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US President Donald Trump is to give a speech at the Department of Justice on Friday in a show of power over the agency he accused of weaponizing the law against him under his predecessor Joe Biden.The speech on law and order by Republican Trump — the first convicted felon to sit in the White House — will be staged in the same building where officials previously  brought two criminal cases against him.Since returning to office Trump has taken a sledgehammer to the Department of Justice, breaking decades-old political norms aimed at preserving judicial independence.”All I’m going to do is set out my vision,” Trump told reporters on Thursday about the speech.White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the speech would be “focused on restoring law and order to our country.””In the last four years in the Biden administration, we unfortunately saw the Department of Justice that was weaponized against Americans for their political ideology,” she told reporters.Trump’s new Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Chief Kash Patel — both key loyalists of the 78-year-old Republican — will be there for the president’s speech.Leavitt said mothers of children killed by “illegal migrant criminals” and families affected by an epidemic of the synthetic drug fentanyl would also attend the speech.- ‘Retribution’ -Trump pledged on the campaign trail in the 2024 election to overhaul the department if he won a second term.He had it in his sights ever since Special Counsel Jack Smith charged him with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election — which he still refuses to admit he lost — and illegally taking thousands of secret documents with him on leaving the White House in 2021.But neither case came to trial and the special counsel — in line with a Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a sitting president — dropped them both after Trump won the November presidential election.Trump rocked the department on his first day back in office by pardoning more than 1,500 supporters who, in an unprecedented act of US political violence, stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to interrupt certification of Biden’s election win.He has since packed the Justice Department top ranks with loyalists and his own personal defense attorneys.These include Bondi, who defended him at his impeachment trial in his first term, and two of his lawyers in the porn star hush money trial that saw Trump convicted by a New York judge last year.Trump also exacted revenge by firing a number of high-ranking officials and demoting or reassigning others.His iron grip over the Justice Department has sparked fears that he will use it to live up to another campaign pledge — “retribution” against his political enemies.

China-based DeepSeek shook up the world of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) early this year with a low-cost but high-performance model that challenges the hegemony of OpenAI and other big-spending behemoths.Since late 2022, just a handful of AI assistants — such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, and Google’s Gemini — have reigned supreme, becoming ever more capable thanks to multi-billion-dollar investments in engineers, data centers, and high-performance AI chips.But then DeepSeek upended the sector with its R1 model, which it said cost just $6 million or so, powered by less-advanced chips.While specialists suspect DeepSeek may have cost more than its creators claim, its debut fueled talk that GenAI assistants are becoming just a regular commodity, thanks to innovation and market forces.”The first company to train models must expend lots of resources to get there,” said CFRA senior equity analyst Angelo Zino.”The second mover can get there cheaper and more quickly.”At a HumanX AI conference in Las Vegas this week, Hugging Face co-founder Thomas Wolf said it is getting less expensive to launch GenAI models — and less important which one people use.”I feel like we are moving to this multi-model world, which is a good thing,” Wolf said, pointing to the muted reception given to the most recent version of ChatGPT.- Stay flexible -At the conference, OpenAI chief product officer Kevin Weil pushed back against the notion that all models are created equal.”That’s actually not true,” Weil said.”The days of us having a 12-month lead are probably gone, but I think we have a three- to six-month lead, and that is really valuable.”Weil said OpenAI plans to fight to keep that narrowing edge over its competitors.With 400 million users, San Francisco-based OpenAI has the advantage of being able to use data from massive traffic to continually improve its models, Weil explained.”OpenAI has the Google advantage of being the thing that’s in everybody’s minds,” said Alpha Edison equity firm research director Fen Zhao.Jeff Seibert, chief of the accounting and AI start-up Digits, agreed that OpenAI will stay ahead of the pack but added that he expects the gap to eventually close.”For advanced use cases, yes, there will be a lot of advantages,” he said of OpenAI’s position.”But for a lot of stuff, it won’t matter as much.”Seibert advises entrepreneurs to design their technology to allow them to swap out GenAI models, affording them flexibility in a quickly changing industry.- Cash burn -Improved use of chips and new optimization techniques have driven down the cost of designing the large language models (LLMs) that power ChatGPT, Gemini and their rivals.An open-source approach taken by some LLMs is credited with helping accelerate innovation by making the software free for anyone to tinker with and improve.The valuation of closed-model startups such as Anthropic and OpenAI has likely peaked as their “first-mover advantage dissipates,” according to Zino.Japanese investment colossus SoftBank pumped $40 billion into OpenAI in February in a deal that valued the startup at $300 billion — almost double what it was last year.“If you’re burning a billion dollars a month, which I think OpenAI is, you have to keep raising money,” said Jai Das of venture capital firm Sapphire Ventures.”I have a hard time seeing how they get to a point where revenues are higher than the amount of cash they burn.”Anthropic raised $3.5 billion in early March, valuing the champion of responsible AI at $61.5 billion.

