South China Morning Post - United States & Canada

Canada’s culture minister on Wednesday introduced legislation that would ban children under 16 from having social media accounts and require AI chatbot services to limit production of harmful content. The proposed Digital Safety Act makes Canada the latest in a wave of countries cracking down on social media platforms over concerns of harm to children. “We have seen the very ser...

Chinese propagandists have been trying to ⁠use OpenAI’s flagship chatbot ⁠to gin up opposition to Donald Trump’s ⁠tariffs and intervene in American debates over data centres and AI, OpenAI said in a report published on Wednesday. The company said its efforts, dating to late 2025 and early 2026, appeared to have had little or no effect, but it is another indication of ‌how centra...

US ⁠President Donald Trump ⁠said on Wednesday that the United States ⁠might not renew its free trade agreement with Canada and Mexico and criticised trade deficits with those countries, although he said he was talking with their leaders about the matter. The three countries need to approve ‌a renewal of their existing agreement by July 1 or signal their intention to exit the pac...

Nasa’s administrator Jared Isaacman on Wednesday defended the make-up of the space agency’s latest Artemis crew, an all-male group. The nominations have earned criticism that Nasa may have acted in accordance with US President Donald Trump’s direction to eliminate diversity and inclusion efforts. Isaacman insisted in a lengthy social media post that the “crew selection does not ...

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said on Wednesday that he “never victimised anyone”, as he faced questioning from US lawmakers over his ties to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Gates, one of the world’s richest men and a leading philanthropist, was appearing before the House Oversight Committee for a transcribed interview about the disgraced financier, who died in a New York j...