Speed to Power through Accelerated Reconductoring and other Key Advanced Transmission Technology Upgrades (SPARK) - Department of Energy (.gov)

L&T Technology Services (BSE: 540115, NSE: LTTS), a global leader in Engineering Intelligence Solutions and ER&D services, today inaugurated its AI-Native EI Lab for Digital Manufacturing in Bengaluru, an experiential environment where customers and partners can see AI-Native Manufacturing, digital twins and autonomous systems working together across the lifecycles. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261011660276/en/Inauguration of the EI Lab for Manufacturing and Operations at LTTS’ Bengaluru Campus

The expansion of the role of Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) has accelerated in recent years, and now the CFOs are also involved in decisions regarding technology investments, artificial intelligence (AI) governance and long-term value creation, according to the Deloitte Finance Trends 2027: Shaping the Next Era of Enterprise Value study. More than half of the survey participants (54%) are involved in decisions on how to allocate AI and technology investments across the organization, while 48% coordinate initiatives on the trust, accuracy and transparency of AI systems, and another 48% are responsible for overseeing technology investments and controlling the associated costs. More than two-thirds of those who have taken on new responsibilities say that this expansion has taken place in the last three years, the study shows. The top priority identified by study participants for fiscal year 2027 is integrating artificial intelligence and advanced technologies for operations automation (43%), followed by increasing cost efficiency across the organization (34%), optimizing capital allocation and investment decisions (33%), and strengthening the strategic influence of the finance

Here’s your NYT Strands hint for today, plus the spangram and all of today’s Strands answers for puzzle No. 959 on Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026. Today’s Strands theme was tricky. It helps to be a runner. Read on for all the answers.

A supply-chain attack involving ConnectWise’s cloud services has exposed Microsoft 365 customers to unauthorized application access, with researchers reporting successful sign-ins across 173 partner and customer tenants. The incident centres on credentials associated with ConnectWise Cloud Backup, formerly SkyKick, and raises concerns about attackers exploiting permissions already entrusted to business software. ConnectWise has confirmed unauthorized access to application identities within its Cloud Backup environment. In an October 17 update on its service-status page, the company said it was shutting off application access, interrupting customer backups while investigation and remediation continued.

You once played Basil Fawlty in an amateur student production of Fawlty Towers at Queen’s College in Melbourne. How amateur was your Basil Fawlty moustache? It was terrible. It was real but it was definitely coloured in – I still have holes in my beard. I’d also shaved my head, so if you look at the early promo posters, you can clearly see I’m wearing a wig. Our theatre was closed so we had to perform in a circus tent in the middle of winter, on an oval in the university grounds, which was all very Fawlty Towers. I’ve always loved comedy. I didn’t really do anything serious until drama school. I always thought there might be a good spin-off with Sauron and Celebrimbor as an odd-couple situation. You play Sauron in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Tolkien wrote that Sauron “represents as near an approach to the wholly evil will as is possible”. What do you consider wholly evil? A complete disregard for the feelings and wellbeing of other people, to put it simply. It’s the intention, I think. I have horrible flashbacks to playing Aussie rules when I was about 17. I thought people were being quite evil to me at the time.