Epoch Times

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) announced on March 9 that it had selected eight out of 30 proposals to participate in its Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) and Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVTOL) Integration Pilot Program (eIPP).
The eight projects span work across 26 states and include a range of public entities and private companies developing operational concepts in urban and regional air taxi and transportation services, cargo and logistics, emergency medical response, autonomous flight, and energy transportation. Data compiled from the various projects will help the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) better understand the challenges associated with safely and efficiently integrating these new types of aircraft into the National Airspace System….

E-commerce goliath Amazon scored a temporary victory in its attempt to secure a court order blocking artificial intelligence (AI) robot agents from accessing its website.
According to court documents, Amazon’s dispute with Perplexity, a San Francisco-based private AI firm, involved the alleged unauthorized use of Perplexity’s Comet web browsers’ AI function to access password-protected sections of Amazon.
The March 6 ruling from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California found that Amazon provided “strong evidence” that Perplexity had accessed Amazon with the user’s permission but without authorization by Amazon through the user’s password-protected account….

Shares of Oracle surged more than 8 percent in after-hours trading as the technology giant beat expectations and raised its revenue outlook for 2027.
Following the March 10 closing bell, Oracle reported that revenues surged 22 percent year-over-year to a higher-than-expected $17.19 billion in the fiscal third quarter, which ended on Feb. 28.
Earnings per share—how much profit the company earns for each share—reached $1.79, also topping market estimates.
Before the latest earnings release, market watchers had anticipated Oracle to report $16.2 billion in sales and $1.70 in earnings per share.
Investors cheered as Oracle raised its 2027 revenue outlook to $90 billion.
Total cloud revenue ballooned 44 percent to $8.9 billion, coming in higher than the consensus of $8.85 billion….

German automaker Volkswagen plans to cut 50,000 jobs at home by 2030, the company said in a letter to shareholders on March 10.
The decision was made as corporate profits declined to their lowest level in a decade.
Revenue stalled at approximately 322 billion euros ($374 billion), while operating profits plummeted to less than 9 billion euros ($10.5 billion).
Planned job cuts would affect brands Audi and Porsche, as well as its software subsidiary, Cariad.
The 10-brand automotive giant had previously reached a deal with trade unions at the end of 2024 to reduce headcount by 35,000 by 2030. The move was part of the cost-cutting initiative.
“We are on course to meet our goal of achieving net annual cost savings of more than €6 billion [$6.96 billion] across the Group by 2030,” Volkswagen CEO Oliver Blume said in the company’s annual report….

The co-founders of BioNTech, which helped create one of the most-used COVID-19 vaccines, are departing the German company to start their own firm.
Drs. Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci will be leaving BioNTech by the end of the year, BioNTech said on March 10.
Sahin and Tureci, who are married, founded BioNTech in 2008 with Dr. Christopher Huber. The company helped develop the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, which utilizes messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) technology to deliver instructions for the body to defend against COVID-19.
Hundreds of millions of doses of the vaccine have been administered across the world, reaping windfalls for Pfizer and BioNTech, although sales have dropped in recent years as the pandemic ended and people became concerned about the flagging effectiveness and risk-benefit profile of the shots….

ExxonMobil has announced plans to move its legal home from New Jersey to Texas, joining a growing number of companies that have relocated to the Lone Star State in search of a more business-friendly environment.
The major oil corporation said on March 10 that its board had unanimously recommended shareholders approve the change. Although the company was originally incorporated in New Jersey in 1882, ExxonMobil said its leadership and core operations have long since shifted to Texas.
Describing ExxonMobil’s connection to New Jersey as “largely historical,” the board said it has not held a meeting there for more than 40 years, and said that Texas better understands the oil and gas industry and is more invested in the company’s success….

A Chinese company was found to have conspired to steal proprietary technology from Motorola and was fined $50 million by a federal judge on March 9.
The trade secret theft case began two decades ago, according to the Justice Department. China-based Hytera Communications began to recruit Motorola employees in 2006 and directed them to steal trade secrets for Hytera. According to court documents, the recruited employees agreed to do so beginning around 2008, and these products were sold from 2016 onward.
Chicago-based Motorola was split into two companies in 2011, Motorola Solutions and Motorola Mobility. The latter was acquired by Google in 2012, and by the Chinese company Lenovo in 2014, and the former has sued Hytera over trade secret theft….

GE Aerospace said on March 9 that it will invest an additional $1 billion in U.S. manufacturing to keep up with growing demand in commercial aviation and defense.
To meet customers’ orders and bolster output, GE Aerospace plans to expand capacity at sites that currently assemble and produce commercial and defense engines.
This new investment also includes upgrading facilities, purchasing new tools and equipment, and hiring 5,000 U.S. workers, including for both engineering and manufacturing positions.
This will impact more than 30 communities in 17 states, GE said in a news release.
The commitment includes $115 million for its headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio, to enhance advanced 3D metal printing capabilities and increase test cell capacity….

