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MOSCOW, May 20 (Reuters) – Russia hopes to power its flagship GigaChat AI model with Chinese-made chips, Sberbank’s CEO said during President Vladimir Putin’s visit to China, as Western sanctions continue to block the country’s access to advanced hardware abroad.

“We are hoping that we will be able to use Chinese microchips for GigaChat,” Chief Executive German Gref told state broadcaster Channel One.

GigaChat was developed by Sberbank, the country’s largest lender, which has been driving Russia’s push into AI.

The bank’s efforts to buy advanced chips from China face stiff competition as China’s biggest internet firms, including ByteDance, Tencent, and Alibaba, are also rushing to order Huawei’s Ascend 950 AI chips.

Ascend 950, the most advanced Chinese chip, still trails U.S.-based Nvidia’s H200 model. Gref did not say which chips Sberbank was trying to buy.

Russia trails AI leaders, the United States and China, in development of the technology and depends heavily on imported electronics in sensitive sectors, including defence. China is its main supplier of such hardware.

(Writing by Gleb BryanskiEditing by Bernadette Baum)

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BEIJING (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin praised his close ties with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and said their countries are partners in trade and international affairs as they opened bilateral talks Wednesday on his trip to Beijing.

Xi welcomed Putin with a ceremony at the Great Hall of the People only days after meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump. The quick succession of Trump’s and Putin’s visits highlighted Beijing’s growing role as an international superpower, experts say.

Putin greeted Xi warmly as they met for bilateral talks at the Great Hall of the People.

“My dear friend,” Putin said. “We are truly delighted to see you. We keep in constant touch, both personally and through our aides in the government.”

Xi also stressed the “political mutual trust and strategic cooperation” between the countries, according to Chinese state media. The two leaders have praised each other profusely in the past, with Xi at one point describing Putin as his “best and most intimate friend.”

Xi and Putin were set to focus on energy and security as well as their overall ties. The two sides agreed to extend a friendship treaty first signed in 2001, Chinese state media reported.

China became Russia’s top trading partner after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Beijing has said it is neutral in the conflict while maintaining trade ties with the Kremlin despite economic and financial sanctions by the U.S. and Europe.

China is the top customer for Russian oil and gas supplies, and Moscow expects the war in Iran to increase the demand.

In his meeting with Xi, Putin stressed their countries’ economic ties.

“The driving force behind economic cooperation is Russian-Chinese collaboration in the energy sector,” Putin said. “Amid the crisis in the Middle East, Russia continues to maintain its role as a reliable supplier of resources, while China remains a responsible consumer of these resources.”

Xi stressed the need of “complete cessation of hostilities” in the Middle East, according to Chinese state media.

“An early end to the conflict will help reduce disruptions to energy supply stability, the smooth flow of industrial and supply chains, and international trade order,” Xi said.

A Russian presidential aide said earlier Russia’s oil exports to China grew by 35% in the first quarter of 2026 and that Russia is one of the biggest exporters of natural gas to China.

Putin also stressed China and Russia’s cooperation in foreign policy as “one of the key stabilizing factors on the international stage.”

“In the current tense situation on the international stage, our close cooperation is particularly in demand,” he said.

In February 2022, just weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China and Russia announced a “no limits” partnership during a trip by Putin to Beijing.

Beijing says it is neutral in the conflict, though in practice it supports Moscow through frequent state visits, growing trade and joint military drills. China has also ignored demands from the West to stop providing high-tech components for Russia’s weapons industries.

The two leaders are scheduled to sign cooperation agreements during Putin’s two-day visit.

But regardless of specific deals, the primary purpose of the visit is to reaffirm the countries’ ties as well as project Beijing’s image as an influential superpower, experts say.

“The optics matter,” said Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute at the University of London.

“The message is clearly one that China maintains friendship and strategic partnership with whichever power it likes, and the USA is just one of them.”

Putin and Xi both need to use their close ties in order to prop up their images at home, said Willy Lam, a senior China fellow at the Jamestown Foundation.

Putin “needs to tell his countrymen and the world that Russia has China’s support in terms of buying its oil and gas and other tangible and intangible financial support,” Lam said.