The US Senate appeared closer Friday to avoiding an economically damaging government funding shutdown after the Democrats’ top leader shied away from a major confrontation with President Donald Trump, prompting backlash from the left.Democrats are smarting over Trump’s radical spending cuts which have shredded entire sections of government and seen Congress largely bypassed in what critics say is an unconstitutional exercise of power by the White House.Many in the party argue that refusing to back the Republican bill funding the US government for another six months would be a chance for Democrats to demonstrate opposition to the Trump project. Republicans have a slim majority with 53 of the 100 senators, but need some Democratic support to reach the necessary 60 votes for getting their bill through.Ahead of the Friday midnight deadline, top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer — who has long insisted that it is bad politics to shut down the government — said he would support the bill.A Democratic blockade of the bill and the ensuing chaos of the entire US government temporarily being out of funds would be “a gift” to Trump, he said.Many senior Democrats were furious at Schumer but early Friday, Trump signaled his pleasure at the climbdown.”Congratulations to Chuck Schumer for doing the right thing — Took “guts” and courage!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.Among those incensed by Schumer’s decision was former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, who issued a pointed statement Friday in apparent defiance of the Senate minority leader, calling the vote “a false choice between a government shutdown or a blank check that makes a devastating assault on…working families across America.” “Let’s be clear: neither is a good option for the American people. But this false choice that some are buying instead of fighting is unacceptable.” The backlash also prompted dozens of protesters to gather outside Schumer’s residence in Brooklyn, New York, calling on him to vote against the resolution.Schumer has been joined by Pennsylvania’s Democratic Senator John Fetterman. However, Schumer has not explicitly told his troops which way to vote, leaving it unclear whether enough Democrats will join Republicans.- Defying Elon Musk? -There have been four shutdowns where operations were affected for more than one business day, with the last occurring during Trump’s first term.During the disruption, up to 900,000 federal employees can be furloughed, while another million deemed essential workers — from air traffic controllers to police — work without pay.Back salaries are paid once Congress agrees to a funding bill.Meanwhile, Americans have to contend with a paralyzed government. Social Security and other benefits are protected, but there are typically delays in a variety of services while parks shut and food-safety inspections are halted.The latest tussle is focused on the far-reaching program run by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Trump’s advisor and top donor, billionaire Elon Musk.Several top Democrats, including Schumer, have warned that a shutdown could play into Musk’s hands, distracting from DOGE’s most unpopular actions and making it easier for him to announce more layoffs.Republicans voiced confidence that the needed Democratic support would be available, with several opposition senators facing challenging reelection fights in the 2026 midterms and wary of being blamed for chaos in Congress.One of the most vulnerable Democratic senators, Georgia’s Jon Ossoff, said however that he was a firm no, berating the Republican authors of the bill for failing to “impose any constraints on the reckless and out-of-control Trump administration.”John Thune, the Republican leader of the Senate, said Friday he had not spoken with his Democrat counterpart Schumer yet, telling Punchbowl News: “Passing this and getting this behind us is the best thing that can happen right now for everybody.”

