The U.S. Department of Defense has launched a website collecting publicly available, declassified information on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs). "For now, the general public will be able to read through the posted information," reports CNET. "Soon, US government employees, contractors, and service members with knowledge of US programs can report their own sightings, and later, others will be able to submit reports." From the report: "This website will provide information, including photos and videos, on resolved UAP cases as they are declassified and approved for public release," the department said in a release posted on Thursday. "The website's other content includes reporting trends and a frequently asked questions section as well as links to official reports, transcripts, press releases, and other resources that the public may find useful, such as applicable statutes and aircraft, balloon and satellite tracking sites."

For now, one of the most interesting parts of the site is its trends section. Apparently, most reported UAPs are round, either white, silver or translucent, spotted at around 10,000 to 30,000 feet, 1-4 meters in size, and do not emit thermal exhaust. Hotspots for sightings include both the US East and West coasts. There's also a small section of videos with names such as "DVIDS Video - Unresolved Case: Navy 2021 Flyby," and "UAP Video: Middle East Object." Readers are able to leave comments on the videos. Of the "Middle East Object" video, one person writes,"Noticed I never saw it cast a shadow. But other objects have shadows."

"The NYC police department intends to use drones to monitor Labor Day backyard parties, raising privacy concerns," writes Slashdot reader jjslash. "Drone usage by U.S. police departments is increasing, with some operating them beyond visual line of sight. TechSpot reports: "If a caller states there's a large crowd, a large party in a backyard, we're going to be utilizing our assets to go up and go check on the party," said assistant NYPD Commissioner Kaz Daughtry at a recent press conference. Naturally, the admission attracted the attention of privacy and civil liberties advocates who questioned if the department's plans violate existing laws governing surveillance in the area.

In its unmanned aircraft systems (UAS): Impact and use policy from 2021, the NYC police department said drones would not be used in areas where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy without a search warrant, except in exigent circumstances (PDF). Are backyard parties really all that pressing? "Deploying drones in this way is a sci-fi inspired scenario," said Daniel Schwarz, a technology and privacy strategist with the New York Civil Liberties Union. Schwarz added that it is at variance with the Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology (POST) Act, which "requires the reporting and evaluation of surveillance technologies used by the NYPD."

Robinhood announced it has purchased more than 55 million shares of the firm previously held by former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, which were seized in January by the U.S. Department of Justice as part of the criminal case against FTX and its executives. CoinTelegraph reports: The purchase had been expected. Robinhood's board of directors announced the approval of the deal in the company's Q4 2022 report, and an Aug. 30 SEC filing said the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York had approved the purchase "free and clear of any claims, interests, liens and encumbrances." Robinhood made the repurchase agreement with the U.S. Marshals Service. "We are happy to have completed the purchase of these shares and look forward to executing on our growth plans on behalf of our customers and shareholders," said Robinhood chief financial officer Jason Warnick.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has recommended easing restrictions on marijuana, a department spokesperson said on Wednesday, following a review request from the Biden Administration last year. Reuters reports: The scheduling recommendation for marijuana was provided to the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) on Tuesday as part of President Biden's directive to HHS, the spokesperson said. "As part of this process, HHS conducted a scientific and medical evaluation for consideration by DEA. DEA has the final authority to schedule or reschedule a drug under the Controlled Substances Act. DEA will now initiate its review," a DEA spokesperson said.

Marijuana is currently classified as a schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act, meaning it has a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use, along with drugs like heroin and LSD. HHS is recommending reclassifying marijuana to say it has a moderate to low potential for dependence and a lower abuse potential, which would put it in a class with ketamine and testosterone. "If marijuana classification were to ease at the federal level, that could allow major stock exchanges to list businesses that are in the cannabis trade, and potentially allow foreign companies to begin selling their products in the United States," notes Reuters.

While marijuana remains illegal on the federal level, nearly 40 U.S. states have legalized it in some form. According to a survey last year from the Pew Research Center, "an overwhelming share of U.S. adults (88%) say either that marijuana should be legal for medical and recreational use by adults (59%) or that it should be legal for medical use only (30%)."

