Director Honey Trehan decries ‘dystopian’ opposition to his film depicting crackdown on Punjab’s separatist movement
For as long as he has been a film-maker, there is one story Honey Trehan has wanted to tell above all.
Growing up in the Indian state of Punjab, Trehan saw firsthand the devastation wrought by police who carried out tens of thousands of killings and illegal cremations in the 1990s, as they cracked down on a separatist insurgency. To those in Punjab, the period remains one of the darkest in India’s modern history. Jaswant Singh Khalra, the activist who exposed the crimes and was murdered in the process, is a national hero.
Continue reading...Lawmakers press for review of hiring practices amid a spate of ICE-related deaths within the same week
Democratic lawmakers are pressing for a review of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) hiring practices and continuing calls for an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the killing of an immigrant in Maine by one of the agency’s officers after news media reported allegations of past violent and threatening behavior by the officer, according to his family members.
The Associated Press, the Portland Press Herald and National Public Radio (NPR) all identified the officer in question as David Brouillette, information that the publications attributed to his family. The outlets also reported allegations that Brouillette had a history of mental health issues and had purportedly subjected his ex-wife to violent, threatening behavior.
Continue reading...Donald Trump delivered a primetime address to the country on Thursday, claiming that declassified intelligence showed Chinese interference in US elections. The US president revived long-running attacks on election security, despite a US intelligence assessment that found no evidence Beijing altered the 2020 vote, which he lost. The Guardian's voting rights reporter Sam Levine factchecks some of Trump's claims
Continue reading...Fires are also blazing across the US and the Trump administration has repealed several climate protections
US Republicans are threatening to sanction Canada and Canadian government officials after smoke from devastating wildfires has drifted across huge swathes of the US, creating hazy conditions and dangerous air quality for tens of millions of Americans.
Donald Trump on Friday blamed his country’s northern neighbor for the smoke spreading from wildfires and said he planned to call Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, to ask about Ottawa’s plans for dealing with the blazes.
Continue reading...Whereabouts of artist imprisoned after 2021 protests had been unknown following end of his prison term in July
Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, a prominent Cuban dissident artist whose whereabouts remained unknown after his prison sentence ended last week, has been given permission to travel to the US, according to his official Facebook page.
Otero Alcántara, designated a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, was sentenced to five years in prison in 2022 for insulting national symbols, contempt and disturbing the public order.
Continue reading...
Linus Torvalds says the Linux kernel will not ban AI-assisted coding tools, and if anti-AI absolutists have a problem with that, they can "fork it" or "walk away." An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Writing in a lengthy post on the Linux kernel mailing list this week, Torvalds said that "Linux is not one of those anti-AI projects, and if somebody has issues with that, they can do the open-source thing and fork it. Or just walk away." The statement came amid a lengthy thread arguing about the use of Sashiko, an "agentic Linux kernel code review system" that its creators claim can, in tests, independently find 53.6 percent of the bugs that would end up being fixed by human coders in later commits. But the tool can also waste maintainers' time by sending "false positive" reports of bugs that don't exist, at a rate Sashiko's maintainers estimate is "well within [the] 20% range."
In discussing whether maintainers should be subjected to a flood of these kinds of automated, AI-powered bug report emails (true or false), one poster cited the Software Freedom Conservancy's recent statement that the open source community "should support, not just tolerate, those who outright reject LLM-gen-AI systems" and that "every FOSS contributor deserves self-determination regarding LLM-gen-AI." In the face of that statement, Torvalds said that he rejects those who demand that their open source projects not accept any LLM-generated code or revisions. "We're not forcing anybody to use [LLM tools], but I will very loudly ignore people who try to argue against other people from using it," Torvalds said.
Torvalds said his position on this is a pragmatic one that's "based on technical merit. Not fear of new tools." And when it comes to utility, Torvalds said that "AI is a tool, just like other tools we use. And it's clearly a useful one. It may not have been that 'clearly' even just a year ago, but it's no longer in question today. Anybody who doubts that clearly hasn't actually used it." [...] While Torvalds acknowledged that "AI isn't perfect," he urged detractors to compare the output of these tools to the performance of human code maintainers. "Anybody who points to the problems at AI had better be looking in the mirror and pointing at themselves at the same time," Torvalds wrote. "Because it's not like natural intelligence is always all that great either."
In discussing whether maintainers should be subjected to a flood of these kinds of automated, AI-powered bug report emails (true or false), one poster cited the Software Freedom Conservancy's recent statement that the open source community "should support, not just tolerate, those who outright reject LLM-gen-AI systems" and that "every FOSS contributor deserves self-determination regarding LLM-gen-AI." In the face of that statement, Torvalds said that he rejects those who demand that their open source projects not accept any LLM-generated code or revisions. "We're not forcing anybody to use [LLM tools], but I will very loudly ignore people who try to argue against other people from using it," Torvalds said.
Torvalds said his position on this is a pragmatic one that's "based on technical merit. Not fear of new tools." And when it comes to utility, Torvalds said that "AI is a tool, just like other tools we use. And it's clearly a useful one. It may not have been that 'clearly' even just a year ago, but it's no longer in question today. Anybody who doubts that clearly hasn't actually used it." [...] While Torvalds acknowledged that "AI isn't perfect," he urged detractors to compare the output of these tools to the performance of human code maintainers. "Anybody who points to the problems at AI had better be looking in the mirror and pointing at themselves at the same time," Torvalds wrote. "Because it's not like natural intelligence is always all that great either."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The Lost Joy of Music Piracy What.CD, Oink, and the banalities of streaming.
My team and I just finished this “Rise Above Mosaic” mural at the Santa Fe Art Institute (SFAI). I had the chance to meet and chat with people there at SFAI and really enjoyed the experience. If you’re in the area, please also check out the exhibition “Cultivate Justice” at Turner Carroll Gallery in Santa Fe. Thank you, SFAI, Mayor Michael Garcia and his team, and Turner Carroll, for supporting this mural, and thank you, as always, to my team for working hard to get it done. – Shepard
“Cultivate Justice” opens tonight and is on view through August 10, 2026.
Photo by Rob Zagula
The post New “Rise Above Mosaic” Mural in Santa Fe, New Mexico appeared first on Obey Giant.
Kimi Antonelli finished fastest in Free Practice 2 ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix, the Mercedes driver heading McLaren's Lando Norris and Red Bull's Max Verstappen.
Lando Norris believes that McLaren is "still probably the fourth fastest" car on the grid despite an encouraging day of practice ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix.
Kimi Antonelli believes "there's still a lot of work to do as a team", despite the Italian and Mercedes finishing fastest in Friday practice ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix.
Max Verstappen shared his satisfaction at maximising Red Bull’s package during Friday's running at the Belgian Grand Prix, but admitted that the sessions also exposed the deficit to their rivals.
Lewis Hamilton appeared optimistic that Ferrari will find a fix for their early struggles at the Belgium Grand Prix.
Alpine has given an update after Pierre Gasly's crash in Free Practice 2 ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix which brought out the red flag.
Red Bull started the Belgian Grand Prix weekend on the front foot as Max Verstappen outpaced the Ferrari duo of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc in first practice with Mercedes looking off the pace – but then Kimi Antonelli turned everything on its head as he put the Silver Arrows top of the pile in the second session. So, what is the state of play heading into the weekend?
When the lights go out at Spa, bettors will be watching closely to make accurate predictions in real-time.
The drivers and teams report back on all the action from Friday practice at Spa-Francorchamps for the 2026 Belgian Grand Prix.
Rafael Camara achieved his fourth pole position of the season after coming out on top at Friday afternoon’s Spa-Francorchamps qualifying.