A recent relaxation of rules around apostrophes in German, permitting their use in possessive forms like "Eva's Blumenladen," has sparked criticism from traditionalists and concerns over the influence of English on the German language. The Guardian reports: Establishments that feature their owners' names, with signs like "Rosi's Bar" or "Kati's Kiosk" are a common sight around German towns and cities, but strictly speaking they are wrong: unlike English, German does not traditionally use apostrophes to indicate the genitive case or possession. The correct spelling, therefore, would be "Rosis Bar," "Katis Kiosk," or, as in the title of a recent viral hit, Barbaras Rhabarberbar. However, guidelines issued by the body regulating the use of Standard High German orthography have clarified that the use of the punctuation mark colloquially known as the Deppenapostroph ("idiot's apostrophe") has become so widespread that it is permissible -- as long as it separates the genitive 's' within a proper name.

The new edition of the Council for German Orthography's style guide, which prescribes grammar use at schools and public bodies in Germany, Austria and German-speaking Switzerland, lists "Eva's Blumenladen" (Eva's Flower Shop) and "Peter's Taverne" (Peter's Tavern) as usable alternatives, though "Eva's Brille" ("Eva's glasses") remains incorrect. The Deppenapostroph is not to be confused with the English greengrocer's apostrophe, when an apostrophe before an 's' is mistakenly used to form the plural of a noun ("a kilo of potato's"). The new set of rules came into effect in July, and the council said a loosening of the rules in 1996 meant that "Rosi's Bar" had strictly speaking not been incorrect for almost three decades. Yet over the past few days, German newspapers and social media networks have seen a pedants' revolt against the loosening of grammar rules.

TechCrunch's Paul Sawers reports: Fledgling fintech startup OpenBB is revealing the next step in its plans to take on the heavyweights of the investment research world. The company is launching a new, free version of a product that will open its arsenal of data and financial tooling to more users. OpenBB is the handiwork of software engineer Didier Lopes, who launched the Python-based platform back in 2021 as a way for amateur investors and enthusiasts to do investment research using different datasets for free, via a command line interface (CLI). The company went on to raise $8.5 million in seed funding from OSS Capital and angel investors such as Ram Shriram, an early backer of Google. While the community-based, open source project has amassed some 50,000 users, OpenBB has also been building an enterprise incarnation called Terminal Pro. This paid version gives teams access to an interface, pre-built database integrations, an Excel add-in, and various security and support bolt-ons that would appeal to larger businesses. [...]

The all-new OpenBB Terminal -- not to be confused with the previous CLI-based OpenBB Terminal that the startup sunsetted in March -- is a full-fledged web app, though it strips out many of the premium features of Terminal Pro. It's fully customizable, can run on any operating system or platform, and provides access to an AI-enabled OpenBB copilot. Like the previous OpenBB Terminal, the all-new web app is also free to use. OpenBB Terminal is perhaps something of a middle ground between the CLI centricity of the open source project and the bells-and-whistles feature set of the enterprise product.

The OpenBB Terminal serves as a single end point for accessing financial information from some 100 data sources, spanning equity, options, forex, the macro economy, and more. Users can also throw all their new data into the mix -- the community has previously contributed financial datasets such as historical currency exchange rates and crypto pricing data. There are also a slew of extensions and toolkits to bring more functionality to OpenBB -- such as an AI stock analysis agent. Users are free to incorporate their own AI systems and large language models (LLMs), which might be particularly important for security and compliance use cases. But with the OpenBB Copilot, categorized as a "compound AI system," users can run natural-language queries about their data out of the box. While OpenBB has been likened to an "open-source Bloomberg," TechCrunch notes that it's not a direct competitor due to Bloomberg's massive data resources and built-in chat functionality. OpenBB, however, offers flexibility with its open-source platform and customization options.

OpenBB filed for a trademark, but Bloomberg has requested an extension to potentially oppose it, despite the company asserting there's no link between OpenBB and Bloomberg's abbreviation "BBG". Lopes says the name originates from BlackBerry stock, where the founders had lost money during the meme stock craze.

