Category: US

CNN
 — 

The University of the Cumberlands in Kentucky has reached a settlement of more than $14 million with the family of a student wrestler who died of heat stroke in 2020, the university and family’s attorney have said.

Grant Brace died after a “punishment practice” during which university wrestling coaches “ignored Grant’s deteriorating medical condition throughout practice,” according to the lawsuit filed by the Brace family.

Brace repeatedly begged for water, but the coaches wouldn’t allow anyone to help him and sent him out of the wrestling facility by himself, the lawsuit said.

Brace was found dead “with his hands clinched in the grass and dirt after a desperate and erratic search for assistance and water,” the lawsuit said. He was 20 years old at the time, according to the suit.

The university said it settled the case for $14.1 million out of respect for the Brace family’s loss, despite its belief in its ability to defend the claims asserted in the lawsuit, according to a news release from the university.

“Grant was a talented, well liked young man entering his junior year with a bright future ahead of him. Our University community continues to mourn his untimely loss,” Chancellor Jerry Jackson said in the news release.

“We sincerely hope that resolving this matter early in the legal process will offer the Brace family a measure of peace and healing,” Jackson said.

The family’s attorney also announced the implementation of the B.R.A.C.E Protocol at the University of the Cumberlands, a program aimed at educating “coaches and athletes about exertional heat strokes in order to prevent further heat related deaths,” as part of the settlement.

The men’s wrestling coaches had created a “toxic and abusive culture” in the two years before Brace’s death, the lawsuit claimed.

CNN
 — 

Microsoft on Thursday outlined its plans to bring artificial intelligence to its most recognizable productivity tools, including Outlook, PowerPoint, Excel and Word, with the promise of changing how millions do their work every day.

At an event on Thursday, the company announced that Microsoft 365 users will soon be able to use what the company is calling an AI “Co-pilot,” which will help edit, summarize, create and compare documents. But don’t call it Clippy. The new features, which are built on the same technology that underpins ChatGPT, are far more powerful (and less anthropomorphized) than its wide-eyed, paperclip-shaped predecessor.

With the new features, users will be able to transcribe meeting notes during a Skype call, summarize long email threads to quickly draft suggested replies, request to create a specific chart in Excel, and turn a Word document into a PowerPoint presentation in seconds.

Microsoft is also introducing a concept called Business Chat, an agent that essentially rides along with the user as they work and tries to understand and make sense of their Microsoft 365 data. The agent will know what’s in a user’s email and on their calendar for the day as well as the documents they’ve been working on, the presentations they’ve been making, the people they’re meeting with, and the chats happening on their Teams platform, according to the company. Users can then ask Business Chat to do tasks such as write a status report by summarizing all of the documents across platforms on a certain project, and then draft an email that could be sent to their team with an update.

Microsoft’s announcement comes a month after it brought similar AI-powered features to Bing and amid a renewed arms race in the tech industry to develop and deploy AI tools that can change how people work, shop and create. Earlier this week, rival Google announced it is also bringing AI to its productivity tools, including Gmail, Sheets and Docs.

The news also comes two days after OpenAI, the company behind Microsoft’s artificial intelligence technology and the creator of ChatGPT, unveiled its next-generation model, GPT-4. The update has stunned many users in early tests and a company demo with its ability to draft lawsuits, pass standardized exams and build a working website from a hand-drawn sketch.

OpenAI said it added more “guardrails” to keep conversations on track and has worked to make the tool less biased. But the update, and the moves by larger tech companies to integrate this technology, could add to challenging questions around how AI tools can upend professions, enable students to cheat, and shift our relationship with technology. Microsoft’s new Bing browser has already been using GPT-4, for better or worse.

A Microsoft spokesperson said 365 users accessing the new AI tools should be reminded the technology is a work in progress and information will need to be double checked. Although OpenAI has made vast improvements to its latest model, GPT-4 has similar limitations to previous versions. The company said it can still make “simple reasoning errors” or be “overly gullible in accepting obvious false statements from a user,” and does not fact check.

Still, Microsoft believes the changes will improve the experience of people at work in a significant way by allowing them to do tasks easier and less tedious, freeing them up to be more analytical and creative.

Islamabad, Pakistan
CNN
 — 

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan greeted supporters outside his Lahore residence Wednesday, after police were ordered to suspend an operation to arrest him amid a violent standoff around the compound.

Khan was pictured in one video wearing a gas mask as he spoke to and took pictures with those who had gathered outside his property.

Police in Lahore had been attempting to arrest Khan for not showing up to court on corruption charges.

Officers were ordered to suspend the operation until 10 a.m. local time on Thursday, after clashes between police and supporters of the embattled opposition leader stretched into a second day.

The intervention from the Lahore High Court Wednesday was made due to security concerns around a high-profile cricket match taking place in the city, with the judge citing the need to “maintain peace,” two Pakistani government officials familiar with the matter told CNN.

