Category: Technica Aquarius

Enlarge / Frank Huntley, who raises awareness of opiate addiction with his sculpture “Pill Man,” is among protesters who rallied at the Department of Justice in Washington, DC, on December 3, 2021, calling on Attorney General Merrick Garland to bring criminal charges against members of the Sackler family. (credit: Getty Images | Pacific Press )

A federal judge yesterday rejected the Purdue Pharma settlement that would grant lifetime legal immunity to the Sackler family for their role in the opioid crisis, finding that the bankruptcy court doesn’t have the authority to approve legal immunity for people who did not declare bankruptcy. The ruling to vacate the bankruptcy plan was issued by Judge Colleen McMahon in US District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Non-debtors like the Sackler family members aren’t obligated to “disclose their assets and apply them… to the resolution of the claims of their creditors,” McMahon noted. Because non-debtors do not have those obligations, they also “do not have any rights at all under the ‘special remedial scheme’ that is bankruptcy—certainly not the ‘right’ to have claims that are being asserted against them outside the bankruptcy process released.”

The $4.5 billion settlement was previously approved by a judge in US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. While 15 US states agreed to the settlement, eight states and the District of Columbia objected to it and filed appeals. US government officials also objected to the settlement.

Enlarge / A screenshot from Dmarket’s now-defunct promotional page for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 NFTs. (credit: Dmarket)

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl developer GSC Game World is quickly backing off plans to integrate non-fungible tokens into the upcoming game, a decision that came just a day after announcing the idea and hours after the company publicly defended its position on Thursday.

The short saga of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 NFTs started Wednesday morning, when GSC Game World announced it was partnering with NFT marketplace Dmarket to offer “the rights to certain unique items” to players via NFTs. To start, the company planned to auction off three NFTs that represented the opportunity to be inserted into the game as a “metahuman” NPC through the company’s photogrammetry scanning process.

In an interview with WCCFTech, GSC Game World CEO Evgeniy Grygorovych said that after the initial auction, “the owner of the metahuman will be able to trade the right to be a metahuman [NFT] until a certain date before the official game release” (that release is planned for April 28, 2022). In February, a second planned NFT drop would have offered vaguely defined and “highly secretive genesis packs” that “won’t influence the gameplay itself or give in-game advantages over other players,” Grygorovych said.

Enlarge / BrightDrop delivers five of 500 electric light commercial vehicles to FedEx, the first customer to receive the EV600s. (credit: FedEx)

At the beginning of the year, General Motors CEO Mary Barra announced that the company was starting a new business. It’s called BrightDrop, and it’s focused on providing electrified products for delivery and logistics businesses. At the time, we also learned that FedEx would be the first customer for BrightDrop’s EV600 electric van. Today, the shipping company accepted the first five (of 500) vehicles, which will start making deliveries in Los Angeles in 2022.

Like other GM brands, BrightDrop is using the automaker’s new 800 V Ultium battery packs and Ultium Drive motors in these new electric vehicles. The EV600 has a 250-mile range (402 km) and a capacity of 600 cubic feet (16,990 L).

“At FedEx, transforming our pickup and delivery fleet to electric vehicles is integral to achieving our ambitious sustainability goals announced earlier this year. This collaborative effort shows how businesses can take action to help usher in a lower-emissions future for all,” said Mitch Jackson, chief sustainability officer at FedEx.