China-US talks in London; Warner Bros Discovery to split in two
Ata mārie and welcome to your Tuesday recap of the top business and political stories making news around the world.
First up, multiple media outlets are providing updates on a new round of talks between economic superpowers the United States and China in London to resolve the trade war.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer represented US President Donald Trump.
The BBC said the delegation met with Chinese representatives, including Vice Premier He Lifeng at Lancaster House.
Chinese exports of rare earth minerals crucial for technology components, as well as China's access to US computer chips, were expected to be high on the agenda.
Last month, both countries scaled back their hefty reciprocal trade tariffs, but accused each other of breaching the deal.
Last week, Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke by phone and agreed to resolve tariff disputes. Trump acknowledged the trade relationship with China had got 'a little off track'.
Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Al Jazeera reported that California filed legal action against the Trump administration over the deployment of National Guard troops in Los Angeles because of protests over immigration raids.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta accused Trump of trying to 'manufacture chaos and crisis' on the ground.
'Federalising the California National Guard is an abuse of the President's authority under the law – and not one we take lightly. We're asking a court to put a stop to the unlawful, unprecedented order.'
Meanwhile, business leaders walked back on fears of an economic recession in the US, which had originally increased after Trump's tariff announcement, CNBC reported.
In a new survey, fewer than 30% of chief executives predicted a mild or severe recession over the next six months, down from 46% in May, and 62% in April.
In financial news, OpenAI hit US$10 billion in annual recurring revenue, less than three years after launching its ChatGPT chatbot, CNBC reported.
OpenAI targeted US$125b revenue by 2029, according to sources. OpenAI said it supported 500 million weekly active users, while it had three million business users, up from two million in February.
Elsewhere, Bloomberg has an exclusive story that the investment banking arm of Barclays could cut more than 200 jobs to boost profitability.
Sources said staff within investment banking, global markets, and research could be affected by the cuts.
Meanwhile, media giant Warner Bros Discovery has decided to split its business in two publicly traded companies, the Guardian reported.
One company would be focused on streaming and studios, while the other would focus on the legacy television network businesses.
'The separation aims to provide each company with greater strategic flexibility and focus,' WBD said.
The corporate split was expected by mid-2026, CNN reported.
CNN is part of the Warner Bros Discovery stable.
Finally, technology company Apple unveiled a new operating system interface called Liquid Glass at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, Bloomberg reported.
Executive Alan Dye said the product would operate across its products and described it as the broadest design update in the history of the company.
Meanwhile, Apple also confirmed plans to open its artificial intelligence models to outside developers. That would allow app creators to weave the technology into their own software.
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National Business Review
an hour ago
- National Business Review
Eleven dead in Austria school shooting; World Bank cuts forecast
Happy Wednesday and welcome to your wrap of the top news stories from around the world. First up, a school shooting in the Austrian city of Graz has left 11 people dead, including the shooter. The BBC is reporting that the incident took place at around 10am local time, with seven women and three men among the dead. The 21-year-old suspect, who is a former pupil who did not graduate from the high school, is believed to have killed himself. Austria's Chancellor Christian Stocker has declared three days of national mourning, which will begin tomorrow. He said today is a 'dark day in [the] history of our country' and called the shooting a national tragedy. Christian Stocker (Source: Wikimedia Commons) To London now, where high-level trade talks between the United States and China have pushed through their second full day. According to Reuters, a US Treasury spokesperson told reporters that talks had paused and would resume at 8pm local time. No details about what was discussed were revealed, although earlier in the day, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said discussions with his Chinese counterparts were 'going well'. Chinese exports of rare earth minerals crucial for technology components, as well as China's access to US computer chips, were expected to be high on the agenda. Last month, both countries scaled back their hefty reciprocal trade tariffs but accused each other of breaching the deal. Last week, Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke by phone and agreed to resolve tariff disputes. Trump acknowledged the trade relationship with China had got 'a little off track'. New Zealand has joined Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and Norway in imposing sanctions on two far-right Israeli politicians for their comments about the war in Gaza. The joint action against Israel's Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir was announced earlier this morning. Bezalel Smotrich. (Source: Wikimedia Commons) New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters said the two men were targeted, rather than the Israeli government, because they were using their leadership positions to 'actively undermine peace and security and remove prospects for a two-state solution', according to RNZ. "Ministers Smotrich and Ben-Gvir have severely and deliberately undermined that by personally advocating for the annexation of Palestinian land and the expansion of illegal settlements, while inciting violence and forced displacement," he said. The two men will be banned from entering New Zealand, as well as the other four countries. The BBC also reports that any assets they have in the UK will be frozen. In response, Israel has said it was 'outrageous that elected representatives and members of the government are subjected to these kinds of measures'. In business news, CNBC reports that the World Bank has slashed its global growth forecast due to the disruption caused by trade uncertainty. It now expects the global economy to expand by 2.3% in 2025, down from its prior forecast of 2.7%. 'This would mark the slowest rate of global growth since 2008, aside from outright global recessions,' the bank said in its Global Economic Prospects report. The bank said trade uncertainty had weighed on the outlook and upended many of the policies that helped shrink global poverty and expand prosperity after the end of World War II. 'Our analysis suggests that if today's trade disputes were resolved with agreements that halve tariffs relative to their levels in late May 2025, global growth could be stronger by about 0.2 percentage points on average over the course of 2025 and 2026,' World Bank chief economist Indermit Gill said. The World Bank building in Washington. Finally, in market news, Wall Street's main indices were up in afternoon trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Complex, the broader S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq were all between 0.2% and 0.6% higher. Reuters reports that markets are awaiting the results of the US-China trade talks, with investors betting on improved trade terms after a preliminary deal was struck last month. "The expectation is that they'll figure this out, and that the Liberation Day tariff levels are never going to be seen. You can't get to market valuations where we've got them and have those tariff levels get anywhere close to reality," Horizon Investments chief investment officer Scott Ladner told Reuters.
