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Biden says tech companies must ensure AI products are safe

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:39 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Tuesday met with his council of advisers on science and technology about the risks and opportunities that rapid advancements in artificial intelligence development pose for individual users and national security.Biden said that “tech companies have a responsibility to make sure their products are safe before making them public.”“AI can help deal with some very difficult challenges like disease and climate change, but it also has to address the potential risks to our society, to our economy, to our national security,” Biden told the group.The White House said the Democratic president would use the AI meeting to “discuss the importance of protecting rights and safety to ensure responsible innovation and appropriate safeguards” and to reiterate his call for Congress to pass legislation to protect children and curtail data collection by technology companies.Artificial intelligence burst to the forefront in the national and global conv...

Experts urge CRTC to take action forcing companies to provide cell service on TTC

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:39 GMT

TORONTO — Amid calls for the Big Three telecommunications companies to provide wireless phone service on the TTC following a recent wave of violence, experts say the federal telecommunications regulator should force Rogers, Bell and Telus to use the subway system’s existing infrastructure.Ben Klass, a PhD candidate at Carleton University who researches telecommunications policy, said it’s within the CRTC’s powers to issue a mandate if the providers won’t voluntarily give their customers the ability to call, text or browse the web while underground.He pointed to Section 24 of the Telecommunications Act, which sets out powers for the regulator to impose conditions on carriers governing the “offering and provision of any telecommunications service.” “The CRTC has the power to order these companies to offer service and also to set the conditions on which they do so,” said Klass.“It has extremely broad powers to deal with these types ...

New antitrust lawsuit against NCAA seeks millions in damages

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:39 GMT

The attorneys who beat the NCAA in the Supreme Court have filed a new class-action antitrust lawsuit against the association and the five wealthiest college sports conferences that seeks millions of dollars in damages for thousands of athletes.The case was filed Tuesday — the day after the NCAA Tournament concluded — in the Northern District of California, where several other landmark cases involving college sports have been heard.The plaintiffs are listed as former Oklahoma State running back Chuba Hubbard, who is currently with the Carolina Panthers, and former Auburn track athlete Keira McCarrell, but the lawsuit seeks triple damages for all current and former Division I athletes as far back as 2018.The defendants named in the lawsuit are the NCAA, the Atlantic Coast Conference, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and Southeastern Conference.A 2019 ruling by a federal judge in the so-called Alston case against the NCAA made it permissible for schools to provide nearly $6,000 in academic bene...

$55-million lotto winner in Sidney, B.C., plans to buy a new house with a dock

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:39 GMT

VICTORIA — Bookkeeper William Scott Gurney says he’s sure he won’t be back for another tax season. He doesn’t have to after claiming the winning ticket on Tuesday for the $55-million Lotto Max draw on Feb. 28. Gurney, who’s from Sidney on Vancouver Island, says news of the single winning ticket purchased locally was all over the radio, so he checked his Lotto App. He says he called in his assistant to confirm the number, which she originally thought was $55,000, but then they realized it was $55 million and couldn’t do anything for the rest of the day. Gurney says he’s taking some time to decide what’s next, but he does plan to buy a new home on Vancouver Island, something with a dock, because he loves to go crabbing. For now, he says he’s focused on finding someone to look after his clients before he retires from bookkeeping. This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 4, 2023. The Canadian Press

Dealer at Toronto casino accused of cheating with players: Ontario police

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:39 GMT

Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) have made several arrests following allegations of illegal play at a well-known casino in Toronto.Investigators say that Ontario’s Alcohol and Gaming Commission was contacted in October 2022 with allegations that a table games dealer was colluding with patrons at Woodbine Casino in Rexdale.Following a lengthy investigation, the OPP said five people were charged, including the now-former employee, identified as 52-year-old Arthur Segovia of Etobicoke.He faces four charges, including criminal breach of trust, cheat at play, theft over $5,000 and fraud over $5,000.Toronto residents Khalil Evans, 29, Donovan Smyth-Todd, 30, and Daniel Hatton, 25, were charged, along with Oakville resident Andrey Gayle-Bourne, 33, with cheat at play, theft over $5,000 and fraud over $5,000.An OPP spokesperson said the accused were released from custody and are scheduled to appear before the Ontario Court of Justice in Toronto at later dates.

