We may be seeing some of the first major fissures forming in the dalliance between Donald Trump and his billionaire backer Elon Musk.Over the holiday week, Musk entered into a heated online conflict with notable pro-Trump figure and culture warrior Laura Loomer over the president-elect's immigration policy, the Washington Post reports.The debacle saw Musk receive rare pushback from his far-right supporters for advocating laxer immigration policy to court skilled foreign workers, and culminated with Loomer, who has over 1.4 million followers on X, claiming that her account was being silenced by the platform's billionaire owner for espousing her nationalist views. The infighting could augur a growing rift between the tech figures who have come to support Trump and the extreme right wing of his base."It's a sign of future conflicts," Samuel Hammond, a senior economist at the Foundation for American Innovation, told WaPo. "This is like the pregame."At issue is Trump's decision to name Sriram Krishan, an Indian-born tech entrepreneur, as his senior policy advisor on AI. Loomer is not a fan of Krishan's history of supporting policies that would more easily allow skilled workers to come to the US and stay for longer periods. And though she and her contingent denies it, she's also an unrepentant racist, viciously denigrating Indians as "third world invaders" in a flurry of other descriptors that are too foul and too numerous to repeat here.At any rate, such visas, which provide what's known as H-1B nonimmigrant status, are essential to the tech industry and others that depend on a steady supply of eager-to-work, highly educated professionals from abroad to perform very technical jobs. As nationalists like Loomer took to criticize Krishan's nomination, tech figures, some originally immigrants themselves, came to his defense, including Trump advisers David Sacks and Vivek Ramaswamy, championing high-skilled immigration as the lifeblood of America.But most notably among them was Musk, himself an H-1B worker at one point, and who continues to recruit foreign workers to his companies like Tesla and SpaceX. He has claimed that a "permanent shortage" of top engineering talent is the "fundamental limiting factor in Silicon Valley.""The number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low," Musk wrote on X on Christmas day. "Think of this like a pro sports team: if you want your TEAM to win the championship, you need to recruit top talent wherever they may be."It's not everyday that Musk sounds like the adult in the room but this logic wasn't enough to bridle the current of vociferous hatred coming from the rightmost corners of the Trump camp.For one, Musk's post received major pushback from followers questioning his dedication to supporting "real" Americans.Meanwhile, Loomer kept railing against Musk and immigrants. "We have to put our foot down and let them know MAGA is anti-Big Tech," she wrote.By Friday, she was claiming that Musk had retaliated by revoking her verified status and removing her paid subscribers. "So much for free speech," she posted.Amidst the height of the infighting, right-wing commentator and frequent Musk reply guy Ian Miles Cheong summed it up with a sagacious observation: "It's wild to see MAGA turning against Elon, Vivek, David Sacks."More on Elon Musk: Touchy Trump Insists That He's Not Taking Orders From Elon MuskShare This Article

NASA's Parker Solar Probe made history on Tuesday with a record-breaking flight around the sun, the space agency has confirmed. The spacecraft set a new benchmark early on the morning of Dec. 24, coming within 3.8 million miles of the sun's outer corona atmosphere.A signal received by NASA's operations teams late on Dec. 26 acknowledged that the probe had survived the close encounter and was operating normally."Flying this close to the Sun is a historic moment in humanity's first mission to a star," Nicky Fox, head of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said in a statement Friday. When the spacecraft reaches a new position in January 2025, it will transmit data from this flyby back to Earth.Read more: See NASA's Stunning Image of the Sun Spitting Out Its Biggest Solar Flare Since 2017According to NASA, the Parker Solar Probe reached speeds of up to 430,000 miles per hour, enduring temperatures as high as 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (982 Celsius). Although the probe is scheduled to orbit the sun two more times, this mission marks the closest it will ever get.The next planned close solar passes are expected to take place March 22 and June 19, 2025.'Data from uncharted territory' Upgrade your inbox Get cnet insider From talking fridges to iPhones, our experts are here to help make the world a little less complicated. The mission is part of a broader effort by scientists to "conduct unrivaled scientific research with the potential to change our understanding of our closest star," the agency said on its website.The spacecraft, launched in 2018, performed multiple flybys of Venus to gradually move closer to the sun. These flybys also provided scientists with insights into Venus, thanks to onboard instruments capable of capturing visible and near-infrared light from the planet, the agency said on its website. This allowed researchers to peer through Venus' dense cloud cover.When the probe first entered the sun's atmosphere in 2021, it provided groundbreaking information about the corona."No human-made object has ever passed this close to a star, so Parker will truly be returning data from uncharted territory," said Nick Pinkine, Parker Solar Probe mission operations manager, in a press releasein December. "We're excited to hear back from the spacecraft when it swings back around the Sun."The Parker Solar Probe is part of NASA's Living With a Star program, which aims to explore aspects of the solar system that affect life on Earth.

