Category: Business Wires

WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats are pressing for answers from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over what they describe as a previously undisclosed change to the ethics agreement he made before being confirmed, which they say calls into question his credibility and the integrity of his decisions.

Ahead of his confirmation vote last year, Kennedy told lawmakers that he would not collect fees related to litigation he pursued before becoming a government official against the drugmakers of a cervical cancer vaccine, saying he would transfer his financial interests to his adult son.

The lawmakers say they recently learned, however, that shortly after his confirmation hearings, Kennedy quietly changed his ethics disclosures and transferred his stake to his former employer, the personal injury law firm Wisner Baum, apparently contradicting his sworn commitments to members of Congress.

In a letter sent to Kennedy on Thursday, Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Ron Wyden of Oregon, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland said the health secretary has provided no explanation for the change.

“Your decision to withhold this information from Congress and apparent failure to report this change to agency ethics officials is deeply alarming,” the senators wrote. “These troubling findings call into question the veracity of your public ethics commitments, your transparency with Congress and the public, and potentially, your compliance with federal ethics disclosure laws and regulations.”

Emily G. Hilliard, an HHS spokesperson, told the Associated Press that HHS had confirmed Kennedy’s compliance with his ethics agreement in May 2025. “Any claim that Secretary Kennedy maintained a financial interest in this litigation after taking office is false,” she said.

Kennedy’s testimony to lawmakers during his confirmation hearing has come under scrutiny before.

During the arduous confirmation process in which he needed the support of some skeptical Republican lawmakers to advance, Kennedy pledged to maintain vaccine policies that, once in office, he moved to change. He also said a 2019 trip to Samoa had “nothing to do with vaccines,” an account refuted by documents recently obtained by the AP. The Department of Health and Human Services has denied Kennedy lied over the Samoa trip.

Kennedy’s initial ethics disclosure, filed in January 2025, allowed him to retain a 10% contingency fee in cases that he had referred to Wisner Baum. After warnings from lawmakers about the conflict of interest, Kennedy agreed to amend his ethics agreement to divest his interest to his son.

But in an Aug. 25 letter to Warren, HHS revealed Kennedy transferred those fees to Wisner Baum. Kennedy’s son Conor Kennedy is employed at the firm.

“At the time, Secretary Kennedy intended to assign those interests to a non-dependent adult family member,” said the letter. “After further consideration, Secretary Kennedy irrevocably assigned his outstanding contingency-fee interests in the Gardasil cases directly to Wisner Baum.”

The senators are now pushing Kennedy for answers on what his agreement with Wisner Baum entails, noting that if it involves any agreement about future payments, it could amount to a conflict of interest.

“If you made any kind of implicit or explicit agreement for future payment or other future rewards with Wisner Baum in exchange for assigning them this stake, it would mean that you have an ongoing conflict of interest that calls into question your integrity and the motivations for your decisions as HHS Secretary,” the lawmakers’ letter to Kennedy said.

NEW YORK — More than 83 tons of meat are being recalled across the U.S. because the products were not properly inspected by federal authorities and were shipped out with falsified inspection stickers, the Department of Agriculture said.

Star Meat Delivery Inc., based in Lucama, N.C., is recalling more than 167,000 pounds of raw pork, beef, and goat nationwide. The USDA said that number could grow as it continues its investigation.

Food produced without inspection may contain undeclared allergens, harmful bacteria, or other contaminants, the agency said Tuesday in announcing the recall. So far, there have been no confirmed reports of illnesses or injuries from the meats, according to the USDA.

The meat in question was produced “on various dates” before Sept. 22 and has USDA inspection stickers falsely bearing an establishment number — EST. 1363 — that the agency said “does not have a federal grant of inspection.” However, some packages people purchased may not bear that labeling because retail stores may have applied their own stickers with pricing and safe handling instructions, the agency warned.

The products were shipped to Georgia distributor A&D Foods to send to retail and restaurant locations nationwide.

The USDA said the products should be considered misbranded and unsafe to eat and be discarded or returned to the place of purchase.

The agency said the problem was discovered during the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service’s routine checks. It’s not clear whether anyone has been arrested or criminally charged.

Star Meat Delivery, in a statement posted on its Facebook page Thursday, pushed back at the notion that the inspection stamps on its products were somehow falsified. It said the establishment number in question was “legitimately reserved” as part of the USDA application process while it seeks approval to process and package meat for the Georgia distributor.

That approval process is still underway, Star Meat said, although the meat involved was sourced from a USDA-inspected supplier.

