Category: Semafor

The News Barely a day after President Donald Trump signed an order on advanced artificial intelligence technology, the industry pivoted to harder lobbying of Congress to address the patchwork of state and local laws it’s contending with. But AI giants are likely too late, as prospects for passage of any ...

Some politicians and business leaders are claiming that China is driving the American backlash to data centers. A Republican lawmaker on Wednesday called for legal action against US nonprofits that he alleged are backed by China to sow opposition to the AI buildout. Canadian millionaire Kevin O’Leary recently claimed “nefarious ...

US President Donald Trump will attend the NATO leaders’ summit in Turkey in July, Washington’s top diplomat said Wednesday, relieving anxious European officials. Trump has lashed out at NATO and threatened to withdraw in recent months over alliance members’ reluctance to get involved in the Iran war. Transatlantic tensions are ...

Washington’s willingness to weaponize its technological dominance is pushing world powers to advance their efforts toward digital independence. The EU on Wednesday unveiled its plan to boost local players and reduce the continent’s reliance on foreign tech. Three American giants, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, control more than two-thirds of the ...

Rwanda’s RSSB Tigers were crowned winners of this year’s Basketball Africa League Championship, capping off a record-setting season that looks set to buoy investor interest. Basketball, which for years has languished in football’s shadow, has gained a foothold on the continent since the NBA-backed BAL was founded in 2019. Matches ...

Yinka’s view For 25 years, the defining logic of China-Africa trade has been simple: Africa exports raw materials, China manufactures products, and Africa buys them back. In 2024, that arrangement led to a record $275 billion in trade. African countries imported $182 billion worth of Chinese goods while exporting just ...

David’s view “Every family has its own mythology,” Jill Biden wrote in her first memoir. Her second, released this week, digs through the East Wing’s rubble to rescue that mythology from the debacle of 2024. The former First Lady has some things in common right now with a Maine oyster ...

With OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Sen. Bernie Sanders set to meet on the Hill Wednesday to discuss the senator’s plan to take half the equity of AI frontier labs to fund a US sovereign wealth fund, OpenAI has been preparing its own policy framework, according to people familiar with ...

, by Mabe Fratti and Bill Orcutt. This experimental collaboration between a Guatemalan cellist and an American guitarist was conceived when Fratti, the cellist, praised Orcutt’s work publicly, prompting the latter to get in touch — the two worked on the album mostly in remote sessions. Between Orcutt’s electric guitar ...

Japan’s prime minister courted Pacific island nations at a summit in Tokyo aimed at keeping them out of Beijing’s orbit, underscoring an intensifying rivalry between the Asian powers. Sanae Takaichi said her government would help smaller states strengthen their “autonomy and resilience,” part of an anti-China push by Japan: It ...