The US Department of Education opened an investigation on Friday into dozens of universities over diversity, equity and inclusion programs that President Donald Trump alleges discriminate against white students.”The Department is working to reorient civil rights enforcement to ensure all students are protected from illegal discrimination,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement.”Students must be assessed according to merit and accomplishment, not prejudged by the color of their skin,” McMahon said.The 45 universities being investigated for “allegedly engaging in race-exclusionary practices” include prestigious Ivy League schools Cornell and Yale and other leading academic institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Chicago and the University of California-Berkeley.The Department of Education said the schools may have violated the 1964 Civil Rights Act by partnering with The PhD Project, a nonprofit that helps members of minority groups obtain doctoral degrees.The PhD Project “purports to provide doctoral students with insights into obtaining a PhD and networking opportunities, but limits eligibility based on the race of participants,” it said.In addition to the probe into the 45 universities, the Department of Education said it had opened an investigation into another seven schools over “alleged impermissible race-based scholarships and race-based segregation.”The Department of Education sent a letter to schools around the country last month stating that it “will no longer tolerate the overt and covert racial discrimination that has become widespread in this Nation’s educational institutions.””The law is clear: treating students differently on the basis of race to achieve nebulous goals such as diversity, racial balancing, social justice, or equity is illegal under controlling Supreme Court precedent,” it said.The Department of Education, earlier this week, said it had opened an investigation into 60 colleges and universities for alleged “anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination.”The Trump administration cut $400 million in federal grants to Columbia University last week, accusing it of failing to protect Jewish students from harassment as protesters rallied against Israel’s offensive in Gaza.Columbia and other US campuses were rocked by student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza following the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack. The demonstrations ignited accusations of anti-Semitism.In one of his first moves after taking office, Trump ended diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the federal government that are intended to redress historical inequality but that he claims disadvantage white people, particularly men.

A pair of stranded astronauts will be one step closer to finally coming home when the next crew launches for the International Space Station on Friday.NASA and SpaceX are aiming for liftoff at 7:03 pm (2303 GMT) of a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon spacecraft on the Crew-10 mission, after a technical issue with ground systems prevented launch on Wednesday.Crew-10 carries an international four-member team set to carry out science experiments on the orbital lab — but the greater interest comes from the fact that their arrival enables others to depart.NASA duo Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, veteran astronauts and ex-Navy pilots, have been stuck aboard the ISS since June after the Boeing Starliner spacecraft they were testing on its maiden crewed flight developed propulsion issues and was deemed unfit to fly them back. The Starliner instead returned empty, without experiencing further major issues.What was meant to have been a days-long trip for Wilmore and Williams has now lasted beyond nine months. Their stay has been longer than the standard ISS rotation for astronauts of roughly six months — but still much shorter than the US space record of 371 days set by NASA astronaut Frank Rubio from 2022-2023, or the world record held by Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov, who spent 437 continuous days aboard the Mir space station from 1994-1995.Still, the unexpected nature of their prolonged stay away from their families — they had to receive additional clothing and personal care items because they hadn’t packed enough — has garnered interest and sympathy.It’s also become something of a political flashpoint of late, as President Donald Trump and his close advisor, Elon Musk — who leads SpaceX — have suggested that former president Joe Biden “abandoned” the pair intentionally and rejected a plan to bring them back sooner.- ‘Maybe they love each other’ -That claim caused uproar in the space community, especially since Musk did not provide any specifics.The plan for the duo’s return has been unchanged ever since they were reassigned to SpaceX’s Crew-9, which arrived in September aboard another Dragon carrying only two crew members — instead of the usual four — to make room for Wilmore and Williams.Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen pointed this out on X, only for Musk to taunt him with a slur for mentally disabled people. Some retired astronauts rushed to Mogensen’s defense — while Wilmore appeared to back Musk, saying his comments must have been “factual” even though he was not privy to any details.Trump himself has been making waves for his bizarre comments, referring to Williams, a decorated former Naval captain, as “the woman with the wild hair” and even suggesting the two may have fallen in love.”They’ve been left up there — I hope they like each other, maybe they love each other, I don’t know,” he said during a recent White House press conference.Only once the Crew-10 spaceship arrives can the Crew-9 spaceship leave. Handover periods generally last a few days, and an earlier plan would have seen Crew-9 depart on Sunday for splashdown off the Florida coast — though it’s not clear if that timeline is still feasible.Along with Wilmore and Williams, NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov will also be aboard the returning Dragon capsule.Space remains an area of cooperation between the United States and Russia despite the Ukraine conflict, with cosmonauts traveling to the ISS aboard SpaceX Crew Dragons and astronauts doing the same via Soyuz capsules launched from Kazakhstan.The Crew-10 team consists of NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan’s Takuya Onishi, and Russia’s Kirill Peskov.

