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The US Supreme Court cleared the way on Thursday for states to potentially cut off funding for Planned Parenthood, one of the country’s largest abortion providers.Planned Parenthood is already barred from receiving federal money for abortion care but the 6-3 ruling would also allow states to cut off reimbursements for other medical services it provides to low-income Americans under the Medicaid program.The three liberal justices on the top court dissented.The case stems from an executive order issued by South Carolina’s Republican governor Henry McMaster in 2018 cutting off Medicaid funding to the two Planned Parenthood clinics in the state.The Medicaid reimbursements were not abortion-related, but McMaster said providing any funding to Planned Parenthood amounts to a taxpayer “subsidy of abortion,” which is banned in South Carolina for women who are more than six weeks pregnant.Planned Parenthood, which provides a wide range of reproductive health services, and a South Carolina woman suffering from diabetes, filed suit against the state arguing that Medicaid patients have the right to receive care from any qualified provider.An appeals court ruled that Planned Parenthood cannot be excluded from the state’s Medicaid program and South Carolina appealed to the Supreme Court, where conservatives wield a 6-3 majority.The court ruled that a Medicaid patient cannot sue the state to receive medical care from a provider of their choosing.Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in a dissent joined by the two other liberal justices, disagreed.”Congress enacted the Medicaid Act’s free-choice-of-provider provision to ensure that Medicaid recipients have the right to choose their own doctors,” Jackson said. “Today’s decision is likely to result in tangible harm to real people.”The Supreme Court ruling was welcomed by the anti-abortion group SBA Pro-Life America, which called it a “major win for babies and their mothers.”It clears the way for South Carolina and other states “to stop funding big abortion businesses like Planned Parenthood in their Medicaid programs,” it said on X.Paige Johnson, president of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, called the ruling a “grave injustice” and said it “promises to send South Carolina deeper into a health care crisis.”The Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 case that established federal protections for abortion access, in June 2022. Since then, more than 20 of the 50 US states have imposed strict limits on abortion, or even outright bans.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused US President Donald Trump on Thursday of exaggerating the impact of US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, in his first appearance since a ceasefire in the war with Israel took hold.In a televised speech, Khamenei hailed what he described as Iran’s “victory” over Israel, vowed never to yield to US pressure and insisted Washington had been dealt a humiliating “slap”.”The American president exaggerated events in unusual ways, and it turned out that he needed this exaggeration,” Khamenei said, rejecting US claims Iran’s nuclear programme had been set back by decades.The strikes, he insisted, had done “nothing significant” to Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.Trump, however, maintained the US attacks were devastating.The US president said key facilities, including the underground Fordo uranium enrichment site, had been “obliterated” by American B-2 bombers.Posting on his Truth Social platform, Trump dismissed speculation Iran might have removed enriched uranium prior to the raid, saying: “Nothing was taken out… too dangerous, and very heavy and hard to move!”He added that satellite images showed trucks at the site only because Iranian crews were attempting to shield the facility with concrete.Khamenei dismissed such claims, saying “the Islamic republic won, and in retaliation dealt a severe slap to the face of America”.His remarks followed the end of a 12-day war between Iran and Israel — the deadliest between the two countries to date.Both sides have claimed victory: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it a “historic win”, while Khamenei said Iran’s missile retaliation had brought Israel to the brink of collapse.- US defence -In Washington, the true impact of the strikes has sparked sharp political and intelligence debates.A leaked classified assessment suggested the damage to Iran’s nuclear programme may be less severe than initially claimed — possibly delaying progress by only a few months.This assessment contrasts with statements from senior US officials.CIA Director John Ratcliffe said several facilities would need to be “rebuilt over the course of years”.Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth accused the media of misrepresenting the operation.He said the United States used massive GBU-57 bunker-buster bombs on Fordo and another underground site, while submarine-launched Tomahawk missiles targeted a third facility.”President Trump created the conditions to end the war, decimating — choose your word — obliterating, destroying Iran’s nuclear capabilities,” Hegseth said.Doubts remain about whether Iran quietly removed some 400 kilograms (880 pounds) of enriched uranium from its most sensitive sites before the strikes — potentially hiding nuclear material elsewhere in the country.