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Jessica Lucas / The Verge : Some teen users of Character.AI's chatbots say they find the AI companions helpful, entertaining, and supportive but worry they may be addicted to the chatbots   —  Teens are opening up to AI chatbots as a way to explore friendship.  But sometimes, the AI's advice can go too far.

Anti-Israel groups accuse Chicago, DNC of trying to ‘protect’ Biden from protests at 2024 Dem convention A coalition of anti-Israel agitators seeking to protest outside the Democratic National Convention in August are continuing to put pressure on the City of Chicago, alleging their First Amendment rights are being violated, while some Democrats fear unrest could disrupt the annual convention. A series of lawsuits have been filed against the city in recent months by the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, the Anti-War Coalition, and Students for a Democratic Society at the University of Illinois — some of which have voiced support for the anti-Israel encampment at the University of Chicago. In a Tuesday filing at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, the coalition of protesters stated they want to "engage in peaceful political speech and seek to exercise their First Amendment rights at the Convention to deliver their political me...

Ryan Weeks / Bloomberg : Crypto startups embrace open-ended, rolling funding rounds that quickly lift valuations, as crypto funds seek to deploy unspent cash raised in 2021 and 2022   —  - Startups are embracing so-called open-ended funding rounds  — Venture funds are seeking to deploy previously static cash

Tara Copp / Associated Press : US Air Force plans a fleet of 1,000+ AI-controlled jets, the first of them operating by 2028; some AI versions already beat human pilots in air-to-air combat   —  (AP Video by Eugene Garcia and Mike Pesoli)  —  With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched …

Five West Virginia middle school girls banned from participating in track and field meets after they protested against a trans athlete last week are allowed to compete again, a judge ruled Thursday night. Judge Thomas A. Bedell issued a preliminary injunction that prevents the Harrison Board of Education and its schools from penalizing student-athletes for their speech .  The school board denied allegations of retaliation against the students, and instead asserted the students were allowed to protest without hindrance and with full awareness and permission from coaches and the principal. "Those students, like all of the other students on the team, however, were subject to a team rule that any player who scratches in an event cannot participate in that event at the next track meet," the board said in a statement. "This neutral, school-specific rule was in place before the students’ protests and has nothing to do with those protests in any way. Other than not being per...

FIRST ON FOX : The Biden administration has agreed to wind down a controversial intelligence "experts" group, as it faced a lawsuit from a conservative legal nonprofit arguing that it was in violation of federal law. The Homeland Intelligence Experts Group was announced by DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in September. The group was a collection of figures from the private sector to provide perspectives on the government’s intelligence and national security efforts. "The security of the American people depends on our capacity to collect, generate, and disseminate actionable intelligence to our federal, state, local, territorial, tribal, campus, and private sector partners," Mayorkas said in a statement.  DHS DOCS REVEAL WHERE PAROLED MIGRANTS UNDER CONTROVERSIAL BIDEN FLIGHT PROGRAM ARE LANDING  But critics have said that the board was not a neutral body and was instead a partisan body. Critics highlighted former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper ...

Reuters : Sources: Fei-Fei Li raised a seed round for a “spatial intelligence” startup using human-like visual data processing to create AI capable of advanced reasoning   —  Prominent computer scientist Fei-Fei Li is building a startup that uses human-like processing of visual data …

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is firing back at the Biden administration and suing them in an attempt to block new requirements for gun sales.   "Today, myself and the Attorney General of Kansas announced that we are filing a lawsuit against a new Biden ATF regulation that would subject hundreds of thousands of law-abiding gun owners to presumptions of criminal guilt for engaging in the constitutionally protected private sale of firearms," Paxton wrote in a post on X.  Paxton was joined by Kansas AG Kris Kobach, during a Wednesday press conference at the Frisco Gun Club, where he stated the ATF is overstepping its authority after recently announcing it was expanding federal licensing rules and background checks to include some private sales of firearms. "My message to Joe Biden yesterday, today and forever is this: Come and take it," Paxton proclaimed.   TEXAS AG BLASTS BIDEN ADMIN FOR ‘AIDING AND ABETTING’ CARTELS AFTER MIGRATION NUMBERS SMASH RECORD Paxt...

New York Times : A federal judge grills both the DOJ and Google in the closing arguments of US v. Google, as the most consequential tech antitrust case since the 1990s concludes   —  Judge Amit P. Mehta tried poking holes in the closing arguments of a landmark monopoly case as he weighs a ruling that could reshape tech.

Orlando Mayorquín / New York Times : Airbnb launches Icons, a new category of experiences that lets users meet celebrities and stay in outlandish venues, like a replica of the house from Pixar's Up   —  The company announced a new category of outlandish stays in partnership with brands and celebrities, building on the success of gimmicks like the Barbie Malibu DreamHouse.

Americans have expressed increasing concern with the economy in recent months. The issue is outpaced only by immigration as their top concern. Seventeen percent of Americans rated the economy as the top problem facing the country, according to a Gallup poll released Monday. The concern over the economy has steadily risen over the last few months, rising from 12% in January and February to 14% in March before hitting its new recent high in April, the poll found.  The poll trend comes just months before November's presidential election, a contest in which the economy figures to play an outsize role in determining who emerges as the winner in a rematch between President Biden and former President Trump. HERE’S HOW BIDEN’S JOBS DATA COMPARES WITH TRUMP’S FIRST TERM President Biden has in recent months touted an economic comeback, pointing to low unemployment and faster-than-expected GDP growth. But concerns among Americans remain, with the Gallup poll coming on the heels of a C...

