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Sean “Diddy” Combs’s former partner Casandra Ventura told jurors at the music mogul’s sex trafficking trial Tuesday how he “controlled” her life and wielded compromising sexual blackmail material to keep her in line.Jurors have heard the hip-hop icon used violence and threats of reputational ruin to manipulate women, including Ventura, whom he allegedly abused for years.”(Combs) controlled a lot of my life,” said Ventura, who is heavily pregnant and will take regular breaks from her graphic testimony that could last several days.”He had many resources” to potentially use compromising sexual videos of Ventura to exploit the celebrated singer and model, she said, pausing to dab her eye with a tissue.In a hotel surveillance clip from March 2016 shown to jurors Monday, Combs is apparently seen brutally beating and dragging Ventura — widely known as “Cassie” — down a hallway.A former security officer at a Los Angeles-area InterContinental hotel, Israel Florez, told the court Monday that he was first on the scene after the incident and that Combs sought to pay him off.Florez’s testimony provided the foundation for the prosecution to introduce the security footage that was published by CNN last year.The panel of 12 jurors and six alternates responsible for determining Combs’s fate heard of the famed artist’s explosive outbursts and an attempt to preserve his own reputation and celebrity through bribery.But the 55-year-old’s defense team insisted while some of his behavior was questionable — at times constituting domestic abuse — it did not amount to evidence of racketeering and sex trafficking with which he is charged.- ‘Coercive and criminal’ -Combs has pleaded not guilty on all counts, including the racketeering charge that the hip-hop pioneer led a sex crime ring that included drug-fueled sex parties by use of force, threats and violence.Prosecutor Emily Johnson told jurors Combs had set a man’s car ablaze and dangled a woman from a balcony, and made impossible demands of his lovers and employees.”Let me be clear,” US attorney Johnson said, “this case is not about a celebrity’s private sexual preferences.””It’s coercive and criminal.”But Combs’s defense lawyer Teny Geragos told jurors the “case is about love, jealousy and infidelity and money.”Geragos called Combs’s accusers “capable, strong adult women,” and said his situation with Ventura was a “toxic relationship” but “between two people who loved each other.””Being a willing participant in your own sex life is not sex trafficking,” she said, adding that the defense would admit there was domestic violence — but that Combs is not charged with such crimes.Florez’s testimony was followed by a male dancer who engaged in a sexual relationship, often in exchange for money, with Combs and Ventura from 2012 to approximately the end of 2013. He concluded his testimony Tuesday.If convicted, the one-time rap producer and global superstar, who is often credited for his role in bringing hip-hop into the mainstream, could spend the rest of his life in prison. The proceedings are expected to last eight to 10 weeks, and Combs was joined in the courthouse by family members as well as former lovers including Misa Hylton.

