Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) praised the AI company Anthropic for rejecting the Pentagon’s demands on how its technology is used by Friday evening. The company and the U.S. government have been in a battle for weeks over Anthropic’s AI policy, which blocks its AI model Claude from being used to conduct mass surveillance or develop… Source link
The immense hype surrounding AI has caused enormous data centers to crop up across the country, triggering significant opposition. It’s not just the loss of land: enormous power needs are pushing the grid into meltdown and driving up local electricity prices, catching the attention of politicians and their irate constituents. One 86-year-old farmer in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, has heard enough. As local Fox affiliate WPMT reports, Mervin Raudabaugh, who has farmed the surrounding land for more than 60 years, turned down more than $15 million from data center developers in a package deal that involved three neighboring property owners as well. The farmer was offered $60,000 per acre to build a data center on his property. But giving up his family legacy wasn’t in the cards for him. “I was not interested in destroying my farms,” he told WPMT. “That was the bottom line. It really wasn’t so much the economic end of it. I just didn’t want to see these two farms destroyed.” Instead, he sold the development rights in December for just under …
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is cancelling development of a new flu vaccine from biotech giant Moderna, with one unnamed senior FDA official calling the clinical trial a “brazen failure.” In a rare move, the FDA refused to consider the mRNA vaccine, which could be more effective at preventing flu infections, per a press release from Moderna. A letter signed by director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, Dr. Vinay Prasad, said the clinical trial was not “adequate and well-controlled” since it did not compare the vaccine to “the best-available standard of care in the United States at the time of the study.” The issue came down to the study design: control group participants over 65 did not receive the high-dose flu shot; instead, they received a regular flu shot. Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said the FDA approved both the study design and the vaccines used. “It should not be controversial to conduct a comprehensive review of a flu vaccine submission that uses an FDA-approved vaccine as a comparator in a study …
Federal judges in Minnesota are continuing to reject certain arrest warrants for people protesting the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, citing a general lack of evidence, according to a report from MS NOW. The warrants claim that protesters have been assaulting officers and committing other crimes during the widespread protests in Minneapolis. However, some of the requests for warrants from federal prosecutors do not appear to establish evidence of a crime, creating rare instances in which judges refuse to issue warrants for possible criminal behavior. In one case, a federal judge rejected a warrant against a protester who allegedly threw a single egg at a law enforcement vehicle, according to the report. In two other high-profile instances, Magistrate Judge Douglas Micko rejected a complaint to arrest Chauntyll Louisa Allen, a St. Paul school board member. Prosecutors wanted to stick her with federal charges of seeking to threaten or intimidate people from engaging in worship in a church where an ICE official is also a pastor. However, Micko did grant prosecutors a request to …
Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) must stop requiring that grant applications not include terms related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), including the term “pregnant people,” under a new order from a federal judge. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. delivers remarks during an event in the Oval Office of the White House on Oct. 16, 2025. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images They are also enjoined from firing any more Office of Head Start employees and closing regional offices. HHS has said it does not comment on litigation. The decision “ensures that Head Start providers can provide early education to children from diverse communities and backgrounds without the constant threat of being punished simply for following the requirements of the law,” Jennie Mauer, executive director of the Wisconsin Head Start Association, said in a statement. Head Start is a federally funded program that provides care across some 17,711 centers to about 750,000 children from low-income families. The lawsuit was filed by the American Civil …
KYIV: Russia hit Ukraine with its hypersonic Oreshnik missile overnight after rejecting the latest post-war peacekeeping plan, as part of a massive attack that set apartment blocks ablaze and killed at least four people in the capital Kyiv. Ukraine and its Western allies, scrambling to bring an end to the war as it approaches the four-year mark, agreed this week that Europe would deploy troops after any ceasefire. But Moscow, which says it launched its February 2022 invasion in part to prevent an expansion of the NATO defence treaty, has repeatedly rejected the idea of any Western forces stationed in Ukraine. Such troops would be “considered legitimate military targets”, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned on Thursday (Jan 8), branding Ukraine and its American and European allies an “axis of war”. As diplomats wrangle for a breakthrough in what has been Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II, Russia has continued to press forward with its assault, bombarding Ukraine daily. Russia’s defence ministry said it had used the Oreshnik hypersonic missile on “strategic targets” …
Australia’s communications regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), has reaffirmed its firm stance on gambling regulation and recent enforcement actions. Public scrutiny of the ACMA arose after it emerged that Sportsbet challenged a 2022 enforcement decision and reportedly lobbied the regulator to change the wording of a public announcement about the case. As ReadWrite previously reported, documents released under freedom-of-information laws showed the ACMA came under pressure to defend its 2022 enforcement outcome against the betting operator publicly. ACMA rejects claims of weakened enforcement The ACMA has defended the decision, which resulted in a record AUD 2.5 million ($1.7 million) fine after finding Sportsbet had sent marketing texts and emails to tens of thousands of people who had already attempted to unsubscribe, breaching Australia’s spam communications regulations. ReadWrite contacted the ACMA for comment following the criticism. The regulator rejected any suggestion that its enforcement action had been diminished or that it had failed to hold Sportsbet to account for the breach. The ACMA said its compliance and enforcement activities are designed to stop …
