A new Instagram page is using AI to make parodies of Republicans attempting to push anti-LGBTQ bills. The account, called @RuPublicans--a spin on name of the political party with a nod to the famed RuPaul–has gained nearly 100,000 followers in less than two weeks since its launch, going viral for its creative AI portraits of different Republicans in full drag. Created by partners and digital nomads Craig and Stephen (who asked to be identified by their first names only to maintain their privacy), the project sees the couple using art and technology for political activism. "We were bearing witness to the rhetoric and actions against the drag community," Craig tells TIME, "and it made us want to do something, so we had this idea of putting the GOP in drag." The pair were traveling in an Airstream through the American West when they came up with the idea for the Instagram account, which comes at a particularly vulnerable time for LGBTQ rights in the U.S. State lawmakers are introducing more anti-LGBTQ this year than in the past collective five years, according to Bloomberg and data from the American Civil Liberties Union.

President Biden was asked by PBS' Judy Woodruff about his classified documents scandal in his first interview since the controversy broke last month. Members of Congress have taken a sharp tone towards the possible mishandling of classified documents by President Biden, former President Trump and former Vice President Pence in recent weeks, and many have called for legislative action to prevent such occurrences from happening again. It's unclear, however, what action Congress could take, considering the level of classification of documents has been managed by the executive branch of the U.S. government since the time of the late President Franklin Roosevelt, and no members speaking out on the issue have provided any specifics as to what can actually be done to address the problem. "Holding classified documents in anything other than a very secure setting is a risk to national security that is very serious and needs to be resolved. And there are a number of elements to that," Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said last month after reports surfaced that Pence was the latest to be in possession of classified documents, and just weeks after some had been found at Biden's home and former office. Biden, Pence, and Donald Trump are under intense scrutiny for classified documents being found at their personal properties.

MSNBC guest Kurt Andersen on Tuesday attacked Mike Pence for not supporting the indictment of Donald Trump. He called the ex-VP a "p---y." An MSNBC host and his guest piled on Mike Pence on Tuesday, suggesting the former vice president was a "p---y" for not supporting the indictment of Donald Trump. Host John Heilemann mocked Pence as boring and dull, suggesting he had the personality of the "squarest person you knew growing up." But it was guest and author Kurt Andersen who made things personal.

After months spent traveling to packed rallies, refusing to wear masks in public, and throwing parties while the rest of the country was coping with the spread of the coronavirus, Donald Trump and the GOP are dealing personally with an outbreak that almost anybody could've seen coming. Trump tested positive and has been hospitalized with the virus, and many of those closest to him, including first lady Melania, campaign manager Bill Stepien, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, former adviser Kellyanne Conway, and close aide Hope Hicks, have all tested positive. And yet, even though the aggressive flouting of public health guidelines is precisely what led to this coronavirus cluster at the highest levels of government, Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) After Trump tested positive, one would have thought that both sides would make an effort to make the venue safer. Finally, after some haggling about how far apart the two candidates would stand--with the Democrats arguing for more safety--the debate commission agreed to place the podiums 12 feet apart and set plexiglass between the candidates.

In a briefing on Monday, research leaders across tech, academia and the government joined the White House to announce an open data set full of scientific literature on the novel coronavirus. The COVID-19 Open Research Dataset, known as CORD-19, will also add relevant new research moving forward, compiling it into one centralized hub. The new data set is machine readable, making it easily parsed for machine learning purposes -- a key advantage according to researchers involved in the ambitious project. In a press conference, U.S. CTO Michael Kratsios called the new data set the "most extensive collection of machine readable coronavirus literature to date." Kratsios characterized the project as a "call to action" for the AI community, which can employ machine learning techniques to surface unique insights in the body of data.

A Commons committee was left baffled as video game executives appeared to deny making money from their own games, admit to ignoring regulations governing data protection and age restrictions, and claim ignorance over how much time their own users were spending on games. Representatives from Epic Games, makers of Fortnite: Battle Royale, and EA Games, the publisher of the Fifa series of football games, appeared as witnesses in front of the Commons Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee as part of its inquiry into immersive and addictive technologies. Both games have been the subject of intense scrutiny after reports of children spending an unhealthy amount of time and money on them, with Prince Harry making an unusual public attack on Fortnite in April: "That game shouldn't be allowed," he said. "It's created to addict, an addiction to keep you in front of a computer for as long as possible. But rather than address the concerns directly, both companies flatly denied that there was a problem, even while admitting that they did not collect the data required to answer many of the committee's questions. When presented with Harry's remarks, Epic's general counsel, Canon Pence, said they "couldn't be further from the truth about our ethics and design philosophy". He added: "It's always been our effort and intent to create a fun, fair, flexible, engaging and generous form of interactive entertainment.

The laws will apply only in the EU for now, but it's possible these global companies will apply these laws elsewhere (Microsoft has already applied some EU regulations in other places.) Venezuela used to have an anti-government newspaper, but that was until the government made it impossible for them to get enough paper to print. So Venezuelans have turned to the voice-chat app Zello to spread news, get basic needs, and coordinate aid amid the country's political and economic crisis. Vice President Mike Pence said the US will be sending astronauts to the moon's south pole. Because there's tons of ice Pence says can be turned into life support and even rocket fuel.

Results of last week's U.S. midterm elections were mixed, leaving a chasm in the U.S. political landscape. The Republicans not only retained control of the Senate, but also gained more seats. The Democrats, meanwhile, took back the House of Representatives. But in terms of American foreign policy, a veteran New York Times columnist who was recently in Japan says that the election results are unlikely to affect President Donald Trump so much, and that he is likely to keep challenging Japan and China -- especially on trade issues. I don't think much will change regarding trade.

The US is planning to create The Space Force, a new branch of the US military, by 2020, Vice President Mike Pence announced on Thursday. It would become the US military's sixth branch, following the Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard and Marine Corps. "America will always seek peace in space, as on the Earth. But history proves that peace only comes through strength, and in the realm of outer space, the United States Space Force will be that strength in the years ahead," Pence said in an address to the Pentagon. As we continue to carry American leadership in space, so also will we carry America's commitment to freedom into this new frontier.

Maybe not, but North Korea's "charm offensive" and leader Kim Jong Un's invitation to South Korean President Moon Jae-in to visit Pyongyang "in the near future" will exacerbate existing fissures in Washington's alliance with Seoul as Pyongyang seeks to further chip away at the relationship. Kim, using the grand stage of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, was behind Saturday's offer to host Moon for talks in the North Korean capital, setting the stage for what would be the first meeting of Korean leaders in more than a decade. The personal invitation from Kim was delivered verbally by his younger sister, Kim Yo Jong, during talks and a lunch Moon hosted at the presidential Blue House in Seoul. Any meeting would represent a diplomatic coup for Moon, who swept to power last year on a policy of engagement with the isolated North while pursuing a diplomatic solution to the standoff over its nuclear and missile programs. Kim Jong Un wanted to meet Moon "in the near future" and would like for him to visit North Korea "at his earliest convenience," his sister told Moon, who had said "let's create the environment for that to be able to happen," Blue House spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom was quoted as saying.