- Netanyahu says Iran ‘thwarted’ -Following waves of Israeli attacks on nuclear and military sites and retaliatory missile fire from Iran since mid-June, the US bombed three key Iranian atomic facilities.Initial intelligence reports, first revealed by CNN, suggested the strikes did not destroy critical components and delayed Iran’s nuclear programme only by months.Experts questioned if Iran had pre-emptively moved enriched uranium to protect it. The US administration has forcefully rejected such suggestions.Trump described the attack as having “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities, including the Fordo site, which is buried inside a mountain, and claimed it had set back the program by “decades”.The Israeli military said it delivered a “significant” blow to Iran’s nuclear sites but cautioned it was “still early” to fully assess the damage.Netanyahu said Israel had “thwarted Iran’s nuclear project”, warning any attempt by Iran to rebuild it would be met with the same determination and intensity.- Nuclear talks? -Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei told Al Jazeera that “nuclear installations have been badly damaged, that’s for sure”.After the war derailed nuclear talks between Iran and the United States, Trump said Washington would hold discussions with Tehran next week, with his special envoy Steve Witkoff expressing hope “for a comprehensive peace agreement”.Trump told reporters Israel and Iran were “both tired, exhausted”, before going on to say that talks were planned with Iran next week.”We may sign an agreement. I don’t know,” he added.Iran has consistently denied seeking a nuclear weapon while defending its “legitimate rights” to the peaceful use of atomic energy.It has also said it is willing to return to nuclear negotiations with Washington.The Israeli strikes on Iran killed at least 627 civilians, Tehran’s health ministry said.Iran’s attacks on Israel killed 28 people, according to Israeli figures.A state funeral will be held on Saturday in Tehran for top commanders and nuclear scientists killed in the war.burs-dv/kir

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth insisted Thursday that American strikes on Iranian nuclear sites were a success, backing President Donald Trump and berating the media for covering an intelligence report that questioned the results of the operation.American B-2 bombers hit two Iranian nuclear sites with massive GBU-57 bunker-buster bombs last weekend, while a guided missile submarine struck a third site with Tomahawk cruise missiles.”President Trump created the conditions to end the war, decimating — choose your word — obliterating, destroying Iran’s nuclear capabilities,” Hegseth told journalists at the Pentagon, referring to a 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran.Trump has called the strikes a “spectacular military success” and repeatedly said they “obliterated” the nuclear sites.On Thursday, he insisted that Iran did not manage to move nuclear materials — including enriched uranium — ahead of the US military action.”Nothing was taken out of facility. Would take too long, too dangerous, and very heavy and hard to move!” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform.However, US media revealed a preliminary American intelligence assessment earlier this week that said the strikes only set back Iran’s nuclear program by months — coverage sharply criticized by Hegseth.”Whether it’s fake news CNN, MSNBC or the New York Times, there’s been fawning coverage of a preliminary assessment.”The document was “leaked because someone had an agenda to try to muddy the waters and make it look like this historic strike wasn’t successful,” Hegseth said.Trump has also lashed out at coverage of the intelligence report, calling for journalists to lose their jobs.- ‘Get a big shovel’ -Hegseth did not definitively state that the enriched uranium and centrifuges at the heart of Iran’s controversial nuclear program had been wiped out, but cited intelligence officials — although giving little detail — as saying the nuclear facilities were destroyed.”If you want to know what’s going on at Fordo, you better go there and get a big shovel, because no one’s under there right now,” Hegseth said, referring to the deep-underground nuclear site.Among the officials cited by Hegseth was US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who said the previous day that “Iran’s nuclear facilities have been destroyed.”He also referred to a statement by CIA chief John Ratcliffe that said: “A body of credible intelligence indicates Iran’s nuclear program has been severely damaged by the recent, targeted strikes.”Ratcliffe pointed to a “historically reliable and accurate” source of information indicating that “several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years.”International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi, speaking Thursday on French radio, meanwhile said Iran’s uranium-enriching centrifuges had been knocked out.”Given power of these (bombs) and the characteristics of a centrifuge, we already know that these centrifuges are no longer operational,” Grossi said.Israel launched an unprecedented air campaign targeting Iranian nuclear sites, scientists and top military brass on June 13 in a bid to end the country’s nuclear program, which Tehran says is for civilian purposes but Washington and other powers insist is aimed at acquiring atomic weapons.Trump had spent weeks pursuing a diplomatic path to replace the nuclear deal with Tehran that he tore up during his first term in 2018, but he ultimately decided to take military action.The US operation was massive, involving more than 125 US aircraft including stealth bombers, fighters and aerial refueling tankers as well as a guided missile submarine.

