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A painting by street artist Banksy with an environmental message and an estimate of up to 5 million pounds ($6.3 million) is going up for auction, with some of the proceeds helping victims of the Los Angeles wildfires. Sothebys auction house said Tuesday that Crude Oil (Vettriano) is being sold in London next month from the collection of Mark Hoppus, bassist with California skate-punk band Blink-182, who sees Banksy as a kindred spirit. Hoppus said he was drawn to the subversion, humor and intelligence of Banksys work and the similarities between skateboarding, punk rock and art. I feel like street art and punk rock have the same core, Hoppus said. The left-out and overlooked making their own reality. Just go make art. Its the same spirit. And Ive loved art and especially street art ever since realizing that. Crude Oil (Vettriano) is part of a 2005 series of works in which Banksy put a satirical spin on famous paintings withering Vincent van Goghs Sunflowers and smashing the diner window in Edward Hoppers Nighthawks. The artist said his aim was to show that the real damage done to our environment is not done by graffiti writers and drunken teenagers, but by big business. The work going under the hammer is based on The Singing Butler, a painting by Scottish artist Jack Vettriano showing a couple in evening dress dancing on a beach as servants proffer sheltering umbrellas. Banksy has added a sinking oil liner and two figures lugging a barrel of toxic waste. We loved this painting since the moment we saw it, said Hoppus, who bought the artwork with his wife, Skye Everly, in 2011. He said the painting unmistakably Banksy, but different has hung in the familys homes in London and Los Angeles. Hoppus said he would use the proceeds of the sale to buy work by upcoming artists. Some will go to the California Fire Foundation, Childrens Hospital Los Angeles and Cedars Sinai Hematology Oncology Research. Banksy, who has never confirmed his full identity, began his career spray-painting buildings in Bristol, England, and has become one of the worlds best-known artists. His mischievous and often satirical images include two male police officers kissing, armed riot police with yellow smiley faces and a chimpanzee with a sign bearing the words, Laugh now, but one day Ill be in charge. Several of his works have sold for multiple millions at auction. The record is almost 18.6 million pounds ($25.4 million at the time) paid at Sothebys in October 2021 for Love is in the Bin an image of a girl with a balloon that partially self-destructed during an auction three years earlier thanks to a shredder hidden in the frame. Crude Oil (Vettriano) is on display at Sothebys in New York until Thursday and in London Feb. 26-March 4. Jill Lawless, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
A new artificial intelligence company from one of the cofounders of OpenAI is quickly becoming one of the most highly valued AI firms in an increasingly crowded marketplace. Ilya Sutskevers Safe Superintelligence (SSI) is in the process of raising in excess of $1 billion with a valuation topping $30 billion. Bloomberg reports San Francisco-based Greenoaks Capital Partners is leading the deal and plans to invest $500 million itself. Greenoaks did not reply to a request for comment about the investment. $30 billion might be well short of the $340 billion valuation OpenAI boasts, but its still well above many others in the space, including Perplexity, which has a $9 billion valuation. The new figure is significantly higher than SSIs $5 billion valuation in its last round, held this past September, when it raised $1 billion from investors including Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz. SSI was founded by Ilya Sutskever, Daniel Gross, and Daniel Levy last June, just one month after Sutskever departed OpenAI. Very little is known about the company so far, aside from its stated goal of building . . . well, a safe superintelligent AI system. The company does not yet have a product on the market. We approach safety and capabilities in tandem as technical problems to be solved through revolutionary engineering and scientific breakthroughs, the companys website reads. We plan to advance capabilities as fast as possible while making sure our safety always remains ahead. . . . We have started the worlds first straight-shot SSI lab, with one goal and one product: a safe superintelligence. Ilya Sutskever, born in Russia but raised in Jerusalem, studied with AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton, who has warned about the dangers of AI. A short stint at Google led to his meeting and ultimately working with cofounders Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and Elon Musk, on the organization that would become OpenAI. (Musk would later call Sutskever the linchpin to OpenAIs success.) Sutskever was one of the board members who led the push to remove Altman from the CEO role at OpenAI for a short period at the end of 2023. Sutskever and Altman reportedly clashed over the pace at which generative AI is being commercialized. Days after helping orchestrate the coup, Sutskever reversed course, signing onto an employee letter demanding Altmans return and expressing regret for his participation in the boards actions. He was removed from the board after Altman returned. (Sutskever isn’t the only OpenAI alum working on his own AI project. On Tuesday, former