A reported outage for Anthropic’s Claude AI lasted more than two hours on Monday morning. The company said it had resolved errors for Claude.AI, Claude Code and its Claude Opus 4.6 model shortly before 11 a.m. ET (8 a.m. PT).

The outage started just before 7 a.m. ET Monday. Anthropic’s status page showed continued errors more than two hours later.

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Anthropic said in a statement at 11 a.m. ET that all services were up and running again. “We’re grateful to our users while the team works to match the incredible demand we’ve seen for Claude in recent days,” the company said.

Read more: Trump Slams Anthropic as ‘Woke,’ Orders Feds to Stop Using Claude AI

Downdetector showed reported problems with Claude spiking around 6:45 a.m. ET, with nearly 2,000 reports. That number had dropped to 275 by 9:30 a.m. ET. (Disclosure: Downdetector and CNET are both owned by the same parent company, Ziff Davis.)

Nothing has officially teased the highly anticipated Phone 4a once again. After revealing the light pink variant last week, the full roster has now made a public appearance. But while we’re only getting tidbits from the brand, these pictures arrive just a day after a big leak revealed most of the important hardware details of the upcoming device.

Everything in the official teaser

Liquid nitrogen isn’t exactly an everyday material, but it’s acquired conveniently enough to be used in extreme overclocking experiments, classroom demonstrations, chemistry and physics experiments, and a number of other niche applications. Liquid oxygen, by contrast, is dangerous enough that it’s only really used in rocket engines. Nevertheless, [Electron Impressions] made some of his own, and beyond the obvious pyrotechnic experimentation, demonstrated its unusual magnetic properties. Check out the video, below.

The oxygen in this case was produced by electrolysis through a proton-exchange membrane, which vented the hydrogen into the atmosphere and routed the oxygen into a Dewar flask mounted at the cold end of a Stirling cryo-cooler. The cooler had enough power to produce about 30 to 40 milliliters of liquid oxygen per hour, enough to build up an appreciable amount in short order. As expected, the pale blue liquid caused burning paper to disappear in a violent flame, and a piece of paper soaked in it almost exploded when ignited.

More interestingly, a piece of oxygen-soaked paper could also be picked up with a strong enough magnet. This is due to molecular oxygen’s paramagnetism, which is too weak to be significant in a gas made of quickly-moving molecules, but becomes noticeable in a liquid. When some liquid oxygen was poured onto a strong magnet, it stuck to the edges of the magnet, whereas liquid nitrogen just splashed away. Even as the liquid oxygen evaporated, it was possible to faintly see some of the cold vapours sticking close to the magnet. [Electron Impressions] tried to create a kind of coil gun by wrapping a coil around a test tube containing liquid oxygen, but it didn’t really work. Any effect was imperceptible among the disturbances caused by boiling oxygen and the physical jolt of the power supply connecting.

It’s not a process we’ve seen before, but the boiling point of liquid nitrogen is lower than the boiling point of oxygen, so if you have a convenient source of liquid nitrogen, it’s simple enough to make liquid oxygen.

Every time Russia attacks Ukraine’s power infrastructure, Ukrainian engineers risk their lives in the scramble to get electricity flowing again. It’s a dangerous job at best, and a lethal one at worst. It also requires creativity. Time pressure and equipment shortages make it nearly impossible to rebuild things exactly as they were, so engineers must redesign on the fly.

These dangerous, stressful conditions have led to more engineers being hurt or killed. The rate of injuries among Ukrainian workers in electricity generation, transmission, and distribution jumped nearly 50 percent after Russia’s full-scale invasion began four years ago, according to data provided by Antonina Nagorna, who leads the Department of Epidemiology and Physiology of Work at the Kundiiev Institute of Occupational Health, in Kiev. By her count at least 48 people had died on the job through the end of 2025, either while repairing damage or during the bombardment itself.

Transmission mastermind Oleksiy Brecht joined that grim count in January. Brecht, who was director for network operations and development at the Ukrainian grid operator Ukrenergo, died while coordinating work at Ukraine’s most attacked electrical switchyard, Kyivska, west of the capital. He was 47 years old.

