1. Be polite: Don’t just launch in with “I’m on annual leave”. Preface your message with a greeting, such as “Thank you for your email”.

2. Give a specific return date and back-up contact if appropriate. Ensure all the contact details are correct

4. Be clear about your availability: Manage expectations and if you would prefer not to be contacted, say so

5. Don’t promise instant replies on your return: A backlog is completely normal, so “within a few days” is a better promise to make

6. Tick both internal and external contacts if you use Outlook. It’s an easy one to miss

7. Switch off your out of office when you return: A stale OOO can look disorganised.

Sources: Debretts, Linkedin

Developers reported access problems with GitHub on Monday morning, according to outage-tracking service Downdetector, which recorded a spike in user complaints beginning at 9:45 a.m. EDT, though independent monitoring services offered a mixed picture of the platform’s overall operational status at the time.

Downdetector posted on its official account on the social platform X that “user reports indicate problems with GitHub since 9:45 AM EDT,” tagging the post with the hashtag #GithubDown and directing users to its outage-tracking page for further updates. The post had drawn nearly 1,900 views within a short period after being published.

GitHub, owned by Microsoft, serves as one of the world’s most widely used platforms for code hosting and collaborative software development, supporting workflows for millions of individual developers, open-source contributors and enterprise engineering teams globally. Any disruption to the platform’s core services, including code repositories, pull requests, authentication and continuous integration tools, can have immediate ripple effects across software development pipelines that depend on GitHub for day-to-day operations.

Independent status-tracking services showed varying assessments of GitHub’s health around the time of the reported issues. Entireweb Status indicated that GitHub was “operating normally” on Monday, noting the platform had received 79 user reports over the preceding 24 hours, with four of those submitted within the most recent hour before the check. UptimeRobot’s automated monitoring, which checks GitHub’s website every 10 minutes from infrastructure located in North America, reported that its most recent check prior to the disruption had not detected any unusual response times or error codes.

Other monitoring services similarly found no confirmed major outage as of their most recent checks. IsDown, which tracks GitHub’s official status page alongside user-submitted reports across 11 platform components, indicated it had received zero user reports in the 24 hours prior to a check conducted early Monday morning, though that check preceded the spike in complaints later reported by Downdetector. IncidentHub’s monitoring similarly described GitHub as “currently operational” as of a check conducted the prior day, while noting the platform had experienced 31 reported outages across 10 components over the preceding 30-day period, an indication of GitHub’s generally high, though not perfect, historical reliability.

GitHub’s own official status page, GitHubStatus.com, had two recently resolved incidents on record heading into this week. One involved a period of degraded availability affecting GitHub Actions, the platform’s workflow automation tool, on Aug. 6, during which workflow runs failed or remained queued for an extended period, affecting both GitHub-hosted and self-hosted automation runners. At the incident’s peak, 71% of workflow runs experienced infrastructure failures, while 75% of the remaining runs were delayed by more than five minutes, according to GitHub’s own incident report. The company said the disruption was triggered by a routine deployment to an internal service responsible for processing automation events, which exposed an existing capacity and concurrency weakness that caused a cascading failure across multiple internal clusters before engineers resolved the issue by expanding capacity and throttling incoming automated workloads.

A separate, smaller incident affected GitHub’s website on Aug. 10, when users were temporarily unable to create new fine-grained personal access tokens, a type of credential used to authenticate certain automated processes and third-party integrations. According to GitHub’s incident report, the issue stemmed from a change to how the website loaded certain front-end JavaScript code, which interfered with the token creation form’s confirmation step and prevented some users from successfully generating new tokens, though creating classic access tokens and editing or deleting existing fine-grained tokens remained unaffected throughout the incident.

GitHub’s most recently logged outage prior to Monday, according to outage-tracking service IsDown, occurred on Aug. 13 and was described as a “Disruption with GHEC Team Sync,” referring to an issue affecting GitHub Enterprise Cloud’s team synchronization functionality. IsDown’s tracking indicates the platform’s incidents typically resolve within roughly five hours on average, based on historical data compiled since the service began monitoring GitHub in April 2020.

As of this report, GitHub had not issued a public acknowledgment of the specific disruption reported by Downdetector users beginning at 9:45 a.m. EDT Monday, and the company’s official status page had not reflected an active, ongoing incident matching the timing of the reported user complaints as of the most recent available checks from third-party monitoring services.

