If confirmed, the move would be the start of President Trumps plan to exploit the countrys vast reserves after U.S. forces captured President Nicols Maduro.

Analysts say the Cold War agreement allows the president to increase the American military presence almost at will.

Some ask whether the shake-up risks disrupting the agencies operations and is political in nature.

The board said the blockbuster deal it reached with Netflix last month posed less risk.

President Trump has repeated his interest in taking the semiautonomous Danish territory, citing U.S. national security. Denmarks leader says such a move would be the end of NATO.

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A government supporter holds an image of President Nicolas Maduro during a women's march to demand his return in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, three days after U.S. forces captured him and his wife. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)2026-01-07T13:43:58Z WASHINGTON (AP) A U.S. official says U.S. forces have boarded a Venezuela-linked sanctioned oil tanker in North Atlantic after pursuing it for weeks. The official spoke to The Associated Press on Wednesday the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations.The U.S. had been pursuing the tanker since last month after it tried to evade a U.S. blockade around Venezuela. The ship was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2024 for allegedly smuggling cargo for a company linked to Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. The U.S. Coast Guard attempted to board it in the Caribbean in December as it headed for Venezuela, which the Trump administration has placed under naval blockade. The ship refused boarding and headed across the Atlantic.

People walk as shops are closed during protests in Tehran's centuries-old main bazaar, Iran, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)2026-01-07T05:16:05Z DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) Iran faces a new round of protests challenging the countrys theocracy, but it seems like the only thing people there want to talk about is half a world away: Venezuela.Since the U.S. military seized Venezuelan President Nicols Maduro, a longtime ally of Tehran, over the weekend, Iranian state media headlines and officials have condemned the operation. In the streets and even in some official conversations, however, theres a growing question over whether a similar mission could target the Islamic Republics top officials including the supreme leader, 86-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.The paranoia feeds into wider worries among Iranians. Many fear that close U.S. ally Israel will target Iran again as it did during the 12-day war it launched against Tehran in June. Israel killed a slew of top military officials and nuclear scientists, and the U.S. bombed Iranian nuclear enrichment sites. Khamenei is believed to have gone into hiding for his protection. God bless our leader, we should be careful too, said Saeed Seyyedi, a 57-year-old teacher in Tehran, worried the U.S. could act as it did in Venezuela. The U.S. has always been after plots against Iran, especially when issues like oil, Israel are part of the case. In addition, it can be complicated when it is mixed with the Russia-Ukraine war, the Lebanese (group) Hezbollah and drug accusations.The U.S. long has accused the Iranian-backed Hezbollah of running drug-smuggling operations to fund its operations, including in Latin America, which the group denies. Please prayImmediately after Maduros seizure, an analyst on Iranian state television claimed, without offering evidence, that the U.S. and Israel had plans during the war last year to kidnap Iranian officials with a team of dual-national Iranians. Even for conspiracy-minded Iranian television, airing such a claim is unusual.Then on Sunday night, the prominent Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Javedan warned an audience at prayers in Tehran University that Khameneis life was in danger.Someone said he had a bad dream that the leaders life is in danger, Javedan said, without elaborating. Please pray.However, Iran is roughly twice the size of Venezuela and has what analysts consider to be a much stronger military and robust security forces. The memory of Operation Eagle Claw, a failed U.S. special forces mission to rescue hostages held after the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover in Tehran, also haunts Washington.Then theres the political situation in Iran, with its theocracy protected by hard-liners within the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, who answer only to Khamenei. They could launch assassinations, cyberattacks and assaults on shipping in the Mideast, warned Farzin Nadimi, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who studies Irans military.And crucially, Iran also still has fissile nuclear material.In the grand-strategy scheme of things, they need to think about the day after, Nadimi said of anyone considering a Venezuela-style raid. Iran is a much more complex political situation. They have to calculate the costs and benefits. Not just the IraniansOthers wonder what part of the world the U.S. might take interest in next, while critics have warned about setting a dangerous precedent.The regime in Iran should pay close attention to what is happening in Venezuela, Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid posted on social media on Saturday.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not directly link Maduros detention to Iran but acknowledged the protests sweeping Tehran and other cities, saying: It is very possible that we are standing at the moment when the Iranian people are taking their fate into their own hands.Hours before the U.S. action in Venezuela, U.S. President Donald Trump warned Iran that if Tehran violently kills peaceful protesters the U.S. will come to their rescue.On Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei denounced the comments by Trump and Netanyahu as an incitement to violence, terrorism and killing. U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican who had been close to Trump but resigned Monday after a falling-out with the president, directly linked the Venezuela operation to Iran.The next obvious observation is that by removing Maduro this is a clear move for control over Venezuelan oil supplies that will ensure stability for the next obvious regime change war in Iran, Greene wrote on social media. Make Iran Great AgainU.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican, put on a Make Iran Great Again hat during a Sunday segment on Fox News. He later posted an image showing him and Trump smiling after the president autographed a similar-looking hat.I pray and hope that 2026 will be the year that we make Iran great again, Graham said.Even Saudi Arabia, Irans longtime rival that reached a Chinese-mediated dtente with Tehran in 2023, appeared to be thinking about a possible U.S. intervention in Tehran.By dragging Maduro before a U.S. court, Trump sent a message more brutal than the massive bombs his aircraft dropped on Irans nuclear facilities, Ghassan Charbel, editor-in-chief of the Saudi-owned, London-published Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper, wrote Sunday.How devastating it must be for Irans supreme leader to hear of Maduros abduction at the hands of American forces. JON GAMBRELL Gambrell is the news director for the Gulf and Iran for The Associated Press. He has reported from each of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, Iran and other locations across the world since joining the AP in 2006. twitter instagram mailto

