Taylor Swift files to #trademark her voice, likeness to ward off AI #deepfakes.

Pop superstar Taylor Swift filed trademark applications for two audio clips and one image of herself in what a trademark attorney said is an attempt to protect her voice and likeness from deepfake videos and audio created by artificial intelligence.

The applications were filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Friday and list Swift’s TAS Rights Management as being the owner of the audio clips and image.

A spokesperson for Swift did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday, nor did lawyers who were listed on the filings.

In one of the audio clips, Swift is heard saying: “Hey, it’s Taylor Swift, and you can listen to my new album, ‘The Life of a Showgirl,’ on demand on Amazon Music Unlimited.”

The second clip says: “Hey, it’s Taylor. My brand new album ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ is out on October 3 and you can click to presave it so you can listen to it on Spotify.” SPOT.N

The image Swift is seeking to trademark is of her onstage in a sequined outfit, pink guitar in hand.

Swift’s image and voice have been used in countless AI-generated deepfakes - from false advertising to fake political endorsements to explicit images.

Actor Matthew McConaughey has had similar filings approved. He told the Wall Street Journal in January that “we want to create a clear perimeter around ownership with consent and attribution the norm in an AI world.”

Trademark attorney Josh Gerben, who first publicized that Swift made the applications on his blog on Monday, wrote that they “are specifically designed to protect Taylor from threats posed by artificial intelligence.”

“While existing ‘Right of Publicity’ laws offer some protection against unauthorized use of a famous individual’s likeness, trademark filings can provide an additional layer of protection,” Gerben wrote.

Gerben added that registering a celebrity’s spoken voice is a new use of trademark registration that has not been tested in courts.

“Historically, singers relied on copyright law to protect their recorded music,” Gerben wrote. “But AI technologies now allow users to generate entirely new content that mimics an artist’s voice without copying an existing recording, creating a gap that trademarks may help fill.”

Gerben said the photo Swift is seeking to trademark serves a similar purpose.

“By protecting a distinctive visual, down to Swift’s commonly worn jumpsuit and pose, Swift’s team may gain additional grounds to pursue claims against manipulated or AI-generated images that evoke her likeness,” he wrote.

(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Colorado; Editing by Donna Bryson and Bill Berkrot)

DR #Congo to set up paramilitary unit to secure mines. The Democratic Republic of Congo announced Monday it was setting up a paramilitary unit to secure mining sites in the country, which has abundant deposits of sought-after minerals.

The central African nation produces around 70 per cent of global cobalt output -- key for making electric batteries and in defence technology -- and holds some of the world’s richest deposits of copper, coltan and lithium.

Chinese mining firms have a dominant position in the country, though there are companies from the United States and elsewhere.

The General Inspectorate of Mines (#IGM), a government body that oversees and fights fraud in the mining sector, announced the creation of “the mining guard”.

It said in a statement it was a “paramilitary special unit intended to secure the entire mineral exploitation chain” in the DRC.

With funding of US$100 million, it said the plan was part of “strategic partnerships” with the United States and United Arab Emirates but gave no details on its sources of financing.

The DRC and Rwanda signed an agreement in December aimed at ending conflict in the eastern DRC, a region long mired in violence which has intensified with the emergence of the Rwanda-backed M23 armed group.

The accord includes an economic component aimed at ensuring that American high-tech companies have a supply of strategic minerals.

The IGM said the mining guard would be responsible for securing mining sites and mineral transport.

“By the end of 2028, a gradual deployment is planned of a workforce of more than 20,000 guards covering the 22 mining provinces under IGM supervision,” the body said.

Recruits will undergo a six-month training program, with a first contingent deployed in December this year, it said.

Sri Lanka detains 22 Buddhist monks for drug smuggling, Twenty-two Sri Lankan monks returning from Thailand were arrested on Sunday at the main international airport with 110 kilograms (242 pounds) of powerful cannabis, officials said.

A Sri Lanka Customs spokesman said the group, returning home after a four-day holiday in the Thai capital, had Kush -- a potent, plant-based strain of cannabis -- hidden in their luggage.

“Each carried about five kilos of the narcotic concealed within false walls in their luggage,” the spokesman said, adding that the monks had been handed over to police.

They were to be taken before a magistrate later on Sunday.

The monks were mostly young students from temples across Sri Lanka and had been on a holiday sponsored by a businessman.

Customs officials said it was the largest single detection of Kush at the South Asian country’s main international airport.

A 21-year-old British woman was arrested in May last year with 46 kilograms (101 pounds) of the drug at the same airport. She was also travelling to Colombo from Bangkok.

Sri Lankan authorities have also made several detections of large hauls of heroin and other narcotics smuggled in via small fishing boats in recent years.

North #Korea opens memorial museum for troops killed in Russia-Ukraine war.

