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Ireland’s former taoiseach warns of conservative Russian influence and says US is now ‘off the pitch’ under Trump

LGBTQ+ rights in Europe are caught in a “chill wind” from east and west as Vladimir Putin’s Russia exports its conservative agenda and the “Americans are off the pitch” under Donald Trump, Ireland’s former taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said.

Varadkar, who in 2017 became Ireland’s first out gay prime minister, said Europe needed to “step up” to avoid the continent becoming further squeezed by global forces seeking to chip away at recent progress.

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Move will put national security and lives overseas at risk, critics say, as overall UK aid budget is slashed to 0.3% of gross national income

Climate aid to developing countries from the UK will be cut by about 14% to roughly £2bn a year under government plans, in a move critics said would put national security and lives overseas at risk.

The move follows bitter rows with the Treasury, which wanted deeper cuts owing to pressure on spending resulting from the war in Iran.

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Lamborghini’s wealthiest customers are still buying supercars—but tariffs are taking a quiet toll on the bottom line.

“Being the U.S., by far our biggest market, we could not, let’s say, increase the price [at] the same level as the tariffs were increased, and, at the same time, the market was going down,”  CEO Stephan Winkelmann told Fortune. “So we had less cars sold, and with less margin on those cars to be delivered in the second half of the year.”

The luxury automaker, owned by the Volkswagen Group through Audi, reported its full-year earnings for 2025 on Thursday. Lamborghini saw a new delivery record of 10,747 cars in 2025 and reached $3.7 billion (€3.2 billion) in revenue, a 3.3% year-over-year increase. However, operating income fell to $885 million (€768 million) from a record of $962 million (€835 million) in 2024, and the carmaker had a profitability of 24%, also slightly down from last year.

Winkelmann noted the dip in operating margins was in part a result of tariffs imposed by the Trump administration at the beginning of 2025, which precipitated a price increase for the luxury cars. Lamborghini said last year it would raise prices for its Temerario and Urus models by 7% and for the Revuelto by 10%. Winkelmann indicated Lamborghini would be unable to raise costs more, with the import taxes cutting into profitability as a result.

Tariffs cost the auto industry nearly $35 billion last year, according to an Automotive News analysis, with vehicles from the European Union, such as Lamborghini, hit with a 15% import tax. For luxury automakers, the import taxes have had a range of effects. For Ferrari, customized deliveries helped offset the impact of the levies and lower shipments for some models. In January, Mercedes reported a 19% slump in sales growth in the U.S. and a quarterly sales decrease of 12% year-over-year in part as a result of the tariffs.

Lamborghini also saw a dip in operating income as a result of negative exchange rates and the decision to pivot away from a fully electric Lanzador in favor of a plug-in hybrid model instead, Winkelmann said.

How Lamborghini is navigating tariffs

Lamborghini appears poised to continue navigating tariffs. Last summer, Winkelmann noted that even Lamborghini’s wealthiest customers were reconsidering the timing of their purchases as a result of the tariffs, waiting for import tax levels to become stable.

“Some are waiting because they want to be sure that this is the final number that is going to be in place,” Winkelmann said in an interview with CNBC in August 2025. “Others are fine with it, or we will have negotiations.”

Winkelmann told Fortune tariff uncertainty interrupted between six to eight weeks of shipments for the automaker, but was able to offset some disruptions and order cancellations from customers waiting on the company’s shortlist.

He expected more consistent deliveries in the coming year as tariffs level off. The company was not impacted by tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which were struck down by the Supreme Court last month, so the import taxes have and will remain at about 15%. Winkelmann said he predicts “a new normality” of customers knowing what to expect with tariffs and adjusting to the cars’ new prices.

Lamborghini’s next challenges will be navigating the war in Iran, with conflict in the Middle East threatening the key luxury car market in the area. According to GlobalData, the United Arab Emirates typically sees more than 300,000 vehicle sales annually, with about 20% of those being premium imports.

With a drop in both the U.S. and Chinese markets, and turmoil in the Middle East, Winkelmann said Lamborghini will rely on sustained demand in markets in Europe, as well as Japan and Korea.

“The global economy, all this so far, could not offset the clarity of Lamborghini,” he said.

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In 2023, artificial intelligence was capable of just a fraction of what it has achieved today. ChatGPT had just launched. Distorted AI photos and videos had just started to hit your timeline. The technology was improving, but adoption was slow and productivity gains were a dream away. Today, it’s being rapidly deployed across industries, and that pace has sounded the alarms for workforce researchers.

Professional services company Cognizant (number 217 on the 2026 edition of the Fortune 500) has reassessed its estimate of AI’s impact on the workplace, and the results are starker than before. They’ve updated their original forecast made in 2023—formulated by examining 18,000 tasks and nearly 1,000 jobs from the U.S. Department of Labor occupational data—to find that 93% of jobs could undergo at least some disruption from the technology. And the threat has become existential for a wider range of jobs. The research found that 30% of jobs could face an existential threat from AI, 15 percentage points higher than the initial assessment. In total, the report estimates AI-driven disruption could shift roughly $4.5 trillion in labor from humans to machines.

“We underestimated the impact of the technology,” the report reads. “What we projected might take until 2032 to unfold is happening now before our eyes.”

A growing chorus of business leaders and insiders is sounding the alarm on the looming threat AI poses to the workforce, particularly in white-collar roles. And those predictions are slowly becoming reality as companies—especially tech firms—have started to cut sizable chunks of their workforces, attributing the layoffs to AI. Jack Dorsey’s Block cut nearly half of the company’s workforce thanks to AI automation. Australian-American tech firm Atlassian cut 10% of its workforce to fund AI investments. And now Meta reportedly plans to cut 20% of its roughly 79,000-person workforce, which tech analyst Mark Shmulik warned could lead to “a cascade of hurried pivots, half-formed strategies, and reactive restructuring across the ecosystem” as firms race to remain competitive in the AI era.

“Today—six years ahead of schedule—93% of jobs could be impacted in some way by AI,” the report reads. “The technology, in short, is affecting more jobs, faster, and to a greater extent than we anticipated.”

