'Bias is very evident'

The actual number of fatalities remains unchanged. 34,622 fatalities have been reported, 24,686 of which were fully documented.

On this day 976 years ago, the astronomy and mathematician of the Seljuk Dynasty of Persia, Omar Khayyam, was born. Most famous for calculating the solar year with remarkable precision such that his calendar is still in use in Iran today, he also contributed to the understanding of the parallel axiom, and cubic equations. READ […] The post Good News in History, May 18 appeared first on Good News Network.

A helicopter pilot in Australia recently found a man’s missing dog in the Outback in what the owner called a “needle in a haystack rescue.” For those who’ve never been to cattle country Down Under, it might come as a surprise to know that because the ranches are so vast, farmers will often hire helicopter […] The post Helicopter Herder Follows a Dog’s Tracks from the Air to a Miracle Rescue appeared first on Good News Network.

Northwestern University may have violated a federal law by failing to report crimes on campus at least five times during recent anti-Israel protests. Northwestern appears to have broken a U.S. law called the Clery Act by failing to take and publish police reports from students who say they were assaulted, battered, stolen from, or witnessed crimes committed by anti-Israel protesters on campus. Failure to do so would allow the university to report lower crime numbers and portray a false picture of campus safety. Northwestern, a private school that receives hundreds of millions of dollars annually in federal subsidies, contracts, and grants, is already in hot water after capitulating to anti-Israel rioters who illegally occupied both its campuses, in Chicago and in Evanston, Illinois.  This week in Washington, a House committee expects to hear from Northwestern’s president on what he did about the protests and why. Northwestern capitulated by agreeing to pay Palestinian students and faculty and to establish an advisory committee to reconsider the university’s connections to businesses that operate in Israel, including Coca-Cola and Starbucks. The House Committee on Education and the Workforce has asked Northwestern President Michael Schill to appear Thursday morning for a hearing regarding these events and administrators’ actions. A university’s liability could run into millions of dollars with only one violation of the Clery Act, Max Eden, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, pointed out last week in an op-ed for the Washington Examiner. Northwestern, he wrote, may have far more to answer for. Nov. 16: Assault, Battery Apparently Downplayed On Nov. 16, Yasmeen Elagha, a Northwestern law student participating in an anti-Israel protest on the Evanston campus, allegedly berated a fellow law student, Melody Mostow, for taking photographs of the demonstration.  Mostow, who is Jewish, was well known on campus for having a close family friend among the 250 hostages taken by the Hamas terrorist organization when it massacred 1,200 people Oct. 7 in Israel. She was disturbed when fellow Northwestern students appeared to target her personally during the Nov. 16 protest. In public comments, Mostow alleged that Elagha pushed her in the back. She filed a report with Northwestern University Police about the incident involving Elagha. However, the official crime log kept by campus police reports the incident as “harassment,” instead of as an assault or battery. Illinois law defines battery as “knowingly without legal justification by any means (1) [causing] bodily harm to an individual or (2) [making] physical contact of an insulting or provoking nature with an individual.” State law defines assault as “knowingly [engaging] in conduct which places another in reasonable apprehension of receiving a battery.” The Daily Signal sought comment from Elagha. Rifqa Falaneh, a recent law school graduate and fellow at the organization Palestine Legal, responded by referring “all media inquiries” to Northwestern University’s media contact. April 25: Police Refuse to Take Report or Recover Stolen Flags After pro-Palestinian demonstrators set up an encampment April 5 on Northwestern’s Evanston campus, university police appear to have begun refusing to accept and record some crime reports at all. On the first day of the encampment, local resident John Brinkman stood just off campus displaying an American flag and an Israeli flag. Demonstrators stole Brinkman’s flags, hiding them in a tent just inside the encampment, eyewitnesses told campus police. Brinkman and an eyewitness, Michael Teplitsky, approached nearby campus police officers and showed video evidence of the theft and the location of the flags, but Teplitsky said officers refused to take a report. In an exclusive video provided to The Daily Signal by Teplitsky, he can be heard showing university Deputy Police Chief Eric Chin the stolen flags and the tent where they were kept, as both a member of the encampment and Chin refuse to retrieve the stolen property. Photos and videos provided to The Daily Signal show a videographer for WLS-TV, an ABC affiliate, holding up his camera to an Evanston police officer, so the officer could see his footage of the flag thefts and the tent where the thieves put them. Teplitsky told The Daily Signal that campus police refused to take a report and instead referred Brinkman to the Evanston Police Department, which arrived minutes later. One of the city’s police officers took down an incident report and saw additional evidence, he said. Despite video evidence and several eyewitness reports, and with the stolen property just yards away, neither city police nor university police chose to enter the pro-Palestine, anti-Israel encampment to recover the two flags. The city of Evanston’s response to a request under the Freedom of Information Act, obtained Monday by The Daily Signal, indicates that Chin, the deputy chief of campus police, may have lied about filing a report.  According to texts between Chin and Cmdr. Scott Sophier of the Evanston Police Department, Chin wrote (in an incomplete sentence): “We do have a community member who was standing on Sheridan rd waiving [sic] an American flag and Israeli flag removed from their hands and passed into the encampment. We are taking report.” In addition to Teplitsky’s statement that Chin refused to take down an incident report for campus police, no account of an April 25 theft appears on Northwestern University Police’s crime blotter, indicating that it didn’t record the incident. April 25: No Report of Student’s Assault by Anti-Israel Protesters  On April 25, anti-Israel protesters in the encampment at Northwestern assaulted student Logan Schiciano, slapping his smart phone from his hands and appearing to throw a few punches, after they saw Schiciano recording them setting up more tents, according to a video he posted on X.  Unfortunately some protesters at Northwestern’s newly-formed encampment weren’t too thrilled with us reporting. pic.twitter.com/kUXFWt9Kvd— Logan Schiciano (@LoganSchiciano) April 25, 2024 However, this assault isn’t listed on Northwestern University Police’s crime blotter, despite requirements of the Clery Act. The incident is referenced, though, in the hearing appearance request sent to Schill by the House committee’s chairwoman, Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C. April 28: Campus Police Decline to Take Report of Alleged Assault by Professor A few days later, DePaul University student Ben Dym joined a rally organized by Jewish students at Northwestern. Dym approached protesters in the anti-Israel encampment as they advanced on Jewish students while chanting for them to go home.  