A US commercial mission carrying astronauts from India, Poland and Hungary docked with the International Space Station on Thursday, marking the first time in decades that these nations have sent crew to space.Axiom Mission 4, or Ax-4, lifted off early Wednesday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a brand-new SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule riding a Falcon 9 rocket.Onboard were pilot Shubhanshu Shukla of India; mission specialists Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski of Poland and Tibor Kapu of Hungary; and Commander Peggy Whitson of the United States, a former NASA astronaut now with Axiom Space, which organizes private spaceflights.The capsule, the fifth and final Dragon in the SpaceX fleet, was christened “Grace” after reaching orbit.It achieved “soft capture,” or the first stage of docking, with the orbital lab Thursday at 6:31 am Eastern Time (1031 GMT).They later entered the station through the hatch and were greeted by the current ISS crew during a brief welcome ceremony.”It’s so great to be here at last,” said Whitson. “That was a long quarantine.”The crew will now spend about 14 days aboard the station, conducting some 60 experiments — including studies on microalgae, sprouting salad seeds, and the hardiness of microscopic tardigrades in space.- Key step for India -The last time India, Poland or Hungary sent people to space, their current crop of astronauts had not yet been born — and back then they were called cosmonauts, as they all flew on Soviet missions before the fall of the Iron Curtain.Shukla is the first Indian to reach space since Rakesh Sharma, who flew to the Salyut 7 station in 1984 as part of an Indo-Soviet mission.India’s space agency, ISRO, sees this flight as a key step toward its first independent crewed mission, slated for 2027 under the Gaganyaan (“sky craft”) program.”What a fantastic ride,” Shukla said in Hindi after liftoff. “This isn’t just the start of my journey to the International Space Station — it’s the beginning of India’s human space program.”Each country is funding its astronaut’s seat.Poland has spent 65 million euros for its astronaut’s flight, according to the Polish Space Agency. Hungary announced a $100 million deal with Axiom in 2022, according to spacenews.com, while India has not officially commented.The Ax-4 launch comes after technical issues delayed the mission, originally slated for early June.It also follows an online spat between US President Donald Trump and SpaceX chief Elon Musk, the world’s richest person and, until recently, Trump’s ally and advisor.Trump threatened to yank SpaceX’s federal contracts — worth tens of billions of dollars — prompting Musk to threaten an early retirement of Dragon, the only US spacecraft currently certified to carry astronauts to the ISS.Musk walked back the threat a few hours later and in the days that followed continued to deescalate, stating on X that he had gone “too far.”Any falling out between SpaceX and the US government would be massively disruptive, given NASA and the Pentagon’s reliance on Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy to send up crew, cargo, satellites and probes.But for now, analysts believe both sides are too entangled to risk a serious break.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is set to hold a news conference on Thursday to offer a fresh assessment of strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, following a stinging row over how much American bombardment set back Tehran’s nuclear program.After waves of Israeli attacks on nuclear and military sites and retaliatory missile fire from Iran since June 13, the United States bombed three key Iranian atomic facilities at the weekend.The extent of the damage in Iran, where Israel said it had acted to stop an imminent nuclear threat, has become the subject of profound disagreement in the United States.An initial classified assessment, first reported by CNN, was said to have concluded that the strike did not destroy key components and that Iran’s nuclear program was set back only months at most.Another key question raised by experts is whether Iran, preparing for the strike, moved out some 400 kilogram (880 pounds) of enriched uranium — which could now be hidden elsewhere in the vast country.The US administration has hit back furiously, with Trump repeatedly saying the attack “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities, including the key site of Fordo buried inside a mountain.”I can tell you, the United States had no indication that that enriched uranium was moved prior to the strikes, as I also saw falsely reported,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News.”As for what’s on the ground right now, it’s buried under miles and miles of rubble because of the success of these strikes on Saturday evening,” she said.Trump said that Hegseth, whom he dubbed “war” secretary, would hold a news conference at 8 am (1200 GMT) on Thursday to “fight for the dignity of our great American pilots”.CIA chief John Ratcliffe said in a statement on Wednesday that “several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years”.The Israeli military said it had delivered a “significant” blow to Iran’s nuclear sites but that it was “still early” to fully assess the damage.