Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with the governor of Novgorod region in Moscow on Monday. When Russian President Vladimir Putin imposed harsh censorship laws in the wake of his 2022 invasion of Ukraine, a major Russian publishing house took drastic action. Faced with trawling through the thousands of volumes it had published over the previous 20 years in light of the new restrictive criteria, the Eksmo-AST group trained an artificial intelligence agent to highlight books and passages that risked falling foul of the law so they could be removed from bookshelves. The publisher conducted some 20,000 checks, and 600 volumes were handed over to external experts for additional reviews, Oleg Novikov, the group's president, told Russian state television. "We're here on the frontier of technological progress," he said.

Trump has few good options to slow China's rise as AI superpower U.S. President Donald Trump is likely to extend a trade truce with China reached last year when Chinese President Xi Jinping visits the White House next week. Even as U.S. President Donald Trump blasts Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei over his call to hit the brakes on artificial intelligence development, the two agree on the need to prevent China from catching up with the U.S. But doing that remains difficult in practice. In his 3,800-word missive titled "We Must Pace the Frontier," Amodei called on policymakers to avoid selling China advanced AI chips, crack down on chip smuggling and prevent "unauthorized distillation by companies in authoritarian countries," among other steps. He urged democracies to maintain a lead "as large as possible," echoing language from the administration of former President Joe Biden.

Lawson, one of Japan's biggest convenience store operators, has said it will roll out three new AI-inspired food items, which were created around the theme What on earth is this? Fears that advanced artificial intelligence could wipe out humanity have dominated global headlines, but in Japan the technology is being used for a sweeter purpose -- developing never-before-seen convenience store desserts. For customers tired of the usual egg sandwiches and rice balls, major chains are turning to AI to develop products, including some unexpected flavors. Lawson, one of the country's biggest convenience store operators, said on Tuesday it will roll out three new food items, including a pickle-flavored lemon tart and a bread roll filled with red bean paste, margarine and yogurt cream. These products, to be launched this month in Tokyo and neighboring regions, were created using AI around the theme "What on earth is this?

From hallucinating AI chatbots to wiping out humanity: How did we get here? Sam Altman, chief executive officer and co-founder of OpenAI, speaks during the 2026 Dreamforce conference in San Francisco on Tuesday. The heads of leading U.S. artificial intelligence labs came together in a rare show of unity over the weekend to slow the technology's development, warning it could soon improve on its own and slip beyond human control. The remarks, from fierce business rivals such as Anthropic's Dario Amodei, OpenAI's Sam Altman and xAI's Elon Musk, show how quickly AI has advanced, from the hallucination-prone ChatGPT of 2022 toward what many see as a critical milestone: recursive self-improvement (RSI). Central to the field is the idea that an AI system could become capable of improving itself, with little to no help from humans, and allowing each advance to help produce the next one.

U.S. Supreme Court rejects Trump's mail ballot curbs for midterms Mail-in ballots are prepared at the Wake County Board of Elections in Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S. on Friday. The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to clear the Postal Service to enforce new restrictions on mail-in ballots for the congressional midterms, in a rebuff to President Donald Trump's administration after some states started early voting and opponents warned late-breaking changes would inject chaos into the elections. The justices' decision on Monday came after North Carolina and Alabama began mailing thousands of ballots to voters and many more states prepared to do the same in the coming days. The order followed last-minute legal wrangling and uncertainty about whether states would have to suddenly upend months of planning for the Nov. 3 midterms, when Republicans are defending their slim majority in Congress. The Supreme Court denied the Justice Department's request to lift a Boston federal judge's order that barred the Postal Service from making its new mail-in ballot rules mandatory through the November contests.

Ukraine races to counter Russia's jet-powered drone attacks Paramedics prepare to transport a resident injured during a Russian drone strike on a gas station in Kyiv on Tuesday. KYIV/LONDON - In early July, Ukraine's military invited a large group of producers to test a new generation of interceptors developed to counter the jet-powered attack drones Russia has used to devastating effect in recent months. According to two sources familiar with the exercise, it did not go to plan. Many of the interceptor drones proved difficult to control at speeds sometimes exceeding 400 kilometers per hour. Some crashed into nearby fields and forests, the sources said.

Mohammed bin Salman (R) has asked Donald Trump (L) for more military support to counter the Houthis. The U.S.-Iran war has reached crisis point for Saudi Arabia and its de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The kingdom was spared the worst of the Islamic Republic's counterstrikes against the U.S. and Israel early in the conflict, and was even benefiting from higher crude prices as it used a land pipeline to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. That all changed when the Houthis started firing at Saudi Arabia on a near-daily basis this month. The Iran-backed militants have also captured more territory in Yemen, where they are based, tightening their control over Bab el-Mandeb, another vital strait for shipping and energy markets.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks during a House Financial Services Committee hearing in Washington on Tuesday. WASHINGTON - U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended a range of Trump administration economic policies before lawmakers on Tuesday, from currency and bond market interventions to AI safety, disclosing plans to meet with his Chinese counterpart this weekend. Bessent told a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee that U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping would continue discussions next week on Iran and China's financial links to Tehran. Washington has been seeking to shut Iran out of Western financial systems as the Iran war stretches into its seventh month. The hearing was nominally on the international finance system, including reforms to the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, but lawmakers peppered Bessent with questions about more pressing issues, such as the state of financial markets and the economy, and the administration's financial measures against Iran.

SoftBank-backed SB Energy aims to raise $500 million from Japan for U.S. IPO The proceeds from SB Energy's public listing in Japan will be used to develop and build data centers and power plants. SB Energy, a data center firm backed by SoftBank Group, is aiming to raise as much as $500 million in the Japanese portion of its planned initial public offering (IPO) in the U.S., following other major deals tapping the country's deep pools of capital. The company will start taking investor orders as soon as this month, according to a local regulatory filing Tuesday. The proceeds will be used for developing and constructing infrastructure including data centers and power plants. SB Energy, whose strategic investors include OpenAI and Nvidia, filed for an IPO in the U.S. this month. Mizuho Financial Group, Daiwa Securities Group, PayPay Securities, Rakuten Securities and SBI Holdings will act as the selling agents for Mizuho's U.S. arm, according to the filing.

Kioxia said to consider raising $10 billion in U.S. listing Kioxia is seeking to gain more liquidity in the U.S. by listing American depositary receipts. Kioxia is considering raising at least $10 billion by listing American depositary receipts, people familiar with the matter said, potentially joining other artificial intelligence-related companies seeking to tap strong investor demand. Kioxia has been speaking with lenders including Bank of America, Goldman Sachs Group and JPMorgan Chase on an offering that may take place next year, the people said, asking not to be identified because the matter is private. The Tokyo-based memory-storage maker is seeking to gain more liquidity in the U.S. with the listing after it repurchased billions of dollars' worth of shares in Japan, the people said. Selling ADRs may also allow Kioxia to join a semiconductor-focused stock index, they said. Considerations are preliminary, and details such as the size of the share sale and the bank lineup may change, the people said.