Apple accuses former Vision Pro engineer of stealing trade secrets
According to the lawsuit, Liu falsely claimed he was quitting his job for health reasons and did not disclose that he had a new job lined up as a product design engineer for Snap. This prevented Apple from immediately revoking Liu's access to internal systems, a standard protocol activated by the company upon notice that employees are joining a competitor. Apple alleges that this allowed Liu to copy a 'massive volume' of proprietary information that he could later access after being locked out of Apple's network.
'Mr. Liu's actions were deliberate; logs on his Apple-issued work laptop show that Mr. Liu individually selected the folders he copied and, in some cases, renamed and reorganized them after moving them to his personal cloud storage account,' Apple said in the complaint. 'Further, Mr. Liu took actions to conceal movement of the files, intentionally deleting files from his Apple-issued work laptop.'
Apple says it's unable to determine exactly what was downloaded by Liu, but argues the overlap between the information Liu took with Snap's AR Spectacles products 'suggests that Mr. Liu intends to use Apple's Proprietary Information at Snap.' According to the complaint, Apple is pursuing unspecified financial damages from Liu for breaching contractual obligations and requesting that Liu be forced to return the stolen documents.
Apple has not named Snap as a defendant in the suit. Snap said in a statement to SiliconValley that it had reviewed Apple's claims, and had 'no reason to believe they are related to this individual's employment or conduct at Snap.'
This is the latest of several lawsuits that Apple has launched against former employees for misappropriating proprietary information about its products. The company dropped a lawsuit against a former iOS engineer in February and settled its case against a former design architect in 2022 after accusing them of leaking confidential trade secrets to journalists.
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CNN
38 minutes ago
- CNN
Carveouts for Alaska and tax breaks for whalers: How Lisa Murkowski got to yes on Trump's agenda bill
The fate of President Donald Trump's domestic agenda was in Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski's hands – and she used that leverage to force a series of changes that will deliver more federal dollars to her state. The Senate passed Trump's so-called 'big, beautiful bill' on Tuesday, after a 26-hour marathon of negotiations and amendments during which Murkowski, as she put it later, 'struggled mightily' to soften the biggest funding blows to Alaska before ultimately casting a vote that guaranteed its passage. The changes she won, including some crucial carveouts for Alaska, were a window into how such a massive piece of legislation comes together in Washington. The closely divided Senate means figures like Murkowski – a moderate with a history of defying Trump, elected by a state with an independent streak – wield enormous power. 'This is probably the most difficult and agonizing legislative 24-hour period that I have encountered,' Murkowski told reporters afterward. 'And I've been here quite a while, and you all know I've got a few battle scars underneath me. But I think I held my head up and made sure that the people of Alaska are not forgotten in this.' Murkowski's role as the deciding vote on the bill that extends Trump's 2017 tax cuts, funds his immigration crackdown, imposes work requirements on social safety net programs and more, came fully into view in recent days. Republicans, who control the Senate by a 53-47 margin, believed they'd already lost Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who objected to the bill's debt ceiling increase, and were doubtful about Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who objected to Medicaid spending cuts and is up for reelection next year in a moderate state. Then, over the weekend, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis announced he would not seek reelection and delivered a fiery speech lambasting the Medicaid cuts and warning Trump he's been 'misinformed' about their impact. That meant the GOP had no more votes to spare. The bill's only chance at passage was a 50-50 vote, with Vice President JD Vance breaking the tie. Suddenly, much of the party's focus was on Murkowski. For the next 48 hours, the Alaska senator was the subject of frenzied lobbying by some of Washington's most powerful Republicans, including Vance, Senate Majority Leader John Thune and committee chairmen. Behind the scenes, staffers were rewriting key pieces of the bill to win her support – making changes on Medicaid, nutritional assistance and even adding a tax break for whaling captains. South Carolina Sen. Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of Trump's closest Capitol Hill allies, spent hours courting Murkowski's vote, including long huddles on the Senate floor at all hours. That included a tense conversation just ahead of the vote, in which Graham said Murkowski vented her frustrations about the massive scope and complexity of the package but in the end, he said, didn't want it all to fail. 'I just said, in my talk with her, 'Number one, I'm frustrated too,'' Graham recalled of their conversation on the floor. He went on to stress other critical provisions of the bill, including money for the military. Murkowski had praised the added Coast Guard funds. Graham's main message to her, he said, was this: 'Are you good? If you're not good, tell me why and see if we can fix it.' Murkowski has long telegraphed her concerns with the bill. In a town hall last month in Cordova – a port town accessible only by plane or ferry – she praised some elements of the bill but warned against federal funding cuts to social safety net programs like Medicaid and food stamps. Some lawmakers, including Murkowski and Collins, were particularly worried about the blow Medicaid cuts would deliver to rural hospitals – many of which are struggling, with some closing already. 