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ROME (AP) — Gucci announced Thursday that the Balenciaga artistic director Demna will take over the creative direction of the Italian luxury fashion house, starting in July.Gucci and its French parent Kering said in a statement that Demna “has redefined modern luxury, earning global recognition and cementing his authority on the industry.’’Demna, who goes by one name, has been at Kering-owned Balenciaga for a decade. He brings with him the title of artistic director.“I am truly excited to join the Gucci family,’’ he said in a statement. ‘’It is an honor to contribute to a house that I deeply respect…

6 Monks (6M) has partnered with Zeidler Group to leverage its Swiss Representative Service, streamlining the distribution of its first Luxembourg Reserved Alternative Investment Fund (RAIF) in Switzerland.Under the agreement, Zeidler’s dedicated Swiss Representative team, based in Winterthur, will collaborate with 6M’s internal team to ensure full compliance with Swiss regulatory requirements, including adherence to the Swiss Collective Investment Schemes Act (CISA). This partnership aims to facilitate efficient fund distribution and maintain regulatory obligations within the Swiss market.6M is an Alternative Investment Fund Manager (AIFM) that specialises in Private Equity and Web3 investments.Quentin Werlé, head of portfolio management and marketing…

WASHINGTON (AP) — There sat Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s top health official, at a Steak ’n Shake with Fox News host Sean Hannity, raving about the fries.“Steak ’n Shake has been great, we’re very grateful for them,” Kennedy said, in between nibbles of fries that the Midwestern franchise recently announced would be cooked in beef tallow instead of common cooking oils that Kennedy says are bad for Americans’ diet.It’s the kind of endorsement that doctors have implored him to make about the childhood vaccines used to prevent deadly diseases, like measles as outbreaks worsened in Texas and New…

Universities across the U.S. have announced hiring freezes, citing new financial uncertainty as the Trump administration threatens a range of cuts to federal contracts and research grants.In February, the administration announced deep cuts to National Institutes of Health grants for research institutions, a shift that could reduce the money going to some universities by over $100 million. Some schools already have shelved projects because of the cuts, which have been delayed temporarily by a court challenge. Recently, President Donald Trump has shown appetite for targeting colleges’ funding more directly. His administration has vowed to take federal money from colleges that…

A rush of agentic AI solutions is hitting the enterprise market, and now one of the bigger players in automation has scooped up a startup in the space in hopes of taking a bigger piece of that market. UiPath, as part of its quarterly results report last night, said it had acquired Peak.ai, a startup out of Manchester that builds “decision-making” pricing and inventory management AI solutions for companies in retail and manufacturing. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but sources familiar with the deal told TechCrunch that Peak.ai was not looking for a buyer, nor was it at…

Researchers at security firm Tenable have analyzed the ability of the Chinese gen-AI DeepSeek to develop malware such as keyloggers and ransomware. The DeepSeek R1 chatbot was released in January and it has made many headlines since, including regarding its susceptibility to jailbreaks. Just like all major LLMs, DeepSeek has guardrails designed to prevent its use for malicious purposes, such as creating malware. However, these guardrails can be fairly easily bypassed using jailbreak methods.  When directly asked to write the code for a keylogger or a piece of ransomware, DeepSeek refuses to do so, arguing that it cannot assist users…

A North Korean APT actor has been targeting Korean and English-speaking users with an Android surveillance tool distributed via Google Play, cybersecurity firm Lookout warns. Dubbed KoSpy, the spyware has been in use since March 2022, posing as utility applications to infect unsuspecting users, and abusing Google Play and the Firebase Firestore for app distribution and configuration retrieval. The surveillance tool has been attributed to the North Korean APT ScarCruft, also known as APT37, which has been active since 2012, targeting mainly entities in South Korea, along with China, India, Japan, Kuwait, Nepal, Romania, Russia, Vietnam, and Middle Eastern countries.…

Since June 2021, Medusa ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) affiliates have hit over 300 critical infrastructure organizations, the US government warns. Medusa was initially operated as a closed ransomware, and, although it is currently using an affiliate model, ransom negotiations are still conducted by the malware developers, CISA, the FBI, and the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC) note in a joint alert. The group engages in double extortion, encrypting victims’ data but also stealing it and threatening to leak it unless a ransom is paid. Medusa’s operators offer payments ranging between $100 and $1 million to affiliates working exclusively for them,…

The UK government has announced plans to dissolve the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) and merge its functions with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). According to The Financial Times, this move is part of an initiative to streamline regulatory processes, reduce overlap, and eliminate redundancies within the country’s financial sector. The merger is expected to enhance the regulatory framework, promoting a more agile and innovative environment for investment and growth.The decision to consolidate the PSR into the FCA comes as the government aims to simplify the existing complex regulatory landscape, which has been criticized for stymieing economic expansion. “For too long,…

NEW YORK (AP) — Demonstrators from a Jewish group filled the lobby of Trump Tower on Thursday to denounce the immigration arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestinian activist who helped lead protests against Israel at Columbia University.The Jewish Voice for Peace protesters, who carried banners and wore red shirts reading “Jews say stop arming Israel,” chanted “Bring Mahmoud home now!”After warning the protesters to leave the Fifth Avenue building, officers arrested 98 of them on various charges including trespassing, obstruction and resisting arrest, a police official said at a news briefing.Khalil, a 30-year-old permanent U.S. resident who is married to…