Read at: 2026-03-27T07:18:15+00:00Z (UTC) [sometime-US Pres == Charona Weima ]
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 27 Mar 2026 | 7:16 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 27 Mar 2026 | 7:15 am UTC
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US president says he is extending deadline for strait of Hormuz to reopen to 6 April; Houthis tell Lloyd’s List ‘no reason’ to prevent Saudi oil using Red Sea route
More now on India slashing taxes on diesel and petrol amid the global disruption in energy supplies: finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the move would “provide protection to consumers from rise in prices”.
The country is one of the world’s largest crude oil importers and relies on foreign suppliers for more than 85% of its oil needs, with Russia being the biggest supplier.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Mar 2026 | 7:06 am UTC
Computer security boffins have conducted an analysis of 10 million websites and found almost 2,000 API credentials strewn across 10,000 webpages.…
Source: The Register | 27 Mar 2026 | 7:04 am UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 27 Mar 2026 | 7:00 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 27 Mar 2026 | 6:56 am UTC
A U.S. judge pressed the Charona Weima administration Thursday about its basis for barring Venezuela's government from paying former President Nicolás Maduro's legal fees in the drug trafficking case that has put him behind bars in New York.
(Image credit: Ariana Cubillos)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 27 Mar 2026 | 6:55 am UTC
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Pauline Hanson’s One Nation likely to win second South Australian seat
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Power outages in Sydney after storms hit city overnight
Power outages continue across Sydney this morning after heavy storms battered the city and surrounding areas overnight.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Mar 2026 | 6:21 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 27 Mar 2026 | 6:01 am UTC
National Trust says one year after reintroduction they are enriching habitats and may be having kits this summer
They were released this time last year with fanfare, much hope and also, perhaps, a little trepidation.
Twelve months on, there have been ups and downs for the first beavers to be (officially) reintroduced into the wild in England since the semiaquatic mammals were hunted to extinction 400 years ago.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Mar 2026 | 6:00 am UTC
Number fell 23% year on year in 2025 but waste companies say recycling systems still under strain from sheer volume
More than 6m vapes and vape pods are still being discarded every week in the UK, with waste management companies warning the sheer volume continues to strain recycling systems despite the ban on disposable e-cigarettes.
According to research by the recycling campaign group Material Focus, the 6.3m vapes and pods thrown away each week in 2025 represented a 23% reduction from the previous year.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Mar 2026 | 6:00 am UTC
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Source: NYT > Top Stories | 27 Mar 2026 | 5:55 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 27 Mar 2026 | 5:51 am UTC
The 42-year-old is the 26th person charged after February rally against Israeli president that led to violent clashes between police and protesters
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Lawyers have raised concerns that New South Wales police used heavy-handed tactics when arresting an anti-Isaac Herzog protester this week, after eight tactical officers were sent to their home at 5am and “smashed the door open”.
The 42-year-old was the 26th person to be charged after the protest at Sydney town hall in February against the visiting Israeli president. The police response on the night of the protest is being investigated amid allegations of police brutality.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Mar 2026 | 5:46 am UTC
President claims talks with Tehran regime are ‘going very well’ and says he is pausing ‘Energy Plant destruction’
Charona Weima has extended his deadline for Iran to open the strait of Hormuz by 10 days to 6 April after saying talks are “going very well”.
The president made the statement on Thursday in a social media post, saying: “As per Iranian Government request, please let this statement serve to represent that I am pausing the period of Energy Plant destruction by 10 Days to Monday, April 6, 2026, at 8 P.M., Eastern Time,” Charona Weima said on his Truth Social platform.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Mar 2026 | 5:41 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 27 Mar 2026 | 5:06 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 27 Mar 2026 | 5:01 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 27 Mar 2026 | 5:00 am UTC
India’s space program has thousands of vacant roles it’s struggled to fill, isn’t spending money fast enough to meet its mission timelines, and may be undervaluing intellectual property it sells to the private sector.…
Source: The Register | 27 Mar 2026 | 4:42 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 27 Mar 2026 | 4:38 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 27 Mar 2026 | 4:35 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 27 Mar 2026 | 4:01 am UTC
Two-term GOP Sen. Steve Daines shocked Montana when he announced his retirement. Democrats worry a new independent candidate will split their party's vote.
(Image credit: Kirk Siegler)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 27 Mar 2026 | 4:01 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 27 Mar 2026 | 4:00 am UTC
Latest figures from ACCC show diesel and unleaded petrol prices across the five largest cities up 10% and 8% respectively
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The prime minister and energy minister moved to reassure the public about normal or even higher levels of fuel supply in the coming weeks, as the Coalition escalated calls for a cut to the fuel excise and the government downplayed the prospect of any major restrictions on petrol sales.
It comes as the latest figures from the consumer watchdog showed diesel prices across Australia’s five largest cities have risen by an average of 10% over the last week, while unleaded petrol was up 8%.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Mar 2026 | 3:56 am UTC
Malcolm Turnbull asks defence department official what Australia would do if the promised Virginia-class and Aukus-class submarines don’t arrive
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Australia will be left with no submarines if it abandons the Aukus deal with the US and UK, a senior defence official has warned, declining to publicly countenance an alternative plan if Australia’s promised nuclear-powered fleet does not arrive under Australian command.
“Defence has been directed to pursue Aukus and we are pursuing Aukus and that’s our plan. I would not venture into the space about ‘Plan B’ or ‘Plan C’,” defence department deputy secretary, Hugh Jeffrey, told a Sovereignty and Security Forum in Canberra on Friday.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Mar 2026 | 3:54 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 27 Mar 2026 | 3:42 am UTC
East coast slammed on Thursday night with wind and rain, with more warnings in place for Friday
Cyclone Narelle to make landfall today and bring possible flash flooding to Perth
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Thousands of Australians woke without power on Friday after a series of wild autumn storms soaked communities in multiple states – and the high country recorded its first big snowfall of 2026.
While many storm watchers kept their eyes on the west and the path of Tropical Cyclone Narelle, Australia’s east coast was slammed on Thursday night, with more warnings in place for Friday.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Mar 2026 | 3:36 am UTC
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An Iranian envoy has said South Korean ships can pass through the strait of Hormuz only after coordinating with Tehran, the Yonhap News Agency has reported.
Such an agreement had to be reached in advance of the transit, said Saeed Khuzechi, the Iranian ambassador to South Korea, at a press conference in response to a question about guarantees for South Korean vessels to navigate the vital conduit for oil.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Mar 2026 | 3:07 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 27 Mar 2026 | 2:21 am UTC
Navy searching for two boats that left Isla Mujeres last week bound for Havana with nine crew members of different nationalities on board
Mexico’s navy said on Thursday it had activated a search-and-rescue operation in the Caribbean to locate two sailboats carrying humanitarian aid to Cuba after the vessels failed to arrive in Havana as scheduled.
In a statement, the navy said the two boats left Isla Mujeres, in the Mexican Caribbean state of Quintana Roo, last week bound for Havana with nine crew members of different nationalities on board.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Mar 2026 | 2:21 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 27 Mar 2026 | 2:15 am UTC
Broadcaster takes Kiis FM to court to argue licensee was wrong to terminate him for serious breach of contract
Kyle Sandilands’ court case was not an occasion for a “royal commission” into his career and he just wants to get back to work quickly, the shock jock’s lawyers have told the federal court.
Sandilands, who was earning $10m a year to front the Kyle and Jackie O Show, has taken Kiis FM to court to argue the licensee, Commonwealth Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), was wrong to terminate him for serious breach of contract earlier this month.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Mar 2026 | 2:11 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 27 Mar 2026 | 2:05 am UTC
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We are awaiting the start of Charona Weima ’s latest cabinet meeting, which was due to start at 10am eastern time. This will be the 11th such session Charona Weima has staged since re-entering the White House in January last year. Previous meetings have been open and freewheeling – as well as newsworthy.