A U.S. Department of Commerce spokesperson on Thursday said the Biden administration "has not blocked chip sales to the Middle East." From a report: The comments come after artificial intelligence chip firms Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices received notifications from U.S. officials about new export licensing requirements to ship chips to some countries in the Middle East.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: The Environmental Protection Agency removed federal protections for a majority of the country's wetlands on Tuesday to comply with a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling. The EPA and Department of the Army announced a final rule amending the definition of protected "waters of the United States" in light of the decision in Sackett v. EPA in May, which narrowed the scope of the Clean Water Act and the agency's power to regulate waterways and wetlands. A 2006 Supreme Court decision determined that wetlands would be protected if they had a "significant nexus" to major waterways. This year's court decision undid that standard. The EPA's new rule "removes the significant nexus test from consideration when identifying tributaries and other waters as federally protected," the agency said.

In May, Justice Samuel Alito said the navigable U.S. waters regulated by the EPA under the Clean Water Act do not include many previously regulated wetlands. Writing the court's decision, he said the law includes only streams, oceans, rivers and lakes, and wetlands with a "continuous surface connection to those bodies." The EPA said the rule will take effect immediately. "The agencies are issuing this amendment to the 2023 rule expeditiously -- three months after the Supreme Court decision -- to provide clarity and a path forward consistent with the ruling," the agency said. As a result of the rule change, protections for many waterways and wetlands will now fall to states.

Under an ambitious program, dubbed Replicator, the Pentagon aims to field thousands of autonomous systems within two years to counter China. The effort is being spearheaded by Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks. Politico reports: Hicks said the time is right to push to rapidly scale up innovative technology. The move comes as the U.S. looks to get creative to deter China in the Indo-Pacific and Pentagon leadership has taken stock of how Ukraine has fended off Russia's invasion. "Industry is ready. The culture is ready to shift," Hicks said. "We have to drive that from the top, and we need to give it a hard target." "The great paradox of military innovation is you're going to have to make big bets and you've got to execute on those bets," she added.

With Replicator, the Pentagon aims to have thousands of autonomous systems across various domains produced and delivered in 18 to 24 months. Hicks declined to discuss what specific platforms might be produced under the program -- such as aerial drones or unmanned ships -- citing the "competition landscape" in the defense industry as well as concerns about tipping DOD's hand to China. The Pentagon will instead "say more as we get to production on capabilities."

Autonomous weapons are seen as a potential way to counter China's numerical advantages in ships, missiles and troops in a rapidly narrowing window. Fielding large numbers of cheap, expendable drones, proponents argue, is faster and lower-cost than exquisite weapons systems and puts fewer troops at risk. Another major aim of the Replicator initiative is to provide a template for future efforts to rapidly field military technology. She said lessons from the Replicator program could be applied throughout the Pentagon, military services and combatant commands.

An anonymous reader shared this report from the New York Times: It is powered into flight by a rocket engine. It can fly a distance equal to the width of China. It has a stealthy design and is capable of carrying missiles that can hit enemy targets far beyond its visual range. But what really distinguishes the Air Force's pilotless XQ-58A Valkyrie experimental aircraft is that it is run by artificial intelligence, putting it at the forefront of efforts by the U.S. military to harness the capacities of an emerging technology whose vast potential benefits are tempered by deep concerns about how much autonomy to grant to a lethal weapon.

Essentially a next-generation drone, the Valkyrie is a prototype for what the Air Force hopes can become a potent supplement to its fleet of traditional fighter jets, giving human pilots a swarm of highly capable robot wingmen to deploy in battle. Its mission is to marry artificial intelligence and its sensors to identify and evaluate enemy threats and then, after getting human sign-off, to move in for the kill... The emergence of artificial intelligence is helping to spawn a new generation of Pentagon contractors who are seeking to undercut, or at least disrupt, the longstanding primacy of the handful of giant firms who supply the armed forces with planes, missiles, tanks and ships. The possibility of building fleets of smart but relatively inexpensive weapons that could be deployed in large numbers is allowing Pentagon officials to think in new ways about taking on enemy forces.

