British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak says he will introduce measures to reverse the convictions of more than 900 Post Office branch managers wrongly accused of theft or fraud because of a faulty computer system. The measure announced Wednesday follows a TV docudrama on what is considered one of the gravest injustices in the nation’s history. The show created a huge surge of public support for the former managers and employees who have spent years trying to reclaim lives ruined by the scandal. Lawmakers plan to provide compensation and new investigations could lead to charges against those responsible.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has unveiled new legislation designed to protect songwriters, performers and other music industry professionals against the potential dangers of artificial intelligence. Lee made the announcement on Wednesday while standing in the middle of Nashville’s famed RCA Studio A. Packed inside were top music industry leaders, songwriters and lawmakers eager to sound the alarm about AI threats. Details of what exactly the legislation will entail are still unknown. The bill hasn’t been formally filed inside the Tennessee Legislature and the text of the proposal has yet to be publicly distributed. Lee stressed that he wants to ensure that AI tools cannot replicate an artist’s voice without the artist’s consent.

German software giant SAP will pay more than $220 million in fines to resolve U.S. bribery allegations involving payments to foreign government officials. The Justice Department said Wednesday that SAP was charged with violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. According to court documents, SAP and unnamed co-conspirators delivered gifts to officials in the form of cash payments, political contributions, electronic transfers, and luxury goods purchased during shopping trips. The Justice Department cited bribes to government officials in South Africa and Indonesia. The Securities and Exchange Commission also cited SAP bribery schemes in Malawi, Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana and Azerbaijan.

Court records show the owner of the Houston Texans is fighting efforts by one of her sons to have her declared incapacitated and have a guardian appointed for her. Robert Cary McNair Jr. filed his application for appointment of a guardian for Janice McNair in probate court in November. Attorneys for Janice McNair and her son Cal McNair, who is chairman and CEO of the Texans, say the claims she’s incapacitated are “drastic and unwarranted.” An attorney for Cary McNair did not respond to an email seeking comment Wednesday. The news of infighting among the family that runs the NFL franchise comes as the Texans ready for a playoff appearance Saturday, their first since 2019.

A judge has postponed the trial of an Illinois man accused of killing seven people at a Fourth of July parade in suburban Chicago in 2022 after his lawyer on Wednesday asked for more time to review evidence. The trial of Robert Crimo III had been slated to begin next month. A new date has not yet been set. Prosecutors said in December that they had turned over nearly 10,000 pages of case evidence to Crimo's defense team. The 23-year-old fired his public defenders last month, saying he planned to represent himself, but he rehired them last week. Dozens of people were wounded in the shooting in Highland Park.

The Kentucky Derby purse has been raised to $5 million for the 150th edition in May. The increase of $2 million was announced Wednesday by Churchill Downs. The 1 1/2-mile race will be May 4. Previously, the Derby purse had been $3 million since 2019. It was $2 million from 2005-18 and $1 million from 1996-2004. This year’s winner will receive $3.1 million. The runner-up will earn $1 million; third is worth $500,000; fourth is $250,000; and fifth is $150,000. Churchill says the hikes are possible because of its investment in historical horse racing, which boosts funding for purse money.

Alaska Airlines is canceling all flights on Boeing 737 Max 9 planes until Saturday while it waits for new instructions on how to inspect and fix the planes. The airline said Wednesday that could mean canceling up to 150 flights a day. Federal officials grounded Boeing Max 9s after a panel blew off an Alaska Airlines jet in midflight on Friday night. Alaska and United Airlines are the only U.S. carriers affected by the grounding.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Welcome to CES 2024. This multi-day trade event put on by the Consumer Technology Association is expected to bring some 130,000 attendees and more than 4,000 exhibitors to Las Vegas. The latest advances and gadgets across personal tech, transportation, health care, sustainab…

Donald Trump won’t make his own closing argument in his New York civil business fraud trial. Judge Arthur Engoron rescinded permission for it on Wednesday after Trump's lawyers objected to the judge’s insistence that the former president would stick to “relevant” matters. Closing arguments are set for Thursday in the trial, which could cost Trump hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties and strip him of his ability to do business in New York. His lawyers had signaled Thursday that he planned to take the extraordinary step of delivering a summation personally, in addition to arguments from his legal team.