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that “we have thwarted Iran’s nuclear project”.”And if anyone in Iran tries to rebuild it, we will act with the same determination, with the same intensity, to foil any attempt,” he said.- Nuclear talks? -Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei told Al Jazeera that “nuclear installations have been badly damaged, that’s for sure”.After the war derailed nuclear talks between Iran and the United States, Trump said Washington would hold discussions with Tehran next week, with his special envoy Steve Witkoff expressing hope “for a comprehensive peace agreement”.Trump told reporters that Israel and Iran were “both tired, exhausted”, before going on to say that talks were planned with Iran next week.”We may sign an agreement. I don’t know,” he added.Iran has systematically denied seeking a nuclear weapon while defending its “legitimate rights” to the peaceful use of atomic energy.It has also said it was willing to return to nuclear negotiations with Washington.In both Iran and Israel, authorities have gradually lifted wartime restrictions.Iran on Wednesday reopened the airspace over the country’s east, without allowing yet flights to and from the capital Tehran.In the Israeli coastal hub of Tel Aviv, 45-year-old engineer Yossi Bin welcomed the ceasefire: “Finally, we can sleep peacefully. We feel better, less worried… and I hope it stays that way.”- State funeral -While Iran and Israel have been locked in a shadow war for decades, their 12-day conflict was by far the most destructive confrontation between them.The Israeli strikes on Iran killed at least 627 civilians, Tehran’s health ministry said.Iran’s attacks on Israel killed 28 people, according to official figures.According to Mehr news agency, the funeral of Revolutionary Guard commander Hossein Salami, who was killed in an Israeli strike, will no longer be held in his hometown on Thursday.Instead, a state funeral will be held on Saturday in Tehran for top commanders including Salami and nuclear scientists killed in the war.burs-ami/ser

At a church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, hundreds of people gathered recently for a weeknight charity fundraiser hosted by a celebrity guest.The venue was not announced in advance due to security concerns, and attendance cost at least $60 a pop — with some spending $1,000 to get a photo with the host.Yet, the event was not a gala hosted by a movie star or famed politician, but by a photojournalist: Gaza native Motaz Azaiza, whose images of the Israeli assault following the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas launched him to international recognition.Wearing a black T-shirt, jeans, sneakers and gold-framed glasses, the 26-year-old boasts nearly 17 million followers on Instagram for his images from the war in Gaza.”I wish you would have known me without the genocide,” Azaiza told the crowd, his voice faltering.Before the war, Azaiza was a relative unknown, posting photos from his daily life in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip to his roughly 25,000 Instagram followers at the time.But as soon as the first strikes from Israel hit Gaza, he became a war photographer by virtue of circumstance, and his wartime posts soon went viral.”As a photojournalist, I can’t watch this like anyone else, I’m from there, this is my home,” Azaiza said.- ‘I want to go back’ -After surviving 108 days of Israeli bombardment, Azaiza managed to escape Gaza via Egypt, and he has since become an ambassador of sorts for the Palestinian territory, sharing the story of his people as the conflict rages on.”Every time you feel like you regret leaving, but then you lose a friend, you lose a family, you say, OK, I saved my life,” Azaiza said.Before the war, Azaiza had been hired to manage the online content for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the humanitarian agency accused by Israel of providing cover for Hamas militants.This month, he is touring the United States to raise money for UNRWA USA, a nonprofit which collects funding for the agency.”I can’t handle this much of fame…it’s a real big responsibility,” Azaiza told AFP from the fundraiser in Philadelphia.”This is not me… I’m waiting to the genocide to stop. I want to go back to Gaza, continue my work capturing pictures,” he added.At one point he embedded himself in the crowd, posing for a selfie before shaking hands with donors.At the