Armed with some Python and a white-hot sense of injustice, one medical student spent six months trying to figure out whether an algorithm trashed his job application. It was mid-October, peak leaf-peeping season in Hanover, New Hampshire, and Chad Markey was on a rare break between clinical rotations during his last year of medical school. He should have been inhaling Green Mountain air and gossiping with his Dartmouth classmates about life after graduation. In a few months, they'd all be going their separate ways to start residency training at hospitals around the country. Instead, Markey was alone in his apartment, deep down a rabbit hole, preparing to go to war. He'd wake each morning, eat breakfast, open his laptop at the kitchen table or settle into the tan armchair with the good back support, and start coding . Some days, he wouldn't notice the sun had gone down until one of his roommates came home and asked why the lights weren't on. For days, Markey had been scrolling through a Discord group about medical residency, a font of crowdsourced knowledge where students report back to their peers on every stage of the application and selection process. He'd watched as other students, lots of them, posted about the interview invitations they'd received.

How the data center boom plunged one small Pennsylvania town into chaos. Valley View Estates is set to be surrounded by data centers. Get your news from a source that's not owned and controlled by oligarchs. "I don't like to see anyone upset," said Nick Farris of Provident Real Estate Advisors. He was sitting in the front of a crowd of roughly 150 inside Valley View High School's auditorium in Archbald, a town of about 7,500, huddled between two mountain ranges in Pennsylvania's Lackawanna Valley. Farris was there to represent the developer for Project Scott, one of many data center campuses coming to town. "I think that this is the best data center site in this area of the country, by far." The audience had been fairly quiet, bundled in thick coats against the late January cold. But as Farris spoke about data centers as a boon for communities, they began to laugh, drawing a rebuke from town officials. "What about the children?" someone shouted from the crowd. The children were watching from the walls; long banners of Valley View Performing Arts students hanging around the auditorium like championship pennants. Project Scott and four other data facilities will sit just a few thousand feet from the middle and high schools. He was referring to Lockheed Martin's 350,000-square-foot Missiles and Fire Control facility directly next to the high school, parts of which are highly contaminated . "That sucks too!" another attendee yelled back.

Catastrophe brings a search for accountability. As fires wreak havoc in California, Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., claimed in a post on X the catastrophe is "what a climate emergency looks like." He took aim at President-elect Trump, asserting the incoming president has been bought off by the oil industry. "Trump has been bought for 1 billion by Big Oil. Just a payoff to kill the IRA and the Green New Deal. We know what will happen. The LA fires are preview of coming atrocities," Markey declared in a post on X. Markey, who claims there is a "climate crisis," has also warned about the potential effects of artificial intelligence (AI).

Fox News congressional correspondent Aishah Hasnie has more on the bipartisan effort to prevent AI overreach and the dangers of tech innovation on'Special Report.' The Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer has endorsed legislation that would keep artificial intelligence away from nuclear weapons. Kai Bird, a co-author of "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer" -- which serves as the main inspiration for Christopher Nolan's new film, "Oppenheimer," opening this weekend -- met with Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., on Thursday to discuss the intersecting threats of nuclear war and artificial intelligence. Markey is one of the sponsors of a bipartisan amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would prohibit AI from making nuclear launch decisions. During their meeting, Bird and Markey spoke about their shared concerns over emerging AI technologies and what guardrails are needed for their use in the national defense sector, as well as the risks of using nuclear weapons in South Asia and elsewhere.

Russell Wald, director of the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, sounds off on'The Story.' A Massachusetts Democrat is calling on the U.S. to pass legislation that would keep artificial intelligence away from nuclear power. On Thursday, Sen. Edward Markey said, "78 years ago this weekend, Robert Oppenheimer witnessed the world's first nuclear weapons explosion. In 2023, we face a new kind of nuclear threat: the militarization of increasingly powerful artificial intelligence systems." "We must pass legislation to keep AI away from the nuclear button before it's too late," he asserted.

Automakers reported nearly 400 crashes over a 10-month period involving vehicles with partially automated driver-assist systems, including 273 with Teslas, according to statistics released Wednesday by U.S. safety regulators. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration cautioned against using the numbers to compare automakers, saying it didn't weight them by the number of vehicles from each manufacturer that use the systems, or how many miles those vehicles traveled. Automakers reported crashes from July of last year through May 15 under an order from the agency, which is examining such crashes broadly for the first time. "As we gather more data, NHTSA will be able to better identify any emerging risks or trends and learn more about how these technologies are performing in the real world," said Steven Cliff, the agency's administrator. Tesla's crashes happened while vehicles were using Autopilot, "Full Self-Driving," Traffic Aware Cruise Control, or other driver-assist systems that have some control over speed and steering.

Elon Musk said on Monday that Tesla is working to get an updated version of the self-driving software out for vehicles soon and that the latest released version "is not great." The Full Self-Driving Beta version 9.2 is "actually not great imo (in my opinion), but Autopilot/AI team is rallying to improve as fast as possible," Musk posted on Twitter. "We're trying to have a single stack for both highway & city streets, but it requires massive NN (neural network) retraining." FSD Beta 9.2 is actually not great imo, but Autopilot/AI team is rallying to improve as fast as possible. We're trying to have a single stack for both highway & amp; city streets, but it requires massive NN retraining.

Last Tuesday, shortly after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued relaxed guidelines for wearing masks in public during the COVID-19 pandemic, President Joe Biden gave a speech on the North Lawn of the White House. The setting was so verdant--bright sunlight, tall trees framing a lectern, shrubbery in full bloom--that it might have been a virtual Zoom background. Biden wore a black mask to the lectern, then took it off to speak. "If you're in a crowd, like in a stadium or at a concert, you still need to wear a mask, even if you're outside," he said. "But, beginning today, gathering with a group of friends in the park, going for a picnic, as long as you are vaccinated and outdoors, you can do it without a mask."

Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Ayanna Pressley are pushing to ban the federal government's use of facial recognition technology, as Boston last week nixed the city use of the technology and tech giants pause their sale of facial surveillance tools to police. The momentum to stop the government use of facial recognition technology comes in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis -- a black man killed by a white police officer. Floyd's death has sparked nationwide protests for racial justice and triggered calls for police reform, including ways police track people. Facial recognition technology contributes to the "systemic racism that has defined our society," Markey said on Sunday. "We cannot ignore that facial recognition technology is yet another tool in the hands of law enforcement to profile and oppress people of color in our country," Markey said during an online press briefing.

The news: US Democratic lawmakers have introduced a bill that would ban the use of facial recognition technology by federal law enforcement agencies. Specifically, it would make it illegal for any federal agency or official to "acquire, possess, access, or use" biometric surveillance technology in the US. It would also require state and local law enforcement to bring in similar bans in order to receive federal funding. The Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act was introduced by Senators Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Representatives Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts. Seize the moment: The proposed law has arrived at a point when the police use of facial recognition technology is coming under increased scrutiny amid protests after the killing of George Floyd in late May.