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Apple accused OpenAI of stealing trade secrets as it seeks to build its own hardware for ChatGPT, a major rupture in a partnership between the iPhone maker and the artificial intelligence company.

Apple said in the lawsuit filed in a California federal court that OpenAI encouraged Apple employees it was recruiting to share confidential information, even guiding how to avoid scrutiny when taking jobs at the other company.

“This case is about Apple’s former employees stealing Apple’s trade secrets for the benefit of OpenAI,” the filing says. “Apple brings this suit to put a stop to it.”

Two former Apple employees who now work for OpenAI are also named as defendants. One is Tang Tan, who helped design the iPhone, Apple Watch, and iPod and is now OpenAI’s chief hardware officer. The other is Chang Liu, a former electrical engineer, whom Apple says it entrusted with some of its most sensitive product development efforts before Liu left Apple to join OpenAI earlier this year.

OpenAI said it is still reviewing the filing, but spokesperson Drew Pusateri said in a statement that OpenAI has “no interest in other companies’ trade secrets. We remain focused on building innovative technology that empowers people everywhere.”

OpenAI has never said exactly what type of device it is building, but has described it as an effort to find a new way to interact with AI that goes beyond “traditional products and interfaces.” It’s part of a broader push to create a physical embodiment of the latest AI advances, a decade after Amazon and Google introduced screen-free talking speakers into homes.

The lawsuit claims the effort was built partly on knowledge stolen from Apple.

Apple said it began investigating whether some of its confidential information was compromised and “uncovered a pattern of theft” of Apple’s trade secrets by former employees who moved on to positions at OpenAI.

An Apple spokesperson said in a statement that the company will “always defend our teams’ hard work and innovations, and we are taking all appropriate steps to do so.”

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Akiko Sugaya wheels a cart through the alley-like streets of eastern Tokyo, selling tofu, the protein-rich staple favored in much of Asia. But delivering soybean curd in all shapes and textures is only a small slice of her mission.

And it's just that. A mission.

More than simply a vendor of healthy food, she's also a social conduit who checks on elderly customers as she guides her pink cart, wearing a straw hat and tooting a small brass bugle to signal her arrival.

She knows the habits of many of her customers like family, and they know hers. She's lost some elderly customers over the years who've died alone, which is becoming more common in Japan, which has one of the world's oldest populations.

Sugaya is a savior for many, and the job—she's been at it for 23 years—has also strengthened her own self-worth. She feels that the job saved her. She says she was bullied in school and fired from several jobs until she found that delivering high-quality, healthy food also nourished her own mental health and offered value to others.

Selling tofu on a cart made me think I am OK to be myself, Sugaya explained. I used to be repeatedly put down, but through cart-selling I built up my self-esteem.

Sugaya makes her rounds three days per week, a three-hour walk in the afternoon.

Her route twists through maze-like streets, and there are sporadic sales—and frequent conversations. A woman walks from her house to buy tofu, chats about her unruly cat, and shows off a strand of wild vine growing in her garden. Another woman reminds Sugaya that cart-selling is a disappearing craft.

Even when I'm in need of tofu, I tell myself I'd better wait for Ako-chan, said customer Toshi Niiyama, using Sugaya's nickname. We used to have someone coming to sell vegetables, but he stopped coming.

Sugaya has no such plans to stop.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

It may be a cold, rainy Sydney winter evening, but for football coach Gabriel Knowles, training under floodlights rather than the intense Australian sun is a welcome relief.

The well-being of his team is always a priority for Knowles, especially when it comes to heat management during matches and training sessions, a major concern in Australia.

“We've taken to having fans and misting fans in change rooms and on the benches, wet towels for the players as well. The drinks break is obviously a contentious new issue in the World Cup, but something that's been quite normal here for us in the warmer months when we start and finish seasons,” explains the NWS National Premier League football coach.

Grant Lynch plays semiprofessional football on Knowles’ team. He says that heat is a constant preoccupation for players.