“No other products sold by Star Meat Delivery were mislabeled, and no other products sold by Star Meat Delivery are part of the recall that has been issued,” the company said. “We are cooperating fully with the appropriate authorities to finalize the application and are following the recall procedures that have been put into place.”

The USDA didn’t immediately respond to Star Meat’s statement.

Recalls triggered by forged inspection stamps are relatively rare, according to Keith Schneider, a food safety professor at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

“This is someone taking a shortcut,” he said. “Systems are in place to catch these sorts of things and it appears the system worked as intended. You can’t skip inspections.”

Last year, some 32,000 pounds of meat, including chorizo, pork chops and ribs, produced by Sabrositos Hondurenos, of New Jersey, were recalled after the USDA determined they had fake inspection stickers.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Thursday hailed the “truly great friendship” he has forged with Xi Jinping as the Chinese leader began his highly anticipated state visit by pressing for the world’s two biggest economies to work more closely together to avoid friction as they compete.

While Trump has many thorny issues to discuss with the president of America’s biggest economic rival, he focused on his long relationship with Xi as the two gathered with aides for opening remarks before formal talks.

“From the time of my first election in 2016, President Xi and I have forged a friendship, a truly great friendship, actually, built on mutual respect and the vital interests of our people,” Trump said.

China has resisted the Trump administration’s urgings — and economic threats — to use its considerable leverage to prod Iran to agree to U.S. terms to end the nearly seven-month war. Xi wants to see Trump permanently halt arms sales to Taiwan and loosen export restrictions on cutting-edge advanced chips. The two sides on Wednesday agreed to extend by two months a one-year trade truce that was set to expire Nov. 10 as they work to find a more durable agreement.

Xi presses Trump on Taiwan

In their private conversation, Xi also urged Trump to “prudently handle the Taiwan issue,” according to the Chinese state media outlet Xinhua.

China has made clear it views Taiwan as the most sensitive issue in the U.S.-China relationship. Beijing considers Taiwan to be Chinese territory and vows to annex the island by force if necessary. The United States is obligated by law to provide Taiwan with sufficient hardware to deter any armed attack from the mainland. The U.S. has said it opposes any unilateral changes to the status quo by either side.

China has repeatedly pressed Washington to permanently halt the arms sales, including when Trump and Xi met in Beijing in May.

After that meeting, Trump said he was holding off on final approval for a record $14 billion arms package that was in the pipeline. He also described arms sales to Taiwan as a “very good negotiating chip” with China.

Chinese president once more invokes the ‘Thucydides trap”

Xi was also more pointed than Trump in his public remarks, saying Chinese and American interests are “deeply intertwined” and that the “competition should be a healthy one and should be kept within bounds.”

He also reiterated his warning that the U.S. and China must avoid the ” Thucydides trap,” referring to the idea that when a rising power threatens to displace an established one, the result is often war. Xi offered a similar warning when Trump visited Beijing in May.

“It should be a race of catching up with one another, not a wrestle in which one either wins or loses,” Xi added.

Xi also announced that China will invite 100,000 American youth to come to his country for studies and exchanges in the next five years and that China will send two pandas to the zoo in Atlanta. He called the beloved animals an “envoy of friendship” and that they will meet the American people in a “few days.”

Xi says China and U.S. should make sure AI is ‘always under human control’

Trump said in a social media post earlier Thursday that artificial intelligence — “superintelligence” as he is trying to rebrand it — will be high on the agenda amid growing global anxiety that the technology will kill jobs or potentially even wipe out humanity.

“I want to leave it exactly where it is,” Trump wrote. “That is China’s position also.”

Xi also touched on AI in his opening comments, saying that the two countries had a responsibility to ensure that humans always operate AI.

“We have both the capability and responsibility to develop and manage AI for good and ensure that a development of AI is always under human control and serves the well being of the people,” the Chinese leader said.

The two countries’ finance ministers met earlier this week, with the U.S. proposing a new “notification mechanism” for AI incidents between the two nations.

Trump rolls out the red carpet for Xi and faces criticism from some White House allies

Trump has made clear he wants to impress Xi with the visit. The Republican president made sure construction of a new helicopter landing pad on the White House’s South Lawn was completed before the visit and he met Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, on Wednesday evening when they flew into Joint Base Andrews outside Washington.

The White House also arranged for an elaborate military review that the leaders and their spouses observed before the Oval Office talks. Following the military review, first lady Melania Trump accompanied Peng for a visit to the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art.

