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Nature has retracted a paper that claimed AI had a positive impact on student learning.
The original paper, titled “The effect of ChatGPT on students’ learning performance, learning perception, and higher-order thinking: insights from a meta-analysis,” was originally published in May of last year by Jin Wang and Wenxiang Fan of the Hangzhou Normal University in China. It is a meta-analysis, meaning it combines data from 51 research studies published between November 2022 and February 2025 on the effectiveness of ChatGPT in education. The paper claimed it found that ChatGPT had a large or moderately positive impact on “students’ learning performance, learning perception, and higher-order thinking.”
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The Trump administration just slammed the door on an effort by Cuba’s communist government to secure an economic lifeline while appearing to embrace reform. A May 1 executive order expands and sharpens longstanding American sanctions on Cuba, and appears to deliberately target a recent gesture at partially opening the Cuban economy. “All property and interests in property that are in the United States,” the order says, are barred from operating “in the energy, defense and related materiel, metals and mining, financial services, or security sector of the Cuban economy, or any other sector of the Cuban economy,” under the penalty of economic sanctions.
On March 16, in a bid for survival, the communist government of Cuba had announced a series of intended though vaguely executed reforms that would allow foreign investment in the island from Cubans living overseas. The reforms were to include a supposed expansion of private property rights. Deputy Prime Minister Oscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga said that the country was “open to maintaining a fluid commercial relationship with U.S. companies.”
Asked by email if the May 1 order was a deliberate response to the March 16 Cuban announcement, a State Department spokesman referred The Federalist to comments made on April 27 by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants. In a long discussion with Fox News Chief Foreign Correspondent Trey Yingst, Rubio rejected the possibility of reform under the current Cuban government, describing Cuba as “a failed state.”
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Scientists involved in planetary formation studies, meteorites, and early solar system investigations have been wondering about the origins of the ingredients that made up the planet Earth. Studies on carbonaceous chondrites, isotopic compositions, and planetary accretion have shown that the elements needed for life on Earth, such as carbon, water, and volatiles, could have come from primitive meteorites that developed in the outer solar system. These studies have contributed to the understanding of how terrestrial planets acquired their life-giving ingredients. Scientists are finding clues to the chemical makeup of Earth through studies of isotope ratios of certain elements like molybdenum and hydrogen.
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British maritime risk management group Vanguard said authorities would investigate whether the damage might have been caused by an attack, a drifting sea mine or another external object.
In response to the incident, South Korea’s Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries said on Tuesday it had asked Korean vessels in the area to move to safer locations and said authorities were in close communications with shipping companies and stranded vessels.
The South Korean government has said 26 South Korean-flagged vessels were stranded around the Strait of Hormuz.
In a post on the Truth Social platform, Trump said Iran had fired shots at the ship and other targets as the US launched an operation seeking to open the Strait of Hormuz to shipping.
He suggested it could be time for South Korea to join his new effort to help guide stranded ships through the waterway typically used to carry about a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas supplies.
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Authorities are still investigating the reasons of the explosion, with negligence being suspected as a likely cause. Officials warned that the death toll is likely to climb as search and rescue operations continue.
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Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed the DOJ antitrust division has been investigating possible violations by the meatpacking industry.
Blanche spoke at a press conference:
As you all know, last November, the president tasked the department to investigate the costs and prices of beef. As a result, we prioritized investigating potential antitrust violations in US cattle and beef markets.
In the beef industry, the big four processors control over 85% of the beef processing market. Two of the big four are primarily foreign owned. Multiple plant closures across the country. The current market structure and high concentration in the industry indicate anti-competitive activity. Since the President’s executive order, the department has been actively investigating with a review of over 3 million documents. Hundreds of industry participants, including ranchers, cattlemen, producers, and processors have been contacted and many interviewed as part of this ongoing investigation.
More broadly, the department has also executed on the President’s executive order to stop anti-competitive behavior in the broader food supply market.
Later this week, we will be announcing an historic settlement that will directly affect the prices of proteins like chicken, pork, and turkey. This business model allows competitors to exchange competitively sensitive information on every aspect of the protein industry, and has raised the prices on chicken, raised the prices on pork, and raised the prices on turkey.
.@DAGToddBlanche: The Department has executed on @POTUS‘ Executive Order to stop anti-competitive behavior in the broader food supply market. Later this week, we’ll be announcing a historic settlement that will directly affect the prices of proteins like chicken, pork and turkey. pic.twitter.com/PbxzG4OsZc
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) May 4, 2026
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Not a single Democrat in the Senate is willing to support the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act, and a new op-ed from The Washington Post might just explain why.
The SAVE America Act would amend the 1993 National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) to require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote and voter ID to cast a ballot in federal elections. The current “safeguard” preventing noncitizens from registering to vote and voting is a tiny square box on the federal registration form asking applicants to attest they are telling the truth about their citizenship status. In other words, the honor system.
The legislation passed the House (with a single Democrat voting alongside Republicans) but has stalled in the Republican controlled Senate, with a few RINOs and the entire Democrat apparatus opposing the election integrity legislation.
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Bengaluru, India – In the sultry August heat of 2007, India’s government under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was sweating over the future of negotiations with the United States over a landmark nuclear deal. The proposed agreement aimed to ease access to nuclear fuel and technology in exchange for greater international scrutiny of India’s facilities.
The problem? India’s communists – suspicious of the US – were opposed to the deal. And they were India’s kingmakers.
