Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA
Amazon’s business partnership with luxury retailer Saks Global has hit a sour note.The e-commerce giant invested $475 million of preferred equity in Saks Global — the owner of department stores Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, and Bergdorf Goodman — in December 2024.Now, Amazon says its stake is “presumptively worthless,” and it has asked a federal judge to reject the retailer’s bankruptcy financing plans, which it says will further diminish its chances of recovery.”That equity investment is now presumptively worthless after Saks continuously failed to meet its budgets, burned through hundreds of millions of dollars in less than a year, and…
Through an extension to its previous $50 million Series A round that closed in September, AI video generation startup Higgsfield has sold another $80 million worth of stock, bringing its total Series A to $130 million. The company says it has now hit a $1.3 billion valuation. Higgsfield offers a tool that allows consumers, creators, and social media teams to create and edit AI-generated videos. The company was founded by Alex Mashrabov, former head of Generative AI at Snap, who landed at the company after it bought his previous startup, AI Factory, in 2020 for $166 million. Mashrabov was a…
NEW YORK (AP) — New York City nurses who walked off the job are set to resume negotiations with hospital administrators Thursday to try to bring an end to the city’s biggest nursing strike in decades.The New York State Nurses Association said its bargaining members will meet with their counterparts at NewYork-Presbyterian late Thursday, the fourth day of the strike.They’ll meet with officials at other affected hospitals, including Mount Sinai and Montefiore, on Friday, though the union said some have not yet agreed to a sit-down.Each medical center is negotiating with the union independently, and not every hospital run by…
Verizon is offering an account credit after a service outage affected tens of thousands of customers on Wednesday.A Verizon spokesperson told Business Insider that it “did not meet the standard of excellence our customers expect and that we expect of ourselves.”Verizon said it would provide those affected with a $20 account credit redeemable through the myVerizon app.”This credit isn’t meant to make up for what happened,” Verizon said in its statement. “No credit really can. But it’s a way of acknowledging our customers’ time and showing that this matters to us.”The company also said that if customers are still experiencing…
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Kaiser Permanente affiliates will pay $556 million to settle a lawsuit that alleged the health care giant committed Medicare fraud and pressured doctors to list incorrect diagnoses on medical records to receive higher reimbursements, federal prosecutors said.The deal announced Wednesday came more than four years after the U.S. Department of Justice filed the legal claim in San Francisco that consolidated allegations made in six whistleblower complaints.The affiliates in the settlement include the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan; Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Colorado; The Permanente Medical Group; Southern California Permanente Medical Group; and Colorado Permanente Medical Group…
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A federal investigation into a sprawling betting scheme to fix basketball games stretched from the Chinese Basketball Association to the NCAA and has ensnared 26 people, including current and former college players, prosecutors revealed Thursday.The charges filed in federal court in Philadelphia include bribery, wire fraud and conspiracy. How did the scheme work?A group of fixers, including gamblers, recruited players with the promise of a big payment in exchange for purposefully underperforming during a game, prosecutors said. Those fixers would then bet against the players’ teams in those games, defrauding sportsbooks and other bettors, authorities said.How…
After months of rumors that the Trump administration was going to impose tariffs on semiconductors, a tariff has been announced for some chips. The tariff only applies to certain semiconductors, including the Nvidia H200 advanced AI chips set to ship to China. President Donald Trump signed a proclamation on Wednesday that entailed a 25% tariff on advanced AI semiconductors that have been produced outside the U.S. and then pass through the U.S. before being exported to customers in other countries. This news formalizes a key component of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s decision to give Nvidia the green light to…
Federal prosecutors have revealed a sprawling scheme to rig college basketball games while yielding big payouts to gamblers.According to an indictment unsealed Thursday, fixers started with two professional games in China before turning their focus to recruiting college players in America to participate in similar point-shaving efforts as recently as January 2025.The indictment, which includes charges against current and former college players, coincides with multiple NCAA probes into sports-betting violations.Here’s what to know about the latest case:The types of bets that were flaggedGamblers can bet on games with the point spread, a projected total by which one team is favored…
Last fall, OpenAI sent shockwaves through the software industry. Now, Anthropic is doing the same. A new wave of announcements from Anthropic this week revived fears that generative AI could undermine the economics of traditional software companies.In a research note published Wednesday, analysts at RBC Capital Markets said a flurry of recent product launches from Anthropic, including new AI tools for productivity and healthcare, has coincided with a broad selloff across the software sector and could deepen concerns that AI is becoming a competitive threat rather than a tailwind.On Sunday, Anthropic rolled out Claude for Healthcare & Life Sciences, which…
Just when you thought the circular deals couldn’t get any more circular, OpenAI has invested in CEO Sam Altman’s brain computer interface (BCI) startup Merge Labs. Merge Labs, which defines itself as a “research lab” dedicated to “bridging biological and artificial intelligence to maximize human ability,” came out of stealth on Thursday with an undisclosed seed round. A source familiar with the matter confirmed previous reports that OpenAI wrote the largest single check in Merge Labs’ $250 million seed round at an $850 million valuation. “Our individual experience of the world arises from billions of active neurons,” reads a statement…