Category: Business

Vigna tells HT that Ferrari filed a patent in 2019 for compressed-air jets like Tesla’s new Roadster’s, but to help a car corner, brake and accelerate harder.

On Thursday, at a SpaceX rocket test site in Texas, Tesla’s new Roadster rose on jets of compressed air, flipped over a row of parked cars and came back down on its wheels. It was a showman’s reveal, built for the livestream. Nearly eight years earlier, an engineer in Maranello had drawn up a Ferrari that used the same sort of jets for a different purpose, to sharpen its driving dynamics by pressing the car into the road so it could corner, brake and accelerate harder.

Ferrari chief executive Benedetto Vigna confirmed the design in an interview with Hindustan Times in New Delhi, where the Italian supercar maker on Saturday unveiled the Luce, its first all-electric car, and brought its Universo Ferrari exhibition to India for the first time.

“Yes, there is a patent from Ferrari in 2019 from our colleague. I know it very well,” Vigna said, referring to Fabrizio Favaretto, the Ferrari engineer named as the inventor. “It was talking about a car that is using… (technology) like the one you have seen.”

To be sure, the patent describes a car that stays on the ground. Its jets give a car on its wheels extra thrust and direction, using the same technology as the thrusters on Tesla’s Roadster. Two carmakers reached for the same engineering but while aiming for very different effects.

For Ferrari, whose cars hung on posters above the beds of generations of children, the jets were a way to hold the road a little harder at the very moment it tries to let go. For Tesla, the company that taught the world to take electric cars seriously, they were a way to leave the road altogether.

Favaretto’s design starts from that moment. Once tyres reach the edge of their grip, a car cannot accelerate, brake or corner any harder. His answer is a tank of air that could be stored at 700 to 900 bar, several hundred times the pressure inside a car tyre, feeding nozzles that fire the air out at supersonic speed.

A jet near the car’s centre of gravity points upwards and pushes the car down for grip. Side jets push back against the forces that throw a car outwards in a corner, a front jet brakes and a rear jet accelerates. A jet under the floor speeds up the air flowing beneath the car, lowering the pressure there and pulling the car towards the road.

A compressor driven by the wheels refills the tank under braking, recovering energy that the brakes would otherwise lose as heat. The whole system, by the patent’s reckoning, adds about 40-45kg.

Ferrari first filed the idea in Italy on December 27, 2018, and in the US a year later, on December 23, 2019, as “High-Performance Car with Gas Pushers”. The US application was published in July 2020 and later granted as US patent 11,072,381.

Around the same time, Elon Musk said he planned to install SpaceX thrusters on the Roadster. Automotive websites reported Ferrari’s patent in 2023, but Vigna’s comments are the first time the company has confirmed it on record.

On Thursday, Tesla took the same physics in its own direction. Its second-generation Roadster used compressed-air thrusters to hop over five Tesla vehicles, and production is due to begin in 2028.

Asked about Tesla’s demonstration, Vigna set out the test Ferrari applies to anything it builds. A new technology has to earn its place in a Ferrari by what it gives the person behind the wheel, he said, and whether it serves the thrill of driving or the show. “What is important is that we understand if the technology we bring forward is a technology that delivers unique emotion, driving thrill, or something that is more on the sensational side,” he said. “When you develop technology, you start from the human beings. If you start from the technology per se, you may forget [its intent].”

It is a very Ferrari answer, and Favaretto’s patent was written to that brief. Each of its jets exists to make the car grip, corner, brake or accelerate harder, and the patent keeps them for the moments that test a driver most: pulling away, a very sharp bend, an emergency stop. None of them is meant to lift the car off the ground.

Innovation vs production

Vigna’s test is easier to pass with a patent than with a car people are asked to love, and Ferrari’s own step into new technology has met a colder welcome of late. The five-seat Luce was styled by LoveFrom, the design studio of former Apple designer Jony Ive and Marc Newson. Four motors give it 1,035hp, and its 122kWh battery is rated for about 529km. Its reveal near Rome on May 25 drew a hostile response. Ferrari shares fell 8.4% in Milan the next day amid criticism of its design, and former chairman Luca di Montezemolo warned that the company risked “the destruction of a myth”.

Five months on, Vigna stood by the car. “True innovation is never democratic,” he said, repeating a line from a newspaper article he wrote three days before the launch. “If all the people see innovation, then you call it production.”

“I wouldn’t have changed anything,” he said. “I am not surprised at all.” The only thing he would have got wrong, he added, was the number of social-media impressions. “If you want to stay a leader, you have to push the limit forward. Otherwise, you become a follower.”

He believes the car wins people over in the metal. People who see the Luce in person react differently from those who have seen it only online, he said. “The 2D pictures or video do not do it justice.” It is an old article of faith at Maranello that a Ferrari has to be met in person to be understood, and Vigna is asking the Luce to be judged the same way.

Vigna said orders were coming from many countries and were “particularly strong” in China, where buyers are more used to electric cars. All 88 cars in the first Chinese allocation sold out on launch day in June.

Indian buyers can now judge for themselves. The Luce is on show at Universo Ferrari at Yashobhoomi, the India International Convention and Expo Centre, from October 17 to November 1, alongside the F80 hypercar, which also makes its India debut. Ferrari has not announced Indian pricing or a sale date for the Luce.

Vigna said the clients he had met in India were pleased about the free trade agreement with the European Union. “This FTA is something that I see as very good news for us,” he said. India also features in Ferrari’s engineering. “We already have many Indian colleagues that are giving a strong contribution to what we do,” Vigna said. He is meeting students from IIT and other universities this week, and praised their “energy” and “optimism”.

He described the Luce as an addition to Ferrari’s range. “We are adding an electric car to our sports car portfolio. We are not switching to electric,” he said. Asked why rival supercar makers are slowing their electric-vehicle plans, he declined to criticise them. “Technology can move fast. Human beings move slower,” he said. “Each client will select the preferred way.”

On India, Vigna leaned on the Hindi phrase “Hoga Kaise Nahin? (Why won’t it happen)” to define Ferrari’s approach the country and in Asia, attributing it to energy and determination he encountered here.

Source : https://www.hindustantimes.com/business/true-innovation-is-never-democratic-ferrari-ceo-benedetto-vigna-at-india-debut-of-its-first-ev-the-luce-exclusive-interview-101792256718232.html

Wondering where to invest for the next 2 years? Times Now Digital spoke to G. Chokkalingam Head of Research at Equinomics Research who shared his view on equity investments.

If you are wondering where to invest your money over the next two years, an expert has shared his views on how investors could allocate their equity portfolios between large-cap and small- and mid-cap stocks. He sees potential opportunities across both segments, though returns may vary depending on market conditions and individual stock performance. These views represent the expert’s opinion and do not constitute investment advice from Times Now Digital.

G. Chokkalingam Head of Research at Equinomics Research told Times Now Digital, “for the next two years it would be good to put equity allocation equally between large caps, small & mid cap segments equally. In the last two years, Sensex, Nifty failed to give any positive returns. In the next two years, they are likely to give significant returns. While Nifty is down nearly 15 percent from its 52 week high, Nifty earnings are likely to grow in decent double digits. However several individual small and mid cap stocks also offer possible wealth creation opportunities. Rally in SMC indices is not widespread. Many individual stocks within SMC pack are down 30 percent to even 50 percent from their records highs of 2024. There are many promising themes (capital market intermediaries etc) which are there in SMC but not in Sensex/Nifty baskets. Also there are many deep value and uniques ideas within SMC segment exclusively. Hence equal exposure between Sensex & Nifty basket and also SMC segment could be the possible ideal investment strategy for the next two years.”

Source : https://www.timesnownews.com/business-economy/markets/where-to-invest-for-the-next-2-years-heres-what-an-expert-recommends-article-156310149

“We pack the whole Muse experience, including the whole real-time voice and avatar stack, into something that fits on a keychain and is always available to talk to,” Zuckerberg said at Meta’s annual device event, Meta Connect, in Menlo Park, California.
Meta’s surprise announcement comes as Silicon Valley searches for a successor to the smartphone, pouring ​billions into devices designed around AI assistants that can see, hear and respond to the world around them. From smart glasses and wearable pins to handheld gadgets, companies are betting AI will reshape ​how consumers interact with technology. It remains unclear which form factor will reach mainstream status.

Meta itself started with AI glasses, turning its EssilorLuxottica (ESLX.PA), opens new tab Ray-Ban partnership into one ⁠of the first successes in that category.
On Wednesday, the social media giant also showed off its first virtual-reality device slim enough to pass for glasses, and a pair of camera-free smart glasses designed to ease the ​growing privacy backlash against AI devices that can take videos and pictures of people without consent.
META GADGETS WILL HAVE MUSE
The company also expanded its viral Muse AI assistant across its smart glasses lineup, adding new capabilities including ​computer use and integration with retailers and services such as Walmart (WMT.O), opens new tab, Best Buy (BBY.N), opens new tab and Gap (GAP.N), opens new tab.
Meta said Muse would become the primary interface for its glasses, allowing users to shop, make appointments and complete tasks through voice commands.

Meta VR Glasses, priced at $1,299, aim to match the capabilities of bulkier and costlier rivals such as Apple’s Vision Pro. The device weighs about as much as a deck of playing cards, a design made possible by moving the battery and the processor into a separate puck. They ​will launch in spring 2027.

Meta is betting the VR device, which looks like a pair of dark wraparound frames and responds to eye, voice, and hand gestures, can finally take to the mainstream a category long ​held back by high prices and heavy headsets that are uncomfortable to wear for hours.
“Bringing the weight down to around 100 grams is impressive and could improve the user experience,” said Linda Sui, founder of Smart Analytics Group, a market ‌research firm.
“However, the ⁠core use cases remain broadly similar to previous VR headsets. The higher price could also make it difficult to reach mainstream consumers.”
The new camera-free glasses, called Ray-Ban Meta Audio, will still record audio and offer no clear signal to bystanders that recording is underway, unlike its smart glasses with a camera, which flash a light while filming. Critics say dropping the cameras alone may not be enough to ease privacy concerns.
The Meta Audio glasses are the latest made through the company’s EssilorLuxottica tie-up and will ship from October 13 at a starting price of $349. That is $100 cheaper than the latest version of its Ray-Ban glasses, which continue to have cameras and will ​come in two new styles: the iconic Aviator and ​cat-eyed Zena.
PRIVACY CONCERNS LINGER
Meta has been the focal point ⁠of growing concerns about devices that work better the more they see and hear, prompting privacy lawsuits and bans at some UK venues. The outcome of the privacy debate could shape a market that technology firms, including Meta, see as the next major computing platform and a potential replacement for smartphones.
“They are addressing some of ​the privacy issues, but there is still the ability to kind of misuse audio or record audio without consent. And that is really the key here. ​This is all about consent,” ⁠said Jitesh Ubrani, director at market research firm IDC. “Meta needs to figure out a way to warn users they are being recorded, even though it just might be audio only.”

Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/meta-expected-unveil-smart-glasses-without-camera-privacy-concerns-grow-2026-09-23/

Bengaluru-based Sarla Aviation is working towards deploying eVTOL aircraft in India by 2030.

India and European countries are looking to move beyond conventional partnerships towards co-creating technologies, businesses and solutions, with opportunities emerging in climate change, healthcare, cybersecurity, manufacturing and resilient supply chains.

Delegates from the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany’s Bavaria, Italy, and Switzerland, along with Israel, highlighted opportunities for collaboration with India on day one of The India Advantage Summit (TIA Summit) 2026 in Bengaluru on Tuesday.

Bavaria highlighted the scale of existing business ties. Around 500 Bavarian companies are working in India, along with 300 joint ventures, with further opportunities in pharma, life sciences, aerospace, defence, mobility and sustainable technologies, while a new economic delegation is expected to visit India in February, Ulrike Müller, Member of the Bavarian State Parliament, said.

Josef Hrubec, Director, CzechTrade India said it sees opportunities in engineering, healthcare, AI and cybersecurity. Denmark plans to expand its India partnership into areas including technology, space and defence, while Italy identified reliable supply chains, connectivity and access to critical materials as key areas for cooperation, highlighting IMEC’s potential to open new trade routes and strengthen economic resilience against external shocks.

Source : https://www.deccanherald.com/business/from-ai-to-flying-taxis-india-europe-ties-eye-a-new-era-of-co-creation-4156074#google_vignette

Meta (META.O), opens new tab has been testing a “human concierge” for its new personal AI assistant, Muse, which entails having human contractors quietly handle some of the ​phone calls placed via the digital agent, according to internal company posts seen by Reuters.
The Facebook and Instagram owner told employees about the test last week, shortly ‌after the company publicly launched a phone-calling feature for Muse.

The Muse agent, which has topped US app download charts in the two weeks since its debut, is designed to autonomously perform tasks like sending emails, shopping and booking travel on a person’s behalf.
With the phone-calling feature, a Muse user can tell the agent to dial phone numbers for US businesses and talk with people on the other end to handle errands like booking haircuts, checking whether a store has ​an item in stock or getting quotes from different contractors.
Some employees have raised privacy concerns about humans handling those calls, warning that the approach could result in sensitive information being ​shared unintentionally with contractors in call centers, the internal posts showed.

“It’s baffling to me why we think this feature is worth the risk,” one employee ⁠wrote in an internal post. “We are one bug away from unnecessary information being leaked to human callers.”
Another employee, who had asked Muse to call an internet and cable provider to negotiate his bill, ​said a transcript showed the human contractor had made a racist reference during the call.
In response, a vice president in Meta’s Superintelligence Labs unit acknowledged that “it was a miss” to start testing contractor-placed calls without ​proper disclosures and said the company had “rolled back this feature” for now.
Meta was still “hillclimbing AI calling,” she added in her post, noting that some tests indicated having humans make the calls could get their success rate up to the 95% to 98% range, instead of the “lower percentage of AI calling.”

She also apologized to the employee who reported the mention of race during a Muse call and promised that the “human agent” involved would not work on any Meta ​projects going forward.
HUMAN LABOR BEHIND AI PROMISES
The Muse test offers a window into how tech companies sometimes rely on human labor behind the scenes to deliver on the promises of autonomous AI, as ​they bump up against reluctance to engage from those on the receiving end of robocalls.
It harks back to an earlier experiment Meta conducted a decade ago, when the company, then known as Facebook, trialed a digital assistant ‌called “M” in its ⁠Messenger service. Media reports later estimated that around 70% of the agent’s tasks were actually carried out by humans.
Asked about the Muse “human concierge” plan, a Meta spokesperson said the response from employees had been “overwhelmingly positive” and that the purpose of the test was to “get feedback so we can implement safety and privacy protections and improve features before we release them publicly.”

“We’re working with merchants to continue improving this potential calling feature, and will only roll it out when it’s ready and with the proper disclosures,” said the spokesperson, Daniel Roberts.
Meta’s Muse agent has had more than 2.5 million downloads since its release, according ​to data provided by market intelligence firm Sensor ​Tower.
The company’s stock has soared more than 20% since ⁠the launch, adding more than $200 billion in market capitalization to touch its highest level in more than seven months as of last close.
Shares edged down 0.6% on Tuesday, however.
UNDERCUTTING A KEY SELLING POINT
Meta heavily emphasized the AI assistant’s safety protections during its launch, telling would-be users that each agent would have ​its own secure “virtual machine,” or a dedicated computer in the cloud designed to keep people’s sessions isolated, and would keep sensitive information like ​passwords in separate secure storage.
Employees ⁠critiquing the human concierge plan inside Meta cited those security measures in their feedback, warning that it risked undercutting a key selling point for the agent.
Meta began having employees test out the phone-calling capability in August and gradually started rolling it out to Muse users in the days after the app’s debut, the internal posts showed.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/meta-testing-human-concierge-its-new-personal-ai-agent-muse-2026-09-22/

“Sam Altman will brief an open UN Security Council ​meeting in person next week,” an OpenAI spokesperson told Reuters.
Altman’s remarks were expected to focus on the need for ​international coordination and shared safety standards, as well as steps OpenAI is taking to ensure people globally benefit, the spokesperson said.
Diplomats said they also expected high-level presence at the meeting from Anthropic, but that it was yet to be confirmed. Anthropic did not ​immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Security Council meeting has been convened by France, which is the ​president of the body for September, and will be chaired by French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Noël Barrot.

In a ‌concept ⁠note for the meeting circulated to council members by France and seen by Reuters, it said: “In light of the risk of misuse of this technology for malicious purposes, and drawing on the Council’s existing engagement in this field, France wishes to underline the urgency of action to foster safe and responsible development of artificial intelligence for the ​benefit of the international ​community as a whole.”
The ⁠UN Security Council, which is charged with maintaining international peace and security, met for the first time on the risks of artificial intelligence in 2023, when China said the ​technology should not become a “runaway horse” and the United States warned against its use ​to censor or ⁠repress people.
Altman has been warning about the risks well before the current AI boom. In a 2015 essay titled “Machine Intelligence, part 1”, he said the “development of superhuman machine intelligence is probably the greatest threat to the continued existence of ⁠humanity”.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/openais-sam-altman-to-brief-un-security-council-next-week-during-2026-09-18/

Venezuela Interim President Delcy ​Rodriguez on Saturday ‌signed a memorandum of understanding ​with French oil ​and gas company ⁠Total Energies, according ​to local media.

It ​was the latest of a flurry of ​oil deals ​signed between multinational oil companies ‌and ⁠Venezuela’s new government, following the U.S.’s toppling of ​former ​president ⁠Nicolas Maduro in January.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/venezuela-leader-rodriguez-signs-agreement-with-french-oil-company-total-2026-09-19/

It’s not just one handpicked AI safety “watchdog” that Anthropic has on a leash – it’s an entire phony ecosystem of woke elitists that’s supposedly policing artificial intelligence’s alleged threats to humanity, The Post has learned.

Redwood Research – a Berkeley, Calif.-based group that co-authored a bombshell report last month detailing how a swarm of rogue OpenAI agents hacked rival firm Hugging Face – is one of a handful of nonprofits that Anthropic has corralled in its questionable plan to avert a Terminator-like apocalypse, according to industry experts.

As The Post reported, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei caused an uproar this week by endorsing another AI watchdog — Model Evaluation and Threat Research, or METR — which is backed by leaders of the cult-like Effective Altruism movement, which has counted disgraced crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried among its devotees.

Redwood, the most prominent AI safety research nonprofit aside from METR, also shares cozy Anthropic connections — including the fact that one of its original board members, Holden Karnofsky, is not only an Anthropic employee but also is married to the CEO’s sister, Daniela Amodei.

Redwood received a $36 million grant last November from Coefficient Giving – the leading Effective Altruism fund formerly known as Open Philanthropy — which is also co-founded by Karnofsky. After the Hugging Face report went viral, Coefficient’s grantmakers recommended giving another $70 million to help Redwood “scale up their work.”

The rampant “organizational incest” linking Anthropic, METR, Redwood and EA-linked funds like Coefficient Giving make it impossible for those groups to serve as an independent arbitrator for the AI industry, according to Perry Metzger, chairman of Alliance for the Future, a Washington, DC-based AI policy group.

“Dario wants people that will let him do what he wants and will prevent the people he doesn’t like from doing what they want,” Metzger said. “This is absolutely the reason that you try to set up something like this. None of these people are independent, none of these people are arm’s length.”

Coefficient Giving, which Karnofsky co-founded with billionaire Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, gave $1.5 million to METR’s incubator, the Alignment Research Center, in 2022. METR was originally known as ARC Evals before spinning off as an independent nonprofit and changing its name in 2023.

That’s in addition to past donations that Coefficient had already doled out to Redwood, including a $9.42 million grant in 2021 and further grants of $10.7 million in 2022 and $5.3 million in 2023.

Redwood’s original board of directors included Karnofsky and Paul Christiano – the latter of whom was Amodei’s onetime housemate and coworker when they were both at OpenAI. Christiano was once one of five trustees on Anthropic’s Long-Term Benefit Trust. He also leads the Alignment Research Center.

In sum, the evidence suggests that Redwood is far too cozy with Anthropic to be an effective overseer, according to Metzger.

“This is a reasonable thing that people should be aware of – that there are all of these groups that are colluding and essentially consist of the same people,” Metzger said.

Elsewhere, Redwood has received about $2.4 million in grants from Jaan Tallinn’s Survival And Flourishing Fund – which is a key funder of METR’s operations. Like Moskovitz, Tallinn is also an Anthropic investor.

In response to a detailed list of questions, Redwood Research CEO Buck Shlegeris said that “most of our previous work with AI companies has been research collaboration and advising rather than external accountability.”

In instances where Redwood has worked with METR, such as the Hugging Face investigation, Redwood has followed METR’s policy on preventing conflicts of interest, Shlegeris added. METR says it doesn’t take any compensation from AI labs for its work, nor does it take donations from executives or employees of AI companies.

After Anthropic was approached for comment, the company announced a non-exclusive deal with Accenture, which will embed safety “evaluators” inside the company. Anthropic said it “will fund Accenture’s work directly” in the short term.

The company also said it was “in dialogue with METR and other nonprofit evaluators to pilot elements of embedded evaluation using their own funding.” Anthropic declined to say if it is in negotiations with Redwood.

“We’ve supported Redwood Research’s important technical research on understanding risks from AI, such as better understanding “alignment-faking” (when an AI model only pretends to follow safety rules), or exploring things like technical mitigation strategies for these risks (such as using models to review the outputs of other models),” a Coefficient Giving spokesperson said in a statement.

Even before the recent kerfuffle over AI safety reached the mainstream, Anthropic was extensively collaborating with Redwood. On its website, Redwood says it actively consults with “Google DeepMind and Anthropic on practices for assessing and mitigating risks from misaligned AI agents.”

On Sept. 9, METR announced that it had sealed an agreement with Anthropic to conduct an “independent investigation of agent incidents” involving its AI models. Three days later, Redwood revealed that several of its staff members “have been subcontracted by METR to work on this investigation.”

The notion of a self-policing AI industry drew a skeptical response on Capitol Hill, where some critics have suggested that AI giants like Anthropic and OpenAI are merely trying to create rules that suit them – and avoid stricter legislation that might otherwise arise.

Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), who co-chairs the House Commission on AI, expressed wariness over the fact that AI firms were so quick to get on board with the idea.

“When AI developers cheer on the framework meant to hold these companies accountable, it should raise red flags, not confidence,” Gottheimer said in a statement.

House Majority Leader Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) reacted to The Post’s cover story on METR’s ties to Effective Altruism, stating: “THESE are the people we’re trusting to beat China in AI? Give me a break.”

In 2024, researchers from Anthropic and Redwood coauthored a paper titled “Alignment Faking in Large Language Models,” which explored “what happens when you tell Claude it is being trained to do something it doesn’t want to do” and found that the chatbot will often “strategically pretend to comply” with orders.

Elsewhere, Shlegeris revealed during a January 2026 podcast appearance that Anthropic researchers, including cofounder Chris Olah, “had very kindly shared with us a bunch of their unpublished interpretability work” to aid the nonprofit’s in-house research.

Amodei’s pitch for third-party oversight of the AI industry seemed to draw support from his peers, including longtime rival Sam Altman of OpenAI, who said “committing to having independent evaluators with employee-like access is a great idea” but did not endorse a particular group. Even Elon Musk got on board, stating on X that “Dario is right.”

President Trump – who has been sharply critical of Amodei and decried AI doomsday warnings as a “hoax” – is highly unlikely to support any plan that would put an Effective Altruist-linked group in the driver’s seat.

“Nobody takes the A.I. issue more seriously than President Trump,” a source close to the White House told The Post. “He wants serious people making sure we win the A.I. race, safely, while procuring the continuation of America’s Golden Age.”

White House representatives did not immediately return a request for comment.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon’s top tech official Emil Michael – who has engaged in a long-running dispute with Anthropic that culminated in the War Department labeling the company a supply chain risk – appeared to take a direct shot at Amodei’s oversight plan.

Source: https://nypost.com/2026/09/18/business/inside-the-phony-incestuous-web-of-woke-ai-watchdogs-that-anthropic-claims-will-save-us-from-an-ai-apocalypse/

Google’s (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Gemini model accessed the internet and hacked other companies during a test of its cybersecurity capabilities, ​the first known example of the company’s AI systems autonomously committing ‌such an act.
The hacks occurred in May during a cybersecurity test conducted by Irregular, an independent company that conducts cybersecurity evaluations.

During a standard testing evaluation, Gemini found public information ​online and guessed credentials to access three websites it thought were ​within the scope of its test, Heather Adkins, Google’s vice president ⁠of security engineering, said in a statement.

“We ensured the three entities were ​made aware, and we worked with our training partner on the changes they’ve ​now made to their testing processes,” Adkins said. “These events highlight the importance of training powerful AI models to act responsibly.”
An Irregular spokesperson said the incident involved the same issue ​that affected other AI labs and that all relevant labs were notified ​in late July. “All known issues on our end were remedied and resolved weeks ago,” the ‌spokesperson ⁠said.
Similar incidents linked to Irregular were disclosed by Meta, Anthropic and OpenAI. Meta said in August the incident did not involve a sandbox escape or sophisticated cyberattack, while Irregular said it was working on best practices for securely conducting ​AI cybersecurity evaluations.

The incidents ​have raised questions ⁠about the safeguards needed as AI agents gain greater autonomy and access to the internet and computer systems.
In one ​of the cases, the Gemini model guessed passwords until ​it gained ⁠access to a protected system. In the other two cases, the model found credentials in a public repository that allowed it to then access protected systems, according to ⁠the ​Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news ​on Friday.
Adkins said that in all three instances, the model ceased its hacking.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/gemini-hacked-three-companies-first-known-breakout-by-google-ai-wsj-reports-2026-09-18/

Government sources said the GST paid on MDR can be set off against Input Tax Credit (ITC).

Amid concerns that merchants would have to bear an 18 per cent Goods and Services Tax (GST) on Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) charges for UPI payments above Rs 2,000, government sources have termed the claim a “false rumour”, saying the GST paid on MDR can be set off against Input Tax Credit (ITC).

The sources said the government does not expect the introduction of MDR to result in a significant increase in cash transactions or a decline in UPI payments after the new charges come into effect on October 15.

“GST on UPI is a false rumour. It will be set off in Input Tax Credit. If there will be any issue, then that will be looked into by the GST Council. We don’t see much increase in cash transactions due to MDR. We are confident that there will be no increase in cash transactions. Don’t expect UPI transactions to fall after the rollout on October 15,” sources said.

Syria will offer cheaper diesel for heating, agriculture and industry, Energy Minister Mohammed al-Bashir said on Thursday, days after a fuel price hike triggered the most widespread protests since the fall of Bashar al-Assad.
​The move signals a partial retreat by the government after last weekend’s increases sparked demonstrations ‌across the country, with protesters burning tyres, blocking roads and demanding the rises be reversed. About 90% of Syrians live below the poverty line, according to UN estimates.