Meanwhile, for Xi, having both Trump and Putin visit in such close succession is a major source of credit with the country’s top Communist leadership.

Putin noted earlier this month that Moscow and Beijing have reached “a very substantial step forward in our cooperation in the oil and gas sector.”

“Practically all the key issues have been agreed upon,” he said. “If we succeed in finalizing these details and bringing them to a conclusion during this visit, I will be extremely pleased.”

Putin also praised their bilateral relationship as a crucial, balancing force in international relations.

“Interaction between such nations as China and Russia undoubtedly serves as a factor of deterrence and stability,” he said.

Moscow welcomes China’s dialogue with the U.S. as another stabilizing element for the global economy, Putin added.

“We stand only to benefit from this, from the stability and constructive engagement between the U.S. and China,” he said.

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Mistreanu reported from Bangkok.

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Cryptocurrency Remains a Key Tool for Terror Financing, Experts Say 

Snir Levy, CEO of Nominis: “We have uncovered a lot of wallets that are linked to illicit activities and other terror financing entities in Gaza, but also in other places in the world” 

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) recently revealed that they had uncovered details of an Iranian-directed Hamas funding network that, through Turkey, was able to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars to the terror group. 

Iran allegedly provided the funds and directed the network through operatives and intermediaries connected to Hamas-linked financiers in Turkey, who would then coordinate and manage the money. The funds were allegedly laundered through a number of channels, including money exchanges, front companies, charities, commercial businesses, and cryptocurrency networks. 

These kinds of illegal money transfer chains help terrorist organizations survive and operate. According to Israeli authorities, they were among the mechanisms that enabled Hamas to carry out the deadly October 7, 2023, attack. 

Israeli lawyer Dr. Gideon Fisher, of the Law Office of Dr. Gideon Fisher & Co., told The Media Line that his firm has been targeting the financial infrastructure that allows terrorism to function, especially networks using cryptocurrency. Since the massacre, his firm has represented a number of victims of the attack. He is currently working with thousands, all of whom are recognized as victims of terror by Israel’s National Insurance Institute.  

He explained that litigation can be pursued not only against the terrorist group that carried out an attack, but also against parties that allegedly financed those activities or enabled them. The goal, he said, is not only to support victims, although that remains the primary focus, but also to make it harder to finance terrorism in the future. 

“On top of the moral obligations, it is a strategic move to cut off terrorism at its financial groups,” Fisher told The Media Line. 

Cryptocurrency is widely viewed as one of the primary financial channels used by terrorist organizations. 

Originally, cryptocurrency gained notoriety through platforms like Silk Road, where it was used for illegal activities, including terrorism and other criminal operations. Although the industry has become far more regulated in recent years, cryptocurrency’s anonymous nature has made it easier for terrorist entities to obscure the flow of funds and mask complex transaction networks. Experts say these systems have also been exploited by state-linked actors seeking to bypass international sanctions, similar to the network recently exposed by the IDF. 

Fisher’s team has filed a lawsuit against the Palestine Liberation Organization, alleging that it illegally transferred money to terrorists, including payments to the families of Palestinians imprisoned in Israel for attacks that injured or killed Israelis. He argued that the money encouraged and enabled terrorist organizations to strengthen their operations ahead of October 7. 

“In our lawsuit against Binance, we describe that they intentionally and/or negligently provided extensive cryptocurrency services to Hamas, and they were asked to do so because Hamas realized that they cannot use the banking system,” Fisher said. “No banks would provide Hamas with any services, so Hamas was forced to use an alternative method, and they chose crypto. They had thousands of transactions that helped facilitate the October 7 attack.” 

Binance is one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges. The lawsuit alleges that the company violated international sanctions and US laws prohibiting financial support for terrorism. 

Dr. Amir Bushansky, blockchain and crypto advisor to the law office of Dr. Gideon Fisher, echoed Fisher’s concerns, but said the cryptocurrency industry has changed significantly in recent years, partly because of legal cases and growing regulation. He said that, unlike in the past, it is now much harder to conceal one’s identity on crypto networks, especially in the United States. 

