Scientists have developed a device that can translate thoughts about speech into spoken words in real time.
Although its still experimental, they hope the brain-computer interface could someday help give voice to those unable to speak.
A new study described testing the device on a 47-year-old woman with quadriplegia who couldnt speak for 18 years after a stroke. Doctors implanted it in her brain during surgery as part of a clinical trial.
It converts her intent to speak into fluent sentences, said Gopala Anumanchipalli, a co-author of the study published Monday in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
Other brain-computer interfaces, or BCIs, for speech typically have a slight delay between thoughts of sentences and computerized verbalization. Such delays can disrupt the natural flow of conversation, potentially leading to miscommunication and frustration, researchers said.
This is “a pretty big advance in our field, said Jonathan Brumberg of the Speech and Applied Neuroscience Lab at the University of Kansas, who was not part of the study.
A team in California recorded the womans brain activity using electrodes while she spoke sentences silently in her brain. The scientists used a synthesizer they built using her voice before her injury to create a speech sound that she would have spoken. They trained an AI model that translates neural activity into units of sound.
It works similarly to existing systems used to transcribe meetings or phone calls in real time, said Anumanchipalli, of the University of California, Berkeley.
The implant itself sits on the speech center of the brain so that its listening in, and those signals are translated to pieces of speech that make up sentences. Its a streaming approach, Anumanchipalli said, with each 80-millisecond chunk of speech about half a syllable sent into a recorder.
Its not waiting for a sentence to finish, Anumanchipalli said. Its processing it on the fly.
Decoding speech that quickly has the potential to keep up with the fast pace of natural speech, said Brumberg. The use of voice samples, he added, would be a significant advance in the naturalness of speech.”
Though the work was partially funded by the National Institutes of Health, Anumanchipalli said it wasn’t affected by recent NIH research cuts. More research is needed before the technology is ready for wide use, but with sustained investments,” it could be available to patients within a decade, he said.
Laura Ungar, AP science writer
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Constitutionally, Donald Trump cannot be elected to a third term as president, but thats not stopping him from talking about itand that rhetoric is already on the rise, just 69 days into his second term. Trump, on Sunday, told Meet the Press host Kristen Welker that a lot of people wanted him to serve a third term, adding he was not joking about the idea.
Saying there were methods to maneuver around the two-term limit spelled out in the 22nd Amendment of the Constitution set off a lot of alarms among Democrats and Republicans who oppose Trump.
Trump, who had floated the idea of running a third time before, said he had not been presented with plans that could, conceptually, keep him in office, but acknowledged one possible way would be for JD Vance to be elected and pass the office on to Trump (who would run as vice president).
The Constitutional problem
Trump is legally prohibited from running for a third term. The 22nd Amendment sets a two-term limit for presidents, clearly stating no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.
While the Constitution can be interpreted in many ways, thats an amendment that seems remarkably straightforwardand while it might appear to quickly clear things up, the last few months have deftly illustrated that rules are being changed in 2025.
With a Republican-controlled Senate and House, there has been talk of amending the Constitution, but that would be a Herculean feat. The act of proposing an amendment alone would require two-thirds majorities in both Congressional bodies and the Republicans, simply put, dont have the votes. Ratifying it, meanwhile, would require the sign-off of three-quarters of all state legislatures.
Thats not stopping some Trump loyalists from making the effort. Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee has introduced a resolution to amend the Constitution to read: No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than three times, nor be elected to any additional term after being elected to two consecutive terms.
The chances of passage for the bill (which appears to be carefully written to bar Democratic president Barack Obama from running again) are considered the longest of long shots.
The Vance optionand more
Running Vance (or any Republican) as a presidential candidate, who resigns upon taking office is something of a leap already. Would Vance (or any politician) be willing to put aside his (or her) own ambitions to hand a presidency to VP Trump after being elected president? Thats questionable.
However, the 12th Amendment of the Constitution basically makes that sort of action illegal. It states that, no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of president shall be eligible to that of vice president of the United States.
Some allies, including Stephen Bannon, have suggested a Constitutional loophole exists, though havent offered details.