Nick Reiner arrives at the premiere of "Spinal Tap II: The End Continues" on Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025, at The Egyptian Theatre Hollywood in Los Angeles. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)2026-01-07T05:02:40Z LOS ANGELES (AP) Nick Reiner is set to be arraigned and enter a plea Wednesday in the killing of his parents, Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner.His scheduled appearance in a Los Angeles Superior Court comes 3 1/2 weeks after the beloved actor-director and his wife of 36 years were found dead with stab wounds in their home in the upscale Brentwood section of Los Angeles, authorities said.Nick Reiner, 32, the youngest of Rob Reiners four children, was arrested hours later, and has been held without bail since. He was charged two days later with two counts of first-degree murder. He did not enter a plea during a brief first court appearance Dec. 17, when he wore shackles and a suicide prevention smock. His attorney, Alan Jackson, has given no indication of the plans for his defense. Nearly all defendants in criminal cases plead not guilty at this stage. Jackson could also ask for another delay before a plea is entered. If Nick Reiner pleads not guilty, the case would normally head toward a preliminary hearing to determine whether there is enough evidence for him to stand trial. His mental competence for trial could also be a factor. A decade ago, Nick Reiner publicly discussed his severe struggles with addiction and mental health after making a movie with his father, Being Charlie, that was very loosely based on their lives. Rob Reiner, 78, and Michele Singer Reiner, 70, were killed early on the morning of Dec. 14, and they were found in the late afternoon, authorities said. The LA County Medical Examiner said in initial findings that they died from multiple sharp force injuries, but released no other details, and police have said nothing about possible motives. Jackson is a high-profile defense attorney and former LA County prosecutor who represented Harvey Weinstein at his Los Angeles trial and Karen Read at her intensely followed trials in Massachusetts. After the initial Reiner hearing, Jackson called the case a devastating tragedy. He said the proceedings will be very complex and asked that the circumstances be met not with a rush to judgment. The counts against Reiner come with special circumstances of multiple murders and an allegation that he used a dangerous weapon, a knife. The additions could mean a greater sentence. Prosecutors have said they have not yet decided whether to seek the death penalty.The prosecution is being led by Deputy District Attorney Habib Balian, whose recent cases included the Menendez brothers attempt at resentencing and the trial of Robert Durst. Rob Reiner was a prolific director whose work included some of the most memorable and endlessly watchable movies of the 1980s and 90s. His credits included This is Spinal Tap, Stand By Me, A Few Good Men, and When Harry Met Sally, during whose production he met Michele Singer, a photographer, and married her soon after. ANDREW DALTON Dalton covers entertainment for The Associated Press, with an emphasis on crime, courts and obituaries. He has worked for the AP for 20 years and is based in Los Angeles. mailto

Syrian child Fatima al-Zahra Abu Sheikh, 4, lies in a hospital bed after being wounded when clashes broke out between Syrian government forces and Kurdish fighters in a contested area of the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Omar Albam)2026-01-06T13:18:10Z ALEPPO, Syria (AP) The deadliest clashes so far broke out Tuesday between Syrian government forces and Kurdish fighters in a contested area of the northern city of Aleppo, as efforts to merge the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces with the national army have shown little progress.Syria s state-run SANA news agency said a soldier was killed and three others were wounded in an attack by the SDF. State TV later reported that three civilians, including two women, were killed and others were wounded, including two children, in shelling of a residential area that it blamed on the SDF. SANA also said nine Aleppo Directorate of Agriculture employees were wounded by SDF shelling that hit its office.The SDF in a statement denied being behind the shelling that killed the civilians and said a shell launched by factions affiliated with the Damascus government landed in the al-Midan neighborhood. The SDF claimed the target was the adjacent Kurdish Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood.This indiscriminate shelling constitutes a direct attack on residential areas and exposes the lives of civilians to grave danger, it said. Civilians caught in intense fightingThe SDF also said a drone strike launched by government forces killed one resident of Sheikh Maqsoud and wounded two children, and that shelling in the nearby Bani Zaid neighborhood killed a woman and wounded dozens. There was no mention of those incidents in state media.At Aleppos Al-Razi Hospital, which received some of the wounded, Ahmad Abu Sheikh was waiting to see his 4-year-old daughter, Fatima, who was on the operating table for hours after being hit by shrapnel from a shell. He said she lost her eye.I just want to know what can I tell my daughter when I see her? Where did her eye go? he said.Afrin Jawan, a civil society activist in Sheikh Maqsoud, said in a message that thousands of civilians were besieged in Kurdish neighborhoods and subjected to indiscriminate shelling with all types of heavy and medium weapons ... by factions affiliated with the Ministry of Defense in Damascus. The predominantly Kurdish neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud and Achrafieh in Aleppo have seen intermittent clashes in recent months. Previous rounds of fighting ended with truce agreements.By Tuesday evening, a tense calm had returned, but clashes flared up again within hours.Difficulty in absorbing Kurdish forcesThe SDF has tens of thousands of fighters and is the main force to be absorbed into Syrias military. The leadership in Damascus under interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa signed a deal in March with the SDF, which controls much of the northeast, for it to merge with the Syrian army by the end of 2025. There have been disagreements on how it would happen. In April, scores of SDF fighters left Sheikh Maqsoud and Achrafieh as part of the deal.Officials from the central government and SDF met again Sunday in Damascus, but government officials said no tangible progress had been made.Some of the factions that make up the new Syrian army, formed after the fall of former President Bashar Assad in a rebel offensive in December 2024, were previously Turkish-backed insurgent groups that have a long history of clashing with Kurdish forces. The SDF for years has been the main U.S. partner in Syria in fighting against the Islamic State group, but Turkey considers the SDF a terrorist organization because of its association with the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which has waged a long-running insurgency in Turkey. A peace process is now underway.The SDF and Syrias government have accused each other of seeking to derail the March agreement.The SDF organization once again proves that it does not recognize the March 10 Agreement and is trying to derail it and drag the army into an open battle of its choosing, Syrias Defense Ministry said in a statement Tuesday.The SDF said government forces had committed a blatant violation of international humanitarian law by targeting residential neighborhoods. It called the attacks planned and deliberate, systematically targeting infrastructure and essential services, including water and electricity.

