Guardian investigation shows how US presidency blurs line between policy and enrichment of American ruling family and those around it

On a graffitied Sarajevo backstreet, a path leads past an overgrown patch of garden to a white door. Beyond is the registered office of a company that is on the brink of winning contracts worth more than $1bn.

AAFS Infrastructure and Energy is close to securing a concession to build and operate a pipeline across the Balkans to allow fossil gas shipped from the US to replace supplies that come from Russia. “This could be the most important infrastructure project ever in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” says one of the country’s top officials, who, like others, asks to remain anonymous to discuss sensitive negotiations.

Speaking at Amazon’s AI on the Lot event, the Rogue One film-maker Gareth Edwards said ‘it’ll do anything you ask’ and ‘it’s going to be better than CGI’

Jurassic World Rebirth and Rogue One director Gareth Edwards has enthusiastically endorsed the use of generative AI in film-making, saying “it is a fucking genius at helping you” and “it’s going to be better than CGI”.

Edwards was speaking at AI on the Lot, an event in Culver City, California, organised by Amazon, and in remarks reported by the Hollywood Reporter said: “I can’t see a reason why you wouldn’t become interested in this stuff as a film-maker. It’s so clearly a tool that might be up there with the camera. It’s going to be better than CGI.”

In this competitive market, gen Z has started to turn to untraditional ways to land a job – including dating apps

Sibusisiwe Khupe, 26, entered the job market once again in September after a wave of unexpected layoffs at London marketing agency Wieden+Kennedy.

She knew landing her next full-time role was not going to be easy. Young workers have been hit hard by the weakening UK job market as vacancies fall and unemployment climbs to a five-year high.

More Americans are using small solar panels in their back yards or balconies as a clean way to cut their electric bills

If you feel like your electricity bill just keeps climbing, you aren’t imagining it. Since 2020, US residential energy prices have surged by about 30%, making power the largest household energy expense behind gasoline, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

But for residents like Alex Curtis, the days of feeling powerless against rising costs are coming to an end. Curtis is waging a war on his electric bill, and his new weapon of choice is a lightweight, thin-film solar panel.

Recent college grads are not very fond of commencement speakers hyping up a technology they see as a threat to their career prospects

When Jacob Pagel graduated from Middle Tennessee State University this spring, predictions about artificial intelligence already had him questioning the value of his degree. Then a music executive started preaching about AI’s transformative power during a commencement speech.

“This industry will change on you in a heartbeat. It has already changed more in the last 10 years than in the 50 years prior … AI is rewriting production as we sit here,” said Scott Borchetta, CEO of the record label Big Machine. After a few stray boos from graduates, he doubled down: “Deal with it.”

Jay Morris denies experts’ claims that he violated ethics rules over land deals near the site of Meta’s Hyperion datacenter

This story is from Floodlight, a non-profit newsroom that investigates the powers stalling climate action

For more than two years, John “Jay” Morris, a Louisiana state senator, helped pave the way for Meta to build one of the world’s largest datacenters, called Hyperion, in Richland Parish.

As intelligence itself becomes privatised by big tech, allowing your intellectual faculties to wither in service of inane bots seems a dangerous move

Long before the age of multi-billion-dollar AI companies promising to disrupt the field of software development, I was learning to code the hard way.

It was the mid-2000s, and I was a child with unmonitored access to the family computer. With the help of a basic text editor program, I learned how to make websites – first basic, then increasingly complex – from scratch. The results were never as beautiful or polished as in my imagination, but I could live with that, because I was learning a craft. The painstaking hours of debugging and poring over arcane documentation for projects that I eventually abandoned never felt wasted.

The US president’s reversal on calling for a safety review of new AI models is a green light for tech’s unchecked power

Only hours before Donald Trump was set to sign a long-awaited executive order on Thursday that would have called for a government safety review of new artificial intelligence models before their release, the president abruptly backed out. Despite growing public backlash to the technology and experts warning new models will pose critical security risks, Trump vowed the US government would not slow down the AI race.

During a meeting with reporters on Thursday, Trump cited both American dominance and competition with China and as his reasoning behind the reversal.

At annual I/O conference, company debuts a product for everyday consumers to create autonomous AI agents

Google announced on Tuesday that it would expand its search bar, the centerpiece of the most-visited website in the world, with a heavy dose of artificial intelligence. The tech giant is also trying its hand at hi-tech glasses again, more than a decade after wearers of its first eyewear were dubbed “glassholes” and laughed out of San Francisco.

Google executives announced at the company’s annual conference for software developers, Google I/O, that its search box would accommodate longer and more specific queries than before – questions more like those people would ask one another than Search’s idiosyncratic syntax. The changes will direct users to engage directly with Google’s chatbot. The change to search is underpinned by the company’s new artificial intelligence model, Gemini 3.5, announced the same day.

Nine-person jury to consider whether AI firm bilked world’s richest person and unjustly enriched themselves

Closing arguments began on Thursday in Elon Musk’s lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI, bringing the weeks-long courtroom battle between the two tech moguls nearer to a decision. A nine-person jury is set to deliberate and return a verdict on whether they believe the AI firm and Altman are liable in the case.

The trial, which began last month in an Oakland, California, federal courthouse, has gripped Silicon Valley and featured some of the tech industry’s biggest names as witnesses. Attorneys for both sides have presented testimony and documents that have exposed Musk and Altman’s private dealings, as well as provided a window into the contentious history of OpenAI.