Comment on Release of U.S. hikers in Iran delayed; judge on vacation

There is no artificial intelligence without the vast trove of human knowledge. Today’s generative AI applications were built on a foundation of such information, drawn from across the internet and from various databases totaling, according to at least one estimate, somewhere around 300 billion words. That’s a lot of intellectual property — copyrighted material — much of it produced by generations of professional writers, honed and polished by editors and sent out into the world by publishers in newspapers, magazines, books and more. It’s hard to put an exact price on such a thing or even to measure the collective value of such an incredible library.

Molly Crane-Newman | New York Daily News NEW YORK — A judge considered holding Donald Trump in contempt yet again on Thursday for more potential gag order violations as his hush money trial resumed in Manhattan. Before jurors took their seats for the day, state Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan heard arguments from prosecutors and the former president’s attorneys concerning four more instances of Trump publicly commenting on witnesses and jurors in the case. Prosecutor Chris Conroy alleged Trump had sought to “infect and disrupt” the proceedings by his repeated remarks, including comments just hours before the last contempt hearing on Tuesday, when he was fined $9,000 for nine offending posts on his Truth Social account and held in contempt.

By RYAN PEARSON, ETHAN SWOPE, JAKE OFFENHARTZ and JOSEPH B. FREDERICK (Associated Press) LOS ANGELES (AP) — At least 200 people were arrested at UCLA Thursday, bringing the nationwide total of arrests to more than 2,000 at dozens of college campuses since police cleared an encampment at Columbia University in mid-April, according to a tally by The Associated Press. Demonstrations — and arrests — have occurred in almost every corner of the nation.

By MATTHEW BARAKAT (Associated Press) ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A judge declared a mistrial Thursday after a jury said it was deadlocked and could not reach a verdict in the trial of a military contractor accused of contributing to the abuse of detainees at the Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq two decades ago. The mistrial came in the jury’s eighth day of deliberations.

People don’t seem to mind the idea of former President Donald Trump acting as a dictator, he told Time magazine in an interview that drew swift rebuke from the Biden-Harris campaign. In a wide ranging interview given to the magazine — and shared by the 45th President Tuesday morning via his Truth Social media platform — Trump was asked to explain comments he made to Fox News host Sean Hannity, in which the former president said he would become a dictator on his first day in office. “A lot of people like it,” Trump reportedly told Time. As might be expected, President Joe Biden’s reelection team was quick to note the revelations contained in the interview and respond. “Not since the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault at home as they are today – because of Donald Trump.