It also is forcing them to confront questions about what role humans should play in conflicts waged with software that is written to kill...
The article adds that the U.S. Air Force plans to build 1,000 to 2,000 AI drones for as little as $3 million apiece. "Some will focus on surveillance or resupply missions, others will fly in attack swarms and still others will serve as a 'loyal wingman' to a human pilot....

"A recently revised Pentagon policy on the use of artificial intelligence in weapons systems allows for the autonomous use of lethal force — but any particular plan to build or deploy such a weapon must first be reviewed and approved by a special military panel."

An anonymous reader shared this report from the New York: In 2017, Michael Moritz, a billionaire venture capitalist, sent a note to a potential investor about what he described as an unusual opportunity: a chance to invest in the creation of a new California city. The site was in a corner of the San Francisco Bay Area where land was cheap. Moritz and others had dreams of transforming tens of thousands of acres into a bustling metropolis that, according to the pitch, could generate thousands of jobs and be as walkable as Paris or the West Village in New York.

He painted a kind of urban blank slate where everything from design to construction methods and new forms of governance could be rethought. And it would all be a short distance from San Francisco and Silicon Valley... Since then, a company called Flannery Associates has been buying large plots of land in a largely agricultural region 60 miles northeast of San Francisco. The company, which has little information public about its operations, has committed more than $800 million to secure thousands of acres of farmland, court documents show. One parcel after another, Flannery made offers to every landowner for miles, paying several times the market rate, whether the land had been listed for sale or not...

Brian Brokaw, a representative for the investor group, said in a statement that the group was made up of "Californians who believe that Solano County's and California's best days are ahead." He said the group planned to start working with Solano County residents and elected officials, as well as with Travis Air Force Base, next week... The land that Flannery has been purchasing is not zoned for residential use, and even in his 2017 pitch, Moritz acknowledged that rezoning could "clearly be challenging" — a nod to California's notoriously difficult and litigious development process. To pull off the project, the company will almost certainly have to use the state's initiative system to get Solano County residents to vote on it. The hope is that voters will be enticed by promises of thousands of local jobs; increased tax revenue; and investments in infrastructure like parks, a performing arts center, shopping, dining and a trade school.
Moritz's 2017 email had argued their project "should relieve some of the Silicon Valley pressures we all feel — rising home prices, homelessness, congestion etc."

SFGate estimates the group now owns 52,000 acres — "an empire that is nearly double the size of the city of San Francisco" — and notes that some details emerged when the group filed a document to repond to a lawsuit. "It claims it told landowners that they could keep 'existing income streams from wind energy and natural gas storage,' could 'continue using these properties rent-free for decades,' and would receive 'significant grants from Flannery for charitable giving, to be used at the [landowners'] discretion to support local schools and other non-profits.'"

"Tech billionaires reportedly backing mysterious Solano County land grab," reads the headline on SFGate's latest article: SFGATE reported earlier this week that a survey had circulated to Solano County residents asking for their opinions on the potential development of "a new city with tens of thousands of new homes, a large solar energy farm, orchards with over a million new trees, and over ten thousand acres of new parks and open space."

The New York Times explores harrowing stories about recent airplane near-miss "close calls" on U.S. runways: The incidents — highlighted in preliminary F.A.A. safety reports but not publicly disclosed — were among a flurry of at least 46 close calls involving commercial airlines last month alone... While there have been no major U.S. plane crashes in more than a decade, potentially dangerous incidents are occurring far more frequently than almost anyone realizes — a sign of what many insiders describe as a safety net under mounting stress. So far this year, close calls involving commercial airlines have been happening, on average, multiple times a week, according to a Times analysis of internal F.A.A. records, as well as thousands of pages of federal safety reports and interviews with more than 50 current and former pilots, air traffic controllers and federal officials.

