ByteDance said US government prefers to shut down than work on an ‘effective solution’ to protect US users.
TikTok and Chinese parent ByteDance have urged a United States court to strike down a law they say will ban the popular short video app in the US on January 19 next year.
In details released on Thursday, the two companies said the US government has refused to engage in any serious settlement talks since 2022.
Legislation signed in April by President Joe Biden gives ByteDance until January of next year to divest TikTok’s US assets or face a ban on the app used by 170 million Americans. ByteDance says a divestiture is “not possible technologically, commercially, or legally”.
ByteDance recounted lengthy negotiations between the company and the US government that it says abruptly ended in August 2022. The company also made public a redacted version of a 100-plus page draft national security agreement to protect US TikTok user data and says it has spent more than $2bn on the effort.
The draft agreement included giving the US government a “kill switch” to suspend TikTok there at the government’s sole discretion if the company did not comply with the agreement and the draft says the US demanded that TikTok’s source code be moved out of China.
“This administration has determined that it prefers to try to shut down TikTok in the United States and eliminate a platform of speech for 170 million Americans, rather than continue to work on a practical, feasible, and effective solution to protect US users through an enforceable agreement with the US government,” TikTok lawyers wrote the Justice Department in an April 1 email made public on Thursday.
The Justice Department declined to comment on the email but said last month the law “addresses critical national security concerns in a manner that is consistent with the First Amendment and other constitutional limitations”. It said it would defend the legislation in court.
The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia will hold oral arguments on lawsuits filed by TikTok and ByteDance along with TikTok users on September 16. TikTok’s future in the US may rest on the outcome of the case, which could impact how the US government uses its new authority to clamp down on foreign-owned apps.
“This law is a radical departure from this country’s tradition of championing an open Internet, and sets a dangerous precedent allowing the political branches to target a disfavored speech platform and force it to sell or be shut down,” ByteDance and TikTok argued in asking the court to strike down the law.
Driven by worries among US lawmakers that China could access data on Americans or spy on them with the app, the measure was passed overwhelmingly in Congress just weeks after being introduced.
Free speech rights
Lawyers for a group of TikTok users who have filed a lawsuit to prevent the app from being banned said the law would violate their free speech rights. In a filing on Thursday, they argued it is clear there are no imminent national security risks because the law “allows TikTok to continue operating through the rest of this year – including during an election that the very president who signed the bill says is existential for our democracy.”
TikTok says any divestiture or separation – even if technically possible – would take years, and it argues that the law runs afoul of Americans’ free speech rights.
Further, it says the law unfairly singles out TikTok for punitive treatment and “ignores many applications with substantial operations in China that collect large amounts of US user data, as well as the many US companies that develop software and employ engineers in China”.
In 2020, then-President Donald Trump was blocked by the courts in his bid to ban TikTok and Chinese-owned WeChat, a unit of Tencent, in the US.
The White House says it wants to see Chinese-based ownership ended on national security grounds, but not a ban on TikTok. Earlier this month, Trump joined TikTok and has recently raised concerns about a potential ban.
The law prohibits app stores like those of Apple and Alphabet’s Google from offering TikTok. It also bars internet hosting services from supporting TikTok unless it is divested by ByteDance.
With climate change fuelling more extreme weather events around the world — from record wildfires to powerful hurricanes, floods, heatwaves and drought — United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres offered a dire warning.
“We are playing Russian roulette with our planet,” he told reporters on June 5. “We need an exit ramp off the highway to climate hell, and the truth is we have control of the wheel.”
Environmental advocates have warned, however, that November’s showdown between Democratic President Joe Biden and his Republican predecessor Donald Trump will not only affect climate policy in the US but around the world.
“The US plays such an outsized role in both international politics and also greenhouse gas emissions,” said Ariel Moger, the government and political affairs director at Friends of the Earth Action, a US-based climate justice group.
“In many ways, I think the fate of our planet lies with the American voters”, she told Al Jazeera, “which may sound a bit hyperbolic, but I think that is the moment that we’re living in”.
Voter priorities
The US is the world’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases after China, and it produced an average of 12.9 million barrels of crude oil per day last year — breaking a previous global record from 2019.
But climate change has not been a major focus of the presidential election campaign so far, taking a backseat to economic issues, immigration and foreign policy.
Moger explained that those concerns may seem more concrete, compared with an issue as large and wide-ranging as the climate crisis.
“Climate change is often viewed as an overwhelming, existential threat in a world where people are just trying to get through their day,” she said.
“Many issues like the economy, abortion access — these are things that people are dealing with more regularly, or the threat feels more real to them.”
Still, recent surveys show that a majority of Americans want their political leaders to address the climate crisis and that many prefer candidates who will enact policies to that effect.
A report released last week by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University found that 62 percent of registered voters support candidates who pledge to take climate action.
“That’s overwhelmingly true among Democrats, but it’s also very true among independents and even half of liberal-moderate Republicans, which is about a third of the Republican Party,” Anthony Leiserowitz, the director of the Yale University programme, told Al Jazeera.
About four in 10 voters also said a presidential candidate’s position on global warming would be “very important” when deciding who to vote for in November, the report (PDF) found.
Still, several surveys show that climate change is not at the top of most Americans’ priorities: It falls far behind the economy, inflation and other topics voters said were more pressing.
A Gallup poll in May, for example, found that only 2 percent of Americans said climate change was the most important problem facing the country, trailing economic issues (36 percent), government and poor leadership (21 percent) and immigration (17 percent).
Climate change “makes the list, but it’s not considered the most important issue”, explained Ashley Dancer, a PhD student at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder) who has studied how opinions on climate change affected the 2020 election.
“It’s superseded by things like the economy, health care, education and crime — those kitchen-table issues.”
Effect on close race
As the US enters its summer season on Thursday, wildfires continue to rip through states such as California and New Mexico, and a heat dome has descended across much of the country.
With extreme weather events expected to continue through the summer, Moger said she expects climate change to take up more space in election-related discussions.
“We’ve seen that, as more people suffer from record heat, drought, wildfires [and] hurricanes, the harder it is for candidates to ignore the reality of the crisis that is in front of us,” she said.
And in a close election — as November’s contest is expected to be — climate change could also be a deciding factor, Dancer told Al Jazeera.
“We know that now, most voters — which is about two-thirds — are concerned about climate change and want something done about it, and that this is increasing over time. These voters strongly prefer Democrats, and this preference is also increasing over time,” she said.
That is because, in the US’s two-party system, Democrats are viewed as more willing to acknowledge the dangers of climate change and address the problem, compared with their Republican counterparts.
Biden walks to a podium before delivering remarks on the White House initiative on climate change in November 2023 [Tom Brenner/Reuters]
Environmental advocates also note the differences between Biden’s and Trump’s climate policies are stark.
While in office, Trump withdrew from the Paris climate accord, the international agreement to cap greenhouse gas emissions. He also sought to open up vast tracts of US territory for oil and gas exploration.
In addition, he has regularly questioned whether climate change is real and downplayed its effects. And in a recent meeting with top US oil executives, Trump pledged to roll back some of Biden’s environmental rules if re-elected, The Washington Post reported.
For his part, Biden has not gone as far as environmentalists would like in phasing out fossil fuels, and he was recently criticised for approving a contentious oil drilling project in Alaska last year.
Still, he has regularly warned of the threat posed by climate change and urged global cooperation.
He rejoined the Paris climate deal in one of his first acts as president and enacted ambitious climate policies at home, including through the Inflation Reduction Act, which set emission reduction targets and allocated funds for the clean energy transition.
In a study released in January, Dancer and her colleagues found that the advantage that climate change provided to Democrats “was probably large enough in 2020 to change the outcome” of the presidential race. Biden defeated Trump in 2020 after winning by small margins in key swing states.
If climate change had not been as much of a concern, the study projected that Republicans could have enjoyed a 3 percent swing in the overall popular vote — “a shift [that] would probably have been pivotal” in the results.
“In a close election, climate change opinion matters,” Dancer said. “It did play a role in the 2020 election, so it likely will in this one [in November]. Whether or not it tips the scale will be determined by how close the election ends up being.”
In 2017, Trump announced he planned to withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement on climate change [File: Joshua Roberts/Reuters]
Political communication
According to Leiserowitz at Yale University, it is also incumbent on politicians to effectively communicate their climate policies if they want to connect to potential voters.
As it stands, few Americans — including those who care about the issue and make up the Democratic Party’s base — know much about the Biden administration’s positions, he explained.
Nearly four in 10 registered voters said they had heard “nothing at all” about the Inflation Reduction Act, for instance, according to last week’s report from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.
“That’s an indication that, at least up to this point, [Democrats] have not adequately communicated their success to the American people,” Leiserowitz said.
“If you don’t communicate it, the vast majority of people are never going to hear about it, and they’re never going to connect the dots themselves. It’s just not true that policy is going to sell itself, and then you will reap the political rewards.”
Moger also noted that, while climate action “is extremely popular” and key constituencies — including young people and progressives — care about the issue deeply, voter turnout will be key.
“Biden still has time to … take some significant steps in terms of climate action,” Moger said. She called the Democratic president “far from perfect” but warned that another Trump term would spell climate disaster.
“We know that, under a Trump presidency, we would be seeing more policies that would take us in the wrong direction and lead to ultimately an uninhabitable planet,” Moger told Al Jazeera.
“If [the US is] not leading by example, then the entire world will be suffering, not just in terms of policy but in terms of the amount of emissions that we’ll continue to be polluting.”
Alberto, the first named storm of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, expected to make landfall in north Mexico on Thursday.
Tropical Storm Alberto, the first named storm of 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, has formed over the Western Gulf of Mexico, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) has said.
The storm was located about 185 miles (300 kilometres) east of Tampico, Mexico, packing maximum sustained winds of 40mph (65km/h), the Miami-based forecaster said on Wednesday.
Alberto, which is bringing strong winds, heavy rainfall and some flooding along the coasts of Texas and Mexico, is expected to make landfall in northern Mexico on Thursday.
“The heavy rainfall and the water, as usual, is the biggest story in tropical storms,” said Michael Brennan, director of the NHC.
Brennan said that winds could get up to 45mph (72km/h) to 50mph (80km/h) before the storm makes landfall.
As much as five inches (13 centimetres) to 10 inches (25 centimetres) of rain was expected in some areas along the Texas coast, with even higher isolated totals possible, Brennan said.
He said some higher locations in Mexico could see as much as 20 inches (50cm) of rain, which could result in mudslides and flash flooding, especially in the states of Tamaulipas, Coahuila and Nuevo Leon.
The storm was moving west at nine miles per hour (15km/h). Tropical storm warnings were in effect from the Texas coast at San Luis Pass southward to the mouth of the Rio Grande and from the northeastern coast of Mexico south of the mouth of the Rio Grande to Tecolutla.
“Rapid weakening is expected once the centre moves inland, and Alberto is likely to dissipate over Mexico” on Thursday, the NHC said.
The US National Weather Service (NWS) said the main hazard for southern coastal Texas is flooding from excess rain. On Wednesday, the NWS said, there is “a high probability” of flash flooding in southern coastal Texas. Tornadoes or waterspouts are possible.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts the hurricane season, which began June 1 and runs through November 30, is likely to be well above average, with between 17 and 25 named storms. The forecast calls for as many as 13 hurricanes and four major hurricanes.
An average Atlantic hurricane season produces 14 named storms, seven of them hurricanes and three major hurricanes.
On January 21, Patricia Gingrich was about to sit down for dinner when her landline phone rang. The New Hampshire voter picked up and heard a voice telling her not to vote in the upcoming presidential primary.
“As I listened to it, I thought, gosh, that sounds like Joe Biden,” Gingrich told Al Jazeera. “But the fact that he was saying to save your vote, don’t use it in this next election — I knew Joe Biden would never say that.”
The voice may have sounded like the United States president, but it wasn’t him: It was a deepfake, generated by artificial intelligence (AI).
Experts warn that deepfakes — audio, video or images created using AI tools, with the intent to mislead — pose a high risk to US voters ahead of the November general election, not only by injecting false content into the race but by eroding public trust.
Gingrich said she didn’t fall for the Biden deepfake, but she fears it may have suppressed voter turnout. The message reached nearly 5,000 New Hampshire voters just days before the state’s primary.
“This could be bad for people that aren’t so informed about what’s going on with the Democrats,” said Gingrich, who is the chair of the Barrington Democratic Committee in Burlington, New Hampshire.
“If they really thought they shouldn’t vote for something and Joe Biden was telling them not to, then maybe they wouldn’t attend that vote.”
The voice of US President Joe Biden was spoofed in a robocall sent to New Hampshire primary voters [Leah Millis/Reuters]
Online groups vulnerable
The Biden call wasn’t the only deepfake so far this election cycle. Before calling off his presidential bid, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s campaign shared a video that contained AI-generated images of Donald Trump hugging immunologist Anthony Fauci — two figures who clashed publicly during the COVID-19 pandemic.
And in September, a different robocall went out to 300 voters expected to participate in South Carolina’s Republican primary. This time, recipients heard an AI-generated voice that imitated Senator Lindsey Graham, asking whom they were voting for.
The practice of altering or faking content — especially for political gain — has existed since the dawn of US politics. Even the country’s first president, George Washington, had to contend with a series of “spurious letters” that appeared to show him questioning the cause of US independence.
But AI tools are now advanced enough to convincingly mimic people quickly and cheaply, heightening the risk of disinformation.
