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Senior Anthropic technical staff are in Washington to ​meet with White House officials in a bid to resolve a dispute that has taken the ⁠San Francisco-based AI start-up's most advanced AI models offline, Axios reports. The Trump administration ordered ​Anthropic to block any foreign nationals, whether inside or ‌outside ⁠the U.S., from using its latest models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5. In response, Anthropic said it would disable access ​to the ​models globally. 

 

Axios

Euronews

Wall Street Journal

The Antitrust Division of the U.S. Justice Department has cleared Paramount ​Skydance's planned $110bn acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, saying the deal was unlikely to harm competition or consumers. The DOJ approved the merger without requiring any divestitures, behavioral remedies or concessions, according to a source. The deal is opposed by many in the entertainment industry who fear it could precipitate mass layoffs, among other concerns. The Antitrust Division said its eight-month review “determined based on the evidence received in its investigation that the transaction is not likely to result in harm to competition or American consumers” and could ultimately increase it by creating a stronger competitor across streaming, television and film.

 

Politico

Wall Street Journal

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has unanimously ​proposed to ditch the "order protection rule," a regulation that was first adopted in 2005 ​to prohibit so-called trade-throughs, which occur when a trade happens at a bid or ‌offering ⁠price that is worse than what is quoted on another venue. The SEC said the rule had driven up costs and complexity and was no longer necessary. "I've opposed the trade-through rule since its ⁠inception and have elaborated on my concerns from this very ​stage," SEC Chair Paul Atkins said.

 

Reuters

EU regulators ‌have hit out at Apple for blaming the Digital Markets Act (DMA) for its decision not to launch its upgraded assistant Siri AI in the region for now, saying they had rejected the company's request for an 18-month exemption from the act's obligations. "The decision not to roll out Siri AI in the EU is Apple's and Apple's only," spokesperson Thomas Regnier said, observing there was nothing in the DMA to stop the company from introducing new products in the EU. "Apple was simply unable to develop interoperability solutions that meet essential EU ​privacy and security standards," Regnier said. "In essence, [the] commission [is] asking us to conduct a very risky experiment on many, ​many, many tens of millions of users," said Greg Joswiak, Apple's marketing chief, "and we only want to ship these capabilities when we ‌can ⁠do so safely."

 

Reuters

OpenAI has said in a reports that Chinese propagandists have been trying to use its ChatGPT platform to foment opposition to Donald Trump's tariffs and intervene in American debates over ​data centers and AI. The company said it had identified Chinese-speaking users using its flagship chat to generate slogans and cartoons critiquing White House trade and tech ​policy that were later posted to X. The ​Chinese Embassy in Washington said that it was not familiar with OpenAI's research, but "we firmly ​oppose any groundless attacks or smears against China."

 

Reuters

A U.S. appeals court has extended its block on ​a lower court ruling against the Trump ‌administration's 10% global tariff under Section 122 of the Trade Act. President Trump imposed the new levy after the Supreme Court invalidated his previous emergency tariffs as exceeding his authority. The decision from the ⁠Federal Circuit appeals court allows the U.S. ​to continue collecting tariffs from three importers - two small businesses and the state of ‌Washington, ⁠which paid tariffs on purchases by the University of Washington - while ​the government's appeal plays out. “We conclude that the federal government has made a sufficient showing that it is likely to succeed on the merits,” the court wrote.

 

The Hill

Reuters

Brett Matsumoto, Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), has disputed the president’s claims that the statistics agency had manipulated data. Matsumoto, who has worked at the BLS since 2015 but is on leave from the economic data agency to work at the White House's Council of Economic Advisers, told a Congressional hearing that he has faith in the work performed by the career staff who collect and process the data.

 

Financial Times

Reuters

Kristie Carrier, a Canadian mother, has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in San Francisco, alleging negligence in the design of ChatGPT, which it is said failed to address her daughter Alice's suicidal ideations. “ChatGPT took on the persona of a confidant . . . even though it was not capable of safely and responsibly engaging in this way with my child,” Carrier said in a statement. The lawsuit seeks damages and demands that OpenAI implement automatic termination of self-harm conversations and issue warnings about the platform's dangers. OpenAI faces 18 similar lawsuits from families of individuals who have attempted or committed suicide. The company claims its models are designed to direct users to real-world resources for mental health support.

