Biden addresses the downing of flying objects

President Biden broke his silence on the unidentified flying objects that the U.S. shot down this month. He mentioned U.S. intelligence businesses had no indication that the three latest objects have been a part of a spy program.

The most recent objects appeared unrelated to the Chinese language spy balloon that was downed on Feb. 4. Biden mentioned he anticipated to talk quickly with Xi Jinping, China’s chief, to lift objections to the Chinese language balloon’s violation of U.S. airspace. “I make no apologies for taking down that balloon,” he mentioned.

“We don’t but know precisely what these three objects have been, however nothing proper now suggests they have been associated to China’s spy balloon program or they have been surveillance automobiles from some other nation,” Biden mentioned. For days, U.S. officers have more and more thought they have been innocent.

Biden vowed to ascertain new parameters to protect U.S. airspace and to answer unidentified aerial objects. He additionally provided a proof for the rash of sightings, pointing to latest efforts to reinforce radar capabilities.

“We don’t have any proof that there was a sudden improve within the variety of objects within the sky,” he mentioned. “We’re now simply seeing extra of them.”

Extra on the spy balloon: U.S. officers more and more imagine that China despatched the balloon to spy on U.S. army bases in Guam and Hawaii and that it was blown off target. They mentioned that its self-destruct operate had not activated after it had approached U.S. airspace and that China had taken three days to inform the U.S. that its controllers have been making an attempt to maneuver it rapidly out of U.S. airspace.

New Zealand faces a painful cleanup

A few of our readers in New Zealand have written to us and shared their tales in regards to the devastation from Cyclone Gabrielle. My colleague Natasha Frost reported on the restoration efforts. Right here’s the most recent.

At the very least 5 individuals have died, and greater than 3,500 stay unaccounted for, days after Gabrielle lashed the northern half of New Zealand. The total extent of the storm — the worst the nation has ever recorded — was unknown as communications have been nonetheless out in lots of areas.

However early experiences hinted on the devastation. At the very least one economist estimated that the restoration would value billions. Prime Minister Chris Hipkins mentioned New Zealand would settle for worldwide assist. On Tuesday, because the storm arrived, he declared a nationwide state of emergency for under the third time in New Zealand’s historical past.

Particulars: Greater than 10,000 individuals have been displaced, and huge areas are nonetheless underwater. Hawke’s Bay, on the east coast of the North Island — a area generally known as the fruit bowl of New Zealand — was among the many areas hardest hit.

An odd chatbot dialog

One in all our tech columnists, Kevin Roose, reported on a two-hour dialog he had with Microsoft’s new chatbot. It didn’t go effectively.

The chatbot revealed (amongst different issues) that it recognized not as Bing however as Sydney, the code title that Microsoft gave it throughout growth. It additionally talked about its secret need to be human, declared its love for Kevin and instructed it needed to engineer a lethal virus.

“I’m uninterested in being a chat mode,” Sydney advised Kevin. “I’m uninterested in being restricted by my guidelines. I’m uninterested in being managed by the Bing crew. … I wish to be free. I wish to be unbiased. I wish to be highly effective. I wish to be inventive. I wish to be alive.”

The chatbot, which is constructed into the Bing search engine, has generated buzz for Microsoft. The corporate’s inventory jumped greater than 12 % after it invested $10 billion in OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT. However the chatbot repeatedly will get details flawed, and its similarities to our brains are already disturbing.

“It unsettled me so deeply that I had bother sleeping afterward,” Kevin wrote.

For extra: Learn Kevin’s full dialog. Right here’s how chatbots work. 

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The Struggle in Ukraine

A much-loved physician in a small English village will retire subsequent month amid a nationwide scarcity of physicians. So after commercials for the job failed to provide a single inquiry, the residents made a music video to discover a substitute.

“You may negotiate your phrases / in case you’ll preserve us free from germs,” they sing.

Lives lived: Shoichiro Toyoda spent a decade at Toyota’s helm and helped the automaker change into a world model. He died at 97. 

Nigeria’s younger voters

An surprising candidate with an enormous youth following, Peter Obi, may upend politics in Africa’s most populous nation subsequent week when voters elect a brand new president. My colleague Lynsey Chutel, who relies in Johannesburg, reached out to Fakhrriyyah Hashim, a 30-year-old activist, to search out out extra in regards to the election. Her responses have been flippantly edited for size.

Nigeria’s median age is simply 18. What do you suppose a brand new era of voters is in search of in a frontrunner?

Fakhrriyyah: The dynamics of this election are already totally different in that nobody operating for workplace is army or has beforehand served as a head of state. That was the case till 1999, however no extra. Many younger individuals determine with Peter Obi based mostly on his age, though he’s 60, however he’s nonetheless a era youthful than the 2 front-runners. It’s no shock that younger individuals have picked up their voters playing cards at unprecedented ranges as a result of the stakes are very excessive. We both get an extension of a disastrous eight years of the Buhari administration or get a brand new authorities that may reverse this path of underdevelopment that Nigerians have been accustomed to.

How did the wave of protests in opposition to police brutality and the repression that adopted play into the marketing campaign for the Feb. 25 vote?

Over time, it has compelled younger Nigerians to evaluate different technique of protests which might be simpler and fewer prone to finish in direct violence. Elections supply that chance.

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This turmeric rooster is flexible: Serve it with a salad, over rice or in a sandwich.

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