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Russia's Federal Security Service on Friday accused six British diplomats of spying and said a decision has been made to withdraw their accreditation.

Russian state TV quoted an official from the security service known as the FSB as saying that they will be expelled. The expulsions come as Prime Minister Keir Starmer visits Washington for talks with U.S. President Joe Biden that will include Ukraine's request to use Western-supplied weapons against targets inside Russia.

Starmer said on his way to the U.S. that Britain does not "seek any conflict with Russia."

"Russia started this conflict. Russia illegally invaded Ukraine. Russia could end this conflict straight away," he told reporters.

The reason Kamala Harris keeps visiting North Carolina is made evident in an eye-popping pattern her campaign volunteers have noticed while knocking on doors.

What they see are signs of a state growing so rapidly that Asheville's airport is a giant construction site and almost six per cent of the city's residents have moved here from another state in just one year.

Campaign volunteer Susan Thomas only got here two months ago, and she's already canvassing on behalf of the Democratic presidential candidate.

She hears a familiar story: one person, after another, after another, tells her they've just moved from somewhere else.

In the span of just a few minutes last Sunday, Thomas encountered South Carolina Democrats who moved here this year for cooler weather and bluer politics, beside another family of South Carolina Democrats who just moved in next door. She then came across a block party hosted by recently arrived California Democrats, where a Democrat from New Orleans was standing beside the host.

elecom operator AT&T (T.N), opens new tab and its joint-venture partner TPG (TPG.O), opens new tab are in early-stage talks to merge their DirecTV satellite TV service with EchoStar (SATS.O), opens new tab owned Dish, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday.

The two companies first attempted to merge back in 2002 when the U.S. Justice Department blocked the tie-up. The combined entity would create the largest pay-TV service provider in the U.S. at about 16 million subscribers, if the talks are successful.

The potential deal would likely attract antitrust scrutiny again although it might be able to clear regulatory hurdles this time as the industry has expanded substantially since then and DirecTV and Dish now compete against the likes of Comcast (CMCSA.O), opens new tab, Charter (CHTR.O), opens new tab, Amazon Prime, YouTube TV, and Netflix (NFLX.O), opens new tab.

Several high-profile companies are trying to test investor appetite for IPOs following a prolonged downturn due to rising interest rates and geopolitical turmoil.

The number of Chinese companies that have pursued stock market flotations in the United States has dropped in the past few years, after ride-hailing giant Didi Global was forced to delist its shares in late 2021 following a backlash from China's regulators.

EV maker Zeekr's (ZK.N), opens new tab debut on the New York Stock Exchange earlier this year was the first big listing by a Chinese company in the U.S. since Didi's delisting.

South Korea convened an international summit on Monday seeking to establish a blueprint for the responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the military, though any agreement is not expected to have binding powers to enforce it.

More than 90 countries including the United States and China have sent government representatives to the two-day summit in Seoul, which is the second such gathering.

The first summit was held in The Hague last year, where the United States, China and other nations endorsed a modest "call to action, opens new tab" without legal commitment.

Lemmy already has several domains, but I haven't seen him have the domain. museum

Vice President Kamala Harris has rolled out several initiatives as part of her housing plan. She wants to incentivize builders to create 3 million units of affordable housing and develop a $25,000 housing credit for first-time homebuyers. Harris's housing goals have been widely dissected by the media, showing that the nationwide housing problem is top of mind for many people.

Harris believes that former president Trump has it all wrong when it comes to solving the housing crunch. In her Aug. 16,2024, political rally, she stated, "If his Project 2025 agenda is put into effect, it will add around $1,200 a year to the typical American mortgage. He's got it backward. We should be doing everything we can to make it more affordable to buy a home, not less."

Youth unemployment in China ticked up to 17.1% in July, official figures showed, the highest level this year as the world's second-largest economy faces mounting headwinds.

China is battling soaring joblessness among young people, a heavily indebted property sector and intensifying trade issues with the West.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang, who is responsible for economic policy, called Friday for struggling companies to be "heard" and "their difficulties truly addressed," according to the state news agency Xinhua.

The unemployment rate among 16- to 24-year-olds released Friday by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) was up markedly from June's 13.2%.

Artificial-intelligence company Anthropic asked a California federal court on Thursday to dismiss some copyright claims brought by a group of music publishers over the alleged misuse of song lyrics to train its AI-powered chatbot Claude.

Anthropic said that the court should reject the publishers' allegations that the company induced Claude users to infringe their copyrights or committed other copyright-related violations.

The company did not address the core claim from the publishers - Universal Music Group (UMG.AS), opens new tab, ABKCO and Concord Music Group - that the use of their lyrics to train AI violates their rights or the key defense that such training makes fair use of copyrighted work.

"Anthropic's latest motion is completely without merit and is yet another example of an AI company seeking to avoid taking responsibility for its massive infringement of copyrights," the publishers' attorney Matt Oppenheim of Oppenheim + Zebrak said in a statement on Friday.

A federal judge in Florida has temporarily blocked a U.S. Federal Trade Commission rule that would ban agreements commonly signed by workers not to join their employers' rivals or launch competing businesses, becoming the second judge to rule that the ban is likely invalid.

During a hearing on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Timothy Corrigan in Ocala, Florida, blocked the FTC from applying the rule to real estate developer Properties of the Villages, pending the outcome of the company's lawsuit claiming the commission lacked the power to adopt the ban earlier this year.

Corrigan at the hearing said the rule implicated a question of "extraordinary economic and political significance" that Congress did not empower the FTC to address, according to a court transcript.

Corrigan cited the "major questions doctrine," a legal theory embraced in recent years by conservative lawyers and judges - including the U.S. Supreme Court - in challenges to many Democratic and progressive policies. The doctrine says that federal agencies can only issue rules with broad societal impacts with Congress' explicit permission.

A white woman who fatally shot her Black neighbor through a locked door amid a neighborhood feud in Florida has been convicted by a jury of manslaughter.

The jury took less than three hours Friday to find 60-year-old Susan Lorincz guilty in the death of Ajike "AJ" Shantrell Owens, a 35-year-old single mother who was shot once in the right side of her chest with a .380-caliber handgun while standing outside Lorincz's front door in June 2023. Owens' death drew national attention and put a new spotlight on race, gun violence and Florida's controversial "stand your ground" law.

The defense team offered no comment after the verdict, citing respect for the victim's family. In a news conference outside the courthouse, Anthony Thomas, an attorney representing Owens' family, called on Circuit Judge Robert Hodges to impose the maximum sentence of 30 years in prison.