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Thick black smoke can be seen across Clacton as emergency services are responding to a "large" house fire this evening.

Robert Bush stockpiled dozens of dead bodies and had half a ton of ashes in his funeral home, which was likened by a staff member who raised the alarm to a 'horror scene.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: OpenAI's ChatGPT is now refusing requests to generate text that directly mimics the style of famous authors. When asked to do so, the popular LLM instead offers a response that draws on the "broad qualities" of those authors "while remaining distinct in its own voice," for example. This morning, Ars received the following response to a test prompt asking for a story introduction in the style of Stephen King: "I can definitely write with the hallmarks of atmospheric, character-driven horror and small-town dread, but I can't write in Stephen King's exact style or closely imitate his distinctive voice. Here's an original opening that captures a similar feeling while remaining its own..." In testing, ChatGPT generated similar dodges for other authors both living (J.K. Rowling, Amy Tan) and dead (Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway). An analysis published by No Latency earlier this month (PDF) found the same behavior for living authors but found ChatGPT complied with style-copying requests for deceased authors. In refusing to directly copy the "exact style" of various authors, ChatGPT offered instead to capture an overall "feeling" by incorporating some of the common features found in those authors' work. That may seem like a distinction without a real difference at first glance. But the slight alteration could be legally important as OpenAI continues to fight a number of lawsuits brought by book authors alleging large-scale copyright infringement by models trained on their work. One of those suits specifically cites ChatGPT's "uncanny ability to generate text similar to that found in copyrighted textual materials," for instance. An OpenAI spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment from Ars Technica. In the US, copyright law generally protects only a specific expression of an idea, not the more intangible style of an author. But an AI-generated stylistic imitation could become infringing if it becomes "substantially similar" to the work of the original author. "We've never had a situation in which this personal style of individual creators could be imitated as well and as inexpensively as we now have with AI," George Washington University Law School Professor Robert Brauneis told Bloomberg Law.

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Jennifer Lopez's first ex-husband Ojani Noa has revealed he 'squared up to' Sean 'Diddy' Combs and had a blazing row after discovering he had an affair with his wife.

More warm weather is on the cards for Essex

Three women aged 19, 24 and 36 were taken to hospital after the assault at around 11.30am in the Porte de Clichy area in the north of the capital, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez and Paris police said.

The clash erupted in Brentwood, Tennessee , on March 22, with disturbing footage captured by the actor's camera appearing to show Ritchson pummeling Ronnie Taylor.

Billionaire energy tycoon Sir Ian Wood has died at the age of 84. The businessman and philanthropist ran the Wood Group company in Aberdeen.

Olmo was one of four Spain players attacked by Argentina during the post-match melee, with coach Roberto Ayala appearing to throw a punch that caught the midfielder in the neck.

In a letter to the Prime Minister, the Tory leader has warned against leaving it to 'the next generation to pay' for reforms.

Flight records show a Government plane departed Manchester Airport at 10.49am on Monday, before landing at Southampton Airport at 11.26am.

It was a hot July day, and Mel Beamish decided to go for a swim in the River Brathay, high in the Langdale valley in the Lake District.

Kevin Baillie, the vice president and head of creative at Eyeline Studios, is suing Netflix after the streaming platform fired him following a personal confession he made during a retreat.

Dolly Parton has suffered a devastating new loss after her older brother Coy 'Denver' Parton died aged 82 on July 23.

Before-and-after images have revealed the devastating full extent of wildfires in southwestern France, as flames bear down on Bordeaux.

Researchers at Rutgers University found those who ate in a specific time-restricted window had improved scores on memory and learning tests.

MacRumors interviewed AI critic Ed Zitron, author of the Where's Your Ed At newsletter and host of the Better Offline podcast, about what could happen to Apple if the costly AI infrastructure boom collapses. Zitron argued that Apple is relatively well insulated because it has spent far less on data centers than rivals such as Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. He said the company could use the downturn to make selective acquisitions, though it might simply continue operating largely as before. "I think they will sit on the sidelines and watch everything burn," Zitron said. Here's an excerpt from the report: If the bubble deflates the way you expect (write-downs, too much compute supply, possibly OpenAI cratering), can you walk us through what that would actually look like for Apple? Does anything break for iPhone users, or does Apple mostly watch it happen from the sidelines? Could it even benefit Apple? I think things would look much the same for Apple. I think they will sit on the sidelines and watch everything burn. I could see them doing some choice acquisitions as things begin to collapse, but I could also see them do nothing. I think Apple is in a very weird place at the moment. The Vision Pro was a dud, but it was also the most interesting and future-forward thing I've seen anyone put out in a while. If they were smart, they'd tread water and sink as much money into making that as small as humanely possible -- no matter how long it takes -- because the entire AI bubble is a result of everybody running out of hypergrowth ideas, mostly because we're flat out of new interfaces. I want to be clear that what they want to do with the Vision Pro requires it to basically be weightless and invisible and never need adjustments. When it works, it's genuinely awesome. But that's a load-bearing when. One slight movement means the whole thing goes out of focus. I can't even use mine anymore because it needs an update that requires you to wear the thing the whole time. So much promise, released too early, shoved out the door by a CEO on his way out.

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Staff are carrying out regular monitoring and removing affected animals to help limit its spread

I met Jane this month at the annual general meeting of investment trust Templeton Emerging Markets, her biggest holding. I interviewed her a few days ago - and she didn't disappoint.