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Art exhibit features robot dogs with tech mogul heads

admin - Latest News - December 4, 2025
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Dec. 4, 2025, 9:09 AM ESTBy Jane C. Timm and Matt DixonFlorida is entering the national redistricting arms race, with a legislative hearing Thursday set to kick off yet another contentious map-drawing fight.Republicans are hoping Florida, where they have full control of state government and already represent 20 of 28 congressional districts, will be fertile ground for further shoring up the party’s narrow House majority ahead of next year’s midterm elections.But it won’t be easy, legally or politically.From a legal standpoint, voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2010 that’s meant to block partisan gerrymandering. The state Supreme Court weakened the amendment’s ban on racial gerrymandering, but the prohibition of partisan gerrymandering remains intact.“No apportionment plan or individual district shall be drawn with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or an incumbent,” the Florida Constitution reads.That means that lawmakers will need to explain and defend their reasoning for redrawing a map they enacted just three years ago without mentioning the partisan aims that have motivated other states around the country to pursue an unusually aggressive mid-decade redistricting push.“While that partisan redistricting battle is not illegal in other states, that is illegal in the state of Florida,” Amy Keith, executive director of Common Cause Florida, told NBC News.The politics aren’t simple, either. While the state has a Republican governor and Legislature, party leaders are divided on how to proceed.The Florida House, eager to engage in redistricting, has scheduled two hearings this month. But Gov. Ron DeSantis said this week he wants a new map to be drawn in the spring, just days before the candidate filing deadline. That way the state could take into consideration a potential Supreme Court ruling on a Louisiana redistricting case, which could weaken the Voting Rights Act and make the process easier.On Wednesday, the Senate’s GOP leader sided with DeSantis in the fight.“The Governor has expressed a desire to address this issue next Spring. As such, there is no ongoing work regarding potential mid-decade redistricting taking place in the Senate at this time,” Florida Senate President Ben Albritton told colleagues in a memo. Still, Albritton warned lawmakers to gear up for litigation, reminding them to stay away from partisans trying to influence the process and to keep all their communications and records for the likely lawsuits.State House Speaker Danny Perez did not return a request for comment.No map proposals have yet been filed, but there is an expectation that a redraw could net Republicans between three and five seats, with three seats seen as the most likely scenario.Any potential special legislative session would have to come by early April, as the state’s federal candidate qualifying deadline is April 20.Three seats that could be affected are held by Democratic Reps. Darren Soto in Orlando and Jared Moskowitz and Debbie Wasserman Schultz in South Florida.If they decide to be more aggressive, Republicans could also risk a “dummymander,” a redraw that helps the opposing party by making previously safe seats more competitive.Democrats have little ability to block any redistricting effort since the Florida Legislature is dominated by Republicans. But a coalition of more than 30 pro-democracy and progressive groups are planning to bus more than 300 protesters to the state Capitol in Tallahassee on Thursday in opposition to the GOP’s push.Florida’s entry into the redistricting battle comes at a critical moment for Republicans, who kicked off the cycle over the summer by passing a new map in Texas that could net the party up to five seats. But since then, fears have grown that Democrats could neutralize the GOP’s push.California Democrats responded with new district lines approved by voters last month that could cancel out any Republican gains in Texas. And while Republicans able to enact new maps in Missouri and North Carolina, efforts elsewhere have either not led to gains the party hoped for or stalled out.And now Republicans are waiting for a final ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court on whether they can use their new map in Texas in 2026.The redistricting season isn’t over, though. A map that could net Republicans two seats in Indiana is currently moving through the state Legislature, though it’s unclear if it has enough support in the Senate.In Virginia, Democrats kicked off a multistep process to draw new maps before the midterms in October that will stretch into the spring. State House Speaker Don Scott on Wednesday floated the possibility of an aggressive map that could result in a four-seat gain for Democrats.And there is continued pressure on lawmakers in Maryland, Illinois and Kansas on redistricting.Jane C. TimmJane C. Timm is a senior reporter for NBC News.Matt DixonMatt Dixon is a senior national politics reporter for NBC News, based in Florida.
