Sean Hannity says ex-New Jersey governor lacks ‘inspiring agenda’ as he prepares new presidential runChris Christie has promised to take the fight to Donald Trump when he launches a long-shot Republican presidential campaign next week, but he seems likely to have to do so without help from one key voice at Fox News.The former New Jersey governor just wants to “bludgeon” Trump, the primetime host and close Trump ally Sean Hannity said on Friday, adding that he did not want to give Christie any airtime. Continue reading...
Aspirants including Ron DeSantis and Mike Pence rally the crowd but none mention the ex-president by name, giving the impression of a party in denialThere were hay bales and Harley-Davidsons. There was sliced pork and campaign paraphernalia. There were earnest speeches about defeating Democrats winning back the White House. But at the centre of it all was a Donald Trump-shaped hole.The Republican presidential primary for 2024 got under way in earnest on Saturday when eight contenders – minus Trump – took part in Iowa senator Joni Ernst’s “Roast and Ride”, a combination of barbecue-rally and motorcycle ride. Continue reading...
Kevin McCarthy, the House speaker, secured a number of cuts on federal spending, with the borrowing limit suspended until 2025Joe Biden signed a bill on Saturday to suspend the US debt ceiling, ending a months-long standoff with the Republican House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, and averting a federal default that could have upended the world economy.Economists warned that a default could have caused the US unemployment rate to double while significantly damaging gross domestic product. Continue reading...
Statement by US attorney’s office says Brian Landry, 66, called office of unnamed senator saying ‘I’m a veteran sniper’A New Hampshire man was arrested and charged with threatening to kill an unnamed US senator.On Friday, the US attorney’s office for the district of New Hampshire announced that Brian Landry, 66, was charged with threatening to assault, kidnap or murder the senator, “in connection with the official’s performance of official duties”. Continue reading...
The arson of a wooden statue of the former first lady has been seen as symbolic. My Slovenian hosts think differentlyI spent last weekend in Ljubljana, where I was talking about comics at the invitation of Slovenia’s biggest publisher of graphic novels, VigeVageKnjige, and everything about it was delightful: the tarragon ice cream (no, really), the streetlights (mounted on Ionic pillars), the buildings designed by the great Jože Plečnik. But I was also struck by the number of American tourists in this lesser-known corner of Europe. Were they here to trace their roots? Or were they perhaps fans of the Slovenian basketball player and MBA star Luka Dončić?There was, of course, a remote third possibility, which is that some were inspired by Melania Trump, who grew up in a town called Sevnica, and still has the accent to prove it. Over dinner, my hosts grimaced. They hoped fervently that this was not the case, but, since I was interested, had I seen the wooden statue of Melania, crafted by a chainsaw, that was erected outside Sevnica in 2019, only to be burned down by arsonists soon afterwards? On her mobile, my host Zala produced a picture. “She looked like a Smurf,” she told me, and she was right. The Venus de Milo this was not. The man who commissioned it, Brad Downey, a Slovenian-American artist, has since exhibited the charred remains in the US. It seems he regards them as a warning of burgeoning political tensions in Slovenia – an interpretation somewhat at odds with the one offered to me over the coffee and baklava. Continue reading...
Death of Keenan Darnell Anderson prompted outcry in January over use of force by Los Angeles policeA teacher who was repeatedly shocked with a Taser by Los Angeles police died from an enlarged heart and cocaine use, according to an autopsy report released on Friday.The 3 January death of Keenan Darnell Anderson, 31, prompted an outcry over use of force by Los Angeles police. It was one of three fatal LAPD confrontations, including two shootings, that took place days into the new year. Continue reading...
Elon Musk’s acquisition of the company has transformed it into the center of the conservative media ecosystemIt looks like they’ve finally done it. For years, the far right has repeatedly tried and failed to set up a social network of their own – one where they can spread conspiracy theories and sow hate without any of the pesky content moderation that happens on the big tech platforms.Numerous sites including MeWe, Parler, Gab, Gettr and Trump’s own Truth Social have popped up but none of them have really gained any traction. Indeed Parler, the self-described “uncancelable free-speech social platform” Kanye West tried to buy last year, shut down in April. “No reasonable person believes that a Twitter clone just for conservatives is a viable business any more,” Parler’s parent company said in a statement. Continue reading...
