Chinese factory activity improves slightly with delay on tariffs, but still lags
The purchasing managers index, which reflects new orders and other measures, rose to 49.7 from 49.5 in May, the National Bureau of Statistics reported. That's on a scale of 0 to 100 where 50 and above shows expansion.
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Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Trump to use presidential authority to send weapons to Ukraine, sources say
By Mike Stone WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump for the first time since returning to office will send weapons to Kyiv under a presidential power frequently used by his predecessor, two sources familiar with the decision said on Thursday, a move suggesting new interest by the president in defending Ukraine. More than three years after Russia's invasion of its neighbor, Trump's team will identify arms from U.S. stockpiles to send to Ukraine under the Presidential Drawdown Authority, the sources said, with one saying they could be worth around $300 million. Trump on Tuesday said the U.S. would send more weapons to Ukraine to help the country defend itself against intensifying Russian advances. The package could include defensive Patriot missiles and offensive medium-range rockets, but a decision on the exact equipment has not been made, the sources said. One of the people said this would happen at a meeting on Thursday. So far, the Trump administration has only sent weapons authorized by former President Joe Biden, who was a staunch supporter of Kyiv. Presidential Drawdown Authority allows the president to draw from weapons stocks to help allies in an emergency. The Pentagon and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Republican president's stance on defending Ukraine has been inconsistent. At times he has criticized U.S. spending and spoken favorably of Russia but also sometimes has voiced support for Kyiv and disparaged the Kremlin. The U.S. has $3.86 billion worth of Presidential Drawdown Authority for Ukraine remaining. The last drawdown was a $500 million award by Biden on January 9. Ukraine's top priorities are Patriot missile interceptors and GMLRS mobile rocket artillery which may be included in the package. The weapons could be on the front lines within days because stocks are positioned in Europe. The Trump administration this month halted shipments of some critical weapons that were approved by Biden but some of those shipments have resumed. Congress has approved nearly $175 billion of aid and military assistance for Ukraine and allied nations in the nearly 3-1/2 years since Russia's full-scale invasion.
Forbes
an hour ago
- Forbes
Even A.I. Might Not Be Able To Save These New Style Trademarks
North American and European brands have been successfully selling made-in-China goods for decades. It was probably inevitable that many of its small factories would become direct online sellers, perhaps in competition with their former customers. But the trademarks that many of them have been using may not be helping them crack the market. American companies – and startups are certainly no different – give a lot of thought to the best mark, which will personify their product, using a name which helps it to sell, yet also distinguishes it from its competition. All companies should also search their marks to be sure they do not come too close to a potential competitor which may demand a name change, or worse, threaten to sue. Many Chinese startups have taken a different path. They are adopting made-up names which bear little resemblance to the traditional English or Romance language sounding words we usually see. Consider this random assortment I came up with: 'Lvrigfpro' for pharmaceuticals 'Matdg' for jewelry 'Mahcscha' for beach towels 'Bfxlmki' for paintings and paper 'Haisiwlkj' for furniture covers 'RabvPerce' for toys A number of these brands are setting new paradigms by using a combination of consonants and vowels which don't follow familiar patterns, making them arguably a little difficult to recognize and to pronounce. These contrast sharply with now-household names of many Chinese brands with a gigantic U.S. presence – brands such as: 'Tik Tok' 'Alibaba' 'Huawei' 'Shein' 'Haier' Pronunciation can always be a challenge for brands coming into the U.S. from overseas. All of the well-known brands listed above are capable of a pronunciation in English, largely because they still follow certain rules which combine consonants and vowels in a way that makes them understandable, even if initially pronunciation is unclear. Words have a certain flow, creating a kind of familiarity so that made-up words can sound like and be pronounced like a word in the English language. These marks follow the rules in a way that the other marks above which I randomly selected do not. Words are formed of syllables, and syllables are composed of a combination of consonants. The reader needs to build up a 'beat,' and words which are readily recognized will march to that beat. Interestingly, companies could save time and money in the trademark creation process by coming up with something that feels unfamiliar, like 'Haisiwlkj.' One interesting aspect of these marks is that while I always counsel startup companies to adopt a mark that they will be able to protect and to register in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, it is also desirable that the words look, appear and sound different from anything already in use in traditional terms; this equates to a stronger, more distinctive trademark. The chances of running into another mark already used with a similar appearance, sound and meaning seem small. So, two of the three goals of brand name creation are fulfilled: (1) first, do no harm (avoid conflicting with others); (2) get something you can protect (make it distinctive as possible); (3) as for the third, which is 'pick a name that will sell the product' – maybe not so much. (Marketers accuse lawyers of preferring 1 and 2 over 3, and in many cases, they're not wrong. What's the use of having a mark if it doesn't help actually sell the product?) The great inherent value to using the right word for a brand is the benefit of projecting the right image, taking into account an enormous range of cultural preferences which range from the literal messages words or portions of words suggest, to a sound of familiarity which elicits good or positive feelings, or reflects certain values. All of that is lost in brand names which are not only fanciful creations, but which fail to send a message to a consumer who is busy trying to figure out exactly what the word is and how you would pronounce it. Given the roles trademarks play in conveying meaning or evoking emotion, these new marks may be losing out on the main branding opportunity. The U.S. market has since the very beginning featured 'foreign' products, and often many of those products have had the greatest of prestige. Not all of them have been inherently easy for American consumers to pronounce, whether from Europe, Asia, or elsewhere. But they have had a certain common element to them much more