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Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune/TNS

Lawyers for Chicago Housing Authority used ChatGPT to cite nonexistent court case

Lawyers hired by the Chicago Housing Authority recently cited Illinois Supreme Court case Mack v. Anderson in an effort to persuade a judge to reconsider a jury’s $24 million verdict against the agency in a case involving the alleged poisoning of two children by lead paint in CHA-owned property.

The problem?

The case doesn’t exist.

In the...Read more

Renee C. Byer/The Sacramento Bee/TNS

AI comes to California's electric grid

Artificial intelligence figures to impact virtually every aspect of the global economy and now it’s making a foray onto California’s electric grid.

The California Independent System Operator, which manages the power system for about 80% of the Golden State and a portion of Nevada, just agreed to launch a pilot program that will use an AI ...Read more

Making Rocky Mountain National Park more accessible for visitors with disabilities

DENVER — More than 100 specially designed picnic tables, four all-terrain wheelchairs and a detailed inventory of trails usable for visitors with disabilities are highlights of efforts this summer to make Rocky Mountain National Park more accessible.

The non-profit Rocky Mountain Conservancy has worked for decades with park officials to ...Read more

John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune/TNS

Swarms of fireflies in Illinois this summer give enthusiasts hope that insect can overcome population decline

CHICAGO -- Beatriz Swanson can remember the first time she saw the blinking glow. She was 10 years old, growing up in Mexico, when two fireflies appeared in front of her, floating away before she could carefully capture them in her hands.

Swanson did not see the shining insects again until she moved to upstate New York 17 years after her first ...Read more

Blue Origin lines up NASA's Mars-bound mission for next New Glenn launch

Blue Origin’s first launch of its New Glenn rocket was supposed to send up a pair of Mars-bound satellites for NASA, but uncertain readiness plans last year forced NASA to yank back its payload. Now things are lining up for the mission to finally take flight.

The company announced Thursday the second launch of its heavy-lift rocket would be ...Read more

Madeline Carter/Las Vegas Review-Journal/TNS

From poker chips to computer chips: High-tech startups signal change to Nevada economy

Lucihub founder and CEO Amer Tadayon has started several businesses in California and Arizona. Those states never invested in his companies, but Nevada did.

Thanks to a growing startup ecosystem, increasing venture capital availability and favorable investing regulations, Tadayon called Las Vegas “one of the best places I’ve ever been to be...Read more

Hayley Charlton-Howard/Australian Wildlife Conservancy PRESS RELEASE/TNS

Trail camera snaps 'gem' of creature locally extinct for 150 years in Australia

Ecologists in Australia were treated to an “adorable” surprise while reviewing thousands of images captured by their motion sensor field cameras.

There among photos was “a female bandicoot with three young at foot,” according to a July 15 news release from the Australian Wildlife Conservancy obtained by McClatchy News.

Experts called ...Read more

RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post/TNS

EPA signals opposition to Colorado's plan to close coal power plants

DENVER — The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday signaled it no longer believes Colorado can mandate utility companies close their coal-fired power plants, leading environmentalists to accuse the Trump administration of attacking the state’s plan to shift to 100% renewable energy by 2031 to meet its climate goals.

The EPA published...Read more

This invasive insect, spotted in Georgia, is now in peak season

ATLANTA — An invasive insect capable of destroying agricultural crops has been spotted more frequently in Georgia this summer, prompting experts to offer simple advice to those who encounter it.

If you see a spotted lanternfly, take a picture, report the bug and then kill it.

The insect, which first landed in Georgia last fall, has been seen...Read more

Audrey Richardson/Chicago Tribune/TNS

Museum study shows human impact on chipmunks and voles in Chicago

CHICAGO -- Three stories above the Field Museum’s exhibits, rows and rows of taxidermied chipmunks filled a tray in the museum’s mammal archives. Pointing to two of the oldest critters, mammalogist Stephanie Smith picked up the pair of chipmunks off the tray, balancing them in the palm of her hand.

