Stopthatgirl7

NASA administrator Bill Nelson called for an investigation into a report that Elon Musk has been having secret conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin while dually involved in classified intelligence contracts with the U.S. government.

“I don’t know that that story is true. I think it should be investigated,” Nelson said Fridayat a Semafor conference in Washington. “If the story’s true, that there have been multiple conversations between Elon Musk and the president of Russia, then I think that would be concerning, particularly for NASA, the Department of Defense, for some of the intelligence agencies.”

Alongside its endorsement of Kamala Harris, the Los Angeles Times editorial board had also planned a multi-part series against Donald Trump before the whole thing was quashed by owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, TheWrap has learned.

According to internal memos viewed by TheWrap, the series, tentatively called “The Case Against Trump,” would have ran throughout this week. The endorsement of Kamala Harris would then have been published on Sunday.

However, Soon-Shiong ordered the cancellation 0f the series and the endorsement without explanation, current and now former staffers have confirmed, setting off a massive crisis for the 142-year-old paper.

Microsoft boss Satya Nadella will earn a wallet-busting $79.1m (£60.9m) this financial year, up 63 percent on his compensation for 2023.

The huge boost to Nadella's pay in both cash and stock, announced by Microsoft last night, comes after a positive year overall for the company's financial revenues - but a turbulent 12 months for its employees.

2024 has seen two mass layoffs at Microsoft, with 1900 staff laid off in January, before a further 650 Xbox employees were shown the door in September.

Elon Musk's super PAC did not announce a lottery winner Wednesday in its daily $1 million giveaway that sparked concern from legal experts and prompted a warning from the Justice Department. 

**Why it matters: **The DOJ sent a letter notifying America PAC, Musk's pro-Trumpgroup, that its lottery could violate federal law against paying people to register to vote, per multiple outlets

• The SpaceX CEO had pledged to give away $1 million every day to registered voters in swing states who sign the super PAC's petition in favor of the First and Second Amendments.
• Musk endorsed Trump after his first assassination attempt, and Trump has dangled the possibility of Musk heading a government committee to slash regulations if reelected.

Thanks to a provision buried in the tax code, Elon Musk could reap one of the largest personalized tax breaks in American history if former President Donald Trump wins the 2024 election and fulfills his pledge to appoint Musk to a top government post, according to tax and ethics experts’ review of long-standing statutes. 

This special tax benefit — which is only available to federal officials — would be in addition to massive tax breaks Musk could reap if a new Trump administration furthercuts income and other taxes for billionaires.

Arizona law enforcement officials are conducting an arson investigation after election ballots were damaged when a USPS mail collection box was burned in Maricopa County, a Democratic stronghold.

ABC 15 reported that crews responded to the USPS Osborn Station around 1:30 a.m. on Thursday and found a mail collection box on fire.

"Approximately 20 electoral ballots were damaged, along with additional miscellaneous mail," Phoenix Fire Department officials revealed, according to ABC 15.

A new rumor alleges that Microsoft may have slowed down development on PS5 ports of **Xbox **first-party games. As part of an unexpected strategy shift, Xbox started publishing games from its first-party back-catalog on PS5 earlier this year, but it seems negative fan reactions might have compelled Microsoft to relax its porting efforts, at least temporarily.

Xbox's multiplatform push kicked off with an initial roster of four first-party games, namely Hi-Fi Rush, Sea of Thieves, Pentiment, and Grounded. Out of these games, Sea of Thieves particularly enjoyed tremendous success with over one million copies reportedly sold on PS5. It didn't take long for more rumors to start rolling in about which other Xbox first-party games could make the jump to PlayStation platforms, but so far, Microsoft has only confirmed that Doom: The Dark Ages and Indiana Jones and The Great Circle will come to PS5 in 2025.

However, it seems the announcement of Indiana Jones coming to PS5 may have led to a shift behind the scenes at Xbox in terms of its multiplatform strategy. Reputable insider eXtas1s, who routinely breaks accurate Game Pass news, stated in a recent tweet that Microsoft has either "paused" or "slowed down" the PS5 ports it's currently working on. The insider emphasized that this doesn't mean those Xbox first-party ports for PS5 are canceled, just that Microsoft is possibly re-evaluating them in some capacity at the moment.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The most far-reaching of Ohio’s laws restricting abortion was struck down on Thursday by a county judge who said last year’s voter-approved amendment enshrining reproductive rights renders the so-called heartbeat law unconstitutional.

Enforcement of the 2019 law banning most abortions once cardiac activity is detected — as early as six weeks into pregnancy, before many women know they’re pregnant — had been paused pending the challenge before Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Christian Jenkins.

Jenkins said that when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and returned power over the abortion issue to the states, “Ohio’s Attorney General evidently didn’t get the memo.”

Larian director of publishing Michael Douse, never one to be shy about speaking his mind, has spoken his mind about Ubisoft's decision to disband the Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown development team, saying it's the result of a "broken strategy" that prioritizes subscriptions over sales.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is quite good. PC Gamer's Mollie Taylor felt it was dragged down by a very slow start, calling it "a slow burn to a fault" in an overall positive review, and it holds an enviable 86 aggregate score on Metacritic. Despite that, Ubisoft recently confirmed that the development team has been scattered to the four winds to work on "other projects that will benefit from their expertise."

This, Douse feels, is at least partially the outcome of Ubisoft's focus on subscriptions over conventional game sales—the whole "feeling comfortable with not owning your game" thing espoused by Ubisoft director of subscriptions Philippe Tremblay earlier this year—and the decision to stop releasing games on Steam, which is far and away the biggest digital storefront for PC gaming.

DALLAS - On Nov. 1, hospitals in Texas will have to start asking patients if they are United States citizens.

The move comes after an August executive order by Governor Greg Abbott.

The data must be reported to the state no later than March 1, 2025, and continue to be reported quarterly.

Abbott says he wants to know how much taxpayer dollars are going to providing care to non-citizens.

Oct 23 (Reuters) - An industry group representing cable and internet providers sued along with two others on Wednesday to block a U.S. Federal Trade Commission rule that requires companies to offer simple cancellation mechanisms for subscriptions.

NCTA - The Internet & Television Association and groups representing the home security and online advertising industries said in papers filed with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans that the rule known as "click to cancel" oversteps the FTC's authority and was not supported by evidence.

A spokesperson for the FTC declined to comment.

The FTC finalized the rule on Oct. 16 after considering thousands of comments from individuals, industry groups and consumer advocates.

A total of 51 men are on trial over their alleged attacks on Gisèle Pelicot, recruited by her then-husband Dominique Pelicot, who has admitted drugging and raping her.

The 50 men accused of rape and assault alongside Dominique Pelicot are aged between 26 and 74. They include a nurse, a journalist, a prison warden, a local councillor, a soldier, lorry drivers and farm workers. They each face up to 20 years in prison.

In total, 49 are accused of rape, one of attempted rape and one of sexual assault. Five others are also accused of possessing child abuse imagery.

Most lived in south-eastern France within a 60km radius of the village of Mazan, where the Pelicots lived. Six have previous convictions for domestic violence, two have convictions for sexual violence. A total of 23 have a criminal record for offences such as drunk-driving and possession of drugs.