'Many of us are looking at that and saying, it makes no sense to put a greater burden on the most vulnerable in our communities when it comes to health care and access to health care,' Murkowski said at the town hall, The Cordova Times reported. 'I have made clear very early on that we cannot move forward with a bill that makes cuts to Medicaid.' One obstacle for Republicans courting Murkowski's vote was the Senate parliamentarian, who rules on whether provisions of bills violate the chamber's budget rules. Shortly before the final vote, Senate leaders were still trying to secure more funding for Alaska's rural hospitals – after already doubling a fund they'd added for rural hospitals, from $25 billion to $50 billion, to be disbursed over five years. Staffers were still writing in the margins of the bill, trying to find a way to make the rural hospital fund more appealing to Murkowski, two sources familiar with the matter said. Collins also lobbied to beef up the rural hospital fund, but it was not enough to win her vote. It was one of many attempts to shore up more funding for the state's Medicaid recipients or providers that failed to pass muster with the parliamentarian. At first, Republicans devised a provision that increased Medicaid funding for states based on poverty rates. It was crafted in a way that would have applied only to Alaska and Hawaii. That, the parliamentarian said, violated Senate rules. Next, Republicans tried to use population density to apply increased Medicaid funding to Alaska and more rural states, including Montana, North and South Dakota and Wyoming, one of the sources said. It was ruled out of order. Ultimately, there might be some wiggle room to help Alaska, after all. A GOP source familiar with the rural hospital fund said that while some of its funding will be doled out based on a formula, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services also has discretion and flexibility to weight other factors that will allow them to steer where the money goes. In addition to the fight on Medicaid, Murkowski won a huge victory on a provision that delays the requirement that states with high payment error rates start contributing to the cost of food stamp benefits. The original measure would make states with error rates of 6% or higher pick up between 5% and 15% of the tab. But the states with the largest error rates would get another year or two to implement the provision, said Ty Jones Cox, vice president for food assistance policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Currently, 10 states, including Alaska, have error rates that would qualify for the delay. Murkowski also won a change in the expansion of the work requirement for food stamps. Alaska, as well as Hawaii, got two other carveouts: One would allow these states to waive all work requirements based on high unemployment rates. For other states, the package limits such waivers. The other carveout would allow either state to request a temporary waiver for residents from the work requirement if the US Agriculture secretary determines the state is making a 'good faith' effort to implement the mandate. She also secured an increase in a special tax deduction for whaling boat captains. Murkowski told reporters she 'struggled mightily' with the impacts of cutting Medicaid and food stamp benefits in her state. 'That weighs very, very heavily, and so what I tried to do was to ensure that my colleagues understood what that means when you live in an area where there are no jobs. It is not a cash economy. And so I needed help and I worked to get that every single day,' she said. Murkowski is a Republican, but one who owes less politically to Trump and the party's establishment than most in her party. After losing the GOP primary during her reelection bid in 2010, she ran as a write-in candidate – and won the general election. A decade later, Trump had said he'd back anyone with 'a pulse' against Murkowski in her primary. Former Alaska Department of Administration commissioner Kelly Tshibaka ran, with endorsements from Trump and the Alaska Republican Party. But Murkowski won again, earning more first-place votes than Tshibaka in both the primary and general election in Alaska's ranked-choice voting system. Murkowski has also mused aloud multiple times about the possibility of leaving the GOP to become an independent, including in a podcast interview released last week. Her hard-nosed negotiating over the bill containing Trump's domestic agenda evoked memories of other carve-outs designed to win over individual lawmakers when congressional leaders had no votes to spare. In 2010, when Senate Democrats held 60 seats and could spare zero votes to break a filibuster and pass the Affordable Care Act into law, they sought to earn Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson's support with the 'Cornhusker Kickback' – a provision that permanently exempted his state from paying for its share of the law's Medicaid expansion. Seven years later, as the GOP sought to repeal Obamacare during Trump's first term in the White House, Senate Republicans tucked into their bill what some called the 'Polar Payoff.' It was a subsidy for the individual health insurance marketplaces that was designed only to benefit Alaska. (Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer derisively used the same phrase to describe the latest deal for Murkowski.) Neither of those earlier carve-outs became law. And it's not yet clear whether the changes Murkowski negotiated will remain in place as Trump's so-called big, beautiful bill returns to the House. Adding to the uncertainty, the Alaska senator stunned some of her own colleagues in both chambers when she told reporters Tuesday, shortly after the bill's passage, that she hopes the House amends it and returns it to the Senate. 'We do not have a perfect bill, by any stretch of the imagination,' she said. 'My hope is that the House is going to look at this and recognize that we're not there yet. And I would hope that we would be able to actually do what we used to do around here, which is work back and forth between the two bodies to get a measure that's going to be better for the people in this country, and more particularly, for the people in Alaska.'
