Smarter Siri, Wakeful Sleep, and World Cup Base Camps

 Need To Know 

Siri Gets a Makeover

Apple yesterday unveiled an AI-powered Siri that company executives say can draw on message history, photos, the web, and more to answer open-ended questions and complete tasks, like brainstorming recipes, updating a calendar, and drafting texts. Watch demo (via Facebook).

The announcement comes nearly two years after Apple promised a highly anticipated Siri revamp. The tech giant last month agreed to pay $250M to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging it misled millions of customers about the digital assistant's AI capabilities. Experts say the version presented yesterday will likely bring Apple closer to competing with chatbots such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. It was developed in collaboration with Google, allowing Apple to focus on user experience rather than building underlying AI models.

The new Siri will be widely available in the US this fall as a free software update. Listen to its more expressive, customizable voice here.

Citizenship Revocations

The Justice Department announced yesterday that it will work to strip citizenship from 17 naturalized US citizens, the largest cohort to date. The announcement comes weeks after the DOJ named a dozen other cases.

Federal law allows denaturalization if individuals lied on their immigration forms, including by failing to disclose crimes. While most denaturalization cases are successful, the process is legally complex and can stall in federal courts. From 1990 to 2017, the DOJ worked to denaturalize an average of 11 US citizens per year. That pace has since increased to roughly 15 per year. 

The latest batch of cases—among hundreds the DOJ intends to pursue—includes people from countries including Haiti, Mexico, the Philippines, and the former Yugoslavia. Five were accused of child sexual abuse crimes, including a former Catholic priest from Colombia. Others were accused of money laundering, fraud, and crimes related to using false identities. If denaturalized, the individuals may face prison time or deportation. See their profiles.

Sleep Without Sleep

For the first time, researchers have identified a way to trigger some of sleep's memory-restoring effects in awake mice, according to a study released yesterday. The finding suggests the brain may not need to be fully asleep to perform some of its overnight maintenance.

Non-REM sleep, which accounts for roughly 80% of an adult human's slumber, helps the brain consolidate memories by strengthening key neural connections and weakening less useful ones (scroll to visualize the anatomy of sleep). In the study, researchers used light pulses to switch targeted neurons on and off in the sleep-deprived mice's brains for 30-minute intervals, recreating the firing pattern observed during sleep. Treated mice performed memory tasks similarly to well-rested mice, indicating the specific pattern of neural activity matters more than unconsciousness.

In nature, dolphins can shut down one half of their brain at a time, allowing them to keep swimming and surface for air. Migratory birds also appear to do something similar in flight. Watch how it works. 

Sports, Entertainment, & Culture

> San Antonio Spurs win Game 3 of the NBA Finals, cutting the New York Knicks' series lead to 2-1 ahead of Game 4 tomorrow (More) | Two celebrity row seats at last night's game sold at auction for $1M (More)

> Judge rules Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby can play college football while he fights an NCAA suspension over sports gambling; Sorsby admitted to placing at least 40 bets while at Indiana University (More) 

> Netflix shares first look at "Scooby-Doo" live-action series, now filming and scheduled to premiere next year; see the dog cast to play Scooby (More, w/video) 

Science & Technology

> Novel CRISPR technique selectively destroys cancer cells carrying a mutation found in nearly half of all cases and up to 90% of the most difficult-to-treat cases (More) | How does CRISPR work? (More)

> Astronomers detect the earliest known flicker from a supermassive black hole, dating to roughly 850 million years after the Big Bang (More) | Meet Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy (More)

> Energy-efficient 3D camera inspired by how jumping spiders judge distance before they leap could power smarter wearables, robots, and drones (More) 

Business & Markets

> US stock markets close mixed (S&P 500 +0.3%, Dow -0.2%, Nasdaq +0.9%) (More) | OpenAI confidentially files for initial public offering, a week after rival Anthropic's filing; OpenAI is valued at more than $850B (More) | How do valuations work? (More)

> Convicted FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried files formal request for presidential pardon; the 34-year-old is serving 25 years in federal prison for stealing $8B from his customers (More) 

> US-based Ingredion Inc. to acquire UK-based Tate & Lyle Plc in deal valued at roughly $3.6B (More) | Tate & Lyle introduced sugar cubes to the UK in the late 1800s; see timeline (More)

Politics & World Affairs

> Magnitude 7.8 earthquake in the Philippines kills at least 35 people, injures more than 200 others, collapses buildings, and sparks a 3-foot tsunami (More) | How do tsunamis form? (More, via YouTube)

> Trial begins for man accused of starting last year's Palisades Fire; Jonathan Rinderknecht allegedly started a blaze on Jan. 1, 2025, that spread undetected in root systems and reemerged days later, killing 12 people (More) | What's the history of California's zombie fires? (More)

> Chinese President Xi Jinping pledges to deepen ties with North Korea in his first foreign trip of the year and first visit to North Korea in seven years (More) | North Korea's economy is on the up-and-up amid arms sales to Russia (More)

In-Depth

> What Technology Means for Memory

Popular Science | Jordan Burchette. What happens to your brain when you outsource remembering things—like doctors' appointments or the location of a parked car—to technology? (Read) 

> Giving AI a Body

Art of the Problem | Brit Cruise. An engineer creates a crude, two-legged robot for roughly $100, then connects it to a large language model. The resulting GrowBot learns how to spin, walk like an old man, and play dead. (Watch) 

Explore the World Cup teams' unexpected US base camps.

Countries where it costs the most (and least) to be happy.

Which year of your life is the deadliest? (w/video)

Chart Your Fart: an app to track how often you pass gas.

Latin American capital crowned world's best food city.

Household duster adopts orphaned baby turkeys. 

Watch out, parents. Kids increasingly control family spending.

The fatal ending to the 1994 US World Cup. (w/video)

Diver films elusive adult great white shark in the Mediterranean.

In partnership: Experts tested 17 hearing aids. Here’s what they found.*

Clickbait: This one question could change how you use your phone.

Historybook: Roman emperor Nero dies by suicide (68); Author Charles Dickens dies (1870); Michael J. Fox born (1961); Secretariat wins horse racing’s Triple Crown; watch here (1973); Natalie Portman born (1981).

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