The Daily Populous

Wednesday July 2nd, 2025 morning edition

image for UPenn reaches agreement with Trump administration on transgender athletes and erases Lia Thomas’ records

The University of Pennsylvania will block transgender athletes from female sports teams and erase the records set by swimmer Lia Thomas as part of an agreement with the federal government, the Department of Education said.

The agreement comes as part of the Trump administration’s broader restrictions on transgender people, as it steps up its efforts to ban transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports nationwide and serving in the military.

“Penn has always followed — and continues to follow — Title IX and the applicable policy of the NCAA regarding transgender athletes,” UPenn President J. Larry Jameson said in a news release Tuesday.

In February, the NCAA announced an overhaul of its transgender athlete policy to limit transgender participation in women’s sports in response to Trump’s executive order.

The White House in March cut off $175 million in federal funds for Penn related to the transgender athlete issue.

Thomas’ records have been removed from a UPenn list of all-time school records in women’s swimming.

The school says it will also apologize to female student athletes who lost to Thomas during the 2021-2022 swim season. »

New evidence suggests Russian forces shot down Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243

Authored by euronews.com
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Russian military forces were involved in the missile strike on Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243 which crashed on 25 December 2024, a new audio recording and a letter published by an Azerbaijani news website on Tuesday purport to prove.

Subsequent reports after the tragedy claimed that Flight 8243 was downed by a missile from a Russian Pantsir-S1 system.

The new claims linking the Russian military to the Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243 tragedy appear at a time of a fast-moving escalation of judicial measures between Russia and Azerbaijan, as relations between the two countries reach a new low. »

People With Swamp Crotch Keep Setting Off TSA Alarms

Authored by vice.com
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Other travelers chimed in with similar stories, pointing to what one security officer allegedly called “swamp crotch.”

France and Germany have moved away from this type of scanner altogether because of the high number of false alarms.

Other Redditors noted that it can feel awkward or invasive to be singled out for something as mundane as a sweaty crotch. »

A Pro-Russia Disinformation Campaign Is Using Free AI Tools to Fuel a ‘Content Explosion’

Authored by wired.com

The researchers said the spike in content was driven by consumer-grade AI tools that are available for free online.

Atanasova added that the campaign did not appear to be using any custom AI tools to achieve their goals, but were using AI-powered voice and image generators that are accessible to everyone.

While it was difficult to identify all the tools the campaign operatives were using, the researchers were able to narrow down to one tool in particular: Flux AI. »

Outriders 2 Was One of Two Cancelled People Can Fly Games – Rumor

Authored by gamingleaksandrumour.com

The original Outriders game was praised for its strong looter-shooter mechanics but struggled with technical issues and limited live-service features.

People Can Fly also cancelled a second project, Bifrost, which reportedly lacked originality and excitement internally.

Outriders 2 was one of the two major projects cancelled by People Can Fly earlier this year, according to reports from gaming insiders. »