It is not only OpenAI but the AI race itself that was vindicated in the California courtroom last night . Even though Elon Musk essentially lost on a technicality, there's a clear signal from the verdict that making lots of money from AI and competing fiercely with rivals is simply business. The industry sometimes tries to display a united front, especially when it comes to safety, research and inclusivity. But this case served as a powerful reminder that none of the AI giants are charities and don't have to be, even if they once said otherwise. Cracks in the façade of industry collaboration for the sake of humanity have been exposed before.

The US Built a Site to Ensure Fair Access to Public Lands. Recreation.gov was supposed to make access to public lands more equitable and streamlined. It's a few minutes before 8 am Mountain Time on March 16, the day that river permit cancellations are released on Recreation.gov, the federal website for public land reservations. Rec.gov, as it's commonly called, administers everything from river permits and timed entrance fees at the most popular national parks to campground reservations on remote sites belonging to the Bureau of Land Management, and a lot of people are recreating on public land these days. There were 11 million reservations on the site in 2024, up significantly from 3.5 million reservations reported in 2019. At the center of it all is an unlikely player in the outdoor recreation space: The site is operated by the government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, a corporation known more for cybersecurity than rafting trips. Early each year, outdoor enthusiasts gear up for Recreation.gov's annual lotteries for some of the most iconic experiences in the country: a river trip down Idaho's Middle Fork of the Salmon River, which flows through the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness. Backcountry permits to hike into the Wave, an otherworldly rock formation in Arizona's Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness. Overnight stays in the rugged, lake-studded Enchantments, in Washington's Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest. Odds of getting a desirable Middle Fork permit are around 2 percent.

On Monday morning, a jury in Oakland, California, announced its verdict in one of the most-watched tech feuds between billionaire Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. The nine-member jury handed a decisive victory to Altman, saying Musk had waited too long to bring his claims against the artificial intelligence company and its top executives. Musk, who cofounded OpenAI as a nonprofit, had filed a $150bn lawsuit against the organisation, Altman and its president, Greg Brockman, accusing them of turning it into a for-profit entity for personal enrichment. Instead, the case became focused on a procedural issue. After deliberating for less than two hours, the jury unanimously found that the statute of limitations had expired before Musk filed the lawsuit in 2024, meaning jurors concluded he had waited too long to bring his claims under the applicable legal deadline.

Starting May 19, tech platforms in the US will have to start complying with the Take It Down Act. Here's how more than a dozen of the largest platforms are handling takedown demands for your nudes. Abstract collage illustration of woman face partially obscured by a glitching pixelated effect on a green background. Starting on Tuesday, May 19, tech platforms have to provide a way for people to report nonconsensual intimate images and videos, or NCII, uploaded to their platforms. The new requirement is thanks to the Take It Down Act, a law backed by First Lady Melania Trump that passed last year with bipartisan support.

Elon Musk loses case against Sam Altman over OpenAI's overhaul Elon Musk arrives at the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building for court in Oakland, California on April 30. A jury rejected Elon Musk's claims that OpenAI under Sam Altman's leadership betrayed its mission to benefit the public by morphing into a for-profit business, finding that he waited too long to sue the company. The verdict reached Monday in federal court in Oakland, California, follows a trial over the bitter feud between the entrepreneurs who worked together to launch the startup in 2015. OpenAI has since evolved into one of the world's most valuable and powerful artificial intelligence companies. "I think there is a substantial amount of evidence to support the jury's findings," U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said when she accepted the nine-member jury's unanimous conclusion after about two hours of deliberations.

Elon Musk, left, and Sam Altman. Elon Musk, left, and Sam Altman. How Sam Altman's victory over Elon Musk clears way for OpenAI's trillion-dollar ambitions OpenAI's plans now seem all but guaranteed, given that the world's richest man couldn't put a stop to them On Monday morning, a jury in Oakland, California, handed a resounding victory to Sam Altman and OpenAI in their long, bitter courtroom battle with Elon Musk. The federal jury found Altman, OpenAI and its president, Greg Brockman, not liable for Elon Musk's claims that they unjustly enriched themselves and broke a founding contract made with Musk when founding the startup. The unanimous verdict, delivered after less than two hours of deliberation, is a stark rebuke of Musk and his lawyer's claims that Altman "stole a charity" through his leadership of OpenAI.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge are using satellite data and AI in an effort to slow the decline in Britain's hedgehog population. Using an AI tool called Tessera, which analyses detailed images of the UK gathered from space, experts can precisely determine locations of hedgehog habitats - and where these are disappearing. The resulting maps capture landscapes in minute detail, including down to individual hedgerows, while AI can accurately predict hedgehog-friendly places obscured by cloud cover. Those behind the project hope it will help to shed light not just on where hedgehogs live across the UK, but barriers preventing them from finding food and mates. The researchers say Tessera's outputs can be used to track the impact of new housing developments and other environmental changes on landscapes that could affect hedgehogs over time.

The federal jury in Oakland, California, found Altman, OpenAI and its president, Greg Brockman, not liable for Elon Musk's claims that they unjustly enriched themselves and broke a founding contract made with Musk when founding the startup. The verdict, delivered after less than two hours of deliberation, is a stark rebuke of Musk and his lawyer's claims that Altman "stole a charity" through his leadership of OpenAI . It also provides the AI firm with a clear path ahead to pursue going public later this year at about a $1tn valuation . The jury's finding is a non-binding, advisory verdict that left Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers with ultimate power to issue her own ruling in the case. Gonzalez Rogers immediately said that she would agree with the jury's decision and dismissed Musk's claims.

The complaint says park visitors don't get sufficient notice they're being scanned. Disney is being sued over use of facial recognition technology at its amusement parks. The class action lawsuit alleges that the entertainment brand does not adequately inform guests that it scans people's faces at the entrances to Disneyland and California Adventure. The complaint is seeking at least $5 million on behalf of park visitors. Guests should be able to expressly opt in to this type of sensitive facial recognition technology with written consent -- the onus of privacy rights should not be on the victim, writes Blake Yagman, a lawyer for the proposed class of visitors, in the complaint.

Elon Musk just lost another lawsuit. Elon Musk, the world's richest man, has not been winning in court lately. His loss on Monday in his lawsuit against OpenAI and its co-founder Sam Altman is the latest in a string of legal defeats or settlements. Late last year he agreed to settle with former Twitter executives and thousands of former employees of the social platform, which he has renamed X, after fighting for years to pay them nothing. Then in March, he lost a case brought against him by investors of Twitter, who claimed they were misled by public statements he made during the takeover.