The LA Clippers are dealing with one of the roughest opening stretches in franchise history. At 6-16 and sitting 13th in the Western Conference, the team has mixed poor results with a pile of off-court turmoil. The Aspiration scandal, the salary-cap circumvention investigation involving Kawhi Leonard, and the public split with Chris Paul created a constant wave of bad news. A blowout win over the Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday eased the tension, but only slightly.
The Clippers also owe their 2026 unprotected first-round pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder, which makes losing even more costly. As one executive joked, “We might need to get everyone in the league on a Zoom and brainstorm some ideas… Invite everybody except Sam.”
Path 1: Add Players and Try to Salvage the Season
Several insiders believe the Clippers should use their more than $50 million in expiring contracts to find help. One rival executive told ESPN’s Brian Windhorst, “They can just wait for a blue light special.”
The roster lacks athleticism, yet James Harden and Kawhi Leonard have produced solid numbers. A West scout said, “They aren’t the problem.” Another scout floated Zach LaVine as a target, noting his scoring punch and athleticism. LaVine also holds a $49 million player option for next season and could be acquired without damaging the team’s 2027 cap-space goals.
Path 2: Explore Trading Stars
Some executives argue that LA should consider a reset similar to what the Brooklyn Nets did a decade ago. “I would be trying to get rid of the old guys,” one East executive said. But sources noted the challenges. Harden has “maybe neutral value,” while Kawhi has “negative value” due to injuries and the ongoing investigation.
Free-agency flexibility remains a motivator. Moving Harden or Leonard to teams with cap room could help the Clippers reset their repeater-tax clock.
Path 3: Stay the Course
Veteran insiders leaned toward patience. “They are not as bad as their record says they are,” a longtime scout said. Several teams ahead of LA could shift into stealth tanking later in the season. With Ty Lue coaching and Ivica Zubac playing well, front-office voices believe the Clippers still have enough talent to climb the standings.
As another West scout put it, “You have to hold… It’s got to be better than this.”
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There’s an old saying that everything in Australia wants to eat you – and this apparently includes plants, with the island a global hotbed of carnivorous species. Now, scientists have made a particularly special find, stumbling across thousands of ultra-rare meat-eaters banding together close to city limits.
Researchers from the Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC) made this needle-in-haystack find by chance, spotting a large patch of Drosera silvicola just outside of the west coast city of Perth. Until now, the elusive carnivorous bloom has only been spotted twice, around 70 km (43 miles) from this newly discovered community in Paruna Wildlife Sanctuary.
The pretty flower hides this plant’s feeding tactics
Thilo Alexander Krueger/Australian Wildlife Conservancy
“I was so excited when I first spotted the plant out of the car window, I jumped out of the door fist pumping the air and threw myself on the ground next to it,” said Thilo Krueger, a Curtin University PhD student and carnivorous plant expert. “We knew it was previously recorded in the area over 30 years ago but given we had already searched for nearly two full days I had started to doubt the validity of that old record.”
D. silvicola is a rare sundew – an abundant group of meat-eating plants that come in a range of shapes, sizes and colors aimed at luring unsuspecting insects to their deaths. Once trapped, the plant’s specialized glands secrete (among other things) digestive enzymes to break down their catch, much like many animals do.
“Drosera silvicola is a very distinctive species of sundew because of its beautiful, absolutely stunning flowers with pink, glossy petals and a dark red center,” Krueger described. “While only a few centimeters in size, it captures and digests tiny insects using its leaves which are covered with sticky tentacles.”
So, no, it doesn’t pose much of a threat to humans – however it’s an important find for conservationists, as this extremely rare and potentially threatened plant remains understudied. Scientists don’t know if the three spots it’s now been recorded in are the extent of its existence as a species.
“We collected a few specimens to officially record the population with the WA Herbarium, and the team will continue to visit the site in the coming weeks to see how the species transforms the landscape as they enter full bloom over the next month,” Krueger said.
Interestingly, this part of Australia is home to the world’s most diverse carnivorous plant populations, with more than 150 known species. But because they only congregate in small areas, they’re also extremely vulnerable.
