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Category: Politics

Actors say Hollywood studios want their AI replicas for free, forever

Actors say Hollywood studios want their AI replicas for free, forever

CBS News reports: The 65,000 Hollywood actors now on strike in the U.S. have much in common with the 11,000 script writers who remain off the job because of a labor dispute with the motion picture studios. Among those shared grievances: concerns that studio executives want to replace them with artificial intelligence. For the many background actors whose names and faces aren’t instantly recognizable, the advent of ever more powerful types of AI threatens their ability to make ends meet…

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Trump on trial: A model prosecution memo for federal election interference crimes

Trump on trial: A model prosecution memo for federal election interference crimes

Norman L. Eisen et al write: This model prosecution memorandum (or “pros memo”) assesses federal charges Special Counsel Jack Smith may bring against former President Donald Trump for alleged criminal interference in the 2020 election. The authors have decades of experience as federal prosecutors, criminal defense lawyers, and other legal expertise. We conclude that the evidence likely now meets Department of Justice standards to commence a prosecution. We base that conclusion upon a stream of recent disclosures in court filings…

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Arizona escalates probe into alleged efforts to swing election for Trump

Arizona escalates probe into alleged efforts to swing election for Trump

The Washington Post reports: Arizona’s top prosecutor is ramping up a criminal investigation into alleged attempts by Republicans to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in the state by signing and transmitting paperwork falsely declaring Donald Trump the winner, according to two people familiar with the investigation. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) assigned a team of prosecutors to the case in May, and investigators have contacted many of the pro-Trump electors and their lawyers, according to the two people…

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Arizona man cited in conspiracy theories sues Fox News for defamation

Arizona man cited in conspiracy theories sues Fox News for defamation

The New York Times reports: Ray Epps, the man at the center of a widespread conspiracy theory about the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, filed a lawsuit on Wednesday accusing Fox News and its former host Tucker Carlson of defamation for promoting a “fantastical story” that Mr. Epps was an undercover government agent who instigated the violence at the Capitol as a way to disparage President Donald J. Trump and his supporters. The complaint was filed in…

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Almost 100,000 voter registrations were challenged in Georgia — most by just six right-wing activists

Almost 100,000 voter registrations were challenged in Georgia — most by just six right-wing activists

ProPublica reports: On March 15, 2022, an email appeared in the inbox of the election director of Forsyth County, Georgia, with the subject line “Challenge of Elector’s Eligibility.” A spreadsheet attached to the email identified 13 people allegedly registered to vote at P.O. boxes in Forsyth County, a wealthy Republican suburb north of Atlanta. Georgians are supposed to register at residential addresses, except in special circumstances. “Please consider this my request that a hearing be held to determine these voters’…

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Thousands of Ukraine civilians are being held in Russian prisons. Russia plans to build many more

Thousands of Ukraine civilians are being held in Russian prisons. Russia plans to build many more

The Associated Press reports: The Ukrainian civilians woke long before dawn in the bitter cold, lined up for the single toilet and were loaded at gunpoint into the livestock trailer. They spent the next 12 hours or more digging trenches on the front lines for Russian soldiers. Many were forced to wear overlarge Russian military uniforms that could make them a target, and a former city administrator trudged around in boots five sizes too big. By the end of the…

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The two faces of TikTokers promoting Syrian tourism

The two faces of TikTokers promoting Syrian tourism

Jessica Roy writes: “Get ready with me to go clubbing with this bitch!” commands a recent TikTok posted by an Arab International University student named Patricia. In the clip, two college-aged girls in one’s childhood bedroom apply bronzer, chat and listen to music as they prepare to go out to a party. Both wear the uniform of a 20-something in 2023 — denim and a going-out top — and one sports a tattoo along the blade of her collarbone. The…

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The U.S. Inflation Reduction Act is bigger and more far-reaching than you think

The U.S. Inflation Reduction Act is bigger and more far-reaching than you think

Anthropocene reports: Landmark climate legislation passed in the United States in 2022 could nearly halve the U.S. economy’s overall emissions compared to 2005 levels by 2035, according to a new analysis. But on its own, it still won’t be sufficient to meet the country’s pledges under the Paris Agreement. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is possibly the most significant piece of U.S. climate legislation yet. Its provisions include tax credits for clean energy, energy storage, and carbon capture; measures to…

