Michael Alford, 59, of Harlan county was moving a bag of potting soil when bees attacked him from inside the packageA Kentucky man has died after a swarm of bees attacked him on his porch.On Monday, the 59-year-old man whom local reports identified as Michael Alford was moving a bag of potting soil in Harlan county when he was stung by a swarm of bees from inside the package, authorities said in a…

The prime minister has trashed the consensus on climate to no electoral avail for the ToriesDavid Cameron went into No 10 promising to lead the “greenest government ever” a few years after visiting the melting Arctic ice cap and posing with huskies. It was supposed to indicate the start of a new relationship between the Conservatives and the environment. He and his successors may have a chequered…

Gina Pellettiere, a high school band director, and Beatrice Ferrari, a volunteer chaperone, died when bus fell down 50ft ravineA high school community in Farmingdale, New York, is grieving after a school bus crash killed a band director as well as a volunteer chaperone.Gina Pellettiere – the 43-year-old director of the Farmingdale high school marching band and wind ensemble – and Beatrice Ferrari,…

Authors have entered a war over words with OpenAI for using their books as ‘training’ feedstockBattles between human and artificial intelligence are no longer science fiction. The strikes in Hollywood led by the united guilds of actors and screenwriters have a common, intangible enemy: the algorithms and computer-generated imagery that are increasingly programmed by studios to render them…

The chatbot GPT-4 has produced more viable commercial ideas more efficiently and more cheaply than US university studentsIn all the frenzied discourse about large language models (LLMs) such as GPT-4 there is one point on which everyone seems to agree: these models are essentially stochastic parrots – namely, machines that are good at generating convincing sentences, but do not actually understand…

Florida governor’s constant attacks on the education system have led to an increasing backlash from a wide range of peopleThis summer, Iris Mogul – a junior at a Miami high school – found out that she wouldn’t be able to take an AP African American history course that she had planned for the coming semester because it had been blocked by the state’s department of education. “As presented, the…

Once a national model for sustainability, San Francisco’s Bart is facing a dire future as ridership slumps. What lessons does it hold for the city, and for the promises of public transportation?On a bright day in early June, a crowd of activists dressed in black gathered in downtown San Francisco for a funeral procession. The crowd wailed and shared impromptu eulogies, not for a person, but for a…

Galveston Island was the site of the final end of US slavery but Republicans are testing what remains of the 1965 Voting Rights Act to draw a controversial redistricting mapThe square in front of the county courthouse on Galveston Island, a barrier island on the Gulf coast of Texas, is dominated by a 40ft statue titled Dignified Resignation that depicts a Confederate soldier coming home at the end…