American scientists Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Monday for discovering microRNA, tiny molecules that regulate gene expression. Their groundbreaking work in the 1990s revealed a new layer of genetic control, opening fresh avenues for understanding human development and disease.

Ambros first identified microRNA in 1993, while Ruvkun later found similar molecules in humans and other species. These RNA fragments, about 100 times smaller than typical messenger RNA, can silence genes and fine-tune protein production. The discovery has spurred research into potential treatments for cancer, heart disease, and neurological disorders. Several biotechnology companies are now developing drugs that target or mimic microRNAs.

U.S. exchanges' four-character limit for ETF tickers is creating fierce competition in the $10 trillion industry, particularly for single-stock funds. With 456,976 possible combinations, options narrow drastically when built around existing company tickers. MicroStrategy-inspired ETFs, for instance, leave issuers with just 52 choices using 'MST'. Memorable tickers are crucial for differentiation and can improve stock liquidity.

U.S. public utility giant American Water says it has disconnected some of its systems after discovering that hackers breached its internal networks last week. From a report: American Water, which supplies drinking water and wastewater services to more than 14 million people across the United States, confirmed the security incident in an 8-K regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday. The New Jersey-based company said in its filing that its water and wastewater facilities are "at this time" not affected and continue to operate without interruption, though the company noted that it's currently "unable to predict the full impact of this incident." American Water said it also notified law enforcement of the intrusion.

The company said it discovered "unauthorized activity" within its networks on October 3 and promptly moved to disconnect affected systems. In a statement on its website, American Water said it is "pausing billing until further notice." "In an effort to protect our customers' data and to prevent any further harm to our environment, we disconnected or deactivated certain systems," Ruben E. Rodriguez, a spokesperson for American Water, told TechCrunch in a statement. "There will be no late charges for customers while these systems are unavailable." Rodriguez declined to state which systems were unavailable and also declined to comment on the nature of the cybersecurity incident.

doc1623 writes: Advocacy groups behind a so-called suicide capsule said Sunday they have suspended the process of taking applications to use it -- which numbered over 370 last month -- as a criminal investigation into its first use in Switzerland is completed. The president of Switzerland-based The Last Resort, Florian Willet, is being held in pretrial detention, said the group and Exit International, an affiliate founded in Australia over a quarter century ago. Swiss police arrested Willet and several other people following the death of an unidentified 64-year-old woman from the U.S. Midwest who on Sept. 23 became the first person to use the device, known as the "Sarco," in a forest in the northern Schaffhausen region near the German border. Others initially detained were released from custody, authorities have said.

"Pine64 has confirmed that its open-source e-ink tablet is returning," reports the blog OMG Ubuntu: The [10.1-inch e-ink display] PineNote was announced in 2021, building on the success of its non-SBC devices like the PinePhone (and later Pro model), the PineTab, and PineBook devices. Like most of Pine64's devices, software support is largely tackled by the community. But only a small batch of developer units were ever sold, primarily by enthusiasts within the open-source community who had the knowledge and desire to work on getting a modern Linux OS to run on the hardware, and adapt to the e-ink display.

That process has taken a while, as Pine64's community bloggers explain:

"The PineNote was stuck in a chicken-and-egg situation because of the very high cost of manufacturing the device (ePaper screens are sadly still expensive), and so the risk of manufacturing units that then didn't have a working Linux OS and would not sell was huge."

However, the proverbial egg has finally hatched. The PineNote now has a reliable Debian-based OS, developed by Maximilian Weigand. This is described as "not only a bare-bones capable OS but a genuinely daily-usable system that 'just works'" according to the Pine64 blog. ["This is excellent as it also moves the target audience from developers to every day users. You should be able to power on the device and drop into a working Gnome experience."] It is said to use the GNOME desktop plus a handful of extensions designed to ensure the UI adapts to working well with an e-ink display. Software pre-installed includes Xournal++ for note taking, Firefox for web browsing, and Foliate for reading ebooks, among others. [And it even runs Doom...]