“More and more misuse in criminal activities is being traced down in the crypto market,” Bushansky explained. “Naturally, there were rumors, even lately, that part of the reduction in the Bitcoin value was due to some Iranian leaders pulling their funds.” 

While allegations regarding past activity remain at the center of lawsuits like Fisher’s, Bushansky said the regulatory environment surrounding cryptocurrency has become far stricter in recent years. He noted that anti-money laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements now make it much more difficult to engage in criminal activity or finance terrorism on major crypto platforms. 

Cryptocurrency users operate through wallet numbers and public addresses rather than verified names and identities. As such, any individual can open a digital account and transfer funds without being identified or traced. 

“You were not exposed by your name and address identity, and therefore you could pass on funds around the world,” Bushansky explained. He contrasted that system with traditional banking, where AML and KYC regulations already required institutions to track funds, verify their source, and understand the purpose of transactions, making transfers far more traceable for both senders and receivers. 

But Bushansky said new international regulations are increasingly binding cryptocurrency platforms to the same standards as banks, and that by 2027, AML and KYC requirements are expected to apply broadly across the crypto industry. 

“From 2027, the crypto stock exchange will be bound to supply details about the users to tax authorities around the world,” Bushansky said. “Many countries have already signed on to the plan.” 

Snir Levi is the founder and CEO of Nominis, an Israeli blockchain intelligence company that traces and maps illegal cryptocurrency wallets. The company works with regulators and organizations seeking to combat crypto-enabled illicit activities and terror financing. 

“We provide services today for clients all over the world, including law enforcement agencies, payment providers dealing with cryptocurrencies.  With our platform, they’re able to conduct risk screening for wallets and understand where funds came from – the ‘source of funds’ and the destination of funds, to confirm that the wallet they are about to interact with has not been linked or involved in money laundering or terror financing,” Levi told The Media Line. 

Nominis, for example, develops forensic tools that help investigators identify connections between digital wallets. The company also has a designated team focused on monitoring high-risk jurisdictions and tracking activity related to terror financing, illegal weapons, drug trafficking, human trafficking, and other criminal operations. 

Currently, the company is particularly focused on detecting wallets connected to terror financing, including networks similar to the one recently identified by the IDF. 

“We have uncovered a lot of wallets that are linked to illicit activities and other terror financing entities in Gaza, but also in other places in the world. And based on these, we’re able to detect other illicit entities and networks, such as shell companies,” he said. Shell companies are businesses used to conceal the true source or destination of funds. 

Nominis also played a role in uncovering a scheme reported earlier this year by The Washington Post, in which Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) allegedly exploited the global cryptocurrency ecosystem to move nearly $150 million through two London-registered exchanges, ZedCex and ZedXion, between 2023 and 2025. 

According to Levi, Nominis helped corroborate and verify that wallets linked to the IRGC routed massive volumes of the USDT stablecoin through the TRON blockchain into accounts on exchanges acting as crypto hubs. The funds were allegedly funneled through platforms that obscured the origin and destination of transactions, making it harder for authorities to trace potential terror financing activity. 

Levi also shared links to crypto brokers operating in Gaza, including Quick4Pay, which on its website advertises a large client base in “occupied Palestine” and other Arab states. 

“Readers need to understand how deep this problem is,” Levi said. He warned that, despite expected regulatory changes, enforcement may remain limited largely to the United States and certain Western countries. He argued that if other jurisdictions continue allowing limited transparency and oversight, cryptocurrency could remain a significant channel for terror financing and potentially facilitate future attacks. 

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By David Lawder

PARIS, May 19 (Reuters) – The Trump administration is “not in a rush” to extend a tariff and critical minerals trade truce with China that ends in November, as there is time to renew it in meetings later this year, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Tuesday.

In his first interview since attending last week’s high-stakes summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, Bessent said that he believes China will accept the restoration of prior U.S. tariff rates through new Section 301 duties, as long as they don’t go higher.

China in recent months had “gotten a deal” on lower tariffs as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision striking down President Donald Trump’s global emergency duties, he said on the sidelines of a G7 finance leaders meeting in Paris.

