Author: News Room

With a looming IPO, intense competition from Anthropic, and Chinese and open-weight rivals nipping at its heels, OpenAI has plenty of reasons to move fast. Instead, it hit the brakes.On Tuesday, the company said it had slowed the pace of some AI development while it tightened security and safeguards. That included a two-week pause in reinforcement learning training on its “latest models intended for deployment,” and an ongoing delay to its “largest planned frontier RL run.”The decision is a very public test of an idea AI safety advocates have pushed for for years: that companies should be willing to bow…

Bitcoin could be poised for a run toward $100,000 by year-end as the US Treasury ramps up support for the long end of the government bond market in an effort to rein in surging interest rates, according to Standard Chartered analyst Geoff Kendrick.In a recent client note shared with Cointelegraph, Kendrick said Bitcoin’s (BTC) key technical level is $65,500, with a break above that threshold potentially confirming that the cycle low is already in.“Investors should now be positioning for a move ot USD $100,000 by year-end 2026,” he wrote. Beyond Bitcoin’s four-year cycle dynamics, which Kendrick said point to an imminent…

Chris Evans is in his element as a newly minted girl dad — and he wouldn’t have it any other way. “I guess it sounds a little cheesy, but not to other parents, how much you miss them,” Evans, 45, told The Dodo in an interview published Tuesday, August 18, revealing the most unexpected part of fatherhood to date. “You know, we’ll put her down for a nap and I’m, like, ‘Aw,’ I just want to see what she’s looking like on the baby monitor.” He continued, “You miss her when you’re holding her, you know what I mean? It’s…

The Imo State Government under Governor Hope Uzodimma spent N2.19 billion on security-related services in the first half of 2026, even as the state recorded a 14.4 per cent overall budget performance following a significant revenue shortfall. The expenditure comprised N877.5 million spent under security votes, including operations (57.5 per cent of the N1.53 billion provision), and N1.31 billion spent on security services (37.3 per cent of the N3.51 billion budgeted for the item). The figures are in the Imo State 2026 Second Quarter Budget Performance Report, which PREMIUM TIMES reviewed. The spending comes on the heels of a series…

After about a 15-hour flight from Abuja to Istanbul (6hrs 25 min) and then to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia (8hrs, 20 min), I finally arrived in the “Land of the Eternal Blue Sky”- Mongolia, to cover the 17th session of the UNCCD Land conference as one of the UNCCD media fellows. It’s an opportunity I’m truly excited about, and I look forward to engaging with the process and relevant experts for my reporting. I have covered a couple of the UNFCCC conferences in the past, but this is my first time covering the UNCCD Conference of the Parties. I’m genuinely grateful for…

Music executive and founder of Dapper Group, Damilola “Dapper” Akinwunmi, has denied allegations made against him by his former signees, T.I Blaze, Seyi Vibez and Shallipopi. The three artistes accused the label of financial mismanagement, lack of transparency and exploitative contractual arrangements, among other allegations, in posts on their social media pages. T.I Blaze parted ways with the label in June, while Seyi Vibez, who joined the label in 2021, left in September 2024. Shallipopi exited the label on 11 December 2024. In a statement shared with PREMIUM TIMES on Wednesday, Dapper denied the allegations, saying he had never sold…

The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, has assured all that at least 10 major road and infrastructure projects in Abuja will be completed and ready for inauguration before the 2027 general elections. Wike gave the assurance on Wednesday while inspecting the ongoing Tungan Madaki-Zuba Road and Nile University-RR3 Road projects in the Federal Capital Territory. According to a statement issued by the minister’s Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication and Social Media, Lere Olayinka, the minister said the inspection was aimed at assessing the progress of projects inaugurated during the FCT Administration’s third anniversary and determining whether…

The embargo has lifted on Google’s Pixel 11 series, as well as for its Pixel Watch 5. Now we get to talk smack — just kidding, the new hardware is good. We have four reviews live on the site that you can peruse at your leisure. We’re giving subscribers a chance to engage with us directly in an AMA later today. I’ll be there (I reviewed the standard Pixel 11) to answer your questions, and so will David “11 Pro” Imel, Dominic “11 Pro Fold” Preston and Victoria “Pixel Watch 5” Song.Subscribers, drop in your questions and we’ll begin answering…

Standard Chartered and HSBC have completed the first live cross-border transaction on Swift’s blockchain-based ledger, demonstrating interoperability between the banks’ tokenized deposit systems a month after the ledger’s launch.The transaction involved payment messages exchanged between the two through Swift’s ledger, with the resulting obligations recorded on HSBC’s Tokenised Deposit Service and StanChart’s tokenized deposit infrastructure.Swift’s ledger acted as an orchestration layer, matching and netting the obligations between the banks before final settlement through existing payment systems.The transaction follows a July announcement from Swift, the world’s largest financial messaging network, that its blockchain-based ledger was ready for initial use, with 17…

Us Weekly has affiliate partnerships. We receive compensation when you click on a link and make a purchase. Learn more! If you’ve been living in roomy tops because they’re comfortable, forgiving and infinitely easier to style than anything clingy, Anne Hathaway is here to convince you to keep them in rotation. The actress has been making flowy, oversized and asymmetrical tops look surprisingly polished during her pregnancy, proving that comfort and fashion can coexist. Hathaway recently stepped out in several eye-catching maternity looks, including a dramatic high-low ruffled top at The End Of Oak Street premiere and a breezy black…