Wife of Democratic Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman adds US political scene is ‘mean’ in interview with MSNBCGisele Barreto Fetterman, married to a former mayor and lieutenant governor who is now a US senator, regrets how “mean” the US political scene has become, saying: “I still hate politics.”The wife of the Democratic Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman was speaking to MSNBC in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday. Continue reading...
Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg have been busy morphing from nerds to musclemen – even action figures are piling on the beefIs it because they know a lot of people hate them? Are they worried that a revolution is coming? Are they preparing for an apocalyptic future where AI goes rogue and they have to fight robots with their bare hands? Is that why billionaires have become so obsessed with being buff? Continue reading...
Florida governor and Republican presidential candidate cheered by South Carolina campaign trail audienceA South Carolina heckler called Ron DeSantis a “fucking fascist” on Friday. In response, the Florida governor and Republican presidential candidate said: “Yeah, well, thank you, thank you.”Then DeSantis went on the attack. Continue reading...
Defence secretary also criticises Beijing’s unwillingness to engage with US on military crisis managementThe US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, has vowed that Washington will not stand for any “coercion and bullying” of its allies and partners by China, while assuring Beijing that the US remains committed to maintaining the status quo on Taiwan and would prefer dialogue over conflict.Speaking in Singapore at the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s top security summit, Austin lobbied for support for Washington’s vision of a “free, open and secure Indo-Pacific within a world of rules and rights” as the best course to counter increasing Chinese assertiveness in the region. Continue reading...
On DC’s ‘Freedom Corner’, activists are convinced the January 6 attackers are political prisoners persecuted by the governmentThe clock had just struck 9pm when Jeff Sabol, a Colorado man accused of dragging a police officer down a flight of stairs at the US Capitol on January 6 and beating him, placed a call from inside Washington’s jail.Dozens of yards and several layers of concrete and razor wire away, on E Street Southeast, Tommy Tatum, a hulking Mississippian who had been present at the Capitol on January 6 but not arrested, stood with a microphone in one hand and a cellphone in the other. Continue reading...
Blue-chip companies gave to Republican group funneling money to lawmakers who overturned abortion-ban veto in North CarolinaAs North Carolina’s 12-week abortion ban is due to come into effect on 1 July, an analysis from the non-profit Center for Political Accountability (CPA) shows several major corporations donated large sums to a Republican political organization which in turn funded groups working to elect anti-abortion state legislators.The Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) received donations of tens of thousands of dollars each from corporations including Comcast, Intuit, Wells Fargo, Amazon, Bank of America and Google last year, the CPA’s analysis of IRS filings shows. The contributions were made in the months after Politico published a leaked supreme court decision indicating that the court would end the right to nationwide abortion access. Continue reading...
Kevin Maginnis, 57, from Nashville says he ate half-portions of McDonald’s thrice daily and lost about 60lbs (26kg) in weightMost people might think that eating nothing but fast food from McDonald’s for more than three months would demolish a diet rather than constitute one, but that wasn’t the case for a 57-year-old man from Tennessee.Kevin Maginnis went on various media outlets this week and explained how he dropped nearly 60lbs by eating each of his three daily meals from McDonald’s for 100 days. Continue reading...
A first-time NHL champion will be crowned when the Vegas Golden Knights meet the Florida Panthers starting on SaturdayIn mid-December, Sergei Bobrovsky’s future with the Florida Panthers was the subject of serious debate. The $10m-per-year netminder was 5-8-1 with a .884 save percentage before Christmas. Spencer Knight, who signed a contract extension worth $4.5m a year in October, looked like the natural successor, so long as Florida could convince someone to take Bob off their hands this summer. But in February, Knight entered then NHL’s player assistance program with no timeline for his return. Bobrovsky was bumped back to first string, but struggled again. When an illness sidelined him in late March, Alex Lyon, called up from the AHL, stepped in, went on a tear, and started the playoffs against Boston. Continue reading...
