In 1940, the imperial regimes of Germany and Japan joined what would be known as the Axis powers, bound by mutual opposition to the United States. They fought a world war, and they lost it, and their populations spent the next 85 years with shrunken militaries and a heavy reliance on their former enemy, America, for security.
Now, both countries’ wariness of America has resurfaced, alongside heightened fears about a surging world power, China, and an aggressive Russia. Tokyo and Berlin are rushing to rebuild their militaries. And, once again, they are strengthening ties.
Their cooperation is expected to gather momentum at the meeting of the leaders of the Group of 7 nations in Evian, France, this week. It already includes sharing know-how, technology and weapons, like drones and helicopters, critical to the countries’ respective efforts to rearm.
It is hardly an Axis redux. This time, Japan and Germany are banding together from a defensive posture, with Berlin supporting Ukraine’s defense against Russia, and Tokyo wary of threats posed by China and North Korea. They are joining other like-minded “middle powers,” like fellow Group of 7 members Britain, Canada and France — their enemies in World War II. And they are casting themselves as champions of international law and institutions that serve as bulwarks against the bullying behaviors of the world’s most powerful countries.

Dallas — Kishore Khandavalli began his career in the U.S. on an H-1B skilled foreign worker visa.
“I was one of the first ones,” Khandavalli told CBS News.
He now runs a software consulting company in Dallas, where nearly half of his 380 employees have H-1B visas.
“There’s a skills gap between the people that are available in the market, the 3%, and the skills that the market is needing,” explained Khandavalli on why he doesn’t give all the positions he has to Americans.
According to Khandavalli, there essentially isn’t enough available U.S. talent in his sector.
“Especially with the upcoming technologies,” Khandavalli said.
So, he was concerned when President Trump in September 2025 announced his administration was increasing the H1-B visa fee from about $215, all the way up to $100,000.
On June 8, a federal judge invalidated the White House’s $100,000 fee policy in response to a lawsuit brought by 20 states.
In his 42-page decision, U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin wrote: “The substance and application of the $100,000 payment reveal that it is a tax, regardless of what the payment is called.”
He added that “there are no statutory powers authorizing [the Trump administration] to implement a $100,000 tax on H-1B petitions.”
Khandavalli hasn’t hired any new foreign workers since Mr. Trump implemented the new fee.
“With this new rule, I would have lost about $1 million a year,” Khandavalli said.
Much of his business relies on workers from India, which is home to 73% of H-1B visa holders, according to 2023 numbers from the Pew Research Center.
CBS News traveled there months after the president signed the order and visited the Birla Institute of Technology and Science in Pilani, India, after learning that several students there planned to move to the U.S. on student visas, and then try and get an H-1B.
One doctoral student, Ravi Bushan, told CBS News he has dreamed of working in the U.S. his entire life.
“It would be a career transformation for me,” Bushan said.
However, his approach has shifted.
“With the changes in the visa formalities, and the shifts in the way immigration is now seen in the U.S., now I’m looking at diversifying my options, looking at other places,” Bushan said.
Back in Texas, Khandavalli is worried more changes could come as the Trump administration is appealing this week’s decision to remove the $100,000 fee.
He says if there is another barrier to the visa, he could potentially “have to send the work overseas.”
Such a possibility could threaten a pipeline that both skilled foreign workers and American businesses have relied on for decades.
“Without the H-1B program being affordable to all the businesses, I’m concerned that the talent might leave the country,” Khandavalli said. “I’m concerned about how we’re going to innovate in the coming three, four, five years.”

A coalition of state attorneys general has opened an investigation into OpenAI.
The company was served with a subpoena from New York’s attorney general on Friday, according to The Wall Street Journal. That subpoena sought documents related to a broad range of topics including the company’s advertising, user engagement and retention, model sycophancy, handling of consumer data and health data, and treatment of minors and seniors.
“AI is a new and powerful technology, and we work every day to safely bring its benefits to people in a responsible way,” an OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement. “We take the concerns raised by state attorneys general seriously and intend to engage constructively with their offices.”
The spokesperson also said, “Today’s ChatGPT includes a more protective experience for minors and people experiencing difficult situations, with safeguards that direct them to real-world resources and trusted human contacts. We believe kids should be treated like kids, which is why we built age prediction, released parental tools to guide their children’s use of AI, and disallowed advertising that targets kids.”
The company did not specify which states are involved in the investigation or share more details about what information was requested. TechCrunch has also reached out to New York attorney general’s office for confirmation.
OpenAI recently defeated its co-founder Elon Musk in a high-profile trial, after Musk accused the company of violating its founding agreement. (Musk’s lead attorney said he will appeal the decision.)
However, OpenAI still faces lawsuits over everything from alleged copyright infringement to ChatGPT’s alleged role in user suicides. Earlier this month, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier sued OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, claiming that OpenAI and Altman “ignored internal and external safety warnings, put children at great risk, and allowed a dangerous product to reach millions of Floridians.”
Altman recently apologized to the community of Tumbler Ridge, Canada after a mass shooting; he acknowledged that OpenAI failed to alert law enforcement after the company flagged and banned the suspected shooter’s ChatGPT account.
The company announced this week that it has filed confidentially to go public.
This post has been updated with a statement from an OpenAI spokesperson.

