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Timothée Chalamet and more A-listers watched the NBA Finals Game 5 from Texas' Frost Bank Center's celebrity row on Saturday night.

Timothée Chalamet and more A-listers watched the NBA Finals Game 5 from Texas' Frost Bank Center's celebrity row on Saturday night.

De'Aaron Fox made headlines for all the wrong reasons after Game 4 of the NBA Finals. Things didn't get much better in Game 5.

The couple attended a Saturday showing of "Oh, Mary!" at the Lyceum Theatre.

The couple attended a Saturday showing of "Oh, Mary!" at the Lyceum Theatre.

While the Knicks have been steaming toward a title, the Nets have been suffering through a tank. Now it’s time for a turn.

China's New AI Agent Risks Trapping Western Tech In Rights Abuses: Analysts

Authored by Jarvis Lim via The Epoch Times,

China's new state-backed artificial intelligence (AI) platform threatens to stifle domestic tech innovation through forced ideological compliance, and in the West, it could also be used to cover up the regime's human rights abuses, analysts warn.

A screen advertising Xinhua News Agency in Times Square in the Manhattan borough of New York City, on March 2, 2020. Andrew Kelly/Reuters

Xinhua, the official mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), will spend more than 1.1 billion yuan ($162.38 million) to launch an AI agent to propagate Chinese leader Xi Jinping's thinking, according to a feasibility study published on its website on June 5.

Dubbed "Xinhua Yudian," the platform positions itself as an indispensable tool for journalists, a practical asset for party cadres, and a trusted information source for the general public, the study showed.

"Through 'Q&A on Xi's Words' and 'Xi Study Guide,' it presents the core essence and practical requirements of the general secretary's important discourses," the report said.

In 2023, China passed the "Interim Measures for the Management of Generative Artificial Intelligence Services," prohibiting content that could incite subversion, threaten national security, or damage the country's image.

The measures require market participants to "uphold the core socialist values," according to a translation.

Cementing Control

Feng Chongyi, an associate professor in China studies at the University of Technology Sydney, said Xinhua's latest move signals that Beijing views every new AI technology developed domestically as a tool to consolidate its grip on power.

"This shows the CCP is attempting to reinforce the personality cult around Xi Jinping," Feng told The Epoch Times.

"Xi has already rolled out similar initiatives, requiring middle schoolers and party cadres to study and even take exams on his political ideology."

Charles Cheng-chung Lo, a professor with the Graduate Institute of Science and Technology Law at the National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology in Taiwan, said the regime aims to aggressively marshal national resources in AI and technology to protect its "political security."

"Political security means safeguarding the CCP's leadership and ruling status, as well as its socialist system with Chinese characteristics," Lo told The Epoch Times.

"Under such a system, all technological development naturally faces strict state regulation based on this political premise."

'Extreme Self-Censorship'

Lee Chung-chih, deputy convenor of the Strategic Industries Program at Taiwanese think tank the DIMEs Center, said China's generative AI models, such as DeepSeek, are engineered to strictly conform to Party dogma, leaving them unable to provide objective answers on political, historical, and social issues.

The rise of agentic AI - autonomous software systems capable of taking action and performing complex tasks on behalf of users - is set to entrench that dynamic further, he said, pointing to Xinhua Yudian as the latest example.

"This is completely detrimental to the verification and creation of knowledge," Lee told The Epoch Times.

"China is currently locking its society into an 'isolated universe.'"

Lee said the platform's proposed functions, such as content inspection, traceability, correction, and guided documentation, could prompt Beijing to demand that private AI firms align with Xinhua's standards.

"If private AI developers refuse to comply, the sector could wither and talent may flee," he said.

Lee warned that pushing these rigid censorship standards to the extreme would lock China's entire information ecosystem into a cycle of ideological compliance, stifling genuine innovation.

"Chinese journalists and scholars will start using AI to engage in hyper-conformity, aiming to outdo the state's own narratives and push even further left," Lee said.

"This extreme self-censorship just to please the authorities will leave them completely blind to genuine technological breakthroughs or geopolitical crises from the outside world."

Global Infiltration

Lo said foreign AI products and services seeking to integrate with this state-run platform will likely face surveillance under Xi's concept of "comprehensive national security" - an overarching doctrine where ideology now dictates all aspects of Chinese governance.

