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Shares in France’s biggest bank, BNP Paribas, sank more than seven percent in trading on Monday, following a US court verdict late last week finding it liable for atrocities committed in Sudan.A New York jury on Friday found the bank helped prop up the regime of former Sudanese ruler Omar al-Bashir, opening the way to compensation demands.The eight-member jury sided with three plaintiffs originally from Sudan, awarding a total of $20.75 million in damages, after hearing testimony describing horrors committed by Sudanese soldiers and the Janjaweed militia. BNP Paribas on Monday declared its “unwavering intention to appeal” the verdict. “There is no doubt whatsoever that the bank will fight this case and use all recourses available to it,” it said.  BNP Paribas did business in Sudan from the late 1990s until 2009 and provided letters of credit that allowed Sudan to honour import and export commitments. The three plaintiffs who brought the US case — two men and one woman, all now American citizens — alleged that these contracts helped finance violence perpetrated by Sudan against a part of its population.They told the federal court in Manhattan that they had been tortured, burned with cigarettes, slashed with a knife, and, in the case of the woman, sexually assaulted.Attorneys for the French bank argued that its operations in Sudan had been legal in Europe, and stated that the bank had no knowledge of the human rights violations. The bank said the atrocities would have been committed regardless of its operations in Sudan.The war in Sudan claimed some 300,000 lives between 2002 and 2008 and displaced 2.5 million people, according to the United Nations.Bashir, who led Sudan for three decades, was ousted and detained in April 2019 following months of protests in Sudan. He is wanted by the International Criminal Court on genocide charges.The big drop in BNP Paribas’s shares in afternoon Paris trading outstripped a decline for other French banks, which sank around one percent.The bank sought to tamp down speculation that the ruling could open it up to further cases.”This verdict is specific to these three plaintiffs and should not have broader application,” BNP Paribas said in a statement.  “Any attempt to extrapolate is necessarily wrong as is any speculation regarding a potential settlement,” it added.Analysts at RBC Capital Markets had suggested in a broker note that “there might be an argument that BNP aims to settle in order to avoid a larger payment as a result of court rulings”.They pointed to estimates by Bloomberg that the settlement could be in the range of $10 billion.

Metal shrapnel from an artillery shell that detonated “prematurely” during a US military demonstration for the Marine Corps’ 250th anniversary hit a law enforcement vehicle, the California Highway Patrol said on Sunday.No injuries were reported at Saturday’s event at California’s Camp Pendleton, which US Vice President JD Vance attended.An artillery round “detonated overhead prematurely,” damaging a highway patrol vehicle on a nearby freeway, the agency said in a statement.”This was an unusual and concerning situation,” said the patrol’s division chief Tony Coronado.He added that it is “highly uncommon for any live-fire or explosive training activity to occur over an active freeway.”California Governor Gavin Newsom had been critical of the live fire display in the days leading up to the event which closed off a 17-mile (27-kilometer) stretch of the Interstate 5 that links Los Angeles and San Diego.Newsom, a frequent critic of the Trump administration, said on X that “this could have killed someone.”US media said the Marine Corps — which had previously insisted there was no safety risk — had also launched an investigation into the incident.The event featured fighter jet flyovers, amphibious ship displays, explosions in a simulated village and Navy SEALS dropping into the Pacific Ocean from helicopters.