GitHub has experienced various forms of service disruption throughout its history, ranging from routine deployment-related issues to more serious incidents involving distributed denial-of-service, or DDoS, attacks that have periodically taken the platform offline entirely for extended periods in past years. Such incidents have historically drawn significant attention given how deeply embedded GitHub has become in modern software development workflows, with many organizations relying on the platform not only for hosting their own source code but also for pulling external software dependencies and packages that other applications require to function.

Given the discrepancy between Downdetector’s reported spike in user complaints and the largely operational status reported by other independent monitoring tools around the same time, it remains possible that Monday’s reported issues reflected a more limited or regional disruption rather than a platform-wide outage, a pattern outage-tracking services note is common with brief or intermittent service issues that may affect certain user populations, geographic regions or specific platform components more than others.

Developers experiencing access issues were generally advised by outage-tracking resources to attempt accessing GitHub through an alternative browser, device or network, such as a mobile hotspot, and to check whether clearing a device’s DNS cache or temporarily disabling a VPN resolved the issue, steps commonly used to distinguish between a localized connectivity problem and a broader, platform-wide service disruption. As of this report, Downdetector’s tracking page for GitHub continued to collect user reports as the situation developed throughout the morning, and further updates were expected as GitHub’s engineering team, if an issue is confirmed, works to identify and resolve any underlying cause.

L3Harris Technologies said on Monday that CEO Christopher Kubasik stepped down from the role after an investigation by the board of directors found he engaged in misconduct, which led to the company reaching a separation agreement with him and naming his successor.

L3Harris’ announcement didn’t disclose the specific findings of the investigation, but said it “became aware of certain conduct that was not consistent with the values” outlined in the company’s code of conduct.

It noted that the conduct was unrelated to L3Harris’ financial reporting, controls, customer relationships or operational performance. The investigation was conducted with the assistance of outside counsel and prompted the board to determine that it was in the firm’s best interest to enter into a separation agreement with Kubasik.

L3Harris appointed Sam Mehta as its new CEO following the move. Mehta joined the company in 2023 and has 25 years of experience in the aerospace and defense industry, most recently serving as L3Harris’ president of space and mission systems (SMS) and communications and spectrum dominance (CSD).

TRUMP TURNS NATO SPENDING FIGHT INTO WIN FOR US DEFENSE COMPANIES

Chris Kubasik stepped down as CEO of L3Harris Technologies on Monday after a board investigation into code of conduct violations. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The SMS and CSD segments account for more than 80% of L3Harris’ total revenue, the company noted in its announcement.

L3Harris lead independent director Lewis Hay III was named chairman of the board and said that Mehta is a “proven executive who brings deep knowledge of our business, priorities and culture, making him ideally suited to become president and CEO at this important time in our company’s and our nation’s history.”

“Sam’s readiness to lead L3Harris reflects the Board’s robust succession planning and our focus on cultivating talent,” Hay added.

Mehta said in a statement that he is honored by the opportunity to lead L3Harris as its president and CEO, adding that he looks forward to working more closely with leaders and colleagues across the company to support the defense contractors’ mission.

“Today, L3Harris has a portfolio purpose-built for the future of warfare, and we are well-positioned to continue executing our focused growth strategy as The Trusted Disruptor,” Mehta said.

TRUMP’S RARE EARTH AGENDA HITS MILESTONE AS US ARMY MOVES TO BREAK CHINA’S GRIP ON DEFENSE METALS

Regarding Kubasik’s departure, Hay said that the departing executive had “overseen significant transformation during his tenure” and that the company appreciated his service, as they mutually agreed to implement the corporate succession plan.

L3Harris announced that Sam Mehta will now serve as CEO under the company’s succession plan. (Reuters/Brendan McDermid)

Reuters reported that under the separation agreement the company reached with Kubasik, the former CEO won’t receive severance payments, benefits or equity incentive awards. He will be permitted to retain and exercise previously vested stock options granted under L3Harris’ equity incentive plans, per the report.

DEPARTMENT OF WAR TAPS ORACLE FOR SOFTWARE DEAL WORTH NEARLY $7B

During his tenure at the company, Kubasik helped drive the 2019 merger of L3 and Harris Corp., serving as president and COO before he became CEO in 2021. The company acquired Aerojet Rocketdyne for $4.7 billion in 2023 as it expanded its presence in the defense sector.

