Cupra provided flights from Washington DC to Miami and accommodation so Ars could attend the Formula E race. Ars does not accept paid editorial content.

MIAMI—A decade after its first visit to the state , Formula E returned to Florida this past weekend. The even has come a long way since that first chaotic Miami ePrix: The cars are properly fast now, the racing is both entertaining and quite technical, and at least the trackside advertising banners were in place before the start of the event this time.

It's not the same track, of course. Nor is it anywhere near the Hard Rock Stadium that Formula 1 now fills with ersatz marinas and high-priced hospitality packages during its visit to the area. Despite what the b-roll helicopter shots might have led viewers to believe, we were actually an hour south of the city at a mid-sized oval track next to a landfill in Homestead. Usually, a place that hosts NASCAR races, for Formula E, there was a 2.2-mile (3.5 km) layout that used the straights and infield but not the banked corners.

Formula E has begun to branch out from its original diet of racing exclusively on temporary city center street tracks, having visited Portland International Raceway in Oregon in 2023 and 2024 . Despite the bucolic charm of PIR, with its easy bicycle and light rail access, enthusiastic crowd of attendees, and exciting racing, it was only a temporary patch for Formula E. The vast majority of Formula E's fans live outside the US, and Portland means nothing to them, but they've heard of Miami, I was told last year.

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Cupra provided flights from Washington DC to Miami and accommodation so Ars could attend the Formula E race. Ars does not accept paid editorial content.

MIAMI—A decade after its first visit to the state , Formula E returned to Florida this past weekend. The even has come a long way since that first chaotic Miami ePrix: The cars are properly fast now, the racing is both entertaining and quite technical, and at least the trackside advertising banners were in place before the start of the event this time.

It's not the same track, of course. Nor is it anywhere near the Hard Rock Stadium that Formula 1 now fills with ersatz marinas and high-priced hospitality packages during its visit to the area. Despite what the b-roll helicopter shots might have led viewers to believe, we were actually an hour south of the city at a mid-sized oval track next to a landfill in Homestead. Usually, a place that hosts NASCAR races, for Formula E, there was a 2.2-mile (3.5 km) layout that used the straights and infield but not the banked corners.

Formula E has begun to branch out from its original diet of racing exclusively on temporary city center street tracks, having visited Portland International Raceway in Oregon in 2023 and 2024 . Despite the bucolic charm of PIR, with its easy bicycle and light rail access, enthusiastic crowd of attendees, and exciting racing, it was only a temporary patch for Formula E. The vast majority of Formula E's fans live outside the US, and Portland means nothing to them, but they've heard of Miami, I was told last year.

Read full article

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Cupra provided flights from Washington DC to Miami and accommodation so Ars could attend the Formula E race. Ars does not accept paid editorial content.

MIAMI—A decade after its first visit to the state , Formula E returned to Florida this past weekend. The even has come a long way since that first chaotic Miami ePrix: The cars are properly fast now, the racing is both entertaining and quite technical, and at least the trackside advertising banners were in place before the start of the event this time.

It's not the same track, of course. Nor is it anywhere near the Hard Rock Stadium that Formula 1 now fills with ersatz marinas and high-priced hospitality packages during its visit to the area. Despite what the b-roll helicopter shots might have led viewers to believe, we were actually an hour south of the city at a mid-sized oval track next to a landfill in Homestead. Usually, a place that hosts NASCAR races, for Formula E, there was a 2.2-mile (3.5 km) layout that used the straights and infield but not the banked corners.

Formula E has begun to branch out from its original diet of racing exclusively on temporary city center street tracks, having visited Portland International Raceway in Oregon in 2023 and 2024 . Despite the bucolic charm of PIR, with its easy bicycle and light rail access, enthusiastic crowd of attendees, and exciting racing, it was only a temporary patch for Formula E. The vast majority of Formula E's fans live outside the US, and Portland means nothing to them, but they've heard of Miami, I was told last year.

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In now-rarified comments from experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an agency official on Tuesday evening said the explosive measles outbreak mushrooming out of West Texas will require "significant financial resources" to control and that the agency is already struggling to keep up.

"We are scrapping to find the resources and personnel needed to provide support to Texas and other jurisdictions," said David Sugerman, the CDC's lead on its measles team. The agency has been devastated by brutal cuts to CDC staff and funding, including a clawback of more than $11 billion in public health funds that largely went to state health departments.

Sugerman noted that the response to measles outbreaks is generally expensive. "The estimates are that each measles cases can be $30,000 to $50,000 for public health response work—and that adds up quite quickly." The costs go to various responses, including on-the-ground response teams, vaccine doses and vaccination clinics, case reporting, contact tracing, mitigation plans, infection prevention, data systems, and other technical assistance to state health departments.