CBS News
40 minutes ago
- CBS News
Philadelphians say they support the union's demands to strike, but hope trash doesn't pile on city streets
Philadelphia residents already feeling effects of strike with trash pickup coming to a halt Philadelphia residents already feeling effects of strike with trash pickup coming to a halt Philadelphia residents already feeling effects of strike with trash pickup coming to a halt Trash is piling up across Philadelphia as the city's largest blue-collar union, District Council 33, begins a massive strike, bringing essential services like trash pickup to a grinding halt. The city is working quickly to ease the impact, rolling out 63 temporary drop-off sites to help residents manage waste while sanitation workers remain off the job. But as the standoff continues, so do growing frustrations among neighbors and business owners. In Graduate Hospital, garbage bags lined the sidewalks just hours after the strike began. "It's a shame, it's going to get very dirty very quick," Michael Showell said. "A lot of neighbors don't get that information. As you can see on this block, there's tons of trash out." More than 9,000 city employees walked off the job on Tuesday, demanding better wages and working conditions. For many residents, the disruption is already being felt. "It's going to be a tough problem," said Linda Fandino, who works at Barbermania. "We don't want the trash inside. It will smell bad. The customers will complain, and we don't want that." Others, like Ian Feldenzer, worry the city's temporary solutions may not hold up for long. "It's kind of flexible for the city to say 'OK, you have until 10 p.m. to drop it off,' but I think by Wednesday morning it's just going to be this big mountain," Feldenzer said. The city's 63 temporary drop-off locations, including one at 18th and Catharine streets, are open Monday through Saturday from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Residents are asked to use the sites only on their regular pickup days and limit themselves to eight bags of trash, with no loose waste. "It's a mess," said Evan Finch, a local resident. "But you know, the union's got to do what they've got to do. I just wish we had a little more notice." This isn't the first time Philadelphia has dealt with a sanitation strike. The last time District Council 33 walked off the job was in 1986, and it left a lasting mark on the city. Archival photos show trash piled along sidewalks and parking lots overflowing with garbage. The memory serves as a powerful reminder of what's at stake if a resolution isn't reached soon. A photo from the last District Council 33 strike in Philadelphia in 1986. Despite the inconvenience, many residents said they support the workers' demands. "All workers, whether in the private sector or city jobs, deserve fair pay, good wages and good working conditions," Chris Carr said. "I get that city workers want better pay and conditions," Feldenzer said, "but I also understand the frustration from residents. It's a real inconvenience." Still, there's hope on the streets that a deal is within reach. "I hope the city is happy, the workers are happy, we need them," Showell said. "They should be well paid. But at the same time, we do need their services." "I hope by the next pickup they have everything figured out," Finch said.
New York Times
41 minutes ago
- New York Times
Cap mechanics of Bucks' blockbuster
NBA free agency is moving fast and furious. Tuesday's biggest move was a stunner in Milwaukee. Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images In terms of the cap mechanics of how Milwaukee will pull this off: Waive and stretch Damian Lillard. Sign Tauren Prince with the minimum exception. Sign Gary Trent Jr. and Kevin Porter Jr. into the room exception. Right now, that leaves Milwaukee with $19.6 million in cap room. They likely will get to the $24 million they need to sign Myles Turner to a four-year, $107 million deal by moving off of Pat Connaughton's $9.3 million salary. In the absence of a Connaughton trade, Milwaukee can get to $24.6 million in cap room by stretching Connaughton's contract, so that seems the most likely mechanism for this deal to get done. Milwaukee will also need to either pull its qualifying offer to Ryan Rollins or waive Chris Livingston to get there. It appears the Bucks will just barely exceed the limit on stretched salary if they stretch Connaughton in addition to Lillard, unless there is a buyout agreement with one or both to reduce salary. Another alternative may be to trade Connaughton for a lower-salaried player and then buy that player out at a reduced number. For instance, Milwaukee could trade Connaughton to the Clippers for Drew Eubanks, buy Eubanks out at half of his $4.75 million presuming he'd make the rest up on the market, and stretch that amount. Also, note that Lillard cannot re-sign in Milwaukee in 2026, if you were thinking that was a possibility. I'm legitimately SHOCKED. I didn't even know the Bucks were an option for Myles Turner. That's a huge loss for the Pacers. It's gonna be awfully tough to compete with a $23 million dead cap hit for each of the next five years in Milwaukee. No, I don't mean Kyle Kuzma, either. The Bucks waiving and stretching Damian Lillard will leave that money