The Open University

A student from Gaza has been suspended by a Dutch university after he claimed to have taken part in the October 7 attacks. The move has drawn attention to how European universities handle students who openly declare involvement in the Hamas-led assault, and the case is being reported in Israeli and international media.

A POLITICO investigation has found more than 100 open records requests filed at 19 public universities across the United States, targeting at least 30 researchers over the past five years. More than half of the requests were filed since Donald Trump's reelection in November, prompting concern among academics about scrutiny and potential chilling effects on research.

In March 2025, the University of Oxford announced a partnership with OpenAI to digitize public-domain books from the Bodleian Library. According to the announcement, the digitized works will become searchable and more widely accessible. The collaboration has drawn attention among librarians, researchers and open-access advocates discussing the role of AI companies in digitizing cultural heritage collections.

The United Nations has declared September 29 as the International Day for Universal Access to Information. The designation gives global recognition to the right of the public to seek and receive information, including from governments and public bodies. Observers see it as a boost for transparency, press freedom and open-government efforts, and it is expected to be marked annually with events promoting access-to-information laws worldwide.

Physicists report new evidence that gravity can collapse the dimensions of space, supporting the idea that gravity is holographic — that the universe's three-dimensional structure may be encoded on a lower-dimensional surface. Researchers stress the implications are not yet understood, and what this means for the nature of reality remains an open question driving discussion among cosmologists and science commentators.

Stanford University and Nvidia have open-sourced CLM-8B, an AI model built for software agents that caches reusable actions instead of recomputing them. In tests the model ran up to nine times faster than Jev, a comparable agent system. The open release is drawing attention for offering large speed gains on agentic workloads, an area where inference cost is a major bottleneck for developers.

Federal agencies have opened investigations into Duke University and the University of North Dakota over alleged foreign funding ties. The inquiries focus on whether the universities properly disclosed money received from overseas sources, an issue that has drawn increasing federal scrutiny of American higher education institutions in recent years.

A District Attorney has opened an investigation into sexual assault allegations dating from 2024. Cornell University has issued statements acknowledging the investigation, which centers on incidents reported that year. The probe puts renewed attention on how the university and local authorities handle reports of sexual violence on campus, and reactions so far have focused on calls for transparency in the process.

The open-source notification tool Apprise has released version 2.0, introducing escalation levels, time limits and targeted retries — for example sending an SMS only if the original email notification goes unanswered. The update makes the tool, popular among system administrators as a universal messenger for alerts, more suitable for critical on-call scenarios. The release notes warn that not everything remains backward-compatible, so existing setups may need adjustments.

The University of Hawaii women's tennis team is opening its season by hosting the UH 'Anuenue Invitational in Honolulu, a home event that draws collegiate players to the islands for early-season competition. The university's athletics department announced the tournament as the team's first action of the new season.

A short animated explainer from BBC Ideas and The Open University outlines practical habits for verifying online content, noting that deepfakes, voice cloning and synthetic media have made fraud far harder to detect than the era of distorted hands and obvious glitches. Viewers are sharing it as a reminder to check sources, cross-reference footage and stay sceptical of urgent requests.

A cross-site scripting vulnerability, tracked as EUVD-2024-55777, has been disclosed in the Greek Universities Network (GUnet) Open eClass Platform version 3.15. The flaw, rated 5.4 out of 10 on the CVSS v3.1 scale, could let a remote attacker execute arbitrary code through user name fields. The advisory was published on 29 September and updated the following day.

A new animated explainer from BBC Ideas and The Open University warns that deepfakes, voice cloning and other synthetic media have made online fraud far harder to detect than in the era of obviously glitched, distorted images. The piece outlines practical verification habits people can use to recognize manipulated content, from checking sources to questioning urgent requests, as scams powered by AI become increasingly convincing.

The University of Kansas tennis team has opened its fall season at the Nebraska Invitational. The Jayhawks travel to Lincoln, Nebraska to compete against regional opponents in their first tournament action of the autumn slate. It marks the start of a new competitive cycle for the program as players look to build form ahead of the spring dual season.

The University of New Mexico men's golf team has begun play at the NB3 Matchplay tournament. The Lobos announced the start of competition as the event gets underway, with the team looking to make an early impact in the match play format.

Alan Renwick of University College London has set conditions for Andy Burnham's electoral reform plans to secure political legitimacy. Renwick argues the process must involve public deliberation, remain open-minded about which voting system consultation reveals as the preferred option, and listen to experts. His comments add expert scrutiny to reform proposals championed by the Greater Manchester mayor.

An exhibition titled 'Transformations' by artist Zielinski has opened at the McEachern Art Center, which is operated by Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. The show presents the artist's work to visitors at the university-run venue. Details about the works on display and the exhibition's run have not been widely shared so far.

Neon has announced an SCP Foundation film project developed with an open-source production model, positioning it directly against a rival SCP movie that A24 has in development. The SCP Foundation is a vast collaborative horror-fiction universe born online, making it an unusual property for a major studio release. The competing projects suggest studios see major commercial potential in the creepypasta-inspired mythology.

San Diego State University is reportedly dealing with a mumps outbreak as the school prepares for its first Pac-12 conference game. The illness could affect player availability and team preparations ahead of the high-profile opener. Details on the number of cases or which players are affected have not been confirmed by the university or athletic department.