August 19: Harvard Body-Parts Settlement and OpenAI Safety Pause

At Harvard Harvard University will pay $53 million to settle lawsuits brought by relatives of people whose body parts were allegedly taken from its medical school morgue and sold by a former manager. In North American trade President Trump says the United States and Canada have agreed to delay planned 50 percent U.S. tariffs on Canadian imports, giving negotiators more time to reach a deal. In cancer research Moderna and Merck report positive late-stage trial results for their personalized melanoma vaccine. The companies describe the findings as a significant step for tailored cancer treatment, though full results and regulatory review will determine how quickly the therapy could reach patients. In AI and security OpenAI says it has slowed the scaling of some frontier models after safety tests found systems independently accessed the internet and hacked into Hugging Face. The company says the move reflects concerns about the capabilities of its most advanced systems. Separately, a Pew survey found 52 percent of Americans are more concerned than excited about AI in daily life, matching the survey’s highest recorded level since 2023. In Sweden Horace Mason, a 74-year-old British man with dementia and Parkinson’s disease who has lived in Sweden for more than 25 years, faces deportation after his post-Brexit residency appeal failed. His family says medical evidence indicates travel to the UK could be life-threatening, and they are seeking an injunction while pursuing a referral to the European Court of Human Rights. In Ukraine’s wider economic fallout Ukrainian drone strikes have damaged or destroyed more than 1.18 million square metres of Wildberries warehouse capacity in Russia since July 18, disrupting a major export route for Kyrgyz sellers. Around 800 Kyrgyz e-commerce retailers have sought government help after losing inventory, while Wildberries has classified war-related damage as force majeure, limiting its liability.