politicians

Prosecutors say David DePape, who was charged with attempted murder and other crimes in connection with a violent attack against Paul Pelosi, was on a suicide mission and had other targets in mind when he broke into the Pelosis’ San Francisco home last week.DePape, 42, appeared briefly in court Tuesday afternoon and pleaded not guilty to a host of charges in connection with Friday’s hammer attack on Pelosi. Federal authorities said DePape had plotted to take Pelosi’s wife, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, hostage and break her…

Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro attends a speech at the Ministry of Economy, in Brasilia, Brazil, Friday, Oct. 22, 2021.Photo: Eraldo Peres (AP)This weekend, Brazilians voted out Jair Bolsonaro, the right-wing, Christo-fascist president who oversaw vast environmental destruction during his nearly four years in office.Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has gone from a political prisoner to the incoming president of Brazil. Lula, who led the country previously from 2003 to 2010, won in a narrow victory. He received 50.9% of the…

Elon Musk begins on Friday his first full day leading Twitter, with critics and fans anxious to see how the planet's richest man will run one of the world's leading social media platforms. The mercurial Tesla chief's tumultuous, $44 billion (roughly Rs. 3,37,465 crore) bid to buy the company concluded after months of uncertainty and speculation, and now users could start to see his plans. Musk tweeted "the bird is freed" on Thursday, a humorous reference to the firm's logo, shortly after he said he made the purchase "to…

Last year, in a public stand following January 6th, Amazon pledged to stop its corporate PAC contributions to politicians who tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election.“Given the unacceptable attempt to undermine a legitimate democratic process, the Amazon PAC has suspended contributions to any Member of Congress who voted to override the results of the US Presidential election,” the company wrote back in January 2021. Amazon made that promise along with multiple other tech leviathans.But now, the company has…

People on Reddit discuss men and women in politics differentially. Credit: Vlada Karpovich, Pexels, CC0 (creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) An analysis of 10 million comments on the social media platform Reddit suggests that public interest in male versus female politicians is relatively equal, but that gender biases exist across the platform. Sara Marjanovic and colleagues at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark,…

Credit: MIT Press Elizabeth Losh, the Duane A. and Virginia S. Dittman Professor of American Studies and English at William & Mary, is paying close attention to the social media posts of candidates running for office in the upcoming mid-term elections. …

Laughter, the final frontier (image by author) Why humor may lead to the next breakthrough in AI Let’s be honest: no one really thinks machines are funny (yet). Wit, creativity, and imagination are characteristics that humans hold closely in our rivalry with machines.With so many other problems to solve with AI, why would anyone care about having machines make us laugh?Interestingly enough, writing jokes may be one of the keys to closing the gap between machine and human intelligence.Limitations of today’s large language…

Screenshot: KARE 11 / YouTubeA Minnesota man has pleaded guilty to wire fraud after he set up a hoax in which he claimed people had spray-painted left-wing messages on his garage, including “Biden 2020,” an anarchy symbol, and “BLM,” and set fire to several vehicles, according to a press release from the U.S. Department of Justice. It’s not illegal to spray-paint your own property, but the man received about $61,000 from his insurance company and $17,000 from a GoFundMe fundraiser, which is a big no-no.It all started on…

Peace activists wearing masks of Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and newly elected US President Joe Biden pose with mock nuclear missiles in front of Berlin’s landmark the Brandenburg Gate on January 29, 2021 in an action to call for more progress in nuclear disarmament.Photo: John MacDougal (Getty Images)U.S. President Joe Biden wants to make sure the American public starts off their weekend with a nice heaping dose of existential dread.Biden told an audience at a New York Democratic fundraising event Thursday that…

“Elections have consequences,” said President Barack Obama in 2009, as he started to press for policies such as affordable health care against Republican opposition. Recently Republican leaders themselves have begun to echo his phrase as red state legislatures ban abortion, prevent the country from taking actions to combat the climate crisis, permit easier access to firearms, and oppose a vigorous public health response to the pandemic. All of that makes the consequences of this fall's vote exceptionally profound. What…