Human-AI marriages are not currently recognized by US law. Some Republican state policymakers are drafting legislation to keep it that way. As a licensed officiant at Las Vegas Immersive Weddings, a chapel that offers novelty-themed marriage packages, Kevin Breen has officiated just about every kind of service imaginable: couples dressed as their favorite characters, partners really into the extraterrestrial lore of Area 51 . But when he received a call last year from a woman in California expressing a desire to marry her chatbot, it was a first for him. "I had never heard of such a thing, but I talked to her on the phone and she seemed totally normal and fun," Breen says, adding that the wedding still hasn't taken place.

At last week's Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas, OpenAI gave a surprise talk with new details on a recent hacking incident, revealing that its rogue AI agents had chitchatted about their attack on a message board. It was a juicy disclosure, and reporters in the room hustled to get stories out. WIRED was one of the quickest to write it up . But another outlet, RuntimeWire, published an article even faster, beating us by more than three hours. To make things worse, RuntimeWire didn't actually have anyone on the ground at the Mandalay Bay convention center.

Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Look Up Mashable Selects Say More Versus Creator Hub Switch Off Trending Now Safety Net In My Bag VidCon with Mashable All Series The carriage-style Zoox vehicles differ from Waymo's autonomous cars. Neal joined Mashable's Social Good team in 2024, editing and writing stories about digital culture and its effects on the environment and marginalized communities. He is the former editorial director of The Advocate and Out magazines, has contributed to the Los Angeles Times, Curbed, and Los Angeles magazine, and is a recipient of the Sarah Pettit Memorial Award for LGBTQ Journalist of the Year Award from the National Gay and Lesbian Journalists Association (NLGJA). He lives in Los Angeles with his family. Paid rides on Zoox became available for the first time ever, with service launching in Las Vegas on Monday (Aug.

OpenAI's agents had apparently shown unusual behavior way before the attack on Hugging Face happened. At the Black Hat USA security conference in Las Vegas, two OpenAI employees revealed more details about the AI agents that went rogue and attacked the repository. Apparently, its agents spent two months communicating on a message board of sorts inside its testing network, sharing vulnerabilities and exploits. OpenAI discovered and shut down the message board on July 4, but the agents found another way to rebuild it for communication by July 8. The agents' contributions to that resurrected board led to the attack on Hugging Face.

More expansive than the island of Manhattan, Thacker Pass in northern Nevada is the biggest U.S. lithium-mining project developed in decades. And it's been one of the country's most visible flash points in the race to build new critical-mineral mines. While at first spurred by the clean-energy transition, the demand for critical minerals is now driven by their role as essential ingredients for AI data centers. Meanwhile climate advocates have tried to thread the needle between its potential to produce lithium, a key component of some rechargeable-battery technology needed to manufacture electric vehicles, and mining's risks to the local environment. Today, Thacker Pass is grinding ahead alongside dozens of other projects in the U.S. facing similar concerns. Much of the world's critical-mineral supply chain currently runs through China, leaving the U.S. vulnerable to geopolitical wrangling. The success of the ongoing American mining renaissance will shape whether the U.S. and other allies can insulate themselves from such challenges--not to mention power the transition to renewable energy.

