The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is banning imports of new foreign-made humanoid robots and power inverters, citing national security risks, in a move that targets China. Beijing quickly accused the U.S. of protectionism.

The measures are likely to test relations with Beijing ahead of a planned U.S. visit by Chinese leader Xi Jinping to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in September. China dominates the global market for humanoid robots with an estimated market share of roughly 85%.

The FCC’s ban also includes new imports of quadruped robots, often referred to as four-legged robot dogs. The agency said imports of advanced robots pose cybersecurity and other national security risks. Offshore production of such equipment also leaves U.S. supply chains vulnerable to disruptions.

The ban on power inverters, which are used to convert direct current (DC) electricity into alternating current (AC) electricity and are used in renewable energy systems, data centers and household appliances, could have sweeping ramifications.

This is the latest in US restrictions on Chinese imports.

FCC chairperson Brendan Carr said Tuesday that the move was to “secure America’s critical supply chains.” He said the bans apply to “new versions” of such imports.

The FCC’s bans follow a slew of U.S. restrictions on imports of Chinese products, including drones, and on exports of U.S. advanced technology to China.

The U.S. is also weighing controls on use of Chinese open-source artificial intelligence models at a time when Chinese AI is rapidly gaining ground.

“It’s a steady drumbeat of potential flashpoints heading into (the) Trump-Xi summit planned for September,” said Samm Sacks, a senior fellow at the New America think tank focused on Chinese technology policies.

China has been rapidly expanding the use of robots, with policies supporting its technology sector. Morgan Stanley analysts forecast its market for humanoids could reach $15 billion by 2030.

“Chinese manufacturers have been scaling production and reducing costs faster than most overseas competitors,” said analyst Kangyuxiao Li at Morningstar.

“Restricting their access to the U.S. removes an important future market and protects U.S. developers from potential price competition,” he said. “However, it will not materially slow China’s overall humanoid development, given the size of its domestic manufacturing base and opportunities in other export markets.”

Of the around 15,000 humanoid robots shipped globally in 2025, Unitree and AGIBOT, two of China’s largest advanced robotics companies, each shipped more than 5,000. Their U.S. counterparts, like Tesla and Figure AI, each shipped a few hundred or less, according to the technology research and advisory group Omdia.

On the restrictions on power inverters, Cheng Wang, another Morningstar analyst, said the pressure on U.S. markets should be limited. The ban appears to not impact the continued use of existing devices nor the selling by Chinese companies of models that were previously approved by the United States.

A federal appeals court on Tuesday ended more than 60 years of federal oversight of a Louisiana school system that had been ordered to eradicate segregation.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted a decades-old desegregation mandate for the Concordia Parish School Board, handing a victory to President Donald Trump's administration, which has pushed to end the court-ordered plans. The school system has been a focal point in the administration's attempt to end legal cases dating to the Civil Rights era.

The U.S. Justice Department spent decades fighting for such cases but reversed course under Trump. Officials in his administration have framed the remaining segregation orders as federal intrusion into local school systems. Louisiana officials agree they're no longer needed and describe them as relics of a time when Black students were once forbidden from attending some schools.

"The good people of Concordia Parish elected their school board to govern their schools — not unelected federal judges," Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said in announcing the ruling. "Today's decision puts that authority back where it belongs."

Members of the Concordia Parish School Board did not immediately respond Tuesday to emails seeking comment.

Families who brought the suit are no longer involved.

The Concordia Parish case dates to 1965, when the area was segregated and home to a violent offshoot of the Ku Klux Klan. Black families in Ferriday, a town on the central-eastern border of Louisiana, sued for access to all-white schools, and the federal government intervened. As the district integrated its schools, many white families fled Ferriday.

The district's schools came to reflect the demographics of their surrounding areas. Ferriday is still mostly Black and low-income, while neighboring Vidalia is mostly white and takes in tax revenue from a hydroelectric plant.

Some parents and civil rights groups have argued that desegregation orders remain important tools to address vestiges of segregation such as racial disparities in student discipline, academic programs and teacher hiring.

The Concordia Parish order was used to force a mostly white charter school that opened in 2013 to prioritize Black students and create a more integrated student body.

The former mayor of Mississippi's capital city and the former City Council president have pleaded guilty in a bribery scheme one week before they were set to face trial.

Former Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba and former Jackson City Council President Aaron Banks pleaded guilty Monday to one count of conspiracy. Their pleas came after Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens pleaded guilty last week and resigned. All three are Democrats.