Lawsuit against Favre should be dismissed, attorneys argue

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:39 GMT

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Attorneys for retired NFL quarterback Brett Favre argued in a new court filing Monday that a civil lawsuit against him seeking to recover misspent welfare money in Mississippi’s largest ever corruption case should be should be dismissed because the state Department of Human Services lacks evidence and is attempting to deflect from its own culpability.Millions of federal welfare dollars intended to help low-income Mississippi residents — some of the poorest people in the country — were instead squandered on projects supported by wealthy or well-connected people, including projects backed by Favre, between 2016 and 2019, prosecutors say. In a response to the department’s statements that a judge should ignore Favre’s request to be removed from the lawsuit, Favre’s attorneys wrote there is “no legal, factual, or moral basis” for the agency’s claims.“It is plain that, as it did in its original complaint, MDHS — which itself carried out the allegedl...

AP sources: Trump pleads not guilty to 34 felony charges

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:39 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump pleaded not guilty Tuesday to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, according to two law enforcement officials familiar with the matter.The plea came during a brief arraignment in a lower Manhattan courtroom as Trump faced a grand jury indictment arising from a hush money payment to a porn actor during Trump’s 2016 campaign.The two officials who confirmed the plea spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press because prosecutors had not yet released the indictment publicly.The arraignment, though procedural in nature, amounts to a remarkable reckoning for Trump after years of investigations into his personal, business and political dealings. The case is unfolding against the backdrop not only of his third campaign for the White House but also against other investigations in Washington and Atlanta that might yet produce even more charges.A silent and stone-faced Trump, his lips pursed in apparent anger, entered ...

NOAA: NJ wind farm may ‘adversely affect,’ not kill whales

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:39 GMT

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey’s first offshore wind farm may “adversely affect” whales and other marine mammals, but its construction, operation and eventual dismantling will not seriously harm or kill them, a federal scientific agency said.The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a report Tuesday evaluating an analysis by the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management of the Ocean Wind I project to be built off the southern New Jersey coast.NOAA’s final biological opinion examined BOEM’s research, and took into account “the best scientific and commercial data available.”NOAA determined the project by Danish wind power company Orsted “is likely to adversely affect, but is not likely to jeopardize, the continued existence of any species” of endangered whales, sea turtles and other animals. Nor is it likely to “destroy or adversely modify any designated critical habitat.”The report comes as opposition to offshore wind projects on the U.S. East C...

Jury awards $3.2 million to ex-Tesla worker for racial abuse

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:39 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal jury has awarded nearly $3.2 million in damages to a Black former worker at a Tesla factory in California that has been at the epicenter of racial discrimination allegations hanging over the automaker run by billionaire Elon Musk.The verdict reached Monday marks the second time former Tesla employee Owen Diaz has prevailed in trials seeking to hold Tesla liable for allowing him to be subjected to racial epithets and other abuses during his brief tenure at the pioneering maker of electric vehicles.But the eight-person jury in the latest trial, which lasted five days, arrived at a dramatically lower damages number than the $137 million Diaz won in his first trial held in San Francisco federal court. U.S. District Judge William Orrick reduced that award to $15 million, prompting Diaz and his lawyers to seek a new trial rather than accept the lower amount.“If you had just looked at this verdict without knowing the verdict in the first trial, you would say ...

Ontario Ombudsman to investigate cases of people with developmental disabilities stuck in hospitals

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:39 GMT

Ontario’s Ombudsman has launched an investigation into cases of people with developmental disabilities stuck in hospitals after a CityNews exclusive story of how a 23-year-old man with autism cannot leave a psychiatric ward for over eight months because there is nowhere else for him to go.The Crooks family from the Owen Sound area first contacted CityNews last month because they weren’t getting the help they needed.Michelle and Sean Crooks have 23-year-old twin sons diagnosed with autism. During COVID-19, their sons struggled without a routine, but Aidan started exhibiting violent tendencies.“I reached a point where I thought no one was coming to help. [They had] nowhere to go. No one cares what happens to him or us. I might have to kill him and myself so Sean and Devlin could have any hope at life and freedom from this horror we were living,” Michelle told CityNews.Aidan has become increasingly dangerous, and the family has become frequent targets of multipl...