Study funded by Facebook aims to improve communication with paralysed patients
Doctors have turned the brain signals for speech into written sentences in a research project that aims to transform how patients with severe disabilities communicate in the future.
The breakthrough is the first to demonstrate how the intention to say specific words can be extracted from brain activity and converted into text rapidly enough to keep pace with natural conversation.
Continue reading...The architect and anti-border wall campaigner Ronald Rael has installed three pink seesaws on the US-Mexico border to allow families on each side to ‘meaningfully connect’ with each other and highlight the bond between the two countries. Rael says the seesaws have turned the wall into a ‘literal fulcrum for US-Mexico relations’
Continue reading...Congressional report finds Tom Barrack tried to buy Westinghouse as he sought a related government post
A billionaire friend of Donald Trump pursued a plan to buy Westinghouse Electric Corp – even as he lobbied Trump to become a special envoy and promote the company’s work on nuclear power in Saudi Arabia, a congressional report released on Monday.
While Tom Barrack failed in both efforts, the report provides fresh evidence of the ease with which some corporate and foreign interests have gained access to the US president and other senior members of his administration.
Continue reading...Canadian authorities urge people to remain vigilant as search for Kam McLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky continues
Canadian authorities have suffered a frustrating blow in their search for two teenage suspects wanted over a series of killing in remote northern Canada.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) announced late on Monday that a possible sighting of Kam McLeod, 19, and Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, at a garbage dump could not be substantiated after a “thorough and exhaustive search”.
Continue reading...FBI has arrested individual who obtained names, addresses, phone numbers and birth dates of people in US and Canada
A hacker gained access to personal information from more than 100 million Capitol One credit applications, the bank said Monday as federal authorities arrested a suspect.
The data breach has affected around 100 million people in the US and 6 million in Canada.
Continue reading...US lawmakers renew calls for federal gun reform after shooter purchased weapon legally in Nevada
California has some of the most stringent gun laws in the country, including a ban on the type of rifle that a shooter used to kill three and wound 15 at the garlic food festival in Gilroy on Sunday.
But the gunman had legally purchased the “assault-type rifle”, in the style of an AK-47, from the neighboring state Nevada on 9 July before carrying it illegally over state lines into California, highlighting what some gun control advocates say is a loophole in the way laws operate, state by state.
Continue reading...Four people including the gunman are dead and 15 injured after an attack on the Gilroy garlic festival in California. Police said the man was armed with a rifle and cut through a fence to avoid tight security. Gilroy police chief Scot Smithee said the gunman was shot dead by police but a second suspect was believed to still be at large
Continue reading...Rebecca Kanter is accused of abusing staff and damaging property at Washington DC embassy
A fan of the rapper A$AP Rocky has been arrested in Washington DC after allegedly threatening to “blow up” the Swedish embassy there. The rapper is currently jailed in Sweden, awaiting trial for an assault charge after footage emerged of him and his entourage allegedly punching and kicking a pair of men on a Stockholm street.
According to a written statement by a Secret Service officer, Rebecca Kanter is accused of screaming at embassy staff, accosting a group of students visiting the embassy and damaging property. She was arrested after refusing to leave the premises, and charged with wilfully injuring and damaging property of a foreign government, and refusing to depart a foreign embassy. The previous day she had allegedly thrown liquid from a Coca-Cola bottle at the embassy and shouted: “I’m going to blow this motherfucker up.” She wrote on social media that she had “defiled the House of Sweden … why aren’t I getting press for A$AP”. She has been released on bail.
Continue reading...Joshua Harris says his marriage is over and apologises to LGBT+ people for promoting bigotry
The American author of a bestselling Christian guide to relationships for young people has announced that his marriage is over and he has lost his faith.
Joshua Harris, whose biblical guide to relationships I Kissed Dating Goodbye sold nearly 1m copies around the world after it was published in 1997, has also apologised to LGBT+ people for contributing to a “culture of exclusion and bigotry”.
