Exclusive: Bill Gates on the future of nuclear energy, AI

Exclusive: Bill Gates on the future of nuclear energy, AI
Exclusive: Bill Gates on the future of nuclear energy, AI
ABC News

(KEMMERER, Wyo.) — TerraPower, founded by billionaire and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates in 2008, is opening a new nuclear power plant in Kemmerer, Wyoming. The plant will be the first of its kind, with the company hoping to revolutionize the nuclear energy industry in the U.S. to help fight climate change and support American energy independence.

“Nuclear energy, if we do it right, will help us solve our climate goals,” Gates told ABC News. “That is, get rid of the greenhouse gas emissions without making the electricity system far more expensive or less reliable.”

Gates met with ABC News’ chief business, economics and technology correspondent Rebecca Jarvis in Kemmerer to talk about the project.

“Nuclear has some incredible pluses,” Gates said. “It’s not weather dependent, you can build a plant, but the amount of energy coming out of a very small plant is gigantic.”

While nuclear energy is well known for having a lot of potential, the safety risks associated with it have historically concerned some investors; however, Gates said he’s confident TerraPower can build an innovative nuclear reactor that is safe and practical for the future.

Most nuclear reactors in the U.S. use water to cool the system, but water is not the best at absorbing heat, and there are pressure risks associated with overheating, which could eventually lead to a meltdown. This new reactor, which is set to open in 2030, will use liquid sodium instead of water to cool it. Sodium’s boiling point is eight times higher than water, and, unlike water, liquid sodium does not need to be continually pumped back into the system.

“We’ve solved all the areas where there have been safety challenges. And we have dramatically less waste,” Gates said. “A great thing is that the regulator in the United States is the best in the world and they do a very good job. So part of the process between now and 2030 is an immensely detailed review with that safety commission about how this design is far safer than anything that came before.”

The new plant, which has been in the works for 15 years, faced delays at the end of 2022, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February of that year resulted in the loss of a special fuel source made in Russia. But Gates assured these issues are temporary.

“A lot of uranium mines and processing factories got shut down because people expected Russia to stay as a supplier. We do need to build that up domestically,” Gates said. “But we have uranium domestically. We have the ability to do the processing domestically… In the long run, because of our uranium deposits here, because of the efficiency of the reactor, this thing can have a completely domestic supply chain.”

Kemmerer, once the site of a booming coal industry, has since seen a decline in recent years, with the coal plant scheduled to shut down after operating for almost 60 years. Gates emphasized the importance of reintegrating older energy industries of the U.S. into future energy industries as a way of revitalizing communities. The nuclear plant plans to employ hundreds of construction workers and previous employees from the coal plant where skills overlap, while providing energy to hundreds of thousands of homes, the TerraPower said in a recent press release.

Gates on artificial intelligence

Gates also spoke with ABC News about his opinions on AI and what it means for the future of the world. He said he views the technology as game-changing, saying “it’s pretty fundamental.”

“We’re often surprised how good it is. Sometimes we’re surprised at what it can’t do right. Early days, but revolutionary,” Gates said.

He said he sees big potential for AI to create shockwaves in all industries where it will change the way we think about things.

“In health and education, used properly, it will be fantastic,” Gates said. “That’s a big deal. Improving education, you know, making sure students who are in private schools or even suburban schools, that they have this way of getting great feedback. You know, I’m excited.”

Gates also said how impressed he was at OpenAI’s ChatGPT software and the leaps it had made within the last year, telling ABC News: “I was surprised last year that going from GPT-3 to GPT-4, it improved so much.”

The risk of AI safety has also been on Gates’ mind, he said, and he voiced some of his concerns regarding the rapid advance of the technology and the negative consequences if it were to be used with bad intentions.

“We’re all scared a bad guy could grab it,” Gates said, adding: “If you just pause the good guys, and you don’t pause everyone else, you’re probably hurting yourself.”

And while Gates said he doesn’t believe government regulators are up to speed about the technology and prepared to make big decisions yet, he does believe that the pros of AI outweigh the cons, and that the conversation around it is headed in the right direction.