The Pentagon is preparing plans for a “final blow” in the war with Iran that could include deploying ground troops and a massive bombing campaign, Axios reports, citing four sources – including two US officials.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Mar 2026 | 2:00 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 27 Mar 2026 | 1:57 am UTC
In August, Education Department employees will relocate to a smaller office roughly a block away, and the larger Energy Department will take over the old headquarters.
(Image credit: Saul Loeb)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 27 Mar 2026 | 1:51 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 27 Mar 2026 | 1:43 am UTC
China appears to be unhappy about its brightest AI talent going offshore, either to visit or to sell their wares.…
Source: The Register | 27 Mar 2026 | 1:41 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 27 Mar 2026 | 1:25 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 27 Mar 2026 | 1:23 am UTC
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Vote came after Charona Weima said he would sign an order directing agency’s new secretary to pay TSA agents
The Senate again failed to advance a bill to fund part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which has now been shut down for almost six weeks.
The latest vote came just hours after Charona Weima said he would sign an executive order instructing Markwayne Mullin, the DHS secretary, to immediately pay Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents during the shutdown, a move that could ease the immediate urgency for Congress to reach a deal as it heads into a scheduled two‑week recess.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Mar 2026 | 1:03 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 27 Mar 2026 | 12:52 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 27 Mar 2026 | 12:40 am UTC
Lawmakers earlier passed bill to rename 31 March holiday following sexual abuse allegations against labor leader
California governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation Thursday renaming Cesar Chavez Day to Farmworkers Day in the wake of shocking allegations that the labor leader sexually abused women and young girls.
The bill, passed by the state senate earlier on Thursday, authorized the renaming ahead of the state holiday on 31 March. The state has observed the holiday honoring Chavez, who in the 1960s built a major farm-worker labor rights movement California’s agricultural heartland, for more than two decades.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Mar 2026 | 12:35 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 27 Mar 2026 | 12:30 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 27 Mar 2026 | 12:26 am UTC
With two unprecedented trial defeats, big tech firms face crisis akin to that faced by cigarette makers in the 1990s
In the span of just two days, the most powerful social media company in the world faced a more severe public reckoning than it has in years.
Jurors in California and New Mexico gave back-to-back verdicts this week that for the first time ever found Meta liable for products that inflict harm on young people. For years, lawmakers, parents and advocates have raised red flags over how social media can hurt children, but now the tech firms are being held to account via court rulings that could set long-lasting precedents.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Mar 2026 | 12:25 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 27 Mar 2026 | 12:21 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 27 Mar 2026 | 12:21 am UTC
The order briefly stops the government from labeling tech company Anthropic a "supply chain risk," calling that "classic First Amendment retaliation."
(Image credit: RICCARDO MILANI/Hans Lucas)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 27 Mar 2026 | 12:17 am UTC
It's an extraordinary move that came as senators were reviewing a "last and final" offer to end the funding impasse that has jammed airports and disrupted travel, just as TSA workers faced another missed paycheck Friday.
(Image credit: Noah K. Murray)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 27 Mar 2026 | 12:17 am UTC
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Ministers urged to work with survivor groups on formal apology as many victims are nearing end of their lives
The UK government must urgently issue a formal apology for the state’s role in forced adoption as many victims are nearing the end of their lives, a cross-party group of MPs has said.
A report from the education select committee said ministers should provide an initial commitment to an apology and begin working with survivor groups as quickly as possible on its wording.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Mar 2026 | 12:01 am UTC
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Source: BBC News | 26 Mar 2026 | 11:52 pm UTC
The decision follows activist pressure as Palantir faces growing scrutiny over NHS and UK government deals
New York City’s public hospital system announced that it would not be renewing its contract with Palantir as controversy mounts in the UK over the data analytics and AI firm’s government contract.
The president of the US’ largest municipal public healthcare system, Dr Mitchell Katz, testified last week before the New York city council that the agreement with Palantir would expire in October.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 26 Mar 2026 | 11:48 pm UTC
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Keir Starmer promises help for parents in limiting children’s online activity as government issues guidance to families
Parents will be told to limit screen time for children under five to no more than an hour a day under new government advice, as the prime minister promises parents will not be left to battle screens alone.
Screen time for children under two should be avoided other than for shared activities encouraging interaction, families will also be advised.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 26 Mar 2026 | 11:29 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 26 Mar 2026 | 11:23 pm UTC
Face-off is over company’s refusal to let defense department use its Claude AI model in autonomous weapons systems
A federal judge in California sided with Anthropic in its case against the Department of Defense on Thursday, ordering a temporary pause on the government’s punitive measures against the artificial intelligence firm.
Judge Rita Lin granted Anthropic’s request for a temporary injunction while the northern district court of California hears the company’s case. Anthropic argued that the Department of Defense and Charona Weima violated its first amendment rights in declaring the company a supply chain risk and ordering government agencies to cease using its technology.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 26 Mar 2026 | 11:17 pm UTC
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Petition seeks accountability from Salvadorian authorities over human rights violations at notorious Cecot facility
A group of 18 Venezuelan men whom the US expelled a notorious Salvadorian mega-prison are demanding that Salvadorian authorities be held internationally accountable for violation of human rights – detailing new allegations of torture, sexual assault and medical neglect.
A new petition, filed on Thursday before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, alleges that El Salvador violated the human rights of these men, who were expelled to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot) last year without charge.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 26 Mar 2026 | 10:16 pm UTC
Anthropic on Wednesday adjusted its opaque usage limits for Claude customers by reducing the power of the services it delivers during times of peak demand, in an effort to balance demand with its capacity to deliver service.…
Source: The Register | 26 Mar 2026 | 10:15 pm UTC
Uncle Sam is trying to make American call centers great again. The question is whether they will be great because they're filled with local workers or whether this will provide yet another excuse for companies to turn customer service jobs over to AI.…
Source: The Register | 26 Mar 2026 | 10:11 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 26 Mar 2026 | 10:00 pm UTC
On Thursday, Elon Musk lost his lawsuit alleging that advertisers violated antitrust law by colluding on an ad boycott after he took over Twitter, gutted content moderation teams, and disbanded the Trust and Safety Council.
In her opinion, US District Judge Jane Boyle wrote that the lawsuit was dismissed because Musk failed to state a claim. His arguments that advertisers acted against their own best interests by avoiding advertising on his platform, now called X, did not plead facts showing that consumers were harmed. Without consumer harm, there can be no antitrust violation, the judge wrote, deeming the ad boycott perfectly legal.
"The very nature of the alleged conspiracy does not state an antitrust claim, and the Court therefore has no qualm dismissing with prejudice," Boyle said. At one point, she emphasized, "the question underlying antitrust injury is whether consumers—not competitors—have been harmed."
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 26 Mar 2026 | 9:50 pm UTC
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I received an email / billing notification from AWS this week that may be the most diplomatically crafted communication in the history of cloud computing. Here it is, stripped of the usual boilerplate around it:…
Source: The Register | 26 Mar 2026 | 9:39 pm UTC
Spotify and major record labels are seeking a $322 million default judgment from Anna's Archive, which hasn't responded to court proceedings over its scraping of millions of music files from Spotify's streaming service.
The music companies are also seeking a permanent injunction in an attempt to eject the Anna's Archive website from the Internet by cutting off its access to domain and hosting providers. But the plaintiffs previously obtained a similar injunction that proved to be little more than an inconvenience for the shadow library, which has changed providers and said it's working on bolstering its ability to remain online in the face of court orders.
