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    Key AI hub China restricts schoolchildren’s use of the tech

    China is restricting how much children can use generative artificial intelligence in schools, according to a local release citing the Ministry of Education.
    Primary school students are prohibited from using unrestricted generative AI tools on their own, although an instructor may use the tech to assist in teaching, according to the local government report.

    A student is playing chess with an intelligent robot in Xuzhou City, Jiangsu Province, China on May 13, 2025.
    Cfoto | Future Publishing | Getty Images

    BEIJING — China’s latest education policies for the year restrict the extent to which children can use generative artificial intelligence in the classroom, according to a local government report on Thursday.
    The guidelines cited in the report, which weren’t publicly available, covered AI education and generative AI use in primary and secondary schools during 2025.

    China’s Ministry of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
    Primary school students are prohibited from using unrestricted generative AI tools on their own, although an instructor may use the tech to assist with teaching, according to the local government report.
    It added that middle schoolers can explore how generative AI reasons and analyzes information, while high schoolers are allowed to use the tech more broadly.
    The report said the policies banned students from directly copying AI-generated content into homework and called on schools to establish a list of approved generative AI tools that can be used on school grounds.
    The People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the ruling Chinese Communist Party, mentioned the new guidelines on the sixth page of its Thursday edition.

    But the national state media report did not discuss specific limits on AI use, and instead focused on how the policies aimed to promote “scientific” and “standardized” promotion of AI education suited to various stages of education, according to a CNBC translation.
    Use of generative AI in China has increased significantly after DeepSeek, a homegrown rival to OpenAI, in late January released a chatbot app. Tencent, ByteDance and other companies have released similar chatbots that have surged in popularity in China.  More

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    Economists are as confused as Trump about taxing the rich

    IF YOU want to put a policymaker on the spot, ask them what the top rate of income tax should be. The question befuddles everyone. On May 8th President Donald Trump broke with decades of Republican convention when he reportedly urged Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House of Representatives, to increase America’s highest federal levy on incomes from 37% to 39.6%, where it stood before the president’s own reforms in 2017. Mr Trump then took to social media to announce that although he would “graciously accept” such a change “in order to help the lower and middle income workers”, Republicans in Congress “should probably not do it”. He is nevertheless “OK if they do”. More

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    China has got lucky with Trump. Can the rest of the world?

    As Scott Bessent, America’s treasury secretary, negotiated with China in Switzerland late into the evening on May 11th, trade negotiators from the rest of the world found themselves at a loose end. Many had arrived in Washington for talks, desperately seeking trade deals, only to find America’s negotiators abroad and their meetings delayed or cancelled. One official, who expected to present painstakingly crafted positions on bovine-vaccination rules and currency manipulation, took the chance to visit the newly refurbished Air and Space Museum. He then left “about as empty-handed as before”. More

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    How the Chinese Communist Party learnt to love villages

    From a distance Xiaotao looks like any other village. But stroll down its main path and a café comes into view, with baristas manning an espresso machine. Next door is a tiny bakery with a wood-fired oven. Nearby, a farm-house pottery studio and an artist’s gallery. More

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    Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian takes minority stake in Chelsea FC women’s team

    Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian has purchased a minority stake in Chelsea FC Women.
    The investment gives him an ownership stake in two of the most-valuable teams in women’s sports.
    Ohanian’s Chelsea deal values the women’s club at 200 million pounds, according to a person familiar with the deal.

    Alexis Ohanian, Principal Owner, Angel City Football Club & Los Angeles Golf Club, looks on during a conversation with Olympic sprinter Gabby Thomas during the Business of Women Sport Summit presented by Deep Blue Sports and Axios at Chelsea Factory on April 23, 2024 in New York City. 
    Elsa | Getty Images

    Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian has purchased a minority stake in Chelsea FC Women, giving him an ownership stake in two of the most-valuable teams in women’s sports.
    The founder of venture capital firm Seven Seven Six and husband of tennis legend Serena Williams paid 20 million pounds for a 10% stake in the English soccer team, according to a person familiar with the deal. Ohanian is also a part owner in the National Women’s Soccer League’s Angel City FC alongside Disney CEO Bob Iger and his wife, Willow Bay.

