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UK minister warns of impact of Trump’s Iran war on next month’s budget

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Lib Dems vow to end 'computer says no' economy to boost growth
Deputy leader Daisy Cooper also proposes a Growth and Defence Partnership with the EU in a speech to her party conference.

‘Do you have to be dead?’: US coalminers plead for benefits as black-lung disease cases surge
Trump says he digs coal – but pneumoconiosis cases are at a 50-year high, and sick miners are mired in benefit delays For 38 years, Josh Armes worked as a coal miner in West Virginia and Virginia. After retirement, Armes, 74, of Grundy, Virginia, was diagnosed with black lung disease, medically known as coal workers’ pneumoconiosis (CWP), caused by breathing in coal dust over long periods, which irreversibly damages the lungs. Continue reading...

China’s stranglehold on rare earths must be ended, says hopeful supplier to EU
Rafael Moreno, whose company has opened demo plant in Brazil, says market is ‘nervous’ as Trump-Xi summit looms The head of a mining company hoping to supply the EU with rare earths in two years’ time has said it is “paramount” to end China’s stranglehold on the supply of the raw materials used in everything from cars to wind turbines and military jets. As Donald Trump and China’s president, Xi Jinping, prepare to meet on Thursday in their second summit of the year, Rafael Moreno said it was also “imperative” that they do a deal for Beijing to ease up, once again, on its threat to ban exports of rare earths. Continue reading...
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang emerges as Trump's top ally in AI safety debate
Jensen Huang's position as the leader of the world's most valuable company, has earned him Trump's ear on the most important topics in AI.

AI slowdown calls justified but collapse of bubble may be more immediate threat | Heather Stewart
Scale of debt issuance being used to fund the hectic pace of the datacentre rollout by tech firms is a worry Warnings about powerful and uncontrolled AI have dominated the headlines this past week. But even amid the omens of apocalypse , it is still worth asking if the entire AI-industrial complex is sailing towards a financial iceberg. It will hardly be our most pressing concern if the bots are poised to take over the world, but a collapse of the AI bubble would have repercussions far beyond the US. Continue reading...

As White House shields the AI gold rush, Trump family and other allies strike it rich – with few guardrails
It’s not clear that financial interests are driving White House policy, but they run parallel even as resistance mounts Donald Trump ’s sons, through a series of AI -linked defense and technology ventures, have picked up a $620m Pentagon loan, a Marine Corps robotics contract and an undisclosed air force drone deal in the past year. His longtime friend Michael Dell won a Pentagon contract worth nearly $9bn. And this week, as public support for artificial intelligence sinks to some of the lowest levels ever recorded, the president went to bat for the industry. . “The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades,” he posted on Truth Social Monday. “There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers.” It was the first of many aggressively pro-AI posts he would make this week. Continue reading...