Apple’s MacBooks are made to last. This is something every customer who spends money on the company’s computers can say. I bought my first MacBook Pro in 2010, and it was my daily driver up to 2017 until Apple released the second-generation MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. With the general lifespan of a MacBook Pro being around seven to 10 years, depending on how you take care of it, you’d be surprised to learn that even the MacBook Air doesn’t fall far behind.
The main difference is that Apple usually stops supporting software updates on the MacBook Air before the MacBook Pro. Officially, Apple doesn’t say how long a Mac can last. Especially now that it has been using its own silicon for the past six years, and all Apple Silicon Macs are still supported by the company. Besides that, macOS 27 is only dropping support for Intel Macs, meaning that the M1 Macs have at least until September of 2027 with software updates available.
It’s also unclear how Apple will phase out its own chips, as it offers regular, Pro, Max, and Ultra variations. In the case of its Intel Macs, macOS Tahoe still supports most Macs released by 2019 and early 2020. Still, once the company releases macOS 27, it doesn’t mean the older Macs will stop working, and Apple might still offer two years of important security patches.
At first, you could think that the MacBook Pro lasts longer than the MacBook Air because it’s more powerful. While theoretically, Apple might give it an extra year or two of software updates (at least during the Intel era), it doesn’t mean much. For example, if you have a MacBook Pro, you’re probably editing photos and videos, coding, and taking advantage of several multitasking features. If you’re a MacBook Air owner, you’re likely doing lighter work on your computer, like writing, scrolling social media, easy editing, and so on.
Since these computers serve different purposes, it makes sense to say that both last around the same amount of time, as it depends on what you do with them. Money-wise, the MacBook Air is a safer choice for students and those doing regular office work. The MacBook Pro, on the other hand, is more focused on Pro users.
However, as powerful as the MacBook might sound today, it will still degrade with the years as other software gets more demanding and technology evolves. I’m still rocking the MacBook Pro M1 Pro since early 2022. Four years later, I don’t have any reason to update this computer. While I might get the rumored OLED MacBook Pro, which might be released later in 2026 or early 2027, the M1 Pro version still feels as good as new. I can still have multiple apps open and the battery is surprisingly satisfactory.
As Apple doesn’t say how long a Mac will last, it’s hard to say what the general lifespan of the new Macs is. What can be said, though, is that older devices like the MacBook M1 are still solid options in 2026. Even though a few M1 users have been upgrading to an M4 or M5, there are also several others who upgraded to the M1 and still think those computers are great.
Besides that, with Apple releasing the MacBook Neo, which uses an iPhone chip, it shows that the company might be able to prolong the lifespan of its own silicon for a little longer. After all, the A18 Pro is a mix between what an M1 and an M3 MacBook can do, which means that users can still relax for a few more years. In addition, Apple usually continues to offer security patches even a couple of years after it stops supporting some Macs.
So even though the last Intel Macs will stop at macOS Tahoe, the company will continue to offer a few updates for this software in the next couple of years, ensuring that devices can run as smoothly as possible, and without critical bugs and flaws plaguing them. That said, buying a Mac is more about choosing what fits your budget than necessarily focusing on which will last longer. These machines do basic tasks flawlessly; the difference is how fast and how many extra perks you want to have while getting the job done.

“Good” news, everyone: the Department of Justice has said it’s a-OK for Paramount to continue with the Warner Bros. merger!
On Friday, the department gave a thumbs up to the $110 billion acquisition that’s been in the works since earlier this year. According to the antitrust division’s reasoning is that TV and movie businesses are “not likely” to be harmed by this, and the same goes for American consumers. The agency’s statement runs counter to what many in the entertainment industry—and anyone who knows how mergers work—have been saying, and since there’s no concessions to be made, Paramount’s a little more free to have a monopoly on Hollywood. (Remember when the Department feared Netflix would do this if it got WB?)
In a statement, Paramount thanked the DOJ for its decision, reiterating that the deal was “pro-competitive, resulting in a stronger company better positioned to compete against dominant technology platforms. […] We remain focused on completing the transaction as soon as possible and delivering its benefits to consumers, creators and the entertainment industry as a whole.”
Now, California and New York are looking to sue on antitrust grounds to block the merger. Overseas, the European Commission has until July 14 to investigate the deal and the $24 billion in funds coming from the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi, and the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority issued its own investigation earlier this week. In the US, Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren condemned the approval, deeming it “terrible news for every American who doesn’t want Trump-aligned billionaires to control what they watch and how much they pay. The Paramount-Warner Bros. deal has reeked of corruption and influence-peddling. State AGs must block this merger.”
We’ll have more on the merger in the weeks ahead.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.