Ashley Capoot / CNBC : In a US Senate hearing, the UnitedHealth CEO says the company paid a $22M ransom to hackers who accessed a Change Healthcare server that wasn't protected by MFA   —  UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty testifies before the Senate Finance Committee on Capitol Hill on May 1, 2024 in Washington, DC.

A retired professor with connections to former President Barack Obama and a history of involvement in far-left militant activism spoke at an anti-Israel encampment at the University of Chicago. An anti-Israel encampment formed on the Main Quadrangle or "Quad" of the University of Chicago Monday was visited by Bill Ayers roughly seven hours into the demonstration, according to reporting from the Chicago Maroon and the Hyde Park Herald. Ayers, listed on the University of Chicago's website as a creative writing lecturer in the school's Division of the Humanities, is best known for his co-founding of the far-left Weather Underground, a militant organization classified as a Domestic terrorist organization by the FBI that operated throughout the 1960s and '70s and sought to overthrow the U.S. government. UNIVERSITIES CRACK DOWN ON ANTI-ISRAEL AGITATORS AS PROTESTERS CALL FOR 'AMNESTY' Ayers was hunted by the FBI for his alleged involvement in the 1970 bom...

Shira Ovide / Washington Post : Game emulator Delta has been the top US iOS app for weeks, after Apple lifted its ban on such apps, likely due to regulatory pressure and alt stores in the EU   —  Antitrust crackdowns on Apple are already changing your iPhone for the better  —  The hottest iPhone app in America may owe …

Last week alone, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass's official residence was burglarized , Rep. Adam Schiff was the victim of theft, and reality TV actress Kyle Richards' daughter's home was robbed in broad daylight. But the progressive arm of California's Democratic Party denies there's a crime crisis. A security guard for Mayor Matt Mahan was also involved in a violent altercation in the middle of an interview being recorded in downtown San Jose last week, leading to the arrest of the suspect on multiple charges.  Since 2020, there has been a statewide rise in property crime and theft, with local critics attributing the increase to what they term "soft-on-crime" policies like Proposition 47 and 57. However, the issue has now caused a divide among Democrats in the legislature. Some are joining forces with Republicans to propose bipartisan bills aimed at curbing petty theft, while progressive lawmakers introduced their own alternative measures – dubbed Smar...

Republicans are significantly more enthusiastic about the 2024 election rematch between President Biden and former President Donald Trump than either Democrats or independent voters, according to a new national poll. And a survey released Monday by the Monmouth University Polling Institute also spotlights that enthusiasm among all registered voters in the Biden-Trump rematch — while remaining well under 50% — has jumped 12 points over the past year - to 39%. "Enthusiasm for a 2020 rematch has increased slightly now that these two candidates are the presumptive nominees. But most voters are not looking forward to November," Monmouth University Polling Institute director Patrick Murray highlighted. But the poll points to a glaring partisan divide in enthusiasm. WHAT THE LATEST FOX NEWS POLLS SHOW IN THE 2024 ELECTION Sixty-three percent of Republicans questioned said they were very or somewhat enthusiastic about the second straight face-off between the Democratic incumbe...

Matthias Bastian / The Decoder : OpenAI rolls out an optional feature called Memory, allowing ChatGPT Plus users to tell ChatGPT things they want the chatbot to remember across chats   —  Online journalist Matthias is the co-founder and publisher of THE DECODER.  He believes that artificial intelligence will fundamentally change …

Scott Nover / Fast Company : AI is making Meta's apps basically unusable, as the company adds Meta AI everywhere and viral user-generated AI images proliferate on Facebook and Instagram   —  The intended and unintended generative AI flooding Facebook and Instagram.  —  Meta has flooded its social media platforms with artificial intelligence.

A defiant Kristi Noem hit back at critics following outrage over her upcoming memoir that reveals she once killed a dog .  "I can understand why some people are upset about a 20 year old story of Cricket, one of the working dogs at our ranch, in my upcoming book — No Going Back. The book is filled with many honest stories of my life, good and bad days, challenges, painful decisions, and lessons learned," South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem began in a social media post published Sunday on X.  "The fact is, South Dakota law states that dogs who attack and kill livestock can be put down. Given that Cricket had shown aggressive behavior toward people by biting them, I decided what I did," Noem continued.  Outrage spread across social media platforms late last week after the Guardian reported on an excerpt of Noem's upcoming memoir, "No Going Back," which is set to be released on May 7. The excerpt detailed Noem describing taking her 14-month-old female dog C...

The Biden administration is denying there was a secret internal plot to get rid of White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, a scheme first reported Thursday by The New York Post . Deputy White House press secretary Andrew Bates forcefully rejected claims from multiple sources with knowledge of the plans, which included longtime Biden senior adviser Anita Dunn, supported by White House chief of staff Jeff Zients, recruiting prominent outside Democrats to urge Jean-Pierre to voluntarily make her exit.  "Not only are these claims wildly false, but the reality is the polar opposite. Karine was never approached by anyone with such a message. She spends four hours preparing every day. And neither Jeff nor Anita did any such thing; both have been unflinchingly supportive of her," Bates told The Post. REPUBLICAN MAKES MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT IN PUSH TO GROW GOP SUPPORT FROM ONCE-SOLID DEM VOTING BLOC According to The Post's sources, Jean-Pierre's bosses were unhappy wit...