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'That’s ... interesting': Trump responds to undersea Russia–Alaska tunnel plan

'That’s ... interesting': Trump responds to undersea Russia–Alaska tunnel plan

President Donald Trump expressed interest today in an undersea tunnel connecting the US state of Alaska with Russia – a project floated a day earlier by a senior Russian official to billionaire Elon Musk. “A tunnel from Russia to Alaska. That’s ... interesting,” Trump said, when asked about the idea by White House reporters during his meeting with Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Indicating he had just heard about the potential cross-border project, he asked Zelenskyy: “What do you think of that, Mr President?... How do you like that idea?” The Ukrainian leader – who has been combating a full-scale Russian invasion for over three years – appeared less than thrilled. “I’m not happy with this,” he said, eliciting a laugh from his host. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (left), present during the discussion, was not supportive of the project. Photo / Tom Brenner, AFP Russian President Vladimir Putin’s international economy envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, brought up the idea on Friday on the Musk-owned media platform X. He claimed the idea of a “peace bridge” between Russia and Alaska dated back to the Cold War era, and posted a crude graphic showing a proposed tunnel route under the Bering Sea. “With modern @boringcompany technology this can become a Putin-Trump tunnel,” a 112km link connecting Russia to the Americas for under US$8 billion, Dmitriev posted. The Boring Company is yet another venture by Musk, the world’s richest person and boss of Tesla and SpaceX, which aims to revolutionise urban transport through the construction of tunnels. Dmitriev, who heads Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, said Musk’s company could build the tunnel – a project “symbolising unity” – in under eight years. Musk was one of the biggest donors to Trump’s 2024 campaign. After Trump returned to the White House, Musk joined the Republican’s administration, with the President tasking him with making dramatic cuts to the federal budget, including laying off thousands of government employees. Trump and Musk were close until the latter left the administration in May. They publicly fell out in June, with Musk launching fierce attacks over Trump’s economic policies. The two nevertheless appeared side by side on September 21 during a ceremony honouring slain conservative influencer Charlie Kirk. – Agence France-Presse

One dead, two injured after Port Waikato boat capsize

One dead, two injured after Port Waikato boat capsize

A person has died after being airlifted to hospital after a boat capsized at Port Waikato. A police spokesperson said emergency services received reports of three people in the water after a boat overturned north of Sunset Beach about 7.15am. A Hato Hone St John spokesperson said crews assessed and treated three patients, one in a critical condition who was airlifted to Auckland City Hospital, one in a critical condition who was airlifted to Waikato Hospital and one in a moderate condition who was airlifted to Middlemore Hospital. In an update around 12.50pm, police confirmed that one of those people in critical condition has died. A Surf Life Saving New Zealand (SLSNZ) spokesperson said surf lifeguards from both Surf Life Saving Kariaotahi and Sunset Beach Lifeguard Service responded to the incident. “The two teams were activated and responded to assist. Three people were retrieved from the water and taken to the beach near Port Waikato to meet emergency services at approximately 8.40am. All three patients were then transported in separate helicopters to hospital.” A Hato Hone St John spokesperson said St John was notified of a water-related incident at Lake Puketi at 7.23am. Three helicopters, one ambulance, one rapid response unit and one manager responded to the scene. Ben Tomsett is a multimedia journalist based in Dunedin. He joined the Herald in 2023.

