Hard Pass

The state lawmaker leads his opponent by four percentage points, 47% to 43%

State Rep. James Talarico is beating Rep. Jasmine Crockett in Texas' Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate, according to a new poll.

The survey was shared by JT Ennis, a spokesman for Talarico. It showed that the lawmaker had a 4-point advantage before his interview with Stephen Colbert, which stirred controversy after not being aired on the late show television. Talarico claimed it was the Trump administration who blocked the airing of the interview and called it "the most dangerous kind of cancel culture."

Conducted by Impact Research among 800 likely voters in the Democratic primary, the survey showed Talarico getting 47% of the support, compared to Crockett's 43%. 9% of respondents said they were undecided.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7785275

context: Manhattan DA drops assault charge in Washington Square Park snowball fight

Manhattan prosecutors declined to pursue an assault charge against Gusmane Coulibaly on Thursday night, instead charging him with misdemeanor obstructing government administration and a harassment violation in connection with the viral Washington Square Park snowball fight.

Coulibaly, 27, was arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court on Thursday evening and released on supervised release, hours after the NYPD announced his arrest in the case stemming from a massive snowball fight after Monday’s blizzard.

Pete Hegseth has threatened to cancel $200m contract unless it is given unfettered access to Claude model

Anthropic said Thursday it “cannot in good conscience” comply with a demand from the Pentagon to remove safety precautions from its artificial intelligence model and grant the US military unfettered access to its AI capabilities.

The Department of Defense had threatened to cancel a $200m contract and deem Anthropic a “supply chain risk”, a designation with serious financial implications, if the company did not comply with the request by Friday.

Chief executive Dario Amodei said in a statement that the threats from the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, would not change the company’s position, and that he hoped Hegseth would “reconsider”.

Federal immigration authorities arrested a Columbia University student early Thursday, triggering protests on campus along with allegations that agents had entered the university-owned residence under false pretenses.

Just hours after detaining student Ellie Aghayeva, though, the federal government abruptly reversed course, permitting her to walk free after the apparent intervention by Donald Trump.

In a social media post Thursday afternoon, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he expressed concerns about the arrest during an unrelated meeting with Trump, who then agreed to release her immediately.

was biking way out in the country and happened across this neat little library! picked up a copy of Susan Slater's Flash Flood

it did of course have its fair share of evangelical literature but there was absolutely lots of fun (and astonishingly nerdy) stuff in their too! the next time i pass by there i shall pay my debts to the people of course, have no worry about that :)

found the author's website here

closer up photo of that funny rock:

LONDON — ISIS recruits are being encouraged to use artificial intelligence and chatbots to aid their terror campaigns.

The federal judge identified 210 orders issued in 143 cases in Minnesota in which he said Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials had not complied with court orders.

The chief federal judge in Minnesota accused federal officials of continuing to disobey judicial orders related to immigration enforcement and then mischaracterizing the scope of their missteps.

The judge, Patrick Schiltz, threatened to hold government officials in criminal contempt if the pattern continued, writing in a scathing order on Thursday that, “one way or another, ICE will comply with this court’s orders.”

“The court is not aware of another occasion in the history of the United States in which a federal court has had to threaten contempt — again and again and again — to force the United States government to comply with court orders,” wrote Judge Schiltz, who was nominated to the bench by President George W. Bush.

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