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The Big Story
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s glitch-filled campaign rollout is raising new questions about Twitter CEO Elon Musk’s ambitions — and his ability to carry them out.
DeSantis granted Musk exclusive access to his campaign launch via Twitter Spaces — which yielded disastrous results for the Republican candidate for president and Twitter itself.
A slew of technical difficulties interrupted the online event, leading to embarrassment for DeSantis and jabs by his rivals in both parties. Once people were able to tune in, the event had a relatively small audience that never topped more than 600,000 listeners at once.
“I think he had a rough opening,” former President Trump said Thursday of the event.
“This link works,” mocked a tweet from President Biden, who included a link to a form for donations to his reelection campaign.
DeSantis’s decision to go to Twitter Spaces for his initial rollout was widely viewed as an unprecedented deviation from political norms — and a major snub of Fox News, the preeminent player in a conservative media ecosystem that has been boosting Republican candidates for decades.
Musk beating out Fox on the DeSantis announcement sparked a tidal wave of buzz in media and political circles that the eccentric tech billionaire was angling to replace media mogul Rupert Murdoch as the unofficial kingmaker in conservative politics.
Ford electric vehicles (EV) are set to gain access to Tesla’s electric car chargers starting next year, the companies announced Thursday. In a Twitter Spaces livestream, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Ford CEO Jim Farley announced Thursday the partnership on Superchargers between the two companies. Starting in 2024, all of Ford’s existing customers and future customers will be able to access 12,000 Tesla Superchargers …
(AP) — As concerns grow over increasingly powerful artificial intelligence systems like ChatGPT, the nation’s financial watchdog says it’s working to ensure that companies follow the law when they’re using AI. Already, automated systems and algorithms help determine credit ratings, loan terms, bank account fees, and other aspects of our financial lives. AI also affects hiring, housing and working conditions.
Federal investigators are probing an alleged hack of Fox News’s internal systems that resulted in unaired footage of former host Tucker Carlson being leaked to the press, according to a new report. The Tampa Bay Times reported on Friday that the investigation is tied to a search conducted by the FBI at the home of prominent media consultant and prolific Twitter personality Tim Burke, whose wife is a member of the Tampa City Council.
Virgin Galactic completed what is expected to be its final test flight Thursday before taking paying customers on brief trips to space, marking what the space tourism company described as a “fantastic achievement” in what has been a long road to commercial operations. Six of the company’s employees, including two pilots, landed at Spaceport America in southern New Mexico after the short up-and-down flight that included a few minutes of weightlessness.
News we’ve flagged from the intersection of tech and other topics:
OpenAI exec to comply with EU rules
The company’s CEO Sam Altman said he plans to follow EU regulations after initially saying he might withdraw from the bloc if he felt constrained, Bloomberg reported.
NSO Group under new ownership
The Israeli spyware firm, known for its controversial and invasive Pegasus software, has been forced by its lenders to change ownership as part of a new restructuring, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Delaware’s low elevation mixed with crowded beaches and limited exit routes make the state particularly vulnerable to massive flooding, but officials hope an influx of federal infrastructure money will trigger future evacuation plans automatically via artificial intelligence.
ATLANTA (AP) — Hyundai Motor Group and LG Energy Solution announced Thursday they will build a $4.3 billion electric battery plant as part of Hyundai’s new electric vehicle assembly plant in southeast Georgia. The companies will split the investment, starting production as soon as late 2025. …
CORRECTION: Sen. Chris Coons represents Delaware in the Senate. His state affiliation was misidentified in an earlier version of this story. A new … Read more
Federal investigators are probing an alleged hack of Fox News’s internal systems that resulted in unaired footage of former host Tucker Carlson … Read more
Affluent Americans may want to double-check how much of their bank deposits are protected by government-backed insurance. The rules governing trust accounts just changed.
Jason Fitz, Charles Robinson and Frank Schwab talk about which quarterback rooms concern them and which they find interesting heading into the 2024 NFL season.
Former NBA guard Darius Morris has died at the age of 33. He played for five teams during his four NBA seasons. Morris played college basketball at Michigan.
Teams have made their big splashes in free agency and made their draft picks, it's time for you to do the same. It's fantasy football mock draft time. Some call this time of year best ball season, others know it's an opportunity to get a leg up on your competition for when you have to draft in August. The staff at Yahoo Fantasy did their first mock draft of the 2024 season to help you with the latter. Matt Harmon and Andy Behrens are here to break it all down by each round and crush some staff members in the process.
It’s key to note that we’re not saying the “best team” or “best roster.” Instead, we’re talking about the best confluence of factors that can outline a path for survival and then success.
With free agency and the draft behind us, what 32 teams look like today will likely be what they look like Week 1 and beyond for the 2024 season. Matt Harmon and Scott Pianowski reveal the post-draft fantasy power rankings. The duo break down the rankings in six tiers: Elite offensive ecosystems, teams on the cusp of being complete mixed bag ecosystems, offensive ecosystems with something to prove, offenses that could go either way, and offenses that are best to stay away from in fantasy.
The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate edged back toward 7% this week but remains elevated, prompting housing experts to revise their forecasts for the rest of 2024.
Jake Mintz & Jordan Shusterman discuss the Padres-Marlins trade that sent Luis Arraez to San Diego, as well as recap all the action from this weekend in baseball and send birthday wishes to hall-of-famer Willie Mays.