The Algorithm Age

The family of the Egyptian national who carried out the antisemitic attack in Boulder can be deported, a US federal judge ruled. On June 1, Mohamed Sabry Soliman threw Molotov cocktails at a pro-Israel demonstration in Boulder, Colorado, while yelling “Free Palestine.” One of the people wounded on the day, 82-year-old Karen Diamond , died of her injuries on June 25. Soliman now faces over 70 charges, including first-degree murder. Following his arrest, Soliman was found to be in the United States illegally on an expired visa, and his wife and five children are also illegal immigrants. On June 4, the District of Colorado issued a temporary restraining order preventing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from deporting the mother, Hayam El Gamal, and her five children, ages 4 to 18, from the United States. The case was then transferred to the Western District of Texas on June 18, where the court extended the order for an additional 14 da...

A decade ago, Donald Trump descended the golden escalator at Trump Tower in New York City and ignited a political movement that has reshaped American politics . In a memorable turn of phrase, Trump promised supporters of his 2016 presidential campaign that “we are going to make our country great again.” Since then, the Make America Great Again movement has dominated the U.S. political conversation, reshaped the Republican Party and become a lucrative brand adorning hats, T-shirts and bumper stickers. When asked what MAGA means to him, Trump, in a 2017 interview with The Washington Post said, “To me, it meant jobs. It meant industry, and meant military strength. It meant taking care of our veterans. It meant so much.” But Democratic leaders have a different interpretation of the slogan. Former President Bill Clinton in 2016 said of MAGA: “That message where ‘I’ll give you America great again’ is if you’re a white Southerner, you know exactly what it means, d...

On June 15th, Donald Trump declared war on blue cities. ”[W]e must expand efforts to detain and deport Illegal Aliens in America's largest Cities, [which are] are the core of the Democrat Power Center, where they use Illegal Aliens to expand their Voter Base, cheat in Elections, and grow the Welfare State, robbing good paying Jobs and Benefits from Hardworking American Citizens,” Trump posted to Truth Social, riffing on the interlocking conspiracy theories that define his second term. The next day, at the G7 summit, a reporter asked Trump about the post. Why was he singling out Democratic cities? Trump falsely claimed that Joe Biden let in 21 million migrants of whom “vast numbers” were “murderers, killers, and people from gangs.” Canadian prime minister Mark Carney’s mouth fell. His eyes darted back and forth, as if he were scanning the back of the room for a rescue party. Trump continued. Most of those people are in Democrat-run cities, he claimed, “and they think ...

Political and news cycles often work in a certain and predictable way. Issues flare like bushfires, then rage for weeks or even months, until they are finally extinguished by action or fade by being overtaken by the next big thing. On two very different fronts this week, we’re reminded how these cycles work. During the last term, the opposition constantly hammered the government over its handling of the former immigration detainees released after the High Court found they couldn’t be held indefinitely. These included people who had committed murder, child sex offences and violent assaults. On Sunday, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke admitted in a television interview that the legislation the government passed to re-detain some of these people was, in effect, impossible to use. Burke’s comments attracted only limited attention. The other reminder of an old story came when the Federal Court ordered a militant Muslim preacher to remove inflammatory lectures from the internet...

Sinn Féin called on the Lord Mayor of Belfast, Tracy Kelly, to explain the decision to remove a portrait of President Michael D Higgins from Belfast City Hall. Following a social media post by Ms Kelly, Sinn Féin councillors were quick to notice that a portrait of Mr Higgins had been removed from a reception parlour in the building. Sinn Féin has now called on Ms Kelly to explain the decision to remove the portrait. The portrait had been placed in the reception room by Sinn Féin’s Ryan Murphy when he was lord mayor. The picture was put up after Mr Murphy received a portrait of King Charles and decided to place the two side by side. This was then followed by a formal event to mark the occasion. The portrait’s disappearance prompted Mr Murphy to question its whereabouts in a council meeting on Tuesday. Belfast City Council confirmed that the portrait, despite no longer being on display, is being safely stored at City Hall, ‘at the requ...

The decision by three Republican senators to vote "no" on the megabill on its way back to the House before Donald Trump can sign it set off a mass outpouring of anger Tuesday afternoon on his Truth Social platform. Moments after the bill passed with Vice President JDVance's tie-breaker vote, GOP Sens. Thom Tillis (NC), Susan Collins (ME) and Rand Paul (KY) became enemies of the state in the eyes of the MAGA faithful, with one Trump fan calling them "insurrectionists." With a flood of complaints that the three are "Republicans in name only," or RINOs, commenter Monk lumped in Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) , who later admitted she would like to see the bill fail as it is written once it is returned to the House. Want more breaking political news? Click for the latest headlines at Raw Story. "Now, primary Collins, Murkowski and Rand Paul!. America is sick of these RINO’s ," he wrote. Rugmakr added, "Yes indeed, ...

Click here to visit the Scotland home page for the latest news and sport One in three Scots are living in fear of rising crime levels amid plummeting police numbers, a damning new poll has found. Three times as many people also feel crime levels are getting worse rather than  better. The findings emerged as new figures showed the eye-watering scale and cost of overtime for Police Scotland’s stretched frontline. The Scottish Conservatives said law-abiding Scots had ‘clearly lost trust’ in the SNP ’s ‘soft-touch justice system’, while the body representing frontline officers called on ministers to making policing ‘a greater priority for Government’. SNP justice Secretary Angela Constance said she was ‘concerned’ by the survey results. The Survation poll for 1919 Magazine asked more than 1,000 adults to describe how much their local area crime rate had changed in the past two years. A total of 34 per cent some a lot or a little more, 44 per cent ‘a...