Beyond white-collar work: manual labor and health care see first signs of disruption

The report found that the current potential for AI disruption extends beyond the professional world. The technology has started to encroach on the once-assumed safe realm of manual-labor tasks. In construction, for example, the technology can now help with interpreting blueprints. And in transportation, it can examine shipments or perform safety inspections.

“Tasks once considered purely manual actually contain embedded cognitive elements that AI can augment,” the report reads. “When those improvements occur across every shift and every site, the gains become transformative.”

In health care, too, AI is already showing signs of disruption, moving from assisting with small tasks to automating complex ones. The study found that the technology has improved diagnostic accuracy and patient care.

AI still has a long way to go before establishing a workforce that’s majority machine and minority human, according to Matt Sigelman, president of the Burning Glass Institute, a think tank that analyzes the workforce. “Some of these disruptions will take much longer to play out than we assume,” Sigelman told Fortune. “The timeline of disruption will be longer, the nature of the impacts may be more subtle.” 

The study found that while the majority of tasks today are in some way able to be assisted by AI, just 10% are fully automatable. And while the researchers calculated an average exposure score of 39% by industry, several sectors with big workforces, including transportation and construction, are still far off from facing substantial exposure to AI.

But Sigelman adds that while the timeline may differ from Cognizant’s projections, the overall impact on the workforce could be just as significant. He said AI will usher in requirements for a completely different skill set, which can disrupt even some of the most established professionals, potentially requiring significant retraining and upskilling. 

“People who have been in a job for decades may no longer be qualified for the job that has defined their careers.”

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Despite the unpredictable wildcard of an Iran war and concerns regarding software companies amid the rapid rise of fears around artificial intelligence (AI), Evercore Founder and Senior Chairman Roger Altman remains optimistic about the U.S. economy, noting that foundational strengths and technological advancements outweigh current geopolitical fears.

Dismissing The ‘SaaS Apocalypse’

Addressing the rapid evolution of AI in a conversation with CNBC, Altman pushed back against doomsday predictions surrounding the tech sector.

While he acknowledges AI will be “very transformative,” he believes the market’s focus on what AI might destroy has gone too far. When asked if the market is facing a “SaaS apocalypse“—the idea that AI will decimate software-as-a-service companies—Altman was definitive.

“I don’t see that,” he said, pointing out that software stocks have historically bounced back from sharp corrections. “At the moment, I don’t see AI as a force that should undermine markets and cause economic forecasts to be marked down. In fact, I think that it’s likely to be positive.”

These statements come as top U.S. software stocks like Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT), Oracle Corp. (NYSE:ORCL), and Salesforce Inc.

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Pikachus at every street corner. Leveling up before getting into the gym. “Pokémon Go to the polls.” You remember this era well: Pokémon Go became a frenzy, with hundreds of millions taking to the streets for their chance to snap up the rare Azelf or special edition Charizard. Now, not only does it seem that Pokémon Go took the world by storm, but it also was using crowdsourced data to map it.

Over the past decade, Pokémon Go players voluntarily submitted photos and short videos of public landmarks, street corners, storefronts, and urban intersections—all coming together to create a dataset that now stands at 30 billion images captured at ground level, across nearly every major city on the planet. Niantic Spatial, the enterprise AI and mapping division spun from Niantic Inc., has spent years converting that trove into something the robotics industry has never seen before: a photorealistic, street-level, continuously updated model of the physical world, built specifically for robots.

That model is now being deployed to navigate Coco Robotics’ roughly 1,000 delivery bot fleet operating in cities across the country and around the world, including Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Jersey City, and Helsinki, logging millions of miles of deliveries to date. Brian McClendon, Niantic Spatial’s chief technology officer and one of the original creators of Google Earth, explains the data strategy plainly.

“We look at the player data as very high-quality ground training data for other lower-quality datasets,” McClendon told Fortune in a statement. “The long-term philosophy of Niantic Spatial is that we can solve these hard problems of localization, reconstruction, and semantics by using very concentrated places to train models and then use much more broadly available data at lower resolution to be able to localize, visualize, and understand from ‘bad’ data.”

The 30 billion Pokémon Go images aren’t just a map: They are a master key that unlocks the potential of how to create a real-world, real-time map. The player scans teach the model what precision looks like—it’s so precise, in fact, that it can even signal when the input is imperfect. It’s a strategy that positions Niantic Spatial less as a gaming company that pivoted and more as the most ambitious mapping operation ever assembled—one that was funded entirely by its own users’ enthusiasm for catching digital creatures.

Niantic Spatial’s Visual Positioning System, or VPS, solves a problem that has quietly stunted the autonomous delivery industry. GPS, the backbone of most navigation systems, doesn’t fare that well in dense urban environments, where tall buildings interfere with satellite signals. For a delivery robot that needs to drop food at a precise doorstep, being several feet off means unhappy customers complaining their burger is cold—or in their neighbor’s tummy. Instead, the VPS bypasses satellites entirely, comparing live camera feeds from the robot against its vast image database to determine position in real time.

“The model will work in real time, taking in images from the robot and comparing them to both publicly available as well as proprietary datasets we’ve collected to determine the robot’s global position and heading,” a Niantic Spatial spokesperson told Fortune in a statement. The company knew where this tech performs best: “Niantic Spatial’s VPS is particularly resilient in urban canyons where GPS performs badly.”

“Our initial VPS was built using scans that users choose to take in games—but no single source defines the model,” the Niantic Spatial spokesperson said. Player participation was always opt-in: users had to actively choose to submit a short video scan of a specific public landmark. Today, the model increasingly learns from the data Niantic Spatial’s enterprise customers generate themselves. The underlying engine—a large geospatial model, or LGM, trained on billions of posed images and hundreds of millions of real-world scans—powers three capabilities: reconstructing spaces as navigable 3D models, localizing machines within those spaces, and understanding environments semantically. As CEO John Hanke wrote in a recent blog post: “For the past several years, we’ve been building a large geospatial model that acts as a living, breathing map of the world, one that is native to robots and AI.”

For Coco CEO Zach Rash, the problem is with robots’ critical thinking skills (or lack thereof).