familiar to the American and English language speaker's ear than this newest generation of trademarks. Over time, people become accustomed to and comfortable with new things. Will these neologisms start to sound familiar once there are enough of them in everyday use, or will they fade in favor of more traditional sounding words? There's always a back story. The explosion in trademark applications from China in recent years has actually been well documented. Lawyers who practice regularly in front of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office also recognize certain patterns among some segment of these applications. A word is created, and a web page is thrown together to show the product being offered for sale. Many of these applications are accused of being filed simply to try to reserve rights, and names are even more blatantly just to get applications on file in the Trademark Office for the benefit of certain subsidies that were being offered by the Chinese government to obtain U.S. trademark registration protection. The flood of these offbeat names in the Trademark Office has its own story. Official investigations by the United States Patent and Trademark Office have indicated the Chinese government, at every level from national to local, has incentivized companies to seek to develop and protect their brands abroad, including in the U.S.A. In many cases some government agency paid the bill not only for the cost of applications in the Trademark Office, but even allowed the trademark owner to end up with a surplus for each trademark application they file in the United States. Over the past few years, the Trademark Office has even taken some enforcement actions where it has found that some of these practices violate the good faith rule that any application exhibits a 'bona fide intent' to use the mark in the United States. Will American consumers accept and become familiar with these names and come to appreciate them as trusted brands? Or is this only a phase during which time these non-U.S. marketers and non-English language natives are making an all-out assault to project and protect brand names into the United States for their own purposes? Putting aside the tariffs in the room, it would otherwise seem that direct-to-consumer marketing from these small China-based enterprises which formerly relied on U.S. entities to sell their wares is not likely to die down. They presumably will change their branding habits – through time, experience, and maybe even the assistance of A.I. – to develop words and names that look more like the types of familiar terms that will motivate American shoppers to trust those brands and remember the names. You might say that this process will be more consonant with consumer expectations.
CNET
an hour ago
- CNET
This Massive AT&T Data Breach Settlement Could Pay $5K to Some: Find Out if You're Eligible
The 2024 hack of AT&T servers was one of the five biggest data breaches of the year. AT&T/CNET It's a tough time for AT&T -- especially with the recent conference call troubles for Donald Trump -- but their struggles could be your gain thanks to the $177 million settlement it's agreed to pay to customers that fell victim to data breaches in 2019 and 2024. On Friday, June 20, US District Judge Ada Brown granted preliminary approval to the terms of a proposed settlement from AT&T that would resolve two lawsuits related to the data breaches. The current settlement would see AT&T pay $177 million to customers adversely affected by at least one of the two data breaches. The settlement will prioritize larger payments to customers who suffered damages that are "fairly traceable" to the data leaks. It will also provide bigger payments to those affected by the larger of the two leaks, which began in 2019. While the company is working toward a settlement, it has continued to deny that it was "responsible for these criminal acts." For all the details we have about the settlement right now, keep reading, and for more info about other recent settlements, find out how to claim Apple's Siri privacy settlement and see if you're eligible for 23andMe's privacy breach settlement. What happened with these AT&T data breaches? AT&T confirmed the two data breaches last year, announcing an investigation into the first in March before confirming it in May and confirming the second in July. The first of the confirmed breaches began in 2019. The company revealed that about 7.6 million current and 65.4 million former account holders had their data exposed to hackers, including names, Social Security numbers and dates of birth. The company began investigating the situation last year after it reported that customer data had appeared on the dark web. The second breach began in April of 2024, when a hacker broke into AT&T cloud storage provider Snowflake and accessed 2022 call and text records for almost all of the company's US customers, about 109 million in all. The company stressed that no names were attached to the stolen data. Two individuals were arrested in connection with the breach. Both of these incidents sparked a wave of class action lawsuits alleging corporate neglect on the part of AT&T in failing to sufficiently protect its customers. Who is eligible to file a claim for the AT&T data breach settlement? As of now, we know that the settlement will pay out to any current or former AT&T customer whose data was accessed in one of these data breaches, with higher payments reserved for those who can provide documented proof that they suffered damages directly resulting from their data being stolen. If you're eligible, you should receive a notice about it, either by email or a physical letter in the mail, sometime in the coming months. The company expects that the claims process will begin on Aug. 4, 2025. How much will the AT&T data breach payments be? You'll have to "reasonably" prove damages caused by these data breaches to be eligible for the highest and most prioritized payouts. For the 2019 breach, those claimants can receive up to $5,000. For the Snowflake breach in 2024, the max payout will be $2,500. It's not clear at this time how the company might be handling customers who've been affected by both breaches. AT&T will focus on making those payments first, and whatever's left of the $177 million settlement total will be disbursed to anyone whose data was accessed, even without proof of damages. Because these payouts depend on how many people get the higher amounts first, we can't say definitively how much they will be. When could I get paid from the AT&T data breach settlement? AT&T expects that payments will start to go out sometime in early 2026. Exact dates aren't available but the recent court order approving the settlement lists a notification schedule of Aug. 4, to Oct. 17, 2025. The deadline for submitting a claim is currently set at Nov. 18, 2025. The final approval of the settlement needs to be given at a Dec. 3, 2025, court hearing for payments to begin. Stay tuned to this piece in the coming months to get all the new details as they emerge. For more money help, check out CNET's daily tariff price impact tracker.