Thilo Krueger, a carnivorous-plant expert, celebrates his rare find
Amanda Bourne/Australian Wildlife Conservancy
“To find such a healthy population of this rare species on a protected conservation area is a huge win for conservation,” said Dr. Amanda Bourne, Regional Ecologist with AWC. “The discovery highlights the importance of wildlife sanctuaries like Paruna in preserving Australia’s unique biodiversity.”
Overall, the team found six different sundew species – Drosera walyunga, Drose ra hyperostigma, Drosera pallida, Drosera collina and Drosera glanduligera, in addition to the crown jewel.
“Paruna’s landscape and relatively undisturbed habitats is likely to make it a treasure trove for native flora,” said Jolanda Keeble with the Wildflower Society of Western Australia. “Discoveries like this underscore just how much we still have to learn about the plant life in our own backyard, and how vital it is to protect these landscapes.”
These are the key developments from day 1,381 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Published On 6 Dec 20256 Dec 2025
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Here’s where things stand on Saturday, December 6:
Fighting
A Russian drone attack killed two men, aged 52 and 67, in the Ukrainian city of Izyum as they were unloading firewood from a truck, according to local officials.
Russian forces also killed a 12-year-old boy in an attack on the Vasylkivska community in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, and wounded more than a dozen Ukrainians in attacks on the Kherson, Donetsk and Sumy regions, local officials said.
Ukraine’s national grid operator, Ukrenergo, announced that electricity restrictions would be in place nationwide from Saturday due to “previous Russian massive missile and drone attacks on energy facilities”, in a post on Telegram.
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said that a Ukrainian drone hit and damaged a building in Grozny, the capital of Russia’s southern Chechnya region, and promised to retaliate. The attack caused no casualties, he said.
A Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s Belgorod region wounded the mayor of the village of Berezovka, according to officials, while Ukrainian assaults on energy facilities in Russian-occupied Luhansk caused electricity outages.
Ukraine’s HUR military intelligence agency claimed attacks on military targets in Russian-occupied Crimea, including a Su-24 tactical bomber, while the Ukrainian military said it launched drone assaults on Russia’s Temryuk seaport in Krasnodar Krai and the Syzran Oil Refinery in Samara region overnight on Friday.
The Russian Ministry of Defence said it downed 41 Ukrainian drones overnight on Friday, according to the TASS news agency.
Russian investigators charged a Ukrainian Armed Forces commander with terrorism, in absentia, over the death of journalist and Russian Channel One military correspondent Anna Prokofieva in March this year, TASS reported.
Politics and diplomacy
United States President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff held “productive” talks with Ukraine’s senior negotiator Rustem Umerov in Miami, Florida, on Thursday, a White House official said on Friday. “Progress was made,” the White House official said, according to the Reuters news agency. “They will reconvene later today after briefing their respective leaders.”
The meetings in Florida came after Witkoff met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow earlier this week, in what Yury Ushakov, the Kremlin’s top foreign policy adviser, described on Friday as “truly friendly” discussions.
Ushakov also said that Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, is working “frantically” to resolve the war between Russia and Ukraine in his role as a US negotiator, TASS reported.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said they held “very constructive” talks with Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever on Friday over a European Union plan to use Russian frozen assets to fund Ukraine, which Belgium has so far refused to endorse.
The Save Ukraine NGO said it has returned 18 Ukrainian children, aged two to 17, from Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine’s Kherson region over the last week.
International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutors said on Friday that arrest warrants for Putin and five other Russians accused of war crimes in Ukraine will stay in place even if a blanket amnesty is approved during US-led peace talks.
Putin said that Moscow is ready to provide “uninterrupted shipments” of fuel to India, as he met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on Friday, despite US sanctions.
Bulgaria’s maritime authorities, border police and navy are attempting to recover sanctioned Russian tanker Kairos, which was hit in the Black Sea last week by a Ukrainian drone in Turkiye’s exclusive economic zone, leading to its crew being rescued after it caught fire.