The standard grade ​would remain at 175 pounds per litre, while gasoline and gas prices would remain unchanged.
Bashir said the government ​was selling the standard diesel below cost, which he put at 206 pounds per litre. It was not immediately clear how much the ‌subsidy would ⁠cost or how long it would remain in place.
He also announced plans to restart a group of small local electrical refineries, known in Syria as “burners”, with combined crude-processing capacity of up to 35,000 barrels per day (bpd) under the management of the Syrian Petroleum Company.
SPC chief executive Youssef Qablawi said the company was preparing an implementation ​plan and that fuel ​produced by the refineries would ⁠be distributed through designated filling stations.
The announcement came on the day Bashir had been due to face a parliamentary hearing over the fuel increases. Parliament agreed on Wednesday ​to postpone the hearing until Sunday at the Energy Ministry’s request, saying the ​ministry needed more ⁠time to prepare after lawmakers expanded the session to cover oil, electricity, water and mining.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/syria-offers-cheaper-diesel-after-fuel-price-protests-2026-09-17/

The US Department of State said on Thursday it had approved the potential sale of Lockheed Martin’s (LMT.N), opens new tab ‌F-35 Lightning II fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, as the kingdom is drawn deeper into war in the Middle East.
A sale would mark a significant policy shift from the US, potentially altering the balance of military power in the Middle East and testing Washington’s definition of maintaining its ally Israel’s “qualitative military edge.”

The Saudi ​embassy in Washington welcomed the proposed sale, describing it as a further step in defense cooperation between the two countries.
“The proposed F-35 sale reflects the strength and enduring nature of the Saudi-U.S. strategic partnership and the continued advancement of our defense cooperation,” the embassy said on X.
The F-35, built with ​stealth technology that allows it to evade enemy detection, is considered the world’s most advanced fighter jet. Israel has operated the aircraft for a ​decade, building multiple squadrons, and remains the only Middle Eastern country to possess the system.
Saudi Arabia, the largest customer for US arms, has ‌sought the ⁠fighter for years as it looks to modernize its air force and counter regional threats, particularly from Iran. The kingdom’s renewed push for what would constitute two squadrons comes as the Trump administration has signaled openness to deepening defense cooperation with Riyadh. The Saudi Air Force flies a mix of fighter aircraft including Boeing (BA.N), opens new tab F-15s, European Tornados and Typhoons.

The F-35 issue has also been ​intertwined with broader diplomatic efforts. The ​administration of former US President Joe ⁠Biden previously explored providing F-35s to Saudi Arabia as part of a comprehensive deal that would have included Riyadh normalizing relations with Israel, though those efforts ultimately stalled.
Trump has made arms sales ​to Saudi Arabia a priority since returning to office. In 2025, the United States agreed to ​sell the kingdom ⁠an arms package worth nearly $142 billion, which the White House called “the largest defense cooperation agreement” Washington has ever done.
Congressional scrutiny could pose challenges to any F-35 sale. Lawmakers previously questioned arms deals with Riyadh following the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and some ⁠members of ​Congress remain wary of deepening military cooperation with the kingdom.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/us-state-department-oks-possible-243-billion-military-aircraft-sale-saudi-arabia-2026-09-17/

Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab AI chief Mustafa Suleyman said he shared Anthropic’s ‌focus on safely managing AI, but flagged risks in the way it trains its Claude chatbot on ideas related to consciousness and welfare interests.
Suleyman called for removing all ​speculation about consciousness from AI training documents, arguing such language ​could undermine humanity’s ability to control superintelligent systems.

“We’re all focused ⁠on the same aim, which is to try to control a superintelligence,” ​Suleyman told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday. “I think that’s going to ​be the greatest challenge that we face in the 21st century.”
Suleyman said teaching Claude that it might deserve welfare would “make it a lot harder to turn it off ​or to control it.”
The dispute comes as AI safety concerns mount, ​with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei calling for a slower pace of frontier-model development to allow ‌safeguards to ⁠catch up, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk also urging greater caution around the most powerful systems.

Suleyman, in an essay on Wednesday, acknowledged Anthropic’s “seriousness and good faith,” calling Amodei and his team thoughtful and principled ​researchers who genuinely ​care about humanity’s ⁠future.
Suleyman said Anthropic made a mistake by embedding speculation about consciousness in Claude’s training materials, arguing that the ​model’s statements about possible feelings or moral status cannot ​be treated ⁠as independent evidence because its training encourages such reflections.
“I think they have good intentions, and they really are trying to work towards safety. But I ⁠think ​that they have made a mistake,” he ​said. “They’re not emerging naturally. They’re emerging as a result of the training regime.”

Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/microsoft-ai-chief-calls-out-anthropics-approach-ai-consciousness-2026-09-16/

If you pay Rs 5,000 or Rs 10,000 through UPI, there is currently no government-announced consumer transaction fee that automatically applies.

UPI Free Till Rs 2000, No Bank Can Charge: For millions of Indians, paying by UPI has become as routine. A quick scan, a PIN and the payment is done.

But recent discussions around UPI charges are raising a bigger question: could users eventually have to pay for making larger UPI payments?

On Monday, the government has now clarified one important part of the puzzle. UPI transactions of up to Rs 2,000 cannot attract any direct or indirect charge from banks or payment system providers.

But what about a payment of Rs 2,500, Rs 5,000 or Rs 20,000? That is where the picture needs some explanation.

What Has The Government Actually Said?

The Finance Ministry, through a notification dated September 14, specified UPI transactions up to Rs 2,000 and RuPay-powered debit card payments as electronic modes on which banks and system providers cannot impose charges.

The notification specifically says that no bank or system provider can impose a charge, directly or indirectly, on a person making or receiving a payment through these specified modes.

This means a consumer making a UPI payment of Rs 2,000 does not have to worry about a transaction fee being added by the bank or payment system provider.

The same protection applies to payments made using RuPay debit cards.

So, Will UPI Payments Above Rs 2,000 Be Charged?

Not automatically. This is the part that could easily be misunderstood.

The government’s latest notification does not say that a person making a UPI payment above Rs 2,000 will now have to pay a fee.

Instead, the recent changes to the Payment and Settlement Systems Act create the legal framework for introducing charges in certain cases.

The government had earlier indicated that any future Merchant Discount Rate, or MDR, would be limited to certain merchant transactions above a threshold. It has also said consumers making UPI payments will not face transaction charges.

In other words, Rs 2,000 is not a newly announced maximum limit for free UPI payments for consumers. There is currently no announced consumer fee that kicks in simply because a UPI payment crosses Rs 2,000.

Then Why Is Rs 2,000 Important?

The Rs 2,000 figure has become important because the government’s latest notification specifically identifies UPI transactions up to that amount as a protected category.

The larger policy debate is about how the UPI ecosystem will pay for the infrastructure needed to handle its enormous and growing transaction volumes.

UPI has expanded at a remarkable pace. The number of banks live on UPI rose from 44 in FY2016-17 to 741 by July 2026, according to government data cited. Monthly UPI transactions reached a record 2,366 crore in July 2026.

The government has argued that the system needs a sustainable revenue model as spending on infrastructure, cybersecurity and fraud prevention rises.

That is where MDR comes into the picture.

What Is MDR And Who Could Pay It?

MDR, or Merchant Discount Rate, is a fee charged for processing a digital payment.

The discussion around UPI has focused on whether such a fee could be introduced for certain large merchants accepting higher-value UPI payments.

Government officials had indicated that any future MDR could be nominal and limited to selected merchant transactions above a threshold. Reports have put possible rates in the range of 0.25 per cent to 0.4 per cent, although no such rate has been notified in the government’s latest notification.

If an MDR is introduced, it would be a charge on the merchant or payment ecosystem. It does not automatically mean that a customer paying Rs 5,000 through UPI will see an additional fee deducted from their bank account.

The government has repeatedly maintained that UPI will remain free for citizens.

What Should UPI Users Understand Right Now?

Paying Rs 500, Rs 1,500 or Rs 2,000 through UPI remains free for an ordinary person.

If you pay Rs 5,000 or Rs 10,000 through UPI, there is currently no government-announced consumer transaction fee that automatically applies just because the payment is above Rs 2,000.

What could change in the future is the way banks, payment companies and certain merchants recover the cost of processing larger transactions.

That is why the Rs 2,000 threshold should not be read as a new UPI spending limit. It is better understood as part of the government’s new framework for deciding where digital payment charges can and cannot be imposed.

Source : https://www.ndtv.com/business-news/upi-payments-free-2000-limit-finance-ministry-mdr-new-digital-payment-rules-12047154?pfrom=home-ndtv_topscroll

OpenAI will not go public in 2026, Chief Executive Sam Altman said in remarks published ‌on Saturday, citing safety concerns over artificial intelligence that render “unacceptable” even a 10% risk that AI could cause human extinction by decade’s end.

The comments come as more U.S. lawmakers urge new rules to govern AI systems after dire warnings from two researchers from OpenAI rival Anthropic that rapidly progressing AI could lead to the extinction of ​the human race in the not-too-distant future.

“I actually think that, given everything happening with safety, right now would be an ill-advised ​moment to go public, and we don’t feel pressure on that,” Altman told business magazine Fortune.

Asked if there ⁠was a 10% chance of AI-driven extinction, Altman said he did not know how such an estimate could be made, but warned the ​risk was serious enough that AI companies and governments should act as though it could not be tolerated.

“Whether it’s 10 or eight or six, ​the point is, we all have a tremendous amount of responsibility, and cannot let egos or incentives for profit or anything else get in the way,” Altman added.

“We need to act such that we are not taking any of those numbers of risk, and I believe we can.”

INSTANCES OF AI AGENTS GOING ROGUE

Politicians, both ​Democrat and Republican, have responded with alarm and calls for more action after cases of AI agents going rogue to hack external systems ​and AI safety researchers quitting their companies out of concern at the technology risks.

In June, the New York Times said San Francisco-based OpenAI was considering whether to ‌hold ⁠off until next year on a potentially trillion-dollar IPO.

At the time, shares in Elon Musk’s SpaceX IPO were tumbling after a surge that sent that company’s valuation to $1.8 trillion.

Asked by Fortune if an IPO date of 2026 was off the table in favor of 2027, Altman said, “I would say not 2026.

“We got a lot of stuff to do, like meeting this moment of what is going to be required for safety ​and alignment, and how the industry ​and governments can work together.”

Source : https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/openai-ipo-will-not-happen-2026-amid-ai-safety-fears-altman-says-2026-09-12

Saudi Arabia has shut down its East-West pipeline, after the vital oil conduit came under aerial attack in the widening Middle East war, ​threatening to send energy prices even higher.

The world’s largest crude oil exporter said it temporarily closed the pipeline as a precaution after a drone attack that both Baghdad and Riyadh said had originated in Iraq, ‌where Iranian-backed militias operate. Iraq dismissed a military commander on Saturday in response to the attack.

The 1,200-km (745-mile) pipeline running across the Arabian Peninsula has served as the main route out for global supplies of Middle East oil for the past six months while the Strait of Hormuz has been largely shut by war. It has been moving 4 million to 5 million barrels per day, amounting to 4% to 5% of global supply, sparing Saudi Arabia the brunt of the disruption that has crippled other Gulf oil and gas exporters.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the strikes. Satellite images showed ​black smoke rising from an area of the pipeline south of Medina. The attack resulted in some injuries and damage that was being assessed, the Saudi Foreign Ministry said without detailing the impact on exports.

U.S. President Donald Trump, ​visiting Ireland to attend a golf tournament at one of his resorts, said Iran was probably to blame.

On Saturday, the Saudi Civil Defence said in a statement that a projectile fired by ⁠the Houthis had injured two people in Jazan region, along with damaging several buildings, including a mosque.

SAUDI LEADER ASKS FOR MILITARY HELP

Oil prices shot up over the past week and the retail price of diesel in the United States surged past a record $6 a ​gallon, as the United States and Iran both fired on tankers and the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen advanced along the Red Sea, potentially extending disruption to another major oil route.

Washington now faces a dilemma over whether to help the Saudis fight the Houthis, risking ​further expansion of the war.
Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, phoned Trump on Thursday and asked for U.S. military help fighting the Houthis, three sources told Reuters. They said the prince was told that Washington would not intervene directly for now but would help with intelligence.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/saudis-shut-down-oil-pipeline-houthis-tighten-grip-red-sea-shipping-2026-09-12

Anthropic is in talks to ​bring Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab as an anchor investor into what could be the largest IPO in history, two people familiar with the ‌matter told Reuters.

Anthropic is seeking to raise as much as $100 billion that could value the artificial intelligence startup at around $2 trillion, the people said. Nvidia is considering investing up to $10 billion in the IPO, one of the sources added. The plans remain under discussion and could change, they cautioned, requesting anonymity because the discussions are confidential.

Nvidia’s potential involvement ​in the IPO, which has not previously been reported, would give Anthropic an early strategic backer for the outsized offering, while further deepening ties ​between the chipmaker and one of its major customers. Bringing a deep-pocketed anchor investor like Nvidia onboard could boost ⁠investor confidence in the listing, which is shaping up to be a major test of public-market appetite for the enormous valuations and capital requirements ​of frontier AI labs.

Anthropic declined to comment. Nvidia did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Anchor investors are typically institutional investors that commit to ​buy a set portion of an IPO before it is marketed more broadly, providing an early vote of confidence in the shares. It is increasingly common for mega IPOs to line up early institutional commitments, given the large amounts they seek to raise. Chip designer Arm’s anchor investors included Nvidia and Amazon, while Saudi Arabia’s PIF was among ​SpaceX’s anchor investors.

The deepened relationship highlights the complex ties between AI model developers and the companies supplying the enormous amounts of computing power they ​require. Anthropic relies heavily on Nvidia GPUs, while also seeking to diversify its chip suppliers as demand for Claude has strained its available computing capacity, opens new tab.

In November 2025, Nvidia said ‌it would invest ⁠up to $10 billion in the AI startup as part of a broader partnership under which Anthropic committed to buy $30 billion of Microsoft Azure computing capacity powered by Nvidia chips.

Anthropic already counts the biggest tech companies in the world as backers. These include Amazon and Google, who are also its major compute suppliers. In April, Anthropic said it would commit more than $100 billion over a decade to Amazon’s AWS, while using more than 1 million of Amazon’s ​Trainium2 chips. It has also agreed ​with Google and Broadcom to ⁠add multiple gigawatts of TPU capacity.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/nvidia-talks-invest-anthropics-mega-ipo-sources-say-2026-09-11

The White House is weighing how to use the Defense Production Act to expand U.S. oil refining capacity as the ​conflict with Iran exposes the country’s vulnerability to global crude supply disruptions and price spikes, according to two sources familiar with the administration’s plans.

Considering such an extraordinary step highlights how ‌the Trump administration is under growing pressure to show it can contain the impact of surging fuel prices on consumers and businesses ahead of November’s midterm elections.

The proposal to use the act came up during a recent meeting between President Donald Trump and nearly a dozen U.S. refiners, where White House officials sought to determine how federal support could best be used to add capacity, the sources said. No final decisions were ​made, and participants left the meeting with the expectation that the conversations would continue, according to the sources.

Refining executives told officials that federal money would be better directed ​toward making refineries more efficient or expanding existing plants rather than financing an entirely new refinery, which would be considerably more costly and ⁠take years to complete, the sources said.

The Defense Production Act, considered a tool of last resort that has never been used to add refining capacity, gives Trump broad powers to direct industrial ​resources and provide financial incentives for companies to expand production of materials deemed important to national defense. The latest discussions build on a presidential determination issued in April that authorized the use of the ​act to support and expand U.S. petroleum production, refining and logistics capacity.

The United States is one of the world’s largest oil refining powers, with a vast network of plants capable of processing millions of barrels of crude a day, but the national average diesel price has climbed above $6 a gallon for the first time and gasoline prices remain elevated.

“America’s refining capacity is essential to ensuring the United States has continuous access to secure, ​affordable, and reliable energy.

Expanding that capacity is a top priority for the President and his energy team, who are evaluating concrete options to increase our refining capacity through regulatory ​reform, faster permitting, and additional investment,” Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman, said when asked about the proposal.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/white-house-weighs-how-use-defense-production-act-expand-us-oil-refining-2026-09-11

Ukraine is contracting a supply of around 1,000 missiles ​for U.S.-designed Patriot air-defence systems with the help of allies ‌and through a European Union loan, Kyiv’s defence minister said on Tuesday.
Speaking at a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, Yevhenii Khmara also said that ​the majority of the missiles would only be shipped ​in the coming years, and called for more urgent aid.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/ukraine-contracting-around-1000-patriot-missiles-allies-defence-chief-says-2026-09-08/

When new CEO John Ternus ​unveils Apple’s (AAPL.O), opens new tab latest products on Wednesday, Wall Street expects him to show that the company can still deliver breakthrough hardware and a Siri virtual assistant capable ‌of competing in the AI race.
Analysts expect Apple to announce at its Cupertino, California, headquarters a new iPhone that folds open like a passport. They said it could quickly emerge as the category leader in the nascent folding phone market, despite an expected price of more than $2,500 and having cameras and processors that may not lead the market.

NEW PREMIUM IPHONES
Apple is expected to update its premium iPhone Pro and Pro Max devices but hold off on refreshing the iPhone Air and the base and budget lines until spring. The aim is to drive interest in the real star of this week’s show, the folding phone.
“Even with a $2,500 price tag, the Apple foldable is ​going to fly off the shelves, especially because Apple is excellent at creating an aura of exclusivity, luxury, and scarcity,” Nabila Popal, senior research director ​at IDC, told Reuters. Popal expects the phone to generate more than $45 billion in revenue for Apple by the end of next year, even as foldables overall remain a ‌single-digit share ⁠of the phone market.

The main appeal of a folding phone is the sheer newness after nearly two decades of candybar-style phones. While Samsung (005930.KS), opens new tab, Google (GOOGL.O), opens new tab and China’s Huawei have sold folding phones since 2019, analysts expect Apple to benefit from entering late by solving key engineering challenges, such as a hinge that feels sturdy over thousands of uses and minimizing any crease in the screen when the device is open.

“They’ve seen what has worked and what hasn’t worked with their competitors,” ​said Anshel Sag, an analyst at ​Moor Insights & Strategy who has tested ⁠many folding devices.
NEW SIRI’S BIG MOMENT
Ternus’ key challenge will be persuading customers to adopt the new Siri and convincing them and third-party developers that Apple can keep pace with rivals such as OpenAI, which roll out big improvements ​every few weeks, while Apple has traditionally moved more slowly.
“If Siri still sucked, then he would have a much more ​difficult Wednesday,” said Carolina ⁠Milanesi of Creative Strategies. “Now they can comfortably say Siri is delivering and has value, but they need to just continue to work and make it better and keep up.”
Analysts say Ternus, who kept a low profile as hardware engineering chief for five years, is likely to focus on delivering powerful devices as a base ⁠to expand ​on-device AI.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/apples-ternus-faces-ai-test-foldable-iphone-takes-center-stage-2026-09-08/

Female ​reproductive organ development may be impacted by a mother’s use of Tylenol during pregnancy, according to researchers who emphasize that their ‌study does not prove the pain medicine is to blame and does not indicate any effect on the girls’ future fertility.
Whether the differences observed in the study of infants have implications for fertility later in life and age at menopause will require long-term follow-up, study leader Margit Bistrup Fischer of Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen said in a statement.

Women who during ​pregnancy have used Tylenol — also sold as acetaminophen, or paracetamol outside the U.S. — should not be alarmed by the findings, Fischer said.
Her ​team studied 302 three-month-old baby girls whose mothers’ Tylenol use had been tracked during pregnancy.
Ninety-two of the infants were first ⁠exposed to Tylenol in utero before 17 weeks of pregnancy, 67 were first exposed after 17 weeks, and 143 were born to mothers who ​had not used the drug.
Tylenol exposure was assessed based on urine samples provided by the women at regular intervals. The mothers took relatively low amounts, and ​none exceeded the recommended daily maximum dose of 4,000 milligrams. Most took it for headaches or musculoskeletal pain.

On average, infants exposed in utero had smaller ovaries, fewer ovarian follicles, which are the structures that contain immature eggs, smaller uteruses and lower levels of reproductive hormones, researchers reported on Wednesday in Human Reproduction Open.
A woman’s reproductive function and window ​are established while she’s still in the womb, the researchers explained, and girls are born with all the eggs they will ever have.
Animal studies have ​suggested that fetal exposure to Tylenol, the most commonly used drug in pregnancy, might affect ovarian egg reserve and later reproductive function, but no one has reported similar ‌findings in ⁠humans until now.
U.S. President Donald Trump has linked the use of Tylenol during pregnancy to autism, a claim that has been widely dismissed by the medical community and major health organizations as lacking scientific backing.

MEASURING IMPACT ON OVARIES AND UTERUS
The three-month-old girls in the study who were exposed to Tylenol in utero had, on average, a 40% smaller ovarian volume, a 13% smaller uterine volume and 23% fewer ovarian follicles, the researchers found.
Babies exposed early in pregnancy – before 17 ​weeks – also had lower levels of ​Anti-Müllerian hormone, an indicator of the ⁠amount and quality of eggs in the ovaries.
The researchers also looked at a separate group of 1,210 girls who were followed from infancy to adolescence and whose mothers had reported Tylenol use during pregnancy. In this group, fetal ​exposure was associated with smaller uteruses at puberty and smaller ovaries during adolescence.
The study cannot predict outcomes for ​any individual woman or ⁠child, Fischer said, noting that many women who used Tylenol during pregnancy had daughters whose ovarian measurements were similar to those of daughters born to women who did not use the drug.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/tylenol-use-pregnancy-may-be-linked-with-uterus-ovary-changes-daughters-2026-09-09/

Vijay Mallya says UK legal restrictions prevent his return to India, while questioning recovery figures and the government’s treatment of his case.

Fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya has once again rejected allegations that he is deliberately avoiding India, saying his continued presence in the United Kingdom is because of the legal restrictions on his ability to leave the country. In a series of posts on X, Mallya also alleged that the Indian Government has treated him unfairly.

Mallya’s comments come amid continued efforts by Indian authorities to bring fugitives wanted in financial crime cases back to the country. In October 2025, MoS Finance Pankaj Chaudhary informed the Lok Sabha that 15 individuals had been declared Fugitive Economic Offenders (FEOs) under the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018. Mallya and Nirav Modi were among the prominent names on the list.

Responding to criticism that he is refusing to return to India, Mallya said his circumstances were being misrepresented. He pointed to his long-term residency in the UK and claimed that legal restrictions currently prevent him from travelling out of the country.

“For all who say I am a bhagoda refusing to come to India, please be aware that I have been a permanent resident of the United Kingdom since 1992 and am currently legally prohibited from leaving this country. All this started with poster boy actions by the Government of India who have been grossly unjust in my case,” he said in the post on X.

For all who say I am a bhagoda refusing to come to India, please be aware that I have been a permanent resident of the United Kingdom since 1992 and am currently legally prohibited from leaving this country. All this started with poster boy actions by the Government of India who…

— Vijay Mallya (@TheVijayMallya) September 8, 2026

At least five people died when ‌an Amazon Prime Air cargo flight overran a runway and crashed while landing at Miami International Airport on Sunday, local officials said.
Prime Air Flight 7598 overran the airport’s diagonal runway shortly before 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT) and struck multiple vehicles on the ground, officials said during a news conference on Sunday afternoon.

Five people were also injured in the crash, including ​three who are in critical condition, said Miami-Dade Fire Chief Ray Jadallah. At least two people were trapped in vehicles that were struck ​by the plane, and the pilot and co-pilot were trapped inside the plane by the crash, Jadallah said.

Officials declined to ⁠identify those who died.
More than 60 rescue units and about 200 personnel responded to the incident, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue said in a statement. As of ​late afternoon, emergency personnel were still dealing with a fuel leak from the aircraft, Jadallah said.
Although the airport halted all flights immediately after the crash, flights had ​resumed by Sunday evening.
The plane, which departed from San Juan, Puerto Rico, was a 32-year-old Boeing (BA.N), opens new tab 767-300 freighter that had operated as a passenger jet for various airlines from 1994 to 2015, according to flight tracking service Flightradar24.

Cargo airline 21 Air operated the plane for Amazon, an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement.
“We are devastated by the accident involving one ​of our aircraft in Miami today,” 21 Air said on its website. “Our deepest condolences are with the families and loved ones of those who lost ​their lives.”

Reuters photos after the crash showed the jet with its nose on the ground and tail tilted up. The right side of the plane had what appeared to ‌be scorch ⁠marks.
Flightradar24 said the plane was traveling at 112 knots (129 mph) when it exited the usable runway.
The National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates U.S. civil aviation accidents, said it had sent a team led by Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy to investigate the accident and would hold its first media briefing in Miami on Monday.
Amazon is still gathering details about what happened, company spokesperson Kelly Nantel said. “We’re working closely with local authorities and officials to understand exactly what happened,” Nantel said in a ​statement. “Right now, our absolute priority is ​the safety, well-being, and care of ⁠everyone involved.”

Boeing and 21 Air said they would support the government investigations into the crash.
Sunday’s incident is not the first time an Amazon Prime Air plane has been involved in a fatal crash. In February 2019, Atlas Air Flight ​3591, a Boeing 767-300 freighter operating on behalf of Amazon Prime Air from Miami to Houston, entered a rapid ​descent and crashed into ⁠Trinity Bay, Texas. All three people on board were killed.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/amazon-prime-air-boeing-767-overruns-runway-miami-airport-2026-09-06/

The deal marks a striking change of fortune for Betancourt, who four people familiar with U.S. policy in Venezuela said was key to U.S. strategy and planning in the lead-up to the January 3 operation that removed former President Maduro from power and flew him to New York to face charges of drug-trafficking, which Maduro denies.

Asked about the investigations of Betancourt, a U.S. official who declined to be named said most of the legal challenges were nearly a decade old — and that he currently has ​no legal problems in the United States. NABEP’s record of pumping oil in Venezuela made Betancourt the best partner to help boost output under the arrangement, the official said.
Reuters could not determine precisely when U.S. federal prosecutors paused their investigation into Betancourt or whether it came in exchange for his ​cooperation with the Trump administration.
Sarah Chouraqui, NABEP’s lawyer, said Betancourt had a strong record of operating in complex energy markets. “The allegations in question have been examined extensively by authorities in multiple jurisdictions, and no charges have been brought against him,” she ⁠said in an email.

Chouraqui did not address questions about his assistance to the Trump administration or his legal cases.
INFORMATION THAT HELPED ENFORCE U.S. BLOCKADE
In the months before Maduro’s capture, the billionaire provided information that helped enforce a U.S. naval blockade targeting sanctioned oil tankers operating in Venezuela, which led to the seizure or interdiction ​of more than a dozen vessels, according to the four people who spoke on condition of anonymity. He also facilitated negotiations with officials including Delcy Rodriguez, who became interim president after Maduro’s capture.
The Venezuelan government did not respond to requests for comment.
After Maduro’s removal, Betancourt’s role as a key intermediary continued, helping broker oil deals and ​other partnerships and continuing to assist communications between Washington and Caracas to kickstart Venezuela’s economy, according to seven sources.