A study published earlier this year by researchers at George Washington University predicted that, by mid-2024, daily “AI attacks” would escalate, posing a threat to the November general election.
The study’s lead author Neil Johnson told Al Jazeera that the highest risk doesn’t come from the recent, obviously fake robocalls — which contained eyebrow-raising messages — but rather from more convincing deepfakes.
“It’s going to be nuanced images, changed images, not entirely fake information because fake information attracts the attention of disinformation checkers,” Johnson said.
The study found that online communities are linked in a way that allows bad actors to send large quantities of manipulated media directly into the mainstream.
Communities in swing states could be especially vulnerable, as could parenting groups on platforms like Facebook.
“The role of parenting communities is going to be big one,” Johnson said, pointing to the rapid spread of vaccine misinformation during the pandemic as an example.
“I do think that we’re going to be suddenly faced with a wave of [disinformation] — lots of things that are not fake, they’re not untrue, but they stretch the truth.”
An AI-generated image released by the Ron DeSantis campaign appeared to show Donald Trump, right, embracing Anthony Fauci, left [Leah Millis/Reuters]
Eroding public trust
Voters themselves, however, are not the only targets of deepfakes. Larry Norden, senior director of the Elections and Government Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, has been working with election officials to help them spot fake content.
For instance, Norden said bad actors could use AI tools to instruct election workers to close a polling location prematurely, by manipulating the sound of their boss’s voice or by sending a message seemingly through a supervisor’s account.
He is teaching poll workers to protect themselves by verifying the messages they receive.
Norden emphasised that bad actors can create misleading content without AI. “The thing about AI is that it just makes it easier to do at scale,” he said.
Just last year, Norden illustrated the capabilities of AI by creating a deepfake video of himself for a presentation on the risks the technology poses.
“It didn’t take long at all,” Norden said, explaining that all he had to do was feed his previous TV interviews into an app.
His avatar wasn’t perfect — his face was a little blurry, his voice a little choppy — but Norden noted the AI tools are rapidly improving. “Since we recorded that, the technology has gotten more sophisticated, and I think it’s more and more difficult to tell.”
The technology alone is not the problem. As deepfakes become more common, the public will become more aware of them and more sceptical of the content they consume.
That could erode public trust, with voters more likely to reject true information. Political figures could also abuse that scepticism for their own ends.
Legal scholars have termed this phenomenon the “liar’s dividend”: Concern about deepfakes could make it easier for the subjects of legitimate audio or video footage to claim the recordings are fake.
Norden pointed to the Access Hollywood audio that emerged before the 2016 election as an example. In the clip, then-candidate Trump is heard talking about his interactions with women: “You can do anything. Grab ‘em by the pussy.”
The tape — which was very real — was considered damaging to Trump’s prospects among female voters. But if similar audio leaked today, Norden said a candidate could easily call it fake. “It would be easier for the public to dismiss that kind of thing than it would have been a few years ago.”
Norden added, “One of the problems that we have right now in the US is that there’s a lack of trust, and this may only make things worse.”
Steve Kramer, centre left, has been charged with 13 felony counts of felony voter suppression, as well as misdemeanours for his involvement in the New Hampshire robocall [Steven Senne/AP Photo, pool]
What can be done about deepfakes?
While deepfakes are a growing concern in US elections, relatively few federal laws restrict their use. The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has yet to restrict deepfakes in elections, and bills in Congress remain stalled.
Individual states are scrambling to fill the void. According to a legislation tracker published by the consumer advocacy organisation Public Citizen, 20 state laws have been enacted so far to regulate deepfakes in elections.
Several more bills — in Hawaii, Louisiana and New Hampshire — have passed and are awaiting a governor’s signature.
Norden said he was not surprised to see individual states act before Congress. “States are supposed to be the laboratories of democracy, so it’s proving true again: The states are acting first. We all know it’s really hard to get anything passed in Congress,” he said.
Voters and political organisations are taking action, too. After Gingrich received the fake Biden call in New Hampshire, she joined a lawsuit — led by the League of Women Voters — seeking accountability for the alleged deception.
The source of the call turned out to be Steve Kramer, a political consultant who claimed his intention was to draw attention to the need to regulate AI in politics. Kramer also admitted to being behind the robocall in South Carolina, mimicking Senator Graham.
Kramer came forward after NBC News revealed he had commissioned a magician to use publicly available software to generate the deepfake of Biden’s voice.
According to the lawsuit, the deepfake took less than 20 minutes to create and cost only $1.
Kramer, however, told CBS News that he received “$5m worth of exposure” for his efforts, which he hoped would allow AI regulations to “play themselves out or at least begin to pay themselves out”.
