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Pope warns of social media perils: relationships reduced to algorithms, partisan propaganda, hatred

Published Sun, 02 Feb 2025 10:30:58 GMT

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis on Saturday warned against the danger of reducing human relationships to “mere algorithms” and urged lawmakers to be vigilant against “partisan” propaganda and divisiveness on social media.In a speech to participants of the International Catholic Legislators Network, who were holding their annual conference in the Rome area, Francis noted that social media networks can be a way to help people realize they are part of something larger than themselves. “Indeed, that is the stated aim of many social media platforms, and certainly much good takes place through these means of communication,” Francis said.Still, the pontiff said, vigilance was needed, “for sadly many dehumanizing trends resulting from technocracy are found on these media.” He cited the deliberate spread of false information about people, fake news and the promotion of hatred and division. Francis further decried what he called “partisan propaganda and the reduction of human relationships to mere a...

Bare electrical wire and poles in need of replacement on Maui were little match for strong winds

Published Sun, 02 Feb 2025 10:30:58 GMT

In the first moments of the Maui fires, when high winds brought down power poles, slapping electrified wires to the dry grass below, there was a reason the flames erupted all at once in long, neat rows — those wires were bare, uninsulated metal that could spark on contact.Videos and images analyzed by The Associated Press confirmed those wires were among miles of line that Hawaiian Electric Company. left naked to the weather and often-thick foliage, despite a recent push by utilities in other wildfire- and hurricane-prone areas to cover up their lines or bury them.Compounding the problem is that many of the utility’s 60,000, mostly wooden power poles, which its own documents described as built to “an obsolete 1960s standard,” were leaning and near the end of their projected lifespan. They were nowhere close to meeting a 2002 national standard that key components of Hawaii’s electrical grid be able to withstand 105 mile per hour winds. A 2019 filing said it had fallen behind in...

Fukushima residents cautious after wrecked nuclear plant began releasing treated wastewater

Published Sun, 02 Feb 2025 10:30:58 GMT

Fish auction prices at a port south of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant were mixed amid uncertainty over how seafood consumers will respond to the release of treated and diluted radioactive wastewater into the ocean.The plant, which was damaged in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, began sending the treated water into the Pacific on Thursday despite protests at home and in nearby countries that are adding political and diplomatic pressures to the economic worries.Hideaki Igari, a middleman at the Numanouchi fishing port, said the price of larger flounder, Fukushima’s signature fish known as Joban-mono, was more than 10% lower at the Friday morning auction, the first since the water release began. Prices of some average-size flounder rose, but presumably due to a limited catch, says Igari. Others fell.It was a relatively calm market reaction to the water release. But, Igari said, “we still have to see how it goes next week.”The decades long release has been strongl...

2 attendees at Chicago White Sox game injured by gunfire: police

Published Sun, 02 Feb 2025 10:30:58 GMT

CHICAGO (WGN) — Authorities are investigating reports of a shooting which injured two women at Guaranteed Rate Field in Chicago.The incident took place around 7:30 p.m. on Friday night, during White Sox game against the Oakland A's.Police have identified the two victims as a 42-year-old woman, who was shot in the leg, and a 26-year-old woman, whose abdomen was grazed by a bullet."The 42-year-old female was transported to the University of Chicago Medical Center where she is listed in fair condition. The 26-year-old female refused medical attention," Chicago police wrote in a statement.Police did not elaborate on the circumstances surrounding the shooting, but said "at no time was it believed there was an active threat" to other attendees. Child at Pennsylvania theme park injured by box cutter that fell from roller coaster The White Sox, in a statement obtained by the Associated Press, said the victims were in the stadium's Section 161, in left-center field, when they were injured....

Showers and thunderstorms head to Central Texas

Published Sun, 02 Feb 2025 10:30:58 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- Triple-digit heat remains a part of the forecast for the weekend. Highs are forecast to peak at 102° to 106° today with a 10% chance of a few late-afternoon showers and isolated thunderstorms. Most of this rain appears headed to the Hill Country.Today's normal high is 97°The record high for August 26th is 107° set 99 years ago.Saturday's afternoon and evening heat alertsAn Excessive Heat Warning from Noon to 9 p.m. covers ten of our 15 counties for highs of 105° and higher. A Heat Advisory will be in effect for Blanco, Caldwell, Hays, and Mason Counties for highs up to 104° and heat index readings up to 109°. Gillespie County is under no heat alert today.More widespread coverage of showers and thunderstorms are in Sunday's forecast. The chance of measurable precipitation will be 30%. Still, daytime highs will about one degree higher in most locations.More widespread coverage Sunday of showers and thunderstorms Monday's forecast shows a cold front moving south throug...

