Comment on Early bird gets the vote? Pols hunt early ballots

Concord, N. H. — A political consultant who sent artificial intelligence-generated robocalls mimicking President Joe Biden’s voice to voters ahead of New Hampshire’s presidential primary faces a $6 million fine and more than two dozen criminal charges. The Federal Communications Commission said the fine it proposed Thursday for Steven Kramer is its first involving generative AI technology.

Extreme heat in Mexico, Central America and parts of the U. S. South has left millions of people in sweltering temperatures, strained energy grids and resulted in iconic Howler monkeys in Mexico dropping dead from trees. Meteorologists say the conditions have been caused by what some refer to as a heat dome — an area of strong high pressure centered over the southern Gulf of Mexico and northern Central America that blocked clouds from forming and caused extensive sunshine and hot temperatures.

If the Middle East is a puzzle, it’s one that grew even harder to imagine ever clicking together as the evening of May 19 gave way to May 20. In the space of 24 hours, the President of Iran was killed, and the Prime Minister of Israel learned that a warrant for his arrest for war crimes and crimes against humanity were sought by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), who also wanted warrants for leaders of Hamas.

A few years ago, a friend of a friend declared that he wanted to pick my brain about The Good Doctor. He’d recently learned that I was an autistic culture writer and was eager to hear my feelings on the hit ABC medical drama’s fictional portrayal of a promising young surgeon on the spectrum.

A second farmworker in the U. S. has tested positive for bird flu, public health officials from the patient’s home state of Michigan announced May 22. During a press conference, health officials said the case was “not unexpected,” given the ongoing spread of avian influenza among birds and mammals in the U.

The first thing you say when someone tells you their bad news determines where the rest of the conversation goes—and, sometimes, where the relationship goes. Responding in a less-than-ideal way can prompt your conversation partner to pull back and decide, “‘Well, I’m not going to bring that to you anymore,’” says Jenny Dreizen, an etiquette expert and the Scotland-based co-founder of Fresh Starts Registry, a website that offers dozens of scripts in order to provide words for moments that leave you at a loss.