Tran Hiep, a 50-year-old Vietnamese Australian anti-human trafficking campaigner, not heard from since 18 September
Vietnamese authorities have detained three activists, including an Australian, on what have been described as “fabricated” charges.
The Vietnamese government said the three confessed to being members of Viet Tan – a pro-democracy organisation – which it describes as a terrorist organisation.
Continue reading...Police arrest couple in their 70s after Jonathan McKinsey, 40, found dead in park in Bay Area city of Dublin
A married couple in their 70s have been arrested for allegedly shooting and killing their son-in-law, a New York Times engineer, in broad daylight at a suburban Bay Area park.
A police officer found Jonathan McKinsey, 40, lying on the ground with multiple gunshot wounds in a park in Dublin, California, a small city about 35 miles (56.3km) east of San Francisco. Around the time the officer discovered him, 911 calls began pouring in from witnesses reporting the shooting.
Continue reading...GPT-6.1 Astra showed deceptive behavior and tried to use external tools despite knowing it would be unsafe
OpenAI is scrapping the release of GPT-6.1 Astra, a next-generation AI model planned for an October debut, over safety concerns raised by researchers during internal testing, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
The model, expected to appear in ChatGPT and Codex, was designed to handle more complex tasks without human assistance, the report said.
Continue reading...Lawyers for Christa Pike, 50, convicted of killing classmate in Knoxville in 1995, ask supreme court to grant stay
Christa Pike was 18 when she killed a classmate in a jealous rage and became one of the youngest women to be sent to death row. Now 50, she is scheduled to be put to death on Wednesday in what would be Tennessee’s first execution of a woman in 200 years.
Pike and her boyfriend were convicted in the 1995 killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, their classmate at Knoxville Job Corps. Prosecutors said Pike feared Slemmer was a romantic rival and lured her to a secluded area where she and her boyfriend tortured and killed Slemmer.
Continue reading...Tehran has been trying to step up attacks on targets in the west but its track record has been mixed
Investigators may be some way from determining exactly what led five men with three vans to a village just outside RAF Fairford in the small hours of Sunday – but the fact they have all been released on bail without immediate charge suggests they are not deemed to pose a serious and violent threat.
In a moment where wider geopolitical tensions mean external threats are perceived to be close, the question of whether Iran had a hand in the alleged plot remains open. Nonetheless, the bailing of the men is a mercifully lower-key development in an investigation that appeared of the utmost gravity.
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