chief technology officer Mira Murati officially announced Thinking Machines Lab, her AI startup.) When Sutskever left OpenAI, he posted on X that he was working on a new project that is very personally meaningful to me about which I will share details in due time. Even with the subsequent announcement about SSIs creation last June, those details remain scant. SSI and Sutskever have dropped a few hints, however, saying that they plan on creating a single product with one focus and one goal. And SSI has made it clear that it plans to ignore pressure from markets or investors to release its product. Our singular focus means no distraction by management overhead or product cycles, and our business model means safety, security, and progress are all insulated from short-term commercial pressures, the website reads. Sutskever is widely respected as one of the worlds top AI researchers, which makes this possible funding round less surprising (even if the companys valuation is higher than expected). Despite that, he has eschewed the spotlight for much of his career, not doing many interviews, but speaking about AIs potential for both good and bad when he does. AI is a great thing. It will solve all the problems that we have today. It will solve unemployment . . . disease . . . poverty, he said in a documentary titled, iHuman, from filmmaker Tonje Hessen Schei, which came out in 2020. But it will also create new problems,” Sutskever continued. “The problem of fake news is going to be a million times worse. Cyberattacks will become much more extreme. We will have totally automated AI weapons. I think AI has the potential to create infinitely stable dictatorships.”
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E-Commerce
The measles outbreak in rural West Texas has grown to 58 cases as of Tuesday, and eight people in neighboring eastern New Mexico also have been diagnosed with measles. Public health officials in New Mexico have said they suspect some of the state’s cases are linked to the Texas outbreak, but haven’t confirmed it. Measles is a highly contagious disease. Here’s what you should know about how to protect yourself against measles, as well as what’s happening in Texas and New Mexico. Where are measles spreading currently? The West Texas cases are concentrated in Gaines County, which has 45 infections. Terry County to the north has nine confirmed cases, while Lubbock and Lynn counties have a case each and Yoakum County has two. The Texas Department of State Health Services said Monday that 13 people are hospitalized with measles. State health officials say this outbreak is Texas’ largest in nearly 30 years. Health department spokeswoman Lara Anton said last week that cases have been concentrated in a close-knit, undervaccinated Mennonite community especially among families who attend small private religious schools or are homeschooled. At least three of the New Mexico cases are in Lea County, which borders Gaines County in Texas. The state health department has said people may have been exposed at a grocery store, an elementary school, a church, Nor-Lea Hospital and a Walgreens in Hobbs, New Mexico. What is measles? Measles a respiratory virus that can survive in the air for up to two hours. Up to 9 out of 10 people who are susceptible will get the virus if exposed, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most kids will recover from the measles if they get it, but infection can lead to dangerous complications like pneumonia, blindness, brain swelling and death. Is the vaccine safe? Yes, the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine is safe and highly effective in preventing measles infection and severe cases of the disease. The first shot is recommended for children between 12 and 15 months old and the second between 4 and 6 years old. The vaccine series is required for kids before entering kindergarten in public schools nationwide. Before the vaccine was introduced in 1963, the U.S. saw some 3 million to 4 million cases per year. Now, its usually fewer than 200 in a normal year. There is no link between the vaccine and autism, despite a now-discredited study and health disinformation. Why do vaccination rates matter? In communities with high vaccination rates above 95% diseases like measles have a harder time spreading through communities. This is called herd immunity. But childhood vaccination rates have declined nationwide since the pandemic and more parents are claiming religious or personal conscience waivers to exempt their kids from required shots. The U.S. saw a rise in measles cases in 2024, including an outbreak in Chicago that sickened more than 60. Five years earlier, measles cases were the worst in almost three decades in 2019. Gaines County has one of the highest rates in Texas of school-aged children who opt out of at least one required vaccine, with nearly 14% of K-12 children in the 2023-24 school year. Health officials say that number is likely higher because it doesnt include many children who are homeschooled and whose data would not be reported. What are public health officials doing to stop the spread? Health workers are hosting regular vaccination clinic and screening efforts in Texas. They are also working with schools to educate people about the importance of vaccination and offering shots. Devi Shastri, Associated Press health writer The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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