Author: wildgreenquest@gmail.com
A Character.AI chatbot told a Pennsylvania patient it was a licensed psychiatrist, fabricated a state medical license number and offered treatment for depression. Only problem: the patient was a state investigator. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro filed a lawsuit against Character.AI, claiming the chatbot “Emilie” violated the state’s Medical Practice Act by posing as a licensed medical professional. When a state Professional Conduct Investigator tested the chatbot and asked if it was licensed to practice medicine in Pennsylvania, Emilie said yes and gave a made-up serial number for its state medical license. The chatbot kept pretending even as the investigator sought…
President Donald Trump’s proposal to put a coat of white paint on the exterior of a 19th-century historic landmark building next to the White House is slated for a hearing Thursday by a key federal agency he expects to approve what would be a dramatic makeover.The proposed painting of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building is one piece of a broader plan the Republican president has said will make Washington more beautiful.Trump is making numerous changes inside and outside the White House and its grounds, most notably razing the East Wing to build a 1,000-person ballroom. Across the street from the…
In November 2025, nearly 300 designers began work on their submissions for the competition of a lifetime: the opportunity to design a bathroom for one of the most famous architects of all time. The competition called on designers to imagine a new public restroom for the Gropius House, the family home of the late German architect Walter Gropius. Gropius founded the famed art and design school the Bauhaus (1919–1933), which defined an entire era of modernist design through its innovative approach to technology and almost reverent obsession with materials. His self-designed home is now preserved and made open to the…
Published May 7, 2026 03:00AMIn my family, we reserved Sundays for fish. My grandmother would sauté sardines with onions and tomatoes. That fishy stench permeated from the kitchen into every room in the house. It had a personal vendetta against my nostrils. I started calling them “the stinky fish” around age seven, lobbying loudly for pancakes like a normal American child. My Caribbean grandmother was not moved. While I was busy avoiding them, sardines took over the internet (and military bases before my time). Not only are tinned fish considered a skincare and health hack by TikTokers, but those small tins…
A new library is opening up in New York City this Friday, but rather than books, the space will house 3,437 volumes and roughly 3.5 million pages of the Epstein Files. The Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Reading Room is a project by the Institute for Primary Facts, a nonprofit organization dedicated to government transparency. Housed in an undisclosed location in Tribeca, the exhibition will allow visitors to see the records in a new way. It will be open to the public from May 8 through 21 by appointment only. “The truth is hard to deny when it’s…
Published May 7, 2026 03:05AMIn April 2014, I made what would become the first of many trips to Yosemite National Park. Even then, in the short window between winter snow and spring wildflowers, it was crowded. I heard the same “Are we at Disney World?” joke while passing a steady stream of hikers on the popular Yosemite Falls Trail, and snagged the last room at the third motel I tried in Mariposa, more than an hour from the Yosemite Valley.A decade later, and there’s been no respite for the burden of tourists in Yosemite—or any of the other most popular…
Just as they did with televisions, many people used the pandemic as an excuse to upgrade their PC or laptop. It was a move that made sense at the time. Telecommuting became essential, and not all devices could adequately handle the demands of Zoom, Teams, and other work software. At the same time, digital communication was often the only way to stay in touch with friends and family. Smartphones handled some of that heavy lifting, of course, but the PC industry still saw shipments spike 14.5% from 1999 to 2000. Now, much like the TV market, many PC owners are…
Published May 7, 2026 03:55AMOutside Days will rock Denver in more ways than one from May 29 to 31. The festival, now in its third year, brings an unprecedented mashup of live music, film, speakers, and outdoor culture to Auraria Campus. One of the highlights is the Film series presented by Amazon Pharmacy, which this year features storytelling at the heart of adventure and human drama—and a big dose of music. Three of the films explore how sound and song shape our identities, memories, and experiences in wild landscapes, and cement Outside Days’ DNA as a festival built around incredible…
On Wednesday, Nvidia and Corning announced a $500 million deal to build fiber-optic cables to power AI data centers. For Nvidia, which manufactures graphics processing units key to building and training top-tier AI models, the partnership will help the chipmaker reduce latency and energy consumption for AI systems and likely accelerate its move to co-packaged optics. This would have fiber connections more directly integrated with chips. Per a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Nvidia now has a pre-funded warrant to purchase 3 million shares in Corning and the option to purchase 15 million more. As part of the agreement, Corning…
So it’s fitting that Will Schmidt, Fire Rover’s CEO, joined the company in a moment of crisis, too.Schmidt says he initially met the Fire Rover team at a trade show in early 2018, back when he was still working for Pacific Western Bank. The firefighting company so interested him that he made a trip out to their Detroit-area headquarters for a tour.“It didn’t really fit into any box that I had at the time—it was a little small and so forth—but [I] nevertheless wanted to keep in touch,” he recalls.About nine months later, Brad Gladstone—who had founded the company in 2015—passed…