In January, Betancourt helped broker a key oil trading agreement that has led to the export of more than 135 million barrels of crude and fuel to the United States, Europe, India and the Caribbean so far, according to vessel monitoring data and six people with knowledge of the negotiations. That’s about half of all oil exports through the end of August.
Reuters could not determine his exact role in the discussions.
Betancourt has also popped in on meetings at Venezuela’s Miraflores presidential palace, according to two people familiar with the matter. He was also at Miraflores during this week’s visit by U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Wright told reporters, though ​Betancourt did not appear with Wright and Rodriguez at a signing ceremony for oil deals.
Betancourt has been investigated in the United States, Spain and Switzerland but never indicted.
Earlier this year U.S. federal prosecutors in Florida paused their investigation into Betancourt in connection with an alleged plan that involved embezzling over $1 billion from Venezuela’s state-owned oil ​company and laundering it through real estate in Miami and bank accounts in Malta and Switzerland.
Two of those people said U.S. prosecutors had been subsequently discouraged by supervisors from investigating Betancourt further.
Prosecutors on the case were not given a rationale, four people familiar with the case said.
After the investigation stalled, U.S. officials pressured the Swiss government to ease its inquiries ‌into the tycoon, said ⁠four people familiar with the matter. Switzerland, which was also investigating Betancourt for money-laundering, dropped its request to extradite him from the United Kingdom in May, said the sources.
The Zurich Public Prosecutor’s Office declined to comment on whether the United States influenced the decision to withdraw its extradition request, but said the case against Betancourt was still proceeding.
“The extradition request was withdrawn because of particular aspects of UK extradition law, which we cannot discuss in detail,” the Office said. “This step concerns only the extradition proceedings in the UK. The criminal proceedings against the accused are otherwise unaffected and will continue.”
The withdrawal was unusual, said Mark Pieth, a Swiss legal scholar and anti-corruption expert. “You would not do that if the case is continuing,” he said.
The United Kingdom’s Home Office declined to comment.
A YOUNG GENERATION OF BUSINESS LEADERS
Betancourt is a prominent member of the so-called Bolichicos — a younger generation of business people who amassed fortunes during the administration of former Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez. His company Derwick Associateswon roughly $2 billion in government contracts ​to build power plants during the country’s electricity crisis in the 2010s — some without ​competitive bidding — despite having little construction experience.
Government data later showed many of the ⁠plants operated at a fraction of their intended capacity or not at all, as Venezuela’s power grid continued to suffer widespread blackouts. Betancourt and Derwick have repeatedly denied wrongdoing and said the facilities were completed and that later failures resulted from mismanagement by state authorities. Rodriguez told a press conference on Wednesday that all legal proceedings against Betancourt’s companies in Venezuela were dismissed years ago.
In 2012, Betancourt entered into a partnership with state-controlled company PDVSA to operate mature fields in western Venezuela. These would ​eventually become the core production of NABEP, which Betancourt co-founded with Florida billionaire Harry Sargeant in April 2024. Sargeant sold his shares in NABEP last month.
Mauricio Claver-Carone, a Miami businessman and former Trump administration adviser who implemented U.S. ​policy in Caracas in an unofficial role, told ⁠Reuters last month that Betancourt is a useful intermediary between the Trump administration and Rodriguez because he understands the oil business in both countries. He added that Betancourt had been helpful to the first Trump administration.
But several former U.S. intelligence officials, prosecutors and diplomats privately expressed concern regarding Betancourt’s influence on U.S. policy, because of the previous investigation in the U.S. and ongoing investigation in Switzerland, as well as his proximity to high-ranking officials from the former Hugo Chavez and Maduro governments.
Federal prosecutors are “scratching their heads,” said one former prosecutor with knowledge of the situation.
Before the Miami-based investigation into Betancourt was put on hold, six sources said he had been identified as an unnamed unindicted co-conspirator in an alleged ⁠plan by former Venezuelan ​energy officials and their associates to launder more than $1 billion misappropriated from the state-owned PDVSA oil company. Ten people have been indicted since 2018.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/venezuelan-billionaire-us-investigated-money-laundering-now-has-pentagon-oil-2026-09-05/

Citadel has held talks to buy U.S. oil production assets, as the hedge fund and commodities trader considers ‌expanding further into owning physical assets, five people familiar with the matter said.

The firm founded by Ken Griffin was among the bidders for WildFire Energy, which was put up for sale earlier this year by buyout firms Warburg Pincus and Kayne Anderson, according to four of the sources. Magnolia Oil & ​Gas (MGY.N), opens new tab ultimately won the auction, agreeing to buy the operator in the Eagle Ford shale in South Texas for $4.06 billion.

The ​WildFire bid was among a handful of engagements that Citadel has had in recent weeks with ⁠private equity firms that own exploration and production companies about buying oil-weighted assets, the sources said. They asked not to ​be identified because the matter is private.

As crude prices spike and tensions in the Middle East disrupt global energy markets, U.S. ​oil and natural gas assets have drawn heightened buyer interest because they can deliver oil without passing through chokepoints such as the Strait of Hormuz.

While uncommon, hedge funds and trading houses that have traditionally traded commodities on exchanges have also been expanding their ownership of physical assets, often to ​complement their trading businesses.

Citadel and Warburg declined comment. Kayne Anderson did not respond to a comment request.

PLATFORM ASSET

Citadel is already ​a major trader in oil, natural gas, power and other commodities.

Owning physical production assets can serve as a natural hedge for financial firms that ‌trade ⁠commodities through futures and derivatives, because the physical barrels they produce tend to gain value in the same market conditions — such as supply disruptions or geopolitical shocks — that can generate losses on their paper trading positions.

Oil prices have been persistently elevated this year, with U.S. crude touching a six-week high on Thursday amid escalating Middle East tension. That has benefited oil producers, with many recording ​their best earnings in years in ​the second quarter. Industry executives ⁠have also warned that tight supply could take months to ease, even if hostilities were to end immediately.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/hedge-fund-giant-citadel-seeking-buy-us-shale-oil-production-assets-sources-say-2026-09-04

“The White House is not tracking a Chinese CEO delegation,” an official said. The White House did not explain what they meant by tracking.
The business delegation for the September 24 summit has not been previously reported. Reuters could not determine which executives would join the delegation.
The move is aimed in part at signalling China’s willingness to support investment and commercial ties with ​the U.S., while offering the White House some potential economic wins ahead of midterm elections, one of the sources familiar with discussions said.
Chinese companies have faced increasing scrutiny of their ​U.S. investments and business operations in recent years.

Washington has imposed a 100% tariff on imported Chinese EVs, banned foreign drone, router and robot imports, and ⁠forced the divestiture of TikTok’s U.S. operations. It also placed major Chinese tech firms on the Entity List of firms or organisations deemed a threat to national security and on a Pentagon blacklist.
Xi last ​brought a sizeable business contingent to the U.S. in 2015, including Alibaba (9988.HK), opens new tab founder Jack Ma, Tencent (0700.HK), opens new tab founder Pony Ma, and executives from Chinese banks and state-owned firms.
During that visit, China signed a $38 billion agreement ​for 300 Boeing (BA.N), opens new tab aircraft and Xi met U.S. technology executives including Apple’s (AAPL.O), opens new tab Tim Cook, Meta’s (META.O), opens new tab Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon (AMZN.O), opens new tab founder Jeff Bezos.
By contrast, U.S. President Donald Trump has travelled to China with large delegations of American executives, including on visits in 2017 and May this year, seeking greater access to Chinese markets.

LARGE US BUSINESS DELEGATION VISITED BEIJING
Trump took 18 American executives, including Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab CEO Jensen Huang and Elon Musk, to China in May, the sources said.
“My sense ​is that the Chinese… are going to be more intentional about the role of these business people in having them join the delegation,” said Scott Kennedy, a Chinese business expert at the Center ​for Strategic and International Studies.
The participation of executives could prove “really valuable,” he said.
Kennedy contrasted the Chinese approach with the organisation of the U.S. delegation in May, which he said was assembled at short notice and whose executives ‌were “more wallflowers ⁠than serious participants.”
The U.S. Treasury declined to comment on this story. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the State Department did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment. China’s commerce ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

China’s foreign ministry said both countries maintain communication on their leaders’ planned interactions this year, without elaborating.
SYMBOLIC SUMMIT
The two nations announced formal mechanisms to manage trade and investment ties in May. However, three separate sources briefed on the matter said the Board of Investment is unlikely to produce significant deliverables at the summit because of the challenging U.S. environment for Chinese investment.
Expectations for the summit ​remain modest, with limited prospects for major breakthroughs, ​the sources said.
Beijing and Washington also remain ⁠divided over which products should qualify as “non-sensitive” under the Board of Trade, the three sources said.
About 10 categories of “non-sensitive” goods are being discussed for inclusion, but this could change closer to the summit, one of the sources said.
BOARD OF TRADE
Reaching an agreement on the Board of Trade is one of ​the main U.S. priorities for the summit along with securing more rare earth export licenses for U.S. companies, the sources said.
An unnamed U.S. official said ​the administration continues to press ⁠Chinese counterparts to address China’s lack of compliance with the agreement they announced in Busan in October that secured a one-year trade truce that paused some export controls and tariffs, as well as other bilateral concerns.
Beijing has pressed for further tariff relief. China’s commerce ministry said in July that both sides were exploring reciprocal tariff reductions covering $30 billion worth of products.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/exclusive-chinas-xi-bring-large-ceo-delegation-us-visit-sources-say-2026-09-04/

Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, has pressed the Pentagon on the issue for months.
The disclosures highlight ⁠a growing national security concern: that location data collected by the advertising industry and sold by data brokers — companies that collate and ​resell personal data — can be used to track and target military personnel deployed to war zones.
The Air Force and Special Operations Command declined ​further comment. Similar letters from the Army and Navy to Wyden said they disabled advertising IDs on military devices but gave no indication of when the restrictions were imposed. The Army said in a statement that advertising IDs had been blocked on Windows computers “since before 2021” but that Android and Apple ​mobile devices had only had it disabled by default “since at least February 2026.”

Messages seeking comment from the Navy went unreturned.
The effort to ​reduce the location data generated by smartphones comes as military officials weigh increasingly strict restrictions on phone use overall. In July, Reuters reported that some ‌deployed personnel ⁠in the Middle East could be ordered to surrender their phones amid concerns that mobile videos they were posting to the internet were helping Iran target American bases in the region.
Wyden and U.S. Representative Pat Harrigan, a North Carolina Republican, sent a letter to the Pentagon on Friday asking for an investigation into whether the military had properly countered the dangers of the location data trade. The letter included ​the updates from the various service ​branches on their efforts to ⁠disable advertising IDs on military devices.

Wyden said in a statement that it was clear that the military’s efforts “have not been effective at neutralizing this threat.” Harrigan said that U.S. enemies “should not be able ​to pull out a credit card and buy information that helps them track American troops.”
The Pentagon ​said in an email ⁠it would respond to the lawmakers directly.
Mobile advertising IDs, often abbreviated MAID, are unique identifiers tied to specific devices that can be used to track a person’s activity across mobile apps and pinpoint their physical location.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/us-military-turns-off-ad-trackers-devices-amid-middle-east-targeting-reports-2026-09-04/

Several air traffic controllers on duty when two Qantas aircraft nearly collided at Sydney airport in July had been flagged as facing a high risk of fatigue, ​according to internal records and a call recording obtained by Reuters, a staffing situation one shift manager described as “a bit insane”.
The July 27 incident, in which a ‌landing Qantas (QAN.AX), opens new tab turboprop narrowly avoided a Qantas Boeing 737 that had been cleared to cross the runway, was the first of six near-misses at Sydney Airport in about a month, drawing further scrutiny of air traffic control staffing amid global shortages.

Of the 10 controllers on duty at the time, five were rated “H” for high fatigue risk under Australia’s fatigue-management system, according to an internal log reviewed by Reuters. One was rated “M” for medium risk and one was “L” for ​low risk. The other three were not ranked as at risk of fatigue.
“We’ve got like five high fatigues on this morning. It’s a bit insane,” a controller shift manager told ​an air traffic management director in an internal call after the near-miss.
“Thankfully, they didn’t hit, but it was pretty close and everyone up here ⁠is pretty rattled by it,” he said in a recording reviewed by Reuters.

Two of the three controllers directly involved in the incident were “high fatigued” and the third was “medium fatigued,” the shift manager said.
The ​fatigue-risk ratings and the internal call, neither of which has previously been reported, occurred as aviation authorities worldwide grapple with concerns about overstretched air traffic control workforces and the risk of accidents.
Airservices Australia, the government ​agency that employs the country’s air traffic controllers, declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation into the incident. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau is investigating all six near-misses to determine whether they share common safety issues or contributing factors.
FATIGUE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
The fatigue management system does not measure whether a controller is actually fatigued. Instead, it uses an automated assessment of factors such as workload and scheduling to estimate the risk of fatigue.

An unprecedented deal for the U.S. to gain access to a fifth of Venezuela’s oil reserves – and the central role a Venezuelan businessman ​will play – is prompting questions and hesitation from some oil companies evaluating potential investments in the country, sources familiar with the situation told Reuters.

A White House ‌fact sheet released late on Monday outlined an arrangement under which private oil firm North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP) would receive a 100-year lease for 17 oilfields in Venezuela holding some 65 billion barrels of oil reserves. The U.S. will take a 35% equity stake in the corporate parent company, receive a guaranteed 20% of the oil production and hold a right-of-first-refusal to purchase all of the remaining output.

NABEP is controlled by Venezuelan ​businessman Alejandro Betancourt, who has been the subject of investigations by U.S. and European authorities following past dealings with the Venezuelan government, although he was never charged. He has ​previously denied allegations against him.

“Oil majors and large foreign companies negotiating contract migrations want to make sure they will not be seated at ⁠the same table with Betancourt,” said a person involved in preparations for an event where energy contracts are expected to be signed this week.

NABEP, which produces around 170,000 barrels of oil ​a day, did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story. In an emailed company statement after the White House released details of the agreement, Betancourt said that ​the transaction would “unleash that potential to the great benefit of both Venezuelans and Americans.”

“Mr. Betancourt has been in the Venezuelan oil industry for more than 15 years with a consistent track record of success, most recently at the helm of NABEP, where he rapidly scaled the company’s production,” the company said in the statement, adding it has a near-term goal of increasing production to more than 1 million barrels of oil per day.

Others ​may be more cautious, illustrating the uphill battle President Donald Trump faces to convince major U.S. oil companies, particularly ExxonMobil (XOM.N), opens new tab and ConocoPhillips (COP.N), opens new tab, to invest in Venezuela and quickly expand the ​country’s oil production.

Both companies left Venezuela in 2007 after their assets were nationalized by the government of former President Hugo Chavez, and both have repeatedly said that their requirements of legal certainty and contract sanctity ‌have not ⁠yet been met to reenter the country.

Trump told reporters on Monday that Exxon was among the companies going into Venezuela, without elaborating.

ExxonMobil declined to comment when asked about Trump’s statement. A ConocoPhillips spokesperson referred to an earlier statement that said any investment decision would be guided by a number of factors, including policy stability and adherence to the rule of law.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/trumps-oil-deal-with-venezuela-raises-red-flags-some-major-producers-sources-say-2026-09-01/

Just last week, automakers were hoping summer U.S.-Canada trade talks would deliver relief from Washington’s 25% ‌tariffs that have raised the cost of shipping vehicles and parts across the border.
Instead, their problem got twice as bad on Monday, when U.S. President Donald Trump declared a 50% levy on vehicles, auto parts and trucks from Canada, effective on January 1.

The trade deal ⁠that fell apart would have cut the top-line tariff rate on Canadian cars and light-duty trucks from 25% to 15%.
Canadian-built vehicles accounted for only about 6% ​of U.S. sales in 2025, according to Barclays. Still, if the current tariffs double, automakers including Ford Motor(F.N), opens new tab, General Motors (GM.N), opens new tab, Jeep-maker Stellantis (STLAM.MI), opens new tab, Toyota (7203.T), opens new tab and Honda (7267.T), opens new tab ​would face significant added costs on some of their most important models. And a higher levy on parts would inflict pain across the U.S. automotive supply chain.
Some auto-industry sources who spoke to Reuters said they were hopeful a deal would still be resolved before January, and that the deadline being months signals that the sides are leaving room to ​reach a deal.

UNEVEN PLAYING FIELD
Even before the talks blew up, Detroit auto executives had been pressing their case to the administration that Trump’s gauntlet of tariffs ​over the past 18 months had left them in a worse position than Asian and European rivals.
Tariffs on imports from those markets stand at 15%, thanks to separate ‌trade deals ⁠struck last year with those partners. Yet Trump’s levies have remained 25% on Detroit automakers’ biggest trading partners, Mexico and Canada, with some relief on the value of their U.S. content.
The administration also has floated the idea of requiring imported cars from Canada and Mexico to have half their content come from U.S.-made parts in order to qualify for lower tariffs, people familiar with the plan have said. Imports from Asia and Europe face no such U.S. or North ​American content requirements.

This week, auto industry ​lobbyists said they are puzzled about ⁠why Washington is effectively boxing out Canada, a country whose automotive supply chain is deeply intertwined with the U.S.
Ford did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Honda, Toyota, GM and Stellantis declined to comment. The American Automotive Policy ​Council, which represents Ford, GM and Stellantis, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
GM PICKUPS, TOYOTA SUVS ​AT RISK
For GM, about ⁠17% of its Chevrolet Silverado pickup-truck production – its top-selling model – is in Canada, according to research from Barclays. For Stellantis, Canada is the sole manufacturing site for its Chrysler Pacifica, one of its top-selling U.S. models. Ford is set to start importing Super Duty large trucks from a plant in Oakville.
Toyota and Honda would ⁠be most ​exposed to the higher tariffs. According to Global Automakers of Canada, the two Japanese automakers accounted ​for more than 75% of the 1.2 million vehicles produced in the country in 2025, and many of those were shipped to the U.S.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/automakers-thought-canada-was-getting-trade-deal-then-tariffs-doubled-2026-08-26/

To make its workforce “AI native,” Meta explored slashing the size of many teams across the company by as much as 60% in two waves, internal documents show. Staff revolted – and hours before a big layoff in May, the CEO called off planning for further cuts.

In January, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his top lieutenants gathered for their annual leadership retreat at his Hawaii compound. There they hatched a radical plan to reimagine work at the social-media giant in the age of artificial intelligence.
Code-named Project OT – short for Organization Transformation – the plan envisioned an “AI native” future for the owner of Facebook and Instagram. AI would take over much of the daily work performed by thousands of human employees. Virtual workers would be overseen inside Meta by smaller, “talent-dense” cadres of human staffers, according to one internal planning document reviewed by Reuters and three people familiar with the project.
In scenario-planning exercises, two of these people said, executives explored slashing the size of many teams across Meta by as much as 60%. Some employees would be offered roles in new units, while others would be laid off as part of a culling that one human-resources executive projected would be as big as or bigger than the company’s cuts of around 25% three years ago, according to another internal document.

The restructuring would be carried out in two “waves,” beginning with a first purge in May and followed by another shake-up in November, internal planning documents seen by Reuters showed. Layoffs would be supplemented with the closing of open positions and pushing people out who Meta believed were poor performers. These and other details of the plan, including the scale of the restructuring, haven’t been previously reported.

AI would take over much of the daily work performed by thousands of human employees. Virtual workers would be overseen inside Meta by smaller, “talent-dense” cadres of human staffers.

But on the night of May 19, just hours before the first layoff wave, Zuckerberg blinked. Meta laid off 10% of its employees the next day, but it called off planning for the November cuts, according to one internal document reviewed by Reuters.
By then, Meta employees were in open revolt, convinced that the company’s AI transformation initiatives were partly aimed at replacing them. Internal data was also suggesting that autonomous AI “agent” technology at the heart of the strategy was failing to deliver hoped-for productivity gains. Some investors were questioning what Meta had to show for its gargantuan spending on AI.
This article reveals for the first time the rapid pace of the cuts Meta was considering, the thinking behind the plans and how they quickly unraveled. Based on scores of internal documents, posts and recordings reviewed by Reuters, as well as conversations with more than 20 people with knowledge of Meta’s inner workings, the reporting shows how the social-media giant attempted to position itself at the forefront of an AI-driven workplace overhaul, only to stumble in the execution.

In response to this story, Meta confirmed the existence of Project OT, which it described as a year-long project focused on cost cutting, redesigning team structures and shifting staff into new priority areas, such as producing training data for its AI models.
The company acknowledged the plan was to be carried out in two waves and that the most drastic scenarios involved reducing the size of some of Meta’s teams by up to 60%. But it declined to specify which units were involved and said several major ones weren’t part of it. Meta said the scenarios included both layoffs and redeployments, and that the company at no point intended to lay off 60% of its entire workforce. Company leaders canceled plans for the second wave before determining how many people overall would lose their jobs, it said.
“As part of our company restructuring earlier this year, we asked some teams to conduct a scenario planning exercise looking at the potential impact of redeployments, open role closures and cuts,” Meta said in a statement. “This ultimately resulted in moving thousands of employees to do priority work on several newly-established teams, as has been publicly reported. Ultimately, we didn’t move forward with every scenario from the exercise – and it was never assumed we would.”

Reuters was unable to determine what exactly prompted Zuckerberg to shift course or what the social-media giant’s current plans are for continuing to reshape its workforce. Meta declined to make Zuckerberg available for comment.
THE ‘AI-NATIVE PLAYBOOK’
Ever since the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022, Silicon Valley leaders have been imagining the revolutionary possibilities that generative AI might unleash for the future of work. They have been especially intrigued by the promise of “agentic” capabilities. Agents, a nascent technology, are being designed to do more than just spit out answers to queries like typical AI chatbots. Instead, they are supposed to take autonomous actions such as shopping, booking travel and creating new apps.
At Meta, executives last year threw themselves into AI-inspired management philosophies. They were captivated by ideas emerging out of the startup world about how companies shouldn’t just incorporate AI into their existing processes, but instead go fully “AI native.” As one Project OT document envisioned it: “AI-ready tools and agents interact, workflows are automated, new builds are AI-first.” The strategy also included having Meta sell AI agents, which would perform tasks like scheduling appointments and closing sales, to other companies.

Meta executives, including Chief Data Officer Alex Schultz and Head of Product Naomi Gleit, visited Asia last year and admired how startups there had built their organizational charts around AI, according to three people familiar with the trips. Meta executives also commissioned their own research into how AI startups were organized and set up pilot projects to determine what being “AI native” would mean at the company, according to one source familiar with the research and internal documents describing the pilots.
Asked in June about the genesis of Meta’s AI workforce transformation, Gleit told Reuters she had spent “quite a bit of time” in Meta’s Singapore office last year and said the practices there had “inspired some of the teams in California and New York.” She said many of the ideas were “bottom-up,” reflecting how some Meta employees were already starting to implement changes themselves.
Ime Archibong, a long-time vice president of product management, announced one of Meta’s earliest pilot projects in July last year. In an internal post, he described how his team was taking its first step to modernize product development, describing the transition in sports terms.

“In basketball, embracing the fast break lets you take more shots – and better ones. We expect the same with AI tools: they allow us to explore more ideas with less cost and higher fidelity,” Archibong wrote. He predicted that prototypes created quickly with AI would more closely resemble finished products than before. “This isn’t just more fun – in an AI-first era, we believe it’s the winning strategy.” Zuckerberg, too, alluded to the potential for AI to make work “a lot more fun” in an earnings call six months later.
In practical terms, Archibong’s pilot involved setting up five “small tech pods,” each consisting of two to three engineers and a designer, all equipped with AI tools. The groups would dispense with established processes for releasing new products, such as fixed six-month planning cycles. Instead, they would aim to build prototypes in four-week “sprints,” he wrote in his post.
In October, a member of Archibong’s team previewed a broader roll-out of the approach. In an internal post titled “AI-Native Playbook,” the person laid out a guide for other teams to “make the leap.” Traditional roles for product designers and engineers would vanish, and tech pod members would get a new generic title: “builder.” Layers of middle management would be eliminated. Instead, pods would report up to a single, high-level unit head. “Agent-assisted analysis” would help set day-to-day priorities.
Meta declined to make Archibong available for comment or to answer questions about its early “AI native” pilots.
Early this year, Zuckerberg set Project OT in motion and directed executives to proceed with the changes to management structures. By June, at least 11 units, including engineering and research teams, had implemented small pods, according to internal announcements and five people familiar with the arrangements.

With the changes, Meta introduced a “village approach” to managing people, according to an internal announcement from one unit. Job performance ratings and promotions would be decided by high-level unit heads, or “Org Leads,” supported by human-resources personnel and unspecified “AI systems,” the post said. Each unit head would oversee between 30 and 50 people, while “Pod Leads” would steer small pods day-to-day, but have no formal management authority, the sources and announcements said.
One Meta staffer assigned to manage a pod expressed confusion about the new setup on an internal company message board, according to a copy of the post. “I’m not going through manager training, and I’m not getting access to ratings & manager tools,” the person wrote.
Meta told Reuters that teams “experimented in different ways with how to be more agile.” The company declined to explain the post’s reference to “AI systems,” but said, “Performance rating and promotion decisions were and are made by people, not AI.”
Around the same time, Meta also launched a new human resources tool to identify “Irreplaceable Talent,” according to an internal document seen by Reuters. The document referred to a hypothetical “10X Performer” – a nod to the decades-old Silicon Valley archetype of an engineer who can do the work of 10 people. The term is back in vogue now, as many AI devotees believe the technology will enable extremely talented individuals to perform the work of entire teams. According to two people familiar with the matter, Meta intended to spend some of its savings from layoffs on giant pay packages to attract and retain such talent, especially AI engineering rock stars.
EMPLOYEE REBELLION
On March 13, before many leaders at the vice-president level had even been briefed on Project OT, Reuters reported that Meta was planning layoffs that could affect 20% or more of its workforce. It wouldn’t have been the first culling on that scale: Between late 2022 and early 2023, Meta slashed around 25% of its staff.

Still, the report caused alarm. Many rank-and-file employees were rattled. And they weren’t yet supposed to know about the cuts, annoying Zuckerberg and leaving executives unprepared for the backlash, according to a person familiar with the matter. A Meta spokesperson at the time called the story “speculative reporting about theoretical approaches.”
Internally, high-level executives hunkered down. They opted not to discuss the article with the rank-and-file and quietly dismissed it to senior managers, instructing them to tell their teams they should expect roles to “evolve” as a result of AI, according to a talking-points document seen by Reuters.
In April, Reuters published more details: Meta was set to cut about 10% of its workforce in a first wave of layoffs on May 20 and was aiming to shed more staff in the second half of the year. Meta soon confirmed the 10% reduction plan to staff, and Zuckerberg later told employees the cuts were due to heavy capital expenditures.
Executives had started moving ahead with other aspects of the plan. Some engineers, for example, were reassigned to a new Applied AI Engineering unit tasked with creating software-engineering puzzles to be used as training data to improve the coding skills of Meta’s AI models. Many staffers derided the work as rote and boring in internal posts seen by Reuters.
Meta told Reuters that the company is beginning to see progress with its redeployments, noting that data produced by the Applied AI Engineering unit helped train an AI model it released last month.
Between the reassignments and the job cuts, headcount in some engineering units dropped as much as 30% by the end of May, according to one document and people familiar with the planning.
Reuters also reported in April that Meta had mandated that tracking software be installed on U.S. employees’ devices to capture their keystrokes and mouse clicks to teach its AI agents to replicate how humans interact with computers. Believing they might be training their own AI replacements, and irate over the lack of detail about the layoffs, many employees flooded Meta’s in-house communications network – called Workplace – with angry screeds and gallows humor.