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Vermont floods show limits of America’s efforts to adapt to climate change

Vermont floods show limits of America’s efforts to adapt to climate change

The New York Times reports: This week’s flooding in Vermont, in which heavy rainfall caused destruction even miles from any river, is evidence of an especially dangerous climate threat: Catastrophic flooding can increasingly happen anywhere, with almost no warning. And the United States, experts warn, is nowhere close to ready for that threat. The idea that anywhere it can rain, it can flood, is not new. But rising temperatures make the problem worse: They allow the air to hold more…

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Joe Manchin to headline No Labels event amid third-party presidential speculation

Joe Manchin to headline No Labels event amid third-party presidential speculation

The Messenger reports: West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin will headline a town hall in New Hampshire next week hosted by No Labels, stoking speculation around the Democrat’s presidential ambitions and the group’s effort to mount a third-party bid in 2024. According to a No Labels spokesperson, Manchin will be joined by former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, a Republican, on Monday, July 17 as part of the group’s “Common Sense” town hall series. The event — held in New Hampshire, an…

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House Democrats demand probe of Comer’s indicted ‘missing’ Biden informant

House Democrats demand probe of Comer’s indicted ‘missing’ Biden informant

The Daily Beast reports: Democrats on the House Oversight Committee called for an investigation on Wednesday into whether the committee’s Republicans relied on falsehoods and misinformation provided by Gal Luft, a supposed “whistleblower” in the Biden family probe who has been charged with being an unregistered foreign agent for China and lying to investigators. In a letter to House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY), Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D0MAD) and Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) brought up the laundry list…

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Ukraine needs NATO — and NATO needs Ukraine, too

Ukraine needs NATO — and NATO needs Ukraine, too

Garry Kasparov writes: Last week, an opinion article in Foreign Affairs argued for locking Ukraine out of NATO. The authors, Justin Logan and Joshua Shifrinson of the Cato Institute, offered five claims to support their arguments. But as is typical of the genre, their article is long on opinion and short on facts. Because articles like this are so useful in Kremlin propagandists’ disinformation campaigns, it is worth refuting Logan and Shifrinson’s five claims one by one. Claim 1: Russia…

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Tax prep firms shared private taxpayer data with Google and Meta for years, congressional probe finds

Tax prep firms shared private taxpayer data with Google and Meta for years, congressional probe finds

CNN reports: Some of America’s largest tax-prep companies have spent years sharing Americans’ sensitive financial data with tech titans including Meta and Google in a potential violation of federal law — data that in some cases was misused for targeted advertising, according to a seven-month congressional investigation. The report highlights what legal experts described to CNN as a “five-alarm fire” for taxpayer privacy that could lead to government and private lawsuits, criminal penalties or perhaps even a “mortal blow” for…

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Trump lawyers seek indefinite postponement of documents trial

Trump lawyers seek indefinite postponement of documents trial

The New York Times reports: Lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump asked a federal judge on Monday night to indefinitely postpone his trial on charges of illegally retaining classified documents after he left office, saying that the proceeding should not begin until all “substantive motions” in the case had been presented and decided. The written filing — submitted 30 minutes before its deadline of midnight on Tuesday — presents a significant early test for Judge Aileen M. Cannon, the…

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Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor’s staff prodded colleges and libraries to buy her books

Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor’s staff prodded colleges and libraries to buy her books

The Associated Press reports: For colleges and libraries seeking a boldfaced name for a guest lecturer, few come bigger than Sonia Sotomayor, the Supreme Court justice who rose from poverty in the Bronx to the nation’s highest court. She has benefited, too — from schools’ purchases of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of the books she has written over the years. Sotomayor’s staff has often prodded public institutions that have hosted the justice to buy her memoir or children’s books, works that…

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What foreign-policy realists get wrong about Ukraine’s counteroffensive

What foreign-policy realists get wrong about Ukraine’s counteroffensive

Lawrence Freedman writes: The Russo-Ukrainian War is all about territory. Russia wants to complete its occupation of the oblasts of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson; Ukraine seeks to liberate all occupied territories, including Crimea. This is what the game theorists call a “zero-sum game” – what one wins the others must lose. This feature of the war explains why a negotiated outcome is so difficult to achieve, why the current battles matter so much, and why those commenting on the…

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