One possible way to sidestep the Constitution would be for Trump to declare a state of emergency as the election nears. That could give him executive powers that are virtually unprecedented (should he have the backing of the Supreme Court) and could open the door to an extended term. Franklin Roosevelt, while Democratically elected, cited World War II as the reason he was breaking the traditional two-term cap. (The 22nd Amendment was passed after his presidency was over.)
Trump has made several curious comments over the past year with regards to the 2028 election, perhaps the strangest of which was his remarks to a Christian group where he said, “In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not gonna have to vote.”
There is, of course, another possibility here. The chatter of a third term could be yet another distraction for Trumps political opponents, diverting their focus while he enacts changes that would normally garner their attention. Trump has pulled a similar play many times before.
While Trump has said hes seriously considering attempting to find a way to control the Oval Office for a third time, he also says hes not making it his priority at the moment. Im not joking, Trump told Welker. But, Im not . . . it is far too early to think about it.
Should he find a way to run again, Trump would be 82 years old. He is already the oldest person to be elected to the office.
The chief executive of Primark, one of Europes biggest fast fashion retailers, has resigned after an investigation into his behavior toward a woman in a social environment.
Paul Marchant, Primarks CEO since 2009, has apologized to the individual involved and resigned with immediate effect, the company said Monday. Shares in Primarks parent, Associated British Foods, fell 4.9% in early trading, compared with a 0.8% drop in Britains benchmark stock index.
Marchant acknowledged his error of judgement and accepts that his actions fell below the standards expected by the company, Primark said in a statement.
The retailer has 451 stores in 17 countries across Europe and the U.S.
Eoin Tonge, finance director of Associated British Foods, has been name Primarks interim CEO, ABF said in a statement.
The investigation was carried out by external lawyers and Marchant cooperated with the probe, Associated British Foods said. The company said it was committed to providing a safe, respectful and inclusive work environment.
I am immensely disappointed, ABF Chief Executive George Weston said in a statement. We believe that high standards of integrity are essential. Acting responsibly is the only way to build and manage a business over the long term.
Its safe to say that worker happiness and well-being is shaky at best. In 2024, just about half of all American employees reported feeling very satisfied with their jobs, and only about a third were happy with their pay or opportunities for promotion. Younger employees seem particularly frustrated by their working conditions: The latest edition of Gallups State of the Global Workplace report found that just 34% of workers said they were thriving, with a marked drop from 35% to 31% among those under the age of 35.
While this sentiment persists across the American workforce, a new report from the Pew Research Center indicates that blue-collar workers are perhaps the most likely to feel dissatisfied and detached from their work. In a survey of more than 5,200 employees, only about 43% of those who identified as blue-collar workers said they were very satisfied with their jobswhile 53% of other workers expressed the same. (Pew defines blue-collar workers as those in such industries as manufacturing, agriculture, retail, hospitality, and transportation.)
A key issue for many blue-collar workers who are frustrated by their jobs is pay. Overall, a third of them said they were dissatisfied with their compensation, though that figure was higher (40%) for women who held those jobs when compared to men (30%). The study found that workers had a variety of grievances, with many claiming that their wages did not keep pace with the rising cost of living; others said they were frustrated by pay inequities and that they earned less than colleagues who did comparable work. Beyond pay, blue-collar workers were also more dissatisfied with their health insurance coverage and lack of flexibility in working hours.
But the greatest difference in how blue-collar workers feel about their jobs relative to other workers is whether they view it as a real career. More than half of blue-collar workers described what they do as “just a job to get you by,” rather than a career. (Women were even more likely to say that, with 61% characterizing their work as just a job.)
Only a third said they considered their work to be a careerwhile 56% of other workers identified their jobs as careers. There is also a clear generational divide when it comes to happiness among blue-collar workers: Older workers were more likely to be satisfied with their job on all counts. In fact, nearly half of them said they viewed their work as a career.
It’s possible that blue-collar workers feel less attached to their jobs in part because of how they are perceived. Less than a third of blue-collar workers said they believed other Americans respected their jobs, when compared to nearly half of all other workers feeling like their jobs demanded a certain level of respect. Many of them did, however, report feeling more respected by their colleagues or even by customers.