George Brandis is drawing a rather long bow to even include Sussan Ley and Gough Whitlam in the same column (“ What Ley can learn from Whitlam ”, June 30) but I’m assuming his intention is to bestow some kind of importance on Ley that has so far been elusive. Despite her impassioned narrative about her past, and her determination to “modernise” the Liberal Party, good luck with that – Ley is, in reality, a compromise leader who will be lucky to be leading by the next election, given the predatory nature of her predominantly male colleagues. That said, behind the beaming smile, her responses to questions on policy remain the same as any other politician, and certainly not Whitlamesque. Max Redmayne, Drummoyne For just a moment I thought Brandis had seen that “it’s time” and embraced Labor great Whitlam. But, alas, they are still as far apart as their surnames are in the alphabet. His overly verbose text really comes down to merely arguing that all Sussan Ley has ...

Mike Bush is under no illusion about the challenges that confront him as top cop after a leadership crisis in Australia's second-largest police force. The former New Zealand police commissioner officially took the reins of Victoria Police on Friday, ending a four-month saga among the force's top ranks. Restoring public trust in the troubled force and tackling the state's exploding crime rate are among his initial priorities. "There's too much crime," Mr Bush told reporters after a traditional Maori powhiri ceremony and an address to about 360 budding recruits at the state police academy in Glen Waverley. "There's too much youth crime. Organised crime drives so much harm in our communities. "We've got to find a way to work with others to get ahead of it." A self-described outsider, Mr Bush comes to Victoria Police after a highly publicised leadership crisis. An overwhelming no-confidence vote from officers after an ...

Congressional lawmakers on Wednesday questioned the balance between speed and safety when discussing artificial intelligence (AI) regulations and the need for the U.S. to dominate China in the race to develop the emerging technology. Bipartisan lawmakers of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party were adamant that the U.S. must lead the AI revolution, and not an authoritarian power like China, during the hearing on Capitol Hill. "China is making an all-out push to dominate AGI, which will inevitably seek to surveil and suppress us at every turn," Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorth, D-Ill., said. "We cannot let this happen. The nightmare scenario should be a wake-up call for Congress." "I would agree that AI is the new Cold War between the U.S. and China ... It's, in fact, the Manhattan Project of our generation," Rep. Zach Nunn, R-Iowa, said. HOUSE BIPARTISAN BILL DIRECTS NSA TO CREATE 'AI SEC...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Legislation introduced Wednesday in Congress would block Chinese artificial intelligence systems from federal agencies as a bipartisan group of lawmakers pledged to ensure that the United States would prevail against China in the global competition over AI. “We are in a new Cold War, and AI is the strategic technology at the center,” said Republican Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigan, chairman of the House Select Committee on China, as he opened a hearing on the matter. “The future balance of power may very well be determined by who leads in AI.” About five months ago, a Chinese technology startup called DeepSeek introduced an AI model that rivaled platforms from OpenAI and Google in performance, but cost only a fraction to build. This raised concerns that China was catching up to U.S. despite restrictions on chips and other key technologies used to develop AI. That race is now a central part of the U.S.-China rivalry, and so much is at stake that the...

Buried among the 1,116 pages of the " One Big Beautiful Bill " President Donald Trump wants the Republican-controlled Congress to approve in order to advance his agenda is that rarest of policy proposals pushed by Trump: an idea high-profile South Carolina GOP officials oppose. It's a credit to them that they did their research and are pushing back on part of Trump's signature initiative. There is more to criticize in the bill, including the way it would increase the federal deficit by $2.8 trillion over the next decade, but that's a discussion for another day. Today, let's focus on whether states should be able to regulate artificial intelligence. Spoiler alert: They should. Don't just take it from me. Take it from South Carolina's attorney general and Senate president, who have been at the forefront of growing bipartisan opposition to what would be a massive change, a national embrace with few protections of a field evolving too fa...

Victoria is grappling with its highest youth crime rate since electronic records began, with new figures laying bare the surge in offending that forced the state government to strengthen bail laws. Police are making 208 arrests a day, alongside an unprecedented seizure of edged weapons, marking what is likely to be the highest figures in the force’s history. There was an 18 per cent rise in offences committed by 10- to 17-year-olds in the 12 months to March, according to the latest figures from the Crime Statistics Agency. People under 18 were charged with 25,275 offences over that period. As an Age investigation into knife crime revealed in 2023 , hospitalisations from knife-related attacks started spiking in 2019 , alongside an increase in youth offending. The latest statistics show the number of knives seized has reached record levels. The sale of machetes was banned in the aftermath of an armed gang brawl at Northland shopping cent...

New York State Senator Kristen Gonzalez, who represents parts of western Queens, successfully passed two major bills designed to regulate the growing use of artificial intelligence in public and private systems. The legislation marks a significant milestone in Gonzalez’s broader “Safe and Responsible Artificial Intelligence” package and positions New York as one of the first states to implement comprehensive guardrails on AI technologies. The two bills — the New York Artificial Intelligence Act ( S1169A ) and the Automated Decision-Making Systems in Government Act ( S7599C ) — were passed in the Senate last week, with the latter also clearing the Assembly on Monday, June 16. Both measures were introduced as part of Gonzalez’s AI Week initiative in May, which focused on educating the public and lawmakers about the risks and potential of AI systems. “The passage of these two bills is about promoting safe and responsible development, deployment, and use of AI systems, not about creatin...