Baseball fans are facing an onslaught of phony AI content on Facebook,  pushed by a clickbait network in Southeast Asia capitalizing on interest in the lead-up to the sport’s World Series, an AFP investigation has found.With names like “Dodgers Dynasty” and “Yankee Nation,” the pages mimic genuine fan accounts, but link to websites that are full of ads and phony AI-generated articles meant to draw clicks — and payouts for the site creators.”The goal of pages and operations like this is to earn money, and so whatever is going to work in terms of messaging, in terms of content, in terms of tactics they will do,” journalist Craig Silverman, who has investigated similar clickbait, told AFP.Experts warn that this strategy of pulling in users, sometimes with innocuous content, can be used to grow accounts that are later sold or rented to more nefarious disinformation campaigns.Lies meant to elicit rage — such as false claims US President Donald Trump plans to jack up prices for games featuring Major League Baseball’s sole Canadian team, the Toronto Blue Jays — have long been used to attract social media engagement. But seemingly innocent posts are also drawing thousands of likes.One features an AI image of Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani surrounded by puppies, lauding him for purportedly building a $5 million dog sanctuary. Another post praises the Japanese standout for tipping a struggling waitress hundreds on a $60 check, an act of unverified generosity that was also ascribed to New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge and Boston Red Sox outfielder Jarren Duran. “Scammers are learning to be better storytellers,” said Luke Arrigoni, founder of Loti, an AI tool used to protect the reputations of public figures. He said AI is allowing those creating false narratives to more easily make posts that appear genuine.- Under investigation -AFP presented Meta with a list of 32 Facebook pages pushing baseball-linked phony AI content and asked if the falsehoods run afoul of platform rules. The pages had attracted a combined 248,000 followers.A Meta spokesperson said: “We are investigating the pages and admins in question and will take action against any that violate our policies.” Page transparency data shows the accounts are managed from Southeast Asia — mostly Vietnam — despite listing US phone numbers and addresses. The numbers reached entities unaffiliated with the pages, including a motel and a California physician’s office. AFP also matched the addresses to a salon and restaurant.The Institute for Strategic Dialogue, which studies disinformation, previously found clickbait networks were “generating substantial revenue for the people behind them, relative to average incomes in Vietnam.”- Lack of labels -While the Major League Baseball playoffs boosted engagement with these pages, the network also targets fans of American football, ice hockey and basketball.An individual page or claim on its own may not appear concerning. But Silverman, who focuses on digital deception for Indicator, a site he co-founded, said AI is enabling groups to scale rapidly.More divisive content, including false quotes attributed to athletes on LGBTQ issues or the assassination of US conservative activist Charlie Kirk, have also gained traction.And AFP found these tactics are not limited to English-language content. As part of Meta’s fact-checking program, AFP has debunked falsehoods on pages targeting tennis fans in Serbian and Formula One supporters of Max Verstappen in Dutch. In the United States, Meta replaced fact-checking labels with a Community Notes program intended to allow users to flag false content.AFP examined hundreds of claims published since the start of the baseball playoffs and did not find any carrying visible notes — even as some users posted page reviews warning about fake content.”They’re building a bigger and bigger foothold,” Silverman said of the phony accounts, warning that without moderation the networks will only continue to grow.

Every five years, the fading US town of Taft puts on a days-long “Oildorado” festival to celebrate its glory days at the center of California’s black gold rush.Thousands flock to its parade of cowboys on horseback, antique cars and floats featuring oil pumps — a hat tip to the Wild West of yore.This year, nine months into Donald Trump’s second term, the tone has shifted from reminiscence to renaissance.Shrugging off climate change concerns, the US president has embraced fossil fuels with a stated goal of “unleashing American energy” and removing “impediments” to domestic energy production.Some of Taft’s 7,000 residents are anticipating a comeback for the petroleum industry in California, which has pledged to abandon oil drilling by 2045 to meet its climate goals. “I’m 100 percent satisfied with President Trump,” Buddy Binkley told AFP, a minority view in a heavily Democratic state. “And as for the state of California, I think he’s putting a nice pressure on them to hopefully turn around their prejudice against oil.”The 64-year-old retired maintenance supervisor with oil company Chevron sported a red cap with the words “Make Oil Great Again,” a play on Trump’s MAGA motto and a slogan featured on several parade floats. “The oil industry in California is suffering due to political reasons,” Binkley said. But with Trump in power, “I think it may go back the way it was.”