“My intention was to make a difference,” he said.
Paul Carpenter, a New Orleans magician, said he was hired to create a deepfake of President Biden’s voice [Matthew Hinton/AP Photo]
Potential to apply existing laws
But Kramer’s case shows existing laws can be used to curtail deepfakes.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), for instance, ruled (PDF) earlier this year that voice-mimicking software falls under the 1991 Telephone Consumer Protection Act — and is therefore illegal in most circumstances.
The commission ultimately proposed a $6m penalty against Kramer for the illegal robocall.
The New Hampshire Department of Justice also charged Kramer with felony voter suppression and impersonating a candidate, which could result in up to seven years in prison. Kramer has pleaded not guilty. He did not respond to a request for comment from Al Jazeera.
Norden said it is significant that none of the laws Kramer is accused of breaking are specifically tailored to deepfakes. “The criminal charges against him have nothing to do with AI,” he said. “Those laws exist independently of the technology that is used.”
However, those laws are not as easy to apply to bad actors who are not identifiable or who are located outside of the US.
“We know from the intelligence agencies that they’re already seeing China and Russia experimenting with these tools. And they expect them to be used,” Norden said. “In that sense, you’re not going to legislate your way out of this problem.”
Both Norden and Johnson believe the lack of regulation makes it more important for voters to inform themselves about deepfakes — and learn how to find accurate information.
As for Gingrich, she said she knows that manipulative deepfakes will only grow more ubiquitous. She too feels voters need to inform themselves about the risk.
Her message to voters? “I would tell people to make sure that they know they can vote.”
Joe Biden’s latest plan, announced ahead of the 2024 election, gives some undocumented migrants a pathway to United States citizenship.
United States President Joe Biden has announced an initiative that can offer citizenship to roughly half a million undocumented immigrants married to US citizens in a move ahead of the November presidential election.
“The Statue of Liberty is not some relic of American history. It still stands for who we are,” Biden said at the White House on Tuesday, as he articulated his Democratic Party’s line on immigration – a hot-button issue in the country.
“But I also refuse to believe that for us to continue to be an America that embraces immigration, we have to give up securing our border. They’re false choices,” he said defending the curbs on asylum-seeking at the US-Mexico border announced on June 4.
The move will also pave the way for the children of these immigrants to attain US citizenship. A White House statement said the move will “ensure that US citizens with non-citizen spouses and children can keep their families together”.
Here’s more about the new programme announced months ahead of the presidential elections:
What is Biden’s new immigration plan?
Under the sweeping new immigration plan, undocumented spouses of US citizens who have been living in the US can request lawful permanent residence while staying in the country.
However, the requests will not all be approved and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will consider these requests on a case-by-case basis.
To be eligible, the spouses have to be married and living in the US for at least 10 years as of June 17, 2024, and “not pose a threat to public safety or national security”, according to a DHS fact sheet.
The processing of permanent residence applications can take months to years. Those granted permanent residency, called getting a “green card” in the US, can apply for US citizenship.
Before this plan was introduced, spouses living in the US without documents would have to travel to their home country and apply for citizenship at a consulate – a process that could take anywhere from three to 10 years.
“They [undocumented spouses of US citizens] have to leave their families in America with no assurance that they will be allowed back in the United States. So they stay in America, but in the shadows, living in constant fear of deportation without the ability to legally work,” said Biden in a White House speech, explaining why the old system needed a fix. Migrants are taken into custody by officials at the US-Mexico border on January 3, 2024, in Eagle Pass, Texas, the United States [Eric Gay/AP Photo]
Who will Biden’s immigration plan benefit?
The DHS fact sheet says that around 500,000 non-citizen spouses of US citizens are eligible for the programme.
Additionally, around 50,000 children of these spouses are also eligible for this process.
What are Biden’s other recent immigration measures?
The DACA programme was introduced in 2012 by the administration of former President Barack Obama, when Biden served as vice president, as temporary deportation relief for children who came to the US as undocumented immigrants with their parents.
Under Biden’s recent programme, companies who employ DACA recipients can apply for a work visa for them, which can pave the way for permanent residency.
Tuesday’s sweeping measures come two weeks after Biden imposed restrictions on the right to seek asylum at the US-Mexico border, which saw a surge in unauthorised crossings last year. Critics slammed Biden’s asylum restrictions, saying they mirrored the policies of former president Donald Trump, who has pushed for hardline approaches to immigration. Immigrant rights groups have sued Biden over the June 4 border asylum restrictions. Donald Trump has been criticised for his hardline anti-immigrant policies [File: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters]
How have Republicans reacted to Biden’s immigration programme?