Given their frustrations about compensation and often-limited opportunities for career advancement, it is hardly surprising that so many blue-collar workers feel that their work gets little recognition by the broader American public. But some things could be looking up: While too many blue-collar workers remain underpaid, they have also benefitted from historic wage growth in the aftermath of the pandemic.
A French court on Monday convicted Marine Le Pen of embezzlement and barred her from seeking public office for five years a hammer blow to the far-right leaders presidential hopes and an earthquake for French politics.
Speaking to French TV channel TF1 in her first reaction to the verdict, Le Pen called the ruling a political move aimed at preventing her from running in the 2027 presidential election and said that millions of French people are outraged.”
She called the verdict a violation of the rule of law, said she would appeal and asked that the court proceedings take place before the 2027 campaign. She would remain ineligible to be a candidate until the appeal is decided.
Le Pen also was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment, with two to be served under house arrest and two suspended.
The court ruling was a political as well as a judicial temblor for France, hobbling one of the leading contenders to succeed President Emmanuel Macron at the end of his second and final term. So broad were the political implications that even some of Le Pen’s opponents said the Paris court had gone too far.
But its too early to say how the case will affect voters. The potential elimination of Le Pen could fire up diehard supporters, just as U.S. Presidents Donald Trumps legal problems motivated some of his. But it could also leave her on the sidelines, deflating what had been her upward trajectory.
Le Pen herself was not around to hear the chief judge pronounce the sentence that threw her career into a tailspin. By then, she had already strode out of the courtroom after the judge first indicated that the 56-year-old would be barred from office, without saying straight away for how long.
Although Le Pen did not immediately comment, her supporters quickly expressed disapproval. Jordan Bardella, her 29-year-old protégé who could replace her on the ballot in 2027 if she cannot run, said on X that Le Pen was being unjustly condemned and that French democracy was being executed.
Hungarys populist prime minister, Viktor Orbán, quickly took to social media to express his support, posting Je suis Marine! I am Marine on X.
Among political opponents of Le Pen who expressed unease was conservative lawmaker Laurent Wauquiez, who said the verdict put a very heavy weight on our democracy.
A political death scenario
The sentence could prevent Le Pen from making what would have been her fourth run for the presidency in 2027, a scenario she has previously described as a political death. The partys most recognized figurehead and a formidable campaigner, Le Pen was runner-up to Macron in the 2017 and 2022 presidential elections, and her partys electoral support has grown in recent years.
Only an appellate ruling that overturns the ban on public office could restore her hopes of running. But with the election just two years away, time is running out. Theres no guarantee that an appeals court would rule more favorably, and appeals in France can take several years to conclude.
The verdict was a resounding defeat for Le Pen’s National Rally party, formerly the National Front.
She and 24 other party officials were accused of having used money intended for European Union parliamentary aides to instead pay staff who worked for the party between 2004 and 2016, violating the 27-nation blocs regulations.
The judge handed down guilty verdicts to eight other current or former members of her party who, like Le Pen, previously served as European Parliament lawmakers. Also convicted were 12 people who served as parliamentary aides and three others. Only one defendant was acquitted. All had denied wrongdoing.
The chief judge said Le Pen had been at the heart of a system that her party used to siphon off EU parliament funds, though she said they didn’t enrich themselves personally. The ruling described the embezzlement as a democratic bypass” that deceived the parliament and voters.
From the front row of the court, Le Pen showed no immediate reaction when the judge first declared her guilty. But she grew more agitated as the verdict was delivered in greater detail. She shook her head in disagreement as the judge said Le Pens party illegally used European funds for its own benefit.
Incredible, she whispered at one point. She then left without warning, picking up her bag and striding out, her heels clicking on the hardwood floor. The abrupt departure left many in the courtroom in disbelief as they turned their heads toward the door.
Rodolphe Bosselut, Le Pen’s lawyer, said he was appalled at the courts decision, which he described as extremely scandalous and said it would be appealed.
The electoral ineligibility takes effect immediately, but the house arrest is suspended while she appeals.
Le Pen has enjoyed growing support
During the nine-week trial that took place in late 2024, Le Pen argued that ineligibility would have the effect of depriving me of being a presidential candidate” and disenfranchise her supporters.
