United States

United States


Philly sheriff’s campaign takes down bogus ‘news’ stories posted to site that were generated by AI

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The campaign team behind Philadelphia’s embattled sheriff acknowledged Monday that a series of positive “news” stories posted to their site were generated by ChatGPT.  Sheriff Rochelle Bilal’s campaign removed more than 30 stories created by a consultant using the generative AI chatbot. The move came after a Philadelphia Inquirer story on Monday […]

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Arkansas parole board chair resigns after police personnel file shows he lied about sex with minor

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The chair of Arkansas’ parole board resigned on Friday after personnel records revealed he was fired from a local police department several years ago for lying to investigators about having sex with a minor. Jamol Jones, who Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders named the board’s chair last week, stepped down from […]

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Who freed Flaco? One year later, celebrity owl’s escape from Central Park Zoo remains a mystery

NEW YORK (AP) — This New York love story begins with a criminal act of sabotage. Under cover of darkness a year ago Friday, someone breached a waist-high fence and slipped into the Central Park Zoo. Once inside, they cut a hole through a steel mesh cage, freeing a majestic Eurasian eagle-owl named Flaco who […]

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Meta, TikTok and other social media CEOs testify in heated Senate hearing on child exploitation

Sexual predators. Addictive features. Suicide and eating disorders. Unrealistic beauty standards. Bullying. These are just some of the issues young people are dealing with on social media — and children’s advocates and lawmakers say companies are not doing enough to protect them. On Wednesday, the CEOs of Meta, TikTok, X and other social media companies […]

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton gets temporary reprieve from testifying in lawsuit against him

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Texas Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to temporarily halt state Attorney General Ken Paxton’s scheduled testimony in a whistleblower lawsuit that was at the heart of the impeachment charges brought against him in 2023, delaying what could have been the Republican’s first sworn statements on corruption allegations. Paxton had urged […]

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US says it disrupted a China cyber threat, but warns hackers could still wreak havoc for Americans

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials said Wednesday they disrupted a state-backed Chinese effort to plant malware that could be used to damage civilian infrastructure, as the head of the FBI warned that Beijing is positioning itself to disrupt the daily lives of Americans if the United States and China ever go to war. The operation, […]

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Ex-IRS contractor gets five years in prison for leak of tax return information of Trump, rich people

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former contractor for the Internal Revenue Service who pleaded guilty to leaking tax information to news outlets about former President Donald Trump and thousands of the country’s wealthiest people was sentenced to five years in prison Monday. Charles Edward Littlejohn, 38, of Washington, D.C., had pleaded guilty to one count of […]

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When a white supremacist threatened an Iraqi DEI coordinator in Maine, he fled the state

SOUTH PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The diversity, equity and inclusion coordinator of public schools in South Portland, Maine, has resigned and left the state, saying he fears for his family’s safety after receiving a threatening letter from a white supremacist. The attack on Mohammed Albehadli, who came to the U.S. a decade ago from Iraq […]

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A COVID-era program is awash in fraud. Congress aims to wind it down and expand the child tax credit

WASHINGTON (AP) — When IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel met privately with senators recently, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee asked for his assessment of a startling report: A whistleblower estimated that 95% of claims now being made by businesses for a COVID-era tax break were fraudulent. “He looked at his shoes and he basically […]

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A Pennsylvania law shields teacher misconduct complaints. A judge ruled that’s unconstitutional

A Pennsylvania law that makes it a crime to release information about teacher disciplinary complaints is an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment, a federal judge has ruled. The judge sided with a school board member who sought to publicize a misconduct allegation against his son’s school psychologist — and criticize the state’s dismissal of […]

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HP Enterprise discloses hack by suspected state-backed Russian hackers

BOSTON (AP) — Hewlett Packard Enterprise disclosed Wednesday that suspected state-backed Russian hackers broke into its cloud-based email system and stole data from cybersecurity and other employees.  The provider of information technology products and services said in a Securities and Exchange Commission regulatory filing that it was informed of the intrusion on Jan. 12. It […]

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911 calls show fears of residents and friends after a young man got shot entering the wrong home

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A concerned college student asked police if they’d seen his fraternity brother early one Saturday morning after he’d sent the 20-year-old home from a sports bar in an Uber. He hadn’t heard from his friend in the hours since, but the rideshare driver had let him know that the young man […]

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