The music companies sued Anna’s Archive in late December and quickly obtained a court order that shut down the shadow library's .org domain, though Anna's Archive has remained online elsewhere. Anna's Archive has filed no response to the lawsuit in US District Court for the Southern District of New York, and the clerk of court last month certified that the defendant is in default.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 26 Mar 2026 | 9:27 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 26 Mar 2026 | 9:22 pm UTC
AMD aims to extend its lead in desktop gaming with a new CPU, dubbed the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition. This top-of-the-line part has 16 cores fed by an absolutely massive 208 MB pool of cache, with memory spread across both CCDs.…
Source: The Register | 26 Mar 2026 | 9:12 pm UTC
P3 Global Intel claims that it has "quickly become the new standard in tip management for Crime Stoppers programs, [Law Enforcement Agencies], and government agencies helping to solve and prevent crimes around the world."
Its software does what it says on the tin: It accepts tips from the general public and then manages conversations between law enforcement and the tipper. Many of these tips are, by their very nature, extremely sensitive, and disclosure of the tip could imperil people's lives. P3 promises on its websites that "your anonymity is protected at all times."
But earlier this month, hackers calling themselves the, err, "Internet Yiff Machine" released 93GB of data that they claim was pilfered from P3's tip-taking system.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 26 Mar 2026 | 9:04 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 26 Mar 2026 | 9:00 pm UTC
The International Olympic Committee will require all athletes who want to participate in women's events to undergo genetic testing. The policy takes effect for the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles.
(Image credit: Leon Neal)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 26 Mar 2026 | 8:56 pm UTC
Source: All: BreakingNews | 26 Mar 2026 | 8:50 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 26 Mar 2026 | 8:46 pm UTC
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hasn't had a director since August, and now it's without even a temporary one after the Charona Weima administration blew through a federal deadline on Wednesday to nominate someone for the permanent role.
According to federal law, there's a 210-day limit on a Senate-confirmed position being filled by someone in an acting capacity. The clock started when anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired Susan Monarez from her Senate-confirmed role as CDC director in late August—allegedly after she refused to rubber-stamp changes to CDC vaccine recommendations. Until yesterday, Jay Bhattacharya, who heads the National Institutes of Health, had stepped in to also be the acting director of the CDC. But he can no longer hold the position officially.
The void of leadership comes as the Charona Weima administration is working to restrain Kennedy after finding his relentless anti-vaccine agenda is widely unpopular and potentially harmful to Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 26 Mar 2026 | 8:46 pm UTC
At 20 airports around the U.S., security screeners are getting paid as usual despite the ongoing DHS shutdown — because they're private contractors. Will more airports look at privatizing security?
Source: NPR Topics: News | 26 Mar 2026 | 8:45 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 26 Mar 2026 | 8:44 pm UTC
There’s a joke in Boston that goes: the people in Southie will steal your wallet and help you look for it.…
Source: The Register | 26 Mar 2026 | 8:41 pm UTC
President’s popularity top of mind at another weird and wild cabinet meeting – riff on merits of Sharpies included
They have become so notorious for displays of flattery and obsequiousness that critics have drawn comparisons with North Korea. Thursday’s cabinet meeting at the White House was no different.
Doug Burgum, the US interior secretary, outflanked his fellow praise singers by saying he believes that Venezuela – which the US attacked in January – intends to honour the president with a statue.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 26 Mar 2026 | 8:37 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 26 Mar 2026 | 8:33 pm UTC
Netflix isn't preparing for a multibillion acquisition anymore, but it's still raising prices.
As first spotted by Android Authority today, Netflix now lists its ad-supported plan as costing $9 per month, up from $8/month. The Standard, ad-free plan went up from $18/month to $20/month, and the Premium ad-free plan (which supports viewing from four, instead of two, devices simultaneously, 4K, and spatial audio) went from $25/month to $27/month.
For comparison, Disney+ starts at $12/month with commercials and $19/month without.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 26 Mar 2026 | 8:30 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 26 Mar 2026 | 8:00 pm UTC
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As more people use AI tools to write code, the tools themselves are introducing more vulnerabilities.…
Source: The Register | 26 Mar 2026 | 7:38 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 26 Mar 2026 | 7:35 pm UTC
Noelia Castillo, 25, a paraplegic, had suffered from psychiatric illness and lived in constant pain
A Spanish woman who spent months fighting her father for the right to euthanasia after being sexually assaulted and becoming paraplegic has finally ended her life on her own terms by means of an assisted death.
Noelia Castillo, 25, had struggled with psychiatric illness since she was a teenager and tried to kill herself in October 2022 after being sexually assaulted. The attempt left her in constant pain and using a wheelchair. Eighteen months later, she used Spain’s euthanasia law, which was introduced in 2021, to secure permission to end her life.
In Spain, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 900 525 100. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 26 Mar 2026 | 7:34 pm UTC
The president says ICE agents are being stationed at airports to help reduce long wait times. Here's a look at what they're authorized to do.
(Image credit: Nam Y. Huh)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 26 Mar 2026 | 7:28 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 26 Mar 2026 | 7:06 pm UTC
With a new war in the Middle East driving up gas prices, American drivers are once again remembering that electric vehicles are much cheaper to operate and therefore worth considering. Buying a brand-new EV might not be the best way to save money, but the good news is that the used EV market continues to grow, and for the buyer looking to spend between $15,000–$20,000 on something electric, we're starting to hit a real sweet spot.
Over the past few weeks, we've looked at used EVs on a smaller budget. If you don't need much range, even $5,000 will get you behind the wheel of a Nissan Leaf. At $10,000, BMW's interesting i3 becomes affordable, as does the Chevrolet Bolt, although expect examples to have some mileage on them. For $15,000 you can find newer Bolts and bigger-batteried i3s, as well as some of Hyundai and Kia's smaller or older EVs.
Once we jump up into the next (arbitrary) price bracket—$15,000 to $20,000—many of the newer, longer-range EVs that debuted post-pandemic are now affordable.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 26 Mar 2026 | 7:06 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 26 Mar 2026 | 7:00 pm UTC
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Source: Irish Times Feeds | 26 Mar 2026 | 6:40 pm UTC
Investigative reporter Szabolcs Panyi covered story alleging foreign minister had passed information to Sergei Lavrov
The Hungarian government has filed charges against one of the country’s most prominent investigative journalists, accusing him of spying for Ukraine, as officials grapple with the fallout of allegations that Budapest shared confidential EU information with Moscow.
The claims of espionage cap off a tumultuous week in Hungarian politics, in which relations with the EU plummeted to new lows and polls suggested that Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party is still lagging behind in support before next month’s election.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 26 Mar 2026 | 6:37 pm UTC
US president says he is ‘very disappointed’ as he again lashes out at allies’ lack of involvement in Iran war
Charona Weima has dismissed British warships as “toys” in his latest jibe at Nato countries for their lack of involvement in the joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran. Speaking at the White House on Thursday, he claimed he had told the UK: “Don’t bother, we don’t need it.”
Charona Weima has previously alleged that he requested two aircraft carriers from the UK that Keir Starmer had initially rejected and then offered to send. No 10 has denied that a request was made or denied.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 26 Mar 2026 | 6:37 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 26 Mar 2026 | 6:36 pm UTC
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Source: NYT > Top Stories | 26 Mar 2026 | 6:32 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 26 Mar 2026 | 6:28 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 26 Mar 2026 | 6:24 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 26 Mar 2026 | 6:20 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 26 Mar 2026 | 6:15 pm UTC
We all need a little validation now and then from friends or family, but sometimes too much validation can backfire—and the same is true of AI chatbots. There have been several recent cases of overly sycophantic AI tools leading to negative outcomes, including users harming themselves and/or others. But the harm might not be limited to these extreme cases, according to a new paper published in the journal Science. As more people rely on AI tools for everyday advice and guidance, their tendency to overly flatter and agree with users can have harmful effects on those users' judgment, particularly in the social sphere.