LOS ANGELES—A jury in a bellwether social media addiction trial in Los Angeles Superior Court on March 9 heard from a former therapist who testified, via recorded deposition, that it was not social media use alone, but rather a volatile mix of circumstances and triggers that led to a young plaintiff’s mental health challenges.
The plaintiff, a 20-year-old California woman identified in court documents as “Kaley G.M.” or “K.G.M.” says she suffered depression, anxiety, body dysmorphia and other harms after becoming addicted to YouTube and Instagram while in elementary school.
“First of all, she’s a teenage girl, which comes with a lot of stress and self-image and self-esteem challenges,” said Alison Pratt, a licensed family therapist who treated the patient beginning in 2020, when she was 14, for a period of five years. An edited video of Pratt’s deposition testimony, recorded in April 2025, was played for the jury….

Global pornography giant Aylo has blocked Australians from accessing its websites in response to new laws requiring online platforms to verify users’ age for R-rated content.
On March 9, the second tranche of Australia’s Age-Restricted Material Codes came in to effect, forcing digital platforms to impose strict age verification to prevent children under 18 from accessing adult and harmful online materials.
Under the changes, the eSafety Commissioner—Australia’s online safety regulator—now has the power to fine companies up to $49.5 million (US$34.6 million) for not complying with these new codes under the Online Safety Act.
Several days ahead of the new laws taking effect, Aylo, which owns sites such as Pornhub, RedTube, YouPorn, and Tube8, introduced a blanket ban on Australian users….

Flying taxi maker Archer Aviation has alleged that its rival Joby Aviation has been misleading regulators and investors for years by hiding its connections to China.
In a March 9 filing in federal court in California, Archer accused Joby of running a manufacturing unit in Shenzhen, China, for more than a decade that received government grants intended to spur technological development and of carrying out fraudulent business practices that gave it an improper competitive edge.
“Joby has falsely presented itself as a domestically rooted, American-made, fully vertically integrated aviation company while covertly relying on its Chinese manufacturing subsidiary,” Archer alleged in the filing….

Amazon subsidiary Zoox on March 9 announced it was launching operations for its autonomous ride-sharing service in Phoenix, as well as expanding its robotaxi testing program to Dallas.
Zoox said it will also launch new depots in both cities, as well as a fusion center facility in Scottsdale, Arizona, that will handle a range of functions, including rider support and teleguidance to deliver real-time human oversight in complicated driving scenarios that the autonomous vehicles’ artificial intelligence may struggle with, such as construction zones or road closures.
Phoenix and Dallas are the ninth and 10th test markets for Zoox. Amazon in June 2020 acquired the autonomous driving startup that was founded in 2014 in a move intended to penetrate the self-driving vehicle market currently dominated by Waymo, a subsidiary of Mountain View, California-based Alphabet….

Novo Nordisk and telehealth company Hims & Hers have ended their dispute over weight loss medications, the companies said on March 9 as they announced a new partnership.
Novo is dropping a patent infringement lawsuit against Hims & Hers, the Denmark-based pharmaceutical company said in a statement. And Novo’s weight loss medications—Ozempic and Wegovy, both approved by the Food and Drug Administration—will be offered through Hims & Hers starting later this month under a new agreement between the firms.
“This agreement with Hims & Hers is a meaningful win for patients in the United States,” Mike Doustdar, president and CEO of Novo, said. “By expanding access through leading telehealth providers and digital care platforms, we are helping to connect more people with our FDA-approved medicines, which have been evaluated for safety and efficacy.”…

San Francisco-based Uber Technologies, Inc. is expanding its Women Preferences across the United States, offering all women riders the opportunity to select women drivers when booking transportation.
In its March 9 announcement, the global ride service said the nationwide extension of its Women Preference program will bring “more control, comfort, and choice to millions more women.”
First launched in five pilot cities in August 2025, the program had expanded to 60 cities by the end of last year.
Now, women throughout the country will be able to take advantage of these preferences. The new options will be available in their apps in major cities from New York to Austin, and everywhere in between….

Indonesia will restrict access to social media platforms for users under the age of 16, officials said this week, making it the latest country to move to curb online risks faced by children.
Communications and Digital Affairs Minister Meutya Hafid said on March 6 that the Indonesian government has signed a regulation that will prevent children younger than 16 from holding accounts on “high-risk” digital platforms, including YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, and Roblox.
The measure will be implemented gradually beginning on March 28, with social media companies expected to comply with new obligations aimed at protecting minors.
“Our children face increasingly real threats. From exposure to pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud, and most importantly addiction,” Hafid said, adding that the impulse behind adopting the new rule is “so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giant of algorithms.”…