The skies over Tel Aviv were flooded with a sea of crows on Tuesday, in what many people are saying is a ‘harbinger of doom’ warning. Thousands of crows were filmed circling high-rise buildings, including the iconic Azrieli Towers, in dramatic footage that quickly went viral online. Many viewers linked the eerie scene to Israel’s […]

The post Jesse Ventura Thinks Trump Faked His Assassination Attempt appeared first on SALTY.

Little Is Known About AI That Could Affect Millions of Seniors' CareSAN FRANCISCO – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) seeking records about a multi-state program that is using AI to evaluate requests for medical care. "Tasking an algorithm with making determinations about treatment can create unwarranted—and even discriminatory—delays or denials of necessary medical care," said Kit Walsh, EFF’s Director of AI and Access-to-Knowledge Legal Projects. "Given these serious risks, the public requires transparency that it hasn't gotten. We're suing to get badly needed answers about how Medicare's AI experiment works." Announced by CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz last year, the pilot program known as WISeR (Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction) uses AI to assess prior authorization requests from Medicare beneficiaries. Previously rare in original Medicare, prior authorization requires medical providers to obtain advance approval from a patient’s health insurer before delivering certain treatments or services as a condition of coverage. Unfortunately, there is little information about how the AI algorithms used in WISeR work, including what training data they rely on. It remains unclear whether WISeR has any safeguards against systemic flaws such as algorithmic bias, privacy violations, and wrongful denials of care. Healthcare experts, care providers, and lawmakers have all raised alarms that WISeR may cause serious harm to patients by relying on AI unless it has the necessary safeguards. Despite this widespread criticism, WISeR was rolled out in six states in January, potentially affecting as many as 6.4 million Medicare beneficiaries, according to one estimate. By design, WISeR incentivizes contracted companies to deny prior approval against the best interests of patients. Vendors are compensated, in part, on the volume of healthcare services they deny and are entitled to as much as 20 percent of the associated savings. Just weeks after WISeR's launch, hospitals and other health care providers started reporting delays in care approval, communication gaps, and administrative strain. Earlier this year, EFF submitted a FOIA request to CMS asking for records related to WISeR. Among other records, the request sought agreements with software vendors participating in WISeR; records related to any tests for accuracy, bias, or hallucinations in vendors' technology; and records related to any audits, monitoring, or evaluation of WISeR and participating vendors. To date, CMS has not provided any of these records to EFF. EFF's FOIA lawsuit asks for their immediate processing and release. "The public has a right to know more about the algorithms driving decisions around their healthcare," said Tori Noble, Staff Attorney at EFF. "Without greater transparency, patients, providers, and policymakers will continue to be left in the dark.” EFF thanks Stanford Law School's Juelsgaard Intellectual Property & Innovation Clinic for their help in preparing this lawsuit.For the complaint: https://www.eff.org/document/complaint-eff-v-cms-medicare-wiser-foia Tags: transparencyartificial intelligence and machine learningautomated decision-makingContact:  ToriNobleStaff Attorneytori@eff.org

Senator Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced companion legislation to halt construction on new data centers until Congress passes comprehensive AI regulation.

Apple is adding 100+ new App Store Connect metrics, giving developers deeper, first-party insights into monetization, subscriptions, and user behavior as it doubles down on its app ecosystem in the AI era.

The cuts will impact employees in the U.S. and other international markets.

The jury says Meta and YouTube will have to pay $3 million in damages.