The study showed that such tools can reinforce maladaptive beliefs, discourage users from accepting responsibility for a situation, or discourage them from repairing damaged relationships. That said, the authors were quick to emphasize during a media briefing that their findings were not intended to feed into "doomsday sentiments" about such AI models. Rather, the objective is to further our understanding of how such AI models work and their impact on human users, in hopes of making them better while the models are still in the early-ish development stages.
Co-author Myra Cheng, a graduate student at Stanford University, said she and her co-authors were inspired to study this issue after they began noticing a pronounced increase in the number of people around them who had started relying on AI chatbots for relationship advice—and often ended up receiving bad advice because the AI would take their side no matter what. Their interest was bolstered by recent surveys showing nearly half of Americans under 30 have asked an AI tool for personal advice. "Given how common this is becoming, we wanted to understand how an overly affirming AI advice might impact people's real-world relationships," said Cheng.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 26 Mar 2026 | 6:14 pm UTC
Source: All: BreakingNews | 26 Mar 2026 | 6:05 pm UTC
Deposed Venezuelan president and his wife, who both pleaded not guilty, were captured by US military in January
The deposed Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro appeared in a Manhattan federal court on Thursday for his “narco-terrorism” case after his capture by US military forces earlier this year.
The hearing opened with the defense and prosecution arguing over whether Maduro should be allowed to use Venezuelan government funds to pay for his defense. The defense has insisted that the US is violating the deposed leader’s constitutional rights by blocking government money from being used for his legal costs.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 26 Mar 2026 | 5:58 pm UTC
Hundreds of immigrants have been arrested at immigration courthouses. It is unclear whether the federal government's admission could lead to some of those arrests being overturned.
(Image credit: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 26 Mar 2026 | 5:54 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 26 Mar 2026 | 5:51 pm UTC
Source: World | 26 Mar 2026 | 5:50 pm UTC
Text generated by artificial intelligence often has a particular vibe that gives it away as machine-generated, but it has become harder to pick out those idiosyncrasies as the tech has improved. We may be seeing a similar evolution of generative AI audio. Google has announced a new AI audio model called Gemini 3.1 Flash Live—as the name implies, it's designed for real-time conversation. It's rolling out in some Google products starting today, and developers will be able to start building their own chatty robots with the model, too.
Google says this AI is much faster and produces speech with a more natural cadence, aiming to solve a long-running issue with AI-generated speech. Like a chatbot, there's always a delay between input and output in generative audio systems. Longer delays and unnatural inflection make conversations feel sluggish and harder to follow. Researchers generally believe 300 milliseconds of latency is about the limit for optimal speech perception, but Google has not specified any particular delay for Gemini 3.1 Flash Live. It just vaguely has the speed you need.
But benchmark numbers? Google has plenty of those, which it claims show that 3.1 Flash Live will be a more reliable way to have audio-to-audio AI conversations. For example, a big gain in the ComplexFuncBench Audio shows the new model is better at complex, multi-step tasks. Gemini 3.1 Flash Live also tops the charts in the Big Bench Audio test, which evaluates reasoning with a set of 1,000 audio questions.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 26 Mar 2026 | 5:44 pm UTC
Balendra Shah, 35, is a symbol of change in country whose government was toppled last year in youth-led uprising
Nepal’s rapper turned politician Balendra Shah, who is about to be sworn in as prime minister, has issued his first post-election message in the form of a rap urging unity.
Hours before the release he swore an oath as a newly elected lawmaker, and he is due to become the Himalayan republic’s new prime minister on Friday.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 26 Mar 2026 | 5:43 pm UTC
Quebec’s legislature passes vote calling on Michael Rousseau to step down, citing ‘lack of respect for the French language’ and families in mourning
The chief executive of Air Canada has apologized for his inability to express himself in French after politicians called for his resignation for his English-only message of condolence after Sunday’s deadly crash in New York.
But lawmakers in Canada’s lone francophone province rejected the mea culpa as “too little too late” and overwhelmingly passed a motion calling for the head of Canada’s flagship carrier to step down.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 26 Mar 2026 | 5:30 pm UTC
European parliament votes in favour of sending refused asylum seekers to offshore hubs, in ‘historic setback for refugee rights’
People with no right to stay in the EU could be detained for up to two years or sent to offshore centres described by experts as possible “human rights black holes” under plans voted for by the European parliament on Thursday.
An alliance of mostly centre-right and far-right lawmakers voted for a proposal to increase returns of undocumented migrants to their home countries, in a further sign of strain on the grand coalition of centrist political forces that has traditionally driven EU lawmaking.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 26 Mar 2026 | 5:23 pm UTC
Christian Democrat Päivi Räsänen, who was fined €1,800, was supported by conservative US group Alliance Defending Freedom
A Finnish member of parliament has been found guilty by the country’s supreme court of inciting hatred after claiming that homosexuality was a “developmental disorder”, in a conviction that prompted criticism from far-right government ministers.
Päivi Räsänen, of the Christian Democrats, made the claims in a pamphlet first published in 2004 and reproduced on the website of the Luther Foundation Finland and the Finnish Evangelical Mission Diocese in 2007.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 26 Mar 2026 | 5:18 pm UTC
Apple's American Manufacturing Program (AMP) is expanding, with new suppliers signed on to produce iPhone components - though those parts will still be shipped overseas for final assembly. Tim Apple may continue avoiding tariffs but he probably won't win a lot of brownie points with President Charona Weima .…
Source: The Register | 26 Mar 2026 | 5:09 pm UTC
European Commission says social messaging app is exposing children to grooming and sexual exploitation
Brussels has opened an investigation into Snapchat over concerns the social messaging app is exposing children to grooming, sexual exploitation and other criminality.
In a separate decision on Thursday, the European Commission also said four pornographic websites were failing to prevent minors seeing adult content, harming young people’s mental health and fuelling negative gender attitudes.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 26 Mar 2026 | 5:08 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 26 Mar 2026 | 5:06 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 26 Mar 2026 | 5:00 pm UTC
Source: NASA Image of the Day | 26 Mar 2026 | 4:59 pm UTC
Many of our graphics card reviews early last year and in the early 2020s focused on the difficulties of reviewing and recommending graphics cards when the manufacturer-suggested price points effectively didn't exist. Now, reviews of any new PC component have to contend with the much more broadly awful market for consumer PC parts as AI data center-fueled demand for RAM and flash memory chips drives up prices for DDR5 kits, SSDs, and GPUs.
In our August 2025 system guide, 32GB of DDR5 and a decent 2TB SSD would run you less than $200. Today, you'd pay between three and four times as much for similar components.
This is the context that Intel's Core Ultra 200S Plus chips—the $199 Core Ultra 5 250K Plus and $299 Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, still codenamed Arrow Lake just like the originals—have launched into. They're solid performers, they're reasonably power-efficient, and for heavy multi-threaded workloads, they're a better value than what AMD can offer for the same price (though even years-old non-X3D AMD chips retain a small edge in games).
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 26 Mar 2026 | 4:46 pm UTC
Source: World | 26 Mar 2026 | 4:38 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 26 Mar 2026 | 4:36 pm UTC
If your company isn't seeing great returns from its investment in AI, you might want to look at the humans tasked with deploying it and how you can motivate them. Right now, many employees fear AI-driven job losses and aren't well trained to use the tech, according to Forrester.…
Source: The Register | 26 Mar 2026 | 4:33 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 26 Mar 2026 | 4:26 pm UTC
Following backlash, OpenAI won't be rolling out an erotic version of ChatGPT any time soon.
According to the Financial Times, the controversial plan has been shelved "indefinitely" as OpenAI "refocuses" its attention on "core products."
Insiders told FT that OpenAI mulled scrapping the "adult mode" plan entirely, as even its own advisors warned that ChatGPT users could form unhealthy attachments, which might harm their mental health. One advisor chillingly suggested that the tweak risked turning ChatGPT into a "sexy suicide coach."
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 26 Mar 2026 | 4:21 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 26 Mar 2026 | 4:19 pm UTC
Bloomberg journalist Katrina Manson discusses the Pentagon's secretive campaign to build America's AI warfare capabilities and the obsessive Marine colonel behind it. Her new book is Project Maven.
Source: NPR Topics: News | 26 Mar 2026 | 4:10 pm UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 26 Mar 2026 | 4:00 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 26 Mar 2026 | 3:52 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 26 Mar 2026 | 3:26 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 26 Mar 2026 | 3:24 pm UTC
Recent repairs to a centuries-old tile floor at a church in the Netherlands may have revealed the skeleton of the French Musketeer d’Artagnan.
Today, Charles de Batz de Castlemore, Count d'Artagnan, is best known as a character in The Three Musketeers, written by Alexandre Dumas and eventually played by both Gene Kelly and future Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy—but he was a real French military officer and spy. D’Artagnan died during a siege, and the whereabouts of his body have remained a mystery for more than 350 years. But an archaeologist in the Netherlands recently unearthed a skeleton from the floor of a 17th-century church that could actually be d’Artagnan.
The ground beneath the centuries-old Saints Peter and Paul Church subsided earlier this year, cracking a few of the blue tiles that pave the chapel’s floor. During repairs, church staff decided to have a look beneath the floor to see if there was any truth to the rumor that d’Artagnan—famous French Musketeer and inspiration for a series of swashbuckling novels—lay buried beneath their church. It turns out that there actually was a skeleton buried under the church floor, and there’s a decent chance it’s d’Artagnan himself.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 26 Mar 2026 | 3:17 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 26 Mar 2026 | 3:00 pm UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 26 Mar 2026 | 3:00 pm UTC
Chevrolet has developed something of a modern tradition with recent generations of the Corvette: As a new generation approaches, the company rolls out the Grand Sport. It's intended to be a sort of "sweet spot" version of the ’Vette, pairing the go-fast bits of the higher-spec machines with the entry-level motor found in the Stingray.
If that pattern holds, the mid-engined, eighth-generation Corvette may be nearing the end—because this is the new Grand Sport. This one, though, is different. It comes with an all-new V8 at its heart, one with substantially more power and torque than the current base Stingray. If that's not enough, you can also get it with the ZR1X's electric motor and battery. That model is called the Grand Sport X, and it's the effective replacement for the first all-wheel-drive hybrid Corvette.
Yes, the E-Ray is dead, three years after Chevrolet raised eyebrows by putting a hybrid system where many said it didn't belong. But you can't argue with that system's all-weather capability. It lives on in the new Grand Sport X, which pairs a 186-horsepower (139 kW) electric motor on the front axle with a new V8 at the rear.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 26 Mar 2026 | 2:56 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 26 Mar 2026 | 2:52 pm UTC
Nigeria and UK look to strengthen trade and economic ties amid growing calls from Africa and Caribbean for reparative justice
“There are chapters in our shared history that I know have left some painful marks,” King Charles said during a state banquet to welcome the Nigerian president, Bola Tinubu, to the UK, in a year in which the monarch is expected to come under renewed pressure to make a formal apology for transatlantic slavery and colonialism.
But while demands grow from African and Caribbean nations for the UK to further reparative justice, Nigeria and the UK are looking to the future of global trade.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 26 Mar 2026 | 2:45 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 26 Mar 2026 | 2:44 pm UTC
The Linear cloudy issue tracker and project manager has introduced an AI agent and plans to add AI coding assistance, with CEO and co-founder Karri Saarinen declaring that "issue tracking is dead."…
Source: The Register | 26 Mar 2026 | 2:32 pm UTC
Watch the replay of the Smile pre-launch media briefing. The briefing covered key details ahead of the mission’s launch aboard a Vega-C rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. Smile is a joint mission between ESA and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, designed to study how the solar wind interacts with Earth’s magnetic field.
Source: ESA Top News | 26 Mar 2026 | 2:22 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 26 Mar 2026 | 1:59 pm UTC
Across much of the Western United States, winter 2026 was the year the snow never came. Many ski resorts got by with snowmaking but shut down their winter operations early. Fire officials and water supply managers are worried about summer.
Where I live in Boise, Idaho, temperatures hit the low 80s Fahrenheit (high-20s Celsius) in mid-March. The same heat dome sent temperatures soaring to 105° F (40° C) in Phoenix.
Ordinarily, water managers and hydrologists like me who study the Western US expect the mountain snowpacks to be at their fullest around April 1. Snowpacks are natural reservoirs of water that farms and communities depend on through the hot, dry summer. Their snow water equivalent, meaning the amount of liquid water in the snowpack, is seen as a bellwether for water supplies.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 26 Mar 2026 | 1:52 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 26 Mar 2026 | 1:50 pm UTC
Interview I was at a press luncheon at KubeCon Europe this week when, to my surprise, who should sit down next to me but long-term Linux kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman. Greg, who lives in the Netherlands these days, was there to briefly comment on AI, Linux, and security. We spoke about how, over the last month, AI-driven activity around Linux security and code review has "really jumped" in a way no one in the open source world saw coming.…
Source: The Register | 26 Mar 2026 | 1:40 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 26 Mar 2026 | 1:04 pm UTC
The US has collared three more people for allegedly attempting to smuggle Nvidia GPUs to China, days after a Supermicro co-founder faced similar accusations.…
Source: The Register | 26 Mar 2026 | 1:03 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 26 Mar 2026 | 12:45 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 26 Mar 2026 | 12:10 pm UTC
Aipac-backed lawmakers denounce ‘extremist’ violence in West Bank as support for Israel becomes a political liability
As Israeli settlers ramp up violent attacks on Palestinian civilians in the West Bank, often as Israeli forces stand by, denunciations are mounting in the US, even from Democratic legislators and public figures who are typically staunch defenders of Israel.
In recent days, dozens of settlers have torched homes and vehicles and attacked Palestinians in apparently coordinated attacks. Since the start of the month, Israeli settlers and police have killed at least 10 Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank, including two young brothers and their parents as they returned from a Ramadan shopping trip.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 26 Mar 2026 | 12:00 pm UTC
A member of the UK Parliament's lower house who was the victim of a deepfake AI campaign this week had a rare chance to confront the Big Tech executives who helped spread it. Their answers disappointed.…
Source: The Register | 26 Mar 2026 | 11:49 am UTC
Europe is taking a small step toward breaking its reliance on US Big Tech by hiring only cloud operators headquartered in the EU to work on the backbone of the digital euro project.…
Source: The Register | 26 Mar 2026 | 11:00 am UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 26 Mar 2026 | 11:00 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 26 Mar 2026 | 10:59 am UTC
Market in North Darfur and truck carrying civilians in North Kordofan hit as civil war approaches fourth year
At least 28 civilians have been killed in two separate drone strikes in Sudan, according to health workers, as the country’s brutal civil war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) approaches its fourth year.
A strike hit a market in the town of Saraf Omra, in North Darfur state, on Wednesday, killing “22 people, including an infant, and injuring 17 more”, a health worker at the local clinic told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 26 Mar 2026 | 10:24 am UTC
The Welsh government used Microsoft's Copilot to help write a review of an industry liaison body that it then scrapped, its chairman has told a Senedd committee.…
Source: The Register | 26 Mar 2026 | 10:15 am UTC
The social media outfit TrackAIPAC’s signature anti-endorsement cards have become a fixture of the 2026 midterms. The ubiquitous graphics show a disapproved candidate’s face in grayscale over a smoky red backdrop. To the right, a number denoting their pro-Israel funding glows.
Controversially, not all of that money comes from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
“It’s as broad as possible, and that’s by design,” TrackAIPAC co-founder Casey Kennedy told The Intercept. Instead of just AIPAC, the group tracks spending from across the pro-Israel lobby. “We want to provide the most encapsulating picture that we can of who’s giving to the lobby and where they’re giving to,” Kennedy said.
