Hollywood actors join screenwriters in historic industry-stopping strike as contract talks collapse

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Leaders of Hollywood's actors' union voted Thursday to join screenwriters in the first joint strike in more than six decades, shutting down production across the entertainment industry after talks for a new contract with studios and streaming services broke down.

It’s the first time two major Hollywood unions have been on strike at the same time since 1960, when Ronald Reagan was the actors’ guild president.

In an impassioned speech as the strike, which begins at midnight, was announced, actors’ union president and former “The Nanny” star Fran Drescher chastised industry executives.

“Employers make Wall Street and greed their priority and they forget about the essential contributors that make the machine run,” Drescher said. “It is disgusting. Shame on them. They stand on the wrong side of history.”

Hours earlier, a three-year contract had expired and talks broke off between the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers representing employers including Disney, Netflix, Amazon and others.

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Lisa Marie Presley died from small bowel obstruction caused by bariatric surgery, coroner says

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Lisa Marie Presley died from complications from bariatric surgery she had several years ago, authorities said Thursday.

The January 12 death at age 54 of the singer, songwriter and heir of Elvis Presley was ruled as being from natural causes due to effects of a small bowel obstruction.

Additional details about what caused Presley's death were included in an autopsy report released Thursday afternoon by the office of the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner.

The report says the complication that Presley experienced is a common complication from bariatric surgery, which is a weight loss procedure. The Mayo Clinic says it is often done when other weight loss methods haven't worked or if a person has a serious medical condition.

Presley died at a Los Angeles hospital, where she had been rushed by paramedics responding to a 911 call of a woman in cardiac arrest at her home. No indication was made public at the time of what may have caused the medical issue.

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Andrew Tate sues his accusers in human trafficking case

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Controversial social media personality Andrew Tate and his brother are suing a Florida woman, saying she falsely accused them of imprisoning her in Romania, leading to their arrest there on human trafficking charges.

The widely followed former professional kickboxer and his brother, Tristan, are seeking at least $5 million in the lawsuit, which was filed in Palm Beach County against the woman, her parents, another woman who lived at the Tates' Bucharest estate and a male friend of the woman.

The Tates say the five conspired to falsely accuse them of human trafficking and rape, costing them their freedom and millions of dollars in income from their lucrative social media, podcasting and business ventures. The lawsuit says the woman and her parents are residents of Palm Beach County, which is why it was filed there on Tuesday.

Romanian officials arrested the Tates in December and indicted them last month, saying the brothers forced seven victims into pornography and subjected them to physical violence. They remain under house arrest in Romania.

But attorneys Thomas Maniotis and Joseph D. McBride in their lawsuit say the Tates are the victims of the Florida woman. They call her “a professional con artist" and say she pursued a sexual relationship with Tristan Tate in order to move to Romania, then tried to defraud the brothers. When that failed, she conspired with the others to make false statements to Romanian and U.S. embassy authorities that led to the arrests, the attorneys say.

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Soda sweetener aspartame now listed as possible cancer cause. But it's still considered safe

The World Health Organization's cancer agency has deemed the sweetener aspartame — found in diet soda and countless other foods — as a “possible” cause of cancer, while a separate expert group looking at the same evidence said it still considers the sugar substitute safe in limited quantities.

The differing results of the coordinated reviews were released early Friday. One came from the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a special branch of the WHO. The other report was from an expert panel selected by WHO and another U.N. group, the Food and Agriculture Organization.

The Lyon, France-based cancer agency periodically reviews potential cancer hazards, but doesn't determine how likely they are to cause cancer in their evaluations which range from “possibly” carcinogenic to “probably” to cancer-causing.

Aspartame joins a category with more than 300 other possible cancer-causing agents, including things like aloe vera extract, Asian-style pickled vegetables and carpentry work.

The guidance on use of the sweetener, though, isn’t changing.

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FTC reportedly investigating ChatGPT creator OpenAI over consumer protection issues

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has launched an investigation into ChatGPT creator OpenAI and whether the artificial intelligence company violated consumer protection laws by scraping public data and publishing false information through its chatbot, according to reports in the Washington Post and the New York Times.

The agency sent OpenAI a 20-page letter requesting detailed information on its AI technology, products, customers, privacy safeguards and data security arrangements, according to the reports. An FTC spokesman had no comment.

OpenAI founder Sam Altman tweeted disappointment that news of the investigation started as a “leak,” noting that the move would “not help build trust,” but added the company will work with the FTC.

“It’s super important to us that out technology is safe and pro-consumer, and we are confident we follow the law,” he wrote. “We protect user privacy and design our systems to learn about the world, not private individuals.”

The FTC's move represents the most significant regulatory threat so far to the nascent but fast-growing AI industry, although it's not the only challenge facing these companies. Comedian Sarah Silverman and two other authors have sued both OpenAI and Facebook parent Meta for copyright infringement, claiming that the companies' AI systems were illegally “trained” by exposing them to datasets containing illegal copies of their works.

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Northwestern fires baseball coach Jim Foster amid misconduct allegations

EVANSTON, Ill. (AP) — Northwestern baseball coach Jim Foster was fired Thursday amid allegations of misconduct, three days after football coach Pat Fitzgerald was dismissed because of a hazing scandal.

