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OpenAI ends Disney partnership as it closes Sora video-making app

​ OpenAI ends Disney partnership as it closes Sora video-making app. 4 hours ago. Osmond ChiaBusiness reporter. OpenAI. OpenAI has shut down its artificial intelligence (AI) video-generation app Sora less than two years after its launch made headlines for creating realistic clips based on simple prompts.. At the same time OpenAI will also wind down its content partnership with entertainment giant Disney, the BBC understands.. OpenAI told the BBC on Wednesday that it has discontinued Sora so that it can focus on other developments, such as robotics “that will help people solve real-world, physical tasks.”. A spokesperson for The Walt Disney Company said “we respect OpenAI’s decision to exit the video generation business and to shift its priorities elsewhere”.. Disney will engage with other AI platforms to find ways to responsibly use the technology without infringing on intellectual property rights, a spokesperson said.. OpenAI said it is shutting down both its Sora consumer app and the internet-based platform that professional install to generate videos.. The BBC understands that with the closure of Sora, OpenAI will no longer focus on developing video-generation tools.. The firm said it aims to create other forms of advanced AI, including “agentic” technology capable of autonomously completing tasks with little human oversight.. OpenAI plans to apply the same technology used to teach AI how to produce realistic videos to training robots.. Image-making tools on ChatGPT have not been affected by Sora’s closure, OpenAI said.. Sora launched in 2024 to huge interest around the world due to the high quality of its AI-generated videosthat looked as if a professional studio had produced them.. Creative industries ‘incredibly worried’ about OpenAI-Disney deal. Warner settles lawsuit with AI music firm and launches joint venture. But the app also sparked concerns about copyright violations and the threat it posed to the media industry.. In December, Disney became the first major studio to license intellectual property (IP) to OpenAI to use in its AI video tools.. The three-year deal allowed Sora users to create AI videos with Disney characters like Mickey Mouse and Yoda from Star Wars.. The agreement was seen as a turning point for the tech industry and Hollywood, coming after major studios had issued legal challenges to AI firms over the use of their IP.. Some in the media industry also raised concerns that the deal would mark a major step toward AI replacing entertainment industry talent.. Sora also faced a growing number of competitors in the AI video-making market. That list includes China’s Seedance, which created controversy in February after realistic videos featuring Hollywood characters that were generated using the app went viral online.. Disney. Artificial intelligence. International business. Technology  

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BBC News World

Dozens of bodies, mostly infants, discovered in Kenya mass grave

​ Dozens of bodies, mostly infants, discovered in Kenya mass grave. 55 minutes ago. Basillioh RukangaNairobi. BBC. About 32 bodies, mostly children, have been dug up from a mass grave in the western Kenyan town of Kericho as investigations continue into the shocking discovery.. The exhumation was done after the police obtained a court order to retrieve 14 bodies that were initially believed to have been buried at the site.. Government pathologist Richard Njoroge told journalists on Tuesday evening that what they found was “quite unusual” with bodies “stacked in gunny bags”, after a day-long process that was interrupted by heavy rains.. A post-mortem examination is expected to begin on Wednesday, amid calls to promptly identify the bodies and investigate the circumstances of the deaths.. Njoroge said there were “seven adults and 25 children”, with the children being infants and foetuses. A number of body parts were also retrieved.. The pathologist added that some of the bodies appeared to have originated from hospitals and mortuaries but that would be further determined after autopsies.. He noted that the adult remains were highly decomposed, with those of the children less so, which he said indicated that they died at different times.. On Monday, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) said their initial findings indicated that 13 unclaimed bodies had officially been released from a hospital in neighbouring Nyamira county and transported to Kericho for burial last Friday.. However, many questions remain about the additional bodies and the manner of burial.. It is also not clear how the bodies came to be buried at the site that belongs to the National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK), which has denied links to the secret burial.. An official of the organisation told the local Daily Nation news website that the burial was conducted without their approval and caught NCCK officials by surprise.. The DCI had earlier said it was investigating whether there was any criminal activity besides the reported irregularities in the burial process.. Two suspects, a public health officer from Nyamira and a cemetery caretaker, have reportedly been arrested in connection with the matter, with others being questioned.. Human rights group Vocal Africa said the discovery was a “staggering and horrific escalation that exposes the true scale of this tragedy”.. “With reports of mutilation and dismemberment among the remains, the discovery points to a level of violence that demands immediate, transparent investigation and national accountability,” it said.. “Identification of these victims must be done as soon as possible,” outgoing Law Society of Kenya president Faith Odhiambo said.. The discovery comes after hundreds of bodies were found in a remote forest in 2023 near the coastal city of Malindi in one of the country’s worst cases of cult-related mass deaths.. Self-proclaimed pastor Paul Mackenzie was arrested after 429 bodies, including children, were dug u  