There are 11 million people who voted for the movement I represent. So tomorrow, potentially, millions and millions of French people would see themselves deprived of their candidate in the election, she told the panel of three judges.
Le Pen also serves as a lawmaker in France’s National Assembly, a role not affected by the ineligibility ruling that she can keep for now.
But if Macron dissolves parliament again, as he did last year, and calls early legislative elections, she would be barred from running.
Sylvie Corbet and John Leicester, Associated Press
Thomas Adamson and Justin Spike contributed to this report.
A union that represents 150,000 U.S. government employees filed a lawsuit on Monday seeking to block President Donald Trump from stripping hundreds of thousands of federal workers of the ability to collectively bargain with government agencies through their unions.
The National Treasury Employees Union said in the lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C. federal court that Trump’s executive order last week exempting more than a dozen agencies from collective bargaining obligations violates federal workers’ labor rights and the U.S. Constitution and threatens the union’s very existence.
The NTEU said the order applies to more than 100,000 of its 158,000 members and would require agencies to stop deducting union dues from those workers’ paychecks, a major blow to the union’s revenue and bargaining power.
“The strength and influence of any union correlate directly with the size of its membership,” the NTEU said.
The NTEU said Trump issued the order to punish unions that have challenged many of his efforts to purge the federal workforce. The union has filed lawsuits over the mass firings of recently-hired federal employees, the shuttering of the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and an attempt to make it easier to fire workers in policy-related jobs.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On the same day Trump issued the executive order, eight federal agencies filed a lawsuit against dozens of local union affiliates seeking to invalidate existing union contracts covering thousands of workers.
Eliminating collective bargaining would remove obstacles for agencies to alter working conditions and fire or discipline workers. And it could prevent federal worker unions from challenging Trump administration initiatives in court.
Trump in his order said that exempting large swaths of the federal workforce from collective bargaining was necessary to safeguard national security.
None of the agencies covered by the order are primarily involved in intelligence or national security work, the NTEU said in the lawsuit.
The order was “instead based on a policy goal of making federal employees easier to fire and political animus against federal sector unions who have opposed the Trump Administrations initiatives,” the union said.
The lawsuit seeks a ruling blocking Trump’s order and barring federal agencies from complying with it.
Trump in the order excluded from collective bargaining obligations agencies that he said “have as a primary function intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work.”
The order applies to the Justice, State, Defense, Treasury, Veterans Affairs, and Health and Human Services departments, among other agencies. The NTEU on Monday said the order affects 75% of federal workers currently represented by unions.
Trump’s order significantly expanded an existing exception from collective bargaining for workers with duties affecting national security, such as certain employees of the CIA and FBI.
The agencies that sued to invalidate union contracts said the Biden administration had entered into many of the agreements in order to impede Trump from carrying out his agenda, including a drastic downsizing of the federal workforce.
The unions that were sued last week by the Trump administration have not yet responded in court, but have said the bargaining agreements are legally binding and that the lawsuit is a meritless attempt to intimidate unions and workers.
Daniel Wiessner, Reuters
As a potential TikTok ban looms in the United States (again), Substack is making (another) play for video creators to join its platform.
Back in January, Substack CEO Chris Best wrote on his personal account that the company was going to rescue the smart people from TikTok! It seems hes making good on that promise, as the company announced on Monday that its rolling out a scrollable video feed in its app. Given the timing of this TikTok-like launch, Substack appears eager to capitalize on the potential void left behind if TikTok is actually banned this time around.
Substack first launched video in 2022, later introducing an in-app Media Tab in 2024. The latest redesign transforms that tab into a scrollable, TikTok-style feed featuring short-form videos under 10 minutes, with long-form content and podcast previews expected to follow. This update comes just a month after Substacks announcement that creators can now monetize their videos on the platform and publish video posts directly through the Substack app.
As of February, 82% of the platforms top-earning writers are using multimedia, up from just over 50% last April. Substack hopes to continue building on this momentum. According to the company, creators whove adopted video and/or audio have seen their revenue grow 2.5 times faster than those who havent. The new scrollable feed is designed to boost visibility and discovery for creators experimenting with new formats, while also helping readers stumble across new voices beyond their inboxes.