“The oldest ones we have are from 1891, ...Read more

David Guralnick/The Detroit News/TNS

Trump regulators to zero out fuel economy fines dating to 2022

WASHINGTON — Federal regulators will zero out all federal fuel economy fines dating back to model year 2022, according to a letter sent to automakers that was obtained Wednesday by The Detroit News.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued the letter last week in response to President Donald Trump's signing of the One Big ...Read more

Gary Coronado//Los Angeles Times/TNS

These California tech hubs are set to dominate the AI economy

Despite suggestions it has been losing its edge, California is way ahead of others when it comes to the hottest technology right now: artificial intelligence.

The regions around San Francisco, San Jose and Los Angeles are among the top ranked in the country for AI, according to a report released Wednesday by the Brookings Institution.

The ...Read more

Marco Bertorello/Getty Images North America/TNS

What feud? SpaceX launches competitor Amazon's Project Kuiper satellites

Just because Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos aren’t the best of friends, and Amazon’s Project Kuiper will directly compete with SpaceX’s Starlink satellites for broadband internet, doesn’t mean everyone can’t still get along.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched at 2:30 a.m. Eastern time Wednesday with 24 of Amazon’s satellites from Cape ...Read more

Handout/NASA/TNS

Researchers add some clarity to search for extraterrestrial life

ANAHEIM, Calif. – Depending on how you look at it, UC Irvine doctoral candidate Te Han and his adviser, Paul Robertson, just made an already unimaginably difficult job – finding and observing planets outside our solar system – a lot harder or a lot more accurate.

Either way, what both men insist they didn’t do is transmogrify into the ...Read more

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images North America/TNS

Nvidia is the first $4-trillion company. Here are three things to know

Nvidia is already the world's most valuable company being one of the biggest beneficiaries of the global artificial intelligence boom.

This week, the Santa Clara, California-based chip maker got another windfall.

The Jensen Huang-led technology giant on Monday received approval from the U.S. government to sell some of its AI chips in China, ...Read more

Handout/Cuktech/TNS

Gadgets: 'The world's first anti-gravity laser level'

Hanging pictures should generally be easy, but often when you are hanging multiple frames at a specific angle or in a particular pattern, the results aren't what you want. With the Hozo M-Cube 02 Anti-Gravity Combo laser level/measurer, you'll wonder: Where has a tool like this been all my life? And, from now on you'll never hang anything that...Read more

Jim Rossman/Jim Rossman/TNS

Jim Rossman: Learning to manage your cloud storage

This week a reader is having a problem with Microsoft OneDrive.

“I had been keeping all of my files off of OneDrive successfully for several years. Somehow in the last year, all of my files, documents, photos, etc., have been moved to the OneDrive cloud storage. I want everything back and nothing left on the cloud. Each time I have followed...Read more

Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune/TNS

Illinois clean energy hit hard by Trump's 'big, beautiful' tax bill: 'An incredibly damaging blow'

CHICAGO — Already the calls are coming in at Chicago’s All Bright Solar.

Customers want solar roofs installed on their homes — and they want them before a federal tax credit worth about $8,000 expires at the end of the year.

The repeal of that tax credit under President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” is “pretty ...Read more

Jody Gross/Simon & Schuster/TNS/TNS

How to feed the world without trashing the planet. Q&A with writer Michael Grunwald

MIAMI -- Are those big, juicy burgers really bad for the planet? Alas, yes. Is eating organic food going to save it? Unfortunately, no, and that option might actually not be so good — at least for the ailing global climate.

Those just a couple of the takeaways from Miami writer Michael Grunwald’s deep dive into how humanity’s insatiable ...Read more

I-HWA CHENG/Getty Images North America/TNS

Nvidia's Huang wins China reprieve in rare trade war reversal

Nvidia Corp.’s Jensen Huang spent months telling everyone what a grave mistake the U.S. was making restricting shipments of artificial intelligence processors to China — with little sign that his argument was swaying anyone.

Then, very suddenly, that all changed.

Late on Monday, the chipmaker said it received assurances that the U.S. ...Read more