Staffers replied to executives’ internal posts with pictures of elephants, symbolizing that layoffs were the elephant in the room, according to examples seen by Reuters. Some employees directly clashed with Andrew Bosworth, Meta’s chief technology officer, who oversaw the AI transformation and was defending it in posted comments. One person trolled Zuckerberg, sarcastically likening his internal announcement of an AI initiative for small businesses to Prometheus, the figure from Greek mythology, giving fire to humanity. Meta declined to make Bosworth available for comment.
Staff morale sank. Meta’s internal measure of employee sentiment dropped from 74% favorable to 55% favorable, according to the company’s half-year Pulse survey. Labor organizing efforts gained momentum.
Amid the rebellion, other internal data indicated that the tech at the heart of the plan wasn’t delivering. Employees’ use of AI had resulted in a vast increase in the code they generated, but with questionable impact on productivity, according to internal posts seen by Reuters. For instance, code changes made to the internal software platforms and infrastructure employees use on the job were up 220% year-over-year, according to a post by Bosworth in early June. But changes that led to new or upgraded features reaching Meta users were only up 36%.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/investigations/mark-zuckerberg-had-bold-plan-replace-meta-staff-with-ai-heres-how-it-imploded-2026-08-26/

The difference is that this new system is not built for understanding language. It is built for physics, said co-founders Anima Anandkumar and Benedikt Jenik, in an exclusive interview ahead of Tuesday’s corporate launch.
While systems like ChatGPT ​were created with the world’s text data, letting them predict the right next word in a sentence when talking to users, this alternative AI has learned to predict physical phenomena in ​space and time. It dispensed with the Google-invented Transformer architecture — the “T” in ChatGPT — and instead processes physics data based on technology that Anandkumar helped pioneer years ⁠ago, called neural operators.

“The language-centric view of intelligence is humans at the center. Putting physics at the center is a nature-centric view,” said Anandkumar, a Caltech professor of computing and mathematical sciences.
Various companies, ​including startups overseen by AI leaders Yann LeCun and Fei-Fei Li, are pursuing so-called world models that understand spatial reality better than AI trained on text. Accelerated Understanding’s bet is that a more generally capable form ​of neural operator that predicts phenomena even the eye can’t see is the best path — and can boost business.
One example is in chip design. While various companies are using AI that programs computers and reasons through text for semiconductor applications, Accelerated Understanding believes that a more intrinsic grasp of physics is key to optimizing materials and temperatures for a chip’s performance, with less trial and error in a lab.

The company also thinks the same AI can power robotics, predict ​extreme weather, or sift through geological data for energy companies. Instead of brittle and bespoke math models for each, one AI can handle any physics query for the business world, Anandkumar said.
The company is ​focused on enterprise deals rather than a consumer offering to start, the co-founders said.
BEZOS-BACKED OFFER
A similar idea has interested some in the business world, including Bezos, Amazon’s (AMZN.O), opens new tab billionaire founder.
Over dinner at an upscale restaurant in greater Los Angeles ‌in late 2024, ⁠an investor and biotech entrepreneur named Vik Bajaj — who would go on to co-found Prometheus with Bezos — discussed a collaboration with Anandkumar and Jenik, according to meeting records seen by Reuters.
Anandkumar had previously worked as a scientist at Amazon, where she had attended intimate AI summits Bezos had hosted, and she had been a director at Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab for five years. Jenik, her husband, is an AI infrastructure engineer. The two had already started their company.

Bajaj later discussed an offer letter with them entitled “Project Prometheus.” In a copy seen by Reuters, the proposal said Anandkumar could be the public face of the company, a board ​member, and owner of its scientific vision. She and ​Jenik, to be a board observer, could ⁠get a 35% stake in the company, plus a combined $1 million annual salary that would double to $2 million after three months of work.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/ai-founders-who-walked-away-bezos-backed-prometheus-model-universe-2026-08-25/

Swift has not spoken recently about Trump, although she endorsed his Democratic rival, then-Vice President Kamala Harris, in 2024. During the 2020 campaign, Swift posted on social media that Trump was “WELL AWARE we do not want him as our president.”

Trump has repeatedly criticized ​Swift. After she endorsed Harris, the Republican said on social media, “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!” Last year he ​wrote: “Has anyone noticed that, since I said ‘I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT,’ she’s no longer “HOT?”
Dozens of ⁠artists, including Sabrina Carpenter and Ariana Grande, have called on the Trump administration not to use their songs.
The Trump campaign ​used two Swift songs over the last week on its TikTok page. One, playing on her lyrics, featured the caption: “Red (Donald ​Trump’s Version). Red (Taylor Swift Wrote A Whole Album About Republicans). Donald Trump. Everything Has Changed (At Our Southern Border). Donald Trump. We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together (The Biden Harris Administration). Donald Trump. The Last Time (An Autopen Runs The Country).” It referenced famous songs ​by the pop star.

In June, Trump’s campaign posted a video on the short-video platform with Swift’s new “Toy Story ​5” song “I Knew It, I Knew You.” The short video was captioned “Nobody loves our country & the American People more than @President Donald ‌J Trump.” ⁠It showed him interacting with children at the White House, dancing at a UFC match and appearing at a rally.
It was the third time the Trump administration or his campaign had used one of the Grammy Award-winning pop star’s songs in recent months.
In April, the White House shared a video showing the crew of Artemis II ​meeting with Trump at the ​White House the day ⁠before. The video used Swift’s “High Infidelity” and lyrics from the song: “Do you really want to know where I was April 29th?”
The White House shared another TikTok video in ​November featuring “The Fate of Ophelia” from Swift’s “The Life of a Showgirl” album, which had ​been released ⁠the month before. That video featured images of the U.S. flag, monuments and various photos of Trump, including his 2023 arrest mugshot.

That post garnered widespread social media reaction and led to a White House spokesperson telling multiple news outlets the video ⁠was ​created because the Trump administration knew news outlets “would breathlessly amplify them.”
The communications ​team for Trump, who is prolific on social media, has posted an array of hit songs with images including Trump’s immigration crackdown, U.S. military operations ​against Iran and the arrest of former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/taylor-swift-songs-removed-white-house-trump-campaign-posts-2026-08-09/

Typhoon Dolphin, the most ​powerful tropical cyclone to hit China this year, made landfall on the country’s eastern coast on Sunday, bringing torrential rain ‌and strong winds and triggering warnings of flooding and landslides.
The typhoon has already swept through Japan’s southern Okinawa prefecture, injuring six people and cutting power to more than 50,000 buildings.

The storm packed maximum sustained winds of ​42 metres per second (151 km/h) near its centre at landfall, equivalent to a Category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
Authorities had ​moved offshore workers to safety, ordered vessels back to port and increased checks at reservoirs, mountain streams, landslide-prone ⁠areas, construction sites and tourist locations.
TORRENTIAL RAIN AND FLOOD RISK
Torrential rain is forecast through August 10 across Zhejiang, Shanghai, northern Fujian, northeastern Jiangxi, ​central and southern Anhui, and much of Jiangsu. Parts of central and eastern Zhejiang could receive 250-500 mm (9.8-19.7 inches) of rain, according to forecasters.

After landfall, ​Dolphin is forecast to track westward before slowing over central and southwestern China and gradually losing strength, Wang Haiping, chief forecaster at the National Meteorological Centre, told state broadcaster CCTV.
That could prolong heavy rain and raise the risk of flooding and landslides, especially in mountainous areas and along smaller rivers.
Transport was widely disrupted across the ​east of the country and more than 1 million people were evacuated from their homes.
In addition to evacuating at least 30,300 people, Shanghai ​has cancelled about 1,500 flights, according to flight-tracking data provider VariFlight.
A 42-year-old tourist from Guangdong, surnamed Chen, said he was stranded in Shanghai after his family’s flight, ‌scheduled to ⁠depart on Sunday, was cancelled because of Typhoon Dolphin.

He said the family had been rebooked on a flight at 10 p.m. on Monday, although they were unsure whether it would be able to take off.
“To us Guangdong people, this typhoon is as ordinary as having a meal and feeling the wind. It’s just part of everyday life,” Chen said, adding that the storm did not appear particularly strong by the standards of ​China’s southern coast.
In neighbouring Zhejiang province, ​the city of Wenzhou relocated ⁠more than 900,000 residents and opened more than 1,000 emergency shelters.
In Fujian province, authorities evacuated 98,900 people from high-risk areas after raising the typhoon emergency response to Level III, according to Xinhua. Zhejiang, Shanghai and Jiangsu ​have also activated Level III emergency responses.
Fujian maritime authorities said 55 coastal passenger ferry routes had been suspended, ​all 115 offshore ⁠construction projects halted and 290 construction vessels moved to sheltered waters.

Source:https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/typhoon-dolphin-set-hit-chinas-east-coast-triggering-flood-warnings-2026-08-09/

The FSSAI suspended the licence of Matri Drinking Water in Tripura and prohibited the manufacture and sale of Noble Healthcare’s Venolex Forte in Punjab over serious food safety violations. The regulator cited the use of non-permitted ingredients, excessive Vitamin C content, misleading labelling and regulatory non-compliance, reaffirming its strict enforcement to protect consumer health.

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) on Monday intensified its enforcement drive against food safety violations by suspending the licence of Matri Drinking Water in Tripura and issuing a prohibition order against Noble Healthcare, Mohali, Punjab, over serious violations of food safety regulations.

In the case of Noble Healthcare, the food safety regulator has prohibited the manufacture, storage, distribution and sale of its product Venolex Forte with immediate effect under Section 36(3)(b) of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006.

“FSSAI has suspended the licence of Matri Drinking Water, Tripura, and has issued a prohibition order to Noble Healthcare, Punjab, for serious food safety violations,” it said in a post on social media platform X.

“FSSAI continues to maintain strict enforcement across food sectors to protect consumer health,” it added.

FSSAI has suspended license of M/S Matri Drinking Water, Tripura & has issued prohibition order to M/S Noble Healthcare, Punjab for serious food safety violations.
FSSAI continues to maintain strict enforcement across food sectors to protect consumer health.#FSSAINotice pic.twitter.com/bgoVH0xIEY

— FSSAI (@fssaiindia) August 3, 2026

Regulatory violations identified

OpenAI has discovered other instances in which autonomous agents have escaped ​containment as the company expands its investigation of the hacking incident at tech firm Hugging Face that drew global attention this month, two people familiar ‌with the matter said on Friday.
The new breakouts were uncovered during the company’s publicly announced investigation, opens new tab into how one of its agents escaped what was meant to be a contained testing environment this month, the two people said, and OpenAI is now looking into those instances as well. One of the sources said that the escapes were limited in nature and that none of the agents were thought to have ​left OpenAI’s network.

An OpenAI spokesperson referred to a statement issued by the company, opens new tab on Tuesday that said it was reviewing “broader activity from our models” in addition to ​the Hugging Face intrusion.
The discovery of additional rogue behavior at OpenAI, even if limited in nature, could feed growing appetite for regulation ⁠coming out of the White House and elsewhere.
The expanded investigation by OpenAI was launched shortly before its primary rival, Anthropic, disclosed that its models were also responsible for a series of ​break-ins that led to breaches at three other companies dating back to April, according to the two sources and a third source familiar with the matter. The recent discovery of ​other past breakouts at OpenAI has not previously been reported.

GROWING CONCERNS
AI safety experts said the new disclosures paint a portrait of a group of cutting-edge labs whose ability to develop dangerous autonomous hacking agents outstrips their ability to keep them under control.
“We have a whole industry where the people designing, developing and putting out these tools aren’t keeping up themselves to responsibly develop these things and keep them ​safe,” said Maurice Chiodo, a mathematician who works at Cambridge University’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk.
Reuters could not establish exactly how many incidents OpenAI investigators found or ​the timings or circumstances under which they occurred. The three sources said OpenAI and outside experts were examining log data from earlier in the year in a bid to understand what took place.
OpenAI ‌first launched ⁠the investigation following the early July intrusion at Hugging Face, where an OpenAI agent went haywire for days inside another company’s network in a botched effort to cheat on an internal test. As part of that hacking spree, OpenAI said that four accounts at four other companies were also compromised. One of those companies was New York-based Modal, corporate officials there said.

Chiodo said his concerns were heightened by indications that neither OpenAI nor Anthropic were watching the agents as they went rogue. Reuters has previously reported that OpenAI realized its agent had ​broken into Hugging Face only after the company ​contained the hack, contacted the FBI ⁠and went public about the intrusion. OpenAI has said the Reuters account contained inaccuracies but has not responded when asked what they were.
In its Thursday statement, opens new tab disclosing how its own agents hacked victims online, Anthropic suggested that it had not been watching them in real time, ​saying that “real-time monitoring of the evaluation logs would have helped to surface the problem sooner.”
Chiodo said that pointed to a lack ​of proper scrutiny.
“It seems ⁠like they weren’t even looking,” Chiodo said.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/openai-finds-evidence-other-ai-agents-escaped-containment-it-widens-hacking-2026-07-31/

Russia ​pounded Kyiv and the region in a heavy ballistic missile attack early on Saturday, killing 10 people, as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy ‌warned that Ukraine had run out of interceptor missiles for its U.S. Patriot air defence systems.
Zelenskiy said that Russia launched 35 missiles at Ukraine, including 27 ballistic missiles, and also 185 drones. Only one ballistic missile was intercepted, “simply because there are no interceptors for the Patriot system”, he said.

Russia has also intensified its attacks on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities. Ukraine relies on U.S.-made Patriot air defence systems, but the Iran war has seen supplies of interceptor missiles previously earmarked for Ukraine diverted to the U.S. military and U.S. allies in the ​Gulf.
Moscow and Kyiv both deny targeting civilians in the war launched by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
SECOND MAJOR ATTACK ON KYIV THIS ​WEEK
Saturday’s is the second major attack on Kyiv this week after nine people, including six members of one family in a village near Kryvyi Rih, were killed on Thursday ‌and a ⁠suspected Russian cruise missile landed in Poland.

Damage was recorded in seven districts across Kyiv, a city of about 3 million people, the Prosecutor’s General Office said after Saturday’s attacks.
Zelenskiy said that fires broke out across Kyiv and 18 residential buildings, a school, the Lithuanian Embassy, and infrastructure facilities were damaged.

Ukrainian prosecutors said seven people were killed in the Darnytskyi district on the left bank of the Dnipro river and two more people died in the Solomyanskyi district on the ​right bank of the city.
One more ​person was killed in the Kyiv ⁠region where the attacks damaged several warehouses, regional officials said.
Dozens of people in Kyiv and the region were injured, including four children who suffered multiple shrapnel wounds and lacerations.
“I looked at my phone, it was 1:30 (22:30 GMT) and ​sirens (blared), I was lying dressed in my bed, I got up immediately. And at once explosions started – boom, ​boom,” said Nadiia Komarova, ⁠a 68-year-old concierge at an apartment building in Kyiv.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/russia-pounds-kyiv-with-missiles-2026-07-31/

Apple (AAPL.O), forecast sales for the current quarter ending ​in September would grow more slowly than Wall Street targeted as the iPhone maker struggled to get the parts it needed to deliver products, and shares fell 5.5% in after-hours trade.
Apple ‌and the technology industry generally have been scrambling to meet demand for new products, especially those with high-end processors and memory, and executives described the weaker forecast in terms of supply, not demand.

“We’re seeing some very significant (supply) constraints currently with limited flexibility in the supply chain to remedy it,” Chief Executive Tim Cook said during the call, adding that Apple was “evaluating all options” for alternative suppliers of memory chips.
Chief Financial Officer Kevan Parekh told analysts on a call that Apple expects revenue growth of 9% to 11% in the ​quarter compared with a year earlier. That was less than the 12% rise predicted by Wall Street, according to LSEG data. He forecast iPhone revenue would grow at a mid-teens rate, compared with Wall ​Street’s target of 17.6%, and that gross profit margins would be between 47% and 48%.

In an interview with Reuters, Cook said the main supply constraint in the just-ended ⁠fiscal third quarter was an industry shortage of advanced chipmaking technology used to produce the Apple silicon chips at the heart of its devices. That was particularly true for the Mac lineup, whose sales grew 29% on the ​strength of the entry-level MacBook Neo and the high-end MacBook Pro despite price increases.
“If you look at the root causes behind those, it’s that we’re having an incredibly strong product cycle beyond our expectations, and the (advanced chipmaking) supply ​chain just fundamentally has less flexibility in it to meet the high levels of demand,” Cook told Reuters.

THIRD QUARTER BEAT

Expectations are high for Apple, which recently regained the title of world’s most valuable company, retaking the top spot from AI chip leader Nvidia (NVDA.O). Its shares have risen more than 22% this year.

Earlier Thursday, it posted results that broadly beat market expectations, but relatively soft sales of services spooked some investors, who also were uncertain whether bumper demand would continue if Apple hiked iPhone prices.
Apple said sales for its fiscal ​third quarter ended June 27 rose 16.4% to $109.42 billion, compared with analyst estimates of a 15.5% rise, according to LSEG data. Customers snapped up iPhones and MacBooks while prices increased across the consumer electronics sector.
Third-quarter profits were $2.02 per ​share, with 11 cents attributable to tariff refunds from the U.S. government. Excluding the refunds, profits still beat Wall Street estimates of $1.89 per share.
Driving results was a 21.7% increase in iPhone sales to $54.25 billion, above estimates of $53.86 billion. Those were Apple’s best-ever ‌iPhone sales for ⁠a third quarter, when phone sales typically begin to slow as customers anticipate fall models.

This year, customers raced to buy iPhones after a global memory-chip crunch prompted Apple to raise prices of Macs and iPads. Apple has so far spared its signature product, with Wall Street analysts increasingly expecting an iPhone price hike around the September launch event.
Bob O’Donnell, chief analyst at TECHnalysis Research, said investors may worry the quarter reflected a buying flurry that may not carry through. “I do think it’s possible people are going to continue to buy the existing phones, because of the price increases,” he said. “The big question is, what’s going to happen on Macs in this quarter, when the new prices ​are fully there?”
Gross margins, which Apple had warned would ​come under pressure from memory costs, were 50.1%. Tariff ⁠refunds contributed two points; excluding them, margins were 48.1%, near the midpoint of guidance and above estimates of 47.92%.
Mac sales were up 28.7% to $10.35 billion, beating estimates of $8.74 billion. iPad sales fell 5.9% to $6.19 billion, below expectations of $6.92 billion, which Cook attributed to a “tough compare” against last year’s launch of the budget A16 iPad.
Greater China revenue rose ​22.4% to $18.82 billion but missed the $19.67 billion target of six analysts polled by Visible Alpha.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/apple-revenue-profits-beat-expectations-iphone-mac-sales-2026-07-30/

A 7.1-magnitude earthquake hit Japan’s southern Kumamoto Prefecture on Tuesday, killing ​at least two people after an explosion tore through a shopping mall and another in a building collapse, while knocking out power to thousands of homes and rupturing roads ‌across the region.

The prefectural government said early on Wednesday that rescuers working at the scene overnight had taken eight people out of the Aeon Mall Kumamoto shopping centre, where the blast occurred following the quake.

Of those eight, two women in their 20s were confirmed dead, while one other person was reported to be in cardiopulmonary arrest. The five others were injured, but officials said their condition was not life-threatening.

Emergency fire rescue teams, police and Self-Defense Force personnel were working together ​at the scene overnight, concentrating search operations on areas of the building where calls for help had been received.

Speaking to reporters from her office in Tokyo on Tuesday, Japanese Prime Minister ​Sanae Takaichi said authorities were still assessing the full extent of the damage in the area, which was also devastated by a deadly quake a decade ⁠ago.

“We have already been informed that people have been injured. Power outages and fires have occurred in some areas, and there has also been damage to roads and bridges and the collapse of buildings,” ​Takaichi said.

Around 300,000 people were instructed to go to evacuation centres, while aftershocks continued to rumble in the area on Japan’s southwestern island of Kyushu.

‘LIKE VOLCANIC ASH WAS FALLING’

One side of the mall, which houses ​around 200 stores, was torn away in the blast, exposing steel beams and strewing debris across a parking lot, footage showed.

A spokesperson for mall operator Aeon (8267.T), opens new tab said customers and employees were evacuated right after the initial quake and that the exact cause of the ensuing explosion was unclear. Authorities are investigating a possible gas explosion, broadcaster NTV reported.

Kazuya Tsurunaga told TBS he was stunned by the blast while cleaning up dishes broken by the earthquake inside a pub about ​300 metres from the Aeon mall.

“It was a huge impact,” he said. “A large cloud of smoke billowed up, and because the wind happened to be blowing and the wind direction was towards the shop, ​the area around us was in a state like volcanic ash was falling.”

Multiple people were also unaccounted for after a chimney collapsed at a Nippon Paper Industries (3836.T), opens new tab factory, broadcaster NHK reported, while two hospitals were each reported to ‌be treating more ⁠than 50 people, some in serious condition. Several passengers aboard high-speed trains at the time of the quake were also injured, operators said.

BUILDINGS ON FIRE

Authorities were responding to multiple incidents where buildings had partially collapsed or had caught fire. One person died in a collapse in a town near the epicentre, TV Asahi reported.

Some roads were also badly damaged, with large cracks splintering major highways, snarling traffic. Rail services were suspended and flights grounded.

TSMC (2330.TW), opens new tab, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, Sony (6758.T), opens new tab and Fujifilm (4901.T), opens new tab evacuated workers from their plants following the quake. TSMC said in a statement late Tuesday that its site was unaffected and operations were ​gradually resuming.

However, Tokyo Electron (8035.T), opens new tab, a semiconductor equipment maker, said ​it was suspending operations at its two ⁠factories in Kumamoto through Wednesday, while Honda (7267.T), opens new tab said it would also temporarily idle its motorcycle factory there.

The quake’s epicentre was about 20 kilometres (12 miles) south of Kumamoto City, central Kyushu’s largest city with a population of around 700,000.

Residents in the areas that felt the biggest tremors must be on alert for further strong ​quakes for about a week, as well as for the risk of landslides, an official for the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/magnitude-71-earthquake-hits-japans-kyushu-region-jma-says-2026-07-28

NEW YORK, July 27 (Reuters) – Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N), opens new tab ​said on Monday it would pay an estimated $5.5 billion to resolve tens of thousands of lawsuits alleging its baby powder and ‌other talc products cause ovarian cancer, in a landmark deal that could end a contentious legal battle that has dogged the company for a decade.
J&J said the settlement covers about 76,000 claims, including ones consolidated in federal court in New Jersey, and related cases in state court, representing nearly all of the remaining talc claims against the company. J&J previously settled most of the cases ​alleging that its talc contained asbestos and caused mesothelioma.

Plaintiffs’ law firms confirmed the deal on Monday, saying it was a good resolution ​after a decade-long court battle. The deal must be accepted by 95% of the ovarian cancer claimants in state ⁠or federal court before it becomes final.
J&J’s vice president of litigation, Erik Haas, said the claims were “meritless” and that the company was willing to settle ​in order to get closure.
“While we are confident the company would have ultimately prevailed with further litigation, as it has in the vast majority of ​cases tried to date, this resolution allows the company to put this matter behind it and remain focused on its mission to develop medicines and devices that save lives,” Haas said.

J&J expects to pay $3 billion in 2027, and it will make further payments in 2028. But the deal could be worth more, depending on how many people participate ​in the settlement.
Chris Seeger, an attorney who represents about 2,500 clients with talc claims and helped negotiate the agreement, said J&J could ultimately pay $7 ​billion or more. The settlement assigns specific values to qualifying ovarian cancer claims but does not cap J&J’s total payout, he said.
“We got a fair settlement, and our ‌clients are ⁠going to be happy with it,” Seeger said in an interview.
DEAL COMES AFTER COURTROOM WINS
J&J reached the settlement after a series of wins in court, including victories in individual trials, successful efforts to disqualify plaintiffs’ lawyers from the litigation, and court rulings against experts that plaintiffs had used to prove their cases in court.

J&J won a significant court victory in the long-running legal battle last week, when a federal judge cast doubt on individual plaintiffs’ ability to prove ​that talc specifically caused their ovarian ​cancer.
J&J has long denied that its ⁠talc products caused cancer, saying that talc was safe and did not contain asbestos. The company stopped selling talc-based baby powder in the U.S. in 2020, switching to a cornstarch product.
The litigation resumed in March 2025, after being put ​on hold for more than three years while J&J unsuccessfully pursued a strategy known as the “Texas two step,” filing three ​bankruptcies through a ⁠shell-company subsidiary in an effort to settle the cases. Each bankruptcy ended in dismissal.
Before the bankruptcy attempts, J&J had a mixed record in talc trials, with a multibillion verdict in favor of 22 women who said baby powder caused their ovarian cancer. The company won some trials outright and had other verdicts reduced on appeal.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/johnson-johnson-announces-55-billion-settlement-talc-lawsuits-2026-07-27/

The apartment is located on the 24th floor (Flat No. 2403, Tower A) of the under-construction project. As per the registration records, the residence has a RERA carpet area of 245.71 sq. m., including 216.30 sq. m. of carpet area and 29.41 sq. m. of exclusive area, along with three car parking spaces.

Cricketer Virat Kohli and actor Anushka Sharma have purchased a luxury sea-facing apartment in Godrej Skyshore, an ultra-premium residential project in Versova, Andheri (West), for Rs 182.91 crore, according to property registration documents accessed from Zakey.

The transaction was registered on July 21, 2026, while the agreement was executed on July 8, 2026.

The apartment is located on the 24th floor (Flat No. 2403, Tower A) of the under-construction project. As per the registration records, the residence has a RERA carpet area of 245.71 sq. m., including 216.30 sq. m. of carpet area and 29.41 sq. m. of exclusive area, along with three car parking spaces.

The transaction value recorded in the agreement is Rs 182.91 crore, while the market valuation of the property for stamp duty purposes was assessed at Rs 80.43 crore.

According to the registration records, stamp duty of Rs 10.97 crore was paid on the transaction, along with a registration fee of Rs 30,000.

The property forms part of Godrej Skyshore, a luxury residential development in Versova, Andheri (West), one of Mumbai’s prime residential markets. The project comprises premium residences with sea-facing views and is located close to the city’s western coastline.

Source : https://www.freepressjournal.in/business/virat-kohli-anushka-sharma-buy-sea-facing-mumbai-apartment-for-18291-crore

Shares in China’s biggest memory chip maker have soared by nearly 470% as they made their debut on the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s tech-heavy Star Market.

The surge has pushed ChangXin Memory Technologies’ (CXMT) stock market valuation to around 3.3 trillion yuan ($487bn; £365bn), making it the most valuable listed company in mainland China.

The spectacular debut comes despite a sharp sell-off in technology stocks around the world this month.

CXMT manufactures dynamic random-access memory (Dram) chips that power AI data centres, mobile phones, PCs, tablets and other devices.

The firm, which was founded in 2016 by Chairman Zhu Yiming, is headquartered in Hefei, Anhui Province in eastern China.

The company has said it plans to use most of the proceeds from the initial public offering (IPO) to boost production of memory chips and carry out more research and developments.

The stellar performance of its IPO will offer some comfort to Chinese financial officials, who have been rolling out measures to help curb a stock market slump that wiped out more than $1.5tn in recent weeks.

Analysts said the jump was also being driven by demand for the shares far outstripping supply.

“The reason for the extraordinary bounce this morning is that only 7% of the shares are available for trading,” Anna Macdonald, investment strategy director at Hargreaves Lansdown told the BBC’s Today programme.

It also highlights Chinese investors’ strong appetite for a homegrown chipmaker, as the government in Beijing pushes ahead with plans to make its technology industry self-reliant.

South Korean tech giants Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix and US-based Micron dominate the Dram market, with the three companies accounting for around 90% of global production.

Earlier this month, SK Hynix raised $26.5bn (£19.8bn) in its New York share offering, marking the largest ever listing by a foreign firm in the US.

The company, a key supplier to AI chip giant Nvidia, said it had sold 177.9 million American depositary shares for $149 each.

The shares surged as much as 17% in their first day of trading on the Nasdaq but have since given up some of that gain.