Claude just got a skill upgrade and it’s coming for your workflows

Claude just got a skill upgrade and it’s coming for your workflows

Model builders are moving beyond simple AI chatbots to creating comprehensive assistants that, in the words of AI dignitary Ethan Mollick, “ do real work ” in enterprise workflows. Anthropic is continuing its push in this area with a new feature, Agent Skills , which allows Claude to improve its execution of specific tasks. When relevant, the model can automatically access folders containing specific instructions, scripts, and other resources, then act on them with human approval. “Think of Skills as custom onboarding materials that let you package expertise, making Claude a specialist on what matters most to you,” Anthropic said in its announcement. Use Anthropic’s, or build your own Skills Anthropic has provided four pre-built agent Skills: Microsoft Word: To create documents, edit content, or format text; PDF: To build formatted PDF documents and reports; Microsoft PowerPoint: To craft presentations, analyze content, and edit slides; Microsoft Excel: To generate spreadsheets, analyze data, and generate reports with charts. Users can also build their own skills for Claude and use them across Claude apps, Code, and API. Claude automatically invokes the relevant skills when performing a task, without manual human intervention; for auditability, it provides its chain of thought (CoT) reasoning. When building new Skills, human users get guidance from an AI “skill-creator” . Claude will ask about the workflow, build out a folder structure, format files, and bundle resources. Then, when performing a task, it will scan available skills, identify relevant matches, and load the minimum information it needs to quickly and efficiently do the job. Users can also customize skills for specific use cases, and create, view, and upgrade different versions through the Claude Console. Skills are portable and have the same format across workflows, meaning users only have to create them once. To build custom Skills, users must provide a “human-friendly” name (for instance, “brand guidelines”); a clear description of what the Skill should do and when to use it (such as, “apply brand guidelines to presentations and documents, including official colors, fonts, and logo usage”), and specify when Claude should reference it (for example, whenever creating external materials such as Word documents, marketing materials, client reports, or presentations that represent the company). Developers can point the agent to resource folders containing all relevant materials such as document templates, and indicate any required software packages (like Python or Pandas), if necessary. Skills are available to Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise subscribers; users can enable them in their settings, although Team and Enterprise users require admin approval and enabling as well. Integration with Microsoft 365 Beyond Skills, Claude also now integrates with Microsoft 365 . It connects to Microsoft 365 via the open-standard model context protocol (MCP) and integrates with: Microsoft SharePoint and OneDrive: To search and analyze documents across sites and libraries. Microsoft Outlook: To analyze emails and other communications and provide insights on the status of projects, feedback from clients, or team alignment. Microsoft Teams: To search through conversations, discussions, and meeting summaries, and track project milestones. Further, Claude now incorporates enterprise search across systems. For instance, when queried about a company’s policy on remote work, the model can pull information from HR documents in SharePoint and emails in Outlook. “Enterprise search is particularly valuable for onboarding new team members, answering strategic questions like analyzing patterns in customer feedback, and quickly identifying the right internal experts to consult on any topic,” Anthropic said . The Microsoft 365 integration and enterprise search are available to Claude Team and Enterprise plan customers. A new arms race “Claude’s new Skills move is a next step in what’s basically a new arms race,” said Wyatt Mayham of Northwest AI Consulting. It competes with a number of similar platforms from Google, Microsoft, ChatGPT, Perplexity and others. He noted that model builders are all “chasing the autonomous worker,” but are approaching it from different angles. For instance, Anthropic’s edge is trust. The company’s “Constitutional AI” design is built for predictability and safety, which is critical in finance or healthcare. “Enterprises don’t want an AI that just can trigger a workflow,” said Mayham. “They want to trust it not to break one.” Microsoft and Google, for their parts, are “ecosystem players,” embedding AI deeper into productivity suites by having Copilot and Gemini use internal data such as Microsoft Graph or Google Workspace to make AI feel native inside existing tools. Mayham pointed out that this makes adoption easy, but also locks enterprises into their platforms. OpenAI, meanwhile, has a split focus: Custom GPTs are a “hit” for no-code builders, while the Assistants API serves developers. However, they’re not unified, and Anthropic seems to be sidestepping this hurdle by designing Claude for direct enterprise integration. Different priorities OpenAI is “closest in architectural ambition” to Anthropic, with its AgentKit providing a structured way to build modular, reusable agent workflows, noted Thomas Randall , a research director at Info-Tech Research Group. However, adapting a tool like AgentKit to Skills requires more automation and lightweight authoring for broader enterprise workflows, he said. So, while Microsoft and Google may not provide comparable solutions to Skills in the short term, “this isn’t necessarily a put-down; these vendors just have different aims.” “Microsoft and Google are choosing to prioritize platform lock-in and data integration as their competitive edge,” Randall explained. “Ultimately, Skills is a meaningful differentiator if Anthropic can make it work within the Microsoft/Google ecosystems.” However, while all these capabilities are great, their strategic value lies less in the underlying technology and more in the ability to “institutionalize controlled, repeatable workflows,” he noted. “Enterprises will not gain value unless their internal workflows are already well-structured.” For enterprises, the upside for all these enhancements is speed and safety, Mayham said. Agentic AI can automate cross-tool workflows such as onboarding processes, data pulls, or documentation prep. But, he said, the real differentiator will be governance: determining who has the authority to grant permission to connect systems, define what data that models can access, and decide how human review is built in. “Companies should keep tight control over data privacy, access permissions, and audit trails, and assume a human-in-the-loop step for any AI that can change systems of record,” he advised.

