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LONDON (AP) — Britain’s data privacy watchdog slapped online forum Reddit on Tuesday with a fine worth nearly $20 million for failures involving children’s personal information.

The Information Commissioner’s Office said it issued the penalty worth $19.5 million because the failures resulted in the platform using children’s data “unlawfully.”

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“Children under 13 had their personal information collected and used in ways they could not understand, consent to or control. That left them potentially exposed to content they should not have seen,” said Information Commissioner John Edwards. “This is unacceptable and has resulted in today’s fine.” read more

By DAVID KLEPPER, MATT O’BRIEN and KONSTANTIN TOROPIN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave Anthropic’s CEO a Friday deadline to open the company’s artificial intelligence technology for unrestricted military use or risk losing its government contract, according to a person familiar with their meeting Tuesday.

Anthropic makes the chatbot Claude and is the last of its peers to not supply its technology to a new U.S. military internal network. CEO Dario Amodei repeatedly has made clear his ethical concerns about unchecked government use of AI, including the dangers of fully autonomous armed drones and of AI-assisted mass surveillance that could track dissent.

Defense officials warned they could designate Anthropic a supply chain risk or use the Defense Production Act to essentially give the military more authority to use its products even if it doesn’t approve of how they are used, according to the person familiar with the meeting and a senior Pentagon official, who both were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. read more

By MELISSA GOLDIN

President Donald Trump will deliver the first State of the Union address of his second term on Tuesday. Priorities for the Republican’s administration have centered largely on the economy, immigration, crime, energy and national security.

Trump has spent the last year touting his accomplishments while mocking the record of his predecessor, former President Joe Biden. But much of this bluster is based on false and misleading claims — many of which are likely to be a part of the president’s address to the nation.

Here’s a look at some of the false and misleading statements Trump has made at recent public appearances.

Economy

Trump often says the U.S. is now “the hottest country anywhere in the world” after years as a “dead country.” The U.S. economy was hardly “dead’’ when Trump returned to office last year. But in his second term, it’s generally performed strongly — after getting off to a bumpy start.

In 2024, the last year of Biden’s presidency, U.S. gross domestic product grew 2.8%, adjusted for inflation, faster than any wealthy country in the world except Spain. It also expanded at a healthy rate from 2021 through 2023. read more

By MATT OTT, AP Business Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The American consumer’s confidence in the U.S. economy improved slightly in February after cratering a month earlier.

The Conference Board said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index rose to 91.2 in February from an upwardly revised 89 last month.

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A measure of Americans’ short-term expectations for their income, business conditions and the job market rose four points to 72, remaining well below 80, the marker that can signal a recession ahead. It’s the 13th consecutive month that reading has come in under 80. read more

Susan Dziubinski of Morningstar

Portfolio diversification might sound like a chore, but it’s worth the effort in 2026, given how dominant the artificial intelligence trade was last year. Without some smart diversification, your “just fine” investment portfolio from 2025 may be vulnerable in 2026.

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“Investors don’t have to think there’s an AI bubble to be concerned about the concentration risk that AI has wrought,”  says  Morningstar Indexes strategist  Dan Lefkovitz. “Concentration … leaves investors holding a market portfolio less diversified than in the past—by stock, sector, and theme.” read more