Category: Business

The United States and Japan launched a new high-level economic dialogue Friday aimed at pushing back against China and countering the disruption caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The two longtime allies agreed to establish a new joint research center for next-generation semiconductors during the so-called economic "two-plus-two" ministerial meeting in Washington, Japanese Trade Minister Koichi Hagiuda said. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and Hagiuda also discussed energy and food security, the officials said in a news briefing. "As the world's first- and third-largest economies, it is critical that we work together to defend the rules-based economic order, one in which all countries can participate, compete and prosper," Blinken told the opening session. Hagiuda said "Japan will quickly move…

The House on Thursday passed a $280 billion package to boost the semiconductor industry and scientific research in a bid to create more high-tech jobs in the United States and help it better compete with international rivals, namely China.  The House approved the bill by a solid margin of 243-187, sending the measure to President Joe Biden to be signed into law and providing the White House with a major domestic policy victory. Twenty-four Republicans voted for the legislation. The Senate passed the bill Wednesday, 64-33. "Today, the House passed a bill that will make cars cheaper, appliances cheaper and computers cheaper," Biden said. "It will lower the costs of everyday goods. And it will create high-paying manufacturing jobs across the country and strengthen U.S. leadership in the industries of the…

The U.S. Justice Department is investigating a cyber breach involving the federal court records management system, the department's top national security attorney told lawmakers Thursday. Matt Olsen, head of the Justice Department's National Security Division, alluded to the threat of cyberattacks by foreign nations as he told the U.S. House of Representative Judiciary Committee that the incident was a "significant concern." Olsen made the remarks in response to questions from Representative Jerrold Nadler, the panel's Democratic chairman, who said that "three hostile foreign actors" had attacked the courts' document filing system. Nadler said the committee learned only in March of the "startling breadth and scope" of the breach. Olsen said the Justice Department was working closely with the federal judiciary around the country to address the issue. “While I can’t…

 Twitter Inc. does not object to Elon Musk's proposal to start a trial on October 17 over Musk's bid to walk away from his $44 billion acquisition deal but the social media company wants a commitment to complete the trial in five days, Twitter said in a court filing on Wednesday.  Musk has said he needs time to complete a thorough investigation of what he says is Twitter's misrepresentation of fake accounts, which he said breached their deal terms.  He originally sought a February trial, but on Tuesday proposed an October 17 trial after a judge ruled the proceeding was to start in three months.  Twitter has called the fake accounts a distraction and pushed for the trial to hold Musk to the deal to start as soon as possible,…

Meta Platforms Inc. issued a gloomy forecast after recording its first ever quarterly drop in revenue Wednesday, with recession fears and competitive pressures weighing on its digital ads sales.  Shares of the Menlo Park, California-based company were down about 4.6% in extended trading.  The company said it expected third-quarter revenue to be in the range of $26 billion to $28.5 billion, which would be a second consecutive year-over-year drop. Analysts were expecting $30.52 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.  Total revenue, which consists almost entirely of ad sales, fell 1% to $28.8 billion in the second quarter ended June 30, from $29.1 billion last year. The figure slightly missed Wall Street's projections of $28.9 billion, according to Refinitiv.  The company, which operates the world's largest social media platform, reported…

The U.S. Senate has passed a $280 billion initiative that would boost domestic production of microchips and provide support for a key industry that competes with overseas countries including China. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson reports. ...

The U.S. Senate voted 64-32 on Tuesday to advance legislation to dramatically boost U.S. semiconductor manufacturing in a bid to make the domestic industry more competitive with China. The legislation provides about $52 billion in government subsidies for U.S. semiconductor production as well as an investment tax credit for chip plants estimated to be worth $24 billion. The Senate is expected to vote on final passage in coming days and the U.S. House could follow suit as soon as later this week. President Joe Biden and others have cast the issue in national security terms, saying it is essential to ensure U.S. production of chips that are crucial to a wide range of consumer goods and military equipment. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo called the vote "a symbol of the strong…

A bill to boost semiconductor production in the United States has managed to do nearly the unthinkable — unite the democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders and the fiscally conservative right. The bill making its way through the Senate is a top priority of the Biden administration. It would add about $79 billion to the deficit over 10 years, mostly as a result of new grants and tax breaks that would subsidize the cost that computer chip manufacturers incur when building or expanding chip plants in the United States. Supporters say that countries around the world are spending billions of dollars to lure chipmakers. The U.S. must do the same or risk losing a secure supply of the semiconductors that power the nation's automobiles, computers, appliances and some of the military's…