“We have had to cancel a number of games because of the heat. Here in Australia, the competition is played over summer, or there's a big part of the competition that's played over summer. So, we have multiple games that have been cancelled because of the heat,” he says.

But when it comes to playing in the best possible conditions, Lynch has a secret weapon. He works as a researcher at the University of Sydney, and the team he is a part of has created a free app called Sports Heat Tool.

It could literally be a game changer for ordinary people who play recreational sport and don’t have access to the state-of-the-art tools that elite sport has.

“It helps in a few ways. I think the first way is that we take into account more than just temperature. So, we care about things like humidity and airflow and wind speed and the amount of solar radiation from the sun. These things are all important to be able to understand what the risk is for a football player. And then secondly, it gives some recommendations. So, some strategies that you can put in place to be able to help keep yourself cool,” says Lynch.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Rwanda’s renowned Inyambo cows symbolize the nation’s rich cultural heritage. Historically associated with royalty, they are now pampered with poetry and music at a museum in Nyanza.

With their long and crescent-shaped horns, the Inyambo cows graze at the King’s Palace Museum in Nyanza and at the homes of some of Rwanda's richest people, including President Paul Kagame.

The breed is descended from the distinctive Ankole cattle of East Africa and is also found in neighboring Uganda and Burundi. The Inyambo have long been associated with nobility, as they were raised in royal courts where they symbolized wealth, prestige, and power.

Bigira Junior, a curator at the King's Palace Museum, says they are “sacred symbols.” “They’re not for milk, they’re not for meat. They would just be used as decor around the palaces. They would parade them around, use them in ceremonies, basically around the King's Court. The kings would basically present them to the other kings that have visited the palaces, for people to admire, see and say ‘yeah they are looking good,’” he explains.

Even though the monarchy no longer exists in Rwanda, so revered are the cows that the traditional gifting and exchange among kingdoms has been embraced by Kagame. The president's practice of giving cattle to heads of state has even been called in local newspaper reports “Inyambo diplomacy.”

As Rwanda seeks more tourists, it is investing heavily in places like the King’s Palace Museum, where the Inyambo cows are the main attraction. The cows are pampered with melodious poetry describing their beauty and calling them by their names.

This is believed to calm the cows ahead of major events where they are presented to visitors or during traditional ceremonies.

“You have beautiful horns. Move your head so that we can see your beautiful neck and body. You are the most beautiful cow among others,” the caretaker sings. The cows are also brushed by caretakers, another way of calming them.

“Remember, they are to be loved and cherished, and you can’t love something from afar. You have to get close to it,” Junior says.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

A skyscraper-scaling daredevil told police that he and his girlfriend climbed the Empire State Building’s antenna and unfurled a banner about love and peace because he wanted to “do something special” for their engagement, prosecutors said at the couple's arraignment on felony reckless endangerment, burglary, and other charges.

The couple, who go by Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus, said little as they left court, though Beerkus responded to a journalist's question about the stunt by saying, “We believe in love.”

Authorities said the two—who were the subject of the 2024 Netflix documentary Skywalkers: A Love Story about their “rooftopping” exploits and budding romance— created not only a spectacle but a danger by ascending the famed skyscraper's broadcast antenna.

After reaching the top, 1,454 feet (443 meters) above midtown Manhattan, the climbers displayed a black banner reading: “When the power of love beats the love of power the world knows peace,” a news helicopter video showed.

Then they collected the banner and descended to a slightly lower ledge, where an apparently successful marriage proposal unfolded. Nikolau posted images of the escapade on her social media accounts, including a photo that modeled an engagement-style ring above a bird’s-eye view of Manhattan.

Police waited about half an hour for the antenna to be powered down before Emergency Services Unit officers started ascending and eventually intercepted the climbers on their way down, according to the complaint, which noted the danger to officers who climbed about 1,250 feet (381 meters) above the ground. The court document identified the two by their formal names, Angelina Nikolau and Ivan Kuznetsov.

Skywalkers: A Love Story follows Beerkus and Nikolau as they often make unauthorized ascents of tall structures, sometimes posing as construction workers to sneak in.

