Jorge Pederson, 30, had been on life support after weekend attack which left more than a dozen others wounded
A Minnesota-based mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter has been named as the third victim to die in the recent mass shooting at an Austin bar being investigated as a potential act of terrorism in retaliation for US airstrikes in Iran.
The death of 30-year-old Jorge Pederson was announced by the Austin police department on Monday evening. Police told NBC News that Pederson had been on life support after the attack, which left more than a dozen others wounded and ended with officers fatally shooting the gunman.
Richard Luscombe contributed reporting
Continue reading...US president criticises prime minister for third time 24 hours, describing him as ‘not Churchill’ over initial refusal
Donald Trump has launched a deeply personal attack on Keir Starmer over his refusal to let the US launch initial strikes on Iran from British bases, telling reporters: “This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with.”
In his latest extraordinary salvo, the US president said he was not happy with the UK even though the prime minister eventually agreed the US could use Diego Garcia for strikes on Iranian missile facilities.
Continue reading...Donald Trump has insisted that Israel did not put pressure on the US to launch the initial strikes over the weekend, telling reporters that Iran 'was going to attack first'. The US president also threatened to cut off all trade with Spain after the Nato ally refused Washington permission for two jointly operated bases in southern Spain to be used in US strikes on Iran
Continue reading...OpenAI is amending its Pentagon contract after CEO Sam Altman acknowledged it appeared "opportunistic and sloppy." On Monday night, Altman said the company would explicitly restrict its technology from being used by intelligence agencies and for mass domestic surveillance. The Guardian reports: OpenAI, which has more than 900 million users of ChatGPT, made the deal almost immediately after the Pentagon's existing AI contractor, Anthropic, was dropped. [...] The deal prompted an online backlash against OpenAI, with users of X and Reddit encouraging a "delete ChatGPT" campaign. One post read: "You're now training a war machine. Let's see proof of cancellation." In a message to employees reposted on X, the OpenAI CEO said the original deal announced on Friday had been struck too quickly after Anthropic was dropped. "We shouldn't have rushed to get this out on Friday," Altman wrote. "The issues are super complex, and demand clear communication. We were genuinely trying to de-escalate things and avoid a much worse outcome, but I think it just looked opportunistic and sloppy." Upon announcing the deal, OpenAI had said the contract had "more guardrails than any previous agreement for classified AI deployments, including Anthropic's." [...] However, observers including OpenAI's former head of policy research, Miles Brundage, have queried how OpenAI has managed to secure a deal that assuages ethical concerns Anthropic believed were insurmountable. Posting on X, he wrote: "OpenAI employees' default assumption here should unfortunately be that OpenAI caved + framed it as not caving, and screwed Anthropic while framing it as helping them." Brundage added: "To be clear, OAI is a complex org, and I think many people involved in this worked hard for what they consider a fair outcome. Some others I do not trust at all, particularly as it relates to dealings with government and politics." In his X post, he also wrote that he would "rather go to jail" than follow an unconstitutional order from the government. "We want to work through democratic processes," Brundage wrote. "It should be the government making the key decisions about society. We want to have a voice, and a seat at the table where we can share our expertise, and to fight for principles of liberty."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Dorsey cited AI advances when cutting 4,000 workers, but a weak crypto market and declining stock price may also be behind move
Jack Dorsey cited AI as the driving force behind cutting 40% of his company’s employees, but other factors such as a weak crypto market, overstaffing and a declining stock price may also have motivated the move.
Last week, the financial technology company Block announced that it would lay off 4,000 of its 10,000 workers. Dorsey, Block’s CEO, said in a letter to shareholders that advances in AI “have changed what it means to build and run a company”.
Continue reading...Move comes day after department said it would drop fight against law firms that stood up to Trump’s executive orders
The US justice department abruptly reversed course on Tuesday and decided it would defend executive orders made by Donald Trump to try to penalize law firms that represented clients or causes the president did not like.
On Monday, the department announced in a court filing that it was dropping its appeal against a ruling by a district court judge that blocked Trump’s retaliatory executive actions against four companies that refused to make a deal with him.
Continue reading...Proponents of the measure announce they have collected 1.3m signatures to put the issue on the midterm ballot
Republican organizers in California announced they have gathered enough signatures to place a measure that would require California voters to present identification every time they vote and for election officials to verify that registered voters are US citizens on the ballot this November.
Proponents of the measure announced that they have collected 1.3 million signatures on a petition to put the issue onto ballot for a vote in the midterm elections, surpassing the 874,641 signatures needed under California state law. Officials must now verify the signatures.
Under the current law, Californians are not required to show or provide identification when casting a ballot in person or by mail. They are, however, required to provide identification when registering to vote. Voters must also swear under penalty of perjury—a felony—that they are a US citizen eligible to vote.
George Calicut Jr has been in prison for more than 25 years for murder, though there were no witnesses or evidence against him
A Detroit-area judge erased a 1999 murder conviction Tuesday of a man who was serving a life prison sentence after prosecutors acknowledged his confession was coerced by a rogue police officer.
In addition, recent DNA testing “further supports the lack of any evidence” connecting George Calicut Jr to the murder of Virgie Perkins at her Detroit home, the Wayne county prosecutor’s office and his lawyers said.
Continue reading...From the Chagos Islands to ‘windmills’ and sharia law, the US president’s comments do not bear much scrutiny
Donald Trump has been opining about the UK again, saying on Tuesday that Keir Starmer was “not Winston Churchill” and repeating his complaint about the deal to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. Here are some recent things the US president has said about British issues, and how they compare with reality.
Continue reading...US president appears to contradict Marco Rubio remarks that Israel planned to strike Iran first, claiming ‘If anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand’
In a late night post on Truth Social, Donald Trump said that the US munition stockpiles “at the medium and upper medium grade” have “never been higher or better”.
He added that the US has a “virtually unlimited supply of these weapons”, meaning that “wars can be fought ‘forever’”.
Continue reading...