“The field, more than any field I know, is actually putting in a lot of the smart people into, OK, what comes next and how do we make sure that’s beneficial,” Gates said. “I see the AI, used properly, is providing a lot of benefits that, no, I wouldn’t want to throw those away.”

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Lil Wayne says he was into Missy Elliott before he knew who Jay-Z was

Lil Wayne says he was into Missy Elliott before he knew who Jay-Z was
Lil Wayne says he was into Missy Elliott before he knew who Jay-Z was
Scott Kowalchyk/CBS

Lil Wayne was a fan of Missy Elliott before he knew about Jay-Z. That’s what he said during their sit-down on TV One’s UNCENSORED.

“As a kid before Jay — this before I even knew a Jay-Z existed, I was into Missy Elliott,” Wayne told Missy. “It was because you were able to, you would say things that I would want to say as I’m rapping. You not only made me like—You made me love it. And I became so interested in you. And what happened was I bought the album and did not know that you really was spitting like … You know what I mean. You know I spit that verse to you all the time.”

He also noted he listened to Cee-Lo and said he was “very much into Noreaga.”

When discussing the impact Tha Carter III had on shaping his career, Wayne said, “I think that was probably the first time we noticed — you know what I mean for me, I started really getting that praise you know and I started really accept … Lovin’ it and embracing it. … just seeing people in the street or just from hearing from other artists, so really, the confidence was just strong.”

“I come from the days we as in artists — we as in Juvenile and B.G. we checking the Billboard magazine to see where this and that. That don’t exist now,” he added. “When we dropped Tha Block Is Hot, it sold like 114,000 or 95,000 the first week and that was the equivalent or the impact of selling a million and I remember I was like, ‘I can’t do nothing but thank God.’”

Wayne’s chat with Missy follows the announcement that she’ll be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Need directions to the “Waffle House”? Jonas Brothers are now on Waze

Need directions to the “Waffle House”? Jonas Brothers are now on Waze
Need directions to the “Waffle House”? Jonas Brothers are now on Waze
Republic Records

Jonas Brothers have partnered with the mobile game Candy Crush to promote their new album, as previously reported. And they’ve also teamed up with another popular app: Waze. 

If you open your Waze mobile app and tap “Customize your drive,” you can choose “Drive with the Jonas Brothers” to have Nick, Joe and Kevin give you directions … perhaps to your nearest “Waffle House.” You can watch behind-the-scenes video of the brothers recording their Waze lines, like “Speed trap reported ahead,” on Instagram.

According to People, the brothers made their directions super specific. If you’re in New Jersey, their home state, you may hear Kevin say, “Exit right. And if you happen to be on New Jersey Route 3, don’t miss the Tick Tock Diner in Clifton.”

At one point Joe says, “You’ve arrived! Congratulations. As a reward, I will tell you about the most ridiculous show we have ever played: 2005, in the food court of a mall in St. Louis, getting booed by senior citizens at 11 a.m. Everything is easier once you’ve survived that.”

In a statement to People, the guys say, “Growing up on the road, our tour bus became our home away from home, so we know the importance of getting places safely and on time.” They add that they’re excited to “have our fans around the world join us on their drives and share some of our favorite memories and spots we’ve discovered while touring.”

Jonas Brothers’ The Album arrives on Friday, May 12.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Former Navy reservist sentenced to additional four years for Jan. 6 riot

Former Navy reservist sentenced to additional four years for Jan. 6 riot
Former Navy reservist sentenced to additional four years for Jan. 6 riot
Mint Images/Getty Images

(WASHINGTON) — A former Navy reservist who the government said expressed admiration for Hitler, among other antisemitic views, was sentenced to four years in prison on Monday for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Prosecutors described Hatchet Speed as an avowed antisemite who posed an increasing threat to the public.

U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden agreed that Speed’s hateful motivations warranted a longer sentence beyond other rioters who were not accused of specific acts of violence in the Capitol assault.

While Speed was not charged with assault or destruction of government property, prosecutors say he went on a spending spree after Jan. 6, acquiring weapons and ammunition worth thousands of dollars.