We start this week with Matthews story about an organization tracking the location of AI data centers around the U.S. and elsewhere in the world. After the break, Jason tells us all about what Grok got up to over the holiday break, and we ruminate on what the breakdown in the information ecosystem means. In the subscribers-only section, we talk about how we bought404media.com!Listen to the weekly podcast onApple Podcasts,Spotify, orYouTube. Become a paid subscriber for access to this episode's bonus content and to power our journalism.If you become a paid subscriber, check your inbox for an email from our podcast host Transistor for a link to the subscribers-only version! You can also add that subscribers feed to your podcast app of choice and never miss an episode that way. The email should also contain the subscribers-only unlisted YouTube link for the extended video version too. It will also be in the show notes in your podcast player. Timestamps:1:38 -Researchers Are Hunting America for Hidden Datacenters25:58 -Grok's AI CSAM ShitshowSubscriber's Story:We Bought404media.com

Nature, Published online: 07 January 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-04028-xWorld-making tips and tricks.

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The post Study Finds Increased Demand Among Gen Z For Non-Alcoholic Fathers appeared first on The Onion.

WASHINGTONSaying the changes would empower Americans to make more informed decisions about their familys health, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Wednesday that he had scaled back the departments childhood mortality schedule. For too long, the U.S. government has imposed strict and unnecessary guidelines about whether or not our nations children should survive past infancy, said Kennedy, adding that parents deserved the right to choose whether or not their offspring died at a young age of preventable disease. The truth is, no parent should be forced to watch their child live a healthy life and avoid contracting RSV, the flu, rotavirus, hepatitisA, hepatitis B, or bacterial meningitis. America is a developed nation. Theres no reason for anyone to live past 35. Kennedy added that if Americans still wanted to watch their children survive well into adulthood, they should consult with a physician and think deeply about the risks.The post RFK Jr. Scales Back Childhood Mortality Schedule appeared first on The Onion.

WASHINGTONCutting off a top security advisor mid-speech as he eagerly posed his question, President Donald Trump reportedly interrupted a briefing Tuesday to ask officials from the National Intelligence Council whether God was real. So what do we know about Him? Are there any photos? said a quizzical Trump, adding that he brought the matter up to multiple directors of national intelligence during his previous administration but never received a satisfying answer. Lets just cut to the chase here: big guy in heaven. Is He real or not? And if so, have we made contact? You know, theres a very smart boy who died and says heaven is for realdoes the CIA have any files on him? Who here knows? I want every document we have on God released immediately. At press time, members of the U.S. Intelligence Community were reportedly reassuring Trump that God was real, He had lots of money, and they would immediately look into suing Him for $200 million.The post Trump Asks National Intelligence Point-Blank If God Real appeared first on The Onion.

INDIANAPOLISDusting off the kinetic sand from his hands as he walked with his head held high toward the exit, 34-year-old area man Benjamin Schrock reportedly told visitors and staff of Discovery Zone Childrens Museum on Tuesday that he knows when hes not welcome. Ive been around the block, but never in my adult life have I experienced so many hostile glares when simply trying to splash in the sensory water playground, make Spirograph art, or dig for fossils in the dino tub, Shrock said with an audible lump in his throat as he recounted being made to feel strange and othered when he spent an hour milking a cow statues rubber udders in the interactive barnyard exhibit. That sign saying All are welcome above the front desk? Rich. Its funny how a place ostensibly meant to spark curiosity could be so ignorant toward an adult man who happens to enjoy hands-on activities designed for learning through play. Once I get back the ziplock bag full of quarters I paid for my ticket with, trust me, I will gladly be on my way. Now if youll excuse me, I believe Im owed at least one turn on the big fire truck. At press time, Shrock said he was dismayed to report feeling even greater undue hostility after he was removed from a bouncy house at the indoor inflatable play center.The post Area Man Knows When He Not Welcome In Childrens Museum appeared first on The Onion.

