The Daily Populous

Friday March 13rd, 2026 night edition

image for Overwatch co-creator Jeff Kaplan on his exit from Activision Blizzard: 'It was the biggest f**k you moment I've had in my career'

Overwatch co-creator Jeff Kaplan was the public face of Overwatch before he left Activision Blizzard in 2021.

In a new interview on the Lex Fridman podcast, Kaplan details for the first time how and why he left Activision Blizzard, and it's not pretty.

"Where it got away from us is that there was a lot of excitement about Overwatch League, like too much," Kaplan said.

"And so all your plans [for Overwatch content] at that point kinda go out the window," Kaplan said.

And that was the biggest fuck you moment I've had in my career, it felt surreal to be in that condition.".

Dennis Durkin was CFO of Activision Blizzard from 2019 to May 2021; Armin Zerza held the role from then until 2025.

After releasing in 2023 without many key advertised features, including a long-promised PvE mode, Overwatch 2 was eventually renamed Overwatch earlier this year. »

Israeli military drops charges against soldiers accused of sexually assaulting Palestinian detainee

Authored by apnews.com

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s military on Thursday said it was dropping charges against five soldiers accused of beating and sexually abusing a Palestinian detainee in an alleged assault partially caught on camera.

The now-dismissed indictment against the soldiers accused them of an assault that included dragging a Palestinian prisoner along the floor, stepping on him, tasering him, and sexually assaulting him by stabbing him in the rectum.

Israel has long been accused of failing to hold its soldiers accountable for crimes committed against Palestinians. »

'This Should Be Illegal': Senate GOP Uses AI Deepfake to Attack Talarico

Authored by commondreams.org
image for

Talarico did indeed state, following a spate of mass shootings against minorities in 2021, that "radicalized white men are the greatest domestic terrorist threat in our country."

The video also depicts its AI simulacrum of Talarico smiling and reminiscing fondly about the posts, which he never actually did.

"This deepfake has an 'AI-generated' watermark, but it’s all but invisible–sort of like an admission of wrongdoing, more than an effort at transparency. »