Amazon has updated its Alexa voice assistant after it “challenged” a 10-year-old girl to touch a coin to the prongs of a half-inserted plug.
The suggestion came after the girl asked Alexa for a “challenge to do”.
“Plug in a phone charger about halfway into a wall outlet, then touch a penny to the exposed prongs,” the smart speaker said.
Amazon said it fixed the error as soon as the company became aware of it.
There’s no rhyme or reason to it. But NASCAR driver Brandon Brown has been canceled and is in jeopardy of not finding sponsors for the upcoming NASCAR circuit.
A mosque in the northern French region of Oise has been closed because of an imam’s radical sermons, said to have “defended jihad”.
The mosque in the town of Beauvais will remain shut for six months, local authorities say.
Oise’s prefect said sermons there called jihadist fighters “heroes” and incited hatred and violence.
France has been carrying out checks on Islamic places of worship suspected of having links to extremism.
Elon Musk is facing a social media backlash after China complained that its space station was forced to avoid collisions with satellites launched by his Starlink Internet Services project.
The country’s space station had two “close encounters” with Starlink satellites this year, Beijing claimed.
The incidents behind the complaints, lodged with the UN’s space agency, have not yet been independently verified.
A Texas doctor said his practice has seen a nearly 15% increase in vasectomies as men try to push back against the state’s abortion law, The Washington Post (WaP0) reported Sunday.
Koushik Shaw, a doctor who practices at the Austin Urology Institute, told WaPo his practice saw a roughly 15% increase in scheduled vasectomies following the state’s Sept. 1 abortion ban.
Two dozen theologians were hired by NASA to research how humans may react to news that intelligent life exists on other planets, according to one religious scholar who says he was recruited by the agency.
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Davison, of the University of Cambridge, told the Times UK in a recent interview that he was among 23 other theologians in a NASA-sponsored program at the Center for Theological Inquiry at Princeton University from 2016 to 2017.
Davison said he and his colleagues examined how each of the world’s major religions would likely respond if they were made aware of the existence of aliens. His own work focused on the connection between astrobiology and Christian theology.
Earlier this year, the federal government expanded physician-assisted death laws to apply to people with chronic medical problems even if they have years or decades to live. Unbeknownst to many, it also set up a process that will almost certainly result in death becoming available, in the near future, as an intervention for chronic mental illnesses. This is destined to create a massive legal quagmire, which, unfortunately, hasn’t got the attention it deserves. Importantly, these are not issues that the government’s forthcoming recommendations, set to be released by this coming March, will be able to resolve.
Triggered by grim experience my personal view on euthanasia for the terminally ill is evolving. It may be the most merciful of acts in some circumstances but always the choice must be left to the afflicted.
It’s a mid-life crisis like no other as Justin Trudeau turns 50 with nowhere to go but down.
The three-term prime minister and Christmas Day baby of 1971 faces a bleak Omicron beginning to his seventh year in power while confronting a major personal decision: Stay or go?
But, but, but, you may say, that question was answered with Trudeau emphatically insisting he will absolutely run again. Oh, puh-LEEZE. What leader would surrender power by even hinting at retirement just three months into a new mandate?
When the holidays arrive, I often take the occasion to write solemn think pieces that survey the human condition in all its many facets — as with my 2019 Christmas essay about how Ambrose of Milan’s response to the Massacre of Thessalonica in 390 A.D. shaped the western Christian tradition. But writing those thumb-suckers takes a lot of “emotional labour.” So this year, as yuletide approaches, I’ve instead acceded to my editor’s request that I write a trashy listicle cataloguing the most hilariously woke Canadian social-justice meltdowns of 2021. “It is easier to look wise than to talk wisely,” Ambrose sagely advised. Here are some social-justice enthusiasts who had challenges on both fronts.
A good compilation of the people who make Canada suck.
Majority of Canadians will change food buying habits amid rising prices: survey
A majority of Canadians say they are going to change their food buying habits as prices are projected to rise in 2022 amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
That’s according to a new report released by the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, in partnership with Caddle.
Since its birth during the Cold War, Canada’s spy agency has occupied itself with three primary threats: terrorism, espionage and foreign interference in domestic politics and business.
Now, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service is pointing to a disruptive new player on the field: climate change.
CSIS says it’s trying to get a handle on how climate change will disrupt national security. It has even acknowledged that effort publicly — something intelligence agencies rarely do.
Another budget ask.
Ontario reports 8,825 new COVID-19 cases
Ontario is reporting more than 8,800 new COVID-19 cases as the Omicron variant continues to rapidly spread across the province.
Provincial health officials logged 8,825 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday compared to 3,453 a week ago, according to a tweet from Health Minister Christine Elliott.
They don’t really know the count as many people can’t get tested even if they want to.
Omicron variant fills up children’s hospitals in the U.S.
A five-fold increase in pediatric admissions in New York City this month. Close to double the numbers admitted in Washington, D.C. And nationwide, on average, pediatric hospitalizations in the U.S. are up 35 per cent in just the past week.
The highly transmissible Omicron variant is teaming up with the busy holiday season to infect more children across the United States than ever before, and children’s hospitals are bracing for it to get even worse.
COVID virus can spread to heart, brain days after infection, study says
The virus that causes COVID-19 can spread to a patient’s heart and brain days after infection — and survive for months in organs, according to a new study that may shed light on the so-called “long COVID.”
Scientists at the US National Institutes of Health in Maryland studied tissues taken from 44 people who had died after contracting the illness during the first year of the pandemic in the US, Bloomberg News reported.
They discovered SARS-CoV-2 RNA in various parts of the body — including the heart and brain — for as long as 230 days after the onset of symptoms, according to the news outlet.
Federal seizures of synthetic drugs like meth and fentanyl are rising in Mexico, according to seizure figures published on Monday by the country’s Defense Department.
Fentanyl is a highly addictive and deadly drug of which just a 2-milligram dose can prove fatal. Methamphetamine is a highly addictive stimulant that affects the central nervous system. The majority of meth in the United States is currently produced by cartels in Mexico.
In a video recently made and uploaded onto YouTube, Bahgat Saber, a Manhattan-based Muslim Brotherhood activist who enjoys life and liberty in the USA, exhibited two aspects that are common to his ilk: extreme vulgarity and warped logic.
Ben & Jerry’s has recently come under fire for its decision to remove its ice cream products from sale and production in Jewish communities within East Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), what the company considers “Israeli occupied territories.” The action has been labeled “anti-Semitic” by the Israeli government and others. Some have even accused Ben & Jerry’s of helping terrorists. The company denies the charges, but what it cannot deny is the fact that it does business with a Muslim food group, IFANCA, that is linked to terror and bigotry, itself. Maybe it is time for Ben & Jerry’s to close up shop not only in Israel, but everywhere.
