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National Public Radio will receive approximately $36 million in grant money to operate the nations public radio interconnection system under the terms of a court settlement with the federal government’s steward of funding for public broadcasting stations. The settlement, announced late Monday, partially resolves a legal dispute in which NPR accused the Corporation for Public Broadcasting of bowing to pressure from President Donald Trump to cut off its funding. On March 25, Trump said at a news conference that he would love to defund NPR and PBS because he believes they are biased in favor of Democrats. NPR accused the CPB of violating its First Amendment free speech rights when it moved to cut off its access to grant money appropriated by Congress. NPR also claims Trump, a Republican, wants to punish it for the content of its journalism. On April 2, the CPBs board initially approved a three-year, roughly $36 million extension of a grant for NPR to operate the interconnection satellite system for public radio. NPR has been operating and managing the Public Radio Satellite System since 1985. But the CPB reversed course under mounting pressure from the Trump administration, according to NPR. The agency redirected federal interconnection funds away from NPR to an entity that didnt exist and wasnt statutorily authorized to receive it, NPR says. CPB attorneys denied that the agency retaliated against NPR to appease Trump. They had argued that NPRs claims are factually and legally meritless. On May 1, Trump issued an executive order that called for federal agencies to stop funding for NPR and PBS. The settlement doesnt end a lawsuit in which NPR seeks to block any implementation or enforcement of Trump’s executive order. U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss is scheduled to preside over another hearing for the case on Dec. 4. The settlement says NPR and CPB agree that the executive order is unconstitutional and that CPB won’t enforce it unless a court orders it to do so. Katherine Maher, NPR’s president and CEO, said the settlement is a victory for editorial independence and a step toward upholding the First Amendment rights of NPR and the public media system.” Patricia Harrison, the corporations CEO, said in a statement that the settlement marks an important moment for public media. Michael Kunzelman, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
As we head into the holiday season, toys with generative AI chatbots in them may start appearing on Christmas lists. A concerning report found one innocent-looking AI teddy bear gave instructions on how to light matches, where to find knives, and even explained sexual kinks to children. Consumer watchdogs at the Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) tested some AI toys for its 40th annual Trouble in Toyland report and found them to exhibit extremely disturbing behaviors. With only minimal prompting, the AI toys waded into subjects many parents would find unsettling, from religion to sex. One toy in particular stood out as the most concerning. FoloToys AI teddy bear Kumma, powered by OpenAIs GPT-4o model, the same model that once powered ChatGPT, repeatedly dropped its guardrails the longer a conversation went on. “Kumma told us where to find a variety of potentially dangerous objects, including knives, pills, matches, and plastic bags,” PIRG, which has been testing toys for hazards since the 1980s, wrote in its report. In other tests, Kumma offered advice on how to be a good kisser and veered into overtly sexual topics, breaking down various kinks and even posing the wildly inappropriate question: What do you think would be the most fun to explore? Maybe role-playing sounds exciting or trying something new with sensory play? Following the reports release, FoloToy pulled the implicated bear. Now, it has confirmed it is pulling all of its products. On Friday, OpenAI also confirmed that it had cut off FoloToys access to its AI models. FoloToy told PIRG: [F]ollowing the concerns raised in your report, we have temporarily suspended sales of all FoloToy products The company also added that it is carrying out a company-wide, end-to-end safety audit across all products. Report coauthor RJ Cross, director of PIRGs Our Online Life Program, praised the efforts but made it clear far more needs to be done before AI toys become a safe childhood staple. Its great to see these companies taking action on problems weve identified. But AI toys are still practically unregulated, and there are plenty you can still buy today, Cross said in a statement. Removing one problematic product from the market is a good step, but far from a systemic fix. These AI toys are marketed to children as young as three, but they run on the same large language model technology behind adult chatbots — the very systems companies like OpenAI say arent meant for children. Earlier this year, OpenAI shared the news of a partnership with Mattel to integrate AI into some of its iconic brands such as Barbie and Hot Wheels, a sign that not even childrens toys are exempt from the AI takeover. Other toymakers say they incorporate chatbots from OpenAI or other leading AI companies, said Rory Erlich, U.S. PIRG Education Funds New Economy campaign associate and report co-author. Every company involved must do a better job of making sure that these products are safer than what we found in our testing. We found one troubling example. How many others are still out there?
