Facebook AI Research, together with Google's DeepMind, University of Washington, and New York University, today introduced SuperGLUE, a series of benchmark tasks to measure the performance of modern, high performance language-understanding AI. From a report: SuperGLUE was made on the premise that deep learning models for conversational AI have "hit a ceiling" and need greater challenges. It uses Google's BERT as a model performance baseline. Considered state of the art in many regards in 2018, BERT's performance has been surpassed by a number of models this year such as Microsoft's MT-DNN, Google's XLNet, and Facebook's RoBERTa, all of which were are based in part on BERT and achieve performance above a human baseline average. SuperGLUE is preceded by the General Language Understanding Evaluation (GLUE) benchmark for language understanding in April 2018 by researchers from NYU, University of Washington, and DeepMind. SuperGLUE is designed to be more complicated than GLUE tasks, and to encourage the building of models capable of grasping more complex or nuanced language.

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Flurry of legal action comes on the day a new law that extends the statute of limitations for victims goes into effect.

Italy's Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini seeks snap election as he refuses to take in rescued migrants and refugees.

Deputy foreign minister calls on STC to hand over arms to government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

Some Google employees have called on the company to publicly promise not to work with U.S. immigration authorities, which they said are abusing human rights. From a report: U.S. Customs and Border Protection recently said it was looking for proposals from companies to supply it with cloud-computing services. Google is a leading cloud provider. Activists and politicians have accused the agency of human rights abuses along the border with Mexico. The agency has separated children from their families, and is detaining migrants for indefinite periods of time. The Google workers, who said Wednesday they have a petition with 70 employee signatures, want the company to commit to not bidding on the contract, as well as to refuse to work on projects for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

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Only experienced mountaineers should be climbing the world's highest peak, a Nepali panel recommends.

Dream Chaser will launch into orbit on the future Vulcan rocket for re-supply flights to the space station.

WeWork, the office-sharing, kegger-hosting phenomenon that has redefined the modern workspace, is also raising the bar for how much money a startup can lose and still be considered a buzzy investment. From a report: WeWork's corporate parent, the We Company, which released its IPO documents on Wednesday, loses roughly $5,197 per customer who inhabits its office space per year. That's considerably more than newly public companies like Uber or Beyond Meat are losing on their growing customer bases. WeWork, which says in the offering document that its corporate mission is no less than to "to elevate the world's consciousness," is on track to lose $2.7 billion this year from its operations, up from nearly $1.7 billion last year. The company's revenue in the first six months of the year nearly doubled from last year's first half, to $1.5 billion. The company said its losses rose just 10% from a year ago, but that includes a $470 million non-operating, and likely non-recurring, gain. Exclude that, and losses from the We Company, which says it will trade under the ticker symbol "WE," rose 60%. "If you work at WeWork, drive home with Uber, and then order food by DoorDash, you're engaging with three companies that are projected to lose about $13 billion this year," tweeted Derek Thompson, a staff writer at The Atlantic. Further reading: WeWork Files For IPO After Losing $1.9 Billion Last Year.

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Josh Tucker, writing for The Outline: Retired Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North was a Marine platoon commander in Vietnam, a U.S. Senate candidate, and eventually, a National Rifle Association president. At the National Security Council under Ronald Reagan, he helped manage a number of violent imperial operations, including the U.S. invasion of Grenada. Due to televised hearings in the Summer of 1987 where he gave horrifying testimony about the things that he and the United States government had allegedly done, he is probably best known for his role in the Iran-Contra scandal. Alternatively, you might instead recognize North as a minor character from Call of Duty: Black Ops II. In the game, he makes an appearance, service ribbons and all, to talk a retired Alex Mason -- the game's protagonist -- into joining a covert mission in Angola. The cameo was accompanied by North's role as an advisor and pitchman for the 2012 title. It was very bizarre, and, according to the developers, not at all political. In an interview with Treyarch head Mark Lamia, Kotaku's Stephen Totilo asked if the studio had expected the controversy around using North as a consultant. "We're not trying to make a political statement with our game," Lamia responded. "We're trying to make a piece of art and entertainment." This answer would be farcical under any circumstances, but to be clear, Black Ops II was already a jingoistic first-person shooter in a series full of dubious storylines and straight-up propaganda. Its writer and director, Dave Anthony, would later go on to a fellowship at D.C.'s Atlantic Council, advising on "The Future of Unknown Conflict." Regardless, Lamia felt comfortable insisting on record that there was nothing political about getting the Iran-Contra fall guy to shill for its game. In the time since, this brazen corporate line has become the standard for blockbuster games, including the upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. "Are games political?" continues to be exhaustingly rehashed, because game companies continue to sell an apolitical delusion.

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Scientists have found that particles of plastic are falling out of the sky with snow in the Arctic.

A year after 43 people died in the collapse of the Morandi bridge, political leaders join relatives to pay respects.

Baghdad urged to compensate for homes damaged by explosion that killed one person and injured 30 others.

Maracaibo, which was once the capital of Venezuela's oil industry, is facing a severe lack of services and needs.

Phone lines and internet have been down for 10 days, but lockdown set to be eased on Thursday.

The US rapper will not serve a prison sentence in a case which saw intervention of US President Donald Trump.