- ‘Great hopes’ -Located about 200 kilometers (120 miles) north of Los Angeles, Taft was founded in 1910 atop California’s most extensive oil field. Today, Kern County — where Taft is located — contributes more than 70 percent of California’s total oil production. Its rural landscape is dotted with thousands of oil pumps.A giant wooden oil derrick serves as a central landmark in Taft, which finances its schools, fire department and police force with oil revenues.   Festival-goers can compete for the title of best welder, crane operator or backhoe loader — or be crowned the “Oildorado Queen.”Despite its pageantry and pride, the town is in decline.California oil production has been waning since the 1980s and has more recently been pinched by the push for cleaner forms of energy. Some of the town’s residents have moved to Texas, where drilling is less regulated.Many in Taft are delighted that Trump has pulled out of the Paris climate accord and removed obstacles to drilling on federal lands while handing out billions in tax breaks for the oil industry.”I have great hopes,” said Dave Noerr, Taft’s mayor. “We have all the raw materials. We had the wrong direction, now we have leadership that is going to unleash the possibilities.”- ‘Stuck in the past’ -Trump’s administration has slashed federal funding for renewable energy and climate science, and he wants to strip the Environmental Protection Agency of its power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.  Like the president, Noerr is a skeptic of “quote, unquote, climate change.””We need to question the narrative, and we need to update those things with the existing science,” he said.Yet California is increasingly vulnerable to the extreme weather produced by climate change. Earlier this year, 31 people in the Los Angeles area died in fires spread by hurricane-force gusts of 160 km/h (100 miles per hour). “If everyone around the world behaved like the US, the world would be on pace for four degrees centigrade of global warming by 2100,” said Paasha Mahdavi, a political scientist specializing in environmental policy at the University of California, Santa Barbara.Agriculture remains the top employer in Kern County, and “would be dramatically affected by increased incidence of drought, and unprecedented heat waves that are already hitting the region,” he added.That worries Taylor Pritchett, a 31-year-old dog groomer in Taft who frets about air pollution in the area.”If I were to have a child, I wouldn’t want to raise them in Kern County,” she said. “I would like to go somewhere cleaner.”She believes that “we need to get away from fossil fuels.” But in Taft, she acknowledged, “we’re stuck in the past a little bit, you know, like, very unwilling to change.”

US President Donald Trump said Sunday that the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was still in effect after the Israeli military carried out deadly strikes on Gaza over apparent truce violations by the Palestinian armed group. “Yeah, it is,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One when asked if the ceasefire was still in place. He also suggested that Hamas leadership was not involved in any alleged breaches and instead blamed “some rebels within.””But either way, it’s going to be handled properly. It’s going to be handled toughly, but properly,” Trump added.Israel said it had resumed enforcing the Gaza ceasefire after it struck Hamas positions Sunday, having accused the group of targeting its troops in the most serious violence since the nine-day-old truce began.Gaza’s civil defense agency, which operates under Hamas authority, said at least 45 people had been killed across the territory in Israeli strikes. Israel’s military said it was looking into the reports of casualties.Trump expressed hope that the ceasefire he helped broker would hold. “We want to make sure that it’s going to be very peaceful with Hamas,” he said. “As you know, they’ve been quite rambunctious. They’ve been doing some shooting, and we think maybe the leadership isn’t involved in that.”Shortly before Trump’s comments, his vice president, JD Vance, downplayed the renewed violence in Gaza, telling reporters there would be “fits and starts” in the truce. “Hamas is going to fire on Israel. Israel is going to have to respond,” he said. “So we think that it has the best chance for a sustainable peace. But even if it does that, it’s going to have hills and valleys, and we’re going to have to monitor the situation.”The truce in the Palestinian territory, which took effect on October 10, halted more than two years of devastating war that has seen Israel kill tens of thousands and reduce much of Gaza to rubble, after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack.The deal established the outline for hostage and prisoner exchanges, and was proposed alongside an ambitious roadmap for Gaza’s future. But it has quickly faced challenges to its implementation. Vance called on Gulf Arab countries to establish a “security infrastructure” in order to ensure that Hamas is disarmed, a key part of the peace deal.”The Gulf Arab states, our allies, don’t have the security infrastructure in place yet to confirm that Hamas is disarmed,” he said.Vance said that a member of the Trump administration was “certainly” going to visit Israel “in the next few days” to monitor the situation.He did not confirm who that would be, but said “it might be me.”

