Author: GT

The Justice Department announced Wednesday the largest-ever U.S. seizure of cryptocurrency linked to so-called “pig butchering” scams that have cost victims billions globally.Federal prosecutors filed a civil forfeiture action targeting more than $225 million in cryptocurrency traced to a sprawling web of fraudulent investment platforms. Victims were tricked into believing they were investing in legitimate crypto ventures, only to be scammed by criminal networks often operating overseas.”This seizure of $225.3 million in funds linked to cryptocurrency investment scams marks the largest cryptocurrency seizure in U.S. Secret Service history,” said Shawn Bradstreet, special agent in charge of the U.S. Secret Service’s…

FILE PHOTO: Jason Droege speaks at the WSJTECH live conference in Laguna Beach, California, U.S. October 22, 2019. Mike Blake | ReutersScale AI’s Interim CEO Jason Droege said in a memo on Wednesday that the artificial intelligence startup is not changing course following Meta’s multibillion-dollar investment in the company last week.”Unlike some other recent tech deals you might have heard about in the AI space, this is not a pivot or a winding down,” Droege wrote in a post directed at customers, employees and investors.Meta has a 49% stake in Scale after its $14.3 billion investment, though the social media company…

The tech layoff wave is still kicking in 2025. Last year saw more than 150,000 job cuts across 549 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. So far this year, more than 22,000 workers have been the victim of reductions across the tech industry, with a staggering 16,084 cuts taking place in February alone. We’re tracking layoffs in the tech industry in 2025 so you can see the trajectory of the cutbacks and understand the impact on innovation across all types of companies. As businesses continue to embrace AI and automation, this tracker serves as a reminder of the human…

U.S. or Israeli military action that leads to regime change in OPEC member Iran would have a profound impact on the global oil market, according to JPMorgan. “If history serves as a guide, further destabilization of Iran could lead to significantly higher oil prices sustained over extended periods,” Natasha Kaneva, head of global commodities research at JPMorgan, told clients in a note published Wednesday. Pressure is mounting on Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as President Donald Trump considers joining Israel’s air campaign against the Islamic Republic’s nuclear sites. Trump demanded Iran’s unconditional surrender on Tuesday, threatening Khamenei’s life in…

AI companies are battling to dominate the industry, but sometimes they’re also battling in Pokémon gyms. As Google and Anthropic both study how their latest AI models navigate early Pokémon games, the results can be as amusing as they are enlightening — and this time, Google DeepMind has written in a report that Gemini 2.5 Pro resorts to panic when its Pokémon are close to death. This can cause the AI’s performance to experience “qualitatively observable degradation in the model’s reasoning capability,” according to the report. AI benchmarking — or, the process of comparing the performance of different AI models…

Waymo driverless vehicles wait at a traffic light in Santa Monica, California, on May 30, 2025.Daniel Cole | ReutersResidents of New York City will soon start seeing Waymo cars cruising the avenues. But at least for now, a human will be in the driver’s seat.Alphabet’s self-driving car unit announced on Wednesday that it plans to drive vehicles manually in New York, marking the first step toward potentially cracking the largest U.S. city. Waymo said it applied for a permit with the New York City Department of Transportation to operate autonomously with a trained specialist behind the wheel in Manhattan.”While we…

Tesla vehicles took the four top spots of the 2025 American-Made Index (AMI), an annual list calculated by Cars.com that ranks qualifying vehicles built and bought in the United States. Tesla’s dominance in the AMI isn’t new. The U.S. automaker, which assembles its four light-duty passenger vehicles in Texas and California, has landed in the top 10 ever since it started participating in the annual ranking five years ago. This year, the Model 3 was ranked as the most “American-made” vehicle sold in the United States. But here is what might surprise consumers — and even those who follow the…

Crude oil futures fell more than 1% on Wednesday, after President Donald Trump said Iran wants to negotiate over its nuclear program after six days of Israeli airstrikes.U.S. crude oil futures fell 91 cents, or 1.22%, to $73.93 a barrel, while global benchmark Brent was down $1.09, or 1.43%, to $75.36 per barrel.Trump told reporters outside the White House Wednesday that the Iranians had reached out to him and suggested that they send a delegation to the White House to negotiate.”They want to negotiate,” Trump said. “They even suggested that they come to the White House. That’s courageous. It’s like…

Open AI CEO Sam Altman speaks at the annual Snowflake Summit in San Francisco, California on June 02, 2025. Justin Sullivan | Getty Images News | Getty ImagesOpenAI is winding down its work with Scale AI, the artificial intelligence startup that received a multibillion-dollar investment from Meta earlier this month and saw its founder join the social media company to lead an AI effort.Scale is best known for its work helping major tech companies, including OpenAI, prepare data they use to train cutting-edge AI models. But OpenAI has been pulling back from the startup over the last six to 12…

OpenAI said Monday the U.S. Department of Defense granted it a contract for up to $200 million to help the agency identify and build prototype systems that use its frontier models for administrative tasks and more. OpenAI provides a few examples of possible tasking, such as helping service members get healthcare, streamlining data on various programs, and “supporting proactive cyber defense.” The company also said that “All use cases must be consistent with OpenAI’s usage policies and guidelines.”  The DoD’s announcement used slightly more straightforward wording. It says, “Under this award, the performer will develop prototype frontier AI capabilities to…