The incidents often occur at or near airports and are the result of human error, the agency's internal records show... The close calls have involved all major U.S. airlines and have happened nationwide... In addition to the F.A.A. records, The Times analyzed a database maintained by NASA that contains confidential safety reports filed by pilots, air traffic controllers and others in aviation. The analysis identified a similar phenomenon: In the most recent 12-month period for which data was available, there were about 300 accounts of near collisions involving commercial airlines... One problem is that despite repeated recommendations from safety authorities, the vast majority of U.S. airports have not installed warning systems to help prevent collisions on runways.

But the most acute challenge, The Times found, is that the nation's air traffic control facilities are chronically understaffed. While the lack of controllers is no secret — the Biden administration is seeking funding to hire and train more — the shortages are more severe and are leading to more dangerous situations than previously known. As of May, only three of the 313 air traffic facilities nationwide had enough controllers to meet targets set by the F.A.A. and the union representing controllers, The Times found. Many controllers are required to work six-day weeks and a schedule so fatiguing that multiple federal agencies have warned that it can impede controllers' abilities to do their jobs properly.

Jay Powell has warned that inflation "remains too high," raising the prospect of further interest rate increases in the world's largest economy should price pressures persist. Financial Times: In a highly anticipated speech on Friday, the chair of the US Federal Reserve at times struck a hawkish tone, pointing to the central bank's readiness to maintain a "restrictive" policy to bring inflation down to its 2 per cent target. "Although inflation has moved down from its peak -- a welcome development -- it remains too high," Powell said at the Fed's annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. "We are prepared to raise rates further if appropriate, and intend to hold policy at a restrictive level until we are confident that inflation is moving sustainably down toward our objective," he added.

But he tempered that message with a pledge to proceed "carefully" as the Fed navigates the final stages of its campaign to stamp out the worst inflation shock in decades. Headline US inflation, according to the consumer price index, was 3.2 per cent for July, well down from its peak of 9.1 per cent, but above June's rate of 3 per cent. Powell said the Fed was now focused not only on the risk of tightening monetary policy too little and allowing inflation to become entrenched but also of raising rates too high. "Doing too much could also do unnecessary harm to the economy," he said.

The federal government is escalating efforts to make cryptocurrency investors comply with tax law, nearly 15 years after people started trading bitcoin. From a report: The Treasury Department proposed new rules Friday with twin goals: making it harder for crypto investors to dodge income taxes when they sell digital assets, and simplifying complicated tax messes for people who are trying to follow the law. When they are fully implemented, the rules will require crypto exchanges such as Coinbase to deal with the Internal Revenue Service in a manner similar to brokers who handle investors' stock and mutual-fund portfolios.

The crypto exchanges will send annual reports on Form 1099s to the IRS and to taxpayers that show the gross proceeds from transactions. That starts in 2026 for tax year 2025. Later, they will start reporting how much customers paid for the assets, known as their cost basis. Capital gains are the difference between sale price and cost basis, and investors face federal taxes of up to 23.8%.

Firefighters are training a robot to scan the horizon for fires. It turns out a lot of things look like smoke. From a report: For years, firefighters in California have relied on a vast network of more than 1,000 mountaintop cameras to detect wildfires. Operators have stared into computer screens around the clock looking for wisps of smoke. This summer, with wildfire season well underway, California's main firefighting agency is trying a new approach: training an artificial intelligence program to do the work. The idea is to harness one of the state's great strengths -- expertise in A.I. -- and deploy it to prevent small fires from becoming the kinds of conflagrations that have killed scores of residents and destroyed thousands of homes in California over the past decade.

Officials involved in the pilot program say they are happy with early results. Around 40 percent of the time, the artificial intelligence software was able to alert firefighters of the presence of smoke before dispatch centers received 911 calls. "It has absolutely improved response times," said Phillip SeLegue, the staff chief of intelligence for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the state's main firefighting agency better known as Cal Fire. In about two dozen cases, Mr. SeLegue said, the A.I. identified fires that the agency never received 911 calls for. The fires were extinguished when they were still small and manageable.