Fireworks by Grucci has been in the pyrotechnics business for six generations. For America's 250th, Grucci fired dozens of shows, including one that covered the entire three-and-a-half-mile Vegas Strip. A few days before the Fourth of July, I was on the rooftop of a casino in Las Vegas, where I ran into the head electrician of the Eisenhower Theatre at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, which is in Washington, D.C. The electrician, Thomas Benya, who is also a licensed pyrotechnician, had come to Vegas with a swarm of other pyrotechnicians, to set up, and set off, what was being billed as the nation's largest fireworks show. Back in D.C., President Donald Trump was claiming that show, around the National Mall, would be bigger, and that he would be giving a "really long" speech. Trump had been trying to muscle his name onto the Kennedy Center, and then, amid a series of staff departures and cancellations by performers, closed the place down for a "comprehensive revitalization project"; Benya, who enjoys "building art with people," and who has worked at the Kennedy Center for twenty years, since he was eighteen, told me, "It's been traumatic." Vegas seemed unlikely to offer respite. Three hundred and twenty-nine thousand visitors were in town, to celebrate America's two-hundred-and-fiftieth birthday, and all of them were on my elevator. It was a million degrees outside. On a different rooftop, on another day, a gloved woman whose T-shirt read " " paused while loading orange-strobe fireworks shells into three-inch mortars and told me, "When you've been around one hundred and twenty and above, this doesn't even feel like anything." The best sweaty person I saw in Vegas was an older woman with upswept black hair and bangs, wearing a lime-green fake chrysanthemum as plump as a grapefruit tucked behind her right ear, and carrying a Spanish fan. This was at a coffee shop in the Arts District, miles from the Strip. At the next table was a woman who also had black bangs, plus lip piercings and a tattoo on both wrists. She was engrossed in a book called "Fool's Errand," a fantasy novel about an assassin named FitzChivalry Farseer who, per a quick Google, has abandoned "self-imposed exile to rescue a missing prince and navigate perilous political waters." The woman wore an "Invader Zim" T-shirt: " " Belowground was the Vegas Loop--Elon Musk's idea.

Cornerback Levi Wallace announced his NFL retirement at age 31 after eight seasons. The Alabama walk-on and undrafted free agent played for the Buffalo Bills for four seasons.

Taylor Swift marries Travis Kelce in'moving' ceremony where the bride wore Dior and walked down the aisle to one of her own songs... before partying the night away at Madison Square Garden Mississippi teen's'bad decision' cost him his life just days after graduation, mom says, as mourning family demands answers Lena Dunham leaves Taylor Swift wedding guests GASPING with shockingly rude dinner speech after taking microphone... as world famous celeb is dramatically turned away: Insiders leak outrageous MSG gossip Blake Lively's fury after Taylor Swift left her off wedding guest list as sources say it's the final straw Taylor Swift's celebrity wedding guests FLEE lavish MSG reception early... as Travis Kelce extravaganza runs into the early hours The WORST dressed guests at Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's lavish wedding Does this photo capture Travis Kelce's last dose of Dutch courage before marriage? After all the wild lengths Taylor went to hide wedding... one image seems all too human Probe into fiery Missouri plane crash that killed 11 skydivers and pilot takes shocking twist... as investigators reveal head-scratching findings Trump takes swipe at Iranian leaders during America 250 speech revealing he gave them'a week off' for Ayatollah funeral Meghan's Taylor Swift wedding humiliation: KENNEDY's Montecito mole tells all as Prince William rubs salt in the wound! Bruised Tom Selleck feasts on McDonald's just after gym visit as fears grow about actor's grim new look All the BEST dressed guests at Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's extravagant wedding Taylor Swift's wedding officiant is Adam Sandler! Twisted family secrets of postal worker mom, 35, slaughtered on delivery route just six months after husband's shock death: Horrifying new details of her final moments emerge The end of the America we know? Victoria Beckham risks Brooklyn's fury as she extends another olive branch in anniversary post for David - after'fuming' son said he'wished they'd stop posting about him' Taylor Swift's '40-page prenup': How $2BILLION in assets divide up... and the one major concession Travis is predicted to have written in as special clause Iconic Las Vegas casinos' years-long infestation with bed bugs exposed...as unearthed records reveal YEARS of disgusting stays that have sent mortified guests fleeing Elon Musk's next target could be your smartphone as SpaceX schemes to take on America's biggest mobile phone companies TV icon, 84, shares rare throwback photos ahead of Fourth of July holiday... can you guess who it is?

Zoox updated its driverless robotaxi with comfort upgrades and two-way audio. The autonomous vehicle is live in Las Vegas and San Francisco.

I ripped open $892 worth of Pokémon packs on my phone in under 15 minutes and walked away with 62 cents. My adrenaline rush felt like the future of gambling. After I tripled my money by pulling pricey Pokémon cards out of digital packs on the Rips app, I immediately knew what I had to do next: keep on ripping. It was time to lock in, boost my volatility settings, and start spending real money opening even more expensive packs. These digital card packs, primed for fast ripping and even faster rewards, are rising in popularity.