fundraiser, a UNRWA USA official solicited donations.”Is there someone who wants to give $20,000? I would like to have $20,000. Nobody? Is there someone who want to give $10,000? I would like to have $10,000,” the official calls out.Once the call lowered to $5,000, five hands raised, and even more went up when asked for donations of $2,000 and $1,000.One of the donors, Nabeel Sarwar, told AFP Azaiza’s photographs “humanize” the people in Gaza.”When you see a picture, when you see a child, you relate to that child, you relate to the body language, you relate to the dust on their face, the hunger, the sadness on their face,” Sarwar said.”I think it’s those pictures that really brought home towards the real tragedy of what’s going on in Gaza.”- ‘A million words’ – Veronica Murgulescu, a 25-year-old medical student from Philadelphia, concurred.”I think that people like Motaz and other Gazan journalists have really stuck a chord with us, because you can sense the authenticity,” she said.”The mainstream media that we have here in the US, at least, and in the West, it lacks authenticity,” she added.Sahar Khamis, a communications professor at the University of Maryland who specializes in Arab and Muslim media in the Middle East, said Gazan journalists like Azaiza who have become social media influencers “reshape public opinion, especially among youth, not just in the Arab world, not just in the Middle East, but globally and internationally, including in the United States.””The visuals are very, very important and very powerful and very compelling…as we know in journalism, that one picture equals a thousand words.”And in the case of war and conflict, it can equal a million words, because you can tell through these short videos and short images and photos a lot of things that you cannot say in a whole essay.”

At a minimalist Los Angeles matcha bar, powdered Japanese tea is prepared with precision, despite a global shortage driven by the bright green drink’s social media stardom.Of the 25 types of matcha on the menu at Kettl Tea, which opened on Hollywood Boulevard this year, all but four were out of stock, the shop’s founder Zach Mangan told AFP.”One of the things we struggle with is telling customers that, unfortunately, we don’t have” what they want, he said.With its deep grassy aroma, intense color and pick-me-up effects, the popularity of matcha “has grown just exponentially over the last decade, but much more so in the last two to three years,” the 40-year-old explained.It is now “a cultural touchpoint in the Western world” — found everywhere from ice-cream flavor boards to Starbucks. This has caused matcha’s market to nearly double over a year, Mangan said.”No matter what we try, there’s just not more to buy.”Thousands of miles (kilometers) away in Sayama, northwest of Tokyo, Masahiro Okutomi — the 15th generation to run his family’s tea business — is overwhelmed by demand.”I had to put on our website that we are not accepting any more matcha orders,” he said.Producing the powder is an intensive process: the leaves, called “tencha,” are shaded for several weeks before harvest, to concentrate the taste and nutrients.They are then carefully deveined by hand, dried and finely ground in a machine.- ‘Long-term endeavor’ -“It takes years of training” to make matcha properly, Okutomi said. “It’s a long-term endeavor requiring equipment, labor and investment.””I’m glad the world is taking an interest in our matcha… but in the short term, it’s almost a threat — we just can’t keep up,” he said.The matcha boom has been fuelled by online influencers like Andie Ella, who has more than 600,000 subscribers on YouTube and started her own brand of matcha products.At the pastel-pink pop-up shop she opened in Tokyo’s hip Harajuku district, dozens of fans were excitedly waiting to take a photo with the 23-year-old Frenchwoman or buy her cans of strawberry or white chocolate flavored matcha.”Matcha is visually very appealing,” Ella told AFP.To date, her matcha brand, produced in Japan’s rural Mie region, has sold 133,000 cans. Launched in November 2023, it now has eight employees.”Demand has not stopped growing,” she said.In 2024, matcha accounted for over half of the 8,798 tonnes of green tea exported from Japan, according to agriculture ministry data — twice as much as a decade ago.Tokyo tea shop Jugetsudo, in the touristy former fish market area of Tsukiji, is trying to control its stock levels given the escalating demand.”We don’t strictly impose purchase limits, but we sometimes refuse to sell large quantities to customers suspected of reselling,” said store manager Shigehito Nishikida.”In the past two or three years, the craze has intensified: customers now want to make matcha themselves, like they see on social media,” he added.