Existing PineNote owners can download the the new OS image, flash it to their device, and help test it... Touch and stylus input are major selling points of the PineNote, positioning it as a libre alternative to leading e-ink note-taking devices like the Remarkable 2, Onyx BOOX, and Amazon Scribe.
"I do not (yet) have a launch date target," according to the blog post, "as behind-the-scenes the Pine Store team are still working on all things production."

But the update also links to some blog posts about their free and open source smartwatch PineTime...

The British Post Office scandal "was first exposed by Computer Weekly in 2009, revealing the stories of seven subpostmasters and the problems they suffered due to Horizon accounting software," remembers Computer Weekly, "which led to the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British history."

But now the Post Office "is investigating allegations that a senior executive instructed staff to destroy or conceal documents that could be of interest to the Post Office scandal public inquiry," Computer Weekly writes. A company employee acknowleged a report in an internal whistleblower program "regarding destroying or concealing material... allegations that a senior Post Office member of staff had instructed their team to destroy or conceal material of possible interest to the inquiry, and that the same individual had engaged in inappropriate behaviour." The shocking revelation echoes evidence from appeals against wrongful convictions in 2021. During the Court of Appeal trials it was revealed that a senior Post Office executive instructed employees to shred documents that undermined an insistence that its Horizon computer system was robust, amid claims that errors in the system caused unexplained accounting shortfalls.

The Washington Post interviewed Lebanese officials, people close to Hezbollah, and Israeli, Arab and U.S. security officials and politicians about a years-long plan (originated at Mossad headquarters) that ultimately killed or maimed "as many as 3,000 Hezbollah officers and members — most of them rear-echelon figures... along with an unknown number of civilians... when Israel's Mossad intelligence service triggered the devices remotely on September 17." In the initial sales pitch to Hezbollah two years ago, the new line of Apollo pagers seemed precisely suited to the needs of a militia group with a sprawling network of fighters and a hard-earned reputation for paranoia... Best of all, there was no risk that the pagers could ever be tracked by Israel's intelligence services. Hezbollah's leaders were so impressed they bought 5,000 of them and began handing them out to mid-level fighters and support personnel in February. None of the users suspected they were wearing an ingeniously crafted Israeli bomb...

Israeli officials had watched with increasing anxiety as the Lebanese group added new weapons to an arsenal already capable of striking Israeli cities with tens of thousands of precision-guided missiles. Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service responsible for combating foreign threats to the Jewish state, had worked for years to penetrate the group with electronic monitoring and human informants. Over time, Hezbollah leaders learned to worry about the group's vulnerability to Israeli surveillance and hacking, fearing that even ordinary cellphones could be turned into Israeli-controlled eavesdropping and tracking devices. Thus was born the idea of creating a kind of communications Trojan horse, the officials said. Hezbollah was looking for hack-proof electronic networks for relaying messages, and Mossad came up with a pair of ruses that would lead the militia group to purchase devices that seemed perfect for the job — equipment that Mossad designed and had assembled in Israel.

The first part of the plan, booby-trapped walkie-talkies, began being inserted into Lebanon by Mossad nearly a decade ago, in 2015. The mobile two-way radios contained oversized battery packs, a hidden explosive and a transmission system that gave Israel complete access to Hezbollah communications. For nine years, the Israelis contented themselves with eavesdropping on Hezbollah, the officials said, while reserving the option to turn the walkie-talkies into bombs in a future crisis. But then came a new opportunity and a glitzy new product: a small pager equipped with a powerful explosive. In an irony that would not become clear for many months, Hezbollah would end up indirectly paying the Israelis for the tiny bombs that would kill or wound many of its operatives.