Federal investigators are looking into a dockside cargo ship fire that killed two New Jersey firefighters at Port Newark. The Coast Guard and the National Transportation Safety Board held a hearing Wednesday about the July 5 blaze aboard the Grande Costa d’Avorio. The Italian-owned vessel was carrying over 1,200 automobiles when it caught fire. Two fire captains died fighting the blaze. A worker pushing vehicles onto the ship says a Jeep Wrangler he was using as a “pusher vehicle” burst into flames near the top of the ship.

Prescriptions for ADHD treatments surged among adults during the COVID-19 pandemic, helping to fuel lingering shortages that are frustrating parents and doctors. A study published Wednesday in JAMA Psychiatry says new prescriptions for stimulants used to treat the condition jumped 30% for young adults and women during a two-year window after the pandemic hit in March 2020. Prescriptions also soared for nonstimulant treatments for adults of all ages. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder is one of the most common developmental disorders in children. Rising use of ADHD treatments and manufacturing problems triggered an Adderall shortage that started more than a year ago. Doctors and patients say supply problems for several treatments haven’t let up.

Amazon is cutting several hundred positions across its Prime Video and MGM Studios unit. Mike Hopkins, senior vice president of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios, said in a note to employees that the company is boosting investment in areas with the most impact, while stepping back from others. Amazon has cut thousands of jobs after a hiring surge during the pandemic. In a blog post Wednesday Twitch, the video game streaming platform acquired by Amazon a decade ago for close to $1 billion, said that it is laying off more than 500 employees as the company tries to turn the tremendously expensive division profitable.

Twitch, the video game streaming platform acquired by Amazon a decade ago for close to $1 billion, is laying off more than 500 employees as the company tries to turn the tremendously expensive division profitable. Twitch CEO Dan Clancy in an email to employees said that even with cost cuts and growing more efficient, the platform “is still meaningfully larger than it needs to be given the size of our business.” Twitch was built for a generation of people raised with video games and like to watch some of the best gamers in the world as many people watch professional sports.

Tech companies of all sizes are showing off their latest gadgets at CES 2024 in Las Vegas. And that includes new technology that's changing the world of food and drinks. There are AI-powered appliances like air-fryers and grills, a cocktail-mixing machine that serves as your own personal bartender at home, and a robot barista whose movements are meant to mimic a human. The food tech at CES 2024 is transforming the way meals are prepped, cooked and delivered. And with artificial intelligence and chef-like robots, humans may not need to cook for themselves anymore.

U.S. regulators are soon expected to decide whether to approve the first bitcoin exchange-traded fund, a development that could thrust the once niche and nerdy corner of the internet even further into the financial mainstream. The regulatory greenlight has been anticipated for several months and the price of bitcoin has jumped about 70% since October. A spot bitcoin ETF could open the door to many new investors who don’t want to take extra steps like having to learn what a cold wallet is or having to open an account at a crypto trading platform that come with buying actual bitcoin.

The IRS is still too slow to process amended tax returns, answer taxpayer phone calls and resolve identity theft cases, according to an independent watchdog within the agency. The organization sent a report to Congress Wednesday that the backlog of unprocessed amended returns has quadrupled from 500,000 in 2019 to 1.9 million in October last year. And taxpayer correspondence and related cases more than doubled over the same period, from 1.9 million to 4.3 million. The report comes shortly after the IRS announced that the 2024 filing season begins on Jan. 29.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is buying Juniper Networks in an all-cash deal valued at about $14 billion, which is anticipated to double HPE’s networking business. HPE will pay $40 per Juniper share. Based in Sunnyvale, California, Juniper helps companies access the cloud infrastructure that serves as the foundation of digital and AI strategies. Juniper CEO Rami Rahim will lead the combined HPE networking business. The transaction is expected to close either later this year or early next year. It still needs approval from Juniper shareholders and regulators.

Listened to more music last year? You’re not alone. Luminate’s year-end report finds that the global music industry surpassed 4 trillion streams in 2023. That's a new single-year record. Global streams are also up 34% from last year, reflective of an increasingly international music marketplace. Stateside, three genres saw the biggest growth in 2023: country, Latin and world, a catchall that includes J-pop, K-pop and Afrobeats. As for the Taylor Swift of it all, Luminate found that Time’s 2023 Person of the Year made up 1.79% of the U.S. market, accounting for 1 in every 78 U.S. on-demand audio streams.