OpenAI is ordering hundreds of billions of dollars worth of chips in the artificial intelligence race, raising questions among investors about how the startup will finance these purchases.In less than a month, the San Francisco startup behind ChatGPT has committed to acquiring a staggering 26 gigawatts of sophisticated data processors from Nvidia, AMD, and Broadcom — more than 10 million units that would consume power equivalent to 20 standard nuclear reactors.”They will need hundreds of billions of dollars to live up to their obligations,” said Gil Luria, managing director at D.A. Davidson, a financial consulting firm.The challenge is daunting: OpenAI doesn’t expect to be profitable until 2029 and is forecasting billions in losses this year, despite generating about $13 billion in revenue.OpenAI declined to comment on its financing strategy. However, in a CNBC interview, co-founder Greg Brockman acknowledged the difficulty of building sufficient computing infrastructure to handle the “avalanche of demand” for AI, noting that creative financing mechanisms will be necessary.- Creative financing -Nvidia, AMD, and Broadcom all declined to discuss specific deals with OpenAI.Silicon Valley-based Nvidia has announced plans to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI over several years to build the world’s largest AI infrastructure. OpenAI would use those funds to buy chips from Nvidia in a game of “circular financing,” with Nvidia recouping its investment by taking a share in OpenAI, one of its biggest customers and the world’s hottest AI company.AMD has taken a different approach, offering OpenAI options to acquire equity in AMD — a transaction considered unusual in financial circles and a sign that it is AMD that is seeking to seize some of OpenAI’s limelight with investors.”It represents another unhealthy dynamic,” Luria said, suggesting the arrangement reveals AMD’s desperation to compete in a market dominated by Nvidia.- Crash or soar? -The stakes couldn’t be higher. OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman “has the power to crash the global economy for a decade or take us all to the promised land,” Bernstein Research senior analyst Stacy Rasgon wrote in a note to investors this month. “Right now, we don’t know which is in the cards.”Even selling stakes in OpenAI at its current $500 billion valuation won’t cover the startup’s chip commitments, according to Luria, meaning the company will need to borrow money. One possibility: using the chips themselves as collateral for loans.Meanwhile, deep-pocketed competitors like Google and Meta can fund their AI efforts from massive profits generated by their online advertising businesses — a luxury OpenAI doesn’t have.The unbridled spending has sparked concerns about a speculative bubble reminiscent of the late 1990s dot-com frenzy, which collapsed and wiped out massive investments.However, some experts see key differences. “There is very real demand today for AI in a way that seems a little different than the boom in the 1990s,” said Josh Lerner, a Harvard Business School professor of investment banking.CFRA analyst Angelo Zino pointed to OpenAI’s remarkable growth and more than 800 million ChatGPT users as evidence that a partnership approach to financing makes sense.Still, Lerner acknowledges the uncertainty: “It’s a real dilemma. How does one balance this future potential with the speculative nature” of its investments today?