Speed, also a member of the far-right Proud Boys group, was first sentenced last month to three years in prison for possessing unregistered gun accessories.

Despite pleas from the defense, Judge McFadden ordered the four years in addition to the previous sentence.

Speed will also be required to serve time on probation and pay upwards of $10,000 in fees to the government.

He wore a dark green, short-sleeve jump suit as he appeared in court Monday and declined to make a statement in his own defense.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Suspect arrested for Dallas train shooting that killed one, injured two

Suspect arrested for Dallas train shooting that killed one, injured two
Suspect arrested for Dallas train shooting that killed one, injured two
Oliver Helbig/Getty Images

(DALLAS, Texas) — One person is dead and two are injured after a fight broke out between two people Sunday on a Dallas Area Rapid Transit train, a spokesperson said.

A man involved in the altercation was transported but has since died, the statement said.

The incident took place just south of Hatcher Station on the train’s Green Line, according to authorities.

After a manhunt, a suspect was taken into custody Monday, according to Gordon Shattles, DART’s assistant vice president for external relations. The person, who was unnamed, has been charged with one count of murder and two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

One bystander was transported to Baylor Hospital in Dallas, the other was treated at the scene with non-life-threatening injuries, a spokesperson said.

The gun used in the shooting was also recovered, Shattles said.

The shooting on the train came just one day after eight people were murdered in a mass shooting at a shopping mall in Allen, Texas, a northern suburb of Dallas.

ABC News’ Mark Osborne contributed to this report.

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‘Mayhem inside’: Texas shooting shows challenge of protecting malls

‘Mayhem inside’: Texas shooting shows challenge of protecting malls
‘Mayhem inside’: Texas shooting shows challenge of protecting malls
Joe Raedle/Getty Images

(DALLAS, Texas) — A mass shooting at a mall near Dallas on Saturday — which left nine dead, including the suspect, as well as seven injured — turned a shopping destination into a site of horrifying carnage.

The attack comes less than a year after a gunman opened fire at a mall in Greenwood, Indiana, killing three people and injuring two others. A few months before that, last April, a shooter at a mall in Columbia, South Carolina, injured 14 people.

Shopping malls offer a vulnerable target for mass shooters and a near-impossible task for security, since droves of people often converge through multiple entry points with easy access, experts told ABC News.

Moreover, efforts to better secure malls with metal detectors or additional security guards risk pushback from developers and stores forced to bear added costs as well as customers faced with the inconvenience of airport-style lines and armed surveillance, they added.

“People can get out of their car, walk into a mall and do mayhem inside,” Kenneth Gray, a lecturer in the Criminal Justice Department at the University of New Haven, told ABC News.

Still, some malls may seek to find a balance between heightened security and consumer comfort, the experts said, noting that safety at such venues owes in large part to the wider context of gun laws and mental health services.

Simon Property Group, the real estate developer behind Allen Premium Outlets, the Allen, Texas, mall where the shooting took place, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A security guard, Christian LaCour, 20, was among the victims who died in the shooting.

“You want to have an open environment that’s welcoming to people,” Gray said. “At the same time, you don’t want them to be sitting ducks.”

Retail locations make up the second-most common site of mass shootings, accounting for nearly 17% of mass shootings recorded between 1966 and 2021, according to a previous ABC News analysis of data compiled by The Violence Project.

Workplaces, many of which are private commercial establishments, mark the most frequent location for mass shootings, the data showed.

The nation’s roughly 700 malls are part of a category referred to as “soft targets,” which includes religious institutions, restaurants and other locations.

Bolstered security at such locations would require checkpoints at every entryway as well as round-the-clock guards available to respond quickly in the event of an attack, Tung Yin, a national security expert and professor at Lewis & Clark Law School, told ABC News.

Such measures would call for malls to make a significant financial investment and consumers to tolerate inevitable delay and discomfort, Yin added.

“If you’re going to have people jamming into these checkpoints,” he said, “think about the impact that would have on day-to-day life.”