Sadly, keeping your old petrol car may be better than buying an EV. There are sound environmental reasons not to jump just yetElectric motoring is, in theory, a subject about which I should know something. My first university degree was in electrical and electronic engineering, with a subsequent master’s in control systems. Combine this, perhaps surprising, academic pathway with a lifelong passion for the motorcar, and you can see why I was drawn into an early adoption of electric vehicles. I bought my first electric hybrid 18 years ago and my first pure electric car nine years ago and (notwithstanding our poor electric charging infrastructure) have enjoyed my time with both very much. Electric vehicles may be a bit soulless, but they’re wonderful mechanisms: fast, quiet and, until recently, very cheap to run. But increasingly, I feel a little duped. When you start to drill into the facts, electric motoring doesn’t seem to be quite the environmental panacea it is claimed to be.As you may know, the government has proposed a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030. The problem with the initiative is that it seems to be based on conclusions drawn from only one part of a car’s operating life: what comes out of the exhaust pipe. Electric cars, of course, have zero exhaust emissions, which is a welcome development, particularly in respect of the air quality in city centres. But if you zoom out a bit and look at a bigger picture that includes the car’s manufacture, the situation is very different. In advance of the Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow in 2021, Volvo released figures claiming that greenhouse gas emissions during production of an electric car are 70% higher than when manufacturing a petrol one. How so? The problem lies with the lithium-ion batteries fitted currently to nearly all electric vehicles: they’re absurdly heavy, many rare earth metals and huge amounts of energy are required to make them, and they only last about 10 years. It seems a perverse choice of hardware with which to lead the automobile’s fight against the climate crisis. Continue reading...
Foregoing my usual lie-in renders the whole household out of sync. Even the cat and dog refuse to play ballI am trying to dress myself quietly, but my wife rolls over and pulls the duvet low enough to reveal one staring eye. “What are you doing up?” she says.“I’m a businessman,” I say. Continue reading...
by Abené Clayton (now); Maya Yang, Lauren Aratani an on (#6C13P)
‘We averted an economic crisis and economic collapse,’ says president in address to the nation about deal, but will not sign bill before SaturdayHere’s more on how the debt ceiling crisis will impact the US’s credit rating, from the Guardian’s Joan E Greve.The US is not yet out of the woods on a potential credit downgrade, even though Joe Biden is scheduled to sign the debt ceiling bill tonight to avert a federal default. Continue reading...
Reports of fights breaking out over a book reading about inclusive families forced police officers to separate clashing groupsA protest over a Pride month assembly at a Los Angeles elementary school reportedly broke out into fights, forcing police officers to separate groups of protesters and counter-protesters who clashed over the school’s teaching of LGBTQ+ issues.Tensions at Saticoy elementary school, part of the Los Angeles unified school district, have been rising since last month over the Pride assembly the school has planned to hold on Friday. Continue reading...
President described how ‘no one got everything they wanted, but the American people got what they needed’ during brief speechJoe Biden celebrated Congress’s approval of a debt-ceiling suspension in a speech delivered from the Oval Office on Friday night, a day after the Senate passed the compromise bill brokered by the president and the Republican House speaker, Kevin McCarthy.Biden described the bill’s enactment as “essential to the progress we’ve made over the last few years” in “keeping full faith and credit of the United States of America and passing a budget that continues to grow our economy and reflects our values as a nation”. Continue reading...
Colonel clarifies comments about ‘rogue AI drone’ that supposedly killed its operatorA US air force colonel “misspoke” when he said at a Royal Aeronautical Society conference last month that a drone killed its operator in a simulated test because the pilot was attempting to override its mission, according to the society.The confusion had started with the circulation of a blogpost from the society, in which it described a presentation by Col Tucker “Cinco” Hamilton, the chief of AI test and operations with the US air force and an experimental fighter test pilot, at the Future Combat Air and Space Capabilities Summit in London in May. Continue reading...
National Weather Service issues air quality alert for Richmond while Maryland, Pennsylvania and other states affectedThe historically intense wildfires that battered the Nova Scotia province on the eastern coast of Canada have had a severe effect on air quality as far south as Virginia and Maryland, the US National Weather Service alerted.Four wildfires have destroyed hundreds of buildings and homes and displaced tens of thousands of people, hitting the Halifax municipality hardest. But the blazes have also sent smoke billowing over New York City, and have prompted officials from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia to report negative effects on their air quality. Continue reading...
Family says Lauren Brooke Robinson, who reportedly contracted fungal meningitis, began to feel ill months after February surgeryA Texas woman has died after contracting fungal meningitis in an outbreak that has been linked to a cosmetic procedure performed in Mexico.Lauren Brooke Robinson, 29, died on Wednesday from a fungal meningitis infection after receiving cosmetic surgery in Mexico, the local TV news station KBMT reported. Continue reading...