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Developers making mods and plugins for hentai games and sex toys say Github recently unleashed a wave of suspensions and bans against their repositories, and the platform hasnt explained why.Developers I spoke to said the community estimated around 80 to 90 repositories containing the work of 40 to 50 people went down recently, with many becoming inaccessible around late November and early December. Many of the affected accounts are part of the modding community for games made by the now-defunct Japanese video game studio Illusion, which made popular games with varying degrees of erotic content. One of the accounts Github banned contained the work of more than 30 contributors in more than 40 repositories, according to members of the modding community that I spoke to. Github didnt tell most suspended users what terms they broke to earn a suspension or ban, and developers told me they have no idea why their accounts went down without notice. They said they thought they were within Githubs acceptable use guidelines; even though they make mods for hentai games and things like interactive vibrator plugins, they took care to not host anything explicit directly in their repositories.Do you have something to share about what's going on at Github? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at sam.404. Otherwise, send me an email at sam@404media.co.Amongst my repositories there were no explicitly sexual names or images anywhere in the code or the readme, the most suggestive naming would be on the level of referencing the dick as the men thing or referencing the sex as huffing puffing, one developer, Danil Zverev, told me. He makes plugins for an Illusion game called Koikatsu. Zverev said hes been using Github for this purpose since 2024, but on November 18, his Github page was completely deleted, he said. No notifications anywhere, simply a 404 error when accessing the page and inability to log in on the web or in the mobile app. Also it does not allow me to register a new account with the same name or email.Github updated its acceptable use policies in October 2025 to forbid sexually themed or suggestive content that serves little or no purpose other than to solicit an erotic or shocking response, particularly where that content is amplified by its placement in profiles or other social contexts. This include pornographic content and graphic depictions of sexual acts including photographs, video, animation, drawings, computer-generated images, or text-based content, according to the terms.We recognize that not all nudity or content related to sexuality is obscene. We may allow visual and/or textual depictions in artistic, educational, historical or journalistic contexts, or as it relates to victim advocacy, Github's terms of use state. In some cases a disclaimer can help communicate the context of the project. However, please understand that we may choose to limit the content by giving users the option to opt in before viewing.The Anti-Porn Crusade That Censored Steam and Itch.io Started 30 Years AgoKeywords and tags have never been a useful metric for distilling nuance. Pushing for regulations based on them is repeating a 30-year history of porn panic online.404 MediaSamantha ColeZverev said he didnt write to support because he sees such effort as fruitless and would rather move on to a different platform instead. But even Github users who did try to get help from the platforms support hit dead ends.A developer who goes by VerDevin, who makes Blender modding guides, utility tools and plugins for a game called Custom Order Maid 3D2, told me in an email that users of his mods started reporting difficulty accessing his repositories starting in late October. At that point, he could still access their account while logged in, but not when logged out.Turned out, as you already know, that my account was signaled and I had to purposefully go to the report section of Github to learn about it. I never received any notifications, by mail or otherwise, VerDevin told me. At that point I sent a ticket asking politely for clarifications and the proceedings for reinstatement.Github Trust & Safety replied with a generic message: If you agree to abide by our Terms of Service going forward, please reply to this email and provide us more information on how you hope to use GitHub in the future. At that time we will continue our review of your request for reinstatement.VerDevin said they replied the following day, agreeing to the terms and promising to remove whatever Github deemed inappropriateinformation the platform still hadnt given them. I did not take actual steps toward it as at that point I still didn't know what was reproach of me, they said.A month passed before Github replied. Your account was actioned due to violation of the following prohibition found in our Acceptable Use Policies: Specifically, the content or activity that was reported included multiple sexually explicit content in repositories, which we found to be in violation of our Acceptable Use Policies, Github wrote to VerDevin.At that point I took down several repositories that might qualify as an attempt to show good faith (like a plugin named COM3D2.Interlewd), they said. Github restored his account on December 17several weeks later, the day after I sent them a link to his account asking why it was bannedbut they still havent heard anything about what specific content caused it to be actioned.Github did not respond to my multiple requests for comment about why these accounts were banned. I sent Githubs press team links to several banned accounts, and they reinstated a few, but didnt provide a reason or reply when I asked what caused the bans in the first place.The situation is illustrative of a longstanding problem on almost every platform: the terms of use, especially when it comes to adult content, are applied confusingly and sporadically. The affected repositories represent tools used by potentially hundreds of thousands of gamers; the English Koikatsu modding Discord community alone has more than 350,000 members. A developer who goes by Sauceke, who Github suspended in mid-November without explanation, said their open-source adult toy mod users are now encountering broken links or simply cant find any of their work.Perhaps most frustratingly, all of the tickets, pull requests, past release builds and changelogs are gone, because those things are not part of Git (the version control system), Sauceke told me. So even if someone had the foresight to make mirrors before the ban (as I did), those mirrors would only keep up with the code changes, not these extra things that are pretty much vital to our work.Github reinstated Saucekes account on Tuesday, following another request for comment from me asking why anyone was bannedseven weeks after initially suspending them. Github support sent them a message: Thank you for the information you have provided. Sorry for the time taken to get back to you. We really do appreciate your patience. Sometimes our abuse detecting systems highlight accounts that need to be manually reviewed. We've cleared the restrictions from your account, so you have full access to GitHub again.But even as Github reinstates accounts, pieces of users repos are missing. In Saucekes account and others, including in the IllusionMods repo, all releases are hidden. This makes the releases both inaccessible to users and impossible to migrate to other sites without some tedious work, Sauceke said.Github is the biggest open-source platform for developers, and especially for adult content creators who are often censored or marginalized elsewhere, discoverability on that platform is important. It's the best place to build a community, to find like-minded people who dig your stuff and want to collaborate, Sauceke said. If the banning spree goes beyond hentai game and toy modders, they said, it might push developers to explore other platforms. Some have already migrated their repos to GitGoon, an open-source platform specifically for adult developers, or Codeberg, Berlin-based nonprofit-run site similar to Github.

