Things To Do In SW Florida

Construction

Etienne Wolmarans was appointed group president at KENPAT, Apopka.

Entertainment

Erik DuCharme was appointed director of national sales at Pinstripes. He will be based in Orlando.

Law

Construction Defect Attorney Todd Demetriades has joined Ball Janik LLP as special counsel in the firm’s Orlando office.

Public relations

Anjaleah Domino was hired as a public relations specialist at Curley & Pynn Public Relations Management, Orlando.

Submit professional appointments, management-level promotions and significant awards for individuals, along with photos as .jpg attachments, to peopleonmove@orlandosentinel.com.

By DAN MERICA

Washington (AP) — An advanced deepfake operation targeted Sen. Ben Cardin, the Democratic chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, this month, according to the Office of Senate Security, the latest sign that nefarious actors are turning to artificial intelligence in efforts to dupe top political figures in the United States.

Experts believe schemes like this will become more common now that the technical barriers that once existed around generative artificial intelligence have decreased. The notice from Senate Security sent to Senate offices on Monday said the attempt “stands out due to its technical sophistication and believability.”

The scheme centered around Dmytro Kuleba, the former Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs. Cardin’s office received an email from someone they believed to be Kuleba, according to the notice, an official Cardin knew from a past meeting.

When the two met for a video call, the connection “was consistent in appearance and sound to past encounters.” It wasn’t until the caller posing as Kuleba began asking questions like “Do you support long range missiles into Russian territory? I need to know your answer,” that Cardin and his staff suspected “something was off,” the Senate notice said. read more

By GABRIELA SÁ PESSOA and BARBARA ORTUTAY, Associated Press

SAO PAULO (AP) — In the high-stakes showdown between the world’s richest man and a Brazilian Supreme Court justice, Elon Musk blinked.

Musk’s social media site X has complied with Alexandre de Moraes’ orders and requested its service be reestablished in the country, a source said Thursday.

X complied with orders to block certain accounts from the platform, name an official legal representative in the country, and pay fines imposed for not complying with earlier court orders, his lawyers said in a petition filed Thursday, according to the source, who is familiar with the document. The source spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.

On Saturday, de Moraes ordered the platform to submit additional documentation about its legal representative for court review, which the source said has been done.

X was blocked in the highly online country of 213 million people on Aug. 30. De Moraes ordered the shutdown after sparring with Musk for months over free speech, far-right accounts and misinformation. The company said at the time that de Moraes’ efforts to block certain accounts were illegal moves to censor “political opponents” and that it would not comply. Musk called the judge an enemy of free speech and a criminal. read more

By MATT O’BRIEN, KELVIN CHAN and THALIA BEATY, AP Business Writers

OpenAI’s history as a nonprofit research institute that also sells commercial products like ChatGPT may be coming to an end as the San Francisco company looks to more fully convert itself into a for-profit corporation accountable to shareholders.

The artificial intelligence company’s board is considering a decision that would change OpenAI into a public benefit corporation, according to a source familiar with the discussions who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about them.

While OpenAI already has a for-profit division, where most of its staff works, it is controlled by a nonprofit board of directors whose mission is to help humanity. That would change if the company converts the core of its structure to a public benefit corporation, which is a type of corporate entity that is supposed to help society as well as turn a profit.

No final decision has been made by the board and the timing of the shift hasn’t been determined, the source said. read more

By DAVID KOENIG

DALLAS (AP) — Southwest Airlines executives on Thursday unveiled their vision for Southwest 2.0, an airline that for the first time will give passengers assigned seats, charge them extra for more legroom and offer red-eye flights but bags still will fly free.

The airline announced that it plans to end the open-boarding system it has used for more than 50 years and start flights with assigned seats during the first half of 2026 as it responds to shifting consumer tastes and tries to reverse a three-year slump in profits.

CEO Robert Jordan and other Southwest executives outlined the future refresh during an investor meeting in Dallas where they tried to convince shareholders that they can increase revenue by winning over younger and more affluent customers.

The moves away from Southwest’s simple business model and quirky traditions come as airline management faces pressure from activist investor Elliott Investment Management. The hedge fund blames management for Southwest’s recent underperformance compared with its closest rivals, and wants to replace Jordan and most of the Southwest board. read more