on their books for half a decade, and it can't be traded or otherwise maneuvered off the books. Bucks general manager Jon Horst has always been aggressive in the moments when his team has needed to make a big move and keep Giannis Antetokounmpo in a competitive situation. Damian Lillard tearing his left Achilles tendon in Game 4 of their first-round series appeared to be a blow that would keep the Bucks from being able to keep Milwaukee in conversation for a contending spot in the Eastern Conference. But Horst once again surprised the whole league with an impressive maneuver to acquire Myles Turner, a highly talented replacement for center Brook Lopez, and reconfigure the Bucks' roster for a chance to once again compete for homecourt in the Eastern Conference. It also helps that he stole an important piece from the team that just represented the East in the NBA Finals. The Bucks' move to waive Damian Lillard, while shocking on the face of it, is a reprieve of sorts for the 34-year-old, who can now rehab his Achilles with no clock, knowing he'll likely be a top free agent target in the summer of 2026 and free to play wherever he wants. While there were high hopes for a Dame-Giannis partnership when the Bucks acquired Lillard just before the start of training camp in 2023, the on-court product never meshed as well as everyone thought it would. Two Achilles injuries to star point guards led to Myles Turner changing teams within the division. The Milwaukee Bucks will waive guard Damian Lillard as part of their effort to free up enough cap space to sign center Myles Turner to a four-year, $107 million contract, team sources confirmed to The Athletic on Tuesday. Lillard, who is slated to miss most of next season because of a torn Achilles, was slated to make $113 million over the next two seasons. That amount will now be stretched over the next five seasons. GO FURTHER Bucks waiving Damian Lillard to make room to sign Myles Turner: Sources Brook Lopez's addition leaves the Clippers with one player left to fill a second unit spot with their existing roster. LA has multiple playable centers in Ivica Zubac and Lopez. They have multiple wing defenders in Kawhi Leonard and Nicolas Batum. They have multiple point of attack defenders in Kris Dunn and Derrick Jones Jr. The Clippers have multiple on-off ball shooters in Norman Powell and Bogdan Bogdanović. And James Harden and Kawhi Leonard are the two stars. Harden just needs a true backup point guard. At the top of my list at the point guard position is perhaps the greatest Clipper ever, and that's Chris Paul. The drawbacks with Paul are obvious: he's a 6-foot 40-year-old who has played 20 NBA seasons. But the Clippers have the longest active streak of consecutive winning seasons at 14 years, and that streak started with Paul's arrival to the franchise in 2011 and continued after Paul was traded in 2017 to Harden's Rockets. While Paul was with the Clippers, both Tyronn Lue and Lawrence Frank were assistant coaches under Doc Rivers. Steve Ballmer bought the team in 2014, midway through Paul's tenure. Paul also happened to visit Intuit Dome for Game 3 against the Nuggets, sitting next to Disney CEO Bob Iger (you see, a potential networking opportunity for Brook Lopez if it comes together). It helps that Paul can still play. Paul just started all 82 games for the San Antonio Spurs last season, averaging 8.8 points, 3.6 rebounds, 7.4 assists, 1.3 steals and 1.7 3s while shooting 37.7 percent on 3s and 92.4 percent on free throws. The only player older than Paul in NBA history who started all 82 games in a season was John Stockton, and Stockton didn't play 20 NBA seasons. Like Lopez, Paul would be brought in to be a backup to one of LA's most important players, theoretically dropping his minutes to around 20 per game at most. Paul would bring what the Clippers need most based on their weakness from last season offensively, and that's a player who can take care of the basketball. And while Paul's age and size makes him a defensive liability, he still has a nose for the ball. Read more here. Myles Turner, the Indiana Pacers' longtime anchor in the middle, is leaving the franchise to sign a four-year, $107 million contract with the rival Milwaukee Bucks, a team source confirmed to The Athletic. The 29-year-old will replace Brook Lopez in the middle in Milwaukee and leaves the NBA finalists scrambling for an answer up front. GO FURTHER Bucks waiving Damian Lillard to make room to sign Myles Turner: Sources Kyle Ross / Imagn The New York Knicks and big man Guerschon Yabusele have agreed on a two-year, $12 million contract with a player option for the second season, league sources confirmed. Yabusele, 29, can float across the front line, adds some size off the bench. Once Mitchell Robinson came back last season, the Knicks, had one regular bench rotation player last year who was taller than 6-foot-8. Yabusele shot 38 percent from 3 on basically 4.0 per game for the 76ers last season. The Knicks now only have minimum contracts to round out the roster. The Warriors couldn't afford to offer center Kevon Looney more than the veteran's minimum without eating into their resources for upgrades. So they did what they usually do — send Looney out into a bear market to see if he could get a