A recent report card from an AI safety watchdog isn’t one that tech companies will want to stick on the fridge.
The Future of Life Institute’s latest AI safety index found that major AI labs fell short on most measures of AI responsibility, with few letter grades rising above a C. The org graded eight companies across categories like safety frameworks, risk assessment, and current harms.
Perhaps most glaring was the “existential safety” line, where companies scored Ds and Fs across the board. While many of these companies are explicitly chasing superintelligence, they lack a plan for safely managing it, according to Max Tegmark, MIT professor and president of the Future of Life Institute.
“Reviewers found this kind of jarring,” Tegmark told us.
The reviewers in question were a panel of AI academics and governance experts who examined publicly available material as well as survey responses submitted by five of the eight companies.
Anthropic, OpenAI, and GoogleDeepMind took the top three spots with an overall grade of C+ or C. Then came, in order, Elon Musk’s Xai, Z.ai, Meta, DeepSeek, and Alibaba, all of which got Ds or a D-.
Tegmark blames a lack of regulation that has meant the cutthroat competition of the AI race trumps safety precautions. California recently passed the first law that requires frontier AI companies to disclose safety information around catastrophic risks, and New York is currently within spitting distance as well. Hopes for federal legislation are dim, however.
“Companies have an incentive, even if they have the best intentions, to always rush out new products before the competitor does, as opposed to necessarily putting in a lot of time to make it safe,” Tegmark said.
In lieu of government-mandated standards, Tegmark said the industry has begun to take the group’s regularly released safety indexes more seriously; four of the five American companies now respond to its survey (Meta is the only holdout.) And companies have made some improvements over time, Tegmark said, mentioning Google’s transparency around its whistleblower policy as an example.
“[They] have really made a lot of people realize that this isn’t the future we’re talking about—it’s now,” Tegmark said.
The Future of Life Institute recently enlisted public figures as diverse as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, former Trump aide Steve Bannon, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, and rapper Will.i.am to sign a statement opposing work that could lead to superintelligence.
Tegmark said he would like to see something like “an FDA for AI where companies first have to convince experts that their models are safe before they can sell them.
“The AI industry is quite unique in that it’s the only industry in the US making powerful technology that’s less regulated than sandwiches—basically not regulated at all,” Tegmark said. “If someone says, ‘I want to open a new sandwich shop near Times Square,’ before you can sell the first sandwich, you need a health inspector to check your kitchen and make sure it’s not full of rats…If you instead say, ‘Oh no, I’m not going to sell any sandwiches. I’m just going to release superintelligence.’ OK! No need for any inspectors, no need to get any approvals for anything.”
“So the solution to this is very obvious,” Tegmark added. “You just stop this corporate welfare of giving AI companies exemptions that no other companies get.”
Frank Gehry, one of the most influential architects of the last century, has died aged 96.
Gehry was acclaimed for his avant garde, experimental style of architecture. His titanium-covered design of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, catapulted him to fame in 1997.
He built his daring reputation years before that when he redesigned his own home in Santa Monica, California, using materials like chain-link fencing, plywood and corrugated steel.
HIs death was confirmed by his chief of staff Meaghan Lloyd. He is survived by two daughters from his first marriage, Leslie and Brina; his wife, Berta Isabel Aguilera, and their two sons, Alejandro and Samuel,
Getty Images
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, one of Gehry’s most famous works
Born in Toronto in 1929, Gehry moved to Los Angeles as a teenager to study architecture at the University of Southern California before completing further study at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1956 and 1957.
After starting his own firm, he broke from the traditional architectural principles of symmetry, using unconventional geometricshapes and unfinishedmaterials in a style now known as deconstructivism.
“I was rebelling against everything,” Gehry said in an interview with The New York Times in 2012.
His work in Bilbao put him in high demand, and he went on to design iconic structures in cities all over the world: the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago’s Millennium Park, the Gehry Tower in Germany, and the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris.
