Humanity at an AI crossroads: Will we choose the happy ending?

Stocks slip on Wall Street as rising Treasury yields pressure the market

NEW YORK — Pressure from another increase in Treasury yields weighed down stocks on Wall Street Tuesday. The S&P 500 fell 0.3 percent after spending most of the morning wavering. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 232 points, or 0.5 percent, as of 1:45 p.m. Eastern time. The Nasdaq composite fell 0.2 percent. Major indexes shifted lower after a quiet morning as increased pressure from the bond market undercut much of the heavy lifting being done by several technology behemoths. Nvidia gave up an early and influential gain and was mostly unchanged. Broadcom gave up much of its gain and was up most recently by 1.6 percent. Stocks remain under pressure as oil prices swing sharply as the U.S. war with Iran drags on, helping to push Treasury yields to their highest levels in 24 years. The price of Brent crude oil in the most actively traded part of the oil market fell 1 percent to $96.84 a barrel. It briefly climbed above $100 on Monday before prices eased a bit, but they are still well above the roughly $72 it cost before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in late February. Mediators cont

OpenAI launches cheaper AI model, after scrapping one deemed unsafe

SAN FRANCISCO — OpenAI launched a new mid-range artificial intelligence model Tuesday that costs five times less than its flagship offering, one day after scrapping an upgraded version deemed unreliable. GPT-6.1 Sol ranks below OpenAI's most powerful model, GPT-6 Astra, released in early September. The company on Monday said it abandoned plans for GPT-6.1 Astra because the model frequently ignored instructions. The announcement, made at the company's annual developer conference, marks the latest escalation in a price war with rival Anthropic as both firms prepare for initial public offerings.

US users turn to Korean netizens in hunt for Cornell defendant Winston Lee

SEATTLE — The sprawling online hunt for information about Winston Lee, a Korean student who is among seven defendants in a Cornell University sexual assault lawsuit, is increasingly crossing borders, with English-speaking social media users calling on Korean netizens to help uncover more information about him. As the “Cornell 7” case continues to draw intense attention across the United States, Lee has become the subject of a parallel search focused on his Korean identity and background. Publicly available information about him remains limited compared with the volume of material circulating about some of the other defendants. Some English-language users have begun openly looking to Korean netizens to take the search further. “OK Korean people, we're counting on you to track one of your own people down,” one user wrote in a social media thread. “Leaving it up to the knetz,” another wrote, using shorthand for Korean netizens. Other comments described Korean internet users as “ruthless hunters” and said they “know how to punish their own.” The search has also spread to

Trump vows to never 'stifle' AI as leading executives urge caution

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Tuesday promised the U.S. government wouldn't limit the development of artificial intelligence despite calls for caution from top executives of AI firms, who are gathering in Washington. “I will never stifle the growth of a technology that will be bigger than the industrial revolution,” Trump said at the unveiling of an AI chatbot , America.gov, intended to help Americans navigate government services. “We can’t stifle it, and we’re leading by a lot.” Top AI executives lunched with Trump at the White House Tuesday, including Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, Greg Brockman, president of OpenAI, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, and Elon Musk, whose X social media platform includes its own AI model, Grok. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang sat to Trump's right at Tuesday's White House lunch, according to a seating chart the president posted on Truth Social. Musk sat to Trump's left. Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also attended. Trump's confidence in AI is in sharp contrast to the alarms sounded by AI ex

US consumer confidence sinks to lowest level since 2014

WASHINGTON — U.S. consumer confidence plunged sharply in September to a level not seen since 2014, according to a key benchmark published on Tuesday, with U.S. households battered by a high cost of living and economic uncertainty from the Iran war. The Conference Board's consumer confidence index fell by 6.7 points to 81.9 this month, its lowest level since April 2014. The high cost of living in the United States is a major issue as the country heads into key midterm elections in November, where Democrats are seeking to wrest control of Congress from U.S. President Donald Trump's Republican Party. "Consumers' write-in responses regarding factors affecting the economy were mostly pessimistic in September," said Dana Peterson, chief economist at the Conference Board. "References to prices, the high cost of goods and services, and oil and gas prices in particular, rose to new heights, reflecting September's surge in fuel costs." Global oil prices have skyrocketed since Trump and U.S. ally Israel launched the war against Iran in late February, with Tehran's retaliatory action targeting Wash

Was Iran behind a ‘terror plot’ targeting U.S. forces in Britain? 

A transatlantic mystery is capturing attention in the U.S. and Britain. The central question is whether Iran was behind some kind of plot to target a British air base that is vital to the U.S. Air Force (USAF). Alternatively, was the initial speculation about an incident that has seen five men arrested, and then released...

'Morally Binding' But Not Legally Enforceable: Tech Giants Sign Trump's AI Self-Policing Pact

Trump said the agreement puts the companies' commitment to self-regulation on paper.

More than 400 detained as France student protests escalate

Students have been protesting conditions and resources in high schools since last week.

Trump says top tech firms have signed accord to 'self-police' AI development

U.S. President Donald Trump has signed a voluntary pact with artificial intelligence companies to "self-police" the technology's development.

Fires and blockades as students stage school protests across France

More than 400 people, mainly minors, were arrested on Tuesday, the country's interior minister says.

American Idol alum found guilty of murdering wife

Oil down, but stocks lower as bond yields rise