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Australia Bans TikTok on Government Devices Over Security Concerns

Australia banned TikTok on Tuesday from all federal government-owned devices over security concerns, becoming the latest U.S.-allied country to take action against the Chinese-owned video app. The ban underscores growing worries that China could use the Beijing-based company, owned by ByteDance Ltd, to harvest users’ data to advance its political agenda, undermining Western security interests. […]

OpenAI and Italy’s Data Protection Authority to Hold Meeting on Wednesday

 Italy’s Data Protection Authority said on Tuesday that it would hold a meeting with representatives of OpenAI on Wednesday evening, after the authority temporarily banned the ChatGPT chatbot. The Italian authority added that OpenAI sent a letter on Monday to express its willingness to collaborate in order to respect the European privacy rules and reach […]

China Slows Reviews of Mergers Involving U.S Companies - WSJ

Chinese regulators have slowed down their merger reviews of several proposed acquisitions by U.S. companies, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, a move seen as a response to Washington’s curbs on China’s tech industry. The potential slowdown includes deals such as Intel Corp’s $5.2 billion takeover of Tower Semiconductor Ltd and chipmaker MaxLinear Inc’s […]

Stellantis, BMW in Talks With Panasonic Over New EV Battery Plants - WSJ

Stellantis and BMW are in talks with Panasonic Holdings about teaming up to build electric vehicle battery plants in North America, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the talks. Global automakers are investing billions of dollars to setup battery plants for electric vehicles, as demand surges for less polluting transport […]

Rising Rates Put Pressure on U.S. Insurers’ Reserves, Fitch Says

 Rising interest rates are eating into the reserves that U.S. life insurers must hold to deal with rate fluctuations, ratings agency Fitch Ratings said on Monday, creating an accounting issue that could impact insurers’ income. Interest maintenance reserves (IMRs) smooth insurers’ balance sheets by showing interest-related capital gains and losses on fixed-income assets, and amortizing […]

Exclusive-US to Build $300 Million Database to Fuel Alzheimer’s Research

The U.S. National Institute on Aging (NIA) is funding a 6-year, up to $300 million project to build a massive Alzheimer’s research database that can track the health of Americans for decades and enable researchers to gain new insights on the brain-wasting disease. The NIA, part of the government’s National Institutes of Health (NIH), aims […]

Italy’s ChatGPT Ban Attracts EU Privacy Regulators

Italy’s move to temporarily ban ChatGPT has inspired other European countries to study if harsher measures are needed to rein in the wildly popular chatbots and whether to coordinate such actions. While European parliamentarians disagree over the content and reach of the EU AI Act, some regulators are finding that existing tools, such as the […]

NASA Names Woman, Black Astronauts to Artemis II Crew in Lunar First

NASA on Monday named the first woman and the first African American ever assigned as astronauts to a lunar mission, introducing them as part of the four-member team chosen to fly on what would be the first crewed voyage around the moon in more than 50 years. Christina Koch, 44, an engineer who already holds […]

US Manufacturing Near Three-Year Low; Casts a Shadow over Economy

U.S. manufacturing activity slumped in March to the lowest level in nearly three years as new orders plunged, and analysts said activity could decline further due to tighter credit conditions. The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) survey on Monday showed all subcomponents of its manufacturing PMI below the 50 threshold for the first time since […]