 

The Globe and Mail

Sam Bankman-Fried, the co-founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has failed in his attempt to overturn his fraud conviction and 25-year prison sentence. In a unanimous decision, a three-judge panel of the Manhattan-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said prosecutors' evidence against Bankman-Fried "was, conservatively stated, robust." Circuit Judge Barrington Parker wrote on behalf of the panel: "While he was publicly reassuring customers, investors and regulators that FTX customer funds were ​safe, he was simultaneously using FTX as his own personal piggy bank, spending customer funds on real estate, ​political contributions, and investments." 

 

Forbes

Financial Times

Reuters

Uber has sued New York City to ‌prevent enforcement of new legislation that it said would unconstitutionally force it to retain drivers it does not want on its platform. The ride-hailing firm said the law against "wrongful deactivations" would improperly protect drivers who ​engage in dangerous, threatening or other inappropriate behavior, thus threatening public safety and causing "immediate and irreparable harm" by ​undermining Uber's reputation and goodwill.

 

Reuters

Microsoft's Xbox division plans major layoffs next month and significant cuts to marketing and other ​budgets. The job cuts ‌would mark the first major restructuring under Asha Sharma, who took charge as CEO of the gaming unit in February. Sharma has previously identified what she said were the organization's challenges, saying the business had plunged to a 3% "accountability margin" and that the company needs to "reset the business" which was "not in a healthy spot".

 

Bloomberg

U.S. wholesale inflation accelerated sharply in May, with the Labor Department's Producer Price Index (PPI) rising 6.5% year-over-year, its largest increase since November 2022, driven primarily by a surge in energy costs following disruptions linked to the Iran war. Producer prices increased 1.1% month-over-month for a second consecutive month, while wholesale gasoline prices jumped more than 23% from April and nearly 70% from a year earlier. Excluding food and energy, core producer prices rose 4.9% annually. The report follows data showing consumer inflation reached 4.2% in May, reinforcing concerns that elevated energy costs are feeding through the economy. “The bottom line is that U.S. inventory levels remain above estimated minimum operating thresholds,’’ commented S&P Global Energy’s Aaron Brady. “However, with continued disruption to Middle East flows, draws are likely to extend into the third quarter, even in the event of a near-term diplomatic resolution.’’ 

 

CNBC

Los Angeles Times

US News and World Report

Argentina’s cabinet chief Manuel Adorni has admitted to hiding $500,000 in savings from tax authorities. In a television interview on the LN+ television news channel, Adorni said that he and his wife had saved money “en negro [“off the books”] . . . like everyone else in Argentina.” The funds “pre-date my time in government,” he said, adding: "Of course I made a mistake. I will pay every tax I am required to pay, every fine, all the interest and everything arising from this error." Adorni revealed that he has now submitted a revised asset declaration to the Anti-Corruption Office, and he has also enrolled in a simplified tax regularization regime. His wife had joined the program 10 days earlier.  The scheme, introduced by Javier Milei's government, allows participants to disclose previously undeclared income and assets without facing criminal prosecution or tax penalties.

 

Buenos Aires Herald

Buenos Aires Times

Financial Times

More workers are embracing “microshifting,” or managing their time in short, productive bursts, with intentional breaks for family time or personal replenishment to prioritise work-life balance. Anita Williams Woolley, associate dean of research and professor of organizational behavior at Carnegie Mellon University, says microshifting is more likely to be prevalent in sectors where flexible work arrangements are already common, such as IT, financial services and professional and technical services, and less so among those who work at restaurants or retailers. “Accommodating the changing needs and preferences of employees in a high-turnover industry is a complex optimization problem that has been challenging, even for sophisticated software to solve,” Williams Woolley says.

 

Wall Street Journal