Two other people — Angelique Lee, the Democratic former vice president of the Jackson City Council, and Sherik Marve Smith, a businessman and relative of Owens — had already pleaded guilty to bribery charges.

A November 2024 indictment accused Owens of taking at least $115,000 from two FBI agents posing as real estate developers and facilitating more than $80,000 in bribe payments to Banks, Lumumba and Lee in exchange for their help greenlighting a development project.

Lumumba, Banks and Owens could be sentenced to up to five years in prison. Their sentencing hearings are set for Oct. 15.

Lumumba, who previously called the charges a political prosecution, lost his reelection bid last year. His lawyers did not immediately respond to The Associated Press' requests for comment.

The National Conference of Black Lawyers, which has supported Lumumbat throughout his prosecution, has raised concerns about whether the FBI and prosecutors unjustly targeted Black elected officials.

"Our history tells us that it is necessary for us to have a very healthy skepticism about who, how and why certain people, certain geographical areas are focused upon," said Mawuli Davis, an attorney with the NCBL. "We've never not been targeted."

Davis said the NCBL intends to attend Lumumba's sentencing hearing and advocate for the judge to consider Lumumba's contributions to the community.

Banks' lawyer declined to comment.

A tourist from Washington state pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges accusing him of hurling a coconut-sized rock at an endangered Hawaiian monk seal and was ordered to stay away from Hawaii beaches.

Igor Lytvynchuk, 38, of Covington, Washington, was in U.S. District Court in Honolulu Wednesday, where he pleaded not guilty to charges of harassing and attempting to harass a protected animal. U.S. Magistrate Judge Rom Trader allowed him to remain free pending the criminal case but ordered him to stay away from beaches and marine wildlife while in Hawaii.

"You're not going to the beach, you understand that," Trader told Lytvynchuk, who responded that he understood.

Lytvynchuk declined to comment after the hearing.

One of his defense attorneys, Myles Breiner, said previously his client was trying to protect sea turtles and has since been physically assaulted, threatened and doxed.

Earlier this month, a witness recorded what prosecutors say was a video of him throwing the rock at a Hawaiian monk seal at a Maui beach. He later made arrangements to surrender in the Seattle area as special agents with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were seeking to arrest him, prosecutors said.

The video drew widespread condemnation and demands for prosecution in Hawaii, including from Maui's mayor. Scientists identified the seal as an adult male known as "R404," NOAA said.

According to prosecutors, a state Department of Land and Natural Resources officer investigated a report of Hawaiian monk seal harassment in Lahaina, the community that was largely destroyed by a deadly wildfire in 2023. A witness showed the officer video of the seal swimming in shallow water while a man watched from shore.

The video showed Lytvynchuk throwing the rock, described by a witness as the size of a coconut, directly at the seal, narrowly missing its head, prosecutors said in a criminal complaint.

When a witness confronted Lytvynchuk, he said "he did not care and was 'rich' enough to pay any fines," according to the complaint.

Afterward, a man "brutally assaulted" Lytvynchuk, Breiner said. Lytvynchuk declined to file a police report on the assault, the attorney said.

Breiner explained his client had been to Hawaii previously and was familiar with sea turtles, but not Hawaiian monk seals. Lytvynchuk is a fisherman and thought the seal was an aggressive sea lion, the lawyer said.

"So his response was not to hurt this monk seal, but to get it away from the turtles," Breiner said.

The incident shows NOAA must do more to educate the public about protecting Hawaiian monk seals, Hawaii's U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, a Democrat, said in a statement.

Since the video surfaced, Lytvynchuk has faced death threats and doxing, including receiving a package at his home containing what appeared to be feces, Breiner said.

He said his client is being treated unfairly because he is a white outsider. "The vast majority of attacks on monk seal and turtle are by locals," he said.

Lytvynchuk is charged with violations of the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Hawaiian monk seals are a critically endangered species. Only 1,600 remain in the wild.

If convicted, he faces up to one year in prison for each charge. He also faces a fine of up to $50,000 under the Endangered Species Act and a fine of up to $20,000 under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

At the hearing, attended by numerous Hawaiian monk seal protection activists, Trader set a scheduling hearing for June 9, but said Lytvynchuk is allowed to participate by phone or video from Washington. Trader ordered him not to travel outside Washington and Hawaii. Lytvynchuk said he surrendered his U.S. passport to authorities.