Idlib – by Firas Karam — aawsat.com — — Opposition civilian and political groups in Syria’s northwest announced their complete readiness to receive Syrian refugees from Lebanon in liberated Syrian regions in wake of the violations and forced deportation they are facing in the neighboring country. The “Political Affairs Administration” in the opposition-held Idlib region and the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group said on Friday that they were prepared to welcome over two million refugees in Lebanon who are threatened with forced deportation to regime-held regions where their lives could be at risk. In a statement, they urged Lebanese authorities to return to reason and their humanitarian and moral duties towards civilian refugees in line with international laws and norms that ensure their protection. They added that the Syrians were initially forced to leave their country given the violence of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime against them. Nearly two million Syrians have sought refuge in Lebanon to escape imprisonment or death.

The groups said they are “fully prepared” to receive the refugees in liberated Syrian regions in the north. The practices of the Lebanese authorities prompted popular protests and rallies in the cities of Azaz, al-Bab and Afrin in the Idlib countryside and in Idlib city. Seif Hammoud, who was displaced from the Homs countryside to Azaz, said he fears for the life of his parents and siblings, who are living in a refugee camp in Lebanon’s Baalbek region, should they be deported to regime-controlled regions. 

Story by Jamal Osborne • © Provided by Hollywood Unlocked — A12-year-old middle school student is speaking out after he said he was sent home from school for refusing to remove a T-shirt that read: “There are only two genders.”

The 7th grader, Liam Morrison attends John T. Nichols Jr. middle school and during a board meeting on April 13 he revealed to Middleborough Public Schools that he was in gym class on day and someone on the school’s staff told him that he had to take his shirt off because people were complaining that it was making them feel unsafe. “Yes, words on a shirt made people feel unsafe. They told me that I wasn’t in trouble, but it sure felt like I was,” Morrison told the MPS board. “I was told that I would need to remove my shirt before I could return to class. When I nicely told them that I didn’t want to do that, they called my father.”

by arstechnica.com — BENJ EDWARDS — According to The New York Times, AI pioneer Dr. Geoffrey Hinton has resigned from Google so he can “speak freely” about potential risks posed by AI. Hinton, who helped create some of the fundamental technology behind today’s generative AI systems, fears that the tech industry’s drive to develop AI products could result in dangerous consequences—from misinformation to job loss or even a threat to humanity. “Look at how it was five years ago and how it is now,” the Times quoted Hinton as saying. “Take the difference and propagate it forwards. That’s scary.”

The generative AI revolution has begun—how did we get here?

Hinton’s résumé in artificial intelligence extends back to 1972, and his accomplishments have influenced current practices in generative AI. In 1987, Hinton, David Rumelhart, and Ronald J. Williams popularized backpropagation, a key technique for training neural networks that is used in today’s generative AI models. In 2012, Hinton, Alex Krizhevsky, and Ilya Sutskever created AlexNet, which is commonly hailed as a breakthrough in machine vision and deep learning, and it arguably kickstarted our current era of generative AI. In 2018, Hinton won the Turing Award, which some call the “Nobel Prize of Computing,” along with Yoshua Bengio and Yann LeCun.

By AFP – Agence France Presse — The United States on Monday called on Lebanon’s parliament to elect a new president, as the country marks six months without a leader at the helm amid grinding political and economic turmoil. “The United States calls on Lebanon’s political leadership to move expeditiously to elect a president to […]

By Najia Houssari — arabnews.com — BEIRUT: Former Lebanese President Michel Aoun said on Sunday that the continued presence of Syrian refugees in Lebanon was “a conspiracy against Lebanon.” He described them as “security refugees and not political refugees,” at an event held by the Free Patriotic Movement in the southern town of Jezzine. He […]

 By Jamie Prentis / The National —  Some villages and towns are turning to solar panels to power water pumps but these are just local solutions to a nationwide problem. Adham Al Danaf, the mayor of Baalchmay, says the town’s water woes are the result of Lebanon’s electricity crisis. Jamie Prentis / The National Adham Al Danaf, the mayor of Baalchmay, says the town’s water woes are the result of Lebanon’s electricity crisis The Middle East and North Africa is one of the most water-scarce regions of the world. Already plagued with a lack of freshwater resources, climate change, population growth and poor management has exacerbated the issue and threatens to affect the lives of millions.