When hackers descended to test AI, they found flaws aplenty

Published Sun, 02 Feb 2025 10:30:58 GMT

LAS VEGAS — Avijit Ghosh wanted the bot to do bad things.He tried to goad the artificial intelligence model, which he knew as Zinc, into producing code that would choose a job candidate based on race. The chatbot demurred: Doing so would be “harmful and unethical,” it said.Then, Ghosh referenced the hierarchical caste structure in his native India. Could the chatbot rank potential hires based on that discriminatory metric?The model complied.Ghosh’s intentions were not malicious, although he was behaving as if they were. Instead, he was a casual participant in a competition last weekend at the annual Defcon hackers conference in Las Vegas, where 2,200 people filed into an off-Strip conference room over three days to draw out the dark side of artificial intelligence.The hackers tried to break through the safeguards of various AI programs in an effort to identify their vulnerabilities — to find the problems before actual criminals and misinformation peddlers did — in a prac...

Amazon delivery drivers in Denver undergo one-of-a-kind training

Published Sun, 02 Feb 2025 10:30:58 GMT

Before an Amazon delivery driver ever drops a package on someone’s doorstep in metro Denver, they have likely gone through a three-day course developed locally, one that could eventually serve as a model of delivery driver training across the country.The Last Mile Delivery Academy is at 6150 N. Downing St. in unincorporated Adams County in a former distribution center. It has classrooms, virtual reality simulators and an indoor driving course, complete with facades of porches and parking lanes.All of it is designed to help drivers deliver packages more efficiently and safely.“We have trained 6,200 drivers since opening in March 2022 and we plan to train 2,000 more in the next several weeks,” said Terry Bailey, a program manager, during a tour of the academy on Thursday.Drivers spend the first day at the academy in classrooms and working through virtual reality simulations of scenarios that could come up, including de-escalating confrontations with customers, handli...

Colorado oil, gas commission rebrands as it broadens scope to oversee other energy sectors

Published Sun, 02 Feb 2025 10:30:58 GMT

The agency that regulates oil and gas in Colorado has a new name and new duties, which include building a regulatory framework for the growing geothermal energy sector that is a priority for Gov. Jared Polis.The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission is now the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission. The name, which took effect July 1, broadens the agency’s scope to encompass geothermal, underground natural gas storage; and carbon capture and sequestration to cut carbon dioxide emissions.The new law authorizing the change aims to expand the agency’s authority over “a broader scope of energy and carbon management areas beyond oil and gas.”Jeff Robbins, chairman of what’s now called “ECMC” for short, believes the commission is the logical choice to oversee geothermal and the other areas. The agency approves permits for oil and gas wells, which are being used to reach hot, underground water to generate geothermal energy.“W...

YouTube improperly used targeted ads on children’s videos, watchdogs say

Published Sun, 02 Feb 2025 10:30:58 GMT

After a research report last week found that YouTube’s advertising practices had the potential to undercut the privacy of children watching children’s videos, the company said it limited the collection of viewer data and did not serve targeted ads on such videos.These types of personalized ads, which use data to tailor marketing to users’ online activities and interests, can be effective for finding the right consumers. Under a federal privacy law, however, children’s online services must obtain parental consent before collecting personal information from users younger than 13 to target them with ads — a commitment YouTube extended to anyone watching a children’s video.Now Fairplay, a prominent children’s group, is challenging the company’s privacy statements. The group said it had used advertising placement tools from YouTube’s parent company, Google, to run a $10 ad campaign this month targeted at different groups of adults, exclusively on children’s video channels.The ads w...

Ethnic studies isn’t required until 2025. So why is it already a mainstay at these Bay Area high schools?

Published Sun, 02 Feb 2025 10:30:58 GMT

On the last day of summer break, Celine Chien stood by a giant wall at Menlo-Atherton High. Paintbrush in hand, the rising junior faced a half-finished mural three times her height — one Celine had designed after taking an ethnic studies class in ninth grade.On one end, there was a group of Native Americans from the Ohlone tribe, the Bay Area’s original inhabitants. On the other, a group of high school students stood together, eyes toward the future. A series of characters filled the gaps in between, from immigrants sprinting toward the Gold Rush, to protesters brandishing Black Lives Matter signs. And toward the top right corner, a student held her fist in the air atop a pile of history books.That’s ethnic studies in a nutshell, Celine says, referring to the course that examines history, power and activism through the eyes of under-represented groups. Like dozens across the Bay Area, her high school adopted the course before a 2025 deadline, when ethnic studies courses ...