The court complaint said police found a broken lock on a security door on the Empire State Building's restricted-access 104th floor, which provides access to the antenna. The highest public floor is the 102nd, where there’s an observation deck. Going higher requires a key card, according to the court complaint.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Green means go. Red means stop. Trophies or confetti come with good performance, and people who fall behind get nudged to do better.

Those brightly colored engagement tactics long ago jumped from smartphone games to everything from online shopping to sports betting and classrooms. So, it should come as no surprise that many nutrition-tracking apps like MyFitnessPal and Noom also use gaming features to keep users coming back.

But as nutrition apps proliferate, some researchers are raising alarms that gamification features may do more harm than good for some people.

Isabella Anderberg, a psychologist researching digital dieting behavior at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, said calorie tracking can reinforce behaviors associated with body dysmorphia and disordered eating.

“We do know that not everyone’s going to experience harm from using the apps, but there are certainly factors that might increase risk,” Anderberg said. “Approach with caution.”

Anderberg said there is certainly a place for the apps. Health professionals she interviewed during her research reported that apps can be especially helpful as meal-planning tools for people managing chronic conditions such as heart disease and diabetes. And physical activity apps remind people to move their bodies.

Many users report enjoying them, finding tactics like streak notifications to be motivating.

Courtney Simpson, a behavioral psychologist and director of eating disorders at the Evidence-Based Treatment Centers of Seattle, said some apps encourage people to set calorie goals that are far too low for any adult. That's not only unhealthy but can set people up for failure.

The gaming features keep people coming back to unrealistic goals, creating shame that may contribute to binge eating or other behaviors people are trying to change, Simpson said.

“It’s not that gamification itself is bad. It’s about what it is promoting,” she said. “Is that actually going to be beneficial?”

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

The U.S. Justice Department and 17 states reached settlement agreements with three major egg producers to resolve allegations that the companies illegally colluded for years to raise prices, including when the cost soared to record highs last year.

The states and federal government accused Cal-Maine Foods, Versova, and Hickman’s Egg Ranch of a behind-the-scenes arrangement to “artificially inflate the daily price quotations for eggs” between June 2022 and March 2025. In particular, their investigation found that the companies coordinated on what bids they would submit to Urner Barry Publications, a company that runs an index key to determining how much grocery stores, restaurants, and others pay for billions of eggs each year.

In turn, that meant “higher prices for eggs sold to consumers,” alleged the complaint, which was filed in Iowa the day the settlement terms were announced.

“When powerful corporations collude behind the scenes to raise prices, working families suffer the costs,” New York Attorney General Letitia James, who helped lead the investigation, said in a statement. “These egg producers manipulated the market to squeeze even more profit out of consumers and businesses.”

None of the companies admitted wrongdoing under the settlements. But to settle the states' claims, Cal-Maine, Versova, and Hickman's will collectively be on the hook for $3.3 million and 53 million eggs, James and others said. Those eggs would be donated by the companies and make their way to food banks and nonprofits. The money will be distributed to the states.

The Justice Department and the states also outlined actions the companies will need to take, including adopting antitrust compliance programs and banning communicating with competitors on pricing and bidding strategies.

The settlements would still need court approval. The Justice Department's Omeed A. Assefi said that the proposed settlements “resolve years of conduct that dragged on Americans’ finances and their everyday lives.”

Average U.S. egg prices soared to a record high of about $6.23 per dozen in March 2025, amid a bird flu epidemic that forced farmers to slaughter millions of egg-laying chickens. Egg producers blamed the price spike on the outbreak, but critics accused big companies of taking advantage of their market dominance, and the government began its investigation.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

WhatsApp users will soon get the option of going by usernames instead of phone numbers, the company said, announcing plans to address a privacy blind spot.

The app said it has started allowing users to reserve unique usernames, which can be used to contact WhatsApp users when the feature is launched later this year. WhatsApp, which says it has more than 3 billion users globally, has until now allowed users to be contacted by anyone who has their phone number.

