‘The future’ of Florida campaigns has arrived, and it’s created by AI

The year is 2028. Gov. Byron Donalds is presiding over a dystopian Florida overrun by energy-guzzling data centers. Utility bills have skyrocketed. “Marijuana monopolies” are poisoning the water. And, if things couldn’t get any worse, “AI hate speech is now a felony.” There is only one man who can save the day: Lt. Gov. Jay Collins.

This is the Orwellian future depicted in one of several AI-generated attacks that have emerged from the online ecosystem supporting Collins, a former Republican state senator and Green Beret now running for governor.

The video is ridiculous by design. But it also exposes a striking contradiction at the heart of Collins’ candidacy.

Opposition to data centers has become one of the lieutenant governor’s signature campaign issues as he seeks to overtake Donalds, the Trump-endorsed front-runner in the Republican primary and the beneficiary of support from a super PAC funded by AI industry giants.

—Miami Herald

University of California to consider reinstating SAT, ACT tests after faculty say students are deficient in math

LOS ANGELES — Six years after dropping SAT and ACT test requirements, members of an influential University of California admissions board said Thursday that the group will reconsider requiring the standardized tests, a major move favored by faculty who have complained that many students are severely deficient in math.

The potential reversal thrusts the nation's most prestigious public university system back into a contentious national debate over standardized testing, fairness and college readiness, and follows a wave of elite campuses — including Yale and Caltech — that have already brought the assessments back.

The move, announced by the UC-wide Academic Senate's Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools, comes amid mounting pressure from UC faculty and outside activists over the test-free approach.

More than 1,400 UC professors — many of them in math, science, technology and engineering fields — last month signed an open letter calling on UC to reinstate the admissions tests, setting off intense public advocacy and private lobbying of UC leaders from faculty, parents and students on different sides of the debate.

—Los Angeles Times

FDA’s greenlight of old chemical offers chance to restore faith in sunscreen

Officials, environmental health advocates, and skin care industry groups are expressing hope that the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of a sunscreen ingredient this week — after consideration for two decades, and global use for nearly as long — will help restore Americans’ wavering faith in sunscreen.

“Bemotrizinol has been used safely in Europe for decades,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in the announcement Tuesday about the approval. “FDA’s action will increase competition and consumer confidence in sunscreen products.”

Nonprofits that advocate for health, such as the Environmental Working Group, and the skin care industry alike had lobbied for approval of the ingredient, which makes sunscreens sheerer and lighter on the skin than many available American options while blocking a wider spectrum of ultraviolet rays that can cause premature aging and skin cancer.

The newly approved sunscreen filter will allow companies to reformulate sunscreens to address consumers’ concerns, said Carl D’Ruiz, a senior manager at DSM-Firmenich, a Swiss maker of sunscreen chemicals that applied for the FDA approval.

—Kaiser Health News

12 officers injured in second night of unrest in Northern Ireland

LONDON — Twelve police officers were injured and 16 arrests were made in the second night of unrest in Northern Ireland following the Belfast knife attack, Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn has said.

Benn, who represents Northern Ireland in the U.K. Cabinet, said he was “glad to say that last night there was less disorder than we witnessed on Tuesday night,” as he condemned the “racist thuggery” seen in the wake of Monday’s stabbing assault which left the victim in hospital.

Police used water cannons on rioters, as officers were pelted with bricks and petrol bombs by balaclava-clad rioters in Co Antrim on Wednesday evening.

A Department for Infrastructure vehicle was left in flames as rioters confronted police near the Sandyknowes roundabout in Newtownabbey to the north-west of Belfast.

—dpa