Australia’s online safety watchdog says the owner of the social media platform formerly known as Twitter has slashed its global trust and safety staff by 30% including an 80% reduction in the number of safety engineers since billionaire Elon Musk took over in 2022. Australia’s eSafety Commission released summaries on Thursday of answers provided by X Corp. to questions about how its policies about hateful conduct are enforced. The commission says while X has previously given estimates of the reduction in staffing, the answers were the first specific figures on where staff reductions had been made to become public. X’s responses to user reports of hateful content also had slowed since Musk took over, with thousands of previously banned accounts reinstated.

ATLANTA (AP) — Supporters of legal sports gambling in Georgia renewed their push Tuesday, but it's unclear whether they're any closer to assembling a winning coalition after they went bust in 2023.

Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak says he will introduce measures to overturn the convictions of more than 700 post office branch managers who were wrongly accused of theft or fraud because of a faulty computer system. Hundreds of postmasters were wrongly convicted of stealing because a faulty Post Office computer system showed that funds were missing from their shops. It is thought to be the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British history. Sunak told lawmakers that a new law will be introduced to ensure that those wrongly convicted are “swiftly exonerated and compensated.”

U.S. consumers looking to get a tax credit on an electric vehicle purchase will have fewer models to choose from under new rules that limit the countries where automakers can buy battery parts and minerals. Only 11 of the more than 50 EVs on sale in the U.S. are eligible for the credits so far this year. The credits, which range from $3,750 to $7,500, are aimed at boosting EV sales as the Biden administration tries to cut planet-warming emissions. Carmakers say they’re scrambling to source parts that will make their models eligible for tax credits, but those parts can’t be sourced overnight. Some experts said they expect the reduced selection of tax-credit-eligible EVs to have only a passing impact on growing consumer acceptance of EVs.

Japan’s nuclear safety regulators have told the operator of a nuclear power plant in the area hit by a powerful New Year's Day quake to study its potential impact. The Nuclear Regulation Authority asked for further investigation even though initial assessments showed its cooling systems and ability to contain radiation remained intact. The magnitude 7.6 quake and dozens of strong aftershocks left 206 people dead and caused small tsunami. Hokuriku Electric Power Co., the plant's operator, reported it had successfully dealt with damage to transformers, temporary outages and sloshing of spent fuel cooling pools due to the quakes. Japan is alert to troubles after meltdowns at the a plant in Fukushima triggered by quakes and a massive tsunami.

The new 2024 Chevrolet Blazer EV is one of the most intriguing electric vehicle debuts this year. It’s about the same size as Chevy’s midsize gas-powered Blazer SUV but otherwise has nothing mechanical in common. With roomy seating and lots of the latest technology features, it could appeal …

The relationship between India and the Maldives is facing challenges after officials in the tiny island nation made derogatory remarks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s posts that promoted the pristine beaches of India’s Lakshadweep archipelago. In India, government officials, Bollywood stars and cricketers are urging people to turn to Lakshwadeep, in a push to promote local holiday destinations, while also supporting a boycott against the Maldives. The government in the Maldives is trying to control the fallout with New Delhi. The incident has highlighted the fragile nature of the relationship between India and the Maldives and its susceptibility to a breakdown at a time when Beijing and New Delhi are both vying for influence in the island nation.

A new report says climate-altering pollution from greenhouse gases declined by nearly 2% in the United States in 2023, even as the economy expanded at a faster clip. The report from the Rhodium Group said the decline is a step in the right direction but far below the rate needed to meet President Joe Biden’s pledge to cut U.S. emissions in half by 2030. Last year’s relatively mild winter and continued declines in power generation from coal-fired plants drove down emissions in the U.S. power and buildings sectors. At the same time, transportation sector emissions rose, led by a continued rebound in airplane travel and increased gasoline consumption. Higher domestic oil and gas production also led to a small increase in industrial emissions.