“He bestowed upon Paris and upon France his greatest masterpiece,” said Bernard Arnault, the CEO of LVMH, the worlds largest luxury goods company which owns Louis Vuitton.
With a largely unpredictable style, no two of his works look the same. Prague’s Dancing House, finished in 1996, looks like a glass building folding in on itself; his Hotel Marques in Spain, built in 2006, features thin sheets of wavy, multicoloured metal; his design for a business school in Sydney looks like a brown paper bag.
Gehry won the coveted Pritzker Architecture Prize for lifetime achievement in 1989, when he was 60, with his work described as having a “highly refined, sophisticated and adventurous aesthetic”.
“His designs, if compared to American music, could best be likened to Jazz, replete with improvisation and a lively unpredictable spirit,” ther Pritzker jury said at the time.
Gehry was awarded the Order of Canada in 2002 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honour in the US, in 2016.
This week, Epidemic Sound filed a second copyright infringement lawsuit against Meta, alleging infringement of 1,000 additional works across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
Meanwhile, Warner Music Group sued US fashion retailer PacSun for alleged infringement of 290+ works in TikTok and Instagram posts featuring tracks by Dua Lipa, Bruno Mars, and other major artists.
Elsewhere this week, we reported that Robert Kyncl signed a new deal as Warner Music Group’s CEO.
Also this week, Jorja Smith’s independent label FAMM demanded a share of royalties from viral track I Run amid AI allegations, while two artists accused AI act Breaking Rust of ripping them off.
Here are some of the biggest headlines from the past few days…
Epidemic Sound has filed a second copyright infringement lawsuit against Facebook parent company Meta, alleging that the tech giant continues to infringe the music company’s catalog across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
The new complaint, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California on Tuesday (December 2) and obtained by MBW, lists 1,000 representative works that Epidemic alleges Meta is infringing through its Audio Library and through tools including Original Audio and Reels Remix.
Stockholm-headquartered Epidemic, whose catalog includes over 50,000 works, noted in the filing that each of the 1,000 works listed in the new complaint were registered after Epidemic filed its first lawsuit against Meta in July 2022, which remains active before Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley in the same court. That case sought at least $142 million in damages…(MBW)
Warner Music Group has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against US fashion retailer Pacific Sunwear of California, LLC (PacSun).
The complaint alleges the company has “misappropriated at least 290” of Warner’s recordings and compositions in social media posts without permission.
The lawsuit, filed on Monday (December 1) in a California court and obtained by MBW, accuses PacSun of using tracks by artists including Dua Lipa, Bruno Mars, Lizzo, Cardi B, and Ariana Grande in promotional videos posted to TikTok and Instagram. Warner is seeking statutory damages up to the maximum amount of $150,000 per infringed musical work…(MBW)
Almost three years after he first took the reins as CEO, Robert Kyncl has signed a new deal at Warner Music Group. Details were revealed in a document filed on Sunday (December 1) with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC).
According to the SEC filing, Kyncl and Warner agreed on an amendment to Kyncl’s employment package on Monday last week (November 24).
The new package is tied to the company’s share price performance… (MBW)
The independent record label of Jorja Smith is demanding a share of royalties from the viral dance track I Run, which it claims was created using AI trained on the British singer’s music.
The track, credited to Haven (the project of producer Harrison Walker), went viral on TikTok in October and was on course to chart in both the UK and US before being removed from streaming services following takedown notices alleging artist impersonation. In a statement published via Instagram, FAMM alleged that Walker “used AI to make his voice sound like Jorja’s and had used Jorja’s name (without permission) suggesting to the public that it was actually Jorja singing.”
The label claims the track was distributed through four separate distributors to circumvent usual takedown procedures, and that Haven’s team “seemed to rely on public confusion as a key part of the marketing strategy…”(MBW)
Breaking Rust, an AI-generated ‘Outlaw country’ act, scored a semi-hit in the US last month with Walk My Walk – a track that’s been streamed over 7 million times on Spotify and topped Billboard‘s Country Digital Song Sales chart.