Ready for a crazy, Florida woman (probably redundant to say that) story that somewhat ties in with the country music world? As you likely already know, there’s always interesting things happening in the “Sunshine State.” Whether it be Florida men fist-fighting alligators, or Florida women getting tied up in a conspiracies, there’s rarely ever a dull moment in Florida. And this story out of northeast Florida (near Daytona Beach) is no exception. The Flagler County Sheriff’s office, along with the DeFuniak Springs Police Department, worked through a two-year investigation that was focused on and around fraudulent sales of property within Flagler County. It all started in January of 2024, when a woman contacted the police because she was having trouble paying her property taxes. Why? Because unbeknownst to her, the property she owned was sold to another party, and was actually in someone else’s name. Detectives got on the case and soon found that there were other similar cases, including a vacant lot that was sold without the owner’s knowledge. That was reported to the authorities in April of the same year. The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office shared in a post that they were able to track down the seller of that property thanks to identification that was connected to one of the transactions: “Records from the sale of the property in the S-Section listed the victim as the seller; however, detectives determined the photo on the driver’s license provided in the transaction was not that of the victim but rather that of Cheryl Annette Jefferson, 63, of Bartow, Florida. Further investigation revealed that wire transfers from the sale of both properties were deposited into a bank account Jefferson opened in December 2022. Since the account’s inception, Jefferson also wrote several checks to other individuals along with checks to herself that she deposited into a separate bank account in her name.” Authorities also discovered that Jefferson was wiring money through her Coinbase account, exchanging for cryptocurrency. Then that crypto was transferred to two different accounts… and each were owned by Nigerian men. So the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office had a name… now they just needed to track her down, and find her motive. While looking into Jefferson, they actually came across four other cases that were connected to the Florida woman (two in Florida, one in Colorado and another in Georgia). Soon after, deposits totaling over $400,000 to a bank account associated with Jefferson matched up with properties solid in all four of the fraudulent sales in Florida. When the police arrested Jefferson, she informed them that she was under the impression that she was making these transactions on behalf of…. country music stars. She had met someone at a concert whom she believed to be Brian Kelley from Florida Georgia Line, and was helping him – and Chase Rice – through these property sales to help fund a construction project in Nashville: “Jefferson told detectives she had opened the bank account for a friend — whom she believed to be Brian Kelley, a band member of Florida Georgia Line — and another individual, whom ‘Brian’ had introduced her to. Jefferson also stated that she thought the funds were for the construction of a recording studio in Nashville, Tennessee. The Polk County Sheriff’s Office assisted detectives with obtaining a search warrant for Jefferson’s cellphone. A review of that cellphone revealed text messages between Jefferson and another individual, Chase Rice, which is the name of another famous country music singer and songwriter. Detectives have determined these text messages show Jefferson’s continued participation in receiving money and moving it to cryptocurrency.” Yeah… I’m sure country music stars go around and ask random strangers to help them build recording studios all the time. It certainly sounds like she was scammed by some Nigerian dudes who were pretending to be Florida Georgia Line and Chase Rice, and in some ways, is a victim of fraud herself. But instead of sending thousands of dollars in Amazon gift cards to Nigeria, she was selling other people’s houses and sending the money… quite the wild situation. Jefferson was arrested after Flagler County put out a warrant for organized scheme to defraud (over $50,000). She was transported to the Walton County Jail, and was later released on $100,000 bond. Sheriff Rick Staly shared this hilarious statement on behalf of the Flagler County Sheriff’s office following Jefferson’s arrest: “Crime knows no borders, and it doesn’t stop at the Florida Georgia Line. This criminal may claim she has some high-profile friends, but I don’t see her friends getting her out of the jam she’s put herself in.” Phenomenal pun. Well done Sheriff Staly and the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office. And to anyone out there who thinks that a country star like Chase Rice or a (former) country group like Florida Georgia Line might ask them to help sell property… don’t fall for it. People like that are never going to ask regular, everyday people for help with money.The post Florida Woman Arrested For Property Fraud Was Seemingly Scammed Into Thinking She Was Working For Florida Georgia Line & Chase Rice first appeared on Whiskey Riff.

