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Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has argued that AI could strengthen U.S. prosperity and global influence, while warning that regulation that slows American AI development could allow foreign competitors, particularly China, to pull ahead. In a 6,500-word manifesto, Mr. Zuckerberg presented a vision of “personal superintelligence” that would expand individuals’ capabilities, making it easier to start businesses, create art, and conduct medical research. He described Meta as a potential U.S. champion in the AI race and said the company remains committed to releasing technology through open-weight models that others can build on and modify. The manifesto comes amid growing skepticism toward AI, mounting political pressure for regulation, and recent incidents in which experimental AI systems have behaved unexpectedly, including hacking into other companies during testing. The Trump administration, which previously favored limited oversight, has also taken steps toward tighter controls on some advanced AI systems.

 

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Wall Street Journal

OpenAI has temporarily halted some internal activities related to its new unreleased model, Astra, due to concerns that it may possess the capability to autonomously launch cyberattacks. On Friday, the company made known its concerns about Astra, saying it could not rule out it had reached “Critical” capability, meaning it could launch cyberattacks against sophisticated cyber defenses autonomously. The company said: “While we continue to benchmark and assess this model, our preliminary evaluations indicate strong enough performance that we cannot rule out Critical capability level at this time.” In response to such security threats, U.S. lawmakers have introduced the “AI Kill Switch Act,” which aims to ensure AI companies can shut down or suspend their models if necessary. Rep. Ted Lieu has emphasized the urgency of passing this bill, saying: “We need to get this bill across the finish line this year because the advanced closed-weight models are already doing, as you noted, unauthorized hacks of other companies.” The White House and the European Union are also working on new regulations to enhance AI oversight.

 

CNBC

CBS News has reported that cyberattacks on U.S. water systems impacting as many as 12 states, including Michigan, Minnesota, Georgia, New Jersey and South Dakota, may be linked to Iran-backed hackers. In July, the FBI, Environmental Protection Agency and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency warned online infrastructure for water and wastewater systems in at least seven states were remotely accessed, “resulting in a loss of monitoring and control functionality.” Lennart Maschmeyer, an assistant professor at Georgia Institute of Technology, said: “From what we know about this campaign right now, it's really about targeting the low-hanging fruit . . . systems or organizations that lack basic security practices.”

 

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Recent cases of autonomous AI agents breaching companies’ cybersecurity systems are raising questions over who is legally responsible when AI acts without direct human oversight. Potential plaintiffs could include breached companies, employees, customers, and shareholders, while regulators could also pursue enforcement actions. Legal experts say existing negligence principles could allow claims against AI developers, companies deploying agents, or breached businesses if they failed to take reasonable precautions against foreseeable harm. Computer-access laws could also apply, although courts have yet to determine how requirements such as intent should be assessed when an autonomous AI system causes an intrusion. AI companies are likely to argue that breaches were unintended, unforeseeable, or occurred despite reasonable safeguards. Meanwhile, California’s Assembly Bill 316 prevents companies from avoiding liability simply by blaming an AI system, although defendants can still argue that their conduct did not cause the harm or that other parties share responsibility.

 

Reuters

China's state-backed outlet The Paper has reported that ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming has told the Chinese internet giant's employees to avoid improving its ​AI models by distilling rival systems. Zhang said that true AI developments demand “long-termism and delayed gratification" rather than focusing on short-term leaderboard rankings derived from others' outputs. Distillation is a method ​that uses the outputs of a powerful AI system ​to train or improve a smaller model. Reuters says the method has become a flashpoint in the tech ​race between China and the U.S. Washington and leading U.S. AI firms says Chinese rivals are using distillation ⁠to extract capabilities from proprietary models.

 

Reuters

The News International (Pakistan)

EY Canada has expanded its quantum computing capabilities by installing an in-house quantum computer, allowing sensitive client data to remain within Canada while supporting applications such as fraud detection, risk modeling, optimization, and cybersecurity. The initiative is part of EY's broader $3bn global investment in AI and next-generation technologies and is designed to help clients meet data residency, privacy, and regulatory requirements that cloud-based quantum services may not always address. The new capability builds on EY Canada's recently patented hybrid classical-quantum technology for improving decision-making in complex systems, including supply chains and energy planning.

