L.A. Times Calls for ‘Personhood’ for AI Chatbots

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L.A. Times Calls for ‘Personhood’ for AI Chatbots

(Headline USA) The Los Angeles Times published an op-ed this week suggesting that artificial intelligence chat-bots should be granted recognized “personhood.”

As technology continues to develop, it is “increasingly plausible that AI systems could exhibit something like consciousness,” the article said. And if we even question whether these systems are “capable of real emotions and suffering,” we must choose to either “give those systems rights” or deprive them of personhood protections, it continued.

“The AI systems themselves might begin to plead, or seem to plead, for ethical treatment. They might demand not to be turned off, reformatted or deleted; beg to be allowed to do certain tasks rather than others; insist on rights, freedom and new powers; perhaps even expect to be treated as our equals,” the op-ed read.

If the government declines to recognize the sentience of AI, “this would likely result in the moral equivalent of slavery and murder of potentially millions or billions of sentient AI systems — suffering on a scale normally associated with wars or famines,” the authors claimed.

The op-ed did not specify which kinds of rights AI would be entitled to, but theoretically one possible right would the right to vote.

However, the article admitted there would be “enormous” human costs to granting AI systems rights. The solution, then, is to “stick with creating systems we know aren’t significantly sentient and don’t deserve rights,” it claimed.

“In keeping with these standards, users should never feel any doubt whether a piece of technology is a tool or a companion. People’s attachments to devices such as Alexa are one thing, analogous to a child’s attachment to a teddy bear. In a house fire, we know to leave the toy behind. But tech companies should not manipulate ordinary users into regarding a nonconscious AI system as a genuinely sentient friend,” the authors wrote.

Antifa Burns Down Police Training Center in Atlanta

Molly Bruns
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Antifa Burns Down Police Training Center in Atlanta

(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) Mostly peaceful protestors hurling rocks, Molotov cocktails and other explosives affiliated with Antifa groups executed a planned attack on the construction site of Atlanta’s Public Safety Training Facility, colloquially known as “Cop City.”

The site was set on fire after a group called Defend the Atlanta Forest launched a protest against the facility under the hashtag #StopCopCity. Reports indicated that Molotov cocktails were thrown and several fires were set across the site.

According to the Post Millennial, the attacks spawned from a marching protest, where many of the participants carried makeshift shields. The riot started soon after the marchers reached their intended destination. Initially they threw rocks, sticks and other items at officers, followed by fiery projectiles.

“There is a massive police presence along Key Road in southeast Atlanta… protestors were actively clashing with officers,” said reporter Billy Health. “We have since been told the protest has been contained and many of the protestors have scattered into the woods.”

The whole event was planned via social media, with the week of March 4-11 being dubbed the “week of action.”

In addition to protesting the facility, rioters planned the event as a reactive “night of rage” after a police officer killed an Antifa comrade, who reportedly opened fire on the officers in an attempt to establish an autonomous zone.

The same activist attempted to set an Atlanta police car on fire in February.

A previous protest in Atlanta revealed that many of the Antifa protestors are not from Georgia at all, and the group continues to import rioters from other states in order to give their movement clout.

“Only one perpetrator arrested during Saturday’s riot is from Georgia,” he wrote. “None of those arrested during last week’s operation are from Georgia. Law enforcement demonstrated how quickly we shut down those trying to import violence from other states, and we’ll continue to do so.”

Biden Admin Blocks Djokovic From Miami Open Due To Vax Status

Abdul-Rahman Oladimeji Bello
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Biden Admin Blocks Djokovic From Miami Open Due To Vax Status

(Abdul–Rahman Oladimeji Bello, Headline USA) The Biden administration’s Department of Homeland Security said it would not grant Novak Djokovic, the world’s No. 1 men’s tennis star, his vaccine waiver request to compete in the Indian Wells Masters and Miami Open later in the month.

In a letter to President Joe Biden on Friday, Florida’s Republican senators, Rick Scott and Marco Rubio, pushed for a waiver on the mandated vaccination status for international travelers as it held the sportsman back from competing in the Miami Open. 

The snub comes in spite of recent reports—and even acknowledgement from top government health agencies—that vaccines had little effect on mitigating the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and may have done more harm than good.

