Author: News Room

Disney and Universal sued a prominent artificial intelligence start-up for copyright infringement on Wednesday, bringing Hollywood belatedly into the increasingly intense legal battle over generative A.I.The movie companies sued Midjourney, an A.I. image generator that has millions of registered users. The 110-page lawsuit contends that Midjourney “helped itself to countless” copyrighted works to train its software, which allows people to create images (and soon videos) that “blatantly incorporate and copy Disney’s and Universal’s famous characters.”“Midjourney is the quintessential copyright free-rider and a bottomless pit of plagiarism,” the companies said in the lawsuit, which was filed in United States District Court…

We are hearing that the trade talks with China may be bearing fruit — or at least aren’t at an impasse. We’ve heard positive spin before, so we will wait to hear whether both sides say the same thing before any sort of victory can be declared.We’re also watching key C.P.I. data on Wednesday. And we’re examining new challenges to the latest trend in finance: funds sponsored by private equity that target retail investors. Good luck!But will Trump and Xi approve? For the second time in recent weeks, U.S. negotiators are hailing a truce in the Trump administration’s trade clash…

Businesses across the United States have for months warned that they would raise prices on their customers in response to President Trump’s tariffs.The latest data show that it is only happening in a limited way so far, helping to keep a lid on inflation.The Consumer Price Index, released on Wednesday, rose 2.4 percent in May from a year earlier, just above April’s 2.3 percent annual increase.“Core” inflation steadied at 2.8 percent. That measure, which strips out volatile food and energy products, is closely monitored by policymakers as a gauge for underlying price pressures.On a monthly basis, the overall measure rose…

In its high-stakes trade talks with the United States, China has been trying to strike a balance in how it wields its market clout. It controls the world’s supply of rare earth metals and magnets. And it has withheld supplies of the materials — crucial ingredients in everything from cars to fighter jets — as leverage.At the same time, Beijing knows it must not overplay its hand by pushing Washington so hard that the United States feels compelled to make the long-term investments needed to break its dependence on China.This delicate dynamic was underlined in an apparent compromise the countries…

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is pushing to investigate whether Harvard University violated federal sanctions by collaborating on a health insurance conference in China that may have included officials blacklisted by the U.S. government, according to people familiar with the matter and documents reviewed by The New York Times.Mr. Rubio signed off on a recommendation to the Treasury Department last month to open an investigation, which experts and former Treasury officials said was an unusual attempt from a cabinet secretary to target a domestic entity for sanctions enforcement.Whether the agency within the Treasury that handles sanctions, the Office of Foreign…

When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Germany realized that its dependency on natural gas piped from Russia had endangered its energy security. It had no ports to bring in alternative energy sources needed to keep its factories running and homes warm. Three years on, it now has four.The most recent began operating in late May when a tanker called the Energy Endurance pulled in close to shore at the harbor town Wilhelmshaven and began unloading its cargo: liquefied natural gas from the Gulf Coast of the United States.Watching from a dike, where lambs and their mothers grazed on spring grass,…

Elon Musk said in a social media post early Wednesday that he regretted some of his posts and comments about President Trump last week, which had led the president to disparage Mr. Musk.Mr. Musk said on his X platform that some of his posts about Mr. Trump “went too far.”Mr. Musk, the world’s richest person, was once among the president’s closest advisers. But he and Mr. Trump had a dramatic and public falling out after the Tesla chief executive left his role in the administration.Both men traded barbs on social media, and Mr. Trump said last week that he had…

Who wants to lead the Department of Government Efficiency?With the departure of Elon Musk and his right-hand man Steve Davis from government, administration officials and members of the controversial cost-cutting effort have been in detailed discussions this week about who will functionally be in charge of it, according to four people familiar with the talks.Debate about who should take charge has spread through the White House, DOGE and Silicon Valley. In the first days after Mr. Musk’s departure, it centered on the billionaire Joe Gebbia, one of Mr. Musk’s close friends and a board member at his automaker, Tesla.Mr. Gebbia…

A federal appeals court agreed on Tuesday to allow President Trump to maintain many of his tariffs on China and other U.S. trading partners, extending a pause granted shortly after another panel of judges ruled in late May that the import taxes were illegal.The decision, from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, delivered an important but interim victory for the Trump administration, which had warned that any interruption to its steep duties could undercut the president in talks around the world.But the government still must convince the judges that the president appropriately used a set…

The United States and China have agreed to a “framework” that is intended to ease economic tension and extend a trade truce that the world’s two largest economies reached last month, officials from both countries said on Tuesday.After two days of marathon negotiations in London, top economic officials from the United States and China are now expected to present the new framework to their leaders, President Trump and President Xi Jinping, for final approval.The agreement is intended to solidify terms of a deal that the United States and China reached in Switzerland in May that unraveled in recent weeks. Howard…