US consumer inflation cooled slightly in April, but analysts warned prices could spike in the coming months as businesses grapple with President Donald Trump’s sweeping “liberation day” tariffs.The data released Tuesday covers the early days of Trump’s new levies against most countries — including steep duties on China — which spooked financial markets and raised fears of a spike in prices. The US president has since reversed some of the duties and paused others, helping to soothe nervous investors. The consumer price index (CPI) eased to 2.3 percent in April from a year ago, a tick below the 2.4 percent figure recorded in March, the Labor Department said in a statement.”The CPI report shows that the American people are experiencing real economic relief: grocery, gas, and egg prices are down, while real wages are up,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement.Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren took a different view on the data.”Consumers and businesses will feel little relief from President Trump folding to Xi Jinping and are bracing for supply chain disruptions and even empty shelves,” she said in a statement, referring to the deal struck over the weekend between the United States and China to lower tariffs. The April CPI release was the smallest 12-month increase since February 2021, and was slightly lower than the median estimate from surveys of economists conducted by Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.”This may be the low point in 2025,” Nationwide senior economist Ben Ayers wrote in a note shared with AFP. “As tariff costs increasingly flow into consumer prices, we expect a jump in the CPI this summer, pushing the annual reading back above three percent,” he added.”Looking ahead, higher tariffs will lead to a renewed inflation impulse,” EY chief economist Gregory Daco said in a statement. But, he added, the recent tariff detente with China means that impulse will be slightly weaker than previously expected. Prices rose 0.2 percent from a month earlier, with “more than half” of the increase due to a 0.3 percent rise in shelter costs, according to the Labor Department.Excluding volatile food and energy costs, the inflation rate was 0.2 percent from a month earlier, and 2.8 percent over the past 12 months.The monthly figure was slightly below expectations, while the annual figure was in line with forecasts. US stocks were mixed in early trading. – ‘Too early’ to tell -Despite the good news overall, there were nevertheless some signs of Trump’s tariffs in the data. The index for household furnishings and operations increased 1.0 percent in April after standing still in March, the Labor Department said. In a recent investor note, economists at Deutsche Bank had flagged that this data point would provide a good indication of how some “import-heavy categories” could be affected by tariffs.But, they added, it was still “too early for tariffs to be evident in the aggregate numbers.” The energy index — which fell sharply in March — increased 0.7 percent in April, according to the Labor Department, spurred by a sharp rise in natural gas and electricity prices. The gasoline index decreased 0.1 percent over the month on a seasonally-adjusted basis, and by 11.8 percent over the past 12 months.The data will likely be well-received by the US Federal Reserve as it weighs when to cut interest rates.Futures traders see a roughly 90 percent chance the central bank will extend its recent pause at the next rate decision in June, holding its benchmark lending rate at between 4.25 and 4.50 percent, according to data from CME Group.

Reality TV star Kim Kardashian told a Paris court on Tuesday she feared she would be killed by the masked men who robbed her at gunpoint of some $10 million of jewellery in her hotel room in 2016, but expressed her forgiveness despite the “trauma”.The trial of 10 suspects has attracted huge media attention, with close to 500 reporters accredited, and crowds flocking around the courthouse on Paris’s historic Ile de la Cite hoping for a glimpse of the celebrity.”Hi! I’m Kim Kardashian and I just want to thank everyone, especially the French authorities, for allowing me to testify today and tell my truth,” she told the packed court, wearing a black skirt suit and jewelled necklace.”I came to Paris for Fashion Week and Paris is always a place I love so much,” Kardashian said, giving the court her account of the night of October 2-3, 2016, when she was robbed while staying at an exclusive, discreet hotel in the centre of the city.