“Robots don’t have the same intuition yet as a human, where a human can understand, ‘My GPS isn’t really working, but I understand that’s probably the right place to go,’” Rash told Fortune. “We need the robot to have that sort of intuition.”

“When we go into really dense areas with high rises, that’s where the VPS solution can be really helpful,” Rash said. “Our GPS and our existing solutions might fail in that sort of environment.”

The stakes, he noted, are felt by customers at the very last moment of a delivery: “It is a terrible customer experience if the robot parks in the wrong place waiting to receive that order.”

“It’s very early with [Niantic Spatial], and I think we’re excited to collaborate with such an incredible team on figuring out how we add this toward existing technology to make the service better. VPS is an obvious one,” Rash continued. “They’re very good at doing this. If I can more precisely figure out where to drop off food, my customers will be happy.”

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In today’s newsletter: After a spate of infections linked to a nightclub in Kent, some parents and experts are questioning the UK’s vaccination regime

It is every parent’s worst nightmare. University students enjoying themselves at a nightclub, only to fall ill a few days later with a potentially deadly illness. So far, two young people have died and more are seriously unwell in hospital after a meningitis outbreak in Kent, which appears to have started at Club Chemistry in Canterbury in early March. Health authorities have launched a major response: 30,000 people have been given antibiotics and up to 5,000 University of Kent students will receive a meningitis B vaccine, the strain that is believed to be behind the outbreak.

The health secretary, Wes Streeting, has urged calm, explaining that the risk of transmission is low, urging students to keep going to school and insisting that people do not need to seek private vaccinations. But that has not stopped a rush for jabs, causing a national shortage. The high street pharmacies Boots and Superdrug say they have seen a major spike in bookings, with some locations running out of stock.

Middle East | Israel struck Iran’s giant South Pars gasfield on Wednesday, marking a major escalation of the war, hours after Israeli forces killed the regime’s intelligence minister and launched some of the most intense airstrikes in Beirut for decades.

Reform UK | Nigel Farage called for the release of Sean “Diddy” Combs and commended the efforts to free a former Honduran president jailed in the US for drug trafficking. The remarks were made on the personalised video platform Cameo.

Assisted dying | Senior ministers believe Keir Starmer will not intervene to give the assisted dying bill further time in parliament as he is wary of opening up new divisions among Labour MPs.

Media | The former Google executive Matt Brittin is expected to be named as the BBC’s next director general within days, with the corporation’s board meeting this week for a final discussion about the appointment.

Green party | A government led by the Green party would not set targets for GDP growth but would instead focus on people’s mental health, social cohesion and community welfare, Zack Polanski has said in a major speech to set out his plans for the economy.

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Agriculture minister says government monitoring any price gouging of fertiliser

Julie Collins, the federal minister for agriculture, said the government is monitoring any price gouging for fertiliser amid the turmoil in the Middle East.

I think our government has been very clear that this should not be seen as a commercial opportunity for anybody. This is about what is in the national interest. This is a conflict that is impacting globally, and what we need Australians to do is to act in the national interest, and that includes everybody along that supply chain.

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For decades, the standard formula for financial success was the same: go to college, get a degree, and land a prestigious white-collar job—probably a lawyer, consultant, or investment banker.

But entrepreneur and author Daniel Priestley is sounding the alarm on a major job-market shift. He suggests the traditional hierarchy of labor (white-collar over blue-collar) is actually flipping.

Priestley, founder and CEO of Dent Global, an entrepreneur accelerator, said he’s observed that the nature of the economy is changing so rapidly that he envisions a future in which “plumbers regularly earn more than lawyers,” as blue-collar roles are elevated while professional services face unprecedented disruption from AI. 

“For the last 25 years I’ve been building companies from scratch and I’ve been through the Global Financial Crisis,” Priestley said during a recent appearance on the Diary of a CEO podcast. “But I have never experienced what we’re experiencing right now.”

“I’ve never seen more fear for the disruption that is coming,” he continued. 

He argues we’re witnessing a “swinging pendulum” in which the high value once placed on “white-collar work behind a screen” is moving toward “blue-collar work with your hands.” Other CEOs like Ford’s Jim Farley have sounded a similar alarm, arguing there’s far more demand for blue-collar work than there are people who want to do it.

He’s concerned about staffing AI data centers and factories, which he calls a crisis affecting the “essential economy” of blue-collar workers who make up $12 trillion in U.S. GDP, according to the Aspen Institute. Farley has also said AI could wipe out half of white-collar jobs, instead ushering in mass demand for skilled trades and blue-collar work. 

“There’s more than one way to the American Dream, but our whole education system is focused on four-year [college] education,” Farley said during the Aspen Ideas Festival last summer. “Hiring an entry worker at a tech company has fallen 50% since 2019. Is that really where we want all of our kids to go? Artificial intelligence is going to replace literally half of all white-collar workers in the U.S.” 

Gen Z is already testing the plumber over the lawyer thesis

Over the past couple of years, at least some of Gen Z have started drifting away from the classic desk job path and more toward skilled trades. Enrollment in vocational-focused community colleges climbed 16% in 2023 to its highest level since the National Student Clearinghouse started tracking in 2018. This includes a surge in students studying construction trades, HVAC, and vehicle repairs.

“There’s still a stereotype that getting a university degree guarantees and results in a well-paid job, but I soon realized that isn’t the case,” Emily Shaw, a Gen Z apprentice at British construction company Redrow, told Fortune’s Orianna Rosa Royle. Some have even started their own blue-collar businesses, bringing in six-figure incomes. Another Gen Z electrician interviewed by Fortune’s Nick Lichtenberg skipped college because he said he wasn’t a good student, and now makes six figures working a trade instead. 

A Jobber analysis of Labor Department data also projects demand for electricians, plumbers, and HVAC technicians will grow well above the 4% average for all occupations through 2033. 

To be sure, some of Gen Z’s blue-collar pivot is driven by the same AI anxiety Priestley described—and a realization college may not really be worth it anymore. Nearly 80% of Americans have noticed an increased interest in trade careers from young adults, according to a Harris Poll survey of more than 2,000 U.S. adults for Intuit Credit Karma.