Northwest Naturals, a pet food company, is recalling a batch of its raw turkey pet food after a cat died from bird flu linked to the product.In a press releasethis week, the Oregon-based company said its two-pound Feline Turkey Recipe raw frozen pet food tested positive for the avian influenza virus.The recall highlights growing concerns about the potential for spread of bird flu among animals and humans, with recent cases reported in both cats and people. At the same time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that the risk to the general public remains low.The voluntary recall applies to plastic bags with "best if used by" dates of 05/21/26 and 06/23/2026. The product was distributed through various retailers in the US and British Columbia.The Oregon Department of Agriculture also issued a statement about the recall, noting that testing confirmed a house catcontracted the H5N1 strain of the virus and died after consuming the product."We are confident that this cat contracted H5N1 by eating the Northwest Naturals raw and frozen pet food," said Oregon Department of Agriculture veterinarian Ryan Scholz in a statement. "This cat was strictly an indoor cat; it was not exposed to the virus in its environment, and results from the genome sequencing confirmed that the virus recovered from the raw pet food and infected cat were exact matches to each other."Pet owners who purchased the product are advised to throw it out immediately and contact the company for a refund.This recall follows news from the CDC last week confirming the first US-based severe human case of bird flu in Louisiana, linked to exposure to sick birds in backyard flocks. Two additional human cases were recently reported by the CDC: an adult in Missouri in September and a child in California in November, both without clear exposure to sick animals.The bird flu also has been linked to a recent recall of raw milk in California that tested positive for the virus. Two cats that consumed the milk and later died were found to have the bird flu.For more information on the Northwest Naturals recall, consumers can contact the company at info@nw-naturals.net or 866-637-1872.

Residents of St. Paul have access to fiber, but if that's not a priority, there are lots of other options to choose from.

December 27, 20242 min readConcerning Bird Flu Virus Mutations Found in Severely Ill PatientSamples from a hospitalized patient in Louisiana show changes that could make the H5N1 virus spread more easily between humansBy Tanya Lewis edited by Dean Visser Matthias Kulka/Getty ImagesViral samples from a patient in Louisiana who was hospitalized with severe H5N1 avian influenza show genetic mutations that could make the pathogen spread more easily among humans, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced in a statement issued on Thursday.The mutations were found in samples taken from the patientbut not in those from the backyard poultry that were believed to be the source of the infection. This suggests the changes occurred within the patient. While this development has not changed the CDCs official assessment of risk to the general public, it does indicate that the H5N1 virus is capable of adapting to human airways.The detection of a severe human case with genetic changes in a clinical specimen underscores the importance of ongoing genomic surveillance in people and animals, containment of avian influenza A(H5) outbreaks in dairy cattle and poultry, and prevention measures among people with exposure to infected animals or environments, the CDC statement said.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.On December 18 the CDC confirmed the patient in Louisiana had been hospitalized with the first known severe H5N1 infection in the U.S. this year. The virus has been spreading among wild birds for several years. It was detected in U.S. dairy cows in March, and it has since infected hundreds of herds across 16 states. The Louisiana patients viral sequence matches a different strain of the virus called D1.1, which has been detected in wild birds and poultry in the U.S.The mutations seen in the Louisiana patients samples are confined to the viruss hemagglutinin gene, which encodes proteins that help the virus bind to cells and infect them. These mutations are only rarely seen in people; a few have been reported in severe human cases, all outside of the U.S. One of the changes was detected in viral samples from a teenager in Canada who was hospitalized with a severe H5N1 infection in November. The Louisiana patients samples did not show any changes in the N1 neuraminidase section of the viruss genome or other sections that could make the pathogen less susceptible to antiviral drugs. The sequences are also similar to those of existing H5N1 strains that can be used to make vaccines if needed.A total of 65 confirmed human H5N1 infections have been detected in the U.S. so far this year. Most have been linked to exposure to infected cattle or poultry, and the majority have been mild. Infections have occurred in several other animals, including pet cats that may have consumed raw milk or meat from sick animals. The virus recently killed more than half of the big cats at a wildlife sanctuary in Washington State.