"In other words, the price of tapping into China's vast market is strict localized regulation," Lo said.

He said that securing this access could mean filtering out factual answers on sensitive topics, such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy movement, to meet Beijing's political red lines.

"The likelihood of self-censorship will increase as ideological screening becomes the inevitable compliance cost for entry," Lo said.

But the risks could extend further, as any Western tech firms that choose to partner with platforms like Xinhua Yudian may inadvertently become tools of CCP repression, according to Feng.

"Many companies operate under the belief that technology knows no borders, selling their products to the CCP," Feng said.

"What they fail to realize is that Beijing could harness their advanced technology on Xinhua Yudian and others to further violate the privacy and human rights of ordinary people."

Feng said that adopting these authoritarian standards could ultimately backfire, endangering the developers' own home nations.

"If democratic societies fail to counter Beijing's cognitive warfare, Western AI systems forced into compliance will essentially hand the regime a digital backdoor," he said.

"It allows China to push this warfare seamlessly across frontiers, severely subverting the international order."

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/13/2026 - 22:10

A convicted California child molester who vanished before sentencing and remained a fugitive for nearly 10 months has finally been captured, reigniting criticism of a justice system that allowed him to stay free after a jury found him guilty.

The "Euphoria" star traveled to San Antonio with boyfriend Scooter Braun — and brought her blue-and-orange best.

The "Euphoria" star traveled to San Antonio with boyfriend Scooter Braun — and brought her blue-and-orange best.

A 50-pound Missouri sulcata tortoise is finally back at her home base after a nine-day runaway spree, delivering relief to her shell-shocked loved ones and community.

Charles Barkley had something to say about the Game 5 Knicks-Spurs celebrity guest list.

Peralta had his worst outing of the season on Tuesday, when he surrendered six earned runs over six innings in a loss to the Cardinals.

An Oslo balcony is delivering pizza, a group of 200 women from Mexico embroidered a canopy for the World Cup, and more news from around the world.

After committing an eighth-inning error on Saturday that ended Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s bid for a perfect game, Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts stood before his locker and kept repeating the same message.

North Korea Rips Fresh Western Criticism Of Expanding Moscow Relationship

North Korea fired back on Saturday and lashed out at the Washington-Seoul alliance, tearing into a fresh South Korea-EU joint statement that condemned Pyongyang's deepening military alliance with Russia.

North Korea has increasingly over the past acknowledge a significant number of troops sacrificed in support of Russia and in the context of the brutal and grinding Ukraine war.

The Western-aligned statement, inked Wednesday during South Korean President Lee Jae Myung's high-profile trip to Brussels, took direct aim at the "illegal military cooperation" fueling the war in Ukraine.

"We condemn support by third parties, in particular the DPRK, which enables Russia to sustain its war of aggression against Ukraine," the statement said.

A fully anticipated, North Korea's foreign ministry quickly hit back through the state-run Korean Central News Agency, framing its axis with Moscow as a mere "exercise of sovereign rights."

Russia and North Korea under Presidents Putin and Kim have even signed a defense, technology and economic cooperation pact relatively recently.

The ministry didn't mince words, calling the joint condemnation a "clear infringement on the sovereignty of our state and a grave hostile act," while pointedly reminding everyone that South Korea remains the North's primary "enemy state."

Pyongyang has of late branded Seoul as Washington's "favorite dagger" in alleged grand American plot aimed at "invading... the Asian continent.”

The reference was a play on words after General Xavier Brunson, the top American military commander in South Korea, raised eyebrows last month by provocatively describing his host nation as "the dagger in the heart of Asia."

Both North Korea and China have seized on Brunson's slip of the tongue, painting it as proof of Washington's true playbook ofusing Seoul to contain Beijing.

With North Korean leader Kim Jong Un already putting his money where his mouth is - shipping troops and heavy munitions to bolster Vladimir Putin’s front lines - the war in Ukraine has slowly been morphing into more than just a EUropean crisis.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/13/2026 - 21:35

Just over two weeks into Sean Manaea’s reinstatement as a bulk pitcher for the Mets, the left-handed hurler is continuing to earn more trust.

Victor Wembanyama might be extra motivated for the rest of Game 5.

The Guardians both won and lost on Saturday.

Patrick and Brittany have frequently been spotted on double dates with Swift and Travis Kelce since the singer began dating her now-fiancé in 2023.