May 5, 1945. Hitler has been dead for five days. The war in Europe is almost over. In a castle in the Austrian Alps, American soldiers, German soldiers, and a group of elderly French prisoners grab rifles and get ready to fight the SS. Together. The castle was called Schloss Itter. The Nazis had turned it into a prison for very important people. Not ordinary prisoners. Trophies. Inside were two former prime ministers of France, Paul Reynaud and Édouard Daladier. Two of France's top generals, Maxime Weygand and Maurice Gamelin. A famous tennis champion, Jean Borotra. And the older sister of Charles de Gaulle. As the Reich collapsed in early May, the SS guards panicked and ran. The prisoners suddenly found themselves in charge of a castle, with weapons left behind, and a serious problem. Waffen-SS units were still roaming the area. Fanatics who would gladly kill them all. They needed help. Fast. One of the castle's prisoners, a Yugoslav handyman, slipped out on a bicycle to find the Americans. Separately, a German army officer named Major Josef Gangl also went looking for them. Gangl was a Wehrmacht officer who had turned against the Nazis and was secretly working with the Austrian resistance. He wanted to protect the prisoners too. He found an American tank commander named Captain Jack Lee. Lee was 27, tough, cigar chewing, and willing to do something insane. With a single Sherman tank and a handful of American soldiers, he drove up into the mountains alongside Gangl and a few of his German troops. They reached the castle on May 4. The French prisoners were not exactly thrilled to see a tiny rescue force. They had expected an army. Instead they got a few Americans, a few Germans, and one tank. The next morning, the SS attacked. Somewhere between 100 and 150 Waffen-SS troops hit the castle with machine guns, mortars, and anti-tank weapons. The defenders fought back from the walls and windows. Americans and Germans side by side. The French prisoners refused to hide. Some of them, including Reynaud, picked up weapons and joined in. The Sherman tank was knocked out. The defenders were running out of ammunition. It looked like the castle would fall. Then Jean Borotra, the tennis star, volunteered to make a run for it. He jumped the wall, slipped past the SS, and sprinted through the countryside to find American reinforcements. He found them. And he insisted on coming back with them to finish the fight. During the battle, Major Gangl saw Paul Reynaud exposed to gunfire and moved to pull him to safety. A sniper shot Gangl dead. He had survived the whole war as a German soldier, only to die defending French prisoners from the SS in its final days. That afternoon, the American relief force arrived and broke the attack. The SS were scattered and captured. The prisoners were saved. Jack Lee received the Distinguished Service Cross. In Austria, Josef Gangl is remembered as a hero, and a street is named after him. It is believed to be the only battle of the war where American and German soldiers fought together on the same side.

Congrats to the team! Amazing to run a model of Muse Spark Open's caliber and scale this efficiently, right from your desk. Mac Studio keeps pushing the boundaries of on-device AI!

Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico's viral hospital rumor has been debunked by time-stamped security footage reviewed by The New York Times — but the bigger story may be why his campaign sat on the evidence while the conspiracy theory exploded across social media for days. Talarico disappeared from the campaign trail for nine days in early October, fueling rampant speculation that he had secretly traveled to an Ohio behavioral health center. His campaign maintained he was home with the flu, and security camera images from his Austin home now back that up. But GOP strategists and journalists are torching the campaign's response as "mind-numbing malpractice" for not releasing the footage sooner. With Election Day just weeks away in one of the biggest Senate races in the country, the question has shifted from where Talarico was to why his team let the narrative spiral unchecked when they had the receipts the entire time. Full story here foxnews.com/politics/new-evi…

User: "So I heard you have a HomePad, now" Apple: "It is kind of like CarPlay but for your home. Also it isn't called HomePad" User: "So it's called HomePlay then?" Apple: "No it's HomeView and it comes in a version with a stand and one for the wall." User: "So the wall mount one is cheaper right?" Apple: "No, both are $300, also we will charge you extra for a mount." User: "When is iPad getting multiuser support for home use?" Apple: "Never, but our $300 streaming box supports multiuser."

We have a lot more coming… 👀

I don’t think you have a dog in this fight but if you did you would have shot it.

Quick tip for fellow Slack power users: macOS 27 has a hidden command for Slack-style inline Emoji search. A dropdown with Emoji suggestions appears when you type colon (:) and a keyword. Enable the feature in the Terminal: sudo mkdir -p /Library/Preferences/FeatureFlags/Domain && \ sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/FeatureFlags/Domain/Stickers InlineEmojiSearch -dict Enabled -bool true and restart your Mac. • The feature is quite reliable in AppKit text editors such as TextEdit, Notes, and Calendar. • It works in Catalyst apps like Messages and Books, but there’s a refresh bug. Press an arrow key after typing a few letters to make suggestions appear. • It doesn’t have a WebKit implementation, so this new command will not work when drafting emails or reminders. Emoji suggestions appear in search fields. Restore to defaults with: sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/FeatureFlags/Domain/Stickers InlineEmojiSearch

Today I learned about the All Souls examination, which is reputed to be the hardest exam in the world. To even be considered, you need to have a degree from, or be a current graduate student of Oxford. Hundreds of people sit and only two people pass every year. Attached is last year's general exam. Before I saw it, I wondered, how hard could it be. Well, it turns out…it's "Defend ghosting.", "Does a pope matter?", and "Is body language a language?" hard:

I just spoke with @MarkJCarney, @alexstubb, and @SecGenNATO Mark Rutte. We discussed the energy ceasefire announced by President Trump. Ukraine supports the ceasefire, and it is important that Russia support it as well. We are awaiting details from the American side. For our part, Ukraine always FULLY supports steps toward de-escalation, the protection of lives, and the decisions needed to end the war and guarantee lasting peace. Thank you!

We thrive in chaos and variety. Give us tight deadlines, changing priorities, and the freedom to do things our own way, and we can move mountains. But put us in a slow, repetitive 9-5 with the same task every day? Our brain checks out and starts planning an escape. We’re not undisciplined. We’re high-performance engines that run best on novelty and urgency. 2/2

If AI labs want personal assistants to take off at scale, they need to stop marketing vacations, reservations, party planning, etc. These are not problems. Focus on *the* problem facing Americans: the cost of living. Agents can offer a ton of help. Some ideas: (🧵)