Month: April 2023

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(C) Reuters. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy visits positions of Ukrainian Border Guards near the border with Russia, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Sumy region, Ukraine March 28, 2023. Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via REUTERS
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KYIV (Reuters) – Russia, whose leader is accused of war crimes, assumed charge of the United Nations Security Council on Saturday causing fury in Ukraine, with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy calling it an absurd and destructive move.

The last time Russia held the rotating presidency of the body responsible for maintaining peace and combating acts of international aggression was in February 2022 when Moscow troops launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“Unfortunately, we … have some obviously absurd and destructive news,” Zelenskiy said in his daily video address, adding that Russian shelling had killed a five-month-old boy on Friday.

“And at the same time Russia is chairing the U.N. Security Council. It’s hard to imagine anything that proves more the total bankruptcy of such institutions,” he said.

The presidency rotates alphabetically each month among the 15 members. Although it is largely procedural, the Kremlin and other Russian officials vowed to “exercise all its rights” in the role.

The United States on Thursday urged Russia to “conduct itself professionally” when it assumes the role, saying there was no means to block Moscow from the post.

In March, the International Criminal Court (ICC) – an international justice body not associated with the UN – issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin and his commissioner for children rights, accusing them of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called Russia’s presidency of the Security Council a “slap in the face to the international community.” Zelenskiy said it was time for a general overhaul of global institutions, including the Security Council.

“Reform is obviously necessary to prevent a terrorist state – and any other state that wants to be a terrorist – from destroying the peace,” he said.

Some 400 days into the war, which has killed thousands, destroyed Ukrainian cities and set millions of civilians to flight, Russia continues to take over parts of the country, pressing on with its assault in the east.

Earlier, Zelenskiy advisor Andriy Yermak also hit out at Iran, which Kyiv and its allies accuse of supplying Russia with arms. Tehran denies it is giving weapons to Russia.

“It is very telling that on the holiday of one terror state – Iran – another terror state – Russia – begins to preside over the U.N. Security Council,” Yermak wrote on Twitter, referring to Iran’s Islamic Republic Day holiday.

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(C) Reuters. Israeli police stand guard near a security incident scene near Al-Aqsa compound also known to Jews as the Temple Mount, in Jerusalem’s Old City, April 1, 2023. REUTERS/Ammar Awad
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JERUSALEM (Reuters) – A Palestinian motorist rammed his car into a group of soldiers in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, the Israeli military said, wounding three before another opened fire at the driver who was, according to the Palestinian health ministry, killed.

A Palestinian official said the 23-year-old was a member of the Palestinian security forces.

In Jerusalem, a man detained by Israeli police near a flashpoint holy site grabbed an officer’s gun and fired it, prompting the unit to shoot him dead, the force said, an account doubted by Arab leaders and probed by authorities.

The Jerusalem incident overnight at the edge of the Al Aqsa Mosque complex, an icon of Palestinian nationalism, came at a high point of Muslim attendance for the holy month of Ramadan amid heightened fears of an escalation in violence.

Israeli-Palestinian tensions are simmering after months of violence in areas of Jerusalem and the West Bank. Friction at Al Aqsa has set off violence in recent years.

However, the sacred site, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as Temple Mount, remained relatively quiet on Saturday.

The slain man was identified as Mohammad Khaled al-Osaib, 26, a resident of the Bedouin town Hura in south Israel. Mansour Abbas, a lawmaker whose United Arab List party is popular there, said the man was a medical student. Abbas questioned the police account.

“All we demand is the truth,” he said.

The Justice Ministry department for investigating police conduct is looking into the incident, a spokesperson said, adding that the procedure was not a formal investigation.

Asked if the Israeli unit’s response was due to allegations of misconduct, she said: “There are such claims, and that’s why we’re looking into it.”

Reuters could not immediately verify the police account. Police said the incident took place at a spot not covered by security cameras. Footage of similar incidents in the past has usually surfaced within a short time.

Police released CCTV footage showing a person they said was al-Osaib walking across the complex alone right before the incident, which a spokesperson said happened in “seconds,” and denied reports he had intervened in an altercation with a female worshipper.

Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said he backed the officers.

By Liliana Salgado

LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (Reuters) – A violent storm packing high winds and heavy rains ripped through Southern and Midwestern sections of the United States as it headed east on Saturday, leaving 18 dead and scores injured, according to officials and media reports.

At least five people were killed in Arkansas, according to officials, as first responders sifted through debris for more possible victims after tornadoes sliced through the state on Friday.

