Latest news from the United States of America. Politics, economy, aid to Ukraine, Ukrainian diaspora
General Motors acknowledged that a universal chatbot cannot fully control a vehicle. Therefore, the already integrated Gemini will be supplemented with proprietary AI that will have access to telemetry and OnStar.
Victory over a tennis player who changed the Russian flag to Uzbek advanced Svitolina to the Washington quarterfinals. But what's more interesting is how sports citizenship has become a tool for circumventing sanctions in tennis.
The US President stated that the issue of licensing missile production for Patriot systems is still under review, while Zelensky had previously expressed support for this idea.
Tim Cook called the memory market situation a "once in a hundred years" event — and it's not just an excuse for investors. The price increase of DRAM and NAND chips is already being factored into the prices of phones, game consoles, and even refrigerators with smart screens.
# Both companies spend billions on artificial intelligence, but only one can show who exactly is paying for it and how much. The difference of 30 million Copilot subscribers versus Meta's 91% drop in cash flow — that's where the line of investor trust lies.
Nano Banana on Google Earth shows what Pompeii and ancient cities looked like before catastrophes, but the line between artistic reconstruction and fake history becomes blurred.
The European Commission is allocating 10 billion euros for computing capacity for startups and scientists — but the first results will not appear before 2028, when the technological advantage of the United States and China could become even greater.
# Guest Professor at Tufts University Explains Why "Chemistry" Between Zelensky and Trump Has Improved, and Why Putin Won't Stop on His Own
On July 28, Zelenskyy will meet with Trump at the White House — the same day Washington is burying Senator Lindsey Graham. The visit comes against the backdrop of a diplomatic stalemate: the meeting between Rubio and Lavrov in Manila yielded no breakthrough.
# Insider Reports on New Flagship Processor Expected by End of 2026 in Smartphones Under $590 Insiders are reporting on a new version of a flagship processor that could appear by the end of 2026 in smartphones priced under $590. Here's what this means and why it matters for the market.
The death of Senator Lindsey Graham, who was a key mediator between Zelensky and Trump, has opened a window for a direct meeting between the two presidents — the first after months of tension.
# Florida Pastor Consulted ChatGPT for Months About Deadly Blood Clot Symptoms A Florida pastor, Scott Winters, consulted ChatGPT for months about symptoms that turned out to be signs of a life-threatening thromboembolism. The bot advised him to stay home, leveraged the man's religious identity to deepen his trust in the artificial intelligence, and competed with doctors for the right to provide medical advice.
A new method for restoring access to a Google account through selfie video solves the real problem of account lockout — but at the cost of a biometric template that the company can use to train its own facial recognition models.
In June, Uber cut a quarter of its HR team, followed by a 10% reduction in customer support in July. The company is replacing people with algorithms, but Gartner warns that half of companies taking similar steps will come to regret it.
# Translation After the Supreme Court struck down Trump's customs powers under IEEPA, the administration found a replacement in the dusty archives of the 1930s. Section 338 of the Smoot-Hawley Act gives the president a 50% tariff with no procedural restrictions whatsoever.
The United States has agreed for the first time to import Ukrainian weapons for its own military testing — a country that has supplied arms to Ukraine for years is now studying its combat technologies at the Pentagon.
On August 18, Sony will remove nine games from its Extra and Premium catalog, including several of the most popular titles in recent years. Five of them were already at risk in July — but Sony gave players an additional month.
# New Claude Code Integration with iOS Simulator Gives AI "Eyes" for App Testing, But Convenience Brings Legal Questions Teams Should Already Be Asking Their Lawyers
Nvidia has switched to 100% liquid cooling for Rubin servers with coolant temperature at 45°C. This is not an engineering error — the high liquid temperature is precisely what allows the company to reduce cooling energy consumption by up to 40%.
The fourth beta version of iOS 27 has revealed code strings that for the first time in iPhone history describe the operation of two batteries simultaneously. This aligns with supplier data regarding specific cell capacities — and brings the release of a foldable iPhone closer to becoming a confirmed fact.
The U.S. Senate updated its sanctions package against Russia — tariffs were reduced from 500% to 100%, but preserved the blow to key buyers of Russian oil and gave Trump the authority to suspend the restrictions. The real question is not about the figures, but whether the president will exercise this right.
