A decade ago, drones seemed to be just the latest toy on the market. Who knew then that they would become AI-powered killing machines? AI-powered drones, referred to as autonomous weapons, identify and fire at targets based on information gathered by artificial intelligence. The fully autonomous models do not require human input before shooting a combatant. Low-cost drones have changed the character, economics, and speed of war. AI is being used by the military to pinpoint locations, prioritize their importance, and evaluate whether the targeting is lethal. This shortens the amount of time between a target being identified and struck,…

All week, I have seen nothing but online chatter surrounding the very new and now very gone White House press secretary Katie Zacharia. Zacharia started her first day as the new press secretary last Monday, replacing Karoline Leavitt. Five days later, however, it was announced that she had left the position, which makes her the shortest-tenured White House press secretary in US history. Before becoming White House press secretary, Zacharia was the former spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security and the Senior Communications Advisor at Trump Media & Technology Group, the organization that owns Truth Social. She has also…

There is already a lot of controversy surrounding the death penalty. Some see it as the ultimate act of retribution, while others question the idea of institutionalized slaughter. This discourse gets even more complicated when someone survives the execution. Convicted murderer Christa Pike survived two doses of lethal injection on September 30th. Pike was released from the hospital Saturday back to Deborah K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center a week after her botched execution. She is the only person known to have survived an execution attempt in the US. Pike reportedly was “crying, whimpering, and breathing loudly” and stated that her arm…

Last Friday, Trump tried to institute a media ban against CNN, MSNOW, and Politico, refusing them entry to the White House. Now, CNN has been blocked from Air Force One. This is one of the greatest threats we have seen to the First Amendment rights by this administration. Though the Trump administration and the Justice Department claim this decision was made after threats to national security, Trump’s initial Truth Social posts cited different reasons: “It’s sick. I mean, there’s something wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negative stuff. Now, if they want to write them,…

Flickr Artificial Intelligence (AI) is advancing too fast and has a 10% chance of killing us by the end of the decade. Or at least that’s the warning that Anthropic team lead Evan Hubinger gave on X last week, and he’s not alone. The chief executives of Anthropic, OpenAI, and Tesla—Dario Amodei, Sam Altman, and Elon Musk, respectively—plus the chair of Google Deep Mind, Demis Hassabis, have all called for the slowdown of AI development. “Controlling something more capable and more intelligent than all of humanity is already an immense challenge, far greater than anything we’ve ever faced,” said Mutesa…

This was an awful time for feminist leader Gloria Steinem to die. As Steinem herself said, modern women’s rights issues feel “both new and angering and ancient” Steinem worked for years as a journalist and activist covering women’s issues, particularly reproductive rights. She founded multiple media and activist organizations that advocated for women, which eventually led to her earning the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013. Steinem was born in 1934 in Toledo, Ohio. After her parents divorced when she was 10, the responsibility fell on her to take care of her mentally ill mother. After high school, Steinem attended Smith…