David Hearn is accused of destroying ‘American flag blue’ lining material on the bottom of the reflecting pool
David Hearn, a former Olympic canoe racer, pleaded not guilty on Thursday to damaging Washington’s reflecting pool after a $14.7m renovation project.
Hearn, a three-time US Olympian, was indicted last week on a single felony count of property destruction. He appeared in local superior court in Washington DC to enter the plea after he was criminally charged over the incident in mid-June.
Continue reading...A 2021 state law allows campus police to own military equipment for civilian safety – students fear it may be used to quash dissent
For many public colleges and universities in California, keeping their campuses safe includes owning military-grade weaponry: AR-15s, stun grenades designed to cause temporary blindness and sonic weapons that resonate so loudly they are known in the armed forces as the voice of God.
According to California state law, campus police can only own military equipment if the college believes there is no other way to uphold civilian safety.
Continue reading...Widow of far-right activist Charlie Kirk asks judge for ‘transparency’ to head off conspiracy theories
Erika Kirk, the widow of the far-right activist Charlie Kirk, has asked a judge in Utah to allow the open courtroom display of every exhibit relating to her husband’s killing, saying she fears the proliferation of conspiracy theories.
Kirk’s motion came on the third day of a preliminary hearing in Provo at which the district judge Tony Graf will decide if there is sufficient evidence to move ahead with a trial for Kirk’s alleged murderer, Tyler Robinson, in a shooting at Utah Valley University last September.
Continue reading...In order for Democrats to finalize an alternative Senate nominee in Maine, Platner needs to officially withdraw from the race by 13 July at 5pm ET
Former Olympic canoeist David Hearn has pleaded not guilty to vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool.
Hearn, 67, from Maryland, was arrested last month after stopping by the pool on a bike ride. He told several outlets that he was detained for almost five hours after he reached into the water to inspect what he described a piece of the blue liner that was partially detached from the bottom of the pool as he was curious what it felt like.
Continue reading...OpenAI has released GPT-Live-1 and GPT-Live-1 mini, "claiming that they sound more natural and can handle turn-taking better," reports TechCrunch. "These are full-duplex models, meaning they can speak and listen at the same time, allowing users to interrupt naturally and enabling features like live translation." TechCrunch reports: The company is also replacing its current Advanced Voice Mode in ChatGPT with GPT-Live-1 mini by default. Users of paid tiers will be able to access the larger GPT-Live-1 model. The previous model combined a speech-to-text model to transcribe speech, a large language model to generate responses, and a text-to-speech model to deliver the final answer. The company said in a press briefing that the new models solve issues like interrupting users while they're talking and not having enough intelligence to answer questions. OpenAI's new models will send the query to its latest text models like GPT-5.5 for search, reasoning, or agentic capabilities while continuing the conversation. OpenAI also showed that the model can stay silent for a long time and absorb the context of the conversation until it's called upon. Plus, as the new voice mode has access to newer GPT models, it can also present some information in a visual format. Other startups like Monogram, which raised $40 million in seed funding from DST and Lux Capital, are also leaning into visual responses to make assistants more interactive. The company said the new voice mode in ChatGPT is designed to have longer conversations. During the briefing, ChatGPT Voice's product lead, Atty Eleti, said he has had 30- to 40-minute-long conversations with the voice feature during walks.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Czech 10th seed clinched a 6-2, 1-6, 7-6 (10) victory
Faces compatriot Noskova or Ukraine’s Kostyuk next
Coco Gauff blew a golden chance to reach a first Wimbledon final as she lost a dramatic deciding set tie-break against Karolina Muchova.
The 22-year-old came from a set down to take a tense semi-final the distance on Centre Court. But, on match point, Gauff dumped a simple winner into the net, a shot that will surely keep her awake at night for some time.
Continue reading... Updates from Thursday’s semi-final action in SW19
Wimbledon Q&A with Tumaini Carayol | Mail Katy
Gauff does hold a 6-1 lead in their head-to-head, by the way, but I’m not sure we can read too much into that, as none of those matches were on grass. Gauff, arguably the best competitor in the women’s game, has made an art out of “winning ugly” – the phrase made famous by her former coach Brad Gilbert – and has consistently found a way to come through three-setters during this tournament even when she’s not been at her best. She may well need all that fight to combat Muchova’s mix of power and touch – which is so dangerous on grass – especially if Gauff’s serve and forehand wobble, as they sometimes do. Gauff’s backhand, though, is brilliant. Will temperament + backhand or power + hands prevail? It’s going to be so fun finding out.
And here they come to a big cheer from the crowd, not that it’s quite as warm as the red-hot weather, with the current temp around 33C, and not that Gauff can properly hear it either, because she’s got her headphones – and game face – on.
Continue reading...Czech 10th seed clinched a 6-2, 1-6, 7-6 (10) victory
Faces compatriot Noskova or Ukraine’s Kostyuk next
Karolina Muchova edged out Coco Gauff in a deciding-set tie-break, saving a match point in a dramatic last-four clash to reach her first Wimbledon final on Thursday.
The Czech 10th seed clinched a 6-2, 1-6, 7-6 (10) victory and will face either compatriot Linda Noskova or Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk in Saturday’s show-piece match.
Full report to come
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Companies will once again be allowed to scan citizens’ personal texts, emails, and social media messages via the “chat control” bill to find child abuse material online.
Updates from Thursday’s semi-final action in SW19
Wimbledon Q&A with Tumaini Carayol | Mail Katy
Gauff does hold a 6-1 lead in their head-to-head, by the way, but I’m not sure we can read too much into that, as none of those matches were on grass. Gauff, arguably the best competitor in the women’s game, has made an art out of “winning ugly” – the phrase made famous by her former coach Brad Gilbert – and has consistently found a way to come through three-setters during this tournament even when she’s not been at her best. She may well need all that fight to combat Muchova’s mix of power and touch – which is so dangerous on grass – especially if Gauff’s serve and forehand wobble, as they sometimes do. Gauff’s backhand, though, is brilliant. Will temperament + backhand or power + hands prevail? It’s going to be so fun finding out.
And here they come to a big cheer from the crowd, not that it’s quite as warm as the red-hot weather, with the current temp around 33C, and not that Gauff can properly hear it either, because she’s got her headphones – and game face – on.
Continue reading...AI companies want to capture the value created by entire industries. That concentration of wealth and power is society’s greatest risk
Opposition to AI datacenters has emerged as a primary theme in US politics, one that – surprisingly – doesn’t fall along party lines. We applaud people coming together for constructive debate on any issue, and agree that communities need to evaluate whether any economic benefits these datacenters bring is worth their costs. Still, we worry that a focus on datacenters obscures the larger impacts of AI on people’s lives: the concentration of power of AI companies, and their widespread political and financial influence.
Local datacenter opposition is grounded in legitimate concerns about misallocation of land resources when housing is at a premium, pressures on already higher energy prices, and localized environmental impact. Unlike other resource-consuming and polluting industrial facilities, datacenters produce very few jobs. The fact that US opposition to datacenters seems to be most fierce among lower-income communities reflects righteous indignation with an inequitable bargain, where tech companies and developers profit from exploiting local resources but offer little in return. On a global scale, their carbon footprint could grow unsustainably if usage accelerates. And all this is in aid of a technology that many fear will propagate misinformation, take their jobs, or even cause existential risks for humanity.
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