Cleveland.com, the digital arm of Ohio's Plain Dealer newspaper, has removed writing from the workloads of certain reporters and handed that job to what editor Chris Quinn calls an "AI rewrite specialist" who turns reporter-gathered material into article drafts.

The reporters on these beats -- covering Lorain, Lake, Geauga, and most recently Medina County -- are assigned entirely to reporting, spending their time on in-person interviews and meeting sources for coffee. Editors review the AI-produced drafts and reporters get the final say before publication.

Quinn says the arrangement has effectively freed up an extra workday per week for each reporter. The newsroom adopted this model last year to expand local coverage into counties it could no longer staff with full teams, and Quinn described the setup in a February 14 letter after a college journalism student withdrew from a reporting role over the newsroom's use of AI. Quinn blamed journalism schools for the student's reaction, saying professors have repeatedly told students that AI is bad.

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A study of more than 12,000 European firms found that AI adoption causally increases labour productivity by 4% on average across the EU, and that it does so without reducing employment in the short run.

Researchers from the Bank for International Settlements and the European Investment Bank used an instrumental variable strategy that matched EU firms to comparable US firms by sector, size, investment intensity and other characteristics, then used the AI adoption rates of those US counterparts as a proxy for exogenous AI exposure among European firms.

The productivity gains, however, skewed heavily toward medium and large companies. Among large firms, 45% had deployed AI, compared to just 24% of small firms. The study also found that complementary investments mattered enormously: an extra percentage point of spending on workforce training amplified AI's productivity effect by 5.9%, and an extra point on software and data infrastructure added 2.4%.

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Andrew Yang, the former presidential candidate and longtime Universal Basic Income advocate, published a blog post this week warning that AI is about to displace millions of white-collar workers in the U.S. over the next 12 to 18 months, a wave he has taken to calling "the Fuckening."

Yang cited a conversation with the CEO of a publicly traded tech company who said the firm is cutting 15% of its workforce now and plans another 20% cut in two years, followed by yet another 20% two years after that. The U.S. currently has about 70 million white-collar workers, and Yang expects that number to fall by 20 to 50% over the next several years.

Underemployment among recent college graduates has already hit 52%, and only 30% of graduating seniors have landed a job in their field. Yang's proposed remedy remains the same one he ran on in 2020: Universal Basic Income.

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This Mortal Coil

SCHIPHOL (ANP) - Luchtvaartmaatschappijen hebben preventief ongeveer honderd vluchten op Schiphol geannuleerd vanwege het winterse weer. Dit bevestigt een woordvoerder van de luchthaven na berichtgeving door De Telegraaf. Het zijn volgens hem vooral Europese bestemmingen.

"We verwachten morgen vanaf de vroege ochtend winterse weersomstandigheden op Schiphol. Reizigers moeten rekening houden met vertragingen en annuleringen in het vluchtschema", zegt hij.

Komende nacht en donderdagochtend geldt code geel in de provincies Noord-Holland, Zuid-Holland, Flevoland, Utrecht, Gelderland, Noord-Brabant en Limburg vanwege gladheid. Daardoor is volgens het KNMI kans op ongelukken. Vanaf het begin van de nacht gaat het sneeuwen, aan het einde van de ochtend neemt de sneeuwval af en in het begin van de middag verdwijnt de gladheid.

MILAAN (ANP) - Shorttracker Melle van 't Wout heeft bij de Olympische Spelen een zilveren medaille behaald op de 500 meter. Zijn broer Jens van 't Wout eindigde als derde en pakte het brons. De zege ging naar de Canadees Steven Dubois. Teun Boer, de derde Nederlandse deelnemer, ging in de finale onderuit.

Jens van 't Wout won eerder de 1000 en 1500 meter. Bij de vrouwen pakte Xandra Velzeboer het goud op de 500 en 1000 meter. Met vier gouden medailles, een zilveren en een bronzen medaille is het voor de Nederlandse shorttrackselectie met afstand de meest succesvolle Winterspelen ooit.

Some modern collective nouns: a cringe of Cybertrucks, an anxiety of authors, a migraine of toddlers, and “a group of two or men is called a podcast”.

US president had recently said that the plan was the best deal Starmer could make

Donald Trump has urged Keir Starmer not to hand the Chagos Islands over to Mauritius, warning he was “making a big mistake”.

Under the deal agreed last year, Britain would cede control over the British Indian Ocean Territory but lease the largest island, Diego Garcia, for 99 years to continue operating a joint US-UK military base there.

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Latest in a rash of grab-and-leak data incidents

CarGurus allegedly suffered a data breach with 1.7 million corporate records stolen, according to a notorious cybercrime crew that posted the online vehicle marketplace on its leak site on Wednesday.…