RNZ News
2 hours ago
- RNZ News
An unrestrained Trump defends deploying military to Los Angeles during Fort Bragg visit
By Kevin Liptak and Alayna Treene , CNN Photo: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI When President Donald Trump returned from a Bastille Day visit to Paris during his first term, he asked his military brass to organize a parade akin to the one he'd watched march down the Champs-Élysées. His defense secretary at the time, James Mattis, said he'd rather "swallow acid," according to a book written by a former staffer. Trump later received a comparable response from another defense secretary, Mark Esper, when he floated using active duty troops on American soil to quell violent protests. "The option to use active duty forces in a law enforcement role should only be used as a matter of last resort, and only in the most urgent and dire of situations," Esper told reporters in 2020. Times have changed. "We will use every asset at our disposal to quell the violence and restore law and order right away," Trump said on Tuesday during a visit to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where he defended sending the National Guard and the Marines to Los Angeles . "We're not going … to wait for a governor that's never going to call and watch cities burn," he added. Free of advisers who acted as guardrails to his most extreme impulses, and more determined than ever to demonstrate strength, Trump has reshaped how a president uses the US military during his second term in office. This week's troop deployments in Los Angeles , which come ahead of a major military parade through Washington, DC, on Saturday, illustrate just how much the restraints once placed on Trump's use of US servicemen and women have evaporated. No longer does Trump appear convinced, as he did in 2020, that activating a state's National Guard troops against the wishes of governors is against the law. Nor does he seem particularly bothered by the view of some former military leaders, who told him during his first term that major military parades are the purview of dictators, not democratically elected leaders. Some former military officials, along with some current officials speaking privately, have voiced concern about the juxtaposition of tanks parading through Washington potentially at the same moment US troops are deployed on California streets. "For me, it's a negative split screen moment," retired Adm. James Stavridis, the former NATO supreme allied commander, told "CNN This Morning." "You're doing this pretty unusual visual of tanks rolling through our capital, and across the country in Los Angeles, you're putting US Marines - the best combat shock troops in the world… they're being deployed against largely peaceful protesters," he said. "I think that's a troubling split screen. It will be difficult, appropriately difficult for the American people to digest what they're looking at." Trump heralded the weekend spectacle in front of a sympathetic crowd on Tuesday. "And Saturday is going to be a big day in Washington, DC, and a lot of people say we don't want to do that. We do. We want to show off a little bit," he told service members and their families. The event was arranged like a typical political-style rally, albeit comprised of hundreds of uniformed troops, military families and others, some of whom booed in agreement when Trump criticized former President Joe Biden. Upon entering the event site, attendees were greeted with the sight of military tanks and fighter vehicles spread out across the large field as part of a demonstration of the Army's capabilities - known as a static display, members of the Army on the ground told CNN. An Avenger Stinger missile vehicle, Sentinel radar and different types of Army tanks were included in the display. When he arrived, Trump watched demonstrations of special operators and paratroopers. In interviews with CNN, several members of the military in the crowd showed appreciation for the president's visit and dismissed concerns that he's overstepped in ordering the National Guard and US Marines to Los Angeles to respond to the protests in the city without request from the governor - an action that's without recent precedent. George Ahouman, a mechanic specialist in the Army's 91 Bravos group, told CNN of the move: "It's always a tough decision to make. We have to do what we have to do regardless, you know. So if the bad guy is acting bad, we gotta, you know, knuckle down and do what we're supposed to, that's what we signed up for." Toby Cash, in the same division as Ahouman, said: "It's a tough topic to talk about. At the end of the day we've just got to follow orders." Ahouman added, however, that he's grateful Trump came to visit Fort Bragg and will hold a parade to honor the Army's 250th anniversary. "I feel like he's kind of showing his love to the troops and to the Army. You know, we usually don't get recognition like that in the past, so I think it's pretty good." Will Schmidt and Raymond Cervantes, both members of the Army's 57th Sapper company in the 27th engineer battalion, made similar arguments. "Personally, I'm in support of it," Schmidt told CNN of Trump's decision to deploy troops to Los Angeles. "It's kind of like one of the reasons we have a National Guard, and a lot of it is disaster relief, but it's also civil unrest and stuff." Cervantes argued the president's visit to the Army base - which serves as headquarters for US Army Special Operations Command, where Green Berets and the Rangers are based - and his plans to host a military parade in Washington, "shows he cares." 