After an exceptionally wet winter, California's fire season has not been as destructive -- so far -- as in previous years. Cal Fire counts 4,792 wildfires so far this year, lower than the five-year average of 5,422 for this time of year. Perhaps more important, the number of acres burned this year has been only one-fifth of the five-year average of 812,068 acres. The A.I. pilot program, which began in late June and covered six of Cal Fire's command centers, will be rolled out to all 21 command centers starting in September. But the program's apparent success comes with caveats. The system can detect fires only visible to the cameras. And at this stage, humans are still needed to make sure the A.I. program is properly identifying smoke. Engineers for the company that created the software, DigitalPath, based in Chico, Calif., are monitoring the system day and night, and manually vetting every incident that the A.I. identifies as fire.

The National Security Agency, the shadowy hub for the United States' electronic and cyber spying, has instructed its employees that foreign targets of its intelligence gathering "should be treated with dignity and respect," according to a new policy directive. The Intercept: The directive, released this summer as internal guidance, is for the NSA's vaunted signals intelligence, or SIGINT, division, which is responsible for covert surveillance and data collection worldwide. "In recognition that SIGINT activities must take into account that all persons should be treated with dignity and respect, regardless of their nationality or wherever they might reside," says the previously unreported directive, which was issued by NSA Director Gen. Paul Nakasone.

Civil liberties experts say the PR-friendly directive is an attempt to mollify European partners and American critics amid a simmering congressional debate over whether to reauthorize the NSA's broad surveillance authorities. Experts also pointed to the absurdity that the NSA, an intelligence agency that specializes in electronic eavesdropping including the interception of text messages and emails, could do so respectfully. "This is like the CIA putting out a statement saying that going forward they'll only waterboard people with dignity and respect," Evan Greer, director of the digital rights advocacy group Fight for the Future, told The Intercept. "Mass surveillance is fundamentally incompatible with basic human rights and democracy."

New submitter Slash_Account_Dot shares a report from 404 Media, a new independent media company founded by technology journalists Jason Koebler, Emanuel Maiberg, Samantha Cole, and Joseph Cox: Customs and Border Protection (CBP), part of the Department of Homeland Security, has bought millions of dollars worth of software from a company that uses artificial intelligence to detect "sentiment and emotion" in online posts, according to a cache of documents obtained by 404 Media. CBP told 404 Media it is using technology to analyze open source information related to inbound and outbound travelers who the agency believes may threaten public safety, national security, or lawful trade and travel. In this case, the specific company called Fivecast also offers "AI-enabled" object recognition in images and video, and detection of "risk terms and phrases" across multiple languages, according to one of the documents.

Marketing materials promote the software's ability to provide targeted data collection from big social platforms like Facebook and Reddit, but also specifically names smaller communities like 4chan, 8kun, and Gab. To demonstrate its functionality, Fivecast promotional materials explain how the software was able to track social media posts and related Persons-of-Interest starting with just "basic bio details" from a New York Times Magazine article about members of the far-right paramilitary Boogaloo movement. 404 Media also obtained leaked audio of a Fivecast employee explaining how the tool could be used against trafficking networks or propaganda operations. The news signals CBP's continued use of artificial intelligence in its monitoring of travelers and targets, which can include U.S. citizens. This latest news shows that CBP has deployed multiple AI-powered systems, and provides insight into what exactly these tools claim to be capable of while raising questions about their accuracy and utility. "CBP should not be secretly buying and deploying tools that rely on junk science to scrutinize people's social media posts, claim to analyze their emotions, and identify purported 'risks,'" said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of the ACLU's National Security Project. "The public knows far too little about CBP's Counter Network Division, but what we do know paints a disturbing picture of an agency with few rules and access to an ocean of sensitive personal data about Americans. The potential for abuse is immense."

Germany plans to almost double its public funding for artificial intelligence research to nearly a billion euros over the next two years, as it attempts to close a skills gap with sector leaders China and the United States. Reuters reports: The target, announced by research minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger on Wednesday, is modest compared with the $3.3 billion that the U.S. government spent on AI research in 2022 according to a Stanford University report. The AI push comes as Germany attempts to turn around its economy from a recession while the country's key autos and chemicals industries face stiff competition from upstart electric-vehicle makers and high energy costs.

