Researchers are warning that facial recognition technologies are "more threatening than previously thought" and pose "serious challenges to privacy" after a study found that artificial intelligence can be successful in predicting a person's political orientation based on images of expressionless faces. "Facebook shows you their picture, and what our study shows is that this is essentially to some extent the equivalent to just telling you what their political orientation is." Read more
Joe Biden will land a major union endorsement Wednesday from North America's Building Trades Unions, whose leaders say the president has his infrastructure bill largely to thank for it. In making one of their earliest ever presidential endorsements, NABTU leaders are kickstarting an eight-figure organizing program to try to deliver their 250,000 members in the battlegrounds of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin for Biden. Read more
The US Senate has approved a controversial landmark bill that could see TikTok banned in America. It gives TikTok's Chinese owner, ByteDance, nine months to sell its stake or the app will be blocked in the United States. The bill will now be handed over to US President Joe Biden, who has said he will sign it into law as soon as it reaches his desk. Read more
The US Senate has approved a $95bn (76bn) foreign aid package that includes military support for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. President Joe Biden is expected to sign the legislation into law on Wednesday. The Senate on Tuesday evening backed the measure passed by the US House of Representatives on Saturday. It includes $61bn in military aid for Ukraine, which the Pentagon says can start being delivered to the war-torn nation "within days". It passed in a bipartisan vote of 79-18.
Research financed by the International Olympic Committee introduced new data to the unsettled and fractious debate about bans on transgender athletes. A new study financed by the International Olympic Committee found that transgender female athletes showed greater handgrip strength " an indicator of overall muscle strength " but lower jumping ability, lung function and relative cardiovascular fitness compared with women whose gender was assigned female at birth.
Recent protests blocking roadways over the Israel-Hamas war has led to Democrats looking to team up with Republicans in California to increase the penalty for protestors. Monday, the Assembly Transportation Committee passed Assembly Bill 2742 on an 8-5 vote, with four Democrats siding with Republicans to push it through.
The identity thief allegedly stole the identity of the victim more than three decades ago when both worked at a hot dog cart in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The thief then used it in "every aspect of his life" since then, eventually working at a hospital as the key administrator of critical systems." His salary in 2023 was $140,501, according to the hospital. The victim eventually learned that his identity was being used for racking up huge amounts of debt, he went to a bank to complain and ended up being arrested and being medicated and confined to a mental hospital because he insisted that he was who he said he was. Read more
Former New York Rep. George Santos, who was expelled from the House and is facing federal charges, said he is withdrawing his bid for Congress in New York's 1st District. "I have decided to withdraw from my independent run for #NY1 ... I don't want my run to be portrayed as reprisal against Nick Lalota ... Although Nick and I don't have the same voting record and I remain critical of his abysmal record, I don't want to split the ticket and be responsible for handing the house to Dems," Santos said Read more
An autonomous taxi drove on the wrong side of a street to avoid colliding with cyclists. The taxi was recorded crossing over the double-yellow dividing line and driving at least one block on the left side of the road. Read more
This privacy reporter and her husband bought a Chevrolet Bolt in December. Two risk-profiling companies had been getting detailed data about their driving ever since.
For the first time in five months, NASA engineers have received decipherable data from Voyager 1 after crafting a creative solution to fix a communication problem aboard humanity's most distant spacecraft in the cosmos. Voyager 1 is currently about 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away, and at 46 years old, the probe has shown multiple quirks and signs of aging in recent years.
Baltimore has sued the operators of the container ship that hit and destroyed one of the US city's main bridges last month, killing six people. The city says the Dali was "clearly unseaworthy" and accuses its owners and manager of negligence. The ship's Singapore-based owner and manager have already asked a court to limit their liability. Read more
A union that represents Boeing Co. employees says the company retaliated against two engineers who raised concerns about its 777 and 787 jets in 2022.
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake's attempt to have all of Arizona's election ballots counted by hand was dead on arrival at the Supreme Court of the United States. Lake initially filed suit against then-Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs during her failed 2022 gubernatorial campaign, claiming that electronic ballot tabulators didn't provide a fair and accurate vote. A lower court found that the claims by Lake and former Arizona State Rep. Mark Finchem " a Republican who ran for Secretary of State in 2022 " were "baseless" and ordered financial sanctions against their lawyers, for making false and misleading statements to the court. Lake appealed. On Monday, the Supreme Court dismissed her appeal without comment, bringing an end to the case.
Four Germans were caught laying white roses in memory of Adolf Hitler at the house where the Nazi dictator was born in western Austria on the anniversary of his birth, and one gave a Hitler salute as they posed for photos, police said Monday. Hitler was born April 20, 1889, in Braunau am Inn. After lengthy wrangling over the future of the house where he was born, work started last year on turning it into a police station " a project meant to make it unattractive as a pilgrimage site for people who glorify Hitler. Police in Upper Austria province said the four Germans " two sisters and their partners, in their 20s and early 30s " went to the building Saturday to lay white roses in its window recesses. They posed in front of the house for photos, and one of the women gave the stiff-armed Hitler salute.
With 30% of US companies at least exploring the idea now, and a small but growing number of companies actually trying it, there's a real possibility it will take hold.
