre in the back of an airplane, youre not in charge, Campell said. Youre in the middle of this complex system that maybe you dont understand. Youve seen all of these horrible things that make you fear the worst whenever you feel the slightest bump. That doesnt mean the worst is likely to happen. But thats not to say the system is flawless.John Cox has been flying planes for 55 years and now serves as an aviation safety consultant. Cox joined Sean Rameswaram on Today, Explained to talk about how recent firings at the Federal Aviation Administration might impact aviation safety.Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. Theres much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.Just as Americans are feeling nervous about getting on a plane, DOGE has gone and eliminated something like 400 jobs from this agency. Can you help us understand some of the jobs that got the axe?They reduced the number of maintainers of radio and radar equipment. Our system is an older system, and it requires a good bit of maintenance. So, the biggest concern in the near term is that were going to have radios or things that fail, and that will limit the air traffic controller in being able to accept more flights. The problems are going to show up. It may not be today or tomorrow, but the maintenance staff for our older radar and radio facilities throughout the country are going to be impacted.Our Transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, has said that none of these jobs eliminated at FAA were terribly critical to safety. And it sounds like youre agreeing with him. Well, there is a definition for safety-critical jobs. Pilots, flight attendants, aircraft maintenance technicians, flight dispatchers those are all designated as safety-critical jobs, and none of those were reduced. Air traffic controller is a safety-critical job. None of those were reduced. Its true that the maintenance of the equipment that air traffic control uses that was not considered to be a safety-critical position. And if you take it to the extreme, the capacity cutbacks could mean fewer flights that people have choices from and potentially even higher pricing, but the reliability factor is more on the capacity side than the safety side.We have been hearing for years that air traffic control towers have struggled with staffing, that were around 2,000 air traffic controllers short, according to the FAA. Why is that?I think recruiting and getting the right candidates has been a real challenge because about 50 percent of the candidates dont make it through training. Being an air traffic controller is a very intense, highly trained position. And to get through the training process and to become a full performance-level controller takes years. Most air traffic controllers right now, or many of them, are working six days a week, and if they put in for vacation time, they may or may not get it. And this doesnt happen once, it happens frequently. So getting the highest-qualified people, when you have that sort of work-life balance issue, becomes more difficult and part of it has been funding. The issue with FAA funding goes back many decades. If we could take the political considerations out of it and provide a steady funding source saying that this is a critical function, many of the FAAs problems would go away slowly. We would be able to get and recruit air traffic controllers. We can update the equipment. All of this is going to take time. The root of this is steady congressional funding for the FAA.See More:

It almost feels unnecessarily mean to snark on A Minecraft Moviea project thats very clearly aiming for a specific audience group that includes small children who love Minecraft, small children whove never played Minecraft but whose parents want to take them to a kid-friendly movie, and maybe some Jason Momoa superfans. The final trailer is here before it hits theaters, and it contains some confusing thematic elements along with a lot of bright colors, blocky visuals, and Jack Black hamming it the hell up. Oh, and a glimpse of Jennifer Coolidge at the end there! Hope she got a big square bag of money for her participation. Probably the most intriguing part of this trailer is how it implies the main conflict of A Minecraft Movie involves invaders devoted to stifling joy and creativity. If we want to save this world, Blacks character says, Creativity is key to survival! Thats a cause we can get behind, and it may be true if youre actually playing Minecraft. But the fact that its couched within the garish borders of A Minecraft Movie, a project calibrated to rake in even more dollars from what Warner Bros. and Legendary will happily trumpet as the best-selling video game of all time, is either ironic or hilarious or soul-gutting, and maybe a little bit of each. This place makes no sense, another character mutters as the chaos begins to multiply, and we have to disagree. It makes perfect sense. Box-office sense. All involved might as well be block-printing their own money. Aside from Momoa, Black, and Coolidge, the cast includes Emma Myers, Danielle Brooks (an Oscar nominee), and Sebastian Hansen. Heres the official synopsis:Welcome to the world of Minecraft, where creativity doesnt just help you craft, its essential to ones survival! Four misfitsGarrett The Garbage Man Garrison (Momoa), Henry (Hansen), Natalie (Myers) and Dawn (Brooks)find themselves struggling with ordinary problems when they are suddenly pulled through a mysterious portal into the Overworld: a bizarre, cubic wonderland that thrives on imagination. To get back home, theyll have to master this world (and protect it from evil things like Piglins and Zombies, too) while embarking on a magical quest with an unexpected, expert crafter, Steve (Black). Together, their adventure will challenge all five to be bold and to reconnect with the qualities that make each of them uniquely creativethe very skills they need to thrive back in the real world. Jared Hess (also an Oscar nominee) directs from a screenplay that credits no less than five writers. A Minecraft Movie hits theaters April 4. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, whats next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.