“I think we’re not in a rush to extend it,” Bessent said of the November 2025 tariff truce. “Things are stable.”

He added that China has “been satisfactory, but not excellent in terms of their fulfillment on their side on critical minerals. So we’re seeing them again.”

Xi is expected to travel to Washington to meet with Trump at the White House in September. Prior to that summit, Bessent said that he will meet with his counterpart, Vice Premier He Lifeng, to work out more details on trade matters.

Trump and Xi also may meet at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in November in China and a Group of 20 leaders summit in December in Florida.

The U.S.-China truce negotiated over several months last year averted a total collapse of trade between the world’s two largest economies after Trump’s new tariffs on Chinese goods prompted retaliation and escalation that took tariffs to triple digits.

The deal brought down extra tariffs on Chinese goods to about 20%, in addition to about 25% on many Chinese industrial products imposed during Trump’s first term. The extra tariffs are currently at 10% as a result of a temporary tariff that expires in July.

Bessent said that deals for China to order 200 Boeing jetliners and make annual purchases of $17 billion in American farm goods resulting from the Trump-Xi summit are considered separate from the November trade truce.

TARIFF CUTS ON CONSUMER GOODS

He said that he views the most important achievements as the establishment of bilateral managed trade, investment and artificial intelligence protocols with Beijing, which will be discussed in subsequent negotiations.

In the “Board of Trade,” the two sides will initially determine about $30 billion of non-strategic goods on which they can lower or eliminate tariffs.

“We’ll pick a number. My sense is the first number is there’s going to be 30 by 30 (billion dollars), and then both sides will try to fill up the capacity there,” he said, adding that the U.S. agricultural sales will not be included in these totals.

He said that China could reduce tariffs on U.S. energy products, while the U.S. would likely cut tariffs on Chinese consumer goods that will not be produced in the U.S. again, such as fireworks or Halloween costumes.

The U.S. maintains tariffs of 7.5% on a raft of Chinese consumer products imposed in 2019 at the height of Trump’s first-term trade war with China, including flat-panel television sets, flash memory devices, smart speakers and bed linens.

The Board of Investment will deal with two-way investment issues, and for inward investment from China, it will focus on identifying deals that would not run afoul of national security and head off investments that the U.S. is not ready to consider.

“I would think this board of investment would either A, keep things from getting to CFIUS, or B, just be like, ‘We’re not really up for that,’” Bessent said.

In the run-up to the Beijing summit, lawmakers, auto and steel groups had urged Trump against opening the door to Chinese investments in U.S. auto plants, for fear that China’s state-supported firms would hollow out a core domestic industry.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., a powerful and opaque committee led by the Treasury Department, polices foreign investment in the U.S. for national security risks. In recent years it has stepped up bans on Chinese investments in sensitive U.S. tech firms, slowing them to a trickle.

Chinese investment in the U.S. plummeted from $56.6 billion in 2016 to just $3.5 billion last year, according to Rhodium Group.

Bessent said that investments from Chinese retailers are among those less likely to draw a CFIUS review.

“Luckin Coffee is great, but buying a whole bunch of land next to an Air Force base probably isn’t,” Bessent said, referring to the Chinese coffee chain expanding in the U.S. to challenge Starbucks.

AI CONSULTATIONS

U.S. and Chinese officials will likely start to consult with each other on AI guardrails within the next four to eight weeks, Bessent said. The effort is aimed at halting proliferation of powerful AI models, such as Anthropic’s Mythos, or tools from China’s DeepSeek to non-state actors, he added.

Concern is growing over the national security risks posed by powerful AI systems, which companies and analysts have warned could supercharge complex cyberattacks by identifying and exploiting previously unknown vulnerabilities faster than companies can repair them.

(Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Richard Lough and Nick Zieminski)

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Federal Jury Dismisses Elon Musk’s $150 Billion Lawsuit Against OpenAI as Untimely  

A federal jury in Oakland, California, ruled unanimously that billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk waited too long to file his $150 billion lawsuit against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, leading a judge to dismiss the case as untimely.  