'What the **** was that?': Lawson's lap deleted in Austin sprint qualifying

'What the **** was that?': Lawson's lap deleted in Austin sprint qualifying

Liam Lawson will start 15th in Formula One’s US Grand Prix sprint race, after the Kiwi’s final timed lap was deleted at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas. The Racing Bulls driver had been seeking a first top-10 start in a sprint race, but stayed in the garage too long in the second sprint qualifying session (SQ2), and was only left with one lap to try to set as fast a time as possible. However, with seconds remaining in the session, Lawson ran wide at a corner, resulting in his lap time being deleted for track limits infringements, sending him to the back of the grid in SQ2 and condemning the Kiwi to starting 15th. Lawson’s misfortune came at turn 19, where the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc was on a cooldown lap in the middle of the track and forced the Racing Bulls driver to take evasive action. “What the f*** was that?” Lawson was heard asking on his team radio. “We took the risk, trying to do one lap,” he added after qualifying. “It’s frustrating, because the car was very fast. We only did one lap in Q1, and it was strong enough. It’s positive for tomorrow, but it’s going to be a tough sprint race from where we are.” Lawson had been sitting 11th, and would have therefore missed out on reaching the final session regardless, albeit after losing crucial time in the incident on turn 19. If there’s any solace for Lawson, though, Red Bull promotion rival Yuki Tsunoda could only manage 18th after he was unable to set a final lap time in SQ1, while Racing Bulls teammate Isack Hadjar will start 12th. This race weekend is one of two remaining, before Red Bull’s self-imposed deadline to finalise its 2026 driver pairings. Eyeing a third straight victory in a US Grand Prix sprint race, Max Verstappen will start from pole position, as he makes a last-ditch attempt to win the world championship from either of the McLaren cars. Lando Norris had led every session of the first day of the race weekend, until he was pipped by Verstappen, and will instead start second, with McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri in third. Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg was the surprise package of the day, and qualified fourth. Starting on medium tyres, Lawson’s first lap of SQ1 1m 34.603s shot him to the top of the standings – albeit with 11 drivers yet to set a time. Once all drivers had posted their first times, with the exception of Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto – whose effort was deleted for track limits infringements – Lawson had fallen to sixth, but was still 0.744s clear of the drop zone. That time would have to be enough, as Lawson wasn’t able to return to the track on time, and could not start a final lap before the end of the session. However, Lawson needn’t have worried, as the drivers behind weren’t able to improve their times enough to eliminate the Kiwi, who progressed with the 10th-best time, with 0.556s up his sleeve. Tsunoda wasn’t as fortunate, and was eliminated in 18th place, having also left the garage too late, as he and Lawson came wheel to wheel in the opening sector to fight for track position. Into SQ2, Lawson again stayed in the garage and only gave himself just shy of four minutes to try to break into the top 10 of a sprint session for the first time this year. With one lap to work with, Lawson went wide at turn two and again at turn 19 – his effort was deleted and the Kiwi was condemned to starting 15th. Last year, Lawson also qualified 15th for the US Grand Prix sprint race, but finished 16th after he was passed by Piastri, who went from 16th to 10th over the 19 laps. Earlier, Lawson was 15th-fastest in the weekend’s only practice session, 1.325s off the pace set by Norris. However, Lawson did not make use of the soft tyre – understandable given drivers had to save sets for the sprint and grand prix qualifying – and put in a best lap of 1m 34.619s. That mark put the Kiwi 0.464s back from Hadjar in ninth, and 0.088s behind Tsunoda in 13th. Tsunoda, though, was able to run a set of soft tyres, while Lawson’s best effort came on the mediums. Norri...