Officials also reported one death in Illinois and three in Indiana, while local media on Saturday said there were seven deaths in McNairy County, Tennessee, at the Mississippi border. Fox News reported one death each in Alabama and Mississippi.

The National Weather Service issued a severe thunderstorm watch for Saturday afternoon in parts of central New York state and central and eastern Pennsylvania, with wind gusts of up to 65 miles (105 km) per hour.

Rain and winds were also expected in eastern Ohio and parts of West Virginia, according to the weather service.

Severe, high winds with gusts up to 60 mph (100 kph) were also forecast for Washington, D.C., through Saturday.

The twisters sheared roofs and walls from many buildings in Arkansas, flipped over vehicles and downed trees and power lines in Little Rock and large areas east and northeast of the state capital, officials said.

The blast of extreme spring weather swept much of the United States on Friday, menacing the nation’s midsection from Texas to the Great Lakes with thunderstorms and tornados.

Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Saturday said there were five confirmed dead in the state.

“Right now, we have five confirmed fatalities. We have a couple of others that have been reported, but we do not have confirmation from local law enforcement on the ground. And, so, awaiting that. But right now, statewide, we have five confirmed fatalities,” she said.

Four of the Arkansas fatalities were reported in Wynne, about 100 miles (160 km) east of Little Rock, Cross County Coroner Eli Long said.

One person was killed and more than 50 people were hospitalized in North Little Rock, Pulaski County spokeswoman Madeline Roberts told the Washington Post.

U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with Huckabee Sanders and the mayors of Little Rock and Wynne, the White House said in a statement. He also spoke with Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Deanne Criswell.

Biden also reached out to Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, the White House added.

Huckabee Sanders said Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, in phone calls on Saturday, offered federal government support.

“Anything that Arkansas needs, they have assured us that those resources will be here and on the ground,” she said at a news conference.

In Belvidere, a city in northern Illinois, one person was killed and 28 were injured when extreme weather tore the roof off a theater during a heavy metal concert.

Belvidere Fire Chief Shawn Schadle said about 260 people were attending the concert at the city’s Apollo Theatre, which featured the headline act Morbid Angel as part of the group’s “Tour of Terror.”

Concertgoer Gabrielle Lewellyn told WTVO television that people took refuge in the basement when the roof came crashing down.

“They dragged someone out from the rubble. And I sat with him and I held his hand and I said everything is going to be OK. I didn’t really know much else what to do,” Lewellyn said.

In Sullivan County, Indiana, three people were killed, Indiana State Police Sergeant Matt Ames said. A state of emergency was declared for the affected areas, Sheriff Jason Bobbitt said on Facebook (NASDAQ:META).

Fox News, citing Fox Weather, reported that a tornado killed a person in Madison County, Alabama, and another person died during a storm in Pontotoc County, Mississippi.

The turbulent weather occurred one week after a swarm of thunderstorms unleashed a deadly tornado that devastated the Mississippi town of Rolling Fork, destroying many of the community’s 400 homes and killing 26 people.

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(C) Reuters. A sketch drawn by Kris Kashtanova (L) that the artist fed into AI program Stable Diffusion and transformed into the resulting image (R) using text prompts. Courtesy of Kris Kashtanova/Handout via REUTERS
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By Tom Hals and Blake Brittain

(Reuters) – Last year, Kris Kashtanova typed instructions for a graphic novel into a new artificial-intelligence program and touched off a high-stakes debate over who created the artwork: a human or an algorithm.

“Zendaya leaving gates of Central Park,” Kashtanova entered into Midjourney, an AI program similar to ChatGPT that produces dazzling illustrations from written prompts. “Sci-fi scene future empty New York….”

From these inputs and hundreds more emerged “Zarya of the Dawn,” an 18-page story about a character resembling the actress Zendaya who roams a deserted Manhattan hundreds of years in the future. Kashtanova received a copyright in September, and declared on social media that it meant artists were entitled to legal protection for their AI art projects.

It didn’t last long. In February, the U.S. Copyright Office suddenly reversed itself, and Kashtanova became the first person in the country to be stripped of legal protection for AI art. The images in “Zarya,” the office said, were “not the product of human authorship.” The office allowed Kashtanova to keep a copyright in the arrangement and storyline.

Now, with the help of a high-powered legal team, the artist is testing the limits of the law once again. For a new book, Kashtanova has turned to a different AI program, Stable Diffusion, which lets users scan in their own drawings and refine them with text prompts. The artist believes that starting with original artwork will provide enough of a “human” element to sway the authorities.