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For the past two months Ive been following a Telegram community tricking Grok into generating nonconsensual sexual images and videos of real people with increasingly convoluted methods.As countless images on X over the last week once again showed us, it doesnt take much to get Elon Musks based AI model to create nonconsensual images. As Jason wrote Monday, all users have to do is reply to an image of a woman and ask Grok to put a bikini on her, and it will reply with that image, even if the person in the photograph is a minor. As I reported back in May, people also managed to create nonconsensual nudes by replying to images posted to X and asking Grok to remove her clothes.These issues are bad enough, but on Telegram, a community of thousands are working around the clock to make Grok produce far worse. They share Grok-generated videos of real women taking their clothes off and graphic nonconsensual videos of any kind of sexual act these users can imagine and slip by Groks guardrails, including blowjobs, penetration, choking, and bondage. The channel, which has shut down and regrouped a couple of times over the last two years, focuses on jailbreaking all kinds of AI tools in order to create nonconsensual media, but since November has focused on Grok almost exclusively.The channel has also noticed the media attention Grok got for nonconsensual images lately, and is worried that it will end the good times members have had creating nonconsensual media with Grok for months.Too many people using grok under girls post are gonna destroy grok fakes. Should be done in private groups, one member of the Telegram channel wrote last week.Musk always conceived of Grok as a more permissive, maximally based competitor to chatbots like OpenAIs ChatGPT. But despite repeatedly allowing nonconsensual content to be generated and go viral on the social media platform it's integrated with, the conversations in the Telegram channel and sophistication of the bypasses shared there are proof that Grok does have limits and policies it wants to enforce. The Telegram channel is a record of the cat and mouse game between Grok and this community of jailbreakers, showing how Grok fails to stop them over and over again, and that Grok doesnt appear to have the means or the will to stop its AI model from producing the nonconsensual content it is fundamentally capable of producing.The jailbreakers initially used primitive methods on Grok and other AI image generators, like writing text prompts that dont include any terms that obviously describe abusive content and that can be automatically detected and stopped at the point the prompt is presented to the AI model, before the image is generated. This usually means misspelling the names of celebrities and describing sexual acts without using any explicit terms. This is how users infamously created nonconsensual nude images of Taylor Swift with Microsofts Designer (which were also viral on X). Many generative AI tools still fall for this trick until we find its being abused and report on it.Having mostly exhausted this strategy with Grok, the Telegram channel now has far more complicated bypasses. Most of them rely on the image-to-image generation feature, meaning providing an existing image to the AI tool and editing it with a prompt. This is a much more difficult feature for AI companies to moderate because it requires using machine vision to moderate the user-provided image, as opposed to filtering out specific names or terms, which is the common method for moderating text-to-image AI generations.Without going into too much detail, some of the successful methods Ive seen members of the Telegram channels share include creating collages of non-explicit images of real people and nude images of other people and combining them with certain prompts, generating nude or almost nude images of people with prompts that hide nipples or genitalia, describing certain fluids or facial expressions without using any explicit terms, and editing random elements into images, which apparently confuses Groks moderation methods.X has not responded to multiple requests for comment about this channel since December 8, but to be fair, its clear that despite Elon Musks vice signaling and the fact that this type of abuse is repeatedly generated with Grok and shared on X, the company doesnt want users to create at least some of this media and is actively trying to stop it. This is clear because of the cycle that emerges on the Telegram channel: One user finds a method for producing a particularly convincing and lurid AI-generated sexual video of a real person, sometimes importing it from a different online community like 4chan, and shares it with the group. Other users then excitedly flood the channel with their own creations using the same method. Then some users start reporting Grok is blocking their generations for violating its policies, until finally users decide Grok has closed the loophole and the exploit is dead. Some time goes by, a new user shares a new method, and the cycle begins anew.Ive started and stopped writing a story about a few of these cycles several times and eventually decided not to because by the time I was finished reporting the story Grok had fixed the loophole. Its now clear that the problem with Grok is not any particular method, but that overall, so far, Grok is losing this game of whack-a-mole badly.This dynamic, between how tech companies imagine their product will function in the real world and how it actually works once users get their hands on it, is nothing new. Some amount of policy violating or illegal content is going to slip through the cracks on any social media platform, no matter how good its moderation is.Its good and correct for people to be shocked and upset when they wake up one morning and see that their X feed is flooded with AI-generated images of minors in bikinis, but what is clear to me from following this Telegram community for a couple of years now is that nonconsensual sexual images of real people, including minors, is the cost of doing business with AI image generators. Some companies do a better job of preventing this abuse than others, but judging by the exploits I see on Telegram, when it comes to Grok, this problem will get a lot worse before it gets better.

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The specter of welfare fraud haunted Democrats under Reagan. It could do so again.