Continue reading...Police kill assailant, whose motive remains unclear, amid reports of a possible second suspect
Three people have been killed and at least 15 injured after a gunman opened fire at a food festival in northern California before being shot dead by police.
The gunman used a rifle and gained entry to the Gilroy garlic festival by cutting through a fence to avoid tight security, including metal detectors, police said.
Continue reading...Video posted to social media shows confusion after a gunman opened fire at the Gilroy garlic festival in northern California. At least three people were killed and 15 injured before the assailant was shot dead by police
Continue reading...Dan Coats to go next month after turbulent two years of disagreements with president
Dan Coats, one of the most senior national security officials willing to contradict Donald Trump, will leave the post of US director of national intelligence next month, the president has said.
Trump said Coats would go on 15 August and that he will nominate John Ratcliffe, a Texas representative and staunch loyalist, to the post.
Continue reading...Tara Beagan’s drama about a Blackfoot woman seeking to avenge her sister’s murder confronts the violence suffered by Indigenous women from the standpoint of those affected
“You think we’re not at war here? As a Blackfoot woman I can tell you it sure as fuck feels like we are.” So begins Tara Beagan’s one-woman play Deer Woman, about an ex-soldier avenging the murder of her sister – and the 4,000 other Indigenous women and girls who have gone missing or been killed in Canada since the 1970s.
The show, set deep in the woods with nothing but a cooler, holdall and bundled-up tarpaulin as props, is delivered as a mesmerising, shocking, and at times terrifying confession to a smartphone on a tripod. Lila, whose primary goal in life has been to protect her sister Hammy, is eventually deployed with the army overseas – only to discover that something horrible has happened while she was away.
Continue reading...In its response to Donald Trump’s racist attack on congressman Elijah Cummings, the editorial board of the Baltimore Sun said it “would not sink to name-calling in the Trumpian manner”.
Related: 'Own up to reality': 2020 Democrats urged to confront US racial divide
Continue reading...Robert Mueller’s testimony to Congress “broke the lie” Donald Trump has been telling and potentially cleared the path to impeachment, House judiciary chair Jerrold Nadler said on Sunday.
Related: Baltimore Sun and CNN lead response to Trump’s racist Cummings attack
Continue reading...Astrophysicist was accused of behaving inappropriately with two women in an article published in November on website Patheos
The astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson will keep his job as head of the Hayden Planetarium at New York’s American Museum of Natural History, after the museum concluded its investigation into sexual misconduct accusations against him.
Related: Neil deGrasse Tyson answers allegations of sexual misconduct
Continue reading...CNN’s Victor Blackwell teared up while responding to Donald Trump’s tweets calling Elijah Cummings’ district of Baltimore – Blackwell’s home town – a ‘very dangerous & filthy place’
Continue reading...As the NAACP gathered in Detroit, leaders warned presidential hopefuls not to shy away as Trump fans the flames
In August 2016, Donald Trump stood before an overwhelmingly white crowd in Dimondale, Michigan, and asked black people for their votes.
Related: Trump 'rat-infested' attack on Elijah Cummings was racist, Pelosi says
Continue reading...Police highlight wildlife threat as airforce joins manhunt for Kam McLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky
The threat of a polar bear attack has become a reality for the huge Canadian police and military contingent searching for the teenage duo suspected of shooting dead Australian tourist Lucas Fowler, his US girlfriend and a university botanist.
The manhunt for Kam McLeod, 19, and Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, continued on Saturday with the addition of a Royal Canadian Air Force CC-130H Hercules and personnel searching the unforgiving wilderness near Gillam, a remote area in northern Manitoba.
Continue reading...Donald Trump kicked off his weekend with a stinging attack on Elijah Cummings, the Democratic chair of the House oversight committee, that opponents including House speaker Nancy Pelosi said was another example of the president deploying racist invective for political ends.
Related: Trump slams 'rat-infested' district – but his own restaurant had a rodent problem
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