Usman Khawaja insists ‘all of us’ involved in 2018 Australia sandpaper scandal

Tesla to pull the plug on Cybertruck after years of poor sales

Tesla will wind down Cybertruck production at its Texas gigafactory around mid-2027, CEO Elon Musk said on Friday, after years of persistently weak sales for a futuristic model once touted as a rival to legacy pickup trucks. The move is a major retreat from what has been one of Musk's pet projects. In an X post, Musk said the wind-down would let Tesla make more of the Cybercab, a robotaxi he has made central to the automaker's autonomous-vehicle ambitions, but one that has yet to prove itself commercially. The announcement comes at the end of a bruising week for Musk, as his record political spending of nearly half a billion dollars yielded little in Tuesday's U.S. midterm elections, with the vast majority of the Republican candidates he backed losing their races. Combined, his companies were on track to lose more than $180 billion in market capitalization for the week. While it was not immediately clear whether Cybertruck production would be moved to another facility or phased out entirely, the automaker's Austin plant is the only known Tesla facility equipped to manufacture the special

Top US House Democrat on trade issues committed to reversing 'unjustified' tariffs

U.S. Representative Richard Neal, the Democrat who is expected to regain the chairmanship of the tax- and trade-focused House Ways and Means Committee, said on Friday that he is committed to reversing President Donald Trump's "unjustified" tariffs and "backroom deals" on trade. In an address to a trade conference hosted by the Biden administration's former U.S. Trade Representative, Katherine Tai, Neal said Trump's "deliberately chaotic and unjustified trade policies" had contributed to rising living costs and growing inequality between workers and the wealthiest Americans. Democrats have won at least 250 seats in the House of Representatives in the midterm elections that were held on Tuesday, giving them their biggest majority since the 2008 election of President Barack Obama. With at least 54 seats in the Senate, Democrats will have significant ability to pass legislation rescinding some of Trump's tariff policies and the statutes backing them. Punitive duties on Canadian goods are viewed as a likely target. "I'm committed to reversing Trump's unjustified tariffs and pursuing trade po

US urged Beijing to implement commitments of Busan trade deal, Treasury says

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer discussed U.S.-China economic relations with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng and urged Beijing to immediately implement commitments under the Busan trade agreement, the Treasury Department said on Friday. “I emphasized the importance of China fully and immediately honoring its commitments, raised concerns about recent Chinese actions and underscored that progress depends on concrete results," Bessent said in a social media post. The United States would "closely assess China’s implementation of the arrangement," the Treasury said in a statement. Beijing has signaled tariff concessions remain central to its aims, with its commerce ministry saying on Thursday China was open to buying more U.S. farm goods, but only if the two sides implement their reciprocal tariff-cut agreement. Following a September summit between Presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump in Washington, the two sides proposed a $60 billion package of reciprocal tariff cuts, including roughly $17 billion worth of U.S. farm goods that China im

AI stocks halt brutal, worldwide sell-off as Wall Street trims its loss for the week

NEW YORK — AI stocks are bouncing back Friday and recovering some of their sell-off from the last two days. The rest of the U.S. stock market is mixed following a whirlwind few days of Wall Street trying to sort out what this week’s sweeping victories by Democrats in the U.S. midterm elections will mean for the economy. The S&P 500 rose 0.9 percent and trimmed its loss for the week to 2.1 percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 3 points, or less than 0.1 percent, as of 11:45 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.6 percent higher. Even with this week's extreme swings, the S&P 500 remains only 5.1 percent below its all-time high, which was set last month. Friday's relative steadiness for Wall Street halted what had been a worldwide tumble for stocks. Indexes dropped 6 percent in Tokyo and 6 percent in Seoul following the U.S. market’s plunge on Thursday, which was its worst since President Donald Trump shook markets in April 2025 with his “Liberation Day” tariffs. European indexes have fewer stocks tied to the artificial-intelligence industry, but Germany

