Category: They Made a Movie About This

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Healthcare CEO Killer Inscribed These Words on the Bullet Casings

Leah covered this story earlier today: Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was shot and killed in what looks like a professional hit job. The targeted killing occurred around 6:45 AM, outside the New York Hilton Midtown, where an investors meeting was being held. In the video footage, the killer is seen shooting Mr. Thompson with a suppressed firearm in the leg and back before finishing him off.

There’s a new chilling clue regarding this premeditated killing: bullet casings were found at the scene, with “deny,” “defend,” and “depose” on them:

Mr. Thompson was the subject of a Justice Department investigation for insider trading (via NY Post):

UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was one of several senior executives at the company under investigation by the Department of Justice when he was gunned down outside a Manhattan hotel on Wednesday. 

Thompson — who was killed in what police called a targeted shooting outside the Hilton hotel in Midtown — exercised stock options and sold shares worth $15.1 million on Feb. 16, less than two weeks before news of the federal antitrust probe went public, according to a Crain’s New York Business report from April. 

The stock price dropped sharply after the revelation that the DOJ was investigating whether the company had made acquisitions that consolidated its market position in violation of antitrust laws, a source familiar with the probe told the outlet. 

Kissinger’s final warning: Prepare now for ‘superhuman’ people to control Earth

Humanity must begin preparations to no longer be in charge of Earth because of artificial intelligence, according to a new book from the late statesman Henry Kissinger and a pair of the country’s leading technologists.

The rise of AI creating “superhuman” people is a major topic of concern in “Genesis,” published Tuesday by Little, Brown and Company. It’s the “last book” from Kissinger, according to the publisher’s parent company Hachette. Kissinger was a longtime U.S. diplomat and strategist who died last year at age 100.

Kissinger’s co-authors, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and longtime Microsoft senior executive Craig Mundie, finished the combined work after Kissinger’s death, and The Washington Times has obtained an advance copy. Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Mundie wrote they were among the last people to speak with Kissinger and sought to honor his dying request to finish the manuscript.

The authors offer a bracing message, warning that AI tools have already started outpacing human capabilities so people might need to consider biologically engineering themselves to ensure they are not rendered inferior or wiped out by advanced machines.

In a section titled “Coevolution: Artificial Humans,” the three authors encourage people to think now about “trying to navigate our role when we will no longer be the only or even the principal actors on our planet.”

“Biological engineering efforts designed for tighter human fusion with machines are already underway,” they add.

Current efforts to integrate humans with machine include brain-computer interfaces, a technology that the U.S. military identified last year as of the utmost importance. Such interfaces allow for a direct link between the brain’s electrical signals and a device that processes them to accomplish a given task, such as controlling a battleship.

The authors also raise the prospect of a society that chooses to create a hereditary genetic line of people specifically designed to work better with forthcoming AI tools. The authors describe such redesigning as undesirable, with the potential to cause “the human race to split into multiple lines, some infinitely more powerful than others.”

“Altering the genetic code of some humans to become superhuman carries with it other moral and evolutionary risks,” the authors write. “If AI is responsible for the augmentation of human mental capacity, it could create in humanity a simultaneous biological and psychological reliance on ‘foreign’ intelligence.”

Such a physical and intellectual dependence may create new challenges to separate man from the machines, the authors warn. As a result, designers and engineers should try to make the machines more human, rather than make humans more like machines.

But that raises a new problem: choosing which humans to make the machines follow in a diverse and divided world.

“No single culture should expect to dictate to another the morality of the intellects on which it would be relying,” the authors wrote. “So, for each country, machines would have to learn different rules, formal and informal, moral, legal, and religious, as well as, ideally, different rules for each user and, within baseline constraints, for every conceivable inquiry, task, situation, and context.”

The authors say society can expect technical difficulties, but those difficulties will pale in comparison with designing machines to follow a moral code, as the authors said they do not believe good and evil are self-evident concepts.

Kissinger, Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Mundie urged greater attention to aligning machines with human values. The trio said they would prefer that no artificial general intelligence surpassing humanity’s intellect is allowed to emerge unless it is properly aligned with the human species.

The authors said they are rooting for humanity’s survival and hope people will figure it out, but that the task will not be easy.

We wish success to our species’ gigantic project, but just as we cannot count on tactical human control in the longer-term project of coevolution, we also cannot rely solely on the supposition that machines will tame themselves,” the authors wrote. “Training an AI to understand us and then sitting back and hoping that it respects us is not a strategy that seems either safe or likely to succeed.”