But earlier this week, Walk My Walk briefly disappeared from Spotify following an impersonation claim. A Spotify representative has confirmed to MBW that the track was temporarily removed but has since been reinstated.
MBW has discovered that the claim was likely filed by independent country artist Bryan Elijah Smith, who accuses Breaking Rust of stealing elements of his music, style, and image.
Smith isn’t the only one crying foul. Grammy-nominated rapper Blanco Brown says Breaking Rust’s track rips off his vocal style – and an Associated Press investigation has drawn a line between Walk My Walk’s credited songwriter and a former Brown collaborator.
Here are three things you need to know about the ballooning Breaking Rust saga – and how it fits into a bigger story about AI music fakery…(MBW)
Partner message: MBW’s Weekly Round-up is supported by BMI, the global leader in performing rights management, dedicated to supporting songwriters, composers and publishers and championing the value of music. Find out more about BMIhere. Music Business Worldwide
new video loaded: Germany Passes Controversial Law to Boost Soldier Numbers
Amid rising tensions with Russia, German lawmakers approved a military draft law aimed at increasing the number of soldiers. Those opposing the law worry it’s a step toward compulsory conscription.
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Landmark penalty triggers US fury as Brussels enforces first digital transparency sanction.
The European Union has slapped a 120 million euro ($140m) penalty on Elon Musk’s social media platform X for breaching digital transparency rules, igniting a transatlantic clash over tech regulation.
Brussels announced the fine on Friday in its first enforcement action under the Digital Services Act, legislation designed to rein in social media companies.
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The decision has deepened tensions with Washington, where officials accused Europe of targeting US businesses under the guise of protecting users.
European regulators found X guilty of three violations after a two-year investigation. The platform’s paid blue checkmark system, which Brussels said “deceives users” about account authenticity, drew a 45 million euro ($52.4m) penalty.
X was fined another 35 million euros ($40.7m) for failing to maintain transparent advertising records that would help identify scams and fake political advertisements, while blocking researchers from accessing public data cost the company 40 million euros ($46.6m).
Today, we fined X for non-compliance with transparency obligations under the DSA.
We’re holding X accountable for: 🔹Deceptive design of its ‘blue checkmark’ 🔹Lack of transparency of its advertising repository 🔹Failure to provide access to public data for researchers
The decision risks further inflaming trade negotiations between Brussels and Washington, where the Trump administration has demanded Europe abandon regulations it views as protectionist.
US Vice President JD Vance lashed out at Brussels even before the announcement, claiming the platform was being punished “for not engaging in censorship”.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the fine “an attack on all American tech platforms and the American people by foreign governments”.
Commenting on Rubio’s post, Musk wrote, “Absolutely”. Commenting on the EU’s post announcing the fine, Musk wrote: “Bulls***”.
But EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen denied the ruling amounted to censorship.
“Deceiving users with blue checkmarks, obscuring information on ads and shutting out researchers have no place online in the EU,” she said, adding that Brussels was simply “holding X responsible for undermining users’ rights.”
European politicians expressed relief after what many saw as prolonged delays in enforcement.
French Digital Minister Anne Le Henanff described it as a “magnificent announcement,” while Germany’s digital minister, Karsten Wildberger, said it showed Brussels was “determined to enforce” its rules.
Critics argued the penalty was too modest.
The fine represents a fraction of the 5.9 billion euros ($6.9bn) maximum allowed under the act, which permits sanctions of up to 6 percent of global revenue.
Politico reported that Cori Crider, executive director of the Future of Technology Institute, said, “Musk will moan in public – in private, he will be doing cartwheels.”
X now has between 60 and 90 days to submit compliance plans addressing the violations or face additional periodic penalties.
The company did not respond to requests for comment by the Reuters news agency.
The ruling lands amid broader investigations into 10 major platforms, including Facebook and Instagram.
Chinese-owned TikTok avoided penalties on Friday by pledging to improve its advertising transparency.
Brussels continues to probe whether X has failed to combat illegal content and information manipulation, violations that could trigger substantially larger fines.