Substack isnt built around any one mediumits built around creators. Were committed to giving them the tools to share their work, connect with subscribers, and contribute to a thriving network of independent voices, Substack product manager Zach Taylor tells Fast Company. As we expand publishing capabilities across formats, the updated media tab makes it easier to discover standout video content from across the networkwhether its a sharp take, a compelling story, or a powerful clip that sparks connection.”
Taylor continues: Were excited to keep evolving the Substack app into a dynamic space where creators of all kinds can grow, connect, and build a sustainable business.
From TikTok to Substack, the demand for bite-size content shows no signs of slowing down.
Amazon on Monday launched its latest AI model, designed to take over a user’s web browser and perform simple tasks. The move places the e-commerce giant in more direct competition with artificial intelligence companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, which are also developing AI “agents.”
The model, called Nova Act, is currently available as a “research preview” for developers, meaning its not yet open to the general public. It can complete tasks such as browsing the web and making purchases without supervision. For instance, the company demonstrated Nova Act searching for apartments within biking distance of a specific train station. It can also handle more nuanced instructions like “dont accept the insurance upsell.”
“We think of agents as systems that can complete tasks and act in a range of digital and physical environments on behalf of the user,” Amazon wrote in a blog post on Monday.
These types of agents are still in their early stages, but tech companies are placing big bets that agentic AI represents the next major frontier. OpenAI recently released “Operator,” a tool that automates web-based tasks, along with Deep Research, which it says can gather information from across the web and summarize it into digestible reports. Anthropic, the creator of Claude, and Google have also introduced AI agents.
Nova Act is part of Amazon’s Nova series, first announced in December 2024, which is capable of generating text and images. “The Nova Act SDK is a crucial step forward, toward building reliable agents by enabling developers to break down complex workflows into atomic commands (e.g., search, checkout, answer questions about the screen),” the company wrote.
Some of Abir Barakats earliest childhood memories are of her fathers fascination with tatreez, a traditional Palestinian embroidery involving hand-stitching patterns and motifs on clothing, scarves, bedspreads, and pillows. Her father would collect thobestatreez-embroidered loose-fitting dresses worn by Palestinian women, ultimately amassing an extensive collection of unique, traditional tatreez pieces crafted decades ago by women in Palestine.
My memory is how passionate he was about it and how he would tell us different stories about (tatreez), says Barakat. He would acquire these old Palestinian dresses [some of which] are museum pieces, honestly, because they can no longer be found.
After nearly 15 years of working in various marketing roles, Barakat decided to combine her experience with her passion for tatreez and begin preserving historical tatreez pieces. It was such a rich history and a rich heritage that it had to be repurposed, she says, adding that a lot of these villages that the embroidery comes from no longer exist.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jeel Design (@jeeldesign)
Thats why she started Jeel, which means eneration in Arabica name she chose because it reflects her goal of preserving a rich heritage and passing it down to future generations. Since the brands launch in 2014, it has grown into a profitable business selling a range of vibrant tatreez embroidery, amassing more than 18,000 Instagram followers.
With the United Nations Cultural agency warning that tatreez is at risk of disappearing from collective memory, brands like Jeel and others are focused on preserving Palestinian heritage.
[Photo: Suzy Tamimi]
Tatreez and the fabric of Palestinian identity
Historically, tatreez also formed a Palestinians cultural identity as the embroidery weaves the origins and history of Palestinians into its diverse patterns and colors. They would even know the social status of a person depending on what she is wearing, Barakat says. The headpieces in the Palestinian costumes would reflect if that person is rich or not.
Just like tatreez created a strong identity for Palestinian people decades ago, Barakat started Jeel hoping the craft would do the same for her. Despite growing up in Jerusalem as a Palestinian Muslim, she says she often grappled with understanding her identity, feeling that it was constantly under threat. Every Palestinian would tell you there is always a piece of us that feels we need to preserve [our heritage] because we feel endangered at every point of our life, Barakat says. We feel always jeopardized to make sure we say we exist because at every level of our existence, we are being challenged about being Palestinian.
