The Tokyo government plans to introduce a four-day workweek for its employees in an attempt to support young families and boost record-low fertility rates nationwide.

Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike announced that starting in April, employees of the metropolitan government will have the option to take three days off each week.

“We will review work styles … with flexibility, ensuring no one has to give up their career due to life events such as childbirth or child care,” she said in a policy speech at the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly’s fourth regular session.

The new policy is designed to encourage Japanese couples to have children at a time when the country’s fertility rate is at a record low. Last year, it dipped to a mere 1.2 children expected per woman during her lifetime, even with the government’s increased efforts to motivate young people to start families, according to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. That number should be at least 2.1 for a population to remain stable.

Koike announced an additional policy allowing parents with children in elementary schools to trade off a bit of their salaries for the option to clock out early.

“Now is the time for Tokyo to take the initiative to protect and enhance the lives, livelihoods and economy of our people during these challenging times for the nation,” she said.

Only 727,277 births were recorded in Japan last year, according to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry. That may be in part because of Japan’s overtime work culture, which often pressures women to choose between having careers or families. The gender gap in the country’s labor force participation is higher than in other high-income nations, at 55% for women and 72% for men last year, according to the World Bank.

However, implementing a four-day workweek may provide government employees with more time to dedicate to raising their families.

In a 2022 series of global trials coordinated by 4 Day Week Global, a nonprofit organization, various companies took part in a four-day workweek pilot program.

More than 9 out of 10 employees who participated in the trials wanted to continue with the four-day workweek. They reported that it gave them improved physical and mental health and work-life balance and increased general life satisfaction. Measures of their stress, burnout, fatigue and work-family conflict all declined. Those participants rated their experience 9.1 out of 10.

Another Asian country put a shortened work week to the test this year.

Singapore introduced new guidelines requiring all firms to consider employee requests for flexible working arrangements, including four-day workweeks or staggered hours.

China on Monday accused U.S. chipmaker Nvidia of violating its anti-monopoly law, a move likely to escalate already tense trade relations between the two countries as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office for a second time.

China’s state market regulatory arm said the probe is related to Nvidia’s 2019 acquisition of Mellanox, a global supplier of computer networking equipment.

China had conditionally approved that acquisition in 2020.

In a statement, Nvidia said it was ‘happy to answer any questions regulators have’ about its business.

“Nvidia wins on merit, as reflected in our benchmark results and value to customers, and customers can choose whatever solution is best for them,” the company said. “We work hard to provide the best products we can in every region and honor our commitments everywhere we do business.”

The company’s shares were down roughly 3% after markets opened Monday.

Last week, the outgoing Biden administration announced a fresh set of export controls on U.S.-made semiconductors designed to limit China’s ability to use them to develop weapons and advanced artificial intelligence systems.

China immediately responded by accusing the U.S. of bullying and hypocrisy while issuing embargoes on critical materials to the U.S.

“The U.S. preaches one thing while practicing another, excessively broadening the concept of national security, abusing export control measures, and engaging in unilateral bullying actions. China firmly opposes such actions,” the Chinese Commerce Ministry said in a statement last week.

The U.S. and France have also opened investigations related to Nvidia’s market dominance, though on different grounds.

In the past year, the Santa Clara-based company, whose chips have become the processor of choice for tech firms leading the AI revolution, has powered the entire U.S. stock market higher. In 2024, Nvidia’s share price has nearly tripled, making it one of the most valuable firms in the world.

Trump has promised to levy stiff tariffs on China when he takes office. He recently picked former Sen. David Perdue of Georgia, whom a Chinese think tank has accused of being ‘anti-China,’ for U.S. ambassador to China. He also tapped economist Peter Navarro, who favors tariffs, as trade and manufacturing adviser.

OpenAI said Monday it’s releasing its buzzy AI video-generation tool, Sora, later in the day.

The AI video-generation model works similarly to OpenAI’s image-generation AI tool, DALL-E: A user types out a desired scene, and Sora will return a high-definition video clip. Sora can also generate video clips inspired by still images and extend existing videos or fill in missing frames. The Microsoft-backed artificial intelligence startup, which burst into the mainstream last year thanks to the viral popularity of ChatGPT, introduced Sora in February.

It’ll debut to U.S. users as well as to “most countries internationally” later today, according to OpenAI’s YouTube livestream, and the company has “no timeline” yet for launching the tool in Europe and the U.K., as well as some other countries.

OpenAI said users don’t need to pay extra for the tool, which will be included in existing ChatGPT accounts such as Plus and Pro. Employees on the livestream and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman demonstrated features like “Blend” (i.e., joining two scenes together at the user’s direction), as well as the option to make an AI-generated video endlessly repeat.

Until now, Sora has mainly been available to a small group of safety testers, or “red-teamers,” who test the model for vulnerabilities in areas such as misinformation and bias.

Reddit users asked OpenAI executives in October about Sora’s release date, questioning whether it was being delayed “due to the amount of compute/time required for inference or due to safety.” In response, OpenAI’s product chief Kevin Weil wrote, “Need to perfect the model, need to get safety/impersonation/other things right, and need to scale compute!”

“We obviously have a big target on our back as OpenAI,” Rohan Sahai, OpenAI’s Sora product lead, said on the livestream, adding that the company needs to prevent illegal use of the technology. “But we also want to balance that with creative expression.”

OpenAI closed its latest funding round in October at a valuation of $157 billion, including the $6.6 billion the company raised from an extensive roster of investment firms and Big Tech companies. It also received a $4 billion revolving line of credit, bringing its total liquidity to more than $10 billion.