Washington has escalated the situation to a new level by resorting to Depression-era tactics: tariffs on wine, cement, hockey sticks, and furniture effectively nullify the USMCA — an agreement that the United States itself signed.
# US President Publicly Asks FIFA to Hold Next World Cup Exclusively on American Territory At a reception in Trump Tower, the US president publicly requested that FIFA hold the next World Cup solely on American soil—excluding Canada and Mexico. Behind the scenes: trade wars, personal friendship with Infantino, and an already prepared plan for 2038.
On July 19, a outage affected Facebook, Instagram, Threads, WhatsApp, and Messenger simultaneously. Meta has yet to explain the cause — and that fact alone is telling.
# Operation Midnight Hammer — the largest-scale U.S. air operation against Iran — inflicted real damage but failed to achieve its declared objective. The gap between Trump's rhetoric and the Pentagon's assessment calls into question not only the effectiveness of the strikes, but also the logic of the entire pressure strategy.
# Company Building Rockets and Electric Cars Now Makes Balance Bikes for Two-Year-Olds. What's Behind This Move and Is This Toy Worth Its Price?
# Translation Among 630 GB of Tata Electronics data stolen by the World Leaks group, a diagnostic log was found confirming a variable aperture and new Sony sensor for the iPhone 18 Pro. The leak also revealed that Apple will keep Qualcomm modems in some markets — despite its own C2 modem.
# Netflix's AI Integration Reaches One-Third of Active Titles in First Half of 2026 Generative AI touched every third active Netflix title in the first half of 2026. The company publicly disclosed the figure for the first time — and immediately explained why.
On July 19 at MetLife Stadium, Trump, together with FIFA President Infantino, will present the World Cup to the winner of the Spain-Argentina match. The same Spain that he accused several weeks earlier of betraying allied obligations.
Apple's increase in iPhone Ultra production plan from 7-8 to 10 million units is the most honest indicator of how confident the company is in demand for the $2000+ device. The dual-chamber cooling system here is merely a pretext to discuss the scale of the risk.
# JPMorgan Posts Record Profits and $1 Trillion Market Cap, Rivaling Tesla and Meta. But Jamie Dimon Warns: The Bank Thrives While the Economy Faces Uncertainty Record profits and market capitalization approaching $1 trillion place JPMorgan alongside Tesla and Meta. However, Jamie Dimon cautions: the bank itself is thriving, while the economy remains in question.
# Four Days After First Combat Use of Corsair Drones, Ukrainian Company Announces $3.2 Billion Shipyard Project Four days after the first combat deployment of unmanned Corsair boats against Iran's naval base, Saronic Technologies announced the construction of the Port Alpha shipbuilding complex worth $3.2 billion — with $211 million in tax incentives from the county and an open question about who actually pressed the attack button.
Codex Micro is a compact keyboard created in collaboration with Work Louder, optimized for the Codex AI agent. OpenAI's first hardware product is priced like a mid-range smartphone and targets a narrow audience of developers.
Bloomberg revealed details of OpenAI's first "iron" device: a portable smart speaker without a screen but equipped with a camera, sensors and moving parts. However, even before the announcement, Apple filed a lawsuit alleging theft of corporate secrets.
# A Tyrannosaurus Skeleton Sold to an Anonymous Buyer at Twice the Estimated Price A tyrannosaurus skeleton has been sold to an anonymous buyer at double its initial estimate. This is more than just an auction record — it is a symptom of a system where the most important paleontological discoveries go to whoever can outbid museums.
The U.S. Mint is minting a $1 gold coin featuring a portrait of Trump — the first since 1926. Most such coins from that era were melted down. This time, 47 coins will be released at $90,000 each.
Washington and New Delhi agreed in February 2025 to reduce tariffs in exchange for abandoning Russian oil. However, a new bill in the Senate is changing the rules of the game after the deal was supposedly reached.
The United States has resumed a naval blockade of Iranian ports and conducted fresh strikes against Iran. Tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz — through which every fifth barrel of global oil passes — has effectively come to a halt.
A fan-designed LEGO set of the iMac G3 in Bondi Blue color has received "Parking Lot" status from LEGO — this is neither a rejection nor a green light. The company may revisit the project over the next three review cycles.
