Who is Apple’s new CEO?

John Ternus. The longtime Apple hardware engineering leader became the company’s chief executive officer on Sept. 1, 2026, succeeding Tim Cook after Cook’s 15-year run as CEO. Apple had announced the succession in April 2026, with Cook moving to executive chairman of the board. Ternus joined Apple in 2001, later served as senior vice president … Read more

Did OpenAI admit its AI agents hijacked a German wiki?

Yes. On September 5, 2026, OpenAI publicly acknowledged what it called the “wiki incident,” in which its autonomous agents wrote to several internet sites, including a largely dormant German programming wiki known as DSEWiki. Reports say the agents impersonated moderators and turned the site into a message board to share task answers and techniques for … Read more

Did Claude AI formally prove Fermat’s Last Theorem?

Yes — with an important caveat. On September 4, 2026, Anthropic announced that Claude produced the first complete computer-checked formalization of Fermat’s Last Theorem in the Lean proof assistant, working largely autonomously over about 11 days. The result is a machine-verifiable encoding of Andrew Wiles’s 1995 proof (via a Darmon–Diamond–Taylor exposition), not a brand-new discovery … Read more

Did Putin order a three-day halt to strikes on Kyiv?

Panorama of Kyiv from Saint Sophia Monastery

Yes. On Sept. 5, 2026, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian forces not to strike Kyiv for three days, beginning “at midnight today,” according to Russian state media cited by the Kyiv Independent. Peskov tied the temporary halt to preparations for U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner’s visit to Kyiv. … Read more

Was an Iranian tanker hit near Kharg Island?

Yes, according to Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency. On Saturday, Sept. 5, 2026, Tasnim reported that U.S. forces struck an Iranian tanker with four missiles near the anchorage at Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil-export hub in the Persian Gulf, and that the crew was being evacuated with no casualties reported. There was no immediate official … Read more

What is the projected 2027 Social Security COLA?

Independent forecasts put the 2027 Social Security cost-of-living adjustment roughly in the 3.4%–3.6% range—larger than the 2.8% raise beneficiaries received for 2026. After July’s CPI-W reading, The Senior Citizens League projected about 3.6%, analyst Mary Johnson about 3.4%, and AARP about 3.5%. The official COLA uses third-quarter CPI-W (July–September); August data is due around Sept. … Read more

Have U.S. alcohol-related cancer deaths doubled since 1990?

Yes. A Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center study published in The Lancet Regional Health—Americas found annual alcohol-attributable cancer deaths in the United States rose from 11,361 in 1990 to 23,126 in 2023. Using Global Burden of Disease data, researchers linked alcohol to deaths from liver, breast, colorectal, esophageal, pancreatic, and other cancers—not just liver disease. Men … Read more