Government Plans To Collect DNA From Detained Immigrants

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: The Trump administration is moving to begin collecting DNA samples from hundreds of thousands of people booked into federal immigration custody each year for entry into a national criminal database, an immense expansion of the use of technology to enforce the nation’s immigration laws. Senior officials at the Department of…

US Dept of Education Has Big Payday For K-12 CS, Including Tech-Backed Code.org

theodp writes: On Friday, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced $123 million in new Education Innovation and Research (EIR) grant awards to 41 school districts, nonprofits and state educational agencies. Over $78 million of that went to 29 grantees focused on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) education, and more than 85% of the funded STEM projects include a specific…

Russia Carried Out a ‘Stunning’ Breach of FBI Communications System, Escalating the Spy Game on US Soil

Zach Dorfman, Jenna McLaughlin, and Sean D. Naylor, reporting for Yahoo News: On Dec. 29, 2016, the Obama administration announced that it was giving nearly three dozen Russian diplomats just 72 hours to leave the United States and was seizing two rural East Coast estates owned by the Russian government. As the Russians burned papers and scrambled to pack their bags,…

NYT Publishes Anti-Google Rant, Doesn’t Mention Author Is Facebook Board Member

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: The New York Times published an anti-Google screed by billionaire Peter Thiel last night but failed to mention a fun fact that readers might find relevant: Thiel sits on the board of Facebook, one of Google’s largest competitors. Thiel first blasted Google as “treasonous” last month, saying that the FBI and CIA should…

Anyone can now play with sophisticated AIs thanks to a desktop app

AI lets programmers control Barack Obama’s face and replicate the styles of painting greats. Now a desktop app called Runway lets you do the same Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2205794-anyone-can-now-play-with-sophisticated-ais-thanks-to-a-desktop-app/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…

EPA Plans To Get Thousands of Pollution Deaths Off the Books by Changing Its Math

The Environmental Protection Agency plans to change the way it calculates the health risks of air pollution, a shift that would make it easier to roll back a key climate change rule because it would result in far fewer predicted deaths from pollution, New York Times reported this week, citing five people with knowledge of the agency’s plans. From the report:…

Florida’s new law lets teachers carry guns in class. Black and Latino students are worried.

Source: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/5/9/18563345/florida-texas-armed-teachers-school-safety-black-latino-students…

5 essential L&D themes from Coursera Partner Conference

I recently had the pleasure of attending the 2019 Coursera Partners Conference in London, where we brought together academic, business and tech pioneers in a two-day celebration of learning. Amongst guest speakers were Thomas Friedman, Yale University, the Abu Dhabi Dhabi School of Government, AXA, Novartis, Coursera Co-Founder Andrew Ng, and many more. Throughout the […]
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Trump denounces anti-Semitism one day after defending Charlottesville marchers

Source: https://www.vox.com/2019/4/27/18520810/trump-poway-synagogue-shooting-response-green-bay…

Guantánamo Bay as Nursing Home: Military Envisions Hospice Care as Terrorism Suspects Age

With no sign that the prison will close, the Pentagon has begun planning for detainees to grow old and die at Guantánamo Bay. Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/27/us/politics/guantanamo-bay-aging-terrorism-suspects-medical-care.html?partner=rss&emc=rss…