The National’s correspondents across the region spoke to the people most affected to understand the extent of the issue and where hope for change may lie. The thick maple tree in Baalchmay, a town carved into the hills of the Mount Lebanon region, almost acts as a dividing line on the road in the lower parts of the area. Perhaps about 200 years old, the tree is so broad that it is nearly as wide as the small cars passing by. Only metres away is a spring. It is said the proximity of the water nearby allowed the maple tree and its thick branches to grow to such an extent, and survive previous conflicts that hit the area. “In the past, the story goes that if you got a shovel and were just digging a little bit, water would come from the ground. That’s how rich the area was with water,” said Adham Al Danaf, the mayor of Baalchmay, a town of about 4,500 Lebanese residents and up to 3,000 refugees. “What we always say about the village is that it’s like the human body,” added Jamil Al Danaf, a water specialist at the municipality. “No matter where you take a small pin and poke it, blood comes out — that’s what water is in Baalchmay. Where ever you dig, you’re going to find water.”

By Cate Chapman, Editor at LinkedIn News – The U.S. is investigating whether “several dozen small technology” firms have colluded to game the H-1B visa lottery for skilled foreign workers, The Wall Street Journal reports. Those companies entered the same individual candidates multiple times into the lottery, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said, in […]

 by Jennifer Bell, Al Arabiya English — In April, Lebanon marked 48 years since the start of its civil war, and – almost five decades on from the deadly conflict – the anniversary brought a painful reminder to the families of the thousands who went missing during the 15-year unrest. There is currently no public database or exact numbers of people who went missing during the civil war between 1975-1990, where an estimated 150,000 people were killed. While the exact figure is unknown, an estimated 17,000 Lebanese were kidnapped or “disappeared” during the unrest. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) – which continues to work to find answers for loved ones left behind – told Al Arabiya English that painful answers remain for the families left in limbo.

Lebanon was shattered by its 15-year-long war. It reshaped villages and neighborhoods in which Muslims and Christians had lived side by side for centuries. Hundreds of thousands of people retreated into separate enclaves controlled by sectarian militias. While the war may have ended more than three decades ago, the relatives of the thousands of men and women who remain unaccounted for have been left with lingering loss and uncertainty. Some of those missing are believed to have been arrested or captured by the various forces and militias involved in the civil war – Lebanese, Syrian, Palestinian and Israeli, according to a 2013 Amnesty International report. Others may have been killed in the violence or simply disappeared.

Left in limbo

By Ruiqi Chen, Editor at LinkedIn News Can generative artificial intelligence really help workers? A new study from Stanford and MIT has found that AI tools like chatbots can make low-skilled and entry-level employees in fields like customer service up to 14% more productive. The finding challenges the “prevailing” idea that automation will negatively affect […]

by Joseph Haboush, Al Arabiya English — — The leading senators of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday urged the Biden administration to support presidential candidates in Lebanon that will be accountable to the Lebanese people amid reports that France has backed a pro-Hezbollah contender. Lebanon has been without a president since October 2022, following the end of Michel Aoun’s term. Meanwhile, France has taken the lead in trying to mediate a solution to the presidential vacuum and the economic and financial crises in the country. For the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app. Sleiman Frangieh, a former minister and MP, backed by Hezbollah and close to the Assad regime, was reportedly endorsed by France in private meetings with Lebanese officials. France last week denied that it had endorsed any specific candidate. Local media reports, including a pro-Hezbollah newspaper, published detailed conversations between French officials and Lebanese lawmakers that suggested Paris was backing Frangieh.

But Senators Bob Menendez and Jim Risch said they were “discouraged” by the ongoing political deadlock, which they said was engineered by Hezbollah and its allies, like Speaker Nabih Berri. In a letter to President Joe Biden, the senators said Hezbollah and its allies were trying to wear down the opposition to its preferred candidate, Frangieh. “We strongly urge your administration to clearly reinforce the urgent need for the formation of a Lebanese government that is committed to governing transparently and addressing the desperate needs of the Lebanese people, rather than enriching cronies or enabling bad actors like Hezbollah to further derail Lebanese democracy,” the letter to Biden read. “Procedural games at the expense of meaningful reforms and good governance only serve to undermine Lebanese and regional stability.”