Ohtani homers for 1,000th hit and strikes out 8, but Cardinals rally past Dodgers 5-3

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Shohei Ohtani homered for his 1,000th career hit and struck out a season-high eight in four innings on the mound, but the St. Louis Cardinals rallied late to beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 5-3 on Wednesday.

Jordan Walker had three hits for the Cardinals, including an RBI single off Alex Vesia (2-1) that tied the score with two outs in the eighth. St. Louis took a 4-3 lead on the same play when rookie third baseman Alex Freeland made a costly throwing error while trying to get Walker at second.

Lars Nootbaar added a run-scoring double off reliever Brock Stewart in the ninth.

Walker was a late addition to the starting lineup. He replaced Willson Contreras, who had a stomach bug.

JoJo Romero (4-3) earned the win with a scoreless inning of relief. Riley O’Brien got four outs for his first major league save.

Ohtani allowed one run and two hits in his eighth start this season. He struck out the side in the fourth.

The two-way superstar didn’t pitch in 2024 while rehabbing from elbow surgery, though he helped Los Angeles win the World Series with an MVP season at the plate.

Ohtani launched a two-run shot in the third, putting the Dodgers ahead 2-1 with his 39th homer of the year. They added a run in the fourth when Andy Pages stole third and scored on a throwing error by catcher Pedro Pagés.

St. Louis cut it to 3-2 in the sixth on an RBI groundout by Nootbaar.

Ohtani gave up his first stolen base of the season when Walker swiped second in the third.

The Dodgers got the leadoff man aboard in five straight innings, including Ohtani twice. The Cardinals did the same over the last four innings.

Cardinals rookie Michael McGreevy (3-2, 5.08 ERA) starts against Matthew Boyd (11-4, 2.34) and the visiting Chicago Cubs on Friday night.

Dodgers LHP Clayton Kershaw (5-2, 3.29 ERA) pitches against Toronto RHP Max Scherzer (2-1, 4.39) on Friday in a matchup between members of the 3,000-strikeout club.

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

St. Louis Cardinals' Masyn Winn, left, is congratulated by Pedro Pages after scoring on a throwing error during the eighth inning of a baseball game Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

St. Louis Cardinals' Lars Nootbaar hits an RBI double as Los Angeles Dodgers catcher Will Smith watches during the ninth inning of a baseball game Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitcher Shohei Ohtani throws to the plate during the first inning of a baseball game against the St. Louis Cardinals, Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

Los Angeles Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani, right, scores after hitting a two-run home run and his 1,000th hit as St. Louis Cardinals catcher Pedro Pages watches during the third inning of a baseball game Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

Los Angeles Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani, right, heads to first for a two-run home run and his 1,000th hit as St. Louis Cardinals catcher Pedro Pages watches during the third inning of a baseball game Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

Los Angeles Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani, right, hits a two-run home run and his 1,000th hit as St. Louis Cardinals catcher Pedro Pages watches during the third inning of a baseball game Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

LONDON (AP) — Laws that will make it illegal to create online sexual images of someone without their consent are coming into force soon in the U.K., officials said Thursday, following a global backlash over the use of Elon Musk's artificial intelligence chatbot Grok to make sexualized deepfakes of women and children.

Musk's company, xAI, announced late Wednesday that it has introduced measures to prevent Grok from allowing the editing of photos of real people to portray them in revealing clothing in places where that is illegal.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer welcomed the move, and said X must “immediately” ensure full compliance with U.K. law. He stressed that his government will remain vigilant on any transgressions by Grok and its users.

“Free speech is not the freedom to violate consent," Starmer said Thursday. “I am glad that action has now been taken. But we’re not going to let this go. We will continue because this is a values argument.”

The chatbot, developed by Musk's company xAI and freely accessed through his social media platform X, has faced global scrutiny after it emerged that it was used in recent weeks to generate thousands of images that “undress” people without their consent. The digitally-altered pictures included nude images as well as depictions of women and children in bikinis or in sexually explicit poses.

Critics have said laws regulating generative AI tools are long overdue, and that the U.K. legal changes should have been brought into force much sooner.

A look at the problem and how the U.K. aims to tackle it:

Britain's media regulator has launched an investigation into whether X has breached U.K. laws over the Grok-generated images of children being sexualized or people being undressed. The watchdog, Ofcom, said such images — and similar productions made by other AI models — may amount to pornography or child sexual abuse material.

The problem stemmed from the launch last year of Grok Imagine, an AI image generator that allows users to create videos and pictures by typing in text prompts. It includes a so-called “spicy mode” that can generate adult content.

Technology Secretary Liz Kendall cited a report from the internet Watch Foundation saying the deepfake images included sexualization of 11-year-olds and women subjected to physical abuse.

“The content which has circulated on X is vile. It is not just an affront to decent society, it is illegal,” she said.

Authorities said they are making legal changes to criminalize those who use or supply “nudification” tools.

First, the government says it is fast-tracking provisions in the Data (Use and Access) Act making it a criminal offense to create or request deepfake images. The act was passed by Parliament last year, but had not yet been brought into force.

The legislation is set to come into effect on Feb. 6

“Let this be a clear message to every cowardly perpetrator hiding behind a screen: you will be stopped and when you are, make no mistake that you will face the full force of the law,” Justice Secretary David Lammy said

Separately, the government said it is also criminalizing “nudification” apps as part of the Crime and Policing Bill, which is currently going through Parliament.

The new criminal offense will make it illegal for companies to supply tools designed to create non-consensual intimate images. Kendall said this would “target the problem at its source.”

The investigation by Ofcom is ongoing. Kendall said X could face a fine of up to 10% of its qualifying global revenue depending on the investigation’s outcome and a possible court order blocking access to the site.

Starmer has faced calls for his government to stop using X. Downing Street said this week it was keeping its presence on the platform “under review."

Musk insisted Grok complied with the law. “When asked to generate images, it will refuse to produce anything illegal, as the operating principle for Grok is to obey the laws of any given country or state,” he posted on X. “There may be times when adversarial hacking of Grok prompts does something unexpected. If that happens, we fix the bug immediately.”

FILE - Workers install lighting on an "X" sign atop the company headquarters, formerly known as Twitter, in downtown San Francisco, July 28, 2023. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)