- ‘Prayer for my family’ -She was in her room — “with my best friend downstairs, my sister and my friend and my mom… all out for the night” — when she heard “stomping” up the stairs.Then people “who I assumed were police officers because they were in uniform” entered her room, said Kardashian, who is among the world’s most followed people on Instagram and X. “Then I heard one of the gentlemen say ‘ring’ a few times over, ‘ring’, ‘ring’ and he pointed his finger with an accent,” she said, adding that she didn’t at first “understand it was for my jewellery”.The man found what he was looking for: a diamond ring given to Kardashian by her then-husband, rapper Kanye West, and valued at 3.5 million euros ($3.9 million).The attackers then began to look for more valuables, threatened Kardashian with a gun and tied her up with a zip tie, she said, visibly emotional.”I was certain that he was going to shoot me, so I said a prayer for my family.”Asked by the presiding judge if she feared she was going to be killed, Kardashian replied: “I absolutely did. I thought I was going to die.”She said she also feared she would be raped but the man with the gun “closed my legs and put a tape on my leg.”- ‘Absolutely terrifying’ -Kardashian said she was “grabbed and dragged into the other room” but not hit by the men. Their sudden appearance and the gun were, however, “absolutely terrifying”.From comments from one of the men, “I felt that he wanted me to know that I would be OK if I just shut up,” she said.”Ultimately I decided not to resist and stay calm. That calmness saved my life.”Those on trial are mainly men in their 60s and 70s with previous criminal records, with nicknames such as “Old Omar” and “Blue Eyes”.Sixty-eight-year-old Aomar Ait Khedache, known as “Old Omar”, has admitted to tying up Kardashian but denies being the mastermind of the robbery.Another suspect in the dock, 71-year-old Yunice Abbas, later wrote a book about the heist.- ‘I forgive you’ -Khedache, who according to his lawyers is no longer able to speak due to health problems, told Kardashian that he “regrets” his actions in a letter that was read out in court. He said he had been “moved and touched by your tears”.Kardashian, who appeared tearful during the reading, said: “I do appreciate the letter, for sure” and “I’ve always believed in the second chance.”She added: “I forgive you for what has taken place but it does not change the emotion, the feelings, the trauma and the way my life changed.”Kardashian has never viewed her security in the same way since the Paris robbery, she told the court. “It changed the way that I felt safe at home,” she said, adding she now relied on up to six security guards there.”We have security everywhere we go,” she said, adding she now longer posts her whereabouts in real time “unless it is on a public schedule”.Kardashian also said she had undergone therapy to deal with her fears because “I have babies that I have to raise,” but “I try to be strong.”Asked about suggestions made at the time that the robbery could have been a publicity stunt or insurance fraud, Kardashian said that those reports had been “really hurtful”.The US celebrity, sometimes described as being “famous for being famous”, became well known in the early 2000s through TV reality shows, before launching fashion brands and appearing in several films.The trial is scheduled to run until May 23.mdh-alv-edy-jh/rlp

“The Apprentice” star Jeremy Strong — who was nominated for an Oscar for playing Donald Trump’s ruthless early mentor — said Tuesday that “truth is under assault”.Strong told reporters at the Cannes Film Festival that lawyer Roy Cohn, who he played in the controversial biopic, was the inventor of “fake news”.President Trump’s lawyers threatened to file a lawsuit against the film, which was released during last year’s presidential campaign.”Roy Cohn I see essentially as the progenitor of fake news and alternative facts, and we’re living in the aftermath of what I think he created,” said Strong, who is on the jury at Cannes.The actor, best known for his role in the series “Succession”, said we are living at a “time where truth is under assault, where truth is becoming increasingly in danger”.”Here specifically in this temple of film, the role of film is increasingly critical, because it can combat those forces in the entropy of truth, and it can communicate truths, individual truths, human truths, societal truths, and affirm and celebrate our shared humanity,” he said.”The Apprentice”, directed by Ali Abbasi, portrays a younger Trump as a nervous, naive outsider trying to make his way in cutthroat Manhattan.But in one shocking scene, it also shows him raping his first wife, Ivana, after she belittles him for growing overweight and bald.In real life, Ivana accused Trump of raping her during divorce proceedings, but later withdrew the allegation. She died in 2022.The movie also shows Trump suffering erectile dysfunction, and undergoing liposuction and surgery for hair loss.The film was eventually released in October last year before the presidential election that he won.In his first 100 days, his administration has slashed federal funding for disinformation research.Social media platforms have scaled back content moderation, with Meta suspending third-party fact-checking in the United States.

