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Early last year, a hacker gained access to the internal messaging systems of OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, and stole details about the design of the company’s artificial intelligence technologies.The hacker stole details from discussions in an online forum where employees discussed OpenAI’s latest technologies, but was unable to break into the systems where the company hosts and develops its artificial intelligence, according to two people familiar with the incident.OpenAI executives disclosed the incident to employees at an all-hands meeting at the company’s San Francisco offices in April 2023, the people said, during which they discussed sensitive company information on condition of anonymity.But executives decided not to share the news publicly because no customer or partner information...

From the outside, the last few years seemed like the pinnacle of Abdulaziz Almuzaini's career.As the head of an animation studio in Saudi Arabia, he signed a five-year deal with Netflix in 2020. A sarcastic cartoon franchise he helped create, “Masameer,” likened to a Saudi version of “South Park,” was soon streaming to audiences around the world. And as the conservative Islamic kingdom relaxed, Mr. Almuzaini was publicly celebrated, until a few months ago, as one of the homegrown talents shaping its nascent entertainment industry.Behind the scenes, however, he was on trial in an opaque national security court, while Saudi prosecutors, who accused him of promoting extremism through the cartoon series and social media posts, sought to ensure he would spend the rest of his life in prison ...

A scientist whose research was at the center of a controversy over a potential Alzheimer's drug has been charged with fraud.A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted Hoau-Yan Wang, a professor at the City College of New York, on charges of falsifying data to obtain grants totaling about $16 million from the National Institutes of Health.Dr. Wang’s studies have supported research on a diagnostic test for Alzheimer’s disease and on simufilam, a drug in late-stage clinical trials. Simufilam’s maker, Cassava Sciences, a Texas-based pharmaceutical company, has claimed that the drug improves cognition in Alzheimer’s patients.Alzheimer's disease affects about six million Americans, a number that is expected to double by 2050, and promising treatments generate enormous excitement. Cassava&...

Britain votes in long-awaited elections.

A federal judge on Wednesday upheld the first legal challenge to the Federal Trade Commission’s ban on noncompete agreements, which is scheduled to take effect in September.Judge Ada Brown granted an injunction sought by several plaintiffs, saying the ban cannot be enforced against them pending a final ruling.But while the ruling was preliminary, it said the FTC had no “substantive authority to issue regulations” regarding unfair competition practices and that the plaintiffs “would likely succeed on the merits” of their challenge.Judge Brown of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas said he expects to issue a final decision by the end of August.The commission “supports our clear authority, supported by statute and precedent, to issue this rule,” said Douglas Farrar, a s...

Israeli forces killed a senior Hezbollah commander in a drone strike in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, prompting the Lebanese militia to respond with heavy rocket fire across the border.The flare-up came as Western diplomats worked to avert a full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah, a danger that appears to have grown in recent weeks. Cross-border firefights have intensified, and Israeli officials have spoken publicly of shifting their military focus from Hamas in the Gaza Strip to Hezbollah, a far more advanced and potent threat.Amos Hochstein, a senior White House adviser who has become the de facto U.S. envoy to quell the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, conferred with French officials in Paris on Wednesday to discuss ways to defuse rising tensions. Jean-Yves Le Drian, President Emmanuel ...

V. Craig Jordan, a pharmacologist whose discovery that a failed contraceptive, tamoxifen, could block the growth of breast cancer cells opened a new class of drugs and helped save the lives of millions of women, died June 9 at his home in Houston. He was 76.Balkees Abderrahman, a researcher who worked closely with Dr. Jordan and cared for him for several years, said the cause was kidney cancer.Dr. Jordan was known as a meticulous, even obsessive, researcher, a quality demonstrated in his work on tamoxifen. The drug was first synthesized in 1962, although it was discarded because it failed not only to prevent conception but, in some cases, to promote it.But Dr. Jordan, then a doctoral student at the University of Leeds in Britain, saw something no one else had. It had long been known that e...

One recent evening, when Tim Bushe decided to trim some hedges, he attracted more attention than usual for a routine garden job.Walkers slowed to take photos and ask questions. Neighbors stepped over piles of cut leaves to thank him. A driver honked his horn and gave a thumbs-up.Mr. Bushe is used to attention. It happens every time he gives his two giant, furry elephants a haircut. They are just one in a series of hedges on residential streets that Mr. Bushe has transformed from overgrown plants into whimsical creations. His hedge menagerie includes two cats, a squirrel, a hippopotamus, and a fish. There's even, experimentally, a naked woman lying down. He hopes a giant rabbit will join them this summer.Its hedges have delighted residents for years and baffled others who have stumbled ...

Are you getting threatening warnings about your phone’s storage space? Have you ever pulled out your phone to show someone a certain photo and had to scroll for minutes to find it? If you’ve accumulated gigabytes of images over the years, streamlining your photo library and deleting other apps and files you don’t need can help you reclaim that space. Here’s a guide to doing just that using free tools that are probably already on your phone.Check storageStart the cleaning process by taking note of the space on your device and what is filling it up.On many Android devices, open the Settings app and select Storage to check your available space.On a Samsung Galaxy device, open the Settings app, select Device care or Device maintenance, then tap Storage. On some phones, you can scroll down to S...

Fears of a full-scale open war between Israel and Hezbollah have grown in recent weeks as cross-border firefights have intensified. Israeli officials have spoken publicly of shifting their military focus from Hamas to Hezbollah, a far more advanced and powerful military threat.Firas Maksad, senior researcher at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, wrote on social media that there was still time for key players to find a diplomatic solution. "The window for diplomacy is closing but it is not closed," he said.Mr. Blinken, speaking Monday at the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, said Israel “has effectively lost sovereignty” near its border with Lebanon because Hezbollah attacks from across the border have forced large parts of the population from their hom...