Stargazers across a swathe of the world marvelled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of Friday morning.The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa.The phenomenon happens when the Sun, Earth and Moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite.But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the Moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the Moon glowed a reddish colour.This is because the only sunlight that reaches the Moon is “bent and scattered” as it goes through Earth’s atmosphere, said Daniel Brown, an astronomer at Britain’s Nottingham Trent University.It is similar to how the light can become pink or red during sunrises or sunsets on Earth, he added.The more clouds and dust there are in Earth’s atmosphere, the redder the Moon appears.Brown called the lunar eclipse, which will last around six hours, “an amazing way to see the solar system in action”.The period when the Moon is completely in Earth’s shadow — called the totality — lasts just over an hour.This event has been dubbed the “Blood Worm Moon”, after one of the names given to March full moons by some Native Americans.- ‘Inspire us’ -In North America, the moon started to look like a bite was being taken out of it from 1:09 am Eastern Time (0509 GMT), with the totality from 2:26 am to 3:31 am, according to NASA.In France, the totality is from 7:26 am to 8:31 am local time (0626-0731 GMT), according to the French Institute of Celestial Mechanics and Ephemeris Calculation.Only the most western parts of Europe, such as France’s Brittany region, will get any chance to see the totality before the Moon sets.People in New Zealand have the opposite problem, with the eclipse only partially visible as the Moon rose.Brown dislikes the term “Blood Moon”, saying it has a negative connotation and “originates from a misinformed theory of the end of the world”.But not all societies took a negative view of these celestial shows.Some people in Africa traditionally viewed a lunar eclipse as a conflict between the Sun and Moon that could be resolved by people “demonstrating on Earth how we work together” and laying old feuds aside, Brown said.He called it “an amazing story that should inspire us all”.- Solar eclipse soon -It is the first total lunar eclipse since 2022, but there will be another one this September.Thursday’s event is a “Micromoon”, meaning the Moon is the farthest away it gets from Earth, making it appear about seven percent smaller than normal, according to the website Earthsky. This is the opposite of a “Supermoon”, as was seen during 2022’s lunar eclipse.Some stargazers will be in for another treat later this month — a partial solar eclipse, which is when the Moon blocks out the Sun’s light on Earth.This eclipse will be visible on March 29 in eastern Canada, parts of Europe, northern Russia and northwest Africa.Viewing even a partial solar eclipse with the naked eye is dangerous, and people are advised to use special eclipse glasses or pinhole projectors.

The US government was hours from shutting down Friday as Democrats smarting over President Donald Trump’s spending cuts threatened to block his federal funding plans — although hopes were high for a resolution to the impasse.Facing a Friday night deadline to fund the government or allow it to start winding down, the Senate is set to vote ahead of the midnight cut-off on a Trump-backed bill passed by the House of Representatives.The deal would keep federal operations going for another six months, but Democrats are under pressure from their grassroots activists to defy Trump and reject a text they say is full of harmful spending cuts. Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer — who has long insisted that it is bad politics to shut down the government — said he would support the bill, a move seen as improving its chances of success.”President Trump and Republicans leaders would like nothing more than to pull us into the mud of a protracted government shutdown. For Donald Trump, a shutdown would be a gift,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.”It would be the best distraction he could ask for from his awful agenda. Right now, Donald Trump owns the chaos in the government.”He was joined by Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman, while other Democrats — worried that they would be blamed over a stoppage with no obvious exit ramp — also appeared ready to back down.But Schumer has not explicitly told his troops which way to jump, telling reporters “each is making his or her own decision” and adding to the suspense of a vote that could still go either way.- ‘Fish or cut bait’ -There have been four shutdowns where operations were affected for more than one business day, with the last occurring during Trump’s first term.During the disruption, up to 900,000 federal employees can be furloughed, while another million deemed essential workers — from air traffic controllers to police — work without pay. Social Security and other benefits are protected, but there are typically delays in a variety of services while parks shut and food-safety inspections are halted.The latest tussle is focused on Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), unofficially spearheaded by tycoon Elon Musk, the world’s richest man.DOGE aims to cut federal spending by $1 trillion this year and claims to have made savings so far of more than $100 billion, although verified cost savings amount to less than a tenth of that figure.Grassroots Democrats, infuriated by what they see as the SpaceX and Tesla CEO’s lawless rampage through the