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Savewith a NBCUniversal ProfileCreate your free profile or log in to save this articleOct. 1, 2025, 11:00 AM EDTBy Liz SzaboPeople who learn they have autism after age 6 — the current median age at diagnosis — are often described as having a “milder” form of autism than people diagnosed as toddlers.A new study challenges that assumption.A genetic analysis finds that people with autism spectrum disorder diagnosed in late childhood or adolescence actually have “a different form of autism,” not a less severe one, said Varun Warrier, senior author of a study published Wednesday in Nature.The “genetic profile” of people with late-diagnosis autism actually looks more like depression, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder than early childhood autism, said Warrier, an autism researcher at the University of Cambridge. The study illustrates that autism is not a single condition with one root cause, but rather an umbrella term for a cluster of conditions with similar — although not identical — features, said Geraldine Dawson, founding director of the Duke Center for Autism and Brain Development, who wasn’t involved in the new report. Alycia Halladay, chief science officer at the Autism Science Foundation, who wasn’t involved in the study, said: “This paper reinforces yet again how complex autism is and how much genetics plays a role not just in a diagnosis but in the features of that diagnosis. There is no one cause of autism, despite claims against Tylenol.”Authors of the new study analyzed long-term social, emotional and behavioral information about children in the United Kingdom and Australia, as well as genetic data about more than 45,000 autistic people in Europe and the United States.Different genetic profilesResearchers didn’t focus on a single gene or even a few genes. Instead, they looked at sets of thousands of genetic variants that together influence particular traits. While one genetic profile may lead to difficulties with social interactions during the toddler or preschool years, another set of genes may cause an increase in such problems during late childhood and beyond, Warrier said.The new study suggests that some autistic children “develop differently and may not receive a diagnosis earlier on because their features may not yet have clearly emerged,” Warrier said. “It is important to understand what these features are and ensure that we are assessing autistic people across the lifespan.”Most autism diagnoses are made before age 18, with 22% of diagnoses occurring by age 4, 20% from 5 to 8, 15% from 9 to 12 and 16% from 13 to 17.Adult diagnoses are more common in women. Twenty-five percent of women with autism were diagnosed at age 19 or older last year, compared with 12% of men, according to Epic Research.In the study, adolescents diagnosed with autism had more difficulties managing emotional issues and relationships with peers than other kids. That was the struggle for Adeline Lacroix of Toronto. Lacroix, now 42, who was raised in France, had trouble making friends as a child. She “wondered why in school we learned things that were to me quite easy, such as mathematics, but we didn’t learn how to make friends, which for me was much more difficult,” she said.Lacroix often didn’t understand when other people were being ironic or making a joke. Although she got good grades, “I felt I was very dumb because I didn’t understand a lot of things.”Adeline Lacroix’s life changed when she was diagnosed with autism at age 30.Courtesy Adeline LacroixHer frustration led to depression and thoughts of death. “I didn’t really want to die, but at the same time I was so tired,” she said.Her life changed when she was diagnosed with autism at age 30. Suddenly, she realized why understanding conversations was so hard. She changed careers, abandoning her old job as a schoolteacher to pursue a doctorate in psychology and neuroscience. Lacroix now has a supportive partner and a job she loves at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, where she researches women and girls with autism. “I’m very happy with my life,” she said.Although many young people with autism are still diagnosed relatively late in childhood because of a lack of screening and resources in their communities, increased awareness and wider access to testing have helped lower the age at which children are diagnosed with autism, allowing them to get critical early support. Increased acceptance of neurodiversity is also motivating a growing number of teens and adults to seek out testing for autism, which can involve difficulties in communication and social interactions, as well as restricted or repetitive behaviors or interests. From 2011 to 2022, autism diagnoses among adults 26 to 34 grew by 450%, the largest relative increase among any age group.In the Nature study, the first to link a genetic profile to the timing of autism diagnosis, newly diagnosed adolescents had an increased risk of depression.The increase in depression could stem from both a genetic predisposition and a lack of support faced by young people whose unique learning needs and social challenges go unaddressed for years, Warrier said.“Children who have undiagnosed autism may not receive the support they need,” he said. “They may be bullied, excluded and may be vulnerable socially. It is only when they are struggling that caregivers seek out professional help and they receive an autism diagnosis.”In future research, he said, Warrier hopes to study how a person’s social environment — whether supportive or hostile — affects the risk of depression in later-diagnosed people. Although school and community services often focus on youngsters, Warrier said it’s important to support people with autism of all ages.The emotional toll of trying to blend inSam Brandsen, who grew up in a small town in Iowa where few people were familiar with autism, didn’t get that critical support. In the sixth grade, he was bullied for being different. Kids made fun of him for rocking back and forth, a behavior that he found soothing. Boys shoved him into lockers and tied his shoelaces to his desk to make him fall.By force of will, he managed to sit still at his desk. But the mental and emotional effort he expended took a heavy toll, Brandsen said, causing him to suffer panic attacks between classes.“You know that you’re different, but you don’t really have a framework for understanding what that difference is,” said Sam Brandsen who was diagnosed with autism at 27.Sam BrandsonBrandsen, now 31, said he wasn’t diagnosed with autism until four years ago, after his 18-month-old son was diagnosed with it. Like Lacroix, Brandsen said he felt relieved to better understand himself. Instead of wasting energy to act like everyone else, he said, “I’d rather use that energy to just be a kinder person.”Brandsen said he can understand why people with autism who are diagnosed later in life may have a greater risk of mental distress.“You know that you’re different, but you don’t really have a framework for understanding what that difference is,” said Brandsen, a part-time postdoctoral researcher at the University of Alberta in Canada and a member of the Autism Society’s Council of Autistic Advisors. “You’re trying to make sense of rules that seem to make sense to everyone else, and you don’t know why it’s not clicking for you.”Although Brandsen said he understands why scientists want to study the causes of autism, he said he hopes they will spend more time researching ways to help people with autism lead full, independent lives. His son has a number of disabilities, Brandsen said, but the boy also experiences tremendous joy.“There’s so many ways that he’s changed my life profoundly for the better, even if it’s been kind of a harder path at times,” Brandsen said. “But then he can also take so much joy from just watching a train.”If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988, or go to 988lifeline.org, to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. You can also call the network, previously known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, at 800-273-8255, or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources.Liz SzaboLiz Szabo is an independent health and science journalist. Her work has won multiple national awards. One of her investigations led to a new state law in Virginia.

