2024: The Year In Photos

As U. S. Rep. Lauren Boebert embarked on a fresh chapter in her political career Friday — representing a new Colorado district in Congress — she left a few legislative accomplishments to the district she led for four years, but where her prospects for reelection grew dim. Last month, the bipartisan Upper Colorado and San Juan River Basins Endangered Fish Recovery Programs Reauthorization Act became law, extending protection for four threatened and endangered native fish species on the Western Slope.

A piece of Five Points history is off the market. The building at 2563 Glenarm Place, once Denver’s only all-Black fire station, fetched $895,000 last month, records show. The 4,125-square-foot building will be converted to a private residence, according to Eddie Lederman, who represented the buyers. Built in 1888, the all-Black crew at Fire Station No.

By MATT O’BRIEN and SARAH PARVINI, the Associated Press If 2023 was a year of wonder about artificial intelligence, 2024 was the year to try to get that wonder to do something useful without breaking the bank. There was a “shift from putting out models to actually building products,” said Arvind Narayanan, a Princeton University computer science professor and co-author of the new book “AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t, and How to Tell The Difference.” The first 100 million or so people who experimented with ChatGPT upon its release two years ago actively sought out the chatbot, finding it amazingly helpful at some tasks or laughably mediocre at others. Now such generative AI technology is baked into an increasing number of technology services whether we’re looking for it or not — for instance, through the AI-generated answers in Google search results or new AI techniques in photo editing tools. “The main thing that was wrong with generative AI last year is that companies were releasing these really powerful models without a concrete way for people to make use of them,” said Narayanan.

By Paul Mozur and Adam Satariano, The New York Times Company KYIV, Ukraine — In the nearly three years since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the messaging app Telegram has been a lifeline for millions of Ukrainians. It provides information about coming attacks and helps communities organize food, medical aid and other support. But what has been a salvation has increasingly turned into a major source of concern.

BUDAPEST, Hungary — Moving in a dense cloud, like throngs of people walking across a crowded public square, 100 drones maneuver through the night sky in Hungary’s capital, the result of over a decade of research and experimentation that scientists believe could change the future of unmanned flight. The behavior of the swarm, made up of autonomous drones that make their own real-time decisions on collision avoidance and trajectory planning without pre-programming or centralized control, is guided by research the Hungarian scientists performed on the collective movements of creatures from the natural world. “It’s very rare that you see some technology and you say it’s beautiful,” said Boldizsár Balázs, one of the researchers working on the project.

Elon Musk is opening a new private preschool in Texas in 2025. Andrew Harnik/Getty ImagesElon Musk is funding a new private preschool in Texas called Ad Astra. It's set to open its doors this year for children aged three to nine. The school is focused on STEM-based learning and has long-term goals to expand into a university.