Author: NY TIMES

The estate of the comedian George Carlin sued the makers of a podcast on Thursday after they claimed to use artificial intelligence to impersonate Carlin for a comedy special.The lawsuit was filed against Will Sasso and Chad Kultgen, hosts of the podcast “Dudesy,” saying that they infringed on the estate’s copyrights by training an A.I. algorithm on five decades of Carlin’s works for “George Carlin: I’m Glad I’m Dead,” which was posted on the podcast’s YouTube channel, where it remains. The lawsuit also says they illegally used Carlin’s name and likeness.The lawsuit calls for a judge to prevent “Dudesy” —…

Israeli forces pushed deeper into southern Gaza’s largest city on Wednesday, surrounding two major hospitals where thousands of people were seeking safety as a strike on a United Nations shelter killed at least nine people, according to U.N. officials and local health officials.The Israeli military said it had “currently ruled out” that its aerial or artillery fire had been responsible for the strike on the shelter in Khan Younis, where the U.N. was housing about 800 people. In addition to the nine dead, 75 other people were injured, according to Thomas White, who helps oversee U.N. aid operations in Gaza.…

His surname comes from the Russian word for hope — and for hundreds of thousands of antiwar Russians, that is, improbably enough, what he has become.Boris B. Nadezhdin is the only candidate running on an antiwar platform with a chance of getting on the ballot to oppose President Vladimir V. Putin in Russia’s presidential election in March. Russians who are against the war have rushed to sign his official petition inside and outside the country, hoping to supply enough signatures by a Jan. 31 deadline for him to succeed in joining the race.They have braved subzero temperatures in the Siberian…

A physical relationship is nearly impossible for a hard-working Bangladeshi taxi driver and his wife, who longed for each other. Source link

Toyota said it has halted the global shipments of 10 vehicles after it discovered that a subsidiary had “irregularities” with testing of diesel engines used in the automobiles, the latest embarrassing problem to hit one of the world’s biggest automakers in recent months.A Toyota unit used software to measure horse power output that made “values appear smoother with less variation,” Toyota, the parent company, said in a statement. The vehicles “meet engine output standards,” and there is no need to stop using the engines or vehicles, the company said. The company named the affected models and engines, but did not…

If you were bored enough — a stultifying job, living with Mom after a bad breakup — you, too, might climb into a mysterious limo carrying Andy Samberg. You might even consider the offer: outwit assassins for 30 days and win $1 million.It’s a risk that Tommy, played by Jake Johnson, is willing to take in “Self Reliance,” the dark comedy on Hulu that he also wrote and directed.Johnson, 45, was antsy during the pandemic when he decided the time for this project was now.“When you get on this roller coaster, you don’t know how long you’re going to be…

Britain’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, raised the pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Wednesday to allow more channels for humanitarian relief to enter Gaza.Mr. Cameron made the case during a private meeting with Mr. Netanyahu in Jerusalem. In a statement Thursday morning, he said he had told Mr. Netanyahu that more crossings into Gaza needed to be opened to allow more trucks to enter.“The scale of suffering in Gaza is unimaginable,” Mr. Cameron said. “We need an immediate humanitarian pause to get aid in and hostages out, followed by a sustainable cease-fire, without a return to hostilities.”After…

Drone strike kills three U.S. service members in JordanThree U.S. service members were killed in Jordan yesterday and 25 others were injured in what the U.S. said was a drone strike from an Iran-backed militia. The deaths were the first U.S. military fatalities from hostile fire in the turmoil spilling over from Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.The attack happened at a base near the Syrian border. Few details were immediately available, but the deaths of U.S. service members will almost certainly put more pressure on President Biden to respond more forcefully as turmoil grows in the Middle East after…

Who says you have to live in one place? Maybe a few tiny homes would be preferable.That’s what Robert Losonsky and Edith Wassenaar discovered when they traded a typical home in the Netherlands for several smaller ones, adopting a peripatetic lifestyle — one that prioritizes activities like surfing over work — in the process.Oddly enough, their embrace of small-scale living began with a hunt for more space.In 2017, they were living in a 1,500-square-foot apartment in an upscale neighborhood in The Hague. “But we started to work more and more from home,” said Mr. Losonsky, now 54, who had a…

In June 2021, the insurance plan for North Carolina state employees was paying for 2,800 people to take weight-loss drugs.Last year, it paid for nearly 25,000. Medications like Wegovy cost the North Carolina State Health Plan $100 million last year, rising seemingly out of nowhere to represent 10 percent of its spending on prescription drugs.“This is something we never anticipated,” said Dale Folwell, the state treasurer, whose office runs the health plan.Alarmed by the ballooning costs, the health plan’s governing board voted on Thursday to end all coverage of medications for weight loss, including Wegovy, which accounts for the vast…