Because Hezbollah leaders were alert to possible sabotage, the pagers could not originate in Israel, the United States or any other Israeli ally. So, in 2023, the group began receiving solicitations for the bulk purchase of Taiwanese-branded Apollo pagers, a well-recognized trademark and product line with a worldwide distribution and no discernible links to Israeli or Jewish interests. The Taiwanese company had no knowledge of the plan, officials said... The marketing official had no knowledge of the operation and was unaware that the pagers were physically assembled in Israel under Mossad oversight, officials said... In a feat of engineering, the bomb component was so carefully hidden as to be virtually undetectable, even if the device was taken apart, the officials said. Israeli officials believe that Hezbollah did disassemble some of the pagers and may have even X-rayed them.
"Thousands of Apollo-branded pagers rang or vibrated at once, all across Lebanon and Syria," according to the article, with a short sentence in Arabic that said "You received an encrypted message." The two-button de-encryption procedure "ensured most users would be holding the pager with both hands when it detonated," according to the article, although "Less than a minute later, thousands of other pagers exploded by remote command, regardless of whether the user ever touched his device. The following day, on September 18, hundreds of walkie-talkies blew up in the same way, killing and maiming users and bystanders..."

"As Hezbollah reeled, Israel struck again, pounding the group's headquarters, arsenals and logistic centers with 2,000-pound bombs," the article concludes. And the strike "convinced the country's political leaders that Hezbollah could be put on the ropes, susceptible to a systematic dismantling using airstrikes and, eventually a ground invasion..."

This week the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York unsealed charges over a "scheme to commit fraud" in carbon markets, which they say fraudulently netted one company "tens of millions of dollars" worth of credits — which led to "securing an investment of over $100 million."

MarketWatch reports: Ken Newcombe had spent years building a program to distribute more environmentally friendly cookstoves for free to rural communities in Africa and Southeast Asia. The benefit for his company, C-Quest Capital, would be the carbon credits it would receive in exchange for reducing the amount of fuel people burned in order to cook food — credits the company could then sell for a profit to big oil companies like BP.

But when Newcombe tried to ramp up the program, federal prosecutors said in an indictment made public Wednesday, he quickly realized that the stoves wouldn't deliver the emissions savings he had promised investors. Rather than admit his mistake, he and his partners cooked the books instead, prosecutors said... That allowed them to obtain carbon credits worth tens of millions of dollars that they didn't deserve, prosecutors said. On the basis of the fraudulently gained credits, prosecutors said, C-Quest was able to secure $250 million in funding from an outside investor.

"The alleged actions of the defendants and their co-conspirators risked undermining the integrity of [the global market for carbon credits], which is an important part of the fight against climate change," said Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
From announced by the U.S. Attorney's Office: U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said... "The alleged actions of the defendants and their co-conspirators risked undermining the integrity of that market, which is an important part of the fight against climate change. Protecting the sanctity and integrity of the financial markets continues to be a cornerstone initiative for this Office, and we will continue to be vigilant in rooting out fraud in the market for carbon credits...."

While most carbon credits are created through, and trade in compliance markets, there is also a voluntary carbon market. Voluntary markets revolve around companies and entities that voluntarily set goals to reduce or offset their carbon emissions, often to align with goals from employees or shareholders. In voluntary markets, the credits are issued by non-governmental organizations, using standards for measuring emission reductions that they develop based on input from market participants, rather than on mandates from governments. The non-governmental organizations issue voluntary carbon credits to project developers that run projects that reduce emissions or remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

CQC was a for-profit company that ran projects to generate carbon credits — including a type of credit known as a voluntary carbon unit ("VCU") — by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. CQC profited by selling VCUs it obtained, often to companies seeking to offset the impact of greenhouse gases they emit in the course of operating their businesses.
The company itself was not charged due to "voluntary and timely self-disclosure of misconduct," according to the announcement, along with "full and proactive cooperation, timely and appropriate remediation, and agreement to cancel or void certain voluntary carbon units.