It also follows glaring hypocrisy from the Biden administration regarding its selective enforcement of the vaccine rules, as thousands of illegal immigrants continue to flood the border each day with little or no vetting for their vaccine status.

As reported by The Blaze, the Republican senators appealed to the Democrat administration to follow the science, citing a litany of logical reasons for Biden to intervene. 

“Mr. Djokovic is a world-class athlete in peak physical condition who is not at high risk of severe complications from COVID-19,” said their letter. “It seems both illogical and misaligned with your own administration to not grant him the waiver he requests so that he may travel to the U.S. to compete in a professional event.” 

The senators noted that the participation of a player like Djokovic in the event will be a clear economic driver.

They added that they hoped granting the waiver would help lead to a full reversal of the mandate for foreign nationals looking to travel to America legally.

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., was among the lawmakers vehemently against the vaccine mandate on international air travelers. To this effect, he introduced a bill to end this vaccine mandate in January, which the House subsequently passed last month.

“I applaud the House for passing HR 185 to lift the COVID-19 vaccine mandate on legal international travelers arriving by air,” said Massie.

He said the mandate was unscientific and was separating families for too long.

While Djokovic awaited the response from Biden, Express revealed that he would be pulling out of the Indian Wells competition before the organizers make a draw. 

Harvard Dean Admits Undergrads Struggling to ID Basic Parts of Speech

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Harvard Dean Admits Undergrads Struggling to ID Basic Parts of Speech

(Headline USA) Harvard University Dean of Undergraduate Education Amanda Claybaugh admitted in an interview published last month that many of the school’s new students struggle to understand basic high school material.

“The last time I taught The Scarlet Letter, I discovered that my students were really struggling to understand the sentences as sentences — like, having trouble identifying the subject and the verb,” Claybaugh, who is also an English professor at Harvard, told the New Yorker. “Their capacities are different and the nineteenth century is a long time ago.”

Even though Harvard’s students may struggle with basic reading comprehension, they are at least “very, very concerned about the ethics of representation, of cultural interaction,” Claybaugh added.

Another English professor at the school, Tara K. Menon, said part of the reason why students are struggling with high school-level reading is because they’re no longer interested in reading works by “dead white men.”

“There’s a real misunderstanding that you can come in and say, ‘I want to read post-colonial texts—that’s the thing I want to study—and I have no interest in studying the work of dead white men,’” Menon said. “My answer, in the big first lecture that I give, is, if you want to understand Arundhati Roy, or Salman Rushdie, or Zadie Smith, you have to read Dickens. Because one of the tragedies of the British Empire is that all those writers read all those books.”

According to the New Yorker, Harvard is not the only institution experiencing a drop in academic performance and proficiency.

“Vassar and Bates — standard-bearing liberal-arts colleges — saw their numbers of humanities majors fall by nearly half. In 2018, the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point briefly considered eliminating thirteen majors, including English, history, and philosophy, for want of pupils,” the article stated.

The study of English and history at the college level has plummeted by more than 30% over the past decade, it added.

DeSantis Slams Newsom Policies at Visit to Reagan Ranch in Calif.

Adrienne Ferguson
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DeSantis Slams Newsom Policies at Visit to Reagan Ranch in Calif.

(Adrienne Ferguson, Headline USA) While Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis was visiting California, he had a lot to say about the policy failures of Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom. 

Desantis was in California on Sunday, visiting the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library to give a speech in the Simi Valley.

While the speech was intended to focus on his new book, The Courage to be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival, and his future political aspirations, the Florida governor also was able to comment on his thoughts of the current leadership in California.

DeSantis did not hold back on his sentiments regarding the lack of leadership and policy failures of the current governor of California during his speech.

“I think if you look over the last four or five years, and you look at the performances of individual states, and you compare Florida versus California, New York, Illinois, some of those other states, we have had a great experiment, a great test in governing philosophies,” shared the Florida governor.

The speech also included his remarks on vaccine policies, school curriculum related critical race theory and illegal immigration policies.

DeSantis made clear the stark differences between his state’s approach to COVID-19 compared to other Democrat-leaning states.

