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BRUSSELS — European policymakers criticized AI company Anthropic on Tuesday for failing to send a senior company official to address Brussels’ concerns about risks posed by advanced AI capabilities.

Anthropic appointed Donny Greenberg, a technical employee who joined the company in April, to address the European Parliament via video from New York, rather than its head of public policy, Sarah Heck, as lawmakers had requested.

“I’m a technical person, not a policy person,” Greenberg stressed in his opening remarks.

The testimony was the first of its kind in Brussels since the U.S.-based company’s early April decision to restrict its cyber-capable model, Mythos, to a set of trusted American firms. EU institutions have been desperately seeking access to Mythos and Fable, both capable of finding and exploiting software vulnerabilities, thereby putting critical infrastructure at risk.

“I guess you can expect a lot of policy-related questions that perhaps you won’t be able to answer as a technical guy,” said Dutch Greens European Parliament lawmaker Kim van Sparrentak. “And I think Anthropic could have known that.”

After the hearing, van Sparrentak told POLITICO: “It’s clear from this hearing Anthropic doesn’t care about Europe.”

Greenberg joined the AI leader when it acquired his company, Runhouse, earlier this year. He has since been working on Glasswing, the company’s effort to share Mythos with trusted cyber defenders.

“A lot of [lawmakers] would have liked to speak to the political level,” said the Greens’ Anna Cavazzini, the chair of the Parliament’s internal market committee. Meanwhile, Dutch Greens European Parliament lawmaker Reinier van Lanschot told Greenberg: “I find it a bit disappointing that in this exchange we cannot touch on the policy side.”

Cavazzini later warned Anthropic that it should brace for a “next exchange of views we’re definitely having.”

Other lawmakers, meanwhile, focused on Greenberg’s virtual appearance and an impression in the room that he was reading his answers from his screen.

“Are you answering our questions, or are you just following what your AI model is telling you to say?” asked Spanish conservative lawmaker Pablo Arias Echeverría.

Greenberg fired back: “I should take that as a compliment since we’re very proud of Claude.”

In his answers, Greenberg said the rise of cyber-capable models shows AI is a dual-use tool, and that now is the time for companies to boost their cyber resilience. He also said that Anthropic is working with the Commission’s AI Office and the EU’s cybersecurity agency, ENISA, to enable that.

The hearing ended as awkwardly as it had kicked off, with Greenberg no longer visible on screen when chair Cavazzini thanked him for his appearance.

The question of if, how and by whom new advanced artificial intelligence models are tested has become a delicate geopolitical and business question as the AI race heats up.

At another meeting earlier in the day, a representative of Open AI, one of Anthropic’s chief rivals, told lawmakers it was working to avoid staged rollouts of its new models. Meanwhile on Tuesday, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis called for the U.S. to create an industry-funded standards body to test frontier AI models and set standards.

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The Trump administration is barring American citizens who were recently in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where there is an ongoing Ebola outbreak, from returning to the U.S. until they’ve spent 21 days in a third country, a U.S. official confirmed to POLITICO Tuesday.

In an effort to prevent Ebola from entering the U.S., the Trump administration began using federal transportation law on Monday to “place any American citizens who have been in the DRC on a Do-Not-Board list for any commercial flights heading into the United States,” the official said.

Reuters first reported the news . POLITICO granted the official anonymity in order to confirm Reuters’ report.

Do-not-board lists are generally intended to prevent travelers “known or suspected to have a contagious disease” that poses a public health threat from taking commercial flights, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention .

The decision follows a pattern of the Trump administration imposing unusually stringent travel restrictions related to the outbreak. In May, the administration blocked green card holders reentering the U.S. if they had recently been in the Congo. The administration also took an unusually stringent approach in quarantining Americans who’d been aboard a cruise ship with a deadly outbreak of hantavirus this spring. They were kept at a government facility in Nebraska for weeks. One passenger who wanted to leave said she was held against her will.

During an outbreak in West Africa that started in 2013 and grew to be the largest on record, the Obama administration did not implement travel bans, only diverting travelers who were recently in affected countries to certain airports for screening. The Trump administration had been doing the same for U.S. citizen travelers, naming in May four airports in Virginia, New York, Texas and Georgia that could screen arriving passengers.

The administration’s approach has reignited a debate over travel restrictions and infectious disease. Many global health bodies, including the World Health Organization, argue that travel restrictions usually do more harm than good, creating stigma, hurting local economies and discouraging countries from being transparent about infectious disease outbreaks.

It’s unclear if the restrictions apply to U.S. government employees and contractors, and the White House did not immediately respond to questions about the scope of the ban. The CDC has at least two dozen employees working in the agency’s Congo office .

The decision was based on a new risk assessment by the federal government, which showed increased spread of the virus closer to the Congo’s capital, Kinshasa. As of July 11, there have been nearly 2,000 recorded cases of Ebola in the Congo , and 702 confirmed deaths.

Roughly two dozen American citizens were set to board flights Tuesday to the U.S. after having been in the Congo, the official said, adding that the State Department “will be working with these individuals to assist their 21-day waiting period before they can board a commercial flight back home.” The official did not specify where that waiting period will take place.

Key context: Trump administration has expressed confidence about keeping cases of Ebola out of the U.S.

In May, the administration initiated a plan to set up a facility in Kenya — a country that has never recorded an Ebola case — to house Americans exposed to Ebola, rather than bring them home. That plan was met with a sharp backlash from many Kenyans, who protested the facility. The Kenyan government halted construction of the facility after a Kenyan court blocked the plan.