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As Catherine Salgado reported last week, Trump lambasted anti-MAHA Sen. Bill Cassidy, current chair of the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, for his leading role in tanking the recent nomination of Casey Means for surgeon general, presumably on account of her lukewarm enthusiasm for the current vaccine schedule.
(Cassidy is a tireless champion for all vaccines, including, as I have covered in depth before, the hepatitis B vaccine for newborns. Whether he truly believes in the safety and efficacy of these products is probably immaterial; the salient factor is that he’s up to his ears in pharma cash. According to Open Secrets, from 2019 to 2024, he raked in $1,313,974 in “donations” from PACs and individuals in the “Health Professionals” category and $712,504 from PACs and individuals in the “Pharmaceuticals/Health Products” category. I have written about this particular Swamp creature, his misdeeds, and the dire need to purge him from Washington extensively, including here.)
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The Center for Christian Virtue is prepared to pursue legal action after the group’s proposal for displaying three crosses on top of its building was rejected by the city of Columbus, Ohio.
The unanimous decision against the center, a 501(c)(3) family policy organization in downtown Columbus, was made on April 28 by six members of the city’s Downtown Commission, which laid out their objections in a staff report.
It’s a move that Aaron Baer, the center’s president, called “frustrating.”
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Vladimir Putin has threatened Kyiv with his most massive strike of the war if Ukrainian drones disrupt his major military parade in Moscow on Saturday. His defence ministry warned that civilians and diplomats should leave the city promptly if Volodymyr Zelensky attacks the Red Square showpiece, citing a rapid and massive retaliatory missile strike.
The Russian warning implies a hit by the hypersonic Oreshnik missile, which Putin boasts has the power of a full nuclear explosion even in its conventional mode. Putin said previously that using several such systems at once would be comparable in strength to a nuclear strike. His favourite newspaper, Komsomolskaya Pravda, warned today that Oreshnik also has a nuclear configuration.
Vladimir Putin has threatened Kyiv with the most massive strike of the war if Ukrainian drones disrupt his major military parade in Moscow this Saturday. His defence ministry warned that civilians and diplomats should leave the city promptly if Volodymyr Zelensky attacks the Red Square showpiece, citing a rapid and massive retaliatory missile strike.
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The U.S. military on Monday denied claims that Iran struck a U.S. Navy vessel as American forces now offer to guide commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz, where hundreds have been stuck since the Iran war began. Tehran has blocked vessels that don’t receive its authorization.
Iranian news agencies, including the semiofficial agency Fars and the Iranian Labour News Agency, claimed that Iran had struck a U.S. vessel near an Iranian port southeast of the strait, accusing it of “violating maritime security and navigation norms.” The reports said the vessel was forced to turn back.
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Mars has lots of glaciers located along its mid-latitudes. We’ve known this for years thanks to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s (MRO’s) SHARAD sounder. But, despite all of the excellent data it’s managed to gather, SHARAD doesn’t have high enough resolution to accurately measure the boundary between the glacier itself and the rocky material that has been deposited on top of it over the course of billions of years. A new study, published in the journal JGR Planets, details a potential method of finding that boundary—by using a drone.
So what exactly does that boundary matter? Debris-covered glaciers (or DCGs) are a common feature on Mars. The debris that rests on top of them stops the sublimation that would otherwise cause the entire glacier to disappear into Mars’ thin atmosphere. But, we aren’t entirely sure how deeply buried these glaciers are. And if we’re to utilize the water they hold, either for direct astrobiological study or in-situ resource utilization (ISRU), we need a better idea of how much rock and dirt we have to dig through in order to access them.
SHARAD is great for tracking big macro features over the surface of the planet. But it’s not great for the nitty-gritty details of how much regolith actually covers a specific glacier. This is largely due to the fact that it’s around 300 kilometers away. In order to get that fine level of detail, we need something closer.
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As May 2026 unfolds, the world’s attention is fixed on a high-stakes diplomatic theater. By mid-May, President Donald Trump is slated for a pivotal two-day state visit to Beijing. This visit comes at a time when the Middle East is on a knife-edge.
The geopolitical landscape is defined by a grueling stalemate: the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed by Iran in retaliation initially for the U.S.-Israeli air strikes, and now a persistent U.S. naval blockade that has strangled the Iranian economy for weeks.
While indirect negotiations between Washington and Tehran continue via Pakistani and Omani mediators, the “ground truth” remains volatile. Despite a shaky ceasefire, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps continues to broadcast defiance, signaling no intention of dismantling its nuclear enrichment facilities or its sophisticated ballistic missile program. At this critical juncture, the question isn’t just whether Trump can negotiate with Iran, but whether he can leverage China to force Tehran’s hand.
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A federal judge openly apologized in court to the man accused of attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump after defense attorneys raised concerns about his treatment inside a Washington, D.C., jail.
During a May 4 hearing, Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui, who donated to Kamala Harris’s 2024 campaign, questioned jail officials about the “conditions” facing defendant Cole Tomas Allen.
Allen is being held ahead of trial on attempted assassination charges.
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine are holding a news conference Tuesday morning as the ceasefire in the Iran war faces serious tests. U.S. Navy destroyers on Monday fended off a sustained barrage of Iranian missiles, attack drones and small boats as they helped two commercial vessels transit the Strait of Hormuz.
“Iran cannot be allowed to block innocent countries and their goods from an international waterway,” Hegseth said at the news conference.
Hegseth noted that Project Freedom, the U.S. guiding of commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, is “separate and distinct from Operation Epic Fury.” He called the operation a “temporary solution” for the U.S., saying “the world needs this waterway more than we do.”