He Made A Children’s Book Using AI. Artists Are Not Happy

Ammaar Reshi was playing around with ChatGPT, an AI-powered chatbot from OpenAI when he started thinking about the ways artificial intelligence could be used to make a simple children’s book to give to his friends. Just a couple of days later, he published a 12-page picture book, printed it, and started selling it on Amazon […]

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Mexican president asks Bad Bunny to play free concert

Comment on this story Comment MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s president made a public request Wednesday to Puerto Rican reggaeton star Bad Bunny to play a free concert in Mexico City, to make up for a fake ticket scandal that left thousands frustrated outside his sold-out appearance Friday. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he couldn’t […]

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Israeli commander backs forces in death of Palestinian girl

Comment on this story Comment JERUSALEM — An Israeli commander on Wednesday expressed support for forces that shot and killed a teenage Palestinian girl in the occupied West Bank earlier this week. A preliminary investigation by the Israeli military concluded that Jana Zakarna was hit unintentionally by Israeli fire during a military operation in the […]

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Milton Viorst, journalist who covered and critiqued Mideast, dies at 92

Milton Viorst, a journalist and author who mixed traditional reportage and historical analysis to explore subjects from the 1960s rights struggles to Middle East strife, including assertions that massive U.S. military aid to Israel has hurt chances for peace, died Dec. 9 at a hospital in Washington. He was 92. His son Alexander Viorst confirmed […]

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Russia-Ukraine war latest updates: Drones shot down over Kyiv, U.S. veteran freed

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine fought off a swarm of drones over central Kyiv on Wednesday, shooting down more than a dozen, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky. Ukraine’s military identified the drones as Iranian-made. There were no immediate reports of casualties in what marked the first attack by drones in weeks. “We are constantly strengthening our […]

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Libya opens probe into Lockerbie suspect’s extradition to US

Comment on this story Comment BENGHAZI, Libya — Libya’s chief prosecutor on Wednesday said that he had opened an investigation into the extradition of a Libyan national accused of making the bomb that downed Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, to the United States. U.S. authorities announced they had arrested former intelligence […]

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Head of South Africa’s troubled power company, Eskom, quits

Comment on this story Comment JOHANNESBURG — The chief executive of South Africa’s troubled power utility Eskom has resigned amid high levels of nationwide power blackouts of up to 10 hours daily. The resignation of Andre de Ruyter comes amid pressure from the public and various stakeholders as Eskom has failed to keep the lights […]

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Robert Toth, L.A. Times reporter targeted by KGB, dies at 93

Robert C. Toth, a Washington reporter and foreign correspondent for the Los Angeles Times who garnered his own headline when he was arrested in Moscow during the Cold War and grilled at a KGB prison about his contacts with Jewish dissidents in the Soviet Union, died Dec. 12 at his home in Chevy Chase, Md. […]

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Why We Can’t Resist Turning Our Selfies Into Lensa AI Art

If you’ve noticed an influx of illustrated selfies—depicting people as fairy princesses, astronauts, and anime characters—popping up across social media in recent weeks, you’re not alone. These AI-generated images are the product of digital editing app Lensa’s new “Magic Avatars” feature, a tool that uses machine learning to create stylized portraits based on photos provided […]

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