Fake scenes, real politics: Republican candidates have embraced AI. Will it backfire?

AUSTIN, Texas — Clad in a black leather biker jacket, a time-traveling Dan Patrick warns Texans, “The danger is real.” “The Democrats are coming,” the lieutenant governor says in a cautionary tone echoing Paul Revere, standing in front of a line of computer-generated colonial-era minutemen.

Patrick's stroll through 18th-century Boston was an early signal of 21st-century political advertising: AI has arrived. Despite fears that artificial intelligence would be used to create “deepfakes” of candidates doing or saying things they never did, AI in Texas political advertising has so far been silly, cartoonish and easy to spot.

The technology has produced Sen. John Cornyn and Rep. Jasmine Crockett dancing cheek-to-cheek, GOP Senate candidate Ken Paxton bopping down a country road with a pair of women labeled as “Mistress No. 1” and “Mistress No. 2,” and Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico using crayons to replace Bible verses with pro-transgender ideology.

Generative AI is playing a bigger role in political campaigns than ever, particularly among Republicans at the top of the Texas ballot, who have used it to attack their opponents. Their Democratic rivals largely have steered clear.

—The Dallas Morning News

Cornell case highlights the patchwork of state laws governing intoxication, sexual consent

A former Cornell University student’s allegations of gang rape in 2024 have renewed attention on a difficult area of sexual assault law. A person can be awake, responsive and even able to move during a sexual encounter while still being so intoxicated or impaired that they cannot understand what is happening or make an informed decision about sex.

But whether that person is considered legally incapable of consenting can depend on the state and, in some cases, on how the person became intoxicated.

“There are a lot of very good laws on the books,” said Renée Williams, CEO of the National Center for Victims of Crime. “The problem is that nobody knows how to enforce them, including district attorneys, and enforcement varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, even within the same state.”

In New York, where Cornell is located, criminal law distinguishes between mental incapacitation caused by a substance administered without a person’s consent — such as being “ roofied” — and other forms of intoxication. That can leave prosecutors relying on other provisions of the state’s sexual assault laws when someone voluntarily drinks alcohol or uses drugs and later becomes severely impaired.

—Stateline.org

Dengue cases continue to rise after heavy rain in Tampa Bay

TAMPA, Fla. -- After days of rain across the Tampa Bay area, local officials are ramping up efforts against an unprecedented rise in cases of dengue fever this year.

As of Oct. 1, Hillsborough has seen 223 confirmed dengue fever cases, the most in the state. But that number is likely much higher, Florida Department of Health officer Carla Fry said. State and local officials are testing people for dengue regularly. A total of 540 cases have been reported in Florida as of this week, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Pinellas County reported 20 cases since August. Overall, the Tampa Bay area has recorded 282 cases across Pinellas, Hillsborough and Pasco counties as of Thursday.

Pinellas and Hillsborough counties have extended state of emergency orders from last month as cases rise. That allows counties to access state resources to continue mosquito control efforts. “This is unprecedented. This is now the largest outbreak in Florida’s modern history,” Fry said.

—Tampa Bay Times

Nobel Peace Prize goes to international jurist Navi Pillay

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to judge and human rights lawyer Navi Pillay, at a time when the committee said international law faces “tremendous pressure” and its institutions are “under attack.”

Pillay, 85, has “held states and national leaders accountable and brought hope to victims of violence and conflict,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said in a statement on Friday, calling her “one of the great defenders of international legal principles.”

Pillay is currently serving as a judge at the International Court of Justice, in The Hague, in the case in which Myanmar stands accused of genocide. Last year, she chaired the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which investigated Israel’s retaliatory war in Gaza and concluded that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration had committed genocide against Palestinians, a finding that the Israeli government firmly denounced.

In what appeared to be a swipe at Netanyahu, and some other leaders around the world, including U.S. President Donald Trump, Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the committee, spoke of “a shift towards power politics at the expense of legal frameworks and global respect for law and justice.”

—Bloomberg News