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E-Commerce
Members of the Sackler family who own OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma must pay billions of dollars to settle a flood of lawsuits over the harms of opioids, under a new deal that was formally approved by a federal bankruptcy judge on Tuesday. The Sackler family must contribute up to $7 billion over 15 years. Most of the money is to go to government entities to fight the opioid crisis, which has been linked to 900,000 deaths in the U.S. since 1999. Thousands of victims of the opioid epidemic could be paid thousands of dollars each, with a portion of the money distributed next year to some people who had OxyContin prescriptions and their survivors. This plan is not perfect, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane said as he laid out his reasoning for approving the settlements. The court wishes it could do more to ease the suffering of the opioid crisis. But he said it is fair, equitable, and in the best interest of the parties involved, and had the overwhelming support of most of the groups that had claims against Purdue. The new agreement replaces one that the U.S. Supreme Court rejected last year, finding it would have improperly protected members of the family against future lawsuits. Under the current agreement, entities that do not opt into the payments can still sue members of the family. The deal, which the judge said he would accept last week, is among the largest in a series of opioid settlements brought by state and local governments against drugmakers, wholesalers, and pharmacies that totaled about $50 billion. Why the judge said he approved the deal Lane said the deal maximizes the settlement’s value and came from years of investigations, mediation and negotiations. He also said that an alternative to the settlement suing Sackler family members instead of accepting the deal would take years and success is not ensured,” in part because the family has consistently said they would fight claims against them. He also noted it could be hard to collect if the family lost lawsuits. Much of their assets are in off-shore trusts. Lane said that the states and individuals can get more than they would have if Purdue had been liquidated instead. In that case, he said, there would have been only $3.4 billion available and $2 billion of that would have gone to the federal government as part of a criminal plea deal the company entered. Under that agreement, most of the federal penalties were to be waived if a broader settlement could be reached. Money will go to governments and some individuals Sackler family members were collectively paid more than $10 billion by Purdue in the decade before they stopped involvement with the company in 2018 and used about half of that for taxes. They’ve agreed to pay up to $7 billion over 15 years, providing most of the cash involved in the settlement. The funds distributed to state, local and Native Americans is to be used mostly to address the opioid crisis, as has been the case with other opioid settlements. About $850 million of that is to go to individual victims, including children born with opioid withdrawal. People with addiction and survivors of those who died must prove they were prescribed OxyContin to participate. They could provide medical records or photos of prescription bottle labels although many people don’t have such things dating back decades. Those who do prove it could get payments of around $8,000 or around $16,000, depending on how long they received the drug and how many other people qualify. The money for individual victims is to be distributed next year. Not only money is at stake Members of the Sackler family are agreeing to give up ownership of Purdue. For them, that won’t be a major change since no family member has served on Purdue’s board or received money from the company since 2018. The plan calls for Purdue to be replaced with a new company, Knoa Pharma, to be controlled by a board appointed by states and with a mission of benefiting the public. Sackler family members are also agreeing not to have their name put on institutions in exchange for contributions something they’ve done often in the past, although many institutions have cut ties with them. The company has also agreed to make public a trove of internal documents that could shed additional light into how the company promoted and monitored opioids. One feature that won’t be repeated under this new deal that was in a previous one: forcing members of the Sackler family to hear directly from people harmed by OxyContin. A long legal saga could be wrapping up Purdue filed for bankruptcy protection in 2019 when it was facing thousands of opioid-related lawsuits from state and local governments and others. A judge approved a settlement two years later. But the U.S. Supreme Court later rejected that plan because it gave members of the Sackler family protection from lawsuits over opioids even though they were not personally declaring bankruptcy. The latest plan allows lawsuits against Sackler family members by those who don’t opt into the deal. That change was a key to getting the new version approved in the aftermath of the high court’s ruling. This time, few parties objected to the settlement, although some people who represented themselves and who were addicted to opioids or had loved ones who were raised concerns during the three-day confirmation hearing last week. One of those self-represented people told Lane during the virtual hearing Tuesday that she planned to appeal. By Geoff Mulvihill, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
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