US consumer inflation cooled slightly in April to reach its lowest level since February 2021, beating expectations as President Donald Trump’s sweeping “liberation day” tariffs came into effect.The data covers the early days of Trump’s new levies against most countries — including steep duties on China — which spooked financial markets and raised fears of a spike in prices. The US president has since reversed some of the duties and paused others, helping to soothe nervous investors. The consumer price index (CPI) eased to 2.3 percent in April from a year ago, a tick below the 2.4 percent figure recorded in March, the Labor Department said in a statement. This was the smallest 12-month increase since February 2021, and was slightly lower than the median estimate from surveys of economists conducted by Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.”This may be the low point in 2025,” Nationwide Senior Economist Ben Ayers wrote in a note shared with AFP. “As tariff costs increasingly flow into consumer prices, we expect a jump in the CPI this summer, pushing the annual reading back above three percent.”Inflation picked up to 0.2 percent from a month earlier, with “more than half” of the increase due to a 0.3 percent rise in shelter costs, according to the Labor Department.Excluding volatile food and energy costs, inflation increased 0.2 percent from a month earlier, and by 2.8 percent over the past 12 months.The monthly figure was slightly below expectations, while the annual figure was in line with forecasts. US stocks opened mixed on the news. – ‘Too early’ to tell -Despite the good news overall, there were nevertheless some signs of Trump’s tariffs in the data. The index for household furnishings and operations increased 1.0 percent in April after standing still in March, the Labor Department said. In a recent investor note, economists at Deutsche Bank had flagged that this data point would provide a good indication of how some “import-heavy categories” could be affected by tariffs.But, they added, it was still “too early for tariffs to be evident in the aggregate numbers.” The energy index — which fell sharply in March — increased 0.7 percent in April, according to the Labor Department, spurred by a sharp rise in natural gas and electricity prices. The gasoline index decreased 0.1 percent over the month on a seasonally-adjusted basis, and by 11.8 percent over the past 12 months.”And just like that, the markets’ twin fears — a tariff-induced recession and sticky inflation — have been greatly assuaged,” Northlight Asset Management chief investment officer Chris Zaccarelli said in a statement.”Fears of slowing growth and a recession caused by punitive tariffs drove markets lower in the first week of April,” he said. “But they’ve rebounded on the heels of a tariff pause and a Chinese trade breakthrough, and now a better-than-expected inflation report removes the last big overhang for the market.”The data will likely be well-received by the Federal Reserve as it weighs when to cut interest rates. Futures traders see a roughly 90 percent chance that it will extend its recent pause at the next rate decision in June, holding its benchmark lending rate at between 4.25 percent and 4.50 percent, according to data from CME Group.

Sean “Diddy” Combs’s former partner Casandra Ventura is expected to testify at his trial Tuesday with a now infamous clip of the fallen music mogul allegedly beating the singer expected to dominate questioning. Jurors heard Monday that the hip-hop icon used violence and threats of reputational ruin to control women, including Ventura, whom he abused for years, before hearing graphic witness testimony.In a hotel surveillance clip from March 2016 shown to jurors Monday, Combs is apparently seen brutally beating and dragging singer and model Ventura, who is now pregnant, down a hallway.A former security officer at an LA area InterContinental hotel, Israel Florez, told the court Monday that he was first on the scene after the incident and that Combs sought to pay him off.Florez’s testimony provided the foundation for the prosecution to introduce the security footage that was published by CNN last year.Prosecutor Emily Johnson also alleged Monday that Combs exerted control over Ventura by threatening to release videos of her participating in elaborate sex parties dubbed “freak-offs.”The panel of 12 jurors and six alternates responsible for determining Combs’s fate heard of the famed artist’s explosive outbursts and an attempt to preserve his own reputation and celebrity through bribery.But the 55-year-old’s defense team insisted while some of his behavior was questionable — at times constituting domestic abuse — it did not amount to evidence of racketeering and sex trafficking with which he is charged.- ‘Coercive and criminal’ -Combs has pleaded not guilty on all counts, including the racketeering charge that the hip-hop pioneer led a sex crime ring that included drug-fueled sex parties by use of force, threats and violence.Johnson also told jurors Combs had set a man’s car ablaze and dangled a woman from a balcony, and made impossible demands of his lovers and employees alike.”Let me be clear,” US attorney Johnson said, “this case is not about a celebrity’s private sexual preferences.””It’s coercive and criminal.”But Combs’s defense lawyer Teny Geragos told jurors the “case is about love, jealousy and infidelity and money.”Geragos called Combs’s accusers “capable, strong adult women,” and said his situation with Ventura was a “toxic relationship” but “between two people who loved each other.””Being a willing participant in your own sex life is not sex trafficking,” she said, adding that the defense would admit there was domestic violence — but that Combs is not charged with such crimes.Florez’s testimony was followed by a male dancer who engaged in a sexual relationship, often in exchange for money, with Combs and Ventura from 2012 to approximately the end of 2013.If convicted, the one-time rap producer and global superstar, who is often credited for his role in bringing hip-hop into the mainstream, could spend the rest of his life in prison. The proceedings are expected to last eight to 10 weeks.