federal bureaucracy, want their leaders to fight hard to defy DOGE and Trump.While Republicans control 53 seats in the 100-member Senate, legislation in the upper chamber requires a preliminary ballot with a 60-vote threshold.The Senate has rules to encourage bipartisan working, meaning the funding bill is likely to need support from eight members of the Democratic minority.This looked like a bridge too far earlier in the week for Democrats furious that the legislation contained no language to rein in Musk. But several top party figures have warned that a shutdown could play into Musk’s hands, distracting from DOGE’s most unpopular actions and making it easier for him to announce more layoffs.Republicans voiced confidence that the needed Democratic support would be available, with several opposition senators facing challenging reelection fights in the 2026 midterms and wary of being blamed for chaos in Congress.One of the most vulnerable, Georgia’s Jon Ossof, said however that he was a firm no, berating Republican authors of the bill for failing to “impose any constraints on the reckless and out-of-control Trump administration.”But John Thune, the Republican leader of the Senate, put Democrats on notice that it was “time for Democrats to fish or cut bait.””Democrats need to decide if they’re going to support this funding legislation, or if they’re going to shut down the government,” he said.

Pablo Morales has nothing against Donald Trump, and when the US president promised mass deportations, he was not worried because as a legal migrant from Cuba, he thought they would only affect criminals.But then immigration officers arrested his son, Luis — a rideshare driver who has never broken the law and was also in the US legally.”He has all his papers, he has his social security number, his work authorization,” Morales told AFP, displaying the documents.The two men were visiting friends in Denver when they were woken by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid. When agents knocked on the door, they calmly presented their papers thinking they had nothing to fear — until Luis was handcuffed and sent to an administrative detention center.He has yet to be released.Luis filled out paperwork to apply for residency in 2023 but, the agents told his father, he did not have a hearing date for his application.Immigration lawyers say the blame lies with the backlog in the US immigration system, where cases often drag on for years because of a shortage of judges.Luis has lived in New York for almost four years and is married to an American citizen. “He is not a criminal,” insists his father.”He’s a hardworking boy like me; we came to this country… to work,” explains this former employee of a Las Vegas casino.ICE did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the case when contacted by AFP.The agency said on social media that it had conducted several raids in Aurora, a Denver suburb, on February 5.”100+ members of the violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua were targeted for arrest and detention in Aurora, Colo., today by ICE,” it posted.According to a report by Fox News, around thirty people were arrested, of whom only one was a gang member.”I don’t understand,” said Morales. “They were looking for Venezuelans who are part of a criminal gang.”If he is Cuban and he shows them his papers, I don’t know why they are coming to take him away.” Local media reported an asylum seeker was also among those rounded up in that particular raid.- ‘Photo ops’ – Trump rode back into the White House on a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment sweeping America.He pledged to carry out “the largest deportation operation in history.”However, data shows ICE deported fewer people in February — Trump’s first full month in office — than it did under Joe Biden in the same month last year, according to a report by NBC.But its actions have been very visible, with military jets used to ostentatiously deport handcuffed people to Latin American countries, or to detention at Guantanamo Bay.Colorado knows it is in the crosshairs.Its capital, Denver, is a sanctuary city, where Democratic authorities limit the cooperation of local law enforcement with federal immigration police.And Aurora has been cast by Trump and conservative media as a symbol of an “occupied America,” because of a viral video showing armed men breaking into an apartment there.City police point out that crime has fallen in Aurora over the last two years.Last month’s raids were little more than “photo ops” says Laura Lunn, an immigration lawyer. “I think that the focus on Aurora was a fabricated story to begin with. They’re trying to solve a problem that never existed,” says Lunn, a member of the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network.”The rhetoric that the government is using — conflating immigration and criminals — is really damaging, because those two things are not the same.”ICE says that while its agents are targeting criminals, they are content to make “collateral arrests.”During the first month of the Trump presidency, the proportion of people without criminal records detained by ICE increased from six to 16 percent, according to the New York Times.Lunn says no one is safe anymore, even immigrants who are just awaiting their day in court but who have everything in order.She advises her worried clients to always have photocopies of their files. “People are being detained today that I would never have guessed even a month ago that they would be detained,” she says.”It’s really hard for us to predict who might be at risk.”