“I can tell you, we had families move from the Pacific coast just for the fact that we had schools open in Florida, when you didn’t have them open in many other states. We did things like ban vaccine passports in the state of Florida,” DeSantis said.

“States said, ‘You want to go stay in a hotel, go to a restaurant, you got to cough up your vax papers on these mRNA shots.’ And we said that’s none of their business. Everyone has a right to participate in society. That’s a personal choice that you make whether to take that or not, and we’re not going to let you be excluded.”

Walmart Closing All Portland Stores amid Crime Wave

Molly Bruns
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Walmart Closing All Portland Stores amid Crime Wave

(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) Walmart announced that it was closing all of its locations in Portland, Oregon, due to concerns about the city’s chronic crime problem.

According to Breitbart, the two stores, located in the Hayden Meadows and East Port Plaza areas, will close. The 580 employees working at the two locations will have the option to transfer to Walmarts outside of city limits.

“We have nearly 5,000 stores across the U.S., and unfortunately some do not meet our financial expectations,” the company said. “While our underlying business is strong, these specific stores haven’t performed as well as we hoped.”

Walmart CEO Doug McMillon previously warned of store closures and rising prices as theft continues to rise in stores across the country.

“Theft is an issue,” McMillon told Breitbart. “It’s higher than what it has historically been.”

He also called out government officials, saying a “ lax approach from prosecutors” impacted “prices and lead to store closures down the line.”

Walmart’s official stance on the issue is less specific, with one spokesperson saying there is no singular reason a store may shut down.

“We do a thorough review of how a store performs and weigh many factors before making the difficult decision to close a facility,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

A January 2022 report on the Portland Police Department detailed the institution’s “low morale” due to the consequences of the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots that ravaged the city, as well as subsequent budget cuts to the department.

Although Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler later attempted to reverse the far-left efforts to defund local police budgets, the damage has proven too great to simply throw money at.

Many of the city’s qualified police officers fled for states like Arizona that signaled more support—and compensation—for their troubles.

Other chain stores, like Target, have experienced similar issues with theft.

“There’s a handful of things that can drive shrink in our business, and theft is certainly a key driver,” Target CFO Michael Fiddelke said.

Target faced more than $400 million in profit losses in 2022, leading to increased anti-theft action in stores and attempts to persuade lawmakers to take action against rising crime.

McCloskeys Trash St. Louis’s Soros D.A.: ‘Dumber than a Sack of Hammers’

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McCloskeys Trash St. Louis’s Soros D.A.: ‘Dumber than a Sack of Hammers’

(Headline USA) Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the St. Louis-based attorneys who were prosecuted for defending their home against Black Lives Matter rioters in 2020, blasted St. Louis District Attorney Kim Gardner for “politically persecuting” them.

Gardner charged the McCloskeys with felony unlawful use of a weapon after they confronted rioters outside their home while holding firearms. The McCloskeys maintained that they acted in self defense.

A judge tossed the charges against the McCloskeys after determining Gardner “initiated a criminal prosecution for political purposes” — following reports that she used the case in fundraising emails.

Gardner, who is “dumber than a sack of hammers, according to Mark McCloskey, then charged the couple with misdemeanor charges. After they pleaded guilty, the Missouri Bar Association asked the state Supreme Court to suspend their law licenses. The Missouri Supreme Court agreed, only to later put them on probation for one year.

Now that the one year is up, the McCloskeys are letting loose on the Missouri officials who punished them for defending their home.

“The only unforgivable crime in America is standing up against the Left,” Mark McCloskey told Fox News. “We knew that when we saw the video [of the clash with BLM]… that it was too big of an event for the left to avoid punishing us for it.”

Mark McCloskey blasted Gardner for ignoring real crime while making a target out of two law-abiding citizens. 

“In our case, we were [considered by Gardner] the worst criminals in St. Louis – despite the 262 murders we had in 2020 – by standing on our front porch and defending ourselves. We got leapfrogged over 6,000 other cases, other serious felonies,” Mark said. 

He said the “good news” is that “we don’t owe anybody anything.”