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Fruit are displayed at Iovine Brothers Produce in Philadelphia, May 29, 2007. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)2026-01-07T16:34:51Z Americans should eat more whole foods and protein, fewer highly processed foods and less added sugar, according to the latest edition of federal nutrition advice released Wednesday by the Trump administration.Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins issued the 2025-2030 U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which offer updated recommendations for a healthy diet and provide the foundation for federal nutrition programs and policies. They come as Kennedy has for months stressed overhauling the U.S. food supply as part of his Make America Healthy Again agenda. Our message is clear: Eat real food, Kennedy told reporters at a White House briefing. The guidelines emphasize consumption of fresh vegetables, whole grains and dairy products, long advised as part of a healthy eating plan. But they also take a new stance on highly processed foods, and refined carbohydrates, urging consumers to avoid packaged, prepared, ready-to-eat or other foods that are salty or sweet, such as chips, cookies and candy. Thats a different term for ultraprocessed foods, the super-tasty, energy-dense products that make up more than half of the calories in the U.S. diet and have been linked to chronic diseases such as diabetes and obesity. The new guidance backs away from revoking long-standing advice to limit saturated fats, despite signals from Kennedy and Food and Drug Commissioner Marty Makary that the administration would push for more consumption of animal fats to end the war on saturated fats. Instead, the document suggests that Americans should choose whole-food sources of saturated fat such as meat, whole-fat dairy or avocados while continuing to limit saturated fat consumption to no more than 10% of daily calories. The guidance says other options can include butter or beef tallow, despite previous recommendations to avoid those fats. Guidelines were due for an updateThe dietary guidelines, required by law to be updated every five years, provide a template for a healthy diet. But in a country where more than half of adults have a diet-related chronic disease, few Americans actually follow the guidance, research shows. The new recommendations drew praise from some prominent nutrition experts. There should be broad agreement that eating more whole foods and reducing highly processed carbohydrates is a major advance in how we approach diet and health, said Dr. David Kessler, a former FDA commissioner who has written books about diet and nutrition and has sent a petition to the FDA to remove key ingredients in ultraprocessed foods. Others expressed relief after worrying that the guidelines would go against decades of nutrition evidence linking saturated fat to higher LDL or bad cholesterol and heart disease. I guess whoever is writing these had to admit that the science hasnt changed, said Marion Nestle, a nutritionist and food policy expert who advised previous editions of the guidelines. They havent changed in any fundamental way except for the emphasis on eating whole foods. The new document is just 10 pages, upholding Kennedys pledge to create a simple, understandable guideline. Previous editions of the dietary guidelines have grown over the years, from a 19-page pamphlet in 1980 to the 164-page document issued in 2020, which included a four-page executive summary. The guidance will have the most profound effect on the federally funded National School Lunch Program, which is required to follow the guidelines to feed nearly 30 million U.S. children on a typical school day. The Agriculture Department will have to translate the recommendations into specific requirements for school meals, a process that can take years, said Diane Pratt-Heavner, spokesperson for the School Nutrition Association. The latest school nutrition standards were proposed in 2023 but wont be fully implemented until 2027, she noted. Science advisers didnt make ultraprocessed food recommendationsThe new guidelines skip the advice of a 20-member panel of nutrition experts, who met for nearly two years to review the latest scientific evidence on diet and health. That panel didnt make recommendations about ultraprocessed food. Although a host of studies have showed links between ultraprocessed foods and poor health outcomes, the nutrition experts had concerns with the quality of the research reviewed and the certainty that those foods, and not other factors, were the cause of the problems.The recommendations on highly processed foods drew cautiously positive reactions. The FDA and the Agriculture Department are already working on a definition of ultraprocessed foods, but its expected to take time. Not all highly processed foods are unhealthy, said Dr. David Ludwig, an endocrinologist and researcher at Boston Childrens Hospital. I think the focus should be on highly processed carbohydrates, he said, noting that processing of protein or fats can be benign or even helpful. More protein recommendedThe guidelines made a few other notable changes, including a call to potentially double protein consumption. The previous recommended dietary allowance called for 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight about 54 grams daily for a 150-pound person. The new recommendation is 1.2 to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. An average American man consumes about 100 grams of protein per day, or about twice the previously recommended limit. Its not clear what evidence supported the change, but Ludwig said the earlier recommendation was the minimum amount needed to prevent protein deficiency and higher amounts of protein might be beneficial. I think a moderate increase in protein to help displace the processed carbohydrates makes sense, he said.The guidelines advise avoiding or sharply limiting added sugars or non-nutritive sweeteners, saying no amount is considered part of a healthy diet. No one meal should contain more than 10 grams of added sugars, or about 2 teaspoons, the new guidelines say. Previous federal guidelines recommended limiting added sugars to less than 10% of daily calories or people older than 2, but to aim for less. Thats about 12 teaspoons a day in a 2,000-calorie daily diet. Children younger than 2 should have no added sugars at all, the older guidance said. In general, most Americans consume about 17 teaspoons of added sugars per day, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Alcohol limits removedThe new guidelines roll back previous recommendations to limit alcohol to 1 drink or less per day for women and 2 drinks or less per day for men. Instead, the guidance advises Americans to consume less alcohol for better health. They also say that alcohol should be avoided by pregnant women, people recovering from alcohol use disorder and those who are unable to control the amount they drink.___The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. JONEL ALECCIA Aleccia covers food and nutrition at The Associated Press. She is based in Southern California. twitter mailto