After about 90 minutes of talks, the leaders stepped out to the South Lawn so Trump could show off the new White House helipad and give Xi a tour of Marine One, the presidential helicopter. Trump and Xi also appeared to peer at the ballroom construction site from afar. Xi left the White House shortly after the quick tour and is to return in the evening for the state dinner.

“We had a great meeting,” Trump said in a brief exchange with reporters after the tour.

Later, the leaders will dine on sea bass at a black-tie dinner in the White House East Room, featuring red décor and a toast honoring the late President Richard Nixon, whose 1972 trip to China led to the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1979 and the parallel severing of formal ties with Taiwan.

Trump’s decision to roll out the red carpet for Xi has spurred criticism from lawmakers in both parties and some White House allies.

“Quite frankly, had the White House asked me for advice, I would have suggested the president not invite Xi Jinping to Washington for such a lavish welcome here in the United States of America based on all of the troubling issues we have with President Xi and the Chinese Communist Party,” said Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss.

Xi urges U.S. and Iran to return to interim agreement

The two sides also discussed the ongoing conflict in Iran, according to Chinese state broadcaster China Central Television.

Trump has argued to little effect that China, which is far more dependent on Gulf oil than the U.S., has plenty of incentive to use its sway with Tehran to help force an end to the conflict.

But Trump’s war of choice has unnerved Beijing, with the government condemning the U.S. and Israeli military action and Xi previously expressing concerns the conflict signaled a return to what he called the “law of the jungle.” The U.S. administration has warned China, Tehran’s biggest trading partner, not to aid Iran’s military effort.

Xi, during Thursday’s talks, said China supports the U.S. and Iran returning to a short-lived interim deal from the summer in an effort to wind down the war, according to CCTV. That agreement broke down soon after it was signed in June as the countries traded renewed fire over control of the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for energy shipments.

UNITED NATIONS — The heads of major artificial intelligence firms pleaded with the United Nations on Wednesday to save the world or at least its people — in the form of somehow regulating the burgeoning technology that they have been designing.

“If managed poorly, I even believe AI could be a risk to humanity as a whole,” said Dario Amodei, chief executive officer of Anthropic. And from his competitor Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, came this assessment: “We could lose control of the future to AI.”

Both said the countries of the world, through the U.N. Security Council, where they testified Wednesday, have to set safeguards of some kind, which would be actual controls to prevent the technology from getting too powerful to rein in.

They also called for the world to make sure that the power of AI isn’t concentrated in one company or country. They said that as they also touted the benefits of the technology for bettering humanity and what Altman called “giving people more power over their own lives.”

Those tech leaders “are telling us in stark terms that it cannot be left to them to prevent disaster from befalling the world,” said United Kingdom Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said at the Security Council. “We cannot ignore them because they are right.’’

AI will be at the heart of G20 discussions

Miliband said when the U.K. takes control of the G20 next year it will put controlling AI at the heart of discussions, looking for a single set of global standards “to insure that AI development is safe.”

But the United States said don’t do it.

Worries about control of AI are “not a reason to pause its further development or to constrain it with new global governance structure,” said White House Science Adviser Michael Kratsios. “We want you, our allies and partners, to share in the benefits of this technology.”

For most of the world leaders, along with California Governor Gavin Newsom in New York for climate discussions, one of the key questions about AI is this: Who should control life-and-death decisions — human or machine?

Amodei, Altman and Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue, who spoke via a glitchy remote connection, spoke with the U.N.’s most powerful council because they and world leaders are trying to figure out not just whether to control AI, but by who, how it could possibly be done and when it might be just too late.

The day before, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned of “killer robots.” Experts and European leaders said that’s not hyperbole but something that’s either already a grim reality or perilously close.

Amodei called on the nations of the world to agree on not letting AI build biological weapons, figure out how to verify what models have the capability to do and “establish common standards” for testing and for loss of control and misuse.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot, whose country convened Wednesday’s meeting and has fostered various other coalitions and discussions about AI, compared the current state of it to both the runaway computer HAL9000 in the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey” and the dawn of the atomic age.

“Just as with the atom back then, the international community must now regulate AI in order to make the most of its potential and avoid the worst,” Barrot said.

Other leaders and nations are paying close attention to AI

His wasn’t the only concern expressed during this high-profile U.N. meeting week.

Ukrainian President President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, speaking at the General Assembly, said some kind of human control over machines must achieved soon. Otherwise, he said, for his country it may be just too late.

“There is already a real possibility that AI, not only people, will begin to decide what happens on the battlefield. And we need peace before we reach that point,” Zelenskyy said.

