A new tool that lets people take publicly posted Instagram photos and use AI to generate new images from them is creating a backlash in Hollywood.

Instagram’s parent company, Meta, on Tuesday rolled out the new AI feature, called Muse Image, which makes it easy to “turn your ideas into high-quality visuals you can download and share ...Read more

What do tariffs, rotisserie chicken and grain-free dog food have in common? Each has sparked a lawsuit against Issaquah, Washington-based warehouse retailer Costco.

The list doesn’t stop there — protein powder has joined the ranks. On Tuesday, consumers filed a proposed class-action lawsuit against Costco in federal court for the Western ...Read more

Downtown Seattle may be sending strong “we’re back” vibes during its World Cup star turn. But downtown's economic engine is still stuck on the sidelines.

Nearly 37% of the downtown Seattle office space is vacant — the most of any major U.S. downtown, according to real estate brokerage Cushman & Wakefield.

Iconic office towers like the ...Read more

The lithium-ion batteries that supply much of today’s clean energy come with some infamous drawbacks, from fire risk to reliance on foreign mining.

Alternatives have been slow to get off the ground.

But California start-up Peak Energy announced Wednesday it’s building a factory in Sacramento that will be the first in the U.S. to make ...Read more

American Bitcoin Corp. was built around a simple idea: that owning and mining Bitcoin would be enough to mint money.

Instead, the company co-founded by Eric Trump is mired in a deep downturn. As Bitcoin sank into a bear market and demand for artificial intelligence surged, investors increasingly favored miners that could repurpose their ...Read more

Inside a factory alongside Interstate 5 in the San Joaquin Valley, a forklift delivered a stack of precut lumber to two waiting carpenters.

Consulting a design on a computer screen, the workers arranged the numbered pieces — from 14 inches to 12 feet long — into a grid on an oversize worktable and attached them with rapid nail gun blasts. ...Read more

The head of the top U.S. auto safety regulator said the agency “absolutely” will consider ending requirements that driverless cars include steering wheels, a potential boon for Tesla Inc. and other robotaxi companies rethinking traditional vehicle design.

“If you’re developing a vehicle that is designed never to be driven by a human ...Read more

Micron Technology Inc. plans to increase its spending on new plants in the U.S. to $250 billion to help meet unprecedented demand for its memory chips fueled by the global artificial intelligence boom.

The funds would add $50 billion to the company’s previously announced commitment of $200 billion toward expanding domestic chipmaking that ...Read more

AI-focused tech firms are stepping up searches for office space, and New York and San Francisco won’t be the only cities to benefit from their fast expansion.

Building tours by prospective AI tenants in the U.S. jumped 85% in the year through May, according to commercial-property data provider VTS. Searches are highly concentrated in ...Read more

I’m lucky that I get to review lots of cool new gadgets, both big and small.

Larger or more complex things usually have enough going on that they take up all the writing space I am assigned, but sometimes I accumulate smaller or simpler gadgets, and I’ve learned to group those together.

This week we are looking at a few smaller gadgets.

...Read more

JBS NV, the world’s largest meatpacker, is stepping back from a 2040 net-zero emissions goal, dropping targets for the indirect emissions that make up the bulk of its environmental footprint.

The company in its latest sustainability report adjusted its goals to eliminate targets for so-called Scope 3 greenhouse gas output, which for JBS ...Read more

A U.S. judge signed off on Elon Musk paying $1.5 million to end a Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit that accused him of cheating Twitter Inc. investors when he missed a deadline in 2022 to disclose his growing stake in the company.

U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan’s approval comes after she said in May that the deal raised “...Read more

Nexstar Media Group's The Hill, the political web site that started as a free newspaper read in most congressional offices in Washington, is launching a new direct-to-consumer streaming service that will be behind a paywall.

Starting Wednesday, Nexstar will offer The Hill Insider, which will carry daily streaming video programs and newsletters....Read more

China purchased the largest amount of U.S. soybeans since November, extending a wave of buying as agricultural trade between the world’s two largest economies gathers pace.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Wednesday reported sales of 472,000 metric tons of soybeans for delivery to China, the biggest daily export amount reported to that ...Read more

This being the "information age," it would be understandable if investors sometimes feel inundated with too much information to wade through about the stocks in their mutual fund portfolios.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, bowing like a puppy to the urgings of President Trump, is considering exactly the wrong solution to this supposed ...Read more

Walmart is rapidly expanding its network of electric vehicle chargers designed for customers to use while they shop.

The network could help fill gaps in EV infrastructure in states with greater need for chargers. Walmart, which has more than 5,000 locations in the U.S. and hundreds in California, says more than 90% of Americans live within 10 ...Read more

PARK CITY, Utah — If the early 20th-century auto revolution was sparked in Detroit by entrepreneurs like Ford, Dodge, and Sloan, the early 21st century has brought a new, digital auto revolution on America’s West Coast right out of a science fiction novel.

At its forefront are entrepreneurs like Sergei Brin of Google, Tesla’s Elon Musk, ...Read more

A growing nationwide shortage of high-skilled workers threatens to delay construction of billions of dollars in new semiconductor plants across the US and constrain future chip production unless the industry pools resources and the government keeps up funding, according to a new report.

The deficit is expected to be most acute in states such as...Read more