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BBC News World

Graffiti conviction for Australian woman who stuck googly eyes on sculpture

​ Graffiti conviction for Australian woman who stuck googly eyes on sculpture. 1 hour ago. Koh Ewe. Facebook/Amelia Vanderhorst. A 20-year-old woman has been convicted on a graffiti charge for sticking googly eyes on a famous sculpture in South Australia.. Amelia Vanderhorst pleaded guilty to the charge at Mount Gambier Magistrates Court on Tuesday. She was ordered to pay A$2,000 ($1,394; £1,040) as compensation and complete 60 hours of community service.. Vanderhorst had been under the influence of MDMA and three litres of vodka she had consumed on the night of the offence last September, her lawyer Michael Hill told the court.. She was originally charged with property damage, but that was amended to a graffiti charge after negotiations with the prosecution, Hill said.. Since the incident, Vanderhorst has “taken meaningful steps to address the issues that contributed to her offending, including reducing her substance use and focusing on stabilising her personal circumstances”, Hill said in a statement to the BBC.. “She is committed to making better decisions moving forward,” he said.. Vanderhorst had initially started a crowdfunding campaign for a lawyer, claiming that she was “young and jobless”, ABC reported. But she later decided to cancel the campaign and return the donated funds, Hill said.. Last July, the city unveiled the sculpture Cast in Blue, which locals have since nicknamed the Blue Blob. When the sculpture was first proposed, it drew mixed reactions from the local community due to its price tag and design.. Local Mayor Lynette Martin said the googly eyes was “wilful damage to a valued public artwork”, and that repairs to the artwork would be costly as the stickers could not be removed without damaging the sculpture.. Costing A$136,000, the artwork represents a mythical megafauna, with the sculpture’s designers inspired by an ancient marsupial ant-eater found in local caves that was “massive, lumbering and fascinating”.. City of Mount Gambier. Australia  

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BBC News World

Boss of financial giant BlackRock warns of global recession if oil price hits $150

​ Warning oil rise to $150 could trigger global recession. 17 minutes ago. Simon Jack,Business editorand. Nick Edser,Business reporter. If the price of oil hits $150 a barrel it will trigger a global recession, the boss of US financial giant BlackRock has told the BBC.. Larry Fink, who leads the world’s largest asset manager, said if Iran “remains a threat” and oil prices stay high it will have “profound implications” for the world economy.. In a wide-ranging exclusive interview, he also denied there was an AI bubble, although he said the new technology meant too many people were pursuing university degrees and not enough doing technical training.. BlackRock is a financial colossus, controlling assets worth $14 trillion (£10.5tn), and is one of the biggest investors in many of the world’s largest companies.. Its size and spread gives Fink – who is one of the eight co-founders of the business, which started in 1988 – a unique insight into the health of the global economy.. The conflict in the Middle East has triggered wild moves on financial markets as people try to assess what will happen to energy costs.. For Fink, it is too early to determine the ultimate scale and outcome of the conflict, but he believes it will be one of two extreme scenarios.. In one, if the conflict is settled and Iran becomes a country that can be accepted again by the international community then the price of oil could fall back to below where it stood before the war.. But if not, he says, then there could be “years of above $100, closer to $150 oil, which has profound implications in the economy” and an outcome of “a probably stark and steep recession”.. The surge in energy costs has led to some in the UK to argue that it should be focusing more on producing its own oil and gas.. On Tuesday, industry body Offshore Energies UK said that without more domestic production, the country risks becoming reliant on imports “at a time of rising global instability”.. Fink says countries need to be pragmatic about their energy mix by using all sources available to them, but providing cheap energy is key to driving growth and raising living standards.. Oil back above $100 a barrel as conflicting claims emerge on US-Iran talks. What on earth is going on with the oil price?. Why are gas prices soaring and how could it affect you?. “Rising energy prices is a very regressive tax. It affects the poor more than the wealthy.”. While the UK already has some solar and wind power and hydrocarbons, if oil prices were to rise to $150 for three or four years, “you would have so many countries moving so rapidly towards solar and maybe even wind”.. Countries should not depend on just one source, he says.. “Use what you have unquestionably, but also aggressively move towards alternative sources too.”. ‘Zero similarities with 2007-08’. Some analysts have suggested that there are some echoes of the run-up to the 2007-08 financial crisis in the markets at the moment.. Energy prices are surging and some  

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BBC News World

Danish PM fails to secure majority in party’s weakest election showing since 1903