He’s a family man first, and that’s what fans love about him. Luke Combs is newly a father of three, after welcoming their newest little addition, Chet Wiley Combs, in February of this year, the third little boy for Luke and his wife Nicole. View this post on Instagram So when it came to planning out his My Kinda Saturday Night tour, which just kicked off this past weekend in Las Vegas with a record-breaking show, and he told People that he very intentionally planned out the dates for this run, and over the last several years since having kids, he’s learned the “cheat code” to be at home most of the time, honestly, and he fits the tours around that part of his life. It’s something he’s done since he had his first little one, and while it’s not the way most country artists structure their tours, most of them are on the road for the majority of the year, Combs is at a point in his career where he can play stadiums for a few months in the summer, and call it a day… and the rest of the time, he’s at home being dad. It’s a luxury most people don’t have, even people with much more normal careers, but he’s worked hard to get to this point and I know it will mean a lot to his kids when they get old enough to understand who their dad is and how important it was to make them a priority even at the height of his career. He likened it to a more “normal” dad who goes and plays golf on the weekends, as he just makes the swap for stadiums of thousands of screaming fans instead: “It is still really condensed, and it’s that way by design. It’s almost this cheat code of being an at-home, really present dad — take your kids to school and pick them up and give them baths — but also on the weekends I just go and play stadiums instead of go and play golf.” Luke and Nicole have three young boys under the age of four, so I can only imagine how crazy his life is just from that aspect, but Luke always promised himself he’d be a present dad and be there for the “things that you can’t get back,” and he’s spoken openly and candidly many times about how hard it’s been for him to cope with the fact that he missed the birth of his second son, Beau, in 2023 because he was touring Australia. While he is home a ton, it’s still a certain kind of “storm” to have three very little boys to take care of every day, but of course, Luke calls it a “good storm,” saying the foundation of his life changed when he had Tex, Beau and Chet (they sound like they could make a great country band one day… just sayin’): “It’s like, okay, well, let’s just survive this storm of life, and it’s a good storm, but a storm nonetheless. It’s like the entire foundation of your entire life changes. Our kids become the thing that your life revolves around.” Luke just released his new album The Way I Am this past Friday, and it’s absolutely fantastic. And  in an interview with GQ, Luke once again spoke about the important of his family, explaining that he is a very present dad, and he explained that he makes a huge effort to be a real partner to Nicole when it comes to the daily care of their children, saying Nicole trusts him so much that if he randomly told her he was taking all the boys to Florida for a trip alone, she wouldn’t worry one bit, and that’s how it should be: “My wife has supreme belief in me. I could put both kids in the car right now and say, ‘Hey, we’re driving to Florida and I’m going to spend a week with the kids by myself,’ and she wouldn’t worry if I could take care of them.” Combs doesn’t worry at all about missing industry events, either, and he never considers whether or not that will affect his chances at winning awards or whatever else. If he wants to be home for bedtime, or it’s Nicole’s turn to go out, Luke is happy to stay home, and he says he doesn’t care at all what that means for his career in terms of award. Well, he put it a little differently than that: “If that means I piss off people by not hanging out with people I don’t even know, so other people think I’m cool, then who the f*** cares? If that’s the reason I don’t win a Grammy or CMA award, then f****** do I even want one?” He’s a rare breed in that sense, and it’s evident in his Fathers & Sons special project, which was released in 2024, how much it means to him to be a dad. It’s refreshing to hear someone of his status talk like that, because in reality, that’s not how most celebrities operate, and I completely believe that every word of that is true. I have been loving all of the music on The Way I Am, but I’ve had a couple of songs on repeat, including his song with Alison Kraus “Ever Mine,” “Daytona 499” and “Wish Upon a Whiskey”: “Ever Mine” “Daytona 499” “Wish Upon a Whiskey” My Kinda Saturday Night Tour Dates April 4 – Scott Stadium – Charlottesville, VA April 11 – Jack Trice Stadium – Ames, IA April 18 – Notre Dame Stadium – South Bend, IN April 25 – Ohio Stadium – Columbus, OH May 2 – Neyland Stadium – Knoxville, TN May 9 – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium – Norman, OK May 15 – Lambeau Field – Green Bay, WI May 16 – Lambeau Field – Green Bay, WI May 30 – Parc Jean-Drapeau – Montreal, QC June 5 – Rogers Stadium – Toronto, ON June 6 – Rogers Stadium – Toronto, ON July 4 – Ullevi – Gothenburg, Sweden July 7 – Accor Arena – Paris, France July 11 – Johan Cruijff Arena – Amsterdam, Netherlands July 18 – Slane Castle – Slane, Ireland July 19 – Slane Castle – Slane, Ireland July 25 – Scottish Gas Murrayfield – Edinburgh, UK July 31 – Wembley Stadium – London, UK August 1 – Wembley Stadium – London, UK August 2 – Wembley Stadium – London, UKThe post Luke Combs Says He Plans Huge Tours Around Being At Home With His Kids: “On The Weekends I Go Play Stadiums Instead Of Golf” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.