MEDIA
President Trump on Wednesday refiled his $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the publisher of The Wall Street Journal over an article about a birthday book greeting to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. A judge had dismissed Trump’s previous complaint. The amended complaint, like the original, was filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Judge Darrin P. Gayles had thrown out Trump’s first lawsuit in April, saying the president had not plausibly shown that the Journal published the article with “actual malice,” a legal standard that public officials must meet in defamation cases. To meet that standard, the publication had to have either known that what it was publishing was false or acted with reckless disregard to the truth. Gayles had given Trump until Wednesday to refile. The lawsuit centers on a Journal article published July 17 that described a letter and a drawing of a naked woman that appeared to be signed by Trump in a 2003 birthday album compiled for Epstein. The message read, in part: “Happy Birthday— and may every day be another wonderful secret.”— NEW YORK TIMES
FINANCE
A financial agency has asked a federal judge to reverse its own court victory against Gemini Trust, a cryptocurrency firm whose founders are close to President Trump and have invested in Trump family ventures. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates specialized financial markets including some crypto transactions, now says that it should never have sued Gemini for misleading agency officials over its bitcoin business. Without acknowledging guilt, Gemini had agreed in January 2025 to settle the case and pay a $5 million fine. In a joint filing with the firm late Wednesday, the commission asked a federal court to nullify the consent order reached in the case, which had been filed under the Biden administration. The filing then took a swipe at the commission’s own legal staff, saying the evidence against Gemini was flawed and its lawyers’ conduct “fell short of the standards expected of any litigant, much less a federal agency.”— NEW YORK TIMES
TECH
Companies such as Anthropic and OpenAI continue to sharpen the coding skills of their artificial intelligence technologies, with no ceiling in sight. On Thursday, Anthropic unveiled a new flagship model, called Claude Opus 4.8, that is significantly better than its predecessor, Claude Opus 4.7, at generating computer code, according to independent benchmark tests. It is particularly good at vibe coding, which is when AI technologies create software in response to prompts written in conversational English. The new model outperforms all other publicly available AI technologies on the vibe coding benchmark from Vals AI, a company that tracks the performance of the latest AI technologies. Opus 4.8 scored 10 percent higher on this benchmark test than the previous Anthropic model, said Rayan Krishnan, Vals AI’s chief executive. The new model also outperformed its predecessor in mathematics, another area in which the leading AI technologies continue to improve by leaps and bounds.— NEW YORK TIMES
ECONOMY
Applications for US unemployment benefits rose slightly, while remaining at a level consistent with a stable labor market. Initial claims increased by 5,000 to 215,000 in the week ended May 23, the highest since mid-April, according to Labor Department data released Thursday. Continuing claims, a proxy for the number of people receiving benefits, rose to 1.79 million in the previous week. Even after the recent uptick, both metrics are still near historically low levels. Filings have been subdued this year despite rounds of job cuts announced by high-profile companies, most notably white-collar positions in industries such as technology. The four-week moving average of new applications, a metric that helps smooth out volatility, jumped to 209,000 last week. Before adjusting for seasonal factors, initial claims advanced last week. Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois led those gains. Separate data Thursday showed that US consumer spending edged up in April, with annual inflation accelerating to the highest level since 2023 as the Iran war drove up energy prices.—BLOOMBERG NEWS
US mortgage rates rose slightly in the latest week, while strong pending home sales indicate buyers are expecting borrowing costs to ease. The average rate for 30-year fixed loans ticked up to 6.53 percent from 6.51 percent, Freddie Mac reported on Thursday. That followed an increase last week that was the biggest jump since March. Though rates didn’t fall as many had anticipated, pending home sales have increased three months in a row, a sign that “homebuyers are ready to jump back into the market if mortgage rates decline,” said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. The crucial spring selling season is unfolding amid heightened volatility, as mortgage rates gyrate with developments in the Middle East. Current conditions are prompting even affluent buyers to take out home loans instead of paying fully in cash, according to Redfin. Just under three in 10 homebuyers paid all cash in March, the lowest March share since 2021.— BLOOMBERG NEWS
TRANSPORTATION
US auto safety regulators have opened an investigation into Rivian Automotive Inc. over the potential failure of a part that could lead drivers to lose control of their electric vehicles. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it received two complaints from Rivian owners describing separation of the so-called rear toe link, a suspension rod that connects the wheel hub to the vehicle chassis. Both incidents caused the EVs to “swerve across multiple lanes of traffic,” one of which resulted in a collision, the agency said in documents posted to its website. The probe, known as a preliminary evaluation, covers about 115,000 of the company’s R1 electric pickups and SUVs. Rivian said it’s cooperating with NHTSA but that the company’s own investigation suggested the two incidents don’t implicate the toe link component. “Rivian data indicates R1 toe link joints are operating as intended,” the automaker said in a statement. Issues with the part previously led Rivian to recall almost 20,000 vehicles earlier this year.—BLOOMBERG NEWS
