Oversight Board Urges Meta to Rethink Policy on Manipulated Media

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NEW YORK — An oversight board is criticizing Facebook owner Meta’s policies regarding manipulated media as “incoherent” and insufficient to address the flood of online disinformation that already has begun to target elections across the globe this year.  The quasi-independent board on Monday said its review of an altered video of President Joe Biden that spread on Facebook exposed gaps in the policy. The board said Meta should expand the policy to focus not only on videos generated with artificial intelligence, but on media regardless of how it was created. That includes fake audio recordings, which already have convincingly impersonated politicalmore

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Deepfake Scam Video Cost Company $26 Million, Hong Kong Police Says

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Hong Kong — Scammers tricked a multinational firm out of some $26 million by impersonating senior executives using deepfake technology, Hong Kong police said Sunday, in one of the first cases of its kind in the city. Law enforcement agencies are scrambling to keep up with generative artificial intelligence, which experts say holds potential for disinformation and misuse — such as deepfake images showing people mouthing things they never said. A company employee in the Chinese finance hub received “video conference calls from someone posing as senior officers of the company requesting to transfer money to designated bank accounts,” police toldmore

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Republicans Governors, National Guard and the Texas Border: What to Know

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AUSTIN, Texas — As Republicans cheer on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s escalating feud with the Biden administration over immigration enforcement, some governors are considering deploying National Guard members to the border — again. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday was among the first to commit more personnel to Texas, announcing he would send hundreds of additional guard members as tensions grow between state authorities and the U.S. government over who has the power to enforce immigration policies, where and how. Republicans say tougher actions along the border are needed in response to record levels of illegal crossings, but sending guard membersmore

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Biden Wins South Carolina’s Democratic Primary

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COLUMBIA, South carolina — U.S. President Joe Biden overwhelmingly won South Carolina’s Democratic primary on Saturday, notching a 2024 victory in the state that vaulted him to the White House four years ago.  Biden defeated the long-shot Democrats on South Carolina’s ballot, including Minnesota Representative Dean Phillips and author Marianne Williamson.  “In 2020, it was the voters of South Carolina who proved the pundits wrong, breathed new life into our campaign, and set us on the path to winning the presidency,” Biden said in a statement. “Now in 2024, the people of South Carolina have spoken again and I have nomore

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Court to Rule If ‘Insurrection Provision’ Voids Trump’s Eligibility

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washington — A case with the potential to disrupt former U.S. President Donald Trump’s drive to return to the White House is putting the U.S. Supreme Court uncomfortably at the center of the 2024 presidential campaign.  In arguments Thursday, the justices will, for the first time, wrestle with a constitutional provision that was adopted after the Civil War to prevent former officeholders who “engaged in insurrection” from reclaiming power.  The case is the court’s most direct involvement in a presidential election since Bush v. Gore, a decision delivered a quarter-century ago that effectively delivered the 2000 election to Republican George W.more

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China Launches Rocket as Commercial Missions Pick Up Pace

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BEIJING — A small but powerful Chinese rocket capable of carrying payloads at competitive costs delivered nine satellites into orbit Saturday, Chinese state media reported, in what is gearing up to be another busy year for Chinese commercial launches.  The Jielong-3, or Smart Dragon-3, blasted off from a floating barge off the coast of Yangjiang in southern Guangdong province, the second launch of the rocket in just two months.  Developed by China Rocket Company, a commercial offshoot of a state-owned launch vehicle manufacturer, Jielong-3 made its first flight in December 2022.  President Xi Jinping has called for the expansion of strategicmore

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Beheading Video Gone from YouTube, But Questions Remain

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NEW YORK — A graphic video from a Pennsylvania man accused of beheading his father that circulated for hours on YouTube has put a spotlight yet again on gaps in social media companies’ ability to prevent horrific postings from spreading across the web. Police said Wednesday that they charged Justin Mohn, 32, with first-degree murder and abusing a corpse after he beheaded his father, Michael, in their Bucks County home and publicized it in a 14-minute YouTube video that anyone, anywhere could see. News of the incident — which drew comparisons to the beheading videos posted online by the Islamic Statemore

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Court Filing Reveals Relationship Between District Attorney, Special Prosecutor in Trump Case

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atlanta, georgia — A court filing Friday discloses that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is involved in a “personal relationship” with a special prosecutor she hired for the Georgia election interference case against former President Donald Trump, but she argues there are no grounds to dismiss the case or to remove her from the prosecution.  Willis hired special prosecutor Nathan Wade in November 2021 to assist her investigation into whether the Republican former president and others broke any laws as they tried to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. Since Trump and 18 others were indictedmore

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History of AI

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From counting machines to neural networks, the development of artificial intelligence has paralleled emerging brain science. Writer, Matt Dibble; graphic designer, Kateryna Stepchenko; motion designer, Valeryia Rusak; narrator, Hayde Fitzpatrick. …

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Lunar Night Puts Japan’s Lander Back to Sleep

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TOKYO — After a brief awakening, Japan’s Moon lander is out of action again but will resume its mission if it survives the two-week lunar night, the space agency said Thursday. The unmanned Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) touched down last month at a wonky angle that left its solar panels facing the wrong way. As the sun’s angle shifted, it came back to life for two days this week and carried out scientific observations of a crater with its high-spec camera. “After completing operation from 1/30 (to) 1/31, #SLIM entered a two-week dormancy period during the long lunar night,”more

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Remote Washington State Town Becomes Hub for EV Battery Production

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Moses Lake, Washington — It’s mid-winter in east Washington state, yet despite the chilly fog, two construction sites in the town of Moses Lake are brimming with activity. Several hundred workers are on an ambitious timeline to complete two new factories slanted to begin production of the next-generation components for electric vehicle batteries later this year. Two American start-ups, backed by $100 million in federal grants each, in addition to commercial partnerships, are racing to secure the domestic supply chain with the next-generation battery materials for EV automakers. “That’s going to go into everything from electric vehicles to IoT [Internet ofmore

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Iran Launches 3 Satellites Into Space

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JERUSALEM — Iran said Sunday it successfully launched three satellites into space, the latest for a program that the West says improves Tehran’s ballistic missiles. The state-run IRNA news agency said the launch also saw the successful use of Iran’s Simorgh rocket, which has had multiple failures in the past. The launch comes as heightened tensions grip the wider Middle East over Israel’s continued war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. While Iran has not intervened militarily in the conflict, it has faced increased pressure within its theocracy for action after a deadly Islamic State suicide bombing earlier this month andmore

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Biden Returns to South Carolina, Determined to Win Back Black Voters

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COLUMBIA, South carolina — U.S. President Joe Biden doesn’t need to worry about his prospects in South Carolina’s Democratic primary next week. He’s got that locked up.  He also knows he’s not likely to win the solidly red state come November. South Carolina hasn’t voted for a Democrat since 1976.  Nonetheless, Biden spent the weekend in the state, intent on driving home two messages: He’s loyal to the state that saved his campaign in 2020 and he’s determined to win back Black voters here and elsewhere who were central to his election last time but are less enthused this go-round.  “You’remore

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House Speaker Suggests Border Bill May Be ‘Dead on Arrival’ 

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WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Friday pressed Congress to embrace a bipartisan Senate deal to pair border enforcement measures with Ukraine aid, but House Speaker Mike Johnson suggested the compromise on border and immigration policy could be “dead on arrival” in his chamber. The Democratic president said in a statement late Friday that the policies proposed would “be the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border we’ve ever had in our country.” He also pledged to use a new emergency authority to “shut down the border” as soon as he could sign it into law. Biden’s embracemore

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