Police hunt vandals who 'beheaded' beloved Peppa Pig topiary sculpture
Police are investigating after the popular hedge sculpture was found with its head hacked off with a saw between August 13 and 15.
Voters Aren't Waiting For November to Try Ousting Officials Over Data Centers
A growing backlash against AI data centers is spilling into local politics, with residents in more than a dozen communities pushing recall elections against officials who approved projects. "People are standing up and saying, 'Sorry, we don't want these data centers in our communities for a number of reasons,'" Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, said in an interview. "'If you can't have the guts to stand up to some large corporation, you should not continue serving in office.'" The New York Times reports: In Festus, Mo., critics of a local data center project gathered enough signatures in May to force a vote to remove the mayor and City Council members who had approved a $6 billion data center, though the effort is tied up in legal wrangling. In Mason, Mich., residents will vote in November over whether to recall a City Council member over a vote to create zoning rules for data centers. Voters in Yukon, Okla., will also decide in November whether to recall their mayor after the town moved to sell land to a data center developer. And residents of Independence, a city of 121,000 that is 10 miles from Kansas City, will vote on whether to remove Mr. Perkins on Sept. 1.
Some local officials have already lost their jobs in the face of data center concerns in regularly scheduled elections. Last year, two members of the Georgia Public Service Commission lost their seats amid concern about data centers' driving up electricity prices. A Virginia state delegate, Geary Higgins, also lost his job last year after his opponent branded him "Data Center Geary." [...] Independence would be one of the first municipalities to hold a data-center-motivated recall election. A judge this month rejected a legal challenge by Mr. Perkins and others, who argued the recall violated Missouri's Constitution.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
OpenAI chases Anthropic's biz customers with zero data retention pledge
With Private Safety Processing, AI biz promises discreet, automated prompt surveillance
Brother of Finlay Tarling will ride in Vuelta a Espana just eight days after British 19-year-old was fatally struck by van during race - and parents back him with brave statement
The 22-year-old will take to the start line at the Vuelta a Espana on Saturday in Monaco just eight days after his younger brother Finlay, 19, died during the Tour of Portugal.
Waymo has designed a robocar chip to stay ahead of Tesla
5 nm ML accelerators promise 1,000+ TOPS, ultra-low latency
Boy, 14, is dead after being hit by a bus in Portsmouth: Driver is arrested
Police officers were called to reports of a 'serious collision' on The Hard, a busy street in the centre of the city, shortly after 4pm on Monday.
Police launch search for missing 29-year-old man from Essex
Essex Police are looking for 29-year-old Paul Newman, who has been reported missing from Colchester.
Police launch search for missing 29-year-old man from Essex
Essex Police are looking for 29-year-old Paul Newman, who has been reported missing from Colchester.
Lindsay Clancy jury abruptly EXCUSED as judge tells court they have 'things to work out'
Lindsay Clancy, 36, is on trial for the murders of her three children, Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan, at her Massachusetts home.
Trump makes extraordinary intervention as glamorous blonde aide's 'dangerous' secret is exposed in astonishing security leak
She has largely unrestricted access to the President as his personal secretary and 'human printer,' remaining close by his side throughout the day.
'They've barely heard from him in months': Fears grow for Eamonn Holmes' health as insiders reveal why his son is now managing his affairs, how GB News bosses are panicking... and what his co-host is privately telling friends
When Eamonn Holmes was hospitalised in April after suffering a terrifying stroke, he vowed to get well enough to return to his GB News breakfast show.
Reform unveils new £1.5billion pledge to boost apprenticeships and stop Britain's young people taking up 'Mickey Mouse degrees'
Suella Braverman said Britain 'needs apprentices' amid the crisis of one million young people being out of work, training or education.
Kimberly Stewart, 47, flashes bare bump as she announces she is expecting third child... as father is not revealed
The socialite, 47, announced her pregnancy on Wednesday with a photo showing her cradling her bare bump. 'Oops I did it again,' she wrote in the accompanying caption.
Does Using AI to Edit an Op-Ed on Students' Math Skills Undermine the Argument?
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A math professor at the University of California, Berkeley, criticizing a "severe" math deficiency among students in an op-ed for the San Francisco Standard, admitted to using artificial intelligence to help edit the piece. The Standard published a 2,000-word piece by Zvezdelina Stankova last week, in which the professor said some of her math students were "five to eight years" behind and lacked a "middle school" education on fractions and basic algebra. Stankova said the UC system's test-blind admissions were to blame, suggesting that students who weren't sufficiently prepared for the rigor of Berkeley's mathematics program were admitted because a longstanding benchmark like the SAT had disappeared.
Over the weekend, journalists at Berkeley's student newspaper, the Daily Californian, noticed the op-ed's language sounded like AI. According to Berkeley sophomore Francis Luo, they ran it through AI-detection software Pangram, which claimed 33% of the op-ed had been generated or assisted by AI. In response, Stankova admitted she had used AI software to "help edit the piece" but that the article was "the result of several hundred person-hours of intensive human work, of which about 80 hours are my own."
Stankova said by email she had used AI to locate "numerous documents and articles related to the initiative" but that "all analysis is the result of the team members." When asked about their AI usage policy, the Standard -- which published the op-ed -- shared this statement by email: "While AI may assist, our expectation is that humans are behind every article we publish and take responsibility for every word. Our understanding in working with the author of this op ed was -- and continues to be -- that this piece reflects her and her colleagues' extensive original analysis, research and expertise." Should the op-ed have been entirely written without artificial assistance or is the use of AI a distraction from the argument at hand? That's the question at the heart of the debate playing out online.
According to the op-ed, Stankova and her peers found that the number of students with a "severe deficit" in their readiness for a calculus I class had tripled after the University of California adopted test-blind admissions. Some students were allegedly five to eight years behind and struggling with basic algebra and fractions, among other concepts.
Much of that decline, Stankova argues, is from the removal of standardized tests like the SAT and ACT, which served as important benchmarks for identifying whether applicants were prepared for Berkeley-level coursework.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Michael Jackson's nephew Jaafar reflects on accusations that biopic 'sanitised' his uncle's life and says second film will address sexual abuse allegations from singer's point of view
Michael Jackson's nephew Jaafar has reflected on the accusations that the singer's biopic 'sanitised' his uncle's life.
How Joss Stone dropped huge hint Prince Harry was planning to move back to Britain with his family nearly a year ago
The Duke of Sussex, 41, caught up with Stone at the Lancaster Hotel in London following the WellChild Awards in September 2025.
RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: The Government's booklet pleading with asylum seekers not to rape women is insane. Finally, they are admitting the truth we've been smeared as 'far-Right' for pointing out
Imagine that I'd written a column last week claiming that the Government had issued official advice asking asylum seekers not to rape women and children. You'd be forgiven for thinking I'd made it up.
Two Afghan migrants 'raped and assaulted a 14-year-old girl on a train from Kent to London'
Baryalai Rahimi, 25, and Mirebadurahman Sadat, 29, allegedly attacked the teenager on a service from Sturry to London Bridge on February 5.
Wayne Rooney shows off the results of his nose job and models trendy new specs as he and wife Coleen leave Manchester United training ground
The former professional footballer, 40, shared the news on his podcast with Mark Goldbridge, Stick to United, a week after having the surgery.
'Our long national nightmare is over': US media react as it's revealed Harry and Meghan are leaving America
Among the first Thursday editions in the US to appear today was the New York Post, which made what it described as 'a reverse Megxit' their only p1 story.