Sedition, Insubordination, Conduct Unbecoming. In a time of war; Treason.
This sort of thing must be rooted out and the bureaucraps fired, those on active duty who took part relieved, and those who may not have been on active duty (retired), recalled and face courts martial. The military must be completely subordinate to the elected constitutional national command authority and follow their legal orders or what we’ll wind up with is a military hunta akin to the praetorian guard of the roman empire who decided who the next emperor would be after disposing of the last one.

Sorry, We Can Only View This Secret Pentagon Meeting as a Plot to Foment an Insurrection

John Frankenheimer directed a movie called Seven Days in May in the 1960s, starring Kirk Douglas as a military officer who uncovers a coup against the president of the United States by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who signed a deeply unpopular nuclear disarmament treaty. That’s a movie. In 2024, the Pentagon brass plotted to countermand President-elect Donald J. Trump’s orders. If we’re going by the Left’s rules here, this is an insurrection. It’s a military coup. What’s worse is that these anti-Trump meetings were held in secret and then got leaked to the media (via CNN):

Pentagon officials are holding informal discussions about how the Department of Defense would respond if Donald Trump issues orders to deploy active-duty troops domestically and fire large swaths of apolitical staffers, defense officials told CNN.

Trump has suggested he would be open to using active-duty forces for domestic law enforcement and mass deportations and has indicated he wants to stack the federal government with loyalists and “clean out corrupt actors” in the US national security establishment.

[…]

“We are all preparing and planning for the worst-case scenario, but the reality is that we don’t know how this is going to play out yet,” one defense official said.

Trump’s election has also raised questions inside the Pentagon about what would happen if the president issued an unlawful order, particularly if his political appointees inside the department don’t push back.

“Troops are compelled by law to disobey unlawful orders,” said another defense official. “But the question is what happens then – do we see resignations from senior military leaders? Or would they view that as abandoning their people?”

CNN’s Scott Jennings tore apart these unelected bureaucrats yesterday. We’re back to the same Deep State games, but this time, Trump, with no re-election ahead of him, can go hard and fast to rid the Pentagon and any agency of troublesome government workers who think they’re above the law and not accountable to the will of the people. The illegal orders narrative is also ridiculous, soaked in the anti-Trump hysterics that have engulfed the Left.

Secret meetings on thwarting a duly elected president are not a good look.

Oracle Founder Larry Ellison Imagines a Dystopian Future of Constant AI-Powered Surveillance to Enforce “Best Behavior”

Larry Ellison, co-founder, chairman of the board, and chief technical officer of Oracle, has revealed where he sees the world going in one particular aspect – continuous, real-time control of people.

It is a dark place of “AI” (machine learning, ML) mass surveillance, which Ellison wants to make sure is served by his company by way of providing the fundamental infrastructure. It isn’t irrelevant to this story that Oracle’s portfolio also includes multi-decade contacts with the US government.

Oracle is not often mentioned when Big Tech is talked about, but it is one of the biggest in the industry. The reason for staying out of the limelight is that, unlike its peers with big stakes in the social media space, Oracle’s business is database software and cloud computing.

This is the reason Ellison sees the opportunity to place his company, already involved in building AI models, at the center of producing the tools to make this nightmarish scenario of real-time ML-powered surveillance a reality.

Ellison spoke during the Oracle financial analyst gathering to suggest that the company’s databases will become indispensable for the AI infrastructure, and that proof for that is in companies like X and Microsoft having already picked Oracle to provide this service.

“Maximizing AI’s public security capabilities” is what’s on Ellison’s mind, and he decided to sell this by giving police accountability as an example.

The system would prevent police abuse, he said – but the way “AI” combined with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure arrives there is perplexing, to say the least. It involves police body cameras that are always recording (including in bathrooms, and during meals), always transmitting back to Oracle – and with no option to stop this feed.

“Every police officer is going to be supervised at all times” – that’s another way of putting it, and Ellison did.

But who would build such an expensive and elaborate surveillance system just to use it in law enforcement? Not Ellison.

The cops will be on their best behavior, but so will (the rest) of the citizens, he promised. “Citizens will be on their best behavior because we’re constantly recording and reporting,” Ellison added.

Remember ‘Marooned‘ ?

Boeing Starliner astronauts might not return to Earth until next year

Aug. 7 (UPI) — Boeing Starliner astronauts, stranded at the International Space Station after a weeklong test flight turned into a two-month stay due to thruster problems, may be forced to fly home on SpaceX in 2025, NASA has admitted.