​ Danish PM fails to secure majority in party’s weakest election showing since 1903. 47 minutes ago. Adrienne Murrayin Copenhagen. Reuters. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s Social Democrats won the most votes in Tuesday’s Danish general election but slumped to its weakest performance since 1903, as her coalition bloc failed to secure a majority.. With 21.9% of the vote, Frederiksen’s party still has by the far the most seats, but her left-wing grouping has fallen well short of the 90 seats needed to form a majority.. The Social Democrats have been in power since 2019, and Frederiksen told cheering supporters she was “sorry that we did not get more votes”.. In a message of defiance, she added: “There is nothing today that can make me sad that the Social Democrats have once again become the Danes’ absolute favourite political party.”. The Social Democrats’ main right-wing rival, the Liberals, also had their worst showing for a century, with just 10.1%, falling behind the Green Left SF.. Frederiksen still has a chance to stay in power for a third term, however Denmark is typically run by coalition governments, and so tough negotiations – which could take days or weeks – now loom.. Twelve different political parties were on the ballot paper, and this tightly contested race has come right down to the wire.. Claiming a total of 84 seats, the “red bloc” of left-wing parties have clinched a small lead over the “blue bloc” on the right, who have 77 seats combined.. Both blocs have fallen short of the 90 seats that are needed for a majority in Denmark’s 179-seat parliament.. It is not yet clear which bloc will be able to build a majority.. “I have been responsible for this wonderful country for almost 7 years,” Frederiksen continued. “I am still ready to take on responsibility as Denmark’s prime minister.”. However, the Moderates, a small party holding 14 seats in the middle, now have the power to act as kingmaker, and all eyes are on its leader, former Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen.. Reuters. He took the lead in handling the Greenland stand-off with the United States, and went viral for his fist-bump following a meeting with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington.. With his signature pipe in hand, and surrounded by supporters on Tuesday night, Rasmussen told the crowd he favoured forming a government across the centre.. “We’re standing in the middle,” he said. “We’re ready.”. But Troels Lund Poulsen, who leads the Liberals, the blue bloc’s biggest party, has flatly ruled out going into government again with the Social Democrats, and urged Rasmussen to join him on the right. “It is possible to get a new direction in Denmark,” he said.. DR’s political correspondent, Christine Cordsen, has suggested that the most likely outcome is a center-left government with the Social Democrats, Red-Greens, the Moderates and the Danish Social Liberal Party.. This has been a bruising election outcome for Frederiksen, who after six y  

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BBC News World

‘He liked the fear in our eyes,’ Epstein survivors tell BBC

​ ‘He liked the fear in our eyes’, Epstein survivors tell BBC. 31 minutes ago. Ana FaguyWashington. Joanna Harrison never wanted to speak about the abuse she faced at the hands of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.. Like many survivors, she says Epstein’s assault filled her with shame and embarrassment. But after her name was unintentionally made public in the release of millions of files by the US government, she told BBC Newsnight’s Victoria Derbyshire she felt she had to speak out.. “It gets to a point where you’re being suffocated and you need to breathe, and I feel this is my way of trying to breathe,” Harrison said.. BBC Newsnight brought Harrison and four other Epstein survivors together for the first time in the same room. During the hours-long discussion that followed, there were supportive gestures and, as they studied photos of themselves from the time when they first met Epstein, there were tears.. In the wide-ranging interview, the survivors told their stories of grief and anger. Some revisited Epstein’s infamous private island, Little St James, while others recounted “eerie” moments at his New Mexico ranch.. They said they believed the powerful figures with whom he associated himself would most likely have known what was going on.. Survivor’s identity thrust into spotlight. Millions of documents related to the various investigations of Epstein were released by the US Department of Justice, but some of the unredacted material failed to obscure the identity of his victims.. Harrison was one of those people whose name was made public.. She told BBC Newsnight she never wanted the files to be released, fearing she would lose her anonymity.. “It’s not normal to see your abuser’s face every day for six years on TV,” Harrison said.. She recounted meeting Epstein in Florida when she was 18, and like other survivors, she said everything began with a massage.. “Everything seemed normal,” Harrison said. “When he began to masturbate, I completely froze. I don’t think I said two words in the car in the ride home.”. She later recounted Epstein raping her on his birthday.. Speaking publicly for the first time, Harrison said she doubted she and other survivors would ever get justice now that Epstein was dead. “I have questions I’ll never get an answer to.”. Five countries in five days with Clinton, Spacey and Maxwell. Chauntae Davies shared never-before-seen images with BBC Newsnight of her time travelling with Epstein on his private plane to Africa.. The pictures included Epstein’s co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell as well as actor Kevin Spacey and former President Bill Clinton. Spacey and Clinton were travelling on a humanitarian trip to promote Aids prevention.. “I described it in my journal at the time as the most eclectic group of people that you could put together… it was almost like a camp feel because you were travelling to five different countries in five days,” she said. On the plane they ate snacks, played cards and told stories.. “It  

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