The U.S. Commerce Department has banned the Chinese AI model DeepSeek from government devices, citing data privacy concerns. Congress is urging further legislative action to protect sensitive information from the Chinese Communist Party. Several states have already implemented bans to safeguard their systems.
The U.S. Commerce Department has taken steps to ban the Chinese artificial intelligence model DeepSeek from government devices. This development, reported to Reuters by informed sources, highlights growing concerns over data privacy and national security.
A departmental email stated that access to DeepSeek is strictly prohibited on government-furnished equipment to protect information systems from potential threats. The impact of this ban across federal agencies remains unclear, as officials have yet to comment on the degree to which this restriction will be enforced nationwide.
Prompted by worries over data transfers to the Chinese Communist Party, Congressmen Josh Gottheimer and Darin LaHood have initiated legislative action and appealed to governors to enact similar restrictions at the state level. A coalition of state attorneys general is also campaigning for federal legislation to ensure a nationwide ban.
Intense clashes erupted on the Syrian–Lebanese border late on Syrian after Hayat Tahrir al-Sham-led (HTS) Syrian military forces carried out heavy shelling and launched rockets on Lebanese border towns.
Lebanese army troops responded to the sources of fire. Al Mayadeen reported early on Sunday that "the Bekaa valley has been under continuous shelling for three hours with rockets and artillery coming from Syrian territory."
The HTS-led Syrian army also launched drones into Lebanese territory in recent hours. Several rockets launched from the Qusayr countryside hit the Lebanese border town of Qasr. The shelling is ongoing, and civilian casualties have been reported on the Lebanese side, including at least one child.
Citing a military source, Al Jazeera reported that eight members of the Syrian Ministry of Defense (HTS) were killed in the clashes.
The fighting began several hours after three HTS fighters were found dead inside Lebanese territory and were handed over to Damascus by Lebanon’s Armed Forces (LAF) and the Red Cross.
The Syrian Defense Ministry’s media office told Syrian state media outlet SANA that the "Hezbollah militia" kidnapped the three fighters on the border, took them to Lebanese territory, and "executed them on the spot." Other reports say the three were already in Lebanese territory when they were killed.
Lebanese news outlet Annahar reported on Monday that two Lebanese youths were found dead in the Matraba area near the border. They were reportedly kidnapped from their homes inside Lebanon by Syrian security forces and killed.
Syrian authorities say they are fighting Hezbollah on the border, despite the Lebanese resistance movement issuing a statement categorically denying its involvement in any of the recent events.
A Syrian photographer and journalist were injured by retaliatory rocket fire launched from Lebanon on Sunday.
"Lebanese villages and towns in the region were subjected to shelling from Syrian territory. Military units responded to the sources of fire with appropriate weapons, reinforced their deployment, and maintained security. Contacts continue between the army command and the Syrian authorities to maintain security and stability in the border area," the LAF announced on Monday morning. The Syrian army has sent reinforcements to the Lebanese border.
Watch: HTS (Jolani's militants) firing at Hezbollah in Lebanon...
The renewed fighting comes over one month after heavy clashes erupted in early February between Syrian military forces and Lebanese tribesmen. At the time, Syrian forces deployed troops to set up checkpoints in what they said was an attempt to thwart smuggling.
After agreeing with the LAF, the tribes withdrew from the border, and the fighting came to an end.
A Mississippi high school football coach has finally reached the end zone of his cancer fight thanks to a peculiar, experimental treatment.
Tim Story was diagnosed at 49 with stage 3 small bowel cancer after noticing strange pain in his sides. Two years and several challenging rounds of chemotherapy later, the Hattiesburg resident was told that the cancer had spread — and he only had a few months to live.
“I’m not a crying man, but my wife and I shed some tears on the couch that day,” Story, now 53, recently told NBC News.
Tim Story’s advanced small bowel cancer was considered terminal — until an experimental trial involving fecal transplants and immunotherapy cured him.tammykayphoto – stock.adobe.com
Left with few viable paths, he enrolled in a highly experimental clinical trial in Houston that involved getting a fecal transplant from someone in the advanced stage of cancer who had been completely cured by immunotherapy.
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“I knew I was kind of a guinea pig, but the only other option was staying at home, and I wasn’t going to make it,” he said.
At the heart of Story’s treatment was a PD-1 inhibitor — a type of immunotherapy drug.
Unlike traditional cancer treatments such as chemotherapy or radiation, immunotherapy offers a more targeted approach by helping the immune system attack the tumors.
First approved for cancer treatment in 2011, immunotherapy has been shown to be effective in 15% to 20% of people with certain types of cancer.
The numbers are even higher — 45% to 60% — for patients like Story with tumors that have a high number of DNA mutations.
In Story’s case, however, the drugs failed to make much of an impact.
“I knew I was kind of a guinea pig, but the only other option was staying at home, and I wasn’t going to make it,” Story said.Witoon – stock.adobe.com That was until his oncologist, Dr. Michael Overman, came across a woman with metastaticcolorectal cancerwho had experienced a much better response to the drugs — her tumors had shrunk by 90% and, with a bit of surgery, she was cured.
Believing that transferring the unique gut microbes from a “superdonor” like her to someone who wasn’t responding well to the drugs could be successful, Overman launched his own clinical trial with 15 patients in advanced stages of certain cancers.
Participants received several infusions of the superdonor’s stool for one month, and five of the patients got additional oral doses — in the form of freeze-dried capsules — for another six months.
The trial highlights the complex and powerful relationship between the gut microbiome and the immune system.Sebastian Kaulitzki – stock.adobe.com Only three participants underwent temporary remission. But Story was lucky — his tumors began to vanish and, by the fall of 2024, he was officially cured.
“By then, they were pretty definitive that the cancer had gone away,” Story told NBC News. “For me and my wife, it felt like winning the lottery, because before the trial we had no options left.”
They may sound bizarre, but “poop pills” were approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2023 for fecal transplants.
Researchers in Canada recently launched a clinical trial to see if fecal transplants in capsule form can improve the chances of patients with pancreatic cancer, which only has a five-year survival rate of 13%.
For Story, the innovative treatment has been nothing short of a miracle.
“I’m a Christian, and I believe God got me through this for whatever reason because he’s got something else planned for me,” he said.
“This past fall, I’ve been able to go back to work for the first time in four years. I’m back coaching football and teaching schools. It’s my passion. I’ve missed it so much because I had to retire. Now it feels like I’ve had a second chance at life.”