Peter Eliadis, a former law enforcement official and founder of the firm Intelligence Consulting Partners, said religious institutions have recently flooded him with calls inquiring about threat preparedness trainings but he has received far fewer requests from malls.

“Think about a mall with 50 stores that want to do active-threat training — who’s going to pay for it?” Eliadis told ABC News. “Every store says, ‘I’m not doing it, you do it. Oh, the landlord should do it.'”

Bolstered security at malls would not ensure their safety, experts said, since larger policies dictate key factors that contribute to mass shootings, such as the availability of guns and the screening of individuals with mental health issues.

“The upstream part is addressing mental health issues and other behavioral signs that someone is on the path to becoming a mass shooter,” Javed Ali, a former official at the FBI and Department of Homeland Security and a professor at the University of Michigan, told ABC News.

“And the gorilla in the room is the whole gun control issue,” he added.

ABC News’ Miles Cohen and Ivan Pereira contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Queens of the Stone Age tease “special week”

Queens of the Stone Age tease “special week”
Queens of the Stone Age tease “special week”
Taylor Hill/Getty Images for Boston Calling

It’s been six years since Queens of the Stone Age put out a new album, but that may be about to change.

In a Facebook post Monday, the “No One Knows” rockers tease, “It’s our special week!” alongside a snake and classical building emojis.

The post comes amid rumors of a possible album title and track list, which have been circulating on the Queens of the Stone Age Reddit board. Nothing’s been officially announced or confirmed yet, though.

Queens of the Stone Age’s most recent album is 2017’s Villains, which was produced by Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars collaborator Mark Ronson.

In addition to whatever their “special week” entails, Queens of the Stone Age are preparing to return to the road for a run of tour dates kicking off May 26 at the Sonic Temple festival in Columbus, Ohio.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Dolly Parton unveils new partyware collection

Dolly Parton unveils new partyware collection
Dolly Parton unveils new partyware collection
Emma McIntyre/Getty Images

Global music icon Dolly Parton has teamed up with Creative Converting to launch a new line of Dolly-branded eco-friendly disposable party supplies.

Items include:

  • “What Would Dolly Do?” plates and “Be A Diamond in A Rhinestone World” napkins
  • “Dream Big” canvas sign and melamine tray kit
  • “There’ll Always Be Music” plates, napkins and single-use wooden cutlery
  • Celebratory kits of cake toppers, disposable tablecloths and special message banners
  • “Blossoming Beauty” paper plates, napkins and single-use wooden cutlery
  • “Celebrate Floral” paper plates, napkins and single-use wooden cutlery
  • Beverage kits featuring single-use wooden drink stirrers and coaster kits with eco-friendly straws
  • Coaster and wine bag kits
  • Treat cups, eco-friendly straws and banner kits

Of her new collection, Dolly shares, “I love to celebrate all the seasons of the year with my family and friends. Whether it’s birthdays or holidays, making memories with those you love is what matters most in life. I am excited to bring my new collection of party supplies to your homes and events, and even though I may not be there in person, I’ll be celebrating with you in spirit. Let’s party!”

Dolly’s partyware line can be purchased on Amazon now, and will be available at various retail stores in the U.S. and Canada in the coming weeks.

The country queen is set to host the 58th Academy of Country Music Awards with Garth Brooks on Thursday, May 11, at 8 p.m. ET.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

A year after racist shooting rampage, Buffalo struggles to correct decades of segregation and systemic racism

A year after racist shooting rampage, Buffalo struggles to correct decades of segregation and systemic racism
A year after racist shooting rampage, Buffalo struggles to correct decades of segregation and systemic racism
ABC News

(BUFFALO, N.Y.) — While testifying in front of a federal commission last summer, Professor Henry Louis Taylor issued a startling summation of the evidence he said he’s drawn from the racially motivated May 14, 2022, mass shooting at a supermarket on Buffalo’s predominantly Black east side.

Taylor, director of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University at Buffalo, told the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission gathered in Buffalo that he believes the massacre was linked to decades of segregation and inequality in the city that made the gunman’s target an easy find.