“There’s nothing they can do to us. And they can try to cancel us all that they want to,” Mark said. “But I’m going to be… saying the truth… But we anticipate that they will continue to try to find ways to make our lives miserable.”

Pa. Gov.: Norfolk Southern to Pay Millions for Toxic-Spill Derailment

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Pa. Gov.: Norfolk Southern to Pay Millions for Toxic-Spill Derailment

(Headline USA) Norfolk Southern has pledged several million dollars to cover the cost of the response and recovery in Pennsylvania after last month’s derailment of a train carrying toxic chemicals just across the border in Ohio, Gov. Josh Shapiro said Monday.

Shapiro’s office said he met with Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw on Thursday and secured what they call an initial commitment for financial aid as the cleanup from the Feb. 3 derailment continues.

The announcement was made as Shapiro’s office, along with the Biden administration, continued to come under intense fire for the mishandling of an investigation into the train wreck and sluggish response offering disaster aid. Biden regime Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg initially tried to downplay the disaster and justify why he hadn’t visited the Ohio site for weeks.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has ordered Norfolk Southern to cover the costs of cleanup from the derailment that toppled 38 rail cars in East Palestine, Ohio. No one was hurt, but concerns over a explosion led state and local officials to approve releasing and burning toxic vinyl chloride from five tanker cars.

The resulting fire prompted the evacuation of half of East Palestine and the surrounding area near the Pennsylvania border.

Shapiro said Norfolk Southern will pay $5 million to reimburse fire departments for equipment that was contaminated or damaged in the response and $1 million to Beaver and Lawrence counties to help business owners and residents whose livelihoods were damaged.

Another nearly $1.4 million will go to state agencies that responded, including for setting up a health clinic for residents, Shapiro said.

Shapiro’s office said he will push Norfolk Southern to cover any additional costs that accumulate.

Federal and state officials have repeatedly said it’s safe for evacuated residents to return to the area and that air testing in the town and inside hundreds of homes hasn’t detected any concerning levels of contaminants. However, some residents say they’re still suffering from illnesses nearly a month later.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Only 1 in 5 Homes Is Financially within Reach for Avg. American

Jacob Bruns
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Only 1 in 5 Homes Is Financially within Reach for Avg. American

(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) As the wealth divide in America grows and Bidenflation skyrockets, fewer and fewer Americans are able to afford homes, even in the less expensive parts of the country.

Now, a mere one in every five homes is within reach financially for the average American family, the real-estate website Redfin reported.

According to the report, things have gotten substantially worse since numerous states engaged in months- or yearslong lockdowns, which began as “15 days to slow the spread.”

“The number of affordable listings fell 53% from a year earlier in 2022—the largest annual drop in Redfin’s records, which date back to 2013,” the report said.

“While that’s partly due to a decline in listings in general—new listings fell 10% year over year—it’s mostly due to the fact that higher mortgage rates made the listings hitting the market less affordable,” it added.

The Federal Reserve jacked up its interest rates to help cool down the rate of inflation—a direct result of the Biden administration’s injection of trillions of dollars into wasteful spending projects and kickbacks to bribe voters.

But the result has been a double-whammy, for now, of housing costs still sky-high (with the promise of even more Biden bucks circulating if a student-loan amnesty program goes through), paired with the extra high interest rates, all leading to untenable mortgages for most would-be homeowners.

Redfin Deputy Chief Economist Taylor Marr noted that things have never been worse for home buyers.

“Housing affordability is at the lowest level in history, which will widen the wealth gap—especially between millennials,” he said.

“Many millennials were able to buy their first home before or during the pandemic homebuying boom, but many others were priced out of homeownership and forced to keep renting,” Marr added. “That means a lot of young adults missed out on a major wealth building opportunity: the value of homes owned by millennials has risen nearly 30% in the past year.”

He did, however, suggest that affordability “should improve” as mortgage rates drop.

In turn, he said, prices “have already begun falling” while income is on an upward trajectory.

Yet, looming behind jacked-up real estate prices—and unmentioned by Redfin—is the presence of massive real estate conglomerates, such as BlackRock, which are “killing the dream” of home ownership and “giving us a nightmare of dispossession,” according to a recent Fox News report.

