Aggregator

Victor Valentine from St Pauls in Cheltenham was issued a five-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order on Monday despite not being convicted of any sexual offences.

Multiple cars have been rammed into people's houses, a man was stabbed two miles from that crash site and other cars have been set on fire. All this in the space of a week.

The skies over East Kent's chalk downs are vast. The villages above the white cliffs, with their brick-and-flint houses and low-steepled churches, are small-c conservative places.

The H98 collided with a building on Station Road in Hayes and Harlington at around 7 pm on Friday evening.

A federal appeals court has ruled that states can regulate prediction markets like Kalshi as gambling, handing state regulators their biggest legal victory yet against the booming industry. "There are still related lawsuits pending across the country, and legal experts believe the matter will ultimately be settled by the Supreme Court," reports CNN. "But Friday's ruling from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is the largest courtroom victory to date for the states as they seek to regulate prediction sites." CNN reports: The 3-0 ruling came from a panel of three Trump-appointed judges. The case originated from Nevada, where regulators tried to shut down the Kalshi prediction site. [...] "The substance of the sports event contracts offered on Kalshi's (exchange) is sports gambling, regardless of whether Kalshi calls them swaps," the appeals panel wrote Friday, adding that "Kalshi's attempts to distinguish its sports event contracts from sportsbooks betting are unpersuasive." The judges also said it was "disingenuous" for Kalshi to argue in court that its products weren't sports-betting when it previously used that phrasing in marketing materials. Kalshi spokeswoman Dani Lever said in a statement: "Despite the Ninth Circuit's opinion, we still believe the CFTC regulations as written do not prohibit sports contracts, and in any event, the CFTC is working to clarify those regulations. We will be seeking further review." "It's the first ruling against Kalshi at the appellate level, and the opinion seemed to be pretty brutal for the company," said Dustin Gouker, an independent journalist who covers the prediction industry. "This gets us one step closer to an almost inevitable Supreme Court case on the legality of sports event contracts."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ministers have endorsed quango proposals to introduce 20mph or lower speed limits, encourage car sharing and make roads narrower on new housing estates.

The jury in Lindsay Clancy's murder trial were sent home for the weekend as they continue to deliberate on her fate.

Haakon's new role follows the passing of his father - the cousin of King Charles III - who died after a brief stay in hospital today.

Sources claim the British firebrand was taken into custody at an airport in Louisiana, with inmate records indicating he is now at a detention center there, via TMZ .

Essex County Council said it will provide 'security operatives' in Braintree, Colchester and Chelmsford after it was announced that the capacity of MPD Weathersfield would rise.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Over a hundred tech companies -- including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Microsoft -- have signed an open letter urging both the private and public sectors to work together to defend themselves from AI-related cyber threats. The letter -- which was also signed by prominent cyber firms like CrowdStrike, Okta, and Fortinet, as well as prominent financial institutions and internet infrastructure firms -- calls for the adoption of new forms of cyber defense, while also encouraging governments at the "local, national, and international levels" to collaborate on security. "In the coming months, AI-enabled cyber attacks will become far more widespread and sophisticated as models around the world become increasingly capable," the letter states. "The companies and public services our communities depend on -- from hospitals to water treatment plants to the infrastructure that powers the internet -- are at risk." [...] The letter further suggests the mobilization of a "collective response," one in which "new partnerships" are formed "to raise security standards and find new solutions to emerging cyber threats." Several of the AI companies that have signed the letter are still actively developing ever more advanced AI models, highlighting their conflicted position. At the same time, they are also offering programs to use frontier AI models for defensive purposes, including OpenAI's Daybreak program, Anthropic's Mythos, and Microsoft's new cyber platform Perception.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Wealthier households are seeing prices rise higher than poorer ones for the first time since March last year.

The Prime Minister had supported returning the sculptures, saying two years ago they should be shipped to Greece with 'no strings attached'.

Six Flags Magic Mountain has been forced to shutter its immensely popular 'X2' rollercoaster after a report linked the ride to more than a dozen severe injuries.

More prompt-injection hijinks from wunderwuzzi

Hugh Bonneville , Nicola Coughlan and Matt Lucas are demanding the Government stop AI companies from using them without permission.

Glenda Dorton, 72, has left paralyzed after undergoing a routine knee replacement surgery at Ascension Saint Thomas Hospital Midtown in Nashville, Tennessee on August 14.

How come that super-smart AI of yours didn't figure this out, frontier labs?

Australia's official music charts will no longer accept songs that are largely or entirely AI-generated, requiring eligible releases to be "substantially human made." The BBC reports: The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) said the new code would help "promote the human nature of artistry." It follows a controversy around a cover of Madonna's Like A Prayer by Australian DJ Josh Fawaz which recently topped the ARIA dance singles chart and peaked at number 2 on the country's overall chart. The song has become a staple of commercial radio station playlists and been streamed more than 48 million times on Spotify alone. Fawaz later added generative AI credits to the song after a backlash. ARIA said that Australian artists were competing for attention "in the most crowded market in history" and that it was "not interested in promoting or celebrating the success of AI-generated music that does not contain human artistry." Under the new rules, AI assistance can still be used, but humans must have written the song, and have performed the lead vocal and primary instruments. AI can also still be used for mastering songs and, for example, using drum machines and auto tune. [...] Artists will be required to declare AI use when they submit a song for chart consideration. ARIA said that if it later emerged music was largely AI-generated it could retrospectively adjust chart positions, and if the piece topped the charts, it may request that awards given for reaching Number One were returned. Artists and their representatives will be able to challenge their exclusion. ARIA chief executive Annabelle Herd said: "These changes reflect our intent to remain dynamic and promote the human nature of artistry in what is, to say the least, a rapidly developing space. Artists already use AI tools in their work, the charts can and should evolve to keep room for that, but music generated wholesale by services built on artists' recordings is a different matter." She added: "A chart that rewards unlicensed AI output would undercut the very basis of the recorded music we exist to represent."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Cloud industry pros have a bit of fun at Amazon's expense