Age, cognitive health and physical fitness are all fair concerns but the president’s tumble could have happened to anyoneIt’s a story so benign and unremarkable that it’s embarrassing it’s getting any coverage at all: man trips, falls, stands back up and walks it off. Except, of course, that the man is Joe Biden, who at 80 and seeking re-election is currently competing to be the oldest president in US history.On Thursday, Biden was at the US Air Force Academy graduation ceremony handing out the last diploma when he tripped over a black sandbag. He got back up with a hand from Secret Service agents, and walked himself back to his seat. By all accounts, he was fine.Jill Filipovic is the author of OK Boomer, Let’s Talk: How My Generation Got Left Behind Continue reading...
Ella Irwin oversaw content moderation at the struggling social network, which has been plagued with woes since Musk’s takeoverTwitter’s head of trust and safety, Ella Irwin, has resigned from the company, marking the latest high-profile departure from the struggling social network since Elon Musk acquired it in October.Irwin confirmed her departure to news outlets on Thursday but declined to comment further. Fortune earlier reported that Irwin’s internal Slack account appeared to have been deactivated. Continue reading...
Plaintiffs argue new law is illegal because it is a direct attack on free speech guaranteed by the US constitutionA coalition of publishers, booksellers, librarians and readers filed a lawsuit on Friday against the Arkansas state government, over a book ban law set to go into effect in August.Carol Coffey, the president of the Arkansas Library Association and a plaintiff in the case, told the Guardian: “Library workers across Arkansas are rightly concerned that the overly broad edicts of Act 372 will prevent them from serving their patrons as they have always done, by providing a wide variety of materials to fill their information needs, and perhaps more importantly, materials that allow each child to see themselves in the books in their library.” Continue reading...
By giving his WhatsApps to the Covid inquiry, the former PM has revealed Sunak’s reticence for what it really isBoris Johnson will haunt Rishi Sunak till the end. The current prime minister is desperate to put the recent past behind him, to persuade the country that he represents a new government and a fresh start. But every time he steps forward, the last prime minister (but one) sticks out a leg to trip him up.The latest move came this morning, when just hours after the government had announced it would rather go to court than hand over Johnson’s unredacted WhatsApp messages and notebooks to the Covid inquiry, the former PM himself popped up to say he was “perfectly content” for Lady Heather Hallett and her team to see them, duly sending her a whole lot. Thanks a bunch, Boris.Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Former vice-president, expected to announce bid for White House, told by letter that justice department would not be filing chargesThe US Department of Justice has closed its investigation into former vice-president Mike Pence without filing any charges related to classified documents found in his Indiana home, a department official said on Friday.The department notified Pence through a letter, the official added. Continue reading...
Fossil vanished shortly afterwards and was found again after a social media callout and donated to museum in Santa CruzA woman taking a Memorial Day weekend stroll on a California beach found something unusual sticking out of the sand: a tooth from an ancient mastodon.But then the fossil vanished, and it took a media blitz and a kind-hearted jogger to find it again. Continue reading...
As Ron DeSantis attacks LGBTQ+ rights and threats are reported, planned events are canceledKristina Bozanich knew that this year’s Pride month event in the central Florida town of St Cloud would have to be modified to comply with a new law approved by Governor Ron DeSantis last month. One in a series of bills signed by DeSantis this year that escalated his assault on LGBTQ+ rights, the Protection of Children Act prohibits minors from attending “sexually explicit performances” and authorizes the punishment of businesses that knowingly allow children to attend such events by issuing fines and suspending or revoking their alcohol licenses.The inaugural Pride month event that Bozanich organized in St Cloud last year featured an open-air parade and a drag show performance. This year, the 30-year-old photographer had scheduled a private event on 10 June at a gym that would once again include a drag show and would be open only to adults who had bought tickets in advance. Continue reading...
Jon Waldman says attacks have weighed on his conscience and that Atlanta shooting earlier this month was ‘final straw’A Georgia gun shop owner said he is closing his store in the wake of several mass shootings targeting young children, as the country reels from recent attacks and an escalating rate of killings.Jon Waldman, a gun shop owner in Duluth, Georgia, said that he had already closed his store and will have the gun inventory cleared out by 15 June, NBC News reported. Continue reading...
