The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has released the administration's revised policies for the use of AI in federal agencies. As Reuters notes, it has altered Biden-era guidelines and has rescinded orders by the previous administration related to safety over the technology's use. The Trump administration said it's shifting towards a "forward-leaning, pro-innovation and procompetition mindset" instead of maintaining and "pursuing the risk-averse approach" of Biden's government. Before Trump took office, the government ordered federal agencies to ensure that any AI tools they use "do not endanger the rights and safety of the American people" and to be transparent about the technologies they use. It also placed restrictions on AI acquisitions.

Hours after I published our Friday newsletter, debating the price of Nintendo's new console, the company announced it would delay US pre-orders for the Switch 2 as it wrestled with a new set of tariffs introduced by President Trump. "Pre-orders for Nintendo Switch 2 in the US will not start April 9, 2025, in order to assess the potential impact of tariffs and evolving market conditions," Nintendo told Engadget. It added that the console is still set to launch on June 5, however. Last week, the Trump administration announced a set of new tariffs on a swath of countries, including Japan (Nintendo's base of operations), China and Vietnam. Those last two countries, where Nintendo manufactures much of its hardware, will be subject to import duties of 54 percent and 46 percent.

Social media has recently been flooded with images that look like they belong in a Studio Ghibli film. Selfies, family photos and even memes have been re-imagined with the soft pastel palette characteristic of the Japanese animation company founded by Hayao Miyazaki. The update significantly improved ChatGPT's image generation capabilities, allowing users to create convincing Ghibli-style images in mere seconds. It has been enormously popular – so much so, in fact, that the system crashed due to user demand. Generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems such as ChatGPT are best understood as "style engines".

The trade war between the world's two biggest economies shows no signs of slowing down - Beijing has vowed to "fight to the end" hours after US President Donald Trump threatened to nearly double the tariffs on China. That could leave most Chinese imports facing a staggering 104% tax - a sharp escalation between the two sides. Smartphones, computers, lithium-ion batteries, toys and video game consoles make up the bulk of Chinese exports to the US. But there are so many other things, from screws to boilers. With a deadline looming in Washington as Trump threatens to introduce the additional tariffs from Wednesday, who will blink first?

I am a forty-five-year-old journalist who, for many years, didn't read the news. In high school, I knew about events like the O. J. Simpson trial and the Oklahoma City bombing, but not much else. In college, I was friends with geeky economics majors who read The Economist, but I'm pretty sure I never actually turned on CNN or bought a paper at the newsstand. I read novels, and magazines like Wired and Spin. If I went online, it wasn't to check the front page of the Times but to browse record reviews from College Music Journal. Somehow, during this time, I thought of myself as well informed.

The U.S. military will deploy several long-range surveillance drones to Okinawa Prefecture, near Japan's far-flung southwestern islands area near Taiwan, as the allies seek to counter China's ramped-up drone presence in the same area. Defense Minister Gen Nakatani said Tuesday that the U.S. MQ-4C Triton drones will be sent to the U.S. air base in Kadena, on Okinawa's main island, in the coming weeks. "This deployment is expected to enhance the Japan-U.S. alliance's intelligence-gathering capabilities and, by extension, the alliance's deterrence and response capabilities," Nakatani told a news conference.

You might think that such AI companionship bots--AI models with distinct "personalities" that can learn about you and act as a friend, lover, cheerleader, or more--appeal only to a fringe few, but that couldn't be further from the truth. A new research paper aimed at making such companions safer, by authors from Google DeepMind, the Oxford Internet Institute, and others, lays this bare: Character.AI, the platform being sued by Garcia, says it receives 20,000 queries per second, which is about a fifth of the estimated search volume served by Google. Interactions with these companions last four times longer than the average time spent interacting with ChatGPT. One companion site I wrote about, which was hosting sexually charged conversations with bots imitating underage celebrities, told me its active users averaged more than two hours per day conversing with bots, and that most of those users are members of Gen Z. The design of these AI characters makes lawmakers' concern well warranted.

China is using generative artificial intelligence (AI) to ramp up disinformation against Taiwan to "divide" Taiwan's public, the island's National Security Bureau said. Taiwan has accused China of stepping up military drills, trade sanctions and influence campaigns against the island in recent years to force the island to accept Chinese sovereignty claims. Taiwan strongly rejects China's sovereignty claims. China staged two days of war games and live-fire drills near the democratically governed island this month, triggering concern by the United States and many of its allies.

Tech expert Kurt'CyberGuy' Knutsson joins'Fox & Friends' to discuss the future of AI development in the United States. Vice President JD Vance honored his mother, Beverly Aikins, at the White House Monday to commemorate her reaching 10 years of sobriety. "I remember when I gave my (Republican National Committee) convention speech, which was the craziest thing, and I even said during the speech that we would have your 10-year medallion ceremony at the White House," Vance said in the White House's Roosevelt Room, according to the Washington Examiner. Vice President JD Vance, pictured here with his wife, Usha Vance, outlined his mother's battle with sobriety and substance abuse in his book, "Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis." "Well, here we are," Vance said.

Kyiv, Ukraine – Thread-thin, glistening in the sun and kilometres long, optical fibres wind through the branches of trees on the frontlines of eastern Ukraine. The cords were – sometimes still are – attached to Russian drones, making them immune to radio-electronic jamming. The drones may have been shot down. Some are still operational, waylaid and replete with danger. "When somebody is passing by, they just fly up and attack," Oleh, a military officer deployed in eastern Ukraine, told Al Jazeera.