Police and paramilitary troops had arrived at Khan’s residence on Tuesday afternoon, the day after an arrest warrant was issued by the Islamabad High Court to force him to appear on Saturday. Khan’s supporters then camped outside his home, announcing they would not let the arrest happen.

Khan faces allegations of illegally selling gifts given to him by foreign dignitaries while he was in office, which he has rejected as “biased.”

The former prime minister, who was ousted in a parliamentary no-confidence vote last April, has since led a popular campaign against the current government, accusing it of colluding with the military to remove him from office.

The doorstep of Khan’s home in the eastern city was a battleground earlier Wednesday as riot police swarmed the wider Zaman Park neighborhood.

Khan’s supporters hurled stones and projectiles at police while people inside his residence lit fires after officers fired tear gas into the compound.

Police also used water cannons in an effort to disperse them, footage shared by Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party and local media showed.

Police later cut the electricity supply to Khan’s home and turned street lights off in the neighborhood, according to Khan’s spokesperson and other backers.

Early on Wednesday morning, a Pakistani police official told CNN that a total of 69 people had been injured in the violence in Lahore, including 34 police officers. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, added that people inside Khan’s residence were armed with guns.

Amid the standoff, Khan on Wednesday signed a surety bond stating he would appear at the Islamabad High Court on Saturday. However, the handwritten note did not say whether he would appear in person or send a representative.

Protests had also broken out in major cities across Pakistan on Tuesday in support of Khan, who released a video on social media asking his followers to “come out” in support of his movement if he was detained.

Following the order to halt the operation, CNN’s stringer on the ground in Lahore said police were clearing the area outside Khan’s residence and retreating. Police confirmed to CNN they were doing so on the orders of the Lahore High Court.

PTI Senior Party Leader Asad Umar said in a video message posted on Twitter that despite the order, police could still remain in nearby areas, and instructed PTI members to stay near Khan’s residence.

The cricket legend turned politician has accused Pakistani authorities of attempting to arrest him to remove him from upcoming by-elections in April and a general election scheduled for October.

“[The government], they’re petrified that if I come into power, I will hold them accountable,” Khan told CNN on Tuesday. “They also know that even if I go to jail, we will swing the elections no matter what they do.”

The former leader says the charges against him are politically motivated and has warned that attempts to arrest him could lead to a dangerous escalation in political violence in the country. He also believes that Pakistan’s ruling coalition might eventually use a “pretext of violence” to delay the upcoming votes.

In a statement to CNN, Pakistan’s information minister denied any political involvement in the case.

“The government has nothing to do with the arrest (of Khan), and the arrest has nothing to do with elections. The police is only complying with the orders of the court,” Marriyum Aurangzeb said.

“Instead of cooperating with law enforcement officials, Imran Khan is breaking the law, defying court orders and using his party workers as human shields to evade arrest and stoke unrest,” she added.

In an interview that aired Tuesday in the United States, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said Khan faced arrest “because of his ego.”

Speaking to Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” Zardari said Khan had repeatedly refused to appear in court and fight his case, often reasoning that he’s “too important” to face trial.

“What we’ve seen over the past couple of weeks have been a complete mockery of the judicial system in Pakistan, of rule of law, of the constitution in Pakistan – where had he gone to court, there was probably no reason he had to face imminent arrest,” Zardari said. “He’s violated court orders time and time again.”

Khan’s lawyers have argued he has previously failed to appear in court because he cannot leave his residence in Lahore due to security concerns. He can only make appearances via video link, according to his legal team.

The political upheaval comes at a time when Pakistan’s government waits for a delayed bailout from the International Monetary Fund, which will help with the country’s cost of living crisis and ailing economy.

Khan has only been arrested once in 2007 by then President and military ruler Pervez Musharraf, who died earlier this year.

But he told CNN Tuesday that he was “mentally prepared to spend the night in a cell.”

“I want a proper warrant of arrest and I want to see that, my lawyers want to see the warrant,” Khan said.

“It’s a matter of time. I’m convinced they will come in and arrest me, I’m prepared for it,” he said, adding: “I know what the intention is. They want to get me out of the race. They want to get me out of the match so that they can win the elections.”

CNN
 — 

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg said Wednesday there has been an “uptick” in recent aviation incidents and called on participants at a Federal Aviation Administration safety summit to help find the “root causes” of the issues.

“We are particularly concerned because we have seen an uptick in serious close calls,” Buttigieg said in his opening remarks, referring to a series of near collisions on runways across the US.

The summit comes after the FAA said it was investigating another close call between commercial airliners. The most recent close call was at Reagan National Airport near Washington, DC – the seventh since the start of this year.

On March 7, Republic Airways Flight 4736 crossed a runway, without clearance, that United Airlines Flight 2003 was using for takeoff, according to a preliminary review, the FAA said. The United pilot had just been cleared for takeoff, the agency said.

“An air traffic controller noticed the situation and immediately canceled the takeoff clearance for the United flight,” the FAA said.

The FAA safety summit in McLean, Virginia, is the first of its kind since 2009 and kicks off a sweeping safety review the agency is conducting in the wake of the incursions.