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October 5, 2025

Oct. 4, 2025, 6:00 AM EDTBy Jared PerloEarly last week in the Chinese tech hub of Hangzhou, a slick, larger-than-life video screen beamed out four words that would drive tech giant Alibaba’s stock to historic levels and signal a shift in China’s approach to artificial intelligence: “Roadmap to Artificial Superintelligence.”During his 23-minute keynote address at the flagship Alibaba Cloud conference, Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu charted out a future featuring artificial general intelligence (AGI) and artificial superintelligence (ASI). These terms point to a theorized era in which AI becomes roughly as smart as humans (AGI) and then much, much smarter (ASI).While these terms have been tossed around Silicon Valley for years, Wu’s presentation was notable: Alibaba is now the first established Chinese tech giant to explicitly invoke AGI and ASI.“Achieving AGI — an intelligent system with general human-level cognition — now appears inevitable. Yet AGI is not the end of AI’s development, but its beginning,” Wu said. “It will march toward ASI — intelligence beyond the human, capable of self-iteration and continuous evolution.”“ASI will drive exponential technological leaps, carrying us into an unprecedented age of intelligence,” Wu said, highlighting ASI’s ability to help cure diseases, discover cleaner sources of energy and even unlock interstellar travel.The U.S. and China are the world’s leading AI powers, each with immense computing capabilities and top-tier researchers developing cutting-edge systems. Yet observers have framed the countries as having different approaches to AI, with perceptions that China focuses more on real-world AI applications.For example, commentators recently argued that Beijing is currently “winning the race for AI robots” against the U.S., as China is home to much of the world’s most advanced robotics supply chains and a growing network of robotics, or embodied AI, labs.“There’s been some commentary in Western media recently about how the U.S. is missing the point by pushing for AGI, while China is focusing solely on applications,” said Helen Toner, interim executive director of Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology. “This is wrong.”“Some Chinese researchers and some parts of the Chinese government have been interested in AGI and superintelligence for a long time,” Toner said, though she noted this view was primarily held by smaller startups like DeepSeek.China’s push for global AI dominance04:44Afra Wang, a researcher focusing on China’s tech scene, said Alibaba’s invocation of AGI and ASI was remarkable.“This ASI narrative is definitely something new, especially among the biggest tech companies in China,” she told NBC News.Alibaba’s “roadmap to artificial superintelligence” seems to scramble mainstream perceptions. Any number of California techno-optimists, like Anthropic’s Dario Amodei or xAI’s Elon Musk, might have delivered Wu’s speech, selling a technology-enabled utopia while largely sidestepping darker questions about how humanity would co-exist with or survive an era of digital superintelligence.The concept of superintelligence has long been on the minds of — if not explicitly guiding — prominent American AI companies. For example, OpenAI released an article focused on the safe development of superintelligent AI models in May 2023. “Now is a good time to start thinking about the governance of superintelligence — future AI systems dramatically more capable than even AGI,” the statement said.The possibility of superintelligence is now even being acknowledged in Congress. On Monday, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Ill., announced a draft bill that would, among other actions, “assist Congress in determining the potential for controlled AI systems to reach artificial superintelligence.”To some, ASI might seem like an outlandish concept when today’s AI systems fail to understand basic tennis rules, hallucinate or fabricate basic information, or do not seem to actually comprehend how the external world functions.At the same time, AI systems continue to approach and sometimes surpass human capabilities in many domains, from driving cars safely to winning international coding competitions, leaving many experts to say it’s a matter of when, not if, humans develop digital superintelligence.As the idea of superintelligence gradually enters mainstream debates, many American politicians have announced that the U.S. is in an AI race with China. The White House’s current AI manifesto is titled “Winning the AI Race: America’s AI Action Plan,” while Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, proclaimed that “as a matter of economic security, as a matter of national security, America has to beat China in the AI race.”Yet charges of an AI race are muddied by a lack of an agreed end goal and swirling definitions of AGI. At worst, experts think an unfettered race toward AGI or ASI could lead to widespread catastrophe or even the end of humanity.But there’s also plenty of skepticism around talk of AGI and ASI and whether it’s primarily for marketing purposes.Alibaba is one of China’s largest tech companies, known for providing powerful, free AI models — also called open-source models — for download. Alibaba’s Qwen model series, a competitor to models like OpenAI’s GPT-5 or Anthropic’s Claude, is the most popular open-source AI system in the world.OpenAI launches Sora 2 wth AI social media app05:48Wu announced a new series of Qwen models in his speech last week, including a model that combines text, images, video and audio capabilities.Many observers point out that narratives about a U.S.-China AI race and a resulting sprint to build AI infrastructure serve AI investors by propping up company valuations and increasing their soft power. Alibaba’s stock has soared since Wu’s speech last week, part of a larger $250 billion comeback this year that has made it China’s hottest AI company.To unlock a powerful, superintelligent future, Wu predicted that large AI models will replace existing operating systems as the link between users, software and computational power. This future network of large AI models will run on cloud computing networks like Alibaba Cloud, he said.Irene Zhang, a researcher on China’s AI ecosystem and an editor of ChinaTalk, noted the business undertones of Wu’s announcement.“This is a vision of AGI and ASI that’s directly based on Alibaba’s business model,” she said.“Alibaba Cloud dominates China’s cloud computing market, and its global market share is now bigger than Oracle’s,” she said. “Alibaba’s commercial strategy and its publicly stated views on ASI/AGI are symbiotic.”Matt Sheehan, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, agreed.“ASI is the ultimate frontier, as far as the discourse goes on AI,” Sheehan said. “It’s notable that Alibaba set this grandiose goal, but in reality, they’re selling cloud services.”Jared PerloJared Perlo is a writer and reporter at NBC News covering AI. He is currently supported by the Tarbell Center for AI Journalism.