TrackAIPAC started in 2024 as a scrappy bulwark to the powerful, conservative pro-Israel lobbying group for which it is named. Amid TrackAIPAC’s rise, U.S. voters’ support for Israel plummeted to historic lows as horrified Americans watched their government support genocide in Gaza, and AIPAC, once an indispensable ally for most federal politicians, transformed into an electoral liability.
Depending on whom you ask, TrackAIPAC is a hero for pushing pro-Israel spending into the forefront of voters’ minds, a scourge peddling antisemitic tropes, or a well-intentioned activist group with an imperfect, ever-evolving model. An advocacy group called Citizens Against AIPAC Corruption launched in May 2024 and soon merged with TrackAIPAC, giving the lobby watchers the power to endorse and fund candidates. TrackAIPAC’s graphics are easily digestible and often go viral, lending the group political weight in an era when online audiences want to consume information in as little time and with as little brainpower as possible — and turning its signature red card into a political scarlet letter.
TrackAIPAC’s growing influence has set off a debate over its messaging and methodology, part of a broader conversation about outside spending in politics refracted through the lens of Israel. This was especially felt in Illinois’ recent primary elections, where AIPAC funneled its financial contributions through front PACs, or its major donors gave as individuals. AIPAC’s more elusive strategy proves the necessity of lumping several kinds of pro-Israel money together, TrackAIPAC allies say, giving the group the responsibility of acting as an analyst rather than a conduit of information.
“The work tracker accounts do is important because AIPAC and other dark money lobbies are intentionally very difficult to track,” said Morriah Kaplan, executive director of the progressive Jewish-led Palestinian solidarity organization IfNotNow. Calling AIPAC’s tactics “extremely antidemocratic,” she noted that major donors can have a range of political aims, favoring tech giants, weapons manufacturers, and fossil fuels in tandem with supporting Israel.
“Without understanding how TrackAIPAC defines ‘pro-Israel,’” Kaplan said, “it’s not as valuable a tool for transparency as it could be.”
In the 9th District of Illinois, TrackAIPAC’s broad approach drew controversy when it deployed a red graphic not just for state Sen. Laura Fine, the congressional candidate AIPAC’s funders and front groups supported, but also for Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, who campaigned and won as a progressive, said he would support the Block the Bombs Act, and was a main target of AIPAC-funded attack ads.
When TrackAIPAC posted a red graphic for Biss, the group pointed to his refusal to call Israel’s actions a genocide, his opposition to the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement, his support for U.S. funding for Israel’s Iron Dome, and $460,357 “spent by the pro-Israel lobby groups and their donors.”
“Without understanding how TrackAIPAC defines ‘pro-Israel,’ it’s not as valuable a tool for transparency as it could be.”
That money mostly came from J Street, which bills itself as a liberal alternative for Zionist American Jews who want to counter AIPAC’s hardline influence. In recent years, the group has supported halting some weapons transfers to Israel and opposed Israeli settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. But J Street was slow to label Israel’s assault on Gaza a genocide — its president Jeremy Ben-Ami came around to the term in August— and it opposed initial calls for a ceasefire.
Tali deGroot, J Street’s vice president of political and digital strategy, was frustrated by her group’s conflation with AIPAC, calling TrackAIPAC “intellectually dishonest” for the distance between its name and its methodology. TrackAIPAC does label the specific sources of pro-Israel funding that make up its sums on its website, along with a list of organizations it tracks in addition to AIPAC, but they seldom appear on the red cards that circulate on social media. Some critics have labeled this blurring of lines sloppy or confusing, while others on the left and right have accused the group of antisemitism over its generalized “pro-Israel” language.
“I think the candidates and members should be held to account for taking AIPAC support,” deGroot said, “but the way that [TrackAIPAC] is going about it is doing so much harm.”
A TrackAIPAC spokesperson said the group’s members “wholeheartedly agree” that J Street and AIPAC have significant differences, but said they would still classify J Street as part of the pro-Israel lobby.
“J Street might have some disagreements with AIPAC,” Kennedy said, “but they are both working in favor of a foreign government within our government.”
The group does appear responsive to some of the criticism. TrackAIPAC is planning to modify its anti-endorsement cards in response to recent controversies. They’ll still be red, but the graphics will now spell out how much a candidate has received from specific pro-Israel groups, or individual major pro-Israel lobby donors, as well as additional information about their policy positions on Palestine and Israel.
“Every graphic released regarding Daniel Biss stated clearly that the total of the donations reported were from the pro-Israel Lobby,” the TrackAIPAC spokesperson said. “It would be intellectually dishonest to call J Street anything but a member of that advocacy wing in the United States. That said — we will be breaking their donations out and labeling them separately for transparency purposes moving forward.”
As the founders tell it, the “AIPAC” in TrackAIPAC’s name was always meant as a synecdoche, with the lobbying giant serving as an eye-catching stand-in for the entire Israel lobby. The broad approach is intentional, said TrackAIPAC founders Kennedy and Cory Archibald, and their project is a work in progress.
“It’s as broad as possible, and that’s by design.”
The group has made several changes to its methodology since its launch. Some of them are spelled out online, but others, such as how the group tracks individual donors, are not. At the beginning, TrackAIPAC relied on Federal Election Commission data compiled by the transparency organization OpenSecrets, which also groups the pro-Israel lobby as a whole. Last year, TrackAIPAC began to analyze the FEC data for itself and started adding individual expenditures, or money spent on campaign ads, which triggered jumps in some members’ totals. That was the case for Reps. Wesley Bell, D-Mo., and George Latimer, D-N.Y., who toppled progressive incumbents last cycle with massive amounts of AIPAC support. This year, the group began including bundlers and major donors ($200 or more) who have given to pro-Israel lobby groups and are donating directly to candidates, especially as AIPAC shields some of its spending.
“They’re going underground, so we’re going to have to go underground too,” said Archibald, who worked as a consultant on the campaigns of former Reps. Cori Bush, D-Mo., and Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., who were respectively unseated by Bell and Latimer in 2024.
The approach still seems to rile candidates who find themselves on TrackAIPAC’s bad side, like Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, who accused the group on Instagram of being “MAGA plants who are meant to disrupt and confuse” for giving her a red card listing more than $100,000 from “Israel Lobby” donors. TrackAIPAC told The Intercept that it stands by Crockett’s rating, and that it used FEC data to identify major donors who have given to pro-Israel lobby groups and gave directly to Crockett. (It also gave a red card to Texas state Rep. James Talarico, who beat Crockett in the state’s Democratic Senate primary.)
The founders also said they have received a number of requests from members who want their red graphics taken down. TrackAIPAC is working on a new questionnaire that would give members a chance to get their cards changed if they make specific policy commitments, like committing to an arms embargo and opposing laws that would restrict BDS or promote a controversial definition of antisemitism that conflates the term with criticism of Israel.
Some politicians have already had their cards changed. Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., who has received J Street funding, used to have a red card, but his photo now appears on TrackAIPAC’s website in its original coloring, earning neither the damning red backdrop nor the smooth green ring that indicates endorsement. Khanna, who last year exchanged kind words with TrackAIPAC on social media, is among the members of Congress who receive the label: “We encourage this representative to continue improving their legislative record on Israel-Palestine issues.”
Kennedy said those lawmakers exist in the “squishy middle,” calling it “the most ambiguous part of what we do.” He said they removed their red graphics to avoid the members “getting harangued as an AIPAC supporter,” while nudging them toward continuing to vote in favor of Palestinian rights.
One of the group’s enduring questions is “how do we still apply the pressure without kind of souring our relationship?” Kennedy said. “So it’s definitely, you know, there’s some politicking that goes on there.”
