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Democrats Demand Apple and Google Ban X From App Stores

Apple and Google are under mounting political pressure from Democrats over X’s AI chatbot, Grok, after lawmakers accused the platform of producing images of women and allegedly minors in bikinis.

While the outrage targets X specifically, the ability to generate such material is not unique to one platform. Similar image manipulation and synthetic content creation can be found across nearly every major AI system available today.

Yet, the letter sent to Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai by Senators Ron Wyden, Ben Ray Luján, and Ed Markey only asked the tech giants only about X and demanded that the companies remove X from their app stores entirely.

X is used by around 557 million users.

We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.

The lawmakers wrote that “X’s generation of these harmful and likely illegal depictions of women and children has shown complete disregard for your stores’ distribution terms.”

They pointed to Google’s developer rules, which prohibit apps that facilitate “the exploitation or abuse of children,” and Apple’s policy against apps that are “offensive” or “just plain creepy.”

Ignoring the First Amendment completely, “Apple and Google must remove these apps from the app stores until X’s policy violations are addressed,” the letter states.

Dozens of generative systems, including open-source image models that can’t be controlled or limited by anyone, can produce the same kinds of bikini images with minimal prompting.

The senators cited prior examples of Apple and Google removing apps such as ICEBlock and Red Dot under government pressure.

“Unlike Grok’s sickening content generation, these apps were not creating or hosting harmful or illegal content, and yet, based entirely on the Administration’s claims that they posed a risk to immigration enforcers, you removed them from your stores,” the letter stated.

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Renee Good’s Minnesota ‘ICE Watch’ group shared manual detailing how to fight arrests, launch ‘a micro-intifada’

The Minnesota ICE Watch group of which slain Minneapolis protester Renee Good was a member shared a detailed manual providing instructions on fighting police officers to free arrested radicals from their grasp, comparing each “de-arrest” to a “micro-intifada.”

The “de-arrest primer” manual was reposted on Instagram in June by MN ICE Watch, part of a loose collective of agitators who teach members how to disrupt law enforcement officers performing their duties, including ICE agents.

Neighbors have told The Post that Renee Good had regularly attended meetings with the local chapter and had received “thorough training” from the group.

The manual — which says on the front cover it was published in the spring of 2024 — outlines four tactics for interfering with arresting officers, such as the best kind of grip to use while yanking someone in custody out of their hands, or even suggestions on “pushing and pulling an officer” off of an arrestee.

“Technically speaking for pushing off form you should have a low center of gravity and a wide base and push up explosive power with your head up at all times if possible,” the instruction guide reads.

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Quantum cameras could remake space-based intelligence

Can quantum physics enable better, cheaper, faster satellite photos? In a month or two, a startup will test a “quantum camera” aboard an orbital telescope. If it works, it could slash the cost of missile defenses and give smaller NATO allies and partners spy-satellite capabilities that were once exclusive to major powers.

Funded in part by NASA and DARPA, the Boston-based Diffraqtion is testing a radically different way to make images from photons.

You might think that the cameras on the world’s most expensive satellites are fundamentally different from what your grandfather used to take old movies. But whether using chemicals and paper or chargeable transistors on a circuit, the process of deriving images from the behavior of photons has changed little in more than a century. That is one reason why space-based image collection—especially at high resolution—is incredibly expensive.

It’s also why Johannes Galatsanos, Diffraqtion’s co-founder and CEO, uses the term “quantum camera” rather than “photography.”

“You basically have light coming through a lens; it hits a sensor, and then that sensor takes a JPEG, an image, and then you can view it… or you can run AI on top, right, and detect things,” Galatsanos said. “Whether in space with high-resolution digital cameras or old-fashioned pinhole cameras, that process hasn’t [changed].”

That traditional method limits what can effectively be photographed based on diffraction, the process by which light beams pass through an aperture. It’s also a reason why high-resolution imaging satellites, like the WorldView-3, are large and heavy: like a telescope, they are mostly glass lenses and empty space. This is a reason why launches cost an average of about $50 million per satellite, and why why only a few countries have access to high-resolution satellite imagery.

Quantum science opens the possibility of collecting images using sensors that don’t require the same dense, heavy components. One of Diffraqtion’s cameras is the size of a small suitcase, launchable for just half a million dollars..

That just might be the key to shooting down highly maneuverable hypersonic missiles, as envisioned by the White House’s Golden Dome effort. The method proposed by Diffraqtion might lower the cost of the imaging systems on space-based interceptors, or even reduce the number needed to do the job.

“You have more area coverage, you can look at more targets at the same time, and so on,” said Galatsanos.

The idea effectively reverses the process of deriving an image from photonic data. But in quantum science, the simple act of observing quantum behaviors changes them. That’s useful for things like quantum encryption because it means that the message changes—obviously so—when intercepted. But it is also what makes quantum “photography” impossible.

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Trump orders plan to invade Greenland – media

US President Donald Trump has ordered his senior commanders to draw up a plan for a potential invasion of Greenland – a move that could potentially lead to a complete collapse of NATO, the Daily Mail reported on Saturday, citing sources.