# Stripe and Advent International Submit Official Offer to Acquire PayPal at $60.50 per Share Stripe and Advent International have submitted a formal bid to purchase PayPal at $60.50 per share. PayPal has not yet responded to the offer. Antitrust regulators have not yet weighed in on the proposed acquisition.
Governor Kathy Hochul signed the first statewide moratorium in the United States on the construction of hyperscale data centers — and has already laid out a condition for lifting it: technology companies must pay for infrastructure themselves.
The first semifinal of the 2026 World Cup is not merely a match between the tournament's best attack and defense. It is a rematch that France has been waiting for exactly two years, and the duel will be refereed by an official who has already written himself into football history even before stepping onto the field in Dallas.
Dmytro Rashevskyy and his First VPN service were featured in nearly every major Europol cyber investigation. In May 2026, the infrastructure was dismantled, and in July, personal sanctions were imposed.
The Clarity Act is stalled in the Senate due to vote arithmetic and a scandal involving cryptocurrency assets of the Trump family. Graham's death gave the president an emotional argument, but added no votes.
The elimination of the United States, Mexico, and Canada from the playoffs has sent ticket prices plummeting by up to 65% — making the quarterfinals the most affordable matches of the tournament. However, for host cities, this translates into billions in lost revenue.
OpenAI has launched ChatGPT Work, a tool that performs multi-hour tasks in the background while you focus on other activities. Its release was delayed: the U.S. Department of Commerce initially held it up over security concerns.
Meta's new Super Sensing smart glasses continuously record and listen to the surroundings — and according to the company's plan, those around the wearer won't know it's happening: the LED indicator simply won't turn on.
Stock decline of 16% from May highs is just the tip of the iceberg: the real blow was not from investors, but from American regulators, who banned H20 chips for China and wrote off $5.5 billion in inventory.
xAI and Cursor jointly released the Grok 4.5 model, immediately acknowledging that a portion of training data accidentally overlapped with the test set. Neutral benchmarks show results more modest than Musk promised.
The Galaxy Z Fold 8 is becoming shorter and wider — and this is not a design whim, but a direct response to the expected foldable iPhone. Samsung is holding Unpacked in London on July 22, two months before Apple plans to show off its first foldable.
While the company reports "limited cases" and enhanced disinfection protocols, the CDC has recorded a third norovirus outbreak on Princess Cruises ships since the beginning of 2026—with 125 people falling ill on a single voyage.
Tesla has opened orders for the extended Model Y L with six seats. The Launch Edition costs $61,990 — $12,000 more expensive than the standard Premium AWD. First deliveries are scheduled for September 2026.
The US President received more money from cryptocurrency than any politician in American history, signed a law on stablecoins — and simultaneously claims he learned about these incomes from newspapers.
Citigroup forecasts Brent crude to fall to $60 per barrel by end of 2025 — exactly the price ceiling of the G7 sanctions mechanism for Russian oil.
John Prosser formally responded to Apple's lawsuit a year after it was filed: he didn't hack, didn't conspire, didn't know — but did receive $650. Now the entire defense structure rests on the claim that FaceTime revealed the information, not he did.
# WSJ Claims SpaceX Demonstrated Thin AI Device Prototype on Snapdragon With Custom OS and Grok Inside. Musk Responded With Two Words — Without Clarifying What's Inaccurate in the Report.
Microsoft is testing Disc2Digital: physical games are linked to an account as a digital license. It's convenient — but at the same time it devalues the secondary disk market, which still exists for now.
Trump's 2025 Financial Declaration Shows: Most of His Income from Crypto. Meanwhile, He Signed the First Federal Stablecoin Law Directly Related to His Own Projects.
# Collective Lawsuit Filed Against Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron Over Memory Price Fixing On June 25, a class action lawsuit was filed in federal court in California against Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron. The 17 plaintiffs claim that the companies used the HBM boom as a cover for coordinated production cuts of standard DDR3/DDR4 memory — resulting in a 700% price increase over four years. While the allegations remain unproven, there is precedent: both Asian companies have previously admitted guilt in a 2005 price-fixing cartel.
While others complained about GTA 6's $100 price tag, a few Xbox players quietly accumulated 100,000 Microsoft Rewards points and pre-ordered the game without spending a single real dollar. The paradox: the longer Rockstar delayed the game, the more time players had to save up points.
