US federal prosecutors could be building a fraud case against FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. Bloomberg reports Justice Department officials met with the crypto exchange’s bankruptcy team this week to discuss documents investigators aim to obtain from the company.

The meeting included prosecutors from the Southern District of New York, Assistant US Attorney Roos, agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and lawyers from FTX. Roos, notably, was involved in the prosecution of Nikola founder Trevor Milton, who was convicted of misleading investors earlier this year. According to Bloomberg, potential charges were not discussed at the meeting that occurred this week.

The Justice Department is “closely” examining whether FTX improperly transferred hundreds of millions of dollars around the time the company declared bankruptcy on November 11th. It’s also probing whether the exchange broke the law when it moved funds to sister company Alameda Research.

In his recent New York Times interview, Bankman-Fried denied knowingly misusing customer funds. “Clearly, I made a lot of mistakes. There are things I would give anything to be able to do over again,” he said. “I did not ever try to commit fraud on anyone.” He will testify before the House Committee on Financial Services next week, a panel that will also include testimony from FTX’s current CEO, John J. Ray III. Ray has accused Bankman-Fried of making “erratic and misleading public statements” about FTX.

Jeep parent company Stellantis on Friday said it would indefinitely shut down a manufacturing plant in Illinois and lay off approximately 1,350 employees early next year. The facility – located in Belvidere, a city 75 miles northwest of downtown Chicago – is responsible for producing the internal combustion engine Jeep Cherokee crossover. In a statement the automaker shared with Reuters, Stellantis blamed the cost of electrifying its cars for the move.

“[The automotive industry] has been adversely affected by a multitude of factors like the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the global microchip shortage, but the most impactful challenge is the increasing cost related to the electrification of the automotive market," the company said, adding that it may shutter the facility permanently as it considers what to do next.

United Auto Workers Local 1268 shop chairman Tim Ferguson told Reuters that company documents show Stellantis plans to move Cherokee production to a facility in Toluca, Mexico. "To me, there is no question about it," he said. "Their plan is to close this plant." Stellantis declined to comment on Ferguson’s allegations. “We are not commenting on the future of the Cherokee,” the company said.

As The Verge points out, Stellantis isn’t the first automaker to blame EVs for a recent set of layoffs. In August, Ford cut about 3,000 employees. “We have an opportunity to lead this exciting new era of connected and electric vehicles,” the automaker said at the time. “Building this future requires changing and reshaping virtually all aspects of the way we have operated for more than a century.”

It’s also worth noting Friday’s announcement came on the same day that workers at a General Motors-LG battery cell facility in Ohio voted overwhelmingly in favor of unionization. Unions in France, Italy, Canada and other parts of the world recently asked Stellantis to raise worker wages by as much as 8.5 percent following a year of record global inflation. In the third quarter of the year, Stellantis said revenue grew to €42.1 billion (approximately $44 billion), a 29 percent from the same period last year.

The Biden administration is reportedly drafting an executive order designed to modernize federal space regulations. According to Reuters, White House officials have hosted multiple “listening sessions” since November 14th. The goal of those meetings has been to hear from private space companies and the rules they would like to see introduced.

Reuters reports the White House wants to simplify licensing and approval procedures for more routine space activities, including things like rocket launches and satellite deployments. Among the measures the Biden administration is considering is an order that would task the Department of Commerce with creating an online tool that would guide companies through the licensing requirements from each federal agency. The team drafting the order is also looking for ways to push Congress to give certain federal agencies oversight of space activities that aren’t covered by current laws, including things like asteroid mining and space junk removal. The order could be ready for President Biden to sign by early next year.

The administration’s push to streamline space regulations comes as companies like Blue Origin prepare to spend billions on projects like Orbital Reef, a space station the firm hopes to start assembling in low Earth orbit by the end of the decade. The next decade is also likely to see a new space race between the US and China play out as the rival superpowers look to put humans back on the Moon. Private space firms are likely to be critical in the outcome of that conflict.