Foster spent just one season as the Wildcats' coach. The move was announced in a brief statement from athletic director Derrick Gragg.

“Nothing will ever be more important to Northwestern than providing its students a place that allows them to develop in the classroom, in the community, and in competition at the absolute highest level, and building a culture which allows our staff to thrive,” Gragg said.

“This has been an ongoing situation and many factors were considered before reaching this resolution. As the director of athletics, I take ownership of our head coaching hires and we will share our next steps as they unfold.”

The Chicago Tribune and WSCR-AM reported this week that Foster led a toxic culture that prompted several assistant coaches to quit, and that his bullying and verbally abusive behavior prompted a human resources investigation by the university.

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Usher's ex-wife wants to drain Georgia's largest lake, where a boater fatally struck her son

ATLANTA (AP) — The ex-wife of R&B singer Usher is calling to drain Georgia's largest lake, where her son was fatally injured 11 years ago.

Fashion designer Tameka Foster has collected more than 2,500 signatures for her online petition imploring officials to “drain, clean, and restore” Lake Sidney Lanier, to allow for safety improvements and the removal of hazardous debris and other obstructions.

Kile Glover, her 11-year-old son with Bounce TV founder Ryan Glover, died in July 2012 after a personal watercraft struck the boy as he floated in an inner tube on the lake.

“Draining, cleaning, and restoring Lake Lanier is not only necessary but also an opportunity to honor the memory of those who have lost their lives and prevent further tragedies,” Foster wrote in her change.org petition, which she has also promoted on her Instagram page.

Located roughly an hour's drive northeast of Atlanta, Lake Lanier covers nearly 60 square miles (155 square kilometers) and has waters up to 160 feet (49 meters) deep. It's far from just a getaway for millions of boaters, anglers and other yearly visitors.

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Justice Kavanaugh seeks to dispel the notion that the Supreme Court is partisan

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. (AP) — Justice Brett Kavanaugh pointed to the mixed U.S. Supreme Court decisions this term as he sought Thursday to dispel notions that it is partisan, even after conservatives brought about the end of affirmative action in college admissions and struck down President Joe Biden's student loan debt relief program.

“The court is an institution of law. It's an institution of law not of politics, not of partisanship,” Kavanaugh said at a judicial conference in Minnesota, in the first public remarks by a justice since the court recessed for the summer late last month.

The Supreme Court has been reshaped by the three justices nominated by President Donald Trump, including Kavanaugh. Although Kavanaugh sided with the conservative majorities in the affirmative action and student loan rulings, as well as last summer's ruling overturning the nationwide right to abortion, he was also part of the mixed conservative and liberal majorities this term that backed Black voters in Alabama and preserved a federal law aimed at keeping Native American children with Native families.

And the term was marked by other notable surprises, rejecting conservative positions in a North Carolina redistricting case that could have reshaped elections across the country, while backing the Biden administration in a fight over deportation priorities.

“We have lived up, in my estimation, to deciding cases based on law and not based on partisan affiliation and partisanship," Kavanaugh said. "We don't caucus in separate rooms. We don't meet separately. We're not sitting on different sides of the aisle at an oral argument. ... We work as a group of nine.”

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Thousands of Ukraine civilians are being held in Russian prisons. Russia plans to build many more

ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine (AP) — The Ukrainian civilians woke long before dawn in the bitter cold, lined up for the single toilet and were loaded at gunpoint into the livestock trailer. They spent the next 12 hours or more digging trenches on the front lines for Russian soldiers.

Many were forced to wear overlarge Russian military uniforms that could make them a target, and a former city administrator trudged around in boots five sizes too big. By the end of the day, their hands curled into icy claws.

Nearby, in the occupied region of Zaporizhzhia, other Ukrainian civilians dug mass graves into the frozen ground for fellow prisoners who had not survived. One man who refused to dig was shot on the spot — yet another body for the grave.

Thousands of Ukrainian civilians are being detained across Russia and the Ukrainian territories it occupies, in centers ranging from brand-new wings in Russian prisons to clammy basements. Most have no status under Russian law.

And Russia is planning to hold possibly thousands more. A Russian government document obtained by The Associated Press dating to January outlined plans to create 25 new prison colonies and six other detention centers in occupied Ukraine by 2026.

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First over-the-counter birth control pill gets FDA approval

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal regulators on Thursday approved the nation's first over-the-counter birth control pill in a landmark decision that will soon allow American women and girls to obtain contraceptive medication as easily as they buy aspirin and eyedrops.

The Food and Drug Administration cleared once-a-day Opill to be sold without a prescription, making it the first such medication to be moved out from behind the pharmacy counter. The manufacturer, Ireland-based Perrigo, won’t start shipping the pill until early next year, and there will be no age restrictions on sales.

Hormone-based pills have long been the most common form of birth control in the U.S., used by tens of millions of women since the 1960s. Until now, all of them required a prescription.

Medical societies and women’s health groups have pushed for wider access for decades, noting that an estimated 45% of the 6 million annual pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended. Teens and girls, women of color and those with low incomes report greater hurdles in getting prescriptions and picking them up.

The challenges can include paying for a doctor's visit, getting time off from work and finding child care.

News from © The Associated Press, 2023