Objects in mirror are closer than they appear: Trump is leading the other Republican contenders, and Biden is far from safeThe Republican field swells but the 45th president’s commanding lead holds. Like Jeb Bush – another Florida governor and defeated Trump rival – Ron DeSantis has demonstrated himself inadequate to the task. By the numbers, DeSantis trails Trump nationally and in the Sunshine state. DeSantis was born there. Trump only recently moved there. To be the man you gotta beat the man, and right now DeSantis is going nowhere fast.Ill-at-ease and plagued by a pronounced charisma deficit, DeSantis can’t even decide how to pronounce his own surname. He is 44 years old. That’s plenty of time to nail down this personal detail. Continue reading...
Change is part of broad Department of Defense initiative, which includes renaming numerous installationsFort Bragg shed its Confederate namesake on Friday to become Fort Liberty, in a ceremony some veterans said was a small but important step in making the US Army more welcoming to current and prospective Black service members.The change was part of a broad Department of Defense initiative, motivated by the 2020 protests over the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white police officer in Minneapolis that sparked a national reckoning on police brutality and enduring systemic racism in American society. Continue reading...
Dodgy plotting, confusing character motivations and the distinct sense that it had fallen in love with itself – the tale of the Roys was good. But not as good as it thought it wasThere are many things Succession landed right on the jaw. The ranks of writers and executive producers brought with them great experience of many areas central to the show: politics, finance, five-star hospitality and, of course, the media. So no doubt the concept of the day five contrarian hit piece will be familiar to them.I come not to bury Succession – maybe to even praise it a bit – but all the hype around this show has gone too far. On Tuesday morning, after watching Shiv, Ken and Romey zing at one another one final time I felt like that rogue dude in The Lego Movie. Everything about Succession, it seemed, was awesome. Not only that, it was insightful. The characters were multifaceted, many-layered scum that you would also really miss. It was the show that caught the spirit of our time, and all from the perspective of those ambling on to a private jet. Continue reading...
Compromise package to suspend debt ceiling passed US Senate late on Thursday with 63 votes to 36The bipartisan bill to solve the US debt ceiling crisis just days before a catastrophic and unprecedented default was on its way to Joe Biden’s desk on Friday as the US president prepared to address the nation and hailed “a big win for our economy and the American people”.The compromise package negotiated between Biden and the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, passed the US Senate late on Thursday. Continue reading...
Documents show disgraced financier tried to connect with Larry Nassar and underscore failings by federal prison agencyTwo weeks before ending his life, Jeffrey Epstein sat in the corner of his Manhattan jail cell with his hands over his ears, desperate to muffle the sound of a toilet that wouldn’t stop running.Epstein was agitated and unable to sleep, jail officials observed in records newly obtained by the Associated Press. He called himself a “coward” and complained he was struggling to adapt to life behind bars following his July 2019 arrest on federal sex trafficking and conspiracy charges – his life of luxury reduced to a concrete and steel cage. Continue reading...
Conveniently, the device he used most during the pandemic cannot be switched on due to security reasonsDid you see that story about the Indian government official who drained an entire reservoir to retrieve a phone? Amazing that it turned out to be not even the most ludicrous government-phone-retrieval story this week.As you may by now have read, Boris Johnson can’t give the phone he used for most of the pandemic to the Covid inquiry because of security reasons. He says he still has the phone – then again, he says a lot of things. I think the phone has faked its own death and is living in sin beneath the North Sea with Rebekah Vardy’s agent’s phone. Can we drain the North Sea? Keir Starmer could suggest it’s one of the things we should do instead of drilling in it. Continue reading...
This bill cuts programs for the most vulnerable, and is totally unnecessary – why doesn’t Biden invoke the 14th amendment?Let’s be clear. The original debt ceiling legislation that Republicans passed in the House would have, over a 10-year period, decimated the already inadequate social safety net of our country and made savage cuts to programs that working families, the children, the sick, the elderly and the poor desperately needed.The best thing to be said about the current deal on the debt ceiling is that it could have been much worse. Instead of making massive cuts to healthcare, housing, education, childcare, nutrition assistance and other vital programs over the next decade, this bill proposes to make modest cuts to these programs over a 2-year period. This bill will also prevent a global economic catastrophe by extending the debt ceiling until January 1, 2025 – when we will have to go through with this absurd process once again.Bernie Sanders is a US Senator, and the ranking member of the Senate budget committee. He represents the state of Vermont, and is the longest-serving independent in the history of Congress Continue reading...
