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Lt. Gen. Mark Simerly, who is retiring after two-plus years leading the Defense Logistics Agency, said the agency is operating with more precision today.

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After five years in development, Free Stars: Children of Infinity—the official sequel to The Ur-Quan Masters by the old game's original creators—has released a free public demo. It's a "combat demo" in the style of UQM’s melee mode, where players can assemble a fleet from the game's roster of nearly 40 ships, then match those ships up in head-to-head arcade SpaceWar-style action. The demo can be found on Steam and GOG, and it's available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. (Console versions are coming, but they're not yet out.)

Pew pew! Credit: Pistol Shrimp Games

I have to present this news with a big disclaimer, though, because I've been part of the Children of Infinity writing team since 2021, working as a volunteer with the Pistol Shrimp Games crew and contributing NPC dialogue and some story bits. As a huge fan of the original games, it's been a dream opportunity. (Because I've been volunteering my time, I'm not financially involved and receive no compensation if you download the demo or, when it's eventually released, buy the full game.)

What's in the demo

Children of Infinity is a space adventure RPG, just like The Ur-Quan Masters (and its direct spiritual predecessors, Starflight and Starflight 2). What's been released today is just one part of the game—the arcade-style "melee" portion, which lets players jump into one-versus-one combat against another player or against a computer-controlled opponent. Each of the ships you can pick has its own maneuvering characteristics, weapons, and special abilities.

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General Dynamics Land Systems has teamed up with Ford Motor Company and Ricardo to compete for the UK Ministry of Defence’s Light Mobility Vehicle program, the companies announced. The team’s proposal is built on the Ford Ranger platform, which General Dynamics UK described as Europe’s best-selling pickup truck for 11 consecutive years. “Combining the strengths […]

In the wake of Trump's planned pay freeze, federal groups intensified calls for the passage of the FAIR Act or another measure to provide for a 2027 raise.

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For years, AI industry watchers of all stripes have been warning of a coming jobs apocalypse driven by ultra-intelligent AI systems that will be able to replicate most human tasks more cheaply. Now, newly updated research from Stanford University economists suggests AI seems to be causing significant entry-level job losses for younger workers in some fields, even as older workers appear largely unaffected so far.

The August 2026 edition of "Canaries in the Coal Mine? Six Facts about the Recent Employment Effects of Artificial Intelligence" updates and revises a paper of the same name published last year with fresh data and refined statistics. In that update, the Stanford researchers find the employment trends they identified for entry-level workers last year are persisting and expanding. Specifically, employment levels for workers ages 22 to 25 in the most "AI-exposed" occupations are now 19 percent below those of their peers in fields less exposed to AI disruption.

Last year, that gap measured just 13 percent.

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Ford's new AI assistant, live today in the Ford and Lincoln apps, answers real questions about your specific vehicle using live telemetry, with a full in-car version planned for 2027.