Breaking news: At least seven people were shot and killed yesterday in two separate locations in Half Moon Bay, California, marking the second mass shooting in the state in three days. A 67-year-old male suspect is in custody. This is a developing story, read more here. |
Millions of Pakistanis were without electricity or internet Monday for the second time in three months after an overnight cost-saving measure of planned temporary blackouts led to widespread outages. Power was said to be restored after 15 hours late Monday, making it one of the nation\'s longest outages.
Government officials claimed an irregular voltage fluctuation occurred when operators were returning the system to normal levels after overnight conservation. Planned blackouts are common in the country of 220 million, where most homes, offices, and public institutions are equipped with backup generators. For decades, Pakistan has accumulated debt by subsidizing imported energy to residents at a loss, leaving few resources to invest in the maintenance of its complex grid. See the numbers on Pakistan\'s energy use here.
The outage comes six months after destructive floods claimed over 1,000 lives. Separately, the country\'s foreign reserves—used to pay for imports, including fuel—have reached a decade low amid the International Monetary Fund\'s delay of its latest aid package. |
The trial of former South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh, charged with the June 2021 double homicide of his wife and son, began yesterday.
Murdaugh is accused of shooting his son, Paul, and his wife, Maggie, June 7, 2021, near the dog kennels on their hunting estate in Islandton, South Carolina (see map). Prosecutors have suggested he killed his family to distract attention from his financial crimes. In 2019, Paul Murdaugh was accused of boating under the influence in a crash that killed a 19-year-old woman. The woman\'s family sued, and a hearing was set for June 10, 2021, regarding the family\'s request to see Alex Murdaugh\'s financial records.
Murdaugh has pleaded not guilty. If convicted, he faces up to life in prison without parole and a minimum of 30 years. He also faces about 100 additional criminal counts, including a fraudulent suicide attempt so his elder son could collect a $10M life insurance policy, among other charges.
See a timeline here and deep dive into the case here. |
Microsoft Invests Billions in AI |
Microsoft announced yesterday it is expanding its partnership with OpenAI, the start-up behind the viral ChatGPT chatbot (see overview), with a multiyear, multibillion-dollar investment. Specific financial terms of the deal weren\'t disclosed, but reports say Microsoft is expected to invest $10B, in addition to the $3B it has already invested since 2019.
The investment will allow both companies to commercialize advanced artificial intelligence technologies and allow Microsoft to pursue a potential edge against competitor Google for the future of internet search. Microsoft was previously reported to be launching a ChatGPT-powered version of Bing in its bid to rival Google\'s Knowledge Graph (see 101), which helps produce instant answers to Google users\' questions.
Microsoft plans to continue to incorporate OpenAI\'s models across its products, which include Microsoft-owned GitHub Copilot and Microsoft Designer, while OpenAI will continue to exclusively use Microsoft\'s Azure cloud platform as it improves and scales existing technologies, including text generator GPT, image generator DALL-E, and text-to-code generator Codex.
Play with ChatGPT here. Explore DALL-E here. |
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