In April 2025, North Korea and Russia announced that their soldiers fought together to repel a Ukraine incursion into Russia’s Kursk border region. The two countries haven’t disclosed exactly how many North Koreans soldiers were deployed, but South Korea’s intelligence service estimated last year that North Korea sent about 15,000 troops and 2,000 of them were killed.

The North’s Korean Central News Agency reported Monday the museum’s inaugural ceremony was held in Pyongyang on Sunday to mark the one-year anniversary of the end of an operation to liberate the Kursk region. KCNA said leader Kim Jong Un attended the ceremony along with top visiting Russian officials including Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the State Duma, and Defense Minister Andrei Beloussov.

During the ceremony, Kim threw dirt over the remains of one dead soldier and laid flowers before others whose bodies were already placed in a mortuary, before he and Volodin and Beloussov left messages on the guest book, according to KCNA.

In a speech, Kim said the spirits of dead North Korean soldiers will remain as “a symbol of the Korean people’s heroism” and support “a victorious march by the Korean and Russian people.” He praised the North Korean and Russian forces for thwarting what he called a U.S.-led Western “hegemonic plot and military adventurism” on the Russian-Ukraine front.

Meeting with Beloussov separately, Kim said North Korea will fully support the Russian policy of defending its sovereignty and security interests, #KCNA reported. Russia’s state news agency, Tass, cited Belousov as telling Kim that Russia was ready to sign a Russian-North Korean military cooperation plan for the 2027-2031 period.

In a letter to Kim read by Volodin during the ceremony, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the museum “will undoubtedly be a clear symbol of the friendship and solidarity” between the two countries. Putin said he was convinced that the two countries would continue to strengthen their comprehensive strategic partnership, according to KCNA.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Kim has made Moscow the priority of his foreign policy by supplying troops and conventional weapons. In return, North Korea was believed to have received economic and other assistance from Russia. South Korea, the U.S. and their partners worry Russia may transfer high-tech technologies that can enhance North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.

Experts say North Korean troops sent to the war earlier became easy targets for drone and artillery attacks due to their lack of combat experience and unfamiliarity with the terrain. But Ukrainian military and intelligence officials have assessed that the North Koreans were gaining crucial battlefield experience and were key to Russia’s strategy of overwhelming Ukraine by throwing large numbers of soldiers into the battle for Kursk.

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Associated Press writer Kim Tong-hyung contributed to this report.

Hyung-jin Kim, The Associated Press

#Argentina's leader bars #journalists from government #HQ, raising concerns about press #freedom

#Bahrain revokes #citizenship of 69 people for ‘glorifying or sympathizing with’ Iranian attacks.

Bahrain has revoked the citizenship of 69 people over what it described as sympathy with Iran’s hostile acts and collaboration with foreign entities, the kingdom’s interior ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said that the 69 people included accused individuals and their family members, and that they were all of non-Bahraini origin.

“The Bahraini nationality has been revoked from those individuals for glorifying or sympathizing with the hostile Iranian acts, or engaging in contacts with external parties,” the ministry said.

It said the revocations had been carried out in accordance with royal directives from King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and were based on Article 10/3 of the Bahraini Nationality Law. The article provides for the revocation of citizenship in cases of “causing harm to the interests of the Kingdom or acting in a manner that contradicts the duty of loyalty to it.”

The interior ministry said the competent authorities were “continuing to study and review” who deserves Bahraini citizenship.

Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, Advocacy Director at the Britain-based Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD), condemned the move, calling it “the beginning of a dangerous era of repression” and saying the decisions were “imposed without legal safeguards or any right of appeal.”

BIRD said it was the first such revocation of citizenship in Bahrain since 2019. Between 2012 and 2019, Bahrain revoked the citizenship of at least 990 nationals, the group said.

Iran fired at targets ​in Bahrain and other Gulf Arab states where the U.S. has military bases after the U.S. and Israel launched a war against Iran on Feb. 28.

Bahrain’s National Communication Centre did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the case and on the Institute’s statement.

Reporting by Andrew Mills, Menna Alaa El-Din and Tala Ramadan; Editing by Alex Richardson and Aidan Lewis

#Russia is an integral part of the #Eurasian continent and therefore simply cannot be "the main threat to #Europe," Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Vesti journalist Pavel Zarubin.

"Russia cannot be the main threat to #Europe, because Russia, no matter what anyone says, is still an integral part of Europe while being a Eurasian country," he said.

#Trump says #shooting proves need for his White House #ballroom

Sound of gunfire carries eerie echoes of Reagan's shooting outside the same Washington #hotel.

#Reagan was hit in the chest and nearly died. Forty-five years later, another gunman is accused of trying to storm into the same hotel’s ballroom during the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday night. The suspect fired at least one shot, authorities said, before being subdued in a chaotic scene that forced the evacuation of U.S. President Donald Trump and other top administration officials. The gunman never entered the ballroom or was close to the president.