“Today is about the entire system, which means it’s about all of us,” Buttigieg said at the summit’s opening on Wednesday. The summit includes safety investigators, industry representatives, union leaders, and others.

Buttigieg said Wednesday’s summit is the first in a series of coordinated events the FAA will conduct to find out what’s working well and what “new steps” need to be taken to ensure safety.

Air travel has had a strong safety record and is the safest form of travel, Buttigieg said, but “we dare not” take that record for granted.

The chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board told participants in the summit that the safety agency has made seven recommendations on runway collisions that have not been enacted.

“One is 23 years old and still appropriate today on technology warning pilots of an impending collision,” chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said.

“How many times are we going to have to issue the same recommendations over and over and over again?” she asked.

Homendy said she’s already found one common issue with the six runway incursions they are investigating. In each case, the cockpit voice recorder, known as one of the black boxes, was overwritten, preventing investigators from hearing what took place on the flight deck.

“All federal agencies here today need to ask: Are we doing everything possible to make our skies safer? We’ve been asking ourselves that very question at the NTSB,” she said.

Nick Calio, president and CEO of Airlines for America, the trade association representing the major airlines, told the summit, “There’s constant self-evaluation always going on.”

Calio said the airlines are looking at their data to try to find ways to make aviation safer so that close calls on runways, like those under investigation by the NTSB, don’t happen.

“I don’t want to speculate a lot on what’s happened there, because they’re all under investigation. And we’re all trying to determine what is going on. Is this a trend? Is this a pattern?” he said.

Rich Santa, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association union, cited a lack of staffing in air traffic control towers as a potential culprit.

“Unfortunately, we have a staffing issue right now, as air traffic controllers. We are 1,200 certified professional controllers less now than we were 10 years ago,” he said at the summit. “It’s time for us to accurately and adequately staff the facilities.”

Acting FAA Administrator Billy Nolen told the summit the agency is “continuing to hire” and is on pace to hire 1,500 controllers this year and another 1,800 next year.

The NTSB is investigating the string of runway incursions involving commercial airliners. The near-collisions on US runways also have prompted federal safety investigators to open a sweeping review.

Last month, a Southwest passenger jet and a FedEx cargo plane came as close as 100 feet from colliding at an Austin, Texas, airport, and it was a pilot – not air traffic controllers – who averted disaster, according to Homendy.

In January, there was an alarming close call similar to this latest one. A Delta Air Lines flight was taking off from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport when air traffic controllers “noticed another aircraft crossing the runway in front of the departing jetliner,” the FAA said in a statement.

Hong Kong/Tokyo
CNN
 — 

Hogwarts is coming to Tokyo, as Warner Bros. pushes to expand one of the most successful franchises in literary and cinematic history.

The company showed a preview of a new “Harry Potter” studio tour in the Japanese capital on Wednesday, its first outside the United Kingdom. The experience, which launches this summer, allows fans to wander the sets of Diagon Alley and Platform 9 3/4, and see original props and costumes from the films up close.

“We’ve kept it all,” Jeff Nagler, president of worldwide studio operations at Warner Bros., told CNN in an interview in Tokyo. Warner Bros. and CNN share the same parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD).

Nagler said the studio had chosen Japan because the country is one of its top markets — and also has potential to serve as a gateway to the wider Asia Pacific region.

“That was one of the easiest decisions for us actually,” he said, standing in front of a red Hogwarts Express train emitting gentle puffs of steam. “After the United States and after the UK, Japan is the third best area for ‘Harry Potter’ fandom.”

Nagler said he saw Asia Pacific as a vast, largely untapped opportunity for the company, with the new launch aimed at bringing in fans from countries such as China, South Korea and Australia.

“We see this tour as being able to attract … visitors from all of [those] regions,” he said. “It’s really going to open the market well for us here.”

The company’s existing London tour is already popular with US visitors, Nagler added: “But we weren’t having quite as many people from the Asia Pacific region.”

Warner Bros. declined to share revenue figures for its London tour business. But since opening its doors there in 2012, the studio has welcomed more than 17 million visitors, it said.

The Tokyo offering marks the latest addition to the “Harry Potter” franchise.

Last month, Warner Bros. also launched “Hogwarts Legacy,” a new video game tied to the series that allows users to cast spells, brew potions and explore an older version of Hogwarts set in the 1800s.

Warners Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has pointed to the game’s initial success, calling it a core part of the Hollywood giant’s overall strategy. In a February earnings call, he said it had racked up $850 million in retail sales in its first two weeks since launch.

The company wants to continue to capitalize on the popularity of the hit films, even though “we haven’t done a ‘Harry Potter’ movie in 15 years,” according to Zaslav.

The films “provided a lot of the profits of Warner Bros. Motion Pictures over the last 25 years,” he told analysts in a November results presentation.

“We are very fortunate to have a huge share of the most beloved and globally recognized storytelling IP in the world, including ‘Harry Potter,’” he said.

“We intend to take full advantage of these one-of-a-kind franchises across our various platforms.”