Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said Wednesday he was willing to take President Trump’s explanation for a controversial post depicting the president as a Jesus-like figure at “face value,” arguing that he was more concerned with Trump’s comments toward Pope Leo XIV. “I worry less about the post,” Tillis said during an exclusive interview with NBC… Source link
Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech This week, US president Donald Trump posted an AI slop image of himself as Jesus Christ, miraculously healing a sick man while a host of angels look on from above and an American flag ripples in the background. It was only the latest in a dizzying series of AI images the president has posted to social media — from a picture of himself as the Pope to racist clips depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes — his latest post appears to have been a step too far for his most ardent supporters. Following a major outcry among Christian and far-right influencers, Trump deleted the picture of himself healing the sick man, sheepishly trying to play it off by telling reporters he thought it was “me as a doctor” — a bizarre excuse which, if you take it at face value, seems to suggest that the president thinks doctors dress in Christ-like robes. But it was too late …
(RNS) — A pair of social media posts published by President Donald Trump over the weekend have stirred backlash among religious Americans, including some of the president’s Catholic and evangelical supporters, who condemned his strident criticism of Pope Leo and an image he posted depicting himself as a Jesus-like figure. The first post, which was published at around 9:00 p.m. ET Sunday evening (April 12), focused on Pope Leo, who has been critical of the Trump administration’s actions in the Iran war. In a lengthy statement, Trump declared the pontiff is “weak” on crime and nuclear weapons, and ultimately claimed Leo was only elevated to the papacy to counter the president. “Leo should be thankful because, as everyone knows, he was a shocking surprise,” Trump wrote. “He wasn’t on any list to be Pope, and was only put there by the Church because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump. If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the …
A WIRED investigation based on Department of Homeland Security records this week revealed the identities of paramilitary Border Patrol agents who frequently used force against civilians during Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago last fall. Several of the agents, WIRED found, appeared in similar operations in other states around the US. Customs and Border Protection may want to remember to protect its sensitive facility information. Using basic Google searches, WIRED discovered flashcards made by users of the online learning platform Quizlet that contained gate codes to CBP facilities and more. In a rare move, Apple this week released “backported” patches for iOS 18 to protect millions of people still using the older operating system from the DarkSword hacking technique that was found in use in the wild. Discovered in March, DarkSword allows attackers to infect iPhones that simply visit a website loaded with the takeover tools embedded in it. Apple initially pushed users to update to the current version of its operating system, iOS 26, but ultimately issued the iOS 18 patches after DarkSword continued to …
Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech A new trend taking shape on the subreddit r/Wellthatsucks has users competing for a dubious high score — with an ambulance ride or worse as the gold prize: the highest blood pressure reading. “I didn’t even know I had high blood pressure,” one Redditor wrote in a thread. Compared to a healthy blood pressure reading that maxes out at 120/80 mm Hg, this poster came it at 218/124, which is well above the threshold for a medical emergency. “Goddamn dude, I thought my blood pressure was high when I got my thumb bitten off a couple weeks ago,” one concerned peer responded. That thread seemed to kick off a horrifying competition on the subreddit. “I heard we were doing blood pressure high scores,” another Redditor mused, sharing their terrifying reading of 240/106. Some in the comments chimed in with their equally-concerning results, scores like 191/126; 217/156; and 240/142. Blood pressure is a standard medical reading that provides a …
It’s been decided: The bush is back in business. Much has been said about how women have been styling (or not styling) their pubes to reclaim their bodily autonomy and reject the male gaze. Last year, one fashion writer and analyst said she still doubted that many would “have their actual bush peeking over their low-rise jeans this summer.” Sister, let me take you to a circuit party. Gays are stunting their bush pride at warehouse dance parties across Brooklyn as well as on Instagram. It has become commonplace, almost unremarkable, to sag your jeans low enough for your pubes to peek out. The hair is an accessory, a suggestion—connected to the belly button by a delicate happy trail like a rainbow guiding you to gold. And this is just the PG version. On Close Friends, you might even see the edge of a shaft. Bushwick recently hosted its very own Hole Contest, where a beautifully vajazzled Chanel pubis lost to a vanishing (you can guess where) 15-inch dildo. One of my dearest friends, Patty, …
What happens to social media accounts belonging to those who shuffle off this mortal coil has been a subject of debate ever since the tech went mainstream. Should dormant accounts be left alone, or should their surviving loved ones be given backdoor access to maintain them as digital memorials? To Meta, there could be a morbid alternative: training an AI model on a deceased user’s posts, keeping post-mortem accounts active by uploading new content in their voice long after they passed away. As Business Insider reports, Meta was granted a patent in 2023 for the idea, outlining how a large language model (LLM) can “simulate” a user’s social media activity. “The language model may be used for simulating the user when the user is absent from the social networking system, for example, when the user takes a long break or if the user is deceased,” reads the goosebump-raising patent, which lists the company’s CTO Andrew Bosworth as the primary author. However, the conversation appears to have dramatically shifted over the last three years, especially now …
Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more The first two weeks of 2026 have launched a nostalgic trend across the internet as social media users attempt to turn back the clock with lo-fi-filtered throwbacks captioned, “2026 is the new 2016.” Social media users scrolling Instagram or TikTok in the past few weeks have been likely to stumble upon posts showing off intensely carved eyebrows with a puppy dog Snapchat filter, or grainy iPhone pictures of people playing Pokémon Go as people lament the decade gone by. Since the new year began, social media feeds have been overwhelmed with evidence of people scouring through their 10-year-old digital archives to share recap carousels and low-quality videos of the bygone era. TikTok reported that in the first week of the year, searches for “2016” …
Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: 20th Century Studios YouTube’s janitors are swooping in to mop up the slop. As reported by Deadline, the Google-owned video platform has terminated two massive YouTube channels that peddled fake, AI-generated movie trailers, in what is one of the most high profile actions it’s taken against the AI spam polluting the platform. Combined, the channels — called Screen Culture, based in India, and KH Studio, based in the US — boasted over two million subscribers and more than one billion views. “The monster was defeated,” one YouTuber told Deadline after the slop channels were taken down. Whatever your thoughts on AI imagery, these channels weren’t using the tech to innocently envision some fanboy’s dream casting. They were unquestionably farming engagement by using AI shots spliced together with actual copyrighted movie footage to trick viewers, per Deadline, and then posting the fake trailers early to drown out the real ones. In March, for example, Screen Culture churned out an outrageous 23 different trailers for “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” …