Last month, a Russian drone seemingly using AI “autonomously made a targeting decision that killed three Ukrainians. Killer robots are technically easy to build, and they are real. We should not be under any illusions otherwise,” said Kentaro Toyama, an information technology professor at the University of Michigan.

The U.N. meeting unfolded as Chinese President Xi Jinping headed to Washington for a much-anticipated state visit. The U.S. and China are jostling for AI dominance, and AI interests are looking to what comes out of Xi’s discussions with U.S. President Donald Trump. Ahead of the meeting, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the two countries had discussed a potential new “notification mechanism” for AI incidents that could impact national security.

But on Tuesday, Trump, lauding AI as “superintelligence,” said the United States would reject efforts to control the technology as it tries to win the development race with China. Kratsios was the one of the few who used that term in the Security Council.

Meanwhile, regional groups in Europe, Asia and elsewhere also are trying to coordinate AI policies, and various nations — and even subcomponents, such as U.S. states — are crafting their own.

Still, U.N. watchers and risk experts say the world body hasn’t been relegated to the sidelines on AI regulation.

“The U.N. is not in the driver’s seat of global discussions on AI, but it hasn’t been kicked out of the car yet,” said Daniel Forti, who oversees U.N. affairs at the International Crisis Group, a think tank.

WASHINGTON — The FBI said Wednesday it was investigating a criminal hacking group’s claims that it had stolen “very sensitive data” belonging to thousands of agents and applicants and that it had compromised the bureau’s jobs website.

“The FBI is aware of a cyber-criminal enterprise group claiming a compromise of the FBIJobs.gov portal and alleged impact to FBI employee personally identifiable information,” the FBI said in a statement. It said that while the “point of breach” was undetermined, “we are actively and aggressively investigating this matter and working closely with those third-party providers that support FBIJobs.gov to mitigate any and all risk.”

A message that circulated online from a hacking group known as ShinyHunters claimed responsibility for the hack. The jobs website, the main portal for prospective employees to learn about the FBI and initiate the application process, remained offline as of Wednesday afternoon.

“We have compromised the FBI. We hold very sensitive data on almost ALL FBI Agents and individuals who filed an application with the FBI for a job,” said the ShinyHunters message, which was directed to FBI Director Kash Patel and Brett Leatherman, the assistant director in charge of the bureau’s cyber division.

The claims could not immediately be verified. An email to an address associated with ShinyHunters was not immediately returned.

In its message, ShinyHunters said it would give the bureau one week to correct or remove what it says are false allegations contained in an FBI public advisory from May that described the organization as a “cyber criminal group specializing in large-scale data breaches and extortion.”

That public service announcement characterized ShinyHunters as “threat actors” who often “use their real or exaggerated claims of access to sensitive or personal information to prompt payment from victims,” commonly harass or threaten victims and “may falsely claim to have sensitive or compromising information, including embarrassing photographs or videos of victims, which frequently do not exist.”

ShinyHunters said in its message to the FBI that it was “offended” by those characterizations and demanded that the FBI remove those claims. It did not say what would happen if the FBI did not do so within a week.

“This is not a ransom, coercion, or extortion. Your federal policies do not apply here. This PSA is NOT financially motivated,” the hacking group’s message said.

The FBI, the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency, has been a common hacking target.

In March, the FBI disclosed that it was investigating “suspicious activities” on an internal system that contains sensitive information related to surveillance operations and investigations. Also that month, a pro-Iranian hacking group claimed to have hacked an account of Patel’s and posted online what appear to be years-old photographs of him, along with a work resume and other personal documents dating back more than a decade.

The FBI described the compromised information as “historical in nature” and said it involved “no government information.”

WASHINGTON — State visits usually occur when two countries are on warm terms, but U.S. President Donald Trump is hosting Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Washington this week as their economic and tech competition is only escalating, especially through an artificial intelligence race.

Neither expects any grand bargain, but the leaders are expected to play nice in their third meeting since Trump returned to the White House to try to steady fragile ties. That is despite the world’s two largest economies seeking the upper hand on AI developments and trade, while pushing for leverage in persistent hot spots like Iran and Taiwan.

“The fact that they are meeting, and there’s dialogue occurring and building that relationship, is probably as important as outcomes from the meeting,” said Sen. Steve Daines, a Montana Republican who advises Trump on China and recently traveled there to lay groundwork for the summit.

Cui Tiankai, a former Chinese ambassador to the U.S., said at a recent forum in Beijing that there are “always problems, sometimes very big problems” between the two countries, but ”we’ll make our best efforts to maintain overall stability.”