Donald Trump, Biden’s challenger: “Biden only cares about one thing – power – and that’s why he is giving mass amnesty and citizenship to hundreds of thousands of illegals who he knows will ultimately vote for him and the Open Border Democrat Party.”
Mike Johnson, House speaker: Biden is “trying to play both sides and is granting amnesty to hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens,” Johnson said in an X post. “This is proof-positive of the Democrats’ plan to turn illegal aliens into voters”.
Rick Scott, US senator from Florida: “While families struggle to pay the bills, Biden is sending our deficit through the roof to pay for free housing & food for illegal immigrants,” Scott posted on X.
How important is immigration to the 2024 elections?
Biden’s recent immigration policies come less than five months before the November 5 election, in which Biden will face Trump.
According to Pew Research Center surveys conducted in January 2024, around 57 percent of Americans say dealing with immigration should be a top policy goal for the president and Congress this year.
This has increased by 18 points since Biden’s term began due to growing concern among Republicans.
A little over half of US voters support deporting all or most undocumented immigrants in the US, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling.
On the other hand, a poll published in April 2024 by the advocacy group Immigration Hub concluded that 71 percent of voters in seven election battleground states supported allowing spouses who have lived in the US without documents for over five years to remain.
US prosecutors charge two dozen people over alleged $50m money laundering scheme.
Prosecutors in the United States have charged two dozen people over an alleged money laundering scheme involving Chinese shadow bankers and Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel.
Chinese underground money exchanges helped the cartel launder $50m in drug trafficking proceeds generated from the import of large amounts of fentanyl, cocaine, and methamphetamine between 2019 and 2023, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a statement on Tuesday.
The California-based network then allegedly made the proceeds generated in the US accessible to cartel members in Mexico and elsewhere, the DOJ said.
Drug traffickers partnered with underground money exchanges to take advantage of the high demand for US dollars from Chinese citizens who use informal channels to move funds out of China, which bars annual transfers above $50,000, prosecutors said.
“The seller of US dollars provides identifying information for a bank account in China with instructions for the investor to deposit Chinese currency (renminbi) in that account. Once the owner of the account sees the deposit, an equivalent amount of US dollars is released to the buyer in the United States,” the DOJ said.
The 24 defendants face charges of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and methamphetamine and money laundering offences.
Law enforcement officials seized $5m in narcotics proceeds, 137kg of cocaine, 42kg of methamphetamine, and 3,000 ecstasy pills during the investigation, according to the DOJ.
“Relentless greed, the pursuit of money, is what drives the Mexican drug cartels that are responsible for the worst drug crisis in American history,” Drug Enforcement Administrator Anne Milgram said.
“Laundering drug money gives the Sinaloa cartel the means to produce and import their deadly poison into the United States,” Milgram added.
“DEA’s top operational priority is to save American lives by defeating the cartels and those that support their operations.”
China’s Ministry of Public Security said in a social media post on Wednesday it had also arrested a person suspected of involvement in “drug-related money laundering” following a US tip-off. “This case is a recent successful case of Sino-US anti-drug cooperation,” the ministry said on the social media platform Weibo.
Fast food giant pulls plug on AI-powered voice-ordering at about 100 outlets after viral videos of order mishaps.
McDonald’s is scrapping a trial of artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted ordering at select drive-through restaurants after videos of order mix-ups went viral online.
The fast food giant’s decision to retire the AI-powered voice-ordering system from about 100 outlets comes as restaurant chains rush to embrace the technology to cut back on mounting labour costs.
McDonald’s launched the pilot in partnership with IBM at a select number of drive-through restaurants in the United States in 2021.
Trade publication Restaurant Business first reported the news on Friday.
“While there have been successes to date, we feel there is an opportunity to explore voice ordering solutions more broadly,” Mason Smoot, the chief restaurant officer for McDonald’s USA, said in an email cited by Restaurant Business.
“After a thoughtful review, McDonald’s has decided to end our current partnership with IBM on AOT and the technology will be shut off in all restaurants currently testing it no later than July 26, 2024.”
McDonald’s indicated that the aborted trial would not be the end of its experiments with AI, saying that “our work with IBM has given us the confidence that a voice ordering solution for drive-thru will be part of our restaurants’ future”.
“We see tremendous opportunity in advancing our restaurant technology and will continue to evaluate long-term, scalable solutions that will help us make an informed decision on a future voice ordering solution by the end of the year,” the Chicago-based company said in a statement to multiple US media outlets.
While McDonald’s did not give a reason for ending the partnership, the move comes after TikTok users shared videos showing the system picking up orders from the wrong cars, multiplying orders and producing bizarre combinations of food such as ice cream with ketchup and butter.