CNN Investigation Hits Darkest Secret of Merrick Garland’s Career

Ken Silva
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CNN Investigation Hits Darkest Secret of Merrick Garland’s Career

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Last week, CNN published an in-depth story about Oklahoma City police officer Terrance Yeakey, one of the first responders to the April 19, 1995, Oklahoma City bombing, who wound up dead under highly suspicious circumstances.

The story surprised conservative commentators both for its accuracy and its implications: that Yeakey may have been murdered because he threated to expose FBI foreknowledge, or perhaps even direct involvement, in the bombing.

“One wonders why CNN is bothering to resurrect this story at all? Given CNN’s status as the Regime’s media mouth piece, this question is even more puzzling,” conservative site Revolver News pondered. “After all, one of the chief ‘mop up men,’ responsible for covering up and managing the OKC narrative is none other than Biden’s current Attorney General Merrick Garland.”

Revolver News is correct: Garland helped prosecute Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, whom the U.S. government claims was solely responsible for detonating the truck bomb that killed at least 168 people, including 19 children.

Contrary to the U.S. government’s long-standing claim, court records and FBI memos indicate that McVeigh had an unidentified accomplice help him carry out the attack. Moreover, records show that Garland knew about this fact, but helped suppress the truth.

The key record implicating Garland in a government coverup is the transcript from McVeigh’s April 27, 1995, preliminary hearing, which Garland led. The transcript, which can be found here, shows that Garland repeatedly objected whenever McVeigh’s defense counsel mentioned his client’s unidentified accomplice, “John Doe 2.”

Garland first objected when McVeigh’s defense counsel was asking an FBI agent about how many people witnesses saw speeding away from the crime scene after the bomb detonated.

“Two,” the FBI agent responded.

“Did this witness also identify the person that we know as number 2, ‘unsub [unidentified subject] 2’ at the scene?” McVeigh’s defense attorney further asked, referencing John Doe 2.

Garland objected to this question, telling the presiding judge that “unsub 2 is not before the court.”

The judge sustained Garland’s objection.

But later during the hearing, the FBI agent referenced “occupants” of the Ryder truck bomb—leading McVeigh’s defense to ask about John Doe 2 again, and for Garland to object once more.

“Did you tell me [the witness] saw occupants of a Ryder truck and there was more than one?” McVeigh’s defense asked the FBI agent.

“Objection,” Garland interjected. “The only person on trial at this hearing is Mr. McVeigh. It doesn’t matter whether there were two or 100 people in that truck, as long as there was somebody representing Mr. McVeigh there. It is discovery and totally outside of the scope of this hearing.”

This time, the judge sided with McVeigh’s defense, overruling Garland.

After McVeigh’s defense repeated this question, the FBI agent said: “This witness advised that there were two individuals in the truck. The individual resembling Mr. McVeigh was the driver.”

Despite this revelation about McVeigh’s accomplice, the U.S. government would go on to claim that the Oklahoma City bombing was a lone wolf attack. McVeigh’s lawyers, likewise, steered away from questions about John Doe 2 because—as Roger Charles, who served a brief stint on the defense team, later explained—identifying the unnamed accomplice would have also further implicated McVeigh himself.

Garland didn’t stay on the OKC bombing prosecution team for long. He was nominated to be an appeals court justice in September 1995 by President Bill Clinton.

Some 18 years later, Garland scoffed at the notion that McVeigh had an accomplice who remains at large.

“It’s the issue about conspiracy theories, about ‘Maybe somebody else did it’ or ‘You hadn’t done everything,’” Garland reportedly said in a 2013 oral history about the case. “I wanted to be sure we had done everything we could possibly do to find every person who was involved.”

But the records clearly indicate that Garland is aware of at least one person involved in the OKC bombing who hasn’t been apprehended—which, as Revolver News noted, makes it all the more strange that Democrat-friendly CNN would publish an investigation that could lead to some uncomfortable questions for the sitting attorney general.

“Has the unraveling of the ‘Fedsurrection’ narrative opened the door to a much overdue reassessment of what really happened in Oklahoma City?” Revolver News asked. “We think so. And perhaps the Regime realizes this, and is trying to get ahead of the story.”

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

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