    Ohanian’s Chelsea deal values the women’s club at 200 million pounds, according to the person familiar, making it the most valuable women’s team in the world based on current foreign exchange rates. As part of the deal, Ohanian will be given a seat on the team’s board.
    “I’ve bet big on women’s sports before — and I’m doing it again,” Ohanian said in a post on social media site X confirming the stake.
    Chelsea FC Women have won six consecutive Women’s Super League titles. Ohanian says he see the opportunity to grow a worldwide brand within women’s football.

    Chelsea FC Women gifted Alexis Ohanian’s daughters jerseys.
    Courtesy of Alexis Ohanian

    “I’m confident Chelsea FC Women is the next global women’s sports brand,” he said.
    Ohanian left Reddit in 2020 to focus on building a legacy for his two young daughters through sports and other investments.

    He said in 2024 he had invested $250,000 from his daughters trust fund into Angel City FC. Ohanian said the investment made them the youngest owners in professional sports and multi-millionaires.
    Williams also recently became part owner of WNBA expansion team the Toronto Tempo, and Ohanian has started a women’s track competition. More

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    HBO Max is coming back — Warner Bros. Discovery is renaming its streaming service, again

    Warner Bros. Discovery is renaming its streaming platform again starting this summer, restoring a name it ditched just two years ago.
    The change comes as Warner Bros. Discovery seeks to scale back its volume of content and focus on quality programming and storytelling.
    The Upfronts week in New York has already been heavy on naming news.

    A scene from season 3 of The White Lotus.”
    Source: HBO | Warner Bros.

    HBO became HBO Max, and then it became Max. Now, it will be HBO Max once more.
    Warner Bros. Discovery is renaming its streaming platform again starting this summer, restoring a name it ditched just two years ago. The company announced the rebranding Wednesday during its upfront presentation in New York.

    The change comes as Warner Bros. Discovery seeks to scale back its volume of content and focus on quality programming and storytelling.
    “The powerful growth we have seen in our global streaming service is built around the quality of our programming,” said David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, in a statement. “Today, we are bringing back HBO, the brand that represents the highest quality in media, to further accelerate that growth in the years ahead.”
    The company’s streaming business has turned around its profitability by almost $3 billion over the past two years and scaled globally with around 22 million subscribers added in the past year. Warner Bros. Discovery aims to have more than 150 million subscribers by the end of 2026.
    Still, Warner Bros. Discovery lost live rights to National Basketball Association games beginning next season. The company has focused on paying down debt rather than spending on new content to compete with Netflix, which has more than 300 million subscribers.
    Ironically, the HBO Max branding was first introduced in 2019 to showcase HBO’s competitive global streaming ambitions. Now, Warner Bros. Discovery is bringing back the same name, but emphasizing the opposite — quality over quantity.

    “We will continue to focus on what makes us unique — not everything for everyone in a household, but something distinct and great for adults and families,” said JB Perrette, president and CEO of streaming at Warner Bros. Discovery, in a statement. “It’s really not subjective, not even controversial — our programming just hits different.”
    Competitor Disney has taken a similar tack, with CEO Bob Iger noting in recent investor calls that the way to win in streaming will be quality content.
    The legacy media companies have all struggled to achieve profitability in their streaming businesses since launching their own services in recent years. That has led to an increased emphasis on advertising tiers, crackdowns on password sharing and more streaming service bundles.
    The Upfronts week in New York has already been heavy on naming news. ESPN announced its upcoming flagship streaming app will be named simply ESPN. Fox said its forthcoming streamer will be named Fox One. Last week, Comcast’s cable portfolio spinoff announced its new holding company name, Versant.
    Warner Bros. Discovery first launched its stand-alone streaming service HBO Max in 2020 when the brand was still owned by AT&T. The “Max” moniker was added to signify that the platform would have a wide array of content, from reality TV, documentaries, kids programming and movies, as well as the prestige branding of HBO titles.
    At the time, leadership believed HBO had too small of an audience, much of which was U.S.-based, and that there was more value in making HBO a sub-brand within a larger streaming offering.
    The service was later renamed Max in 2023. That change came after the merging of Discovery Communications and WarnerMedia, which was divested from AT&T in 2022. Content from Discovery+ was added to HBO Max under the new name.
    Now, two years later, Warner Bros. Discovery has reversed course.
    Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of CNBC. Versant will be the new parent company of CNBC under the proposed cable portfolio spinoff.