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Dec. 4, 2025, 11:09 AM ESTBy Sahil KapurWASHINGTON — Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Thursday that Democrats will force a vote next week on a bill to extend expiring Affordable Care Act tax credits and prevent health insurance premiums from skyrocketing for millions of Americans.Schumer said it will be a “clean” three-year extension of the enhanced ACA funds that first passed in 2021, designed to cap premiums for an average marketplace plan to 8.5% of income, and he said “every single Democrat will support it.”Schumer’s legislation is all but guaranteed to fail, as many GOP senators want the ACA funds to expire, arguing that the Covid-era subsidies were meant to be temporary and are no longer needed.Hopes fade in Congress for a health care deal before premiums are expected to soar03:08“Republicans have one week to decide where they stand: Vote for this bill and bring health care costs down, or block this bill and send premiums skyrocketing,” Schumer said on the floor. “That’s what’s at stake when we vote next week. It’s going to be one of the most important votes we take.”The vote is the product of a promise that Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., made to Democrats in discussions to end the record-long government shutdown last month. Thune reiterated Tuesday that the Senate will vote next week on any bill Democrats propose — but it will require 60 votes to pass, meaning at least 13 Republicans would need to support it.Some Republicans say they’re open to extending the ACA funding with modifications and stricter limits, but the two sides have failed to reach an agreement. And Republican demands for tougher abortion restrictions tied to any ACA funds have been dismissed as a nonstarter by Democrats.Still, the issue has deep political ramifications, with costs expected to soar for millions of Americans on the ACA marketplaces. Democrats see it as a potent weapon to use in their campaigns for the 2026 elections if no solution is reached.Schumer previewed his party’s message on the floor, calling his bill the “only path” to preventing insurance costs from rising significantly next month.“People back home will be watching what Republicans do, and the American people are running out of time before January 1,” he said. “Make no mistake, our bill is the last chance Republicans will get before Jan. 1 to prevent premiums from skyrocketing.”Thune did not mention health care during his floor speech Thursday, but told reporters two days earlier, after a GOP meeting, that it is still a work in progress. Republicans have proposed a variety of ideas to extend, redirect or end the ACA funds, but lack consensus internally about the way forward.“Conversations continue,” Thune told reporters Tuesday. “I don’t think, at this point, we have a clear path forward.”Sahil KapurSahil Kapur is a senior national political reporter for NBC News.Brennan Leach and Gabrielle Khoriaty contributed.
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Oct. 4, 2025, 6:00 AM EDTBy Jared PerloEarly last week in the Chinese tech hub of Hangzhou, a slick, larger-than-life video screen beamed out four words that would drive tech giant Alibaba’s stock to historic levels and signal a shift in China’s approach to artificial intelligence: “Roadmap to Artificial Superintelligence.”During his 23-minute keynote address at the flagship Alibaba Cloud conference, Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu charted out a future featuring artificial general intelligence (AGI) and artificial superintelligence (ASI). These terms point to a theorized era in which AI becomes roughly as smart as humans (AGI) and then much, much smarter (ASI).While these terms have been tossed around Silicon Valley for years, Wu’s presentation was notable: Alibaba is now the first established Chinese tech giant to explicitly invoke AGI and ASI.“Achieving AGI — an intelligent system with general human-level cognition — now appears inevitable. Yet AGI is not the end of AI’s development, but its beginning,” Wu said. “It will march toward ASI — intelligence beyond the human, capable of self-iteration and continuous evolution.”“ASI will drive exponential technological leaps, carrying us into an unprecedented age of intelligence,” Wu said, highlighting ASI’s ability to help cure diseases, discover cleaner sources of energy and even unlock interstellar travel.The U.S. and China are the world’s leading AI powers, each with immense computing capabilities and top-tier researchers developing cutting-edge systems. Yet observers have framed the countries as having different approaches to AI, with perceptions that China focuses more on real-world AI applications.For example, commentators recently argued that Beijing is currently “winning the race for AI robots” against the U.S., as China is home to much of the world’s most advanced robotics supply chains and a growing network of robotics, or embodied AI, labs.