An American Airlines Boeing jet caught fire after landing at Denver International Airport in Colorado on Thursday, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said.There were 172 passengers and six crew members aboard, the airliner said, according to local media.All passengers were safely evacuated from the plane but 12 people were taken to hospitals with minor injuries, Denver International Airport said in a post on social media platform X. Dramatic video images widely shared on social media showed billowing smoke around the jet on the ground near the terminals and passengers standing on a wing as emergency services arrived.The FAA said the Boeing 737-800, flying from Colorado to Dallas-Fort Worth, diverted to Denver International Airport after the crew reported experiencing “engine vibrations.””After landing and while taxiing to the gate an engine caught fire and passengers evacuated the aircraft using the slides,” the FAA said in a statement. The latest incident comes amid safety concerns after a series of incidents and attempts by US President Donald Trump’s administration to cut costs at US aviation agencies.The FAA said it will investigate the latest incident.

Social media giant Meta on Thursday announced it would begin testing its new “Community Notes” feature across its platforms in the United States next week, as it shifts away from third-party fact-checking toward a crowd-sourced approach to content moderation.Meta’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg announced the new system — popularized by the Elon Musk-owned platform X — in January as he appeared to align himself with the incoming Trump administration, including naming a Republican as the company’s head of public policy.The change of system, which Meta will start testing on Tuesday, came after years of criticism from supporters of President Donald Trump, among others, that conservative voices were being censored or stifled under the guise of fighting misinformation, a claim professional fact-checkers vehemently reject.Meta has also scaled back its diversity initiatives and relaxed content moderation rules on Facebook and Instagram, particularly regarding certain forms of hostile speech.AFP currently works in 26 languages with Facebook’s fact-checking scheme.The initiative will allow users of Facebook, Instagram and Threads to write and rate contextual notes on various content.Meta said approximately 200,000 potential contributors in the United States have already signed up across the three platforms. The new approach requires contributors to be over 18 with accounts more than six months old that are in good standing.During the testing period, notes will not immediately appear on content and the company will gradually admit people from the waitlist and thoroughly test the system before public implementation.- ‘Arbiter of truth’ -Studies have shown Community Notes can help dispel some falsehoods such as vaccine misinformation, but researchers caution that it works best for topics where there is broad consensus.Research also shows that Community Notes on X often rely on the findings of professional fact-checking programs, which Meta has scrapped in the United States.”Meta has long said it doesn’t want to be an ‘arbiter of truth,’ but it has funded those arbiters for the past several years, and it’s not clear whether anyone will step up to replace it,” tech writer Casey Newton wrote in an online commentary. “If no one does, Community Notes will suffer both on X and on Meta’s platforms.”Meta’s new approach ignores research that shows Community Notes users are often spurred by “partisan motives” and tend to over-target their political opponents, according to Alexios Mantzarlis, director of the Security, Trust, and Safety Initiative at Cornell Tech.Meta, however, emphasized that the notes will only be published when contributors with differing viewpoints agree on their helpfulness.”This isn’t majority rules,” the company said.Moreover, unlike fact-checked posts that often had reduced distribution, flagged content with Community Notes will not face distribution penalties.Notes will be limited to 500 characters, must include supporting links and will initially support six languages commonly used in the United States: English, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, French and Portuguese.”Our intention is ultimately to roll out this new approach to our users all over the world, but we won’t be doing that immediately,” the company said.”Until Community Notes are launched in other countries, the third party fact checking program will remain in place for them,” it added.Meta said that it would not be “reinventing the wheel” and will use X’s open-source algorithm as the basis of its system.UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last month warned that the rollbacks to fact-checking and moderation safeguards were “reopening the floodgates” of hate and violence online.