'A life not yours to take': Partner of 'hotboxed' gang member faces killers

'A life not yours to take': Partner of 'hotboxed' gang member faces killers

The distraught partner of a gang member, who was dealt a fatal “hotbox” beating after spending the gang’s money without permission, struggles to understand why his killers didn’t just talk to him about it. “Why didn’t you come to Shark, like men with mana, and talk it out?” said Rebecca Van Der Aa, partner of Mark “the Shark” Hohua. She was directing her question at four Tribesmen Aotearoa gang members in the High Court at Hamilton this week as they were jailed for Hohua’s death. “Why did you choose violence? Why did you take his life?” At a trial in July, a jury found Tribesmen president Conway Rapana and Sergeant at Arms Te Patukino Biddle guilty of Hohua’s murder. Vice-president Heremaia Gage and patched member Ngahere Tapara were found guilty of his manslaughter. Prospect Dean Collier was found not guilty of the charges he faced. The trial heard a “hotbox” was when a gang delivered a beating to one of its members. Hohua died after a series of assaults at Rapana’s Hodges Rd property in Waimana, Eastern Bay of Plenty, in June 2022. The attack was ordered by Rapana after Hohua had made multiple purchases from an online website using the gang’s bank account. ‘A life not yours to take’Van Der Aa said there were no words to explain the impact of their actions. “It’s now been three years, three months, 27 days since you took a life that was not yours to take,” she told the group at their sentencing. Tribesmen Aotearoa Sergeant at Arms Te Patukino Biddle pictured in the High Court at Hamilton at the start of his trial earlier this year. Photo / Belinda Feek “I replay that day over and over in my mind ... torturing myself, if only I had stayed home from work, maybe he would still be here?” Hohua had a smile that lit up every room, she said. “His laugh, loud and real, echoed through the house whenever he was with his sons and mokos. “I will never understand why, but if I could ask one question, it would be why?” Not a premeditated killing Biddle’s counsel, Matthew Goodwin, submitted “in the strongest possible terms” that the killing was not premeditated. “This is an internal discipline that has gone wrong,” he said. “It was the administering of that discipline that led to the consequences that were not intended by those administering it, but Mr Biddle does accept there was reckless conduct.” In seeking discounts, he highlighted his client’s background of hardship and deprivation, and said Biddle was always going to end up in the gang, as his father was a former president. Tribesmen Aotearoa vice-president Heremaia Gage (left) and patched member Ngahere Tapara. Photo / Belinda Feek Nick Dutch, on behalf of Rapana, told the judge his client was not responsible for any of the violence and he’d directed two gang members to take Hohua to Whakatāne Hospital for treatment. Rebecca Webby, for Gage, said her client was making good rehabilitative progress while on remand. He’d gone into jail not being able to read but had just completed a certificate in small business. Gage had uncles in a gang in which he felt a sense of camaraderie. He’d also witnessed periods of “significant violence” in his life, which had normalised that sort of behaviour. Caitlan Gentleman, on behalf of Tapara, pushed for a six-year start point along with discounts for youth, previous good character, as he had no other convictions, and his background. Hotboxing is ‘wrongheaded’ In determining the facts, Justice David Johnstone found that after Rapana discovered Hohua’s unauthorised spending, he made a series of phone calls to Biddle and Gage. Tribesmen Aotearoa president Conway Rapana in the High Court at Hamilton in July. Photo / Belinda Feek It was agreed that a “hotbox” would take place two days later at his property. Biddle then “took a full part in the actual beating of Hohua to death”, the judge said. While the severity of the attack may have surprised Rapana, “he devised it, arranged it and authorised it”. “Your decision-making led directly to Mr Hohu...