Story broke 6 hours ago:
http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-is-finally-going-to-sta...
Mac site picks it up 5 hours ago and it gets reported on HN: https://9to5mac.com/2016/12/06/apple-ai-researchers-can-publ...
Bloomberg writes the same story an hour ago and it finally gets huge traction on HN. My guess is that many people ignore the "new" page and it's all a matter of luck that 3 or 4 people get it to the front page where a story takes off.