“There’s been some commentary in Western media recently about how the U.S. is missing the point by pushing for AGI, while China is focusing solely on applications,” said Helen Toner, interim executive director of Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology. “This is wrong.”“Some Chinese researchers and some parts of the Chinese government have been interested in AGI and superintelligence for a long time,” Toner said, though she noted this view was primarily held by smaller startups like DeepSeek.China’s push for global AI dominance04:44Afra Wang, a researcher focusing on China’s tech scene, said Alibaba’s invocation of AGI and ASI was remarkable.“This ASI narrative is definitely something new, especially among the biggest tech companies in China,” she told NBC News.Alibaba’s “roadmap to artificial superintelligence” seems to scramble mainstream perceptions. Any number of California techno-optimists, like Anthropic’s Dario Amodei or xAI’s Elon Musk, might have delivered Wu’s speech, selling a technology-enabled utopia while largely sidestepping darker questions about how humanity would co-exist with or survive an era of digital superintelligence.The concept of superintelligence has long been on the minds of — if not explicitly guiding — prominent American AI companies. For example, OpenAI released an article focused on the safe development of superintelligent AI models in May 2023. “Now is a good time to start thinking about the governance of superintelligence — future AI systems dramatically more capable than even AGI,” the statement said.The possibility of superintelligence is now even being acknowledged in Congress. On Monday, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Ill., announced a draft bill that would, among other actions, “assist Congress in determining the potential for controlled AI systems to reach artificial superintelligence.”To some, ASI might seem like an outlandish concept when today’s AI systems fail to understand basic tennis rules, hallucinate or fabricate basic information, or do not seem to actually comprehend how the external world functions.At the same time, AI systems continue to approach and sometimes surpass human capabilities in many domains, from driving cars safely to winning international coding competitions, leaving many experts to say it’s a matter of when, not if, humans develop digital superintelligence.As the idea of superintelligence gradually enters mainstream debates, many American politicians have announced that the U.S. is in an AI race with China. The White House’s current AI manifesto is titled “Winning the AI Race: America’s AI Action Plan,” while Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, proclaimed that “as a matter of economic security, as a matter of national security, America has to beat China in the AI race.”Yet charges of an AI race are muddied by a lack of an agreed end goal and swirling definitions of AGI. At worst, experts think an unfettered race toward AGI or ASI could lead to widespread catastrophe or even the end of humanity.But there’s also plenty of skepticism around talk of AGI and ASI and whether it’s primarily for marketing purposes.Alibaba is one of China’s largest tech companies, known for providing powerful, free AI models — also called open-source models — for download. Alibaba’s Qwen model series, a competitor to models like OpenAI’s GPT-5 or Anthropic’s Claude, is the most popular open-source AI system in the world.OpenAI launches Sora 2 wth AI social media app05:48Wu announced a new series of Qwen models in his speech last week, including a model that combines text, images, video and audio capabilities.Many observers point out that narratives about a U.S.-China AI race and a resulting sprint to build AI infrastructure serve AI investors by propping up company valuations and increasing their soft power. Alibaba’s stock has soared since Wu’s speech last week, part of a larger $250 billion comeback this year that has made it China’s hottest AI company.To unlock a powerful, superintelligent future, Wu predicted that large AI models will replace existing operating systems as the link between users, software and computational power. This future network of large AI models will run on cloud computing networks like Alibaba Cloud, he said.Irene Zhang, a researcher on China’s AI ecosystem and an editor of ChinaTalk, noted the business undertones of Wu’s announcement.“This is a vision of AGI and ASI that’s directly based on Alibaba’s business model,” she said.“Alibaba Cloud dominates China’s cloud computing market, and its global market share is now bigger than Oracle’s,” she said. “Alibaba’s commercial strategy and its publicly stated views on ASI/AGI are symbiotic.”Matt Sheehan, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, agreed.“ASI is the ultimate frontier, as far as the discourse goes on AI,” Sheehan said. “It’s notable that Alibaba set this grandiose goal, but in reality, they’re selling cloud services.”Jared PerloJared Perlo is a writer and reporter at NBC News covering AI. He is currently supported by the Tarbell Center for AI Journalism.