Mastodon has been gaining popularity ever since Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter. Shortly after the deal became official, Vivaldi became the first browser to create its own Mastodon "instance" called Vivaldi Social. Now, the browser has announced that it's integrating the platform into the sidebar of its desktop browser, giving users an easy way to view posts from the accounts they follow. 

The Twitter alternative bears similarities to Musk's social network and gives users a way to make short posts. Unlike Twitter, which a single entity runs, Mastodon is a decentralized service that runs on an open-source protocol. Users can create and run their own servers or "instances" that other people can join, and Vivaldi Social is just one of them. Instances can communicate with one another, and people from different servers can still follow each other and see the other's posts. 

With the browser's latest update, its users can now find Vivaldi Social in the sidebar, though they can also add any Mastodon instance they want. When they access an instance from the panel, it pops up and is displayed on the side to create a split-screen view. 

Vivaldi

Juul has faced numerous lawsuits over the past few years, accusing the company of targeting underage users with its marketing and sales tactics. Now, according to Bloomberg, Juul has agreed to pay $1.2 billion in settlement, which will resolve around 10,000 lawsuits — including 8,500 personal injury cases, over 1,400 cases by government entities and school districts, as well as 32 tribal cases. California, for instance, sued Juul in 2019, accusing the company of targeting minors in the state, failing to verify the age of its customers and failing to warn users of their exposure to chemicals linked to cancer and birth defects. 

The San Francisco Unified School District, which also filed a lawsuit against Juul over its marketing practices, reportedly said it was "very pleased" with the settlement. Who can actually participate in the settlement and how much each plaintiff will get are still under discussion. The plaintiffs' lawyers said people eligible to sign onto the deal will receive a minimum gross amount of $1,000 before attorney fees and other deductions. They also said that most people are expected to receive "substantially higher settlements." Plaintiffs who sued the company over personal injury will learn how much they'll get in February, according to the lawyers. US District Judge William Orrick will still have to approve this proposed settlement before it can be finalized.

Juul has been under scrutiny since 2018 after the US Food And Drug Administration ordered e-cigarette brands to stop selling flavored pods if they can't prove that they can keep them out of minors' hands. It's been facing one lawsuit after another since then. In addition to this particular deal, the company also agreed to pay $439 million to settle a two-year investigation by multiple states and Puerto Rico that accuse Juul of marketing products to teens. 

‘Diablo IV’ developers work long hours, bracing for impending release

Shannon Liao, The Washington Post

Crunch has become a common issue at game development studios, especially as high-profile titles near launch. The release date for Diablo IV isn't until June, but people working on the Activision Blizzard game are already saying it will be difficult to meet the deadline even with employees working 12-hour days, late into evening and on the weekend. 

Tony Fadell is trying to build the iPod of crypto

Steven Levy, Wired

The Nest co-founder once worked on a team at Apple that created the iPod. Now he's making a hardware wallet for crypto to give the digital currency its own iPod moment with the Paris-based company Ledger. Levy chronicles the period leading up to launch of the Ledger Stax this week. 

The 50 best albums of 2022

Pitchfork

An activity I look forward to every year is listening through Pitchfork's year-end lists. There are several, but I always start with albums — the long game. It's a fun annual chore, discovering new acts I've never heard of and listening back to some I'm already familiar with. 

Back in November, New York City's Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) voted to increase the pay rates of Uber and Lyft drivers to make up for the rise in inflation and and operational costs. The new rates were supposed to be implemented on December 19th, but now Uber has sued the commission to block the new rates from taking effect. According to Bloomberg, Uber said in its lawsuit that it would have to spend an additional $21 million to $23 million a month if the new rates are implemented and that it wouldn't be able to recover those costs without raising fares.