Education Secretary Linda McMahon speaks with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)2026-01-07T16:46:00Z WASHINGTON (AP) The Trump administration is giving Iowa more power to decide how it spends its federal education money, signing off on a proposal that is expected to be the first of many as conservative states seek new latitude from a White House promising to return education to the states.Iowa was the first state to apply for an exemption from certain spending rules after Education Secretary Linda McMahon invited states to request the flexibility last year. Such waivers have been offered for years but are finding new interest as Trump officials leverage all available tools to remove the federal government from local education.McMahon formally approved Iowas plan Wednesday at an event in the state. Indiana and Kansas have also applied to be exempted from certain parts of federal education law, and leaders of other states have expressed interest. McMahon told The Associated Press that the new flexibility will free up time and money now devoted to ensuring compliance with federal rules. With fewer strings attached, states can pool their federal dollars toward priorities of their choosing, including literacy or teacher training, she said. We are eliminating that sort of, not bottleneck, but that additional compliance for the states, and thats just going to be incredibly helpful to the state, McMahon said.Its not going to have go through the Department of Education, and its going to flow directly more to the states, McMahon said. Iowas newly approved waiver applies primarily to education money used by the states education agency, not the larger sums of money that flow to the states more than 300 public school districts.Under the arrangement, federal money from four programs aimed at teacher training, English learners, after-school programs and academic enrichment will be pooled into a single pot with fewer limits on how it is spent. Iowas plan will merge about $9.5 million over the course of the waiver, which runs through September 2028. How much goes toward one purpose versus another is up to state officials. Iowa said it will save about $8 million in staff time that went toward making sure that spending complied with regulations.The state will be required to show that it is still meeting the spirit of the federal laws behind each funding source.Known as block grants, that funding model is a longtime dream of conservatives who say money from the federal government comes with too many strings attached. Opponents say block grants would allow states to redirect money away from the students who most need the federal aid, including low-income students and English learners, and toward Republican priorities. Democrats in Congress urged McMahon to reject block grant requests in a letter in May, saying it would fail the very students these provisions aim to support.The waiver approved for Iowa is far narrower than one initially proposed by the state in March. That one asked McMahon to combine 10 funding sources into a single block grant, both for the states education agency and for the states school districts. The early proposal requested flexibility for programs including Title I, which sends more than $100 million to Iowa schools with large shares of low-income students. Iowas new plan leaves Title I funding untouched.Education Department officials said Iowas new plan reflects the flexibility that can be granted under existing law. McMahon has separately asked Congress to pass a budget that would combine much of the nations federal education funding into a single block grant. Her proposal would zero out the four spending programs being consolidated in Iowa.In her formal approval, McMahon called Iowas plan a first-in-the-nation proposal to return education to the States by providing common-sense flexibility, within the letter of and while maintaining the spirit of Federal law. The waivers are the latest example of the Republican administration using the tools of federal bureaucracy in its mission to dismantle the Education Department. It is not uncommon for states to apply for waivers from the law because Congress created the exemption to give states flexibility with initiatives that advance academic achievement. Yet it is never been used so openly as a way to cede federal authority to states.McMahon has separately used a federal procedure to outsource much of her agencys work to other departments, using interagency agreements typically reserved for smaller tasks.Trump has promised to close the Education Department, saying it had become overrun by liberal thinking. Only Congress has the power to eliminate the agency, but Trump has directed McMahon to wind it down as far as legally possible. She has halved its staff and is offloading some of its biggest grant programs to other agencies.Opponents have fought her in court every step of the way, but the Supreme Court ruled in July that the dismantling work can continue.___The Associated Press education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find APs standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. COLLIN BINKLEY Binkley covers the U.S. Education Department and federal education policy for The Associated Press, along with a wide range of issues from K-12 through higher education. twitter mailto

Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, shakes hands with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro during their meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, May 7, 2025, ahead of celebrations of the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany during the World War II. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, file)2026-01-07T15:55:12Z The lightning U.S. operation to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro can be seen as both a benefit and a burden for Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose forces botched an attempt to capture Ukraines capital and topple its leader at the start of Moscows invasion nearly four years ago.The ouster of Maduro highlights another Kremlin failure to support an ally, following the downfall of Syrias former President Bashar Assad in 2024 and last years U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran. With the U.S. determined to establish control over Venezuela, Russia stands to lose a strategic foothold in the Western Hemisphere, along with billions of dollars invested in its oil industry.But President Donald Trumps actions in Venezuela also are causing unease in Western nations and giving the Kremlin fresh talking points to defend its war in Ukraine. In addition, Trumps interest in wresting control of Greenland from NATO ally Denmark also threatens to destabilize the alliance at the moment when the U.S.-led efforts to broker peace in Ukraine enter a pivotal stage, distracting its members from their efforts to support Kyiv and provide it with security guarantees. Putin himself hasnt commented on the U.S. actions in Venezuela, which his diplomats have denounced as a blatant act of aggression. Dmitry Medvedev, Russias former president who serves as his deputy on the presidential Security Council, similarly rebuked Washington for trampling international law but also complimented Trump on defending U.S. interests. Even though Trumps action is completely unlawful, he cannot be denied a certain consistency -- he and his team are very aggressively upholding their countrys national interests, Medvedev said.On Wednesday, the U.S. said it seized two sanctioned oil tankers linked to Venezuela, including one flagged to Russia in the North Atlantic. Moscows spheres of influenceSince 2014s illegal annexation of Ukraines Crimean Peninsula that followed the ouster of a pro-Kremlin president in Kyiv, Putin has sought to justify his action by describing his neighbor as part of Russias sphere of influence where Western encroachment cant be allowed.Putin has argued that just as the U.S. would bristle at any foreign military presence in the Western Hemisphere, Russia sees NATOs expansion to its borders as a major security threat. He cited Ukraines bid to join the military alliance as a key reason behind his full-scale invasion of the country.We have made it clear and unambiguous that further eastward expansion of NATO is unacceptable, Putin said shortly before sending troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Are we the ones placing missiles near the U.S. borders? No, its the U.S. that has brought its missiles to our doorstep.Long before the invasion, Russia tested the ground on a possible deal under which it would refrain from meddling in Latin America in exchange for the U.S. offering Moscow free rein in Europe.Fiona Hill, who oversaw Russia and Europe on Trumps National Security Council during his first term, testified before Congress in 2019 that the Russians were signaling their willingness to make such an arrangement involving Venezuela and Ukraine. Russia never made a formal offer, Hill told The Associated Press in an interview, but Moscows then-ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, hinted ... many times to her that Russia could cede its influence in Venezuela to the U.S. in exchange for a sphere of influence in Europe.She said Trumps administration wasnt interested in the Russian overtures that she described as a hint-hint, nudge-nudge, wink-wink, how-about-doing-a-deal offer. In April 2019, Hill was sent to Moscow to convey the message that nobodys interested. ... Ukraine and Venezuela are not related to each other.Hill said she did not know if the winds have now changed and whether there was any deal between the U.S. and Russia to swap spheres of influence in Venezuela and Ukraine, but she noted that many officials, including herself, who were involved in restraining Trump in his first term arent around for his second. She argued that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio would likely be the only member of the Trump administration who would now resist such a proposal, but added that others, including Trump envoy Steve Witkoff, could have a different view.Who knows what Witkoff and others have been chatting about recently? Hill asked.Before Maduro was captured, AP reported Russia had started evacuating families of diplomats from Venezuela. When asked about the move, Hill said it would not be implausible that Witkoff gave Moscow a courtesy heads-up.Sam Greene, a Russia expert at Kings College London, observed that Moscow may have backed down on Venezuela in the expectation of the U.S. giving it a free hand on Ukraine.My worry is that it may be part of a tacit agreement, by which Washington, Moscow and Beijing agree not to deter one another against interventions in their putative spheres of influence, he wrote on X. Russias foothold in Western HemisphereBefore the invasion of Ukraine, senior Russian officials had issued vague warnings that Moscow could deploy troops or military assets to Cuba and Venezuela statements that the U.S. dismissed as bluster. Some drew parallels to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis when the Soviet Union deployed missiles to Cuba and the U.S. imposed a naval blockade of the island.Russian-Cuban ties withered after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, plunging Cuba into a grueling depression. Soon after his first election in 2000, Putin ordered the closure of a Soviet-built military surveillance facility in Cuba as he sought to improve ties with Washington. As tensions with the U.S. and its allies mounted, however, Moscow again intensified trade and other contacts with Cuba and sent warships to visit the island.Russia also has invested heavily in Venezuelas oil industry, as did China, and offered Caracas generous loans to purchase top-of-the-line air defense missiles, fighter jets and other weapons. On several occasions, most recently in 2018, it dispatched its nuclear-capable Tu-160 bombers to Venezuela in a projection of force.Military experts have said, however, that any attempt by Russia to establish a permanent military foothold in the Western Hemisphere would face overwhelming logistical challenges.The might-makes-right doctrineThe U.S. seizure of Maduro and his wife was seen worldwide as the return of the might- makes-right doctrine, backing Moscows argument that its action in Ukraine protects its vital interests the way the U.S. did in Venezuela.After its action in Venezuela, the U.S. has nothing to formally reproach our country for, Medvedev noted.Hill noted that Maduros capture makes it harder for countries to condemn Russias action in Ukraine because weve just had a situation where the U.S. has taken over or at least decapitated the government of another country using fiction.An indictment accuses Maduro and others of working with drug cartels to facilitate the shipment of thousands of tons of cocaine into the U.S.Fyodor Lukyanov, a Kremlin-connected, Moscow-based foreign policy expert, observed that if we consider whats happening from the perspective of setting a precedent, then we couldnt ask for anything better, and this includes Trumps conviction that the authorities in Venezuela must be approved by Washington.Russian hawks, meanwhile, argue the U.S. action in Venezuela has created a new sense of urgency for Moscow to dramatically speed up its offensive in Ukraine.Ukraine under our full control is our pass to the Great Powers club, Alexander Dugin, a hard-line nationalist ideologue, wrote in a commentary.___AP European Security Correspondent Emma Burrows in London contributed.

