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e psx Best Delta-8 Gummies: Leading THC Edibles Available for 2025VANCOUVER — British Columbia business owner Joe Chaput will spend $5,500 a month on security guards during the holiday season and plans on upgrading his store’s video camera system for around $5,000 more. He’s not selling luxury brands or expensive jewels. Chaput sells cheese, and at Christmas, cheese is a hot commodity. He is the co-owner of specialty cheese store les amis du Fromage, with two locations in Vancouver. While cheeselifting is rare in their Kitsilano store, the outlet in East Vancouver is hit in waves, with nothing happening for a month, then three of four people trying to steal their inventory within a week. “Sometimes, you miss it. Sometimes, you catch it. The way shoplifters behave ... they tend to gravitate toward expensive things,” said Chaput. Expensive cheese is on shoplifters’ Christmas list, he said. “They tend to do the classic examples of staying away from customer service and trying to go to a different part of the store so they can be left alone to steal.” Chaput isn’t alone. Police say food-related crimes on are the rise in Canada and as prices climb for items such as cheese and butter, they become lucrative on the black market for organized crime groups, not to mention theft for local resale. Sylvain Charlebois, the director of Dalhousie University’s Agri-food Analytics Lab, said a black market tends to emerge as soon as food prices surge. “Organized crime will steal anything (if) they know they can sell it and so, they probably would have known who their clients are before even stealing anything at all, and that’s how a black market is organized,” said Charlebois. He said he believes there are two categories of people shoplifting — those who do so out of desperation because they can’t afford the food, or organized criminals, profiting from sales on the black market. Mounties in North Vancouver made cheesy headlines when they ran into a man with a cart of stolen cheese in the middle of the night in September. The cheese, valued at $12,800, was from a nearby Whole Foods Store. While the cheese was recovered, it had to be disposed of because it hadn’t been refrigerated. Const. Mansoor Sahak, with the North Vancouver RCMP, said officers believe cheese is targeted because it’s “profitable to resell.” “If they are drug addicts, they will commit further crimes with that or feed their drug habits. It’s a vicious cycle,” said Sahak. Sahak said meat is also a top target for grocery thieves, with store losses sometimes in the thousands. “So, we’re not surprised that this happened,” said Sahak. Police in Ontario have been chasing down slippery shoplifters going after butter. Scott Tracey, a spokesman with Guelph Police Service, said there have been eight or nine butter thefts over the last year, including one theft last December worth $1,000. In October, two men walked into a local grocer and filled their carts with cases of butter valued at $936, and four days later a Guelph grocer lost four cases valued at $958. Tracey said he has looked at online marketplaces and found listings by people selling 20 or 30 pounds of butter at a time. “Clearly, somebody didn’t accidentally buy 30 extra pounds of butter. So, they must have come from somewhere,” said Tracey, “I think at this point it appears to be the black market is where it’s headed.” He said the thefts seem to be organized, with two or three people working together in each case. Police in Brantford, Ont., are also investigating the theft of about $1,200 worth of butter from a store on Nov. 4. Charlebois said retailers could invest in prevention technologies like electronic tags, but putting them on butter or cheese is rare. He said up until recently grocery store theft has been a “taboo subject for many years.” Stores didn’t wanted to talk about thefts because they didn’t want to alarm people but now they feel they need to build awareness about what is “becoming a huge problem,” said Charlebois. Chaput, the cheese store owner, said he had been running the East Vancouver store for 15 years while managing the store in Kitsilano for 30 years, and he loves his customers. “It’s really one of the best parts of our businesses, seeing familiar faces and making new customers. It’s why we come to work, really. Partly it’s the cheese, and partly it’s the people,” said Chaput. He said his strategy to combat would-be thieves is to give them extra customer service to make it harder for them to steal. He admits, however, that the shoplifting causes him stress. “It’s challenging. You’re busy trying to run your business day to day and take care of customers and take care of employees. Having to deal with criminals, just kind of scratches away. It can be a bit exhausting,” said Chaput.