With just days before the 5 June default deadline, president Joe Biden has indicated he will sign the bill as soon as it reaches his deskThe Senate narrowly passed a bill to suspend the debt ceiling on Thursday night, sending the legislation to Joe Biden’s desk and averting a federal default that could have wreaked havoc on the US economy and global markets.The final vote was 63 to 36, with 46 Democrats and 17 Republicans supporting the bill while five Democrats and 31 Republicans opposed the legislation. Sixty votes were needed to pass the bill. Continue reading...
Dev Shah, whose hobbies include playing the cello and solving maths problems, wins $50,000Dev Shah, a 14-year-old boy from Largo, Florida, has won the 2023 Scripps National Spelling Bee, nailing the word “psammophile” – meaning an organism that thrives in sandy soils – in the 15th round of the contest’s finals.On Thursday, he edged out fellow eighth-grader Charlotte Walsh, 14, from Arlington, Virginia, who finished in second place after she misspelled “daviely” – a Scottish-rooted word for listlessly – in the 14th round. Continue reading...
Network edits out baseless claims about ‘stolen’ 2020 election, which could have provoked further lawsuitsFox News hosted a town hall event in Iowa with Donald Trump on Thursday night, allowing the president to repeat his well-worn grievances and lies. But remarkably, the pre-taped hour-long prime-time special hosted by Sean Hannity excluded any mention of Trump’s conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was stolen from him.The first installment of the broadcast came just two weeks after CNN broadcast a chaotic, lie-laden town hall with the former president that has been harshly criticised by journalists within and outside the network. Continue reading...
Hard-right Freedom Caucus members argued the deal should have enacted deeper spending cuts and shorter borrowing limitsKevin McCarthy was all smiles on Wednesday night after the House passed the debt ceiling bill, crafted by the Republican speaker and Joe Biden, in a resounding, bipartisan vote of 314 to 117.“I’ve been thinking about this day before my vote for speaker because I knew the debt ceiling was coming,” McCarthy told reporters. “I wanted to make history. I wanted to do something no other Congress has done, that we would literally turn the ship and for the first time in quite some time, we’d spend less than we spent the year before. Tonight, we all made history.” Continue reading...
With spiralling deficits and little prospect of government support, higher education’s only long-term hope lies in radical changeUniversities are becoming primary victims of the chaos enveloping Britain’s public sector. News reported in the Guardian has vice-chancellors pleading for a “new model” of government funding. This follows reports that one-third of England’s universities are trading at a deficit. Since almost one-fifth of UK students in higher education now come from abroad – 125,000 of them from China – there is near panic at the Home Office’s determination to slash student immigration.Some universities, including Manchester, Glasgow, Sheffield, UCL and Imperial, rely on Chinese students alone for between a quarter and a third of their income. This means that any Beijing sanction on Britain – such as for mentioning the Uyghurs too often – could turn off this tap at source. Chinese numbers are already falling, by 4% last year, and are compensated only by soaring numbers for Indians, Nigerians, south-east Asians and 135,000 dependents. This last figure the Home Office is eager to cut.Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Days before the 5 June default deadline, Joe Biden has indicated he will sign the bill as soon as it reaches his desk. Plus, the work of Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips goes on in the Amazon
Repayments could start with the passage of the debt ceiling deal, with supreme court to rule on forgiveness this monthThe Senate approved a House resolution on Thursday to repeal Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan.The vote came during a week when student loans have been at the center of public debate. The forgiveness plan faces sharp scrutiny in Congress and the supreme court. And the choice to resume debt repayments, which have been on pause since March 2020, has been tied up in the high-profile deal to lift the debt ceiling and avert a dangerous national default. Continue reading...
Denial follows colonel saying drone used ‘highly unexpected strategies to achieve its goal’ in virtual testThe US air force has denied it has conducted an AI simulation in which a drone decided to “kill” its operator to prevent it from interfering with its efforts to achieve its mission.An official said last month that in a virtual test staged by the US military, an air force drone controlled by AI had used “highly unexpected strategies to achieve its goal”. Continue reading...
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