European air traffic targeted again by bomb threats after a week of hoaxes

PRAGUE — Officials across Europe reported a fresh slew of bomb threats against multiple flights on Friday, following a string of hoaxes that have caused flight diversions this week. Two broadcasters also received security threats, in a possible sign the menace was spreading beyond the skies. No suspicious items have been found and no one has been injured, but the threats have raised concern because they came on the heels of other European disruptions — including attacks on supermarket refrigeration systems and drone incursions. Overall, the threats have caused minimal disruption to aviation, according to the European air traffic authority. Eurocontrol said it was aware of bomb threats against 14 flights on Thursday — only 0.05% of all of the nearly 26,300 flights across the European network that day — and seven on Tuesday. Even so, airlines have to take every threat seriously because they are ultimately responsible for the lives of their passengers, said Robert Jordan, research director at Britain's Royal United Services Institute think tank. Jordan told the BBC that there are mo

Meghan Markle's father arrested in US over child sex abuse images

MIAMI — Thomas Markle, the estranged father of Prince Harry's wife, Meghan Markle, was arrested in Florida on Friday over alleged possession of images of child sexual abuse, officials said. Markle, 82, is charged with one count of "possession of child pornography" and is to make an initial court appearance in Tampa on Friday, U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said in a statement. "Mr Markle is accused of possessing child sexual abuse material, including photographs depicting himself with minor girls," Essayli said. "These allegations are extremely serious, and we will prosecute Mr Markle to the fullest extent of federal law." Markle was taken into custody by FBI agents early Friday at the retirement home where he lives in Lakeland, Florida. The Justice Department said Markle allegedly "kept child sexual abuse material (CSAM), including sexually explicit photographs of himself with prepubescent girls, in two Los Angeles-area storage units he rented for nearly two decades." "Inside the units, agents seized approximately 78 items, including slides, film negatives, and books that contained suspect

Protesters break into Microsoft data center site in Amsterdam as Europe's backlash spreads

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Protesters broke into a construction site for a new Microsoft data center in Amsterdam on Friday, with some climbing a crane and setting off flares while others clashed with police. Nathan Timmer of the protest group Geef Tegengas, a phrase that translates as Push Back, told local broadcaster AT5 that protesters were occupying the site in an effort to stop construction. Campaigners against data centers in Europe are expected to stage protests and other actions in several countries on Friday and Saturday, demanding a moratorium on large-scale developments to address social and environmental concerns around the energy-hungry behemoths. “We don’t want it to be built. Nobody needs it,” Timmer said. “The only thing this will be used for is AI slop. AI warfare, data surveillance, and committing genocides. We don’t want that,” he added, vowing to continue protesting until construction is halted. Pro-Palestinian activists also joined the demonstrations in the Dutch capital. By late afternoon police were escorting activists off the construction site, though

Democratic candidates with a Christian message helped flip Congress

Clergy members and other Democratic candidates with an unapologetically Christian message to “love your neighbor” helped their party flip control of Congress. It was a striking midterm victory that demonstrated the strength of the religious left as a counter to the stalwart evangelical support for President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans. “This attempt to corner the market on Christianity by evangelicals was repudiated,” said Brian Kaylor, a Baptist pastor and editor of a progressive faith and politics site. Instead, American mainline Protestantism, with its less-strident theology, took the election spotlight. Seminarian James Talarico in Texas, megachurch pastor Adam Hamilton in Kansas and Iowa ministers Sarah Trone Garriott and Lindsay James flipped key seats in the U.S. Senate and House. They’re part of the mainline Presbyterian, Methodist and Lutheran branches with moderate or progressive beliefs. Unlike the nationalists wanting America to privilege a particular Christian worldview in public life, the mainline candidates in keeping with their Christian values backed

U.S. sanctions Canadian money-exchange businesses allegedly connected to Iranian regime, Ryan Wedding

The United States government has announced sanctions against several Canadian currency-exchange businesses accused of helping the Iranian regime and, in several cases, also helping the alleged head of a drug trafficking ring.

Cornell faculty vote no-confidence in university leadership over alleged gang rape

Google executive Donald Harrison resigns from SpaceX board