October 10, 2025
Savewith a NBCUniversal ProfileCreate your free profile or log in to save this articleOct. 10, 2025, 4:45 PM EDTBy Tim Stelloh and David KetterlingThe legal saga surrounding the killing of a California art dealer nearly 17 years ago finally came to a close this year, when two men convicted in an elaborate grift and murder plot were sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.The case was derailed for years by allegations of bias — allegations that emerged after a judge was secretly recorded making derogatory comments about two defendants described by prosecutors as the con artists who orchestrated the plot to take Cliff Lambert’s money, identity and life.All six people charged in Lambert’s 2008 killing in Palm Springs, the desert city in California’s Coachella Valley, were either convicted or pleaded guilty more than a decade ago. But the secret recordings — which were made illegally by one of the defendants during his 2012 trial — prompted a series of overturned convictions and new trials for four of the accused. For more on the case, tune in to “The Prince, The Whiz Kid & The Millionaire” on “Dateline” at 9 ET/8 ET tonight. DATELINE SNEAK PEEK: The Prince, The Whiz Kid & The Millionaire01:59One of those defendants was fatally assaulted awaiting retrial. The three others were convicted again after a new round of trials that ended two years ago. All are appealing their convictions.Even after those verdicts, sentencing for two of the defendants stalled for months — and in one case, more than two years — amid claims of ineffective lawyering and health problems. In April and July, Daniel Garcia, 43, and David Replogle, 76, finally received their punishment.“I should be happier than I am, but I am just so frustrated,” the prosecutor who handled the first set of trials said after Garcia’s sentencing. “I am so angry that it took this long.”The murderLambert, 74, was killed at his home on Dec. 5, 2008, during what he believed was a meeting with a lawyer acting on behalf of a deceased art collector, an appeals decision in the case shows.Cliff Lambert.Courtesy Tom FitzmauriceAccording to former Riverside County Deputy District Attorney Rob Hightower, the man posing as a lawyer was actually Kaushal Niroula — a San Francisco grifter who previously claimed to be an exiled prince from Nepal who was one of the architects of the plan to defraud and murder Lambert.During one of the trials, Hightower said the other architect was Daniel Garcia, described by a onetime close friend as knowledgeable, charming and well-traveled — someone who could enamor everyone he met.Garcia had also captured media attention in San Francisco a few years earlier when he sued a prominent local financier, Thomas White, over allegations of sexual abuse. White, who died in 2013, settled with Garcia and a second plaintiff for roughly $500,000 but said the claims were false, court filings show.DATELINE EXCLUSIVE: Tyson Wrensch says detectives dismissed his fraud allegations before Cliff Lambert’s murder01:23According to the former friend, Tyson Wrensch, Garcia and Niroula would show up at bars in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood and shower patrons with free drinks.“Everyone knew that the prince was at the bar,” he said. “Everything was over the top.”Hightower described Garcia as the link to Lambert, who met Garcia through an online dating site in the spring of 2008 and flew him to Palm Springs.Daniel Garcia at his second trial.DatelineDuring the meeting with Lambert, Niroula secretly let in two accomplices who fatally stabbed the art dealer and buried him in a shallow grave north of Los Angeles, Hightower said. Two other accomplices, including Replogle, a San Francisco lawyer who’d represented Garcia in the sex abuse suit, also participated in the plot, Hightower said.After the killing, the group fabricated powers of attorney in Lambert’s name, drained hundreds of thousands of dollars from his bank account and tried to sell his home, Hightower said.Within months, all six had been arrested in connection with the killing. Four of them, including Garcia, Niroula and Replogle, were charged with murder, conspiracy, grand theft and other crimes. The four pleaded not guilty and were convicted of murder at separate trials in 2011 and 2012. They were sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.A fifth suspect confessed, cooperated with authorities and pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter. A sixth suspect pleaded guilty to fraud.Convictions overturnedIn 2016, Niroula filed a petition seeking a new trial that accused the judge who oversaw the case of bias. The petition included a series of bombshell claims: In off-the-record comments, Riverside County Superior Court Judge David