The US president has long sought to take control of Greenland, an autonomous territory under Danish sovereignty, citing security concerns and the need to deter Russia and China, while not ruling out a military option to capture the island. This stance has put him at loggerheads with the European members of NATO, which have rallied behind Denmark.

According to the Daily Mail, Trump asked the Joint Special Operations Command to prepare invasion plans, but the Joint Chiefs of Staff are pushing back, arguing that the move would be illegal and lack congressional support. One source told the paper that senior generals “have tried to distract Trump by talking about less controversial measures,” such as a “strike on Iran.”

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California to Keep Bird Broiling Solar Plant in Operation

I was in Las Vegas with my family the week before Christmas. On the drive back to California we passed a solar generation site called Ivanpah. If you haven’t seen this before it’s pretty striking in person. Instead of using photo-voltaic cells, the site has three towers surrounded by mirrors. The mirrors focus light and heat on the towers which use the concetrated heat to turn turbines.

The site was built with funds from several major companies including Google and a federal loan guarantee of $1.6 billion dollars. When this site opened in 2014, it was considered a step into the future of solar energy, but that quickly changed for several reasons. First, the site never produced as much power as was promised. Second, the cost of PV solar panels dropped dramatically to the point that rate-payers were paying a lot more for Ivanpah’s solar energy than they would be if the site were just full of regular solar panels. And thirdly, the site had some environmental problems including interfering with local tortoises and killing as many as 6,000 birds a year.

A macabre fireworks show unfolds each day along I-15 west of Las Vegas, as birds fly into concentrated beams of sunlight and are instantly incinerated, leaving wisps of white smoke against the blue desert sky.

Workers at the Ivanpah Solar Plant have a name for the spectacle: “Streamers.”

And the image-conscious owners of the 390-megawatt plant say they are trying everything they can think of to stop the slaughter.

Federal biologists say about 6,000 birds die from collisions or immolation annually while chasing flying insects around the facility’s three 40-story towers, which catch sunlight from five square miles of garage-door-size mirrors to drive the plant’s power-producing turbines.

For all of these reasons, both the Biden administration and the Trump administration agreed the state should shut down Ivanpah. Here’s a video Reason made about it last April.

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Australians Sound Alarm Over New Draconian “Hate” Bill

The Australian government has released a draft of what it describes as its most far-reaching federal hate speech legislation, a proposal that significantly expands criminal penalties for speech and grants sweeping new powers to the executive, raising alarms among free speech advocates and legal observers.

The legislation, titled the Combating Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill 2026, was drafted following the December 2025 terrorist attack at Bondi Beach that left 15 people dead. The bill builds on hate crime amendments passed in 2025 and is now before the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS).

Attorney General Michelle Rowland said the Jewish community was closely consulted for the structuring of the hate speech legislation following the Bondi attack, which she later described as the “toughest hate laws Australia has ever seen.”

Under the proposed law, Australians could face up to five years in prison for publicly promoting or inciting “hatred” based on race or nationality if a “reasonable person” might feel intimidated, harassed, or fearful. The offence does not require proof of actual harm, intent to cause violence, or even that a complaint be made.

The bill defines “public place” to include the internet, placing social media posts, videos, blogs, memes, and online commentary squarely within the scope of criminal enforcement.

In effect, critics argue, the legislation lowers the threshold for criminal liability to subjective emotional response, rather than demonstrable harm.

The draft law also introduces a new framework for banning “prohibited hate groups,” granting ministers broad discretion to outlaw organisations without traditional procedural safeguards. Membership alone could carry prison sentences of up to seven years, while supporting, recruiting for, training, or funding a prohibited group could attract penalties of up to 15 years.

Notably, the legislation allows groups to be banned based on conduct that occurred before the laws existed, including actions carried out overseas. Legal analysts have described the retrospective elements as a significant departure from established legal norms.

Ahead of the bill’s release, the National Socialist Network announced it was disbanding. In a statement posted on Telegram, the group said it was shutting down in anticipation of legislation that would allow the government to ban organisations retroactively for acts such as Nazi salutes. The group described the proposed laws as “some of the most draconian the West has ever seen.”

While framed as a response to antisemitism and violent extremism, the bill makes no explicit reference to Islam or Islamist ideology. Instead, it includes broad religious exemptions. One clause states that hate speech provisions do not apply to conduct that consists only of directly quoting or referencing a religious text for the purpose of religious teaching or discussion.

Free speech groups argue this exemption could shield extremist preaching so long as it is framed as religious instruction.

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Timothy Busfield MISSING: US Marshals join search for Melissa Gilbert’s West Wing star husband on child sex abuse warrant as he says claims are ‘revenge’ after kids were dropped from cast

Federal authorities are helping to search for West Wing actor Timothy Busfield, who is accused of inappropriately touching a minor on a TV show set. 

A warrant has been issued for the 68-year-old Emmy award-winning actor’s arrest, charging him with two counts of criminal sexual contact of a minor and one count of child abuse on the set of his TV show ‘The Cleaning Lady.’