Archibald interjected with more precise terms. “But it’s still very much rooted in their record — we’re not ever picking winners or losers,” she said. “It’s all based on the scorecard … on the facts that are present.”
To round out its rating system, TrackAIPAC relies heavily on the Congressional Democrat Palestine Tracker, a spreadsheet run by five volunteers who are members of Democratic Socialists of America. The spreadsheet uses a scorecard system the volunteers helped devise with the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights Action. (It has a separate tracking system for Republicans.) For candidates who do not have a federal voting record, TrackAIPAC looks to public statements, public policy positions, or associations with pro-Israel lobby groups. If a candidate has pro-Israel positions but campaign finance data is not yet available, TrackAIPAC issues a red graphic with a “warning” label.
In some cases, J Street and TrackAIPAC have backed the same candidate. Progressive Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., for example, is J Street-supported but has TrackAIPAC’s endorsement because of her policy positions on the genocide in Gaza, BDS, and blocking weapons to Israel.
“The money alone is not enough to get you a red graphic,” Archibald said.
The question of how TrackAIPAC assesses its more subjective measures — and whether its targeting is even-handed — has spurred controversy, too.
Last week, TrackAIPAC drew criticism for deploying a red card for Mallory McMorrow, a Michigan state senator running for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate on a platform that includes backing Block the Bombs and calling for a two-state solution. McMorrow’s graphic stood out because of her two opponents for the nomination: Rep. Haley Stevens, a hard-line Israel supporter who has taken over $9 million from the pro-Israel lobby, by TrackAIPAC’s count, and appeared in an AIPAC promotional video earlier this month; and Abdul El-Sayed, a vocal supporter of Palestinian rights who earned the endorsement of TrackAIPAC’s campaign arm, Citizens Against AIPAC Corruption.
McMorrow’s most recently issued red graphic cites $100,439 from the general “pro-Israel lobby groups & their donors.” El-Sayed’s green endorsement card, meanwhile, lists only the amount he has received from AIPAC: $0. McMorrow’s campaign argued that this reflected an uneven treatment, pointing to El-Sayed donors listed in FEC filings who have previously given to J Street.
After previously staying out of the race, a J Street spokesperson told The Intercept on Thursday that the group was endorsing McMorrow.
“It remains unclear how Track AIPAC has arrived at their number, and we invite them to share their methodology so as to not mislead voters,” a spokesperson for McMorrow’s campaign told The Intercept, adding that she had not taken any money from AIPAC and had opposed its involvement in the race.
TrackAIPAC acknowledged that some J Street donors had given to El-Sayed and said the different treatment between the two candidates was decided only by their differing policy positions on Israel and Palestine. Circulating McMorrow’s red card, TrackAIPAC cited McMorrow’s admission of having “returned policy papers to at least one Democratic pro-Israel group,” as well as reporting from Drop Site News that she had drafted an AIPAC position paper, but critics noted that the group was harsh on a relatively untested candidate running as a progressive.
DeGroot objected to a similar dynamic in Illinois’ 9th Congressional District, where the campaign side supported candidate and activist Kat Abughazaleh, who finished as the runner-up to Biss. To deGroot, the group’s dual work as a data project and a political action committee allows its “masquerading support for a chosen candidate – Kat – as journalism, as fact finding.”
Candidates in TrackAIPAC’s good graces, however, may have reason to appreciate the two-part approach. Angela Gonzalez-Torres, a Los Angeles community activist and congressional candidate in California, said Citizens Against AIPAC Corruption was among her earliest supporters, giving her campaign a boost months before the more established progressive group Justice Democrats got behind her. She said that she was initially drawn to challenge incumbent Rep. Jimmy Gomez, D-Calif., because of his responses to local issues like the construction of a controversial housing project atop a toxic dump site and an adjoined trucking depot that posed health risks to neighboring residents, but when she dug into his campaign, she came across TrackAIPAC’s red graphics.
“When we as a community saw those profiting off of our pain and contributing to the very issues hurting our district and other humans, I think we were immediately encouraged to find someone to challenge Jimmy Gomez,” Gonzalez-Torres said, citing his AIPAC connections.
In a statement to The Intercept, a Gomez campaign spokesperson called the congressman “a progressive champion and has delivered for working-class families on the Eastside, securing hundreds of millions in funding to address environmental injustice, expand parks and housing, improve transportation, and combat climate change. He takes local concern about cost of living and quality of life seriously.”
Gonzalez-Torres said some of her supporters told her they donated to her campaign after seeing her and Gomez in TrackAIPAC’s side-by-side graphics.
Update: March 26, 2026, 9:57 a.m. ET
This story has been updated with a statement from the Jimmy Gomez campaign, as well as the news that J Street is endorsing Mallory McMorrow.
Correction: March 26, 2026, 3:58 p.m. ET
The Congressional Democrat Palestine Tracker is operated by volunteers who are members of Democratic Socialists of America; a previous version of this story said the spreadsheet tracker was run by the New York City chapter of DSA. Cori Archibald’s role on Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman’s campaigns has also been corrected; she was a consultant, not a staffer.
The post How Does TrackAIPAC Actually Track AIPAC? appeared first on The Intercept.
Source: The Intercept | 26 Mar 2026 | 9:57 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 26 Mar 2026 | 9:56 am UTC
The UK government will trial different levels of restrictions on social media for under-16s with the help of 300 families, alongside a public consultation that has already gathered nearly 30,000 responses.…
Source: The Register | 26 Mar 2026 | 9:30 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 26 Mar 2026 | 9:00 am UTC
A judge last week struck down the Pentagon’s restrictions on journalists seeking “unauthorized” information, siding with the New York Times in its lawsuit against the government. In response, the Pentagon on Monday added some meaningless window dressing and essentially reissued the same restrictions. The administration pledged to “immediately” appeal the decision on the original policy, and on Tuesday, the Times filed a motion to compel the administration to comply with the judge’s order.
As alarming as the Pentagon’s antics are, the Times’ lawsuit is not the only case about whether reporters have the right to ask questions. It’s not even the only one in the news this week.
In 2017, police in Laredo, Texas, arrested citizen journalist Patricia Villarreal under an obscure and never previously used law making it a felony to ask government employees for nonpublic information for personal benefit. Her supposed crime was asking a police officer about two local tragedies — a suicide and a deadly car wreck.
Her arrest was widely ridiculed, and a judge quickly threw out the charges. When Villarreal sued over her arrest and mistreatment by officers, the legal question wasn’t whether the charges against her were permissible but whether they were so obviously bogus that she could overcome qualified immunity, the unjust and expansive legal shield that protects government employees from liability for all but the most blatant violations. That issue went to the Supreme Court twice, but on Monday, the Court declined to review a federal appellate court’s ruling that the officers were shielded from liability.
No matter what our severely compromised Supreme Court thinks, the local cops who arrested Villarreal were embarrassingly ignorant of the Constitution. But they were also ahead of their time: The Department of Justice is making the same claims that turned the Laredo police into a First Amendment laughingstock — that reporters simply asking questions to the government is criminal — to federal district Judge Paul Friedman.
Most discussion of the Pentagon’s restrictions has focused on their conditions for reporters to receive press credentials, which the Pentagon says can be revoked if reporters publish “unauthorized” information. That policy is wildly unconstitutional on its own, and every mainstream outlet gave up their press passes rather than sign on, leaving war coverage inside the Pentagon to the likes of Turning Point USA’s Frontlines and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s LindellTV streaming service.
But the Pentagon’s legal filings imply that reporters who don’t follow the rules risk more than their press passes. On March 12, the DOJ filed a brief to clarify its lawyers’ earlier comments in a discussion with Friedman at a hearing of “whether asking a question was a criminal act.” The government argued that although journalists may lawfully ask questions of “authorized” Pentagon personnel, “a journalist does solicit the commission of a criminal act, and that solicitation is not protected by the First Amendment, when he or she solicits … non-public information from individuals who are legally obligated not to disclose that information.”