“This white supremacist knew only one supermarket serviced the east side’s 68,000 Black residents. He knew shoppers would fill the store that Saturday afternoon,” Taylor said. “Ironically, white racism fueled the shooter’s racial hatred and white racism also created the marginalized, underdeveloped neighborhood conditions that drew him to the city.”

Taylor and his team of researchers found in two reports 31 years apart that the city’s Black population has made little progress in achieving equality and curbing segregation. Disparities in education, employment, income and home ownership channeled 85% of Buffalo’s Black residents into “the worst residential lands in the region,” according to Taylor’s research.

Little progress has been made on the east side in the year since the deadly rampage, Taylor said.

“The current state of the east side of Buffalo is the same as it was this time last year. The trajectory continues to go downward. The process of development that’s occurring on Buffalo’s east side continues to ignore root causes, the needs and the aspirations of the residents,” Taylor told ABC News recently. “Given the way in which the city of Buffalo is approaching investments on the east side, I can say with a great deal of certainty that nothing substantive will change in the community in the foreseeable future.”

Case in point, he said, was the major blizzard that stuck Erie County in late December, killing 47 people, including 39 in Buffalo, most of them on the east side.

“African Americans comprise 13% of the entire population of Erie County and constituted more than 50% of the fatalities in that part of the city,” Taylor said about the east side.

Since the Tops massacre, many community leaders said they are determined to expedite existing efforts to build a more equitable east side with initiatives to curb the high school dropout rate and boost the number of students seeking higher education. Other efforts include a Black entrepreneur moving forward with plans to open an east side co-op grocery store to provide fresh produce and living-wage jobs to locals and represents what Taylor said he hopes is a “turning point.”

State and federal elected leaders said they are determined to help Buffalo, specifically the east side.

Rep. Brian Higgins, whose congressional district encompasses Buffalo, said $1.1 billion in federal and state funds has been delivered to the city to support long-term investments on the east side “that will create jobs, support businesses, revitalize homes, and reconnect neighborhoods.”

Just days before the mass shooting, local and state leaders announced the commitment of $1 billion to cover the below-grade section of the Kensington Expressway, which was built decades ago and cut the east side in half, with a tree-covered parkway reconnecting the community.

“As the East Buffalo community continues to recover from the white supremacist terrorist attack last May, Governor Hochul has taken action to right the wrongs of the past and address the immediate and long-term needs of the East Buffalo community working with our partners in local government, from housing to food programs to support for small businesses, career training programs and reconnecting neighborhoods divided by a highway,” a spokesperson for Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement to ABC News.

Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, elected the city’s first Black mayor in 2006, told ABC News that “millions and millions of dollars” have been invested in the east side community in the 17 years he has been in office and that the area has “improved dramatically.” But he conceded there is still a long way to go.

“When you start way behind what other communities look like, it’s hard to make up for the fabric that exists elsewhere,” Brown said.

While community activists like Taylor say the Tops massacre exposed the numerous inequalities of the east side, Brown countered, “the shooting really didn’t reveal any disparities that people didn’t know existed already.”

“The issues of health inequity, food insecurity, economic inequity, those are age-old issues,” Brown said, adding that many large cities are plagued by similar issues.

Brown, who lives on the east side, said that when he took the reins of the city, there were more than 5,000 vacant, dilapidated structures dotting the east side, many of them damaged during a race riot that occurred in 1967. He said he had most of the ramshackle structures, which the city took over, demolished, leaving empty lots, many that still exist.

While serving in the 1990s as a member of the City Common Council, the equivalent of a city council, one of his projects was to bring a supermarket to the east side, getting Tops to open a store on Jefferson Avenue in 2003.

Still, some east side residents criticize the mayor for not doing enough, noting neighborhoods elsewhere in the city are bustling with commerce.

“Finger pointing to any one entity is not going to get the job done. It requires massive resources. It requires people working together and it requires a sound, strategic plan to spend money wisely and make the people that live in East Buffalo the authors of their own story,” said Brown, adding that federal, state and county government, as well as the private sector and nonprofits have a role in making that happen.

