Autumn is here, and once again, warnings are going up about the spread of the covid-19 virus — along with the flu and RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus. To try to minimize the upsurge, the US government is once again offering free home rapid antigen tests to each US household. According to the government website, orders will start shipping this week.

As before, it’s extremely simple to put in your order. You will not need to submit a credit card or any other financial information.

Unfortunately, the program offering reimbursement from private health insurance for purchased tests is no longer available — and since the price of a pair of covid tests are not inexpensive, this could be an issue for households with low budgets. There are still a few very limited options for people to get low- or no-cost testing.

Update September 30th, 2024: This article was originally published on December 15th, 2022, and has been updated to describe the most recent testing program.

You know how Marvel and DC have held joint ownership over trademarks for “Super Hero” for decades? That time is apparently mostly over, as the US Patent and Trademark Office has canceled the companies’ claim to several of their trademarks, reports Reuters.

The cancellation comes as the result of a challenge from Superbabies Limited, a small company that produces a series of Superbabies comics about, well, superhero babies. Superbabies creator S.J. Richold decided to challenge the two comic giants’ claim to the trademarks after DC “attempted to block Richold’s efforts to promote The Super Babies,” wrote the law firm that represented Richold in a release.

Marvel and DC didn’t respond to the challenge by a July 24th, 2024 due date, resulting in the marks’ cancellation, according to the USPTO’s decision. As such, the office canceled four patents, the oldest of which USPTO records show was for the trademark “SUPER HERO,” registered in 1967. The two companies still co-own a “SUPER HEROES” trademark, registered in 2018, as well as a “SUPER-VILLAIN” trademark that they secured in 1985.

If you want to dive down a rabbit hole on the subject of Marvel and DC’s super hero-related trademarks, I’ve got just the thing. One of the lawyers involved in the Superbabies trademark challenge, Adam Adler, actually wrote up a two-part series of articles for Escapist Magazine lightly explaining how the companies came to jointly own the trademarks and what they’ve done to guard that ownership over the years. Adler links out to other articles with even deeper dives, too.

California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed the Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models Act (SB 1047) today. In his veto message, Governor Newsom cited multiple factors in his decision, including the burden the bill would have placed on AI companies, California’s lead in the space, and a critique that the bill may be too broad.

“While well-intentioned, SB 1047 does not take into account whether an AI system is deployed in high-risk environments, involves critical decision-making or the use of sensitive data. Instead, the bill applies stringent standards to even the most basic functions — so long as a large system deploys it. I do not believe this is the best approach to protecting the public from real threats posed by the technology.”

Newsom writes that the bill could “give the public a false sense of security about controlling this fast-moving technology.”

“Smaller, specialized models may emerge as equally or even more dangerous than the models targeted by SB 1047 – at the potential expense of curtailing the very innovation that fuels advancement in favor of the public good.”

Governor Newsom also writes that he agrees that there should be safety protocols and guardrails in place, as well as “clear and enforceable” consequences for bad actors. However, he states that he doesn’t believe the state should “settle for a solution that is not informed by an empirical trajectory analysis of Al systems and capabilities.”

Here is the full veto message:

It would have applied to covered AI companies doing business in California with a model that costs over $100 million to train or over $10 million to fine-tune, adding requirements that developers implement safeguards like a “kill switch” and lay out protocols for testing to reduce the chance of disastrous events like a cyberattack or a pandemic. The text also establishes protections for whistleblowers to report violations and enables the AG to sue for damages caused by safety incidents.

Changes since its introduction included removing proposals for a new regulatory agency and giving the state attorney general power to sue developers for potential incidents before they occur. Most companies covered by the law pushed back against the legislation, though some muted their criticism after those amendments.

The Chamber of Progress, a coalition that represents Amazon, Meta, and Google, similarly warned the law would “hamstring innovation.”

The bill’s opponents have included former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, San Francisco Mayor London Breed, and eight congressional Democrats from California. On the other side, vocal supporters have included Elon Musk, prominent Hollywood names like Mark Hamill, Alyssa Milano, Shonda Rhimes, and J.J. Abrams, and unions including SAG-AFTRA and SEIU.

The federal government is also looking into ways it could regulate AI. In May, the Senate proposed a $32 billion roadmap that goes over several areas lawmakers should look into, including the impact of AI on elections, national security, copyrighted content, and more.