better offer. Usually, he couldn't and came back to the Warriors. The $8 million he made last season was the highest salary of his career. Staying with the Warriors would have meant a nearly $5 million pay cut. But for the first time in his career, the market valued him more than the Warriors. Looney got paid. An era has ended. The Warriors will have to find a new backbone. He saw this possibility nearly seven weeks ago, after Game 5 in the Western Conference semifinals, when he last took off his Warriors jersey. Golden State's season ended with an unceremonious thud, a gentleman's sweep at the hands of Minnesota, courtesy of a most valuable strained hamstring. In the visiting locker room after the game, frustration noticeably absent from his face, Looney linked on his necklace and rested the gold medallion over the MSFIT letters across his shirt. He then tied the wrap around his locks, gathered his things and left the locker room. He knew it could have been his last game with the Warriors. Yet no angst could be found. Instead, Looney greeted the uncertainty like an old friend. He smiled as he walked into an unknown future. 'Same s—, different summer,' Looney said in May. 'I don't know. I could be back. But I don't know. I never know after the last game. I've packed all my s— four times.' No. 5 was the one. Read the rest of my column on the significance of Looney's departure. GO FURTHER As Kevon Looney leaves the Warriors, so does the dynasty's backbone Michael Reaves / Getty Images The Thunder, with every rotation player under contract again next season, are expected to be the prohibitive favorites to repeat as NBA champions. But winning costs in the NBA. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's price tag is about to rise significantly as he ages into this new deal, and both Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren, on rookie deals, are eligible for extensions this summer. That's presumably the next order of business for Sam Presti and the team's front office. Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images Nine days after capping a historic individual season with the ultimate team accomplishment, freshly minted NBA champion Shai Gilgeous-Alexander agreed on a four-year supermax extension for an estimated $285 million with the Oklahoma City Thunder. It can officially be signed on July 6. Gilgeous-Alexander has two years and $79.1 million left on his current deal, meaning this new extension will lock him up for the next six seasons, tying him, at 26, to Oklahoma City through his age 32 season. It is projected to be the richest per-year contract in league history. Based on current cap estimates, the four seasons of the extension will be worth about $62.5 million, $68.6 million, $73.7 million and $78.7 million in the final season (2030-31). Read more here. GO FURTHER Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Thunder agree to 4-year supermax extension worth estimated $285 million: Sources Matthew Stockman / Getty Images Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the 2025 NBA MVP, has agreed to sign a four-year, supermax extension worth an estimated $285 million that will — at least temporarily — give him the highest annual salary in NBA history, two league sources confirmed. The contract, which will take Gilgeous-Alexander through the 2030-31 campaign, will be worth about $71.25 million per season based on current cap estimates. ESPN was first to report the news. Soobum Im / Imagn LA's center target list, which began the day with Brook Lopez, Clint Capela and Deandre Ayton on it, quickly shrank to one by the early evening with Lopez agreeing to sign with the Los Angeles Clippers and Capela heading to Houston via a sign-and-trade with the Atlanta Hawks. Ayton was clearly the Lakers' top priority. He was picked first in the same draft as Luka Dončić, shares an agency with Dončić under Bill Duffy, who heads WME basketball, and is best equipped to give the Lakers the rolling lob threat Dončić has thrived alongside. Signing Ayton is not without risk — The Athletic's Jason Quick detailed those in his piece on Ayton's time with the Blazers — but a return to high-stakes basketball at a critical juncture in his career combined with a point guard who can prop up centers who are way less talented certainly makes this seem worth it. However, there's competition. The Milwaukee Bucks, who lost Lopez to the Clippers in free agency, are trying to remain competitive and have access to the full midlevel exception after some cap creativity and a need for a center — giving them the ability to offer roughly $6 million more than the Lakers. GO FURTHER The Lakers are once again at the center of the NBA offseason Stephen Lew / Imagn The New York Knicks' search for a new head coach may be nearing a conclusion soon. After conducting a first round of interviews over the last two weeks, the Knicks have formally invited Mike Brown back for a second interview, which is taking place Tuesday, league sources tell The Athletic. In addition, New York is considering bringing back both James Borrego and Micah Nori for second interviews, multiple league sources said. Read more below. GO FURTHER Knicks set for second interview with Mike Brown, Dawn Staley not considered finalist: Sources Page 2