NASA updated reporters Wednesday at a news conference, which Boeing did not attend, on the timeline for crew members Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. The astronauts have been in space for 63 days with no return date in sight.

Wilmore and Williams arrived at the ISS on June 6 on what was the first crewed test flight of Boeing’s Starliner capsule. The mission was supposed to be the final step before NASA certified Boeing to fly crews to and from the space station, before faulty thrusters stranded the pair in June.

“We’re in kind of a new situation here, in that we’ve got multiple options,” Ken Bowersox, associate administrator for NASA’s space operations mission directorate and a former agency astronaut, told reporters Wednesday.

“I would say that our chances of an uncrewed Starliner return have increased a little bit on where things have gone over the last week or two,” Bowersox said. “But again, new data coming in, new analysis, different discussion — we could find ourselves shift in another way.”

“We don’t just have to bring a crew back on Starliner, for example. We could bring them back on another vehicle,” Bowersox added. The space agency is expected to make a final decision as early as next week.

“Our prime option is to return Butch and Suni on Starliner,” Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program said. “However, we have done the requisite planning to make sure we have other options open, and so we have been working with SpaceX to ensure that they’re ready to respond.”

NASA said it is now considering sending only two astronauts, instead of four, on September’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission to leave space for Wilmore and Williams to return to Earth on SpaceX Dragon in February 2025. SpaceX has been transporting astronauts to and from the ISS since 2020.

“We’re not ready to share specific crew names for the contingency plan,” ISS program manager Dana Weigel told Space.com. “We’ll go look at future manifests and just see what makes sense for the overall crew compliments going forward.”

On Tuesday, NASA announced SpaceX would delay the Aug. 18 launch of its Crew-9 mission, more than a month, to Sept. 24. The delay will give NASA and Boeing more time to repair Starliner’s five of 28 reaction control thrusters which misfired during docking at ISS on June 6.

While NASA said Starliner can safely undock from ISS, there is still uncertainty over how its thrusters would operate during the ride back to Earth.

“Starliner ground teams are taking their time to analyze the results of recent docked hot-fire testing, finalize flight rationale for the spacecraft’s integrated propulsion system and confirm system reliability ahead of Starliner’s return to Earth,” NASA said in a statement Tuesday.

Stich told reporters Wednesday that tests on the ground revealed that a small Teflon seal swells under high temperatures, which could be to blame for Starliner’s thruster problems.

“That gives us a lot of confidence in the thrusters, but we can’t totally prove with certainty what we’re seeing on orbit is exactly what’s been replicated on the ground,” Stich added.

Despite not attending Wednesday’s briefing, Boeing has maintained its confidence “in Starliner’s return with crew.”

“We still believe in Starliner’s capability and its flight rationale,” the company said in a statement Wednesday, as it also admitted the possibility that a different vehicle could bring the astronauts home.

“If NASA decides to change the mission, we will take the actions necessary to configure Starliner for an uncrewed return.”

Remember the Bond movie reboot Casino Royale back in 2006?

Court Holds Federal Ban on Home-Distilling Exceeds Congress’ Enumerated Powers.

Yesterday, in Hobby Distillers Association v. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, a federal district court in Texas held that federal laws banning distilled spirits plants (aka “stills”) in homes or dwellings exceed the scope of Congress’ enumerated powers. Specifically, the court concluded that the prohibitions exceed the scope of the federal taxing power and the Interstate Commerce Clause, even as supplemented by the Necessary and Proper Clause. The court further entered a permanent injunction barring enforcement of these provisions against those plaintiffs found to have standing (one individual and members of the Hobby Distillers Association.) The plaintiffs were represented by attorneys at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and background on the case (and the various filings) can be found on CEI’s website here.

Hobby Distillers Association has the potential to be a significant post-NFIB challenge to the expansive of use of federal power. A few excerpts from the decision are below the jump.

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What Is This ‘Team’ Karine Jean-Pierre Is Referring To?

Tuesday’s White House press briefing wasn’t much better than the one from the day before, though at this most recent briefing, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre did make a telling and concerning point beyond those specifically to do with President Joe Biden’s health. As she and other Biden allies have been claiming, we don’t need to worry about concerns with the president, because he has a “team.”

As Fox News’ Peter Doocy pointed out that “we know the president says that his health is fine, but it’s just his brain, and that he’s sharpest before 8:00,” Jean-Pierre cut him off to insist the president “was joking,” deciding to emphasize “I just want to make sure that that’s out there.”