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    Warren Buffett tells WSJ he stepped aside as CEO after finally feeling old

    Warren Buffett does a walkthrough of the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, on May 3, 2025.
    David A. Grogen | CNBC

    Age isn’t just a number for Warren Buffett after all.
    The 94-year-old investment legend recently surprised shareholders by announcing his intention to step down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO after an epic 60-year run. The reason behind the decision was the physical effects of aging he has been experiencing, Buffett said in a new interview with The Wall Street Journal.

    “I didn’t really start getting old, for some strange reason, until I was about 90,” he told the Journal in a phone interview. “But when you start getting old, it does become — it’s irreversible.”
    The Oracle of Omaha, who turns 95 in August, revealed to the paper that he started to lose his balance occasionally, while experiencing issues remembering someone’s name sometimes. His vision also turned less clear when reading newspapers.
    It marked an end of an era at Berkshire, which was a failing New England textile mill six decades ago and was transformed into a one-of-a-kind conglomerate with businesses ranging from Geico Insurance to BNSF Railway. Buffett is handing over his reins on a high note as Berkshire shares are near a record high, giving the conglomerate a market cap of nearly $1.2 trillion.
    Berkshire’s board voted unanimously to make Greg Abel, now vice chairman of non-insurance operations,  president and CEO on Jan. 1, 2026, and for Buffett to remain as chairman.
    Still, Buffett said he remains mentally sharp to make investment decisions when opportunities arise. The value investing icon is known to take advantage of market turmoil and depressed prices to make big purchases.

    “I don’t have any trouble making decisions about something that I was making decisions on 20 years ago or 40 years ago or 60 years,” he told the Journal. “I will be useful here if there’s a panic in the market because I don’t get fearful when things go down in price or everybody else gets scared. … And that really isn’t a function of age.”
    Click here to read the original WSJ story.

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    New York AG sues Capital One after Trump-led CFPB drops similar case

    New York Attorney General Letitia James sued Capital One on Wednesday, accusing the bank of “cheating” customers out of millions of dollars in interest payments.
    The suit mimics litigation by the  Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was dropped in February under the Trump administration.
    “Big banks are not allowed to cheat their customers with false advertising and misleading promises,” James said in a statement.

    The logo for consumer lending firm Capital One Financial Corp. is seen on its headquarters in McLean, Virginia, on Jan. 20. 2023.
    Win Mcnamee | Getty Images News | Getty Images

    New York Attorney General Letitia James sued Capital One on Wednesday, accusing the bank of “cheating” customers out of millions of dollars in interest payments, just months after the Trump administration’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau dropped a similar suit against the financial institution.
    In a complaint filed in Manhattan federal court, James alleged that Capital One marketed its “360 Savings” account as its high-yield savings account, then left those customers in the dark by failing to inform them about its new “360 Performance Savings” product that offered substantially higher interest rates. 

    As interest rates rose starting in 2022, the state attorney general’s office said Capital One froze the interest rate of its 360 Savings product at 0.3%, while increasing the rate of the 360 Performance Savings accounts to as high as 4.35%, meaning New York 360 Savings customers lost out on “millions of dollars of interest.”
    The suit further alleges that Capital One instructed its employees not to tell 360 Savings customers about the new product “unless they explicitly asked.”
    The complaint mimics litigation by the CFPB, which was dropped in February under Trump-era CFPB Acting Director Russell Vought. That suit alleged Capital One’s marketing led U.S. customers to miss out on more than $2 billion in interest.
    The dropped CFPB case is among a slew of other enforcement lawsuits that the agency pursued under previous CFPB Director Rohit Chopra, and that have been dismissed by President Donald Trump’s administration.
    “Capital One assured high returns with no catches, then pulled the rug out from under their customers and hoped nobody would notice,” James said in a statement Wednesday. “Big banks are not allowed to cheat their customers with false advertising and misleading promises.”

    A Capital One spokesperson said in a statement to CNBC that it strongly disagrees with the attorney general’s claims and will “vigorously defend” itself in court.
    “Our flagship 360 Performance Savings product was marketed widely, including on national television, and has always been available in just minutes to all new and existing customers without any of the usual industry restrictions,” the spokesperson said.
    The bank also disputed the CFPB allegations earlier this year.
    The New York suit accuses Capital One of violating state and federal law and seeks “restitution and damages for all affected Capital One customers.”

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