To note, drivers' per-minute rates are going up by 7.4 percent and per-mile rates by 24 percent under the new rules. That means for a 7.5-mile trip that takes 30 minutes, a driver would earn at least $27.15, which is $2.50 more than current rates. The drivers are also getting another pay bump in March 2023, based on inflation rates comparing December's to September's this year. A company spokesperson told the news publication that by increasing drivers' pay this December, TLC is locking in "this summer's high gas prices in perpetuity." They added that TLC "should have followed its usual annual adjustment and instituted a temporary gas surcharge when gas prices were actually elevated" instead. 

The company's lawsuit seems to indicate that it intends to pass the costs associated with drivers' pay increase to riders. "Such a significant fare hike, right before the holidays, would irreparably damage Uber’s reputation, impair goodwill, and risk permanent loss of business and customers," its lawsuit said. In a strongly worded response to the lawsuit, TLC said acknowledged that Uber already charges 37 percent more today compared to 2019, but it said that the company is keeping money earned from fare hikes over the past few years to itself. 

The commission's statement reads: "Just in time to steal Christmas from New York families, Uber is suing to stop the raise the TLC enacted for app drivers after months of public hearings, years of stalled wages, and the pandemic decimating incomes. Uber's Grinch move is on top of denying a fuel surcharge to only NYC drivers when costs skyrocketed due to record high inflation, forcing drivers in one of their most profitable markets to choose between groceries and fueling up. 

Uber is already charging passengers 37% more today compared to 2019 AND KEEPING IT FOR THEMSELVES but says this modest raise for drivers is what will break the company. Shame on you, Dara Khosrowshahi. We call on the City to stand firm and defend the rights of drivers to labor with dignity. Uber seeks chaos. We seek dignity. We are confident we will prevail."

The ride-hailing giant is now asking the court to declare the new pay rates as invalid and to prevent the first increase's implementation this month while the lawsuit is ongoing. 

Have you ever thought up an idea for a movie or play that you just know will be a smash hit, but haven't gotten around to writing the script? Alphabet's DeepMind has built an AI tool that can help get you started. Dramatron is a so-called "co-writing" tool that can generate character descriptions, plot points, location descriptions and dialogue. The idea is that human writers will be able to compile, edit and rewrite what Dramatron comes up with into a proper script. Think of it like ChatGPT, but with output that you can edit into a blockbuster movie script.

To get started, you'll need an OpenAI API key and, if you want to reduce the risk of Dramatron outputting "offensive text," a Perspective API key. To test out Dramatron, I fed in the log line for a movie idea I had when I was around 15 that definitely would have been a hit if Kick-Ass didn't beat me to the punch. Dramatron quickly whipped up a title that made sense, and character, scene and setting descriptions. The dialogue that the AI generated was logical but trite and on the nose. Otherwise, it was almost as if Dramatron pulled the descriptions straight out of my head, including one for a scene that I didn't touch on in the log line.

Playwrights seemed to agree, according to a paper that the team behind Dramatron presented today. To test the tool, the researchers brought in 15 playwrights and screenwriters to co-write scripts. According to the paper, playwrights said they wouldn't use the tool to craft a complete play and found that the AI's output can be formulaic. However, they suggested Dramatron would be useful for world building or to help them explore other approaches in terms of changing plot elements or characters. They noted that the AI could be handy for "creative idea generation" too.

That said, a playwright staged four plays that used "heavily edited and rewritten scripts" they wrote with the help of Dramatron. DeepMind said that in the performance, experienced actors with improv skills "gave meaning to Dramatron scripts through acting and interpretation."

Use of the AI tool may raise questions about authorship and who (or what) should get the credit for a script. Last year, a UK appeals court ruled that artificial intelligence can’t be legally credited as an inventor on a patent. DeepMind notes that Dramatron can output fragments of text that were used to train the language model, which, if used in a script that was produced, could lead to accusations of plagiarism. "One possible mitigation is for the human co-writer to search for substrings from outputs to help to identify plagiarism," DeepMind said.