Before Doocy could get to the heart of his question, he and Jean-Pierre ended up getting into a back-and-forth about “what’s the joke,” with the press secretary offering “he was speaking off the cuff, and he was making a joke, arguing “you know the president, he likes to joke a lot.”

After Jean-Pierre insisted several more times that “it’s a joke” when Biden himself makes comments about his age, Doocy finally was able to get to his original question.

“He’s sharpest before 8:00p.m.,” Doocy pointed out once more. “So, say that the Pentagon at some point picks up an incoming nuke; it’s 11:00 p.m. Who do you call? The First Lady?”

Jean-Pierre’s answer was that Biden “has a team.”

“He has a team that lets him know of any–of any news that is pertinent and important to the American people. He has someone–or–that is decided, obviously, with his National Security Council on who gets to tell him that news,” she offered.

Comments from former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and his experiences with Biden have been frequently coming back up. Doocy quoted him saying how First Lady Jill Biden “was there as well” for their meetings.

“When the First Lady is in these meetings, is she making decisions, or is she just,” Doocy started to ask, also asking if she’s “advising the president.” Jean-Pierre cut him off, though, to insist “no,” that “the president is the president of the United States” and “he makes decisions.”

Jean-Pierre became even more testy when Doocy asked about First Son Hunter Biden, who is now a “gatekeeper.” Like the first lady, Hunter has been instrumental in keeping Biden in the race for reelection.

“President Biden has told me before he and his son don’t have any business dealings together,” Doocy reminded as he asked a key question. “So, what is Hunter Biden doing in White House meetings?”

Jean-Pierre stuck to Biden being “very close to his family, as you know” and the timing of the 4th of July holiday for Hunter’s presence, despite how “there is a report that aides were struck by [Hunter’s] presence during their discussions,” as Doocy reminded. Earlier this month, NBC News reported on Hunter being at meetings, and how that presence concerned aides.

“Look, I can’t — I’m — I’m certainly not going to get into private conversations that o- — that occur,” Jean-Pierre also insisted.

When Doocy asked “can you say if Hunter Biden has access to classified information,” Jean-Pierre responded with a “no.”

Jean-Pierre is hardly the only one to reference that Biden “has a team.” Immediately following that disastrous debate almost two weeks ago now, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), a surrogate of the president, offered “we have a great team of people that will help govern. That is what I’m going to continue to make the case for.”

Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), who on that same day as Khanna’s remarks filed a resolution calling on Vice President Kamala Harris to make use of the 25th Amendment, pointed to such remarks as further reason why the cabinet needs to be convened.

Roy also brought up concerns with “a team” with Fox News recently, specifically this idea of “hav[ing] a president by committee” making clear “that is unacceptable, our founders rejected it, it is deeply offensive and unconstitutional.”

We continue to see such examples as the reason why a president coming off as increasingly unfit is supposedly fit to serve another four-year term.

Skynet smiles…….

Boston Dynamics New Fully Electric Humanoid Robot

Boston Dynamics has released a video unveiling their next generation humanoid robot. It is a fully electric Atlas robot designed for real-world applications.

Atlas demonstrates efforts to develop the next generation of robots with the mobility, perception, and intelligence needed to be commonplace in our lives.

The electric Atlas has been developed with advanced control systems and state-of-the-art hardware that allow it to demonstrate impressive athletic abilities and agility. The previous Atlas had some hydraulic systems. It uses models of its own dynamics to predict how its movements will evolve over time, allowing it to adjust and respond accordingly. It is built using a combination of titanium and aluminum 3D printed parts, giving it the necessary strength-to-weight ratio for tasks such as leaps and somersaults.

Boston Dynamics will work with the Hyundai team to build the next generation of automotive manufacturing capabilities.

Boston Dynamics is talking about years to show humanoid robot doing things in the lab, in the factory, and in people’s lives.

Combine a small apocalyptic sect with one of its major prophecies being fulfilled, as they saw it, by a law enforcement agency who it is said were looking for headlines to bolster its reputation for an increased budget, and what you wind up with is this.

The Waco Siege: What Happened When the Feds Laid Siege to the Branch Davidian Compound

“The record of the Waco incident documents mistakes. What the record from Waco does not evidence, however, is any improper motive or intent on the part of law enforcement.”

The siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, is an important event in American history because it directly led to one of the biggest terrorist attacks on American soil – the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building. It’s not necessary to defend this act of terrorism to understand why the entire freedom movement of the time was so incensed by it. Indeed, it stood as a symbol of federal overreach and the corruption of the Clinton Administration.