From his small office in Singapore, Kelvin Pang is ready to wager a $23 million payday that the worst of the chip shortage is not over for automakers – at least in China. Pang has bought 62,000 microcontrollers, chips that help control a range of functions from car engines and transmissions to electric vehicle power systems and charging, which cost the original buyer $23.80 each in Germany. He's now looking to sell them to auto suppliers in the Chinese tech hub of Shenzhen for $375 apiece. He says he has turned down offers for $100 each, or $6.2 million for the whole bundle, which is small enough to fit in the back seat of a car and is packed for now in a warehouse in Hong Kong. "The automakers have…

The Senate this week took a key step toward passing a bill meant to provide $52 billion in subsidies to the semiconductor industry in the United States, part of an effort that lawmakers have characterized as protecting the country from supply shortages such as those that struck during the coronavirus pandemic. The bill, called the CHIPS for America Act, also seeks to make the U.S. more competitive with China. Semiconductors, commonly known as chips, are essential elements of modern manufacturing. They are used in computers, cellphones and automobiles as well as in various other capacities. During the pandemic, chip shortages slowed manufacturing in multiple industries to a crawl. The legislation would create incentives for semiconductor manufacturers to build chip fabrication plants in the U.S. to bring back domestic production levels,…

Twitter appeared to be working again after a widespread outage earlier Thursday. The site Downdetector.com, which logs service outages, reported it was the first such outage since February and impacted people in the United States, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Brazil, Italy and others. Starting around 8 a.m. on the U.S. East Coast, many users received the message "Tweets aren't loading right now. We are currently investigating this issue,” the social media company posted on its status page. Twitter was known for outages when it was a new company, but as it grew, the problems became less common. The U.S.-based firm is suing businessman Elon Musk for violating his recent $44 billion agreement to buy the company. Twitter, Inc. stock was slightly down in early trading Thursday at $36.51 per share.…

Cryptocurrencies use an enormous amount of energy, and as the industry grows rapidly, so do concerns about its impact on the climate. Matt Dibble has the story. ...

Twitter sued Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Tuesday to force him to complete the $44 billion acquisition of the social media company.  Musk and Twitter have been bracing for a legal fight since the billionaire said on Friday he was backing off of his April agreement to buy the company.  Twitter's lawsuit opens with a sharply worded accusation: "Musk refuses to honor his obligations to Twitter and its stockholders because the deal he signed no longer serves his personal interests."  "Having mounted a public spectacle to put Twitter in play and having proposed and then signed a seller-friendly merger agreement, Musk apparently believes that he — unlike every other party subject to Delaware contract law — is free to change his mind, trash the company, disrupt its operations, destroy stockholder…

The U.S. space agency NASA released the set of the first full-color images from the James Webb Space Telescope Tuesday, a day after sharing a full-color picture of stars and galaxies deeper into the cosmos than ever seen before. Watch here: U.S. President Joe Biden said the telescope offered "a new window into the history of our universe." Tuesday’s images took weeks to render using data from the telescope. They show areas of the universe where researchers will focus future scientific inquiries. The $10 billion telescope, the largest and most powerful ever launched into space, peers farther into the cosmos than any before it. A peek into the past Scientists describe the telescope as looking back in time. That is because it can see galaxies that are so far away…

As the U.S. reels from a surge of recent mass shootings, some technologists are focusing on how to prevent casualties. VOA’s Julie Taboh spoke with a couple of entrepreneurs who have developed gun-detecting technologies. ...

Shares of Twitter slid more than 6% in the first day of trading after billionaire Elon Musk said that he was abandoning his $44 billion bid for the company and the social media platform vowed to challenge Musk in court to uphold the agreement.  Twitter is now preparing to sue Musk in Delaware where the company is incorporated. While the outcome is uncertain, both sides are preparing for long court battle.  Musk alleged Friday that Twitter has failed to provide enough information about the number of fake accounts it has. However, Twitter said last month that it was making available to Musk a " fire hose" of raw data on hundreds of millions of daily tweets when he raised the issue again after announcing that he would buy the social…

As Uber aggressively pushed into markets around the world, the ride-sharing service lobbied political leaders to relax labor and taxi laws, used a "kill switch'' to thwart regulators and law enforcement, channeled money through Bermuda and other tax havens and considered portraying violence against its drivers as a way to gain public sympathy, according to a report released Sunday. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a nonprofit network of investigative reporters, scoured internal Uber texts, emails, invoices and other documents to deliver what it called "an unprecedented look into the ways Uber defied taxi laws and upended workers' rights.'' The documents were first leaked to the British newspaper The Guardian, which shared them with the consortium. In a written statement. Uber spokesperson Jill Hazelbaker acknowledged "mistakes'' in the past and…

Millions of Canadians found out Friday what it is like to live without access to the internet and mobile phone service. Rogers Communications, the country’s largest mobile and internet provider, experienced a major outage, beginning Friday morning and lasting most of the day. The outage affected retailers, credit card and debit transactions, court proceedings, government agencies, calls to emergency services and much more. “Today we have let you down," Rogers posted on Twitter, without offering an explanation. “We are working to make this right as quickly as we can. We will continue to keep you updated, including when services will be back online." Late Friday, the Toronto-based telecommunications firm said it had begun restoring services. ...