Downing was recorded on Garcia’s courtroom laptop talking with his clerk about Niroula’s HIV-positive status.Kaushal Niroula.Courtesy Mark EvansAccording to the petition, when the clerk said the defendant “likes licking envelopes,” Downing responded: “Ewww lord knows where his tongue has been and for that very reason I don’t like to touch or read anything he gives me and I deny everything as I don’t read it. It’s a tough world folks.”The petition notes another comment in which Downing used an expletive to describe the defendants and said they “can file anything they want, but I won’t grant any important motions.”During a private meeting, Garcia confronted Downing about the recordings, according to the appeals decision. Downing responded that he was protected by the First Amendment and treated everyone in the case appropriately, the decision shows.Downing, whose law license has been listed as inactive since 2013, hasn’t commented publicly on the case or responded to messages left at a phone number listed under his name.DATELINE EXCLUSIVE: Prosecutor Lisa DiMaria says investigation into murder of Cliff Lambert was ‘like Alice in Wonderland, falling into a rabbit hole01:20In 2020, after the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office said it didn’t oppose new trials for the four defendants who denied the murder charges, a judge overturned the convictions and ordered the cases to be retried.“I felt probably the way Lambert did when he had the knife shoved into his back,” Lisa DiMaria, the Riverside County prosecutor who tried the case, told “Dateline.” “All of those years that I dedicated to getting justice for Lambert out the window. One of the most upsetting days of my life, the absolute most upsetting day of my career.”A jailhouse death and more convictionsOn Aug. 11, 2022, the first of the defendants to be retried — Replogle — was convicted of all charges. Weeks later, while awaiting retrial, another inmate killed Niroula at the Riverside County jail, according to a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Niroula’s family. Defendant and former San Francisco Bay Area lawyer David Replogle.DatelineThe suit, filed in federal court, accuses the county sheriff’s office of failing to protect Niroula, 41, from harm.According to the suit, Niroula identified as a transgender woman at the time and was beaten and strangled to death by a person described in the complaint as a violent predator who “posed an immediate threat of violence and harm to all other inmates in his immediate vicinity and especially inmates like Kaushal Niroula.”The sheriff’s office has denied the allegations, which are set for trial in February.In 2023, two more convictions followed. But only one of the defendants — a former San Francisco bartender whom prosecutors said Niroula let into Lambert’s house — was sentenced. That November, he was ordered to serve life without the possibility of parole. Sentencing for Replogle and Garcia was delayed for months, however. In a court filing, Garcia said he hadn’t been provided with accommodations compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Garcia has a rare genetic disorder that causes extreme sensitivity to sunlight, the filing says.Garcia and Replogle also raised issues about their legal representation. At one point last October, as Replogle sought to have a newly appointed attorney thrown off the case, the judge denied the request and said, “There’s going to be no more playing games.”Finally sentenced — againSix months later, on April 25, Riverside County Superior Court Judge Anthony Villalobos denied a motion from Garcia seeking a new trial and sentenced him to life without the possibility of parole. In July, Villalobos denied a request from Replogle for a new trial and sentenced him to the same punishment.After Garcia’s hearing, DiMaria, the prosecutor, acknowledged the frustration that she felt after having watched the case drag on for years. She described Downing’s comments as “flippant” and said the reversal had nothing to do with the quality of the evidence prosecutors assembled.“There was never a question about innocence,” she said. “There was never a question about whether or not he did it.”“The most aggravating part is that he conned and manipulated the system, just like he did with his victims,” DiMaria said of Garcia. “The criminal justice system was played just like all of the victims were.”Garcia continues to maintain his innocence. In an interview with “Dateline,” he denied playing a role in the killing and blamed Niroula and the other defendants for the murder.Tim StellohTim Stelloh is a breaking news reporter for NBC News Digital.David KetterlingDavid Ketterling is a producer for “Dateline.” 
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