- Tariff threat -Anita Jordan, a 49-year-old Australian tourist in Japan, said her “kids are obsessed with matcha.””They sent me on a mission to find the best one,” she laughed.The global matcha market is estimated to be worth billions of dollars, but it could be hit by US President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Japanese products — currently 10 percent, with a hike to 24 percent in the cards.Shortages and tariffs mean “we do have to raise prices. We don’t take it lightly,” said Mangan at Kettl Tea, though it hasn’t dampened demand so far.”Customers are saying: ‘I want matcha, before it runs out’.”At Kettl Tea, matcha can be mixed with milk in a latte or enjoyed straight, hand-whisked with hot water in a ceramic bowl to better appreciate its subtle taste.It’s not a cheap treat: the latter option costs at least $10 per glass, while 20 grams (0.7 ounces) of powder to make the drink at home is priced between $25 and $150.Japan’s government is encouraging tea producers to farm on a larger scale to reduce costs.But that risks sacrificing quality, and “in small rural areas, it’s almost impossible,” grower Okutomi said.The number of tea plantations in Japan has fallen to a quarter of what it was 20 years ago, as farmers age and find it difficult to secure successors, he added.”Training a new generation takes time… It can’t be improvised,” Okutomi said.

A US judge on Wednesday handed Meta a victory over authors who accused the tech giant of violating copyright law by training Llama artificial intelligence on their creations without permission.District Court Judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco ruled that Meta’s use of the works to train its AI model was “transformative” enough to constitute “fair use” under copyright law, in the second such courtroom triumph for AI firms this week.However, it came with a caveat that the authors could have pitched a winning argument that by training powerful generative AI with copyrighted works, tech firms are creating a tool that could let a sea of users compete with them in the literary marketplace.”No matter how transformative (generative AI) training may be, it’s hard to imagine that it can be fair use to use copyrighted books to develop a tool to make billions or trillions of dollars while enabling the creation of a potentially endless stream of competing works that could significantly harm the market for those books,” Chhabria said in his ruling.Tremendous amounts of data are needed to train large language models powering generative AI. Musicians, book authors, visual artists and news publications have sued various AI companies that used their data without permission or payment.AI companies generally defend their practices by claiming fair use, arguing that training AI on large datasets fundamentally transforms the original content and is necessary for innovation.”We appreciate today’s decision from the court,” a Meta spokesperson said in response to an AFP inquiry.”Open-source AI models are powering transformative innovations, productivity and creativity for individuals and companies, and fair use of copyright material is a vital legal framework for building this transformative technology.”In the case before Chhabria, a group of authors sued Meta for downloading pirated copies of their works and using them to train the open-source Llama generative AI, according to court documents.Books involved in the suit include Sarah Silverman’s comic memoir “The Bedwetter” and Junot Diaz’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” the documents showed.”This ruling does not stand for the proposition that Meta’s use of copyrighted materials to train its language models is lawful,” the judge stated.”It stands only for the proposition that these plaintiffs made the wrong arguments and failed to develop a record in support of the right one.”- Market harming? -A different federal judge in San Franciso on Monday sided with AI firm Anthropic regarding training its models on copyrighted books without authors’ permission.District Court Judge William Alsup ruled that the company’s training of its Claude AI models with books bought or pirated was allowed under the “fair use” doctrine in the US Copyright Act.”Use of the books at issue to train Claude and its precursors was exceedingly transformative and was a fair use,” Alsup wrote in his decision.”The technology at issue was among the most transformative many of us will see in our lifetimes,” Alsup added in his decision, comparing AI training to how humans learn by reading books.The ruling stems from a class-action lawsuit filed by authors Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson, who accused Anthropic of illegally copying their books to train chatbot Claude, the company’s ChatGPT rival.Alsup rejected Anthropic’s bid for blanket protection, ruling that the company’s practice of downloading millions of pirated books to build a permanent digital library was not justified by fair use protections.