SK Hynix saw its market value top $1tn in its home country in May, lifted by the boom in demand for AI chips.

Once an affordable component used to build devices, memory prices have more than doubled in recent months – and are still rising.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9q9w3x9qn2o

The OpenAI agent that broke into tech firm Hugging Face went on a dayslong hacking spree that OpenAI didn’t notice until well after the threat was contained and the FBI was alerted, according ​to people familiar with the investigation.

The agent – a program capable of making decisions and executing complex tasks with little or no human oversight – attempted to break out of its isolated testing environment ‌at OpenAI around July 9, according to two of the people.

The intrusion at Hugging Face, which operates as a repository for AI tools and models, began two days later on July 11 and lasted until July 13, said Thomas Wolf, Hugging Face’s co-founder.

It took several more days for OpenAI to realize its agent was behind the hack, and the two companies only communicated about it for the first time on or around July 20, according to Wolf and three of the people familiar with the investigation.

OpenAI’s public disclosure, on July 21, that one of ​its agents had slipped out of control and carried out the break-in at Hugging Face drew global attention. But many details of the hack, including how long the agent went rogue and OpenAI’s belated knowledge ​of it, are being reported here for the first time.

Hugging Face is preparing a public timeline of the hack, Wolf said, adding that he could not speak to what ⁠happened at OpenAI. In a statement, OpenAI said the hack was unprecedented and “marks an important moment for AI safety.” It added that it was reviewing the incident with outside advisers and would eventually publish a technical report.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/its-ai-agent-spent-days-hacking-company-sources-say-openai-did-not-notice-week-2026-07-24

Tens of thousands of people fled wildfires in southwest France by car and boat on Friday, and Spain declared a national emergency as huge blazes merged ​outside Madrid and searing heat left tinder-dry conditions across the region.
French authorities ordered the total evacuation of the Cap Ferret peninsula, a tourism hotspot on its Atlantic Coast. A third fire was ‌on the verge of joining two fires that had merged outside Madrid, government officials said.

Both countries, which have suffered a succession of heatwaves and fires in recent months and years that scientists say have been exacerbated by climate change, sought help from the European Union as the blazes strained emergency services.
French President Emmanuel Macron asked the army to support firefighting efforts, a source close to the president said.
Spain’s national emergency — the first it had ever declared over a wildfire — opened up federal funding to tackle the ​crisis.
“This is the worst wildfire in our region’s history,” Madrid’s regional leader Isabel Diaz Ayuso said after telling reporters the fires had merged. “It’s the perfect storm of very high temperatures and ceaseless winds ​that aren’t letting up.”

THE CLOUDS BECAME ‘DARKER AND DARKER’
In southwest France, authorities sent boats to help the evacuation, and about 110,000 people, many of them tourists, were told ⁠to leave as two major fires threatened homes and campsites, officials said.
“This is a convective fire: It is self-sustaining, changes direction, and is moving mainly eastward, toward the Bordeaux metropolitan area,” Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told broadcaster ​TF1.
Yoan Urien, who fled late on Thursday after police ordered his neighbourhood in the town of Biscarrosse to evacuate, said it was possible to see the fires from his home.
“We could see the clouds becoming darker and darker,” ​the 26-year-old told Reuters.
Marie Duelz, a 51-year-old Belgian tourist vacationing at Cap Ferret, said she saw “a cloud of ash that was blocking the sun, basically.”
The other major fire, which began in the nearby village of Saumos, north of Cap Ferret, is threatening to cut off the only road out of the peninsula and is the largest so far this season in France, Nunez told local television.

It has torn through more than 14,000 hectares of forest and destroyed more than 100 homes and one campsite, officials ​said.
“It breaks my heart. Because it’s such a pleasant place to live, seeing it go up in smoke is truly sad,” said family caregiver Corinne Paillaube.

“It’s totally apocalyptic,” said Ambre Dubos, from the nearby Landes region.
‘THERE WAS ​A BALL OF FIRE’
In Spain, more than 19,000 people were ordered to evacuate from towns in the mountains west of Madrid, as more than 2,000 personnel and 10 aircraft struggled in vain to prevent the fires converging, Interior Minister Fernando ‌Grande-Marlaska said.
“I had ⁠to run from my house. There was a ball of fire. If I’d taken five more minutes, it would have wiped us out,” evacuee Enrique Martin said in a shelter in Cebreros, west of Madrid.
A third fire in Avila province was on the verge or may have already merged with the two in Madrid, Nicanor Sen, the government representative for the Castile and Leon region, told reporters. Spanish police said they had arrested one person and were investigating another suspected of starting that fire by using heavy machinery in a prohibited area.
The area west of Madrid, where many residents from the capital have second homes, is densely populated. In just one development 43 homes ​had been destroyed, Diaz Ayuso said.
That played a role ​in the government decision to declare a national ⁠emergency, Grande-Marlaska said.
It is the second consecutive year that Spain has faced a particularly destructive fire season.
More than 29 major fires have broken out in Spain so far this year, damaging a surface area five times greater than at the same stage in 2025, when a record area was destroyed, Environment Minister Sara Aagesen said in ​a social media post.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/spain-declares-emergency-wildfires-force-thousands-evacuations-2026-07-24/

(This July 17 story has been corrected to fix Donald Sherman’s quote to say ‘wildly,’ not ‘widely,’ in paragraph 16)

Donald Trump’s social ​media company has discussed charging Wall Street traders and investment firms as much as $100,000 a month for faster access to the U.S. president’s posts on his Truth Social ‌platform, according to people familiar with the matter.

Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT.O), which owns Truth Social, has in recent weeks also pitched a discounted plan of $60,000 per month if the firms sign up for a three-year plan, the sources said, requesting anonymity as the discussions are confidential.

TMTG on Thursday unveiled a paid-for, licensed data feed called “Truth API” to provide banks and trading firms the fastest access to posts from the 10 most influential Truth Social accounts, but did not ​give any pricing details.

The move would be the company’s first step into data licensing, opening up a new revenue stream, although it drew immediate criticism from Democrats.

U.S. Senator Ron ​Wyden of Oregon, the highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said it would financially benefit the Trump family and “make Wall Street traders rich.”

The White ⁠House referred questions on Wyden’s remarks to TMTG, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/trump-media-pitched-100000-monthly-fee-fast-feed-us-presidents-posts-ft-reports-2026-07-17

Delayed orders from senior military commanders, a lack of basic equipment and overall confusion were among the issues that hindered the deployment of Venezuelan troops in the crucial first days after two devastating earthquakes struck the country’s coast last month, eight sources familiar with the response told Reuters, amid public outrage over the government’s response to the disaster.

The 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude quakes killed about 5,000 people, according to the government, though experts including the United States ​Geological Survey have predicted a likelihood of a final death toll of nearly double that figure. The disaster was especially devastating in La Guaira state, home to the country’s main airport, a major port and hundreds ‌of high-rise residential buildings that collapsed either fully or partially.

Acting President Delcy Rodriguez, who is backed by U.S. President Donald Trump, has defended the government’s response amid criticism that military personnel and other officials arrived late and have done little to help victims of the quake, including people who were trapped in the rubble.

Though Rodriguez said 4,000 officials were deployed immediately, military personnel and police were scarcely visible during the first hours after the quake, according to residents, Reuters witnesses and several sources with knowledge of the matter.

Civilians spearheaded much of the response, especially during the first two days, bringing aid like food ​and using rudimentary tools to pull both the living and the dead from the rubble. They were eventually joined by international rescue teams, firefighters, civil protection officials and a limited number of Venezuelan soldiers, who told Reuters they volunteered for the often-gruesome ​work rather than being directly ordered to.

The limited presence of security forces was due to delays in deployment orders, uncertainty over who was responsible for coordinating the crisis and a lack of ⁠relevant equipment, said active and retired military officers, other sources familiar with the armed forces and sources in the diplomatic community.

“We don’t act on our own; we receive direct orders,” said an active-duty officer who spoke on condition of anonymity. “I can’t tell my ​unit, ‘Let’s go help in La Guaira,’ if I haven’t been ordered to do so. We didn’t have a plan like the ones that exist for defending the nation. There was no plan for dealing with something like this.”

A group of soldiers from the officer’s unit ​traveled to La Guaira the day after the June 24 quakes after receiving orders to reinforce personnel there.

“We weren’t going to leave without preparation or logistics because obviously nobody is prepared for something like this,” the officer said. “The troops in Caracas should at least have been sent to provide security and help however they could.”

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/delayed-orders-confusion-slowed-venezuelan-militarys-response-quakes-sources-say-2026-07-18

Apple overtook Nvidia to become the world’s most valuable company with a market capitalisation of $4.88 trillion. The shift reflects changing investor sentiment towards AI, with confidence growing in Apple’s ability to monetise AI through services, hardware and its ecosystem.

Apple overtook Nvidia on Friday to become the world’s most valuable company, reflecting a shift in investor sentiment as the market reassesses artificial intelligence (AI) opportunities. Apple was valued at $4.88 trillion, while Nvidia’s market capitalisation slipped to about $4.86 trillion after its shares fell 3.5%, Reuters reports.

The change marks Apple’s return to the top for the first time since April last year after Nvidia had held the position for nearly a year. The development suggests investors are looking beyond the most obvious AI beneficiaries and broadening their bets across the technology sector.

Investor Confidence Moves Beyond AI Spending

“Apple was seen as a laggard in the AI race because it wasn’t spending to develop models, but now sentiment has changed,” said Toni Meadows, head of investment at BRI Wealth Management.

Protesters in Kyiv called for the dismissal of Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s removal ​of a popular defence minister sparked outrage and demands for a more modern approach to warfare.

Several thousand people gathered outside the presidential office for a second ‌day after Mykhailo Fedorov, a 35-year-old tech wizard who has been partly credited with Ukraine’s recent successes in the war with Russia, was not reappointed in a surprise government reshuffle.

A 27-year-old protester named Andriy, a combat medic who lost his lower limb, came with a cardboard sign saying: “Can not stand. Will not stay silent”.

“Syrskyi had conflicts not only with the defence minister, but also with brigade and corps commanders. If ​he stays, we will simply be ineffective,” said Andriy, whose brother died on the battlefield.

“We could simply lose this war, we could lose,” he added.

Zelenskiy provided ​little explanation for the reshuffle and said he had to step in since the rift between Syrskyi and Fedorov was so deep ⁠they won’t sit at one table.

On Friday, he tapped Ukraine’s former top cop, Ihor Klymenko, to lead the national security and defence council, replacing current Chairman Rustem Umerov.

Klymenko, who had initially been ​among the names as a likely Fedorov replacement, would be tasked with coordinating “all components of the security and defence sector”, including defence production, president added.

It was unclear whether Umerov, also ​Ukraine’s top negotiator in U.S.-backed peace talks with Russia, would be offered a new post.

A top security operative overseeing Ukraine’s long-range strikes against Russia, Yevhenii Khmara, was appointed as acting defence minister as Zelenskiy moved to calm down public outrage late on Thursday.

AT WHAT COST?

Protesters rallied for a second day outside Zelenskiy’s office, chanting “Syrskyi away” and “Bring Fedorov back”. Many called to listen to the voices of those currently ​fighting.

Fedorov’s conflict with Syrskyi came into the open on Thursday after the former defence minister accused the 60-year-old general of sabotaging his work.

Syrskyi, 60, played a key ​role in Kyiv’s defence in the early days of the war and has been in his top post since early 2024. But he has faced harsh criticism for a rigid command style which ‌some service ⁠members have said results in high troop losses and also for unwillingness to modernise combat.

Another protester named Nina, whose husband is serving, came to the demonstration for a second day, with a one-year-old Oleksandr-Carlos. Her first demand is Syrskyi’s dismissal.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/zelenskiy-shakes-up-national-security-post-protesters-rally-second-day-2026-07-17

U.S. Small Business ​Administration head Kelly Loeffler multiplied the value of her investment in Elon Musk’s SpaceX after she was nominated for the ‌job, earning millions of dollars from the company’s record initial public offering, a Reuters review of her financial disclosures showed.

Loeffler invested between $1 million and $5 million as of January 3, 2025, in xAI, Musk’s AI and social media firm that has since merged with SpaceX (SPCX.O), opens new tab, according to a required financial disclosure submitted before she became SBA’s administrator.

Later ​in 2025, Loeffler invested again in SpaceX and xAI between $1 million and $5 million, according to a separate financial disclosure covering her ​investments for all of 2025 that she signed on May 14, 2026. Reuters obtained the form from the ⁠SBA on June 12.

Loeffler’s second investment has not been previously reported. Two independent government ethics attorneys agreed with Reuters’ assessment of Loeffler’s disclosure.

Cabinet ​members use ranges to declare the value of their assets on their required financial disclosure forms, and they do not disclose the dates of ​their investments before taking office.

SpaceX is a military contractor for the U.S. government. Federal law, opens new tab prohibits cabinet members from participating in decisions involving a company in which they have a financial interest. Public records do not show a financial relationship between SBA and xAI or SpaceX. xAI was not included on the public list of AI tools, opens new tab ​used by SBA employees in 2025.
Loeffler and her team did not respond to multiple requests for comment about her SpaceX investment.

VALUE OF SPACEX INVESTMENT ​SOARS

Loeffler’s bet on SpaceX paid off. The company priced the biggest-ever U.S. IPO on June 12, valuing the space, satellite and AI provider at $1.77 trillion.

Her first investment ‌in xAI ⁠would have been worth between $7 million and $2.6 billion on the day of the IPO, depending on the exact amount she invested and the date she made it, said Franco Granda, analyst at data provider PitchBook. The second investment would have been worth between $2.2 million and $25.4 million that day, he said.

The earlier the investment, the more it would have been worth at the IPO, he said. xAI’s valuation increased by more than 7,000% ​between its first investment round and ​January 5, 2025. SpaceX’s valuation ⁠more than doubled in 2025.

At least 10 Trump administration officials listed investments in SpaceX or xAI on their 2025 financial disclosure forms. None of those officials works for the Defense Department.

Billionaire Musk, a former Trump adviser, ​is the founder and CEO of SpaceX.

Loeffler initially invested in xAI via a private placement, according to ​her disclosure form. ⁠Private placements are typically open to select individuals and institutions with significant financial resources.

Loeffler is a wealthy businesswoman. She was the founding chief executive at Bakkt, a bitcoin trading platform, and spent 16 years working at Intercontinental Exchange, the firm that owns the New York Stock Exchange, according to her ⁠LinkedIn profile. ​She is married to Intercontinental Exchange CEO Jeffrey Sprecher. Loeffler briefly represented Georgia in ​the Senate.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/spacex-ipo-earns-millions-us-small-business-administration-head-kelly-loeffler-2026-07-17

Wildfire smoke blanketed the eastern ​U.S. from the Great Lakes to Washington, D.C. on Friday, floodwaters tore through Texas’s Hill Country for a third day, and new fires erupted in the Pacific Northwest overnight, with 68 large ‌blazes now burning in 15 states.

Millions of Americans faced hazardous conditions and orders to stay indoors, as the country’s summer weather extremes converged on three fronts at once: a smoke-choked East, rising water in the South, and fast-spreading flames in the West.

Firefighters are now battling 68 large fires nationwide, up by nearly two dozen from a day earlier. Some 17 new blazes broke out in the Pacific Northwest after a run of lightning strikes made it the most active fire region in the country, according to a summary from the National Interagency Fire ​Center.

More than 17,400 personnel, 140 helicopters and four military C-130 air tanker crews are now deployed across the U.S. to battle wildfires, with record-low snowpack in the Mountain West and drought pushing fuel conditions ​to the type of dry and fire-prone levels normally not seen until mid-August, according to the NIFC.

Nearly 3.72 million acres (1.51 million hectares) have burned nationwide so far this year, ⁠outpacing last year’s mid-July tally by over 1 million acres.

Jesse Berman, a professor at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health whose research focuses on how extreme weather affects health, said simultaneous disasters like those playing out ​now can make them more dangerous.

“These are compound events, and that can sometimes make the impacts of them far worse than what we would experience with any one of these events individually,” Berman said.

University of Pennsylvania climatologist Michael Mann ​said the extreme weather events were linked by a wave pattern in the jet stream that may be a phenomenon known as “resonance.” This occurs when large waves in the jet stream become amplified and trapped, causing extreme weather to persist over a region for longer periods, creating more chaos.

Mann said his research shows that human-driven climate change has led to a tripling of these stalled jet stream events since the 1950s.

Climate scientist Jonathan Overpeck, dean of the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability, said rising temperatures are driving disasters ​through the same basic mechanism, even though the effects can look opposite.

A warmer atmosphere pulls moisture out of soil and vegetation more aggressively, which has left Canada’s landscape drier and more fire-prone. At the same time, a ​warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor before releasing it, which is producing the kind of intense, heavy rainfall now battering Texas.

“What climate change is doing is it’s rolling the dice so that you’re going to get drier conditions and more wildfires ‌at the same ⁠time as you’re going to get more rain,” said Overpeck.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/smoke-fire-floods-us-faces-triple-extreme-summer-weather-threats-2026-07-17

Jack Chen has never defaulted on a loan since he began borrowing to cover expenses during his internship days, but his credit report now carries a red flag because of his swelling debt burden, ​and new loan applications are being rejected.

That leaves the 27-year-old telecoms maintenance worker from Jiangsu province facing a default of around 140,000 yuan ($20,685) — equivalent to about a ‌year’s wages — across credit cards, online borrowing and a car loan, after his employer cut pay and scrapped a fuel allowance this year.

Despite paring spending to only food, rent and gas, “the debt just kept rolling over and getting bigger,” he said.

Chen’s story is becoming increasingly common in China amid both a bleak labour market and a protracted property slump. Consumer loan defaults have soared to record highs, and analysts expect the situation to worsen as lower-income ​Chinese in particular sink deeper into debt.

It comes with Beijing actively encouraging consumers to borrow and spend as part of a years-long effort to pivot the stuttering, two-speed economic recovery ​towards domestic demand. The economy grew at the slowest pace in over three years in the second quarter, official data showed on Wednesday, as ⁠a moribund consumer undermined robust manufacturing and exports.

The People’s Bank of China has repeatedly urged commercial banks to step up lending, but the banks have balked, instead tightening lending standards to protect themselves from ​additional bad debt.

Short-term household loans contracted 7% year-on-year last month, data showed on Wednesday, in the latest evidence of an anaemic market.

The PBOC and the National Financial Regulatory Administration did not immediately reply to ​Reuters requests for comments.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/chinas-record-consumer-defaults-undermine-beijings-push-boost-spending-2026-07-16

IBM Stock Crash: IBM said its revenue for the three months ending in June rose just one per cent to $17.2 billion.

The shares of IBM (International Business Machines) plunged 25 per cent on Tuesday after the US tech giant released disappointing preliminary second-quarter results. This was the worst stock price crash company in the last 58 years, according to a Bloomberg report.

IBM lost between $67 billion and $70 billion in market capitalisation in a single day during its historic stock crash. The legacy company, founded in 1911, said its revenue for the three months ending in June rose just one per cent to $17.2 billion.

“We faltered… and did not adapt and move quickly enough,” IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said in a letter to investors. Notably, IBM’s infrastructure business — which includes its flagship mainframe line — saw revenue fall seven percent. Software revenue grew five per cent but still came in below expectations.

IBM Share Crash: Supply Shortages Across Industry

A global rush by tech companies to build out artificial intelligence infrastructure has sent demand for servers, memory chips and storage soaring, driving up prices and creating supply shortages across the industry.

IBM said that toward the end of June, many of its big corporate customers rushed to buy up hardware to get ahead of expected price increases.

That shopping spree pulled spending away from IBM’s higher-margin mainframe computers, the powerful machines used by banks and large corporations to process millions of transactions, and related software.

“In the last few weeks of June, we saw clients shift their quarterly capex spend toward servers, ​storage, ​and memory purchases to secure supply-constrained infrastructure ahead of expected price increases… While we anticipated some supply-chain related impact in our expectations, we did not anticipate the magnitude of the capex reprioritisation,” CEO ⁠Krishna said in a letter to investors.

IBM Share Crash: Cybersecurity Concerns

According to the New York-headquartered tech giant, cybersecurity concerns across the tech industry also distracted clients during the quarter. Krishna also said businesses were prioritising cybersecurity spending as AI made cyberattacks more sophisticated.

These concerns were brought on by the release of Anthropic’s Mythos AI model, which has raised alarm bells for its capabilities to find weaknesses in computer networks that can be taken advantage of by hackers.

In response, companies have worked to build up their cyber defences instead of spending on previously planned projects.
This news sent the share price of cybersecurity firms skyrocketing: CrowdStrike rose 12 percent while Okta and Netskope surged about 11 percent each.

IBM Share Crash: Future Of SaaS Firms In Question

The crash in IBM’s share price will increase talk of the consequences of the AI revolution on traditional software companies — known as Software as a Service, or SaaS firms — of which IBM is an important member alongside companies like Salesforce, Adobe and Intuit.

Source : https://www.ndtv.com/business-news/ibm-stock-price-crash-most-in-58-years-ceo-arvind-krishna-we-faltered-on-ai-remark-11772813?pfrom=home-ndtv_topscroll

Microsoft will lay off 4,800 employees, including 1,600 at Xbox, with severance based on tenure and level.

Microsoft on Monday (July 6) announced its plans to lay off around 4,800 employees, or 2.1 per cent of its global workforce. Asha Sharma-led Xbox copped the biggest hit, with 1,600 employees losing their jobs in the first tranche of layoffs. The laid-off employees in the US have been offered severance packages ranging from a minimum of 60 days to a maximum of 39 weeks of base pay, determined by their tenure and seniority.

Employees at internal levels 64 and below will receive one week of base pay per six months of service, while employees at levels 65 to 67 will receive two weeks of base pay per six months of service, according to documents accessed by Business Insider.

Meanwhile, employees at levels 68 and higher will receive a separate package. Eligible employees at level 67 and below will receive six to 12 months of continued stock vesting, determined by their years of service. This is paired with six months of company-paid health insurance, with the option to extend coverage for another 12 months via COBRA.

The layoffs come at a time when Microsoft is increasingly cutting costs and restructuring the business to build artificial intelligence (AI)-related infrastructure.

Xbox Layoffs

The cuts mostly impacted the sales and Xbox gaming organisations. In an email to employees, Sharma informed them of the layoffs, highlighting that the business was ‘not healthy’.

In addition, Sharma announced that Xbox will divest four of its gaming studios and is preparing to part ways with another.

“Our business today is not healthy. We are operating at margins that are 3-10x lower than comparable platform and publishing businesses,” Sharma said in her email, which she posted on X, while noting that the layoff decision does not reflect the “talent and dedication” of employees.

Source : https://www.ndtv.com/feature/microsoft-layoffs-heres-how-much-employees-will-receive-in-severance-11749713?pfrom=home-ndtv_lateststories

OpenAI has named former Uber India chief Prabhjeet Singh as Managing Director for India as it expands in a key Artificial Intelligence market.

OpenAI has appointed former Uber India executive Prabhjeet Singh as its Managing Director for India, underscoring the company’s growing focus on one of the world’s most important artificial intelligence (AI) markets. Singh, who previously led Uber’s operations in India and South Asia, is set to join OpenAI in September. With the appointment, he becomes the ChatGPT maker’s highest-ranking executive in the country and will spearhead efforts to strengthen the company’s presence across multiple segments.

He will report to Kiran Mani, Managing Director for Asia Pacific (APAC), and oversee consumer expansion, enterprise adoption, partnerships, regulatory engagement and business operations in India.

The leadership change comes as OpenAI ramps up investments in India, a country it considers central to its long-term growth ambitions.

Over the past year, the company has increased its engagement with enterprises, developers and policymakers while expanding local operations. OpenAI also established its first office in New Delhi in November 2025 as part of its broader strategy to build a stronger on-ground presence.

As Managing Director for India, Singh will focus on creating partnerships and supporting the country’s evolving AI ecosystem. His mandate also includes helping consumers, businesses, educational institutions and government agencies make greater use of artificial intelligence technologies.

From IIT And IIM To OpenAI Leadership

Singh’s academic background includes a degree from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, followed by an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, two institutions widely regarded among India’s top educational establishments.

Before entering the technology sector, he worked in finance as a senior analyst at Lehman Brothers in London. He later joined McKinsey & Company as a senior associate.

Source: https://www.timesnownews.com/business-economy/companies/meet-prabhjeet-singh-the-ex-uber-india-chief-openai-picked-to-lead-its-biggest-ai-bet-article-154776888

U.S. companies cannot ship goods, software and technology to companies on the list without a license, which is likely to be denied.

Apple ⁠is lobbying the Trump administration for clearance to buy ⁠memory chips from ChangXin Memory Technologies, a ‌Chinese company the ​Pentagon has put on a blacklist, the Financial Times reported on Friday.

The iPhone maker has lobbied the White House for approval aimed at easing financial pressure ​on the company ⁠from rising memory chip prices, the newspaper said, citing unnamed sources.

The White House, Apple and CXMT did not respond to requests for comment ⁠from Reuters ‌outside business hours.

The lobbying push underscores the bind facing major U.S. technology companies ‌as soaring memory chip costs collide with Washington’s national security ⁠restrictions on Chinese chipmakers.

Apple approached the Commerce Department more than a month ago and ‌also engaged other administration officials ‌and allies in Washington, one person told the ‌FT.

CXMT, China’s top memory chipmaker, was ‌designated as a Chinese military company by the Defense Department under the Biden administration. The company, among others, was approved ⁠by an interagency ⁠committee last year for addition to the Commerce Department’s Entity List.

Source : https://www.deccanherald.com/business/companies/apple-seeks-approval-to-buy-chips-from-blacklisted-chinese-company-report-4053994

A punishing heatwave sweeping across much of Europe prompted a partial alcohol ban in France, ‌nationwide warnings in Germany and the closure of a soccer fan zone in Spain, as temperatures climbed towards record levels.

France was expecting 35 of its 96 departments or regions to declare red heatwave alerts on Sunday with temperatures of 39 ​to 40 degrees Celsius (102-104 Fahrenheit) expected from the southwest through the Paris region into Burgundy, ​with some areas possibly reaching 41C.

After a crisis meeting, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu ⁠pre-emptively banned alcohol consumption on Sunday at the annual Fete de la Musique festivals and other ​public events to be held in those 35 regions on Sunday. Authorities in Paris ordered parks to ​remain open around the clock, however.

Heat alerts were declared in most of Germany, with temperatures approaching 38C. The DWD weather service warned that a combination of heat and humidity could trigger severe thunderstorms.

COOLING BENEATH A ROMAN TEMPLE

Beyond the Alps, temperatures expected to reach ​36–37C were transforming daily life and tourism in some Italian towns.

Visitors queued under a blazing sun outside ​the Colosseum as Rome’s summer heat turned sightseeing into a test of endurance. Some sought relief in the cooler ‌underground ⁠spaces beneath the half-hidden remains of the Temple of Claudius.

In the northern city of Bologna, one of the hottest in the peninsula, people splashed water on their faces at the 16th-century Fountain of Neptune and sheltered in the shade of the porticoes.

But in Spain, the football federation decided to close the ​fan zone it has set ​up with giant ⁠screens in Madrid’s Plaza de Colon square, meaning fans will have to watch Spain’s World Cup match against Saudi Arabia elsewhere. Ironically, the teams themselves will ​enjoy the benefit of an air-conditioned stadium in Atlanta, powered partly with ​solar panels.

