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Jimmy Kimmel Live! was indefinitely suspended last Wednesday after its host suggested that Charlie Kirk 's killer may have been part of the 'MAGA gang.'

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: If an Iranian taxi driver waves away your payment, saying, "Be my guest this time," accepting their offer would be a cultural disaster. They expect you to insist on paying -- probably three times -- before they'll take your money. This dance of refusal and counter-refusal, called taarof, governs countless daily interactions in Persian culture. And AI models are terrible at it. New research released earlier this month titled "We Politely Insist: Your LLM Must Learn the Persian Art of Taarof" shows that mainstream AI language models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta fail to absorb these Persian social rituals, correctly navigating taarof situations only 34 to 42 percent of the time. Native Persian speakers, by contrast, get it right 82 percent of the time. This performance gap persists across large language models such as GPT-4o, Claude 3.5 Haiku, Llama 3, DeepSeek V3, and Dorna, a Persian-tuned variant of Llama 3. A study led by Nikta Gohari Sadr of Brock University, along with researchers from Emory University and other institutions, introduces "TAAROFBENCH," the first benchmark for measuring how well AI systems reproduce this intricate cultural practice. The researchers' findings show how recent AI models default to Western-style directness, completely missing the cultural cues that govern everyday interactions for millions of Persian speakers worldwide. "Cultural missteps in high-consequence settings can derail negotiations, damage relationships, and reinforce stereotypes," the researchers write. "Taarof, a core element of Persian etiquette, is a system of ritual politeness where what is said often differs from what is meant," the researchers write. "It takes the form of ritualized exchanges: offering repeatedly despite initial refusals, declining gifts while the giver insists, and deflecting compliments while the other party reaffirms them. This 'polite verbal wrestling' (Rafiee, 1991) involves a delicate dance of offer and refusal, insistence and resistance, which shapes everyday interactions in Iranian culture, creating implicit rules for how generosity, gratitude, and requests are expressed."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

James Miller and his father Philip Miller are both running to become the first Mayor of Greater Essex

James Miller and his father Philip Miller are both running to become the first Mayor of Greater Essex

Ryan Easley, 37, was performing in front of a live audience in a cage with the tiger when it attacked him at his animal preserve in southeastern Oklahoma.

UPDATED: Watching Nvidia grow over the past two decades, from a gaming and visualization GPU supplier to the behemoth of the modern AI datacenter, has been nothing short of amazing. …

With Enlightened Self-Interest, Nvidia Reshapes The Tech World In Its Own Image was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

They don't waste time on Slow Horses, which is back for a much-anticipated fifth series.

Watch out, Microsoft and Google

India’s minister for information technology yesterday said he’s dumping his current word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation graphics packages, will adopt the locally made alternatives from Zoho instead, and urged India’s 1.4 billion residents to do likewise.…

Days before Sir Keir Starmer is expected to announce a digital ID scheme, Tony Blair's think-tank tells him to make it a 'flagship programme' used by everyone over 18 in the country.

They can jazz up any outfit

Dean Bruce, of no fixed address, was spotted by a police officer driving at high speeds in wet conditions and was signalled to pull over on February 23.

Asylum seekers said they were having children in the belief it would automatically ensure the mother and baby both secure the documentation, a belief the show insisted was 'misguided'.

Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from ICO Bench: As of September 1, 2025, banks across Vietnam are closing accounts deemed inactive or non-compliant with new biometric rules. Authorities estimate that more than 86 million accounts out of roughly 200 million are at risk if users fail to update their identity verification. The State Bank of Vietnam has also introduced stricter thresholds for transactions: - Facial authentication is mandatory for online transfers above 10 million VND (about $379). - Cumulative daily transfers over 20 million VND ($758) also require biometric approval. The policy is part of the central bank's broader "cashless" strategy, aimed at combating fraud, identity theft, and deepfake-enabled scams. [...] While many Vietnamese citizens have updated their biometric data without issue, the measure has disproportionately affected foreign residents and expatriates who cannot easily return to local branches and dormant accounts that had been left inactive for years. schwit1 highlights a post on X from Bitcoin expert and TFTC.io founder Marty Bent: "If users don't comply by the 30th they'll lose their money. This is why we bitcoin."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Footage shows the perplexed French president stranded on a road moments after he left the UN headquarters in the Big Apple on Monday.

During Tuesday night's episode of the Channel 4 show, the couple were seen honeymooning in the Maldives.

Daniel Ramzi, 26, and Abderrahim Mamma, 29, were captured on CCTV leaning over a pub barrier in Leadenhall Market to reach a man's rucksack.

Kimmel, 57, was taken off air last week over his controversial comments about the killing of the Turning Point USA founder.

The teenager was attacked in a park in Whittington, near Worcester on Sunday night and is now recovering at home after receiving treatment for her injuries at hospital.

It's perfect for layering or wearing alone

Ethiopian national Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu, 41, who arrived in the UK on a small boat days before the incidents, was found guilty of five offences.