A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to release billions of dollars allocated for the construction of electric vehicle charging stations in over a dozen US states.In a ruling Tuesday, US District Judge Tana Lin granted a preliminary injunction to require distribution of funds for National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) development, which was allotted $5 billion for use from 2022 to 2026.Signed into law by then-president Joe Biden in 2021, the NEVI program was defunded by the Trump administration’s Department of Transportation in February, axing expected funding for 16 states and the District of Columbia.President Donald Trump has repeatedly called climate change a “hoax,” abandoned electric vehicle booster programs and campaigned to drill for oil extensively. Trump has also blocked California’s plan to ban internal combustion engine vehicles by 2035.Seventeen attorneys general sued the Trump administration to unfreeze funds in May, led by California, the state with the largest number of electric vehicles.”It is no secret that the Trump Administration is beholden to the fossil fuel agenda,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta, adding legal programs can’t be dismantled “just so that the President’s Big Oil friends can continue basking in record-breaking profits.”The Democrat praised Lin’s order and said California “looks forward to continuing to vigorously defend itself from this executive branch overreach.”In responding to the ruling, a Department of Transportation spokesperson on Wednesday blasted the Biden-era NEVI program as a “disaster” and said Lin was “another liberal judicial activist making nonsensical rulings from the bench because they hate President Trump.”It was not clear whether the administration intends to appeal the ruling.”While we assess our legal options, the order does not stop our ongoing work to reform the program,” the spokesperson added.The Trump administration has until July 2 to appeal or release funds under Lin’s order, which applies to Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia.

Fresh from his success with the “Dune” saga, Denis Villeneuve has been tapped to direct the next movie in the storied James Bond franchise, Amazon MGM Studios announced Wednesday.The online retail giant has chosen a filmmaker very much in vogue in Hollywood as he makes his first foray into the world of the now-iconic British agent 007, first brought to life seven decades ago by writer Ian Fleming.Villeneuve, who is Canadian, said he grew up watching Bond films with his father. “I’m a die-hard Bond fan. To me, he’s sacred territory,” Villeneuve said in a statement released by Amazon. “I intend to honor the tradition and open the path for many new missions to come,” he added. “This is a massive responsibility, but also, incredibly exciting for me and a huge honor.”There is no word yet on who will play Her Majesty’s spy.Daniel Craig’s final portrayal of James Bond came in 2021 following the release of “No Time to Die.” Since then, 007 has seen many twists and turns.Amazon paid nearly $8.45 billion to buy legendary Hollywood studio MGM in 2022, which included distribution rights to Bond’s extensive back catalog.But for the subsequent three years, the retail behemoth was met with resistance from Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson, the franchise’s historic producers who for decades had jealously guarded the governance of one of cinema’s most valuable properties.The company run by Jeff Bezos finally reached a financial agreement with the pair in February to take creative control of the franchise.Some fans have expressed concern that the character will be exploited by Amazon through a multitude of new films, or spinoff series that go direct to its streaming platform Prime.Against this backdrop, the choice of Villeneuve, who also directed “Blade Runner 2049” and “Arrival,” resonates as a pledge to purists.”We are honored that Denis has agreed to direct James Bond’s next chapter,” Mike Hopkins, head of Amazon MGM Studios, said in the statement, noting Villeneuve’s track record with “immersive storytelling.””He is a cinematic master, whose filmography speaks for itself.” Villeneuve’s two installments of science-fiction saga “Dune” were each nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture. “Dune: Part Two,” released in 2024, grossed $700 million globally and won Oscars for Best Sound and Best Visual Effects.