Brecht’s life and death are a window into the realities of thousands of Ukrainian engineers who face conditions beyond what most engineers could imagine. “The war completely transformed the professional life of a top-manager engineer,” says Mariia Tsaturian, an energy analyst and chief communication officer at the think tank Ukraine Facility Platform, who previously worked with Brecht at Ukrenergo. “As for junior staff, their world was turned upside down entirely. A substation engineer working under shelling is something no one had ever seen or experienced before,” she says.

How Russia Attacks Ukraine’s Grid

Over the course of the war, Russia has increasingly focused on destroying Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. It sends attack drones almost daily during the winter there, when heat and electricity is needed most to survive the bitter cold. Every 10 days or so it barrages Ukraine’s power system with combinations of missiles and hundreds of drones, repeatedly mangling equipment and cutting off power. The cold imposed on Ukrainian homes is especially hard on former prisoners of war held in Russia, where cold is routinely employed as a form of torture.

In the first two years of the war, keeping the grid flowing was a 24/7 job. But Ukrenergo has adapted to the impossible since then, says Vitaliy Zaychenko, Ukrenergo’s CEO, who somehow found a moment to speak with Spectrum via video call. Now, “we are more prepared for each attack. We have well-trained teams. We have support from Europe,” he says.

But the risk involved in repairing the grid remains unnerving. Last month a crew from DTEK, Ukraine’s biggest private-sector energy firm, was traveling between locations when it was targeted by a Russian drone. They heard the drone coming and escaped before their bucket truck was destroyed. Russian forces have employed “double tap” attacks against DTEK’s crews, targeting their power infrastructure with a follow-up strike designed to kill first responders—a practice confirmed by the U.N.

When Russia began targeting power infrastructure in October 2022, Brecht’s job shifted from high-level direction of grid planning and maintenance to near-constant triage and real-time system reengineering. Most weeks, Brecht spent several days in the field, crisscrossing the country to coordinate work at smashed substations. Brecht would often be found on site figuring out how to restart power using whatever equipment was available. “It was a unique decision every time,” says Zaychenko.

Oleksiy Brecht died in January while overseeing repairs to a bombed-out substation near Kyiv. He called his employees at Ukrenergo “my fighters. They called him “our general.”Ukrenergo

Zaychenko noted Brecht’s “genius” for finding creative grid fixes, his passion and leadership skills, and his credibility with power brokers in Ukraine and abroad. Brecht scoured the globe sourcing critical replacement parts, including stockpiled or older equipment from international utilities. Transformers, which can take a year or more to source, are especially precious.

When the right equipment wasn’t forthcoming, Brecht figured out how to make do. For example, he would deploy transformers from Western Europe rated for 400 kilovolts to restart a 330-kV circuit. He would adapt transformers designed for 60-hertz alternating current for emergency use on Ukraine’s 50-Hz grid. “He would find a way,” says Zaychenko, who worked closely with Brecht for over 20 years.

Brecht’s assistant at Ukrenergo, Svitlana Dubas-Veremiienko, says he also contributed to the teams’ morale and confidence. She shared on Facebook that he smoked “like a locomotive” at the worst times, and yet exuded calm: “In his presence, chaos subsided,” she wrote. Brecht was not easy to intimidate. “He was someone who never feared anything or anyone,” adds Tsaturian.

Brecht’s work proved so essential that Ukrenergo’s former Deputy CEO Andrii Nemyrovskyi recalls telling Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense in 2022 that the military must protect two people: Zaychenko, because he ran grid operations, and Brecht because “system operations requires that the system exists.” Last week, President Zelenskyy posthumously named Brecht a “Hero of Ukraine” for “strengthening the energy security of Ukraine under martial law.”

Ukraine’s Power Infrastructure Under Fire

Brecht joined Ukrenergo in 2002 after earning his degree in power engineering from Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. Over the next 20 years, he held leadership positions in dispatching and grid planning and development. He joined Ukrenergo’s management board in June 2022 and served as its interim leader in 2024.