Russia-linked cable-cutting tanker seized by Finland was loaded with spying equipmentListening equipment was placed on Eagle S and related tanker Swiftsea Rider to monitor Nato naval and aircraft activities, Lloyds List was told27 Dec 2024NewsEagle S, the Russia-linked tanker suspected of damaging an underwater electricity cable on Christmas Day, was kitted out with special transmitting and receiving devices that were used to monitor naval activity, according to a source with direct involvement in the ship, which has since been detained by Finnish police FREE TO READ Source: Finnish Border Guard / X Finnish coastguard with Eagle S shown in the background after suspected cable sabotage incident.RUSSIA-LINKED dark fleet* tanker Eagle S (IMO: 9329760), seized by Finland on December 25 for damaging an undersea cable, had transmitting and receiving devices installed that effectively allowed it to become a spy ship for Russia, Lloyds List has learnt.The hi-tech equipment on board was abnormal for a merchant ship and consumed more power from the ships generator, leading to repeated blackouts, a source familiar with the vessel who provided commercial maritime services to it as recently as seven months ago.Finland police seize Russian-linked dark fleet tanker Eagle S in cable-cutting investigationBy Michelle Wiese Bockmann26 Dec 2024Cook Islands tanker suspected of damaging Estlink 2 cable and possible other damage by police investigating aggravated vandalism on the undersea infrastructureAs well as Eagle S, another related tanker from the same ownership cluster, UK-sanctioned Swiftsea Rider (IMO: 9318539), also had similar equipment installed, Lloyds List was told.Cook Islands-flagged Eagle S and Honduras-flagged Swiftsea Rider are two of 26 elderly Russia-linked tankers with opaque ownership structures connected to three related shipmanagers, including two sanctioned by the UK government 12 months ago for propping up Putins war machine.The sanctions-circumventing tankers were bought between 2022 and 2023 and placed under bareboat charter arrangements with Eiger Shipping, the shipping arm of Russia oil trader Litasco.Eagle S was boarded by Finnish forces investigating sabotage of the Estlink 2 undersea cable that disrupted the supply of electricity to Estonia from Finland.The tanker slowed and dragged its anchor around the cable around midday, December 25, Finlands police said. Another three cables were also damaged.The source, who declined to be identified to protect their safety, supplied at least 60 confidential documents about Eagle S to Lloyds List in June, including the vetting report that outlined many safety deficiencies discovered during an inspection undertaken while at anchor in Danish waters that month.These documents, and others relating to dark fleet tankers providing confidential and private information about class, insurance, and flag, and other technical and regulatory requirements, were verified as genuine at the time.In July, Lloyds List reported the serious deficiencies on Eagle S that compromised environmental and crew safety, and underscored the poor maintenance and absence of adherence to regulatory and technical standards for the wider dark fleet.The source has since provided additional information, telling Lloyds List that an unauthorised person, who was not a seafarer, had been identified on board Eagle S.They said listening and recording equipment was brought on to the 20-year-old tanker via huge portable suitcases along with many laptops that had keyboards for Turkish and Russian languages when calling at Trkiyeand Russia.The equipment was kept on the bridge or in the monkey island, they said. The monkey island is the top-most place on the ship.The transmitting and receiving devices were used to record all radio frequencies, and upon reaching Russia were offloaded for analysis.They were monitoring all Nato naval ships and aircraft, Lloyds List was told.They had all details on them. They were just matching their frequencies.Russians, Turkish, Indian radio officers were operating it.Eagle S also dropped sensors-type devices in the English Channel during a transit, they said.They said no further equipment returned to the ship after it was offloaded for analysis, to their knowledge, but other devices were placed on another related tanker, Swiftsea Rider.Claims that Russian-linked merchant ships are being used for spying and sabotage activities in the Baltic Sea where Russia is surrounded by Nato allies underscores the rising geopolitical tension in the region amid calls by European political leaders for increased maritime infrastructure defence.The damage to the Estlink 2 cable is the second time vital undersea cables between Nato allies have been damaged in two months, and the first time a commercial ship suspected of sabotage has been taken into custody by authorities.In November, China-flagged bulk carrier Yi Peng 3 (IMO: 