How fast is change coming?

Priestley—and countless other executives—have warned that change is coming fast. And he said the shift is being accelerated by the “instantaneous” AI rollout. Unlike the Industrial Revolution, which unfolded over decades and required massive infrastructure buildout, change will come much faster in the AI era. 

“The minute an AI learns how to be a lawyer in one place, it can be a lawyer in every place,” he said, because the digital network already exists. A Brookings Institute study published in February 2025 also suggests more than 30% of U.S. workers could see at least 50% of their tasks disrupted by generative AI. A 2023 commentary published by Brookings also said AI will “revolutionize” the practice of law by dramatically increasing efficiency in drafting, research, discovery, and document production, although it doesn’t argue the tech will completely eliminate the need for lawyers.

Meanwhile, blue-collar workers, such as electricians and bricklayers, are experiencing a “blue ocean” of opportunity due to a severe labor shortage. Priestley said the imbalance is due to “market distortion” from government-backed student loans. 

“Lots of young people who should have been plumbers, electricians, and concreers, and brick layers went off and got a master’s degree in mating habits of butterflies or some random degree that doesn’t have a job attached and they end up in [$60,000; $70,000; $80,000] worth of debt to get this degree that no one was asking for,” he said. “That market distortion means that we now don’t have many plumbers and electricians.”

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OceanPal Inc. (NASDAQ:SVRN) spiked 40.16% to $0.31 in after-hours trading on Wednesday.

The after-hours spike coincided with a wave of Securities and Exchange Commission Form 3 filings disclosing new insider ownership across multiple executive and director roles.

Sweeping Leadership Reset Triggers Market Reaction

SEC Form 3 filings — the required initial ownership disclosures under Section 16(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 — confirmed a major executive overhaul at OceanPal.

Chief Financial Officer Vasiliki Plousaki, Chief Accounting Officer Konstantina Tsakiri and Co-CEO Robert J. Perri filed on Tuesday, with Co-CEO Salvatore J. Ternullo, Secretary Margarita Veniou, and the directors filing on Wednesday.

According to the filing, Co-CEO Ternullo was granted 822,156 restricted stock units, with 25% vesting on Sept. 1 …

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American Bitcoin Corp. (NASDAQ:ABTC) co-founder Eric Trump celebrated on Wednesday after the company surpassed Galaxy Digital Inc. (NASDAQ:GLXY) in accumulating Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC).

‘Climbing The Ladder Faster’

Trump took pride in the achievement on X, adding, “No company is climbing the ladder faster. Up, up, up we go!”

As of this writing, American Bitcoin holds 6,899 BTC, worth $489 million, surpassing not only Galaxy but also other popular companies such as GameStop Corp. (NYSE:GME) and Gemini Space Station Inc. (NASDAQ:GEMI).

Michael Saylor’s Strategy Inc. (NASDAQ:MSTR) tops the list, with over $53 billion worth of Bitcoin on its balance sheet.

Full story available on Benzinga.com

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Long-awaited Alexa+ aims to get Britons re-engaging with their devices – but it may have its work cut out

“Commiserations, mate, Chelsea lost 3-0 in the Champions League last night against Paris Saint-Germain,” says Alexa as it attempts to break the news gently to an awaiting Blues fan. Such is the injection of personality and understanding that Amazon hopes will lead to Britons re-engaging with their millions of Alexa devices, restoring it to the cutting edge of voice assistants rather than resigned to being a glorified egg timer.

After its early access launch last year in the US, the long-awaited generative AI upgrade Alexa+ is finally making its debut in the UK, supporting eight years of existing devices strewn through more than half of UK households. With the UK being Amazon’s most engaged market and more than 40 accents to contend with across the UK and Ireland, the “next-generation ambient AI assistant” has its work cut out for it.

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Iran war has increased gas price, with effects on UK energy bills that could be avoided, Common Wealth says

Household energy bills could be reduced by up to £203 a year by stopping expensive fossil gas setting the price of energy in the UK, according to a report.

Under the existing system, gas – the most expensive form of electricity production in the UK system – set the price of energy 85% of the time in 2024 in the UK, even though it generates only about a quarter of Britain’s electricity.

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Cameo videos produced by the Reform UK leader were used to drum up interest in obscure memecoins

Nigel Farage has profited by producing Cameo videos that endorsed or provided support to cryptocurrencies which later collapsed in value.

The videos were discovered by the Guardian within a collection of more than 4,000 clips he has created on the Cameo platform, which allows public figures and celebrities to sell personalised recorded messages to members of the public.

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Changes revealed by Andy Burnham to support night-time economy follow rapid growth in ridership

Night buses will run to every borough in Greater Manchester as the city region expands its publicly controlled Bee Network.

The mayor, Andy Burnham, announced a number of new services alongside figures showing rapid growth in ridership since buses were taken back under public control in 2023.

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People struggle to cook and businesses bear brunt as closure of strait of Hormuz slows imports of liquefied petroleum gas

For four days, Maya Rani, 36, has been arriving each morning at a gas distributor’s office in Delhi, her six-month-old daughter in her lap, waiting for hours. And each day she returns home empty-handed, told that a cooking gas cylinder may not be available for at least another week. Around her, the queue keeps growing, people clutching forms and documents, hoping to secure a cylinder.

The flame in her kitchen began to fade last week and her husband, as he always does, took their 5kg cylinder to a local refiller. This time, there was nothing. The only option left was to apply for a government-subsidised supply, a process that has meant repeated visits, long waits and no certainty.

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US president claims Israel will not attack South Pars again – but threatens to destroy ‘extremely important and valuable’ site if Iran continues to attack gas facilities in Qatar

Donald Trump threatened to “massively blow up” the world’s largest gasfield after Israeli strikes on the Iranian site prompted Tehran to step up attacks on energy facilities across the Middle East.

Israel’s decision to target the South Pars gasfield on Wednesday marked a major escalation of the war, heightening fears of significant disruption to international energy supplies.

