Author: Michelle Korhonen
The parallel was striking—but perhaps no one wanted to see it.Last week, corruption allegations that underpinned the House GOP’s push to impeach President Joe Biden collapsed after federal prosecutors charged Alexander Smirnov, the informant who’d brought them forward, with lying to the FBI.The Biden impeachment was never about the substance of the allegations against him; it was revenge for what former President Donald Trump’s allies view as witch hunts against him. After Trump was impeached twice, Republicans were always going to search for some cause to impeach Biden—preferably one that involved just the kind of untoward foreign dealings of which…
By Rex Martinich For Australian Associated Press and Olivia Day For Daily Mail AustraliaA court has found Queensland police and ambulance workers were given unlawful directions to get Covid-19 vaccines or face potential disciplinary action.Covid-19 vaccine mandates for Queensland police and ambulance service workers were made unlawfully, the state’s Supreme Court has found.The court on Tuesday delivered its judgments in three lawsuits brought by 86 parties against Queensland Police Service and Queensland Ambulance Service for their directions to workers issued in 2021 and 2022.The judgements did not make a ruling or attempt to make a decision about the transmissibility of…
Generative AI is not built to honestly mirror reality, no matter what its creators say.Illustration by Paul Spella / The Atlantic; Source: Keystone-France / GettyFebruary 26, 2024, 5:52 PM ETIs there a right way for Google’s generative AI to create fake images of Nazis? Apparently so, according to the company. Gemini, Google’s answer to ChatGPT, was shown last week to generate an absurd range of racially and gender-diverse German soldiers styled in Wehrmacht garb. It was, understandably, ridiculed for not generating any images of Nazis who were actually white. Prodded further, it seemed to actively resist generating images of white…
The Wendy Williams Show’s DJ Boof says that staffers for Williams were not clued into the extent of the illness the talk show host had been suffering from, amid multiple reports she is dealing with dementia.DJ Boof, 39, told TMZ Live on Monday that it has been upsetting to witness Williams ongoing struggles with her health, and that he thinks her relatives will be critical to her care moving forward.DJ Boof was asked how long it was apparent that Williams was in the midst of a health battle; and if there was a conflict between the people running the show…
Wild temperature swings are driving cases of trench foot and frostbite among homeless people — especially in the Midwest. As COVID surges, some people spurn shelters through extremes of cold and wet.
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.Donald Trump unleashed a flood of delusions and fascistic threats at CPAC this weekend in a speech to an audience that included actual neo-Nazis, a story overshadowed by the South Carolina GOP primary and his completely predictable defeat of the state’s former governor, Nikki Haley.First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:Dreaming of Judgment DayYou have likely heard about this weekend’s Republican primary contest…
Physicians have begun charging patients hundreds of dollars to write sick notes and approve medication refills, industry experts have said.Administrative tasks that were previously free are being monetized across the country due to growing demands on medics’ time and to put patients off submitting non-urgent requests.Services range from just a few dollars for responding to messages to over $100 for prescription refills.‘Basically physicians are saying, “The things that I used to do for free, I can’t afford to do it now,”‘ said Robert Pearl, a Stanford University professor and former CEO of The Permanente Medical Group. Paperwork fees can range…
Cognitive neuroscientist Charan Ranganath says the human brain isn’t programmed to remember everything. Rather, it’s designed to “carry what we need and to deploy it rapidly when we need it.” Bulat Silvia/iStock / Getty Images Plus hide caption toggle caption Bulat Silvia/iStock / Getty Images Plus Cognitive neuroscientist Charan Ranganath says the human brain isn’t programmed to remember everything. Rather, it’s designed to “carry what we need and to deploy it rapidly when we need it.” Bulat Silvia/iStock / Getty Images Plus When cognitive neuroscientist Charan Ranganath meets someone for the first time, he’s often asked, “Why am I so…
The comedian Shane Gillis is fond of joking about all of the things he knows he looks like: a high-school football coach; a possible parking-lot rapist; a police-brutality skeptic, someone who asks to “see the rest of the body-cam footage before we jump to any conclusions.” He’ll pose as a recognizable genre of buffoon or creep, before subverting those expectations. In his Netflix special, Beautiful Dogs, he pretended to be a rah-rah jingoist before lamenting America’s epidemic of gun violence; he also joked about becoming an “early-onset Republican” before noting that his emergent concerns boil down to “Why are Black…
A movement is emerging online to shun store-bought toothpaste over a conspiracy theory that small colored markings on the end of tubes signify whether the product was made with natural or chemical ingredients. The markings in question are small squares on the rigid strip of flat plastic at the bottom of the tube, and TikTok users warn people against toothpaste with red or black marks and encourage them to choose toothpastes with green or blue marks instead. The unfounded claim is that only ‘elites’ know that green marks mean the toothpaste is made from only natural ingredients, blue marks mean the paste…