US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers immediately adopted the jury’s advisory verdict after jurors concluded that the statute of limitations had expired. The decision followed a three-week trial in federal court.  

The nine-member jury deliberated for less than two hours before reaching its conclusion.  

Musk had accused Altman and OpenAI President Greg Brockman of breaching fiduciary duties and abandoning OpenAI’s original nonprofit mission in favor of a heavily commercialized for-profit structure supported by Microsoft.  

According to Musk’s claims, Altman violated a nonprofit agreement after Musk donated $38 million to OpenAI. Musk argued that Altman accepted his funding while concealing plans to transform the company into a profit-driven business focused on generating personal wealth rather than developing artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity.  

OpenAI’s legal team successfully argued that Musk had known for years about the company’s plans to adopt a for-profit structure and had delayed filing the lawsuit until 2024.  

The ruling removes a significant legal obstacle for OpenAI as the company prepares for a widely anticipated initial public offering that could reportedly value the firm at roughly $1 trillion.  

Following the decision, Musk criticized the ruling on X, describing the dismissal as a “calendar technicality.” His attorney, Marc Toberoff, said Musk’s legal team plans to appeal to the Ninth Circuit.  

Musk also renewed his accusations against Altman and Brockman in a post on X.  

“Altman & Brockman did in fact enrich themselves by stealing a charity. The only question is WHEN they did it!” Musk wrote. “Creating a precedent to loot ⁠charities is incredibly destructive to charitable giving in America.” 

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The NFL is taking the 2030 Super Bowl to Nashville and the Tennessee Titans’ new Nissan Stadium after team owners voted Tuesday to hold the league’s championship game in the Music City for the first time.

Once the Titans broke ground on the $2.1 billion enclosed stadium, a Super Bowl being played in Nashville appeared to be only a matter of time. Commissioner Roger Goodell said in November that Nashville lacked only the stage after setting a new standard for the league with record attendance at the 2019 draft.

“That for us changed the future of the draft, arguably changed the future of the Titans and the community,” Goodell said in Orlando at the league’s spring meetings. “And I think this is the next great step in a remarkable football journey and a great community in Nashville. We can’t wait to be there.”

The Titans are on schedule to finish the new stadium directly across from the current Nissan Stadium in February, completing the three-year construction. Critics worried the planned capacity wasn’t big enough to host a Super Bowl, though league officials were updated throughout the process.

Awarding the 2030 Super Bowl to Nashville gives the Titans three full seasons to work out any kinks.

Controlling owner Amy Adams Strunk said the Titans are thrilled Nashville’s first Super Bowl is coming and thanked Goodell, her fellow NFL owners and the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp for their partnership.

“We cannot wait for our community to experience an event of this magnitude and for the world to see the energy, hospitality, and culture that make our city so special on a global stage,” she said. “We look forward to bringing an unforgettable Super Bowl experience to Nashville together.”

Nashville impressed the NFL when the executives who work on the league’s big events saw the Music City touch in 2019.

Bands played between draft picks and headliners such as Tim McGraw helped cap each day’s events. Fans poured in for the party in the Lower Broad honky-tonk district with other events at the Titans’ current stadium a short walk across a pedestrian bridge.

Deana Ivey, president and CEO of the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp, thanked the NFL for the confidence placed in Nashville. She also made clear Music City will bring the party atmosphere first seen in that 2019 draft to hosting its first Super Bowl mentioning McGraw on stage.

“He’s singing to the entire street of all the football fans were singing ‘Live Like You Were Dying’ with him, and it was the most incredible, authentically Nashville moment, and I can’t wait to see some of those organic things happen for the Super Bowl,” Ivey said.

Only New Orleans and Las Vegas among NFL venues have more hotel rooms within a one-mile radius of the stadium, with the Nashville market area projected to have 658 hotels with more than 80,000 hotel rooms by 2030. Nashville currently has more than 61,000 hotel rooms available.

The new stadium is being built with $760 million in bonds issued by Nashville’s sports authority, with an additional $500 million in state bonds. The combined $1.2 billion in public funding was considered the largest public commitment in funding for an NFL stadium when approved in 2022.