The app, owned by Meta Platforms, said in a blog post that over the coming months, users will get the option to be found and contacted only by their username, and not their number. It wasn't more specific about the timeline.

We have designed this as a core privacy feature, Alice Newton-Rex, WhatsApp's vice president of product, told reporters.

There won't be a directory of usernames on the app, and the app won't suggest names as you type. People will need to know your exact username to contact you for the first time, she said.

WhatsApp's current privacy settings are limited to blocking individual users and silencing unknown callers. The app also allows users to add a profile name, but that's only displayed in chat groups for other people who don't have the user's contact info saved.

While Americans still prefer text messaging to WhatsApp, the app is widely used in Europe, Asia, and much of the rest of the world.

Catchy online handles are highly coveted, and users will likely scramble to claim a desirable one. I think a lot of people will go and get usernames, and that's why we decided to open reservations early, Newton-Rex said.

Companies, organizations, and creators with existing accounts on Meta's social media platforms, Instagram and Facebook, will get the chance to claim their usernames on WhatsApp.

Usernames need to be between three and 35 characters. To prevent impersonation, WhatsApp will hold back usernames for high-profile people or groups such as celebrities, public figures, and government entities.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and his government coalition partners presented a comprehensive reform package with the goal of getting the country’s sluggish economy back on track.

The 34 measures include cuts to income tax for low- and middle-income families, an overhaul of the creaking pension system, tougher rules for employees’ sick leave, and a reduction of the country’s stifling bureaucracy.

“These reforms all have one goal: We’re setting out into the future,” Merz said. “We’re strengthening ourselves so that we can live well in these new times.”

Merz is trying to cut his government coalition free from that negative reputation.

Germany's economy returned to modest growth last year after shrinking for two years in a row. The government expects underwhelming growth of 0.5% this year, a figure that has been pushed down by the fallout from the war in Iran.

The government coalition leaders said that the tax cuts, once fully implemented in 2028, would give an annual tax break of about 600 euros ($686.40) for a family with two working parents, two children, and a total taxable income of 60,000 euros ($68,640). The total tax relief provided by the reform amounts to approximately 10 billion euros ($11.4 billion) per year.

The pension system reform would include gradually raising the retirement age, currently between 65 and 67 years, depending on the number of years worked, in line with life expectancy.

The tougher rules for sick leave would no longer allow employees to call in sick to work for up to three days without seeing a doctor, or call up the doctor and ask for a sick leave letter for one week without actually seeing the doctor. Instead, employers would be able to ask for a doctor's certificate from the first day a person is on sick leave.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Other great apes laugh in a similar way to humans, a new study has found. Just like us, they chuckle in a rhythmic pattern, suggesting they had a common ancestor around 15 million years ago that also laughed.

A team led by a researcher from the University of Warwick analyzed recordings of laughter from gorillas, orangutans, bonobos, chimpanzees, and humans. They were aged between six months and seven years old. The ape giggles were collected from tickling and playtime and were recorded for a study in the early 2000s.

Humans’ and great apes’ chuckles followed similar rhythms with regular timing between their laughs.

“We say that all the species have an isochronous rhythm, meaning that if you think of a metronome, the tick, tick, tick—the regularity is there. So, it's always the same interval going between laughter bursts,” explains Chiara de Gregorio, the study author and a researcher at the University of Warwick.

The scientists think that because a rhythmic pattern was observed across all the apes they studied, it's likely they had a common ancestor 15 million years ago that would have also laughed in a similar pattern.

Laughter has gotten faster and more complex over time, so human giggles have some aspects that set them apart. For one, our laughs sound different based on context—from a polite chuckle among colleagues to a full-bodied guffaw with close friends. Other apes do not show this variability.

“So, in a way we are very similar to other great apes because we've been laughing in a similar way for 15 million years. But at the same time we realize that our laughter holds more information than that is simple ‘I'm playing and having fun.’ And it's something that maybe we don't think about in everyday life: how we could communicate so many things without words,” says de Gregorio.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.