Ukraine said Tuesday that if Vladimir Putin skips talks in Turkey it would be a “clear sign” to the world the Russian leader is not serious about peace, and the West should reply with boosted military support to Kyiv.The meeting set for Thursday in Istanbul would be the first direct negotiations between Ukrainian and Russian officials since the early months of Moscow’s invasion in 2022.Zelensky has called on Putin to personally attend the talks that the Kremlin leader himself suggested, but Moscow on Tuesday declined for the second day running to respond to that invitation.”If Vladimir Putin refuses to come to Turkey, it will be the final signal that Russia does not want to end this war, that Russia is not willing and not ready for any negotiations,” Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said in a statement published by the Ukrainian presidency.US President Donald Trump on Monday urged both leaders to attend and said he was “thinking” about going to the talks as well.But Putin’s spokesman on Tuesday refused to say who Russia would send to Istanbul.”The Russian side continues to prepare for the talks scheduled for Thursday. That is all we can say at this point. We do not intend to comment further at this time,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.Asked if he could name Russia’s negotiating team, Peskov said: “No… as soon as the president deems it necessary, we will announce it.”Putin proposed negotiations in a late-night statement over the weekend — a counteroffer after Kyiv and European countries urged Moscow to agree to a full and unconditional 30-day ceasefire starting Monday.Tens of thousands have been killed and millions forced to flee their homes since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, while Moscow’s army now controls around one-fifth of the country — including the Crimean peninsula, annexed in 2014.- Sanctions, military aid -Russia did not explicitly respond to Ukraine and the leaders of France, Britain, Germany and Poland calling for Moscow to agree a 30-day ceasefire from Monday, though the Kremlin blasted European “ultimatums” in an apparent rejection.Kyiv on Tuesday urged fresh support from its Western backers if Putin refused to talk to Zelensky in Istanbul.”If Russia refuses to negotiate, there must be a strong response from the United States and the entire world: new sanctions against Russia and increased military aid to Ukraine.”Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said he is ready to host and urged the warring sides on Monday to seize the “window of opportunity” to reach a peace settlement.Trump told reporters on Monday he would attend talks if he “thought it would be helpful”.”I was thinking about actually flying over there. There’s a possibility of it, I guess, if I think things can happen,” Trump told journalists at the White House prior to departing for a trip to the Middle East.Putin has said any direct talks with Ukraine should focus on the “root causes” of the conflict, and did not “exclude” a possible ceasefire coming out of any talks in Istanbul.Russia’s references to the “root causes” of the conflict typically refer to alleged grievances with Kyiv and the West that Moscow has put forward as justification for its invasion.They include pledges to “de-Nazify” and de-militarise Ukraine, protect Russian speakers in the country’s east and push back against NATO expansion.Kyiv and the West have rejected all of them, saying Russia’s invasion is nothing more than an imperial-style land grab.Russian and Ukrainian officials held talks in Istanbul in March 2022 aimed at halting the conflict but did not strike a deal.Contact between the warring sides has been extremely limited since, mainly dedicated to humanitarian issues like prisoner-of-war exchanges and the return of killed soldiers’ bodies.