A video posted by Dym on X shows him repeatedly asking protesters where the 7 million Jews who live in Israel should go. An individual identified by Dym as Northwestern professor Noelle Sullivan appears to attempt to slap Dym’s smart phone out of his hands.  According to the university, Sullivan is associate director and professor of global health studies.  Dym, who contends that he was physically assaulted, said he was unable to file a report with campus police.  He told The Daily Signal that campus police said the conflict wasn’t “in their jurisdiction” because the incident took place on a sidewalk outside a Northwestern University building. Campus police didn’t respond to an email from The Daily Signal seeking confirmation of that statement. May 6: Police Refuse to Take Report on Alleged Assault, Battery by Second Professor  On May 6, Teplitsky attempted to file a report with Northwestern University Police after saying he witnessed journalism professor Steven Thrasher’s inflammatory social media posts and subsequent battery of campus police officers April 26.  In a video Teplitsky provided to campus police and The Daily Signal, Thrasher is seen shoving police officers who appear to be attempting to make arrests. This wasn’t Thrasher’s first such altercation. During the Black Lives Matter riots of 2020, Thrasher told NPR that “some violence” against police and local communities was “warranted.” Current Affairs magazine posted an April 26 video in which Thrasher may be seen participating in Columbia University’s anti-Israel riots. Thrasher appeared to share photos and updates on the “Popular University 4 Gaza” group message board on WhatsApp, describing what he called a “faculty defense line with faculty to try to stop arrests.” Thrasher’s actions, documented on social media posts by watchdog groups, were directly referenced in Foxx’s letter to Schill about the House committee’s hearing. Teplitsky told The Daily Signal that campus police refused to take an incident report from him when he called the evening of April 26. There is no correlating assault listed on campus police’s crime blotter. The Daily Signal unsuccessfully attempted to reach Thrasher via social media and the professor’s university email address to verify the authenticity of the messages and Teplitsky’s claims. Other apparent violations of the Clery Act may have occurred.  An April 28 video provided by Teplitsky shows one campus police officer, Richard Ryzewski, refusing to take incident reports about crimes on campus and saying the decision was “above” his “pay grade.” The Clery Act also requires that universities make three years of crime logs available for public inspection. Here, too, Northwestern has failed.  City Journal sought to review police incident reports associated with a hate crime that occurred on campus in November 2022. But Northwestern maintains only two months’ worth of incidents on its online crime blotter. The Clery Act requires that a university’s crime log compiled by campus police for the most recent 60-day period must be accessible for public inspection during normal business hours, and that a university must provide the most recent three years of data within two business days of a request from the public.  Northwestern didn’t return repeated phone calls or emails from The Daily Signal. The online archive of the Northwestern Police Department’s crime blotter makes no reference to a widely reported incident of targeted anti-Jewish vandalism on Nov. 9, 2022.  Undergraduate student Lily Cohen wrote an op-ed in the campus newspaper, published that day, titled “I am more proud of my Jewish identity than anyone can ever hate me for it.”  In the op-ed, Cohen expressed her frustration at seeing the phrase “from the river to the sea” displayed throughout campus. She called for Northwestern to condemn the phrase as a hateful slogan.  Subsequently, unknown vandals printed Cohen’s op-ed dozens of times and assembled the printouts into a banner. They displayed the banner on a fence that would mark the border of an unauthorized encampment more than a year later. This action, which could be considered intimidation enough to warrant a charge of assault or a racially targeted hate crime under federal law (Title VI), also isn’t documented among Northwestern University’s public reports or crime statistics. Neither Northwestern nor its campus police department responded to The Daily Signal’s requests for comment on this report. The post Northwestern U. May Have Broken Federal Law by Failing to Report Crimes During Anti-Israel Protests appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Just as the EU’s police organization, Europol, continues to argue in favor of introducing encryption backdoors, which would dangerously undermine security on the internet – it is proving unable to protect its own data. And that is even with the capabilities afforded to Europol and everybody else by the encryption standards currently in place. Namely, Europol has suffered an embarrassing data breach this May, with the database reportedly surfacing on the dark web. It is said to contain official use-only documents, internal documents, source code, and possibly also classified information. Europol has confirmed the incident but is attempting to reassure the public that its significance is low, since allegedly, operational information has not been leaked, while its key systems are “unaffected.” Meanwhile, reports based on the dark web offer of the sensitive data say it was taken from the European Cybercrime Center (EC3), the Europol Platform for Experts (EPE), the Law Enforcement Forum, and the SIRIUS platform for electronic evidence. Merely weeks ago, Europol was pushing for an internet even less secure than it is today, repeating the arguments heard many times from various law enforcement bodies around the world, who claim that undermining encryption is necessary for them to do their job. Europol’s European Police Chiefs convention came up with a joint declaration that urged both governments and the tech industry to prevent the implementation of end-to-end encryption on social platforms – Meta (Facebook) moving in this direction was the immediate reason for this reaction. To justify the desire to (continue) to have unobstructed access to people’s private communications, including on messaging apps, the EU law enforcement agency said end-to-end encryption would hinder investigations and evidence gathering. And since “war is peace, freedom is slavery…” what those companies attempting to incorporate encryption in their apps rightly consider to be a step that enhances their users’ security and privacy – Europol considers it to be a threat to public safety, while lack of encryption is framed as “secured digital environment.” “Our homes are becoming more dangerous than our streets as crime is moving online. To keep our society and people safe, we need this digital environment to be secured,” Europol’s Executive Director Catherine De Bolle was quoted as saying at the time. “Tech companies have a social responsibility to develop a safer environment where law enforcement and justice can do their work. If police lose the ability to collect evidence, our society will not be able to protect people from becoming victims of crime,” De Bolle added. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Europol’s Embarrassing Data Breach Exposes Flaws in Its Anti-Encryption Stance appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