The Washington Post on scientists who "discovered that bacteria commonly found in wastewater can break down plastic to turn it into a food source, a finding that researchers hope could be a promising answer to combat one of Earth's major pollution problems." In a study published Thursday in Environmental Science and Technology, scientists laid out their examination of Comamonas testosteroni, a bacteria that grows on polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, a plastic commonly found in single-use food packaging and water bottles. PET makes up about 12 percent of global solid waste and 90 million tons of the plastic produced each year... Unlike most other bacteria, which thrive on sugar, C. testosteroni has a more refined palate, including chemically complex materials from plants and plastics that take longer to decompose.

The researchers are the first to demonstrate not only that this bacteria can break down plastic, but they also illuminate exactly how they do it. Through six meticulous steps, involving complex imaging and gene editing techniques, the authors found that the bacteria first physically break down plastic by chewing it into smaller pieces. Then, they release enzymes — components of a cell that speed up chemical reactions — to chemically break down the plastic into a carbon-rich food source known as terephthalate...

The bacteria take a few months to break down chunks of plastic, according to Rebecca Wilkes [a lead author on the study and postdoctoral researcher at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory]. As a result, if the bacteria are going to be efficient tools, a lot of optimization needs to take place to speed up the rate at which they decompose pollutants. One approach is to promote bacterial growth by providing them with an additional food source, such as a chemical known as acetate.
A senior author on the study (and associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Northwestern University) tells the Washington Post that "The machinery in environmental microbes is still a largely untapped potential for uncovering sustainable solutions we can exploit."

Days after a hurricane struck America's southeast, Florida's state's fire marshall "confirmed 16 lithium-ion battery fires related to storm surge," according to local news reports. "Officials said six of those fires are associated with electric vehicles and they are working with fire departments statewide to gather more data." (Earlier this year America's federal transportation safety agency estimated that after a 2022 hurricane "about 36 EVs caught on fire. In several instances, the fire erupted while the impacted EVs were being towed on their flatbed trailers.")

But Tuesday, when over 1 million Americans were without electricity, the Atlantic pointed out the other side of the story. "EV owners are using their cars to keep the lights on." When Hurricane Helene knocked out the power in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Friday, Dustin Baker, like many other people across the Southeast, turned to a backup power source. His just happened to be an electric pickup truck. Over the weekend, Baker ran extension cords from the back of his Ford F-150 Lightning, using the truck's battery to keep his refrigerator and freezer running. It worked so well that Baker became an energy Good Samaritan. "I ran another extension cord to my neighbor so they could run two refrigerators they have," he told me.

Americans in hurricane territory have long kept diesel-powered generators as a way of life, but electric cars are a leap forward. An EV, at its most fundamental level, is just a big battery on wheels that can be used to power anything, not only the car itself. Some EVs pack enough juice to power a whole home for several days, or a few appliances for even longer. In the aftermath of Helene, as millions of Americans were left without power, many EV owners did just that. A vet clinic that had lost power used an electric F-150 to keep its medicines cold and continue seeing patients during the blackout. One Tesla Cybertruck owner used his car to power his home after his entire neighborhood lost power.
One Louisiana man just ran cords straight from the outlets in the bed of his Tesla Cybertruck, according to the article. "We were able to run my internet router and TV, [plus] lamps, refrigerator, a window AC unit, and fans, as well as several phone, watch, and laptop chargers." Over the course of about 24 hours, he said, all of this activity ran his Cybertruck battery down from 99 percent to 80 percent...

Bidirectional charging may prove to be the secret weapon that sells electrification to the South, which has generally remained far behind the West and the Northeast in electric-vehicle purchases. If EVs become widely seen as the best option for blackouts, they could entice not just the climate conscious but also the suburban dads in hurricane country with a core belief in prepping for anything. It will take a lot to overcome the widespread distrust of EVs and anxiety about a new technology, but our loathing of power outages just might do the trick.
The article notes that Tesla has confirmed all its electric vehicles will support bidirectional charging by 2025.

