Category: Semafor

The News The Trump administration on Thursday suspended more than a half-dozen tech companies, including Microsoft, from the program that allows permanent hiring of foreign workers — escalating its long-simmering clash with the tech industry over immigration. “The H1-B visa program is meant to allow companies to bring in really ...

The News The Federal Trade Commission is close to sending investigative demands to frontier AI companies, a senior agency official told Semafor — a sign that its AI probe is moving forward after its unusual disclosure to the public. The FTC’s planned AI inquiry emerged in a New York Post ...

The Scene As Western governments slash foreign aid, many organizations are seeking Gulf philanthropy to fill the gaps. While wealthy individuals and governments in the region are ready to take on a larger role, a younger generation of donors isn’t content with plowing money into existing programs, and is instead ...

Alphabet’s Isomorphic Labs is reportedly in fundraising talks at a $40 billion valuation, the latest sign of strong investor appetite for AI despite growing fears of a bubble. The company — led by Nobel Prize winner and former Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis — hopes the new investment will accelerate ...

France’s challenges mounted as concerns over its ballooning debt weighed on economic activity and reverberated across Europe. Economists argue planned government spending cuts do not go far enough and political divisions — far-left and far-right parties instead want the European Central Bank to buy up or even cancel French debt ...

The EU trade commissioner pressed China to balance trade with the bloc, but major divisions between the sides in negotiations and rising tensions have dampened hopes for a breakthrough. Europe’s trade deficit with China has sparked growing alarm on the continent, which fears Chinese goods will hollow out its industries, ...

Companies in Japan and South Korea were hit with major cyberattacks, exposing millions of customer records and feeding fears that AI may be turbo-charging hacking efforts. The revelations come days after Chinese and US models were used to steal hundreds of thousands of credit card details, a breach an analyst ...

The cost of hiring one very large crude carrier to move US oil to Asia topped $77 million, new data showed Wednesday, surging more than 700% from its 2025 average. The Baltic Exchange reported the staggering numbers as attacks on tankers rose across multiple theaters of war. One was struck ...

Israeli elections this month will determine whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — the country’s longest-serving leader — has shed the security failures preceding the Oct. 7 attacks. Three years after Hamas’ deadly assault on the country, Israel stands more internationally isolated than ever: More than 85% of left-identifying voters, and ...

The market odds of a rate increase at the US Federal Reserve’s October meeting sank Wednesday after the central bank published minutes of its September meeting, though Fed watchers priced in a December hike. While the Fed’s policymakers voted unanimously to raise interest rates last month, they were divided over ...