That Hilton has hosted hundreds of large events attended by presidents and other dignitaries since it opened in the 1960s. While on the surface there appear to be similarities in the incidents beyond its location, there are stark differences that highlight how much has changed in the decades since Reagan was shot.

“Security is a lot more robust today than it was then,” said Stephen T. Colo, a former assistant director of the Secret Service. “But you still deal with the same tension involving politicians and the public’s access to them.”

Washington Hilton was built to accommodate presidents

The Washington Hilton Hotel and its cavernous ballroom were designed to be a prime venue for presidential speeches and events. To entice high-profile speakers, primarily the president, architects designed a VIP entrance on the side of the hotel and, one floor below it, a holding room known as the bunker.

In the decade before Reagan was shot, presidents visited the hotel more than a hundred times.

The 1981 shooting was set in motion when Hinckley got on a bus in Los Angeles, where he had been trying to write and sell music, and headed to Washington. There, he planned to hop on another bus to New Haven, Connecticut, to stage a suicide in front of the object of his obsession, movie star Jodie Foster.

In the nation’s capital, he learned Reagan would be speaking at the Washington Hilton on the afternoon of March 30, and he changed his plans. He would try to kill the president to impress the actress.
Hinckley got very close to the president

Outside the hotel that afternoon, Hinkley found himself 15 feet from Reagan as the president headed to his limousine. In a small crowd of onlookers and journalists behind a rope line, the would-be assassin pulled out a gun and fired six shots in 1.7 seconds, wounding Reagan, White House press secretary Jim Brady, District of Columbia Police Officer Thomas Delahanty and Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy.

Reagan was struck below his left armpit, the bullet lodged an inch from his heart. Reagan survived thanks to the quick thinking of Secret Service agent Jerry Parr and the medical personnel at George #Washington University Hospital. Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

In the wake of the shooting, the Secret Service enhanced security in dozens of ways. The most visible action came when the Secret Service began deploying checkpoints and metal detectors to screen visitors at the White House and at public events. Hinckley did not have to pass through either a checkpoint or metal detector to get so close to the president.

The hotel built a bunker-like garage for the armored limousine to park and drop off and pick up the president at the VIP entrance. The Secret Service and local police assigned more agents and officers to guard presidential events at the Hilton.

Even with such enhancements, former agents said, securing the Hilton is challenging and highlights the tension between protecting politicians and ensuring the public has access to them. The hotel also has many public areas, and it would be hard to shut them down for an event, even one as high profile as the correspondents’ dinner.

That was why the main security checkpoint, they said, was near the ballroom and not in the hotel lobby or entrance — measures that would be disruptive to hundreds of guests and hotel operations. Inside the ballroom, more agents and heavily armed tactical officers were stationed close to the president.
Gunman was stopped at security checkpoint

On Saturday, the suspect sprinted through the checkpoint leading to the ballroom, according to video posted by Trump. The video shows officers and agents pivoting and pointing guns at the man as he ran away. The assailant was quickly subdued and was not injured, officials said. An officer was shot in a bullet-resistant vest, officials said, but was not seriously hurt.

Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said Sunday that the gunman was likely seeking to target the president and members of the administration.

The assailant is suspected of having traveled by train from California to Chicago and then on to Washington, where in recent days he checked in as a guest at the hotel, Blanche said.

Law enforcement officials familiar with the matter identified, to The Associated Press, the suspect as 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen of Torrance, California. Cole sent writings to family members minutes before the shooting referring to himself as a “Friendly Federal Assassin,” railing against Trump administration policies and signaling what investigators increasingly believe was a politically driven attack, according to another law enforcement official who, like the others, was not to authorized discuss the investigation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The writings made repeated references to Trump, the official said, without directly naming the president and alluded to grievances over a range of administration actions

Del Quentin Wilber, The Associated Press

Two former Israeli prime ministers agree to merge parties against #Netanyahu. Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid served as prime ministers in a rotation agreement as part of a coalition government they formed in 2021. They now plan to merge their parties into single faction headed by Bennett.

“The move is intended to unite the bloc, put an end to internal divisions and focus all efforts on winning the critical upcoming elections,” Lapid’s Yesh Atid party said in a statement.

Bennett and Lapid scheduled a joint news conference later on Sunday.

The 2021 coalition agreement ended 12 years of Netanyahu rule. Bennett served as prime minister for the first year until their coalition fractured. Lapid then held the top job as caretaker prime minister for the final six months until new elections brought Netanyahu back to power.

Lapid has served as Israel’s opposition leader since that time, while Bennett took a break from politics.

The two men have ideological differences. Bennett is an Orthodox Jew with hard-line views toward the Palestinians, while Lapid is secular and seen as more moderate. But they enjoyed a close working relationship during their short-lived coalition.

Their alliance is aimed at uniting a fragmented opposition that appears to have little in common beyond their shared hostility toward Netanyahu.