Senator Ron Wyden has found that the DoD banned the use of such locks for U.S. government systems, but deliberately kept information about the backdoors from the public.

With Trump allies taking over the RNC and cleaning house, one of the casualties was a minority outreach program that seemed to be working for Republicans.

In reviewing dozens of MrBeast videos from over the years, Donaldson has nearly erased himself as a person from his episodic output. If viewers don’t really see him having fun, that’s by design. Donaldson has outright said he sees “personality” as a limitation for growth, once noting in a podcast that hinging your content on who you are as a person means risking not being liked. And if someone doesn’t like a creator as a person, they may not give the videos a chance. McLoughlin’s comments hit at another bleak possibility: Viewers may hardly see MrBeast having fun in his videos because he’s not actually having a good time. In podcasts, Donaldson tells hosts that he goes so hard, he won’t stop working until he burns out and isn’t able to do anything at all. With a laugh, he admits that he has a mental breakdown “every other week.” If he ever stops for a breather, he says, he gets depressed. MrBeast is so laser-focused on generating content on YouTube that he describes his personality as “YouTube.” He acknowledges that this brutal approach to videos, which has cratered many creators over the years, is not healthy. “People shouldn’t be like me. I don’t have a life, I don’t have a personality,” he said in a podcast recorded in 2023.

In testimony to Congress, the mother of a deepfake porn victim says the students accused of creating the AI-made nude images continue to share class with her daughter.

For decades, we’ve been told police officers just need training and resources to do their jobs correctly. These items, including cultural sensitivity training, implicit bias training, de-escalation training, and so on, cost billions every year. But we know from the senseless killings of Tyre Nichols, Sandra Bland, Philando Castile, and many others that no amount of training or resources will stop police from killing Black and brown people. Nor will it ensure that police treat people with dignity and respect. Worse still, the “training” that cops already receive often glorifies violence, reinforces racist ideas, and is taught by officers with histories of misconduct. A damning new report has once again underscored that point. A recent investigation by the New Jersey Comptroller revealed that at least 46 states have paid a for-profit training company called NJ Criminal Interdiction—which does business under the name “Street Cop”—to fill police officers’ heads with hateful rhetoric and bad legal advice. At a conference attended by more than 1,000 law enforcement officers from across the country, Street Cop trainers urged police officers to make unconstitutional traffic stops and indiscriminately shoot at those who defy their authority.

The North Carolina Department of Labor last week fined a farm in Nash County $187,509 after the death of a seasonal farm worker from apparent heat exhaustion last September. The department cited Barnes Farming with what’s called a “willful serious violation” along with two other “serious” violations.

Judge Scott McAfee found some of the counts against the former president and some of his co-defendants were lacking details.

The Washington-funded news station Radio Free Asia may leave Hong Kong about the same time the city’s domestic national security bill is expected to be passed at the end of this month, a staff member has revealed. The station, funded by the United States Agency for Global Media, a United States government body, was expected to move some of its Hong Kong staff to Taipei or to its Washington headquarters, the source added.

Judd Blevins, a city commissioner in Enid, Oklahoma, marched in the 2017 white nationalist Unite the Right rally. Now he faces a recall vote.

Border district Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, and Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., who just won a competitive special election, founded the group as co-chairs. It has 26 members.

A French serial killer appeared on a popular television quiz show while being hunted by police in connection with the rape and murder of children and adults. François Vérove, himself a retired police officer, took part in the show Tout le monde veut prendre sa place (Everyone Wants to Take His Place) in 2019, two years before he killed himself after realising that he was likely to be arrested.

An interview with the African immigrant who set up illegal shelters for dozens of recently arrived migrants.

If the president is the man in charge, these press secretaries are his robotic enforcers, playing the same hollow tunes every day.

"... We're at the end of a vast, multi-faceted con of internet users, where ultra-rich technologists tricked their customers into building their companies for free. And while the trade once seemed fair, it's become apparent that these executives see users not as willing participants in some sort of fair exchange, but as veins of data to be exploitatively mined as many times as possible, given nothing in return other than access to a platform that may or may not work properly."

Artists continue to drop out of official showcases, while protesters have called for a ceasefire in Gaza while disrupting several official events. Now, Austin for Palestine Coalition, the organization generating this protest momentum, is entangled in a copyright dispute with SXSW that could result in legal action. (Disclosure: SXSW co-founder and part-owner Nick Barbaro also co-founded and owns The Austin Chronicle.) APC made an Instagram post February 21 urging people to email the Festival to disinvite RTX Corporation (formerly Raytheon), its subsidiary Collins Aerospace, and BAE Systems to the conference and festivals. Those companies manufacture weapons used by Israel on Palestinians – APC says “by supporting these companies, SXSW is complicit in human rights abuses and violations of international law.” On February 23, SXSW shot back, sending a cease-and-desist letter to APC, stating the activists had used SXSW trademark art without permission in the post.

Influencer Adin Ross said he had one last chance to record content with Andrew Tate. A law firm says the comment tipped off U.K. authorities.

If you’re one of the more than 150 million Americans who use TikTok, you may have heard that Congress is considering a bill that could result in the incredibly popular app being banned. The bill is not only expected to pass the House of Representatives, the Biden administration supports it. The president said last week he’ll sign it if it makes it to his desk, and the Justice Department will brief lawmakers this week about the how China — through the Chinese company ByteDance, which owns TikTok — may be using the app to influence U.S. elections. A Biden administration spokesperson suggested to Rolling Stone that foreign powers can use the app to influence “Americans’ views and beliefs.” TikTok’s meteoric rise has made it a ubiquitous force within the digital ecosystem and the bill currently in front of Congress could have sweeping ramifications for users throughout the country — whether you’re a lurker, frequent poster, small business owner, seasoned content creator, or someone whose friends keep spamming you with links because you refuse to download the app.

In B.C., Indigenous nations are reclaiming power and wealth for their own citizens—no matter what the neighbours think

Homeland security towers are to be powered by artificial intelligence. As the immigration crisis continues and the Biden administration pursues a muscular enforcement strategy with an eye to public opinion and the 2024 presidential election, the Department of Homeland Security prospers. One obscure $6 billion program has grown silently: a network of over 1,000 surveillance towers built along America’s land borders, a system that it describes as “a unified vision of unauthorized movement.” A broad outline of the Biden administration’s plan to solve the immigration crisis in America was unveiled this week, including 5,800 new border and immigration security officers, a new $4.7 billion Southwest Border Contingency Fund, and more emergency authority for the president to shut down the border when needed. Moving forward on these programs will “save lives and bring order to the border,” President Joe Biden said in his State of the Union address last week. Homeland Security’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget request, released yesterday, includes $25.9 billion to “secure the border,” mostly through more government agents and more (and more capable) technology. Hidden in the fine print is the $6 billion tower surveillance program, one that has been in the works and growing since 2005 for years.

An extraordinary mistake by the royals.