Authorities in Maryland say a high school athletic director used artificial intelligence to impersonate a principal on an audio recording. They say the clip contained racist and antisemitic remarks and quickly spread on social media. The principal was temporarily removed from his post at Pikesville High School in Baltimore County. Police say that Dazhon Darien faked the recording in January following discussions with the principal that his contract wouldn't be renewed. Darien had been the subject of a theft investigation at the school. He now faces charges of theft, disrupting school activities and retaliating against a witness. Online court records do not list an attorney for Darien, who was jailed on $5,000 bond.
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TikTok is gearing up for a legal fight against a U.S. law that would force the social media platform to break ties with its China-based parent company or face a ban. A battle in the courts will almost certainly be backed by Chinese authorities as the bitter U.S.-China rivalry threatens the future of a wildly popular way for young Americans to connect online. Beijing has signaled TikTok should fight what it has called a “robbers” act by U.S. lawmakers “to snatch from others all the good things that they have.” But should a legal challenge fail, observers say Chinese authorities are unlikely to allow a sale, a move that could be seen as surrendering to Washington.
Poland’s prosecutor general has told the parliament that powerful Pegasus spyware was used against hundreds of people during the former government in Poland. Among them were elected officials. Adam Bodnar told lawmakers on Wednesday that he found the scale of the surveillance “shocking and depressing.” Bodnar is also the justice minister. He did not specify who exactly was subject to surveillance by the spyware. His office said the information was confidential. Bodnar said the data showed that Pegasus was used in the cases of 578 people from 2017 to 2022 and that it was used by three separate government agencies. He said that the software generated “enormous knowledge” about the “private and professional lives” of those put under surveillance.
The names of thousands of people held in Japanese American incarceration camps during World War II will be digitized and made available for free on Ancestry. The genealogy company announced Wednesday it is collaborating with the Irei Project, which has been working to memorialize more than 125,000 detainees. Ancestry is known as one of the largest global online resources of family history. Researchers with the Irei Project say it’s an ideal partnership because the project’s researchers were already utilizing Ancestry. Some of the site’s collections include nearly 350,000 records. People will be able to look at more than just names and delve into a bigger story for each person.
Senate passes bill forcing TikTok's parent company to sell or face ban, sends to Biden for signature
The Senate has passed legislation that would force TikTok’s China-based parent company to sell the social media platform under the threat of a ban, a contentious move by U.S. lawmakers that’s expected to face legal challenges and disrupt the lives of content creators who rely on the short-form video app for income. The TikTok legislation was included as part of a larger $95 billion package that provides foreign aid to Ukraine and Israel. It now goes to President Joe Biden, who has backed the TikTok proposal and has said he will sign the package as soon as he gets it.
The Biden administration has taken a significant step in its expedited environmental review of what could become the third lithium mine in the U.S. That's assuming it can withstand anticipated legal challenges from conservationists who fear it will lead to the extinction of an endangered Nevada wildflower near the California line. Federal land managers released their draft environmental impact statement this week for the Rhyolite Ridge mine. The public comment period runs until June 3. Lithium is a metal key to the manufacture of batteries for electric vehicles, a centerpiece of President Joe Biden’s “green energy” agenda. Environmentalists vowing to fight the mine say the administration is “greenwashing extinction.”
With cameras not allowed at former President Donald Trump's hush money trial in New York, live news blogs are coming into their own as an important news tool. During opening statements on Monday, CNN used a third of its screen for printed dispatches from its reporters in the courtroom. Live blogs were also big parts of coverage by traditional outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post and Associated Press. These outlets have used blogs for big events in the past, but unlike something like the Academy Awards, there's no traditional television coverage as competition.
An independent Russian news site has reported that a court in Russia convicted the spokesperson of U.S. technology company Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, of justifying terrorism and sentenced him to six years in prison in absentia. The news site Mediazona says the charges against Meta communications director Andy Stone stem from his remarks in 2022 following Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Stone announced temporary changes to Meta’s hate speech policy to allow for “forms of political expression that would normally violate (its) rules." Stone also said “credible calls for violence against Russian civilians” would remain banned. The Russian authorities opened a criminal case against Stone, accusing him of “illegal calls to violence and killings of Russian citizens.”
A tipline set up 26 years ago to combat online child exploitation is “enormously valuable” but hasn't lived up to its potential. That’s what a new report from the Stanford Internet Observatory released on Monday has found. The report says CyberTipline needs technological and other improvements to help law enforcement go after abusers and rescue victims. The sheer amount of tips are overwhelming law enforcement, but the report's authors say the core problems are more than just volume. For instance, many of the reports tech companies send in are “low quality” and don’t have enough details, according to the report. That makes it hard for law enforcement to know which reports to prioritize.
An artisan roastery based in the Finnish capital has introduced a coffee blend that has been developed by artificial intelligence in a trial in which it’s hoped that technology can ease the workload in a sector that traditionally prides itself on manual work. It is only apt that the Helsinki-based Kaffa Roastery’s “AI-conic” blend was launched this week in Finland. The International Coffee Organization says that the Nordic nation of 5.6 million consumes the most coffee in the world at 12 kilograms per capita annually. The blend is an AI-picked mixture with four types of beans. Kaffa Roastery founder Svante Hampf told The Associated Press on Saturday that the two partners wanted to trial how AI and its different tools could help in coffee roasting.