“Black Phone 2,” a horror sequel starring Ethan Hawke, captured the top spot at the North American box office with $26.5 million as spooky season shifts into high gear in the run-up to Halloween, industry estimates showed Sunday.The film from Universal and low-budget horror specialists Blumhouse has excellent critical and audience scores, said analyst David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research.”This is an excellent opening for the second episode in a horror series,” Gross said.”Tron: Ares,” the latest installment in the Disney sci-fi franchise, followed up a disappointing debut with $11.1 million in its second week for second place in the United States and Canada, Exhibitor Relations reported.The action flick — which stars Jared Leto, Greta Lee and Evan Peters — tells of mankind’s first encounter with artificial intelligence in the real world. Experts and industry press said it cost $180 million to make.”Good Fortune,” comedian Aziz Ansari’s directorial debut, opened in third place at $6.2 million. The Lionsgate film — a body-swap comedy — stars Seth Rogen, Keanu Reeves and Ansari. Paul Thomas Anderson’s action thriller “One Battle After Another,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn, ended the Friday to Sunday period in fourth place with $4 million.DiCaprio stars as a washed-up far-left revolutionary who is dragged back into action to help his daughter, while Penn plays his ruthless military nemesis. And “Roofman,” starring Channing Tatum in the real-life tale of a former soldier-turned-thief who breaks out of prison and finds himself hiding out in a toy store, finished in fifth place with $3.7 million. Rounding out the top 10 are:”Truth & Treason” ($2.7 million)”Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie” ($1.7 million) “The Conjuring: Last Rites” ($1.6 million)”After the Hunt” ($1.56 million)”Soul on Fire” and “Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle” (tied at $1.3 million)

British police said Sunday they were probing claims that Prince Andrew asked an officer to dig up dirt for a smear campaign against his sexual assault accuser Virginia Giuffre.The development comes after Andrew on Friday renounced his royal title under pressure from King Charles III, following further revelations about his ties to late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.London’s Metropolitan Police force said it was looking into allegations in the Mail on Sunday that Andrew tried to smear Giuffre, who accused the prince of sexually assaulting her when she was 17.Andrew, 65, has long denied the assault accusations, which have caused considerable embarrassment to the British monarchy and seen the prince virtually banished from royal life in recent years.The Mail on Sunday reported that Andrew passed on Giuffre’s date of birth and social security number to his state-funded police protection in 2011 and asked him to investigate.”We are aware of media reporting and are actively looking into the claims made,” a spokesperson for the Met said in a statement emailed to AFP.Andrew’s request came shortly before the publication of a now-infamous photo taken in London appearing to show the prince with his arm around Giuffre’s waist, the paper said.Andrew reportedly emailed the late queen Elizabeth II’s then-deputy press secretary and told him of his request to his bodyguard, which the officer is not said to have acted upon.The newspaper said it obtained the email from documents held by a US congressional committee.Giuffre, who accused Epstein of using her as a sex slave, says that she had sex with Andrew on three separate occasions, including when she was under 18.Andrew has repeatedly denied Giuffre’s accusations and avoided a trial in a civil lawsuit by paying a multimillion-dollar settlement.The allegations have received renewed focus ahead of the publication next week of Giuffre’s posthumous memoirs.Giuffre, a US and Australian citizen, took her own life in April. Epstein died by suicide in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges of trafficking underage girls for sex.Andrew has also given up membership of the prestigious Order of the Garter, the most senior knighthood in the British honours system, which dates to the 1300s.Giuffre’s brother Sky Roberts has urged Charles to go further and strip Andrew of his right to be a prince.”I think there’s more that he could do,” Roberts said of the king on ITV News.

The founding bassist of American nu metal band Limp Bizkit, Sam Rivers, has died, the band announced on Saturday. He was 48.”Today we lost our brother. Our bandmate. Our heartbeat,” read a statement on Instagram attributed to band members Fred Durst, Wes Borland, John Otto and DJ Lethal.The statement did not specify a cause of death.”Sam Rivers wasn’t just our bass player — he was pure magic… From the first note we ever played together, Sam brought a light and a rhythm that could never be replaced. His talent was effortless, his presence unforgettable, his heart enormous,” the band members wrote.Limp Bizkit was formed by Rivers and Durst in 1994 and went on to release its debut album “Three Dollar Bill, Y’all” in 1997.Building on their successful sophomore album, the band’s third outing “Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water” debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart and sold more than a million copies in the first week of its 2000 release.Rivers left the band in 2015 because he had “liver disease from excessive drinking”, he reportedly said in a book by rock writer Jon Wiederhorn.Rivers rejoined Limp Bizkit in 2018 and featured in the band’s most recent release, the 2021 album “Still Sucks.”Band members lauded Rivers as a “true legend of legends” in their Saturday tribute.”We love you, Sam. We’ll carry you with us, always,” they wrote.”Rest easy, brother. Your music never ends.”DJ Lethal said in a comment that “we are in shock” and called for respect for the family’s privacy.