October 8, 2025

Oct. 8, 2025, 9:14 AM EDT / Updated Oct. 8, 2025, 2:06 PM EDTBy Megan LebowitzPresident Donald Trump said in a post to Truth Social on Wednesday that Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker “should be in jail” in an escalation of his conflict with the two Democratic officials.”Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect Ice Officers!” he said in the post. “Governor Pritzker also!”The president’s post comes a day after Texas National Guard troops arrived in Illinois, despite the Democrats’ fierce opposition. Trump has threatened for weeks to send troops to Chicago as part of a crime-fighting and immigration effort, and Democrats have slammed his push as overreach and a political stunt.Reached for comment, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said that “JB Pritzker and Brandon Johnson have blood on their hands” and accused them of having “stood idly by while innocent Americans fall victim to violent crime time and time again.”She argued that “instead of taking action to stop the crime, these Trump-Deranged buffoons would rather allow the violence to continue and attack the President for wanting to help make their city safe again.”The statement did not address NBC News’ questions about what crimes the president believes Johnson and Pritzker and whether the White House planned to try to have federal agents arrest them.Texas National Guard troops arrive outside Chicago02:11Pritzker responded to the president in a post to X, saying, “I will not back down.”“Trump is now calling for the arrest of elected representatives checking his power,” he said in the post. “What else is left on the path to full-blown authoritarianism?”Later, Pritzker told reporters that Trump is “a coward.””He likes to pretend to be a tough guy,” Pritzker said of the president. “Come and get me.”Reached for comment, Johnson said that “this is not the first time Trump has tried to have a Black man unjustly arrested.”“I’m not going anywhere,” he added.On Monday, Illinois sued in an attempt to prevent the White House from deploying federalized troops to Chicago. A judge scheduled a hearing on the case for Thursday and declined to sign a temporary restraining order, which would have blocked the administration as the case proceeds in court. The president’s comments come as protests across Immigration and Customs Enforcement have rippled across the country as the administration ramped up efforts to detain and deport migrants. The White House has previously argued that deploying the National Guard is necessary to “protect federal assets and personnel” and prevent “attacks on law enforcement.”Trump first deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles, over Gov. Gavin Newsom’s objections, after protests broke out in response to immigration raids. The president then ordered the National Guard to the streets of D.C., painting it as an effort to fight crime. The administration is also trying to send federalized National Guard troops from California to Portland, Oregon, but a judge granted a temporary restraining order this week to block the move as the case is considered in court. A Pentagon spokesperson had said that the troops would have worked to “support U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal personnel performing official duties, including the enforcement of federal law, and to protect federal property.” In Chicago, a frequent target of the president, Johnson signed an executive order on Monday in an effort to block immigration agents from using city property during their operations in Chicago. “We will not tolerate ICE agents violating our residents’ constitutional rights nor will we allow the federal government to disregard our local authority,” Johnson said in a press release marking the so-called “ICE Free Zone” executive order. Pritzker has emerged as a leading critic of the Trump administration as his state faces the president’s ire. Trump has compared Chicago to a “war zone,” and Pritzker said Sunday in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” that “they’re just making this up.””Then what do they do? They fire tear gas and smoke grenades, and they make it look like