It’s all part of a serious growth plan for OpenAI, as the Microsoft-backed artificial intelligence startup battles Amazon-backed Anthropic, Elon Musk’s xAI, Google, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon for the biggest slice of the generative AI market, which is predicted to top $1 trillion in revenue within a decade.

Earlier this month, OpenAI hired its first chief marketing officer, indicating plans to spend more on marketing to grow its user base. And in October, OpenAI debuted a search feature within ChatGPT that positions it to better compete with search engines like Google, Microsoft’s Bing and Perplexity and may attract more users who otherwise visited those sites to search the web.

With Sora, the ChatGPT maker is looking to compete with video-generation AI tools from companies such as Meta and Google, which announced Lumiere in January. Similar AI tools are available from other startups, such as Stability AI’s Stable Video Diffusion. Amazon has also released Create with Alexa, a model that specializes in generating prompt-based short-form animated children’s content.

Video could be the next frontier for generative AI now that chatbots and image generators have made their way into the consumer and business world. While the creative opportunities will excite some AI enthusiasts, the new technologies present serious misinformation concerns as major political elections occur across the globe. The number of AI-generated deepfakes created has increased 900% year over year, according to data from Clarity, a machine learning firm.

OpenAI has made multimodality — the combining of text, image and video generation — a prominent goal in its effort to offer a broader suite of AI models.

News of Sora’s release follows protestors’ decision to leak what appeared to be a copy of Sora over concerns about the ChatGPT maker’s treatment of artists.

Some members of OpenAI’s early access program for Sora, which it said included about 300 artists, published an open letter in late November critiquing OpenAI for not being sufficiently open or supporting the arts beyond marketing.

“Dear corporate AI overlords,” the protestors’ open letter stated, “We received access to Sora with the promise to be early testers, red teamers and creative partners. However, we believe instead we are being lured into ‘art washing’ to tell the world that Sora is a useful tool for artists.”

The letter added that hundreds of artists provided unpaid labor for OpenAI through bug testing and feedback on Sora, and that “while hundreds contribute for free, a select few will be chosen through a competition to have their Sora-created films screened — offering minimal compensation which pales in comparison to the substantial PR and marketing value OpenAI receives.”

“We are not against the use of AI technology as a tool for the arts (if we were, we probably wouldn’t have been invited to this program),” the open letter stated. “What we don’t agree with is how this artist program has been rolled out and how the tool is shaping up ahead of a possible public release. We are sharing this to the world in the hopes that OpenAI becomes more open, more artist friendly and supports the arts beyond PR stunts.”

In late November, an OpenAI spokesperson responded to the protestors’ actions in a statement to CNBC.

“Hundreds of artists in our alpha have shaped Sora’s development, helping prioritize new features and safeguards,” the OpenAI spokesperson said at the time. “Participation is voluntary, with no obligation to provide feedback or use the tool. We’ve been excited to offer these artists free access and will continue supporting them through grants, events, and other programs.”

The pieces are coming together for the startup basketball league Unrivaled.

The 3×3 women’s hoops league announced Tuesday that it has signed a multiyear deal for Under Armour to become its official uniform partner and performance outfitter. This follows the league announcing a number of recent big player signings and reaching a media broadcast deal in October with TNT Sports.

Financial terms of the deal were not provided, but Under Armour will provide all players, coaches and staff with performance apparel and accessories both on and off the court.

“We couldn’t be more thrilled to partner with Unrivaled to outfit some of the best women’s basketball players in the world as they compete on this exciting new stage,” said Sean Eggert, Under Armour senior vice president of global sports marketing.

The retailer said that all players who do not have an active shoe deal will have Under Armour basketball footwear options available to them. Additionally, Under Armour will give players the opportunity to create custom products.

Unrivaled will kick off its inaugural season Jan. 17 in Miami. The league has positioned itself as a destination for WNBA stars to play basketball in the U.S. during the offseason.

In the past, many WNBA players have had to go overseas to play in the offseason as a way to supplement the income. Starting salary in the WNBA is $64,154 according to ESPN.

Unrivaled has signed 36 top players by offering attractive financial incentives that include equity. The league said it offers the highest average salaries in women’s professional sports league history. It’s being backed by a number of investors.

This latest deal comes as Baltimore-based Under Armour is in the midst of a turnaround effort after founder Kevin Plank took the helm again this past March. Former Marriott executive Stephanie Linnartz had been in the role for barely a year before she was ousted; she was the second CEO the company had cycled through in less than two years.

Over the past few years, the brand has struggled to keep up with competition and drive full-price sales, relying on promotions and the off-price channel to move its products.

Before she left, Linnartz had been trying to market more to women and improve the product offering, but when Plank retook the helm, he walked that strategy back and said the company would be doubling down on its men’s apparel business. He later announced a turnaround plan that centers on making Under Armour a premium brand and pulling back on discounting so it can improve profits and boost demand.

Last month, the company saw a bright spot when reporting fiscal second-quarter earnings. It lifted its annual profit forecast and Plank said the turnaround is “beginning to gain traction.” Still, the stock is down about 81% from its all-time high on Sept. 17, 2015.

Under Armour’s deal with Unrivaled offers a glimpse into where the company is putting its money and, perhaps, indicates it wants to focus more on female athlete as it looks to capitalize on the hype of women’s sports to reenergize the brand.

Under Armour currently has partnerships with top women’s college programs such as the University of South Carolina, Notre Dame, Maryland and Utah.

“As a brand, we have a long history of investing in women’s basketball, from the grassroots level all the way up to the pros,” Eggert said.