Other major US fast-food giants, including Chipotle, Wendy’s, Carl’s Jr, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, have been rolling out AI systems amid the promise of faster workflows and lower costs.
In April, Joe Park, the technology chief at Yum Brands, the owner of KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, told the Wall Street Journal that the group believes an “AI-first mentality works every step of the way”.
Chip giant’s market capitalisation hits $3.335 trillion as stock prices continues its stellar rise.
Nvidia, the startup at the centre of the artificial intelligence boom, has become the world’s most valuable company, knocking Microsoft off the top spot.
Nvidia’s market capitalisation hit $3.335 trillion on Tuesday as shares of the chipmaker rose by 3.5 percent to $135.58.
The feat comes just days after the Santa Clara California-based company eclipsed Apple to become the world’s second most valuable company.
Shares of Microsoft and Apple, holders of the no 2 and no 3 spots, fell by 0.45 percent and 1.1 percent, respectively.
Nvidia’s rally, which has lifted the S&P 500 and Nasdaq indexes to record highs, continues a speculator winning streak for the company, whose graphics processing units (GPUs) are integral to the development of AI.
Buoyed by voracious demand for its chips from tech giants such as Microsoft, Meta and Google, the company’s stock price has surged nearly 182 percent this year alone, after more than tripling in 2023.
Nvidia controls about 80 percent of the market for AI chips used in data centres needed to run AI models such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Since its stock market debut in 1999, Nvidia shares have soared 591,078 percent.
An investor who put $10,000 into the company in 1999 would hold $59,107,800 worth of stock today, according to the Kobeissi Letter newsletter on capital markets.
Founded in 1991, Nvidia spent its first few decades focusing mainly on producing chips for computer games.
During the 2000s, chief executive Jensen Huang directed Nvidia to invest heavily in developing GPUs for use in a broader range of applications than gaming, setting the company up to capitalise on the coming AI boom.
The company’s stunning rise has turned Huang into one of the world’s richest men, with an estimated net worth of more than $117bn, according to Forbes.
Israeli PM says the US promised to remove restrictions on arms, but Washington says bomb shipment still under review.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that the United States promised him to remove restrictions on arms transfer to Israel as the country continues its war on Gaza, a claim that Washington appeared to reject.
Netanyahu said in a video statement on Tuesday that it was “inconceivable” that the administration of President Joe Biden has been “withholding weapons and ammunitions to Israel” in recent months.
“Secretary [of State Antony] Blinken assured me that the administration is working day and night to remove these bottlenecks. I certainly hope that’s the case. It should be the case,” Netanyahu said, referring to talks the top US diplomat held in the country last week.
Washington provides $3.8bn in military assistance to Israel annually, and in April, Biden signed a law granting the US ally $17bn in additional aid amid Israel’s war on Gaza.
Biden and his top aides often stress their commitment to Israel, but Washington confirmed last month holding up a single shipment of 900kg (2,000 pound) bombs to the Israeli military over concerns about civilian casualties in Israel’s assault on Rafah in southern Gaza.
Since then, the Biden administration has authorised further weapons sales to Israel, according to US media accounts, including a package worth $1bn last month.
The Washington Post also reported on Monday that the Biden administration pressured top Democratic lawmakers to sign off on the $18bn sale of 50 F-15 fighter jets to Israel.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Blinken stressed that the US is committed to Israeli security and continues to move arms transfers to Israel through its system on a “regular basis”. But he said the hold on the heavy bombs remains in place.
“We, as you know, are continuing to review one shipment that President Biden has talked about with regard to 2000-pound bombs because of our concerns about their use in a densely populated area like Rafah,” Blinken said. “That remains under review. But everything else is moving as it normally would move.”
The Biden administration has been facing pressure to halt its military aid to Israel due to growing reports of Israeli abuses in Gaza, including allegations of targeting civilian infrastructure, using starvation as a weapon of war and torturing detainees.
After months of strong support, Biden seemed to draw a red line for Israel in May, warning the country against invading Rafah. He told CNN that the US would not provide bombs and artillery to be used in a major Israeli offensive in the crowded southern Gaza city.
Israel launched its assault on Rafah later in May despite US and international warnings, displacing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians – many of whom had already fled other parts of Gaza.
Israeli forces seized and closed the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, which had served as a major gateway for humanitarian aid.
As Israeli forces continue to press their offensive in Rafah, the Biden administration has argued that the military assault does not amount to a “major” operation.