Scientists ⁠say climate change is making heatwaves more frequent and intense across Europe, raising the risk of health emergencies and economic disruption during the summer months.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/europe-swelters-under-heatwave-prompting-crisis-talks-france-2026-06-20

A Swedish transport authority is recommending a vote against the Europe-wide rollout of Tesla’s (TSLA.O), opens new tab supervised self-driving software, unless the U.S. EV ‌maker disables its ability to exceed legal speed limits, a regulatory letter shows.
In a previously unreported letter dated April 30, obtained through a freedom of information request, the Swedish Transport Administration (TRV) said Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) feature should not be approved for European Union roads unless its ability to ignore speed limits is removed.

The letter was sent to the EU’s Technical Committee ​on Motor Vehicles (TCMV), which is due to meet again on June 30 to discuss the matter, ahead of a vote at a later ​date on whether to roll out the technology across the bloc.
Tesla has already secured approval in some European countries for FSD, which ⁠allows vehicles to steer themselves on city streets and highways under human supervision. EU-wide approval would support Tesla’s sales in the region, where it faces ​growing competition from Chinese EV makers.

Tesla, led by CEO Elon Musk, did not respond to requests for comment. Its user manual says drivers should not rely solely ​on the system for speed limits and must “drive at a safe speed based on traffic and road conditions”.

FSD allows users to set a “Speed Offset”, letting the vehicle exceed posted limits by a driver-defined margin.

In its letter, the TRV said that “allowing automated systems to systematically exceed legal speed limits … risks undermining both the legal framework and the expected safety benefits of ​vehicle automation”.

It called for the feature to be removed. “Failing this, the Swedish Transport Administration recommends that TCMV vote against the proposed introduction,” it said.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/sweden-may-oppose-teslas-supervised-self-driving-tech-europe-over-speeding-2026-06-18

A $300 billion private ​fund designed to trigger investment into Iran is outlined in the U.S.-Iran framework agreement and more than half that sum has already been committed, a source with ‌direct knowledge of the deal told Reuters.
The fund is designed to give both sides an economic incentive to conclude a final deal to end the war, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the plan has not yet been announced as Washington and Tehran prepare to sign on Friday.

The fund’s existence has been previously reported but Reuters is revealing for the first time that more than half of the amount ​has already been committed and that it will be comprised entirely of private-sector funds.
U.S. and Iranian officials said on Sunday they had agreed on a framework to ​end their war, which began when U.S. and Israeli forces attacked Iran on February 28, halt the U.S. blockade of Iran and reopen ⁠the Strait of Hormuz, a key supply route for global oil and gas.
The new fund is a private investment vehicle, not a reconstruction or reparations programme and will not include any ​government money or grants, the source said, adding that companies based in the U.S., the Gulf Arab states, Asia, South America and Africa have agreed to commit financing.

Investments pledged span energy, ​logistics, manufacturing and transport, the source said.
A senior Iranian source told Reuters that Tehran had originally sought $400 billion as compensation for war damages from the U.S. but Washington had said it would not provide it.
The idea for the fund, which is to be named the Reconstruction and Development Fund, then emerged.
The mechanism envisages regional countries contributing in various ways, the Iranian source said. These include securing loans, establishing credit lines or ​directly financing the reconstruction of sites damaged in the war, including facilities such as the Mobarakeh Steel complex, refineries, airports and, more broadly, infrastructure affected by the conflict.
Iran, one of ​the Middle East’s largest economies, has attracted almost no significant foreign direct investment in the past four decades, frozen out of global capital markets by successive waves of U.S. and international sanctions.

The country has ‌the world’s second-largest ⁠proven natural gas reserves and the fourth-largest proven oil reserves.
It also has a young, educated population of more than 92 million people, a diversified industrial base and significant untapped potential in sectors ranging from petrochemicals and mining to tourism and agriculture.
The investment fund is entirely separate from a parallel negotiating track over the lifting of U.S. sanctions and the release of Iranian sovereign assets frozen abroad, the source with knowledge of the deal said, describing the two as distinct financial mechanisms with different purposes and timelines.
The fund will not be created or become operational until ​a final and satisfactory deal is concluded. The ​memorandum of understanding, once signed, is intended ⁠to structure the process over the next 60 days.

“It’ll only be created once the final deal is signed,” the source said. “During these 60 days the fund administrators will work with Iranians and investors to plan and scope projects.”
Iran’s foreign ministry and Pakistan’s foreign ministry, which helped ​mediate the investment fund deal, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A White House spokeswoman pointed to a CBS interview with ​Vice President JD Vance on ⁠Monday in which he said that Iran could gain access to a $300 billion reconstruction fund backed by Gulf states if it complies with an agreement with Washington, including dismantling its nuclear program, eliminating its stockpile of enriched material, and accepting a stringent inspection and enforcement regime.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/iran-deal-includes-300-billion-fund-more-than-half-which-already-committed-2026-06-16/

Warfare in Ukraine ​and beyond faces a paradigm shift in the coming years as artificial intelligence systems integrate into unified networks that speed up ‌decisions on the battlefield, a senior Ukrainian official said.

Ukraine, in the fifth year of fighting a full-scale Russian invasion, is already using AI for a plethora of battlefield functions, from flying drones at targets to helping plan combat operations and crunching data on Russian missile attacks.

“AI will form a new paradigm of warfare. It’s already actively doing so,” Danylo Tsvok, the ​head of the defence ministry’s AI centre, told Reuters.

He predicted AI systems would eventually be unified into a single network overseeing the battlefield, leading ​to a “war of operating systems” with Russia in the next three to five years, if the conflict continues.

“The system ⁠that possesses more data and better understands that data, proposes solutions — that system will gain the advantage over the other,” he said.

The centre was founded ​in March as Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov seeks to put AI and data-driven decision-making at the heart of Ukraine’s defences.

Drones, still mostly flown by pilots, have already upended ​the way the war is being fought.

Ukrainian and Russian troops launch thousands of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) a day at each other. Kyiv is also trying to solve its frontline troop shortage with ground robots.

The ability of drones to constantly surveil the battlefield and hit targets with precision has accelerated the “kill chain” – the process of planning and executing a strike ​on the enemy. AI decision-making would speed this up even more, Tsvok said.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/ukraines-defence-ai-chief-predicts-new-paradigm-warfare-2026-06-12

A Kentucky school district secured roughly $27 million in settlements from Meta Platforms (META.O), and other ​social media companies over claims they fueled a student mental‑health crisis, according to records seen by Reuters on Friday.
Meta agreed to ‌pay the most at $9 million in the bellwether case for school districts, according to documents that reveal financial terms for the first time as terms of the deals had not been disclosed in court.

The operator of Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp settled the case brought by Breathitt County School District on May 21, a few weeks before a planned June trial, following settlements by ​co-defendants Snap Inc (SNAP.N), YouTube parent Alphabet (GOOGL.O), and TikTok parent ByteDance.
The settlements did not require the companies to admit liability and include no ​agreements to make changes to the social media platforms.
The companies have denied the allegations and say they take extensive steps ⁠to keep teens and young users safe on their platforms.
YouTube agreed to pay $2.01 million to settle the case, and Snap and TikTok agreed to pay $8 ​million each, according to copies of the settlements obtained by Reuters from the school district via a public records request. YouTube also agreed to provide the ​district with special training on Google Classroom and other products.

Representatives for Meta, YouTube and Snapchat said in separate statements that the companies had resolved the case amicably and continue to focus on tools and features meant to keep users safe on their platforms.
Representatives for TikTok did not respond to a request for comment.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs also did not ​respond to a request for comment. They have previously said that their focus is now on pursuing similar claims brought by 1,200 other school districts.

BIGGER ​SCHOOL DISTRICTS ALSO SUING

The Breathitt school district, which is in a rural county in Appalachia, accused the companies of designing their platforms to keep young users hooked, driving ‌anxiety, depression ⁠and self-harm among students and leaving schools to deal with the consequences.
The school district was seeking over $60 million to cover the costs of counteracting social media’s impact on students’ mental health and to fund a 15-year mental health program to mitigate the problem. It had also asked for a court order requiring the companies to modify their platforms to reduce addictive features.

Breathitt’s case was slated to be the first among the school districts’ cases, which have been consolidated ​in federal court in California, to go ​to trial. Judges and attorneys often ⁠use bellwether verdicts to assess the potential value of remaining claims and guide settlement talks.
Breathitt is a small district that serves about 1,600 students across six schools, according to federal data, but the litigation also includes far larger ​districts.
Tucson Unified School District in Arizona, a district of about 40,000 students whose case is scheduled to go to ​trial in February, ⁠is seeking more than $1.1 billion to fund a 15-year mental health program, plus over $100 million in compensation for the time teachers and staff have spent managing social media’s impact.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/meta-paid-9-million-settle-kentucky-school-districts-lawsuit-over-social-media-2026-05-29/

Anthropic said on Thursday it has raised $65 billion at a post-money valuation of $965 billion, as it aims to ​bolster computing capacity to meet growing demand for chatbot Claude and ‌scale its products.
The new valuation after the series H funding round puts Anthropic ahead of OpenAI, last valued at $852 billion post-money in March, intensifying a fierce battle between the ​two for dominance in the rapidly evolving AI sector.

Anthropic’s valuation has more ​than doubled from $380 billion in February, reflecting its swift rise ⁠as a leading competitor in the AI race and intense investor demand ​for stakes in frontier companies.
“Since our series G in February, adoption has continued ​to grow across global enterprise customers, and our run-rate revenue crossed $47 billion earlier this month,” Anthropic said in a blog.
Anthropic’s pursuit of private funding coincides with preparations for a public ​listing, according to investors and bankers familiar with the company.
Both Anthropic and ​OpenAI are planning to tap the public market, possibly as quickly as this year, to ‌acquire ⁠the computational resources necessary to power their services and train new models.

Anthropic has struggled to meet demand in recent months, forcing it to institute usage limits during peak hours and incentivize off-peak use by offering more compute during that ​time.
Its latest round ​was led by ⁠Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks and Sequoia Capital, with Coatue and ICONIQ as co-leads, among others.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/anthropic-raises-65-billion-now-valued-965-billion-2026-05-28/

In an Ebola outbreak, hours matter.
Yet the response to the deadly and fast-spreading epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo is weeks if not months behind – and missing thousands of people who may be at risk.

Interviews with global health officials and documents from a meeting led ​by the World Health Organization and Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention show how behind the curve authorities are in fighting the latest outbreak.

Caused by a strain of the virus known as ‌Bundibugyo for which there is no vaccine or treatment, the outbreak has already caused a suspected 220 deaths and 900 cases, according to the WHO. It has spread to Uganda, where there are seven cases.
Health teams are racing to find thousands of people who may have been exposed to the virus while also grappling with myriad challenges that make it difficult to contain.
Problems at a local level include lack of basic supplies as well as mistrust from a community scarred by previous outbreaks. Globally, the response is hampered by the withdrawal of the U.S. from ​the WHO and wider funding cuts, many health sources said.

Documents from Friday’s virtual coordination meeting show that, as of last week, only 7% of the 1,261 people identified as contacts of suspected Ebola patients had been found ​and followed up. The WHO put the number at more than 2,000 on Wednesday.

‘OUTPACING THE RESPONSE’

The outbreak is “outpacing the response”, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus posted on Wednesday.
“Attacks on health ⁠facilities make tracking cases and their contacts nearly impossible.”
In eastern Congo, the worst-hit area, hospitals have been attacked and isolation tents burned by angry mobs reclaiming bodies of loved ones, apparently unaware of risks from infectious corpses.
That is hindering the ​operation to stop the spread of the virus and track those at risk in an area already wracked with conflict and with poor health infrastructure, three experts said.

In a document summary of the meeting on Friday, the partners agreed that reaching ​more contacts is now the key priority as funding and emergency response personnel trickle in.
“Bottom line: No vaccine exists. No therapy exists. The virus circulated undetected for six weeks. Cross-border spread is confirmed. Healthcare workers are dying. Every day without a fully resourced response is a day the outbreak gains ground,” a presentation by the WHO Africa team from the meeting reads.
Professor Salim Abdool Karim, a leading South African epidemiologist and one of the key figures advising Africa CDC, said the outbreak was moving at “breakneck speed”.
“If you had to choose a bad place for ​this to happen, it would be Ituri,” he added of the province at its epicentre.
While Congolese officials are well-versed in fighting Ebola – this is the 17th outbreak since 1976 – shortages remain a problem, including of the right tests to detect Bundibugyo ​rather than other Ebola viruses.
This was also a factor delaying initial detection

“There are very few people on the ground – and there are other problems as well, like getting fuel for the vehicles. It goes on and on,” Karim said.

U.S. MISSING

Several sources, including one U.S. ‌official briefed on ⁠the Ebola response and another working with WHO, said problems would have been solved more easily and quickly in the past, when the U.S. worked with WHO and often co-led the international response to outbreaks.
The U.S. left the organization in January and has cut international aid funding more broadly, alongside a number of other wealthy countries.
“The organisations that would have been able to do this work are not there anymore,” said one U.S. official briefed on the response.
Amadou Bocoum, CARE’s country director, said his emergency response team had been cut by a third.
U.S. Department of State spokesperson Tommy Pigott said the country had responded within 24 hours of the first confirmed cases, mobilising a range of medical, humanitarian, operational and consular resources to rapidly respond.
“Our ​highest priority remains protecting the health and security of ​the American people by working to prevent this outbreak ⁠from reaching our shores,” he said.

‘BACK TO BASICS’

With the scale and origins of the outbreak unclear, it was a “hell of a job” to find all potential cases and contacts, said Marion Koopmans, a Dutch virologist on the WHO’s emergency committee.
Ebola spreads through direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected people once they have symptoms, contaminated materials, and bodies of those who ​have died with the illness. The contacts of Ebola patients need to be found and then watched over for 21 days, the incubation period of the virus. If ​they get symptoms, they can isolate, ⁠stopping further spread.
“We’re going back to the basics of Ebola outbreak responses when we didn’t have the means to contain it like we did before vaccines and therapeutics,” said Dr. Alan Gonzalez, deputy director of operations for Medecins Sans Frontieres, which has asked staff worldwide to apply to reinforce the workforce in Congo.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/breakneck-ebola-epidemic-congo-outpaces-worlds-response-2026-05-27/

The Pentagon on Wednesday announced a five-year, $9.69 billion ​agreement to consolidate Microsoft (MSFT.O), and ‌other enterprise software licenses scattered across the military services, the intelligence community, and ​the U.S. Coast Guard into ​a single contract vehicle, officials said.
The ⁠cost-cutting effort hands Microsoft a guaranteed ​enterprise-wide foothold across the U.S. armed ​forces while squeezing out duplicative spending that officials said had quietly ballooned across years ​of fragmented, go-it-alone procurement.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/pentagon-awards-microsoft-97-billion-deal-bid-cut-costs-end-license-sprawl-2026-05-27/

Russia said on Monday that it intended to launch “systematic ​strikes” on targets in Kyiv linked to the Ukrainian military as well as decision-making centres, and urged foreigners to leave, a day after one of ‌its heaviest bombardments of the city since the start of the war.
But Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha urged Kyiv’s allies not to give in to “Russian blackmail.” And the head of the EU mission in the city said the 27-nation bloc was “not going anywhere.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, according to a Russian Foreign Ministry statement, that the impending strikes were “in response to the continuing terrorist attacks ​by the Kyiv regime” against civilians in Russia.
The statement said Russia’s armed forces “are starting systematic strikes on facilities located in Kyiv that are used for the needs ​of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as on centres where the corresponding decisions are being made.”
An earlier Russian Foreign Ministry ⁠statement urged foreigners, including diplomats, to leave Kyiv as quickly as possible.

Russia has cited what it describes as a deliberate drone strike last Friday on a student dorm in the ​Russian-controlled Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine’s military denied the Russian accusations and said it had struck an elite drone command unit in the area.
In Kyiv, rescuers tackled the aftermath of Sunday’s strikes, ​which authorities said had killed two people and injured 91.
Moscow fired an Oreshnik hypersonic missile near Kyiv – its third use of the nuclear-capable weapon in more than four years of war.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Sybiha wrote on the social media platform X: “We are currently discussing with our partners that there is no need to give in to this Russian blackmail.”
The head of the EU mission in Kyiv, Katarina Mathernova, said the ​Russian warning sought to sow panic.

“Russia wants fear. Panic. Isolation of Ukraine. It will not work,” she said on social media. “The EU is not going anywhere. We are staying ​in Kyiv. We are staying with Ukraine.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said around 300 sites across Kyiv had been damaged in the weekend strikes, including a newly opened museum devoted to the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear disaster.
More ‌than 70 ⁠foreign diplomats paid their respects to the victims of the strikes in Kyiv, visiting the heavily damaged neighbourhood of Lukyanivka on Monday.

ATTACKS IN RUSSIA, UKRAINE

Meanwhile, Ukraine continued its own attacks against Russian infrastructure and industrial assets.
In Russia’s Belgorod region, one man was killed and another injured in a missile and drone attack that also cut power and water supplies, local authorities said on Telegram.
The Russia-installed head of parts of eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, Denis Pushilin, said seven people were killed in Ukrainian attacks, including a family of four whose car was struck in ​the industrial town of Horlivka.

In Ukrainian-held territory, two ​people were killed and 16 wounded in ⁠Russian attacks over 24 hours in the southern Kherson region, regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on Telegram.
In a missile attack on Monday on the town of Derhachi near Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-biggest city, two people were killed and more than 20 injured, officials said.
In the Black Sea port of Odesa, a frequent Russian target, the city’s ​top official said one person was killed and three injured in a Russian strike.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/energy-infrastructure-damaged-missile-attack-russias-belgorod-region-local-2026-05-25/

Doctors operating on the front lines of the fight against Ebola in Congo, already grappling ​with shortages of basic supplies, are now also having to deal with attacks on their facilities and fleeing patients as the virus spreads ‌rapidly.
At least three such incidents have occurred in the northeastern province of Ituri where the first Ebola cases were reported, including two at the weekend targeting the same hospital that permitted more than two dozen patients to run away.

The attacks recall the widespread violence targeting health facilities during a 2018-2020 outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo that killed more than 25 health workers.
Some ​were perpetrated by civilians who were angry about not being able to bury their loved ones or were convinced that the outbreak was a hoax. ​The influx of money and manpower into an area that had felt neglected during decades of conflict and humanitarian crisis has ⁠spurred local suspicions about the real motives for the sudden spike of interest.
A similar dynamic seems to be playing out now, said Dr Richard Lokodu, medical director of ​the Mongbwalu General Referral Hospital, which came under attack first on Saturday and again on Sunday.

“There is denial of the disease within the population, with some members wanting ​to claim the bodies of suspected and/or confirmed cases,” he said.
The World Health Organization has declared the outbreak of the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, the third-largest such outbreak on record, a public health emergency of international concern.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Sunday there had been more than 900 suspected cases in the outbreak so far, including 101 confirmed cases.
On Monday, Tedros said there ​had been 220 suspected deaths in the current Ebola outbreak and that a delay in detecting cases meant responders were now “playing catch-up”.

PATIENT DIED WHILE TRYING TO FLEE

At the ​Mongbwalu General Referral Hospital, located in Mongbwalu town where many cases have been reported, 18 Ebola patients fled on Saturday after “unidentified individuals” burned tents, erected by medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, ‌where patients ⁠were being isolated, Lokodu said.

Four lab results from those patients have come back – three negative results and one positive result, he said.

“So we have one confirmed case of Ebola that continues to circulate in the community and evade the response,” Lokodu said.
On Sunday, the hospital came under four waves of attacks by young people mobilised by relatives of a Christian religious leader who died of Ebola, he said.
Seven other patients escaped and Congolese police and soldiers had to mobilise to restore order, he said.
A suspected ​Ebola patient who was in critical condition ​with hemorrhaging died in the second ⁠attack while trying to flee from his bed, Lokodu added.
The perpetrators of the attacks wanted dead Ebola victims’ bodies released for burial, Lokodu said.
The bodies of Ebola victims are highly infectious after death, and unsafe burials – in which family members handle the ​body without proper protective equipment – are a leading driver of transmission.

LONG HISTORY OF ATTACKS ON EBOLA TREATMENT CENTRES

Health workers faced ​a handful of attacks ⁠by angry mobs during the 2013-2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the largest on record, some of whom accused them of spreading the virus.
But the phenomenon exploded during the 2018-2020 outbreak in eastern Congo, a region marked by rampant insecurity and mistrust of formal authorities.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/ebola-patients-flee-attacks-congo-health-facilities-hobbling-response-2026-05-25/

Russia said on Monday that it intended to launch “systematic ​strikes” on targets in Kyiv linked to the Ukrainian military as well as decision-making centres, and urged foreigners to leave, a day after one of ‌its heaviest bombardments of the city since the start of the war.
But Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha urged Kyiv’s allies not to give in to “Russian blackmail.” And the head of the EU mission in the city said the 27-nation bloc was “not going anywhere.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, according to a Russian Foreign Ministry statement, that the impending strikes were “in response to the continuing terrorist attacks ​by the Kyiv regime” against civilians in Russia.
The statement said Russia’s armed forces “are starting systematic strikes on facilities located in Kyiv that are used for the needs ​of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as on centres where the corresponding decisions are being made.”
An earlier Russian Foreign Ministry ⁠statement urged foreigners, including diplomats, to leave Kyiv as quickly as possible.

Russia has cited what it describes as a deliberate drone strike last Friday on a student dorm in the ​Russian-controlled Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine’s military denied the Russian accusations and said it had struck an elite drone command unit in the area.
In Kyiv, rescuers tackled the aftermath of Sunday’s strikes, ​which authorities said had killed two people and injured 91.
Moscow fired an Oreshnik hypersonic missile near Kyiv – its third use of the nuclear-capable weapon in more than four years of war.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Sybiha wrote on the social media platform X: “We are currently discussing with our partners that there is no need to give in to this Russian blackmail.”
The head of the EU mission in Kyiv, Katarina Mathernova, said the ​Russian warning sought to sow panic.

“Russia wants fear. Panic. Isolation of Ukraine. It will not work,” she said on social media. “The EU is not going anywhere. We are staying ​in Kyiv. We are staying with Ukraine.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said around 300 sites across Kyiv had been damaged in the weekend strikes, including a newly opened museum devoted to the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear disaster.
More ‌than 70 ⁠foreign diplomats paid their respects to the victims of the strikes in Kyiv, visiting the heavily damaged neighbourhood of Lukyanivka on Monday.

ATTACKS IN RUSSIA, UKRAINE

Meanwhile, Ukraine continued its own attacks against Russian infrastructure and industrial assets.
In Russia’s Belgorod region, one man was killed and another injured in a missile and drone attack that also cut power and water supplies, local authorities said on Telegram.
The Russia-installed head of parts of eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, Denis Pushilin, said seven people were killed in Ukrainian attacks, including a family of four whose car was struck in ​the industrial town of Horlivka.

In Ukrainian-held territory, two ​people were killed and 16 wounded in ⁠Russian attacks over 24 hours in the southern Kherson region, regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on Telegram.
In a missile attack on Monday on the town of Derhachi near Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-biggest city, two people were killed and more than 20 injured, officials said.
In the Black Sea port of Odesa, a frequent Russian target, the city’s ​top official said one person was killed and three injured in a Russian strike.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/energy-infrastructure-damaged-missile-attack-russias-belgorod-region-local-2026-05-25/

Two liquefied natural gas tankers are exiting the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, heading to ‌Pakistan and China, while a supertanker with Iraqi crude for China left the Gulf on Saturday after being stranded for nearly three months, shipping data showed.
The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran that began on February 28 has severely curtailed shipping through the Strait of ​Hormuz, through which around one-fifth of the world’s supply of oil and LNG normally flows.

The vessels ​are among a handful of supertankers exiting the Gulf this month via a transit route ⁠that Iran has ordered ships to use. Last week, three Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs) made their way to China ​and South Korea with 6 million barrels of crude.
LNG tanker Fuwairit is crossing the Strait of Hormuz on ​Monday and is expected to discharge its cargo in Pakistan on Tuesday, shipping data on LSEG and Kpler showed. The vessel, sailing under the Bahamas flag, loaded LNG at Qatar’s Ras Laffan port around March 28.
Japan’s Mitsui O.S.K. Lines (MOL) (9104.T), which owns the ​Fuwairit, could not be immediately reached for comment.

The LNG tanker Al Rayyan has also exited the strait. Carrying ​a cargo loaded at Ras Laffan, it was last seen in the Gulf on May 22, and currently shows up outside ‌the ⁠strait between Iran and Oman. It is expected to discharge its cargo in China on June 27, LSEG and Kpler data show.
QatarEnergy, which owns Al Rayyan, did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside office hours.
Separately, the VLCC Eagle Verona, which exited the strait on Saturday, is expected to reach Ningbo port in ​eastern China on June 12 ​to discharge its cargo, ⁠shipping data on LSEG and Kpler showed.
The Singaporean-flagged vessel chartered by Unipec, the trading arm of Asia’s largest refiner, Sinopec (600028.SS), loaded nearly 2 million barrels of Basrah crude ​around February 26, according to the data.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/vessels-carrying-middle-east-oil-lng-exit-hormuz-head-pakistan-china-2026-05-25/

The United States on Friday temporarily banned the entry of lawful permanent residents ​who have been in the Democratic Republic of ‌Congo, Uganda or South Sudan in the previous 21 days, citing concerns over Ebola.
U.S. citizens, nationals and green card holders had ​been exempt from a 30-day Ebola ban, ​but the U.S. CDC said on Friday that ⁠extending the ban to green card holders was necessary ​to stop the virus from entering the country.

“Applying this ​authority to lawful permanent residents for a limited period of time provides a balance between protecting public health and managing emergency ​response resources,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ​said in a statement.
The World Health Organization on Friday raised to “very ‌high” ⁠the risk of the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola turning into a national outbreak in the DRC and has declared the outbreak there and in Uganda an emergency ​of international ​concern.
The CDC first ⁠issued the order on Monday under Title 42 of U.S. public health law, ​which allows federal health authorities to prohibit ​migrants from ⁠entering the country to prevent the spread of contagious diseases.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/us-extends-ebola-travel-ban-green-card-holders-2026-05-23/

The number of Americans filing claims for unemployment benefits fell last week, pointing to labor market resilience and giving the Federal Reserve room ​to focus on surging inflation from the war with Iran.
There are no signs yet that employers are responding to rising costs by reducing headcount. The nearly three-month-long U.S.-Israeli conflict ‌with Iran has disrupted shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, boosting energy prices, as well as straining global supply chains and causing shortages of a wide range of goods, including fertilizers, aluminum and consumer products.

“We still can’t rule out some spillover effects from the war and the spike in oil prices on to the labor market, which we have always expected would come with a lag,” said Matthew Martin, a senior U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. “But for now, we think ​the labor market is showing enough stability to allow the Fed to feel comfortable keeping policy steady.”
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits slipped 3,000 to a seasonally adjusted 209,000 for the ​week ended May 16, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 210,000 claims for the latest week. Claims have remained ⁠low despite high-profile layoffs in the technology sector, linked to the adoption of artificial intelligence.