Huge crowds took to the streets in all 50 US states at “No Kings” protests on Saturday, venting anger over President Donald Trump’s hardline policies, while Republicans ridiculed them as “Hate America” rallies.Organizers said seven million people marched in protests spanning New York to Los Angeles, with demonstrations popping up in small cities across the US heartland and even near Trump’s home in Florida.”This is what democracy looks like!” chanted thousands in Washington near the US Capitol, where the federal government was shut down for a third week because of a legislative deadlock.Colorful signs called on people to “protect democracy,” while others demanded the country abolish the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency at the center of Trump’s anti-immigrant crackdown.Demonstrators slammed what they called the Republican billionaire’s strong-arm tactics, including attacks on the media, political opponents and undocumented immigrants.”I never thought I would live to see the death of my country as a democracy,” 69-year-old retiree Colleen Hoffman told AFP as she marched down Broadway in New York.”We are in a crisis — the cruelty of this regime, the authoritarianism. I just feel like I cannot sit home and do nothing.”In Los Angeles, protesters floated a giant balloon of Trump in a diaper.Many flew flags, with at least one referencing pirate anime hit “One Piece”, brandishing the skull logo that has recently become a staple of anti-government protests from Peru to Madagascar.”Fight Ignorance not migrants,” read one sign at a protest in Houston, where nearly one-quarter of the population is made up of immigrants, according to the Migration Policy Institute. While animated, the protests were largely peaceful. But in downtown Los Angeles, police fired nonlethal rounds and tear gas late Saturday to disperse crowds that included “No Kings” protesters, the Los Angeles Times reported.”After thousands of people gathered to express their constitutional 1st Amendment rights peacefully earlier in the day, nearly a hundred agitators marched over to Aliso and Alameda” where they used lasers and industrial-size flashing lights, the LAPD Central Division said on X.”A Dispersal Order was issued and the demonstrators were dispersed from the area,” it added, without specifying if any arrests were made.- Trump responds -It was not possible to independently verify the organizers’ attendance figures. In New York, authorities said more than 100,000 gathered at one of the largest protests, while in Washington, crowds were estimated at between 8,000 and 10,000 people.Trump’s response to Saturday’s events was typically aggressive, with the US president posting a series of AI-generated videos to his Truth Social platform depicting him as a king. In one, he is shown wearing a crown and piloting a fighter jet that drops what appears to be feces on anti-Trump protesters. His surrogates were in fighting form, too, with House Speaker Mike Johnson deriding the rallies as being “Hate America” protests.”You’re going to bring together the Marxists, the Socialists, the Antifa advocates, the anarchists and the pro-Hamas wing of the far-left Democrat Party,” he told reporters.Protesters treated that claim with ridicule.”Look around! If this is hate, then someone should go back to grade school,” said Paolo, 63, as the crowd chanted and sang around him in Washington.Others underlined the deep polarization tearing apart American politics.”Here’s the thing about what right-wingers say: I don’t give a crap. They hate us,” said Tony, a 34-year-old software engineer.- ‘Country of equals’ -Deirdre Schifeling of the American Civil Liberties Union said protesters wanted to convey that “we are a country of equals.””We are a country of laws that apply to everyone, of due process and of democracy. We will not be silenced,” she told reporters.Leah Greenberg, co-founder of the Indivisible Project, slammed the Trump administration’s efforts to send National Guard troops into Democratic-led US cities, including Los Angeles, Washington, Chicago, Portland and Memphis. “It is the classic authoritarian playbook: threaten, smear and lie, scare people into submission,” Greenberg said.Addressing the crowd outside the US Capitol, progressive Senator Bernie Sanders warned of the dangers democracy faced under Trump.”We have a president who wants more and more power in his own hands and in the hands of his fellow oligarchs,” he said.Isaac Harder, 16, said he feared for his generation’s future.”It’s a fascist trajectory. And I want to do anything I can to stop that.”