■AUTOMOBILES
GM recalls 5,000 vans
General Motors Co (GM) is recalling about 5,000 heavy-duty Chevrolet Express and GMC Savana vans because of a faulty alternator. The automaker also halted sales of the vans on Friday. It has also stopped production of them until it can fix the problem. GM spokesman Alan Adler says there have been no injuries related to the recall. The recalled vans were built in February and March.
■HOUSING
US moves on foreclosures
After months of criticism that it hasn’t done enough to prevent foreclosures, the Obama administration is announcing a plan to reduce the amount some troubled borrowers owe on their home loans. The multifaceted effort will let people who owe more on their mortgages than their properties are worth get new loans backed by the US Federal Housing Administration. That would be funded by US$14 billion from the administration’s existing US$75 billion foreclosure-prevention program.
■AVIATION
EU seeks to end dispute
The EU’s trade commissioner said on Friday he hopes the EU and the US can solve a trade dispute over illegal subsidies to aircraft manufacturers Airbus and Boeing. Karel De Gucht told reporters after talks with the US’ trade representative Ron Kirk that he wanted a “negotiated settlement” to avoid “mutual retaliation.” The WTO last week backed a US complaint over EU subsidies for Airbus and is expected to rule by the end of June on a parallel European complaint over US payments to Boeing.
■RECYCLING
US trails on can recycling
The US trails Brazil, Germany, Russia and some other countries in its rate of recycling aluminum beverage cans and Alcoa Inc.’s chief executive said Friday that needs to change. The Pittsburgh-based aluminum maker dedicated a US$24 million expansion project of its can recycling operation in east Tennessee. Alcoa president and CEO Klaus Kleinfeld said the expansion will help support a goal of boosting the current 54 percent rate of recycling beverage cans in the US to 75 percent by 2015. The rate in Russia is currently 75 percent, 91 percent in Germany and 95 percent in Brazil, Alcoa said.
■ENERGY
BP Solar closes plant
BP Solar said on Friday it is closing its landmark Frederick manufacturing plant as part of a reshaping of the US solar industry in a cost-cutting move that will eliminate 320 jobs. The company, a San Francisco-based unit of London-based BP PLC, said the sharply falling price of solar-power modules prompted it to shift its remaining in-house production to lower-cost joint ventures in China and India and contract with other manufacturers for the rest. The company said solar panel prices have fallen nearly 50 percent in the past 18 months.
■COMPUTERS
Fujitsu cedes iPad rights
Japan’s Fujitsu has ceded rights to the “iPad” name to Apple, just in time for the tablet computer from the California company to hit US stores next month. Fujitsu originally registered the iPad name with the Patent and Trademark Office in March 2003 in connection with a handheld scanner for retailers made by the Japanese company. The US Patent and Trademark Office records, obtained on Friday by technology blogs and PatentAuthority.com, show that the iPad trademark was assigned to Apple on March 17. The details of the transaction between Fujitsu and Apple were not available.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) would not produce its most advanced technologies in the US next year, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. Kuo made the comment during an appearance at the legislature, hours after the chipmaker announced that it would invest an additional US$100 billion to expand its manufacturing operations in the US. Asked by Taiwan People’s Party Legislator-at-large Chang Chi-kai (張啟楷) if TSMC would allow its most advanced technologies, the yet-to-be-released 2-nanometer and 1.6-nanometer processes, to go to the US in the near term, Kuo denied it. TSMC recently opened its first US factory, which produces 4-nanometer
PROTECTION: The investigation, which takes aim at exporters such as Canada, Germany and Brazil, came days after Trump unveiled tariff hikes on steel and aluminum products US President Donald Trump on Saturday ordered a probe into potential tariffs on lumber imports — a move threatening to stoke trade tensions — while also pushing for a domestic supply boost. Trump signed an executive order instructing US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick to begin an investigation “to determine the effects on the national security of imports of timber, lumber and their derivative products.” The study might result in new tariffs being imposed, which would pile on top of existing levies. The investigation takes aim at exporters like Canada, Germany and Brazil, with White House officials earlier accusing these economies of
Teleperformance SE, the largest call-center operator in the world, is rolling out an artificial intelligence (AI) system that softens English-speaking Indian workers’ accents in real time in a move the company claims would make them more understandable. The technology, called accent translation, coupled with background noise cancelation, is being deployed in call centers in India, where workers provide customer support to some of Teleperformance’s international clients. The company provides outsourced customer support and content moderation to global companies including Apple Inc, ByteDance Ltd’s (字節跳動) TikTok and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd. “When you have an Indian agent on the line, sometimes it’s hard
PROBE CONTINUES: Those accused falsely represented that the chips would not be transferred to a person other than the authorized end users, court papers said Singapore charged three men with fraud in a case local media have linked to the movement of Nvidia’s advanced chips from the city-state to Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) firm DeepSeek (深度求索). The US is investigating if DeepSeek, the Chinese company whose AI model’s performance rocked the tech world in January, has been using US chips that are not allowed to be shipped to China, Reuters reported earlier. The Singapore case is part of a broader police investigation of 22 individuals and companies suspected of false representation, amid concerns that organized AI chip smuggling to China has been tracked out of nations such
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