It’s important to separate fact from fiction when it comes to the siege of Waco, just as it is important to do so with the siege of Ruby Ridge or the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi. With every event, it is important to stick to the facts and what can be extrapolated from them to make the strongest argument about what went wrong and why, and what could be done differently in the future.

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They’ve – sorta – made several movies about this.

The New World on Mars: What We Can Create On The Red Planet.

Robert Zubrin, world-renowned space authority and founding president of the Mars Society, taps today’s newest science and most dogged research to foretell in astounding detail the brave, new Martian civilization we will achieve when (not if!) humankind colonizes Mars

When Robert Zubrin published his classic book The Case for Mars a quarter century ago, setting foot on the Red Planet seemed a fantasy. Today, manned exploration is certain, and as Zubrin affirms in The New World on Mars, so too is colonization. From the astronautical engineer venerated by NASA and today’s space entrepreneurs, here is what we will achieve on Mars and how.

SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic are building fleets of space vehicles to make interplanetary travel as affordable as Old-World passage to America. We will settle on Mars, and with our knowledge of the planet, analyzed in depth by Dr. Zubrin, we will utilize the resources and tackle the challenges that await us. What we will we build? Populous Martian city-states producing air, water, food, power, and more.

Zubrin’s Martian economy will pay for necessary imports and generate income from varied enterprises, such as real estate sales—homes that are airtight and protect against cosmic space radiation, with fish-farm aquariums positioned overhead, letting in sunlight and blocking cosmic rays while providing fascinating views. Zubrin even predicts the Red Planet customs, social relations, and government—of the people, by the people, for the people, with inalienable individual rights—that will overcome traditional forms of oppression to draw Earth immigrants. After all, Mars needs talent.

With all of this in place, Zubrin’s Red Planet will become a pressure cooker for invention, benefiting humans on Earth, Mars, and beyond. We can create this magnificent future, making life better, less fatalistic. The New World on Mars proves that there is no point killing each other over provinces and limited resources when, together, we can create planets.

Today, back in 1945.

Raising the 1st flag over Mt Suribachi

Raising the 2nd flag.

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Lowering the 1st flag as the 2nd is raised.

February 23 marks the day the United States Marines raised America’s flag over Mount Suribachi in Japan during the Battle of Iwo Jima almost 80 years ago.

The moment has been immortalized in a famous photograph taken by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal.

Take a look back at the history of the iconic photo, the lesser known first flag and the battle of Iwo Jima.

Battle of Iwo Jima

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American soldiers fighting against the Japanese in Iwo Jima on March 1945. (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

The Battle of Iwo Jima began after American forces invaded the island on Feb. 19, 1945.

The battle lasted for five weeks and was considered one of the bloodiest military campaigns of World War II and in the history of the Marine Corps, according to The National WWII Museum.

It was estimated that almost 7,000 Marines lost their lives and all but roughly 200 of the 21,000 Japanese forces were killed, according to History.com. 

Following the capture of Iwo Jima, the longest and largest battle in the Pacific took place during the invasion of Okinawa, Japan.

Twenty-seven Medals of Honor were awarded to service members for their actions at Iwo Jima – the most in the history of the U.S., according to The National WWII Museum.

Flag raising on Iwo Jima

On Feb. 23, 1945, U.S. forces took Mount Suribachi and were photographed raising the American flag at the summit.

The iconic photo won Rosenthal, the photographer, a Pulitzer Prize.

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Joe Rosenthal, a veteran AP cameraman, who took the famous picture of the flag raising at Iwo Jima, holding camera. (Bettmann via Getty Images)

That photo shows the second flag that was erected on the mountain. A photo of the first flag that was raised shows a completely different angle and a completely different flag.

As several Marines raised the first flag on Mount Suribachi, Marine Staff Sgt. Louis Lowrey from Leatherneck Magazine captured a photo. However, after that first flag was raised, Japanese forces began to shoot and Lowrey ended up dropping his camera while ducking for cover, according to Military.com. 

As Lowrey descended the mountain to get new gear, AP photographer Rosenthal was ascending the mountain.

In response to seeing Japanese forces’ reaction to the flag being erected on the mountain, Marine Corps Lt. Col. Chandler Johnson ordered for a new and larger American flag to be raised, according to the Marines website.

This new flag raising was the moment Rosenthal captured and became one of the most famous photos in American history.

Who raised the Iwo Jima flags?