Burke Nihill, the Titans’ president and CEO, said that the commitment from city, state and community leaders helped make Tuesday’s announcement possible. Nihill also said this stadium is being built to feel like Nashville rather than trying to impress folks with size or technology, and yes, there is a big stage in one end zone.

“My expectation is that when people come through that building for the Super Bowl in 2030, they feel something different in that sense of Southern hospitality,” Nihill said.

The announcement adds to the NFL’s Super Bowl lineup of SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, hosting in 2027 followed by Atlanta in 2028 and Las Vegas in 2029.

Nashville isn’t content with lining up just a Super Bowl for the new Nissan Stadium. Former Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam, also controlling owner of the NHL’s Nashville Predators, is chairman of the Music City Major Events group assembled in 2023 to bring other high-profile events to the stadium.

The NFL also announced Tuesday that Minnesota will host the 2028 draft, a decade after hosting its most recent Super Bowl in 2018. Pittsburgh drew a record 805,000 fans over three days in April for the draft. Washington will host the 2027 NFL draft.

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AP Pro Football Writer Rob Maaddi in Orlando, Florida, contributed to this report.

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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

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By Michael S. Derby

May 19 (Reuters) – Incoming Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh on Tuesday disclosed an initial round of planned asset sales ahead of being sworn in for the job, though the disclosures did not say who the sales were made to.

In an Office of Government Ethics form, Warsh listed the names of the holdings but not the dollar value of the sales. At his confirmation hearing in April, Warsh, on track to be the richest Fed chair in the institution’s history, said he would bring his holdings in line with government and Federal Reserve ethics rules.

Warsh’s form listed the sale of an investment called Juggernaut Fund L.P. On his financial disclosure form released last month ahead of his confirmation hearing, he listed two entries for the fund with a combined value of at least $100 million. 

Warsh also disclosed the sale of a number of other assets, as well as an asset divested by his wife. 

The incoming Fed leader is scheduled to be sworn in on Friday, succeeding current leader Jerome Powell, who plans to stay on in his governor role while navigating tensions between the central bank and the Trump administration.

PLANNED SALES

Warsh’s disclosure had been expected given an ethics agreement made with the government to bring his wealth in line with prevailing ethics rules. Who or what entities bought these assets is likely to be an issue for Warsh once in office, as some Democrats have already expressed concern about potential buyers. 

“So that there’s no ‌question about my independence, no question about the clarity of my financial record, I agreed to divest virtually all of my financial assets,” Warsh told members of the Senate Banking Committee on April 21. 

Warsh said that after going through the required divestments, as Fed chair he would possess “virtually no financial assets,” with his fortune sitting in close to all cash.

Warsh’s financial disclosure last month reported at least $100 million in holdings across a wide range of investments, many of which the incoming Fed chair declined to disclose, citing confidentiality agreements.

The Juggernaut investments listed on Tuesday as being sold had produced potentially more than $10 million a year in income for Warsh, according to his April disclosure. 

At his confirmation hearing, Senator Elizabeth Warren said she was concerned about who might buy Warsh’s assets and whether it could create a conflict of interest. 

Federal Reserve ethics rules formalized in early 2022 are among the toughest in government and were tightened in the wake of a trading controversy associated with several central bankers leaving the institution amid multiple Inspector General investigations.

Fed rules sharply limit what officials can hold and how they can move money around. They are designed to ensure the public has confidence policymakers are working with the public’s interest in mind. Those rules also apply to immediate family members.

(Reporting by Michael S. Derby, editing by Deepa Babington)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — A coalition of Democratic-led states is challenging the Trump administration’s recent caps on federal student loans, arguing the limits will make it harder for students pursuing certain healthcare degrees to attain the necessary training and education.

In a lawsuit filed Tuesday, plaintiffs representing 24 states and the District of Columbia argued the Trump administration’s rules would disproportionately impact critical healthcare sectors.

“This rule will shut talented people out of critical professions and leave communities with fewer healthcare providers they desperately need,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a written statement. “We cannot afford fewer nurses, fewer providers, or fewer opportunities for working people to enter these essential fields.”