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As the war in the Middle East continues to escalate and oil prices surge amid uncertainty surrounding crude oil supply chains, investor Ross Gerber of Gerber Kawasaki, on Wednesday, urged people to switch to electric vehicles.

Thousands Of Dollars Saved

In a post on the social media platform X, Gerber touted EVs as a cost-effective solution to the ongoing gas price surge. “Just buy an EV and your cost of living will go down by thousands of dollars a year,” the investor said in the post. Gerber also shared that “driving a gas car” was up to “4-5 times more expensive” than driving an EV counterpart. “Lots of great EVs at a good prices online,” he said.

Full story available on Benzinga.com

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Increased output from wind generation and batteries, and falling electricity contract prices, are expected to deliver lower energy bills

Power prices on Australia’s east coast are predicted to fall from July because of increased output from wind generation and batteries, and falling electricity contract prices, with potential savings up to $1,320 for some small businesses.

In a draft decision on Thursday, the Australia Energy Regulator (AER) proposed a price reduction for customers on standing electricity plans – known as the “default market offer” – of between 1.3% to 10.1% for residential customers, and between 8.5% and 21.2% for small businesses, depending on the region.

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Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk has predicted that the automaker’s upcoming AI5 self-driving chip will match the capabilities of more expensive, powerful AI chipsets amid a push towards artificial intelligence.

AI5 Will Punch Far Above Its Weight

On Wednesday, user Phil Beisel compared the architecture of Tesla’s AI5 chip with NVIDIA Corp‘s (NASDAQ:NVDA) Blackwell chip, noting that Tesla’s “half reticle” design could give AI fabs a major boost if it can match the latter’s capabilities. “A reticle defines the imaging area of a lithography machine, fitting two chips per shot effectively doubles yield,” Beisel said.

Responding to Beisel, Musk shared his take on the matter. “AI5 will punch far above its weight,” he said, outlining that its capabilities were possible because Tesla aims to “make maximally effective use of every circuit.” Musk also said that while the upcoming chip could see applications in data centers, it’s “primarily optimized for AI edge compute in Optimus and Robotaxi.”

Musk then shared that despite the advancements, there was room for improvement. He said that a single AI6 chip could match a dual SoC AI5 within “the same half reticle and same process node.”

Full story available on Benzinga.com

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Nigeria had largest increase in terrorism-related deaths, ranking fourth in global index behind Pakistan, Burkina Faso and Niger

Jihadist violence rose sharply in Nigeria and Democratic Republic of Congo last year, even as global deaths from terrorism dropped to their lowest level in a decade, according to a new report.

Nigeria recorded the largest increase in terrorism deaths globally in 2025, with fatalities rising by 46% from 513 in 2024 to 750, placing it fourth in the Global Terrorism Index, behind Pakistan, Burkina Faso and Niger.

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Banking lobby group says lenders are holding off changes as there is no widespread consumer demand for now

Shoppers will not be able to splash unlimited amounts on contactless cards despite the lifting of a £100 cap on payments as Britain’s banks held off on making changes.

The official limit on individual contactless transactions on credit and debit cards has been scrapped but the UK’s biggest high street and challenger banks have kept the £100 ceiling in place.

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Islamic regime is digging in for a protracted conflict as it seeks to ensure the US and Israel will not attack again

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Costco Wholesale Corp. (NASDAQ:COST) CEO Ron Vachris offered inflation-weary shoppers a rare bit of stability this week, saying the retailer’s iconic $1.50 hot dog and soda combo is not going up in price anytime soon.

Vachris Reassures Fans On Combo Price

In a video posted to Costco’s Instagram on Wednesday, Vachris sat in a Costco food court eating the quarter-pound all-beef hot dog and, before taking a bite, said, “$1.50, for this hot dog?”

Asked if the price was going up, he replied, “The hot dog price will not change as long as I’m around.” When prompted to describe it, he added, “Amazing. Amazing quality. Amazing value. That’s $1.50 well spent.”

Costco Defends A Near-Mythic Bargain

The reassurance matters because Costco has spent …

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Cheniere Energy Inc. (NYSE:LNG) shares are trending on Wednesday night.

LNG gained in after-hours trading, climbing 1.23% to $269.50 on Wednesday.

According to Benzinga Pro data, the stock of the Texas-based energy company closed the regular session at $266.22, up 5.85%.

Strike Sends Shockwaves Through LNG Markets

The surge in the stock follows missile strikes on Qatar’s Ras Laffan Industrial City, which produces about 20% of the world’s LNG, sending shockwaves through global energy markets.

The attack on Ras Laffan followed Israeli strikes on Iran’s largest natural gas plant …

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A brushtail possum was found peering out among the toy kangaroos and dingoes in a retail store in Hobart’s airport, delighting staff and customers

A passenger browsing in a gift shop in Hobart airport has stumbled across a remarkable discovery in the plush toy section.

A real living and breathing brushtail possum had decided to join its fluffy friends in the shelves of Lagardère AWPL gift shop on Wednesday morning.

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More than a dozen Victorian Labor sources, including ministers and factional powerbrokers, confirm move for leadership change

For weeks, Labor MPs have been quietly weighing the future of Jacinta Allan.

In hushed conversations in the corridors of parliament, MPs have cited her baggage – her time as Daniel Andrews’ deputy, her role in the cancelled Commonwealth Games and as the minister overseeing the Big Build at a time corruption allegedly was allowed to grow unfettered in the construction union. Even more damaging, some argue, has been her hesitation to act once the corruption was made public.

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The reported inquiry predates Joe Kent’s departure on Tuesday from his post as director of the national counter-terrorism center

The resignation of Joe Kent, a senior counter-terrorism official who spoke out against the US war in Iran, took a dramatic turn on Wednesday with a report that he is under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) over an alleged leak of classified information.

The inquiry predates Kent’s departure on Tuesday from his post as director of the national counterterrorism center, where he had overseen the analysis of terrorist threats, according to Semafor and CBS News. The FBI declined to comment on the existence of any such investigation.

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Iran is still exporting millions of barrels of oil, with about 90 ships, including oil tankers, having crossed the strait of Hormuz since the beginning of the war with Iran, according to maritime and trade data platforms reports.

