Author: News Room

An artificial intelligence race is heating up between the United States and China — but don’t count Europe out.That is the case President Emmanuel Macron of France made this week as his country hosts an A.I. summit in Paris, where government leaders, top tech executives and academic experts gathered on Monday to discuss the fears and hopes surrounding A.I technology.“There’s a race to scale,” Mr. Macron told France 2 television on Sunday night under the soaring steel and glass roof of the Grand Palais, the exhibition hall where France and India have teamed up to hold the summit.“Are we completely…

A unionization wave sweeping across Off Broadway is poised to reshape the economics of theater-making in New York — for workers as well as producers.Striking stage crews have idled the nonprofit Atlantic Theater Company — the birthplace of the musicals “Spring Awakening,” “The Band’s Visit” and “Kimberly Akimbo,” which all transferred to Broadway and won Tonys. The strike, which began last month, comes amid a drive to unionize stage hands and crews at Off Broadway theaters.Nonprofit companies and producers fear that the unionization push could drive up costs at a moment when many are running deficits and staging fewer, and…

The Fox Corporation said on Monday that it had acquired Red Seat Ventures, a growing digital media company that has become a go-to partner for old-media stars like Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson and Piers Morgan as they create their own independent online programming.Red Seat and its founding partners, the brothers Chris and Kevin Balfe, will continue to operate independently within Fox’s Tubi Media Group, an arm of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire focused on digital and streaming ventures. A purchase price was not disclosed.The acquisition moves the Fox Corporation into the heart of the online “creator economy,” where media personalities who…

Hope you enjoyed the Super Bowl on Sunday night, and congrats to the Philadelphia Eagles. The ads were better than the game. We’ve got a rundown below.I got into a substantive debate on Sunday with Joe Lonsdale, the venture capitalist and co-founder of Palantir, and other investors, about how carried interest is taxed. President Trump has vowed to eliminate the tax exemption, which I’ve been writing about since 2007. You can read excerpts from the debate below.The new phase of the tariff fight Get ready for the latest round of President Trump’s trade wars.On Air Force One on Sunday, en…

European passenger rail travel continues to expand, with a flurry of new routes opening and competition heating up on key routes, including on the rail line that runs below the English Channel. Plans to streamline the booking process across Europe could also make rail travel easier and more efficient.The European Commission is encouraging the push. At his confirmation hearing in November, Apostolos Tzitzikostas, the new European commissioner for sustainable transport and tourism, said that connecting European cities by high-speed rail is “a top priority.” He also vowed to present draft regulation for a single digital booking and ticketing system for…

Companies that just one year ago celebrated Black History Month and stocked Pride products on their shelves are in a new phase — what some lawyers refer to as “rainbow-hushing,” meaning dropping or quietly rebranding their diversity, equity and inclusion programs.They are retreating, or clamming up, as they brace for lawsuits encouraged by President Trump’s war against D.E.I. Employers are walking a narrow path: They are trying to keep enough of their diversity efforts in place to remain protected from future discrimination lawsuits, while also avoiding Mr. Trump’s ire, federal investigations and lawsuits from anti-D.E.I. conservatives.Some corporate initiatives that fall…

Last month, the Golden Globes drew 10.1 million viewers. No, wait, maybe 9.3 million.The very same night, “Sunday Night Football” attracted 28.5 million people. Scratch that, perhaps it was 25.8 million.The “Yellowstone” finale? Possibly 11 million — or 8 million?Ratings have long been the currency of the TV business, helping to determine how much media companies can charge for commercials. But the $60 billion that advertisers spend on television each year largely depends on a shared leap of faith that the numbers are as good as gold.That faith, though, is resting on shaky ground.People now watch so many programs at…

To many Chinese, DeepSeek’s success is a victory for China’s education system, proof that it equals that of the United States or has even surpassed it.The core team of developers and scientists behind DeepSeek, the Chinese start-up that has jolted the A.I. world, all attended university in China, according to the company’s founder. That’s a contrast with many Chinese tech companies, which have often sought talent educated abroad.As Chinese commenters online basked in Americans’ shocked reactions, some pointed to the high number of science Ph.D.s that China produces annually. “DeepSeek’s success proves that our education is awesome,” read one blog…

President Trump on Sunday said that he would impose a 25 percent tariff on all foreign steel and aluminum imports into the United States as of Monday and would soon announce reciprocal tariffs on America’s trading partners.Speaking from Air Force One en route to the Super Bowl, the president said his metal tariffs would apply to “everybody,” including Canada and Mexico, America’s allies and its largest trading partners.“Any steel coming into the United States is going to have a 25 percent tariff,” Mr. Trump said. “Aluminum, too.”Mr. Trump’s decision to tax foreign metals and impose reciprocal tariffs comes in the…

The day before Linda Wetzel closed on her retirement home in Southport, N.C., in 2012 — a cozy place where she could open the windows at night and catch an ocean breeze — the bank making the loan surprised her with a fee she hadn’t expected. Ms. Wetzel scoured her mortgage paperwork and couldn’t find the charge disclosed anywhere.Ms. Wetzel made the payment and then filed an online complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The bank quickly opened an investigation, and a month later, it sent her a $5,600 check.“My first thought was ‘thank you.’ I was in tears,”…