## Sadiq Khan sparks row with Met after blocking £50m AI deal with Palantir

Authored by theguardian.com

Sadiq Khan has blocked a £50m Metropolitan police deal with the controversial US tech company Palantir, sparking a bitter row between the London mayor and Scotland Yard.

After the UK’s largest police force had agreed to use Palantir’s AI technology to automate intelligence analysis in criminal investigations, Khan intervened, citing “serious concerns” about how the deal had been struck.

The mayor’s office said there had been a “clear and serious breach” of procurement rules and said police had only seriously considered one supplier (Palantir).

The deal would have been Palantir’s largest yet in British policing, after others worth £330m and £240m with NHS England and the Ministry of Defence.

For now, this decision prevents us using technology already available to the MoD, the NHS and other police forces.”.

City Hall said this did not allow bids from suppliers other than the one that was selected by the Met based on their desktop assessment (Palantir).

In January, the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, called for police to “ramp up use of AI” and to adopt the technology “at pace and scale”. »

### Ukraine calls to strip Russia of its permanent UN Security Council member status

Authored by nashaniva.com

Andriy Melnyk, Ukraine's Permanent Representative to the UN, called on member states of the United Nations to find a political and legal mechanism to strip Russia of its permanent membership status in the Security Council.

Melnyk stated this during the Security Council's open debate on the protection of civilians in armed conflicts, writes the BBC.

"All legal obligations to protect civilians will ultimately remain empty words if acts of aggression and related war crimes are not punished," Melnyk emphasized, calling on Security Council members to find a way to strip Russia of its permanent UN Security Council member status. »

### Iran rebuilding military industrial base faster than expected, already producing drones, according to US intel

Authored by cnn.com

Four sources told CNN that US intelligence indicates Iran’s military is reconstituting much faster than initially estimated.

That includes rebuilding its defense industrial base, which CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper said on Tuesday has been largely eliminated.

And some of Iran’s defense industrial base remains intact, which could further accelerate the timeline for reconstituting certain capabilities, the source noted. »

### A Tennessee Man Jailed for 37 Days Because of an Anti-Trump Meme Will Get $835,000 for His Trouble

Authored by reason.com

Last year, Larry Bushart spent 37 days in a Tennessee jail because he had shared a widely circulated anti-Trump meme on Facebook.

Today his attorneys announced that he has agreed to settle the resulting federal lawsuit in exchange for a payment of $835,000.

The day before, a gunman had killed two people and injured six others at a high school in Perry, Iowa. »

### 007 First Light Wants To Surpass GoldenEye And Become “The Best Bond Game Ever”

Authored by gameobserver.com

The studio believes the game can finally go beyond GoldenEye 007, the Nintendo 64 classic that many fans still see as the best James Bond game ever made.

Patrick Gibson, the actor playing the younger James Bond in the game, also joined the conversation, saying, “Or just the best game ever.”

While it is easy to say you want to create the best James Bond game ever made, actually doing it is the hard part. »

## In pictures

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