New UTSU President prematurely reveals win in Instagram post — Student Commons
Junia Alsinawi, Deputy News Editor
Shortly after the University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) election voting closed on Friday, presidential candidate Marie Kinderman posted a story on her personal Instagram account with the caption “UTSU HERE I COME.” Sources close to the UTSU have confirmed that candidates have been informed of the results, but official election results have not yet been released by the union and are expected to be announced in the coming week.
SMC calls organizers and independents to ‘All Out for OSAP’ March 2 meeting — OISE
Byline: Nguyen Bao Han Tran, Varsity Staff
The Student Mobilization Committee (SMC) Toronto is calling organizers and independent students to attend an “All Out for OSAP” open meeting on March 2 at 7:00 pm at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), 252 Bloor Street West, in room 2199. The meeting, which is in response to the Ontario government’s intention to restructure the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP), will focus on discussing the potential impact of the changes on student debt and accessibility, and organizing a coordinated response. The event is open to all.
Khamenei dead after US, Israel launch “regime change” operation — Tehran
Junia Alsinawi, Deputy News Editor
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader since 1989, was killed in an air strike on Saturday, as Israel, the US, and Iran confirmed. Currently, 200 people in Iran have been killed, including 153 people in a US-Israel air strike that hit a girls’ school, the BBC reported. Retaliatory strikes from Iran have been reported across the region, in places with US or US-allied military bases.
Trump makes history with longest State of the Union Address ever — Washington, DC
Junia Alsinawi, Deputy News Editor
A year into US President Donald Trump’s second term, the US has alienated its Canadian and European allies, the Epstein files implicate some of America’s most powerful men, including Trump himself, and two American citizens have been shot in the streets for exercising their First Amendment right to protest. None of that stopped Trump from declaring “This is the golden age of America!” at last week’s State of the Union (SOTU) address, which ran for an hour and 47 minutes, making it the longest SOTU in American history.
The polarizing Olympic gold-medal-winning men’s hockey team made an appearance, while around half of Democratic congresspeople and five Supreme Court justices skipped the address.
AI Minister demanding clarity from OpenAI in wake of BC shooting — Tumbler Ridge
Emma Dobrovnik, Assistant News Editor
On Tuesday, Canada’s Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon condemned OpenAI’s “failure” to report a ChatGPT user who later killed eight people in Tumbler Ridge, BC. An investigation revealed that OpenAI initially banned Jesse Van Rootselaar’s ChatGPT account in June for posts about gun violence, but chose not to alert Canadian police.
OpenAI has said it’s committed to strengthening its detection system in the wake of the shooting, claiming that Van Rootselaar’s account would have been flagged had it been discovered today. In a statement released Friday, Solomon said that it’s unclear how the updated safety measures will be implemented in practice. Solomon is set to meet with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman this week to clarify the company’s proposed safety measures.