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A first-of-its-kind study highlights the stark gender disparity in AI-generated nonconsensual intimate images — and puts into focus the evolving risks for women in politics and public life. By Barbara Rodriguez and Jasmine Mithani , for The 19th More than two dozen members of Congress have been the victims of sexually explicit deepfakes—and an overwhelming majority of those impacted are women, according to a new study that spotlights the stark gender disparity in this technology and the evolving risks for women’s participation in politics and other forms of civic engagement. The American Sunlight Project , a think tank that researches disinformation and advocates for policies that promote democracy, released findings on Wednesday that identify more than 35,000 mentions of nonconsensual intimate imagery depicting 26 members of Congress—25 women and one man—that were found recently on deepfake websites. Most of the imagery was quickly removed as researchers shared their findings with impacted members of Congress. “We need to kind of reckon with this new environment and the fact that the internet has opened up so many of these harms that are disproportionately targeting women and marginalized communities,” said Nina Jankowicz, an online disinformation and harassment expert who founded The American Sunlight Project and is an author on the study. Nonconsensual intimate imagery, also known colloquially as deepfake porn ( though advocates prefer the former ), can be created through generative AI or by overlaying headshots onto media of adult performers . There is currently limited policy to restrict its creation and spread. ASP shared the first-of-its-kind findings exclusively with The 19th. The group collected data in part by developing a custom search engine to find members of the 118th Congress by first and last name, abbreviations, or nicknames on 11 well-known deepfake sites. Neither party affiliation nor geographic location had an impact on the likelihood of being targeted for abuse, though younger members were more likely to be victimized. The largest factor was gender, with women members of Congress being 70 times more likely than men to be targeted. ASP did not release the names of the lawmakers depicted in the imagery to avoid encouraging searches. They did contact the offices of everyone impacted to alert them and offer resources on online harms and mental health support. Authors of the study note that in the immediate aftermath, imagery targeting most of the members was entirely or almost entirely removed from the sites—a fact they’re unable to explain. Researchers have noted that such removals do not prevent material from being shared or uploaded again. In some cases involving lawmakers, search result pages remained indexed on Google despite the content being largely or entirely removed. “The removal may be coincidental. Regardless of what exactly led to removal of this content—whether ‘cease and desist’ letters, claims of copyright infringement, or other contact with the sites hosting deepfake abuse—it highlights a large disparity of privilege,” according to the study. “People, particularly women, who lack the resources afforded to Members of Congress, would be highly unlikely to achieve this rapid response from the creators and distributors of AI-generated NCII if they initiated a takedown request themselves.” According to the study’s initial findings, nearly 16% of all the women who currently serve in Congress—or about 1 in 6 congresswomen—are the victims of AI-generated nonconsensual intimate imagery. Jankowicz has been the target of online harassment and threats for her domestic and international work dismantling disinformation. She has also spoken publicly about being the victim of deepfake abuse—a fact she found out through a Google Alert in 2023. “You can be made to appear in these compromised, intimate situations without your consent, and those videos, even if you were to say, pursue a copyright claim against the original poster, as in my case, they proliferate around the internet without your control and without some sort of consequence for the people who are amplifying or creating deepfake porn,” she said. “That continues to be a risk for anybody who is in the public eye, who is participating in public discourse, but in particular for women and for women of color.” Image-based sexual abuse can have devastating mental health effects on victims, who include everyday people who are not involved in politics—including children. In the past year, there have been reports of high school girls being targeted for image-based sexual abuse in states like California , New Jersey , and Pennsylvania . School officials have had varying degrees of response, though the FBI has also issued a new warning that sharing such imagery of minors is illegal. The full impact of deepfakes on society is still coming into focus, but research already shows that 41% of women between the ages of 18 and 29 self-censor to avoid online harassment. “That is a hugely powerful threat to democracy and free speech, if we have almost half of the population silencing themselves because they’re scared of the harassment they could experience,” said Sophie Maddocks, research director at the Center for Media at Risk at the University of Pennsylvania. There is no federal law that establishes criminal or civil penalties for someone who generates and distributes AI-generated nonconsensual intimate imagery. About a dozen states have enacted laws in recent years , though most include civil penalties, not criminal ones. AI-generated nonconsensual intimate imagery also opens up threats to national security by creating conditions for blackmail and geopolitical concessions. That could have ripple effects on policymakers irrespective of whether they’re directly the target of the imagery. RELATED STORY: Experts warn of impact on elections as AI deepfakes go mainstream “My hope here is that the members are pushed into action when they recognize not only that it’s affecting American women, but it’s affecting them,” Jankowicz said. “It’s affecting their own colleagues. And this is happening simply because they are in the public eye.” Image-based sexual abuse is a unique risk for women running for office. Susanna Gibson narrowly lost her competitive legislative race after a Republican operative shared nonconsensual recordings of sexually explicit livestreams featuring the Virginia Democrat and her husband with The Washington Post. In the months after her loss, Gibson told The 19th she heard from young women discouraged from running for office out of fear of intimate images being used to harass them. Gibson has since started a nonprofit dedicated to fighting image-based sexual abuse and an accompanying political action committee to support women candidates against violations of intimate privacy. Maddocks has studied how women who speak out in public are more likely to experience digital sexual violence. “We have this much longer, ‘women should be seen and not heard’ pattern that makes me think about Mary Beard’s writing and research on this idea that womanhood is antithetical to public speech. So when women speak publicly, it’s almost like, ‘OK. Time to shame them. Time to strip them. Time to get them back in the house. Time to shame them into silence.’ And that silencing and that shaming motivation ... we have to understand that in order to understand how this harm is manifesting as it relates to congresswomen.” ASP is encouraging Congress to pass federal legislation. The Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits Act of 2024 , also known as the DEFIANCE Act, would allow people to sue anyone who creates, shares or receives such imagery. The Take It Down Act would include criminal liability for such activity and require tech companies to take down deepfakes. Both bills have passed the Senate with bipartisan support, but have to navigate concerns around free speech and harm definitions, which are typical hurdles to tech policy, in the House. “It would be a dereliction of duty for Congress to let this session lapse without passing at least one of these bills," Jankowicz said “It is one of the ways that the harm of artificial intelligence is actually being felt by real Americans right now. It's not a future harm. It's not something that we have to imagine.” In the absence of congressional action, the White House has collaborated with the private sector to conceive creative solutions to curb image-based sexual abuse. But critics aren’t optimistic about Big Tech’s ability to regulate itself, given the history of harm caused by its platforms. “It is so easy for perpetrators to create this content, and the signal is not just to the individual woman being targeted,” Jankowicz said. “It’s to women everywhere, saying, ‘If you take this step, if you raise your voice, this is a consequence that you might have to deal with.’” If you have been a victim of image-based sexual abuse, the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative maintains a list of legal resources.'September 5' brings the chaos of live news reporting to life

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Mumbai: BEST general manager Anil Diggikar on Saturday announced that the undertaking will continue operations of 12m-long buses outside railway stations and in congested areas. "There is no plan to withdraw long buses from congested routes...There are no diversions anywhere in the city," he told TOI. On Saturday morning, the BEST resumed service of its long electric AC bus on route A-332 from Kurla station. This is the same route where a BEST bus, driven by wet-lease driver Sanjay More, crashed into several vehicles and pedestrians, resulting in seven fatalities last Monday. The undertaking also resumed another 12m-long electric AC bus on route A-311 from Kurla West station to Santacruz East station. A senior official said that with A-332 and A-311 being reintroduced from Kurla West station, the BEST has now resumed 100% operations in the area. This was shut down for 3-4 days after the fatal crash, inconveniencing commuters who were at the mercy of autorickshaws demanding hefty fares outside Kurla station. The BEST has also positioned vigilance officers to ensure orderly queues at bus stops and police bandobast, including a riot control police van, at Kurla station. A senior official from BEST's traffic wing said that a five-member committee was scrutinising all documents submitted by the six wet-lease bus contractors. "They have furnished details of existing recruitment processes for contract drivers and their training protocols. They have also suggested modifications and enhancements to the training programme following the recent incident at Kurla," he elaborated, adding that these recommendations were being documented alongside the new measures announced by Diggikar. "We shall compile all measures to finalise a comprehensive SOP for wet lease drivers' training — to be announced next week," the official added. Diggikar has announced mandatory simulator-based training for all drivers alongside introducing breathalysers at all bus depots for drivers beginning and concluding their shifts from next week. The BEST GM also questioned the private contractor for the Kurla bus, demanding comprehensive details about the driver More, including his training prior to assignment on the e-AC bus, which is a larger vehicle with sophisticated technology. Stay updated with the latest news on Times of India . Don't miss daily games like Crossword , Sudoku , and Mini Crossword .The Cyber Crime Police of Greater Chennai City Police booked a case on a complaint from Gana Singer Isaivani who was trolled on social media for her song titled ‘I am sorry Ayyappa’ It was sung by Ms. Isaivani, of Neelam Culture Centre in 2018. Although the song was reportedly performed in 2018, it gained widespread attention recently, sparking outrage among the Lord Ayyappa devotees and Hindu outfits. The singer faced strong criticism and trolls. Based on her complaint, police booked the case under four sections of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and Information Technology Act. Published - December 15, 2024 01:20 am IST Copy link Email Facebook Twitter Telegram LinkedIn WhatsApp Reddit