9224984)was accused of dragging anchor to damage the C-Lion 1 communication cable connecting Finland and Germany.The bulk carrier spent more than four weeks in international waters in the Danish straits as German, Sweden, Danish and Finnish officials investigated but ended up sailing last Saturday.The crew on Eagle S would have been aware of its spying activities as this could not be hidden but were threatened with their life, so everybody kept quiet, the source said.They have replaced captains when they raised this issue, they said.The beneficial owners of Eagle S and Swiftsea Rider are hidden behind complex corporate structures. The registered owner of Eagle S is a single-ship structure that purports to have an office in the business centre of a luxury hotel in Dubai.The shipmanager, Mumbai-based Peninsular Maritime India Private Limitedcannot be contacted. One of the telephone numbers on its website did not answer. A second number hung up when asked if this was the phone number for Peninsular Maritime. Emails were not answered.The companys website claims the company be registered in England, signalling it is likely a copy-and-paste of a template, commonly found in dark fleet shipping companies.* Lloyds List defines a tanker as part of the dark fleet if it is aged 15 years or over, anonymously owned and/or has a corporate structure designed to obfuscate beneficial ownership discovery, solely deployed in sanctioned oil trades, and engaged in one or more of the deceptive shipping practices outlined in US State Department guidance issued in May 2020. The figures exclude tankers tracked to government-controlled shipping entities such as RussiasSovcomflot, or IransNational Iranian Tanker Co, and those already sanctioned.Download our explainer on the different risk profiles of the dark fleet here

Bench, a Canada-based accounting startup that offered software-as-a-service for small and medium businesses, has abruptly shut down, according to a notice posted on its website.We regret to inform you that as of December 27, 2024, the Bench platform will no longer be accessible, the notice reads. We know this news is abrupt and may cause disruption, so were committed to helping Bench customers navigate through the transition.The companys entire website is currently offline except for the notice, leaving thousands of businesses in the lurch. Bench touted having more than 35,000 U.S. customers just hours before it was shut down, according to a snapshot saved by the Internet Archive.Bench, which had raised $113 million from high-profile backers such as Shopify and Bain Capital Partners, developed a software platform to help customers store and manage their bookkeeping and tax reporting documents.The move is a shock to current and former customers. Justin Metros, the co-founder and CTO of Radiator, said years of his companys accounting and tax documents are still stored on the site, although he no longer uses the platform. He learned about the shutdown from TechCrunch.Ive never seen anyone just shut down like that, Metros said. Thats crazy.Others are airing their concerns on social media, with one posting as a customer, Im pissed having just migrated from QuickBooks to Bench.Benchs notice says its customers should file a 6-month extension with the IRS to find the right bookkeeping partner. It also says customers will be able to download their data by December 30, and will have until March 2025 to do so.The notice recommends customers migrate to Kick, a new accounting startup that announced its $9 million seed raise in October 2024 in a round led by OpenAI and General Catalyst. Kicks CEO and founder, Conrad Wadowski, posted a message on LinkedIn to former Bench users about how Kick is working to get your financials back in your hands.Bench did not respond to requests for comment by TechCrunch as of press time.Wadowski did not respond directly to a question from TechCrunch about details of any possible agreement or other business relationship it had with Bench prior to the shutdown.As you saw on the website, were moving fast and are available to support many of Benchs customers with their bookkeeping needs, he told TechCrunch.Founded in 2012, Bench employed more than 600 staff, according to a snapshot of its About page. The startup was backed by investors, including IT firm Sage, Contour Venture Partners, and Altos Ventures. It was also a member of the TechStars accelerator.Bench last raised $60 million in a Series C round in 2021. Its co-founder and CEO Ian Crosby departed shortly after.Crosby posted on LinkedIn today that he was very sad to see Bench shut down, alleging he had been replaced by unnamed board members who wanted to bring in a new professional CEO to take Bench in a different direction.I hope the story of Bench goes on to become a warning for VCs that think they can upgrade a company by replacing the founder. It never works, Crosby wrote.