Brecht’s contributions to Ukraine’s wartime survival began with several key upgrades to Ukrenergo’s technical capabilities ahead of the February 2022 invasion. He reintroduced “live line” techniques, providing training and equipment that enable crews to work on circuits while they continue to carry power to homes and to sustain critical needs.

Brecht also led preparations for Ukraine’s disconnection from the Russian grid and synchronization with Europe’s. When the invasion began, Ukraine’s Minister of Energy at the time, Herman Halushchenko, had argued that switching from Russia’s grid to Europe’s was too risky, according to Tsaturian and Nemyrovskyi. But Brecht insisted—correctly, as hindsight has shown—that synchronizing with Europe would provide crucial stability and backup power. At his urging, the switch was completed in daring fashion during the first weeks of the invasion.

(Halushchenko was dismissed last year following longstanding allegations of corruption and Russian influence in Ukraine’s energy sector that gave way to indictments in November 2025 that have rocked President Zelenskyy’s government. In January, Halushchenko was detained while attempting to leave the country and charged with money laundering.)

DTEK workers conduct repairs on 26 January following a Russian attack in Kyiv.Danylo Antoniuk/Cover Images/AP

A Ukrainian Electrical Engineer’s Final Day

Brecht’s final act of service followed the mass destruction of January 19—a day when Kyiv’s high temperature was –10° C. That night, Russian forces targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with 18 ballistic missiles, a hypersonic cruise missile, 15 conventional cruise missiles, and 339 drones.

The impact included catastrophic damage at the 750-kV Kyivska substation, which feeds electricity to the capital and ensures cooling power for two nuclear power plants.

Brecht was leading a team of about 100 people who were undoing the damage when he made a deadly choice. He picked up a section of busbar—solid conduits that connect circuits within substations. It had been blasted to the ground and, unbeknownst to Brecht, was carrying lethal voltage. It’s unclear whether its circuit was still connected, or if it had picked up voltage from another circuit.

Zaychenko says an investigation is ongoing to provide answers. “I don’t know why he touched this busbar. Maybe because of tiredness. Maybe something else,” he says. “He was trying to help the team to do this job quickly. It was a huge mistake and a huge loss for us.”

from the these-are-not-serious-people dept

You might recall that when political news website Semafor entered the media industry on the back of $25 million in private money, they made all kinds of promises about how they were somehow going to revolutionize U.S. media. In reality most of their promises were relatively inane, and it didn’t take long before the outlet demonstrated it was primarily interested in propping up the status quo.

Case in point: one of the very first things the outlet did is start hosting “Restoring Trust In Media” annual conferences. Except each year they make it a priority to unironically validate, normalize and platform a lot of the people actively working to undermine trust in news. Like former Fox News propagandist Tucker Carlson the first year, and overt bigot Megyn Kelly last year.

Semafor keeps being criticized for not only not helping to “restore trust in media,” but for actively making the problem worse. But they keep doubling down. This year’s event, for example, is a who’s who of people that have made U.S. media immeasurably less trustworthy over the last year:

So you’ve got FCC boss Brendan Carr, an authoritarian zealot who has been wiping his ass with the First Amendment. You’ve got Mathias Dopfner, the owner of Politico whose feckless “both sides” reporting and apparent admiration of Trump has helped normalize authoritarianism. You’ve got Matt Murray, the Washington Post Editor who is helping Jeff Bezos throw the paper’s reputation in the toilet in service to Trumpism and corporate power.

You’ve also got Hamish McKenzie, the Substack co-founder who has openly coddled white supremacists and fascists for engagement cash. A few folks from Fox News, arguably the biggest and most successful right wing propaganda operation ever created. And then some representatives for Meet The Press, another stellar example of generally feckless establishment “both sides” or “view from nowhere” access journalism.

When Semafor co-founder and editor-in-chief Ben Smith has been criticized for this in the past he’s pretty consistently been strangely obtuse, insisting these are important people who need interviewing.