The service members who raised the first flag on Mount Suribachi were: 1st Lt. Harold G. Schrier, Plt. Sgt. Ernest I. Thomas, Jr., Sgt. Henry O. Hansen, Cpl. Charles W. Lindberg, Pharmacist Mate 2nd Class John H. Bradley and Pvt. Philip L. Ward, according to the Marine Corps website. 

Following Iwo Jima, Schrier fought in the Korean War and was promoted to Major in 1951. He would retire from the Marines as a lieutenant colonel, according to the Military Hall of Honor website. He died in 1971 in Florida.

Lindberg said that many did not believe him when he said he helped raise one of the two flags in Iwo Jima, according to a New York Times report. 

Lindberg spent his final years raising awareness about the first flag-raising and spoke at veterans groups and schools, The Times said.

He died in June of 2007.

Bradley, who was originally misidentified in the photo of the second (more famous) flag raising, passed away in 1994 and his son, James Bradley, later wrote a book titled “Flags of Our Fathers” in 2000. The book’s storyline centered around the flag-raising in Iwo Jima and the famous photograph that came from it.  A movie adaptation of the book directed by Clint Eastwood was released in 2006, according to IMDB.

Controversy surrounded the book after it was found that some of the Marines, including Bradley, in the second flag-raising photograph were misidentified.

The Marine Corps formally recognized the misidentification and in 2016, a corrected list of names for both the first flag-raising and second were released.

Ward was one of the Marines not identified as one of the original men who helped raise the first flag on Mount Suribachi and was part of the amended list of Marines released in 2016.

Ward was posthumously recognized for his part in the battle as he died on Dec. 28, 2005, according to We Are the Mighty.

Thomas and Hansen died in battle.

Those who were responsible for the second flag-raising were: Pfc. Harold Keller, Pfc. Harold Schultz, Cpl. Harlon Block, Pfc. Franklin Sousley, Sgt. Michael Strank and Pfc. Ira Hayes.

In 2019, the Marine Corps, in collaboration with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and historian Brent Westmeyer, revealed that Keller was misidentified as Cop. Rene Gagnon in the famous photograph of the second flag-raising.

Keller survived the war and went back home to Iowa where he lived with his wife Ruby and three children until he died of a heart attack in 1979, according to the Des Moines Register. 

Hayes, who was a member of the Pima Indian Tribe, was dubbed a war hero by President Dwight D. Eisenhower when he returned to the U.S.

Hayes struggled with PTSD and survivor’s guilt, according to the Museum of Native American History. He died at the age of 32 near his home in Sacaton, Arizona.

Schultz returned to the U.S. and worked for the Postal Service until his retirement in 1981, according to We Are The Mighty.

He seldomly spoke of his time in the war and only revealed any details to his stepdaughter, Dezreen Macdowell. She would go on to be interviewed by Time Magazine and lauded her stepfather as a war hero.

Schultz died on May 16, 1955.

Block, Strank and Sousley were killed in action in Iwo Jima.

Shades of I Robot…the movie, not the collection of short stories by Asimov.

A novel elderly care robot could soon provide personal assistance, enhancing seniors’ quality of life.

A novel elderly care robot could soon provide personal assistance, enhancing seniors' quality of life

General scheme of ADAM elements from back and front view. Credit: Frontiers in Neurorobotics (2024). DOI: 10.3389/fnbot.2024.1337608

Worldwide, humans are living longer than ever before. According to data from the United Nations, approximately 13.5% of the world’s people were at least 60 years old in 2020, and by some estimates, that figure could increase to nearly 22% by 2050.

Advanced age can bring cognitive and/or physical difficulties, and with more and more elderly individuals potentially needing assistance to manage such challenges, advances in technology may provide the necessary help.

One of the newest innovations comes from a collaboration between researchers at Spain’s Universidad Carlos III and the manufacturer Robotnik. The team has developed the Autonomous Domestic Ambidextrous Manipulator (ADAM), an elderly care  that can assist people with basic daily functions. The team reports on its work in Frontiers in Neurorobotics.

ADAM, an indoor mobile robot that stands upright, features a vision system and two arms with grippers. It can adapt to homes of different sizes for safe and optimal performance. It respects users’ personal space while helping with domestic tasks and learning from its experiences via an imitation learning method.

On a practical level, ADAM can pass through doors and perform everyday tasks such as sweeping a floor, moving objects and furniture as needed, setting a table, pouring water, preparing a simple meal, and bringing items to a user upon request.

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