By ROB GILLIES TORONTO (AP) — Canada is already examining possible retaliatory tariffs on certain items from the United States should President-elect Donald Trump follow through on his threat to impose sweeping tariffs on Canadian products, a senior official said Wednesday. Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on products from Canada and Mexico if the countries don’t stop what he called the flow of drugs and migrants across southern and northern borders. He said he would impose a 25% tax on all products entering the U.S. from Canada and Mexico as one of his first executive orders. A Canadian government official said Canada is preparing for every eventuality and has started thinking about what items to target with tariffs in retaliation. The official stressed no decision has been made. The person spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly. When Trump imposed higher tariffs during his first term in office, other countries responded with retaliatory tariffs of their own. Canada, for instance, announced billions of new duties in 2018 against the U.S. in a tit-for-tat response to new taxes on Canadian steel and aluminum. Many of the U.S. products were chosen for their political rather than economic impact. For example, Canada imports $3 million worth of yogurt from the U.S. annually and most comes from one plant in Wisconsin, home state of then-House Speaker Paul Ryan. That product was hit with a 10% duty. Another product on the list was whiskey, which comes from Tennessee and Kentucky, the latter of which is the home state of then-Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell. Trump made the threat Monday while railing against an influx of illegal migrants, even though the numbers at Canadian border pale in comparison to the southern border. The U.S. Border Patrol made 56,530 arrests at the Mexican border in October alone — and 23,721 arrests at the Canadian one between October 2023 and September 2024. Canadian officials say lumping Canada in with Mexico is unfair but say they are happy to work with the Trump administration to lower the numbers from Canada. The Canadians are also worried about a influx north of migrants if Trump follows through with his plan for mass deportations. Trump also railed about fentanyl from Mexico and Canada, even though seizures from the Canadian border pale in comparison to the Mexican border. U.S. customs agents seized 43 pounds of fentanyl at the Canadian border last fiscal year, compared with 21,100 pounds at the Mexican border. Related Articles National Politics | Trump selects longtime adviser Keith Kellogg as special envoy for Ukraine and Russia National Politics | Trump’s tariffs in his first term did little to alter the economy, but this time could be different National Politics | Trump transition says Cabinet picks, appointees were targeted by bomb threats, swatting attacks National Politics | Southwest states certify election results after the process led to controversy in previous years National Politics | Political stress: Can you stay engaged without sacrificing your mental health? Canadian officials argue their country is not the problem and that tariffs will have severe implications for both countries. Canada is the top export destination for 36 U.S. states. Nearly $3.6 billion Canadian (US$2.7 billion) worth of goods and services cross the border each day. About 60% of U.S. crude oil imports are from Canada, and 85% of U.S. electricity imports are from Canada. Canada is also the largest foreign supplier of steel, aluminum and uranium to the U.S. and has 34 critical minerals and metals that the Pentagon is eager for and investing in for national security. “Canada is essential to the United States’ domestic energy supply,” Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said. Trump has pledged to cut American energy bills in half within 18 months, something that could be made harder if a 25% premium is added to Canadian oil imports. In 2023, Canadian oil accounted for almost two-thirds of total U.S. oil imports and about one-fifth of the U.S. oil supply. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is holding a emergency virtual meeting on Wednesday with the leaders of Canada’s provinces, who want Trudeau to negotiate a bilateral trade deal with the United States that excludes Mexico. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Wednesday that her administration is already working up a list of possible retaliatory tariffs “if the situation comes to that.”

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On pornography platform OnlyFans, prostitutes make most of their earnings by directly engaging with their “fans” through messages and conversations. A global industry has popped up of imposters paid to pretend they are the OnlyFans model to trick lonely and desperate men into opening their wallets. Now, those human “chatters” are increasingly being replaced by AI-powered chatbots. Wired reports that the rise of AI has brought about concerns regarding its potential to replace human workers across various industries. One niche occupation that is already experiencing disruption due to AI is the role of OnlyFans chatters. These gig workers are paid to impersonate top-earning OnlyFans creators in online conversations with their fans, providing a crucial element of relationship simulation that complements the platform’s pornographic content. Traditionally, human chatters from countries with lower wage expectations, such as the Philippines, Pakistan, and India, have been employed to manage the deluge of amorous messages received by popular OnlyFans creators. Desperate men think they are talking to an OnlyFans prostitute when they are actually talking to a person sitting at a keyboard on the other side of the world. However, AI-generated stand-ins are increasingly replacing these human chatters, with several startups now offering access to AI chatbots and other generative AI tools tailored for this purpose. Kunal Anand, the founder of ChatPersona, an AI OnlyFans chatting service, states that his company has built its own model using data from creators’ chats to meet the growing demand for AI chatters. Since its launch last year, ChatPersona has attracted around 6,000 customers, including both individuals and agencies. Anand claims that ChatPersona does not violate OnlyFans’ terms of service, as it requires human intervention to send the AI-generated messages. The field of AI chatbots for OnlyFans is becoming increasingly crowded, with competitors like FlirtFlow, ChatterCharms, and Botly vying for market share. Supercreator, another player in the space, offers a suite of AI tools, including an assistant called Inbox Copilot that algorithmically sorts fans based on their spending habits, prioritizing “spenders” over “freeloaders.” Eden, a former OnlyFans creator who now runs a boutique agency called Heiss Talent, is an enthusiastic adopter of AI technology. She represents five creators who all use Supercreator’s AI tools, resulting in a significant increase in sales. One of the features automatically sends messages to inactive fans when they log in, which has led to substantial tips from conversations initiated by AI. While some AI chatter tools are fully automated, Eden prefers a mixed approach, with creators combining their own words with AI-generated content to maintain authenticity. This raises questions about the transparency of AI use in online interactions and whether companies should disclose when conversations are being handled by chatbots. Read more at Wired here. Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.