Uncategorized
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California law limiting bail is clear. Will judges keep ignoring it?
Gerald Kowalczyk tried to buy a hamburger with credit cards he found on the floor. Then, while presumed innocent, he spent months in a California jail — not because a judge determined he was dangerous, not because he threatened anyone, but because the court set bail at $75,000 for a man who couldn’t afford it,…
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Anthropic owes authors $1.5B for pirating work — but the claims process is a Kafkaesque mess
Earlier this year, the author Maureen Johnson was fighting with Anthropic. Specifically, she was wrestling with the Anthropic copyright settlement website. Johnson is the author of 28 books, most of them YA and many of them bestsellers. The AI company Anthropic owes her an estimated $3,000 per book (to be split 50-50 with her publisher)…
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US, Iran ‘getting close’ to agreeing deal to end war after 67 days
The US and Iran are nearing agreement on a memorandum of understanding to end their nine-and-a-half week warand lay out plans for talks about the future of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. Reuters quoted an official from Pakistan, which has mediated peace efforts for several weeks, as saying of the negotiations: “We will close this…
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Why L.A. is struggling while San Francisco is beginning to boom again
The COVID-19 pandemic brought tough times for both Los Angeles and San Francisco. Crime briefly rose. Rising housing prices combined with the opportunity to work remotely led to declines in population. Concerns over blights and quality of life became political issues. But now, there are early signs of a postcrisis divergence in fortunes between the…
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Are We Entering the Age of Data Nihilism?
—Hill Street Studios—Getty Images Every click, every photo, every search query we make creates a digital echo. These digital traces are the raw material fueling the AI revolution, powering technologies that are reshaping our world. Yet for the people creating it—all of us—this data has become functionally worthless. The average internet user doesn’t think about…
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Hasan Piker, Self-Described ‘Ayatollah of Woke,’ Wants AI to Die
Hasan Piker spends seven to eight hours a day, seven days a week, streaming on Twitch. The far-left political commentator got his start in 2013 interning for (and sometimes hosting) the Young Turks. More than a decade later, he’s a powerhouse newsfluencer with the number-one channel in Twitch’s Politics and Commentary category. More than 3…
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Another California baby gets measles. How can kids be protected?
Another California baby has contracted measles — this time, in Orange County — raising questions about what parents should do to protect their youngsters as the notoriously contagious disease continues to spread nationwide. It’s at least the state’s second infant case of measles so far this year. Officials in San Francisco reported last month that…
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The Supreme Court broke democracy by saying the quiet part out loud
Last Wednesday, the Supreme Court’s Republican majority effectively repealed a 1982 amendment to the Voting Rights Act that required some states to draw a minimum number of majority-Black or majority-Latino legislative districts. The GOP justices’ decision has already kicked off another round of skirmishes in the gerrymandering wars. Louisiana suspended its US House elections until…
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Canary Islands leader rejects Spain’s decision to allow MV Hondius cruise ship to dock over hantavirus outbreak
The infected MV Hondius cruise ship has been blocked from docking in the Canary Islands over the ongoing hantavirus outbreak, the region’s president confirmed Wednesday. “I cannot allow it to enter the Canary Islands,” Fernando Clavijo told local media outlet Onda Cero. Conservative politician Clavijo has blasted Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez – a socialist…
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South Carolina inmate who believes he is immortal cannot be executed due to mental illness, judge rules
A South Carolina inmate convicted of killing a state trooper more than 25 years ago cannot be executed due to a mental illness that has him believing he is immortal, a judge ruled. John Richard Wood, 59, lacks the ability to rationally communicate with his lawyers and does not have a rational and factual understanding of his…