it’s a war zone,” Pritzker said on Sunday, appearing to refer to federal agents. “And they, you know, get people on the ground are, frankly, incited to want to do something about it, appropriately.”In recent days, Pritzker also said that he believed that Trump should be removed from office. “There is something genuinely wrong with this man, and the 25th Amendment ought to be invoked,” he said, referring to a process for removing the president from office.On Tuesday, Pritzker was asked during an event whether he believed he could be arrested. “I’m asking any of you to come visit me in the gulag in El Salvador,” Pritzker joked, referring to the prison where the Trump administration has deported some immigrants.House Speaker Mike Johnson did not say whether he believed Mayor Johnson and Pritzker should be jailed when asked by NBC News about Trump’s post. “Should they be in prison? Should the mayor of Chicago and the governor of Illinois be in prison?” Johnson responded. “I’m not the attorney general. I’m the Speaker of the House, and I’m trying to manage the chaos here. I’m not following the day-to-day on that.”Trump has repeatedly threatened legal action against some of his political opponents, including former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Last month, he urged Attorney General Pam Bondi in a post to Truth Social to not “delay any longer,” slamming his political opponents and writing, “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”Comey was indicted days later and is set to be arraigned on Wednesday. Megan LebowitzMegan Lebowitz is a politics reporter for NBC News.Natasha Korecki and Julie Tsirkin contributed.

October 10, 2025

Remembering Cliff Lambert

October 8, 2025

Oct. 8, 2025, 4:26 PM EDTBy Bracey Harris, Aarne Heikkila and Steve PattersonRENO, Nev. — On the western edge of Nevada, it’s hard not to think about water. The driest state in the country is often hit by droughts, but that hasn’t stopped developers from buying up ranches and farmland to build homes or businesses.Today, Reno, “the Biggest Little City in the World,” is poised to become a new player in the nation’s data center construction boom. At least three data center projects have been approved since 2024, with more in a nearby industrial park. The giant computing facilities are essential to the internet as we know it, providing the digital infrastructure for cloud storage and for emerging artificial intelligence systems. They also require massive amounts of energy to run and often need hundreds of thousands of gallons of water to stay cool. Some community leaders, like Reno Vice Mayor Kathleen Taylor, have celebrated data centers, which can bring jobs and tax revenue. Earlier this year, officials projected a $25 million deficit in the upcoming budget year. But opponents argue that data centers can also bring consequences, if they raise electricity costs or cause water shortages down the road. For more on this story, watch “Hallie Jackson NOW” on NBC News NOW tonight at 5 p.m. ET/4 p.m. CT.It’s part of a wider tension accompanying the infrastructure needed in the global artificial intelligence race. A Bloomberg investigation found that two-thirds of all new data centers are being built in water-stressed regions, like Nevada, where severe drought is a major concern. Community members wary of the data center push have focused their attention on a vote this week that will decide whether developers of a new project on the outskirts of Reno can dramatically scale back its housing to allow more than half of its land to go to industrial uses — including data centers.Originally pitched as a cozy enclave of 5,000 homes with a scenic view, the new proposal would include roughly 12 million square feet for industrial and commercial use (up from 1.2 million square feet in the original proposal) and 1,350 housing units.“I’m not anti-data center,” said Olivia Tanager, director of the Toiyabe Chapter of the Sierra Club, who has spearheaded opposition to the revised proposal. “My organization is not anti-data center. But we are anti-huge amounts of potable water being gobbled up by data centers.”

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