“So, with the amount of resources that are coming in, there should also be a spirit of hope and optimism that we can be better than we’ve been in a long time, perhaps better than we have ever been as a city and as an East Buffalo community,” Brown said.

‘Housing Zombieland’

Taylor’s first report, titled “The State of Black Buffalo” and released in 1990, found an 18% unemployment rate, an average household income of $39,350, that 38% were living below the poverty line and only 33% of Black residents owned their own homes.

His follow-up report, titled “The Harder We Run” and released in September 2021, found scant improvement for Buffalo’s Black community. Unemployment remained in double digits at 11%, the average household income nudged up to $42,000, 38% were living below the poverty line and Black home ownership fell to 32%. “There are still more Blacks without a high school diploma than with a college degree,” according to Taylor’s research.

The economic disparities have turned the east side of Buffalo into what Taylor’s latest report describes as a “housing Zombieland” with hundreds of city-owned vacant and unkept lots, broken sidewalks and block after block of dilapidated houses, many occupied by Black people paying 35% to up to 70% of their monthly incomes on rent, Taylor said.

“There’s a tendency to normalize those conditions and when we normalize those conditions and think they’re part of some natural evolutionary process, in a way they disappear and we don’t see them for what they really are,” Taylor told ABC News. “But there’s nothing normal about all of this. If you want to know what racism really looks like, this is what it looks like. If Black lives did matter, these types of conditions would not exist.”

‘He made Black people mad’

The mass shooting at a Tops supermarket in the Cold Springs neighborhood on Buffalo’s east side left 10 Black people dead and three other people injured.

The mass murderer, self-professed white supremacist Payton Gendron, who is now 19, planned the massacre for months — including previously traveling to the store, a more than three-hour drive from his home in Conklin, New York — to scout the layout and count the number of Black people present, according to prosecutors.

Gendron pleaded guilty in November to 15 state charges, including murder and attempted murder. He is the first person in state history to be charged with domestic terrorism motivated by hate, which he also pleaded guilty to.

He was sentenced to life in prison without parole for each of the 10 victims he killed and 25 years for each of the three victims he shot and wounded.

In addition to the state case, Gendron is facing hate and domestic terrorism charges in federal court. His attorneys said he might consider pleading guilty if federal prosecutors agree not to pursue the death penalty.

“He traumatized the community. He created great pain and suffering. And he did something else: He made Black people mad,” Taylor said.

He said he hopes to see that anger turned into a fuel to correct disparities plaguing the east side.

“If we look 10, 15, 30 years down the line and the conditions that exist in Black Buffalo are the same, that would mean their sacrifice, their deaths, would have been meaningless,” Taylor said of the Tops massacre victims. “If on the other hand, we’re able to utilize their tragic, premature deaths as a springboard and use it to transform and change the surrounding community, then those deaths would have meant something.”

Mayor Brown said looking five years down the road, “I see a transformed east side of Buffalo.”

“In five years, there will be a dramatic difference that you will see,” Brown said. “Not only will the community look different, but opportunities for the people that live in East Buffalo will be different.”

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Bonnie Raitt shares health update: “I’m feeling better every day”

Bonnie Raitt shares health update: “I’m feeling better every day”
Bonnie Raitt shares health update: “I’m feeling better every day”
Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic

Bonnie Raitt is giving fans a health update. In late April, the singer announced she had to postpone some May shows in order to deal with a “medical situation that requires surgery,” and it sounds like it all went well.  

“I want to thank you all for your beautiful, caring wishes for my speedy recovery,” Bonnie shared on social media. “Everything went really well. My healing is on track and I’m feeling better every day.”

As for her touring, she writes, “The band and I can’t wait to get back to playing in a few weeks. I’m so sorry we had to postpone our shows and apologize to those of you who won’t be able to join us for the rescheduled dates. I so appreciate your support and hope you can come see us another time.” 

Bonnie was forced to postpone four shows due to her surgery. Her next concert is scheduled for June 1 in Dublin, Ireland. A complete list of dates can be found at bonnieraitt.com.

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