The Education Department defended the loan caps on student loans, saying they were already incentivizing colleges and universities to lower tuition.

“Clearly, these Democratic governors and attorneys general are more concerned about institutions’ bottom-line rather than American students and families’ ability to access affordable postsecondary education,” Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent said in a written statement.

In 2025, Congress passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which enacted new federal student loan caps. Programs that were designated as “graduate” programs faced a loan cap of $100,000, while professional degrees were capped at $200,000.

Previously, graduate students could take out loans up to the cost of their degree. The new loan caps take effect in July.

The Education Department’s definition of professional degrees include pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary medicine, chiropractic, law, medicine, optometry, osteopathic medicine, podiatry and theology.

But other healthcare fields, such as nursing, physical therapy, dental hygiene, social work and occupational therapy, were not included in the definition. Other fields that require certification and licensure, such as accounting and education, were also excluded.

The changes sparked anger and frustration across excluded healthcare sectors. Advocates said the effects would be felt by communities most in need of medical providers.

“This rule will be felt in real communities, for example, in rural areas where nurse practitioners, midwives, and nurse anesthesiologists are often the only providers of core care services,” American Nurses Association president Jennifer Mensick Kennedy said in a statement when the final rule passed last month.

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The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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Google will soon unleash a wealth of new artificial intelligence-powered tools and systems, including an AI assistant that will help users by proactively performing tasks on their behalf.

“Agentic” AI, the recent buzzword of choice for tech firms, was a central focus of Google’s annual developers conference, Google I/O. The upcoming AI agent, Gemini Spark, was one of many of the company’s announcements from the conference Tuesday.

“We are firmly in our agentic Gemini era,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai said Tuesday before a packed amphitheater near the company’s Mountain View, California, headquarters. “I’ve played around with all sorts of agents and you can really see the potential, but it’s still early days when it comes to making agents easy to use, super secure and truly helpful.”

Google and its corporate parent, Alphabet Inc., have poured billions into AI development. Its top finance executive said on a call with investors in late April that this year’s capital expenditures may climb as high as $190 billion. But the investment seems to be paying off, with its quarterly earnings showing strong growth. The stock has climbed another 11% since the report.

Pichai said during the keynote address that the Gemini app had 400 million monthly active users last year, but that usership has now surpassed 900 million, more than doubling in a year.

Google’s latest family of models, Gemini 3.5, is rolling out Tuesday to billions of global users beginning with Gemini 3.5 Flash. The Flash model is focused on speed, and Google says 3.5 Flash is its strongest agentic and coding model yet, but it’s also about four times faster than some competitors.

This model is now the default for the Gemini app and “AI mode” on Google search. The company is also working on the 3.5 version of Gemini Pro, which it says it’s using internally and expects to launch next month.

Gemini 3.5 was developed with new, more advanced safety training and mitigations, meaning its models are less likely to generate harmful content or to mistakenly refuse to answer safe queries, the company said.

Google also announced a new model, Gemini Omni, which will enable users to create high-quality video by making a query with any input, be it text, images, videos and audio. The video Omni creates can then be edited easily though a conversation with the model. Users will eventually be able to create images and audio with Omni, but there were no details about when those features will be rolled out.

The company said Omni’s videos will appear more realistic than videos created by other models because of its understanding of forces like gravity, kinetic energy and fluid dynamics.

Gemini Omni Flash, the first of the Omni family, is launching Tuesday for Google Al Plus, Pro and Ultra subscribers through the Gemini app and Google Flow. Beginning this week, it will be available at no cost on YouTube Shorts and YouTube Create App.

All videos created with Omni will include Google’s imperceptible digital watermark, SynthID, but Google is also adding content credentials verification to the Gemini app. This tool determines if content like photo or video was created by AI or captured with a phone camera and edited with AI tools. It will be available in search in Chrome in the coming months. Google also announced AI companies Open AI, Kakao and Eleven Labs are adopting its SynthID technology to more of their AI-generated content.

Powered by Gemini 3.5, Gemini Spark will be able to complete mundane, routine tasks like sorting through meeting notes, emails and chats and then creating a document with the biggest takeaways and to-dos. Unlike other available agents, Spark is based in the cloud, so it continues working in the background even when users shut their laptops or lock their phones.

