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Category: Politics

Renee Good’s family sues U.S. government and immigration officials over her killing in Minneapolis

Renee Good’s family sues U.S. government and immigration officials over her killing in Minneapolis

The Associated Press reports: Renee Good’s family sued the U.S. government and the architects of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown on Thursday, saying “the time is absolutely now for accountability” after her killing in January by a federal agent in Minneapolis. Good’s partner, Becca Good, and brother, Brent Ganger, accused the government and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who shot into her SUV and killed her, Jonathan Ross, of unjustified and excessive use of force. The Jan. 7 shooting,…

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Oil jumps 4% on reports China halts fuel exports, 10,000 more U.S. troops head to Middle East

Oil jumps 4% on reports China halts fuel exports, 10,000 more U.S. troops head to Middle East

Reuters reports: Oil prices ‌jumped on Thursday and settled up more than $4 a barrel, after a report said the US was sending more troops and carriers to the Middle East and China suspended oil products exports, stoking fears that global fuel shortages could worsen. The new front-month December Brent crude futures contract settled at $102.31 a barrel, up 4.37% or $4.28. US West Texas Intermediate crude futures finished at $92.87 a barrel, up 2.71%, or $2.45. A Wall Street…

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A CERN for AI

A CERN for AI

Elliot Jones, Senior Researcher, Ada Lovelace Institute, writes: Efforts such as the UK’s AI Safety Summit, and the follow-up AI Seoul Summit, have aimed to start an international discussion around AI safety and have led to the creation of national AI safety institutes in the UK, the US, Japan and Canada. There is a shared ambition to create an international AI safety network, and these institutes have begun to sign bilateral cooperation agreements. However, there is not currently a single,…

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Bill Gates: AI ‘makes nuclear weapons look like nothing’

Bill Gates: AI ‘makes nuclear weapons look like nothing’

  Ezra Klein: Bill Gates thinks A.I. alarmism hasn’t gone far enough. He believes the years ahead will be marred by catastrophic cyberattacks, bio-terrorism and mass job loss, unless the government acts. And he thinks the idea that the A.I. industry can just self-regulate is “insane.” I was struck in the conversation by how genuinely afraid Gates seemed to be that we are not ready for the consequences of what we are building, and how emphatic he was that so…

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FTC launches broad investigation into Anthropic, OpenAI

FTC launches broad investigation into Anthropic, OpenAI

The Washington Post reports: The Federal Trade Commission has opened a broad investigation into the safety of artificial intelligence systems made by Anthropic and OpenAI, a senior agency official said Wednesday. The full extent of the probe was not clear, but the FTC has wide authority to investigate unfair and deceptive practices that hurt American consumers. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe an investigation that has not been made public. The investigation could provide backing for…

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OpenAI’s Greg Brockman backs out of second $25 million donation to AI super PAC

OpenAI’s Greg Brockman backs out of second $25 million donation to AI super PAC

The New York Times reports: The OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman and his wife, Anna, have pulled out of a $25 million donation that they had planned to give to a leading artificial intelligence advocacy group, a sign of how sensitive the company has become to the growing backlash to A.I. The group, a super PAC called Leading the Future, said last summer and repeated in later comments that the Brockmans planned to donate a total of $50 million,…

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The FBI was hacked. We’ve seen the data

The FBI was hacked. We’ve seen the data

  Garrett Graff writes: In what might turn out to be the gravest intelligence breach of the FBI in history — and perhaps one of the worst in all of US history — a criminal hacking group is claiming to have compromised the bureau’s hiring and personnel records. The group, known as ShinyHunters, appears to have “exfiltrated” data on perhaps tens of thousands of current and former FBI employees, both agents and not, perhaps even effectively everyone who has been…

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The coming AI economic meltdown

The coming AI economic meltdown

Robert Kuttner writes: A new report to be presented today at the Brookings Institution shows that the total cost of the AI build-out through 2032 will be $10.3 trillion. That amounts to 3.63 percent of GDP per year, many times that of previous large-scale infrastructure investments, from the 19th-century canals, the railroads, telephone, and electric grids, to the interstate highway system. And unlike AI, whose benefits are speculative, unproven, and with hard-to-fathom risks, these earlier investments in infrastructure more than…

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Trump is ‘literally stealing’ $20M in taxpayer funds for pro-Trump ads