The courtroom fell eerily silent as the footage of Sean “Diddy” Combs beating, kicking and dragging his then-girlfriend began — a video already seen worldwide but which took on new gravity played before the jurors who will determine his future.Prosecutors played the footage repeatedly throughout their questioning of Israel Florez, a police officer who in 2016 was the security guard during an encounter with Combs that could prove pivotal during the fallen music mogul’s federal racketeering and sex trafficking trial.Combs’s family, including his 18-year-old twin daughters, watched stoically on Monday as prosecutors played the harrowing footage again and again.”She just kept saying she wanted to leave,” Florez said of Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, the singer who was dating Combs at the time and is expected to testify in the trial as early as Tuesday.Visibly tense but intensely alert, Combs watched as the security guard described the artist’s attempts to bribe him with a wad of bills to stay quiet over the incident at a Los Angeles hotel.The immensely wealthy mogul who was a key figure in 1990s and 2000s-era hip hop is accused of running a criminal sex ring that enforced its power with arson, kidnapping, bribery and forced labor.”He sometimes called himself the king,” said prosecutor Emily Johnson during opening statements.”And he expected to be treated like one.”Combs denies all charges, and his defense team says the sex acts were consensual.CNN released the security footage of the hotel encounter involving Combs and Ventura last year, and a number of jurors said during selection they were acquainted with it.But Monday’s testimony included fresh details, like photos of a smashed vase of flowers Florez said he found Ventura huddled next to.Florez said Combs had a “devilish stare” when the security guard arrived to the scene.He added that he offered to call the police but didn’t because Ventura, who he described as having a “purple” eye, insisted multiple times she simply wanted to go.- ‘Just for insurance’ -Florez’s testimony was followed by that of Daniel Phillip, a now 41-year-old who ran a “male revue” show in New York.He said he first met Ventura and Combs in 2012, after he was called to perform at a bachelorette party.He arrived at Manhattan’s Gramercy Hotel expecting to do a quick striptease for a group of partying women, he said.But instead Ventura, wearing red lace lingerie paired with high heels, a red wig and dark sunglasses, answered the door.Thus began Phillip’s relationship with the famous pair, an encounter that began with the dancer giving Ventura a massage with baby oil and ended with sex while a masked Combs watched in the corner.Phillip would routinely receive payment from the couple anywhere from $700 to $6,000, he told jurors.Throughout Phillip’s at times intensely lurid testimony, members of Combs’s family, including his 18-year-old twin daughters, left the room.Phillip said his enthusiasm for the relationship — which involved Combs directing sexual acts and sometimes filming them — waned after the first time he witnessed Combs strike and drag Ventura by the hair.”I was shocked,” Phillip said. “It came out of nowhere. I was terrified.”Phillip said he urged Ventura to get out — but that she insisted she would be alright.After witnessing Combs’s abuse Phillip said he began to find it difficult to perform sexually in front of him.Asked why he didn’t call the police, Phillip said that “this was someone with unlimited power.”Combs had already previously taken a photo of Phillip’s identification card “just for insurance,” the dancer said.”I understood it to be he was threatening me.”Phillip’s testimony will continue Tuesday.