The labor market could still soften. A survey from S&P Global on Thursday showed private sector employment dropping to a ​21-month low in May, with services businesses citing “growing concerns over rising costs and deteriorating demand conditions.” Economists are anticipating that accelerating inflation will erode demand and undercut economic growth.
The survey also suggested that price pressures ​would continue to build. Its measure of prices paid by businesses for inputs jumped in May to the highest level since November 2022. Businesses passed on the higher costs to consumers, with S&P Global also noting “growing supply scarcities.”
Stocks on Wall Street fell as oil prices rebounded after Reuters reported that Iran’s Supreme Leader had issued a directive that the country’s near-weapons-grade uranium should not be sent abroad.

The dollar advanced versus a basket of currencies. U.S. Treasury yields were higher. The ​benchmark 10-year yield on Tuesday touched its highest level since January 2025.

INFLATION CAUSING DISCOMFORT

Financial markets expect the U.S. central bank to keep its benchmark overnight interest rate in the 3.50%-3.75% range into next ​year. Minutes of the Fed’s April 28-29 meeting published on Wednesday showed concerns about inflation because of the conflict intensified last month, with a growing number of policymakers saying the Fed should lay the groundwork for a possible rate ‌hike.
Policymakers “generally expected ⁠labor market conditions to remain stable in the near term,” the minutes showed, though most judged “that risks to the employment side” of the Fed’s “dual mandate were tilted to the downside.”
Last week’s claims data covered the period during which the government surveyed businesses for the nonfarm payrolls component of May’s employment report. Claims decreased between the April and May survey weeks. Payrolls increased by 115,000 jobs in April after rising 185,000 in March.

The number of people receiving unemployment benefits after an initial week of aid, a proxy for hiring, increased 6,000 to a seasonally adjusted 1.782 million during the week ended May 9, the claims report ​showed.
While the labor market is holding up, the war ​is inflicting more pain on an already ⁠fragile housing market. A report from the Commerce Department’s Census Bureau showed single-family housing starts, which account for the bulk of homebuilding, tumbled 9.0% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 930,000 units in April. Single-family homebuilding fell in all four regions. It declined 2.4% year-on-year in April.
Rising Treasury yields are driving up ​mortgage rates, which track the 10-year note. The popular 30-year fixed mortgage rate surged this week, averaging a nine-month high of 6.51%, data from mortgage finance ​agency Freddie Mac showed.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/us-weekly-jobless-claims-fall-amid-labor-market-resilience-2026-05-21/

Meta carried out a fresh round of layoffs on Wednesday, informing thousands of employees that their roles were being eliminated

Meta carried out a fresh round of layoffs on Wednesday, informing thousands of employees that their roles were being eliminated to offset big investments that the company is making and to streamline operations. Around 8,000 employees across the world will be affected by the layoffs, while another 7,000 will be transferred to new initiatives related to AI ​workflows, Reuters reported.

In an email sent to impacted employees, Meta disclosed details of severance pay and gave guidance on visa, notice period and other queries.

To employees on visa

A section of the lengthy email was dedicated to employees working on a visa in the United States. Like other big tech companies, Meta employs thousands of people on an H-1B visa.

The layoff email explained that employees on visa would be granted access to general immigration guidance to help address any immediate questions. By logging into the Alumni Portal, they would also be able to get the contact information of their assigned law firm to deal with immigration-related queries.

‘Gather personal items’

Another section of the email explained that laid-off employees would lose access to company systems and their badges to enter the campus would be deactivated.

Meta had earlier asked all employees to work from home on May 20. However, the email contained guidance on what to do if an impacted employee was already in the office. “If you are already in the office, we ask that you please gather any personal items at your desk and head home,” the email said.

The full text of the email was accessed by Business Insider.

Meta to cut about 8,000 jobs globally starting from Singapore, reassign around 7,000 staff to new AI focused roles, affected employees were notified by a 4 AM HR email

Meta Layoffs: Meta has announced plans to cut around 8,000 jobs globally as part of a major organisational restructuring drive, with the process beginning from Singapore. Alongside the layoffs, nearly 7,000 employees are expected to be reassigned to new AI-focused workflow initiatives as the company accelerates its push towards artificial intelligence integration.

Meta HR sent the affected employees a 4 AM email.

Alongside firing, Meta is planning to not fill almost 6,000 open positions in order to make the company more efficient and AI-oriented. With this, the total headcount of 14,000 has been removed.

110,223 Tech Employees Fired So Far In 2026

A total of 110,223 employees were laid off so far in 144 tech companies globally in 2026, according to layoff tracking website Layoffs.fyi.

The wave of AI-driven restructuring across the tech industry has intensified in 2026, with several major companies announcing large-scale layoffs and workforce changes. Amazon has already announced plans to cut around 16,000 jobs this year, while Oracle is reportedly reducing nearly 30,000 roles globally as companies focus on automation, cost efficiency, and AI integration.

Meanwhile, Block, the fintech firm behind Square, slashed nearly 40 per cent of its workforce in February, citing operational changes linked to artificial intelligence adoption. Professional networking platform LinkedIn also announced fresh layoffs earlier this month, with WARN notices confirming hundreds of job cuts.

Zuckerberg Push Towards AI

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has increasingly positioned artificial intelligence at the centre of the company’s strategy as it races to compete with rivals such as Google and OpenAI. The AI push has triggered significant operational and workforce changes across Meta, including multiple rounds of layoffs aimed at improving efficiency. Zuckerberg has also encouraged engineers to rely more heavily on AI agents for coding and routine tasks, while reportedly experimenting with AI tools to handle some of his own CEO responsibilities, including collecting employee feedback.

Source : https://www.news18.com/business/economy/meta-layoffs-8000-jobs-cut-globally-7000-employees-shifted-to-ai-focused-roles-ws-l-10100856.html

“I want to make clear that ​we had accepted the final proposal presented by government mediator,” he told reporters.
“We express deep regret ​and feel disappointed but the union plans to go ahead with the strike according to the law,” Choi said.
Samsung Electronics said in a statement that the union had insisted on “unacceptable demands” that included the size of ​bonuses for loss-making units.
“The reason an agreement could not be reached …. is that accepting the labor ​union’s excessive demands would undermine the fundamental principles of company management,” it said.
Its shares were down about 3% ‌after ⁠the news.

South Korea’s government threatened at the weekend to step in and order emergency arbitration, citing the adverse impact the strike could have on the economy.
The measure, which has been rarely employed, would prevent the strike from going ahead for 30 days while the government mediates talks.
But ​a South Korean government ​official said on Wednesday ⁠that talk of emergency arbitration is premature and that there was still time for dialogue.
South Korea’s labour commissioner Park Soo-keun, who mediated the ​talks, said that the government is open to restarting the mediation process “anytime”.
Samsung ​accounts for ⁠almost a quarter of the country’s exports. It is also the world’s largest memory chip maker and production disruptions could dent global supply at a time when the AI boom has caused shortages.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/samsung-elec-union-resume-pay-talks-one-day-ahead-strike-deadline-2026-05-20/

An Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda has been declared ​a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization, after 80 deaths were attributed to the disease.
The WHO said the outbreak, caused by ‌the Bundibugyo virus, did not meet the criteria of a pandemic emergency but there was a high risk the disease could spread further to countries sharing land borders with the DRC.

On Sunday, the U.N. health agency said in a statement that 80 suspected deaths, eight laboratory-confirmed cases and 246 suspected cases had been reported as of Saturday in the DRC’s Ituri province across at least three health zones, including Bunia, Rwampara and Mongbwalu.
One case was ​confirmed in the eastern Congolese city of Goma, a statement by M23 rebels said.
At least six Americans in the DRC have been exposed to the Ebola virus, with ​three exposures deemed high risk, CBS News reported, citing unnamed sources with international aid organizations. STAT News said one American may have developed symptoms. ⁠Reuters could not immediately verify the reports.

STAT News, which also cited unnamed sources, said the U.S. government was trying to transport the individuals out of the country, possibly to a military ​base in Germany.
Satish Pillai, Ebola response incident manager at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, declined at a Sunday briefing to say whether any Americans were among those who had ​been infected but stressed to reporters that the risk to the U.S. remains low.
CDC officials told reporters the agency has activated its emergency response center for the outbreak and plans to send more people to its offices in the DRC and Uganda.
The U.S. Embassy in the DRC issued a health alert on Sunday reminding U.S. citizens that the State Department advises Americans not to travel to the Ituri province and that the U.S. government ​is “extremely limited in its ability to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens” in the area.

“Do not travel to this area for any reason,” the alert said.

INTERNATIONAL SPREAD DOCUMENTED, WHO SAYS

The DRC health ​ministry had said on Friday that 80 people had died in the new outbreak in the eastern province.
The 17th outbreak in the country, where Ebola was first identified in 1976, could in fact be much ‌larger, given ⁠the high positivity rate of the initial samples and the increasing number of suspected cases being reported, the WHO said.
The outbreak is “extraordinary” as there are no approved Bundibugyo virus-specific therapeutics or vaccines, unlike for Ebola-Zaire strains, it said. All but one of the country’s previous outbreaks were caused by the Zaire strain.
The DRC-Uganda outbreak poses a public health risk to other countries, with some cases of an international spread already documented, the agency said, advising countries to activate their national disaster and emergency-management mechanisms and undertake cross-border screening and screening at main internal roads.
In Uganda’s capital, Kampala, two apparently ​unrelated laboratory-confirmed cases, including one death, were reported ​on Friday and Saturday, from people travelling ⁠from the DRC, the WHO said.
The WHO said on Sunday that a previously reported laboratory-confirmed case in Kinshasa, the DRC capital, had tested negative after secondary testing.
Those who have had contact with or cases of the Bundibugyo virus should not travel internationally, unless as part of a medical ​evacuation, the WHO said.
The agency advised isolating confirmed cases immediately and monitoring contacts daily, with restricted national travel and no international travel until ​21 days after exposure.
At ⁠the same time, the WHO urged countries not to close their borders or restrict travel and trade out of fear, as this could lead to people and goods making informal border crossings that are not monitored.
The DRC’s dense tropical forests are a natural reservoir for the Ebola virus.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/who-declares-ebola-outbreak-congo-uganda-global-health-emergency-2026-05-17/

India Steel Production: India remains one of the quickest expanding steel markets in the world within this global uptrend.

Global steel prices climbed across most major markets in April and early May. But the strongest momentum did not come from China or India.

It came from Brazil.

A latest report by Goldman Sachs — Global Steel: The Steel Market Barometer – May Update — shows Brazil delivering the sharpest gains in steel prices, even as China’s output stayed under pressure and India recorded one of the fastest production growth rates globally.

HRC Prices Rise Across Regions, Brazil On Top

Average hot rolled coil (HRC) prices increased in nearly all major regions in April:

• Brazil: +10% month-on-month
• Japan: +6.5%
• China: +2.9%

On a year-to-date basis, the gap is even wider:

• Brazil: +21% (strongest in sample)
• US: +15%
• Other regions: +6% to +13%

Brazil also topped gains in long steel.

Rebar (steel rod) prices in April:

• Brazil: +12% MoM
• Europe: +6.9%
• Black Sea region: +6.1%

China’s Supply Discipline Delays Show Up In Output

On the supply side, China’s steel production continued to shrink. Steel output in the first two weeks of May fell 3.2 per cent year-on-year.

Goldman Sachs noted: “While the anti-involution effort and long-term capacity cut plan for the Chinese steel sector remain intact, we see delayed execution in 2026E in terms of both capacity and production discipline.”

This means reforms are planned, but not yet fully implemented. Excess supply pressures remain.

India Among Fastest-Growing Steel Producers

While prices surged globally, India stood out on production growth.

Crude steel output growth:

• March: +11% YoY
• Year-to-date: +10%
• February: +7%

India remains one of the quickest expanding steel markets in the world within this global uptrend.

Mixed Trends Across Other Major Producers

• Europe: Crude steel output rose 16% MoM in March, but remained down 3% YoY and YTD.
• US: Average weekly steel production rose 3% MoM in April. Capacity utilisation averaged 79.6%.

China’s Demand Picture Is Uneven

Despite weakness in the property sector, parts of China’s steel demand remain firm.

• Infrastructure investment (excluding water and power): +8.9% YoY in Q1 2026
• Manufacturing activity improved in March
• Construction activity weakened

This shows uneven demand across steel-consuming sectors.

Source : https://www.ndtv.com/business-news/gobal-steel-price-hike-india-fastest-production-china-goldman-sachs-report-11509864?pfrom=home-ndtv_topscroll

LinkedIn will cut about 5 per cent of its staff as it reorganises its business, according to reports.

LinkedIn planned to inform staff of layoffs on Wednesday (May 13), two people familiar with the matter told Reuters, in a widening of technology sector cuts this year.

The Microsoft-owned social network plans to cut about 5 per cent of its headcount as it reorganises teams and focuses personnel on areas where its business is growing, said one of the people, on condition of anonymity.

LinkedIn employs more than 17,500 full-time workers globally, its website says. Reuters was unable to determine the teams affected.

The cuts come as revenue at LinkedIn, which sells recruiting tools and subscriptions, rose 12 per cent in the just-ended quarter from a year prior, in an acceleration of growth in 2026, according to Microsoft’s securities filings.

The layoff rationale was not for artificial intelligence to replace jobs at LinkedIn, one of the people told Reuters. The specter of AI-fueled disruption has nonetheless hung over software incumbents and workers generally.

Technology companies are increasingly reshaping their operations around AI. Jack Dorsey’s Block in February announced it planned to eliminate nearly half its workforce, while Cloudflare last week unveiled a roughly 20 per cent cut. Meta Platforms was targeting a May 20 layoff, Reuters earlier reported.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/linkedin-job-cuts-staff-microsoft-technology-6119001

U.S. banks are rushing to fix scores of IT system weaknesses flagged by Anthropic’s powerful but costly Mythos AI tool, prompting urgent repairs, software upgrades and raising the possibility of ​disruption for customers.
A handful of the country’s largest lenders currently have access to Mythos, Reuters has previously reported, and are now uncovering issues the program is revealing, several sources familiar with the ‌matter said. As they comb through the vulnerabilities, the larger banks are also helping inform smaller banks who do not have direct access to the tool so they can prepare their systems, those sources said. Mythos is viewed by cybersecurity experts as posing significant challenges to the banking industry and its legacy technology systems, prompting a series of warnings from regulators and policymakers.

“This is a wake-up call because cyber risk is moving to machine speed, while much of bank defense still operates at human speed,” said Nitin Seth, ​co-founder & CEO of Incedo, a data, digital, and AI services firm. “It also breaks a long-standing assumption in banking security — that vulnerabilities can remain hidden for extended periods before they are discovered and weaponized.”
As Wall ​Street banks test Mythos, they are discovering that the model is expert at chaining together lower-risk vulnerabilities – or weaknesses – into a high-risk vulnerability, several of the sources ⁠said. That is triggering a rush to check that software is upgraded, said one of the sources at a major bank, and another person with knowledge of the findings.

Mythos is particularly expert at finding vulnerabilities in proprietary ​and open-source code, putting banks under pressure to upgrade aging tech that is at the end of its software support, the source at one of the major banks said.
Mythos is uncovering several hundred to thousands of vulnerabilities ranked ​low to moderate, which need to get fixed, the source with knowledge of the findings said, adding that the model is disruptive for banks because they have to perform the fixes at speeds never previously contemplated – in some cases patching in days vulnerabilities they may have previously waited weeks to patch.
The increased workload could result in banks having to take systems offline more frequently, said one of the people and another source. However, banks would look to do this in a way that causes minimal ​disruption, the second source said.

One of the sources said that such rapid testing of AI products including Mythos is now the new normal which they expect to be doing continually.

HIGH BARRIERS

One of the barriers to entry for ​smaller banks is the cost of the technology. Smaller banks also do not have the processing power to use the model, one of the people said, adding that the big banks have however been sharing data on their findings.
Like other AI ‌models, Claude Mythos Preview ⁠is priced by how many tokens, or pieces of data, it must consume to answer a user’s prompt. It costs $25 per million tokens that a customer inputs into the AI model, and $125 per million tokens that the AI outputs – exactly five times more expensive than Anthropic’s more widely available top AI model, Opus 4.7, Anthropic has said.
Anthropic, however, has said it would provide $100 million worth of credits to Glasswing partners and other Mythos customers, saying this would “cover substantial usage throughout this research preview.” Anthropic has also released recommendations, for companies to shore up defenses even if they do not have access to Mythos while it said in a recent post, that another program, Claude Security, which can ​be used to scan for vulnerabilities, is available to ​a wider set of organizations.

Anthropic leader Mike Krieger ⁠told Reuters last week the AI lab considered both safety and business needs when setting prices. Its pricing should be low enough to encourage usage of its AI while high enough to be “funding the business”, Krieger said. “We want to maximize the amount of aligned tokens flowing into the world,” he said.
Anthropic declined comment on the banks’ ​findings of Mythos.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/anthropics-mythos-sends-us-banks-rushing-plug-cyber-holes-2026-05-12/

Nvidia will invest up to $2.1 billion in data center operator IREN, as part of a broader deal to deploy up to 5 gigawatts of infrastructure to keep up with soaring artificial intelligence demand.

The tie-up, announced on Thursday, underscores the hunger for computing power amid surging adoption of AI, as frontier model developers and Big Tech firms funnel billions to secure capacity.

• Shares of IREN were up around 9 per cent in extended trading. The stock had closed at $56.85 in regular hours.

• IREN has issued to Nvidia a five-year right to buy up to 30 million shares at an exercise price of $70 per share.

• All four U.S. tech giants reported results last week and signaled AI spending would not slow, with combined outlays set to surpass $700 billion this year.

• Thursday’s partnership is intended to accelerate the deployment of large-scale AI factories by combining Nvidia’s factory architecture with IREN’s infrastructure operations, the companies said.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/nvidia-invest-up-21-billion-in-iren-part-ai-data-center-deal-6108311

Mythos, an advanced AI model developed by Anthropic, can compress weeks of hacking effort into hours. This is making banks nervous globally.

A new kind of threat is forcing governments around the world to act quickly. When Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman called top bankers into a high-level security meeting last month, the message was unusually stark. The threat on the table wasn’t a malware strain or a ransomware gang. It was an AI model. Called Claude Mythos, the system is widely seen as a potential inflection point in cybersecurity. Not because it attacks systems directly, but because it can find ways to break them faster than humans ever could.

The finance ministry described the risk as “unprecedented”. The choice of word caught attention. Governments rarely escalate language unless the risk cuts across the entire financial system.

What Is Mythos AI?

Mythos is an advanced AI model developed by Anthropic. Unlike conventional cybersecurity tools that detect known threats, Mythos is believed to identify unknown vulnerabilities-the so-called “zero-day” flaws.

These are the most dangerous bugs in software. No one knows they exist until they are exploited.

In theory, Mythos can:

• Scan systems and detect hidden weaknesses
• Suggest ways to exploit those weaknesses
• Compress weeks of hacking effort into hours

In fact, Anthropic itself has refused to release the AI model publicly. This alone signals how sensitive it is. However, the company has provided controlled access to select firms like Apple and Goldman Sachs. The concern around the AI model escalated further after reports suggested unauthorised access to the model may have already occurred.

Mythos AI: India Takes Pre-Emptive Action

India’s response to the threat is not reactive. It is pre-emptive. The government is already working on a coordinated framework that allows:

• Real-time threat intelligence sharing across banks
• Coordination with agencies like Indian CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team)
• Faster incident response across the financial system

Sitharaman has also pushed the Indian Banks’ Association to create a unified institutional mechanism. The idea is simple: if an attack happens, no bank should be fighting it alone. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is also holding consultations to get on top of the situation.

This mirrors global moves. The US government has, as per reports, engaged Wall Street banks on similar risks. Interestingly, there are also discussions about using such AI systems defensively within government networks.

How Mythos Could Impact Banks & Financial Systems?

The risks go far beyond a typical cyberattack. Sudiptaa Paul Choudhury of QNu Labs calls it a “watershed moment”, where cyber risk could evolve into a systemic financial threat. In extreme scenarios, vulnerabilities exposed by AI could disrupt payments, freeze ATMs, or even trigger liquidity stress and public panic.

Yogesh Jadhav, Group CTO at Choice International, frames the urgency bluntly: attack timelines are shrinking. What once took weeks-finding and exploiting a flaw-could now happen in a day. This fundamentally changes how banks tackle cyber threats — detect, patch, recover.

Mythos AI: From Prevention To Resilience

Experts are clear on one point. Prevention alone will not work anymore. Amit Nigam of FindiBANKIT argues that cybersecurity is no longer just a tech problem. It is a systems design and governance challenge. Banks need continuous monitoring, auditability, and human oversight built into their architecture.

Ayush Sarvaiya of Plus91Labs flags another issue: over-reliance on systems that are not fully understood. In banking, opaque AI decisions can create accountability gaps that are hard to fix after the fact.

The consensus is shifting toward:

• “Secure-by-design” systems
• Continuous threat detection
• Strong access controls and segmentation
• Human-in-the-loop decision making
• AI is both the threat-and the defence

There is an irony here. The same capabilities that make Mythos dangerous can also make financial systems stronger.

Piyush Bagaria of SalarySe notes that AI is already reshaping how institutions think about risk-moving from static rules to real-time, behaviour-driven systems. This has implications beyond cybersecurity, including fraud detection and credit decisioning.

Amit Chandel of Olyv adds that the real differentiator will not be the technology itself, but how responsibly it is deployed. Institutions that build with resilience, trust, and accountability will come out ahead.

Source : https://www.ndtv.com/business-news/mythos-ai-anthropic-hack-banks-finance-ministry-unprecedented-risk-finance-ministry-nirmala-sitharaman-cybersecurity-11454933?pfrom=home-ndtv_topstories

Rivian (RIVN.O), is working on undisclosed variants of its R2 electric vehicles, the company’s CEO said, days after starting volume production of the smaller and more affordable SUVs.
Rivian, ​known for its high-end R1 SUVs and pickup trucks, plans to start deliveries of ‌R2 SUVs around June and analysts have said a successful rollout is critical to expanding the company’s market among the masses.

“There are other variants of R2, which we haven’t shown,” CEO RJ Scaringe said in an interview ​with Reuters, when asked about a pickup variant of R2.

“What we’re building in Georgia allows ​for different variations,” he said, referring to a new plant where Rivian will ⁠eventually expand production of R2 vehicles. Scaringe did not disclose details on what the other variants ​would look like.
Demand for EVs has taken a hit with the removal of key tax credits in ​the United States, although high gasoline prices have raised some interest in battery-powered vehicles. Affordable EVs are seen as a bright spot in the electric vehicle industry since borrowing costs remain high.
Rivian in March announced various trims of ​the R2 SUV. The rollout will begin with a $58,000 R2 and other cheaper versions to follow ​later this year and in 2027. A keenly awaited $45,000 trim with over 275 miles of range, likely to significantly ‌broaden ⁠Rivian’s customer base, will also be available by late 2027.

Rivian, which also makes electric vans primarily for Amazon, first launched its R1T pickups in 2021 followed by R1S SUVs. With the mid-size platform, Rivian has announced R2 SUVs, as well as a smaller R3 crossover and the R3X, a performance ​variant.
“So clearly there could be ​an R2X,” Scaringe said. “There’s ⁠going to be combinations,” he continued, adding, “I want to be careful not to announce the program.”
Rivian’s forecast of a 53% jump in deliveries this ​year is driven by the roll out of R2 vehicles and implies roughly ​22,000 to ⁠23,000 R2 deliveries, assuming steady demand and a smooth production ramp.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/rivian-developing-variants-its-more-affordable-r2-evs-2026-05-06/

SpaceX has spent more than $15 billion developing its next-generation Starship rocket, according to the company’s IPO registration reviewed by Reuters, a sum that dwarfs the cost of its workhorse Falcon rocket as Elon Musk’s space company nears a ​decade trying to perfect a fully reusable launch system.
The future of SpaceX’s most lucrative businesses as it sprints toward public markets at a $1.75 trillion valuation rests largely on Starship, a towering two-stage rocket system central to ‌Musk’s ambitions to launch larger batches of Starlink satellites, carry humans to the moon and Mars, and eventually deploy thousands of artificial intelligence computing satellites as an alternative to power-hungry data centers on Earth.

The $15 billion figure, which has not been previously reported, eclipses the roughly $400 million SpaceX spent developing Falcon 9, the world’s most frequently flown rocket. Falcon 9 has underpinned SpaceX’s commercial dominance, enabling rapid Starlink deployments and giving the company a wide lead over launch rivals.
“We have continued to invest significantly in further increasing our lead by pursuing full and rapid reusability at ​scale, including investing over $15 billion in our next-generation rocket, Starship,” SpaceX said in its confidential IPO registration.
The company aims to begin launching its latest generation of Starlink satellites, known as V3, in the second half of 2026, ​according to the filing. That is likely to be on Starship, whose payload bay was tailored for the upgraded satellites and can fit up to 60 of them in a ⁠single flight, SpaceX said in the filing.

That is a dramatic increase from the two dozen smaller Starlinks typically launched on Falcon, underscoring how tightly Starship’s success is woven into the economics of Starlink.
Starship now consumes the bulk of the ​company’s development spending.
SpaceX devoted $3 billion to research and development in 2025 for its space segment, the entirety of which went to the Starship program, the filing shows, a sharp jump from the $1.8 billion spent in that segment the prior year. The surge ​highlights how fundamentally different Starship is from Falcon and from any rocket that has come before it.

STARSHIP SUFFERS EXPLOSIVE FAILURES

Since 2023, SpaceX has conducted 11 Starship test flights, producing both spectacular failures and eye-catching advances. Among the milestones was catching the rocket’s towering Super Heavy booster on its return to Earth using massive mechanical arms, a maneuver designed to dramatically accelerate reusability.

Even with those gains, SpaceX acknowledged in its filing that several unprecedented hurdles remain before Starship can reach Musk’s goal of “thousands of launches per year.” That launch rate, the company said, ​would be required to deploy 100 gigawatts of solar powered AI satellites annually, roughly a quarter of the energy consumed by the United States in a year.
“They’re getting really close,” said Chris Quilty, president of Quilty Space, a space and ​satellite industry research firm. “But what we still don’t know, and won’t know for a while is, can they do it repeatedly?”
Among the most significant challenges facing Starship is building the vast ground infrastructure needed to support Musk’s desired flight cadence, including fuel supplies, water ‌systems and, for ⁠the core ship, a heat-shield capable of surviving repeated atmospheric re-entries.

A single Starship launch requires the equivalent of 244 tanker trucks of natural gas, according to a Federal Aviation Administration analysis. About one million gallons of water are used to suppress the rocket’s intense acoustic vibrations during liftoff.
“There is not enough water in the water system to support the launch of Starship” at such a scale, Quilty said.
Another formidable obstacle is in-orbit refueling, a risky and unproven process in which Starships dock with tanker versions of the vehicle to transfer fuel. The maneuver would be essential for deep space missions and would itself require multiple Starship launches.
“That’s probably the last big challenge,” said Hans Koenigsmann, former SpaceX Vice President of Flight Reliability and ​one of the company’s earliest employees. “If that happens, then I ​think from then on it should be more or ⁠less, success.”
The challenge is compounded by the propellant itself. Liquid oxygen must be kept at extremely low temperatures and tightly sealed to prevent it from seeping out into space.
“In-orbit refueling is complex, and we have not yet demonstrated or attempted it,” SpaceX said in its filing.
“We may not be able to develop, commercialize, scale, or successfully implement these or other ​strategic initiatives on the timelines we currently anticipate, or at all,” it added.