This is despite Iran saying it had closed the vital waterway to vessels from the US and its allies.

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The odds of the Iranian regime surviving the ongoing U.S. military offensive have surged sharply since the beginning of the month.

Chances Of Islamic Republic Holding Power Spike

Polygon (CRYPTO: POL)-based Polymarket now assigns a 73% probability that Iran’s current ruling system, led by the Supreme Leader and Guardian Council, will remain in power through June 30, up from 47% at the start of the month.

Over $377,000 has been staked on the outcome, which would resolve to “No” only if the Islamic Republic ceases to hold sovereign authority. Otherwise, it resolves to “Yes.”

Meanwhile, the odds that Mojtaba Khamenei loses his position as …

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Gia Lam should have been offered interpreter by medical team at Fairfield hospital, coroner’s court finds

A woman who died of sepsis three days after giving birth in western Sydney could have survived if her urinary tract infection (UTI) had been diagnosed, a coroner’s court has found.

It also found the woman, who was born in Vietnam, should have been offered interpreter services so she could communicate better with medical experts.

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Figma Inc. (NYSE:FIG) shares are trending on Wednesday night.

After-Hours Dip Extends a Brutal Session

Shares of the software company fell 0.24% to $25.20 in after-hours trading on Wednesday.

According to Benzinga Pro data, the stock had dropped 7.98% in the regular session to close at $25.26. The decline comes as investors react to a direct competitive challenge from Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL).

Google Stitch Enters the Design Arena

Figma is a cloud-based collaborative design platform widely used by product teams and UI/UX designers to build and prototype software interfaces.

Google Labs, an experimental division of Google and a subsidiary of Alphabet, unveiled a major update to its Stitch platform on …

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Hoskins, like Dennis an Olympic cyclist, was struck by his car in 2023. His return to Instagram included picture with caption ‘an absolute weapon’

Olympic cyclist Rohan Dennis, who 10 months ago was given a 17-month suspended sentence after his car fatally struck his wife, has returned to social media with a post describing a Porsche as an “absolute weapon”.

Melissa Hoskins, an acclaimed world and Olympic cyclist, died when she was struck by a car driven by her husband near their home at Medindie, in Adelaide’s inner north, in December 2023.

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Leading cryptocurrencies plunged alongside stocks on Wednesday as the Federal Reserve said the escalating Middle East conflict could push inflation higher.

Cryptocurrency 24-Hour Gains +/- Price (Recorded at 9:25 p.m. ET)
Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) -4.07% $70,979.99
Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH)
               		 -5.98% $2,189.10
XRP (CRYPTO: XRP)                          -4.10% $1.45
Solana (CRYPTO: SOL)                          -4.92% $90.04
Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE)              -5.46% $0.09495

‘Extreme Fear’ Returns

Bitcoin dived below $71,000, reversing a rally that pushed it up to $76,000. Ethereum’s decline was steeper, pulling the second-largest cryptocurrency back to the $2,100 zone.

Shares of Strategy Inc. (NASDAQ:MSTR) and Coinbase Global Inc. (NASDAQ:COIN) closed down 6.47% and 3.78%, respectively.

Over $450 million was liquidated from the cryptocurrency market over the past 24 hours, with $380 million in bullish long bets alone wiped out, according to Coinglass data.

Open interest in Bitcoin futures dipped 3.75% in the last 24 hours. However, derivatives traders on Binance bought this dip, opening more long positions versus shorts.

“Extreme Fear” sentiment returned to the market after a brief reprieve, according to the Crypto Fear & Greed Index.

Top Gainers (24 Hours) 

Cryptocurrency (Market Cap>$100 M) Gains +/- Price (Recorded at 9:25 p.m. ET)
River (RIVER)     +18.64%     …

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Have you cancelled a holiday? Are you working from home more or taking fewer journeys? Tell us your experience

Global oil market prices have surged, with the US-Israel war on Iran disrupting key shipping routes. The strait of Hormuz, where as much as a fifth of global fuel supply travels through, has been closed due to the conflict.

Asia is deeply affected by the crisis, relying heavily on imported energy that passes through the strait.

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Rand Paul seemed immediately frustrated with Mullin as he opened the hearing. While he was speaking, he suggested that Mullin wasn’t listening to his remarks, during which he pushed Trump’s nominee on his vote against Paul’s amendment to stop all funding for refugee welfare programs.

“You decided to transfer the blame. You told the media that I was a ‘freaking snake’ and that you completely understood why I had been assaulted,” Paul said, referring to when he was attacked by a neighbor in Kentucky in 2017, which resulted in Paul breaking several ribs and developing pneumonia.

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U.S. ballistic missiles that have hit Iranian targets likely were fired from Persian Gulf countries that have taken the brunt of Iranian drone and missile attacks, although none has acknowledged allowing their land or airspace to be used to attack Iran.

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Independent committee to investigate safety standards and whether building practices contributed to worst residential fires in decades

Public hearings in Hong Kong begin on Thursday into a devastating fire that ripped through a housing complex last year, killing 168 people.

A judge-led independent committee will investigate whether fire safety standards were inadequate, if construction practices contributed to the fire, and if there were failures on the part of government officers or contractors.

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The detention of Dylan Lopez Contreras, 20, of Venezuela, a freshman in the Bronx, sparked national outrage

A New York high school student who was detained at an immigration courthouse in May last year, sparking national outrage, was released on Wednesday.

Dylan Lopez Contreras, 20, of Venezuela was a freshman at Ellis Prep academy, a Bronx public school dedicated exclusively to students who have recently arrived in the US. It was the first widely known instance of a public school student being arrested by federal immigration agents.

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Major U.S. indexes closed lower, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping 1.6% to 46,225.15, the S&P 500 slipping 1.36% to 6,624.70, and the Nasdaq falling 1.46% to 22,152.42.

The Federal Reserve maintained interest rates at 3.50%–3.75% for the third consecutive meeting. Despite the unchanged rates, the Fed’s outlook suggested higher inflation and slightly increased economic growth in the future. The market’s reaction was muted, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq indices showing little movement. Investors are keeping a close eye on Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s upcoming remarks, particularly in light of recent oil price spikes.