In January, L3Harris announced the spin-off of its missile solutions unit, as the Pentagon said it would take a $1 billion stake in the new company. That spin-off was postponed last month until at least mid-2027.

GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE

Reuters contributed to this report.

This article was written by

Follow

So one of the political lessons of the primary election season is how badly polls have been wrong. Comrade Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan was supposed to win by more than 20 percentage points, but instead barely escaped by a thin cat’s whisker.

And the extremist Francesca Hong in Wisconsin was also supposed to win by 20 points or so. But she lost by an even thinner cat’s whisker.

And there are plenty of other examples. Where am I going with all this? Well, all these polls show President Trump’s supposed unpopularity on Iran or the economy or the much-abused term affordability may turn out to be very wrong in the midterm elections. 

Now, true enough, Mr. Trump’s not on the ballot, but I think when he really gets revved up on the campaign trail, and the GOP House and Senate people nationalize the election, we’re gonna find out that actual voters will reject big-government socialism and un-American values, as Newt Gingrich calls them.

Most of the recent polls don’t get likely voters. Instead they ask adults or registered voters and they’re frequently asking loaded questions. Now, one exception is my pal John McLaughlin, whose likely voter polls show that actually, people want Mr. Trump to finish Iran off. And additionally, a large majority prefers free market capitalism to socialism.

What’s more, the economy is doing far better than the mainstream press is telling us. Mr. Trump has always scored well with working class voters of all shapes and sizes. We are in a manufacturing boom. It is the strongest in years, probably decades.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent keeps telling people about the 105,000 hard goods producing jobs added this year alone. And since Mr. Trump came into office, the economy has produced 93,400 factory construction jobs. Think hard hats, think working folks.

Meanwhile, financial journalist John Carney reports that manufacturing wages have increased by nearly 5 percent so far this year. And that’s twice the inflation rate. 

On top of that, we’ve seen almost 400,000 federal jobs drop, and almost 900,000 private sector jobs created, which shows the Trumpian reconstruction of Biden’s big-government socialism.

Now, speaking of affordability and inflation, the democratic socialists love to talk about it. But it was under President Biden’s big-government socialism that the consumer price index cumulatively rose 21.4 percent during his four years.

Now, recently, even with the temporary bump up in energy prices from the Iran War, Mr. Trump’s new Federal Reserve chief, Kevin Warsh, has brought the inflation rate down to near zero in the last couple of months. And frankly, just over the past six months only 2.4 percent at an annual rate, which is nearly akin to the Fed’s 2 percent target.

Also, talking about affordability, Here’s one: Prescription drug prices have been plunging. Over the past year, they have declined 3.4 percent. And during Mr. Trump’s second term, they have not increased in any single month.

Now, these are just snippets of potential national messaging. Clearly, though, Mr. Trump’s free enterprise capitalism is powering a prosperous economy. And, hopefully, it will be buttressed with some middle class tax reform as part of the midterm election package.

Now, just as clearly, Democrats favor Medicare for All and huge tax increases and a state-run economy and open borders and defunding the police and defunding ICE and packing the Supreme Court and ending the Senate and other crazy notions that I think are gonna be very unpopular with real likely voters.

So don’t pay much attention to these early polls.

Scientists in Australia have captured the first published footage of dolphins on the country’s east coast using large empty seashells to trap and catch fish, a discovery that suggests this rare tool-using behavior may have emerged independently in two dolphin populations separated by thousands of kilometers.

Researchers from the University of the Sunshine Coast recorded two separate sightings of the behavior, known as “shelling,” among Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins in the Great Sandy Marine Park off Hervey Bay, Queensland, between July and October 2025. The findings, published in the peer-reviewed journal Marine Mammal Science, mark the first scientifically documented instances of the behavior anywhere on Australia’s east coast. Until now, the only published evidence of shelling had come from a distinct dolphin population in Shark Bay, Western Australia, located more than 3,000 kilometers away, according to some measurements, or as much as 6,000 kilometers by other calculations of the distance between the two locations.

Shelling involves a dolphin chasing a fish into a large, empty gastropod shell — often a bailer shell, which can grow to roughly the size of a football — before lifting the shell to the water’s surface and tipping it to drain the trapped fish into its mouth. Researchers describe the behavior as a genuine form of tool use, a trait considered rare among animals and one that has drawn significant scientific interest for what it may reveal about cognition and cultural transmission in non-human species.