“It would be very strange if it’s not copyrightable,” said the 37-year-old artist of the latest work, an autobiographical comic.

A spokesperson for the copyright office declined to comment. Midjourney also declined to comment, and Stability AI did not respond to requests for comment.

SMASHING RECORDS

At a time when new AI programs like ChatGPT, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion seem poised to transform human expression as they smash records for user growth, the legal system still hasn’t figured out who owns the output — the users, the owners of the programs, or maybe no one at all.

Billions of dollars could hinge on the answer, legal experts said.

If users and owners of the new AI systems could get copyrights, they would stand to reap huge benefits, said Ryan Merkley, the former chief of Creative Commons, a U.S. organization that issues licenses to allow creators to share their work.

For example, companies could use AI to produce and own the rights to vast quantities of low-cost graphics, music, video and text for advertising, branding and entertainment. “Copyright governing bodies are going to be under enormous pressure to permit copyrights to be awarded to computer-generated works,” Merkley said.

In the U.S. and many other countries, anyone who engages in creative expression usually has immediate legal rights to it. A copyright registration creates a public record of the work and allows the owner to go to court to enforce their rights.

Courts including the U.S. Supreme Court have long held that an author has to be a human being. In rejecting legal protection for the “Zarya” images, the U.S. Copyright Office cited rulings denying legal protection for a selfie snapped by a curious monkey named Naruto and for a song that the copyright applicant said had been composed by “the Holy Spirit.”

One U.S. computer scientist, Stephen Thaler of Missouri, has maintained that his AI programs are sentient and should be legally recognized as the creators of artwork and inventions that they generated. He has sued the U.S. Copyright Office, petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court and has a patent case before the U.K. Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, many artists and companies that own creative content fiercely oppose granting copyrights to AI owners or users. They argue that because the new algorithms work by training themselves on vast quantities of material on the open web, some of which is copyrighted, the AI systems are gobbling up legally protected material without permission.

Stock photo provider Getty Images, a group of visual artists and owners of computer code have separately filed lawsuits against owners of AI programs including Midjourney, Stability AI and ChatGPT developer OpenAI for copyright infringement, which the companies deny. Getty and OpenAI declined to comment.

Sarah Andersen, one of the artists, said granting copyrights to AI works “would legitimize theft.”

‘HARD QUESTIONS’

Kashtanova is being represented for free by Morrison Foerster and its veteran copyright lawyer Joe Gratz, who is also defending OpenAI in a proposed class action brought on behalf of owners of copyrighted computer code. The firm took on Kashtanova’s case after an associate at the firm, Heather Whitney, spotted a LinkedIn post by the artist seeking legal help with a new application after the “Zarya” copyright was rejected.

“These are hard questions with significant consequences for all of us,” Gratz said.

The Copyright Office said it reviewed Kashtanova’s “Zarya” decision after discovering the artist had posted on Instagram that the images were created using AI, which it said was not clear in the original September application. On March 16, it issued public guidance instructing applicants to clearly disclose if their work was created with the help of AI.

The guidance said the most popular AI systems likely do not create copyrightable work, and “what matters is the extent to which the human had creative control.”

‘COMPLETELY BLOWN’

Kashtanova, who identifies as nonbinary and uses “they/them” pronouns, discovered Midjourney in August after the pandemic largely shut down their work as a photographer at yoga retreats and extreme-sports events.

“My mind was completely blown,” the artist said. Now, as AI technology develops at lightning speed, Kashtanova has turned to newer tools that allow users to input original work and give more specific commands to control the output.

To test how much human control will satisfy the copyright office, Kashtanova is planning to submit a series of copyright applications for individual images chosen from the new autobiographical comic, each one made with a different AI program, setting or method.

The artist, who now works at a start-up that uses AI to turn children’s drawings into comic books, created the first such image a few weeks ago, titled “Rose Enigma.”

Sitting at a computer in their one-bedroom Manhattan apartment, Kashtanova demonstrated their latest technique: they pulled up on the screen a simple pen-and-paper sketch they had scanned into Stable Diffusion, and began refining it by adjusting settings and using text prompts such as “young cyborg woman” and “flowers coming out of her head.”

The result was an otherworldly image, the lower half of a woman’s face with long-stemmed roses replacing the upper part of her head. Kashtanova submitted it for copyright protection on March 21.

The image will also appear in Kashtanova’s new book. It’s title: “For My A.I. Community.”