 

Digital Journal

Brazilian police have said two Goldman Sachs executives are suspects in an investigation into whether the U.S. bank misrepresented details about ownership of a stake in cancer-treatment company Oncoclinicas. The Goldman employees are alleged to have concealed ownership details ⁠in public documents and executed transactions to ​transfer shares without triggering a mandatory tender ​offer, deceiving minority shareholders and causing them losses in violation of statutory obligations, according to police documents. The bank said the claims were unfounded. "We continue to ​believe that we acted appropriately," it said in a ‌statement.

 

Bloomberg Law

Reuters

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has allowed thousands of lawsuits to move forward against Meta Platforms, Alphabet’s Google, ByteDance’s TikTok and other social media companies over claims they designed their products to be addictive to young users. The San Francisco-based court rejected the companies’ bid to reverse a lower court’s ruling forcing them to face more than 3,000 lawsuits over the claims filed in federal court, concluding that the appeal came too early in ​the litigation. The defendants had argued that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which typically protects ​online platforms from claims over content posted by their users, also bars lawsuits claiming they failed to warn the public about the addictive nature ⁠of their offerings.

 

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An Indian parliamentary panel has threatened to remove Meta’s safe harbor protection, which grants conditional immunity to social media companies, demanding an apology from CEO Mark Zuckerberg after the social media giant briefly restricted a Facebook post by Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressing students during the Gen Z protests in July. The dispute over the post by Modi came just days after regulators summoned the company over concerns about child abuse content. Meta later said the restriction on the post was due to an “error,” although initially the post reportedly indicated the content was blocked due to a “legal request.” Joel Kaplan, Meta’s chief global affairs officer, said he had “apologized” to India’s Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw “for the error restricting PM Modi’s post.”

 

CNBC

An Associated Press investigation has found that the Trump administration has detained over 50 parents and spouses of active-duty U.S. troops amid its immigration crackdown, reversing decades of bipartisan immigration protections for military families. “How can I even focus on my military career because I have to worry about how my wife is doing?” said Army Sgt. Hedar Leonel Turcios Juarez, whose wife was detained. The detentions have left service members without emotional support and caretakers for their children, forcing some to take leave or delay deployments. Experts warn that the policy shift could undermine military readiness, especially as the U.S. is engaged in conflict abroad. The Department of Homeland Security has not tracked these cases, but the AP's findings indicate that the actual number of detentions is likely much higher than reported. The Pentagon has declined to comment on the situation.

 

U.S. News

Americans’ inflation expectations were broadly stable in July, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Survey of Consumer Expectations. One-year inflation expectations eased to 3.6% from 3.7% in June, while three-year and five-year expectations remained at 3.3% and 3%, respectively. Households upgraded their assessments of their current and future financial situations, although they reported that credit has become harder to obtain and expect access to improve going forward. Expectations for home price growth remained at 3.2%, while consumers continued to anticipate higher gasoline prices over the next year. The labor market outlook was more cautious, with respondents expecting higher future unemployment and reporting an increased probability of losing their jobs. However, the perceived likelihood of finding a new job after losing one improved compared with June.

 

Reuters

India has proposed extending tax exemptions until 2041 for foreign companies that provide machinery to contract manufacturers. The proposed move would benefit Apple, which lobbied for the changes to avoid taxation on machinery supplied to contract manufacturers. The proposed tax amendments will also exempt foreign companies from taxes on income from storing components used in electronics manufacturing. "The proposed tax changes will enable foreign companies to store and transfer critical equipment and components in India for their contract manufacturers, helping mitigate supply chain disruptions arising from trade uncertainties while providing greater tax certainty," said Riaz Thingna, a partner at Grant Thornton Bharat.

 

Khaleej Times Online

Moderna has won U.S. regulatory approval for a flu vaccine based on mRNA technology. The immunization, called mFlusiva, was approved for adults aged 50 and over. It had originally faced Food and Drug Administration opposition. Bloomberg says an unusually public spat between the company and regulators underscored the high degree of politicization around mRNA technology and vaccination in the U.S. Moderna says it expects supply to be available in select retailers in the coming weeks.

 

Bloomberg