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By MICHELLE CHAPMAN, Associated Press Business Writer

The union for Hollywood’s video game performers has reached a tentative contract with several video game companies that may bring an end to an almost year-long strike tied to the use of artificial intelligence.

Members of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists went on strike in July 2024 after negotiations with game industry giants came to a halt over artificial intelligence protections.

SAG-AFTRA said that the unregulated use of AI posed “an equal or even greater threat” to performers in the video game industry than it does in film and television because the capacity to cheaply and easily create convincing digital replicas of performers’ voices is widely available.

The performers were worried that unchecked use of AI could provide game makers with a means to displace them — by training an AI to replicate an actor’s voice, or to create a digital replica of their likeness without consent.

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By PAUL WISEMAN, AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s trade wars are expected to slash economic growth this year in the United States and around the world, the World Bank forecast Tuesday.

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Citing “a substantial rise in trade barriers’’ but without mentioning Trump by name, the 189-country lender predicted that the U.S. economy – the world’s largest – would grow half as fast (1.4%) this year as it did in 2024 (2.8%). That marked a downgrade from the 2.3% U.S. growth it had forecast back for 2025 back in January. read more

By MICHELLE CHAPMAN, AP Business Writer

Disney will pay Comcast’s NBCUniversal nearly $439 million for its stake in Hulu, taking full control of the streaming service.

The move closes out an appraisal process that’s dragged on for a few years. Disney said in November 2023 that it was acquiring a 33% stake in Hulu from Comcast for at least $8.6 billion. That amount reflected Hulu’s guaranteed floor value of $27.5 billion, according to a regulatory filing.

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Disney has run Hulu since 2019, when Comcast ceded its authority to Disney and effectively became a silent partner. read more

By KELVIN CHAN and MATT O’BRIEN

LONDON (AP) — Getty Images is facing off against artificial intelligence company Stability AI in a London courtroom for the first major copyright trial of the generative AI industry.

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Opening arguments before a judge at the British High Court began on Monday. The trial could last for three weeks followed by a written decision from the judge expected at a later date.

Stability, based in London, owns a widely used AI image-making tool that sparked enthusiasm for the instant creation of AI artwork and photorealistic images upon its release in August 2022. OpenAI introduced its surprise hit chatbot ChatGPT three months later. read more

Orange County’s tourist tax collections were better in April than a year ago, but not as good as the year before that.

The revenue generated by the county’s 6% surcharge on overnight hotel stays and other short-term lodging has been a reliable measure of tourist industry health, but Comptroller Phil Diamond, whose office tracks the collections, interpreted the new figures cautiously.

“It’s interesting to me that even though we’re in the midst of what looks to be a very good year — and we just had a very good month — we didn’t beat a number from two years ago when everything was less expensive and hotel rooms cost less,” Diamond said.

April 2025 collections were slightly weaker at $33.1 million than those in both April 2023 ($33.6 million) and April 2022 ($34.6 million).

Epic Universe: Know before you go

Still, revenue from the Tourist Development Tax, or TDT, through the first seven months of fiscal year 2025 has totaled $235.6 million, about $11.3 million ahead of the pace of last fiscal year when TDT raked in a best-ever haul of $359 million. read more