Germany envisages creating 150 new university labs for AI research, expanding data centres and making accessible the kind of complex public data sets from which AI techniques can tease out new insights: a major undertaking in a country where cash transactions are common and the fax is not yet extinct. It is dwarfed by private AI spending in the U.S., which reached $47.4 billion in 2022, almost double Europe's total spend, and well ahead of China's $13.4 billion, the Stanford report found.

But Stark-Watzinger said that Europe's emerging regulatory framework, which places greater weight on privacy and personal safety than those in other regions, could attract players to Germany, as could cooperation within the European Union. "We have AI that is explainable, trustworthy and transparent," she said. "That's a competitive advantage." Simpler regulations would promote private research spending, she added.

Five-time world champion, Magnus Carlsen, has defeated Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu in a tiebreak to become Chess World Cup champion. Chess.com reports: The five-time world champion won his first World Cup crown by defeating GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu 1.5-0.5 in the rapid tiebreaks of the 2023 FIDE World Cup for a match victory of 2.5-1.5. In the third-place playoffs, GM Fabiano Caruana convincingly defeated GM Nijat Abasov in both rapid tiebreaks for a 3-1 victory and third place. It was a heartbreaking defeat for the Indian youngster, who had the initiative in the first game until Carlsen fought back and won in a tense endgame. In the second game, the world number-one allowed no chances, and Praggnanandhaa's impressive World Cup run came to an end as hundreds of thousands of fans watched the tense battle. You can watch the 2023 FIDE World Cup broadcast on Twitch and YouTube.

An anonymous reader shares a report: For a decade until 2018, China sought to recruit elite foreign-trained scientists under a lavishly funded program that Washington viewed as a threat to U.S. interests and technological supremacy. Two years after it stopped promoting the Thousand Talents Plan (TTP) amid U.S. investigations of scientists, China quietly revived the initiative under a new name and format as part of a broader mission to accelerate its tech proficiency, according to three sources with knowledge of the matter and a Reuters review of over 500 government documents spanning 2019 to 2023. The revamped recruitment drive, reported in detail by Reuters for the first time, offers perks including home-purchase subsidies and typical signing bonuses of 3 to 5 million yuan, or $420,000 to $700,000, the three people told Reuters.

China operates talent programs at various levels of government, targeting a mix of overseas Chinese and foreign experts. The primary replacement for TTP is a program called Qiming overseen by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, according to national and local policy documents, online recruitment advertisements and a person with direct knowledge of the matter who, as with others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity. The race to attract tech talent comes as President Xi Jinping emphasises China's need to achieve self-reliance in semiconductors in the face of U.S. export curbs. Regulations adopted by the U.S. Commerce Department in October restrict U.S. citizens and permanent residents from supporting the development and production of advanced chips in China, among other measures.

T-Mobile USA is cutting 7% of its staff, part of an effort to rein in costs as the company spends heavily to attract new subscribers in an increasingly competitive market. From a report: The move will affect about 5,000 positions, mostly corporate and back-office staff along with some technology roles, T-Mobile said in a regulatory filing. Retail and consumer-care experts won't be impacted. Chief Executive Officer Mike Sievert said in a letter to employees that the cost of attracting and retaining customers is "materially more expensive than it was just a few quarters ago." Building out the company's high-speed internet business and efforts in other areas "is not enough to deliver on these changing customer expectations going forward," he said.

Huawei is accused by a semiconductor manufacturers association of setting up secret chip-making facilities in China to evade U.S. sanctions. The Guardian reports: The Chinese tech firm moved into chip production last year and was receiving an estimated $30 billion in state funding from the government, the Washington-based Semiconductor Industry Association was quoted as saying by Bloomberg, adding that Huawei had acquired at least two existing plants and was building three others. If Huawei is constructing facilities under names of other companies, as the Semiconductor Industry Association alleges, then it may be able to circumvent U.S. government restrictions to indirectly purchase American chip-making equipment, according to Bloomberg.