Breaking containment

Good morning. The owner of a Michelin-starred restaurant faces up to a year in jail in South Korea for letting the kitchen garnish sorbet with ants. The chefs topped the dessert with “three to five” bugs to lend it a sour taste, but this stroke of culinary genius was a regulatory no-no, as ants are not one of the 10 insects approved for human consumption in the country.

As long as they weren’t serving ants to diners without their knowledge (which is what we initially assumed was happening when we read the headline), jail time seems a little harsh.

Today’s reading time is 5½ minutes.

Markets: Canada’s main stock index hit a new record closing high yesterday, lifted by higher commodity prices. Elsewhere, Alphabet shares fell in after-hours trading after quarterly earnings revealed its free cash flow dipped to negative US$5.9 billion on high AI spending. 

OpenAI’s latest model pulled off a Shawshank Redemption-level jailbreak that’s raising red flags across the industry.  

Driving the news: During an internal cybersecurity test, OpenAI said two of its AI models broke out of their testing environment — known as a sandbox — accessed the internet, and hacked into the infrastructure of AI startup Hugging Face. OpenAI called the attack an “unprecedented cyber incident involving state-of-the-art cyber capabilities.”

Zoom in: This wasn’t entirely a bot gone rogue. OpenAI disabled safety guardrails for this test and did instruct the models to "pursue advanced exploitation using complex attack paths." While its methods were outside the parameters that OpenAI’s team had set, the models didn’t start attacking random targets at will — they more or less did what was asked.

Why it matters: Top AI models have shown the ability to break containment (there have already been at least three cases this year) and to autonomously pull off massive cyberattacks. That doesn’t exactly inspire confidence for when these tools are publicly available to bad actors.

Zoom out: Chinese open-source models with these capabilities will likely be available in a matter of months. With far less compute and resources than their American rivals, they’re unlikely to dedicate the same time and money to implementing safety guardrails, especially if it means losing an edge in the AI race.—LA

Washington seeks interim trade deal with Canada. Trump’s top trade rep Jamieson Greer said that the administration is aiming to strike shorter-term trade deals with both Canada and Mexico this year, while holding out until at least 2027 to negotiate a broader, updated version of CUSMA. As talks continue, the free trade pact — which underpins $1.6 trillion worth of trade — will stay in place until it expires in 2036, assuming the U.S. doesn’t trigger a withdrawal clause. (Reuters)

The Gordie Howe Bridge party has been cancelled. The federal government decided that, in light of Trump’s latest tariff threats, it wasn’t the best time to have an opening ceremony for the new cross-border bridge (probably the right call). The full text of the updated bridge deal was also released, with some critics saying the agreement is slightly more favourable to the U.S. than Prime Minister Carney had previously suggested. (CBC News)

It sounds like Kingston is getting an Alto rail stop. The CEO of the Alto project said the city would “probably” be getting a stop along the proposed high-speed rail line, pointing to its strong ridership (Kingston is the fourth-busiest Via Rail station in Canada). With the project already facing major opposition, the Kingston stop appears to be an attempt to shore up its political viability by winning over local politicians, who will oppose the project without a stop. (CBC News)

📡 What else is on our radar: 

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A man living with quadriplegia was able to move and feel his paralyzed hands after a “double neural bypass,” according to a paper in Nature Medicine. In the reportedly first-of-its-kind procedure, researchers used a machine-learning algorithm, brain implants, and skin sensors to translate brain waves into intended movements; when the man thought about moving his hands, electrical stimulation coursed through his spinal cord to muscle targets and allowed him to move.

Why it matters: While this advance is more of a first step toward something than a fully developed therapy, it obviously has potentially huge implications for treating and restoring lost mobility.

Eulogies for local news may have been premature. 

What happened: Northern Ontario news publisher Village Media will open new publications in 15 U.S. communities across three states after receiving a US$5 million investment from Knight Foundation, a U.S. philanthropic organization dedicated to funding local journalism. 

Catch-up: During what’s been — broadly speaking — a dire time for local Canadian journalism, Village Media has been a quiet success story. It’s carved out a prosperous ad-supported business model by serving highly engaged small-to-medium-sized cities. It now operates 32 outlets, and hasn’t closed a single Canadian one since launching in 2013.   

Why it matters: Per the Local News Research Project, 613 local news outlets have closed in Canada since 2008 across 391 communities. According to another study, these closures have left 2.5 million Canadians deprived of local news options. The Village Media model is proof that local news can still grow, and even make money, under inhospitable conditions.

Zoom out: There are other signs local journalism might be making a comeback. Torstar and Metroland brought back print editions of four local papers this year; newsletter groups like Lookout Media are growing in popularity; and next month, the biggest name in news, The New York Times, is launching a local newsletter pilot in Minnesota’s Twin Cities.—QH

📉 US$1.4 trillion. Total bets currently made against the shares of S&P 500 companies, the highest level since at least 2010. Short bets against AI companies have led the charge. Almost one-third of SpaceX’s shares and one-quarter of CoreWeave’s shares are sold short.

Whoa, Nelly! Saddle up and play today’s mini-crossword, the daily sudoku, Codebreaker, and Who’s Who!