Encode, the nonprofit org that co-sponsored Californias ill-fated SB 1047 AI safety legislation, has requested permission to file an amicus brief in support of Elon Musks injunction to halt OpenAIs transition to a for-profit.In a proposed brief submitted to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California Friday afternoon, counsel for Encode said that OpenAIs conversion to a for-profit would undermine the firms mission to develop and deploy transformative technology in a way that is safe and beneficial to the public.OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, claim to be developing society-transforming technology, and those claims should be taken seriously, the brief read. If the world truly is at the cusp of a new age of artificial general intelligence (AGI), then the public has a profound interest in having that technology controlled by a public charity legally bound to prioritize safety and the public benefit rather than an organization focused on generating financial returns for a few privileged investors.OpenAI was founded in 2015 as a nonprofit research lab. But as its experiments became increasingly capital-intensive, itcreatedits current structure, taking on outside investments from VCs and companiesincludingMicrosoft.Today, OpenAI has a for-profit org controlled by a nonprofit with a capped profit share for investors and employees. But in ablog post this morning, the company said it plans to begin transitioning its existing for-profit into a Delaware Public Benefit Corporation (PBC), with ordinary shares of stock and the OpenAI mission as its public benefit interest.OpenAIs nonprofit will remain, but cede control in exchange for shares in the PBC.Muskfiledfor a preliminary injunction to halt the companys transition to a for-profit, which has long been in the works, late in November. He accused OpenAI of abandoning its original philanthropic mission to make the fruits of its AI research available to all, and of depriving rivals including his AI startup, xAI, of capital through anticompetitive means.OpenAI hascalledMusks complaints baseless and simply a case of sour grapes.Facebooks parent company and AI rival, Meta, is also supporting efforts to block OpenAIs conversion. In December, Metasenta letter to California attorney general Rob Bonta, arguing that allowing the shift would have seismic implications for Silicon Valley.Lawyers for Encode said that OpenAIs plans to transfer control of its operations to a PBC would convert an organization bound by law to ensure the safety of advanced AI into one bound by law to balance its consideration of any public benefit against the pecuniary interests of [its] stockholders.Encodes counsel notes in the brief, for example, that OpenAIs nonprofit has committed to stop competing with any value-aligned, safety-conscious project that comes close to building AGI before it does, but that OpenAI as a for-profit would have less incentive to do so. The brief also points out that the nonprofit OpenAIs board will no longer be able to cancel investors equity if needed for safety once the companys restructuring is completed. OpenAIs touted fiduciary duty to humanity would evaporate, as Delaware law is clear that the directors of a PBC owe no duty to the public at all, Encodes brief continued. The public interest would be harmed by a safety-focused, mission-constrained nonprofit relinquishing control over something so transformative at any price to a for-profit enterprise with no enforceable commitment to safety.Encode, founded in July 2020 by high school student Sneha Revanur, describes itself as a network of volunteers focused on ensuring voices of younger generations are heard in conversations about AIs impacts. Encode has contributed to various pieces of AI state and federal legislation in addition to SB 1047, including the White Houses AI Bill of Rights and President Joe Bidens Executive Order on AI.

