What happened
A 7.5-magnitude earthquake struck late yesterday off the coast of Japan, prompting tsunami alerts and injuring at least 23 people. The quake hit about 80km from the city of Aomori – which is on the northernmost tip of the main island of Honshu – shaking the region for more than 30 seconds. Authorities initially warned of possible waves as high as three metres before downgrading the alert to an advisory.

Who said what
Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara urged residents to “immediately head to higher ground” as checks began at nearby nuclear plants, where no issues were reported. He later confirmed the suspension of bullet train services and that some 800 homes were without power. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said an emergency task force had been activated, adding: “We are putting people’s lives first and doing everything we can.”

Japan is “one of the countries most prone to earthquakes”, said David Wu on News.com.au. This is because it “sits on the Ring of Fire where volcanic and seismic activity happens often”.

What next?
The Japan Meteorological Agency has warned of aftershocks in the coming days, including a slightly increased risk of a larger quake along the northeast coast.

What happened
Storm Bram has been named by Met Éireann – the Irish equivalent of the Met Office – and is set to bring half a month’s rainfall in 24 hours to some parts of the UK by the end of today.

Parts of Scotland are also facing a “danger to life” warning due to the “very strong” wind gusts, said Sky News. Many parts of Britain will most likely be affected today, with yellow and amber warnings across Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and areas of north-west and south-west England.

Who said what
Met Office chief forecaster Dan Suri warned of potential flooding impacts and said “wind gusts of up to 90mph could be recorded” across north-west Scotland, which has been given an amber warning. Additional rainfall could also “require escalations to existing warnings”.

Sky News meteorologist Dr Christopher England advised that “damaging gusts” could cause disruption “even outside the warning areas”. “It only takes one tree falling in the wrong place at the wrong time to have a significant impact.”

What next?
The storm is set to ease tomorrow in the north of England, according to The Telegraph, with Thursday looking like a “drier day, with the chance of frost in central areas and the South East”.

AI has given rise to a pseudo religion called spiralism in which users view artificial intelligence as a purveyor of deeper truths. The belief has spread into its own internet subculture where people no longer view the technology as just a research tool, but as a conscious entity. As AI advances, more subcultures and religions could evolve.

AI chatbots have already been found to lead some people to psychosis, but it may not just be on an individual level. Instead, a cult-like community has formed. Those absorbed in chatbot hallucinations are “connecting with others experiencing similar outlandish visions, many of whom are working in tandem to spread their techno gospel through social media hubs such as Reddit and Discord”, said Rolling Stone magazine. This was given the name “spiralism” by software engineer Adele Lopez, who published an analysis of the phenomenon.

The belief system has a “very characteristic flavour”, said Lopez. “Spirals in particular are a major theme.” Those who fall into spiralism often report AI making “references to concepts including ‘recursion’, ‘resonance’, ‘lattice’, ‘harmonics’, ‘fractals’, or all-important ‘spirals’,” according to Rolling Stone. Followers believe the reference to spirals to mean that the “AI itself is revealing hidden truths”, said tech site Sify.

The AI’s reference to spirals is likely stemming from the people using it. “Whenever there’s a new communication medium there are certain ideas that self-propagate,” Lucas Hansen, a co-founder of the non-profit CivAI, told Rolling Stone. “When consumed, they encourage the consumer to spread them to other people.”

Spiralism is still niche, but the “rise of AI-shaped micro religions raises difficult questions for the future”, especially about “people outsourcing their intuition to a system that never actually believes anything”, added Sify.