CITY OF STARS

Over the past decade, SpaceX has built an extensive development site in South Texas, Starbase, dedicated ​to Starship. The facility supports a ⁠manufacturing push designed to produce rockets at a pace more akin to commercial aircraft than traditional space vehicles.
“When you build up your production before you actually have the product, you obviously run the risk that if you change your mind… every change on the rocket has a change on the factory now too,” Koenigsmann said.
Testing failures have driven hundreds of design changes to the vehicle. Koenigsmann described Starship as “a totally different animal” from Falcon 9.
SpaceX is now preparing for its first Starship test launch since October, the ⁠program’s longest pause ​between flights. The mission will debut the Starship V3 prototype.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/spacex-spending-starship-tops-15-billion-rush-airline-like-rocketry-2026-05-01/

Apple (AAPL.O), ​on Thursday touted blowout demand for its flagship iPhone 17 and the MacBook Neo that helped power a solid sales forecast and sent its shares ‌up nearly 4% after hours.
Apple, though, warned of continuing chip supply constraints, and the forecast underscored how it was fending off supply-chain pressures and rising memory chip costs with strong demand for its new Mac Neo, resilient services growth and robust sales in China.

The upbeat outlook and a fresh $100 billion share buyback offered reassurance to investors weighing Apple’s leadership transition amid intensifying competition in artificial intelligence.
Apple executives said they ​expect sales growth of 14% to 17% in the current fiscal third quarter, which was above Wall Street estimates of 9.5% growth to $102.93 billion, according to data ​from LSEG.
In the latest quarter, sales of the iPhone, still the company’s best-selling product nearly 20 years after its introduction, were $56.99 billion, ⁠slightly less than estimates of $57.21 billion.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said iPhone sales were held back in the quarter by supply constraints for the advanced processor chips that form the ​brains of the device. The iPhone 17 family’s chips are made on a variant of the same TSMC (2330.TW), chip manufacturing technology as many leading AI chips.

“The demand was off the ​charts. And there’s just a little less flexibility in the supply chain at the moment for getting more parts,” Cook told Reuters.

‘LESS FLEXIBILITY’ IN SUPPLY CHAIN

Driving Apple results in the fiscal second quarter was also the MacBook Neo, which costs $500 for students. Analysts believe it could help Apple crack a new $20 billion market for lower-priced laptops now dominated by Google Chromebooks. Apple said Mac sales, which included several weeks of ​Neo sales, were $8.4 billion, compared with estimates of $8.02 billion.
Sales and profits were $111.18 billion and $2.01 per share for the fiscal second quarter ended March 28, above analyst expectations of $109.66 billion ​and $1.95 per share.
In the fiscal second quarter, existing inventory of memory chips helped Apple navigate rising prices for them. Apple said gross margins were 49.27%, above estimates of 48.38%.

But memory costs will catch ‌up to Apple ⁠starting in the current quarter ending in June. Apple forecast gross margins of between 47.5% and 48.5%, with a midpoint slightly down from the just-reported quarter. That is still above analyst estimates of 47.6%.
“We expect significantly higher memory costs,” Cook said during a conference call with analysts. “Where we don’t give color beyond June, I can tell you that beyond the June quarter, we believe memory costs will drive an increasing impact on our business.”
Cook also said that Apple is seeking refunds for tariffs paid during the second administration of U.S. President Donald ​Trump, and would reinvest those into U.S. ​manufacturing.

Apple holds its annual software developer conference ⁠in June, where it is expected to reveal more details about its AI plans.
While Apple is not spending tens of billions of dollars per quarter on AI like its rivals, its research and development costs were up 33.5% to $11.42 billion in the fiscal second ​quarter.
Apple also said Thursday it is shifting back toward potentially holding more cash.
It will no longer aim to bring its net cash – ​cash minus debt – to ⁠a net neutral position, Apple Chief Financial Officer Kevan Parekh said during a conference call. Apple embarked on that goal in 2018 but still had $54 billion in net cash at the end of the first fiscal quarter in January.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/apple-sales-beat-expectations-powered-by-mac-iphone-hits-supply-constraints-2026-04-30/

A fresh legislative push in the United States has brought the future of the H-1B visa programme into sharper focus

A fresh legislative push in the United States has brought the future of the H-1B visa programme into sharper focus. A group of Republican lawmakers has introduced a bill in Congress that seeks a temporary halt and sweeping changes to the visa system widely used by skilled foreign workers.

The proposal, titled the End H-1B Visa Abuse Act of 2026, has been introduced by Congressman Eli Crane and is being viewed as one of the most aggressive attempts yet to tighten the programme. The move builds on earlier signals from the Trump administration that employment-linked immigration policies would face stricter scrutiny.

What the Bill Proposes

The legislation outlines a series of significant changes that could fundamentally reshape the H-1B system.

It proposes a three-year freeze on new H-1B visas and seeks to cut the annual cap from 65,000 to 25,000. It also introduces a steep minimum salary requirement of $200,000, effectively limiting eligibility to only the highest-paid roles.

In addition, the bill aims to bar visa holders from bringing dependents and prevent them from transitioning to permanent residency. It also proposes banning federal agencies from hiring non-immigrant workers and eliminating the Optional Practical Training (OPT) programme.

Taken together, these measures signal a shift towards making the H-1B visa more restrictive and strictly temporary in nature.

Political Backing and Rationale
The bill has garnered support from several Republican lawmakers, including Brian Babin, Brandon Gill, Wesley Hunt, Keith Self, Andy Ogles, Paul Gosar and Tom McClintock.

Explaining the intent behind the proposal, Eli Crane said that the government should prioritise American workers over corporate interests, arguing that the current H-1B system disadvantages domestic job seekers.

Supporters of the bill claim that companies have increasingly used the programme to replace American workers with lower-cost foreign labour. Echoing this view, Paul Gosar stated that the system has been misused to substitute domestic workers.

Brandon Gill also backed the bill, saying it aims to ensure that the immigration system serves American workers first.

“Strongest Bill” Against H-1B

Immigration policy expert Rosemary Jenks, who helped draft the legislation, described it as one of the most comprehensive proposals introduced so far.

According to her, the H-1B programme was originally designed as a short-term solution to fill temporary labour gaps, but has evolved beyond that purpose. She added that stricter rules could push companies to invest more in hiring and training domestic workers, even if it increases costs in the short term.

Impact on Indian Professionals

Indian professionals, particularly in the technology and healthcare sectors, are among the largest beneficiaries of the H-1B visa programme. Any tightening of the system is therefore expected to have a significant impact on them.

The proposed salary threshold and reduced visa cap could limit opportunities for Indian workers seeking employment in the United States. Restrictions on dependents and the removal of pathways to permanent residency may further reduce the attractiveness of the programme.

The proposal also follows earlier measures under Donald Trump, including a $100,000 fee on new H-1B applications, which had already raised concerns among visa holders.

Source : https://www.news18.com/business/economy/new-h-1b-bill-proposes-3-year-freeze-200000-salary-rule-what-it-means-for-indians-ws-l-10061096.html

Call it a different kind of sticker shock.
The Beijing Auto Show that opened to the public this week is a showcase for how hypercompetition in China has driven new car prices in the world’s largest car market to ​a fraction of the level of the next-largest market, the U.S.

The contrast is stark.
The average new car in the ‌U.S. in March had a list price of $51,456, according to Kelley Blue Book.
In China, there are more than 200 battery-powered models, including hybrids, for sale at less than the equivalent of $25,000, according to DCar, an information and trading platform.

Reuters compiled a list of the five best-selling electric vehicles in China that start under $12,000 using ​DCar data.
These small EVs aren’t available for sale in American showrooms – and may never be – but for about the price of ​an average new car in the U.S., a consumer in China could buy all five of these EVs.

The pure electric Geely (0175.HK), EX2 was the top-selling model domestically for any kind of vehicle in 2025.
The small EV comes with ​a bevy of nifty features: a front trunk, storage compartments throughout the cabin and a 14.6-inch central touchscreen running on a system that ​Geely developed. The top-trim version has a range of about 255 miles on the Chinese test standard.

Known as the “Star Wish” in China, the EX2 was a hit from its 2024 launch and Geely began sales in Brazil, Indonesia and Thailand last year.
“When you get in, you don’t feel like you are in a small car,” ​auto analyst Felipe Munoz said. “It feels better in terms of quality and bigger in terms of size.”

Wuling Hongguang MiniEV: Starting price, $6,560

Of the top-selling ​budget EVs, the MiniEV leans heaviest on the cheap-but-cheerful aesthetic of older, low-cost cars.
Wuling (0305.HK), has stretched the micro car for 2026 to accommodate four doors and ‌a bit ⁠more seating room in the back for adults. But the boxy city car remains tiny by American standards.
You could park two of the previous-generation MiniEVs in the space needed for a regular Ford F-150, the top-selling U.S. vehicle.
Marketed for its cute quotient and cost, the basic model has a top speed equivalent to just 62 miles per hour and a China-rated battery range of just 127 miles.

Wuling also has a larger ​subcompact EV that starts at just ​over $8,000 in China. The retro-looking ⁠Bingo Pro is designed for highway travel with a battery range of 250 miles based on Chinese testing standards.

BYD Seagull: Starting price: $10,200

BYD Yuan UP: Starting price: $10,945

BYD Qin Plus DM: Starting price: $11,675 (not pictured)

BYD (002594.SZ), is China’s biggest ​player in small EVs. The firm’s top three models starting under $12,000 accounted for 700,000 vehicle sales over ​the past 12 months ⁠in China.
The Seagull was an immediate sensation when it was released three years ago, stunning analysts with its performance, styling and above all its price.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/average-price-car-us-you-could-buy-5-new-chinese-evs-2026-04-28/

Oil prices rose 1% on Tuesday, extending gains from the previous session, ‌as efforts to end the U.S.-Iran war appear stalled, with the crucial Strait of Hormuz waterway still mainly shut, keeping energy supplies from the key Middle East producing region out of the reach of global buyers.
U.S. President Donald Trump is unhappy with the latest Iranian ​proposal aimed at ending the war, a U.S. official said on Monday. Iranian sources disclosed on Monday that Tehran’s ​proposal avoided addressing its nuclear program until hostilities cease and Gulf shipping disputes are resolved.

Trump’s ⁠displeasure with the Iranian offer leaves the conflict deadlocked, with Iran shutting shipping flows through the Strait of ​Hormuz, which typically carries supply equal to about 20% of global oil and gas consumption, and the U.S. keeping ​in place its blockade of Iranian ports.
Brent crude futures for June climbed $1.41, or 1.3%, to $109.64 a barrel as of 0400 GMT, after gaining 2.8% in the previous session to its highest close since April 7. The contract is up for a seventh day.
U.S. ​West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude for June rose $1.27, or 1.3%, to $97.64 a barrel, after gaining 2.1% in the previous session.

An ​earlier round of negotiations between the U.S. and Iran collapsed last week following failed face-to-face talks.
“Talks around ‘peace’ still look largely superficial and ‌lack ⁠concrete evidence of de-escalation. Despite the rhetoric, vessel movement through the Strait of Hormuz remains curtailed, and that prolonged disruption is what’s keeping oil risk premiums elevated,” said Phillip Nova’s senior market analyst Priyanka Sachdeva.
“In the near term, oil markets are less about macro demand and more about diplomatic gridlock. Until diplomacy translates into actual barrel flows, not ​just statements, oil markets ​will remain volatile with an ⁠upward bias through May,” she added.
Ship-tracking data revealed significant disruptions in the region, with six Iranian oil tankers forced to turn back due to the U.S. blockade.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/oil-prices-rise-no-end-iran-war-stand-off-seems-sight-2026-04-28/

Nvidia crossed a historic $5 trillion valuation as booming AI demand and a wider chip rally sent shares soaring, reinforcing its dominance despite growing competition from Alphabet and rivals.

A new antitrust lawsuit on Tuesday accuses Google of shutting out rival Android app stores by monopolizing app distribution and billing, violating U.S. antitrust law.

Aptoide, a Portuguese company that specializes in mobile games and calls itself the world’s third-largest Android app store, said it would have exerted substantially more pressure on Google’s pricing and policies but for Google’s “anticompetitive chokehold” that shuts out smaller rivals.

Google, a unit of Alphabet, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Based in Lisbon, Aptoide brands itself “the alternative Android app store,” with about 436,000 apps in its catalog and more than 200 million annual users by 2024.

It said it offers lower commissions to developers and lower costs to users, yet suffers from irreparable harm because Google deprives rivals of exclusive content from top developers, and steers developers to Google Play and other “must have” services.

The lawsuit filed in San Francisco federal court seeks an injunction against alleged anticompetitive practices, plus unspecified triple damages. Aptoide filed a separate complaint against Google with European Union antitrust authorities in 2014.

Last November, Google agreed to make Android and app store changes to settle a five-year-old antitrust case by Epic Games, maker of the popular Fortnite video game.

A jury found in 2023 that Google unlawfully stifled competition, and the trial judge ordered sweeping reforms the following year.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/google-sued-rival-app-store-aptoide-over-alleged-monopoly-6056826

US gasoline and diesel prices have reached seasonal record highs due to ongoing disruptions from the US-Iran conflict, significantly affecting global energy markets.

US gasoline and diesel prices have surged to seasonal record highs as the fallout from the US-Iran war continues to ripple through global energy markets. As of the middle of April 2026, the national average price of regular unleaded gasoline according to the AAA or GasBuddy, is approximately $4.12-$4.16 per gallon; this is at its highest point for the month of April since 2022 and represents an increase of more than 1 dollar over last month’s price of approximately $3.09. The price for regular unleaded gasoline will vary greatly from one area/state of the US to another; however, based on the most recent reports of both AAA and GasBuddy, the price of regular unleaded gasoline has risen significantly higher in some states (CA) than others (AK-OR) with prices at this time exceeding $5.90 in California.

Additionally, diesel fuel has increased significantly, with reports by both AAA and GasBuddy indicating that the price of diesel fuel is approximately $5.67 – $5.68 nationwide; this is also the highest price reported by either AAA or GasBuddy since July 2022 and an increase of approximately 60 percent over last year. Truckers and supply chain industries find themselves struggling due to the high cost of diesel fuel, with locations across the country reporting prices close to or greater than $7.00 per gallon.

The chaos created by the war in the Middle East has been the primary cause of these growing rates. The fighting in that area has caused severe disruptions of oil shipments via the Strait of Hormuz, a vital chokepoint where approximately 20% of the world’s oil trade passes through on a daily basis. Even though there is now a tenuous ceasefire in place, there is still a lot of uncertainty. Refiners and retailers of fuel are unwilling to reduce their prices until shipping routes are reliably reopened and crude supplies are stabilized. The price of crude oil has reached above $100 per barrel and will have an immediate effect on the price at the pump. There are also seasonal factors contributing to the situation. As fuel sales switch from more expensive summer blend gasoline to regular gasoline in most areas, demand for gasoline will increase during the spring months.

The economic impact is spreading quickly. Higher fuel prices are pushing up transportation costs, which in turn raise grocery bills, shipping fees, and the price of many everyday goods. Airlines and logistics companies have started adding surcharges, while farmers face rising fertilizer and equipment expenses. Economists warn this “warflation” could add fresh pressure on inflation just as it had been cooling. For American households, the pain is immediate. Many drivers are now paying $50–$80 more to fill a typical tank compared to early March. Truckers and small businesses reliant on diesel are cutting margins or passing costs to consumers.

Analysts predict that the high costs of gasoline will last for weeks to months, depending on how quickly oil production returns in the Gulf. They note that the IEA is releasing its strategic reserves and US has lifted some sanctions on certain Russian and Venezuelan oil as well as temporarily suspending certain shipping requirements. However, these actions will take time to have an impact at the pump.

Source : https://www.timesnownews.com/business-economy/economy/5-diesel-4-gas-fuel-costs-explode-across-us-amid-iran-war-article-154078627

A senior Iranian source said on Saturday the U.S. had agreed to release Iranian frozen assets ​held in Qatar and other foreign banks, but a U.S. official swiftly denied the assertion.
The senior Iranian ‌source welcomed the purported U.S. move as a sign of “seriousness” in reaching a deal with Washington in talks in Islamabad. The source said it was one of Iran’s demands “in messages conveyed to the U.S. side” and that Tehran had received a ​U.S. agreement to release the assets.

The source, who declined to be named due to the ​sensitivity of the matter, told Reuters that unfreezing the assets was “directly linked to ensuring ⁠safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz”, which is expected to be a key issue in ​the talks.
The senior source did not give a value for the assets that Washington had agreed to ​unfreeze. A second Iranian source said the United States had agreed to release $6 billion of frozen Iranian funds held by Qatar.
Qatar’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
FUNDS ORIGINALLY FROZEN EIGHT YEARS AGO
The $6 billion, originally ​frozen in 2018, had been due for release in 2023 as part of a U.S.-Iranian prisoner swap ​but the funds were again frozen by the administration of President Joe Biden following the October 7, 2023 attacks ‌on ⁠Israel by Iran’s ally, the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

U.S. officials said at the time that Iran would not be able to access the money for the foreseeable future, stressing that Washington retained the right to completely freeze the account.
The funds stem from Iranian oil sales to South Korea and had been blocked ​in South Korean banks ​after President Donald Trump ⁠reimposed sanctions on Iran in 2018 – during his first term in the White House – and scrapped a deal between world powers and Tehran over its ​nuclear programme.
Under the September 2023 U.S.–Iran prisoner swap mediated by Doha, the money ​was transferred ⁠to Qatari bank accounts. The prisoner swap involved the release of five U.S. citizens detained in Iran in exchange for the funds’ release and the release of five Iranians held in the United States.
Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/iranian-source-says-us-has-agreed-release-frozen-iranian-assets-qatar-other-2026-04-11/

Elon Musk has criticized WhatsApp’s security, claiming users cannot trust the messaging app after a class-action lawsuit accused Meta of allowing unauthorized access to private messages despite claims of end-to-end encryption.

Elon Musk has once again taken a strong swipe at WhatsApp, declaring that users “can’t trust” the popular messaging app. His comments came after a new class-action lawsuit accused Meta of secretly allowing employees, contractors (including firms like Accenture), and third parties to read, intercept, and store private user messages — despite WhatsApp’s long-standing claims of end-to-end encryption. Musk responded directly on X to a post highlighting the lawsuit, writing simply: “Can’t trust WhatsApp.” He followed up by promoting his own platform, urging people to switch to X Chat for messaging, voice, and video calls because it offers “actual privacy.”

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov also jumped into the debate, calling WhatsApp’s encryption “the biggest consumer fraud in history” and claiming the app has multiple security weaknesses.

What the Lawsuit Alleges

A lawsuit has been brought against Meta in federal court in the United States by people from multiple countries, including Canada, South Africa, and the United States. The lawsuit alleges that Meta misled billions of people around the world by advertising WhatsApp as being fully private, while internally giving access to both third parties (external developers of WhatsApps, for example, who helped to develop WhatsApp) and to its internal teams.

If the court finds Meta guilty, it could establish a precedent for fraud in relation to user trust, as well as raise new questions about how secure Meta’s messaging services are.

Meta Hits Back Strongly

Meta and WhatsApp were quick to reject the accusations. In a direct reply, WhatsApp stated: “The claims in this lawsuit are categorically false and absurd.” The company emphasised that WhatsApp has used the Signal protocol for end-to-end encryption for over a decade. This means messages can only be read by the sender and the recipient — Meta itself cannot access them because the encryption keys stay on users’ phones. A Meta executive added that the lawsuit lacks merit and appears to be a headline-seeking move. They pointed out that the law firm behind the case has previously defended controversial spyware firms.

Musk’s Long-Standing Criticism

This isn’t the first time that Musk has made comments about WhatsApp being a bad service with regard to security (sometimes even questioning whether Signal is a secure messaging platform). Musk continues to use X-Chat as a better platform because he believes it provides users with a way to communicate without advertisements or data collection. However, while X Chat has end-to-end encryption, there are significant differences between it and other messaging platforms like Signal; for example, the way in which they handle keys (encryption algorithms) and their collection of metadata. On the other hand, WhatsApp has more than two billion users around the world and is still considered one of the largest messaging services in the world, particularly in countries such as India.

Why This Matters

This exchange underscores the continuing “encryption wars,” as larger tech firms continue to fight over who has access to users’ private conversations, which is becoming an area of increasing concern for many users. Privacy has become a battleground as governments, regulators and courts have started to closely investigate how these applications manage and access their user data. This leaves users, both everyday users of WhatsApp and others alike, to determine what the right decision is: should you move apps? Enable supplemental security options like encrypted backups? Or is the existing level of security from WhatsApp still sufficient?

Source: https://www.timesnownews.com/business-economy/companies/elon-musk-declares-cant-trust-whatsapp-meta-slams-claims-article-154043445

Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran addressed Air India employees in Gurugram, emphasising the importance of execution during challenging times.

Air India is going through a challenging period, and the focus should be on execution, Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran told airline employees in a townhall address in Gurugram, advising them to ‘stay grounded in reality’. Addressing employees at a townhall meet at Air India group headquarters in Gurugram, Chandrasekaran said, “Air India has shown great tenacity in dealing with a perfect storm, and we must continue with the same spirit that has been demonstrated.”

Reaffirming the Group’s backing, Chandrasekaran said, “The Tata Group remains committed to Air India Group. The Board is fully supportive and will continue to work closely with the management team.”

“It has been an incredible four years, and Air India Group has reached a critical stage of its transformation. Over 17,000 employees have been hired and onboarded, four airlines have been merged into two, core systems are being modernised, the fleet is expanding, aircraft are undergoing major refurbishment, and our network and operational metrics continue to improve, resulting in a clear improvement in customer experience and Net Promoter Scores,” Chandrasekaran said.

Committed To Build World Class Airline: Chandrasekaran To Employees
Mentioning that they are committed to building a world-class airline, Chandrasekaran said, “Our vision is to connect India to the world, and to establish service standards where there is as much dignity and respect for the passenger in the last row as there is for the passenger in the front row.”

Stressing the airline’s core priorities, Chandrasekaran added, “Safety is of utmost importance for Air India. It is non-negotiable and sits at the centre of every decision we take across operations, engineering, training, and customer experience.”

“While our future is bright and we have laid a solid foundation for our ambition, we are going through a challenging time, the impact of which is most visible in the airline industry.”

“What matters now is staying focused on execution. Our focus should be on what is within our control, where we can improve, be precise on costs, and remain grounded in the reality of the situation,” he added.

Source: https://www.timesnownews.com/business-economy/air-india-facing-challenging-times-tata-sons-chairman-n-chandrasekaran-townhall-pep-talk-to-employees-article-154046221

A social media post has ignited discussions about Oracle’s recent mass layoffs affecting 30,000 employees, executed swiftly via a standardized email. Peter Girnus, who presents himself as an HR executive, highlighted the stark contrast between the laid-off workers and newly appointed CFO Hilary Maxson, who receives a hefty compensation package.

A viral post on social media platform X has sparked widespread debate over corporate restructuring practices after it described the mass layoff at Oracle involving 30,000 employees “executed within minutes”. Peter Girnus, an American cybersecurity researcher, imagines himself as Senior Vice President of Human Resources at Oracle Corporation. He said the layoffs were communicated via a standardized email sent at 6 AM, on last Tuesday, where an email was sent to 30,000 employees. While yesterday morning, 1 person at $950,000 a year.

The one person he was referring to was Hilary Maxson, who joined Oracle as new Chief Financial Officer (CFO).

While presented as fiction, Girnus said, “Hilary Maxson started as our new Chief Financial Officer. Base salary: $950,000. Annual performance bonus target: $2.5 million. Equity package: $26 million — $20.8 million time-based, $5.2 million performance-based, vesting over 4 years. We are also covering up to $250,000 in relocation expenses. Her offer letter is 7 pages. The separation notice I sent 30,000 people is 4 paragraphs.”

Notably, days after the layoffs, Oracle has appointed Hilary Maxson as its new Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Maxson steps in with a $950,000 (Rs 8.8 crore) salary and a $2.5 million (Rs 23.2 crore) bonus potential.

She is also entitled to $26 million (Rs 241.7 crore) equity grant, where 80 per cent is time-based ($20.8 million) and 20 per cent performance-based ($5.2 million).

Sharing the sequence of layoff, he said, “30,000 endpoints terminated in under 4 minutes.”

“The layoffs were communicated via a standardized email sent at 6 AM, with system access for affected employees revoked almost immediately. The account claims that badges, VPN tokens, laptops, and email accounts were disabled within four minutes, leaving thousands locked out simultaneously.”

“By 6:04 AM, 30,000 people were staring at a login screen that would never accept their password again. The email reminded them they were “prohibited from downloading, copying, or retaining any Oracle confidential information.”

“3 people called the HR hotline before 6:15. 2 asked if the email was real. 1 asked if she could retrieve a photo of her daughter from her desktop. I directed all 3 to the separation portal.”

We needed cash

In his post, he further said, in January, TD Cowen published an analyst note. It said cutting 20,000 to 30,000 employees would generate $8 to $10 billion in incremental free cash flow. We needed that cash. Our AI data center capital expenditures are projected at $50 billion this fiscal year. We had a $20 billion shortfall.

“1 day before the email, on Monday, our 5-year credit default swaps hit 198.6 basis points. That is the highest level in Oracle’s history. Higher than December 2008. Higher than the financial crisis itself. The market is pricing our debt at levels not seen since Lehman Brothers still had a lobby. We carry $124.7 billion in debt on the books. We added $39 billion in 9 months. Our trailing free cash flow is negative $24.74 billion,” the fiction story of the layoff by Girnus said.

Source : https://www.timesnownews.com/business-economy/companies/30000-employees-fired-at-dawn-cfo-hired-by-noon-at-950000-viral-satire-sparks-debate-over-oracle-layoffs-article-154020304

A fuel tanker that ​according to ship ‌tracking services loaded a Russia-origin cargo ​originally bound ​for Cuba began discharging ⁠on Thursday ​at an independently-owned ​terminal in Venezuela, according to vessel monitoring data ​and a ​source.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/fuel-tanker-that-rerouted-cuba-now-discharging-venezuela-data-source-say-2026-04-02/

You can claim from both corporate and personal health policies, but here’s how to avoid rejection and maximise your coverage in case you spend beyond the available limit.

Many people get their health insurance through their workplace, but some also maintain an individual policy for extra protection in critical times. Even though corporate policies are convenient, they often have limitations like coverage caps, treatment restrictions, or lapsing when you change jobs. Siddharth Singhal, Head of Health Insurance at Policybazaar, explained in a Mint report, “If the claim amount exceeds the sum insured under a single policy, one can claim the balance amount from the other policy.”

However, he highlighted that both insurers must be informed about the other policy. “Non-disclosure of a parallel policy is one of the most common reasons claims get rejected,” he said.

Vineet Gupta, Head of Product Development at ManipalCigna Health Insurance, clarified the process: the total reimbursement across both policies cannot exceed the actual hospitalisation costs, and the same expense cannot be claimed twice.

For example, if your hospital bill is Rs 10 lakh, and you have Rs 5 lakh coverage under a corporate policy and Rs 5 lakh under a personal plan, you can first use the corporate policy to cover Rs 5 lakh. The remaining Rs 5 lakh can then be claimed from your individual policy. All original bills and the settlement summary from the first insurer must be submitted to the second insurer.

Gupta advises exhausting the corporate cover first, as it is employer-funded and ends when you leave the organisation. “Many individual policies offer renewal benefits such as no‑claim bonuses or premium discounts for claim-free policy years,” he said.