Columbia University announces mask ban, hiring of special officers
Columbia University has announced a new mask ban, the hiring of special officers and other new policies in response to the Trump administration’s list of demands.
‘Every shot fired’: Are Yemen’s Houthis a proxy force for Iran?
The Houthis heavily align with Iran, but they have increasingly tried to showcase their autonomy.
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,122
These are the key developments on day 1,122 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
India’s ‘political iftars’ once stopped riots. Are they corrupt stunts now?
Politicians and parties have used iftars to forge peace during strife but also to woo elite Muslims for votes.
DOD removed pages that referenced the Holocaust, then restored at least one
In the process of purging its websites of DEI references, the Pentagon removed articles about the Holocaust.
Investigating claim of Colin Powell’s name being removed from Arlington Cemetery website
Some people alleged U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth oversaw the removal of Powell’s biography from the cemetery’s website. Here are the facts.
Measles arrives in Kansas, spreads quickly in undervaccinated counties
Measles has arrived in Kansas and is spreading swiftly in communities with very low vaccination rates. Since last week, the state has tallied 10 cases across three counties with more pending. On March 13, health officials announced the state’s first measles case since 2018. The case was reported in Stevens County, which sits in the southwest corner of the state. As of now, it’s unclear if the case is connected to the mushrooming outbreak that began in West Texas. That initial case in Kansas already shows potential to mushroom on its own. Stevens County contains two school districts, both of which have extremely low vaccination rates among kindergartners. By the time children enter kindergarten, they should have their two doses of Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine, which together are 97 percent effective against measles. In the 2023–2024 school year, rates of kindergartners with their two shots stood at 83 percent in the Hugoton school district and 80 percent in the Moscow school district, according to state data. Those rates are significantly below the 95 percent threshold needed to block the onward community spread of measles—one of the most infectious viruses known to humankind. Read full article Comments
DOD removed pages about Native American Iwo Jima veteran Ira Hayes — then restored one, with changes
In 1945, Hayes was one of six men famously photographed raising an American flag on Iwo Jima.
Cloudflare turns AI against itself with endless maze of irrelevant facts
On Wednesday, web infrastructure provider Cloudflare announced a new feature called “AI Labyrinth” that aims to combat unauthorized AI data scraping by serving fake AI-generated content to bots. The tool will attempt to thwart AI companies that crawl websites without permission to collect training data for large language models that power AI assistants like ChatGPT. Cloudflare, founded in 2009, is probably best known as a company that provides infrastructure and security services for websites, particularly protection against distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and other malicious traffic. Instead of simply blocking bots, Cloudflare’s new system lures them into a “maze” of realistic-looking but irrelevant pages, wasting the crawler’s computing resources. The approach is a notable shift from the standard block-and-defend strategy used by most website protection services. Cloudflare says blocking bots sometimes backfires because it alerts the crawler’s operators that they’ve been detected. Read full article Comments
Boxing champ George Foreman dies at age 76
Known as “Big George”, Foreman was a world heavyweight boxing champion and Olympic gold medalist. He passed away at age 76.
A running list of Trump’s executive orders
Tweety McTreason started his second presidential term with a tornado of executive actions that affect everything from the environment to immigration.
Two men convicted in Iranian plot to kill U.S.-based critic
Two men have been convicted of murder-for-hire as part of an Iranian government plot to silence a critic in the United States, federal prosecutors said Friday.
George Foreman’s life in pictures
A look back at the life of American boxing heavyweight legend George Foreman, who has died aged 76.
Why earthquake predictions are usually wrong
On social media a self-proclaimed earthquake predictor says he can forecast big shakes, but experts say it’s pure luck.