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A racketeering conspiracy trial of Huawei Technologies has begun in New York, with federal prosecutors accusing the Chinese tech company of a litany of crimes, including stealing technology from American companies, abusing the U.S. financial system and helping Iran snoop on its citizens.
Huawei is the world's biggest supplier of gear for wireless telecom networks, but it is banned from selling equipment to U.S. carriers over fears it poses a security risk and has been blacklisted by other Western allies, including Canada and Britain. Taylor Stout, a Department of Justice attorney, told jurors that Huawei committed multiple crimes over two decades.
Researcher resigns with warning of AI dangers
An Anthropic researcher is resigning over concerns about irresponsible development of artificial intelligence.
Jacob Coxon, who worked at Anthropic and OpenAI, shared his worries about unsafe development practices and underestimating AI's capabilities on the social platform X on Tuesday. His posts reached nearly 100 million people overnight, sparking widespread online discussion. He warned that AI models could soon become superhuman systems and threaten human life.
Stocks fall on Wall Street as oil prices jump
Stocks fell on Wall Street as the price of crude oil topped $100 a barrel again.
The S&P 500 lost 0.5% Wednesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gave up 0.8%, and the Nasdaq composite dropped 0.6%. The surge in oil prices follows the latest attacks between the U.S. and Iran.
Race on to restore critical peatland
Scientists and investors are restoring a 23-square-mile tract of peatland in North Carolina to help curb climate-warming emissions and restore native habitat.
Ditches have drained water from thousands of years of accumulated peat, leaving the site vulnerable to drought and wildfire and unleashing huge volumes of carbon dioxide. One-third of global carbon is stored in saturated peatlands, more than all forests combined. But that reverses when peatlands are damaged. Pantheon Regeneration plans to restore the water table to curb emissions, then sell carbon credits to help fund its goal of preserving a million acres of peatland from Virginia to Florida.
US bans Canada alcohol imports
The trade war between the U.S. and Canada escalated once again as the U.S. announced upcoming import bans on most alcoholic beverages from Canada, along with other products including whey, molasses and motorcycles.
About $20 billion in Canadian products were already subject to 50% tariffs. The products targeted by the import bans set to be implemented on Sept. 29 were among those already tariffed. Exporting products to the U.S. with a 50% levy would have been difficult for Canadian businesses.
New Mexico taking Facebook to trial
Opening statements in the Facebook trial over privacy concerns linked to the 2016 election began in New Mexico on Wednesday. The political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica, bought user data harvested from millions of Facebook profiles to generate targeted ads during the 2016 election.
Attorneys for the state of New Mexico accused the social media platform of failing to protect users after the data helped generate targeted political ads, encouraging Democratic voters to stay home. Facebook's attorney said the social media company investigated suspicious third-party apps following the breach and told jurors the state's evidence is outdated because platform safeguards have improved. The trial is expected to last four weeks.