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That event will see a massive amount of military hardware and personnel being paraded through Washington, including 28 Abrams tanks weighing 70 tons each rolling down Constitution Avenue. Local officials have voiced concern about potential damage to the city's streets, which could cost millions of dollars to repair. Military officials have downplayed the cost of the parade, which is also set to include a World War II-era B-25 bomber, 6,700 soldiers, 50 helicopters, 34 horses, two mules and one dog. But even some Republicans have expressed skepticism about the parade. "Well, look, it's the president's call. I wouldn't spend the money if it were me," Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy said when asked about the event. "The United States of America is the most powerful country in all of human history. We're a lion. And a lion doesn't have to tell you it's a lion. Everybody else in the jungle knows," he said. Unlike his predecessors during Trump's first term, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has demonstrated only enthusiasm for Trump's parade plans. Nor has Hegseth voiced any misgivings over Trump's decision to deploy National Guard troops and active-duty Marines to Los Angeles over the objections of California's Democratic leaders. Photo: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI Trump has long mused about using military force to clamp down on protests or riots in the United States, including during his first term as violence broke out following the killing of George Floyd in 2020. His aides drafted a proclamation that would send thousands of active duty troops using the Insurrection Act, but top advisers at the time - including Esper, Attorney General Bill Barr and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Mark Milley - encouraged him against taking that step. Trump appeared in 2020 to have been persuaded that activating the National Guard without a governor's request would be illegal. "Look, we have laws. We have to go by the laws," Trump said during an ABC town hall at the time. "We can't move in the National Guard. I can call insurrection, but there's no reason to ever do that." "We can't call in the National Guard unless we're requested by a governor," Trump went on to explain. Trump later came to regret following that advice. "You have to remember, I've been here before, and I went right by every rule," he said Tuesday before departing the White House for Fort Bragg. "And I waited for governors to say, send in the National Guard. They wouldn't do it. They wouldn't do and they just wouldn't do it. It kept going on and on." - CNN
Techday NZ
2 hours ago
- Techday NZ
ChatGPT leads enterprise AI, but model diversity is surging
New Relic has published its first AI Unwrapped: 2025 AI Impact Report, presenting data from 85,000 businesses on enterprise-level adoption and usage trends in artificial intelligence models. ChatGPT's leading role The report reveals that developers are overwhelmingly favouring OpenAI's ChatGPT for general-purpose AI tasks. According to the findings, more than 86% of all large language model (LLM) tokens processed by New Relic customers involved ChatGPT models. Nic Benders, Chief Technical Strategist at New Relic, stated, "AI is rapidly moving from innovation labs and pilot programmes into the core of business operations. The data from our 2025 AI Impact Report shows that while ChatGPT is the undisputed dominant model, developers are also moving at the 'speed of AI,' and rapidly testing the waters with the latest models as soon as they come out. In tandem, we're seeing robust growth of our AI monitoring solution. This underscores that as AI is ingrained in their businesses, our customers are realising they need to ensure model reliability, accuracy, compliance, and cost efficiency." The report highlights that enterprises have been quick to adopt OpenAI's latest releases. ChatGPT-4o and ChatGPT-4o mini emerged as the primary models in use, with developers making near-immediate transitions between versions as new capabilities and improvements are launched. Notably, there has been an observed pattern of rapid migration from ChatGPT-3.5 Turbo to ChatGPT-4.1 mini since April, indicating a strong developer focus on performance improvements and features, often taking precedence over operational cost savings. Broadening model experimentation The findings also suggest a trend toward greater experimentation, with developers trying a wider array of AI models across applications. While OpenAI remains dominant, Meta's Llama ranked second in terms of LLM tokens processed among New Relic customers. There was a 92% increase in the number of unique models used within AI applications in the first quarter of 2025, underlining growing interest in open-source, specialised, and task-specific solutions. This diversification, although occurring at a smaller scale compared to OpenAI models, points to a potentially evolving AI ecosystem. Growth in AI monitoring As the diversity of model adoption increases, the need for robust AI monitoring solutions has also grown. Enterprises continue to implement unified platforms to monitor and manage AI systems, with New Relic reporting a sustained 30% quarter-over-quarter growth in the use of its AI Monitoring solution since its introduction last year. This growth reflects a drive among businesses to address concerns such as reliability, accuracy, compliance, and cost as AI systems become more embedded in day-to-day operations. Programming languages trends The report notes that Python solidifies its status as the preferred programming language for AI applications, recording nearly 45% growth in adoption since the previous quarter. follows closely behind Python in terms of both volume of requests and adoption rates. Java, meanwhile, has experienced a significant 34% increase in use for AI applications, suggesting a rise in production-grade, Java-based LLM solutions within large enterprises. Research methodology details The AI Unwrapped: 2025 AI Impact Report's conclusions are drawn from aggregated and de-identified usage statistics from active New Relic customers. The data covers activity from April 2024 to April 2025, offering a representative view of current AI deployment and experimentation trends across a substantial commercial user base. Follow us on: Share on:
