LOS ANGELES (AP) — Last month, the Recording Academy announced a series of changes to the Grammy Awards to better reflect an evolving music industry. Of those newly instituted guidelines, protocols involving technological advancements in machine learning sparked headlines: “Only human creators” could win the music industry’s highest honor in a decision aimed at the use of artificial intelligence in popular music.

“A work that contains no human authorship is not eligible in any category,” the rules read in part.

As the music industry continues to come to terms with this new technology, so too will the Grammys, says Recording Academy CEO and President Harvey Mason jr.

“Here’s the super easy, headline statement: AI, or music that contains AI-created elements is absolutely eligible for entry and for consideration for Grammy nomination. Period,” Mason told The Associated Press. “What’s not going to happen is we are not going to give a Grammy or Grammy nomination to the AI portion.”

If an AI or voice modeling program performs the lead vocal on a song, the track would be eligible in a songwriting category, for example, but not a performance category, because “what is performing is not human creation,” he explains. “Conversely, if a song was sung by an actual human in the studio, and they did all the performing, but AI wrote the lyric or the track, the song would not be eligible in a composition or a songwriting category.”

“As long as the human is contributing in a more than de minimis amount, which to us means a meaningful way, they are and will always be considered for a nomination or a win,” he continued. “We don’t want to see technology replace human creativity. We want to make sure technology is enhancing, embellishing, or additive to human creativity. So that’s why we took this particular stand in this award cycle.”

The Recording Academy has long considered setting rules related to AI following the popularity of new songs created alongside AI technology: David Guetta’s “Emin-AI-em”, the AI -compositions of TikTok user @ghostwriter977, Grimes’ voice modeling AI software.

In order to establish their AI guidelines, the Recording Academy engaged in extensive research, including holding tech summits.

“I’ve met with the copyright office. We’ve talked about the future and what that looks like on a federal level and the legislative level,” Mason said, adding that AI conversations “really came to a head in the last six months.”

The new Grammy AI protocols were announced three days after Paul McCartney shared that “the last Beatles record” had been composed using artificial intelligence to extract John Lennon’s voice from an old demo. Without knowing the extent of the technology, Mason couldn’t confirm or deny whether the song would be eligible for a Grammy nomination.

“We’ll see what it turns out to be,” he said. “But I would imagine from the early descriptions that I’ve heard there would be components of the creation that would be absolutely eligible.”

So, can Grammy viewers expect to see work at least partially created with AI nominated for an award as early as next year?

It’s impossible to predict what is submitted. But as Mason affirms, “people are using the technology. I’m imagining it’s going to be involved in a lot of records a lot of songs this year, so we’ll see if some of them get nominated or not, but I’m sure there’ll be some that will be submitted.”

The 2024 Grammy Awards will return to Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena on Sunday, Feb. 4, 2024, airing live on CBS and livestreamed on Paramount+.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of summer travelers suffered through another day of delayed and canceled flights Wednesday, a troubling glimpse into what could happen over the long July 4 holiday weekend as airlines struggle to keep up with surging numbers of passengers.

By early evening on the East Coast, nearly 5,800 U.S. flights had been delayed and 1,000 more were canceled, according to FlightAware.

United Airlines, which depends on the airport in Newark, New Jersey, canceled the most flights among U.S. airlines for a fifth straight day.

“We’re beginning to see improvement across our operation,” United said in a statement Wednesday night. “As our operation improves in the days ahead, we will be on track to restore our operation for the holiday weekend.”

The worst disruptions continued to be along the East Coast, which has been pummeled by thunderstorms this week. The Federal Aviation Administration temporarily held up Boston-bound flights on Wednesday. It stopped flights to all three major airports in the New York City area and two near Washington, D.C., at times Tuesday.

Huge crowds, bad weather, inability of some airline crews to reach their scheduling offices — even a Delta jet that made a belly landing in Charlotte, North Carolina — all contributed to the mess.

And it could be just the storm before the storm: The FAA predicted that Thursday would be the heaviest travel day over the July 4 holiday period. On top of that, some airline planes may be unable to fly in bad weather starting this weekend because of possible interference with 5G wireless service.

Travel has picked up steadily every year since bottoming out during the pandemic. For the past week, about 2.6 million people a day on average have been flying in the United States, about 2% more than in the same period during pre-pandemic 2019, according to Transportation Security Administration figures.

The number of air travelers could set a pandemic-era record over the holiday weekend. The FAA expects Thursday to be the busiest, with more than 52,500 total flights.

People whose travel plans were disrupted took to social media to vent against the airlines. Some swore they would never fly again on whichever airline had done them wrong.

Tia Hudson was back at Newark Liberty International Airport for the fourth straight day, trying to catch a United Airlines flight home to Louisiana.

“My flight has been canceled like five times now. I slept at the airport two nights, I booked two hotels, I spent over $700 since I’ve been here and they said they’re not going to reimburse me because it’s weather-related,” she said. “It’s not weather-related. It’s a shortage of pilots and attendants.”

Hudson missed her mother’s wedding and caused her mother to skip her own honeymoon to pick up Tia at the airport near Dallas – only for the flight to be canceled.

On top of that, Hudson’s bags were lost.

“I just want to get away from this airport, but they say nobody is leaving until Saturday,” she said.

At Logan Airport in Boston, pharmaceutical company manager Rui Loureiro had to scrap plans to spend the rest of the week meeting clients on the West Coast when his flight to San Francisco was canceled. United told him the soonest he could get on another flight was Friday, and didn’t offer to pay for a hotel room. He plans to fly home to Portugal instead – or at least give it a try.

“I am a little bit stressed, disappointed,” Loureiro said. “People were waiting for me. We had things arranged to do. Now I have to go back and rebook everything and come again another time.”

By early Wednesday evening, Chicago-based United had canceled more than 550 flights — one-fifth of its schedule — and 1,200 others were late. The airline vowed to reduce cancellations — and added it reduced the backlog of stranded bags in Newark by 30% since Tuesday. New York-based JetBlue canceled nearly one in 10 flights.

If large numbers of passengers are stranded or delayed this weekend, expect federal officials and the airlines to blame each other for the mess.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, whose department includes the FAA, has been beating up on the airlines for more than a year. He has accused them of failing to live up to reasonable standards of customer service and suggested that they are scheduling more flights than they can handle.

The airlines are punching back.

United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby blamed a shortage of federal air traffic controllers for massive disruptions last weekend at its Newark hub.

“We estimate that over 150,000 customers on United alone were impacted this weekend because of FAA staffing issues and their ability to manage traffic,” Kirby wrote in a memo to employees on Monday night.

The Association of Flight Attendants, which represents United’s cabin crews, said United was contributing to the situation. The union said employees were waiting three hours or longer when calling a crew-scheduling center for assignments because of “limited telephone lines and personnel.”

However, the FAA signaled earlier this year that it could struggle to keep flights moving in New York, the busiest airspace in the nation. Facing a severe shortage of air traffic controllers at a key facility on Long Island, the FAA persuaded airlines to trim their summer schedules to avoid overloading the system.

Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, where American and Southwest are based, took the airlines’ side in a series of tweets about delays at the New York City area’s three big airports.

“Staffing at FAA’s air traffic facilities in NY is at 54%,” Cruz tweeted. “Yet (the Transportation Department) is blaming weather for delays. Nonsense.”

A Transportation Department spokesperson said the agency is working with airlines to fix things, but the combination of high traffic and bad weather reduces the rate at which planes can take off and land safely, leading to delays and canceled flights.

The FAA is training about 3,000 new air traffic controllers, but most of them won’t be ready anytime soon. Last week, the Transportation Department’s inspector general said in a report that the FAA has made only “limited efforts” to adequately staff critical air traffic control centers and lacks a plan to tackle the problem.

Last week, Buttigieg issued a new warning to airlines, telling them that planes that aren’t outfitted with new radio altimeters — devices that measure the height of a plane above the ground — won’t be allowed to operate in limited visibility starting this Saturday because of potential interference from new 5G wireless service.

American, United, Southwest, Alaska and Frontier say all of their planes have been retrofitted, but Delta Air Lines still has about 190 planes waiting to be updated because its supplier doesn’t have enough altimeters. Delta said it will schedule those planes to avoid landing where the weather might be bad to limit disruptions.

Smaller airlines that operate regional flights could also be affected by the radio interference issue, as could flights operated to the United States by foreign carriers.

LONDON (AP) — Two-time Oscar winner Kevin Spacey walked into a London courtroom Wednesday to face trial on charges of sexually assaulting four men as long as two decades ago.

The actor was dressed in a dark blue suit, light blue shirt and pink tie as he was called by his full name and asked if he was Kevin Spacey Fowler.

“I am,” he said as he stood behind a window in the dock.

Spacey, 63, has pleaded not guilty to a dozen charges including sexual assault, indecent assault and causing a person to engage in sex activity without consent. He could face a prison sentence if convicted.

Spacey has said an acquittal in the case could revive a career that has largely been on ice since sexual misconduct allegations surfaced against the star who won his first Academy Award for supporting actor in “The Usual Suspects” in 1995.

“There are people right now who are ready to hire me the moment I am cleared of these charges in London,” Spacey said in a rare interview published this month in Germany’s Zeit magazine. He said the media had turned him into a “monster.”

The charges involving men now in their 30s or 40s date from 2001 to 2013 — covering most of the decade when he lived in Britain and served as artistic director of the Old Vic Theatre until 2015.

Jurors were to be selected on the first day of the trial and opening statements are scheduled Friday.

The actor, who is free on bail, arrived at London’s Southwark Crown Court about two hours before the trial was due to start.

Spacey’s downfall came amid the #MeToo movement in the United States when allegations led to him being written off the Netflix political thriller “House of Cards,” where he played lead character Frank Underwood, a ruthless and corrupt congressman who becomes president. He was cut from the completed film “All the Money in the World,” and the scenes reshot with Christopher Plummer.

Spacey became one of the most celebrated actors of his generation in 1990s, starring in films including “Glengarry Glen Ross” and “LA Confidential.” He won his second Oscar, for best actor, in the 1999 movie “American Beauty.”

Spacey recently had his first film roles in several years, appearing in 2022 in Italian director Franco Nero’s “The Man Who Drew God,” and playing the late Croatian President Franjo Tudjman in biopic “Once Upon a Time in Croatia.” He also stars in the unreleased U.S. film “Peter Five Eight.”

Italy’s National Cinema Museum in Turin gave him its lifetime achievement award in January. He also taught a masterclass and introduced a sold-out screening of “American Beauty” in what were billed as Spacey’s first speaking engagements in five years.

Spacey saluted organizers for “making a strong defense of artistic achievement” and for having “le palle” — the Italian word for male body parts synonymous with courage — to invite him.