These are the top stocks that gained the attention of retail traders and investors through the day:

Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ:MU)

Micron Technology’s stock closed with a slight increase of 0.01%, settling at $461.73. The stock reached an intraday high of $471.34 and a low of $458.30, with a 52-week range between $61.54 and $471.34. In the after-hours trading, the stock fell 4.43% to $441.28.

The semiconductor giant reported impressive second-quarter results, with revenue soaring to $23.86 billion, surpassing analyst expectations of $19.94 billion. The company’s adjusted earnings of $12.20 per share also exceeded forecasts. Micron’s strong performance reflects a 196% year-over-year revenue growth, with operating cash flow reaching $11.90 billion.

Micron Technology forecast third-quarter revenue of $33.5 billion (±$750 million) and adjusted EPS of $19.15 (±$0.40), …

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Lawmakers leave closed-door meeting after AG refuses to commit to honoring subpoena to testify under oath

Democrats on the House oversight committee walked out of a closed-door briefing from attorney general Pam Bondi about the Jeffrey Epstein files on Wednesday, leaving what California congressman Robert Garcia called “an outrageous fake hearing” after Bondi refused to commit to honoring a subpoena to testify under oath.

The committee voted to subpoena Bondi earlier this month, with five Republicans joining Democrats to demand that the attorney general answer questions about the justice department’s failure to properly release files from the federal investigations into Epstein.

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Anthony Albanese also announces new national fuel supply taskforce and urges motorists ‘only take what you need’

Australia’s competition watchdog is investigating major fuel suppliers including Ampol, BP, Mobile and Viva energy for alleged anti-competitive conduct amid growing shortages sparked by the Iran war.

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission boss Gina Cass-Gottlieb said on Thursday morning she was investigating reports about diesel availability to independent wholesalers and distributors in regional and rural Australia.

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Republicans block resolution to take up the measure, which Democrats vow to bring up ‘again and again and again’

Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked a measure that aimed to reign in Donald Trump’s power to wage war against Iran without congressional authorization.

The 53-47 vote against taking up the measure fell almost completely along party lines, with no movement from earlier this month when Republicans blocked Democrats’ bid to limit Trump’s war-making power in the days after the joint US-Israeli strikes, known as Operation Epic Fury, began across Iran.

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CenTax warns bill under debate in parliament has ‘easily exploitable’ loopholes and will not prevent foreign interference

Political donations by companies should be banned to protect UK elections from foreign interference, a thinktank has warned.

In the first big overhaul of election funding in 26 years, ministers have pledged to “keep British democracy safe” by closing a loophole that allows individuals not eligible to vote in Britain to donate to political parties through UK-registered companies.

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Business secretary announces new ‘steel safeguards’ during visit to Tata’s Port Talbot plant

The UK is to double tariffs on Chinese and other foreign steel in a bid to save its remaining plants from collapse.

The new “steel safeguards” came weeks after bosses at Tata Steel in south Wales warned the government they had just two months to be saved.

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Research finds cockapoo, cavapoo and labradoodle dogs display more undesirable behaviours than breeds they derive from

The UK has oodles of doodles but a study might offer paws for thought: researchers have found some of these designer crossbreed dogs show more behavioural problems than the pure breeds from which they derive.

Crosses between poodles and other dog breeds have become increasingly popular in the UK, with research suggesting the trend is – at least in part – driven by the expectation such dogs will be hypoallergenic, healthy and good with children.

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Thousands of police prepare to deploy to South Korea’s capital ahead of K-pop’s most anticipated comeback

Seoul has stepped up security ahead of BTS’s huge comeback concert on Saturday, which more than a quarter of a million fans are expected to attend, with authorities raising the terror alert in the area and preparing to deploy thousands of police to the capital.

South Korean president Lee Jae Myung warned at a cabinet meeting this week that “the issue is safety” and urged heightened vigilance by the interior ministry and emergency services to prepare for every possibility. He described the concert as an important occasion to reaffirm the country’s global cultural standing.

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The Federal Reserve on Wednesday left interest rates unchanged amid mounting uncertainty over how the Iran war will impact the economy and in turn the central bank’s approach to monetary policy, raising questions over whether any rate cuts will occur this year.

The Fed’s monetary policy panel, known as the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), voted 11-1 to leave the benchmark federal funds rate unchanged at a range of 3.5% to 3.75%. It marked the second straight meeting with rates being held steady after three successive 25-basis-point cuts in September, October and December to end last year.

Policymakers released a summary of economic projections (SEP), which showed that the median projection for interest rates sees just one 25 basis point cut the rest of this year followed by a single cut of that size in 2027.  

“In our SEP, FOMC participants wrote down their individual assessments of an appropriate path for the federal funds rate under what each participant judges to be the most likely scenario for the economy,” Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said. “The median participant projects that the appropriate level of the federal funds rate will be 3.4% at the end of this year and 3.1% at the end of next year, unchanged from December.”

FEDERAL RESERVE HOLDS INTEREST RATES STEADY

“As is always the case, these individual forecasts are subject to uncertainty and they are not a committee plan or decision,” Powell added.

During the post-announcement press conference, Powell was asked what officials are seeing that led them to project a cut despite higher forecasts for both inflation and unchanged projections for the unemployment rate and economic growth. 

The SEP showed policymakers projected that the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index – the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge – will be 2.7% at the end of this year, well above the central bank’s 2% target. That’s up from 2.4% in the Fed’s prior projection in December.

Core PCE, which excludes volatile measurements of food and energy, was also revised up to 2.7% at the end of this year. The previous projection had it at 2.5%.

FED’S FAVORED INFLATION GAUGE REMAINED STUBBORNLY HIGH IN JANUARY AS CONSUMER PRICE PRESSURES PERSIST

“There are 19 people, and so 19 reasons, 19 individual submissions,” Powell said. “If you notice, the median didn’t change, but there was actually a meaningful amount of movement toward fewer cuts by people, so four or five people went from two cuts to one cut.”