Even the greatest human minds building generative artificial intelligence that is poised to change the world admit they do not comprehend how digital minds think.”People outside the field are often surprised and alarmed to learn that we do not understand how our own AI creations work,” Anthropic co-founder Dario Amodei wrote in an essay posted online in April.”This lack of understanding is essentially unprecedented in the history of technology.”Unlike traditional software programs that follow pre-ordained paths of logic dictated by programmers, generative AI (gen AI) models are trained to find their own way to success once prompted.In a recent podcast Chris Olah, who was part of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI before joining Anthropic, described gen AI as “scaffolding” on which circuits grow.Olah is considered an authority in so-called mechanistic interpretability, a method of reverse engineering AI models to figure out how they work.This science, born about a decade ago, seeks to determine exactly how AI gets from a query to an answer.”Grasping the entirety of a large language model is an incredibly ambitious task,” said Neel Nanda, a senior research scientist at the Google DeepMind AI lab. It was “somewhat analogous to trying to fully understand the human brain,” Nanda added to AFP, noting neuroscientists have yet to succeed on that front.Delving into digital minds to understand their inner workings has gone from a little-known field just a few years ago to being a hot area of academic study.”Students are very much attracted to it because they perceive the impact that it can have,” said Boston University computer science professor Mark Crovella.The area of study is also gaining traction due to its potential to make gen AI even more powerful, and because peering into digital brains can be intellectually exciting, the professor added.- Keeping AI honest -Mechanistic interpretability involves studying not just results served up by gen AI but scrutinizing calculations performed while the technology mulls queries, according to Crovella.”You could look into the model…observe the computations that are being performed and try to understand those,” the professor explained.Startup Goodfire uses AI software capable of representing data in the form of reasoning steps to better understand gen AI processing and correct errors.The tool is also intended to prevent gen AI models from being used maliciously or from deciding on their own to deceive humans about what they are up to.”It does feel like a race against time to get there before we implement extremely intelligent AI models into the world with no understanding of how they work,” said Goodfire chief executive Eric Ho.In his essay, Amodei said recent progress has made him optimistic that the key to fully deciphering AI will be found within two years.”I agree that by 2027, we could have interpretability that reliably detects model biases and harmful intentions,” said Auburn University associate professor Anh Nguyen.According to Boston University’s Crovella, researchers can already access representations of every digital neuron in AI brains.”Unlike the human brain, we actually have the equivalent of every neuron instrumented inside these models”, the academic said. “Everything that happens inside the model is fully known to us. It’s a question of discovering the right way to interrogate that.”Harnessing the inner workings of gen AI minds could clear the way for its adoption in areas where tiny errors can have dramatic consequences, like national security, Amodei said.For Nanda, better understanding what gen AI is doing could also catapult human discoveries, much like DeepMind’s chess-playing AI, AlphaZero, revealed entirely new chess moves that none of the grand masters had ever thought about.Properly understood, a gen AI model with a stamp of reliability would grab competitive advantage in the market.Such a breakthrough by a US company would also be a win for the nation in its technology rivalry with China.”Powerful AI will shape humanity’s destiny,” Amodei wrote.”We deserve to understand our own creations before they radically transform our economy, our lives, and our future.”

A high-profile left-wing influencer and political commentator said Monday he was detained for hours by US border officials and interrogated about his political views. US citizen Hasan Piker — who has millions of followers on YouTube, Twitch and X, and been outspoken in his criticism of Israel — says he was held at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport for over two hours on Sunday.He spoke out as the administration of President Donald Trump is facing growing criticism over claims of punitive action taken by federal agents against US citizens and legal residents for merely voicing progressive opinions.Pike said his exchanges with officials were largely cordial but an officer asked his views on Trump and whether he has been in contact with militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah.”He’s like, ‘Do you talk about Trump?’ And that was the first time where I was like, ‘What is this question?'” Piker said on a video posted to his YouTube account.”I literally straight up told him. I was like, ‘Why are you asking me this… what does this have to do with anything?'”Piker says he told the official: “I don’t like Trump. Like, what are you going to do? It’s protected by the First Amendment.”The Turkish-American 33-year-old was born in New Jersey, and has hosted US Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on his platform in the past.Department of Homeland Security official Tricia McLaughlin responded Monday denying that Piker’s political beliefs triggered the secondary screening, according to media reports.”Upon entering the country, this individual was referred for further inspection — a routine, lawful process that occurs daily, and can apply for any traveler. Once his inspection was complete, he was promptly released,” McLaughlin told US media.Piker maintains that his online content has never broken the law and only engaged in speech protected by the US Constitution.”The reason for why they’re doing that is, I think, to try to create an environment of fear, to try to get people like myself — or at least like others that would be in my shoes that don’t have that same level of security — to shut… up,” he added. Advocacy group Defending Rights & Dissent said it was “deeply disturbed” by the notion of border officials stopping political commentators to interrogate them about constitutionally-protected speech. “Such an abuse of power is an affront to press freedom,” it said.