The proactive nature of AI agents is what differentiates them from chatbots, and that has also led to some anxieties about the technology’s power. Gemini Spark is designed to ask for permission before performing “high-stakes” tasks like sending an email or making a purchase, the company said.

Select testers will have access to the agent beginning Tuesday, and the company plans to roll out the beta mode to U.S.-based subscribers to its Google AI Ultra tier.

Later this summer, Gemini Spark will operate directly within Chrome, the company said.

At last year’s conference, the most talked-about development was the introduction and rollout of “AI mode” on Google’s search engine. The feature gives users a more conversational answer to their query before providing relevant links, building on previously implemented changed how users experience and interact with the platform.

AI mode queries have more than doubled every quarter since its launch last year, and the tool recently surpassed 1 billion monthly users, according to Liz Reid, Google’s head of search.

The new default model in search will now be Gemini 3.5 Flash and the company is introducing what it calls an intelligent search box. This change, which Reid says is the biggest upgrade to the search box in 25 years, means the box will adapt to accommodate longer queries and it can help users write out their questions with AI-powered suggestions instead of traditional autocomplete.

Users can also search using multiple modalities, using text, images, video, files and even Chrome tabs as search inputs. The new search box is starting its roll out Tuesday in all countries and languages where AI mode is currently available.

The company also announced a new tool, the Universal Cart, which it called “a truly intelligent shopping cart.” It works across merchants and across services so users can add things to their cart while browsing Google search, chatting with Gemini, watching YouTube, or reading emails in Gmail. The cart then runs on Gemini models to go to work as soon as an item is placed in the cart, looking for deals and price drops, providing price history information and alerting users when something comes back in stock.

The Universal Cart tool will be available to users on search and the Gemini app this summer, with YouTube and Gmail to follow.

—— Associated Press Writer Barbara Ortutay in Oakland, California contributed to this story.

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A look at the day ahead in European and global markets from Rae Wee

Market sentiment remained fragile on Tuesday even after U.S. President Donald Trump claimed he had paused a planned attack against Iran and that there was now a “very good chance” of reaching a deal limiting Tehran’s nuclear programme.

That sent oil prices falling, though at around $110 a barrel, they remain more than 50% above their levels prior to the Middle East war.

Stocks were in a sombre mood, with Asian shares sliding and U.S. futures surrendering earlier gains, while European futures edged just a touch higher.

South Korea’s high-flying Kospi index fell more than 4%, which analysts attributed to profit-taking.

Much will be riding on artificial intelligence darling Nvidia’s results on Wednesday, where expectations are sky-high for the world’s most valuable company.

Ahead of that, UK jobs data is due later on Tuesday.

With the Iran war nearing its third month, investors are waking up to the worry that the conflict may deliver a lasting inflationary shock, with sovereign bond yields racing to decade highs and threatening a severe hit to the spending power of governments, businesses and households.

G7 finance ministers acknowledged mounting concern over public debt and bond market volatility as they met in Paris on Monday and sought common ground on tackling global economic tensions and coordinating critical raw material supplies.

The bond selloff abated in Asia on Tuesday, with U.S. Treasury yields and Japanese government bond yields easing, but not far from milestone highs.

The average rate at which governments in the G7 nations pay to borrow for 10 years is approaching 4%, up from around 3.2% before the war started in late February.

Elsewhere, data on Tuesday showed Japan’s economy grew faster than expected in the first quarter on solid exports and consumption, though momentum will face a severe test as the full force of the energy shock from the Iran war filters through businesses and consumers.

The upbeat numbers did little to help the yen, which was languishing around the 159 per dollar level, keeping traders on alert for potential intervention from Japanese authorities.

In Australia, minutes of the central bank’s May board meeting showed policymakers judged interest rates to be restrictive after three hikes this year, giving it space to watch how the war plays out, even though inflation is set to trend higher and economic growth to slow.

Key developments that could influence markets on Tuesday:

– UK employment data (March)

(Editing by Jamie Freed)

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