But none of the attendees are ever meaningfully pressed. Tucker Carlson wasn’t pressed at all at his role as propagandist. Megyn Kelly isn’t pressed for her grotesque levels of racism and race-baiting engagement clowning. Key figures at Washington Post or Politico aren’t asked serious questions about their role in normalizing authoritarianism.

The Semafor reporting and interviews that come out of these events are generally toothless. For example this piece about Brendan Carr, one of the most extreme anti-free-speech zealots to ever lead the agency (who destroys consumer protection standards in his free time), never really seriously explains why anything he’s been doing is even particularly controversial. In fact it starts like this:

“US Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr on Wednesday praised CBS under the new leadership of David Ellison and Bari Weiss.

“I think they’re doing a great job,” Carr said at Semafor’s Restoring Trust in Media event Wednesday, adding that he appreciates the network is “trying to do something different” and experimenting with new formats.”

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Real hard hitting stuff there, guys.

The result is a sort of bizarre pseudo-journalistic credibility kayfabe, punctuated by conferences purportedly dedicated to a subject the hosts and attendees either don’t understand or lack the credibility to be candidly honest about.

Also please note how Semafor doesn’t think it’s important to invite literally anybody from the worker-owned independent media that’s actually trying to restore trust in U.S. journalism. Not a single independent journalist (Marisa Kabas would be a good choice) with anything interesting or useful to say about where traditional corporate media may have genuinely gone wrong over the last few years.

The great irony is that Semafor can’t be honest about eroding trust in media because that would involve criticizing consolidated corporate media and the extraction class. It would require criticizing increasingly-consolidated Republican ownership of media for propaganda purposes. It would require being honest about the fact that journalism probably shouldn’t be a traditional for-profit venture.

Being honest about any of this would upset financiers, sources, ownership, and a big swath of ad-clicking viewership. You can’t have that, so instead you get this bizarre, performative simulacrum of what integrity and meaningful introspection is supposed to look like.

Filed Under: ben smith, brendan carr, integrity, journalism, mathias dopfner, matt murray, media, propaganda, restoring trust in media

Companies: semafor

Apple has promised a “big week” for the company, which includes an in-person event for press and creators on March 4. But it didn’t exactly wait until Wednesday to get things started. The news started on Monday with the announcements of the iPhone 17e and M4-powered iPad Air.

We’ll be updating this roundup throughout the week as we learn exactly what Apple has in store for everyone (though we have a decent idea of what to expect, such as new MacBooks). For now, though, here’s our recap of everything Apple announced on Monday:

iPhone 17e

Apple has spruced up this year’s entry-level iPhone with some pretty solid upgrades, though it’s keeping the starting price at $599. The iPhone 17e has double the base storage of the iPhone 16e at 256GB. It also has MagSafe support with Qi2 wireless charging speeds of up to 15W, double that of the iPhone 16e.

Design-wise, Apple hasn’t exactly rocked the boat. The iPhone 17e looks pretty much identical to its predecessor. It appears that Apple is sticking with the same 48MP Fusion camera system as it used in the iPhone 16e too.

That said, the 6.1-inch Super Retina display has Ceramic Shield 2. According to Apple, this provides “3x better scratch resistance than the previous generation and reduced glare.” The company slotted its C1X cellular modem into the iPhone 17e as well. It says this is up to two times faster than the C1 that was in the iPhone 16e. The device has the same A19 chip as the iPhone 17, so it supports Apple Intelligence AI tools, and it runs iOS 26.

In addition, the iPhone 17e has an IP68 rating for water and dust resistance, as well as the promise of “all-day battery life.” It also supports satellite-powered features including Emergency SOS, Roadside Assistance, Messages and Find My.

Pre-orders for the iPhone 17e open on March 4 and it will be available in black, white and soft pink. The device will hit shelves in more than 70 countries and regions on March 11.

iPad Air M4

The latest iPad Air boasts Apple’s M4 chip. That means the mid-range iPad is effectively remaining a year behind the iPad Pro. The M4 is almost two years old at this point, while the top-end model has the newer M5 chip. Still, if you only use an iPad for casual tasks like watching shows, web browsing, email and so on, the M4 will be more than powerful enough. It will be more adept at handling resource-intensive tasks like video editing than previous iPad Air models too.

