Lebanon
Israeli drones strike Lebanon despite US-brokered framework deal
What is Lebanon's Beaufort Castle? Why is Israel attacking Nabatieh? Two people have been injured in an Israeli drone strike on a pick-up truck in southern Lebanon, according to state-run media, the latest attack despite a United States-brokered framework agreement intended to pave the way for a phased Israeli withdrawal. The drone struck the vehicle as it was unloading garbage on the outskirts of the towns of Choukine and Kfar Dajjal in the Nabatieh district early on Friday, Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA) said. Later, NNA reported drones also targeted the towns of Kfar Reman and Nabatieh al-Fawqa.
Lina Ghotmeh, Riding Solo
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'There's this deep mystery of what, actually, is this thing?': the philosopher inside Google DeepMind
'There's this deep mystery of what, actually, is this thing?': the philosopher inside Google DeepMind AI Since 2017, Iason Gabriel has worked at the tech giant, trying to anticipate - and think through - the impact of AI. But as commercial and geopolitical pressures escalate, can ethicists make any difference? In 2017, a 33-year-old political philosopher named Iason Gabriel was told by a friend that he ought to apply for a job at DeepMind, the London-based subsidiary of Google where much of its AI research was concentrated. The suggestion was not an obvious one. Gabriel was a cheerful but intense junior academic with a passion for Vipassana meditation and what his brother calls "enthusiastic" rock climbing. At the University of Oxford, where he was a fellow at St John's College, Gabriel taught courses on political theory and wrote papers on the moral contortions of "yuppie ethics" and the ethical blind spots of effective altruism. When he wasn't there, he did crisis work for the United Nations Development Programme in Sudan and Lebanon. DeepMind, meanwhile, was the world's leading AI research lab. In part, this was because it had the financial and computational backing of Google, which had bought the company in 2014 for $650m. In part, it was because DeepMind had recently shown it could put those resources to stunning use. In Seoul, in 2016, a DeepMind system called AlphaGo defeated Lee Sedol, a South Korean Go champion, in a five-game match. The victory was significant not least because of Go's legendary complexity; the game has more possible configurations than there are atoms in the universe. Thanks to the fuss around AlphaGo, Gabriel was aware of DeepMind.
Common Task Framework For a Critical Evaluation of Scientific Machine Learning Algorithms
Machine learning (ML) is transforming modeling and control in the physical, engineering, and biological sciences. However, rapid development has outpaced the creation of standardized, objective benchmarks--leading to weak baselines, reporting bias, and inconsistent evaluations across methods. This undermines reproducibility, misguides resource allocation, and obscures scientific progress. To address this, we develop a Common Task Framework (CTF) for scientific machine learning. The CTF features a curated set of datasets and task-specific metrics spanning forecasting, state reconstruction, and generalization under realistic constraints, including noise and limited data. Inspired by the success of CTFs in fields like natural language processing and computer vision, our framework provides a structured, rigorous foundation for head-to-head evaluation of diverse algorithms.
Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon kill three despite US-Iran deal
What is Lebanon's Beaufort Castle? Why is Israel attacking Nabatieh? Israeli air attacks on southern Lebanon have killed at least three people, Lebanese state media has reported, a day after the United States and Iran signed an interim agreement that called for an end to their war on all fronts, including Lebanon. Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA) reported on Thursday that an Israeli drone attack hit a car near the town of Kfar Tebnit, killing two people. NNA also reported that a strike carried out by an Israeli drone in the town of Beit Yahoun in the Nabatieh governorate wounded two people.
Israeli air strikes on Lebanon continue despite US-Iran deal
What is Lebanon's Beaufort Castle? Why is Israel attacking Nabatieh? Israeli air strikes have continued to target towns in southern Lebanon despite an agreement between the United States and Iran set to be formally signed on Friday to end the war on all fronts. Israeli drones carried out three attacks in Tyre that resulted in injuries while a drone also targeted the Bint Jbeil district in Nabatieh, Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said on Wednesday. Earlier on Wednesday, Al Jazeera correspondents on the ground reported that Israeli forces carried out an air strike on the outskirts of Kfar Tebnit, also in the Nabatieh district.
Israel launches fresh strikes on Lebanon despite Trump criticism
Israeli forces have carried out new strikes in southern Lebanon, state media say, despite renewed criticism from US President Donald Trump of Israel's actions in the country. Israeli drone strikes injured several people in Mansouri and Aaziyyeh on Wednesday, while jets attacked Nabatieh al-Fawqa and Kfar Tebnit, Lebanon's National News Agency reported. Israel's military has not commented, but it did say five soldiers were injured in a drone attack in Lebanon by the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah. Mediator Pakistan has said the deal between the US and Iran to end the war includes Lebanon. On Tuesday, Trump said Israel's prime minister needed to be more responsible with respect to Lebanon.