Earlier this week, DeepSeek, a well-funded Chinese AI lab, released an open AI model that beats many rivals on popular benchmarks. The model, DeepSeek V3, is large but efficient, handling text-based tasks like coding and writing essays with ease.It also seems to think its ChatGPT.Posts on X and TechCrunchs own tests show that DeepSeek V3 identifies itself as ChatGPT, OpenAIs AI-powered chatbot platform. Asked to elaborate, DeepSeek V3 insists that it is a version of OpenAIs GPT-4 model released in June 2023.The delusions run deep. If you ask DeepSeek V3 a question about DeepSeeks API, itll give you instructions on how to use OpenAIs API. DeepSeek V3 even tells some of the same jokes as GPT-4 down to the punchlines.So whats going on? Models like ChatGPT and DeepSeek V3 are statistical systems. Trained on billions of examples, they learn patterns in those examples to make predictions like how to whom in an email typically precedes it may concern.DeepSeek hasnt revealed much about the source of DeepSeek V3s training data. But theres no shortage of public datasets containing text generated by GPT-4 via ChatGPT. If DeepSeek V3 was trained on these, the model mightve memorized some of GPT-4s outputs and is now regurgitating them verbatim.Obviously, the model is seeing raw responses from ChatGPT at some point, but its not clear where that is, Mike Cook, a research fellow at Kings College London specializing in AI, told TechCrunch. It could be accidental but unfortunately, we have seen instances of people directly training their models on the outputs of other models to try and piggyback off their knowledge.Cook noted that the practice of training models on outputs from rival AI systems can be very bad for model quality, because it can lead to hallucinations and misleading answers like the above. Like taking a photocopy of a photocopy, we lose more and more information and connection to reality, Cook said.It might also be against those systems terms of service.OpenAIs terms prohibit users of its products, including ChatGPT customers, from using outputs to develop models that compete with OpenAIs own.OpenAI and DeepSeek didnt immediately respond to requests for comment. However, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted what appeared to be a dig at DeepSeek and other competitors on X Friday afternoon.It is (relatively) easy to copy something that you know works, Altman wrote. It is extremely hard to do something new, risky, and difficult when you dont know if it will work.Granted, DeepSeek V3 is far from the first model to misidentify itself. Googles Gemini and others sometimes claim to be competing models. For example, prompted in Mandarin, Gemini says that its Chinese company Baidus Wenxinyiyan chatbot.And thats because the web, which is where AI companies source the bulk of their training data, is becoming littered with AI slop. Content farms are using AI to create clickbait. Bots are flooding Reddit and X. By one estimate, 90% of the web could be AI-generated by 2026.This contamination, if you will, has made it quite difficult to thoroughly filter AI outputs from training datasets. Its certainly possible that DeepSeek trained DeepSeek V3 directly on ChatGPT-generated text. Google was once accused of doing the same, after all.Heidy Khlaaf, engineering director at consulting firm Trail of Bits, said the cost savings from distilling an existing models knowledge can be attractive to developers, regardless of the risks.Even with internet data now brimming with AI outputs, other models that would accidentally train on ChatGPT or GPT-4 outputs would not necessarily demonstrate outputs reminiscent of OpenAI customized messages, Khlaaf said. If it is the case thatDeepSeekcarried out distillation partially using OpenAI models, it would not be surprising.More likely, however, is that a lot of ChatGPT/GPT-4 data made its way into the DeepSeek V3 training set. That means the model cant be trusted to self-identify, for one. But what is more concerning is the possibility that DeepSeek V3, by uncritically absorbing and iterating on GPT-4s outputs, could exacerbate some of models biases and flaws.

From Atomic Monster and Blumhouse for New Line, the film, will be unlike any Mummy movie you ever laid eyeballs on, hitting theaters April 17, 2026.