“Essentially, the forecast is that we will be making some progress on inflation, not as much as we had hoped, but some progress on inflation,” Powell said. “It should come as we start to see in the middle of the year progress on tariffs going through once and then tariff inflation coming down. We should be seeing that.”

“And you know, the rate forecast is conditional on the performance of the economy, so if we don’t see that progress, then you won’t see the rate cut,” he explained.

FED OFFICIALS CLOSELY MONITOR IRAN CONFLICT FOR POTENTIAL INFLATION IMPACT

The market responded to the Fed’s projection by pulling back expectations surrounding interest rate cuts this year, which were previously expected to begin as early as June.

The CME FedWatch tool showed an 89.2% probability that rates will remain at their current level following the Fed’s June meeting in the wake of today’s announcement. That’s up from 79.5% yesterday, 62.8% a week ago and 37.8% last month – while the tool also now shows a 3.8% chance of a 25 basis point hike in June, up from zero a month ago.

The market now sees it being more likely than not that the Fed will leave rates unchanged through the end of this year. 

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The CME FedWatch tool shows a 51.3% chance of rates being at their current range after the Fed’s December meeting – up from 23.5% a week ago and 4.9% last month. 

Probabilities for December show a 35.7% chance of one 25 basis point reduction by then, while the odds of a second cut between now and then have fallen to 9.5% from 32.5% a month ago.

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Admission came during questioning at Senate intelligence committee worldwide threats hearing

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has started buying location data on Americans, FBI director Kash Patel said under oath at the Senate intelligence committee worldwide threats hearing on Wednesday.

Patel’s admission came in response to a question from the senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who is a longtime opponent of the warrantless surveillance of Americans. Wyden told Patel that his predecessor, Christopher Wray, testified in 2023 that the FBI did not at that time purchase location data derived from internet advertising, although he acknowledged that it had done so in the past.

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Mayor of London says returning to EU now more desirable because of economic instability caused by Donald Trump

Labour should go into the next general election promising to rejoin the EU, Sadiq Khan has said.

The mayor of London has repeatedly made the case for joining the customs union and single market, but went much further on Wednesday night by suggesting the party should promise full membership at next ballot.

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Exclusive: Republican congresswoman started negotiations with Saudi Arabia without informing the White House

White House officials have grown increasingly frustrated with Republican congresswoman Nancy Mace, accusing her of complicating efforts to evacuate Americans stranded in the Middle East by attempting to conduct her own rescue missions, according to people familiar with the matter.

The irritation with Mace has been building for days after she traveled to the region to try and transport US citizens across international borders and engaged with foreign governments without informing the state department, which has been coordinating evacuation flights.

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Corporation welcomes three-year settlement as it continues to push for government to take on all of service’s costs

The BBC World Service will be given increased government funding as part of a three-year deal after ministers concluded it was needed to counter the rise of global disinformation.

The Guardian understands that Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, has agreed an additional £11m a year for the next three years on the government’s grant to the service.

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China’s $7 trillion consumer market was once a reliable growth engine for Western brands, but as competition intensifies and trends move at digital speed, success if no longer a given. Still, they haven’t given up. Global companies are now turning to private equity partners to navigate a market that is less forgiving than before, but will that be enough to stay competitive?

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Sergey Brin gives $25m on top of $20m he’s already given to Super Pac trying to blocking state’s proposed 5% wealth tax

A Google founder has more than doubled his financial contribution to the fight against a proposed wealth tax in California. New filings with the state show that former Alphabet president Sergey Brin donated $25m to a Super Pac dedicated to blocking the tax on top of $20m he had already given.

Brin is not alone among Google’s top brass in upping his financial stake in the campaign against the ballot proposal. The company’s former CEO Eric Schmidt donated $1.02m, adding to a previous $2m contribution.

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The Trump administration defended the Pentagon’s move to blacklist Anthropic, arguing the decision was both legal and justified.

The Trump administration argued in a court filing that Anthropic’s First Amendment claims are “unlikely to succeed,” saying the government’s actions were driven by contract issues and national security considerations rather than any form of retaliatory conduct.

“It was only when Anthropic refused to release the restrictions on the use of its products — which refusal is conduct, not protected speech — that the President directed all federal agencies to terminate their business relationships with Anthropic,” the court document stated.

 “Seeking judicial review does not change our longstanding commitment to harnessing AI to protect our national security, but …

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Grubhub is launching New Jersey’s first-ever commercial drone-powered food delivery service, the company announced last Wednesday.

The service, which will run for three months as a test program, will operate out of Green Brook Township, located one hour southwest of New York City. 

The food ordering marketplace will partner with autonomous drone company Dexa to deliver meals directly from a local Wonder food hall operated by its parent company. These Wonder facilities function as high-tech kitchens where staff assemble and finish dishes pre-prepared by its numerous restaurant brand partners, helping streamline the ordering process.

The drone service is expected to deliver food faster than traditional methods and comes at no additional cost beyond standard delivery and service fees, the Chicago-based company said.

AMAZON LAUNCHES 1-HOUR AND 3-HOUR DELIVERY OPTIONS WITH NEW TIERED PRICING STRUCTURE FOR CUSTOMERS

“This service is a glimpse into the future of how autonomous technology will help restaurants and retailers serve customers at a completely new level,” CEO of Dexa Beth Flippo said in a statement. 

Customers can use the Grubhub app to order from the local Wonder location, which offers 15 different restaurant concepts prepared in a single location, and can specifically opt for drone delivery.

AMAZON EXPANDS SAME-DAY DELIVERY SERVICE TO INCLUDE PERISHABLE FOOD ITEMS IN OVER 1,000 CITIES

Dexa’s AI-operated drone, the DE-2020, will then take off and fly along approved paths designed to prioritize safety while minimizing noise and other community disruptions. 

Once it reaches the customer, instead of landing, it will safely lower the order to the ground using a controlled tether system.

The drone company’s flight crews will also verify that the food is correctly packaged and secured before taking off, Grubhub said.

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Through the Grubhub platform, diners can also monitor food delivery using real-time GPS tracking and arrival notifications.  

After the three-month trial at Green Brook, Grubhub will then evaluate the program’s success and consider expanding the service to other nearby restaurants. 

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