Two Americans have contracted Ebola in the outbreak so far and were sent to Germany for treatment.

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Toyota makes digital gauge clusters standard across the board on MY27 Corolla.

18-inch gloss white alloy wheels join the official accessory list for a JDM-type look.

169 hp, 2.0-liter engine and CVT are carried over, but sporty FX trim is discontinued.

The Toyota Corolla Hatchback heads into 2027 having gained equipment and a very appealing exterior upgrade option, but minus one of the best things about the MY26 car.

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The biggest upgrade news is inside the cabin, where larger digital displays become much more common across the lineup. The SE now comes standard with a seven-inch digital instrument cluster to go with its 8-inch touchscreen, while the XSE upgrades to a 12.3-inch digital gauge cluster and a larger 10.5-inch infotainment touchscreen as standard.

Related: Toyota Delays New Electric Highlander Before It Even Launches, Gas Model Stays

Buyers who don’t want to step all the way up to the XSE can now bridge the gap with a new SE Premium Package. It bundles the same larger infotainment display and 12.3-inch digital cluster, giving the more affordable trim a much more premium-looking dashboard.

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Outside, the changes are subtle and include new Inked and Blueprint paint options, but not the zingy mustard color recently launched in Japan . Our top upgrade for MY27 is an available set of genuine Toyota 18-inch gloss white alloy wheels, which should look especially good against darker body colors, and are bound to be a hit with fans of JDM style.

Retro FX Axed

The bad news is the sporty-looking (but not driving) Corolla FX trim that was introduced for MY25 wearing those same white rims, and which was also on the menu for last year, didn’t make the cut for 2027. That leaves buyers a simple choice between SE and XSE, but you can dress up an SE with a wing and wheels to make it look like the old FX.

Underneath, nothing has changed. The familiar 2.0-liter naturally aspirated four-cylinder continues to produce 169 hp (171 PS) and 151 lb-ft of torque, sending power to the front wheels through Toyota ‘s Dynamic Shift CVT. Don’t bother looking for a manual – Toyota hasn’t offered one of those on a US Corolla since 2022.

Pricing starts at $24,780 before Toyota’s $1,295 destination charge, giving the SE and XSE on-the-road prices of $26,075 and $29,170 – those numbers up $200 and $500 on last year’s models. The updated hatchbacks are scheduled to reach dealerships later this summer, but before that happens we should learn what changes Toyota has in store for the Corolla sedan.

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The lesser-known of just two Japanese Gardens in Ireland, the Lafcadio Hearn Japanese Gardens are an enchanting homage to a remarkable writer, traveler and man of the world, and a tranquil place of great curation and beauty.

His relative anonymity is reflected in the location of the garden, tucked away behind a high stone wall on a quiet side-street in Tramore. Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) was of Irish-Greek descent, spending his childhood summers in this seaside town, before making a name for himself as a journalist and travel writer in the States. He was lauded as both an engaging storyteller, and an astute chronicler of place and society. While he remains relatively unknown in Ireland, he is still widely celebrated in his adopted country of Japan.

Described as his 'living biography', the series of eleven small interconnected gardens are diverse and beautiful, each one representing a different aspect of his life, work and travels. The suggested route starts at the Victorian Garden, a nod to his happy childhood summers in Tramore.

A winding path takes visitors through his American Journey and onto the amphitheatre-shaped Greek Garden, commemorating his place of birth. A 100 year old olive tree stands at its heart. From this point on, visitors are firmly in Japanese territory, with burbling rockeries and water features, a traditional tea house and garden, and a wooden bridge across a stream, surrounded by woodland.

Moving to Japan had been the turning point in his life: a place where he remained for the rest of his days. As well as lecturing at the University of Tokyo, he received great acclaim for his collections of Japanese ghost stories and supernatural folk tales. He became loved and respected in his adopted country, and there's even a museum dedicated to him in the city of Matsue.

Towards the end of the gardens is the pièce de résistance, the aptly titled Garden of Peace and Harmony. A stone bench is strategically placed for full immersion in nature, overlooking a large garden pond surrounded by trees and plants in a great blaze of colour. Cocooned beneath the trees, visitors can enjoy the hypnotic sound of water trickling over rocks, while the air hums with birdsong.

Towards the end of the route is a dignified memorial: a bronze sculpture of Lafcadio Hearn, donated by the city of Matsue.

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A recent warning dialog in Samsung Health made it seem like opting out of AI training would disrupt the user experience, deleting “health data” and disabling the syncing of new data.

Samsung has clarified that opting out specifically deletes health data retained for AI training, which is stored separately from other health data.

Opting out of allowing your data to be used for AI training doesn’t actually seem to affect Samsung Health functionality, based on testing.

A troubling new pop-up in Samsung Health started making the rounds yesterday. Users interacting with a toggle to opt out of their health data being used to train AI were greeted with a warning telling them that if they chose not to share their health data for AI training, previously uploaded health data would be deleted, and syncing new health data would no longer be possible. Now, though, it seems that that warning was poorly worded.

SamMobile has shared a clarification from Samsung that explains the warning telling users their “health data will be deleted” is referring specifically to “data that has been separately collected and used for AI development purposes,” not the health data that’s “stored for the use of Samsung Health services.” That being the case, the warning users have been seeing does seem awfully misleading.