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In now-rarified comments from experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an agency official on Tuesday evening said the explosive measles outbreak mushrooming out of West Texas will require "significant financial resources" to control and that the agency is already struggling to keep up.

"We are scrapping to find the resources and personnel needed to provide support to Texas and other jurisdictions," said David Sugerman, the CDC's lead on its measles team. The agency has been devastated by brutal cuts to CDC staff and funding, including a clawback of more than $11 billion in public health funds that largely went to state health departments.

Sugerman noted that the response to measles outbreaks is generally expensive. "The estimates are that each measles cases can be $30,000 to $50,000 for public health response work—and that adds up quite quickly." The costs go to various responses, including on-the-ground response teams, vaccine doses and vaccination clinics, case reporting, contact tracing, mitigation plans, infection prevention, data systems, and other technical assistance to state health departments.

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In now-rarified comments from experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an agency official on Tuesday evening said the explosive measles outbreak mushrooming out of West Texas will require "significant financial resources" to control and that the agency is already struggling to keep up.

"We are scrapping to find the resources and personnel needed to provide support to Texas and other jurisdictions," said David Sugerman, the CDC's lead on its measles team. The agency has been devastated by brutal cuts to CDC staff and funding, including a clawback of more than $11 billion in public health funds that largely went to state health departments.

Sugerman noted that the response to measles outbreaks is generally expensive. "The estimates are that each measles cases can be $30,000 to $50,000 for public health response work—and that adds up quite quickly." The costs go to various responses, including on-the-ground response teams, vaccine doses and vaccination clinics, case reporting, contact tracing, mitigation plans, infection prevention, data systems, and other technical assistance to state health departments.

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Google may have finally found an application of large language models (LLMs) that even AI skeptics can get behind. The company just released its 2024 Ads Safety report, confirming that it used a collection of newly upgraded AI models to scan for bad ads. The result is a huge increase in suspended spammer and scammer accounts, with fewer malicious ads in front of your eyeballs.

While stressing that it was not asleep at the switch in past years, Google reports that it deployed more than 50 enhanced LLMs to help enforce its ad policy in 2024. Some 97 percent of Google's advertising enforcement involved these AI models, which reportedly require even less data to make a determination. Therefore, it's feasible to tackle rapidly evolving scam tactics.

Google says that its efforts in 2024 resulted in 39.2 million US ad accounts being suspended for fraudulent activities. That's over three times more than the number of suspended accounts in 2023 (12.7 million). The factors that trigger a suspension usually include ad network abuse, improper use of personalization data, false medical claims, trademark infringement, or a mix of violations.

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Google may have finally found an application of large language models (LLMs) that even AI skeptics can get behind. The company just released its 2024 Ads Safety report, confirming that it used a collection of newly upgraded AI models to scan for bad ads. The result is a huge increase in suspended spammer and scammer accounts, with fewer malicious ads in front of your eyeballs.

While stressing that it was not asleep at the switch in past years, Google reports that it deployed more than 50 enhanced LLMs to help enforce its ad policy in 2024. Some 97 percent of Google's advertising enforcement involved these AI models, which reportedly require even less data to make a determination. Therefore, it's feasible to tackle rapidly evolving scam tactics.

Google says that its efforts in 2024 resulted in 39.2 million US ad accounts being suspended for fraudulent activities. That's over three times more than the number of suspended accounts in 2023 (12.7 million). The factors that trigger a suspension usually include ad network abuse, improper use of personalization data, false medical claims, trademark infringement, or a mix of violations.

Read full article

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Google may have finally found an application of large language models (LLMs) that even AI skeptics can get behind. The company just released its 2024 Ads Safety report, confirming that it used a collection of newly upgraded AI models to scan for bad ads. The result is a huge increase in suspended spammer and scammer accounts, with fewer malicious ads in front of your eyeballs.

While stressing that it was not asleep at the switch in past years, Google reports that it deployed more than 50 enhanced LLMs to help enforce its ad policy in 2024. Some 97 percent of Google's advertising enforcement involved these AI models, which reportedly require even less data to make a determination. Therefore, it's feasible to tackle rapidly evolving scam tactics.

Google says that its efforts in 2024 resulted in 39.2 million US ad accounts being suspended for fraudulent activities. That's over three times more than the number of suspended accounts in 2023 (12.7 million). The factors that trigger a suspension usually include ad network abuse, improper use of personalization data, false medical claims, trademark infringement, or a mix of violations.

Read full article

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