The Return of Bob Costello and a Hostile Judge

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Artificial intelligence (AI) company OpenAI has removed a new voice from their latest product, after actor Scarlett Johansson noted it was "eerily similar" to her own.Earlier this month, OpenAI announced they were releasing a new model, dubbed GPT-4o. The product allows for text, audio, and image outputs, and can respond using image, text, and audio with response times they claim are similar to those in human conversations. One of the voice options, called "Sky", has sparked controversy for its apparent similarity to that of actor Scarlett Johansson, who herself starred as an AI assistant in Spike Jonze's 2013 film Her. This is a film of which Sam Altman is well aware, even tweeting the single word "her" on the day of GPT-4o's launch.     IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.Johansson said in a statement to NPR that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman approached her last September, asking her to be the voice of the new product."After much consideration and for personal reasons, I declined the offer," she said in the statement, posted on X by journalist Yashar Ali. "Nine months later, my friends, family and the general public all noted how much the newest system named 'Sky' sounded like me."Johansson adds that two days before the release of "Sky", Altman again contacted her agent asking her to reconsider being GPT-4o's voice, but a few days later without response the product was released.      IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.Johansson says she has now hired legal counsel, who have asked Altman to outline what they have done, and detail the process by which the "Sky" voice was created. "In a time when we are all grappling with deepfakes and the protection of our own likeness, our own work, our own identities, I believe these are questions that deserve absolute clarity," Johansson added. "I look forward to resolution in the form of transparency and the passage of appropriate legislation to help ensure that individual rights are protected.”OpenAI says that the voice they used was not that of Johansson, but another actor."We believe that AI voices should not deliberately mimic a celebrity's distinctive voice – Sky’s voice is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson but belongs to a different professional actress using her own natural speaking voice," OpenAI said in a blog post. "To protect their privacy, we cannot share the names of our voice talents."Nevertheless, they have removed the voice from the product."We cast the voice actor behind Sky's voice before any outreach to Ms. Johansson," Altman told NPR. "Out of respect for Ms. Johansson, we have paused using Sky's voice in our products. We are sorry to Ms. Johansson that we didn't communicate better."