[Photo: Suzy Tamimi]
This pressing need to preserve Palestinian identity also motivated Suzy Adnan Tamimi, a New York-based Palestinian designer, to begin making tatreez designs of her own in 2014.
Two years into the project, Tamimi got a unique opportunity which she defines as her “launchpad”: In 2016, the United Nations invited her to design a contemporary interpretation of a traditional Palestinian dress for an exhibition aimed at preserving Palestinian identity. She created a modern-day gown from tatreez scraps she bought from Hanan Munayyera renowned curator and collector of tatreez embroidery. The gown was displayed at the United Nations Headquarters for a month.
Her experience at the United Nations deepened her passion for reinventing tatreez, exploring ways to modernize the craft and bringing Palestinian embroidery to a more global audience.
Today, Tamimis tatreez brand boasts more than 29,000 followers on Instagram. She works with Palestinian women in refugee camps in the West bank city of Jenin to repurpose tatreez embroidery, integrating it with modern designs.
Her modern take on tatreez has enabled her brand to attract a younger demographic. I started coming up with ideas that were very innovative and new and fresh, like (tatreez embroidered) sneakers or guitar straps or jumpsuits, sweatsuits, bucket hats. So, kind of like an urban sportswear vibe, says Tamimi.
Growing awareness amid crisis
As Israel’s assault on Gaza has worn on, both Barakat and Tamimi have seen growth in their followersleading to mixed feelings about the growth of tatreezs visibility being driven by the ongoing killing of Palestinians.
It’s kind of a confusing situation where you feel like, this is trending right now, but this is not really a trend, she says.
Tamimi is ardently focused on preserving the tatreez stitches through innovation and plans to further showcase the beauty and history of Palestine through this art form. Her Freedom Fighter collection is a tribute to resilience and a powerful statement about the resilience of Palestinians. More recent additions to her storealongside the custom embroidery she offersinclude sweaters, T-shirts, and hoodies featuring a 1950s chest panel from a tatreez thobe. On the back, the products read these stitches speak of existence.
When I pick up an old piece of embroidery from Palestine, sometimes I’m in tears because I can feel the energy in each piece, says Tamimi. I want them to live on and that’s why I bring them to life.
Stocks of major vaccine makers dropped on Monday after the Food and Drug Administrations (FDA) top vaccine official Dr. Peter Marks resigned, citing conflicts with Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Jr. over his views on immunization. RFK Jr. is a longtime critic of vaccines, and has a history of making controversial and scientifically inaccurate claims.
Shares of Moderna (MRNA) slid 11%, Novavax (NVAX) was down 6%, BioNTech (BNTX) fell about 7%, and Pfizer (PFE) dropped 2% in early trading. Meanwhile, gene therapy developers including Solid Biosciences (SLDB) and Taysha Gene Therapies (TSHA) plummeted between 14% and 29% by midday. The SPDR S&P Biotech ETF fell almost 5%.
At the time of this writing, Moderna was still down almost 9%, Novavax was down about 7%, and Pfizer was down about 1% in midday trading as vaccine stocks continue to slide.
It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies, Marks wrote in his resignation letter to acting FDA Commissioner Sara Brenner, in reference to HHS secretary RFK Jr.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Marks was forced on Friday to either resign or be fired. Marks has been with the FDA since 2012, and has overseen the division for vaccines, biotech drugs, and blood products since 2016. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Marks was a key member of the team that oversaw the production of COVID vaccines.
His departure is raising serious concerns on Wall Street about the future of drug approval and safety in the U.S., with some analysts questioning if the move will hamper the FDA’s ability to ensure safe and effective treatments that will reach patients. Analysts are also expressing concern over how the situation might affect the biotech industry.
“It’s no secret that biotech has been under immense pressure recently given broader macro issues,” BMO Capital Markets analyst Evan Seigerman told Reuters. “This unfortunate update does nothing to reassure investors or provide relief.”
Marks’s departure comes as RFK Jr. plans to lay off 10,000 employees at the HHS department and close regional offices, in a bid to reshape the country’s health agencies as part of the Trump administration’s cost-cutting agenda.
