Trump signs executive orders to boost nuclear power, speed up approvals

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump signed executive orders Friday intended to quadruple domestic production of nuclear power within the next 25 years, a goal experts say the United States is highly unlikely to reach.

To speed up the development of nuclear power, the orders grant the U.S. energy secretary authority to approve some advanced reactor designs and projects, taking authority away from the independent safety agency that has regulated the U.S. nuclear industry for five decades.

The order comes as demand for electricity surges amid a boom in energy-hungry data centers and artificial intelligence. Tech companies, venture capitalists, states and others are competing for electricity and straining the nation's electric grid.

“We’ve got enough electricity to win the AI arms race with China,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said. “What we do in the next five years related to electricity is going to determine the next 50" years in the industry.

Don’t like a columnist’s opinion? Los Angeles Times offers an AI-generated opposing viewpoint

In a colorful commentary for the Los Angeles Times, Matt K. Lewis argued that callousness is a central feature of the second Trump administration, particularly its policies of deportation and bureaucratic cutbacks. “Once you normalize cruelty,” Lewis concluded in the piece, “the hammer eventually swings for everyone. Even the ones who thought they were swinging it.”

Lewis' word wasn't the last, however. As they have with opinion pieces the past several weeks, Times online readers had the option to click on a button labeled “Insights,” which judged the column politically as “center-left.” Then it offers an AI-generated synopsis — a CliffsNotes version of the column — and a similarly-produced opposing viewpoint.

One dissenting argument reads: “Restricting birthright citizenship and refugee admissions is framed as correcting alleged exploitation of immigration loopholes, with proponents arguing these steps protect American workers and resources.”

The feature symbolizes changes to opinion coverage ordered over the past six months by Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, who's said he wants the famously liberal opinion pages to reflect different points of view. Critics accuse him of trying to curry favor with President Donald Trump.

Truth, lies and videotape

As an old warhorse journalist whose biases have always skewed toward rabid dislike of anyone who tries to control the media, my biases are working overtime right now.

Anti-racism activist hopes to make our communities mutually respectful

Dr. Rehman Abdulrehman is a clinical and consulting psychologist at Clinic Psychology Manitoba. He has a consulting and coaching firm called Lead with Diversity, he is the assistant professor with the department of clinical health psychology at the University of Manitoba and he has just written his first book, Developing Anti-Racist Cultural Competence, which aims to help people develop practical skills, insight and better empathy when working with diverse groups.

Study shows importance of local news

A new study shows the importance of local news to community knowledge, connections and democracy in small and mid-sized Canadian communities.

YouTube election fraud conspiracy theories fuel impeached South Korean president and his supporters

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Thousands have braved the frigid January weather in Seoul protests, waving South Korean and American flags and shouting vows to protect their embattled conservative hero, the impeached South Korean president facing imprisonment over potential rebellion charges.

The swelling crowds in South Korea’s capital are inspired by President Yoon Suk Yeol's defiance, but also by the growing power of right-wing YouTubers who portray Yoon as a victim of a leftist, North Korea-sympathizing opposition that has rigged elections to gain a legislative majority and is now plotting to remove a patriotic leader.

“Out with fraudulent elections and a fake National Assembly!” read one sign, brandished by an angry man in a fur hat during a recent protest near Yoon’s presidential residence, the site of a massive law enforcement operation Wednesday that made Yoon the country’s first sitting president to be detained in a criminal investigation.

Many at the pro-Yoon rallies, which are separated by police from anti-Yoon counter-protests, are significantly influenced by fictional narratives about election fraud that dominate conservative YouTube channels — claims that Yoon has repeatedly referenced in his attacks on election officials.

Miss Shakespeare turns gender bias on its ear

Winnipeg Studio Theatre kicked off its season with the guts and glory of female empowerment in its all-women-led local premiere of Miss Shakespeare.

The two-hour musical — directed by company artistic director Erin McGrath and presented by Rainbow Stage — runs through Oct. 5 at the University of Winnipeg’s Asper Centre for Theatre and Film. Saturday night’s crowd eagerly lapped up its feminist ethos.

Its quasi-historical protagonist, Judith Shakespeare (played by a spunky Rhea Rodych-Rasidescu), is the Bard’s real-life daughter “born with a poetic soul.” Judith lives in the shadows of her famous father during the repressive 1600s, when women were relegated to becoming wives and mothers, rather than pursuing their own passions.

Judith yearns for her own identity as a self-actualized creative powerhouse, and cobbles together the “Gossips,” a merry band of like-minded women who surreptitiously meet each week in the bowels of The Cage tavern to create a play. They spar, share stories, and dream, risking public humiliation if they’re discovered treading the boards like their male counterparts.

Mountain of Skibicki news coverage has irreparably biased jurors, U.S. researcher tells trial judge

Extensive pre-trial media coverage in the case of accused serial killer Jeremy Skibicki has biased the jury pool beyond the court’s ability to correct the damage, a judge was told Tuesday.

“We know that when (jurors) have been exposed to a certain amount of pre-trial publicity, even for a well-intentioned juror it is going to be very, very difficult for them to (remain unbiased),” testified Florida University psychology professor Dr. Christine Ruva, who has extensively researched the area of juror bias and its impact on jury decision-making. “It’s unconscious and out of their control.”

Skibicki, 37, has pleaded not guilty to four counts of first-degree murder in the May 2022 slayings of three Indigenous women — Morgan Harris, Rebecca Contois and Marcedes Myran — as well as a fourth as-of-yet unidentified woman killed in March 2022, who Indigenous leaders have given the name Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe, or Buffalo Woman.

A trial jury was selected last week and is set to begin hearing evidence May 8.

Some doctors sneak education into their online content to drown out misinformation

TORONTO - When Dr. Siobhan Deshauer makes online videos, her primary goal is to demystify medicine. Her secondary goal?

"I call it 'smuggling in education,'" said the physician and YouTuber, who boasts nearly a million subscribers on the platform. "You're coming for this mystery and this excitement, but I'm smuggling in some topics that I think are really important and that I'm passionate about."

Some experts say one of the best ways to fight a rising tide of medical misinformation on social media is to drown it out with captivating content backed by science, and Deshauer, an Ontario-based internal medicine and rheumatology specialist, is among a growing cohort of doctors and researchers doing just that.

Take one of her medical mystery videos, for example. In it, Deshauer tells the story of a woman who had lead poisoning. Doctors took ages to figure out what was causing her symptoms, but ultimately realized they were a result of lead in the Ayurvedic supplements she was taking.