A judge has denied Tesla’s request to overturn a $243 million jury verdict that held the automaker partially responsible for a fatal crash involving its Autopilot driver assistance system.

“The grounds for relief that Tesla relies upon are virtually the same as those Tesla put forth previously during the course of trial and in their briefings on summary judgment — arguments that were already considered and rejected,” Hon. Judge Beth Bloom’s decision reads. “Furthermore, Tesla does not present additional arguments or controlling law that persuades this Court to alter its earlier decisions or the jury verdict.”

Last August, a jury awarded a $243 million verdict against Tesla over its culpability in a 2019 fatal crash in Florida that killed Naibel Benavides and critically injured Dillon Angulo. The jury assigned the driver two-thirds of the blame, and attributed one-third to Tesla. Notably, the jury assessed punitive damages only against Tesla.

Tesla’s lawyers argued, in its request to reverse the ruling, that the blame rested on the driver, who helped cause the crash.

A U.S. federal court has sentenced a Ukrainian man to five years in prison for his part in a long-running identity theft operation that helped overseas North Korean workers gain fraudulent employment at dozens of U.S. companies.

U.S. prosecutors brought charges in 2024 against Oleksandr Didenko, 29, a resident of Kyiv, for setting up North Koreans with stolen identities of U.S. citizens to get hired and earn a wage. Under this scheme, the workers’ earnings were funneled back to Pyongyang, which the regime used to fund its internationally sanctioned nuclear weapons program.

This is the latest in a string of recent convictions of individuals involved in facilitating ongoing North Korean so-called “IT worker” schemes. Security researchers have described North Korean workers as a “triple threat” to U.S. and Western businesses, as they violate U.S. sanctions, all the while enabling North Koreans to steal sensitive company data, and then later extort those victim companies into not publicly releasing corporate secrets.

Prosecutors said Didenko ran a website called Upworksell, which allowed people working overseas, including North Koreans, to buy or rent stolen identities for gaining employment with U.S. firms. Didenko handled more than 870 stolen identities, per the Justice Department.

The FBI seized Upworksell in 2024 and diverted its traffic to its own servers. Polish authorities arrested Didenko, who was then extradited to the U.S. and later pleaded guilty.

In a statement this week, the U.S. Department of Justice said Didenko also paid people to receive and host computers at their homes in California, Tennessee, and Virginia. These “laptop farms” are rooms containing racks of open laptops, allowing North Koreans to remotely perform their work as if they were physically in the United States.

Security giant CrowdStrike said last year that it has seen a sharp rise in the number of North Korean workers infiltrating companies, often as remote developers or other technical software engineering jobs. The scheme is among many that the North Korean regime uses to enrich itself, while unable to use the global financial system, thanks to international sanctions.

North Koreans are also known to impersonate recruiters and VCs in efforts to trick unsuspecting high-profile and net-worth victims into granting access to their computers, including crypto.

SoftBank subsidiary SB Energy is expected to build a massive 9.2 gigawatt natural gas-fired power plant on the Ohio-Kentucky border, according to a report from Bloomberg. If completed, it would be the largest power plant in the U.S., capable of powering around 7.5 million homes.

With a price tag of $33 billion, the project would be more expensive than recent natural gas-fired power plants, which have skyrocketed in cost, Bloomberg notes. It’s unclear who will ultimately foot the bill, though traditionally rate-payers have shouldered the burden for new generating capacity.

The Japanese investor is a partner in the Stargate project with OpenAI. SB Energy did not say whether the new power plant would feed directly into the grid or if it would power data centers. OpenAI and SoftBank are in the process of building a “proof of concept” data center at GM’s former Lordstown automotive assembly plant.

A power plant of this size is likely to take years, perhaps a decade, to complete even before taking into account the shortage of natural gas turbines. If completed, the project could emit around 15 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, according to our calculations based on public, energy-use metrics. When including methane leaks from the natural gas supply chain, the climate impact could be even bigger.