Dr. Alexis Levengood, an animal behaviorist at the University of the Sunshine Coast and the study’s lead author, described the moment her research team first spotted the behavior in the wild. “We were on a research boat off Hervey Bay when we spotted a dolphin raising something large out of the water. I started screaming because I know what shelling looks like,” Levengood said.

Levengood further detailed the mechanics of the observed hunting technique. “It’s a hunting behavior where dolphins chase fish into large empty shells, bring the shell to the surface and then shake it to drain the fish into their mouths,” she said. “We were able to record footage and take photographs of dolphins shelling in the Great Sandy Marine Park, which is the first published record of it on the east coast of Australia.”

Perhaps the most striking aspect of the discovery involved a second observation in which researchers captured what may be the first documented evidence of a young dolphin learning the shelling technique directly from its mother, a process known as maternal social transmission. According to the researchers, they observed an adult female dolphin surface with a shell, after which the trapped fish escaped and the dolphin dropped the shell to continue the chase. Minutes later, the dolphin’s calf picked up the same discarded shell and held it in a manner similar to how its mother had handled it moments earlier.

Levengood explained the significance of that observation for scientific understanding of how dolphins acquire complex hunting behaviors. “Our footage provides the first potential evidence of maternal social transmission – a process by which offspring learn behaviour by observing the actions of its mother,” she said. “It challenges the belief that dolphins learn this tool use from their peers.” Previously, scientists had generally believed dolphins acquired shelling primarily through observing other dolphins within their broader social network, rather than through direct learning from a parent.

The research team also uncovered evidence that the behavior had likely been occurring in the Hervey Bay dolphin population for far longer than previously recognized, despite going scientifically undocumented. According to the researchers, conversations with local whale-watching tour operators revealed that shelling had actually been observed and photographed in the Great Sandy Marine Park as far back as 2013, with additional sightings recorded in 2019. Those earlier, informal observations had gone unreported in scientific literature due to limited dedicated research activity in the region, the team said.

The wide geographic separation between the two documented dolphin populations — one in Shark Bay on Australia’s west coast and the other in Hervey Bay on the east coast — has led researchers to a striking interpretation: that both populations may have arrived at the same specialized hunting technique independently, rather than the behavior having spread through direct contact between the two groups, which are not known to interact given the vast distance and different oceanic regions separating them. Researchers cautioned, however, that while the documented behavior in both locations matches closely, their observations did not include a test capable of definitively reconstructing the exact original moment either population first developed the technique.

Levengood noted that shelling requires considerably more cognitive and physical sophistication than simply manipulating an object. A dolphin attempting the behavior must locate a suitable empty shell, understand that fish often seek shelter inside such shells, successfully position and maintain the shell’s opening during its ascent to the surface, and then drain the shell’s contents without allowing the trapped fish to escape, a sequence of coordinated steps that researchers say justifies classifying the shell as a genuine tool rather than an incidental object.

The discovery adds to a broader and growing body of research documenting tool use across the animal kingdom, a phenomenon once believed to be unique to humans. Some of the earliest documented evidence of tool use among non-human animals dates back to the 1960s, when primatologist Jane Goodall famously observed wild chimpanzees using sticks to extract termites from hollow logs, a finding that fundamentally challenged prevailing assumptions about the uniqueness of human tool use. Since then, researchers have documented numerous other examples across the animal kingdom, including primates using stones as hammers to crack open nuts and fruit, and separate populations of Shark Bay dolphins that have been observed covering their beaks with basket sponges torn from the seafloor, a technique that helps them forage for fish hidden in the sand while protecting their sensitive snouts from injury.

Reflecting on the broader implications of the new findings, Levengood emphasized how much remains unknown about the origins and spread of such behaviors among wild dolphin populations, while underscoring what the discovery reveals about dolphin intelligence more broadly. “There’s still a lot we don’t know and many questions we will hopefully ask and answer with time,” she said. “But better understanding of shelling, and other tool use in non-human animals, will continue to teach us more about ourselves and how and why we evolved the way we did. These findings highlight how smart, clever and innovative dolphins are.”

The research team plans to continue monitoring the Hervey Bay dolphin population through ongoing boat surveys, an effort researchers say could help clarify how widespread the shelling behavior actually is within the group and whether additional evidence of mother-to-calf learning can be documented in future sightings.