"Can you believe that we've been demanding user freedom since 1985?" asks a new blog post at FSF.org: Today, we're celebrating our thirty-ninth anniversary, the "lace year," which represents the intertwined nature and strength of our relationship with the free software community. We wouldn't be here without you, and we are so grateful for everyone who has stood with us, advocating for a world where complete user freedom is the norm and not the exception.

As we celebrate our anniversary and reflect on the past thirty-nine years, we feel inspired by how far we've come, not only as a movement but as an organization, and the changes that we've gone through. While we inevitably have challenges ahead, we feel encouraged and eager to take them on knowing that you'll be right there with us, working for a free future for everyone. Here's to many more years of fighting for user freedom!
Their suggestions for celebrating include:

• Try a fully free distribution of GNU/Linux or help someone else give it a try

• Learn how to encrypt your emails and opt out of bulk surveillance

• Take a small step with big impact and swap out one nonfree program with one that's truly free

• If you have an Android phone, download F-Droid, which is a catalogue of hundreds of free software applications

• Wish us happy birthday on social media. [Which for the FSF is Mastodon, PeerTube, and GNU social.]

• Join a Free Software Directory (FSD) meeting, which we host every Friday from 16:00 to 19:00 UTC.

• Become an associate member or gift a membership to a friend

• Donate $39 to help support free software advocacy

• Print off stickers of our 39th birthday cake

• Change your desktop background to an early-2000s-cyberspace-inspired image of our former front desk. (And then switch out your browser theme to match your new desktop background.)

And to help with the celebrations they share a free video teaching the basics of SuperCollider (the free and open source audio synthesis/algorithmic composition software). The video appears on FramaTube, an instance of the decentralized (and ActivityPub-federated) Peertube video platform, supported by the French non-profit Framasoft and powered by WebTorrent, using peer-to-peer technology to reduce load on individual servers.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: Google said Friday it will stop linking to New Zealand news content and will reverse its support of local media outlets if the government passes a law forcing tech companies to pay for articles displayed on their platforms. The vow to sever Google traffic to New Zealand news sites -- made in a blog post by the search giant on Friday -- echoes strategies the firm deployed as Australia and Canada prepared to enact similar laws in recent years. It followed a surprise announcement by New Zealand's government in July that lawmakers would advance a bill forcing tech platforms to strike deals for sharing revenue generated from news content with the media outlets producing it.

The government, led by center-right National, had opposed the law in 2023 when introduced by the previous administration. But the loss of more than 200 newsroom jobs earlier this year -- in a national media industry that totaled 1,600 reporters at the 2018 census and has likely shrunk since -- prompted the current government to reconsider forcing tech companies to pay publishers for displaying content. The law aims to stanch the flow offshore of advertising revenue derived from New Zealand news products. If the media law passes, Google New Zealand Country Director Caroline Rainsford said the firm would need to change its involvement in the country. "Specifically, we'd be forced to stop linking to news content on Google Search, Google News, or Discover surfaces in New Zealand and discontinue our current commercial agreements and ecosystem support with New Zealand news publishers."

Google's licensing program in New Zealand contributed "millions of dollars per year to almost 50 local publications," she added.

Google is testing a new verification feature in search, in a move aimed at helping users avoid fake or fraudulent websites. The Verge's Jess Weatherbed reports: My colleague Jay Peters spotted checkmarks next to official site links for Microsoft, Meta, Epic Games, Apple, Amazon, and HP, but these were no longer displayed once he logged into a different Google account -- meaning this experiment isn't being rolled out widely just yet. Hovering over a checkmark will display a message that explains "Google's signals suggest that this business is the business that it says it is," which is determined by things like website verification, Merchant Center data, and manual reviews according to Shaheen.

Plant cover across the Antarctic peninsula has soared more than tenfold over the last few decades, as the climate crisis heats up the icy continent. From a report: Analysis of satellite data found there was less than one sq kilometre of vegetation in 1986 but there was almost 12km2 of green cover by 2021. The spread of the plants, mostly mosses, has accelerated since 2016, the researchers found. The growth of vegetation on a continent dominated by ice and bare rock is a sign of the reach of global heating into the Antarctic, which is warming faster than the global average. The scientists warned that this spread could provide a foothold for alien invasive species into the pristine Antarctic ecosystem. Greening has also been reported in the Arctic, and in 2021 rain, not snow, fell on the summit of Greenland's huge ice cap for the first time on record.

"The Antarctic landscape is still almost entirely dominated by snow, ice and rock, with only a tiny fraction colonised by plant life," said Dr Thomas Roland, at the University of Exeter, UK, and who co-led the study. "But that tiny fraction has grown dramatically -- showing that even this vast and isolated wilderness is being affected by human-caused climate change." The peninsula is about 500,000km2 in total. Roland warned that future heating, which will continue until carbon emissions are halted, could bring "fundamental changes to the biology and landscape of this iconic and vulnerable region." The study is published in the journal Nature Geoscience and based on analysis of Landsat images.

Mozilla has released Firefox 131 for multiple platforms, addressing security vulnerabilities and introducing some new features. The update fixes at least seven high-risk security issues, none reportedly exploited in the wild. New features include Tab Preview, which displays thumbnails and details when hovering over background tabs, and temporary location permission storage. Firefox now also supports URL fragment text directives, allowing users to link to specific text passages on web pages.

OpenAI has a $4 billion revolving line of credit, bringing its total liquidity to more than $10 billion, CNBC reported Thursday. From the report: It follows news on Wednesday that OpenAI closed its recent funding round at a valuation of $157 billion, including the $6.6 billion the company raised from an extensive roster of investment firms and big tech companies. JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Santander, Wells Fargo, SMBC, UBS, and HSBC all participated. The base credit line is $4 billion, with an option to increase it by an additional $2 billion. The loan is unsecured and can be tapped over the course of three years. OpenAI's interest rate is equal to the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) plus 100 basis points. SOFR, a measure of the cost of borrowing cash overnight, sat at just over 5% as of early this week, meaning OpenAI would be paying roughly 6% on money that it borrows right away.

PayPal completed its first business payment using its proprietary stablecoin as a way to demonstrate how digital currencies can be used to improve often-clunky commercial transactions. From a report: PayPal paid an invoice to Ernst & Young LLP on Sept. 23 using PYUSD, the stablecoin the firm launched last year, relying on an SAP SE platform to complete the transaction. SAP's platform, known as the digital currency hub, allows enterprises to send and receive digital payments instantly, around the clock. The invoice amount wasn't disclosed.

Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies usually designed to track traditional currencies one-to-one. PYUSD, which has a current market capitalization of almost $700 million, tracks the US dollar. While the consumer-facing benefits of stablecoins often dominate conversations, this payment demonstrates other use cases for the digital currency, according to Jose Fernandez da Ponte, PayPal's senior vice president of its blockchain, cryptocurrency and digital currency group.

Private equity firms are using US public sector workers' retirement savings to fund fossil fuel projects pumping more than a billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere every year, according to an analysis. From a report: They have ploughed more than $1tn into the energy sector since 2010, often buying into old and new fossil fuel projects and, thanks to exemptions from many financial disclosures, operating them outside the public eye, the researchers say. In many cases they are mortgaging workers' futures by taking the money they have put away for old age and investing it in assets that risk serious damage to the climate, the report claims.

"Public sector workers' money, through national, state, and retirement pensions, provides much of the capital for private equity firms' energy investments, but there is limited disclosure to the pension fund managers that the deferred earnings of their beneficiaries have potential climate impacts," it says. Researchers at Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, Global Energy Monitor and Private Equity Stakeholder Project assessed the holdings of 21 private equity firms, overseeing a combined $6tn in assets under management. Together, the analysis found that the 21 firms were funding projects responsible for releasing more than 1.17bn tons of CO2 equivalent (tCO2e) a year.