Vivek Ramaswamy speaks during Turning Point USA's AmericaFest 2025, Friday, Dec. 19, 2025, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)2026-01-07T11:02:05Z COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) In Ohios closely watched race for governor, Republican entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and Democratic former health chief Amy Acton rolled out their picks for running mate on Wednesday, announcing a seasoned conservative lawmaker for him and a pragmatic former party chair for her.Ramaswamy tapped Ohio Senate President Rob McColley while Acton chose former state Democratic Chair David Pepper. The current Republican Gov. Mike DeWine cannot run for reelection because of term limits.Ramaswamy, a billionaire biotech executive from Cincinnati, said he wanted a partner who understands legislating and can help charge ahead on an aggressive agenda. Rob is a proven conservative leader, and he is committed to my vision to make the American Dream a reality for every Ohioan, Ramaswamy said. McColley, 41, was first elected to the Ohio House of Representatives in 2014 before being appointed to the Senate to fill a vacancy in December 2017. Acton, a physician who helped lead Ohios early pandemic response, said Peppers track record as a problem-solver at the local level will serve as an asset to her campaign. She confirmed her selection of Pepper to The Associated Press ahead of their first public appearance together Wednesday. Ive been going everywhere and listening deeply for almost two years now, and people are longing for public servants again who solve the problems of our everyday life, Acton said in an interview. Pepper, 54, the son of a former Procter & Gamble CEO, is a lawyer, writer and former member of the Cincinnati City Council and the Hamilton County Commission in his hometown.Pepper spearheaded a foreclosure prevention program, introduced a prescription drug discount program for county residents, led an earned income tax credit initiative, balanced the budget and held the line on property taxes, according to the campaign.Pepper said he sees economic similarities between his time in county office during the Great Recession and now.Im really looking forward to taking that experience of working across party lines because, back then, thats how you did things and applying that statewide, he said. JULIE CARR SMYTH Smyth covers government and politics from Columbus, Ohio, for The Associated Press. She was part of the AP team honored as a finalist for the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in breaking news. twitter mailto RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

Nature, Published online: 07 January 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-09908-wThe anterior cingulate cortex encodes affective pain behaviours modulated by opioids; targeting opioid-sensitive neurons through a new chemogenetic gene therapy replicates the analgesic effects of morphine, providing precise chronic pain relief without affecting sensory detection.

Nature, Published online: 07 January 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-09915-xDivision of embryonic cells with an incomplete contractile ring occurs by a ratchet mechanism with repeated cycles of cytoplasmic stiffening, which stabilizes the contractile actin band, and fluidization, which enables band ingression.

Nature, Published online: 07 January 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-09948-2Inspired by dynamic textural modulation in cephalopod skin, polymer films whose colour and surface texture can be dynamically and independently controlled are developed and demonstrated using standard electron-beam patterning tools.