The autonomous tractor world is heating up, apparently. CNH Industrial has unveiled what it says is the "first" electric light tractor prototype with self-driving features, the New Holland T4 Electric Power. The machine promises zero emissions, quieter operation than diesel models and (according to CNH) lower running costs while reducing the amount of time farmers spend behind the wheel. Sensors and cameras on the roof help the vehicle complete tasks, dodge obstacles and work in harmony with other equipment. You can even activate it from your phone.

The T4 Electric Power's 120HP motor produces a 25MPH top speed comparable to regular tractors. The battery is large enough to handle a day's work "depending on the mission profile," CNH says. That suggests the tractor might need a mid-day top-up, but that might not necessarily be a problem when the T4 can reach a full battery in an hour using off-the-shelf fast chargers.

Like Ford's F-150 Lightning, this tractor can serve as a power pack on wheels. It has outlets to plug in common tools like drills, and it serves as a backup power source for emergencies. You can attach hydraulic, mechanical and Power Take Off implements. Production of the completed T4 Electric Power is expected at the end of 2023, with more models on the way.

CNH Industrial

There's also an environmentally conscious option for farmers who prefer the familiarity of fuel. An equally new T7 Methane Power LNG (shown at middle) is billed as the "world's first" liquid natural gas tractor. It can run on biomethane sourced from livestock manure — instead of letting methane slip directly into the atmosphere and contribute to climate change, farmers can put the chemical to work powering their equipment. The CO2 emissions reduction for a 120-cow farm is supposedly equivalent to that of 100 "western households" without sacrificing diesel-like performance. The T7 LNG doesn't have a launch date, and is only characterized as a "pre-production prototype."

Prices aren't available, and they may be important when farmers often have to work with tight budgets. However, CNH is betting that its technology will ultimately save money. The T4 Electric reportedly cuts operating costs by up to 90 percent thanks to the zero-fuel design and lower maintenance, and its hushed powerplant lets it work both at night and nearer to animals. The T7 LNG, meanwhile, lets farms make their own fuel, fertilizer and sellable excess electricity. Food growers could recoup at least some of their investment even as they reduce their impact on the planet.

Embattled FTX co-founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried said today that he will testify before Congress next week. After a Twitter back-and-forth with committee chair Rep. Maxine Waters, he agreed to testify about the crypto exchange’s sudden collapse. “I still do not have access to much of my data — professional or personal. So there is a limit to what I will be able to say, and I won’t be as helpful as I’d like,” he tweeted this morning. “But as the committee still thinks it would be useful, I am willing to testify on the 13th.” The House Committee on Financial Services will hold a hearing on Tuesday investigating FTX.

His agreement to testify is an about-face from last week when he tweeted that he only would appear after he finished “learning and reviewing” what led to the company’s rapid downfall. Waters replied, “Based on your role as CEO and your media interviews over the past few weeks, it’s clear to us that the information you have thus far is sufficient for testimony.”

He testimony for the House Committee will likely be remote, according to The Wall Street Journal. Leaders of the Senate Banking Committee, holding a separate FTX hearing next week, have threatened to subpoena him if he doesn’t also agree to appear in front of their panel. But that may be tough to enforce since he lives in the Bahamas.

Michael M. Santiago via Getty Images

His testimony could include a public showdown with John J. Ray III, FTX’s current CEO overseeing bankruptcy proceedings, who is also testifying Tuesday. Ray hasn’t minced words about Bankman-Fried’s “erratic and misleading public statements” about FTX. “Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here.”

Bankman-Fried resigned last month after Binance backed out of a deal to buy FTX, citing concerns discovered while conducting due diligence. FTX then filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, capping off the collapse. The company currently faces more than 100,000 creditors, but that number could expand to over one million.

Hollywood, never an industry to turn down a high-profile downfall story, quickly pounced. Amazon has already greenlit a limited series about FTX helmed by the Russo brothers.