Twitter said Thursday it removes more than 1 million spam and bot accounts every day. The removals come as Tesla founder Elon Musk, who is in the process of acquiring the company, continues to pressure Twitter to reduce spam accounts. He has threatened to cancel the $44 billion deal if Twitter cannot prove spam and bot accounts account for less than 5% of Twitter users. Musk has vowed to "defeat the spam bots or die trying." Twitter has maintained that spam and bot accounts make up less than 5% of the user base since at least 2013. Musk has argued that Twitter underestimates the amount of spam accounts. Twitter says humans conduct manual reviews of thousands of accounts each quarter to determine if they are bots. Some information in this…

Many people struggle with feelings of loneliness and social isolation. For some, a robot companion might make a difference, and states like New York are starting to provide them to residents free of charge. VOA's Julie Taboh has more. Videographer: Adam Greenbaum Produced by: Julie Taboh, Adam Greenbaum ...

A rural town in central Texas is home to the largest bitcoin mining facility in North America, bringing jobs and welcomed vitality into the community. But critics warn the operations are part of a volatile new industry. Deana Mitchell has the story. ...

Elon Musk's deployment of thousands of Starlink satellite internet terminals to Ukraine has been a major help for the country in its fight against Russia. VOA's Russia Service has the story. ...

Instagram is blocking posts that mention abortion from public view, in some cases requiring its users to confirm their age before letting them view posts that offer up information about the procedure.  Over the last day, several Instagram accounts run by abortion rights advocacy groups have found their posts or stories hidden with a warning that described the posts as "sensitive content." Instagram said it was working to fix the problem Tuesday, describing it as a bug.  In one example, Instagram covered a post on a page with more than 25,000 followers that shared text reading: "Abortion in America How You Can Help." The post went on to encourage followers to donate money to abortion organizations and to protest the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to strip constitutional protections for abortion. …

Future waves of COVID-19 might be predicted using internet search data, according to a study published in the journal Scientific Reports. In the study, researchers watched the number of COVID-related Google searches made across the country and used that information, together with conventional COVID-19 metrics such as confirmed cases, to predict hospital admission rates weeks in advance. Using the search data provided by Google Trends, scientists were able to build a computational model to forecast COVID-19 hospitalizations. Google Trends is an online portal that provides data on Google search volumes in real time. "If you have a bunch of people searching for 'COVID testing sites near me' … you're going to still feel the effects of that downstream at the hospital level in terms of admissions," said data scientist Philip…

This week, the Group of Seven leaders launched a $600 billion global infrastructure initiative they say will compete with China’s Belt and Road Initiative. VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell reports from Telfs, Austria, with reporting from Patsy Widakuswara in Washington. ...

NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, has successfully completed its first rocket launch from a commercial space facility outside of the United States. A 13-meter rocket blasted off Monday from a site in the Australian outback. A 13-meter sub-orbital rocket took off from the newly built Arnhem Space Centre in Australia’s Northern Territory Monday. Lift-off was delayed by about two hours because of strong winds and heavy rain. The launch was the first of its kind in Australia in more than 25 years and the first of three scheduled NASA missions from the site. Researchers hope the information gathered from the flights will help them understand how light from a star could affect the habitability of nearby planets. They have said that this type of study can only be…

Coinciding with unrelenting cyberattacks against Ukraine, state-backed Russian hackers have engaged in "strategic espionage" against governments, think tanks, businesses and aid groups in 42 countries supporting Kyiv, Microsoft said in a report Wednesday. "Since the start of the war, the Russian targeting [of Ukraine's allies] has been successful 29 percent of the time," Microsoft President Brad Smith wrote, with data stolen in at least one-quarter of the successful network intrusions. "As a coalition of countries has come together to defend Ukraine, Russian intelligence agencies have stepped up network penetration and espionage activities targeting allied governments outside Ukraine," Smith said. Nearly two-thirds of the cyberespionage targets involved NATO members. The United States was the prime target and Poland, the main conduit for military assistance flowing to Ukraine, was No. 2. In…

Twitter's board has recommended unanimously that shareholders approve the proposed $44 billion sale of the company to billionaire and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, according to a regulatory filing Tuesday. Musk reiterated his desire to move forward with the acquisition last week during a virtual meeting with Twitter employees, though shares of Twitter remain far below his offering price, signaling considerable doubt that it will happen. Shares rose about 3% to $38.98 before the opening bell Tuesday, far short of the $54.20 per-share that Musk has offered for each share. The company's stock last reached that level on April 5 when it offered Musk a seat on the board before he had offered to buy all of Twitter. In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission detailing on Tuesday…