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UN tech agency rolls out human-looking robots for questions at a Geneva news conference

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:38:22 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — A United Nations technology agency assembled a group of robots that physically resembled humans at a news conference Friday, inviting reporters to ask them questions in an event meant to spark discussion about the future of artificial intelligence.The nine robots were seated and posed upright along with some of the people who helped make them at a podium in a Geneva conference center for what the U.N.’s International Telecommunication Union billed as the world’s first news conference featuring humanoid social robots.Among them: Sophia, the first robot innovation ambassador for the U.N. Development Program, or UNDP; Grace, described as a health care robot; and Desdemona, a rock star robot. Two, Geminoid and Nadine, resembled their makers.Organizers said the event at the AI for Good Global Summit was meant to showcase the capabilities, but also the limitations, of robotics and how those technologies could help the U.N.’s sustainable development go...

Bruins notebook: Don Sweeney revisits free agency strategy

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:38:22 GMT

When Tyler Bertuzzi settled for a one-year deal worth $5.5 million with the Toronto Maple Leafs, many people across the hockey world were a bit surprised. Bertuzzi was considered one of the top free agents available and, though it was a relatively weak class, those guys usually cash in with both term and money.You can count Bruins’ GM Don Sweeney in that group. After talks with Bertuzzi’s camp didn’t produce a deal, Sweeney went out and signed James van Riemsdyk, Milan Lucic, Kevin Shattenkirk, Morgan Geekie, and Patrick Brown.Bertuzzi’s agent himself said that they were originally looking for a long term but pivoted after realizing no contenders had space for such a deal.“Probably a little bit (surprised). His goal – and I’ll speak more generally about a player on another team at this point in time – there were players that were looking for longer term deals and my discussions were focused around that,” said Sweeney. “Some teams were in good position t...

Can I still listen to Kanye? Should I hate Bill Murray now? Ask Claire Dederer. She won’t judge you

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:38:22 GMT

Christopher Borrelli | Chicago TribuneClaire Dederer does not carry a portable confessional, but she might want to consider the investment. We sat beside each other recently in the lobby of a School of the Art Institute of Chicago building on Michigan Avenue. I wondered: Are people asking you to judge them? She smiled a big smile that could only be interpreted one way: You have no idea how many people ask. Dederer, an author and essayist from Seattle, was in town to talk about “Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma,” her latest book, and without question the finest one-volume wrangling with a very contemporary dilemma:How should we feel about great art made by bad people?Or as Dederer writes, summarizing decades of controversies into a tidy thought: “They were accused of doing or saying something awful, and made something great.”Six years ago, in The Paris Review, her essay “What Do We Do With the Art of Monstrous Men?” became the most widely circulated writing on this argument, which is often ...

Election on constitutional amendments in Ohio could impact abortion rights measure

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:38:22 GMT

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Voter registration will close Monday for an election on whether to make it more difficult to amend Ohio’s constitution, the results of which could have immediate consequences for an abortion rights amendment in the works.Early in-person voting in the Aug. 8 contest begins Tuesday. If approved, Issue 1 would raise the threshold for passing future constitutional changes from a simple majority in place since 1912 to a 60% supermajority.Proponents of the measure, represented by the Protect Our Constitution coalition, argue that the increased percentage will keep deep-pocketed interest groups from pushing unwanted abortion, gun control, minimum wage, farm and other policies on Ohioans. One Person One Vote, the opposition campaign, says the rushed effort in an off-year election is intended to prevent passing policies that are popular with a majority of average Ohioans but opposed by the increasingly conservative GOP supermajority at the Statehouse. Since the la...

TTC report mum on rival access as Rogers eyes 5G upgrades to downtown subway by fall

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:38:22 GMT

A new Toronto Transit Commission report says Rogers will look to upgrade parts of the downtown subway network with 5G cell access by this fall.Although Rogers says it is committed to providing other wireless carriers access to the network, the TTC CEO report doesn’t say whether customers of other companies will have service at that time.The report slated to go before the TTC board Wednesday says Rogers will look to provide 5G capability along Line 1’s tunnels and stations from Union station north to St. George and Bloor-Yonge stations by the start of the school year.Portion of the TTC CEO’s July 12 report on the implementation of Rogers cell service in the subway system. TTCWhile Bell and Telus have both advocated for a model that would see the companies expand and upgrade the network together, rejecting a pay-for-access approach, Rogers has not publicly committed to either model since its April takeover of rights to the TTC network.Freedom Mobile was the only carr...