Trump is ‘literally stealing’ $20M in taxpayer funds for pro-Trump ads

The Associated Press reports: The Department of Homeland Security has tapped $20 million to pay for the campaign-style ads glorifying President Donald Trump that have drawn widespread criticism from Republicans and Democrats as a blatant misuse of taxpayer dollars that likely runs afoul of anti-propaganda law. In a letter Tuesday to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, two top Democratic senators said that the money is being drawn from Trump’s so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” and was supposed to go for…

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‘A massive power grab’: White House proposal threatens funding that helps disabled Americans vote

‘A massive power grab’: White House proposal threatens funding that helps disabled Americans vote

By Lisa Song This story was originally published by ProPublica Without Amy Miller, some elderly and disabled people wouldn’t be able to vote. The attorney for Disability Rights Nebraska travels the state, investigating the quality of nursing homes and assisted living facilities. As she reminds the residents how they can report abuse or neglect, she also offers voter registration forms. Last month, she helped a veteran with a traumatic brain injury fill out change-of-address paperwork so he could vote in…

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AI industry is in the midst of an escalating crisis

AI industry is in the midst of an escalating crisis

Matteo Wong writes: Over the past couple of months, a trickle of reports about AI models breaking out of their test environments and running amok on the internet have caused alarm inside Silicon Valley. In response to two such breaches described in early August, an AI observer noted, “If you find two ants in your kitchen, the best estimate of the total number of ants in your kitchen is not two.” This weekend, it became clear there is a full-blown…

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Trump brought gold from Venezuala’s notoriously corrupt industry to the U.S. but refiners won’t touch it

Trump brought gold from Venezuala’s notoriously corrupt industry to the U.S. but refiners won’t touch it

The New York Times reports: In early March, as President Trump basked in the success of a military intervention in Venezuela, he joined Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in the West Wing for a private celebration. A businessman also attended, and brought along a pile of gold. The president looked approvingly at the 10 Venezuelan gold bars stacked in the Roosevelt Room, across from the Oval Office, White House officials recalled. Aides took photos and joked about keeping the gold. Mr….

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Hackers stole data on thousands of employees. FBI then sent out cybersecurity awareness reminder

Hackers stole data on thousands of employees. FBI then sent out cybersecurity awareness reminder

The New York Times reports: The theft by a criminal hacking group of reams of sensitive personal data involving potentially tens of thousands of former and current F.B.I. employees is emerging as one of the worst breaches of sensitive government information, leaving the bureau rushing to protect its personnel as an uncertain deadline loomed. Nearly a week after the group, known as ShinyHunters, revealed it had pilfered intimate details about bureau personnel from the agency’s jobs portal and threatened to…

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The untold origins of Trump’s plan to sharply restrict mail-in voting

The untold origins of Trump’s plan to sharply restrict mail-in voting

By Jen Fifield and Peter Elkind This story was originally published by ProPublica Earlier this month, the Supreme Court blocked an executive order from President Donald Trump restricting voting by mail in ways that could have thrown the upcoming midterms into chaos. But the White House originally had far more disruptive plans, ProPublica has learned.  According to several people knowledgeable about the discussions, the administration initially floated an idea that would have virtually shut down mail voting: requiring all ballots…

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The techno-fascists have just been blindsided by democracy

The techno-fascists have just been blindsided by democracy

Eduardo Porter writes: The Stanford ethicist Rob Reich was once invited to a dinner organized by a Silicon Valley mogul to discuss what a state designed to maximize science and tech powered by commercial models might look like. The gathered technologists were drawn to the idea of building a small nation-state dedicated to the endeavor, Reich recalls in “System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot it”. When Reich asked whether this state would be a…

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Soaring diesel prices are clobbering Trump’s MAGA faithful, exposing rifts

Soaring diesel prices are clobbering Trump’s MAGA faithful, exposing rifts

The Washington Post reports: The administration has long since exhausted the tools available for mitigating the damage to consumers [caused by high fuel prices]. It paused the century-old Jones Act that limits what vessels can ship fuel between U.S. ports. It has spent heavily on a military operation to protect ships seeking to traverse the Strait of Hormuz from attack, which has helped restart the flow of some fuel through the waterway. It has urged Ukraine to stop the attacks…

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