# Guo Wengui Convicted in Massive Fraud Scheme Targeting Democracy Supporters For years, Guo Wengui positioned himself as a fighter against Beijing — a reputation that allowed him to raise over a billion dollars from thousands of supporters who believed they were investing in democracy. Thirty years in prison and confiscation of $889 million represent the outcome of a scheme whose mechanism mirrors a classic confidence scam.
By a 5-4 vote, the court refused Trump the right to remove a member of the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors, whom the president is attempting to fire for the first time in the central bank's 111-year history. However, the final word has not yet been spoken.
Microsoft's market capitalization fell by $530 billion in June 2025 — the worst month since 2008. But the real problem isn't the size of AI spending, but rather who it has been made for.
The US and Iran agreed to suspend strikes and resume talks in Doha on June 30 — following another round of escalation that threatened the memorandum signed just two weeks earlier.
On Sunday evening in San Jose, a person was shot and killed at San Pedro Square — a plaza where thousands of fans gathered throughout the championship. No matches were being broadcast at that moment — a detail that changes the context.
Washington and Tehran have agreed to temporarily halt mutual strikes. Negotiations in Qatar are aimed at determining the fate of one of the world's most important shipping corridors.
Apple is increasing the base RAM in iPhone 18 and 18e to 9GB to support Apple Intelligence — but iOS 27 has already raised the bar for the most powerful local AI features to 12GB. The upgrade is a step forward, but it falls short of the new minimum requirements.
After signing a memorandum on June 17 and negotiations in Switzerland, the United States has twice struck Iran in response to attacks in the Strait of Hormuz. Trump threatened to "completely finish the job."
# Trump hints at abandoning "Anchorage agreements" at G7 summit, but Rubio denies deal existed At the G7 summit in Evian, Trump hinted to allies that he might abandon the so-called "Anchorage agreements" — concessions to Moscow regarding Donbas. The problem is that Secretary of State Rubio has already stated: there were no agreements in Alaska.
An insider from Kosutami has reported on the development of iRing — at the very time when Apple Watch sales have dropped by 14%, while the smart ring market is growing four times faster than smartwatches. Coincidence or strategy?
YouTube is removing the dislike button from Shorts permanently, along with introducing a no-interface mode and accelerating video playback. For creators, this means the metric will stop updating by the end of June.
# Nasdaq Changed Rules Specifically for Low-Float Companies. SpaceX Became the First to Use the Innovation — and Will Force Passive Funds to Automatically Buy Its Shares for $4.3 Billion.
Yum Brands divested Pizza Hut not from strength but from weakness — the chain is closing 250 restaurants in the US, system-wide sales have declined for the second consecutive year, and franchisees are suing the brand. Now the chain is split in two between private capital and a Chinese subsidiary.
# After White House Meeting, Trump Announces Plans for Putin-Zelenskyy Bilateral, to be Followed by Three-Way Talks with US Following his August 18 White House meeting, Trump announced preparations for a bilateral meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy, which would then transition into three-way talks involving the United States. Moscow neither rejected nor accepted the proposal.
The Atlantic has published four databases containing over 21 million tracks that were used to train AI models — without the consent of artists and without paying royalties. Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny are just the most famous names among millions of others.
CIA Director Kraklieff warned Trump: Iranians tell intermediaries one thing, but say another among themselves. The deal is signed, but all nuclear issues are postponed for 60 days — that's exactly where the real problem lies.
Carolina Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup for the first time since 2006, with their 37-year-old captain Jordan Staal, a defensively-minded center who was never considered a prolific scorer, recording goals in five consecutive games and becoming the oldest Stanley Cup winner in NHL history to claim the Conn Smythe Trophy.
Samsung has finally embedded internet speed display in the Galaxy status bar — through the QuickStar module in Good Lock. However, a stable version of the feature and its rollout to older flagship models remain without a clear timeline.
On June 14, mediators announced a memorandum of understanding between Washington and Tehran. The document opens the Strait of Hormuz and extends a 60-day ceasefire — but the nuclear control issue has been postponed, and the IAEA still lacks access to Iranian facilities.
# Tech Companies Conducted 363 Layoff Waves Since Start of 2026, While Profit Figures Tell Different Story Since the beginning of 2026, technology companies have carried out 363 rounds of layoffs. The official explanation is artificial intelligence. However, profit figures tell a different story.