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Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Apple computers
Answer: MACS

5A clue: Colorful parrot with a long tail
Answer: MACAW

6A clue: Enticing scent
Answer: AROMA

7A clue: __ song (dangerous lure)
Answer: SIREN

8A clue: “Barbie” character whose job is “beach”
Answer: KEN

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Singing sister in the Osmond family
Answer: MARIE

2D clue: Future oak tree, perhaps
Answer: ACORN

3D clue: Attended
Answer: CAME

4D clue: ___ song (farewell performance)
Answer: SWAN

5D clue: Conceal
Answer: MASK

ChatGPT can now help you find and book a rental car thanks to a new Turo integration that launched Monday. The Turo app for ChatGPT allows you to just tell the AI chatbot what you’re looking for — from pickup location and dates to number of seats, EV preference and more — using natural language, and be presented with real Turo rental cars, advice and links directly to the Turo website to book.

Turo is a peer-to-peer marketplace that lets private owners rent out their personal vehicles to travelers and locals. I like to think of it as the “Airbnb of cars” or drive-it-yourself Uber. Unlike traditional rental agencies that own and maintain large fleets of cars, Turo merely provides the tech, insurance and support to connect vehicle hosts with guest drivers. Turo has proven to be a popular alternative to the airport rental counter thanks to its more varied selection of unique car models (including luxury or high-tech vehicles), competitive pricing, and the convenience of having certain vehicles delivered.

And now, it has a ChatGPT integration. You can access the new Turo app within ChatGPT by first searching for and then adding Turo to the list of available agents in ChatGPT’s Apps menu. Once connected, adding “@Turo” to any chat with the AI bot will trigger the new functionality.

I fired up ChatGPT after setting it up for myself and typed the prompt: “@Turo, I’m going to be landing in Atlanta on Friday and would like to rent an EV for the weekend with enough range to make it to Augusta. What’s available?”

The app replied with listings of vehicles currently available to rent near the airport with enough range to make the approximately 300-mile round trip with as little as one quick top-up. Each listing featured photos, price estimates (including tax and fees), star ratings and the number of times each car had been rented. 

Clicking on a listing took me straight to the Turo website (or app on mobile) to complete the booking. I also tried asking for “an EV near my home that seats six people” and “a hybrid that would be useful for moving,” and found the results to be adequate. 

In addition to the listings, ChatGPT and Turo provided details (like range) about each car as well as pros and cons, such as Tesla’s plentiful Superchargers between Atlanta and Augusta or the Kia EV6’s very fast charging speed. Overall, the new functionality looks like a fairly convenient and decent starting point for someone who knows nothing about cars to choose a rental.

Turo’s app for ChatGPT is the latest example of AI’s rapid advance into every aspect of the automotive industry, from natural language AI assistants in the dashboard to AI-powered inspection of rental car returns. 

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI last year, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)

Slowly but surely, the ante is starting to be upped in The Pitt season 2. Last week, a woman detained by two male ICE agents was brought in to see Dr. Robbie (Noah Wyle) and Cassie (Fiona Dourif).

Blood covered her arms as her handcuffs cut into her wrists, with the distressed woman clearly too scared to say anything. When Cassie asks her if there’s anybody she’d like to call, one ICE agent immediately responds that there are “no calls allowed.”

The Prague and Krakow firm, whose earliest bets include UiPath and ElevenLabs, is doubling down on pre-seed in Central and Eastern Europe and its global diaspora, with a six-partner team and a $1–5M typical cheque.

Credo Ventures has closed Credo Stage 5, an $88 million fund raised in a single closing, continuing the Prague and Krakow firm’s fifteen-year strategy of writing the first institutional cheque for founders from Central and Eastern Europe and its diaspora.

The fund is the firm’s largest to date, stepping up from the €75 million fourth fund closed in 2022.

The firm’s founding partners Ondrej Bartos and Jan Habermann launched Credo in 2010 and have backed over 100 companies across four funds.

The 💜 of EU tech

The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol’ founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It’s free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!

The two headline outcomes, UiPath, the Romanian-founded RPA platform that listed on the NYSE in 2021 at a $35 billion valuation, and ElevenLabs, the AI voice company most recently valued at $11 billion, are the cases Credo leads with, and with good reason: both were pre-seed investments led or co-led by the firm before either company was widely known. Maciek Gnutek, now a partner at Credo, was an early backer of ElevenLabs. 

The fifth fund is managed by six partners. Alongside Bartos and Habermann, the team includes Gnutek, who focuses on the Polish market and diaspora connections; Jakub Krikava, whose background spans public policy and the Czech defence ministry; Max Kolowrat-Krakowsky, with international investment experience and US networks; and Matej Micek, focused on infrastructure, AI, and developer tools.

The multi-generational structure is deliberate. Credo’s stated argument is that the new generation of GPs reinforces the firm’s positioning at a moment when the CEE ecosystem is maturing but its pre-seed layer remains structurally underserved.

The firm’s thesis for Fund 5 is a sharpened version of what it has always done. Typical cheques will fall in the $1–5 million range, though Krikava told start-up.ro the firm remains flexible.

Sectoral focus is deliberately loose, Credo describes itself as founder-first rather than theme-driven, but the team is specifically attuned to technical founders with global ambitions, and has a growing eye on AI companies after the pace of growth in its fourth fund portfolio.

The CEE region it covers has a combined population of around 170 million and GDP of roughly $2 trillion, and Credo argues that the diaspora element, particularly founders from the region building in San Francisco and London, is an equally important sourcing channel.

The competitive framing is quietly pointed. The firm notes that fragmentation and cultural divergence across CEE countries remain meaningful barriers for outside investors, creating a structural advantage for a firm that has built networks across the region for fifteen years.

Credo-backed companies have attracted follow-on from Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, Accel, and Index Ventures, which the firm cites as validation of the quality of its early-stage sourcing. Around two-thirds of the capital in the fund comes from institutional investors, with no public funding involved.

The fund size increase, from €75 million to $88 million, is modest rather than dramatic, which suggests Credo is not betting on a step-change in the regional output but on the compounding value of being consistently the first name a breakout founder from the region calls.

from the five-stars-don’t-beat-one-amendment dept

This was extremely wild shit to be happening anywhere, much less in the land of the First Amendment. No sooner had Donald Trump decided it was time to rename the Department of Defense to the Department of War than the head of DoD operations decided it would be sorting news agencies by level of subservience.

Pretending this was all about national security, the Defense Department basically kicked everyone out of the Pentagon’s press office and stated that only those that chose to play by the new rules would be allowed back inside.

Booted: NBC News, the New York Times, NPR. Welcomed back into the fold: OAN, Newsmax, Breitbart. The Pentagon wanted a state-run press, but without having to do all the heavy lifting that comes with instituting a state-run press in the Land of the Free.

Somewhat surprisingly, some of those explicitly invited to partake of the new Defense Department media wing refused to participate. Fox and Newsmax decided to stay out, rather than promise they’d never publish leaked documents. Those choosing to bend the knee were those who never needed this sort of coercion in the first place: One America News (OAN), The Federalist, and far-right weirdos, the Epoch Times. In other words, MAGA-heavy breathers that have never been known for their independence, much less their journalism.

That didn’t stop Hegseth and the department he’s mismanaging from attempting to take a victory lap. And it certainly didn’t stop news agencies like the New York Times from suing over this blatant violation of the First Amendment.

It’s so obvious it only took the NYT four months to secure a win in a federal court (DC) that is positively swamped with litigation generated by Trump’s swamp. (h/t Adam Klasfield)

The decision [PDF] makes it clear in the opening paragraph how this is going to go for the administration and its extremely selective “respect” of enshrined rights and freedoms.

A primary purpose of the First Amendment is to enable the press to publish what it will and the public to read what it chooses, free of any official proscription. Those who drafted the First Amendment believed that the nation’s security requires a free press and an informed people and that such security is endangered by governmental suppression of political speech. That principle has preserved the nation’s security for almost 250 years. It must not be abandoned now.

Amen.

The court notes that in the past, there has been some friction between national security concerns and reporting by journalists. In some cases, the friction has been little more than the government chafing a bit when something has been published that it would rather have kept a secret. In other cases, leaks involving sensitive information have provoked reform efforts on both sides of the equation, seeking to balance these concerns with serving the public interest.

Up until now, any efforts to expel reporters have been limited to backroom bitching. What’s happening now, however, is unprecedented.

Historically, though, even when Department leaders disliked a journalist’s reporting, they did not consider suspending, revoking, or not renewing the journalist’s press credentials in response to that reporting. Julian Barnes, Pete Williams, and Robert Burns—reporters who have spent decades covering the Pentagon—as well as former Pentagon officials, are not aware of the Department ever suspending, revoking, or not renewing a journalist’s credentials due to concern over the safety or security of Department personnel or property or based on the content of their reporting.

This may be new, but the court isn’t willing to make it the “new normal.” It’s the decades of precedent that truly matter, not the vindictive whims of the overgrown toddlers currently holding office.

The Pentagon claims that demanding journalists agree not to “solicit,” much less print data or information not explicitly approved for release by the Defense Department doesn’t reach any further than existing laws governing the handling of classified documents. The court disagrees, noting that the new policy allows the government to conflate the illegal solicitation of classified material with the sort of soliciting — i.e., requests for information, etc. — journalists do every day in hopes of securing something newsworthy.

On top of allowing the government to punish people for things that weren’t previously considered unlawful, the demand for obeisance wasn’t created in a vacuum. Instead, it flowed directly from this entire administration’s constant attacks on the press by the president and pretty much every one in his Cabinet.

The plaintiffs are correct: “The record is replete with undisputed evidence that the Policy is viewpoint discriminatory.” That evidence tells the story of a Department whose leadership has been and continues to be openly hostile to the “mainstream media” whose reporting it views as unfavorable, but receptive to outlets that have expressed “support for the Trump administration in the past.”

The story begins prior to the adoption of the Policy, when—following extensive reporting on Secretary Hegseth’s background and qualifications during his confirmation process—Secretary Hegseth and Department officials “openly complained about reporting they perceive[d] as unfavorable to them and the Department.” Then, in the weeks and months leading up to the issuance of the Policy, Department officials repeatedly condemned certain news organizations—including The Times—for their coverage of the Department. For example, in response to reporting by The Times on Secretary Hegseth’s alleged misuse of the messaging platform Signal, Mr. Parnell posted on X to call out The Times “and all other Fake News that repeat their garbage.” Mr. Parnell decried these news organizations as “Trump-hating media” who “continue[] to be obsessed with destroying anyone committed to President Trump’s agenda.” In other social media posts leading up to the issuance of the Policy, Department officials referred to journalists from The Washington Post as “scum” and called for their “severe punishment” in response to reporting on Secretary Hegseth’s security detail.

It was never about keeping loose lips from sinking ships. It was always about cutting off access to news agencies the administration didn’t like. And once you’ve gotten rid of the critics, you’re left with the functional equivalent of a state-run media, but without the nastiness of having to disappear people into concentration camps or usher them out of their cubicles at gunpoint.

The court won’t let this stand. The new policy violates both the First Amendment and Fifth Amendment (due to the vagueness of its ban on “soliciting” sensitive information). That’s never been acceptable before in this nation. Just because there’s an aspiring tyrant leaning heavily on the Resolute Desk these days doesn’t make it any more permissible.

The Court recognizes that national security must be protected, the security of our troops must be protected, and war plans must be protected. But especially in light of the country’s recent incursion into Venezuela and its ongoing war with Iran, it is more important than ever that the public have access to information from a variety of perspectives about what its government is doing—so that the public can support government policies, if it wants to support them; protest, if it wants to protest; and decide based on full, complete, and open information who they are going to vote for in the next election. As Justice Brandeis correctly observed, “sunlight is the most powerful of all disinfectants.”

The administration will definitely appeal this decision. And it almost definitely will try to bypass the DC Appeals Court and go straight to the Supreme Court by claiming not being able to expel reporters it doesn’t like is some sort of national emergency. It will probably even claim that the fight it picked in Iran justifies the actions it took months before it decided to involve us in the nation’s latest Afghanistan/Vietnam.

But it definitely shouldn’t win. This isn’t some obscure permutation of First Amendment law. This is the government crafting a policy that allows it to decide what gets to be printed and who gets to print it. That’s never been acceptable here. And it never should be.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, defense department, dod, free speech, leaks, pete hegseth, trump administration

Companies: ny times

from the mass-surveillance-winning-again dept

Two years ago, Congress passed the “Reforming Intelligence and Securing America” Act (RISAA) that included nominal reforms to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The bill unfortunately included some problematic expansions of the law—but it also included a relatively big victory for civil liberties advocates: Section 702 authorities were only extended for two years, allowing Congress to continue the important work of negotiating a warrant requirement for Americans as well as some other critical reforms. 

However, Congress clearly did not continue this work. In fact, it now appears that Congress is poised to consider another extension of this program without even attempting to include necessary and common sense reforms. Most notably, Congress is not considering a requirement to obtain a warrant before looking at data on U.S. persons that was indiscriminately and warrantlessly collected. House Speaker Mike Johnson confirmed that “the plan is to move a clean extension of FISA … for at least 18 months.” 

Even more disappointing, House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, who has previously been a champion of both the warrant requirement and closing the data broker loophole, told the press he would vote for a clean extension of FISA, claiming that RISAA included enough reforms for the moment.

It’s important to note RISAA was just a reauthorization of this mass surveillance program with a long history of abuse. Prior to the 2024 reauthorization, Section 702 was already misused to run improper queries on peaceful protesters, federal and state lawmakers, Congressional staff, thousands of campaign donors, journalists, and a judge reporting civil rights violations by local police. RISAA further expanded the government’s authority by allowing it to compel a much larger group of people and providers into assisting with this surveillance. As we said when it passed, overall, RISAA is a travesty for Americans who deserve basic constitutional rights and privacy whether they are communicating with people and services inside or outside of the US.

Section 702 should not be reauthorized without any additional safeguards or oversight. Fortunately, there are currently three reform bills for Congress to consider: SAFE, PLEWSA, and GSRA. While none of these bills are perfect, they are all significantly better than the status quo, and should be considered instead of a bill that attempts no reform at all. 

Mass spying—accessing a massive amount of communications by and with Americans first and sorting out targets second and secretly—has always been a problem for our rights.  It was a problem at first when President George W. Bush authorized it in secret without Congressional or court oversight. And it remained a problem even after the passage of Section 702 in 2008 created the possibility of  some oversight. Congress was right that this surveillance is dangerous, and that’s why it set Section 702 up for regular reconsideration. That reconsideration has not occurred, even as the circumstances of the NSA, Justice Department, and FBI leadership, have radically changed. Reform is long overdue, and now it’s urgent.  

Republished from the EFF’s Deeplinks blog.

Filed Under: congress, fisa, jim jordan, mass surveillance, section 702, surveillance