Comment on FBI arrests US man over SEC crypto disinformation hack

US District Judge Mark Walker had a blunt message for the Florida surgeon general in an order halting the government official's attempt to censor a political ad that opposes restrictions on abortion. "To keep it simple for the State of Florida: it's the First Amendment, stupid," Walker, an Obama appointee who is chief judge in US District Court for the Northern District of Florida, wrote yesterday in a ruling that granted a temporary restraining order. "Whether it's a woman's right to choose, or the right to talk about it, Plaintiff's position is the same—'don't tread on me,'" Walker wrote later in the ruling.

Fresh water we can use for drinking or agriculture is only about 3 percent of the global water supply, and nearly 70 percent of that is trapped in glaciers and ice caps. So far, that was enough to keep us going, but severe draughts have left places like Jordan, Egypt, sub-Saharan Africa, Spain, and California with limited access to potable water. One possible solution is to tap into the remaining 97 percent of the water we have on Earth.

Amazon workers are being reminded that they can find work elsewhere if they’re unhappy with Amazon’s return-to-office (RTO) mandate. In September, Amazon told staff that they’ll have to RTO five days a week starting in 2025. Amazon employees are currently allowed to work remotely twice a week. A memo from CEO Andy Jassy announcing the policy change said that “it’s easier for our teammates to learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture” when working at the office. On Thursday, at what Reuters described as an “all-hands meeting” for Amazon Web Services (AWS), AWS CEO Matt Garman reportedly told workers:Read full article Comments

Yesterday, it was reported that the US Department of Commerce is investigating the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) over suspicions that the chipmaker may have been subverting 5G export controls to make "artificial intelligence or smartphone chips for the Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies," sources with direct knowledge told The Information. The Department of Commerce has yet to officially announce the probe and declined Ars' request for comment.

Elon Musk's X updated its terms of service to steer user lawsuits to US District Court for the Northern District of Texas, the same court where a judge who bought Tesla stock is overseeing an X lawsuit against the nonprofit Media Matters for America. The new terms that apply to users of the X social network say that all disputes related to the terms "will be brought exclusively in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas or state courts located in Tarrant County, Texas, United States, and you consent to personal jurisdiction in those forums and waive any objection as to inconvenient forum." X recently moved its headquarters from San Francisco to Texas, but the new headquarters are not in the Northern District or Tarrant County.

On Thursday, OpenAI released an early Windows version of its first ChatGPT app for Windows, following a Mac version that launched in May. Currently, it's only available to subscribers of Plus, Team, Enterprise, and Edu versions of ChatGPT, and users can download it for free in the Microsoft Store for Windows. OpenAI is positioning the release as a beta test.