“We still have not yet seen them launch what looks like a full-scale major military operation – certainly not in the size, scope, or scale of the operations in Khan Younis, in Gaza City, elsewhere in Gaza. It’s been a more limited operation,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said last week.
The USA, much as they did in the group stage, will open the next round against South Africa on Wednesday. The Proteas claimed four wins from their four games in the group but each was a tight scrap rather than the stroll the table may suggest. Their top order has failed to fire and USA will bank on pushing another of the global cricketing giants all the way.
Fellow co-hosts West Indies, also one of our five pre-tournament favourites, face holders England in the second match of the Super Eights stage on Thursday. That is followed by India, the defeated finalist at the 2023 Cricket World Cup, against Afghanistan, now one of the dark horses for the trophy. Both matches are likely to set down the path that the two groups will take.
By the time England play South Africa on Friday, we could be looking at an eliminator for one of the powerhouses.
Australia must wait until Friday to begin their tournament and must beware of Bangladesh’s spinners in Antigua. The same will be true, if not more so, for Mitchell Marsh’s Aussies on Sunday when they face Afghanistan.
The key face-off in Group 1 will be in the final round of Super Eights matches between Australia against India – a repeat of the 2023 Cricket World Cup and Test Championship finals. It is a match that is likely to decide first and second in the group, and therefore, seedings for the semifinals.
Holders England follow up their opener against West Indies by facing South Africa in their second match before finishing against USA. The co-hosts’ match against the Proteas looks to be a clear eliminator by that stage – unless the USA can provide another upset when they face the defending champions.
Who are the favourites for the T20 World Cup 2024 semifinals?
India are the number one ranked T20 team. The tournament has been uncomfortable so far, though, and the matches against USA and Canada were more troublesome than hoped, while their Pakistan match went to the wire. Rohit Sharma’s men will be desperate to make up for the heartbreak of losing the 2023 Cricket World Cup final to Australia on home soil and will hope their players can take their form of the recently finished Indian Premier League into the final stages of this tournament.
Australia can become the undisputed kings of cricket if they can unify the world titles by lifting the T20 World Cup. The Aussies lifted the World Test Championship in 2023, beating India at the Oval, England, before retaining the Ashes on English soil and then completing a whirlwind year by beating India in Ahmedabad to be crowned 50-over champions. A clean sweep of Test, ODI and T20 titles would be the most remarkable turnaround for a team that was humiliated by the sandpaper ball-tampering controversy of 2018.
England’s defence of their T20 trophy looked as though it were heading for a similarly disastrous end as their 50-over title did last year. The washout in their opening game against Scotland was followed by a 36-run defeat by Australia and left them praying the weather was kind for their final two must-win matches against Oman and Namibia. The latter proved a nervy wait and a tight contest in a reduced match but Jos Buttler’s side scraped through. Carlos Brathwaite’s heroics in the last over of the 2016 final will still haunt the English when they come up against West Indies – both sides are targeting a record third T20 title – while the other Group 2 contenders South Africa can never be written off.
The Proteas seam attack is led by fit-again Anriche Nortje, who holds the best economy (5.02) of any bowler at a T20 World Cup, but they will have to shake their hoodoo of never making it past the semifinal stage of a major International Cricket Council (ICC) tournament. West Indies, meantime, cannot be written off but have yet to be truly tested at this edition after coming through a group with Uganda, Papua New Guinea and a desperately below-par New Zealand.
Here’s Al Jazeera’s quick walk through the history of the tournament.
(Al Jazeera)
What are the fixtures in full for the Super Eights?
Group 1: Afghanistan vs India (June 20, Barbados), Australia vs Bangladesh (June 21, Antigua), India vs Bangladesh (June 22, Antigua), Afghanistan vs Australia (June 23, Saint Vincent), Australia vs India (June 24, Saint Lucia), Afghanistan vs Bangladesh (June 25, Saint Vincent)
Group 2: United States vs South Africa (June 19, Antigua), West Indies vs England (June 20, Saint Lucia), England vs South Africa (June 21, Antigua), West Indies vs United States (June 22, Barbados), United States vs England (June 23, Barbados), West Indies vs South Africa (June 24, Antigua)
How much is the prize money for the T20 World Cup?
The ICC has not confirmed the prize money for the 2024 edition of the tournament, but previous winners England walked away with $1.6m in 2022.
Where can I follow the T20 World Cup Super Eights?
The ICC has allotted rights to various broadcasting and online streaming outlets across the world.
Al Jazeera is running extensive coverage of the tournament with news, previews, key information, as well as live updates for all the biggest matches, followed by post-match reaction, analysis and everything else you’d need to know about the T20 World Cup.
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