Trump and Xi shifted away from sky-high tariffs, but competition is still intense

Xi’s visit to Washington, which begins Wednesday, is his first in 10 years. He and Trump are meeting after their countries climbed down from last year’s intense trade war, where they traded tit-for-tat sky-high tariffs that threatened the global economy. China also choked off its world-leading supplies of critical minerals needed in products from electric cars to fighter jets.

The U.S. is not only trying to balance trade but also maintain its tech dominance to protect national security and global leadership. China, which has amassed tremendous economic, technological, and military power over the past several years to close gaps with the U.S., is seeking to solidify its place in the global order.

The stability both sides are seeking is “for deeply competitive reasons,” said Evan Medeiros, a senior adviser at the Asia Group consultancy. “This is basically two geopolitical strongmen circling each other on the playground, trying to determine what their next move may be.”

The countries appeared to be entering a “new normal” of “overall stability” despite blacklisting each other’s companies and restricting the flow of high-tech products, said Da Wei, director of the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

The leaders now should produce deals that their governments can carry out, he said, noting that “we need to move fast.”

The AI race could strain any cooperation on technology’s advance

Developing AI technology has emerged as a key battleground, with both sides showing little interest in slowing down despite warnings from tech CEOs about threats that rogue AI could pose to humanity. “Whoever wins AI wins,” Trump has repeatedly said.

He claimed on social media Monday that the U.S. is leading over China and that he was “not going to stifle Growth, of something that will be bigger than the Industrial Revolution, or the Internet, itself.”

China cannot afford to lose either. In a rare, blunt essay, Chen Yixin, head of China’s Ministry of State Security, warned that AI poses a direct threat to Communist Party rule if foreign and hostile forces achieve superior capabilities.

The U.S. is already restricting exports of the most powerful AI chips to China and has accused Chinese developers of tapping into American AI models at an industrial scale to extract their capabilities.

Beijing says the practice, known as distillation, is widely used, including by American companies, and has criticized the U.S. for trying to monopolize the industry.

Beijing also is upset about U.S. efforts to build an alliance that excludes China, so it is seeking to craft new global AI guardrails by appealing to developing nations.

However, the U.S. and China are taking a small step to cooperate on AI.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday after meeting with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in New York that the U.S. has proposed a new “notification mechanism” for AI incidents that could affect national security.

“We think that just like any cross-border activity, that moving from opaque to more transparency between the No. 1 and the No. 2 AI powers in the world is very important,” Bessent said.

U.S. and China turn to targeted ways to compete instead of tariffs

While the U.S. and China have refrained from taking broad, punitive actions that would break their trade truce, they still are blacklisting individual companies and banning specific products.

“What we’ve seen is kind of testing and probing by both sides to understand what can be done competitively, while still keeping that leader-level rapprochement on track,” said Mira Rapp-Hooper, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Asia Policy Studies.

The U.S. has recently targeted Chinese telecommunications and surveillance equipment, companies accused of using forced labor in the ethnic region of Xinjiang, as well as China’s advanced robots and drones. The Pentagon also has barred Alibaba, BYD, Baidu, and other major Chinese businesses from receiving U.S. defense contracts.

Beijing responded with export controls on drones and related technologies as well as blacklisting six U.S. companies over their support for the punitive measures tied to Xinjiang.

Iran, Taiwan and tariffs are persistent issues

After the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s tariffs on trade partners this year, the administration has been trying to impose them in other ways.

The White House in July rolled out a 12.5% tariff on imports from 60 trading partners, including China, ostensibly for failing to do enough to prevent the import of goods produced by forced labor. The U.S. is planning an additional 7.5% tariff on China, accusing it of producing far more goods than it can reasonably consume.

Analysts say the tariff levels are now acceptable to both sides, but any significant uptick could rekindle tensions.

The Trump administration, however, has launched a campaign to isolate Iran from its remaining economic partners, but Beijing has insisted on its right to trade with Tehran.

So far, the Trump administration has done little to punish China, partly to avoid jeopardizing the leaders’ summit. But Washington also is losing leverage because China — Iran’s biggest oil buyer and its largest trading partner — has been building up a way to make payments outside the U.S.-led financial system, said Alicia Garcia Herrero, an Asia-Pacific economist at the French investment bank Natixis.

Taiwan, a self-governing island that Beijing claims as its own territory, also remains one of the thorniest issues in U.S.-China relations. Trump paused a large weapons package to Taiwan following his May trip to Beijing, but the U.S. is obligated by a domestic law to provide it with sufficient hardware and technology for self-defense.

Analysts say Xi will most likely press Trump to further delay arms sales to sow doubts in Taiwan about Washington’s commitment.