Apple has also bumped up the RAM from 8GB from the last-gen model to 12GB. Given the sharp increase in RAM prices in recent months, it’s slightly surprising that Apple is sticking to the same prices for the iPad Air. The 11-inch M4 iPad Air starts at $599 while the 13-inch version starts at $799, each with 128GB of storage. There’s a $50 discount for those buying it for educational use.

Apple claims the M4 delivers up to 2.3 times faster performance compared with the M1 iPad Air and “over 4x faster 3D pro rendering with ray tracing performance.” Of course, the new iPad Air runs iPadOS 26.

Apple gave the iPad Air other internal upgrades by including its N1 and C1X connectivity chips. As such, this is the first iPad Air with Wi-Fi 7 support. As you might expect, 5G cellular connectivity is available as well.

The design of the M4 iPad Air doesn’t seem to have changed, as it appears to have the same LCD display Apple used in the last two iterations of the tablet. The company has stuck with the same rear-facing camera and dual-speaker setup as well.

As with the iPhone 17e, pre-orders for the M4 iPad Air open on March 4. The tablet will hit retailers in 35 countries and regions on March 11. It will be available in blue, purple, starlight and space gray.

In the last week, both Samsung and Xiaomi have taken the wraps off their latest superphones, but only one of them has properly impressed me. I’ve spent weeks testing the Leica Leitzphone by Xiaomi ahead of its launch at MWC 2026 and I concluded that it’s the best camera phone I’ve ever used. I even gave it a CNET Editors’ Choice award because it has been so damn impressive — and I think Samsung should be worried. 

Samsung’s Galaxy S26 Ultra is a jack-of-all-trades phone, packing a supercharged processor, a funky privacy screen and that all-important S Pen stylus. But its cameras only saw small improvements, with a slightly larger aperture on the main and telephoto cameras being the most notable upgrades. Beyond that, it really comes down to Samsung’s various software AI tricks, like the ability to change the style of hat you’re wearing in a photo. 

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This has become a trend for Samsung, with the last few Ultra phones only slightly iterating on previous camera setups, adding a few extra megapixels here and there but largely leaning into software updates to make up for a lack of hardware innovation. While Samsung’s top-tier phones have been among the best camera phones around, Xiaomi and Leica’s Leitzphone has shown what true photography innovation looks like. 

This camera beast packs a number of firsts. We’ll start with the LOFIC image sensor, which stands for Lateral Overflow Integration Capacitor and is basically a new type of sensor technology that improves dynamic range in a single image. It’s capable of taking gorgeous images in all conditions, including at night. Samsung was rumored to be considering LOFIC sensors for its phones (as is Apple) but evidently opted not to go down this route just yet. 

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The Leitzphone is also among the first phones ever to use real moving lens elements in its telephoto zoom, allowing true lossless zooming rather than jumping only between specific zoom levels. It works well and a similar setup has been rumored to appear on the last few generations of Ultra, but it’s never actually happened. 

Then there’s the physical control ring around the Leitzphone’s camera, the stunning Leica colour profiles built right into the camera experience and the pristine quality of the Leica Summilux optics used in the lenses. 

By partnering with such a photography icon, Xiaomi has truly innovated its photography, delivering multiple firsts that genuinely improve the image-taking experience. As both a professional photographer and a genuine enthusiast myself, I’ve been blown away by the photos I’ve been able to shoot with the phone. 

But Samsung hasn’t excited me this time round. Its new generative AI tools might be fun gimmicks, but they’re not appealing to an actual photographer like myself. The S26 Ultra needs to be more than a cameraphone, of course — it needs to be “ultra” in every sense of the word. But Samsung’s latest model shows that proper photography isn’t a priority for the company. 

As such Samsung risks losing out on the huge number of photographers and content creators (both professional and amateur alike) who are instead going to be looking at rivals like Xiaomi for products that can live up to their imaging demands.