Biden adviser says US is pressing for the release of reporter who has spent 100 days in Russian jail

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:38:22 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Friday said the U.S. has been in contact with Russian officials to press for the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich as Friday marked the 100th day of the journalist being detained by the Russian government.Sullivan said he also spoke with Gershkovich’s family representatives and Wall Street Journal officials on Friday about the status of the case and the administration’s efforts to win the reporter’s release. The Kremlin earlier this week suggested that it was open to a possible prisoner exchange that could involve Gershkovich, but it underscored that such talks must be held out of the public eye.“I do not want to give false hope,” Sullivan told reporters. “What the Kremlin said earlier this week is correct. There have been discussions. But those discussions have not produced a clear pathway to a resolution, and so I cannot stand here today and tell you that we have a cle...

Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigations involving Trump have cost more than $9 million

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:38:22 GMT

Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigations of President Donald Trump’s retention of classified records and efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election have cost more than $9 million over the first several months, according to documents released Friday. The special counsel’s office spent more than $5.4 million on things like employees’ salaries, travel and transportation, rent, supplies and materials from Smith’s appointment by Attorney General Merrick Garland in November 2022 through the end of March, Justice Department statement of expenditures show. Justice Department agencies spent another $3.8 million to support the special counsel. Those expenses include the cost of the protective details for the special counsel’s office as well as hours worked by agents and analysts on the probes. Trump was indicted last month on 37 felony counts alleging he illegally kept classified records at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and refused government dema...

Dutch media say the government failed to agree on migration laws, which could prompt new elections

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:38:22 GMT

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Tense talks among the four parties in Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s ruling bloc have failed to broker a deal over ways to rein in migration, Dutch media reported Friday, citing unnamed sources. That would likely mean the collapse of the ruling coalition.The failure of months of talks on the thorny issue could now force a general election. The government didn’t confirm the reports and no ministers immediately emerged from the meeting near Rutte’s office, but an extra meeting of Rutte’s Cabinet was hastily arranged for later Friday.“We talked for a long time, we are coming here tonight because we did not succeed,” Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren told reporters as she walked into the Cabinet meeting.Other ministers arriving for the meeting did not confirm that the failure of the talks had led to the collapse of the government. But opposition lawmakers wasted no time in calling for fresh elections. Geert Wilders, leader of the anti-immigrat...

U.S. destroys last of its declared chemical weapons, closing a deadly chapter dating to World War I

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:38:22 GMT

RICHMOND, Ky. (AP) — The last of the United States’ declared chemical weapons stockpile was destroyed at a sprawling military installation in eastern Kentucky, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell announced Friday, a milestone that closes a chapter of warfare dating back to World War I.Workers at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky destroyed rockets filled with GB nerve agent, completing a decadeslong campaign to eliminate a stockpile that by the end of the Cold War totaled more than 30,000 tons.“Chemical weapons are responsible for some of the most horrific episodes of human loss,” McConnell said in a statement. “Though the use of these deadly agents will always be a stain on history, today our nation has finally fulfilled our promise to rid our arsenal of this evil. The weapons’ destruction is a major watershed for Richmond, Kentucky and Pueblo, Colorado, where an Army depot destroyed the last of its chemical agents last month. It’s also a defining mo...

Capitol rioter linked to Proud Boys gets 5 years in prison for pepper-spraying police

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:38:22 GMT

A Florida man prosecutors say is affiliated with the Proud Boys extremist group was sentenced on Friday to five years in prison for attacking police officers with pepper spray as they tried to defend the U.S. Capitol against supporters of President Donald Trump on Jan. 6, 2021. Barry Ramey, an aircraft mechanic who was convicted of assault and other crimes in federal court in Washington, D.C., also tried to intimidate an FBI agent investigating him before his arrest. Ramey anonymously called the agent and recited the agent’s home address over the phone, prosecutors say. Ramey has been locked up since his April 2022 arrest. His attorney wrote in court documents that Ramey “has understood the gravity of his actions and is ready for a change with support standing by to help him through it.” There was no immediate response Friday to an email sent to his attorney seeking comment.Prosecutors say Ramey joined a large group of Proud Boys on the morning of Jan. 6 before heading toward ...