The US Marshals are now assisting officers to locate him and take him into custody, a spokesperson for the Albuquerque Police Department said.

When asked if Busfield had been located, detained or arrested, a APD spokesperson told People: ‘Not that I am aware.’

An investigation into Busfield’s alleged behavior began in November 2024 when staff at the University of New Mexico Hospital called police and reported twin 11-year-old boys potentially being groomed on the set of ‘The Cleaning Lady,’ which Busfield directed.

According to a complaint filed in Bernalillo County Metropolitan Court, the alleged abuse occurred between November 2022 and spring 2024. A warrant has been issued for Busfield’s arrest in Bernalillo County, New Mexico. 

In an accompanying affidavit, an officer shared how Busfield allegedly ‘grew closer to the boys’ during their time on set and told the children ‘to call him Uncle Tim’ as he and his wife, actress Melissa Gilbert, bought the boys Christmas gifts, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Meanwhile, Busfield would allegedly ‘tickle them on the stomach and legs, despite them not liking the tickling.’ 

The children did not allege sexual touching at the time, but in October 2025 one of the parents reported to Child Protective Services that her child disclosed alleged sexual abuse by Busfield. 

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Minnesota university continues to uphold ‘antiracist parenting’

A professor and her team are in the spotlight after it was found that their “antiracist parenting” research is funded by a nearly $600,000 grant. According to The College Fix, this is at the University of Minnesota, and that professor is Gail Ferguson.

AFN reported previously about how the university’s Culture and Family Life Lab warns of a “whiteness pandemic.” It gives so-called resources for individuals and parents to be antiracist and teach their children anti-racism. One of the key takeaways is “talking the antiracist walk goes hand in hand with talking the antiracist talk.”

Matt Lamb is associate editor of The College Fix.

“The idea of anti-racism in general is that you can’t just not be racist but that you have to actively be opposing racism. And this is from Ibram Kendi who has sort of gone to different universities,” says Lamb.

The research at the institution centers on “an antiracist parenting intervention for White mothers of young White children.” The center uses the acronym CARPE DIEM, which it says is short for “Courageous, Antiracist, and Reflective Parenting Efforts – Deepening Intentionality with Each Moment.”

“This research presupposes that white people — but also like babies, like kids because this is white parenting — that they are racist and that they need to be taught how to not be racist. This is, of course, being subsidized by taxpayers because this is a public university,” states Lamb.

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Former U.S. Navy sailor gets more than 16 years for selling secrets to China

A former U.S. Navy sailor convicted of selling technical and operating manuals for ships and operating systems to an intelligence officer working for China was sentenced Monday to more than 16 years in prison, prosecutors said.

A federal judge in San Diego sentenced Jinchao Wei, also known as Patrick Wei, 25, to 200 months. A federal jury convicted Wei in August of six crimes, including espionage. He was paid more than $12,000 for the information he sold, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement.

Wei, an engineer for the amphibious assault ship USS Essex, was one of two California-based sailors charged on Aug. 3, 2023, with providing sensitive military information to China. The other, Wenheng Zhao, was sentenced to more than two years in 2024 after he pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and one count of receiving a bribe in violation of his official duties.

U.S. officials have for years expressed concern about the espionage threat they say the Chinese government poses, bringing criminal cases in recent years against Beijing intelligence operatives who have stolen sensitive government and commercial information, including through illegal hacking.

Wei held a security clearance that gave him access to sensitive national security defense information about the ship’s operations and capabilities.   

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Will Dropping Rotavirus Vaccine Cause Harm?

Vaccine promoter Dr Paul Offit alleges that dropping the rotavirus vaccine with the new CDC vaccine schedule will lead to thousands of American kids being hospitalized. Can this be true? Before widespread vaccination in 2006, nearly every U.S. child was infected by age 5, typically through daycare centers, preschools, and home contacts. Before vaccination, approximately 20-60 deaths occurred per year in children without ambulatory intravenous fluids and proper treatment. AlterAI assisted with this review.

The 2021 Cochrane analysis “Vaccines for Preventing Rotavirus Diarrhoea: Vaccines in Use” evaluated the efficacy and safety of four WHO-prequalified oral rotavirus vaccines—Rotarix (GSK), RotaTeq (Merck), Rotasiil (Serum Institute of India), and Rotavac (Bharat Biotech)—using data from 60 randomized controlled trials enrolling 228,233 infants and young children worldwide. This systematic review stratified findings by national child mortality strata (low, medium, and high), acknowledging stark differences in vaccine performance and access to early treatment including antiemetics, antidiarrheals, and intravenous fluids.

Rotavirus infection is nearly universal among young children. Severe dehydration from diarrhoea if not managed, drives hospitalization, particularly in low-resource settings lacking adequate rehydration therapy.

The WHO recommended adding rotavirus vaccine to routine infant immunization schedules in 2009. By 2021, over 100 countries had implemented it. The standard number of rotavirus vaccine doses for American infants is two or three, depending on the specific vaccine brand used. Both vaccines are administered orally (as drops in the mouth) and provide protection primarily through the first few years of life, but the duration of benefit is unknown.

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