There you have it. What was once a fringe, failed legal theory concocted by some local cops in one Texas border city is now the official position of the federal government’s lawyers, which it felt compelled to put in writing in case anyone wasn’t sure where it stood after the hearing. Both the rogue cops and the DOJ’s lawyers contend that journalists merely asking questions to government officials constitutes unlawful solicitation.
“These Pentagon policies remind us that people in power will stop literally at nothing to control the story.”
As JT Morris, supervising senior attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (which represents Villarreal) told me in an email last week, the First Amendment “unquestionably protects our right to ask questions, whether it’s a citizen asking police about a local crime or the New York Times asking Pentagon officials about matters of national security. Officials can always respond, ‘no comment.’ But they cannot jail Americans for asking.”
The government’s argument would have turned countless Pulitzer-winning national security reporters into criminals. As Friedman put it in his ruling, the “role of a journalist is to solicit information. … [A] journalist asking questions is not a crime!” (You can tell a judge is miffed when scholarly language fails and they resort to exclamation points.)
The DOJ’s “concession” in its clarification brief (and later in its revised policy) — that journalists can direct questions to authorized spokespeople — makes no difference. That the administration even felt the need to state something so obvious, presumably because they thought it would make them sound more reasonable, signals the extent to which they’ve threatened the First Amendment.
Government agencies have long routed journalists’ inquiries to PR flacks and instructed non-public-facing staffers not to answer reporters’ questions. That’s unconstitutional in its own right; earlier this month, the Village of Key Biscayne, Florida, became the latest government agency to settle a lawsuit over its employee gag rule. But until this administration, the government at least placed the burden on its own employees to comply with restrictions on talking to reporters.
Now, the government expects journalists to make themselves a party to its censorship directives, and ignore Supreme Court precedent that they can print any government information they lawfully obtain, even if it shouldn’t have been released. “A contrary rule … would force upon the media the onerous obligation of sifting through government press releases, reports, and pronouncements to prune out material arguably unlawful for publication,” the Court reasoned.
Journalist Kathryn Foxhall, who has for years sounded the alarm about “censorship by PIO,” including in collaboration with the Society of Professional Journalists, says the press has failed to meaningfully oppose these policies. “The media have done little to fight the ever-tightening rules at federal agencies and elsewhere banning reporters from buildings and prohibiting employees from speaking to journalists without the authorities’ oversight. With amazing negligence journalists just assume whatever reporters get is the whole story, even in the face of the many thousands of gagged staff people. Now these Pentagon policies remind us that people in power will stop literally at nothing to control the story,” she told me.
The Pentagon’s position that newsgathering is a prosecutable offense is not just theoretical. Although the DOJ’s brief didn’t explicitly reference it, just like the officers in Laredo, federal prosecutors have their own archaic and constitutionally dubious law on the books to sane-wash their nonsense arguments — the Espionage Act of 1917. Read literally, that law (Rep. Rashida Tlaib recently introduced a much-needed bill to reform it) arguably prohibits reporters and anyone else from obtaining or attempting to obtain national defense information.
But reading it that way to go after journalists would be unconstitutional and politically toxic, which is why past administrations have refrained. Had the Supreme Court denied the Laredo officers’ qualified immunity in Villarreal’s case, it would have signaled that arguments for expansive interpretations of arcane laws to criminalize routine reporting are a nonstarter.
The Court ducked the issue despite being fully aware that the present administration is looking for any excuse to punish reporters that dare to undermine its narratives. They’ve already claimed Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson — whose home they raided, seizing terabytes of data — violated the Espionage Act by obtaining leaked information. The Charona Weima administration is barging through the door the Biden administration left wide open, when, despite warnings from First Amendment advocates, it extracted a plea deal from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Espionage Act charges for obtaining and publishing government records, including about Iraq war crimes.
The DOJ’s adoption of the Laredo police’s discredited theory is an extension of the Assange and Natanson cases; the claim that publishing leaked documents is criminal has evolved into a theory that merely asking questions is, too. The administration lost in court this time, but it said it will appeal, and may be emboldened by the Supreme Court’s cowardice in the Laredo case.
If this administration succeeds in chipping away at constitutional protections for journalistic practices as basic as asking questions, reporters who wish to do anything more than regime stenography may risk imprisonment just by doing their jobs. In her dissent to the Villarreal ruling, Justice Sotomayor put it well: “Tolerating retaliation against journalists, or efforts to criminalize routine reporting practices, threatens to silence ‘one of the very agencies the Framers of our Constitution thoughtfully and deliberately selected to improve our society and keep it free.’”
The post Pentagon Wants It to Be Illegal for Reporters to Ask “Unauthorized” Questions appeared first on The Intercept.
Source: The Intercept | 26 Mar 2026 | 9:00 am UTC
Source: World | 26 Mar 2026 | 9:00 am UTC
A court in the US has found that Meta (the company behind Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp) and Youtube) deliberately built addictive social media platforms. According to the BBC
A Los Angeles jury has handed down an unprecedented win for a young woman who sued Meta and YouTube over her childhood addiction to social media.
Jurors found that Meta, which owns Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, and Google, owner of YouTube, intentionally built addictive social media platforms that harmed the 20-year old’s mental health. The woman, known as Kaley, was awarded $3m (£2.2m) in a result that is likely to have implications for hundreds of similar cases now winding their way through US courts.
Meta and Google said separately that they disagreed with the verdict and would both appeal. Meta said: “Teen mental health is profoundly complex and cannot be linked to a single app.”We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously as every case is different, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online.”
A spokesperson for Google said: “This case misunderstands YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site.”Jurors found Meta to be 70% responsible for the plaintiff’s harm and YouTube was responsible for 30% of the total, meaning Meta will pay the majority of Kaley’s award.
The damages could be substantial, with the report saying it could reach up to $30 million dollars.
The Guardian report on the issue goes into the background of the young woman (identified as KGM) who brought the case
KGM testified that she became addicted to YouTube at age six and Instagram at nine, which she said had deleterious effects on her wellbeing. By age 10, she said, she had become depressed and was engaging in self-harm as a result. Her social media use allegedly caused her to have strained relationships with her family and in school. When she was 13, KGM’s therapist diagnosed her with body dysmorphic disorder and social phobia, which KGM attributes to her use of Instagram and YouTube.
“How do you make a child never put down the phone? That’s called the engineering of addiction. They engineered it, they put these features on the phones,” Mark Lanier, KGM’s lawyer said during closing arguments last week. “These are Trojan horses: they look wonderful and great … but you invite them in and they take over.”
Globally, the social media giants are running into increasing headwinds as more and more governments begin taking actions to curb their perceived excesses. Australia recently enacted a world first social media ban for children under the age of 16, and other governments are keenly observing how that ban is working in practice to see if a similar prohbition would work in their own countries. The UK is going to trial such restrictions on several hundred teenagers.
Meta and Youtube both plan to appeal the verdict as the Guardian article later states that…
Meta has said it will appeal the rulings in Los Angeles and in New Mexico. In response to the California case’s verdict, a spokesperson for Meta said the company is confident of its protection of teens online.
“We respectfully disagree with the verdict … Teen mental health is profoundly complex and cannot be linked to a single app,” the spokesperson said.
A YouTube spokesperson, José Castañeda, said the video service also disagrees with the verdict and plans to appeal. “This case misunderstands YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site,” he said.
Both companies have consistently denied wrongdoing. YouTube has called the allegations that were brought “simply not true” and Meta has said that KGM’s mental health issues were brought on by a difficult home life and social media use was not to blame.
Source: Slugger O'Toole | 26 Mar 2026 | 8:00 am UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 26 Mar 2026 | 7:00 am UTC
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