The World Economic Forum says false and misleading information supercharged with cutting-edge artificial intelligence is the top immediate risk to the global economy. In its latest Global Risks Report, the organization says misinformation and disinformation as the most severe risk over the next two years. The report also says an array of environmental risks pose the biggest threats in the longer term. The report was released Wednesday ahead of the annual elite winter gathering next week of CEOs and world leaders in the Swiss ski resort town of Davos. It’s based on a survey of nearly 1,500 experts, industry leaders and policymakers

A union representing many of Germany’s train drivers has started a nearly three-day strike in a rancorous dispute with the country’s state-owned main railway operator over working hours and pay. Train travel across the country and in many cities came to a near standstill early Wednesday, with commuters and other travelers struggling to find alternatives involving long-distance buses, car travel or flights. State-owned Deutsche Bahn said only around 20% of its long-distance trains were running. The GDL union’s strike on cargo trains began Tuesday evening. It lasts until Friday at 6 p.m. The central issue is the union’s call for shift workers’ hours to be reduced from 38 to 35 hours per week without a pay reduction.

Asian shares have retreated after a lackluster session on Wall Street, though Tokyo broke ranks, gaining more than 2% as a weaker yen lifted stock prices for export manufacturers like Sony and Kyocera. U.S. futures declined while oil prices gained. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 is trading near a 34-year high. On Tuesday, the S&P 500 slipped 0.1% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.4%. The Nasdaq composite edged up 0.1%. The majority of stocks fell, but Nvidia rallied to another record to limit the S&P 500’s losses. Data on U.S. inflation and corporate earnings reports are due out later this week.

Walmart has unveiled plans to dive further into the world of artificial intelligence — and drones — to improve its customers’ shopping experiences. In a Tuesday keynote at trade show CES in Las Vegas, the nation’s largest retailer announced  it would be expanding its drone delivery to 1.8 million additional households in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area later this year. Walmart leaders also announced a generative AI-powered search experience for iOS customers.

While electric vehicles are gaining the lion’s share of the attention for carbon-neutral technology at CES 2024, hydrogen energy has snuck its way back into the conversation thanks to two automotive giants. Hyundai signaled that it could work towards aiding a “hydrogen society” by expanding into energy production, storage and transportation. Meanwhile, automotive supplier Bosch Mobility plans to launch its first hydrogen combustion engine this year. Still, there was also a robust lineup of EV announcements from big name brands. Honda premiered two concept vehicles for a new global electric vehicle series. And Kia introduced a trio of electric vans that can quickly swap body modules from cargo haulers to taxis and other purposes.

Donald Trump plans to deliver his own closing argument Thursday in his New York civil business fraud trial, in addition to the ones made by his legal team. That's according to two people familiar with the plan who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to disclose the information to reporters. Trump is a defendant in the case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James. She claims his net worth was inflated by billions of dollars on financial statements that helped him secure business loans and insurance. The former president and current Republican front-runner denies any wrongdoing. The Trump campaign and a spokesperson for James declined to comment.

Meta says it will start hiding inappropriate content from teenagers’ accounts on Instagram and Facebook. That includes posts about suicide, self-harm and eating disorders. The social media giant based in Menlo Park, California, said in a blog post Tuesday that while it already aims not to recommend such “age-inappropriate” material to teens, now it also won’t show it in their feeds, even if it is shared by an account they follow. Meta’s announcement comes as the company faces lawsuits from dozens of U.S. states for harming young people and contributing to the youth mental health crisis.

Federal regulators are extending the grounding of some Boeing jets after an Alaska Airlines plane lost a side panel last week. The Federal Aviation Administration said Tuesday that guidelines for inspecting the planes for safety are being revised. That's causing more flight cancellations for Alaska and United Airlines, which can't use their Boeing 737 Max 9 jets. A panel called a door plug blew off an Alaska jetliner over Oregon last week. The investigation is putting pressure on plane maker Boeing and its key supplier, Spirit AeroSystems.

The Securities and Exchange Commission said Tuesday that a post on X announcing that the securities regulator had approved the trading of exchange-traded funds holding bitcoin was “unauthorized,” and that the agency’s account had been “compromised.” The confusion came as crypto fans anxiously await the approval of the first bitcoin ETF. The ETF would provide a way to invest in bitcoin without having to buy the cryptocurrency outright on a crypto exchange such as Binance or Coinbase. Soon after the initial post about the approved appear on X, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said on his personal account that the SEC had not approved the listing and trading of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products.