The Trump administration has accused Chinese start-up Moonshot AI of covertly extracting capabilities from leading US artificial intelligence models and obtaining restricted Nvidia chips abroad, escalating Washington’s scrutiny of the company following the release of its powerful Kimi K3 model. Michael Kratsios, the White House science and technology adviser, alleged on Wednesday that the Beijing-based company had targeted Anthropic’s most powerful model, Claude Fable 5, through large-scale...

Criminal syndicates increasingly turned from targeting Chinese nationals to Americans after Beijing’s 2023 crackdown on online scams in Southeast Asia, analysts said on Wednesday, triggering a global game of “whack-a-mole”. “China has a huge advantage and a head start in terms of trying to protect its own citizens from scams compared to the US,” said Sue-Lin Wong, who hosts the Scam Inc. podcast, adding that it is “terrible for Americans who are losing a lot of money”. In recent years, Southeast...

A French modelling scout with close ties to convicted US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has been found dead at his home outside Paris, prosecutors and his lawyer said on Wednesday. Under investigation in France, Daniel Siad, 69, was one of several French men accused of aiding the US financier to traffic and abuse women. Siad had not yet been questioned by investigators, but had denied the allegations. “An investigation to determine the cause of death was opened on Monday evening following the...

⁠From humble origins as a family business run out of an ⁠apartment near Moscow, Wildberries has grown in under two decades into Russia’s top online retailer and a key economic driver in the country. It has now become a target of strikes by Ukraine. Ukraine has attacked four Wildberries warehouses over the last week in a widening campaign of drone strikes against a company at the heart of Russia’s consumer economy, bringing the war closer to millions of ordinary Russians. In towns across Russia,...

Hong Kong authorities have warned of possible enforcement action after mainland Chinese dental chains were suspected of operating illegally in the city, as local industry leaders called for tighter supervision. The Hong Kong Dental Association also said on Wednesday a poll of local practitioners found that each dentist needed to follow up on an average of four cases a month relating to treatment received across the border. The Health Bureau and the Department of Health said in a joint statement...

[The content of this article has been produced by our advertising partner.] For a growing number of Hong Kong millionaire respondents, the mainland Greater Bay Area (GBA) cities becoming part of later-life planning, from healthcare access and living space to retirement lifestyle. Yet many have not fully worked out the financial demands of maintaining a life across Hong Kong and mainland GBA cities, according to a new OCBC Hong Kong survey. According to the bank’s “OCBC Premier Banking – Hong...

US President Donald Trump threatened on Wednesday to destroy an Iranian bridge or power plant each time Tehran attacks a vessel in the Strait of Hormuz, escalating Washington’s response as the conflict spread across the region and placed another major shipping route at risk. The warning came hours before Trump was due to attend the return of four US service members killed in Iranian attacks and related operations in Jordan and Iraq. “From this point forward, any time the Islamic Republic of Iran...